Vinay Prasad's most important op-ed
Too bad that only a few people in the mainstream medical community agree with what he wrote.
UCSF Professor Vinay Prasad is one of the few public truth-tellers in the medical community. When the CDC or the medical community put out garbage, Vinay is one of the few (and sometimes the only) mainstream doc to call them out on it in public.
And conversely, when there is a study that everyone should see that destroys the mainstream narrative, Vinay is just about the only guy giving that study air time like he did with the Finland mask study which showed that masks, if anything, make it more likely you’ll be infected. That study was suppressed in Finland and everywhere else.
Vinay Prasad was, as far as I know, the only person in the mainstream medical community to point out publicly that the Finland mask study effectively showed that the CDC was giving people bad advice. He also pointed out that this study is actually the best “test” to date because it was very well matched and very fair, essentially “as good as it gets” in medicine.
His YouTube videos are well done, he’s articulate, knowledgeable, entertaining, and informative.
Vinay Prasad’s most important op-ed
More than two years ago, Vinay co-authored a superb op-ed entitled, “Scientists who express different views on Covid-19 should be heard, not demonized.”
You don’t even have to read the op-ed to know what it says. It’s all in the title.
Sadly, it’s been over two years and nobody in the medical community supports what he wrote. Not a single university will hold an open discussion that questions any mainstream narrative.
Vinay Prasad is a hero for writing his op-ed, and his medical community colleagues are zeros for not embracing what he wrote. This is at the very root of the problems we are currently experiencing with our COVID response.
Acknowledging the only member of the medical community to act on Vinay’s op-ed
There is one member of the mainstream medical community who was willing to defend the mainstream narrative: Yale Professor Jason Abaluck.
We asked him to defend his paper (the famous Bangladesh mask study) that claimed that masks work.
He agreed!
We couldn’t believe it!!! We were high fiving each other. After a year of trying, we finally got ONE person who was willing to defend his paper!!!
He was decimated and we recorded the whole thing on video for everyone to see just how lame the science was that everyone believed. Jason couldn’t defend his own deeply flawed paper.
The video with me and Mike Deskevich makes it easy to understand what the paper was about and why it was flawed. We show the data graphically. It is stunning how anyone could think this study showed that masks work. Yet pretty much the entire medical community couldn’t figure this out
Professor Norman Fenton wrote to Science requesting the paper be corrected or retracted based on the work Fenton had done. Science refused to answer Professor Fenton. They are smart. They don’t engage in any debate they can’t win. They basically do what everyone else does: avoid challenges by ignoring the challenger. That’s the way science works nowadays: if your paper is challenged, ignore the challenge.
People who disagree with the narrative are not just deplatformed; they are retaliated against
Even worse than refusing to have any discussion, some scientists go the extra mile to deplatform, censor, and retaliate against those who do not embrace mainstream thinking.
For example, in the US, the American Board of Internal Medicine goes after doctors like Paul Marik, Peter McCullough, Pierre Kory, and more who tell the truth. They were invited to debate their targets in Washington DC by Senator Johnson, but they refused to show up. It’s the playbook: never allow anyone to challenge you in public or you will be exposed.
In Canada, Professor Byram Bridle’s fellow faculty members joined together to retaliate against him for telling the truth. He invited them all to debate him. No takers.
The mainstream medical community members who do not embrace Vinay’s op-ed should be ashamed of themselves.
There is a reason why I use a pseudonym both here and elsewhere on social media. I have been vilified and threatened by my academic colleagues. I've had academic responsibilities removed and my academic credentials and CV attacked. I've received hate mail about the articles that I have written in my real name and had smear articles written about me. I'm not as famous as people like Prasad, Kory, McCullough, etc. but I've had the honor of meeting many of them in person.
Steve, I'd love to connect with you.
I like Dr. Vinay Prasad too, don't get me wrong. I respect his effort and humility. But I sent him a message on his form a long time ago and he didn't answer me. Neither have you, Steve, despite numerous attempts on my part. Nevertheless, both of you are ranked fairly in my upcoming book, "Heroes and Villains: The COVID-19 Book of Lists"
I'm one of those people "who deserves to be heard" according to his op-ed.
Why am I one who deserves to be heard? Because I was the first or only on 15+ major calls /insights during the early part of the pandemic and beyond. I'm also the only person (as far as I know) who has not been wrong on anything yet. I know this is in the way of boasting and I apologize for that. But you have to allow me to defend myself.
How could that be? when there us not a single other person who has even been first on even 2 major calls? It's because I reason from first principles while the others have wait for data to come in. I was too early, in a way. Even by March, people were complaining, "Why should we believe you over the CDC?"
"Because they've been wrong on every call and I've been right," I answered.
You might say, "He and I didn't answer you because you are not a prestigious doctor and he doesn't know who you are."
He is a hematology, oncology doctor, public health expert and epidemiologist. I am a general and plastic and reconstructive surgeon, and, recently completed training in cardiothoracic surgery, specializing in the repair of congenital defects in children. Ask any doctor who has more stature in the medical community.
I started a charity 22 years ago and, without the help of donations, I've performed 1511 free operations on children who could not afford to pay anything, again without donations save for $1500 from one of our fellow MIT alums who was passing through Cambodia about ten years ago, came to see the clinic, and insisted on paying for a child he saw there. I've paid for the OR time and anesthesia fees out of my own pocket from profits earned in my private practice. I don't believe you or he can justify shunning me because I am not a substantial doctor.
I was inquiring with Dr. Prasad because we differ on some important topics and I thought it would be informative for the public if we recorded a friendly discussion/debate that we could post for everyone's edification, including our own. For the record, I also wrote to Dr. Ioannidis with the same request but didn't hear from him either. Jay Bhattacharya has been the only person to answer my call. Ask him if it's been worthwhile
Dr. Prasad doesn't let people make comments on his substack posts unless they are paid subscribers so I'm left having to make comments below his videos which is fine. He probably never sees them which is also fine. A tiny number of people will read them and I hope they will learn something.
But a real debate where he gets to defend my criticisms would be better. You should know all about that, Steve, as someone who has pushed strongly for open debate and very generously has put your money where your mouth is. I commend you for that.`
But to say in this post that "No one in the medical community will support what he wrote", is just flat wrong. I would. Dr. Bhattacharya would. In fact, Jay has participated in 24 hours of discussions/debates with me so far- a person with a following who has been generous with his time debating someone who does not agree with him on everything, and that's putting it mildly. I'm very grateful for him doing this for me because no-one else would.
I've lost a brother and a cousin over this pandemic- they didn't believe me either and shamed me on social media for something that turned out to be right- and I should have been front and center explaining this to everyone when they didn't understand. Imagine the lives I could have saved if someone had answered me. I wrote the White House and4 major network TV hosts after the lockdowns were announced but before they were put in place, asking for 3 minutes to explain why they wouldn't work and that they would cause death and destruction on a 'biblical scale". Do you think they might have thought twice about it after I had explained to them that the IFR was really .1%, not 40 x higher at 4% like the "experts" were telling everyone it was? What, 150 million lives?
What about when I was the first to show by data that the vaccines weren't blocking transmission. I did it in mid-January, 2021. Drs. Fauci and Walensky were still saying that it blocked transmission SEVEN MONTHS LATER! YouTube had taken down my video explaining it all within 10 minutes of it going up. Good thing I had learned how screenshot worked by then, eh? You think maybe some people wouldn't have risked taking the vaccine if they had known the vaccine didn't block transmission, or that we had already reached herd immunity to the wild type on January 11, 2021, without the help of a single person fully-vaccinated after the experts told us we had to have 60 - 70 %, then 90%, then 98% of the population vaccinated before we reached herd immunity? You think that's kind of important, Steve, reaching herd immunity without a single person- not 1%, a single person- benefitting fully from being vaccinated? YouTube must have thought so. They took my video down presto-pronto; within minutes. YouTube got better and better at this, you know. They took one of my videos down with 4 views and 2 likes, one of which was mine!
I've already started on my second COVID-19 book. It's going to be called "If Only They Had Listened: How I Cracked the Most Egregious Crime in Medical History" with the word "Medical" crossed out so you can still read it.
I don't know Steve. Maybe Dr. Prasad didn't answer me because I majored in physics at MIT, scored 99th %-ile on the National Medical Boards and the American Board of Surgery In-training exam, reasoned from first principles and figured out everything months before the people who waited for data to come in.
It is a competitive world out there.