Back in April 2020, Bhattacharya claimed it was 50-85x more and emphasized the 85x, likely because it sounded more extreme. "that means that there's about 85 times more people who've had it per person that actually identified having it." www.hoover.org/research/fig...

The reason is that Bhattacharya and colleagues sought to confirm their hypothesis (rathe than test it). They thought COVID was, to borrow Ioannidis' phrasing, no more than a 'house cat'. www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a...

Bhattacharya and colleagues study was flawed, claiming that 50-85x times as many people had antibodies (and therefore had been infected) vs. those who had a positive viral test. If this was right, then it meant the disease was 50-85x less dangerous than previously thought...

... and that we were 50-85x times closer (as it were) to reaching herd immunity and the end of the pandemic. But none of this was right.

We knew it was wrong at the time, and as Andrew Gelman put it, the estimates "were essentially the product of a statistical error." statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/04/19/f...

As I describe in Asymptomatic "Taking the right steps in spring 2020 required being realistic about the COVID-19 threat. While many scientists and public health experts were aware of the threat, the Santa Clara study presented a counter-argument that helped fuel confusion and misinformation."

Yes, there were too few viral tests. Yes, asymptomatic spread was real (and critical). But, there were still far more people to be infected beyond March 2020 with catastrophic impacts and Bhattacharya continues to minimize this harm as a means to an end. joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/revisionis...

What is this end? He claims he is intent on restoring trust, and in his words "Remove politics out of it" where it = medical research. Yet, days ago in a fireside chat at Duke Medical Center, Bhattacharya said something different.

“I want the NIH to be a central driver of the MAHA agenda,” Bhattacharya said. “Essentially, it's kind of the research arm of MAHA.” Duke University Virtual Fireside Chat, Jan 27, 2026 www.dukechronicle.com/article/duke...

MAHA is a political movement driving misinformation and anti-vaccination policy, as Mark Gorton, President of the MAHA Institute said in November: "I’ve come to this anti-vax conference with a message that we need to be more boldly anti-vax" www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...

As I wrote yesterday in a brief post, NIH is not an ideological toy or 'arm'. We must continue to insist on NIH's scientific independence and the independence of research decisions supporting who does research and what research is funded, especially if its Director will not.

The platforming of COVID 'contrarians' or what Douthat calls a 'public controversialist' might lead to more clicks, but it won't lead to better science and discoveries needed to save lives and drive an innovation economy.

The @nytopinion.nytimes.com can do what it wants. Getting bothered by Douthat is time poorly spent. But contesting the transformation of NIH is essential.