[This is a supplementary article. For a greater understanding of context, please read "The Unjust Condemnation of the Great Barrington Declaration." click here]
The mischaracterization of Dr Bhattacharya:
Before his involvement with the Great Barrington Declaration, Dr Jay Bhattacharya became a household name when he co-authored an opinion piece about Covid-19 in the Wall Street Journal [click here]. The article was widely vilified by members of the press who misrepresented its intent. Dr Bhattacharya outlined several possible outcomes of the pandemic, illustrating how little was known about the novel coronavirus at the time.
Some of these projections did underestimate the severity of the pandemic, but they were presented as possible alternatives to a projection being touted by the media at the time, a possible 2-to-4-million US deaths attributed to the virus itself, based on the case fatality rate and the possibility that 100 million Americans would be infected throughout the course of the pandemic. This projection was based on the assumption that the case fatality rate would not go down as more data was gathered. A projection is a possible outcome, not a prediction. This is something the media could have emphasized instead of intentionally misrepresenting the views being expressed by Dr Bhattacharya.
In addition to the other projections, the article said, "Population samples from China, Italy, Iceland and the US provide relevant evidence...The FATALITY RATE, then, would be at least 10-FOLD LOWER THAN ESTIMATES based on REPORTED CASES...This does not make Covid-19 a nonissue. The daily reports from Italy and across the US show real struggles and overwhelmed health systems."
A CDC guidance that was released in May of 2020 disclosed its "best estimate" for the fatality rate of people who become infected with Covid-19 and display symptoms, 0.4% [click here]. At the time, the global case fatality rate was over 5.8% [see graph click here], which supports what Dr Bhattacharya was referring to when he said the fatality rate could be "at least 10-fold lower," (see the arithmetic below). Plus, the CDC figure specifically excluded asymptomatic infections. Since a significant portion of COVID infections are asymptomatic (not simply pre-symptomatic), the 0.4% figure released by the CDC would be higher than the fatality rate of all COVID infections (symptomatic and asymptomatic combined).
Arithmetic:
"10-fold lower than estimates based on reported cases," CDC "best estimate" 0.4%
(4.0% Ã · 10 = 0.4%) &
"at least 10-fold lower," global case fatality rate was over 5.8% at the time
(4.0% is less than 5.8%)
Alternatively,
(5.80% Ã · 10 = 0.58%) & (0.40% is less than 0.58%)
Dr Bhattacharya's implications were not reckless. He mentioned the "overwhelmed health systems," and he specifically said, "This does not make Covid-19 a nonissue." Why, then, did the media misconstrue his suggestions? Some of Dr Bhattacharya's projections were low, but he was spot-on with the one mentioned above. On the other side of the spectrum, some experts were projecting between 2 and 4 million American deaths. Dr Bhattacharya was simply demonstrating that the case fatality rate was probably much higher than the actual fatality rate, which it was, according to the CDC's "best guess."
Two distinct ad hominem attacks were applied to the criticism of Dr Bhattacharya's doctorate in economics. The first assault was to deny his credibility as a relevant expert, ignoring the fact that Dr Bhattacharya is also an epidemiologist. He was being portrayed as an economic expert as opposed to a health expert. Dr Bhattacharya was even criticized for the media outlet that published the opinion piece he co-authored (the Wall Street Journal) because of the journal's self-proclaimed "lens of business, finance, economics and money." This may be the publication's lens, but the same is not necessarily true for all of its contributors. Additionally, the concept of economics is not always what comes to mind (e.g., Wall Street speculation; oligopoly; plutocracy), which is illustrated by Dr Bhattacharya's bio, below.
The second ad hominem attack was to imply that Dr Bhattacharya's specialization in health economics created a conflict of interest. According to the disinformation being spread at the time, he was weighing a loss of human life against financial losses [in making his health assessments]. This is completely false as he has explained several times. Instead, Dr Bhattacharya's assessments are based on comparing the potential lives lost from one scenario to the potential lives lost from another. To fully appreciate the nature of his expertise and its application, explore the doctor's work prior to the pandemic. Dr Bhattacharya's University of Southern California bio states the following [click here]:
"His research focuses on the constraints that vulnerable populations face in making decisions that affect their health status, as well as the effects of government policies and programs designed to benefit vulnerable populations. He has published empirical economics and health services research on the elderly, adolescents, HIV/AIDS and managed care. Most recently, he researched the regulation of the viatical-settlements market (a secondary life-insurance market that often targets HIV patients) and summer/winter differences in nutritional outcomes for low-income American families. He is also working on a project examining labor-market conditions that determine why some US employers do not provide health insurance."
This is hardly a man who values dollars over lives. And, as he has explained, Dr Bhattacharya is taking the entirety of public health into account, not simply the effects of the virus itself.
Recently, on Stanford University's main campus, in the San Francisco Peninsula, Dr Bhattacharya has been the focus of an apparent ongoing campaign of suppression, and he now has concerns for his own personal safety, saying, "It felt like targeted harassment." Dr Bhattacharya was singled out in flyers that have been posted around campus, where he is professor of medicine [click here]. The most recent flyers displayed Dr Bhattacharya's image, along with a quote from August 1st, a timeline of COVID-related deaths, and figures demonstrating a spike in cases and mortality, on or around August 16th, 2021. This spike may have been taken out of context, as Dr Kulldorff has explained evidence for a "decoupling" of the case rate and mortality rate in an interview with Jan Jekielek on August 10th (see below). Kulldorff believes this decoupling is a sign that the pandemic is receding to an endemic phase.
The suppression of Dr Kulldorff:
Dr Martin Kulldorff's credentials were sufficient enough for his inclusion as a member of the FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee (DSaRM click here), which advises the FDA Commissioner, or Acting Commissioner as it currently stands (see criticism of Dr Janet Woodcock, "her perceived closeness to the pharmaceutical industry" click here). Kulldorff's term in the DSaRM committee began before the pandemic. He is also a member of the Vaccine Safety Technical (VaST) Subgroup of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP click here). In his interview with Jan Jekielek of The Epoch Times, Dr Kulldorff claims to have been involved with the CDC's Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) for almost two decades [click here].
If his ideas are scientifically unsound, as some have claimed, how has Dr Kulldorff been able to achieve such accomplishments?
According to a report from The Epoch Times [click here], LinkedIn suppressed Dr Kulldorff's interview with Jan Jekielek. The video shares an image (2:26) of a screenshot that was taken by Dr Kulldorff himself. The screenshot displays an image of Dr Kulldorff's LinkedIn page with an explanation for omitting his post of the Jekielek interview.
So, what did Dr Kulldorff say in the Jekielek interview that may have gone against some ethical standard [click here]?
For starters, he referred to the Covid-19 public health response as "the biggest public health fiasco in history," essentially saying that not only did the age-wide pandemic response fail to reduce COVID related deaths nearly as well as a heterogeneous response would have, but the ripple effect was detrimental as well.
Kulldorff also criticized coercion in the US, an attempt to reach a higher threshold of vaccination, domestically. He called this measure both unscientific and unethical, saying we should acknowledge the existence of natural immunity and the evidence of its effectiveness against severe reinfection of Covid-19. Some of the top epidemiologists of the World Health Organization have even criticized the hoarding of vaccines in Western nations. Maria Van Kerkhove stated [click here], "This is not just unfair, it's not just immoral, it's prolonging the pandemic. And it is resulting in people dying."
Dr Kulldorff does not claim to know the rationale behind the "public health fiasco," but he says that it is driven by FEAR [click here]. He also makes reference to something he personally experienced in his 20s, the military dictatorship of Guatemala. Fear was utilized as a tool against both the leaders of the opposition and the general public, according to Kulldorff.
Whether or not it was intentional, there is tremendous symbolism in the specific reference to the Guatemalan dictatorship, as it was installed by the CIA and therefore not allied with Communism.
[Note: As for Sunetra Gupta, the third author of the GBD, I am not aware of any smears against her in particular, but this doesn't mean they do not exist. The fallout from Dr Bhattacharya's WSJ article made him well-known to the public, which made the attacks on him more prevalent. I am only aware of Dr Kulldorff's interview suppression by chance.]
(Article changed on Nov 20, 2021 at 7:07 PM EST)
