Tom Woods, Covid, Dr. Bhattacharya
Courtesy of Tom Woods
Most people today are talking about the State of the Union last night, but since I've recorded a Tom Woods Show episode (not yet released) about that, I'm freed up to discuss something else.
In particular, I want to share bits and pieces from the Jay Bhattacharya Senate confirmation hearing today, as he seeks to become director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
I got to know Jay during the Covid madness, and in fact in 2021 he wrote to me in the hospital, spontaneously (I don't even know how he found out I was there), to offer his medical advice.
What I find extremely revealing is that not one Democrat mentioned Covid. Not one. Several years ago they would have condemned Jay for opposing the Covid restrictions. Today, not a single word. They know it's a loser.
From Jay's opening statement:
NIH-supported science should be replicable, reproducible and generalizable. Unfortunately, much modern biomedical science fails this basic test. The NIH itself just last year faced a research integrity scandal involving research on Alzheimer's disease that throws into question hundreds of research papers.
If the data generated by scientists is not reliable, the products of such science cannot help anyone. It is no stretch to think that the slow progress on Alzheimer's disease is linked to this problem. The NIH can and must solve the crisis of scientific data reliability. Under my leadership, if confirmed, it will do so....
If confirmed, I will establish a culture of respect for free speech in science and scientific dissent at the NIH. Over the last few years, top NIH officials oversaw a culture of coverup, obfuscation and a lack of tolerance for ideas that differed from theirs.
Dissent is the very essence of science. I'll foster a culture where NIH leadership will actively encourage different perspectives and create an environment where scientists, including early career scientists and scientists that disagree with me, can express disagreement respectfully.
A couple of Republicans did mention Covid, in the context of Jay's courageous stances at the time (and not a single Democrat contradicted them on that), so I'll quote some of what Jay had to say about that:
I am tremendously proud to have been involved in advising the Florida response to the pandemic. One of the things I was actually involved in was the case that resulted in the Florida kids being able to go back to school. So even as my kids [in California] were left out of school, basically not allowed to go back into the school buildings for a year and a half, the kids of Florida were allowed. And as a result, the results are so much better.
Florida has a lower all-cause excess death rate during the pandemic than California did. So I think Florida's response to the pandemic was a tremendous success.
But I'm really glad you highlighted the role of censorship and restriction of scientific discussion. It was so refreshing to me to be allowed to speak my my scientific views in Florida during the pandemic.... The root problem was that people who had alternative ideas were suppressed.
I personally was subject to censorship by the actions of the Biden administration during the pandemic. Science, to succeed, needs free speech. It needs an environment where there's tolerance for dissent. And the reason I think, why Florida did so well was that it provided an outlet for that dissent.
The proper role of scientists in a pandemic is to answer basic questions that policymakers have about what the right policy should be. Our role isn't to make decisions, to say: you shouldn't be saying goodbye to your grandfather as he's dying in a hospital. It shouldn't be to say you can't have a funeral because it's too dangerous. Scientists should say, here's what the risks are, and then you decide whether you take it.
The role of the scientists shouldn't be to say: you can't send your kids to school for two years, that you should close hospitals so that they can't treat heart attack patients. The role of scientists should be to address those problems by giving good data and then let people make -- the science should be an engine for freedom, knowledge and freedom. Not something where it stands on top of society and says, you must do this, this and this.
I don't think anyone really doubts that Jay will be confirmed.
As I mentioned yesterday, for me personally, the icing on the cake is that Jay himself wrote the foreword to my book Diary of a Psychosis: How Public Health Disgraced Itself During COVID Mania.
Day after day, for years, I wrote to my subscribers with charts, graphs, and arguments showing that something didn't add up. The charts did not tell the story the establishment expected us to accept.
I could not let all of that material vanish into the ether.
Hence Diary of a Psychosis.
If you still don't have it, here's the link to the audiobook version, in which you'll hear it read in my own voice:
https://www.tomwoods.com/diaryaudiobook
Tom Woods