"All of these consequences, the conclusion I take away from that is that this censorship activity killed people." Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

File this under Censorship COVID files

Hello Cafecito Breakers,

During those darkest days of COVID while we were still in LOCKDOWN, one of the first courageous voices I discovered was Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford University. He is known for his research on the economics of healthcare and the well-being of vulnerable populations.

In November 2024, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Dr. Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr. Bhattacharya was also a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration in 2020, which advocated for lifting COVID-19 restrictions to promote herd immunity. Cafecito Break signed the Great Barrington declaration during those dark lockdown days. I knew this would be significant.

And we agree with Dr. Jay, the censorship we all experienced weighs the heaviest on our hearts because THE INFO WE WERE SHARING COULD HAVE SAVED LIVES!

Hope one day to meet this hero! Let’s keep him in our prayers. We need him at the NIH!

“The line between that and suppressing scientific discussion, suppressing policy discussion, should have been a bright red line that should never have crossed.

And the government agencies essentially decided to treat scientific debate on COVID policy as if it were, and the dissidents who were on the other side of the government, as if they were just like those international terrorists in some sense.

They thought it was okay to suppress those kinds of people, those kinds of ideas.

As an American citizen, I don't think that it's right for the American government to have that kind of power.

The basic fundamental American norm is free speech. And I understand there are nuances around exactly what that means.

Free speech is not the freedom to reach everybody.

But at the very heart is permitting a space for debate to take place among

scientists and policymakers and concerned members of the public on vital policy

issues. The government's decided through its actions that they didn't want to let that happen during the pandemic.

And again, as a result, it's really not about me.

It's about the fact that we would have won this debate about lockdown policy.

And so many people that were harmed wouldn't have been harmed. These vaccine mandates wouldn't have been in place.

People wouldn't have lost their jobs or careers over them, The schools would have opened earlier,

the panic mongering would have been addressed, so the anxiety and depression problems we're seeing might have been less, and the economic devastation from the lockdown policies might have been avoided, at least to some degree.

All of these consequences, the conclusion I take away from that is that this censorship activity killed people.

The First Amendment, ironically, during the pandemic,

we heard all these things like we can't have free speech during a pandemic.

The Constitution is not a suicide pact. Ironically, the reality is that the First Amendment, had it been actually in place during the pandemic, would have saved lives, would have led to less damage, less destruction, fewer people dead.”

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya - Professor Stanford School of Medicine. MD, PhD. Health policy: infectious diseases, covid, health economics. Scientific freedom. NIH Director nominee.

PUNTO.

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