If there was one factor that I might not have predicted—however, arguably, ought to have been capable of predict—relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s the diploma to which my fellow teachers, significantly physicians and scientists, would contribute to public concern, misunderstanding, and doubt about public well being interventions utilized to mitigate the worst of the pandemic. If I had been capable of predict the extent of complicity of my fellow teachers in advocating for simply letting the illness rip in a futile bid to realize “pure herd immunity,” opposing tried-and-true interventions to gradual the unfold of respiratory illnesses (e.g., masking) utilizing a slim fundamentalist interpretation of evidence-based drugs (EBM), selling unproven “repurposed medication” as close to miracle cures, and even concern mongering about vaccines, I may need been capable of predict that Stanford College would find yourself being the epicenter of such actions, if solely due to its tight affiliation with the appropriate wing suppose tank, The Hoover Establishment. If that weren’t sufficient, then the truth that one of many authors of the Nice Barrington Declaration, the doc advocating a “let ‘er rip” method to the pandemic promising “pure herd immunity” in six months, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, is Stanford school ought to have helped. So ought to the truth that Dr. John Ioannidis, previously the best EBM guru (whom I as soon as admired) who very early within the pandemic took a heel flip in favor of minimizing how harmful COVID-19 was and advocating—you guessed it—”pure herd immunity” approaches to the pandemic.
After all, 4 years later, I’ve turn into all too conversant in the dismal observe document of sure outstanding Stanford College school with respect to selling dangerous science, pseudoscience, and misinformation in regards to the pandemic. In equity, it’s true that there do stay some good folks at Stanford. For instance, there’s Gregg Gonsalves, though he’s a visiting affiliate professor in well being coverage, and Renée DiResta, who was the technical analysis supervisor at Stanford Web Observatory, a cross-disciplinary program of analysis, instructing and coverage engagement for the research of adversarial abuse in present info applied sciences. Sadly, the instance of DiResta is simply one other instance of why Stanford has gotten much more problematic. The mission of the Stanford Web Observatory has been “refocused,” with Stanford having having ended the Election Integrity Partnership’s rapid-response election remark work designed to investigate and counter election misinformation. On account of Republican stress, the Stanford Web Observatory is in essence being dismantled proper earlier than the election, and Stanford didn’t renew DiResta’s contract or the contracts of a number of different workers.
That background is why, whereas I used to be dissatisfied, I wasn’t completely stunned to start out seeing posts like this on social media:
And:
Naturally, I used to be intrigued. So let’s check out this one-day convention, who’s collaborating, and the way these members have “distinguished themselves” as—alas!—extremely influential (principally) educational pandemic minimizers and COVID-19 misinformation spreaders.
Pandemic Coverage: Planning the Future, Assessing the Previous?
The title of the convention is Pandemic Coverage: Planning the Future, Assessing the Previous, which ought to inform you a large number? For instance, understanding who the audio system and panelists are, I do know that “assessing the previous” will possible include extremely revisionist historical past of the COVID-19 pandemic offered by way of the lens of claiming that public well being interventions didn’t work after which justifying a “plan” for the longer term wherein all these pesky public well being measures that interfered with “freedom” be minimized or not used in any respect. Let’s check out how the convention is being marketed:
Bringing collectively esteemed teachers, public well being practitioners, journalists, and authorities officers from all sides of the COVID-19 coverage debate in dialog with each other with a watch towards reforms in science and public well being to raised serve the general public.
With hundreds of thousands of lives misplaced, the COVID-19 pandemic wrought havoc on the world. Regardless of many years of planning for the “subsequent” pandemic, public well being programs confronted large stress and infrequently buckled and failed. Universities served as facilities for invaluable scientific work however did not help their educational freedom mission by sponsoring vigorous dialogue and debate on issues of pandemic coverage. To do higher within the subsequent pandemic, we have to study the teachings of the COVID-19 period.
“Esteemed teachers, public well being practitioners, journalists, and authorities officers from all sides of the COVID-19 coverage debate”? My first response was to giggle derisively. No, removed from “all sides” are represented. The most effective that could possibly be stated is that the really radical “do nothing” contingent—e.g., Scott Atlas (sure, that Scot Atlas!)— is “balanced” by those that suppose that it was acceptable to do some public well being interventions, so long as they had been all voluntary and didn’t disrupt enterprise. It’s like the road from 1980 film The Blues Brothers wherein the proprietor of a bar the place the Blues Brothers had been been booked to play solutions their query about what sort of music the bar options: “We received each varieties. We received nation and western!”
Right here’s one other factor that I observed about this convention that I wager most didn’t, even these rightfully criticizing Stanford for internet hosting a convention of this kind: its date, October 4, 2024. Does that date ring any bells? It did instantly for me. Why? As a result of it’s the fourth anniversary of the signing of the Nice Barrington Declaration, which was signed on October 4, 2020 after which launched to the world the next day. I’ve a tough time believing that the number of this specific date for this specific Stanford convention was not completely intentional, given the involvement a signatory of the Nice Barrington Declaration (Sunetra Gupta) and GBD-adjacent school as a panelists. I could possibly be incorrect—and perhaps I’m incorrect—nevertheless it’s arduous to not see the selection of date as very intentional. One other oddity is that October 4 is throughout Rosh Hashanah, one of the crucial essential Jewish holidays, with the location even noting this thusly, “We’re conscious that the convention date coincides with Rosh Hashanah. We deeply respect the importance of this vacation and remorse the overlap.” I assume lining the convention up with the fourth anniversary of the signing of the GBD was too essential to schedule the convention on a day when Jewish school might attend.
OK, I’ll cease, as I do know I’m risking beginning to sound as conspiratorial as among the school recruited as panelists for this convention!
Nonetheless, it’s price a short reminder. The Nice Barrington Declaration (GBD) was a “scientific” declaration facilitated by the appropriate wing “free market” suppose tank, the American Institute for Financial Analysis (AIER). Named for the placement of AIER’s headquarters in Nice Barrington, Massachusetts, the GBD referred to as for what was, in essence, a “let ‘er rip” method to the pandemic to realize “pure herd immunity” in six months by letting the younger and wholesome simply get COVID and utilizing “centered safety” to maintain these at excessive threat of dying and issues from COVID protected. It’s a tactic that by no means would have labored—and didn’t work—and was profoundly social Darwinist at its coronary heart. Of specific be aware, how “centered safety” would work was by no means actually spelled out in adequate element to find out simply how the GBD signatories would hold these most in danger for dying and extreme illness on account of COVID-19 protected.
Additionally, including to the imprimatur of Stanford College being positioned on this convention, Stanford President Jonathan Levin will likely be offering the opening remarks to introduce the day’s proceedings. Of be aware, he grew to become President of Stanford on August 1, 2024; so he’s new within the job. I additionally be aware that the Wayback Machine reveals that the convention’s webpage first went reside on or round August 2, a placeholder that described the convention, however left all of the audio system and panelists to be “introduced later,” which they had been final week. More than likely, this convention was being organized earlier than Levin formally grew to become Stanford College president, however it’s disturbing that he would mainly conform to take part, even within the ceremonial method that almost all college presidents giving opening remarks at a university-hosted convention do.
Levin, in fact, just isn’t a public well being scientist or doctor. Slightly, he’s an economist who was elevated to college president after having served earlier than that because the Dean of the Stanford Graduate Faculty of Enterprise. He’s additionally a collaborator who has revealed with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya earlier than in economics journals. Even thought Bhattacharya just isn’t a speaker or panelist, it is smart that Levin can be amenable to collaborating by introducing the convention.
Let’s take a look at the varied classes of this convention.
“Proof-Primarily based Choice Making Throughout a Pandemic”?
Session 1 is entitled Proof-Primarily based Choice Making Throughout a Pandemic. The blurb describing it appears benign sufficient; that’s, in case you are unfamiliar with the members:
The interventions undertaken to regulate the COVID-19 pandemic – lockdowns, prolonged college closures, social distancing, masks mandates, vaccine mandates – had been unprecedented of their scope and world impression. How effectively did these insurance policies work to guard the general public from COVID-19 and what had been their collateral harms? How can scientists higher inform pandemic coverage in actual time in the course of the subsequent pandemic?
After all, the important thing side of the GBD and pandemic minimizers is that they all the time underplay the hurt of the virus and overplay the “collateral injury” from public well being coverage designed to handle the pandemic. One of many key giveaways right here is the selection of “language,” significantly “lockdowns.” Mainly, “lockdowns” has become a type of proper wing canine whistles that the “freedom über alles” contingent all the time makes use of—often with a sneer—to explain enterprise and faculty closures and shelter in place orders. It’s true that there have been enterprise and faculty closures, there was by no means something by way of coverage that approached the types of actual “lockdowns” that one noticed in some authoritarian regimes, particularly China. Furthermore, once more, the GBD was by no means about defending the general public from COVID-19. It was about opening up the nation for enterprise as quick as potential with out regard for harms that the “younger and wholesome” may undergo from the virus, and solely a passing nod to defending those that had been truly essentially the most weak to extreme illness and dying from COVID-19. Once more, as I prefer to level out, “pure herd immunity” was all the time a pipe dream for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, on condition that pure herd immunity requires lifelong—or no less than very long-lasting—postinfection immunity. It was recognized in 2020 that postinfection immunity from coronaviruses tended to be comparatively transient and that coronaviruses had been good at evolving variants that might bypass preexisting immunity because of an infection with prior variants. One needed to ignore all the things that was recognized about coronaviruses earlier than 2020 to suppose that “pure herd immunity” was even a risk, a lot lower than the really fantastical perception that it could possibly be achieved in six months.
However let’s take a look at the members on this session:
Drs. Marty Makary and Monica Gandhi have been mentioned many occasions on this weblog, principally by Dr. Jonathan Howard, but additionally by me. Makary, you may bear in mind, was one of many originators of the false declare that medical errors are the third main reason behind dying within the US, a declare primarily based on ridiculous extrapolation from comparatively small research that doesn’t cross even a fundamental “scent check.” What I imply by that’s that, 250K-400K deaths from medical errors would translate to as much as 15% of all deaths and over half of the deaths of hospitalized sufferers within the US that happen each single yr. The actual quantity, though nonetheless too excessive, is possible 10- to 20-fold decrease. As embarrassed as I used to be then that Dr. Makary shares my specialty (surgical oncology), I used to be much more embarrassed at how he rapidly grew to become a COVID-19 minimizer beginning very early within the pandemic, repeatedly proclaiming an “finish to the pandemic” as a result of we’ll have herd immunity” by this date or different and repeatedly being incorrect in regards to the pandemic being over.
Monica Gandhi most likely represents one of many “each varieties” of COVID-19 minimization in that all through the pandemic she offered herself because the “affordable” center floor between “let ‘er rip” ideologues like Makary and Atlas and traditional public well being science recommending customary public well being interventions to mitigate the pandemic, viewing the latter as too strict, all of the whereas polluting the COVID-19 info panorama with apparent misinformation and falsely pacified folks the worst was over, when in truth the worst was but to return. Mainly, she tried to have it each methods, as Dr. Howard described:
Although she initially stated, “It’s simple arithmetic. We don’t have to vaccinate these underneath 11 to get to herd immunity”, she finally wrote an passionate protection of pediatric COVID vaccination, for instance. It’s additionally possible she is going to focus on uncontroversial blunders, such because the CDC’s botched checks firstly and the tragedy of those that died on account of anti-vaccine misinformation. Who might argue together with her name to encourage out of doors actions?
Nonetheless, these potential areas of settlement apart, Dr. Gandhi unleashed a firehose of poor predictions and bogus statistics all through the pandemic, all the time minimizing the virus, in fact. If you’re unfamiliar together with her overwhelming litany of pollyannaish prognostications, repeated declarations of herd immunity, and mocking those that disagreed- “I genuinely with all my coronary heart apologize for anybody who continues to attempt to scare you about variants“- I recommend you become familiar right here: Pandemic Accountability Index, Mehdi Hasan, me, and me once more.
These previous couple of hyperlinks are wonderful summaries of why Dr. Gandhi has been so problematic.
However what in regards to the different two? I’m much less conversant in Eran Bendavid apart from that he, too, is Stanford school, however he has featured on this weblog earlier than. For instance, he was coauthor with Drs. Jay Bhattacharya and John Ioanndis of an early notorious research that vastly overestimated the seroprevalence of COVID-19 in Santa Clara county and was broadly used to argue that the an infection fatality price (IFR) was so low that we didn’t actually need to do something—trace: “lockdowns,” masking, and social distancing—to handle COVID-19. He additionally co-authored a March 2020 op-ed with Bhattacharya within the conservative Wall Road Journal asking, Is the Coronavirus as Lethal as They Say? (You may guess their reply.) As we right here at SBM prefer to remind our readers, just about all the things Jay Bhattacharya has stated in regards to the pandemic has turned out to be spectacularly incorrect, significantly his predictions. As for Bendavid, as he decried the “Faustian discount” that made pandemic scientists media figures in 2021, he additionally revealed a bit an excessive amount of of an open thoughts, to the purpose of being open sufficient to permit one’s brains to fall out:
The perfect scientist comes into her commerce with a way of marvel, curiosity, openness, and marvel at what nature has to indicate us. The corruption of scientific norms is a collective manifestation of the erosion of many scientists’ spirits. Many—I might enterprise most—scientists maintain that spirit as a private best. Its erosion occurs when science will get blended with social, financial, and psychological forces that exploit the human being contained in the scientist, and none extra strongly than the media with its fondness for battle, strife, and black-or-white-ism.
This all sounds pretty, if you happen to don’t know the precise context and the veritable cottage business of contrarian scientists who stoked concern, uncertainty, and doubt about public well being—and proceed to take action—and that Bendavid collaborated willingly with scientists who’re specialists on the very darkish arts he self-righteously decries.
As for Anders Tegnell, those that sought to attenuate the severity of COVID-19 and advocate a “let ‘er rip” method beloved Sweden as a result of, supposedly, its insurance policies weren’t so restrictive, whereas falsely representing Sweden’s COVID-19 outcomes as being pretty much as good or higher than its neighbors. (And, sure, Sweden did shut faculties.) Tegnell was a central determine on this and has represented himself as some type of reality teller who stood as much as standard knowledge (and was proper). Let’s simply say that GBD writer Martin Kulldorff thanked Tegnell in March 2020 for his “clever epidemiological sane Covid-19 work.” What did he imply by that? Pursuing a “pure herd immunity” method to the pandemic, in fact! He additionally declared in March 2020, “Herd immunity earlier than vaccine is inevitable, mainly it doesn’t matter what we do to stop it.” By April 2020, he was voicing the delusion that there “could also be herd immunity in Stockholm by Might.” (How did that work out?) Once more, the Pandemic Accountability Index has a roundup of Tegnell’s actions and quotes that display clearly that he was solidly within the “pure herd immunity” camp, in addition to a deconstruction of the “Swedish delusion” that Sweden did effectively due to that method and proof of how a lot of a fanboy Tegnell was of one of the crucial infamous social media influencers pushing COVID-19 misinformation, Ivor Cummins, a.ok.a. The Fats Emperor.
Really, a “truthful and steadiness” panel. I’m certain they’ll categorical a reasonable, evidence-baed tackle the successes and failures of public well being interventions for COVID-19. (Sure, that’s sarcasm, in case it wasn’t apparent.)
Onward to Session #2.
Pandemic Coverage from a World Perspective?
The second session is entitled Pandemic Coverage from a World Perspective. It’s represented thusly:
As a result of the world financial system is world in scope, pandemic coverage selections made by Western governments had profound impacts on the well being and financial prospects of individuals worldwide, together with the collapse of world markets, extreme provide chain disruptions, large-scale authorities borrowing to finance pandemic insurance policies, and world inflation. How can the pursuits of the world’s poor be higher represented within the selections of Western authorities in the course of the subsequent pandemic?
Sure, you may guess what this will likely be about. It’s going to possible misrepresent actual issues and debates about disparities in pandemic response, entry to vaccines, and well being care capability in poor nations in comparison with wealthy nations being exacerbated by the responses of rich Western governments as causes that we must always have simply pursued a “pure herd immunity” method. Sure, I’ve seen this film earlier than. The fundamental argument is that, as a result of the populations of much less developed, poorer nations are usually on common youthful than the populations of extra developed nations, letting the virus rip in such international locations can obtain “pure herd immunity” quicker and with much less potential struggling and dying than in developed international locations (though this truth by no means stopped that GBD-adjacent from arguing that we must always pursue “pure herd immunity” in developed international locations too). By no means thoughts that the crowding, the poorer well being and diet, and the a lot much less strong healthcare infrastructure in such international locations would possible obviate any “benefit” by way of decrease morbidity and mortality when a youthful inhabitants undergoes mass an infection.
Let’s take a look at the members:
I received’t say way more about Sunetra Gupta, on condition that she was one of many authors of the GBD and stays an advocate of “pure herd immunity.” Nor do I discover it essential to say lots about Dr. Vinay Prasad, on condition that he’s been one of the crucial prolific social media influencers selling COVID-19 minimization, antimask misinformation, and even concern mongering in regards to the COVID-19 vaccines that has expanded to echoing previous antivax tropes in regards to the childhood vaccine schedule. Suffice to say that Dr. Prasad opposed the COVID-19 vaccine for kids even earlier than it was permitted for kids; has portrayed cancern in regards to the virus as “irrational” concern; embraced the antivax message of “don’t comply”; ceaselessly misrepresented research as demonstrating the the COVID-19 vaccine is harmful; permitted of reporting mother and father who wish to vaccinated their kids towards COVID-19 to little one protecting providers; has repeatedly denied that virus mitigation measures work; and echoed antivaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s deceptive declare that many of the childhood vaccination schedule has by no means been examined towards saline placebo controls in RCTs.
I’m not as conversant in Kevin Bardosh and Anup Malani as maybe I must be. Bardosh is Director and Head of Analysis at Collateral World, a analysis institute and academic charity primarily based within the UK. He’s additionally affiliated with the Faculty of Public Well being, College of Washington and Edinburgh Medical Faculty, and a perusal of his X (Twitter) feed reveals that he’s very a lot on the aspect of emphasizing the harms of the world’s COVID-19 response in comparison with any advantages. Collateral World is something however a pro-public well being group, too. Mainly, it’s a GBD-adjacent, anti-“lockdown” org shaped by GBD writer Gupta and others:
Collateral World is based and directed by Sunetra Gupta and her companion Alexander Caccia, a UK Ministry of Defence contractor with ties to Canadian authorities fossil gasoline investments, who had secretly drafted the GBD doc. He had additionally secured PR help for Gupta’s claims about herd immunity from an company linked to the Cupboard Workplace ‘Nudge Unit’. OpenDemocracy has now revealed that Gupta personally acquired funding for her discredited analysis on herd immunity from a Tory billionaire.
Certainly, it seems to have been shaped by all three GBD authors, as mentioned in this e-mail:
From the depth of our hearts, a belated thanks for signing the Nice Barrington Declaration. With over 850,000 signatures, collectively we opened up the pandemic debate. Whereas many governments continued with their failed lockdown and different restrictive insurance policies, issues have moved in the appropriate route. For instance, most faculties have re-opened, most international locations prioritized older folks for vaccination and Florida rejected restrictions in favor of centered safety with out the unfavorable consequencesthat lockdowners predicted.
Whereas often censored, we’ve not been silenced. Since authoring the Declaration in October 2020, the three of us have actively advocated for centered safety by way of social media, op-eds and interviews on, for instance, vaccine passports and pure immunity.
Now we have additionally launched Collateral World, a charity staffed with teachers from the world over to doc and disseminate details about the collateral injury of the restrictive measures in order that we don’t repeat the errors of this pandemic and are capable of inform future coverage with proof and evaluation. Collateral World is crowdfunding in order that this work will be performed to the very best potential requirements. You’re welcome to hitch us and assist us in these efforts at www.collateralglobal.org, in addition to observe us on Twitter, and so forth. We’re additionally planning an initiative on scientific freedom quickly.
With monumental gratitude,
Jay Bhattacharya Sunetra Gupta Martin Kulldorff
Properly, alrighty then. After all, if you happen to don’t imagine me, be at liberty to peruse its web site, the place Kevin Bardosh bemoaned the WHO calling misinformation spreaders “conspiracy theorists” (which the overwhelming majority of them are). He additionally revealed (with a number of of the standard suspects, together with Makary, Prasad, and others) an notorious article arguing that faculty booster mandates had been unethical, primarily based on inappropriate comparisons.
As for Anup Malani, he’s an Indian economist and lawyer, school on the College of Chicago, not a public well being scientist or doctor. He appears to suppose that as a result of economists are good at statistics they’re additionally good at analyzing COVID-19:
Whereas I don’t disagree that typically an “outsider” can convey a brand new perspective to investigations, I additionally be aware that always “outsiders” lack deep topic information that’s possessed by precise topic specialists. Perusing Malani’s publication document, I discover much less to object to from him, apart from his being interviewed by the COVID-19 minimizers at Collateral World. Maybe he’s one of many “each” nation and western, as effectively. (If anybody is extra conversant in his work than I might turn into Googling him, perusing his publications, and taking a look at his social media feeds, please weigh in down within the feedback.) It’s going to even be attention-grabbing to see how he responds to the virus minimization blather of the opposite panelists and the borderline antivax bleatings of Dr. Prasad. If he is without doubt one of the affordable panelists, he’ll possible develop into the token skeptic on the panel.
Onward to Session #3.
Misinformation, Censorship, and Educational Freedom?
Session #3, Misinformation, Censorship, and Educational Freedom, is the one which produced the most important “WTF?” response from me, for apparent causes, specifically the panel members. Its description is stuffed with false dichotomies:
The pandemic noticed the battle of two clashing approaches to informing the general public and defending it towards rumors and dangerous falsehoods. On the one hand, governments censored info opposite to public well being pronouncements in social media settings and closely influenced conventional media sources to convey these pronouncements. Alternatively, dissident scientists and college professors sought means to succeed in the general public with their message regardless of censorship and suppression. Does the suspension of free speech rights throughout a pandemic assist hold the inhabitants higher knowledgeable or does it allow the perpetuation of false concepts by governments?
“Dissident scientists”? Extra like “courageous maverick medical doctors,” COVID-19 minimizers, and outright cranks, a lot of whom began out as one or the opposite of the primary two and, because the pandemic progressed, developed into the third. (Martin Kulldorff and Vinay Prasad instantly come to thoughts.) Additionally, though I wasn’t (initially) conversant in the moderator (George Tidmarsh), get a load of the panelists:
Yikes! Internet hosting a panel on misinformation, censorship, and educational freedom is like having a dialogue panel on childhood vaccines and autism consisting of Andrew Wakefield (godfather of the twenty first century antivax motion) and Aaron Siri (a lawyer who ceaselessly works with antivaxxers like RFK Jr. and Del Bigtree)! Additionally, why simply two on the panel? It’s not as if the convention lineup isn’t full of COVID-19 cranks bemoaning how they’ve supposedly been “canceled” and “censored.” Absolutely one or two of them might have performed double-duty and appeared on two panels.
Dr. Scott Atlas, you may bear in mind, is a neuroradiologist and, so it appears, a previously well-respected one, having served because the chief of the neuroradiology part at Stanford College. Sadly, Dr. Atlas grew to become a proper wing hack at The Hoover Establishment at Stanford, a conservative suppose tank that’s been a font of dangerous takes on COVID-19. In 2020, he improbably (and briefly) served as a key advisor to President Donald Trump in regards to the authorities pandemic response, regardless of his utter lack of awareness in any related medical or scientific self-discipline to take action. Atlas, in fact, has been a pretty frequent subject on this weblog given all of the misinformation he has spewed (and continues to spew), significantly because of Dr. Howard, who’s stored a cautious log of his statements, most not too long ago final month. Unsurprisingly, Dr. Atlas was completely on board with the GBD, and, consequently, in October 2020 the Trump administration was severely contemplating a herd immunity-based technique earlier than there was even a vaccine.
By November 2020, Stanford was distancing itself from Dr. Atlas as a result of he had urged resistance to public well being insurance policies and mandates:
Stanford College on Monday night distanced itself from White Home coronavirus process drive member Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow on the college’s Hoover Establishment, after he urged Michigan residents to “stand up” towards new public well being measures.
“Stanford’s place on managing the pandemic in our group is evident. We help utilizing masks, social distancing, and conducting surveillance and diagnostic testing. We additionally imagine within the significance of strictly following the steerage of native and state well being authorities,” the college stated in a tweet.
“Dr. Atlas has expressed views which can be inconsistent with the college’s method in response to the pandemic. Dr. Atlas’s statements replicate his private views, not these of the Hoover Establishment or the college.”
Particularly, this now deleted Tweet brought on an uproar, and that is private to me as a result of Atlas’ Tweet was in response to pandemic restrictions in Michigan:
Atlas later tried to take it again, however nobody believed him:
I keep in mind that in April 2020, armed militia menaced legislators in Michigan as a result of they disapproved of the “lockdowns” and public well being mandates that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had ordered. I extremely doubt that Dr. Atlas was unaware of that historical past when he urged folks to “stand up.” His response to the criticism of his Tweet was very disingenuous.
I might go on and on about Dr. Atlas, however simply use the search field on this weblog or my not-so-super-secret different weblog, and peruse Dr. Howard’s current publish about him.
As for Jenin Younes, yikes once more! First, be aware that she is a lawyer who has been carefully related to AIER, underneath whose auspices Bhattacharya, Kuldorff, and Gupta wrote the GBD and whose Twitter deal with was @leftylockdowns1. A short perusal of her articles and social media feeds demonstrates that she’s all about opposing any obligatory public well being response to COVID-19, together with “lockdowns” and masks and vaccine mandates. Her New Civil Liberties Alliance additionally sued to enjoin California’s legislation penalizing medical doctors for disseminating so-called misinformation about Covid-19 to sufferers. So, she’s pro-quack, too.
I’m sensing a theme right here for this convention. On to Session #4!
COVID-19 Origins and the Regulation of Virology?
The final session is entitled COVID-19 Origins and the Regulation of Virology. Given what’s come earlier than, I’m certain you may guess what the main focus will likely be right here, however let’s see what the organizers say:
The stakes within the debate in regards to the origin of the pandemic couldn’t be greater. If the pandemic began from an inadequately regulated wildlife commerce or zoonoses, reforms to cut back the probability of human contact with wild species is important. Alternatively, if the pandemic began on account of harmful laboratory experiments and insufficient protocols to stop leaks, then extra stringent regulation of such experimentation is warranted. What’s the proof on these subjects, and what’s the path ahead?
This sounds affordable sufficient, significantly the primary half. Word, nonetheless, the false equivalency between a zoonotic origin for the pandemic and “lab leak.” Additionally be aware the one individual on this panel, which makes me marvel in the event that they plan on including another person or if this can simply be a chat. And who is that this sole panelist? It’s Laura Kahn, Co-Founder, One Well being Initiative.
I have to confess that I wasn’t very conversant in Kahn, who’s a doctor and biosafety researcher with a ebook popping out in early October (absolutely one other coincidence?) entitled One Well being and the Politics of COVID-19. A few of the critiques recommend to me the place she is coming from:
This ebook challenges One Well being’s most pernicious dogma—that nature is essentially deadlier than the results of human hubris. The ebook is very brave because it criticizes main up to date scientific powerholders who help unnecessarily dangerous virological work. Belief in science requires ethics and transparency.
A few of her social media posts recommend that, though she does emphasize zoonosis and methods to forestall zoonotic spillover each time potential, she can be relatively open to lab lake conspiracy theories. I imply, Tweeting:
Let’s simply say that treating something Rand Paul says about COVID-19 as severe just isn’t a superb search for somebody who purports to be evidence-based. Neither is credulously publicizing one thing like this from an anti-GMO group recognized for selling lab leak conspiracy theories:
As well as, Googling discovered an article that she wrote for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in March 2022, The origins of SARS-CoV-2: nonetheless to be decided, wherein she makes “lab leak”-adjacent arguments if not outright arguments for lab leak, denigrating two of the important thing papers revealed in 2022 that supported a zoonotic origin from the Wuhan animal markets, which each Steven Novella and I wrote about on the time.
Her take:
Two current papers, Worobey et al. and Pekar et al., current geospacial evaluation of animal stalls within the Huanan market and viral phylogenetic evaluation however don’t present convincing proof of pure spillover. The info and analyses mentioned by Worobey are equally according to each hypotheses: (1) that SARS-CoV-2 first entered people on the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, and (2) that SARS-CoV-2 first entered people at one other location and was subsequently delivered to the market after which amplified out there by people. The authors’ assertion that the info and analyses help solely the pure spillover speculation is fake.
Maybe, however not likely. The proof in these papers is much extra according to a SARS-CoV-2 spillover occasion on the Huanan Seafood Market, as Steve and I mentioned. I additionally be aware that she wrote in regards to the preprints, on condition that her article was revealed in March 2022 and the ultimate variations of the papers had been revealed in July 2022, honing in on one phrase that lab leak proponents actually hated, to the purpose that they gloated over its removing within the remaining model of, first raging that the “speculation that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a laboratory-related spillover—for instance, from a laboratory-acquired an infection—stays a viable risk” earlier than proclaiming:
Science is the target pursuit of reality. Stopping future COVID-19 pandemics requires discovering the reality. Untimely, false declarations of “dispositive proof” or “proof” doesn’t generate public belief in science and doesn’t defend public well being.
That certain seems like a lab leak proponent argument. As I identified, using that phrase within the preprint actually ticked off lab leakers, to the purpose the place they responded to its removing by gloating:
The actual a part of the article that raised my eyebrow, although, was within the Acknowledgements:
Kahn want to thank Elisa Harris, Milton Leitenberg, and Richard Ebright for his or her invaluable feedback, edits, and ideas.
Richard Ebright? Yikes! He’s a Rutgers College chemistry professor who has been one of the crucial obnoxious and hostile lab leak proponents, he and his fellow lab leak believer microbiologist Bryce Nickels to scientists who publish in help of a zoonotic origin “fraudsters,” “liars,” “perjurers,” “felons,” “grifters,” “stooges,” “imbeciles,” and “murderers.” Milton Leitenberg has revealed with Ebright, particularly this lab leak-promoting An enchantment for an goal, open, and clear scientific debate in regards to the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and revealed on his personal Did the SARS-CoV-2 virus come up from a bat coronavirus analysis program in a Chinese language laboratory? Very presumably., wherein he denied that lab leak was a conspiracy idea. As for Elisa Harris, she was a cosignatory of an open letter to Nature Medication, together with lab leak conspiracy theorists Alina Chan, Richard Ebright, and others demanding an expression of concern adopted by retraction.
And…uh-oh:
I’ve modified my thoughts. Kahn seems to be no less than lab leak-adjacent. I’ve lengthy argued that the present model of lab leak is primarily a conspiracy idea excess of it’s a helpful or legitimate scientific speculation (most not too long ago three weeks in the past), however on what will be gleaned from some Googling I don’t suppose Kahn is a tough core lab leak proponent. She does, nonetheless, appear, at minimal, somewhat too receptive to the thought given how little the precise scientific proof helps it.
Stanford must be ashamed, however received’t be
Wrapping all of it up is one other Stanford Professor, Dr. John Ioannidis, due to course he’s. Earlier than the pandemic, Ioannidis was somebody whom I admired. Sadly, because the pandemic, my opinion—and that of quite a lot of Ioannidis’ former admirers—soured. Why? Early within the pandemic Ioannidis was fast to embrace “pure herd immunity” approaches to COVID-19 that later grew to become the idea of the Nice Barrington Declaration. Once more, the GBD was a technique that by no means would have labored—and didn’t work—and was profoundly social Darwinist. Though Ioannidis was not an writer—certainly, in equity he refused to signal it, though not primarily based on disagreeing with the GBD’s premise however due to his opposition to “signing petitions” as a method of settling “questions of scientific truth”—his name early within the pandemic for what certain gave the impression of a variation on the thought of “centered safety” was everywhere in the GBD. He was additionally a co-author, together with GBD co-author Jay Bhattacharya of the notorious Santa Clara seroprevalence research that misleadingly claimed that over 80 occasions extra folks had been uncovered to COVID-19 than beforehand thought (and subsequently the an infection fatality price, or IFR, was approach decrease than was being claimed, that means COVID was not almost as harmful as claimed and subsequently all these public well being interventions had been pointless). Ioannidis additionally made a vile evidence-free accusation that ICU medical doctors had been inadvertently killing COVID sufferers by intubating them willy-nilly when the sufferers actually didn’t want mechanical air flow. And don’t even get me began on Ioannidis’ notorious “Kardashian index” paper, wherein he smeared scientific critics and opponents of the GBD as “science Kardashians” utilizing risibly dangerous methodology primarily based on what was initially revealed as a satirical index to remark on scientists with extra social media affect than affect within the scientific literature. By means of all of it, Ioannidis continues to deal with theoretical dying from a vaccine as being of extra concern than precise dying from COVID-19 and to falsely accuse knowledgeable panels whose conclusions he doesn’t like of “panel stacking.”
Sadly, it seems like a really acceptable wrap-up for a convention so loaded with COVID-19 misinformers.
So what occurred to Stanford? On the threat of evaluating apples to oranges (though I don’t suppose I’m), I liken it to the case of the Cleveland Clinic, an establishment that’s typically science- and evidence-based, however by way of ideology allowed in entire facilities and institutes that help “integrating” quackery like “purposeful drugs,” acupuncture, reiki, and others into standard drugs. How that ideology received entrenched, I don’t know, nevertheless it stays so. As for Stanford, my finest guess is that it’s the right-wing libertarian/conservative affect of The Hoover Establishment that pulls COVID-19 contrarians against something that may be solid as a “lockdown” or some other public well being mandate.
The unhappy factor is, no matter good public well being school there are at Stanford, their voices don’t dominate. Slightly, it’s the voices of the worst of the worst contrarians, like Jay Bhattacharya, Eran Bendavid, John Ioannidis, and Scott Atlas who dominate the general public discourse relating to public well being science popping out of Stanford. This can be a propaganda-fest masquerading as a reputable convention on public well being responses throughout a pandemic, and Stanford College must be ashamed for placing its imprimatur on the entire affair.