Today, the solitary inventor
tinkering in his shop
has been overshadowed by task forces
of science.
Public policy could itself
become the captive of a scientific
technological
elite.
I fear that the COVID-19 pandemic
showed that President Eisenhower was
right to worry that the search
for knowledge could become "captive"
of a scientific, technological
elite, and that the solitary
inventor tinkering in his shop
could be overshadowed by a cartel of
experts with backing from the state.
Don't believe the claim that the
Internet has corrupted our public
discourse with misinformation.
Experts don't have a monopoly on a
search for truth.
The Internet has improved the
scientific process by enabling
anyone, no matter their expertize
or credentials, to speak up and
challenge prevailing wisdom.
Take the case of hydroxychloroquine.
In March 2020, the iconoclastic
French microbiologist Didier Raoult
announced that it had cured 36 COVID
patients enrolled in a clinical
trial. It was a small study that
wasn't randomized or controlled,
but it drew massive attention.
And I think it's going to be very
exciting. I think it could be
a game changer and maybe not.
Could an inexpensive off the shelf
drug really bring a quick end to the
pandemic sweeping the globe?
The answer turns out to be no.
And most radical scientific ideas
don't pan out.
But trial and error is a necessary
part of the process.
The government added 63 million
doses of hydroxychloroquine to its
national stockpile of COVID-19
treatments and florida added a
million doses.
Exercising their right to
self-medicate.
Some coronavirus patients just
started taking the drug, and then
randomized controlled trials showed
that not only was there no evidence
that it helped COVID patients, but
it might be making matters worse.
We need to listen to the health
experts, the epidemiologists.
We need to do what science dictates
here to save American lives.
And if this president wants to be a
wartime president, he needs to stop
vacillating, listen to the experts,
or simply get out of their way.
But the lesson of the
hydroxychloroquine brouhaha
is not that the scientific
establishment's un credential
challengers should be silenced or
cut out of the conversation.
Hydroxychloroquine didn't prove to
be Covid's miracle cure, but
life saving discoveries often come
from iconoclasts who threaten
establishment thinking.
Consider some of the 19th century
breakthroughs that saved millions of
lives. In 1847,
Ignaz Semmelweis begged his
fellow physicians at the Vienna
General Hospital to wash their hands
before examining women in labor.
Semmelweis was derided with
the same vitriol directed at
the promoters of hydroxychloroquine
during the pandemic.
The drug hydroxychloroquine.
And hydroxychloroquine.
Did you want to ask you about
hydroxychloroquine?
In 1854, the public
health establishment rebuffed the
contrarian, Dr. John Snow,
for suggesting that a London cholera
epidemic was originating from a
water pump contaminated with sewer
water. The prevailing wisdom at
the time was that most disease was
caused by invisible gases
rising from the ground.
If the Internet had existed in the
19th century, Semmelweis and Snow
could have gotten their ideas out
faster. And it might not have taken
decades for the establishment to
accept they had been right all
along.
"Surgeons and physicians are
vigorously striving to erect a
medical establishment akin to our
religious one," wrote the classical
liberal philosopher Herbert Spencer.
"Little did the public at large know
how actively professional
publications are agitating for state
appointed overseers of the public
health." Spencer wrote that in 1851,
but it still applies today.
Hydroxychloroquine didn't work
against COVID, but experimenting
with off label use of FDA approved
drugs is a proven path to medical
innovation.
Lithium treats bipolar illness, but
was originally used for gout and
bladder stones.
The horrifying side effects of
thalidomide on babies in utero
when taken by pregnant women to
treat morning sickness, didn't
dissuade innovators from discovering
that it could be an effective
treatment for leprosy and multiple
myeloma. We need to welcome
heterodoxy.
Even random people on the internet
with no medical credentials might
have groundbreaking ideas, and
sometimes reacting to bad ideas
could lead to good ones.
It's true that medical training can
make it easier to detect cherry
picking of data and to really
understand what the evidence
actually says.
But I can tell you, as a surgeon
with 40 years of experience working
in medicine, experience and
credentials can also cause myopia,
making it harder to see the value in
radical new ideas.
COVID was so politicized
that those who broke with the
priesthood were often attacked as
cranks, accused of having blood on
their hands and kicked off social
media platforms for "dangerous
misinformation.".
"Once the theory is labeled
conservative or liberal, it becomes
difficult for scientists to
challenge it." The Harvard science
historian Liv Gribbin noted in a May
2021 essay.
"Some scientists are less prone to
question hypotheses for fear of
political and social pressures."
It was pundits on Twitter without
any medical credentials who saw the
pandemic coming at a time when
some mainstream outlets were
dismissive and snide.
After the pandemic started, some
dissenters from conventional wisdom,
we're banned from YouTube only to
have their insights later endorsed
by the likes of The New York Times
and The Wall Street Journal.
Americans should be prepared that
they're going to have to hunker down
significantly more than
we as a country are doing.
An alarming new Johns Hopkins
University study shows that 2020
lockdowns only reduced COVID 19
mortality by 0.2%.
You know, it's very interesting.
It shows once again that vaccination
is superior to prior
infections.
New data suggests natural immunity
from COVID provided better
protection against the Delta variant
compared to vaccination alone.
We should continue to investigate
what went on in China until we
find out to the best of our ability
exactly what happened.
Openness to unconventional ideas has
its limits.
We don't take flat earthers
seriously. Nor is it worth paying
attention to claims that COVID 19
vaccines cause infertility, implant
people with microchips or change
their DNA.
They're not enough hours in a day to
fully address every hypothesis.
But the best experts show tolerance,
respect and openness to the opinions
of outsiders.
Science is a profession.
It's not a priesthood.