Martin Schram
Sometimes, when presidents discover they are being slowly manipulated into Washington’s political quicksand, it can be helpful if they check out how a predecessor dealt with a similar problem – to avoid getting trapped, big-time.
So we are here today to help America’s 47th president, Donald Trump, by replaying for him a predecessor’s greatest moment of presidential success. We only hope we are doing it in time for Trump to get himself out of a mess he got himself into, but may not have even discovered yet. We just hope we can help him discover it before our 47th president’s problem becomes our crisis – and then our future generations’ nightmare.
We are talking today about vaccine politics.
Our 47th president’s most famously named, unusually selected cabinet member ignited the new vaccine politics controversy on June 9. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., wrote an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal announcing he was firing all 17 members of a vaccine advisory committee that recommends vaccine approvals and dosages for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (shorthanded as CDC).
The son of a Democratic Party icon who campaigned for a Republican president name-called the nameless physicians and vaccine experts as he fired them, accusing them of “skewed science … persistent conflicts of interest” and being “a rubber stamp for any vaccine.”
Among the things RFK Jr. left unsaid was any current and valid proof of the charges he was making about the 17 people he just fired en masse – and the fact that he has long been a crusading vaccine critic whose accusations have been analyzed and rejected as unproven by numerous media and professional scientific investigators.
When the experts have been paid for studies they have run for various companies, they declare those conflicts, fact checkers reported. Then they either don’t participate in the committee analysis, or they are granted a waiver which means they can participate in discussions but do not vote on the recommendation. “There’s no evidence of problematic conflicts of interest or that the group inadequately scrutinizes vaccines,” a detailed report by FactCheck.org concluded.
But Kennedy wrote that: “A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.” And what made Kennedy’s accusations all the more forceful was that he must be considered to be speaking in the name of his boss, President Donald Trump.
And that brings us to our mission today: searching for a predecessor who handled vaccine politics somewhat differently – and whose example might now help our 47th president.
Mission Accomplished: Our 45th president walked to the microphone of the auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, just next door to the White House. It was Dec. 8, 2020, a month after his election defeat. Yet Trump had no intention of acknowledging that result. Not then; not now. But on that 2020 day, Trump began talking enthusiastically about a far different result that will forever be celebrated as the most important accomplishment of Trump’s first presidency:
“I’m honored to welcome doctors, scientists, industry executives, and state and local leaders to our historic Operation Warp Speed Vaccine Summit… It’s been an incredible success… From the instant the coronavirus invaded our shores, we raced into action to develop a safe and effective vaccine at breakneck speed. It would normally take five years, six years, seven years, or even more… We harnessed the full power of government, the genius of American scientists, and the might of American industry to save millions and millions of lives all over the world… The gold standard vaccine has been done in less than nine months… We will soon end the pandemic, and we will save millions and millions of lives, both in our country and all over the world.”
Today, after Kennedy’s smearing of the 17 experts he just fired in the name of politics, one phrase spoken on that December 2020 day by Trump should be resonating in Trump’s mind: “The genius of American scientists.”
If America’s 47th president truly wants to Make America Great Again, he can start by embracing the honesty and accuracy of our 45th president’s phrase – and the patriotism of all the science and medical experts his HHS secretary vilified without a shred of current, conclusive evidentiary proof.
Martin Schram, an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service, is a veteran Washington journalist, author and TV documentary executive. Readers may send him email at [email protected].
