Redfield has his faults but insensitivity to violence against Asians isn’t one of them | READER COMMENTARY

The recent editorial, “Top Md. COVID-19 adviser Redfield tosses viral kindling on anti-Asian fires” (March 30), is an irresponsible attack on a very fallible, but very decent and very knowledgeable, human being. The Sun owes Dr. Robert Redfield a sincere apology.

I have known Dr. Redfield for 15 years and have worshipped with him and his family numerous times at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. He is a sincere and humble Christian.

I watched CNN’s interview with him Sunday night. I was again dismayed that during his tenure as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention he seemed to place his loyalty to Donald Trump above his duty to inform the American people about the awesome dangers posed by the virus. You are quite right: “… as a Trump appointee, he rarely contradicted Mr. Trump’s most foolhardy actions and comments on the subject of the coronavirus, at least not publicly.”

As a matter of fact, I wrote him three sharp personal letters during 2020, none of which can have given him much consolation.

His current opinion that the virus may have inadvertently escaped a Chinese research lab has nothing to do with violence against persons of Asian descent in the U.S. The World Health Organization has never been permitted by Chinese authorities to conduct a forensic examination of the lab in Wuhan, nor does it appear that it ever will be allowed to do so.

Hal Riedl, Baltimore

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