This is frightening. I am so tired of the bullying and threats against scientists and truth tellers. We need you. We need science. It is so important that brave public voices like yours do not back down (while of course I am totally empathetic to the fatigue and fear). The sane public needs to protect and support. I for one will do all I can. Thank you for your tenacious and important public service!
Ummmm ok great oracle of attitudes just save it 👉🏿brainwashed folks like you make it troubling to realize we share the same planet 🌍 yikes good luck and keep puttin that nanotechnology particles in yer childrens future...💉🦠☺️
Respectfully, you are misguided. Please endeavor to open your mind to science-based facts. Science is about the scientific method of keen observation and repeatable experiments. It should never be politicized. Sadly, Donald Trump did all he could to politicize the pandemic and took the low road to failure in execution in the critical early stages of the pandemic. Thank you.
Absolutely correct. This is why I support you. To quote a founder, we either hang together or we’ll hang separately. At least go down fighting together!
[Added later:] I just threw down a hundred bucks for ya. I know this wasn’t a fundraising email—but I clicked upgrade. Money following mouth! 🙂
Thank you. The rapid access to information from experts, doctors, epidemiologists, nurses, long covid sufferers, etc. available online has been life saving. Hope the society can find a way to balance all of this. It is easier to disseminate lies as it is to share truth. Your voice is very valuable.
Several of the comments here demonstrate exactly why this continues to happen, namely one political faction preferring conspiracy theories over actual evidence and data. The events of January 6th, 2021 have sadly shown us that this type of violence, harassment, and threats will likely never go away. That said, we have to keep on fighting with actual facts.
This is not directed to you personally. But why in the *&%# does EVERY discussion on EVERY topic have to degenerate into political snides and allegations and name calling. Even here on a board supposedly about health issues. And I blame every political strip, my God I am so sick to death of it. The insults flying here make me feel like I am back in nursery school. People can disagree, and should be allowed to without fear of reprisal. But the childish namecalling, it's so counter productive. End of rant.
Totally agree. Lots of emotional 2-year-olds casting blame ("They do it too!) as opposed to talking about and solving real issues. People who need to attack others are emotional children. We called them bullies in school and it looks like most of them never grow up.
I'm in solidarity with you and other scientists. And I also fear you are the canaries in the coal mine, because if we let the anti science mob get away with targeting you, they will come after other public servants, and health care workers.
We have to get past this toxic stew of neo-libearlism which promotes the idea that society shouldn't exist - but individual consumers are king, so attacking social ideas like public health is legit.
I'm a public servant (insurance examiner! exciting, yeah?). They're already after us. It sucks. And the agency I work for is self-funding, but that doesn't stop them from saying that we're wasting tax dollars.
Agree with the article you linked. That has also been my personal experience doing or witnessing health care in conflict zones where US-backed governments treated health care workers and infrastructure as suspect or the enemy. Solving conflicts violently always leads to crashing through the moral guardrails.
Forgive my language but we all know that Twitter is now a misogynistic jerk-off session for insecure men. This would be the last place I’d go to to learn anything.
The irony that these morons would view science as “Bad” on Elon’s site, who’s entire profit hinges on scientific advancement, is as pleasing as it is sad.
Thank you for continuing to do this and communicating. I'm listening and sharing. I know many others are too. Here's hoping for a shift back to facts and civility.
And yet the worst harassment is from other scientists. Any scientist who was honest about the likelihood of lab leak theory being true in 2020 and 2021 was committing career suicide. So that not only adversely affected scientists, but the science itself.
Step one of being a good Scientist is not having an emotional attachment to anything, and let the data tell the story.
Little concrete proof (aside from stories told on Fox News) there was a Lab Leak. Genetic tracing and DNA have since made the Lab Leak theory even less likely... but if they don’t share that with you on Fox, you’d never know. Like my Fox News friends somehow never heard of the Dominion case against Fox News. Hmmm 🤔
What "genetic testing" do you refer to? The only evidence that I've seen of a zoonotic origins are some colour coded maps that ignore the Wuhan institute and the nearby hospital. And at least some of those studies show massive conflicts of interest (ecohealth alliance associated authors for instance).
No source has been found.
There is a wealth of evidence pointing to the lab. At the very least it was a good candidate from day one and certainly at the time when social media was censoring anyone who raised it as a possibility.
Censorship, of which there has been much during this pandemic, is no bedfellow of the scientific method yet it has been called for repeatedly by scientists as well as liberal use of personal attacks; which is in effect what labeling someone you don't know "a trumper" is.
Tim I was on Facebook and I saw no such censorship. I saw all of the the declarations of censorship. I saw the House freedom caucus waste a lot of money on the “Twitter files” hearings that backfired badly on them. I saw pro lab leak people victimizing themselves daily with paranoid rants and whatabout-isms, calling any Scientist a “TRAITOR” who dared suggest there was not enough evidence to say for sure either way.
I saw the automated covid statements the social media companies put out reminding people not to latch onto any talking points too quickly as by that point, the information we chose to take in, could actually kill us, and did.
Because of this, the things I chose to read to keep up w Covid were read, and never emotional, always bland, never in a rush to “force” data. None of what I read EVER said “THERE’S NO LAB LEAK”.
They all said that the fact that China wouldn’t allow scientists to go in right away and test, we may never know.
Now we’re left with bread crumbs.
My irritation is not with the Lab Leak theory being true, it’s with the seemingly dire emotional need of some Pro Lab Leak folks to force it with Big Gubment conspiracies, and claims that Scientists “should apologize” for not honoring their theories after the House Republicans crafted statements via the DOE to create an illusion of credibility. Nothing has changed. It’s still speculation. There’s still nothing concrete to say for sure either way.
So let’s move on and pray that the next big pandemic comes from a transparent country so we can learn from it.
"Anyone posting claims that Covid-19 was “man-made or manufactured” could have seen their posts removed or restricted, and repeatedly sharing the allegation could have led to a ban from the site entirely."
Here is Mark Zuckerburg himself, saying Facebook censored people at the request of the scientific establishment. Even views that were correct:
There was censorship. That is a fact. Not jsut on Facebook but on all social media platforms.
I'm not sure how the Twitter Files would backfire. How would factual and sourced reports on the censorship of debate by government authorities, mediated by big tech backfire on anyone but the authorities who took these liberties?
Let's set aside the fact that finding Racoon Dog and Sars genetic material together proves nothing and doesn't even hint at anything. You would expect to find genetic material from any animal present in that market, mixed with sars genetic material. In fact in this article:
"Samples containing viral RNA, which had been collected at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in early 2020, also contained genetic material from raccoon dogs—a foxlike type of canid apparently sold at the market—as well as other animals."
I mean. Come on.
I also find it interesting that this new information "suddenly appeared from the Chinese and then suddenly disappeared again". I'm happy to leave that with the observation that the Chinese have shown themselves to be completely untrustworthy.
There is also a massive problem in that I cannot find the "results" published any where. The only things I can find are reference to the presentation of this data to the WHO, in repeated news articles.
I can't even find a preprint. So how to know if there are not other problems with the non-data?
There is nothing here but the most circumstantial of evidence.
We'll probably never know the truth about the lab leak, partly because the Chinese painted everything black and some of the facts are still hidden. But most of the obfuscation comes from the American right, who want revenge against Fauci for laughing at Trump. No amount of hard evidence will overcome the political fog.
If we'll never know, then why are we still talking about it? That's what they'd call a "closed case" in my line of work (disposition: "question of fact")
Lack of evidence means that it likely will never be decided, and the political forces at work likely don't want it decided. Open questions make good propaganda.
"yet the worst harassment is from other scientists" - methinks you're projecting a bit much for one specific biased case you want to hang your hat on. At the start enough people pushing lab leak inseparably linked it to nefarious political conspiracy. That drove a pushback that many people, even this page, admitted went too far the other direction. The conspiracy crew is still trying to use recent stories and evidence to push a narrative, rather than leave the evidence at what it actually is. So while the reaction was admittedly reactionary, the push shot itself in the foot. All that said, the entire subject is extremely far from "worst harassment is from..." no matter how much you want to paint it that way while minimizing everything else (you know, such as the conspiracy based attacks against people trying to push out correct information that actually saves peoples lives.)
I think your post is fair. I think you'll agree that there's a difference between "it originated in a lab" and "it was a bioweapon," and YLE has been refreshingly honest about that difference. It's one of the reasons I subscribed.
But YLE posts today "Harassment against scientists is out of control" about what amounts to a low grade Twitter spat, when harassment against scientists from within their own community altered the entire course of pandemic response in such a profound way that people today on the blue half of the diagram are still responding as you witness them respond in this comment thread. Literally look around, up and down the responses to my post. It's clear that scientists are *still* being culturally suppressed when it comes to Lab Leak, by the culture that is most likely to subscribe to YLE.
This entire response chain is QED to my reply. Literally just look.
"about what amounts to a low grade Twitter spat" that may poorly describe (downplay) what triggered the current post, but the subject of the post spans far more than the current trigger. Scientists defend scientific points and positions, with evidence, that are backed by the majority of scientists, also with evidence, and are harassed both online and in person for doing so. From social media mobbing to actual death threats, this is what people have experienced.
This is not new. COVID anti-science harassment made just made it visible to everyone who may not have seen the more niche aspects in the past. Antivax sentiment suddenly gained mainstream traction with a receptive audience. Here's an article and some actions published by Nature in 2016, https://www.nature.com/articles/529459a , and a 2013 paper including the following first hand accounts:
"Thus, the first author has been labeled a “Nazi zionist kike” and has been accused of “mass murder and treason.” The second author has been attacked on a neo-Nazi website and has received envelopes with a powdery white substance resembling Anthrax (Mann, 2012). The third author has received anonymous abusive emails and nighttime phone calls in her home. This abuse is at least in part orchestrated because the frequency of such emails tends to increase when scientists’ e-addresses are posted on contrarian websites."
I have yet to see the Lab leak issue amount to anything of that order. The only reason I've seen it grasped at so fervently is because people seem to think it provides validation/vindication for a perceived mountain of other wrongs.
There's a difference between anti-vax sentiment from 2016 and what we saw in 2020. Here's why we saw what we saw in 2020:
• Covid will not be a deadly pandemic
• Closing the borders is racist
• Masks don’t work
• Lockdown two weeks to flatten the curve
• Trump didn’t close the borders fast enough
• Lockdown three months to flatten the curve
• Masks work
• Lockdown until Covid is gone
• Covid CANNOT be solved at the state level
• It was never about Herd Immunity
• Saying the virus came from a lab is racist
• One mask doesn’t work but two masks definitely work
• Lockdown because symptomatic spread will kill old people
• Asymptomatic cases can still have long term damage, ground glass lesions, and such
• Lockdown until a cure
• Every hospitalization with Covid must count as a Covid hospitalization regardless of the reason for admission.
• Don’t trust any vaccine announced under the Trump administration
• The vaccine announced the day after votes were counted is safe and effective
• Vaccinated people cannot transmit Covid-19
• We must mask children because science says so.
• The vaccine has no side effects
• We will not mandate the vaccine
• We must vaccinate as many people as possible to get Herd Immunity
• You can return to your life after getting the vaccine
• The virus probably came from a lab
• Only N95 masks work
• The NIH doesn’t fund Gain of Function research
• The vaccine was never about stopping transmission
• Vaccine side effects mean it’s working
• The vaccine has no effect on women’s menstrual cycles so stop being hysterical
• The Wuhan NIH research doesn’t count as Gain of Function research because some gain of function researchers decided those gains of function didn’t meet the legal definition
• Asymptomatic transmission among vaccinated people is fine, will not kill old people, and don’t worry about long term damage, ground glass lesions, and such
• You can return to your life after getting booster shots every six months for the rest of your life
• We will take your life from you if you don’t get the vaccine
• We will use the FBI to investigate parents who complain about school vaccine mandates
• The vaccine turns symptomatic illness asymptomatic, but don’t worry about the increase in asymptomatic spread
• Go ahead and get infected with the virus after your vaccine to improve your immunity.
• Peter Daszak, the guy who organized the “lab leak is a conspiracy theory” letter in the Lancet, proposed to build Covid-19 for DARPA in 2018.
• Vaccinated people can spread Covid-19 just as easily as non-vaccinated people can.
• The spike in heart attacks and vascular conditions isn’t from the vaccine, it’s from the lockdowns.
• Unvaccinated children will be removed from school.
• Covid MUST be solved at the state level.
• The vaccine actually does affect menstrual cycles but you should get it anyway.
• Hospitalizations with Covid don’t count as Covid hospitalizations if Covid wasn’t the reason for admission.
• The case for masking children has collapsed
• Leading scientists knew it came from a lab but hid their opinions to promote “international harmony.”
• Even though the case for masking children has collapsed we’re going to do it anyway.
• Even though mask mandates are illogical, all that matters is that they align with the “community’s goals.”
• Mask mandates didn’t make much of a difference anyway.
• Fauci: “Vaccines don’t protect overly well” from Covid infection.
• The vaccine was bad because it was Trump’s fault.
• A vital part of hurricane preparedness is to get vaccinated.
• When the FDA told people not to take ivermectin that was totally just an informal recommendation.
• Department of Energy: “The virus came from the lab.”
• All other main branches of government: “The virus came from the lab.”
So after all that, ordinary people might start to question WTF is going on with the medical industry, because the above chain of events is not science, not science, not science. It was a continual knee jerk reaction to social media wars.
This was the primary news narrative. Vox, NBC, CBS, quotes straight from the mouths of Fauci, Biden, and others. That's why people quit trusting the establishment - the establishment narrative was constantly contradictory while constantly claiming "science!"
There are a huge number of people who are pro-vax who were specifically against this particular vaccination effort and how it was handled, and by the time it was done with good reason. Efficacy at infection prevention was only 30% - that would not qualify to be called a "vaccine" if it was for any other pathogen. No AIDS vaccine would get approved at rates of infection prevention that low.
I don’t know. “Low level Twitter spat” seems a gross understatement unless you consider it perfectly normal for scientists to have their personal information posted online and to receive threatening letters, emails etc.
That's pretty much par for the course for anyone participating in a culture war on Twitter. Culture Warriors post fake bomb threats from Tim Pool's house to police almost weekly. Folks attempted to kick down Tucker Carlson's door. Folks lose their jobs regularly due to competing blue and red outrage mobs. That's just what Twitter is.
I live in Atlanta and know several people who work at CDC and were involved in the covid war up to and including policy creation. They were not getting their signaling about Covid protocol from science, they were getting it from the Occupy Democrats Facebook page. It was bad.
You want a peer review of a friend's Facebook wall? That's cute.
It is now *known* that Covid-19 came from WIV. But anyone who said that in 2020 was a "racist," so scientists trying to say it were shunned. It was the exact dynamic Katelyn is talking about in her article, except moreso by orders of magnitude. And it impacted the health of the entire planet, including the very thing which Katelyn started her Substack about.
You've bought into a story, nothing more, nothing less. A novel disease was first detected in a major metropolitan area of more than 11 million people and you know the address where it originated. Pardon me, but I need some hard evidence, not inferences derived from the absence of information.
See my response to Mike below, on the comment which he now appears to have deleted. There is a wealth of information from direct sources that should be considered.
I guess Fox News and Jim Jordon forgot to tell you that’s since been discredited (again) with DNA directly traced back to the Wuhan Market?? Oops!
I’d bet you Al’s bought into all of that stolen election spin too. You must feel silly now that you know that neither Tucker, Hannity, or Laura actually believed what they were spinning to you about that. The very same folks spinning the “Lab Leak” theories.
Fact is you most likely call ANYONE a TRAITOR who doesn’t push the same talking points as you.
If you were actually someone who cares about the truth, you’d not be latching on to any talking point, like the rest of us, who recognize it may be YEARS or NEVER before we actually know anything for sure.
Who cares where it came from at this point. We now have vaccines to make it less dangerous when new variants come out. OR you can choose to be like my MAGA Friends, go unvaccinated and foolishly brag that you’ve allowed yourself to catch Covid 3/4 times. Yeah! 💪🤪
I also live in atlanta and know MANY people who work at the CDC, as well as two of the Scientists who helped create the MRNA Covid vaccine. Policy creation is difficult in a fluid situation like a pandemic at best.
It would’ve been a lot better had Pres Trump not called the pandemic a “Hoax” at the start, and given his own CDC a heads up that Covid was on its way TWO MONTHS prior to the shut down.... when he first learned about it.
The CDC didn’t create the Vaccine. You do know that right??
The CDC merely responds to viral and disease crisis. When the Leader of our country is more worried about “His Numbers” than the millions of people who bust their asses to produce these “numbers”, the BIGGEST screw up starts with him, and like a domino effect of incompetence, affected everything after. When Trump finally did catch on, it was too late. Still, he visited the CDC and talked about himself (as usual) and how he could’ve been a Scientist. Which is hilarious.
I’m assuming your friend is a janitor at the CDC or something?
I prefer NEJM or any of the Lancet publications over Facebook "likes". Nucleotide letters on CV19 available on 1/3/20 at the latter. Mountain View CA companies were modeling solutions on 1/4/20. Per CDC 6/17/23 data, there have been 1,132, 287 reported CV19 deaths in the United States an increase in the weekly rate of 9.7%.
The biggest problem is education level. Unless the reader is in fact a trained scientist, even the most accurate and dependable information is subject to misinterpretation.
I think you're lying. I know people at CDC and they'd never give credibity to crap they read on Facebook pages. Are you sure you don't mean the Chinese CDC?
This ^^ is the best response in this whole chain to analyze, to be honest.
Let's both start by admitting the phrase "Fox News Talking Point" actually means "Things Trump Said" in this context, which is fine, so please allow me to start by insulting Trump for a bit so we can establish a shared point of reference and agreement, and build form there.
Trump is no more insightful about any topic whatsoever than a Magic 8 Ball. He basically chooses his opinions randomly. He flips a coin. He's not a reliable source of information. But the problem with coin flippers is that they're right half the time. When Covid hit, there was a coin, and one side it said "Lab" and the other said "Pangolin." Trump flipped the coin, pointed at it, and said "Lab!" and immediately every Democrat in the country shouted "Pangolin!" This is what you're doing here, Mike. When you establish your sense making apparatus to be the opposite of a random signal then your sense making becomes equally random. If Trump had said "Pangolin!" in 2020 then the left would have viciously trolled him for making such an absurd statement, accused him of protecting Chinese interests, and then called the Pangolin assertion "racist" instead of calling the lab leak hypothesis "racist" like they did.
And since scientists identify overwhelmingly with the Democrats, and don't want to be called racists, they couldn't even engage in exploring the lab leak hypothesis without being booted from their peer group. So let's take a brief look at lab leak, without any talking points from any media sources you don't like.
There are 10,000+ wet markets in the Pacific rim. If a brand new never before seen global pandemic virus emerged from a wet market every single year since Christ was born, there would still only be a 30% chance of one emerging a few clicks from the only level 4 biolab in the region. That alone is enough to establish WIV as the most likely origin of the virus, and is nothing more than math.
We know that Peter Daszak on behalf of Eco Health proposed to DARPA in 2018 to use research techniques which some people consider to be “gain of function” to add a spike protein to the S1S2 cleavage site of an existing bat coronavirus and test that in humanized mice, and to do that research at UNC and WIV. That is an accurate description of what Covid-19 factually is. We know DARPA turned him down.
We know Peter is the same man who was the architect of the natural origins letter in Nature, which did not have any specific scientific backing and was basically just a compilation of opinions solicited from Peter’s friends, but was used as a “fact check” bludgeon to prevent anyone from speaking about lab origins on social media in 2020.
We know that US collaborators with WIV have stated that WIV was putting furin cleavage sites into SARS like viruses in 2019, a year after the Eco Health grant proposal and a year before the pandemic.
We know that when WIV put out its first paper about Covid-19, they omitted the information about the furin cleavage site.
We know that Ben Hu, a WIV researcher on bat coronaviruses was on Chinese TV in 2017 showing laboratory testing of coronaviruses without wearing proper PPE. We also know Ben Hu has received US grant money before for work on chimeric bat coronaviruses. The recent WSJ referenced government intelligence pegs Ben as one of three Patient Zeros, but Ben denies it, as any self-preservation minded Chinese scientist would.
Each of those statements is verifiable from direct sources. I don’t even watch Fox News. Whether those things made it onto Fox News or not I have no idea, but I see no reason why every news agency wouldn’t cover them. But these verifiable things from direct sources cannot be shared within certain social spaces because they might make someone seem as if they watch Fox News, which is the exact social dynamic of fear that Katelyn is talking about, and you are contributing to.
What's truly interesting about this dynamic, to me, is not even that it's happening, but rather that it's predicted by game theory. Katelyn for instance could not write an article outlining the above facts from direct sources or she would lose subscribers, because her subscribers would begin to associate her with Fox News. Which means (A) she can't respond to my post here without taking a financial hit, and further (B) the entire sense making apparatus of 2023 is the tail wagging the dog, both in the red sphere and the blue sphere.
Just curious, is a “Democrat” now anyone who disagrees with trump? Because I actually voted for him the first time. Seriously all of that crap means nothing to me. You all do the same thing. You dig up stuff on the internet and declare it “evidence”. It’s emotional. Don’t you realize that?
Why are you so desperate to be right? Find this out.
You are the only person here pushing a theory as “THE ANSWER”.
Which is the only thing people who you call “Democrats” were trying to point out during the pandemic.
Yes, TRUMP was the president when Covid hit. The buck starts and stops with him. He was told in JANUARY (by scientists) that Covid would most like hit the United States in March and he did NOTHING.
That’s what “Democrats” were upset about. NOBODY but Tucker’s parrots cares about double downing on the origins of Covid so quickly with NO evidence.
They were upset about the fact that after it hit us, we lost friends and family, and the leadership was more caught up with SPIN on Fox News than they were important issues like prepping the healthcare system, prepping the CDC. I will however credit Trump for allowing funds to go to operation warp speed, who did a tremendous job fast tracking the very vaccines created by the scientists that they were publicly chastising.
Yes. We are (or were) the envy of modern countries. No other president Republican or Democrat would’ve handled the Pandemic in the shameful way that President Trump did.
This is what I and others were angry about. The source of the anti science rhetoric online now is a direct result of the endless conspiracies being pushed. The endless copy and pastes posted by High School Diplomas and Bachelor’s Degrees who refuse to hear anything else besides “Awe you’re right. You’re a genius. Your IQ must be really high. Too bad you never lived up to your potential because you are superior in every way...”
Only one of us is suggesting that “RESEARCH” via Google and DUCK DUCK GO is actually “research”.
Not me.
Still nothing out there to suggest the Lab Leak theory is or isn’t the answer. In the mean time, figure out why this man leak nonsense is more important to you than the embarrassing lies we were told as citizens minimizing dangers of Covid to millions of Americans.
Mike, it'd be useful if you'd use the aforementioned research and pick apart Freakoutery's lengthy post point-by-point instead of making snarky comments. (Or am I being too naive to expect that in a comments section and this should just be another Twitter?)
I am so sorry that you and others in your field have had to endure this! The very people who are trying to protect us! This is such a sad reflection on our society. You are in my prayers!
This is not new. Edward Jenner got death threats, too.. Gangs of thugs chased down people in the 1918 pandemic, beat them, and tore off their masks. (Kolata, 'The Flu')
Apparently, similar things happened when the polio vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, but I recall that where I lived, at least, things went smoothly. We were just happy not to spend our summers walled up in the house.
Because public health measures were in place, the SARS and MERS epidemics were quickly snuffed out. Imagine what would happen if those viruses were on the loose today.
This should not be happening. I have the greatest admiration for the head of our local public health department, who was trolled, doxxed, harassed and threatened during most of the last three years. She is now leaving the area, but will continue her career in public health in another area.
So much is owed to her, to you, and to the other brave scientists and health leaders who endured such abuse as they worked to inform us about public health issues. Thank you and I’m sorry.
The bullying began when some reputable scientists expressed doubts about lock downs and vaccine efficacy. That bullying was by public health officials and media outlets such as CNN.
methinks your definitions of 'reputable', 'expressed doubts', and 'bullying' are not in agreement with the majority of the public. I did, however, see a lot of appropriate pushback against people railing against lockdowns and promoting alternative theories without evidence, suggesting alternative protocols without backing, and casting doubt on vaccines in spite of their objectively demonstrated (with substantial evidence) positive efficacy. Some of that is simply called lying. Others propagating misinformation. Others just wishful thinking. I have seen few rational, evidence based analyses treated other than professionally.
Are you serious? Or just uninformed? Sweden leads almost the entire world in fewer excess deaths during and since Covid. They had no lockdowns. Data readily available.
We were told that Covid vaccines prevented transmission, Covid vaccines "protected our neighborsć, attending open air events was "Neanderthal thinking", masks were better than Covid vaccines at preventing deaths, keeping kids out of schools would save lives from Covid, natural immunity was not beneficial and on and on and on. All of these things have been proven to be false. Data is readily available for those who want to read it and who can understand it.
thank you for echoing the misinformation points, including the 'but Sweden...' tack. Please come back when you include the numerous rebuttals to that point, and why you're comparing apples and oranges. Those points have been made ad infinitum, don't disingenuously pretend your point is novel or conclusive.
Vaccines objectively protected you from both (A) severe disease __AND ALSO_ (B) infection. From the start you were told (A) is what clinical trials tested, just like every other vaccine developed, and (B) while expected would be quantified after preliminary rollout. Just because it was misstated my much of the media and amplified by the antivax community as 'they don't stop infection!', doesn't make it so. The data that came out shortly after the initial rollout showed conclusively that they were 90%+ effective at severe outcome prevention and also 85-90%+ effective at protection from infection. Pretending it wasn't is just shutting your ears to all but your preferred echo chamber. As variants developed (B) came down faster than (A), but neither went down to 0. When they said they were concerned about variants and we needed boosters, they were talking about the main vaccines coming down from 90%->60/70%. Here's a nice summary table of all of the vaccines and what they're effectivenesses were:
masks objectively work as both source and recipient protection, but mostly as source control. at a population level, if they don't help, it's primarily because of noncompliance than ineffectiveness. (also what most claimed 'look they didn't work!' studies actually showed.) no one claimed natural immunity wasn't beneficial. they claimed that relying on natural immunity as a public health measure for such a high infectivity disease was asking for a high body count, and this went doubly so when we saw how many repeat infections were occurring in the 'naturally' immune.
what other narratives that you've bought into are because that's what you want to be true?
A 2yr old preprint and 3 twitter posts. Consider me floored by your the weight of your sources.
“ Protection from reinfection decreases with time since previous infection, but is, nevertheless, higher than that conferred by vaccination with two doses at a similar time since the last immunity-conferring event. A single vaccine dose after infection helps to restore protection.” Natural immunity follows primary infection risk, and risk of propagation, and still declines and needs boosters. It’s not the fix you for some ridiculous reason want it to have been
3 twitter posts.
Makary saying the same as the paper above. No one denied immunity from infection does it’s thing. But you’re ignoring the upfront cost of the infection.
Two posts about Sweden again ignoring the context. Really not that hard to try to do your homework instead of parroting the points you like. Sweden had the highest death toll among its Nordic neighbors before vaccines were available. That’s with them issuing ‘em recommendations vs mandates that a lot of their population actually followed (unlike countries with half the population whining that masks stole their freedom). Later they issued many of the same mandates as other countries, and their citizens actually followed them. They shut down schools, shut down large events, restricted travel.
Sweden? They learned that: (a) the “let er rip” approach fails because high circulating virus levels kill the vulnerable at high rates despite Lee trying to protect them (a la Great Barrington farse), and (b) recommendations, restrictions, and vaccinations work when responsible citizens follow them.
There was that guy that first injected RNA into a cell and made protein. He was so pissed that the credit went to Kariko that he became a public antivaxxer.
And I hope no one is talking about America's Frontline Doctors (cue laugh track here).
At what point will mass media and public health leaders take responsibility for the overreach in actions and dialogue over the past 3 years? There is virtually zero walking-back, zero apology for anything that was said or done that was based on ideology and not science. (And this blog is not immune to that criticism.) Worse, some people are revising their positions as if we weren't paying attention over the past 3 years. It is wholly inadequate for people to use "they just wanted to help" as an excuse especially when the "helping" involved half-truths and lies.
If this is not worth it to you, no one is harassing you *into* doing it. Blow it all up and go back to whatever you were doing before the pandemic. I would submit that the increase in so many people's profiles over the past 3 years, often through fear-mongering, *is* worth it to them, and that's why they keep doing it.
If illegal actions are taking place, laws exist to hold bad actors to account. Otherwise, public people should expect public criticism, despite social media or public opinion leading some of the public to hiding their views out of fear of demonetizing, losing their social media account, or negative consequences at work. Who will speak to the harassment they endure?
please, list these mistakes/wrongdoings. 1.2M US citizens died, >6M reported worldwide, est. 10% of infected (>10M) dealing with long term effects, sometimes debilitating. Please, elucidate us on what other 'nonsense' ruined people's lives.
What evidence led to the 180-degree change in mask recommendations early in the pandemic?
What evidence supported recommendations on what percentage of vaccinated people would be required to achieve adequate community protection?
What evidence supported the firing of frontline healthcare workers who had put their life on the line, gotten sick with COVID-19, and declined to further be vaccinated against COVID-19? Similarly, what evidence supported mandatory vaccination of college students, including colleges disregarding clinician recommendations against vaccinations in people with documented vaccine reactions or previous infections?
Do we also need to get into the multiple government and public health leaders who were practicing "do as I say, not as I do?"
At local, state, and federal levels, there are an uncountable number of overreaches in the US alone. Citing large numbers works well for TED talks, but it is fear-mongering and not a license to act as you please.
You must know what was behind the mask thing early in the pandemic. It was a desperate attempt to save masks for healthcare workers, and I think you know that. Then there were speculators accumulating masks in warehouses.
My own order for masks from Korea was diverted to a nameless post box in New Jersey. Hospital administrators and even state governors were smuggling masks into the country past DHS confiscators.
I was forced to turn, like a lot of people, to the instant cottage industry that made masks on dining room tables. A friend was building ozone generators that would sterlilize masks for re-use. American ingenuity.
It's sad that this post received likes. It's been clearly stated Covid deaths never discriminated between FROM Covid or WITH Covid (example-motor vehicle deaths). I'll stop now, as you are echoing speaking points of those who squelched any open discussions on major issues during the Covid tragedy.
Here's a big one that killed my mother in law and so many others: putting sick Covid patients into relatively healthy populations at senior homes. Coincidentally that was done primarily in Democrat-controlled states but that is not even the issue. The issue is I'm still waiting for any kind of mea culpa. Keeping seniors safe was, I thought, a primary objective of our stellar public health system.
the highest risk factor to anyone in a contagious virus outbreak is amount of circulating virus among immune naïve population. The justification for any quarantine is risk of spread. When risk of spread is highest before demonstration of symptoms, how else would you propose reducing amount of circulating virus?
"which was a lie" is the main claim i'm seeing. it's yours and it's without evidence.
You do know that we never had lock downs in the U.S. right? I live in NYC, which was the epicenter of the epicenter GLOBALLY. We were never locked down. We were allowed to go out whenever we wanted. China was locked down, but the U.S. definitely was not.
Well were we barricaded inside our homes? No. But in my state we were prohibited from driving into any of our 3 neighboring states. Medical screening tests were cancelled. We could not visit dying or elderly relatives (and I'm not talking about dying from Covid). Dentists were not allowed to see patients. Small businesses were not allowed to open. We were told to stay indoors except for an hour a day, within a mile of our homes. Schools were closed. So no, we weren't Australia with police throwing mask scofflaws to the ground but we had a lot of restrictions on basic living, apparently under the belief by our betters that a virus can only spread in some types of businesses and not others and that keeping learning challenged children and poor children isolated was a good thing. This sounds like lockdown to me.
Reading specifics. This isn't the format for proof and references. I posted a number of misstatements, and lies, above. Quotes from the highest authorities and leaders in our country. As a data driven physician I am both saddened and appalled by the lack of data driven views that were pushed to our country and the consequences of such to many of the public.
Having read the comments it is difficult to know what to say that will not create ire. Perhaps I can observe that many of the comments posted here appear to be based on information coming from the media. At least one person specifically mentions a media outlet and singles it out for criticism. I am not a fan of the media. I am not a fan of the left wing media. I am not a fan of the right wing media. I am not a fan of the center media (though they are the best of the lot). I am not a fan of the media. The media distorts. The media distorts in order to keep us coming back for more. It distorts by intentionally producing stories that activate our sympathetic nervous system so that we feel threatened. We feel threatened and so we keep coming back to find release, but there is no release. There are only more stories that keep us engaged. When one story has run it course, they find a new one that keeps us in fight-or-flight. This is how they make money. We are the fuel of their economic engine. I have cut out 98% of the media from my life (I read the BBC website). I am much happier! I have stopped blaming people. I am no longer fearful. I hope that you can have a similar experience.
Yes that’s why we shouldn’t harass the actual scientists who do have the education to present the data accurately. I don’t watch any cable news. I listen to my Doctors.
I bring out Fox News because during Covid, it was ONLY my Fox News watching friends who were all parroting exactly the same talking points. Exactly. To the letter.
They weren’t expressing individual fears of a new vaccine, based on their individual lives, no... they were ALL touting the exact same phrases and conspiracies whether they lived in North Carolina, Georgia, or Florida.
Now that’s frightening.
Not to mention that never before Covid were any of them anti-vax.
Now 3 of these people under 50 are dead. Again, ALL Fox News watchers.
It’s not CNN watchers who were dying of Covid unless they were elderly or compromised.
Its not CNN watchers invading their Capitol over a lie.
Americans should turn it ALL off.
You couldn’t pay me to watch CNN or FOX, but to spin Fox News as NOT mainstream is laughable and ridiculous.
Bruce, I appreciate your reply. It makes me think too of the biology and chemistry of adrenaline in the body. The flight-fight-freeze chemical response has an enormous and long-lasting impact on the nervous system. The chemical changes from anger, for example, take hours to return to normal levels, and like drugs, some of these heightened chemical responses can become an addictive norm over a period of time if the trigger continues. More and more I spend time looking for and using de-escalation skills for my own nervous system responses, and practice skills for minimizing the ups and downs coming from exposure to too much stimulation in the environment that causes unnecessary fight-flight-freeze response. I'm able to think more clearly and have a better chance of making calmer, more informed decisions that I'm comfortable with, too, when I do these things. I'm just beginning the journey and hopefully can be a person of more equanimity as time goes on. At 57, I realize how precious remaining years are and that living in unnecessary stress takes the preciousness of life away.
This is frightening. I am so tired of the bullying and threats against scientists and truth tellers. We need you. We need science. It is so important that brave public voices like yours do not back down (while of course I am totally empathetic to the fatigue and fear). The sane public needs to protect and support. I for one will do all I can. Thank you for your tenacious and important public service!
The earth is Flat. The Globalist New Order has been hiding the truth from us. Trumper’s are dumb AF....
😂😂👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻when will you quacks get back under the rock you used to dwell? So tired of you n Conspiracy 🐑
I'm so sorry this is happening. Scientists are heroes in public health. Many of us would literally be dead without you.
Seriously wake up
This substack is only for people who believe in science.
When did i say i don’t believe in science?😅
Your attitude speaks for itself.
Ummmm ok great oracle of attitudes just save it 👉🏿brainwashed folks like you make it troubling to realize we share the same planet 🌍 yikes good luck and keep puttin that nanotechnology particles in yer childrens future...💉🦠☺️
I'm not the one who is brainwashed. But then your type always projects. You have nothing else.
Trumper's are dumb AF
Respectfully, you are misguided. Please endeavor to open your mind to science-based facts. Science is about the scientific method of keen observation and repeatable experiments. It should never be politicized. Sadly, Donald Trump did all he could to politicize the pandemic and took the low road to failure in execution in the critical early stages of the pandemic. Thank you.
Hey, a real science troll in the wild. How are things in the Kremlin?
I think you have to believe in "THE" science. That's what I get from reading some of the comments.
THE. LOL.
Absolutely correct. This is why I support you. To quote a founder, we either hang together or we’ll hang separately. At least go down fighting together!
[Added later:] I just threw down a hundred bucks for ya. I know this wasn’t a fundraising email—but I clicked upgrade. Money following mouth! 🙂
I agree and will also make another contribution as this is one of the best sites on the net.
You might also enjoy TWiV, Debunk the Funk, Back to the Science (mainly YouTube content), and Respectful Isolence (blog).
Thank you. The rapid access to information from experts, doctors, epidemiologists, nurses, long covid sufferers, etc. available online has been life saving. Hope the society can find a way to balance all of this. It is easier to disseminate lies as it is to share truth. Your voice is very valuable.
Several of the comments here demonstrate exactly why this continues to happen, namely one political faction preferring conspiracy theories over actual evidence and data. The events of January 6th, 2021 have sadly shown us that this type of violence, harassment, and threats will likely never go away. That said, we have to keep on fighting with actual facts.
This is not directed to you personally. But why in the *&%# does EVERY discussion on EVERY topic have to degenerate into political snides and allegations and name calling. Even here on a board supposedly about health issues. And I blame every political strip, my God I am so sick to death of it. The insults flying here make me feel like I am back in nursery school. People can disagree, and should be allowed to without fear of reprisal. But the childish namecalling, it's so counter productive. End of rant.
Totally agree. Lots of emotional 2-year-olds casting blame ("They do it too!) as opposed to talking about and solving real issues. People who need to attack others are emotional children. We called them bullies in school and it looks like most of them never grow up.
Don't get too comfy with that theory, I can confirm first hand it's not at all limited to one political faction or persuasion.
I'm in solidarity with you and other scientists. And I also fear you are the canaries in the coal mine, because if we let the anti science mob get away with targeting you, they will come after other public servants, and health care workers.
We have to get past this toxic stew of neo-libearlism which promotes the idea that society shouldn't exist - but individual consumers are king, so attacking social ideas like public health is legit.
I'm a public servant (insurance examiner! exciting, yeah?). They're already after us. It sucks. And the agency I work for is self-funding, but that doesn't stop them from saying that we're wasting tax dollars.
They are are already attacking healthcare workers, here and abroad, and killing hundreds of canaries in the coal mines of the conflict ridden world:
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/06/09/1180753013/2022-was-the-worst-year-on-record-for-attacks-on-health-care-workers
Agree with the article you linked. That has also been my personal experience doing or witnessing health care in conflict zones where US-backed governments treated health care workers and infrastructure as suspect or the enemy. Solving conflicts violently always leads to crashing through the moral guardrails.
Forgive my language but we all know that Twitter is now a misogynistic jerk-off session for insecure men. This would be the last place I’d go to to learn anything.
The irony that these morons would view science as “Bad” on Elon’s site, who’s entire profit hinges on scientific advancement, is as pleasing as it is sad.
Thank you for continuing to do this and communicating. I'm listening and sharing. I know many others are too. Here's hoping for a shift back to facts and civility.
And yet the worst harassment is from other scientists. Any scientist who was honest about the likelihood of lab leak theory being true in 2020 and 2021 was committing career suicide. So that not only adversely affected scientists, but the science itself.
“HONEST ABOUT THE LAB LEAK” simply =
“REPEATS FOX NEWS TALKING POINTS”
Step one of being a good Scientist is not having an emotional attachment to anything, and let the data tell the story.
Little concrete proof (aside from stories told on Fox News) there was a Lab Leak. Genetic tracing and DNA have since made the Lab Leak theory even less likely... but if they don’t share that with you on Fox, you’d never know. Like my Fox News friends somehow never heard of the Dominion case against Fox News. Hmmm 🤔
What "genetic testing" do you refer to? The only evidence that I've seen of a zoonotic origins are some colour coded maps that ignore the Wuhan institute and the nearby hospital. And at least some of those studies show massive conflicts of interest (ecohealth alliance associated authors for instance).
No source has been found.
There is a wealth of evidence pointing to the lab. At the very least it was a good candidate from day one and certainly at the time when social media was censoring anyone who raised it as a possibility.
Censorship, of which there has been much during this pandemic, is no bedfellow of the scientific method yet it has been called for repeatedly by scientists as well as liberal use of personal attacks; which is in effect what labeling someone you don't know "a trumper" is.
Tim I was on Facebook and I saw no such censorship. I saw all of the the declarations of censorship. I saw the House freedom caucus waste a lot of money on the “Twitter files” hearings that backfired badly on them. I saw pro lab leak people victimizing themselves daily with paranoid rants and whatabout-isms, calling any Scientist a “TRAITOR” who dared suggest there was not enough evidence to say for sure either way.
I saw the automated covid statements the social media companies put out reminding people not to latch onto any talking points too quickly as by that point, the information we chose to take in, could actually kill us, and did.
Because of this, the things I chose to read to keep up w Covid were read, and never emotional, always bland, never in a rush to “force” data. None of what I read EVER said “THERE’S NO LAB LEAK”.
They all said that the fact that China wouldn’t allow scientists to go in right away and test, we may never know.
Now we’re left with bread crumbs.
My irritation is not with the Lab Leak theory being true, it’s with the seemingly dire emotional need of some Pro Lab Leak folks to force it with Big Gubment conspiracies, and claims that Scientists “should apologize” for not honoring their theories after the House Republicans crafted statements via the DOE to create an illusion of credibility. Nothing has changed. It’s still speculation. There’s still nothing concrete to say for sure either way.
So let’s move on and pray that the next big pandemic comes from a transparent country so we can learn from it.
Lol, Facebook censored, and this crap was lab created, even with the Fauci g120 HIV special parts.
Well you are fortunate that you were not censored.
However your observation is clearly not consistent with many other Facebook users, or reporters in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/may/27/facebook-lifts-ban-on-posts-claiming-covid-19-was-man-made
where they state:
"Anyone posting claims that Covid-19 was “man-made or manufactured” could have seen their posts removed or restricted, and repeatedly sharing the allegation could have led to a ban from the site entirely."
Here is Mark Zuckerburg himself, saying Facebook censored people at the request of the scientific establishment. Even views that were correct:
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-says-facebook-censored-true-covid-claims-at-request-of-health-establishment/
There was censorship. That is a fact. Not jsut on Facebook but on all social media platforms.
I'm not sure how the Twitter Files would backfire. How would factual and sourced reports on the censorship of debate by government authorities, mediated by big tech backfire on anyone but the authorities who took these liberties?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/genetic-evidence-ties-covids-origin-to-raccoon-dogs-180981846/
Let's set aside the fact that finding Racoon Dog and Sars genetic material together proves nothing and doesn't even hint at anything. You would expect to find genetic material from any animal present in that market, mixed with sars genetic material. In fact in this article:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-evidence-supports-animal-origin-of-covid-virus-through-raccoon-dogs/
they actually say:
"Samples containing viral RNA, which had been collected at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in early 2020, also contained genetic material from raccoon dogs—a foxlike type of canid apparently sold at the market—as well as other animals."
I mean. Come on.
I also find it interesting that this new information "suddenly appeared from the Chinese and then suddenly disappeared again". I'm happy to leave that with the observation that the Chinese have shown themselves to be completely untrustworthy.
There is also a massive problem in that I cannot find the "results" published any where. The only things I can find are reference to the presentation of this data to the WHO, in repeated news articles.
I can't even find a preprint. So how to know if there are not other problems with the non-data?
There is nothing here but the most circumstantial of evidence.
There's a lot more data now, if you take time to look it up. But it's not settled, not nearly.
We'll probably never know the truth about the lab leak, partly because the Chinese painted everything black and some of the facts are still hidden. But most of the obfuscation comes from the American right, who want revenge against Fauci for laughing at Trump. No amount of hard evidence will overcome the political fog.
The origin does not matter. https://www.newsweek.com/origin-covid-19-does-not-matter-opinion-1809397 What matters is that we learn from this, not likely to happen, and do better when (not if) it happens again.
If we'll never know, then why are we still talking about it? That's what they'd call a "closed case" in my line of work (disposition: "question of fact")
Lack of evidence means that it likely will never be decided, and the political forces at work likely don't want it decided. Open questions make good propaganda.
"yet the worst harassment is from other scientists" - methinks you're projecting a bit much for one specific biased case you want to hang your hat on. At the start enough people pushing lab leak inseparably linked it to nefarious political conspiracy. That drove a pushback that many people, even this page, admitted went too far the other direction. The conspiracy crew is still trying to use recent stories and evidence to push a narrative, rather than leave the evidence at what it actually is. So while the reaction was admittedly reactionary, the push shot itself in the foot. All that said, the entire subject is extremely far from "worst harassment is from..." no matter how much you want to paint it that way while minimizing everything else (you know, such as the conspiracy based attacks against people trying to push out correct information that actually saves peoples lives.)
I think your post is fair. I think you'll agree that there's a difference between "it originated in a lab" and "it was a bioweapon," and YLE has been refreshingly honest about that difference. It's one of the reasons I subscribed.
But YLE posts today "Harassment against scientists is out of control" about what amounts to a low grade Twitter spat, when harassment against scientists from within their own community altered the entire course of pandemic response in such a profound way that people today on the blue half of the diagram are still responding as you witness them respond in this comment thread. Literally look around, up and down the responses to my post. It's clear that scientists are *still* being culturally suppressed when it comes to Lab Leak, by the culture that is most likely to subscribe to YLE.
This entire response chain is QED to my reply. Literally just look.
"about what amounts to a low grade Twitter spat" that may poorly describe (downplay) what triggered the current post, but the subject of the post spans far more than the current trigger. Scientists defend scientific points and positions, with evidence, that are backed by the majority of scientists, also with evidence, and are harassed both online and in person for doing so. From social media mobbing to actual death threats, this is what people have experienced.
This is not new. COVID anti-science harassment made just made it visible to everyone who may not have seen the more niche aspects in the past. Antivax sentiment suddenly gained mainstream traction with a receptive audience. Here's an article and some actions published by Nature in 2016, https://www.nature.com/articles/529459a , and a 2013 paper including the following first hand accounts:
"Thus, the first author has been labeled a “Nazi zionist kike” and has been accused of “mass murder and treason.” The second author has been attacked on a neo-Nazi website and has received envelopes with a powdery white substance resembling Anthrax (Mann, 2012). The third author has received anonymous abusive emails and nighttime phone calls in her home. This abuse is at least in part orchestrated because the frequency of such emails tends to increase when scientists’ e-addresses are posted on contrarian websites."
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/the-subterranean-war-on-science
I have yet to see the Lab leak issue amount to anything of that order. The only reason I've seen it grasped at so fervently is because people seem to think it provides validation/vindication for a perceived mountain of other wrongs.
There's a difference between anti-vax sentiment from 2016 and what we saw in 2020. Here's why we saw what we saw in 2020:
• Covid will not be a deadly pandemic
• Closing the borders is racist
• Masks don’t work
• Lockdown two weeks to flatten the curve
• Trump didn’t close the borders fast enough
• Lockdown three months to flatten the curve
• Masks work
• Lockdown until Covid is gone
• Covid CANNOT be solved at the state level
• It was never about Herd Immunity
• Saying the virus came from a lab is racist
• One mask doesn’t work but two masks definitely work
• Lockdown because symptomatic spread will kill old people
• Asymptomatic cases can still have long term damage, ground glass lesions, and such
• Lockdown until a cure
• Every hospitalization with Covid must count as a Covid hospitalization regardless of the reason for admission.
• Don’t trust any vaccine announced under the Trump administration
• The vaccine announced the day after votes were counted is safe and effective
• Vaccinated people cannot transmit Covid-19
• We must mask children because science says so.
• The vaccine has no side effects
• We will not mandate the vaccine
• We must vaccinate as many people as possible to get Herd Immunity
• You can return to your life after getting the vaccine
• The virus probably came from a lab
• Only N95 masks work
• The NIH doesn’t fund Gain of Function research
• The vaccine was never about stopping transmission
• Vaccine side effects mean it’s working
• The vaccine has no effect on women’s menstrual cycles so stop being hysterical
• The Wuhan NIH research doesn’t count as Gain of Function research because some gain of function researchers decided those gains of function didn’t meet the legal definition
• Asymptomatic transmission among vaccinated people is fine, will not kill old people, and don’t worry about long term damage, ground glass lesions, and such
• You can return to your life after getting booster shots every six months for the rest of your life
• We will take your life from you if you don’t get the vaccine
• We will use the FBI to investigate parents who complain about school vaccine mandates
• The vaccine turns symptomatic illness asymptomatic, but don’t worry about the increase in asymptomatic spread
• Go ahead and get infected with the virus after your vaccine to improve your immunity.
• Peter Daszak, the guy who organized the “lab leak is a conspiracy theory” letter in the Lancet, proposed to build Covid-19 for DARPA in 2018.
• Vaccinated people can spread Covid-19 just as easily as non-vaccinated people can.
• The spike in heart attacks and vascular conditions isn’t from the vaccine, it’s from the lockdowns.
• Unvaccinated children will be removed from school.
• Covid MUST be solved at the state level.
• The vaccine actually does affect menstrual cycles but you should get it anyway.
• Hospitalizations with Covid don’t count as Covid hospitalizations if Covid wasn’t the reason for admission.
• The case for masking children has collapsed
• Leading scientists knew it came from a lab but hid their opinions to promote “international harmony.”
• Even though the case for masking children has collapsed we’re going to do it anyway.
• Even though mask mandates are illogical, all that matters is that they align with the “community’s goals.”
• Mask mandates didn’t make much of a difference anyway.
• Fauci: “Vaccines don’t protect overly well” from Covid infection.
• The vaccine was bad because it was Trump’s fault.
• A vital part of hurricane preparedness is to get vaccinated.
• When the FDA told people not to take ivermectin that was totally just an informal recommendation.
• Department of Energy: “The virus came from the lab.”
• All other main branches of government: “The virus came from the lab.”
So after all that, ordinary people might start to question WTF is going on with the medical industry, because the above chain of events is not science, not science, not science. It was a continual knee jerk reaction to social media wars.
Thank you for showing us the filter you heard things through. How are the cherries?
This was the primary news narrative. Vox, NBC, CBS, quotes straight from the mouths of Fauci, Biden, and others. That's why people quit trusting the establishment - the establishment narrative was constantly contradictory while constantly claiming "science!"
There are a huge number of people who are pro-vax who were specifically against this particular vaccination effort and how it was handled, and by the time it was done with good reason. Efficacy at infection prevention was only 30% - that would not qualify to be called a "vaccine" if it was for any other pathogen. No AIDS vaccine would get approved at rates of infection prevention that low.
So nicely summed up, I'd like to copy that list. It should be preserved for future reference. But do we ever learn from past mistakes?
I learned that arguing against plague spreaders is futile, but if you take the right attitude, it can be fun working them into a screaming froth.
I don’t know. “Low level Twitter spat” seems a gross understatement unless you consider it perfectly normal for scientists to have their personal information posted online and to receive threatening letters, emails etc.
That's pretty much par for the course for anyone participating in a culture war on Twitter. Culture Warriors post fake bomb threats from Tim Pool's house to police almost weekly. Folks attempted to kick down Tucker Carlson's door. Folks lose their jobs regularly due to competing blue and red outrage mobs. That's just what Twitter is.
Scientific method or freakoutery?
I live in Atlanta and know several people who work at CDC and were involved in the covid war up to and including policy creation. They were not getting their signaling about Covid protocol from science, they were getting it from the Occupy Democrats Facebook page. It was bad.
Really - prove it. With peer-reviewed, evidence based resources and FACTS.
You want a peer review of a friend's Facebook wall? That's cute.
It is now *known* that Covid-19 came from WIV. But anyone who said that in 2020 was a "racist," so scientists trying to say it were shunned. It was the exact dynamic Katelyn is talking about in her article, except moreso by orders of magnitude. And it impacted the health of the entire planet, including the very thing which Katelyn started her Substack about.
https://public.substack.com/p/first-people-sickened-by-covid-19
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-funded-scientist-among-three-chinese-researchers-who-fell-ill-amid-early-covid-19-outbreak-3f919567
You've bought into a story, nothing more, nothing less. A novel disease was first detected in a major metropolitan area of more than 11 million people and you know the address where it originated. Pardon me, but I need some hard evidence, not inferences derived from the absence of information.
See my response to Mike below, on the comment which he now appears to have deleted. There is a wealth of information from direct sources that should be considered.
I guess Fox News and Jim Jordon forgot to tell you that’s since been discredited (again) with DNA directly traced back to the Wuhan Market?? Oops!
I’d bet you Al’s bought into all of that stolen election spin too. You must feel silly now that you know that neither Tucker, Hannity, or Laura actually believed what they were spinning to you about that. The very same folks spinning the “Lab Leak” theories.
Fact is you most likely call ANYONE a TRAITOR who doesn’t push the same talking points as you.
If you were actually someone who cares about the truth, you’d not be latching on to any talking point, like the rest of us, who recognize it may be YEARS or NEVER before we actually know anything for sure.
Who cares where it came from at this point. We now have vaccines to make it less dangerous when new variants come out. OR you can choose to be like my MAGA Friends, go unvaccinated and foolishly brag that you’ve allowed yourself to catch Covid 3/4 times. Yeah! 💪🤪
I always go to Facebook when I want TRUE REAL FACTS. For sure.
I also live in atlanta and know MANY people who work at the CDC, as well as two of the Scientists who helped create the MRNA Covid vaccine. Policy creation is difficult in a fluid situation like a pandemic at best.
It would’ve been a lot better had Pres Trump not called the pandemic a “Hoax” at the start, and given his own CDC a heads up that Covid was on its way TWO MONTHS prior to the shut down.... when he first learned about it.
The CDC didn’t create the Vaccine. You do know that right??
The CDC merely responds to viral and disease crisis. When the Leader of our country is more worried about “His Numbers” than the millions of people who bust their asses to produce these “numbers”, the BIGGEST screw up starts with him, and like a domino effect of incompetence, affected everything after. When Trump finally did catch on, it was too late. Still, he visited the CDC and talked about himself (as usual) and how he could’ve been a Scientist. Which is hilarious.
I’m assuming your friend is a janitor at the CDC or something?
I prefer NEJM or any of the Lancet publications over Facebook "likes". Nucleotide letters on CV19 available on 1/3/20 at the latter. Mountain View CA companies were modeling solutions on 1/4/20. Per CDC 6/17/23 data, there have been 1,132, 287 reported CV19 deaths in the United States an increase in the weekly rate of 9.7%.
The biggest problem is education level. Unless the reader is in fact a trained scientist, even the most accurate and dependable information is subject to misinterpretation.
Sure Jan. Put up or shut up.
I think you're lying. I know people at CDC and they'd never give credibity to crap they read on Facebook pages. Are you sure you don't mean the Chinese CDC?
You're pretty racist aren't you? If it's not Russia it's China
This ^^ is the best response in this whole chain to analyze, to be honest.
Let's both start by admitting the phrase "Fox News Talking Point" actually means "Things Trump Said" in this context, which is fine, so please allow me to start by insulting Trump for a bit so we can establish a shared point of reference and agreement, and build form there.
Trump is no more insightful about any topic whatsoever than a Magic 8 Ball. He basically chooses his opinions randomly. He flips a coin. He's not a reliable source of information. But the problem with coin flippers is that they're right half the time. When Covid hit, there was a coin, and one side it said "Lab" and the other said "Pangolin." Trump flipped the coin, pointed at it, and said "Lab!" and immediately every Democrat in the country shouted "Pangolin!" This is what you're doing here, Mike. When you establish your sense making apparatus to be the opposite of a random signal then your sense making becomes equally random. If Trump had said "Pangolin!" in 2020 then the left would have viciously trolled him for making such an absurd statement, accused him of protecting Chinese interests, and then called the Pangolin assertion "racist" instead of calling the lab leak hypothesis "racist" like they did.
And since scientists identify overwhelmingly with the Democrats, and don't want to be called racists, they couldn't even engage in exploring the lab leak hypothesis without being booted from their peer group. So let's take a brief look at lab leak, without any talking points from any media sources you don't like.
There are 10,000+ wet markets in the Pacific rim. If a brand new never before seen global pandemic virus emerged from a wet market every single year since Christ was born, there would still only be a 30% chance of one emerging a few clicks from the only level 4 biolab in the region. That alone is enough to establish WIV as the most likely origin of the virus, and is nothing more than math.
We know that Peter Daszak on behalf of Eco Health proposed to DARPA in 2018 to use research techniques which some people consider to be “gain of function” to add a spike protein to the S1S2 cleavage site of an existing bat coronavirus and test that in humanized mice, and to do that research at UNC and WIV. That is an accurate description of what Covid-19 factually is. We know DARPA turned him down.
We know Peter is the same man who was the architect of the natural origins letter in Nature, which did not have any specific scientific backing and was basically just a compilation of opinions solicited from Peter’s friends, but was used as a “fact check” bludgeon to prevent anyone from speaking about lab origins on social media in 2020.
We know that US collaborators with WIV have stated that WIV was putting furin cleavage sites into SARS like viruses in 2019, a year after the Eco Health grant proposal and a year before the pandemic.
We know that when WIV put out its first paper about Covid-19, they omitted the information about the furin cleavage site.
We know that Ben Hu, a WIV researcher on bat coronaviruses was on Chinese TV in 2017 showing laboratory testing of coronaviruses without wearing proper PPE. We also know Ben Hu has received US grant money before for work on chimeric bat coronaviruses. The recent WSJ referenced government intelligence pegs Ben as one of three Patient Zeros, but Ben denies it, as any self-preservation minded Chinese scientist would.
Each of those statements is verifiable from direct sources. I don’t even watch Fox News. Whether those things made it onto Fox News or not I have no idea, but I see no reason why every news agency wouldn’t cover them. But these verifiable things from direct sources cannot be shared within certain social spaces because they might make someone seem as if they watch Fox News, which is the exact social dynamic of fear that Katelyn is talking about, and you are contributing to.
What's truly interesting about this dynamic, to me, is not even that it's happening, but rather that it's predicted by game theory. Katelyn for instance could not write an article outlining the above facts from direct sources or she would lose subscribers, because her subscribers would begin to associate her with Fox News. Which means (A) she can't respond to my post here without taking a financial hit, and further (B) the entire sense making apparatus of 2023 is the tail wagging the dog, both in the red sphere and the blue sphere.
Deep breath. Again. One more time.
My takeaway is that Facebook and FOXNews are leading the herd toward a cliff..
Just curious, is a “Democrat” now anyone who disagrees with trump? Because I actually voted for him the first time. Seriously all of that crap means nothing to me. You all do the same thing. You dig up stuff on the internet and declare it “evidence”. It’s emotional. Don’t you realize that?
Why are you so desperate to be right? Find this out.
You are the only person here pushing a theory as “THE ANSWER”.
Which is the only thing people who you call “Democrats” were trying to point out during the pandemic.
Yes, TRUMP was the president when Covid hit. The buck starts and stops with him. He was told in JANUARY (by scientists) that Covid would most like hit the United States in March and he did NOTHING.
That’s what “Democrats” were upset about. NOBODY but Tucker’s parrots cares about double downing on the origins of Covid so quickly with NO evidence.
They were upset about the fact that after it hit us, we lost friends and family, and the leadership was more caught up with SPIN on Fox News than they were important issues like prepping the healthcare system, prepping the CDC. I will however credit Trump for allowing funds to go to operation warp speed, who did a tremendous job fast tracking the very vaccines created by the scientists that they were publicly chastising.
Yes. We are (or were) the envy of modern countries. No other president Republican or Democrat would’ve handled the Pandemic in the shameful way that President Trump did.
This is what I and others were angry about. The source of the anti science rhetoric online now is a direct result of the endless conspiracies being pushed. The endless copy and pastes posted by High School Diplomas and Bachelor’s Degrees who refuse to hear anything else besides “Awe you’re right. You’re a genius. Your IQ must be really high. Too bad you never lived up to your potential because you are superior in every way...”
🍼
Every single thing I listed in my last post is verifiable from direct sources. They're not opinions. I am allowed to call facts "facts."
Ahh yes, we can both do this all day can’t we??
“New Data Links Pandemic’s Origins to Raccoon Dogs at Wuhan Market
Genetic samples from the market were recently uploaded to an international database and then removed after scientists asked China about them.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/science/covid-wuhan-market-raccoon-dogs-lab-leak.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Only one of us is suggesting that “RESEARCH” via Google and DUCK DUCK GO is actually “research”.
Not me.
Still nothing out there to suggest the Lab Leak theory is or isn’t the answer. In the mean time, figure out why this man leak nonsense is more important to you than the embarrassing lies we were told as citizens minimizing dangers of Covid to millions of Americans.
And how we can learn from it.
Mike, it'd be useful if you'd use the aforementioned research and pick apart Freakoutery's lengthy post point-by-point instead of making snarky comments. (Or am I being too naive to expect that in a comments section and this should just be another Twitter?)
You can read minds of people you've never seen?
I am so sorry that you and others in your field have had to endure this! The very people who are trying to protect us! This is such a sad reflection on our society. You are in my prayers!
This is not new. Edward Jenner got death threats, too.. Gangs of thugs chased down people in the 1918 pandemic, beat them, and tore off their masks. (Kolata, 'The Flu')
Apparently, similar things happened when the polio vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, but I recall that where I lived, at least, things went smoothly. We were just happy not to spend our summers walled up in the house.
Because public health measures were in place, the SARS and MERS epidemics were quickly snuffed out. Imagine what would happen if those viruses were on the loose today.
This should not be happening. I have the greatest admiration for the head of our local public health department, who was trolled, doxxed, harassed and threatened during most of the last three years. She is now leaving the area, but will continue her career in public health in another area.
So much is owed to her, to you, and to the other brave scientists and health leaders who endured such abuse as they worked to inform us about public health issues. Thank you and I’m sorry.
The bullying began when some reputable scientists expressed doubts about lock downs and vaccine efficacy. That bullying was by public health officials and media outlets such as CNN.
methinks your definitions of 'reputable', 'expressed doubts', and 'bullying' are not in agreement with the majority of the public. I did, however, see a lot of appropriate pushback against people railing against lockdowns and promoting alternative theories without evidence, suggesting alternative protocols without backing, and casting doubt on vaccines in spite of their objectively demonstrated (with substantial evidence) positive efficacy. Some of that is simply called lying. Others propagating misinformation. Others just wishful thinking. I have seen few rational, evidence based analyses treated other than professionally.
Are you serious? Or just uninformed? Sweden leads almost the entire world in fewer excess deaths during and since Covid. They had no lockdowns. Data readily available.
We were told that Covid vaccines prevented transmission, Covid vaccines "protected our neighborsć, attending open air events was "Neanderthal thinking", masks were better than Covid vaccines at preventing deaths, keeping kids out of schools would save lives from Covid, natural immunity was not beneficial and on and on and on. All of these things have been proven to be false. Data is readily available for those who want to read it and who can understand it.
thank you for echoing the misinformation points, including the 'but Sweden...' tack. Please come back when you include the numerous rebuttals to that point, and why you're comparing apples and oranges. Those points have been made ad infinitum, don't disingenuously pretend your point is novel or conclusive.
Vaccines objectively protected you from both (A) severe disease __AND ALSO_ (B) infection. From the start you were told (A) is what clinical trials tested, just like every other vaccine developed, and (B) while expected would be quantified after preliminary rollout. Just because it was misstated my much of the media and amplified by the antivax community as 'they don't stop infection!', doesn't make it so. The data that came out shortly after the initial rollout showed conclusively that they were 90%+ effective at severe outcome prevention and also 85-90%+ effective at protection from infection. Pretending it wasn't is just shutting your ears to all but your preferred echo chamber. As variants developed (B) came down faster than (A), but neither went down to 0. When they said they were concerned about variants and we needed boosters, they were talking about the main vaccines coming down from 90%->60/70%. Here's a nice summary table of all of the vaccines and what they're effectivenesses were:
https://www.healthdata.org/covid/covid-19-vaccine-efficacy-summary
masks objectively work as both source and recipient protection, but mostly as source control. at a population level, if they don't help, it's primarily because of noncompliance than ineffectiveness. (also what most claimed 'look they didn't work!' studies actually showed.) no one claimed natural immunity wasn't beneficial. they claimed that relying on natural immunity as a public health measure for such a high infectivity disease was asking for a high body count, and this went doubly so when we saw how many repeat infections were occurring in the 'naturally' immune.
what other narratives that you've bought into are because that's what you want to be true?
You may want to examine your own echo chamber 😊
Peace out.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.04.21267114v1
https://twitter.com/MartyMakary/status/1436716464581586953?t=d0HdjHrF4MvAoxrwQA8JMA&s=19
https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1632003510274347010?t=iuKXN1HhVWsxUjUDqotMRg&s=19
https://twitter.com/MartinKulldorff/status/1598649933539811332?t=cfht8p-6Dz8pKIJIo-_1_A&s=19
Sigh. It’s been years already.
A 2yr old preprint and 3 twitter posts. Consider me floored by your the weight of your sources.
“ Protection from reinfection decreases with time since previous infection, but is, nevertheless, higher than that conferred by vaccination with two doses at a similar time since the last immunity-conferring event. A single vaccine dose after infection helps to restore protection.” Natural immunity follows primary infection risk, and risk of propagation, and still declines and needs boosters. It’s not the fix you for some ridiculous reason want it to have been
3 twitter posts.
Makary saying the same as the paper above. No one denied immunity from infection does it’s thing. But you’re ignoring the upfront cost of the infection.
Two posts about Sweden again ignoring the context. Really not that hard to try to do your homework instead of parroting the points you like. Sweden had the highest death toll among its Nordic neighbors before vaccines were available. That’s with them issuing ‘em recommendations vs mandates that a lot of their population actually followed (unlike countries with half the population whining that masks stole their freedom). Later they issued many of the same mandates as other countries, and their citizens actually followed them. They shut down schools, shut down large events, restricted travel.
Sweden? They learned that: (a) the “let er rip” approach fails because high circulating virus levels kill the vulnerable at high rates despite Lee trying to protect them (a la Great Barrington farse), and (b) recommendations, restrictions, and vaccinations work when responsible citizens follow them.
Sigh. #2 Twitter posts"
If you bothered reading the full incorporated articles and studying the enclosed graphics, but no...
"Let 'er rip"
A Left slogan with not enough depth to understand selective protection and fatality rates.
Sigh indeed.
“Reputable” like who? 😂
There was that guy that first injected RNA into a cell and made protein. He was so pissed that the credit went to Kariko that he became a public antivaxxer.
And I hope no one is talking about America's Frontline Doctors (cue laugh track here).
At what point will mass media and public health leaders take responsibility for the overreach in actions and dialogue over the past 3 years? There is virtually zero walking-back, zero apology for anything that was said or done that was based on ideology and not science. (And this blog is not immune to that criticism.) Worse, some people are revising their positions as if we weren't paying attention over the past 3 years. It is wholly inadequate for people to use "they just wanted to help" as an excuse especially when the "helping" involved half-truths and lies.
If this is not worth it to you, no one is harassing you *into* doing it. Blow it all up and go back to whatever you were doing before the pandemic. I would submit that the increase in so many people's profiles over the past 3 years, often through fear-mongering, *is* worth it to them, and that's why they keep doing it.
If illegal actions are taking place, laws exist to hold bad actors to account. Otherwise, public people should expect public criticism, despite social media or public opinion leading some of the public to hiding their views out of fear of demonetizing, losing their social media account, or negative consequences at work. Who will speak to the harassment they endure?
please, list these mistakes/wrongdoings. 1.2M US citizens died, >6M reported worldwide, est. 10% of infected (>10M) dealing with long term effects, sometimes debilitating. Please, elucidate us on what other 'nonsense' ruined people's lives.
What evidence led to the 180-degree change in mask recommendations early in the pandemic?
What evidence supported recommendations on what percentage of vaccinated people would be required to achieve adequate community protection?
What evidence supported the firing of frontline healthcare workers who had put their life on the line, gotten sick with COVID-19, and declined to further be vaccinated against COVID-19? Similarly, what evidence supported mandatory vaccination of college students, including colleges disregarding clinician recommendations against vaccinations in people with documented vaccine reactions or previous infections?
Do we also need to get into the multiple government and public health leaders who were practicing "do as I say, not as I do?"
At local, state, and federal levels, there are an uncountable number of overreaches in the US alone. Citing large numbers works well for TED talks, but it is fear-mongering and not a license to act as you please.
You must know what was behind the mask thing early in the pandemic. It was a desperate attempt to save masks for healthcare workers, and I think you know that. Then there were speculators accumulating masks in warehouses.
My own order for masks from Korea was diverted to a nameless post box in New Jersey. Hospital administrators and even state governors were smuggling masks into the country past DHS confiscators.
I was forced to turn, like a lot of people, to the instant cottage industry that made masks on dining room tables. A friend was building ozone generators that would sterlilize masks for re-use. American ingenuity.
It's sad that this post received likes. It's been clearly stated Covid deaths never discriminated between FROM Covid or WITH Covid (example-motor vehicle deaths). I'll stop now, as you are echoing speaking points of those who squelched any open discussions on major issues during the Covid tragedy.
Here's a big one that killed my mother in law and so many others: putting sick Covid patients into relatively healthy populations at senior homes. Coincidentally that was done primarily in Democrat-controlled states but that is not even the issue. The issue is I'm still waiting for any kind of mea culpa. Keeping seniors safe was, I thought, a primary objective of our stellar public health system.
the highest risk factor to anyone in a contagious virus outbreak is amount of circulating virus among immune naïve population. The justification for any quarantine is risk of spread. When risk of spread is highest before demonstration of symptoms, how else would you propose reducing amount of circulating virus?
"which was a lie" is the main claim i'm seeing. it's yours and it's without evidence.
Trust me, this guy is not big on facts. He has been grinding the same axe here for ages. He is, however, and excellent example of the problem at hand.
"Problem at hand" being that he has a different opinion. As usual.
You do know that we never had lock downs in the U.S. right? I live in NYC, which was the epicenter of the epicenter GLOBALLY. We were never locked down. We were allowed to go out whenever we wanted. China was locked down, but the U.S. definitely was not.
Well were we barricaded inside our homes? No. But in my state we were prohibited from driving into any of our 3 neighboring states. Medical screening tests were cancelled. We could not visit dying or elderly relatives (and I'm not talking about dying from Covid). Dentists were not allowed to see patients. Small businesses were not allowed to open. We were told to stay indoors except for an hour a day, within a mile of our homes. Schools were closed. So no, we weren't Australia with police throwing mask scofflaws to the ground but we had a lot of restrictions on basic living, apparently under the belief by our betters that a virus can only spread in some types of businesses and not others and that keeping learning challenged children and poor children isolated was a good thing. This sounds like lockdown to me.
I get it that you have grievances but, i read no speifics but, does it does feel wonderful to trumpet the word "exactly" better than "like" no?
Reading specifics. This isn't the format for proof and references. I posted a number of misstatements, and lies, above. Quotes from the highest authorities and leaders in our country. As a data driven physician I am both saddened and appalled by the lack of data driven views that were pushed to our country and the consequences of such to many of the public.
Would consider replying, but your post is very difficult to parse.
It’s disheartening to confront this problem. Thank you for sticking to your mission.
Having read the comments it is difficult to know what to say that will not create ire. Perhaps I can observe that many of the comments posted here appear to be based on information coming from the media. At least one person specifically mentions a media outlet and singles it out for criticism. I am not a fan of the media. I am not a fan of the left wing media. I am not a fan of the right wing media. I am not a fan of the center media (though they are the best of the lot). I am not a fan of the media. The media distorts. The media distorts in order to keep us coming back for more. It distorts by intentionally producing stories that activate our sympathetic nervous system so that we feel threatened. We feel threatened and so we keep coming back to find release, but there is no release. There are only more stories that keep us engaged. When one story has run it course, they find a new one that keeps us in fight-or-flight. This is how they make money. We are the fuel of their economic engine. I have cut out 98% of the media from my life (I read the BBC website). I am much happier! I have stopped blaming people. I am no longer fearful. I hope that you can have a similar experience.
Yes that’s why we shouldn’t harass the actual scientists who do have the education to present the data accurately. I don’t watch any cable news. I listen to my Doctors.
I bring out Fox News because during Covid, it was ONLY my Fox News watching friends who were all parroting exactly the same talking points. Exactly. To the letter.
They weren’t expressing individual fears of a new vaccine, based on their individual lives, no... they were ALL touting the exact same phrases and conspiracies whether they lived in North Carolina, Georgia, or Florida.
Now that’s frightening.
Not to mention that never before Covid were any of them anti-vax.
Now 3 of these people under 50 are dead. Again, ALL Fox News watchers.
It’s not CNN watchers who were dying of Covid unless they were elderly or compromised.
Its not CNN watchers invading their Capitol over a lie.
Americans should turn it ALL off.
You couldn’t pay me to watch CNN or FOX, but to spin Fox News as NOT mainstream is laughable and ridiculous.
Bruce, I appreciate your reply. It makes me think too of the biology and chemistry of adrenaline in the body. The flight-fight-freeze chemical response has an enormous and long-lasting impact on the nervous system. The chemical changes from anger, for example, take hours to return to normal levels, and like drugs, some of these heightened chemical responses can become an addictive norm over a period of time if the trigger continues. More and more I spend time looking for and using de-escalation skills for my own nervous system responses, and practice skills for minimizing the ups and downs coming from exposure to too much stimulation in the environment that causes unnecessary fight-flight-freeze response. I'm able to think more clearly and have a better chance of making calmer, more informed decisions that I'm comfortable with, too, when I do these things. I'm just beginning the journey and hopefully can be a person of more equanimity as time goes on. At 57, I realize how precious remaining years are and that living in unnecessary stress takes the preciousness of life away.
Wonderful ‼️
Great post. But I wouldn't trust the BBC. They are no better than any of the rest. They have some great mystery TV shows but for news? No thanks.
Thank you for continuing to speak truth to ignorance--willful or otherwise.