COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — As the first director of South Carolina's newly organized health agency, Dr. Edward Simmer has a vision of reducing infant mortality, fighting childhood cancers and reducing drug overdoses.
But his confirmation has instead turned into a referendum on how the state responded to COVID five years ago and residual anger over lockdowns and vaccines — even though Simmer didn't start working in the state until February 2021.
At his state Senate hearing Thursday, some members of the audience displayed stickers with his face crossed out. Simmer, who asked his wife to stay home instead of coming to Columbia to support him because of threats, said he was accosted in the hallway on his way to the meeting.
His vocal critics, including some Republican lawmakers, have derisively called him a double masker even after he explained his wife has underlying medical conditions that make COVID especially dangerous for her. He was maskless Thursday but said he "will wear a mask again without hesitation if that is what it takes to protect the woman I love.”
Critics contend that he wants to become an all powerful health czar even though lawmakers gave the new Public Health Department's leader no more power than his predecessors have had in more than a century when they split the unit from the environmental agency.
Simmer has the full backing of Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who supported him when Simmer was hired to run what back then was the state’s combined health and environmental agency in 2021. The Senate approved the recommendation on a 40-1 vote.
But even the governor’s support came with a backhanded knock on the federal government’s COVID response and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert who advised Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden on the pandemic.
“He's not a Dr. Fauci,” McMaster said this week, following that up with, “I know folks are furious at Dr. Fauci and I think Dr. Fauci messed up.”
Simmer said he has never supported mandating COVID vaccines and with the information he knows now, would not have recommended schools close or students be required to wear masks.
“These falsehoods and lies not only impact me — they are dangerous. They erode the public’s trust in our front-line health care workers and put the people who believe the lies and falsehoods at risk,” Simmer said.
Simmer's 14-page opening statement left little time for questions from skeptical senators on the Medical Affairs Committee. Another meeting where senators have been promised they can ask every question they have will be held soon.
“Dr. Simmer's opening statement was overly aggressive. I think that is unfortunate,” Republican Sen. Matt Leber of Johns Island wrote on social media.
Simmer said he regrets that all the COVID talk has overshadowed remarkable gains in public health in his historically unhealthy Deep South state, which he fell in love with after tiring of the winters in Cleveland and being stationed as a Navy doctor in Beaufort on the coast.
South Carolina ranks around 37th or 38th in many rankings of overall health after decades in the bottom 10 if not the bottom five.
Simmer has plans to get even better. The state is near the bottom in infant and mother deaths. The Public Health Department is working on a mobile maternity care center that will hit the road in 2026 and go to the state's poorest counties, where the nearest obstetrician can be more than a 50-mile (80-kilometer) drive.
He is trying to combat preventable causes of early death like stroke and chronic diseases like diabetes. Just a short distance from South Carolina's Statehouse is a ZIP code with one of the highest levels of diabetic amputations in the country.
“If you want a (public health) director who supports medical freedom, opposes COVID-like shutdowns, puts the people of his agency first, and dedicates himself to improving the health of every person and every community in South Carolina, I am that director,” Simmer said.
Jeffrey Collins, The Associated Press
