A.G. Gancarski
Florida’s Governor is defending a doctor whom President-elect Donald Trump tapped to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Gov. Ron DeSantis ripped The New York Times for criticisms of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. DeSantis charged that the paper is “peddling a false narrative to advance its partisan agenda” by misrepresenting the range of deaths from COVID that Bhattacharya predicted in 2020.
While Bhattacharya actually said anywhere from 20,000 to two million people could die in the pandemic, the Times stated that he predicted only 20,000 to 40,000 casualties, far short of the 1.3 million who perished from the virus.
“Anyone with a third-grade reading ability would understand this, yet the NYT clings to its lie. Must mean that the NYT is worried that Bhattacharya will clean house at the NIH. They smear what they fear,” DeSantis argued.
Upon nominating Bhattacharya last month, Trump said Bhattacharya and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease.”
It’s clear DeSantis is thrilled with this pick. As a presidential candidate last year, DeSantis suggested that Bhattacharya would be ideal at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Governor also brought in Bhattacharya to message against vaccines and masks for children.
Last year at an event with DeSantis, the doctor blasted “lockdowns” and their “devastating” harms “to poor and working-class children from around the world.”
In 2021, Bhattacharya said masks have “marginal benefit” and “may actually cause some harm to children.”
Also that year, YouTube removed a video of another DeSantis roundtable, which included Drs. Scott Atlas, Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff. At issue: medical guidance regarding children and the necessity of masks.
YouTube spokeswoman Elena Hernandez said YouTube pulled the video because it “included content that contradicts the consensus of local and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
2 comments
Ron Ogden
December 16, 2024 at 1:25 pm
Once again, good job DeSantis!
Michael
December 16, 2024 at 1:36 pm
“While Bhattacharya actually said anywhere from 20,000 to two million people could die in the pandemic,…”
No, he did not say that either…..here’s the actual quote from his WSJ editorial…
‘If it’s true that the novel coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines, then the extraordinary measures being carried out in cities and states around the country are surely justified. But there’s little evidence to confirm that premise—and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.”
He clearly states there’s little evidence to confirm that millions could die. So, to now say he said up to 2 million could die is shoddy and inaccurate journalism. Label your pieces as ‘editorial opinion, not fact-based journalism’ from now on.