A new California bill threatens to strip doctors of their medical licenses for saying things the state doesn’t like. We don't have to imagine what that would look like.
I find it funny, that all illiberal ideologies, be it CCP(Chinese communist party) version of Communism or Woke politics in USA, always come to same solutions. That is basicly shut down any dissenting voices, anyone who dears to thing differently will be delt as enemy
As a foreigner living in China (born in Europe, work here for 7 years now), I have experienced brutal efficiency of Chinese lockdowns. Basic moto is, you will comply or we (CCP) will force you to comply => let us do all thinking for you.
US Woke politicians (especially in blue run states), are very open to same abuse of power, even their if they intentions are "noble", reasoning is same, population is to stupid/uninformed to think for itself, so we will do all thinking for you. If you have dear to think different, you will be ostracized and we will do everything in our power to destroy you, not only professionally but also personally.
I would personally even go so far, that Woke politics is even more dangerous than CCP. CCP, after bad experiences with Lysenko and his teachings, has actually developed hand of approach from STEM fields and will not try to impose "pseudo science", but it will actively enurage learning of STEM.
On the other hand Woke ideology, is more actively trying to subvert STEM fields to its whim => Math is Racist, Gender doesn't exists and other insane woke topics that are now getting implemented in US High Schools and Universities. Hopefully, US will manage to get trough this phase of illiberal policies without larger damage to its educations, because if it continues like this, US will very soon (sadly) be on back seat of scientific race, since it will simply have generations of people who have been thought political correct "pseudo science" imposed by woke left.
This is something I know something about. A now-retired physician with a forty-year career behind me, I still spend an hour or so each morning reviewing medical articles. In early spring last year, I received a phone call from an acquaintance in another state. He, his wife, and his twenty-something daughter had the CCP virus and they were not doing well.
I asked him if they'd been tested; he said yes and all three were positive. "We are all getting sicker by the hour, and I have seen what happens if you have to go in hospital and end up on a ventilator. They won't even let your family sit with you as you die."
As luck would have it, I'd just seen a video of Dr. Pierre Kory, et al's testimony before Congress concerning the effectiveness of a protocol they had developed that included ivermectin. (Interestingly, YouTube almost immediately took that video down, but NOT BEFORE I HAD SEEN IT.)
Knowing that Jim was a pilot, I asked him if he owned a pulse oximeter. He did. I asked him to check oxygenation on all three. His was low 'nineties, his wife mid-'eighties, his daughter high 'nineties. His wife was very short of breath and sitting by the open window in a state of mild panic.
Since I still retained my medical license in his state, I called in prescriptions for ivermectin for the three of them, along with several other things. As they say, to make a long story short, the results were nothing short of remarkable. A phone call before bedtime revealed that all three were "some better." The next morning, "much better." Three days later, "cured," except the wife, who had a persistent cough. Interestingly, I visited Jim and his wife a few months ago, and she was emphatic: "That medicine you gave us saved my life." She may very well be right.
The essence of medicine is to allow physicians - who have training, experience, and hopefully judgment born of that experience - do what they DO. My little ad-hoc research experiment was admittedly miniscule, but it was enough for me to form an opinion. And always in the back of my mind are the hundreds of thousands who did NOT get this treatment because of politics. My advice to the politicians is to stick to what they know - whatever that is - and let others, like oh, say, doctors, do the same. And by the way, I am one of the signers of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Misinformation is simply another justification for opposing free speech. How many times over the past several years has the 'misinformation' been proven to be reality that is contrary to what the establishment's position is on something?
The Chinese doctor who disappeared in late 2019 after alerting friends about some new virus in Wuhan was charged with spreading misinformation, those claiming Russiagate was a conspiracy, the same. I quit posting on social media in April of 2020 regarding Fauci's twisting of science as I was getting pilloried, and then there's Hunter's laptop and pretty much every logical argument that flies in the face of progressive (and therefore media's) political positions.
I have no idea of how one can legislate one's way out of this climate, but I hope, upon taking the House and Senate this year, Conservatives have an answer.
In October 2020 I heard about the Great Barrington Declaration and signed it, sure that after people saw it, reason would prevail. It was disappointing to realize that people with much less experience and knowledge were going to ignore the input from brilliant minds from across the globe and focus on dictates from bureaucrats instead. The idea that you would have been threatened and silenced is unsettling. If the laws under consideration in California are passed, doctors and patients will suffer. And you are right that tiny dictators who claim to be “Science” will be the ultimate decision makers for all of us. There is nothing acceptable about this. You’re prescient to say faith in public health agencies will suffer. I’m not sure they will ever recover from what they have done these past two, going on three, years. And the health of the American people will decline. Even if the medical profession recovers, there will be some of us who will never trust the pharmaceutical companies. I hope Californians will rise up and make their voices heard and that the increasingly draconian laws will be stopped. The screams of the people in Shanghai should never occur here.
Sorry but if you watched the footage from Shanghai last night (probably only on Fox because the rest are liars and shills) you'd understand that Dr. Bhattacharya has understated the horrors of what will befall us if we give into this Covid madness. This is where the diktats and edicts of the Covid totalitarians is leading us. And if you don't think this warrants an armed, determined and relentless response then you really don't think liberty is worth fighting for. No surprise, given that 60% of Democrats surveyed say they wouldn't stay to fight for America - the last bastion of liberty. Franklin said if you sacrifice liberty for safety you'll end up with neither. Here, we are asked to sacrifice our liberty for the illusion of safety - lockdowns that don't work, masks that are worthless and vaccines that don't even protect from the latest variants. What sort of people would stand for such nonsense? We will find out soon enough. But I think the numbers are growing of people who will fight and die for liberty.
Yet another reason to leave California, an aspiring totalitarian state. Shame on us that we gave up so many of our rights so willingly. Shame on the church which gave up the right of worship. As Physicians we are patient advocates. Period. I’ve told my med students and residents it might cost them their jobs or licenses but they must stay true to their calling. As a Christian I am on record that I will be imprisoned for my beliefs during my lifetime.
“The bill, written by Assemblyman Evan Low, a Democrat in Silicon Valley”
Of course. The tech platforms made billions on lockdowns and fear. The more people stayed home the more they stared at their screens. The more they ordered online. The more they argued and shamed their neighbors for leaving the house. This isn’t shocking at all.
Thank you Dr Jay both for this article and all you and your colleagues have done. Millions of us believe in science, medicine and freedom. We know that science evolves and that the core foundation for science is the encouragement to question, challenge and hopefully prove whatever one believes or proposes as a matter of science or medicine.Those who purport to believe in science yet proclaim settled science are not in quest of truth but merely seek to shut down debate and dissent. This is contrary to what science and America are all about. Science and freedom must always be partners with one another.
I signed the Barrington Declaration and am increasingly proud to have done so. Recent data from researchers at U Chicago showed the deleterious effects of lockdowns on economies, education and health. I want to thank Dr. Bhattacharya for speaking out.
When I saw a soulless politician continually interrupt Jay in an appearance before a congressional committee, essentially casting Jay as an advocate for “letting it rip” and death of millions, I feared some crazy government overreach would soon follow, one where a chosen set of experts get to be in charge and others cast into hellfire. Of course California is at the vanguard.
It seems as if some elites see major threats in a tiny faction of truly crazy radicals — on any issue — and then project that crazy radical idea onto anyone who questions the elites’ position, and this group of people that questions them is much larger and much saner than, say, the crazy Twitter troll saying vaccines are government tracking bio weapons.
Jay and many others simply questioned lockdowns, said they would do more harm than good, proposed another way forward. For this, he was deemed a heretic even though more and more research is showing the dramatic negative effects of shutting down society on children in particular.
Too many elites are so drunk on their own beliefs that they feel justified in imposing their will through legislation against all who question them, using words like “misinformation” when in reality, much of the time, it’s just different information worthy of consideration.
Jay, I signed the declaration the day I learned of it. Prior to that I had done a review of the data coming out of the CDC, applied basic statistical methods and what I learned in econ 101 regarding trade offs. It was clear that the “cure” of lockdowns + trillions of debt would be worse than the disease in the long run. This appears now to have been proven true.
The challenge we face appears to be that our universities are establishing a non-evidence based ideology. Professors, now outnumbered by administrators, many of them “woke,” are rolling over and not fighting for “traditional” liberal, enlightenment values.
You are from this world and are fighting back. What should we do?
The ideology is flowing into primary education. A well funded, sizable, activist, minority can enact a totalitarian system. Left unchecked, in ten to fifteen years said group may exist. This is a very old story with well known outcomes.
This is not democrats vs republicans, this is emergent totalitarianism vs an imperfect but historically stable representative, constitutional democracy. And it is not just the US, it is spreading across the west.
The tactics used on physicians—to silence them—are the same tried and proven tactics used to push a false narrative on the "climate crisis" and to silence those scientists who questioned the climate exaggerations, and these tactics are currently being used on anyone who questions virtually every other narrative, no matter the area of interest. I don't see things changing any time soon. Free speech and an honest and open debate of issues is the only way to stifle this trend, but so many institutions have been corrupted that little remains to fight the trend.
California re: COVID: "The legislature shall control what doctors are allowed to say or what treatments they may perform. And if you argue about it, you're a racist, bigot who wants people to die."
Texas re: Hormone therapy for minors: "The legislature can't control what treatments doctors may perform! And if you think they should, you're a racist, bigot who wants kids to die."
The Democratic Party is articulating both of these positions right now. They've gotten so good at Orwellian double-think they don't even realize when they're doing it.
One would hope that we would have moved passed this. At this point, every assertion made by the public health officials regarding the response to COVID-19 has been proven either entirely incorrect or severely misguided. These officials need to admit their mistakes, express remorse and seek forgiveness for the harm they have wrought on billions worldwide.
Voltaire remains as prescient and germane as ever. Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
I find it funny, that all illiberal ideologies, be it CCP(Chinese communist party) version of Communism or Woke politics in USA, always come to same solutions. That is basicly shut down any dissenting voices, anyone who dears to thing differently will be delt as enemy
As a foreigner living in China (born in Europe, work here for 7 years now), I have experienced brutal efficiency of Chinese lockdowns. Basic moto is, you will comply or we (CCP) will force you to comply => let us do all thinking for you.
US Woke politicians (especially in blue run states), are very open to same abuse of power, even their if they intentions are "noble", reasoning is same, population is to stupid/uninformed to think for itself, so we will do all thinking for you. If you have dear to think different, you will be ostracized and we will do everything in our power to destroy you, not only professionally but also personally.
I would personally even go so far, that Woke politics is even more dangerous than CCP. CCP, after bad experiences with Lysenko and his teachings, has actually developed hand of approach from STEM fields and will not try to impose "pseudo science", but it will actively enurage learning of STEM.
On the other hand Woke ideology, is more actively trying to subvert STEM fields to its whim => Math is Racist, Gender doesn't exists and other insane woke topics that are now getting implemented in US High Schools and Universities. Hopefully, US will manage to get trough this phase of illiberal policies without larger damage to its educations, because if it continues like this, US will very soon (sadly) be on back seat of scientific race, since it will simply have generations of people who have been thought political correct "pseudo science" imposed by woke left.
This is something I know something about. A now-retired physician with a forty-year career behind me, I still spend an hour or so each morning reviewing medical articles. In early spring last year, I received a phone call from an acquaintance in another state. He, his wife, and his twenty-something daughter had the CCP virus and they were not doing well.
I asked him if they'd been tested; he said yes and all three were positive. "We are all getting sicker by the hour, and I have seen what happens if you have to go in hospital and end up on a ventilator. They won't even let your family sit with you as you die."
As luck would have it, I'd just seen a video of Dr. Pierre Kory, et al's testimony before Congress concerning the effectiveness of a protocol they had developed that included ivermectin. (Interestingly, YouTube almost immediately took that video down, but NOT BEFORE I HAD SEEN IT.)
Knowing that Jim was a pilot, I asked him if he owned a pulse oximeter. He did. I asked him to check oxygenation on all three. His was low 'nineties, his wife mid-'eighties, his daughter high 'nineties. His wife was very short of breath and sitting by the open window in a state of mild panic.
Since I still retained my medical license in his state, I called in prescriptions for ivermectin for the three of them, along with several other things. As they say, to make a long story short, the results were nothing short of remarkable. A phone call before bedtime revealed that all three were "some better." The next morning, "much better." Three days later, "cured," except the wife, who had a persistent cough. Interestingly, I visited Jim and his wife a few months ago, and she was emphatic: "That medicine you gave us saved my life." She may very well be right.
The essence of medicine is to allow physicians - who have training, experience, and hopefully judgment born of that experience - do what they DO. My little ad-hoc research experiment was admittedly miniscule, but it was enough for me to form an opinion. And always in the back of my mind are the hundreds of thousands who did NOT get this treatment because of politics. My advice to the politicians is to stick to what they know - whatever that is - and let others, like oh, say, doctors, do the same. And by the way, I am one of the signers of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Misinformation is simply another justification for opposing free speech. How many times over the past several years has the 'misinformation' been proven to be reality that is contrary to what the establishment's position is on something?
The Chinese doctor who disappeared in late 2019 after alerting friends about some new virus in Wuhan was charged with spreading misinformation, those claiming Russiagate was a conspiracy, the same. I quit posting on social media in April of 2020 regarding Fauci's twisting of science as I was getting pilloried, and then there's Hunter's laptop and pretty much every logical argument that flies in the face of progressive (and therefore media's) political positions.
I have no idea of how one can legislate one's way out of this climate, but I hope, upon taking the House and Senate this year, Conservatives have an answer.
In October 2020 I heard about the Great Barrington Declaration and signed it, sure that after people saw it, reason would prevail. It was disappointing to realize that people with much less experience and knowledge were going to ignore the input from brilliant minds from across the globe and focus on dictates from bureaucrats instead. The idea that you would have been threatened and silenced is unsettling. If the laws under consideration in California are passed, doctors and patients will suffer. And you are right that tiny dictators who claim to be “Science” will be the ultimate decision makers for all of us. There is nothing acceptable about this. You’re prescient to say faith in public health agencies will suffer. I’m not sure they will ever recover from what they have done these past two, going on three, years. And the health of the American people will decline. Even if the medical profession recovers, there will be some of us who will never trust the pharmaceutical companies. I hope Californians will rise up and make their voices heard and that the increasingly draconian laws will be stopped. The screams of the people in Shanghai should never occur here.
Sorry but if you watched the footage from Shanghai last night (probably only on Fox because the rest are liars and shills) you'd understand that Dr. Bhattacharya has understated the horrors of what will befall us if we give into this Covid madness. This is where the diktats and edicts of the Covid totalitarians is leading us. And if you don't think this warrants an armed, determined and relentless response then you really don't think liberty is worth fighting for. No surprise, given that 60% of Democrats surveyed say they wouldn't stay to fight for America - the last bastion of liberty. Franklin said if you sacrifice liberty for safety you'll end up with neither. Here, we are asked to sacrifice our liberty for the illusion of safety - lockdowns that don't work, masks that are worthless and vaccines that don't even protect from the latest variants. What sort of people would stand for such nonsense? We will find out soon enough. But I think the numbers are growing of people who will fight and die for liberty.
Yet another reason to leave California, an aspiring totalitarian state. Shame on us that we gave up so many of our rights so willingly. Shame on the church which gave up the right of worship. As Physicians we are patient advocates. Period. I’ve told my med students and residents it might cost them their jobs or licenses but they must stay true to their calling. As a Christian I am on record that I will be imprisoned for my beliefs during my lifetime.
“The bill, written by Assemblyman Evan Low, a Democrat in Silicon Valley”
Of course. The tech platforms made billions on lockdowns and fear. The more people stayed home the more they stared at their screens. The more they ordered online. The more they argued and shamed their neighbors for leaving the house. This isn’t shocking at all.
Thank you Dr Jay both for this article and all you and your colleagues have done. Millions of us believe in science, medicine and freedom. We know that science evolves and that the core foundation for science is the encouragement to question, challenge and hopefully prove whatever one believes or proposes as a matter of science or medicine.Those who purport to believe in science yet proclaim settled science are not in quest of truth but merely seek to shut down debate and dissent. This is contrary to what science and America are all about. Science and freedom must always be partners with one another.
I signed the Barrington Declaration and am increasingly proud to have done so. Recent data from researchers at U Chicago showed the deleterious effects of lockdowns on economies, education and health. I want to thank Dr. Bhattacharya for speaking out.
“The language of the bill itself is intentionally vague about what constitutes “misinformation,””
————————————————
My favorite is ‘malinformation’ which is accurate (literally true) information being used “out of context” to create distrust in the government.
‘Malinformation’ is classified as a terrorist threat by the Department of Homeland Security.
This is known as turnkey authoritarianism. They haven’t turned the key yet, but they already built the hot rod.
When I saw a soulless politician continually interrupt Jay in an appearance before a congressional committee, essentially casting Jay as an advocate for “letting it rip” and death of millions, I feared some crazy government overreach would soon follow, one where a chosen set of experts get to be in charge and others cast into hellfire. Of course California is at the vanguard.
It seems as if some elites see major threats in a tiny faction of truly crazy radicals — on any issue — and then project that crazy radical idea onto anyone who questions the elites’ position, and this group of people that questions them is much larger and much saner than, say, the crazy Twitter troll saying vaccines are government tracking bio weapons.
Jay and many others simply questioned lockdowns, said they would do more harm than good, proposed another way forward. For this, he was deemed a heretic even though more and more research is showing the dramatic negative effects of shutting down society on children in particular.
Too many elites are so drunk on their own beliefs that they feel justified in imposing their will through legislation against all who question them, using words like “misinformation” when in reality, much of the time, it’s just different information worthy of consideration.
Jay, I signed the declaration the day I learned of it. Prior to that I had done a review of the data coming out of the CDC, applied basic statistical methods and what I learned in econ 101 regarding trade offs. It was clear that the “cure” of lockdowns + trillions of debt would be worse than the disease in the long run. This appears now to have been proven true.
The challenge we face appears to be that our universities are establishing a non-evidence based ideology. Professors, now outnumbered by administrators, many of them “woke,” are rolling over and not fighting for “traditional” liberal, enlightenment values.
You are from this world and are fighting back. What should we do?
The ideology is flowing into primary education. A well funded, sizable, activist, minority can enact a totalitarian system. Left unchecked, in ten to fifteen years said group may exist. This is a very old story with well known outcomes.
This is not democrats vs republicans, this is emergent totalitarianism vs an imperfect but historically stable representative, constitutional democracy. And it is not just the US, it is spreading across the west.
The tactics used on physicians—to silence them—are the same tried and proven tactics used to push a false narrative on the "climate crisis" and to silence those scientists who questioned the climate exaggerations, and these tactics are currently being used on anyone who questions virtually every other narrative, no matter the area of interest. I don't see things changing any time soon. Free speech and an honest and open debate of issues is the only way to stifle this trend, but so many institutions have been corrupted that little remains to fight the trend.
California re: COVID: "The legislature shall control what doctors are allowed to say or what treatments they may perform. And if you argue about it, you're a racist, bigot who wants people to die."
Texas re: Hormone therapy for minors: "The legislature can't control what treatments doctors may perform! And if you think they should, you're a racist, bigot who wants kids to die."
The Democratic Party is articulating both of these positions right now. They've gotten so good at Orwellian double-think they don't even realize when they're doing it.
One would hope that we would have moved passed this. At this point, every assertion made by the public health officials regarding the response to COVID-19 has been proven either entirely incorrect or severely misguided. These officials need to admit their mistakes, express remorse and seek forgiveness for the harm they have wrought on billions worldwide.