Even as the mainstream media has been relentlessly attacking President Trump for invoking a national emergency to secure the southern border — in part to address an influx of illegal drugs — the Washington Post admitted that the Obama administration failed to declare a public health emergency, against the pleas of national health experts.

“In May 2016, a group of national health experts issued an urgent plea in a private letter to high-level officials in the Obama administration,” wrote reporters Scott Higham, Sari Horwitz and Katie Zezima. “Thousands of people were dying from overdoses of fentanyl — the deadliest drug to ever hit U.S. streets — and the administration needed to take immediate action. The epidemic had been escalating for three years. The 11 experts pressed the officials to declare fentanyl a national ‘public health emergency’ that would put a laser-like focus on combating the emerging epidemic and warn the country about the threat, according to a copy of the letter.”

Trump has repeatedly urged lawmakers to comprehend the urgency of the drug crisis, which is resulting in the deaths of thousands of Americans each year.

“‘The fentanyl crisis represents an extraordinary public health challenge — and requires an extraordinary public health response,’ the experts wrote to six administration officials, including the nation’s ‘drug czar’ and the chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” the Post reported. “The administration considered the request but did not act on it … The experts asked the administration to take several steps to immediately address the crisis.

To start, they requested an emergency public health declaration from the Department of Health and Human Services that would sound the alarm. “An emergency declaration would clarify the public health nature of the crisis and bring needed focus to a new threat that is claiming thousands of lives,” the experts wrote.”

Reprinted with author’s permission from Accuracy in Media