Special Episode: A Conversation with Dr. John Ioannidis

Special episode alert! Dr. John Ioannidis: Critical of the Covid response, praiseful of vaccines, and hopeful data will rebuild our broken trust.     Dr. John Ioannidis is a renowned epidemiologist at Stanford University, a champion of data, and a stalwart for evidence-based research. Not afraid to ruffle feathers, rock the boat, or insert your idiomatic expression here, Ioannidis, true to form, set the scientific world afire in the earliest days of the pandemic when he criticized the public health community's rush to shut down schools and businesses without more reliable data on how severe the virus would become. This, as expected, raised the ire of the public health establishment, which criticized his downplaying of an unfolding pandemic that would ultimately claim 1.1 million American lives.Now, the unicorn part: Today, while believing that aspects of our response to the pandemic did more harm than good, he is staunchly pro-vaccine, believes the COVID vaccine was a triumph of science, and has zero interest in pointing fingers of blame. Dr. Ioannidis also states unequivocally that vaccines do not cause autism and that treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine have not been proven to work on COVID, often drawing ire from those who are skeptical of mainstream science.With all this as a prologue, what does he think about the outbreak of mistrust that is consuming America today? We discuss how he believes we can find common ground, focus on the real threats we face (e.g., conflicts of interest in scientific research), and rebuild trust in one another.Hosts:Brinda AdhikariTom JohnsonMaggie BartlettGuest:Dr. John IoannidisThanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]