Is Anthony Fauci Responsible For Hit Pieces On Dr. Scott Atlas?

President Trump and Scott Atlas

Dr. Scott Atlas, a Stanford professor and Chief of Neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center from 1998 until 2012, has recently become an adviser to the White House on how to deal with the COVID-19 panic.

His recommendations fly in the face of the authoritarian measures recommended by such advisers as the nutjob Anthony "I change my advice every week" Fauci.

Curiously, now that Atlas has taken some of the media spotlight away from Fauci, hit pieces are starting to appear on Atlas.

Om Monday, a Washington Post piece began:

One of President Trump’s top medical advisers is urging the White House to embrace a controversial “herd immunity” strategy to combat the pandemic, which would entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations, according to five people familiar with the discussions.

The administration has already begun to implement some policies along these lines, according to current and former officials as well as experts, particularly with regard to testing.

The approach’s chief proponent is Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist and fellow at Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution, who joined the White House in August as a pandemic adviser. He has advocated that the United States adopt the model Sweden has used to respond to the virus outbreak, according to these officials, which relies on lifting restrictions so healthy people can build immunity to the disease rather than limiting social and business interactions to prevent the virus from spreading.

Sweden’s handling of the pandemic has been heavily criticized by public health officials and infectious-disease experts as reckless — the country’s infection and death rates are among the world’s highest.

Atlas, who does not have a background in infectious diseases or epidemiology, has expanded his influence inside the White House by advocating policies that appeal to Trump’s desire to move past the pandemic and get the economy going, distressing health officials on the White House coronavirus task force and throughout the administration who worry that their advice is being followed less and less.

A New York Times piece out today says in part:

 Dr. Scott W. Atlas has argued that the science of mask wearing is uncertain, that children cannot pass on the coronavirus and that the role of the government is not to stamp out the virus but to protect its most vulnerable citizens as Covid-19 takes its course.

Ideas like these, both ideologically freighted and scientifically disputed, have propelled the radiologist and senior fellow at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution into President Trump’s White House, where he is pushing to reshape the administration’s response to the pandemic...when Mr. Trump resumed his coronavirus news conferences in July and August, it was Dr. Atlas who helped prepare his briefing materials, according to people familiar with them. And it was his ideas that spilled from the president’s mouth....

The core of his appeal in the West Wing rests in his libertarian-style approach to disease management in which the government focuses on small populations of at-risk individuals — the elderly, the sick and the immune-compromised — and minimizes restrictions for the rest of the population, akin to an approach used to disastrous effect in Sweden...

Dr. Atlas’s push has led to repeated private confrontations with Dr. Birx, who in recent weeks has been advocating rigorous rules on wearing masks, limiting bars and restaurants, and minimizing large public gatherings...

Mr. Trump is clearly enamored with Dr. Atlas’s arguments, which back up the president’s desire to restart the economy, open schools and move beyond the daily drumbeat of dire virus news.

But fully embracing any version of a policy resembling herd immunity has profound medical and political risks. Simply allowing the virus to travel through most of the population could lead to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of deaths. And medical officials are still not sure how long that immunity might last, and how long-lasting some effects of the virus could be.

“Trying to get to herd immunity other than with a vaccine isn’t a strategy,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, a former C.D.C. director. “It’s a catastrophe.”...

Dr. Atlas’s medical background — chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center from 1998 to 2012 and editor of the textbook “Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain and Spine” — appears incongruous with his current role.

But Dr. Atlas does have political connections in Mr. Trump’s world. He has advised the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, and his Hoover Institution employs several staunch supporters of Mr. Trump’s handling of the virus...

In one of his first meetings, he argued over the science of mask wearing. As Drs. Fauci and Birx maintained that drops in caseloads reflected public health measures such as social distancing and mask-wearing, Dr. Atlas insisted that peaks and declines could have merely been the virus running its course, senior administration officials said...

In other discussions, he argued that children cannot spread the virus, despite numerous studies that have shown that children can carry the virus, transmit it and die from it.

During an appearance last night on Tucker Carlson's show, Atlas appeared flummoxed by the way his advice to the president was being distorted by anonymous sources used by the media.

These distortions and hit pieces sure have the scent of Fauci in the background. For Fauci and his cronies, this is about power and Fauci's bizarre, erratic advice is losing ground with the president to the sound advice of Atlas.

Fauci has never been one to take the loss of power quietly. Atlas needs to read the book Inventing the AIDS Virus by Peter Duesberg.

In the book, Duesberg explains the very dirty game that Fauci played, including with the media, when Duesberg went up against Fauci over AIDS. I discussed some of the Fauci shady handiwork in an April post, What You Don't Know About Dr. Tony Fauci.

The bottom line, Fauci and his cronies are very likely behind the attacks and likely have only begun. They will attempt to destroy Atlas.

 -RW