Doctor who blundered public health appointed to top public health role
A physician and media health expert who misled the public throughout the pandemic has been appointed dean of the Yale School of Public Health, the university announced January 31st.
Dr. Megan Ranney, a practicing emergency physician and deputy dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, was one of the chief advocates for COVID-19 policies and restrictions which later turned out to be unscientific and harmful to public health.
In March 2020 Ranney began pushing for lockdowns. She appeared on CBS Evening News to tell the public that “the first and biggest thing people at home can do is truly to stay home.”
“I know how difficult social distancing is,” she continued. “But if you stay home you can stop the spread of this virus.”
As studies have conclusively shown, not only did stay-at-home orders have “little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted.” The mental and emotional fallout from lockdowns — particularly on children — is still unfolding.
But as late as March 2022, Ranney was still defending lockdowns.
“The preventive measures that we in health care and the government put in place to reduce infections (lockdowns, briefly, when there was no other option; and then masks, ventilation, testing, vaccines, treatment) allowed a modicum of functioning during the worst months,” she wrote for the Washington Post in March 2022.
Ranney was one of the “public health experts” mainstream media used to drive COVID-19 alarmism and the pandemic’s agenda. She was branded a “superhero” and received public praise from pop icon Katy Perry. She was trotted out by CNN, CBS, NPR, BBC, ABC and Axios, among other news outlets and local publications.
Another ill-advised policy espoused by Ranney was mask-wearing, which the physician confidently claimed stops the coronavirus.
“Masks work. Full stop. They prevent me from spreading SARS-CoV-2 to you, and prevent you from spreading disease to me,” she tweeted in July 2021.
But a meta-analysis conducted by the Cochran Institute — considered the “gold standard of evidence-based reviews” — has concluded that surgical masks and even N95 or P2 respirators offer little protection against COVID-19, if at all. Researchers reviewed 78 global studies involving over a million people. Significantly, the studies reviewed were randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies, considered to be high-quality research and the scientific optimum.
Ranney was also among those who pushed heavily for child COVID-19 injections, particularly for infants and toddlers, claiming that the vaccine provides more protection than natural immunity.
Last month, Yale University announced Ranney will assume deanship of the Yale School of Public Health on July 1st.
“A recipient of numerous awards for her teaching, research, and community service, Professor Ranney is looking forward to drawing on her extensive career experiences to lead the Yale School of Public Health,” Yale President Peter Salovey said in a statement that cited Ranney’s backing from the federal government. “She will work with colleagues and students to set a bold and inclusive vision for the future of public health.”
Ranney is not the only physician to be appointed to a high office in public health after destroying public trust in health institutions.
Ranney’s former boss, then-Brown University School of Public Health Dean Dr. Ashish Jha, is considered the “Founding Father of Lockdowns” and partly responsible for the “two weeks to flatten the curve” strategy.
Along with Ranney, the mainstream media anointed Jha as the COVID “expert”, despite not being a virologist, vaccinologist or immunologist, and showered him with attention.
“He has been one of the most publicly visible public health experts in America, appearing on networks and shows from Newsmax to MSNBC to Sesame Street,” reports the Daily Caller. “In the first 14 months of the pandemic, despite not being a virologist, immunologist or vaccinologist, Jha either appeared or was cited on television news more than 60,000 times, according to TVEyes. He was making 10-12 TV appearances per day at his peak. He claims to have, at one point, been receiving more than 100 media requests per day.”
Jha also pushed for masking children, even urging Democratic governors who began to lift mask mandates to keep kids masked, despite being the lowest-risk age group.
But despite his love for lockdowns, Jha maintained that the Black Lives Matter protests and gatherings in 2020 were justified, because racism carries with it “a serious risk and grave public health cost".
Jha has also been a staunch advocate of vaccine mandates, particularly to permit flying.
Last year, Biden tapped Jha as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator. There, Jha continues to provide ill advice to the public, most recently by telling people to get their COVID-19 and flu shots at the same time.
“The good news is you can get both your flu shot and COVID shot at the same time. It’s actually a good idea. I really believe this is why God gave us two arms — one for the flu shot and the other one for the COVID shot,” he said in September.
But an FDA analysis of seniors who received both the flu shot and Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot at the same time recently showed that doing so may raise the risk of strokes.
