@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
In 2020, NPR breathlessly reported Tony Fauci's opposition to handshakes. Someone should ask npr why it scrubbed the story from its site. Spoiler: covid is airborne. Avoiding handshakes was as scientific as spraying groceries with lysol. 1/3 https://web.archive.org/web/20200423235340/https://nprillinois.org/post/dr-fauci-says-no-more-handshakes-some-never-liked-them-begin#stream/0…
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
In 2021, How Stuff Works wondered whether covid had killed the handshake. Spoiler: by then, the handshake had become the secret handshake of the anti-lockdown movement. They also removed the piece from their site. 2/3 https://web.archive.org/web/20230105092113/https://people.howstuffworks.com/covid-killed-handshake-news.htm
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Ultimately, covid did not kill the handshake and the hug because people know it's wrong to treat our neighbors as mere biohazards. Kudos to Time for not scrubbing its contribution to the genre. 3/3 https://time.com/5842469/coronavirus-handshake-social-touch/
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Bonus post: HelloGiggles, which is an actual website, did a good story warning against the spraying your groceries with lysol thing in April 2020. It would have earned more points if the headline had made the point clear. https://hellogiggles.com/how-to-disinfect-groceries-coronavirus/ https://t.co/DEzqdOxcJF
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
New on my Illusion of Consensus podcast, I debate with @JosephFraiman on his HOPE Accord, a public petition to restore ethics to public health and to pull regulatory authorization for the marketing of the covid mRNA vaccine. I hesitated to sign because I was concerned that some patient groups may still benefit from it. Joe, very reasonably, asked me how we could know who falls into those categories. The answer, of course, would come from randomized clinical trial evidence with solid clinical endpoints like prevention of long covid, hospitalization, or death. By the end of the debate, Joe had convinced me that not pulling the authorization makes it more likely that we will never get good clinical trial evidence testing to check whether such groups still exist in a setting of widespread recovered immunity. Thanks to the debate, I now intend to sign the Accord. I appreciate Joe's willingness to help me think through the regulatory and policy matters. You can listen to the whole debate here: https://youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=2LlfSLKKy-k…
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Here are the timestamps to the conversation. Timestamps 0:20 Introduction to Dr Joe Fraiman 2:38 Calling for the suspension of the COVID-19 vaccine 10:25 Weighing the risks and benefits 12:20 Is there a group that benefits from the vaccine? 15:55 We can no longer trust regulatory bodies 17:30 The cautionary tale of Thalidomide 26:56 Acting on blind belief 34:23 Vaccine manufacturers are not liable for injuries 37:00 Government propaganda & gaslighting the injured 43:10 Coercion in education and immigration 53:10 Randomized trials, bias & accurate data 58:15 Drug companies vs the hit-list of critics 01:03:42 The need to return to ethical regulation
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
@JosephFraiman Here is a link to the text of the HOPE Accord. https://thehopeaccord.org/
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
This is false. The Biden-Harris censored online speech that contradicts their policy priorities in the name of misinformation control. Their administration even argued in front of the Supreme Court for the right to censor Americans.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
The House report on HHS covid propaganda is devastating. The Biden admin spent almost a billion dollars to push falsehoods about covid vaccines, boosters, and masks on the American people. If a pharma company had run the campaign, it would have been fined out of existence. 1/23 https://t.co/JneY7PYJ83
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
HHS engaged a PR firm, the Fors Marsh Group (FMG), for the propaganda campaign. The main goal was to increase covid vax uptake. The strategy: 1. Exaggerate covid mortality risk 2. Downplay the fact that there was no good evidence that the covid vax stops transmission. 2/23 https://t.co/tqOAq7Z0XK
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
The propaganda campaign extended beyond vax uptake and included exaggerating mask efficacy and pushing for social distancing & school closures. Ultimately, since the messaging did not match reality, the campaign collapsed public trust in public health. 3/23 https://t.co/TQWVQr0nQY
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
The PR firm (FMG) drew most of its faulty science from @CDCgov's "guidance," which ignored @US_FDA findings on the vaccine's limitations, as well as scientific findings from other countries that contradicted CDC groupthink. 4/23 https://t.co/kdF7314o3G
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
The report details the CDC's mask flip-flopping through the years. It's especially infuriating to recall the CDC's weird, anti-scientific, anti-human focus on masking toddlers with cloth masks into 2022. 5/23 https://t.co/jDRHxl9Y6g
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
President Biden's covid advisor, @ashishkjha, waited until Dec. 2022 (right after leaving government service) to tell the country that "[t]here is no study in the world that shows that masks work that well." What took him so long? 6/23 https://t.co/p2xBSc7CZh
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
In 2021, former @cdcgov director, Rochelle Walensky rewrote CDC guidance on social distancing at the behest of national teachers' union, guaranteeing that schools would remain closed to in-person learning for many months. 7/23 https://t.co/W2UZrukFMK
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
During this period, the PR firm FMG put out ads telling parents that schools would close unless kids masked up, stayed away from friends, and got covid vaccinated. 8/23 https://t.co/Y3pm4aDYLd
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
In March 2021, even as the CDC told the American people that the vaxxed did not need to mask, the PR firm ran ads saying that masks were still needed, even for the vaxxed. "It's not time to ease up" we were told, in the absence of evidence any of that did any good. 9/23 https://t.co/XA5rFFMdQq
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
In 2021, to support the Biden/Harris Admin push for vax mandates, the PR firm pushed the false idea that the vax stopped covid transmission. When people started getting "breakthrough" infections, public trust in pubic health collapsed. 10/23 https://t.co/sljGLRsxGh
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Later, when the FDA approved the vax for 12 to 15-year-old kids, the PR firm told parents that schools could open in fall 2021 only if they got their kids vaccinated. These ads never mentioned side effects like myocarditis due to the vax. 11/23 https://t.co/si272TP9jM
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
.@HHSGov has scrubbed the propaganda ads from this era from its webpages. It's easy to see why. They are embarrassing. They tell kids, in effect, that they should treat other kids like biohazards unless they are vaccinated. 12/23 https://t.co/U1QyIdOT4D
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
When the delta variant arrived, the PR firm doubled down on fear-mongering, masking, and social distancing. 13/23 https://t.co/gRlyACIr1l
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
In Sept. 2021, CDC director Walensky overruled the agency's external experts to recommend the booster to all adults rather than just the elderly. The director's action was "highly unusual" and went beyond the FDA's approval of the booster for only the elderly. 14/23 https://t.co/E8A1S8b7E7
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
The PR campaign and the CDC persistently overestimated the mortality risk of covid infection in kids to scare parents into vaccinating their children with the covid vax. 15/23 https://t.co/KTQogABPok
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
In Aug. 2021, the military imposed its covid vax mandate, leading to 8,300 servicemen being discharged. Since 2023, the DOD has been trying to get the discharged servicemen to reenlist. What harm has been done to American national security by the vax mandate? 16/23 https://t.co/HTQWmqbed7
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
The Biden/Harris admin imposed the OSHA, CMS, and military vax mandates, even though the CDC knew that the delta variant evaded vaccine immunity. The PR campaign studiously avoided informing Americans about waning vaccine efficacy in the face of variants. 17/23 https://t.co/ydJg2dp7Us
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
The propaganda campaign hired celebrities and influencers to "persuade" children to get the covid vax. I think if a celebrity is paid to advertise a faulty product, that celebrity should be partially liable if the product harms some people. 18/23 https://t.co/boZ3XbmINE
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
In the absence of evidence, the propaganda campaign ran ads telling parents that the vaccine would prevent their kids from getting long covid. 19/23 https://t.co/FA7kXFkAVP
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
With the collapse in public trust in the @CDCgov, parents have begun to question all CDC advice. Predictably, the HHS propaganda campaign has led to a decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccines. 20/23 https://t.co/EhZQj8iQVZ
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
The report makes several recommendations, including formally defining CDC's core mission to focus on its core mission of disease prevention, forcing HHS propaganda to abide by FDA's product labelling rules, and revamp the process of evaluating vaccine safety. 21/23 https://t.co/m1yorVxami
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Probably the most important recommendation: HHS should never again adopt a policy of silencing dissenting scientists in an attempt to create an illusion of consensus in favor of CDC group think. 22/23
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
You can find a copy of the full House report here. HHS must take its findings seriously if there is any hope for public health to regain public trust. 23/23 https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/We_Can_Do_This_NIH_PR_Campaign_Report_PUBLIC_82616d81eb.pdf
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Bill Gates spread misinformation about the covid vaccine stopping people from getting and spreading covid which has undermined public confidence in vaccines. He wants to curtail the 1st amendment because he knows his speech will never be censored due to his money and power.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Twitter 1.0 was a de facto wholly owned subsidiary of the US federal government, which it used for propaganda purposes against the American people.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
The mRNA platform hijacks human cells to make proteins from "code." But is there accurate control over the dose, distribution, & fidelity of those proteins? What if there isn't? New Illusion of Consensus podcast with my friend, scientist @MartinZ_uncut. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGlT4hT2ZBk
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
That time when Jacinda Ardern, former PM of New Zealand, banned Lord of the Rings (the books, not the movies) because of covid. The depths of The Science(tm) can never be fully understood. On the plus side, I'm sure the MSNBC folks approve.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
New @mtaibbi report on the government-university axis underlying the US govt's censorship engine. 1. The gov't funds a university to "research" disinformation 2. The university reaches out to @x or FB to direct them to censor or block accounts. It's censorship laundering. https://t.co/TDxh7rLqu2
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
@mtaibbi @X Here's a link to the full report at Matt's Racket News. Why is Clemson willing to serve as a patsy for government censorship activities? https://www.racket.news/p/foia-files-clemson-university https://t.co/UcF4UmWJBM
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
In Germany, as in the United States, the pandemic leaders who got their way in lockdowns and school closures in 2020 now want to rewrite history. They demolished the experts who advised against them with devastating takedowns, but now want people to think they lost the policy fight in 2020 and beyond.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
FDA whistle-blowers in Congress yesterday: The @US_FDA cut corners in its approval of the covid vax booster and full licensing of the covid vax in 2021 so that the government could force through covid vax mandates.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
The Supreme Court just ruled in the Murthy v. Missouri case that the Biden Administration can coerce social media companies to censor and shadowban people and posts it doesn't like. Congress will now need to act to enforce the Constitution since the Sup. Ct. won't.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
This now also becomes a key issue in the upcoming election. Where do the presidential candidates stand on social media censorship? We know where Biden stands since his lawyers argue that he has near monarchical power over social media speech.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
The court ruled that the plaintiffs (Missouri and Louisiana, as well as me and other blacklisted individuals) lacked standing to sue. This means that the Administration can censor ideas & no person will have standing to enforce the 1st Amendment. Free speech in America, for the moment, is dead.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
This testimony is amazing. The @nih has done everything it can to suppress public transparency about its activities via foia redactions. Finally the NIH director agrees that Morens conspired to violate foia altogether. It's time for the NIH coverup of its misdeeds to end.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Nothing says "The Science (tm)" more than Biden lawyers preventing former NIH boss and gain of function proponent Francis Collins from answering questions under oath about a lab leak that likely launched the covid era.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Gov't affiliated censors, probably: "Oh no, we're not violating your free speech rights. We're only making it so if you write something we don't like, no one will see it, publishers that print it will lose advertising, and a social media troll mob will ostracize you."
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Drug companies dream to reach audiences with such advertisements. They pay vast sums of money for ads that end with long lists of side effects. How much did they pay for this propaganda from state aligned 'comedians' with no side effect information?
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
I gave a speech a couple of weeks ago @mit at the invitation of the MIT Free Speech Alliance. I spoke on how the US government censors dissident scientists to suppress criticism of its own disinformation. The full talk is now available on youtube, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF5G46kSKR4
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
This is an interesting response to my post from a media insider, @KeithOlbermann. I take his point that @uberliner broke some sort of contract omerta (about which I know nothing) by blowing the whistle on NPR's culture. The question is, why does NPR impose such omerta on its reporters?
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
The current head of @NPR was formerly the head of Wikimedia. In her TED clip here, she tells us that a commitment to tell the truth is not the central occupation of wikipedia. No wonder it has become a propaganda workshop to smear truth tellers.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
I once gave a small donation to Wikipedia. So foolish. Never again.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Wikipedia is still defaming me and the @gbdeclaration. Their support and parroting of public health misinformation is in part responsible for the crisis in education, economic instability, and many deaths caused by the lockdowns. https://t.co/1vyvB2I3pD
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
What a shameful way for NPR to deal with thoughtful criticism by a long time insider. A news organization that responds to criticism by firing the heretic should wonder whether the orthodoxy it worships has led it to dark places. https://www.npr.org/2024/04/16/1244962042/npr-editor-uri-berliner-suspended-essay
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
This interview of @uberliner by @davidfolkenflik is incredible. There is a sense that the insider, Folkenflik, is transgressing by talking to the newly excommunicated Berliner. A sample: "Berliner says he did not get permission from NPR to speak with me for this story but that he was not worried about the consequences: "Talking to an NPR journalist and being fired for that would be extraordinary, I think.""
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Update / correction: I should have written 'suspended' rather than 'fired' in my original post above. Sorry for causing confusion about this. I was trying to convey a sense of final excommunication, but picked the wrong word to do it.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Astonishingly good @unherd article by Lionel Shriver on social manias, with a special appearance of the lockdown mania of 2020. There will be a great forgetting, she predicts, but few open apologies for the catastrophic damage wrought.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Here's a link to the article. https://unherd.com/2024/04/how-to-spot-the-next-mania/
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Pfizer executives violated UK codes by pushing their covid vax efficacy online without mentioning side effects. They did the same in the US. Will the @US_FDA hold them accountable like a UK court just did?
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Eric Clapton paid a heavy price for telling the truth about his covid vaccine injury. The entertainment media should be ashamed of itself. Since when did it become a tool of pharma and big government?
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
There is literally no way that the public will regain trust in science with Holden Thorp as the editor of Science. In his position, he embraced lockdowns and dangerous virological research and publicly denigrated scientists who opposed them.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
In a recent faculty senate meeting. @stanford president Richard Saller claimed that the activities of the Stanford Internet Observatory are simply "research." These documents prove otherwise. It is an integral part of the US federal government's censorship enterprise.
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Remember when the FDA tweeted to tell people to stop taking ivermectin because "you are not a horse"? The FDA implausibly told a federal district court that those tweets did not contain medical advice. The court just told the FDA to stop practicing medicine. 1/2
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Here's a link to the whole decision. Well-written and worth a read. A big victory for Drs. @MdBreathe, Paul Marik, and Robert Apter. A big loss for the @US_FDA, which overstepped its authority and competence during the pandemic. 2/2 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vbZ_QnddcaG_cGNu55-ypNTUa13NPBrQ/view?pli=1
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
@MdBreathe @US_FDA US federal court: "FDA is not a physician" https://t.co/2sV8HL0PrB
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Did governments and public health know that the vax doesn't stop covid transmission? If so, why did they push mandates and vax discrimination anyway? Can we trust these institutions again? Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) has answers!
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Stunning FOIA revelation! Three quick items: 1. @CDCgov director Walensky knew about vax "breakthrough" infections in January 2021. So did Tony Fauci. 2. They continued to push vax mandates anyway. 3. CDC is abusing its FOIA redaction privilege. This is not a classified email. https://t.co/PhFFCKhRh0
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
@CDCgov Here's the paper referenced in the email. Thx @ctrlopenbracket! https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776039
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
In March 2020, the UK scientific body advising the government came up with 25 ways to make the public treat others like biohazards. Among the tactics considered included: -- Making people think they are at more risk than they actually were 1/5 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/882722/25-options-for-increasing-adherence-to-social-distancing-measures-22032020.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/882722/25-options-for-increasing-adherence-to-social-distancing-measures-22032020.pdf
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
-- "Emotional messaging" -- Weaponized empathy ("Responsibility to others") -- Confident assertions that NPIs will protect hospitals ("Positive messaging around actions") -- Coercive legislation -- Shaming ("social disapproval") 2/5
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
They even briefly considered options for focused protection of vulnerable people. Here was their plan for that. 4/5
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
If scientists advising the UK government respected fellow citizens, they would have categorically ruled out options to mislead, coerce, & shame. They would have put more effort into options to protect vulnerable people. But they did not. Most US scientists were no better. 5/5
@DrJBhattacharya - Jay Bhattacharya
Correction: 14 options. I was looking at the title of the document which says 25 when writing the first tweet in this thread. Doesn't change anything substantive.