As of now, at least 40 U.S. colleges are still requiring a COVID vaccine, as reported by nocollegemandates.com, an organization that monitors and opposes these mandates.
Martin Kulldorff, a renowned professor of medicine and biostatistician who was terminated from Harvard University for refusing the vaccine despite having previously recovered from a COVID infection, has criticized these mandates as “unscientific” and “unethical.” Although Harvard has since rescinded the mandate, Kulldorff’s employment status at the Harvard-affiliated hospital, which requires a COVID vaccine for its medical school faculty, remains uncertain.
Kulldorff, the creator of an early disease outbreak surveillance software system, was also removed from the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine safety commission and frequently censored on social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube due to his contrarian views. Former NIH Director Francis Collins dismissed him and his colleagues from the Great Barrington Declaration as “fringe epidemiologists” and called for a swift and severe rebuttal to their proposal to end lockdowns in favor of a “focused protection” approach.
Kulldorff recently appeared on Reason‘s Just Asking Questions podcast, hosted by Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe, to discuss his experiences at Harvard, his reflections on the pandemic and the societal and governmental responses to it, and his involvement in the ongoing Supreme Court case Murthy v. Missouri, where plaintiffs argue that federal agencies violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media platforms to censor certain COVID-19 content.
For the full conversation, you can watch it on Reason‘s YouTube channel or listen to the Just Asking Questions podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.
Sources mentioned during the discussion:
- List of U.S. colleges with and without vaccine mandates on NoCollegeMandates.com’s Google Sheet
- CDC’s COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Group
- Archived tweet from Kulldorff
- Comparison of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated U.S. COVID deaths on Our World in Data
- Article on “Sweden during the pandemic” by Johan Norberg
- Research on “Serious adverse events of special interest following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in randomized trials in adults” here
- Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo’s recommendation on COVID vaccines
- FDA and CDC’s response to Ladapo’s recommendation
- Article on “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” by John P. A. Ioannidis
Timestamps for the podcast:
0:00—Status of colleges requiring COVID vaccines
2:17—Kulldorff’s experience at Harvard
5:57—Critique of vaccine mandates
7:54—Rationale behind vaccinating children
11:30—Challenges faced as a dissenting voice at Harvard
14:00—Dismissal from CDC for pro-vaccine stance
19:25—Differing impacts of vaccines on individuals
21:33—Online censorship for expressing opinions
25:54—Ineffectiveness of masks during the pandemic
28:29—Lack of accountability for COVID response
30:31—Protection of First Amendment rights
36:21—Approach taken by Sweden during the pandemic
42:19—Role of healthcare system in reducing COVID deaths
44:25—Explanation of jawboning
47:20—Optimal public health use of mRNA vaccines
50:22—Reliability of COVID vaccine data
55:32—Recommendations for COVID policy now
59:16—Potential flaws in the peer-review process
1:03:24—Accountability of politicians for COVID policies
