The arrest of Piers Corbyn is yet another sign of the intolerance of dissent and devaluing of free speech in the modern UK. Neither being tasteless nor being wrong is a police matter. Furthermore the attempt to distort this into a question of anti-semitism is ludicrous. The clear import of the leaflet involved is that Auschwitz was an instrument of mass murder, and so is the covid vaccine. There is no way of reading this that makes out Corbyn to be denying Auschwitz or promoting it as a good thing. That the Auschwitz comparison is tasteless as well as simply wrong is a view I would share; but neither is a crime, and I perfectly accept other people may view it as neither tasteless nor wrong.
The intrusion of the state into the legitimate expression of dissenting views is becoming commonplace. The hatred directed at Piers’ brother explains something of the glee that swept both social and mainstream media at Piers’ arrest, as does another chance to contrive Corbyn and anti-semitism into the same sentence. However the incident betrays the very real shift in society towards intolerance of non-mainstream views. It is only the vigilance of citizens which will ever limit the power of the state, and it is therefore no surprise that in the age of cancel culture the state stamps down on dissenting opinion.
I leave aside the question of Piers Corbyn’s connection to the leaflet and cartoon or not as irrelevant to my argument here, though of course it is relevant to his legal position; there is no reason for the leaflet to be illegal anyway.
I do not think that anybody will ever put the argument for free speech better than the great John Stuart Mill:
First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.
Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions, that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.
[Despite a lifetime of studying Mill, it was only in researching Sikunder Burnes that I discovered that when John Stuart’s father James left Montrose for London he anglicised the family name from Milne to Mill. John Stuart and Burnes became friends in the East India Company, as had been their fathers in Montrose.]
As to this particular opinion of Piers Corbyn, I have no qualification that makes my view any more authoritative than yours. But it seems to me probable that the massive advances in knowledge of how vaccines work within the body at the level both of incredibly small structures and of atoms, better enable theoretical constructs to underpin the discoveries of the vaccine testing process, and thus vaccine safety can indeed be established sooner than in earlier years, when the testing of empirical effects of a vaccine proved efficacy and safety or otherwise, without knowledge of precise mechanisms being entirely essential to the process. I shall myself take the vaccine when offered and urge everybody else to do so, despite myself tending to the view that the risk of death from covid-19, other than to clearly defined vulnerable groups, is extremely small. The risk to those vulnerable groups is acute, so for their sake I hope everybody vaccinates.
I might expand into my general view of vaccines. Being of an age where I can recall people only slightly older than myself living lives in forms twisted by polio, I have always regarded “anti-vaxxers” as deeply misguided. Any vaccine of course carries an inherent risk, as does any instance of putting anything at all in the human body. But for all established vaccines, those risks are very small. In fact, I view those who do not take vaccinations as extremely selfish, because while refusing the vaccination because of a very small risk to themselves, they still benefit from the herd immunity created by everybody else who has taken that tiny risk. I therefore view anti-vaccination as an immoral position; with the caveat that not everything that in my view, or even the state’s view, is immoral should be illegal. We come back again to the right to be different, to the fact that neither the state nor I are infallible judges of personal morality, and that the arm of the state is already too far extended.
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You seem to think that the “vaccine”, which isn’t a vaccine in the usual sense of the word but a gene manipulation, confers immunity. This is not claimed to be the case by the manufacturers or even the state. It is only claimed to alleviate symptoms. Furthermore the manufacturers state that their products are still under test, and won’t complete until October 2022. Your comments about “selfishness” are misguided.
For a start there a now many vaccines, so to talk about “the” vaccine is meaningless. However, they all act by introducing a non infectious substance into the body which elicits a reaction by the immune system which primes it to react swiftly when the actual virus is present. This has always been how vaccines have worked.
If there are a large number of antibodies produced (which they all do), it will confer immunity. However, scientists, unlike politicians are very cautious with their claims, and wait for evidence before asserting statements. As you may recall a year ago the WHO hesitated to announce that there was human to human transmission until it was proven, which made many people critical of them.
Glad to see that you acknowledge that the “scientists” are still awaiting evidence which was rather the point of my post.
Glad to see that you make Craig’s point for him, viz. freedom of speech allows you to spout nonsense and make misleading claims based on the partial and highly selective misuse of what scientists say and what the range of vaccines does.
You don’t say what the misleading claims I make are?
Ian, after many, many hours of reading about the COVID gene manipulation ‘vaccines’, I agree with Yossi (except that I believe the trials will not be completed until 2023). I am curious to see the evidence you are relying on to accuse Yossi of ‘spout[ing] nonsense’.
Ian, your comment does not pass muster.
“…freedom of speech allows you to spout nonsense and make misleading claims…”
Here you launch an unpleasantly personal ad hominem attack, without even trying to address the facts of the matter or Yossi’s points.
“…based on the partial and highly selective misuse of what scientists say and what the range of vaccines does”.
And here you continue in a similar vein, complaining about what Yossi says but without giving the slightest idea of what you think he says that is wrong – or why.
I have reached the painful conclusion that any comment including the word “spout” (unless dealing with water movement) can be ignored. It’s a sure sign of someone using vulgar abuse to avoid facts or logic.
Amazing isn’t it, how the usual conspiracists make assertions without evidence, and then get all shirty when somebody else refuses to believe their internet-derived claims. I am not aware that any of you have any expertise on the subject, other than avidly reading social media which magnifies claims of dubious provenance. I am not an expert either, but I do not have a paranoid fear of evidence-based science, or those who practice it.
Just for the record, some actual date not culled from Anon sites:
“The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has released a document revealing that just three people for every 1,000 vaccinated reported a suspected side effect after receiving either the Pfizer/BioNTech or the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab between 9 December 2020 to 24 January 2021.”
Most of these are extremely mild.
“In total 22,820 suspected side effects were reported among 6.9m vaccinations given – the majority of which were first doses. Most of these reports involved mild events, such as a sore arm, muscle pain, headache, chills or fever – side effects that are often seen with other vaccines and were short-lived. Adverse reactions, it appeared, were more common among younger individuals – as seen in clinical trials.”
There were some deaths
“107 had been reported to have died shortly after vaccination with the Pfizer/BioNTech jab, and 34 reports for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. For a further two deaths it was unclear which vaccine had been given. However most of these reports related to elderly individuals or those with underlying health conditions.
“Review of individual reports and patterns of reporting does not suggest the vaccine played a role in the death,” the report states.”
So, no evidence whatsoever of the doom mongering claims and social media derived expertise, or the home schooled medical experts. Although, of course, you will deny the facts in this report and mount some conspiracy defences.
Yossi, you are correct, none of the vaccine manufacturers have stated that their vaccine confers immunity. There is a reason for that. To conduct a double blinded randomised control trial in sufficient numbers would have required many hundreds of thousands of participants in such a trial and taken a long time to culminate in a concluson. We don’t have the luxury of time.
Sars-Cov-2 is killing people right now In hundreds of thousands globally. People are dying because of this virus. In case you hadn’t noticed the all deaths figures for 2020 jumped 13% over the 2019 figures (which include the excess winter deaths) and almost the same margin over the five year average. At what level of excess deaths would you expect your government to start to do something about it?
The evidence from Israel who have vaccinated the most per capita and have a very good integrated IT system collating outcomes shows that those who have received both vaccine doses are not suffering serious disease and not requiring hospitalisation is encouraging. If it doesn’t confer immunity, that at least helps us to deal with this deadly virus by reducing the demand on healthcare services.
“a gene manipulation”
Please explain how this works. How does mRNA insert itself into a gene? Otherwise I call it bullshit.
“Furthermore the manufacturers state that their products are still under test, and won’t complete until October 2022.”
Indeed, would you rather that they just abandoned follow up of those in the trials that have been conducted. I’ll bet that the relevant companies would readily agree because it costs them money to do so.
The mRNA concept could prove to be a valuable tool in the hands of medicine. Unfortunately the experience so far in its development process has thrown up many worrying failures. Lets hope Mr Corbyn is wrong, but given the record of mismanagement regarding the Pandemic so far, it would not be out of place to harbour doubts about a vaccine that has had an extremely short period of development and testing.
The vaccine promise has by any measure become a Deus ex Machina.
“The mRNA concept could prove to be a valuable tool in the hands of medicine”.
I quite agree. What a pity that it has fallen into the hands of unscrupulous, callous, money-grubbing businessmen – and the politicians they have paid off.
Piers Corbyn is also a climate denier, quoted with approval by one Boris Johnson in his Telegraph columns. That is about the strength of his intellect and understanding of science.
Read the piece again, especially the quote that mentions parts of unwelcome speech that may be correct.
I have no idea if Piers Corbyn is either a prophet or a total nutter. You on the other hand must have what amounts to the inside track on certainty. Or is it just that Corbyn espouses topics upon which you would rather there was no debate ?
It’s unfortunate that any debate regarding the vaccines has been forced to the extremes, there is much to ponder in respect of both their efficacy and potential for unexpected results.
He was educated at Imperial College, and was also BTW elected president of the students’ union at the same time I was there so at least at the time his “strength of intellect and understanding of science” probably wasn’t totally absent. Craig’s point in this article is not that Piers is right but that he has the right to make express his opinion. His work on climate change, or lack of, is argued on his web site and his company is specialised in long term weather forecasting, he helped the Miners’ Union choose the best cold period on which to launch their strike for example.
Study Type : Interventional (Clinical Trial)
Estimated Enrollment : 43998 participants
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Triple (Participant, Care Provider, Investigator)
Primary Purpose: Prevention
Official Title: A PHASE 1/2/3, PLACEBO-CONTROLLED, RANDOMIZED, OBSERVER-BLIND, DOSE-FINDING STUDY TO EVALUATE THE SAFETY, TOLERABILITY, IMMUNOGENICITY, AND EFFICACY OF SARS-COV-2 RNA VACCINE CANDIDATES AGAINST COVID-19 IN HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS
Actual Study Start Date : April 29, 2020
Estimated Primary Completion Date : August 3, 2021
Estimated Study Completion Date : January 31, 2023
Source http://www.clinicaltrials.gov
Yossi,
For reasons that are a) too tedious for me to rehearse here and b) will make no difference to one with such certainty borne of profound ignorance, I will confine myself to saying you could not be more wrong about these new vaccines, and the acceptable (but not infallible) approval procedures.
I write as a retired academic biochemist (PhD Molecular Pathology).
I will be taking the vaccine – as members of my family already have – just as soon as I am summoned to receive it.
But I agree entirely with Craig’s view – just so long as those who are against vaccines can provide scientific evidence and reasoning for their arguments. Mindless, ignorant assertions are NOT evidence.
Dr O’Dowd, I would like to see what reasons you can offer for accepting a vaccine (or “vaccine”) that has mysteriously been fully tested and approved in about a tenth of the minimum time normally required.
You should study some modern scientific papers which explain why speeding up vaccine trials has been made possible by newer technologies and the obvious urgency of the situation. Comparing them to trials from twenty years ago is irrelevant.
Ian, your reply is hot air. If you provide any solid facts, I will be happy to look at them.
1. Which “modern scientific papers”? Tens of thousands are published every year. Please cite those you refer to.
2. What “newer technologies”? Either list them, or better still provide links to descriptions of them – and why they permit this astonishing acceleration of vaccine testing.
Ian,
I would like to know what accelerated testing procedures have shown that a 12-week gap betweeen the first and second doses is “efficacious”, or what testing, accelereated or otherwise, has shown that giving a first dose of Oxford followed by a second dose of Pfizer is even safe; neither vaccine has been publicly available since the beginning of this year.
BTW, I don’t stick “Dr” on the front of my handle, because I’m not a doctor. I think your remarks would be more credible if you let them stand on their merits, without your appeal to authority, even if you are a doctor (after all, you could be a doctor of middle-high-german literature).
Dr Vernon Coleman makes a number of interesting points – including that anyone who administers one of the new “vaccines” without warning that it is part of an experiment is, legally, a war criminal.
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/doctors-and-nurses-giving-the-covid-19-vaccine-will-be-tried-as-war-criminals_7tNEBnZogbdlEXu.html
Haha, that made me laugh. Thanks.
So you are claiming to be a psychopath?
Anyone administering the vaccine should point out that it is TEMPORARILY licenced, that long term follow up has not been completed (because not enough time has elapsed as yet), that it reduces the numbers of symptomatic covid but is not yet known whether if can confer immunity and/or if it does, for how long, or whether it reduces transmissability. They should also point out that there is good evidence from Israel now that it indeed reduces serious disease. Why Israel? Because they have vaccinated the most per capita and have a very integrated health care IT system and therefore up to date information.
War criminal is nonsense and is just as stupid a moniker as arresting Piers Corbyn is stupid.
Oh, for goodness’ sake. So you’re a war-crimes lawyer?
Let’s go through that:
I certainly hope that the next time I consult my GP, his advice won’t be weighted by his fear of being pursued by the cops for giving advice that the government considers “criminal”.
So I’m a bit stuck to find so much as a single word of your short comment that isn’t vacuous (“vaxxuous”?) balls.
“which isn’t a vaccine in the usual sense of the word”
What, Yossi, is the usual sense of the word “vaccine”? Please do enlighten me.
Whilst you are at it explain to me how this or any other vaccine executes gene manipulation.
I am willing to bet you cannot.
Craig, if you believe that people should choose to get vaccinated (to protect others as well as themselves) and you also advocate free speech, do you therefore believe that antivaxxers have a right to urge people not to take the vaccine, based on anti-vaxxer propaganda and misinformation? Is that appropriate free speech?
Do the same rights apply to encouraging people to take risks? What about the right to coax children to run out into motorway traffic, to escape a big scary bogeyman? Don’t we have a greater responsibility to prevent someone doing that kind of thing?
I find it difficult to take people who use the term “antivaxxer” seriously. Ditto Covidiot, Covidian etc. I think it should be possible on a forum like this to discuss without using childish name calling. In my experience, merely asking questions nowadays provokes insults and accusations of conspiracy theory. I am an old man and have taking many vaccines over the years. I believe in informed consent when taking any medication. I have reservations about a vaccine which is being used to alleviate symptoms, not convey immunity, and which by the manufacturers own literature is not due to complete testing until October 2022. I also find it difficult to take people seriously who equate urging children to run out into motorway traffic with people urging people not to take the vaccine. I would never urge anyone to take or not take anything. Give people verifiable facts and let them make up their own mind.
I think you misconstrue what I mean by “anti-vaxxer”, Yossi. I was referring to the people who spread false claims that have been comprehensively debunked by relevant experts. I’m not referring to people who are wary of new treatments. It’s OK for folk to have personal reservations if they’re unsure of the facts. The solution would be to look up relevant information from reliable sources, or ask someone knowledgeable whose advice you trust. However, it’s important that people who are unsure of the facts (or misunderstand them) don’t urge others not to get vaccinated. It would be even worse to spread anti-vaccination claims picked up from a dubious website. In summary, people can make their own personal decisions but the circulation of public health advice is best left to the relevant experts.
“it’s important that people who are unsure of the facts (or misunderstand them) don’t urge others not to get vaccinated.” Are you so sure of the facts or are you trusting the “relevant experts”? You appear to be so sure of the facts that you urge others to get vaccinated? If you are so sure I’m interested to know what you response is to the facts that the manufacturers do not claim that the vaccine conveys immunity, and that the completion dates for the first trials were Oct 2022 to Jan 2023.
Oh, you are so sure of ‘your’ facts, while ignoring others. Sometimes the internet as a medium is utter bunk.
That has already been answered Yossi. The follow up of people who received the vaccine and the control group will continue for up to two years. As far as I am aware noone yet has the ability to jump forwards in time.
Given that we are in the midst of a pandemic, some “balance of probabilities” decisions had to be made. Under ordinary circumstances the urgency of these decisions would not be present.
I guess from your postings that you have never had to make such decisions based on a balance of probabilities. Lucky you.
Dawg, yes there is an absolute mountain of claims regarding the vaccines out there that amount to nothing more than Total Bollocks, with a good dose of lunacy thrown in.
Unfortunately there are also a few major worries concerning the potential for mRNA vaccines to go wrong in a very serious way. Rather than trusting the ‘Experts’ it may well be an idea to do ones own due diligence. Especially if one is old enough to remember Meldrum’s explicit assurance on primetime TV that BSE would not cross over into humanity. It might also be worth considering that the ‘Experts’ involved in that shambles have received the protection of official secrecy, which also serves to keep us in dark about how close of a near miss the whole BSE/CJD actually was.
Yossi
” I have reservations about a vaccine which is being used to alleviate symptoms,..”
You have repeated this statement twice. I would like you to explain why you think this is the case? In fact that may have been the ‘cautious’ view expressed in September but we now know a bit more about vaccines, that there is evidence that they reduce the transmission of the disease
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/study-finds-covid19-vaccine-may-reduce-virus-transmission-transmission-astrazeneca-anthony-fauci-covid19-vaccine-b1797203.html
In any case this concept of alleviating symptoms only is a misconception. Even if the vaccine did not reduce transmission, reducing severe illness and death is a major bonus point. The caution was rightly expressed at the start because there was a risk of those taking the vaccine in believing that they are then free to not observe all the precautions to reduce virus transmission.
Regarding anti-vaxxers: yes there are true antivaxxers who have no scientific base for their allegations and there are those who are vaccine hesitant, maybe rightly so, who seek more clarifications and reassurances. The first is harmful, the second quite reasonable.
The reason I have reservations about the vaccine is because many people appear to believe that it confers immunity. Craig certainly seems to believe this – hence his comments about selfishness. I have reservations because the manufacturers don’t claim immunity, and also stated that Oct 2022 was the end date for the first trial. Furthermore the NHS vaccination guide for older adults that I recently received on page 11 says “We do not yet know whether it will stop you from catching or passing on the virus”.
I read the Indie article you kindly provided a link to. It reports that the experts are optimistic and use words like hope, believe, and may, and confirms that no peer review has taken place. I’m sure that we do now know a bit more about vaccines, but there is not yet any evidence that they reduce the transmission of the disease
If the vaccine is shown to reduce severe illness and death it would be a major bonus but there is again no evidence of this fact yet.
As I have said elsewhere I am not antivax. I have received many vaccines in the course of my life and may well decide to have this one in the future if I am convinced of its efficacy and safety. I find the term antivaxxer childish and unhelpful when used between adults trying to have a reasonable debate.
Yossi
You are obviously not against vaccines and I understand your resentment about the expression Antivaxxers, which sadly is sometimes used indiscriminately. We all need reassurances about something using new technology. The vaccine trial process has been accelerated because of the urgency of the situation, the need to control the virus and return the economy into a functional one, something that cannot be achieved with the levels of infection we were seeing at the height of the second wave and which is still too high despite lockdown which cannot be implemented forever. It is a question of balance of benefit versus possible harm. So far there has not been any serious effects with vaccination and preliminary evidence shows benefit:
“Q: How well does Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine prevent COVID-19?
A: The data to support the EUA include an analysis of 28,207 participants in the ongoing randomized, placebo-controlled U.S. study who did not have evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection prior to the first dose of vaccine. Among these participants, 14,134 received the vaccine and 14,073 received placebo. The vaccine was 94.1% effective in preventing COVID-19 disease among these clinical trial participants with 11 cases of COVID-19 in the vaccine group and 185 cases in the placebo group. At the time of the analysis of these 196 COVID-19 cases, 0 in the vaccine group and 30 in the placebo group were classified as severe. One severe case in the vaccine group was identified after the analysis (and not included among the 196 cases) and was awaiting confirmation at the time the FDA review was conducted.”
The above is an extract from the FDA assessment:
https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/mcm-legal-regulatory-and-policy-framework/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-frequently-asked-questions
As to your question about the trials being ongoing until 2022, it is normal for new drugs and vaccines to undergo what is called post-marketing surveillance and extends for a while. There is nothing unusual in this.
Thanks, SA, for some clarity and reason in this midden of wild, misleading claims.
The completion of testing is follow up Yossi. They have committed to follow up for 2 years as far as I recall. As two years have not yet passed then how could they have completed? However, the short-term safety data is comparable to other vaccines and the long-term data is likely to be so also. (Note: I say “likely” not definitively.)
The dilemma is perfectly obvious. Do they make the call that the current Sars-Cov-2 situation is sufficiently serious to warrant using a vaccine that has not yet completed long-term follow-up (because they thankfully can’t make time flow faster) or do they sit on their hands and risk continued fatalities or continued and/or further lockdowns or even worse variants of Sars-Cov-2. Covid-19 killed more people in 2020 than any other cause of death.
It is a tough call. You can refuse to have the vaccine. It isn’t mandatory.
You can refuse to have the vaccine. It isn’t mandatory.
Wrong, it will be as good as compulsory, just wait and see the kind of restrictions they will heap upon anyone refusing the jab.
It’s not wrong, it isn’t mandatory. I will wait and see if government makes vaccination against Sars-Cov-2 a requirement for anything and judge that on its merits.
Allow me to ask you a question. Do you think government is justified in requiring surgeons to have a HIV or Hep B test before starting work? And another question. Do you think that employers recruiting a new employee who might have access to vulnerable people or children should be mandated to check if that recruit has a record of abusing said groups?
I ask the question on the principle not the implementation as it currently exists.
Sorry but all the urging I have seen is on the side of telling people its their duty to stick this stuff inside them, despite all the lack of the usually mandatory years of trials for such a new technology.
On the side that you label ‘anti-vaxxer’, all I see is an attempt to inform. Yes, you may well decide it’s misinform, but still just an attempt to spread information. I will happily tell anyone my reasons for not wanting this, but if they wanna be part of this insane experiment, well, have at it.
But the tightening twin prongs of state coercion and highly steered social pressure to conform and take it won’t worry you at all. Informed consent is just a fusty old tradition that has no place in the modern world, right?
If that last question is posed to me, then I think you’ve gone off the tracks. Informed consent is a vital principle of liberal society. People should definitely get well informed. It’s mis-informed consent (or dissent) that’s the danger. People are subjected to both on the internet, and it’s important they learn to tell them apart.
“On the side that you label ‘anti-vaxxer’, all I see is an attempt to inform. Yes, you may well decide it’s misinform, but still just an attempt to spread information.”
Well, that’s the issue isn’t it? On the side I label ‘anti-vaxxer’, I see some ridiculous claims (e.g. there’s no such thing as viruses, or the SARS-CoV-2 virome hasn’t been identified yet) which are easily refuted by a simple web search. The more of these myths that accrue, the more they mutually reinforce. I don’t think anyone should spread ideas if they haven’t checked to see whether they’ve been debunked, or even considered what the counter-argument might be. That’s part of the normal process of science. If the scientists don’t self-criticise properly before they submit for publication, there will be other experts to identify the mistakes in peer review. You don’t get that assurance with amateur websites.
“It’s mis-informed consent (or dissent) that’s the danger”
What about dissent as to what informed-consent is?
Again, check it out with the experts and see what they say. If you’re not satisfied with the answers, do some more research (remembering that if you end up dissenting, you also need to explain why the experts are wrong). If that throws up too many contradictions, then delve into philosophy and epistemology to help you establish what to believe. Skepticism is a good starting point, but it needs to stay focused and self-critical.
My comment about informed consent was indeed aimed at you, Dawg.
I’m not sure why but your definition of consent and mine seem to differ.
Surely, consent means that you agree with free will, yet you seem to be arguing that you must be obliged to document and prove reasons for failing to provide that consent, with comments such as “remembering that if you end up dissenting, you also need to explain why the experts are wrong”
Absolutely antithesis to free society. If someone wants to pump chemicals into me, they need to convince me why I should allow them. I have ZERO obligation to provide reasons why I refuse it.
I don’t think it’s our definition of consent that differs – consent does indeed imply free choice (as in uncoerced) – but you seem to be construing what I meant by “explain” in a more external public sense than intended. I meant that you need to explain the conflict with expert opinion to yourself when you make the decision (otherwise it isn’t sufficiently well-informed). You don’t have to explain your choice to others (in fact if you don’t have any public responsibilities, you’re best keeping it to yourself anyway!) You arguably have a moral obligation to explain it to yourself, but it’s your choice. You certainly don’t need to “document” your reasons. (I think you were exaggerating my position for rhetorical effect!)
Having a good sense of justification for your decision and its wider implications (both practical and epistemological) is not the antithesis to a free society. In fact, it could be argued that more considered decisions would contribute to a better free society, because the decisions are better informed and therefore there would be more informed consent. I hope it’s clearer this time.
“Informed consent is just a fusty old tradition that has no place in the modern world, right?”
Informed consent is definitely not a tradition and has come about due to much litigation. It is a relatively new concept in medicine and didn’t exist in practice in the 1990’s. Informed consent is nowhere to be seen in any other area and here I particularly refer to financial contracts. It is however good to see that you have such an expectation and you ought to continue to insist on that expectation.
The Sars-Cov-2 “consent form” (as published on gov site) is shit, I agree. It isn’t anywhere near the standards for informed consent. That doesn’t take away from the possible benefits for vaccination (which exist despite the shite consent form) but rather speaks to the incompetence (or possible malfeasance) of government.
“Is that appropriate free speech?”……is what I regard as an inappropriate question.
Free speech is what it says on the tin…_
“Free speech is what it says on the tin…_”
Depends on the tin. The world is interconnected, and despite Thatcher’s assertion that there is no such thing as society, and the ultimate interpretation of that as everyman to himself, there are limits to free speech and free actions. These limits are not necessarily fixed and they are determined and limited in organised society, rightly or wrongly. Opinions that are hateful or potentially harmful and not based on evidence are often limited in extreme situations, such as war, and in this case a serious pandemic.
“…Thatcher’s assertion that there is no such thing as society, and the ultimate interpretation of that as everyman to himself…”
Absolutely wrong in every possible way. If you had ever troubled to read the speech in question, you would (perhaps) understand that Mrs Thatcher was saying that if we leave essential measures to “society”, nothing will happen because “society” has no hands, feet, or brains.
Instead, she pointed out, every piece of actual work must be done by real, physical, individual people. Certainly “society” exists in an important sense, but it is an abstraction – not a godlike being that can be trusted to solve our problems for us. (The same applies to “the market”, of course).
Perhaps it would be simplest to paraphrase the Bible: “society helps those who help themselves”.
“What about the right to coax children to run out into motorway traffic, to escape a big scary bogeyman?”
The trouble with that sort of one-sided, highly emotive analogy is that it tends to backfire. I read it as meaning that the government coaxes citizens to expose themselves to the certain harm of lockdowns and mask wearing, and the highly likely harm of the “vaccines”, in order to escape the “big scary bogeyman” of “the virus”.
“and the highly likely harm of the “vaccines””
From where do you derive the “highly likely harm” part of that? The short term data from these Sars-Cov-2 vaccines is similar to other vaccines which have been used for years. The long term data for safety is not known as it cannot be until sufficient time has passed. It is reasonable to infer from other vaccines (though not definitively) that the long term data will likely be similar. In the circumstances where we have a virus that is killing many tens of thousands of people (as evidenced by the huge rise in deaths from all causes in 2020 compared to 2019 or the 5 year average) it may be considered reasonable to forgo the usual long term safety data in an effort to reduce fatalities from this virus.
There is good evidence from Israel that vaccination is reducing serious disease. It is still short-term data but nonetheless encouraging.
I’m not Craig, but I have an opinion.
I don’t happen to agree with Craig’s view that all of the people should get vaccinated, and that failing to do so is a moral violation. I think that advice is right for some people; it’s not right for me, not just now.
I take the view that people who disagree with me should be allowed to express their opinions. If I don’t hear those opinions, I am at risk of ending up with defective opinions based on nothing but surmise.
It’s not hard – the right to free speech, if it means anything, means that people have a right to express opinions you disagree with.
Of course, in these britannic lands, there is no such right, and Piers is being prosecuted precisely because he is relying on that non-existent right. The only rights we have in this land are to own property, and … ummm …
I can’t think of any other inviolable rights that we have.
Mill/Milne
Any relation to A.A.? Perhaps that’s why Pooh and Piglet lend themselves so well to the modern comparisons with Tao and deep thought?
Craig,
By my calculations Julian Assange would have had his regular 28 day bail decision on Wednesday. As usual bail would have been formally refused even though his legal team never actually even ask for bail at these monthly events.
Last time I asked about when his legal team would exercise his automatic right to apply to the High Court for bail you indicated that you knew things you cannot say, that it was entirely Julian’s decision and that you expected it to be soon (that was about 3 weeks ago). Still nothing anyone can tell us about when a serious attempt to get him out on bail might be made?
Thanks.
To be clear for those who might not have followed this closely –
Julian Assange is only being held for the extradition proceedings. He is in a maximum security prison. Under the extradition laws he can only be held for 28 days and then must be given bail – unless the court decides that he should continue to be held on remand. The process repeats every 28 days.
Since late 2019 he has gone through this process every 28 days and not once have his lawyers actually sought bail for him at these appearances.
Also, if bail is refused Assange has an automatic right to apply to the High Court for bail. And if that is refused he could appeal up further to the Supreme Court etc… . It has never once even gone to the High Court.
If this had been done Julian could be out on bail right now and he could speak out in his own words about his situation and so many other things.
If Julian Assange has no interest in getting out on bail or speaking out in his own words about what is happening then I’ll eat my hat!
That’s why I keep asking about when the High Court bail application is going to be lodged. And never getting a straight answer is weird.
Agree, I have wondered all along why Julian’s legal team haven’t applied for bail (and for less severe conditions in prison). Never getting a straight answer is indeed weird but I’ve reassured myself on the basis that Julian’s partner Stella is a lawyer and surely she would have pushed for anything possible to get Julian released.
Despite, bit by bit, seeing the world more clearly as a corrupt place with lies spewing out regularly from such noteworthy sources as the BBC, I find it interesting that Craig still follows the propaganda, when he has not carried out sufficient research to see through the lies.
In the meantime, without discussing the science or the censored whistleblowers, the moral position is clear. People who do not take the vaccine are not interfering with any other individual and are therefore moral. If the government or businesses mandate vaccines, that will be interference, a violation of the NAP (non-aggression principle), and totally immoral.
They are relying on others, as in the anti measles and mumps vaccination campaigners, to provide immunity for them. Spreading misleading and false information in order to encourage others, and thus damage the vaccination benefits for everybody, should be called out and exposed as selfish, based on myth, and often harbouring a wider agenda. See the overlap between brexit maniacs, Trump and anti-vaxxers.
As you aren’t one of “them”, You shouldn’t guess what they are doing.
If you don’t like false and misleading information, go and attack the BBC, they are the ones getting caught multiple times.
Your call of selfishness, is based on assumptions which are easily shown to be false.
See the overlap between government propaganda and the British Army (and others) engaging in social media warfare.
“They are relying on others, as in the anti measles and mumps vaccination campaigners, to provide immunity for them”.
That is exactly backwards. Immunity can only be obtained by the normal functioning of the human immune system – an immensely complex “system of systems” of which the most advanced researchers understand about 1%.
Vaccines and inoculations work by “nudging” the immune system, in a rather simple-minded effort to help the ancient and unbelievably sophisticated immune system to do what it has been doing for millions of years: teaching grandma to suck eggs, in effect.
A person gets immunity from a virus in one way, and one way only: by his own immune system recognising the virus and taking measures against it. It makes not the slightest difference what others have done, except that if they transmit the virus to him, they help his immune system to do its work.
You are wilfully misleading, by confusing immunity with transmissibility. Anti-vaxxers rely on others to reduce the spread of the disease. That is obvious. The vaccines reduce transmissibility as well as giving a level of immunity.
You are doing it again: guessing other people’s motives. You are obviously a vaccine supporter, and once again you have guessed wrong. Do not attempt to understand other people, you have already shown a limit to your capabilities.
Actually, Ian, it is you who confused immunity with transmissibility. You wrote “They are relying on others, as in the anti measles and mumps vaccination campaigners, to provide immunity for them”.
I explained how immunity works, and why your statement was confused.
Then you accused me of “wilfully misleading, by confusing immunity with transmissibility”.
TB, smallpox, polio, mumps, measles, rubella, Hep B, Mr.Influenza A and B, Diptheria and others would like to disagree. Mr.Smallpox would seriously like to be included in that discussion but is unfortunately nowhere to be found.
The literally millions of currently alive people who would have died due to measles as children would also like to have some input.
How on earth can you possibly know how many people “would have” died of measles and all the rest, ET?
I had measles when I was 10. I felt very tired; the doctor examined me and diagnosed measles; and I spent a couple of weeks in bed, followed by several weeks off games.
I have never been inoculated against measles.
“How on earth can you possibly know how many people “would have” died of measles and all the rest, ET?”
Very easily Tom. I can infer from the data on measles.
I also had measles as a child. As I remember I made sure I got it by insisting I had contact with my older sister who had caught it. For me it was fun. My dad used to go get me an airfix model aircraft any time I got sick and had to remain at home. However for millions of children that isn’t the case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles#Prognosis
Measles is still killing children all over the world. Just because you had it and it was mild doesn’t mean that it doesn’t kill others. Same goes for the “bad flu”. Your experiences are not necessarily others’ experiences.
“Craig still follows the propaganda”
Um, what are you on about?
“People who do not take the vaccine are not interfering with any other individual”
That is arguable, and I don’t care to argue the point now. But many people feel that if others won’t get vaccinated, then they are risking others.
The “non-agression principle” (which you choose to favour with it’s own acronym) isn’t a law, nor is it a generally-accepted principle in moral philosophy.
“defined as initiating or threatening any forceful interference with either an individual or their property”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle
How do you get from there, to saying that declining medical treatment implies forcing anything on anyone? If I choose to decline treatment, and I am treated anyway, who is being forced? HINT: not everyone else.
I take exception to the end of the article where I and others in my position of resisting this vaccination are described as immoral.
I think Craig would bristle at the suggestion that conscientious objectors were immoral for refusing to be drafted, if the same argument were made that they benefitted from the service of others which ‘kept them safe from the enemy’.
I don’t believe that any good will come of this vaccination programme. I have accepted other vaccinations but not this one. Am I correct? Well time will tell, but I fail to see how not participating in something which I clearly believe to be wrong is in any way immoral.
Would you consider using false information to urge others not to have the vaccine to be immoral?
Certainly no more than suppressing information in order to urge others to have the vaccine.
However I was responding to Craig’s claim that making a personal choice not to take it was immoral.
Would you consider a government using advanced psychological techniques to manipulate the uninformed public into taking an untested gene therapy as immoral?
My wife has had the vaccination. She was asked if she had ever had an anaphylactic reaction. Other than that her informed consent was her presence there.
I have researched the subject, will not bow down to peer pressure and choose not to have the vaccination even though a diabetic in an at risk group. Prefer to self-isolate and take common sense precautions.
The Donald promoted Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) at one point. A leading trusted medical journal published an article denying its efficacy. The MSM jumped on this. For the first time in it’s history, this journal withdrew an article (which was not reported by the MSM).
“Would you consider a government using advanced psychological techniques to manipulate the uninformed public into taking an untested gene therapy as immoral?”
That’s what’s happening (except that COVID vaccine is not a gene therapy). The mass media are being systematically used to attack those who question vaccination. And the mass media take their posture from the government, from whom they receive most of the press-releases and conferences from which they write their articles.
Do you think that sourrounding people on all sides with barrages of “authoritative” opinion is not advanced psychological manipulation?
The rest of your comment seems to be at odds with your opening sentence, so I don’t really know what posture you are adopting.
Surely using false information to urge others to do anything is immoral. The question, though, is what is true and what is false.
The end of the article explicitly refers to standard vaccines in general. It’s hard to see how someone who has accepted standard vaccinations is described therein as immoral.
Thats dodging the question.
A – the implication is that the morality extends to any vaccination
B – just because I have taken other vaccinations doesn’t have any bearing on other’s decisions. What of people who have chosen none from a personal belief, whatever that belief, whether it be concerns over safety, efficacy, religious,grounds or whatever?
You need to raise your reading skills.
A) The last paragraph explicitly relates to “established” vaccines, not (as you wrongly infer) any vaccine.
B) Your whataboutery is irrelevant; again the paragraph is explicit – it describes a selfish motive and so, by implication, excludes from its opprobrium those with a conscientious or otherwise genuine reason not to vaccinate.
There is a semantic issue, though, Mart. Strictly speaking (which we must always be careful to do when dealing with such vital matters) the mRNA “vaccines” are not vaccines. Rather than introducing into the body traces of a pathogen, they are intended to make the body’s own cells manufacture traces of a pathogen. A very different matter.
It is unclear – to me, anyway – which cells, and how many of them, are to be pentrated by the injected mRNA. There seems no special reason why it should not reach all the body’s cells.
Once inside a cell, the mRNA is designed to make that cell begin manufacturing traces of the virus – usually proteins. The cell will then export the offending proteins, the immune system will recognise them, and dispatch killer cells to destroy the cells exhibiting the proteins.
Oh. On the face of it, this is a simple method for causing the immune system to destroy the entire body.
Yes, I know that can’t be the whole story. So will someone who knows more please explain to me the rest?
Craig wrote:
“In fact, I view those who do not take vaccinations as extremely selfish, because while refusing the vaccination because of a very small risk to themselves, they still benefit from the herd immunity created by everybody else who has taken that tiny risk.”
Now you may choose to see that as ‘established’ vaccines, but with my obviously hampered reading skills, to which you refer, I don’t see that distinction made, nor do I infer it from a previous sentence where he talks of his perception that ‘established’ vaccines are low risk.
And how am I engaging in whataboutery? A blanket statement was made that refusing vaccines is selfish. You have invented a circular argument that he’s talking about selfish motives. So you’re trying to persuade me that Craig is devoting a paragraph to say selfishness is selfish? I asked a perfectly reasonable question, and just simply trying to insult my reading comprehension hardly makes for a compelling rebuttal.
Tom, you must be referring to the phenomenon of Antibody Dependant Enhancement (ADE) ?
ADE is the main cause (?) of the failure of previous attempts at mRNA vaccines. It essentially occurs when the vaccines target evolves into a different Serotype, at which point antibodies against the inoculated type may instead of protecting against the virus, actually aid its propagation leading to an over emphasised immune reaction that threatens life.
The FDA in the USA have released the manufacturers test data regarding the Pfizer and Moderna variants, something which as far as I’m aware the UK watchdog has refrained from doing. Both companies state clearly they have no information with regard to ADE and the current vaccine incarnations. Which is hardly surprising as any such instance of ADE may take anything from a couple of months to a couple of years to make itself known.
Now that the virus is being challenged by vaccines, and as is being demonstrated, it will evolve/mutate at a faster rate. Clearly the ‘Experts’ and government have recognised this fact, as evidenced by the increasing preponderance of assurances that any mutations that escape the vaccine can be easily catered for within months.
Its probably a fair assumption that one’s favourite Turf Accountant would give an evens bet on the chances that the virus will escape the vaccine before even half of the governments targets have been met. At which point presumably its a return to the start line ?
I agree that failing to take the vaccine when offered it is not necessarily immoral. I think it is foolish, however.
I have no objection to being thought foolish. You may think as you will.
My objection is to being called immoral, which adds fuel to the rapidly marching removal of my freedoms of choice regarding my person.
I think many others do things that I consider foolish. And of course I never do foolish things.
But where my own health is concerned, my opinion about what is foolish trumps yours.
(Sorry, I may just have used a blacklisted word)
Do you take exception to drink driving laws?
No, but I rarely drink. And if I am going to drive, one drink beforehand is my limit. That works for me.
Uncontrollable convulsions caused by Pfizer vaccine https://twitter.com/mrss11224611/status/1349325267387506689?s=21
RT covered it
https://www.rt.com/usa/512830-griner-mother-pfizer-vaccine-video/
Other cases
https://twitter.com/nycweatherrepor/status/1349491358747271168?s=21
https://twitter.com/meilarosemillar/status/1356143938176999424?s=21
Proof they were caused by the vaccine? At least one of those women, Shawn Skelton, has been taking antidepressants and her symptoms are quite common to anyone coming off them too quickly.
https://metro.co.uk/video/womans-convulsions-coming-anti-psychotic-drugs-2113918/
Proof that any deaths whatsoever have been caused by Covid-19?
That would be much harder to establish than that the vaccines have killed people. If someone dies within days of being vaccinated – bearing in mind that only healthy people are supposed to get the vaccines – that is suggestive.
But if someone dies within 30 days of having a positive PCR test, that means absolutely nothing because the PCR test should not be used for diagnosis, and is very often wrong.
From individual cases it is hard to say whether the vaccine was the cause or coincidence. However vaccines do cause reactions, the question is always:
Is it safer to take the vaccine or not, for you and the community?
During a global pandemic with a mutating virus, I think the scales are hugely weighted on the side of taking the vaccine.
Read these individual cases and then see what you think.
https://prezi.com/i/gw4zv2c_cwrb/anecdotal-experiences-cvv/
Given the advanced age of most of the recipients so far, its never going to be clear for whom the vaccine proved to be the last straw, and those who were the victims of times scythe.
The real test will come as the inoculation program moves into younger demographics.
“During a global pandemic with a mutating virus, I think the scales are hugely weighted on the side of taking the vaccine.”
You are free to think that; but your argument is not persuasive, because you haven’t actually made an argument; you’ve only expressed an opinion.
A commenter called Paul gives an impressive reference in a comment on Rob Slane’s latest article.
https://www.theblogmire.com/the-largest-experiment-on-humans-ever-seen/#comment-39943
Given the way Fauci has flip flopped on masks over the past year, it begs the question of where misinformation is actually coming from on COVID and vaccines. It is not has if the corporate media is independent of corporate government.
Let’s not forget, thehe corporate media has done a bang up job reporting on Assange, Salmond, and Craig, among others, and even succeeded in demonizing them because their views and facts are not pro-corporate establishment.
We must also be aware that COVID is clearly being used by the UK and the US, among other Western states, especially, to roll-back human rights and free speech in there respective countries. This is an undeniable and uncomfortable fact. The growing censorship on everyone from presidents to senate depositions, let alone the rest of us, in the the US by Google, et. al. just because they espouse facts and opinions counter to the pro-corporate (government?) narrative, is obviously going to continue and get worse. That the English speaking nations, in particular, seem to be driving this attack on humanity suggests that some sort of conspiracy is afoot to remove these rights permanently. COVID and the “vaccine passport” seem to be conveniently designed to do these things. Restrictions on freedom of travel, restrictions on freedom of assembly (even in your own home), restrictions on free speech (even from qualified professionals), persecution of those exposing state crimes against humanity, while allowing the corporate criminals to escape justice.
People are being effectively jailed in the UK for simply arriving from abroad, even after testing negative for COVID. Soon, will there soon be “concentration camps”, allegedly due to COVID, put including anyone that the corporate gov’t wants to put away, like Assange. COVID has clearly become the justification for the creation of an authoritarian police state.
It is as if the UN Declaration of Human Rights had never been written.
Overblown, hysterical fluff.
And how so?
Is Assange’s persecution a mirage? Have the restrictions not increased? Are people not being quarantined in Hotels, often at their own expense? Are large corporations not getting richer, especially big tech? Are not more small businesses going out of business because of lock downs than in previous years?
Just think, if the COVID19 virus had occurred a 100 years ago when Life expectancy from birth was in the low to mid 50s in the US and UK, would we have even noticed the virus? Highly unlikely. Very few older people would have been around then to have died of the virus. And, unlike influenza, very few young people would have had any severe side effects. Today, it would just be another of the 5 human corona viruses. I
It might also be noted that the virus was around last fall, not only in China, but also Europe and the US, so it was widespread even then, but unnoticed until China became aware of it at the end of December, when it became a concern.
I have no doubt that the governments in the West have displayed a good deal of incompetence in containing the virus, but those influencing the governments for their own profit and power have certainly taken considerable advantage that the opportunity the virus has made available to them. And that is where the real created hysteria has been most conveniently created by the media.
“Begs the question” doesn’t take some question as it’s argument. It’s a technical term when discussing reasoning: it means “asserting your conclusion as one of your premises”, and as such, it’s a classical fallacy in logic. You don’t get to say what question you think it “begs”. You just get to argue that your adversary’s reasoning is circular, and so invalid.
E.g.
Premise: “All Cretans are liars”.
Premise: “Zeno was a Cretan”
Conclusion: “At least one Cretan was a liar”
The conclusion is invalid because it is implied by the first premise. The conclusion “begs the question”, i.e. it depends entirely on the first premise. The second premise is completely irrelevant, and the argument is just dust.
Ah – I see that Zeno was not from Crete. It makes no difference.
Google has more to say about why the word “beg” is used, but in short, it’s archaic.
Perhaps you mean that it “raises” the question (and then you can say what question you think it raises).
Sorry to be pedantic. It’s in my nature – I’m a pedant.
You’ve been busy, Craig! Thank you for the quotation from Mill. Yes, anti-vaxxers, like anti-lockdowners, must be allowed the right to have their say. Piers Corbyn’s stance may be extreme, but it should be heard. Anybody who needs convincing about the importance and efficacy of vaccination could do well to read the account by hands-on investigative journalist Patrick Cockburn at https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n09/patrick-cockburn/diary (unless it is paywalled – if so, sorry). Cockburn has also recounted his personal experience of suffering from polio in his autobiographical ‘A broken boy’. .
Piers was arrested for malicious communication not free speech.
Pro-lockdown, pro vaxxers are the real extremists. Unfortunately the extremist position is also the mainstream position. Not for the first time in human history and certainly not for the last. This is never a good thing.
“Unfortunately the extremist position is also the mainstream position.”
Sorry, that doesn’t work. “Extreme” is an adjective that expresses a relation; it’s reasonable to ask “Extreme, in relation to what?”, and if there’s no answer, then it means “in relation to mainstream thinking”.
You could legitimately accuse the Guardian of extremism, for example (and I would not slight you for that). But the Guardian’s not extreme in comparison to the mainstream; it *is* the mainstream. It’s only extreme when compared with *my* views.
Nice one Bob, the bigger the lie the more chance there is it will be believed, eh? Now where did we hear that before?
I’m quite puzzled that on a forum largely dedicated to nationalism there appear to be a very large proportion of anti-vaccine mystics…. can there be a connection? I hope not.
One of the limitations to free speech is anything promoting harm to others. Trying to persuade people not to get vaccinated or worse not to get their children vaccinated would seem to slot neatly into that category. This leaflet goes beyond bad taste in using fear to promote self harm.
By the way I had my first shot of Covid vaccine (AstraZeneca) on Monday. Zero side effects, was even OK to drive home immediately afterwards (although I didn’t).
Those who are harmed by the vaccine, see the promotion of vaccines as free speech promoting harm to others. If you make it wrong to promote vaccine avoidance, you must also make it wrong to promote vaccine acceptance.
A lot of the ‘harm’ the anti-vaccinationists claim is either illusory (autism) or minor short term side effects (sore arm, flu like symptoms) talked up to appear to be more serious. Any harm from vaccines is going to be several orders of magnitude less than the harm for the diseases they prevent.
Difficult to understand how death is illusory or short term. Perhaps you are a believer in reincarnation?
I said ‘a lot’ of the harm not all of it. As far as deaths from vaccines are concerned all life is a risk and better a tiny risk of death from the vaccine than a very much larger risk from the disease it prevents.
Agreed, all you need is to get your risks the right way round. The risk from the vaccine is the greater.
I have a relative dealing with a severely autistic child who might dispute your assertion that autism is “illusory”
The growth of autism, particularly amongst male children in recent years is as yet unexplained by the “experts”.
I never said autism is illusory just the belief that it’s caused by vaccination. Japan halted MMR during the scare over that jab but autism rates continued to climb at the same rate.
MMR is not the only vaccine. Nowadays children – some only days or weeks old – are given literally scores of vaccinations. No one has ever tested the safety of even one of those vaccines, let alone the whole lot combined.
And why should they, when manufacturers, doctors, hospitals, and government are all specifically “immunised” from any legal repercussions?
– “No one has ever tested the safety of even one of those vaccines…”
False:
https://www.cochrane.org/search/site/vaccine
“A lot of the ‘harm’ the anti-vaccinationists claim is either illusory (autism) or minor short term side effects (sore arm, flu like symptoms) talked up to appear to be more serious”.
Fascinating. Thank you for leading me to the light.
Could you please post a list of the specific individuals you know of who talked up their vaccine reactions (or deaths) to appear to be more serious?
Of course you are talking from personal experience.
You, Tom Welsh. You are exaggerating vaccine reactions and promoting untruths about vaccine testing. You, and a whole movement like you.
Talk about false equivalence, lol.
“One of the limitations to free speech is anything promoting harm to others.”
So you claim, without argument. So it’s wrong to advocate the assassination of a torturer or dictator? It’s wrong to “promote” the defense of the realm when under attack from a foreign power?
I’ve been a buddhist, and I’m generally against harming other beings. But broad generalisations like that need to be carefully thought through. Sometimes the right thing to do is to harm a being, or encourage others to harm them.
If you want to tell me there are limitations to free speech, well, OK – we have no right to free speech in this country, so I suppose that’s a 100% limitation. But I’m taking that “right” to be a principle, rather than a legal right, and you have to be awfully careful when you try to balance “free speech” against other “rights”, such as the right not to be infected with COVID by a stranger that you pass in the street (there is no such right).
“One of the limitations of free speech…”
Why not go whole hog and make the connection with R2P?
Sounds like you would like to.
Go on, do seduce us to your point of view pretty please.
I have said it before. The UK is fascist under these Tories.
Vaccines are fascist now? Who would have thought, eh?
Oh, I see, now. Ian can’t read. I am not sure, otherwise, how he got Mary’s “The UK is fascist under these Tories.” processed as “Vaccines are fascist now”.
The tendency towards “fascism” does seem to be growing in the West. I can’t imagine vaccines being “fascist”, but I can imagine “fascist” authority types using “vaccines”, and many other things, to advance their authoritarian dreams.
Or maybe, England is fascist (or more precisely, anti immigrant Nationalist) and so they elected the Tories. Detecting this, Labour is mutating into the BNP under Starmer.
“The UK is fascist”.
Fixed that for you. Since last March the only eway the Labour “opposition” has ever differed from government policies has been to denounce them as insufficiently rigorous. If the Conservatives are fascist, so is Labour.
The only success he has had is providing the media with another stick with which to beat his brother. That he cannot see that shows he is a simpleton as well as a buffoon.
Relations between siblings are never simple. It may be that he takes a malicious delight in aiding the smearing his brother. Jeremy seems to inspire a good deal of malice in some people.
My guess is that he thinks his bro is too moderate. I’ve no reason to think it’s sibling rivalry.
Jeremy is a mainstream politician. He’s on the left of the mainstream, but he’s definitely mainstream; Islington North is not a hotbed of revolutionism or fascism (although there used to be a Marxist bookshop at Finsbury Park).
Piers is a radical activist, and only by a stretch can he be called a “politician”. He is not his brother’s keeper. I’m sure it’s awkward for Jeremy that his bro keeps getting into trouble, but I doubt he’s particularly cross about it.
Carl, your comment shows that you do not understand the value of truth and honesty. Mr Corbyn does, which is why he tells the truth even when it is to his – and his brother’s – personal disadvantage.
According to the BBC Piers Corbyn was arrested on suspicion of malicious communications and public nuisance, because someone had been putting the leaflets through people’s letter boxes, not just on a personal web page. This would not be regarded in the same way as local adverts for takeaways or handymen. The q. is therefore to what extent he was involved in the scheme.
Can we get all members of parliament, their staff and sctivists arrested then? Every election I get get ‘malicious communication’ posted through my letterbox saying I must vote for party a to prevent the incompetence and evils of party b.
That putting leaflets through doors is anything other than a time-honoured method of exercising political free speech is plainly a ludicrous argument.
Again you are deliberately missing the point .
The issue is not about the mailing of leaflets.
It is about the contents of the leaflets.
+1
The contents invigorated the debate to the extent we are all here debating, no doubt that was the intent 🙂
Putting disinformation through doors which will, if heeded, result in many serious illnesses and deaths is NOT “political free speech”.
So should we ban Jehovah’s Witnesses as well? Their religion promotes avoidance of medical procedures such as blood transfusions, and puts its adherants at risk, and they promulgate their religious notions door to door. It’s their right to do that, just as it’s my right to tell them to piss off.
Also, McDonalds advertise on TV, alcohol is advertised all overthe place. Obesity and Alcohol will kill far more people than not taking this untested covid vaccine ever will. Should we ban them an lock up the people advertising and selling these products as well?
Actually, the UK and US governments have caused many millions of premature deaths (and lifelong sickness) through their extremely ill-informed and harmful dietary advice.
Although one might argue that anyone who is foolish enough to take dietary – or any other – advice from government is beyond help.
Ronson, you are begging the question.
Nobody is certain – at least nobody who has a brain and is using it – which is information and which is disinformation.
I disagree.
Finding half-a-pound of pizza ads, *all from the same (Dominos) pizza company* every morning is political speech; what they are saying is “buy more stuff”, and “If you don’t like me touching your letterbox, you are probably a virus denier”. I get more pizza ads than legitimate mail by a factor of about 5 to 1. Estate agents are next on the list (“Trading property is good for you”).
I would like a law (like what they have in the USA) that says only the USPS is allowed to touch your mailbox. And I would like the GPO banned from delivering adverts. If the stamps don’t pay for the service, raise the price of stamps, don’t just pimp yourself out to pizza companies.
(I realise this argument is complicated by the existence of competition in mail delivery)
@ Kempe
When you had the jab, did this follow a talk on the possible side effects, informed consent, before signing the indemnity form and what did they say?
No indemnity form and I was advised I might get a sore arm and advised not to drive for 15 mins afterwards.
Perhaps I used the wrong term. I understand that part of the legally required procedure is for all the pros and cons to be explained prior to the signing of an informed consent (indemnity) form. So are you saying advice limited to sore arm and no consent form?
Seriously – you weren’t asked to sign a consent?
Whenever someone has to start using cliches such as “ anti-vaxxers”, it is almost invariably a sign of trying to thwart debate. Perhaps, if Craig had taken the time to do some serious research, he would have discovered that many of these “ anti-vaxxers” are some of the world’s leading immunologists, virologists and Professors plus doctors in the their medical fields. For example, there are Professor Sucharit Bhakti, Professor John Ioannidis, Professor Delores Cahill, the tens of thousands of physicians in American Frontline Doctors, Belgian Doctors plus Doctors from Germany and all over the world. In the U.K, there are excellent informative articles from Professor Doshi and many other medical specialists at British Medical Journal. I would suggest he looks at the http://www.bmj.com and the The Centre for Evidence – Based Medicine http://www.cebm.net in order to have a more balanced view about the experimental gene therapy vaccines!
There are no ‘gene therapy’ vaccines. That is a completely different concept. You are also conflating many things here, for Example Ioannides I am not sure that Ioannides has expressed views on vaccines, his main thrust has been to look at mortality from the virus.
With respect, Professor Bakhti is a retired virologist and is not in the forefront of research on the virus. And for the handful of those you quote, there are tens of thousands of scientists and doctors around the world who concur on the facts, are we to ignore them in favour of a few dissenters without first hand knowledge?
Really, I suggest you reconsider your statement. It appears you haven’t been following closely what Professor John Ioannidis has stated about the vaccines he stated “ calls for transparency and the sharing of data” Dated November 23rd, 2020 “ Stanford Medicine” ‘ What Covid -19 has taught us about clinical trials”.
Professor Bakhti still plays a consultant role with many of the world’s microbiologists and immunologists. Hmm, it’s seems you forget that the handful I quoted also included the tens of thousands of physicians from many countries of the world who are not in agreement with the use of an experimental gene therapy without medium and long term trials, independent scientifically peer reviewed papers.
The international pharmaceutical corporations are refusing to release the raw data. In addition, they have lobbied the U.K. and EU governments plus others to have a legal indemnity clause.
They don’t seem to have much faith in their experimental gene therapy vaccines!!
III. COVID-19 Experimental Vaccines Trials
Vaccines against COVID-19 are now being approved for experimental use. This will be the shortest time scientists have ever been able to develop a new vaccination for a major disease. It not only typically takes years to create a new vaccination, but very often, despite the best efforts of scientists, a successful vaccine proves impossible. For example, scientists (including Dr. Fauci) tried to create an HIV vaccine for more than forty years.
The technology used for the first COVID-19 vaccinations being brought to market by Pfizer and Moderna uses an “mRNA” or “messenger RNA” technique. The COVID-19 virus is an RNA virus, meaning that the viral genetic code is carried in the virus’ ribonucleic acid or RNA. The messenger RNA is the instruction manual that cells use to manufacture proteins. The mRNA vaccine instructs human cells to manufacture a specific COVID-like protein. This protein, once formed, then stimulates our immune system to produce an antibody to fight against this COVID-19-like protein. The hope is that the antibody would be ready to attack the real virus should it be encountered “in the wild.”
This is the first time that an mRNA mechanism is being used in a vaccination. For the most part, mRNA technology is used in cancer therapy. It has had some success in producing various proteins to attack and disrupt certain cancer cells. Most of the commentary so far suggests that it may not be too much of a leap to use this approach in a vaccination therapy.
The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination uses a different mechanism. It takes an adenovirus that has been modified to include genetic material from the SARS-CoV-2 virus so that it introduces the immune system to the spike protein of the COVID-19 virus. The immune system then produces antibodies against the spike protein. The good news is the AstraZeneca vaccine can be stored at normal refrigeration temperatures for up to 6 months. The bad news is it is only about 70 percent effective. This may become the preferred vaccination in third world countries because of the storage conditions.
The three SARS-CoV-2 vaccines nearest to FDA public distribution are two mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, and one viral vector vaccine developed by AstraZeneca. All three companies recently released in November scant preliminary data reports on efficacy from Phase III trials in November.
Thank you. I know. But the genetic material inserted has no way of replicating, it merely instructs the cells to make a new protein but does not alter the genetic makeup of that cell. Many viruses work that way but in addition they have the ability to replicate. This injected construct does not even have that ability to replicate. If what you imply is true then any virus infections would then change your genetic makeup and humans will be mutating all the time. In fact some viruses do get incorporated into some human cells and cause certain tumours such as HTLV which results in a lymphoma but not this short genetic construct.
It’s not what why imply it’s what immunologists and virologists around the globe are stating about these experimental gene therapy vaccines because it has never been used before as vaccine. Therefore, there are no medium to long term trials, no independent scientifically peer reviewed papers. Have a read what a large body of US scientists, immunologists, virologists and physicians have written about them.
IV. COVID-19 Experimental Vaccines Controversies:
Scientists have the same concerns for the experimental vaccines as for all drugs. Is the proposed treatment safe and is it effective.
Safety Concerns Regarding the Experimental COVID-19 Vaccines
1. Brand New Technology.
No vaccine based on messenger RNA has ever been approved for any disease, or even entered final-stage trials until now, so there’s no peer-reviewed published human data to compare how mRNA stacks up against older technologies.24 How well mRNA vaccines will actually prevent COVID-19 remains unknown. This new technology is less stable than older technologies, for example, requiring deep freezing temperatures up to negative 70 degrees Celsius for Pfizer’s vaccine. This differs from other vaccines that are typically kept in ordinary refrigerators. Recently a vaccine candidate had to be halted because test
23 https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/dengue-vaccine-fiasco-leads-criminal-charges-researcher- philippines
24 https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-moderna-biontech-COVID-shot/ August 11, 2020
13
subjects has ‘false positive’ HIV test results – in other words, unexpected things must be expected with brand new experimental technology.25
2. Failure of Previous Coronavirus Vaccines.
Despite trying for decades, scientists have never been able to create a successful coronavirus vaccine. Whenever they think they have, the experimental coronavirus vaccine has failed and animals who got the experimental vaccine died.26
3. No Independently Published Animal Studies.
Most other previous vaccines have performed and published results on animal studies prior to giving to humans. This is critical because deadly effects are often not seen until this step. Vaccines that have been given to humans prior to animal trials have frequently resulted in deaths that caused the governments to yank the vaccines. Most scientists believe that human death is inevitable if there are no prior peer-reviewed animal studies.27
4. Known Complications.
One of the known complications of vaccines is something called immune enhancement. One type of immune enhancement is known as Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE). This is a process where a virus leverages antibodies to aid infection. In short, the anti- COVID antibodies, stimulated by a vaccine, amplify the infection rather than prevent its damage. This paradoxical reaction has been seen repeatedly in other vaccines and animal development trials especially with coronavirus vaccine trials.28
Other known complications of vaccines include neurological diseases such as transverse myelitis, Bells’ Palsy multiple sclerosis, autism, and Guillain-Barre. For example, in 1976 the government attempted a mass vaccination of the population with a newly created Swine Flu vaccine. The vaccination program was aborted after about 450 people came down with Guillain-Barre. The extremely limited COVID-19 vaccine data already has at least two transverse myelitis cases29 and four Bell’s Palsy cases that may be linked to vaccination..
25 https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/10/australia/australia-vaccine-hiv-intl-hnk/index.html
26 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3335060/
27 https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-data- preclinical-studies-mrna Welearnaboutthesestudiesonlyfromthecompanyitself.
28 https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/222/12/1946/5891764
29 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02706-6
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“Many viruses work that way but in addition they have the ability to replicate”.
And to kill.
You have obviously cut and pasted this from somewhere. Many of the links show error 404. Others are irrelevant to the matter in hand and one proves the opposite (concerning ADE) of what you state. Maybe you could just post the link to the original website you copied and pasted from?
Tom Walsh
The viruses have the peer to kill because they replicate that is why make the vaccines, that don’t replicate but stimulate antibody production are made. Comprendo?
There arre no “gene therapy” vaccines. If you have statements from your list of professors (none of whom I have heard of, and who collectively amount to an appeal to authority) to the effect that any vaccine is a “gene therapy”, then please cite.
Gene therapy means altering genes to remedy a genetic “defect”. The traditional vaccines are made without any kind of gene science; they are made from killed (or live) infective agents. The modern mRNA vaccines are made from genetic material (originally), but not by altering it, in the sense of changing the genetic sequence; the mRNA is made from unaltered virus genetic material.
Craig – The first page of Corbyn’s leaflet (which you pictured) is certainly crass, tasteless and deeply offensive to many people, but not illegal. However, the second page (which you and most of the MSM apparently didn’t read) is arguably malicious and illegal. For this reason, and the fact that it was actively delivered through people’s doors rather than passively published online, means that it’s quite right that it should be investigated by the police.
Craig wrote a very powerful and clear piece here. It is tragic to see that it has turned into an anti vaccination food fight down below here.
There seem to be three options.
Personally I think the third option is the best. This is partly because I happen to know several vaccine scientists personally and I can see that they are honest and decent people, but I can see that they may seem scary men in white coats if you did not know them.
I would still be interested to know which of the three options the anti-vaccinators (or anti “vaccine”ators, or whatever you call yourselves) prefer.
PS I _don’t_ think we should have a lockdown just to stop vulnerable people from going to parties in case they don’t know what is best for themselves. And I didn’t write that.
An option that you don’t cite for some reason is to protect the vulnerable if they consent – as stated in the Great Barrington Declaration. Whether you agree with this or not it is nevertheless an option.
I’m envious of your friendship with so many honest and decent vaccine scientists. As they would have told you, as scientists, anecdotal references are not all that useful. Much better to go for peer-reviewed papers.
Yossi
The GBD is too aspirational and unrealistic. We do not live in silos, there is interconnectivity. Old people will interact with others and will not want to or can be be totally isolated. Also there is this small matter that one in 5 of those infected, of any age, will have serious enough disease to need hospital admission, and one in twenty may end up in intensive care. These can be young as well as old people but it is the older people who are more likely to die. The illness itself is severe as has been shown widely and some people have long term sequelae, called long covid. So isolating the elderly is not an answer.
I said it was an option. Whether attainable or not is debatable I agree. However it seems that the virus is endemic, and will return in one form or another for ever. Presumably you will take the vaccine and hope for the best every year.
“Old people will interact with others and will not want to or can be be totally isolated”.
And that is your business why? (Unless you are an old person, in which case it is up to you what you yourself choose to do).
I am somewhat old, although in reasonable health because I have looked after myself. I do not wish to be sheltered, let alone locked up. The theory is that I am the one threatened, not younger people with whom I might mix. So surely it is my right to decide how I behave.
Tom Walsh
It is a complete fallacy to say that younger people are not harmed by the virus. Go read about it.
It seems likely that a very few genetically susceptible young people may suffer death or lasting harm from the virus ?
Still a lot we dont know, but the probability must be that Sars2 is not an extinction level virus.
It’s appears you have read neither of the articles I posted merely to look at the peripheries and comment on tangential points. If you disagree with the evidence, then support your view with evidence !!
https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/99d35b02-a5cb-41e6-ad80-a070f8a5ee17/SMDwhitepaper.pdf
The Great Barrington Declaration will only work if we totally shield the vulnerable _even if they don’t consent_, and we’d have to shield them indefinitely. Otherwise the hospitals will be overwhelmed. I agree this could work but it’s also quite an extreme option.
The so-called Great Barrington Declaration is from the usual suspects, Koch funded alt-right think tanks and pressure groups. It seems to work for the gullible.
Perhaps they are frightened men in white coats. There are braver men, who have come out as whistleblowers.
I, and my small business owner friends prefer the government follows option 4: stop lockdowns; and stop lying.
“This is partly because I happen to know several vaccine scientists personally and I can see that they are honest and decent people”
I have known many people that are both honest and decent, but wrong. Being a scientist doesn’t automatically confer on you omniscience, and scientists are as much subject to confirmation bias as anyone else. If anything, more so.
There is a fourth option.
4. end lockdowns and start using anti-viral drugs.
For example,
“In Piedmont, the “Covid at home” system is being implemented that provides early diagnosis of the first symptoms even without waiting for the time for the swab, immediate start of therapy at home with hydroxychloroquine and control by family doctors. The goal is to intervene as soon as possible and avoid hospitalization. An intervention that not only significantly reduces the worsening of the clinical picture that often occurs around the seventh or eighth day after the onset of the first symptoms, but also has the effect of reducing hospitalizations, necessary just when the conditions worsen. This approach, which has been active for several weeks, has proved its effectiveness precisely in Novara, where we have treated many cases early and therefore it has been found that the area has reached a mortality per inhabitant that is the lowest compared to the rest of the neighboring provinces. All this was made possible precisely because we treated the sick at home early with hydroxychloroquine”
— Dr Pietro Garavelli, head of the Infectious Diseases, University Hospital, Novara, Italy
https://www.newsbiella.it/2020/04/28/leggi-notizia/argomenti/speciale-coronavirus-4/articolo/idrossiclorochina-vs-covid-19-una-terapia-considerata-efficace-ma-controversa-il-parere-dellinfet-4.html
To be the pedantic, the cartoon is a conflation of Auschwitz 1, which was more a work camp than a death camp, and has the famous “Arbeit Macht Frei”, “Work will set you free”, sign over one gate, and the separate regional Auschwitz 2, which is where the humungous gas chambers were located and was arguably more a death camp than a work camp.
And it’s a relief to hear Craig’s usual even-handed words on the vaccine, and his conclusive support for Covid vaccines.
Unfortunately Mr Murray’s remarks about the virus and the vaccines reveal that he has swallowed the government propaganda whole – just as he didn’t in many other cases.
No one can expect such a busy man as Mr Murray to read up on current virology and immunology in his copious spare time.
That being so, it would be better for him to refrain from telling the rest of us – some of whom have done some reading on those topics – what we should do. Still less that we are being immoral for doing what we believe makes sense.
In return, I will refrain from instructing Mr Murray on the policis of Uzbekistan.
Precisely !
Thanks to Craig for posting the cartoon.
It is provocative and ambiguous.
It may mean take the vaccine and get out of prison (Lockdown) whilst reminding us of the perfidy of government promises.
It may mean we are losing our freedom to covid regulations and taking the vaccine may not free us and dark days lie ahead.
It may mean taking the vaccine leads to the crematorium. I particularly like the disfunctional tracks in the gateway that may represent the covid response so far. —-etc
Its a bit like jigsaw identification. What it means is up to individual interpretation.
If one thinks about the cartoon it is is disturbing and thought provoking.
A truly powerful image of our time.
Well found Craig.
Well found? It’s all over the MSM and social media!
Craig’s opinion is that the risk from all established vaccines is very small.
The problem with that is the Covid Vaccines are not established and numerous severe lethal / fatal adverse reactions are being reported daily, see “Health Impact News”. The medium to long term effects are just not known.
Craig’s opinion is people who refuse vaccinations are extremely selfish.
My opinion is anyone volunteering to have an experimental covid jab is extremely stupid.
“Craig’s opinion is that the risk from all established vaccines is very small”.
It’s a difference of opinion that makes for horse races. Those who agree with Mr Murray should, if they choose, get “vaccinated” (no cows in sight though). Those of us who think that dangerous will not.
And in a few months – or even years – we shall see.
“And in a few months – or even years – we shall see.”
The nature of the discussion suggests that we shall not see. Why? Because if the pandemic does subside either through mass vaccinations or herd immunity or natural virus mutations, some people will say, “you see we told you that it was not a problem”. If things go badly wrong and the virus mutates and many die: ” ah well all these deaths are caused by the vaccines which altered human genes and made us susceptible to all sort of bad things”. If things just go along as they are then of course ‘old people die anyway and they of course died with covid and not of covid”. You see conspiracy theorists never loose an argument because ‘facts’ can be interpreted in alternative ways.
In 2009 another warp developed vaccine, Pandemrix, was used for the swine flu “ pandemic “. Within 12 months people began to develop serious side effects, including children, the vaccine had to be withdrawn. It seems when people cannot support their argument with factual evidence, they have to drop to the lowest common denominator by using well worn cliches !!
Thanks for your comment and apologies for my rather glib comment. But let us learn properly from previous mistakes as happened with the pandemrix vaccine. We both recognise the risks of any interventions, especially such extensive ones such as mass vaccinations and of course we are all very loath to be rushed into having vaccines and giving them with adequate long term data. But sadly at present we do not have the luxury of long term data. What we have is short term data which will pick up the majority of common and very serious side effects. Longer and rarer side effects may still turn up but with 1000 people dying daily and for some time 60,000 infected daily in U.K. alone, we can’t afford to wait. The good thing also is that there are many vaccines and soon we will know which are better in the long term.
Your referral to Pandemrix has made me look into this and I came up with this fascinating article that explains with great insight how the GSK vaccine which is different from others may have contributed to narcolepsy and how this rare condition may be an autoimmune disease. Also the virus itself may precipitate the condition as experience in China, where the vaccine was not used but there was an increase in narcolepsy.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896841114000389?via%3Dihub#tbl2
I do not expect you to read this article but perhaps look at the salient points.
I think Piers Corbyn was objecting to the idea, mooted by Boris and his advisers, that recovering our ‘freedoms’, taken away from us using emergency Covid-19 legislations, would be dependant on being Covid vaccinated. Already, there are plans to introduce a ‘vaccine passport’ in the UK. Yesterday I was offered an appointment to receive a first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine. I politely refused, stating I would prefer to wait for one of the newer Covid-19 vaccines, still in the pipeline, including a single dose one and two using traditional methods. I suggested the appointment be given to someone else who wanted the vaccination.. The person on the other end of the phone was not happy. She phoned back and informed me this would mean recording on my notes that I had refused to be Covid-19 vaccinated. I stated I was not refusing to be vaccinated, but had merely deferred the vaccination.
I am not happy to be injected with a vaccine which uses mRNA genetic engineering to instruct the human cells it infects to make a spike protein, which is then supposed to be ‘recognised’ by our immune system. I am sure you have all read about the new variant viruses producing ‘new variant’ spike proteins, which might make these vaccines less effective or even non-effective. Pfizer and Moderna are already frantically trying to formulae a ‘third’ booster injection for their vaccines. Whatever ‘hype’ you have heard from the mainstream media about the efficacy of the Oxford/AstraZeneca, the trials data, released by the manufacturers, puts the efficacy of the vaccine at an ‘average’ of 62% AFTER the second dose. Boris and Nicola are hoping the first dose provides some immunity and prevention of transmission but they don’t know. The initial trials did not include any participants over the age of 55. Norway and several European countries are refusing to vaccinate persons over the age of 65 until the new trials confirm the efficacy. Anyone for Guinea Pigs?
The Nuremberg Convention conserves the integrity of the human body. We are entitled to refuse any treatments or vaccines under the convention. Officially ALL the vaccines cleared by the regulator under the emergency legislations are regarded as ‘experimental’.
Piers Corbyn has already been fined tens of thousands of £s for peaceful demonstrations and speaking at Hyde Park Corner. I am pleased to see your support for him, but he is not wrong to remind us all about the reasons why we have the Nuremberg Convention.
This has NOTHING to do with anti-semitism and everything to do with totalitarianism.
Jennifer
“I was offered an appointment to receive a first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine.”
“I am not happy to be injected with a vaccine which uses mRNA genetic engineering to instruct the human cells..”
I hope you spotted the error here, the Astra Zeneca Vaccine is not an mRNA vaccine.
SA – Here’s the lowdown on the Oxford Covid vaccine:-
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/health/oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine.html
QUOTE:-
“The Oxford-AstraZeneca team used a modified version of a chimpanzee adenovirus, known as ChAdOx1. It can enter cells, but it can’t replicate inside them. The adenovirus pushes its DNA into the nucleus. The adenovirus is engineered so it can’t make copies of itself, but the gene for the coronavirus spike protein can be read by the cell and copied into a molecule called messenger RNA, or mRNA.”
Some newer vaccines use genetic engineering to manufacture the Covid spike protein BEFORE injecting it into humans. They are not yet available but are being trialled.
There is a technical difference between using a virus carrying the RNA from the SARS-2 virus, and which is a well-tested method of vaccination, from the new technology for the Pfizer vaccine which just uses viral RNA constructs.
The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination uses a different mechanism. It takes an adenovirus that has been modified to include genetic material from the SARS-CoV-2 virus so that it introduces the immune system to the spike protein of the COVID-19 virus. The immune system then produces antibodies against the spike protein.
Earlier you stated “ There are no gene therapy vaccines “ You are wrong.
“Earlier you stated “ There are no gene therapy vaccines “ You are wrong”.
No I am not wrong because gene therapy depends on the integration of introduced genetic material into the dna of a replicating cell such as a stem cell. The temporary manufacture of a protein by somatic cells whether caused by a natural virus, an attenuated virus or RNA vaccine is not gene therapy and you should know better than to propagate misinformation.
@ SA
“The temporary manufacture of a protein by somatic cells whether caused by a natural virus, an attenuated virus or RNA vaccine is not gene therapy and you should know better than to propagate misinformation.”
I think the link I provided (above) on the way the Oxford/Astra-Zeneca vaccine works, provides an excellent ‘layman friendly’ illustrated account of the way the vaccine works. I repeat the link:-
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/health/oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine.html
To precis – The Oxford Covid-19 vaccine uses a genetically modified adenovirus from chimpanzees to directly carry the mRNA instructions.
QUOTE:-
“The adenovirus pushes its DNA into the nucleus (of the cell)……..The mRNA leaves the nucleus, and the cell’s molecules read its sequence and begin assembling spike proteins.”
This is beautifully illustrated in the article linked.
Viruses are not cells, they are bundles of genetic material in a protein coat, designed to inject their own genetic code, via mRNA into the cells in order to take them over. I would not call this gene therapy when applied to a vaccine, designed to prevent an infection, but this is definitely genetic engineering. Gene therapy is proving useful for treating certain medical conditions and I am all in favour of this cutting-edge research.
I have made my own informed decision regarding the Covid-19 vaccine, and am prepared to accept the Novavax one which is being fast tracked in the UK, and might be available this summer. This vaccine injects a previously manufactured spike protein, using genetically engineered moths (I think) to produce the spike protein. The end result is the same as for the Pfizer, Moderna, and Oxford vaccines. The spike protein generates an immune response.
The Oxford Vaccine is cheap and logistically easy to store and transport. As far as I can ascertain there have been no serious safety issues short term with this vaccine, and if I lived in a care home or end up in hospital with another medical condition, I would have no hesitation in accepting it. The efficacy is poor in comparison with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, but even 50% effective is better than nothing for persons vulnerable to lung complications. I prefer to think of the glass half full rather than half empty as is already the case with the flu vaccines.
Accusing commenters of ‘errors’ and ‘propagating misinformation’ sounds like the tactics of trolls.
I am sorry Jennifer for being pedantic but if this simplistic way of getting cells to make a protein is ‘gene therapy’ then scientists have been wasting a lot of time trying to cure inherited disease. It is a technical problem which really should not mean anything to you in making up your mind about the vaccine, but the statement that these vaccines are ‘gene therapy’ is misleading.
SA I never said in my comments the mRNA vaccines were gene therapy, quite the opposite. Vaccines are prophylaxis, used for prevention not ‘therapy’. It was Brianborou who called them ‘gene therapy’. Either you have not read my comments correctly or you are attempting to discredit me by posting falsehoods. Either way I resent it.
SA and everyone- Just to remind you, this is what I DID say in the comment above:-
” I would not call this gene therapy when applied to a vaccine, designed to prevent an infection, but this is definitely genetic engineering. Gene therapy is proving useful for treating certain medical conditions and I am all in favour of this cutting edge research.”
What is Gene Therapy?
Human gene therapy seeks to modify or manipulate the expression of a gene or to alter the biological properties of living cells for therapeutic use 1.
Gene therapy is a technique that modifies a person’s genes to treat or cure disease. Gene therapies can work by several mechanisms:
Replacing a disease-causing gene with a healthy copy of the gene
Inactivating a disease-causing gene that is not functioning properly
Introducing a new or modified gene into the body to help treat a disease
Gene therapy products are being studied to treat diseases including cancer, genetic diseases, and infectious diseases.
There are a variety of types of gene therapy products, including:
Plasmid DNA: Circular DNA molecules can be genetically engineered to carry therapeutic genes into human cells.
Viral vectors: Viruses have a natural ability to deliver genetic material into cells, and therefore some gene therapy products are derived from viruses. Once viruses have been modified to remove their ability to cause infectious disease, these modified viruses can be used as vectors (vehicles) to carry therapeutic genes into human cells.
Bacterial vectors: Bacteria can be modified to prevent them from causing infectious disease and then used as vectors (vehicles) to carry therapeutic genes into human tissues.
Human gene editing technology: The goals of gene editing are to disrupt harmful genes or to repair mutated genes.
Patient-derived cellular gene therapy products: Cells are removed from the patient, genetically modified (often using a viral vector) and then returned to the patient.
Notice the sentence about the definition of Gene therapy!
“ Introducing a new or modified gene into the body..”
It seems you are in error once more. Suggest you do more research before compiling your erroneous comments!
Broadly correct, but still employing novel techniques ? One would also have to wonder why Germany and France have said it should not be used on over 65’s due to lack of efficacy ? Those decisions prompted an outpouring of extremely Pro stories from the BBC and others. It surely cant be they are angry at Brexit ?
France and Germany questioned efficacy because the trial did not include many above the age of 65 years
Switzerland seeks more data on AstraZeneca vaccine
Search domain http://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0203/1194735-coronavirus-vaccine/https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0203/1194735-coronavirus-vaccine/
Swiss regulators have said that data submitted by AstraZeneca is not sufficient for them to authorise use of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine and “new studies” are needed.
Your link leads to a 404 error. In any case Europeans have stated that the AZ vaccine does not have data for the over 65 age group which is true and that is the objection.
Alas, the only lesson the international pharmaceutical corporations have learnt is to ensure they are not carrying any legal liability as they didn’t have for the poor unfortunate victims of the last warp speeded vaccine suffering, even to this day, the horrors of narcolepsy. To add insult to injury, the suffering victims had to fight 8 long years in continual court battles ( reference U.K.) before the government would accept liability under the 1979 Vaccinations Act that awarded the maximum statutory payment of £120,000. It was amended approximately in December 2020 to £10,000.
According to the NHS plus the statistics from the ONS and the data from the Centre For Disease Control in the US, the overwhelming majority of the fatalities occur in the 79- 93+ age group and many of those had one or more comorbidities such as cancer, which kills on average approximately almost 90,000 every year, Parkinson’s, Ischaemic heart disease which kills almost 10,000,000 every year worldwide, strokes which is the second largest killer accounting for about 6,500,000 worldwide most years, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease plus many other diseases plus by far the largest killer in the UK Dementia/ Alzheimer’s. The life expectancy in the U.K. is about 80 years of age.
People under the age of 65, who have no underlying serious illnesses, have a 99. 9 % expectancy of not dying from Covid 19. Indeed, Chris Whitty ( Uk Chief Medical Officer) stated that the majority of people will not get Covid 19. The population of the U.K. is approximately 68,000,000 and the combined fatalities in the U.K for 2020 upto the 6.02.2021 is about 112,000 which at this point in time 67,888,000 people have survived Covid 19.
Since the overwhelming majority of the population, as demonstrated by simple maths subtraction arithmetic illustrates it is not necessary nor welcoming for the vast majority of the population to be inoculated with an experimental gene therapy vaccine which neither grants immunity nor do they need. The analogy would be for the total population of the U.K. to be infused with chemotherapy drugs when they don’t have cancer.
Already, Germany and France’s health authorities have strongly advised people over the age of 65 should not have the AstraZeneca vaccine and to reinforce the point Switzerland have prohibited it for everyone.
Unfortunately, because of, for example, the small number of test subjects, in the Pfizer experimental gene therapy vaccine, and the relatively short duration of time, neither Pfizer nor the FDA know what the exact serious side effects will be since the trials will not finish until 31st of January 2023 according to the data which Pfizer have provided.
We already have treatments for SARS-Cov2, however, the international pharmaceutical corporations don’t have the patients for them Hydroxychloroquine etc as advocated by American Frontline Doctors etc
If you care to read the much more in-depth study, the case for narcolepsy being possible autoimmune disease, was not made. In fact, it increased from 1:100,000 to 15:100,000 after Pandemrix was used.
https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/influenza/seasonalinfluenza/publications/influenzavaccinationpublications/narcolepsyassociatedwithpandemicvaccination/File,13379,en.pdf
“The person on the other end of the phone was not happy. She phoned back and informed me this would mean recording on my notes that I had refused to be Covid-19 vaccinated. I stated I was not refusing to be vaccinated, but had merely deferred the vaccination.”
Oh dear, that sounds pretty bad. When I get to defer, I hope I won’t be recorded as a refuser. There’s something badly wrong if the NHS is acting as an enforcer of government policy (I’m supposing without evidence that there is such a thing as “government policy” in these matters).
Lucky to be able to speak to real people on the phone these days.
GPs get paid for each vaccine administered. For some vaccines they get an additional bonus if they can achieve a high percentage of vaccinations in a particular cohort. It’s a lot of money. Refusing vaccines can result in being chucked off a GPs list. I am probably at risk of this since the Oxford vaccine is my second refusal. However, I am presently locked down and only an emergency would get me anywhere near my health centre or a hospital anyway.
Three years ago a ‘new improved’ flu vaccine was introduced for seniors. This contained a substance called Squalene, obtained from shark’s livers, within the adjuvant. This substance has been implicated in both the Gulf War Syndrome and widespread Narcolopsy, particularly in children after administration of the then flu vaccine during the Swine Flu scare 2009 & 2010. This has been hotly ‘debunked’ by the politico/pharmaceutical brigade. Again I did not refuse my annual flu vaccine, but asked if instead I could have the ‘bog-standard’ version for the under 65s. This was refused. I regard this as illegal medical discrimination. My husband was bullied into receiving the Squalene version. Six month’s later we both caught the flu on a cruise ship. Nuff said. I now go to Boots for a paid annual flu jab.
Bizarrely the image above does correspond with my experience of having the jab, which was in a posh country golf club that seemed to take forever to reach. Having reached the car park we were then entirely in the hands of the guards who were posted at every part of the route from car park to the building and who directed us to shuffle around physically distanced and masked at intervals until we reached the vaccination hall, which consisted of several cubicles. There was no consent form to sign, consent being implicit by having turned up. Throughout I was struck by the sheer compliance of us oldies, including myself, and the faith that we put in the process. Thoughts did cross my mind at the time that this is how people were shuffled into the gas chambers or if they were told to drink a glass of Kool Aid instead they would have drunk it. It was great to escape (and the jab seems happily doing what it is meant to do).
“…the jab seems happily doing what it is meant to do”.
How would you know, Crispa? Did you feel ill before the jab, and better now?
If you felt well before and still feel well now…
Thanks for sharing your experience.
The cartoon is also echoes reality.
I love it.
Luckily no chimpanzee virus here its all nano particles containing Pfizer mRNA 🙂
If it ever gets here.
I guess animal viruses are safe. Right! Like Sars Cov2 perhaps.
When Bush and Blair fabricated the case for the devastation of Iraq based on weapons of mass destruction that did not exist, many people commenting at this site called these claims lies, and called Bush and Blair liars, warmongers and criminals. Many such commenters also condemned the corporate media for reinforcing and promoting the lies.
And rightly so.
Yet when it comes to people spreading lies about COVID-19 and vaccines, many of these same commenters object to labelling the people who do so, and defend the promotion of misleading opinions which contradict facts.
“The unexamined life is not worth living”
— Socrates, at his trial.
Kind of ironic that you quote Socrates. As you will know, he questioned everything. It seems that some people now who ask questions or want a debate are labelled anti-vaxxer, conspiracy theorists, or covidiots. And they get so angered by it.
I agree. Those who are so sure of themselves generally tend to be bonkers. I think all those terms are designed to prevent any real sort of questioning. The worst offender is conspiracy theorist – it should be thrown out of the English dictionary. I myself just don’t think we have enough information to decide either way. While I don’t agree with those who would be described (unhelpfully) as anti-vax fundamentalists, I wholly sympathise with their scepticism (just as I sympathised with Euroscepticism and other forms of scepticism). The ‘Washington consensus’ has such a tight grip on international organisations, and people have been lied to so much, and cheated out of their livelihoods, seeing big corporations profit on their losses. Who could blame someone like Piers? Only a fundamentalist or conspiracy theorist?
He’s convinced you, that’s great. But it does not mean he should be permitted to push dangerous misinformation through people’s doors. In places where they have the fewest number of deaths from Covid people like him were taken off the streets a year ago.
Nobody’s convinced me of anything. I am just sympathetic. I think sympathy is the first step towards talking with people who feel anger and injustice about something.
“He’s convinced you, that’s great”.
Odd. You are apparently able to read English, and yet you suggest that Marmite said exactly the opposite of what he did say.
Given the Auschwitz theme, it would be as well to check the comments of a certain Herman Goering concerning how easy it is to gain public consent to otherwise unpalatable choices 🙂
My experience of anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists and covid deniers is that they don’t want true debate, and the only questions they ever ask are loaded ones. They clearly want to win, by any means they can. And that is why I label them as such, just as I label Bush and Blair liars and war criminals. The motivations are clearly very similar.
If that upsets you, Yossi, try talking sense to them instead of trying to discredit their critics. You’ll get back abuse similar to that which you’d receive on Twitter from all the corporate media pundits who still support the Blairites and their wars.
It’s about facts; some people accept them, other try to distort them. And honesty; some practice it, others feign it.
Anyway, I’m clearing off now. There are too many unpleasantly aggressive conspiracy theorists in Craig’s comments section for me; I find it an emotionally damaging environment and I need to protect myself.
That could have been written by one of Nicola Sturgeon’s woke cronies. It made me laugh anyway.
Thank you for your advice. It’s never too late even at 80 to be offered it. Actually I don’t get upset. If it come across that way I’m sorry. I find the use of labels, like those you use, unhelpful (but inevitable).
I’m also not clever enough to discern what the motivations of a group of people are – examining individual motivation is hard enough for me.
Facts are interesting aren’t they? Do we ever know what is factual? Scientific facts are really only theories aren’t they? Constantly up for possible disproving by “experts”.
Anyway back to the original discussion, do we know what the facts are really? Perhaps you think you do. I know I don’t, That’s why I like to ask questions. I’ve taken all sorts of vaccines all my life, That has been when they have been around for quite a bit and been shown to be efficacious and safe (well reasonably safe as there always appears to be some risk). This one seems a bit dodgy to me. Rushed out before the original end of trial date. Aimed to reduce symptoms (not to be sniffed at) but no claims of immunity. The amount of dosh to be made from it, especially when other cheap drugs and supplements like ivermectin. hydrochloroquine, and Vitamin D are not trialled extensively, also seems a bit iffy.
Anyway, I won’t be dabbling just yet, but if anyone else wants to I wouldn’t urge one way or the other, and I certainly wouldn’t try on the old sanctimonious guilt trip business by saying that anyone not taking it is selfish.
I am all for guinea pigs putting themselves forward, not my family though, the more people that apply to join the drug trial the more useful the findings will be at the end.
Except this drug trial is set to last longer than the disease.
Clark, have you heard of “projection”? Your comment is a splendid example of it.
No it’s not ironic – at least not in the way you think it is. Science is designed to question everything, in a focused and systematic way. Philosophy questions everything in a more fundamental profound way. Those are established methods of doubt, and they can be traced back to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. If you take heed of the general consensus of scientists and philosophers, you won’t go far wrong.
That’s not how conspiracy theorists operate, though. They use a different methodology, based on distrust. They disbelieve the official sources first and foremost, then seek out anything that will confirm their suspicion: maverick scientists who also reject the official view are endorsed uncritically; ambiguities in official statements are misinterpreted to derive contradictions; analogies are made with other situations where the truth only emerged later. And so on.
Don’t call that skepticism. It’s not skepticism – it’s cynicism. The people who call themselves “covid skeptics” or “lockdown skeptics” are nothing of the sort: they’re “covid cynics” and “lockdown cynics”. They tend to be very credulous of anything opposing the generally accepted view.
You can choose cynicism as a personal methodology if you want – you can even give up all property and possessions, reject currency, and live in a barrel like the original Cynics – but it’s best to do it well away from other people.
You seem to have got me mixed up with hundreds of other guys and you seem to find some kind of security in placing people into neat little categories – conspiracy theorists, cynics, skeptics, maverick scientists.
Conspiracy theories arise to fill the gaps that arise when lies are told or questions not answered. Salisbury poisoning anyone?
You conflate “science” with the scientific method, which appears to have been short-circuited in this case. The original end date for phase one of testing the AZ vaccine was Oct 2022.
There is no consensus of scientists and philosophers.
Again you’re stretching assumptions too far. I set out a variety of categories for analysis of the debate. I didn’t apply any of those categories specifically to you, so I didn’t mix you up with anyone.
I contend that conspiracy theories arise when (a certain minority of) people lose trust in authority. They assume that whatever they’re being told is untrue, and they think up other explanations (without any direct evidence) – to “fill the gaps” as you put it.
But those gaps only appear if you don’t believe what’s being said or don’t trust the advice being offered. The advice to take the vaccines is evidence-based, though not (as you point out) thoroughly conclusive. There is a balance of probability judgement to be made. If you don’t trust the scientists, then do what you want. But don’t try to push the argument on other people.
There is indeed a general consensus among the vast majority of scientists (and philosophers, and most everybody else) that the vaccine offers the best hope for a way out of this pandemic. You can sample the population as you please (as long as you bear in mind that the maverick websites campaigning against the lockdown are not a representative sample).
So when Craig says there is very little risk from vaccines and conflates that opinion with the covid vaccines / gene therapy, how should people react?
Liar?
I don’t agree?
Where is your evidence?
You say “misleading opinions” – do you know the facts regarding the risks? No you don’t!
And if people have concerns regarding covid jabs then those people should not be vilified by others that do not know what they are talking about.
Regarding an unexplored scientific subject; being unsure is wise, being certain is stupid.
Bringing Iraq, Bush and Blair into the argument is not helpful but may be useful to someone who wants to distract from the topic of discussion.
I know where to look up facts, and I know how to tell fact from opinion. If you don’t, I recommend Bad Science and Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre.
We find out the risks from vaccines by observing the effects. We compare those risks against the risks of COVID-19 itself. No mystery. Ta ta.
“We find out the risks from vaccines by observing the effects.”
The trials are ongoing, the effects in total have not been observed therefore the risks cannot be calculated.
You are basing your “facts” or flawed thinking, you don’t know where to look them up because they do not exist yet.
I see that Piers Corbyn was arrested “on suspicion of malicious communications and public nuisance”. He’s certainly an enthusiastic expert at both, though I’d never heard of the former offence.
The inherent dishonesty and evil hypocrisy of our political and legal systems is illustrated by Piers Corbyn being targeted for arrest, whereas Bush and Blair get state funded armed bodyguards, while the crime itself is dismissed by the International Criminal Court:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/12/the-international-criminal-court-now-simply-indefensible/
I have a feeling the term public nuisance is usually used for people caught piddling in doorways 🙂
Public nuisance is what police charge you with when you haven’t committed a crime.
I got arrested for attending court to answer an overdue summons based on false testimony.
I got arrested again when attending court to answer the charge of public nuisance.
The Public nuisance charge was eventually ruled no case to answer but I spent about 50 days locked up on false testimony. No charges or allegations just locked up on the say so of a sad manic depressive.
After several unwarranted assaults, painful forced injections, lost property etc, I still can’t go home because of a court order that I do not have the resources to contest.
My experience is not unique or particularly unusual. In an instant it could be you innocently answering that knock on the door.
Just refer to the Julian Assange saga. He published the truth. I helped an ill person. Believe it or not both can be construed as illegal.
“many of these same commenters”
Are you sure they’re the same commenters?
Obviously, being a relative of Jeremy Corbyn has now become a Hereditary Crime in the UK, punishable by Attainder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attainder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder
“It is only the vigilance of citizens which will ever limit the power of the state, and it is therefore no surprise that in the age of cancel culture the state stamps down on dissenting opinion.”
Sounds terribly optimistic. Can we still call our fellow humans ‘citizens’? There were more ‘citizens’ in ancient times, when the great majority were imbeciles or slaves (through no fault of their own, of course).
In Britain, it would seem that the last election scuppered any chances of people taking on the role of ‘citizens’. We were moving in that direction, more people were participating in politics, but since then, there has been a mass regression (a retardation of what makes a human human).
So I am not sure I could put any trust in ‘citizens’.
Yossi,
For reasons that are a) too tedious for me to rehearse here and b) will make no difference to one with such certainty borne of profound ignorance, I will confine myself to saying you could not be more wrong about these new vaccines, and the acceptable (but not infallible) approval procedures.
I write as a retired academic biochemist (PhD Molecular Pathology).
I will be taking the vaccine – as members of my family already have – just as soon as I am summoned to receive it.
But I agree entirely with Craig’s view – just so long as those who are against vaccines can provide scientific evidence and reasoning for their arguments. Mindless, ignorant assertions are NOT evidence.
(Reposted from above_
This sound like an epiphany from a closed mind.
The facts are not in – you do not know.
All the evidence has not been collected and won’t be for a long lime.
You will be taking the vaccine – good for you, I will not
You agree with Craig – I do not.
Want to compare qualifications, dick size?
Most of that sounds reasonable. Luckily the vaccine isn’t compulsory, so you can exercise your choice.
However, Dr John O’Dowd sounds like one of the experts whose opinions you should be weighing up when you make that (ideally, informed) choice. If you trust his testimony, and he’s expressing the expert consensus view, you should give his arguments greater weight than others who lack equivalent qualifications. On the other hand, depending on your level of conspiracy theorising, you could dismiss his opinion as educationally gaslighted, reliant on untrustworthy sources, or intentionally misleading (for whatever reason you can conjure up). But you shouldn’t ignore it (unless you think he’s an imposter!)
Actually Dawg, despite your kind words – I would not describe myself as a vaccine ‘expert’. I am a highly qualified biomedical scientist with many years in research and teaching, as well as academic and research management – but that is not my field.
But because I am a scientist, and I know how science works, and because I can read and understand the reasoning, reports, conclusion and discussions of those who really ARE experts in immunology and vaccinology, I am willing to accept their determinations on the safety and efficacy of these new vaccines.
That is how it works – we cannot all be experts in everything, but because I know that the scientific profession is broadly ethical, rational and trustworthy, I accept their findings.
One of the most important things you learn in the long journey to become a doctoral scientist is to know what you do not know – understand your limits – and make a discernment between evidence-based science and total shite.
There is much total shite being spouted by the anti-science lobby on this blog today.
Was it Shaw who suggested that every profession represents a conspiracy against the laity ?
“I am willing to accept their determinations on the safety and efficacy of these new vaccines.”
Oops. You claim to be a PhD, but your field is not vaccines. From what I know of PhDs, they are usually over-specialised for anything but research.
You should not be relying on your title or your PhD qualification to claim authority in these matters. Just argue your case like the rest of us have to do.
“There is much total shite being spouted by the anti-science lobby on this blog today.”
That sword has two sharp edges; mind the edge that is closest to your fingers..
Yep, Jimmeh, that makes perfect sense … if you believe the opinion of a trained and certified professional is equivalent to that of a man-down-the-pub. Why shouldn’t it be? Well, there are plenty of answers to that question and if none pop into your head immediately, then you’d best step away from the keyboard and go chat to that man down the pub.
It’s not elitism. If you’d studied something for years, were trained and tested, and worked at it professionally for many years more, you’d surely expect to be better at it than before you started. Surely. Otherwise, why even bother?
I’m guessing Jimmeh, that you are so impervious to rationality, and so stubborn in your invincible ignorance, that you would still be protesting that you were right to refuse the vaccine even as they are sedating you and prepping you for ventilation in the CoVid intensive care ward
You are right – all the evidence is not yet in. But 100,000 ++ dead (probably higher) and counting of the un-vaccinated many in my age-group is an important piece of evidence influencing my calculations.
My mind is far from closed – all scientific evidence is provisional and contingent. I am monitoring evidence as it emerges. So far, I am fairly happy. It also helps that I understand pretty well how these various vaccines work – and although the m-RNA vaccines in particular are the product of new – and scientifically brilliant research – the underlying principles have been known and developed since the days of Jenner and Pasteur.
The end product of vaccination – immunoglobulin and T-cell mediated immunity are very well understood.
All vaccines – all medicines – carry risks – provisional evidence on this is favourable. On the balance of risks – on the available evidence, I am happy to take a calculated risk on my own health.
For that reason I will be vaccinated.
Others can make up their own minds – but preferably based on evidence provided by people who actually know what they are talking about!
So you are basing your facts and evidence on 100,000++ dying because of covid?
You reject the possibility of false positive tests, that comorbidities may have been the main cause or the piano that dropped on their head haviing fallen from a 20th floor apartment.
Let me be clear on what we don’t know;
How many people have died because of covid (even the excess mortality rates do not support the numbers)
How many people have had or currently have the virus.
How many people are immune.
How long natural / vaccine immunity lasts
And in the absence of that information you think it responsible to base a public health response on guesses and extreme estimates and exaggerated assumptions.
The “evidence” on which you base your conclusions / opinions does not exist.
You are right. We do not know exact figures – all population data are estimates and statistical arguments, but they are rationally based and come from various different methodologies and sources.
There is also the empirical evidence of doctors and nurses struggling with cases in large numbers in grossly-underfunded and deliberately run-down hospitals after 40 years of neoliberalism.
I have no more trust in the Brit Tory government than any other well-informed rational person – but I have more trust in the scientists and statisticians than I have in loopie-loo bampots in bedsitters making up ‘evidence’ for the credulous and gullible.
Nor – as a Marxist – do I have any great love and respect for Big Pharma and the vaccine industry – but that is the present system of medicine provision in this country at this time – and much as I hate it , there is not much I can d about it.
As for co-morbidities – well I have a few of these myself.
Yes, these vaccines were produced at great speed – that is because great effort was applied – and this particular virus – unlike, say, HIV presents a viable target for vaccines.
I am aware also that the MHRA have accelerated approval – but having had professional dealings with that body, I am satisfied that nothing untoward will have been done.
This is an emergency that required emergency action.
I might also say that – although the pharma/vaccine companies will produce and distribute the vaccines – the actual scientific work behind them was broadly carried out in publicly-funded universities and research facilities by independent scientists whose professional ethics are not those of industry (business ‘ethics’ being an oxymoron).
That the upside of public investment is reaped by private business interests is nothing new, and of a piece with the profiteering, nepotistic, corrupt, chumocracy at the heart of the British Kleptocracy.
Nothing I can do about that – we in Scotland – didn’t not put them into power – and the revolution required to remove such a polity seems far from reach.
Which I guess takes us back to why another Corbyn is being persecuted.
I hate arguments from authority. If I liked them, I would struggle to choose between the many medical and biochemist whistleblowers with a clear “do not have the vacccine” message, or the BBC and the government. Oh no wait, that one is easy: the BBC and the government have been caught lying on multiple occasions. The censorship of whistleblowers just makes the argument stronger in their favour.
Not sure how I can be wrong about the vaccines when I am agnostic and ask questions. I have made no assertions – you’re fighting a straw man Prof. Anyway sorry to be tedious and have a nice retirement.
This may be a stupid question Can somebody please help me out here:
I’m comparing ONS monthly death figures for 2020 and the years preceding
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/monthlyfiguresondeathsregisteredbyareaofusualresidence
But I see little difference for between the number of deaths per month in previous years when compared to 2020.
Is there a pandemic? If there is, then what is the mistake I’m making in comparing these stats.
The mistake is that you’re looking at things in context and drawing your own conclusions. That’s the last thing the corporate media want you to do. Now be a good citizen and be scared into accepting being locked in your own home and being injected with an expensive experimental therapy of unkown safety by our scary looking context free graph.
Me too, and I’m thoroughly confused by the daily figures that appear in The Guardian on-line each day.
The Covid-issue has reduced this discussion about ‘free speech’ into a personal discussion of veiled and not-so-veiled insults to anyone that doesn’t agree wholeheartedly with the single note hum of the M$M. So that the 80 year old retired MD feels justified to write “…loopie-loo bampots in bedsitters making up ‘evidence’ for the credulous and gullible.” and then claims to be a Marxist! Just another label of obfuscation to be read alongside ‘loopie-loo bampots’…”
For the past few years over 600,000 people have died each year, nearly 12,000 a week (average) and around 1600 per day! Also each week the ONS states that all figures for 2020 and 2012 are provisional. Finally, around October they introduced ’…a statistical model that allows for the time taken for deaths to be registered, we estimate that the number of deaths actually occurring (rather than registered) in Week 43 in England and Wales was between 9,750 and 12,097.‘, which then introduced a ranged estimate where the larger figure was used each week! So, if the 100,000 deaths were wholley attributable to the CS2 virus (2019) surely we expect the annual mortality rate to be in excess of 700,000.
“Me too, and I’m thoroughly confused by the daily figures that appear in The Guardian on-line each day.”
And so you should be. The data they provide is always provisional data from the last 24 hours.
If I want to evaluate my own, personal COVID risk, then I need to start from knowing how many people in this country are infectious, or potentially infectious. If I meet some random person (such as a shop attendant), that is all that I can rely on. Nobody is publishing that information.
If I want to meet my daughter, the calculation is harder; she is a schoolteacher. I have no idea what the magnitude is of the risk she poses to me.
I would also like to see estimates of the number of people that are immune, whether through infection or inocculation, and how many people hjave become ill with COVID after being inocculated.
This is vital information; without it, we can’t make sensible decisions. And I’m sorry, but I’m not prepared to rely on “experts” – as I’ve pointed out, experts are at least as exposed to biases as the rest of us (and it’s clear that you don’t agree – but you’re not a psychologist). And anyway, some “experts” pose as specialists, but in fact they’re specialists in something completely different – e.g. 19th Century Japanese Ceramics.
So if you’re arguing with a PhD, find out what their doctorate was in; and if they’re talking about some other subject, discount their qualifications and titles, and rely only on their arguments.
I know this is difficult – part of the training for a PhD is about winning arguments – but if everyone is hurling experts around, that is what you have to do.
“So if you’re arguing with a PhD, find out what their doctorate was in; and if they’re talking about some other subject, discount their qualifications and titles, and rely only on their arguments”. Jimmeh.
Mine is in molecular pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Glasgow (biochemistry of disease and disease processes).
I don’t usually mention either my title or qualifications in these posts (I post reasonably frequently on Craig’s blog because we have shared interest in an independent Scotland and other matters – but its relevant to this arguments going on here today.
I’m not really trying to persuade you, Jimmeh – you know it all already. Beyond persuasion.
I’m really just trying to immunise rational passers-by against the deranged madness of the anti-science lobby who are happy to parade their ignorance and irrationality on these pages.
“But I see little difference for between the number of deaths per month in previous years when compared to 2020.”
You’re kidding, right?
– a difference of 44,032 and you see “little difference”?
I could go on to other months where the difference is less stark but there is nonetheless a large difference.
yes that was the big jump. It also corresponds to a huge transfer of people out of hospitals and into Care Homes. Check out Amnesty report. Since you are looking at the figures show me another huge increase after April 2020. Also check Jan 2018 against same month either side.
Unfair – look at every other month.
Thank you Stephen waters for shedding light on that anomaly.
Mr E.T., I’m just trying to find out the truth. I don’t care about winning arguments. I’ll gladly admit I’m wrong.
But Except for the month you mention I see little difference in the numbers of deaths compared to previous years, and thus, no reason to destroy the economy.
E.g. – my local pub employed 28 people who are now either on the dole or working for Amazon which is possibly worse than the dole.
Monthly, all deaths figures from ONS:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/monthlyfiguresondeathsregisteredbyareaofusualresidence
Weekly all deaths figures from ONS:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
Go and take a look, Graham. You’ll need some software capable of opening spreadsheets. Libre Office and Open Office are both free and are both almost as good as MS office. Check the figures for yourself. Calculate percentages. Yes, it takes time. Inform yourself.
As it happens I did graph these figures sometime mid to autumn 2020 and posted them in other threads here. I had a hard drive failure (NVME drive died) which wiped all of my graphs (which I hadn’t backed up) and I just haven’t had the time to reproduce them. Perhaps I will again as they obviously need to be updated.
I am trying to make an argument based on incontestable fact. I will assert that the deaths from all causes data is incontestable. If you will, I try to make my argument from first principles. There was a large increase in deaths in 2020 compared to other years or the five year average. That is incontestable and I’d be very worried if governement ignored that. April 2020 highlights that. I was answering to the assertion that there was little difference in any of the figure in 2020 to other years. I call bullshit on that and highlighted April as the most egregious example. Even if every other month in 2020 is comparable to other years (which it isn’t) April alone should cause serious concern.
If the cause was contaminated water and only occurred for one month for instance people would rightly be screaming from rooftops about it and calling for heads to roll.
The Pfizer vaccine (BNT162b1) raises antibodies and long-term protection, by producing memory T-cells and [killer] T-cells to counter Covid19.
The scientific literature is now accessible through open access; this article, published in Nature last year, describes and “suggest that it has the potential to protect against COVID-19 through multiple beneficial mechanisms”. The article is well worth a read, albeit with a tad of effort. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2814-7
BNT162b1 is novel, and based on messenger RNA (mRNA). It is not yet known how effective it is in conferring long term immunity to catching SARS-Covid, and critically protecting against severe disease in the future. As an older person I will take it or AZs adenovirus vaccine. I worked with mRNA10 years ago, fantastic progress has been made since and relies on the efforts of a wide range of scientific disciplines, with access to fabulous new technologies, methods and information. , Public funding of fundamental and applied science has been crucial.
Tory politicians have spotted an easy get out of jail card, as vaccination is a simple task that can be easily scaled up quickly and successfully; unlike their “test, track, trace and isolate” failures and dire “loose policy” controls.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/feb/01/loose-rule-breaking-culture-covid-deaths-societies-pandemic
“Put your faith in me, I’m an expert”
No thanks.
You see scientists sometimes get things very wrong (thalidomide), politicians invariably get things very wrong.
Human nature means when people make mistakes they tend to lie and try and cover them up.
Casting people that are rightly concerned as extremely selfish and then being supported by someone who has been out of the game for several years does not instill confidence in your cause, it detracts form it and I think that it the sensible and right thing to be cautious regarding the vaccines.
No-one is forcing you to have the vaccine. You are free to parade your ‘views’ based on no evidence whatsoever.
You’re perfectly entitled to be irrational – that’s your right.
But others are entitled to weigh the force of YOUR (non-) arguments against the knowledge-based, evidence based information provided by – yes – experts. People who actually KNOW something.
I feel your pain – it’s hard to be where you are – but don’t, please, try to influence people to take steps that could be fatal for them.
you are such an Elizabethan self-sharpening dagger scabbard, and an arrogant one at that. If it’s ok to have an opinion let it be. Death is inevitable for most of us that process will involve pneumonia. I suspect you were a wonderful MD who had a blameless career and never made a mistake but your arrogance is… well, expected I suppose.
I’m not an MD – I’m a PhD.
‘death is inevitable for most of us that process will involve pneumonia.”
first part correct – but why lose years of life? The latter part is just nonsense.
You mistake well-founded knowledge for arrogance. But it’s in the eye of the beholder.
Just trying to perform a public service – a social duty. And I’m not hiding behind a pseudonym.
Cowardly
Dr John,
It is very rare for PhD’s to style themselves Dr. You wouldn’t be trying to argue from authority would you? As a PhD you must of course know that this is fallacious reasoning.
There are “experts” on both sides of the “to vaccinate or not” argument. So with insufficient trustworthy evidence, who to believe? Those who risk nothing and side with the known liars (BBC and government etc.) have no stake in the game, whereas the whistleblowers who risk their career, have shown their honesty.
That leads to an easy choice, believe the whistleblowers: “Don’t vaccinate.”
What utter tosh – Ray A – and you know it.
You quote Thalidomide. Do you know why that has happened and what safeguards have been placed on medicine research since?
Ahh, Thalidomide, mercifully the late Mamy was not offered it, and I was able to see and remember in a disinterested way how The Distillers Company were still trying to wriggle free of the consequences into the early 70’s.
Not BNT162b1 it wasn’t well tolerated and didn’t produce as good a T Cell response as BNT162b2 which proceeded to Stage 3 Trial.
I have tried twice to post a comment about Dr Mike Yeadon – ex Pfizer – but the comments are not here on this thread.
What is going on..?
Free Speech being devalued?
Mike Yeadon has been discussed in other posts on this website. His hypothesis that there will be no second surge of the virus were clearly shown to be wrong by events.
The Mods have warned you about your moniker (John Pillager). This is quite possibly the reason your comments have been removed.
I absolutely agree with Yossi – and I agree with the great philosopher Socrates when he urged us to question everything.
The problem is that whether or not the vaccines are safe and effective or not, we cannot easily be reassured that information is from a reliable source because our governments and largely complicit media are so corrupt.
The vaccines may indeed prove to be quite safe and effective but why then are the vaccine manufacturers insisting on being immune from liability if there is supposed to be so little risk? Do we ever see this question and similar questions asked in the mainstream media? No!
It’s a fair question if the drugs companies are set to make massive profits from this venture should there be an element of risk for them?
I don’t think anyone is denying that people will be harmed and even killed as a result of the vaccine, what is being debated is how many.
If it is very small (which tends to be the case across all vaccines) and the benefit to society is significant (through saved lives and illness reduction) then that is a difficult but common decision which governments regularly take.
However when the risks regarding the covid vaccines are not known, when the benefits are not known then there is a very real concern regarding the drug companies’ profits if it all goes horribly wrong.