Update: Gonsalves (aka '4G') has been scalped, and has deleted his account since this article was originally published.
Former White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted in a congressional deposition last week that the federal government’s COVID guidance for six-feet social distancing was not based on scientific evidence, stating under oath “it sort of just appeared.” Fauci's testimony came during the second day of his closed-door deposition before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and echoed a similar comment made by former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb.
"The six feet rule was arbitrary in and of itself," Dr. Gottlieb said during a September 2021 appearance on "Face the Nation" while discussing COVID guidance. "Nobody knows where it came from. The six feet is a perfect example of sort of the lack of rigor of how CDC made recommendations."
Curious to see who had promoted this arbitrary rule that “sort of just appeared”, I began searching news articles and social media and ran across an expert declaration on Yale’s website, filed by Gregg Gonsalves with the School of Public Health and Yale Law School. Gonsalves also writes regularly for multiple media outlets, including The Nation where he is their public health correspondent. “Data from China indicates that the average infected person passes the virus on to 2-3 other people at distances of 3-6 feet," Gonsalves claimed in a legal filing.
Every medical crisis is AIDS
In case you’re unaware of Gregg Gonsalves, he’s a 1980s AIDS activist who later in life attended university and then, for some reason, got hired by Yale. But having honed his talents in advocacy, he retains a street activist’s indifference for scholarship and a pugnacious skill in diagnosing every medical crisis as AIDS in the 80s.
1980s Flashback:
Ebola? That’s AIDS, Gonsalves told NPR.
Opioid epidemic? AIDS again, he told New York Times.
How about Monkeypox? Do you need to read this Gregg Gonsalves essay, or is the evidence not clear? Hello, it’s AIDS!
And when the COVID outbreak began, physicians scrambled to study a never before seen virus, struggled to understand how it spread, and argued over how to best stop it.
Meanwhile, Gonsalves offered up another 1980s flashback performance. Can you hear Madonna pumping in the background? Papa Don’t Preach: it’s AIDS all over again.
Speaking to Vox, Gonsalves explained that “Trump’s handling of the crisis feels like an eerie callback to the 1980s, when then-President Ronald Reagan chose to ignore early warnings about the threat from HIV/AIDS.”
With Trump now posing as Reagan with a bad tan and orange hair, Gonsalves then donned a white coat and prescribed a New York Times article as treatment to manage a respiratory virus that had nothing to do with HIV. “Unless we figure out how to sort of move toward what the New York Times called for the other day — a national lockdown of sorts,” Gonsalves told Vox, “We’re just going to see cases increase and emergency rooms and ICUs across the country be filled to capacity.”
On social media, Gonsalves continued arguing for lockdowns, before complaining that he was being mischaracterized as pro-lockdown. And then cycling through this flip flop once again.
It’s the logical consistency of a small-minded hobgoblin.
Which brings me back to Fauci and the “it just sort of appeared” science for six-feet social distancing.
Protestors don’t need data
In a March 2020 expert declaration under penalty of perjury, Gonsalves claimed, "Data from China indicates that the average infected person passes the virus on to 2-3 other people at distances of 3-6 feet." The declaration apparently supported legal claims that prisoners were at risk of COVID injury and should be released from the hoosegow.
But if you examine Gonsalves’ writing carefully (apparently, he didn’t) you’ll see he cites medical support for his 3-6 feet claim with footnote #7.
But when you go to footnote #7, you find Gonsalves doesn’t cite actual medical evidence; Just as when he argued for lockdowns in Vox, Gonsalves’ medical proof is a news story in the New York Times.
Perhaps you’re unfamiliar with science and how experts rank research, but nowhere in the medical literature do you find “newspaper article” cited as credible evidence. Please see this explanation at Mt. Sinai Medical School, if still in doubt.
But it gets even more odd.
When you read the New York Times article, you find there is no “data from China” as Gonsalves claims. The only proof the newspaper article provides for “six feet social distancing” is—get this—an artist’s drawing.
In short, Yale’s Gregg Gonsalves filed a legal declaration that made a medical claim based on a newspaper article—and that newspaper article doesn't contain any evidence as Gonsalves claims.
Quite the expert, no?
To understand how this meets Yale’s academic standards, I emailed Gonsalves, asking him to explain.
Read the rest here
* * *
Aaaand, he's gone:
STORY UPDATE: Hours after this story ran documenting Yale's Gregg Gonsalves' use of fake data and harassment of reporters and several female physicians, @greggonsalves closed his @x account. https://t.co/Vpx1pzdOYg
— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) January 18, 2024
Gonsalves has not responded to questions sent to @YaleLawSch pic.twitter.com/wlqYc9Zltt