Anne Schuchat: The CDC’s ‘Anthony Fauci’

Joe Biden pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci without indicating any crime the longtime National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) committed. On July 29, before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Dr. Fauci refused to answer any questions and took the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times.

Last month, Dr. Fauci refused another request to testify, but as Congress should know, his equivalent remains available. Dr. Anne Schuchat served as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control from January 20 to July 7, 2017, and January 31 to March 26 in 2018. (RELATED: Was Anthony Fauci Too Powerful?)

“She’s our Anthony Fauci,” said CDC Chief Operating Officer Sherri Berger, and according to Dr. Fauci, Schuchat has “shown great consistency, a high level of competence and integrity, and has been an anchor at the CDC.” As acting director, Schuchat said her role was to ensure that “we follow the highest quality standards to fulfill our pledge to the American people.” There’s more about the CDC’s own Fauci that Congress and the people should know. (RELATED: Fifth Amendment Fauci’s Narcissism Destroyed Faith in Scientific Methodology)

Schuchat earned a BA from Swarthmore and an MD from Dartmouth Medical School. She began her career with the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), a legion of disease detectives tasked to prevent epidemics from arriving in America. The vaunted EIS was also the entry point for Dr. Nancy Messonnier, Schuchat’s colleague in the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD).

Dr. Messonnier was the government’s first spokesperson on COVID. In early 2020, out of the public eye, Dr. Messonnier’s series of telephone briefings set forth everything Dr. Fauci would say. The “novel coronavirus” emerged from a “market” in Wuhan. There was no immunity for the new virus, which would spread rapidly. Schools and businesses would have to be shut down, and so forth. (Note: links to the telebriefings in this article have since been archived by the CDC.)

The CDC had a team in China, Dr. Messonnier told reporters, but she was “not at liberty” to speak about travel to the United States from Wuhan. Reporters got no explanation of who, exactly, was laying down the rules. In May of 2021, Dr. Messonnier suddenly resigned from the CDC and took a position with the Skoll Foundation. Her COVID performance had not been forgotten.

On October 8, 2021, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis , who was not sworn in but warned that false statements would lead to “criminal prosecution.” The subcommittee wanted to know if, as COVID spokesperson, Dr. Messonnier experienced any interference from the Trump administration. Messonnier, accompanied by lawyers, said the administration had not interfered. On the other hand, the former CDC official provided other revelations the subcommittee failed to pursue.

Messonnier began her career with the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. Her 2020 telebriefings were carefully scripted by a “communications team” of Dan Jernigan, Jay Butler and Anne Schuchat, all veterans of the EIS. At the time, Schuchat was principal deputy director of the CDC and believed to be the prime candidate to direct the agency. So it came as a surprise that in May of 2021, the same month as Messonnier left, Dr. Schuchat suddenly resigned from the CDC.

“After a long and fulfilling career in public health, infectious diseases, and epidemiology, it is the time for me to smell some roses,” Dr. Schuchat told reporters, but there was probably more to it. Schuchat had been the CDC’s Anthony Fauci, but unlike the NIAID boss, doctors Schuchat and Messonnier received no presidential pardon. (RELATED: Anthony Fauci’s Biggest Defender? Why Critics Are Scrutinizing Christine Grady)

Senator Rand Paul, who first referred Dr. Fauci to the Department of Justice, should now subpoena Schuchat, who currently sits on the boards of Swarthmore College and Gavi: The Vaccine Alliance. Dr Messonnier may be found at the Gillings School of Public Health. The CDC and EIS veterans should testify under oath and in public.

Were the Epidemic Intelligence Service veterans aware that Dr. Fauci funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology to perform gain-of-function research? What did the EIS officers know about the origin of COVID, and when did they know it?

Was anybody in the EIS or CDC disciplined, demoted, or dismissed for the failure to stop the COVID virus from arriving in America? Who told Dr. Messonnier she was “not at liberty” to talk about travel from Wuhan? Why did CDC Director Robert Redfield, who saw evidence of a laboratory origin, receive death threats?

And so on, all of great interest to the American people. If nobody is held accountable for COVID, that’s a loss for the people and a win for white coat supremacy.

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Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.