There’s no doubt the scientific community has been struck with Trump Derangement Syndrome, but reading the latest screed against the administration over its coronavirus response raises questions about whose pocket one of the most prominent scientific journals may be in.
For the first time since its founding in 1812, The New England Journal of Medicine has taken a position on a presidential election. Titled “Dying in a Leadership Vacuum,” it’s no surprise which direction it's taking, though it does not name either political candidate. What is surprising about its criticism, however, is how pro-China it is.
We see you selling out to China & promoting their fraudulent narrative. Noted.
— Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) October 8, 2020
Right off the bat, we’re told about the “magnitude” of the administration’s failure in the U.S. in terms of the number of COVID-19 deaths — “far exceeding the numbers in much larger countries, such as China.” To claim this with a straight face, as if China is truthful about its death count, is beyond the pale. The U.S. intelligence community has warned the CCP is lying as have residents of Wuhan and countless others.
The editors then went on to not only criticize federalism but praise China’s authoritarian crackdown on citizens: “We know that we could have done better. China, faced with the first outbreak, chose strict quarantine and isolation after an initial delay. These measures were severe but effective, essentially eliminating transmission at the point where the outbreak began and reducing the death rate to a reported 3 per million, as compared with more than 500 per million in the United States.”
As a reminder, those “severe” measures included literally locking residents in their homes to stop the spread.
There are other head-scratching criticisms found in the article, such as the editors’ chastisement of people who don’t wear masks, despite the Journal’s own admission in May that “wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection...In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.”
The Journal’s nearly three dozen editors urging Americans to “not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs," follows other scientific journals taking a political stand this year. The Lancet and Scientific American also urged Americans to vote Trump out with the latter actually endorsing Joe Biden.
The Lancet and the NEJM took heat earlier this year after publishing a total fraud of a study on hydroxychloroquine that claimed patients with COVID were dying at higher rates than those who didn’t take it. The studies prompted WHO and other governments around the world to halt studies on the drug and change positions on prescribing it, potentially costing people their lives.
