Another open letter from scientists to call RIVM to order. Crazy with "excellent" and "expert" (according to scientific courtesy), but in the meantime the RIVM has not baked it, they do not keep their field well and communicatively make a Janboel with data manipulations that no rope can be tied to.
I can say that because I am not in a medical hierarchy, have no employer who monitors me and have a circle of friends who respects me for what I am so I don't have to be ashamed of that.
"Top scientists" formulate it more cautiously. This is the open letter from those scientists. The umpteenth open letter, because the Bastion of Government/Hofartsen neither legally nor parliamentary nor democratic or with demonstrations can be breaked through and every intellectual debate is avoided. The ease with which we pick this catastrophic bumbling is beyond my mind.
COVID19: Stop the mixing of scientific advice and policy advice
The Corona crisis affects all countries. Some countries lack the means to do something about it, and others lack the will. But certainly in Western Europe, both the will and the means are present to combat the pandemic. Yet not all countries do that well. In the spring it could still be blamed on lack of knowledge, but now the differences are significant.
It is depressing to see that in the past month, the increase in the number of infections in the Netherlands has risen faster than in any other Western European country (and that is not because we test so much: the Netherlands is with the number of tests per person in Europe on the 30e Place-among all other Western European countries). In the past six months, the Netherlands also did not lack expertise, medical infrastructure or excellent doctors, nurses and carers. Nor was it lacking in financial resources to act.
The relatively poor performance of the Netherlands in anticipating and combating the second wave of the pandemic is, in our opinion, partly due to the fact that scientific insights into the distribution of COVID19, which are now generally accepted in the scientific world, have determined the policy too late and too little. That is why we have conceived the plan for an initiative in which scientists from home and abroad can help to identify as broadly as possible scientific knowledge around COVID-19.
Viewed with the knowledge we now have, we think that in the Netherlands the scientific advice must be more independent of policy advice.
That policy advice comes (rightly) from RIVM - which is part of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. The Outbreak Management Team (OMT), set up to translate science into practical measures, is chaired by the director of the RIVM infectious disease control center. The members of the OMT must declare in writing not to deviate from OMT advice in speech and writing. Although those advice is public, but the factual material on which they are based is often not announced: it is therefore difficult from the scientific field to compare this input with other sources, or to provide constructive input.
Please note: the RIVM is an excellent institution, and the expertise of the members of the OMT is not in question. But the OMT does not have the broad composition of, for example, Sage in the UK (in Sage are doctors, economists, engineers, chemists, physicists, etc.) or the German Academy Leopoldina. For understandable reasons, the OMT had a strong medical focus in the acute phase. But with the approach of COVID19, almost all science areas are now important: what happens to the virus between the moment it leaves a carrier and lands with a susceptible person is not determined by biology, just as much as the citizens' response to corona measures. The relevant expertise is present in the Netherlands, but the communication between the scientific field and RIVM/OMT is far from optimal, while it is about strengthening RIVM so that the policy can respond flexibly to new insights. That is not the case now: even now on the website of the RIVM guidelines that are outdated (as we had to hear on 28/9 to our shame, from Dr Fauci).
It didn't have to get that far - and it can't go any further.
In the Netherlands, scientific advice must of course be policy support, but it must be disconnected from policy - and that does not only apply to the current crisis. As already argued in May by the previous and the current president of the KNAW (Volkskrant, 6/5/20): the scientific advice must cover a much wider area than is the case so far. The advice must be public and tested. OMT and RIVM can then make concrete policy proposals on the basis of the widest possible state of science.
There are more than enough excellent, mostly young researchers in the Netherlands who would like to make their knowledge available to the public interest. Our initiative can hopefully contribute to the fact that all scientific knowledge in the Netherlands, and beyond, is used optimally to effectively combat the COVID-19 Pandemie.
Learn More on this temporary web page:
Contact: D. Frenkel (df246@cam.ac.uk)
Signatories:
Prof. Dr. Anna Akhmanova (Utrecht University)
Prof. Dr. Henk Barendregt (Radboud University)
Prof. Dr. Ad Bax (NIH, Maryland)
Prof. Dr. Ir. Albert van den Berg (University of Twente)
Prof. Dr. Daniel Bonn (University of Amsterdam)
Prof. Dr. Dorret Boomsma (VU University)
Prof. Dr. Ir. René de Borst (U Sheffield)
Prof. Dr. Hans Clevers (Utrecht University)
Prof. Dr. Cees Dekker (Delft University of Technology)
Prof. Dr. Nynke Dekker (Delft University of Technology)
Prof. Dr. Robbert Dijkgraaf (University of Princeton)
Prof. Dr. Marjolein Dijkstra (Utrecht University)
Prof. Dr. Carsten de Dreu (Leiden University)
Prof. Dr. Daan Frenkel (U Cambridge)
Prof. Dr. Els Goulmy (Leiden University)
Prof. Dr. Frank Grosveld (Erasmus University)
Prof. Dr. Peter Hagoort (Radboud University)
Prof. Dr. Ronald Hanson (Delft University of Technology)
Prof. Dr. Jan van Hest (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Prof. Dr. Ed van den Heuvel (University of Amsterdam)
Prof. Dr. Rien van IJzendoorn (Erasmus University)
Prof. Dr. Ir. René Janssen (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Dr. Mariette Knaap (Utrecht University)
Prof. Dr. Jos Lelide (MI-Chemia, Mainz)
Prof. Dr. Detlef Lohs (University Twente)
Prof. Dr. Birgit Meyer (Utrecht University)
Prof. Dr. Ieke Moerdijk (Utrecht University)
Prof. Dr. Pieter Muysken (Radboud University)
Prof. Dr. Hans Oerlemans (Utrecht University)
Prof. Dr. John van der Oost (Wageningen University & Research)
Prof. Dr. Frits van Oostrom (Utrecht University)
Prof. Michel Orrit (Leiden University)
Prof. Dr. Bob Pinedo (VU University)
Prof. Dr. Theo Rasing (Radboud University)
Prof. Dr. Wim van Saarloos (Leiden University)
Prof. Dr. Marten Scheffer (Wageningen University & Research)
Prof. Dr. Erik Verlinde (University of Amsterdam)
Prof. Dr. William the Vost (Wagues University & Research)
Prof. Dr. Bert Weckhuysen (Utrecht University)
Prof. Cisca Wijmenga (University of Groningen)
Prof. Dr. Jan Zaanen (Leiden University)
