On Sept. 9, researchers and physicians at Stanford Medical School shot an open letter across the virtual campus to Donald Trump adviser Scott Atlas, who is also a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. The fine conservatives at the Hoover Institution haven’t exactly been covering themselves in glory during the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ve been the source for absolute confusion, including claims that deaths were being overreported, that COVID-19 was much less deadly than deceptive old math would have you believe, and that we should just all “learn to live” with COVID-19. Except, of course, for those who don’t.
Atlas in particular has been at the center of much of this cobbled-together quackery. He’s claimed that young people have “essentially no risk” of dying from COVID-19, that statewide shutdowns were more deadly than the disease, and that most COVID-19 deaths … aren’t actually COVID-19 deaths. That kind of crackpottery, frequently amplified on Fox News, earned the absolutely unqualified in any way Atlas—a radiologist with no experience in either epidemiology or infectious disease—a spot on Trump’s increasingly pointless coronavirus task force.
It also earned Atlas a take-down at YouTube, where his dangerously unscientific claims got one of his videos yanked for misinformation when he scoffed at masks and social distancing and embraced the magic of just ignoring the body count. Of course, the fact that Atlas’ video was removed for being not just wrong, but misleading in a way that very definitely could get people killed, has been greeted with complaints about “cancel culture” on Fox News and claims from Atlas that he was being censored “like a third world country.”
And now, Atlas is showing how much he hates cancel culture by suing 100 doctors and researchers for having the audacity to criticize him.
The original open letter has now been removed from Stanford’s server, but is still available from other links. 99% of the letter is simply a list of known truths about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19. For example …
- The use of face masks, social distancing, handwashing and hygiene have been shown to substantially reduce the spread of Covid-19. Crowded indoor spaces are settings that significantly increase the risk of community spread of SARS-CoV-2.
- Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 frequently occurs from asymptomatic people, including children and young adults, to family members and others. Therefore, testing asymptomatic individuals, especially those with probable Covid-19 exposure is important to break the chain of ongoing transmission.
The only mention of Atlas in the letter is a single sentence: “To prevent harm to the public’s health, we also have both a moral and an ethical responsibility to call attention to the falsehoods and misrepresentations of science recently fostered by Dr. Scott Atlas, a former Stanford Medical School colleague and current senior fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.”
So, having been caught in a series of lies that threaten the health of millions of Americans, Atlas responded as anyone in the Trump White House would: he’s suing.
The attorney here, Marc Kasowitz, is from a firm that has also represented Trump. His notice to Stanford Medical School demands a removal and an apology stating, “Your letter, which you wrote and sent with no regard for the truth, maliciously defames Dr. Atlas.” It then goes on to claim that Atlas has always been at war with Eastasia … err, always agreed with all the things that Stanford said in their letter and no one had better say otherwise.
Stanford professor Michael Fischbach provided a quick reply. “I stand by everything we said. More facts, more science. Less Kasowitz.”
Expect a Fox News special on how telling people that Atlas is lying is more cancel culture, while trying to sue a group of genuine experts to get them to shut up is just … it’s … oh, whatever.