Careful Which Health Experts You Follow—Many are Charlatans

America has a long history of misology (hatred of knowledge). Our anti-intellectual streak goes back to the colonial days, with the lynch mob murders of accused witches, and our forebears’ love of snake oil, and it continues to this day with climate-deniers, anti-vaxxers, and most of all with President Trump and his followers.

Perhaps at no time in our lives, though, as there been a greater urgency for reason, and evidence to support it. Yet quacks, fakes and posers are coming out of the woodwork to tell us that it’s safe to go back to school and work, that Covid-19 is just a “bad flu,” that maybe we can just inject bleach or irradiate ourselves to overcome this plague.

So How Do We Distinguish Real Experts From Fakes?

Sophisticated thinkers know to examine the credentials of so-called experts to determine whether they have standing or credibility on the subject. Obviously, if both a pharmacist and a basketball star are discussing the safety and effectiveness of a prescription medicine, the pharmacist has more  expertise on the subject. But we need more than credentials to really trust an expert. Scientists and doctors are humans. They are subject to the same biases, fears, and political, economic and religious influences that affect the rest of us. Consider the scientists who’ve shilled for Big Tobacco.

I have an acquaintance with a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who has done years of biomedical research, who told me that “the stats” indicate Covid-19 is like a “new flu,” not a “virus of unparalleled danger.” Clearly, this is someone who should know better. The absurdity of his statement is obvious when one considers that in a bad flu season (Oct-April), 60,000 Americans die, but Covid-19 has already killed 80,000 Americans in just 3 months.

Is he stupid? No. Does he want his personal liberty restored? Yes. He told me as much.

What I think is happening is that he is cherry picking his evidence and experts to support his desires. This is known as the Fallacy of Incomplete Evidence, and it’s completely understandable, even sympathetic, at a time like this, as it gives one the perception of safety and security when surrounded by so much fear and uncertainty.

Much less sympathetic are all the charlatans and snake oil peddlers making it onto mainstream media, since they are potentially tricking millions of Americans into supporting or doing dangerous and stupid things.

Dr. David Katz is one of these quacks and he has found success on both right wing Fox and liberal Bill Maher’s Real Time show on HBO, precisely because his lies and distortions promote hope that the worst of our fears are unwarranted and that it is safe to return to our normal lives.

Katz sounds like he has valid credentials. The Bill Maher program starts by discussing his volunteer work at a front line Bronx Covid ward, and the fact he’s a Yale professor and physician. However, about 20% of the way into the broadcast, they flashed on the screen that he is founder and CEO of Diet ID Inc., which ought to draw everyone’s suspicions. When I looked deeper into who this Katz character was, I discovered that the overwhelming bulk of his professional career has been dedicated to nutrition and how lifestyle influences health, not the epidemiology of infectious diseases. Another red flag is that he promotes himself with 5 or more acronyms after his name. Nobody who is really good at what they do bothers to mention the lesser degrees and affiliations. At a certain point in one’s career, the high school diploma and bachelor’s degree gets dropped. More importantly, nobody who is really good at what they do has time for 5 fields of expertise.

This is an example of the False Authority Fallacy. David Katz is so desperate to get us to trust him that he tacks acronyms and degrees onto his name like medals on a general's breast. But he is NOT an authority on infectious diseases, nor pandemics.

But let’s look at the meat of what he has to say, since one doesn’t have to be an expert to have something valid to say.

Like Trump, Boris Johnson and many Wall Street leaders, he has suggested that the “cure is worse than the disease.”

Worse for whom?

The “Cure” of sheltering in place is bad for profits, but it will also save thousands, possibly millions of lives. How could staying home from work and surviving be worse than going to work and dying?

He argues that flattening the curve doesn’t reduce the number of deaths; it only delays when people die. This is a Straw Man Fallacy (defeating an argument that was never made; vanquishing a false enemy). The primary goal of flattening the curve is to reduce the burden on hospitals and the medical system so they aren’t overloaded and can continue treat patients, not to prevent deaths. So, to claim it doesn’t reduce deaths is blaming it for something it was never intended to do, at least not as its primary objective.

However, flattening the curve does save lives indirectly, because when the medical system is overloaded, people die from neglect and abandonment, as happened in NY, Italy, Spain, even Detroit, where patients were triaged and allowed to die because there weren’t enough hospital beds and ventilators. So, flattening the curve does save some lives, even if that isn’t the main goal.

He says that flattening the curve doesn’t allow people to gain immunity, but there’s no indication that people gain any lasting, robust immunity to this disease. It may turn out they do, but so far, the data does not show this to be the case. Low level, short-term immunity might be enough to slow down the pandemic, or it might not. We won’t know for a long time, probably years. Therefore, letting the disease run rampant could result in millions of deaths. That’s just plain cruel and, for young people like Dr. Katz, selfish, too, since he’s less likely to die from it. But it’s also stupid and short-sighted, because if millions of people get sick, even healthy young people with mild cases will still suffer from mass shortages and possibly famine.

Bill Maher, his interviewer, says that Sweden, which did not implement strong social distancing policies, had numbers that weren’t much different from countries that locked down, but this is not true. If you look at the data from Worldometer (as of 5/8/2020) Sweden had 314 deaths/million people and 2500 infections/million people, more than triple the mortality of Denmark, and nearly 8x the mortality of Norway. (Denmark had 90 deaths/million people and 1764 infections/million people. Norway had 40 deaths/million people and 1489 infections/million people. And Finland had 47 deaths/million people and 1036 infections/million people. Clearly, Sweden is being hit much harder than its neighbors who implemented social distancing policies.

In his attempt to get us all to relax and learn to love Covid-19, Katz says “There are risks we willing take on each day.” This is another fallacy. Sure, we take risks getting into car or planes, but it’s our own choice, not one forced upon us by the president, our employer, or our desperation to put food on the table. We could choose to take public transit, instead, which is much safer than driving ourselves, or choose not to vacation by plane. Also, a good driver has a lot more control over their own safety than they do in the workplace, where so much of their safety depends on the boss’ willingness to provide safety equipment, and on coworkers respecting safety and social distancing protocols.

Katz argues that people should be allowed back to work because “We don’t want to destroy people’s lives and livelihoods.”

Of course not, but it is not an either/or choice. We should be looking first at people’s survival needs. Contrary to common belief, work and income are not necessary for survival. Food, housing, and medicine are. These 3 necessities can be given to people, even in a system that lacks money or “work.” People’s jobs, businesses, lifestyles, can be rebuilt after the pandemic is over. Dead people cannot be brought back to life. More importantly, though, if too many people get sick or die, everyone’s survival is threatened anyway. This is why suppression of the pandemic is necessary.

Katz suggests that we should all want to get the disease and get over it so we’re immune and can go out, live our lives, without worry, but there is no evidence that people who’ve recovered from Covid-19 have robust, lasting immunity that protects them from catching it again. Worse, there IS evidence that the newer mutant strain that evolved in Europe and has become the dominant strain worldwide, is both more infectious AND makes people prone to 2^nd infections.

His “middle road” hypothesis of only protecting the most vulnerable, and forcing the rest of us back to school and work, is based on the premise that both extremes are wrong (i.e., letting the pandemic run its course, unmitigated, versus a complete lockdown). This notion is NOT supported by scientific data, which shows that 20% of hospitalizations in the U.S. are among people aged 20-44,  and that people from any age group can die. It is premised on the cynical and selfish idea that it’s okay to sacrifice people other than himself, since he presumably wouldn’t die due his youthfulness and good health.

The “middle road” hypothesis is based on another fallacy, that extremism is inherently bad and that moderation is inherently preferable. This is the same argument that gets millions of Americans to vote for the “lesser evil” every four years, instead of for what they really want.

So, are the extremes in this case inherently bad?

Well, locking things down has resulted 30 million unemployed Americans, and mass hunger, despair, fear and uncertainty. The quality of education online is most likely worse than if kids were able to learn in person. But the other extreme of sending them back into schools and workplaces while the pandemic is still running rampant, without PPE, mass testing, contact tracing and quarantines, is genocidal. It will cause infections and mortality rates to skyrocket. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions will die.

Is Katz’ “middle road” the best alternative? NO! 

First, what does he even mean by protecting the most vulnerable? Will everyone over 70, or with an underlying health condition be allowed to continue sheltering in place? If so, that’s a lot of people. Obesity is a risk factor for dying from Covid-19. There are 70 million obese Americans, nearly a quarter of the population. There are 34 million Americans with diabetes and nearly half of all Americans have heart disease. If all of them continue to shelter in place, how much more productive would the economy become?

Katz argues that the middle way minimizes deaths and averts economic ruin. But it doesn’t. Any return to work without first having significant declines in infections, and ongoing testing, contact tracing, quarantines, risks causing new surges in infections and deaths, and potentially far worse economic outcomes than we’ve seen so far. We could easily get to a point where the economy collapses purely from too many people being sick to work and shop.

Extremism is not inherently a bad thing. We are in the worst crisis the world has experience in generations. When all is said and done, this pandemic could turn out to be far deadlier, and far more economically devastating than the Spanish flu. Under such conditions, extremism is exactly what’s needed. It’s the only possible way to slow this thing down and possibly stop it.  Furthermore, if we did ramp up testing to weekly universal tests, combined with contact tracing and quarantines, we could theoretically isolate the vast majority of infections and stop the pandemic that way, or at least slow it down long enough to allow us back to work and give scientists the time to find a vaccine to prevent future outbreaks.