The following fictional story may or may not bear resemblance to events in real life.
Imagine, if you will, that you are a first-generation high tech gazillionaire. In fact, at one time you were said to be the richest man on earth, although that is no longer the case. Nevertheless, you remain unimaginably wealthy, with all the responsibilities and burdens that such wealth brings. (Given the extremely unusual circumstances of this tale, to make it more relatable, we will assign you a fictional name.) Your birth certificate reads Gilbert Harvey Bates III, but the world knows you as Gil Bates.
Gil Bates’s erstwhile net-worth preeminence (stolen as it was by an upstart online retailer named Biff Jezos) is not the only important loss he has suffered. Also in the rearview mirror is his youth, his marriage, and his position as CEO of the behemoth tech company he created, MacroHardTM.
After Gil Bates stepped down as CEO of MacroHardTM, he focused on his philanthropic work. The centerpiece of this work is the immensely well-funded (and therefore immensely influential) Bates Foundation. The Foundation’s scope may be mind-bogglingly broad, but one problem especially consumed Bates: there are far too many people on the planet.
In his youth, Gil Bates read a controversial book called The Overpopulation Bomb, written by a visionary scientist named Saul Derelicht. That alarming book, a huge bestseller in its day, described a neo-Malthusian hell on earth resulting from human overpopulation, and proposed mass sterilization and other aggressive population reduction techniques as the solution.
Gil Bates became convinced, and remains convinced – especially as the worldwide human population has soared beyond 8 billion units – that Homo sapiens have obscenely overpopulated the planet. Once Bates had sold software packages to the great majority of them, he vowed that this existential threat to the planet must be addressed.
But what was to be done? How could this great affront to Gaia be reconciled? When it comes to a responsibility so great, a task so immense, no single man – not even Gil Bates – could hope to accomplish it alone.
Fortunately for the future of Earth, Bates knew a host of like-minded, enlightened elites, pre-eminent individuals of great wealth, power, and worldwide influence. Among the most important:
A dour Teutonic economist named Kraut Schlob. The son of an ambitious industrialist who built flamethrowers for the Third Reich, Schlob is the founder and chairman of the World Enslavement Forum. The Forum has become the premier worldwide gathering of hyper-elites who wish to discuss globalist policies, and enjoy the company of high-end prostitutes, free from the prying eyes of commoners.
An immensely powerful – if embarrassingly vertically challenged – American health bureaucrat named Dr. Fantoni Auci. For decades, Dr. Auci controlled the overwhelming majority of US Government medical research funding. As such, no one in the vast American network of hospitals, research institutes, or universities dares to cross Dr. Auci, and he wields similar influence internationally. In fact, he oversees funding for multiple secret virology research laboratories, as far away as China.
A mysterious veterinarian named Adalbert Ghoula. Ghoula is the CEO of Kaiser, Inc., the world’s largest and most rapacious pharmaceutical company, which Ghoula has grown into a veritable modern day IG Farben. In his earlier days, Ghoula oversaw the development of a vaccine that successfully induces the chemical castration and sterilization of swine.
The consensus, reached after lengthy consultations with these men and other luminaries, was that the worldwide human population must be reduced from 8 billion to 500 million units.
But how? Several possible avenues were proposed.
War has been used for millennia to reduce populations, and while highly effective locally or regionally, it would be entirely ineffective at removing the necessary fifteen-sixteenths of people on Earth. After all, the deadliest war in history, World War II, resulted in a mere 80 million deaths, just 3 percent of the world’s population at the time.
The use of a bomb was considered a special kind of bomb, reminiscent of the “neutron bomb” of yore, which would supposedly reduce populations while sparing infrastructure. This seemed closer to the mark than all-out war, but ultimately it was determined that setting off bombs would be both impractical and far too obvious. After all, even herd animals will not consent to being openly and massively slaughtered, no matter how necessary the culling may be. The herd must be kept forever in the dark.
A plague, a pestilence, a pandemic seemed more promising. Past naturally occurring pandemics had reduced human populations much more successfully than wars. The Black Death of 1346-53 may have reduced the world population by as much as 25 percent, a much more encouraging number than the measly 3 percent from World War II. As an added economic bonus, the Black Death served as a very effective concentrator of wealth for the survivors, as it caused minimal collateral property loss.
However, a more detailed review of historical worldwide population estimates demonstrated that a pandemic alone could only serve as a temporizing measure at best. Most estimates show that by 1400, the worldwide population had unfortunately returned to its pre-plague total.
Clearly, the necessary 94 percent reduction in population could not be achieved by culling the herd alone. Sterilization would be needed as well. But how to achieve such mass sterilization? Many H. sapiens possess an intense desire to procreate – that’s the source of the problem, after all. Unfortunately, prior historical initiatives for mandatory sterilization – even those of limited scale and scope, such as those targeting the mentally deficient – have met great opposition, at least in the so-called “free” nations.
However, a vaccine could be used for mass sterilization. Ghoula’s earlier work at Kaiser was proof of this. But a fundamental problem remained: how to get the unsuspecting population – specifically, its children and young adults – to take the stealth-sterilizing inoculation?
The solution, when it came, was a thing of beauty, sublimely subtle and symmetrical. The answer was a two-step process: a pandemic and a vaccine. One population reduction device would be released, presented as a worldwide plague. It would be followed by a second population reduction device, presented as the cure.
And the technology was already in place to make it happen. It merely had to be perfected, then enacted.
Employing the Black Magic of gain-of-function virology research, an animal respiratory virus, previously never infecting humans, was genetically engineered to readily infect and spread amongst humans. At a key moment in political history, when a particularly bothersome populist American President named T. Ronald Dump was running for reelection, the virus was released from a Chinese laboratory into the human population.
As the new virus spread, reports of the death and devastation it wrought were spread as well. In actuality, the virus had been engineered so that it was deadly only to the frail, chronically ill, and very old. It was cleverly propagandized, however, as a threat to persons of all ages, a modern day Black Death of sorts.
The US deep state, desperate to disrupt the Dump presidency and remove him from office, were willing partners to manage the control and manipulation of the population through propaganda, and to enforce unprecedented, prolonged lockdowns of society. Remarkably, they even convinced President Dump to sanction the lockdowns, and to fund the development of the vaccine. Most other countries followed suit.
The new virus rapidly killed off many of the oldest and sickest members of society, as would be expected of a novel respiratory virus. However, the locked-down and isolated populations were barraged with media messages that stirred up mass terror of the virus. Businesses were closed, save for those deemed “essential.” Schools were closed, though children were already known to be at statistically zero risk of death. Dissenters were harassed, scapegoated, and punished.
Then, a solution to the pandemic was presented: the vaccine. The vaccine was the savior, the only way out of this crisis.
A few irritating, contrarian dissenters fought back. They protested for civil rights. They stressed the near impossibility of producing an effective vaccine against a rapidly mutating respiratory virus. They identified numerous “safety signals” found in the vaccine trials, and tried to expose these as best they could. But the mainstream media drowned them out, the social media companies (controlled by the deep state) censored them ruthlessly, and after all, once the vaccines were mandated, most people took at least a couple of doses.
And the joke was on the dissenters in another, more important respect. These meddlesome do-gooders were indeed intelligent enough to identify the toxicities inherent in the vaccines. But they decried them as “safety signals.” The fatal toxicities they identified still seemed to them to be flaws, mistakes, and the unfortunate results of a hasty and mad rush to make money off of the pandemic.
Imagine the naïvete.
Early in the vaccine “rollout,” young women reported abnormal vaginal bleeding and other menstrual problems after receiving the vaccines, raising concerns about potential unintended consequences to female reproduction. Pathologists found ovaries infiltrated with multiple toxins from the vaccines, both the dreaded “spoke” protein of the virus and “lucid nanoparticles” from the vaccine’s delivery system. Even occluded Fallopian tubes were identified.
Soon thereafter, reports appeared in the alternative media of dramatically increased numbers of sudden deaths, primarily in young men, after receiving the vaccine. It often visibly occurred in athletes while on the playing field. This caused considerable alarm, impossible as it was to hide.
In a masterful demonstration of the “limited hangout,” officials acknowledged the sudden death phenomenon, but would not even allow mention of the vaccine as a possible cause within the mainstream medical community. Instead, protocols and clinics for this sudden epidemic of heart disease in the young were established, but strangely without any official curiosity as to the cause. All they knew for sure was that it couldn’t be the vaccine.
Of course, the infamous “spoke” protein, the same viral antigen chosen by the vaccine’s designers to induce the vaccinated patient’s body to produce in quantity, just happens to be the most toxic part of the virus. The “spoke” protein deposits itself in tissues throughout the body, wreaking havoc wherever it goes. It has a particular affinity for the heart muscle, causing the inflammatory process known as myocarditis that leads to cardiac arrests.
“Spoke” doesn’t stop with the heart, however. It is a remarkably versatile toxin, a sort of Swiss Army monkey wrench in the human body. It causes gigantic, gruesome, rubbery blood clots in the vasculature, seizures in the central nervous system, the aforementioned deposits in ovaries and Fallopian tubes (and testes, for that matter), etcetera, etcetera. What a stroke of genius to choose “spoke” as the antigen the vaccines induce replication of!
The vaccines held another nasty little secret, which even the pathetic, naïve resistance only recognized much later. The vaccines were “contaminated” with plasmids containing MV-40 and MV-40-like DNA sequences. Yes, that MV-40, the monkey virus known to cause cancer in multiple animal species.
Could the appearance of so-called “turbo cancers” in vaccinated persons somehow be related to this “contamination?” Well, another limited hangout, this time courtesy of Healthcare Canada, took care of that.
Excess death rates rose dramatically after the vaccine rollout. Birth rates plummeted. To the do-gooders, refuseniks, and dissidents, this was a scandal.
But what did they know? To use a phrase all-too-familiar to the seasoned software developer, these toxicities were not bugs, but features. The vaccines were working exactly as they were supposed to work.
Silly plebes! The “vaccines” were actually a deliberate, multi-pronged, population reduction device. They were designed to kill a percentage of young people – mostly male – outright, to poison and disable the female reproductive system at multiple points, and to insert teratogenic plasmids into recipients’ cells, to pick off others at undisclosed, later dates. They were merely packaged and marketed as a vaccine against a (lab-manufactured) flu-like illness.
As successful as they have been, there remains so much more work yet to be done.
A definite lull occurred in the population’s acceptance of repeated injections of the vaccine. The dissidents may be naïve, but they are persistent, and sometimes effective to a degree. But ultimately they will fail.
The general population is lazy, uneducated, and easily terrified. (Some say they are being done a favor by being culled.) They are accustomed to the precedents set by other vaccines. Their reluctance will be worn down with time. Of course respiratory viruses are imperfect targets for vaccines. Once again, that’s not a bug, it’s a feature! It only means that a new booster of the vaccine will be needed every year – at least.
With each new round of boosters, a new population of girls and young women will be rendered infertile. A new group of boys and young men will suffer cardiac arrest – a very quick and painless way to die, really.
Countless others will contract cancers – turbo cancer, to use the current term for these rapidly progressing and deadly malignancies, often of unusual types – bone cancers, muscle cancers, and other former rarities. Not an easy way to die, admittedly. But these tumors mercifully progress to end stage very swiftly, and their value as a population reduction device is undeniable.
Have no fear. It is only a matter of time; only a matter of lather, rinse, repeat. As long as the herd allows itself to be sent through the sheep dip whenever and however often the shepherds proclaim is necessary, H. sapiens will get to 500 million. All courtesy of a type of bomb after all, but in this case a microscopic bomb that is released in each person via a tiny little injection: The Depopulation Bomb.
Happy Halloween!
C.J. Baker, M.D. is an internal medicine physician with a quarter century in clinical practice. He has held numerous academic medical appointments, and his work has appeared in many journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine. From 2012 to 2018 he was Clinical Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester.
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was unprecedented in most of our lifetimes. Not since the Second World War has anything had such a major and widespread negative impact on humanity.
In early 2020, the world was alerted to a novel coronavirus causing severe pneumonia in Wuhan, China. Initially, I was not overly concerned, as the previous coronavirus outbreaks in the last 20 years (Sars and Mers), although with reported high lethality, had been largely restricted to geographic regions. In fact, I had travelled to China towards the end of Sars in 2003 and recall being held up following an internal flight while the authorities checked travellers’ temperatures. Fortunately, I was released and allowed on my way once they were satisfied I had no signs of infection.
However, I became very concerned once the new disease hit north Italy, with media reports of hospitals being overwhelmed. There was no known proven treatment, and later, when it afflicted New York City, sadly 88% of those ventilated died.
In Guernsey, the CCA promptly convened. Although I don’t have any intimate knowledge of their discussions, I suspect the modelling from Neil Ferguson at ICL, which suggested that as many as 500,000 people could die in the UK if no action was taken, had a great influence on their decision making, and as a result the Bailiwick entered a full lockdown on 25 March 2020 – the day after the UK.
Guernsey’s Strategic Pandemic Influenza Plan, having only just been drafted in January 2020, has no mention of lockdowns. Although this was expecting influenza, that type of virus can potentially cause an even more fatal disease, such as that which occurred in 1918. No doubt the CCA were put in a difficult position, potentially having to face something much worse than ever envisioned.
In addition, Guernsey is geographically isolated and has limited healthcare resources, such as personnel and hospital/ICU beds, so deviating from a pre-determined strategy to quarantine the island while the threat could be fully evaluated was a reasonable initial approach.
Lockdowns went from ‘two weeks to flatten the curve’ to extended periods of months or more. Doing nothing was clearly not an option, however the prolonged closure of society brings with it undeniable collateral damage, including mental health problems, delayed diagnoses of serious diseases such as cancer, and a significant economic burden. Those who were able to work from home were less affected by the latter, but those with manual jobs were prohibited from working and earning. This resulted in significant cost – with most of the States’ pandemic expenditure of nearly £100m. spent on income and business support. Although Guernsey was able to return to relatively normal life on-island with fewer restrictions than the UK, travel was far from normal, requiring up to 14 days of quarantine for those arriving on the island. It could never be a long-term solution to essentially be cut off from the rest of the world.
So, was there any alternative strategy? Professor John Ioannidis of Stanford had published early on that the infection fatality rate was around 0.2%, and later found it was under 0.1% for those under 70 years of age. Increasing age beyond this was well documented to be the single greatest risk factor for severe Covid-19 and hospitalisation/death, and people with conditions such as obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure were also at higher risk.
In October 2020, three professors of medicine (Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, Martin Kulldorff of Yale and Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford) suggested a different approach; the Great Barrington Declaration – targeted protection of the vulnerable, while allowing the rest of society to continue relatively normally. Would this have been a better strategy?
Mandated non-pharmaceutical interventions were later brought in. These included masking, social distancing, and hand-washing. Early on, a number of health officials stated there was no recommendation for masks in the community, yet later this advice was reversed, despite a Danish randomised study and later a Cochrane review concluding there was little or no evidence for mask effectiveness.
The advice was also inconsistent – one would have to enter a pub or restaurant wearing a mask but could sit for hours without one. Social distancing may have reduced spread by larger exhaled droplets, but spread by aerosols (smaller particles), which can remain in the air for longer periods, was under-appreciated.
The strategy had become one of varying restrictions while waiting on the proposed solution – a vaccine. Several pharmaceutical companies produced candidates which quickly entered trials. In late 2020 results of these were published from three companies, all claiming efficacy rates over 90%, albeit these were relative risk reductions. They were proposed to be safe, although there was no medium- or long-term data.
The mass vaccination programme started in late December 2020, beginning with the elderly, the most vulnerable and front-line healthcare workers. Undoubtedly Covid-19 could be a severe and fatal disease, so on a risk-benefit analysis, offering such an investigational therapy to those at risk could be justified. However, they were subsequently offered to younger and younger age groups. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation met and decided there was insufficient benefit to offer them to 12-15-year-olds. Despite this the chief medical officers in the UK decided they should be, and soon after Guernsey followed suit (then later offered them to children as young as five years old). This was especially perplexing given that it was a disease of negligible risk to children and there was a known risk of myocarditis (heart muscle inflammation), especially in teenage males. A study analysing the original trial data reported an overall serious adverse event rate of one in 800.
Although the vaccines were never mandated, there was coercion to take them. I frequently heard that individuals were only taking them in order to travel. While some of this was outside Guernsey’s control, local people who had not taken the vaccines were subject to isolation requirements on-island. At the same time visitors and tourists who had taken them could enter without any restriction or testing. There were some studies at the time showing similar viral loads in people whether vaccinated or not, suggesting limited impact on infection and transmission. Real world data supports this. The last figures published by the States on 28 March 2023 shows over 95% of reported cases of Covid-19 had taken at least a primary course of vaccines. In addition, a recent Cleveland Clinic study suggested that with cumulative doses, one was more likely to get Covid.
Even if the vaccines were proven to reduce infections and transmission, would it have been ethically right to impose conditions on those who had chosen not to have them?
So how effective are the vaccines at preventing death? Data just released by the ONS shows that between 1 April 2021 and 31 May 2023 in England there were 8,850 deaths involving Covid-19 in the unvaccinated and 52,000 deaths in the vaccinated. Between January and May 2023, 95% of deaths were in the vaccinated.
Is the widespread use of a vaccine that does not significantly impact on infection and transmission helping to promote variants?
Why wasn’t a more holistic strategy adopted, such as promoting weight loss, exercise and maintaining a sufficient level of vitamin D? Deficiency of the latter was correlated with worse outcomes in several studies, while being a safe and inexpensive intervention.
Repurposed drugs with an established safety profile such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were vilified. Both are inexpensive drugs known to work on more than one condition. The data from human studies remains mixed (and fraudulent negative data was published in the Lancet on the former), but at the same time expensive drugs such as remdesivir were approved – it didn’t reduce mortality in hospitalised patients and increased the risk of kidney failure, at a cost of £2,000 per course.
An inexpensive pharmaceutical intervention that did become proven for severe Covid-19 were corticosteroids – showing a significant reduction in mortality in patients requiring oxygen or ventilatory support. Unfortunately, the WHO had recommended against them from the outset of the pandemic. Dr Pierre Kory went before the US Senate in May 2020 to testify on their use, based on existing published data on acute respiratory distress syndrome and reports from doctors using them as being a ‘game changer’. Two months later, they were adopted as a standard of care when Oxford published the results of their recovery trial.
Data from the Greffe shows there was no increased mortality in 2020 and 2021, yet Guernsey experienced the most deaths for at least a decade in 2022. This echoes similar excess ongoing mortality in the UK and multiple other countries. What is this due to?
The States’ recent Covid Review was a missed opportunity to properly evaluate the response to the pandemic.
I ask, how much of the disruption to our lives was due to the virus, and how much from the response to it?
Was it all proportionate, and what should we learn for the future?
Dr Keith Berkowitz is a founding member, with Dr Pierre Kory, of the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC). He is treating a lot of vaccine-injured patients at his practice in midtown Manhattan. Dr Berkowitz was kind enough to answer a few questions on the Covid vaccine and the vaccine injured.
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Who is most at risk for vaccine injury?
One thought is that if someone had Covid first, and then got the vaccine after being sick, the rates of vaccine injury were higher because they already had an antibody response, their immune system was already revved up, and then they got an injection of another antigen. Another group I see is people with autoimmune disease, they seem to be more triggered. I have several cases of people who had dormant autoimmune disease, such as ulcerative colitis and rheumatoid arthritis, and post vaccine it got retriggered. What people forget about vaccines is that they have an immunosuppressive effect. So in that two- to three-week period, the immune system takes a hit, which makes the body vulnerable to other illnesses. The third group I see that are most at risk of vaccine injury are people with high histamine levels.
What are the most common symptoms of vaccine injury?
Mildest is probably loss of taste and smell, mild digestive issues, or a cough. More severe are the autoimmune responses, the neurological symptoms, like brain fog, and tinnitus (which is one of the toughest to treat), myocarditis and pericarditis (inflammation of the heart), cancer, which I would call the most severe.
Is that new cancers, or cancers that have returned?
I’m seeing both.
Which autoimmune diseases are you seeing?
First, autoimmune disease is what I’m seeing most in vaccine injury. Specifically thyroid disease, more than anything else. What’s interesting is that I’m seeing normal thyroid function, and positive thyroid antibodies. So typically we wouldn’t check for thyroid antibodies if thyroid function was normal. So that group is often missed for that reason.
Would you say any vaccine was worse than the others?
It seems to be batch-related. That’s the question. There’s a theory that 10 per cent of the batches, roughly, caused 90 per cent of the issues. If you look at the original technology, the mRNA was created at a 70 per cent purity. There’s speculation that, because of manufacturing issues, they weren’t able to create that level of purity, and achieved only 50-55 per cent purity. So does one really know if that level of purity works? Especially being that it was never tested.
Why is there so much denial around vaccine injury?
I think there was a blind trust of the government and the pharmaceutical companies, coupled with a fear aspect of Covid (remember people thought that 50 per cent of hospitalised Covid patients died, when it was more like less than 1 per cent). Fear made people not think any more, and now they’re in denial about the choice they made. Another thing I can’t figure out: If you’re vaccinated, how does an unvaccinated person put you at risk? Also, why did doctors not do their own research? It was blind faith. Medications all have side effects – why was this one different?
How do you respond to the proponents of the vaccine who say, regarding vaccine injury, correlation is not causation?
That’s true, but why are they not even looking into it? If they are so confident, then just study it. What do they have to lose? Why not disprove it? Why is disproving it a major issue for them? If you don’t agree with me, prove me wrong.
Traditionally, vaccines take 10-15 years to get approval, because all that time they are studying long-term effects. The Covid vaccine, which was administered as soon as it was created, is still only about three years old. Therefore, have we yet to see the potential damage it can cause?
Absolutely. Do you know what percentage of drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration are withdrawn within five years? 31 per cent. One out of three drugs are taken off the market within five years. That’s incredibly high. That tells me we’re not checking properly. Now with this vaccine, one of my biggest questions is why did we decide to use new technology? Is a pandemic the right time to test new technology? I would argue probably not. And why did some countries around the world, like China and Russia, not use this technology? And at the end of the day we have to ask, was the treatment worse than the problem? And should medical products be tied to financial incentives? That creates a huge conflict. There were incentives to use the vaccine. If a drug or a treatment was really that good, would you need to push it like that?
Any final comments?
This is going to take years to figure out. It isn’t going away any time soon. I feel bad for the people who took something which they thought they were doing for the right reason, and now they are suffering. And they’re not being helped. Why does the government create a long Covid initiative, but not a vaccine-injured initiative? Why are we ignoring these patients? And why are we [in the US] approving a product for over six-month-olds when other countries are saying over 65 years? Another thing that doesn’t make sense is a study on teenagers showed that we have to vaccinate a million young men to prevent one hospitalisation. And the potential in a million doses is 1,000 with side effects. So the hospital to side effect rate is one to a thousand. It doesn’t make any sense! My worry is the trust in the medical system may never come back. And I’m not sure that it’s not deserved.
Renewed calls for mask mandates are on the rise, as reports of scary Covid variants are making their way through the news. My perception is that most people will not accept this. It’s fairly well known among the public that masks do not work to halt the transmission of respiratory diseases.
There is even less support for vaccine mandates. There are more successful lawsuits against vaccine mandates each month, and greater numbers of doctors are speaking against forced medicines. Many of them seem to be rediscovering informed consent.
There is one other area where mandates may still have a foothold: that is in the test for disease, particularly Covid. Take a test before you enter a public space; take a test before you go to work; take a test merely because the authorities say so, because they want to track where the virus is going. There are many authorities saying that testing should be mandated, and many ordinary citizens are going along with the idea, thinking, “What’s the harm in taking a test?”
Should you be required to take a test for Covid or any other disease in order to participate in society?
This question seems slightly different from the questions of the other two mandates that have been presented in the past few years. The attack on vaccine mandates has been straightforward: Covid is not dangerous to large cohorts of the population; the vaccines do not prevent transmission; the mRNA jab has been known to cause harm. Likewise, with masks, the arguments are centered around the idea that they don’t really work, and they might also cause harm. We have heard about respiratory problems from microparticles and learning disabilities in children, from their stunted growth in communication skills.
To combat mandated testing, these arguments do not hold as much sway. It’s difficult to argue that testing for Covid might harm the person being tested, and therefore, it’s difficult to attack on the grounds that the tests don’t work perfectly well.
Even the arguments I have heard againstmandatory testing usually have a qualifier in them about the relative danger of the disease in question: “I would understand mandated testing if this was a highly virulent and deadly virus.”
There have been many times we have heard from public health officials about the need for centralized control of people’s behavior in the response to disease. Indeed, even Jay Bhattacharya, who has been fiercely against lockdowns and who has promoted focused protective measures, has said that a scenario could arise where such coordination may be necessary. In discussing the rising lack of trust in public health, he says:
In theory, there is a risk to restricting public health action: It will make coordinated nationwide action more difficult in the next pandemic. What if next time, we have a disease outbreak that requires every part of the country to shut down everywhere, all at once, for a long time?
My issue is with the word requires. Required by whom and to what end? A disease is not an agent. Whatever it may do to us, diseases don’t require action. Humans in charge require action.
So let’s ignore for the moment whether tests work or not, but instead focus on what it means for someone to have the authority to say that you must take a harmless test.
Does someone, anyone, an individual or a government authority, have the right to require you to do something, just because it won’t hurt you?
And on top of the claim that you are not being hurt, there is the more insidious charge: you are being selfish. The authorities and society have decided that the needs of the group rise above the needs of the individual. Certainly this seems to be the case if the test causes no harm. But who is being selfish here? Is it you or the selfish collective?
Regardless of whether you are not being hurt, and whether you are being selfish, here is the essential point of requiring you to take the test.
The point is that the outcome of the test will influence or dictate your subsequent behavior.
Based on the test, it is implied that you will have to do something about it, or that someone will make you. If you test positive, will that mean you cannot go out? Will it mean that you will be locked in a room and can’t see your family and friends? Will it open the door to other bodily controls, like mandated medicine?
If there is no understanding that your behavior will be dictated by the result of the test, what’s the point of the test?
This question can be stated more precisely by saying: the act of forcing you to take a test for disease removes your agency. The idea of agency, as introduced in the Enlightenment, is that each individual carries a moral responsibility for their actions, and that each individual should have that responsibility. The responsibility to act in a way that respects the life and liberty of others should not be taken or assumed by another person or authority.
I have heard the argument that authorities test not in order to control our behavior and thus remove our agency, but instead only to understand how the virus may be spreading in a particular area. They can then understand how to best focus resources to help where outbreaks occur. This is indeed the path that Bhattacharya is on in his article: mandatory testing is justified for the public good when there is no infringement of individual rights, and that a uniform nationwide response is never the correct answer.
But I ask you this: how many times in the past three years has mandated testing led merely to expanded awareness of where the virus is headed and not to control individuals? I have heard many stories personally of individuals who tested positive and were immediately quarantined, and then subsequently tracked by authorities through their phones. I have also read more horrible stories, of arrests and inhumane conditions. In fact, the language around these enforced behaviors gets even more dire than that.
On March 22, 2020, Trump said, “In a true sense, we’re at war. And we’re fighting an invisible enemy.” Trump along with many others compared fighting a virus to fighting a war. In fact, that is how the whole pandemic response was run, as a national security operation.
But what is war? War occurs when two groups of people attempt to kill each other. That is, when individuals and their governments use their agency to seek out and destroy others or to defend themselves. When individuals claim not to use their agency, as when they say, “I was just following orders,” or “We all have to do what the authorities are saying is correct,” they are merely abdicating their own agency, but not relieving their own responsibility.
Robin Koerner describes this connection in his recent article, “The Complicity of Compliance.” He points out that in such situations, people merely subordinate their agency to an agenda. They do not alleviate the burden of their responsibility, although they think they might, they are only going along with the immoral action of the state.
How does this compare to a “war” against a virus? A virus has no agency, and more importantly, an individual carrying a virus has no agency. Any individual, sick or not, cannot decide to infect another person. You may argue that a person can use their agency to attempt to make another person sick. You could cough in someone’s face intentionally, for example. But this is about the extent to which you could go to use your agency to attempt to infect others. It is your moral decision not to cough in someone’s face.
Now let’s get back to mandatory testing. What happens to your agency when someone or an authority requires that you be tested for a particular virus? As I’ve described, the test comes with an implicit assumption that your behavior will be controlled if that test is positive. Will you be quarantined? Will you not be permitted to enter a public space? Will your movements be tracked?
The deadliness of the virus is irrelevant.
The accuracy of the test is irrelevant.
The motivation of the authority is irrelevant.
What matters is that by requiring a test, the authority has removed your agency.
You can no longer act in a way in accordance with your morality and conscience, and the door is open for your liberties to be removed.
So really, how harmless is it to allow any authority or state actor to require that you take a test for disease? This is a trick. By going along, you are thus agreeing to subordinate your own agency to that of the state.
This situation throws us back to before the Enlightenment, before the 17th century, to a time of feudal control of the lives of individuals. If the state says you do it, you do it, whatever it is. The comparison of virus control to feudalism has been made many times.
Is that how you want to live your life?
Or has freedom been good to you?
Take a test voluntarily if you like, if you think it will help to protect your family, friends, and all of your compatriots, or possibly if you think it will help authorities to understand the spread of disease. Respect others and do not try to infect them, as unrealistic as that notion may be.
But do not submit to mandatory testing for disease. Maintain your independence, your morality, and your conscience; do not be tricked into relinquishing your agency to the state. It is a trick to obtain control over your life that you will have willingly surrendered.
Your moral responsibilities are yours alone. Keep them that way.
Alan Lash is a software developer from Northern California, with a Masters degree Physics and a PhD in Mathematics.
Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill is a pediatric allergist in Toronto. She condemned COVID rules as irrational, political, harmful, and inconsistent with scientific data. In the eyes of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), Gill was dangerous.
In 2021, the CPSO issued three “cautions” (formal warnings) against her. In 2022 it began disciplinary proceedings. The College alleged that she was undermining confidence in public health measures. Its senior counsel wrote that her communications were unprofessional and unbalanced. In its persecution of Gill, the CPSO has made the case for its own demise. Self-regulated monopolies do not work. The CPSO and other professional regulators need competition.
Gill’s inquisition was not an isolated case. Like other medical regulators in North America, the CPSO forbade its doctors from publicly contradicting COVID orders and recommendations. Its Discipline Tribunal revoked the licence of Patrick Phillips, one of several Ontario doctors pursued for their COVID dissent.
The Nova Scotia medical college investigated Dr. Chris Milburn for writing an op-ed on the death of personal responsibility in the criminal justice system. The Ontario College of Psychologists ordered Jordan Peterson to undergo re-education on the use of social media for tweeting about politics. The BC College of Nurses seeks to discipline Amy Hamm for believing in the biology of two sexes.
The Law Society of Ontario compelled its members to state their concurrence with the ideology of “equity, diversity, and inclusion” until a group of rebel lawyers (of whom I was one) managed to repeal it, although the agenda remains. In British Columbia and Alberta, law societies are instituting politically laden “cultural competency” requirements. Teachers, occupational therapists, engineers, and accountants cannot safely voice doubts about transgenderism or “anti-racist” agendas.
This regulatory bullying is occurring within self-regulated professions. Like “ordinary” regulation, self-regulation is coercive. The state delegates authority to their governing bodies. Some doctors rule over other doctors. A licence from the CPSO is voluntary only in the sense that a driver’s licence is voluntary. You don’t get fines or prison time if you don’t get one, but then you can’t drive or practice medicine. Gill’s livelihood was on the line.
Civil servants do not run self-governing professional bodies, but they are part of the executive branch of government nonetheless. Legislation creates them and they are subject to the constitution. Self-regulation exists only for as long as the legislature says that it does.
Legislatures delegate authority, the theory goes, because professionals have the expertise to ensure competence and ethical practice in the public interest. Your surgeon should know how to cut. Your corporate lawyer should be able to draft articles of incorporation and not skim funds off your trust account. But focusing on technical competence and honest conduct no longer satisfies professional regulatory bodies.
We live in a managerial age. As C.S. Lewis wrote:
“The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.”
Professions have become managerial cartels. Governing bodies are their godfathers, permitting only proper people and perspectives. Their purpose is not to ensure public access to a variety of professional opinions. Instead, they seek to herd people into “correct” attitudes and behaviors. Propaganda is not evil, but merely a tool to facilitate right results.
Ironically, managerial cartels turn out to be terrible managers. They excel at exercising control but not at producing good outcomes. During COVID, even propaganda was patently incoherent. Yet Gill was one of a scant few doctors and scientists to decry the public health debacle unfolding in front of them. As her lawyer Lisa Bildy wrote in response to the College’s accusations, Gill provided the public with substantiated facts on lockdowns, masking, and COVID vaccines, relying on credible and respected scientific sources and opinions.
The College had scheduled a two-week disciplinary hearing for early 2024. But in September 2023, it abruptly cancelled the hearing with no explanation. Gill’s disciplinary ordeal had come to an end, although her formal warnings remain. Bildy will challenge their validity by judicial review in spring 2024.
Self-regulation protects professions from government interference. That is ironic, given the CPSO’s insistence that their members toe the government line. But self-regulation does not protect individual professionals from the oppression of their peers. A different model beckons: multiple, private regulators competing for members, credibility, and public trust.
Professional cartels benefit the bullies who run them. There’s no reason to grant them the power of monopoly.
Bruce Pardy is executive director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen’s University.
Dr. Malik writes:
My name is Ahmad Malik and I am an honest surgeon passionate about free speech and medical ethics.
I have been suspended without pay and cancelled because I dare to challenge the Government narrative, defend informed consent, oppose mandates and lockdowns, question experimental jabs and insist that there are only two biological sexes.
I am raising funds to take legal action against the hospital to lift my suspension and stop the attempts by organisations to censor me.
It will set a precedent that organisations cannot bully, harass and censor those that speak up for medical ethics, and encourage others to speak out.
I am up against large organisations and my case is complex. Legal costs will easily run into the thousands. I need a decent fighting fund which will give me the best chance of being successful.
Of all the crass misappropriations of scientific principles during the pandemic, none did more harm than the corruption of the ‘precautionary principle’ — the notion that an action or an intervention is justified only once one is clear that the benefits exceed the harms and that, as one sociologist put it, “you have looked very hard for the harms”.
That principle came to be almost wholly inverted in the context of the pandemic: an intervention seemingly could be justified on the ‘precautionary’ basis that if it might have any beneficial effect in slowing the course of the pandemic, it would be worthwhile. This justified indiscriminate measures ranging from universal masking, mass testing (including of young children), 14-day isolated quarantines and even lockdown itself for entire healthy populations, on the basis that even though the evidence base was often weak or non-existent, the intervention just might achieve something, and opened the door to a slew of harms impacting almost all cohorts of the British population.
It was to be hoped that a core task for the Covid Inquiry in this key Module 2 would have been a dispassionate objective assessment of whether the costs (financial costs, direct harms, probable indirect harms, risk of unquantified future harms) of the Government’s population-wide interventions outweighed possible benefits. So, it was deeply disappointing last week to see not only key witnesses but the inquiry Chair herself repeat the same dangerous misconception of the precautionary principle.
In one of the most jaw-dropping interjections of the inquiry to date, Baroness Hallett revealed a prejudgement that if masking people could have had even the slightest of benefits, and seemingly without even contemplating that risks and known harms might need to be weighed too, she pressed Sir Peter Horby, an esteemed epidemiologist at Oxford University, who had indicated that he believed universal masking was not a straightforward decision: “I’m sorry, I’m not following, Sir Peter. If there’s a possible benefit, what’s the downside?”
Coming from the independent Chair of a public inquiry, this is an astonishing comment. It betrays a presumption, or at the very least a predisposition, to accept that it was better to act than not to act — the reverse of the precautionary principle. When a comment such as this, from the Chair of the Inquiry, goes unchallenged, it risks anchoring the entire frame of reference for the inquiry’s interrogation of this critical topic. In our view it was a surprising and serious error of judgement for an experienced Court of Appeal judge.
What made Baroness Hallett feel this to be an appropriate thing to think, let alone say out loud? We suggest the issue lies in the fact that the Chair and the official counsel to the inquiry seem already to have the storyline of the pandemic wrapped up.
The inquiry’s counsel has been at pains to paint a picture of the country facing an almost existential threat from the virus. From the outset, counsel has framed his questioning on the basis that it was indisputable a “highly dangerous fatal viral outbreak was surely coming”, and “by February this viral, severe pandemic, this viral pathogenic outbreak is coming, and it can’t be stopped”. Even hardened lawyers and epidemiologists, it has seemed, were bunkering down because “the virus was coming, it was a fatal pathogenic disease”.
And, with the precautionary principle inverted in the collective mind of this inquiry, almost anything the Government then did against that backdrop was justified.
With preference…
Worse still, it is now starkly evident that the witnesses whose opinions and perspectives support that proposition are being overtly praised and pedestaled, while those whose opinions and perspectives might cast doubt are treated with prejudice and hostility.
For those witnesses who were part of the ‘home team’ — Government-appointed advisers, and those who have already publicly ascribed to the inquiry’s apparently favoured storyline — impeccable credentials and impartiality have been assumed.
Sir Jeremy Farrar, for example, former Director of the Wellcome Trust, member of SAGE and currently Chief Scientist at the WHO gave oral evidence to the inquiry in June. One can almost picture counsel for the inquiry scattering rose petals as he sums up Farrar’s illustrious credentials:
You trained, I believe, in medicine, with postgraduate training in London, Chichester, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Oxford and San Francisco. You have a DPhil PhD from the University of Oxford. You were a director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Institute at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam from 1996 to 2013. From 2013 you were Director of the Wellcome Trust, and from May 2023 have you been the Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation? Have you throughout your professional career served as a chair on a multitude of advisory bodies, for governments and global organisations? Have you received a plethora of honours from a number of governments, institutes and entities?
Farrar is then treated to counsel’s softest underarm bowls and allowed to give unchallenged testimony in favour of an intervention-heavy approach to pandemic management: “when you have the countermeasures you’re talking about, diagnostic tests, treatment and vaccines, together they create a Swiss cheese model of what our public health is”.
Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London, and chief architect of the dramatic scientific modelling on which the global lockdown response was predicated, was warmly welcomed to the witness box by counsel last week “as a world leading specialist in this field”, and was later thanked profusely for his hard work by Baroness Hallett: “Thank you very much for all the work that you did during the pandemic.”
Gushing perhaps, but nothing compared to the farewell given to SAGE modeller Professor John Edmunds, who had been affirmed upfront by counsel as, “a de facto expert in epidemiology”, and one of “a number of brilliant scientists and advisers who assisted the Government and the country in the remarkable way that you did”. At the end of his evidence, Baroness Hallett delivered the eulogy:
Thank you very much indeed. If I may say so, professor, I think you were unduly harsh on yourself this morning. You had a job, and you described it yourself, your job was to provide expert advice to the policy and decision-makers, and if the system is working properly that advice is relayed to them, then they consider advice coming from other quarters about economics and social consequences and the like. I’m not sure you could have done more than you did, consistent with your role at the time, but you obviously did as much as you felt was appropriate. So I’m really grateful to you, I’m sure we all are.
This is a far departure from the rigorous testing of credentials and potential conflicts that one could expect as an expert witness in any court proceedings, and of the studious impartiality of the presiding judge. It is certainly far short of what the public should rightly expect for an exercise set to spend over £55m on lawyers alone.
None of these witnesses were asked whether their senior positions within organisations that rely on very valuable relationships with global pharmaceutical groups and private pharma-focused organisations could have had any bearing on their advice at the time or their evidence to the inquiry now.
Farrar was director of the Wellcome Trust throughout the pandemic. The Wellcome Trust is one of the institutions behind CEPI, a global vaccine development fund created in 2015 which partners with vaccine manufacturers, including Moderna. During the pandemic Farrar frequently and vocally promoted his view that vaccines would be the means for us to exit the pandemic. He is plainly someone whose professional success and credibility has become indelibly attached to the pharmaceutical industry and in particular the use of pharmaceutical interventions in public health, yet counsel and the inquiry Chair seemed uninterested in that colouring of Farrar’s evidence.
Likewise, Ferguson, of Imperial College London was not asked a single question about potential conflicts or risk of bias. Again, the inquiry seemed unaware, or at least uninterested, that a month after Ferguson’s seismic March 2020 paper had concluded that “epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time” and that “the major challenge of suppression is that this type of intensive intervention package – or something equivalently effective at reducing transmission – will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available”, it was reported that Imperial College had received £22.5 million in funding from the U.K. Government for vaccine research and development; and that in that same year, 2020, Imperial received at least $108 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
BMGF is a private philanthropic organisation which has been open about its ideological commitment to vaccine-based solutions for global health issues and which itself has very significant financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
… and with prejudice
For witnesses such as Professor Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, but not a member of SAGE, and (unhelpfully for the inquiry) not an enthusiastic supporter of lockdowns, the inquiry appeared to have made somewhat less glowing presumptions:
You are a professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford University. Could you explain what that discipline entails?
Heneghan’s explanation was swiftly followed with a presumptive conclusion as to the strength of his credentials:
As you know, because I think you have been following the inquiry, we have heard this week from a series of academics who have spent, in the main, their professional careers researching, analysing the spread of infectious diseases, developing models, to analyse how such diseases are spread and how they can be controlled, and considering large-scale public health issues relating to pandemic preparedness and so on. You don’t have a comparable type of expertise in this area, do you?
Not satisfied with having attempted his own disparagement of the man, counsel took the opportunity while having Heneghan in the witness box to ask for his perspective on two ‘home team’ scientists having described him in a private discussion as a “fuckwit” (Dame Angela McLean and Professor Edmunds) — to what ends, other than to rattle, rile or embarrass, was not clear. It was the cheapest shot of the inquiry so far.
During Heneghan’s evidence session, and having seemingly felt entirely comfortable to rely on the expert opinions of Farrar, Ferguson, Edmunds et al. — the ‘good guy’ home team scientists — Baroness Hallett gives short shrift to the notion that Professor Heneghan’s opinion might be relied upon. When talking about the broad scope of evidence-based medicine Heneghan explains that “even my opinion” amounts to evidence, Baroness Hallett retorted dismissively: “Not in my world it doesn’t, I’m afraid.”
Spoiler alert
Here’s what the inquiry is going to conclude, after three to seven years and perhaps £200 million: the Government and its official scientific advisers mostly did their best in the face of what they rightly and fairly believed to be the most devastating viral threat the world had ever seen; those scientists gave the best advice they could, and were entitled to assume that the Government was taking account of other factors; if it hadn’t been for Brexit, we would have been better prepared; the Government perhaps could have thought a bit more about the impact of lockdowns on the economy, but ultimately lockdowns were unavoidable; if it had all been done faster and harder, the U.K. might have come out in a better place, clinically and economically; the sacrifices imposed on children, the isolated and those who missed diagnoses and treatments, were regrettable but had to be done (the ‘precautionary principle’); if we could have saved one more person who died of Covid we should have done; the NHS did a superb job in difficult circumstances. Oh, and COVID-19 vaccines saved us so we should devote more public funds to partnerships with heroic pharmaceutical groups and irreproachable public scientists such as Jeremy Farrar at the WHO.
The inquiry is now hopelessly compromised by the partisan and presumptive words of its own Chair and leading lawyers which are setting us up for a doom-loop of catastrophic errors we cannot afford to repeat. It has become an embarrassment to the legal profession and is jeopardising the reputation of the English legal system. Its exorbitant costs already cannot be justified, and there is only worse to come. It should be abandoned.
People commonly ask me for “comprehensive” publications on vaccine side effects. It is fair to point out that the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein is contained in the virus and it is uncontrollably produced by the mRNA and adenoviral DNA COVID-19 vaccines. Because the vaccines failed to stop COVID-19, most vaccinated persons have had the illness, thereby having multiple Spike protein exposures.
Parry, et al, published a comprehensive review on the litany of Spike-protein diseases that occur after its widespread distribution in the body. Here are some of their evidence based teaching points:
SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is pathogenic, whether from the virus or created from genetic code in mRNA and adenovector DNA vaccines.
Biodistribution rodent study data show lipid nanoparticles carry mRNA to all organs and cross blood-brain and blood-placenta barriers. Some of these tissues are likely to be impervious to viral infection; therefore, the biohazard is particularly from vaccination.
Lipid-nanoparticles have inflammatory properties.
The modification of mRNA with N1-methylpseudouridine for increased stability leads to the production of spike proteins for months. It is uncertain how many cells and from which organs mRNA spike proteins are produced, and therefore, the exact effective dose delivered per vaccine vial is unknown.
The long-term fate of mRNA within cells is currently unknown.
The mRNA and adenovector DNA vaccines act as ‘synthetic viruses’.
In the young and healthy, and even in many older individuals with vulnerable comorbidities, the encoding-based COVID-19 vaccines will likely transfect a far more diverse set of tissues than infection by the virus itself.
Evidence suggests reverse transcription of mRNA into a DNA copy is possible. This further suggests the possibility of intergenerational transmission if germline cells incorporate the DNA copy into the host genome.
Production of foreign proteins such as spike protein on cell surfaces can induce autoimmune responses and tissue damage. This has profoundly negative implications for any future mRNA-based drug or vaccine.
The spike protein exerts its pathophysiological effects (‘spikeopathy’) via several mechanisms that lead to inflammation, thrombogenesis, and endotheliitis-related tissue damage and prion-related dysregulation. Interaction of the vaccine-encoded spike protein with ACE-2, P53 and BRCA1 suggests a wide range of possible biological interference with oncological potential.
Adverse event data from official pharmacovigilance databases, an FDA-Pfizer report obtained via FOI, show high rates and multiple organ systems affected: primarily neurological, cardiovascular, and reproductive.
Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines’ clinical trial data independently interpreted has been peer-review and published to show an unfavourable risk/benefit, especially in the non-elderly. The risks for children clearly outweigh the benefits.
Repeated COVID-19 vaccine booster doses appear to induce tolerance and may contribute to recurrent COVID-19 infection and ‘long COVID’.
“The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has revealed deficiencies in public health and medicines regulatory agencies. A root cause analysis is needed for what now appears a rushed response to an alarming infectious disease pandemic. Treatment modalities for ‘spikeopathy’-related pathology in many organ systems, require urgent research and provision to millions of sufferers of long-term COVID-19 vaccine injuries. We also advocate for the suspension of gene-based COVID-19 vaccines and lipid-nanoparticle carrier matrices, and other vaccines based on mRNA or viral-vector DNA technology. A safer course is to use vaccines with well-tested recombinant protein, attenuated or inactivated virus technologies, of which there are now many for vaccinating against SARS-CoV-2.”
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Reclaim)
“We have experienced more excess deaths since July 2021 than in the whole of 2020.
Number of excess deaths according to Office for Health Improvements and Disparities
Mar-Dec 2020 (there were fewer deaths than expected in Jan and Feb 2020 according to ONS)
69,293
Jul 2021 – Sept 2023
76,554
Unlike during the pandemic, however, those deaths are not disproportionately of the old. In other words, the excess deaths are striking down people in the prime of life… Full text with graphs
Ambulance calls for life-threatening emergencies ranged from a steady 2,000 calls per day until the vaccine rollout, from then it rose to 2,500 daily and calls have stayed at this level since.
The surveillance systems designed to spot a safety problem have all flashed red, but no one’s looking.
Payments for Personal Independent Payments (PIP) for people who have developed a disability and cannot work, have rocketed with the vaccine rollout and have continued to rise ever since.
The trial data showed that one in eight hundred injected people had a serious adverse event, meaning the risk of this was twice as high than the chance of preventing a Covid hospitalisation.
There were just over 14,000 excess deaths in the under 65-year-olds before vaccination, from April 2020 to the end of March 2021. However, since that time there have been over 21,000 excess deaths in this age group alone.
There were nearly two extra deaths a day in the second half of 2021 among 15 – 19-year-old males, but potentially even more if those referred to the coroner were fully included.
The contrast between the evidence sessions of Prof. John Edmunds (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, SAGE modeller) and Prof. Carl Heneghan at the Covid Inquiry yesterday was absolutely shocking and raises huge questions about the professionalism of the Inquiry.
The King’s Counsel in the morning spent hours questioning Edmunds in a friendly, at times obsequious manner, as he explained how misunderstood the modelling was, how it wasn’t needed to justify lockdowns – as the indicative Basic reproduction number (R0) and Indicative Fatality Rate (IFR) were enough – to justify earlier and harder lockdown measures. Yet, according to Edmunds, the modelling would still be needed in the future. Truly an “all things to all men modelling” – useful when needed to justify future lockdowns, yet hides in the corner when retrospectively scrutinised and compared with real-world data. Three key flaws in the Covid modelling have been highlighted:
These aren’t flaws that can be explained away by saying the scenarios changed with the reality of lockdowns. For example, ICU rates are unaffected by shelter-in-place orders and school closures.
The dangerous implication here is that the Covid Inquiry is lining us up for future restrictions based on indicative RO and IFR, a lockdown hair-trigger switch that gives more authority to the modellers.
The soft-ball questioning and praise from the Inquiry continued as the discussion moved to Summer 2020, circuit breakers and the elision from “flatten the curve” to “zero Covid”.
Then the Inquiry moved on to the Downing Street Summit, where other voices – counsel highlighting as the ‘let it rip’ brigade – were invited at short notice. The big reveal was that Angela McLean, who has replaced Sir Patrick Vallance as Chief Scientific Officer, referred to Carl Heneghan as a “f*ckwit” in a contemporaneous WhatsApp chat, while Edmunds challenged Heneghan’s epidemiological knowledge. In my view, the Inquiry raising the point in this way is indicative of a lack of professionalism.
The Inquiry was also keen to include another pet villain – Doctor Death – the sobriquet applied by McLean to refer to Rishi Sunak, for the perceived crime of pushing for Eat Out to Help Out to reinvigorate the pub and restaurant industry, and providing a much needed moral boost to the nation.
The questioning continued for hours, covering the narrative classics of Long Covid, why the Vaccine rollout should have been broader, etc., all carried out in a cosy relationship included Baroness Hallett’s freely-given praise for Edmund, Ferguson and the whole modelling team.
By contrast, the interrogation of Carl Heneghan started out with a blatant attempt to undermine his credentials, strongly re-buffed by Carl, setting a tone for the only adversarial evidence session I have seen at this Inquiry so far. Any discussion that strayed from the narrative was met with aggressive and hostile demands for ‘yes/no’ answers.
Counsel objected to Carl’s answer rightly pointing out the danger of lockdowns to care homes, as he wanted to concentrate on focused protection and the misrepresentation of it by Counsel as hermetically sealing up the old and vulnerable. The minimum of critical thinking could have told Counsel that it was about reducing risk where it was highest, rather than across the board.
Carl was challenged on his views on the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) – he broadly agreed with it, he explained, but didn’t sign at the time as he needed more evidence on the details as you would expect, before Counsel dived into the Downing Street conference call.
Carl was challenged on his definition of ‘Endemicity’ on that call (presumably Edmunds’ gotcha epidemiological point), with Counsel demanding that the spread of infection be “broad and predictable” for it to qualify as endemic, when seasonal spikes shown on a graph means it wasn’t. This was rebuffed in a strong response from Prof. Heneghan, emphasising the seasonal pattern of endemic respiratory viruses and the variability of testing data and evidence on the ground.
Carl’s response to being challenged on the “f*ckwit” comment was dignified and professional, indicating it signified a lack of professionalism from the author as well as a lack of willingness to engage in debate, and an assumption of certainty where there was great uncertainty. He further pointed out that the entire lockdown response was driven by modelling and failed to take into account empirical data or the reality on the ground. Counsel scuttled along to that favourite fallback of the lockdown zealots – Long Covid – where Carl educated the Inquiry by telling it there was no greater risk of lingering disease from Covid than from any other seasonal respiratory disease.
At this point, Counsel decided to end the very short proceedings, presumably to shield the carefully constructed narrative to live another day.
It was hard not to notice the stark contrast in the attitude and approach to the two witnesses and it raises further serious questions on the ability of this long and expensive public inquiry to professionally and impartially challenge the decision making that led to lockdowns.
I just sent this letter off to the Board of Regents of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy:
October 12, 2023
Dear Executive Director Maddux and Board of Regents,
During the past 3 1/2 years, I have observed the troubling pattern of silencing viewpoints that depart in any way from the official Covid narrative. Your cancelation of Dr. Vinay Prasad as a keynote speaker at the upcoming ACCP Conference is an example of this inappropriate trend.
This is America. The founding principle of America is the freedom of speech, without which none of the other rights enumerated in the Constitution matter, because they cannot be pursued. Healthy, vigorous, oppositional debate is essential to innovation and problem-solving. Without debate there is no progress and people become afraid, first to speak, and then to think for themselves.
Alicia Lichvar states she “cannot – in good conscience – share a platform with an individual who promotes such harmful rhetoric.” Ms. Lichvar claims there is a role for critical discourse, but not as the Keynote speaker. Why not? Since when is it assumed that the speaker at a conference, or graduation ceremony, or civic event represents the viewpoint of all?
In this instance, ACCP appears to have sided with the false ideology recently stated at Twitter (X) that people are entitled to “freedom of speech, not reach.” In Ms. Lichvar’s world, people like Dr. Prasad have the right to their views, just not in public, which is no right at all.
This was the moment to clarify that your group values varied viewpoints by inviting Ms. Lichvar to share her side in a debate with Dr. Prasad, or in her own presentation. It was not a moment to say you will be “revisiting the keynote speaker vetting and selection process to ensure alignment with the expectations and values of ACCP members.” There were obviously ACCP members who wanted to hear from Dr. Prasad, or he would not have been selected as a keynote speaker in the first place.
People who are so fragile they cannot even hear a differing viewpoint to their own, especially one presented by a licensed and credentialed colleague, need a wakeup call, not coddling.
You, Mr. Maddux, Mr. Olsen, Ms. Farrington, Ms. Phillips, Ms. Blair, Mr. Hemstreet, Ms. See, Ms. Finks, Ms. Parker, Ms. Ross, Ms. Clements, and Ms. Badowski, are listed on the ACCP webpage under the dropdown menu of “Leadership.”
The role of real leaders is not to “ensure alignment with the expectations and values” of the vocal few, but rather to preserve the ability to approach problems and issues in a manner that allows for consideration of all sides. People cannot make informed, adult decisions, if they’re awash in a culture of “safety” where “words are violence,” and differing viewpoints are “harmful.”
I invite you to reconsider your roles, and the bigger picture of what is happening in our country today, so as to ensure that free speech and thought are the elevating principles of enlightenment in your organization.
Headmaster Mike Fairclough was the darling of primary school education after creating an unorthodox forest school in a council estate in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Alongside the usual lessons, from 2004 Mr Fairclough provided an extraordinarily rich rural curriculum that you would never expect in a state school. He leased 120 acres of marshland opposite West Rise school, the site of a former Bronze Age settlement. The children learned how to build fires and how to whittle wood with knives to make arrows. They learned fly fishing, how to skin rabbits and pluck pigeons. They tended beehives, sheep and even water buffalo.
Mr Fairclough won the admiration of his peers, and in 2015, the Times Educational Supplement ‘Primary School of the Year’ award. Dame Judith Hackitt, chairman of the Health & Safety Executive, said more school head teachers should be following Fairclough’s example. The underperforming school’s Ofsted rose from ‘Satisfactory’ to ‘Good’ and for 19 years, West Rise thrived. The number of pupils doubled from 179 to 360, as did the number of staff from 30 to 60.
Mr Fairclough enjoyed a good relationship with his staff and his local authority East Sussex County Council but resigned last month after a witch hunt using anti-terrorism legislation left him feeling a broken man. In his resignation letter he said: ‘I feel that I have been discriminated against, harassed, and bullied for exercising my right to lawful free speech and for expressing my philosophical belief in the importance of critical thinking, free speech, and safeguarding children.
‘As a headteacher, I have had a legal duty to safeguard children against harm. My professional field of expertise is child development and education. I have publicly shared my opinion that lockdowns harm children, that I disagree with masking children, and that I feel that the risks from the Covid vaccines for children outweigh any possible benefits. It has therefore been entirely reasonable and relevant for me to express my lawful opinions on these matters in the interest of safeguarding children against harm.’ Other heads agreed privately but 50-year-old Mr Fairclough, a father of four, was the only headteacher of 20,000 in the UK to say so publicly.
‘I first started to lose heart during the pandemic,’ he said. ‘The fear of Covid trumped learning, so children weren’t sitting next to each other and couldn’t share resources. Some schools were having children learning outside in the cold, so they weren’t able to concentrate, and it felt like adults’ fear of dying, which was irrational because we were told early that we were at minimal risk of dying of Covid, meant they were using children in their care as human shields. That made me think that the Department for Education weren’t really bothered about kids at all.’
His lawful response put him under scrutiny at the highest levels. Mr Fairclough found out through freedom of information (FOI) that he had been monitored by the government’s Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) and their Department for Counter Extremism, although he was cleared of any wrongdoing by East Sussex County Council.
Some people objected to his negative views on vaccinating children against Covid, opinions expressed outside the school setting, on social media and in podcasts. They fell into four main points, all of which are hard to challenge:
· Healthy children were at low risk of serious illness from Covid. (Office of National Statistics figures show that just six under-tens died between January 2020 and May 2021. They do not say whether the children had underlying health problems. For context, around 1,000 children die on the roads each year.)
· Covid vaccines posed known and very serious risks. (Potentially fatal myocarditis, and pericarditis, inflammation of the heart, are known risks.)
· A child can still catch Covid and spread Covid when vaccinated. (Covid vaccinations were not recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccination (JCVI) for under-16s, a decision overridden by the chief medical officers in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.)
· There was no long-term safety data, trials do not finish until this year, and the potential risks outweighed any benefit.
Mr Fairclough said: ‘I tried to communicate with parents who were undecided in a way that didn’t make me sound like I’m mad. I do think there are some in the freedom movement who say things in a way that doesn’t endear themselves to people with a different view.’
In the end 89.4 per cent of five to 11-year-olds remained unvaccinated although the numbers are hard to find and are not reported by the BBC.
So, who complained about this popular and effective headmaster? The first investigation was launched in June 2021. It was made by a group of retired NHS workers on Twitter (now X) whose mission it was to find anyone in education who appeared to be antivax and anti-lockdown. Mr Fairclough does not know who made the second complaint but the third was made by a concerned group of parents and teachers. ‘No parent came to me,’ Mr Fairclough said. ‘I have an open-door policy and they know they can talk to me at any time. I don’t know exactly which staff complained, but I have my suspicions. There was a small group within the school who did not agree with me although most were aligned with my thinking.’
It was December 1 2022 when the third complaint arrived, reported under the Prevent duty, the government initiative that requires all education providers to safeguard learners from extremist ideologies. Mr Fairclough was also reported to the DfE’s Counter-Extremism Division and was being framed as an extremist and potential terrorist, an intimidating move by the local council that left Mr Fairclough traumatised. He was signed off suffering with stress. He said: ‘I found sleeping difficult. I kept dreaming about what was happening and woke up thinking about it. I’m not a terrorist, all I was doing was discussing the alterative narrative.’
We know utopia does not exist and Mr Fairclough had his run-ins. ‘It wasn’t that I never fell out with parents. Say for example they felt like a teacher hadn’t dealt with a bullying issue, then of course they would come in and kick off and I’d have to look into the matter. But what surprised me with the resignation is that even parents that I’d had that kind of fractious relationship with have actually contacted me personally to say, “we’re really gutted that you’re not here any more”. That surprised me. I thought at least one would say good riddance.’
His absence has sent the school into freefall. An Ofsted report carried out in July, seven months after he was signed off, saw West Rise downgraded from ‘Good’ to ‘Requires Improvement’.
Our education system is increasingly focused on learning by rote rather than teaching critical thinking, a skill Mr Fairclough thinks is essential. He said: ‘Education is highly political under the Conservative government, it’s all about acquisition of knowledge to be retained and regurgitated for a memory test on the other side.’
His unusual approach had the full support of parents, the Health and Safety Executive, Ofsted and the media. Some of his pupils gained places at the local agricultural college and now run their own herds in the Sussex South Downs. A number entered media in film, art, and drama, mainly thanks to his ‘Room 13’, where children could go and have complete creative autonomy.
He is not sure what comes next, but he is sure of one thing: advocating for children cost him his much-loved career in our inverted world. He said: ‘Critical thinking and lawful free speech are not dangerous; they go hand in hand in safeguarding children. Open debate on important matters is the bedrock of any democratic society and no one should be pursued for speaking out.’
Mr Fairclough is not giving up on free speech and is crowdfunding to take his former employer to court. You can donate here.
He hopes his future will include writing more books like Wild Thing, which is about how embracing childhood traits into adulthood can lead to happiness. He recently started a Substack which you can see here.
A lawsuit has been amended in California against this US state’s medical boards’ “misinformation powers” – based on a law that is soon to be repealed, and which critics – some of them legal plaintiffs – say allowed the government to prevent them from practicing medicine, the way they were trained to do.
It was one of the rules, called Assembly Bill 2098 (AB 2098), introduced to keep medical professionals in check, in case they felt like speaking their minds freely as insights into Covid were developing.
And since the world has now moved on to other crises, the “forgotten pandemic” censorship laws are getting “quietly” repealed.
But not really, the plaintiffs in this case claim – because of the nature of the repeal of the short-lived AB 2098, made null-and-void on September 14 via Senate Bill 815 (SB 815). California Senator Newsom got to sign all three documents.
However, the repeal – which will not be in effect before the start of 2024 – at the same time incorporates Democrat member of California Assembly Evan Low’s provision that doctors who get accused of “misinformation” can still be punished – “held accountable” – regardless of whether the controversial law was actually applicable.
“The Medical Board of California will continue to maintain the authority to hold medical licensees accountable for deviating from the standard of care and misinforming their patients about COVID-19 treatments,” Low said.
How in the world is this political, ideological, pre-election, and legal gymnastics even supposed to work?
The lawsuit against the bill, Hoang et al. v. Bonta et al., has the plaintiffs represented by California attorney Richard Jaffe.
He had this to say: “Because of the repeal of AB 2098, and the board’s position that it can still sanction the speech targeted by the soon-to-be-repealed law, we are pivoting in our lawsuit and arguing to the judge that they can’t do it under their general statute either because the speech does not change just because the legal theory/statute changes.”
The world clearly has moved to other crises – but it seems, not the California Democrats. And so the plaintiffs in the lawsuit’s amended format are also asking to add more to their ranks. One of the original ones is Children’s Health Defense (CHD).
However absurd the “standard of care” argument that supersedes a law may seem to a layperson, Jaffe is obviously taking it seriously.
The court will hear the arguments related to this new development on November 13.
By Miko Peled | MintPress News | September 20, 2021
One of the great tragedies of Palestine is that almost every day there is a commemoration of one massacre or another, the death of a child or destruction of a home or village, leading one to think that the Palestinian narrative is one of death and destruction, which is what Israel wants people to think. But the truth is that this is not the case. The Palestinian narrative is one of a glorious history with periods of great sadness and tragedy. It is the Zionist story that is full of killing, stealing and destruction and not, as they try to sell it, one of creation and growth.
September 16, 2021, marked 39 years since the massacres at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. As people remember and mourn the thousands of unarmed civilians who were butchered and the countless who survived suffering terrible injuries and emotional scars, we must also remember the man that stood behind this bloodbath.
This was a man whose complicity even the Israeli authorities could not ignore, the former general and renowned war criminal Ariel Sharon. And although he was momentarily penalized and banished from politics, he very quickly returned, and for a quarter of a century, he was the most powerful and influential man in Israeli politics. … continue
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