The past is never dead. It isn’t even past ~ William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun
Politics. Would American politics between 1963 and 1972 been different if Americans understood that there may have been something more to the death of John F. Kennedy?
Would President Lyndon Johnson have been able to exploit that and the subsequent violence of the era to make real the Great Society agenda?
We will never know.
However, the public’s understanding of events shapes their impact. A senseless tragedy evokes one response while incompetence or malfeasance produces another.
Had the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus been understood as some really bad decision making and poor oversight of federally funded research changed things?
Probably.
The awkwardly named Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released emails last week between META senior executives describing pressure from the White House “and others.”
This pressure, to the extent we know of it from published sources, included deep sixing any posts suggesting the SARS-CoV-2 virus was anything but a senseless tragedy of nature. As it turns out, based on the Select Subcommittee’s work, the government’s own scientists weren’t all that confident themselves. (Intelligence agencies are split on the matter of origin)
Nonetheless, the federal scientific community engaged in what has to be the most epic CYA in human history and got the world’s largest media companies to go along with it. Thus, they shaped the public’s understanding of a public health emergency.
The political rewards – from the CARES Act to the Inflation Reduction Act – were rich ones. Something Lyndon B. Johnson would have loved.
Policy. The revelation – if you can call it that - federal scientists and “others” were actively seeking to disguise the origins of the virus we now fondly refer to as COVID creates some trust issues.
Congress appropriates funds for certain purposes on the belief they will be used prudently and wisely. As a general rule, “prudent and wise” would not include starting a global pandemic.
In the name of a policy called “pandemic preparedness” and otherwise, Congress has appropriated funding to the National Institutes of Health, among other agencies to conduct research, some of which found its way to sycophantic organizations like Eco-Health Alliance.
As research-gone-bad represents a tenable thesis for the origin pf SARS-CoV-2, it puts future funding in the crosshairs of Inspector Generals and Congress on a go-forward basis.
Flat funding of NIH has implications for academic research and all the equipment and consumables that supply it. If history is any guide (see e.g., Church and Taylor Committees) there will be more inquiry not less, spelling trouble for the entire federal scientific enterprise.
Power. As recent Kennedy biographers (See e.g., Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot) have documented, the death of John F. Kennedy may have been a complication in a years-long struggle between civilian doves and the communism-obsessed defense and intelligence agencies, with a good side helping of Mafia retaliation.
Whether that is the case or not, the long struggle between military hawks and doves is part of the U.S. political fabric. Ironically, an acknowledgement that a lab leak is a credible theory, hands the hawks a victory.
The “end of history” as Francis Fukuyama described the post-Cold War period has lent itself to global collaborations like that between NIH and the Wuhan Virology Lab. This was the case despite NIH’s limited capacity for oversight or a full appreciation for the dangers associated with tinkling too many test tubes of viral material.
There is a school of thought that high-risk research like that conducted in Wuhan should only be reserved for the National Laboratories like Oak Ridge. In other words, treat risky research on viral genomes the same way we treat enriched uranium.
A result that is also ironic.
Have a great rest of your weekend.
Emily Evans
Managing Director – Health Policy
Twitter
(Politics, Policy & Power is published in the quiet of Sunday afternoon or holiday Monday and attempts to weave together the disparate forces shaping health care. It makes no attempt to defend or prosecute the views of any established political party or cause. Any conclusions to the contrary rest with the reader alone.)
