Politics. Fifty-five years ago this summer Hubert Gerold “Rap” Brown, a Black separatist, gave a speech in front of the Woolworth’s on Race Street in the small town of Cambridge, MD where I was raised. Later that same day, 17 buildings burned. Few other details were agreed upon.
Mr. Brown, now known as Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, was charged by local officials with inciting a riot. In other words, the powers that be – everyone was after him from the FBI down to the Cambridge Chief of Police, Brice Kinnamon – could not find an appropriate crime with which to charge Mr. Brown so they blamed him for others’ offenses.
(Not that H. Rap Brown was a peaceful man. He was an advocate of violence. Today, he is incarcerated at the federal penitentiary in Tucson, AZ for the crime of murder.)
For those hoping to preserve the political and social status quo, there was nothing quite like the petty crimes section of the criminal code. Martin Luther King, Jr., committed to non-violent action unlike Rap Brown, was arrested for offenses such as loitering, lacking a parade permit, impeding the sidewalk and, my favorite, driving without a Georgia license. Dr. King’s was issued by the neighboring state of Alabama.
Last week, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and omni-present CNBC commentator, summoned the threat of violence to explain away his request to Twitter to suppress the feeds of Dr. Gottlieb’s successor, Dr. Brett Girior, and those of former New York Times reporter, Alex Berenson.
Like Chief Kinnamon , Dr. Gottlieb was not so much concerned with threats of violence as he was afraid Dr. Giroir and Mr. Berenson were right.
Which probably means Dr. Gottlieb is very, very wrong.
Policy. The offense that required Dr. Gottlieb to summon the forces of Twitter against Dr. Giroir was the suggestion that natural immunity conferred by prior infection was just as good as a vaccination.
It was not a novel or radical concept. Naturally developed immune response is almost always considered superior to the man-made kind. The conclusion that this time was different had only as a foundation off-the-cuff remarks by the pied piper of pandemics, Bill Gates, at a Dealbook event in late 2020. At least that is the earliest mention I can find.
From Mr. Gates assertions, flowed many policies, now considered either counterproductive or dangerous. A new type of segregation developed in some cities between those admitted to restaurants and schools and those who were not. At issue was not so much skin color as the possession of a vaccine card.
It was a strange place to find health policy people, walking in the shoes of segregationists.
Power. Of course, Dr. Gottlieb’s interest was probably never protective. His role as a PFE board member suggests economics and reputation were equal or greater considerations.
After all, mRNA was chosen as one of the platforms for Covid vaccines because, in the words of the original contract with the Department of Defense,
“A clear fundamental difference of this candidate over more traditional modalities, such as viral vector vaccines, is that mRNA is delivered by protein-free lipid nanoparticles, which is believed to abolish the risk of anti-vector immunity and permit boosting to maximize the level and duration of immune responses.”
In other words, boosters were always part of PFE’s plan.
As it turns out, Dr. Gottlieb’s efforts to limit authoritative debate about prior immunity will be for naught.
Friday afternoon, the CDC and FDA announced that its surveillance system, known as Vaccine Safety Datalink, had detected a safety signal in people 65 and over that received PFE’s bivalent booster. VSD points to an increased risk for ischemic stroke in the 21 days following a booster dose.
Meanwhile, the New England Journal of Medicine published a letter by Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and member of the VRBPAC adcomm in which he argues chasing variants with boosters is a failed strategy. The federal vaccine policy should focus on people most at-risk for severe disease.
The arc of history, as Dr. King put it so well, bends toward justice. It can just take entirely too long.
Have a great long weekend.
Emily Evans
Managing Director – Health Policy
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