Thread by @mrddmia

Very important speech by Dr. Scott Atlas, a former Stanford medical professor/doctor, about how censoring, silencing, and even canceling doctors and scientists who questioned Covid lockdowns led to tremendous, unnecessary human misery and even deaths over more than the last year:

https://twitter.com/brithume/status/1394941340404830211

His speech demonstrates the tremendous dangers of cancel culture.

It’s anti-science — and is very disruptive, destructive, and even deadly for everyone around the world when the mobs attack scientists and doctors who don’t fall in line with the Ruling Class’s political edicts.

Here is the speech by Dr. Scott Atlas: stanfordreview.org/scott-atlas-th…

“The coronavirus pandemic has been a great tragedy, there can be no doubt about that. But it has also exposed profound issues in America that now threaten the very principles of freedom and order that we Americans often take for granted.”

“First, I have been shocked at the enormous power of the government, to unilaterally decree, to simply close businesses and schools by edict, restrict personal movement, mandate behavior, and eliminate our most basic freedoms, without any end and little accountability.”

“Second, I remain surprised at the acceptance by the American people of draconian rules, restrictions, and unprecedented mandates, even those that are arbitrary, destructive, and wholly unscientific.”

“This crisis has also exposed what we all have known existed, but we have tolerated for years: the overt bias of the media, the lack of diverse viewpoints on campuses, the absence of neutrality in big tech controlling social media . . .

“. . . and now more visibly than ever, the intrusion of politics into science. Ultimately, the freedom to seek and state the truth is at risk here in the United States.”

“The harms to children of closing in-person schooling are dramatic, including poor learning, increased school dropouts, and social isolation, most of which are far worse for lower income groups.”

“A recent study confirms that up to 78% of cancers were never detected due to missed screening over three months. If one extrapolates to the entire country, up to a million new cases or more over nine months will have gone undetected.”

“That health disaster adds to missed critical surgeries, chemotherapy, organ transplants, presentations of pediatric illnesses, heart attack and stroke patients too afraid to call emergency services, and others, all well documented.”

“Beyond hospital care, CDC reported [4x] increases in depression, [3x] increases in anxiety symptoms, and a doubling of suicidal ideation, particularly among young adults-college age-after the first few months of lockdowns, echoing the AMA reports of drug overdoses and suicides.”

“An explosion of insurance claims for these psychological harms in children just verified this, doubling nationally since last year; and in the strictly locked down Northeast, there was a more than 300% increase of teenagers visiting doctors for self-harm.”

“Domestic abuse and child abuse have been skyrocketing due to the isolation and specifically to the loss of jobs, particularly in the strictest lockdowns.”

“Given that many in-person schools have been closed, hundreds of thousands of abuse cases are never reported, since schools are the number one agency where abuse is noticed.”

“Finally, the unemployment ‘shock’ from lockdowns, according to a recent NBER study, translates into what they called a “staggering” 890,000 additional U.S. deaths over the next 15 years from the lockdowns, disproportionately affecting minorities and women.”

“Just as in Galileo’s time, one real problem is the experts and ‘vested academic interests.’”

“Faculty members of many universities, America’s centers for critical thinking, have overtly intimidated views contrary to their own, likely out of political reasons, leaving many afraid to speak up.”

“That intimidation has been effective – I know, I have received hundreds of emails from scientists and policy scholars all over the country, all over the world, telling me to never give up, but they are afraid to come forward.”

“And yes, even a number of infectious disease experts right here at Stanford are afraid to step forward publicly and say the truth.”

“Instead of rethinking failed policies and admitting their errors, some have chosen to employ smears in opinion pieces and through organized rebukes against those of us who disagreed with what was implemented . . .”

“. . . and who dared to help the country under a President they despised – apparently, the ultimate transgression.”

“Straw-man arguments and out-of-context distortions to defame people are not acceptable in civilized society, let alone in our great universities. There has been an attempt to silence and delegitimize me using falsifications and misrepresentations.”

“One must ask the question: why would accusers also ignore my explicit, emphatic public denials about supporting the spread of the infection unchecked to achieve herd immunity – denials quoted widely in the media.”

“Are not my own statements the object of their criticism in the first place? Or is it due to a desire to “cancel” anyone who accepted the call, who had the audacity to help this country under President Trump?”

“Regarding universal masks: 38 states have implemented general-population mask mandates, most since at least the summer, with almost all the rest having mandates in their major cities.”

“Widespread, general-population mask usage has shown little empirical utility for stopping cases, even though that evidence has been censored by Twitter and Amazon.”

“Widespread mask usage showed only minimal impact in Denmark’s randomized controlled study.  Those are facts. And facts matter.”

“I posted a list where mask mandates empirically failed to stop cases, along with direct quotes, without any edit, from WHO, CDC, and Oxford University. That was censored by Twitter.”

“At this point, one could make a reasonable case that those who continue to push significant societal restrictions without acknowledging their failures and serious harms are themselves putting forth dangerous misinformation.”

“As Stanford’s Ioannidis stated on February 20, 2021, ‘most of the estimates show the draconian lockdowns increased the problems, it was pro-contagion.’ Those restrictions have plainly ‘damaged the public health,’ as my Stanford accusers might say.”

“But I will not call for their official rebuke or punishment. I will not try to cancel them. I will not try to extinguish their opinions. And I will not lie to distort their words and defame them.”

“To do so would repeat a behavior of intimidating the discourse that is critical to educating the public and arriving at the scientific truths we desperately need.”

“As a health policy scholar for over 15 years and as a professor at top universities for 30 years, I now fear for our students and our nation’s future.”

“Some faculty members of our acclaimed universities - many of whom are automatic recipients of society’s respect because of those university titles - are now dangerously intolerant of opinions contrary to their personally favored narrative.”

“Without permitting, indeed encouraging, open exchange of views and admission of errors, we might never solve any future crisis.”

“Some go further, distorting and misrepresenting words to delegitimize and prompt punishment of those of us willing to serve the country – their country – alongside a President they happen to loathe.”

“Delegitimizing [Atlas] and his analysis of the coronavirus disaster was a matter of treating all those who have any connection with the Trump administration as criminals, something that could only be accomplished by blatant misrepresentations of his views and statements.” Tobin

“If academic leaders – and the entire academic community – fail to denounce such attempts to vilify those whom one disagrees with, many more experts with a reputation to lose will be unwilling to serve this country in contentious times.”

“We should also fear that the concept of ‘the science’ has been seriously damaged. Even the best journals in the world – NEJM, Lancet, Science and Nature – have become contaminated by politics and published bad science. “

“That adds to the public’s confusion, and it diminishes trust in experts. By now, many in the public have simply become fatigued by the arguments.  That reaction is even worse, because widespread fatigue will allow fallacy to triumph over truth.”

“Americans are now faced with a new status quo: biased social media have joined a dominant voice on campuses to be the arbiter of allowable discussion.”

“The United States is on the precipice of losing its cherished freedoms, with censorship and cancellation of all those who bring views forward that differ from the ‘accepted mainstream.’”

“It is not clear if our democracy, with its defining freedoms, will recover, even after we survive the pandemic itself. But it is clear that people must step up – meaning speak up, as we are allowed, as we are expected to do in free societies – or it has no chance.”