Health
How the once-blacklisted Dr. Jay Bhattacharya could help save healthcare

From LifeSiteNews
Now seated at the helm of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is poised to reshape not only the agency’s research priorities but the very culture that pushed him to the fringe.
Imagine spending your career studying infectious diseases, only to find that the real virus spreading uncontrollably is censorship. That was the reality for Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford epidemiologist who committed the unpardonable sin of questioning the COVID-19 lockdown orthodoxy. His punishment? Digital exile, courtesy of Silicon Valley’s Ministry of Truth.
In December 2022, the Twitter Files exposed what many had long suspected: Twitter had quietly placed Bhattacharya’s account on a Trends Blacklist. This ensured that his posts, often critical of lockdowns and mask mandates, would never see the light of day on the platform’s trending topics. In other words, Twitter’s algorithm worked like a digital bouncer, making sure his dissenting opinions never made it past the velvet rope.
And Twitter wasn’t alone. Facebook, ever eager to please its government handlers, scrubbed the Great Barrington Declaration from its pages. That document, co-authored by Bhattacharya and other esteemed scientists, dared to suggest that maybe, just maybe, locking down entire populations wasn’t the best strategy. Instead, it proposed focused protection for the most vulnerable while allowing the rest of society to function. For this, it was sent to the digital equivalent of a gulag.
These experiences took center stage during Bhattacharya’s Senate confirmation hearing for the directorship of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Republican lawmakers, who suddenly found themselves cast as the last defenders of free speech in scientific discourse, saw his nomination as a win.
During his testimony, Bhattacharya didn’t mince words. He detailed how the Biden administration played an active role in orchestrating the suppression of alternative views. It wasn’t enough for officials to push their own pandemic policies — they needed to ensure that no one, regardless of expertise, could challenge them in the public square.
The Science™ vs. The Science
Bhattacharya’s testimony laid bare an uncomfortable truth: the pandemic was a crisis of speech. “The root problem was that people who had alternative ideas were suppressed,” he told Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.). “I personally was subject to censorship by the actions of the Biden administration during the pandemic.”
In a functioning society, that statement would spark bipartisan outrage. Instead, it barely registered. The people who spent years chanting “trust the science” were never interested in science at all.
Real science thrives on debate, skepticism, and the understanding that no single expert — no matter how credentialed—holds absolute truth. But during COVID, science became The Science™ — a government-approved doctrine enforced by Silicon Valley moderators and federal bureaucrats. Deviate from it, and you weren’t just wrong. You were dangerous.
A government-sanctioned muzzle
Bhattacharya wasn’t silenced in some haphazard, accidental way. The Biden administration actively leaned on social media companies to “moderate” voices like his. In practice, that meant tech executives — most of whom couldn’t tell a virus from a viral tweet — decided which epidemiologists the public was allowed to hear.
He responded with a lawsuit against the administration, accusing it of colluding with Big Tech to crush dissent. But in a ruling as predictable as it was revealing, the Supreme Court dismissed the case, arguing that Bhattacharya and his fellow plaintiffs lacked standing. Meaning: Yes, the government may have pressured private companies into silencing critics, but unless you can prove exactly how that harmed you, don’t expect the courts to care.
The real role of science
Despite everything, Bhattacharya didn’t argue for scientists to dictate policy. Unlike the public health bureaucrats who spent the pandemic issuing commandments from their Zoom thrones, he made it clear: “Science should be an engine for freedom,” he said. “Not something where it stands on top of society and says, ‘You must do this, this or this, or else.’”
That distinction matters. Science informs, but policy is about trade-offs. The problem wasn’t that officials got things wrong — it’s that they refused to admit the possibility. Instead of allowing open debate, they silenced critics. Instead of acknowledging uncertainty, they imposed rules with absolute certainty.
Bhattacharya wasn’t censored because he was wrong. He was censored because he questioned people who couldn’t afford to be.
His confirmation hearing made one thing clear: science wasn’t about data. It was about power. And in Washington, power doesn’t like to be questioned.
Science, money and power
At the heart of the hearing was a fundamental question: Who controls science that people are allowed to talk about? The NIH, with its $48 billion budget, is less a research institution and more a financial leviathan, shaping the direction of American science through the projects it funds (or doesn’t) fund.
Bhattacharya’s nomination comes at a moment when the battle lines around scientific freedom, government intervention, and public trust in research are more entrenched than ever. The pandemic shattered the illusion that science was above politics. Instead, it exposed just how much political and corporate interests shape what counts as “settled” science.
The irony is thick enough to cut with a knife. The man once branded too dangerous for social media, blacklisted for questioning lockdowns, and effectively erased from mainstream discourse is now being handed a key role in the very government that tried to silence him. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, once forced to the margins, is now at the center of power.
A new administration has decided that maybe — just maybe — silencing dissenting scientists wasn’t the best pandemic strategy. And in a twist no Hollywood scriptwriter would dare to pitch for being too on-the-nose, Bhattacharya wasn’t being welcomed back into the conversation — he’s being put in charge of it.
Bhattacharya was confirmed following a party-line vote Tuesday evening. The decision came after a similarly partisan endorsement from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), clearing the final hurdle for President Donald Trump’s nominee.
Equally central to his testimony was Bhattacharya’s call for a sweeping shift in NIH priorities. He proposed a decentralization of research funding, stressing the need for greater inclusion of dissenting voices in the scientific process, an apparent rebuke of the consensus-driven culture that dominated during the pandemic. He emphasized targeting resources toward projects with a clear and measurable impact on public health, dismissing other NIH initiatives as “frivolous.”
Now seated at the helm of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is poised to reshape not only the agency’s research priorities but the very culture that pushed him to the fringe. His confirmation, hard-won and unapologetically political, is already shaking the scaffolding of a scientific establishment that long equated conformity with consensus.
Reprinted with permission from Reclaim The Net.
Addictions
Addiction experts demand witnessed dosing guidelines after pharmacy scam exposed

By Alexandra Keeler
The move follows explosive revelations that more than 60 B.C. pharmacies were allegedly participating in a scheme to overbill the government under its safer supply program. The scheme involved pharmacies incentivizing clients to fill prescriptions they did not require by offering them cash or rewards. Some of those clients then sold the drugs on the black market.
An addiction medicine advocacy group is urging B.C. to promptly issue new guidelines for witnessed dosing of drugs dispensed under the province’s controversial safer supply program.
In a March 24 letter to B.C.’s health minister, Addiction Medicine Canada criticized the BC Centre on Substance Use for dragging its feet on delivering the guidelines and downplaying the harms of prescription opioids.
The centre, a government-funded research hub, was tasked by the B.C. government with developing the guidelines after B.C. pledged in February to return to witnessed dosing. The government’s promise followed revelations that many B.C. pharmacies were exploiting rules permitting patients to take safer supply opioids home with them, leading to abuse of the program.
“I think this is just a delay,” said Dr. Jenny Melamed, a Surrey-based family physician and addiction specialist who signed the Addiction Medicine Canada letter. But she urged the centre to act promptly to release new guidelines.
“We’re doing harm and we cannot just leave people where they are.”
Addiction Medicine Canada’s letter also includes recommendations for moving clients off addictive opioids altogether.
“We should go back to evidence-based medicine, where we have medications that work for people in addiction,” said Melamed.
‘Best for patients’
On Feb. 19, the B.C. government said it would return to a witnessed dosing model. This model — which had been in place prior to the pandemic — will require safer supply participants to take prescribed opioids under the supervision of health-care professionals.
The move follows explosive revelations that more than 60 B.C. pharmacies were allegedly participating in a scheme to overbill the government under its safer supply program. The scheme involved pharmacies incentivizing clients to fill prescriptions they did not require by offering them cash or rewards. Some of those clients then sold the drugs on the black market.
In its Feb. 19 announcement, the province said new participants in the safer supply program would immediately be subject to the witnessed dosing requirement. For existing clients of the program, new guidelines would be forthcoming.
“The Ministry will work with the BC Centre on Substance Use to rapidly develop clinical guidelines to support prescribers that also takes into account what’s best for patients and their safety,” Kendra Wong, a spokesperson for B.C.’s health ministry, told Canadian Affairs in an emailed statement on Feb. 27.
More than a month later, addiction specialists are still waiting.
According to Addiction Medicine Canada’s letter, the BC Centre on Substance Use posed “fundamental questions” to the B.C. government, potentially causing the delay.
“We’re stuck in a place where the government publicly has said it’s told BCCSU to make guidance, and BCCSU has said it’s waiting for government to tell them what to do,” Melamed told Canadian Affairs.
This lag has frustrated addiction specialists, who argue the lack of clear guidance is impeding the transition to witnessed dosing and jeopardizing patient care. They warn that permitting take-home drugs leads to more diversion onto the streets, putting individuals at greater risk.
“Diversion of prescribed alternatives expands the number of people using opioids, and dying from hydromorphone and fentanyl use,” reads the letter, which was also co-signed by Dr. Robert Cooper and Dr. Michael Lester. The doctors are founding board members of Addiction Medicine Canada, a nonprofit that advises on addiction medicine and advocates for research-based treatment options.
“We have had people come in [to our clinic] and say they’ve accessed hydromorphone on the street and now they would like us to continue [prescribing] it,” Melamed told Canadian Affairs.
A spokesperson for the BC Centre on Substance Use declined to comment, referring Canadian Affairs to the Ministry of Health. The ministry was unable to provide comment by the publication deadline.
Big challenges
Under the witnessed dosing model, doctors, nurses and pharmacists will oversee consumption of opioids such as hydromorphone, methadone and morphine in clinics or pharmacies.
The shift back to witnessed dosing will place significant demands on pharmacists and patients. In April 2024, an estimated 4,400 people participated in B.C.’s safer supply program.
Chris Chiew, vice president of pharmacy and health-care innovation at the pharmacy chain London Drugs, told Canadian Affairs that the chain’s pharmacists will supervise consumption in semi-private booths.
Nathan Wong, a B.C.-based pharmacist who left the profession in 2024, fears witnessed dosing will overwhelm already overburdened pharmacists, creating new barriers to care.
“One of the biggest challenges of the retail pharmacy model is that there is a tension between making commercial profit, and being able to spend the necessary time with the patient to do a good and thorough job,” he said.
“Pharmacists often feel rushed to check prescriptions, and may not have the time to perform detailed patient counselling.”
Others say the return to witnessed dosing could create serious challenges for individuals who do not live close to health-care providers.
Shelley Singer, a resident of Cowichan Bay, B.C., on Vancouver Island, says it was difficult to make multiple, daily visits to a pharmacy each day when her daughter was placed on witnessed dosing years ago.
“It was ridiculous,” said Singer, whose local pharmacy is a 15-minute drive from her home. As a retiree, she was able to drive her daughter to the pharmacy twice a day for her doses. But she worries about patients who do not have that kind of support.
“I don’t believe witnessed supply is the way to go,” said Singer, who credits safer supply with saving her daughter’s life.
Melamed notes that not all safer supply medications require witnessed dosing.
“Methadone is under witness dosing because you start low and go slow, and then it’s based on a contingency management program,” she said. “When the urine shows evidence of no other drug, when the person is stable, [they can] take it at home.”
She also noted that Suboxone, a daily medication that prevents opioid highs, reduces cravings and alleviates withdrawal, does not require strict supervision.
Kendra Wong, of the B.C. health ministry, told Canadian Affairs that long-acting medications such as methadone and buprenorphine could be reintroduced to help reduce the strain on health-care professionals and patients.
“There are medications available through the [safer supply] program that have to be taken less often than others — some as far apart as every two to three days,” said Wong.
“Clinicians may choose to transition patients to those medications so that they have to come in less regularly.”
Such an approach would align with Addiction Medicine Canada’s recommendations to the ministry.
The group says it supports supervised dosing of hydromorphone as a short-term solution to prevent diversion. But Melamed said the long-term goal of any addiction treatment program should be to reduce users’ reliance on opioids.
The group recommends combining safer supply hydromorphone with opioid agonist therapies. These therapies use controlled medications to reduce withdrawal symptoms, cravings and some of the risks associated with addiction.
They also recommend limiting unsupervised hydromorphone to a maximum of five 8 mg tablets a day — down from the 30 tablets currently permitted with take-home supplies. And they recommend that doses be tapered over time.
“This protocol is being used with success by clinicians in B.C. and elsewhere,” the letter says.
“Please ensure that the administrative delay of the implementation of your new policy is not used to continue to harm the public.”
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
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Autism
RFK Jr. Completely Shatters the Media’s Favorite Lie About Autism

The Vigilant Fox
They say autism is rising because of “better diagnosis”—but RFK Jr. just blew that narrative wide open. He brought the hard data and dropped one undeniable truth the denialists can’t explain.
HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. appeared on Hannity Thursday evening and unloaded on the predominant autism narrative. It started with a bombshell reveal from Kennedy’s own childhood.
Hannity asked: “What was the number when you were a kid—and what do you think is going on?”
Kennedy replied: “There’s really good data on that.”
He pointed to one of the largest studies ever conducted—900,000 children in Wisconsin, published in a top-tier medical journal.
“It looked at 900,000 kids. It was published in a high-gravitas journal, peer-reviewed study, and they found the rate to be 0.7 out of 10,000.”
That’s less than 1 in 10,000. Today? It’s around 1 in 31.
Let that sink in.
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That’s when Kennedy sounded the alarm on what’s happening now—and why it’s so catastrophic. He said the rise isn’t just in frequency—it’s in severity.
“Two years ago, it was 1 in 36. The CDC data we released this week shows 1 in 31,” Kennedy said.
“The worst state is California,” Kennedy continued, “which actually has the best collection methodologies. So they actually, probably reflect what we’re seeing nationwide.”
“In California, it’s 1 in every 20 kids, and 1 in every 12.5 boys,” he explained.
Even worse, he said the numbers are likely underreported in minority communities. And for many kids, the symptoms are devastating:
“About 25% of the population of those kids with autism, about 25% of them are nonverbal, nontoilet trained,” Kennedy explained.
“They have all of these stereotypical behaviors, the head banging, biting, toe walking, stimming, and that population is growing higher and higher.”
“It’s becoming a larger percentage, so we’re seeing many more cases that are now linked to severe intellectual disability.”
He says it’s a glaring red warning sign—and it’s past time to start acting on it.
And this was the moment that Kennedy took a flamethrower to the media narrative about autism. He shattered the core excuse we’ve all been fed—that this epidemic isn’t real, that it’s just a change in how we count it.
He’s not buying it.
“The media has bought into this industry canard, this mythology, that we’re just seeing more autism because we’re noticing it more. We’re better at recognizing it or there’s been changing diagnostic criteria.”
But the scientific literature, Kennedy said, says otherwise.
“There is study after study in the scientific literature going back, and they decided that the literature going back says decades that says that’s not true.”
He then cited a major investigation by California’s own lawmakers.
“In fact, the California legislature… asked the Mind Institute at UC Davis to look exactly at that topic. They [asked], is it real or are we just noticing it more? The Mind Institute came back and said, ‘Absolutely this is a real epidemic. This is something we’ve never seen before.’”
And he made it painfully clear:
“Anybody with common sense, Sean, would notice that, because the autism—this epidemic is only happening in our children. It’s not happening in people who are our age. And if it was better recognition, you’d see it in 70-year-old men.”
But we don’t.
And after laying out the data, dismantling the media narrative, and exposing the severity of the crisis, Kennedy concluded with a clarion call to get to the bottom of this epidemic.
That’s why he says it’s time to dig deeper—leave no stone unturned, and we may have answers sooner than you think.
“President Trump asked me to find out what’s causing it,” he told Hannity.
“And I am approaching that agnostically. We are looking at everything, we are going to do, we’re going to be very transparent in how we design the studies.”
To get real answers, he’s farming the research out to top institutions across the country—with full transparency from day one.
“We’re going to farm the studies out to 15 premier research groups from all over the country. And we’re going to be transparent about our protocols, about the data sets, and then every study will have to be replicated.”
The list of possible factors is long—and nothing is being ruled out, Kennedy explained.
“We’re going to look at mold. We’re going to look at the age of parents. We’re going to look at food and food additives. We’re going to look at pesticides and toxic exposures. We’re going to look at medicines. We’re going to look at vaccines. We’re going to look at everything.”
When asked how long it would take, Kennedy didn’t miss a beat.
“I think we’ll have some preliminary answers in six months. It will take us probably a year from then before we can have definitive answers because a lot of the studies will not go out until the end of the summer.”
For the first time in decades, someone is asking the hard questions—and demanding real answers.
This time, nothing is off-limits.
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