Health
Trump names leading COVID skeptic Dr. Jay Bhattacharya as head of the NIH
From LifeSiteNews
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, leading COVID critic and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, said he will ‘reform American scientific institutions’ to ‘make America healthy again’ after being nominated as NIH director by Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has nominated prominent lockdown critic and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
On November 26, Trump released a statement expressing his excitement that “Dr. Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the Nation’s Medical Research, and to make important discoveries that will improve Health, and save lives.”
Bhattacharya was one of the earliest and most notable critics of the draconian COVID response by most governments around the world. In October 2020 he co-authored The Great Barrington Declaration, which criticized the harmful lockdown policies. Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford University in California and the director of Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging.
READ: Stanford prof: COVID lockdowns are ‘biggest public health mistake we’ve ever made’
“Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease. Together, they will work hard to Make America Healthy Again!” Trump’s statement said.
“I am honored and humbled by President @realDonaldTrump’s nomination of me to be the next @NIH director,” Bhattacharya wrote on X. “We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again and will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again!”
Designated United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) RFK Jr. and tech mogul Elon Musk both congratulated Bhattacharya on his nomination on X.
The NIH is an important agency under the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), responsible for biomedical and public health research.
While not opposing the COVID shots outright, the Stanford professor and designated director of the NIH did call for an end to all policies “that discriminate[d] against the unvaccinated” in 2022.
With Bhattacharya, Trump has nominated another well-known critic of the draconian COVID regulations to his health policy team. RFK Jr. has been picked to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, with a particular focus on chronic illnesses and nutrition. The president-elect picked pro-life vaccine skeptic David Weldon to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Dr. Marty Makary, a skeptic of widespread lockdowns and pediatric COVID shots, to head the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, he also nominated pro-vaccine Dr. Janette Neishewat to the position of Surgeon General.
Business
Canada has fewer doctors, hospital beds, MRIs and among longest wait times than other countries with universal health care
From the Fraser Institute
By Mackenzie Moir and Bacchus Barua
Among a group of 31 high-income countries that have universally accessible health care, Canada has among the lowest availability of doctors, hospital beds, and most medical technologies—and some of the longest wait times, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
“There is a clear imbalance between the high cost of Canada’s health-care system and the value Canadians receive—particularly in terms of availability of medical resources and timely access to care,” said Bacchus Barua, director of health policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of Comparing Performance of Universal Health Care
Countries, 2024.
The study compares 31 universal health-care systems in developed countries using over 40 indicators.
In 2022, using the latest year of comparable data and after adjusting for age, Canada ranked among the top third of health care spenders—4th highest for spending as a share of the economy (11.5 per cent) and 9th highest for spending per person.
Despite Canada’s high level of spending, availability and access to medical resources is generally worse than in comparable countries.
For example, Canada ranked 28th (out of 30) for the availability of doctors, 25th for hospital beds, and 25th for psychiatric beds.
That same year, Canada ranked 27th (out of 31) for the number of MRI machines available per million people, and 28th for CT scanners.
Crucially, among the nine comparable universal health-care countries that measure wait times, Canada ranks 8th (second-worst) for patients who waited more than a month to see a specialist (65.2 per cent), and the worst (9th out of 9) for patients who waited two months or more for non-emergency surgery (58.3 per cent).
“Canadians are increasingly aware of the shortcomings of their health-care system,” said Mackenzie Moir, policy analyst and co-author of the report.
“To improve health care for Canadians, policymakers should learn from other countries around the world that do universal health care better.”
- Among 31 high-income universal healthcare countries, Canada ranks among the top third of spenders but receives average to poor value in return.
- After adjusting for differences in age between countries, Canada ranked fourth highest for spending as a percentage of GDP and ninth highest for spending per person in 2022 (the most recent year of comparable data).
- Across over 40 indictors measured, Canada’s performance for availability and timely access to medical resources was generally below that of the average OECD country.
- In 2022, Canada ranked 28th (of 30) for the relative availability of doctors and 25th (of 30) for hospital beds dedicated to physical care. The same year, Canada ranked 27th (of 31) for the relative availability of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines, and 28th (of 31) for CT scanners.
- Canada ranked last (or close to last) on three of four indicators of timeliness of care; and ranked sixth (of nine) on the indicator measuring the percentage of patients who reported that cost was a barrier to access.
- Notably, among the nine countries that measure wait times, Canada ranked eighth worst for the percentage of patients who waited more than one month to see a specialist (65%), and reported the highest percentage of patients (58%) who waited two months or more for non-emergency surgery.
- Canada’s performance for use of resources and quality and clinical performance was mixed.
- Clearly, there is an imbalance between the value Canadians receive and the relatively high amount of money they spend on their health-care system.
Authors:
From the YouTube page of Dr John Campbell
UK health instructor and researcher Dr. John Campbell has been hearing anecdotally from cancer survivors who say they’ve been cured by the use of inexpensive drugs ivermectin and fenbendazole. In fact he’s been hearing from so many survivors that he’s calling on cancer researchers to undertake peer reviewed studies as soon as possible.
Viewers share their experiences of their approaches to cancer treatment.
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