President Trump's New COVID-19 Adviser Is Making Public Health Experts Nervous

Dr. Scott Atlas has literally written the book on magnetic resonance imaging. He has also co-authored numerous scientific studies on the economics of medical imaging technology.

"He's an MRI guy," says Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. "If I was confused about some brain lesion and what the MRI findings were, I'd be happy to call him up."

But President Trump has tapped Atlas for a very different role — as an adviser on the coronavirus pandemic. As such, he is counseling the president on life-and-death decisions about the virus, which has already killed more than 180,000 Americans so far this year.

That has Jha and others worried.

"He has no expertise in any of this stuff," Jha says. "He's been bringing out arguments that have been refuted week after week, month after month, since the beginning of this outbreak."

Here are some of Atlas' ideas and why they have scientists and public health experts fretting.