Meet Professor David Fisman of Canada

  University of Ontario Professor David Fisman, misinformation spreader extraordinaire

Want to see what a real misinformation spreader looks like? You’ve come to the right place. When challenged on his work, he runs for cover similar to what cockroaches do when you turn on the lights.

Overview

Professor Fisman and his colleagues at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto are paid to promote the narrative. Their latest study makes the unvaccinated out as the villain and the vaccinated as the heroes. It was widely picked up by the mainstream press even though none of them understood the methodology. You don’t have to be an expert to read the reviews and realize that the paper is full of holes and should be retracted. If you’re looking for the top misinformation spreader in Canada, Fisman is going to rank highly at the top of most people’s lists.

Introduction

When I wrote my offer to debunk all of us so-called “misinformation spreaders,” (1) I specifically invited two misinformation spreaders to respond: Dr. Grace Lee and Dr. David Fisman.

Dr. Lee is a professor at Stanford and head of the ACIP committee of the CDC. So her selection makes sense. If she was truly an independent thinker, none of this would have happened. But she’s not a critical thinker and will not look at the data that is out there that contradicts the CDC. This is why she was appointed. Those are the exact qualities the CDC looks for in a chair. Dr. Lee’s refusal to look at any other data other than what she is being spoon-fed by the CDC makes her a serious danger to society.

Introducing Professor David Fisman

But many people hadn’t heard of Dr. David Fisman before now. So I want to introduce you to him. He’s quite a guy. He’s much worse than Dr. Lee.

Dr. Lee can’t evaluate the science and see any safety signals because she’s blind to any possibility that she’s being lied to and doesn’t ask any critical thinking questions. But at least she’s not actively making new misinformation herself.

But Fisman is another story. He actually creates new misinformation and spreads it. He’s Canadian and his reputation among my friends in Canada puts him up there with people like Bonnie Henry who is the Provincial Health Officer for British Columbia and Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam as a danger to society. (2)

Fisman is a tenured professor of Epidemiology at the University of Toronto. (3)

Here’s what Fisman said in a recent interview to give you some idea how just how inept he is:

Rochelle Walensky — who’s actually an old friend and the new director of the U.S. [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] — has pointed out that we actually do know a lot about how to open schools safely. You need to use what you know. The pillars are masks, which we’re already doing in Ontario.

Fisman thinks that vaccines are safe and effective and masks work.

He won’t defend his position though. Not for any amount of money.

Here’s my latest email (in a long string of emails) pleading with him to debunk us by answering a few questions:

My offer of unlimited funds so he can be the hero and solve the problem he complains about went unanswered. He must be really busy working on important things to turn down my “unlimited cash” offer to debunk us.

But I cannot figure out what could be more important than debunking us because the CBC reported (4) on May 09, 2019 that “As vaccine hesitancy poses a growing threat to public health, the University of Toronto is opening a new centre aimed at challenging misinformation about vaccines.”

The article goes on to say:

Vaccine hesitancy “is a problem everywhere,” the centre’s director, Dr. Natasha Crowcroft — who also serves as the chief science officer at Public Health Ontario — told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning Thursday.

“As somebody who has been working in vaccines for too long, longer than I care to mention, it’s very concerning and upsetting.”

So why is Fisman ignoring me? This is his big chance to solve the problem. It makes no sense. It’s almost like he’s afraid of facing reality.

Consider Fisman’s latest paper

Here is Fisman’s latest paper which I referenced in my email to him: Impact of population mixing between vaccinated and unvaccinated subpopulations on infectious disease dynamics: implications for SARS-CoV-2 transmission. (5)

Because this paper is pro-narrative, it gets lots of press coverage. If it was counter-narrative, the press would ignore it. That’s how it works.

Fisman’s paper then leads to serious misinformation about transmission of the virus being promoted extensively in the Canadian media and other sources such as this Forbes article (Apr 25) (6) and this Salon article (Apr 27) (7).

It also leads to lawmakers in Canada proclaiming that the unvaccinated are a danger to society. (8)  Adam van Koeverden, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, recently said during his speech in the Parliament: “Unfortunately, the unvaccinated continue to disproportionally risk the safety of those vaccinated against COVID-19.”

NOTE TO READERS

I used to spend time trying to contact authors of media pieces like this but I’ve never had anyone get back to me, so I’ve given up. Maybe you will have better luck.

Fisman’s claim, based on a flawed mathematical model, is that associating with the unvaccinated poses a greater risk for transmission than associating with vaxxed. The underlying assumptions are completely misleading and the mathematical model is so ridiculously complex that few people (even experts) can understand it.

In his paper, he wrote: (9)

We constructed a simple susceptible–infectious–recovered model to reproduce the dynamics of interactions between vaccinated and unvaccinated subpopulations in a predominantly vaccinated population.

But here is his “simple model” from his paper: (10)

Remember, that’s the simple model. Can you imagine what the more realistic, accurate model looks like?

Bottom line

As detailed in Jessica Rose’s excellent substack, (11) the conclusions of the paper are reversed by changing the value of a single parameter.

The parameter he used was assumed (by the authors) to be correct, even though it isn’t supported by any actual data (the actual data shows the opposite to his assumption).

So why didn’t any of the press stories on this paper point that out?

Simple. Because the authors of those media stories have absolutely no clue what the hell they are writing about.

Read these articles, comments, video debunking Fisman’s work

Here are three superb articles (and one video) debunking the paper, none of which are mentioned in the press stories: (These articles can be reached with live links using the web address at the very end.)

1. Fiction Disguised as Science to Promote Hatred (12) (a substack by Professor Byram Bridle, Apr 26)
2. OCLA Statement on CMAJ Fisman et al. Article Claiming Disproportionate Infection Risk from Unvaccinated Population, and on Negligent Media Reporting (13) (Apr 27)
3. Call for retraction of paper entitled: “Impact of population mixing between vaccinated and unvaccinated subpopulations on infectious disease dynamics: implications for SARS-CoV-2 transmission” (14) (a substack article by Dr. Jessica Rose, Apr 28)
4. Comments: The comments on Fisman’s paper that discredit it can be found in the comments section (15) of the journal article.
5. EPISODE 107: DR. BYRAM BRIDLE & DR. DENIS RANCOURT (16)
6. WATCH: Calgary medical specialist and lawyer refute misinformation on unvaxxed being COVID spreaders (17) (video)

Why aren’t any of the issues raised by these articles included in the press stories?

One issue is timing: the Forbes article was published before these analyses came out (but the Salon article wasn’t).

The second one is media bias: they only report stories consistent with the narrative and never seek out any opinions from anyone qualified to challenge the narrative. That’s the way the free press works nowadays.

Summary

Fisman and his co-authors are deliberately manipulating the data to spread misinformation. He needs to read the critiques above and retract his paper. If he doesn’t, you will have your confirmation of what kind of person he is.

You can help by calling my article to Fisman’s attention. It’s important he sees it. I’ve tried myself via email but, for some reason, I’ve been unable to get his attention.

Also, please share this article with your friends, especially in Canada.

By Steve Kirsch

stevekirsch.substack.com/p/meet-professor-david-fisman-of-canada

(1) https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/is-there-any-doctor-who-is-willing?s=w

(2) www.canada.ca/en/public-health/corporate/organizational-structure/canada-chief-public-health-officer.html

(3) www.dlsph.utoronto.ca/faculty-profile/fisman-david-n/

(4) www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/university-of-toronto-vaccine-centre-1.5129068

(5) www.cmaj.ca/content/194/16/E573

(6) www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/04/25/unvaccinated-people-increase-risk-of-covid-infection-among-vaccinated-study-finds

(7) www.salon.com/2022/04/27/unvaccinated-risk/

(8) https://lionessofjudah.substack.com/p/a-war-against-humanity-canadian-government?s=r

(9) www.cmaj.ca/content/194/16/E573

(10) www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/suppl/2020/04/08/cmaj.200476.DC1/200476-res-1-at.pdf

(11) https://jessicar.substack.com/p/call-for-retraction-of-paper-entitled?s=r

(12) https://viralimmunologist.substack.com/p/fiction-disguised-as-science-to-promote?s=r

(13) https://ocla.ca/ocla-statement-on-cmaj-fisman-et-al/

(14) https://jessicar.substack.com/p/call-for-retraction-of-paper-entitled?s=r

(15) www.cmaj.ca/content/194/16/E573/tab-e-letters

(16) www.trishwoodpodcast.com/podcast/episode-107-bridle-rancourt

(17) https://rumble.com/v12u0we-watch-calgary-medical-specialist-and-lawyer-refute-misinformation-on-unvaxx.html