Is the Dem Health Committee Chair qualified to discuss masking?
/By Rubashov
Ego is no substitute for a background in medicine.
We know the chairmanship of the Senate Health Committee is a sought-after assignment, what with it being so important to some of the state’s most cash-fat industries and all, but shouldn’t the Democrats at least try to find someone with a background in medicine? What with the pandemic and opioid epidemic and ongoing health care availability crisis and the rapacious nature of Big Pharma – shouldn’t the Chair of the Senate Health Committee be someone whose qualifications stretch further than the ability to cash a check from some Big Pharma lobbyist?
Enter Senator Joe Vitale. He’s the Chairman of the Senate Health Committee and nobody’s ever accused him of being humble.
Earlier this year Vitale dismissed out of hand calls to investigate why Matthew Platkin and Phil Murphy signed-off on Executive Order 103 – which sent COVID patients into nursing and veterans’ homes – resulting in the deaths of up to 10,000 residents. Vitale claimed there was no need to investigate because he already had all the answers.
Vitale made headlines again today, this time for opposing Governor Murphy’s plan to lift his masking mandates on children. NJ.com’s Brent Johnson reported:
The chairman of the state Senate’s health committee told NJ Advance Media on Thursday he sharply disagrees with Gov. Phil Murphy’s decision to lift New Jersey’s statewide coronavirus mask mandate inside schools and child care facilities next month.
State Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, said he’s especially irked Murphy, a fellow Democrat, is removing the requirement in child care centers because children under 5 are not eligible to be vaccinated yet and remain “exposed.”
Last year, Vitale led the effort to repeal the law criminalizing the “act of a person knowing they are infected with venereal disease or HIV, committing sexual penetration without informed consent of other person.” Vitale generally follows fashion, not science, but there is a weird logic in allowing those with COVID to infect nursing homes residents while removing legal impediments to allow those with HIV to infect others. But how does that jive with keeping children masked forever?
As Chairman of the Senate Health Committee, Joe Vitale has been anything but a gentleman – or even a human being – when lording over his committee. We vividly remember him in committee arguing with a citizen over Senate Bill 1195 – then legislation, now law – which allows people to alter their birth certificates to whatever gender they wish, without undergoing sexual reassignment surgery. Yes, in New Jersey, people with penises can legally be women and people with vaginas can legally be men. Science anyone?
Senator Vitale was the main sponsor of Senate Bill 1195 and his exchange with this citizen exercising the right to speak before the New Jersey Legislature was anything but respectful. There was something of the sociopath in the Senator's behavior -- one moment he was dripping sensitivity, only to turn vicious the next. There's no remorse – he doesn't appear to care how he treats people who don't agree right down the line with him. Does he lack a conscience? We wonder.
We recall the way in which Vitale utterly dismissed the reputation of a scholar whose words were entered into the record by the citizen. Senator Vitale appeared to have no intellectual curiosity at all. Here is that exchange:
The Senator: "...You are citing some medical director, obviously he's a former medical director, probably for good reason."
The Citizen: "Because he retired."
The Senator: "Um, right, good thing."
Now someone with Vitale’s level of certainty must have some credentials to back up such a coarse dismissal. So, we wondered if the Senator was a doctor or a professor, after all, he is the Chairman of the committee through which passes all health care legislation in New Jersey. We looked up his biography and found out that he managed to make it through the 12th grade. Yep, born in 1954, went from high school to the family business, drifted into the muck of Woodbridge politics, became one of the boys, was selected by the boys as their Senator when Jim McGreevey ran for Governor.
And what about that "medical director" the one the Senator said was "obviously... a former medical director, probably for good reason" and that it was a "good thing" he was no longer working?
Well, that guy was born in 1931 and is a psychiatrist, researcher, and educator. He is University Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the author, co-author, or editor of seven books within his field. He was the son of a high school teacher and a homemaker. He graduated from Harvard College in 1952 and from Harvard Medical School in 1956. He was accepted into the neurology and neuropathology residency program at the Massachusetts General Hospital where he studied for three years under the chief of the Neurology Department.
From Massachusetts General, he went to the Institute of Psychiatry in London (where he studied under Sir Aubrey Lewis and was supervised by James Gibbons and Gerald Russell). Following London, he went to the Division of Neuropsychiatry at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He has held various academic and administrative positions, including, Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College (where he founded the Bourne Behavioral Research Laboratory), Clinical Director and Director of Residency Education at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Westchester Division and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oregon.
From 1975 until 2001, he was the Henry Phipps Professor of Psychiatry and the director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the Johns Hopkins University. At the same time, he was psychiatrist-in-chief at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is currently University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His own research has focused on the neuroscientific foundations of motivated behaviors, psychiatric genetics, epidemiology, and neuropsychiatry. During the 1960s, he co-authored papers on hydrocephalus, depression and suicide, and amygdaloid stimulation.
In 1975, he co-authored a paper entitled "Mini-Mental State: A Practical Method for Grading the Cognitive State of Patients for the Clinician." This paper details the Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE), an exam consisting of just eleven questions, that quickly and accurately assesses patients for signs of dementia and other states of cognitive impairment. It is one of the most widely used tests in the mental health field. In 1979, in his capacity as chair of the Department of Psychiatry, he ended gender assignment surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1983, he co-authored The Perspectives of Psychiatry, which presents the Johns Hopkins approach to psychiatry.
The book "seeks to systematically apply the best work of behaviorists, psychotherapists, social scientists and other specialists long viewed as at odds with each other." A second edition was published in 1998. He also treated author Tom Wolfe for depression suffered following coronary bypass surgery. Wolfe dedicated his 1998 novel, A Man in Full to him, "whose brilliance, comradeship and unfailing kindness saved the day." He is a registered Democrat who describes himself as a "political liberal".
And you Senator... you made it through the 12th grade.
Maybe read one of the guy's books before dismissing him out of hand? Or don't. Perhaps this is why health care policy is what it is in New Jersey? Maybe New Jersey is in the shape it is in because of the lack of humility and unwillingness to learn exhibited by politicians who set policies – guys like Joe Vitale. Maybe a Committee Chairman too stupid to learn does result in substandard government and people being made to suffer?
Now here are two comedians – Jimmy Dore and Bill Maher – who can offer opinions as equally qualified as those of Senator Vitale – but who offer them with better punchlines:
“Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues.”
Confucius
“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
George Orwell
