Senior writer
@Chronicle
, writing about scholarship, scholars, and society / stephanie.lee
@chronicle
.com / on Signal: stephaniemlee.07 / former
@BuzzFeedNews
SCOOP: I obtained a whistleblower complaint about Stanford's COVID-19 study.
Turns out JetBlue's founder, a critic of the economic shutdowns, helped fund it.
And John Ioannidis and others allegedly ignored internal scientists' concerns about the test.
NEW: I dug into the concerns that ibuprofen makes coronavirus symptoms worse. In short, they're unfounded.
And no, despite what you may have read this week, the World Health Organization is NOT warning people against taking ibuprofen.
Stanford is hosting an Academic Freedom Conference next month. My request to attend has been denied: "We are not inviting the media to our conference in order to foment a more open discussion."
the
@washingtonpost
editorial board calls for Scott Atlas to be fired immediately: "If Dr. Atlas’s advice is followed, more people will get sick and die."
SCOOP: Here's something new about that Stanford COVID-19 antibody study.
In an email I obtained, the wife of the professor leading it recruited people by saying an “FDA approved” test (it's not) would show if they could “return to work without fear.”
NEW: It’s increasingly clear that early data out of China was an anomaly: The coronavirus is severely harming substantial numbers of people under 50, too, not just older adults.
NEW: Scientists and doctors are ecstatic that Joe Biden is the next president.
Now, they say, the real work can begin. It starts with undoing the damage of the last four years.
An epic science team byline, by me and
@dvergano
@Zhirji28
@paldhous
@azeen
:
omg, this story.
@RMac18
and
@CraigSilverman
have all the receipts:
an engineer had evidence that showed Facebook was giving preferential treatment to prominent conservative accounts. yesterday, he was fired.
Scoop: A peer-reviewed study claimed that as many as 278,000 people have died from COVID vaccines. It went viral in anti-vaccine circles, and also drew fierce criticism. Now it's in the process of being retracted, over the author's objections.
🎉 I won the 2022 Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting! 🎉
This award is for a body of work that spans my last five years at BuzzFeed News. I'm thrilled, honored, and grateful.
Behind-the-scenes emails among the scientists — including with David Neeleman while the study was underway — show that two other Stanford researchers tried to verify the test’s accuracy, found it unreliable, and refused to be named in the study.
NEW: I wrote about Elisabeth Bik, a scientist turned science detective, and the time she challenged a prominent hydroxychloroquine crusader.
Their feud illustrates a larger truth that COVID has made all too clear: science often fails to police itself.
how this is going for me personally: I submitted a reimbursement request for 8 at-home COVID tests (that I paid for out of pocket), and my insurer said I *owed* $43 😎
good stuff
NEW: Ivermectin prevents COVID 100% of the time—or so says a study out of Argentina. Maybe you heard about it via Joe Rogan (who says he’s on ivermectin now).
But the paper has so many red flags, experts say it’s unreliable at best. Story w/
@kenbensinger
:
covering this pandemic has been the darkest, most uncertain year of my life. I’m so thrilled to finally get vaccinated and, hopefully, be covering the beginning of the end.
UPDATE: We asked this company why they were claiming their coronavirus antibody test was "FDA certified" (when it is not).
Their response: "Not interested in your news format. Or Target audience."
They also took down the webpage for the test after we published our story.
The FDA says that some companies are touting their coronavirus antibody tests as “FDA-approved” or “FDA-authorized,” when in reality, very few are.
We found a company that is falsely claiming that its $450 antibody test is “FDA certified.”
SCOOP: John Ioannidis's studies say COVID isn’t a big threat, infuriating critics who say they have fundamental errors.
In March, before he had any data, he rounded up a group of scientists to try to meet with President Trump — to warn against shutdowns.
SCOOP: Stanford’s sustainability school recently announced its first big research focus: greenhouse gas removal.
The decision was shaped in part by meetings w/employees from fossil fuel companies like Shell, ExxonMobil, and Total, per emails I obtained 🧵
NEW: A big study about honesty—led by Dan Ariely, who literally wrote the book on the subject—is being retracted over fake data.
What does Dr. Ariely have to say? And what's the company that allegedly provided the data? I have answers.
NEW: A small band of scientists has been pushing policies reflecting the (unfounded) idea that COVID isn't a big threat. This week, they met with top administration officials.
I've been reporting on this group for months. Here's why this is so important:
Scoop: A peer-reviewed study claimed that as many as 278,000 people have died from COVID vaccines. It went viral in anti-vaccine circles, and also drew fierce criticism. Now it's in the process of being retracted, over the author's objections.
NEW: The protests will likely spread the coronavirus. Doctors and nurses explained to me why they're protesting anyway: The virus is a public health threat — but so is racism.
As one put it, “I’m an African-American first before I’m a physician.”
Update: HHS confirms that the agency only ordered 5,500 tests in the first week for states — “because we wanted to leave market share for hospitals and other healthcare providers to purchase through the commercial sector.”
Hi world. This is my last week at
@BuzzFeedNews
. I’m taking a buyout after 7+ wild and wildly rewarding years.
And in October, I’ll join the
@chronicle
to write features and investigations about the intersection of research and society. I'm honored to join this amazing team!
"Trump has tested positive for the coronavirus after he spent months downplaying its severity, refusing to regularly wear a mask, undercutting the government's top scientists, and so severely mismanaging the nation's response that 200,000+ are now dead."
The complaint also alleges that Neeleman may have been directed to financially pressure one of the scientists who was “alarmed” about the test:
“David, I think you should write Taia a note and tell her you’ll support her lab if she validates this kit.”
"Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic. It is scientifically and ethically problematic," says
@DrTedros
of
@WHO
.
Scott Atlas is urging the White House to push “herd immunity,”
@washingtonpost
reports.
“experts inside and outside the government note a herd immunity strategy could lead to the country suffering hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lost lives.”
"As WeWork grows and changes, its CEO is learning to listen more, he says. 'It’s good to listen.'
Then, for the third time that day, he calls me Amy, which is not my name."
NEW: In New Orleans, a group of Black doctors risked their careers to accuse their medical school of institutional racism. The year was 2020. What would it take to prove that there was a problem — and fix it?
This is an anatomy of a racial reckoning.
The preprint only says the study recruited via Facebook. It doesn't mention this email went to a school in a wealthy part of Silicon Valley.
It was sent "without my permission or my knowledge or the permission of the research team," the professor says.
NEW: When JAMA, one of the world's top medical journals, claimed “no physician is racist,” a furious backlash ensued.
Now, scholars are boycotting. They say they won’t submit research to JAMA until it makes changes, starting with diversifying its staff.
Starbucks Is Now Very Pro Black Lives Matter, But It Won't Let Employees Wear Anything Supporting The Movement
"However, as many employees noted, Starbucks not only exempts buttons and attire celebrating LGBTQ rights/marriage equality, but hands them out"
SCOOP: Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx warned top officials about the “dangers” of Scott Atlas last summer, new emails show.
“I am more convinced than ever the dangers of Dr. Atlas’ views on the pandemic,” Birx wrote.
story from me and
@dvergano
:
New: Jo Boaler, a Stanford professor and an influential expert on math education, has misrepresented scholars’ findings in her work to the point of showing a “reckless disregard for accuracy,” according to a complaint reportedly filed with Stanford.
“One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”
New: Leading misinformation scholar Joan Donovan (
@BostonJoan
) is going public about why she believes she was recently forced out of Harvard: because her research threatened the school’s financial ties to the social-media behemoth Meta.
SCOOP: Brian Wansink won fame, funding and influence for his science-backed advice on healthy eating. Here's the inside story of how, for years, he and his famous Cornell food psychology lab sliced and diced shoddy data into viral studies.
SCOOP: A former Juul exec is alleging in a just-filed lawsuit that the startup shipped out 1 million contaminated pods this year — but didn't tell customers or issue a recall.
NEW: Trump praised Abbott's new 5-minute coronavirus testing machines. But the feds are only planning to send states up to 15 each, leaked emails show. My latest, with
@dvergano
:
NEW: Over 900 people had the mumps in ICE detention centers in the last year. One expert estimates that detainees have a roughly *4,000-fold greater risk* of getting mumps than a non-detainee.
NEW: Jo Boaler of Stanford is the most influential math-education expert in the country. She’s helping draft a framework for how California should teach math. But critics say her claims don’t always add up.
My
@chronicle
cover story on the math wars. 🧵
Still digesting what today's news will mean for me here, which has been a dream place to work.
For now, I'll say that I'm BEYOND frustrated w/the media business and how hard it is to fund rigorous, original journalism.
Thank you to everyone who's reached out! My DMs are open 💜
what is there to even say?
“For three years, Derrick Sanderlin has helped train new police recruits about implicit bias and procedural justice. He wonders now if that work was in vain.”
🚨 SCOOP: Here’s the unsealed, 1,300-page report showing how Harvard Business School concluded that dishonesty expert Francesca Gino committed research misconduct.
a Swedish researcher (and Great Barrington Declaration signer) has defended his country’s COVID policies, with a study that supports open schools. now there's an allegation, based on emails, that the authors left out data contradicting their conclusion.
i know the To All the Boys I've Loved Before sequel represents a major, potentially worrying shift in the way Hollywood does business — but also, there's going to be a sequel to To All the Boys I've Loved Before!!
🚨🚨"nearly three in ten (28%) employed adults who [are] not yet ready to get the vaccine say that they would be more likely to get the COVID-19 vaccine if their employer gave them paid time off to get vaccinated and recover from any side effects"
SCOOP: Last week, on
#ShutDownSTEM
day, Yale astronomy professors expressed doubts that “deeply entrenched systemic racism” existed in their department — because, they said, they hired a single Black employee in 1985.
I have the emails:
The furor over the study makes it the latest example of how scientific journals are “fundamentally ill-equipped to deal with the pandemic,” in the words of
@GidMK
, who called it “among the worst things I’ve ever seen published.”
some tidbits in this big, crazy story on Goop:
-it has 2m monthly visitors
-traffic spikes whenever
@DrJenGunter
writes about it
-it's hiring a fact-checker
-Gwyneth Paltrow once yelled “VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA!” in front of a bunch of Harvard students
who died for your dinner? "The fear of every worker that I know is that they may come down with the virus. And if they don’t work, they don’t get paid — and if they don’t get paid, they don’t eat."
NEW: During the February storm, Texas’s power grid failed—and, we find, killed hundreds more people than officially acknowledged.
As one widow told me, “I still believe the cold made him to where his heart just gave out.”
with
@paldhous
and
@Zhirji28
:
NEW: Trump’s doctor cited a rapid COVID antigen test as a key factor in determining that he is negative and “not infectious.”
But these tests can be inaccurate, and the CDC doesn't recommend using them to clear patients from isolating.
SCOOP: The University of California is reversing course on "data science."
A panel has voted to undo an admissions standard that faculty fear isn't preparing students for college-level math—just as it's on the cusp of being written into statewide policy.
You know all those studies that say pasta is healthy for you? Turns out there is a whole fascinating world of scientific research bankrolled by...
...BIG PASTA.
My latest story:
the replication crisis is hitting artificial intelligence:
of 400 papers, "only 6% shared the algorithm's code. only a third shared the data they tested their algorithms on"
I spent weeks talking to families across Texas who lost loved ones during February's storm. They wonder: If not for the cold and outages, would they have lived to see another day?
Our story suggests that for hundreds of people, the answer could be yes.
SCOOP: In 2021, you may recall a famous study about honesty getting retracted due to fraudulent data (ironic).
But that wasn't the end. An author now says that per a Harvard investigation, the study had even more fraudulent data than previously revealed
"Some of the women who will die from abortion bans are pregnant right now. Their deaths will come not from back-alley procedures but from a silent denial of care: interventions delayed, desires disregarded."
INBOX: Today, the Stanford Faculty Senate passed a resolution that strongly condemns Scott Atlas, and calls on university leadership to do the same. "Atlas’s behavior is anathema to our community, our values, and our belief that we should use knowledge for good."
SCOOP: Stanford is investigating its own president, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, over research misconduct allegations.
The inquiry is being overseen by the board of trustees (of which the president is a member). He won't be involved, a spokesperson says.
Trump on the percentage of Americans who had contracted coronavirus: "I hear we're close to 15 percent. I'm hearing that, and that's terrific."
(The idea is that we're approaching herd immunity.)
it's chaos out there.
“Driving to nine pharmacies across the city to ultimately find the last four COVID-19 rapid tests for $50 is not a good public health model and further exacerbates economic inequities, not to mention it is deeply ableist.”
On a day full of COVID news, here's one more late-breaking development: the FDA just authorized Eli Lilly’s antibody drug — the one Chris Christie took — for emergency use.
NEW: Two big antibody studies in California — Santa Clara and Los Angeles County — are making waves with their estimates that there are way more coronavirus infections than we thought.
But scientists are skeptical, for LOTS of reasons. I dive into it all:
This is devastating and enraging. Being part of this brilliant team from 2015-2022 was a dream. We broke news -- and the internet -- constantly, won a PULITZER, and did the most ambitious stories we could dream up.
Now it's just being thrown away.
Solidarity with
@bfnewsunion
.
NEW: I wrote about how, in this brave new world of preprints and social media, scientists are rapidly posting findings about the coronavirus outbreak online, accelerating the speed of scientific discoveries — and of misinformation.
This study says that, out of 100s of workers across 4 hospitals in Argentina, 0 taking ivermectin got COVID.
Yet their reported numbers/ages/genders are inconsistent, as
@GidMK
points out here:
The lead author’s defense: “We are not statistical people.”
People have claimed that ivermectin is 100% effective as a prophylactic for COVID-19 based on an observational trial of the drug
I'm extremely concerned about this trial. It definitely should not be used as evidence for anything 1/n
One of the hospitals named as participating in the study says it never approved such a thing. After it complained, its name was changed to “Other peripheral Medical Centre”—but the data remained.
Local health officials have also said they have no record of this being approved.
the Houston area is seeing more than 300 carbon monoxide poisoning cases, many from people using BBQ pits and generators indoors to stay warm. "Several people have already died seeking warmth."
horrifying story by
@gwendolynawu
:
"Now, many Californians, yearning for a return to normal life and feeling like it’s further and further away, are wondering: Now what?"
(I am one of these people.)
great story by
@skbaer
:
A short thread about the Great Barrington Declaration:
Last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Scott Atlas, and the authors of the GBD met to talk about COVID.
A YouTube video of the event was recently taken down, and I asked YouTube why. (1/3)
🚨 NEW: A small university museum wanted to raise its profile. So it spent big on antiquities. And it didn’t ask a lot of questions.
I wrote about Emory University and its ties to the illicit trade that starts with tomb raiders in Italy and Greece. 🧵
Fights are choreographed to ensure that none of the leads comes out looking like a loser. Does vanity play a role in those decisions?
“No comment,” said Mr. Fottrell, before adding: “Of course it does!”
.
@K_Sheldrick
asked the lead author, Dr. Hector Carvallo, for the raw data. So did one of Cavallo’s coauthors. Carvallo said he would only do so “when the pandemic is over.”
So the coauthor removed his name.
NEW: So far, COVID-19 vaccines haven't been equitably distributed. Asking for ID is supposed to improve that.
But
@skbaer
and I found instances in which the rules are creating barriers for vulnerable people, including undocumented immigrants. Our story:
These emails, which were first reported on by
@KHNews
, show that FEMA and HHS have only planned to order enough coronavirus tests for up to 5,500 people.
"In places where the virus is most rampant now, Trump enjoyed enormous support. An Associated Press analysis reveals that in 376 counties with the highest number of new cases per capita, the overwhelming majority — 93% — went for Trump."