Dying in a Leadership Vacuum

[John Clark]

The New England Journal of Medicine is the premier medical journal in the USA and probably the world, and it very rarely issues a political editorial, but today it issued one and for only the fourth time in it's 208 year history concerning any subject the editorial was signed by every single one of the journal's editors. Just like the editors of the journal "Science" and of Scientific American they felt compelled the state before the election to say just how incompetent the president has behaved; so on November 3 people will have to decide if they are on team science or team political hack. The editorial lists many damning examples of incompetence such as:

"The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50, and even dwarfs the rates in lower-middle-income countries, such as Vietnam, by a factor of almost 2000."

And concludes with these words:

"Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences. Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions. But this election gives us the power to render judgment. Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates. But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs."

Dying in a Leadership Vacuum

John K Clark

[Lawrence Crowell]

This was on NPR this evening. Leadership was strangled at the CDC by t'Rump.

LC

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/08/921782018/former-cdc-director-on-how-to-restore-faith-in-agency