Vanity Fair reports that Jared Kushner, President Trumps son-in-law and advisor, developed a plan to dramatically and rapidly ramp up testing for the cornavirus. A combination of bureaucratic incompetence, political expediency, and intellectual dishonesty caused that plan to be abandoned. Rather than have states fight each other for scarce diagnostic tests and limited lab capacity,…
Government officials frequently tell us that they are “following the science.” While this may make their decisions seem objective, philosopher Ben Bayer argues that the specialized science–including medicine–don’t settle questions of value. Only the science of morality does that. If we are to move forward, we need leaders who are willing to guide their decisions…
In an article on The Hill, Onkar Ghate and Elan Journo explain why the government must develop and implement a pandemic testing strategy. It is the only strategy that protects individual liberty while effectively dealing with a pandemic. “Test, isolate and track” should be the government’s mantra in a pandemic. To protect individual rights, its…
Nobelist Paul Romer details many of the ways that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) policies hampered the response to the coronavirus. This sampling belies the claim that FDA regulations save lives. It might be time to review the massive damage that the FDA is doing by restricting the supply and use of tests for…
Philosopher Ben Bayer provides a succinct and provoking summary of “A Pro-Freedom Approach to Infectious Disease: Preparing for the Next Pandemic.” America is allegedly the land of the free. But since March, millions have lived under statewide mandatory lockdowns. As the lockdowns are being lifted, we should reflect on how to approach any resurgence of…
In late March, Dr. David Katz questioned whether the lockdown was worse than the disease. In a New York Times OpEd, he wrote: A pivot right now from trying to protect all people to focusing on the most vulnerable remains entirely plausible. With each passing day, however, it becomes more difficult. The path we are…
For years, Americans watched in horror as Venezuela steadily descended from Latin America’s most prosperous nation to abject poverty. Many wondered, how could this happen? The essential reason is: The Venezuelan government, led first by Hugo Chavez and then by Nicholas Maduro, seized control of the nation’s production and trade. Beginning in 1999, the government…
In this article, philosopher Ben Bayer exposes the politicization of the coronavirus pandemic. He notes that both the response to the virus and the reporting of it have ignored the facts, including the destruction that the lockdown has caused. In the midst of a pandemic, journalists were throwing around large numbers from obscure studies they…
The COVID-19 pandemic and the responses to it from both business and government have dominated the headlines and overwhelmed our lives for months. In dealing with the wide-ranging effects of both the disease and the steps being taken to fight it, there’s a need to take a step back and survey the situation with a…