News

Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams Defends Working With Trump Administration

   DailyWire.com
US Surgeon General Jerome Adams speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on September 9, 2020 in Washington, DC to discuss vaccines and protecting public health during the coronavirus pandemic.
MICHAEL REYNOLDS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Former Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams defended working with the Trump administration after being criticized for not simply quitting despite whatever misgivings he had about the former president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a Twitter thread posted Monday, Adams said that he, Dr. Deborah Birx, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the most prominent members of the Trump White House’s coronavirus response team, all decided that being a part of the conversation was better for the nation amid the pandemic.

“Birx  & Fauci are both great people who’ve expressed feeling conflicted,” he said. “We all decided being at the table was better than having key issues go unheard. Why is the woman’s (or black man’s) perspective dismissed? All had a choice, & stayed. Dr. Birx fought hard & saved lives.”

“People so freely suggest they would have left, but hold the one woman in the room to a different standard,” he added. “If Dr. Birx or I weren’t there, many medical/ public health conversations would’ve had no input whatsoever from a woman, or a person or color. That’s a heavy cross to bear.”

Adams further expressed bemusement over the fact that both he and Dr. Birx seem to get the brunt of the criticism.

“IDK what’s more perplexing- the many women and people of color who criticize Birx and I for choosing to stay on as often their only representation at the table, or the many white men who seem so quick to judge our motives and actions- compared to another white man,” he said.

 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Adams largely stayed out of the media spotlight. In December, however, amid the Trump administration’s vaccine rollout, he cautioned that black Americans have a distrust of the COVID-19 vaccine due to America’s history of medical racism, using them as guinea pigs in health experiments.

“I know that long before COVID, there were many diseases ― hypertension, cancer, diabetes ― that were plaguing communities of color,” Adams said on “Face the Nation.” “And COVID just unveiled those disparities that have been around for a long time.”

“I’ve talked previously about the history of the mistreatment of communities of color,” he added. “The Tuskegee experiment, the terrible treatment of Henrietta Lacks and her family and how they just took her cells without her permission.”

Adams also understood the significance of his being a black surgeon general in light of how the position had been abused in the past.

“It actually comes from my office, several surgeons general oversaw for 40 years the Tuskegee studies where treatment was denied to Black men,” he said. “And I walk past their pictures every single day when I go into my office. So believe you me, this legacy is important to me, and helping restore that trust is important.”

“What I want to tell people most of all is: I walk the talk. I got vaccinated on Friday. I actually feel great. My mother-in-law and my mother are watching, and they’ve been asking me all weekend, ‘How are you feeling?’ I feel great,” he added. “And I hope people will get the vaccine based on information that they get from trusted resources. Because it’s OK to have questions. What’s not OK is to make poor health decisions based on misinformation.”

Got a tip worth investigating?

Your information could be the missing piece to an important story. Submit your tip today and make a difference.

Submit Tip
The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams Defends Working With Trump Administration