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As expected, one of the people included as a prolific misinformer is Vinay Prasad, a doctor, MPH, professor of epidemiology at UCSF, and a highly cited and resp

As expected, one of the people included as a prolific misinformer is Vinay Prasad, a doctor, MPH, professor of epidemiology at UCSF, and a highly cited and respected medical professional. The bizarre take of this appeal-to-authority (ironically published by two authors with BS degrees and one MPH) is that researchers with contrarian opinions should be labeled as misinformers regardless of reasoning. Dr. Prasad's reasoning for all of this information is public record. People willfully choose not to engage with it. Similarly, Jayanta Bhattacharya appears quoted as a misinformer. Dr. Bhattacharya is one of the most cited professors in his fields of our lifetime, a professor of medicine, economics, and health policy who has made significant contributions to each domain, and even outside of his specialties. The people claiming that their analysis is misinformation have no trouble using their work prior to the pandemic. Lumping them in with people who were prescriptively shilling for ivermectin at the beginning of the pandemic is fundamentally dishonest. But there's been very little about the discourse around public health that's been good faith. At this point we know that includes information that the authors use to determine accuracy in this paper, like the efficacy of cloth masking.

autoexec 3y ago
> Similarly, Jayanta Bhattacharya appears quoted as a misinformer. Because he actually spread misinformation including: Pushing ivermectin, telling lies about masks being harmful and making misleading statements about the effectiveness of vaccines
- cempaka 3y ago
  Do you have a link to Bhattacharya "pushing ivermectin"? And what specific statements about vaccine effectiveness did he make which are misleading? Masks are harmful, so that one isn't really misinformation. I mean, if he was saying the higher CO2 is bad for you or something that would be pretty dubious, but the idea that there are absolutely zero downsides to extended public masking is risible.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > Do you have a link to Bhattacharya "pushing ivermectin"? Not finding one directly, but he was part of the senate hearings that covered it and part of the lawsuit against the government for trying to get social media companies to remove misinformation. > Among those allies is Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee and who on Tuesday held a hearing devoted to promoting discredited coronavirus treatments and maligning public safety measures. There had been an outcry ahead of the hearing because one of the witnesses scheduled was Dr. Jane Orient, an outspoken critic of vaccines. Another witness was Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya of Stanford, a co-author of a petition against lockdowns called the Great Barrington Declaration. (https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-vaccine-rollout-marred-by-confusion-false-claims-233349756.html https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-vaccine-rollout-marred-by...) https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/missouri-v-biden-ruling.pdf https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/missou... > Masks are harmful, so that one isn't really misinformation. Masks aren't harmful, as evidenced by the countless people who wear them all the time either professionally or just to avoid spreading/catching illness.
    - nostrebored 3y ago
      > "I haven't found one directly, but here's this other thing" This misrepresentation and miscategorization of people with legitimate complaints about public health policy is the entire problem with discourse here. The petition against lockdowns made perfect sense at the time and still does today. Countries like Sweden have not seen the long term outcomes models predicted, and these models were used to inform public health policy, despite our knowledge _at the time_ that they were poorly made, in many cases unreproducible, and a poor proxy for empirical evidence. This empirical evidence had led to the CDC guidelines we had for outbreaks that we threw out of the window at the beginning of the pandemic. There is very little decent science around masks. Masks have not been shown to avoid spreading or catching illnesses, even in those professional settings that you mention. For example, take this analysis of 3 RCTs that does not find substantial evidence to support the benefit of even N95 masks in clinical settings: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-0570 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-0570 What was produced at the beginning of the pandemic was a doctrine. It was, and still is, not absurd to question that doctrine.
- deleted 3y ago
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autoexec 3y ago

> Similarly, Jayanta Bhattacharya appears quoted as a misinformer. Because he actually spread misinformation including: Pushing ivermectin, telling lies about masks being harmful and making misleading statements about the effectiveness of vaccines

cempaka 3y ago
Do you have a link to Bhattacharya "pushing ivermectin"? And what specific statements about vaccine effectiveness did he make which are misleading? Masks are harmful, so that one isn't really misinformation. I mean, if he was saying the higher CO2 is bad for you or something that would be pretty dubious, but the idea that there are absolutely zero downsides to extended public masking is risible.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > Do you have a link to Bhattacharya "pushing ivermectin"? Not finding one directly, but he was part of the senate hearings that covered it and part of the lawsuit against the government for trying to get social media companies to remove misinformation. > Among those allies is Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee and who on Tuesday held a hearing devoted to promoting discredited coronavirus treatments and maligning public safety measures. There had been an outcry ahead of the hearing because one of the witnesses scheduled was Dr. Jane Orient, an outspoken critic of vaccines. Another witness was Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya of Stanford, a co-author of a petition against lockdowns called the Great Barrington Declaration. (https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-vaccine-rollout-marred-by-confusion-false-claims-233349756.html https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-vaccine-rollout-marred-by...) https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/missouri-v-biden-ruling.pdf https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/missou... > Masks are harmful, so that one isn't really misinformation. Masks aren't harmful, as evidenced by the countless people who wear them all the time either professionally or just to avoid spreading/catching illness.
  - nostrebored 3y ago
    > "I haven't found one directly, but here's this other thing" This misrepresentation and miscategorization of people with legitimate complaints about public health policy is the entire problem with discourse here. The petition against lockdowns made perfect sense at the time and still does today. Countries like Sweden have not seen the long term outcomes models predicted, and these models were used to inform public health policy, despite our knowledge _at the time_ that they were poorly made, in many cases unreproducible, and a poor proxy for empirical evidence. This empirical evidence had led to the CDC guidelines we had for outbreaks that we threw out of the window at the beginning of the pandemic. There is very little decent science around masks. Masks have not been shown to avoid spreading or catching illnesses, even in those professional settings that you mention. For example, take this analysis of 3 RCTs that does not find substantial evidence to support the benefit of even N95 masks in clinical settings: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-0570 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-0570 What was produced at the beginning of the pandemic was a doctrine. It was, and still is, not absurd to question that doctrine.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]