A huge percentage of the people I follow on X (yes, I have given in on the Twitter thing) are COVID contrarians. I had departed X for years because it became a liberal playground, but when I started fighting the COVID-19 pandemic insanity, Twitter was a major battleground.
So I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see that the most joy I have seen online since the first few days after Trump's victory has been expressed about Trump's choice of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya for Director of the National Institutes of Health. That is not an exaggeration, either. I've seen lots of people pleased with various picks, but the reaction to Jay's appointment is akin to ecstasy.
Jay Bhattacharya is one of the greatest men I have known.
— Kevin Bass PhD MS (@kevinnbass) November 27, 2024
He will serve all Americans with utmost humility, intelligence, judgment, and integrity.
His nomination is as historic as Trump’s election.
America will be blessed to have him at the helm at this critical time. https://t.co/fvMP2S8DSS
Last night, when the appointment was announced, my X feed lit up like a metaphorical Christmas tree. I kid you not, about 2/3rds to 3/4 of the posts in my feed were to express elation about Jay's appointment.
This is the best appointment that they've made, without question
— Ian Miller (@ianmSC) November 27, 2024
Had Dr. Bhattacharya been head of NIH during the COVID, it's not an exaggeration to say that the world would be a different, better place. And millions of children would have been spared the harm of mask mandates https://t.co/ou7jY6zRXO
This is a testament to both the admiration that people feel for Jay--he is not just brilliant and fearless, but a genuinely kind and gentle man--and for the residual anger and frustration those of us have felt over the pandemic response and the creeping totalitarianism that characterized the COVID years.
Congratulations to the great @DrJBhattacharya, our new NIH Director!
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) November 27, 2024
Who is the "Fringe Epidemiologist" now? 😂 https://t.co/CTnyc5Ph7b
It is not an exaggeration to say that Jay was professionally slandered for saying what to him were the most obvious scientific facts. As one of the authors of The Great Barrington Declaration, which proposed more rational pandemic response policies, Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins commissioned a "devastating takedown" of him and his colleagues.
In October 2020, @DrJBhattacharya authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for an end to covid lockdowns.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 27, 2024
Four days later, Dr. Fauci and then NIH Director Francis Collins emailed each other to plot a "devastating takedown of its premises.
It wasn't long after… pic.twitter.com/m6u9BfVsxr
Collins, then head of the NIH, called Bhattacharya and his colleague "Fringe epidemiologists," despite Jay being from Stanford and his colleagues being from Harvard and Oxford. Nearly a million other scientists joined their efforts to reform COVID policies despite censorship, professional slander, often lost careers, and other devastating consequences.
🔥 Dr. Vinay Prasad Fires Back at Francis Collins' Takedown of the Great Barrington Declaration
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) December 30, 2023
"You were the NIH Director. You could have had a series of Town Halls where you invited people like Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff and had an open discussion of the pros and… pic.twitter.com/v3nFQpXU0o
The vile attacks on Jay were about seizing authority, declaring government propaganda The Science™, and were in the end about nothing other than making a power grab.
Francis Collins' email calling Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and Martin Kulldorf "fringe epidemiologists" should be framed and hung in the entrance foyer of NIH Bldg 1. pic.twitter.com/RODpwFmPns
— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) November 24, 2024
Jay has often said that The Great Barrington Declaration was the least original thing he ever wrote because it was all standard public health practices, but that was the point. The Regime wanted to throw away the book to create The Great Reset, and Jay and his colleagues stood in the way.
Trump’s new NIH Director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya: “A relatively small group — a cartel almost — of very powerful scientific bureaucrats took over the whole apparatus of science, dominated the media, dominated the message to politicians.”
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 27, 2024
pic.twitter.com/I2Hdr5fi5M
It’s great that Dr. Bhattacharya has Dr. Fauci’s old job.
— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) November 27, 2024
“Lockdowns were a catastrophic mistake. We should recoil with horror. Covid policies violated medical ethics and crushed ability for physicians and scientists to discuss facts…we were silenced…” pic.twitter.com/0z8J2JhSk8
Many people don't know this, but Jay was one of the masterminds behind Ron DeSantis' COVID strategy. Jay didn't know DeSantis before he got a call out of the blue from the governor because Bhattacharya was one of the few scientists who was discussing actual COVID science, and not simply repeating Fauci's BS. His description of the encounter is worth listening to. It speaks well of both Jay and Governor DeSantis.
Jay Bhattacharya said in 2021 that Governor DeSantis lifted all the COVID restrictions in the state of Florida in 2020 after he called up Bhattacharya out of the blue and discussed policy with him. pic.twitter.com/TcY9ZCRmeb
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 27, 2024
One of the striking things about Jay is how humble he is. He will talk with (and listen to) people from all walks of life. He is no "expert" in the 21st-century sense; he doesn't speak ex-cathedra but engages, explains, listens to others, and is generally humble. Jay and I have never met, but have become friendly online, and I am just some blogger.
Great outcome! https://t.co/v7VU2URH6x
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 27, 2024
Jay was, for a while, one of the most maligned and censored public health officials in the world, attacked from above, behind, and below, and was stabbed in the back by colleagues who secretly said they agreed with him but who ran away when it counted. Jay never complained publicly; he just stood his ground, started a podcast, helped round up a similarly courageous group of scientists, and plowed on.
Whatever happens now, there is a beautiful poetic justice with the ascendence of @DrJBhattacharya to the position of the man at NIH who called him a "fringe epidemiologist" and triggered a grotesque tech and academic boycott of his ideas. Let the new era begin!
— Jeffrey A Tucker (@jeffreyatucker) November 27, 2024
Jay's appointment is a triumph, not just for him but for the country and everybody who believes science should be about truth and doing good for humanity.
Francis Collins, former director of NIH, who played a key role in endorsing US lockdown policy, admits far too late that he disregarded collateral harms of pandemic policy. That approach was inexcusable & many experts warned against it from early 2020.
— David Thunder (@davidjthunder) December 28, 2023
pic.twitter.com/sbSRIDnkAO
I do admit to a bit of schadenfreude--his puerile enemies must be exploding with hate--but I am overwhelmed with gratitude that America will benefit from his humility and wisdom.
A truth-teller will be running NIH https://t.co/Tg429KchGX
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 27, 2024
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