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DoctorsfightingCOVID-19 should be supported by their profession and their government, not suppressed. Yet today physicians are smothered under a wave of censorship. With coronavirus variants and vaccine hesitancythreatening a prolongedpandemic, the National Institutes of Health and the broader U.S. medical establishment shouldfreedoctors to treat this terrible disease with effective medicines.

For centuries, doctors haveaddressedemerging health threats by prescribing existing drugs for new uses, observing the results, and communicating to their peers and the public what seems to work. In a pandemic, precious time and lives can be lost by an insistence on excessive data and review. But in the current crisis,many in positions of authority havedone just that, stubbornly refusingtoallowany repurposed treatments. This departure from traditional medical practice risks catastrophe.When doctors on the front lines try to bring awareness of and use such medicines,they get silenced.

Ive experiencedsuchcensorship firsthand. Early in the pandemic,my research led me to testify in theSenatethat corticosteroids were life-savingagainstCOVID-19, when all national and international health care agencies recommended againstthem. My recommendations were criticized, ignored and resisted such that I felt forced to resign my faculty position. Only later did a large studyfrom Oxford Universityfindthey were indeed life-saving. Overnight, theybecame the standard of care worldwide. More recently, we identifiedthrough dozens of trialsthat the drug ivermectin leads to large reductions in transmission, mortality,and time to clinical recovery. After testifying to this fact ina second Senate appearance the video of which wasremoved by YouTubeafter garnering over 8 million views I was forced to leave another position.

I was delighted when our paper on ivermectin passed a rigorous peer review and was accepted byFrontiers in Pharmacology. The abstractwas viewedover 102,000times bypeople hungry for answers. Sixweeks later, the journalsuddenlyrejected the paper, based on an unnamed external expertwho stated that our conclusions were unsupported, contradicting the four senior, expert peer reviewers who hadearlieracceptedthem.I cant help but interpret thisin contextas censorship.

The science shows thativermectinworks. Over 40 randomized trials and observational studies from around the worldattestto its efficacy against the novel coronavirus. Meta-analyses by four separate research groups, includingours, found an average reduction in mortality of between 68%-75%. And 10 of 13 randomized controlled trials found statistically significant reductions in time to viral clearance, an effect not associated with any other COVID-19 therapeutic. Furthermore, ivermectin has an unparalleled safety record and low cost, which should negate any fears or resistance to immediate adoption.

Our manuscript conclusions were further supported bytheBritish Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD) Panel. Following the World Health Organization Handbook of Guideline Development, it voted to strongly recommend the use of ivermectin in the treatment and prevention of COVID-19, and opined that further placebo controlled trials are unlikely to be ethical.

Even prior to the BIRD Panel recommendations, many countries have approved the use of ivermectin in COVID-19 or formally incorporated it into national treatment guidelines. Several have gone further and initiated large-scale importation and distribution efforts. In the last month alone, such European Union members as Bulgaria and Slovakia have approved its use nationwide. India, Egypt, Peru, Zimbabwe, and Bolivia are distributing it in many regions and observingrapid decreases in excess deaths. Increasing numbers of regional health authorities have advocated for or adopted it across Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa. And it is now the standard of care inMexico City,one of the worlds largest cities.

Its time to stop the foot-dragging. People are dying. The responsible physicians of this country, and their patients, need to be able to rely on their government institutions to quickly identify effective treatments, rather than waiting for pristine, massive Phase III trials before acting. At minimum, the NIH should immediately recommend ivermectin for treating and preventing COVID-19, and then work with professional associations, institutions, and the media to publicize its use. If it doesnt, the organization will lose credibility as a public institution charged with acting in the national interest and doctors will ignore its guidance in the future.

My story is not unique. Physicians across the country are fighting a pernicious campaign to denigrate all potential treatments not first championed by the authorities, and others have faced retaliation for speaking up. Sadly, too many of our institutions are using the pandemic as a pretext to centralize control over the practice of medicine, persecuting and canceling doctors who follow their clinical judgment and expertise.

Actually following the science means listening to practitioners and considering the entirety and diversity of clinical studies. Thats exactly what my colleagues and I have done. We wont be cowed. We will speak up for our patients and do whats right.

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Censorship Kills: The Shunning of a COVID Therapeutic - Fairfield Sun Times

The buildings located on the Red Square: Kremlin wall (at left) and Saint Basil's Cathedral (at right), Moscow, Russia.(Stock Photo, Getty Images)

Unraveling viral disinformation and explaining where it came from, the harm it's causing, and what we should do about it.

The Russian government escalated its war against social media companies on Wednesday by slowing down access to Twitter in the country in order to protect Russian citizens.

But just like its done in the past, Roskomnadzor, the states communications regulator, appears to have botched its plan to censor a social media platform while at the same time taking down its own website offline, as well as those of the Kremlin and the Russian government, according to several experts and journalists.

Last week, the regulator warned Twitter that it could face heavy fines if it was found guilty of repeatedly failing to remove some 3,000 posts containing information about suicide, child pornography, and drugs dating back to 2017. The regulator added that if Twitter continued to ignore the takedown requests, it would block the platform completely.

But on Wednesday Roskomnadzor took matters into its own hands and took action against the social media company.

Starting March 10, 2021, centralized response measures have been taken against Twitter to protect Russian citizens and force the internet service to comply with Russian legislation, Roskomnadzor said in a statement on Wednesday morning, according to a translation by the Moscow Times.

The agency said it would be slowing down access to Twitter on cell phones and desktops, but according to multiple Twitter users in Russia who posted messages on Wednesday morning, the action so far has had little minimal impact. However, the Russian version of the outages tracking website Down Detector is reporting a spike in issues with Twitter in the country.

The Twitter slow down is part of an escalating stand-off between Moscow and U.S. social media platforms. The action comes just 24 hours after news emerged that Moscow is planning to sue Twitter along with Google, Facebook, Telegram, and TikTok for allegedly failing to delete posts it said illegally urged children to take part in anti-Kremlin protests.

However, it appears that while trying to slow down access to Twitter, Roskomnadzor may have inadvertently knocked its own website offline together with a swathe of other Russian government sites and services, including the official Russian government website and Kremlin.ru though the latter subsequently came back online with a warning that its not secure.

At one point the Russian authorities appeared to blame the outage on a U.S. cyberattack, with Senator Andrey Klimov referring to reports this week that Washington is preparing a digital attack against Russia in response to recent moves against U.S. targets.

But then Russias Ministry of Digital Development laid the blame for the websites going offline on malfunctioning equipment operated by Rostelecom, a Russian telecoms provider, claiming the outage had nothing to do with the efforts to throttle Twitter.

But Russian experts believe that the effort to slow down Twitter and the sudden removal of several government websites are related.

Andrei Soldatov, an expert on the Russian governments efforts to control cyberspace, said on Twitter Wednesday that the throttling of the social network is what caused the website outages in Russia.

Meanwhile, investigative journalist Alexey Kovalev pointed out that an almost identical incident befell Roskomnadzor in 2018 when it attempted to block Telegram. This was because Russias security services decided that Telegram was a tool for terrorists due to the messaging services strong encryption preventing them from seeing what people were saying to each other.

And Financial Times Moscow correspondent Max Seddon wrote that it looks like Russia managed to take all the government websites offline in its attempts to slow down Twitter...Another crushing success.

Twitter, which didnt immediately respond to VICE News request for comment, is only used by around 3 percent of the Russian population. But it has become a space for hyper-politicized speech in the country, according to experts, particularly around the poisoning, and subsequent arrest and jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Roskomnadzor has no power to actually block any website or service itself. In 2018, it provided a list of IP addresses of Telegram users to the internet service providers, who then implement the block.

Trying to avoid being shut down, Telegram switched its IP addresses to Google and Amazons cloud infrastructure. But because thousands of Russian businesses and much of Russias critical IT infrastructure depend on the same services when Roskomnadzor decided to block those addresses too, Telegram remained online while the websites of online businesses and services were blocked.

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Russia May Have Censored the Kremlin Website While Trying to Censor Twitter - VICE

Rodger Whitney| New Bern

I was wrong about censorship being just one step lower than murder. It is worse than murder.

The destruction of an idea or body of work that could potentially live for centuries is unacceptable. Now, those who would rewrite history, hide what we were, hide the attitudes that have brought us to this point in time so they do not have to look at the good, the bad and the ugly of humankind's existence have attacked Dr. Seuss.

Over time, attacks on Mark Twain and other classic writers as well as artists and statues have been tolerated. We cannot allow censorship, the greatest threat to a free America, to continue.

Whether by social media persuading people not to view or use products and images and books, or by the removal of artworks, statues or books from a library, Censorship threatens truth...and the ability to learn from the mistakes of the past.

Slavery was a mistake. It is a mistake that has existed with Whites owning Whites, Whites owning other races, Africans owning Africans...a mistake that continues now with sex trades and other equally bad situations. We cannot learn from these mistakes if we do not know them.

We cannot learn about our country if we do not know, acknowledge and understand the struggles of the Civil War, the good of those who tried to end domestic slavery.

We cannot learn about music, art, literature and freedom of the press if censorship is allowed.

Write or e-mail your state and federal legislators. Write and email the business giants that threaten free expression...and contact the publishers of Dr. Seuss and let them know that knuckling under pressure sends a very bad message.

A free country cannot be without uncensored free expression.

Rodger Whitney

New Bern

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Letter to the editor: Censorship threatens the truth - New Bern Sun Journal

But the nostalgia and thrill of bonding over a book makes it all the more crushing when an offensive paragraph stops the young reader in their tracks.

It's hard to imagine a children's library collection without those titles. It's up to librarians, then, to determine whether those books and others with racist content still deserve a spot on their shelves, said Deborah Caldwell Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom.

"We may make a reevaluation of those books and their place in the canon," she told CNN. "It doesn't mean that people should stop reading the books or not have them in their collection, but they should be thinking critically about the books and how they are shared with young people."

The books may still stay on shelves

Parents, critics and readers of all ages reignited arguments over offensive children's books this week when Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced it would cease publication of six of the famed author and illustrator's books that contain harmful portrayals of minority groups.

Librarians have been paying close attention to the debate for years. Staff members who lead story times or curate displays are more likely now to select more inclusive titles than stalwarts like Seuss and Ingalls Wilder, Caldwell Stone said.

"The fact is that library collections are dynamic," she said. "There's only so much shelf space, and over time collections will shift."

Some libraries may move an offending book to the adult collection or historical archives, where it can live as a "historical artifact" that reflects the dominant attitudes of the time it was published.

But perhaps the most important consideration a librarian has is the wants and needs of their readers -- is a book reflective of the community the library serves? Is it still popular among readers? If a librarian decides a book is "no longer serving the needs of the community," it may be weeded out, Caldwell Stone said.

Offensive books can be conversation starters

"Little House's" stories of homesteading in the West and the Neverland adventures of a boy who flies but never ages are tales of daring, friendship and resolve. But both also contain racist depictions of Native Americans and fictional indigenous people, text that is often accompanied by offensive artwork in many editions.

And in Dr. Seuss' "If I Ran the Zoo," one of six books by the famed author that will no longer be published, characters intended to be of East Asian descent, with long wispy mustaches and closed eyes, carry a caged animal on their heads. It also features two people drawn as members of an unnamed African tribe with dark skin, large bellies and grass skirts.

The lens of nostalgia, coupled with the fact that most parents likely haven't revisited children's books since their own childhood, may've caused some adult readers to forget these offensive details. If parents do choose to introduce these books to their children, though, they can use the texts as launchpads for discussion of complicated topics like racism, Caldwell Stone said.

"The decision by Dr. Seuss Enterprises is a chance for adults to think critically about the books, decide whether or not to share them with the children in their lives and to engage in that conversation about race and racial prejudice," she said.

Librarian Lindsey Patrick read "Little House on the Prairie" with her young daughter and repeatedly probed her about why Ingalls Wilder's portrayal of Native Americans as cruel and unsophisticated was wrong. Some of the questions went over her daughter's head, Patrick wrote in a blog post for the library, but her daughter recognized that the "Indians" in the book were more offensive stereotypes than fully formed characters like Laura, Ma and Pa.

"Maybe my daughter didn't walk away with a full understanding of white privilege, but she can now better identify when someone is being 'snotty' to another person for racial or cultural differences," she wrote in 2019. "She also has a better understanding of our country's treatment of its native people."

It's a chance to add new books to the canon

The debate around Seuss and other popular classics is an opportunity for librarians to reevaluate the books that belong in canonical children's literature -- that is, books that are considered the best-loved and are frequently taught and read.

"I don't think that older books will be left behind -- I think that the canon will be expanded, and our understanding of what is important literature will be expanded" to include the experiences of Black Americans, people of color and other marginalized groups, Caldwell Stone said.

Librarians at the Brooklyn Public Library have for years left classics on the shelves and for story times select titles that celebrate "the diverse voices and experiences that help create the fabric of the Brooklyn community," said Amy Mikel, the Brooklyn Public Library's director of customer experience.

Books with offensive content remain available to check out, she said, but they better serve readers as a "springboard for conversations and healing." The library's attention remains on widening its selections that center members of historically marginalized groups.

Spotlighting books that feature diverse characters while sidelining, but still offering, books that reduce diverse characters to stereotypes is an option that sticks to librarians' anti-censorship stance and, hopefully, carves out a place for more books to join the wider canon of notable children's literature, Caldwell Stone said.

"It's always been the role of libraries to foster cultural understanding," she said. And with a larger emphasis on books that don't rely on stereotypes and prejudice to entertain, librarians hope, libraries can be havens for readers from all backgrounds.

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Libraries oppose censorship. So they're getting creative when it comes to offensive kids' books - CNN

A few months ago, Kirk Nesset was released from federal prison. A former professor of literature at Allegheny College, he was prosecuted for possession of child pornography in 2014.

At the time, the FBI and Pennsylvania State Police found more than 500,000 images in his home.

Some images depicted the rape of infants. Other images depicted the sexual abuse of older children. This case is unbelievable, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian Trabold said when Nesset was sentenced. It is the most child pornography that I have seen in 15 years as a federal prosecutor.

This month, Nesset had a poem published in one of the most prestigious poetry magazines in the world.

For its February issue, Poetry included the work of currently and formerly incarcerated people, their families, and the artists, poets, and teachers who work in carceral spaces. The editors did not investigate the backgrounds of those who submitted, and Nessets poem was accepted. Understandably, when readers found out what this poet had been incarcerated for, they were upset. Right now, more than 2,000 people are petitioning the Poetry Foundation, which publishes Poetry, to remove Nessets poem from circulation.

There was a time when I might have signed their petition, too.

But in the past few years, I have spent time working with incarcerated writers. As a writing mentor in PEN Americas Prison Writing Program, I corresponded with a man who participated in the gang rape of a woman. He sent me his work, and I did my best to help him revise it. Over time, we got to know each other. Like many sex offenders, he had been molested as a child. Like me, he loved to read and write. He was also someone who wanted to turn his life around. If his work had been accepted by Poetry, I would not have tried to remove it.

I have never met a prison volunteer who supports crime. But most prison volunteers believe that a criminal can reform and move beyond their crime. As one of my colleagues from the Prison Mindfulness Institute once said to me, We all have the Buddha inside of us. In other words, we all have the potential to have compassion for ourselves and each other. Just as I have compassion for the victims of sexual abuse, I also have compassion for their abusers. I also dont think its my place to bar writers from publication after they are released from prison.

At the end of the day, most prisoners will be released. I hope they all have the resources and support networks to find a positive sense of purpose in their lives. Like many progressive activists who work to ban the box that allows employers to discriminate against formerly incarcerated job applicants, I also hope editors will not discriminate against formerly incarcerated poets, novelists, playwrights and other writers who submit their work.

As someone who has seen the consequences of sexual abuse, I know how important it is to support victims. I also know how important it is to challenge the culture of punishment and retribution in the United States, a country with the highest incarceration rate in the world. Lets not confuse punishment with compassion for the victims of violent crimes. And lets not forget that some of the worst crimes are committed by people who are also victims.

If a pedophile should not have their poem published, why should a rapist or a murderer have their short story, play or essay published, either? In this vein, there seems to be no reason why those who started the petition against Nesset should not start new petitions to retract work published in PEN Americas prison writing anthology and other anthologies, magazines, journals and newspapers. After all, if Nesset is censored, then a lot more writers should be censored, too.

As New York Times Magazine poetry editor Reginald Dwayne Betts put it in a Slate article, Its easy to be righteous in the anger at his crime. This guy was a pedophile. But shit, I carjacked somebody! If I was in that issue I could see the person I did that to asking, Why the hell is this guy in here? In fact, the only reason hes in here is because he carjacked me and went to prison! Thats why the outrage seems false, because theyre only willing to do it on this case. In contrast to how easy it is to be upset right now, it is more difficult to decide who should be censored and who should not.

While tough on crime has been the promise of every Republican president from Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan through Donald Trump, it should not be the promise of editors who publish poems. It certainly should not be the promise of readers who identify as progressives. As Betts suggests, there is a disjunction between the anger directed at Nesset and the rhetoric of prison abolition that many of these same liberals expound. Indeed, just a few years ago, some liberals were upset that Harvard University did not admit a writer who was convicted of murdering her disabled son.

Of course, none of these cases are the same. But, in the case of censorship, Im in no position to draw the lines between them. And to be frank, I dont think anyone else is, either.

To end with a quote from the petition to the Poetry Foundation, Nessets time served does not equate to the lifetime of emotional, physical, and psychological trauma victims of child pornography and sexual assault endure. This couldnt be more true. Moreover, readers have every right to be upset, especially since Nesset has the same elite background as so many poets who end up in Poetry. But in the end, censorship will lead to more problems. And if these censors extend their arguments to other writers, it will also lead to a hell of a lot more censorship.

I dont think this is the right path for progressive activism or for literature.

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Censoring poems by people incarcerated for a certain type of crime is a slippery slope (opinion) - Inside Higher Ed