Category: health

Once again, Covid in humans: from a lab leak or a wet market?

June 2, 2025 • 10:00 am

The argument continues about whether the virus causing covid originated in a wet market in Wuhan or as an accidental release from The Wuhan institute of Virology.  While several U.S. government agencies have agreed that the evidence is tilted towards a lab-leak origin, in my view the evidence is not dispositive on either side.

Matt Ridley, however, has been a hard-core advocate of the lab-leak theory, and even co-wrote a book with Alina Chan that, at the time, presented both sides and, as Ridley says below, he “remained unsure what happened at that stage.”

No longer. Since 2021, Ridley has promoted the lab-leak theory, which he does in a Torygraph article shown below (click on headline below to get the archived version). Apparently Ridley teamed up with another collaborator, P. Anton van der Merwe, and wrote a scientific paper laying out his evidence for a lab-leak origin of covid. I’ve put the paper’s title below, but you can read it at the same Torygraph site. The scientific argument was published in the newspaper rather than in a scientific journal because the journal rejected it. (No explanation is given.)

In the intro before he shows the paper (surely a first for the Torygraph), Ridley explains how this came about:

In 2024 I was approached by a single member of the editorial board of a respected biological journal with a request that I team up with a British biologist with relevant expertise and compose an academic paper setting out the case for the lab leak hypothesis: he hoped the journal would consider it. With the help of Anton van der Merwe of Oxford University, and advice from Alina Chan, I drafted such a paper. The paper was rejected; I suspect that it was another case of not wanting to rock the scientific boat.
Now I am posting this paper online for all to read. It was composed several months ago so one or two small new items may be missing, but nothing in it has proved wrong. It is written not in my normal style but in dry, scientific prose, with each statement backed up by a source, in the shape of nearly 100 end-note references, so that readers can check for themselves that we have represented the sources faithfully. It deserves to be available to people to read.
So the paper was commissioned, but the reviewers’ comments that led to rejection aren’t shown. Here’s the paper itself:

Here is some of the evidence Ridley and van der Merwe adduce:

  • Attempts to find evidence for a wet-market leak have been unsuccessful. The cases found around the wet market could simply reflect sampling bias, as the Chinese concentrated on looking for infected people in that area.
  • The Chinese have not been forthcoming with their data, and in fact locked one site with a catalogue of the sequenced but unpublished viruses they were working on
  • If a person got infected with a bat virus from Yunnan (one theory), that person would have infected others on his/her journey to Wuhan, but there is no such trail of infection
  • The Wuhan institute was doing “gain of function” experiments to increase the infectivity of SARS viruses (not the progenitor of the covid virus), but these did involve making viruses more transmissible.
  • There were plans to put “furin cleavage sites” into SARS viruses, sites that make it easier for the viruses spike protein to get into cells. The virus causing covid has such a site—12 nucleotides long— which Ridley and van der Merwe insist was inserted into the virus progenitor by humans. As Ridley notes:

When the pandemic began in January 2020, Shi Zhengli of the WIV published two articles, one co-authored with Shibo Jiang, yet in both of them failed to mention the furin cleavage site, by far the most remarkable feature of the new virus’s genome. This may have been an oversight, but by contrast, it was the furin cleavage site that immediately alarmed several western virologists on first seeing the genome of the virus and led to the drafting of the Proximal Origin paper. Messages released during a congressional investigation reveal that the authors of the paper were not themselves convinced that a laboratory origin could be ruled out, either during or after the writing of the paper

  • The containment of viruses at Wuhan for the SARS experiments was Level 2, which American scientists think was far too lax for such potentially dangerous experiments (this itself, of course, is not great evidence for a lab leak).

Here’s Ridley and van der Merwe’s conclusion:

In only one city in the world were sarbecoviruses subject to gain-of-function experiments on a large scale involving human airway cells and humanised mice at inappropriate safety levels: Wuhan. At only one time in history was research to create novel sarbecoviruses with enhanced infectivity through furin cleavage under consideration: 2018 onwards. The surprising failure to find better evidence for a natural spillover, and the lack of transparency from the Chinese scientists, is therefore best explained by positing a laboratory accident involving a live virus experiment as the cause of the Covid pandemic and attempts to cover it up.

This is a Bayesian conclusion, arguing that the total weight of the evidence supports a lab-leak prior. And it sure sounds conclusive, but I’m wondering why the paper was rejected (they don’t say what journal they submitted it to).

Further, a number of virologists I respect either adhere to the alternative wet-market theory or remain agnostic.  When I asked a colleague some questions about this, he/she said this:

All the **data** (including new stuff) points to a natural origin. It might have been a leak, but all the evidence that has been obtained points in the direction of a spillover in the wet market. Not everyone who disagrees with the prevailing view of something is Galileo.

And then I asked “What about the furin cleaveage site?” This was something that Nobel laureate David Baltimore considered almost conclusive evidence for the lab-leak theory, but walked it back a bit:

The virologist David Baltimore commented that “these features make a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for SARS2,” later clarifying that “you can’t distinguish between the two origins from just looking at the sequence” ().

h/t: Christopher for the Torygraph archive.

Māori lunar calendar takes over New Zealand

May 1, 2025 • 11:30 am

This article from Skeptic Magazine notes how the calendar of the indigenous Māori people became a craze in New Zealand, taking over and regulating many human activities when there’s no evidence that the calendar is useful for those purposes. Click on the title to read; excerpts are indented:

The article begins by noting the unfair denigration that the Māori and their culture received after the British colonized the islands. That culture is is, says Bartholomew (an “Honorary Senior Lecturer in Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland,” and a prolific author), a rich culture that makes empirical claims, some of which can be verified by modern science. But Bartholomew’s thesis is that the indigenous (lunar) calendar, while having some minimal value in predicting regular events, is “not science.” That disparity was, of course, was the subject of the infamous 2021 Listener letter that got its Auckland University authors unfairly demonized, with some suffering professional consequences.

Māori knowledge often holds great spiritual significance and should be respected. Like all indigenous knowledge, it contains valuable wisdom obtained over millennia, and while it contains some ideas that can be tested and replicated, it is not the same as science.

. . . we should [not] discount the significance of indigenous knowledge—but these two systems of looking at the world operate in different domains. As much as indigenous knowledge deserves our respect, we should not become so enamoured with it that we give it the same weight as scientific knowledge.

And onto the Calendar Craze:

Infatuation with indigenous knowledge and the fear of criticising claims surrounding it has infiltrated many of the country’s key institutions, from the health and education systems to the mainstream media. The result has been a proliferation of pseudoscience. There is no better example of just how extreme the situation has become than the craze over the Māori Lunar Calendar. Its rise is a direct result of what can happen when political activism enters the scientific arena and affects policymaking. Interest in the Calendar began to gain traction in late 2017.

You can see how the calendar is constructed here, and the Skeptic article also gives a diagram.  The figure below from the article shows how its usage in the news, from the Dow Jones Factiva database, has changed since 2016. Mentions been decreasing over the last two years, but they’re still much, much more numerous than in 2016:

As the author notes, the calendar was useful to the Māori for tracking the seasons in a way that could help the locals schedule hunting, fishing, and planting.  But it’s gone far beyond that:

Two studies have shown a slight increase in fish catch using the Calendar. However, there is no support for the belief that lunar phases influence human health and behavior, plant growth, or the weather. Despite this, government ministries began providing online materials that feature an array of claims about the moon’s impact on human affairs. Fearful of causing offense by publicly criticizing Māori knowledge, the scientific position was usually nowhere to be found.

And so, as happens in New Zealand, the calendar took off as a way to schedule all kinds of things for which it wasn’t appropriate. The ways it’s been used are amazing:

Since [2017], many Kiwis have been led to believe that it can impact everything from horticulture to health to human behavior. The problem is that the science is lacking, but because of the ugly history of the mistreatment of the Māori people, public institutions are afraid to criticize or even take issue anything to do with Māori culture. Consider, for example, media coverage. Between 2020 and 2024, there were no less than 853 articles that mention “maramataka”—the Māori word for the Calendar which translates to “the turning of the moon.” After reading through each text, I was unable to identify a single skeptical article. Many openly gush about the wonders of the Calendar, and gave no hint that it has little scientific backing.

. . . Soon primary and secondary schools began holding workshops to familiarize staff with the Calendar and how to teach it. These materials were confusing for students and teachers alike because most were breathtakingly uncritical and there was an implication that it was all backed by science. Before long, teachers began consulting the maramataka to determine which days were best to conduct assessments, which days were optimal for sporting activities, and which days were aligned with “calmer activities at times of lower energy phases.” Others used it to predict days when problem students were more likely to misbehave.

As one primary teacher observed: “If it’s a low energy day, I might not test that week. We’ll do meditation, mirimiri (massage). I slowly build their learning up, and by the time of high energy days we know the kids will be energetic. You’re not fighting with the children, it’s a win-win, for both the children and myself. Your outcomes are better. The link between the Calendar and human behavior was even promoted by one of the country’s largest education unions.  Some teachers and government officials began scheduling meetings on days deemed less likely to trigger conflict, while some media outlets began publishing what were essentially horoscopes under the guise of ‘ancient Māori knowledge.

The Calendar also gained widespread popularity among the public as many Kiwis began using online apps and visiting the homepages of maramataka enthusiasts to guide their daily activities. In 2022, a Māori psychiatrist published a popular book on how to navigate the fluctuating energy levels of Hina—the moon goddess. In Wawata Moon Dreaming, Dr. Hinemoa Elder advises that during the Tamatea Kai-ariki phase people should: “Be wary of destructive energies,” while the Māwharu phase is said to be a time of “female sexual energy … and great sex.” Elder is one of many “maramataka whisperers” who have popped up across the country.

The calendar, while having these more or less frivolous uses, still demonstrates the unwarranted fealty that Kiwis, whether Māori or descendants of Europeans, pay to indigenous “ways of knowing,” for you can well suffer professionally if you push back on them. In fact, the author, who wrote a book on this topic, was discouraged from writing it because Māori claim that they have “control over their own data.” This is a common claim by indigenous people, whether in New Zealand or North America, but it makes their data totally unscientific—off limits to those who wish to analyze or replicate it.

Further, some uses are not so frivolous. The author notes that people have managed contraception using the calendar, and even used it to discontinue medication for bipolar disorder. Again, remember that there is no evidence that the calendar has any connection with human behavior, health, or well being.

Once again we see that indigenous “ways of knowing” may be useful in conveying a bit of observational knowledge useful to locals, but have now been appropriated to a state that is coequal to science. (The debate still continues in New Zealand about whether Mātauranga Māori, the sum of indigenous “ways of knowing” (and which also includes religion, ethics, superstition, legend, and other non-science stuff), should be taught in science classes. That is a very bad idea, and if really implemented would ruin science in New Zealand.  Adopting the lunar calendar as having epistemic value would be part of this degradation.

Bartholomew finishes this way, and I hope he doesn’t get fired for saying stuff like this—for these are firing words!

This is a reminder of just how extreme attempts to protect indigenous knowledge have become in New Zealand. It is a dangerous world where subjective truths are given equal standing with science under the guise of relativism, blurring the line between fact and fiction. It is a world where group identity and indigenous rights are often given priority over empirical evidence. The assertion that forms of “ancient knowledge” such as the Calendar, cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny as it has protected cultural status, undermines the very foundations of scientific inquiry. The expectation that indigenous representatives must serve as gatekeepers who must give their consent before someone can engage in research on certain topics is troubling. The notion that only indigenous people can decide which topics are acceptable to research undermines intellectual freedom and stifles academic inquiry.

While indigenous knowledge deserves our respect, its uncritical introduction into New Zealand schools and health institutions is worrisome and should serve as a warning to other countries. When cultural beliefs are given parity with science, it jeopardizes public trust in scientific institutions and can foster misinformation, especially in areas such as public health, where the stakes are especially high.

Respect for indigenous people is not only fine, but is proper and moral. But it should not extend to giving scientific credibility to untested claims simply because they are part of “traditional knowledge.”

“The latest from the asylum”: New Zealand nurses directed to foster, accept, and prioritize indigenous culture, including specious “ways of healing”

December 13, 2024 • 10:00 am

The bit in quotes in the title may be a bit mean, but it’s the title an anonymous reader gave in an email linking to several articles from a New Zealand site (here, here, and here). The articles describe a new set of standards for registered nurses in the country, standards that I read in the official government document (see below).

Why this seems “asylum-ish” is because the standards are almost entirely directed to prioritizing and catering to the indigenous Māori population of the country, even though they are in a minority of the population (16.5%) compared to Europeans (70%) but also very close in numbers to Asians (15.3%, with most of the remainder being Pacific Islanders).  The standards direct New Zealand nurses to become “culturally competent”, which is okay if it means being sensitive to differences in psychology of different groups, but is not okay if it means medically treating those groups in different ways, or having to become politicized by absorbing the Treaty of Waitangi or learning about intersectionality.  And that is in fact the case with the new standards, which also prompt NZ nurses to engage in untested herbal and spiritual healing, including prayers.  The whole thing is bonkers, but it takes effect in January.

As one of the articles says, “critics argue that these changes prioritise ideology over practical skills.” And I suspect you’ll agree after you read the relatively short set of official standards given below. Here’s an excerpt from one of the articles in the news:

The updated Standards of Competence require nurses to demonstrate kawa whakaruruhau (Māori cultural safety) by addressing power imbalances in healthcare settings and working collaboratively with Māori to support equitable health outcomes.

The standards place a strong emphasis on cultural competency, including the need for nurses to establish therapeutic relationships with individuals, whānau [Māori extended families], and communities. They must also recognise the importance of whanaungatanga (building relationships) and manaakitanga (hospitality and respect) in fostering collective wellbeing.

One of the more significant additions involves requiring nurses to “describe the impact of colonisation and social determinants on health and wellbeing.” Additionally, nurses must advocate for individuals and whānau by incorporating cultural, spiritual, physical, and mental health into whakapapa-centred care (care focused on family and ancestral connections).

The new Standards of Competence have faced sharp criticism from some nurses, who argue the requirements impose ideological perspectives and unnecessarily complicate training processes.

However, none were willing to speak on the record for fear that voicing their concerns could jeopardise their employment.

The standards are unbelievable, so extreme in their catering to indigenous peoples that they seem racist against everyone else. But don’t take my word for it: simply click on the document below and look it over. It’s no wonder that many nurses are flummoxed by the new directive, which, as usual, is heavily larded with indigenous jargon that many (including Māori) don’t understand.  The language is simple virtue flaunting.

The very start of the standards promotes the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi (“Te Tiriti o Waitangi”)—an agreement between some (not all) Māori tribes and the British governance that established three principles. First, Māori would become British citizens with all the rights attending thereto. Second, the governance of New Zealand would remain in the hands of Britain and British settlers (“the Crown’). Finally, the Māori would be able to keep their lands and possessions and retain “chieftainship” of their lands.

Even though this agreement was never signed by all indigenous tribes on the island, it has assumed almost a sacred status in New Zealand, with a newer interpretation that goes something like this: “The Māori get at least half of everything afforded by the government, and their ‘ways of knowing’ would be considered coequal to modern knowledge (including in science and medicine). Further, Māori, as ‘sacred victims’, would get priority in educational opportunities and, in this case, medical treatment.”

If you read The treaty of Waitangi, you’ll see it says nothing of the sort. It simply establishes rights of governance and possession in a deal between Europeans and Māori. But the Māori have used it to inflict considerable guilt on the non-Māori population, to the extent that you simply cannot question the interpretation of the treaty above, or of the increasing forms of “affirmative action” for Māori, because people who raise those questions, like the baffled nurses above, risk losing their jobs. This is the reason that virtually every academic and citizen who writes to me from New Zealand about the fulminating and debilitating wokeness of the country asks me to keep their names confidential.   The fear of questioning what’s happening in that country is almost worse than the burgeoning affirmative action towards a small moiety of the population. Granted, the Māori have been discriminated against and had it bad for a while, but those days are really over now, and it’s time to treat everyone according to the same rules. And of course nurses know that they have to have different bedside manners towards different patients. But that doesn’t mean that they must treat some of them with chants and prayers.

Well, on to the rules. And they begin, in the very first directive, by emphasizing the importance of the Treaty of Waitangi!. I’ll post screenshots as well as text, and will highlight some bits in red. Here’s the first page of “standards of competence”. Te Tiriti doesn’t take long to appear!

“Pou” are “standards”. Here are the first two. Note that the introduction to the document doesn’t say explicitly that these standards are culture-directed and a subset of other standards of nursing skill. No, these are just “the standards.”

Pou one: Māori health. Reflecting a commitment to Māori health, registered nurses must support, respect and protect Māori rights while advocating for equitable and positive health outcomes. Nurses are also required to demonstrate kawa whakaruruhau by addressing power imbalances and working collaboratively with Māori.

Pou two: Cultural safety Cultural safety in nursing practice ensures registered nurses provide culturally safe care to all people. This requires nurses to understand their own cultural identity and its impact on professional practice, including the potential for a power imbalance between the nurse and the recipient of care.

The two pou expanded, which are directives about how registered nurses are supposed to behave.

Under standard (pou) #4, called “Pūkengatanga [expertise] and evidence-informed nursing practice”, we see this.

What is Rongoā? Ask the Museum of New Zealand, which describes it as “Māori medicine”, characterizing it like this:

In traditional Māori medicine, ailments are treated in a holistic manner with:

  • spiritual healing
  • the power of karakia [prayers of incantations]
  • the mana [supernatural essence] of the tohunga (expert)
  • by the use of herbs.

In other words, nurses are supposed to allow patients to choose their own therapy, even if it includes untested herbal remedies, spiritual healing, supernatural power, and prayers. Is it any wonder that nurses are both confused and opposed to this?

It goes on and on in this vein, consistently outlining standards of care that favor Māori, and then ending with a glossary heavily laden with woke and postmodern terms, Again, these are being given to registered nurses (no, not shamans) to tell them how they must behave. A few items from the glossary, which have no clear connection with nursing:

 

Again, as far as I can determine, these are not just standards for nurses to become culturally sensitive, but appear to be general standards for nurses that want to be qualified as nurses. And the standards have become so ideological and political that—and I don’t say this lightly—they seem pretty racist, favoring one group over another and telling nurses to afford indigenous people care and treatment that others don’t get. Is there to be no cultural sensitivity towards Asians, who have their own form of indigenous herbal medicine?

Here are some sentiments expressed by Jenny Marcroft, the Health Spokesperson for the New Zealand First political party.

It goes without saying that it nurses must do all this stuff to practice their skills, many might be compelled to leave New Zealand and practice overseas, something that the country can’t afford to happen. And so, because opponents of this stuff are silenced, the country, immersed in wokeness, continues to go downhill.

Don’t use too much toothpaste!

November 26, 2024 • 11:30 am

I can guarantee that nearly everyone reading this post is using way too much toothpaste when they brush their teeth. In fact, you’re probably using at least four times the amount you need, and thus you’re paying four times what you should be paying for toothpaste. Not only that, but you may be getting too much fluoride if you are, like most people, using a fluoridated toothpaste. (RFK Jr. may get rid of those!)

How much toothpaste do you need? Several hygienists have told me “the amount about the size of a pea”, and I have verified that from several sites (for example, here, here, and here). Nobody weighs their toothpaste, but this amount is roughly 0.25 grams of paste. That means that a small three-ounce tube should last about six months if you brush twice a day.

And here are photos showing the proper amount of toothpaste to use for both small children and those more than three years old (that includes us):

Source

If you’re dispensing a ribbon of toothpaste that extends the length of the bristles, you’re using (and spending) way too much. STOP IT!

Biden administration lets Medicaid pay for Native American “traditional medicines”

November 5, 2024 • 10:00 am

Just yesterday I wrote about the drive in New Zealand to integrate indigenous medicine (Rongoā Māori, or RM) with modern (often called “Western”) medicine.  The problem is that RM not only uses  spiritual treatments (prayer, singing, dunking the sufferer in water) but also herbal remedies, and neither of these have been tested for efficacy using randomized, controlled, double-blind testing. This is the gold standard used in modern medicine to test the efficacy of drugs and (sometimes) surgery. Without such tests, we simply can’t say that a medical intervention actually works.

But the drive to sacralize indigenous “ways of knowing” is strong, and has spread from New Zealand across the Pacific, where it is growing in both Canada and the United States.  Although it’s one thing—and still a bad thing—to prevent scientists from examining bones and artifacts found on land claimed to be “owned” by indigenous people, it’s a different thing entirely to start treating people with indigenous medicine. Although everyone can decide whether or not they want to be treated with scientifically tried-and-true procedures versus quackery like homeopathy, or even seek religious “cures,” children can’t make such decisions. They are subject to the whims and faiths of their parents, and in Faith Versus Fact I document some horrible deaths of children  propagandized into religious healing by their parents.  (Jehovah’s Witnesses, for instance, are forbidden to receive blood transfusions because of a wonky interpretation of the Bible.) At least when you take your kids for their vaccinations, you can be almost certain that they’ll acquire immunity to infection.

As I said, this kind of harmful sacralization of medical “ways of knowing” is on our doorstep, and below is an op-ed from the WSJ (by the editorial board) reporting that the Biden Administration has approved funding for “traditional health care practices of Indigenous people.”  And it doesn’t seem to matter exactly what those healthcare practices are! It can be herbs, prayer, touch, chanting, and so on. The government will pay for it!

Click below to read the short piece, which I’ve reproduced almost in its entirety, or find it archived here.

The “housing” bit is tangential, reporting that “the Administration is letting states use federal Medicaid dollars to pay for low-income housing, mini-refrigerators and food. A Biden executive order last month gave states a green light to use Medicaid to pay for ‘gun violence prevention’ counseling.”  I don’t have such strong feelings about that, though it does seem a tad outisde the ambit of what Medicaid is for.

But main part of the article, given below, is about government funding for what seems like quackery.  And if you want to argue that this op-ed is “fake news” because it comes from the op-ed section of the paper (yes, that section leans right), you can find the same information in an NPR article from October 19 of this year.

A long excerpt (bolding is mine):

The Biden Administration is trying to woo Native Americans whose votes could be pivotal in Western states. One pre-election gambit is to let Medicaid pay for Native American “traditional medicine.”

The Health and Human Services Department last month approved requests by Arizona, California, New Mexico and Oregon to use federal Medicaid funds to cover “traditional health care practices” of indigenous people. “We are extending access to culturally appropriate, quality health care in Tribal communities,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.

HHS says the Medicaid approvals are “the latest action demonstrating the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to support and invest in Indigenous communities across the country.” In short, this looks like another income redistribution scheme.

HHS doesn’t plan to restrict the types of traditional medicine that Medicaid will cover, nor the types of “healers.” Each tribal “facility can tailor provider qualifications for their traditional health care practitioners,” HHS says.

An American Medical Association brief on the state Medicaid proposals says “traditional healers are often identified in their Tribal community by their innate gift of healing” and “typically work informally.” Their “healing services” could include sweat lodges, prayers, purification rituals, songs, dance, herbal remedies and shamanism.

One healer who advocated for Medicaid coverage told the Salt Lake Tribune in February that he sometimes prescribes a “special ceremony against the negative energy of diabetes.” Herbs, he said, are also a favorite remedy for chronic illnesses including cancer plus a “special expression of prayer to the deities that made those herbs.”

Herbal remedies may have their uses, but Medicaid is supposed to cover evidence-based treatments. HHS says “demonstration projects” can determine if traditional medicine improves health outcomes. But lack of access to modern medical care—not lack of traditional remedies—is why Native Americans suffer more disease and worse health outcomes.

The last paragraph is correct in both assertions: Medicaid isn’t supposed to pay for quackery (seriously: “sweat lodges, songs, dance and shamanism”?) and Native Americans do lack sufficient access to modern health care.  The first bit is documented here:

Alternative treatments that haven’t been proven in scientific studies usually aren’t covered by Medicaid. Some procedures, such as chiropractic treatments and acupuncture, are sometimes covered. These treatments are more likely to be covered if they are recommended or prescribed by a doctor. Other alternative treatments that are occasionally covered include massage, pain treatments, and nutrition therapy. Some treatments, such as herbal and homeopathic therapies, are usually not approved for Medicaid payment.

Well, I’m not so sure that many chiropractic therapies, or any form of acupuncture, has been “proven in scientific studies”. But your tax dollars are paying for it! Now get ready for your tax dollars to pay for sweat lodges, songs, dances, and ceremonies. And you don’t even have to live in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Oregon to be dunned for quackery. The fund for Medicaid comes from all of us.

 

h/t: Frau Katze

Canada’s newest medical school goes full DEI

October 14, 2024 • 11:30 am

According to the National Post, Canada has a new med school (Torontoo Metropolitan University, or TMU), slated to open next year, has bought into the full DEI ideology that seems to be waning in the U.S.

This is an op-ed piece, and of course reflects a conservative opinion with statements like the first one below one, but read the facts for yourself. At any rate, I’m not keen on the paragraph below, as we don’t know how admissions will work (the “sob stories” bit is somewhat invidious):

All considered, most of TMU’s prospective med students will be getting in on student personal statements, sob stories and extracurriculars — factors that actually tend to bias admissions in favour of those who are well-off, but perhaps less competent. That’s who many of these diversity doctors will likely be.

The particulars (indented) and remember this is a conservative partisan view, so the language is inflammatory. Look at the links to ensure that their conclusions are supported.

Canada’s newest medical school is slated to be one of the most discriminatory programs of its kind when it opens in 2025. Straight, white, “privileged” men won’t be warmly welcomed as MD candidates at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson), as only a quarter of seats will be open to their kind.

It’s the exact kind of over-the-top, explicit, proud racism that diversity advocates assured us would never happen. Well, it’s here, and it’s vile, and in another decade, it might be the reason you switch to a medical AI for general needs and a Mexico-based private specialist for anything more complex.

You see, 75 per cent of spots in the Ryersonian med program will be reserved for “equity-deserving” folk: Indigenous people, admitted through their own stream, Black people, who also get their own stream, and everyone else who can check a diversity box, who get lumped into a final catch-all admissions pathway.

That list of diversity boxes is long, including LGBT people, disabled people, non-white people, children of non-white immigrants, poor-upbringing people, people over the age of 26, and people who have “faced familial and/or socio-cultural barriers such as loss of both parents, long term involvement with the child welfare system, and/or precarious housing.”

The standards for acceptance into the program, you should know, are quite lax. Applicants are required to have a degree and have achieved a GPA of at least 3.3 on a 4.0 scale, or a high B, but even that’s a soft floor — diversity candidates (i.e. most candidates) are eligible for consideration below that 3.3. No MCAT results are required, because the faculty is still under the false impression that standardized testing isn’t inclusive. Not all demographics perform as proficiently on these tests, but the data overwhelmingly show that it is predictive of academic ability across all backgrounds, which is what matters when we’re selecting future doctors.

But here is one thing I really object to (bolding is mine):

The administrators overseeing the place won’t be much better: as we speak, the faculty is searching for a “social accountability” associate dean to lead social justice and decolonization initiatives. They’re also looking for an “other ways of knowing” lead to ensure non-scientific perspectives are represented.

Seriously? What other “way of knowing” is there besides science construed broadly: empirical observation, experiment, doubt, replication, and all the stuff that enables us to understand the universe. Here’s from that page:

This is a bow to indigenous ways of knowing related to medicine but if that knowledge has been supported using modern scientific tests, it becomes “modern medicine”. I hope they won’t teach any indigenous “way of knowing” that haven’t been tested to see if they’re medically efficacious.

More from the article:

Hence, TMU Med aims to “Intentionally recruit diverse faculty and staff and those with a demonstrated commitment to (DEI)“; “include (DEI), intersectionality, health equity, human rights and the social determinants of health in curriculum.” That’s code for more courses about racist, systemic biases in health care more medical academics positioned to churn out bogus scholarly articles about microaggressions and race grievances, and the addition of political capacities, such as the ability to diagnose patients with “climate change”.

. . . Especially concerning for a program that should be rooted in reality is its rejection of absolute truth with regard to health: the school was designed with sensitivity to “ageism,” “fatphobia,” and “anti-madness.” It was also designed clearly to generate activist-doctors: “we work to acknowledge, understand, and challenge systems of power that privilege some groups over others,“ reads one planning document. “We take a race-conscious approach that recognizes the way racism is perpetuated in the healthcare system and that encompasses perspectives like Critical Race Theory.”

The rest of the article is more or less a conservative diatribe against these standards, but of course there is a concern when one prizes diversity over merit in a field like medicine: lives are at stake.  So the $64 question is this: would you be hesitant to go to a doctor who got their degree from this school? Would you vet them more carefully than usual?  Check out the links and weigh in below.

Doctors Without Borders Accused of violating its own policy of political neutrality to impugn Israel, and my cessation of donations

July 21, 2024 • 9:40 am

A while back I was a big fan of Doctors without Borders (or “MSF”, for “Médecins Sans Frontières”).  It was put in my will to get a big bequest, and when I auctioned of a copy of Why Evolution is True, autographed by many famous scientists and nonbelievers, and illustrated and illuminated by Kelly Houle, every penny of the $10,000+ we got on eBay went to MSF.

Then I heard that the organization was anti-Israel (this was well before October 7 of last year). Checking up on the Internet, I found some confirmation of that claim, including several reports that MSF refused to cooperate with Israeli medical teams working in the same location. This, from the article below, may be what I remember (Rossin is named as “secretary general of MSF in the 1970s”)

Rossin recalled his experience in 2010 on a mission to Uganda when an MSF Holland contingent refused to interact with a fellow Israeli medical NGO team dispatched to help. Rossin remembered it as an episode of “one-way empathy,” where prejudice had poisoned the MSF team’s ability to cooperate with Israel in their shared goal of helping civilians.

(See also here, though MSF denies all these allegations.)

I subsequently wrote MSF asking them if they ever used Israeli doctors in their relief efforts.  I got no reply, even though in the letter I told them I was a donor. Their ignoring me after the dosh I’d given them was, well, uncharitable.

Now I can’t really criticize MSF’s humanitarian efforts: they’ve done a great deal of wonderful medical work during crises all over the world.  No, here I’m pointing out an article in Canada’s National Post that documents a pervasive anti-Israel—a former MSF secretary calls it “antisemitic”—attitude on the part of the organization, an attitude reflected in its refusal to criticize Hamas for the terrorist’s group own blocking or hijacking medical aid and turning Gaza hospitals into terror centers.  In the piece below, quite a few former directors and employees of MSF, not to mention donors, weigh in criticizing the organization on this account.

My own decision, based on what I’ve read over the years, is to stop donating to MSF, and I’ve taken them out of my will, replacing them with other humanitarian organizations (and that is a fair amount of dosh!).  Read the article below for yourself (click on the headline) and decide if you want to support them.  The article is free, and you can also find it archived here.

I’ll simply give a number of quotes from the article. According to its charter, MSF is supposed to be politically neutral and impartial, but former executives, donors, and employees say that when it comes to Israel, that’s not the case.

Former leaders and a major Canadian donor of Doctors Without Borders are distancing themselves from the venerable aid organization after its employees celebrated the October 7 atrocities, gave aid to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, ran a one-sided social media feed and internally circulated articles accusing Israel of creating Palestinian “death worlds.”

“To be frank, I was very, very, surprised because it’s not the MSF I knew,” Alain Destexhe, the secretary general of the organization, popularly known by its French acronym MSF, from 1991 to 1995, told National Post.

Destexhe said MSF’s messaging throughout the Israel-Hamas war is markedly different than past conflicts.

“We used to make statements, you know, in Bosnia and Rwanda, but not taking sides like this,” he said. “We always took into account the political context, but not to take sides from one group to another. In the Gaza War, I really got the feeling that MSF was totally biased.”

From a donor:

Destexhe wasn’t the only MSF loyalist to have an October 7 wake-up call. One major Canadian Jewish donor told the Post he urged his mother to support the group despite pushback from family members cautioning him against MSF’s reputation of being institutionally biased against Israel.

“I think most people know that they have a history of not being the friendliest towards Israel,” the philanthropist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Post.

He said he reassured his mother, following conversations with MSF Canada’s leadership, that the organization was duty-bound to be apolitical and strictly adhere to its mission of providing aid and observation. However, the inconsistencies between their initial promise and their treatment of Israel reached a boiling point in November 2023 when the patron confronted MSF Canada’s executives.

“I will be honest,” the donor told then-executive director Joe Belliveau in an email shared with the Post, “the more I review MSF public communications (Instagram, specifically), the evidence is overwhelming that the MSF stance has a pronounced bias. There is still not one single mention of the 200+ civilian hostages; not one mention of Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket fire into civilian centers, both of which are war crimes and violations of the Geneva conventions,” he wrote in late November.

. . . and a former MSF executive:

The donor’s November 2023 email rattled Byron Sonberg, who’d proudly served as MSF Canada’s treasurer for two years. He’d begun to sense the organization straying from its principle of impartiality, especially after he was copied on the donor’s email chain expressing growing frustration with the group. But the final straw came in mid-February 2024 when he, and hundreds of MSF global leaders, were forwarded an article: “Israeli necropolitics and the pursuit of health justice in Palestine.” [JAC: I found some of that article here; just read the “summary box”]

It was shared by Ruby Gill, president of MSF Canada’s board of directors, to provide “more insight” into the ongoing conflict. It argued that “framing Palestinian violence on October 7 as provocation and Israeli violence as response is ahistoric and indicates indifference to the everyday violence experienced by Palestinians.”

In other words, Israel “had it coming” on October 7. And the article was apparently sent out by MSF!  More:

Hamas receives a single passing reference in the piece, while Israel is cited nearly eighty times to bolster the claim that the Jewish State’s military response is unjustifiable. It accuses Israel of creating “death worlds” for Palestinians. The ideas expressed in the article, and the silence of MSF’s leadership, disturbed Sonberg, a self-described political moderate.

This concentration on Israel and complete neglect of Hamas is distressing in light of the fact that Hamas repeatedly impedes medical efforts in Gaza, including highjacking medical supplies, turning hospitals into terror bases, and even shooting Gazan civilians.

From another former MSM executive:

Richard Rossin, who served as secretary general of MSF in the 1970s and later co-founded Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World), said that he perceived a tone shift within the organization several decades ago.

“I think it was perceptible around the beginning of the ‘80s,” Rossin told the Post by phone from his home in southern Israel. Antisemitism within MSF “began under the cover of anti-Zionism.”

See the quote from Rossin in the opening paragraphs.

One of the most distressing parts of this narrative is that MSF blamed Israel for the attack on the al-Ahli Hospital on October 17 of last year, an “attack” that did not involved Israel at all, but came from a misfired rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad that landed in the hospital’s parking lot, with the casualties greatly exaggerated by Hamas. MSF never retracted its accusation, which has been abandoned by everyone familiar with the evidence, including the Associated Press (no fan of Israel), which summarizes the evidence. (there’s also a telling conversation between two Hamas operatives saying the rocket was “from us).

By comparison, after the al-Ahli Hospital blast on Oct. 17, 2023, MSF rushed to blame Israel.

“We are horrified by the recent Israeli bombing of Ahli Arab Hospital in #Gaza City, which was treating patients and hosting displaced Gazans. Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed. This is a massacre. It is absolutely unacceptable,” MSF International wrote on X on the day of the explosion.

Although the blast was the result of a misfired rocket from Gaza, likely launched by a Palestinian group, MSF never corrected the record. The post, as well as several Instagram posts published by major chapters — including Spain, Canada, Brazil, and France – remain active. No apology or correction has been issued.

To a scientist, refusal to retract an accusation like this is shameful. But that’s MSF. Here’s their tweet, still up on X, but with “context corrections”:

More:

After Hamas invaded and killed over a thousand people, MSF did not release a single post addressing the worst killing of Jews since the Holocaust and it has not called for the return of kidnapped Israelis. Five days after the terrorist attack, the group issued a statement drawing a moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel. [JAC note: I think the link is meant to go to the MSF “X” feed, not to just one post.)

“We are horrified by the brutal mass killing of civilians perpetrated by Hamas, and by the massive attacks on #Gaza now being pursued by Israel,” MSF International wrote on Oct. 12. The remainder of the thread denounced Israel for “indiscriminate violence and the collective punishment of Gaza.” Two days later, the group called on Israel to “show humanity.”

The tone set by MSF International trickled down to its chapters across the globe.

By Oct. 17, MSF Canada wrote, “unconditional humanity needs to be restored in Gaza,” calling Israel’s response “unimaginable” and “inhumane.” The statement made no reference to Hamas or their invasion, which ignited hostilities.Before October 7, several nations facing humanitarian issues were highlighted in MSF Canada’s social feeds – including Malawi, Venezuela, Sudan, Haiti and Burkina Faso – but its coverage following the Hamas attack veered near-exclusively to covering Israel. At one point, in early November 2023, MSF Canada’s Instagram account was blanketed with six red-bolded calls for an immediate ceasefire, something not previously done as part of its advocacy for Sudan or Ukraine.

No calls on Hamas to “show humanity,” not just towards Israel but to civilian Gazans?

Despite the fact that the Gaza Ministry of Health, run by Hamas, is known to exaggerate death tolls, which have been revised strongly downward by even the UN, MSF continued to use them. Another comment from MSF’s former secretary-general:

MSF’s relationship with the Hamas-run Ministry of Health was another major reason why Destexhe lost faith. Their failure to admit “health facilities (are) being used by Hamas and by soldiers,” he told the Post, left him “really sad, and then I became angry.”

More:

MSF International’s Instagram page was comparatively muted in February 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, calling the situation “extremely worrying.” Within a month, the organization’s focus had quickly shifted to Libyan refugees, midwives in South Sudan, and social workers in the Palestinian Territories.

The messaging inequality was studied by Gerald Steinberg, founder and leader of NGO Monitor, a watchdog organization based in Jerusalem, who combed through MSF’s X feed. He found over a hundred tweets between the Hamas invasion and late November, “not one (solely) mentions Israeli victims.” There were five instances when Israelis were mentioned, but always alongside Palestinians.

Steinberg has grown accustomed to this discrepancy. “MSF is both a humanitarian and advocacy organization, and on Israel and the Palestinians, the partisan dimension is dominant and destructive,” Steinberg told the Post by email. He recalled the group showing similar favouritism during an earlier flare-up in 2009.

Finally, there are further claims in the article that a sizable percentage (a third) of MSF staffers celebrated the October 7 massacre, that some MSF employees have been linked to terror groups, and that MSF had donated to Gaza’s Ministry of Health but refused to respond when asked how MSF ensured that medical supplies weren’t getting hijacked by Hamas.

And a final comment by another former secretary general of MSF:

Rossin, a former secretary general who predated Destexhe, remains pessimistic that MSF can take a more balanced approach to Israel and Gaza moving forward.

“It cannot be fixed,” he said, exasperated. “How can you fix antisemitism, which is not an opinion but a mental disease?”

Although I long ago decided to give no more money to MSF, but divert it to organizations that have a “more balanced approach”, readers may wish to have a look at this article.  I was angered by MSF’s failure to even respond to my email about Israel, despite Kelly Houle and I having given them a substantial lump of money. (I haven’t asked Kelly for her opinion on this article.)

If you’re looking for reputable organizations that do good humanitarian health work without constantly impugning Israel and making unretracted false claims, I’d suggest you do what I did: go to Peter Singer’s list of reputable charities called The Life You Can Save. It shows a number of charities (not all involved with health), all of which have been vetted by Singer’s uncompromising criteria of providing the most assistance for the least money. The second time Kelly and I did an eBay auction of an autographed and illustrated book, my Faith Versus Fact, we deep-sixed MSF and gave all the money to Helen Keller International, a charity that prevents blindness and death in children by giving them inexpensive vitamin A supplements. The charity provides a lot of bang for the buck.

And you can bet that in my rewritten will, the part that goes for children’s health and poverty (the other parts go for wildlife conservation and purchasing lands for reserves) isn’t directed to MSF, but to Singer’s charities.