Rant 628: The Doctors’ Nuremberg Defense

Copyright ? 2021 by Richard L. Hermann

On March 28th, CNN aired a documentary, "COVID WAR: The Pandemic Doctors Speak Out," in which its medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, interviewed six of the principal physicians who advised and assisted the Trump administration on its pandemic response. Interviewees included five physicians whose names and faces became familiar to us last year—Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, Robert Redfield, Brett Giroir and Stephen Hahn. This was their opportunity to explain their words and actions during the pandemic and “sanitize” their legacies. Boy, did they take every opportunity to cleanse themselves of the Trump taint.

The only one who emerges from the medical sewer into which they meekly followed their bungling boss was Dr. Fauci who, after some early missteps and in sharp contrast to his coronavirus task force colleagues, did not hold back when he disagreed with the lies, misinformation and dangerous inanities about the pandemic that the president spewed forth at his press briefings and rallies. The others stayed silent despite knowing better. Their inexcusable conduct contributed to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens. This was no different than what the German enablers and executioners of the Holocaust argued during the war crimes trials after World War II: “I was only following orders.”

If these so-called medical professionals had any integrity, they would have come forward at the time to inform the public that what Trump was perpetrating with his lies about the gravity of the crisis and his blabbering about miracle cures and dangerous “therapies” like ingesting bleach was nonsensical rubbish. Instead, they kept quiet and went along with what amounted to genocide. One hopes this kind of irresponsible behavior is not what doctors learn in medical school.

Here is what Dr. Birx said a year ago about Trump: “He’s been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data. I think his ability to analyze and integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a real benefit during these discussions about medical issues.”

If you have recuperated from reading this preposterous cheerleading drivel about someone for whom the English language is an insurmountable challenge and who has the attention span of a gnat, here is what Brix now told Sanjay Gupta: “There were about 100,000 deaths that came from that original surge. All of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially."

Birx is the 2020s reincarnation of Herbert Hoover. Both had triumphant prior careers before everything blew up in their faces. Hoover’s inability to accept the reality of, and respond to, the Great Depression ruined his legacy. Birx’s complicit enabling of Trump, whom she knew was lying and incapable of managing the pandemic, destines her for history’s Hall of Shame.

Dr. Redfield was another of Trump’s principal stooges. His departure as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was greeted by its Atlanta headquarters’ employees as a time for celebration. The rest of these Trump doctors are also not exactly missed by their former agencies.

When the time comes for holding the people responsible for this avoidable gargantuan tragedy—and we can hope that must be close at hand—accountability must include not only Trump, but also Deborah Birx and her coronavirus task force associates who were complicit in what amounted to the greatest cover-up in American history. They chose to support a cruel, deranged, narcissistic loser obsessed only with himself over the lives of the American people. When human lives are at stake, hiding the truth is a criminal act. What Birx and her colleagues did was unforgivable.

At a minimum, accountability should ideally include (1) a criminal investigation of Trump and his task force appointees, (2) a civil class action suit by as many survivors of Covid-19 victims against this same group of culprits, and (3) the revocation of the medical licenses of all members of the task force other than Fauci. If they are allowed to continue in the healthcare field, it should be only to empty and clean bedpans.

What Trump and his task force did is unforgivable. Anything less than full accountability will only encourage a repeat of this kind of disgraceful behavior.

Dick Hermann

April 2, 2021