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Friday, July 22, 2022

Barbara Ferrer's Hypocrisy and Conflict of Interest

Hat tip Red State

Dr Barbara Ferrer
(PhD in social welfare)
Director LA County Dept. of Public Health

Dr Barbara Ferrer is the director of Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Ever since the Covid pandemic began, Ferrer has been a controversial figure in Los Angeles County, much like Dr Anthony Fauci is on a national scale. That is because Ferrer has pushed stringent regulations upon the county as to wearing masks and other Covid-related measures. This has been met with strong opposition. 

It should be mentioned at this point that Ferrer is not a physician or medical doctor. She has a PhD in social welfare. So, much like "Dr" Jill Biden, Ferrer has been mocked for allowing the public to assume that she is a physician. The truth is that Ferrer is a woman with an unrelated PhD who is making policy on health matters.

Now, with a spike in Covid being reported in the county, LA County is set to reinstate indoor mask regulations, the only California country to do so. Ironically, just this week, Ferrer was spotted and videotaped at the MLB All-Star game seated in the stands with her mask hanging from her arm.

In addition to all that, it has now been revealed by Red State.com that Ferrer's daughter, Kaitlin Barnes, (also not a physician) who works for the LA County Department of Education in health matters, has recently co-authored a study, specifically cited by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) that highlights the positive results of wearing masks and other Covid-related regulations. The report makes reference to Ferrer in the acknowledgments. Yet neither Ferrer nor her daughter made the "full disclosure" of their relationship. Below from Fox News LA is an interview with Red State's Jennifer Van Laar, who broke the story.

 https://www.foxla.com/news/barbara-ferrer-denies-conflict-of-interest-in-cdc-study-after-daughter-was-reportedly-listed-as-co-author

On Thursday, at her weekly press conference, when asked about the possible conflict of interest, Ferrer stated the following:

"I am not an author on that study. I had nothing to do with that study. I didn't review that study. I actually didn't see that study until recently, The people who complete conflict of interest forms are the people who worked on the study, who completed those conflict of interest forms."

And....

"I have no family relatives that work at the Department of Public Health. I don't supervise any family relatives who do any work that relates to work. The Department of Public Health. I have no interest or ability to control any of my family members work since they don't work for me or at this department at all. So there's no conflict of interest here at all."

Here from KABC (Los Angeles) is a more complete report on Ferrer's exchanges with Marla Tellez of KABC and Sandra Mitchell of KTLA:

“So you don’t believe that the public had the right to know to maintain your credibility with the public?” -Mitchell

No I don’t. I think the public knows what they need to know."

Lest you assume from Ferrer's comments that she and her daughter don't have a lot of contact with each other, today KABC's John Phillips reported on air that according to his information, they live together. Assume from that what you will.

Just as we can speculate as to whether there was any connection between Ferrer's obvious desire to reinstate indoor mask regulations in LA County and her daughter's involvement in co-authoring a study that just so happened to be cited by the CDC.

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