03/13/2026
Robert Redfield, former Director of the CDC, makes for an interesting subject. Whereas most scientific leaders during the pandemic were either financially corrupt, were caught lying, or have remained largely silent, Redfield emerged untainted by ethical allegations. He appears, and his book supports that, to have been genuinely concerned with the public interest and only that. That principled focus makes his mistakes, misperceptions and fate a valuable case study from which to draw some sociological and philosophical lessons about science, government, and the pandemic.
By Jonathan Latham, PhD. It is a remarkable fact that, despite its purported emphasis on science, no one who led the US pandemic response in its first year, not Robert Redfield, not his colleague Deborah ...
