Krumholz Channels Lindell et al

Earlier this week, I wrote about a preprint on medRxiv which has as a co-author the head of the preprint server, Harlan Krumholz.

The whole situation was to me a chilling reminder of the Andrew Wakefield debacle in 1998 — authors poised to profit from spreading a “vaccine injury” narrative and getting a paper out into the media without initially disclosing their commercial interests.

In Wakefield’s case, he could have made millions from his fraudulent study’s findings, and it took a lot of digging to find that out. In this case, the authors were quicker to disclose, which was good. But by the time they did, the media had moved on. Was that purposeful? We’ll never know, but it wasn’t the best behavior.

Yesterday, Krumholz emailed me about the latest post. It was another interesting exchange.

At the time, I happened to be writing about a fraudulent preprint posted for commercial gain back in 2020, this one involving Mike Lindell, the “My Pillow” guy, Covid-19, and oleander. I covered it at the time.

What was striking about the latest exchange with Krumholz is how it mirrored one back in 2020 between Lindell and Anderson Cooper of CNN.

During a live interview, Cooper accused Lindell of being a “snake oil salesman” and asked him, “How do you sleep at night?” Lindell responded, “You’re in my prayers,” and accused Cooper of “calling [him] names.”

Krumholz ran a similar playbook, accusing me of using a tone, approach, demeanor, and content that made him uncomfortable, for seeking chaos instead of truth, suggesting he pitied me, and urging me to seek help.

In other words, I was rude, pitiable, and in his prayers.

Recently, a tech entrepreneur pushing a health scheme was accused by a physician of being a fraudster. He responded, “. . . why are you so angry? Who hurt you?” Per this playbook, the tech-bro refused to answer questions about the sources behind his health claims, attempting to shift the spotlight away by feigning concern about the mental status of someone asking reasonable questions.

These are obvious attempts to turn the tables and hit a nerve, probing for vulnerability or hoping to make the other person lose their cool. It only comes from people afraid, unable, or unwilling to answer direct questions.

In response to my patient requests that Krumholz simply answer the three questions I had posed about the commercial interests of his co-authors of the preprint — Did he know these co-authors were “vaccine injury” profiteers? When did he know it? Did he stand to profit? — he only answered the latter.

Krumholz does not stand to profit from the “vaccine injury” business.

Good.

He refused to answer the other two questions.

Not good.

I guess he was too busy praying for me.

So much for open and transparent behavior from the head of medRxiv.