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🌊 The “Fringe” New Leader of the NIH

Labeled fringe and censored online, we look at the man now poised to lead the NIH

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By Max Frost

In 2020, the head of the NIH labeled Jay Bhattacharya “fringe” and “dangerous.” Now, he’s poised to lead the organization. 

Almost exactly five years ago, the world was rushing into lockdowns as the virus quickly spread from China to everywhere else. Studies made grim projections: That anywhere from 1 in 100 to 1 in 16 people who contracted the virus would die.

The week of March 10, work went remote, sporting events were canceled, and travel ground to a halt. Yet as people retreated into their homes to Clorox-wipe their mail and watch the climbing death charts, Bhattacharya suspected something different. As he asked in the Wall Street Journal on March 24, “Is the Coronavirus as Deadly as They Say?”

Bhattacharya wrote:

If it’s true that the novel coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines, then the extraordinary measures being carried out in cities and states around the country are surely justified. But there’s little evidence to confirm that premise—and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.

Fear of Covid-19 is based on its high estimated case fatality rate – 2% to 4% of people with confirmed Covid-19 have died, according to the World Health Organization and others. So if 100 million Americans ultimately get the disease, two million to four million could die. We believe that estimate is deeply flawed. The true fatality rate is the portion of those infected who die, not the deaths from identified positive cases.

“Current estimates about the Covid-19 fatality rate may be too high by orders of magnitude,” was his conclusion – and lockdowns were therefore not necessary. 

From then on, Bhattacharya became two things to two sets of people: To the pro-lockdown public health establishment, he was a leading enabler of misinformation. To those who opposed lockdowns, he was their academic backing. 

The latter group – including President Trump and RFK Jr. – has since won control of the country and placed Bhattacharya in charge of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Today’s deep dive examines what Bhattacharya believes, the battle around him and efforts to silence him, and what his nomination means for American health.

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Editor’s Note

We’re curious to read your thoughts on Bhattacharya: Is having a Covid dissident run the NIH a good thing? Can these one-time outsiders still be labeled that, or do they comprise a new establishment? Let us know by replying to this email.

Also, here are our last 5 stories: 

Reader Replies

Lots of replies to yesterday’s story about Trump’s funding claims.

Jennifer wrote:

Its interesting to me about the transgender mice thing, because my anti-trump social feed is full of people talking about Transgenic mice vs transgender mice and how clearly Trump is dumb.. But according to your research, he spoke factually... 8M dollars went into research on making mice transgender. Do i care ? No. Is it worthwhile research ? Maybe ? I am not an expert and would need more information to make a determination. I still disagree with DOGE blindly cutting programs just based on their political views (anti-trans, anti-lgbtqia, etc).

Stacy wrote:

In reference to the 5 year initiative in Myanmar to help their population pursue higher education - I respectfully ask why? We have so many problems here in America - why are we investing in Myanmar right now? We have underserved, severely poor populations and we have our own underprivileged people who might want to pursue higher education - why is America looking outside its borders? I think this is how many here in the USA feel right now - let's fix what's going inside our borders and then we can look outside the country to help others.

Sarah wrote:

Loved today’s article! I am not a Trump supporter by any stretch of the imagination and when I heard some of these statements I instantly rolled my eyes (as well as chuckled in agreement to some of them… I have heard of Lesotho but ONLY because of Roca globe trotter on the app). It was so helpful seeing the facts of what exists rather than just writing Trump off as being crazy — which he makes easy to do. And to give Trump credit — for the most part these do seem to be things that existed + not necessarily hyperbole. 

My big questions though are: Why were some of these things started/funded by the US government in the first place? Are these even effective programs? Are they even wanted in where they are being implemented? How much are we spending on things that impact everyday Americans? What are those things? 

I honestly feel like I lack a good understanding of why it could be important for the US to be (for example) “funding social cohesion in Mali”. Is this because we are good global citizens? How do you even achieve something like this? I don’t want to judge these things rashly + am genuinely interested in hearing what supporters say about their importance (and more importantly — their effectiveness). 

There probably ARE important and beneficial things being cut alongside excessive and wasteful things, and that we aren’t even scratching the surface... We are looking at millions of dollars which sounds like a lot to everyday people but we do have to keep in the mind these are drops in the bucket of the grand scheme of government spending. This makes me begin to question…what are other maybe bigger expenditures being hidden? What’s the real agenda that all of these smaller ones are providing distractions for? 

I didn’t vote for Trump but it’s hard to argue that he doesn’t make some points that get you to just stop and think about things a little bit more and say “why?”. I think it’s good to question things— and that the mainstream media + former government establishment have forgotten that we should be asking questions. They should have answers and if their answers aren’t satisfactory — that’s not on us as voters/citizens, that’s on them.

Editor’s Note:

Different people would say different things, but take Mali, for example: It’s a war-torn country that has suffered from decades of jihadist violence and where Russia and the West are competing for influence. The logic may be that US support is good for the Malian people (humanitarian) but also good for American security (strategic), because it’s addressing causes of extremism and countering Russian influence. Or with circumcision in Mozambique: It’s a project to cut HIV rates. One former USAID contractor told Roca these projects are pitched as saving the US money in the long run, because the US may end up funding treatments, which are more expensive than prevention. 

That’s all for today. Hope you enjoyed, and happy Friday.

–Max and Max