As the Trump administration sought to reassure Americans this week {that a} hantavirus outbreak posed little threat to the general public, Dr. Brian Christine, one of the highest public well being officers in cost of infectious illness coverage, stood earlier than reporters in Nebraska promising a response “grounded in science” and “grounded in transparency.”
Before he joined the Trump administration final 12 months, Christine was an Alabama-based urologist who specialised in penile implants. He has little public well being expertise and a history of far-right commentary and selling conspiracy theories. He’s mentioned the Covid pandemic led to a wider authorities plot to manage individuals, in contrast the Biden administration to Nazi Germany and urged the Covid vaccine had little impact in stopping the pandemic.
He as soon as hosted a YouTube present called “Erection Connection,” an expert YouTube collection on erectile dysfunction for fellow urologists.
A NCS overview of archived podcast episodes, social media posts and radio appearances discovered that Christine repeatedly framed public well being establishments, the federal authorities and pandemic-era insurance policies as instruments used to focus on conservatives and non secular Americans.
In comments made on a podcast he hosted while running for Alabama state Senate in 2022, Christine questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
He additionally advocated for abortion bans with out exceptions for rape or incest and urged there might have been a worldwide effort involving George Soros and figures related with the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” to make use of the pandemic to power small companies to shut.
Christine repeatedly criticized Covid mandates, arguing that the vaccines neither prevented illness nor transmission, regardless of evidence the vaccines prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Andrew Nixon, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Media Relations on the US Department of Health and Human Services, informed NCS, “Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Christine remains focused on executing President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s agenda to Make America Healthy Again and deliver on President Trump’s Executive Order to protect our children against chemical and surgical mutilation.”
Christine, a surgeon who went instantly from personal follow to serving to lead the federal authorities’s public well being response, took office final November as assistant secretary for well being.
While some of his views have been previously reported by The Washington Post throughout his nomination course of, NCS reviewed a number of further podcast episodes that appeared to have been deleted from YouTube and Apple Podcasts earlier than his affirmation however remained publicly accessible on Vimeo, the place they’d been embedded on his former marketing campaign web site.
His senior function on the Department of Health and Human Services locations him in cost of offices accountable for household planning, girls’s well being, infectious illness coverage and the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, the uniformed well being service of greater than 5,000 public well being officers who work throughout the federal authorities and deploy throughout public well being emergencies. As head of the Public Health Service, Christine additionally serves as a four-star admiral in cost of the uniformed service.
Since assuming the submit, Christine has led efforts to limit gender transition care by way of federal blocks on funding, although the Wall Street Journal reported his personal follow workplace marketed treating transgender individuals for erectile dysfunction – a declare Christine denied. His personal website additionally famous his follow provided, “erectile dysfunction in patients who have undergone female-to-male gender reassignment.”
Christine has been a frequent critic of the Biden administration.
“There are things that are similar that were going on in Germany that are going on in the United States right now,” Christine mentioned on one episode of “Common Sense” in 2022. “There aren’t concentration camps in the United States, but there’s no question that conservatives feel threatened. There’s no questions that conservatives like myself and others feel like the government is being weaponized against us.”
A since-deleted Twitter account of Christine’s additionally confirmed commentary in line with MAGA activism, together with efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In December 2020, Christine retweeted a name from conservative activist Charlie Kirk to induce Republicans to object to the election outcomes on January 6, 2021.
“BREAKING: Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri will OBJECT to the election results on January 6th This is what courage looks like. This is what it means to FIGHT! RT if every other Republican needs to do the same!” the submit learn, which was retweeted by Christine.
Christine’s account additionally showed repeated engagement with Vernon Jones, the previous Georgia Democratic state consultant who switched parties to help Donald Trump and later turned a supporter of 2020 election fraud claims.
Christine’s podcast, known as “Common Sense,” centered on abortion, Covid restrictions, transgender rights, faith and what he described as “wokeism” in drugs and authorities.
In one episode titled, “When Healthcare is Used Against You,” from October 2022, Christine argued the pandemic had been utilized by the federal government to manage Americans and affect the end result of the 2020 election.
“This is probably the most important thing that’s happened during the pandemic. There is no question that the pandemic was used to influence the outcome of the 2020 elections,” Christine mentioned, later urging listeners to observe “2000 Mules,” the debunked election fraud conspiracy movie whose distributor later apologized and eliminated it from circulation.
In the identical episode, Christine claimed the Covid vaccine “ultimately was proved not to prevent the disease and not to prevent the spread of the disease.”
“We know that there have been people who have died from that, but we also know that most people who get infected aren’t going to die. Most people who get infected aren’t going to get sick. But the government and the left have used the pandemic to control people,” he mentioned.
Criticism of vaccine mandates
“We’ve been forced to take the vaccination, how? Well, the government said, if you don’t take the vaccine, you may lose your job. You may lose your income. There were threats in this way. And so a lot of individuals were forced to take the vaccine and to take the boosters. And if someone wanted to take the vaccine, I think that’s fine. But forcing people to take a vaccination is absolutely wrong.”
He additionally urged there might have been a coordinated effort involving “George Soros and the World Economic Forum” to make use of the pandemic and the so-called Great Reset to profit multinational firms whereas small companies shut down.
“Now, was there a worldwide concerted effort to close small businesses and to force them out of business? I don’t know if there was, but it looks mighty suspicious to me,” he added.
In comments on Facebook and in his podcast, Christine additionally repeatedly defended Alabama’s near-total abortion ban after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
In an episode of his podcast titled “Abortion Laws,” Christine mentioned Alabama’s abortion ban mustn’t embody exceptions for rape or incest.
“Now that causes the pro-abortion side of the argument to get really upset that we don’t exclude rape and incest,” Christine mentioned. “But just because the pregnancy occurs through an act of violence, that doesn’t mean the unborn child doesn’t have the right to life and we recognize and we believe that another act of violence and an abortion is an act of violence. We recognize and believe that another act of violence isn’t going to make things right.”
“So there’s no exclusion for rape and incest. That’s the Alabama law. I think it makes sense,” he added.
NCS’s Em Steck and Sarah Owermohle contributed to this report.