Tag Archives: infectious diseases

medical news

Why not let Dr. Fauci take the lead on coronavirus fight?

I don’t feel much safer now that Vice President Mike Pence has been put in charge of the fight against the threatened spread of the coronavirus.

I wish instead that Donald Trump would have handed that duty over to a fellow who is immensely qualified and who has enormous stamina: Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the world’s premier immunologists and the current head of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases.

There he was, spelling out today in detail the problems facing the nation when — not merely if — the disease spreads in the United States. Then the president took the podium and declared that Mike Pence would lead the fight.

It made me go … huh?

Pence is claiming credit for enacting a health care program in Indiana, where he served as governor before joining the Republican ticket in 2016. Trump brought up the Indiana health care plan, calling it a model for other states to follow.

That’s great. But … I keep circling back to the actual and practical expertise standing near the VP on the White House podium in the form of Dr. Fauci.

He got his medical degree from Cornell University. He is a noted international expert on infectious disease.

I had the high honor of attending the HIV/AIDS international conference in Bangkok in 2004 along with other editorial writers and editors. We received an audience with Dr. Fauci, who was there representing the Bush administration and its own HIV/AIDS initiative. Fauci bowled us over!

I wish the vice president well as he leads this effort. My advice to the VP? Keep the phone line to Dr. Fauci open at all times.

medical news

Now it's vaccines that divide the parties

 

It’s official. There is no limit at all to the categories of issues that divide Republicans and Democrats.

The issue today is childhood vaccines. Yep. Believe it. Republicans are now raising the issue of whether parents deserve some choice in whether their to vaccinate their children against diseases deemed infectious and a hazard to public health.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/231547-clinton-science-is-clear-vaccines

At no time rearing our two now-grown sons did my wife and I ever — not a single time — wonder whether we should forgo a mandatory childhood vaccine in order to, say, enroll our boys in public school. Yes, the issue has percolated for decades, but in our household we never got all hot and bothered over whether the school system where our kids would enroll required such vaccines.

But here we go. A presidential campaign is just around the corner and one of the potential GOP candidates, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is making an issue of the vaccines.

Likely Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton posted a tweet that lays it out clearly: “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and . Let’s protect all our kids.”

Goodness, gracious. The vaccines protect our children against some serious infectious diseases. You’ve heard of how measles can cause blindness; chicken pox produces lifelong cells that lead to shingles later in life; mumps, pertussis and all manner of fevers can be fatal.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another Republican thinking of running for president, walked back a statement in which he said parents should have the choice.

The vaccine issue flares up from time to time — kind of like a toddler’s fever. How about icing this one down and recognize the value that mandatory vaccines bring in protecting our children and inoculating the public against these serious diseases?