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Demetre Daskalakis, an official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), resigned this week, claiming the Trump administration’s policies ignore science. However, his own leadership during the Biden-era monkeypox response was criticized for putting optics over public health.
Amid the Trump administration’s efforts to push out CDC Director Susan Monarez, a handful of other top CDC officials, including Daskalakis, resigned in protest of the Trump administration’s policies. Daskalakis wrote in his resignation letter that was posted to social media that the health policies put forward by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy do not “reflect scientific reality.” He also accused the Trump administration of attempting to “erase transgender populations,” while also using the term “pregnant people” to describe women who are about to give birth.
But flashback to 2022 and 2023, after the monkeypox virus had spread across several countries and made its way into the U.S., during which Daskalakis was among the Biden administration’s top advisers who spearheaded the national response to the disease outbreak.
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Government communications from that time period, uncovered by watchdog group the Oversight Project, show that officials were aware that the disease was spreading among the gay community. However, those communications, and other records, show the administration appeared to be more concerned with protecting the stigma targeting the gay community, than they were with implementing measures that would provide the best mitigation response.
“A common theme was public health officials identifying locations where outbreaks occurred, to include bathhouses and saunas,” according to the Oversight Project. “Officials never broached consideration of shutting down these locations. This draws a stark contrast to the public health guidance and shutdowns of gathering places during COVID, to include gyms and skate parks.”
In 2023, after the monkeypox outbreak had taken hold in the U.S., Daskalakis went on national television to let the country know that his team was “making sure [they] got the word out in a way that supports people’s joy, as opposed to calling them risky.”
“You know, one person’s idea of risk, is another person’s idea of a great festival or Friday night, for that matter. So, we have to sort of embrace that with joy and make sure that folks know how to keep themselves safe,” the Biden monkeypox coordinator added.
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Meanwhile, during the outbreak, Daskalkis posted a tweet from gay sex app Grindr that stated “Dr. Daskalakis could jab me any day,” with a sticker of a flattered cat.
In other social media posts from around the same time, Daskalkis can be seen using male models wearing leather bondage straps to make an entrance at an HIV prevention summit.
While in his role at the White House leading the monkeypox response, Daskalkis also reportedly ran an STD screening operation from an after-hours sex club in New York City. When asked about the operation in an interview, Daskalakis described it as “exciting” and added there was “not much sleep time.” Later in the interview, he added: “I’d already kind of been the bathhouse HIV testing doctor.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Daskalakis about the juxtaposition between his criticism of Kennedy’s policies not reflecting “scientific reality,” and his role in the Biden administration’s approach to monkeypox, but did not receive an immediate response.
