‘A stalwart’ or ‘South Carolina’s Dr. Fauci’? Meet the man who wants SC to be ‘the healthiest state’
Dr. Edward Simmer is the interim head of the South Carolina Department of Public Health. He ran its precursor for three and a half years before it split into two agencies in July. He spent half his life before that — 30 years — as a Navy doctor.
Now he’s in the fight of his life just to keep his job.
Gov. Henry McMaster nominated him to be the full-time director in November, and at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Dr. Simmer began to make the case for his confirmation in front of the Senate Medical Affairs Committee.
McMaster calls Dr. Simmer “exceptional” and “eminently qualified,” but critics, including several senators on the committee, dismiss Dr. Simmer as an opponent of “medical freedom” who supports mask and vaccination mandates and diversity, equity and inclusion.
I’m going to explain why the governor is right and the critics are wrong, but don’t take my word for it. Take the Senate’s.
It was only two years ago that state senators and state representatives unanimously voted to keep Dr. Simmer as interim head of the new health department in the legislation that split the Department of Health and Environmental Control into two agencies. It was only four years ago the state Senate confirmed Dr. Simmer to run DHEC with only a single “no” vote.
A doctor’s oath is ‘Do no harm’
In July, when the new state health agency began operations, Dr. Simmer shared his vision for it, writing, “We will carry forward the ideals of innovation, collaboration and the incorporation of best practices to achieve our long-term goal of South Carolina becoming the healthiest state in the nation.” He said he would boost community outreach, partner with other health agencies and begin posting state health care facility reports on the agency’s website to increase transparency.
His resume states his accomplishments clearly: “He led the state’s COVID-19 response, including testing, vaccine administration and public information efforts. These efforts led to over 69% of those eligible receiving at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and over 5 million tests administered.” He refocused state health officials on “increasing access to care in rural areas, improving maternal and child health, and providing resources that empower residents to improve their care.” He “implemented an electronic health record for all health departments.”
A doctor’s oath is “Do no harm.” But some, somehow, see Dr. Simmer as the threat.
“The creation of the Department of Public Health was an opportunity for a fresh start — one that could have restored trust in South Carolina’s health institutions and ensured transparent, locally informed policies,” the far-right House members in the South Carolina Freedom Caucus wrote on Substack in November. “Instead, the appointment of Dr. Simmer threatens to perpetuate the same heavy-handed, out-of-touch approaches that characterized his leadership of DHEC.”
“He is a mask and vax totalitarian,” one critic wrote on McMaster’s Facebook page in November. “Better to have no one at all.”
Another critic dismissed Dr. Simmer as “South Carolina’s Dr. Fauci,” a reference to President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, who became a lightning rod during the COVID-19 pandemic when health concerns and civil liberties came into conflict.
Just this week, another critic wrote of Dr. Simmer on Facebook that, “This Dr. has no place in SC politics — needs a criminal investigation against him instead.”
Criminal investigation? Really?
The criticism is so far beyond what used to be the boundaries of legitimate political debate that a group called the United Patriots Alliance wrote on its Substack: “Dr. Edward Simmer isn’t just any doctor as he is a doctor that is into Freudian and forensic psychiatry. Sigmund Freud, often called the father of modern psychology, used psychoanalysis to cover for weird and criminal pedophiles who abused young girls. Simmer has spent most of his adult life as a student of a subject that Freud has had profound influence in.”
Pedophiles? The red-meat ridiculousness speaks for itself.
Such hate is a real far cry from February 2021 when the Medical Affairs Committee chaired by Sen. Danny Verdin approved Dr. Simmer to head the Department of Health and Environmental Control without any committee member in opposition and then the Senate voted 40-1 to confirm him.
Back then, Verdin couldn’t have spoken more highly of Dr. Simmer.
“He pours himself into his work, he pours himself into his community,” Verdin said at the time. “We found nothing” that raised red flags about his background or qualifications, he added.
You still won’t, if you believe a clearly frustrated McMaster — as enough senators hopefully will.
Take a good look at the facts
“I’ve been listening closely to the things the critics have been saying about him so far in the last few days, and I have not found an ounce of truth in any of it,” McMaster said in January when criticism was mounting. “I have not found a word of truth about the allegations they’re making against that man. He wasn’t even here when all those mandates were going on. He wasn’t even here.”
McMaster went on to make an even more salient point: “This is the very reason that people do not want to get into public office because they are erroneously attacked for ulterior motives. It is dangerous. It is dangerous to our state. This man is eminently qualified.
“Maybe somebody doesn’t like him,” he continued. “Somebody doesn’t like everybody. But this man is qualified, and we worked through that pandemic. He was not here when it began....
“He arrived after all the federal mandates and all that, all of which we challenged in court and all of which we won,” McMaster concluded. “I do not know if we could find anyone as good as, much less better than, Dr. Simmer, so I think those that are criticizing him ought to take a good look at the facts and then decide what they want to say.”
In fact, McMaster announced that restrictions on alcohol sales and mass gatherings would be terminated the month Dr. Simmer began overseeing the state’s giant health agency in February 2021, and McMaster ordered the state to challenge any federal vaccine mandates in court and also banned cabinet agency vaccine mandates nine months later in November 2021.
Tuesday, McMaster reiterated his support for Dr. Simmer, telling reporters, “All these folks that are criticizing him probably never worked with him as I have for over, I guess, three and a half years. He’s enormously qualified. He’s enormously talented. During the pandemic, we were on the telephone conference calls just about every day. He has never disappointed me. He’s given good advice. I don’t know why it is that people are criticizing him because I don’t think anybody can put a finger on something that he’s done either unethical or wrong. He is not Dr. Fauci....
“I know folks are furious at Dr. Fauci, and I think Dr. Fauci messed up. I think a lot of them did. I think we got a lot of bad advice from a lot of people. Not from Dr. Simmer. He was a stalwart. He stayed with us. He was always available. He worked hard. He did a good job....
“They ought to let the man have his hearing, ask him the questions and give him a fair hearing,” McMaster said. “And I think it would be difficult to find anyone more qualified than Ed Simmer.”
If Dr. Simmer’s fate is in the Senate’s hands, the fate of public health officials is in all of ours.
A 2022 study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found nearly 1,500 cases of harassment in local health departments during the first 11 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The targeting of Dr. Simmer in South Carolina shows this issue persists.
That 2022 study found that 335 of the 583 local public health departments that were surveyed — a stunning 57% — had been targets of harassment and that 222 public health officials in state and local health departments left their positions in that 11-month span.
More than a third of those 222 departures involved officials who had experienced some form of harassment. That’s horrible.
Despite anyone who says the opposite: Science is golden, vaccines save lives and facts matter.
To lose his interim title and retain his job, Dr. Simmer must hope that enough state senators believe those truisms and respect McMaster and his choice to run the state’s public health agency.
The selection shouldn’t even be in doubt.
This story was originally published March 19, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "‘A stalwart’ or ‘South Carolina’s Dr. Fauci’? Meet the man who wants SC to be ‘the healthiest state’."