Dr. Birx Reportedly Refusing to Participate in White House Meetings With Dr. Atlas Because He Is Spreading Covid Misinformation

Leia IdlibyOct 29th, 2020, 4:16 pm

Dr. Deborah Birx, a physician and member of the White House coronavirus task force, is reportedly refusing to participate in any meetings with Dr. Scott Atlas — citing his spread of Covid-19 misinformation.

CNN’s Kate Bennett, Elizabeth Cohen, and Jake Tapper reported on the news Thursday, adding that Birx left a meeting at the White House this summer vowing to never sit in another meeting with Atlas again.

“I hate to use the term doctor shopping, but it almost feels like if this is what President Trump did until he found someone in the medical field that agrees with him,” Bennett told Tapper before citing some of Atlas’ controversial coronavirus opinions.

Atlas has often been criticized for his controversial proposed pandemic strategies, his claims that masks do not work, and his support for herd immunity.

“Her personality is to pick up and go where the fight is,” a colleague of Birx’s reportedly told CNN. “She always told us — keep your bags packed. She’d say if you’re assigned to another country, don’t sit in the embassy — go to the distant villages. You need to go where the action is, see what they are doing.”

Birx has reportedly not been at a coronavirus briefing since the summer, when Atlas, a radiologist lacking expertise in epidemiology, was starting to become the president’s top influencer regarding the pandemic. Birx even reportedly confronted Vice President Mike Pence, demanding his kick Atlas off the task force.

“I’ve known Debbie a long time,” said Dr. Jerome Kim, the director general of the International Vaccine Institute, and a former colleague at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research told CNN. “She really is completely driven by getting things done and being effective, and I think she’s frustrated.”

“If she can’t get it done in the White House, the way to do it is go into the field and use personal diplomacy to convince politicians there is a right way to do this and a right way to approach things, and the consequences of failure are significant,” Kim added. “Without an authority coordinating things centrally, the only thing you can do is make people aware of the facts and the truth, and my guess is this is her solution.”