Imagining a Surgeon General Jessup
Let’s imagine what a Surgeon General Jessup might say to the current crop of know-nothings who are tearing down public health
INT. HEARING ROOM – DAY
A long, formal table. C-SPAN cameras. A few congressional aides scroll distractedly. DR. LANE JESSUP, Surgeon General, mid-50s, crisp uniform, calm as a landmine, leans forward into the mic. Across from him sits a well-known Republican vaccine skeptic—SENATOR ANTI-VAX.
SENATOR ANTI-VAX
I want the truth.
Jessup looks up, slow and deliberate.
DR. JESSUP
You want the truth?
SENATOR ANTI-VAX
I think I'm entitled.
DR. JESSUP
You can’t handle the truth!
Murmurs in the chamber. AIDE stops typing. Someone looks up from their phone.
DR. JESSUP (CONT’D)
Son, we live in a world under siege by disease—
disease that’s beaten back by vaccines, doctors, and public health.
Who’s gonna hold the line when the next pandemic hits?
You? You, RFK Jr.?
We have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom.
You mock the NIH and curse the CDC. You have that luxury—
the luxury of not knowing what we know.
That your vaccine protests—your First Amendment right—
was only possible because we saved your lives.
And our work—fact-based and incomprehensible to you—saves lives.
You don’t want the truth, because deep down, in places you don’t
talk about on Facebook,
you want us in that lab.
You need us in that hospital.
We use words like “efficacy,” “do no harm,” “liberty.”
We use these words as the backbone of a life spent saving yours.
You use them as a punchline.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself
to someone who rises and sleeps under a blanket of health and safety
we provide—and then assaults those who provide it.
I’d prefer you just said “thank you”
and went back to drinking raw milk.
Otherwise, pick up a pipette and join a lab.
Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to.