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Why Folks are Concerned that Ezekiel Emanuel Is Named to Biden's COVID Advisory Panel

Cortney O'Brien
Cortney O'Brien  |  November 09, 2020 4:15 PM

On Monday Joe Biden, the projected winner of the 2020 U.S. general election revealed who he has appointed to his COVID advisory board. We've already covered one of the controversial members of the panel, Dr. Rick Bright, the whistleblower who accused the Trump administration of ignoring his warnings about putting such high hopes in hydroxychloroquine.

But it's time to highlight another eyebrow raising figure on the force, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. There are plenty of things to highlight about Emanuel, such as the fact that he was one of the chief architects of Obamacare, but most people are revisiting his essay for The Atlantic in 2014. In it, he more or less argued that a life past the age of 75 is worthless.

"But here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss," he wrote. "It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.

"By the time I reach 75," he adds. "I will have lived a complete life." 

As Jim Geraghty observed, "This is the man who Joe Biden has selected to help save the country from a virus that is particularly dangerous to the elderly."

And so, Twitter users made a relevant observation.