Views and News Today
February 15, 2022
How the CDC Abandoned Science. Tablet Magazine, by Vinay Prasad. February 14, 2022
This article is an important read. It has real life examples that show just how biased and politicized the CDC has become. Unfortunately, this is also indicative of how the entire Health and Human Services enterprise has been compromised. Although the top level analysis is quoted below, please go read the article - it is mind blowing.
Throughout this pandemic, the CDC has been a poor steward of that balance, pushing a series of scientific results that are severely deficient. This research is plagued with classic errors and biases, and does not support the press-released conclusions that often follow. In all cases, the papers are uniquely timed to further political goals and objectives; as such, these papers appear more as propaganda than as science. The CDC’s use of this technique has severely damaged their reputation and helped lead to a growing divide in trust in science by political party. Science now risks entering a death spiral in which it will increasingly fragment into subsidiary verticals of political parties. As a society, we cannot afford to allow this to occur. Impartial, honest appraisal is needed now more than ever, but it is unclear how we can achieve it…
So why does the supposedly impartial CDC push weak or flawed studies to support the administration’s pandemic policy goals? The cynical answer is that the agency is not in fact impartial (and thus not sufficiently scientific), but captured by the country’s national political system. That answer has become harder to avoid. This is a precarious situation, as it undermines trust in federal agencies and naturally leads to a trust vacuum, in which Americans feel forced to cast about in a confused search for alternative sources of information.
Once that trust is broken, it’s not easily regained. One way out would be to reduce the CDC’s role in deciding policy, even during a pandemic. Expecting the executive agency tasked with conducting the science itself to also help formulate national policy—which must balance both scientific and political concerns and preferences—has proven a failure, because the temptation to produce flawed or misleading analysis is simply too great. In order to firewall policymaking from science, perhaps scientific agency directors shouldn’t be political appointees at all.
Ultimately, science is not a political sport. It is a method to ascertain truth in a chaotic, uncertain universe. Science itself is transcendent, and will outlast our current challenges no matter what we choose to believe. But the more it becomes subordinate to politics—the more it becomes a slogan rather than a method of discovery and understanding—the more impoverished we all become. The next decade will be critical as we face an increasingly existential question: Is science autonomous and sacred, or a branch of politics? I hope we choose wisely, but I fear the die is already cast.
The high price of being right about COVID Washington Examiner by Kaylee McGhee White, February 14, 2022
This well written article sounds the alarm bells over the “group think” and authoritarianism in the USA. The author believes that this level of malfeasance has not happened in a very long time and that something must change.
One of the most alarming developments of the past few years has been pandemic groupthink and the ferocity with which it has stifled dissenting views and debate. Anyone who questioned the efficacy of lockdowns was accused of deliberately endangering the lives of others. Those who sought out alternative COVID-19 treatments rejected by mainstream experts, such as hydroxychloroquine, were shamed and even deplatformed by social media companies. The message was simple: Question the COVID narrative, and there will be consequences.
But there were still many brave enough to buck the mob mentality. And as time has gone on and scientific data on COVID and pandemic restrictions have become more accurate, it has become clear that the dissenters were right. Lockdowns didn’t save lives; in fact, they likely cost more lives than they saved. Masks, specifically the cloth masks experts pushed on the public, are ineffective at stopping the spread of the virus and are harmful to children's development. Hydroxychloroquine might actually help COVID patients in some cases. The list goes on.
This is not just a pandemic of a virus. It is also a pandemic of mania that has produced some of the most egregious acts of intolerance many of us will ever witness. The latter is the real crisis, as people like Sey and Flannery have learned the hard way. But if we're to break through and dismantle the stifling groupthink that still hangs over society, we'll need many more like them: people who have the courage to stand for what they believe is right, even if it's unpopular, no matter what it costs them.
Trust in elected leaders and media hits bottom Washington Examiner by Paul Bedard, Washington Secrets Columnist |February 15, 2022 03:12 PM
According to the latest Pew Research Center survey, just 2% of adults have a “great deal of confidence” that elected officials can be trusted with national affairs. And for journalists, it’s similarly dismal at just 6%.
Honestly, is this a surprise to anyone?
I could not verify the following meme, except that Mr. Young is definitely still on Spotify now. Even still, it is a nice thought that the aging rocker can continue to make a buck on Spotify. But I am not sure either whether Mr. Young even bothered to listen to the Rogan/Malone podcast before starting his tirade. I certainly don’t want to see Mr. Young suffer or end up unable to pay for his nursing home expenses.
'We've known how to cure COVID since about March of 2020': Dr. Robert Malone Just the News By Natalia Mittelstadt February 15, 2022
"This is a clear pivot consequent to their horrible polling numbers," Malone said, referring to the recent scramble by Democratic governors to lift COVID-19 mandates.”
Malone was asked about recently released emails exposing a plan by three top federal public health officials to discredit the anti-lockdown epidemiologists behind the Great Barrington Declaration. The exchange showed the three — then-National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, and NIAID Deputy Director for Clinical Research and Special Projects Dr. Clifford Lane — coordinating "a quick and devastating takedown" of the premises of the declaration, which espouses "focused protection," a mitigation strategy prioritizing the most vulnerable populations."[T]hey slandered and defamed those three as 'fringe' epidemiologists, but they happen to be full professors at the obscure universities Oxford, Stanford and Harvard, I believe," Malone said sarcastically, referring to Sunetra Gupta, Ph.D., Jay Bhattacharya, MD, Ph.D., and Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., respectively.
"And please note that neither Dr. Fauci nor Dr. Collins nor Dr. Lane have any formal training in epidemiology," Malone added
I am encouraging readers to contact their local bookstores to get books like The Real Anthony Fauci or Lies My Govt Told me and many others to be available. Here is Kelowna BC you can't find them on the shelves. Lets try and level the 'reading' field.
Sweden's public health agency is legally protected from political influence to a much greater degree than the CDC, which partly explains Sweden's success.