As allies turn on her, Birx presses on
Key member of the virus task force also draws praise
WASHINGTON — As Dr. Deborah Birx was taking heat from both President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week, the Democratic governor of Kentucky spoke up in her defense.
Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, had visited his state in late July, after he issued a statewide mask order and was contemplating even more aggressive steps, including closing down bars, Gov. Andy Beshear recounted on a private conference call with Vice President Mike Pence and the rest of the nation’s governors.
It was a difficult move for a Democrat in a Republican state, but Birx provided him cover.
“She stood in front of our press and made it very clear that she and the administration supported the steps that we were going to take,” Beshear said.
It was most likely welcome praise for the otherwise embattled Birx, a respected AIDS researcher who took her current post five months ago and increasingly seems like a woman without a country.
Old allies and public health experts have expressed disgust at her accommodations to Trump and, more so, at the performance of the federal response she is supposed to be leading against the most devastating public health crisis in over 100 years. Pelosi said she had lost confidence in Birx, while Trump called her “pathetic” after she suggested the obvious: The coronavirus is in a “new phase” and is spreading rampantly.
“Her credibility, particularly in the HIV-AIDS community,
Dr. Deborah Birx,
has taken an enormous hit in the last five months,” said Mitchell Warren, the executive director of AVAC, a global advocacy group fighting to end HIV/ AIDS, who has worked closely with Birx. “She is absolutely data driven, so it is incredibly disappointing to see her coordinating a national response which has not at all been best in class, but has been a disaster on many levels.”
But beyond the cameras and outside the Washington media bubble, governors say she deserves praise for persistence and presence. Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi, a Republican, said she prodded him for weeks to institute a statewide mask order; last week he relented.
“She would have been more aggressive. I was a little less aggressive,” he said.
Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease specialist at Emory University and who leads the scientific advisory board for a State Department AIDS program run by Birx, said, “I know that she told the vice president, ‘Enough is enough; you’re putting a mask on and appearing with a mask,’ ” adding that Pence followed the order.
Birx declined to be interviewed for this article. Her defenders and critics say she is in a difficult spot, serving a mercurial president who has shown little regard for science.
“Trump is like the reverse Midas,” said Gregg Gonsalves, a longtime AIDS activist and assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health. “Everybody who is in his orbit, if they’ve had any integrity, it gets leeched away from them like some parasite.”
But some say Birx is partly responsible for mismanaging the government’s response. A report issued by the State Department’s inspector general in February relayed criticism of her AIDS program leadership team, which was called “dictatorial” and “autocratic.” She has been critical of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and some public health experts view her as partly responsible for sidelining the agency.
Some also fault her for offering unduly rosy assessments of the pandemic — in public and in private. In April, she told officials in the White House Situation Room that the United States was in good shape.
“I understand obviously wanting to highlight what’s working well,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “I also think that failing to be frank about the shortcomings of the response undermines governmental credibility.”
From her office in the
West Wing, Birx serves as a link between federal agencies — the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and others — engaged in the response.
She is also the point of contact for state and local officials, and oversees drafting of detailed reports offering guidance to the states. She briefs Pence weekly and the president at least once a week, and must contend with competing forces on the task force, which includes Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC director. She is often the only woman in the room.
In interviews with AIDS activists and public health experts, Birx drew unfavorable comparisons with Fauci, in whose lab she trained. Gonsalves, who has long known both of them, said he wrote in March to
Birx, Fauci and Redfield, as well as Adm. Brett Giroir, who oversees coronavirus testing, complaining that they were “parroting the president.” Only Fauci replied.
“Debbie is now in the position where she’s saying to the emperor that those new clothes look fantastic,” Gonsalves said.
But inside the White House, aides refer to Birx as “Dr. Doom” for her efforts to temper the president’s positive spin. And she and Fauci are not in the same situation. Fauci, 79, is nearing the end of his career and is a civil servant, which frees him to speak his mind. Birx, 64, is a political appointee who serves at the pleasure of the president.
In a statement, Alyssa Farah, the White House director of strategic communications, said, “Dr. Birx is an American hero, and the president has great respect for her.”