Great Barrington Declaration IS A SHAM

Jeffrey Tucker, editorial director of the American Institute for Economic Research, reassured his followers this morning that “The admins of [The Great Barrington Declaration] have been working scrupulously all day and have found a 0.1% false positive rate on signatures (mostly due to trolls who announced themselves on Twitter). The attacks are desperate at this point”. He was aware his employer’s credibility was at stake.

But not everyone agreed with him, and the ease with which false signatories could be added was becoming clear. Nafeez Ahmed, who you can tell as he’s a doctor, explained “The Great Barrington Declaration claiming to represent over 5,000 medical & public health scientists to promote herd immunity from #COVID19 is a gigantic fraud. Here's how I know. To test it out, *I* signed it pretending to be such a scientist with a Harvard degree”.

Do go on. "There are no meaningful standards, checks or controls for new 'scientists' signing Declaration in addition to original signatories. I used the name 'Mad Scientist', masqueraded as Professor, faked my Harvard PhD, and used a Zipcode from New York University School of Medicine … My fake profile … [allowed] me to receive a simple email verification to get my 'Medical & Public Health' scientist signatory status confirmed”.

Lee Ewen noted “It’s also been signed by Dr Harold Shipman. Dr Ivor Fakename, Dr Johnny Bananas and Dr I P Freely. As well as Dr Dominic Cummings”. Maria Einhorn signed in as Dr Billy Horrible, United States Supervillain. One Tweeter “signed it as Dr Crippin and Dr Knox of Burke and Hare fame”. And Dean Morrison wanted the world to know that “I just successfully signed as Professor Donald Duck”.

As Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point. More seriously, the President of the Academy of Medical Sciences has denounced the declaration as “unethical and simply not possible”. Sky News “found 18 self-declared homeopaths listed on the open letter as medical practitioners … signed by well over 100 therapists, including massage therapists, hypnotherapists, psychotherapists and one Mongolian Khöömii Singer”.

Could it get worse? You betcha, says Sarah: after one Tweeter mused “this smells of the Koch Brothers”, Byline Times revealed that the Great Barrington Declaration really did smell of the Koch Brothers: “Documents seen by Byline Times confirm that the Great Barrington Declaration advocating a ‘herd immunity’ approach to the COVID-19 pandemic has been sponsored by an institution embedded in a Koch-funded network that denies climate science while investing in polluting fossil fuel industries”. There was more.

“The latest available IRS documents reveal that in 2018, the AIER received $68,100 for 'General Operating Support' from the Charles Koch Foundation … All [the AIER’s] climate change related reports and commentaries are studiously dedicated to downplaying the severity of climate risks and obfuscating the science around human exploitation of oil, gas and coal in driving current global warming levels”. Well, well.

Charles Koch

It looked like the same tactics used with smoking and climate change - creating a “scientific divide”, pushing the “both sides” argument. There was a good reason for that.

The Great Barrington Declaration is a sham. What you will not read in the right-wing press.

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