There is a potential point of agreement.
Many things are unlikely to be agreed upon by supporters and opponents of the Great Barrington Declaration. I hope that one area of agreement is the fact that the authors are not invisible, muffled mystery men and women. People who pay attention to COVID-19 policy know what they think.
These individuals are very important figures in the media landscape. They've been on a lot of large podcasts. They have given interviews. They have written many editorials for large newspapers. They were profiled by the New York Times. They have a large following on social media. Some of the videos they have made have been seen by millions of people. They have testified before Congress and courts. Some have found new jobs in right-wing think tanks. They have met with and influenced politicians. The medical experts were at the White House. Dr. Gupta met with the UK Prime Minister. Journalists say the have become famous voices.
We know who the authors are and what they believe. We know how they shaped our response.
The question is whether the mainstream was right or wrong to try to muzzle the protesters.
The following passage is from an article titled "8 Things US Pandemic Communicators Still Get Wrong." He wrote.
There are several patterns of fake consensus. The most dangerous thing to do is bashing the dissenters so badly that potential followers shy away and they can't get a fair hearing. The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration were mistreated. The question isn't whether they were right or wrong to oppose last year's lockdowns, but whether the mainstream was right or wrong to try to muzzle them. Wrong, I think. Absolutely wrong.
One of the authors of the GBD would agree with this passage. They have been on far-reaching podcasts that claim they have beencensored. They have said the same thing on national TV. They wrote editorials in international newspapers that claimed they had been muzzled. They complain about attempts to "censor and silence scientists" on their social media accounts. The Academy for Science and Freedom was opened at the college.
This raises some interesting questions. How can people be so loud? How can so many people becensored? How have the authors of the book been able to influence the country's most powerful leaders while also being deprived of a fair hearing? Isn't "Silenced" people supposed to be silent? Is it no longer the idea that words have meaning?
The closest these individuals have come to being silenced is when a video of a roundtable discussion they had with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was removed from YouTube. Maybe the private company should not have done this. The Streisand effect is likely to be amplified by removing the video. They talked about the video removal a lot. It seems to be a seminal moment of the Pandemic for them, the same way seeing a young man die early in the Pandemic was for me.
This video showed these individuals as they were setting the COVID-19 policy for a state with over twenty million people. It's like a lottery winner moaning that someone discarded the envelope that delivered his $20 million check. With hundreds of thousands of Americans already dead and hundreds of thousands still to die, the fate of this doomed video really upset them. Dr. Scott Atlas said about the video.
If you can be able to censor what is said in a country, then you are not going to hear the truth. If we have this sort of censorship, this is almost the end of our civilization, because we used to criticize severely like the USSR and communist China.
Dr. Atlas didn't give the impression that academic freedom was a high priority for him when he threatened to sue his detractors. I can't think of a better person to comment on it.
Criticism is notencing.
Dr. Sandman and the authors of the GBD are conflating criticism with suppression. Some people with huge platforms say they are being attacked or silenced when they disagree with someone. Dr. Oz accused his critics of trying to cancel him because of his conservative values. Dr. Marty Makary wrote that America's self-anointed virus experts and social-media giants are silenced doctors with contrarian views. Dr. Monica Gandhi decried the lack of tolerance for nuanced scientific discourse during the Pandemic, even though she had been on a podcasts and in the national media predicting the end of the epidemic.
If these people really consider themselves immune to this epidemic, does that mean they would have made more videos on the internet and been more active on the internet? It confuses the mind.
The Princess, the Pea, and the GBD.
In the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea, a delicate princess slept poorly because of a single pea under a tower of mattresses. These are very sensitive people, and they're not like the young people who die of COVID-19.
For example. Dr. Gupta wrote a long article complaining that people used words that she didn't like. She said so.
Our critics have made fun of the Great Barrington Declaration.
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Mainstream science is the only thing that matters. If that were the case, science would stop growing. It is an inflammatory, emotional term charged with implications of irresponsibility to dismiss us as dangerous. It becomes toxic when people with influence throw it around.
If my goal was to spare Dr. Gupta's feelings, could I use the idea that mass infection of young people is a desired outcome? I can think of many words, but few are more polite than these. According to the CDC, over 1,000 children have died of COVID-19 so far, and just under 6,000 Americans younger than 29 years have died of it. Tens of thousands of children were sick enough to be hospitalized. The vaccine is very effective in preventing tragedies. Those who encourage young people to contract the virus and oppose vaccinations seem to be called dangerous and fringe. I will try to describe these ideas as "perilous" and "peripheral" from now on.
Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institute of Health, sent an email to other government officials stating that the authors of the book had met with leading government officials in the Trump administration and requested a quick and devastating removal of its premises. Dr. Bhattacharya called this a propaganda attack by his own government. If the public health official merely contemplates questioning the "premises" of the GBD, what form will this discussion take? It is a natural reaction for some people to say they are being personally attacked or silenced when they disagree with someone. It is almost as if Dr. Bhattacharya doesn't really want discussion about the premises of the GBD unless his interlocutor is lavishing him with praise.
The attempts to silence the authors of the book have failed so miserably that this hypersensitivity to criticism is even more striking. If someone claims they have been silenced, I can generally make two predictions: 1) they have spread false information about COVID-19, and 2) they have a huge platform to complain about being silenced.
Silenced doctors were threatened.
There are exceptions to this. The Chinese doctor who warned the world of COVID-19 was punished for speaking about the disease. The Trump administration silenced Dr. Nancy Messonnier and Dr. Rick Bright for accurately stating the COVID-19 risk. Dr. Jeffrey Goldhagen, a doctor at the University of Florida, was not allowed to testify in a lawsuit regarding mask mandates. We don't know about other people who were silenced because they were silenced.
The threats against prominent figures are unacceptable. The threats against scientists have become commonplace, and a recent Nature survey shows that these vile behaviors are attempts to silence people. Abuse and harassment has caused many health officials to quit their jobs. Two years ago, we were prepared for a Pandemic, but this loss of expertise means we are less prepared now. Dr. Gorski wrote about threats against Dr. John Ioannidis.
I will always say that harassment, death threats, and the like are not acceptable, no matter how much I disagree with the person experiencing them.
Amen.
Some of the behavior that has been labeled as threatening doesn't seem to rise to this level. When posters were placed around his campus, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya felt threatened. There was a graph of the massive spike in deaths in Florida that followed the Governor's message about protecting the vulnerable by vaccinating the older population. According to news reports, Dr. Bhattacharya felt that the poster campaign was part of a larger attempt to keep him quiet. I reproduced these images at the risk of being accused of trying to silence Dr. Bhattacharya.
Dr. Bhattacharya seems to have an odd relationship with his words. If he feels his words can be used to intimidate or silence him, maybe he should think about the problem with his words.
I plan to share the words of people like Dr. Bhattacharya in my next article. My aim is to discuss his thoughts on COVID-19, not to threaten or silence him. Who thinks that I, or anyone else, could actually accomplish this goal? Did the students think he would be shamed into silence? They failed if this was their plan. Dr. Bhattacharya said that shortly after declaring Florida had protected vulnerable people.
The emergency phase of the disease is over. We need to work very hard to get rid of the sense of emergency. Covid should be one of the 200 diseases that affect people.
One day, Dr. Bhattacharya will treat COVID-19 as one of the 200 diseases that affect people. I will risk being accused of trying to silence him by admitting I look forward to that day.
Who is being Silenced?
The melodramatic accusations of "silencing" are likely to have a chilling effect on scientific discourse. Powerful professors who have large media exposure liken their critics to censors for the sin of posting their own words, which may frighten and silence anyone who dares to disagree with them in the future. Critics may feel the need to walk on eggshells if words like "fringe" and "dangerous" are said to be toxic. Critics may decide that it is safer to say nothing when they are critical of the GBD. I have seen contrarian doctors with large platforms fret that their hot takes will get them canceled as a way of staving off criticism. Who would want to be accused of harassing someone else orcensoring someone else? It is a cute trick.
It can be effective even though it is a trick. An internet mob accused a journalist of organizing a harassment campaign and that's why her article was quashed. sacrosanct doctors are immune from criticism no matter how many facts they mangled or how many times they declared the epidemic over, because critical reporting equals harassment to her detractors. The journalist was silenced by a campaign of harassment. Will the folks at the Academy of Science and Freedom invite her to correct the outrage? I think we know the answer. The sacrifice of people like Drs. Wenliang, Messonnier, and Bright who paid a steep price for their candor is diminished by histrionic claims.
I hope some people will be brave enough to acknowledge some truths. When the history of this epidemic is written, contrarian doctors who are divorced from patient care won't be seen as its principle victims because they were called "fringe" or put up posters reminding them of their words.
Doctors who worked with COVID-19 patients know that they suffered more.
