Museum raising funds for protective gear with Birx bobbleheads

A bobblehead of Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator for the White House task force, went on presale Wednesday with a portion of proceeds to benefit medical workers, the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum announced.

“Bobbleheads are the ultimate honor, and we think Dr. Birx deserves it given what she has done and continues to do for our country and the world in the battle against COVID-19,” National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum co-founder and CEO Phil Sklar said in a statement. 

Five dollars from each $25 sale of the Birx bobblehead will be donated to the American Hospital Association’s Protect The Heroes Campaign to support the 100 Million Mask Challenge, an initiative to secure personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospitals across the country.

The bobblehead shows the doctor wearing one of her signature scarves, which have developed a fan following throughout the course of daily White House briefings. An Instagram account in her honor has more than 17,000 followers.

Birx, a former colonel in the U.S. Army, has been described as Vice President Pence’s “right arm” during the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

She started her career as a clinician in immunology serving as ambassador-at-large and United States global AIDS coordinator from 2014 through 2020. 

As director of the U.S. military program researching HIV at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Birx lead one of the most influential HIV vaccine trials in history, according to her State Department biography.

Birx is not the only public health official honored in bobblehead form by the museum. A figure of her task force colleague, Anthony Fauci, also went on presale earlier this month.

Sales for the bobblehead of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’s director have so far raised more than $100,000.