Retired intensive care physician Dr. Cory Franklin is renewing calls for a comprehensive national investigation into the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that the United States has failed to conduct the kind of public reckoning that followed major national crises such as the Challenger disaster and the September 11 attacks.
During an interview on Chicago’s Morning Answer with host Dan Proft, Franklin said the lack of a formal fact-finding commission represents what he described as a “national embarrassment,” especially given the pandemic’s death toll of more than one million Americans and its lasting economic, educational, and social consequences.
Franklin, who served as director of medical intensive care at Cook County Hospital for more than two decades, said a “willful amnesia” has taken hold among portions of the scientific, journalistic, and political communities.
“They just don’t want to look back and analyze what we may not have done right, what questions remain unanswered, and what we need to do differently in the future,” Franklin said.
A central focus of the discussion was the role of the intelligence community in the pandemic response. Franklin referenced recently released documents and testimony suggesting that intelligence agencies had a more significant involvement in COVID-related investigations than many members of the public previously realized.
While cautioning against unsupported conspiracy theories, Franklin said legitimate questions remain about the extent of intelligence-community involvement, including its role in investigating the virus’s origins, evaluating vaccine-related data, and assessing potential biosecurity risks.
“The question that should be asked today is: what was that role?” Franklin said. “Those are legitimate questions that should be asked by medical people, politicians, journalists, and the public.”
Franklin also argued that the debate over the virus’s origins has overshadowed a broader concern about future biosecurity preparedness. If a laboratory leak was involved, he said, the implications for research oversight and national security deserve sustained public scrutiny.
The interview revisited some of the most controversial pandemic policies, including lockdowns, school closures, vaccine mandates, and the treatment of dissenting scientific voices. Franklin said that while policymakers initially faced enormous uncertainty, authorities moved too quickly to embrace some conclusions without adequately considering economic and educational consequences.
“They should have had experts from economics and education outside the vested interests involved much earlier,” he said.
Proft pointed to physicians and researchers such as Jay Bhattacharya, Scott Atlas, Martin Kulldorff, and Sunetra Gupta, who faced criticism after challenging aspects of the prevailing public-health consensus.
Franklin said public-health agencies often operate from a paternalistic mindset that can gradually become resistant to scrutiny.
“We’re doing this for you can very easily become: we don’t have to tell you everything, don’t ask questions, and trust us,” he said.
He stopped short of saying public-health officials intentionally acted against the public, but said there came a point when it was no longer clear that all decisions were being made primarily for the public’s benefit.
Franklin concluded by urging Congress, journalists, and medical leaders to establish a public commission capable of examining unresolved questions surrounding the pandemic response, intelligence-community involvement, and future biosecurity safeguards.
“Give us substantive answers to neutral questions,” Franklin said. “That’s what the public deserves.”
Franklin is the author of The COVID Diaries 2020–2024: Anatomy of a Contagion As It Happened.