Too controversial for Bush
In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
His name is Dr. Robert Redfield and we must tell you, he’s probably one of the worst possible choices to head this agency from a public health perspective.
That’s because in the past, Dr. Redfield has said the AIDS epidemic was “God’s judgment” against homosexuals. In the 1980’s, he said that the spread of the virus was due to a lack of traditional family values (See the Maven Website).
Dr. Redfield’s Scary History
Back in the 1980's and the 1990's, during extremely difficult times in the fight against HIV, Dr. Redfield worked as a US Army major and vaccine researcher at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland.
While holding this position, Redfield was influential in shaping the military’s public health response to HIV and worked to find a vaccine. But his approaches were extremely controversial.
While at the Department of Defense, Dr. Redfield ordered mandatory HIV testing for all troops and did so without confidentiality.
In real world terms, this meant that if you were a service member who tested positive for HIV, your entire chain of command was informed before you were given the news.
Also, any recruit was tested positive was immediately barred from serving.
Service members on active duty also were required to be tested. If the results showed positive, they were reportedly treated very badly. They were also quarantined like animals at Fort Hood Army Base in Texas.
More: LGBT persons erased from important health survey
Back in the day, the facility was known as the “HIV Hotel” and the “Leper Colony”.
Personnel on active duty were also tested. If their results came back positive, they were mistreated and degraded. The young soldiers would be quarantined at the Fort Hood army base in Texas. It was often referred to as the ‘HIV hotel’ or the ‘leper colony.’ Many were reportedly treated like prisoners until they were honorably discharged or developed AIDS.
“About 5 million soldiers and recruits were tested by 1989, with 6,000 of them proving HIV positive,” writes Laurie Garrett for Foreign Policy.
“Anecdotally, many of these young men committed suicide, and most were drummed out of the military without medical coverage, dying impoverished from their AIDS disease. If the Defense Department kept score of the tragedy, the eventual, post-discharge outcomes for thousands of HIV-positive military personnel were never publicly documented.”
Super Catholic
Redfield is also a self-described devout Roman Catholic. His history involves being connected with the Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy (ASAP).
FYI: ASAP is a Christian outfit led by W. Shepherd Smith Jr. that promotes mandatory testing of HIV and quarantining those who are HIV positive.
Redfield wrote the intro to Shepherd’s 1990 book, Christians in the Age of AIDS. Check it out:
“It is time to reject the temptation of denial of the AIDS/HIV crisis; to reject false prophets who preach the quick-fix strategies of condoms and free needles; to reject those who preach prejudice; and to reject those who try to replace God as judge. The time has come for the Christian community — members and leaders alike — to confront the epidemic.”
During the 1990’s, ASAP and Dr. Redfield supported H.R. 2788, really draconian bill that would have required mandatory HIV testing of healthcare professionals and loss of professional licenses if they were shown to be positive. Thankfully, the bill never passed.
As mentioned by Hornet Stories, George W. Bush rejected Dr. Redfield to lead the CDC because his past work on HIV was far too controversial.
Apparently, Redfield fits the bill perfectly for Donald Trump.
h/t: Gay Star News
