The following is a transcript of an interview with Dr. Deborah Birx, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator in the first Trump administration, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Nov. 17, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr. Deborah Birx served as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator in Donald Trump’s first term. She also had a long career in public health in the army, working on AIDS in Africa, at the State Department, as well as time at the CDC. Good morning. Welcome back.
FORMER WHITE HOUSE COVID RESPONSE COORDINATOR DR. DEBORAH BIRX: Good morning, Margaret. Glad to be with you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So Dr. Birx, I want to ask you about your views on public health, which we’re looking at because of this nomination, potentially of Robert F Kennedy Jr. HHS has a wide portfolio here, vaccines, medicine, oversees Medicare, regulates food, beauty products, baby formula, reproductive health care. What would the impact be of having someone without government experience in that top job?
DR. BIRX: Well, I think the most important thing is what team he would bring with him, because you’re talking about really a large cap corporation with a highly diverse group, which you have to really bring together and, frankly, eliminate some of the duplication set between these agencies to really become more cost effective, and so really having a management person at his side, a chief of staff, perhaps that has really come out of industry that would know how to bring and look and bring those individuals together that are running the other agencies, because it’s a very comp- HHS is probably one of our most complicated departments.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you’re saying people with experience around him, we need to look at those lower level appointees Mr. Trump might make. Well, what’s so interesting with RFK Jr. is how he has, in some ways, tapped into this health movement in America. He’s talking about more regulation, not less when it comes to American food, here’s some of what he said:
ROBERT F KENNEDY JR.: I’m just going to tell the- the cereal companies to take all the dyes out of their food. I’ll get processed food out of school lunch immediately. 10 percent of food stamps go to sugar drinks to, you know, sodas. We’re creating diabetes problem, and our kids are giving them food that’s poison, and I’m going to stop that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Those sound like good goals. Can you actually take on big agriculture and get that through?
DR. BIRX: I think because a lot of the people who are suffering the most from these additives are actually people in our rural areas. 16 percent of the Americans live in a rural area, but they are providing all of our oil and gas, all of our fiber, all of our cotton and all of our food. And the level of diabetes in these communities because of their access to certain foods is extraordinarily high. I just came out of the field, 58 percent of the adults in the town that I was just in had already diabetes or prediabetes, based on a household survey where we went house to house. This is the reality of America and so what I’m hoping is he brings his transparency for all Americans and we really start to tackle these issues one-by-one-by-one. I think everybody across America wants to have healthy kids that they know will grow up and not end up with the complications of diabetes or heart disease.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It was very hard for Michelle Obama, when she was first lady to get any of that done, and it might be hard for lawmakers who come from some of those agricultural states to vote against their own interests in terms of the farm subsidies and the like.
DR. BIRX: Well, we’re not talking about eliminating good food. We’re talking about using all of their ingredients in a way that is more healthy for Americans and I think that’s what people are calling for now. Europe did it years ago, and I think we’re capable of doing that. We are really smart, high levels of technology, we can make food tasty without a lot of these additives, because we can see that other groups are doing it in a small way. So we’re not talking about eliminating the need for wheats and grains. We’re talking about putting those together in a healthy way.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you as well about some of his- the things he said about vaccines. As you know, the vaccine- vaccination rates are declining in America. He said things like restoring transparency around them. It’s not really clear what that means. Why do you think there’s a decline in vaccination?
DR. BIRX: I think there’s two pieces to it. I think when we talk about things in public health, we don’t acknowledge the concerns because when my children went to school, there was maybe one in 1000 kids with autism, diagnosed with autism. Now it’s three per 100. So every mom is seeing a classroom of kindergarteners where one of the children has autism. That’s scary to moms and dads, they want to know why. So it’s not good enough for us to just say vaccines don’t cause autism. It’s us finding what is the cause of autism and reverse it–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I think a lot of people would absolutely agree that it is ridiculous that there isn’t a lot of research and established causation for autism, but what he has said in the past is that autism is caused by vaccines and there’s no scientific basis for that conclusion as I understand it.
DR. BIRX: That’s correct. And so that’s why, when he talks about transparency, I’m actually excited that in a Senate hearing he would bring forward his data and the questions that come from the senators would bring forth their data. What I know for sure is he’s a very smart man who can bring his data and his evidence base forward, and we can have a discussion that many Americans believe already is a problem. So until we can have that transparency and that open discussion from both sides, I know the members have incredible staffers who will bring great questions from their constituents, and that hearing would be a way for Americans to really see the data that you’re talking about, that we can’t see that causation right now, but what is causing it? And so you’re absolutely right, addressing what the cause is will be critical and I think what has confused people is we weren’t clear about what COVID vaccines do and don’t. And so now people are questioning, well, what do my childhood vaccines do and don’t, and they don’t understand that some of the vaccines that their children are getting protect them from both disease and create herd immunity, and some of them that they get are just for their child, like H Flu and pneumovax to protect their child from getting very serious illness, and we’re just not explaining all of this correctly.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, and that’s why the messenger matters–
DR. BIRX: Yes, it does.
MARGARET BRENNAN: –so much on this, which is why his past statements are being scrutinized. You worked on AIDS for a good part of your career. He has said that he doesn’t take a position on the relationship between HIV and AIDS, but then he laid out alternative theories in his book, and said Dr. Fauci never produced a study to demonstrate his hypothesis using “accepted scientific proof.” Do you agree with that assertion, and HIV and AIDS?
DR. BIRX: Well, having spent a career in understanding how HIV and AIDS progresses, HIV virus is the cause of AIDS, there’s a whole set of things that happen, and I think what HIV taught me is you have to- it’s asymptomatic for 10 years, and we’re finally recognizing how important asymptomatic disease progression and disease transmission is. That’s what HIV taught us. But what other HIV taught us was the entire human immune system. So by investing in HIV research, we learned about CAR T-cells that we use today in cancer. So a lot of these research and investments pay off in other areas and I think once he’s there at HHS, he’ll see that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: If he’s open to the data. Dr. Birx, thank you. We’ll be right back.