‘Bullying and intimidation’
But edits of research that ‘hurt’ Trump seen as political interference
U.S. health officials say Canadian professor helped Trump downplay virus risks,
HAMILTON— In 2008, the University of Oxford brought back a widely revered postgraduate program in evidence-based medicine renowned for its commitment that health care be guided by science and research.
The first two cohorts of classes each saw 15 to 20 successful applicants, likened by its then-director to the “the crème de la crème” of young academics.
“I was scared teaching them,” said Amanda Burls, a now-retired public health expert with four decades of experience in the United Kingdom. “They knew more than I did.”
One of them was Paul Alexander, a McMaster University professor who now finds himself at the centre of a White House firestorm over concerns he allegedly muzzled government scientists and interfered with public health reports.
Alexander left his role as a senior adviser to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Wednesday and is due to appear before a congressional subcommittee on Thursday.
He is alleged to have demanded the authority to edit COVID-19 reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and accused the agency’s staff of trying to “hurt” President Donald Trump with its pandemic response.
It’s no surprise to Burls that Alexander spent seven months advising a country that is experiencing its worst public health crisis in more than a century.
The assistant professor in health-research methods at
McMaster has more than 60 peer-reviewed published works, at least six of which pertain to novel coronavirus research.
At Oxford, Alexander was driven, a natural collaborator who Burls said had great ability and enthusiasm.
He was a constant in the program’s small, interactive seminars, always available and often doing work that wasn’t required of the course “out of sheer excitement” for evidence-based practice.
“I worried he was almost too enthusiastic, like spreading himself too thin,” Burls recalled.
He was also very loyal, she said. At times, to a fault.
“Paul was very deferential. I would tell students, ‘Get on your computers. Challenge me. Tell me that I’m wrong.’ And that was not his modus operandi,” Burls said.
“He loved us (professors) so much that he was uncritical. He really respected me, which is fine, but not to such an extent that anything I said must be true.”
Alexander has been unabated in his support of the Trump administration’s response to a virus that has infected nearly seven million Americans and killed almost 200,000.
The Canadian, of Trinidad and Tobago descent, moved from Hamilton to Washington in late March to advise top HHS spokesperson Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign staffer with no background in health care.
Caputo, who said in July he didn’t know “if I could do my job” without Alexander, also left the department Wednesday.
The pair’s unlikely relationship began in 2015, when Alexander would frequently appear as a guest on Caputo’s radio talk show in Buffalo, N.Y., to chime in on scientific topics.
Both have been widely accused of contradicting scientific consensus and downplaying the pandemic’s severity since their appointment at HHS in April.
Emails originally obtained by Politco show Alexander demanded the CDC’s weekly scientific newsletter, known as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), be halted “unless I read and agree” and edit the documents.
He also blasted CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield and accused the federal health agency’s scientists of trying to “hurt the president” with a report he claimed wrongly inflated the risks of COVID-19 to children. “CDC to me appears to be writing hit pieces on the administration,” Alexander wrote. “Very misleading by CDC and shame on them.”
Alexander told the Globe and Mail on Wednesday that he was more qualified to analyze COVID-19 data than the 1,700 scientists at the agency. “I make the judgment whether this is crap,” he said.
McMaster said Alexander is not currently on the school’s payroll and as a consultant does not speak on behalf of the university.
Alexander declined to comment on the allegations Friday. He pointed to a statement made by Redfield and featured in a Breitbart article that dismissed claims of his political interference in the MMWR.
Caputo previously told the Spectator Alexander’s specialty is “criticizing other people’s work.”
On Friday, at least five respected public health experts agreed when asked whether science is predicated on the flow of differing ideas. All, however, said modifying public health reports is not a matter of academic freedom.
“The fact you’re a professor doesn’t give you licence to do political editing of a scientific publication,” said Joshua Sharfstein, an expert in public health communication at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“That’s not academic freedom. It’s political interference.”