• 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

Attempts to Smear Lockdown Sceptics Have Backfired

by Toby Young
29 March 2022 6:07 PM

Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff have written a good piece in UnHerd arguing that attempts to smear critics of lockdowns as Right-wingers have only served to discredit their opponents.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, tribal politics have pushed scientific discourse into the back seat. Scientists who provide their honest assessment of medical and public health data have often been subject to ad hominem attacks and slander.

When Left-leaning journalists defend the government’s pandemic strategies by falsely classifying opponents as Right-wing, it hurts the Left while boosting the Right. The latest example is an article in the New Republic with one of the most far-fetched personal attacks we have seen since March 2020 – a true accomplishment during a pandemic filled with logical somersaults.

The target is Urgency of Normal, a group of physicians and medical scientists arguing against the masking of toddlers and children. The group includes Dr Vinay Prasad, a physician, epidemiologist, and associate professor at the University of California in San Francisco. With colleagues at Harvard and the University of Colorado, he wrote the most thorough scientific review of the efficacy of masks against Covid. They concluded that “data to support masking kids was absolutely absent”.

The New Republic article is called ‘Why Is This Group of Doctors So Intent on Unmasking Kids?’ The straightforward answer is that the doctors concluded that there is no reliable scientific evidence that masks on children reduce disease spread alongside a strong presumption that they may harm some children. The New Republic dismisses this possibility, claiming that “the science is strong” that masks help to “quell the pandemic”, and that there is “‘little scientific disagreement”. The last point is self-evidently untrue given the participation by many eminent scientists in the Urgency of Normal itself.

The essay then goes full ad hominem, attempting to link Dr. Prasad to “libertarian” efforts by the Koch family to unmask children via a convoluted chain of supposed associations, each of which is weak and the combined effect of which is simply conspiracy (see below). It appears that the New Republic, once a fierce critic of Sen. Joe McCarthy, has now embraced McCarthy’s guilt-by-association techniques.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: Jay BhattacharyaKoch BrothersMartin KulldorffVinay Prasad

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

The Evidence that Omicron Was Made in a Lab

Next Post

The Queen is Owed an Apology – Infections Are 36 TIMES Higher Than at Time of Funeral When Monarch Sat Alone

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.

18 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

In Episode 35 of the Sceptic: Andrew Doyle on Labour’s Grooming Gang Shame, Andrew Orlowski on the India-UK Trade Deal and Canada’s Ignored Covid Vaccine Injuries

by Richard Eldred
9 May 2025
4

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest

BBC Quietly Edits Question Time After Wrongly ‘Correcting’ Richard Tice on Key Net Zero Claim

9 May 2025

Electric Car Bursts into Flames on Driveway and Engulfs £550,000 Family Home

9 May 2025

News Round-Up

10 May 2025

Hugely Influential Covid Vaccine Study Claiming the Jabs Saved Millions of Lives Torn to Shreds in Medical Journal

10 May 2025

Ed Miliband’s Housing Energy Plan Will Decimate the Rental Market and Send Rents Spiralling

10 May 2025

News Round-Up

52

Teenage Girl Banned by the Football Association For Asking Transgender Opponent “Are You a Man?” Wins Appeal With Help of Free Speech Union

21

What Does David Lammy Mean by a State?

27

BBC Quietly Edits Question Time After Wrongly ‘Correcting’ Richard Tice on Key Net Zero Claim

23

Ed Miliband’s Housing Energy Plan Will Decimate the Rental Market and Send Rents Spiralling

14

Major British Chemical Plant Faces Closure as Energy Prices Soar

10 May 2025

NHS Nurse “Forced Out for Mocking Trans Flag” to Sue Hospital

10 May 2025

Hugely Influential Covid Vaccine Study Claiming the Jabs Saved Millions of Lives Torn to Shreds in Medical Journal

10 May 2025

Teenage Girl Banned by the Football Association For Asking Transgender Opponent “Are You a Man?” Wins Appeal With Help of Free Speech Union

10 May 2025

Reflections on Empire, Papacy and States

10 May 2025

POSTS BY DATE

March 2022
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  
« Feb   Apr »

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