An introduction to the declaration.
The main idea behind the Great Barrington Declaration was that people who were not vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19 could be easily identified and separated from vulnerable people. herd immunity and the end of the Pandemic with minimal loss of life or economic impact would be achieved by the mass infections of these not vulnerable people. The policy approach was called focused protection.
The Great Barrington Declaration is closed down.
None of you know anything about this. Our top public health officials shut down the GBD and its authors.
The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Immunology, Dr. Francis Collins, felt that the authors of the GBD were fringe epidemiologists and suggested that there needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the authors of the GBD, called this a propaganda attack by my own government and requested discussion and engagement instead. Dr. Vinay Prasad wrote about this sad incident in an article titled "At a time when the U.S. Needed Covid-19 Dialogue Between Scientists, Francis Collins moved to Shut it Down."
Collins should not have called for an immediate and devastating take down, but to use his pulpit as the director of the National Institute of Health to hold a series of public discussions and dialogues. In a world where scientists were trapped in their own homes for months, a series of dialogues made available for the broader scientific community, policy makers, and the public would have benefited us all.
I agree more. If a large number of people sign a policy memo, the director of the National Institute of Health is obligated to use his pulpit to give his ideas and authors a megaphone. Dr Johnny Bananas and Professor Cominic Dummings are both real people.
The Great Barrington Declaration has some wisdom.
Time has proven that the people he shut down could have contributed to the response to the Pandemic. Two of the authors of the GBD wrote an article this summer. The article began by saying:
The anti-vax idea that no one should bevaccinated is as misguided as the idea that everyone must bevaccinated. The latter is more dangerous for public health.
Dr. Collins should have used public discussion and dialogue in the middle of the Pandemic to explain the idea that vaccinating everyone is more dangerous for public health. It is important for the public to know that the head of theNIH believes that ideas like this are reasonable and worthy of discussion.
On 7/26/2020, Dr. Bhattacharya said that Florida had protected the vulnerable by vaccinating the older population, and that he didn't think the delta variant changed the evidence. He said that they have done an incredible job of not having deaths in the cases.
The newspapers declared that Florida had broken its COVID-19 Death Record for the fifth week and that child deaths from carbonide doubled in Florida. The headlines read, "Florida Breaks Daily COVID-19 Case Record Yet Again" and "Florida Among Top 5 States Contribute to Spike in Children's Colovid-19 Hospitalizations."
Is vulnerable people truly protected in Florida? Did the Delta variant change anything? Did Florida achieve herd immunity through focused protection? Only a public discussion can answer these questions.
We need a robust public debate on vaccinations. The authors of an article called "Vaccines Save Lives" argued against vaccinations during a week in which 38 children died. Now is the time to ask ourselves if this is the case.
We need to hear from people who are against vaccines in a forum because they have proven to be very effective at keeping children out of the hospital. The CDC reported yesterday that one of the patients hospitalized for COVID-19 was fully vaccine-eligible, and that the vaccine was 92% against the coronaviruses. There were just 11 cases of vaccine-related myocarditis after 8 million vaccine doses in children aged 5–11 years.
According to the authors of the GBD, the flu has a higher mortality risk for children than COVID-19, which has killed over 1,035 children. Don't think that it's "settled science" which is the larger number, 1 or 1,000. We need public dialogue to discuss controversial topics in a transparent fashion.
They pointed out that old people are more likely to die than children. The vaccine would not save the lives of that many children. Is it worth the hassle to save the lives of more children, especially those with underlying conditions? The ideal place to answer this question would have been a forum sponsored by the National Institute of Health.
There needs to be a quick and devastating take down of its premises.
Dr. Collins contemplated in a private message about publishing a take down of the premises of the GBD, instead of fostering debate about whether it's more dangerous to vaccine everyone or no one during a raging Pandemic.
If Dr. Collins wanted to criticize these premises, he should have done so in a public discussion. It was clearly a propaganda attack for him to even consider publishing a critique. What kind of scientist publishes? Does he think he is Stephen King?
Some writers who are in favor of the GBD omitted that Dr. Collins wanted to take down the people behind it. Any written critique of the premises of the GBD is a personal attack on its authors. In his private message, Dr. Collins dared to call the authors of the GBD afringe.
I am sorry, but I felt it was important to document Dr. Collins's depravity. Dr. Collins could have used a more appropriate word to describe the people who claim that a virus that killed one child is more dangerous than the one that killed over 1,000 children. Maybe he could have called them "nuanced".
When a video of theirs was taken down by YouTube, it was a big deal for them, as they were called "fringe". I hope that you have a place in your heart for epidemiologists who have been defamed by the internet, and who have been put through the wringer for nearly two years.
It is more professional to say that your opponent is America's No. 1 anti-vaxxer if you disagree with them. Dr. Bhattacharya has said things about Dr. Fauci that are mature and thoughtful.
The Great Barrington Declaration was Silenced.
Unfortunately, Dr. Collins was able to shut down the GBD. I'm sure this is the first you've heard about it. You don't know who the authors are or what they believe. They have not been heard. The authors of the GBD met with top leaders of the Trump administration and influenced the COVID-19 policy for the entire country. They met with the Florida Governor and set the policy for that state. They have only appeared before Congress and in courts, and have only written editorials in small, niche newspapers. They only made a small number of videos on the internet. The emergency phase of covid is over and we should be treating it as one of 200 diseases that affect people. Have you heard of it? I did not think so.
The Great Barrington Declaration is limiting me.
You would expect the authors of the GBD to be careful not to make people feel like they are being silenced. The sad truth is that I am being silenced by these individuals.
I invited myself to speak about the benefits of the vaccine at the Academy for Science and Freedom at Hillsdale College, but I have been completely ignored. The purpose of the institute is to counter the suppression of scientists, but they have refused to invite me to speak there. My request to write an article for the Brownstone Institute, which has ties to the GBD, has also been ignored. I was invited to be on Dr. Prasad's show, but I have only been greeted with silence.
I think it is important to engage with people who hold different views. When views like mine are not allowed, we all lose. The end of science could be caused by blacklisting people like me. Wouldn't it be better to have a dialogue than to be shut down? They haven't called me "fringe" yet.
The authors of the GBD were owed a series of public discussions by Dr. Collins. The authors of the GDB owe me a lot.
We want discussion and engagement. Right?
