After top HHS coronavirus vaccine doctor Rick Bright was fired by the Trump administration, Dean Boris Lusniak, former acting US surgeon general, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that public health experts in government walk a fine line.
"When you're serving at the highest government level, you realize that politics plays a role in public health," Lushniak said on CNN's Situation Room. Blitzer added that public health officials need to be able to inform the public, without getting on the wrong side of the president.
"They have to be on the inside, influencing the president," Blitzer said. "If they leave, they would not be able to do so. And who knows what might replace them."
Lusniak agreed. "I think the fine line that they're all walking is really quite a fine line," Lushniak said. "You have to be truthful, you have to come out, and you have to use data— real information— to influence decision making despite the pressures of politics."
But, in the president's evening coronavirus presentations, politics and science aren't meshing well, Lushniak said.
"I spent 28 years in government service and a lot of that was spent planning for this type of event," Lushniak said. "What I think really perplexes me is I'm not sure where all those plans have gone to. They have not been fully implemented."
Lushniak told Blitzer that we need to rebuild trust in science and disengage from politics. He was joined on the show by his former colleague, Dr. Nicole Lurie, former assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS.