In the wake of presidential pardons and reforms by President Joe Biden, there is talk in the White House of an early pardon for people who may be at risk of being prosecuted by the next administration.
One of the top names mentioned is Biden’s former medical adviser during COVID-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Fauci’s “crime,” if any, was his implausible testimony before Congress about the “effect-of-function” investigation.
It may not technically be a lie, but it may have generated enough legal publicity for Fauci to consider retaining one of DC’s most expensive criminal lawyers. Much of this could have been avoided, but for an even worse crime, which no presidential pardon can fix: the gross failure of American science journalists to do their jobs. see and ask questions.
During the outbreak, Fauci made important comments on issues including lockdowns, masking, school closures, vaccinations, 6-foot separation and getting names. Some of what he said turned out to be right, some wrong, some still debatable, especially about getting a job.
But more importantly, he was never seriously questioned by scientific journalists, whose role it was to investigate his ideas. Your average NFL coach gets more serious questions on a Sunday afternoon after a game than Fauci did in the media while millions are getting sick and hundreds of thousands are dying.
Fauci wasn’t the only one to get soft treatment from science journalists. Other members of Biden’s COVID-19 response team including Rochelle Walensky, Xavier Becerra and Vivek Murthy have faced little pressure from science writers after their public announcements.
Another notable event was during the year 2021, when Dr. Walensky, then director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, contradicted his agency’s guidance by telling MSNBC, “Our data from the CDC today suggests that people who have been vaccinated they don’t. carry the virus, don’t get sick.”
Some journalists wrote this without questioning the difference between his statement and the CDC website, which says that vaccines reduce the risk of transmission. One might justify the lack of inquiry due to insufficient information available at the time. However, a few weeks later when a major outbreak of COVID-19 occurred among vaccinated people at a resort in Provincetown, Massachusetts, it shattered the myth that vaccinated people cannot get or they spread the virus, no one asked Walensky how wrong he was.
But Fauci remained a touchstone for the science press’s indifference. Science writers not only failed to ask difficult questions; they also sat on their hands while the non-scientific media were dissuading him, as diseases were rising and school children were lagging behind. There were cover stories on him and amazing profiles. National Geographic produced a feature article, but the best example was a profile in the fashion magazine InStyle. There was Fauci by the pool wearing sunglasses and looking, “With all due respect, I think I’m doing well.”
Fauci basked in his glory as he willingly kept the National Institutes of Health’s role in research away from the public and disparaged Great Barrington scientists who questioned the shutdown.
Meanwhile, the silence from science fiction writers was deafening – when they weren’t just talking about the party.
Imagine how things would have turned out if science journalists had done their due diligence and questioned the experts as they would a municipal official accused of embezzlement. Could we have avoided the 1.2 million deaths from COVID?
Doubtful – nature will do what nature will do – although earlier attention to indoor ventilation in office buildings, nursing homes, meatpacking plants and prisons may have reduced that number. The information was there; no one asked.
If there had been more questions about the closure process and the isolation policy, the number of excess deaths due to desperation and missed medical care would have been lower. If there had been more questions about school closures and the influence of teacher unions, perhaps the children would have known sooner today. And we may have a better idea of whether our scientists were involved in regenerating the virus in Wuhan, China, perhaps making it more contagious.
All counterfactuals, but it certainly deserves more scrutiny from the media than it has received.
Dr. Cory Franklin is a retired critical care physician and author of “COVID Diaries 2020-2024: Anatomy of a Contagion As It Hapline.” He wrote this column for the Chicago Tribune.
Originally published:
#Cory #Franklin #Science #journalists #failed #Anthony #Fauci #tough #questions #pandemic
