• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

The New York Times is Subverting the Scientific Process

by Dr Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson
13 April 2023 7:00 AM

You can hunt anything you want, animals, insects and, latterly, human beings, especially scientists. This happened to us and to Tom in the august columns of the New York Times (NYT), as we reported here,  here and here. 

The main problem appears to have been that the columnist took exception to the idea that the Cochrane Review A122 failed to find any better quality evidence of mask effectiveness, and of course, she proceeded to try to shoot the messenger.

Ever since her article, however, some of the background to her intervention has come to light, and Tom has written back to the NYT pointing out some of the consequences of its irresponsible behaviour:

Opinion Editor 
The New York Times 
620 Eighth Avenue 
New York, NY 10018 

212-556-1922

kathleen.kingsbury@nytimes.com

Dear Ms. Kingsbury,

Thank you for your reply dated March 18th to my complaint dated March 15th 2023. 

Matters are not what you reported, although I understand your willingness to defend your columnist.

Dr. Tufekci seems to have forgotten to make clear that she has been lobbying CDC and maybe other organisations for over three years to impose mask mandates, although she has no scientific expertise in this matter. This happened after a somersault from her initial position against use of masks (she is in very good company in such a change of course in March 2020). Elsewhere she described creating a new symbolism around the use of masks, a clearly ideological standpoint which has naught to do with science.

Dr. Tufekci now publicly claims that she has corrected Cochrane (although it was hard work it took her almost a month). She has done no such thing, as no edits have been made to the review text.

You and Dr. Tufekci state that the Plain Language Summary of the review may have helped people misinterpret the review.  

Possible corrections, addenda and edits in science (and in the Cochrane Library) are handled through the editorial peer review mechanism, not through the columns of a daily. It seems to me that by insisting on corrections and claiming “victory” the New York Times through its columnist is trying to subvert not just Cochrane but the whole scientific process, while launching a personal attack on me, one of the twelve authors. Her attack on our review and on me can perhaps be explained in her own words: “The most effective forms of censorship today involve meddling with trust and attention, not muzzling speech itself. As a result, they don’t look much like the old forms of censorship at all. They look like viral or coordinated harassment campaigns, which harness the dynamics of viral outrage to impose an unbearable and disproportionate cost on the act of speaking out.”

I ask you to look again in detail at the personal agenda of your columnist and ask yourself if subversion of the scientific process through unqualified comments is the aim of the New York Times. Finally I note that your mission is to “seek the truth and help people understand the world“.

I do not think this is possible if you hold an ideological view.

I believe that given the facts you owe me at least a right of reply.

I look forward to hearing from you, 

Yours, 

Professor Tom Jefferson

Senior Associate Tutor
University of Oxford
Oxford
OX2 6GG

It remains to be seen whether the complaint will be taken seriously.

Our dissection of the UKHSA mask review that we had scheduled for today has been postponed to Friday at the request of GB News which will be interviewing one of us on Friday just after the 10am news to present our findings. In making this decision, we were aware that we had promised publication today, but the opportunity of communicating on TV is too great to let go.

We hope that our readers will forgive us and tune in on Friday morning.

Last but not least, Carl is busy drafting his response to a Request for Evidence under Rule 9 of the Inquiry Rules 2006 Module 2 of the U.K. COVID-19 Public Inquiry..

We plan to serialise the response once it is ready and, of course, any reply the NYT might send us.

But please do not hold your breath, and as we have said many times before, keep away from mainstream media headlines. They are one of the main causes of the mess we are in.

Dr. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack blog, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.

Tags: Cochrane reviewMask MandatesMasksNew York TimesPropagandaThe Science

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

News Round-Up

Next Post

“They Deliberately Gave the Unvaccinated a Lower Standard of Care” – a Doctor Speaks Out

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

17 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

Episode 36 of the Sceptic: Karl Williams on Starmer’s Phoney Immigration Crackdown, Dan Hitchens on the Assisted Suicide Bill and Tom Jones on Reform’s Local Council Challenge

by Richard Eldred
16 May 2025
0

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Chinese ‘Kill Switches’ Found in US Solar Farms

15 May 2025
by Will Jones

News Round-Up

16 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

Spy Agency Report on the Alleged “Extremism” of AfD Turns Out to Be So Stupid That it Destroys all Momentum for Banning the Party

16 May 2025
by Eugyppius

The Folly of Solar – a Dot on the Horizon Versus a Blight on the Land

16 May 2025
by Ben Pile

Civil Servants Threaten to Strike Over Trans Ban in Women’s Lavatories

16 May 2025
by Will Jones

The Folly of Solar – a Dot on the Horizon Versus a Blight on the Land

29

Civil Servants Threaten to Strike Over Trans Ban in Women’s Lavatories

25

Spy Agency Report on the Alleged “Extremism” of AfD Turns Out to Be So Stupid That it Destroys all Momentum for Banning the Party

19

News Round-Up

18

Chinese ‘Kill Switches’ Found in US Solar Farms

27

Trump’s Lesson in Remedial Education

16 May 2025
by Dr James Allan

Spy Agency Report on the Alleged “Extremism” of AfD Turns Out to Be So Stupid That it Destroys all Momentum for Banning the Party

16 May 2025
by Eugyppius

The Folly of Solar – a Dot on the Horizon Versus a Blight on the Land

16 May 2025
by Ben Pile

Renaud Camus on the Destruction of Western Education

15 May 2025
by Dr Nicholas Tate

‘Why Can’t We Talk About This?’

15 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

POSTS BY DATE

April 2023
M T W T F S S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
« Mar   May »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment
Perfecty
Do you wish to receive notifications of new articles?
Notifications preferences