During a phone conversation on a commercial airplane late last week overheard by an NBC News reporter, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention slammed one of the White House’s top Covid-19 advisers for providing President Donald Trump and the U.S. public with misleading information about the deadly pandemic.
“Everything he says is false,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told a colleague while on a flight from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. on Friday, NBC News reported Monday morning. Redfield, a Trump appointee, later acknowledged to NBC that he was referring to Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no expertise in infectious diseases or epidemiology.
Brought aboard the administration’s Covid-19 task force in August after reportedly catching Trump’s attention with his frequent appearances on Fox News, Atlas has been pushing the White House to adopt a so-called “herd immunity” approach to the coronavirus pandemic — a strategy public health experts warn would cause millions of additional deaths. Atlas has also publicly questioned the effectiveness of face coverings in preventing the spread of coronavirus.
“Since his addition to the task force, Atlas has become the medical expert who spends the most time with the president, and his profile has been elevated in recent weeks by his appearing in the White House briefing room when Trump speaks with reporters,” NBC reported. “There is a concern among Redfield and others that Atlas continually briefs the president and misrepresents what other health experts have said in sworn testimony, according to a member of the task force.”
As epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding noted on Twitter, Atlas “has been spreading misinformation for a long time,” including by falsely stating that coronavirus poses “no risk” to children.
Disgusting comment by Scott Atlas again — Why would “teachers be selfish” about being concerned about returning to school?! “No risk to children” claim is false. And what about risk to the teachers? We know transmission happens in both directions. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/V2EgUTpa5Q
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) September 5, 2020
Despite Atlas’ complete lack of experience in the field of infectious diseases, Trump has cited the radiologist in an effort to legitimize his false claims about the coronavirus.
“A lot of people do agree with me,” Trump said during an ABC News town hall in defense of his insistence that the U.S. is “rounding the corner” on the pandemic. “You look at Scott Atlas, you look at some of the other doctors that are highly — from Stanford.”
But in a letter about a week ahead of Trump’s town hall, dozens of Atlas’ former colleagues at Stanford University Medical School denounced the White House adviser for spreading “falsehoods and misrepresentations of the science” in a variety of areas, from mask use to his promotion of herd immunity.
“Many of his opinions and statements run counter to established science and, by doing so, undermine public-health authorities and the credible science that guides effective public health policy,” the Stanford faculty members warned.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.