Brownstone Journal

Brownstone Journal features in-depth articles, news, research, and commentary on public health, science, economics, social theory, and related policy issues — offering critical perspectives on institutional failures, government interventions, and threats to liberty.

Explore topics like vaccine trials, post-pandemic public sentiment, cancer screening dilemmas, weight loss drugs, food systems, digital ID, antidepressants, pandemic profit motives, collapse in public trust, and paths to evidence-based reform, personal freedoms, and a healthier society.

All Brownstone Institute articles are translated into multiple languages to reach global readers, foster international dialogue, and support challenges to centralized narratives worldwide.

Brownstone » Brownstone Journal
Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy Theories Become Conspiracy Facts

By / / , , , / 12 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

Interventions rooted in panic, driven by political machinations, and using all the levers of state power to terrify citizens and muzzle critics in the end needlessly killed massive numbers of the most vulnerable while putting the vast low-risk majority under house arrest. The benefits are questionable but the harms are increasingly obvious. The Johnson government in general and Hancock in particular revalidate Lord Acton’s astute observation that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

Conspiracy Theories Become Conspiracy Facts Read Journal Article

masks ineffective

Cochrane Ends the Masking Rage 

By / / / 8 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

Even before the pandemic, the best available evidence – randomized controlled trials – already showed that masks are ineffective in containing respiratory viral transmission. Additional RCTs conducted during the pandemic support this conclusion. Therefore, the best available evidence does not support even the recommendation of wearing masks, let alone making them compulsory. 

Cochrane Ends the Masking Rage  Read Journal Article

DeSantis Djokovic

Ron DeSantis’s Letter to Biden on Behalf of Novak Djokovic

By / / , / 5 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

At present, it appears that the United States is one of only a handful of countries that requires foreign visitors to have received a COVID-19 vaccination. Indeed, in an interview on September 18, 2022, you personally declared that “the pandemic is over,” and your administration has already communicated to Congress that the COVID-19 emergency will formally end on May 11. The time has come to give up the fiction that COVID vaccines remain a necessary tool to promote public health.

Ron DeSantis’s Letter to Biden on Behalf of Novak Djokovic Read Journal Article

95% Effective” How?

The Vaccine Was “95% Effective” How?

By / / / 14 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

The mis-translation of the message convinced the public that mass vaccination would stop the pandemic. And, it persuaded them to see the unvaccinated as a threat. Without this false belief, none of employment mandates, quarantine camps, vaccine passports to eat out or travel made any sense. If the vaccine did not stop transmission, then everyone was going to get exposed eventually, vaccinated or not. We might as well get on with it so we reach herd immunity sooner rather than later. 

The Vaccine Was “95% Effective” How? Read Journal Article

lockdown files

The UK Narrative Falls Apart with Leaked Messages

By / / , / 6 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

The new leak is the most damning revelation to come so far from the Daily Telegraph’s recently-announced ‘Lockdown Files,’ which are based on an archive of over 100,000 messages sent between Hancock and other officials. Journalist Isabel Oakeshott ostensibly obtained the WhatsApp messages to assist with a book about Hancock, comprising the biggest leak of UK Government data in over a decade and shedding new light on the UK’s lockdowns, mandates, and fear messaging.

The UK Narrative Falls Apart with Leaked Messages Read Journal Article

ruination of children

The Ruination of Children

By / / , / 11 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

 With the flip of a switch, the real world they knew ended. When they were confined to their rooms and houses, friends and music, color and life, humor and competition, all lived inside screens. Why wouldn’t they turn there to those worlds when this world could collapse in an instant? No wonder screen worlds seem better than this one. Are fake worlds better? How will we repair this one?

The Ruination of Children Read Journal Article

Theorists vs. Practitioners

Theorists vs. Practitioners

By / / , / 7 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

Theory without a reality check can make the world unlivable. This is because theorists can build beautiful models that hide grave errors, intentionally or not, and there is no means by which their mistakes are revealed until you test them against the real world. You never want them in charge of the whole project.

Theorists vs. Practitioners Read Journal Article

women health work

The Collapse of Women’s Health and Work

By / / , / 10 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

The pandemic policy resulted in the biggest setback in women’s participation in paid work and gender equality for a generation and undermines women’s security and resilience to shocks and ability to pay for health services when needed. An expected further collapsing health system, and at the same time an increase in disabilities and elderly people, suggests that even more women will leave the workforce in the near future to fulfill (unpaid) care and domestic work. 

The Collapse of Women’s Health and Work Read Journal Article

fear narrative

How Did All of this Happen?

By / / , / 9 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

All the key stakeholders “bought in.” Even if some people eventually realized some of the narratives may have been dubious or false, they’d already risked their reputations and careers by zealously pushing or endorsing these narratives … so they weren’t going to suddenly admit they might have been wrong. In retrospect, how “they” made all the madness happen was surprisingly easy.

How Did All of this Happen? Read Journal Article

Join the Brownstone Community
Get our FREE Journal Newsletter