The Surgeon General Nominee on Lockdowns and Mandates

Commentary

President Donald Trump has chosen Dr. Nicole Saphier to be the next surgeon general, subject to Senate confirmation. She is director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New Jersey and interim director at MSK Basking Ridge, associate professor of radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College, and a well-published author and media personality.

The surgeon general no longer has much in the way of executive power. But even now, it does remain an important bully pulpit in matters of public health. What can we say about her core views on the hottest issues of our times, among which were her opinions on the COVID-19 pandemic response from 2020 to 2023?

Most attention has thus far centered on her 2020 book presciently named “Make America Healthy Again,” which offers a defensible path toward genuine reform in medical services and insurance, with an emphasis on changes in individual lifestyle choices. This is consistent with the message of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

But far more revealing is her May 2021 book “Panic Attack: Playing Politics with Science in the Fight Against Covid-19.” This is before Rochelle Walensky’s July 30, 2021, announcement that the COVID-19 vaccine would not stop transmission and before the Biden administration imposed shot mandates.

Here she is forthright in her position against lockdowns, school closures, vaccine mandates, hospital closures, and the removal of therapeutics from the marketplace to make room for shot-only solutions.

In this book, one of the best to appear in the entire sad period, she condemns fake science, government overreach, bureaucratic pretense, media complicity, and wild exaggerations of cases and deaths in service of generating public fear. The book is not a screed but rather a careful dissection of the profound errors of the period.

Her views fit well within the framework of the Great Barrington Declaration, calling for a more targeted approach to protecting the vulnerable rather than a sweeping lockdown that ruined so many lives.

I’m not in full agreement with her, of course, as my own books at the time were more stridently against the entire response. She is too willing to grant the possibility that masking helps on an individual level, even if she clearly rejects mask mandates. I don’t think the evidence supports her on this, simply because a mask cannot really have any significant effect on stopping a respiratory infection that is widely circulating.

That said, she seems to come by her views honestly, and, like most of us, her views have likely evolved in a good direction since those days. For example, she seems to have shifted on her views on masking.

She has also been extremely strong against the vaccine mandates that appeared after her book came out, saying in 2022: “The mask and vaccine mandates are doing far more harm than good. It’s time to ‘let’ anyone who wants to move on from the pandemic do so.”

Five years after her book came out, when most people agree with her initial condemnation of lockdowns and closures, it is perhaps hard to appreciate just how radical these views were at the time. To me, her book reveals that she possesses that rarest of qualities: the moral courage to speak out at a time when it was most needed and when doing so was an actual risk to her professional standing and social position.

We can read it today and say, “Of course this is right.” But not that many major voices were saying such things at the time. I get the strong sense in reading her book that she strives to be a truth teller regardless of the consequences. Even when I disagree with her, I do not doubt her sincerity and desire to be as accurate and reflect the best medical and scientific understanding. I also appreciate how bold she was when it mattered the most.

Here are some things she said.

“Overly harsh lockdowns were far less effective and far more destructive than limited, targeted approaches,” Saphier said. “When the science confirmed all of this, politicians stuck their heads in the sand.

“The country was in a state of shock. As people were home with their kids, government leaders had intervened and were now telling them that their job, their important contribution to solving the crisis, was simply to stay put and for heaven’s sake, don’t get sick or need any medical care. … However you would like to describe the national response to the coronavirus pandemic, please do not describe it as too small. Because it definitely was not that.”

She is quite clear.

“Our involuntary shutdown of medical care was the double-edged sword no one wanted, and we have been seeing the ramifications of such efforts ever since,” Saphier said. “People died because they avoided care or their care was obligatorily delayed. … Estimates show over one-third of Americans have skipped their cancer screenings because the health care facility canceled the appointment or out of fear of contracting SARS-CoV-2.”

On school closures, she said the following:

“Educational development aside, the anxiety and social isolation adults were experiencing were amplified in our children as they were separated from their teachers, friends, and daily routines. Children thrive with structure, an essential component of their lives that was stripped away.

“How much harm has been done through school lockdowns? In short: plenty.

“Schools shouldn’t have closed. Teachers’ unions shouldn’t have been allowed to bully politicians into enforcing anti-science policies. School closures immeasurably worsened the lot of overburdened working and unemployed parents who suddenly had to figure out how to effectively homeschool their children during a pandemic. And overly harsh lockdowns made things worse.”

On the protests of the summer of 2020, she offered this wry observation:

“If you were protesting, you could join all the large gatherings that you wanted. If, however, you wanted to go to church or hold a funeral for a loved one, you were out of luck. Americans were thus treated differently based not on science, but on a desire to promote some activities and prevent others without respect to the question of comparable medical risks posed by both.”

She wrote strongly against the removal of off-the-shelf therapeutics:

“Strangely, as federal officials encouraged loosening of medical licensing and practicing restrictions, the same caregivers were being restricted by state governments from being able to prescribe medications to their patients. In many instances, state governments threatened physicians with loss of licensure, fines, and even jail time if they prescribed HCQ [hydroxychloroquine] to treat their COVID-19 patients.”

As for the COVID-19 shot, she never got the vaccine herself because she believed that she had naturally acquired immunity. Nor did she believe that it was a good choice for young people or children. She did recommend it for older Americans and those with comorbidities. That was a view common only among the real dissidents, even if it does not go far enough.

Moreover, she offered even a defense of those who are against all vaccination:

“Most people who are distrusting, including the anti-vaxers, are not anti-science, uneducated, ignorant individuals; rather, they have a deep distrust of the process and interests of large government, and want honest guidance.”

Again, I’m not here to say that her book is 100 percent correct, written as it was at the height of the brutal political battle over the pandemic. That said, she freely and frequently cited Dr. Rand Paul and Dr. Scott Atlas, which reveals her sympathies and wide reading. She is likely like many of us, having shifted her opinions on issues over these five years. That said, everyone should admire how forthcoming she was in her 2021 book, a time when people with her views were being canceled from their jobs.

Saphier took a risk to stand up for what was right just when it mattered the most. For this reason, she is worthy of respect even where one might disagree.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.