In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Yesterday, I ran into an unintentionally revealing quote from Dr Scott Gottlieb , former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and regular COVID talking head: “Now if monkeypox ‌gains a permanent foothold in the U‌nited States and becomes an endemic virus that joins our circulating repertoire of pathogens, it will be one of the worst public health failures in modern times not only because of the pain and peril of the disease but also because it was so avoidable,” Gottlieb wrote in a recent opinion-editorial for the New York Times. “Our lapses extend beyond political decision making to the agencies tasked with protecting us from these threats.” Gottlieb, who now serves on Pfizer’s Board of Directors and is a partner at the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, also judged that the U.S. government’s missteps in tackling monkeypox are similar to its failures to combat the coronavirus. “Our country’s response to monkeypox ‌‌has been plagued by the same shortcomin...