Outgoing National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins stood by his email referring to the authors of The Great Barrington Declaration as “fringe epidemiologists,” despite credentials from Oxford, Harvard, and Stanford.
The Oct. 4, 2020 declaration called for Focused Protection instead of lockdown policies, which the authors argued lead to “devastating effects on short and long-term public health.”
“The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk,” the wrote. “Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19.”
In an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci and others at NIH, Collins said “there needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises.”
He noted that the declaration is “getting a lot of attention – and even a co-signature from Nobel Prize winner Mike Leavitt at Stanford.”
Calling for a “quick and devastating published take-down” of work of “fringe epidemiologists.” at Stanford, Oxford & Harvard.
— Eric Weinstein (@EricRWeinstein) December 18, 2021
Remember when I tried to tell you about how academe really works? This is it: insufferable careerist takedown artists smearing every original dissenter. https://t.co/El1lGtikx0
On “Fox News Sunday,” Bret Baier asked him about that email and if he stood by it.
Not only did he double down on calling the authors "fringe epidemiologists who really did not have the credentials to be making such a grand sweeping statement," he said "hundreds of thousands of people would have died if we followed that strategy."
Stanford University Medical School professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the declaration's authors, responded to Collins's interview.
We now know the origin of the term -- it came from the mind of Collins and Fauci. When reporters started asking me why I wanted to "let the virus rip", I was puzzled. Now I know that Collins & Fauci primed the media attack with the lie.
— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) December 20, 2021
(2/n)https://t.co/qrWLc94FD1
As @MartinKulldorff has said, it makes as much sense to say "herd immunity strategy" as it does to say "gravity strategy" for landing an airplane. The only question is how to land safely, not whether gravity applies. (4/n)https://t.co/fTmaFujBQ5
— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) December 20, 2021
So, why do Fauci & Collins engage in ad hominem & lies instead of honest scientific discussion? I don't know fully, but part of the answer lies in another puzzle -- their blindness to the devastating effects of lockdown on the poor & vulnerable. (11/n)https://t.co/akXw04vxR8
— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) December 20, 2021
They also cannot say that the lockdowns worked to suppress COVID. In the US, we followed the Fauci/Collins lockdown strategy and we have 800k COVID deaths. Sweden -- more focused on protecting the vulnerable -- did better & cannot be ignored. (15/n)https://t.co/XOAPFAss94 pic.twitter.com/USGWBLv0Kb
— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) December 20, 2021
Bhattacharya concluded that the interview with Baier "marks a sad end to an illustrious career" and that Fauci should retire with him. "They have done enough damage."