Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

"News flash!! Someone died of a heart attack. Yeah. It happens. It's been happening to
humans long before the first vaccination for anything was developed and distributed. "

Some basic facts undermining a conspiracy theory built around

Wouldn't be the first time a government employee was instructed to misguide the public though.
Only thing I know is the Director of the CDC "retired" and moved to Mexico right before Covid.
fung_derf - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171434559

fair enough. It would not be the first time, but how about some basic facts with that.

Firstly -- somewhat related: The staggering cost of the Scott Atlas debacle
Trump picked a coronavirus adviser because he liked his Fox hits, and now a lot of Americans are dead
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=159958570]

Ok, back to conspiracy: What does 'right before covid' mean?

First Covid-19 case happened in November, China government records show - report
his article is more than 3 years old

Earliest case detected on 17 November, weeks before authorities acknowledged new virus, says Chinese media

Coronavirus: live updates

Helen Davidson in Hong Kong @heldavidson
Fri 13 Mar 2020 17.39 AEDT


A medical worker disinfects a ward in Wuhan union hospital, China. Cases emerged in November, Chinese government data reportedly sugests. Photograph: Li Ke/EPA

The first case of someone suffering from Covid-19 can be traced back to 17 November, according to media reports on unpublished Chinese government data.

The report .. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back , in the South China Morning Post, said Chinese authorities had identified at least 266 people who contracted the virus last year and who came under medical surveillance, and the earliest case was 17 November – weeks before authorities announced the emergence of the new virus.

The Chinese government was widely criticised over attempts to cover up the outbreak in the early weeks, including crackdowns on doctors who tried to warn colleagues about a new Sars-like virus which was emerging in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province.

Coronavirus: Wuhan doctor speaks out against authorities
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/coronavirus-wuhan-doctor-ai-fen-speaks-out-against-authorities

The data obtained by the Post, which the Guardian has not been able to verify, said a 55-year-old from Hubei province could have been the first person to contract Covid-19. For about one month after that date there were one to five new cases reported each day, the report said, and by 20 December there were 60 confirmed cases.

More - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/first-covid-19-case-happened-in-november-china-government-records-show-report

Aside: Based simply on that the CDC site maybe could be updated:

December 12, 2019
A cluster of patients in China’s Hubei Province, in the city of Wuhan, begin to experience the symptoms of an atypical pneumonia-like illness that does not respond well to standard treatments.
https://www.cdc.gov/museum/timeline/covid19.html

Ok. Now to the CDC director mentioned in the conspiracy theory above. As Redfield's period ran into 2021, and Walensky,

Joe Biden announced Walensky's presumptive appointment as CDC director on December 7, 2020,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochelle_Walensky#CDC_director

came after, and is the current director, the director 'who resigned before covid in the conspiracy minds of some' must be 2017 – 2018: Brenda Fitzgerald, MD .. https://www.cdc.gov/about/history/pastdirectors.htm .

Ok... soooo why did she, umm, resign. OOps. Long time investor in tobacco stocks.
Even while she was CDC Director. So seems to me, unless you want to see the NYT, Vox,

This is the second major health resignation under Trump

Fitzgerald isn’t the first Trump-appointed health leader step down recently. Tom Price, Trump’s first health and human services secretary, resigned in September.

The scandal that sank Price was a different series of Politico reports about his use of private jets, taking charter flights that cost tens of thousands of dollars instead of commercial flights that would cost hundreds, as was usual for his predecessors. The reports painted a picture of a top Trump official using taxpayer dollars to fly in luxury, visit his own properties, and even stop off for lunch in Nashville with his son. https://www.vox.com/2018/1/31/16954882/cdc-director-brenda-fitzgerald-resignation-tobacco

Politico, Reuters .. https://www.reuters.com/article/cdc-director-idUKL4N1PQ5QH .. et al in this case, as sucked into misinformation from the federal government, or actually co-conspirators in a conspiracy to mislead the American public it looks there are no obvious reasons for suspicion re her resignation:

Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, C.D.C. Director, Resigns Over Tobacco and Other Investments


Brenda Fitzgerald in October 2014 with Gov. Nathan Deal of Georgia. David Tulis/Associated Press

By Sheila Kaplan Jan. 31, 2018

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resigned on Wednesday, in the middle of the nation’s worst flu epidemic in nearly a decade .. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/health/flu-rates-deaths.html , because of her troubling financial investments in tobacco and health care companies that posed potential conflicts of interest.

Alex Azar, the newly appointed secretary of Health and Human Services, announced the resignation of the director, Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald. An agency statement cited her “complex financial interests that have imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all her duties as the C.D.C. director.”

The statement continued: “Due to the nature of these financial interests, Dr. Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period. After advising Secretary Azar of both the status of the financial interests and the scope of her recusal, Dr. Fitzgerald tendered, and the secretary accepted, her resignation. ”

Mr. Azar, a former executive with Eli Lilly, made the decision on his third day running the sprawling H.H.S. agency. Dr. Anne Schuchat, a veteran official with the C.D.C., was named acting director — the position she had filled before Dr. Fitzgerald took office. She has had prominent roles in many of the agency’s emergency responses to disease outbreaks and vaccine programs around the world.

The resignation was announced less than a day after Politico reported on Tuesday .. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/30/cdc-director-tobacco-stocks-after-appointment-316245 .. that Dr. Fitzgerald, 71, had traded in tobacco stocks even after taking the position at the public health agency. The tobacco trades were small: Dr. Fitzgerald bought between $1,001 and $15,000 worth of stock in Japan Tobacco in August, according to her financial disclosure forms, before she signed her ethics agreement. She sold the stock, as promised, in October.

Before assuming the post, she also had investments in major tobacco companies, including Reynolds American, British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands, Philip Morris International, and Altria Group. Those were also sold in October, along with many of her other holdings.

A former Georgia health commissioner, Dr. Fitzgerald was appointed to the federal agency last July by Tom Price, a fellow Georgian who served as Mr. Trump’s first H.H.S. secretary — until he too was forced to resign under fire, for traveling extensively on private jets and expensing more than $400,000 for those trips to the government. Mr. Price’s investments in health-related companies had also come under scrutiny while he was in government.

In a September ethics agreement, Dr. Fitzgerald said she would divest from many stocks that might pose a conflict of interest. The other investments included CVS Health, Quest Diagnostics, AbbVie, and Zimmer Biomet Holdings, among others. But she also said that she and her husband, Dr. Thomas Fitzgerald, were unable to divest from some holdings because of legal or contractual restrictions. Those were GW Ventures and Greenway Messenger, which are limited liability companies formed to invest in Greenway Health LLC, an electronic health information company, and Isommune, a biotech company focusing on early cancer detection.

Dr. Fitzgerald pledged to avoid any C.D.C. work that would affect those holdings, drawing criticism from Democrats who said such recusals would limit her effectiveness. In December, Senator Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate panel that oversees the agency, expressed concerns that Dr. Fitzgerald’s recusals on issues involving cancer and opioids prohibited her from dealing with two of the biggest health problems in the country.

And even as she divested from many holdings in health-related companies, some members of Congress continued to express concern that those investments could compromise her positions on a variety of agency matters.

“It is unacceptable that the person responsible for leading our nation’s public health efforts has, for months, been unable to fully engage in the critical work she was appointed to do,” Senator Murray said Wednesday. “Dr. Fitzgerald’s tenure was unfortunately the latest example of the Trump administration’s dysfunction and lax ethical standards.”

But Dr. Fitzgerald’s predecessor at the C.D.C., Dr. Tom Frieden, issued a statement that suggested the latest investments causing concern were made by a portfolio manager without Dr. Fitzgerald’s knowledge. In August, financial disclosures show she purchased stocks in several companies that might conflict with her activities at the agency, including Japan Tobacco, the drugmaker Merck, and Humana, the health insurer. The records show she then sold those and other health stocks in October.

“I have spoken with Dr. Fitzgerald and believe her when she says that she was unaware that a tobacco company investment had been made,” Dr. Frieden said. “She understands that any affiliation between the tobacco industry and public health is unacceptable, and that when she learned of it, she directed that it be sold.”

But Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy group, said not knowing about the investments a manager is making on your behalf is not an excuse. “You cannot just say the manager can do whatever he or she wants to do as long as I don’t know about it,” he said. “That’s not the conflict of interest code.”

The tobacco-related investments alarmed others. “It’s astonishing that the director of the Centers for Disease Control, which plays a major role in reducing tobacco use, would purchase stock in a tobacco company,” said William B. Schultz, a former general counsel for H.H.S.

The agency has been tackling several tough issues this year, including potential budget cutbacks [Trump did cut the CDC budget] and a flu epidemic that claimed more lives this week and closed some schools across the country. About 80 percent of the cases this season are of the H3N2 strain, and officials said last week the rate of hospitalization among flu sufferers was particularly high this year. The agency plays a critical role in tracking the number of illnesses and deaths and helping coordinate the public health response.

Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the committee that oversees the C.D.C., said he looked forward to working with Dr. Fitzgerald’s successor to tackle a host of critical health issues. “How to turn the tide in the opioid crisis, how to prevent more flu deaths, how to be ready for the next outbreak of infectious disease or food-borne illness,” he said.

A two-time congressional candidate, Dr. Fitzgerald, an obstetrician-gynecologist, was active in Republican politics and had close ties to other prominent Georgians — among them, Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, and an early adviser to President Trump.

As the state’s public health chief, Dr. Fitzgerald made fighting childhood obesity one of her highest priorities. But she drew criticism from public health officials for accepting $1 million from Coca-Cola to pay for the effort .. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/health/brenda-fitzgerald-cdc-coke.html . Her program drew heavily from the soda giant’s playbook, emphasizing Coke’s contention that exercise — rather than calorie control — is key to weight loss.

Pam Belluck, Donald G. McNeil Jr. and Katie Thomas contributed to this article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/health/cdc-brenda-fitzgerald-resigns.html

One other bit from the Vox article:

Fitzgerald’s resignation comes at a difficult time for CDC and for public health. There’s a serious flu epidemic underway, and the CDC has also been actively involved in responding to hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. As we reported yesterday, the Trump administration has proposed $1.2 billion in cuts to the CDC’s budget for fiscal year 2018 and has already excised $100 million from the CDC’s Public Health and Prevention Fund through the tax bill, starting in 2019.
https://www.vox.com/2018/1/31/16954882/cdc-director-brenda-fitzgerald-resignation-tobacco

I couldn't find any reference of Fitzgerald moving to Mexico after her resignation from the CDC. It's not even
referenced in Wiki .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Fitzgerald#Director_of_the_CDC

Enough said on that particular suggested conspiracy theory? i think so. .