I take care of patients that are both blue and red in their politics.  I have been hearing exactly the same mood and sentiment from all of them over the past 2-3 weeks.  Mr. Maher has dissected perfectly where I think most people are in this country, that they are tired of being told half truths and noble lies.  

This complete and total messaging disaster is the doing of our federal public health officials and our media.  The narrative has completely fallen apart in almost every aspect of this pandemic and its management.  The credibility deficit keeps getting worse by the week. 

For whatever reason, we in medicine and public health have allowed a bunch of corrupt, lying, discredited charlatans to be our spokespeople – often employing the age-old tactics of SCIENCE, SCIENCE, SCIENCE or worse yet – BECAUSE I SAY SO – all the while flashing their fancy credentials while being questioned on TV by smiling sycophants who seem completely incapable of asking tough questions.

Mr. Maher’s commentary ended the week in which we saw one of the vaccines (Johnson & Johnson) being halted because of safety concerns.  I was interested to see how public health leaders would respond. It was consistent with the poor baseline they’ve set.

Dr. Leana S. Wen, a physician so skilled in communication and leadership that she was fired within a year as CEO of Planned Parenthood, has been a mainstay of the official medical response.  Her biggest misfire was about 2 weeks ago, when she suggested on CNN that citizens should have their freedoms removed in order to be convinced to take the vaccine. 

What’s up doc ???

CRAZY vaccine analogy!

Watch CNN contributor Dr. Leana Wen warn Chris Cuomo about the CDC’s shrinking window of opportunity to make Covid jab policy the “ticket to pre-pandemic life” – before the “carrot” to get vaccinated disappears. pic.twitter.com/1aamIoYcHR

— ivan (@ivan8848) April 3, 2021

During that conversation (full segment here), she asserted that these vaccines were perfectly safe, which as we all know has been the party line from the beginning.  Those remarks instantly torpedoed her credibility in the minds of many of my patients who with angry faces played this clip to me over and over that week. 

So, imagine my surprise that she was chosen to write the soothing Washington Post op ed to calm the populace after the J&J debacle.  You can tell by the title how deluded she is – “Why the J&J pause should bolster confidence in vaccines”.  It only gets worse when you read the piece.  You literally just cannot make this stuff up.  I just want to scream to the newspaper  – THIS IS NOT SHAMPOO YOU MORONS – THIS IS PEOPLE’S LIVES. 

If anyone thinks people are going to be lining up to take the J&J vaccine at this point – they have rocks in their heads.  And the damage from the J&J debacle is assuredly damaging confidence in the other vaccines as well – I have heard it all week.

And not to be shown up, there was Dr. Fauci making the Sunday rounds.  Again, these people seem to have no clue about issues such as public confidence.  And their current stands are burning their credibility to the ground even faster.  He has spent much of the past two weeks messaging that even though people are fully vaccinated, they must continue right on with the stringent masking and social distancing as if nothing is changed. For those who have been paying close attention, that’s not a surprise, but to the public at large, it comes off as a 180 degree change from exhortation by officials and pundits that getting vaccinated was the ticket to the old normal.

Worse, to the average American’s mind, it is as if Dr. Fauci, et al  actually do not believe the vaccines work.  When I watched Tucker Carlson for the first time I’d ever seen him, last week, his questions were very similar to those I’ve heard in my office recently from patients all across the political spectrum.