If you are unfamiliar with New Hampshire politics or its sometimes crooked money-chasing department of HHS, then you’ll not know who Dr. Benjamin Chan is. But you’ll recognize his type. When the Feds were dropping cash on states faster than Treasury could print it, he was a reliable parrot for whatever COVID CDC narrative was popular.
Those narratives include social distancing, cloth or medical masks preventing viral spread, lockdowns, ventilators, remote learning, essential businesses, limiting the size of gatherings, closing churches and schools, suspicions about Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine, and, of course, safe and effective vaccine-jabbing children—the whole nine yards. I’m sure I missed a few, but New Hampshire’s Republican-registered governor (Chris Sununu) was taking Dr. Chan’s advice, and we were more or less subject to the train of abuses listed and more without objection from local public health “experts.”
We were forced to “follow their science,” even when the state’s tracking data, common sense, and past practice proved that much of what was said or required was nonsense.
To my knowledge, Dr. Chan was not bucking any trends or challenging any narratives. There are no videos I’ve yt found of him telling legislative committees we should not be closing schools or masking children. If vaccines were not safe and effective, you weren’t hearing that from New Hampshire’s public health bureaucracy—because there was a lot of money coming our way if we just did whatever the CDC “recommended.”
I have also yet to find the specific testimony referenced by State Rep. Trinidad Tellez. Sorry—Dr. Trinidad Tellez -Family medicine, State Public Health, in the clip below. She is speaking up at the Executive session on HB679 (you’ll recall I wrote about that hearing this morning). Rep. Tellez piped up to remind us that Dr. Chan told us, during testimony, that vaccines don’t prevent transmission.
Whenever that testimony was, it was not during the COVID-19 vaccine heyday (2021-2022) and not likely in 2023 or 2024, either. We’ll keep looking and will take Democrat Rep. Tellez at her word. She heard it somewhere and is proud to repeat it, but much like Rep. Woods, I cannot find any evidence that this was her position during COVID. I am happy to be proven wrong.
I did find a COVID-era interview in which she says she directs people to medlinePlus.gov to get facts (as opposed to all the noise on the internet), but that site links NIH resources and is run by the federal government. It has been cleaned up a bit since the Fauci days, but we are all familiar with the approved narratives. It is safe and Effective. Children should get it. It prevents infection and transmission. It stays near the injection site. Dr. Tellez’s party was the tip of the narrative spear for public health wisdom since exposed as made up, misinformation, fraud, or lies.
I’m not convinced Dr. Tellez has come out to apologize or disavow any of that – again, happy to be wrong.
Feel free to research Dr. Tellez’s social or professional history and let us know what you find. However, we cannot find any evidence that she opposed any of the CDC/FDA/NIH misinformation. If anyone unearths that evidence, we will gladly post it and credit her for that kind of independent thinking.
[Update] I forgot to add that Rep. Tellez is the Democrat who famously appeared late for Industrial Hygienist Stephen Petty’s excellent testimony on how completely useless wearing a mask is.
Petty had explained to the Committeee (his detailed slide deck is available here) how and why there is no scientific basis (and never has been – he brought receipts) for masks as a means to reduce viral transmission and how even the medical bureaucracy has said as much, if not backhandedly when Rep. Tellez finally arrives – so it’s no surprise she appears disinterested from there on out.
Petty’s presentation explored how masks can’t stop viruses (not even N95 and why), shares research showing how masking makes infection and transmission more likely, and how masks are bad for kids and learning. He covers a lot of ground in the 80-plus minutes he has the floor (followed by Q and A, which I did not capture – full video available here from 7:30 to 1:57:00).
Rep. Tellez’s Covidiotism in April of 2024 was literally impenetrable, even in the face of expert testimony by a guy with decades of experience in the truth, with facts.
Can we guess that, having turned a corner on transmission, she may also have had a road-to-Damascus moment on masks? Probably not, but you never know. Next session, that truth we’ve been pilloried for in the past may be common knowledge on the Left.
