2020: Society faces a risk even more toxic and deadly than Covid-19: that the conduct of science becomes indistinguishable from politics.
In April 2020, Drs. Vinay Prasad and Jeffrey Flier wrote an article titled Scientists Who Express Different Views On COVID-19 Should Be Heard, Not Demonized, which was was about people who said mean things to Dr. John Ioannidis. They wrote:
When major decisions must be made amid high scientific uncertainty, as is the case with Covid-19, we can’t afford to silence or demonize professional colleagues with heterodox views. Even worse, we can’t allow questions of science, medicine, and public health to become captives of tribalized politics. Today, more than ever, we need vigorous academic debate…
That’s why we believe that the bar to stifling or ignoring academics who are willing to debate their alternative positions in public and in good faith must be very high. Since different states and nations are already making distinct choices, there exist many natural experiments to identify what helped, what hurt, and what in the end didn’t matter.
They recognized it was a time of uncertainty and that no one would get everything right. They said:
When the dust settles, few if any scientists — no matter where they work and whatever their academic titles — will have been 100% correct about the effects of Covid-19 and our responses to it. Acknowledging this fact does not require policy paralysis by local and national governments, which must take decisive action despite uncertainty. But admitting this truth requires willingness to listen to and consider ideas, even many that most initially consider totally wrong.
They concluded:
Society faces a risk even more toxic and deadly than Covid-19: that the conduct of science becomes indistinguishable from politics. The tensions between the two policy poles of rapidly and systematically reopening society versus maximizing sheltering in place and social isolation must not be reduced to Republican and Democratic talking points, even as many media outlets promote such simplistic narratives.
These critical decisions should be influenced by scientific insights independent of political philosophies and party affiliations. They must be freely debated in the academic world without insult or malice to those with differing view
As the morgues were overflowing with corpses of COVID’s victims, Drs. Prasad and Flier were worried about Dr. Ioannidis’ feelings. On social media, Dr. Prasad even said it was “chilling and silencing and dangerous” to call Dr. Ioannidis an “idiot.” The stakes were very high and the situation was very precarious. One stray word could do a lot of damage.
2024: You fucking liar
A lot’s happened since then. Here is what Dr. Prasad sounds like today.
Dr. Damania: What do you think should be done, Vinay, because there’s this there’s two camps on this like let’s forgive and have a Reconciliation about all this and move on and forget it Why are we beating the dead horse and others who say but if we do that when the next you know Marlberg pandemic or whatever comes Or bird flu the same shit’s gonna happen.
Dr. Prasad: Yeah, I don’t believe in forgiveness because in my opinion these pieces of shit are still lying I mean like if you want forgiveness the first thing you have to say is what you actually did wrong And they’re still fucking like this well based on the best information we had that the time cloth masking two -year-olds was a sensible No, it wasn’t you fucking liar.
Curiously, Dr. Flier hasn’t said anything about this as far as I know, even as he continues to find my tone offensive because I disagreed with him.
This vitriol and hyperbole was routine for Dr. Prasad. He said public health officials were part of a “totalitarian regime” that “used the power of the police state,” and he routinely said things like this:
Public health wasn’t always a dystopian hellscape intent on using police and military power to maximize compliance with interventions that are based on 0 RCTs. But it is now!
Dr. Prasad called for criminal prosecutions. On social media, he posted a picture of a mask along with the following message:
I saw a 4 year old wearing this outside today The makers of this should be prosecuted. There is no evidence it is certified to this standard in children of this age. The use of this in a child is disgusting. An adult mental illness that hurts kids. CDC and AAP failed.
Dr. Prasad called for mass purges of scientists. After the election, he complained about masking children and posted the following:
I would fire at least ~10000 people (1/4) in the CDC and everyone who touched this decision or didn’t stop it. Anyone working from home should go, as well.
10,000 people should not lose their jobs because children wore masks at the start of the pandemic, but the sad truth is, they might.
Although Dr. Prasad depicted himself as a sober medical scholar, his rageful comments were intentionally crafted to provoke his audience. His appeals to raw emotion were very effective. Here are some of the replies to Dr. Prasad’s post:
- Closing schools… injecting experimental products in children.. They need to be arrested first. Then, you can fire them.
- My presumption based on these agencies’ decisions so far is that they are filled top to bottom with politically possessed, self righteous, Quacks. I’d love at least 2/3 of them gone! I bet 90% of the real work is probably done by 10% of the employees there.
- Masking toddlers was state sanctioned child abuse. The risk benefit analysis is obvious risk, implausible benefit.
- Only 1/4?? I’d close the place down & rehire based on their progress during COVID..ie did they challenge/speak out, if so then yes you’re on track to having smart people in situ who also have integrity. You can’t put a price on that!
- I agree . . . we need a decisive leader at CDC who is willing to hold the institution, and its people, accountable for that colossal failure in judgment.
- Fire anyone who obscured the reality of Antigenic Sin, innate/adaptive immunity, risk stratification and mRNA safety signals. Reinstate everyone with backpay who were fired due to the unethical, unconstitutional injection mandate.
- I hope you can contribute in an official role to Make Science Great Again!
These spiteful calls for revenge were a normal, everyday occurrence on the social media feeds of We Want Them Infected doctors. This is what they were aiming for. These people won’t cooperate when the next pandemic hits.
Dr. Prasad has traveled a long distance in a short time, though he is just one of many doctors calling for drastic actions against scientists. Dr. Richard Ebright, a so-called “biosafety” advocate who teams up with anti-vaccine advocates of herd immunity through mass infection, is also calling for scientists to be jailed. His partner Dr. Bryce Nickels hopes to enjoy the spectacle of even more Congressional investigations. Dr. Ebright has testified there before. He is politically connected. These hearings are highly problematic, as Dr. Allison Neitzel explained in her article Don’t Let House Republicans Rewrite Trump’s Pandemic History.
My Pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci
This is all happening at a moment when political fortune has shifted greatly in a very short time. Robert Kennedy Jr. might be running the show soon. He wrote a book titled The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race. According to it’s description on Amazon:
The Wuhan Cover-Up pulls back the curtain on how the US government’s increase in biosecurity spending after the 2001 terror attacks set in motion a plan to transform the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, into a de facto Defense Department agency… The Wuhan Cover-Up unveils a global conspiracy of epic proportion and lethal consequence.
This stuff is mainstream. Kennedy’s other book is called The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health. Though it is from 2021, it is currently an Amazon #1 bestseller with nearly 26,000 reviews. David Burke wrote a meticulous rebuttal titled In Defense of Fauci. It has 1 review and is ranked #2,127,824 on the sales list.
Meanwhile, anti-vaxxers openly pine for Nuremberg trials and headlines like this exist- Anthony Fauci Says He Still Needs A Security Detail After Ron Desantis Threatened To ‘Grab That Little Elf And Chuck Him Across The Potomac’. Powerful politicians made no secret of whom they blame and their desire for revenge. Elon Musk even Tweeted, “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.”
Doctors amplified this message, yet it hasn’t generated much alarm. Perhaps it should. It’s not hard to think of examples of historical examples of heroic scientists who were treated like villains for political purposes by angry mobs. Even if the risk of this actually happening here is low, we should not pretend it’s zero.
This is all certainly much more chilling and silencing and dangerous than someone calling Dr. Ioannidis an “idiot” because he predicted the flu would be worse than COVID and that 40,000 Americans would die from it.