Martin Kulldorff

Martin Kulldorff is a biostatistician and epidemiologist known for his work on vaccine safety, cancer surveillance, and infectious disease outbreaks. He has developed statistical methods for detecting and evaluating regions of disease outbreaks and is a proponent of focused protection as a method to manage pandemic responses. Born in Sweden, Kulldorff received his Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University in the United States. He has held positions at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and is currently a professor at Harvard University's Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. Kulldorff's work on spatial and temporal surveillance has been influential in the field of public health. He is one of the developers of the SaTScan software, a tool used worldwide for the statistical detection of disease clusters, which has applications in public health surveillance and bioterrorism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kulldorff was a vocal critic of widespread lockdowns, arguing that they cause significant societal harm, especially to the underprivileged and young. Instead, he advocated for a strategy of focused protection as outlined in the Great Barrington Declaration, which he co-authored. This declaration proposed that those at minimal risk of death should live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. Kulldorff's stance on the COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Barrington Declaration has been controversial, drawing both support and criticism from the public health community. Supporters argue that his approach could minimize societal and economic impacts, while critics contend it could lead to unnecessary infections and deaths. Throughout his career, Kulldorff has contributed to over 150 scientific papers in the fields of epidemiology and biostatistics. His work has been pivotal in advancing methods for disease surveillance and understanding the spatial and temporal dynamics of disease spread.