Scientific American Op-Ed Attacks Dr. Jay Bhattacharya’s Nomination for NIH Director
One “expert” is unhappy Bhattacharya weighs personal liberty and effective policies more important than “social justice”.
The last time I reported on Scientific American, its editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth resigned after a disgraceful social media meltdown decrying President/President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters.
The staff clearly has not done one bit of self-reflection or reassessment of what “science” should mean. The magazine published a critical piece about Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, arguing that his recent nomination as National Institutes of Health (NIH) director could harm science and public health.
The article, authored by Steven Albert, criticizes Bhattacharya’s stance on COVID policies and his deep concerns about authoritarianism in public health (based entirely upon the national nightmare of the destructive and ineffective lockdowns).
Bhattacharya does not see the agency’s successes this way. In his podcast Science from the Fringe, Bhattacharya recently said he is amazed by “the authoritarian tendencies of public health.” He struck a similar theme in a Newsmax interview: “[We need] to turn the NIH from something that’s [used] to control society into something that’s aimed at the discovery of truth to improve the health of Americans.”
The scientists who apply for NIH funding, sit on peer review panels and administer grants would be surprised to hear they control society. They do science. The claims of authoritarianism are a screen for pushing a particular agenda that is likely to damage the NIH. Bhattacharya’s science agenda is political: to set concerns for personal autonomy against evidence-based public health science. This is not appropriate for NIH leadership.
The article further defends pandemic policies that Bhattacharya opposed, such as school closures and mask mandates, claiming they were supported by science. I will simply note that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House Corornavirus Advisor, could not specify the science behind many COVID policies, including social distancing and the mask mandates, when pressed for answers on their origins during a congressional hearing.
Furthermore, pretty much every American has likely had COVID-19. Many have had several cases of it already.
Albert laughably argues that Bhattacharya’s views on personal autonomy versus evidence-based public health science are politically motivated. Personally, I am grateful that the new NIH director values personal autonomy and freedom of choice, and his views on the subject align with most Americans.
As a reminder, Bhattacharya and two other epidemiological professionals authored the “Great Barrington Declaration,” which pressed for focused protection. The new NIH Director offered far more effective policy options than were being implemented at the time.
As turnabout is fair play, I assert that Albert’s attack on Bhattacharya is highly political. Albert is the Hallen Chair of Community Health and Social Justice in behavioral and community health sciences at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Public Health.
“Social Justice” reeks of politics, especially the progressive kind that has been detrimental to actual science. I recall that blending social justice with COVID policies particularly harmed science and public health.
All the hypocrisy – but the COVID shutdowns of businesses, jobs and schools while BLM was allowed to burn, loot and mvrder in the so called name of “social justice” & George Floyd did it. A family member died alone in a hospital & we couldn’t have a funeral. No forgiveness. pic.twitter.com/HphHwoLqaX
— Savannah (@BasedSavannah) November 30, 2024
Albert’s credentials include a PhD in Anthropology and an MS in epidemiology. This is to contrast this with Battacharya, who has both a medical degree and a PhD in economics, which makes him well position to discern between pseudoscience and real information…then assess the complete set of consequences if policies are implemented.
The Scientific American piece ies this screed into the ongoing bird flu outbreak. Our media is working overtime to create more pandemic mania, such as this article by Newsweek focused on red flags from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC told Newsweek Monday that while bird flu’s current risk to the general public remains low, the agency is carefully monitoring for several red flags that could indicate that the virus could be on the verge of becoming a pandemic.
Those red flags include any outbreaks of bird flu that are spread from person-to-person, as well as evidence that the virus has mutated, making it easier for it to spread between humans.
…Increased cases of humans catching bird flu from animals may also indicate the virus “is adapting to spread more easily from animals to people,” they added.
“CDC is searching for genetic changes in circulating viruses that suggest it could better transmit between humans,” the spokesperson said.
Albert concludes his piece by saying, “Bhattacharya is not what the NIH needs.”
I firmly believe Bhattacharya is exactly what the NIH and this country needs, especially given “experts” who want to push social justice policy into the realm of epidemiology and national health policy.
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To this Citizen, Scientific American is neither; scientific or American, and it’s subscribers should get their information elseware,
Amen.
A truly Orwellian name, right up there with Planned Parenthood.
It used to be great AND American AND scientific. Now it’s not worth anything.
It isn’t even the right texture to use as butt-wipe!
The “Scientific American” is a great example of DEI in action.
If they were Muslim American they could claim they were radicalized.
Is Professor Irwin Corey, now deceased, still on the Scientific American advisory board?
Scientific American (D) is is then…..
Scientific American got most everything wrong about covid
The CDC still has 40-50 pro masking studies posted, of which at least 15 that I have reviewed have serious flaws.
I recall sitting in my domestic prison cell during the autumn of 2020 and thinking to myself that the Great Barrington* Declaration made perfect sense as opposed to the utter pseudoscientific nonsense coming from the government “experts” (read: political operatives).
That Bhattacharya was part of that group is sufficient to garner my support.
*A beautiful part of the world if you’ve never visited.
should have done what I did – just ignored all the protocols
Funny story
I was at the check out line at Central market, where a guy was being seriously verbally berated by another customer for not wearing a mask. The couple berating him left, and I tapped the guy on the shoulder and politely said to him that he really should be wearing a mask. He turned around ready to beat the crap out of me until he saw that I wasnt wearing a mask.
I never wore a mask in the stores and got quite a few subtle thumbs up from people that agreed with me but were to obedient to not wear the masks
Why didn’t any school district just do a simple observational study? Mask. No mask. Alive. Dead.
Or state.
Or big box store.
Or post office
Or US Navy ship
Years later and we can’t all agree on such a simple thing?
In a way I agree with Albert about DR Bhattacharya not being what the NIH or public health community NEEDS. What they NEED is to be flipping fired, their credentials and licences to practice revoked, permanently barred from any position in the healthcare industry or govt service. I am still undecided about them being fastened into a public stock for ‘two weeks to flatten the curve’ with various time extensions.
DR Bhattacharya won’t do that. Instead he will work vigorously to reform the public health sector, though decidedly not as vigorously as I would. He will demand a return to balancing competing interests, weighing the trade-offs inherent in decision making and very importantly restoring respect for and adherence to our Constitutional liberties to establish clear limits that absolutely prohibit recommending a course of action that violates/infringes upon our Constitutional rights.
“…weighing the trade-offs inherent in decision making and very importantly restoring respect for and adherence to our Constitutional liberties to establish clear limits that absolutely prohibit recommending a course of action that violates/infringes upon our Constitutional rights.”
This is what the health and safety Karens don’t get – that our government’s primary purpose is the protection of our rights, all of them, all of the time. Solutions to problems (real and imagined) must be made within the framework established by the Constitution, within which there are damn few exceptions, with “public health and safety” not being one of them.
1. Don’t get sick in Pittsburgh
2. Don’t go to any doctor trained at U Pittsburgh
3. Expect more of the same, and worse:
-not science promoted by Pharma
-car bombs that are mostly peaceful
-runaway cars that kill but aren’t terrorism
-and so on and so forth
I did my neuroradiology fellowship at Pitt in the late ’70s and ran the division until ’93. I left when then-vice president of the Medical and Healthcare Division of Pitt, one Tom Detre, decided that he wanted Pitt to be a world-class research grant institution and thought that it was OK for patient care, which had been easily an A+ place to fall to B- or C+. Those weren’t my priorities–even though I did a fair amount of research.
Today? Forget it. Not a place I want to be taken if I get sick. It hurts me to say that, but it really has gone downhill. Things like Albert–large mouth-to-brain ratio people–are now getting scared that their precious grants might not be renewed. He’s obviously not very bright if he’s attacking a guy who’s going to swing a lot of weight in Washington in a couple weeks.
What is the difference between the two of them? The difference is that doctor Bhattacharya was correct the entire time
Fellow who wrote this stupid editorial is the Wizard of Oz. Has a BA degree in unspecified and two MAs in social th0ught & anthropology and later an MS degree in epidemiology. He is not a doctor, which, of course, does not automatically disqualify him. His research is pure goo. Gets a lot of money from CDC to explore why old people get sad. He is presently PI with a grant from HUD to study home environmental health hazards. In short, this muppet is in and of himself everything any rational person wants expelled with prejudice from the health care octopus (whole separate problem). House of cards! Fraud! Scientific American, once if memory serves a pretty fine popular science magazine has over the last 30 years or so lived at the bottom of the social justice/idiot drain.
Scientific American lost all credibility when it used the term “Settled Science” in its publication. If it is settled then it isn’t science. Real Science always leaves the opening for future questioning and speculation.
Also, why is a “Science Journal” allowing opinion pieces in the first place?
To be fair, most science is about comparing probabilities, and in cases where there are costs associated with approaches to studying problems and arriving at solutions, there is a fair amount of wiggle room. What characterizes liberal science is a low success outcome at a very highest $$$ cost. Whenever they complain about a change in a program, it isn’t about the science, but about the reduced grifting potential. Settled Science translates to “guaranteed income stream.”
There is, indeed, “settled science.” It is composed of theories and ideas that have been proven wrong. It only takes only one failed test or experiment to prove a theory wrong, no matter how many previous tests or experiments had been successfully passed.
being a few chapters into The Real Anthony Fauci, I can say with surety: if Bhattacharya is planning to revamp our entire health system instead of burning it to the ground, I am all in. If he cannot manage to undo the damage done in the last 3 decades, I am willing to go scorched earth on the whole operation.
I read the book several years ago. I was most impressed with the bibliography and hundreds of references, sometimes more than a hundred in one chapter. Trying to discuss it with one of The Bride’s nephews, almost sixty and quite intelligent, resulted in a shouting match and a threat of being asked to leave his home. His mind was made up and he was reluctant to hear anything else. (Notice I said intelligent but he is still a Fauci lover and a Trump hater.) I’m no Kennedy fan but RFK Jr. was spot-on with this.
.
I can remember when SA used to be a wonderful magazine designed for the common man to read about science at a level that was understandable. The last time I looked at it, it used scientific terms and math equations that meant nothing to me. It is now a cult tract for ideological nerds.
Fellow who wrote this editorial is the Wizard of Oz. Has a BA degree in unspecified and two MAs in social th0ught & anthropology and later an MS degree in epidemiology. He is not a doctor, which, of course, does not automatically disqualify him. His research is pure goo. Gets a lot of money from CDC to explore why old people get sad. He is presently PI with a grant from HUD to study home environmental health hazards. In short, this muppet is in and of himself everything any rational person wants expelled with prejudice from the health care octopus. Scientific American, once if memory serves a pretty fine popular science magazine has over the last 30 years or so lived at the bottom of the social justice/idiot drain.
Edit: “Furthermore, pretty much every American has likely had COVID-19. Many have had several cases of it already” despite being administered the “vaccine” many times over.
Luckily, SA has zero say in this nomination. And it should stay that way for their significant to the American public too.
Scientific American used to have major articles written by experts in their fields. Now their articles are written by “award-winning science journalists,” and they are always given a leftist twist.
Firing Michael Shermer and printing a hack piece on EO Wilson showed they had abandoned real science. Running an article saying that human sex is not binary showed the total loss of scientific accuracy and the prevalence of lunacy.
I assume that whatever they say they think about Dr Jay is written for political, rather than scientific purposes.
I’m surprised they are still in business.
There’s probably a hidden government subsidy there somewhere.
Not for long
“The scientists who apply for NIH funding, sit on peer review panels and administer grants would be surprised to hear they control society. They do science.”
Except when something like the Dickey Amendment forbids them from “doing science” expressly for the express purpose of political advocacy (“to advocate or promote gun control.”)… whereupon they hang up their test tubes and pick up their picket signs to whine, agitate, lobby, and outright bitch incessantly about having been forbidden to “study gun mortality” — a claim that was not just a blatant lie, but easily disprovable… since they were commissioned by the president to perform precisely just a study, did it, and had their scientific(!) results suppressed because were politically inconvenient.
And lo, they finally got the amendment hulled, so they could happily go back to controlling society.
Even if real science concludes that extra-constitutional measures are necessary to implement a solution to a problem, our government is theoretically not authorized to pursue it.
It is a political hack. Nothing scientific at all. I quit reading it many years ago.
Brought to you by Pfizer.
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