As Trump disputes CDC director’s vaccine timeline, Dr. Ashish Jha says to listen to the doctors
"We can't let politicians politicize this."
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Donald Trump clashed with the head of the Centers for Disease Control Wednesday over when Americans can expect a coronavirus vaccine. While Dr. Robert Redfield told senators under oath that a vaccine won’t be generally available until at least next summer, the president insisted that the doctor was “confused” and made a mistake, standing by his claim that Americans will be able to get immunized by November.
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Local health expert Dr. Ashish Jha is siding with the CDC. Jha — formerly the head of the Harvard Global Health Institute, now the dean of the Brown University of Public Health — spoke with George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America Thursday.
“We can’t let politicians politicize this,” Jha said on the program. “If you have a really serious medical diagnosis, do you want to listen to your doctor, or do you want to listen to your politician? To me, it’s pretty clear. You want to listen to the doctors, you want to listen to the public health experts and not let the politicians drive the timeline.”
Pres. Trump calls CDC Director Robert Redfield “confused” after vaccine mask contradictions. @ceciliavega reports. @ashishkjha gives his expert analysis on the situation. https://t.co/F0yEty7cin pic.twitter.com/s6hJyX1hJW
— Good Morning America (@GMA) September 17, 2020
Jha noted that while the various clinical trials developing vaccines will likely prove successful by the end of the year, he won’t expect most widespread access to the vaccine until at least late spring next year.
“Might be a month or two earlier, but not much,” Jha said.
To add to the confusion, a CDC spokesman issued a statement saying that Redfield meant what he said about the vaccine timeline. But within an hour, his office retracted that statement. The sudden retraction comes among continued reports that Trump officials have meddled with CDC communications and standards on the virus.
“Some of [what the CDC reports] is still excellent,” Jha said. “You can see the great scientists at the CDC still at work. And then you can often see how it then gets muddled by the political process, and what gets released is often gibberish, is often just not at all consistent with science. So it’s a very difficult situation. We’ve got to let the CDC scientists speak and share their scientific expertise with us.”
When asked if Americans can still trust the CDC, Jha let out a big sigh.
“You know, again, I think there’s some great stuff coming out of the CDC. But again, we’ve seen more and more politicization of what comes out. It’s a really difficult situation. We’ve got to restore faith in the CDC and its scientific process.”
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