Scientific American attacks Jay Bhattacharya for prioritizing Americans' autonomy over 'the science'

Scientific American, a 179-year-old magazine published by the German-British Springer Nature Group, appears increasingly keen to dirty itself with politics rather than engage in clean science.

Just weeks after Laura Helmuth stepped down as the magazine's editor in chief after an ugly rant in which she effectively called over 77.3 million Americans who voted for President-elect Donald Trump both "fascists" and "bigoted," and months after the magazine pushed gender ideologues' pseudoscientific narrative, Scientific American published a piece claiming that Trump's choice of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to run the National Institutes of Health is "the wrong move for science and public health."

Extra to insinuating that Bhattacharya was not actually censored during the pandemic and arguing that the destructive approach championed by the scientific establishment during the pandemic was not authoritarian, the author of the piece, Steven Albert, concern-mongered that Trump's pick might prioritize Americans' personal autonomy if confirmed as head of the NIH.

Debate over therapeutics, health protocols, and the origin of COVID-19 was stifled during the pandemic. Bhattacharya, among the experts whose views were suppressed at the urging of Biden health officials, refused to uncritically accept the prevailing wisdom of medical establishmentarians who advocated for lockdowns, vaccine mandates, masking for kids, and other ruinous COVID-19 policies.

Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which suggested that geriatrics and other higher-risk groups should engage in shielding, whereas healthy individuals should "immediately be allowed to resume life as normal." According to the declaration, healthy individuals were better off catching the virus and developing natural immunity.

Scientific establishmentarians keen on coercive medicine and blanket lockdowns attacked Bhattacharya for proposing this alternative approach. President Joe Biden's former chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci called the declaration "total nonsense." Former National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins conspired to issue a "quick and devastating takedown" of Bhattacharya's criticism.

In the weeks since Trump announced that Bhattacharya would "restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research," establishmentarians have resumed their attacks on the esteemed epidemiologist both at home and abroad.

'Pitting personal autonomy against the application of science to policy is fine for vanity webcasts and think tanks.'

Steven Albert, Hallen chair of community health and social justice at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Public Health, jumped on the bandwagon, griping in the pages of Scientific American about Bhattacharya's criticism of the "authoritarian tendencies of public health" and his advocacy for turning "the NIH from something that's sort of how to control society into something that's aimed at the discovery of truth to improve the health of Americans."

"The claims of authoritarianism are a screen for pushing a particular agenda that is likely to damage the NIH. Bhattacharya's science agenda is political: to set concerns for personal autonomy against evidence-based public health science," wrote Albert. "This is not appropriate for NIH leadership."

Albert expressed concern that Bhattacharya's apparent prioritization of Americans' God-given and Constitution-secured rights over health policy might prompt him to take a stand against "enforced vaccine requirements for children attending public schools" or perhaps even against the introduction of fluoride in drinking water, which the National Toxicology Program recently admitted can cause mental retardation in kids at the exposure levels seen in various places around the country.

"Pitting personal autonomy against the application of science to policy is fine for vanity webcasts and think tanks, but inappropriate for NIH leadership. If he would rather focus on promoting personal autonomy in pandemic policy, perhaps he is being nominated to the wrong agency," wrote Albert.

Albert further suggested — in the pages of a magazine that not only platformed the claim on the heels of a rushed vaccine rollout that "there is no question that the current vaccines are effective and safe" but also echoed the discredited thesis of a paper in its sister journal that the COVID-19 virus likely had zoonotic origins — that Bhattacharya's critical views "are one more unfortunate legacy of the COVID pandemic."

Albert defended the failed pandemic policies that Bhattacharya previously criticized, claiming that "science supported school closures, work-from-home policies, large gathering restrictions in public spaces, and face mask requirements as effective ways to lower hospital surges and buy time for vaccine development."

The "science" that Albert trusted in the case of school closures clearly needed the kind of second-guessing advocated by Bhattacharya, given that the closures put multitudes of school children years behind in math, reading, science, and general learning and have been linked to massive spikes in mental illness, suicide, and obesity.

After making the grossly ahistoric claim that "it is not authoritarian to use science for policy" and accusing Trump of dealing in falsehoods, Albert claimed that "income inequality and access to health care," not "authoritarianism in science or public health," were responsible for the devastation wreaked upon the country during the pandemic.

Albert wrapped up his hit piece by complaining about Bhattacharya possibly decentralizing the agency's functions and shifting NIH grant funding to the states; banning dangerous gain-of-function research and experiments using aborted baby parts; and depoliticizing science.

In response to Bhattacharya's nomination last month, Matt Kibbe, BlazeTV host of "Kibbe on Liberty" and "The Coverup," which recently featured the epidemiologist, noted, "Jay Bhattacharya was deemed a 'fringe epidemiologist' by former NIH Director Francis Collins, who demonized him for asking obvious questions about the government's authoritarian response to COVID. Now, Jay will take the helm at NIH and clean house of all those who corrupted public health and did so much damage to Americans during the pandemic. Karma is a b****."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here