Rapt Fear Belief, 42nd Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Castor): Fired CDC Director Susan Monarez and former public health official Debra Houry testified before the Senate today. I watched the testimony live on television. Both said fears over how the country might respond to a future pandemic kept them up at night.

“I don’t believe that we’ll be prepared,” Monarez said of the next outbreak. Houry added, “We are not prepared, not just for pandemics, but for preventing chronic health disease, and we’re going to see kids dying of vaccine-preventable diseases.”

Last week, while I was in the supermarket, I asked the pharmacist if they still carried the covid vaccine. They did not - they were told to return all of their remaining doses - but I was advised that if I wanted the vaccine, I should ask my doctor to proscribe a dose and they could order it for me under prescription. 

I'm not sure whether it's time for another booster or not - I received my last shot back in March - so while I was at the doctor yesterday for my annual checkup I asked his opinion about when and if I should get a booster. He said that he could prescribe a dose for me if I really wanted it, but that my insurance probably wouldn't cover it and I'd have to pay for it myself. So I clarified my questions by asking if, in his medical opinion, I should request it and he deferred to the CDC vaccine advisory panel, which is meeting tomorrow to make its recommendations. 

During today's hearing, both Monarez and Houry expressed their concerns about the advisory committee. Monarez said she and the medical community have concerns about whether "they have the commensurate backgrounds to be able to understand the data and the evidence and to evaluate it appropriately.” 

My doctor was obviously uncomfortable opining whether or not the current panel could really make the best recommendations for public health considering they've been staffed with vaccine deniers and conspiracy theorists. He seemed conflicted between endorsing or condemning the advisories before they was issued, so I let the discussion drop. He did give me a flu shot, though.

Monarez said she “refused to commit to approving vaccine recommendations without evidence," and was fired from the CDC "for holding the line on scientific integrity.”

When asked by Bernie Sanders why she refused to rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations without seeing the evidence, she explained it was because that "would reduce access of life-saving vaccines to children and others who need them.”

Rand Paul asked Monarez several questions about vaccine efficacy and then proclaimed her answers were "wrong," and went on to falsely claimed that covid vaccines don’t decrease transmission and don’t reduce hospitalizations or deaths. When she disagreed, he pushed back by filibustering the rest of his allotted five minutes with a litany of lies and disinformation. 

Both Monarez and Houry agreed that Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.'s should resign. He should step down, Houry said, due to the "number of misstatements, seeing what he has asked our scientists to do and to compromise our integrity, and the children that have died under his watch.”

Impermanence is swift, and RFK Jr. is greasing the rails to get us there quicker.