#jay bhattacharya

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Trumpism’s healthcare fracture-lines

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/20/clinical-trial-by-ordeal/#spoiled-his-brand-new-rattle

There was never any question as to whether Trump would implement Project 2025, the 900-page brick of terrifying and unhinged policy prescriptions edited by the Heritage Foundation. He would not implement it, because he could not implement it. No one could. It's impossible.

This isn't a statement about constitutional limits on executive authority or the realpolitik of getting bizarre and stupid policies past judges or through a hair-thin Congressional majority. This is a statement about the incoherence of Project 2025 itself. You probably haven't read it. Few have. Realistically, few people are going to read a 900-page group work of neofeudalist fanfic shit out by the most esoteric Fedsoc weirdos the world has ever seen.

But one person who did read Project 2025 was the leftist historian Rick Perlstein, who was the first person to really dig into what a fucking mess that thing is:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual

Perlstein's excellent analysis doesn't claim that Project 2025's authors aren't sincere in their intentions to wreak great harm upon the nation and its people; rather, his point is that Project 2025 is filled with contradictory, mutually exclusive proposals written by people who fundamentally disagree with one another, and who each have enough power within the Trump coalition that all of thier proposals have to be included in a document like this:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-10-project-2025-republican-presidencies-tradition/

Project 2025 isn't just a guide to the masturbatory fantasies of the worst people in American politics – far more importantly, it is a detailed map of the fracture lines in the GOP coalition, the places where it is liable to split and shatter. This is an important point if you want to do more about Trumpism than run around feeling miserable and scared. If you want to fight, Project 2025 is a guide to the weak spots where an attack will do the most damage.

Perlstein's insight continues to be borne out as the Trump regime makes ready to take power. In a new story for KFF News, Stephanie Armour and Julie Rovner describe the irreconcilable differences among Trump's picks for the country's top public health authorities:

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/trump-rfk-kennedy-health-hhs-fda-cdc-vaccines-covid-weldon/

The brain-worm-infected-elephant in the room is, of course, RFK Jr, who has been announced as Trump's head of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr is a notorious antivaxer, chairman of Children’s Health Defense, a notorious anti-vaccine group. Kennedy's view is shared by Trump's chosen CDC boss, Dave Weldon, a physician who has repeated the dangerous lie that vaccinations cause autism. Mehmet "Dr Oz" Oz, the TV "physician" Trump wants to put in charge of Medicare/Medicaid, calls vaccines "oversold" and advocates for treating covid with hydroxychloroquine, another thoroughly debunked hoax:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/12/17/hydroxychloroquine-study-covid-19-retracted-trump/77051671007/

However, other top Trump public health picks emphatically support vaccines. Marty Makary is Trump's choice for FDA commissioner; he's a Johns Hopkins trained surgeon who says vaccines "save lives" (but he peddles the lethal, unscientific hoax that childhood vaccines should be "spread out"). Jay Bhattacharya, the economist/MD whom Trump wants to put in charge of the NIH, supports vaccines (he is also one of the country's leading proponents of the eugenicist idea of accepting the mass death of elderly, sick and disabled people rather than imposing quarantines during epidemics). Then there's Janette Nesheiwat, whom Trump has asked to serve as the nation's surgeon general; she calls vaccines "a gift from God."

Like "Bidenism," Trumpism is a fragile coalition of people who thoroughly and irreconcilably disagree with one another. During the Biden administration, this resulted in self-inflicted injuries like appointing the brilliant trustbuster Lina Khan to run the FTC, but also appointing the pro-monopoly corporate lawyer Jacqueline Scott Corley to a lifetime seat as a federal judge, from which perch she ruled against Khan's no-brainer suit to block the Microsoft-Activision merger:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers

The Trump coalition is even broader than the Biden coalition. That's how he won the 2024 election. But that also means that Trumpism is more fractious and off-balance, and hence will be easier to disrupt, because it is riven by people in senior positions who hate one another and are actively working for each others' political demise.

The Trump coalition is a coalition of *cranks*. I'm using "crank" here in a technical, non-pejorative sense. I am a crank, after all. A crank is someone who is overwhelmingly passionate about a single issue, whose uncrossable bright lines are not broadly shared. Cranks can be right or they can be wrong, but we're hard to be in coalition with, because we are uncompromisingly passionate about things that other people largely don't even notice, let alone care about. You can be a crank whose single issue is eliminating water fluoridation, even though this is very, very stupid and dangerous:

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/the-fluoride-debate

Or you can be a crank about digital rights, a subject that, for decades, was viewed as by turns either unserious or as a sneaky way of shilling for Big Tech (thankfully, that's changing):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

Cranks make hard coalition partners. Trump's cranks are cranked up about different things - vaccines, culture war trans panics, eugenics - and are total normies about other things. The eugenicist MD/economist who wants to "let 'er rip" rather than engage in nonpharmaceutical pandemic interventions is gonna be horrified by total abortion bans and antivax. These cranks are on a collision course with one another.

This is on prominent display in these public health appointments, and we're very likely about to get a test of the cohesiveness and capability of the second Trump administration, thanks to bird flu. Now that bird flu has infected humans in multiple US states, there is every chance that we will have to confront a public health emergency in the coming weeks. If that happens, the Trump public health divisions over masking, quarantine and (especially) vaccines (Kennedy called the covid vaccine the "deadliest" ever made, without any evidence) will become the most important issue in the country, under constant and pitiless scrutiny, and criticism.

Trump's public health shambles is by no means unique. The lesson of Project 2025 is that the entire Trump project is one factional squabble away from collapse at all times.

[gwydionmisha]

This will kill so many people if they dismantle the US Public health system and pandemic response infrastructure as planned.

[pandemic-info]

(via HHS picks, the House subcommittee report, and pandemic revisionism)

Bottom line

We are moving into an era that represents a rejection of the public health establishment. Change is coming, but not all change is good change. We need to have honest discussions about what went right and wrong with a focus on learning how to do better next time, not rewriting what happened.

[alyfoxxxen]

Trump picks NIH critic Jay Bhattacharya to lead the agency - POLITICO

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

President-elect Donald J. Trump late Tuesday nominated Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., if the Senate will confirm him!

Read More: https://thefreethoughtproject.com/health/trump-taps-dr-jay-bhattacharya-co-author-of-great-barrington-declaration-to-lead-nih

#TheFreeThoughtProject

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Gertz at MMFA:

Then-President Donald Trump repeatedly favored the Fox News hosts and guests he saw on his television screen over federal health policy experts as he managed the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and it had calamitous consequences. He's going even further as he prepares for his second term, picking familiar faces from the right-wing propaganda network to run the government health bureaucracy. Trump, a Fox obsessive, staffed his first administration with at least 20 former Fox personalities, and he continues to rely on that method as he stocks his second one. But the network’s dominance among Trump’s announced picks to carry out his second-term health policy is nonetheless striking.

Anti-vaccine activist and Fox hero Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will lead the Department of Health and Human Services. He will potentially oversee former Fox contributor Dr. Marty Makary at the Food and Drug Administration, Fox medical contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat as U.S. surgeon general, and frequent Fox guests Dr. Jay Bhattacharya at the National Institutes of Health and Dr. Mehmet Oz at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (Bhattacharya has not been formally announced but is reportedly the top pick for the position.) These picks, to an extent, show Trump aligning his health policy hires with his own Fox-molded views. As president during the pandemic, he clashed with his official advisers when they contradicted what he was hearing from Fox personalities. The result was often chaos in decision-making, implementation, and public messaging.

Makary, Bhattacharya, Oz, and Nesheiwat received regular Fox airtime because on issues like the use of untested drugs such as hydroxychloroquine or nonpharmaceutical interventions like office and school closures, they tended to hew close to the Fox line — which also became the Trump line. If another pandemic hits, it is possible that they will be able to mitigate Trump’s worst impulses; they have real medical credentials, and Trump is likely to have greater confidence in them due to their shared past views. But while Trump’s promotion of COVID-19 vaccines through Operation Warp Speed was an unalloyed triumph in his first term, Kennedy is a crank who was openly hostile to the drugs. And other members of the second-term team regularly went on Fox to warn about the purported health impacts of the vaccines and criticize mandates to ensure their use. That does not bode well for the prospect of a successful response should another pandemic hit during the next four years.

The people tasked to run health departments under a 2nd Trump Administration are a motley crew of TV doctors, anti-vaxx cranks, COVID minimizers, and quack cures promoters.

[wat3rm370n]

Jay Bhattacharya is unqualified to lead the NIH — still promoting bogus covid cures in 2024

Trump NIH Pick Pushed Ivermectin Conspiracy Theory in Documentary Linked to Chinese Cult Jay Bhattacharya made remarks supportive of the discredited COVID treatment in a film released this year. Walker Bragman Dec 19, 2024 Stanford University health economist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who was announced last month as the president-elect’s choice to head up the NIH, appeared in a pseudo documentary that received funding from a company linked to the Chinese Falun Gong cult called Covid Collateral: Where Do We Go For Truth? In it, he appeared to endorse not only the use of ivermectin as a therapeutic for COVID, but an anti-vaccine conspiracy theory that its rejection by public health authorities was driven not by science, but instead by a desire to fast-track vaccine authorization.

My letter to U.S. Senators who need to confirm this jackass for him to get the job:

Jay Bhattacharya is unqualified to lead the NIH in too many ways. This person must not be installed in a position where he will jeopardize the health of Americans with his fringe pseudoscience ideas.

I realize it took almost 5 years for a debunked flawed scientific paper to be withdrawn, and that the state of Ohio wants to force doctors to prescribe a dangerous drug for bogus reasons, and that some doctors have reportedly been prescribing a debunked cure now for long covid, but this this is so bizarre that after all these years these people are still pushing long discredited stuff. It’s like they just won’t let it go.

[soundgrammar]

The Green Gate (detail), Vidyadhar Bhattacharya [Jai Singh II], Pritam Niwas Chowk, City Palace, Jaipur, India, from 1727–43. From Wiki-uk via www.x-traonline.org.

[hayquetenerpatience]

"Jay Bhattacharya was deemed a 'fringe epidemiologist' by former NIH Director Francis Collins, who demonized him for asking obvious questions about the government's authoritarian response to COVID. Now, Jay will take the helm at NIH and clean house of all those who corrupted public health and did so much damage to Americans during the pandemic. Karma is a bitch." - Matt Kibbe

[oknews]

Trump nomina a Jay Bhattacharya, feroz opositor de la salud pública, para dirigir el NIH

[healthyfitness23]

Trump picks Covid lockdown critic to lead top health agency

Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford professor known for his criticism of COVID-19 lockdowns and co-authoring the Great Barrington Declaration, is trending as he has emerged as the leading candidate for the role of Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under President-elect Donald Trump. His nomination aligns with Trump’s vision of reforming federal health agencies, emphasizing innovation and reducing bureaucratic influence​

Read More in Google News

Bhattacharya has gained attention for advocating less restrictive public health measures during the pandemic, favoring “Focused protection” to shield vulnerable populations while allowing others to develop immunity. His proposed approach contrasts with more traditional pandemic responses and has sparked both support and controversy. His critics argue that his policies prioritize business interests over public health, while his supporters praise his push for science-based reforms​

This potential appointment marks a significant shift in U.S. health policy, promising to challenge long-standing norms within the NIH and broader public health sectors.

Read More in Google News Here

[bonnieb23-blog]

Should the Evil Ones Be In Jail?

Dr. Fauci Belongs in Jail Dr Fauci belongs in Jail. Because of him, we were threatened, shamed, sworn at, disparaged,canceled, and spit upon (literally). Because of him hundreds of thousands of people died. Dr Fauci said, “You will never shake hands again.” What an evil man. He knew all the time because he was funding the experiments done in the Wuhan lab. Is iteven remotely possible that he…

[pandemic-info]

This is what we may have to deal with.

To say that this person is "unfit" for the role to head the NIH is not only an understatement, it is a crime. People will die, and people like him are happy to sacrifice them. To sacrifice you.

Some of us are working to organize with actual public health, medical, virology, epidemiology and other experts. We will do whatever we can to get through this.

Hold tight. Do not obey in advance.

[beardedmrbean]

Few in the media seemed eager to attend a ceremony last week in Washington, D.C., where the prestigious American Academy of Sciences and Letters was awarding its top intellectual freedom award.

The problem may have been the recipient: Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

Bhattacharya has spent years being vilified by the media over his dissenting views on the pandemic. As one of the signatories of the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, he was canceled, censored, and even received death threats.

That open letter called on government officials and public health authorities to rethink the mandatory lockdowns and other extreme measures in light of past pandemics.

All the signatories became targets of an orthodoxy enforced by an alliance of political, corporate, media, and academic groups. Most were blocked on social media despite being accomplished scientists with expertise in this area.

It did not matter that positions once denounced as “conspiracy theories” have been recognized or embraced by many.

Some argued that there was no need to shut down schools, which has led to a crisis in mental illness among the young and the loss of critical years of education. Other nations heeded such advice with more limited shutdowns (including keeping schools open) and did not experience our losses.

Others argued that the virus’s origin was likely the Chinese research lab in Wuhan. That position was denounced by the Washington Post as a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.” The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory “racist.”

Federal agencies now support the lab theory as the most likely based on the scientific evidence.

The Biden administration tried to censor this Stanford doctor, but he won in court

Likewise, many questioned the efficacy of those blue surgical masks and supported natural immunity to the virus — both positions were later recognized by the government.

Others questioned the six-foot rule used to shut down many businesses as unsupported by science. In congressional testimony, Dr. Anthony Fauci recently admitted that the 6-foot rule “sort of just appeared” and “wasn’t based on data.” Yet not only did the rule result in heavily enforced rules (and meltdowns) in public areas, the media further ostracized dissenting critics.

Again, Fauci and other scientists did little to stand up for these scientists or call for free speech to be protected. As I discuss in my new book, “The Indispensable Right,” the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the result of massive social and economic costs.

I spoke at the University of Chicago with Bhattacharya and other dissenting scientists in the front row a couple of years ago. After the event, I asked them how many had been welcomed back to their faculties or associations since the recognition of some of their positions.

They all said that they were still treated as pariahs for challenging the groupthink culture.

Now the scientific community is recognizing the courage shown by Bhattacharya and others with its annual Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom.

So what about all of those in government, academia, and the media who spent years hounding these scientists?

Universities shred their ethics to aid Biden’s social-media censorship

Biden Administration officials and Democratic members targeted Bhattacharya and demanded his censorship. For example, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) attacked  Bhattacharya and others who challenged the official narrative during the pandemic. Krishnamoorthi expressed outrage that the scientists were even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”

Journalists and columnists also supported the censorship and blacklisting of these scientists. In the Los Angeles Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik decried how “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford allowed these scientists to speak at a scientific forum. He was outraged that, while “Bhattacharya’s name doesn’t appear in the event announcement,” he was an event organizer. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.” 

Then there are those lionized censors at Twitter who shadow-banned Bhattacharya. As former CEO Parag Agrawal generally explained, the “focus [was] less on thinking about free speech … [but[ who can be heard.”

None of this means that Bhattacharya or others were right in all of their views. Instead, many of the most influential voices in the media, government, and academia worked to prevent this discussion from occurring when it was most needed.

There is still a debate over Bhattacharya’s “herd immunity” theories, but there is little debate over the herd mentality used to cancel him.

The Academy was right to honor Bhattacharya. It is equally right to condemn all those who sought to silence a scientist who is now being praised for resisting their campaign to silence him and others.

[darkmaga-returns]

In an interview with Newsmax last week, U.S. Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina said that one of the reasons she supports President-elect Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be the next U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HSS) is her concern about the safety of the COVID-19 shots. She confirmed that she suffered injuries following her second COVID mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) shot in the spring of 2021.1 2 3 4

Rep. Mace received the first dose of Moderna/NIAID’s Spikevax COVID mRNA shot on Apr. 13, 2021, followed by the second dose in May-June of that year.5 She said:

I now developed asthma that has never gone away since I had the second shot. I have tremors in my left hand. And I have the occasional heart pain that no doctor can explain, and I’ve had a battery of tests, Mace said. “I thought I was doing my civic duty to get vaccinated by this vaccine that had not been tested. My health has never been the same.1 2 4

Mace, who is a member of the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee, that the public has not been told the truth about the safety of the COVID shots, and specifically that information about the shots was suppressed during the pandemic by social media platforms such Twitter (now known as X).1 2

Doctors Censored on Social Media for Criticizing Federal COVID Policies

In a House Oversight Committee hearing on Feb. 8, 2023, Mace questioned ex-Twitter official Vijaya Gadde about why renowned medical doctors and epidemiologists like Martin Kulldorff, MD of Harvard Medical School, Jay Bhattacharya, MD of Stanford University, and others were censored on Twitter for views that did not conform to the federal government’s narrative about COVID and the COVID shots.1

“You guys censored Harvard-educated doctors, Stanford-educated doctors, doctors that are educated in the best places in the world, and you silenced those voices. “Apparently, the views of a Stanford doctor are disinformation to you people,” Mace said. “I find it extremely alarming [that] Twitter’s unfettered censorship spread into medical fields and affected many Americans by suppressing expert opinions from doctors and censoring those who disagree with the CDC. ”1 4

“Millions of Americans were lied to and [are] living with the consequences of this decision. Thank God I didn’t vaccinate my children with this thing, but I’m living every day with the consequences of that decision, and I regret it,” Mace said.2