NIH Director Francis Collins urges 'quick and devastating takedown' of Great Barrington Declaration
An October 8, 2020 email from NIH Director Francis Collins to NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, later obtained through FOIA, called for a 'quick and devastating published takedown' of the Great Barrington Declaration authored by Bhattacharya, Kulldorff, and Gupta.
On October 8, 2020, four days after the Great Barrington Declaration was published by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford), Dr. Martin Kulldorff (Harvard), and Dr. Sunetra Gupta (Oxford), NIH Director Francis Collins emailed NIAID Director Anthony Fauci calling the authors 'three fringe epidemiologists' and requesting 'a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises.' The email, obtained via FOIA by the American Institute for Economic Research and reported by the Wall Street Journal in December 2021, was later cited in Missouri v. Biden as evidence of government efforts to suppress dissenting scientific speech. Kulldorff was subsequently terminated from Harvard-affiliated Mass General Brigham in November 2021 after declining COVID vaccination, and removed from CDC advisory panels.