Most doctors whose ideas I have discussed have ignored me. That is their perfect right. I am not entitled to a response from anyone. However, several doctors, namely Drs. Joseph Fraiman, Vinay Prasad, Francois Balloux, Stefan Baral, and Jay Bhattacharya, have responded to the data I presented in the linked articles and my book. As much of my writing is simply accurate quotes, I will continue that practice and allow you to form your own opinion as to the validity of their criticisms.
Dr. Joseph Fraiman:
Hi @19joho your book “we want them infected” I’m one of the handful of people who bought it,….wow it is really bad. It’s painful to read the words of a self-proclaiming scientist so out of touch with reality who has no idea how out of touch he is.
Were you surprised your book sales have been so poor?
Your tweets were getting so much attention, you maybe got fooled given your tweets were artificially throttled up for extra viewing by being pro-government narrative and pro- pharma (they used to get to push that Twitter throttle and de-throttle.). But sadly for you they can’t throttle up book sales.
It is shocking you don’t realize, but most Americans now know they were lied to by our government and scientists like you. They know lockdowns hurt more than they helped, those school closing you supported destroyed our children, as did the worthless masking you supported. Also most realize the vaccine is worthless at best & are upset, they got fooled into taking it. Your track record for pandemic recommendations has been 100% harmful.
I’m sure your book isnt selling. Most Americans have learned better, despite being fed the government propaganda you gladly parroted the last couple of years.
Your book is a going to live in history as testament to the thoughtless and harmful government recommendations scientist’s embarrassing didn’t oppose for fear of losing their jobs and some like your self stupidly supported.
You book is being judged poorly today by nearly all Americans (your book sales are the example) but even worse you will be judged more harshly by generations to come. As now nearly all realize the ideas you promoted were wrong and harmful, yet you could not see this and published a book doubling down on your own hubris…I actually feel bad for you, as I don’t think you realize how silly you look right now.
Dr. Vinay Prasad:
Joseph you can’t indulge someone just trying to make money from selling a book🤣.
Professor Francois Balloux:
I’ve been frequently ‘harassed’ on social media including by @medpagetoday contributors. @19Joho is the worst. He’s deeply dishonest, unhinged and vile. Then, I appreciate it’s just part and parcel of his grift and he’s got a book to flog. The two people who wrote proper hit pieces about me are @19Joho and @AlexBerenson. This may look like ‘horseshoe theory’, but it’s actually easier to explain by greed. Both were prepared to cause major damage to childhood vaccination programmes to push sales of their shite books…His behaviour was bit of a mystery to me, until I realised he was trying to cash in on a Covid book. Then it all started to make sense….
Here you are already, shouty as always. Intellectually, I rank you on the level of antivaxx cranks such as such Wakefield, Yeadon, Berenson and Malone, and you’re equally damaging vaccine stewardship with your dogmatic idiocy.
In fairness Dr Howard is just hawking his book so can’t blame the man for trying to line his pockets during a pandemic when he saw so many of his friends doing the same… But what he does have is nine truly terrible books on Amazon. The man clearly doesn’t earn enough wherever he works and I sincerely hope it’s all been worth it…It won’t since no one cares enough to actually worry about a person like him. But I do feel pity for how sad his life must be and do wish him better days ahead.
Twitters biggest book-selling schmuck…
Just asked you to leave me alone…still praying that happen one day.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya:
I wasn’t going to comment on the inane Jonathan Howard (@19joho) book on the pandemic, but I ran across an unhinged claim by him that illustrates perfectly a certain covidian mindset that is too perfect to pass up….
The only way out of this bind, I guess, is to extol the virtue of lockdown. Let’s also leave aside his deep lack of understanding of the idea of herd immunity, which is a biological fact and the endpoint of any strategy we follow, whether lockdowns, focused protection, or let-it-rip. California and NY followed lockdowns, and everyone got infected anyway!
(Free advice for you, Jonathan: maybe take an epidemiology class if you don’t want to keep embarrassing yourself in public further?) The bigger problem is that lockdowners like Howard (an NYU doctor, I think), think that living your life is an irresponsible act. Sending your kids to school is an irresponsible act. The implication is that unless you comply with his prescription — lockdown with no logical endpoint — you are irresponsible.
But he’s wrong. Living your life is not irresponsible. Absent tremendous laptop class privilege, there is and was no way to hide away from the virus forever without harm to your physical, psychological, and economic health. The unspoken root idea of his is that the general public owed it to doctors to not get covid because it would place doctors at risk of getting covid. Of course this is an inversion. Medical professionals serve the public, not the other way around.
After sharing his extensive commentary (previously discussed here and here), Dr. Bhattacharya revealed something entirely unsurprising about my book- he had not read it. This may explain why his and other doctors’ reaction was very different from those who had. Indeed, one person who actually read it said:
So far, on social media, these contrarians can only respond to this book with ad hominem attacks and not much else. After all, Dr. Howard quoted their own words and their words are the only evidence needed to condemn their work.
Another person who actually read it had this to say:
Anyone not convinced by his book hasn’t read it. I read the book and examined the recent Twitter responses from the main people JH alludes to. I can honestly say they have failed to refute him on a single point. They resorted to ad hominem attacks and dug a deeper hole for themselves.
Of course, you should read any of my articles here and judge all this for yourself.