“Dr. Redfield’s scientific and clinical background is peerless,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. This came after Redfield was appointed his position as head of the CDC after the resignation of Brenda Fitzgerald in 2018. 

Robert R. Redfield, MD is the current director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Redfield has a checkered past with his creation of faulty vaccines, which leads me to believe that he should not be in charge of finding a cure for the current pandemic. 

For a long period of his career, Redfield served as a primary care physician for the Army and worked on researching and aiding soldiers with HIV/AIDS in 1993. Redfield attempted to alleviate the AIDS epidemic by implementing strict quarantine regulations and an invasive background check on soldiers’ sexual pasts. The background checks, which lacked confidentiality, led to the exposure of many soldiers a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Additionally, Redfield instilled a sense of hope in the HIV/AIDS community by stating that he had created a vaccine called “VaxSyn.” Sadly, this vaccine didn’t work and even when he was aware of this, he continued to push this false vaccine onto tens of thousands of people, according to Now This. 

This accusation of scientific misconduct has led many people, including me, to believe Redfield is unfit for finding the cure to end this pandemic. Now as the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting countries all over the globe, everyone is desperate for a cure to end these unprecedented times; our fate lies in the hands of a man with a checkered past. 

I’m all for believing people can change, but amidst this deadly pandemic that has claimed the lives of over 100,000 people, I believe we need a trusted professional to take his place.

Overall, the controversial HIV fiasco led me to lose trust in Redfield. His use of bunk science in the ’90s is an indication that he is not fit to be the head of the CDC while this pandemic rages on.