Meet Professor David Fisman of Canada
By Steve Kirsch
Want to see what a real misinformation spreader looks like? You’ve come to the right place. When challenged on his work, he runs for cover similar to what cockroaches do when you turn on the lights.
University of Ontario Professor David Fisman, misinformation spreader extraordinaire
Overview
Professor Fisman and his colleagues at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto are paid to promote the narrative. Their latest study makes the unvaccinated out as the villain and the vaccinated as the heroes. It was widely picked up by the mainstream press even though none of them understood the methodology. You don’t have to be an expert to read the reviews and realize that the paper is full of holes and should be retracted. If you’re looking for the top misinformation spreader in Canada, Fisman is going to rank highly at the top of most people’s lists.
Introduction
When I wrote my offer to debunk all of us so-called “misinformation spreaders,” I specifically invited two misinformation spreaders to respond: Dr. Grace Lee and Dr. David Fisman.
Dr. Lee is a professor at Stanford and head of the ACIP committee of the CDC. So her selection makes sense. If she was truly an independent thinker, none of this would have happened. But she’s not a critical thinker and will not look at the data that is out there that contradicts the CDC. This is why she was appointed. Those are the exact qualities the CDC looks for in a chair. Dr. Lee’s refusal to look at any other data other than what she is being spoon-fed by the CDC makes her a serious danger to society.
Introducing Professor David Fisman
But many people hadn’t heard of Dr. David Fisman before now. So I want to introduce you to him. He’s quite a guy. He’s much worse than Dr. Lee.
Dr. Lee can’t evaluate the science and see any safety signals because she’s blind to any possibility that she’s being lied to and doesn’t ask any critical thinking questions. But at least she’s not actively making new misinformation herself.
But Fisman is another story. He actually creates new misinformation and spreads it. He’s Canadian and his reputation among my friends in Canada puts him up there with people like Bonnie Henry who is the Provincial Health Officer for British Columbia and Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam as a danger to society.
Fisman is a tenured professor of Epidemiology at the University of Toronto.
Here’s what Fisman said in a recent interview to give you some idea how just how inept he is:
Rochelle Walensky — who’s actually an old friend and the new director of the U.S. [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] — has pointed out that we actually do know a lot about how to open schools safely. You need to use what you know. The pillars are masks, which we’re already doing in Ontario.
Fisman thinks that vaccines are safe and effective and masks work.
He won’t defend his position though. Not for any amount of money.
Here’s my latest email (in a long string of emails) pleading with him to debunk us by answering a few questions:
My offer of unlimited funds so he can be the hero and solve the problem he complains about went unanswered. He must be really busy working on important things to turn down my “unlimited cash” offer to debunk us.
But I cannot figure out what could be more important than debunking us because the CBC reported on May 09, 2019 that “As vaccine hesitancy poses a growing threat to public health, the University of Toronto is opening a new centre aimed at challenging misinformation about vaccines.”
The article goes on to say:
Vaccine hesitancy “is a problem everywhere,” the centre’s director, Dr. Natasha Crowcroft — who also serves as the chief science officer at Public Health Ontario — told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning Thursday.
“As somebody who has been working in vaccines for too long, longer than I care to mention, it’s very concerning and upsetting.”
So why is Fisman ignoring me? This is his big chance to solve the problem. It makes no sense. It’s almost like he’s afraid of facing reality.
Consider Fisman’s latest paper
Here is Fisman’s latest paper which I referenced in my email to him: Impact of population mixing between vaccinated and unvaccinated subpopulations on infectious disease dynamics: implications for SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
Because this paper is pro-narrative, it gets lots of press coverage. If it was counter-narrative, the press would ignore it. That’s how it works.
Fisman’s paper then leads to serious misinformation about transmission of the virus being promoted extensively in the Canadian media and other sources such as this Forbes article (Apr 25) and this Salon article (Apr 27).
NOTE TO READERS
I used to spend time trying to contact authors of media pieces like this but I’ve never had anyone get back to me, so I’ve given up. Maybe you will have better luck.
Fisman’s claim, based on a flawed mathematical model, is that associating with the unvaccinated poses a greater risk for transmission than associating with vaxxed. The underlying assumptions are completely misleading and the mathematical model is so ridiculously complex that few people (even experts) can understand it.
In his paper, he wrote:
We constructed a simple susceptible–infectious–recovered model to reproduce the dynamics of interactions between vaccinated and unvaccinated subpopulations in a predominantly vaccinated population.
But here is his “simple model” from his paper:
Remember, that’s the simple model. Can you imagine what the more realistic, accurate model looks like?
Bottom line
As detailed in Jessica Rose’s excellent substack (and also the video interview below), the conclusions of the paper are reversed by changing the value of a single parameter.
The parameter he used was assumed (by the authors) to be correct, even though it isn’t supported by any actual data (the actual data shows the opposite to his assumption).
So why didn’t any of the press stories on this paper point that out?
Simple. Because the authors of those media stories have absolutely no clue what the hell they are writing about.
Read these articles, comments, video debunking Fisman’s work
Here are three superb articles (and one video) debunking the paper, none of which are mentioned in the press stories:
- Fiction Disguised as Science to Promote Hatred (a substack by Professor Byram Bridle, Apr 26)
- OCLA Statement on CMAJ Fisman et al. Article Claiming Disproportionate Infection Risk from Unvaccinated Population, and on Negligent Media Reporting (Apr 27)
- Call for retraction of paper entitled: “Impact of population mixing between vaccinated and unvaccinated subpopulations on infectious disease dynamics: implications for SARS-CoV-2 transmission” (a substack article by Dr. Jessica Rose, Apr 28)
- Comments: The comments on Fisman’s paper that discredit it can be found in the comments section of the journal article.
- EPISODE 107: DR. BYRAM BRIDLE & DR. DENIS RANCOURT
- WATCH: Calgary medical specialist and lawyer refute misinformation on unvaxxed being COVID spreaders (video)
Why aren’t any of the issues raised by these articles included in the press stories?
One issue is timing: the Forbes article was published before these analyses came out (but the Salon article wasn’t).
The second one is media bias: they only report stories consistent with the narrative and never seek out any opinions from anyone qualified to challenge the narrative. That’s the way the free press works nowadays.
Reader comments
From Mathew Crawford:
I was writing an article, but stopped when I saw Jessica’s. She nailed it.
It’s one of her most important articles. People need to share it widely.
From catbirdsings:
Their model is complex at one level. At another level, it is quite simple. If the fraction of immunity in the unvaccinated is greater than the fraction of immunity in the vaccinated, then the vaccinated will disproportionately be a source of infection for the unvaccinated. In the opposite case, the unvaccinated will disproportionately infect the vaccinated. Both of these numbers are a function of the rate at which immunity is acquired versus the rate at which it is lost. All reliable data suggest that natural immunity is strong and long lasting while vaccine immunity is short-lived. In the case of the latest omicron variants it suggests that there might not be any vaccine immunity at all and negative immunity as time goes on. But of course if you assume only 20% immunity and unvaccinated and 80% immunity in the vaccinated, your motto will support the conclusion that those stubborn unvaccinated are making the vaccinated sick. If they know even the basics of the mathematics involved, they had to know this before they ever ran the model.
From George:
This barely scratches the surface of the damage done by Fisman and his colleagues here at U of T. That cabal of doctors in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health from U of T, have formed the rotten core of COVID-zero zealots here in Canada. Even worse, they were empowered not only by U of T, but by being placed on the Ontario Science Table which was the official “sciency” advisory board to the provincial government of Ontario.
Even worse, it turns out, is that Dr Fisman, was a paid consultant for the extremely powerful Ontario Secondary School teacher’s union while acting as a policy advisor to the government of Ontario.
If you read even a small fraction of the models created by this disgraceful group of professors/doctors, you’ll see they only know how to graph fear and exponential curves. I could have created better models when I was in High School. It is so embarrassing, but they don’t care. They have enjoyed the public eye for almost 2 years now, and only care about perpetuating fear of SARS-COV2 which includes closing schools, businesses, and disrupting everyday life at every opportunity.
You should see the tweets of his colleague and co-author Ashley Tuite. They were unwilling to leave their house or let anyone and if I recall in one instance lived without hot water for a while from fear of the repair folks bringing COVID into the home. These are people being paid by the teacher’s union, and sponsored by the government to advise on public policy when frankly, one has to wonder if they need a different sort of help.
From J’Accuse News:
Corrupt actors such as David Fisman can have a field day and contribute to immense harms from a base in this country. For as awful as is the “legacy” media in many nations, in this country the establishment press is particularly lacking in critical, independent, thought.
First I heard of U of T’s Dalla Lana – and the first I ever heard the term “vaccine hesitancy” – was in a May 19, 2019 CBC story:
“As vaccine hesitancy poses a growing threat to public health, the University of Toronto is opening a new centre aimed at challenging misinformation about vaccines and ensuring Canada is ready for the next outbreak of a highly infectious disease.
The Centre for Vaccine Preventable Diseases at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health will be home to scientists across multiple disciplines who will study disease and vaccination patterns, as well as how best to combat the spread of misinformation about vaccines.”
Within a year or two the name Dalla Lana’s became synonymous with propaganda and mis/disinformation. Fisman and co. are behind such terrible harm to individuals and society.
Summary
Fisman and his co-authors are deliberately manipulating the data to spread misinformation. He needs to read the critiques above and retract his paper. If he doesn’t, you will have your confirmation of what kind of person he is.
You can help by calling my article to Fisman’s attention. It’s important he sees it. I’ve tried myself via email but, for some reason, I’ve been unable to get his attention.
Also, please share this article with your friends, especially in Canada.