We write as members of the Stanford faculty who are deeply concerned by statements on COVID-19 made by fellows at the Hoover Institution.
These statements dangerously downplay the deadly nature of the disease and recommend policies that seem more aligned with driving a particular policy position than with science or fact. At a time when reputable agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control have been censored, and with information suppressed or distorted by the White House, which has also announced its intention to withdraw the United States of America from the World Health Organization [1, 2], more than ever we need objective scientific facts and data to be available to both experts and citizens so that we can fight this disease and protect ourselves and our loved ones.
The production of unbiased scientific facts is one of the most important roles of a university, and one in which Stanford has excelled--we are regarded as a trusted source of knowledge worldwide. Thus, we are profoundly troubled by this distortion of our role, and by the university’s name being used to validate such problematic information. We find this antithetical to Stanford’s commitment to serving the public good through responsible scholarship and teaching.
Let us be clear--this is not a partisan issue--it is a matter of science and facts.
The situation has become so dire that one of the pre-eminent journals of the academy has published an editorial denouncing this kind of misinformation, and its sources. H. Holden Thorp, editor of Science, writes: “a U.S. president has deliberately lied about science in a way that was imminently dangerous to human health and directly led to widespread deaths of Americans. This may be the most shameful moment in the history of U.S. science policy.” [3]
Scientific American also has stated, “The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people—because he rejects evidence and science…. Trump's rejection of evidence and public health measures have been catastrophic in the U.S.’ [4]
Trump has openly tried to discredit Robert Redfield, head of the CDC and has said that, contrary to what his own CDC chief says, that masks are ineffective, [5] and his Attorney General, William Barr, has likened stay-at-home measures to slavery. [6]
Our colleagues in the medical school have ably demonstrated the nature and the seriousness of unqualified opinion being set forth as fact, and insinuated into public policy. [7] In this case, they are commenting on the pronouncements of Scott Atlas, the same individual mentioned in the Science editorial. Science noted, “[Trump has] recently added to his advisory team Scott Atlas—a neuroradiologist with no expertise in epidemiology—who has advocated for a risky and misguided course.”
In August, as the death count in the US due to COVID-19 reached 155,000, Atlas made an appearance on Fox News, and stated “There should never be and there never is a goal to stop college students from getting an infection they have no problem with.’” [8]
In fact, Stanford Professor Robert Siegel—who, unlike Atlas, is an infectious disease expert—has roundly rejected Atlas’s claim: “his plan for achieving these goals is completely at odds with what is known about the epidemiology of this virus.” [9]
In another instance of faulty or dubious information being pushed out in public from the Hoover Institution, in mid-March, Hoover Fellow Richard Epstein published an article, titled “Coronavirus Perspective,” on the Hoover’s website. [10] In it he claimed that there would likely only be 500 COVID-19 deaths in the United States. On March 24, Epstein issued a “correction”: here he claimed to have initially said 5,000, and that he now wished to revise that up to 50,000. On April 6, Epstein admitted that his estimates had been “ridiculously too low”—but still insisted that “the conventional model... seems systematically to have overpredicted the duration and severity of the current coronavirus pandemic.” On April 21, an editor's note was appended, correcting the "correction": Epstein did not initially say 5,000; he said 500.
Like Atlas, Epstein is not qualified to make such pronouncements--he is a legal scholar with no expertise at all in epidemiology.
A closely connected concern which needs to be addressed by the Senate is our relation to an Institute that has a narrow focus and a pre-determined point of view which it is committed to retain and reinforce in all its research. This is not conjecture, it is manifested in the Hoover’s mission statement: “Both our social and economic systems are based on private enterprise from which springs initiative and ingenuity.... Ours is a system where the Federal Government should undertake no governmental, social or economic action, except where local government, or the people, cannot undertake it for themselves.” [11] This commitment to producing knowledge that constantly validates a specific belief makes the Hoover distinct and is troubling when we find Stanford linked to this kind of guided research. It is antithetical to the open scientific inquiry that drives all research universities.
In this specific case, Hoover fellows have bent their remarks to consistently emphasize economic benefits over health issues, again feeding the messaging coming from Washington: downplay COVID-19 and emphasize the damage to the economy.
For example, Hoover fellow, education scholar Eric A. Hanushek:
“Re-opening of schools is presenting new challenges. Regardless of the approach taken, the huge economic losses associated with lost learning must be addressed, and the best of the currently discussed re-opening models are insufficient to deal with the mounting learning deficits.”—Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann, “Students have already been saddled with economic losses from school closures.” The Hill, 9/10/20. [12]
These opinions disseminated as facts produced at Stanford can have serious and in fact deadly effects on masses of people, and this strongly suggests that the relationship between the Hoover Institution’s way of promoting their policy preferences and the academic mission of Stanford University requires more careful renegotiation.
We ask for the Academic Senate of the University to take up that task, and for the administration to help develop solutions with those discussions in mind.
Notes:
[1]
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hospitals-told-send-coronavirus-data-washington-not-cdc-n1233861 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/12/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-politics-cdc.html?referringSource=articleSharehttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/12/donald-trump-michael-caputo-cdc-covid-reports-politico-deep-statehttps://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809[2]
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/us-withdrawing-world-health-organization/index.html[3]
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/09/11/science.abe7391?rss=1[4]
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-american-endorses-joe-biden/[5]
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/09/16/913560563/cdc-director-says-covid-vaccine-likely-wont-be-widely-available-until-next-year[6]
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/william-barr-coronavirus-stay-at-home-orders-black-lives-matter/[7]
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-09-10/americas-response-covid-19[8]
https://www.hoover.org/research/doctor-scott-atlas-and-efficacy-lockdowns-social-distancing-and-closings[9]
https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/Meet-Trump-s-new-coronavirus-advisor-Stanford-15485474.php[10]
https://www.hoover.org/research/coronavirus-pandemic[11]
https://www.hoover.org/about/missionhistory[12]
https://thehill.com/opinion/education/515769-students-have-already-been-saddled-with-economic-losses-from-schoolSigned,
David Palumbo-Liu, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and Professor of Comparative Literature
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