this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024

44 points (94.0% liked)

Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related

2347 readers

288 users here now

Health: physical and mental, individual and public.

Discussions, issues, resources, news, everything.

See the pinned post for a long list of other communities dedicated to health or specific diagnoses. The list is continuously updated.

Nothing here shall be taken as medical or any other kind of professional advice.

Commercial advertising is considered spam and not allowed. If you're not sure, contact mods to ask beforehand.

Linked videos without original description context by OP to initiate healthy, constructive discussions will be removed.

Regular rules of lemmy.world apply. Be civil.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

Awa@lemmy.world

WhoRoger@lemmy.world

RoyalEngineering@lemmy.world

Trump picks Jay Bhattacharya, who backed COVID herd immunity, to lead National Institutes of Health (apnews.com)

submitted 17 hours ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/health@lemmy.world

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Summary

Donald Trump has nominated Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford health economist and co-author of the controversial Great Barrington Declaration, to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Bhattacharya, a critic of lockdowns and vaccine mandates, advocated for herd immunity during the COVID-19 pandemic, a stance widely criticized by public health experts.

His nomination, alongside Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS secretary, signals Trump’s intent to overhaul public health agencies.

Critics worry these appointments could undermine trust in public health, while supporters hail them as a challenge to the status quo.

top 13 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] jedibob5@lemmy.world 25 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Bhattacharya, a critic of lockdowns and vaccine mandates, advocated for herd immunity during the COVID-19 pandemic

That's... not what herd immunity is... right? I was under the impression that herd immunity posits that a high vaccination rate among the general population would protect those who are immunocompromised or otherwise not healthy enough to get vaccines.

"Advocating for herd immunity" and "critic of vaccine mandates" are two inherently contradictory ideas, unless I've been greatly misled...

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 28 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Basically he thinks we should never have had lockdowns and just gotten it overwith.

Never mind estimates that the lockdown saved a couple million lives.

He also doesn’t believe in Long COVID, and basically thinks disabled people just need to try harder.

He’ll be a disaster.

[+] mydude@lemmy.world -7 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

You got any links to back up those statements?

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

He’s literally the author of the great barrington declaration, and all these points are made in that book.

[+] mydude@lemmy.world -18 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Then you have to read it again, because you misunderstood those points.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 14 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I read it, and holy shit it is fucking awful.

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.

Basically, the idea is that spreading an infection while health services was overwhelmed becuase kids didn't die as much. Guess who suffers when the health care system is overloaded? Everyone!

The goal of the covid policies was to keep hospitals and medical services from collapsing. They came really close in a lot of areas, and were even overwhelmed in places. Covid was already spreading even with the policies in place because people still ignored a lot of them, so the focused protection would have just made things worse.

It was a terrible idea.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago

But this economy thing is more important than access to healthcare!

Maybe we can impose tariffs on the bird flu.

[–] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 6 points 16 hours ago

These fucking idiots.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 0 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

President gets to appoint his loyal dogs to top jobs after a W... did americans just learnt this?

[–] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

These more scientific positions have traditionally been less politically motivated. Republicans may have been shitting on "educated elites" for a while but as recent as Bush jr they were at least smart enough to recognize that certain positions can't be overly political in order for things to continue functioning. I mention Bush jr because he started a pandemic response plan back in 2005 after gasp reading a book. Something orange turd hasn't besides Hitlers speeches.

E: we knew he was going to do this type of shit but it still deserves to be pointed out.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 0 points 11 hours ago

Jr also got into war that costs 8t dollar and destroyed US reputation which can only be topped off by genocide support lol

But W is a W for Jr.