Science is Broken, It’s Time We Fix It with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

There has been no shortage of casualties in the last year and half with the COVID pandemic. Schools have been closed, businesses shuttered, and families torn apart with different levels of concern for the virus. But one surprising victim has been science itself. The practice of scientific inquiry, discussion, and debate disappeared. Instead of science - which we can loosely define hypotheses that are then tested and either proven or disproven - is longer present when it comes to COVID.

We've talked briefly about this phenomena before on the show with Dr. David Graham and also Dr. Rohin Francis. But 2020 brought about the end of serious discussions in much of the scientific and medical communities as people who chose to take unpopular views or question the mainstream opinions were removed from the public square, harassed, and even fired from their jobs. My guest, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, has not only been willing to risk holding opinions and theories against the mainstream consensus, but he is also looking to help science return to open, honest debate.

The Great Barrington Declaration

One of the most publicized controversial statements on COVID in 2020, the Great Barrington Declaration, was written by three prominent epidemiologists. They were Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, Dr. Martin Kuldorff of Harvard, and Dr. Sunetra Gupta of the UK. All of them agreed that a more prudent approach to fighting the pandemic would be to focus the majority of our resources on protecting those most vulnerable to COVID - namely, the elderly.

They emphasized that the use of broad sweeping closures or mandates with a focus on disease count was the wrong strategy. Instead of focusing on infections, it would be more important to use a laser focus on protecting residents in nursing homes. This could have bein done fairly cheaply and easily with significantly less disruption to education and business.

Why the Wrong Goal Led to the Wrong Policy

Dr. Bhattacharya says that the key problem with public health officials' approach to the pandemic was to focus on infections (or cases) in the population rather than on how to protect those at greatest risk. Because they had the wrong objective, it led to ineffective programs like broad lockdowns and school closures which did nothing to help slow the spread the pandemic but left many seniors at greater risk to getting SARS-CoV-2 infections and dying.

Also, because the policy focused on controlling all infections, not just in those most at risk, the release of the vaccine was muddled too. Instead of deploying it quickly and efficiently into nursing homes where 40% of the COVID deaths have occurred, public officials were generally aimless in its distribution handing it out to young health care workers or non-clinical personnel within health care organizations. This further put those most at risk in peril unnecessarily.

Can Science Heal?

Ultimately, the greatest failure in the whole response to the pandemic has been the lack of honest scientific debate and discussion. The robust challenges to dogma have been squelched leading to big policy mistakes (not including the fracturing of society along ideological lines). Public health authorities can  only issue effective decrees and statements once science has had an opportunity to come to a real consensus in which there is honest and open debate. That never happened this time and it has set the public trust towards the abilities of science back.

Dr. Bhattacharya hopes to change this situation and bring back real scientific discussions. Questioning, rigorous debate, and testing are pillars of the scientific method and he seeks a way to reactivate science's roots through his organization at Collateral Global. Hopefully, we can perform an honest assessment of what was done correctly and incorrectly throughout the pandemic. The goals would be to better prepare us to handle the next pandemic that will surely happen some time in the future.