CDC = Centers for Disease Control

There might be some dispute about the number 1 controllable disease, though tobacco use is probably number 1, followed closely by obesity-induced diabetes. That being said, it is perhaps unsurprising that another Trump appointee has been called out for dangerous health-related hypocrisy. The first of note was alleged physician Tom Price, former Georgia Congress critter. Tom a victim of Travelgate should just as well been a victim to the STOCK act, of which he was notably violating.

The STOCK Act

The STOCK Act is an original bill to prohibit Members of Congress and employees of Congress from using private information derived from their official positions for personal benefit, and for other purposes. With this bill in place, Congressman will no longer be allowed to use information garnered through official business for personal reasons. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act prohibits members and employees of Congress from using "any nonpublic information derived from the individual's position… or gained from performance of the individual's duties, for personal benefit.” The bill also applies to all employees in the Executive and Judicial branches of the federal government. The STOCK Act requires a one-year study of the growing political intelligence industry, and requires every Member of Congress to publicly file and disclose any financial transaction of stocks, bond, commodities futures, and other securities within 45 days on their websites, rather than once a year as they do now. The Act also requires members of Congress and Executive branch officials to disclose the terms of mortgages on their homes, prohibits them from receiving special access to initial public stock offerings, and denies federal pensions to members of Congress who are convicted of felonies involving public corruption. The bill is divided into nineteen sections...

Section 6

Amends the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (EGA) to require specified individuals to file reports within 30 to 45 days after receiving notice of a purchase, sale, or exchange which exceeds $1,000 in stocks, bonds, commodities futures, and other forms of securities,

This Act is a fortuitous accomplishment of Joe Biden and Hussain Obama, one of the very few either has managed in their years of public disservice.

The CDC has several missions:
1. Research into cause of disease, often communicable, but not necessarily
2. Epidemiological surveillance of disease patterns
3. Notification of local Health Jurisdictions of impending serious disease occurrence, whether naturally occurring or man-made
4. Research in disease prevention and treatment developments
5. Making available to the medical community means of directing and controlling diseases whenever possible
6. Notification of the medical community AND to the population at large knowledge about said conditions and causes to inform them appropriately.

After the unlamented departure of Tom Price from HHS, a sort of shake-up began. Perhaps unrelated to Price's corruption and patronage, came the appointment of deeply flawed physician, Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald of Georgia (in fact the same district from which Dr. Price was spawned). She in fact was appointed by the orange-haired bezoar to head the CDC.

But, as to be expected from a government containing the likes of Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross, Dr. Fitzgerald had a penchant for making a loose buck wherever she could.

The Trump administration’s top public health official bought shares in a tobacco company one month into her leadership of the agency charged with reducing tobacco use — the leading cause of preventable disease and death and an issue she had long championed...

Buying shares of tobacco companies raises even more flags than Fitzgerald’s trading in drug and food companies because it stands in such stark contrast to the CDC’s mission to persuade smokers to quit and keep children from becoming addicted. Critics say her trading behavior broke with ethical norms for public health officials and was, at best, sloppy. At worst, they say, it was legally problematic if she didn't recuse herself from government activities that could have affected her investments...

After assuming the CDC leadership on July 7, Fitzgerald bought tens of thousands of dollars in new stock holdings in at least a dozen companies later that month as well as in August and September, according to records obtained under the Stock Act, which requires disclosures of transactions over $1,000. Purchases included between $1,001 and $15,000 of Japan Tobacco, one of the largest such companies in the world, which sells four tobacco brands in the U.S. through a subsidiary.

One of Fitzgerald's stock purchases included Merck which works cooperatively with CDC on several ventures including HIV, Ebola, and Zika viruses. The first of these three entities provides massive support to private industry--including firms like Merck.

Fitzgerald could have abided by an ethics agreement already in place at CDC by recusing herself on matters pertaining to stock interest such as tobacco and Ebola. But seeing as to the wide-ranging disease promotion caused by tobacco, Doc Fitzgerald would have recused herself on much of the required duties of CDC Director. In other words, she would have recused herself to the point achieved by Beauregard Sessions in matters pertaining to Russia--i.e., useless and impotent.

Retribution for her callous misdeeds fortunately visited her early, before she could wreak havoc on health matters. Politico reports her rapid resignation.

Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald's resignation comes one day after POLITICO reported that one month into her tenure as CDC director, she bought shares in a tobacco company. Fitzgerald had long championed efforts to cut tobacco use, which is the leading cause of preventable death.

Fitzgerald, a doctor and former Georgia Department of Public Health commissioner, assumed leadership of the agency in July and was close to former HHS Secretary Tom Price, who resigned in September after POLITICO reported his use of private jets.

An apologist for Fitzgerald, CEO John Auerbach of Trust for America's Health said

“She was doing a good job of leading the CDC”

To me, that's like saying Hitler was doing a good job of directing the Wehrmacht. Auerbach continued his apologia with

disappoint[ment] because the CDC’s work is extremely important and it needs to have support from the administration and from Congress.”

How can that hypocritical alleged health proponent Auerbach bemoan the absence of such an overt corrupted director of the CDC? Support from the Administration--what? In the form of another corrupted individual similar to Price and Fitzgerald?

Note from the surgeon general:

Inhaling the fumes of government propaganda is dangerous to your health