The new CDC director was once accused of research misconduct

After a major shake-up at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with the resignation of its former director over her ownership of tobacco stocks, the Trump administration on Wednesday appointed Robert Redfield, a Baltimore-based virologist and physician, as the agency’s new leader.

Unlike previous CDC directors, the HIV researcher has no experience at the helm of a public health agency. (Most directors come to the role with years of experience leading local or state health departments, or having already worked at the CDC.) Instead, Redfield was a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he was co-founder and associate director of the school’s Institute of Human Virology.

Throughout his career, he has focused on research and health care for people with chronic viral infections and infectious diseases, in particular HIV. He also served in the military and founded the Department of Retroviral Research within the military’s HIV Research Program.

“Dr. Redfield’s scientific and clinical background is peerless,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. “As just one example, during his two-decade tenure at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, he made pioneering contributions to advance our understanding of HIV/AIDS.”

While some have said this training may help Redfield respond to infectious disease outbreaks, others in the science community question the integrity of 66-year-old’s track record — and worry about the discriminatory and religious overtones of some of the health policies he’s championed during his long career.

In the early 1990s, Redfield faced accusations of scientific misconduct for misrepresenting data about an experimental HIV vaccine he was involved with. In a military investigation, he was eventually cleared of the misconduct charges but data he published about the vaccine had to be corrected, according to the New York Times.

One of the researchers who first reported Redfield’s misuse of data has been speaking out publicly after news of Redfield’s appointment emerged, Kaiser Health News reported. “Either he was egregiously sloppy with data or it was fabricated,” said former Air Force Lt. Col. Craig Hendrix, who is now based at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “It was somewhere on that spectrum, both of which were serious and raised questions about his trustworthiness.”

Earlier, in the 1980s, Redfield called for mandatory HIV testing among military recruits and reporting of the results to health authorities, according to the science watchdog group CSPI.

He also called for segregating HIV-positive personnel in the military — policies that “most medical authorities at the time, including the CDC and the Surgeon General,” opposed, according to Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the health committee, who wrote a letter to President Donald Trump about the appointment. “This pattern of ethically and morally questionable behavior leads me to seriously question whether Dr. Redfield is qualified to be the federal government’s chief advocate and spokesperson for public health,” she wrote.

Author and global health expert Laurie Garrett also questioned the choice of Redfield, calling his military HIV program “punitive” on Twitter:

“What one wants in a director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a scientist of impeccable scientific integrity,” the president of Center for Science in the Public Interest, Dr. Peter Lurie, said in a statement Wednesday. “What one would get in Robert Redfield is a sloppy scientist with a long history of scientific misconduct and an extreme religious agenda.”

A devout Catholic, Redfield also sits on the board of the Children’s Aid Fund, which was started by evangelical Christians and has championed abstinence-only education for HIV prevention “and other non-evidence-based approaches based on religious belief rather than science,” said Gregg Gonsalves, an associate professor at Yale Law School and former HIV/AIDS activist.

“But in emails with Dr. Redfield yesterday,” Gonsalves added, “he reassured me that he shares common goals with the rest of the AIDS community, scientists and researchers, patients and advocates.”

Others noted that the positions Redfield advocated for may be a relic of the early days of HIV when little was known about the virus.

“I think it is a mistake to judge someone’s views from decades ago by today’s standards,” said Jeffrey Crowley, who served as director of the Office of National AIDS Policy under President Barack Obama. “Now, when the science is more clear about what steps we need to take to end the HIV epidemic, or respond to the opioid crisis, I just hope that he will follow the science and provide bold leadership.”

The news of Redfield’s appointment comes amid months of controversy within the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that oversees CDC.

Redfield will replace Dr. Anne Schuchat, who has been acting director at CDC — a position she’s held twice in the space of about one year. In February, Schuchat replaced Brenda Fitzgerald, a Georgia public health official who stepped down as CDC director in January after Politico reported that Fitzgerald had purchased shares in a tobacco company just after taking her position at the agency — and that she had a history of tobacco investments prior to taking her post at CDC.

Fitzgerald wasn’t the first Trump-appointed HHS leader to step down. Tom Price, Trump’s first health and human services secretary, resigned in September after Politico reported on his use of private jets and taking charter flights at taxpayer expense.

The resignations raised questions about the thoroughness of the administration’s vetting procedures.

Under Fitzgerald, reports also emerged that officials at CDC had been banned from using words and phrases like “evidence-based,” “fetus,” and “transgender” in budget documents.

“[Redfield] has his fans and his detractors,” said John Auerbach, president and CEO of the public health nonprofit the Trust for America’s Health. “For me, the most important thing is his ability to support and advocate for the CDC and its important work. I wish him and the agency the best with regard to that goal.”