Seven questions for Covid-19 ‘expert’ Francis Collins

Kurt Mahlburg

January 02, 2024 4 Reactions

However, with Collins’ admission now firmly in the public domain, I have some questions for him.

1 -- As a public health expert, what led you to believe that assigning infinite value to saving a life, regardless of any collateral damage that might result, was good public health policy? Did you ever consider conducting a cost-benefit analysis before recommending months of rolling lockdowns?

2 -- Why did you decide to smear and silence Gupta, Bhattacharya and Kulldorff instead of debating them? Bhattacharya and Kulldorff have both confirmed that they extended the offer of a debate to you, so why did you reject it? In the words of Dr Vinay Prasad:

“You were the NIH Director. You could have had a series of Town Halls where you invited people like Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff and had an open discussion of the pros and cons. You could have put them on YouTube. You have the powers of the federal government. You held zero debates. You just went on TV and you said proclamation after proclamation… You never tried to minimize uncertainty. You never brought anyone to the table who might disagree with you.”

3 -- Why did it take three years for you to finally admit you were wrong? And what ultimately prompted your epiphany?

4 -- What makes your admission acceptable today, when in 2020 and 2021 it would almost universally have been regarded as divisive and dangerous? Has the truth changed, or do you concede that your critics were right from the outset?

5 -- If your mistakes were due to a lack of good scientific data early in the pandemic — or to borrow a popular phrase, if “science evolves” — why did you recommend rule-by-mandate? Wouldn’t scientific blind spots by definition demand the public be given choice rather than mandates?

6 -- Not to belabour the point, but if “science evolves”, what led you to believe that silencing alternative viewpoints from world-renowned experts would help rather than hinder this process?

7 -- What legal consequences, if any, do you believe you deserve for actively stifling sound public health policy? How can accountability for leaders like you today help safeguard the public from overbearing health bureaucrats tomorrow?

It is hard to improve on the words of Brownstone Institute President Jeffrey Tucker in his recent column “The Year that Expertise Collapsed”:

It felt like a coup d’etat of sorts. It certainly was an intellectual coup. All wisdom of the past, even that known by public health only months earlier, was deleted from public spaces. Dissent was silenced…

All the while, we kept thinking that there must be some rationale behind all this madness. It never emerged. It was all intimidation and belligerence and nothing more — arbitrary diktat by big shots who were pretending the entire time…

As it turns out, these experts who ruled our lives, and still do to a great extent, were never what they claimed to be, and never actually possessed knowledge that was superior to what existed within the cultural firmament of society. Instead, all they really had was power and a grand opportunity to play dictator.

To be sure, we need experts, perhaps even experts like Francis Collins. But we need them for their knowledge and experience, not their misguided attempts to censor countervailing viewpoints or enforce ideological conformity.

The entire point of experts is their expertise. Next time, it would be great if they used it. 

Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate architect, a primary school teacher, a missionary, and a young adult pastor. 

Image credits: AI generated Pixlr