Fwd: Five Questions with Dr. Vin Gupta
Craig Brooks
From: Joyce Vance from Civil Discourse <joyce...@substack.com>
Date: Fri, Jan 31, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Subject: Five Questions with Dr. Vin Gupta
To: <craig....@gmail.com>
Today has been about a month’s worth of news, none of it good. It’s clear that Trump is trying to transform the federal workforce into an army of Trump loyalists and align the work that is supposed to be on behalf of the American people with his values, which is to say racism, misogyny, kleptocracy, and the rest of Project 2025. All of this is deeply concerning, as is his effort to deceive Americans about what’s going on. We will discuss this in the weeks ahead as the news unfolds, but tonight, I want to try to set it aside while acknowledging that it is happening and focusing on public health issues. Vin Gupta, who you have undoubtedly seen offering information and advice on a range of medical issues if you watch cable TV, is a Harvard-trained lung specialist. For over a decade, he has been working worldwide to improve public health. He is also a force on social media, where he tries to cut through the disinformation and give people the facts they need to know. You can find him on Bluesky and Youtube.
During the Covid pandemic, Vin was one of the people I turned to personally for advice. So as reports began to tick up about the possibility that bird flu might become transmissible from person to person at some point—it hasn’t yet—Vin was the person I wanted to go to for reliable information. The issue comes into sharp focus for us following a week where Robert Kennedy, Jr., displayed a remarkable lack of understanding about the public health system he will have considerable authority over if confirmed. “Five Questions” is a feature for paid subscribers, my way of thanking people who are able to support this work so that I can devote the necessary time and resources to it. I appreciate everyone who reads the newsletter and works to stay informed, so free subscriptions, with access to all of the other posts, will always be available. Joyce: In the wake of Trump’s first round of executive orders, there is a lot of reporting about devastating shutdowns of medical research. Can you help us understand the big picture? What do these orders do? Vin: The federal government, through its health agencies, funds about 25% of all total medical research occuring in the country in any given area. This number represents at least $60 billion in actual direct grants given to researchers studying everything from new drug development for cancer to protein design for better disease detection. While the remaining funds for medical research originate through the private sector, often the research that leads to key insights on disease processes but which may not lead to a future product that’s profit-generating is reliant on federal funds. Private sector money tends to see research interests in areas that ultimately will be profit-generating. Unquestionably, the NIH and its agencies research whitespace areas in medicine that often lack a financial incentive but serve an enormous public good, like for example, understanding how bird flu is rapidly evolving across various mammalian species. Joyce: How will this impact Americans? What can we expect to see happen? Vin: Pandemic preparedness will experience a significant setback if this pause lasts for any sustained period of time. Our understanding of how novel pathogens (Bird Flu and others) may be evolving and how that should impact potential vaccine and therapeutic designs is going to be limited without dedicated federal funds. Joyce: Will the medical and public health communities push back? What form should we expect that to take? Vin: I have seen a chilling silence among many healthcare leaders but not everyone. I think fear of retribution is driving the silence, but I hope and suspect this will change over time as the current administration’s policies come into clearer view, generating natural opposition. Mainstream medical and public health establishments are, unfortunately, not as nimble and adept at scaled messaging as are malign actors intended to misinform and mischaracterize. Until they become better at leveraging social media with clear, authentic, and transparent messages on why federal funding for continued medical research matters, the misinformers will continue to win the information war. Joyce: I’m hearing lots of concern about the potentially tragic intersection of an end to reporting and the rise of bird flu. Can you help us understand what is happening and what the real risks are on both sides of that equation? Vin: As we speak, routine, apolitical communications from leading health agencies is being curtailed. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), commonly relied upon by health practitioners across the nation for key and timely health updates, was not published last week, likely the result of this comms blackout (see here). The same is now happening with Bird Flu — total data void. If we don't know what’s happening and aren’t reporting human and non-human cases in any standardized way, then how can we best position resources and prepare hospitals if a crisis were to emerge? Joyce: The first Trump administration helped us understand that as Americans, we have to understand how our government is supposed to work and become personally engaged in the fight to remain a democracy. Increasingly, that includes protecting public health. Can you help us understand what we, average citizens, most of us not medical professionals, can do to support and protect the work government agencies like NIH and CDC do on behalf of Americans, and really, the world? Vin: We are losing the information war in all phases across public health. Those seeking to misdirect or misinform have large social media followings, massive echo chambers, and have sowed dissent through ad hominem attacks on highly credentialed former leaders like Dr. Fauci. We live in an era where this has all resulted in the death of expertise. Whomever you trust as a health messenger, do your part to lift their message and voice. We need authentic messengers, adept at social and willing to take fire, to wage the modern day information war, else we cede the terrain where minds are being heavily persuaded to devastating short and long-term consequences. I’m grateful to Vin for a practical, fact-based assessment of where we are and where we’re headed. And, y’all know what to do. This is the moment to call or write to your senators and voice your opposition to stacking the federal government with people who are at best incompetent and possibly far worse than that, motivated by revenge and personal gain, not the best interests of the American people. We’re in this together, Joyce
© 2025 Joyce Vance
|
