Former Biden White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha this weekend became the latest denier of the lab theory to do a 180-degree turn. During the interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Jha admitted that he now believes that the most likely explanation is a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As pundits and politicians quietly admit that the natural mutation theory is not as credible, the courageous scientists who were blacklisted for years remain persona non grata in higher education.
Jha stated:
“This is going to surprise some people. You know, when I went into the White House, my view was, ‘This was almost surely a natural outbreak, maybe a lab leak.’ Based on information I learned and based on information I‘ve seen, I have come to conclude that it is more likely to have been a lab leak.”
I commend Jha for publicly addressing his change. Indeed, everyone in academia, myself included, has had their views evolve.
What should not evolve is the willingness of the scientists and academics to accept dissenting viewpoints. One of my long-standing complaints against figures like Anthony Fauci is that they held prominent positions during the pandemic, but said nothing about the cancel campaigns directed against those experts who disagreed with their views on issues like the origins of COVID-19.
As I discuss in my new book, “The Indispensable Right,” the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the massive social and economic costs that resulted.
I spoke at the University of Chicago with Bhattacharya and other dissenting scientists in the front row a couple of years ago. After the event, I asked them how many had been welcomed back to their faculties or associations since the recognition of some of their positions.
They all said that they were still treated as pariahs for challenging the groupthink culture.
For years, figures like Bhattacharya (who was recently awarded the prestigious Intellectual Freedom Award by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters) were hounded and marginalized.
Others opposed Bhattacharya’s right to offer his scientific views, even under oath. For example, in one hearing, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) expressed disgust that Bhattacharya was even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”
Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik decried an event associated with Bhattacharya, writing that “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford University allowed dissenting scientists to speak at a scientific forum. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.”
As recently as last year, Hiltzik continued to attack the lab theory.
Bhattacharya’s experience is not unique. When scientists argued that the virus’s origin was likely the Chinese research lab in Wuhan, they were mobbed by the media. That position was denounced by the Washington Post as a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.”
The Washington Post denounced Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) when he raised the theory for “repeat[ing] a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China.”
After Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) mentioned the lab theory, Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler mocked him: “I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus to jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves.”
The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory “racist.”
At NPR, an endless stream of segments ran dismissing the lab leak notion, painting it as a debunked conspiracy theory of the far right, including one story titled “Scientists Debunk Lab Accident Theory of Pandemic Emergence.”
I consider it valuable to have voices like Hultzik’s that still challenge the lab theory — just as I thought it was valuable to have lab theorists voice their views. The difference is that critics of lab theory are not being canceled, but continue to be celebrated for their prior work. To the contrary, figures like Scott Atlas have shown how those educators who helped lead the mob against dissenters still hold positions of power. These figures should not be canceled for holding opposing views, but their conduct in silencing others should be reviewed.
Despite the vindication of scientists on their opposition to policies on the use of surgical masks, the closure of schools, and other issues, there have not been any repercussions for those who enforced the orthodoxy and intolerance during the pandemic in higher education.
The fact is that most are now willing to admit that the lab theory is probably correct, but they are unwilling to forgive those who forced them into that admission.
The moratorium against gain of function research ended in December 2017 when the NIH resumed funding. It is not too difficult to imagine that everything possible would have been done to hide the likelihood that the COVID-19 SARS virus was accidentally released from a laboratory which the citizens of the United States was funding through their Tax dollars. It’s like finding out the truth of why of the recommended compliment 64 life boats on the Titanic was ultimately reduced to 16, or that the Lusitania was carrying contraband explosives when it was torpedo and sunk in 1915.
Fauci must be punished with crushing tariffs.
Agreed. And after that, NYC and LA, too. They like taxes. Let them eat tariffs.
Gee, maybe in a few more years they can connect the dots that it was intentional to subvert a Trump second term.
Yep
There’s a difference between the people who caused the problem then dictated sometimes silly remedies that they didn’t personally follow and those responsible for treating the victims. Never confuse the two. People are angry at the former not the latter. The people responsible for treating the victims should understand why the victims are angry.
Pointing to and condemning boogeyman like Trump or RFK is just a distraction. They didn’t build and spread the virus. “The experts” did.
The people who took a harmless bat virus and juiced it up with illegal gain of function research in a 3rd rate virology lab in China then recommended ventilators and a vaccine they just happen to have ready for sale soon after the pandemic started. These people are not credible. They are culpable.
They told us the virus came from bats and pangolins in a wet market down the street from the lab with screen door security. They have never found a wild or domesticated animal, of any sort, with the virus to this day. They are still looking; or so they say.
Everything they told us about the vaccine was a lie. Most notably and most importantly the vaccine does not stop transmission or lesson severity. They admit this. This is not debatable.
They kept the country locked down and the kids out of school for far too long. They told us that racism was as big, or bigger, problem than the virus and encouraged deranged people to violently protest and burn businesses, whos owners were already suffering, for more than a year. Many small businesses closed and never recovered.
They cancelled and ruined the livelihoods of people who disagreed. Many of the dissenters had more degrees and experience than the cowards running the show.
Big box stores could operate; but small businesses were crushed. Much of the PPP money, allocated for small business was stolen.
The sick and elderly were the most susceptible to the virus and were also the most brutally punished. Multiple governor’s and health officials sent sick patients back into nursing homes infecting more people and killing 10’s of thousands. Visitation was stopped. Funerals were discouraged and/or outlawed. Shame on us. Shame on them.
They mocked the dead by giving one criminal 5, star studded, funerals followed by the erection of multiple monuments.
The cowards running the show exempted themselves from any of the demands or consequences and refuse to apologize to this day. Unbelievably Congress exempted themselves from vaccine mandates.
People who would arrest fellow citizens outdoors and insist that you wipe down and disinfect groceries got everything wrong; yet they still insist on respect and praise to this day. G_d help us if we are hit by a similar or worse virus again. The people behind “the science” have ruined their credibility. The living victims of their overreach and incompetence will not soon forget. The crime is too big to describe in any simple post. We are absolutely fuc_ed if it happens again.
Life as a stooge is much more comfortable, especially in academia.
every person and government official who fired people, should be fired and have any and pension TAKEN!
democrats are evil
it is basically like chasing Nazis post war
With in six months of the out break, all the non Fauci data points to a lab leak. And it did not take top long to figure that the shots did not work & getting booster made no sense. Not verified YET, but more babies born of Covid vaccinated parents are having deformities. Fauci & company committed crimes against humanity & we need a Military Tribunal to make things right.
Galileo is laughing himself silly.