Sanjeev Sabhlok VOICES
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To succeed, Vietnam should abandon communism
April 22, 2026, 10:55 PM IST
I spent a delightful couple of weeks in Vietnam recently. Vietnam is an ancient land with a charming culture that has also imbibed influences from China and India. Its scenic beauty verges on the magical….
April 22, 2026, 10:55 PM IST
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A general theory of contagion
February 15, 2026, 6:46 PM IST
Even as the very thought of a contagion that might be spreading globally drives panic, border closures, and lockdowns, there has never been a systematic articulation of the scientific principles to determine a society’s calibrated…
February 15, 2026, 6:46 PM IST
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What if the smallpox vaccine had not been invented? – Part 3
February 8, 2026, 3:51 PM IST
5(c) Clear proof that isolation was the remedy There are a number of proofs (apart from Haygarth’s experiment and Leicester) that it was isolation, not ring vaccination, that eradicated smallpox. First, we know from the…
February 8, 2026, 3:51 PM IST
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What if the smallpox vaccine had not been invented? – Part 2
January 31, 2026, 2:23 PM IST
4. Imperfect isolation can’t eradicate smallpox The lack of laser-focus on isolation meant that many avoidable gaps remained in the way isolation was practiced. First, insufficient surveillance. Dr Charles Chapin noted in a 1912 textbook:…
January 31, 2026, 2:23 PM IST
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What if the smallpox vaccine had not been invented? (Part-1)
January 23, 2026, 7:44 PM IST
Although the world’s first vaccine, for smallpox, was a wonderful invention, it would be an error to assume that smallpox would still be with us if the vaccine had not been invented. In fact, it…
January 23, 2026, 7:44 PM IST
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The case for two-year patents and copyright – Part 2
September 22, 2025, 9:40 AM IST
Risk-stimulating property rights Even if formal property rights exist, a society will only achieve efficient allocation of resources, not growth. In 1874, Leon Walrus arrived at a mathematical formulation of competitive market equilibrium based on…
September 22, 2025, 9:40 AM IST
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The case for two-year patents and copyright – Part 1
September 15, 2025, 10:17 AM IST
The idea of a copyright and patent law (intellectual property rights, or IPR) seems innocuous enough and most of us will never bother to inquire into these legal mechanisms. Till recently, I didn’t, either. But…
September 15, 2025, 10:17 AM IST
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Why economics should abjure ethics
July 7, 2025, 3:21 PM IST
In 2023, I suggested why public health ethics is useless at best, harmful at worst. In 2024 I explained why, in my view, ethics must be expunged from public health. In doing so I also…
July 7, 2025, 3:21 PM IST
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Impossibility of a theory of externalities – Part 2
May 21, 2025, 9:29 AM IST
3. Much theoretical confusion, such as the Coase theorem The externalities theory is littered not only with indefinable and unmeasurable terms but by trivial (and often defective) “insights”. Take the Coase theorem. Ronald Coase himself…
May 21, 2025, 9:29 AM IST
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Impossibility of a theory of externalities – part 1
May 17, 2025, 10:07 PM IST
If the same analytical “tool”, when placed in the hands of different people, tells us two radically different things, such as that lockdowns are good and that they are bad, it means we are not…
May 17, 2025, 10:07 PM IST
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Why public health must always be led by economists
April 23, 2025, 5:02 PM IST
Dr Anthony Fauci was obsessed with covid. On 13 May 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported that Fauci is “not … making the case that continuing to restrict activities will make Americans healthier overall, but…
April 23, 2025, 5:02 PM IST
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Milk won the battle against measles long before antibiotics and vaccines – Part 2
February 16, 2025, 4:00 PM IST
Clean milk supply skyrocketed from around 1910 The impact of milk on general life expectancy was perhaps first studied by John Christian Curwen (1756 – 1828). A 1825 book by J. Harding reports Curwen’s studies…
February 16, 2025, 4:00 PM IST
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Milk won the battle against measles long before antibiotics and vaccines – Part 1
February 9, 2025, 2:56 PM IST
Measles was one of the deadliest infectious diseases for children prior to 1915. But in just two decades from 1915 in the UK, measles mortality fell by 90-95 per cent, well before antibiotics in the…
February 9, 2025, 2:56 PM IST
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School closures fail to stop disease but cause great harm
January 11, 2025, 3:13 PM IST
On 7 May 2023 I showed why quarantine of healthy people is a fool’s errand and on 29 June 2024 I called for a global conference on the abolition of quarantine. School closures are a…
January 11, 2025, 3:13 PM IST
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Ethics must be expunged from public health
May 19, 2024, 12:24 AM IST
Ethics is a devious concept that has often been deployed since antiquity by elites to justify their misdemeanours. It is mainly religions that preach ethics and morality but religions themselves don’t always act ethically. For…
May 19, 2024, 12:24 AM IST
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A need to re-think human rationality
February 1, 2024, 6:48 PM IST
For thousands of years, philosophers have made claims about the uniqueness of human rationality. As Yong et al noted in 2020, “For sizable portions of humanity’s intellectual history, it has been assumed that humans are…
February 1, 2024, 6:48 PM IST
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Modi must reposition India to align with the West
November 30, 2023, 10:20 PM IST
The world has changed over the last few years in many ways that are favourable to India, but India continues its former trajectory of non-alignment and confused foreign policy, missing out the greatest opportunity it…
November 30, 2023, 10:20 PM IST
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No, the Great Hysteria was not a spontaneous event
April 21, 2023, 12:01 AM IST
Recently, someone suggested that “CCP didn’t initially want lockdown”. Apparently Xi Jinping was forced by his people’s fears. This flies in the face of the facts I had outlined in January 2021 in a 3-part…
April 21, 2023, 12:01 AM IST
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Public health ethics is useless at best, harmful at worst – Part 1
April 10, 2023, 4:11 PM IST
I had summarised the scientific reasons why border closures and lockdowns can never work, only cause harm. I have since then discovered an argument which strengthens these reasons even further. Prof. Paul Frijters recently explained…
April 10, 2023, 4:11 PM IST
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The ‘lab leak’ theory is a rabbit-hole
March 3, 2023, 3:23 PM IST
On 6 January 2021 I explained why, in my view, the “lab leak” theory is misdirection. It distracts from the Great Hysteria strategy of China, namely, to precipitate global hysteria through fake videos to make…
March 3, 2023, 3:23 PM IST
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