Were the lockdowns the worst public health decision in 100 years?
We’ve had a running discussion here on whether the lockdown was the worst decision ever in America. I think it was up there, but I can think of worse. One example I’ve given of a decision I believe is worse was the failure of the right to fight the Gramscian march through the universities with sufficient vigor back when it might have mattered. Another is the substitution of equality of outcome for equality of opportunity. Another is the failure of voters to see the leftist intent of Barack Obama. Still others might be the imposition of the permanent income tax and/or the direct election of senators.
You may come up with others, but those are the ones that quickly come to mind for me.
But the question I’m asking – sparked by this article, is whether the lockdown was the worst public health decision in the last 100 years:
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University recently said the COVID-19 lockdowns are “the single worst public health mistake in the last 100 years,” adding that “lockdowns themselves impose great harm on people.”
“I stand behind my comment that the lockdowns are the single worst public health mistake in the last 100 years. We will be counting the catastrophic health and psychological harms, imposed on nearly every poor person on the face of the earth, for a generation,” said Bhattacharya.
“At the same time, they have not served to control the epidemic in the places where they have been most vigorously imposed. In the US, they have – at best – protected the “non-essential” class from COVID, while exposing the essential working class to the disease. The lockdowns are trickle down epidemiology.”
So he’s not just talking about the US; he’s talking worldwide – because one of the peculiarities of this historical moment is that the decision affected most countries, as though lockdowns were as contagious as the virus itself or perhaps even more so.
In the US – the country I know best – I believe that initially it really was a public health decision, borne of fear, the unknown, and the desire to be as safe as possible and buy time to prepare. But not long after, the lockdown took on another life and was propelled by much more than the public health considerations, as people in charge saw the crisis as a golden opportunity to accomplish a host of things they might otherwise have difficulty achieving.
First and foremost was to harm Donald Trump’s presidency and chances of re-election. Mission accomplished. Next was the sheer exercise of power over the little people. That can be very intoxicating, particularly for the left, and they learned a lot from it. One of the things they learned is that fear can encourage Americans to part with a very significant amount of liberty. What useful information that is to the left! Not only is power intoxicating and even contagious for those in charge, but fear is apparently contagious to much of the public, and the habit of fear is hard to break.
Another possible motive in this country was to harm the non-elite and reward the elite. The latter can work from home more easily. Working class people, or for example people in the restaurant business or the hair salon business, would find it a great deal more difficult. Teachers, that mainstay of the Democratic Party, were protected. I don’t think this particular effect was necessarily plotted out in advance from the very start, but as things developed it became clear that this would be a serendipitous side effect of the lockdown for the left.
Voices of warning were drowned out almost from the start. I recall writing a post one year ago, almost to the day, that mentioned that the amount of fear seemed way out of proportion to the actual risk involved with COVID. I wasn’t the only one saying this, but we were in the minority. It’s interesting to go back now and read it; here’s an excerpt:
But COVID-19 is not shaping up to be that sort of event, and there’s no reason to think it will be. However, although many measures are prudent – handwashing, increased testing, hospital preparedness, some measure of social distancing at least for a while – the degree of fear I see and hear is far greater than anything I can recall in my lifetime around a medical event…
Now it seems the chief focus of the Democrats’ reaction to this crisis is to criticize Trump and score political points.
It’s rather ironic, though, that I ended that post by noting, as a hopeful sign, that governors Newsom and Cuomo were cutting Trump some slack. At the time, they were actually praising him. That certainly didn’t last long, did it?
Neo is absolutely correct here.
I compared it to the military’s failure to know that the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor. Some people knew it was coming and some late warnings went out, but weren’t taken seriously. At least that is my understanding.
The crazy thing is that the Left doesn’t agree at all. They think it was all necessary.
I’m surprised that some parents aren’t rioting over the school closures.
Alex Berenson (who formerly worked for the NYT and is not conservative) has been writing very sensibly for more than a year about the difference between what he calls Team Apocalypse and Team Reality, the latter being anti-lockdown, anti-mask, and pro-normality. He recently posted on Twitter that the struggle between the two camps is likely to be the most divisive national issue since Vietnam. Dr. Bhattacharya is one of the authors of The Great Barrington Declaration, which ought to have been heeded, rather than the vastly over-rated and over-compensated Fauci (who was wrong about AIDS many decades ago).
neo,
You are getting there aren’t you?
The problem with the items in your first paragraph are with the exception of Obama and the tax issue they were not singular events. The Gramscian march was a long long time coming where as this was all done in such a short time and was world wide almost.
It was definitely the worst public health decision probably ever and the worst decision period is up for debate.
Further proof of the nature of this disaster is how many things public health officials now recommend that are the exact opposite of what they recommended 15 months ago.
Lockdowns don’t work. Quarantining healthy people is a stupid idea. Masks don’t work for stopping spread of viral infections.
These were all widely accepted in public health circles and just like that they reversed on all of them.
Griffin:
Actually, I think the Gramscian march had a tipping point, and after that it was hopeless to stop it. Also, the passage of those amendments were discrete events. Of course, there are always societal changes leading up to any single event – but that is also true for the lockdown.
Also, the lockdown was a series of decisions, not just in different countries and in different states, but in terms of time. Lockdowns were renewed over and over, and different states made different decisions about that over time (as did different countries).
If it had been kept at “two weeks to flatten the curve,” or even 4 weeks, it wouldn’t have been so bad.
neo,
‘If it had been kept at ‘two weeks to flatten the curve’ or even 4 weeks, it wouldn’t have been so bad.’
Yes I agree with that but that is the problem it was obviously never going to be that and some brave souls saw that early on. The day Trump backed off his Easter reopening plan was the day it all collapsed and yes I know what he was up against but that was the last stand for any chance of a return to normalcy.
I can’t think of any other major issue that I have felt so right about from the very, very beginning.
Another watershed moment in this was when they revised what would be called a COVID death. I believe it was scarf lady that announced it or at least publicized it.
From that day the data was irretrievably corrupted.
Fine analysis, Neo.
Good points, Griffin.
Then, there’s this: “The Thirty Tyrants”, by Lee Smith (Tablet Magazine (February 3, 2001 – https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-thirty-tyrants)
“For nearly a year, American officials have purposefully laid waste to our economy and society for the sole purpose of arrogating more power to themselves while the Chinese economy has gained on America’s. China’s lockdowns had nothing to do with the difference in outcomes. Lockdowns are not public health measures to reduce the spread of a virus. They are political instruments, which is why Democratic Party officials who put their constituents under repeated lengthy lockdowns, like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, are signaling publicly that it is imperative they be allowed to reopen immediately now that Trump is safely gone.”
* * * * * * * * * *
“There is a good reason why lockdowns – quarantining those who are not sick – had never been previously employed as a public health measure. The leading members of a city, state, or nation do not imprison its own unless they mean to signal that they are imposing collective punishment on the population at large. It had never been used before as a public health measure because it is a widely recognized instrument of political repression.”
Griffin:
I likewise got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach when he extended it. But I don’t think it would have mattered if he hadn’t. The entire world (and many states) was doing differently, and every death would have been attributed to him – as it was anyway, actually. What’s more – as I believe I’ve pointed out before – large corporations and sports and concert arenas had already closed down. The die was cast by then. Sweden was one of the few countries on earth that didn’t lock down, and I believe even they ultimately did so for a while, after sustaining great criticism for not joining the rest.
Let’s add to the confusion: so up until 4 days ago the number of actives cases as given by worldometers was dropping at the rate of about 35k/day as it has since mid January. The data for that parameter has been very “decent” for over a year now. 4 days ago the number dropped over a million in a single day. Sounds good, but any such large discontinuity in the data is a bad thing. I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to find what happened…nothing on WoM, and I couldn’t find anything online. Looking back through their graphical data it became apparent they made a 12% adjustment to ALL the data back through May15 2020.
So, I guess, by decree, the pandemic in the USA is/was suddenly 12% less than we thought. Oh, BTW, today, today serious cases also underwent a 14% decrease from the day before..about 2000 cases, compared the steady 300cases/day that has been happening since mid December.
And they wonder why we are such cynics.
I wonder how much will prove to be a pyrrhic victory for the left, especially the “rank and file”. Teachers, for instance, facing lay offs as a result of burgeoning homeschooling movement – one that has certainly gained momentum in the face of these teachers’ flat refusal to do the job they’re paid to do. Whatever social capital they had with anyone right of center has been squandered.
Sport leagues, Hollywood, and other mainstream entertainment – important ideological indoctrination redoubts for the left – were already enduring market headwinds and seemingly committed industry suicide, particularly movies.
Universities, likewise, after riding the grift train for generations have, for the first time, had to actually explain what exactly they are providing for the fortunes they charge.
Big Tech’s censorship has also woken many formerly neutral people to the problem of their power.
Will it matter? The global elites seem to think not, but….
Happy anniversary of the two week lockdown.
Speaking to Sam’s points about how this will affect various industries. The mask theater has gotten to the point where it is affecting my personal feeling about certain businesses. If you have a commercial that ends with your office staff standing outside wearing masks you’re out with me. If you have someone roaming around wiping everything down every two minutes you’re on shaky ground with me.
Sports leagues and tv shows also. If you insist on the players and coaches wearing masks while on the bench even though they are all tested daily and are young and healthy but then they pull the mask down to yell you are on shaky ground with me. If you cancel games because some assistant trainer tested positive but has no symptoms you’re on shaky ground with me. If you are making a tv show and the cast are all masked up in their homes you’re in trouble with me. Or if you can’t even keep your stupid mask logic straight like wearing a mask outside but then immediately taking it off when entering an office you’re on shaky ground with me.
So much theater. So much stupid theater.
Other than the destruction of food by the government during the Depression, to try to raise food prices while people were starving*, I’m having a hard time finding parallels in American history to the COVID lockdowns.
*The logic was that increased food prices would give farmers more money who would spend it and thus help pull the economy out of depression. Steinbeck describes this vituperatively in The Grapes of Wrath but conveniently for his worldview neglects that it was the government’s doing under the Agricultural Adjustment Act.
Took wife to see bone and joint specialists today. Something she’s been putting off for a year. The place was packed with patients. Standing room only!
This tells me many others have put off minor and some major medical procedures because of the shutdown. No doubt some have suffered and may have even died due to the shutdown.
I think our statistics on this pandemic will be rough for awhile because of:
1. large number who test positive without symptoms.
2. The PCR test is detecting a short segment of RNA that matches the probe you are using, meaning you are often seeing a part of non-viable virus or a segment of a viable virus. Different labs can use different probes too. And these results could mean lots of different things: The virus was destroyed by the innate immune system on a mucosal surface and never caused a deep infection with tissue damage. Or it could mean that an old systemic infection was managed and the immune system ‘won’ and that these particles have been thrown away by the ubiquitin system of disposal through the proteasome. Or it could mean that a person’s body was just acting like a fomite. No infection. Only carriage on a surface.
3. Depending upon how many times you allow the PCR set to cycle, it finds fewer and fewer virion particles, i.e., it is more sensitive if you allow it to cycle 30 times compared to 25 times. All these parameters were unknown and are still rather unknown. Thus you can have false positives and false negatives.
4. The symptoms of the illness Covid-19 vary tremendously. We all know this.
5. The duration of the symptoms vary tremendously. We all know this.
6. We lacked other tests early on. E.g. antibody tests which give indicia of previous infection but have high false negativity. Antigen tests which are useful for quick fast and dirty results with more false positives and especially false negatives. Virus cultures in vitro (as with Vero cells) and in vivo in animals were only found in research labs. Electron microscopy.
7. It was and is expensive to test unsick folks to determine prevalence in the population. But important to do. Also there is no way to force people to take up testing for ethical reasons. And what does “prevalence” mean unless we are all agreed upon which test to use.
As someone who watched this from the sidelines in retirement, the key events experienced by me:
1) prediction that 2.2 million would die in the US alone
2) NextDoor flooded seemingly overnight with people asking/demanding that schools/stores/workplaces be shut down (I would love it if some reporter would go back and see if that was truly independent or a coordinated effort)
3) it became clear that danger of WuFlu was WAY over hyped while the dangers of the shutdown were systematically ignored or even mocked
4) all the elements of the cabal: MSM, gov workers, Dem politicians, academics and celebs, international orgs, business leaders … came together to push one line
5) this statistic might be wrong but as I recall, for the most at-risk demographic age group, the death rate of the infected in the end was about 5%. I mean, 5% is a lot but overall a huge number of people made it through to the other end.
My NextDoor feed still contains accounts of people walking outdoors who had to pass within 6 feet of people who were not wearing masks. Teh Horror.
When did my neighbors become so weak, so wussified? I saw a meme this weekend that you could gauge the loss of quality in our citizenry by realizing that in the 1970s, a car’s owner manual explained how to adjust the valves of your engine whereas today’s manual tells you to avoid drinking battery water.
“Flattening the curve” would have done nothing to reduce the number of real, not fictionally exaggerated, Wuhan virus deaths. Its rationale was to spread those deaths out over time in order not to have hospitals “overwhelmed” by those seriously ill of the virus, and that huge, smothering surge of the ill never happened.
Instead, breast surgeries and colonoscopies for cancer and carotid arterectomies were not done, the delayed consequences of deprivation of care to be seen over the next few years.
Median life expectancy for a nursing home patient is one year, which means 50% of those would by now be dead of “co-morbidities”. Who has the numbers, surely several hundred thousand by now? Cuomo by himself killed maybe 15,000. And they have been counted as COVID deaths, because no one got into hospital without a test, and Medicare made a ruling that a diagnosis of COVID would get a hospital a higher DRG (one sum only) reimbursement than many other diagnoses, say like partial small bowel obstruction, which is why the patient was sent to the hospital.
Most docs are now hospital employees, and good employees do what they are told.
The Samaritan’s Purse field hospital in Central Park and the 1000 bed Navy hospital sent to NYC harbor went totally unused.
I can well understand the initial not knowing what to do, but the logic of quarantining all people is simply oppression. Public Health people “manage” populations, not individual patients. It enabled the vote fraud that did exist (?magnitude) and may have thrown America into a Democratic ditch from which it will never emerge, ever.
St. Thomas Aquinas observed ca. 1350 that tyrants were the worst form of rulers, since they ruled by fear alone. We are learning that lesson again.
No, the lockdowns were NOT the worst “public health decision” in 100 years. The lockdowns were not a public health decision at all.
The lockdowns were deliberately engineered to assist in the accomplishment of four goals; Trump’s defeat in the 2024 election, the reduction of the middle class, increased dependence upon government ‘largesse’ and establishing that the restriction of our former inalienable rights are subject to public ’emergencies’.
and every death would have been attributed to him – as it was anyway,
That’s the lesson Republicans never seem to learn: They cannot appease the left; no matter how much they accommodate, they will still be racist Hitlers. Just don’t.
“The Samaritan’s Purse field hospital in Central Park and the 1000 bed Navy hospital sent to NYC harbor went totally unused”
And all those ventilators Cuomo demanded.
Not only mostly unused but turns out they made things worse.
Appropriate paper just in, from Nature 11 March, 2021: “Coordinate vaccine studies to stem confusion.” “Incompatible research designs will obscure essential answers about vaccine effectiveness. It’s time to plan together.”
“Imagine what will happen when these studies generate results, each with their own populations, eligibility criteria, validation procedures and clinical endpoints. Differences in study design will cloud answers and prevent cross-cutting conclusions. If we don’t want our final answers to be a jumble, we must act now to consider how data can be compared and combined….”Unless we act now to ensure the quality and consistency of this research, we will be stuck with muddy findings, trying to look backwards to work out how or whether studies can be compared. There is rarely a cure for messy data.. Working out data standards up front takes time, but will bring essential knowledge. To save lives and livelihoods, share protocols now.”
from Natalie Dean, biostatistician University of Florida in Gainesville.
Also from Nature 11 March, 2021, seems to be a different paper: “In conclusion, using this methodology and current data, in ~98% of the comparisons using 87 different regions of the world we found no evidence that the number of deaths/million is reduced by staying at home.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84092-1
Not only is power intoxicating and even contagious for those in charge, but fear is apparently contagious to much of the public
The Seattle Times has cashed in on this truth for a year now. Every issue has several articles bringing into your home more fear-enhancing ‘facts’, Big Numbers, glorious diktats by Democrat Governors and Mayors, and a regular page of statistics serving both as art object and harbinger of doom from the Kingdom of Wuhan.
Cicero on March 15, 2021 at 7:10 pm “Medicare made a ruling that a diagnosis of COVID would get a hospital a higher DRG (one sum only) reimbursement than many other diagnoses…”
I understand that you are an MD who may have seen/heard this first hand, and I have no reason to doubt this assertion as a general idea given the rest of the insanity and theater about the pandemic, but I have never seen a publicly available reference or link to this “ruling” (nor anything released by a whistleblower). Do you perchance have such a specific or discrete reference/ link to validate this price ruling?
Also in reference to the Medicare pricing ruling: I wonder what exactly was the rationale for doing this. Was it:
1) a “deep state” idea made as a way to exacerbate the Covid-19 case and death counts to make Trump look bad?
or
2) a more benign idea that Medicare and the government would “step up” and take the cost load during the pandemic rather than force hospitals and health care providers to muck around with various and disjointed sets of treatment codes (especially early on when treatment protocols were still more in flux)?
The people who question whether the lockdowns were a terrible “mistake” are generous in their views of the decision making behind them. They were no “mistake”. They were and are deliberate actions designed to cause outcomes that suit those who forced them upon the populace. No mistake at all.
establishing that the restriction of our former inalienable rights are subject to public health ’emergencies’.
^^^ This ^^^
^^^ This This ^^^
Putting this Genie back in its bottle isn’t going to be a picnic.
R2L,
The most kind rationale was that it would be much more costly for hospitals to care for COVID patients because of precautions that would be needed therefore hospitals needed more money. But as always the law of perverse incentives came around and led to hospitalized ‘with’ as opposed to ‘from’ COVID because the money was the same.
Again it totally corrupted the hospitalization data because it is impossible to tell between ‘with’ and ‘from’ COVID.
“Again it totally corrupted the hospitalization data because it is impossible to tell between ‘with’ and ‘from’ COVID.”
Same for the death data. Monetary incentives to corrupt the data. Purposeful? Probably by some and sold as helpful to quelling the pandemic and keeping the medical system solvent.
geoff+b,
Yep, all the data has been thoroughly corrupted.
Cases with high cycle PCR tests and insane testing of huge amounts of healthy people.
Hospitalizations as mentioned above.
And deaths with the extremely loose standard where a positive test in past 30,60 days is all that was needed to be a COVID death. Also lots of people with COVID on death certificate that never even tested positive.
Garbage data plus power hungry politicians leads to incredibly destructive policies affecting millions.
Evil.
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“Medicare made a ruling that a diagnosis of COVID would get a hospital a higher DRG (one sum only) reimbursement than many other diagnoses”
R2L, at the time (at least in part) it was said that the Covid payoff was to help the medical world stay afloat. First they were told to clear the decks in preparation of the flood of Covid cases.
1) patients were aggressively discharged
2) many patients became fearful of being around healthcare workers
3) appointments and procedures were re-scheduled or cancelled (many of the re-scheds were eventually cancelled by the patient-see (2) above)
Thus hospitals were empty and starting to shut down for financial reasons. Gov’t offered a payoff to help them survive.
A short conversation with neighbors on the virus, masks, etc. and I can tell where they get their news and who they vote for.
The attributes of the panic-demic …
… the cargo-cult mask culture.
… the appeals to High and Unquestionable Authorities.
… the proclamations of “we’re all in this together” while restrictions are selectively imposed by the Authorities and you are “greedy” if you dissent.
… are the offspring of, and intentionally reinforce, the well-established collectivist worldview that is presented as The Best of All Possible Worlds by our alleged elites … a worldview well described by the words “social technocracy”.
A faith whose primary confession was already perceived decades ago: that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves … and that the rest of us can do no better than submit to it.
Under this worldview, we have been led to sell OURSELVES short as though we’re shares of GameStop, and let The Pedestaled elites establish their rule over us as they lead us right off the cliffs.
If we want to reverse this lemming parade we are on now and make it stick … getting ordinary people to QUESTION the world around them, then build trust in their own insights and NOT delegate their decisions to others, is essential to diminish the power of The Pedestaled and engage the distributed intellect and proximity-informed insight of ordinary people in solving the problems they face.
Which is a very tall order for a people conditioned to worship education, ¡¡¡SCIENCE!!!, surface achievements, and a so-called “social contract” … over fulfilling their own responsibilities to themselves, their families, and their neighbors – and their capabilities to successfully fulfill and build upon them.
Shorter answer – Lawyers.
This issue was so polarized from the start. No one was permitted any middle ground between “We’re all going to die!” and “It’s just the flu!” Move to the extremes and you have support; make rational observations from the damn data and both extremes pile on and attack you.
@R2l: FAQ from CMS on the COVID kicker. You’re welcome for the 3 seconds I spent on Google.
Everyone in the health insurance industry knows about this…
Question: Are hospitals that are paid by Medicare through the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) going to be paid using a special payment method during the COVID19 emergency? Is there a special DRG rate at which IPPS hospitals will be reimbursed for this situation?
Answer: There is no special DRG for COVID-19. Recent legislation in the CARES Act provides for increased IPPS payments during the emergency period for Medicare inpatients diagnosed with COVID-19. Further guidance on the implementation of this increased IPPS payment is forthcoming. Otherwise, normal prospective payment methodologies apply to hospitals’ discharges paid under the IPPS rate.
Posted: 3/6/20
Thanks, Frederick
The Ro has to go down if the virus is coughed up from a patient, floats around in the air for awhile, and it finds no other human to land upon. This makes lockdowns sound worthwhile.
But if lockdowns empirically in fact do not work, that voids this theory. It doesn’t make any difference if the theory makes sense and has perfect logic and that we want to believe it. It’s wrong.
How could lockdowns not work?
Here is an idea: People in lockdowns do have leakages. They have to open the door and allow food and meds to be delivered. They have to occasionally go to the supermarket and go to the dentist and doctor or clinic. They once in awhile hug a grandkid or a relative or yell at a nearby neighbor. They have to get gas in their cars. They cannot wipe down everything perfectly.
If the Covid virus was exquisitely contagious, like measles or chickenpox, and if the virus did pass via fomites occasionally, these rare contacts between the lockdown-ees and the outside world would be enough to keep the Ro above one. One kid in a hospital with chickenpox gives everyone in the hospital chickenpox unless they have had it before.
Another possibility: We are primates. As animals we are a mess. If you were walking a bunch of chimps as a volunteer in your local zoo, would the chimps stay together and follow your directions? Perhaps lockdowns are simply violated so much on the QT that they are just not effective?
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Q. Were the lockdowns the worst public health decision in 100 years?
A. No.
The so-called lockdowns weren’t really lockdowns at all. Generally, people had no enforced State enforced restrictions on their choices to move about and travel outside of their homes quite freely.
Should another much more dangerous pandemic disease strike, I expect that this pandemic’s pooh-poohers will do their best to avoid, dodge, delay, block, and minimize every prudent response.
P.S. I remember the Democrats, especially of the hard-left persuasion, who have been openly vaccine-avoidant. Not gonna take no Trump vaccine, no siree! Particular examples are now-VP Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Now they’re trying to steal credit for it.
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If we are just considering America, the decision to close down mental health institutions and let their patients fend for themselves as homeless street residents has to rank up at the top. It was also precipitated by fraudulent “science.”
True to Google, I can’t find the article I know I read about the doctor who simply made up his data to show what evil things mental hospitals were (they did have serious problems, but not the ones he cited), but at least people are now recognizing that maybe they didn’t quite solve the problem the way they thought they had.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/special/excerpt.html
https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/02/28/closing-mental-institutions-made-us-vulnerable-mass-shootings/
https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s-psychiatric-hospitals-led-to-a-mental-health-crisis
Also, the US-led decision to quit using DDT, for the health of the environment and by extension its inhabitants, contributed directly to the deaths of millions of Africans from malaria.
It was also precipitated by fraudulent “science.”
https://www.straightdope.com/21343558/was-rachel-carson-a-fraud-and-is-ddt-actually-safe-for-humans
I’m sure you are all surprised.
AesopFan, I read a book a year or two ago connecting JFK’s family’s abhorrence of the pater familias’ treatment of his daughter Rosemary who was mentally ill in some way or another. Her lobotomy and eventual institutionalization so revolted her siblings that they lobbied against the existence of mental facilities. As you said, this resulted in the closure of many and the release of many who were incapable of, or in some cases unwilling to, continuing therapy, drugs or otherwise, in hastily organized clinics. This must be considered as you said one of the worst public health decisions.
Susanamantha – I read about that story also, although it was not the one with the bad “study” that I referred to.
I suspect they worked together in moving governments (at all levels) to the point of closing the facilities without doing due diligence to see if there was any real scientific or public policy basis. There were budget considerations as well, with the feds and states and local and private levels all tossing the hot potato from one to the other.
Another case of jumping off the cliff because somebody with pull had an emotional (not logical or rational) ax to grind.
If we are just considering America, the decision to close down mental health institutions and let their patients fend for themselves as homeless street residents has to rank up at the top.
AesopFan:
That’s good competition for the lockdown! Not a day goes by when I’m sitting in my cafe, watching the homeless crazies on Central Ave. — called “ravers” here for the loud conversations they have themselves — that I don’t think about it.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there were some bad science behind deinstitutionalization. But there were already several forces at work, including the lobotomies and harsh electroshock treatments which were way out of control at the time and damaging people.
Perhaps you were thinking of Thomas Szasz, author of “The Myth of Mental Illness” who played an important part. He didn’t fake any research so far as I know.
There was the hope then that the mentally ill might be peculiar for whatever reasons but that institutions made them worse. Which might be true to a point, but the real problem is there are no great solutions for mental illness. Today’s meds are as good as it gets for the seriously ill, but they are unpleasant and tend to make people gain weight or worse.