WHAT’S THE STORY?
She’s the top woman doctor who pulled THAT face when President Donald Trump mused that injecting disinfectant might be a way to tackle coronavirus.
The expression on the face of Dr Deborah Birx as she sat near the Donald when he babbled on about light and disinfectant tackling the virus was priceless. She clearly didn’t know whether the president was being serious or just being his usual self, playing the role of chief jester of the free world.
Trump has since blamed the press for fake news about his comments and said his remarks were satire. Aye, right.
WHAT DID TRUMP SAY?
William Bryan, undersecretary for science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security, had said that sunlight and bleach could adversely affect the virus. Trump picked up on that report and addressed most of his following remarks to Bryan.
This is from the official transcript: “A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that, too. Sounds interesting, right?
“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”
Dr Birx clearly and instantly saw the potential danger from the president’s remarks, and her face showed it.
After all, just last month an elderly man died after taking chloroquine phosphate, an additive used to clean fish tanks. Trump had been promoting chloroquine – a different substance – as a potential treatment for the coronavirus, and it appears the victim got confused.
WHO IS SHE?
Dr Deborah Leah Birx is the coronavirus response co-ordinator for the Trump Administration’s White House Coronavirus Task Force. Aged 64, she has had a long and glittering career in medicine.
Born in Pennsylvania, she was a star pupil at her local high school and spent her spare time working on science with her brothers in a laboratory they made in their backyard.
She won top prize in a regional science competition in her final year in high school and, putting herself through university, she earned a BSc in chemistry and qualified MD from Pennsylvania State University.
Birx worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington from 1980 to 1989, and during that time she began to specialise in immunology.
She followed her then-husband into the military, joining the army reserves and then the regular army, where she rose to the rank of colonel during her 14 years service.
From 1985 to1989, she served as an assistant chief of the hospital immunology service at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre. Her official biography states: “Through her professionalism and leadership in the field, she progressed to serve as the Director of the U.S. Military HIV Research Program (USMHRP) at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research from 1996-2005.”
Dr Birx was one of the leading figures in research into HIV-Aids over many years, and persuaded President George Bush to have the USA take a leading role in the worldwide fight against HIV. So, when President Barack Obama wanted to appoint someone to lead his own $85 billion President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, or Pepfar, he turned to Birx, making her an ambassador at large with full diplomatic status.
HOW COME SHE GOT HER CURRENT JOB?
Because she really is one of the world’s top experts on immunology. On February 27, Vice President Mike Pence appointed Birx to the position of coronavirus response coordinator.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the long-serving director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has mentored Birx, who has praised Trump’s efforts, while her face says otherwise.
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