Medical Journal Urges American Voters to Not Re-Elect Trump, Slams Him for Coronavirus Response
A prestigious medical journal has spoken out against President Donald Trump and is urging American voters not to re-elect him in the fall.
The Lancet medical journal recently published a scathing, unsigned editorial pleading with U.S. voters to choose a president that will "understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics," and slammed Trump for his "inconsistent and incoherent" response to the coronavirus pandemic.
"The Administration is obsessed with magic bullets—vaccines, new medicines, or a hope that the virus will simply disappear," the journal states. "But only a steadfast reliance on basic public health principles, like test, trace, and isolate, will see the emergency brought to an end, and this requires an effective national public health agency."
According to the Lancet, "the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the flagship agency for the nation's public health, has seen its role minimized and become an ineffective and nominal adviser in the response to contain the spread of the virus."
The journal claims Trump and his administration have "chipped away" the CDC's leadership and accuses him of undermining the federal agency’s work in regards to the pandemic.
The journal says that, not only has the administration questioned CDC guidelines surrounding the virus, but the administration also cut back on CDC staff in China in 2019 "leaving an intelligence vacuum when COVID-19 began to emerge."
Donald Trump
"There is no doubt that the CDC has made mistakes, especially on testing in the early stages of the pandemic," the Lancet states, however, they add that "punishing the agency by marginalizing and hobbling it is not the solution."
"The CDC needs a director who can provide leadership without the threat of being silenced and who has the technical capacity to lead today's complicated effort," the journal states.
The journal adds that the Trump administration's "erosion of the CDC" will also harm "global cooperation in science and public health, as it is trying to do by defunding WHO."
"A strong CDC is needed to respond to public health threats, both domestic and international, and to help prevent the next inevitable pandemic. Americans must put a president in the White House come January 2021, who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics," the Lancet pleads.
Medical journals like the Lancet may sometimes run a signed editorial that takes a political stance, but they rarely share a unanimous, unsigned note calling for such a drastic measure as to vote out a public official, The Washington Post reported.
“It’s not common for a journal to do that — but the scientific community is getting increasingly concerned with the dangerous politicization of science during this pandemic crisis,” Benjamin Corb, the public affairs director for the nonprofit American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, told the Post.
“We watch as political leaders tout unproven medical advice, and public health and science experts are vilified as partisans — all while people continue to get sick and die," Corb added.
Lancet editor Richard Horton also spoke out against the British government’s response to the pandemic in editorials and public statements published under his name. He shared a tweet stating that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had “dropped the ball” in containing the virus.
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