Letter to Mr William Wragg, MP
18th January 2022
Mr William Wragg, MP
Chair of the Public Administration & Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC)
Dear Mr Wragg,
Re: Ethical concerns arising from the Government’s use of covert psychological ‘nudges’ in their COVID-19 communications strategy
We are writing to you as a group of psychological specialists and health professionals to highlight our major ethical concerns about the deployment of covert behavioural-science techniques (commonly referred to as ‘nudges’) in the Government’s COVID-19 communications strategy. Our view is that the use of these behavioural strategies – which often operate below people’s conscious awareness and frequently rely on inflating emotional distress to change behaviour – raises profound moral questions. In light of these pressing concerns we respectfully request that, in your role as chair of the Public Administration & Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC), you instigate a comprehensive inquiry into the acceptability of using these strategies on the British people as a means of promoting compliance with public health directives.
Background
The appetite for using covert psychological strategies as a means of changing people’s behaviour was boosted by the emergence of the ‘Behavioural Insights Team’ (BIT) in 2010 as ‘the world’s first government institution dedicated to the application of behavioural science to policy’ (1). The membership of BIT rapidly expanded (2) from a seven-person unit embedded in the UK Government to a ‘social purpose company’ operating in many countries across the world. A comprehensive account of the psychological techniques recommended by the BIT is provided in the Institute of Government document, MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy (3), where the authors claim that their strategies can achieve ‘low cost, low pain ways of nudging citizens … into new ways of acting by going with the grain of how we think and act’.
Since its inception in 2010, the BIT has been led by Professor David Halpern who is currently the team’s chief executive. Professor Halpern and two other members of the BIT also currently sit on the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) (4), a subgroup of SAGE that advises the Government on its COVID-19 communications strategy. Most of the other members of the SPI-B are prominent British psychologists who have expertise in the deployment of behavioural-science ‘nudge’ techniques.
It is important to emphasise that the use of behavioural science in this way represents a radical departure from the traditional methods – legislation, information provision, rational argument – used by governments to influence the behaviour of their citizens. By contrast, many of the ‘nudges’ delivered by the BIT are – to various degrees – acting upon us automatically, below the level of conscious thought and reason.
The ‘nudges’ of concern
The BIT and the SPI-B have encouraged the deployment of many techniques from behavioural science within the Government’s COVID-19 communications. However, there are three ‘nudges’ which have evoked most of our alarm: the exploitation of fear (inflating perceived threat levels), shame (conflating compliance with virtue) and peer pressure (portraying non-compliers as a deviant minority) – or “affect”, “ego” and “norms”, to use the language of the MINDSPACE document.
AFFECT/FEAR
Aware that a frightened population is a compliant one, a strategic decision was made to inflate the fear levels of all the British people. The minutes of the SPI-B meeting (5) dated the 22nd March 2020 stated, ‘The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent’ by ‘using hard-hitting emotional messaging’. Subsequently, in tandem with a subservient mainstream media, the collective efforts of the BIT and the SPI-B have inflicted a prolonged and concerted scare campaign upon the British public. The methods used have included:
- Daily statistics displayed without context: the macabre mono focus on showing the number of COVID-19 deaths without mention of mortality from other causes or the fact that, under normal circumstances, around 1600 people die each day in the UK.
- Recurrent footage of dying patients: images of the acutely unwell in Intensive Care Units.
- Scary slogans: for example, ‘IF YOU GO OUT YOU CAN SPREAD IT, PEOPLE WILL DIE’, typically accompanied by frightening images of emergency personnel in masks and visors.
EGO/SHAME
We all strive to maintain a positive view of ourselves. Utilising this human tendency, behavioural scientists have recommended messaging that equates virtue with adherence to the Covid-19 restrictions and subsequent vaccination campaign. Consequently, following the rules preserves the integrity of our egos while any deviation evokes shame. Examples of these nudges in action include:
- Slogans that shame the non-compliant: for example, ‘STAY HOME, PROTECT THE NHS, SAVE LIVES’.
- TV advertisements: actors tell us, ‘I wear a face covering to protect my mates’ and ‘I make space to protect you’.
- Clap for Carers: the pre-orchestrated weekly ritual, purportedly to show appreciation for NHS staff.
- Ministers telling students not to ‘kill your gran’.
- Shame–evoking adverts: close-up images of acutely unwell hospital patients with the voice-over, ‘Can you look them in the eyes and tell them you’re doing all you can to stop the spread of coronavirus?’
NORMS/PEER PRESSURE
Awareness of the prevalent views and behaviour of our fellow citizens can pressurise us to conform and knowledge of being in a deviant minority is a source of discomfort. The Government has repeatedly encouraged peer pressure throughout the COVID-19 crisis to gain the public’s compliance with their escalating restrictions, an approach that – at higher levels of intensity – can morph into scapegoating. The most straightforward example is how, during interviews with the media, ministers have often resorted to telling us that the vast majority of people are ‘obeying the rules’ or that almost all of us are conforming. However, in order to enhance and sustain normative pressure, people need to be able to instantly distinguish the rule breakers from the rule followers; the visibility of face coverings provides this immediate differentiation. The switch to the mandating of masks in community settings in summer 2020, without the emergence of new and robust evidence that they reduce viral transmission, strongly suggests that the mask requirement was introduced primarily as a compliance device to harness normative pressure.
Ethical questions
Compared to a government’s typical tools of persuasion, the covert psychological strategies (outlined above) differ in both their nature and subconscious mode of action. Consequently, we believe there are three main areas of ethical concern associated with their use: problems with the methods per se; problems with the lack of consent; and problems with the goals to which they are applied.
First, it is highly questionable whether a civilised society should knowingly increase the emotional discomfort of its citizens as a means of gaining their compliance. Government scientists deploying fear, shame and scapegoating to change minds is an ethically dubious practice that in some respects resembles the tactics used by totalitarian regimes such as China, where the state inflicts pain on a subset of its population in an attempt to eliminate beliefs and behaviour they perceive to be deviant.
Another ethical issue associated with these covert psychological techniques relates to their unintended consequences. Shaming and scapegoating have emboldened some people to harass those unable or unwilling to wear a face covering. More disturbingly, the inflated fear levels will have significantly contributed to the many thousands of excess non-COVID deaths (6) that have occurred in people’s homes, the strategically-increased anxieties discouraging many from seeking help for other illnesses. Furthermore, a lot of older people, rendered housebound by fear, may have died prematurely from loneliness (7). Those already suffering with obsessive-compulsive problems about contamination, and patients with severe health anxieties, will have had their anguish exacerbated by the campaign of fear. Even now, when all the vulnerable groups have been offered vaccination, many of our citizens remain tormented by ‘COVID-19 Anxiety Syndrome’ (8), characterised by a disabling combination of fear and maladaptive coping strategies.
Second, a recipient’s consent prior to the delivery of a medical or psychological intervention is a fundamental requirement of a civilised society. Professor David Halpern (the BIT Chief Executive and prominent member of SPI-B) explicitly recognised the significant ethical dilemmas arising from the use of influencing strategies that impact subconsciously on the country’s citizens. The MINDSPACE document (9) – of which Professor Halpern is a co-author – states that, ‘Policymakers wishing to use these tools … need the approval of the public to do so’ (p74). More recently, in Professor Halpern’s book, Inside the Nudge Unit, he is even more emphatic about the importance of consent: ‘If Governments … wish to use behavioural insights, they must seek and maintain the permission of the public. Ultimately, you – the public, the citizen – need to decide what the objectives, and limits, of nudging and empirical testing should be’ (p375).
As far as we are aware, no attempt has yet been made to obtain the public’s permission to use covert psychological strategies.
Third, the perceived legitimacy of using subconscious ‘nudges’ to influence people may also depend upon the behavioural goals that are being pursued. It may be that a higher proportion of the general public would be comfortable with the government resorting to subconscious nudges to reduce violent crime as compared to the purpose of imposing unprecedented and non-evidenced public-health restrictions. Would British citizens have agreed to the furtive deployment of fear, shame and peer pressure as a way of levering compliance with lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccination? Maybe they should be asked before the Government considers any future imposition of these techniques.
The position of the British Psychological Society
The British Psychological Society (BPS) is the leading professional body for psychologists in the UK. According to their website (10), a central role of the BPS is, ‘To promote excellence and ethical practice in the science, education and application of the discipline’. [Our emphasis]. Mindful of their important position as the guardian of ethical psychological practice, on the 6th January 2021 46 psychologists and therapists (including many of the signatories of the present letter) wrote to the BPS (11) raising the ethical questions outlined above.
A month later, on the 5th February 2021, a reply (12) was received from Dr Debra Malpass (Director of Knowledge and Insight at the BPS) which failed to directly address our ethical concerns and was, in our view, evasive and disingenuous. Dr Malpass’s response included questioning whether the strategies deployed by Government psychologists were actually covert, stating that the role of specific psychologists had not been evidenced, and expressing how ‘incredibly proud’ the BPS was about the ‘fantastic work done by psychologists throughout the pandemic’.
Dissatisfied with this initial reaction, we contacted the BPS again to question whether our expressed concerns had actually been considered by their ethics committee. We received a brief reply from Dr Malpass on the 16th February 2021 informing us that our initial letter would be considered at their next BPS Ethics Committee on the 1st March; we understood this to be an admission that the covert psychological strategies recommended by psychologists had yet to be scrutinised in regards to their ethical acceptability.
By 12th March, and not having received any further communication from the BPS, we prompted them again. On the 23rd March a message was received from Dr Roger Paxton (Chair of the BPS Ethics Committee) apologising that ‘owing to a very full agenda and an oversight’ no discussion about our concerns had taken place but that they would be included on the agenda of their June meeting.
On the 30th June, and not having received any further communication from the BPS, we prompted them again. On the 1st July we received a response (13) from Dr Paxton, comprising three paragraphs, informing us that the issues we raised had been considered and that their ethics committee had endorsed all previous BPS responses. In this communication, Dr Paxton acknowledged that he had received a large number of recent emails raising the same issues, but rejected our ethical concerns arguing that the strategies referred to were ‘indirect’ rather than covert, the application of psychology in this instance fell outside the realm of individual health decisions (so informed consent was not an issue), levels of fear within the general population were proportionate to the objective risk posed by the virus, and the psychologists’ role in the pandemic response demonstrated ‘social responsibility and the competent and responsible employment of psychological expertise’.
We believe the BPS responses to our ethical concerns about the deployment of covert psychological strategies throughout the COVID-19 pandemic have been defensive and disingenuous. Also we believe the BPS is impeded by a major conflict of interest on this issue in that several members of the SPI-B are also influential figures within the BPS. As such, the impartiality of the BPS in addressing the ethical issues we raised is highly questionable.
Finally, it is worth noting that serious concerns about the Government’s use of behavioural science have previously been raised in relation to other spheres of government activity. An All Parliamentary Group Report (APGR) (14) analysing the recommendations of the Morse Report (15) (a Treasury-commissioned review into the Loan Charge, published in December 2019) found that the distress evoked in those people targeted by behavioural insights may, in some instances, have led to victims taking their own lives. In the words of the APGR:
‘HMRC continue to apply pressure to taxpayers by using 30 behavioural insights in communications, something that has been cited in one of the seven known suicides of people facing the Loan Charge’.
In further recognition of the suffering and anguish associated with these ‘nudge’ techniques, the APGR recommends:
‘An independent assessment and suspension of HMRC’s use of behavioural psychology/behavioural insights in light of the ongoing suicide risk to those impacted by the Loan Charge’.
Clearly, a truly independent and comprehensive evaluation of the ethics of deploying psychological ‘nudges’ on the British people – during public health campaigns and in other areas of government – is now urgently required. We respectfully ask the PACAC to consider performing this important role.
Co-Signatories
Psychology/therapy/mental health
- Dr Gary Sidley (M.Sc., ClinPsy, PhD) Retired Consultant Clinical Psychologist
- Ms Jen Ayling (UKCP registered counsellor) Psychotherapeutic Counsellor
- Dr Faye Bellanca (DClinPsy) Clinical Psychologist
- Dr Christian Buckland ((PsychD) Psychotherapist
- Alison Burnard (Dip Gestalt Therapy) Gestalt Psychotherapist
- Daran Campbell (PG Dip Counselling) Substance Misuse Practitioner
- Dr Tom Carnwath (FRCPsych, FRCGP) Consultant Psychiatrist
- Dr Maria Castro Romero (DClinPsy) Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology
- Gillian England (PG Dip Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy) Cognitive Behavioural Therapist
- Dr Elizabeth English (M.Phil, DPhil) Mindfulness Teacher & Trauma Therapist
- Mr Patrick Fagan (M.Sc.) Chief Scientific Officer, Capuchin Behavioural Science
- Dr Tracey Grant Lee (DClinPsy) Chartered Clinical Psychologist
- Andy Halewood (Advanced M.Sc. in Counselling Psychology) Chartered Psychologist
- Sue Parker Hall (CTA, MSc, PGCE) Psychotherapist
- Andrew D Harry (RPP PTP) NLP Master Practitioner
- Mrs Nicole Harvey (B.Sc, Pg Dip) Mental Health Practitioner/CBT Therapist
- Ms Julie A Horsley (Advanced Diploma in Counselling) Counsellor/Therapist
- Dr Richard House (MA, Ph.D, C.Psych. AFBPsS) former Senior Lecturer in Psychology
- Emma Kenny (MA Counselling, Advanced Diploma Counselling) Media Psychologist & Psychological Therapist
- Rachel Maisey (MA, PGCE, PgDip Counselling) Integrative Counsellor
- Jane Margerison (PG Dip Integrative Psychotherapy, RMN) Psychotherapist
- Kate Morrissey (Advanced Diploma in Counselling, MA Social Work) Counsellor
- Lucy Padina (Diploma in Psychology, Advanced Diploma in the Management of Psychological Trauma) Independent Consultant & Registered Social Worker
- Carolyn Polunin (M.Sc.) Integrative Psychotherapist
- Dr Livia Pontes (DClinPsy) Clinical Psychologist
- Dr Kate Porter (DClinPsy) Clinical Psychologist
- Ian Price (M.Sc. Organisational Behaviour) Business Psychologist
- Dr Bruce Scott (B.Sc., PhD) Psychoanalyst
- Professor David Seedhouse (PhD) Honorary Professor of Deliberative Practice
- Deborah Short (MA Gestalt Psychotherapy) Psychotherapist
- Ms Deborah Sharples (B.A. [Hons] Social Work) Mental Health Social Worker
- Susan Sidley (RMN) Retired Psychiatric Nurse
- Dr Angela Smith (DClinPsy, PhD) Psychology Lead
- Dr Helen Startup (DClinPsy, PhD) Consultant Clinical Psychologist
- Dr Dov Stein (MA, MB, BCh, BAO DCH Dobs) Consultant Psychiatrist & Psychotherapist
- Dr Zenobia Storah (DClinPsy) Child & Adolescent Clinical Psychologist
- Professor Ellen Townsend (PhD) Professor of Psychology
- Sarah Waters (BA, Dip Counselling & Therapy) Psychotherapist
- Dr Alice Welham (MA, DClinPsy, PhD) Clinical Psychologist
- Dr Damian Wilde (DClinPsy) Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist
Other health professionals
- Mr John Collis (PGCert in Advanced Practice, BSc [Hons] Nursing, BA [Hons] Retired Nurse Practitioner
- James Cook (Bachelor of Nursing [Hons], Master of Public Health [MPH]) Registered Nurse
- Dr Clare Craig (BM, BCh, FRCPath) Consultant Pathologist
- Dr David Critchley (BSc, PhD) Clinical Pharmacologist
- Roisin Dargan-Peel (MA) Former Registered General Nurse, Midwife & Health Visitor
- Mr Paul Goss (MCSP, HCPC, KCMT) Clinical Director & Chartered Physiotherapist
- Dr Ros Jones (MD, FRCPCH) Retired Consultant Paediatrician
- Mrs Alison Langthorne (RGN) Staff Nurse
- Jenna Leith (RGN) Advanced Nurse Practitioner
- Dr Sam McBride (MB, BCh, MRCP, FRCP, FRCEM) Clinical Gerontologist
- Mrs Julie Noble (M.Sc, RN) Senior Forensic Nurse Examiner & Advanced Practitioner
- Mrs Christine Mary Proctor (RGN) Former Registered General Nurse
- Dr Annabel Smart (MBBS, BSc, DFSRH) Retired General Practitioner
- Nat Stephenson (B.Sc Audiology) Paediatric Audiologist
- Dr Helen Westwood (MBChB, MRCGP, DCH, DRCOG) General Practitioner
January 22, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, Human rights, UK |
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THIS Saturday, January 22, will see another worldwide freedom rally. It starts at 1pm in London and other UK cities as well as globally.
To find the details of where, please join the Together Declaration’s Telegram Channel for updates. The Together organisers will be in London and will have placards available on the day. You can find the details on Twitter @togetherdec and on Instagram: @togetherdeclaration […]
Please continue to share Together links to drive their message home. They are doing a vital campaigning and lobbying job. It’s essential that we all keep pushing to end all restrictions on January 26 and to insist on the revocation of an end to all vaccine mandates and coercion.
Together ask us to use the following hashtags in our Twitter communications:
#WorldWideDemo
#StandTogether
and to follow their news and share it on the following platforms:
Twitter: @togetherdec
Instagram: @togetherdeclaration
Facebook
TikTok
LinkedIn
YouTube
GETTR
Gab
Telegram
January 21, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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Jeremy Morris has an interesting post on his Postsocialism blog about the malicious role played by Western intelligence services in shaping narratives of Russia. I’m somewhat sceptical about his thesis – or at least the extent of the phenomenon he describes – but as if by chance, today I also came across a story that kind of backs him up.
Morris complains of two “elephants in the room,” who together distort our understanding of Russia. The first is the “clear leveraging of latent public sympathy abroad for the Russian regime by our friends at the English-language offices of RT.” I guess that would be me.
The second is “academic and think-tank contacts with the security services in the West.” Given my former involvement in the intelligence world, and the fact that I’ve taught courses at the University of Ottawa with members of the Canadian security and intelligence services, I guess that would be me too.
Double elephant!
I imagine that Morris thinks that elephant number one distorts things in favour of Russia, and elephant number two distorts them against. That must make me some sort of push-me-pull-you doing both at once. Perhaps that explains why I always end up occupying the middle ground!
Anyway, I digress, because this isn’t meant to be about me. Back to the point.
“If you underestimate the hidden motives of those that comment on Russia – from both elephants, then you are guilty of the ‘fallacy of insufficient cynicism’,” writes Morris. I must confess myself guilty as charged. I can be pretty cynical, but I don’t think that everybody has “hidden motives.” People who write what one might call “pro-Russian” articles for RT aren’t doing it for the money or because the FSB has got some dirt on them any more than people writing Russophobic stuff for think tanks are doing it because they’re taking orders from the FBI, MI5, or CSIS. People tend to believe what they’re doing.
In any case, I worry less about spooks and more about the military industrial complex and its funding of think tanks and the like, all of which work together to inflate threats, keep us in a state of fear, and justify increased defence spending and aggressive foreign policies. But even there, the think tankers etc believe in what they’re doing. The problem is that believers get funded whereas non-believers don’t. I don’t think “hidden motives” are the issue.
That said, Morris has a point, in that security and intelligence services do maintain contacts with chosen favourites and feed them information that they hope will further their chosen narrative. The story I came across today illustrates how this works quite well.
A while back, I mentioned a law case in the UK involving Guardian journalist Carol Cadwalladr and British businessman Arron Banks. Banks is suing Cadwalladr for libel for having claimed that the Russian government offered him money for use in the Brexit referendum campaign, and that he lied about his relationship with the Russians. The case is now before the court, and Cadwalladr’s defence is becoming clear.
The Guardian journalist isn’t claiming that what she said about Banks was true, merely that given the evidence she had at the time she had good reason to believe that it was in the public interest for her to report it. So what was this evidence, and where did she get it from? This is where it becomes interesting. For as the Guardian reports,
In her written evidence statement, she [Cadwalladr] said she had obtained two intelligence files from an organisation contracted to undertake work countering Russian disinformation in Europe on behalf of a government agency, one file of which raised concerns about Banks’s Russian wife.
In other words, British intelligence fed the information to her via another source.
The accusation that Banks took Russian money to fund Brexit received widespread coverage. It was even repeated in a parliamentary report. Yet no evidence to support the claim has ever been produced, and as we have seen, Cadwalladr isn’t trying to say that it was true. In short, it was disinformation. And yet, what prompted it was in part documents leaked by British intelligence to a third party “contracted to undertake work countering Russian disinformation” and then in turn given by that organization to Ms Cadwalladr.
Doesn’t that strike you as a bit iffy?
In the first place, the story reinforces what I have said several times before, namely that the “disinformation industry” set up to “counter Russian disinformation” is itself a major source of disinformation. And second, it reveals an excessively cosy relationship between the media – supposedly an independent guardian of the truth that holds the state to account – and state organizations, including secret intelligence.
Personally, I find it more than a little disturbing.
Maybe Mr Morris is right after all!
January 20, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | The Guardian, UK |
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UKHSA Vaccine Efficacy Statistics: Week 3
The UK Health Security Agency has been condemned for literally months now to report incredibly inconvenient vaccine efficacy statistics. How they have struggled. They have composed disclaimer after disclaimer. They filled a whole blog post with special pleading. They have greyed out the inconvenient numbers.
In their latest report, published just this evening, they’ve tried something new and bold. They now only calculate case, hospitalisation and death rates for the unvaccinated and the triple vaccinated. The double vaccinated have been banished entirely from Table 12. This will make the evil negative efficacy go away, right?
Ha, no:
The numbers are unadjusted, it is true; much certainty surrounds the size of the unvaccinated population and therefore case rates within that group. What is more, these are cases, not true infection statistics. Nevertheless, res ipsa loquitur. It does not look great.
In fact, the UKHSA have given us a great gift, in that they finally provide separate case and severe outcome statistics for the triple-vaccinated and the double vaccinated, allowing us to compare rates across all three groups. They don’t do that themselves, of course, but no matter. We can use the raw numbers and rates from last week’s report to derive the total number of double and triple vaccinated, and the rates in this week’s report to derive the triple vaccinated population. A little subtraction then gives us a decent estimate of how many double but not triple vaccinated people there are in each age bracket.
Here is the graph the UKHSA don’t want you to see:
This is plainly a pandemic of the vaccinated.
The double vaccinated death rate is also a problem. You can tell this just from looking at the numbers in each category:
The crucial 70+ demographic is over 90% boostered, and yet the very few double vaccinated in this cohort manage to match or exceed theeir death numbers.
The death rates have the double vaccinated worse than the unvaccinated in the 70+ cohort, and roughly matching the unvaccinated in the 60–69 group:
This isn’t all that surprising, given that Public Health Scotland data has shown across-the-board negative efficacy for the unboostered for some weeks now:
This is also true of deaths, but beware of the extremely low numbers, particularly in the singly vaccinated:
January 20, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, UK |
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WE were told before the Covid vaccine rollout that it wouldn’t block transmission, but that it would reduce symptoms and therefore hospitalisation. Throughout 2021 we saw many warning headlines like ‘Pandemic of the unvaccinated’, becoming ever more alarmist like this one in the Guardian towards the end of November when Professor Sir Andrew Pollard opined that ‘Getting jabs to the unvaccinated has never been more critical’. The article said that the horrors of Covid are now restricted to those who won’t or can’t have a jab, and further claimed that Covid patients in ICUs are ‘now almost all unvaccinated’. The BBC too was not backwards in coming forwards, in December reporting a spokesman for Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, saying that ’80 per cent of patients we’ve seen over the last few months in general wards and critical care have been unvaccinated’.
In his statement to Parliament yesterday the Prime Minister continued with this narrative: ‘When there are still over 16,000 people in hospital in England alone, the pandemic is not over. And, Mr Speaker, make no mistake, Omicron is not a mild disease for everyone – and especially if you’re not vaccinated.’
So, let’s report what Mr Johnson so blatantly ignored – the latest government data on Covid-positive hospitalisations: the facts, not his opinions. It makes for interesting reading.
Public Health Scotland’s Winter Statistical Report states that 541 vaccinated people were hospitalised versus 168 unvaccinated, see page 36 table 12 (I used December 25-31 as it’s not provisional) which by my count is over three times as many vaccinated.
NHS Wales Surveillance of Vaccine Status states that 433 vaccinated people were hospitalised versus 90 unvaccinated, see page 4 table 4. That’s nearly five times as many.
Northern Ireland’s Vaccination Status of Deaths and Hospitalisations states that 395 vaccinated people were hospitalised versus 289 unvaccinated (page 8 table 1). That’s 108 more vaccinated than unvaccinated.
UK Health Security Agency Covid-19 Vaccine Surveillance Report states that 8,566 vaccinated people were hospitalised in England versus 4,738 unvaccinated (Page 40 table 10).That’s nearly twice as many.
All confirmed in the report of the 95th Sage meeting on Covid-19 which states: ‘For patients admitted after 16 June 2021 the majority of patients had received two doses’ (Page 3 item 3).
I don’t know what Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, University of Oxford and the media were basing their headlines on but it certainly wasn’t this data.
Meanwhile Johnson did his best with something that’s come to be understood with the phrase, ‘lies,damn lies and statistics’, telling us that from ‘our NHS data, we know that around 90 per cent of people in intensive care are not boosted’. Never mind that the totally unvaccinated are the minority in intensive care.
Sir Andrew Pollard might buy that one. Others won’t.
January 20, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | BBC, COVID-19 Vaccine, The Guardian, UK |
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LAST October TCW reported on the concerning numbers of miscarriages and stillbirths reported to our drugs watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Pregnant women who had received a Covid jab and then lost their baby filled out Yellow Card reports in their hundreds. At that time nearly 600 mothers-to-be had suffered spontaneous abortions, as the MHRA refer to miscarriages, and felt the jab had been responsible. In just three months, that number increased by 100 to a total of 709.
Pfizer’s jab is associated with the highest casualty rate, with 425 miscarriages reported. That figure includes one premature baby death, one miscarriage-related death and 13 stillbirth/foetal deaths. Since May last year, the under-40s have not received the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine because it increases your risk of developing blood clots. AZ, introduced in January 2021, still has 229 reports of miscarriage with five stillbirths, while the Moderna jab, introduced in April 2021, has 51 miscarriage reports. Five mothers reported they did not know which vaccine they had received.
Since February last year, the BBC have been urging pregnant women to take the Covid vaccination despite the fact that no manufacturer was due to complete a scientific trial in expectant mothers before December. Their results are still to be released so all we have is the MHRA’s real-time data, which it seems is being ignored.
Instead, British health chiefs have relied on information from women in the US who accidentally found themselves pregnant having taken the Covid jab and reported the results of their pregnancy to the V-safe app. V-safe is hosted by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) but it is not a scientific study. It is a self-reporting database like the MHRA Yellow Card scheme which Reuters fact checkers like to tell us should not be relied on. So if we cannot rely on the Yellow Card, how can we rely on V-safe?
‘We cannot,’ said an obstetrician who did not want to be named, based in Scotland. ‘Frankly, it’s a mess and when you consider what is at stake, the healthy development of a baby, and the health of the mother, it’s a disgrace.’
This fact has not been acknowledged by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, who updated their advice to pregnant and nursing mothers on 20 December 2021. They said: ‘Covid-19 vaccines are strongly recommended in pregnancy. Vaccination is the best way to protect against the known risks of Covid-19 in pregnancy for both women and babies, including admission of the woman to intensive care and premature birth of the baby.’
Three months ago TCW exposed how figures had been manipulated by the NHS to make unvaccinated pregnant mums think they had a higher risk of ending up in ICU than vaccinated mums. It was not true.
The chief scientific adviser to the Department of Health, Professor Lucy Chappell, has never satisfactorily addressed parents’ concerns about whether the vaccine can harm their unborn babies. Ms Chappell, who is also Professor in Obstetrics at King’s College London, tweeted last November: ‘Covid-19 vaccines have protected millions of women around the world – and are safe for pregnant women and women considering pregnancy.’ The tweet had a cool reception with just 116 likes and Dr Chappell had no data from any vaccine manufacturer to support her claim.
The same applies to MHRA chief executive Dr June Raine, who said in a statement in November: ‘We want to reassure all pregnant women that the Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective for them to use at all stages of pregnancy. Our rigorous safety monitoring of these vaccines in pregnancy shows that the vaccines are safe and that there is no increased risk of pregnancy complications, miscarriage, or stillbirth.’
A British funeral director known only as Wesley tells another story. On camera, he says how he saw newborn baby deaths increase tenfold after vaccination began.
Wesley says: ‘There are a lot of newborn babies in fridges in mortuaries. There were 30 in one hospital. Mortuary fridges usually hold about 6-10 babies maximum and they’re never normally full. ‘Now, they’re full and (the deceased babies) are being kept in the adult section.’ He agreed with the interviewer that the number was ten times higher than normal, and went on: ‘The babies have either been miscarried or they are full term stillbirths but not a lot has been said about it.’
If anyone wants to speak out, we promise we are listening.
Latest Yellow Card scheme figures published below with 1,932 fatalities reported to January 5 2022.
Adult – Primary & Booster/Third Dose, Child Administration
Pfizer – 25.3million people – 47.2m doses – Yellow Card reporting rate – 1 in 162 people impacted
AstraZeneca – 24.9m people – 49.1m doses – Yellow Card reporting rate – 1 in 103 people impacted
Moderna – 1.6m people – 3m doses – Yellow Card reporting rate – 1 in 50 people impacted
Overall, 1 in 120 people injected experiences a Yellow Card adverse event. A significant proportion require urgent medical care, may be life changing or long-lasting in effect. This may be less than 10 per cent of actual figures according to MHRA.
Adult Booster or 3rd Doses = 34,834,288 people
Booster Yellow Card Reports – 24,402 (Pfizer) + 371 (AZ) + 13,156 (Moderna) + 121 (Unknown) = 38,050
Reactions – 446,903 (Pfizer) + 855,968 (AZ) + 106,996 (Moderna) + 4,426 (Unknown) = 1,414,293
Reports – 156,250 (Pfizer) + 241,657 (AZ) + 32,133 (Moderna) + 1,442 (Unknown) = 431,482 people impacted
Fatal – 684 (Pfizer) + 1182 (AZ) + 29 (Moderna) + 37 (Unknown) = 1,932
Spontaneous Abortions – 425 + 1 premature baby death + 1 miscarriage related death/ 13 stillbirth/foetal deaths (9 recorded as fatal) (Pfizer) + 229 + 5 stillbirth (AZ) + 51 (Moderna) + 4 (Unknown) = 709 miscarriages
Blood Disorders – 16,056 (Pfizer) + 7,728 (AZ) + 2,228 (Moderna) + 62 (Unknown) = 26,074
Pulmonary Embolism & Deep Vein Thrombosis – 801 (Pfizer) + 2,991 (AZ) + 73 (Moderna) + 25 (Unknown) = 3,890
Anaphylaxis – 615 (Pfizer) + 863 (AZ) + 76 (Moderna) + 2 (Unknown) = 1,556
Acute Cardiac – 10,703 (Pfizer) + 10,766 (AZ) + 2,408 (Moderna) + 83 (Unknown) = 23,960
Pericarditis/Myocarditis – 1,047 (Pfizer) + 414 (AZ) + 256 (Moderna) + 6 (Unknown) = 1,723
Infections – 10,568 (Pfizer) + 19,679 (AZ) + 1,861 (Moderna) + 136 (Unknown) = 32,244
Herpes – 2,048 (Pfizer) + 2,639 (AZ) + 208 (Moderna) + 20 (Unknown) = 4915
Blindness – 142 (Pfizer) + 309 (AZ) + 23 (Moderna) + 4 (Unknown) = 478
Eye Disorders – 7,310 (Pfizer) + 14,641 (AZ) + 1,276 (Moderna) + 82 (Unknown) = 23,309
Deafness – 268 (Pfizer) + 418 (AZ) + 40 (Moderna) + 4 (Unknown) = 730
Skin Disorders – 31,329 (Pfizer) + 52,749 (AZ) + 11,702 (Moderna) + 308 (Unknown) = 96,088
Psychiatric Disorders – 9,307 (Pfizer) + 18,117 (AZ) + 2,075 (Moderna) + 104 (Unknown) = 29,603
Headaches & Migraines – 33,635 (Pfizer) + 93,545 (AZ) + 8,280 (Moderna) + 323 (Unknown) = 135,783
Vomiting – 4,914 (Pfizer) + 11,594 (AZ) + 1,587 (Moderna) + 59 (Unknown) = 18,154
Nervous System Disorders – 75,192 (Pfizer) + 180,996 (AZ) + 17,398 (Moderna) + 816 (Unknown) = 274,402
Strokes and CNS haemorrhages – 707 (Pfizer) + 2,245 (AZ) + 34 (Moderna) + 13 (Unknown) = 2,999
Guillain-Barré Syndrome – 83 (Pfizer) + 483 (AZ) + 9 (Moderna) + 6 (Unknown) = 581
Facial Paralysis including Bell’s Palsy – 1,001 (Pfizer) + 978 (AZ) + 119 (Moderna) + 10 (Unknown) = 2,108
Tremor – 2,020 (Pfizer) + 9,897 (AZ) + 570 (Moderna) + 50 (Unknown) = 13,538
Seizures – 1,023 (Pfizer) + 2,028 (AZ) + 232 (Moderna) + 16 (Unknown) = 3,299
Paralysis – 463 (Pfizer) + 855 (AZ) + 81 (Moderna) + 8 (Unknown) = 1,407
Respiratory Disorders – 19,633 (Pfizer) + 29,211 (AZ) + 3,489 (Moderna) + 185 (Unknown) = 52,518
Reproductive/Breast Disorders – 27,738 (Pfizer) + 20,196 (AZ) + 4,211 (Moderna) + 177 (Unknown) = 52,322
CHILDREN & YOUNG PEOPLE SPECIAL REPORT
Suspected side effects reported in individuals under 18
Pfizer – 3,000,000 children (1st doses) plus 900,000 second doses resulting in 2,471 Yellow Cards
AZ – 11,600 children (1st doses) plus 10,000 second doses resulting in 248 Yellow Cards – Reporting rate 1 in 47
Moderna – 21,500 children (1st doses) and 16,000 second doses resulting in 16 Yellow cards
Brand Unspecified – 11 Yellow Cards
Total = 3,033,100 children injected
Total Yellow Cards Under 18s = 2,746
Full reports including 339 pages of specific reaction listings are here.
January 19, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, UK |
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Cardiff University published a news story on their website about a new scientific study suggesting “protective face masks make wearers look more attractive”. It was framed around experts finding a “surprising new reason to mask up”.
At the time of writing this, the study had been covered in media in six different countries, spanning print, online, broadcast, & radio — the whole spectrum of earned media. Sky News framed their coverage most positively and put forward that people previously reluctant to wear one “may change their minds” thanks to this academic discovery.
The headlines all scream in unison: face masks make you look more attractive – ‘The Science’ says so. A resounding success for the Cardiff Uni team!
Knowing that many who wear masks do so under duress, and then accounting for the significant proportion of the population who hate the very concept of them, I immediately smelt a rat. Besides which, even if you agree with their usage from a public health point-of-view, it is surely a stretch of anyone’s imagination to claim that most people find a germ-ridden mouth blanket more attractive than being exposed to a naked face? Nonetheless, that’s what the scientists were claiming.
In this weird, post-Covid world where fiction is often pushed as fact, I decided to do what any journalist worth their salt would do, and explore the veracity of such claims.
Various articles only quoted Dr Lewis directly from the press release, and it was obvious they hadn’t spoken to him. As a journalist, this immediately set alarm bells ringing for me. If they didn’t speak to the lead scientist, did they even read the study? If they didn’t read the study, how can they be sure what they are reporting is correct? What if they missed some crucial context?
Call me old fashioned but I then did what the journalists should have done, and I read the actual study.
Before even clicking onto the study, I already knew from the initial press release that only 43 participants had taken part. Had the group of 43 included women from all walks of life and parts of society, perhaps the small number would have stood up to scrutiny more robustly. So, it was genuinely bemusing to then read that every single participant was a psychology student from the same course being run by the report authors. On top of that, they were 93% white and all aged 18 to 24. No diversity in a small sample to start with, is bad news.
Beautiful Cardiff is the capital city of Mark Drakeford’s Labour-run Wales – a country which has seen and, in many cases, embraced some of the most draconian reactions to this pandemic we have seen; including wearing masks with pride, introducing scientifically illiterate vaccine passports, and even banning people from buying books from supermarkets during the 2020 lockdowns. With this in mind, it’s not beyond the realms of sensible possibility to think that psychology students logging onto their laptops – who, by the way, received “course credits as compensation” for their participation – already knew what the ‘right’ answer was before rating their first masked and unmasked face.
This feeling was confirmed pretty swiftly when I stumbled across what I would describe as the key nugget of information:
It’s little wonder they hid this line at the end of the paper, given it confirms the vast majority of the participants were essentially pro-maskers talking favourably about men in masks.
It is an indictment of the sad state of journalism today that the enthusiastic coverage of this woeful study has not excavated this nugget. One of the reasons I left the newsroom, was the slow transition from journalist to churnalist – churning out other organisations’ press releases rather than discovering your own stories. So, in many respects, I haven’t been surprised to witness what I have since March 2020.
Of course, declining journalistic standards are nothing new and have been apparent for some years. The pandemic has merely shone a light on how dangerously out of control it is, and what a devastating impact it can have on the relationship of trust that should exist between citizens and the people who are employed to disseminate news and information to serve the public interest.
The uncomfortable truth is that agenda-driven scientists sometimes try to prove a pre-determined outcome. Misinformation based on flawed data create headlines around the world. And another ugly truth? Masks don’t make you more attractive.
January 18, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, Sky News, UK |
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The UK is stepping up its “war on encryption,” reports are saying, and like in any good old war, propaganda comes first to “prepare the ground.” And a new campaign is expected to launch as early as this month.
In this case, they call it publicity, with the Home Office being behind the effort whose goal is to sway public opinion in favor of undermining the privacy of the very members of that public – using their own money from public funds, to the tune of over half a million pounds.
Meanwhile the “hired gun” is ad agency M&C Saatchi. The Rolling Stone said it had a chance to review documents thanks to a Freedom of Information request, and that what it discovered were “some shockingly manipulative tactics.”
The main target seems to be Facebook’s Messenger app, specifically, the giant company’s move to better encrypt communications of its users. The government’s narrative is old – “think of the children” – the way many politicians try to push through policies of deeper and broader restrictions that eventually end up hurting everybody.
But the UK government appears to want to wrap that “classic” message in some new advertising glitz – as it launches what the Rolling Stone calls “a publicity blitz” to undermine privacy of people’s chats.
“We have engaged M&C Saatchi to bring together the many organizations who share our concerns about the impact end-to-end encryption would have on our ability to keep children safe,” said a statement from the Home Office.
The advertising agency has reportedly gone with visualizing end-to-end encryption – which safeguards people’s security and privacy online and keeps bad actors out – as something sinister and dark. The report says that this is done by putting two actors, an adult and a child, both appearing to be on their phones, in a glass box installed in a public space, which gradually becomes black.
The idea here is that allowing law enforcement near unfettered access to people’s communications would represent the clear glass, while encryption dims it until the goings on inside the box become invisible.
The documents, a presentation to get non-profits on side, also contains a slide saying that since “most of the public” is ignorant about end-to-end encryption they can be easily swayed, while the recommendation is not to allow the campaign to turn into “a privacy vs safety debate.”
But that’s exactly what it is, advocates suggest.
“The Home Office’s scaremongering campaign is as disingenuous as it is dangerous. Without strong encryption, children are more vulnerable online than ever. Encryption protects personal safety and national security… what the government is proposing puts everyone at risk,” said Robin Wilton, a director with the Internet Society.
January 18, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, UK |
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As Nicola Sturgeon announces that the Scots may have to wear facemasks ‘for years to come’, all I can say is how glad I am that I don’t live in Scotland.
Since the new mask-wearing rules were introduced on November 30, I have refused to wear one and touch wood, fingers crossed, have got away with it.
In that time, I have been on buses, coaches, the London Underground, stayed in a hotel for three days over Christmas, been to the cinema and to the hairdresser, the beauty salon, nail bar and in many shops and supermarkets, blessedly mask-free. I have taken taxis all over the place. Only once have I been apprehended, and that was in Sainsbury’s, where a member of staff came up to me and asked: ‘Where is your mask, madam?’ I told him that I was medically exempt, and he nodded and went away.
In the hotel where I was staying, there were signs everywhere saying that masks were compulsory, and that anybody not wearing one may be reported to the authorities. Yet I did not wear one, nobody said anything and nor was I reported to the authorities.
I have also got away with not wearing a mask in a clinic where I went for hearing tests. I told the audiologist there that I didn’t believe in masks and he accepted it, although both he and the receptionist were wearing them, as were the other patients in the waiting room.
It is true that on buses I have been on the receiving end of some nasty stares, or as nasty as they can be when most of the faces and thus the expressions, of the other passengers, are hidden. It is also true that some people edge away from me as though I have got a deadly plague. My next-door neighbours, masked up to the eyeballs even when walking down the street, asked why I was not wearing a mask and I gave them the same response: ‘I am medically exempt.’ That, so far, has precluded further questioning although the truth is that I have exempted myself. I have no actual doctor’s exemption although if challenged, I have an exemption card in my wallet which I downloaded from a government site and which I can produce if demanded. So far, nobody has asked to see it.
The government website says quite plainly that if wearing a mask causes undue distress, you can exempt yourself from wearing one. In order to drive home the obvious fact that I am not wearing a mask, I make sure I am wearing bright red lipstick every time I leave the house. That way, I am making a clear statement that I am defying the rules and showing in no uncertain way that am proud to be mask-free.
We were warned that we could face on-the-spot fines of £200 if we refused to wear a mask on the London Underground. Since the end of November, I have taken the Tube many times, always maskless, and have never been confronted or asked to see proof of exemption. I decided that if I was fined, I would refuse to pay it and go to prison for my principles if it came to that. I would be a martyr for the cause! But none of the Underground staff has said a word and nor have any of the passengers. True, there are signs all over the place saying that masks are compulsory, both on trains and in stations, but I have just taken no notice.
The sad thing is that I seem to be in a minority of one. Everywhere I go, I am the only person, child or adult, who is not muzzled. It is monstrous that all secondary school pupils and children over the age of 11 have been told to wear masks in public indoor venues and on public transport. My neighbour, employed by Oxford University, says that she is required to wear a mask for work, even though most days she is the only person in the office. She also has to keep taking tests.
Actually, I am going further than not wearing a mask. I have never had a PCR or lateral flow test, not had the booster and am not going to have it, either in spite of Sir Chris Whitty telling me in the cinema that I must have it to protect myself and others. There are huge posters at bus stops and ads in every newspaper bullying me to get jabbed, but I ignore them all. And guess what? I have remained completely well, never had so much as a sniffle throughout all this so-called pandemic, while just about everybody I know who had had the jabs, the boosters, the tests and who never dares to venture out without a muzzle round their face, has had Covid or what passes for it. Most of my refusenik friends, the few I have left who are defying all the strictures, say the same.
The mask mandates in England at least are due to be reviewed on January 26 but if they are relaxed, as I expect them to be, I will place a bet here and now that the majority of people will continue to wear them and tell you that it is their choice. Such is the state of fear that governments don’t need to impose rules or threaten us with fines and imprisonment. We have become so cowed and terrified that we are imposing them on ourselves.
I just wonder how many people will be brave enough to defy the First Minister in Scotland, if she carries out her threat to make her compatriots wear masks for ever more?
January 18, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, Human rights, Scotland, UK |
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It turns out — not certain at all!
Dr Val Fraser, retired Lecturer in Teacher Education, Subject Expert for Ofqual and former OFSTED School Inspector, puts the last UK Government’s mask missive under the linguistic microscope:
What is the “material evidence” Nadhim Zahawi, Education Secretary speaks of (TalkRadio Monday 3rd January 2022) for recommending face coverings to be worn in secondary school classrooms and, more importantly, how convincing is it? The government document entitled Evidence Summary: Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the use of face coverings in education settings needs an understanding of ‘modality’ to help evaluate how robust this evidence is.
Modality is a term used in the study of grammar and linguistics to signal certainty. Verbs qualified with modal verbs suggest whether an event or a claim is possible, probable, likely or certain. The principal auxiliary modal verbs when placed on a continuum from possible to certain show this range: can, could, may, might, should, would, shall, must and will.
“Manchester United can win the league” is a hedging statement suggesting some caveats to be considered. However, “Manchester United will win the league” is a definite statement of certainty and expectation. Advertisements make heavy use of modal verbs to sell their products without making claims that leave them open to legal difficulties. ‘Wrinkles can be reduced by up to 50%’ is a possibility of smoother skin that sells the product without over-promising.
Modality may also be conveyed by the use of adverbs. The famous example of “Probably the best lager in the world” steers Carlsberg away from litigation, whilst selling its product as a high quality one – “the best” is what resonates. Other adverbs making clear possibility, obligation and emphasis are: generally, maybe, perhaps, possibly, probably, promisingly, obviously, certainly, clearly and definitely. Again the range from least to most certain shows a continuum of expectation.
A document that is succinctly entitled Evidence Summary is a bold statement: the reader would expect to see certainty of claims, anchored in a secure evidence base and/or data providing concluding proof. However, an examination of the use of language in this particular document reveals a distinct hedging when it comes to the claims being made, in this case an attempt to underpin the government’s policy decision to recommend face coverings for secondary school classrooms.
Below are examples of how the document is using modality to avoid claiming any certainty for its evidence base:
- ‘Face coverings can contribute to reducing transmission’. This is a general statement about the possibility (but not certainty) of masks helping to reduce viral spread. There are two qualifiers in that clause: one is ‘can’: the author does not want to make a definite claim; the other is ‘contribute’: there are no claims that in and of itself masking is going to achieve a positive outcome. This is an introductory comment and sets the tone for hedging, cautious claims and caveats. The same statement opens the main body of the text.
- The reader is informed that the mode of transmission of the virus can be via droplets, aerosol particles and by contact. It is curious that, two years into the science studying the virus, that ‘can’ needed to be added. A more definite statement such as ‘transmission occurs through’ would convey a more authoritative stance. Note again that possibility is being claimed not certainty. There are 17 uses of the modal verb ‘can’ revealing that this evidence submitted is peppered with a significant level of uncertainty and hedging of claims.
- Could is used nine times. An example of this is, ‘Using a different maximum weighting threshold could result in slightly different results’. This is an alarming disclaimer for the validity of the claims provided as evidence. ‘Could’ like ‘can’ distances the author from taking responsibility for a definite view or position.
- We are further informed that masks ‘may further reduce risks of longer-range airborne transmission’. The term ‘may’ also indicates a possible but not a certain effect. There are 15 uses of the term ‘may’.
- There is even less certainty in the document concerning how the Omicron variant is transmitted. We are told it might show more airborne transmission (the reason for recommending masks now). When ‘might’ is used it is indicating guesswork. The author is saying we simply don’t know and we have to signal that.
Modality and uncertainty are also conveyed through the use of adverbs as indicated above. An example is contained in this sentence: (researchers) ‘could explore expanding the time-period under study to potentially yield more precise estimates’. Potentially is another term which pulls back from providing a more assertive claim for an outcome. Moreover, this is only one of the three examples of the limitations of the evidence in that sentence: ‘could’ is used as prevaricator avoiding being drawn into a commitment to obtaining more concrete data (for the precise estimates – which in themselves, as estimates, are predictive not determined).
There are 42 uses of modal verbs and 18 uses of adverbs on the low certainty spectrum (as explained above). Why is the government presenting its findings in a tenuous and circumspect manner? Modality of language can be tracked in the methodology and findings of its ‘research’ but, more importantly, we can see the limitations of the research itself, which obliges the authors to also limit the claims they can present as evidence.
We learn from the research design that:
- To evaluate the efficacy of face masks in schools they examined attendance rates, with no compelling rationale for this perceived correlation being offered.
- The data collection period was from two separated out weeks in October 2021 which included some missing data.
- They candidly state that it is a ‘preliminary, experimental analysis, which would benefit from robust external peer review to a longer timescale’.
- They further cast doubt on their findings when they acknowledge that the results may not have any statistical significance as the differential is within a chance outcome.
- They did not isolate the variables to be sure that face coverings were the determining factor in lowering absence rates. Further they state the study did not draw data for long enough time periods and different methodologies would have yielded different results.
- The schools categorised as mask wearing ones were not a homogenous group in terms of their defined use. Some used them only for communal areas and some for classroom use too but they were not differentiated for that within the categorisation.
- Other variables such as Local Authority guidance and implementation and local rates of cases and infection were not considered.
- The raw results showed that non-masking schools had a significantly lower absence rate and it was only after modelling that a positive outcome was found. The authors concede that using different assumptions for this modelling, different “weighting thresholds”, could result in different results.
- They advise that a more robust study would go onto consider community COVID-19 case rates, regional data (LA, information on LA wider response to COVID-19, etc), other characteristics of pupils (proportion of pupils with SEND, etc) and any information on differential use of face coverings and would offer more reassurance about the validity of this evidence than they can currently provide.
- They found that absence rates in the control group (unmasked) remain lower overall than those in the treatment group (masked). This is a surprising admission towards the end of the report.
- The researchers consulted other studies. This research method would normally give more validity to the findings, in terms of the triangulation of data with their own. However, they had to acknowledge that the results from those were inconclusive, ‘mixed’ and the majority were observational studies, with only 2 RCTs, neither involving schools.
- No data was available on Omicron: the variant of the virus for which the recommendations were being brought in to address.
The qualifications and caveats above reveal the report is at best a tentative proposal, which has not been subject to the usual quality assurance procedures before publication. The research design points to an insecure hypothesis between mask wearing and attendance rates which was neither explained, tested beforehand nor validated after. The methodologies did not keep the variables stable and therefore did not isolate the variable (masks) they were expecting to be able to analyse and base the claims upon. The results did not provide a secure evidence base to form a compelling case for recommending face coverings.
With these limitations in the research study, a reader would expect to see, as indeed is clear, a report sewn together with tenuous arguments, circumspect claims and qualified results and recommendations. The only way to compose such a report is prolific use of modal verbs and adverbs as indicated above.
Yet the harms of wearing face coverings in educational settings are openly stated in the report and couched in more definite measurable claims and certainty of language:
- 80% of pupils reported that wearing a face covering made it difficult to communicate, and 55% felt wearing one made learning more difficult.
- Wearing face coverings may have physical side effects and impair face identification, verbal and non-verbal communication between teacher and learner.
- Almost all secondary leaders and teachers (94%) thought that wearing face coverings has made communication between teachers and students more difficult, with 59% saying it has made it a lot more difficult.
- Research into the effect of mask wearing on communication has found that concealing a speaker’s lips led to lower performance, lower confidence scores, and increased perceived effort on the part of the listener.
- Meta-cognitive monitoring was worse when listening in these conditions compared with listening to an unmasked talker.
- A survey of impacts on communication with mask wearing …. reported that face coverings negatively impact hearing, understanding, engagement, and feelings of connection with the speaker.
- People with hearing loss were impacted more than those without hearing loss. The inability to see facial expressions and to read lips have a major impact on speech understanding for those with hearing impairments.
- The WHO reports that “the wearing of masks by children with hearing loss or auditory problems may present learning barriers and further challenges”.
Note the more certain arguments (some with precise percentages attached) in the above for the harms of mask wearing and especially for children. There are far fewer modal verbs used and the claims are, in the main, unambiguous: ‘were impacted’, ‘negatively impact’, ‘was worse’, ‘led to’. ‘made worse’, ‘more difficult’. The evidence for the harms of face coverings is measurable, precise, unambiguous and certain and the language used for presenting the evidence base, is equally unequivocal.
It would seem that Nadhim Zahawi’s promised ‘material’ evidence for his recommendations for face coverings in secondary classrooms is as flimsy as some of the cloth masks our teenagers will need to resort to using, as they do their best to cope with the challenges of learning in 2022.
In conclusion, perhaps we should ponder on the one piece of data expressed as a precise statistic, which might be driving this new guidance, namely: ‘71% of UNISON support staff thought face coverings in schools were an important safety measure’. If our Education Secretary has sacrificed children’s learning and social communication opportunities in schools, to appease Trade Unions, he will have to provide much more compelling evidence that schools are in any way unsafe for children or staff than he currently has. He has stiff opposition in the form of 150 comparative studies, peer reviewed with robust research, which come to the very definite and certain conclusion that, “to date, the evidence has been stable and clear that masks do not work to control the virus”. There is not a whisper of modality in that concluding statement either.
January 18, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, UK |
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WHEN the public awakens to the great betrayal of both health and science surrounding the handling of Covid, it will be important not to let anger run riot. After all, the mistakes have taken place on a global scale, even leading a nation such as Australia, which we previously thought of as civilised and sensible, to behave like a despotic banana republic both towards its own citizens and in ill-treating unvaccinated tennis players wanting to enter the country.
But that doesn’t mean we should hold back in our efforts to understand and deal with this disastrous aberration in human consciousness, whose dire consequences have been spelled out comprehensively by public health specialist Dr Alan Mordue.
One root of the global nature of the crisis, now more and more coming to light, is the extraordinary power wielded by a tiny group of scientists to dictate World Health Organisation (WHO) policy, from which the rest of the world took its lead.
Email disclosures show not only a deliberate plot to hide the laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2, making it out to have jumped naturally from bats into humans, but how a WHO inquiry was rigged to reach the same conclusion.
This issue has immense implications. If the virus really did make a random ‘jump’ across species, we could be at risk of similar future events. Pleas to provide billions in public funds for research and development of more drugs and vaccines could be justified to help prepare for such threats to global health security.
Uncertainty arising from such a freak of nature would also justifiably have been used to argue for at least temporary measures of draconian control, to protect health services until the true threat could be assessed.
If on the other hand the virus was a laboratory escapee resulting from ‘gain-of function’ research by American and Chinese scientists – now as good as proven – would governments and the public have been so ready to trust the scientists with even more money and power? Or ‘trust the science’, as the Prime Minister kept telling us?
Jeremy Farrar, boss of the UK’s Wellcome Trust, wrote to US health chiefs Francis Collins and Tony Fauci on February 5, 2020 – almost two years ago, just after WHO had declared Covid a global health emergency – to explain how the WHO inquiry would be staffed to support the animal origin theory.
A few days earlier, Farrar had emailed Fauci and Patrick Vallance, the UK Government’s chief scientific adviser, copying in six others including Paul Schreier, Wellcome’s chief operating officer, about a teleconference called to discuss the virus’s provenance. His email said: ‘Information and discussion is shared in total confidence and not to be shared until agreement on next steps.’
That followed a late-night warning by immunologist Kristian Anderson of the Scripps research Institute in California that the virus had features which might make it look as if it had been genetically engineered in a laboratory. Anderson sent that email to Fauci on the evening of January 31, the day WHO announced an emergency, copying in only one other person – Jeremy Farrar.
As I reported last week, despite knowing a laboratory origin was likely, the group was anxious not to weaken confidence in science by allowing that possibility to reach the public. Dr Francis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health at the time, told Farrar: ‘I share your view that a swift convening of experts in a confidence-inspiring framework is needed or the voicers of conspiracy will quickly dominate, doing great potential harm to science and international harmony.’
So to protect the good name of science, the group chose a strategy that was the opposite of scientific, in that it suppressed rather than encouraged open investigation and rational discussion of evidence.
But did the motives run deeper than that?
Robert Kennedy Jr, an American lawyer and environmental activist, made the case in a recent book that a web of corruption has been polluting medical science internationally for decades, fuelled by massive misuse of public funds. As director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci dispenses more than $6billion a year in taxpayer funds for research, and Kennedy says he uses this to ruin, advance or reward the careers and institutions of thousands of doctors and scientists.
As part of what Kennedy calls a ‘vaccines cartel’, Fauci also partners Bill Gates, who uses tax-deductible dollars to fund research from which the investment arm of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gains massively – including a big stake in Pfizer.
Gates has huge influence over WHO as its second-biggest funder after the US administration. That influence also extends into the heart of the British medical and scientific establishment. It includes working closely with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the British pharmaceutical giant, for which Vallance was previously a top executive.
The Gates foundation has also given more than $250million to media companies around the world, most of whom have given unquestioning support to the Covid vaccine rollout and discriminatory, fear-inducing policies aimed at encouraging its take-up, despite its experimental nature.
Media beneficiaries in the UK include the BBC, Guardian and Financial Times. Incredibly, the UK’s Medicine & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which approved the Covid jabs – even for children – has also received several million pounds.
A similar strategy to Gates’s has enriched and empowered Farrar’s Wellcome Trust, which distributes £1billion annually for global health research. It has an investment portfolio of nearly £30billion, growing at about 12 per cent per annum over the past decade.
Farrar was a senior member of Sage, the UK Government’s advisory body on Covid, until last October, and is a founding member of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which gave $1billion to help Covid vaccine development.
The Wellcome Trust’s website claims to offer ‘a collection of quick and simple resources on how Covid-19 vaccines work, how we know they’re safe, and how they can be distributed to everyone around the world’.
In March last year, the British Medical Journal reported that the trust stood to gain financially from the pandemic through its investments, raising questions about transparency and accountability. A trust spokesman disputed this, saying they ‘would never make decisions or advise others about the pandemic response for a reason other than public health’.
But according to Mordue, a retired consultant in public health medicine, the public’s health has suffered immensely from the policies the UK pursued. He mourns the lack of relevant expertise among government and media spokesmen; the ‘inadequate and inaccurate’ case definition; the false ‘worst-case’ scenarios produced by modellers; the failure to protect the most vulnerable; the lack of cost-benefit analysis that would have kept society, the education system and the economy functioning while protecting the most vulnerable; and the failure to follow the principle ‘first do no harm’ in the mass rollout of an experimental vaccine. He also deplores the way a Sage sub-group deliberately sought to heighten fear and alarm as a means of driving compliance with Covid measures.
‘What has happened amounts to a betrayal of the specialty of public health and all the principles and values it used to stand for, and a betrayal of the health of the population,’ he writes.
‘What mystifies me is why my former colleagues and the UK professional body charged with developing and maintaining standards in the public health specialty, namely the Faculty of Public Health, have been so quiet through the whole of this pandemic.’
Vallance’s involvement in those crucial early decisions on how SARS-CoV-2 was to be handled, with their subsequent impact on public health decisions globally, raises questions about his fitness to continue in such a vital role as chief scientific officer for the UK.
He was revealed by the Telegraph back in in 2020 to have a £600,000 shareholding in GSK, having already cashed in more than £5million worth of shares received during his tenure at GSK as president of research and development. Claims of a conflict of interest, because of GSK’s own Covid drug and vaccine research and development, were denied by Matt Hancock, Health Secretary at the time.
Leaving aside his financial interest and affiliation to Big Pharma, it was his duty to offer rigorously objective scientific advice to the Government at a time of such crisis. Did that happen? That’s a central question that the forthcoming public inquiry into the pandemic, announced last month, will need to answer.
January 18, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, UK, WHO |
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PARENTS of children in the 12-17 age group want government officials to release real-time safety data for Covid vaccines. One mother is so concerned about the possibility that her three children could suffer serious adverse events that she asked the High Court on their behalf to force full public disclosure.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) admit they hold the figures but have not revealed them publicly, so last Thursday parent EF, who cannot be named for legal reasons, put her concerns to Mr Justice Jonathan Swift and asked him to direct the ONS to release the data. Her request was denied.
She said: ‘I’m not surprised. I feel as though the judge had already made up his mind.’
To those of us in court, it certainly felt as though he had and that no one dared question Health Secretary Sajid Javid’s decisions.
Television and radio presenter Beverley Turner, who helped raise over £100,000 to fund the action and who has been vilified for asking questions about the vaccine’s safety, was also there. She said: ‘It felt that the judge had already decided the outcome. He was hostile to the plaintiffs and convivial to the defendants.
‘All we’re doing is fighting for transparency and for that, we got a hostile response.’
It is known that Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA Covid vaccines can cause the inflammatory heart conditions myocarditis and pericarditis, mostly in young males, while the Oxford/AstraZeneca can cause blood clots and strokes. We do not know to what extent, and whether children have died or been permanently disabled as the result of a Covid vaccination.
EF’s children AB and CD applied to the courts last September to halt the vaccine rollout for 12-17-year-olds and asked for a judicial review. They say they need the ONS figures to support an appeal as the application was denied.
Their mother, who is their ‘litigation friend’ EF said: ‘The court was told that only two children without diagnosed underlying conditions have died of Covid so far. Clearly Covid is not a problem for young people but the vaccine may be. All we want is honest disclosure of the figures so that parents can make an informed decision. None of us are anti-vaccine but we are concerned by the lack of safety data for Covid jabs.
‘We know the mRNA vaccines are experimental and that they are being offered under emergency use. We also know that the trials do not officially finish until 2023.
‘Many parents do not want their children to be guinea pigs.’
After reviewing the evidence, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommended against vaccinating 12-15-year-olds, but were overridden by the UK’s four chief medical officers.
Up to December 22, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), who assess the safety of new drugs, had received 2,546 reports of adverse events, likely to be 10 per cent of the true total, for under 18s via their Yellow Card self-reporting scheme, but give details only about heart inflammation.
A statement said: ‘As of November 17, 2021, there have been 432 reports of myocarditis and 332 reports of pericarditis following the use of the Pfizer vaccine. There have been 101 reports of myocarditis and 57 reports of pericarditis following the use of the Moderna vaccine. This is a recognised potential risk with the Covid-19 Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccine and Covid-19 Vaccine Moderna and the MHRA is closely monitoring these events.’
We know that 2.9million children have received first doses of Pfizer and 20,550 have had first doses of Moderna, while 11,600 children have received first doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca’s vaccine (though it is no longer recommended for the under 40s because that age group is more susceptible to potentially fatal blood clots). Nearly a million under 18s have received second shots.
The action was brought by solicitor Stephen Jackson of the firm Jackson Osborne and argued by barrister Francis Hoar, who endured constant interruption from Mr Justic Swift. He presented evidence to the court from consultant pathologist Dr Clare Craig.
Dr Craig said that available ONS figures relating to the number of deaths in the 15-19-year-old age group showed ‘a trend of excess non-Covid deaths in boys of that age which exceeded deaths for previous years.’
From May 1 2021 to December 30 2021, 402 male deaths were recorded, 34.6 per cent above the five-year average between 2015 and 2019. The number for females for the same period was 163, a decrease compared with the five-year average of 175.
Barrister Heather Emmerson, representing the ONS, who did not incur the wrath of Mr Justice Swift, said: ‘We do not accept a significant increase in deaths of boys compared with previous years. This is because it is statistically difficult to calculate a mean mortality rate.’
She did however accept ‘that there is a marginal increase in mortality for that period, but the figures should be treated with caution. The differences are sufficiently small that they could be caused by a delay in the registration of the death.’
Health statistician for the ONS Dr Vahé Nafilyan said in a statement that they had only 62 per cent of the data requested as 38 per cent of deaths had yet to be registered. Potentially, the mortality margin could increase by as much as 38 per cent or decrease by the same amount or somewhere in between.
An inquest is required when a coroner believes a death was due to something other than natural causes. The death cannot be registered until the coroner has reviewed the post-mortem and other evidence and has decided the cause. There is a 12-month delay for inquests currently.
Ms Emmerson said she was not confident that if the ONS released the available data the recipients would interpret it correctly – a statement the plaintiffs found patronising. ‘We have to be extremely careful about this data and the conclusions that may be drawn,’ she told the court.
She was also concerned that although data would be anonymous with no names, dates of birth or regions released, the children’s identities could be discovered, citing newspaper reports of sudden child deaths which could be linked to the data.
Mr Justice Swift said: ‘Correlation does not equal causation and the ONS information is not necessary to decide that claim.’
None of this helps parents who are also concerned that by asking reasonable questions they are being labelled as antivax. Mother of three Bev Turner said: ‘I’d never heard the term before 2021.
‘All parents want is the latest safety data that is simply not available so we do not know if the vaccines could cause neurological problems, fertility issues or other physiological problems.’
Parent EF, who has two girls aged 13 and 16 eligible for vaccination, and a son aged seven, currently too young to receive the jab, says that because of this uncertainty her children are anxious about receiving it.
‘None of them want to take the vaccine,’ she said, ‘and one of them has a friend who fainted immediately after receiving the vaccine and was then off school for two weeks. We don’t know any details other than that, but she was clearly unwell otherwise she would have been at school.
‘We have no information. They can’t tell us if the jabs cause cancer or blindness and until we know, how can we make a properly informed decision?’
January 17, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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