Contrary to insistence that dissent from the medical establishment’s pandemic advice was 'anti-science,' 500-plus studies and articles related to COVID-19 have been retracted for defects of accuracy and objectivity, according to junk-science watchdog Retraction Watch.
(LifeSiteNews) -- Contrary to years of insistence that dissent from the medical establishment’s pandemic advice was “anti-science,” no less than 500 studies and articles related to COVID-19 have been retracted for various defects of accuracy and objectivity, according to junk-science watchdog website Retraction Watch.
As of February 17, Retraction Watch’s ongoing “Retracted coronavirus (COVID-19) papers” database lists 505 studies that have been retracted, plus 19 amended to include “expressions of concern” about their findings. The subjects of the papers (including essays, studies, and clinical trials) ranged from diagnosing COVID cases, hospital treatment, and vaccine effects to therapeutics, masking, social distancing, lockdowns, and more.
“Why do they feel the need to rush papers through? Well, it’s because that’s how they get or keep their jobs, that’s how they get grants, everything is based on that,” Retraction Watch co-founder Ivan Oransky told The College Fix. “When you know that your whole career depends on publishing papers in particular journals, you’re going to do what you have to do to publish those papers. Most of the time that means you work hard, you hire the smart grad students and postdocs.”
Oransky added that even when an organization withdraws a questionable paper, the level of explanation they offer as to why can vary significantly, giving proponents of the original conclusion room to insist it is still valid, and that it was pulled for political reasons rather than scientific.
Further, the biggest problem “is when papers aren’t retracted,” he said. “The problem is when papers sit in the literature, people know there’s a problem, but everybody refuses to do anything about them.”
Nearly every major position asserted as fact during the height of the COVID pandemic has since been determined to be fatally flawed. A large body of evidence has found that mass restrictions on personal and economic activity undertaken in 2020 and part of 2021 caused far more harm than good in terms of personal freedom and economics as well as public health, and that lives could have been saved through far less burdensome methods, such as the promotion of established therapeutic drugs, narrower protections focused on those most at risk (such as the elderly and infirm), and increasing vitamin D intake.
In Florida, the first report by a grand jury impaneled by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis determined that lockdowns did more harm than good, that masks were ineffective at stopping COVID transmission, that COVID was “statistically almost harmless” to children and most adults, and that it is “highly likely” that COVID hospitalization numbers were inflated.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has called America’s COVID response one of “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country,” against which Congress, state legislatures, and courts alike were largely negligent to protect constitutional rights, personal liberty, and the rule of law.
