University of North Carolina Wilmington Professor Mike Adams' body was found after deputies were called to his home for a welfare check.

Stephanie K. BaerBuzzFeed News Reporter
Last updated on July 24, 2020

Mike Adams


University of North Carolina Wilmington professor Mike Adams, who was known for his anti-LGBTQ, misogynistic, and racist remarks, was found dead in his home Thursday, days before he was due to retire as part of a settlement with the school.

New Hanover County Sheriff's Lt. Jerry Brewer told BuzzFeed News deputies were called to Adams' home in Wilmington at 12:30 p.m. for a welfare check and found the professor dead.


His death is under investigation and no additional information was immediately available.

Earlier this month, UNCW agreed to pay Adams, a criminology professor, more than $500,000 as part of an early retirement settlement reached between the parties after the professor again came under fire for his tweets about the coronavirus and recent protests against racism and police brutality. According to the News & Observer, Adams was set to retire Aug. 1.

In May, Adams criticized Gov. Roy Cooper’s pandemic stay-at-home orders in several tweets, calling him "Massa Cooper."




Mike S. Adams@MikeSAdams
This evening I ate pizza and drank beer with six guys at a six seat table top. I almost felt like a free man who was not living in the slave state of North Carolina. Massa Cooper, let my people go!11:08 PM - 29 May 2020
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In another tweet, he wrote, "Don't shut down the universities. Shut down the non essential majors. Like Women’s Studies."

Over the years, people have started online petitions calling on the university to fire Adams. A recent Change.org petition that described him as a longtime "thorn in the side of UNC Wilmington" garnered more than 60,000 signatures.

In a letter announcing Adams' retirement, UNCW Chancellor Jose V. Sartarelli wrote that the settlement was "less damaging" to the university and the best way its leadership could resolve the situation.

Sartarelli said that attempting to fire Adams would have resulted in "very costly litigation, that we might not win," citing a 2014 First Amendment lawsuit he filed that cost the university about $700,000.

"In addition to saving money, the settlement will prevent the continued disruption to our educational mission, reduce concerns around campus safety, and lessen the harm to the institution," the chancellor said. "Dollars are precious, but our institutional integrity is priceless."

A university spokesperson said in a statement, "It is with sadness that we share the news that the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office is conducting a death investigation involving Dr. Mike Adams, professor of criminology. Please keep his friends and loved ones in your thoughts."

Professor's Racist And Anti-Gay Language Sets Off Free-Speech Battle On Campus

More than 2,000 people have signed a petition calling for the University of North Carolina Wilmington to fire professor Mike Adams while the university says his opinions are protected by the First Amendment.
Tasneem NashrullaBuzzFeed News Reporter


Posted on November 29, 2016, at 6:26 p.m. ET
More than 2,000 people have supported a petition calling for the University of North Carolina Wilmington to terminate professor Mike Adams for his "history of spewing misogynistic, xenophobic, transphobic, homophobic, racist rhetoric" and for publicly mocking a Muslim student's sexual orientation and religion on his blog.

change.org



The petition said, in part, about the criminology and sociology professor: "Adams has disrespected the university's promise to provide a safe environment for all individual student[s], and instead has mocked and ridiculed not only individuals, but entire groups. These actions are not acceptable, and no university should make a student feel unsafe."

Adams sparked outrage when he targeted Nada Merghani, a Sudanese refugee and LGBT student-activist at UNCW, in a September article titled "A 'Queer Muslim' Jihad" in which he said "her claims to be a 'queer Muslim' are probably part of an act designed to fit into as many victim categories." The university said Adams' opinions were protected by the First Amendment.

dailywire.com



Adams' piece on Merghani was published in response to an incident in August in which Secret Service agents questioned her about her Facebook post regarding Donald Trump's visit to the campus.

In the post, Merghani, who is the founder of the Muslim Student Association at UNCW, said, "Expect to see me at the Trump rally on Tuesday. Y’all are not prepared for what I’m about to do." It ended with, “All I can say is pray I make it out of this alive.”

While the agents were satisfied that Merghani did not pose any threat, Adams wrote, "That sounds like a suicide mission for those who have never met Merghani."

He also described Merghani as "the most frightening type of student imaginable ... A self-described 'queer Muslim social justice warrior.'"

In a Tumblr post responding to Adams' piece, Merghani detailed allegations of troubling online interactions with the "tenured professor."

Merghani told BuzzFeed News in late November that she was leaving UNCW because Adams' behavior took a "toll on me emotionally and severely affected my academic journey."

Merghani said that since she was from a country where being gay is punishable by death, she was very careful about the platforms she chose to identify herself as a queer Muslim woman and often changed her last name to protect her identity. "People were shocked that [Adams] outed me and used my full name in his article," Merghani said.

Adams called Merghani's notion that he "outed" her "comical" and said she "outed herself."

In an email to BuzzFeed News on Tuesday, Nov. 29, Adams said, "The notion that I somehow 'outed' her in my column is comical. She is the founder of the Muslim Student Association and President of a gay pride group. She 'outed' herself when she consented to an interview with the College Fix. Furthermore, her accusations against me of instigating threats have now been investigated and proven false."

In a statement to BuzzFeed News on Nov. 29 a UNCW spokesperson said, "We are deeply disappointed by the use of hateful, hurtful language to degrade a fellow human being, even when that language is legally protected speech. However, we have fully investigated this matter and believe we have done all we are able to do to support the student involved, given that the comments were not made in a UNCW living, learning or working environment or otherwise affiliated with the faculty member’s role at UNCW."

In an earlier statement following a review of the incident, the university had said that Adams' opinions were protected by the First Amendment.

"Dr. Adams’s online column and social media presence represent his personal expressions and opinions on a variety of topics," the statement said. "These expressions and opinions are neither within the requested scope of Dr. Adams’s duties with the university, nor do they represent the views of this institution. However, they are expressions protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution."

The university also said it had not found evidence that Adams had "improperly released any private or confidential information to the student, or violated the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)" and that there was no evidence of "unlawful discrimination" by him toward Merghani per the school's harassment policy.

"Finally, Dr. Adams’s conduct and written material do not contain any evidence of a true threat toward this or any other student," the statement said.

Merghani said that while she supported the petition to get Adams fired, she was focused on holding the UNCW administration accountable for "allowing this to happen" and for "protecting" him.

"If Mike Adams wasn’t given a platform, if he didn’t have access to young impressionable minds, he would be another angry internet troll."

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Adams' post on Merghani, along with other posts and tweets — in which he called the Black Lives Matter movement a "terrorist organization," compared the acceptance of LGBT individuals to rape, referred to gay people as "fags," and tweeted about killing Muslims "who criticize Danish cartoons" — has triggered a fierce free-speech debate on campus and is gaining national attention.

Twitter: @MikeSAdams



Adams, who describes himself as a free-speech advocate and has worked at UNCW since 1993, sued the university in 2006, alleging that it denied him a promotion to full professor "because his nationally syndicated opinion columns espoused religious and political views that ran contrary to the opinions held by university officials." He alleged that the university had violated his First Amendment right to free speech.

After a seven-year legal battle, UNCW settled the case with Adams, promoting him to full professor and agreeing to $50,000 in back pay.

In an email sent to students, staff, and faculty on Nov. 23, and provided to BuzzFeed News, the UNCW Faculty Senate said, "Public remarks by professors about a student’s race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, age, disability, political affiliation, or sexual orientation are inconsistent with our values."

Twitter: @MikeSAdams

The UNCW Creative Writing Department said in a Nov. 21 statement provided to BuzzFeed News that they were "appalled" by Adams' actions and called for the university to "quickly" address the situation.

The statement, which was sent to the Faculty Senate, the provost, and the dean of the UNCW College of Arts and Sciences, said, "As writers, we believe in free speech. We are appalled that a fellow teacher would abuse that freedom to publicly ridicule, harass, and humiliate a student. The university, given its stated dedication to cultivating a respectful and inclusive community, must act quickly to address this situation and to prevent further harm."

Adams addressed the Faculty Senate's letter in his column on conservative news and opinion site Town Hall on Wednesday, saying he was "disappointed" with their statement, which he called "problematic for a number of reasons. He said the statement "encouraged defamation," "was overly broad," and was a "rebuke made in response to conservative speech."

"Obviously, political bias and viewpoint discrimination are among your cherished faculty values," Adams said in his post.

The UNCW Student Government Association also issued a statement "unequivocally" condemning Adams' article "bullying" Merghani.

"We are appalled and disgusted by the recent article posted by Mike Adams," the SGA said in its statement on Nov. 16. "While we don't understand the need for a highly educated adult to devote his time to bullying a young college student, we do understand the dark reality that this student has faced in light of the unrelenting statements over their time here. We are especially saddened to have learned that this student will be transferring away from the university out of concerns for her safety."

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While university officials had previously refrained from publicly condemning Adams' speech, Chancellor Jose V. Sartarelli issued a statement on Nov. 21, saying, "Let me be clear: speech that is legal can also be hurtful. It deeply saddens me to see freedom of expression used as a weapon to degrade and demonize."

Twitter: @MikeSAdams



In a Nov. 21 forum on free speech and campus climate, attended by Sartarelli and around 100 students, UNCW assistant general counsel Steven Miller addressed several students who voiced their frustration about the university's approach to Adams.

In a video recording of the forum provided to BuzzFeed News, Miller said that his office had reviewed Adams' blog post on Merghani and his subsequent tweets "in the context of which they were done and what exactly was said."

"I am sorry, that in this context, in this particular incident, you feel like our action hasn't been enough," Miller told the students.

He acknowledged that many found it frustrating and he apologized, saying there were "limitations" with what the university could do.

"I can't imagine an adult, who is a professor, deciding, as part of a moneymaking blog, to say things about a student. It doesn't make sense to me," he said.

When a student asked Sartarelli what was preventing him from publicly condemning Adams' statements, Sartarelli responded, "No one is preventing me from doing that."

In response to a student calling for Adams to be fired, Sartarelli said, "I'm not going to discuss a personnel matter in public like this. I'm sorry. It's not permitted, it's not possible, and it would not be fair to him."

Sarterelli had also sent a campus-wide email on Nov. 16 to "address concerns raised on our campus in recent weeks."

In the email, he wrote that students and faculty "have the right to share their opinions, both on and off campus" and that the university would not regulate or respond to those opinions.

"I have previously shared my position that speech we do not agree with, or which may upset us, does not equate with speech that is threatening," Sartarelli said. "Our students and faculty have the right to share their opinions, both on and off campus. We as an institution do not, and should not, regulate or respond to those opinions. There is often misinformation involved, unfortunately, and even language many would consider ugly, but this comes with the territory of free and open expression."

In response to Adams' vocal criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Black Student Union at UNCW told BuzzFeed News that they were "alarmed by the lack of professionalism in his rhetoric" and called him "a bully."

"We find a notable irony in Dr. Adams’ condemnation of Black Lives Matter as divisive and useless, while he proceeds to make needlessly inflammatory remarks about students because of their sexuality, religion, or political affiliation," the BSU said in a statement to BuzzFeed News.

"It should also go without saying that while Dr. Adams is free to say whatever he likes, that does not also render him free of the consequences of his actions. The feelings of those in our community who have been alienated and hurt by his words are equally as valid, and their insistence on his removal from the campus is easy to sympathize with."

The BSU said that while they agreed that Adams should be allowed to voice his opinions, "it's disheartening to see someone who should be a leader on our campus choose to play the role of a bully, or instigator, instead."

Adams told BuzzFeed News that his next column "will address the specious arguments made by the Black Student Union."

Robert Chase, a UNCW student, told BuzzFeed News, "We believe that this is no longer free speech. This is now university-supported hate speech."


Edward Knish, a UNCW graduate who supported the petition calling for his removal said, "Mike Adams can say whatever he likes but a college professor in his 40s or 50s personally attacking a 19 year old student at the University that employs him and publishing her full name is a disgrace to the community and academic integrity."

Another student, who signed the petition, said in a comment that Adams "harassed and ridiculed her" in 2015 after she protested an organization that put up posters on campus comparing abortions to the Holocaust.

The student, Mikaela Fleming, alleged that Adams mocked her protest on his Facebook page and posted a status that said, "The mortality rate for people who disagree with me is 100%. So nod along or face the consequences."

"I eventually lost my will to fight after over 100 of us staged a protest sit-in at the Chancellors office and was faced with the same conclusion. Nothing could be done," Fleming said in her comment. "This professor was more important than the well-being of numerous students."

Adams told BuzzFeed News he had never met Fleming and "[does] not know what remarks she is referencing."

A parent of a student commented on the petition page, "My daughter goes to UNCW, and I want to be able to respect the school. With this type of hateful professor on the payroll, that is impossible."

Here are some of Adams' controversial tweets.

On Black Lives Matter and race issues:

Twitter: @MikeSAdams

ON LGBTQ

Twitter: @MikeSAdams

Twitter: @MikeSAdams

ON MUSLIMS

---30---

Tasneem Nashrulla is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

An Elite Group Of Scientists Tried To Warn Trump Against Lockdowns In March
John Ioannidis’s controversial studies claim that the coronavirus isn’t that big a threat. Before the Stanford scientist did any of them, he wanted to take that message to the White House.

Stephanie M. Lee BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on July 24, 2020, at 1:03 p.m. ET


BuzzFeed News; Getty Images; Journeyman Pictures via YouTube

Stanford University scientist John Ioannidis has declared in study after study that the coronavirus is not that big of a threat, emboldening opponents of economic shutdowns — and infuriating critics who see fundamental errors in his work.

But even before the epidemiologist had any of that data in hand, he and an elite group of scientists tried to convince President Donald Trump that locking down the country would be the real danger.

In late March, as COVID-19 cases overran hospitals overseas, Ioannidis tried to organize a meeting at the White House where he and a small band of colleagues would caution the president against “shutting down the country for [a] very long time and jeopardizing so many lives in doing this,” according to a statement Ioannidis submitted on the group’s behalf. Their goal, the statement said, was “to both save more lives and avoid serious damage to the US economy using the most reliable data.”

Although the meeting did not happen, Ioannidis believed their message had reached the right people. Within a day of him sending it to the White House, Trump announced that he wanted the country reopened by Easter. “I think our ideas have inflitrated [sic] the White House regardless,” Ioannidis told his collaborators on March 28, in one of dozens of emails that BuzzFeed News obtained through public records requests.


Obtained by BuzzFeed News

But at this critical juncture, many other public health experts believed that the United States did not have the luxury of waiting for perfect data. In the face of a life-threatening pandemic, they wanted states to order residents to stay at home, immediately, to prevent health care systems from getting crushed.

Ioannidis’s ideas “were scientifically untenable at that time, and untenable from the perspective of decision-making especially,” Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health epidemiologist, told BuzzFeed News.

If you have tips about the coronavirus, reach out to this reporter at stephanie.lee@buzzfeed.com or stephaniemlee@protonmail.com.

And the group’s attempt to convey these preliminary ideas directly to the White House is highly unusual for scientists, said Sheila Jasanoff, a Harvard Kennedy School professor who studies the role of science in politics.

“It creates the impression that the work that the scientists are intending to do will be shaped by a political purpose, maybe even before they have started doing the work,” Jasanoff said. Their decision to push an untested theory to influence federal policy, she added, went “against the ethos of science.”

Ioannidis assembled at least eight scientists to try to meet the president. Two of them told BuzzFeed News that, if a meeting did happen, they would make it clear they did not oppose widespread lockdowns. But others, including a Nobel laureate, feared that their consequences would be greater than the threat of the virus. Several were already harnessing their prominent platforms to sound the alarm in media appearances and meetings with politicians.

Their leader, Ioannidis, would go on to conclude in a series of studies that the virus posed a low risk to most people, and hold them up as evidence that lockdowns are an overreaction. Some of that work has been fiercely called into question, however, and observers have wondered if the iconoclast, lionized for his pioneering critiques of biased and overhyped science, is trying to prove a predetermined conclusion. Now, the emails reveal that before Ioannidis had collected any data, he was so assured about the dangers of lockdowns that he felt compelled to personally warn the president.




Obtained by BuzzFeed News



In a subsequent email, John Ioannidis confirmed that Michael Levitt agreed to participate. It is unclear whether Daniel Jernigan agreed. He did not return a request for comment.


Ioannidis did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Shelter-in-place orders and other measures would ultimately prevent millions of cases and deaths around the world, recent modeling studies suggest. But in the US, a handful of states avoided stay-at-home orders and others lifted them when infections were still rising, often pressured by the president himself. In the absence of robust testing and contact tracing, the virus is now spreading with alarming speed across the West and South.

“It was clear that the US didn’t turn the volume up on policies the way that everyone else did,” said Solomon Hsiang, director of UC Berkeley’s Global Policy Laboratory, who estimates that social distancing policies averted 60 million infections nationwide. “This has been one giant slow-motion train wreck.”




BuzzFeed News; Getty Images; UC Berkley via YouTube; LJCasey / Wikimedia; TRT World Now via YouTube; The Design Lab / UC San Diego via YouTube; Getty Images; Hoover Institution via YouTube

All of Ioannidis’s men (from left): Sten Vermund (Yale), Arthur Reingold (UC Berkeley), David Katz (True Health Initiative), Jeffrey Klausner (UCLA), James Fowler (UC San Diego), Michael Levitt (Stanford), and Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford). Vermund and Reingold told BuzzFeed News they did not share the rest of the group’s anti-lockdown views.

2. The Scientists

By mid-March, a global pandemic was officially underway. In Wuhan, China, and parts of Italy, staggering caseloads were overwhelming hospitals and thousands were dying. Jarred into action by a new prediction that 2.2 million Americans could die, Trump issued national social distancing guidelines for the next 15 days. Businesses, schools, and restaurants went dark, and soon-to-be historic numbers of workers — now numbering about 30 million — started collecting unemployment.

The Bay Area was the first to implement a strict shelter-in-place order on March 17. That day, Ioannidis warned in a Stat op-ed that “locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational.”

Due to critically limited testing, the public did not know how much of a threat the virus posed. But Ioannidis suggested that its true fatality rate could be so low, it could be even “lower than seasonal influenza.” Based on data from the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship, he predicted that roughly 10,000 Americans could die. In contrast, he argued, lockdowns spanning “months, if not years” would endanger “billions, not just millions” of lives.


Over the following days, Ioannidis grew more vocal in a flurry of interviews and scientific commentary. And his Stat op-ed caught the eye of many conservative commentators, from Ann Coulter to Fox News personality Lisa Boothe. Bret Stephens cited it in a New York Times column titled “It’s Dangerous to Be Ruled by Fear.” It also circulated among West Wing aides, Bloomberg reported.

But Ioannidis wanted to make his case to the president directly, according to the emails. Starting around March 23, he began rounding up a cohort of vocal and influential lockdown skeptics to help him do so.

“I was told that they can arrange for the President to meet with 5-7 top scientists,” Ioannidis wrote in one email, with the subject line “meeting with the President in D.C.” He added, “I think you can make a huge difference in this critical time.”


Obtained by BuzzFeed News



One invitee was David Katz, a doctor and a former Yale instructor who now runs a nonprofit called True Health Initiative. In a provocative New York Times op-ed titled “Is Our Fight Against Coronavirus Worse Than the Disease?” he argued that society should protect, treat, and keep at home the “especially vulnerable,” such as older people, and allow everyone else to build “herd immunity.” Without this strategy, he cautioned, “this near total meltdown of normal life — schools and businesses closed, gatherings banned — will be long lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus itself.”


Those ideas were cited by Thomas Friedman, the high-profile New York Times columnist, including in an open letter to Trump. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo referenced Katz at press briefings where he expressed skepticism about widespread quarantines. Katz told BuzzFeed News that he spoke with both Cuomo and Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, early on.

Other epidemiologists and health experts vehemently disagree that the pursuit of herd immunity to the coronavirus would be ethical or achievable. They point out that though many people may have mild infections, without a vaccine, countless others would needlessly become severely sick and die.

And Swapnil Mishra, a public health researcher at Imperial College London, said that while mass testing and identifying high-risk people is “ideal,” testing failures in the US meant that was not a realistic option in March. “We’re talking about a time when [US] testing capacity was not even one-tenth of what it is today,” Mishra said.

Aside from Katz, Ioannidis’s entourage included Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine and public health at UCLA who insisted on local TV that “there’s no indication, absolutely, for this nation- or statewide shutdown.” There was also Michael Levitt, a chemistry Nobel Prize winner, who developed a model that predicted the pandemic wouldn’t be that bad. “The real situation is not as nearly as terrible as they make it out to be,” the Stanford biophysicist told the Los Angeles Times.


Another Stanford faculty member in the group, professor of medicine Jay Bhattacharya, cowrote in a widely circulated Wall Street Journal op-ed that there was “little evidence” to warrant shelter-in-place orders and quarantines.

One member who had not gone public with his views was James Fowler, a UC San Diego professor who claims to be “the most-cited political scientist of any who has received their PhD this century.” He had emailed Ioannidis in the wake of his Stat op-ed with the subject line “I agree: we are making a terrible mistake. How can I help?” Ioannidis replied, “I have heard from hundreds of great scientists in support of my views,” and added, “I am trying to see how we can organize efforts better, there is too much at stake, we will be in touch.”

Collectively, the scientists hoped to reach a president who, less than a week into the national social distancing guidelines, appeared to already be eager to lift them. “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” Trump had tweeted the night of March 22. “AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!”

His apparent concern was that between cratering stocks and record unemployment claims, the next Great Depression was around the corner. “We can’t shut in the economy,” Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, told Fox News. “The economic cost to individuals is just too great.”


But as deaths rose into the hundreds, a growing number of states — nine, by March 23 – were instructing residents to stay at home anyway. Things were starting to look dire in New York City, where Mayor Bill de Blasio said the federal government was sending 400 emergency ventilators. The city, he said, was “going to literally be in a race against time.”


Vetenskaps Festivalen via YouTube

Ioannidis talks at the Vetenskaps Festival

3. The Statement

On the evening of March 24, Ioannidis told the group that he had submitted their letter to the White House. His pitch for a meeting — either in DC, or over videoconference — reiterated what he had been saying publicly for days.

“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 statement read.

It continued: “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.”


This statement didn’t capture each member’s full views of how the country should proceed. Klausner, for instance, told BuzzFeed News that he thought shelter-in-place orders should have lasted no more than 10 days while the hardest-hit local areas prepared, and Katz said that, prior to implementing his strategy, shutdowns would likely still be “fairly” widespread. But both of them said they stood by the statement’s opposition to a “one-size-fits-all” approach.

Bhattacharya, Levitt, and Fowler, who did not return requests for comment, appear to have been keen participants. As Ioannidis relayed in one email, “All three of them had wrtten [sic] to me to say how they enthusiastically agreed with what I proposed.”

In contrast, two other members told BuzzFeed News they were not in the anti-lockdown camp. Arthur Reingold, head of UC Berkeley’s epidemiology and biostatistics division, said that he was recruited because he “did not agree with the underlying premise regarding ‘shelter in place’ as being unwise in the context of the pandemic in the US.”

Sten Vermund, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, said, “I’ve been arguing with this crowd from the beginning of this pandemic.” He cowrote a letter to the New York Times lambasting Katz’s endorsement of herd immunity, and went on a podcast to debate Ioannidis over the importance of lockdowns.

“That I was part of the group will be interpreted by some that I supported their point of view, which I did not,” Vermund said. “Not in March or April or now.”


He agreed to join, he said, to ensure Trump got accurate guidance. “I just thought, ‘Look, if they’re inviting me and they know how I feel, I ought to go because their point of view is not nuanced and I don’t think it’s going to be good advice for the president to take,’” Vermund said. “I was going to tell him to do it intelligently and to definitely do lockdowns.”

What did unite the group — “the one thing all of us could agree on,” as Vermund put it — was a desire for more comprehensive testing.

On the day Ioannidis told the group he sent in the statement, there were signs the White House was backing away from lockdowns: Trump announced that he wanted the country “raring to go by Easter,” or April 12. (Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, hastened to add that the timeline was “really very flexible.”)

But as European nations issued extended lockdown orders and UK government officials warned they could last for up to six months, Trump changed course, extending the social distancing guidelines to the end of April. By the end of March, 32 states were telling people to stay at home.

“Given the about face yet again from the White House with new the [sic] 30 day plus national shut down, seems like our thoughts may have hit a wall and bounced back?” Klausner asked over email.


“Frustrating indeed,” Ioannidis replied. “I am still struggling to see whether we can find a way to get in the White House.”


Obtained by BuzzFeed News

But as days went by, it was clear that the highly anticipated meeting was not going to happen. The email thread died off.

White House spokesperson Sarah Matthews said that Trump “has always acted on the recommendations of his top public health experts throughout this crisis as evidenced by the many bold, data-driven decisions he has made to save millions of lives.”

She added, “As the President has also said, the cure cannot be worse than the disease and it’s well-documented the impact staying shut down would have, including suicide, substance abuse, and more.” She did not answer questions about whether Ioannidis’s theories influenced the president’s decision-making.
4. The Studies

As March turned to April, Ioannidis began collecting data to test the theory he’d been putting forward for weeks.

On April 3 and 4, more than 3,000 Silicon Valley residents lined up to have their blood drawn for a study overseen by Ioannidis, Bhattacharya, and other Stanford researchers. The goal was to look for antibodies indicating if they’d already been infected by the coronavirus.

On April 12, before they released their results, some of the team went on the Fox News show The Next Revolution to promote a “science-based” plan to reopen “safely, but soon.” Also on air with them that night was David Neeleman, the founder of JetBlue and a vocal opponent of lockdowns. Later, a whistleblower complaint filed to Stanford would reveal that he was an undisclosed sponsor of the research, and allege that he “potentially used financial incentives to secure cooperation from” an external scientist concerned about the study’s test.


FOX News / Via Twitter: @NextRevFNC

Clockwise, from left: Steve Hilton, host of The Next Revolution, study coauthors Jay Bhattacharya and Andrew Bogan, and entrepreneur David Neeleman, April 12.

When BuzzFeed News reported on the complaint in May, the airline executive denied that he influenced the study in any way or that he meant to pressure the scientist. Ioannidis also said that he did not know who had anonymously contributed funding through Stanford’s development office. But in a March 28 email to academics around the country, obtained by BuzzFeed News, Ioannidis mentioned that he and his eventual coauthors had “tentative interest frm [sic] a billionnaire [sic].”

Five days after the Fox News appearance, the antibody study went online as a non-peer-reviewed preprint. It reported that Silicon Valley’s number of infections was staggeringly higher — 50 to 85 times more — than the official count, putting the virus’s fatality rate as low as 0.12% to 0.2%. In the media, Ioannidis and other coauthors likened that rate to the flu’s. (It was later revised to 0.17%.)

The paper was berated by scientists for severe statistical and other problems — and feted on the right, which saw it as justification for reopening the economy. That day, Trump cheered on protesters making that demand at statehouses. “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” he tweeted. “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!”

And in May, Ioannidis presented a picture of the virus’s deadliness based on antibody study data from around the world, including his Stanford study. This preprint was roundly criticized for including groups of patients who don’t reflect the general public and, in earlier versions, omitting data from large groups with higher fatality rates, among other errors.


Ioannidis most recently pegs the true fatality rate at 0.27%. That’s significantly lower than 0.68%, an estimate produced by researchers in Australia. That work is cited by the WHO and the CDC.

Overall, these and other coronavirus studies he’s released have supported the theory he put forth in March: For most people, the virus is a minor threat. With this evidence in hand, Ioannidis has brushed off his critics.

Days after the antibody study was released, Ioannidis told the Wall Street Journal’s opinion section that people who made “big statements about ‘lockdowns save the world’” were “immature.” “It’s attacking studies with data based on speculation and science fiction,” he said. More recently, he has cited his research to claim that while lockdowns are dangerous, they may have been justified “initially,” without specifying a time frame.

In yet another paper last month, one of his 60-plus academic articles so far this year, Ioannidis this time took aim at incorrect COVID-19 predictions. He pointed out that hospitals had overestimated their numbers of coronavirus patients, to the detriment of others in need of care.

He did not mention a prediction of his own, made in March, that the coronavirus could cause 10,000 deaths in the US. As of late July, the death toll is above 140,000, higher than anywhere else in the world.

“Despite involving many excellent modelers, best intentions, and highly sophisticated tools,” Ioannidis wrote, “forecasting efforts have largely failed.”

He was right. ●


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Stephanie M. Lee is a science reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.
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Drink coffee for pleasure, not disease prevention, researchers say



Overall, research shows few health risks from consuming moderate amounts of coffee, researchers say. Photo by stokpic/Pixabay

Coffee has been tied to many potential health benefits, but people should drink it for pleasure, and not disease prevention.

That's one of the main conclusions of a new research review. In it, researchers give an overview of the evidence on coffee and caffeine -- the subjects of many health studies over the years.


"The impact of coffee consumption on health is important because there are few other dietary factors that so many people across the world are so frequently exposed to," said Rob van Dam, the lead author on the review.

And overall, his team found, the news is good for coffee lovers: Caffeinated coffee does not appear to raise any disease risks, and is instead linked to lower odds of various diseases. And moderate doses of caffeine are generally safe for most people.

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"Moderate" is the key, however. Too much caffeine can disrupt sleep or make people jittery.

"The amount of caffeine that leads to unpleasant side effects varies greatly from person to person," said van Dam, a professor at the National University of Singapore.

He suggested people pay attention to whether caffeine seems to affect their ability to fall asleep or lead to "agitation or anxiety." If it does, van Dam said, "they can adapt their level of intake or timing of intake during the day."

RELATED Coffee improves focus, but not creativity

That's the advice for most adults. Pregnant women, however, should be particularly careful about caffeine intake. Based on the evidence, van Dam's team said, they should limit themselves to no more than 200 milligrams of caffeine a day.

That's roughly the amount in 12 ounces of coffee.

For nonpregnant people, van Dam said that up to five 8-ounce cups of coffee a day may be fine, depending on a person's caffeine tolerance.

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Lauri Wright is chair of nutrition and dietetics at the University of North Florida, and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

"There's been so much back-and-forth over the years about whether caffeine is good or bad," said Wright, who was not involved in the review. "So it's good to come back to the evidence."

In general, studies show that despite caffeine's bad reputation as a stimulant, caffeinated coffee does not seem to raise the risk of developing high blood pressure -- or worsen existing blood pressure problems.

In fact, coffee consumption has been linked to lower risks of developing heart disease, as well as other serious conditions. The list includes type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, Parkinson's disease, liver disease and gallstones, according to the review.

None of those studies, however, prove that coffee -- or caffeine -- are responsible for the lower risks, Wright said. She agreed with the report's conclusion that people should not rely on java to prevent any diseases.

"But coffee and caffeine can be part of a healthy lifestyle," Wright said.

There is a question over whether filtered coffee -- from a drip coffee maker, for instance -- is healthier than unfiltered. The latter includes espresso, boiled coffee and coffee made by French press, for example.

According to van Dam, research shows that unfiltered coffee can raise blood cholesterol levels.

Wright, however, said "what you put into the coffee is what really matters, rather than whether it's filtered or unfiltered." That is, avoid loading that coffee cup with sugar and cream.

"Some of these coffee drinks people buy are more like milk shakes," Wright said.

There are other sources of dietary caffeine, including tea, sodas and chocolate. For the most part, though, they contain low amounts, Wright said.

Two exceptions, she noted, are energy drinks and "shots," which can contain as much or more caffeine than a cup of coffee. High intake of those beverages can cause spikes in blood pressure and heart palpitations, according to the review.

Caffeine can also interact with certain medications. If people have questions about their medications, Wright said, they can talk to their pharmacist.

The review was published July 23 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

More information

The Harvard School of Public Health has more on coffee and health.

Copyright 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.


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One-quarter of drugs approved by FDA had reviewer objections


Of 174 drugs approved by the FDA between 2011 and 2015, 35 passed muster despite disagreement over various requirements. Photo courtesy FDA

July 24 (UPI) -- Roughly one in four drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had at least one reviewer express concerns over their use, according to an analysis published Friday by JAMA Network Open.

Of 174 drugs approved by the agency between 2011 and 2015, 35 passed muster despite disagreement over requirements for post-approval safety evaluations or wording on their labels, the researchers said.

Twelve, or 7%, received approval even though at least one of the reviewers objected, while 10, or just under 6%, were allowed to go to market despite of concerns over the types of patients for whom they should be used, they said.

"We don't know whether these disagreements represent a red flag [regarding the safety of the drugs]," co-author Matthew Herder, director of the Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University in Canada, told UPI.

The internal debate, however, is a "good thing" because it is an indication of stringency of the review process, he said.

The data for every drug evaluated by the FDA is, in most cases, reviewed by dozens of agency executives and scientists, Harder and his colleagues said.

In addition to assessing safety and effectiveness information gleaned from clinical trials, reviewers evaluate drug labels for accuracy and set parameters for marketing, according to the FDA.

Agency reviewers also establish guidelines for large-scale clinical trials that may be conducted after a drug is approved to ensure that it is still safe.

Of the drug approvals reviewed by Harder and his colleagues, the most common conditions they were designed to treat were cancer, with 46 medications, and infectious diseases, with 27.

The FDA was the first major regulatory agency to issue approval for 118 medications during that period, said the researchers, who took on the analysis because of the U.S. agency's "influence ... on other regulators," including its counterpart north of the border, Health Canada.
There were 155 registered disagreements on the 174 approved drugs, Harder and his colleagues said.

Among the 12 cases of disagreement over the drug's approval, 11 of the products were ultimately cleared for use with a "post-marketing requirement" or a risk evaluation and management strategy, they said.

"Disagreements about whether to approve a drug ... and whether to place any restrictions on its use -- are relatively common at the FDA, which reveals how complex these regulatory decisions can be," Harder said.

"The problem, however, is that these disagreements may soon disappear, because in the last year or so, the FDA has changed how it documents and carries out its reviews" by, among other things, no longer reporting objections from reviewers publicly, he said.


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WMO: Portions of Arctic warmer than Florida this season

Photo of a wildfire burning in a boreal forest in the Krasnoyarsk region of Russia, Aug. 1, 2019. The Arctic Circle is experiencing a prolonged heatwave, fueling new wildfires in Siberia and other regions of the Arctic Circle this year, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Photo by the Russian Federation Service Aviation Forest Protection/EPA-EFE

July 24 (UPI) -- The World Meteorological Organization said Friday that "exceptional and prolonged" high temperatures in the Arctic have fueled wildfires for a second straight year, threatening the polar bear population and increasing sea ice melt.

Some parts of Siberia have seen temperatures as high as 86 degrees, making it warmer than some parts of Florida, the organization's representative Clare Nullis said during a news conference in Geneva.

On June 20, the Russian town of Verkhoyansk, which is located just inside the Arctic Circle, reached 100.4 degrees.

"We've had exceptional and prolonged heat for months now and this has fueled devastating Arctic fires, and at the same time we're seeing rapidly decreasing sea coverage along the Arctic coast," Nullis said.

Nullis blamed carbon emissions for the increase, which since January is at its highest point in the 18 years the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service has kept records on the region. There is also a persistent northward swing of the jet stream that has also sent warm air into the region.

"The Arctic is heating more than twice as fast as the global average, impacting local populations and ecosystems and with global repercussions," Nullis said.

Verkhoyansk, which is 3,000 miles east of Moscow, is known for having wild swings in temperatures. In the winter, it has recorded temperatures of minus 50 degrees, making it one of the coldest places on Earth.

Nullis said the polar bear population could become nearly extinct by the end of the century as ice melt continues. The animals depend on the unique Arctic ecosystem to survive.

In May, scientists said "zombie fire," blazes that have smoldered underground in the Arctic after last year's fire season, had erupted again above the surface in Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia.

Wildfires from Alaska to Siberia burned thousands of acres in the region last year.

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