Dr. D.A. Henderson is not unknown to the global medical community. He led an international effort to eradicate smallpox. Henderson also had some thoughts about pandemics and school closings, house arrest (my words not his), and limiting public interaction. He opposed all of it.
Related: While the Virus Alarmists are Hard at Work How About Some Facts
There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people for extended periods in order to slow the spread of influenza.
The New York Times that historically crazy right-wing rag reported that,
Dr. Henderson was convinced that it made no sense to force schools to close or public gatherings to stop. Teenagers would escape their homes to hang out at the mall. School lunch programs would close, and impoverished children would not have enough to eat. Hospital staffs would have a hard time going to work if their children were at home.
Responding (specifically) to the 2006 paper based on the school girl’s classroom science project on social distancing that we covered that here,
The measures embraced by Drs. Mecher and Hatchett would “result in significant disruption of the social functioning of communities and result in possibly serious economic problems,” Dr. Henderson wrote in his own academic paper responding to their ideas.
The answer, he insisted, was to tough it out: Let the pandemic spread, treat people who get sick and work quickly to develop a vaccine to prevent it from coming back.
In other words, the CDC’s default policy developed back in the Bush 43 era, based on a report that is based on a school project and no actual epidemiological science, is not the best way to proceed, according to Dr. Henderson.
He is not alone in that thinking. We have shared ample evidence delivered by medical experts across the nation and the globe, that the harm caused by lockdowns, any quarantine of the healthy, social distancing, and mask-wearing by non-symptomatic persons is not beneficial for public health.
It is essential to understand that the administrators and directors of medical facilities, institutions, and organizations are not at liberty to deviate from the CDC’s political bias on the matter. They follow the policy, or they risk losing access or funding, or bonus cash in the case of the current scheme.
I listened to part of a public session for the Bedford School Board on the matter of reopening schools. There was a terrific turnout. Many of the parents who spoke in Bedford are medical professionals – doctors in all fields of medicine. There were a lot of them. They all testified that students should return to typical in-person classroom education. That it was better for them physically and mentally and that whatever precuations might apply to some individual situations should be addressed by those students and families.
In other words, let my people go back to school. It’s better for all the reasons Dr. Henderson mentioned. But that’s not the approves political solution. The Democrat-lead teacher’s unions are against it. The Democrat politicians are against it. The Democrat media is against it. And they are pounding that square narrative into the round hall has fast and hard as they can.
Not because it is good medical science or for the benefit of public health. It is a partisan political maneuver to create as much social and economic discomfort as possible in hopes that they can win an election.
Ask yourself. What else, then, are they capable of, and why would anyone allow them more power than they have now?
Dr. Henderson died in 2016 at the age of 87.
