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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Is there a block on links to BitChute videos on this site?
Why have 3 of my comments disappeared?
Thanks..
And by ‘search’, I don’t mean on the heavily cancel cultured censored YouTube.
I mean on BitChute / Brandnewtube / Newtube etc..
It could be the rude word filter Bit -Ch
ROTFLMAO
Solidly reliable source, BitChute. The number of reputable scientists who go there to have their claims peer reviewed is, err… help me out here John. Surely anyone can’t post post any old crap there and get the clueless and gullible to consider it true?
And it differs from this site how?
This is due to the censorship that is happening on YouTube.
If you think that you’re getting every angle on any given subject on YouTube then think again..
Farcebook / Twatter / YouTube – all being heavily censored.
Brandnewtube and Bitchute are much less censored.
Wakey wakey… Glen
And surely not everyone can claim to be a doctor without actually being a doctor?
It’s not hard to check doctors credentials out is it ?
By your logic NOTHING on BitChute has value ?
Utterly ridiculous..
Well I never.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitChute
“BitChute is a video hosting service known for accommodating far-right individuals and conspiracy theorists, and for hosting hateful material.”
Even Craig Murray thinks it’s far from an impartial site !
Wikipedia is a website, and therefore of necessity centralised. WikiScanner has shown that media organisations, PR companies, agents of the deep state and CIA are systematically editing pages of personal interest to them.
Hierarchical Control
Anyone can edit the site, but reverting people’s edits is easy, and so is blocking users or IP addresses. Not everyone can do that. Who decides who can and who can’t? Wikipedia editors are kept in line with what has been called “a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere , one which gives special permissions to a very select group of editors – privileges that can be revoked if someone’s decisions are deemed ‘out of line’ with the Official Narrative. Wikipedia is not as radically unbiased and fair as it purports to be, and increasingly reflects the agendas of those with deep pockets who have invested in shaping it to suit their commercial purposes.
Infiltration by Intelligence Agencies
Craig Murray has suggested that GCHQ and other spooks are “embedded” in Wikipedia, which would explain their failure to challenge even the most facile official narratives. In 2018 he suggested that the “Philip Cross” account was either a “morbidly obsessed” individual, or more likely was being used by multiple people for a campaign to support the UK establishment’s pro-war official narrative.
Professionalisation
Wikipedia is not controlled by a grassroots organisation of volunteers. The number of individuals editing it has been in decline for years and nowadays it receives multi-million dollar donations from companies and grant giving foundations such as from the Ford Foundation, Omidyar Network and Google, some of which have been linked to seats on the
board of the Wikimedia foundation
Craig Murray – Is GCHQ Embedded in Wikipedia?
Quoting Wikipedia is hilarious given Craig’s fantastic articles explaining the deep corruption behind the site..
:0l
Bitchute and brandnewtube have been brought into being by YouTube’s rabid cancel cultured censorship.
Twatter / Farcebook and YouTube have been shown to be illegally working in unison.
Unfortunately most of the people noticing and speaking out about this have been included in the purge…
All in the name of the ‘official narrative’.
Here is a small example of the “ impartiality “ which some commentators like to refer to as THE GO REFERENCE when trying to support their point.
Yes, Youtube, owned by Google, have a blatant censorship policy much in line with totalitarian regimes.
Decades ago a diplomat from USSR was in New York and made an observation to an American politician because he noticed despite their being a multitude of newspapers and magazines for sale, they all carried basically the same headlines. He remarked in my country most people know what is in the MSM is propaganda but here they are completely unaware. Nothing has changed in all those decades!!
Wikipedia is generally thought of as an open, transparent, and mostly reliable online encyclopedia. Yet upon closer inspection, this turns out not to be the case.
In fact, the English Wikipedia with its 9 billion worldwide page views per month is governed by just 500 active administrators, whose real identity in many cases remains unknown.
Moreover, studies have shown that 80% of all Wikipedia content is written by just 1% of all Wikipedia editors, which again amounts to just a few hundred mostly unknown people.
Obviously, such a non-transparent and hierarchical structure is susceptible to corruption and manipulation, the notorious “paid editors” hired by corporations being just one example.
Indeed, already in 2007, researchers found that CIA and FBI employees were editing Wikipedia articles on controversial topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo military prison.
Also in 2007, researchers found that one of the most active and influential English Wikipedia administrators, called “Slim Virgin”, was in fact a former British intelligence informer.
More recently, another highly prolific Wikipedia editor going by the name of “Philip Cross” turned out to be linked to UK intelligence as well as several mainstream media journalists.
In Germany, one of the most aggressive Wikipedia editors was exposed, after a two-year legal battle, as a political operative formerly serving in the Israeli army as a foreign volunteer.
Even in Switzerland, unidentified government employees were caught whitewashing Wikipedia entries about the Swiss secret service just prior to a public referendum about the agency.
Many of these Wikipedia personae are editing articles almost all day and every day, indicating that they are either highly dedicated individuals, or in fact, operated by a group of people.
In addition, articles edited by these personae cannot easily be revised, since the above-mentioned administrators can always revert changes or simply block disagreeing users altogether.
The primary goal of these covert campaigns appears to be pushing Western and Israeli government positions while destroying the reputation of independent journalists and politicians.
Articles most affected by this kind of manipulation include political, geopolitical and certain historical topics as well as biographies of non-conformist academics, journalists, and politicians.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, a friend of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and a “Young Leader” of the Davos forum, has repeatedly defended these operations.
Speaking of Davos, Wikimedia has itself amassed a fortune of more than $160 million, donated in large part not by lazy students, but by major US corporations and influential foundations.
The current Wikimedia CEO, Katherine Maher, previously worked at the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) as well as at a subgroup of the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Moreover, US social media and video platforms are increasingly referring to Wikipedia to frame or combat “controversial” topics. The revelations discussed above may perhaps help explain why.
Already NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed how spooks manipulate online debates, and more recently, a senior Twitter executive turned out to be a British Army “psyops” officer.
To add at least some degree of transparency, German researchers have developed a free web browser tool called WikiWho that lets readers color code just who edited what in Wikipedia.
In many cases, the result looks as discomforting as one might expect.
There are many, myself included, who wish to wait for more evidence on the safety and efficacy of these vaccines before lining up for one. At this point I am alarmed at the reports of serious side-effects and post-vaccine corona outbreaks, but await data analysis which will show whether these are vaccine-related or coincidental. Meanwhile, I hope commenters will not insult the more cautious among us by calling us ‘anti-vaxxers’.
What reports are these which alarm you so? Proper sources, please, not just “somebody said”…
I’m rather alarmed at very credible reports that over 100,000 people are now dead from Covid-19, with the virus having had less than a year to circulate. I suppose that doesn’t bother you?
Forget what they had, how many died because of covid?
You don’t know!
My granny died with a verruca she didn’t die because of it.
A good starting point, if you have a genuine interest, is to see how many died in Intensive Care Units in the UK (icnarc).
You might be surprised.
It’s a pointless conversation, Mushy, which idiots have been reproducing for months.
I’d suggest you do some actual research, but you doubtless prefer sensationalist nonsense from the usual suspects like Piers Corbyn.
You might want to see how many people have died of OR with Covid-19 (take your pick – people like you get very excited about that one) since being vaccinated. Look it up, or remain ignorant – you are free to make that choice.
“Seniors Dying After COVID Vaccine Labeled as Natural Causes”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/02/joseph-mercola/seniors-dying-after-covid-vaccine-labeled-as-natural-causes/
A collection of individuals’ experiences of the Covid-19 vaccines. Lengthy, frightening, and quite disturbing – you have been warned.
https://prezi.com/i/gw4zv2c_cwrb/anecdotal-experiences-cvv/
“7 die at Spanish care home after getting Pfizer Covid-19 jab as ALL residents test positive for virus, second doses still to come”
https://www.rt.com/news/514303-deaths-pfizer-vaccine-covid-spain/
‘Our message is to take the vaccine,’ says family of man whose death after COVID shot is under investigation
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-29/man-dies-after-covid-shot-but-family-says-get-vaccinated
“California Health Care Worker Dies Three Hours After Getting COVID-19 Vaccine”
https://thevaccinereaction.org/2021/01/california-health-care-worker-dies-three-hours-after-getting-covid-19-vaccine/
“Pemberley House Care Home deaths ‘not related to vaccine'”
https://www.romseyadvertiser.co.uk/news/basingstoke/19045127.pemberley-house-care-home-deaths-not-related-vaccine/
“I’m rather alarmed at very credible reports that over 100,000 people are now dead from Covid-19”
Why do you believe these reports are credible?
Total deaths in 2020 were Higher by 80000 compared to 5 years average.
I think because they came from the government. Whether you trust that source is a matter of judgment – I don’t.
glenn_uk: What’s really pointless, and bizarrely illogical, is accusing Robyn of not being bothered by the deaths of 100,000 people just because [s]he is concerned about possible side-effects of the new vaccines. It’s a complete non sequitur.
There are many alarming reports. I rely on reputable sources, I don’t know why you suspect I rely on ‘somebody said’ or improper sources. Try this ‘proper’ source, the US vaccine adverse events registry https://www.openvaers.com/covid-data
Then we have the growing number of countries not proceeding with vaccinations for the over 55/65 year olds. Again, from reputable sources.
10 million of the most vulnerable vaccinated already. Pure hell for the Piers Corbyns of this world.
Strangely enough, it never slows them down. These nuts will be right back onto the next “controversial” subject – climate change denial, 5G technology about to kill us all, lizzard people/ Illuminati etc. etc. – and their complete failure to get anything right on vaccines won’t trouble them at all.
Rants trump Debate
Curiously enough, if a “vulnerable” person dies within 30 days of being vaccinated, that’s because of “underlying conditions”. He was old anyway, so could be expected to die soon.
But if a “vulnerable person” dies within 30 days of a positive PCR test (which is completely meaningless) he is designated a “Covid” death.
They’re all in on it, Tom. A terrifying, cross-ideological global conspiracy that only the most special minds have been able to identify.
Dom, I would like to feel “special” – but I think it’s more that some of us have “awkward squad” personalities. I agree wholeheartedly with Robert A. Heinlein when he said “If ‘everybody knows’ such-and-such, then it ain’t so, by at least ten thousand to one”.
Most people, as far as I can see, are greatly swayed by the opinions of others. Some of us much less so. That has advantages and disadvantages, but it does help in the search for objective truth.
The Asch experiments are quite amazing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
Nyah hah hah hah hah! Do you hear that Muttley? We’ve got ’em!
Seriously, we have a body in the UK for ensuring that vaccines are safe before being released to the public. It’s called the MHRA. Here’s what they have to say about approving potential vaccine:
Until the end of December, and as part of the transition period, COVID-19 vaccine candidates can be licensed (authorised) via the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and that authorisation will automatically be valid in the UK.
However, if a suitable COVID-19 vaccine candidate, with strong supporting evidence of safety, quality and effectiveness from clinical trials becomes available before the end of the transition period, EU legislation allows for temporary authorisation of supply in the UK, based on the public health need.
The MHRA will evaluate the data rigorously for quality, safety and effectiveness to reach an independent, scientifically robust opinion. The data must include results from lab and clinical trials in humans; manufacturing and quality controls, product sampling, and testing of the final product.
Any COVID-19 vaccine candidate submitted after the transition period ends in January 2021 will not need to go through a European marketing authorisation for use in Great Britain and will instead be assessed directly by the MHRA. The MHRA is globally recognised for requiring the highest standards of safety, quality and effectiveness for any vaccine.
IMHO they do their job conscientiously. So stop worrying and get the jab when your turn comes!
“IMHO they do their job conscientiously”
And why is this your opinion?
Hmmmm, let me see now. This time last year the Corona Virus was still just a Chinese problem, and we were on the cusp of it blowing up in Italy.
So the development and testing time for any of the available vaccines is much less than one year. And it would be as well to remember that attempts at vaccines for the Sars1 virus, ongoing for nearly 20 years, were all dismal failures.
A far as the MHRA goes, June Raine (?) the head of that erstwhile body, delayed her retirement as she felt the need to play her part in the battle against Covid. Given that the MHRA is a government bureaucracy, it might be just as plausible that she stayed on because nobody else was willing to step up and risk potential blots and ignominies on careers that still had years to run ?
Tom
If you read about the 33 dead in Norway after covid vaccine you will also read that 300 people also of that age die during that period of other causes, and some of them also have the vaccine. The subtlety here is: do half the population of certain care homes die unexpectedly and following a pattern of illness known to Doctors as covid-19 and test positive or are these doctors so ignorant and brainwashed that they will certify death according to instructions?
“a positive PCR test (which is completely meaningless) “
You are misinformed. A positive PCR test proves (within the constraints of medical “proof”) that you have live virus in your body. If you die with virus in your body, and your symptoms are consistent with COVID, there’s a pretty good chance that it’s COVID that killed you.
The problem with PCR is that it can’t tell you if you have antibodies, but no virus DNA. So it can tell you if you are potentially infectious, but it can’t tell you if you are potentially immune.
Having virus DNA is the only “certain” way I know of, that indicates current infection. The presence of viral DNA in a dead person is THE BEST indicator that COVID contributed to their death.
“If you die with virus in your body, and your symptoms are consistent with COVID, there’s a pretty good chance that it’s COVID that killed you”.
No. How many virus particles? Whereabouts in your body? Active or destroyed? You do know that PCR identifies only a few tiny shreds of RNA, not a complete viral genome?
In the case you describe, it is almost certain that you also have flu, cold, and many other viruses in your body. But no one is using PCR to look for them.
Lastly, Covid-19 has no unique symptoms.Not a single one.
“No. How many virus particles? Whereabouts in your body?”
Don’t be silly. We don’t have that information yet. Are we now down to counting the number of virus particles on a pinhead?
However, if you have ONE particle that can be detected, you certainly have more. Is there some number of particles that you think makes you a likely transmitter? Is there any evidence that inclines you to that view?
PCR operates on a tiny sample of genetic material. If it detects COVID in that sample, it’s almost certain that you are infected, and probably infectious (I’m aware of no evidence that PCR can detect DNA from destroyed particles, if you are, please present it).
“In the case you describe”
The case I described was an anecdote, that relates to COVID in exactly zero ways – except that it’s very likely possible to acquire disease from being injected with a vaccine, and that I’m no antivaccer.
That is not speculation – you know that many people have been killed by vaccines. I’m by no means saying that any COVID vaccine is going to kill anyone. But the idea that all vaccines are safe (and particularly, that any novel vaccine is safe) is for the birds. Only an extremist would make such a claim.
I’ll consider believing that claim when a couple of million people in this country have been vaccinated in accordance with the manufacturer’s protocols (i.e. twice, with the same stuff), and none have caught COVID. I’ll be happier if they leave it for six months after the second dose, before making pronouncements.
“!Lastly, Covid-19 has no unique symptoms.Not a single one.”
And don’t I know it! I became ill just yesterday – I couldn’t sleep, I spent the night sweating, and I could barely eat or think the next day. I checked my symptoms carefully – I was unable to eliminate COVID.
As it happens, I’m much better today (thanks) – it was clearly just a one-day cold. But you are right – there is no way to distinguish COVID from a cold on the basis of symptoms.
However, you are wrong about PCR. It’s a reliable test for live virus. It’s useless for determining immunity or antibodies, because that’s not what it was invented for.
If you had a PCR test that came out positive, with a certainty of 90%, would you say that was a useless test? I would say that’s a much more useful test than a lateral flow test that says you have no antibody (but with a 40% chance of being completely wrong). But of course, PCR is much more expensive than LFT. Anyhow, they are not interchangeable – they test different things, and are useful for different purposes.
I’d have a lateral flow test if I was planning to spend time in the company of someone who might infect me (but I’d mask up, and keep my distance); and I’d have a PCR test if I was afraid that I might infect them.
Of course, that’s all assuming that these tests are freely available to everyone, which they are not.
The Virus has no DNA, only RNA. And the PCR test looks for only certain proteins that make up the virus, and may indeed be parts of other entities also. Throw in the Cycle Thresholds of 40 currently being used in the UK, and the PCR test becomes very dodgy indeed.
Thanks – I consider myself better-informed (and I hope you are not a PhD in some irrelevant research field).
The ONS statistics rely on death certification not positive tests. They report covid related deaths as those in which covid appeared on the death certificate as either cause of death or significant co-morbidity. Their figures are generally higher than those of PHE who use the within 28 days of a positive test.
Are you seriously considering that the ONS are misleadingly reporting the registered death figures from all causes?
“Are you seriously considering that the ONS are misleadingly reporting the registered death figures from all causes?”
No. But I am not “seriously” considering that the ONS is “immune” to political influence, bias, or mistakes. I haven’t questioned death figures in fact; people die all the time, COVID or otherwise. I may have questioned the statistical relationship between infections and deaths; diagnosing COVID in dead people is not a major NHS priority.
But I don’t recall raising that question, and anyway, it’s not important to my point of view.
“Dissenting views”?
Don’t be so fucking stupid! Opposition to vaccines is lethal not just to the individual (feel free to commit suicide if you like) but to EVERYONE ELSE AROUND YOU!!!
You are saying that Piers Corbyn has the right to put OTHER LIVES at risk. That being so, I suggest you start with your own. OK?
And the extremists are breaking cover
Unable to debate properly, then vile abuse and insults are the only weapon available to them
He had a fair point though, don’t you think?
No
No, he didn’t have a fair point. It’s not as if people who MIGHT be infected are “Typhoid Marys”. The risk to anyone who is not already extremely ill is minuscule. And even the makers of the vaccines – all of them – have volunteered that their vaccines are not guaranteed to stop you getting infected, falling ill, or infecting other people.
More important than that is that it’s the thin end of an extremely large wedge. Eventually, following that line of reasoning, the state will be allowed to force us to do – or refrain from – literally anything.
Try reading, for example:
“Covid and Coercive Healthism”
https://dr-no.co.uk/2021/02/03/covid-and-coercive-healthism/
“The Government is Gambling with People’s Lives”
https://lockdownsceptics.org/the-government-is-gambling-with-peoples-lives/
It is highly relevant that the malign influence of the state in pushing a diet of polyunsaturated fats and grains from which saturated fats, dairy, and red meat, have been excluded, has lead to the state of health that makes people most vulnerable to this virus, and most other pathogenic diseases.
I wholly agree, Steve, In fact I made a similar point in this thread, although to minimise friction I was less specific than you.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/02/piers-corbyn-and-free-speech/comment-page-1/#comment-975072
The ‘Typhoid Mary’ hypothesis has been used by the government to ‘justify’ mass testing of asymptomatic people. Someone (in NERVTAG/SGAE) came up with a figure of 3 in 10 asympomatic people pass on the virus to others. It is not clear where this figure came from. A recent analysis of 10 million cases in a dense urban setting looked into the hypothesis of asymptomatic transmission. They conclude asymptomatic transmission was a plausibe (but not proven) explanation at a rate 3 in 10,000 cases. I have seen other studies where 2 in 1,000 was thought to be a plausible rate.
The UK figure (conjectured? modelled?) appears to be out by a factor of 1000, conveniently converting the rare to the common. Remove asymptomatic transmisson and the whole mask/2m distancing/mass covid testing goes away. However, the surrent situation is very profitable to significant numbers including advertising companies pimping the fear, medics who set up PPE delivery companies in Jan 2020, and others too numerous to mention.
Well said! Craig Murray is fundamentally wrong about this, and by pointedly not criticising the appalling disinformation in the leaflet he is part of the problem.
I am just not going to agree with you that people ought to be banned from saying things because you or I think they are wrong.
Not even if they are in breach of the Malicious Communications Act 1988?
“An Act to make provision for the punishment of persons who send or deliver letters or other articles for the purpose of causing distress or anxiety.”
Seriously? You need pretty strong evidence to prove what someone’s purpose might have been. And I kinda doubt that a court is going to take it more seriously if you put it in a letter, rather than saying it to their face.
(I’ve never heard of this Act before; has anyone ever been convicted under it?)
Oh – I should do my own search. I can find evidence of one conviction, and maybe a handful of prosecutions. So it looks like rotten law to me.
“The MCA was successfully used against Internet troll Sean Duffy who harassed the family of Natasha MacBryde after her death.[citation needed] In the case of DPP v Connolly, the MCA was used to prosecute an anti-abortion campaigner who sent obscene images of fetuses to pharmacists who sold the contraceptive pill.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_Communications_Act_1988#Highlighted_cases
But of course, racial and sexual speech is defined as abusive IF the alleged victim thinks it was abusive. Reading the text of the law won’t help you figure out what the law is; so that’s just more evidence it’s rotten law.
Of course he has the right to “put other lives at risk” by proferring his advice as to what, in his genuine opinion, is good for them. He believes you and I put lives at risk by advising people to take the vaccine.
I have no doubt that Tory economic and benefits policies have in fact killed more people than covid (though not in as short a period). But I do not believe it should be illegal for people to advocate voting Tory. John Stuart Mill is quite right. Neither you, nor Glenn, nor I, nor anybody is infallible. It once caused massive and genuine offence to all “right-thinking” people to say that the Earth went round the sun. Suppressing an opinion – and I believe Mr Corbyn holds his opinion genuinely – is never right. As Mill suggests, explaining why the opinion is wrong, and using the opportunity to re-test and reinvigorate your own view, is the answer.
…and your last sentence is precisely what you failed to do in your blogpost, and are still failing to do in your subsequent comments.
That is simply nonsense, Ronson, and I believe it is malicious nonsense. My blogpost explains quite clearly why I think we can trust that the vaccine is safe, states that I shall take it myself, and urges others to do so.
Nowhere in your blogpost or your comments have you said why the dangerous claims in the leaflet are wrong. In fact you haven’t even mentioned them.
Sars-Cov-2 poses neglible risk to most people. I am one of those people. As the makers of the vaccines admit, they don’t prevent transmission of the virus, so the argument that people who decline to take this experimental treatment that hasn’t completed clinical trials, let alone been licenced, are somehow putting other people’s lives at risk is wrong at best, dangerous, unsubstantiated emotive nonsense at worst. But hey ho, it’s your right to say it. Just as it’s my right to to say what I’ve just said.
As such, I’ll take my chances thanks. I wouldn’t take chemo if I didn’t have cancer, I don’t take the flu vaccine (which, by the way, has had no effect on overall mortality from flu, worldwide) and I don’t take painkillers if I’m not in pain.
I am more than a little concerned that the effect of the vaccination on the mindset of the vaccinated will lead to a greater spread of the virus if, as the manufacturers have admitted, the symptoms are minimised while the ability to be infected and infectious are not.
Think about it, if you feel well because symptoms are suppressed then you will be less likely to avoid contact with others in the way you morally should if you feel unwell.
The established ineffectiveness of masks and the minimal ineffective social distancing distance will inevitably be followed by those emboldened to go out after receiving the vaccine, with the inevitable increase in ‘cases’.
Craig, I am an admirer of yours and contribute to you regularly (albeit a pittance!!) – I’m not saying this to ingratiate myself, just to indicate that what follows isn’t motivated by any general disapproval of you or your views.
This feels like defending the indefensible. It’s inescapable that the wave of unreality has been created in part by huge blocks of untruth being thrown into the waters by the alt right. The same social media pages that create new age anti Semitism (and ironically the “JC is an anti-Semite” lies) throw in vaccine and corvid denial. I’d suggest you are being overly kind in suggesting this image isn’t “anti Semitic”. For sure there’s no direct anti-Semitic message here – though conflating the desire to produce a vaccine to save lives with the death of millions of Jews is a questionable tactic – but there’s an imagery here that could easily morph into powerful anti Jewish tropes.
Thing is – I’m not really so bothered about your defence of the image – it does disturb me, but my real problem is “Where do we draw the line on free speech”? It’s Corbyn’s anti-vax position that worries me, and far more damning, his climate change denial. At what point do we allow individuals who are promoting themselves through utterly dishonest fake controversy to carry on misleading the public? Where’s the line drawn. George Monbiot wrote about this last week – https://www.monbiot.com/2021/01/29/viral-lies/ – he says: “We don’t shout fire in a theatre”. Anti vax, covid denial, climate change denial. All three are baseless, all three are existential threats – George says “we are putting freedom of speech ahead of human life” – I really wonder at a moment when untruth has been weaponised if we can defend an absolute right to free speech?
Tim,
I just don’t agree on the anti-semitism. Piers Corbyn appears to have a genuine belief that the vaccine is going to kill millions of people. He is using Auschwitz as a terrible warning. That is the very opposite of Holocaust denial. He is of course almost certainly wrong about the vaccine and he is wrong not to see that people would be offended. But offending people ought not to be a crime.
In fact it is not a critical part of Mr Corbyn’s argument that the vaccine is going to kill “millions of people”. If it kills just a few – which it seems to have done already – it is wicked for government to force people to take it.
I have a right to be offended. I certainly do not want anyone taking that right away from me.
Of course you have the right to be offended; after all, how could you help it, if you were confronted by remarks that offended you?
However, you shouldn’t have any right to suppress remarks that offend you; but it seems that this law is precisely defined to criminalise the act of offending people. I say it’s a rotten law.
Looking at the numbers: (all mistakes mine)
If everyone on the planet is inoculated (7Bn) and One million die then extrapolating that to the UK (65Mn) would mean around 9,300 deaths.
Given that 20-30,000 die every year from Flu and supposedly 100,000 have died from Covid. Maybe Piers’ rantings are not so inaccurate – certainly no worse than the Sage Ferguson’s best guesses !
Auschwitz was the site for enforced medical experimentation by Mengele, as well as mass murder of people for political/ethnic/medical reasons. Given that the covid vaccines are experimental (Moderna has never made anything before this product), there is some justification for that metaphor.
As for the vaccines, they are just drugs with possible benefits and possible side effects. The sole benfit seems to be slight reduction of some symptoms in mild cases of the disease (target testpoint for acceptance of a ‘successful’ vaccine). Given that SARS-CoV-19 is hamrless to the reat majority of people, elderly (75+) or these with multiple comorbidities, anyone taking it effectively just gets the unoknown serious side effects (may include death). As the declaration of human rights states, it is up to every person to decide for themselves based on informed consent. Anything else is unethical medical experimentation (ie potentially Dr Mengele territory).
To respond to the latter part of your comment, those who have sought to limit the free speech of others have always done so on the excuse that free speech is harmful to the general population. I cannot set out as cogently as John Stuart Mill does above the answer to why it is wrong to suppress an opinion because you believe it to be incorrect. if you engage with what Mill wrote, he fully answers your question.
Craig, is it one thing to hold a view, as Piers does, but another thing to be active in spreading demonstrably false claims, rumours and myths about a health strategy, which will end up undermining that strategy?
“active in spreading demonstrably false claims, rumours and myths “
Where is that demonstration?
The old US saying of ‘I disagree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it’ disappeared ages ago. Now we have ‘I disagree with what you say and you should be jailed for saying it’.
Customarily attributed to Voltaire, It looks like it was actually Evelyn Beatrice Hall, who I think was USAian, so you may be right.
Whilst I’d love to live in a world where these sorts of people are just sensibly ignored and left to shout into the void, I still don’t think that censoring them does much to either reduce their reach to fanatics or “immunise” people against emotive but irrational arguments.
Removing people from mainstream platforms only removes them from *you*. Their following still moves elsewhere with them, and only grows more insular and extreme as they communicate in an environment with no opportunity to encounter differing opinions. Remove them from Twitter, they go to Parler. Remove them from Parler, they go to other indie sites. Remove them from the ‘clear net’, they go to TOR services.
Then nobody rational can reach them until they do something extreme and illegal – by which point it’s too late. This is where we’re getting to.
I really want to encourage people to bring the conversation back to the internet again; it’s so easy to block, report and downvote someone you don’t like without actually trying to engage with them. This is why everyone is so polarised now. “I’m right, you’re wrong, and that’s that.”
As Craig expressed, it’s a horrible sentiment that may influence people against their own health and interests, but it’s not a terror threat. If someone said how nice it feels to stick your hand in a toaster, you’d say “don’t do what this idiot says – you’ll get electrocuted”. I’d much rather we did this in response to Mr (Piers) Corbyn than hurriedly gag him without any counter-point and inadvertently convince people who were already swayed that he must have had a point if it provoked such a nuclear reaction.
You can’t just censor every problem in the world and assume that just because you can’t see it any more, it’s gone away.
I’d also add and argue that if we have a significant population who are easily swayed and can’t parse the truth from the bullshit, that’s a bigger problem than the minority of bad actors who are influencing them. I’d focus more on teaching people these skills than trying to play intellectual whack-a-mole with anyone who might start a new conspiracy theory.
That distrust in the government is so easy to exploit is also in large part just the government and “elites” chickens coming home to roost. Again, I’d focus on rebuilding that trust through honest and open actions.
But good luck with either of those.
The thing is, Tim, all the cases you cite are strictly matters of opinion. As it happens, my opinions – based on as much careful reading as I have been able to do – are exactly opposite to yours.
You write, “there’s an imagery here that could easily morph into powerful anti Jewish tropes”. Imagery”? “Could morph into… tropes”? Honestly, can’t you do any better than that?
Covid-19: there may not be any such virus. It certainly is not a great threat to public health. And the “vaccines” (some of which aren’t) may be more dangerous than the virus.
It’s especially ironic that you then cite “global warming”, a belief for which there has never been adequate evidence and which is now quite exploded. If anything, the world is cooling slightly, although it will take a century or more to be sure. And if it were warming slightly, that would be good news for all life, including humanity.
Covid-19: there may not be any such virus. It certainly is not a great threat to public health.
Thus spake Tom, leaping from uncertainty to certainty, leaving the witless rest of us baffled.
Tim Bastable
I think Piers Corbyn’s point with the picture of the Austwich gate was that just as the slogan “Work will set you free” put up by the Nazis on that gate was an flat out lie when the truth was that they were all going to be killed, the slogan “Vaccines are safe path to freedom” might also be a flat out lie and we might be killed by the vaccine instead.
Just thought I’d put that out there in case anyone was confused.
So you claim that vaccination program will have the same death toll as extermination camps. Within next 4 years millions of vaccinated people would die. Do not fall in that trap like the Jews and many others believed. It’s just a working camp or just vaccination station but the end is extermination. Sorry but you are confused.
Pro/anti covid vaccine debate aside, as someone who grew up on the internet and enjoyed it as an opportunity to talk and listen to people from all over the world, I’ve watched a massive decline in the quality of conversation over the last decade or so – and it seems to be leeching out into the material world too.
Back when everything was still small bulletin board communities, there was a self-governed tribe for everyone. If you didn’t fit in or agree with a certain community, the onus was on *you* to either argue your point or find somewhere more pleasant. You could still ignore certain users’ posts, but it did nothing to affect their visibility or ‘social credit’ (i.e. “upvotes”, “likes”, “reactions” etc.) in the community itself. If you wanted to discredit someone’s claims to the wider audience, you had to take the time to reply.
Since platforms like Reddit, Twitter and Facebook have directly tied visibility and credibility to a pubic score, they’ve both given conversation over to mob rule and trained people to place disproportionate value in it. The arguments don’t matter (and aren’t even being made); the points indicate the truth.
The people with the most pre-existing followers are inherently bumped to the top of the page (further elevating the opinions of celebrities and populists), and those who follow have to rush to be first to comment with something emotive or superficially logical to have any chance of being seen. The more you write, the less chance you have of being read; there’s too many opinions being posted in one place, and everyone’s too eager to enhance their profile with opinions of their own.
Now the point of social media isn’t to communicate and learn – it’s a big game with your high score tied up with your sense of worth. You may have a thought that you believe to be right but you know is unpopular. Is it worth risking posting if it may cost you points? What if you lose followers? Meanwhile others ‘game’ the system by dribbling out an endless stream of empty thoughts that they know to be on trend – and this reinforces to others that this is the “correct” belief.
It’s gotten so desperate and vicious now that just being popular isn’t enough; other people must be destroyed, silenced, de-platformed. The mob is always correct – and the points prove it.
With this horrendous attitude to communication ingrained in a whole generation, it’s no surprise that there’s such eagerness to ‘ban’ people they don’t like from real life. It’s all just an extension of the game.
I don’t know how we stop this short of slapping the phone out of everyone’s hand, but whether knowingly or not, the applause for censorship has never been louder from the general public. It’s a worry.
I deleted it all months ago, but so ingrained is this habit in myself that I still go looking for the upvote button on the comments here.
It’s galling when I thought I proof-read something I can’t edit after posting and still confused “public” for “pubic”!
‘It’s galling when I thought I proof-read something I can’t edit after posting and still confused “public” for “pubic”!’
At least it shows that you have a playful and creative right brain (or subconscious)! 😎
Ever wondered why your right hemisphere should share all of your left hemisphere’s goals and values? It doesn’t.
“It’s gotten so desperate and vicious now that just being popular isn’t enough; other people must be destroyed, silenced, de-platformed. The mob is always correct – and the points prove it”.
If you look into the lives and habits of apes (such as chimps) and monkeys (such as baboons), you will find much that is enlightening and explanatory. When studying “lower animals”, we gain something: the ability to discard moral judgments and seek biological and evolutionary explanations.
A dominant chimp knows intuitively that, from the moment he awakens in the morning, it is an important part of his duty to distribute plenty of completely arbitrary bites, scratches and insults. That is how the others know that he is the boss. (You see exactly the same behaviour in many offices, by the way).A dominant chimp has to perform an extremely difficult balancing act. If he gets too soft and easy-going, he will be disobeyed and disrespected; and soon another chimp will take over.
On the other hand, a leader who is too harsh is apt to create a coalition against him. Usually five or six are enough, and it’s not pleasant. They catch him, pin him down, and kill him at their leisure.
Very much of human social and political life is explained by such behaviour.
This looks to me like a game changer if it gets through the third stage trials, seemingly Imperial college are currently working on something similar, ie a treatment.
https://www.rt.com/russia/511116-world-first-covid19-antidote/amp/
Ivermectin looks like a “game changer”, with a huge amount of empirical evidence to back up its efficacy and a very well known safety profile, but, it’s cheap and readily available and won’t make billions for the pharmaceutical industry. So it’s unlikely to be used in the UK. Follow the money.
In the same way as Hydroxychloroquine ++ protocols proved to be the most/only effective treatment against SARS 2002/3 way back in 2005, such treatments have been actively discouraged until very recently.
If they are finally acknowledged then it is due to the courage of doctors acting alone or in informal groups in countries across the World, and perhaps more importantly considering that the EUAs awarded to the vaccines could only be awarded if no other treatment was available, the drug companies who backed fraudulent trials to block its use may find themselves in the US courts – won’t happen here of course.
There is no evidence that ivermectin is a game changer or that chloroquine is effective. No properly conducted clinical trials have been completed although some are ongoing
“No properly conducted clinical trials have been completed although some are ongoing”.
Said the person who sees no problem with being “vaccinated” two years before the trials are scheduled to end.
The safety profiles of Ivermectin and HCQ are extremely well known, as it is of vitamin D, which I have availed myself of for several years.
Unlike the “vaccines”, which are an unknown quantity.
Tom
I have already addressed this question. If you choose to continue saying the same thing it won’t nescessarily become true. Pre marketing trials have been carried out for the vaccines but there always follows a period of post marketing surveillance.
Any way good luck to you but take care uh!
Well, the problem with these studies and Big Pharma is that Big Pharma types like Pfizer have a history of manipulating data.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/health/research/08drug.html
“The drug maker Pfizer earlier this decade manipulated the publication of scientific studies to bolster the use of its epilepsy drug Neurontin for other disorders, while suppressing research that did not support those uses, according to experts who reviewed thousands of company documents for plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the company. “
Or you could consider:
https://www.dmlawfirm.com/crimes-of-covid-vaccine-maker-pfizer-well-documented/
For instance, just a couple:
“Pfizer paid more than $60 Million to settle a lawsuit over Rezulin, a diabetes medication that caused patients to die from acute liver failure. …
Pfizer was sued in a U.S. federal court for using Nigerian children as human guinea pigs, without the childrens’ parents’ consent. Pfizer paid $75 Million to settle in Nigerian court for using an experimental antibiotic, Trovan, on the children. The company paid an additional undisclosed amount in the U.S. to settle charges here. Pfizer had violated international law, including the Nuremberg Convention established after WWII, due to Nazi experiments on unwilling prisoners.
… What we do know, from legal history, is that Pfizer’s past transgressions might lead some reasonable people to question whether or not they will submit to any vaccine made by the company.”
Pfizer, the corporation is a “person”, according to US law, but a person that can commit felonies without being incarcerated. If you want to take a vaccine produced by a corporate criminal with a pretty serious recidivist rap sheet, so be it. Good luck to you.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04368728
Trials completion dates January 31st 2023.
Those taking this “ vaccine “ are the trial subjects. In addition, the international pharmaceutical corporations have lobbied the U.K. government to have a legal indemnity clause whilst the government under the 1979 Vaccinations Act have reduced the statutory payment from £120,000 for serious side effects to £10,000. In 2009 during the last warp speeded vaccine, Pandemrix, people started to develop serious side effects, narcolepsy, after about 12 months. After 8 years of court room battles the government finally admitted liability. If neither the international pharmaceutical corporations nor the government have faith in the “ vaccines”, neither should the public !
Perhaps SA, might like to read this.
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
There’s plenty of evidence that poorer nations attempting to use Ivermectin as a prophylactic have seen beneficial results.
The fact that no Western bodies have chosen to bite the hand that feeds them by invoking a large scale study, does not necessarily equate to no evidence.
At worst those leaflets are in poor taste. In no way are they anti-Semitic because they’re not a commentary in any way contesting the camps or the holocaust.
More generally positions are increasingly polarised and binary even among those unqualified to hold a clear opinion. On one hand you’ve got people like Piers Corbyn, who hold the view these vaccines are an unmitigated disaster; the press at the other extreme, as pro-vaccine enthusiasts who promote these vaccines unquestioningly as a wondrous and perfectly safe good despite no such data being available. We seem to have lost the ability to discuss the pros and cons without silly labels being attached and people being forced into rival extreme camps : anti or pro. The art of rational objective discussion made all but impossible on an increasingly wide range of subjects before the labels start getting hurled.
I would suggest you are in a tiny minority in labelling pro-vaccine enthusiasts extreme. (Not on this blog but in society at large.)
I’m not saying that. My comments were aimed mainly at the press coverage.
I’m saying the lack of any scepticism whatsoever in the MSM doesn’t serve society well and just makes people like Piers Corbyn et al more suspicious. The technology behind vaccines isn’t new, but there have been enough medical scandals (eg. Thalidomide) and failed disastrous drug trials in the past to know things do go wrong even with the highest oversight and good protocols. With new strains emerging no one knows exactly how things will develop and thus the press shouldn’t be presenting vaccines as a panacea to ‘win the war’ etc. The vaccine jingoism – tabloid perceptions of getting one over on Johnny foreigner by earlier approval, is also pathetic
“I’m saying the lack of any scepticism whatsoever in the MSM doesn’t serve society well and just makes people like Piers Corbyn et al more suspicious.”
As it should.
“On one hand you’ve got people like Piers Corbyn, who hold the view these vaccines are an unmitigated disaster; the press at the other extreme, as pro-vaccine enthusiasts who promote these vaccines unquestioningly as a wondrous and perfectly safe good despite no such data being available”.
As Tom Naughton (and many others) would say, “Follow the money!”
In the spirit of free speech, I’d like to point out that a lot of ‘anti-vaxxers’ are NOT anti vaccines.
What they are is ‘anti’ a completely new form of vaccine that uses gene editing and which has never been fully tested on humans. There is a well developed process for testing new vaccines that has been developed over many decades, and aims to minimise the risk to vaccine recipients, this uses a staged series of trials. By short cutting and modifying this process with a completely new and novel vaccine the potential risks to recipients are potentially greatly increased – no-one knows !
The manufacturers do not claim that their vaccines will cure or prevent the spread of Covid, they only claim to treat the symptoms of Covid.
Just like free speech, It’s everyone’s right to either take or refuse a vaccine. It is not right to belittle or insult people who are justifiably concerned over the disingenuous way these vaccines are being pushed by the Government.
Using a Piers Corbyn like analogy, I expect some of us will soon have to wear ‘yellow stars’ to indicate our unwillingness to follow the Governments agenda.
There is no gene editing with mRNA vaccines.
Absolutely Stevie.
I’m a fit 40something who had covid19 and experienced flu-like symptoms for a week. Why on earth would I take this novel, rushed through, vaccine. It don’t consider myself to be ‘anti-vax’, however the very thought actually taking it is quite mad. Either I’m immune through my infection, and if I’m not the vaccine does not confer immunity. I have no concerns about getting covid19 again.
The whole idea about infecting others without taking the vaccine is bizarrely misguided.
“But for all established vaccines, those risks are very small.”
The COVID vaccines are not “established”; they are pretty close to experimental. Polio vaccine is established; no mRNA vaccine has been used on the general public until this year. I do not think the word “established” means what you think it means.
I’m no anti-vaxxer. I’ll be vaccinated when the protocol for vaccination is the one the manufacturer tested, i.e. not half a vaccine, not two doses delivered 12 weeks apart rather than 6, and not two different vaccines from different manufacturers, glued together like some chimera. Those weird schemes are the direct result of supply shortages, and the schemes were cobbled together by panicking politicians and their advisors, not by medical practitioners.
I’m not threatening anyone else by declining vaccination for now; I don’t see anyone, I wear a mask, and I keep my distance. That way, I won’t catch it, and I won’t risk infecting anyone else.
And anyway, nobody has offered me any vaccine. When it is offered, I will discuss my concerns with the medical practitioner that is offering it. I’m not interested in the opinions of the CEOs of the manufacturers, nor of the panicking politicians. These are NOT people with a vested interest in telling me the truth.
FWIW, I’m 65, and I have a pre-existing lung condition; the government classifies me as “clinically vulnerable” rather than “extremely vulnerable”. I have no idea when they think I might get a vaccine offer. So sure, I would like the protection of a safe vaccine. But I don’t know how long these treatments work for; I don’t know what effect virus infection has on those that have been inocculated; I don’t know what might be the effects of having to be vaccinated twice; and, supposing that the immunity conferred by inocculation last for (say) 6 months, I don’t know what the consequences might be of infection or inocculation after six months.
Nobody is saying, because nobody knows; there’s been no vaccine available until the turn of the 2021, so there’s hardly anyone that was vaccinated as long ago as 6 months. The tests haven’t been done. And yet we’re all being urged to submit to these experimental protocols.
This is not selfish antisocial behaviour. If I can avoid risk, then I am also avoiding risk for anyone I come into contact with.
Incidentally, I’ve personally contracted disease as a result of vaccination. It was a flu jab; those are normally mostly free of side-effects, but two years ago I had a flu jab that left me bedridden for a week. I’ve been getting flu jabs for about 5 years. This kind of thing happens. You don’t hear much about it, because it’s considered “anti-vax” propaganda to even suggest that vaccines can harm people. And NOTE: real anti-vaxxers don’t get flu jabs every year.
Me, I’ll rely on my common sense, because I don’t know anyone right now that is offering reliable advice (I’m inclined to trust SAGE1 more than SAGE, because the members of SAGE were all appointed by the government, who have an obvious axe to grind).
I’m not saying how others should conduct themselves. I’m certainly not saying that others should eschew vaccination. I’m rejecting the idea that I’m not allowed to think for myself, because of some unwritten and unstated “social contract” that supposedly binds me to do what other people think I should do.
By the way, I’m glad I’m pseudonymous here. Expressing views like these tends to provoke extreme anger, broken friendships, and social outcasting. Fortunately I have no friends, and I don’t socialise. Craig has been outspoken concerning freedom of speech; I hope he doesn’t turn on me, ban me or anything. The opinions I’ve expressed are reasoned, although I might simply be wrong (and if you disagree with me, go ahead and reason back). I don’t have access to all the scientific opinion, I’m not a medical practitioner or an epedemiologist, I’m just a vulnerable member of the public.
Good on you Jimmeh. Agree with very sentiment you expressed, unless it was your birthday very recently we are both ’55ers, so something else in common. Sorry to hear about the lung issue. Take care and have fun.
“When it is offered, I will discuss my concerns with the medical practitioner that is offering it.”
Good luck with that! I have several stories to tell about exactly how interested GPs are in reports of adverse reactions to vaccines (the administration of two vaccines to my young daughter on one day, after the GP had rudely dismissed my quietly-spoken and reasonable concerns about this proposal, caused her to bleed from the rectum) and other drugs (three GPs at another practice all acted as if I simply hadn’t spoken, when I informed each of them separately of the very alarming reactions I had had to the antibiotic Ciprofloxacin, even though one of these reactions required months of physiotherapy to correct, and turned out to have been well documented in the literature; and a GP at yet another practice was simply abusive when I suffered an extreme reaction, terrifying to my wife and young daughter as well as to myself, after a psychiatrist had taken me off Prozac too abruptly, and I learned months later that this kind of reaction was also well documented in the literature). But even if I were to back these stories up with the detailed notes I made at the time, I doubt if anyone would believe me any more than the GPs did. I’ll get me coat.
“I have several stories to tell about exactly how interested GPs are in reports of adverse reactions to vaccines”
Yes. GPs have socially-conditioned biases too; I will be sure to take my scepticism with me for my appointment, and I’ll be sure to take a bushel of salt with me in my bag. I have confidence in my GPs good intentions, and I suppose he’s better informed than I am, but he’s no more rational than anyone else.
So I’ll draw my own conclusions.
“Fortunately I have no friends, and I don’t socialise.”
Heh! we must be twins. 🙂
Jimmeh,
‘The COVID vaccines are not “established”’
True.
‘I do not think the word “established” means what you think it means.’
Assuming this is addressed to Mr Murray then I think you need to rethink. He uses the word to distinguish the vaccines discussed in general terms from the new covid vaccines. Although the paragraph in which this is written is clear enough to me, you’re not alone in misunderstanding it.
Humans – as a species are just arrogant about their place within nature.
I had the opportunity of watching the original Jurassic Park movie (1993) recently and what struck me was that it would be easy to substitute Covid19 for Dinosaurs in the plot and the Arrogance of Man would still stand out!
Humans have a history of being WRONG and below is a brief (recent) history of vaccine screw-ups.
WE SHOULD acknowledge that what governments are currently doing about COVID19 IS POLITICAL and is the biggest SOCIAL AND MEDICAL EXPERIMENT OF HUMAN HISTORY.
Have some humility and think about it; Are humans the ultimate experimenter or merely one of natures countless experiments???????
A BRIEF HISTORY OF VACCINE SCREW-UPS
By Erwin Haas, M.D.
I’ve made a minor hobby of looking skeptically at immunizations since my case report on atypical measles was published as the centerpiece article in JAMA 45 years ago. That case illustrated at least one unpublicized problem from immunizations.
It seems that the original measles vaccine, “a killed measles vaccine” was given to preschool kids beginning in 1962-63 and available until 1968. It did prevent measles for about six years. Thereafter, when these kids were exposed to measles they sometimes developed an inverted and much more serious illness. My case was the first that occurred in a young adult 14 years after immunization. The current live virus vaccine is somewhat less likely to lead to atypical measles.
Among other immunization screwups I include Robert Koch’s attempts to immunize for tuberculosis which apparently caused a few deaths as reported in older literature. Before him, there was variolation, the inoculation of children with smallpox, which greatly diminished the number of serious cases but also led to about 1% developing smallpox and dying. Jenner used vaccinia, the cowpox virus which was safer but would occasionally cause progressive vaccinia and generalized disease in individuals with certain skin conditions.
The biggest problem occurred during WW II. All U.S. soldiers destined for the South Pacific got a yellow fever vaccine that was prepared and administered using pooled plasma harvested around NYC. Seven million doses were made. Lots were contaminated with Hep B and C and huge numbers of these soldiers were sickened. It may well explain how serum hepatitis was disseminated widely in America. These soldiers eventually became veterans who died thirty years later of cirrhosis that was falsely ascribed to their alcoholism. (We didn’t know about hepatitis B and C until later.)
The live polio vaccine type 2 would revert to the wild strain after a few cycles (it spread through communities) and these vaccines still cause serious neurologic complications if given to immunosuppressed individuals.
The ascending paralysis of Gullian Barre Landry after the 1976 Swine Flu vaccine is well documented.
I’m eligible for the vaccine but am not lining up for the “jab.” I regard the privileged and the grabby as guinea pigs on whom these makeshift COVID-19 vaccines can ethically be tested.
Erwin Haas MD MBA was an Infectious Diseases consultant, a flight surgeon in Vietnam and served as a city commissioner in Kentwood, Michigan.
” I regard the privileged and the grabby as guinea pigs on whom these makeshift COVID-19 vaccines can ethically be tested.”
I couldn’t agree more.
I am privileged; I will be using my privilege to avoid vaccine, until the guinea-pigs have served their purpose (and they were given a choice, nobody forced them).
The facts are not in yet; it’s open for anyone to make up their own mind about vaccination (unless some nob decides to accuse you of being an anti-vaxxer). There is lots of room for varying opinions.
I don’t mind at all if others disagree with my views; I can only improve my views in the light of opposing views. I do object to the monstering of vaccine sceptics though.
Yes, I realise that “vaccine sceptics” is a term that might be applied to far-right anti-everything libertarians. I think it is wrong to apply the term that way.
One more important point to be made; There is scarcely a human tool or creation in history that has not been converted or used as a weapon against other humans.
Look at the “vaccine programs” in Pakistan by the USA to fool people into giving DNA samples in the search for “terrorists”.
By exempting companies from any legal liability for the vaccines, there is NO accountability for what may happen. No one would ever think of misusing the lockdown for nefarious purposes?
RIGHT, what could possibly go wrong???????????
Well, the programme in Pakistan was run by the CIA.
The vaccine programme in the UK is being run by the NHS.
Do you actually think these two agencies are the same?
They are both government departments and hence do the will of the political party in power.
The NHS, not unlike the CIA does exactly what it is told to do. THAT is the similarity!
Perhaps, you can remind me when the last time was that a politician or bureaucrat lied to the public?
“Trust Us”…….does not go far these days.
The vaccine contains a spike protein called syncytin-1, vital for the formation of human placenta in women. If the vaccine works so that we form an immune response AGAINST the spike protein, we are also training the female body to attack syncytin-1, which could lead to infertility in women of an unspecified duration..
https://fullfact.org/online/placenta-protein-vaccine/
“Very little chance” is not to me a reassuring conclusion, but let’s be clear: syncytin-1 is a small part of the spike protein, and a much smaller part of protein the vaccine was designed to attack contains part of the the syncitin protein. The vaccine doesn’t “contain” syncytin-1.
If we’re going to spout technical information, ideally we will be right, and also precise and accurate. Precision means that we phrase ourselves in such a way that it is difficult to misinterpret what we are saying. If you say “the vaccine contains syncytin-1”, that is simply false, and people will disregard your comment on the grounds that you don’t know what you’re on about.
Leaving aside opinion and taste it’s my understanding that Piers Corbyn has now been arrested and fined repeatedly for the same offence, breaching the COVID laws on social distancing and gatherings etc. In this respect it wouldn’t matter if he was protesting in favour of vaccines he should still face the full wrath of the law.
As for the reporting I agree fully. Were he not the brother of Jeremy he would attract little attention. The papers try desperately to make the link in the mind of the public between ‘conspiracy theorist’ Piers and former Labour leader Jeremy. The leaflet, which I can’t believe isn’t a stitch up, is a pure gift to the lie that Jeremy Corbyn is anti-semitic. I might even understand if it was the right wing press only.
What really shows the hypocrisy on this subject is the coverage given to it by the festering sore that is the ‘Guido Fawkes’ blog. The article says the same thing, gleefully, that the papers did but the readers of this blog on any other day would be right behind the opinions espoused by Piers Corbyn. COVID is seen by them as a hoax, the social distancing and lockdowns are seen as a conspiracy to control the populace and they are firmly anti-mask and anti-vax. COVID has been politicized by the right and they are reaping the problems that entails. I may be wrong but I feel this is less of an issue in Scotland than it is in the south of England.
So, Piers Corbyn IS free to express his opinion but, at the moment, he is not free to gather with others while expressing it. NB I agree about the right to express even these false opinions and I also think that we can only overcome them if we engage people like adults and explain why each of their fears is unfounded. This needs to be done respectfully instead of the out of hand put downs and laughing at those who propose the ideas.
“The leaflet, which I can’t believe isn’t a stitch up”
Looks that way to me too.
I think Piers is an idiot; but that’s not an offence. I’m surrounded by idiots wherever I go, but they’re not being denounced by the press and arrested by the police. Piers is being picked-on because of Jeremy.
Hell, maybe I’m an idiot. I’m sure there are people who think so. But I hope the police don’t come calling because someone denounced me as an idiot. Being surrounded by idiots is just part of living in the world; and anyway, most of those idiots are generally fairly pleasant people, people I need and depend on.
“Piers is being picked-on because of Jeremy”
I agree. But why now? Jeremy has recently launched his Peace and Justice project and it may be that the ‘useful idiot’ card was played because JC is still seen as a worry to the establishment.
I take some 6,000 international units of Vitamin D per day. When my blood was tested about a month ago, the concentration of Vitamin D was quite satisfactory. The evidence is that, in people with high levels of Vitamin D, the danger of infection with covid is considerably lower and severe covid disease is quite rare.
Instead if pushing dubious experimentall vaccines, wouldn’t governments be far wiser to ensure that levels of Vitamin D are high throughout the population?
How on earth would multinational pharmaceutical conglomerates and their shareholders (Patrick Vallance, for one) make vast profits from that though?
“When my blood was tested about a month ago, the concentration of Vitamin D was quite satisfactory. “
That’s an anecdote. It’s not evidence (you used the word) that Vitamin D is protective against COVID.
FTR, I also use Vitamin D – according to the protocol provided by the manufacturer. I don’t take ten times the recommended daily dose. If you do something like that, you may as well dispense with doctors and medical experts, and treat yourself in accordance with rumours circulating on the intarwebz. Good luck with that.
The lab found my level of Vitamin D was 57.47 nq/mL. Sufficient is 30 to 100. The upper safety limit is 100. So my level is well within the sufficient range and far away from the upper safety limit.
My doctor had prescribed for me 50,000 international units, until the refills ran out. After that, she told me to buy it for myself over the counter. Which is why I now take 6,000 international units every day.
If you only take one tenth of what I do, I suggest you make sure your blood level is not too low.
50,00 international units per week, was what she prescribed.
That should have been ng/mL, not nq.
The manufacturer is you, or maybe God if you believe that he made you.
Whatever you do, don’t believe the ‘experts’ because, except for the few who have made it their business to study D, they aren’t.
On a sunny day, I understand, you make D in your skin at around 20,000 IU in an hour or less depending on how close to the Equator you are.
The highest dose taken, accidentally but without side effects, was over 1,000,000 IU (he misread micrograms for milligrams).
Latest advice, because of a mathematical error in calculations made when determining RDA originally when the 400IU was determined, is 8660 IU Daily all year, for older children and adults.
If you google “vitamin d” and “covid”, you will be referred to plenty of studies that are evidence.
The UK Gov distributes free Vitamin D for those sheltering.
When I was a child there wasn’t an MMR vaXXine [I’ll just do the deadly double-X on vaccine as well to even things up], so I had Measles , Mumps and Rubella , a few days in bed and that was it – immunity for life.
Got out of having the flu jab – same effect, no flu.
Also an odd thing,while the Govt. is ‘doing everything’ to stop this deadly respiratory disease, is that smoking hasn’t been banned. If I remember fag-packets have dire warnings about how they ruin the lungs.
Once the first double-vaXXine is done the power structures are just going to pull out a variant which is resistant.
If one has not caught Covid in 10 months of a pandemic isn’t it likely that one has a strong enough immune system.
So the vaXXine is just a little risk – from my perspective and experience, so is Covid
“Also an odd thing, while the Govt. is ‘doing everything’ to stop this deadly respiratory disease, is that smoking hasn’t been banned. If I remember fag-packets have dire warnings about how they ruin the lungs.”
Oh, Jeez, let’s ban booze too. Ban driving – it’s quite clear that exhaust fumes are bad for your health. And nobody has ever tested exhaust fumes to see if they’re good for you; nobody thinks they’re healthy. So we get to ban driving and truck transport. Hmmm – fatty, sugary foods? Ban ’em. Schools? Excellent way of spreading COVID. Ban education. Public transport? The government’s view seems to be that buses are dangerous. I agree. So why haven’t buses been banned? For goodness’ sake, there’s enough things banned already.
Possibly because most people are not “wee sleekit cowrin beasties”, and any government that tried to ban *everything* would soon be out of power. We’re all prepared to shoulder some amount of risk; the amount varies from person to person.
“Oh, Jeez, let’s ban booze too” (Yeah, I know it’s always been bad form to quote yourself)
Thing is, if you ban booze, then lots of alcoholics will be faced by alcohol withdrawal that is potentially fatal (don’t underestimate how many). There are lots of people that like to smoke, that are much more likely to die of old-age than smoking-related illness, because they’re already old, and suffering from age-related illness.
No doctor will ever prescribe you alcohol or tobacco. But for some people, alcohol keeps them alive, and tobacco keeps them sane.
As a logical step to keep people healthy the govt. could advise people not to smoke, but they haven’t. The alcohol doesn’t effect the lungs and as for the cars, well everybody’s wearing protective masks. If they can deal with Covid particles I’m sure they can deal with lead-free petrol.
And as an add-on, yes , it seems like government/media can just about ban everything
Where do you live?
Do you know the price of cigarettes in UK, do you know we can not smoke in pubs bars and restaurants or public spaces?
” The alcohol doesn’t affect the lungs”
I’m no medic, but (for one reason or another) I’ve discussed the effects of alcohol with quite a few medical types. I have always been told that alcohol effects *every* organ in your body. Ethanol is a tiny molecule, barely larger than water, and can cross just about any of the boundaries in the body.
It increases the risk of cancer anywhere in the body; so it must increase the risk of lung cancer.
That’s the thing about public health, it is about saving a few lives. MMR and flu vaccinations might not turn out to save _your_ life, and these diseases aren’t as deadly as ebola. But the vaccinations are saving lives. Deaths from Measles are down. Deaths from flu are down. You can’t deny that.
I’ve never been in a serious car accident. I still wear a seat belt. Is it worth the hassle for me personally, or should I put up with the beeping noise?
I proudly raise 2 fingers in a ‘V’ for Voltaire, affirming that “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
“Goebbels was in favour of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favour of free speech, then you’re in favour of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favour of free speech.”
― Noam Chomsky
Whilst I always understood these to be quite self evidently ‘decent’ principles, I’ve been absolutely gob smacked this past few years to see the glee with which otherwise thoughtful folk quite hypocritically abandon them when it suits their own perceived narrative and self interest.
It seems that too many people are happy to sing their own song and block every other tune for “T&C” violations, be they left, right, red, blue, black, white, pink or brown.
Wrt this whole hellish pandemic pantomime, it seems to have been largely characterised by mismanagement, profiteering & perception management, with any dissenting voice, be it medical practitioners, virologists, immunologists and the like being sidelined, vilified or outright discarded if they engage in discussing anything but the establishment narrative.
Better to fawn over a computer techie who’s plagued the world with 20+ years of patches, updates and self enriching monopolistic avarice.
Or the barely a handful of bloated pharma giants with a proven track record of scientific and corporate fraud to the tune of billions of dollars in inconsequential wrist slaps, eager to try out their new MRNA toys without having to bother with the lab rats first.
And if anyone expresses concern or a contrary opinion or an alternative solution, just label them “anti vaxxer” and switch them off. Much the same way that you blithely mutter “conspiracy theorist” or any other “ist” as the go to term to write off an opposing or uncomfortable opinion.
Then when the architects of our endless wars of terror and neo colonial global servitude roll up, from their eugenicist inspired think tanks at Chatham House, the CFR or closed door Davos circle jerks, declaring that they have just the solution to make it all go away…….well, just let them soothe your brow, line up, bend over & think of England. In exchange for a few more of your freedoms and a few more slices of your common wealth then you’ll get your name “on the list”……just ensure you obediently line up again in six months time, hand over whatever or whomever your eminently benevolent saviours demand & you’ll “be alright, Jack”
Anyone who doesn’t acquiesce, despise them as “selfish” or “misguided”, remember that you are better than them, you know better than them. “They” may have degrees, doctorates or decades of knowledge in the field, but they’re not worth considering. “They” may have developed their own immunity to contribute to the ‘herd’, but wait! the definition changed, WHO decided “immunity developed through previous infection” doesn’t count anymore, only vaxxing. Seems that the definition of “Vaccine” will have changed too, otherwise that cushty indemnity wouldn’t apply.
Who indeed? let’s not bother asking.
And when you’re fixating on the harrowing number of cases based on debunked 35+ CT rt-PCR tests, or the “terror”fying ticker tape death rolls, based on “count everything” edicts from political quislings, when you’re hustling after your first, second, third,,,,,dose of high end pharma to GM your Own self, spare a few columns in your “I’m alright, Jack” spreadsheet for the MILLIONS of collateral nobodies who were dished out to care homes indiscriminately, were intubated to bursting, never saw hide nor hair of a WHO established essential medicine that could have kept them off the ‘gone’ list, those who died of exhaustion trekking across continents or of starvation as economies, money & food supplies dried up, or those whose lives, livelihoods, futures & childhoods were just erased as BoJO, Karl and their international cohorts played “doctors & nurses” with the human race.
Feel free to delete this. I’m sure I’ll have contravened some new Orwellian diktat and, as your Scottish case seems to suggest, you’re probably liable for what anyone else posts on your site.
btw, all the “you”s in the ridiculously long comment above aren’t aimed at you CM, it’s aimed at us all.
p.s. Note to the legions of “perception massagers” who are no doubt out there, á la Integrity initiative, Brigade 77 & the like, fk you all, sincerely 😉
“Better to fawn over a computer techie”
Who can you possibly be referring to? Zuckerberg, Torvalds, or someone else? FTR, Zuckerberg is no techie.
Billie G, the specky twat from Microsoft who seems to be forever trying to hide his smile as he recounts how many people have died from COVID and that we’ll all have to get jabbed & tagged now……plus he’s got just the product for us…….but it might need updating/relicensing on a regular basis
“BoJO, Karl and their international cohorts”
that should be “Klaus” there, not “Karl”….
….it was late 🙂
Wow!
hadn’t quite appreciated the reach & voracious appetite of the techie twat:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/bill-gates-neo-feudalism-closer-look-farmer-bill/5736504?print=1
but I guess he’s only able to play his mad “Master of the Universe” game ‘cos we’re all too lazy to install Linux and learn how to use it :-)))))
Thank you, Josh R. Eloquent and fact-based. You have precisely expressed my frustration with everything that’s happened in the last 12 months.
This blog is a perfect example of alternative views.
Now, without all these views, some very articulately expressed, I wouldn’t be able to make my own mind about any or all of this.
So for the moment I’m with Craig: let Piers Corbyn express his views and see who agrees with him.
FWIW – on weather, Piers is quite an expert.
Weather is not the same as climate – and Piers Corbyn is a whacked out conspiracy theorist, telling lies about vaccines. He’s not giving his view on weather.
I never thought the comments section of an independent journalist’s blog posts would be where I’d find refuge from a webscape of partisan mud-slinging and hyperbole (mostly…) but it’s been a weird few years.
If people can just talk to each other as adults with the intention of understanding rather than “winning”, I have a good deal of faith that all opinions can have their place and a moderate conclusion can be found between the extremes.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record on this post, not having the ‘gamified’ systems on here that drives people loopy helps a great deal.
I’m with you Wally
I’ve never been very good at left and right. My PE teachers always told me I had ‘two left feet’ and I struggle with ‘right wing’, ‘do the right thing’, and the moral difference between right and correct.
I believe in people and I’ve learned a lot from asking questions. There are things I used to believe which I now think are wrong because other people questioned my views. I’m grateful. Not sure where we’re going if we’re not allowed to ask.
If you want to completely throw everything into the air read Dissolving Illusions by Suzanne Humphries. A history of vaccination and very revealing. For what it is worth I too have declined the experimental medical therapy. I am not an anti vaxxer having had other traditional vaccines in the past. The current offerings are rushed, untried technology and those taking them are part of the phase 3 trials due to end in January 2023.
Chris H – I second your recommendation of Dissolving Illusions. Certainly relevant to any discussion of vaccines.
The vaccine debate has become so incendiary largely because it has also become polarised, so that intelligent debate has become almost impossible. One is perceived either as ‘pro’ vaccines, or an ‘anti-vaxxer’. Any intelligent position between these two extremes is seen through these dualistic lenses. So when a well-known figure – several of whose papers, and whose book, I have read – suggests that because his clinical experience suggests that there MAY BE a relation between certain vaccines, gut problems, and autism, and that this is a potentially important issue that should be properly researched, he is hounded out of the British medical establishment and subjected to a smear campaign on a scale similar to those experienced by Julian Assange and Jeremy Corbyn . . .
Not quite. You’re referring to Wakefield, by the look of it. He started with a conclusion (vaccines cause autism) and went through unethical trials and bulldozed his way through selective data to publish fraudulent results.
Wakefield and his team were working with solicitors and manufactures of alternative vaccines to (a) sue the providers of vaccines on the grounds they _might_ have caused autism, and (b) corner the market with a patented alternative. He planned to make a lot of money off both.
Today, Wakefield is found doing the rounds with highly dubious far-right characters in the US, promoting Trump and all sorts of conspiracy theories. If you’re genuinely interested in this scoundrel, see these BMJ articles:
How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed:
https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347?view=long&pmid=21209059
How the vaccine hoax was meant to make money:
https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5258?view=long&pmid=21224310
The Lancet’s two days to bury bad news:
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7001?view=long&pmid=21245118
The anti-vaccination sentiments here remind me of Frank Zappa’s song – which could be used as an anti-vax anthem
Why does it hurt when I pee?
I don’t want no doctor
To stick no needle in me
Why does it hurt when I pee?
‘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.’
Mr Murray, whilst what you say about scientific advances is indeed true, what is also unfortunately also true is that the technology underpinning the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, namely mRNA ‘vaccines’, is as yet a completely untested platform technology for the vaccination process. This makes their use without significant amounts of clinical trials more hazardous than, say, the Sputnik vaccines, since that vaccine uses vaccine technology that has been used several times in other vaccination systems. Every new vaccine has unknown unknowns, but the Sputnik one probably has less than the Pfizer/Moderna ones.
Because the Pfizer/Moderna systems have not yet been through the ‘teething processes’, which may involve manufacturing challenges, unexpected responses by small subsets of people to the vaccine etc etc, there is per se a greater set of ‘known unknowns’, not to mention ‘unknown unknowns’ about that technology.
One of the enduring lessons of the thalidomide episode 60 years ago is that something which simply was not detected during animal testing turned out to have grave effects on pregnant women’s foetuses. When tested on non-pregnant adults, thalidomide was one of the ‘safest’ drugs around. It simply didn’t have any side effects. One of the ‘assumptions’ of animal testing back then was that the compound would interact in the same way with analagous human proteins as it did with the animal ones. That is a fallacy in some cases, which the pharmaceuticals industry learned about the hard way. That can now be overcome using technology to insert the human version of a particular gene into the animals on which trials will be carried out, just to be sure that no unpleasant surprises occur when the transition from animal testing to human testing occurs.
Now, it may very well be that the Pfizer/Moderna technology does not have any drawbacks to it. We simply don’t know yet. Until you have put it through at least 1 million people of different ages, ethnic backgrounds, sex and other genetic variables, you probably won’t know what those potential drawbacks might actually be. What you absolutely don’t want to be doing, however, is to be risking infertility to just the groups of people who don’t have any significant risk from exposure to SARS-CoV2. The 18-40 age group of both sexes have miniscule risks from the virus and so I wouldn’t be telling them to get vaccinated if they have not already completed their planned breeding. It’s not saying there is any risk, it’s saying we don’t know whether there could be, and it is simply far too important to take a chance when the risks from disease are so incredibly low.
One of the great dangers of the way vaccination programmes are reported by the media is simply equating ‘raising of antibodies’ with success. That is successful in terms of generating the response you wanted (it’s not what a natural immune response involves, since that also involves T cell activation, memory cell creation, retention and possible triggering upon challenge etc), what it does not in any way address is whether you also caused certain unwanted effects too. You don’t necessarily see those showing up in the first 7 days, maybe not even in the first 7 weeks. Only by doing long-term follow up studies do you ever find that sort of thing out. Do you think the pharma industry would do such work without government regulatons? Of course they wouldn’t. It’s just costs and no upside, just potential downside for them. However, for those taking vaccines, it is essential work to establish the long-term safety of vaccination protocols not just for this generation but for future ones too.
There are all kinds of wild claims out there as to what vaccines might be being used for. Some involve insertion of nano-chips into human beings without their informed consent. You know, putting a little nano-chip into the vaccine formulation and then being able to track humans at will forevermore without their knowledge nor consent. I’m not saying this is happening with these vaccines, but it is definitely the case that discussions about such programmes have taken place in the sorts of elitist get-togethers that always have contempt for democratic due process. It’s definitely the case that such technology is being developed and is of interest to Bill Gates the investor, just to mention one.
A more realistic worry is the historical evidence of trying to generate vaccines against Respiratory Syncitial Virus back in the 1960s. The virus is a known cause of paediatric pneumonia and a cause of death in children at a level of 200,000 per year in those under 6 months (see https://cvi.asm.org/content/23/3/186 ) The result of attempts in the 1960s to develop a vaccine caused a new syndrome to emerge, namely ‘Enhanced Respiratory Syncitial Virus Disease’. When exposed to challenge by the wild virus after having been vaccinated, a few young children died. Research on what was happening to cause such tragedies led to the understanding that what had occurred was a malfunction in the normal immune response leading to only a subset of immune response activities occurring, which led to very serious effects in the lungs.
The relevance of RSV to coronaviruses is that RSV is also an RNA virus, it is also associated with respiratory disease. So it is somewhat similar to Coronaviruses.
Do we yet know whether there might be an ‘Enhanced Covid19’ response in vaccinated people if they subsequently encounter SARS-CoV2? No, we don’t. It’s not saying it will happen, it’s saying it is a known unknown to consider going forward.
To put it mildly, there is an awful lot we don’t yet know about SARS-CoV2 and the human immune response to it.
There’s an awful lot we don’t yet know about how mRNA vaccines may play out in humans.
My current working position is that the dangers from SARS-CoV2 are highest amongst:
1. The elderly
2. The immunocompromised and generally unhealthy.
Those people have a far greater risk from SARS-CoV2 than they do from any potential dangers from a relatively untested vaccine (until any new evidence changes that position), so they should get themselves vaccinated if they don’t have objections.
However, the healthy U65s, the U50s with the exception of any unfortunates whose health status is abnormally poor and children absolutely don’t need a vaccination against a disease that will affect almost none of them. The long-term unknowns of untested technology should be considered when the downside risk of not being vaccinated is almost zero.
I am also absolutely not in favour of the taxpayer funding Phase III clinical trials and then having to pay sky high prices so to do. If Pfizer want to cut $1bn off their R+D costs through accelerated ‘licensing’, then the price they charge for their products should be commensurately lower. They don’t have any need to put aside for litigation costs after all (as all vaccines are exempt from litigation and the taxpayer funds it).
If we are going to push such untried technology onto the populace then we should be pretty clear that the cost of it should not be extreme, the safety testing and follow-up has to be to our satisfaction and the ridiculous economic costs of lockdown should not be exacerbated by funding ridiculously expensive vaccines if Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, Tonic Water and plenty of other cheap as chips compounds get shown to be totally efficacious in treating the small population who actually fall ill with Covid19.
“What you absolutely don’t want to be doing, however, is to be risking infertility to just the groups of people who don’t have any significant risk from exposure to SARS-CoV2. The 18-40 age group of both sexes have miniscule risks from the virus and so I wouldn’t be telling them to get vaccinated if they have not already completed their planned breeding. “
Unless, of course, you are Bill Gates working on a population control agenda ?
The Pfizer vaccine does not cause infertility. This belief stems from a misunderstanding of the nature of the protein responsible for the placenta and that on the Coronavirus spike, although they share some amino acids they are not identical and the vaccine will not affect the placenta protein.
Twenty three people became pregnant during the Pfizer trial (one miscarried but she had the placebo).
The under 50s may be at very low risk of death but significant numbers may still require hospital treatment. If this can be prevented by vaccination it’s better for them, better for the NHS and better for the economy, especially if they go on to develop ‘long Covid’ and can’t work and/or require ongoing medication.
The UK Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved the Pfizer vaccine on the basis of a report submitted by Pfizer which saw no independent scrutiny.
“Pfizer was responsible for the trial design; for the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and for the writing of the report.”
Not even phase 1 of the 3 phase trial was properly completed.
https://web.archive.org/web/20201029012809/https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2027906
The big unknown for the mRNA vaccines relates to ADE – antibody-dependent enhancement (or ‘long vaccine’ if you prefer).
“Data from the study of SARS-CoV and other respiratory viruses suggest that anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies could exacerbate COVID-19 through antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). Previous respiratory syncytial virus and dengue virus vaccine studies revealed human clinical safety risks related to ADE, resulting in failed vaccine trials.”
Antibody-dependent enhancement and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and therapies
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00789-5
We have seen that indicriminate use of antibiotic drugs has led to the rise of bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics. Will the equivalent for viruses arise from indisciminate use of antiviral drugs? I guess we will find out now the experiment has been unleashed.
What’s never quite made sense to me on this whole Bill Gates, brain control, elitist genocide conspiracy idea is why any nefarious ‘deep state’ would go to the trouble of all of this quite expensive and risky orchestration of a fake pandemic when they’ve been doing a pretty good job of duping the average person into voting against their interests the old-fashioned way. Risking civil unrest and rebellion by putting people under enormous mental and economic strain, with nothing else to do but sit and stew on why the government are screwing them, just coax them into getting a brain chip, is quite the gamble. They could just as easily put it into any other seasonal or age-related vaccine drive. Heck, most of us are already fulfilling that tracking and manipulation function through our online activities. Who needs a chip?
It’s all too interesting and sci-fi; the most successful despotic regimes are achieved through the mundane. All of this is way too exciting.
Also seeing how we don’t yet have sufficient automation to replace the majority of semi/unskilled labour, it would be odd timing to be killing off the underclasses whilst they’re still needed. I suppose automation might have caught up by the time the last fertile generation had died out, but that’s quite the gamble too. You’re giving greedy businessmen way too much credit.
Not that population control would be a bad thing – in the sense of people voluntarily sticking to one or two children of their own volition, rather than the class-based genocide people are referring to. Less people less problems.
“Risking civil unrest and rebellion by putting people under enormous mental and economic strain, with nothing else to do but sit and stew on why the government are screwing them, just coax them into getting a brain chip, is quite the gamble.”
Quite the contrary, all means to effect civil unrest or rebellion are effectively outlawed. Communities are stretched and divided all the way down to the family level, too afraid of arrest, death, embarrassment or financial ruin to make any kind of fuss. The multitude of fracture lines exploited by identity politics have effectively divided everyone against someone else with whom they have a common interest and and solidarity does not extend to those who have offended one cultivated sensibility or another.
If I were the evil mastermind of a secret elitist cult (which would be flattering myself to think possible, but bear with…) I’d be wary that playing the authoritarian hand too hard might only serve to make people aware of their enthrallment and galvanize them against me. Much better to keep them fat, happy and full of distractions – with allowance for peaceful but ineffectual protest that burns up all of that anger without really achieving any tangible change. You glued your hands to the pavement for the climate? Right on, sister! Hey, everyone! These idiots are holding up traffic! I know, right? Selfish. Business as usual it is.
Sure the threat of a lingering, painful, lonely death for leaving your house might keep people in check for a year or two, but eventually the brave are going to start testing those boundaries, and the hesitant will follow. Now you’ve got a whole bunch of people who know you lied to them and cost them family, friendships and precious time.
Considering how well the old methods have been working for who knows how long, taking such a huge leap into obvious authoritarianism seems an odd choice. The mild version of divide and conquer was just as effective at keeping us squabbling amongst ourselves. We’ve already been happy to document our entire lives and political leanings via social media for the reward of virtual points and a jolt of endorphins… who needs a high-tech chip delivered via injection and justified by a globally orchestrated false-pandemic that could all fall apart from a few whistle blowers?
Bill Gates and vaccines are a red herring, probably spread by the intelligence agencies around ‘alternative’ sites. to distract from the military-industrial complex that are likely the real ringleaders. It was somewhat similar with Blair, where all the blame for the Iraq War was almost entirely passed off on to him, rather than George W Bush, or the leaders of the CIA or MI6. Gates is a moderately plausible patsy, given his former leadership of Microsoft, and it also suits the deep state to sow suspicion about a very wealthy and powerful man trying to do some good in the world.
T: “Gates is a moderately plausible patsy […]”
Huh! Plausible?? Seriously – have you thought about the sheer lunacy required to actually believe for a fleeting instant the “Gates is behind it all!” conspiracy delusion?
And if you actually think “the military-industrial complex that are likely the real ringleaders”, you might be kind enough to tell us (a) why and (b) how and (c) who. Because just saying “I reckon [fill in the ludicrous speculation here]” is a pretty worthless contribution to a discussion, with all due respect.
Thank you Rhys for your considerable time and effort putting this comment together.
I read your later comment first, regarding your credentials and experience in this field then came back looking for your previous comments.
The way dialogues evolve in this comment section can be confusing at times, needing repeat read throughs to catch all later additional comments and replies.
This comment is by far the most informative and most valuable in my opinion.
I’m not surprised at the lack of proper engagement from anyone with different opinions.
Your points are concrete.
Thanks again..
Hear hear to all that. Have copied link over to Wings btl.
I take your point Craig but I’m with those US states who say no vaccination no public school. An unvaccinated child can go on holiday to somewhere measles for example is common, come home as a carrier and infect an immune-compromised classmate relying on herd immunity. So such children are a risk to the health of others as outbreaks of measles in middle-class areas of London following the disgraceful MMR controversy shows us.
Some will undoubtedly choose private schooling, their choice but some private schools may decide no vaccinations no come here as well. We should similarly clamp down on home schooling which I have a very dim view of seeing my sister’s homeschooled kids grow up with no qualifications having to go to college to get what everyone else got at school.
So you are a supporter of unregulated medical experiments on the population to meet political agendas ?
Yes, talk about going from hero to zero in one blogpost.
There is a world of difference between measles and covid. The latter is caused by a rapidly mutating coronavrius, of the same family as the common cold. Mortality data shows the crude case mortality rate has declined from ~20% in April 2020 to 2% in September 2020. It will be much lower now, becoming endemic like its cousin the common cold. The mortality data show that covid is harmless to the great majority of people, affecting primarily the elderly (say 75+) or those with multiple comorbidities (diabetes especially as that usually invokes other issues). Measles however, can cause blindness in children. It is also not rapidly mutating.
Vaccines are just drugs with possible benefits and possible side effects. If the side effects outweigh the benefits for a given person, that person should not take the drug.
Perhaps the disease is an opportuntist
I did post some info about Pfizer’s extensive corporate crimes above, and why they should not be trusted, but the same goes for pretty much any Big Pharma organization, even the the more or less recent Bill Gates favorite, Moderna:
https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/13/moderna-therapeutics-biotech-mrna/
It seems to have had a rather toxic work environment:
“At least a dozen highly placed executives have quit in the past four years, including heads of finance, technology, manufacturing, and science. In just the past 12 months, respected leaders of Moderna’s cancer and rare disease programs both resigned, even though the company’s remarkable fundraising had put ample resources at their disposal. Each had been at the company less than 18 months, and the positions have yet to be filled.
…
Lower-ranking employees, meanwhile, said they’ve been disappointed and confused by Moderna’s pivot to less ambitious — and less transformative — treatments. Moderna has pushed off projects meant to upend the drug industry to focus first on the less daunting (and most likely, far less lucrative) field of vaccines — though it is years behind competitors in that arena.
…
“It’s a case of the emperor’s new clothes,” said a former Moderna scientist. “They’re running an investment firm, and then hopefully it also develops a drug that’s successful.””
Guess what they are banking on?
https://geopolitics.co/2020/09/05/bill-gates-vaccine-company-moderna-has-a-big-problem/
“Whether the coronavirus vaccine developed by Moderna succeeds or not, executives at the small biotech company have already made tens of millions of dollars by cashing in their stock. An NPR examination of official company disclosures has revealed additional irregularities and potential warning signs.
…
Advocates have questioned whether it’s appropriate for executives to privately profit before bringing the vaccine to market, especially when American taxpayers have committed roughly $2.5 billion to the company’s vaccine development and manufacture.”
So you want to try Moderna’s vaccine, do you? Good luck with that.
Moderna has never made a product before the SARS-CoV-19 mRNA ‘vaccine’. I would touch it with a 100 foot barge pole for a coronavirus condition.
In my view, the mRNA experiment is a test run for ‘individualised’ drugs, which will eliminate the expensive human testing phases of drug production. Big Pharma has developed many drugs passing animal tests, only to fail at human testing. When the side effects do appear, then there will be no class actions as each drug is ‘individualised’, so everybody will be on their own. Patent legislation will be used to deter third party checks that the drugs actually are ‘individualised’. All of this greatly aids Big Pharma’s bottom line.
But thinking that corrupt corporates led by socio/psycho-paths will game the system for their own financial benefit is pure ‘conspiracy theory’.
Oxfam recently reported that “the wealth of the world’s billionaires increased by $3.9 trillion between 18 March and 31 December 2020. Their total wealth now stands at $11.95tn.” To spell that out, the world’s richest people got 50% richer in 9 months because of covid-19. And the report makes no mention of the banks who must have profited by orders of magnitude more due to defaulted mortgages, failed business loans, $multi-trillion government borrowing, etc.
These same people own the mainstream media, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Youtube, …. This blog accepts without question the power of those media to control the Assange narrative, so why is there so little critical examination of the covid narrative?
“However the incident betrays the very real shift in society towards intolerance of non-mainstream views. “
Is that because modern information networks increase the noticeability and apparent acceptance of non-mainstream views?
If only a small number of isolated maniacs hold a view even the people who come across them probably won’t bother much. If it looks like a large number of people hold that view other people are much less likely to tolerate apparently powerful and dangerous opinions.
“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. “
Not only that: they reduce the level of herd immunity and so increase the likelihood that people who cannot be vaccinated because of health conditions will catch illnesses which are more likely to be fatal or harm their health. Whether someone should – or could – be prosecuted for what be described as “statistically-based manslaughter or GBH” is another matter.
I am an enthusiastic supporter of fully tested and correctly developed medicines. .
As has happened with the political/SAGE response to Sars2, we have dispensed with decades of carefully structured procedures for medicines development.
If the precautionary principle is adopted for mask wearing, it seems to be lacking in the case of Sars2 vaccines. Further to this we saw the protocols for these vaccines altered after the first doses were administered. Overriding what solid research had been done.
Vaccines and all treatments work on informed consent. Public urgency to submit to these experimental treatments have been based up upon the’whirring meter’ of case, admission and mortality data.
Strangely enough no such opportunity has been afforded by the MHRA, as regards adverse events, to people enabling them to establish a relative risk appraisal.
I’m a willing recipient of well researched vaccines where permittimg. I am not an aniti vaxxer; in fact quite the opposite.
It is better not to emote this issue with such terms a ‘selfish’. Science needs to be considered upon data and facts with a cold heart. I am merely stating what have been the procedures for medicines development and why we should follow them. The case for bypassing procedure seems questionable. Certainly for healthy people under 45.
The mRNA covid ‘vaccines’ are experimental. This deployment represents a large scale Phase 3 test to determine long term side effects of drug delivery technology that hasn’t been used on humans before. People joining the Phase 3 test should have been asked to give informed consent. That hasn’t happened. Fortunately for the medics involved they been granted blanket legal immunity over anything related to covid.
The UK’s medical statistics have also been rendered useless through politically driven changes to determining cause of death, and the creation of a medical pseudo epidemic late in 2020 via the use of inadequateand inappropriate testing procedures on asymptomatic people. The key parameters of this test have also been changed over time, making long term comparison of outcome impossible.
For some unknown reason, the UK claims this mass testing is justified by a 3 in 10 probablity of asymptomatic transmisson. The largest experiment to try to determine the scale of this issue found a plausible (but not proven) rate of asymptomatic transmisson to be 3 in 10,000 (based in 10 million cases in a dense urban setting). One wonders if this large scale testing is being used as a DNA grab by the commercial companies involved.
The response to the cartoon is entirely predictable. Charlie Hebdo tried something similar. After being ‘encouraged’ to see the light, they now resort to using Islamic symbols for their ‘satirical humour’.
The cartoon is question is not truthful. Vaccination won’t set people free. However, it will greatly improve the bottom line of Big Pharma and its lobbyists (in and out of government).
“The arrest of Piers Corbyn is yet another sign of the intolerance of dissent and devaluing of free speech in the modern UK. …
… 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.”
100%. Guilty of being a Corbyn seems to be the primary charge.
Nowhere is the clampdown on free speech more graphic or shocking than in (Sir) Keir Staliner’s Labour Party.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Leader of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition, has had the Labour whip removed (essentially banned from being a Labour MP) just for telling a plain simple truth.
Staliner and Gen Sec Evans have then banned Constituency Labour Parties from even discussing the matter or any of the related issues and are threatening to suspend and expel anyone who does so. At the last count, now probably exceeded, over 70 party officials had been suspended for refusing to cow-tow to Staliner’s diktat.
Deputy Party Leader Angela Rayner has, of course, pointed out that she will be ready and prepared to expel “thousands and thousands” of members if she sees fit.
The spurious legal case against Craig is of course just one more part of this wider clampdown, one, which like Corbyn’s suspension, I hope and expect to see overturned by the courts very soon.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/if-not-now-when-democracy-and-the-labour-party/
First they were against lokdown.
Now they are against vaccines.
Solution: lock down vulnerable(10 mill) for ages until Covid disappears by itself.
Btw is lying freedom of speech? Marketing companies can not make dishonest claims.
Ray A
February 5, 2021 at 16:43
“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 vaccine” 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.”
Of course you hate ‘authority’ Ray – because it disagrees with Ray A.
False dichotomy: the argument is not between minority, often disaffected medical and biochemist whistleblowers with a clear “do not have the vaccine” message, or the BBC and the government.
It is between minority often disaffected medical and biochemist whistleblowers and the vast majority of knowledgeable scientists and doctors, in the published, peer-reviewed scientific literature and regulators who overwhelmingly support vaccination.
I’ll go with accepted peer-reviewed science every time.
“It is between minority often disaffected medical and biochemist whistleblowers and the vast majority of knowledgeable scientists and doctors, in the polished, peer-reviewed scientific literature and regulators who overwhelmingly support vaccination.”
Hilarious. Medical peer review has been brought into disrepute by corporate malpractice (gaming the system) and regulators have been bought out by corporates (aka regulatory capture in the US). WHO (owned by Gates, largest financial provider) has recently declared that ‘herd immunity’ can only be achieved via vaccination. The authors of the 1927 paper that first identified the mechanism that became known as ‘herd immunity’ are rolling in their graves.
RITGL !?
Thank you for the John Stuart Mill quote. What a great quote!
I am relieved for you that your case of covid was mild. But please stop comparing covid to the flu. It is not the flu. The course of the flu is known.
Covid is new. The fact that it does not have a high death rate leads people to underestimate its effects. The disease can persist for weeks, or months. It is linked to organ damage. Thus, some people who get covid find they also have diabetes when they didn’t before. (“14% of those with severe covid develop a form [of diabetes].”*
There is also an increased risk of stroke,** and other neurological and psychiatric conditions: : “…the incidence of neurological or psychiatric conditions post-Covid within six months was 33.6%.”***
One in 45 covid patients with mild disease have symptoms that persist for over 12 weeks. ****
The US Centers for Disease Control includes “inflammation of the heart muscle,” “lung function abnormalities,” and “acute kidney injury” among the long-term effects of covid.***** Will people suffering such organ damage fully recover? No one knows.
Long-term covid, and organ damage, is not limited to people who are old.
It is possible that this pandemic will leave in its wake hundreds of thousands of chronically ill people, even when it is over.
Unlike the flu.
*https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/02/01/covid-new-onset-diabetes/
**https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1474-4422(20)30272-6/fulltext
***https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/25/covid-linked-to-risk-of-mental-illness-and-brain-disorder-study-suggests
****https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/long-covid#:~:text=Professor%20Tim%20Spector%2C%20COVID%20Symptom,for%20longer%20than%2012%20weeks.
*****https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects.html
SARS-Cov-19 is a rapidly mutating coronavirus, just like the common cold. It was ‘new’ but was and is now mutating to an endemic form where it can cohabit with its host cf the other coronavirus, the common cold. The crude case fatality rate was 20% in April 2020, had reduced to 2% by September 2020, and possibly at endemic levels by now. I would bet that the common cold virus was equally lethal when it was ‘new’ when it first appeared however millenia ago it was.
Yours, a real covid-19 survivor, Dec 2019-Jan 2020, three recurrent episodes of gradually reducing severity over 6.5 weeks, totally bed ridden for 3.5 weeks, lost 0.5 stone surviving on fluids only, 65+, asthma. Luckily for me, it was before the deliberate government strategy (see SAGE minutes) to pimp the fear factor and scare the bejeebus out of everyone, so I didn’t know I was supposed to die.
Actually just like the flu then. Except for the fact that flu tends to be much worse in younger and healthy people as well. For what it’s worth, I had scarring on my lungs from a cough I developed from the flu and it took me more than 3 months to shake off. I know that’s an anecdotal report with an n number of 1 and as such, it means very little to the bigger picture, but it means something to me. It means that the idea that covid is alone amongst virally transmitted respiratory diseases in causing long term health complications is nonsense.
The average age of somebody who died from spanish flu was 28. The average life expectancy in 1918 was 56.
The average age of somebody who has died WITH covid (not from, and there is a difference) is 81 in this country. Which also happens to be the average life expectancy of somebody from this country. So covid has had no impact on life expectancy overall so far. Hardly cause to ruin millions of lives through pointless and counter productive lockdowns and inhumane, authoritarian laws making it illegal to see one’s family and friends, illegal to freely meet and gather, illegal to do honest business, illegal to leave the country or even to travel within the country, impossible for most children to go to school. Nor is it cause to rush through untested experimental drugs with unknown safety profiles and use them on the majority of the population, whether healthy or sick.
All avenues in tackling covid were never explored. The ones we were taken down and continue to be led down also happen to be the ones that result in the biggest gains for those who already have more than their fair share of wealth and resources. Meanwhile, ordinary people have had their lives ruined, millions are unemployed, thousands of small businesses have closed for good, children have had their mental health and education decimated, young people are dying in droves through drugs, alcohol and suicide, the privatisation of the NHS has been rushed through the back door and the authoritarian politicians who have dictated that all this should happen on their watch are less accountable than ever.
I’ll say it again for clarity;
Please, one of the pro lockdown, pro covid vax, pro mainstream narrative crew tell me how my interpretation of this simple fact is wrong. I’ve tried and tried again to see how I might have got it wrong but I cannot escape the conclusion that this was never about covid and this was certainly never about saving lives. I’m not entirely sure what it is about but it seems like yet another neoliberal power and money grab, the desperate final flailings of an economic and technological system that is destined to eat itself and everybody within it, while those at the top attempt to continue their lifestyle of vast over indulgence and debauchery at our expense. Billionaires still have all the freedoms they ever had. The party’s over for us though, folks. Buckle up, because this is just the beginning of the ride.