- 2025 Multco 362.1969 R315r 2025
Redfield's Warning
What I Learned (But Couldn't Tell You) Might Save Your Life
Dr. Robert R. Redfield . Former CDC Director
- Dr. Redfield born 1951 July 10, 75 years old as I write this.
- no index, table of contents, chapter titles, footnotes, or references
Skyhorse Publishing isn't the pinnacle of book publishing
- 18th CDC director 2018 March 26 to 2021 January 20 - - 33 months 25 days
pvii Acknowledgements
p001 ONE
- p008 Three people from Redfield's father's team won the Nobel Prize for medicine. ... "but when I was 5 years old, he died."
- Robert Ray Redfield Sr. 1923-1956, surgeon and cellular physiologist
Redfield Jr. born 1951 July 10 so he was 4 years 5 months 26 days old when his father died
p009 Teenage job 2 summers (what age?), labwork with Dr. Sol (not Saul) Spiegelman at Columbia
p012 Walter Reed more service members with infectious diseases than killed or wounded in combat
p016 Ibsen's 1882 "medical" play An Enemy of the People
p017 at CDC 1981, patients with unusual symptoms ... HIV/AIDS
p022 Walter Reed colleagues "reluctant" to treat AIDs patients (homosexuals and drug abusers)
p025 TWO
p025 3 Ebola outbreaks during Redfield tenure
in DR Congo, US cases were in 2014
- p026 Public perception AIDs is gay men and IV drug users, 30% of Redfield cases were women, 50% married, half of husbands infected
- p027 proof that AIDS virus a bidirectional transmitted disease, including heterosexuals
- p029 physicians should diagnose AIDs (all patients?), not people who are just HIV positive
- p029 not just a temporary condition
- p029 American Red Cross tested for AIDS, but did not inform infected donors. "right NOT to know" ???
- p030 Illegal to put positive HIV test in New York and California patient records
- example of bleeding during childbirth, jeopardizing delivery team
p030 Ibsen's An Enemy of the People
- Redfield omitted "An" Enemy...
- p031 major Redfield told by general to not publicise HIV; Redfield responded with three options (1) fire me (2) tell superiors "message conveyed", (3) support me
- p033 Told AIDS convention that everyone infected would develop disease, booed by audience.
Wikipedia HIV article says prompt treatment zeros risk
p036 "generally accepted consensus" HIV entered humans eating SIV infected monkeys
p045 THREE
- p045 1942-46 "Office of Malaria Control in War Areas" in Atlanta
- mile-deep mosquito-free zones around 2200 military bases and factories in 32 mostly southern states and Caribbean.
p047 CDC discovered causes of toxic shock syndrome and legionnaires' disease
- p050 CDC test exercise: Killer flu, not enough needles and syringes - should elderly go without?
- As an "elderly", I'd accept a used/autoclaved syringe rather than no vaccine
- p051 policy recommendation: reduce vaccine development time to less than year
p053 May 2018 - John Bolton disbands National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense
- p054 No overall CDC budget, Congress funds specific progeams
p055 Cong. Tom Cole and Sen. Roy Blunt fought for $40M rapid response fund
p057 NIH salary reduced from $375K to $165K by aggrieved HHS secretary Alex Azar who previously approved original $375K
- p058 50% of all infections occur in 48 counties, DC, and San Juan P.R.
- p058 Nicotine products used by 37% of high school students and 20% of middle school students
p058 Juulpod 10x nicotine of one cigarette.
- p059 Azar controlled all CDC communications, tried to edit scientific publications, self-appointed on-air spokesman
- p061 2019 Dec 31, unexplained pulmonary illness in China, three families with multiple infections, first red flag
- p062 2019 September or October "huge respiratory illness outbreak in a Wuhan lab" CITATION NEEDED.
COVID-19 lab leak theory most scientists say zoonotic transmission from bats, to wild animals at Huanan Seafood Market to ~30 customers
p063 no nosocomial infections
- p063 Redfield: "Every single one of them has been there" (the wet market)
- p064 Jan 11 China officially announced first death from this disease
p065 FOUR
- p067 It's not a sin to be wrong in science ... but hypotheses must be debated and tested. Data shows right or wrong.
p068 Diamond Princess 3700 passengers, floating petri dish
- p069 new and different virus, almost half of infections asymptomatic
- p069 asymptomatic patients weren't tested.
- p070 mid-February 14 cases and no deaths. Statisticians predicted 2.2 million deaths by September
- p073 Early March $7.8B congressional appropriation for public health agencies and $0.5B for vaccine research
- p073 80% of all cruise ships at sea had outbreaks
- p075 Trump partial travel ban, prohibiting non-American entry from Europe
- p075 March 14 No Sail Order for 150+ passenger ships
p077 "no evidence that school children were bringing home infections" wrong
- p077 Fauci, Brix, Azar, and Redfield disagreed about COVID. "Government absolutely needs to speak with one voice", which Redfield assumes is his
- p079 Fauci 2020 March "I can say we will see more cases, and things will get worse than they are right now"
- at the time, 1000 cases and 31 deaths. 9As of 2026 March, 103M cases and 1.2M deaths)
- p081 Focus became avoiding 2.2M deaths
- p082 North Carolina refused CDC research. Many crowded Hispanic food workers, 44% of cases in 10% of population
- p083 New York first confirmed case March 1; March 27 23K cases and 265 deaths, April 6 72K cases and 2500 deaths
- p084Wrong belief: SARS-like, if infected also symptomatic
- p085 Miscommunication put many infected patients in nursing homes
- p085 "Many people don't like to admit" that staff working multiple nursing homes carried infection with it.
- or, some powerful people make hasty statements that are easily misinterpreted
p087 FIVE
- p088 Medical personnel gloved, worried about AIDS from blood on hands, real risk was needles and cuts.
- Retractable needles and shatterproof tubes better for safety
p089 cordon sanitaire term originated 1821, Redfield attributes it to "black plague", another name for the 1347-1353 Black Death
- p090 isolating patients understood before 1800s, sanitation later
p091 American Expeditionary ForceS brought influenza to Europe
p091 Named Spanish Flu because other nations censored death tolls
- p092 spitters fined one dollar, 50% of unskilled daily wage
- p094 2020 COVID CDC guidelines similar to 1919 Spanish flu medical/isolation guidelines
- p095 Guideline distancing of 6 feet compromise, Redfield favored 3 feet and hand washing
- p096 scientists confirmed that talking, sneezing, coughing or yelling could propel particles as much as 6 feet
p097 anticontagionist movement during 1793 yellow fever epidemic
p097 anticontagionist evolved into health freedom movement
- CITATION NEEDED. Health freedom encompasses many different (and often conflicting) ideas, such as supplements
p098 Friendly Botanic Society 1810 to 1860-
p098 Anti-Mask League
p101 Redfield opposed school closures. Valid for elementary schools with small class sizes but not older students and larger classes. More unreferenced Redfield opinion
- p102 Redfield supported billions of dollars for better ventilation and air purifiers. Great idea, in an alternate universe where production lines multiply exponentially as fast as virus does. Instead, production stopped from lockdowns, labor shortages, and lack of raw materials.
- p103 opinionated falsehoods on the internet feed confirmation bias
- p104 Public health collapse in NYC (8% mortality rate), Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, other cities
- p104 came down hard on crowded bars, shouting sprayed particles
p105 radiologist Scott Atlas headed Trump COVID task force, promoted herd immunity; public not encouraged to test
- p106 Redfield respected Birx, Fauci, several others focused on saving lives, not the next election
- p106 Atlas represented administration running for re-election
- p107 Fauci, Brix, FDA Commissioner Steve Hahn, Surgeon General Jerome Adams and others collaborated. Barred from public statements, but communicated back channel.
- p107 15 day pause bought time, saved a few lives until a vaccine
p109 SIX
p110 Benjamin Franklin's 4yo son Francis weak from dysentery, not inoculated for and died from smallpox to Franklin's lifelong regret
- p111 no HIV or lifelong influenza vaccine, Redfield feared a COVID-19 vaccine would take years
- p111 BioNTech (spelled BioNTeach in book) lipid nanoparticle mRNA vaccine
p112 2020 March 27 Operation Warp Speed mission: vaccine for public by 2021 January
p113 Viral vector vaccine worked for Ebola, AstraZeneca and Johnson&Johnson developed these COVID vaccines
- p115 Wash your hands and stay home ... morphed into washing everything entering home
p116 17th century beak nose doctor mask filled with aromatic substances
p117 Dr. Alice Hamilton urged masks in surgery
p117 Wu Lien-teh inventor of respiratory mask, protected physicians during 1910 Manchurian pneumonic plague outbreak
- p118 CDC recommended masks for infected people until symptoms gone
- p120 In private, Trump disagreed with Redfield but didn't challenge
- p121 asthma + Covid deaths are Covid deaths
p121 Obesity big cause of COVID deaths; 30% of Americans overweight, Koreans are 3% . Trump did not like that answer
- p122 Trump wouldn't wear mask
- p123 Trump attacked Biden for wearing a mask
- p123 Overuse of masks provided ammunition for anti-maskers, damaging to children learning to communicate
p124 Large rallies without masks, Herman Cain agreed, COVID diagnosis a week after a Trump rally, died
- p124 untested people kept away from Trump
- p125 until an early October White House ceremony, afterwards both Trump and Melania diagnosed with COVID
- Trump was 73yo and overweight (BMI 30.5 is obese)
- p126 Released from hospital, "maybe I'm immune? ... don't let it dominate your lives" Trump was so sick he needed oxygen, but treated with $$$$ monoclonal antibodies
- p127 flashback: after China shutdown, Redfield tells Trump to stop air traffic from Europe. Brix and Fauci agree
- p128 Brix and Fauci agree, Mnuchin disagrees. Trump says we can rebuild the economy, but not lost lives.
- p129 Unlike WW2 allies, in this battle there were too many camps with different agendas.
p131 SEVEN
- p131 November: Pfizer mRNA vaccine stage 3 trials show 95% efficacy.
- p133 days later, Moderna vaccine trials show 94.5% efficacy/
- p133 Ventilators didn't save lives, because patients had underlying conditions and were already critically ill
- p133 Strong steroids helped (HOW MUCH?)
- p134 Prone patients breathed easier
- p134 Tried Vitamin D on patients, no significant effect
- p135 Russian study, 7 years 320,000 patients found several vaccines reduced flu mortality . CITATION NEEDED
p137 Remdesvir for COVID "compassionate use", mixed results at best
p138 Hydroxychloroquine approved for limited use, Trump actively supported it
- p139 experts said little evidence of any effect
- p140 numbers hazy, thousands may have died from taking hydroxychloroquine . CITATION NEEDED
- p141 Trump wondered aloud whether people should drink bleach to treat COVID
p142 antiparasitic ivermectin lauded on "snake oil" internet
- p143 Australian in vitro test used 10x doses that would kill humans
p146 politics of Covid more important to Health secretary Azar than the science
p146 Azar demanded censorship of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
- p150 Then Azar's team falsely publicized Redfield's agreement to their inaccurate changes
- p150 Country split, listening only to those they agreed with politically.
p151 EIGHT
- p152 met with airlines, all planes changed from horizontal (all passengers breath the same air) to vertical ventilation, making "air travel extremely safe".
- p153 Administration wanted to reopen cruise industry while COVID was still spreading
p153 Data showed that every infected passenger on Diamond Princess infected 15 others, 4 times the Wuhan rate
- p153 Public health experts proposed 60 conditions for ships to meet; frequent testing, one week cruises, enforced six foot social distancing, no buffets or self-service food. Cruise lines caved.
- p154 Sweden no mandates, higher percentage of COVID deaths than neighbors
- p155 Scott Atlas: teens share disease, "develop herd immunity" ... and spread the disease among everyone else
- p156 no durable immunity to new COVID variants
- p156 Herd immunity usually requires 90% or more infection for an invariant disease, Atlas claimed 30% was enough
p157 Michael Osterholm "the most amazing combination of pixie dust and pseudoscience I've ever seen."
p159 WHO director general Tedros Ghebreyesus "Never in the history of public healt h has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic"
- p162 objections and death threats from prominent scientists after telling CNN that the disease originated in China
- p163 Trump: "by attacking you they are trying to get at me."
- p164 Bat virus in Yunnan closest (90%) relative to COVID
- p164 median age for infection is 50
- p165 asymptomatic transmission caised most new infection, air suspends virus for considerable amount of time
p165 Long COVID common, from 7.5% to 20%
- symptoms vary widely, include brain fog, muscle weakness, mental impairment, shortness of breath, joint pain, loss of smell and taste, even loss of speech. Standard medical tests don't find them, so attributed to psychological problems.
- p166 After Biden, Redfield to private practice, treated many Long COVID patients, similar neglect to early AIDS patients
- p167 All Redfield's AIDS patients died, all his later long COVID patients survived
- p168 started treating patients with three different anticoagulants
- p168 In 2025, COVID still kills 200 Americans per week
- p169 Mississippi imposed fewest restrictions, 5x per capita death rate of strict restriction Massachusetts
- p169 New York, mixed mask response, 40,000 deaths. Similar sized Hong Kong, universal mask adherence, 16 deaths.
- p171 School districts that spent most of 2020-21 remote fell behind half a grade in math, most of year in person "just over 1/3 of a grade". Difference less than 1/6 of a grade, in one class. What was the relative death rate?
p175 NINE
- p175 Army gave Redfield 17 vaccines in one day, gets all regular vaccinations
p176 Dr. Thomas Francis confirmed that influenza viruses mutate to escape immune systems, updated vaccines required
- p178 "how did vaccine happen so quickly?" ammunition for vaccination skeptics.
- p179 Vaccine testing Phase 1 and 2 merged, steps overlapped, FDA analyzed data immediately
- p180 committed to buy 100M doses from 6 companies, strict safety protocols
- p181 Vaccinations began December 14 with nursing director Sandra Lindsay receiving first Pfizer vaccine live on
p182 Redfield's stress pushed A1C (not "AIC") from manageable 5.8 to terrible 24, Type 2 diabetes (not "diabetes II" )
- p183 Tested 750 vaccinated, 2/3 no longer immune response; more like annual flu than endurign polio virus
- p183 People mistakenly informed they were permanently protected, not true.
- p184 vaccine prevented serious illness and death, but milder infections not prevented
- p184 Public told "two shots and done", but it not prevent infection, only serious illness
p184 Novavax traditional killed-virus protein vaccine lasts longer
p189 After Quebec invasion failure due to smallpox, George Washington's innoculation mandate reduced infections by 2/3rds
- p190 1905 Supreme court decided mandated vaccination was constitutional
- p191 Hundreds of lawsuits against COVID vaccinations, many still in the system
- p192 NYC fired vaccination-refusing firefighters. Some bought counterfeit vax records
- p192 Redfield favored education rather than force, informed people make the best choice
- p193 we learned more, but continued illogical policies
- p194 Redfield opinion that children need not be vaccinated, "the data is irrefutable" CITATION NEEDED
p194 "CDC showed death risk <18yo less than 0.01%" ... but what about spreading COVID to the vulnerable?
p196 thimerosal only encouraged anti-vaxxers
p196 MAYBE rare side effects: Moderna heart+brain swelling, AstraZenica blood clots, Pfizer anaphylaxis
- p197 Redfield wants long term phase-4 post-marketing studies to reaffirm (to who?) safety
- p197 vaccines successfully reduced death toll to 1.2M instead of projected 2.2M
p199 TEN
- p201 COVID-19 does not infect bats (WHICH bats? ALL bats?) researchers have not found a go-between, hence not natural emergence
so it just accidentally emerged from a biowarfare lab leak at an animal wet market??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation#Bio-weapon
p201 Fort Detrick virus escape deaths, 2 anthrax in 1950s, 1 viral encephalitis in 1960s
- p201 USA Today claims more than 1000 lab incidents (virus, bacteria, toxin) between 2008 and 2012
- but no reported deaths since the 1960s. Reported incidents means oversight is working and learning is occuring.
- now an average of 200 events per year ... but no deaths among 8000 people working there/
- p202 Mysterious respiratory illness at Greenspring Retirement Community, "an hour from Fort Detrick"
but NOT in Frederick, Germantown, Gaithersburg, Rockville, McLean, and a dozen other cities on I495 between
- there are 14 retirement communities in Frederick MD, within four miles of Fort Detrick
- p203 half-dozen lab leak examples
- p204 Official Chinese position is that COVID did not start there
- of course it did, but why NOT in a wet market via intermediate animal hosts?
- p207 leap to humans EITHER natural or manmade ... what about intermediate through unhealthy food animals?
- p208 Tony Fauci favors wet market origin, but most origin hypotheses require years and luck to prove
p209 Shi Zhengli discovered that SARS coronavirus originated in Yunnan horseshoe bats. WIV did create a recombinant coronavirus ... in 2017. Her January 2019 paper Bat Coronaviruses in China did warn of a probable future spillover event.
- Redfield offers no direct evidence that Shi Zhengli did gain-of-function research IN 2019
- p211 not plausible that the virus went through an intermediate animal and "immediately" learned how to be human transmissible
- who said "immediate"? It may have taken years in animals, perhaps also in wet market vendors
- p211 accuses researchers like Shi Zhengli of scientific arrogance without evidence
- p212 Fauci, Collins, and Gary Nabel defend gain of function research ... as opposed to POMA misanthropy
- p213 we have to create these dangerous viruses to understand them? Bullshit. We must create and test mechanisms in artificial lab conditions, but we do not need to create COMPLETE and dangerous pathogens to do so.
- p213 "but then they decided to publish the details of this experiment". ?
- p215 ... in full detail, one of them in Nature, the other in Science . CITATION NEEDED
p215 Ron A. M. Fouchier "The more danger a pathogen poses, the more important it is to study it"
- p215 "The wisdom of publishing this material continues to elude me" uh, instead, Ignorance Is Strength?
- not publishing does NOT stop research behind closed doors, perhaps in a biowarfare lab in one of dozens of countries
- p216 Mike Pompei shows classified document showing virus did not come from nature
p217 virus targets human furin cleavage site WP:"All available evidence points to the SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site being the result of natural evolution."
p217 David Baltimore initially agreed this was proof, but later said FCS is unusual, but natural evolution remains plausible
- p218 all that (small subset of thousands of sources) makes me confident it came from a lab
law-school-trained Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agrees
- p219 Fauci "The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute"
p219 Trump appointee 2025 NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya supports Wuhan accusations ... and also the Great Barrington Declaration, fantasizing about herd immunity
p221 ELEVEN
- p221 climate change causes pathogen change (Citation Needed). More people living closer with limited hygiene
- p222 SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 all came from bats
p223 next pandemic more likely to originate in birds. H5N1 bird flu can infect people.
- agreed, and domestic food birds are raised in horribly cramped and dirty conditions that DO infect workers
- p224 972 bird flu infections since 2003, 468 deaths, about half, compared to 1% COVID deaths
- p225 "I can take the virus" ... and create a human pathogen in a week
- p226 The most vital step ... stop gain-of-function research
- uh ... how do you enforce that for an entire planet? How do you even detect GOF research in a foreign military lab?
- p228 "Our government should have an A-team responsible for biosecurity. Right now that does not exist."
- How do you measure the "A-ness" of a team? What criteria? Who decides?
- We need MANY teams ... with guard rails, oversight, and incentives to outperform other competitive teams.
- p229 the (government billions-funded) private sector produced multiple lifesaving vaccines
- p229 example: AZT for AIDS, from 30 pills a day to one that completely managed HIV
- p231 Redfield working on treatment for bird flu, starting with mice, then ferrets, then monkeys
p231 Redfield asked Mortality and Morbidity to summarize hydroxycloroquine COVID research
- "pummeled by my own people" (Redfield aggrieved). Of COURSE they pummeled Redfield, there was counter-evidence, which dingbat ideologues would ignore, then misuse hydroxycloroquine.
- p234 COVID was surprising, researchers learned new information and disproved prior information
- same for some Redfield statements in this book.
- p235 People who are older, obese, diabetic, heart-diseased reacted differently to vaccines
- p236 "Ironically, being able to admit when you are wrong is actually a way of building future trust."
Redfield indeed admits to some wrong, but many critics (including me) have found more wrong. Perhaps those wrongs will be corrected (or at least noted) in a future edition of this book, with an index and references and a publisher with finicky editorial oversight. Redfield might learn more and faster that way.