29th May 2023
My next TOI blog post: Recognising Dr Charles Maclean’s path-breaking work
There has been no greater scientist in public health than Charles Maclean.
In many ways he far exceeded the intellectual breadth of understanding of anyone who came after him.
– detailed empirical analysis of quarantine (NO ONE in PH has ever done such analysis after him)
– cost-benefit analysis of quarantine (virtually no one has ever done it after him till recently with covid)
– excess mortality analysis of quarantine
– detailed economic incentives and practical reasons why quarantines always fail
– he has been slandered: he was NOT an anti-contagionist
– he was NOT a “free trader” (although being a free trader is a good thing)
– he set out the case which led to sanitary reform – the modern PH discipline exists today because of him.
Yet PH has cancelled him!
I explain why: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/seeing-the-invisible/recognising-dr-charles-macleans-pathbreaking-work/
Much more in a paper I’m working on, re: quarantine + a book on quarantine.
MY PREDICTION: PUBLIC HEALTH WILL CONTINUE TO IGNORE HIM. He is too dangerous for them. Acknowledging him will raise too many questions. Public Health’s money-minting policy of panic and quarantine will be wiped out if Maclean is acknowledged.
