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Former White House Coronavirus Response team member Dr. Scott Atlas blasted Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx and former CDC Director Robert Redfield in a new book saying that he was "disgusted" by their dismissal of scientific data he presented to them during the Trump administration.
In the book, "A Plague Upon Our House" which Fox News Digital obtained an advance copy of, Atlas says he presented data and studies showing that schools should be reopened and that children are not significant spreaders of the coronavirus but was virtually ignored by Fauci and others on the team.
White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas speaks during an event with President Donald Trump about coronavirus testing in the Rose Garden of the White House, Monday, Sept. 28, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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"As I finished, there was silence," Atlas wrote. "No one offered any contrary data. No one spoke of scientific studies. No one even mentioned the discredited Korea study. Zero comments from Dr. Birx. Nothing from Dr. Fauci. And as always, not a single mention by Birx or Fauci about the serious harms of school closures. In my mind, this was bizarre. Why was I the only one in the room with detailed knowledge of the literature? Why was I the only one considering the data on such an important topic with a critical eye? Were the others simply accepting bottom lines and conclusions, without any analytical evaluation? Weren’t they supposed to be expert medical scientists, too? I waited."
Atlas said that Birx told him his opinion was "out of the mainstream" and said he was part of a "fringe" group of people who believed schools should be opened.
"Meanwhile she insisted that all experts agreed with her," Atlas wrote. "I shook my head, thinking of some of the world-class epidemiologists who agreed with me—John Ioannidis and Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, Carl Heneghan and Sunetra Gupta of Oxford—and wondered if she or Fauci had ever read a single publication by them."
WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 04: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci testifies before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee about the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) (Chip Somodevilla)
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Atlas wrote that he "explained with numbers" that children did not have a significant risk of illness or death from the virus and cited statistics from New York City, California, and elsewhere documenting that while also noting data from Sweden showing zero deaths despite schools not closing and also not imposing mask mandates.
"The icing on the cake was the evidence that almost all coronavirus transmission to children comes from adults, not the other way around," Atlas wrote. "That was not a predicate for opening schools, given the massive harms to kids if they were closed. But that evidence was already shown by contact tracing and other studies in Iceland, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Switzerland, and elsewhere. Opened schools and childcare centers did not show significant dangers to children, adults, or teachers…"They found zero instances of a child passing the infection to an adult."
Atlas says Redfield responded to the data by saying "the jury is still out."
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"I was disgusted at Redfield’s apparent lack of knowledge, shocked at his ignoring the scientific studies that had been published from around the world," Atlas wrote. "I looked around the room, wondering if anyone else understood the glaring incompetence on display. Clearly, Pence needed more input."
Last month, Atlas slammed Dr. Birx for an "Orwellian" attempt to "rewrite history" after she testified before Congress.
Birx testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis earlier this month, saying that officials in former President Trump's White House did not take steps to push mask-wearing, social distancing, and other mitigation steps that could have prevented thousands of COVID-19 deaths.
Birx also reportedly slammed Atlas, saying he advocated for letting COVID-19 spread through the population to reach herd immunity. The New York Times reported Birx testified that she repeatedly raised her concerns about Atlas' positions and theories to other doctors on the task force.
Atlas, delivering a point-by-point rebuttal to reports of Birx's testimony about his role, told Fox News that her claim that he advised Trump to "let the infection spread widely without mitigation to achieve herd immunity," telling Fox News that "is false."
"I never advised the president, the Task Force, or anyone else while in Washington to allow the virus to spread," Atlas said. "Dozens of my writings and interviews during my Washington service explicitly called for specific mitigations, including social distancing, extra hygiene, and masks when not able to socially distance, and 'focused protection,' a heightened protection of those at risk, to allow a safe opening and end the public health destruction from lockdowns."
Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report
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