A Nobel Prize-winning professor of biophysics and chemistry was uninvited from his keynote speaker role at the 1st International BioDesign Research Conference because of his views on the coronavirus pandemic, he said.
“My keynote uninvited from [the conference.] ‘… too many calls by other speakers threatening to quit if you were there. They all complained about your COVID claims,'” tweeted Michael Levitt, who was originally scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the conference.
“Computational biology & biodesign are based on my work. Time to cancel them & me. New Dark Age Cometh,” he added.
My keynote uninvited from https://t.co/KhepqykXW8
“… too many calls by other speakers threatening to quit if you were there. They all complained about your COVID claims”.
Computational biology & biodesign are based on my work. Time to cancel them & me.
New Dark Age Cometh.
— Michael Levitt (@MLevitt_NP2013) October 18, 2020
Levitt, a professor of structural biology at Stanford University, was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2013 for his work on “the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.”
The list of speakers at the conference does not show his name on its website.
Levitt has made some statements contrary to the prevailing notions about the coronavirus pandemic, including in March when he urged people not to “panic” about the virus.
“What we need is to control the panic,” Levitt said, adding that in the grand scheme, “we’re going to be fine.”
In May, he suggested that countries were overcounting COVID-19-related deaths.
“Deaths assigned to COVID19 are often connected to other conditions,” Levitt tweeted. “For mysterious reasons, countries seemed to want to maximize their death counts. Many who died WITH corona were counted as dying OF corona. The only true death count is excess death in the particular period.”
That same month, he claimed that the pandemic was no more dangerous than the 2017-18 European flu epidemic.
In July, he predicted that the pandemic in the United States would “be done” in four weeks.
“US COVID19 will be done in 4 weeks with a total reported death below 170,000,” he tweeted. “How will we know it is over? Like for Europe, when all cause excess deaths are at normal level for week. Reported COVID19 deaths may continue after 25 Aug. & reported cases will, but it will be over.”
After losing his speaking role at the conference, Levitt thanked his supporters and claimed he didn’t intend to discuss the pandemic.
“Thanks for your support. I had no intention to talk about COVID19; it is not the theme of the meeting. All my work until 26 Jan. 2020 has been non-COVID computational biology. I really do not what happened although some say this incident is great free publicity for them. Smart!” he wrote on Twitter.
Thanks for your support.
I had no intention to talk about COVID19; it is not the theme of the meeting. All my work until 26 Jan. 2020 has been non-COVID computational biology.
I really do not what happened although some say this incident is great free publicity for them. Smart!
— Michael Levitt (@MLevitt_NP2013) October 19, 2020
Conference organizers did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
