Special Episode: A Conversation with Dr. John Ioannidis

Special episode alert!
Dr. John Ioannidis: Critical of the Covid response, praiseful of vaccines, and hopeful data will rebuild our broken trust.     

Dr. John Ioannidis is a renowned epidemiologist at Stanford University, a champion of data, and a stalwart for evidence-based research. 

Not afraid to ruffle feathers, rock the boat, or insert your idiomatic expression here, Ioannidis, true to form, set the scientific world afire in the earliest days of the pandemic when he criticized the public health community's rush to shut down schools and businesses without more reliable data on how severe the virus would become. This, as expected, raised the ire of the public health establishment, which criticized his downplaying of an unfolding pandemic that would ultimately claim 1.1 million American lives.

Now, the unicorn part: Today, while believing that aspects of our response to the pandemic did more harm than good, he is staunchly pro-vaccine, believes the COVID vaccine was a triumph of science, and has zero interest in pointing fingers of blame. Dr. Ioannidis also states unequivocally that vaccines do not cause autism and that treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine have not been proven to work on COVID, often drawing ire from those who are skeptical of mainstream science.

With all this as a prologue, what does he think about the outbreak of mistrust that is consuming America today? We discuss how he believes we can find common ground, focus on the real threats we face (e.g., conflicts of interest in scientific research), and rebuild trust in one another.

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett

Guest:
Dr. John Ioannidis

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Chapters

• 0:55 Who is Dr John Ioannidis?
• 2:43 Maggie on Ioannidis Take on Covid Response
• 4:35 Interview with Dr Ioannidis Begins
• 5:12 Dissident Science vs. Mainstream Science
• 9:57 Ioannidis: Mistrust in Science is Getting Worse
• 11:09 Ioannidis: People Aren't Happy. They Feel Marginalized.
• 15:15 How To Respond to False Vaccine Claims Without Insulting People
• 19:59 The Role of Data in Science and How to Use it Properly
• 23:40 The Pandemic: The Famous Ioannidis Article that Set Off a Storm
• 36:31 Ioannidis: The Covid Response Was Too One-Size Fits All
• 39:02 The Great Barrington Declaration: Why Ioannidis Didn't Sign It
• 43:59 RFK Jr and New Public Health Era: Status Quo Disruption or Further Polarization?
• 46:32 How To Regain Trust in Science and Public Health
• 48:43 Concerns About Revolving Door Between FDA and Industry
• 54:04 Death During Covid
• 56:24 Outro