{"id":1498546,"date":"2024-10-25T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1498546"},"modified":"2024-10-25T15:30:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T19:30:00","slug":"stanford-doc-hailed-as-intellectual-freedom-leader-for-challenging-govt-on-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/stanford-doc-hailed-as-intellectual-freedom-leader-for-challenging-govt-on-covid-19\/1498546\/","title":{"rendered":"Stanford Doc Hailed As ‘Intellectual Freedom’ Leader For Challenging Gov’t On COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stanford Doc Hailed As ‘Intellectual Freedom’ Leader For Challenging Gov’t On COVID-19<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by James Samuel via The College Fix,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya received the American Academy of Sciences and Letters\u2019 top intellectual freedom award on Wednesday for resisting attempts to politically control his scientific work during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The academy presents its annual Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom to a scholar \u201cwho displays extraordinary courage in the exercise of intellectual freedom,\u201d <\/strong>according to its\u00a0website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, received the honor during the academy\u2019s annual investiture ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Afterward, he joined Princeton University Professor Stephen Macedo for an interview on stage.<\/p>\n

Macedo began by asking about the first time Bhattacharya pushed back against the government\u2019s handling of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t prepared for it,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> Bhattacharya said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had never published an op-ed. I had never been on TV. I was a quiet scholar, and I had this idea regarding the pandemic that the disease was more widespread than people realized,\u201d he said.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then, after he wrote an op-ed about it, he \u201cgot death threats.\u201d Bhattacharya said attacks came from Stanford as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe university, which I loved, \u2026 investigated me for false allegations \u2026 that they knew were false,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got sent a very clear signal that I needed to stay quiet.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI lost sleep, I couldn\u2019t eat,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>he said. \u201cBut I decided that I didn\u2019t care about my career anymore and I needed to say what I saw.”<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThese policies that we were following were going to harm a lot of poor people \u2026 and there were better policies possible,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> Bhattacharya said.<\/p>\n

In 2020, he co-authored the\u00a0Great Barrington Declaration,<\/a>\u00a0an open letter to government officials and public health authorities challenging mandatory lockdowns and other decisions about the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Bhattacharya said it was \u201cthe least original thing\u201d he ever wrote, and Macedo pointed out that his recommendations had \u201cbeen anticipated in many pandemic plans before COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bhattacharya contrasted the government\u2019s COVID-19 response with that of the Hong Kong flu in 1968, joking that \u201cthe United States addressed it by having Woodstock.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that disrupting normal social life is in itself bad for health, I thought was a commonplace in public health,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> he said.<\/p>\n

Next, Macedo asked why government leaders across the world adopted oppressive measures similar to China\u2019s to try to \u201cstop the spread of a respiratory virus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bhattacharya responded, \u201cI think it\u2019s complicated, but \u2026 the central thing is fear. I think public health authorities were scared of this new disease, and they decided that scaring people was also a good policy.<\/p>\n

Modern technology also played a part \u2014 \u201cthat would have been unthinkable before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Macedo pointed out that, at the time, Bhattacharya was viewed as \u201ca dissenter from mainstream policy,\u201d but many others \u201cwere sympathetic to [his] view but did not feel able to speak up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bhattacharya replied, \u201cI think people were very, very scared, both about their own physical safety, but also, they\u2019re scared for their own careers,\u201d a fear that he shared.<\/p>\n

Bhattacharya also touched on his participation in a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of secretly telling social media companies to censor speech that ran against its COVID-19 policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2022, when Elon Musk bought Twitter, it turns out that I had been placed on a blacklist the day I joined Twitter because I put the Great Barrington Declaration on there,\u201d<\/strong> he said.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was not an accident. Twitter didn\u2019t do that on its own. There was a systematic campaign by the federal bureaucracy, including the CDC, the surgeon general\u2019s office,\u201d he said.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these federal agencies essentially pressured Twitter and other social media to silence voices <\/strong>\u2026 that were contrary to pandemic policy put forward by the administration,\u201d Bhattacharya said. \u201cThe American First Amendment didn\u2019t hold during the pandemic. We did not have free speech.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The case is pending in a court, and Bhattacharya expressed hope they will win \u201ceventually.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government going to Twitter or to Facebook and saying \u2018Silence Jay or silence people like Jay who are saying these kinds of things,\u2019 where I\u2019m not told I\u2019m being silenced, I don\u2019t get to tell the government to go take a hike \u2026 that\u2019s a violation of the First Amendment,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>he said.<\/p>\n

Macedo asked about the increasing \u201cemphasis on paternalism in public health,\u201d and the idea that \u201cthe public doesn\u2019t really understand the science, so they need to be guided rather than told the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bhattacharya responded:\u00a0\u201cIf I go around and say smoking is good for you \u2026 I\u2019ve done something deeply harmful to the public \u2026 but the ethical basis for that is that there really is an honest scientific consensus that smoking is terrible for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bhattacharya said there was no scientific consensus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we needed was everyone speaking up and saying what they saw, so there was no ethical basis for the normal public health angle to say, \u2018Look, you just need to fall in line and say what everybody else says,\u2019\u201d <\/strong><\/em>Bhattacharya said.<\/p>\n

Macedo concluded by asking about a Stanford conference on COVID policy earlier this fall that Bhattacharya organized, and if it signaled \u201ca period of remorse and contrition\u201d for the university.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do actually see some reason for optimism,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> Bhattacharya said, adding that Stanford\u2019s president did not take sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he said was, \u2018We have an obligation to be the kind of place where these kinds of conversations happen,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we do as universities is provide the platform where people of good faith can come together and talk to each other. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve forgotten about, and that leads to great things.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Bhattacharya is the second recipient of the academy\u2019s Zimmer Medal.<\/p>\n

The inaugural recipient in 2023 was Sir Salman Rushdie, an author who criticized the Quran in his 1988 book \u201cThe Satanic Verses,\u201d and has faced several attempts on his life for it. He was chosen for the award for his adversity and \u201crefusal to be silenced,\u201d according to the academy\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the academy also honored ten professors with Barry Prizes for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement.<\/p>\n

The recipients were Akhil Reed Amar and Nicholas Christakis from Yale; Henry Louis Gates, Karin \u00d6berg, and Jeannie Suk Gersen from Harvard; William Chester Jordan from Princeton; Marianne Bertrand from University of Chicago; Brian Conrad from Stanford; Megan Sykes from Columbia; and Gary Anderson from Notre Dame.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

2024 American Academy of Sciences and Letters inductees and award winners<\/em><\/p>\n

The Barry Prize \u201chonors those whose work has made outstanding contributions to humanity\u2019s knowledge, appreciation, and cultivation of the good, the true, and the beautiful,\u201d according to the academy.\u00a0The winners also received a $50,000 cash prize.<\/p>\n

More than 50 new members also were inducted into the academy on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Salvatore Torquato, a professor of natural sciences at Princeton and a new inductee, told\u00a0The College Fix<\/em>\u00a0that organizations with missions like the Academy of Sciences and Letters\u2019 are \u201csorely needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with supporting academic freedom, the academy works to support \u201cintellectual rigor\u201d and \u201cthe fundamental and constitutive mission of colleges and universities as truth-seeking, knowledge advancing institutions,\u201d according to its\u00a0website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ceremony included a performance from Howard University\u2019s Gospel Choir.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nFri, 10\/25\/2024 – 11:30<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/covid-19\/stanford-doc-hailed-intellectual-freedom-leader-challenging-govt-covid-19<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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