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scott atlas
Dr. Birx Criticized for Failing to Speak Out on Trump's 'Parallel Data': Her 'Legacy is One of Sycophancy and Failure'
'Dr. Birx went out of her way to praise Trump and just straight up lied'
Jan 23, 2021
Dr. Deborah Birx, who was the Trump administration's coordinator of the Coronavirus Task Force, said in a CBS News' Face The Nation interview that aired Sunday that ex-President Donald Trump had been reviewing "parallel" data sets on the coronavirus pandemic from someone inside the administration.
"I saw the president presenting graphs that I never made," Birx said. "So, I know that someone out there or someone inside was creating a parallel set of data and graphics that were shown to the president."
Birx said she doesn't know who gave the Trump competing information but "I know now by watching some of the tapes that certainly Scott Atlas brought in parallel data streams." She added: "I don't know who else was part of it, but I think when the record goes back and people see what I was writing on a daily basis that was sent up to White House leadership, that they will see that I was highly specific on what I was seeing and what needed to be done."
Birx was blasted after her comments Sunday for failing to speak out at the time to set the record straight about what she saw in the White House:
\u201cSo brave of her to speak up now, when in real time she was telling audiences that the President was great at analyzing data. So... Dr. Birx legacy is one of failure, sycophancy and failure.\u201d— Soledad O'Brien (@Soledad O'Brien) 1611498680
\u201cSo maybe Dr. Birx should explain why she didn\u2019t set the record straight when she saw this.\n\nOf course she won\u2019t, because she was more committed to keeping her job than actually doing it well.\u201d— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@Dr. Angela Rasmussen) 1611500198
Birx also said that there were COVID-19 deniers at the White House.
"There were people who definitely believed that this was a hoax," she said. "I think the information was confusing at the beginning. I think because we didn't talk about the spectrum of the disease, everyone interpreted what they knew."
\u201cIn fact, Birx gave data to Trump to mislead the public before he turned to Scott Atlas for even more misleading stats. I reported on her doing this in April https://t.co/Ch1hqm3RRN and July https://t.co/6TdpGXlSnv In August he switched to Atlas' fake data https://t.co/0dyRC6XcL3\u201d— Robert Mackey (@Robert Mackey) 1611523478
\u201cWOW!!! This Dr. Birx interview discusses a COVID disinformation campaign should lead to criminal charges if true.\u201d— Fred Guttenberg (@Fred Guttenberg) 1611496183
When asked what her biggest mistake was during her time in the Trump administration, Birx said she should have been "more outspoken," especially on the issue of COVID testing. "I didn't know all the consequences of all these issues," she said. Birx has been criticized for never publicly challenging Trump's suggestion to inject bleach, and after she warned of a dangerous "new phase" of the pandemic last August, Trump tweeted that her comments were "pathetic."
So Crazy Nancy Pelosi said horrible things about Dr. Deborah Birx, going after her because she was too positive on the very good job we are doing on combatting the China Virus, including Vaccines & Therapeutics. In order to counter Nancy, Deborah took the bait & hit us. Pathetic!
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 3, 2020
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268,000 People Died and Scott Atlas Shrugged: Trump's "Most Dangerous" Covid Adviser Quits
Atlas brought no expertise in infectious diseases but plenty of misinformation to the position.
Nov 30, 2020
Scott Atlas, President Donald Trump's "favorite--and most dangerous--Covid-19 adviser," announced his resignation from his White House position late Monday just days before his 130-day role on the coronavirus task force was set to expire, a move that was welcomed by critics who say the Stanford University radiologist's views on the deadly pandemic are inconsistent with epidemiological recommendations and harmful to the nation's public health.
"I worked hard with a singular focus--to save lives and help Americans through this pandemic," Atlas wrote in his resignation letter.
The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 268,000 Americans, and NPRreported Monday night that "since Atlas began his job in August, nearly one hundred thousand people have died of Covid-19 in the U.S."
Slate summarized Atlas' tenure on Tuesday morning:
Atlas had no prior experience in public health but grabbed Trump's attention during his flame-throwing appearances on Fox News and joined the Trump administration as an adviser in August. Atlas proceeded to push a libertarian approach to managing the pandemic: he questioned the effectiveness of social distancing, considered widespread testing to control the virus unnecessary, all the while he derided widespread closures and questioned the utility of mask-wearing as part of an overall belief in the highly questionable herd immunity approach to solving the virus... Atlas' coronavirus views, as you may have suspected, conveniently jived with Trump's anti-science takes on all aspects of the virus.
Progressives characterized Atlas' embrace of herd immunity as not just "highly questionable," but rather as a potential "massacre" that would require over 200 million people to be infected, resulting in millions of deaths, as Common Dreams reported in September.
In his resignation letter, Atlas insisted he "always relied on the latest science and evidence, without any political consideration or influence."
"As time went on, like all scientists and health policy scholars, I learned new information and synthesized the latest data from around the world, all in an effort to provide you with the best information to serve the greater public good," he said.
Atlas claimed to have focused in particular on looking out for "the working class and the poor." The U.S. has more than 13.5 million Covid-19 cases as of Tuesday, and as Les Leopold showed in an October Common Dreams essay, low-income Americans will bear the greatest burden as infections and deaths surge.
"He's an MRI guy... He has no expertise in any of this stuff," Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, toldNPR.
Despite having no background in infectious diseases, Atlas has "been bringing out arguments that have been refuted week after week, month after month, since the beginning of this outbreak," Jha added.
Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, illustrated one example of the clash between Atlas' anti-lockdown opinions and real-world evidence.
On October 30, Atlas told Fox News: "All lockdowns do are destroy families, really kill people... And it's amazing to me that places, unfortunately, like the U.K. and France have not learned their lesson." Meanwhile, data comparing the three countries' trajectories completely undermine Atlas' talking points.
\u201cScott Atlas, Oct. 30: "All lockdowns do are destroy families, really kill people... And it's amazing to me that places, unfortunately, like the UK and France have not learned their lesson."\nhttps://t.co/v0qaqeTQ9U\n\nReality:\u201d— Matthew Gertz (@Matthew Gertz) 1606830741
"He's a destructive force," a federal health official toldThe Daily Beast last month. "I mean, at this point, I don't know how else to explain what he's doing. It's really disruptive."
Trump's outgoing adviser took a leave of absence from his position as a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford, to temporarily join the White House.
The university has in recent weeks distanced itself from Atlas, especially after he called for an uprising against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer following the Democratic leader's implementation of new public health measures last month.
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'It's Even Worse on Video': Trump Adviser Welcomes Killing Loved Ones With Covid-19 as This May Be 'Their Final Thanksgiving' Anyway
"Eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow my policies may kill you."
Nov 16, 2020
In his latest anti-science appeal to Americans, White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas on Monday night called on families to ignore the guidance of public health experts who say the holiday season should not include indoor gatherings--suggesting to Fox News that families should take the risk even for elderly or sick relatives this Thanksgiving because they will no longer be alive next year.
"This kind of isolation is one of the unspoken tragedies of the elderly who are now being told, 'Don't see your family at Thanksgiving,'" Atlas, who has no public health expertise, told Fox host Martha MacCallum. "For many people this is their final Thanksgiving, believe it or not. What are we doing here?"
\u201cIt's, uh, worse on video. https://t.co/On7AaMNht1\u201d— Ali Gharib (@Ali Gharib) 1605580468
Stanford University, where Atlas was a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution before joining President Donald Trump's coronavirus team, promptly distanced itself from the doctor's comments, while political observers expressed shock on social media.
\u201cWell, if it's not their last Thanksgiving it will be now, "Doctor" Atlas.\u201d— David Atkins (@David Atkins) 1605577055
\u201cEat, drink and be merry, because tomorrow my policies may kill you https://t.co/mcGZJxvhZ2\u201d— Paul Krugman (@Paul Krugman) 1605622905
\u201cEnough. Where is the AMA, The American Society of Neuroradiology, Stanford? This guy is a public health menace and it needs to stop now.\u201d— Andrea R MD AndreaR9md@mindly.social (@Andrea R MD AndreaR9md@mindly.social) 1605577500
Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall wrote that for many Americans it will be their last Thanksgiving "because they're attending Thanksgiving."
\u201cShorter Atlas. For a lot of these people it'll be their last Thanksgiving ... because they're attending Thanksgiving. So bring on the Turkey.\u201d— Josh Marshall (@Josh Marshall) 1605621502
Protecting the elderly from Covid-19 is one of the main reasons infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci and other officials have called on Americans to skip indoor family gatherings and traveling this year. Last week he advised Americans to wear face coverings at any gatherings they do have if they don't know the Covid-19 status of all attendees.
Meanwhile, Atlas has falsely stated that face masks don't reduce transmission of Covid-19 and is a proponent of the U.S. government taking a "herd immunity" approach to the pandemic--encouraging people who are relatively young and healthy to go about their daily lives with no regard for mask-wearing, social distancing, or the existence of a virus that's killed more than 246,000 people in the U.S. this year, while using unspecified methods to separate them from people who are elderly or at high risk for severe Covid-19 infections.
The "herd immunity" approach, euphemistically rebranded as "focused protection" by some proponents, has been denounced as "fringe" by seasoned public health officials.
On Sunday, Atlas also called on Michigan residents to "rise up" against public health guidance after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that in-person learning, indoor dining, organized sports, and other activities would be shut down for three weeks to mitigate the spread of Covid-19.
"This guy is a public health menace and it needs to stop now," tweeted one emergency room physician on Monday evening following Atlas's comments about Thanksgiving.
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