Surgeon General built career on loneliness research before pushing lockdowns, quarantines

What’s inside?

• Surgeon general spent years promoting the effect of mental illness on physical health, only to then downplay the effects of lockdowns, quarantines and mask and school vaccine mandates on mental health
• Claimed the word lockdown is a “misnomer” because trips to the grocery and hospitals were allowed
• Continued supporting restrictions after evidence emerged that they caused “biggest mental health crisis ever seen”
• Declared opposing medical views to be “dangerous”
• Uses militaristic approach to censor opposing views
• Gave May 2, 2022 deadline to tech companies to turn over sources of “health misinformation”
• Made personal fortune from “consultations” and speaking fees that allows his family to survive lockdowns in luxury

The current Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, although a staunch supporter of lockdowns and quarantines, actually specializes in studying and warning of the detrimental effects of loneliness. 

Surgeon general believes mental problems can cause physical problems

Murthy even appeared on television and radio to promote the importance of tackling loneliness.  He has published numerous articles on the subject since at least as early as 2017, and, in April 2020, published a book entitled, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World on the role of loneliness as a “negative amplifier of many health conditions.” In the pages of this book, 

Murthy argues that loneliness is the underpinning to the current crisis in mental wellness and is responsible for the upsurge in suicide, the opioid epidemic, the overuse of psych meds, the over-diagnosing and pathologizing of emotional and psychological struggle. 

In a November 2020 “Quarantine Tapes” Podcast entitled Dr. Vivek Murthy on the Health Impacts of Loneliness, Murthy described the impact of loneliness on physical health.

It turns out people who struggle with loneliness have a higher risk of heart disease and premature death, of depression and anxiety, dementia, and a host of other conditions. All of this to say that loneliness is more than a bad feeling. It’s something that has a profound impact on our health, our performance, and our sense of fulfillment.

And those detrimental physical effects take place specifically when the loneliness is “prolonged”.

. . . it’s when that loneliness is prolonged, when it lasts for a while, that’s when we start to see some of these physical and mental health consequences arise.

Murthy went so far as to say that combating loneliness is necessary “for survival”.

. . . loneliness is a natural signal that all of us experience at some point in our lives, and it’s a natural signal like hunger or thirst that crops up in our body when we are lacking something we need for survival. And in this case, that is social connection.

But lockdowns OK

When asked by NPR, in November 2020, about lockdowns, Murthy defended them as not being as draconian as they sound as they were only “so to speak” lockdowns since citizens were allowed out for brief periods of time. He even added that the government should have the authority to heighten and lower the severity of lockdowns like a “switch”.

. . . the word lockdown itself is a bit of a misnomer. When we locked down, so to speak, in the spring, we didn't say, just stay in your house and don't go anywhere. We still allowed and, in fact, recognized it was important for people to be able to go to the grocery store, to go to hospitals if they needed to. 

So I think the more important way for us to think about restrictions is not as a switch that we flip up and down, but more as a dial that we increase and decrease as the situation dictates.

Nonetheless, the media labeled Murthy as having a “measured” approach to lockdowns because he claimed to favor employing them "with the precision of a scalpel rather than the blunt force of an ax." 

Murthy likewise continues to support the most severe type of isolation of children, quarantines, advocating for the CDC’s current 5-day quarantine rule.

Mask Mandates also OK

Murthy also has no problem with universal mask mandates, even in the absence of an outbreak, making them part of his 3 point plan to save America from COVID, despite the fact that social interactions suffer from mask mandates, thus putting children at greater risk of loneliness.

Murthy even clarified that the mask mandate applies to children in school, regardless of their parents’ opinions on the possible deleterious effects of those masks on their children’s physical and mental health, since, ”all the time … we require people [including children] to do things for the better good.”

Vaccine Mandates also OK

Murthy also has no problem with vaccine mandates, despite the fact that children subject to school vaccine mandates who are unwilling or unable to receive the mRNA injection will be barred from school and may even be socially ostracized, again increasing the risk of loneliness. 

Even after the US Supreme Court held a federal vaccine mandate for large private businesses to be unconstitutional, in January 2022, Murthy pressed for its continuation, calling the decision a "setback for public health."

Earlier, in November 2021, Murthy defended the use of vaccine mandates in schools as being “not new,” without mentioning the difference between traditional vaccinations and the mRNA injection. “We've had requirements in various settings in our country since the founding of the United States of America, including in schools since the 1800s.”

Opposing medical views as the “real danger”

In his webpage entitled, “Current Priorities of the U.S. Surgeon General,” all four of Murthy’s priorities are COVID-related: 

1. COVID itself
2. Healthcare worker stress from COVID
3. Youth Mental Health 
4. Health Misinformation about COVID

The Youth Mental Health priority claims “COVID-19 added to pre-existing challenges that youth faced” without clarifying that it was the government restrictions in response to COVID that added to their challenges.

More shocking, though, the surgeon general included misinformation about COVID, i.e., differing medical views, as a priority, asserting that it’s “dangerous” to follow views other than the official view on vaccines, masks, alternative treatments and diets. 

False or misleading information is causing people to make decisions that could have dangerous consequences for their health. Misinformation about diseases, illnesses, potential treatments and cures, vaccines, diets, and cosmetic procedures is especially harmful. 

For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic misinformation has caused people to decline COVID-19 vaccines, reject public health measures such as masking and physical distancing, and use unproven treatments.

May 2, 2022 deadline to turn over sources of “health misinformation”

In March 2022, Murthy followed up on his July 2021 advisory calling for a "whole-of-society" effort to combat the "urgent threat to public health" posed by "health misinformation." with a request to tech companies to turn over data on "COVID-19 misinformation" including its sources, by May 2.

In Vivek Murthy's Demand for Data on COVID 'Misinformation' Is Part of a Creepy Crusade to Suppress Dissent, Jacob Sullum explains that,

The surgeon general's definition of misinformation includes statements that are arguably or verifiably true…

Remember that "what counts as misinformation can change over time." So if you questioned the evidence in favor of general masking during the first few months of the pandemic, that was not misinformation, because it was consistent with the CDC's position at the time. It was also consistent with advice from Murthy's predecessor as surgeon general, Jerome Adams, who in February 2020 declared that masks "are NOT effective in preventing [the] general public from catching" COVID-19. But after the CDC began recommending general masking on April 4, 2020, saying anything like that suddenly became misinformation…

While lockdowns are thankfully behind us, the debate about them presumably also would have triggered Murthy's concerns … If you expressed skepticism about the empirical basis for such edicts, which were often arbitrary and medically dubious, you could easily have been found guilty of contradicting the "scientific consensus" based on the "best available evidence" at the time.

How the federal government enforces censorship

The notion that dissent from the official line on public health issues should be treated as an "urgent threat" to be addressed by a "whole-of-society" crusade, possibly including "legal and regulatory measures," is fundamentally illiberal and inconsistent with freedom of speech. 

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki describes the administration's demands for suppression of "misinformation" as "asks." But that characterization is risible given the power that the executive branch wields over the companies whose "cooperation" it is seeking. Censorship by proxy is still censorship.

While Murthy himself has no power to compel disclosure of that information, the companies have strong incentives to cooperate, since the Biden administration can make life difficult for them by filing lawsuits, writing regulations, and supporting new legislation. 

Militaristic approach

Murthy is not called the surgeon “general” by accident. As Frontline News covered in, ‘War' against virus used to justify censorship, loss of sovereignty and individual rights, the militarization of public health, including military uniforms for the surgeon general and his staff, is an intentional use of war imagery to justify imposing the government force for lockdowns, quarantines, mass immunizations and resource control just as a draft by force is necessary to protect the greater good in an actual war. 

Consistent with this approach, Murthy contends,

I think the principle of freedom, when it comes to health, but in general, is a very important one … But keep in mind, we are a community of 300 million people. We are not sole individuals entirely on our own. In any community, sometimes our decisions do affect other people.

If this logic is not challenged, Murthy can use it to justify any measure taking away an individual’s freedom and then, when the basis on which the decision was made is challenged as unscientific, he can employ the federal government’s vast powers to censor such challenges and punish those who espouse them.

Murthy’s personal fortune allows his family to survive lockdowns in luxury

As part of his Senate confirmation process, Murthy disclosed a total of 1.7 million dollars in consulting fees he charged after leaving his role as surgeon general under the Obama administration, including $547,500 from Netflix and hundreds of thousands more from Airbnb, Carnival Cruise Line, Estee Lauder and other private companies. This was in addition to additional hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from dozens of organizations and universities. 

Children living in this kind of wealth certainly enjoy resources to alleviate the difficulties of lockdowns that their less advantaged peers lack, from having a spacious, well equipped home and estate grounds that allow them to not feel “cooped up” inside, to the ability to spend the lockdown at an out-of-town resort.

“Biggest mental health crisis I’ve ever seen”

So while Murthy’s immediate family may be doing well mentally, lots aren’t. As one mental health counselor put it, “We’ve been involved in what I consider the biggest mental health crisis I’ve ever seen. This crisis has not missed our kids.”

You might not hear about this worsening crisis on mainstream news, though, as NPR and various other outlets put out the message, “Why the children's mental health crisis isn't new.”