P.S. on Dr. Fauci Hearing and Congressional Dysfunction

 I took another look at the "hearing wrap up" press release from meeting that the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic held with Dr. Fauci. Very sad performance by the committee.

Given that Dr. Fauci has spent more than half a century devoted to protecting the world's population from infectious diseases, given that he has been credited with saving millions of lives, you might expect that the "Key Hearing Takeaways" listed in the wrap up would help us with questions like: How can we prevent another pandemic? What steps can we take to protect everyone throughout the globe from the next new virus that challenges us? How can we best organize our public health system to work as effectively as possible?

Not a single one of the "takeaways" related to such questions. In addition, in the "Member Highlights" section of the wrap up, not a single member said anything that was forward looking and visionary. Rather they tried to outdo one another with "gotcha" statements and "he said, she said" types of comments about the past.

We need strong, bipartisan leadership that enables us to make government work to promote the health and livelihood of all. We certainly do not have that leadership in place right now.

Dr. Fauci, Science, and Congressional Dysfunction

 

Similar to Anthony Fauci, I spent a career leading careful, deliberate, nonpartisan efforts to use science – in my case, social science – to improve the quality of life for all people in equitable ways. (By coincidence, Dr. Fauci and I attended the same high school in New York City, although his graduation preceded mine by 10 years.) So, via C-Span, I watched with great interest his appearance at the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. 

Ostensibly, the committee meeting had the worthy goal to identify steps we can take to prevent another pandemic similar to COVID19. In contrast, it was a seesaw conversation with red representatives trying to blame Dr. Fauci for one thing or another and blue representatives rising to Dr. Fauci’s defense. Few questions from committee members had anything to do with subjects that could protect the health of the American people. 

This half day event provided plenty of examples of the misunderstanding that some people have about science, and it put into relief the dysfunction of our Congress. 

Many of the representatives don’t know, or don’t want to admit, how science works, and how it can inform policy, government action, and community action. Scientific research begins with questions; activities occur to gather information to respond to those questions; scientists analyze that information; they then produce findings. Usually, the findings answer only some of the original questions, and the answers that the research provides are usually better and more complete for some questions than for others. 

Given the research findings, anyone can interpret what those findings mean, what strength they have, what limitations they have. Based on research findings, anyone can draw conclusions. If interested in using the findings to inform a decision or to guide an action, anyone can do so. 

Rarely does research on a specific question of interest provide the absolute, definite, immutable answer to that question. A specific study does the best it can at a particular time with the findings it can produce. Later research tries to address unanswered questions; it also often tests to see if the findings from earlier studies really had the strength that everyone thought and/or whether they continue to apply in a changing world. In this way, knowledge based on scientific research evolves, corrects itself, and improves over time. 

Apply that to the situation with COVID. COVID arrived in the United States as a completely novel pathogen and immediately began to kill people. We faced a severe crisis. Decisions about policies and action to stave off this killer could not draw on research because little research existed on the ways that specific virus transmitted itself and on specific means of prevention. No evidence existed on best treatments. So, very logically, public health experts made decisions based on closely related evidence, gathered new information, and revised their thinking and their recommendations about COVID as they learned more. 

Some early decisions produced positive results; some did not. All of the decisions about how to treat the virus and stop its transmission had social and economic impacts in addition to health impacts. Schools and businesses closed, or changed operations, for example – with major costs for families, individuals, and companies. All of those impacts need to be analyzed so that we understand their benefits and costs and can use that understanding when challenged by a future virus. Sadly, the activities of the committee did not move in that direction. 

Which raises the issue of the dysfunction of our U.S. Congress. A hearing such as this should contribute to our understanding of how to put science to use in preventing future national tragedies such as COVID. This committee should ask Dr. Fauci and others questions such as: What have we learned about public health measures that work and don’t work for prevention? What steps should we take if we suspect another powerful virus has begun to infect our population? How can we ensure effective, equitable care if a new epidemic occurs? How can we train and sustain the motivation of health care workers, to empower them to defeat future pandemics? 

Those questions received little consideration. The press release “wrap up” on the committee’s website contained a litany of criticisms of Dr. Fauci; it did not mention anything that could protect the future health of our population. 

Many of the Republican representatives used precious time to ask whether Dr. Fauci had used his personal email for official purposes. Each time someone raised the question, he said no. None of them had any evidence that he had done so. Regardless, does Dr. Fauci’s use of email several years ago contribute in even the slightest way to building our nation’s protection against a future pandemic? No. 

A staff person for the red side had the opportunity to ask questions of Dr. Fauci, after the elected representatives had completed their questioning. Commendably, he addressed some of the issues relevant to the protection of the public’s health. It seemed that most of the committee members had left by that time – which is too bad, since they might have learned something, and maybe by learning they could put science to good use.

Martin Luther King's Vision

 

Can we join together as a planet, to address the issues that face humanity? Martin Luther King Jr. had a vision, expressed during the two speeches he gave at the time of his Nobel Peace Prize award.

All statements below are direct quotes.*

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up.

Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

Another indication that progress is being made was found in the recent presidential election in the United States. The American people revealed great maturity by overwhelmingly rejecting a presidential candidate who had become identified with extremism, racism, and retrogression8. The voters of our nation rendered a telling blow to the radical right9. They defeated those elements in our society which seek to pit white against Negro and lead the nation down a dangerous Fascist path.

Why should there be hunger and privation in any land, in any city, at any table when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life? Even deserts can be irrigated and top soil can be replaced. We cannot complain of a lack of land, for there are twenty-five million square miles of tillable land, of which we are using less than seven million. We have amazing knowledge of vitamins, nutrition, the chemistry of food, and the versatility of atoms. There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will.

So man’s proneness to engage in war is still a fact. But wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of modern weapons eliminated even the possibility that war may serve as a negative good. If we assume that life is worth living and that man has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war. In a day when vehicles hurtle through outer space and guided ballistic missiles carve highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can claim victory in war. A so-called limited war will leave little more than a calamitous legacy of human suffering, political turmoil, and spiritual disillusionment.

So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man’s creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a “peace race”.

This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a big house, a great “world house” in which we have to live together – black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other.

This means that more and more our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. We must now give an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response which is little more than emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life.

* Quotes from:

Martin Luther King Jr. – Acceptance Speech. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Mon. 15 Jan 2024. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/king/acceptance-speech/

Martin Luther King Jr. – Nobel Lecture. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Mon. 15 Jan 2024. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/king/lecture