Brenda Fitzgerald Resigns As Head Of CDC
Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, who is an ob-gyn, also had owned stock in other tobacco companies prior to assuming her post almost six months ago as one of the nation’s top health officials.
A lengthy delay in Fitzgerald’s divestment of her stock holdings, which included shares in health-care companies, was cited by the Trump administration Wednesday morning as the reason for her resignation.
News of her tobacco holdings was broken by Politico in a story Tuesday night, shortly before President Donald Trump, who nominated Fitzgerald for her job, gave his State of the Union address. Politico noted in a story two weeks ago that Fitzgerald had repeatedly been unable to testify before Congress because of financial conflicts that were still unresolved.
Dr. Fitzgerald is a graduate of Georgia State University and Emory University, and previously served as Georgia’s Commissioner of the Department of Public Health.
About Author
Charlie
Founder of GeorgiaPol.com; Now weekly columnist Very interested in Georgia and Georginas. Interest in politics is waning daily.
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That is a bizarre story.
“Fitzgerald… has made tobacco efforts a focus of her public health career, despite owning stock in the industry. She listed tobacco cessation as one of her primary priorities while still serving in the Georgia position in February 2017. Prior to accepting the CDC position, she owned stock in five other tobacco companies: Reynolds American, British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands, Philip Morris International, and Altria Group Inc. — all legal under Georgia’s ethics rules. HHS did not respond to questions about why she invested in tobacco companies while working to reduce tobacco consumption.”
“While holding the newly purchased tobacco, drug company and food stock, along with other financial holdings in various health companies, Fitzgerald participated in meetings related to the opioid crisis, hurricane response efforts, cancer and obesity, stroke prevention, polio, Zika and Ebola, according to a copy of her schedule between Aug. 1 and Oct. 27.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/30/cdc-director-tobacco-stocks-after-appointment-316245
No more bizarre than that of the man that made the appointment.
Notwithstanding talk of how well Georgia is governed, you gotta wonder if there’s something to concerns about Georgia government ethics.
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/03/19/8427/georgia-worst-score-country
The Governor left Washington to escape concerns about ethics, and Fitzgerald is the second Georgia appointee to leave the Trump administration because of ethics. Two out of three ain’t good.
Just a reminder when Trump said he would only hire the best people for his administration.
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2016/09/15/trump-ill-choose-the-best-people-for-my-administration.html
She is a State graduate, I’m surprised you weren’t blowing her horn on this site at some point.
He promised to “hire the best people for his administration”. He never promised to hire the best people for the nation. His main requirement for employment in the administration is loyalty to him.
Jeff Sessions, James Comey, Rod Rosenstein etc.
All of this is as it should be. She’s not the only one with conflicts so expect to see more of these. The fish rots from the head, as they say, and we have an administration who shows little care for ethical norms or rules. As a reminder, he hasn’t divested from any of his conflicts, and currently is both landlord and tenant of the old post office building where his DC hotel resides.