Former CDC Directors Admonish Trump Administration For Political Pressure On Agency, Undermining Scientific Guidance

The Hill: Former CDC directors rip Trump for ‘partisan potshots’ and a ‘tragic indictment’ of science
“Four former heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) blasted President Trump for his administration’s push for in-person schooling to resume in the fall, saying the White House is putting politics over science. In a Washington Post op-ed, former CDC Directors Tom Frieden, Jeffrey Koplan, and David Satcher, as well as former acting CDC head Richard Besser, accuse the administration of undermining the agency’s guidance on reopening schools during the coronavirus pandemic…” (Budryk, 7/14).

POLITICO: Former CDC chiefs rebuke Trump for ‘undermining’ agency’s guidelines
“…The condemnation from the former CDC chiefs comes after the president last Wednesday disavowed the agency’s school reopening guidelines as ‘very tough & expensive,’ and threatened to slash federal funding to schools that do not physically reopen. … On Tuesday, the former CDC chiefs noted that during their combined 15-years-plus period leading the agency under Democratic and Republican administrations, they could not ‘recall over our collective tenure a single time when political pressure led to a change in the interpretation of scientific evidence’…” (Forgey, 7/14).

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