Stanford's Jay Bhattacharya endorses anti-vaccine, anti-Semite RFK, Jr. for President
It's time to dismiss him just as Harvard did Martin Kulldorff.
Relatively recently, one of the names behind the pro-virus "Great Barrington Declaration," Martin Kulldorff, was fired from Harvard for his depraved anti-vaccine stance. Any serious adult would agree that anti-vaccine quacks have zero place in medical or scientific education, but sadly, many whined and screeched, including University of California San Francisco's Vinay Prasad, and former journalist turned billionaire lapdog Matt Taibbi. Even though many supporters of the Great Barrington Declaration signed an online petition, Harvard has refused to reinstate Mr. Kulldorff.
A quick refresher: the Great Barrington Declaration is a billionaire astroturfed online rant in which three laptop class academics funded by the Koch billionaires (which astroturfed the conspiracy that Barack Obama was a Kenyan socialist Manchurian candidate, leading into the Trump 2016 campaign) declared that sitting back and letting SARS-CoV-2 rip through America's population, well before a vaccine was available, was a serious pandemic response. As they were sitting at home in comfort, countless Americans were dying or winding up disabled by COVID-19; a brand-new disease that hadn't even been in circulation for a full year.
Alongside (now former) Harvard's Martin Kulldorff, was Jay Bhattacharya, a "Health Economist" from Stanford, another prestigious university. Jay was much more focused on launching himself into the stardom of being a public figure, latching onto right-wing blowhard governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, and after making a fool of himself with the COVID-19 pandemic response, latched onto DeSantis' failed 2024 Presidential campaign. Shockingly, the Great Barrington Declaration's bold proposal of letting new pathogens rip through the population did not drive Republican primary voters to the polls, and DeSantis would go on to endorse Lockdown Don - and by the transitive property of Republican politics, this means that Jay Bhattacharaya was now the "lockdowner" he spent years ranting and raving about.
Unless... there was another way...
Smilin’ Jay Endorses RFK
We've talked about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. before - a sadistic anti-Semitic creep with the blood of children on his hands, and best friends with infamous anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield, who abused young children with highly invasive medical procedures including attempting a colonoscopy on a six-year-old. RFK Jr. got dozens of children killed in Samoa with his anti-vax activism. In July 2023, RFK Jr. even claimed that the COVID-19 pandemic is a Chinese-Jewish conspiracy.
Now in 2024, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is running for President in another pathetically naked grift, and yesterday announced his running mate - the Global Joy Officer for the Sloomoo Institute, a company that charges grown adults $48.00/hr to play with slime - but also touted a fresh new endorsement, desperate to remain in the spotlight.
Yes, that's right. Stanford Professor and "Health Economist" Jay Bhattacharya, Director of Stanford's Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging, is now aligned with child abuser Andrew Wakefield and the modern anti-vaccine movement by endorsing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for President of the United States.
A vocal crusader against the very ideal of public health; the perversions of Jay's brand of "economist" brain turns human lives and suffering into mere numbers on a spreadsheet to be rubbed out with a rubber eraser. Many libertarians are anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists who are physically repulsed by the idea of civic responsibility, so it’s not surprising to see Smilin’ Jay latch onto a fellow conspiracy theorist’s grift.
The American anti-vaccine movement has destroyed countless lives - including its own loudest voices - and has no place in any medical, scientific, or academic setting. It is antithetical to intellectual pursuit, and for Stanford University to continue to employ Jay Bhattacharya is to entertain the reprehensible scourge of anti-vaccine crankery as an acceptable perspective for students, many of which will go on to work in healthcare, to consider and entertain as a legitimate perspective. The consequences of Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya being employed by a Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Presidential administration would be disastrous. Thankfully, highly unlikely.
Much like Harvard fired Martin Kulldorff for his anti-vaccine quackery, and Texas Tech expelled Kevin Bass for his anti-vaccine social media grift, Stanford University must follow suit and terminate their employment of Jay Bhattacharya for embracing the anti-vaccine movement and endorsing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has the blood of American children on his hands, for President of the United States.
What are the specific violations that Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya has committed? Well, I’m glad you asked!
The Stanford University Code of Conduct
First of all, the Stanford University Code of Conduct, Section 2: Standards of Integrity and Quality, states:
“Stanford recognizes that it must earn and maintain a reputation for integrity that includes, but is not limited to, compliance with laws and regulations and its contractual obligations. Even the appearance of misconduct or impropriety can be damaging to the University. Stanford must strive at all times to maintain the highest standards of integrity and quality.”
Does hitting the campaign trail with an anti-vax grifter who pays himself millions via a horrific, unscientific anti-vax propaganda grift titled “Children’s Health Defense” sound like behavior that holds up to a standard of high integrity? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. got dozens of Samoan children killed in 2019 after meeting with Samoan government officials and spread dangerous lies that influenced policy. Is this quality behavior of a Stanford University faculty member on display, endorsing a man with the blood of innocent children on his hands?
Does Stanford Medicine now permit their professors to lend the credibility of the Stanford name to the unscientific anti-vaccine movement, in direct sabotage of the mission of Stanford Medicine doctors and nurses to fight disease and save lives?
Second, the use of Jay Bhattacharya being identified by the RFK, Jr. 2024 campaign as “Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine” for endorsing the RFK, Jr. campaign, does not include “a statement that the person is speaking as an individual and not as a representative of the University,” a blatant violation of the Stanford Administrative Guide, Section 1.5.1: Political, Campaign and Lobbying Activities.
Trading in the Stanford name to mislead the public and lend credibility to an unscientific anti-vaccine grifter is a massive ethical violation and reflects poorly on the University. Jay Bhattacharya should have thought of this beforehand, but the man’s primary obsession in life is becoming a household name in a well-funded libertarian crusade against the very ideal of public health.
The Delusion of Genius
On top of all of this, Jay Bhattacharya has started his own media grift on the side, titled “The Illusion of Consensus,” which features an article by ex-medical student Kevin Bass. Kevin Bass was dismissed from Texas Tech University for publicly tweeting, with a photo of him wearing a TTU labcoat in his profile, the following:
"Yeah I love the nurses and love to compliment them. I think I might be in some small trouble for flirting this coming week. I had no idea I had to watch every single word that comes out of my mouth. I also have not gotten this much flirty female attention in my life, not even just from nurses either. Is it the stress? Either way I'm kind of floored by everything."
as well as,
"Persuaded by friends no more dating in med school, maybe residency too. Concluded half of women are moles baiting just to report me, other half are feds. Might be an extraterrestrial or two in the mix as well given how my life's going. Good night."
Which made it obvious to the Texas Tech University administration that Kevin Bass had zero business in the medical profession, promptly expelling him. For Stanford Medicine professor Jay Bhattacharya’s The Illusion of Consensus, Kevin Bass does not admit his responsibility in his own demise. One has to wonder, is building a media platform to shine a sympathetic spotlight on dishonest misogynists considered to be acceptable behavior for a Stanford professor?
Enough is enough.
How To Get Involved
Standford’s student newspaper, The Stanford Daily, has a “Tips” form you can submit to. You should probably start there with letting them know all of RFK, Jr.’s anti-vax horrors that Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya has endorsed for President of the United States.
You can also contact the Stanford University Office of Ethics & Compliance to report Jay Bhattacharya’s highly unethical behavior as a Stanford Medicine professor lending the credibility of the University’s name to an anti-vaccine grifter who is responsible for serious harms.
It’s also worth contacting the Stanford Medicine Dean’s Office to inform them of their faculty’s “extra-curricular” activities in supporting an unscientific, unethical, and frankly unacceptable anti-vaccine grift, and defending creeps expelled for “loving the nurses and love to compliment them.”
Jay Bhattacharya’s Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging is part of a larger Stanford Health Policy group. The chairs of Stanford Health Policy are: Douglas K. Owens, MD, MS, Alyce S. Adams, Laurence C. Baker, PhD, Joshua Salomon, PhD, Corinna Haberland, MD, and Ben Priestley, MPH who can be contacted individually via clicking through the individual names listed above. Be respectful and direct about how you feel Stanford Health Policy faculty lending their name to an anti-vaccine grifter. You can also file a general inquiry with the Stanford Health Policy office.
It’s important that the general public refuses to tolerate this sort of obscene misconduct from our academic institutions. The consequence of letting anti-vaccine ideals being given legitimacy in the public eye is nothing but needless deaths - especially pediatric deaths. The blood of that pointless suffering is on all of our hands for staying silent as citizens in a civic democracy. We all share in a responsibility to one-another; an ideal that lies at the foundation of public health - which is why libertarian quacks like Jay Bhattacharya are fighting so hard to destroy it. They care for nothing but their own material gains and emotional delusions of grandeur, even if innocent children end up paying the ultimate price. We must deny them.
If academic institutions are to permit anti-vaccine quackery among their faculty, then what else would they allow? Should aerospace engineering students be required to hear lectures from Flat-Earthers? Should a Klansmen be given input on Black history curriculum? Do we as grown adults really think that womens studies majors need to hear from "pick-up artists" on their expectations of women's behavior in modern society? Will we soon be seeing a return of "Creation Science" and "Intelligent Design" to high school science classrooms?
The students of Stanford University, and every academic institution in America, deserve professors that are not distracted from their professional responsibilities with utterly delusional, narcissistic crusades for the contrarian's spotlight by riding a gravy train of misleading the gullible into wrecking their own health and going down a rabbit hole of unscientific conspiracies. All because anti-vaxxers and the viruses they embrace are simply more profitable to the investment portfolios of the billionaires that astroturf Jay Bhattacharya's absurdities.
Enough is enough, Stanford. It's time to put the nail in the Great Barrington Coffin.
