#1,076: First, Do No Harm
Dr. Erica Schwartz (MD, MPH, JD
Our late maternal grandfather, “Grandpa Doc” (James J. Kagan, DPM: 1891-1974) had a story for any event, every occasion. Perhaps that’s where I got it from. One of my favorites dealt with the first Jew being elected POTUS. At the inauguration, a man sitting next to the about-to-be-sworn in president’s mother softly said to her “You must be so terribly proud of your son . . . I cannot imagine the feeling.” The mother turned toward the man, smiled warmly and said: “Most certainly . . . but you should only meet his sister: SHE’S a doctor!”
Although she herself is not Jewish (her husband, Dr. Daniel Schwartz is), there is a much to be proud about Dr. Erica Schwartz who, just last week, was nominated by POTUS to be the new director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). First and foremost there is her extraordinary CV: Dr. Schwartz is a retired rear admiral in the in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who was Deputy Surgeon General from January 2019 to April 2021, who earned both a BA with a degree in biomedical engineering with a minor in East Asian studies in 1994 from Brown University, as well as an M.D. from the same Ivy League university in 1998. She also earned a Juris Doctor at the University of Maryland and is a member of both the AMA and the District of Columbia Bar. Her medical specialty is occupational and environmental medicine; she is also an expert health policy, pandemic response (including COVID-19 testing sites), and implementing disease surveillance systems (systemic, ongoing processes for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting health data to detect, monitor, and prevent disease outbreaks.
I don’t know about you, but to me, Dr. Schwartz seems to be ideally suited to taking over the CDC. And by the way, unlike her potential boss, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., she is both personally and professionally pro-vaccine. While testifying before a host of House and Senate committees last week, Sec. Kennedy, Jr. was questioned by Rep.. Raul Ruiz, MD (CA-25) in a House hearing: “If Dr. Schwartz is confirmed as CDC director, will you commit on the record to implement whatever vaccine guidance she issues without interference?” The secretary’s response? “Im not going to make that kind of commitment.” Dr. Ruiz, the son of farmworkers who earned an MD, 2 MPHs form Harvard (the first Latino to do so) quickly retorted “Because you probably won’t, you’ll fire her. Like you did with Dr. [Susan] Monarrez, because you will not accept recommendations based on science,”
Although Dr. Schwartz’s nomination has thus far garnered both bi-partisan support and near unanimous plaudits from the scientific/medical communities, there is a deep underlying concern about how Secretary RFK, Jr. will treat her and the obvious differences they share when it comes to the cavernous gap between proven science and political sorcery. Let’s face facts: there is a world of difference between Hippocrates commanding physicians to “First, do no harm,” and the HHS Secretary instructing medical people to “denigrate and deny science."
During his round of grilling by various congressional committees for the first time since he came into office, Kennedy strenuously pushed back on Democrats’ assertions that he bore some of the responsibility for the measles outbreak in the U.S., the worst the country has experienced in nearly a half-century. He told members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the outbreak is global, that it started before he took office and that those who were sick were mostly 5 years or older, which meant their parents had decided against vaccination before he was in office. For their part, Republicans mostly praised Secretary Kennedy’s work to urging healthier diets and expanding access to peptides, often unproven compounds that are popular in the wellness industry. I for one find it somewhere between highly ironic and outright daffy that a man like Kennedy, who talks endlessly about healthy (and expensive) diets, should work for the president with the worst possible eating habits of any chief executive in the nation’s history . . . with the possible exception of the 345-pound Wiliam Howard Taft.
Two areas where Felon47, The Brain Worm and their bootlicking toadies have forced dieting on both America and indeed, the entire planet, are in the fields of medical care and research. Since RFK took the helm of HHS in February of last year, his department has shed more than 17,000 jobs according to data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Figures show that HHS and its four key subagencies - FDA (Food and Drug Administration), NIH National Institutes for Health), CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) and CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) have cut, respectively, 4,332, 4,049, 2889, and 1061 jobs. The single largest job loss by percentage was at the CDC, which managed to fire nearly a quarter of its employees. Professionals estimate that it will take a decade or more to replace these employees with people of similar caliber, and easily a generation to replace their level of experience.
What’s even worse is the amount of money cut from medical research. As of the first of February of this year, more than 7,800 research grants have been terminated or frozen. A majority of these are monies that would normally go to research labs attached to universities. This means that some 25,000 scientists and personnel are gone from agencies and labs that have long made the United States the premiere source of new medicines, medical procedures and new drugs in the world .
This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. Seeing the devastation being visited upon medical research absolutely infuriates me. You see, for the past 30+ years I have spent the majority of my working hours serving as a member of an Institutional Review Board . . . a group of medical, scientific and academic professionals whose collective job is to oversee clinical research projects with a mind towards making sure that the research is what you might call “clinically kosher” and that the rights of the participants (subjects) involved in the research are protected. Over the years, I have grown to specializing in translating medical terminology into lay English, in order to ensure that participants can understand what they are signing up for. It’s not easy; doctors and scientists speak a unique tongue called “medicalese” . . . whether their native tongue be English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean or Hebrew. Of all the many professional fields and pursuits, I have engaged in over a long life (actor, political speechwriter, historian, lecturer, congregational rabbi, blogger, and professor), none has been more challenging - or given me greater satisfaction - than working on an IRB. It is the one thing I’ve ever done that gives me the feeling that maybe - just maybe - I’m making a tangible difference in the world.
Getting approval for a new drug, medical procedure or device can be a long and very costly process. First comes the laboratory stage, in which rats, mice, zebrafish, dogs, cats and other animals are kept in a vivarium (an accredited medical research facility designed to house laboratory animals under strictly controlled environmental conditions) where they become the first creatures to undergo preclinical research. After a period of time there will be different study phases, first involving healthy humans then on to randomized, placebo-controlled double-blinded studies and eventually premarketing studies. At each step along the way - which can take years - the various sponsors, labs, investigators and clinical procedures are overseen by both an IRB, and either a Medical Ethics Board or a Data Monitoring Committee. All this costs money . . . a lot of money. Often, the money is provided by a sponsor; frequently by a university grant and, up till recently, from monies budgeted and allocated by the Federal Government. Not all research is intended to make the sponsor a fortune; there are only so many erectile dysfunction medications out there.
When a new medication or procedure hits the headlines, cheers can be heard throughout the medical world. Just this month, three potential “game changers” were announced. The first two are both oncological drugs meant to target one of the most challenging and lethal of all diseases: Metastatic (spreading) Pancreatic Cancer. The first, from Revolution Medicines is an orally administered drug called daraxonrasib. According to Dr. Mark Goldsmith, CEO of Revolution Medicines, its pill (daraxonrasib) has already helped subjects survive an average of 13.2 months after starting treatment, compared to 6.7 months for those receiving standard chemotherapy. The second pancreatic drug (elraglusib) also doubled one-year survival for subjects taking it compared to those getting standard chemotherapy. Elraglusib, produced by Actuate Therapeutics, is given by IV (e.g. through a vein). Without getting overly technical, both drugs treat advanced solid tumors with what are called RAS mutations, controls a sort of “on-off switch” in solid tumors. These drugs turn off the RAS signal, thus blocking, binding and inhibiting oncogenic signaling. So highly thought of are these two drugs that they received “breakthrough therapy designation” (BTD) from the FDA . . . a process designed to expedite the development and review of drugs that are intended to treat a serious condition.
The third game changer is a first-ever gene therapy for the treatment of genetic hearing loss, which was just approved by the FDA under their National Priority Voucher Pegram. For further information, please check out this link.
It’s been a long, long time since Hippocrates (c. 480 BEC - c. 370 BCE) told doctors that the first rule of medicine is “Do no harm.” It seemed to work for a couple of thousands of years. Hippocrates was also, supposedly, the first person to publicly state that diseases were caused naturally, . . . and not because of superstition and gods. Under THE FONDLING FATHER and THE BRAIN WORM, we seem to be moving backwards. In place of striving to first, do no harm, we are causing rises in Measles, Malaria ,and HIV (to name but a few of the most infectious medical monstrosities) in various parts of the world. Many of these reductions are due to the Regime’s disemboweling of USAID around the globe . . . mostly in the name of economic necessity.
Remember, there are a mere 191 days until November 3, 2026: midterm election. And while you’re at it, keep in mind that Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine” will also be on the ballot.
Πρώτον, μην κάνεις κακό“First, do no harm”
Copyright©2026 Kurt Franklin Stone