Embattled Stanford Professor of Medicine Jay Bhattacharya: ‘Academic freedom is dead’
College Fix | JENNIFER KABBANY
At the November 2022 Stanford Academic Freedom Conference, Dr. Bhattacharya, “a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert with a focus on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations…recounted the difficult road he faced as a result of offering his professional medical and scientific opinions during the height of the pandemic.” Bhattacharya and others warned about the deleterious effects of lock-downs and the need to focus on the elderly.
Bhattacharya helped author the Great Barrington Declaration, “which argued there is a tremendous harm to the poor, the vulnerable and the working class from lockdown-focused policies, and also called for focused protection for older people.”
Despite being “signed by tens of thousands of respected scientists and physicians,” NIH leaders “labeled the Declaration’s authors ‘fringe epidemiologists’ and organized ‘devastating take down.’ “
Death threats ensued, and after Bhattacharya questioned masking recommendations for children under 12, there was a on-campus petition to censor Bhattacharya, blaming him for Covid deaths.
“What happened was a destruction of the norms of behavior at Stanford by faculty and with the leadership of the university that looked the other way,” says Bhattacharya. “Academic freedom is dead, because it only matters when there are matters of controversy like this. And if university leaders do not stand up for it, they do not deserve the positions they have.”
Update: Bhattacharya’s blacklisting has been exposed in the Twitter Files.
