Thread by @usnehal

Just stop these tiny violins. As a woman of color who lost my mother to the pandemic, as a licensed physician, and as a public servant, I can say it is EXACTLY women like Dr. Birx who drive out women like me from “her” turf & prematurely end the lives of women like my mother.

https://twitter.com/jeromeadamsmd/status/1376480669321285632

You don’t have to buy an assault rifle and show up to shoot someone’s mother to have blood on your hands.
Bureaucrats like Dr. Birx has blood on their hands no different from as if she did this. You can kill, passively, while wrapped in an Hermès scarf.

usatoday.com/story/news/nat…

@JeromeAdamsMD this is an example of bureaucrats & policies causing death

Perhaps before implying seeking accountability for the policy-driven deaths of so many mothers & loved ones

is “anti-feminist”
learn history
bureaucrats kill women & men of color

m.economictimes.com/news/politics-…

In Dr. Birx, I see a continuation of EXACTLY this feminism in America that excludes, harms & kills WOC & BIPOC

yes, @JeromeAdamsMD
AS as feminist, I speak up about “got mine” women
who help to kill >500,000

women who drape a cloak/scarf of respectability over harm
to veil it

https://twitter.com/usnehal/status/1267032439043567617

I am Pakistani-American. Women in Pakistan are not too weak/wilting flower types to speak up. Don’t cower from words. (“Uncomfortable phone call”? Pffft)

Guns funded by American tax dollars are used to shoot & kill women who look like me in #publichealth

nytimes.com/2019/04/25/wor…

Yet we are supposed to give Birx a ticker tape parade because she once had to listen to harsh words? Gosh, so difficult.

Nothing like how difficult it is:
to go into tribal filled
with American landlines
go door to door
in 100+ temps
to vaccinate

amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/03/28…

#leadership is not about the podium and curated image. It requires courage, ethical backbone, commitment to values.

MANY women I admire, example: nytimes.com/2018/02/11/obi…

The very term #publichealth has PUBLIC (for all) and HEALTH in it.

Dr. Birx failed on BOTH terms

This is another woman I admire - this is what #leadership looks like:
stand up to the man.

Of course Dr. Barbot likely had MANY uncomfortable & difficult conversations. She likely navigated for as long as possible. She had standards she would not cross.

nytimes.com/2020/08/04/nyr…

When will #womeninleadership stop thinking their job is to be
demure, elegant, “wife”
to “soften” the image of a male boss
& justify horrific outcomes experienced by others?

Be a doctor
Be a public health expert
Be a public servant
Tell the truth
Not:
baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-20…

The silent “work wife” who covers up harm is rewarded = Birx

Women who speak are punished, women with #ethics, speaking up on system level harm are fired.

However when a woman makes such a sacrifice she empowers others. Look at the impact @timnitGebru

vox.com/recode/2020/12…

Let’s do a thought experiment: Dr. Birx has me as a direct report
Trump says virus is close to zero

My job is to protect & defend #publichealth

Meanwhile: “He’s been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data,” Birx said

Will she let me do my job?

https://twitter.com/usnehal/status/1376276338525540355

Let’s take this thought experiment one step further @JeromeAdamsMD

Let’s say that I actually do my job as a scientist, public servant, #publichealth expert while reporting to Dr. Birx, who toes this line.

Will I be fired?
Who will fire me?
My boss
In this hypothetical: Birx

That shoe is very much on the other foot @JeromeAdamsMD

women like Dr. Birx

While rubber stamping death
...of elderly, disabled, BIPOC
while being the “work wife” to “soften” image of a man

Harm, suppress women, WOC
& block, harm, destroy the careers of women with #ethics

And as payment for faithful service in the traditional “political wife” role

after abdicating medical authority saying of Trump: “a real benefit during these discussions about medical issues”

She saw the carrot
She experienced the stick
As a “good girl”
Birx’s 💰💰💰prize:

I’m not a “good girl” like Dr. Birx

I am a licensed physician
with professional ethics
a duty to serve the most vulnerable because of a professional oath

Not a “bureaucrat”
I have been a public servant

that is what my mother
my mentors
my religion (& others’)
taught me:

Because I have #ethics
Which cost me

I can’t afford Hermès scarves that certain “public servants” wrap themselves in

I don’t need curated “optics”, matched accessories

vogue.com/article/dr-deb…

Who I am and what my values are manifest by my words & ACTIONS matching
by RESULTS

There’s no reason why I should be getting another degree

however I have come to realize that so-called #publichealth is filled with Birx types, my commitment exploited like:

I am not going to sell my credibility to a bully bosses to open doors to 💰💰💰advisor positions

My ideas
courage to go it ALONE
=enough

that is what I model for younger women & men I mentor

that is what my mother
my mentors
taught me

I protect women
like my mother
(women Birx calculated, & left to die)

I can win based on merit
not be a sycophant
pkgcenter.mit.edu/programs/ideas/

As a public servant paid on the tax dollar
@JeromeAdamsMD,as a bureaucrat yourself, you should know your & Birx's boss is the American people who pay your salary
Your guide is the Constitution
As a physician you have additional oaths to uphold
#accountability is to U.S. taxpayer

The politician in an office is a fleeting authority. Real authority is Constitution, #humanrights, and your own #integrity. You salary comes from dollars taken out of American paychecks. If we don't pay our taxes, could even go to prison. Yet you all want zero #accountability?

I'm all for women "shattering" glass ceilings, getting into "the room where it happens." Did that myself. If you have not noticed yet, I have a lot of opinions, so am not in rooms to decorate, distract, be "doc on a leash"
#getresults
earn your salary

It is #WomensHistoryMonth
Mary Dyer's statue is on the #freedom Trail in #Boston
She was hanged for speaking truth to power
It's too bad contemporary American #womeninleadership lack this courage - I guess it must be that much harder to be a woman today?

womenhistoryblog.com/2007/10/mary-b…

Paradigm of selling your talent to seek male protection and access to power is as old as time

"I hope you're proud how you
Would grovel in submission
To feed your own ambition"

Women who protect women or marginalized rarely are called "a good woman"

I don’t betray women of color, leave them to die. Am a WOC. My mother was too. She spent her life doing good, diligently followed every rule, NEVER harmed anyone

Bureaucrats who do NOT protect BIPOC now want to shame ME as a WOC for caring for WOC? smh

brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/20…

As a black man in America, @JeromeAdamsMD you should understand the “grandmother” effect is especially important in communities of color.

I am pro-WOC, pro-senior women.

What is Dr. Birx is going to do for families that lost grandmothers on her watch?

statnews.com/2019/02/22/gra…

This is not the first time you are hearing this from black & BIPOC on being an apologist or harming with your words @JeromeAdamsMD

“The Adams statement is, at best, irresponsible and, at worst, reflective of systemic structural racism,” Taylor added.

nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/bl…

You call ME out on being a “bad woman” essentially @JeromeAdamsMD then you will get an earful back.

You don’t define my womanhood.

I am not throwing WOC under any bus to gain proximity to power or be any “doc on a leash”

Some man offers me my “dreams”?

Women who do not stand for ALL women don’t earn my respect

“Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women ...know that survival is not an academic skill.”

Your “fatwa” on me: @JeromeAdamsMD is correct:
I am not “a good/nice woman”

being labeled as “bad”, “dangerous”, even “a terrorist” because of my GOTV activity in minority communities

someone some day may put a bullet in my head or many in my body
as a “patriotic” act
to kill me

my guess: you & Birx will be silent if/when that happens
Prove me wrong

https://twitter.com/usnehal/status/1348616776884613120

Public intimidation for doing #GOTV in minority community has been written about.

Who is protecting the rights fought for in the Revolutionary War?

Right to vote is a very basic American right, along with rights to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.

usatoday.com/story/opinion/…

If someone threatens my or others’ 1st amendment rights, yes, I exercised 2nd amendment rights & posted it to let ppl know:
Am not an easy target

That was my response as a WOC Muslim American with no one protecting my *life*

Having no protection is reality of many BIPOC & WOC

Personally, I believe this.

I don’t live in #Pakistan. With the influx of foreign & American arms, Pakistan did not follow the founder’s vision either.

Women ARE more powerful than pens, swords, or guns.

Some women are..
..not the women lacking courage or integrity.

Why can’t an American female doctor & bureaucrat have even a fraction of the courage of a Pakistani songstress?

The latter took no oath to “first do no harm”

...so what went wrong with Dr. Birx’s ability to speak factually on science in public?

medium.com/@nayadaurpk/wh…

You may not understand the words but listen & I bet you will get chills

She wore a black sari, a banned garment, sang IN PUBLIC to a DICTATOR about #accountability

Yet Dr. Birx can’t say peep in front of a democratically elected President on science?

You don’t have to go as far as Pakistan

Women (people) get shot in America ALL the time, so is perfectly logical to be afraid

Say if Birx were scared, that’s rational - but can’t be in #leadership in America if you are afraid

Then step back into safety

tucson.com/2011-rep-gabri…

Bureaucrats exist in shadows, pushing regulatory paperwork, finding loopholes. If a bureaucrat: do what you are good at

Don’t accept a role to lull America into sleep, singing soothing non-science nonsense

Don’t blocking flow of needed PUBLIC information

Later blame a boss

Men, if you are reading this, beware of hiring a woman who will abandon her professional ethics to be your sycophant

Else, the minute she assesses you no longer to have power, sees others running away from you:
she will start blaming you

be the kind of man to hire for integrity

Similarly, Birx, ever the bureaucrat it would appear, thrived in behind the scenes conversations but offered no protection to governors who needed a SCIENTIST to EXPAIN to the PUBLIC.

Look at many ppl got thrown under this bus - red state governors too.

politico.com/news/2020/06/2…

Birx blocked, blamed
Not just silent

Gaslit, arguably
cannot tell states & localities to “manage” without resources or data
Any #publichealth expert, heck, MPH student even, can tell you this:
#data needed

Spinning narrative is NOT #SciComm
It is #marketing, campaigning, etc

Dr. Birx moved on to a lobbying, not #publichealth job afterwards

it appears, REWARDED for performing well on spinning non-science narrative

If remorseful about harm, why choose THIS company?
Btw, asthma worse in high #SDoH, like #COVID19

She seems consistent in her “values”

If you follow me, I identify non-factual #SciComm & have before been told is “anti-woman”
to hold a woman to
standards
factual communication
integrity

Why?

Which women are the “face” of fraudulent “SciComm”

Which women are harmed by #misinformation?

SciComm vs #marketing:

https://twitter.com/usnehal/status/1343258768038105089

A #pandemic needs PUBLIC #communication accessible to ALL

and local governors were hamstrung if Dr. Birx refused to play her role AS A DOCTOR in PUBLIC of speaking #facts about #science

If paid by tax dollars, American ppl pay you
Communicate to public on science

Also:

When science is not public domain, when #publichealth officials allow selves to be muzzled by fear of job loss, creates a vacuum

Into that vacuum steps fraudulent & harmful conspiracy theorists like anti-vaxxers

This again happened in #COVID19 #pandemic

statnews.com/2017/05/08/mea…

Over and over the way Dr. Birx’s place at podium
blocked necessary information flow
&
made red state governors look like liars for opposing federal narrative

harmed:
most marginalized
least science savvy
lowest access to science on own
=
red states
rural
minorities

Democratizing data & science is the job of #publichealth officials, paid by tax dollars.

“The profits that derive from taxpayer investment have overwhelmingly been captured by the few”

In #COVID19 #pandemic it was not just profit, but lives at stake

newscientist.com/article/mg2082…

Cliff Notes:
Dr. Birx
-blocked factual #SciComm to public
-left Americans to die: elderly, rural, WOC, frontline
-sabotaged state/local efforts in red states
-flip flopped like a bureaucrat, not scientist
-lacked courage
-secured a lobbying job after (for tech banned due to harm)

@NPR @nprpolitics @NPRHealth @nytimes @NYTHealth @washingtonpost @BostonGlobe @TheAtlantic @voxdotcom @VanityFair @Forbes @HuffPost @HuffPostWomen #journalism

If you like, I’ll write this up.
On who I am: linkedin.com/in/usnehal
Additional posts there
>230K followers

@threadreaderapp please unroll