Being a Good Scientist Doesn’t Mean Being an Effective Leader
Francis Collins admits that they botched the COVID-19 response.Dr. Francis Collins may be a brilliant geneticist — he headed the very successful Human Genome Project among other laudable achievements — but he has been a disappointing public-health leader and public intellectual. Collins headed the NIH between 2009 and 2021, and was on the front lines of the COVID policy response. Alas, his work in that effort left very much to be desired. Indeed, the other day, he issued something of a mea culpa for being unduly focused on preventing COVID deaths and not enough on the devastating societal impacts his advocated policies caused. In an interview, he said: The public health people — we talked about this earlier and this really important point — if you’re a public health Read More ›