Carl Bergstrom, a theoretical and evolutionary biologist, believes that the magazine is part of constant effort in order to doubt around the established scientific consensus. “If you can create an illusion that there is no advantage of an opinion that says that vaccines and masks are effective ways to control the pandemic, you can undermine this concept of scientific consensus, you can cause uncertainty and you can press a specific ahead of ahead,” he says. He says that the reviewed documents can protect politicians who want to make certain decisions and can also be used in court.
When he arrived by phone on Thursday, Kulldorff said that Bhattachary and Makary were returned to the editorial board before the nominations by President Trump. “They are not active members of the board at the moment,” he said. (The magazine’s website mentions Bhattacharya and Makary as “on vacation”). He added that there is no “relationship” between the magazine and the Trump administration.
Kulldorff told Wired that the magazine would be a place of open discourse and academic freedom. “I think it is important that scientists can publish what they think is important science, and then it should be open to discussion, instead of preventing people from publishing,” says Kulldorff.
Kulldorff and Andrew Noymer, epidemiologist from UC Irvine, who was supporter of the theory of leakage of the laboratory About the origin of Covid, they are called the editors of the magazine. Scott Atlas, which was used by Trump to serve the Coronirirus task group in the White House in 2020, was also named as a member of the editorial board. Atlas, a radiologist from training, did fake claims Masks do not work to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
In January, Noymer wrote the Bhattacharya nomination to the NIH administrator. In him he praised Bhattacharya for his openness to various points of view. This op-ed has been published in Realclearpolitics.
Angela Rasmussen, an American virologist and scientist at the University of Saskatchewan, says that he is worried that the magazine can be used to support and legitimize pseudoscientific and anti -public health views. “I don’t think it will give them recognition for real scientists. But society may not know the difference between the Journal of the Academy of Public Health and New England Journal of Medicine, “he says.
Taylor Dotson, a professor at the Recent Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, who studies the intersection of science and politics, claims that there is a “reasonable fear” that the magazine may become a repository of evidence that strengthens the arguments preferred by people in administration. If it has been confirmed, Bhattacharya and the boss of Makara may potentially be Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nominated for Trump to lead the Health and Social Welfare Department, which is known for promoting a wide range of overthrown scientific beliefs, including that there is a relationship between vaccines and autism and autism and that AIDS is not caused by HIV.
Dotson warns that there is a risk that the existence of magazines strictly consistent with a certain political view may deepen the politicization of science. “The worst scenario is that you are starting to have magazines for people who are a kind of populist and anti-establand and magazines for people who also read NPR and New York Times.”