One of the nation’s top infectious disease officials overseeing the hantavirus outbreak specialized in penile implants and erectile dysfunction before taking on the role.
Dr. Brian Christine, who serves as Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), was well regarded in the medical field for his expertise in sexual health, including surgical procedures to treat erectile dysfunction, to the point of hosting a YouTube series, Erection Connection, aimed at urologists treating the condition.
As an Alabama-based urologist, he also performed complex procedures involving inflatable penile implants for incontinence and sexual health, according to The Washington Post.
In response to a request for comment, the Department of Health and Human Services linked to an official HHS website where Christine is described as “an internationally recognized leader in men’s health” who “has published peer-reviewed research, lectured widely, and trained surgeons internationally.”
A CNN review of Christine’s archived podcast episodes, social media posts, and radio appearances shows that, aside from his work as a penile implant specialist, he expressed distrust of the government during the COVID-19 pandemic and questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
“There may well be another pandemic at some point,” Christine said on his podcast during his failed campaign for Alabama State Senate in 2022, adding, “We the people are not going to let the government lead us, guide us, and control us as we have.”
Still, on Monday, the urologist-turned-government official reassured the public that the department is taking a deadly hantavirus outbreak “very seriously” and that the “risk of hantavirus to the general public remains very, very low.”
The hantavirus outbreak has so far killed three people and left several others ill after passengers aboard the Dutch-flagged cruise ship were infected with a strain of the virus that spreads from person to person.
More than a dozen Americans who were on board the ship are now being held at Nebraska’s only federally funded quarantine center, with one passenger reportedly having contracted the virus.
Aside from handling infectious disease policy and the current hantavirus outbreak, Christine is in charge of offices responsible for family planning, women’s health, and more than 5,000 public health officers who work across the federal government and are deployed during public health emergencies as part of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
On his Common Sense podcast, CNN reported that in addition to focusing on COVID-19 restrictions and COVID vaccine skepticism—echoing his boss Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—Christine also expressed opposition to abortion and discussed religion, transgender rights, and “wokeism.”
“There’s no exclusion for rape and incest. That’s the Alabama law,” Christine said of Alabama’s near-total abortion ban after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. “I think it makes sense,” he added.
“Maybe he’ll be a good sounding board for RFK,” Steve Wilson, a fellow urologist who mentored Christine in surgical procedures, told The Washington Post about his mentee’s new position in the federal government.
