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Vinay Prasad: Why Was My Talk at a Medical Conference Canceled? | The Free Press

By Thomas A. Smith

As a hematologist-oncologist specializing in cancer drug development, I often quip that my job is to terrify cancer cells. But after my keynote speech at a prominent medical conference was axed for my opinions on the Covid-19 response, I realized that it s not just malignant cells that get uneasy around me.

I was set to be the keynote speaker this November at the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) annual meeting in Dallas. Then, a vocal minority on X (formerly Twitter) complained. That was all it took for the organizers to cancel my lecture. If you care about free speech and the free flow of ideas, this should alarm you.

via www.thefp.com

The politicization of the professions continues apace. It’s not woke exactly; more like woke-adjacent. It would be less bad if it were an irrational devotion to scientific standards. But that’s hardly it. More like the opposite of that. It’s more like medicine and law are calcifying into the Enlightenment’s idea of the RC Church that prosecuted Galileo. Strange, wicked times.