LA County Health Department Director Barbara Ferrer was forced to address challenging questions–an unusual occurrence–at her weekly press conference after KABC radio exposed that she relied on a mask mandate study that was partially authored by her daughter!
“No conflict of interest here. I want to put that to rest,” repeated Ferrer.
Ferrer found herself on the defensive, repeating over and over that there was nothing wrong with never mentioning that her daughter co-authored a study that she often used in making her decisions …
“There is no conflict of interest here at all,” Ferrer repeated. “I think … I … I’m not sure what you’re referring to here, since I had nothing to do with the study.”
Technically, in the research code of ethics, there may have been no conflict of interest. But Barbara Ferrer was asked if she owed the public some transparency, since there might be an appearance of a conflict of interest.
Reporter: “So you don’t believe that the public had the right to know, in order to maintain your credibility with the public?”
Ferrer: “No. No I don’t. I think the public knows what they need to know “
Overall an unpleasant, uncomfortable, unconvincing afternoon for Barbara Ferrer.
See the longform questions and responses here:
Fox 11’s Marla Tellez questioning Barbra Ferrer
“Hello good afternoon Dr. Ferrer thank you so much for taking our questions today regarding the potential conflict of interest involving your daughter, we did receive a statement as you know from the health department last night on your behalf, but we do want to give you an opportunity now to respond, why did you choose not to disclose your relationship on the study that your daughter co-authored, study itself says no potential conflict of interest were disclosed, why did you feel it wasn’t necessary to do so and are you concerned at all about further eroding of public trust on the masking.” -Tellez
“Just stop, let’s let me try to get to that question, okay there I am not an author, I am not an author on that study, I had nothing to do with that study I didn’t review that study, um I actually didn’t see that study uh, until recently, um the people who complete conflict of interest forms are the people who worked on the study who completed those conflict of interest forms, um I have no family relatives that work at the department of public health, I don’t supervise any family relatives who do any work, um that relates to work at the department of public health, I have no interest or ability to control any of my family members uh, work since they don’t work for me or at uh, this, uh department at all, um so I’m not, there’s no conflict of interest here at all I, I think I’m not not really sure what you’re referring to since I had nothing to do with the study. You’re the second question, you have our statement I didn’t work on the study, there’s no conflict of interest, I didn’t direct any work and I have no family members that work at the department of public health and are supervised or supported by me.” -Ferrer
“Right we know that your daughter does work for the office of education which is part of this study and you are acknowledged in the acknowledgments, your name is on there so that’s also something about it.” -Tellez
“I didn’t work on the study Marla, I had nothing to do with the study, Im acknowledged as is Dr. Guardado as being heads of our department as you know, sort of the work of our department in contributing to this, anyway I do not work on the study, there are no conflicts of interest, um it’s really it’s hard to imagine uh what you’re finding is a possible conflict of interest since I did not work on the study and I might go to the next question because there are lots of other people that are trying to ask questions.”
-Ferrer
“Okay in my last question then I was going to ask about the potential mask mandate but I’m curious though about the, you said that you’ve never looked at the study until recently as far as reporting shows that you’ve leaned on the study before in terms of to, to form your mask policy for schools as has the CDC Director, she mentioned the specific study and one of her briefings in August 2021” -Telles
“I mean I I don’t know where the references for me referring to the study but I don’t happy happy to take a look at that, I did not reviewed the study, before it was published the science officer who is in charge of reviewing studies here, that’s not my role I didn’t see the study and I recently looked at it and it’s relationship to the concerns that were being raised but I you know I mean I’m glad the CDC Director uses studies, uh I’m proud of the staff here and it worked on really pulling together our data and I do think it is a data from quite a while ago that really shows that you can open schools safely, uh if you go ahead an integrate a whole host of protection measures so again others people go look at the study it really wasn’t a study just on masking or the effectiveness of masking, it was a whole set of layer protections, uh that help that schools reduce transmission and uh, we’re grateful for all the partnerships with the schools because in layering in those protection schools are actually very safe places for students and a staff to be, uh thanks for that.” -Ferrer
KTLAs Sandra Mitchell questioning Barbra Ferrer
“Yes Dr. Ferrer thank you for taking our questions today and for all of your insight, my question would be going back to the criticism that you did not disclose the relationship with your daughter, and I, I see that you’re smiling and and giggling.” -Mitchell
“I’m not, I, I’m actually gonna not comment, I,I made a comment I think I answered the question unless it’s a different question” – Ferrer
“It, It Is a different, It is a different question, The Question is.” -Mitchell
“Don’t disclose, you don’t disclose conflicts if you’re not an author on an article okay so for folks are new to the research world everybody who is participating an author in an article discloses, the second thing I want to note is there are many many hundreds of instances where family members in fact collaborate on research projects and you’re right they will disclose a conflict of interest but I want to note the conflict of interest is not that they’re a family member okay, a conflict of interest have to do with does anybody influence what you’re writing so unless there’s reporting authorities that need to get disclosed, uh husbands and wives, uh partners uh, you know children and their parents are welcome to participate on research studies together, I did not participate in this project so I do not disclose anything because I wasn’t part of this research study at all, had nothing to do with it.” -Ferrer
“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 I don’t supervise any family members, I have no influence on the work that any of my family members does, I had nothing to do with the folks that worked on that uh, research project, um I applaud them for the work that they did it was a collaboration between two different departments uh, that work together so yes I mean you’re you’re actually insinuating that yes I have a family member that works at Rand or UCLA and researchers here and researchers at a different business of firm collaborate, um that I would be disclosing that even if I had absolutely nothing to do with the project and you can see on the face of it, there’s no conflict of interest here so I wanna put that to rest, um I don’t I think you can go off on spinning that in a different way but really I’m not sure there’s any conflicts there and I do I want to move on, there are, I think there are lots of other very important questions uh, that people may wanna ask me.” -Ferrer