Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams is speaking out about himself and former White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx not resigning during the Trump administration.
Noting Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci have “expressed feeling conflicted,” Adams tweeted on Monday that they “all decided being at the table was better than having key issues go unheard.”
He then asked, “Why is the woman’s (or black man’s) perspective dismissed?” Adams added, “All had a choice, [and] stayed. Dr. Birx fought hard [and] saved lives.”
“People so freely suggest they would have left, but hold the one woman in the room to a different standard,” Adams said.
He continued, “If Dr. Birx or I weren’t there, many medical/public health conversations would’ve had no input whatsoever from a woman, or a person or color. That’s a heavy cross to bear.”
Adams shared on Jan. 20 that the Biden team asked that he step down as surgeon general and called it “the honor of my life to serve this Nation.”
Birx & Fauci are both great people who’ve expressed feeling conflicted. We all decided being at the table was better than having key issues go unheard. Why is the woman’s (or black man’s) perspective dismissed? 🤔
— Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) January 25, 2021
All had a choice, & stayed. Dr. Birx fought hard & saved lives. pic.twitter.com/7Z37QnhW2w
IDK what’s more perplexing- the many women and people of color who criticize Birx and I for choosing to stay on as often their only representation at the table, or the many white men who seem so quick to judge our motives and actions- compared to another white man. pic.twitter.com/060kXl9kXT
— Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) January 25, 2021
Birx was asked during an interview with CBS’s Margaret Brennan if she ever thought about quitting, to which she responded, “Always. I mean, why would you want to put yourself through that every day?”
She added, “I had to ask myself every morning, is there something that I think I can do that would be helpful in responding to this pandemic? And it’s something I asked myself every night.”
Fauci, who was a member of the White House coronavirus task force during the Trump administration, told The New York Times when asked if he ever thought about quitting, “Never. Never. Nope.”
“When people just see you standing up there, they sometimes think you’re being complicit in the distortions emanating from the stage. But I felt that if I stepped down, that would leave a void,” Fauci said.
He added, “Someone’s got to not be afraid to speak out the truth. They would try to play down real problems and have a little happy talk about how things are OK. And I would always say, ‘Wait a minute, hold it folks, this is serious business.’ So there was a joke — a friendly joke, you know — that I was the skunk at the picnic.”
Fauci now serves as the chief medical adviser in President Joe Biden’s administration. He has said it is “somewhat of a liberating feeling” under Biden amid the coronavirus pandemic.