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Monday, in the middle of an epidemic of measles, of an epidemic of bird-shot report Bad security precautions at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced a new domain of surprising focus for his agency: Fighting Antisemism.
“Anti -Semitism – like racism – is a spiritual and moral disease that has crumple societies and kills people with lethalities comparable to the most deadly plagues in history”, wrote on X, linking to a Ministry of Health and Social Services press release. In this document, the Trump administration accuses Columbia University of “continuous inaction in the face of incessant harassment of Jewish students”. It is more precise to say that Columbia has Reacted to anti -Semitism in a way that some people find insufficient and others find excessive, but anything, HHS, as well as the Ministry of Education and the General Services Administration, undertakes “a complete exam” of the $ 51.4 million in Columbia in federal contracts and 5 billion dollars in federal engagements. In Kennedy’s account, “censorship and false stories of Woke Culture canceled have transformed our major universities into greenhouses for this deadly and virulent plague.”
I hate anti -Semitism. Columbia has struggle To protect both the rights of title VI of its Jewish students and the free-decourse rights of its activists aligned in Palestine. And the federal bureaucrats of the Ministry of Education who apply civil rights laws undoubtedly have the obligation to monitor campuses which obtain federal funds to guarantee that These two rights are adequately protected.
Public health officials, however, do not need to get closer to the debates on campus anti -Semitism. They are responsible for putting an end to literal plagues and plague, and perhaps alleviate chronic diseases on a large scale, and not to eradicate the social evils that they compare metaphorically to a disease.
Looking at the highest Health of America’s health on a question so far beyond his Ambit reminds me of a sadly famous moment of the coronavirus pandemic: when public health workers have signed a letter indicating that, despite the months of dissemination in person, they now encourage mass assemblies to protest against the murder of George Floyd. “Like the defenses of public health”, their open letter said: “We do not condemn these rallies as risky for the COVVI-19 transmission. We support them as vital for national public health and healthy health specifically of blacks. Like many Americans, I object: I also hate police abuses, but public health workers, who have no expertise in the police or activism, should have stayed on their way. Whenever public health officials saw questions beyond their main expertise, they may undermine their healthiest and scientifically founded statements.
Left and right officials have spent years Stretch the meaning of public health emergency include things as varied as vaping,, racismAnd Campus sexual assault. In recent months, officials have invoked the concept to include immigration to the American border and a Lack of affordable housing In Little Rock, Arkansas. These questions could be tangentially linked to health or, as in the case of vaping, could have an effect on public health over time and justify an intervention – pulmonary health studies, for example, or drug prevention programs. But they are not considered acute emergencies in public health. In 2021 essay Discuss for a more scrupulous and reasonable approach -, Lindsay F. Wiley, who heads the health law and UCLA law policy, has argued that the designation public health emergency Should be reserved for “a demonstrated threat of a serious transmissible disease with an epidemic potential – that which would be caused by a new previously controlled infectious agent which is easily transmitted”.
Health managers should apply a restriction similar to their non -urgent work. It is true that certain acts of fanaticism can cause the stress of the victims and that chronic stress can have cumulative consequences for health. But HHS refrains significantly to monitor the many other stressors of stress that students could experience – end exams, romantic ruptures – and that should not make exceptions for stressors that are morally repugnant. Kennedy is right that “anti -Semitism – like racism – is a spiritual and moral disease”. But his horror does not imply that the HHS should no longer fight it that the horror of cancer implies only bureaucrats of civil rights in the Ministry of Education should spend part of their working day in narrowing. Institutions are optimized for their own mission. The generalized demand, around 2020, that schools, businesses and reorient themselves as anti -racist activism centers produced only ineffective declarations and dysfunction. The instruction of the country’s health service to combat anti -Semitism is a similar proposal.
If the HHS in particular is even a little worse in terms of pandemic preparation because of its work on the life of the campus, people could die. Meanwhile, the Secretary of Health should defend subsidies and contracts that help fight diseases; Taking such funding for reasons unrelated to their effectiveness would be a setback for the health of Americans. Columbia researchers have made great discoveries on health issues as diverse as stomach cancer,, Vaccines targeting tumorsAnd How to treat hereditary breast cancerand they Execute clinical research trials On most diseases, you could name.
Congress members, bureaucrats of the Ministry of Education, Jewish organizations of civil society, complainants, lawyers and more pressure on Columbia in various ways to combat the anti -Semitism of the campus. America in general benefits from institutions and people who fight against anti -Semitism. But that does not require the participation of managers who should be busy fighting disease and death.