A Penile Implant Specialist, a Vaccine Skeptic, and the Men Running America’s Public Health Response
There is a hantavirus outbreak. People have died. Americans were evacuated from a cruise ship in the South Atlantic, flown to a quarantine facility in Nebraska, and held there while the federal government decided what to do. This is a real public health event requiring real public health expertise.
The man the Trump administration put in front of cameras to explain the government’s response to the nation was Dr. Brian Christine — an Alabama-based urologist who specialized in penile implants, who once hosted an “Erection Connection” video series on YouTube. UMass Lowell
This is not satire. This happened.
Christine currently serves as assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, making him one of the top public health officials in charge of infectious disease policy. He is also a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps — in charge of offices responsible for family planning, women’s health, infectious disease policy, and the uniformed health service of more than six thousand officers. His qualification for all of this was apparently that Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama liked him. NewsweekNewsweek
Standing before reporters in Nebraska in May, Christine assured the country that the agency’s response was “grounded in science” and “grounded in transparency.” “This is what a strong public health system looks like,” he said. “Experienced professionals, seamless coordination, and a shared commitment to protecting the American people.” UMass Lowell
He said this. The penile implant specialist. About infectious disease epidemiology. With a straight face.
While Christine has expertise in things like “Revising a Mis-Shapen Penile Implant” and “Getting the Right Cuff Size During Artificial Sphincter Surgery,” he has no qualifying background in virology or infectious disease epidemiology. What he does have is a robust record of far-right conspiracy theories. He questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election, suggested a worldwide effort involving George Soros and figures associated with the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” to use the pandemic to force small businesses to close, and repeatedly claimed that Covid vaccines neither prevented disease nor transmission — despite evidence they prevented millions of deaths. He also compared the experience of conservatives in Biden-era America to life in Nazi Germany, stopping just short of invoking concentration camps — then invoking them anyway. NewsweekNewsweek
And in a detail so perfectly on-brand for this administration it almost feels invented: while Christine has led efforts to restrict gender transition care through federal funding blocks, his private practice office advertised treating transgender people for erectile dysfunction — a claim he denied. His own website, however, noted that his practice offered “erectile dysfunction in patients who have undergone female-to-male gender reassignment.” The man running federal gender health policy was quietly treating trans patients for the same conditions he publicly opposed supporting. Newsweek
Now meet his boss.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the Secretary of Health and Human Services. He spent decades as one of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists in the country, promoting the thoroughly debunked theory that childhood vaccines cause autism, and building an organization dedicated to sowing doubt about the pharmaceutical and public health establishments. He was rewarded for this with the cabinet position overseeing those same establishments.
When the hantavirus outbreak broke, Kennedy told reporters the U.S. had it “under control” and that he was “not worried about it.” When asked about both hantavirus and a simultaneous Ebola outbreak affecting Americans in the Congo, his response to ABC News was: “Yeah, we’re working on it.” NewsweekNewsweek
That was the extent of his public communication about two simultaneous infectious disease crises.
Then Kennedy did something that managed to be both authoritarian and medically incoherent simultaneously. He signed an order requiring a Florida woman, Angela Perryman, to remain in the locked Nebraska quarantine facility — even though an HHS-appointed medical review had already determined she could safely finish her quarantine at home. Kennedy’s own CDC oversaw the medical review recommending her release. He overruled it. Perryman told reporters: “It has nothing to do with public health at all. They’re using administrative orders to detain American citizens with no judicial oversight.” Bangor Daily News + 2
Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert who helped shape current federal quarantine regulations, called the decision “an egregious violation” of a U.S. citizen’s rights. “She’s being held, deprived of her liberty,” he said, adding that a broad medical consensus supports allowing her to complete quarantine at home. RealClearPolling
The man who built his entire public identity opposing vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and government overreach of public health powers just ordered a symptom-free American citizen detained in a federal facility against the advice of his own medical staff. The man who claimed to champion medical freedom locked a woman in a room.
This is the American public health system in 2026. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is a man who spent decades undermining public trust in medicine. His assistant secretary — the four-star admiral in charge of infectious disease policy — is a urologist who made YouTube videos about penile implants and believes George Soros engineered the pandemic to destroy small business.
They are running the response to a viral outbreak. They are the “experienced professionals” Dr. Christine mentioned in Nebraska. They have the CDC’s budget, the Public Health Service’s manpower, and the full authority of the executive branch behind them.
RFK Jr. told America the hantavirus is “under control.” Newsweek
He said that. The vaccine skeptic. To the nation. About a disease his department is managing with a penile implant specialist and a quarantine order that overruled his own experts.
Sleep well.