Dr. Deborah Birx has found employment in her life after government service.
The George W. Bush Institute announced that Birx was hired as a senior fellow on Friday following a decadeslong government career in which she most recently served as United States global AIDS coordinator and a high-profile member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force under former President Donald Trump.
Birx’s new role will allow her to “leverage her significant expertise in global health, pandemic response, and health systems to support the Bush Institute’s portfolio of work” and “take on policy initiatives on how to better position our country to tackle health disparities in the future,” the center said in a press release.
“From her time as a Colonel in the United States Army to her most recent role coordinating the response to the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Birx has been an exemplary public servant and renowned expert in the medical field,” Bush Institute Executive Director Holly Kuzmich said. “She has run some of the most high-profile and influential programs at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Department of State. … We are grateful that she has brought her expertise, her commitment to saving lives, her compassionate heart, and her brilliant mind to the Bush Institute.”
BIRX BANISHED AND FAUCI FLOURISHES UNDER BIDEN
Birx also celebrated the announcement, saying she was “thrilled” to partake in the “impactful programs at the Bush Institute.”
“The Bush Institute programs put people at the center, recognizing we are stronger when we listen to each other, learn from one another, and come together to do things bigger than any of us could do alone,” she said.
Separately, Birx was hired by ActivePure Technology, a Texas-based air filtration company seeking Food and Drug Administration clearance to sell purifiers to remove COVID-19 particles, Politico reported on Friday.
Birx announced her intention to retire from government last December and retired when President Biden took office in January.
“I want the Biden administration to be successful,” she said in December. “I’ve worked since 1980 in the federal government, first through the military, then through [the Department of Health and Human Services], and then detailed to the State Department and detailed here, where I hope I was helpful. I will be helpful in any role people think I can be helpful in, and then I will retire.”
The physician attracted controversy during her tenure on the coronavirus task force alongside Dr. Anthony Fauci, a fellow member who was elevated to chief medical adviser under Biden. Birx earned criticism for violating her own guidelines to travel and share a meal with a different household last Thanksgiving.
“To me, this disqualifies her from any future government health position,” Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security, told the Baltimore Sun at the time. “It’s a terrible message for someone in public health to be sending to the American people.”
Birx also publicly criticized Trump, saying there was a “parallel data stream” coming into the White House.
“I saw the president presenting graphs that I never made,” Birx said in January. “So, I know that someone out there or someone inside was creating a parallel set of data and graphics that were shown to the president. I know what I sent up, and I know that what was in his hands was different from that. You can’t do that. You have to use the entire database.”
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Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Birx was responsible for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief initiative designed to combat HIV/AIDS, which began during the Bush administration.
