Aug 9, 2022·edited Aug 9, 2022Liked by Paul D. Thacker
One of the most jarring things I’ve observed during the pandemic is the way in which people with a vested interest in preventing a serious scientific investigation of the pandemic’s origins have managed to manipulate the public and the mainstream corporate press by simply pandering to the “correct” politics. I’ve watched for over two years as people like Hotez, Anthony Fauci, Angela Rasmussen, Peter Daszak, and Kristian Andersen repeatedly took to social media to generate cover for themselves by cynically paying homage to trendy progressive causes – Black Lives Matter, eco-catastrophism, Trump impeachment, the supposed omnipresence of sexism in academia, etc. – as of way of signaling to the mainstream media that, “We’re on your side; now defend us.”
People in their positions came to recognize what is arguably the most important observation about life in the West in the 2020s, which is this: The left won the culture war, and won it decisively, and if you want money, power, and protection from criticism for your misdeeds (usually arising from the pursuit of the first two), you have to be willing to ingratiate yourself to those who hold power. It’s no different from the way the GOP used to performatively grovel before the evangelicals back in the 1980s and 1990s when religion held much more sway in American public life. Hence, when the New York Times and other major news outlets (which are now composed largely of the same typically white, upper-middle-class, college-educated people like Hotez) see this clique of virologists and NIH-associated schmucks decrying a lab leak as a conspiracy theory, they recognize them as confreres and go into full defend-and-promote mode. And because corporate media really *does* have a liberal bias now (in so far as they see liberal posturing as a roadmap to higher profitability), the average person who mistakenly thinks NPR is a middle-of-the-road news organization is left unaware that there are compelling reasons to think a lab leak might, in fact, be the genuine source of the pandemic.
Our culture may have moved on from paying undeserved, unquestioning respect to shibboleths of the Biblical kind, but we’ve simply graduated on to paying the same kind of undeserved deference to anything to which trendy, slapdash terms like “social justice” can be applied. Guys like Hotez understand this, largely because the places in which they work (e.g., academia) have come to demand political allegiance to one very narrow set of ideals. Academia, research institutes, federal funding agencies – these places have become cesspools of ideological conformity. Unfortunately, the lesson young people are being taught in all of this is that if you want to be culturally relevant – e.g., get into college, get a good job, be popular on social media – you, too, must adopt this one very specific set of partisan beliefs, including tacky truisms like “trust the science." This conformity portends something very bad for the future of American scientific research.
Aug 9, 2022·edited Aug 10, 2022Liked by Paul D. Thacker
Not to forget that in early November 2020 Hotez was still sufficiently anti-science and anti-vax to warn correctly that the Covid shots would not be effective
I have long been mystified that it is not self-evident to the credulous stenographers of the media that virologists and grant-addicts would circle the wagons around one of their own (Daszak), just like any other group would do. It is no different from cops uniting to defend a fellow from accusations of brutality or misconduct.
It is also ironic that anyone can suggest that criticism of Daszak is "unscientific," since the man isn't even a scientist himself. His career has been securing grant money from government agencies, first for ecological projects, and then later for medical research, where the real gravy is.
Anyway, when I become emperor, he will absolutely find himself in the dock for crimes against humanity. Along with Fauci.
Hotez is clearly a paid shill for the Pharma Industrial Complex. Looking at his flip fops and idiotic statements, no wonder he would never step on a debate stage with any of the disinformation doctors he attacks. Considering that Dr Paul Offitt, Hotez and a few other clowns are leading the roar for the “safe and effective” mRNA campaign, it makes perfect sense that millions of people are now questioning this dirty corrupt deadly narrative.
I have known Peter Hotez for almost 30 years. While in the middle 1990s the quest to develop vaccines for "neglected" tropical diseases seemed like a noble quest, continuing to receive grants for this field with only obviously fake results was a waste of taxpayers' money. Unfortunately, Hotez is very well connected at the NIH, well-known for wasting billions on such frauds as Hotez. He runs around Twitter and the media presenting himself as a vaccine developer. Unfortunately for Hotez, despite wasting more than one hundred million in NIH grants, he never developed a single vaccine.
Good, fair article. Hotez is not at all an evil man. Quite the opposite, as far as I can tell. He's awful slow to give others any benefit of the doubt when it comes to motives in disagreements, though.
Peter Danszak is one of the masterminds behind the Plandemic. Check out his quote from 2015. That’s right 2015:
“until an infectious disease crisis is very real, present, and at an emergency threshold, it is often largely ignored. To sustain the funding base beyond the crisis he said, “we need to increase the public understanding for MCM’s such as a pan-influenza or a pan-corona vaccine. A key driver is the media, and the economics will follow the hype. We need to use that hype to our advantage to get to the real issues. Investors will respond if they have see profits at the end of the process” Danszak stated.
Let me get this straight. The Lancet Commission created a task force to look into how the pandemic started, which would *presumably start with no preconceptions* and look at all the evidence objectively. And a member (organizer?) of the task force, Peter Daszak, was a major figure in one of the hypothetical possibilities being investigated. Further, Daszak organized a letter signed by at least six other members of this task force calling a lab leak a “conspiracy theory.”
Did Sachs not notice that this task force seems to have been doomed to failure from the get-go? (Failure in terms of ascertaining the truth, not in attaining their goal of protecting somebody's interest.)
I have only just realised from the photo that Dr Hotez is actually physically shorter than even Dr Fauci, who is not exactly a giant among men. Believing that the roots of Fauci's reported psychpathalogical traits can be traced back to suffering from SMS (Short Man Syndrome), I cannot even begin to conceive of the dreadful psychological pressure poor Dr Hotez has had to endure throughout his formative years, and which might go some way to explaining his Rottweiller demeanour and the antagonism he expresses towards any viewpoint, no matter how reasonable, that he considers a threat to his world view and self interest.
So please be sympathetic. The truth is painful enough without his critics adding more woe to his already brimming cup.
Wow, great work. I've been antagonizing this little "Hobgoblin" (perfect!) on Twitter because of his statements about anti-vaxxers being a 'well funded' organization intent on ruining science. Also his stance on vaxxinating children is awful. I will be passing around a video where he laughs about how many people are dying of covid. Thanks for this deep dive!
One of the most jarring things I’ve observed during the pandemic is the way in which people with a vested interest in preventing a serious scientific investigation of the pandemic’s origins have managed to manipulate the public and the mainstream corporate press by simply pandering to the “correct” politics. I’ve watched for over two years as people like Hotez, Anthony Fauci, Angela Rasmussen, Peter Daszak, and Kristian Andersen repeatedly took to social media to generate cover for themselves by cynically paying homage to trendy progressive causes – Black Lives Matter, eco-catastrophism, Trump impeachment, the supposed omnipresence of sexism in academia, etc. – as of way of signaling to the mainstream media that, “We’re on your side; now defend us.”
People in their positions came to recognize what is arguably the most important observation about life in the West in the 2020s, which is this: The left won the culture war, and won it decisively, and if you want money, power, and protection from criticism for your misdeeds (usually arising from the pursuit of the first two), you have to be willing to ingratiate yourself to those who hold power. It’s no different from the way the GOP used to performatively grovel before the evangelicals back in the 1980s and 1990s when religion held much more sway in American public life. Hence, when the New York Times and other major news outlets (which are now composed largely of the same typically white, upper-middle-class, college-educated people like Hotez) see this clique of virologists and NIH-associated schmucks decrying a lab leak as a conspiracy theory, they recognize them as confreres and go into full defend-and-promote mode. And because corporate media really *does* have a liberal bias now (in so far as they see liberal posturing as a roadmap to higher profitability), the average person who mistakenly thinks NPR is a middle-of-the-road news organization is left unaware that there are compelling reasons to think a lab leak might, in fact, be the genuine source of the pandemic.
Our culture may have moved on from paying undeserved, unquestioning respect to shibboleths of the Biblical kind, but we’ve simply graduated on to paying the same kind of undeserved deference to anything to which trendy, slapdash terms like “social justice” can be applied. Guys like Hotez understand this, largely because the places in which they work (e.g., academia) have come to demand political allegiance to one very narrow set of ideals. Academia, research institutes, federal funding agencies – these places have become cesspools of ideological conformity. Unfortunately, the lesson young people are being taught in all of this is that if you want to be culturally relevant – e.g., get into college, get a good job, be popular on social media – you, too, must adopt this one very specific set of partisan beliefs, including tacky truisms like “trust the science." This conformity portends something very bad for the future of American scientific research.
Not to forget that in early November 2020 Hotez was still sufficiently anti-science and anti-vax to warn correctly that the Covid shots would not be effective
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/89512
Of course, a lot of people were saying this but the story changed as soon as Trump was out of the way, and wouldn’t get the kudos from the roll out.
I have long been mystified that it is not self-evident to the credulous stenographers of the media that virologists and grant-addicts would circle the wagons around one of their own (Daszak), just like any other group would do. It is no different from cops uniting to defend a fellow from accusations of brutality or misconduct.
It is also ironic that anyone can suggest that criticism of Daszak is "unscientific," since the man isn't even a scientist himself. His career has been securing grant money from government agencies, first for ecological projects, and then later for medical research, where the real gravy is.
Anyway, when I become emperor, he will absolutely find himself in the dock for crimes against humanity. Along with Fauci.
Thanks for this. An excellent expose of the rather casual amoral criminality of stooges like this one.
What should be remarkable is the willingness to ignore obvious conflicts of interest.
But it's not considered remarkable any more. Arendt nailed it when she wrote of the banality of evil.
To forgive error admitted forthrightly is reasonable. To excuse moral bankruptcy is suicidal.
Hotez is clearly a paid shill for the Pharma Industrial Complex. Looking at his flip fops and idiotic statements, no wonder he would never step on a debate stage with any of the disinformation doctors he attacks. Considering that Dr Paul Offitt, Hotez and a few other clowns are leading the roar for the “safe and effective” mRNA campaign, it makes perfect sense that millions of people are now questioning this dirty corrupt deadly narrative.
I have known Peter Hotez for almost 30 years. While in the middle 1990s the quest to develop vaccines for "neglected" tropical diseases seemed like a noble quest, continuing to receive grants for this field with only obviously fake results was a waste of taxpayers' money. Unfortunately, Hotez is very well connected at the NIH, well-known for wasting billions on such frauds as Hotez. He runs around Twitter and the media presenting himself as a vaccine developer. Unfortunately for Hotez, despite wasting more than one hundred million in NIH grants, he never developed a single vaccine.
Very appreciate you documenting this continuing charade for posterity!
Good, fair article. Hotez is not at all an evil man. Quite the opposite, as far as I can tell. He's awful slow to give others any benefit of the doubt when it comes to motives in disagreements, though.
Peter Danszak is one of the masterminds behind the Plandemic. Check out his quote from 2015. That’s right 2015:
“until an infectious disease crisis is very real, present, and at an emergency threshold, it is often largely ignored. To sustain the funding base beyond the crisis he said, “we need to increase the public understanding for MCM’s such as a pan-influenza or a pan-corona vaccine. A key driver is the media, and the economics will follow the hype. We need to use that hype to our advantage to get to the real issues. Investors will respond if they have see profits at the end of the process” Danszak stated.
Looking at him is almost as bad as listening to him. He makes me embarrassed to live in Houston Texas.
Let me get this straight. The Lancet Commission created a task force to look into how the pandemic started, which would *presumably start with no preconceptions* and look at all the evidence objectively. And a member (organizer?) of the task force, Peter Daszak, was a major figure in one of the hypothetical possibilities being investigated. Further, Daszak organized a letter signed by at least six other members of this task force calling a lab leak a “conspiracy theory.”
Did Sachs not notice that this task force seems to have been doomed to failure from the get-go? (Failure in terms of ascertaining the truth, not in attaining their goal of protecting somebody's interest.)
This is a kick-ass article. Those criminals need to be held to responsibility for poisoning millions of people.
"I thought it would help my career" should NOT be an excuse.
Thank you for collecting all this data -- it needs to go into the Nuremberg 2.0 docket.
These people are very scared now -- for a reason
I have only just realised from the photo that Dr Hotez is actually physically shorter than even Dr Fauci, who is not exactly a giant among men. Believing that the roots of Fauci's reported psychpathalogical traits can be traced back to suffering from SMS (Short Man Syndrome), I cannot even begin to conceive of the dreadful psychological pressure poor Dr Hotez has had to endure throughout his formative years, and which might go some way to explaining his Rottweiller demeanour and the antagonism he expresses towards any viewpoint, no matter how reasonable, that he considers a threat to his world view and self interest.
So please be sympathetic. The truth is painful enough without his critics adding more woe to his already brimming cup.
I didn't know 90% of this. I was directed here by Dr. Mercola's editorial footnotes.
Wow, great work. I've been antagonizing this little "Hobgoblin" (perfect!) on Twitter because of his statements about anti-vaxxers being a 'well funded' organization intent on ruining science. Also his stance on vaxxinating children is awful. I will be passing around a video where he laughs about how many people are dying of covid. Thanks for this deep dive!