Three dozen scientists, academics and journalists gathered in D.C. last week to discuss censorship in science and ways to push back.

From Just the News. The average American was unlikely to see mainstream scientists challenging COVID-19 conventional wisdom outside of Fox News until recent months, when New York Times columnist David Leonhardt started shifting the Overton Window for elite discourse on pandemic policy.

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That troubles the three dozen scientists, academics and journalists who gathered in D.C. last week to discuss censorship in science and ways to push back, perhaps through alternative institutions such as the nascent University of Austin.

President Trump’s former COVID advisor Scott Atlas cohosted the “quasi-kickoff” of Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom, which he called a “seed” to be followed by larger meetings and smaller working groups.

Also hosting were Great Barrington Declaration coauthors Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford Medicine and Martin Kulldorff, formerly of Harvard Medical School, who are founding fellows with Atlas.

Dissidents within the National Institutes of Health showed up too: Matt Memoli, director of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases Clinical Studies Unit, and distinguished investigator Marius Clore. Marion Gruber, who reportedly resigned from the FDA’s vaccines office in protest of its booster recommendation, was originally invited to be a speaker but was not present.

Fox News is practically the only outlet that will feature scientists who challenge COVID narratives, said Bhattacharya, claiming the public health community “basically put me on the outside” for his appearances there….

Epidemiologist Sheila Weiss said her company, which has close Stanford ties, wouldn’t let her publish a commentary on “booster mandate madness” because it was “too much of a political or corporate risk.” An investigative journalist declined her offer to run with the story because “Fauci’s goons” already targeted him, Weiss said.

Cal Poly microbiologist Pat Fidopiastis, who leads its COVID wastewater testing lab, explained how he became the campus villain for refusing to wear masks “unless required,” challenging mask efficacy and referring to COVID’s origin in Wuhan, which drew student accusations of racism. He voted for Barack Obama twice and Hillary Clinton, but “they made me” a Trump supporter….

Bioethicist Aaron Kheriaty, fired by UC for refusing COVID vaccination, said public health has morphed into seeking “behavioral outcomes” through moralistic framing and frowns on objective data that could give “false reassurance.” To Kheriaty, “that’s the definition of propaganda….”

RealClearPolitics publisher Tom Bevan said he was “kind of depressed” that the media company hadn’t done more to challenge the power of mainstream media on “dictating and framing what’s acceptable to debate.” He asked scientists at the gathering to send their work to RCP to shift that “lopsided fight….”

Share your prayers for boldness and true science below.

(Excerpt from Just the News. Photo Credit: Anshu A on Unsplash)