The experience of leading a team through a crisis teaches you that the burden of command isn't something one would wish upon your worst enemy. History teaches us that the worst leaders are those who pursue power above all else in life. It also teaches us that the most effective leaders are those with a hefty respect for the challenges which lie in front of them, as well as the lives of the men and women who serve under them. Unfortunately, our critical public health agencies have been hijacked by the former, and multiple disasters are unfolding as a result, including an attempted massacre on the campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The history books will not be kind.
As an American taxpayer, what we have seen in the past week from the supposed "leadership" of our federal public health agencies is enough to make any decent person grossly ill. As such, this article will serve as a remedial course on the basic principles of effective leadership. Perhaps this will be the one rare occasion in which someone like NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, or the FDA’s Vinay Prasad chooses to listen, instead of running their mouths about topics they clearly know nothing about.
Effective leadership shares three unifying principles: respect, consistency, and courage. While this isn't nearly as exciting as peddling long-disproven conspiracies, which inevitably put the lives of the people you're responsible for at risk, it is the job the American taxpayer pays you for. Unfortunately, we have yet to see any apologies, much less acknowledgement of the roles of the HHS Secretary and his senior staff have played in inciting this violence:
Respect
As a leader, respect is a one-way street. While you do not have to be liked, an effective leader is at least respected by the people who serve under them. That respect must be earned, and when it is gone - for whatever reason - the first priority of any leader is to re-establish that respect. Just days after a 30-year man, who was radicalized by years of anti-vaccine propaganda fired hundreds of bullets at the offices of the CDC, killing one officer, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya appeared on white supremacist Steve Bannon's podcast to spew more pathetic lies about the COVID-19 vaccines.
Civil servants have no place appearing on openly fascist propaganda networks. This is gross misconduct that is grounds for Bhattacharya's immediate termination, but more importantly, shows that Jay Bhattacharya has no respect for the hardworking scientists and doctors of the institution he claims to lead. Bhattacharya’s faction, which includes pro-infection propagandists Kevin Bardosh and Alex Washburne, was chosen solely to spit in the face of the NIH staff. Bhattacharya has made no attempt to earn the respect of the civil servants he claims to lead, after years of spewing baseless attacks against them. This is a clear-cut case of fraud.
Inciting domestic terrorism does not inspire respect, especially against the people you seek to lead. While this may seem obvious to most, we are unfortunately teaching a remedial course on leadership today. Instead of acknowledging his mistakes, Jay Bhattacharya has instead elected to double down on anti-vaccine myths that have been overwhelmingly debunked time and time again. This economist has shown nothing but disrespect for the staff of the NIH, spewing politicized propaganda instead of acknowledging the overwhelming scientific consensus. This grossly immature and cravenly pathetic misconduct does not inspire respect, and is immediately disqualifying from any medical or scientific role.
Consistency
Another essential principle of leadership is bothering to show up to work. An effective leader is most readily & reliably available to the people who work for them before anyone else. When you don't bother to attend administrative meetings, and choose to make regular podcast appearances instead, you're telling your staff that you don't take responsibilities of your role seriously. When you are personally ousted by Donald Trump and your boss claims you simply wanted to “spend more time with your family,” only to return after two weeks, you are showing your staff that you are an unreliable and erratic failure of a leader.
Before 2025, the long history of federal institutions such as the FDA, CDC, and NIH did not feature their senior leadership being selected from Z-list contrarian wannabe celebrities with an extensive list of errors from the highly scientific field of basic arithmetic. Worse yet, after years of being corrected on these basic errors, abusing your authority to be incorrect yet again in contrast to a mountain of scientific research only shows that you're consistently unfit to lead.
When you consistently spend five years spewing hateful bile, peddling conspiracies which incite domestic terror that kills Americans, then you can no longer claim innocence for what you've done. There's no civic society in which you have any place as a leader, outside of a prison chess club. Throughout history, the worst leaders have consistently refused to step away when they're clearly unfit to lead and inevitably had to be forcibly removed.
Courage
Dr. James A. Mahoney. Are you familiar with this name? If that doesn't ring a bell, then you have no place talking about COVID-19 in an official capacity Perhaps I should put it into context: From May 19th, 2020, a news headline reads: "Brooklyn Doctor Dies After Refusing to Retire. He Wanted to Continue Treating Coronavirus Patients." Where was NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya at this time? Cooking up a bunk study wildly underestimating the virus on the behalf of the JetBlue CEO, with a co-author who now claims, alongside nemesis of the PAI Monica Gandhi, that we shouldn't have vaccinated anyone under 60 against COVID-19. Bhattacharya recently cited this study to attack the COVID-19 vaccines and was soundly mocked.
Dr. Mahoney, on the other hand, doesn't get to record multi-hour podcasts with white nationalists and unregulated supplement shills: "His dedication to the job never waivered, even as the coronavirus took hold in New York City. Friends and family urged him to retire, but the 62 year old refused."
Nobody but the most craven & dishonest propagandists would dare suggest that Marty Makary, now director of the Food & Drug Administration, did anything nearly as courageous when he was on Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal frequently downplaying the virus, which has killed and disabled countless doctors & nurses. An effective leader inspires his staff by facing challenges head-on, even if that comes with grave risks, instead of spewing dishonest bile for personal profit. Had Makary volunteered to take Mahoney's place, instead of mugging in front of a camera, then perhaps the staff of the Food & Drug Administration would have some trust in the FDA Commissioner's ability to lead.
Now? These institutions are totally compromised, and the public, across the political spectrum, has little faith in their leadership. While this is by design of the Trump Administration, the senior leadership of these medical and scientific organizations have a sworn obligation to defend their staff from craven, dishonest attacks. Instead, failed leaders such as Jay Bhattacharya, Marty Makary, and Vinay Prasad have only repeated obscene myths and unscientific anecdotes before the press. This is not intellectual rigor or moral fortitude. It is indefensible cowardice.
Closing Remarks
Consider all of the employees of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention who were at work on August 8th. They all have family and friends who cared about them, only to watch these civil servants, doctors and scientists, be demonized to such an extreme degree that they were nearly murdered in their workplace. As the federal government continues to reward and defend such anti-vaccine propagandists, instead of prosecuting them for inciting domestic terrorism, only ensures that the pendulum of violence inevitably swings back in the other direction.
“In 2021 the antivaccine disinformation machine went into overdrive in time for the delta wave. It was deliberate, predatory, organized by half-dozen or so elected members of U.S. Congress amplified by Fox News and podcasters. It caused the needless deaths of 200,000 Americans” -Dr. Peter Hotez, via Twitter
As we saw, it only takes one person to decide to take justice into their own hands. Anti-vaccine propagandists, through their lies, have the blood of hundreds of thousands of American lives on their hands. The cowardice of the Democrats, seeking to absolve themselves of responsibility for the pandemic disaster under Biden, combined with the sadistic crybully hatemongering of the Republicans, has begun to drive our society beyond a point of no return.
An effective leader would put their fellow citizens before themselves and stand up for the truth, as upheld by a growing mountain of scientific evidence. This self-destructive descent into a fantasy realm of unscientific narratives can only go so far before the fabric of civil society finally gives out into chaos and bloodshed. Instead, men like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his henchmen Jay Bhattacharya, Marty Makary, and Vinay Prasad. have chosen to go down in the history books.
As textbook examples of incompetent leadership.
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