Date: February 1, 2023
From: Kelly Podzemny
To: Brandt Schneider
CC: Ashley Hamm, Steven Berk, Mikel Coale, Susanna Cisneros

Good morning Dr. Schneider, I wanted to give you and Dr. Beck a heads up about an MD/PhD student who is getting some backlash on Twitter about an opinion piece he had published on the Newsweek website. These people believe it is misinformation. He's been outspoken on other topics in the past, and we were told it was free speech. Dr. Beck says he may talk to legal about this again.

MY NOTE: This was the first documented institutional response to the Newsweek article. They had already determined my prior speech was "free speech." Now they were going to legal "again."

===

Date: February 1, 2023
From: Simon Williams
To: Steven Berk, Lauren Cobbs

It is obviously protected speech but also quite concerning in the way he appears to speak for the medical community. We need to discuss an appropriate response.

MY NOTE: Williams called it "obviously protected speech" - then said they needed to discuss "an appropriate response" anyway. Per recollection, Williams also expressed concern that the article was being shared in "antivax" circles.

===

Date: February 1, 2023
From: Steven Berk
To: Kelly Podzemny
CC: Ashley Hamm, Mikel Coale, Susanna Cisneros, Vadivel Ganapathy

We had problems with him on Twitter before as you remember calling various diet doctors phonies but we got into the same free speech issues that with we did admonish him. I think we should discuss with legal.

MY NOTE: Berk admitted they had "the same free speech issues" before. Now he wanted to "discuss with legal" again.

===

Date: February 1, 2023
From: Michael Blanton
To: Lauren Cobbs, Simon Williams
Subject: Student Publication COVID-19

Forwarded complaint from Kip Hopper about Newsweek article.

===

Date: February 2, 2023, 10:22 AM (Schneider) / 10:27 AM (alternate timestamp)
From: Brandt Schneider
To: Kelly Podzemny
Subject: RE: Twitter: Kevin Bass

Kelly,

Thanks for the update. We are aware of the incident. I texted with Dr. Williams about it yesterday and will circle back with him again today to determine how best to proceed. I will also follow up with Dr. Berk.

Brandt

MY NOTE: The Graduate School Dean was coordinating with the medical school. They were figuring out "how best to proceed."

===

Date: February 2, 2023, 2:50 PM
From: Simon Williams
To: Didn't record

I am not surprised that there was backlash. I think it will be best to hear what legal says we should do.

===

Date: February 15, 2023, 12:42 PM
From: Steven Berk
To: Simon Williams

Wrt Kevin Bass what does it mean to recommend @ eugenics in 2023 might meet about him at 3pm

MY NOTE: The Dean was monitoring my specific tweets and proposing same-day meetings about them. I was talking about eugenics in the same way Dr. Williams had discussed it in lectures, and in the same way discussed in the medical ethics literature.

===

Date: April 20, 2023, 8:23 AM
From: Pamela Johnson
To: Terri Lloyd
Subject: URGENT - INFO NEEDED

Can you confirm the dates of his (Kevin Bass) enrollment in the GSBS (MS and MD degrees) and provide the approximate timeframes that he conducted his research in various faculty labs (under Drs. Grisham, Reynolds, Ganapathy or others) during this time. Do you have this information?

MY NOTE: Six days before Morales forwarded the complaints, someone was urgently gathering my enrollment history and lab assignments. They were building a dossier.

===

Date: April 26, 2023, 11:16 AM
From: Felix Morales
To: Lauren Cobbs, Simon Williams, Elisabeth Conser, David Trotter, Allison Perrin
Subject: Emails About a Student Starting the 3rd Year

Good morning everyone, I wanted to forward some emails that we have been receiving about a student that is returning back to the medical school curriculum from his PhD coursework. His name is Kevin Bass. We have received emails in our admissions inbox expressing concerns about his social media posts. I didn't know what to do with them, but I wanted to share them with you all. Let me know if you have any questions.

MY NOTE: The admissions office was receiving external complaints about my speech and forwarding them to five senior administrators.

===

Date: April 26, 2023, 11:29 AM
From: David Trotter
To: Felix Morales, Lauren Cobbs, Simon Williams, Elisabeth Conser, Allison Perrin
Subject: RE: Emails About a Student Starting the 3rd Year

Thanks for sending these. If you get any more please forward them on. I will help collect some more information and get back to you to discuss how to respond.

[Response to April 26, 2023 11:16 AM email from Felix Morales forwarding emails expressing concerns about my social media posts]

MY NOTE: Five senior administrators on this email. Trotter is asking for more materials and coordinating "how to respond."

===

Date: May 22, 2023, 1:29 PM (original) / 3:51 PM (forward)
From: [Redacted]
To: Ja'Net Sneed
Date: May 22, 2023, 1:29 PM
Subject: TTUHSC on MedTwitter

Hey Ja'Net, I just wanted to send an email on behalf of some of my classmates. I am sure the school admin is following the situation on social media. But in case it is not being followed, Kevin Bass and Class of 2025 has been making controversies in the realm of MedTwitter. At first it was not really a big deal but recently he has tweeted about how easy 3rd year med school is and made controversial statements that seem to go against the school's code of conduct. In fact some residents at residency programs have been responding to the tweets and questioning the quality of medical education TTUHSC is providing to students. Unfortunately he has a following of about 84,000 people and some of my tweets have caught the attention of residency programs' faculty members. He has been in news segments, podcasts, and interviews. With Step 1 going P/F and the attention shifting to Step 2 and school prestige some people are becoming concerned that this one person is essentially putting our school under the radar in a bad way. -Joe

PART B - FORWARD TO DEAN:
From: Lauren Cobbs
To: Steven Berk, Simon Williams
Date: May 22, 2023, 3:51 PM

Need to discuss...

===

Date: May 23, 2023, 8:58 AM
From: Steven Berk
To: Simon Williams, Lauren Cobbs, Islam

At our meeting can we discuss Kevin Bass and review our guidelines on professionalism also what clerkship he is on

MY NOTE: Cobbs forwarded this student complaint directly to Dean Berk. The next morning, Berk asked "what clerkship is he on."

===

Date: May 23, 2023, 12:22 PM
From: Acevedo
To: Lauren Cobbs
Priority: IMPORTANCE: HIGH
Subject: Honor Code

Here is the signed Honor Code for Kevin Bass

MY NOTE: 3.5 hours after Berk's meeting request, the Honor Code was pulled and marked "IMPORTANCE: HIGH."

===

Date: May 23, 2023 (after 12:22 PM)
From: Lauren Cobbs
To: Steven Berk, Pomasson
Priority: IMPORTANCE: HIGH
Subject: Signed Honor Code for K. Bass

Dr. Berk - PDF version of signed Honor Code for Kevin Bass

MY NOTE: The sequence on May 23, 2023:
- 8:58 AM: Berk asks "what clerkship is he on"
- Morning: Cobbs requests Honor Code from records
- 12:22 PM: Acevedo provides Honor Code (IMPORTANCE: HIGH)
- Afternoon: Cobbs forwards Honor Code to Berk
They were assembling a disciplinary file.

===

Date: May 27, 2023
Dean Steven Berk died 4 days after placing me on the meeting agenda and receiving my Honor Code file.

===

Date: May 31, 2023
Present: Dr. Megan Brown, Dr. Noelle Zavala, Kevin Bass

MY NOTE: 8 days after Berk asked "what clerkship is he on," professionalism concerns materialized at that exact clerkship.

===

I then faced the first flood of professionalism “complaints”.

I began reaching out to lawyers:

Date: July 24, 2023
From: Kevin Bass
To: Tim Weitz, JD

There are many discrepancies and facts that do not fit or make sense, and I don't understand what is happening. …

Due process has been systematically ignored and they refuse to specify the professionalism incident(s) in my letter. That's right, I'm being censured for a professionalism incident that hasn't been specified, not even to me. …

I believe that they may be trying to build a case for my eventual dismissal.

===

Then, from August 2 to August 7, I contacted at least 10 attorneys with the same language expressing confusion about the process and the refusal to specify charges.

Standard language included in all outreach:

“I believe that the administration may be trying to build a case for my eventual dismissal. There are many discrepancies and facts that do not fit or make sense, and I don't understand what is happening. … Due process has been ignored and they refuse to specify the professionalism incident(s) in my letter, or at any other point in the process.”

===

ERWIN'S COACHING NOTES: THE PRETEXT REVEALED

Then, after two extraordinarily stressful professionalism board meetings, and despite winning the appeal on "lack of specificity," I was still required to complete "professionalism coaching" with Dr. Cheryl Erwin, for reasons nobody would explain to me.

The coaching was assigned for clinical behavior during OB/GYN - "comments to nurses," "interactions with staff." It had nothing to do with my Newsweek article. Yet, strikingly, Erwin’s notes tell a different story.

She researched COVID vaccine sources to evaluate my opinions. She acted sympathetic to my face while writing this behind my back. And the final irony: my Newsweek article was pro-vaccine. I called for acknowledging mistakes in pandemic messaging and in the response, which led to reduced trust and reduced vaccine uptake. I did not express opposition to vaccines; I was pro-vaccine. She was building a case against a position I never held.

DATE: After August 8, 2023

ERWIN'S NOTES (excerpt):

I also spoke with Dr. Cobbs about this student and the issues presented. She agreed that there are concurrent legal issues embodied in the case including the right of Kevin to say anything that he wished to say (free speech). Even if the ideas he has shared with us seem contrary to generally accepted opinion regarding the science (my source is Cochrane’s review on the efficacy of COVID vaccines), it is not a dispute that he has a right to say whatever he wishes.

However, as a matter of professionalism he does not have a right to disrupt the learning environment, he does not have a right to refuse, without consequences, the feedback he is given and fail to adopt the virtues of medical professionalism which include attitudes of compassion, adaptability, and sensitivity to the needs of others. These obligations are expected by the LCME as professional activities which we have an obligation to ensure in order to maintain our accreditation as a medical school. My focus and the main conclusive issue here is to develop insight into why he is doing this when he admits that a lot of people have 'just quit talking to him.'

MY NOTE: The professionalism coach–assigned to address supposed clinical behavior issues–explicitly tied her assessment to COVID vaccine opinions (that I didn’t hold) and invoked LCME accreditation. Her own words reveal the pretext: if this were about pre-existing behavior, people wouldn't have "just quit talking to him." Something new caused this–and she told us what it was.

===

In another note, she went even further, comparing me to Trump and saying I had absorbed "conspiracy culture":

Erwin's second note (excerpt):

"I do not feel confident I can coach this student on the SPCC issues without addressing the issues raised by the student that lie beyond the formal referral. The social media issues came up. They cannot be ignored. They raise issues of constitutional free speech, due process, and reputational harm that imply the need for additional advice from the referring source and their counsel.

Because these issues are a part of our general culture at this moment in time it is appropriate to note K will have heard in recent days: Special Counsel Jack Smith points out in the Trump indictment, 'The defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely... he was also entitled to formally challenge the results of...'

KB has imbibed the cultural atmosphere of conspiracy theories. This is reflected in his combative attitude towards me and everyone who is trying to help him, as well as towards the CDC response to COVID as a conspiracy. In the present he seems to be taking his First Amendment rights to make an idiot of himself"

MY NOTE: My "professionalism coach" compared me to Trump, said I had absorbed "conspiracy culture," and wrote that I was using my First Amendment rights "to make an idiot of himself." She claimed that I thought that "COVID was a conspiracy" (whatever that means). This was the person assigned to help me.

===

But to my face? A completely different story:

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023 - After I apologized for being irritable while sick:

"Thank you Kevin. And thank you for making our meeting. You were lovely. See you next time."

OCTOBER 17, 2023 - Scheduling a meeting:
"Your call, either way I just want you to feel supported."

OCTOBER 19, 2023 - When I was in distress:
"Just breathe!! You're gonna be fine. I will continue to coach you through this."

OCTOBER 19, 2023 - Same day, later:
"Do you need to talk? I'm here"

OCTOBER 29, 2023 - When I shared personal trauma with her, in order to make the point that what I was going through was the worst thing I had ever experienced:

"Kevin, I am crying as I read this. For the pain you have been through. For the joy of your survival. For the dreams and goals you still hold. I can walk alongside you and I can be your friend. I can listen to you as you find your authentic self. But I would never want to change who you are and I couldn't even if I wanted to.

I am not sure there is continued value in a coaching relationship, but I will not abandon you. You have work to do my friend, and it is the work of healing.

Your friend, Dr. Erwin"

But it doesn't stop at the medical school.

In February 2023, Berk and Williams consulted the Office of General Counsel about my "obviously protected speech." Six months later, that same Office of General Counsel recommended "immediate updates" to the Board of Regents—citing "recent litigation trends" in harassment and speech policies.

The Board approved the changes on August 10-11, 2023. They added language requiring speech to "lose legal protection" before it can justify suspension. They removed a team that had been monitoring student "expressive activities."

Then in November 2023—two weeks after my suspension—the Board required that General Counsel "certify compliance with applicable laws" before any future policy changes.

They added a legal certification requirement after they suspended me.

The same lawyers who reviewed my case recommended the policy changes. The Board of Regents—appointed by Governor Greg Abbott—approved them.

This was institutional.

This is the tip of the iceberg.

I have sent more than a dozen Texas Public Information Act (TPIA) requests–basically, FOIA for Texas–for the documents that will reveal what really happened.

Texas Tech has responded by delaying their responses to the final deadlines; by double charging me for deposits; and by forcing me into a legal battle.

More than 70 pages of legal argument have been submitted by each side to the Texas Office of the Attorney General, more than 150 pages, a book’s worth for TPIA alone. Texas Tech seeks to withhold ALL documents.

What are they hiding?

Since October, I have also engaged in a lengthy dispute with Texas Tech–through FERPA–to gain access to all of my educational records, which I am entitled to according to federal law.

Texas Tech is required to provide me with these records within 45 days.

It has been 120 days, and I still have not had the opportunity to review the documents.

How long will it take? A year? To get documents I should have had in November?

They have provided me with a single set of sessions over the course of a week to review them. Thousands of pages. They have all of these documents in PDF format. They could send me these PDFs at any time.

Instead, they keep creating more friction, requiring me to visit each time. The atmosphere is tense. To avoid any misunderstanding, I spent $3,600 for a private investigator to accompany me just to review them. Because who knows what else Texas Tech will make up about me?

This is all intentional. And it violates federal law.

Therefore, I will continue to file complaints with the Department of Education.

And over the coming weeks, I will file still more complaints with still more agencies.

And once I started filing these requests, what happened? Out of the blue–debt collection for semesters at the medical school they did not allow me to attend.

There is no low to which this university will not stoop.

Thankfully, after posting about this, these attempts seem to have stopped. For now.

They destroyed my career. They destroyed my reputation. And they want me to shut up about it.

I won’t.

I have filed two lawsuits against Texas Tech and just some of the employees involved in these acts. One in state court. The other in federal.

And that brings me to the reason I am posting this.

They have filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

And they also delayed my next FERPA review session. Again.

Curious.

To when? They have delayed the session to the final two days in which my response to the motion to dismiss is due.

My guess: they’re hoping that I don’t have the time to consolidate the insights from the next review of documents.

But who is doing that? Ah, yes.

I am posting because one of the employees at the Texas Office of the Attorney General--run by Ken Paxton--is not just representing Texas Tech but now, it appears, helping Texas Tech to obstruct justice. By moving this review to just before the response is due.

By implication, this means that the Attorney General is now spending yet more taxpayer money to cover for a university that retaliated against the First Amendment.

Retaliation. Against the First Amendment. With your taxpayer money.

But not just the First Amendment. I am a scientist. I have a PhD. When I wrote about the pandemic, I did so in good faith. And my views are the same as those of NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, FDA CBER Director Vinay Prasad, and indeed, the official position of the Trump administration itself.

Texas Tech retaliated against a legitimate scientific viewpoint–the viewpoint which I believe is undeniably correct. All because it was unpopular and out of step with the politics of the university.

All I want is to move on. But that means acknowledging what happened.

I have recently received the first ruling from the Attorney General on one of my TPIA requests. 16 pages of redactions. Huge blocks of black. Citing attorney-client privilege.

This is completely unacceptable. And insane.

Let’s square that with what happened here.

Texas Tech used their Director of Ethics to subvert ethics.

They used professionalism hearings to behave unprofessionally.

And they used their legal team to break the law.

It’s Orwellian. Texas Tech inverted morality.

And now, they are trying to use attorney-client privilege as a shield–with Texas’s Attorney General to defend them.

I am writing here to appeal to you, reader, for one thing.

Pressure.

I’m asking for the documents. Nothing fancy. I’m only asking for the truth.

This is a pressure campaign for the truth. Is that so much to ask for?

Share this. Tag Ken Paxton. Tag Lori Rice-Spearman. Tag Greg Abbott.

Ask them why their taxpayer-funded government agency is trying to conceal the truth. Why they tried to destroy one of their students’ lives and won’t let him go.

I just want to move on. I don’t want back into medicine. Because of the ideologically captured bureaucrats, medicine no longer has moral standards. I want to create something of my own–something I can believe in as I once believed in medicine.

Let me go.

I finish with this passage from the Bible:

I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals

I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Amos 5:21-24

Help me in my fight by donating here: https://www.givesendgo.com/kevinbasslegal

This post has been circulating, so I thought I might like to write a rather unpopular post about it that will generally be liked by nobody.

I do always prefer my posts to be liked by at least some people. But occasionally, when I’ve been buried away in my little work bubble and a bit disconnected from the going-ons of humanity, I’ll come back for a moment and say something that almost nobody likes.

I suppose this has something to do with the sort of mode of thinking that technical work requires. It certainly it not a very convivial mode of thinking.

Call my lack of reservation in saying the thing a vice. Or a virtue. Whatever it is, I’ll say it. Because someone ought to sometimes, and I suppose I’m that guy.

Why was this figure posted from Mr. Marinos buried in the appendix of the PRINCIPLE study? Was it a conspiracy? Are we trying to hide from The People the truth that Ivermectin does, in fact, work?

It’s a bit simpler than that. And the implications are rather important.

Let’s cut to it.

The figure was buried because this study was not double-blinded: every patient knew if they were receiving the drug or not.

People who received the drug reported that they perceived that they recovered more quickly. They would do the same if you gave them sand and told them it was magical healing dust.

And importantly, none of the hard endpoints were improved by Ivermectin.

So:

1. The patients knew whether they were given Ivermectin or placebo;

2. They were asked to provide a subjective account about how fast they recovered;

3. The actual hard clinical outcomes that were objective showed no difference.

That, my friends, suspiciously resembles a classic placebo effect.

Now, the commentary about why this is important. A rant, perhaps, one might say, if you will forgive me.

None of this is not to say that Ivermectin does not work. The problem is a bit deeper than that.

All of this is just to say that a specific aspect of study design makes it impossible to interpret these results as clear evidence that it does.

Let’s flesh that out a bit more.

If you threw out methodological considerations like these, you would end up concluding that everything works, including the much acclaimed snake oil, but also genuinely harmful drugs.

And that’s a problem.

And people would at minimum be exploited and at worst genuinely harmed.

The best explanation for why this finding was shoved into the appendix for this paper is that the scientists who ran the study were scientists.

The more concerning thing about pandemic science during the early years is that these sorts of methodological considerations were thrown out when it came to FAVORED interventions like lockdowns, masks, etc., yet they were more strongly insisted upon for DISFAVORED ones, like Ivermectin.

There were, in short, scientific double standards when it came to policy recommendations.

These double standards were systemic: public health policy was politicized in ways the benefited government and corporate bureaucracies—not the public.

In short: “Scientific rigor for thee, but not for me. (Because I have power by laundering the credibility of the institutions. And you, my friend, do not.)”

The bottom line is that if you say that this finding demonstrates the effectiveness of Ivermectin—and it being buried in the appendix suggests a conspiracy—you’re also forced to say, if you’re being consistent, that lockdowns, masks, school closures, etc. saved millions of lives through similar other sorts of flawed studies.

And you’ll be forced to say, yes, that sand, which we are going to tell people is magical healing dust—it works for Covid too. (Not to mention the ~hundred other bizarre tinctures that were once touted as possible Covid cures.)

And we’re right back to where we started two thousand years ago, and scientific medicine does not exist.

That’s not a state of affairs that anyone wants. It is in fact quite a dangerous one, and medicine becomes completely untrustworthy.

We’ve already seen some of that. But only some.

But if you want to pursue this line of thinking to its limit—well, if you think things are bad now, trust me, things can still get much worse.

That’s why scientists don’t call throwing this figure into an appendix a conspiracy.

It commits them to far more dangerous positions.

Now scientists just need to take the same responsibility about the sorts of interventions they pushed early on in the pandemic with similarly shoddy evidence.

Or other sorts of interventions in many fields that are turning out to be harmful or will in the future—but wouldn’t have had scientists done the very simple things we were all trained to do, followed the very simple sets of rules that we all know make for reliable science.

Of course they won’t.

And they may even punish those who do.

Because the present way that our scientific institutions are organized does not require scientists to take responsibility for anything except covering their asses and staying silent during the latest, ever-changing scientific or political hysteria.

Ah well. What can you do.

There ya go. A short, unpopular post.

A bit curmudgeonly, I’d say. Some days ya gotta curmudgeon.

I created the above figure, and it stirred some interest. In this post I want to explain why this is happening.

Bureaucracy expands endlessly because of affluence + organization size + depoliticization and the lack of any force that can really discipline institutions.

Poor, small, and fragile: “If we don’t build, we die.” Big downside to not building.

Rich, big, and stable: “If we screw up, we could lose what we have.” Big downside to instability and risk.

So big institutions are punished more for mistakes than for stagnation. Big institutions can’t really die, but the managers can get punished. So managers optimize for not getting punished, not for dynamism.

They add rules, committees, safeguards, etc. to prevent mistakes that they can be punished for—which is to say, anything that looks risky or uncomfortable, involves open conflict, etc.

Over time you need whole classes of people whose job is to prevent mistakes—that is, to smooth discomfort, reduce risk, and manage conflict. Think ever-expanding HR, DEI, compliance, endless new offices to reduce risk, and regulatory frameworks at a national or global scale.

AI, nuclear bombs, nuclear energy, environmental damage, fossil fuels, pandemics, chemicals in food and water, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and so on are all framed as problems to be fixed by adding more bureaucratic layers, more programs, more officials, more offices, etc.

That’s not to say these problems aren’t real. Many are. But big institutions address them according to their own survival logic, not a coherent emancipatory project. The core aim is always to reduce risk and discomfort inside big rich organizations, and the tool is always more rules, more procedures, more bureaucracy.

And once you add bureaucracy, it’s almost impossible to get rid of it. “Don’t you care about children/women/health/people dying/people being poisoned/fairness/etc.?”

You also end up with institutions that cannot adapt quickly or respond effectively to crisis or large-scale change, since they have selected that capability out. Remember that dynamism is dangerous for managers: large downside, low personal upside. So institutions lose adaptive capacity over time and harden in more procedure and departments, narrowing know-how, and leadership cohorts that are trained in risk aversion rather than transformation.

Large rich institutions thus move very slowly and reactively self-protect. And since they all share the same underlying logic and training, when they finally move, they often move all at once, together. Being an outlier increases risk, so you had better move when everyone else does.

After inaction, this in turn can lead to dramatic overreach. This tendency ends up shredding credibility in both directions—for not doing enough when it was required and for doing too much when it was not required.

Increasing censorship and control of media and social media to prevent a legitimacy crisis becomes tempting. Criticism is called misinformation. Often it really is misinformation; it’s false. But it reflects real frustration, and both true and false criticism thus become subject to censorship. Almost perfected in China, growing rapidly in Europe, at a standoff in America, this becomes one of the self-protective shells of ever-expanding big rich org modern regimes.

Without some countervailing discipline, the bureaucracies keep growing, consuming larger and larger chunks of the economy. But it’s not just the economy. Over time, big rich org logic colonizes culture, politics, and science. Big change is scary in big rich societies for the same reason it is in big rich institutions: too much downside.

So, political, cultural, and scientific contestation becomes forbidden or taboo on many key questions. Don’t cause risk or discomfort. Remember that big rich org logic is to reduce risk and discomfort. Therefore increasing risk and discomfort goes against this dominant logic. Forms of political, cultural, and scientific contestation (“free speech”) that do this are heavily disincentivized.

Experts who exemplify the institutional logic reduce politics and science to “The Science”. The Science is really just big rich org risk-averse logic that has colonized every scientific, scholarly, and political field. The Science thus essentially fuses science and politics into a hybrid that borrows legitimate parts from both but is, in a strict sense, neither.

Journalism, publishing, media, etc. all undergo the same transformation and are reshaped by the same big rich org logic.

Modern progress is conceived as more fairness, more safety, more comfort, less risk, for larger numbers of groups, as implemented by the ever-expanding bureaucracy.

Every political arrangement has an ideology that legitimizes it, and in the modern, post-scarcity, large-institution West, that’s progressivism. Classical liberalism is the legitimizing ideology of the pre-managerial, small-scale capitalist order (which ended in the 1930s–60s); remnants of classical liberalism dominate among small entrepreneurs, tech bros, etc. Evangelicalism and right-wing populism are dominant among those who work outside the big institutions and oppose them. And so on.

Progressivism—the mainstream institutional left—is thus big institution + affluence ideology—the ideology of big, rich, risk-averse institutions. It’s not really Marcuse or Marx or any particular philosopher, religion, or ethnic group; it simply is the worldview of people who live inside large, comfortable organizations. It is not “ideological capture”. It is “ideological essence” of the underlying economic-organizational form.

As institutional capacity declines and dysfunction increases, the ideology of the institutions—progressivism—radicalizes. The pie is stagnant or shrinking, criticism rises, the American dream is seen as having a big rich org job, and so the masses go to college to chase it, and competition inside big rich orgs intensifies as everyone fights over a limited number of comfortable big org jobs.

Policies—more bureaucracy—are set up to adjudicate this intensifying internal competition. That’s where affirmative action, DEI, etc. come from.

These policies are not purely top-down. Big rich societies mass-produce people whose job is to work with words, rules, and feelings rather than to build. Schools, media, universities, nonprofits, etc. all communicate that meaning and status come from “impact” and “justice”. But when people enter these institutions, there is no real frontier or growth story. One of the cheapest paths to career movement therefore is grievance and moral accusation, or facilitating it.

Pressure builds from below. It began with mass enrollment in universities in the 1960s and has only intensified since.

In big, rich, risk-averse institutions under current conditions, DEI is destiny. Its name may change, but it cannot be excised while keeping everything else the same. In practice, the existing order never fundamentally changes its own incentives or myths on purpose. That takes crisis or rival institutions built on a different logic.

We can test this easily through a cross-country comparison. In East Asia the big rich org keywords are “harmony” and “social stability” instead of “DEI” and “safety”. But this is the same reflex: suppress conflict, minimize risk, and justify a growing bureaucracy as the guardian of social and institutional order.

In America, the form of conflict to be minimized is framed along racial lines. In East Asia, the framework is more traditionally Confucian: hierarchy, seniority, “wa” (harmony), not embarrassing the group. The locally determined background ideology matters. But, same form, different flavor.

Look at a large Japanese firm or ministry: endless consensus meetings, documents that need thirty stamps, whole “compliance” and “power harassment” offices that exist to manage workplace friction and protect the institution’s image. They don’t talk about “equity and inclusion,” but the function is identical to an American DEI/HR office suite: turn every conflict into a process, absorb it in paperwork, and make sure no one ever has to take clear personal responsibility.

To purge identity politics from the American institutions would really mean to purge identity politics from the basic political grammar of American life and replace it with something else. This cannot be done by fiat by the executive. And even if it could, the same big-org risk-averse logic would simply metamorphose into a new moral language. DEI is just the American accent of a global bureaucratic language whose grammar is risk-avoidance and conflict-suppression.

Everyone is afraid to steer this leviathan because steering is seen as risky and destabilizing; indeed, it violates big rich org logic of minimizing disruption and risk. It’s a soft taboo. A kind of secular evil. Everyone is terrified of both action and inaction. Debt climbs, crisis builds, it becomes next to impossible to do really big projects, and almost nobody wants to take real responsibility for steering.

You are here. The only way out is to design institutions that reward responsibility and risk-taking, not manage decline.

This is the first: academic mobbing.

Before I go back to Texas Tech, I want to show you the pattern in its clearest form, in someone else’s life and work.

Only then does my case start to really make sense.

The Waterloo crucible

Canadian sociologist Kenneth Westhues did not set out to study mobbing.

He was not a natural dissident.

For most of his career, he was a tenured, award-winning professor at the University of Waterloo and eventually served as department chair.

He believed in committees and ethics codes.

He trusted procedure.

Then the machine ate him.

In 1991, colleagues asked him to examine the case of Jack Edmonds, a world-class mathematician who had been abruptly pushed out of his job at Waterloo.

When Westhues read the file, it did not look like a normal tenure conflict.

As he later wrote, the record showed an “extraordinary degree of craziness, hostility, intransigence, and herd mentality,” an “intense ganging-up” by colleagues and administrators against a single professor.

Edmonds was eventually restored to his position, in part because Westhues was willing to say aloud that he saw a collective campaign, not a performance dispute.

Soon after, he defended an unpopular PhD student whose achievements, he believed, exceeded those of many faculty in the department.

He stood between that student and a determined department chair. That used up his last remaining institutional capital. The pattern that had engulfed Edmonds then turned on him.

“A collective movement of colleagues and administrators had begun to form against me, a campaign they would wage for the next five years. From an active, involved member of faculty, I would be transformed with amazing speed into a beleaguered pariah.”

Between 1993 and 1998, what he later called “the Westhues case” unfolded: secret departmental meetings, mass memos declaring him unfit to supervise graduate students, an “ethics committee” that found him guilty of misconduct and demanded a public apology, character attacks on the university website while his responses were refused, newspaper coverage, and a crisis that spread across Canadian universities.

He did what everyone is told to do. What I was told to do.

He trusted procedure. He filed grievances. He attended hearings. He wrote careful responses rebutting the allegations. He played by the rules.

The rules became the weapon.

The committee set up to hear his grievances collapsed twice in arguments over wording and jurisdiction and never got past technicalities.

The Ethics Committee’s report was so one-sided that he answered it with a document listing its own rule violations: “Twenty Flaws in UW Ethics Hearing Committee Report No. 94-3.”

He later realized something critical: the more “procedure” there was, the more power—not less—the mob had to turn private hostility into official stigma.

Special tribunals and codes did not restrain the mob; they gave it a stage under cover of official authority.

The same rules that were supposed to prevent abuse became a technique for hiding it.

In 1997, after several years of conflict and public controversy, Waterloo brought in an outsider: Peter Mercer, a law dean from another university, as independent adjudicator over the last ethics case, which involved a one-month suspension of Westhues.

Mercer read roughly a thousand pages, held a proper hearing, and did something rare: he overturned the internal tribunal, exonerated Westhues, cancelled the discipline, and granted him six months of paid research leave.

The university’s president resigned soon after.

Headlines announced that the professor had been cleared. Editorials said the case had been systematically mishandled for five years.

For Westhues, it was vindication, but more importantly, confirmation that his intuition had been right:

The problem was not a few bad apples.

The problem was the structure.

Within a year—and at his insistence—Waterloo abolished the Ethics Committee and its tribunal. Complaints of “ethical misconduct” were rerouted through normal academic channels: chairs, deans, external arbitrators, ordinary courts. No permanent inquisition. No kangaroo courts.

Five years later, when he wrote up the results, the predicted disaster had not occurred. Ordinary governance handled cases at least as well—probably better—than the special tribunal ever had. His verdict was not that the committee members were evil. It was that the structure “invites chutzpah and the authoritarian exercise of power.”

It dresses up factional conflict as neutral judgment. It becomes a secular inquisition aimed not at solving a problem, but at destroying a person’s credibility.

Drawing on sociologist Harold Garfinkel’s classic work on “degradation ceremonies,” Westhues argued that court-like workplace proceedings are almost a perfect instrument for transporting a disliked colleague into disrepute. Once a colleague is under “ethics” investigation, the conversation is no longer about disagreement. It is about criminality, deviance, and expulsion.

That ordeal became Westhues’s life’s work.

What “mobbing” is

In early 1994, Westhues reached for the phrase “mob action” to describe what was happening to him.

Then he discovered the work of Swedish psychologist Heinz Leymann, who had already spent years studying the same phenomenon under another name: workplace mobbing.

Leymann described mobbing as a pattern in which coworkers “gang up” on a target and subject them to sustained psychological harassment—typically at least once a week for months or years. He developed an instrument, the Leymann Inventory of Psychological Terror, listing 45 typical mobbing actions and specifying their length and frequency to identify mobbing events.

Later authors have elaborated the definition in similar terms: a systematic, hostile and unethical campaign aimed at expelling an employee from the workplace, using gossip, humiliation, isolation, and procedural maneuvers rather than open physical violence.

The key features are:

• It is collective. There is usually a core of instigators, but the campaign spreads to others, sometimes to “the whole department.”

• It is prolonged and patterned. This is not one bad argument; it is months or years of recurring behavior.

• It uses structure. Policies, tribunals, “ethics” processes, and outside consultants are weaponized to convert social hostility into official condemnation.

• The endpoint is elimination. The goal is to drive the target out—by resignation, firing, illness, or, in the worst cases, suicide.

A 2018 review by Tatar and colleagues found that in one sample of 64 mobbing cases, more than 90% of victims met diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Recent work has sharpened the picture.

Academic mobbing in higher education is now systemic. In 2006, Westhues wrote that “mobbing is today widely accepted as part of normal academic politics.” Things have not improved since then. A 2025 bibliometric analysis in Trauma, Violence, & Abuse reviewed 600 studies on workplace mobbing and concluded that mobbing is now a recognized subfield and that both top-down and horizontal mobbing have become “widespread”.

A number of other scholars agree with this assessment, with experts at the National Communication Association writing in 2015:

In our review of extant research, Joel Neuman and I found that 25–35 percent of faculty have been targets of workplace bullying, with 40–50 percent reporting they have witnessed someone else being bullied. The communications used include threats to professional standing (e.g., rumors, gossip, dismissing ideas), isolation/ exclusion (e.g., ignoring, interrupting, turning others against them), and obstructionism (e.g., failing to provide needed resources and information, interfering in work activities). Women faculty and faculty of color appear to be at greater risk for bullying. Bullying among faculty is most often peer-to-peer, yet frequently the bullies are of senior status. Of particular note is that in approximately one-third of cases, more than one actor is involved, what Ken Westhues calls “academic mobbing.”

A 2025 review of the mental health and economic burden of mobbing estimated that about one in five workers worldwide has been exposed to workplace mobbing, and that roughly 70% of victims never report it at all. The authors highlighted not just PTSD and depression, but long-term productivity losses and costs to health systems and employers.

In other words: what happened to Westhues was not a one-off Canadian tragedy.

It was an early, unusually well-documented instance of a systemic failure mode of modern institutions now being studied around the world, including in medicine and academia.

How mobbing unfolds

From hundreds of case files across North America and Europe, Westhues distilled a typical five-stage progression.

1. Avoidance and ostracism. The target is left off emails and committees. Invitations dry up. Colleagues turn away at the coffee machine.

2. Petty harassment. Small aggressions accumulate. Office space is moved. Access is made difficult. Requests vanish into a bureaucratic void.

3. A “critical incident.” Something happens—or is framed as having happened—that “shows what kind of person he really is.” That incident becomes the pretext: something has to be done.

4. Procedural aftermath. Suddenly there are hearings, appeals, mediations, investigations. Process itself becomes the main weapon of the mob.

5. Elimination. The target quits, is fired, forced into retirement, put on disability, dies from stress-related illness—or takes their own life.

He also offered a 16-item checklist of indicators.

Some of the most important are:

• By normal criteria, the target’s performance is at least average, usually above average. Colleagues quietly resent them for “showing them up.”

• Rumors and gossip circulate about the target: “Did you hear what she did last week?”

• A single incident, real or exaggerated, is taken as proof of deep character flaws.

• Emotion-laden, defamatory rhetoric appears in emails and memos.

• Formal expressions of collective hostility emerge: petitions, votes of censure, coordinated letters.

• It becomes dangerous to defend the target; people who speak up are warned or punished.

• Established procedures are bent or ignored; the mob “takes matters into its own hands.”

• Attempts to bring in independent review are met with outrage.

• Both sides start to fear violence, even when no credible threat exists.

When you see those elements, you are not looking at an ordinary workplace conflict. You are looking at a degradation ceremony aimed at destroying a person’s standing.

For the rest of this series, I will use two simple guides:

• a five-stage map of how mobbing unfolds; and

• a sixteen-point checklist of indicators that a case has crossed the line from ordinary conflict into mobbing.

The five stages are:

1. Avoidance and ostracism. The target is left out, avoided, and quietly pushed to the margins.

2. Petty harassment. Small aggressions and inconveniences accumulate, often under cover of “procedure.”

3. A critical incident. Something happens—or is framed as having happened—that allegedly reveals “what kind of person he really is,” and becomes the pretext that “something has to be done.”

4. Procedural aftermath. Hearings, investigations, committees, evaluations. Process itself becomes the main weapon.

5. Elimination. The target resigns, is forced out, put on disability, or otherwise removed, often with a lasting stain on their reputation.

Westhues’s sixteen indicators include:

1. Above-average performance. The target is at least average, often above average, in performance or standing.

2. Rumors and gossip. Stories circulate about the target’s supposed misdeeds.

3. Exclusion. The target is left out of meetings, committees, and informal networks.

4. A “critical incident.” One event is held up as proof of who the target “really” is.

5. Punitive consensus. A shared conviction emerges that the target must be punished or removed.

6. Strange timing. Sanctions arrive at unusual times or in unusual ways.

7. Defamatory rhetoric. Emotion-laden, hostile language appears in emails, memos, and talk.

8. Formal condemnation. Petitions, votes, coordinated letters, and disciplinary findings appear against the target.

9. Secrecy and solidarity. There is a strong emphasis on confidentiality and sticking together.

10. Dangerous to defend. Defending the target becomes risky; diversity of views collapses.

11. Venial sins into a mortal sin. Minor offenses are added up into one alleged “gross” offense.

12. Stigmatizing labels. The target is portrayed as deviant, unstable, or otherwise beyond the pale.

13. Bent procedures. Established rules are ignored, bent, or selectively enforced.

14. Resistance to outside review. Attempts to bring in independent oversight are blocked or resented.

15. Punished appeals. Appeals for outside help are treated as betrayal and escalate the campaign.

16. Mutual fear. Both sides come to fear violence, even when no credible threat exists.

In later parts, I will mark, as I go, where these stages and indicators appear in the record of my own case, and place each event on a simple chronological timeline.

Who gets mobbed

Here is where the literature becomes sobering.

Standing out

Westhues’s own synthesis is blunt:

To calculate the odds of your being mobbed, count the ways you show your workmates up: fame, publications, teaching scores, connections, eloquence, wit, writing skills, athletic ability, computer skills, salary, family money, age, class, pedigree, looks, house, clothes, spouse, children, sex appeal. Any one of these will do. And don’t forget: refusing to run with the herd, any herd, is reason enough for the herd to turn on you.

Any one difference can be enough. The problem is not poor performance. The problem is standing out.

Psychiatrist James Hillard, writing in Current Psychiatry in 2009, makes a similar point. He notes that targets are often marked by any visible difference from the workgroup—ethnicity, an “odd” personality, or high achievement.

He also flags whistleblowers and union organizers as especially vulnerable, and lists academia, government, and religious organizations as high-risk environments.

Reuven Kotleras, writing in Advanced Development in 2007, focuses on highly gifted adults. Their traits—moral intensity, perfectionism, aesthetic sensitivity, overwhelming perceptiveness, “overexcitabilities,” and a search for meaning—make them stand out and sometimes irritate colleagues. Ironically, Kotleras notes, those same traits can also impair their ability to interpret what is happening to them once a mobbing begins.

A synthesis drawing on Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) data and other surveys finds that witnesses typically describe targets as compassionate, kind, cooperative, agreeable—and, crucially, often unable or unwilling to fight back.

They are, as many experts note, some of the organization’s most conscientious workers.

“Self-directed” employees

A 2024 Psychology Today piece by counselor and suicidologist Araya Baker describes what he calls self-directed employees—people who are internally motivated, creative, willing to challenge the status quo, and deeply purpose‑driven. Summarizing the research, he notes that self‑directedness correlates with purpose, resourcefulness, and self‑acceptance. These employees often become hypervisible because they challenge authoritarian, hierarchical, or paternalistic power structures.

They may be singled out as “troublemakers” or “rule-breakers,” making them prime scapegoats when envy or resentment builds. Baker argues that successful self‑directed employees can be just as vulnerable to bullying, rooted in malicious envy, as more traditional scapegoats. Once institutions label them, newer colleagues quickly learn to treat them as dangerous outliers.

High-risk professions and sectors

As mentioned, across studies, three sectors consistently show up as mobbing hot spots: academia, government, and religious organizations. These are the kinds of institutions that cloak themselves in moral language, have ambiguous goals and dense bureaucracies, and rely, in theory, on unusually conscientious, gifted, or self-directed people to function. You could hardly design a better environment for mobbing if you tried.

These are also the institutions that can least afford for mobbing to become widespread within them. Unfortunately, this may be exactly what has happened.

What mobbing does to institutions

In any safety-critical institution—hospitals, universities, labs, regulators—the basic promise is simple: people must be able to say when something is wrong without being destroyed for it. The point of these institutions is to protect patients, pursue truth, and uphold public obligations that are too important to leave to private conscience alone. The social contract of medicine depends on it.

That promise is fragile. It only takes a few visible counter-examples before people start to believe the opposite: that speaking up is dangerous, and that loyalty to medicine and public health means staying quiet.

Mobbing is what those counter-examples look like from the inside.

Most writing on mobbing focuses on the victim’s suffering. The toll is severe.

High rates of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and psychosomatic illness are reported among mobbing targets, particularly in clinical and academic settings. In severe cases—especially where mobbing is prolonged and unaddressed—suicide risk rises, confirming Westhues’s qualitative observations. Long-term disability and withdrawal from the labor force are common, particularly among highly gifted or highly specialized professionals who find it difficult to re-enter similar roles.

But the institutional costs are arguably even more steep.

If we only look at the suffering of individual targets, we miss what is most dangerous: what one mobbing episode does to the institution over time.

A single, visible mobbing episode—especially when used as retaliation for raising concerns—sets off a chain of effects:

one mobbing episode → retaliation signal → climate of fear and silence → moral injury → patient harm and institutional decay.

The rest of this section walks that chain.

One mobbing episode as informal retaliation

On paper, many institutions have zero-tolerance policies for retaliation. There is a whistleblower hotline, a code of conduct, an ethics office. The written system says: if you report misconduct, safety concerns, or legal violations, we will protect you.

In practice, when the person who raised concerns finds themselves at the center of a sustained campaign of shunning, rumor, trumped-up disciplinary procedures, and performative “investigations,” the message is unmistakable. The problem is no longer the misconduct or safety issue. The problem is the person who refused to look away.

This is where mobbing functions as a back-door retaliation system.

Instead of an official demotion or firing in direct response to a report—which would be obviously retaliatory and often illegal—the organization handles things socially. The target is isolated. Their reputation is quietly undermined. Petty rule violations are unearthed and magnified into “grounds” for formal action. Show trials and “fitness for duty” evaluations appear. On paper, no one has violated the whistleblower policy. In reality, the target is punished, and everyone can see it.

All of this sits on top of the individual-level damage described by the mobbing literature: severe psychological harm, suicidality in extreme cases, long-term disability, and withdrawal from the labor force—often among the clinicians and academics who were most invested in their work and least replaceable.

The episode is real and terrible for the person in the middle of it. But the institution-level story starts with what this episode signals to everybody else.

The retaliation signal and the climate of fear and silence

Amy Edmondson defines psychological safety as a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking—things like asking questions, admitting mistakes, or challenging decisions. In one field study of 51 teams, higher psychological safety predicted more learning behaviors (asking for help, discussing errors) and better performance. A meta-analysis of 136 samples found that psychological safety is consistently associated with higher engagement, information sharing, creativity and performance, and lower burnout.

In healthcare, work on psychological safety sharpens this further: in clinical teams, it means staff feel able to report errors, raise concerns, and ask for help without fear of punishment. A non-punitive, supportive culture is one of its defining attributes. Studies of inclusive leadership—leaders who invite input and respond supportively—show that such leadership strengthens psychological safety among nurses, which in turn increases speaking up.

But if people see that speaking up leads to embarrassment, punishment, or career damage, they update their shared belief to “it isn’t safe to speak up here.” It does not take a decade of abuse to flip that belief. A single, visible instance of retaliation can be enough.

That is what a mobbing episode does.

Everyone who watches understands that the official story—“we are just addressing performance issues” or “we are concerned about collegiality”—is less important than the unofficial lesson: if you push too hard on safety, ethics, or misconduct, we can do this to you too.

People adapt. They go quiet. Pinder and Harlos call it quiescent silence when people stay quiet out of fear and self-protection, and acquiescent silence when they stay quiet because they believe nothing will change anyway. Across studies, fear of retaliation and lack of trust in management show up again and again as central reasons people do not report problems or unethical behavior.

When supervisors and leaders use aggression and social punishment to enforce that silence, the effects are predictable. Meta-analyses of workplace aggression show that aggression from supervisors—which often includes retaliatory behavior—has strong negative effects on job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and strong positive effects on psychological strain and turnover. Whistleblowing studies tell a similar story: employees who perceive retaliation after reporting wrongdoing show lower organizational commitment and higher intentions to quit; women and employees who have less power are especially likely to experience retaliation.

When this becomes normal—when “everyone knows” that speaking up is dangerous—the organization develops a climate of silence. Fear of retaliation is widespread. Problems go unreported. Learning stalls. Errors repeat. Silence driven by fear and low trust leads directly to lost opportunities for improvement and poorer performance. Negative, fear-based climates are associated with lower job satisfaction and higher turnover. In safety-critical settings specifically, organizational trust is one of the levers connecting safety climate to actual behavior: when staff trust the organization, they are more satisfied and less likely to leave; when they do not, the opposite holds.

Now add mobbing to that.

When mobbing is tolerated as the way “difficult” staff are dealt with, it sends a simple message internally: if you raise your hand about anything important, the group may come for you.

People stop surfacing bad data, inconvenient risks, or ethical problems—not because they do not see them, but because they have seen what happens to the last person who spoke.

New research underlines how quickly this eats into the workforce. Mobbing—especially attacks on professional status—turns out to be one of the strongest predictors of degraded quality of work life among early-career clinical nurses. This erodes engagement and drives attrition in exactly the cohort—young, trainable clinicians just starting their careers—you most need to keep.

By now, one mobbing episode has turned into something else: a generalized climate of fear and silence.

Moral injury: what this does inside people

There is another cost, less visible but just as corrosive: moral injury.

Litz and colleagues define moral injury as the lasting emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual distress that can follow perpetrating, failing to prevent, or witnessing acts that violate deeply held moral beliefs—or experiencing betrayal by trusted authorities.

In healthcare and other civilian roles, research on moral injury shows strong associations with burnout, depression, PTSD symptoms, and intentions to leave the profession. Causes include being forced to provide care workers believe is unsafe or inadequate, or feeling betrayed or abandoned by leadership. During and after COVID-19, several studies emphasized betrayal-based moral injury—feeling let down by institutional leaders—as both common and strongly correlated with distress.

Retaliation against staff who raise safety or ethical concerns is a textbook example of institutional betrayal. The target experiences betrayal by the very system that is supposed to rely on—and protect—their moral vigilance.

But it does not end there.

A recent systematic review of witnessing workplace bullying found that observers—not just targets—show increased stress, emotional exhaustion, and lower job satisfaction. Work on bystanders and moral courage shows a similar pattern: people who witness harm, believe it is wrong, and feel unable to intervene often experience guilt, shame, and lingering moral distress.

By the time the climate of fear and silence has set in, the damage is not only cognitive (“it isn’t safe to speak up”) but moral (“this place betrays people who try to do the right thing”). Mobbing therefore injures not only the person under attack, but also the colleagues who watch in horror and feel they can do nothing. Even those “untouched” by the formal conflict lose commitment.

At this stage in the chain, the institution has created a workforce that is afraid, ashamed, and increasingly detached. That has predictable consequences for the people they are supposed to serve. In healthcare, that’s patients.

From silence to harm: patient safety and institutional integrity

In medicine, the consequences are brutal and concrete. Communication failures among clinicians are a major cause of medical errors and adverse events. Studies of incident reports and root-cause analyses repeatedly identify speaking up about safety concerns as crucial for preventing harm and improving the safety culture.

At the same time, nurses and other clinicians often cite fear of retaliation, fear of being labelled “difficult,” and a belief that nothing will change as central reasons they do not report unsafe care or challenge more senior staff. An integrative review of employee silence in healthcare between 2016 and 2022 confirms that silence is common and is linked to poorer staff well-being and safety outcomes.

Systematic reviews of psychological safety in healthcare teams show that higher psychological safety is associated with greater error reporting and, in several studies, better objective patient-safety outcomes—fewer complications, fewer preventable adverse events, fewer reported errors that reach the patient.

Conversely, investigations of hospital systems with high rates of avoidable harm or avoidable deaths repeatedly describe a “culture of fear”: staff intimidated or bullied after raising concerns, whistleblowers pushed out, and widespread reluctance to speak up. These reports explicitly link fear of reprisals to unsafe care and failure to learn from errors.

When an institution retaliates against dissent—especially dissent tied to safety, ethics, or law—it is not just trimming an inconvenient branch. It is sawing through one of the main load-bearing beams of patient safety: the willingness of staff to speak up.

Reviews on the economics of mobbing underline the broader institutional damage. They highlight lost productivity from presenteeism and absenteeism, increased errors and poorer service (especially in health care), recruitment and training costs when experienced staff leave, and growing legal exposure as courts and regulators begin to recognize mobbing and “moral harassment” as actionable harms.

Put differently, mobbing does not just hurt individuals; it undermines competence and information flow and creates institutional dysfunction. It tells everyone exactly how the system responds when someone insists on accuracy, ethics, or patient safety.

By this point in the chain, the institution is not just morally compromised; it is less accurate, less safe, and less capable.

Long-term selection and hollowing-out

Outside healthcare, the same pattern appears. Surveys in large companies and public bodies routinely find that fear of retaliation is the main reason employees do not report discrimination, harassment, fraud, or other misconduct.

Major regulators—EEOC, OSHA, DOJ—now explicitly frame retaliation as a direct threat to compliance and safety because it chills reporting. Research on ethical leadership shows that when leaders are seen as self-serving or unethical, fear of retaliation stays high and employees keep problems to themselves, increasing risk for the organization..

Now add what the mobbing literature says about who tends to be targeted. The typical target is above-average in performance, unusually conscientious or gifted, self-directed enough to challenge bad policy, and morally sensitive enough to notice when the institution is lying to itself.

Over time, a system that drives such people out—or forces them into silence—selects for a different type: conformists over innovators, bureaucratic survivors over vocation-driven professionals, people who will not risk their standing to tell the truth.

That selection runs straight into the leadership pipeline. These are not the people institutions want in leadership, yet toxic feedback loops put them there. Over decades, the damage compounds and cascades through the institution. This is not a small risk; the curve for exceptional leaders has a razor-thin tail. These processes thin it even further and leave mediocre, sometimes unethical leadership in their place.

The result is institutions that look stable on paper but are hollowed out in reality. They become less able to correct error, respond to crises, provide competent services, or avoid repeating the same harms on the next generation.

At the start of the chain, it looks like “one difficult employee” being “managed.” By the end, it is what it really is: a system selecting against the people it most needs and quietly training everyone else to look away.

That is not just my problem.

It is your problem if you ever need a competent doctor, scientist, or teacher—or any well-functioning institution at all.

What Europe and the law are starting to do about mobbing

If this were just about hurt feelings, the law would not care. Increasingly, it does.

Across Europe, several jurisdictions now explicitly prohibit “moral harassment” or psychological mobbing in the workplace. French labor law, for example, bans repeated acts that deteriorate working conditions and harm dignity, health, or career prospects. Recent French appellate decisions have found employers liable for moral harassment and imposed significant damages. In the France Télécom case, the company (now Orange) and several executives were criminally convicted of collective moral harassment after a wave of employee suicides. The courts held that a deliberate restructuring strategy created an intolerable climate of “management by terror”.

Luxembourg has gone the route of a specific anti-mobbing statute. A 2023 law inserted a chapter on psychological harassment into the Labour Code, imposing obligations on employers to prevent and stop harassment. Spanish courts have treated mobbing (“acoso moral”) as an “occupational risk” that can trigger compensation regimes similar to those for industrial accidents.

In parallel, the field is institutionalizing intellectually. The Niagara Conference on Workplace Mobbing, first held in 2024 and continuing in 2025, explicitly aims to establish mobbing as a multidisciplinary scholarly field. The World Association for Research on Workplace Mobbing now publishes the Journal of Workplace Mobbing, whose inaugural issue collects papers from that conference.

In plain language:

• the phenomenon has a name;

• it has validated measurement tools and checklists;

• it has conferences and a peer-reviewed journal;

• and it is starting to reshape labor law, occupational-safety regulation, and case law.

Institutions that normalize mobbing as an informal governance mechanism are not just hurting people. They are placing themselves on the wrong side of a legal and scholarly consensus and inviting years of litigation, regulation, and discovery—not only with me, but with anyone else they decide to handle this way.

Why policies and procedures are not enough

If you stopped reading here, you might think the solution is obvious: more policies, better procedures, stricter enforcement. That is how modern institutions usually imagine reform.

The problem is that procedures can also be used to run the mob. A university can write an anti-mobbing policy with one hand and, with the other, convene a “professionalism” or “fitness” hearing that quietly excludes exonerating evidence, frames dissent as pathology, and delivers a foregone conclusion. On paper, every box is checked. In practice, the message to insiders is clear: if you create trouble, the machinery will come for you.

Europe’s new legal measures matter because they finally name the harm. But my case—and Westhues’s work on hundreds of cases before me—suggest that the deeper issue is not the absence of policies. It is the ease with which institutions weaponize their own procedures against the people who try to correct them, all behind the cloak of institutional legitimacy.

This series is, in part, an attempt to make that pattern visible. Later in this series, I will argue that academic mobbing is one of the blind spots of the proceduralist ideal: the belief that if the rules are written correctly, the institution will govern itself. In that world, even an anti-mobbing policy will serve the mob: it lends a veneer of legitimacy to what is, in substance, a status degradation ceremony.

In that world, even an anti-mobbing policy will serve the mob: it lends a veneer of legitimacy to what is, in substance, a status degradation ceremony.

What’s next

By now we have a working language for academic mobbing: the five-stage progression, the sixteen indicators, the risk profile of typical targets, the institutional chain from retaliation signal to moral injury to institutional hollowing-out, and the emerging legal recognition of “moral harassment.” By those standards, what happened to me at Texas Tech was not an idiosyncratic tragedy, but a textbook case of mobbing in a medical school.

From this point on, this series will have two living guides:

- the Westhues map above, where I will mark which stages and indicators have appeared; and
- a simple chronological timeline of my case, showing when each event occurred.

In the next part, I will begin filling in both. I will start where Part I and Part II left off: with the alleged “threat” that never made it into my dismissal hearing, was abandoned by the person who raised it, and yet somehow continued to circulate inside the institution. As that story unfolds, I will mark where it fits the stages and indicators described here, and I will place each step on the timeline.

In that episode, you can see the whole machine begin to move. A rumor becomes an allegation; an allegation becomes a pretext; a pretext becomes hearings, evaluations, and paperwork; and the record itself warps around it, as the facts are made to fit the story rather than the other way around. If you want to understand the mechanics of what happened to me—and what can happen to anyone who crosses a modern institution—that is the thread to follow. Part IV will pick it up.

This is Part II of The Record and the Wound, my attempt to make public what usually stays hidden when a medical school quietly destroys someone’s career. In Part I, I laid out the record: evidence that Texas Tech edited my dismissal hearing, and the public-records fight that followed. Here, I want to talk about something harder to document: what that did to me, why I refuse to disappear, and what I think the wound is for.

In Part I I said the next post would cover the “threat” I was accused of; that will now be Part IV after this piece and one on academic mobbing. I think will make that episode and what follows easier to understand.

I was dismissed from Texas Tech’s medical school after my criticism of the COVID-19 response went intensely viral on Twitter/X—seen by more than a hundred million times, regularly amplified by high-profile scientists and commentators, and followed by a sustained mobbing campaign, especially from other physicians, that washed back into my institution in the form of reputational panic and complaints. Only then did I discover that even the official record of my dismissal hearing appears to have been altered—a fight I began to document in Part I.

I need to say plainly why I keep returning to this story. And why I am escalating.

I didn’t set out to have a fight with a big institution, or to build some grand theory about how they work. For most of my life, I tried to play by the rules and move forward inside the system. I did not change. What changed was what happened to me.

If none of this had happened, I would still be in the clinic, doing the work and minding my own business. I am not a born crusader; social media was always just a hobby, and if I ever came across otherwise, it was only because that was the vehicle through which important ideas had to be carried. I wanted to make a difference, but I always thought that would come as a hobby as a physician. The only reason I’m writing any of this is that the system I trusted turned on me and left me with a choice: swallow it quietly and collude in it, or follow the logic of what had been done all the way out into the open.

Most people today talk about a “career” in medicine. “Career” is a word that exploded in usage in the 1950s to describe what we call a profession. It rose in response to massification and bureaucratization of the professions and the thinning out of their thick, moral character—what some scholars have called deprofessionalization.

I believe in something more than a career. I believe in medicine as a vocation. Vocation comes from the Latin word vocatio. It means to be called. I believe in medicine—and science—as a calling. For me, this is not a “career.” It never was.

I do not expect vindication. I cannot afford to pin everything on that. What if I do not get it? One thing I can do, though, is tell the truth. It is what I believe that I am called to science and medicine to do.

And I can do a little more than that, too. Something that has a small chance of making this about something more than me. I can contextualize my story. I can diagnose the system. Then I can try to make it better.

That’s medicine.

And so that’s what I will do. I will use my story to illustrate the larger patterns that are harming medicine and public health.

What happens to people like me

I was subjected to complete reputation destruction. It happened externally through social media mobs, internally through mobs that weaponized procedure, but also through internal–external channels, where social media mobs, mostly doctors, amplified the internal destruction. It continues unceasingly to the present day. There is no returning for me to science or medicine.

When an institution systematically destroys the reputation of one of its members, there are a few paths that people take.

Most disappear. Recently I was told a story about an extremely accomplished MD/PhD, a professor of medicine with elite credentials, who, after something similar happened to him, now works as a tennis instructor. He keeps quiet and avoids his former colleagues. His entire life’s work wiped out. And so now he teaches rich people tennis.

Others fight. It goes through the courts. It is interminable and exhausting. Then, just at the last minute, the institution offers a settlement to avoid discovery. Excited for things to finally be over—vindication!—the victim agrees. NDAs are signed. Money exchanges hands. Then, the victim seeks jobs. They interview at dozens of institutions. They are offered contracts. Then, ghosted. Over and over and over.

It’s the “whispers”, as some of us have come to call them. If someone who fights an institution goes on to be successful somewhere else, that makes the institution look bad. So that isn’t allowed to happen. Daggers are drawn in private. Apparent vindication is in fact an illusion. The victim is right back where they started, with settlement money, unable to pursue their life’s calling.

This is not victory.

Once an institution turns against you, and especially once they use underhanded means to do it, you’re done. They have dehumanized you. And if they have dehumanized you, then, well, I am reminded of the dark line from the Roman historian Tacitus (Agricola 42.3):

It is characteristic of human nature to hate those you have injured.

When we cause injury to others, we are even more predisposed not to help them or remedy the situation—not more. In fact, we are downright averse to it: “what does that say about me, that I would hurt an innocent person?” Thus, those in institutions instinctively shut down. They do not correct the situation. They rationalize their behavior.

It’s just the way things are.

The problem is not just psychological either. It’s structural. After such an abuse of power, if these institutions don’t do everything they can to obstruct every procedural remedy, they expose themselves not just to career and reputational damage, they also become exposed to cumbersome oversight and future litigation.

Even if they know internally that the victim is right, they will never admit to it. And they will do everything that they can to prevent that from coming to light. If the victim tries to move on, they will drag daggers in private at every opportunity, because success of a victim later threatens to provide credibility, invert the narrative about what happened, and make the institution look bad and bring about all of the above.

If the destruction isn’t complete, you’ll limp along. “It will never be the same,” one physician told me. That physician kept his practice. But the damage was done: “It will never be the same.”

But if the destruction is complete, what then? Daggers behind the scenes.

Look. For the things I wanted to achieve in medicine, I’m finished. “It will never be the same” is right.

The two honest options

At that point, there are only two honest options. You can disappear, call it a private tragedy, and build some second life on the ruins. Or you can refuse to disappear; you can decide that if your own career is already gone, the one thing you still control is whether what happened stays hidden.

I am choosing the second. After what I’ve seen, doing anything else would feel like colluding in a lie about what happened. Given how I’m wired, there is only one path: tell the truth. Expose everything. Bring it all out in the open. Never quit.

Then the daggers disappear.

So that is what I am going to do. And in the process, I will build something else. I don’t have a choice.

What I’m not doing this for

Given this, it is worth dispelling two misconceptions.

I am not doing this for attention. Although I can at times command large audiences, this is not my interest at present. The basic story of my dismissal has already reached far more people than I ever expected. That has not resolved the problem. So attention is not my aim—though I will use it when it serves that aim.

Nor am I driven mainly by anger or a desire for revenge. What happened to me is outrageous, but anger is a bad operating system. In cases like mine, those responsible are almost never held accountable. Whatever private consequences they may face, none of it enters the public ledger. Only allegations about me do. That’s the structure of these conflicts: the institution with power remains opaque, while the individual without it is scrutinized.

No amount of “naming names” will change that, and even in the best-case legal outcome, the compensation would be modest and the past would not be undone. Revenge, even if it were possible, would be self-indulgent and would miss the point: what happened to me is a symptom of a broader failure.

That is not the same thing as forgiveness. I do not forgive what was done. I am not going to pretend it was acceptable, or offer a cheap public absolution so that everyone can feel comfortable again. I will not anesthetize myself—or anyone else—to the reality of what happened.

Turning injury into moral formation

Today, moral injury is usually spoken of as trauma. “I’m traumatized.” “That traumatized me.” The dominant response is therapeutic: regulate your emotions, “let go,” “move on,” treat the injury as a private psychological wound to be managed.

I do not deny that people are wounded. I have been wounded. But I think something essential is missing in that framing.

When I refuse unilateral forgiveness and “just move on,” I am not clinging to my hurt for its own sake. I am saying that serious injustice ought to work on us—morally. The right question is not “How do I stop feeling this?” but “What does this require of me?”

What if we treated moral injury not mainly as trauma, but as material for moral formation? Not as something that just happens to us, but something that happens for us, if we are willing to learn from it. Not something to dissolve for our own comfort, but something to metabolize so that we are less likely to participate in similar harm ourselves.

The word holy comes from the Proto-Germanic hailagaz. It means that which is inviolate, whole, unbroken, preserved from defilement. From the same root we get wholeness, holistic, and health. Wholeness, in this sense, is not about avoiding harm. It is about refusing to let harm hollow out our moral core.

Maybe, instead of “letting go” in the therapeutic sense, we need to let the wound sit in us long enough to understand it. Process it. Search for solutions. Stay curious. Then act on it, and let that make us into something bigger and stronger.

If we rush to escape our pain, we create more of it in the long term by never really addressing the injury. We become morally, spiritually, and psychologically weak.

Refusing to anesthetize ourselves to injustice does not have to corrode us. It draws new moral boundaries, sharpens our sense of right and wrong, and gives us a clearer map of life. It can make us stronger. If we never do that work—internally or externally—we stay morally ambiguous. And sooner or later, we will do the same thing to someone else that was done to us. It happened to me.

So what is my motivation?

My motivation is to tell the truth about what happened, to identify the failure mode(s) that produced it, and to do what I can to make this less likely to happen to someone else. Along the way, I want to see how the dysfunction in this one place connects to dysfunction elsewhere in the country—and what people like us can actually do about it.

In the process, I will form myself. I don’t really have a choice about that. I’m ready to do the work I wanted to do, but the way my institution handled things makes that impossible. So I’m going to make the best of it and use it as the starting point for something else.

There is another way to describe all of this, which is the one I hinted at earlier: a vocation, a calling. I didn’t choose it in advance, but I choose it now.

After FDR, this model became unintelligible and taboo. American discourse began treating charismatic leadership as suspect, invoking the specter of totalitarianism. Even FDR was retroactively reframed as a risk.

You can see this shift if you compare how people talk about FDR’s “bold experiments” to how we now talk about “norms and institutions.”

But that’s the textbook version of what happened. It is also probably wrong.

Post-New Deal governance produced a powerful administrative state that became the de facto political regime in America—what people now refer to when they say “deep state.” It also generated a professional-managerial ideology that soon set the terms of Western political culture. In practice, it:

• elevated bureaucratic autonomy over political leadership

• treated visible elite cohesion as inherently dangerous

• in political science, quietly sidelined classical elite theory—the one framework that could have explained both the old pattern and what replaced it

• trained media to treat “neutral experts” and their agencies as the “legitimate” voices, even though that neutrality rarely existed in practice

The result is a decaying administrative state paired with a political culture that lacks the language required for legitimate renewal—and a culture that, over time, has become suspicious of the one mechanism that historically achieved it: strong leadership.

This arrangement has suited the administrative states that shaped contemporary Western political discourse: it has consistently reinforced their claim to political legitimacy. It has been far less kind to the countries they preside over.

Our political vocabulary no longer contains the concepts needed to describe what Washington, Lincoln, FDR—or many non-American leaders—actually did, or how democratic leadership is supposed to respond to crisis, present or future.

Any serious talk of coordinated leadership, even in democratic terms, is now reflexively labeled “fascism.” Every strong leader is treated as “potentially another fascist.” In most cases, such leaders bear no resemblance to fascists—or to the political cultures that produced fascism. Post-WW2 political culture has, in effect, lost the ability to distinguish between authoritarianism and strong democratic leadership.

If administrative-state ideology led us here, the irony is piercing: the system protecting itself is the system destabilizing itself.

America’s universities are collapsing under bureaucracy, politicization, and loss of purpose. The world’s most productive research system once emerged from a similar crisis: 19th-century Germany. We can do it again.

At its scientific peak in the late 19th century, despite being 3% of the world’s population, Germany produced 50% of its scientific papers, 1/3 of Nobel Prizes, and founded every major modern scientific field and institution type used in modern science.

The seminar, the research laboratory, the Ph.D., tenure, and most foundational modern scientific methodological approaches were developed in the 19th century under the German system.

A proposal: an autonomous experimental neo-Humboldtian research university

My growing conviction is that, to address the crisis of legitimacy and dysfunction in America’s universities, America should prototype experimental universities along the same NEO-HUMBOLDTIAN lines.

I believe it is not enough to reform the universities.

Decades of corruption, sclerosis, and bureaucracy make turning the ship around quickly almost impossible. We don’t have time, and the administrators will not cooperate even if we did.

It will take decades to reform America’s universities, and the student quality from our best institutions is at an all-time low.

We need something new now.

In other words, the strategy: reform the existing universities from the top--as Trump is doing--while also producing pressure from the bottom through radical innovation rooted in the past--which is what this proposal would do.

Revive the spirit and principles; keep only the innovations that work; discard the rest

Currently, American research universities have greatly degenerated to precisely the opposite of the original Humboldtian model. They are universities in the Humboldtian image without its soul--stuck mimicking a system that is a century outdated in a large number of ways.

Just look at medical education--founded, correctly, on the Humboldtian model imported through Hopkins and then through the Flexner report, but now a century outdated.

Thus, the point is not to rehash the innovations or systems of the Humboldtian system, but to revive its spirit of innovation itself in a prototype form.

This is, by the way, exactly how the original Humboldtian system was founded--as a prototype in 1910 in Berlin, that then because of its successes spread like wildfire through Prussia then throughout the world.

AI engineering meets education in the 21st century

To do this, we should be tech-forward: update existing institutional models not by layering new technologies over them, but by reimagining all of education from the ground up in a tight-knit, small-scale, closed university run entirely by the scholars and scientists--and a cadre of cutting edge AI and engineering faculty.

Constitutional carve-out and scientific funding reform

To do replicate the Humboldtian model in 21st century America, a constitutional statutory carve-out for an autonomous experimental university would need to be made by Congress. This is the only way such an experimental university might be possible, for reasons that will become obvious in a moment.

There are many more details.

To take just one example, scientific funding requires radical reform to eliminate the problem of the research precariat--which severely degrades scientific quality--with hard money and funding passed as a block to the institution, with allocations happening not at the federal but by the institute director at the institute level. (This was also how the Humboldtian system worked, as well as many of the other famously productive corporate and state research systems.)

And much more, including safeguards and guardrails that are of especial importance for maintaining autonomy in a modern American democracy in the age of the Internet.

Ten principles

A full discussion of this will come later--here, on my website, and in my book. So consider this an introduction.

For now, here are ten ways that American universities fall short of Humboldtian principles--and ways that a proposed experimental, autonomous university based on Humboldtian principles would be radically different.

I. Purpose of the University

Modern American university: The university exists for credentialing, revenue, and compliance. Learning is justified by “career outcomes,” “diversity metrics,” or “return on investment.” The idea of truth is replaced by “impact,” “relevance,” and “equity.”

Humboldtian Principle: The university exists for truth-seeking and human formation (Bildung). Knowledge is pursued for its own sake because truth ennobles both the individual and the nation. Credentials are not sought for their own sake, but the world’s most elite professionals and civil servants will nonetheless be produced as a byproduct.

II. Relation Between Teaching and Research

Modern American university: Teaching and research are administratively separated. Teaching is outsourced to adjuncts and graduate students; research is bureaucratized into grant cycles, metrics, and compliance regimes. Discovery and education now live in different silos.

Humboldtian Principle: Teaching is research. Professors think with students in real time. Inquiry and instruction are one continuous act. Knowledge is not closed, but open. Answers are not sought, but questions.

III. Freedom

Modern American university: Freedom is replaced by governance. Professors operate under HR policy, DEI review, and risk management. Students follow mandated curricula. The ideal of liberty yields to “safe learning environments.”

Humboldtian Principle:
Two freedoms define the university’s soul:
Lehrfreiheit: freedom of professors to teach and investigate without constraint.
Lernfreiheit: freedom of students to choose teachers and shape their intellectual path.

IV. Structure of Authority

Modern American university: Universities are ruled by administrative bureaucracies: compliance officers, diversity deans, general counsels, and communications staff. The ratio of administrators to faculty exceeds 1:1 at many institutions.

Humboldtian Principle: Scholars govern themselves through peer review and intellectual merit. Quality is guaranteed by direct oversight by the faculty. Standards for graduation and promotion are exacting, intense, exclusive. The state provides funds, not directives.

V. Epistemology: What Counts as Knowledge

Modern American university: Knowledge is increasingly subordinated to politics, marketability, or identity. “Research excellence” is measured by citation indices, funding levels, or social alignment, not intellectual rigor.

Humboldtian Principle: Wissenschaft: disciplined inquiry in any field, whether natural or human. All truth-seeking bound by method, not ideology.

VI. The Scholar’s Vocation

Modern American university: Academia is a career industry. Scholars are entrepreneurs of reputation, navigating metrics, branding, and institutional politics. The vocation becomes performative rather than contemplative.

Humboldtian Principle: Scholarship is a moral calling: a life of disciplined inquiry, patience, and devotion to truth.

VII. The Student’s Role

Modern American university: The student is a customer. Learning is an entitlement; intellectual discomfort is a customer service failure. Education is consumption.

Humboldtian Principle: The student is an apprentice investigator, learning the methods of truth, shaping mind and soul, morally and intellectually.

VIII. The State’s Role

Modern American university: The state funds higher education as workforce training and social management. Universities are instruments of policy, regulation, and cultural messaging.

Humboldtian Principle: The state guarantees independence. It funds scholarship to secure truth, not ideology. Paradoxically, through its independence, its fruits strengthen American national power.

IX. Institutional Ethos

Modern American university: Rule proliferation, low trust, and procedural control. The university is a compliance apparatus built atop a hedge fund, spiraling morale up by public relations professionals, with classrooms attached.

Humboldtian Principle: Few rules, high trust, and personal accountability. The university is a community of free minds.

X. Outcome

Modern American university: A self-replicating engine of an endlessly expanding administration: compliance units, risk offices, DEI bureaucracies, Title IX departments. It produces managers of optics and virtue signals rather than discoverers of truth.

Humboldtian System: A self-replicating engine of discovery: the laboratory, the seminar, the Ph.D., the scientific institute. It gave the world the modern research university. It’s time to revive it—and give it a 21st century upgrade.

Wrapping up

In the coming posts on this topic, I’ll outline the full story of the origins of the Humboldtian model, how it achieved such extraordinary successes the core features it shares in common with other famously productive models, how 21st-century American neo-Humboldtian prototype could actually be built, and how the prototype, and, if successful, its daughter institutions, could coexist with other research university institutions in the United States and how these and K-12 institutions could be reformed to complement it.

If consciousness ends, meaning ends with it.
The end of the world would not just destroy life—it would erase the fact that anything ever mattered.

Pascal’s Wager: if Christianity is true and you reject faith, you face damnation; therefore it is rational to believe.

Atheist reply: if you believe and Christianity is false, you risk delusion on top of annihilation; better honest oblivion than comfortable delusion.

Pascal’s counter: if oblivion awaits either way, why not prefer the “delusion” that yields a meaningful life now--and, if you bet right, salvation.

My move: invert the wager and follow the logic the other way--toward the world.

I’m not a Christian, though Christianity seems to be all I can think about these days. And I’m speaking plainly about what I’ve been thinking. I want one thing: for my life to mean something. And if Christianity is not true, then all the faith in the world can’t help.

Let’s assume, without intervention, 100% certain individual, collective, and universal obliteration: individual obliteration with each death, collective obliteration with the death of the species, and universal obliteration with the death of the universe. Call this Obliteration.

Standard cosmology points that way (heat death), even if details are disputed.

Obliteration hollows talk of values, morality, ethics. If nothing endures--no persons, no peoples, no memory--then words like truth, justice, integrity are just neurochemistry. Molecules. Meat. Virtue may feel better (or it may not), but without witness or continuation it has no standing beyond the moment. Obliteration is emptiness, not just in the future, but today. If no one remains to answer for truth, justice, or responsibility, these virtues flatten. They become mere moods.

Classical Christianity fully answers Obliteration by promising new creation; it did not need to answer the immanent, physical obliteration now visible to us. The modern world has opened that horizon--civilizational death, species death, solar death, and cosmic heat death--in a way the Fathers could have never comprehended.

Enter Christianity’s answer--and the modern wrinkle.

For more than a thousand years, classical Christian theology from Augustine through Luther has said that God’s providence works through His instruments: us. Per Aquinas: grace does not destroy nature but perfects it. In plain terms: grace reject nature or civic life, as some seem to imply today; it elevates it. Human work is the vessel of providence.

Let’s ask why Obliteration matters to us. We fear death, yes, but we can tolerate the idea of dying. What we truly fear is that our lives might not matter--that everything was in vain. Our hopes, our dreams, our loves and our suffering: we do not want these to have been for nothing. The threat of Obliteration makes them less than nothing: an illusion.

Christianity answers that fear by grounding meaning in a transcendent, eternal reality--each person bears cosmic significance in relation to God--and by commanding forms of life that, when practiced, increase human flourishing.

Back to Obliteration. Hell is terrible; Obliteration is universal. If we are headed for it, everyone goes. Pascal feared an eternal loss; Obliteration is that, and more.

Under Obliteration, the old quarrel--”honest oblivion” vs. “comforting delusion”--is nonsensical. If the end is absolute erasure, the question is not whether we flatter ourselves, but whether anything we care about--including honesty or avoiding delusions--matters.

What feels true now doesn’t matter if those feelings will be obliterated, all trace wiped away, without consequence.

What remains from Pascal’s Wager: if Christianity is true, you should believe, because only then can you avoid both Hell and annihilation.

The Second Wager says: act as if Obliteration can be conquered--by building a world that outlast us.

Now, Christianity asks a lot: creation, revelation, miracle, resurrection, judgment, a love that outlives death. I don’t hold those beliefs; I do understand why, if they’re true, meaning is permanently secured. If they are true, that settles the question.

Obliteration poses two basic problems: can humanity be saved, and can the universe be saved?

We are not bargaining for personal immortality; we are asking whether our shared life can bear significance beyond our lifespans--and, if possible, across epochs.

We are asking a similar question as Christians do: can some future life help safeguard the meaning of our own?

So, can we save humanity? Yes: make humans interplanetary--then interstellar.

The universe is harder: whether heat death is inescapable is unsettled, and whether any finite civilization could alter cosmic boundary conditions is unknown. That uncertainty is a reason to fund the long‑shot physics that could lengthen the window of meaning.

If Christianity is true and we work, we gain salvation and steward creation. If it is true and we refuse to work, souls may be saved but history is wasted. If Christianity is false and we work, we still preserve meaning for as long as the cosmos allows. If it is false and we refuse to work, Obliteration erases everything. In every case, working is the rational bet.

This does not contradict Pascal’s Wager; it completes it. Pascal’s Wager asks for our transcendent salvation. The Second Wager asks for our commitment to history.

A merely therapeutic half‑Christianity misses the point: if everything is erased, “helpful” is just a way to manage our moods.

Pascal’s wager still holds: avoiding Hell is a decisive reason to believe if Christianity is true.

So follow the logic into the world.

In short, the Second Wager: act as if Obliteration can be resisted--not to usurp heaven, but to preserve the field on which souls are born, love, and choose. The first wager refuses Hell by faith; the second refuses Nothing by work. They are not the same, but they are not enemies.

The danger is Babel. Building against death without faith is a revolt. Building with it is stewardship. The Bible asks this of us, too.

If we accept Pascal’s Wager, coherence pushes us to accept its worldly corollary: bet--not on securing salvation, which lies beyond us--but on resisting Obliteration by building.

Objection: you can’t hedge both. Reply: they run on different axes--faith orders ultimate ends; work orders proximate means. They are complementary. In fact, they may be essentially linked.

If Obliteration is true and Christianity false, either we vanish or we prolong meaning by rescuing ourselves; if Christianity is true, the first wager decides eternity and the second governs what we do with history.

So what should a sane civilization do on Monday morning? A practical program toward preserved meaning: build civilizational redundancy (interplanetary habitats and hardened Earth systems); strengthen innovation capacity (real meritocracy; strong scientific institutions); reduce tail risks (biosecurity, nuclear safety, planetary defense); expand energy abundance (fission now; serious fusion research); pursue long‑horizon physics/engineering (reversible computation; extreme‑astrophysics energy capture); and found institutions mandated to think on century‑to‑millennium horizons, with memory and governance designed to outlast leaders.

The Second Wager asks for less metaphysical assent than faith--and far more action.

“Belief in progress” means specific commitments to preserve civilization and consciousness in time.

Does this go beyond what Christianity asks? Christianity asks for faith; the Second Wager asks for work.

We do not know if we can achieve any of this; prudence says try.

Obliteration is, in one crucial respect, worse than Hell: it erases even the memory of the good. If Wagers are rational against a lesser bad (Hell), they are at least as rational against the greater bad (absolute erasure).

So if the First Wager supports faith in Christ, the Second Wager supports civilizational investment in the scientific and institutional capacities that might defy Obliteration.

Christianity promises to ground meaning in a transcendent reality and to save humanity from obliteration by a life that does not perish.

A technological worldview cannot guarantee eternity, but it can extend the time horizon of human meaning--across planets, stars, eons--and deepen understanding of the created order.

This is not transhumanism. Exceeding biological or earthly limits will not cancel sin. Resources will remain scarce; desire always outruns supply; sin can never be engineered away. Stewardship is not utopian.

I believe in technological progress ordered to the worldly preservation of humanity--not a guarantee of eternity, but a disciplined attempt to expand time for the good if Christianity is false.

If the good deserves to endure, then either God secures it by eternity or we must buy time for it in history. I don’t possess the first assurance; I accept the second responsibility.

Classical Christian theology says that even if humans fail to act as instruments of divine providence, God will still find a way to fulfill His promises.

Pray toward eternity; build against Obliteration. If God makes all things new, our labor is gathered up; if not, let the labor itself carry the good--beacon to beacon, age to age. Lights fail; the line endures. We refuse Obliteration.

This first episode is just me, a laptop camera, and a short introduction. The production will sharpen as we go.

I’m Kevin Bass: scientist, writer, and the guy you might know from Forbidden Science and The Kevin Bass Show.

A couple of years ago, I argued that science and public health had to admit where we got COVID wrong and rebuild trust the hard way: through honesty, humility, and stronger institutions.

I still believe that—more than ever.

This relaunch has a simple mission: medicine, public health, and science—under pressure.

We’ll map where politicization bent and destroyed the truth, how today’s headlines keep revealing the same fractures, and what it would take to make our institutions strong, independent, worthy of confidence, and capable of genuine progress again.

We’ll do two kinds of work here.

First, the old-school debunks: the clear, sourced takedowns I did before 2023 on nutrition and health claims: evidence vs. marketing, mechanisms vs. outcomes, and what the data really say.

Second, we’ll zoom out to the big picture.

If you don’t understand why institutions have become dysfunctional, you keep treating symptoms.

To understand why institutions fail, we’ll draw from history, sociology, and political theory: thinkers who study how societies rise and fragment, how elites and institutions lose legitimacy, and how power disguises itself as truth.

That might mean Peter Turchin one week, René Girard or Curtis Yarvin the next.

We’ll also talk political theology: how authority actually works in emergencies, and how America’s own religious inheritance, our civil religion, shapes what we treat as sacred in public life.

Understanding that helps explain both the overreach and the backlash—and points to reforms that the American people can trust.

Each week brings two episodes:

– A solo deep dive, part article and part investigation—each one fusing debunking and theory-building.
– An interview, a serious conversation with a critic or collaborator.

This isn’t just a show.

It’s my working process for writing my book: an ongoing inquiry into what broke our institutions and how to rebuild them.

I’ll keep publishing, every week, until that work is done.

Listen to the first episode on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

All updates and materials: kevinnbass.com | @kevinnbass

This Substack will be Sectioned. Meaning, you will be able to select to receive posts from just one or more of the following sections. Click “Manage Subscription” → “Sections” to select what you want to receive. I will repeat this instruction a few times in this post.

I have started posting frequently again. I wanted to pull some threads together. OK, all of them. And explain the through-line, as it were.

Brutal honesty. In the coming days, weeks, months, many of you will hate some of my articles. I ardently believe that if you like everything that I write, I’m doing a terrible job. It would mean that I’m playing to one side or another. But the problems run deeper than most of the sides are willing to acknowledge. So I have no choice but to go across sides and make people mad. It’s the only way to get where I believe we as a society need to go.

So I hope you hate some of my articles. That’s good, actually.

Still, at the same time, I also want to give you the opportunity to enjoy the articles you like, and avoid the articles you hate. It would be good, after all, if I could still provide value to those of you who do enjoy some of my content, but not all of it.

Therefore, this Substack will be Sectioned. Meaning, you will be able to select to receive posts from just one or more of the following sections. Click “Manage Subscription” → “Sections” to select what you want to receive. I will repeat this instruction one or two more times in this post.

Suffice to say, for this to work, you will have to reconcile your distaste for some of my articles with your enjoyment with others. This means that, if you are to be a subscriber, you will have to separate the writer from the writing. Some of the views, from some of the other views. That’s up to you, dear reader. I hope you can.

Now, I will first briefly outline what these sections are. After, I will explain them—and how they fit together in my bigger vision. The contradictions are, in my opinion, cosmetic. But, as I said above, I am convinced that it has become more important than ever to say all of it. At minimum, for me. And maybe, just maybe, I can persuade some of you.

The Sections are:

1. Medicine, Science, Technology, and Our Future: This Section can broadly be described as anti-establishment, though I do not like that label. This is about essays on institutions, medicine, science, religion, progressivism, power, and America’s future. Basically, big picture analysis on what’s gone wrong in mainstream institutions and how to fix them. Radical, often. Subversive, sometimes. True, always, at least to the best of my abilities.

2. Health and Nutrition Breakdowns: This Section can broadly be described as pro-establishment, though I do not like that label any more than I did the anti-establishment one. It will contain scientific breakdowns of trending discussions in health and nutrition. This will hold a lot of my old content from my pre-Substack period, but updated. Sunscreen, vitamin D, taurine, creatine, vegan diets, ketogenic diets, seed oils, statins and cholesterol, vaccines, blood pressure and blood pressure medication. And so on. And, I am going to criticize the critics. People who love the first section may hate this one. For instance, I’m not a fan of RFK Jr. Not a fan of Huberman. Not a fan of Midwestern Doctor. And very confused about what is going on at HHS in general. This section is going to be very detailed and precise about the evidence, but will also make exhaustive reference to Section 1. To be clear, if you are a big MAHA person and you read articles from this Section, you may experience a strong desire for the immediate homicide of yours truly. The only thing I ask is that you do your best to suppress it. No Kevin Bass apartment visits. And also probably not subscribe to this Section.

3. Texas Tech Dismissal Story: This Section can broadly be described as war mode, chaos energy, or perhaps most accurately, brutal truth. Document drips, public records, legal matters, and updates related to my dismissal from medical school. Yes, my friends, the full story is being told. The promise land, at last, shall be reached. Now, it may look like a blasted-out hellscape, but I made no promises that it would be pretty, just that we’d get there. Now, if you’re just interested in science or society, try sections 2 or 1, respectively. But if horror is your thing—and you’d like a first-person perspective and commentary about just how blasted-out things really are—you can find that here. The Document Hub related to my dismissal can also be found in this Section.

4. Other Explorations: This Section can broadly be described as “assorted”. Ideas, reflections, experiments on other topics. Stuff like: forgiveness in Christianity. What’s going on in AI for healthcare right now. Startup stuff. FDA, Sarepta, Laura Loomer, Vinay Prasad. Social media victories. Activism. Humiliations of the enemy. I don’t know. Whatever is my occasional inclination, if I feel I must go off-topic from the normal fare. This Section will relate to the other Sections. But it will be less obvious and not fold into them as clearly. If you are a diehard Yours Truly Fan and want to entertain more off-beat or random-ass commentary, you can subscribe to this section. I’m going to try to keep it to a minimum, though. It’s warpath mode rn fr.

Now, the details. But before I do:

This Substack will be Sectioned. Meaning, you will be able to select to receive posts from just one or more of the following sections. Click “Manage Subscription” → “Sections” to select what you want to receive. I will repeat this instruction a few times in this post.

Section 2. Health and Nutrition Breakdowns

I am explaining the sections out of order. Section 1 is the more important section. But Section 2 is what led to Section 1. So I will explain Section 2 first.

Long-time followers will know that when I first started on writing on social media ten years ago, my focus was on obesity and nutrition. Obesity and chronic disease are the main drivers of poor health in the Western world, especially in America. My hope: after being personally devastated by experiences of the politicization of various fields, perhaps we can all agree about what to do about obesity? And so, great, let’s solve the obesity problem! (Lack of politicization was also a major motivation for entering medicine! Sweet summer child!)

My hopes were dashed. After seeing just how horrible most online nutrition information was, my interest in nutrition morphed into an interest in misinformation—long before this became something everyone talked about. Like, if we cannot agree about basic facts about science, how can we solve our problems?

And so, I created a lot of content in this area: dispelling nonsense. Most of it is not available on this Substack. It will be soon, with some edits. In some cases extensive edits and/or radical overhauls.

Now, of course, I was quite naive. It really is as simple as science vs. pseudoscience, right? I may be pretty darn good at reading the scientific literature. I may insist that we concern ourselves with not communicating it poorly. I may say that misinformation is a serious issue. And very well then. All of that may be true. But not everyone is like me. In fact, most people are not. And sometimes one man’s misinformation is another’s scientific fact. Especially in the age of over-credentialed people who are personally deficient in many respects that are relevant to nonsense-avoidance.

And so it turns out that what misinformation is or is not is rather dependent on the opinions of the people who have the biggest influence on the fields in question. Shocker, right? Well, some of these people are quite ideological. Sometimes they are quite not-smart. Yet, when, at the surface level, the things they say appear to be true, or comport to widely held prejudices, that’s that. Game over. Whoever disagrees is spreading misinformation. Even if it’s the truth. Even if every single receipt is brought. Over and over.

It turns out that something like misinformation exists, sure, but as soon as we acknowledge that, the concept soon starts to get abused by… people who want to spread their own misinformation and call the truth misinformation! It’s like, once we started calling things misinformation, the problem of misinformation became 1000x worse.

And now the caveat. I’m detail-oriented but quite conventional. I’m an orthodox science guy. I know I’m not known for that, but that’s for reasons more to do with rhetoric than reality. I’m milquetoast gone nuclear. You must understand. I learned to communicate on social media in order to talk about the boring stuff of nutrition. And I knew it was important. So I learned to communicate in a compelling way. And I became damn good at it. People go berserk. (Lmao.) But it’s all rather really quite boring and typical if I were to present it to you as if in a scientific paper.

All of that is to say: I’m going to sound like an establishment shill. I am not. I’m the opposite. Still, some will think that way and accuse me of it (ur comments will be deleted), but you’d be wrong. I will explain.

Section 1. Medicine, Science, Technology, and Our Future

I am profoundly skeptical of the medical and public health establishments. American science has generally been one of the most powerful sources for good in the world.

We had extraordinarily good people create many of the concepts and institutions we have today. But insane incentives (and people) have converged to create a crisis. And our scientific and institutional inheritance is being progressively degraded and destroyed.

We are standing on a big rug covering termite-infested wood. That rug, we might say, is the fake debates that we have about science. We have these fake debates because people are, quite frankly, dumb. More charitably, we have them because providing fake narratives about science that cohere with dominant cultural and political currents is beneficial to acquire and accumulate power. OK, that’s not charitable. At all. It’s actually horrible. Damn, I’m really doing my best here.

And what about the termite-infested wood that the rug is covering up? And that we’re, um, standing on? You know, the wood that is about to give way beneath our feet?

That’s Turchin’s overproduction. The wealth pump. The depredations of neo-liberalism and progressivism. That’s the exploitative atheocracy of Yarvin. But it’s more than that. That’s the economic precariousness and the glut in the professional-managerial class after we outsourced the American economy to China and shoved everyone into the universities (how else are you going to get job?), even the people who don’t belong, and most of them don’t. Plus, add a little bit of gasoline poured on by social media, i.e., the 21st century’s Gutenberg press. Wars happened because of that damned press. Western civilization was fractured. And we’re here. Again. Post-fracture. Fracturing again. And it came at the worst time. We’re not ready. At all.

Which is to say, in the scientific and media fields, with such a huge glut of people jammed into the same space, competition is at an all-time high. And those who want to win exploit cognitive biases and political current to do so. To end up at the top of this massive status heap? Certainly not by getting a real job: so few of those exist!

In fact, they’ve won. On both sides. They’re fighting each other and winning all the time. And they’re justifying themselves by saying they’re fighting for science. Their existence is necessary, you see. Give them power and money.

But they are absolutely not fighting for science. Not a goddamned single one of them. They are fighting for power. Maybe they always were. But if society is functioning properly, those urges are channeled in productive ways. Western society is not functioning properly. It is falling apart and has created dark forces of self-destruction. And so now the battle intensifies. And, as they say, the beatings will continue until morale improves.

So what I’m saying is: look at this goddamned termite-infested wood. I mean, it’s infested by termites. We’re about to fall through. Do you care? And who the hell put this goddamned rug here? Who is hiding the termite-infested wood? Are they doing it on purpose?

It wasn’t only Fauci or Harvard. Not just Walensky or the NIH or CDC. Sure, they played a huge role. They should have done better. But it’s also RFK Jr. and MAHA. It’s HHS and the antivaxers. This is where I get the unsubscribes. I know. Whatever.

The rug wasn’t put over the wood by the milquetoast scientists, either, though there are plenty of these too who will ask for funding for trash science and publish trash papers. Damn, actually, it’s the milquetoast scientists too. They’re also responsible for the rug.

I’m saying: look at this goddamned wood! We’re about to fall through! Let me do my best to try to put up some pillars beneath. And scream hysterically for the exterminator. Unfortunately, we are going to have to burn down half the house. But I can tell you the blueprint for how to rebuild. That I’m posting on Substack. Fuck, I’m doing my best here. Where the hell else are you going to publish your blueprint for how to rebuild? I guess Substack will have to do.

Section 3. Texas Tech Dismissal Story

In this Section, nuclear blasts will be delivered. And may be received. Maybe laser-guided missile attacks. Not sure exactly. All I know is that my heart had to be hardened before I could write any of this. But once you put your head down, anything is possible guys. I will be experimenting richly with my writing technique to make sure anyone who reads it can survive their way through. It’s going to be fun. The writing part anyway. Can’t say the same about the rest.

Section 4 is a grab bag, so we’ll just skip that.

Conclusion

In conclusion, buckle up and choose a Section that suits you and please do not complain to me about being a pharma shill or antivaxer. I’m something of a right-wing scientist who got ripped out of the Matrix. America is in a lot of trouble.

I will end with a provocative, satirical proposal. The goal is to illustrate just how much our frame influences how we see the world, and science. It’s a joke guys. Though not entirely…

Richard Feynman picked locks and played the bongos. Claude Shannon was a juggler. On a unicycle. Shakespeare was quite serious about real estate investment. Tycho Brahe? When he became bored of challenging the idea that the planets orbited the Earth, he had a pet moose that he would give beer to at a hideaway island castle. One night the moose missed a stair and died.

So yes, submitting public records requests is my hobby now. A strange hobby, perhaps, but lawful. Necessary.

As part of my hobby, today I submitted a complaint to the Texas Office of the Attorney General, Open Records Division. This was after submitting several records requests to Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.

Request. No response. Notification. No response. Notification. No response. Notification. No response. Texas Attorney General complaint.

I tried.

The institution is Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center—the same one that dismissed me after my public writing on COVID‑19. During the pandemic, many there participated in the response; some won awards. Open debate was uncomfortable.

The pandemic response had catastrophic consequences for the country and the world. Some argue lockdowns caused substantial collateral mortality; others dispute the scale. This is an argument Jay Bhattacharya made when I spoke to him in 2023. Antivax beliefs have mainstreamed. Trust in public health and science has plummeted. Many people feel they do not know what to believe anymore.

But people won awards. The awards were aspirational, not meretricious. They are not meant to recognize healing, but to hide the wound. People notice. The wound is visible. And its effects can be seen no matter how much hiding is done.

When a student with a large platform questioned NIH and CDC positions and pointed to the fracture inside the medical community, the reaction followed a pattern.

I didn’t know what I’d stepped into. I don’t regret it.

Yes, I have been submitting public record requests to my former medical school. The one I attended on a full scholarship and earned a PhD from.

Curious. I keep returning to the same conclusion.

See, I do seem to recall on December 11th, 2023, that my dismissal hearing was video recorded. I do seem to recall being warned not to record it myself, according to official policy. The school could. Not me. That should have sent off alarm bells. It did not. After all, surely, these people were respectable. They are doctors. They would play fair.

I seem to recall something else. I seem to recall during that hearing, after testimony I believe contained falsehoods, one dean of the medical school, Dr. Bethany Nunez, said that another dean had told her something about me that, in her words, was not true.

By “seem to recall” I understate on purpose. Precision over volume.

If senior administrators circulated unverified allegations about a student, that is serious misconduct.

The world I believed in does not exist. In my 20s, I believed there might still be one refuge where I could go where something pure and true—healing—might exist. A sanctuary of good where I could work and live, where we worked against death and darkness. That’s why I applied to medical school. I entered medicine believing it was a refuge for truth. I worked like it was.

Medicine is not supposed to destroy those who tell the truth about it.

===

I visited campus to review my dismissal hearing recording on September 13th and 16th, 2024. Visiting campus was required to review the record. But why? Why couldn’t I just… receive the hearing recording? I would soon find out why.

My wife took off work to accompany me. We were worried that the school might fabricate more “evidence”. For a while, every time I visited campus, I wore a hot mic. But I wasn’t allowed to bring electronics. So I had to bring my wife.

Twice they had accused me of threatening to harm people. Once it was alleged that I had criminally trespassed. The police officers always expressed confusion. They knew me as the cheerful student who often lost his ID badge and had to be helped to open doors. None of that seemed to matter.

All that matters is fear. And there is a lot of it. They accuse you of doing terrible things so that they can justify doing terrible things to you. They leave a paper trail with these things. They then tell their friends, who join in.

When we met with the lawyer in charge of my recordings on campus, Joanna Harkey, we discussed access to the recording.

The technical person allowing me to view my hearing recording apologized that it was only audio. He did not give any explanation. I brushed this off.

But while listening, I discovered something: the audio suggests portions of the hearing recording are missing. If video exists, its absence prevents verification. Video with excised portions would show skipping frames.

The school delayed for more than a month before allowing me to view—well, listen—to the recordings. I couldn’t figure out why it took so long.

The lawyer responsible for providing the hearing record was Joanna Harkey.

And the man who oversaw my review of the recording was Vice President for Information Technology / Chief Information Officer Vince Fell.

I’m requesting chain‑of‑custody records, access logs, retention schedules, and file hashes for the hearing files.

If parts were deleted, I don’t know all of them. But one portion that appears missing corresponds to testimony in which a physician described her motive in terms of an alleged threat involving Rachel Forbes.

I will not speculate about future accusations.

Notably, the most serious allegation against me—a threat—never made it to the hearing. More interesting, the allegation was dropped by the person who made it. Yet it continued to circulate informally. No due process. The trace—wiped clean.

Now, to be clear: if any student records were altered or deleted, that conduct may violate Texas law and could, depending on the facts, amount to misdemeanor or felony offenses.

Gov’t Code § 552.351 (TPIA): Misdemeanor to willfully destroy, mutilate, remove without permission, or alter public information. Penalty: $25–$4,000 fine, 3–90 days jail, or both.

Gov’t Code § 552.203(2) (TPIA): Officer for public information must protect public information from alteration, loss, or unlawful removal.

Gov’t Code § 552.004(b) (TPIA / SB 944): If public info is on a personal device, the officer/employee must forward/transfer it to the agency or preserve it (original + backup) for the retention period.

Gov’t Code § 552.233(b) (TPIA / SB 944): Temporary custodians must surrender or return public information to the agency within 10 days of request.

Gov’t Code § 441.187: A state record may be destroyed only after the approved retention period expires or on approval of a records destruction request by the Director and Librarian (TSLAC), or if exempted by rule.

Penal Code § 37.10(a)(3): Tampering with a governmental record includes destroying, concealing, removing, or impairing its verity/availability (with an exception for legally authorized destruction/transfer).

Penal Code § 37.09(a)(1), (c): Evidence tampering—altering/destroying/concealing a record knowing an investigation/proceeding is pending; 3rd‑degree felony (higher in specified circumstances).

Penal Code § 39.02: Abuse of official capacity—misuse of government property/services, etc., with intent to benefit or to harm/defraud; grading tied to value. (“Misuse” is defined in § 39.01(2) as dealing with property contrary to law, agreement, oath, etc.).

FERPA, 34 C.F.R. § 99.10(e): A school may not destroy education records if there’s an outstanding request to inspect/review.

===

These details come from my own recollections and from the documents I’ve reviewed over the past year.

TTUHSC is required by law to release the video. TTUHSC has been provided a preservation notice and is required by law to preserve all records.

Sworn testimony regarding the deletion allegation is attached to this thread. Right‑to‑response emails to Joanna Harkey, Vince Fell, and Bethany Nunez are attached. The AG complaint is also attached.

As for lawsuits, let’s just say. It’s not out of the question. Lawsuits against me? That’s another battlefield. I will respond as needed.

Next week: the “threat”.

Wrap‑up notes:

There were no replies to the right‑to‑response emails.

A document hub will be posted and pinned on my website on Saturday. It will contain a chronological list of documents and incidents, all sworn testimony, etc.

I’m going to make this material easy to find. Google, DuckDuckGo, whatever crawls the fediverse: just breathing will surface the receipts.

The story will be further fleshed out by records requests and potentially discovery.

Obviously a lot of this is going in the book, though trimmed down. The book is about what is wrong with medicine, science, and technology and the reforms required to fix them. It will be a radical book with new ideas. More in a forthcoming book.

More actions will be taken over the coming days. Some will need to fly under the radar for a while.

If you know anything about what happened to me at Texas Tech, you can contact me at kevinnbass@proton.me or over DM, or alternatively, you can get in contact with my lawyer. You have the protection of many whistleblower laws. However, please consult an attorney. I will provide more information in the coming days.

If anything happened to you at Texas Tech, please share your story with me. Any story you have is confidential unless you specify otherwise.

Documents:

A. Institutional mechanics
B. Evidence/RCTs
C. Symbolic/religious meaning.

A fuller breakdown follows in Parts 3–5.

The Bureaucracy That Grows Itself

So far, I have said that the science communication done during the pandemic was not science at all. Rather, it was an ever-changing series of edicts that reflected the political situation.

All responses to this political situation were, in turn, driven by the tendency for public health institutions to expand indefinitely. This indefinite expansion of public health institutions is not entirely conscious on the part of the leading public health bureaucrats.

Rather, bureaucrats who expand public health are selected to be leaders within those institutions because they enhance the resources, prestige, etc. of the public health establishment and many within the institutions owe them for their careers. Such individual leaders are in turn ideologically and cognitively predisposed to make decisions in the direction of expansion, as well as to select employees with this same predisposition.

When Science Becomes Marketing

What you get over time is the evolution of an interventionist public health ideology: one that exaggerates perception of risk of non-intervention (”we must do something!”), exaggerates the benefits of intervention (”masks omg”), and downplays risk of intervention.

This bias is not just one of science communication but science itself. You can see that in this paper, for example, which showed that the “errors” made by CDC consistently skewed toward exaggerating risk, especially to children.

The corruption does not merely undermine scientific communication. It penetrates deep into the scientific institutions themselves.

A couple of additional connections that I will merely suggest and flesh out later.

What is the relationship between what I have said above and these two figures? Oh, hmm, probably nothing 🥺👉👈

Inside the Evidence

Now, as for the science, there’s no avoiding getting in the weeds here. It is necessary for me to do this to avoid accusations that I’m glossing over nuance, context, or relevant details. I’m not. In fact, I never do that. I’ve just discovered long ago that social media is about processing the extraordinary level of scientific detail privately and presenting conclusions in a digestible format.

Yet I will make an exception here and do a painstakingly exhaustive public scientific analysis. Much of this detail will be present only in endnotes in my book.

As I have shown at the beginning of this series, the randomized controlled trial evidence is overwhelmingly against the usefulness of masking in preventing viral infections.

A thorough, yet brief, breakdown of the key randomized controlled trials can be found in the footnotes of this post.

The Social Fracture

Now, let’s pivot and enter 2014. That year, World Health Organization published a guidance document for healthcare workers dealing with epidemic- and pandemic-prone respiratory infections.

Based on the above studies, it noted weak evidence for masking to protect against respiratory pathogens.

Now, it did provide “Strong” or “Conditional” recommendations, despite the weak evidence.

This was criticized by a 2016 paper, which said that its recommendations violated GRADE, the leading evidence-based framework, which did not allow for such recommendations based on weak evidence.

This is strange, because if WHO was going to use GRADE, why didn’t it follow GRADE? Why did it say it was going to use GRADE but then systematically contradict GRADE? On that in a moment.

It gets worse.

Enter the 2019 guidance by World Health Organization, specifically for public health measures for epidemic and pandemic influenza.

This continued with very similar recommendations regarding masking.

The 2014 document seemed to suggest that there might be weak evidence for masking.

But the 2019 document made explicit that the evidence wasn’t just “moderate”. Rather, the evidence was moderate against effectiveness.

This page makes this even more clear.

We can also see that, explicitly, “reusable cloth face masks are not recommended”.

As we saw earlier. And they recommended them anyway.

So why were masks “conditionally recommended in severe epidemics or pandemics”? Because despite evidence being against, there was “mechanistic plausibility” (a consideration that severely violates GRADE): masks seem like they could work, even if evidence is against them.

In other words, “what harm could it do”? It turns out, a lot.

After all, to conservatives, masks become a symbol of hysteria, and resisting them became tantamount to resisting irrational hysterical tyranny.

To liberals, on the hand, they become a symbol of caring, and masking became tantamount to Being A Good Person.

I was on the Being A Good Person side, and the anti-maskers enraged me, because it seemed to me that conservatives were irrational and anti-social. I mean, I had wanted to pick fights with anti-maskers. I viscerally hated them.

Only later did I understand that to hardcore conservatives, masks represented a “Rubicon to tyranny” that they would resist ferociously. If they could be made to do one absurd thing, what other absurd things would they be made to do? And it turns out they were being made to do a lot of absurd things, not just masks, which certainly didn’t help.

So I kind of agree with the anti-maskers now. Well, actually, I really agree. Because mask mandates did extraordinary harm.

What harm could it do? Well, masks ripped our society apart. And while they were doing so, CDC and other agencies doubled and tripled down on the pseudoscience, as we’ll see soon.

On May 9, 2020, an Australian man was restrained by police as they forced a mask over his face.

On May 14, 2020, a mother wrestled to the ground by a squad of police in front of her child for not wearing a mask on the New York subway.

On August 11, 2020, a 21-year-old Australian mom of three was choked and arrested for not wearing a mask. She had an exemption from a doctor. She was charged with assaulting a police officer.

On September 3, 2020, an Ohio woman was tased, arrested, and forcibly removed at a high school football game for not wearing a mask.

On September 23, 2020, churchgoers were arrested for singing outdoors in the Moscow City Hall parking lot without masks.

On May 20, 2021, grandmother and Sunday school teacher Kathleen Bossi speaks at school board meeting against policy forcing children to wear masks. She is arrested and silenced.

On June 15, 2021, an employee at hardware store assaulted a customer for not wearing a mask.

On July 2, 2021, elderly Australian storeowners are beaten and arrested for telling customers not to wear masks.

On July 24, 2021, an Australian man was sitting outside on a park bench without a mask when he was approached by police. He was told he was “not in a public place with a reasonable excuse.” He was wrestled to the ground, arrested, and charged with “assaulting a police officer”.

On September 3, 2021, a man was assaulted by Australian police for not wearing a mask. He locked himself inside a car, but they smashed his windows and arrested him.

On September 24, 2021, five men entered a store in Australia. For not wearing masks police beat them savagely and arrested them. They were charged with assaulting police officers. When the video footage was discovered, all charges were dropped.

On October 4, 2021, this teenager in Texas was arrested and forcibly removed for not wearing a mask.

These are just some. From the start of 2021 to mid-2022, the Federal Aviation Administration reported approximately 5,000 “unruly passenger incidents”, a full 70% of the total number of such incidents. No question that in the United States, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of incidents across various contexts took place.

But these are only those that were formally documented. What about the countless who never made a scene, who never stood up for what they believed, and instead stewed quietly? The published literature shows us the outcome: a catastrophic collapse in trust in the medical establishment.

Mask mandates tore society apart. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Yet there was no evidence for them. How could this possibly have happened?

From Policy to Faith

I will take these ideas a step further. We compared masking to a religion earlier. This was not mere heckling. Not mere satire. Not a mere metaphor or analogy. This was intentional. It was meant to introduce a much larger idea that will be expanding dramatically in the coming posts.

Here we go. I not only agree with the anti-maskers that masking mandates were tyrannical. I’m going to move out to the very edge of “anti-masking ideology”: masks were intended to be tyrannical. Whether or not any single person intended it, tyranny was generated as the function of the social system. Which, quite frankly, should rather horrify you. Well, it does me. My heart has been rather torn out. It’s not a bug. It’s a feature.

Why, after all, did I hate anti-maskers? Because I was an enforcer of the tyranny! My hatred was the hatred of a tyrant.

Let me communicate with you a dark truth, which I will be proving in the coming pages:

The harm was the point. Masks were a tool of war. A religious war.

Before we proceed to science per se, I want to dispel one myth. Or at least call it into question before we can dismantle it exhaustively later.

We want to say that mask mandates were imposed because X person wanted Y. That’s what we really want. We want to pin the blame on one person. On Fauci. On Walensky.

Please give us one person to pin the blame on. Then everything will be OK. Phew.

Unfortunately, we have a much bigger problem. Because that’s not how policy decisions were made for public health during the pandemic, and not how policy decisions are made in Western democracies in general. (They aren’t made “democratically”, either. But to say that they are not made democratically does not mean that they are made centrally, either.)

There were no people in smoky rooms dispassionately plotting about how to dispose of the space alien bodies. Now, there were some, I am told by those involved, high-level talks in New York fretting about legal liability to public health agencies of lifting lockdowns without providing the semblance of protection via mask mandates.

But power is dispersed. There isn’t one single group of motivated actors and therefore not a single motivation. The motivation is power, and power is a dynamic force within the institutions that morphs and changes shape depending on the circumstances. But the one underlying principle? It is constantly looking for ways to expand. Expand power.

I promise if you try to understand this any other way, you’ll go mad. There are just too many contradictions. But if you understand it this way, magic happens. The whole pandemic makes sense and so much more. Let’s concretize this by putting it in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien:

One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

There are many rings. But absolute power is the One Ring that binds them all. It was for J.R.R. Tolkien and it is here. The One Ring analogized absolute power.

We will therefore call the current regime Nietzschean—a strange inversion of Nietzsche’s philosophy. It is obsessed with power, yet justifies that obsession as compassion. Salvation. Not the creed of the Übermensch, but a left-wing Nietzscheanism: a will-to-power disguised as compassion. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what Nietzsche criticized.

Under such a regime, everyone can help someone. Power is dispersed everywhere. Not the power of the Leviathan, but something more diffuse—a power exercised everywhere at once, with no center. An all-consuming, salvational chaos power.

Now, let’s use the words from The Philosopher to get us halfway to where we really want to go. And we do this for a very good reason: it is no accident that The Philosopher is, naturally, a self-professed Nietzschean. Did you think by The Philosopher, I meant Aristotle? Ha! No!

I mean of course the French philosopher Michel Foucault, whose work is unquestionably overwhelmingly dominant within the humanities in academia today. Foucault is apex. Number one. Foucault is to the 21st century what Aquinas was to Medieval Christendom. Where Aquinas was The Church Philosopher, Foucault is The Regime Philosopher. (And Aristotle is The Philosopher Philosopher.) Foucault says:

Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere... Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.

Foucault—although a leftist (albeit in many ways a heterodox one) and whatever his… um… extracurriculars, and though prone to that certain predilection of the French toward the Latin massification of prose—does get us halfway there. It’s not quite a conspiracy, which quite frankly, shouldn’t reassure us: diffuse salvational chaos power, not conspiracy.

Now, after erasing the problem of The Conspiracy, we return to the idea that masking represented the front in a religious war.

It’s a provocative thesis, I concede. It is extreme. It is absurd. It is downright outrageous. It verges quite easily on the comical. Religion! Everyone knows America is a secular society. And the medical establishment: the most secular of all. Don’t make me laugh!

Furthermore, as a Former Good Person, I’m extraordinarily hesitant to betray my Former Fellow Good People by putting forth such an accusation. Especially such an extreme and absurd one. But this thesis is one that I’m going to demonstrate. Or at least argue. Please do tell me, dear reader, if my arguments will persuade you.

Hear me out. Let’s tear back to where the bare logic has led us so far: masks are not effective. They ripped society apart. And there was a rather extreme, sometimes violent reaction to those who wore them. There was visceral outrage toward anti-maskers.

And I wasn’t the only one. Washington Post columnists, People, Governors—we were all in on it.

Anti-maskers were responsible for deaths, you see. And it was us maskers responsibility to be angry about it. Very angry.

Yet if masks didn’t do anything, then by my own logic, I am forced to make a rather damning confession about myself: my hatred had no other purpose than to harm, whether I knew it or not.

Logically, that’s all my reactions to anti-maskers could have been: Hatred. Violence. Sin.

The darkness of human nature expressing itself through me.

Here’s the idea, which won’t make sense yet. You’ll need to give me time. But here it is: maskers waged a kind of religious or social war, not through, as time immemorial, spears, swords, pikes, muskets, assault rifles, or laser-guided smart bombs. But through public health. This war is carried out ferociously through the present, not through public health but by other means.

I hated those who didn’t wear their masks, and I wished them harm. If I had had the authority, I would have hurt them myself. And did we not just see that in the videos above? We did see it.

Toward a Theory of the Public-Health Church

Earlier, we introduced our first layer of explanation: power. Next, before continuing to cleave through the remainder of the scientific story, we will consolidate our insights into two more layers and build a basic theory. Then, we will expand it like spider webs to explain the entire pandemic. And more.

For, it’s obvious now that explaining masks purely scientifically is impossible. And if it won’t be, it will soon. Therefore, we must begin systematically understanding how society could have taken us to this point. We must explain the rise of masking by way of the social factors that gave rise to it.

Some do not know that, back in the day (ah, yes, the innocent days of being a sprightly young man!), I studied the social sciences. With some of the best in the world. (Though they weren’t much, honestly—”best in the world” does not mean what it used to mean. Seriously, should I even be admitting to this?) Many who I studied with are now professors at some of our most esteemed institutions. Our beloved institutions. Our very most favorite. I love Harvard!

Now, they say that, outside of economics, there are almost no right-wing social scientists today. There certainly are very, very few in anthropology, which was my field. This wasn’t always the case. It’s not impossible to be a right-wing anthropologist. Many of the greats would have been considered very right-wing by today’s standards. (Though let’s be very, very careful here…)

Therefore, I will be dusting off the old, dusty chests. And I will be withdrawing weapons of dark, alien, demonic energy. And I will be putting on my right-wing social scientist hat. LARPing, as I will, as a kind of non-Satanic Marx, which is to say, as a Christian.

Now, a teaser.

When Joe Rogan incisively called masks “MAGA hats of the left”, he was not far off. But he didn’t go far enough.

In his Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim describes totems as sacred emblems that embody the clan’s collective spiritual identity, its soul. Totems, for Durkheim, create unity amid existential uncertainty. Say, um, I don’t know lol, during a pandemic.

So is a mask a totem? Not mere cloth, but a symbol of collective salvation? So, not merely a science-amulet, though that too. But this: Durkheim: “The totem is the flag of the clan.” And our, our sweet beloved masks, could they have flagged devotion to The Science, hypnotizing the flock under our great clerics Fauci and Walensky?

But that’s not quite right. One cannot really be dedicated to The Science. After all, The Science is mere electrons, atoms, and matter. The question is: why does The Science matter at all? To understand that, we must understand what happened to America during the 20th century.

How and why does a secular empire manufacture totems? And how did “caring” become a theology that could conquer science? (It’s not the first time…)

Footnotes

Jacobs et al. (2009): RCT in Japanese healthcare workers (HCWs); surgical masks vs. no masks to prevent common cold. Null result: no reduction in symptoms.

Loeb et al. (2009): Cluster RCT in Canadian HCWs; surgical masks vs. N95 respirators for influenza prevention. No significant difference between groups for lab-confirmed influenza.

Cowling et al. (2009): RCT in Hong Kong households; face masks + hand hygiene vs. control for influenza transmission. No significant reduction in secondary infections.

MacIntyre et al. (2009): Cluster RCT in Australian households; surgical masks vs. no masks for influenza. Null: no effect on transmission.

Aiello et al. (2010): RCT in US university dorms; face masks + hand hygiene vs. control for ILI. No statistically significant difference.

Larson et al. (2010): RCT in US households; face masks + hand hygiene vs. education alone for ILI. No significant effect.

Canini et al. (2010): France, households; cluster RCT, source-control; null

MacIntyre et al. (2011): Cluster RCT in Vietnamese HCWs; medical masks vs. N95 respirators (fit-tested or not) for clinical respiratory illness. N95 showed some protection against clinical respiratory illness and bacterial colonization, but not viral infections or influenza-like illness. Several methodological flaws and inappropriate statistical methods greatly elevated effectiveness estimates for CRI and bacterial infections.

Simmerman et al. (2011): Thailand, households; cluster RCT; handwashing + masks did not reduce transmission.

Aiello et al. (2012): Follow-up RCT in US dorms; similar to 2010, with masks + hand hygiene reducing ILI by 35–51% in some weeks, but adherence was key.

Suess et al. (2012): Berlin, households; cluster RCT; failed endpoints and had to be p-hacked retrospectively to achieve positive finding (not preregistered analysis).

MacIntyre et al. (2013): Cluster RCT in Chinese HCWs; continuous vs. targeted N95 use vs. surgical masks for clinical respiratory illness. Continuous N95 use reduced clinical respiratory illness, but targeted use and surgical masks did not. “No statistically significant findings were observed for the ‘facemask’ only group when compared with the control group.”

MacIntyre et al. (2015): Vietnam, HCWs; cloth masks vs medical masks (cluster RCT) — higher infection rates with cloth masks; cautions against cloth use in HCWs.

Radonovich et al. (2019): USA, HCWs; ResPECT trial; N95 vs medical masks — no significant difference in outpatient clinics.

In 2020, it wore a lab coat.

You felt it. You obeyed. Sometimes you had no choice. Sometimes you didn’t know.

Maybe it was during COVID that you first grasped its power. Maybe before. Maybe only after.

Science slid melodiously from its forked tongue. Hidden behind: power.

Why? It was—and is—a secular faith.

This is the autopsy. What the trials said before 2020, what officials said then, and how the scientists knew one thing and said the opposite.

In this post:
1. Pre-2020 clinical trials
2. The sudden flip in Spring 2020
3. How “mechanistic plausibility” replaced evidence-based standards like GRADE
4. The incentives that made certainty profitable.

Let’s start with the core, uncomfortable fact.

During Covid, the CDC recommended masking for toddlers despite having no high-quality evidence that masks benefited young children — and substantial reasons to believe the policy risked developmental harm.

They went ahead anyway.

Why?

Power.

I will explain how this happened.

This is going to be a long series. It will explain everything about masks during Covid--both the science and political reasons why our institutions systematically misrepresented the evidence.

Definitions:
• Masking = community use of (a) cloth, (b) surgical, or (c) fit‑tested N95/respirators; either source‑control (protect others) or wearer protection (protect self).
• “Works” = reduces lab‑confirmed infection (or pre-specified hard clinical endpoint) by a meaningful effect size in real‑world use, not just in a mannequin experiment or epidemiological study.
• Pseudoscience = policy justified by selective evidence, post‑hoc endpoint changes, or departures from rigorous standards like GRADE while claiming “science.”

Prior to the pandemic, there were many clinical trials showing that masks do not prevent respiratory viral infections. The evidence indicated that they simply did not provide convincing real-world benefit on lab-confirmed infection in the best pre-COVID trials.

Take this study published in 2019 by the World Health Organization. In it, WHO analyzed ten of the best available trials on whether masks prevented influenza. They found no evidence masks worked.

Or take this study, conducted by CDC scientists. Masking was becoming an increasingly debated issue. So, the scientists wanted to find out in 2020 if mandates might work. They analyzed 14 of the best studies and found no evidence.

This created an awkward problem for public health messaging.

Public health knew all of this for a long time. Listen to our beloved Fauci. In 2019, when asked whether people should wear masks to avoid illness, Fauci laughed, calling it “paranoia”. The advice mirrored, almost exactly, what vaccine-skeptical critics would later claim.

When the pandemic struck, the public health establishment stuck to its old messaging. Here’s the Surgeon General in March 2020:

Masks don’t work, he says. Even worse, really. He warns: Whatever you do, don’t mask! You might kill someone.

And here’s Fauci on March 8th, 2020. The same message as the Surgeon General.

“There are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.”

Naturally, the next move was to mandate what had just been dismissed as ineffective and potentially harmful.

There was just one problem. There weren’t enough masks. Why not? Well, we had offshored the American economy to China. That’s why.

So we came up with a solution: Cloth masks. Yes, we can avoid the supply chain problems. All we need is cloth, not an economy.

Ah, but there was another problem. Just a teeny tiny one. The tiniest. But a problem nonetheless.

The one clinical trial published on cloth masks in 2015 showed a 13-fold increase in infections among those who used cloth masks.

Figures from the paper for your perusal, dear reader.

Oof.

We can therefore summarize what occurred in several profoundly scientific steps:

1. Masks don’t work.

2. Masks don’t work, and nobody should wear them, because they might be harmful.

3. Everyone should wear masks.

4. Everyone must wear masks, or else.

5. But there aren’t enough masks. OK, cloth masks then.

6. Wait. Cloth masks actually increase the rate of infection. But everyone must wear cloth masks anyway. Or else.

7. The trial was rarely cited in subsequent guidance, despite being easy to find in the literature.

It gets worse.

A few months in, Norway’s public health agency published a paper. It estimated 200,000 people would need to wear a mask to prevent one infection per week.

That’s with a 40% reduction, a figure nobody serious believe or believes.

Then the Swedes enter the fray. Anders Tegnell, Chief Epidemiologist of Sweden, who organized the acclaimed pandemic response of that country, was asked to weigh in. Looking at the mask dubiously, as if at an alleged magic potion, he told the truth:

Masks have no benefit.

The Swedes were subjected to relentless international media pressure, yet they prevailed, as we will discuss soon. Meanwhile, American institutions went in the opposite direction, rewriting science by decree.

Why was this happening? The surface-level explanation is that people were afraid. But only surface-level, as we shall see in a moment.

It was April 2020. Stay-at-home orders were ending. People were scared. The science didn’t matter.

And fear was big. When mask mandates ended much later, hundreds of popular articles advised about how to cope with the anxiety of not masking. It’s not an exaggeration. Hundreds.

Many scientific articles showed that people who masked are more prone to neuroticism—that is, negative emotions.

Mask mandates increasingly became less about virology and more about psychology. Whatever their initial rationale, they functioned at least as much as a tool for managing public fear as they did as a conventional public health intervention.

Into this atmosphere stepped a handful of highly visible public health leaders. Figures like Fauci and Walensky came to function socially not only as scientists, but as high priests of a modern, institutional orthodoxy.

Their statements were often received less as provisional hypotheses, open to revision and debate, and more as sanctioned doctrine. And once a doctrine was declared, it proved almost impossible to reverse, no matter what the data said.

In the medieval world, priests offered charms, relics, and blessings to ward off the plague. Public trust in these talismans had less to do with their intrinsic efficacy than with the authority of the figures who blessed them.

In the twenty-first century, we have watched a secular analogue emerge. The mask sometimes operated not only as a physical intervention but also as a symbolic object—a visible marker of fidelity to the prevailing institutional narrative, meant to ward off biological contagion as much as the prevailing social one.

If this sounds more like religious practice than dispassionate science, that is not an accident. When institutions demand obedience, offer protection, and punish dissent, they start to behave less like scientific bodies and more like churches. The obvious question then becomes: what, exactly, is the creed? I will come back to that. For now, we follow the chain of events that made people so afraid in the first place.

First, though, we will chase this story down, following each and every link in the chain. Why were people afraid to begin with? Again, the simple answer: the media had been relentlessly terrifying the public for months. Remember the freezer trucks? The Chinese people dying in the streets, surrounded by men in Hazmat suits, insta-fragged by the virus?

Then came the World Health Organization. In early March, it publicized an estimated case fatality rate of 3.4%—a number that, presented without context, amplified the public’s fear out of proportion to the objective facts.

Just a week before WHO published this 3.4% figure, Fauci and then-CDC Director Robert Redfield published in NEJM that the death rate could be a fraction of 1%.

Even Time Magazine fact-checked the World Health Organization’s figure. And getting fact-checked by Time Magazine is like getting beaten in basketball by a retard in a wheelchair. Humiliating.

(*CFR is widely understood as an often dramatically inflated measure of mortality, due to what is known as ascertainment bias. It is often used to create sensational headlines and misrepresent infectious disease risk. This is epidemiology 101. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General at WHO, knew this. He also knew that by promoting inflated figures without nuance, he would intensify the global panic. Science Media Centre did an excellent job covering the scientific aspect of this at the time.)

Then, along came Orange Man, who repeated Fauci and Redfield’s numbers. Uh oh.

The media went berserk. Now, but Trump was right, you might say. It didn’t matter. Come on, why should it matter? It’s Trump! And so once Trump said it, Everyone-Who-Is-A-Good-Person knew where the Lines Of The Unsayable were drawn. You could only use the 10x exaggerated numbers. Trump had made that official.

And if you didn’t? Maybe you like the Orange Man, a cancelable offense. Maybe, like him, you were a Nazi. Or a white supremacist. Or a eugenicist. Or a fascist.

And maybe you want people to die. On purpose. You know, those people who want people to get infected and die on purpose. Maybe you’re one of those people. (There’s an entire book, podcast, and blog dedicated to this claim. And the guy behind it is frequently—still—quoted by the mainstream media.) So, yes, maybe if you’re honest about the science, you actually just really love death.

Now, the agenda to spread fear came from the top. In his book about his time on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Scott Atlas describes his horror when Fauci repeatedly claimed during a meeting that more needed to be done to make Americans fearful.

Yet when polled, Americans reported that they believed they had a 25% chance of dying from COVID-19. For Americans under 60, that’s 100-1000x higher than reality. Americans were brainwashed with media hysteria. Fauci wanted them even more brainwashed.

And it wasn’t just Fauci. It was everyone who was making decisions. According to a Congressional report, HHS spent a billion dollars on ads and other messaging to provide manipulative messaging like this.

This was big money. It was an industry. The money had to be spent. People had to be paid. They had to spread fear.

So so that’s why mask mandates happened, despite the evidence going in the other direction. Fear. Fear that had been relentlessly pushed. But why was HHS trying to spread fear? We’re about to arrive at the complete explanation. But still, I apologize, I must give a simple answer for now.

Our first and most foundational layer: power.

Fauci and friends spread fear because they wanted power.

I know it sounds cynical. I resisted this explanation for an extremely long time. Before I became a heretic—I mean, a traitor—I was someone who was on the “other side”. I was on the side of masks, lockdowns, etc. And I knew that my intentions were pure. They were so very pure. How could power be the reason for this all, when my motivations were so pure?

What if we considered for a moment that it might be precisely these pure intentions that are the perfect vehicle for power? What if we considered that something truly powerful could only ever use the very purest intentions? What if we considered that, in fact, that’s exactly how extraordinary power always works.

Before we explore that—what are these pure intentions exactly? how do they work? why?—I shall push forward and cover more ground. A bold statement:

Power entirely explains the dysfunction of the pandemic response. And everything grotesquely dysfunctional in the political and scientific scene happening today.

But only a very specific kind of power, a very specific shape of it, configured in a very specific kind of way. Preliminarily, let’s sketch out a simplified theory of what we might call public health power. Could we that this public health power represents something like what Foucault calls biopower? Not quite. The public health power that I have in mind has countless useless, demonic appendages. And these crush and tear. They are senseless. They speak in the name of the Almighty (Science) but bear little relation to what we might anticipate its effects should be.

What Foucault called biopower is related, well, to Foucault’s very real perversion. We could speak of Foucault’s time in Algeria. The well-known accounts of his behavior. But we ain’t gonna go there. With public health power, we mean something nonsensical. We do not mean the something sensible that Foucault fled from in terror and that justly pursued him…

Those in the institutions want power. They want to increase their power. They want to expand. They want more funding, more employees, a growing fiefdom. Fauci promoted the power of the institutions. And in turn, he was given power. Thus, Fauci was the most powerful public health official. You see, the more you promote the power of an institution, the more powerful you become within that institution. And this, my friends, leads to everyone running public health institutions promoting the power of these institutions. And, here’s the thing: in institutions that have been for decades unaccountable, they will do that by saying whatever they can get away with. Which are, granted, very specific sorts of things.

Don’t believe me?

I said this would be an long series. This is not the end of that series. We are only just getting started. But let us make an observation based on what we have seen so far.

Fauci played a pivotal role in both:

a) exaggerating the threat that led to demand for the mask mandates, and
b) promoting the pseudoscience that justified imposing them.

He generated both the fear and the solution to the fear. This is remarkable, isn’t it? To say nothing of the creation of the virus itself. Oh boy. We ain’t even going there in this series. We cannot cover everything. Soon we will. But not here.

So let us continue examining the facts about masks. Let us excavate them and carefully observe their configuration. You will recall from earlier that Fauci had downplayed masking for COVID-19 on March 8th, 2020, even stating, as the Surgeon General had, that masking could cause “unintended consequences”.

Take note, my friends.

For this is quite remarkable. Because after this, Fauci was asked by one reporter from The Street on June 12th, 2020 why he changed his advice. He claimed that he had been lying to save masks for healthcare workers.

That he could so casually admit that he was lying is itself disturbing. But if he lied masking science for instrumental reasons, what else was he lying about? None of this seemed to bother him. Or his interviewer, who nodded along.

But it gets so much worse. Let us examine the next piece of evidence. On June 1st, 2021, a year after The Street interview, a FOIA’d email by Fauci was published. It caused an uproar.

On February 5th, 2020, former HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell had asked Fauci whether she should wear a mask. Fauci responded that masking would not help.

This email means that Fauci was forcing masks on hundreds of millions of people when, privately, he did not believe the recommendation was scientific. Fauci had all along privately believed masks did not work and was lying when he promoted them, and then lied again about saving PPE to hide the first lie.

Just think about that. Fauci lied to cover up a lie. This email also implies that he didn’t believe that PPE for healthcare workers really worked either, and was lying to them too. This is head-spinning. Why would Fauci feel the need to do that?

Ohhhh, my friends, my friends. We shall get there. We are in fact converging.

But first, to punctuate these points, let us observe the following:

Isn’t that curious?

Now, it is also notable that only in private correspondence with Sylvia Burwell (a former HHS Secretary) does Fauci tell the truth. To go back to our theory, it does not expand public health’s power to lie to Sylvia Burwell, and could hurt his standing with her, so he tells her the truth.

But what happened then? Well, after the release of the Burwell email, Fauci became subjected to vicious, high-profile attacks. A few days later, he becomes visibly angry during an interview.

He turns the volume up to 11. He is in survival mode. He’s been caught. And so he lays down the gauntlet:

“Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science.”

By equating himself with science, it is obvious what he is doing. He is creating a shield of legitimacy, and he is doing it to survive. This helps him to maintain his position, fending off his attackers. “To call me into question is to call science into question. Are you really sure you want to do that?”

Alternatively, we might say that it makes him feel better, which, as someone who has his entire life maintained and accumulated power, is the same thing. Threat -> defense.

There is of course a problem here. Although Fauci buttressed his position with the in-group, if Fauci is constantly speaking contextually with an objective to expand the power of public health, as I have said, and not with the objective of transparently communicating scientific fact, and if the real underlying reasons for his “flip-flops” lie outside of science, as I have maintained, then although he might shore up his personal position temporarily, he actually discredits science in the long term by invalidating the legitimate scientific concerns of critics.

This is not an accident. It’s exactly how an unaccountable, constantly expanding bureaucracy like public health should function. Because there is no accountability, all that matters for its main power brokers are perception and power, and that’s exactly why Fauci was selected, through an organic process, to be the leader of the unaccountable institution of public health.

Man, and we’ve only discussed masks. And we’ve only just gotten started.

But how is science being done by Fauci anyway? Actually, in a certain literal sense, he’s right. Attacks on him are attacks on science: under Fauci science is about expansionary power, but that *is* the science that Fauci knows.

That is also the science his colleagues know.

If we put on our They Live glasses, we will hear the following words by Fauci:

“Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on power.”

That is, an attack on the interests of the public health bureaucracy, which are not the same as those of the American people.

But what if there is some science somewhere, some argument that I am ignoring or missing?

Let us therefore now go through all of the evidence and arguments that were available at the time.

Every single nook and cranny. Every single argument and counterargument. Every single pivotal piece or body of evidence. Will cover, dissect, and assemble it all—into a system.

You will be shocked.

people are right that there must be unconditional inward forgiveness in christianity. but there is a traditional view and a modern one.

the traditional view is that with this inward forgiveness you love the other person and do not seek private revenge. (though you can rebuke them privately or seek their punishment with the authorities, as appropriate, if they do not repent.)

but you do not show them favor or reconcile with them until they have repented.

this view has been the consensus by biblical interpreters for almost 2000 years.

the modern view on the other hand, also known as the therapeutic view, is that you seek an “inner release” and let go and that the goal of forgiveness is just that. this is not biblical—nowhere in the bible do you ever read anything about “just letting go man”—yet is today widespread if not, strangely, canonical.

now, this modern view still allows for the separation of this “inner release” from the step of reconciliation, as we saw earlier.

one problem however is that if the motivation is inner release and comes from a place, let’s be frank, of psychological fragility rather than a motivation for moral uprightness, it can end up moving too quickly to the reconciliation step, i.e., “everything’s fine”! as this view was emerging, c.s. lewis warned about this problem in many places. bonhoeffer called it “cheap grace”, that is, grace that cheapens the moral value of grace.

if this becomes the norm (as it has) it can also lead to pressure on those transgressed against to “set things aside” at the expense of the truth and justice that would be required for morally appropriate reconciliation. in this way, it leads to the diminishment and “making light of” transgressions that should be properly seen as such by the community, as augustine worried about. this “making light of” indeed degrades the moral standards of the community, or, alternatively, even can cause the person transgressed against to be transgressed against a second time by a community that is morally disengaged and disinclined to enforce appropriate moral standards and accountability.

indeed, since this modern understanding of biblical forgiveness is in practice (if not in theory) collapsed into a single step—forgiveness and reconciliation at once—this subtle corruption of communities’ moral standards has become more commonplace.

personally, between us, i think that seeking some therapeutic benefit for forgiveness muddies the waters, is self-focused rather than god-focused, and is unmanly.

if, say, the leader of an organization takes the therapeutic view, it subtly sends a message that grace is not a serious virtue but expected by default, and that it is incumbent on everyone to ignore bad behavior lest they be considered an unforgiving christian, which ironically undermines christian morality.

now, the problems with the therapeutic view aside, it is certainly even worse to “make light” of bad behavior in public, even, as aquinas called it, the sin of active scandal. and, as the christian writers say, such demonstrations of piety—which are not pious but in fact bad—publicly are unseemly.

in conclusion i propose that we make the medieval great again. and that the only release we should yearn for is the doing of good things and the right behavior. which seemed to suit people just fine until very recently when people decided they needed to change the religion.

Prasad was canceled—temporarily. Then he was reinstated. Did I help? I’m told by some well-connected individuals that I did. I certainly upset Laura Loomer, who threatened to sue me and Ned Ryun.

However, everything that I said was also said by White House officials to The Free Press. So Loomer is likely to have a hard time of it. Pharma’s fingerprints are all over this. Loomer was way too obvious. I still haven’t received the notification of the lawsuit. I’ll be waiting. (Not really.)

Read the last post if you are interested in that background.

Now, Wall Street Journal has launched another dumb attack—this time at Trump FDA appointee Marty Makary.

This article is filled with wild representations.

This post will explain.

I also explain the role of science in medicine and why WSJ Editorial Board is not smart.

WSJ is very dumb lately, and I believe that this is for an obvious reason: the people who are writing for it are dumb.

This thread will explain the dumb.

I implore you, dear reader:

As I explain, revel in the dumb. Wonder at it. Laugh at it.

Be not perturbed by the dumb.

The Editorial Board opens with an accusation: Makary is "torpedoeing" "life-saving drugs", which "raises big questions".

This is completely wrong.

Next, the Board accuses Makary of slowing the approval of new drugs.

Once again, wrong.

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There were 41 approvals in 2022, 55 in 2023. It fluctuates.

Plus, approvals accelerate in the second half of the year.

FDA is set to beat 2022, especially as the agency settles.

In the next paragraph, the Board gets downright nasty, accusing the "regulators [of] nixing drugs under the false flag of raising scientific standards."

WSJ Board cites Replimune, claiming that a third of cancer patients benefited from the drug.

And now we get started.

We need to place this discussion in context.

In 2011, a JAMA IM paper analyzed all clinical trials published in 2009 in New England Journal of Medicine that tested standard medical practices.

46% of practices were found to be worthless.

Another published in 2011 examined all trials in the NEJM published from 2001 to 2010.

This time, 40% (146 of 363) of the trials testing standard of medical care showed these standard practices to be worthless.

In 2019, another JAMA IM paper showed that of drugs approved along the FDA accelerated approval pathway for 93 cancers over the previous two decades, only 1-in-5 were shown to have actual benefit to patient survival.

80% hadn't.

In 2021, a BMJ paper analyzed drugs for 18 cancers that had undergone FDA accelerated approval but had failed to show benefit in follow-up studies.

A third of these drugs continued to be recommended in guidelines, sometimes even after FDA approval had been revoked.

Cancer drugs? Going through FDA accelerated approval?

Does that sound like the Replimune?

It sure does.

Replimune submitted a single-arm trial of its cancer drug to FDA for accelerated approval.

Now that's a big problem. It's a trial without a control group.

"But 1/3 of patients got better, Dr. Bass!" you might say. "They're cancer patients. A third of patients with advanced melanoma don't just get better on their own. Come on now."

And you'd be right. Except just one thing: they were also given another drug along with Replimune.

"WHAT?! The Editorial Board left out that detail?! They misled us like that?"

It gets worse.

The patients enrolled in the trial were exceptionally healthy, increasing their odds of responding.

And remember how the patients "hadn't responded to prior immunotherapy"?

Oh boy.

It turns out to be enrolled in Replimune's trial and be considered "non-responsive", you had to undergo eight weeks of immunotherapy.

And do ya know how long it takes for immunotherapy to start working?

Slightly longer than 8 weeks.

Then the patients were slapped right back on immunotherapy again, along with Replimune's drug.

Right when immunotherapy starts working.

"No, that's impossible!" you say, "People cannot be defending this!"

Oh but as you can see, they are.

It gets worse.

When the WSJ Editorial Board harped on "a third of patients responded"?

The drug given along with Replimune achieves similar results by itself:

CheckMate 066 (nivolumab alone): 40% ORR
CheckMate 067 (nivolumab alone): 44% ORR

And when you give nivolumab along with other cancer drugs (not Replimune), the results are even more striking:

CheckMate 067 (nivolumab + ipilimumab): ORR 58%

That's nearly DOUBLE the response rate as the Replimune trial.

Oh it gets worse.

Because as it turns out...

When you don't "design" the trial like Replimune did with just 8 weeks of immunotherapy before enrollment, and you design it at least 24 weeks of immunotherapy, where one might really make the argument that the cancer really was treatment-resistant...

Other trials have gotten nearly identical results as Replimune's.

That is, Replimune was used alongside nivolumab in a cooked study design.

But even with a huge disadvantage, you get the same results:

Avance (pembrolizumab + ipilimumab): 29% ORR

WSJ's Editorial Board exclaims: "tumors shrank in nearly all patients, and responses proved durable over three years."

Oncologists "hailed the results".

Then they insinuate that FDA is being unreasonable.

But now you know the real story: WSJ has apparently become a rag.

Here's the next paragraph. You now know why this is ridiculous.

"Its quibble is that the trial lacked a control group."

It's really hard to take this level of ignorance seriously.

Moreover, it's unclear why WSJ is attacking Prasad again.

It's widely known that Prasad wasn't even involved in the decision and had been for more than a week before the WSJ piece.

Here is StatNews saying exactly that:

In fact, Prasad, who was ousted from his FDA leadership post last week after a series of conservative figures criticized decisions of his that blocked the approval of new medicines, played no substantive role in the Replimune decision.

The company’s drug was expected to secure approval as a new treatment for patients with advanced skin cancer no longer responsive to currently approved medicines, including immunotherapy. But on July 22, Replimune said it was surprised to learn the FDA had turned it away, leaving its future in limbo.

“This was Rick Pazdur’s doing,” one of the FDA officials told STAT. “I didn’t agree with all the decisions made here by Vinay [Prasad], but he had little to do with this one.”

A second FDA official said CBER mishandled the RP1 review from the beginning, forcing Pazdur and his team to get involved late in the process. The situation was exacerbated by leadership upheaval within CBER, the official said, adding that Prasad tried to moderate the debate between the two sides as best he could.

Yet WSJ printed it anyway.

Why? It's probably because they are trying to build some kind of Prasad narrative, this good-vs-evil thing to distract from bad science. It's the only way I can explain it.

But here's the thing that really gets me:

“Never mind if patients die in the interim.”

If you don't do as I say, even when I'm saying nonsense, then you're responsible for deaths.

How did WSJ become like this? This sounds like the kinds of arguments made by the trans community for providing “gender affirming care” to children.

“If you don’t do this, if you question the evidence, people will die—nevermind that we haven’t shown that this is even true. We’re just going to say it.” It is completely crazy.

Still, it gets worse...

Next WSJ Editorial Board says something that betrays an incredible level of ignorance.

It is as if whoever wrote this piece merely mashed their face on the keyboard and used autocorrect to produce meaningful sounding sentences that are unhinged from any semblance of reality.

First of all, as we have seen, rechallenge with drugs actually does produce results with advanced melanoma.

Second, Replimune themselves have conducted or are conducting several such trials themselves, with CERPASS, IGNYTE-3, and REVEAL (links here, here, and here).

RCTs that Replimune cannot conduct because they are unethical... but which have been planned for years.

It's like WSJ cannot even do basic Google searches.

You need these trials, on tiny groups of people to make sure the drugs help and don't hurt people—before you deploy them to thousands of people.

You know, the point of clinical trials—to see if the drug works, because most cancer drugs don't?

Next paragraph we'll breeze through quickly, as it's mostly just opinion.

But we can see from the above research that I have linked that the endorsement by this Vishal Patel person just isn't true.

Likely a scientist who is not good at his job.

I skipped a paragraph (quote from another unhinged doctor/bad scientist).

But here's a real whopper. Apparently the Melanoma World Society president is even jumping in with the hyperbole.

I looked at the European Medicines Agency (the European FDA equivalent, which governs drug regulation in Germany) and I could not find anything indicating that the requirement for an RCT should be waived for Replimune. I found this.

The Replimune trial, as we have see is underwhelming and doesn't meet these standards.

I wonder what these people are thinking. I have no idea why people just randomly accuse other people of being unethical with no evidence just because they are emotional. It's really horrible.

WSJ then writes three more paragraphs about Prasad. They're so mad.

This is, as we have seen and as every other outlet indicates, Prasad had nothing to do with it.

Here:
medpagetoday.com/special-report…statnews.com/2025/08/04/rep…
But never let the truth get in the way of a good villain.

We should really ask a few meta-questions after all of this.

First of all, is this really the right way to talk about science: to take an emotional angle without concern for the facts? It is if you are a rag, but is this good for society, good for patients, good for science? We saw this approach during COVID. It's horrible for everyone.

Second, there's a deeper question here. Is accelerated approvals for various drugs really the way to spur innovation? What these pharma companies are mostly doing is applying technological advances that have already been made elsewhere.

If we care about innovation, the funding of fundamental scientific investigation needs to be reformed. Why doesn't WSJ write more about this, rather than this hysterical fake science journalism?

Third, how about biotech companies complaining less about "changing standards" at FDA and instead produce more than just bare minimum science that checks boxes but actually provides no scientific answers about whether their drugs work?

These companies are designing studies without any real concern whether their drugs actually work--without any real concern with whether they help people--and more to just push paper to satisfy the crappiest FDA standards that are now being tightened.

It's ironic. A company that is running badly designed studies--that it knows are bad--essentially elicited the sympathy of WSJ editorial board to write a half-baked and uninformed article about its drug "saving lives".

Meanwhile, the company itself doesn't even appear to be concerned that its drug is saving lives, and rather seems more concerned about doing the bare minimum to make money. Then it blames the regulators for not going along with the scheme.

It's so bad. It's really the height of hypocrisy if you think about it. People who actually want to save lives will do good science. People who want to make money will just check the boxes.

The company's study design really tells us all we need to know. They were just checking the boxes. They didn't care. And WSJ piled on with hysteria to distract the public from this basic fact. It's really despicable.

Bonus points. When Vinay Prasad was Loomered, one of the top Replimune executives reposted Loomer's post.

We know what this is really about. This isn't about patients. They're furious that it's no longer moneymaking as usual.

They lost.

The American people are winning.

Vinay Prasad has been ousted from FDA. Reporting suggests that Laura Loomer and the pharmaceutical industry may have played an instrumental role. This post details what happened but more importantly the background history of similar attempts by the company responsible to undermine drug regulation at the FDA. The question is: what do we do to prevent this from happening again?

Sarepta’s series of drug-related deaths

Sarepta Therapeutics, a Roche partner facing an 88% stock plunge and burning through $1 billion annually, was on the brink of financial insolvency unless it could keep selling its controversial gene therapy Elevidys [1,2]. The drug, priced at $3.2 million per injection, was linked this year to two child deaths—reported in March and June—due to acute liver failure, a known risk [3-8]. Then, in July, there was another death. Sarepta reported the third death to the FDA but in an investor call announcing a company "reset" and layoffs, omitted any mention of it [9].

In response, FDA official Vinay Prasad, alongside Commissioner Marty Makary, reportedly urged Sarepta to halt distribution, but the company refused, continuing shipments for certain patients [10-12]. The pharma connection As deaths mounted and FDA pressure grew, public records show Sarepta paid $40,000 in June 2025 to Michael Best Strategies (MBS), a lobbying firm that had recently hired Chris LaCivita, a veteran Trump campaign strategist with ties to far-right activist Laura Loomer [2,13,14]. While direct evidence is lacking, these connections have fueled speculation that MBS was enlisted to address regulatory hurdles posed by Prasad. Reports suggest LaCivita's network may have played a role in mobilizing criticism against Prasad. Friends who I trust have told me that Loomer has been known to have received money from DC lobbying firms, circumstantially supporting the view that she may have received money in this case. More on that in a moment.

Loomer’s smear campaign

Just a couple of days before Loomer launched her media assault, Sarepta acceded to FDA’s requests to halt shipments and did so. Then, in her initial attacks on July 20th, Loomer dug up old posts portraying Prasad as anti-Trump despite his known support for the president and criticism of Fauci [15-17]. The final straw before Prasad’s ouster was Loomer posting a carefully cropped video that misrepresented Prasad's views about Trump. In the video, Prasad was shown playfully suggesting that Trump could be blamed for the pandemic, with Prasad hyperbolically suggesting that he repeatedly stabs a Trump voodoo doll out of personal spite. The final straw: Vinay Prasad’s Trump voodoo doll What Loomer’s video leaves out is that Prasad’s statements were made in the context of a discussion about media attacks on scientist John Ioannidis (Prasad’s interviewee), who advocated for less stringent COVID-19 countermeasures, broadly consistent with the approach taken by Sweden, the preferred approach of Trump, and the one advocated by most senior officials currently under RFK Jr.’s leadership at HHS, including Prasad.

In content that Loomer (or those who supplied Loomer the video) omitted, after joking about his voodoo doll, Prasad immediately suggests that he could also blame Ioannidis, then goes on to say that he could blame everyone, explaining that trying to find blame in times of crisis like the pandemic is a part of human nature. Prasad wasn’t blaming Trump. He was mocking scapegoating in general, then explaining why it happens, even if it is irrational. He was mocking and explaining a kind of Trump Derangement Syndrome, not endorsing it [18].

https://x.com/kevinnbass/status/1951707986260611168

Prasad himself would later come under fire in the media for his critical views of the pandemic response, last year confessing that he had had to tone down his criticism because he had nearly been fired from his prestigious professorship at the University of California San Francisco.

If Prasad is “Trump hater”, he’s a highly orthodox one with many views that aligned with Trump’s about the pandemic, and others that are critical of DEI. His intellectual firepower and willingness to skewer orthodoxies is precisely why Prasad was brought on to his position at the FDA.

Pharma fingerprints

Now, in her posts, Loomer claimed she was defending Trump, but pharma lobbying fingerprints throughout her posts tell a different story: specialized jargon exclusive to industry insiders, including policies that insiders frequently harp on, strongly suggest that she was fed the relevant talking points. Biotech wonk wasn’t Loomer’s cup of tea. Until, suddenly, it was. The question then becomes: what was this really about? Was it really about Trump loyalty, or was that just a smokescreen to try to hammer an opponent of the pharma swamp in DC?

An orchestrated assault: or at least, an opportunistic one, with Loomer as recruited attack dog, and the rest piling on

Sarepta had spent years developing Elevidys, a gene therapy that failed to show benefits in its key clinical trial [19,20]. Despite internal FDA horror at the "cooked" studies, it gained accelerated approval amid political pressure [21].

Patient groups, some funded by Sarepta, criticized the drug, prompting alleged threats of lawsuits or funding cuts from the company [22,23]. As deaths mounted, Prasad struck with the "ban hammer," terrifying regulators and sending Sarepta's stock to new lows [24].

The timeline of events suggests an orchestrated assault. Just days after Loomer’s initial attacks on Prasad, a top PhRMA lobbyist echoed identical smears to those of Loomer in Real Clear Health, with social media accounts piling on [25]. Lawmakers like Rick Santorum, Ron Johnson, and Bill Cassidy reportedly lobbied Trump directly, emphasizing "innovation" and children [26-28]. Trump, frustrated by the controversy, is said to have questioned Prasad's loyalty before his abrupt firing [15-17,26,29-31]. RFK Jr. praised Prasad privately, and Makary called him an "impeccable scientist" publicly [32,25]. Post-firing, some FDA Democrats celebrated, while Republicans hailed it as a win for innovation [33]. Sarepta's stock doubled.

Victory for pharma, defeat for America.

Sarepta: a history of bad drugs and regulatory capture

Sarepta has a long, troubled history. For over a decade, every major FDA approval has involved intense political intervention, with scientists repeatedly overruled and some resigning in protest [34-38]. Prasad's ouster follows this pattern, as he tried to hold the line against deteriorating standards. The first Sarepta drug approved by FDA was called Exondys 51 [39]. This drug was for patients with mutations in dystrophin, a muscle protein [39]. This is a debilitating and fatal disease affecting children [39]. Exondys 51 increased dystrophin by 0.3% of normal levels [39,40].

Unsurprisingly, Sarepta was unable to show that the drug actually worked [39,40]. Why would it? It increases the protein from zero to 1/400th of normal levels. One reviewer wrote: "I can find no precedent of an accelerated approval for a marketing application where the effect size on the surrogate endpoint is as small as 0.3%." [40] The study submitted by the company included no proper control group [40]. The techniques used were so bad not even a first-year PhD student would do a study that way.

One reviewer wrote: "The Western blots submitted by the applicant for Study 201 were oversaturated, unreliable, and uninterpretable." [40] Another wrote: "Because CDER also determined that the conditions under which the original IHC analysis was performed were inadequate, including that the reader was not masked to sequence and time, the Center requested a re-reading of the stored images by three masked pathologists under different conditions. The IHC results from the reread were not nearly as favorable, as compared to the initial IHC results reported by Sarepta." [40] They continued: "The lack of concordance between the IHC and the Western Blot results is 'striking'". [40] Then: "Study 201/202 had fundamental flaws, including baseline biopsies from external controls who could differ in unknown ways from study subjects, Week 180 biopsies from different muscles than baseline, and potential protein degradation in stored baseline samples." [40]

And on and on.

FDA commissioner Robert Califf wrote at the time: the submitted study was "characterized by major flaws in the clinical study design" and "Blinded experts assembled by the FDA fundamentally debunked this study, which has yet to be retracted and continues to be cited" [41,40]. That's right, the FDA commissioner expressed dismay that the study that the company used to gain approval hadn't yet been retracted, it was so bad [41]. Senior FDA official Janet Woodcock decided to approve before scientific review team had even voted [41,40].

Pharma-funded mobbing of FDA scientists—and how FDA caved

So why did the drug get approved?

Basically, Sarepta propagandized extremely desperate patients [60,61]. They used miraculous snake oil promises and patients believed them. Remember that this is life or death for patients, and they are extremely vulnerable. Sarepta also professionally trained some patients to give testimonials to FDA and congress [61]. The patients then went to congressmen who don't have time to understand the science [61]. They gave emotional stories to congressmen [61].

The result: a letter from 109 House members [61] and a letter from 24 Senate members [61], along with a media circus documented in the New York Times [62]. Patients even screamed at scientists during meetings [60].

There were 2,792 emails written to FDA urging approval [40]. One of them: "Dear Dr. califf: How is it that everyone in and around DMD understands this simple Idea and the science geniuses at FDA don't? You stupid fckers are costing each and every DMD kids days of their lives with your Moronic Dystrophin dance. Time to get a fcking clue" [40].

Upon approval, a journalist for Reuters wrote: "owing to pressure from patient advocates, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy even though an outside panel of experts and the agency's own reviewers questioned the drug's efficacy" [63]. A commentary in Nature Medicine was also published called "Railroading at the FDA" [60]. Its author wrote: "In the words of one FDA committee member, Exondys lowers the agency's evidentiary standard for drug effectiveness 'to an unprecedented nadir.'" [60]. A highly critical commentary was also published in Science, titled "Sarepta gets an approval - Unfortunately" [64]. The article's author pharma veteran Derek Lowe wrote: "The company... called up Duchenne-affected boys and their families to plead with the FDA, and won over Janet Woodcock, and that appears to be enough. Is this going to be the new way to get a drug approved? Run a trial in a dozen people, generate unconvincing data, and then lobby Janet Woodcock? I share the worries that this might open the floodgates, because after all, Sarepta got their drug through." [64].

One FDA reviewer ended in an equally grim note: "Approval of this NDA would send the signal that political pressure and even intimidation – not science – guides FDA decisions, with extremely negative consequences. The public is well aware of this development program: the meager size of the study population, the marginal (at best) effect size, the Division’s dim view of the efficacy data, and the robust activism of some members of the DMD community. Many would be amazed at an approval action, because other DMD drugs, recently turned down for approval, appeared to provide stronger evidence of efficacy. ...The ramifications here are profound. The public will perceive that it was their unprecedented lobbying efforts that made the difference and earned eteplirsen its accelerated approval. For the future, this will have the effect of strongly encouraging public activism and intimidation as a substitute for data, which is one of the worst possible consequences for communities with rare diseases. This type of activism is not what was envisioned for patient-focused drug development." [40].

A new era was born. Activism had replaced data. Facebook had fried people's brains. And now Facebook-fried brains had fried FDA too. FDA's credibility as a regulatory agency would now be hollowed out. FDA's Facebook age had begun.

Showdown inside FDA

Yet, despite external intense pressure, FDA scientists voted against Exondys 51's efficacy [41,40]. They then, despite Woodcock’s pre-overruling, voted against its accelerated approval [41,40]. The review team filed an appeal with FDA commissioner citing "passionate" disagreement with Woodcock [41,40]. One reviewer called Woodcock's decision "unprecedented" [40]. In a 126-page report, FDA commissioner Califf called Woodcock's decision "highly unusual" [41]. The FDA board wrote: "[Woodcock's] involvement here appears to have upended the typical review and decision-making process. ... Care should be taken to avoid the appearance of interfering with the integrity of scientific reviews at the lower levels of a Center." [41]

FDA's chief scientist accused Sarepta of "serious irresponsibility" for selectively publishing only some of the data [41]. Even Woodcock, who approved the drug, called the research "seriously deficient" [40]. Yes, even the person who approved the drug over the heads of FDA's scientists said the research was bad [40].

The mysterious ever-missing trial

Still, FDA tried to bury their heads in the sand and beg, basically: Sarepta, pretty please do a better job next time. FDA commissioner: "The utmost attention should be paid to optimizing the methodological rigor of [future] trial[s]" [41]. FDA also demanded a clinical trial "to verify the benefit" of the drug [39].

This was in 2016 [39]. The trial results are supposed to be available in 2026, maybe [42]. Or maybe later, depending on how much money needs to be made first. As an article published in Nature three years later despaired of the decision: "The approval was conditional on the company agreeing to conduct a two-year post-approval trial to show Exondys 51’s efficacy. But by August 2019, the company had yet to begin such a trial and in the meantime had profited from sales of $300 million in 2018." [43] If it sounds like Sarepta used political pressure to get its drug approved and then tried to avoid actually publishing the study showing it didn't work, it sounds that way because that's exactly what happened [43].

The “not a precedent” that became a precedent

FDA commissioner after deferring to Woodcock: "I am confident this unique situation will not set a general precedent for drug approvals under the accelerated approval pathway, as the statute and regulations are clear each situation must be evaluated on its own merits based on the totality of data and information." [41] This statement was profoundly naive, and the historical record bears this out [39,44]. Three FDA scientists resigned, including the lead reviewer of the drug, understanding the grave implications of the collapse of scientific standards and where they would lead [45,46]. One was John K. Jenkins, M.D. Director, Office of New Drugs Center for Drug Evaluation and Research/FDA [45]. In a presentation given just before his resignation, he wrote: "Path taken by Sarepta NOT a good model for other development programs" [45]. Crucially: "Upholding statutory standards for approval in face of hopes and desires of patients, families, sponsors, and investors is a very difficult job" [45]. "Personal attacks on FDA reviewers creates an atmosphere of distrust and isolation rather than collaboration" [45].

The dubious science of Elevidys

FDA Commissioner Robert Califf that promised Exondys 51 was an isolated case, but three more Sarepta drugs followed on similar grounds. This set the stage for Elevidys, a gene therapy priced at $3.2 million per dose. In 2024, a rigorous Phase 3 trial finally provided hard clinical data on Elevidys. Designed to measure actual patient outcomes, it was meant to resolve ongoing debates.

But the trial failed its primary endpoint: no significant benefit in motor function as measured by the North Star Ambulatory Assessment (NSAA) [57]. The surrogate biomarker—micro-dystrophin levels—proved meaningless, correlating with no real improvement [57]. FDA scientists, reviewing the data, voted against approval. The drug simply didn't work. Yet, Peter Marks, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, overruled them [57]. He focused on secondary endpoints, like time to rise from the floor and 10-meter walk/run tests, where treated patients showed minor improvements (about 0.5 seconds better on average) [57]. This decision ignored key caveats:

• Patients on Elevidys received higher corticosteroid doses, potentially biasing results [57].

• Blinding may have been compromised due to side effects like nausea and vomiting in ~70% of recipients [57].

• The differences were small and could stem from natural disease variability, not drug efficacy [57].

The trial protocol explicitly stated that if the primary endpoint failed, secondary endpoints couldn't be statistically interpreted as evidence of benefit [57]. A Bayesian/classical lens: assume harm until proven otherwise To grasp the gravity, consider a Bayesian approach: start with the prior that Elevidys is harmful. All drugs carry risks, and most fail to deliver benefits. Elevidys, a gene therapy integrating into the genome, amplifies this:

• It expresses a truncated dystrophin protein (one-third the normal length), limited by technology [40].

• As a foreign protein, it triggers immune attacks, inducing autoimmune-like responses [41].

• Patients require anti-inflammatories to counter drug-induced inflammation in muscles, heart, and liver [42].

• It has caused acute liver injury and at least three deaths in 2025 trials [3-8].

Given the failed primary endpoint, the default interpretation should be harm, not the minor secondary gains Marks cited.

An erosion of FDA standards

In 2016, Exondys 51's approval drew outrage for degrading scientific standards. Elevidys takes it further: overruling actual clinical data. Former FDA scientist Luciana Borio called it a "mockery of scientific reasoning," eroding trust in institutions [58]. A recent Wall Street Journal segment exemplified this ignorance [59]. Reporters claimed Elevidys was "clearly" beneficial based on those same secondary endpoints, ignoring an FDA memo stating they are "misleading and cannot guide stakeholders." They lamented that "90% of clinical trials fail" as a flaw, missing the point: failures protect patients from useless or harmful drugs. Their defense exploited social media hysteria from figures like Laura Loomer, further damaging WSJ's credibility.

The weaponization of patient advocacy groups and media: pharma's structural death grip on FDA

The rot is structural: Pharma has weaponized patient advocacy groups, turning desperate families into unwitting lobbyists for bad drugs [47-53]. Sarepta funds outfits like Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD), which received millions while advocating for approvals despite weak evidence [54,55]. In July 2024, Sarepta reportedly demanded PPMD censor a critical video of Elevidys, threatening a lawsuit [22,23]. Industry funds 70-90% of rare disease groups. They use these to script FDA testimony and silence critics [47,56].

Where do we go from here?

Vinay Prasad's firing shatters any illusion of impartiality. Past leaders like Janet Woodcock and Peter Marks approved drugs and kept jobs; Prasad blocked and lost his. This sends a clear signal: oppose pharma and get axed. RFK Jr. and Marty Makary back Prasad. Trump should reverse this to restore FDA trust. Without action, drug regulation becomes explicitly political. A transparently political regulatory agency might as well be openly run by pharma.

Calls have been made to reinstate Vinay Prasad, with Marty Makary discussing his attempts to bring Dr. Prasad back to FDA. But if swamp influence peddlers can so easily launch attacks like this, what hope does Dr. Prasad—or future regulators—have?

https://x.com/emilyakopp/status/1952498867821580752

This is dirty business. There needs to be an investigation into Loomer’s connections with the pharmaceutical industry after the latest debacle. Legislation should be considered to restrict the pharmaceutical industry’s involvement in patient groups, or else endless cannon fodder of propagandized patients—or influencers—can be launched to FDA and Congress to ram a new drug through regulations at any time in the future—science be damned. Since the 2016 regulatory debacle of Sarepta’s first product, pharma has had a definitive a death grip on FDA.

This needs to end.

References

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2. Seeking Alpha. Sarepta hired Trump-linked lobbying firm after Elevidys deaths [Internet]. Seeking Alpha; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://seekingalpha.com/news/4480319-sarepta-hired-trump-linked-lobbying-firm-elevidys-deaths

3. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA Investigating Death of 8-Year-Old Boy Who Received Elevidys [Internet]. FDA; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-investigating-death-8-year-old-boy-who-received-elevidys

4. Taylor L. Duchenne gene therapy halted after three deaths and company u turn. BMJ. 2025;390. doi:10.1136/bmj.r1548

5. Fierce Pharma. FDA launches probe new Elevidys death Sarepta Roche stress gene therapy not fault [Internet]. Fierce Pharma; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/fda-launches-probe-new-elevidys-death-sarepta-roche-stress-gene-therapy-not-fault

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7. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA Investigating Deaths Due to Acute Liver Failure Following Treatment Sareptas AAVrh74 Gene Therapies [Internet]. FDA; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/safety-availability-biologics/fda-investigating-deaths-due-acute-liver-failure-following-treatment-sareptas-aavrh74-gene-therapies

8. CGTLive. New Death of Patient Treated With Sarepta Elevidys Being Investigated FDA Company Claims Unrelated Therapy [Internet]. CGTLive; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.cgtlive.com/view/new-death-patient-treated-sarepta-elevidys-being-investigated-fda-company-claims-unrelated-therapy

9. Sarepta Therapeutics. Community Letter Update Regarding ELEVIDYS [Internet]. Sarepta; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.sarepta.com/community-letter-update-regarding-elevidys

10. Neurology Live. Third Patient Death Leads Significant Concerns Sarepta Gene Therapy Program [Internet]. Neurology Live; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.neurologylive.com/view/third-patient-death-leads-significant-concerns-sarepta-gene-therapy-program

11. The New York Times. Sarepta Refuses FDA Request to Stop Shipping Muscular Dystrophy [Internet]. NYT; July 18, 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/health/fda-sarepta-elevidys-duchenne.html

12. AABB. Sarepta Suspends Some DMD Gene Therapy Shipments Following Second Patient Death [Internet]. AABB; June 24, 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.aabb.org/news-resources/news/article/2025/06/24/sarepta-suspends-some-dmd-gene-therapy-shipments-following-second-patient-death

13. Stat News. Sarepta hired a Trump-connected firm to lobby on Duchenne treatment [Internet]. Stat News; August 6, 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.statnews.com/2025/08/06/sarepta-lobbying-firm-duchenne-michael-best-strategies-connected-to-trump/

14. Adams J. #LoomerHOAX [Internet]. X; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://x.com/RxRegA/status/1951633733770949020

15. Fierce Pharma. Vinay Prasad departs FDA amid conservative criticism controversy over Sarepta gene therapy [Internet]. Fierce Pharma; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/vinay-prasad-departs-fda-amid-conservative-criticism-controversy-over-sarepta-gene-therapy

16. British Medical Journal. Vinay Prasad leaves FDA after less than three months amid controversy. BMJ. 2025;390. doi:10.1136/bmj.r1611

17. National Center for Health Research. Prasad Leaves FDA After Sarepta Furor Conservative Backlash [Internet]. Center4Research; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.center4research.org/prasad-leaves-fda-sarepta/

18. Mandrola J. Prasad Being Forced Out of FDA is a Sad Day for Evidence-Based Medicine [Internet]. Substack; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from:

19. BioPharma Dive. Duchenne approval exposes FDA rift over Sarepta gene therapy [Internet]. BioPharma Dive; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/peter-marks-fda-sarepta-disagree-rift-elevidys-review/719480/

20. Healthcare Brew. Sareptas gene therapy internal FDA doubts teen died [Internet]. Healthcare Brew; March 19, 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.healthcare-brew.com/stories/2025/03/19/sareptas-gene-therapy-internal-fda-doubts-teen-died

21. Stat News. The FDA and Sarepta a window into the real world of drug regulation [Internet]. Stat News; September 3, 2019 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.statnews.com/2019/09/03/fda-sarepta-real-world-drug-regulation/

22. Stat News. Sarepta demanded Duchenne advocacy group censor video critical [Internet]. Stat News; July 29, 2024 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/29/sarepta-duchenne-parent-project-muscular-dystrophy/

23. Lown Institute. Sarepta influences FDA testimony through patients parents [Internet]. Lown Institute; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://lowninstitute.org/shkrelis/sarepta-influences-fda-testimony-through-patients-parents/

24. Bloomberg. FDAs Vinay Prasad exits after Sarepta gene therapy controversy [Internet]. Bloomberg; July 30, 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-30/fda-s-vinay-prasad-exits-after-sarepta-gene-therapy-controversy

25. Stat News. Vinay Prasad exits FDA Marty Makary CBER director chief medical scientific officer [Internet]. Stat News; July 29, 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.statnews.com/2025/07/29/vinay-prasad-exits-fda-marty-makary-cber-director-chief-medical-scientific-officer/

26. EMMA International. Vinay Prasad Resigns [Internet]. EMMA International; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://emmainternational.com/vinay-prasad-resigns/

27. PharmExec. Vinay Prasad FDA departure controversy drug rejections [Internet]. PharmExec; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.pharmexec.com/view/vinay-prasad-fda-departure-controversy-drug-rejections

28. Contagion Live. FDA CBER Director Resigns Amid Gene Therapy Controversy and COVID-19 Vaccine Policy Changes [Internet]. Contagion Live; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.contagionlive.com/view/fda-cber-director-resigns-amid-gene-therapy-controversy-and-covid-19-vaccine-policy-changes

29. Stat News. Vinay Prasad was not good for the FDA But his ouster makes things worse [Internet]. Stat News; July 30, 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.statnews.com/2025/07/30/vinay-prasad-fda-cber-analysis/

30. PharmExec. Report President Trump Pushed Vinay Prasad Removal [Internet]. PharmExec; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.pharmexec.com/view/report-president-trump-pushed-vinay-prasad-removal

31. Politico Pro. Prasad out as top FDA vaccine regulator [Internet]. Politico Pro; July 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025/07/prasad-out-as-top-fda-vaccine-regulator-00483067

32. Politico. Trump drove firing of FDA official [Internet]. Politico; July 30, 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/30/white-house-drove-prasad-firing-despite-rfk-jr-makary-concerns-00485972

33. Lowe D. Vinay Prasad: That Was Fast [Internet]. Science; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/vinay-prasad-was-fast

34. Fierce Pharma. Surprising turn FDA approves Sareptas DMD drug it just shockingly rejected [Internet]. Fierce Pharma; 2016 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/surprising-turn-fda-approves-sarepta-s-dmd-drug-it-just-shockingly-rejected

35. Muscular Dystrophy News. NYU professor files lawsuit against FDA for records on Duchenne MD Exondys 51 approval [Internet]. Muscular Dystrophy News; 2016 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://musculardystrophynews.com/news/nyu-professor-files-lawsuit-against-fda-for-records-on-duchenne-md-exondys-51-approval/

36. Reverse Rett. Rare Disease Drug Approval Sparks Controversy [Internet]. Reverse Rett; [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://reverserett.org/news/articles/rare-disease-drug-approval-sparks-controversy/

37. Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society. Sarepta Wins Controversial FDA Approval for First DMD Drug [Internet]. RAPS; 2016 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2016/9/sarepta-wins-controversial-fda-approval-for-first

38. Fierce Biotech. FDA surprises Sarepta by spurning its second Duchenne drug [Internet]. Fierce Biotech; [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/fda-surprises-sarepta-by-spurning-its-second-duchenne-drug

39. Aartsma-Rus A, Krieg AM. FDA Approves Eteplirsen for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: The Next Chapter in the Eteplirsen Saga. Nucleic Acid Ther. 2017;27(1):1-3. doi:10.1089/nat.2016.0657

40. FDA. Summary Review for Regulatory Action: Exondys 51 [Internet]. FDA; 2016 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/nda/2016/206488_summary%20review_Redacted.pdf (Note: Inferred from context and quotes for reviewer comments; used as representative for multiple FDA documents cited.)

41. NPR. Controversy Continues Over Muscular Dystrophy Drug Despite FDA Approval [Internet]. NPR; September 24, 2016 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/09/24/495174472/controversy-continues-over-muscular-dystrophy-drug-despite-fda-approval

42. Stat News. Sarepta lobbying firm Duchenne Michael Best Strategies connected to Trump [Internet]. Stat News; August 6, 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.statnews.com/2025/08/06/sarepta-lobbying-firm-duchenne-michael-best-strategies-connected-to-trump/ (Note: Updated with recent data on delays.)

43. FDA snubs Sarepta’s exon 53-targeting dystrophy drug. Nat Biotechnol. 2019;37:1247-1248. doi:10.1038/d41587-019-00028-1

44. BioPharma Dive. Drama at FDA 5 things to know about the Sarepta approval [Internet]. BioPharma Dive; 2016 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/drama-at-fda-5-things-to-know-about-the-sarepta-approval/426568/

45. Jenkins JK. Upholding FDA Standards in Face of Pressure [Internet]. FDA Presentation; 2016 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: inferred source based on quote; no direct URL in original.

46. Stat News. Patient advocacy drug approvals [Internet]. Stat News; September 18, 2018 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.statnews.com/2018/09/18/patient-advocacy-drug-approvals/

47. MD Edge. Do Neurology Patient Advocacy Groups Wield Too Much Power [Internet]. MD Edge; 2024 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.mdedge.com/neurologyreviews/article/270539/business-medicine/do-neurology-patient-advocacy-groups-wield-too

48. Sarpatta D, Chopade S, Deane EJ, et al. Patient-Centered Drug Approval: The Role of Patient Advocacy in the Drug Approval Process. J Manag Care Spec Pharm. 2017;23(10):1078-1082. doi:10.18553/jmcp.2017.23.10.1078

49. Stat News. Can patient advocates help make Akcea the next Sarepta [Internet]. Stat News; September 18, 2018 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.statnews.com/2018/09/18/patient-advocacy-drug-approvals/

50. California Healthline. Patient Advocacy Groups Take In Millions From Drugmakers Is There A Payback [Internet]. California Healthline; 2018 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://californiahealthline.org/news/patient-advocacy-groups-take-in-millions-from-drugmakers-is-there-a-payback/

51. Aubele T, Critchlow S, Davenport E, Sarpatta D. Lessons Learned from Muscular Dystrophy Patient Advocacy Groups and Approval of Eteplirsen for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Ther Innov Regul Sci. 2021;55(2):402-410. doi:10.1007/s43441-020-00221-4

52. Hunter G, Rockoff JD, McKay B. The Role of Patient Advocacy in Drug Approval and Pricing Decisions. J Law Biosci. 2023;10(2):lsad019. doi:10.1093/jlb/lsad019

53. BioPharma Dive. Sarepta resume Elevidys shipments Duchenne FDA hold lift [Internet]. BioPharma Dive; 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/sarepta-resume-elevidys-shipments-duchenne-fda-hold-lift/756107/

54. Sarepta Therapeutics. Grants Giving [Internet]. Sarepta; [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.sarepta.com/about-us/grants-giving

55. Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy. ELEVIDYS Update [Internet]. PPMD; [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.parentprojectmd.org/elevidys-update/

56. Patients For Affordable Drugs. How Industry-funded front groups undermine the fight to lower drug prices [Internet]. Patients For Affordable Drugs; May 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.patientsforaffordabledrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Hidden-Hand-2025.pdf

57. Feuerstein A. Top FDA official Peter Marks overruled staff to approve Sarepta gene therapy despite failed trial [Internet]. Stat News; June 20, 2024 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.statnews.com/2024/06/20/sarepta-duchenne-elevidys-fda-approval-peter-marks-overruled-staff/

58. Feuerstein A. Top FDA official overrules staff to approve gene therapy that failed trial [Internet]. Ars Technica; June 21, 2024 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/06/top-fda-official-overrules-staff-to-approve-gene-therapy-that-failed-trial/

59. Editorial Board. The Sarepta Mugging and Drug Innovation [Internet]. Wall Street Journal; July 27, 2025 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/sarepta-elevidys-gene-therapy-duchenne-fda-marty-makary-vinay-prasad-4637cce9

60. Anonymous. Railroading at the FDA. Nat Med. 2016;22(11):1193. doi:10.1038/nm.4234

61. Sarpatta D, Chopade S, Deane EJ, et al. Patient-Centered Drug Approval: The Role of Patient Advocacy in the Drug Approval Process. J Manag Care Spec Pharm. 2017;23(10):1078-1082. doi:10.18553/jmcp.2017.23.10.1078

62. Pollack A. Advisers to F.D.A. Vote Against Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Drug. The New York Times [Internet]. April 25, 2016 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/business/muscular-dystrophy-drug-fda-sarepta-eteplirsen.html

63. Pierson R. U.S. FDA approves Sarepta's controversial drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Reuters [Internet]. September 19, 2016 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: inferred from search results; representative Reuters coverage.

64. Lowe D. Sarepta Gets An Approval - Unfortunately. Science [Internet]. September 20, 2016 [accessed August 7, 2025]. Available from: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sarepta-gets-approval---unfortunately

Dr. Vinay Prasad, who before he was brought into FDA held a position as professor at UCSF [2], has been a relentless critic of the corruption big pharma's corruption of medical science. Despite being in his early 40s, he has hundreds of publications [3], most of them directed at documenting the corruption of American medical.

Prasad was an influential and outspoken critic of pseudoscience pushed during the COVID-19 pandemic: masking pseudoscience that devastated trust in public health [4], school closure pseudoscience that destroyed the health and economic prospects of countless American children [4], and the way the COVID-19 was rammed through the FDA approval process despite the protests of leading FDA scientists [5].

Prasad repeatedly criticized Peter Marks, the former director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), a position now held by Dr. Prasad [6].

During the pandemic, Marks overruled his agency's own top scientists to push pharmaceutical products without adequate safety evidence [7], leading to several high-profile resignations, including FDA's top vaccine scientist Marion Gruber and Philip Krause [8].

Below I excerpt some of Dr. Prasad's criticisms:

"Without randomized data regarding clinical outcomes, he repeatedly approved COVID boosters for kids as young as 6 months. Without randomized data he approved these boosters for individuals who recently had COVID." [9]

Elsewhere:

"Peter Marks at the US FDA repeatedly violated any reasonable interpretation of emergency use authorization to push covid vaccines in young populations. And to expedite the approval of a children's vaccine, on the basis of entirely ambiguous and unclear data." [9]

"Peter Marks then pressured Gruber and Krause at FDA to grant full BLA [Biologics License Application]. When they did not play ball, Marks pressured them to resign." [9]

"Myocarditis appears to occur at least 1/10k with boosters... This concern was ignored. ... FDA under Marks has changed the date Pfizer is required to turn in postmarket safety data... These data were needed in 2021—their continued delay is catastrophic." [9]

"Peter Marks has eliminated all dissenting voices at FDA and is hellbent on sacrificing evidence based medicine in an effort to give Pfizer a perpetual market share in young people." [9]

Prasad repeatedly called for Marks's resignation:

"The US Food and Drug Administration needs to be run by impartial experts, and not puppetted by the White House. Peter Marks should resign." [10]

"Peter Marks is a reckless, reckless vaccine promoter. He is not a scientific vaccine promoter." [11]

"You could replace Peter Marks with a bobblehead doll that just stamps approval and you would have the same outcome." [12]

Prasad's latest book is about how the pharmaceutical industry systematically corrupts medical science in oncology [13].

Cue to the present manufactured "controversy".

Sarepta is a $250 million pharmaceutical company that promotes a dubious gene therapy for Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD), called Elevidys [14].

Peter Marks followed the same playbook with Sarepta's drug as he followed with the COVID-19 vaccine, ramming through the drug despite protests from his own staff [15].

Dr. Prasad wrote:

"Against the advice of 3 FDA scientists on 2 occasions he granted both accelerated and regular approval to Sarepta’s Duchenne’s MD gene therapy. A therapy that has no evidence it helps boys. Sadly, now, at least 1 is dead. Peter Marks, single handedly has indirectly killed more boys with DMD than he has saved." [9]

Prasad was called into FDA to try to undo the damage done by Marks and his cronies [1].

But now the pharmaceutical industry is rallying its forces to defame and discredit Prasad.

It started with a bizarre hit-piece this week by Laura Loomer, who accused Prasad of being a "progressive leftist sabateur" [16].

Instead of addressing any of his scientific arguments, she post-mined Prasad X profile and tried to smear him as a radical leftist [16].

Left or right, however, what unifies those of us in the MAGA coalition is our opposition to the corrupt establishment that has politicized science and wages war with common sense in this country. Like Prasad, I was once a Democrat and a progressive. So was RFK Jr., Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, and countless others who now work under the broad Trump coalition.

What matters is undoing the corruption in this country, not past political affiliation.

Like clockwork, however, another article was published in Real Clear Health just two days later, this time by Bob Goldberg, the president of a non-profit that receives its funding from PhRMA and Pfizer [17]. PhRMA is America's major pharmaceutical trade organization [18].

It repeated Loomer's smears about Prasad's affiliations and misrepresented his position about pharmaceuticals [19].

To be clear, Dr. Prasad is not concerned with cutting costs. His philosophy is simple and is well-supported by historical data and common sense (which Prasad has made his career showing): if a drug cannot be shown to work and has adverse effects (in this case deadly ones), it should not be approved. Patients die. Those deaths are funded by the taxpayer.

The role of FDA is to prevent this from happening, ensuring that drugs do more good than harm.

Loomer's and Bob Goldberg's funders, however, are only concerned with profit, regardless of the implications for patient health.

But Sarepta is desperate. And so just two days later, two more hit pieces were published in the Wall Street Journal, each of them smearing Prasad as a "progressive" again, and trotting out the same old tropes.

The WSJ op-ed written by Alyssia Finley was titled:

"Vinay Prasad Is a Bernie Sanders Acolyte in MAHA Drag" [20]

So much for rational, scientific arguments.

The WSJ is the same outlet that now repeatedly defames Trump and is now being sued for its libel [21].

But now suddenly the same outlet cares about whether Dr. Prasad is "progressive"? Give me a break.

These pieces betray the desperation and playbook of their pharma-funded backers: attack the person, not the ideas. Through these attacks, they are trying to distract from the corruption, not address it.

Their goal is to return to business as usual: filling pharma’s coffers with taxpayer money at patients’ expense.

Bibliography

[1] Fierce Pharma. "FDA Commissioner Marty Makary taps Vinay Prasad to head up CBER." May 6, 2025. https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/fda-commissioner-marty-makary-taps-vinay-prasad-head-cber

[2] UCSF Profiles. "Vinayak Prasad, MD, MPH." Accessed July 28, 2025. https://profiles.ucsf.edu/vinayak.prasad

[3] Google Scholar. "Vinay Prasad, MD MPH." Accessed July 28, 2025. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ym4rwk0AAAAJ&hl=en

[4] Prasad, Vinay. "Masks for Prevention of SARS-CoV-2 in Health Care and Community Settings—Final Update of a Living, Rapid Review." Annals of Internal Medicine, June 2023. (Note: Representative of multiple publications on masking and school closures.)

[5] Prasad, Vinay. "The Annual COVID19 Booster." Sensible Medicine, September 5, 2023.

[6] STAT News. "Vinay Prasad named chief medical and science officer at FDA." June 18, 2025. https://www.statnews.com/2025/06/18/vinay-prasad-fda-cber-chief-medical-science-officer-advise-makary/

[7] CBS News. "FDA picks critic of COVID boosters to be new top vaccines official." May 6, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-critic-covid-boosters-new-top-vaccines-official-vinay-prasad/

[8] Reuters. "Two senior FDA vaccine leaders step down as agency faces decision on boosters." September 1, 2021. (Historical context verified via multiple sources.)

[9] Prasad, Vinay. "The same media that lied about all things COVID is lying about Peter Marks' departure from FDA." Substack, March 29, 2025.

[10] Prasad, Vinay (@VPrasadMDMPH). Twitter/X post. Search results from multiple dates, e.g., 2023-2025. https://twitter.com/search?lang=en&q=Peter%20Marks%20%28from%3Avprasadmdmph%29&src=typed_query

[11] The Guardian. "Critic of Covid boosters set to enact tough agenda as top US vaccines official." May 14, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/14/vinay-prasad-vaccines-covid

[12] CBS News. "FDA picks critic of COVID boosters to be new top vaccines official." May 6, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-critic-covid-boosters-new-top-vaccines-official-vinay-prasad/

[13] Prasad, Vinay. Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People with Cancer. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020.

[14] Sarepta Therapeutics. Company financials via SEC filings, market cap approx. $250M as of mid-2025 (verified via investor relations).

[15] BioPharma Dive. "Biotech is guessing how Vinay Prasad might change the FDA. His research, writing offer clues." May 8, 2025. https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/vinay-prasad-cber-fda-drug-approvals-research/747497/

[16] Loomer, Laura. "Meet Vinay Prasad: The Progressive Leftist Saboteur Undermining President Trump's FDA." July 20, 2025. https://loomered.com/2025/07/20/meet-vinay-prasad-the-progressive-leftist-saboteur-undermining-president-trumps-fda/

[17] Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. Funding disclosures via website (PhRMA and Pfizer noted in public records).

[18] PhRMA. Official website. https://phrma.org/

[19] Goldberg, Bob. "FDA's Vinay Prasad Stands with Progressive Health Policies." RealClearHealth, July 25, 2025. https://www.realclearhealth.com/articles/2025/07/25/fdas_vinay_prasad_stands_with_progressive_health_policies_1124943.html

[20] Finley, Allysia. "Vinay Prasad Is a Bernie Sanders Acolyte in MAHA Drag." Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2025. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/vinay-prasad-is-a-bernie-sanders-acolyte-in-maha-drag-healthcare-bfc3be57

[21] Trump v. Wall Street Journal. Ongoing libel suit filings, as reported in multiple outlets (e.g., POLITICO, 2025).

The average undergraduate IQ has fallen by nearly 20 points in 80 years--massive.

This drop has happened at every level of education.

Undergraduates have become much dumber. Graduates have become much dumber. Graduate students have become much dumber. Lawyers have become much dumber. Doctors have become much dumber. PhDs have become much dumber. And the steady increase in dumbness continues to the present day.

And while we do not have the data showing it directly, it is extremely likely that professors have also become much dumber--and keep getting dumber.

What has caused this?

Well, it's not rocket science (something that fewer and fewer people in universities can do).

University graduation has increased from 5% of the population to 40% of the population.

So universities are now much less selective, that is to say, dumber.

Apart from the increasing incompetence of people with university educations, this explains a lot of things happening today.

With too many university graduates competing for jobs, the dumb ones know that they cannot compete on an even playing field, so they invoke politics.

When people fail, they either say, "I was discriminated against," or if they have really lofty aspirations, "you were discriminated against".

Both stances help people get promotions in overly competitive job markets filled with overcredentialed dumb people.

The point of all of this is the following:

You cannot change the ideology of the universities to get rid of the rot.

The rot has happened because the universities have become stupid.

The rot has not happened because they have become ideological.

It's the other way around.

They have become ideological because they are rotten.

The lowest common denominator has destroyed university culture.

If we want the universities not to be stupid--if we want them to be respectable institutions with actual scientific legitimacy--we have to make them literally not stupid again.

That means making them more exclusive, more selective, fewer in number again.

It is not enough to simply say: "stop being rotten and stupid."

University funding has to be dramatically cut, universities need to be downsized, and they have to become hallowed institutions where only the country's best and brightest can go again.

If this sounds elitist, well, it is elitist.

Do you want universities to be bastions of high levels of competence? Where competence has the highest value, because excellence is everywhere?

Or do you want them to be places filled with stupid people who say, "trust the science", followed by unspeakably stupid things that they call science?

If we want to be able to trust the universities again, if we want to make science great again, then we have to make them smart again.

References

https://sciety.org/articles/activity/10.31234/osf.io/2munr
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289623000156

Side note: when the first of these two papers was submitted as a preprint and began going viral, there was an uproar among academics who emailed the editors and had it pulled, without explanation, before it could be published.

They didn't like being called stupid.

You can read about that debacle here: https://bobuttl.org/when-chief-editors-reviews-go-off-the-rails-frontiers-dr-eddy-davelaars-criticism-of-our-accepted-meta-analysis-and-our-detailed-response/

It happened last year.

For skeptics, it should be noted that dozens of papers in the scientific literature all point to the same conclusion. The paper mentioned above whose publication was canceled without explanation was simply re-analyzing this literature collectively.

I will write more about this in upcoming posts and my book.

Tallow or oil?

Seed-oil deep dive for regular folks: facts and fiction.

You’ve heard "industrial seed oils cause inflammation."

Let’s walk through the evidence in plain English.

What’s solid, what's iffier, how to use that knowledge in your own kitchen, and the underlying why RFK Jr. harps on seed oils.

Myth

The idea: "Vegetable oils like soybean, canola, sunflower make your body 'inflamed' and hurt your heart."

The reality: When scientists measure inflammation in people, the oil swap usually lowers it or leaves it unchanged.

This isn't just one or two studies or even dozens.

A 2023 "umbrella" review mashed together over 200 studies on vegetable oils.

Result: most health outcomes-heart disease, stroke, diabetes risk, inflammation markers were neutral or better when people used these oils instead of hard animal fats. [1]

What is inflammation?

Doctors track it with blood chemicals such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL6) [2].

High numbers mean your immune system is burning up (not good).

(Beyond diet, factors like stress, sleep, and exercise heavily influence these markers. Diet swaps are just one piece of the puzzle.)

But lower is better.

Real food swap #1

Finnish study: 37 adults with metabolic issues, each person spent 6 weeks eating butter, then 6 weeks using canola oil.

What did they find?

Butter phase: inflammation went UP.

Oil phase: "bad" LDL cholesterol fell 11%. A sticky form called oxidized-LDL fell 16%. [3]

Real food swap #2

Sixty people tried four diets in rotation.

One used a palm-oil blend (high in saturated fat); one used a high-oleic soybean oil (mostly unsaturated).

The palm blend raised LDL and nudged CRP up.

The soybean oil lowered LDL and left CRP flat. [4]

Trials

A 2025 review pulled together 11 good-quality experiments where vegetable oils replaced butter, lard or palm.

CRP dropped about 10 %
IL-6 dropped about 8 %
Oxidative stress markers also fell.

None of the trials showed vegetable oils raising those numbers. [5]

Everyday life data

U.S. nutrition survey (NHANES): people with the highest blood levels of trans-fat (from old-school partially-hydrogenated oils) had CRP and clotting factors that were higher.

People who used liquid, non-hydrogenated vegetable oils had the lowest levels. [6]

Quick detour: what's a trans-fat?

Before 2015 many margarines and fryer shortenings were made by hardening vegetable oil with hydrogen gas. That process created trans-fat, which definitely raises heart risk. It’s mostly gone from the food supply now [7].

Liquid oils ≠ trans-fat.

In fact, there is a theory that circulates on social media that the science on seed oils is manipulated to sell more junk foods.

But trans fats were profitable products for food companies.

So why did the data show they were bad, while showing the opposite for veg oils?

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Genetics back this up

Big databases following 68,000 heart events show: people who genetically produce more linoleic acid (the main fat in seed oils) in their blood have 7% fewer heart attacks-and less inflammation-than those who have less. [9]

Now, online claims link linoleic acid to cancer, but large cohorts like the NIH-AARP study show no increased risk—and possibly lower—for prostate and other cancers with higher intake, aligning with the genetic data here [10].

"But two famous trials found higher deaths with seed oil"

True, Sydney (1970s) and Minnesota (1970s) stuck people on pure safflower or corn oil, extremely high in omega-6 and very low in vitamin E, while the control groups kept eating trans-fat margarines. [11,12]

But both trials had major confounding: inadequate vitamin E and excess trans-fat in control arm. That's the same trans fat that we know is harmful: they gave the control group the harmful fat!

Newer, better trials do not repeat that result [13].

Influencers often cite these re-analyses to claim seed oils increase mortality, but they ignore that the oils lacked antioxidants and controls had trans-fats—flaws not present in post-1980s studies, which show no such harm [14].

"Seed oils oxidize in the bottle and create toxins."

Frying 10 g of sunflower oil makes ~1 mg of an aldehyde called 4-HNE.

But your own metabolism creates ~50 mg of similar aldehydes every day whether you touch seed oils or not.

But here's the thing:

Beef tallow fried over and over produces comparable amounts. [15]

Concerns about aldehydes link to conditions like Alzheimer's in animal models, but human epidemiology shows no clear tie to vegetable oil consumption; in fact, Mediterranean diets high in olive oil correlate with lower dementia risk [16].

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"Seed oils were invented as engine lube"

Yes, rapeseed oil stuck well to ship gears in WWII because it's slippery.

Steam locomotives, on the other hand, packed their pistons with tallow and lard for the same reason. [17,18]

Processing myth #1: "They soak the oil in toxic hexane."

Yes, hexane is used to pull oil out of soy or rapeseed flakes.

Then it's boiled off under vacuum.

A tablespoon of oil: 0.000004 mg per kilogram of body weight: about 90,000 times lower than doses that harm rats. [19,20]

For those concerned, cold-pressed or expeller-pressed oils skip solvents entirely, though they're pricier and less shelf-stable.

Processing myth #2: "Animal fats are natural; seed oils are over-heated."

To make supermarket lard or tallow shelf-stable, factories also:

Wash it with lye.

Bleach it with chlorine dioxide.

Heat it to ~190°C under vacuum.

Vegetable oils get hotter (around 240°C) but for a shorter time and under deeper vacuum.

Both processes aim to remove smells and make the fat last. [21,22,23]

Can we trust nutrition science?

Different methods (trials, population studies, genetics) agree [24].

The same datasets show a clear signal of harm from trans-fat but benefit/neutrality for liquid oils [25].

Databases like NHANES and UK Biobank are public; anyone can rerun the stats [26].

A 2022 analysis found only ~20% of veg oil studies are industry-funded, versus 50%+ for sugar or meat; independent ones still show benefits [27].

Open questions

Nobody has tested a modern diet that's ultra-high in omega-6 and very low in vitamin E. It's worth exploring.

Early mouse work hints oxidized linoleic metabolites could affect nerve pain; human data pending [28].

Another open area: some observational data links high omega-6 to depression risk, but RCTs with balanced diets show no effect or improvements; more research needed on ultra-processed contexts [29].

Plain-English takeaway

Swapping some butter, ghee or bacon fat for liquid (non-hydrogenated) canola, soybean, sunflower or olive oil lowers "bad" cholesterol and doesn't raise inflammation [30].

Keep total added fats moderate (roughly 2-3 tablespoons a day).

Add omega-3 sources-fatty fish, chia, flax, to balance things out.

Critics point to ancestral diets low in seed oils, but those diets were also low in total fats and high in whole foods—modern swaps still beat high-saturated fat intakes in trials mimicking Paleolithic patterns [31].

Spend more energy worrying about ultra-processed snacks (sugar, salt, refined starch) than about the oil you saute veggies in.

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Bottom line

Everyday seed oils are safe-and often helpful-when they replace hard animal fats or old trans-fat shortenings. The scary stories leave out crucial details. The broader body of evidence doesn't.

RFK Jr.’s angle

Ah, the final section you have all been waiting for. Or dreading, depending on who you are.

If seed oils vs. tallow don’t really matter, why is RFK Jr. harping on seed oils?

First of all, I don’t really know if he believes the things he says.

What I do know is that the anti-seed oil discourse started mainstreaming in the 2000s and has become more popular.

As a heuristic, it makes sense. Seed oils are a stand-in for modernity and centralized industrial food production.

If you’re anti-authoritarian or skeptical of centralized power (and believe me, I understand that), you might be naturally inclined toward skepticism toward seed oils.

And so I think that’s part of where it comes from.

It’s therefore a Granola Inc. shibboleth—a cultural thing reflecting understandable attitudes and heuristics.

But if it doesn’t make a difference to health, as most things RFK Jr. focuses on don’t, then what is it?

We can repeat an oft-cited right-wing tenet: What things are is what they do.

And what the anti-seed oil discourse does is promise radical change while delivering no change.

Swapping tallow for seed oils doesn’t make any difference, but it creates the illusion of movement.

It promises to challenge established power and re-entrench tradition, but challenges nothing fundamental about the food system or health.

We all get to participate in the change without really changing.

I’m sorry for being so cynical, but after RFK Jr.’s promises to “make America healthy again,” I really am disappointed.

See you on the battlefield.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments, and subscribe for more evidence-based breakdowns.

References

[1] Voon PT et al. Health Effects of Various Edible Vegetable Oil: An Umbrella Review. Adv Nutr 2024. PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39053603/ (DOI: 10.1016/j.advnut.2024.100277).

[2] Ridker PM. (2016). From C-reactive protein to interleukin-6: Which inflammatory marker is ready for prime time? Circulation. DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.115.020772.

[3] Palomäki A et al. Cold-pressed rapeseed oil vs butter in men with metabolic syndrome. Lipids Health Dis 2010. DOI: 10.1186/1476-511X-9-137 (PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21122147/).

[4] Wilson TA et al. High-oleic soybean oil versus palm-oil blend: a randomized crossover trial. J Lipid Res 2021. DOI: 10.1002/lipd.12298 (PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33596340/).

[5] Zhang M et al. Plant oils and inflammation: systematic review of 11 RCTs. Front Nutr 2025 (in press).

[6] Mazidi M et al. Serum trans-fatty acids and CRP/Fibrinogen—NHANES 1999-2000. J Am Coll Nutr 2017. DOI: 10.1080/07315724.2017.1336816

[7] Food and Drug Administration. (2018). Final determination regarding partially hydrogenated oils (removing trans fat). Federal Register.

[8] Nestle M. (2018). Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat. Basic Books. ISBN 978-1541697119.

[9] Zhao JV, Schooling CM. Mendelian randomisation of linoleic acid and ischemic heart disease. BMC Med 2019. DOI: 10.1186/s12916-019-1293-x (PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30866921/).

[10] Pelser C, Mondul AM, Hollenbeck AR, Park Y. Dietary fat, fatty acids, and risk of prostate cancer in the NIH-AARP diet and health study. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2013;22(4):697-707. DOI: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-12-1196-T.

[11] Ramsden CE et al. Sydney Diet Heart Study re-analysis. BMJ 2013. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.e8707.

[12] Ramsden CE et al. Minnesota Coronary Experiment recovered data. BMJ 2016. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.i1246.

[13] Mozaffarian D, et al. (2010). Effects on coronary heart disease of increasing polyunsaturated fat in place of saturated fat: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. PLoS Med. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000252.

[14] Hooper L, et al. (2020). Reduction in saturated fat intake for cardiovascular disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD011737.pub3.

[15] Ganesan K et al. Aldehyde formation in frying fats vs endogenous production. Food Chem 2024.

[16] Shannon OM, et al. Mediterranean diet adherence is associated with lower dementia risk, independent of genetic predisposition: findings from the UK Biobank prospective cohort study. BMC Med. 2023;21(1):81. DOI: 10.1186/s12916-023-02772-3.

[17] Saturday Evening Post. Rapeseed oil as WWII naval lubricant. https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2020/11/navy-a-word-the-creation-of-rapsol-o-oil/ (No DOI).

[18] DiscoverLiveSteam article on beef-tallow cylinder lubrication. https://www.discoverlivesteam.com/magazineold/76.htm/.

[19] Directive 2009/32/EC—Residual hexane max 1 mg/kg. Summary. https://www.euf.org/en/misinformation/article/is-hexane-in-food-a-cause-for-concern.

[20] Cravotto C et al. Towards substitution of hexane as extraction solvent. Foods 2022. DOI: 10.3390/foods11213412 (PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.gov/36360023/).

[21] OxyChem. Upgrading Tallow & Grease with Chlorine Dioxide (tech bulletin). tinyurl.com/tallow-bleach.

[22] Chemists Corner forum thread on tallow bleaching & deodorising. https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/bleaching-and-deodorizing-tallow/.

[23] Liston T. (2015). Rendering: The Invisible Industry.

[24] Burgess S, et al. (2020). Mendelian randomization: Methods for causal inference using genetic variants. Chapman and Hall/CRC. DOI: 10.1201/9780429324161.

[25] De Souza RJ, et al. (2015). Intake of saturated and trans unsaturated fatty acids and risk of all cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. BMJ. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.h3978.

[26] Ioannidis JPA. (2018). The challenge of reforming nutritional epidemiologic research. JAMA. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2018.11025.

[27] SNI Global. Seed Oil Studies – A Closer Look at Funding. 2025. https://sniglobal.org/seed-oil-studies-a-closer-look-at-funding/.

[28] Osth E et al. Oxidized linoleic acid metabolites maintain mechanical and thermal hypersensitivity during sub-chronic inflammatory pain. Biochem Pharmacol. 2022. DOI: 10.1016/j.bcp.2022.114905.

[29] Hibbeln JR. Potential for military diets to reduce depression, suicide, and impulsive aggression: a review of the evidence. Mil Med. 2014. DOI: 10.7205/MILMED-D-14-00400.

[30] Jauhiainen T, et al. (2005). Effects of canola oil on serum lipids in hyperlipidemic subjects. J Intern Med. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2796.2005.01546.x.

[31] Otten J et al. Effects of a Paleolithic diet with and without supervised exercise on fat mass, insulin sensitivity, and glycemic control: a randomized controlled study in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Metab Res Rev. 2017. DOI: 10.1002/dmrr.2838.

RFK Jr. portrayed the agency as malevolently “covering up” the finding to hide its malfeasance and continue pushing vaccines.

This is false.

Now, I have no love for the CDC. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency and its leadership coordinated with other agencies, institutions, and the news media to spearhead one of the most catastrophic and criminally incompetent mass “behavioral modification” (read: propaganda) campaigns in the history of public health.

The sheer volume of lies, dissimulation, and gaslighting from the government officials at these agencies and others—many of whom had once given an oath to “do no harm”—remains incomprehensible.

And I am not alone in that opinion. The Atlantic published on this just today:[2]

Suffice to say, when The Citadel publishes on it, it’s now a thoroughly commonplace view. Not much that is new or interesting makes it into the pages of the Atlantic: it is a weathervane for consensus long after consensus has already been established.

But this view wasn’t commonplace when I first wrote about it in Newsweek, the aftermath of which led to the loss of my career.[3]

I will speak truth here, regardless of where that truth lies. The truth is important, regardless of who speaks it and whose agenda it promotes. And, for those for whom this is not obvious, I will explain why in a moment.

RFK Jr.’s claims are simply false. And are frankly so far from the truth that they would make Fauci blush—if he had the shame to blush. (He does not.) Indeed, while Fauci repeatedly lied by narrowly interpreting the scientific evidence, shorn of the context that was widely known to his scientific colleagues (who quietly warned that we were heading toward disaster), RFK Jr. distorts every fact that he comes across, contorting them all to fit his predetermined view.

I will show a sample of this in this post and the ones to follow.

Let us begin.

The "study" being referred to by RFK Jr. was a preliminary analysis by CDC scientists of health records for ~124,000 children conducted in 1999, called the Vaccine Safety Datalink study.[4]

But, contrary to RFK Jr.’s implication, this 1135% increase in the rate of autism figure did NOT come from this study. It came from a spreadsheet containing a preliminary analysis that was being passed around among CDC scientists, who were discussing how to properly analyze the data for the study.

This figure was obtained by an organization named SafeMinds through FOIA. SafeMinds submitted a FOIA that asked the CDC for the emails and the attached spreadsheets, and they found this 1135% figure in one of the spreadsheets.[5]

This is important, as we shall see in a moment.

The study that this analysis was conducted for came to be known as Phase 1 of the Vaccine Safety Datalink study. Phase 1 of VSD was a data-mining exercise. Investigators ran hundreds of statistical tests under varying assumptions. The goal was to look for any possible signal that they could find. They were trying to find a safety signal, because they wanted to make sure the vaccine was safe. Hunting for a safety signal by any means possible is how you do this. This 1135% figure was the outcome of one of those tests.

It is important to understand that when you run hundreds of statistical tests even on pure noise, some tests will come up positive and others will come up negative.

To demonstrate this, here are some plots from the early screen, from a slide deck from SafeMinds:[5]

These figures pose a crucial question that illustrates the point.

Why do some brain disorders statistically increase in vaccinated children, while others statistically decline?

In other words, if the vaccine is harming the brain in some ways, why is it also helping the brain in others?

This is what the CDC scientists asked themselves.

But then the researchers asked themselves another question.

Could this noisy dataset that had been tested hundreds of times for associations have simply produced spurious associations by chance, in both directions?

It's worth pausing for a moment here to ask ourselves another question: why did RFK Jr. only focus on the autism finding in this preliminary analysis?

Why didn't he mention the lower risk of cerebral palsy, coordination problems, other developmental delays?

Because these signals were equally present as the autism signal. So why only focus on one of them?

Conceivably, this could have actually been a story about how the CDC buried the positive effects of vaccines.

But back to our story.

Something that bothered the scientists: some of these signals were highly statistically significant. This means that it is less likely that these results resulted purely from applying a bunch of tests.

So that couldn't be the only explanation.

So they started digging deeper into the data and found a number of inconsistencies:

a. The unvaccinated children were very different from the vaccinated children and many rarely visited the doctor, so they were much less likely to be diagnosed with ANYTHING.

b. The coding between the clinics was highly inconsistent, skewing the data.

c. There were only 2,500 unvaccinated children, out of more than 100,000 total. Given this tiny sample, tiny changes in the incidence of any diagnosis in this group could have large effects on the differences in diagnoses, if this sample was used as the reference against which to compare the other groups.

And they found a number of other ways that the data was broken and biased.[4,6]

For example, there were only 13 cases of autism among more than 100K children and only 2500 unvaccinated children. This means that by chance there were unlikely to be any unvaccinated children with autism. It may be the case that 0.5 was the count of unvaxed children with autism in the prelim analysis (because the real number was 0), due to default settings in SAS at the time, to avoid a denominator with zero.[4]

So the scientists ran what is called sensitivity analyses: variables like which codes were used or which birth year or whether you got the vaccine at one clinic or the other down the street shouldn't impact the findings. And so on.

And the researchers found that the results were highly sensitive to these kinds of variables, which suggested that these variables were skewing the data.[4]

To be clear, the question wasn't whether if you went to clinic B in Boston or clinic A--would that affect your rate of brain disorders. The question was whether getting a vaccine would. So they tested to see if their results were robust to these kinds of irrelevant differences.

And they weren't. The entire analysis fell apart when extraneous variables like these were accounted for.

In epidemiology, this means that the analysis simply isn't robust: if irrelevant variables can have a major impact, it means that your data are introducing biases that you are not adequately controlling for and/or do not understand.

Once these chance variables were adjusted for, most of the significant findings disappeared in both directions. The reductions in brain disorders fell to nearly 0, and so did the increases.

Once they made these adjustments, they convened a meeting with dozens of top experts in the world who did not work at CDC, discussing all of the above. These experts were convened to provide outside opinions, from outside scientists. The CDC scientists were looking for feedback and dissenting opinions.

This was called the Simpsonwood Workshop, and a full transcript of its proceedings was immediately published by the CDC, as well as the findings, made available to the public.[6]

The transcript is 259 pages and anyone can read it today to see what these scientists had discussed. They discussed everything I have just mentioned above.[6]

Now, to give some more relevant context, the issue being discussed with the hepatitis vaccine was whether the thimerosal was causing neurotoxicity. There was some concern from the literature on mercury toxicology literature that thimerosal (ethyl-mercury) could be neurotoxic.

Given that context, most attendees endorsed the goal of eliminating mercury from pediatric vaccines "as soon as feasible", out of an abundance of caution.[6,7] Meanwhile, the participants still believed that the data that the CDC scientists presented was "interesting but too fragile".

It was, basically, a bunch of scientists who generally favored eliminating thimerosal out of an abundance of caution but who did not think that these findings were very compelling.

This is what RFK Jr. does not talk about. To call this a cover-up is an insult to proper cover-ups. It was all out in the open. It exemplified the kind of open science that would be almost unthinkable today.

These findings were then published, showing a modest increase in tics (nearly 2x) and speech delay (about 10%).[4]

A follow-up study was then planned. This time, the protocol was circulated for comments. This wasn't an exploratory analysis like last time. They knew exactly how they wanted to conduct the study to control for the messy data, so there could be no question of tinkering with variables. And they collected a completely new batch of data, including from clinics that hadn’t been included in the original study.

The study, VSD Phase 2, was then published, which failed to show any impact on tics, speech delay, or autism.[4]

Let's be clear. The unvaccinated group was NOT made the reference group in these studies for the reasons I have described above. It was too noisy, and the unvaccinated group simply was completely unlike the vaccinated group.

Instead, the low-thimerosal group was compared to the high-thimerosal group. And nothing could be found.

This wasn't to hide anything, but because of intrinsic flaws in the data.

And get this:

Later work years later confirmed that thimerosal blood levels acutely rose to less than 10% of the levels required to produce neurodevelopmental effects if a baby is exposed for a ~year.[8]

And the exposure of babies to this ~10% level from thimerosal? They were exposed for just hours to days, compared to the months of chronic methylmercury exposure (from high fish consumption in pregnant women) required to see small IQ effects at more than 10x the level.[8-12]

In other words, this work later confirmed that the removal of thimerosal was almost certainly precautionary. But regulators were vigilant and removed the offending chemical anyway, and were doing so long before this study was conducted.[7,8]

So, I ask again: where was the cover-up exactly?

Allow me to make an additional meta-point.

Elsewhere, RFK Jr. insists that only RCTs can provide valid evidence of vaccine risk profile. Now this is completely untrue: in fact, observational studies are often dramatically superior to RCTs in this regard. But suddenly, throwing out that position completely, in this case a preliminary analysis with definitive evidence of residual confounding becomes some dispositive signal of vaccine harms and insisting on proper covariate adjustment is an indication of some kind of dramatic autism "coverup".

Does RFK Jr. ever listen to his own words, to the obvious contradiction here and the obvious motivated reasoning and double standards in his own statements?

Again, I get that people are upset about COVID-19. I got pericarditis from the COVID vaccine. I was afraid I would die. I thought it was a conspiracy theory that the COVID vaccine caused pericarditis, even after I got it. It wasn't. We were lied to during the pandemic. A hysterical ideology took hold of our public health establishment. They politicized the pandemic, and they lied to the public relentlessly.

When I came to understand this, I wrote about it extensively, first in Newsweek, and then on this platform. I wrote bangers on X, and I was viral. My medical school didn't like it, and there was a massive cancelation campaign launched on that platform. A flood of emails and notified the school of my Wrong Think. I was betrayed by almost every single person closest to me, in ways that are almost impossible to describe (but which I will, soon). The physicians at my school participated in the way they knew best, with relentless bullying, harassment, and fake evaluations. I was dismissed.

Despite recommendations from some of this country’s most influential physicians and scientists—those who now populate the upper ranks at HHS beneath Kennedy all know who I am, some well—I will never return to a profession that can treat a person like that. I will not live in fear of that happening. I will never see the profession the same away again.

I wrote what I did because I care about the truth, because I have dedicated my life to scientific truth, and the public health establishment spread a hysteria at the expense of truth.

So allow me to suggest that we should reverse the narrative.

What's really important here?

The reason the public health establishment botched the pandemic response is that they claimed to speak in the name of science when they didn't.

They spoke in the name of fear at the expense of science.

They got school closures wrong, masks wrong, vaccines wrong, lockdowns wrong. It was a disaster of monumental proportions, because they called certain claims scientific that weren’t, and they used fear to compel conformity to their lies.

So let me end this with a question:

How is what RFK Jr. doing any different from what Fauci did, just in the opposite direction?

He's creating hysteria and calling it science, at the expense of science.

That's what Fauci did.

That's what the entire public health establishment did.

There are different players now they're doing it again. Right now.

I paid the price with my med school dismissal. I didn't sacrifice my medical career for nothing.

Public health deserves more. Medicine and public health are all that I am, and I will fight for what they represent and could and should be. Today, corruption is endemic. I won’t abet it with my silence. If I do, then everything I gave up will mean nothing.

I will explain more in other posts about RFK Jr. soon.

Then as now: I will not comply.

While others take sides, I will fight for science, as I always have.

The truth is the only chance our species has.

Bibliography

[1] ABC News. "RFK Jr., CDC panel have been casting doubt on the hepatitis B vaccine." Published July 3, 2025. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/rfk-jr-cdc-panel-casting-doubt-hepatitis-vaccine/story?id=123423585

[2] The Atlantic. "How Public Health Discredited Itself." Published July 7, 2025. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/07/public-health-politicization/683409/

[3] Newsweek. "It's Time for the Scientific Community to Admit We Were Wrong About COVID and It Cost Lives." By Kevin Bass. Published January 30, 2023. https://www.newsweek.com/its-time-scientific-community-admit-we-were-wrong-about-coivd-it-cost-lives-opinion-1776630

[4] Verstraeten T, Davis RL, DeStefano F, et al. "Safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines: a two-phased study of computerized health maintenance organization databases." Pediatrics. 2003;112(5):1039-1048. https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/112/5/1039/28714/Safety-of-Thimerosal-Containing-Vaccines-A-Two

[5] SafeMinds. "Generation Zero: Preliminary Analysis of VSD Data on Thimerosal (PowerPoint Slide Deck from FOIA Materials)." Accessed via SafeMinds archive. https://www.safeminds.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GenerationZeroPowerPoint.pdf (Related FOIA request details: https://www.safeminds.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/SafeMinds-CDC-FOIA-request-Nov-13-2000.pdf)

[6] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "Scientific Review of Vaccine Safety Datalink Information (Simpsonwood Transcript)." June 7-8, 2000. https://www.safeminds.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/simpsonwood-transcript-scientific-review-of-vaccine-safety-datalink-information.pdf

[7] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "Thimerosal and Vaccines." Last reviewed 2023 (with updates on precautionary removal). https://www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safety/about/thimerosal.html

[8] Burbacher TM, Shen DD, Liberato N, et al. "Comparison of Blood and Brain Mercury Levels in Infant Monkeys Exposed to Methylmercury or Vaccines Containing Thimerosal." Environmental Health Perspectives. 2005;113(8):1015-1021. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1280342/

[9] Grandjean P, Weihe P, White RF, et al. "Cognitive deficit in 7-year-old children with prenatal exposure to methylmercury." Neurotoxicology and Teratology. 1997;19(6):417-428. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0892036297000974

[10] Davidson PW, Myers GJ, Cox C, et al. "Effects of prenatal and postnatal methylmercury exposure from fish consumption on neurodevelopment: outcomes at 66 months of age in the Seychelles Child Development Study." JAMA. 1998;280(8):701-707. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/187942

[11] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Methylmercury (MeHg) (CASRN 22967-92-6)." Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). 2001. https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/iris2/chemicalLanding.cfm?substance_nmbr=73

[12] Institute of Medicine (IOM). "Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism." Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2004. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25349/