A Stanford University professor, Jay Bhattacharya, reports that “His life had become hell” after expressing in October 2020 his disagreement with home confinement as part of the health measures devised to fight the coronavirus epidemic. This professor of medicine, economics and health research policy at Stanford University, thus affirmed that “academic freedom is dead”. Co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, signed by thousands of scientists and recommending an alternative approach to the Covid-19 outbreak, Jay Bhattacharya reported a “high clergy who declare what is true and what is not true”.
This scientist was the guest of a conference on academic freedom at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, which took place on November 4 and 5, 2022. During his speech, Jayanta Bhattacharya made a clear statement on the consequences of the health measures implemented during the covid crisis and the ideological censorship that weighs on scientists who contest the official discourse relating to their merits. He illustrated his opinion with his personal experience, i.e. “hell” which he faces since he expressed, with thousands of other scientists, his disagreement with the dominant policy of the fight against the coronavirus.
This professor reiterated his opinion on confinements. At this conference, he described the policy adopted as “the most catastrophic in all history”. This is, in his opinion, “the worst public health mistake of the last 100 years”.
A “deeply hostile” environment
Jay Bhattacharya referred to the Great Barrington Declaration. “The document was intended to tell the public that the containment did not have a consensus within the scientific community. Many epidemiologists, many doctors, many other people like eminent personalities did not agree”he explained.
This statement was strongly denounced by public health officials. Among them, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, who called the call to bank on herd immunity evoked in this declaration of “nonsensical and very dangerous”. Prof. Bhattacharya also denounced Dr. Fauci: “You have someone like Anthony Fauci who says, without irony, that if you question me, you are not just questioning a man, you are questioning science itself”.
For him, by their attitude, Dr. Fauci and his colleagues embody a “high clergy who declare from above what is true and what is not true”. And when “you adopt a position in contradiction with the scientific clergy, your life becomes hell (…) You face a deeply hostile work environment”, Pursuit le Pr Bhattacharya.
Questioned on November 21 in an interview on Fox News, this professor affirms that “in many scientific circles during the pandemic, power has replaced the idea of truth as a guide”. He believes that Anthony Fauci has established “an exercise in raw power, where he effectively places himself as the king of science, instead of being driven by a genuine desire to learn the truth”.
“They systematically tried to give the impression that everyone agreed with their ideas on Covid policy, when in fact there was deep disagreement between scientists and epidemiologists on the right strategy. “That’s why we wrote the Great Barrington statement to tell the public there was this disagreement. There was another alternative policy available”he said again to Fox News.
Dropped by Stanford executives
Bhattacharya revealed that shortly after the release of the Great Barrington statement, he received “death threats, hate mail and questions about the origin of his funds”he, who claims to have been employed by the Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging at Stanford.
Later, a “secret petition” was launched on campus to demand Bhattacharya’s censorship. He also said he was the victim of a campus poster campaign that blamed him for Covid-19 deaths in Florida.
During this conference organized at the beginning of November, he notably expressed his regret about the attitude of the administration of Stanford University, in particular that of its president. The scientist said that if the president of Stanford had called for a debate on the Great Barrington statement, things would have turned out differently: “There would have been a huge controversy about it, but at the same time the hostile work environment would have dissipated because what he would have said was, ‘Listen, let’s debate, it’s legitimate to have this debate, a place like Stanford is where this debate should take place”.
And to continue: “If you have a legitimate scientific or political point of view and you don’t talk about it, you send a message that you don’t care about the truth.” Also, Professor Bhattacharya does not hesitate to conclude that “academic freedom is dead, because it only matters when there are controversial issues like this. And if university leaders don’t stand up for it, they don’t deserve the positions they hold ”.