CDC shooting shows contagion of misinformation

By Lisa Jarvis / Bloomberg Opinion

The horrifying attack on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Atlanta headquarters felt like the grimly predictable result of years of pandemic-related misinformation and disinformation; much of it propagated by the very people now leading U.S. health agencies.

It’s no surprise, then, that instead of offering a concrete plan to protect staff and rebuild public trust, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seized the tragedy as another opportunity to double down on his dangerous rhetoric.

On the evening of Aug. 8, CDC workers huddled together in offices as a gunman — struggling with his mental health and angry about covid vaccines — fired nearly 500 rounds, with about 200 striking buildings on the agency’s campus, police said Tuesday. DeKalb County police officer David Rose was killed while responding to the attack, and the shooter took his own life.

Over the following weekend, Kennedy offered condolences for the slain officer, and in an email to CDC staff obtained by the Washington Post, he praised the importance of their work: “From public health labs to data systems to community programs, your efforts matter,” he wrote. By Monday, however, he was on television using the platform to denigrate yet again and undermine those efforts.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-cdc-shooting-shows-contagion-of-misinformation/