PROFESSOR STOPS RESEARCHING COVID BECAUSE OF POLITICAL HOSTILITY. How many people will die because we have scared this and other faculty members away from researching anything remotely controversial? We’ll never know what the unnecessary death toll is from chilling campus research, but it’s much higher than zero. All decisions have tradeoffs, of course, but the political censors (both official and self-appointed) need to stop pretending their political preening has no costs. They reap the benefits of back-pats and a smug sense of satisfaction, while we (and our kids) pay the price.