Thread by @DrEricDing

BREAKING—Trump WH had installed 2 political operatives at CDC to control #COVID19 information, sometimes at odds with scientific evidence. The 2 appointees, w/ no public health background, tasked w/ “keeping eye” on Dr Redfield & scientists. Dystopian. 🧵
apnews.com/article/electi…

2) Reminds me of the old song about Soviet commissars—or political officers who watched over all activities to assure political purity.

If anyone remember “The Hunt for Red October”, they were the infiltrators to quash disloyal activities.

3) “The appointments were part of a push to get more “politicals” into the CDC to help control messaging after a handful of leaks were “upsetting the apple cart,” said an administration official.

4) “When the two appointees showed up in Atlanta, their roles were a mystery to senior CDC staff, the people said. They had not even been assigned offices. Eventually one, Nina Witkofsky, became acting chief of staff, an influential role as Redfield’s right hand.

5) reminds me of the song that goes “Don’t turn around, uh oh, Der Kommissar’s in town”

...written about the misery of life being monitored under then-Soviet East Germany.

6) “Witkofsky seemed a particularly strange fit for the nation’s top public health agency. She studied finance and business administration in college and graduate school, and at one point worked as a publicist and talent booker for Turner Broadcasting’s Cartoon Network.”

7) “Her political work included being events director during George W. Bush 2000 campaign. Her lack of familiarity w/ CDC, how it worked, quickly became clear in meetings, according to multiple officials. At one, Witkofsky expressed surprise that CDC had a supporting foundation”