The man who stood before cameras in Nebraska to reassure Americans about the risk of hantavirus spent his career fitting penile implants and hosting a podcast that claimed the Covid-19 pandemic was engineered to steal an election.
As the Trump administration scrambled to manage a potential hantavirus outbreak linked to a cruise ship in the Canary Islands, it deployed Dr. Brian Christine, the assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, to lead a public briefing at the University of Nebraska Medical Center on 11 May 2026.
Christine, a four-star admiral who heads the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, told reporters at the press conference that the federal response was 'grounded in science' and 'grounded in transparency.' A review of his record published by CNN's KFile unit on 15 May 2026 tells a substantially different story about the man now leading America's infectious disease policy apparatus.
From Penile Implants to Public Health Service
Before joining the Trump administration, Christine was an Alabama-based urologist working in private practice. He specialised in erectile dysfunction and penile implants, and ran a professional YouTube series on the subject called 'Erection Connection,' which was aimed at fellow urologists. He has little to no prior public health experience.
He assumed his current post as assistant secretary for health in November 2025, moving directly from private practice into one of the most senior public health roles in the federal government.
According to the organisational chart of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, the position oversees offices responsible for family planning, women's health and infectious disease policy, as well as the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, more than 5,000 uniformed health officers who deploy during public health emergencies. As head of the Commissioned Corps, Christine holds the rank of four-star admiral in the uniformed service.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Christine's private practice office had advertised treating transgender patients for erectile dysfunction. His archived personal website noted his practice offered services including 'erectile dysfunction in patients who have undergone female-to-male gender reassignment.' Christine denied that characterisation to the Journal. Since taking office, he has led federal efforts to restrict gender transition care through funding blocks, and was nominated while running for Alabama state Senate in 2022.
The 'Common Sense' Podcast and Its Conspiracy Theories
Christine hosted a podcast called Common Sense that focused on abortion policy, Covid restrictions, transgender rights and what he described as 'wokeism' in medicine and public life. CNN's review found that several episodes had been deleted from YouTube and Apple Podcasts before his Senate confirmation hearing but remained publicly accessible on Vimeo, where they had been embedded on his former campaign website.
In one episode from October 2022, titled 'When Healthcare Is Used Against You,' Christine argued that the pandemic had been deliberately exploited to control the American population and alter the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. 'This is probably the most important thing that's happened during the pandemic. There is no question that the pandemic was used to influence the outcome of the 2020 elections,' he said, according to CNN's review. He went on to urge listeners to watch '2000 Mules,' the debunked election fraud conspiracy film whose distributor later apologised and removed it from circulation.
In the same episode, Christine claimed the Covid vaccine 'ultimately was proved not to prevent the disease and not to prevent the spread of the disease,' a position contradicted by peer-reviewed research published in JAMA Health Forum, which found the vaccines prevented millions of deaths. He also suggested there may have been a coordinated effort involving 'George Soros and the World Economic Forum' to use the pandemic's so-called Great Reset to force small businesses to close and benefit multinational corporations. 'Now, was there a worldwide concerted effort to close small businesses and to force them out of business? I don't know if there was, but it looks mighty suspicious to me,' he added.
Christine also compared the climate facing conservatives in the United States to conditions in Nazi Germany in a 2022 episode of his podcast. 'There are things that are similar that were going on in Germany that are going on in the United States right now,' he said. 'There aren't concentration camps in the United States, but there's no question that conservatives feel threatened. There's no question that conservatives like myself and others feel like the government is being weaponised against us.'
Archived Social Media Posts and Abortion Stance
A since-deleted Twitter account belonging to Christine showed a pattern of engagement with far-right activism around the 2020 election. In December 2020, Christine retweeted a post by conservative activist Charlie Kirk calling on Republicans to object to the certified election results on 6 January 2021. The tweet read: 'Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri will OBJECT to the election results on January 6th. This is what courage looks like. This is what it means to FIGHT! RT if every other Republican needs to do the same!'
On the question of abortion, Christine used his podcast to defend Alabama's near-total abortion ban, specifically arguing against exceptions for rape or incest. 'Just because the pregnancy occurs through an act of violence, that doesn't mean the unborn child doesn't have the right to life,' he said in an episode focused on abortion laws. 'We recognise and believe that another act of violence and an abortion is an act of violence... there's no exclusion for rape and incest. That's the Alabama law. I think it makes sense.'
When asked about Christine's background, the Department of Health and Human Services provided a statement that made no mention of his record. Andrew Nixon, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Media Relations at HHS, told CNN, 'Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Christine remains focused on executing President Trump and Secretary Kennedy's agenda to Make America Healthy Again and deliver on President Trump's Executive Order to protect our children against chemical and surgical mutilation.' CNN reported that Christine had not responded to requests for comment.
In a country still measuring the institutional damage done to public health trust, the official now pledging a response 'grounded in science' has spent years arguing that science itself was a tool of political control.
