World’s Leading Epidemiologist During COVID Pandemic Seeks to Save Lives

Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding has been sharing information on Twitter about the pandemic since the beginning. He’s taken medical and technical details and broken them down so that anyone reading can understand exactly what’s really going on and what it means for the general population. He’s published threads of links and data, laying out exactly what concerns people should have and how to address them. Unsurprisingly, he’s been attacked for this more than once.

In a new Twiter thread, Feigl-Ding addresses these attacks, saying that he’s been the subject of racist rhetoric, and attacked as a “CCP [Chinese Communist Party] spy” and a “pharma shill” as well as being accused of using COVID-19 to build his own fame. “I’m none of those,” he says.

📝A note—Many say racist things to me—& some folks don’t like I share precautionary/doom-y COVID data. Some call me a CCP spy, pharma shill, attention seeking personal brand builder… But I’m none of those. Who I really am:🧵

This from exactly 10-yrs ago—https://t.co/OOmCA2VhT8 pic.twitter.com/RkLFdjvKrY

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) December 21, 2021

Feigl-Ding says he differs from some so-called “Twitter docs” in that he has never paid a publicist to promote him, and that he’s not selling any merch or pushing a monetized (or any) YouTube channel. Instead, he says, he’s just a misunderstood scientist who is concerned about the damage the pandemic is doing, including in terms of suffering by doctors and medical staff.

3) When I tweet—what I think of is all the lives we could save. All the hospitalization suffering. All the PTSD endured by overworked doctors & nurses. All the long COVID sufferers. Sometimes I’m a misunderstood scientist—but that’s okay if it saves lives in a pandemic.

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) December 21, 2021

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He’s been approached to write a book or start a podcast. So far, he’s declined, but he says that in light of “this godforsaken pandemic” hitting the two-year mark, he may reconsider, although his focus continues to be on his ‘day job’ doing medical research and improving public policy.

5) At the end of the day, Twitter / social media is not my life goal. I own FB pages with 5+ mil followers I barely/don’t use. I have a day job doing medical research & improving public policy—that’s what I care about most… saving lives to give people a 2nd chance like I had. pic.twitter.com/08iF8u1mZo

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) December 21, 2021

Feigl-Ding’s is among those social media accounts that has grown a following during the pandemic, as it pushes out accessible information to people seeking clear and simply-stated information they can trust, but in a global health crisis that has been so politicized, that’s enough to put some folks on the attack.