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Column: Stanford throws a party for purveyors of misinformation and disinformation about COVID
We’re living in an upside-down world, aren’t we?
It’s a world in which scientists whose research findings that COVID-19 probably originated as a spillover from wildlife have been validated by dozens of scientific studies, but got them hauled before a Republican-dominated House committee to be brayed at by the likes of Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and accused of academic fraud.
Meanwhile, the purveyors of claims that COVID’s danger was overstated and could be met by exposing the maximum number of people to the deadly virus in quest of “herd immunity” have been offered a platform to air their widely debunked and refuted views at a forum sponsored by Stanford University.
This is awful, a full on anti-science agenda (and revisionist history), tone deaf to how this kind of rhetoric contributed to the deaths of thousands of Americans during the pandemic by convincing them to shun vaccines or minimize Covid.
— Vaccine expert and pseudoscience debunker Peter Hotez
The event is a symposium on the topic “Pandemic Policy: Planning the Future, Assessing the Past,” scheduled to take place on campus Oct. 4.
No one can doubt that a sober examination of the policies of the recent past with an eye toward doing better in the next pandemic is warranted. This symposium is nothing like that.
Most of its participants have been associated with discredited approaches to the COVID pandemic, including minimizing its severity and calling for widespread infection to achieve herd immunity. Some have been sources of rank misinformation or disinformation. Advocates of scientifically validated policies are all but absent.
The event is shaping up as a major embarrassment for an institution that prides itself on its academic standards. It comes with Stanford’s official imprimatur; the opening remarks will be delivered by its freshly appointed president, Jonathan Levin, an economist who took office Aug. 1.
The problem with the symposium starts with its main organizer. He’s Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford professor of health policy. Bhattacharya is one of the original signers of the “Great Barrington Declaration,” a manifesto for herd immunity published in October 2020. The university didn’t respond to my question about Bhattacharya’s role. He didn’t respond to my request for comment.
The core of the declaration is what its drafters call “focused protection,” which means allowing “those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk” — chiefly seniors, who would be quarantined.
Focused protection, the promoters wrote, would allow society to achieve herd immunity and return to normalcy in three to six months.
The quest for herd immunity from COVID has several problems. One is that infection with one variant of this ever-evolving virus doesn’t necessarily confer immunity from other variants. Another problem is that COVID can be a devastating disease for victims of any age. Allowing anyone of any age to become infected can expose them to serious health problems.
Bhattacharya’s name doesn’t appear in the event announcement, but he has identified himself on X as its “main organizer.” Among the announced speakers is epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, another of the declaration’s original signers.
Several other speakers have advocated fewer restrictions on schools and businesses while predicting that COVID would be manageably mild, like the flu — predictions that were consistently and catastrophically wrong.
The date of the symposium, by the way, is the anniversary of the signing of the Great Barrington Declaration. It’s also Rosh Hashanah, one of the High Holy Days of the Jewish calendar. Stanford says the “overlap” with the holiday is regrettable, but it hasn’t offered to reschedule.
Stanford responded to my request for comment about the event by simply reproducing language from the event announcement.
“The conference was organized to highlight some of the many important topics that public health officials and policymakers will need to address in preparing for future pandemics,” the university said. “The speakers, including those already listed and others who will be added over the next several weeks, represent a wide range of views on this issue. We look forward to a civil, informed, and robust debate.”
That won’t do. Stanford’s argument that it’s merely providing a platform for “robust debate” among speakers with a “wide range of views” is belied by the roster of speakers, in which members of a discredited fringe of pandemic policy advocates are heavily overrepresented.
The event announcement has elicited skepticism and dismay among scientists seriously concerned about pandemic policy.
“Knowing who the speakers and panelists are,” wrote the veteran pseudoscience debunker David Gorski, “I know that ‘assessing the past’ will likely consist of highly revisionist history … claiming that public health interventions didn’t work.”
The description of some of the daylong symposium’s sessions should give one pause. The precis of a panel titled “Misinformation, Censorship, and Academic Freedom” states as fact that “governments censored information contrary to public health pronouncements in social media settings.” It asks rhetorically, “Does the suspension of free speech rights during a pandemic help keep the population better informed or does it permit the perpetuation of false ideas by governments?”
Yet who among the panel speakers lost their “free speech rights”? On the contrary, several, including Bhattacharya, have ridden their discredited claims to regular appearances on Fox News, op-eds in the Wall Street Journal and appointments to blue-ribbon government committees in red states.
A look at the speakers list should tell you where this event is heading. On a panel titled “Evidence-Based Decision Making During a Pandemic” is Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden’s pandemic policy. Sweden has been held up by critics of school closings and lockdowns and advocates of herd immunity as a success story, the theme being that by keeping schools and restaurants open, the country beat the pandemic.
The truth is just the opposite. As I’ve reported, the Tegnell record is disastrous. Sweden’s laissez-faire approach sacrificed its seniors to the pandemic and used its schoolchildren as guinea pigs. Swedish researchers concluded in retrospect that its policies were “morally, ethically, and scientifically questionable.” The death toll rose so high that the government was eventually forced to tighten up the rules.
Sweden’s death rate from COVID was much worse than that of its Nordic neighbors Denmark, Norway and Finland, which all took a tougher approach. If Sweden’s death rate had only matched Norway’s, it would have suffered only about 4,400 COVID deaths, rather than its toll of 18,500.
Then there’s Scott Atlas, a radiologist and former professor at Stanford medical school, who is currently a fellow at the Hoover Institution, the right-wing think tank housed on the Stanford campus.
Atlas was recruited to join the Trump White House as a COVID advisor in July 2020 after having volunteered to Medicare Administrator Seema Verma that the government’s pandemic policies were “a massive overreaction” that was “inciting irrational fear” in Americans.
Atlas estimated that the coronavirus “would cause about 10,000 deaths,” which “would be unnoticed” in a normal flu season. By the end of 2020, as it happens, COVID deaths in the U.S. exceeded 350,000. As of today, the toll is more than 1.2 million.
At the White House, Atlas promoted scientifically dubious prescriptions for the pandemic. He pushed for reduced testing for COVID and dismissed masking as a countermeasure. Most damaging, he called for a herd immunity policy.
Atlas’ prescriptions disturbed his Stanford colleagues, about 110 of whom wrote an open letter in September 2020 alerting the public to “the falsehoods and misrepresentations of science” that Atlas was preaching.
“Encouraging herd immunity through unchecked community transmission is not a safe public health strategy,” they wrote. “In fact, this approach would do the opposite, causing a significant increase in preventable cases, suffering and deaths, especially among vulnerable populations, such as older individuals and essential workers.”
The Stanford administration also formally disavowed Atlas’ statements and prescriptions. “Dr. Atlas has expressed views that are inconsistent with the university’s approach in response to the pandemic,” the university said. “We support using masks, social distancing, and conducting surveillance and diagnostic testing.”
Yet now Atlas appears to be back in the university’s good graces, judging from his presence on the roster. Stanford didn’t respond to my questions about Atlas’ role, and he didn’t reply to my request for comment.
Allowing this symposium to proceed along the lines laid out in the announcement will be a black mark for Stanford in the scientific community.
“What’s happening at Stanford?” asked vaccine expert and disinformation debunker Peter Hotez on X. “This is awful, a full on anti-science agenda (and revisionist history), tone deaf to how this kind of rhetoric contributed to the deaths of thousands of Americans during the pandemic by convincing them to shun vaccines or minimize COVID.”
Stanford’s claim to be a neutral host of a scientific symposium falls short as a fair description of its duties as an academic institution.
No university claims to be open to the expression of any or all views, no matter how unorthodox or counterfactual; they make judgments about the propriety of viewpoints all the time; the level of discernment they practice is one way we judge them as serious educational establishments.
By that standard, Stanford deserves an “F.” On the evidence, neither the university nor its medical school, which is a sponsor of the symposium, exercised any judgment at all before greenlighting an embarrassing gala for the pandemic fringe.
Johnny Beig may have played in a semi professional cricket league in Australia, but this summer he’s a big fan of soccer in the United States.
It’s not just because he’s rooting for the World Cup team, though.
FIFA emblems are featured on jerseys that were created by the Dioz Group and distributed for all employees at the 16 FIFA World Cup venues this summer.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Last year, Beig’s Beverly Hills-based company, Dioz Group, won a $2.5 million contract with On Location, FIFA’s hospitality partner, to design, manufacture and distribute uniforms for all employees working at FIFA World Cup venues this summer.
These include the people welcoming attendees into stadiums, VIP lounge chefs, waiters and the flagbearers during the opening ceremony.
After a multi-step application process, including presentations of its planning and strategy, Dioz says it produced more than 50,000 clothing garments including suits, jackets, shirts and hats and delivered them to the 16 World Cup venues around the U.S., Canada and Mexico in June.
Thanks in part to the World Cup contract, the company’s revenue has reached $15 million so far this year, compared with $20 million last year, Beig said. He declined to disclose the company’s net income but said the business was profitable.
“We are working with larger names that we would have never imagined we would,” he said. “The FIFA World Cup is the pinnacle. Working with the largest sporting event in the world is what we’re very proud of. I don’t think it gets any bigger than that.”
Volunteers line up to prepare to display the Canadian flag before a World Cup round of 32 knock-out match between Canada and South Africa at SoFi Stadium on Sunday.
(Kelvin Kuo / Los Angeles Times)
Dioz is among the many small businesses across Los Angeles that are getting a boost from the global sporting event, said Kevin Klowden, a senior fellow at the Milken Institute.
The influx of hundreds of thousands of fans into the city has been a boon to hotels, transportation services and restaurants, in addition to those in the special events and logistics economy, Klowden said, calling the event the “equivalent of multiple Super Bowls.”
“The number of contracts that are there, it’s a big deal,” he said. “Given the fact that L.A.’s filming is only slowly recovering, having something like the World Cup is definitely a boost.”
Dioz was co-founded by Johnny, 44, and his brother Tony in 2006. The brothers were born in India and raised in Australia, where Johnny enjoyed a brief career as a semi professional cricket player.
He realized his future wasn’t as a professional athlete, but he wanted to stay connected to the sports world, so he began making uniforms for his cricket team in 2006.
He then got a referral to make uniforms for multiple teams in the area before starting an apparel company.
“I wanted to stick with something I was passionate about, which is sports,” he said.
Volunteers unravel the center field display before a World Cup round of 32 knock-out match between Canada and South Africa at SoFi Stadium on Sunday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
In 2012, Beig moved to Los Angeles and established Dioz‘s Los Angeles headquarters to tap into the U.S. market. During the pandemic, the company started supplying medical apparel to hospitals and schools, and the business took off, with revenue doubling in 2020, Beig said.
Dioz now has over 150 employees, including 15 in L.A., and manufactures its apparel at factories in China, India, Bangladesh, Turkey and the Philippines. Tony runs an office in Dubai.
Before the World Cup, Dioz provided employee uniforms for events including Super Bowl LIX and Copa America, which may have given it a leg up on the FIFA contact.
Now, with a World Cup contract on their resume, Beig said he’s setting his sights on even bigger events.
“This gives us an edge over the next FIFA events worldwide as well, where we can showcase our skills and we can handle it,” Beig said. “So it gives us a good opportunity to work with sporting events like the UEFA Championship and Premier League.”
As companies get new business from the World Cup, Klowden said it’s important that they leverage their new position to continue that growth.
Companies that benefited from the World Cup might be in a position to bid on even bigger contracts, especially with the Olympics coming up in 2028, Klowden said.
“The really important part in any of these deals is that if a company ran something like this, then they are able to build off of that success,” Klowden said. “Let’s say you’re a company that did a big uniform order or a big food order, and the World Cup goes, and you invested in new manufacturing capacity, or you invested in new clothing machines, or whatever you do; suddenly you don’t have that market anymore, then you’ve just wasted all that money ramping up.”
Surcharges that California homeowners have been hit with statewide by insurers defraying the costs of Los Angeles County’s wildfires were ruled legal in a decision released late Tuesday.
L.A. County Superior Court Judge Tiana Murillo turned down a petition by advocacy group Consumer Watchdog to halt the charges, which insurers began levying last year after the state’s insurer of last resort couldn’t pay all its January 2025 fire claims.
The California FAIR Plan, financially backed and operated by the state’s licensed home insurers, needed a $1-billion bailout from the insurers after it was hit with some $4 billion in claims.
Under a deal Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara worked out with the FAIR Plan in 2024, the insurers could seek state approval to surcharge their residential policyholders for up to half of any assessment totaling $1 billion in case the plan needed a bailout in an “extreme worst case scenario” — as it turned out it did.
A total of 105 insurers, including State Farm General — California’s largest home insurer — Farmers and Mercury sought and received approval for the surcharges.
Because the FAIR Plan assessed its member insurers based on their share of the state’s home insurance market, the policyholder surcharges were in the same ballpark. The median fee for homeowners was $28, according to the department of insurance.
The fee can be more or less according to the size of a homeowner’s premium and is split into monthly payments that insurers can spread over one or two years. Condo owners and renters on average were surcharged less.
In a court filing, Consumer Watchdog said $420 million in surcharges were approved.
In its April 2025 lawsuit filed against Lara, the Los Angeles group made a series of arguments in seeking to overturn the residential surcharges, which it deemed an industry bailout. It did not sue over related commercial surcharges.
Consumer Watchdog contended in its lawsuit that the surcharges violated Proposition 103 — the 1988 measure that governs insurer rate hikes — because the proposition does not allow for them.
It also claimed Lara did not follow regulatory protocol in promulgating the new policy.
The group further alleged that the FAIR Plan’s governing statutes do not give Lara the authority to permit the surcharges — and that the statutes require insurers to share in the plan’s profits and losses, and not shift losses to policyholders.
Murillo, and another judge who previously heard the case, turned down all of the consumer group’s arguments in separate rulings, the last of which Murillo issued Tuesday night.
Lara celebrated his legal victory over Consumer Watchdog, which has accused Lara of having close ties to insurers and sought to oust him from office. His terms ends in January.
“This victory sends a loud and clear message: The era of allowing special interests to derail consumer choice is over. We have the momentum, we have the authority, and we will continue to fight until every Californian has access to the coverage they deserve,” Lara said in a statement.
Attorney Will Pletcher, litigation director of Consumer Watchdog, said the group disagreed with the decision and would “consider all options to move this forward.”
“It’s important to try to protect California consumers from these surcharges that we think are in pretty clear conflict with both Proposition 103 and the FAIR Plan,” he said.
Hilary McLean, a spokesperson for the plan, said in a statement it did not have any position on the ruling, given the plan “does not have a role in determining how insurers manage costs associated with assessment.”
Denni Ritter, vice president of state government relations for the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., a major industry trade group, said the decision rejected “the reckless lawsuit brought by the self-interested group Consumer Watchdog…”
“This ruling preserves a vital tool to protect the stability of the California insurance market. Blocking cost recovery would have undermined the state’s last-resort coverage option,” she said in a statement.
The 2024 policy was issued in response to the rapid growth of the plan due to a series of wildfires over the last decade that prompted multiple insurers to retreat from the state’s home insurance market.
The plan had 264,000 homeowners on its rolls in September 2022, a figure that rose to 452,0000 in the months before the fires — and its residential policyholders have since increased to 663,000 as of March.
The FAIR Plan offers policies that typically cost more than those issued by regular insurers while offering less coverage.
A Times analysis last year found that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the plan’s rolls nearly doubled to 28,440 from 2020 to 2024.
That concentration of policyholders led to the plan’s large losses during the Jan. 7 wildfires, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures, killing at least 31 people.
It’s been estimated that the insured losses for the wildfires could ultimately total as much as $40 billion, exceeding any past wildfires worldwide. Ritter said that so far insurers have paid $23.7 billion in claims.
The 2025 wildfires were not the only time the FAIR Plan has needed a bailout, though it is the first time its member insurers surcharged policyholders.
In 1993, it assessed carriers after fires in Altadena and Malibu, and in 1994 it did so after the Northridge earthquake. The assessments totaled $260 million.
The plan received approval this year from the insurance department for a 29% rate increase for its homeowner dwelling policy that will take effect in October.
An electric Tesla Semi truck crashed into two vehicles in Dayton, Nev., over the weekend, killing two people and raising questions about the truck’s safety features.
The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office responded to a major collision around 7 a.m. on Sunday at the intersection of Highway 50 and Traditions Parkway about 40 miles east of Reno, the office said.
The office confirmed a semi-truck was involved in the accident, and footage of the scene shows it was a Tesla Semi.
It is the first known crash involving a Tesla Semi, an electric Class 8 truck that Tesla is building in Nevada and plans to ramp up production of. As interest in Tesla’s electric passenger vehicles wanes, the company is betting on the truck to give it a needed boost.
The trucks do not have the Full Self-Driving mode available in Tesla cars, but Tesla’s website says they come standard “with active safety features that pair with advanced motor and brake controls to deliver traction and stability in all conditions.”
According to the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office, preliminary statements obtained at the scene suggest the truck driver may have fallen asleep behind the wheel.
The crash is under investigation by the Nevada State Police Highway Patrol, which said additional information may be released next week.
The Record-Courier identified the victims as Sergio and Jennifer Villanueva, a couple who got married in 2022.
Tesla has not clarified if its semitruck has an automatic emergency braking system. Federal regulators are currently weighing a mandate for emergency braking systems in vehicles more than 10,000 pounds.
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