“DOGE is probably one of the greatest things to happen in U.S. history”
In December 2021, just before the worst wave of the pandemic for children, I wrote an article titled Incorrect Numbers that discussed an error made by Drs. Marty Makary and Nicole Saphier, our Surgeon General nominee. They had penned an opinion piece in the WSJ regarding the pediatric COVID vaccine but misread a CDC slide set and therefore drastically understated the virus’s impact on children. I wrote:
Having made them myself, I completely understand that doctors can make errors. However, I can’t fathom why some of them don’t seem to care about correcting them, especially considering the health of children is at stake.
Indeed, my article wasn’t about the incorrect number itself, but rather these doctors’ total indifference to it. They were spreading fake statistics about a serious disease in a prominent newspaper and didn’t care at all. That’s inconceivable to me. I’ve misstated a few numbers here, and this still bothers me. Although SBM is much less impactful than the WSJ, I’ve immediately fixed my errors and made a note of them. It’s not that hard to do.
In contrast, the WSJ article remains uncorrected to this day, and this has important implications for Dr. Saphier’s suitability as Surgeon General. I see no reason trust doctors who refuse to correct their errors, and many such individuals gained power under MAHA. Like Dr. Saphier, they also said ridiculous things on Fox News. None of them ever admitted error.
When given a chance to prove themselves in the real world, they’ve performed as expected. Dr. Makary and his underlings left the FDA in disgrace, and things are not going well at the CDC and NIH under the “leadership” of doctors with a similar disregard for basic facts.
However, my concern about Dr. Saphier’s character and inability to admit error extends to more than just a single number in a long-forgotten article. Dr. Saphier said Kennedy was “by far one of the best visionaries when it comes to the healthcare industry” when he was nominated. She profits from selling supplements, and back when DOGE was ramping up in February 2025, Dr. Saphier told worried cancer researchers, “you just have to give it a pause right now.”
Right after Elon Musk boasted that he had “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Dr. Saphier paid him homage. “DOGE is probably one of the greatest things to happen in U.S. history,” she said. “Elon Musk and DOGE, I truly believe, are doing great things.” She said it was “for the greater good of things.”
“USAID Shutdown Has Led to Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths”
Enough time has passed to judge whether this was the case. Today the headlines read NIH Killed Grants on Orders from Elon Musk’s DOGE and USAID Shutdown Has Led to Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths. In his article How USAID Funding Cuts Are Killing Kids, Dr. Vincent Iannelli listed the following ways DOGE hurt children around the world:
- worsening of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda
- neglected tropical diseases, like lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis, coming back as drug distribution drives in high-risk countries ended
- the shutting down of emergency ambulance services in many countries
- more cases of severe acute malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, with stunting, wasting, and deaths
- children contracting and dying with malaria because health centers have run out of mosquito nets and anti-malaria medicines
- deaths from cholera in South Sudan
- an end to programs targeting tuberculosis, which means a huge risk that drug resistant tuberculosis will emerge in many countries
- Rohingya refugees getting half of their usual rations of food
- an end to HIV prevention programs in Gaza and Mozambique, which has the second-largest AIDS epidemic in the world
- the closure of HIV treatment programs in many countries that covered over ten thousand children and pregnant women
- the deaths of refugees at food distribution centers in Malawi because of severe hunger
- the loss of health services for children at a detention camp in Syria
- people in Uganda and Tanzania skipping or rationing doses of HIV medications
- deaths from increased violence in conflict-prone areas
- the loss of healthcare and malnutrition treatment to children, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers in Yemen
- clinical trials being stopped or interrupted, including clinical trials for HIV vaccines, a malaria vaccine, and treatments for cholera and tuberculosis
- less money to the effort to finally eradicate polio!
I hope during her confirmation testimony, Dr. Saphier will have the integrity to either explain why she believes this overwhelming suffering isn’t just good, but one of the greatest things to happen in U.S. history — up there with the moon landing and defeat of Nazi Germany.
Or, she can admit that she was wrong.
But something tells me she will choose option C: act as if it never happened, and claim it is rude for anyone to remind her of her own words. And therefore, her credibility will be as dismal as all the other incompetent disinformation doctors she’ll be joining in the MAHA circus.