Thread by @Faussenurse

Recently, @GeorgeNDP, a @bcndp hack, went into a full Twitter-tantrum because @SoniaFurstenau appropriately and soundly criticized the nonsense Dr. Henry and the @CDCofBC have been spouting on Covid prevention. So here’s a thread on public health and science.

All top positions in governmental public health agencies are occupied by MDs with a specialization in public health. And while MDs sure are doctors, they aren’t the kind of doctors trained to do science. They are the kind of doctors trained to do medicine.

Public health MDs spend only a fraction of their training years learning research-relevant skills and often none at all doing research. By opposition, someone with a Ph.D. will have spent 5 to 8 years exclusively learning research skills.

Most public health MDs then work in positions where they track and monitor health issues, design interventions and (sometimes) evaluate their impact. From time to time, this work leads to scientific publications. But public health agencies aren’t scientific research powerhouses

Another important element is that medicine tends to be a very hierarchical discipline and governmental bureaucracies hierarchical structures. Add the two ingredients and you will get that the @CDCofBC is a place where people are expected to obey to top-down orders.

But top-down isn’t how science thrives. Academic environments (and even private sector RD units) are supposed to allow collegial debates, innovation and assess ideas on their intrinsic value, not the title of whomever is speaking.

Another way to look at it is impact factors. There is no perfect measure of someone’s scientific impact. The most used metric is the h-index so let’s have a look: Dr. Henry h-index is 23 on Scopus and Dr. Gustafson has 18.

Let’s put that in relation with people who know what they are talking about when it comes to Covid and who believe BC’s approach is nonsense. For example, @trishgreenhalgh with a 87 index or @jljcolorado with a 116 h-index.

Also bear in mind that people with top leadership positions in PH agencies will benefit from a very significant boost to their h-index by being included as “institutional presences” in articles written by others. A trend obvious in both Drs. Henry and Gustafson publication record

All in all, no, Dr. Henry doesn’t have a strong scientific track record. I suspect that she personally wrote very few peer-reviewed articles in her career (though she signed many). From a scientific standpoint, Dr. Henry definitely doesn’t impress much.

So why did @GeorgeNDP went into a tantrum? The obvious answer is because #BC’s Covid response is based on no science at all. None! It is based on hubris, awful consultant advice and arrogance. But Dr. Henry is the scientific red herring supposed to hide this fact.

I would even venture that @GeorgeNDP knows all this full well. And it is precisely because he knows it that he will defend Dr. Henry (weak) scientific prestige so aggressively. Because the day people realize the kind is naked, the whole Covid plan of the @bcndp will crumble.

King… obviously…