DON'T BE A USEFUL IDIOT.

The obligation of a scientist, or any other scholar, is to be receptive to conflicting evidence, even if that means shedding cherished prior beliefs.  Public health talking head Leana Wen, M. D., is learning the hard way that compromising her integrity in support of The Narrative does not end well.  "America’s colleges are so left-wing that even a progressive doctor who once headed Planned Parenthood is facing calls that she be canceled as a speaker."  I first encountered the doctor, early on in the coronavirus shutdowns, when she was fretful about policy advocates pivoting from "harm reduction" (meaning Chinese style quarantines) to "harm mitigation" (the first step in analyzing different risks to different populations.)  She stayed a shutdown hard-liner long beyond when that policy made any sense, but, even so, there came a time when the evidence was more than compelling to discarding those priors.

As examples of “unsafe” or “unscientific” recommended practices, the letter cited several op-eds by Wen, including one suggesting that COVID-19 infection should be understood as a “new normal,” another arguing that COVID-19 closure learning loss has harmed children, and a third suggesting that municipalities should lift some COVID restrictions.

Apparently in the world of academic public health, "data driven" is trumped by various -isms and -phobias.

Vinay Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist and epidemiology professor at the University of California, San Francisco, tweeted a video of himself criticizing the letter on Wednesday. “Open letter to APHA says Leana Wen was on wrong side of abortion debate (She is not pro-choice enough as former Pres of Planned Parenthood!) & is ‘fatphobic’ b/c she says eating Krispy Kreme EVERY DAY is bad,” he tweeted….The statement concluded with demands that the American Public Health Association rescind its speaking invitation to Wen and replace her with “someone who is capable and can speak to evidence-based practices rooted in a collective responsibility for health equity.”

The status of things these days is apparently "Politics, not public health, was behind most decisions to keep schools closed." With professors of public health politicized themselves.

It came to this, Dr. Wen, when you first fulminated against "harm mitigation" without offering an argument based on evidence under which harm reduction was the more productive policy.  In addition, the role of public health officials is to recommend courses of action to elected officials, not to issue the ukases themselves.