Brownstone Institute
The Most Important Meeting in the History of the World That Never Happened
From the Brownstone Institute
There was a brief moment in Spring 2020, just a few days into “15 Days to Slow the Spread,” when we had a chance to change our trajectory. A distinct inflection point where if we had done just one thing differently, and caught the crazy COVID coaster before it got locked in its tracks, things could have turned out very differently over these last three plus years.
In the third week of March a secret emergency meeting was scheduled to take place between President Donald Trump, the COVID Task Force, and eight of the most eminently qualified public health experts in the world. This elite group of scientists was slated to present the highest-level decision-makers in our government with an alternative POV to lock down; a much-needed second opinion on national turtling.
We didn’t know it at the time, but this would have been the most important meeting of the COVID-19 era. But it never occurred.
What happened?
This has been a nagging question ever since July 27, 2020 when BuzzFeed News broke the news in an article by Stephanie M. Lee: “An Elite Group Of Scientists Tried To Warn Trump Against Lockdowns In March.” In her article Ms. Lee framed this aborted meeting as a dodged bullet, and the scientists as unhelpful meddlers, but for many of us the fact that there even was an attempted meeting like this was extremely heartening.
Because for months we had been led to believe that this novel, authoritarian response was unanimous, that “the science was settled” and yet here we find out that some of the most famous scientists in the world didn’t quite agree with “the science.” Not only that, but they had major issues with the process, they questioned the data, and they were extremely concerned about the downstream, long-term effects to our society from locking down. But Lee’s article didn’t even attempt to answer the one big glaring, nagging question left in her article: “Why?”
If you remember back to Late Winter/Early Spring 2020 the entire connected world went from “Hey, no big deal,” to “Hey, what’s going on in Italy?” to “Holy shit, we’re all gonna die!” in a matter of just a few weeks. COVID mania quickly captured us all, and by early March we were suddenly armchair experts on cytokine storms and case counts, and even your aunt Glenda posted that “Flatten the Curve” Washington Postarticle on Facebook and suddenly we found ourselves on March 15, 2020 watching in slack-jawed horror as Trump, Fauci, and Birx stood up there, telling us their bright idea was to shut down the entire country. For just two weeks they said. To protect our hospitals from “the spike” they said. If we didn’t, they said, two million people would surely die.
And who were we to argue? They had a powerpoint presentation with logos and charts, the laughable Imperial College London model, and of course the force of government behind them.
The national reaction was… curious. Some of us, but not nearly enough, were horrified; viscerally and vehemently opposed to this entire concept on scientific, moral and legal grounds. But we were grossly outnumbered. The vast majority of the population was really scared, and poll after poll indicated they were in favor of these unprecedented, draconian measures. Some of our fellow humans even seemed downright giddy at the prospect of hunkering down indefinitely, until it was “safe” to come out; whatever the shifting daily definition of “safe” was, and whatever the ultimate societal cost.
Although lockdown was presented to us that day as a fait accompli, some of us were undeterred. We spoke up to our friends, families, and coworkers and spoke out on social media, writing letters, holding protests, doing whatever we could to to reason, educate, even plead with our local representatives, leaders and opinion-makers not to continue down this novel path. But to no avail. “Shut up,” they said.
We were just normies, after all, and at the time there were very few actual “experts” on our side. Luckily for us, one of those few was John Ioannidis, an immensely respected physician, scientist, statistician, mathematician, Stanford professor, and writer who was renowned for his works in–get this–epidemiology and evidence-based medicine. Ioannidis was the perfect voice to counter the runaway COVID-19 pandemic response narrative.
And speak up he did. On March 17, 2020 Ioannidis published a groundbreaking STAT article “A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data.” He asked aloud what many of us were wondering privately: would this fiat public health response be a “once-in-a-century evidence fiasco?”
In his article Ioannidis pointed out that all the COVID data to date was actually “of very bad quality,” and we were making monumental decisions daily based on dangerously unreliable information. He also pointed out that the chances of dying for those infected (the Infection Fatality Rate) had to be be much lower than the ridiculous 3.4 percent Case Fatality Rate (CFR) publicly announced by the WHO; his working theory being that many more people had been infected without noticing it, or without being tested.
Ioannidis’ rational and well-reasoned POV in STAT ran squarely against the official narrative, and garnered immediate pushback from “the establishment.” Thankfully, John Ioannidis is a rare brave person, so he promptly ignored the narrative police and submitted his case directly to the top: President Donald J. Trump.
In his letter to the White House Ioannidis warned Trump against “shutting down the country for a very long time and jeopardizing so many lives in doing this” and he requested an emergency meeting to provide all the key stakeholders in the Executive Branch a much-needed second opinion, delivered from a “diverse panel of the top experts in the world.”
This was his letter:
“Dr Ioannidis (bio below) is assembling a group of world renowned scientists who can contribute insights to help solve the major challenge of COVID-19, by intensifying efforts to understand the denominator of infected people (much larger than what is documented to-date) and having a science- and data-informed, targeted approach rather than shutting down the country for very long time and jeopardizing so many lives in doing this. The aim is to identify the best way to both save more lives and avoid serious damage to the US economy using the most reliable data, since the infection rate may be off by a very large factor versus the number of currently documented cases. The scientists are willing to come to the White House personally or join by video conference.”
The proposed panel consisted of:
Jeffrey Klausner, MD MPH – Professor of Clinical Population and Public Health Sciences at USC currently (was Professor at UCLA in 2020).
Art Reingold – Professor of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health at Berkeley.
Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD – Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research.
James Fowler, PhD – Professor of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at UCSD
Sten H. Vermund, MD, PhD – Dean of the Yale School of Public Health (2017-2022)
David L. Katz, MD, MPH – founder of Yale University’s Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center.
Michael Levitt, PhD – Nobel Prize Winner, Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford.
Daniel B. Jernigan, MD, MPH – Director of the Influenza Division in the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) at CDC.
On amazingly short notice, Ioannidis had managed to assemble a literal COVID dream team. These scientists were the real deal: actual bonafide “experts” in a landscape of cosplayers and clout chasers.
When I asked Ioannidis about his historic effort to have an open dialogue with the White House and COVID Task Force in March 2020 he replied to me by e-mail:
“The effort was to create a team with top scientists in epidemiology, public health, health policy, population sciences, social sciences, social networks, computational modeling, healthcare, economics, and respiratory infections. We wanted to help the leadership and the Task Force. The Task Force had stellar, world-caliber scientists like Fauci, Redfield, and Birx, but their otherwise amazing expertise did not cover specifically these areas.”
To that end, John Ioannidis didn’t just pick names out of a hat, he curated this group for maximum positive impact. This was not only an extremely talented group, it was an extremely diverse group. They didn’t all agree on what the response to COVID should be, either. But in the interest of faithfully representing all possible angles and views, Ioannidis insisted they take part. In fact Reinhold and Vermund were recruited by Ioannidis precisely because they didn’t agree with him on how to handle things, and none of the eight were political actors. Despite insinuations to the contrary.
“I have absolutely no clue what the members of the team voted! And it really does not (should not) matter.”
The idea of an emergency White House meeting like this was especially radical because at that time any discussion to the contrary was considered taboo. But lockdown was the most important public health decision in modern human history: one that would potentially affect the future of the entire planet. So why not take a moment to hash it out, with some of the smartest and most qualified people on the planet, and make sure we were making the correct decision?
As of March 24, 2020 the calendars had been aligned and this landmark meeting seemed to be a “go.”
“Request has gone in officially, waiting to hear…”
Then… nothing.
Radio silence.
Finally, on March 28 Ioannidis emailed the group:
“Re: meeting with the President in D.C. Have kept asking/putting gentle pressure, I think our ideas have infiltrated the White House regardless, I hope to have more news on Monday…”
Although Stephanie M. Lee of Buzzfeed News insinuated this was Ioannidis’ way of claiming victory, when asked about it he was keen to clarify:
“I am self-sarcastic here, as it was apparent that we were NOT being heard and other people in the team were also self-sarcastic in saying that our proposal had hit on a wall and bounced.”
So that the heck happened between March 24 and March 28? How did this historic meeting go from “on” to “Oh, never mind?”
What on earth could’ve nuked it?
Or… who?
“I initially communicated myself with a White House person, there is no need to create trouble for that person by naming, I believe that person made a well-intentioned effort, even if it did not work. I don’t know if the message did reach Trump or not and I have no clue who cancelled the meeting and why it came to naught.”
A benign answer could simply be that “Shit happens.” After all, people cancel meetings all the time, especially Presidents and their handlers in the middle of a political and public health maelstrom.
But the meeting could have also been canceled for a host of other reasons, especially political ones, and there were in fact a few key events that occurred in those key 4 gap days that may have had an impact:
March 24, 2020 Trump murmured his famous “Open by Easter” viral bite in a walking ‘n talking interview with Fox’s Bill Hemmer. Which, interestingly, is often confused with Trump wanting to open “early,” when in fact Easter 2020 landed on April 15: a full 15 days past the promised end of the first official “15 Days.” So in effect Trump was already promising to extend the lockdown:
TRUMP: …I’d love to have an open by Easter. Okay?
HEMMER: Oh, wow. Okay.
TRUMP: I would to have it open by Easter. I will — I will tell you that right now. I would love to have that — it’s such an important day for other reasons, but I’ll make it an important day for this too. I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.
HEMMER: That’s April 12th. So we will watch and see what happens.
TRUMP: Good.
Also on March 24, 2020 India officially declared a national 21-day lockdown, which was longer than our puny #15Days, and their lockdown would affect over 1.3 billion people as opposed to our few hundred million. This was framed as “India takes COVID super-seriously,” of course.
On March 25th, 2020 the US Senate passed the CARES Act, a stonking $2.2 trillion economic “stimulus bill” which promised to go directly to adversely affected individuals, businesses, schools and hospitals and never ever ever be wasted, misappropriated, or brazenly stolen by ne’er-do-wells.
Prince Charles tested positive for COVID-19 on March 25th, 2020 as well. And he died. No, wait, my bad, he experienced mild symptoms and self-isolated with servants at his residence in Scotland.
On March 26, 2020 three pretty big-deal things happened. One, the US Department of Labor reported that 3.3 million people filed for unemployment benefits, making it the highest number of initial jobless claims in American history at the time. It was a big story at the time. But what also happened on March 26, 2020is that the US became “the country with the most confirmed COVID cases,” officially surpassing China and Italy for that coveted top spot.
March 26, 2020 also featured the WHO’s virtual “Extraordinary Leaders’ Summit on COVID-19” where World Health Organization Director-General Tedros announced:
“We are at war with a virus that threatens to tear us apart – if we let it. Almost half a million people have already been infected, and more than 20,000 have lost their lives. The pandemic is accelerating at an exponential rate…Without aggressive action in all countries, millions could die. This is a global crisis that demands a global response…Fight hard. Fight like hell. Fight like your lives depend on it – because they do. The best and only way to protect life, livelihoods and economies is to stop the virus…Many of your countries have imposed drastic social and economic restrictions, shutting schools and businesses, and asking people to stay at home. These measures will take some of the heat out of the epidemic, but they will not extinguish it. We must do more.”
Could any of these happenings have caused the Trump camp to say, “We’re good. Thanks for the offer anyway, nerds?”
Who knows.
But the next explanation is far more interesting, and more conspiratorial: was there someone in or near the White House that put the kibosh on this thing? Did Fauci and/or Birx convince Kushner to tell Meadows to tell Trump to tell his secretary to nix the meeting?
Hmmmm. If only there was a way to find this out.
“Indeed, I would be the first to love to know what happened!”
In the aforementioned BuzzFeed article “An Elite Group Of Scientists Tried To Warn Trump Against Lockdowns In March” author Stephanie Lee presented only a select few “obtained” emails, to make her case.
So I “obtained” the same emails via FOIA to the public universities, and, really, there’s nothing in those emails than a group of mutually-respected peers desperately trying to coordinate and contribute to this burgeoning national disaster; these were all people desperately trying to do the right thing for the country, and the world. They just wanted to help.
For what it’s worth, these emails are an incredible time capsule documenting the events and societal tenor of that important time, and are presented here, in their entirety. Whatever caused this critically important meeting to be canceled, it’s now quite apparent that it would’ve been better had that meeting taken place.
Because even under the most gracious definitions of “lockdown” our public health reaction to COVID was a colossal mistake. A massive abysmal failure, based on any neutral metric. Lockdown failed on stopping the virus, it failed on overall health outcomes, it failed on the economy, it failed on “equity,” it failed our kids and perhaps most tellingly it failed our principles. In the future there will be entire sections of libraries dedicated to the mind-boggling extent of the destruction caused by these panicked, pseudoscientific public-health decisions. Decisions that were forced on us, without even so much as a show vote.
Much less a proper discussion. And that’s what this meeting would have been: a discussion. An opportunity to expose the Leader of the Free World to a different and better set of ideas on how to handle the COVID-19 pandemic. The fact is that, in the third week of March 2020, we were all unceremoniously denied a basic medical, human right: an informed second opinion.
Author
From the Brownstone Institute
Many news outlets reported the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday by saying President Donald Trump had missed out (Washington Post, Yahoo, Hindustan Times, Huffington Post), not won (USA Today), fallen short (AP News), lost (Time), etc. There is even a meme doing the rounds about ‘Trump Wine.’ ‘Made from sour grapes,’ the label explains, ‘This is a full bodied and bitter vintage guaranteed to leave a nasty taste in your mouth for years.’
For the record, the prize was awarded to María Corina Machado for her courageous and sustained opposition to Venezuela’s ruling regime. Trump called to congratulate her. Given his own attacks on the Venezuelan president, his anger will be partly mollified, and he could even back her with practical support. He nonetheless attacked the prize committee, and the White House assailed it for putting politics before peace.
He could be in serious contention next year. If his Gaza peace plan is implemented and holds until next October, he should get it. That he is unlikely to do so is more a reflection on the award and less on Trump.
So He Won the Nobel Peace Prize. Meh!
Alfred Nobel’s will stipulates the prize should be awarded to the person who has contributed the most to promote ‘fraternity between nations…abolition or reduction of standing armies and…holding and promotion of peace congresses.’ Over the decades, this has expanded progressively to embrace human rights, political dissent, environmentalism, race, gender, and other social justice causes.
On these grounds, I would have thought the Covid resistance should have been a winner. The emphasis has shifted from outcomes and actual work to advocacy. In honouring President Barack Obama in 2009, the Nobel committee embarrassed itself, patronised him, and demeaned the prize. His biggest accomplishment was the choice of his predecessor as president: the prize was a one-finger send-off to President George W. Bush.
There have been other strange laureates, including those prone to wage war (Henry Kissinger, 1973), tainted through association with terrorism (Yasser Arafat, 1994), and contributions to fields beyond peace, such as planting millions of trees. Some laureates were subsequently discovered to have embellished their record, and others proved to be flawed champions of human rights who had won them the treasured accolade.
Conversely, Mahatma Gandhi did not get the prize, not for his contributions to the theory and practice of non-violence, nor for his role in toppling the British Raj as the curtain raiser to worldwide decolonisation. The sad reality is how little practical difference the prize has made to the causes it espoused. They bring baubles and honour to the laureates, but the prize has lost much of its lustre as far as results go.
Trump Was Not a Serious Contender
The nomination processes start in September and nominations close on 31 January. The five-member Norwegian Nobel committee scrutinises the list of candidates and whittles it down between February and October. The prize is announced on or close to 10 October, the date Alfred Nobel died, and the award ceremony is held in Oslo in early December.
The calendar rules out a newly elected president in his first year, with the risible exception of Obama. The period under review was 2024. Trump’s claims to have ended seven wars and boasts of ‘nobody’s ever done that’ are not taken seriously beyond the narrow circle of fervent devotees, sycophantic courtiers, and supplicant foreign leaders eager to ingratiate themselves with over-the-top flattery.
Trump Could Be in Serious Contention Next Year
Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan falls into three conceptual-cum-chronological parts: today, tomorrow, and the day after. At the time of writing, in a hinge moment in the two-year war, Israel has implemented a ceasefire in Gaza, Hamas has agreed to release Israeli hostages on 13-14 October, and Israel will release around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners (today’s agenda). So why are the ‘Ceasefire Now!’ mobs not out on the streets celebrating joyously instead of looking morose and discombobulated? Perhaps they’ve been robbed of the meaning of life?
The second part (tomorrow) requires Hamas demilitarisation, surrender, amnesty, no role in Gaza’s future governance, resumption of aid deliveries, Israeli military pullbacks, a temporary international stabilisation force, and a technocratic transitional administration. The third part, the agenda for the day after, calls for the deradicalisation of Gaza, its reconstruction and development, an international Peace Board to oversee implementation of the plan, governance reforms of the Palestinian Authority, and, over the horizon, Palestinian statehood.
There are too many potential pitfalls to rest easy on the prospects for success. Will Hamas commit military and political suicide? How can the call for democracy in Gaza and the West Bank be reconciled with Hamas as the most popular group among Palestinians? Can Israel’s fractious governing coalition survive?
Both Hamas and Israel have a long record of agreeing to demands under pressure but sabotaging their implementation at points of vulnerability. The broad Arab support could weaken as difficulties arise. The presence of the internationally toxic Tony Blair on the Peace Board could derail the project. Hamas has reportedly called on all factions to reject Blair’s involvement. Hamas official Basem Naim, while thanking Trump for his positive role in the peace deal, explained that ‘Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims and maybe a lot [of] people around the world still remember his [Blair’s] role in causing the killing of thousands or millions of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.’
It would be a stupendous achievement for all the complicated moving parts to come together in stable equilibrium. What cannot and should not be denied is the breathtaking diplomatic coup already achieved. Only Trump could have pulled this off.
The very traits that are so offputting in one context helped him to get here: narcissism; bullying and impatience; bull in a china shop style of diplomacy; indifference to what others think; dislike of wars and love of real estate development; bottomless faith in his own vision, negotiating skills, and ability to read others; personal relationships with key players in the region; and credibility as both the ultimate guarantor of Israel’s security and preparedness to use force if obstructed. Israelis trust him; Hamas and Iran fear him.
The combined Israeli-US attacks to degrade Iran’s nuclear capability underlined the credibility of threats of force against recalcitrant opponents. Unilateral Israeli strikes on Hamas leaders in Qatar highlighted to uninvolved Arabs the very real dangers of continued escalation amidst the grim Israeli determination to rid themselves of Hamas once and for all.
Trump Is Likely to Be Overlooked
Russia has sometimes been the object of the Nobel Peace Prize. The mischievous President Vladimir Putin has suggested Trump may be too good for the prize. Trump’s disdain for and hostility to international institutions and assaults on the pillars of the liberal international order would have rubbed Norwegians, among the world’s strongest supporters of rules-based international governance, net zero, and foreign aid, the wrong way.
Brash and public lobbying for the prize, like calling the Norwegian prime minister, is counterproductive. The committee is fiercely independent. Nominees are advised against making the nomination public, let alone orchestrating an advocacy campaign. Yet, one laureate is believed to have mobilised his entire government for quiet lobbying behind the scenes, and another to have bad-mouthed a leading rival to friendly journalists.
Most crucially, given that Scandinavian character traits tip towards the opposite end of the scale, it’s hard to see the committee overlooking Trump’s loud flaws, vanity, braggadocio, and lack of grace and humility. Trump supporters discount his character traits and take his policies and results seriously. Haters cannot get over the flaws to seriously evaluate policies and outcomes. No prizes for guessing which group the Nobel committee is likely to belong to. As is currently fashionable to say when cancelling someone, Trump’s values do not align with those of the committee and the ideals of the prize.
Author
From the Brownstone Institute
Trump made sweeping claims that would have ended political careers in any other era. His health officials tried to narrow the edges, but the President ensured that the headlines would be his.
Autism has long been the untouchable subject in American politics. For decades, federal agencies tiptoed around it, steering research toward genetics while carefully avoiding controversial environmental or pharmaceutical questions.
That ended at the White House this week, when President Donald Trump tore through the taboo with a blunt and sometimes incendiary performance that left even his own health chiefs scrambling to keep pace.
Flanked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, CMS Adminstrator Dr Mehmet Oz, and other senior officials, Trump declared autism a “horrible, horrible crisis” and recounted its rise in startling terms.
“Just a few decades ago, one in 10,000 children had autism…now it’s one in 31, but in some areas, it’s much worse than that, if you can believe it, one in 31 and…for boys, it’s one in 12 in California,” Trump said.
The President insisted the trend was “artificially induced,” adding: “You don’t go from one in 20,000 to one in 10,000 and then you go to 12, you know, there’s something artificial. They’re taking something.”
Trump’s Blunt Tylenol Warning
The headline moment came when Trump zeroed in on acetaminophen, the common painkiller sold as Tylenol — known as paracetamol in Australia.
While Kennedy and Makary described a cautious process of label changes and physician advisories, Trump dispensed with nuance.
“Don’t take Tylenol,” Trump said flatly. “Don’t take it unless it’s absolutely necessary…fight like hell not to take it.”
Kennedy laid out the evidence base, citing “clinical and laboratory studies that suggest a potential association between acetaminophen used during pregnancy and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, including later diagnosis for ADHD and autism.”
Makary reinforced the point with references to the Boston Birth Cohort, the Nurses’ Health Study, and a recent Harvard review, before adding: “To quote the dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, there is a causal relationship between prenatal acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders of ADHD and autism spectrum disorder. We cannot wait any longer.”
But where the officials spoke of “lowest effective dose” and “shortest possible duration,” Trump thundered over the top: “I just want to say it like it is, don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it if you just can’t. I mean, it says, fight like hell not to take it.”
Vaccines Back on Center Stage
The President then pivoted to vaccines, reviving arguments that the medical establishment has long sought to bury. He blasted the practice of giving infants multiple injections at a single visit.
“They pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies, it’s a disgrace…you get a vat of 80 different vaccines, I guess, 80 different blends, and they pump it in,” Trump said.
His solution was simple: “Go to the doctor four times instead of once, or five times instead of once…it can only help.”
On the measles, mumps, and rubella shot, Trump insisted: “The MMR, I think should be taken separately…when you mix them, there could be a problem. So there’s no downside in taking them separately.”
The moment was astonishing — echoing arguments that had once seen doctors like Andrew Wakefield excommunicated from medical circles.
It was the kind of line of questioning the establishment had spent decades trying to banish from mainstream debate.
Hep B Vaccine under Attack
Trump dismissed the rationale for giving the hepatitis B vaccine at birth.
“Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s just born hepatitis B [vaccine]. So I would say, wait till the baby is 12 years old,” he said.
He made clear that he was “not a doctor,” stressing that he was simply offering his personal opinion. But the move could also be interpreted as Trump choosing to take the heat himself, to shield Kennedy’s HHS from what was sure to be an onslaught of criticism.
The timing was remarkable.
Only last week, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP) had been preparing to vote on whether to delay the hepatitis B shot until “one month” of age — a modest proposal that mainstream outlets derided as “anti-vax extremism.”
By contrast, Trump told the nation to push the jab back 12 years. His sweeping denunciations made the supposedly radical ACIP vote look almost tame.
The irony was inescapable — the same media voices who had painted Kennedy’s reshaped ACIP as reckless now faced a President willing to say far more than the panel itself dared.
A New Treatment and Big Research Push
The administration also unveiled what it deemed a breakthrough: FDA recognition of prescription leucovorin, a folate-based therapy, as a treatment for some autistic children.
Makary explained: “It may also be due to an autoimmune reaction to a folate receptor on the brain not allowing that important vitamin to get into the brain cells…one study found that with kids with autism and chronic folate deficiency, two-thirds of kids with autism symptoms had improvement and some marked improvement.”
Dr Oz confirmed Medicaid and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides low-cost health coverage to children in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid) would cover the treatment.
“Over half of American children are covered by Medicaid and CHIP…upon this label change…state Medicaid programs will cover prescription leucovorin around the country, it’s yours,” said Oz.
Bhattacharya announced $50 million in new NIH grants under the “Autism Data Science Initiative.”
He explained that 13 projects would be funded using “exposomics” — the study of how environmental exposures like diet, chemicals, and infections interact with our biology — alongside advanced causal inference methods.
“For too long, it’s been taboo to ask some questions for fear the scientific work might reveal a politically incorrect answer,” Bhattacharya said. “Because of this restricted focus in scientific investigations, the answers for families have been similarly restricted.”
Mothers’ Voices
The press conference also featured raw testimony from parents.
Amanda, mother of a profoundly autistic five-year-old, told Trump: “Unless you’ve lived with profound autism, you have no idea…it’s a very hopeless feeling. It’s very isolating. Being a parent with a profound autistic child, even just taking them over to your friend’s house is something we just don’t do.”
Jackie, mother of 11-year-old Eddie, said: “I’ve been praying for this day for nine years, and I’m so thankful to God for bringing the administration into our lives…I never thought we would have an administration that was courageous enough to look into things that no prior administration had.”
Their stories underscored what Kennedy said at the announcement about “believing women.” Here were mothers speaking directly about their lived reality, demanding that uncomfortable conversations could no longer be avoided.
Clashes with the Press Corps
Reporters pressed Trump on the backlash from medical groups.
Asked about the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) declaring acetaminophen safe in pregnancy, Trump shot back, “That’s the establishment. They’re funded by lots of different groups. And you know what? Maybe they’re right. I don’t think they are, because I don’t think the facts bear it out at all.”
When one journalist raised the argument that rising diagnoses reflected better recognition, Kennedy bristled,
“That’s one of the canards that has been promoted by the industry for many years,” he said. “It’s just common sense, because you’re only seeing this in people who are under 50 years of age. If it were better recognition or diagnosis, you’d see it in the seventy-year-old men. I’ve never seen this happening in people my age.”
Another reporter then asked Trump, “Should the establishment media show at least some openness to trying to figure out what the causes are?”
“I wish they would. Yeah, why are they so close-minded?” Trump replied. “It’s not only the media, in all fairness, it’s some people, when you talk about vaccines, it’s crazy…I don’t care about being attacked.”
Breaking the Spell
For years, autism policy has been shaped by caution, consensus, and deference to orthodox positions. That spell was broken at today’s press conference.
The dynamic was striking. Kennedy, Makary, Bhattacharya, and Oz leaned on scientific papers, review processes, and cautious advisories. Trump, by contrast, brushed it all aside, hammering his message home through repetition and personal anecdotes.
Trump made sweeping claims that would have ended political careers in any other era. His health officials tried to narrow the edges, but the President ensured that the headlines would be his.
“This will be as important as any single thing I’ve done,” Trump declared. “We’re going to save a lot of children from a tough life, really tough life. We’re going to save a lot of parents from a tough life.”
Whatever the science ultimately shows, the politics of autism in America will never be the same.
Republished from the author’s Substack
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