Attorney General Paxton launched an investigation into the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson concerning whether they engaged in gain-of-function research and misled the public about doing so.
Paxton is also investigating whether the companies misrepresented the efficacy of their Covid-19 vaccines and the likelihood of transmitting Covid-19 after taking the vaccines in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The investigation will also look into the potential manipulation of vaccine trial data. This investigation concerns potentially fraudulent activity that falls outside the scope of legal immunity granted to manufacturers of the Covid-19 vaccine. It will also review the companies’ controversial practice of reporting the metric of “relative risk reduction” instead of “absolute risk reduction” when publicly discussing the efficacy of their vaccines.
In recent years, certain pharmaceutical companies have had record-breaking financial success, driven in part by sales made from products related to the Covid-19 pandemic. This vested interest in the success of these Covid-19 products, combined with reports about the alarming side effects of vaccines, demands aggressive investigation.
Texas’s investigation will force these companies to turn over documents the public otherwise could not access. Attorney General Paxton is committed to discovering the full scope of decision-making behind pandemic interventions forced on the public, especially when a profit motive or political pressure may have compromised Americans’ health and safety. Efforts by the federal government to coerce compliance with unjust and illegal pandemic interventions, even at the cost of citizens’ employment, means this investigation into the scientific and ethical basis on which public health decisions were made is of major significance.
Given the unprecedented political power and influence over public health policies that pharmaceutical companies now wield, it is more important than ever that they are held accountable if they take dangerous, illegal actions to boost their revenues.
“The development of the Covid-19 vaccine, and the representations made by and knowledge of Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, are of profound interest to the public’s health and welfare. This investigation aims to discover the truth,” said Attorney General Paxton. “This pandemic was a deeply challenging time for Americans. If any company illegally took advantage of consumers during this period or compromised people’s safety to increase their profits, they will be held responsible. If public health policy was developed on the basis of flawed or misleading research, the public must know. The catastrophic effects of the pandemic and subsequent interventions forced on our country and citizens deserve intense scrutiny, and we are pursuing any hint of wrongdoing to the fullest.”
Tucker Carlson made headlines this week for being suddenly ousted by Fox News — but in the latest release of the “Twitter files” the former news commentator made headlines for a different reason.
Carlson’s op-ed cited information that was, up until that point, publicly viewable on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) website. However, after Carlson’s op-ed was published, that information disappeared from the site.
The files released Thursday also reveal that Twitter executives held internal debates over how best to censor the content in Carlson’s op-ed — an initiative that was led by a former press secretary for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
In an exclusive interview with The Defender on Thursday, Thacker expounded on the significance of these findings — and hinted at what the next “Twitter files” dump might reveal.
Twitter ‘clipping Tucker Carlson’s wings’
Thacker, who wrote about his findings on his Substack, said that the “bird factory” — referring to Twitter — engaged in “clipping Tucker Carlson’s wings” via its attempted censorship of his op-ed.
Despite being “controversial and polarizing,” Thacker said, Carlson was “One of the few Americans to challenge the official framework of acceptable narratives” and, as such, was “hated by the mainstream reporters for daring to throw darts at liberal pieties.”
“Why did Twitter censor Tucker Carlson? Better yet, who helped Twitter do that?” Thacker asked.
Thacker noted that while he was “reading an endless sea of #TwitterFiles” pertaining to efforts to “censor alleged ‘COVID misinformation,’” he unexpectedly discovered documents detailing attempts to censor Carlson.
These efforts appear to have begun on June 24, 2021, when Elizabeth Busby, a policy communications specialist with “Twitter Comms,” sent an email to colleagues inquiring if an op-ed Carlson had written the previous day should be flagged for COVID-19 “misinformation.”
In her email, Busby inquired whether links to Carlson’s op-ed “violate our COVID-19 misleading information policy and qualify for enforcement under our URL policy.” She added, “We’ve seen some Tweets with the link … and some that contain counterspeech.”
In the same message, Busby noted that “in the past,” Twitter had applied a boilerplate warning “to sites containing COVID-19 misinfo” and “Given Tucker’s visibility, we anticipate there may be some press interest regardless of the enforcement outcome.”
Thacker discovered that Busby was not just an ordinary Twitter employee. She joined Twitter in 2020, after leaving the U.S. Senate, where she worked as the deputy national press secretary to then-Senate Majority Leader Schumer.
According to Thacker, “Busby’s work history includes a stint at SKDKnickerbocker, a PR and lobby shop closely aligned with the Democratic party. Busby now leads ‘trust and safety communications’ at Twitch.”
WHO ‘stealth-edited’ its COVID vaccine guidance for children after Carlson’s op-ed
What was all the fuss about? Carlson’s June 23, 2021, op-ed for Fox News — “The COVID vaccine is dangerous for kids, Big Tech doesn’t want you to know that” — referred to language available on the WHO’s website that explicitly did not recommend the COVID-19 vaccines for children.
In that op-ed, which was adapted from Carlson’s opening commentary on that day’s broadcast of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” he referred to then-new guidance from the WHO and also recommendations from medical experts.
Carlson said:
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, key pieces of medical guidance from the World Health Organization have proven to be disastrously false — false enough to cost lives. It was the WHO, you’ll remember, that told us COVID couldn’t be transmitted between people, even as the virus was spreading into the United States. It was the WHO that worked in stealth with the Chinese government to obscure the source of the outbreak at the beginning, and then hide its origins from the world. …
“… bureaucrats at the WHO published new vaccine guidance. Here’s what it says: Children should not take the coronavirus vaccine. Why? The drugs are too dangerous. There’s not nearly enough data to understand the long-term effects or to show that the benefits are worth the risk that they bring.
“This is terrible news, of course, for the pharmaceutical industry. Big Pharma has been planning to test the vaccine on 6-month-olds.”
According to Thacker, the WHO published an evaluation of vaccine safety and efficacy on April 8, 2021, for the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines.
For children, the WHO issued the following recommendation:
“Children should not be vaccinated for the moment. There is not yet enough evidence on the use of vaccines against COVID-19 in children to make recommendations for children to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
“Children and adolescents tend to have milder disease compared to adults. However, children should continue to have the recommended childhood vaccines.”
The information that Carlson appears to have referenced was still on the WHO’s website as of June 22, 2021, according to Thacker. However, after Carlson’s op-ed was published, the WHO “stealth-edited their page,” according to Thacker, and replaced it with new guidance, which stated:
“Unless they are part of a group at higher risk of severe COVID-19, it is less urgent to vaccinate them than older people, those with chronic health conditions and health workers.
“More evidence is needed on the use of the different COVID-19 vaccines in children to be able to make general recommendations on vaccinating children against COVID-19.
“WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) has concluded that the Pfizer/BionTech vaccine is suitable for use by people aged 12 years and above.”
“In other instances where the WHO has updated their vaccine guidance, they note this change with a date at the top of the webpage,” Thacker wrote. “But no update exists for changes the WHO made the day of Tucker’s essay.”
Thacker added:
“While some of the language in Tucker’s piece could be viewed as inflammatory — the WHO did not say the vaccines were ‘dangerous’ — independent experts also were advising that children not receive the COVID vaccines, as rare but serious adverse events were not studied.”
The subtitle to Carlson’s op-ed read: “Even posting WHO guidance could get you censored.”
On April 10, 2021, WHO tweeted: “#COVID19 trials for children are under way. Following proven health measures is still the best way to keep everyone, including children, safe from COVID-19.” The tweet remains online to this day.
Twitter sought to censor Carlson while avoiding ‘political risks’
According to Thacker, the day after the WHO “stealth-edited” its vaccine guidance, Twitter officials began discussing Tucker’s essay — after Busby brought it to their attention.
Twitter employee Brian Clarke responded to Busby’s June 24, 2021, email that same day, writing, “We are going to proceed with labeling any Tweets linking to the article we detect that advance the claim that WHO has deemed the vaccine dangerous for children.”
However, Clarke said, “Given that this article’s narrative is related to ‘big tech censorship’, I want to be mindful that taking action on the URL level could lead to this particular article gaining more traction rather than mitigating the harm associated with it.”
“We’re going to keep an eye on any ongoing discussions related to the article and if it happens to gain traction we will review again under our URL guidelines,” Clarke added.
According to Thacker, “Twitter officials also discussed looping in top Twitter execs, such as the general counsel, due to the ‘political risks’ associated with such actions. Yoel Roth [then-head of Trust and Safety for Twitter] agreed with this approach to ‘escalate.’”
This included a recommendation that then-general counsel for Twitter Vijaya Gadde review any actions taken against Fox News, “given political risks,” while Roth stated that any action against Fox would be “escalated” internally within Twitter.
Joseph Guay, at the time Twitter’s senior policy specialist for “misinformation,” then shared an email with Busby, Clarke and other Twitter personnel, advising them on various options they had available to them to take action against tweets containing a link to Carlson’s op-ed, without directly censoring Fox News.
Thacker noted that Guay, who “seems to have made the [final] call on Tucker’s op-ed,” departed Twitter earlier this year for a position as TikTok’s “Global Policy Lead on Deceptive Actors & Behaviors.”
Upon departing Twitter, Guay, in a post on his LinkedIn page, referred to his work at Twitter policing “the bad guys”:
“Our teams worked tirelessly to ship bold new policies (such as the COVID-19 Misleading Information Policy, or the Crisis Misinformation Policy) to prevent virulent misinformation and cognitive manipulation from bringing harm to vulnerable people.
“I remain as committed as ever to building resiliency to weaponized information, and making it a little harder for the bad guys.”
Guay’s LinkedIn profile states he is engaged in “fighting information threats globally.”
Thacker also noted that Twitter’s apparent distaste for Carlson was evident in more than just this instance.
“Tucker Carlson would have never known this happened, but when Twitter held a meet and greet months, later, they wrote of Tucker’s producer, ‘[I]t was pretty apparent from the get-go we understood the very different goals we have at work,’” Thacker tweeted, referencing internal Twitter documents regarding a meeting between Twitter officials and Alex Pfeiffer, Carlson’s producer.
Thacker wrote:
“Months after Twitter took action against tweets advancing claims in Tucker’s essay, the company met with reporters in New York to strengthen ties with journalists covering social media.
“In their assessment of reporters, one Twitter official noted of Tucker’s producer, Alex Pfeiffer, ‘[I]t was pretty apparent from the get-go we understood the very different goals we have at work, this was mainly to relationship build.’”
In remarks he shared with The Defender, Thacker noted that Twitter was attempting to strike a balancing act between censoring Carlson’s narrative while not running afoul of Fox.
“They were trying to limit Tucker Carlson’s impact,” he said, “and they were doing it in a way that they would not be brought into direct conflict with Fox.”
According to Thacker, this balancing act nevertheless belied Twitter’s political bias.
“There’s this issue they had with conservative media, and they’re biased in one direction,” Thacker told The Defender. “The way you know this is that the person who brings it to their attention is the former deputy national press secretary of Sen. Chuck Schumer.”
Thacker said that while some of what Carlson had written in his op-ed was “inflammatory,” it nevertheless “wasn’t inaccurate.” He added:
“The WHO edited its website on the same day Tucker’s article came out, and the next day, Twitter starts to go after his story. What do you say about that? Who does Twitter work for?
“Apparently, you don’t question the WHO, or you don’t write what the WHO says. It shows you that you cannot trust these social media people. They are in the tank in one direction.”
Furthering this point, Thacker highlighted a potential conflict of interest between Twitter and one of the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, J&J. In Thacker’s previous “Twitter files” revelations, he found that Twitter partnered with J&J on a COVID-19 vaccine “marketing strategy.”
Such efforts were not limited to COVID-19 vaccines. “By the summer of 2021,” Thacker wrote as part of his previous “Twitter files” release, “Johnson & Johnson began a full court press to market a ton of their products on Twitter, including a controversial antidepressant.”
“I don’t know what else is influencing Twitter,” Thacker told The Defender. “Johnson & Johnson was one of the vaccines mentioned on the WHO site, and that was a client of Twitter’s.”
Remarking on the revelations made in the “Tucker Twitter files,” Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., author of “Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom” and a former New York University liberal studies professor, told The Defender :
“This installment of the Twitter files proves that not only the government but also international governance bodies like the WHO established direct censorship channels within Twitter — to censor information that contradicted the narrative of vaccine safety, even when ‘the science’ contradicted the narrative.
“No doubt we will learn that international NGOs like the World Economic Forum also had such channels.”
Rectenwald was a guest on the final “Tucker Carlson Originals” broadcast on Fox News before Carlson was let go by the network.
WHO partnered with social media platforms to combat ‘misinformation’
Indeed, in several instances, the WHO has partnered with social media platforms such as Twitter to police alleged “misinformation” and “disinformation” pertaining to COVID-19 vaccines and countermeasures — and has also previously expressed misgivings about Elon Musk’s plans to allow more “free speech” on the platform.
Dr. Mike Ryan, executive of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, stated on April 26, 2022 — when Musk was contemplating purchasing Twitter — that Musk will have a “huge influence” over the curbing and potential spreading of vaccine misinformation on Twitter, and that Twitter and all social media platforms must address “misinformation.”
Thacker: Twitter attempted to ‘manufacture consent’
Thacker compared Twitter’s actions to what Noam Chomsky once described as “manufacturing consent.” Chomsky described manufacturing consent in a 2018 interview, during which he said:
“The myth is that the media are independent, adversarial, courageous, struggling against power.
“That’s actually true of some. There are often very fine reporters, correspondents. In fact, the media does a fine job, but within a framework that determines what to discuss, not to discuss.”
“If people decide ‘I am willing to be a danger to the community by refusing the vaccine’ they should then say, ‘well, I also have the decency to isolate myself. I don’t want a vaccine but I don’t have the right to run around harming people.’
“That should be a convention. Enforcing is a different question. It should be understood, and we should try to get it to be understood. If it really reaches the point where they are severely endangering people, then of course you have to do something about it.”
In a follow-up interview, Chomsky doubled down on his previous remarks. “How can we get food to them? Well, that’s actually their problem.”
On his Substack, Thacker noted that the media’s response to the recent news that Carlson was ousted from Fox News is characteristic of what Chomsky had once warned about. He wrote:
“The majority of reporters have shrugged aside their colleagues’ reporting fiascoes and the damage done to their own reputations, and continue to blame most failures in journalism on one person: Tucker Carlson.
“So it was not surprising that reporters began a week-long celebration this Monday when Fox fired Tucker.”
Referring to the latest Twitter files revelations about Carlson, Thacker told The Defender, “I can’t believe this is not everywhere, that everyone is not reading this right now.”
He said he will soon release more documents as part of the “Twitter files”:
“There are more stories. I had another story that I was working on, and I pushed that aside to work on this one.
“There’s probably another 10 stories, with more examples of the way they were working with the media, especially the media they favored.”
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
I always say that the most common way people change their mind is that they rewrite their memories and imagine they always agreed with you. Years ago, we published a provocative paper that qualified the percent of cancer patients eligible for genomic drugs. (it was ~8%), and the same doctors who had until recently claimed that these drugs have changed care for most people, were quick to say, “I always said only a fraction are eligible.” Sure you did, buddy. Sure you did.
To some degree, it is forgivable. The human ego is strong, and it is hard for many to admit they were wrong. When it comes to everyday Americans, I support their right to mis-remember their historical views on COVID19 policy. In fact, I predicted a great swing on this issue specifically — schools.
But, my concession does not extend to the architects of school closure. The experts who went on TV and repeatedly scared the public out of sending their kids to schools, and scared Governors, districts and teachers out of their duty to kids. These people should be remember as being on the wrong side of history, and receive the punishment they deserve: being precluded from shaping policy every again.
That includes Anthony Fauci and Randi Weingarten— two people who are doing an aggressive media campaign to distance themselves from the policies they set in motion.
One of Fauci’s defenses is that he just gave advice, and did not shut anything down. This is contradicted by the fact that he previously took credit for lockdowns, and specifically noted that in early march 2020, Trump faithfully followed his advice.
Of course the NIAID director and WH Covid counsel member has a special responsibility to give good advice, and should know the probability his advice shapes policy is high.
Additionally, he controls a multibillion dollar research budget. Why did he run zero RCTs of masking? School reopening? Distancing? Cohorting? Busing? Ventilation? That was entirely in his power, and there is no excuse for giving advice while not studying your advice, when you control the entire research budget!
In the summer of 2020, Fauci was still opposed to schools.
In spring 2020, when DeSantis reopened Fauci went on multiple news outlets to sabotage those efforts
As for Randi, the most accurate comment was in this clip from a distressed parent:
“On behalf of millions of American parents, I am stunned at what you have said…you are the tip of the spear of school closures… I hear no remorse whatsoever.”
Even CNN throwing Randi Weingarten under the bus over COVID school closures now too. Yikes…https://t.co/UB6FLEWvUJ
Randi claims she just wanted to open schools safety, but the problem is you didn’t need 750 billion dollars and hepa filtration to open safely. Even masks were unnecessary. Ultimately, schools reopened and ~100% of kids got COVID anyway, the vast majority did fine, most did not have the vaccine beforehand, and there is no reliable evidence the vax lowered the risk of severe disease for kids. All you needed to reopen were teachers with courage, sadly Randi and Tony sapped that away from them with constant inaccurate rhetoric.
The truth is Randi asked for things she knew she would not get, so she could justify her position that teachers be paid, get first dips on vaccine (over the elderly), and continue to not work in person.
School closure has already destroyed a generation of kids. The full damage is not yet appreciated, but the first signs are showing.
The virus was comparable to other viruses in healthy children, and no one should have disrupted their lives. It was not only wrong in retrospect, it was wrong at the time, and many of us saw it instantly and clearly. It was a human rights violation to close schools for kids.
Fauci and Weingarten are the tip of the spear of school closure. History should remember that, and no one should ever entertain their opinion on a policy matter again. The media coverage of them has been meek and toothless.
In a recent publication by a group of experienced geneticists, more contamination in mRNA “vaccines” (Pfizer and Moderna), excluding metal residues, which had been identified in the past, was found. Multiple methods highlighted high levels of DNA contamination.
Of special concern was that they found replicable DNA, so-called plasmids, in both the monovalent and bivalent vaccines, which should not be there at all. This time the researchers found DNA contamination that far exceeded the European Medicines Agency (EMA) requirement and the U.S. FDA’s dose requirements.
But why is this find so alarming?
The Threat of DNA Integration
As we knew from the beginning, Covid-19 (C19) injections have been a gene therapy, and the definition of a vaccine had to be altered to call them a vaccine. While we are still told of the safety and the effectiveness of the injections, Swedish researchers have shown that the mRNA of the Pfizer vaccine was integrated into liver cells.
This raised many eyebrows about whether the interference with our genome could pose the risk of integration of the mRNA coding into our genome. Usually, the body needs an enzyme called reverse transcriptase to do so. But now, findings of this new paper suggest a different scenario in which DNA integration may occur.
The Role of So-Called Plasmids
Plasmids are circular DNA that enable bacteria to exchange information. When scientists became aware of this, they soon started using these plasmids to produce custom-made proteins by genetically modifying their information. This is, for example, how insulin is currently produced. Plasmids are also the “production site” of the novel mRNA used in the Covid-19 injections. Once the DNA templates or plasmids are transcribed into strands of mRNA the injection vials should be filtered out to prevent continuous production of the information. Yet these plasmids are precisely what the scientists found. Why it is there gives rise to many explanations ranging from carelessness, the impossibility of ensuring complete separation, or even potential intent, which, knowing what we know, can no longer be excluded.
Plasmid Integration into Bacteria
So what could be so concerning about the integration of this information? The human body contains far more bacteria than cells, known as the human microbiome. The origin of the used plasmid stem from E. coli bacteria, which also happens to be a part of our intestinal microbiome, suggesting that there is the possibility for plasmid integration into our microbiome.
Plasmid Integration into Human Cells
While it was believed that plasmid integration was restricted to bacteria, other researchers observed that integration could occur in the telophase of cell division. Whether this can now occur with the mRNA injections should be a top priority for all regulatory bodies like EMA and FDA to address. Residual injected DNA can result in so-called type I interferon responses and increase the potential for DNA integration. A so-called SV 40 promotor also enables the plasmid integration into human cells.
An urgent evaluation into these mechanisms in the context of the covid mRNA-producing plasmids is needed to determine the extent to which this foreign genetic information is able to become a part of us.
Implication of Integration
The highly concerning consequence of genomic integration into microbiome cells is that this would ensure the ongoing production of mRNA and, thus, the production of pathogenic viral particles, the spike proteins. Typically, mRNA begins to degrade in the body after 10 minutes. Genetic modification, however, has made the C19 ‘vaccines’ mRNA more stable and it has now been observed to last up to 60 days. In autopsies in Germany, it was even found that mRNA was produced in endothelial cells after 12 months. mRNA has also been found in breast milk.
Could the persistence of plasmids and, thus, the integration into our genome be the reason for this?
Potential of Shedding
In a recent publication: “Persistent Nonviral Plasmid Vector in Nasal Tissues Causes False-Positive SARS-CoV-2 Diagnostic Nucleic Acid Tests” by Beck at al., asymptomatic laboratory workers who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were found to harbor a laboratory plasmid vector containing SARS-CoV-2 DNA, which they had worked with in the past, in their nasal secretions. While prior studies had documented contamination of research personnel with PCR amplicons (bits of DNA sequences artificially produced), their observation was novel, as these individuals shed the laboratory plasmid over days to months, including during isolation in their homes.
This suggests that the plasmid was in their nasal tissues or that bacteria containing the plasmid had colonized their noses. Thus we urgently ask the global health care systems to screen for plasmids in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.
As we breathe out, we usually exhale multiple elements from our gut microbiome. If we now can assume that cells from it have been instructed to produce mRNA, what will be the consequence for people in proximity to the individual spreading them? We need to find out as soon as possible.
Plasmid Contamination
The paper also alerts us to plasmid contamination from E. coli as preparations are often co-contaminated with lipopolysaccharides (LPS). E. coli endotoxin contamination can lead to anaphylaxis upon injection and thus should certainly not be present.
Antibiotic Resistance
For plasmids to remain stable, they are usually antibiotic-resistant to two antibiotics (Neomycin, Kanamycin). This information could also be integrated into the microbiome or body cells.
What WCH Health and Science Committee Conclude
First, it demonstrates again the apparent neglect of scientific and regulatory board standards.
The Nuremberg Code (August 19, 1947) Article 10 clearly states that:
“During the experiment, the scientist in charge must be prepared to interrupt the experiment at any moment when he begins to believe that the continuation of the experiment may involve injury, disability, or death to the subject.”
This has happened multiple times, and the crossing of several safety signals questioning safety and efficiency has filled countless pages.
Apart from the manufacturers’ fraudulent approach, the more concerning aspect is the regulatory bodies’ failure to react to these apparent problems. This is not surprising as they are mainly financed by the industry itself (EMA around 90%). Ensuring the ongoing distribution of these harmful and dangerous injections lacks any moral and ethical backbone.
This also highlights the EMA limits for DNA contamination, which doesn’t consider the nature of the DNA contaminants. Replication-competent DNA should arguably have a more stringent limit. DNA with mammalian promoters or antibiotic resistance genes may also be of more concern than just background E. coli genomic DNA from a plasmid preparation. More mRNA means more production of the pathogenic part of SARS-CoV-2 that was chosen to be produced by our own cells, namely the spike protein.
The potential of shedding even to the unvaccinated poses a serious question for the entire population of this planet.
We can only speculate how it will end, but what needs to happen today after the publication of this paper is an immediate stop of the “Covid-19 vaccine” program.
Meanwhile, we should boost our oral and nasal microbiome by walking in the woods and inhaling beneficial microbes. And improve our gut microbiome through the consumption of fermented foods such as freshly unpasteurized Sauerkraut or Kimchi and prebiotic foods such as colorful root vegetables.
In a recent interview with The New American, Dr Mark Trozzi explains the role of bacterial plasmids and E. coli bacteria in the manufacturing process of mRNA injections. Watch the full interview here.
ABC News has censored an interview with US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Joe Biden’s top challenger for the Democratic Party’s 2024 nomination – by removing his allegedly false assertions about Covid-19 vaccines.
“We should note that during our conversation, Kennedy made false claims about the Covid-19 vaccines,” ABC anchor Linsey Davis said on Thursday after airing her interview with the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy.
She added that Kennedy made “misleading claims” contrary to research findings about a link between certain vaccines and autism. “We’ve used our editorial judgment in not including portions of that exchange in our interview.”
Davis sparred with Kennedy during the interview, saying his past claims about vaccines causing autism had been totally “debunked.” As the candidate began to explain why he believes major public health agencies, such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are “captive,” his comments were cut off. The clip then cuts to Davis pointing out that some of Kennedy’s family members disagree with his views on vaccines.
“I’m just curious, if you’re not able to get your own sisters to vote for you for president, how would you make that appeal to American voters?” the host asked. Kennedy replied that he has a large family with a tradition of openly discussing issues on which they disagree. “That’s something that I think is a lesson we ought to learn for this country. We can disagree with each other without hating each other, without marginalizing each other.” Davis shot back, “I’m just using your family’s words to call you dangerous, rather than saying that’s not like the typical family that might have disagreements around the kitchen table.”
Kennedy noted on Friday that federal law prohibits broadcasters from censoring presidential candidates.
“Instead of journalism, the public saw a hatchet job,” he said. “Instead of information, they got defamation and unsheathed pharma propaganda. Americans deserve to hear the full interview so they can make up their own minds. How can democracy function without a free and unbiased press?”
A Fox News poll released on Thursday showed that although President Biden’s rivals for the Democratic Party’s nomination are longshot candidates, Kennedy is gaining ground. While 62% of Democrat voters want the party to nominate Biden for re-election, 19% favor Kennedy. A previous poll indicated that Kennedy was supported by 14% of Democrats after entering the race earlier this month.
Kennedy is the nephew of John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963, and the son of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, who was shot dead on the campaign trail in 1968. He has pledged to end the “corrupt merger between state and corporate power” and has spoken out against Washington’s policy of using military power to enforce global hegemony. “The Ukraine war is the final collapse of the neocons’ short-lived ‘American Century,’” he said earlier this month.
The thrust of Let a hundred flowers bloom was that the world’s response to COVID-19 should not have been exempted from the normal processes of policy formation and development, which in a democracy have informed debate at their core. By exempting pandemic policy from critique, governments were attempting to ensure that the correct response was undertaken, but in fact increased the likelihood of falling into serious error.
Governments felt that in a public health emergency there was no time to explore policy alternatives, and it was essential to take a disciplined approach to defeat the enemy (i.e. the virus). It was necessary for governments to control information given out to the population from the centre and to suppress ‘unreliable’ sources of information that might promulgate ‘incorrect’ information, and thereby cause the deaths of people who were led astray from the true path.
Jacinda Ardern, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, notoriously declared ‘we will continue to be your single source of truth.’ She advised the New Zealand people to listen to the Director General of Health and the Ministry of Health and ‘dismiss anything else.’
There should be no scenarios in which governments and government agencies are the single source of truth. No organisation, no individual and no groups of individuals can be infallible. She is now headed to Harvard University to expound on disinformation with and to the best and brightest.
Therefore, we need to go through a divergent phase of policy development in the first instance, in which all the relevant diverse sources of knowledge and diverse voices are consulted. This is sometimes referred to as ‘the wisdom of crowds,’ but ‘the wisdom of crowds’ must be distinguished from ‘the groupthink of herds.’
The prices of companies on the stock market are thought to reflect the combined knowledge of all traders and therefore the true market price. But stock prices go through cycles of boom and bust, in which true underlying prices are distorted for a time by the famous ‘animal spirits,’ and rise exponentially before falling, much like the pandemic curve indeed.
The need to bring diverse perspectives to bear on common problems is why we have parliaments and congresses instead of dictatorships. There is widespread disillusionment with parliaments, but they exemplify Winston Churchill’s famous dictum: ‘Democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.’ Deliberative decision-making in which all voices are heard is an essential safeguard which can lead to sound policy formation if deployed carefully, avoiding the pitfalls of groupthink, and it is superior to all other forms of decision-making that have been tried.
Governments must choose a path forward, they must make strategic choices, but they should do so with full knowledge of the policy options, and they should never attempt to prevent other options from being discussed. But this is what happened in the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was driven by a simplistic view of science in which the scientific community supposedly formed a ‘scientific consensus’ about the best ways to handle the pandemic, based on universal measures aimed at the entire population. But the Great Barrington Declaration advocated an alternative strategy of ‘focused protection’ instead, and was originally signed by 46 distinguished experts, including a Nobel Prize winner. It has subsequently been signed by over 16,000 medical and public health scientists, and nearly 50,000 medical practitioners. Whatever you may think about the Great Barrington Declaration, these simple facts demonstrate that there was no consensus.
When activists refer to ‘the scientific consensus,’ what they mean is ‘the establishment consensus’ – the consensus of sages and worthies of the type referred to by Jacinda Ardern and referred to in ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom.’ These agency heads, advisory panels, and ministries of health are naturally predisposed to accept their own advice and ignore contrarian voices. Yet contrarian voices remind us of ‘inconvenient facts,’ data that conflicts with the establishment view. It is through the dialogue between diverse voices that we work closer to the truth. ‘The authorities’ must be held accountable, even in a pandemic.
The key point about the establishment consensus is that it is always entirely devoid of individual insight. In order to qualify to be a sage or a worthy and to sit on government advisory panels or be an agency head, you have to show your capacity to toe the line at all times and never say anything remotely controversial. This was expressed so well by George Bernard Shaw: ‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’
The pandemic response has been dominated by the reasonable ones who trim to the wind and accept the current framework whatever it is.
In early 2020, an establishment consensus formed within weeks around the grand strategy (which, remember, was neither grand nor strategic) of suppressing the spread of the pandemic through lockdowns until vaccination could end it. At that stage, there were no vaccines in existence and there was literally zero evidence that lockdowns could ‘stop the spread,’ but alternative strategies were never considered. Since then, the establishment has had greater success in suppressing debate than in suppressing spread of the virus.
Maryanne Demasi, who has a fatal tendency to think for herself that has got her into trouble in the past, has written about this ‘consensus by censorship’ in a Substack article: ‘It is not difficult to reach a scientific consensus when you squelch dissenting voices.’ Scientists such as Norman Fenton and Martin Neill, with hundreds of publications to their name, have been unable to get papers published if they raise any questions about papers with favourable findings on COVID-19 vaccines. They have written about their experiences with the Lancethere. Eyal Shahar has given three examples here.
This is unacceptable. COVID-19 vaccines, like any other therapeutic product, should be subject to rigorous ongoing analysis for safety, and strategies must be adapted where necessary in the light of emerging knowledge. Again, there can be no exemptions from this.
Even with these impediments, some papers slip through the net, such as the rigorous analysis of the primary clinical trial evidence by Joseph Fraiman, Peter Doshi et al: ‘Serious adverse events of special interest following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in randomized trials in adults.’ But many papers with adverse findings about the vaccine are blocked at the pre-print stage, such as the paper on COVID vaccination and age-stratified all-cause mortality risk by Pantazatos and Seligmann, which concluded that the data suggests ‘the risks of COVID vaccines and boosters outweigh the benefits in children, young adults and older adults with low occupational risk or previous coronavirus exposure.’
Pantazatos described his experience with the medical journals here. This demonstrates that the most effective tactic to dispose of contrarian research is not to refute it, but to suppress it and then ignore it. Indeed, establishment researchers have ignored the whole issue and have not addressed the effect of COVID-19 vaccines on all-cause mortality at all. This is extraordinary, as the entire goal of the pandemic response is supposed to be to reduce mortality. But two years after the commencement of mass vaccination, researchers have not conducted controlled studies of its effect on overall mortality, even retrospectively. This is incomprehensible. Are they afraid of what they might find?
Gorski has nothing to contribute on the subject. The nearest thing he has to an argument is that individual studies do not necessarily invalidate a scientific consensus. But Gøtzsche and Demasi’s paper is based on a meta review of 18 systematic reviews, 14 randomised trials and 34 other studies with a control group. It has been open for review on the pre-print site and I am not aware of any substantive objections to the information and analysis therein.
Words like ‘anti-vaxxer,’ ‘anti-science,’ and ‘cranks’ are thought-stoppers – rhetorical devices designed to signal to the orthodox that their cherished convictions are safe, and they don’t need to understand the arguments and evidence put forward by dissidents because they think they are by definition disreputable people out to mislead. Resorting to these methods and ad hominem attacks is in fact anti-intellectual,
The fake consensus has indeed been ‘manufactured.’ The scientific debate on COVID-19 was closed from the outset, particularly at the level of opinion, whereas a hallmark of true scientific consensus is openness.
Consider, as a case study, the great debate between the advocates of the ‘big bang’ theory of the origins of the universe and the ‘steady state’ theory, the history of which is related in this account by the American Institute of Physics. The steady state theory (in which the universe is expanding at a steady rate with matter being continuously created to fill the space created as stars and galaxies move apart) was advocated by Fred Hoyle, one of the most eminent physicists of his generation, over more than 20 years, until the weight of empirical observations by radio astronomy brought about its demise. The debate was ended in the traditional way, whereby the predictions of the steady state theory were falsified.
The grand strategy of COVID-19 pandemic responses, which was supposed to end the pandemic and end excess deaths, has been contradicted by empirical observations. The pandemic did not end, almost everyone became infected, excess deaths have continued and there is no hard evidence especially from randomised controlled trials that the vaccines can prevent or reduce all-cause mortality. In Australia, the bulk of our excess deaths have come during the mass vaccination period.
And yet, the orthodox continue to have faith in the strategy and continue to ignore and suppress alternative strategies, believing that the science has been settled, when it seems to be decidedly unsettled.
This leads to the war against ‘disinformation and misinformation,’ which is in fact a war against contrarian viewpoints. Government has colluded with establishment scientists and social media companies to systematically censor alternative observations and strategies.
The straw-man arguments usually deployed to justify this highlight irrational ideas such as rumours that the vaccines contain microchips, etc. But they completely ignore the issues raised by serious scientists such as Doshi, Fenton, and Gøtzsche. The orthodox hold that sceptics are science denialists, whereas the reverse is true: the establishment denies the diversity of findings in the scientific literature.
The market in ideas should be the freest of all markets, as there is much to be gained and little to be lost by engaging with all ideas that derive from evidence-based analysis. By contrast, pandemic policy has been characterised by a kind of intellectual protectionism, in which orthodox ideas are privileged.
The fake consensus has been used as the basis for academic studies of ‘disinformation.’ There is no precise conceptual basis for the concept of disinformation, which is assumed to be ‘false or misleading information.’ Who determines what is false? This is usually defined derivatively as any information that goes contrary to the established narrative.
The self-appointed Aspen Commission in its final report on ‘information disorder,’ referred to some of these issues, by asking for example ‘who gets to determine mis-and disinformation?’ and acknowledging that ‘there are concomitant risks of silencing good-faith dissent’ – and then proceeded to ignore them. Without defining it, a key recommendation was: ’Establish a comprehensive strategic approach to countering disinformation and the spread of misinformation including a centralised national response strategy’ (p30).
A further recommendation is: ‘Call on community, corporate, professional, and political leaders to promote new norms that create personal and professional consequences within their communities and networks for individuals who willfully violate the public trust and use their privilege to harm the public.’ In other words, pursue and persecute those who step out of line, with no consideration of whether they may be relying simply on different information, not misinformation.
They go on to make helpful practical suggestions on how to implement their vaguely worded recommendation:
Ask professional standards bodies like medical associations to hold their members accountable when they share false health information with the public for profit.
Encourage advertisers to withhold advertising from platforms whose practices fail to protect their customers from harmful misinformation.
Spur media organizations to adopt practices that foreground fact-based information, and ensure they give readers context, including when public officials lie to the public.
All of this assumes that there is a simple distinction to be made between ‘true’ and ‘false’ information, and underlying this, a naïve trust that only the health authorities are relying on ‘fact-based information’ and contrary views are self-evidently not fact-based. But, as we have seen, Doshi, Fenton, Gøtzsche and Demasi have published contrarian papers that are heavily fact-based.
In an academic extension of the ad hominem attack, there is even research into the psychological characteristics of dissidents, which brings to mind the worst excesses of the Soviet Union. Examples provided by ChatGPT of general studies on misinformation indicated that those of us who question established narratives are apparently led astray by confirmation bias, have a ‘low cognitive ability,’ and are biased by our political views. This implies that those who support conventional positions are unbiased, smart, and are never influenced by their political orientation. These assumptions should also be tested by research, perhaps?
In relation to COVID-19, it turns out that us dissidents are also prone to ‘epistemic vices such as indifference to the truth or rigidity in [our] belief structures,’ according to Meyer et al. This was based on testing people’s willingness to believe 12 patently ridiculous statements, such as ‘Adding pepper to your meals prevents COVID-19,’ which I have never heard of before. Willingness to agree with these statements was then stretched to equate with more serious issues:
People who accept COVID-19 misinformation may be more likely to put themselves and others at risk, to strain already overburdened medical systems and infrastructures, and to spread misinformation to others. Of particular concern is the prospect that a vaccine for the novel coronavirus will be rejected by a sizeable proportion of the population because they have been taken in by misinformation about the safety or effectiveness of the vaccine.
None of these issues were tested in the research, yet it was extended beyond the findings to justify these conclusions.
Using a representative survey of U.S. adults fielded March 17-19, 2020 (n=2,023), we examine the prevalence and correlates of beliefs in two conspiracy theories about COVID-19.
29% of respondents agree that the threat of COVID-19 has been exaggerated to damage President Trump; 31% agree that the virus was purposefully created and spread.
These beliefs are certainly debatable and are held to be founded once again in denialism: ‘a psychological predisposition to reject expert information and accounts of major events.’ Denialism was further broken down to these:
Much of the information we receive is wrong.
I often disagree with conventional views about the world.
Official government accounts of events cannot be trusted.
Major events are not always what they seem.
Are you telling me these statements are not true?! I will have to rethink everything!
These studies all equate dissident views with ‘conspiracy theories.’ They assume that dissident views are self-evidently contrary to the scientific record, invalid and plain wrong; and they do not see any need to support this with references. They are insufferably superior and patronising, resting on immense confidence in their unfalsifiable academic findings.
The scientific method contains many valuable tools for counteracting confirmation bias – the tendency we all have to interpret all data as favourable to our pre-existing ideas. Pandemic science has shown that these tools themselves can be misused to reinforce confirmation bias. This leads to a kind of objectivity trap – the sages become blind to their own bias because they think they are immune.
They are founded in a belief that dissidents must be fundamentally anti-social since they are ‘anti-science.’ They must be either bad actors or gullible and misled. These authors do not consider the positive attributes that could be associated with dissident beliefs: a proclivity for independent thinking and the critical thinking that is supposed to be inculcated by higher education.
Establishments have been trying to suppress rebels and dissidents for hundreds if not thousands of years. But every society needs (non-violent) rebels to challenge beliefs that are not well-founded.
The establishment consensus on COVID-19 is built on sand and should be challenged. It arose from premature closure of the scientific debate, followed by suppression of contrarian evidence-based analysis. Dissidents include scientists, who are clearly not anti-science but are opposed to flawed science based on ‘low cognitive ability’ and confirmation bias in favour of establishment ideas. They are pushing for better science.
The most reliable policy arises from open science and open debate, not from protectionism and closed science.
Let a hundred schools of thought contend – or we are all lost!
Michael Tomlinson is a Higher Education Governance and Quality Consultant. He was formerly Director of the Assurance Group at Australia’s Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, where he led teams to conduct assessments of all registered providers of higher education (including all of Australia’s universities) against the Higher Education Threshold Standards. Before that, for twenty years he held senior positions in Australian universities. He has been an expert panel member for a number of offshore reviews of universities in the Asia-Pacific region. Dr Tomlinson is a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia and of the (international) Chartered Governance Institute.
There follows an open letter from Dr. Christian Buckland, Chairman of the Board of the U.K. Council for Psychotherapy, to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemning the “use of unethical psychological techniques and behavioural science on the unknowing and non-consenting U.K. public”. Among numerous harms are that the use of techniques to increase fear, shame and guilt “materially undermined, if not removed, the U.K. population’s ability to give valid informed consent to taking a COVID-19 vaccine”.
April 28th 2023
Dear Prime Minister,
I am the Chairman of the Board of the U.K. Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), one of the UK’s foremost psychological governing bodies. However, I write this open letter in my own capacity. I believe I have a professional obligation to write to you in an attempt to protect the public from any further harm caused by the unethical application of psychological research and practice.
I unreservedly condemn the U.K. Government’s use of unethical psychological techniques intended to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt, under the guise of behavioural science and insights which were designed to change the public’s behaviour without their knowledge and conscious participation. It is now clear that in 2020 the U.K. Government deliberately chose to artificially inflate the level of fear within the U.K. population by exaggerating the risk factors of COVID-19, and concomitantly downplaying the protective factors. We also witnessed the Government’s promotion of social disapproval and guilt messaging. These techniques were embedded into a multi-channel, co-ordinated public health campaign designed to change the public’s behaviour without their knowledge. Moreover, in tandem with the mainstream media, the Government also proactively suppressed, censored and ostracised any healthcare professional or scientist who suggested alternative responses to COIVD-19, or who simply questioned the messaging and measures being implemented by the Government.
Evidence of the recommendation of using unethical psychological techniques to gain behavioural change
The Government document titled ‘Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures’ was written for the Government by the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) which is a subgroup of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).
The premise of the document was to provide options for changing the behaviour of the U.K. public without their knowledge. A passage within this document states: “A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”. It makes certain recommendations including:
“The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard hitting emotional messaging”
“Coercion”
“Social disapproval”
The recommendations made by SPI-B included ones intended to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt. Psychological practitioners know that deliberately trying to frighten someone into change with erroneous or exaggerated information can easily cause long-term psychological damage. We also know that using social disapproval can create splits and divisions within society, and that inducing feelings of guilt can elevate the risk of suicide.
SPI-B also included a simple risk assessment matrix which acknowledges that the “spill over effects” of using media to increase the sense of personal threat and of using social disapproval “could be negative”. There is also a statement demonstrating there was a conversation regarding the spill over effects, although this does not appear to be fully documented. The risk factors and ethics of using fear, shame, guilt and coercion would almost certainly have been known to the members of SPI-B because several members were British Psychological Society (BPS) registered chartered psychologists. In an interview with one of the members of SPI-B, BPS registered educational psychologist Dr. Gavin Morgan, he refers to the use of fear by his SPI-B colleagues and says (as relayed by Laura Dodsworth, in A State of Fearpp. 262,263):
“Clearly using fear as a means of control is not ethical. What you do as a psychologist is co-construction. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government.” … Was it unethical to use fear, I asked? “Well I didn’t suggest we use fear.” But your colleagues did. What do you think of that? He paused. “Oh God.” Another reluctant pause. “It’s not ethical,” he said.
Like Dr. Morgan, any BPS registered psychologists within SPI-B would or should have recognised that recommending the Government uses fear as a means of controlling the public breached their professional code of ethics and conduct. An urgent investigation is required both by the U.K. Government and the BPS. Two specific points of the British Psychological Society Code of Ethics and Conduct (2021) that may have been broken are (with my emphasis):
3.3 Responsibility. Because of their acknowledged expertise, members of the Society often enjoy professional autonomy; responsibility is an essential element of autonomy. Members must accept appropriate responsibility for what is within their power, control or management. Awareness of responsibility ensures that the trust of others is not abused, the power of influence is properly managed and that duty towards others is always paramount. Statement of values: Members value their responsibilities to persons and peoples, to the general public, and to the profession and science of psychology, including the avoidance of harm and the prevention of misuse or abuse of their contribution to society. In applying these values, psychologists should consider:
Professional accountability;
Responsible use of their knowledge and skills;
Respect for the welfare of humans, non-humans and the living world;
Potentially competing duties.
3.4Integrity.Acting with integrity includes being honest, truthful, accurate and consistent in one’s actions, words, decisions, methods and outcomes. It requires setting self-interest to one side and being objective and open to challenge in one’s behaviour in a professional context. Statement of values: Members value honesty, probity, accuracy, clarity and fairness in their interactions with all persons and peoples, and seek to promote integrity in all facets of their scientific and professional endeavours”.
Evidence that psychological techniques to induce fear, shame, guilt and coercion were used on the U.K. public
The SPI-B document in question demonstrates that the options of eliciting feelings of fear, shame, guilt and the use of coercion was recommended to the U.K. Government. There is evidence that those options were indeed subsequently deployed on the U.K. population.
In every brief, we tried to say: let’s stop the ‘fear narrative’. It was always wrong from the beginning. I constantly said it was wrong… It was wrong to scare people like that.
Additionally, leaked WhatsApp messages from the former Health Minister at the time, Matt Hancock, published in the Daily Telegraph in March 2023, confirm that fear and guilt were used:
Hancock: We frighten the pants of everyone with the new strain. But the complications with that Brexit is taking the top line
Poole: Yep that’s what will get proper bahviour (sic) change
Hancock: When do we deploy the new variant …
Case: Ramping up messaging – the fear/guilt factor vital
The above are just two examples where senior Government Ministers recognised that fear and guilt was used as drivers for behavioural change of the UK population without their knowledge.
The existing literature
It is important to acknowledge that the above-mentioned psychological techniques were used on the U.K. population without their knowledge or consent, and that this in direct contradiction of long-established and carefully considered behavioural science advice which made clear that, in theory and practice, the consent of the public is paramount. According to a 2010 Institute for Government report:
The use of MINDSPACE (or other ‘nudge’ type policy tools) may require careful handling – in essence, the public need to give permission and help shape how such tools are used. (p10)
Continuing, the report states:
Policy-makers wishing to use these tools summarised in MINDSPACE need the approval of the public to do so. (p74)
Further literature supports that permission from the public is essential. David Halpern wrote in 2015:
If there is one great risk to the application of behavioural insights in policy, it is that the thread of public permission wears too thin. If governments, or indeed communities or companies, wish to use behavioural insights, they must seek and maintain the permission of the public to do so. (p365)
As there was no approval obtained, the options recommended and deployed were not in alignment with the principles of behavioural science.
It is important to highlight that the same kinds of techniques were used on children in relation to mask wearing, social distancing and vaccine uptake, with many techniques continuing into 2022. These techniques violated UNICEF’s recommendations from its ethical toolkit for behavioural science projects directed at children. The tool-kit states:
A core idea underlying the applied behavioural science approach is that interventions should not restrict choice and should transparently communicate project goals. When designing an intervention, practitioners should determine how transparent it will be to those affected by it. They should ensure that children and parents can easily opt out, and should design feedback mechanisms so that children and their parents can voice concerns, see the outcomes of their objections, and hold decision-makers to account.
An independent assessment and a suspension of HMRC’s use of behavioural psychology / behavioural insights, in light of the ongoing suicide risk to those impacted by the Loan Charge.
The literature highlights that approval from the public must be sought and maintained. Additionally, all behavioural science projects directed at children must have effective feedback mechanisms and methods of opting out, with decision makers able to be held accountable. There are also existing potential concerns that behavioural science may increase suicide levels. These important ethical aspects and safety signals appear to have been ignored. The lessons of history warn us that in times of existential crisis, whether real or only perceived, our ethics are at risk of being abandoned, and psychological knowledge can become misused by governments:
Under some historical conditions or circumstances and contexts, psychologists and psychological knowledge were in danger of being abused by political powers, largely for clandestine purposes, such as conducting torture or the persecution of political opponents. (Maercker A, Guski-Leinwand S, 2018)
It is of grave concern that the actions of the U.K. Government during the Covid era potentially fit into the category of abusing psychological knowledge and being absent of ethics, thus require serious investigation.
The impact of psychological pressure on informed consent
For the sake of brevity, I will not reiterate the multipleconcernsalreadydocumentedby otherssurrounding the consequences of the Government’s actions around lockdown, hospital discharges, school closures and mask mandates. I do, however, wish to highlight one extremely serious consequence that I believe has occurred as a direct result of the use of unethical psychological techniques and behavioural insights on the unknowing public: by adopting the techniques used, the Government significantly and materially undermined, if not removed, the U.K. population’s ability to give valid informed consent to taking a COVID-19 vaccine.
Consent must be obtained before starting any treatment or physical investigation or before providing personal care for a patient. This includes the administration of all vaccines.
Also,
It is a legal and ethical principle that valid consent must be obtained before starting personal care, treatment or investigations.
Also,
For consent to immunisation to the (sic) valid, it must be given freely, voluntarily and without coercion by an appropriately informed person who has the mental capacity to consent to the administration of the vaccines in question.
The threat or use of punitive measures against states, groups or individuals in order for them to undertake or desist from specified actions. In addition to the threat of or limited use of force (or both), coercion may entail economic sanctions, psychological pressures, and social ostracism.
The psychological techniques used by the U.K. Government fall under that definition of coercion. If follows that according to Public Health England’s statements and for the general public at least, consent to immunisation was invalidated by the behaviour of the U.K. Government. It is also important to highlight that there have been serious injuries and death directly linked to the COVID-19 vaccine. Many of those injured or who have died would not have taken a vaccine if they had not been psychologically pressured, feared being ostracised socially and were given accurate information.
The removal of the general population’s ability to give informed medical consent is of the gravest concern, and a severe and dangerous consequence of using behavioural insights and psychological techniques on an unknowing public.
Conclusion
The need to hold tightly to professional ethics, in particular to the ethical principle of informed consent, is not just an ‘academic’ issue. It is a matter of practical and fundamental importance to responsible government.
According to David Halpern, “Behavioural insights, like any other form of knowledge, can be used for good or bad” (p348). It is my opinion that the use of behavioural insights and psychological techniques designed to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt utilised by the U.K. Government since March 2020 has been unethical. The consequences are still unravelling but they appear to include serious damage to trust in government and its agencies, the NHS and the medical and scientific professions.
I propose that there be an immediate cessation of the use of all behavioural science techniques designed to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt used by the Government pending an urgent, open and independent inquiry. This inquiry should also have as an objective the re-establishment of ethical frameworks necessary to protect the public and to provide accountability. I would welcome a discussion on this most important of matters.
Most respectfully
Dr. Christian Buckland
Doctor of Psychology in Psychotherapy and Counselling
“In this Canadian Patriot Podcast, Dr. Denis Rancourt explains his published findings and methods demonstrating the popular fallacy that a “covid-19 virus had caused vast death prior to the vaccine rollouts in 2021. In fact, not a single death anywhere in the world can be provably tied to COVID-19, but rather the criminally incompetent (and likely intentionally criminal) protocols deployed from above nation states. Dr. Rancourt explains the real reasons for the increase in all-cause mortality across the world with a focus on the USA, Australia, Israel and India which occured only after the vaccine rollout began. A discussion on Fauci’s admission that he was wrong about masking protocols and the broader corruption in academic research over the past decades is also explored.”
Andrew Bridgen, a U.K. member of Parliament this month warned his fellow parliamentarians that the World Health Organization’s (WHO) proposed new pandemic treaty and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) represents “a huge grab of power” by “unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats.”
People in the U.K. “do not want to be ruled” by an unelected group of people, Bridgen said. “We should have a referendum, because sovereignty belongs to the people. It’s not ours to give away.”
The debate was triggered after 156,086 U.K. constituents signed a petition calling for the U.K. government “to commit to not signing any international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness established by the WHO, unless this is approved through a public referendum.”
Bridgen pointed out that WHO employees are exempt from taxes and have diplomatic immunity — meaning they are protected from prosecution.
He said the WHO pandemic treaty and its IHR amendments seek to take “huge powers” away from “this Parliament and every other Parliament around the world.”
“These two instruments would fundamentally reset the relationship between citizens and sovereign state — not only in this country but also around the whole world,” he added.
The proposals would empower “unelected, unaccountable, top-down, supernational” officials to “impose sweeping, legally binding” orders on member states — including forcing companies to manufacture and export certain medical treatments or shutting companies down “regardless of what the local people think,” Bridgen said.
Bridgen said the WHO’s proposals are skewed toward aggregating power in the hands of WHO officials — rather than the hands of democratic governments — because they would grant the WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Ph.D., the power to decide “when the pandemic or the emergency is over and when he’ll possibly give us the power back.”
The WHO consists of its 192 member states — “basically the whole of the U.N. membership, excluding Liechtenstein and the Holy See” — but it now receives 86% of its funding from non-member states, Bridgen said.
“You have to think: Why are they doing this?” Bridgen said, adding:
“They [the Gates Foundation and Gavi] are also the biggest donors — or biggest investors — in pharmaceuticals and the experimental mRNA technology which was so profitable for those who produced it during the last pandemic.”
Bridgen urged his fellow lawmakers to review the WHO proposals in great detail.
“They [the proposals] need to be considered very strongly. Sticking your head in the stand isn’t going to do it,” he said. “It won’t do for my constituents,” he added.
Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2021), and a master’s degree in communication and leadership from Gonzaga University (2015). Her scholarship has been published in Health Communication. She has taught at various academic institutions in the United States and is fluent in Spanish.
Whenever I get off the bus at Oxford city centre, I see the monument to the Oxford martyrs, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, who were burned at the stake in Broad Street in 1555, and Thomas Cranmer, who suffered a similar fate the following year. The three refused to renounce their Protestant beliefs during the reign of Catholic Mary Tudor, and died the most horrific deaths as a result.
I have often thought, when passing the monument and the commemorative plaque set in the wall of Balliol College opposite, that these men could have saved themselves simply by recanting, an option that was open to them and indeed, Archbishop Cranmer did recant before reaffirming his belief in Protestantism.
Now, I see more clearly that, whatever the consequences, they could not in all conscience revert to a faith they no longer believed in. We like to think we live in more civilised times and no longer burn people at the stake for not conforming to the religious orthodoxy of the time – but do we? The history of the last three years has been an updated version of martyrs being consigned to the flames for their beliefs, but this time the rejected articles of faith are the Covid vaccines.
They have become the new religion, with fervent advocates even among church and spiritual leaders. Instead of enjoining us to believe in God, they have urged us to save ourselves by having the vaccine. Their sermonising on the matter has even acquired the status of holy writ as, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Jesus would have wanted us to have the vaccine. The Dalai Lama urged his many followers to ‘be brave and come forward to be vaccinated’ after having the jab himself.
So, as the faithful line up for their sixth jab, the vaccine can be considered the secular equivalent of Holy Communion. The point of Holy Communion is to partake of the body and blood of Christ to absolve us from our sins, and the mRNA vaccine is supposed to protect us against bodily ills. In both cases, the idea is to keep the devil out by a ritual and oft-repeated observance.
Those of us who have done our research, and cannot in all honesty believe in the magical power of the vaccine to ward off the devil of Covid infection, are the heretics of today who deserve to be burned at the stake, or in today’s equivalent to be cast out of polite society and ridiculed as anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, tinfoil hat wearers and covidiots. Doctors have lost their jobs for refusing to accept the supremacy of the vaccine and the (very) few politicians who have spoken out against it have been ostracised and marginalised.
Of course, when it comes to Protestantism or Catholicism, it is a question of belief. Yet we know how the vaccines work, and have proof that they are harmful and can set up a variety of adverse reactions in the body. As such, those of us who know the truth cannot recant whatever the cost, as to do so would be to accept the lie that the mRNA vaccines have been a wonderful success story the world over, saving millions of lives.
But even as evidence of severe damage and sometimes death from the vaccine mounts up, as reported on TCW, this continues to be brushed aside, discounted and even denied. Indeed, those who question the holiness of the mRNA to protect us from all ills do so at our personal and professional peril. Whenever a vaccine-related serious side effect or death is reported, it is dismissed in the media as ‘extremely rare’ and insignificant compared with all the good the rollout has accomplished.
And when a fully-vaccinated individual catches Covid anyway, the believers’ standard response is to allege that, but for the multiple jabs, their illness would have been much worse. Vaccines have become, one might say, the holy water of our times.
We may live in a largely secular age, but we have substituted belief in God for a belief in science, and most especially medical science, or what passes for it these days. We have come to worship Big Pharma with the kind of adoring reverence we used to reserve for God and Jesus, and this persists even when the so-called science fails us.
The religious fervour goes even further. The ever-increasing number of vaccines administered to babies can be considered analogous to a holy baptism. For just as baptisms and christenings were supposed to cast out original sins before the baby had time to commit any, so today the many vaccines are supposed to cast out devils in the shape of measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, or prevent them from entering. Once again, the supposedly protective substances are injected long before the baby has had time to develop any of the infections.
Belief in the efficacy and safety of vaccines is so devout that nobody is allowed to raise a dissenting voice, and anybody who dares to do so, such as Dr Andrew Wakefield, risks not only being discredited, but struck off the medical register and not allowed to practise. More recently, Dr Sam White was suspended for ‘spreading misinformation’ about the efficacy of the Covid vaccine. Robert F Kennedy Jr, a challenger for the American presidency, is routinely attacked for promoting anti-vaccine propaganda. Yet to their eternal credit these people will not be silenced.
The search is now on to find a vaccine for every ill that flesh is heir to, including cancer and malaria. Living in Oxford, I am always getting alerts from the Oxford Vaccine Group to be a volunteer for one of their new studies. If vaccines cannot actually deliver eternal life, they can, we are led to believe, confer the next best thing, which is eternal health.
At one time, those who did not believe in God were considered wicked. Nowadays, you are labelled an apostate if you don’t believe in the almighty power of the vaccine.
So I wonder whether I would be prepared to concede, under extreme torture, that the mRNA vaccine was safe and effective. Thankfully, my conviction that it is neither has not been put to such a severe test but pondering on the issue has given me a new understanding as to why Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer were prepared to die horribly for what they believed was true, rather than recant.
We know now that it was the sacrifice of these men, and particularly that of Cranmer, which made England a Protestant country. By the same token, I can only hope that those who have had the courage to speak out against the mRNA vaccine, and who because of this have been marginalised, ridiculed and in some cases lost their livelihood, will enable the tide to be turned at last.
Note: I hold no particular brief for either Protestantism or Catholicism but am just pointing out that the ultimate sacrifice from a few brave people can change beliefs – and society.
Robert Califf, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is hell bent on ridding the internet of misinformation.
In a series of public appearances, Califf has claimed that “misinformation is now our leading cause of death.”
When I asked the FDA for evidence to support his claim, the agency drew a blank, admitting that Califf’s statement “cannot be proven.”
Califf has since made attempts to tweak his public statement.
This week, CBS News reporter Alexander Tin pressed him for an explanation, to which Califf replied, “I want to modify my statement. And I’ll keep working on this, to try to get it right. I would say I actually believe it is the leading cause of premature death…”
Jessica Adams, an expert in drug regulatory affairs said, “It’s ironic. Califf is spreading misinformation about the leading cause of premature death in the US, while promoting the need to counter misinformation.”
“It’s unbelievable for him to make these assertions with no scientific backing,” she added.
Adams said it’s not the FDA’s job to police medical misinformation online.
“The FDA should be assessing drug approvals, overseeing post-marketing studies and ensuring product labels are up to date – not promoting vaccines and antivirals as if it’s the marketing arm of the drug industry,” said Adams.
The FDA sent me its website providing Califf’s reasoning for why he believes misinformation is the leading cause of premature death. It states:
“Most of the COVID-19 deaths since vaccines and antivirals became available were preventable if people had gotten updated on their vaccination status and, if high risk and infected, had they been treated with an authorized antiviral.”
“He’s failed to cite any sources to substantiate his claims and Califf keeps saying that it is just his ‘belief’…Are we supposed to just accept that?” said Adams, criticising his “obsession” over the boosters.
“It’s as if the FDA thinks that people don’t want the vaccines because they are misinformed, when it might just be that they are not persuaded by the data,” she added.
Adams also said the FDA is misinforming the public by “over-inflating” the benefit of the more recent bivalent vaccines.
“They’re now promoting the bivalent boosters which are based on much less data than the original [monovalent] vaccines and authorised on the basis of antibodies, which is not a fully validated correlate of protection,” said Adams.
This is not the first time the FDA has made misleading scientific claims to the public.
In August 2021, the FDA attempted to dissuade people from using ivermectin as an off-label, early treatment for COVID-19 by suggesting it was a livestock drug. The agency tweeted “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
But critics were quick to condemn the misinformation by pointing out that ivermectin is not only a medicine used to deworm livestock, it is also FDA-approved for parasitic treatment in humans.
Califf also spread misinformation in a Nov 2022 tweet which stated, “preliminary epidemiological findings point to the distinct possibility of the bivalent vaccines and antivirals reducing risk of long Covid.”
Vinay Prasad, Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and a practicing Haematologist Oncologist at San Francisco General Hospital wrote a scathing criticism of the tweet.
“For bivalent vaccines, he’s making things up. There are no relevant clinical data in human beings for bivalent vaccines, certainly not for the end points of long covid symptoms. Ergo that claim is 100% false; essentially a lie,” wrote Prasad.
“For antivirals, such as Paxlovid, this endpoint has not been assessed in randomized control trials. There are some poorly done observational studies that conflate ICD-10 codes with long covid symptoms and make bold, unsupported claims, but there is no robust evidence,” he added.
Traditionally, the FDA has regulated health misinformation to protect consumers from misbranded and adulterated products, but this new proposed “misinformation oversight” seems to extend to overseeing any online health-related issue.
“The FDA has always maintained that it does not want to regulate the practice of medicine, but lately it’s behaving as if it’s the Surgeon General – America’s doctor – making drug recommendations and promoting vaccines,” said Adams.
If the FDA wants to curb the spread of misinformation, it should start by looking at its own behaviour.
Despite the criticism, Califf remains defiant. Recently, he boasted to a crowd of journalists that he is “relatively impervious to critique.”
“It’s nice to have a truth-teller around,” Carlson said. “It’s helpful because suddenly the stakes are very high.” He added:
“Kennedy knew early that the COVID vaccines were both ineffective and potentially dangerous, and he said so in public to the extent he was allowed.
“Science has since proven Robert F. Kennedy Jr. right — unequivocally right. But Kennedy was not rewarded for this. He was vilified. He was censored.”
Carlson — who later on his show interviewed Kennedy — said mainstream media channels other than Fox News “maligned” Kennedy for his skepticism of the COVID-19 products.
“The other channels took hundreds of millions of dollars from Big Pharma companies and then they shilled for their sketchy products on the air — and as they did that, they maligned anyone who was skeptical of those products,” he said.
Carlson pointed out that Kennedy and his father, Robert F. Kennedy — who sought the U.S. presidency 55 years ago — said things “you weren’t supposed to say” and were “hated” by some for their honesty.
For instance, Kennedy Sr. spoke out against the Vietnam War because “he believed — with a lot of evidence — that it was not helping the United States in any way,” Carlson said.
Similarly, Carlson showed his viewers a clip from Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 Democratic presidential campaign announcement speech, in which Kennedy said the U.S. government’s involvement in Ukraine appears to be “prolonging” the war rather than “shortening” it.
Carlson also showed clips from mainstream media outlets’ coverage of Kennedy’s April 19 announcement, in which news commentators called him “extreme” and “dangerous.”
“Notice,” Carlson said, “not there, not anywhere is a point-by-point rebuttal of his [Kennedy’s] actual points.”
“They never engage him on the actual facts. They can’t — they would lose. Instead, they impugn his character,” he said.
Now that Kennedy is Biden’s leading primary opponent, Carlson said, the media’s message to him is, “shut up — you’re not allowed to talk.”
Carlson said he did not find Kennedy to be “extreme,” but instead “rational and calm and well deliberated.”
“He [Kennedy Jr.] is deeply insightful and — above all else — he is honest, no matter what you think of the substance of what he says,” Carlson added.
By Mahdi Darius NAZEMROAYA | Strategic Culture Foundation | 30.03.2015
The United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became very uneasy when the Yemenese or Yemenite movement of the Houthi or Ansarallah (meaning the supporters of God in Arabic) gained control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa/Sana, in September 2014. The US-supported Yemenite President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi was humiliatingly forced to share power with the Houthis and the coalition of northern Yemenese tribes that had helped them enter Sana. Al-Hadi declared that negotiations for a Yemeni national unity government would take place and his allies the US and Saudi Arabia tried to use a new national dialogue and mediated talks to co-opt and pacify the Houthis.
The truth has been turned on its head about the war in Yemen. The war and ousting of President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi in Yemen are not the results of «Houthi coup» in Yemen. It is the opposite. Al-Hadi was ousted, because with Saudi and US support he tried to backtrack on the power sharing agreements he had made and return Yemen to authoritarian rule. The ousting of President Al-Hadi by the Houthis and their political allies was an unexpected reaction to the takeover Al-Hadi was planning with Washington and the House of Saudi. … continue
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