Thread 1/3: I was moved by Dr @uche_blackstock tweet: the refrain “being silenced” in academic medicine. Many exceptions, and it’s still a half-baked idea 💡 but some of us have expressed concerns about suppression of ideas in academic health centers, not where u think I’m going
I don’t mean political correctness. I’m speaking about something different:The freedom and time to speak out about social justice, combat Antiscience, take on causes, without the constraints imposed on us by the money making machine that’s become the modern Academic Health Center
There’s a new weapon of oppression manifested as over credentialing masquerading as achievement, meaningless board exams, MOC, EHR electronic cash registers, ridiculous CME rules on what you can or can’t say. Designed by a machine of administrators to consume, distract, squash us
As a result, we’ve traded reading scientific papers and PubMed for UpToDate, intellectual inquiry in new areas or reading political philosophy for USMLE and board exams, speaking out in exchange for keeping our heads down. We’ve anti intellectualized medical education and GME
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By summer I knew White House never intended to contain COVID19 in America. It would have required fed govt to take control of response, exert leadership. When they rebuffed my Oct 1 plan in July instead launched disinformation campaign, our fate was sealed cnn.com/2020/10/25/pol…
It’s why I felt compelled to speak out, openly criticize WH and it’s task force. I saw the decimation in the Hispanic community right in front of me. Ann said to me, “I can see this is eating you up” For me their FU rejection of my Oct 1 plan to save American lives = final straw
About a month later they brought in Dr Atlas as part of a larger WH attempt to rewrite history, spin new tales around fake herd immunity, discredit masks, force open schools, attribute COVID19 deaths to co-morbidities, Great Barrington, well planned Soviet style disinformation
I believe this week’s #COVID19 numbers will portend what’s in store for our nation later this fall winter. I believe we might have forestalled this had I been successful in persuading the POTUS and White House CoV Task Force to adopt my Oct 1 Plan, instead they denied deflected
Ideally we could have delayed the surge long enough maybe until Feb March as vaccines became available. Of course that assumes vaccines will be available by then and we don’t know that for sure
In any case looks like the train 🚂 is coming, not helped by a White House in denial, accelerating disinformation. It will be a rough fall and winter, advising to install now your social distancing team for next few months, look after mental health. Things will improve by spring
Thread 1/4: I haven't said it as strongly as this, but no question that White House CoV Task Force refusal to mount a national strategy, CDC suppression, and deliberate anti-science disinformation campaign are responsible for our huge loss of life. My documentation in this thread
I found it meaningful to follow @LinaHidalgoTX tonight on @allinwithchris@chrislhayes we spoke on totally different topics: The Judge spoke about voting, I spoke about #COVID19 of course. But definitely #Houston TX was well represented tonight!
FYI I’ve had the opportunity to speak with @LinaHidalgoTX multiple times this year about #COVID19. And yes she really is that smart and committed. As is Mayor @SylvesterTurner, we’re blessed with strong smart leadership in H-Town, and genuinely kind compassionate people who care
In Texas we’re building for the future: Judge Hidalgo, born in Colombia 🇨🇴 29 yo brilliant @Stanford grad; Mayor Turner African American @Harvard_Law grad: diversity, brains 🧠, pragmatic leadership. My advice to young people: come to #Houston TX home of the real American dream
Promoting fake herd immunity concepts and other forms of weaponized science communication/disinformation will damage global public health, and maybe degenerate further into human rights violations. nytimes.com/live/2020/10/1…
We haven't seen too many examples of true herd immunity for #COVID19, possibly one of the first is in Manaus, Amazonas State #Brasil where it reached 66% medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
Extrapolating to the US: By invoking "herd immunity" we could easily increase our current 200,000 deaths by a factor X6 or more - 1 million deaths. Our vulnerable time is late fall 2020, winter 2021 = lame duck post election period. White House parting gift to the American people
Thread on POTUS therapies: Being asked about mab cocktail from Regeneron and remdesivir and what it means?
I think a key point is that use of antiviral drugs, if they are to be effective likely must be administered early in the course of the illness during viral replication.
"Watch and wait" not an option, if you are going to do it and maximize the effectiveness of these two interventions you pretty much either do it now or not at all. Later you may need to deal with host cytokine, inflammatory responses, in which case there are separate agents.
So I'm sure it was a tough call, but given what we know about coronaviruses, our work over the last 10 years shows how virus neutralizing antibodies are paramount in fighting the infection. Most vaccines work by this principle, including our SARS1, MERS, now COVID19 vaccines.