This past Friday, August 8th, Patrick Joseph White allegedly opened fire on the CDC campus in Atlanta, killing a police officer while expending nearly 200 shots that sprayed the office buildings. This being America, this news in and of itself is not particularly compelling. We do mass shootings and attempted mass shootings better than anyone else in the world, after all. USA! USA!
But the reported motive that led White to attack the CDC certainly did grab people’s attention:
Police identified Patrick Joseph White as the gunman and said he opened fire on the campus following claims that the COVID-19 vaccine made him severely depressed and suicidal, AP reported.
Interestingly, NIH has studied psychiatric effects following COVID-19 vaccination and found that the opposite occurs at the macro level: vaccination is actually associated with lower levels of depression and anxiety. Obviously there can be differences in individual cases, but that’s the data from a study in 2022.
Now, of course, there’s a new man in charge of HHS and its child agencies. RFK Jr. has railed against vaccines generally, and COVID-19 vaccines specifically, for years. He recently killed off the federal funding for mRNA vaccines, including COVID vaccines. He has previously and continues now to engage in blatant vaccine misinformation. Back when he was failing to win the U.S. presidency, he said this:
It doesn’t take tinfoil-levels of dot-connecting to understand how you get from anti-vaxx peddlers like Kennedy to a troubled man blasting up a CDC campus. Is RFK Jr. the only reason White shot up the agency? No, probably not. But he is almost certainly a reason it occurred and that means he has some blood on his hands. The outrageous, profane wielding of pseudo-science by the person now in charge of American healthcare is vulgar all on its own, but it also comes with these sorts of knock-on effects. I have no idea what White was dealing with in his life, but I do know that what comes out of RFK Jr.’s mouth and social media accounts is dangerous. Dangerous because of the health risk it puts upon people who believe him. And the risk of those that take him so seriously that they are willing to commit acts of violence.
As the Epictetus said, circumstance don’t make the person, but they do reveal the person. And leaders are supposed to lead in a crisis. It was something like 13 hours after police in Atlanta gave the all clear on the attempted mass shooting that Kennedy managed to put out a statement about it:
I would argue first that the statement is entirely disingenous. I have yet to see anything that looks even remotely like support for the CDC from Kennedy in general. I’ve seen budget cuts. I’ve seen staffing cuts. I’ve seen claims about chemtrails. I’ve seen years and years of attacks and conspiracy theories against the very agency he now leads. Where is all of that support?
And I would also argue that it isn’t a great look for this statement to have been delayed by 30 minutes because Kennedy was on his personal ExTwitter account posting some sweet pics of his fishing trip in Alaska:
Perhaps the brain worm ate the part that powers empathy.
The connection is not lost on those that were targeted by this shooting, it should be noted. The CDC staffers in Atlanta were obviously terrified during the shooting. After it was all over, they wanted assurances that their collective boss had some understanding of his own culpability in all of this.
On Sunday, CNN reported that the CDC held a video conference with approximately 800 staff members to discuss the traumatic event and allow them to ask questions. Staff said they felt like “sitting ducks” as bullets whizzed just over their cubicle walls and they dove for the floor.
Stat also got access to the call and reported that another employee asked newly confirmed CDC Director Susan Monarez if she had been in touch with Kennedy directly about the shooting.
“Do you expect Secretary Kennedy to make a statement about this, and are you able to speak to the misinformation—the disinformation—that caused this issue, and what your plan forward is to ensure this doesn’t happen again?” the employee asked.
Monarez did not directly answer the question, saying only that she had been in touch with Kennedy’s office. “It’s a good question. We’ve been in constant communication with the Office of the Secretary, and more will be coming,” Monarez said.
That such a question even has to be asked by a public servant is a disgrace. Why any competent scientist would risk their lives to keep working for American health agencies while RFK Jr. is still leading HHS is a mystery to me.