email article
With insults, harassment, or even threats of violence against them and their families, at least 190 top public health officials have resigned, retired, or been fired in the last year, a Johns Hopkins researcher reported Wednesday.
Most were victims of opposition to health guidelines or mandates issued during the pandemic.
"A year into the pandemic, I'm still experiencing rather regular harassment," said Sara Cody, MD, public health director in Santa Clara, California, where some of the first coronavirus cases in the U.S. were diagnosed. "People [are] coming to protest at my home, [there are] letters written in the paper, [and they are sending] emails that are way outside the norm of what we could consider normal discourse and differences of opinion."