Unlike myself, Dr. Vinay Prasad did nothing to advance an actual COVID randomized-controlled trial (RCT) as far as I know. Instead, of making any real-world contribution, he created long lists of RCTs that he expected other doctors to do. In his vision, it was a significant accomplishment to make podcasts and “call for” for them to do RTCs.
In a previous article titled Doctors Who Performatively Fetishized RCTs Aren’t Out to Advance Medical Research, But Rather to Sow Doubt & Mistrust, I described how Dr. Prasad created these lists for one reason, to undermine mitigation measures he opposed. It was trivially easy to take an unwanted measure and claim that it was of no value because it hadn’t proven itself via an RCT. Obviously RCTs are not the only way to learn about the world, and when these measures did prove themselves via RCTs, such as the pediatric and booster vaccines, Dr. Prasad said these studies were too small or out of date.
Dr. Prasad started with his conclusions and always found some reason to discard unwanted data and to disparage those who disagreed as actively opposed to high-quality evidence. Indeed he opposed the pediatric COVID vaccine months before there was a pediatric COVID vaccine and called its supporters “idiots“. Conversely, Dr. Prasad never demanded RCTs to push policies he preferred, namely repeatably exposing unvaccinated children to SARS-CoV-2.
Though Dr. Prasad still starts with his conclusions, things are very different now. Dr. Prasad’s ideological allies are in power or soon will be. As such, Dr. Prasad is done creating lists of endless RCTs for them to do. He has a very different task for them today. He openly wants “researchers” to work backwards to produce non-randomized “evidence” specifically to confirm his prior beliefs and advance his political objectives. In his article Jay Bhattacharya is a Superb Pick for NIH Director he tasked Dr. Bhattacharya with performing just one RCT regarding NIH grants, and said:
Jay Bhattacharya will create a portfolio of funding to investigate the harms of lockdowns, school closures, vaccine mandates, and other unproven draconian COVID19 measures. This will create a lasting body of scholarship which will deter future public health tyrants.
That’s an amazing thing to write. Dr. Prasad doesn’t want to build a fair and objective body of scholarship to help guide future public health leaders. Dr. Prasad is done pretending that science is an objective method to investigate the world. To him, it is a weapon. With his typical emotionally manipulative language, he wants the NIH to “investigate… unproven draconian COVID19 measures” for the singular purpose of deterring future public health “tyrants.” The term for this bastardization of science is policy-based evidence making. According to Wikipedia:
Policy-based evidence making is a pejorative term which refers to the commissioning of research in order to support a policy which has already been decided upon. It is the converse of evidence-based policy making.
As the name suggests, policy-based evidence making means working back from a predefined policy to produce underpinning evidence. Working from a conclusion to provide only supporting evidence is an approach which contradicts most interpretations of the scientific method; however, it should be distinguished from research into the effects of a policy where such research may provide either supporting or opposing evidence.
Unfortunately, Dr. Prasad is probably correct that Dr. Bhattacharya’s will “investigate” COVID measures, and we all know what he will “discover”. They are both political actors who disguise themselves as neutral scientists, and Dr. Prasad’s surprisingly honest admission leaves no doubt about that. The era of policy-based evidence making making is upon on, and we should all be on guard against it.