Jay Bhattacharya

  • Professor of Medicine at Stanford University
  • Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research
  • Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
  • Director of the Stanford Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging

Credentials

  • MD, Stanford University
  • Ph.D. in Economics, Stanford University

Education

  • MD – Stanford University
  • Ph.D. in Economics – Stanford University

Affiliations

  • Stanford University
  • National Bureau of Economic Research
  • Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
  • Stanford Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging

Research Focus

  • Public health
  • Health economics
  • Health policy
  • Aging and longevity

Notable Publications

  • The Lifetime Distribution of Health Care Costs (2003)
  • An Exploration of the International Comparison of Patient Satisfaction Levels (2006)
  • The Infection Fatality Rate of COVID-19 Inferred from Seroprevalence Data (2020)

Connect

Awards & Honors

  • (2011)

Key Contributions

  • His research, 'The Lifetime Distribution of Health Care Costs' has provided significant insights into the economics of healthcare and aging.
  • His work on COVID-19 has influenced public policy and discussions around the world.

Contact

https://profiles.stanford.edu/jay-bhattacharya

Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 4:54 0
“we also discussed drug prices and why Americans pay 10 times or more for the same prescription drugs sold in other countries and the relationship of that to public health”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 4:54 0
“we also discussed drug prices and why Americans pay 10 times or more for the same prescription drugs sold in other countries and the relationship of that to public health”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 4:40 0
“that discussion leads into a very direct conversation about vaccines more generally not just co 19 vaccines but also measles ms rebella vaccines and the very public and controversial issue taking place right now about vaccines and autism”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 8:16 0
“the NIH has had some role in developing almost every you know all the all the fights over you know what's what's the right thing to do to to to get good sleep what's the right thing to do for your diet the NIH has played some role”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 8:16 0
“what's the right thing to do to to to get good sleep”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 8:16 0
“what's the right thing to do for your diet”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 10:35 0
“the NIH very appropriately funds that work uh especially work that's not patentable right because no drug company has an incentive to do that work and yet it's vital”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 14:55 0
“we know on the basis of that work that children need corrective surgeries early or else the brain is forever blind to the perfectly fine eyeball if the eyes aren't correctly aligned.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 15:14 0
“people with cataract have those cataracts removed early and on and on.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 19:02 0
“I'm able to get 28 grams of protein in the calories of a snack which makes it easy to hit my protein goals of one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day and it allows me to do so without ingesting too many calories.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 19:40 0
“One of the best ways to ensure a great night's sleep is to make sure that the temperature of your sleeping environment is correct and that's because in order to fall and stay deeply asleep your body temperature actually has to drop by about 1 to 3°.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 44:25 0
“you take metformin it's a very cheap drug now but once upon a time it was a patented drug and you prevent the progress of type two diabetes”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 52:40 0
“there's a class of drugs that was released last year or about last year called the Doras these are drugs that encourage sleep by suppressing the wakefulness mechanism as opposed to promoting the sleepiness mechanism in loose terms.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 53:00 0
“given the essential role of sleep in mental and physical health for you know and and I'm a strong believer that behavioral tools sunlight etc are critical but some people truly struggle with you know clinical grade insomnia and it's extremely detrimental”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 55:35 0
“90% of the psychoactive drugs like the anti-depressants the SSRIs and related things in the world are prescribed and consumed in the United States.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 56:20 0
“for the treatment of clinical grade OCD the SSRI have been a tremendous tool they haven't cured OCD in every case but they've been a tremendous tool.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 56:59 0
“the United States is is uh I think it's like Mexico is now above us but like for a long time was the most obese nation in the world.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 57:05 0
“the diseases related to obesity now admittedly the European countries have those problems too but just to a lesser degree.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 58:03 0
“since 2012 there's been no increase in American life expectancy from 2012 to 2019 literally it was almost entirely flat life expectancy.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 1:01:49 0
“one of the most important factors in both short and long-term health is your body's ability to manage glucose”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 1:02:20 0
“using Levels has helped me shape my entire schedule i now have more energy than ever and I sleep better than ever and I attribute that largely to understanding how different foods and behaviors impact my blood glucose”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 1:37 0
“we've developed more treatments to extend the life of older people or at least to limit their suffering somewhat so cerebrovascular disease cardiovascular disease uh things related to dementia like small differences to keep them alive longer”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 1:44 0
“young people are getting sicker earlier and staying sicker and older people are um getting sick but holding on to some remnants of health longer and most of the treatments are geared toward the older population”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 1:29 0
“the advances we've made have allowed people to stay sick longer um it hasn't translated longer life right it just it's um there was a hope I think when I first started doing research in 2001 there uh in population aging um there was this idea of a compression of morbidity that is you live long a long life and the time you spent really sick and disabled was was was compressed at the very end of your life”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 1:51:08 0
“I've talked with drug developers who tell me that they conduct independent replication efforts of the basic biomedical literature to see if it actually is true before they make vast investments in a phase three randomized trial or phase one or phase two trials studies.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 1:51:39 0
“We've set up a system a publication that guarantees that much of what we think is true is not true.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 1:58:19 0
“you eventually get fancy drugs that are supposed to to prevent you from getting the disease that you're you're trying to prevent you know in this case prevent you from being able to you know uh prevent you from like progressing to where you can't remember the name of your kids and you can't live your live a normal you you know it's a full life and is as you as your memory goes away um the drugs don't work for those things and your question is why they're built on the the best science going all the way down it turns out the best science all the way down is not replicable”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:02:34 0
“meta analysis is the science of analyzing the scientific literature to ask whether what the scientific literature as a whole says about a particular question.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:06:00 0
“what food should I eat uh to make myself healthier well that no one can agree on that.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 1:45:16 0
“minorities live in are more likely to live in food deserts so the food they get access to easily makes their health worse”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:30:02 0
“the idea of a scientific project demonstrating differences based on race or some other variable that's biologically relevant for some health outcome without necessarily having hypothesis that's good science”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 1:51:58 0
“if I want a paper I give a drug to a person and I measure the amount of rapid eye movement sleep because basically every compound alters rapid eye movement sleep usually for the worse”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:47:06 0
“the mission is to do research to support research that advances the health and longevity of the American people all of the American people whether you're minority whether you're American Indian whether no matter who you are we should be doing research that advances your well-being.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:49:12 0
“much much more common in darker skin races there's certain areas of the world where glaucoma is at an outrageously high percentage of the population um and it's not lost on people that there's a genetic inheritable component”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:49:29 0
“my grandfather went blind from glaucoma so get your pressures checked everybody take your drops get your pressures checked”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:50:55 0
“the lockdowns were unfair to in particular working-class populations we were told one thing about masks then told another we got a kind of uh loop-de-loop of of uh foggy speakak politico messaging about vaccines and what they did do or wouldn't do and basically I hear from a lot of the general population not just people on the MAGA Maha whatever you want to call it side but also a lot of stated Democrats and people are truly in the center that they lost trust in science and scientists”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 1:22:27 0
“we launched in 2021 on ways to deal with anxiety circadian rhythm sleep because people were dealing with those issues”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 3:07:56 0
“young people very low low mortality risk older people much higher mortality risk”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 3:08:03 0
“the rate of mortality among people 70 to 85 years old roughly 5 to 7%”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 3:18:52 0
“the vaccine will protect you from getting and spreading COVID forever none of that was rooted in science”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 3:19:49 0
“if you wear a cloth mask you're safe they go out in public and take risks that they otherwise would not have taken on the idea that they're safe wearing a cloth mask”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 1:57:30 0
“the lockdowns were neither necessarily sufficient and they cause collateral harm at scale to the poor to the working class to children that we're still paying for that we still that that people are still suffering from the long tale like the like the for years in the United States from 2020 2021 2022 the deaths from overdoses of drugs were like in the in a 100,000 100,000 people died a year this past year was it was 80,000 we declared success we went down 20,000 before the the lockdowns But it was you know maybe 20,000 deaths a year and that was a that was a catastrophic failure right um so what the problem here is that the scientific community embraced an ethical norm about unimity of messaging and then enforced it on fellow scientists and then cooperated with the Biden administration to put in place a censorship regime that made it impossible for even for legitimate conversations to happen”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:14:40 0
“do you believe that there are any vaccines that are useful yes okay well I think it's just let's build up from there um do you believe that some vaccines save lives yes okay many vaccines save lives”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:14:58 0
“do you believe that some vaccines that are given to children save lives yes”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:15:04 0
“do you believe that some vaccines are known to be harmful and yet still given let me let me say the specific one i think the COVID vaccine for children in particular I don't think is net beneficial for kids”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:16:47 0
“the COVID vaccine was promoted slashmandated certainly was mandated at Stanford um but was promoted as the best line of defense for avoiding infection and reducing the symptoms of infection and reducing the probability of death”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:19:36 0
“what they showed was that among patients who had never before had COVID, the patients who were randomized to the vaccine had lower rates of getting COVID in those two months than the people who were randomly assigned to placebo.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:20:07 0
“the mRNA vaccines had more deaths in the treatment arm than in the placebo arm but the size of the samples were such that you couldn't say that that was a statistically meaningful result.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:22:09 0
“the J&J vaccine had lower death rates statistically significant once you combine the trials.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:22:53 0
“I wrote an op-ed in December 2020 with Sinetra Gupta where I argue that that is sufficient to say we should give the vaccine or recommend that older people get the vaccine but that we shouldn't give it necessarily to young people.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:28:35 0
“public health authorities on the basis of an extrapolation that they should not have made decided to essentially promise the public that if they got the COVID vaccine that they would not ever get COVID again that was that was that was the implicit public health messaging you can you can you can become free just take this shot you become free you no longer have to worry about lockdowns and mask mandates or not or whatnot”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:29:12 0
“it very quickly became clear that that was not true right so I remember seeing uh uh the outbreak of cases in Gibralar which was like 95% vac% vaccinated uh and I look at them going why is Jibralter like they were using I think they were using the Astroenica vaccines like like why why are they seeing this huge spread of of COVID”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:30:06 0
“instead of acknowledging that fact public health officials decided that the problem was the unvaccinated and they embraced the idea that you have to force people to get vaccinated for the public good”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 3:52:06 0
“Even though the scientific evidence was that there was no scientific evidence that that demonstrated that if you had the COVID vaccine you were less of a threat to other people as far as spreading COVID than uh if you hadn't had the COVID vaccine specifically for people who had already had COVID and recovered and weren't vaccinated.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 3:53:18 0
“there was evidence of of heart inflammation myocarditis transient myocarditis yes but also more severe myocarditis in um post the vaccine there was I mean that was that was clear clear evidence.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 3:55:23 0
“the FDA put out a report of babies getting the vaccine having epilepsy or or seizures at slightly higher rates i think there's a report in 2022.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 3:58:32 0
“Marty McCary who runs now the the is a commissioner of the FDA he has issued a new framework for evaluating covid booster shots.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 3:58:58 0
“The boosters have to show some efficacy against preventing COVID and preventing deaths and hospitalizations in order to get approved.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 4:00:23 0
“The boosters don't have that kind of evidence behind it and so I think it was just a couple weeks ago the FDA decided that it was going to ask the manufacturers to produce much better evidence for the boosters before it was going to approve them.”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:45:09 0
“my understanding of the current literature as it stands is that the Andrew Wakefield data this British physician um who was really the first to popularize the idea that vaccines could in his words cause autism or were highly correlated with autism those data were essentially retracted by the journals he lost his medical license and my understanding is there was evidence of fraud that he that he was either made up data or contorted data”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:47:59 0
“there's a massive Danish study uh that tracks patients who were vaccinated kids who are vaccinated matched with patients similar patients who were not tracks them for for for a year or longer and finds no difference okay or fails to find a diff a difference in autism rates”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 4:10:12 0
“alterations the gut microbiome I've seen I've seen retinoids um there was a paper out of Pashkco Rushia's lab at Yale years ago looking at the migration of cells in the cerebral cortex and developing fetuses primate fetuses but it's a great model”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:53:14 0
“environmental exposures to various various kinds of chemicals uh tens of thousands of chemicals in the in the in the uh in the environment”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:53:28 0
“there there's nutritional issues potentially”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:44:59 0
“protocols for everything from sleep to exercise to stress control”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:44:59 0
“protocols for everything from sleep to exercise to stress control”

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Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Public health discussions on vital topics and practical recommendations. 2:44:59 0
“protocols for everything from sleep to exercise to stress control”

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