Science, public health broken by COVID protocols and mandates, says former Harvard professor

02/23/2022 / By Mary Villareal

Dr. Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist and statistician, has worked on detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks for nearly two decades but is still treated as a pariah by the government and narrative-shapers who deny real facts about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19).

Kulldorff’s methods to detect and monitor infectious diseases have been widely used around the world, as well as by hundreds of people at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He has worked on vaccine safety, developing globally-used methods to monitor adverse reactions in new vaccines. He worked at Harvard Medical School since 2003, but “parted ways” in November 2021 for reasons that Kulldorff preferred to keep private.

However, he did admit that he placed himself in the crosshairs of the pandemic narrative by saying that the country needed only “15 days to slow the spread” lockdown, and has since paid the price. For a scientist on top of his game, it was jarring for the Swedish native to admit that “both science and public health are broken.”

“For some reason, a public official narrative was established, and you weren’t allowed to question it – which, of course, is very detrimental, both to the pandemic and how to deal with the pandemic, because you have to have a vibrant discussion to figure out how best to deal with these things,” he said.

Kulldorff said he tried to point out there was a very steep age gradient in mortality for COVID-19. But when he attempted to publish a paper both in the U.S. medical journals and mainstream newspapers stating that the focus should be on protecting the elderly and those at high risk, his paper was set aside.

While he was able to publish in Sweden, U.S. publications do not allow for a debate, which he found troubling. (Related: Harvard professor urges parents not to give children coronavirus vaccines because “risks outweigh any benefit.”)

In October 2020, Dr. Sunetra Gupta and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya announced the “Great Barrington Declaration,” which called for a more nuanced approach to the restrictions that have been imposed on much of society. The declaration stated that the most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those at minimal risk to live their lives normally to build up their immunity against the virus through natural infection.

Gupta is a professor at Oxford University and an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases. Bhattacharya is a professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist and public health policy expert who focuses on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.

Fundamental principles of public health not followed during pandemic

Kulldorff said the Great Barrington Declaration proposed nothing new, noting that it was the basic fundamental principles of public health that already existed in the pandemic preparedness plan from many years ago. He said it was astonishing that it wasn’t followed from the very beginning of the pandemic.

Conventional public health science has also deemed it unnecessary and potentially harmful to close schools and small businesses, to impose masking on the general public and to quarantine healthy people.

In an article, he noted that keeping schools close will have negative consequences on children who not only missed education, but also the development of their physical health, mental health and socialization skills. This can especially affect children from working and middle-class families, as most of their parents cannot afford tutors, pod schools or private schools.

According to Kulldorf, the document was not for politicians or scientists or doctors. “The most important audience was the public because it’s the public that ultimately will end these misguided public health policies. It’s the public, regular people, who are suffering the consequences.”

He also noted the authors wanted to advise the average person that their intuition was correct. The restrictions were not based on public health science, so when they oppose the directives, they’re standing on firm scientific ground. (Related: Harvard study obliterates any argument for covid vaccine passports)

“The key thing was to break the pretense that there was scientific consensus for these lockdowns – which there wasn’t,” he said.

“There’s really no public health arguments against the declaration. So if you want to criticize it, you have to make up lies about it and then attack that, as well as slander the people behind it. And they did both of those things.”