Sucharit Bhakdi | |
---|---|
Born | 1 November 1946 (age 74 years) |
Nationality | Thai-German |
Alma mater | |
Known for | epidemiology of COVID-19 Great Barrington Declaration |
Awards | Order of Merit of Rhineland-Palatinate, Aronson Prize |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Medicine/surgery, Epidemiology |
Sucharit Bhakdi (born Sucharit Punyaratabandhu, 1 November 1946, in Washington, D.C.) is a Thai-German specialist in microbiology.[1] He studied at the Universities of Bonn, Gießen, Mainz and Copenhagen, and at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg. He is a retired Professor of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and from 1991 to 2012 was Head of the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene there.[2]
Over his career, Bhakdi has produced scientific work across a breadth of fields such as immunology, bacteriology, virology, and parasitology, and has published over three hundred scientific articles in those areas. He has received numerous awards, including the Order of Merit of Rhineland-Palatinate.[3]
He has prominently raised concerns over scientific claims regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and many states 'Lockdown' responses to it. He is a signatory to the Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter dedicated to an alternative, risk-based approach of "Focused Protection" for people most at risk of the virus.[4][5]
Scientific work
COVID-19
In the wake of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bhakdi began his research into the virus. He argues that the virus is a much less serious threat to the general population than is widely believed. He gives many statistical and epidemiological reasons for why he believes the severity of the virus for the general population and the response to it have been inaccurate. He argues that there was a mass media and political informational panic in January-March 2020 which exploited the idea of the virus being a “novelty” and an “utmost hazard,” which Bhakdi considered to have "hardly any grounds to be acquitted or recognised as feasible". He believes that many very negative sounding reports in the news media about the severity of the virus often result from bad statistics which are a product of poor quality of data collected, and of severely manipulated interpretations of the statistics.[6]
Bhakdi highlights the early spread of the virus in Europe as an example for how the statistics were inaccurate or skewed. Here, he says, the "apparent high mortality rate" caused by the virus was actually caused by numerous factors. For instance, incorrect categorisation of 'cases' of virus as infections when in infectiology, a distinction is made between infection and disease. An illness must requires a clinical manifestation, so only patients with symptoms such as fever or cough should be included in the statistics as new cases. This was caused by situations where the virus would be detected when patients were being admitted to hospital or even post-mortem, Covid would be automatically incorrectly assigned as the cause of their death. The statistics about how deadly the virus had been skewed by death certificates not making the distinction between those who die as a direct result of the virus, and those who caught it but would have died anyway, or whose death was related to it but not directly caused by it.[7]
On 26 March, Bhakdi wrote a public letter to the Chancellor of Germany calling for an urgent reassessment of the German lockdown on various states on 22 March. In the letter he argued that the science that the government had followed for the decision was questionable and the socio-economic costs of lockdown would be too high. In the letter he outlined five questions that he believed needed to be answered for a better analysis of the situation:
- Statistics - Did the projections make a distinction between symptom-free infected people and actual, sick patients – i.e. people who develop symptoms? Bhakdi pointed out that in infectiology a distinction is made between infection and disease. An illness requires a clinical manifestation. So only patients with symptoms such as fever or cough should be included in the statistics as new cases.
- Dangerousness - How does the current workload of intensive care units with patients with diagnosed COVID-19 compare to other coronavirus infections, and to what extent will this data be taken into account in further decision-making by the federal government? In addition: Has the above study been taken into account in the planning so far? The "above study" he referred to was 'SARS-CoV-2: fear versus data'[8] which tries to show how the virus compares with other viruses and that it was not as serious as was widely believed.
- Dissemination - Has there already been a random sample of the healthy general population to validate the real spread of the virus, or is this planned in the near future? He questioned whether the virus had already spread a lot by that point and that an increase in cases was being seen because of an increase in testing.
- Mortality - Has Germany simply followed this trend of a COVID-19 general suspicion? And: is it intended to continue this categorisation uncritically as in other countries? How, then, is a distinction to be made between genuine corona-related deaths and accidental virus presence at the time of death? He questioned whether an official and critical analysis of medical records had been done to determine whether deaths were actually caused by the virus.
- Comparability - What efforts are being made to make the population aware of these elementary differences and to make people understand that scenarios like those in Italy or Spain are not realistic here? He argues that countries COVID-19 situations have elementary differences between each other so are not directly comparable to each other. So using Italy and Spain as reference scenarios for predictions in Germany and other countries is inaccurate.
Bhakdi argued in favour of a 'focused protection' approach involving; "protecting high risk groups without restricting public life across the board and sow the seeds for an even more intensive polarization of society than is already taking place".[9][10]
In the letter, he cited evidence from the article; 'SARS-CoV-2: fear versus data', which hypothesised that SARS-CoV-2 figures were being overestimated at the time (19 March) so were not accurate enough to follow. Others disputed the article, arguing that it was too soon to tell in March because the virus had not yet reached its 'exponential growth' phase.[11] This view was taken by people such as Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London, a member of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage)[12][13] who predicted that there could be up to 500,000 COVID-19 deaths if a lockdown was not imposed in March.[14] Fergusons advice was taken very seriously and was one of the main statistics that the UK government cited for going into lockdown on 23 March.[15][16] Bhakdi's advice was not taken in Germany. As the virus was measured over the ensuing months, Bhakdi argued that many of the projected predictions such as exponential growth had not occurred in the ways expected or to anywhere near as extreme as predicted.[8]
Bhakdi objected to the German governments repeated uses of Italy as a reference scenario because the virus situation was so different there, and because the virus effects vary between countries. As he explains in the letter, Italy has a particularly unusual social risk profile because of a number of factors, namely; high levels of global tourism and migration and high levels of vulnerable old people living with young people. He cited UN statistics which showed that 27.4 percent of the particularly vulnerable population live with young people in Italy while in Germany only 7 percent do.[17] He also referenced WHO statistics and other studies which showed very high levels of air pollution in northern Italy and air pollution greatly increases the risk of viral lung diseases in very young and elderly people, meaning the impact of the virus differs from place to place depending on pollution levels.[18][19][20]
Criticism of 'Lockdowns'
He is very critical of the 'lockdown' response taken by many governments, and that lockdowns would have very severe health consequences that would outweigh the benefits. He argues that most important statistics that have been cited by governments as justifications for lockdowns have been faulty or warped due to inaccuracy and is responsible for the mistaken lockdown response that many countries around the world have taken.
When the lockdowns were imposed, health care systems especially in Spain and Italy, broke down completely because of the imposed preventive measures (patient isolation, personnel quarantine, etc), which leads to restricted attention of patients in general and accounts for the higher numbers of deaths in general (March) in these countries.[21][22]
On the economic impacts, he has said that it would impact the medical profession which would cause more harm. "The horrifying impact on the world economy is threatening the existence of countless people. The consequences on medical care are profound. Already services to patients in need are reduced, operations cancelled, practices empty, hospital personnel dwindling.”[23]
In turn, he has been criticised for his theses on the COVID-19 pandemic by various experts and institutions such as the German Medical Tribune, scientists at the universities of Mainz and Kiel, and various fact-checking websites. His calculations on infection rates and the proportions of the population who would be infected have been disputed with some predicting more people would catch the virus while others predicted less would in the long run.[24][25][26][27][28]
Public work on COVID-19
External videos | |
---|---|
'Are We Being Told the Truth About COVID-19? | Prof. Sucharit Bhakdi' | Sucharit Bhakdi Coronavirus UK interview 2020, YouTube |
Bhakdi's has been outspoken in his work on COVID-19, especially in Germany. His work includes:
- writing an open letter to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel regarding the 'socio-economic consequences of the drastic containment measures which are currently being applied in large parts of Europe'[9]
- posting videos on YouTube[29]
- founding the initiative 'Medical Professionals and Scientists for Health, Freedom and Democracy'[30]
- involvement in the writing of a 'position paper of the BMI' by an employee of the German crisis management department.[31][32][33] The Federal Ministry distanced itself from the position paper as a "private opinion" circulating on official letterhead and released the chief government councillor Stephan Kohn from duty.[34]
- published a book; Corona false alarm? (2020), German: ('Corona Fehlalarm? [de]')[35][36] with his wife Karina Reiss, biologist and biochemist at the Quincke Research Center, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel.[37]
Bhakdi is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the PANDA (Pandemics ~ Data & Analytics) organisation.[38] He is also a member of the 'Corona-Quartett', a weekly talk show on the Austrian TV station Servus TV. [39]
Other work
Bhakdi is known for his work on the complement system, a part of the human immune system. He later applied his results to develop a new theory that the complement system also seems to play a role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis.[40]
Publications
Bhakdi is listed as main author or co author of many articles on PubMed, his corresponding h-index is 67.[41] Furthermore, he served as Editor in Chief of Medical Microbiology and Immunology from 1990 to 2012.[42]
He is the co-author of Corona, False Alarm? Facts and Figures (2020), German: ('Corona Fehlalarm?') alongside his wife Karina Reiss, a biologist and biochemist at the Quincke Research Center, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel.[37][35][36]. The book was published in Germany on 1 June and sold 200,000 copies and 75,000 e-books in 6 weeks. It was released in the UK on 1 October and was a best seller in Family & Lifestyle Infectious & Contagious Diseases section on Amazon.[43][44]
He is also the author of Bogeyman Infections - Myths, Delusions and Reality (2016), German: (Schreckgespenst Infektionen – Mythen, Wahn und Wirklichkeit (tr. ).[45]
Awards
Bakhdi has received the following awards:[2]
- 1979 Prize of the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
- 1979 Konstanzer Medizinischer Förderpreis
- 1987 Prize of the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology
- 1988 Dr.-Friedrich-Sasse Prize
- 1989 Robert-Koch-Förderpreis of Clausthal-Zellerfeld
- 1989 Ludwig-Schunk Prize for Humanmedizin
- 1990 Gotthard-Schettler Award
- 1991 Gay-Lussac Humboldt Prize[46]
- 1999 Schwarz-Pharma Prize
- 2001 Aronson Prize for „wegweisende Arbeiten auf dem Gebiet des Komplementsystems und bakterieller Toxine“ (tr. "pioneering work in the field of the complement system and bacterial toxins")[47]
- 2005 H. W. Hauss Award[48]
- 2005 Verdienstorden des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz
- 2009 Rudolf-Schönheimer Medal of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Arterioskleroseforschung[49][50]
References
- ^ CURRICULUM VITAE aetf.academy.online.fr, accessed 11 October 2020
- ^ a b "Sucharit Bhakdi (Punyarataband) Lebenslauf" [curriculum vitae]. studylibde.com. Retrieved 11 October 2020.
- ^ "Sucharit Bhakdi MD". chelsea green. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Lenzer, Jeanne (7 October 2020). "Covid-19: Group of UK and US experts argues for "focused protection" instead of lockdowns". British Medical Journal. British Medical Association. doi:10.1136/bmj.m3908. Retrieved 18 October 2020.
- ^ Sample, Ian (7 October 2020). "Why herd immunity strategy is regarded as fringe viewpoint". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 10 October 2020. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
- ^ S. Sharov, Konstantin (2020). "Covid-19 Pandemic: A Survival Challenge to Humanity Unseen Thus Far or Déjà Vu Experience?" (PDF). Journal for Studying Ideologies and Mental Dimensions. 3: 5 – via The Beacon.
- ^ Sharov, KS (13 June 2020). "Adaptation to SARS‐CoV‐2 under stress: Role of distorted information". Eur J Clin Invest. 50:e13294.: 9 – via BMJ.
- ^ a b Roussel, Giraud-Gatineau, Jimeno, Rolain, Zandotti, Colson, Raoulta, Yanis, Audrey, Marie-Thérèse, Jean-Marc, Christine, Philippe, Didier (19 March 2020). "SARS-CoV-2: fear versus data". Pub Med gov. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b Open Letter from Professor Sucharit Bhakdi to German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel (26 March 2020) swprs.org, accessed 8 October 2020
- ^ Bhakdi, Sucharit (26 March 2020). "(Original German) Open letter from Professor Sucharit Bhakdi to Federal Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel". Swiss Policy Research. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Mosig, Axel (3 July 2020). "Letter to the Editor regarding the recent contribution by Roussel et al., SARS-CoV-2: Fear versus data". US National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Ferguson, Laydon, Nedjati Gilani, Imai, Ainslie, Baguelin, N, D, G, N, K, M (16 March 2020). "Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand" (PDF). Imperial College, London. 2020 doi: 10.25561/77482. 10 – via [PDF] ic.ac.uk.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Roussel, Giraud-Gatineau, Jimeno, Rolain, Zandotti, Colson, Raoulta, Yanis, Audrey, Marie-Thérèse, Jean-Marc, Christine, Philippe, Didier (19 March 2020). "SARS-CoV-2: fear versus data". US National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Ferguson, Neil (16 March 2020). "Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team Report 9" (PDF). www.imperial.ac.uk.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Ward, Bob (6 May 2020). "It's not just Neil Ferguson – scientists are being attacked for telling the truth". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Stewart, Heather (5 May 2020). "Neil Ferguson: UK coronavirus adviser resigns after breaking lockdown rules". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Living Arrangements of Older Persons: A Report on an Expanded International Dataset" (PDF). United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. (ST/ESA/SER.A/407).: 407 2017 – via United Nations.
- ^ Sharov, Konstantin (2020). "A Few Observations Upon COVID-19 Media Coverage Myths" (PDF). The Beacon: Journal for Studying Ideologies and Mental Dimensions 010640018. 3: 9 – via The Beacon.
- ^ Martuzzi (2006). "Health Impact of PM10 and Ozone in 13 Italian Cities" (PDF). World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. WHOLIS number E88700: 147 – via euro.
- ^ Croft (2019). "The Association between Respiratory Infection and Air Pollution in the Setting of Air Quality Policy and Economic Change". Ann Am Thorac Soc. 16: 321–330.
- ^ C. VenMeter, Bhakdi, P. Gerilovych, Karin, Sucharit, Antony (2020). "Covid-19 Outbreak Role in the Development of Societies: Questions and Inconsistencies" (PDF). THE BEACON: ENG Journal for Studying Ideologies and Mental Dimensions. 3: 3, 4, 5.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Ventegodt, Merrick, Søren, Joav (2020). "A tribute to the Corona virus Covid-19 whistle blowers" (PDF). J Altern Med Res. 12 (2): 1 99 – via Research Gate.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Dogra, Bharat (15 May 2020). "Alternative paths to tackle Covid threat". The Statesman. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Matz, Christian (31 October 2020). "Unimedizin Mainz distanziert sich klar von Bhakdi - Allgemeine Zeitung". www.allgemeine-zeitung.de (in German). Retrieved 17 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Mediziner Bhakdi unterschätzt Gefährlichkeit des Coronavirus". dpa (in German).
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Urschinger, Kira. "Video im Faktencheck: Prof. Sucharit Bhakdi kritisiert Corona-Maßnahmen". SWR3.de (in German). Retrieved 17 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Metzger, Nils. "Corona-Faktencheck: Warum Sucharit Bhakdis Zahlen falsch sind". www.zdf.de (in German). Retrieved 17 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Dingermann, Theo (30 March 2020). "Die Meinung des emeritierten Mikrobiologieprofessors der Universität Mainz Professor Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi". pharmazeutische zeitung. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Prof. Dr. med. Sucharit Bhakdi". YouTube. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
- ^ "Medical Professionals and Scientists for Health, Freedom and Democracy". www.mshfd.org/. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
- ^ Julia Sextl (13 May 2020). "Brisantes Corona-Papier: War das alles richtig so?" [Explosive Corona paper: was it all right?]. Abendzeitung. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
- ^ Stephan Kohn (2020). "KM4 Analyse des Krisenmanagements (Kurzfassung)" [KM4 analysis of crisis management (short version)] (PDF). Stephan Kohn / Abendzeitung. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
- ^ Sucharit Bhakdi, Gunter Frank, Gunnar Heinsohn, Stefan W. Hockertz, Karina Reiß, Peter Schirmacher, Andreas Sönnichsen, Till Uebel, Harald Walach / Abendzeitung (11 May 2020). "Gemeinsame Pressemitteilung der Experten des Corona-Papiers aus dem Bundesministerium des Innern" [Joint press release by the experts on the Corona paper from the Federal Ministry of the Interior] (PDF). Retrieved 16 May 2020.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Benjamin Reuter (14 May 2020). "Wie der angebliche Corona-Geheimreport im Innenministerium entstand" [How the alleged Corona secret report in the Interior Ministry was created]. Der Tagesspiegel. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
- ^ a b "Corona Fehlalarm? Zahlen, Daten und Hintergründe" [Corona false alarm? Numbers, dates and backgrounds]. www.goldegg-verlag.com. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
- ^ a b "buchreport, Corona Fehlalarm?" [Bookreport]. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
- ^ a b Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Karina Reiß www.uni-kiel.de, accessed 8 October 2020
- ^ "PANDA: Scientific Advisory Board". pandata19.org/scientific-advisory-board. Retrieved 8 November 2020.
- ^ "Corona quartet". www.servustv.com/videos/aa-2549xqckh2111/. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
- ^ Complement and atherosclerosis-united to the point of no return? Published 2013. DOI:10.1016/j.clinbiochem.2012.09.012 www.semanticscholar.org, accessed 8 November 2020
- ^ "Scopus preview - Bhakdi, Sucharit - Author details - Scopus". www.scopus.com. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
- ^ "Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Springer". www.springer.com. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
- ^ "Amazon page for book (for evidence of the original 1st party source)". Amazon. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Corona, False Alarm? Facts and Figures". A Great Read. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Schreckgespenst Infektionen – Mythen, Wahn und Wirklichkeit" [Bogey Infections - Myths, Delusions and Reality]. www.goldegg-verlag.com. ISBN 9783903090668. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
- ^ Liste der Preisträger des Gay-Lussac-Humboldt-Preis (PDF; 82 kB)
- ^ "Mainzer Universitätsprofessor Sucharit Bhakdi wird mit dem Aronson-Preis 2001 ausgezeichnet" [Mainz university professor Sucharit Bhakdi is awarded the Aronson Prize 2001]. www.uni-protokolle.de.
- ^ "Sucharit Bhakdi, M.D." Universität Mainz. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
- ^ Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (20 April 2009). "Mainzer Mediziner Bhakdi für Hypothese zur Entstehung von Atherosklerose ausgezeichnet" [Mainz physician Bhakdi honored for hypothesis on the development of atherosclerosis]. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
- ^ Deutsches Ärzteblatt. Namen und Nachrichten [Names and messages]. Retrieved 16 April 2018.