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.
—————————————————–
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.
It occurred to me today that Covid-19 sprinkled liberally over our lives, is just a boating holiday ruined by a psychopath.
Way Upstream – with COVID Nineteen?
Craig, on reading some of the comments here, where a good many seem to have accepted without question the government’s fear driven narrative; and are thus content to suppress the opinion, freedom, and liberty of others who disagree with them, I see a more frightening parallel that can be drawn from PC’s cartoon in the susceptibility of a gullible public to embrace a government driven hysteria; whether that be the fear of Jews, witches, communists or corona-virus.
Give that data from an unassailable source (see below) clearly shows that the current death rate in the country is neither exceptional nor particularly high, when compared to data from the past 20 years, it terrifies me that a population can be turned so easily towards tyranny – in their support for a nationwide lock-down and advocacy for compulsory vaccination – when factual evidence demonstrates that a pandemic situation DOES NOT exist.
“In England, the December 2020 mortality rate (1,123.6 deaths per 100,000 people) was significantly higher than the mortality rate in every year back to December 2010 (1,151.2 deaths per 100,000 people) but remained significantly lower than December 2003 (the highest mortality rate in this analysis; 1,407.6 deaths per 100,000 people). The mortality rate in December 2020 was 1,339.8 deaths per 100,000 males (compared with 1,674.7 in December 2003) and 950.4 deaths per 100,000 females (compared with 1,217.4 in December 2003).”
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/monthlymortalityanalysisenglandandwales/december2020
I had to see it for myself so I put together a number of graphs from ONS data. It’s only because I did so that I noticed certain other things, for example, there were no deaths attributed to Covid before the week of the March Lock-down. The same effect (‘Covid deaths’ begin and/or spike with the onset of lock-down) was duplicated in many (most but not all) other European nations. It’s genuinely creepy. No one should take my word for it, simply go and look at the recorded figures for themselves.
During the ‘spike’ around 3000 ‘excess deaths’ (above average) per week occurred – in addition to those deaths attributed to Covid. Respiratory disease related deaths are below average* as are the number of deaths attributed to flu, which is well below average. In some other nations flu has apparently been cured (if we look at the recorded data alone.) It’s a mystery.
* I’ve just looked at the latest ONS report which contains this notice absent from the prior data set I used: “Note: Deaths could possibly be counted in both causes presented. If a death had an underlying respiratory cause and a mention of COVID-19 then it would appear in both counts.” Now that is interesting.
Direct link: https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales/2020/publishedweek532020.xlsx
Main page: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
Prior sets are available but may have been ‘amended’ retrospectively.
Yes lockdown.
The nation took drastic steps to reduce the rate of infection as you may or may not have noticed. Have you any figures suggesting what the death rate might’ve been WITHOUT lockdown, face masks, hand sanitisers etc?
If face masks were of much use surely they would have been issued, free, by the NHS in March 2020 at the start of the Covid outbreak so that their use could have “saved” the NHS. They were described as “of little use” by Professor Van-Tam during a televised No 10 briefing.
In mid summer a group of UK medicos and scientists led by Professor Catherine Noakes sent a letter to the WHO commending the use of masks against “the pandemic”. (BBC The Life Scientific). This conclusion was presented as being groundbreaking. And whilst expecting to be called ‘racist’ by some, I have to ask how the estimated half million undocumented immigrants in the UK will be traced and innoculated?
If you remember the NHS didn’t have enough face masks for it’s own staff. Professor Van-Tam said they were of little value if worn by healthy people and thought social distancing would be more effective.
Problems there are that social distancing is not always possible and how does anyone know if they’re infected?
Kempe
“Have you any figures suggesting what the death rate might’ve been” if no measures had been introduced?
No! Neither do I.
But I do know that the governments estimates for the deaths caused by Lockdown was 150,000 in the short term, by extrapolation that equates to 500,000+ in the medium term (2 -5 years) and 1 million ++ in the long term (10 years+)
The government’s own expert advisors told them unequivocally that Lockdowns would kill more than they saved, the government ignored that advice.
Since the NHS was short of face masks and other PPE for its own use (just one of the appalling consequences of Tory/LibDem Government policies since 2010), and since care homes were similarly bereft of vital equipment, issuing masks was not a likely course of action. In fact I distinctly remember it being inferred that I should not seek to buy myself masks lest it deprive care workers and medics. I also remember a friend getting to work to make them and distributing masks to the care homes around us.) This Government has no difficulty lying to us when it suits them: it also bows to libertarian sentiment whenever that raises its nasty head. I think that helps to explain why masks were only recommended months too late. By the way, the undocumented immigrants (however many they are: naturally the right likes to exaggerate these numbers) are in this position because of the hostile environment initiated by – yes, you’ve got it: the Government (backed by Labour, which is grovelling before the racist part of its base).
We are lucky to have Sweden to show us what happened when there was no lockdown – a similar shaped curve as the UK, but with fewer deaths per 100,000 than UK.
and higher deaths than the surrounding nordic countries, which led one prominent swedish scientist to admit it was a mistake.
Analysis of death rates across all US States suggests that there were 8% fewer deaths per 100,000 in those States that locked down and mandated mask wearing.
The question politicians will have to answer is “was it worth all the economic damage caused and stored up debt, in order to give the, predominantly, old and/or sick a few extra years of life?”
Worth noting that the news today continued with ‘project Covid fear’, by saying that the average age of ICU patients is now 60 – something that is simply a function of limited ICU availability AND the policy of NOT putting the elderly 65+ patients with Covid into ICU when younger patients needed ICU care. The average age of death is still 81 because the 65+ cohort with non-ICU levels of care are just dying somewhere else than ICU.
When arguing about Sweden, the comparisons with “surrounding nordic countries” is always wheeled out as a last line of defence. It is a somewhat pathetic comparison because firstly, Sweden actually performed very well in comparison to Denmark and Norway in the critical age ranges – less excess mortality for most of the year. But more significantly, it gives the lie to the idea that deaths would have gone “exponential” without lockdowns.
What we see in Sweden is what we’d see everywhere if people had simply carried on about their business with appropriate voluntary protective measures – i.e. a propagation similar to a flue season. We’d still have had some severe cases since this isn’t the flu, bot nothing different to what lockdown mania has brought.
Meanwhile the lockdowns have all but decimated large parts of the economy (which is more important than hospitals when it comes to keeping people alive), disrupted education, ruined livelihoods and created a financial crisis that will now probably last 10 years.
Please see: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-by-age?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute&time=earliest..latest&country=SWE-1~DNK-1~NOR-1®ion=World
Sorry, here is the full link to that graph:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-by-age?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute&time=earliest..latest&country=SWE-1~DNK-1~NOR-1®ion=World
ok, 3rd time lucky:
tinyurl.com/3rbt4xyn
Plenty of nations and various US states didn’t lockdown and guess what ? No difference, so there you have it, evidence that lockdown makes no difference. And here we are on our third lockdown – if they are so effective why are we locking down yet again ?
Same with masks. Plenty of evidence exists including independently reviewed scientific papers and ONS data that demonstrates no correlation. Masks don’t work.
We need to be ‘protecting the vulnerable’ not shutting down the country.
Though some people are happy to believe what they are told …
Utter tosh, SB. Places with high social restrictions such as Taiwan made it through almost unscathed.
The relation between states and countries with little or no restrictions, and those which imposed heavy restrictions, is too obvious to ignore. Even in a single country, cases increase without restrictions, then fall back with restrictions. You would have to be incredibly lazy not to notice this in your “research” before coming up with a conclusion that there is no relation at all.
You just assert these improbably notions “masks don’t work” etc without a scrap of evidence. Since you’re contradicting the weight of medical opinion, I would hope for more than your mere word for it.
What, J? You expect people to drop dead immediately upon inhaling the virus?
When COVID-19 kills, it takes about two weeks to do so. Just consider the two week delay and what you describe as “really creepy” looks exactly like the effect of a deadly respiratory virus, with infections arrested by the social restrictions. Duh!
Clark – you’re not getting it.
Every government, medic, statistician and so on – worldwide! – has conspired to make it look as if the number of cases followed by number of deaths behaves exactly as if there were a worldwide pandemic. It’s an incredible job, they’ve made the stats ramp up and down, exactly matching lockdowns, everywhere in the world. Astonishing job of coordinating this hoax!
Just think about it – “they” have produced all this evidence which exactly matches what we’d expect to see if it were a real pandemic. Indistinguishable from the real thing. Now that is creepy!
MODS: can this personal attack which is both a strawman argument and defamatory, either be modified of retracted? After all, my long and admittedly discursive argument addressing these personal attacks (through context argument) has beed disallowed or is awaiting moderation.
Thanks in advance.
I’ve discovered from long experience that your assumptions are simply not my concern.
If lock-down is a pre-emptive measure, how do we explain the perfect simultaneous rise in ‘excess deaths’ except in those countries which did not lock-down?
How do we explain the corresponding drop in other expected causes of death, in perfect inverse relation to the rise in Covid deaths?
How do we account for the three thousand ‘excess deaths’ per week during the spike which are not attributed to Covid?
If you have a theory accounting for all the observed phenomena, I cordially invite you to share.
Population? No, the organs of communication controlled by the state and its proxies.
Mark
Your quote says
“In England, the December 2020 mortality rate (1,123.6 deaths per 100,000 people)”
then further down
” The mortality rate in December 2020 was 1,339.8 deaths per 100,000 males” and
” and 950.4 deaths per 100,000 females
Why the different numbers for the same period?
The numbers are different because the categories are different. The number for “people” is in the mid-range of the number for males and the number for females. I see no contradiction here.
I suppose it was inevitable that the increased death toll argument was going to be used to further an unrelated argument about freedom of speech, interesting that you include figures from 2003, which you may recall was the year of the heat wave in Europe that led to an excess death toll Europe wide of 70,000. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18241810/) We don’t know at this stage what the final death toll of this pandemic will be, it is still to early to say. But alarming people with problematic figures and generalisations about political trends is not helpful.
“… interesting that you include figures from 2003, which you may recall was the year of the heat wave in Europe that led to an excess death toll Europe wide of 70,000”.
Yes. I clearly remember the government decrees confining everyone to their cellars, and the free issue of air conditioners and refrigerated drinks to everyone, at the cost of hundreds of billions of pounds.
Not.
Because the government didn’t buy millions of air conditioners, that negates the point made by Pete just above?
That the year 2003 was cherry-picked because it was a heat wave, and therefore untypical for comparisons for mortality, can therefore be waved away. Seriously – is this what you consider to be an honest discussion, simply dismissing an inconvenient fact that you don’t like on any bogus grounds, no matter how irrelevant and silly?
If you are interested in real data upon which to form an opinion, a review of the leading cause of death over the past 20 years, based on ONS data, shows approximately 100,000 people die EVERY year from influenza, pneumonia and chronic respiratory diseases. 2020 exhibited an increase compared to the five year average, but wasn’t exceptional when viewed against death rates over the past 20 years.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/articles/leadingcausesofdeathuk/2001to2018#uk-leading-causes-of-death-for-all-ages
And this is true in every country in the world, right Mark? If not, your case is meaningless.
There are just too many mud slinging comments from glenn_uk on this blog to have a serious discussion.
Glen_uk – your rebuttal of the ONS data by citing every country in the world is irrelevant. I can only go with data that I trust to be correct, and for the purposes of a discussion about UK death rates ONS are the best source. But, as it doesn’t appear that you are an honest actor on this comment board who is interested in facts, I accept my comments for you are meaningless.
Interesting link from Mark, Doubly interesting that one has to read it very carefully and more than once to get the real figures as opposed to the figures that the current message would have people assume.
The figures for deaths per 100,000 will over the last couple of years have seen contestants born during WWII starting to be eliminated. and we can be certain that each passing year will see the figure rise to match the rapid rise in births between 1940 and 1950 or so.
Following the same logic, maybe one could ascribe the lower mortality figures of the last few years to the straightened economic situation preceding the war, a time when Orwell would have been on The Road to Wigan Pier.
“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.”
An image comes to mind of a horse falling at Beecher’s Brook in the final stages of the Grand National at Aintree. What a ridiculous statement! To suggest those who hesitate to take the Covid experimental vaccine are “extremely selfish” manifests a profound ignorance of the scientific realities behind the experimental vaccine but also an arrogance which seeks to “urge everybody” to take it.
It is unprecedented to distribute a vaccine to the public which has been untested in animals trials, yet this is the case with the current batch of experimental covid vaccines. That is why they should rightly be called experimental. There is good reason to require animal trials prior to distribution to the public. In ALL previous animal trials of corona viruses animals died due to a phenomenon known as Anti-Body Dependent Enhancement (ADE) which is an auto immune disorder where the body attacks its own cells which often leads to multi-organ failure and death. On this basis in all previous cases the vaccines were rejected as unsafe for public distribution.
The current vaccines however are experimental vaccines because no animal trials have taken place. This is illegal under International Law. In particular the Nuremberg Code promulgated after WWII where the Nazis experimented on concentration camp inmates to determine the efficacy of various biological products. I’m sure I don’t need to point out the irony of Craig Murray on the one hand, and quite rightly in my opinion, criticising the unwarranted accusations of anti-semitism against Jeremy Corbyn and yet, on the other hand, supporting a breech in a statute of International Law erected specifically to prevent the horrors inflicted on the Jewish people in the camps being repeated.
There is another deeper irony here. I have long appreciated Craig Murray’s court reports from court sittings in the Julian Assange extradition case. I don’t think I have read more eloquent or passionate testimonies of the evil which has unfolded in Julian’s court proceedings. However I believe that Julian, with his particular insight into the inner recesses of the global propaganda machine, would have been very keenly aware of the utter hogwash that is being promulgated as a ‘global pandemic’ to distract the public away from the greater evil of a ‘Great Reset’ which is currently unfolding but largely hidden from mainstream view. Julian would not have been fooled but it seems that Craig Murray has.
Craig Murray also banished to a special thread all skeptical postings about 9/11. And then closed that thread.
Google “animal trials of covid vaccine” and you can easily see that animal trials began in February last year.
Google would not be a good place to ascertain the truth or otherwise.
I’m going to bed tonight with a much-altered opinion of Mr Murray. Night, night all…………….
Google isn’t, but some of the links it provides are still perfectly reliable. One just has to be careful in choosing which articles and papers to trust.
Animal trials require ‘rechallenge’ with the virus – if you have any links to data on which animals were used and what the results were that would be useful.
Call me a cynic if you like but the lack of screaming headlines to the effect that these vaccines have overcome the issues that previous vaccines failed on, makes me doubt that either the rechallenge was not done, or the results were less than favourable.
In February last year the Virus as a serious world wide problem was just emerging as a possibility, If trials on animals were started then, it would demonstrate remarkable foresight by the vaccine manufacturers ?
Good
Your assertation that no animal trials were undertaken is FAKE, and there is even no need to google for it either.
You are correct. The Oxford Covid-19 vaccine was tested on Monkeys. Sadly the vaccinated primates all caught the virus when challenged. If you follow the BBC propaganda -sorry news channels, they are now saying the Oxford Vaccine reduces deaths and hospitalisations, rather than infections. To me this is good news for those persons in the over 80s age group, responsible for most of the Covid deaths, and a large % of hospitalisations, but the UK Government should be more upfront about this. I have no idea about animal trials (if any) for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, but in the UK the Pfizer vax is already sidelined, due to Europe grabbing them all. No supplies of Moderna for a couple of months.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2020/05/16/did-the-oxford-covid-vaccine-work-in-monkeys-not-really/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/doubts-oxford-vaccine-fails-stop-coronavirus-animal-trials/
EXTRACT:-
“A trial of the vaccine in rhesus macaque monkeys did not stop the animals from catching the virus and has raised questions about the vaccine’s likely human efficacy and ongoing development.
The vaccine, known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, is undergoing human trials in Britain. The Government has brokered a deal between Oxford University and the drug company AstraZeneca to produce up to 30 million doses if it proves successful, having ploughed £47 million into the research.
“All of the vaccinated monkeys treated with the Oxford vaccine became infected when challenged as judged by recovery of virus genomic RNA from nasal secretions,” said Dr William Haseltine, a former Harvard Medical School professor who had a pivotal role in the development of early HIV/Aids treatments.”
The question is “why monkeys?” when the better option for respiratory drug testing is ferrets (don’t know why, just is). Maybe the fact that all the ferrets in the 2003-5 trials died on rechallenge with the virus.
A white paper from a America’s Frontline Doctors group states:
” 3. No Independently Published Animal Studies
Most other previous [coronavirus] vaccines have performed and published results on animal studies prior to giving to humans. This is critical because deadly effects are often not seen until this step.
Vaccines that have been given to humans prior to animal trials have frequently resulted in
deaths that caused the governments to yank the vaccines. Most scientists believe that
human death is inevitable if there are no prior peer-reviewed animal studies.”
https://www.americasfrontlinedoctors.com/wp-content/uploads/Vaccine-PP.pdf
Perhaps you could post a link to the published results of the animal trials if they exist?
Well, yes, Dave – they never publish papers that report the wrong results. One very subtle and powerful way of controlling the perception of science – even by other scientists.
It’s hard to cite a paper that was not published.
We all tend to make oversights and mistakes when hurried or passionate. It would be more accurate, perhaps, to say that “no successful animal trials were completed”.
There is also this popular meme: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EoTzxTqXEAEHHDq?format=png&name=small
As one who, yesterday, declined my GP’s offer to receive the coronavirus vaccine I think you made your case extremely well and although I raised my eyebrows at Mr Murray’s expressed viewpoint it wouldn’t stop me from supporting this website. Perhaps Mr Murray will reflect on his views in this regard on this particular issue. I believe that taking, or declining, the coronavirus vaccine is a matter for the individual and nobody should be coerced or influenced either way, moreover one should not have to justify that personal decision. His opinion on this issue is his personal one and it should not detract from his past endeavours with regard to Mr Assange and Mr Salmond et al.
It doesn’t in the slightest.
Btw why do you not scold Dave Donnellan for trying to influence people not to be vaccinated. Seems a tad hypocritical given your pious prouncements.
There are two primary reasons why I don’t scold Dave Donnellan for trying to influence people not to be vaccinated : the first being that I’m not posting to scold any contributor on this website (that’s not my purview) and his posting succinctly provides the alternative viewpoint to the government’s own expressed, unchallenged by MSM, unbalanced chosen point of view; and secondly, I thought I had clearly explained that I considered such decisions were a matter for the individual so I can’t understand you levelling the charge of hypocrisy and piousness at my feet.
I hope this answers your concerns.
Totally agree Shardlake
About lockdowns being a mechanism for totalitarian rule.
See this post:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/anti-vaxxer-playbook/#post-65771
From middle of July 2020 we had no social restrictions other than self isolation on return from travel off island. Everything was open. Schools, pubs, restaurants and any other business. This was actionable because the government here acted in the best interest of everyone, closed borders and enacted a short lockdown. Healthcare provision had returned to normal excepting the fact that some of our healthcare provision is dependent on mainland services.
We had a further lockdown for 3 weeks in early Jan because two cases slipped by and again we had community transmission which resulted in 52 -54 cases total. It lasted 3 weeks. There are no further new cases for two weeks now. Lockdown has been lifted other than the remaining requirement to self isolate on return if you travel off island. Everything is open again. With some difficulty, I walked past a full pub this evening.
It can be done and it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s being done to insert totalitarian rule. It’s being done for a reason. That reason is to eridicate Sars-Cob-2. Enjoy your civic mindedless rants.
Not sure that means anything, ET. Unfortunately for neoliberal swine, one has to balance the doses of totalitarianism, and gradually sway the public toward living under those conditions, with that thorn-in-the-side requirement to keep the economy afloat. It does seem to be a Catch-22 for them, as was the Brexit decision, I imagine.
What it means Marmite is that properly implemented lockdowns have a purpose during an infectious disease pandemic and once that purpose has been achieved they are lifted. Therefore lockdowns are not the tool of totalitarianism but a tool to fight an infectious disease. A tool used in countless similar infectious disease situations since bibliical times and one which has been proven to work.
Thinking it through a little further, I think most people agree that the stated purpose of the lockdowns was to “save the NHS” by “flattening the curve”.
If successive governments had not slashed numbers of beds while failing to provide enough doctors, nurses, and other front-line staff – not to mention supplies – the NHS could easily have taken the epidemic in its stride.
The harms and losses we have all suffered in the past year have one single cause: incompetent government. (Aided and abetted, it is true, by media, scientists and medical staff who put their own career advancement ahead of the public good).
Maybe if the government had taken heed of the conclusions from “Operation Cygnus” in 2016 we wouldn’t be in the position we are now.
Of course, it’s a false premiss to assume that the Tories want to protect the NHS.
Tom
The purpose of a lockdown if carried out properly would be to prevent people getting sick and dying, a much better approach than increasing facilities to treat. But the lockdown was poorly implemented. During the first lockdown it is estimated that 18 million travellers came to and went from the U.K., a very efficient way of distributing the pandemic as much as possible.
Tom,
In the interests of accuracy, you need to replace the term ‘incompetent government’ with ‘murderous government’. Unless you are part of the effort to apologise for it and let it off the hook very easily.
Marmite, it’s Hanlon’s Razor again. So hard to tell incompetence from malice. Or maybe both.
The mRNA puzzle
The mRNA vaccines used to thwart the coronovirus are a device/method in that instead of using inactivated doses of the whole disease-causing organism, or the proteins that it produces, mRNA vaccines, in contrast, fool the body into producing some of the viral proteins itself. They are in fact an extension if you like of work done by a branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. Tumour mRNA is/has been used to help people’s immune systems recognise and respond to the proteins produced by their specific tumours. It works because the tumour mRNA in this way activates the body’s T-cells, the part of the acquired immune system that kills cells, which is useful to destroy tumours.
With that in mind to combat a virus such as SARS-CoV-2, scientists know a different part of the acquired immune system also needs to be activated called the B cells, which produce antibodies that mark the virus out for destruction by the body.
Here lurks the conundrum because more data is required to tell whether these vaccines will really be able to mount a sufficiently protective immune response in the human and to understand, for example, which quantities of mRNA will be needed to do this, whether the proteins that have been chosen for the vaccine are the right ones to prevent a coronavirus infection in the body, how long any immunity would last, and whether it aggravates disease.
Therefore the ongoing vaccination process is a trial, an experiment, albeit with some confidence that the immunity produced is strong (93% effective in the case of the Russian Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine) others less. That is all, the rest is unknown (hence some trepidation on the timing of a second dose).
I myself knowing this and knowing this virus is deadly it makes sense to commit to this massive(millions) experiment/test with some knowledge to ascertain the outcome.
The malignant Big Pharma tumour that destroyed GC-MAF is a case in point also.
Having tried to read through as many of the blog comments as I could, and having taken a broad look at how mRNA vaccines work according to their makers, I think this is where I’m at too. Unfortunately as I have no first hand experience of the effects of the virus, access to any stats that I wholeheartedly trust, or concrete understanding of microbiology or medicine, I’m just going to have to work with what makes sense to me and trust the experts. An attitude that’s unpopular with many these days, I appreciate.
As I understand it this is indeed a vaccine that’s been fast-tracked and comes with a few uncertainties – but the unusual speed can probably be attributed to the fact that attention and resource has been pooled into tackling this in a manner that wouldn’t be afforded to less urgent treatments. It may still be proportionate.
Also, according to the official channels, mRNA vaccines are developed in a completely different and more efficient way to traditional methods, which accounts for the unusually speedy turnaround. The technology seems to have existed for at least ten years – though obviously in the world of medicine this is still cutting-edge – and this is the first time it’s been trialled on such a scale.
I still think that unless these pharmaceutical companies are lawyered up to unprecedented levels (which, on balance, they may well be) they wouldn’t launch into running a programme on an entire nation if they had any major expectations that this could all end in disaster. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t prepared for a small proportion of anomalies – and I could just as easily be that unlucky few. The idea that there’s any malice or lackadaisical attitude towards huge fatalities doesn’t really sit with me, though. With ambitions of vaccinating practically the whole world, that’s a high stakes game to be playing lightly.
If anyone can explain how these vaccines make human cells produce a certain protein as a virus does without haming the cell (as a virus does) I’d be very grateful, though. According to Pfizer the RNA doesn’t interact with the nucleus of a cell (and is neutralised once it’s done its job) but there wasn’t any expansion on this, and my knowledge of animal cells stops at GCSE level.
In the US for certain and I assume elsewhere the vaccine companies have no need to lawyer up as they are protected by vaccine laws where the state takes liability.
The drug companies are the only ones fully immunised against all the effects of the virus 🙂
Bull’s eye, Steve! Target destroyed.
limited financial liability. nobody is 100% immunized against the virus, but it is by far the least costly way to get to herd immunity as we did with polio.
“…more data is required to tell whether these vaccines will really be able to mount a sufficiently protective immune response…”
Or, indeed, whether they will provoke an excessive immune response that kills the patient.
“We had to destroy the village in order to save it”.
Of course, if the Covid DNA hasn’t been fully identified and isolated and instead is based primarily upon modelling extrapolated from very small samples of actual Covid related DNA then maybe the whole edifice that the vaccinations are built upon may come tumbling down. Who knows ?
That is a whole can of worms.
That the Drosten paper on the virus sequence and targets for rtPCR testing was submitted for publication one day and cleared all stages of peer review and to and fro of corrections by the next day when it was accepted for publication is nothing short of miraculous particularly when you see that what they claimed was admitted to be based, not on SARS-CoV-2 but on an earlier viral sequence.
There is still an outstanding demand that the Drosten paper be redacted on ten counts of inaccuracies, but since Drosten is also an associate editor of the journal Eurosurveillance that is being dragged out.
Steve, I believe that the request for retraction has been rejected by the journal. As one would expect.
Anyone who is able to follow the arguments can see that the paper is a tissue of inventions and impossibilities. But “you can fool some of the people all of the time, and you can fool all of the people some of the time. And that’s good enough for us”.
We can only hope that, in its inexpressibly slow and tedious way, the law will catch up with Dr Drosten and his crew.
Strange that. The SARS-cov2 virus is an RNA virus and no wonder it’s non-existent DNA has not been sequenced. But the pundits who know everything about PCR failed to spot this.
Which opens another disputed area, is animal testing, vivisection, of any real value, as animals are not humans and so can a test result on one transfer to the other, or is vivisection a way the big drug companies, claim the expensive trialling costs to get patents and charge high prices?
The elementary question for those who don’t like taking any medication unless really necessary, is why is the government promoting almost mandatory vaccination for everyone of experimental new drugs for a virus with a very low mortality rate, particularly for those under 70 against a mostly mild illness that can be treated effectively with therapeutics. At best it seems like a new fear and mass medication business model for the corporate drug cartels or worse an excuse to ban civil liberties and suppress democracy to entrench the power and privileges of the existing ruling elite.
Separately on its artistic merits, it looks like the picture was skilfully drawn by pencil.
“expensive trialling costs to get patents and charge high prices? “
I agree, patents and the process of granting patents is due a huge overhaul. Let’s start that discussion off in a new thread on the discussion forum. I’d genuinely like to hear your views.
“The elementary question for those who don’t like taking any medication unless really necessary,”
No medication ought to be prescribed unless it at least has been proven to have some benefit. The question is how much can we rely on the proof of benefit? Does this problem start with medics or patients? Remember the ads,”Doctor Doctor can I have a prescription?” Please do me a favour Dave and source a copy of “Bad Pharma” by Ben Goldacre. I almost guarantee you’ll be impressed. (I’ll forfeit something if you are not!) Then we can have a real discussion about patents and such which I would look forward to.
“government promoting almost mandatory vaccination for everyone”
It isn’t mandatory.
“for everyone of experimental new drugs for a virus “
I’d say for experimental new therapeutics.
“At best it seems like a new fear and mass medication business model for the corporate drug cartels”
See above, the patenting process is abominable- worthy of or causing disgust or hatred : detestable. Let’s try to fight a real fight.
“an excuse to ban civil liberties and suppress democracy to entrench the power and privileges of the existing ruling elite. “
Not where I live.
Well, you certainly do not live in the USA.
Thankfully, I don’t and I sincerely hope I never have to.
Yes. The USA is a beautiful country with many charming, kind and cultured people.
Pity about the governments and corporations, which render the USA like a beautiful lady with incurable, disfiguring cancer.
Encouraging people to reject the achievements of Scientific knowledge is immoral. Anti vax and anti mask is an irrational position. The effectiveness of the vaccines is demonstrated by controlled trials. This man is a menace to public health. Re. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_EQbDHQN88 ; https://youtu.be/eZvsqBCvB00?t=177
regards,
KC
Knowledge that is worth knowing is subject to reproducability. If someone says that in these circumstances you do this and this is the result and such result is reproducible if others do the same thing in the same circumstance and produce the same result, that is science.
Keith, your comment is woolly and vague. “The achievements of scientific progress” include thermonuclear bombs, nerve poisons, defoliants, toxic chemicals such as insecticides and herbicides, spy cameras, secret police databases, and now apparently engineered designer viruses.
Science is morally neutral. We have the responsibility for evaluating the knowledge it yields and deciding how to use it for good.
Your statement “Anti vax and anti mask is an irrational position” might have some cogency if you had provided any evidence at all. As it is, it is your statement itself that is irrational.
As for your statement that “The effectiveness of the vaccines is demonstrated by controlled trials”, you have not said which vaccines nor have you cited any specific trials. At best, one may agree that *ideally* and *in principle* the effectiveness of the vaccines is demonstrated by controlled trials. Which makes it all the more dismaying when such trials are not carried out.
Regarding mask use, you might be better informed by John Hardie (BDS, MSc, PhD, FRCDC) ‘Why Face Masks Don’t Work: A Revealing Review of Their Inadequacies’ Yesterday’s Scientific Dogma is Today’s Discarded Fable.
http://www.oralhealthgroup.com October 2016.
You might be better informed – or you might not. The Oral Health Group thought not, so they removed the article, as stated on that website you linked to:
“Update: Why Face Masks Don’t Work: A Revealing Review
If you are looking for “Why Face Masks Don’t Work: A Revealing Review” by John Hardie, BDS, MSc, PhD, FRCDC, it has been removed. The content was published in 2016 and is no longer relevant in our current climate.
Please note that the content from Oral Health Group is primarily intended to educate and inform dental professionals.”
— https://www.oralhealthgroup.com/features/face-masks-dont-work-revealing-review/
The article discussed the use of face masks by dental professionals in dental surgeries. (I think they should have said “no longer relevant in the current context”, as it’s best not to mention “climate” near the kind of non-dentists searching for corroboration that face masks don’t work.)
“The article discussed the use of face masks by dental professionals in dental surgeries”.
Where dentists, their assistants and patients are typically far closer for longer than in most social situations. If face masks don’t do any good when a dentist is literally peering into his patient’s mouth, with each of them breathing in the other’s exhalations, how much use can they be in a supermarket where people stay at least two metres apart – let alone out of doors?
Also, the article will have been removed by order of the bosses, who are usually ignorant of medical and scientific matters and mostly concerned to placate their political masters. The expert(s) who wrote the article will not have had any say in the matter.
There’s a real danger of conflating reasonable scepticism (which the scientific method relies upon) of a specific vaccine with being anti-vaccine in principle. Just as liberal use of the phrase ‘covidiot’ tends suppress any legitimate discussion of any aspect of Covid, so liberal use of the phrase anti-vaxxer serves only to stop thought and prevent reasonable and necessary discussion. Certainly, jailing people for expressing their opinions will literally be the end discussion, yet we’re a long way toward this already.
As Mr Murray can appreciate, for simply trying to report accurately and truthfully on criminality and scandal from Iraq to the present, he has himself faced many trials. And Julian Assange is still inside Belmarsh. Between them they’ve proved the value of dissent and reasonable scepticism many times over. That is not to draw any comparison between their work and what Piers Corbyn is alleged to have said or done, merely to point out that criminalising opinion will impact serious journalism even more severely than it already is. I hope all those on the left who have been demanding various degrees of censorship, might now come to their senses and pause for reflection.
Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover this entire flap is part of a larger strategy designed to render criticism of global pharmaceutical corporations effectively illegal (and corporations in general). And even if it isn’t actually that, it risks becoming so.
J
But has Puers Corbyn been charged because of his views or because of breaking the law with the way he is expressing these views?
He has not broken the law. See here for context: https://www.stopnewnormal.net/post/statement-from-piers-corbyn-4th-feb-re-leaflets
Here is a page where adverse reactions, in this case the Pfizer and Moderna ‘vaccines’, are reported, in quite some detail.
https://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html
These are authoritative and up to date clinical reports. To make a search complete the simple steps of choosing the ‘VAERS Data Search’ button, scroll down and click ‘I agree’. Click again same button on next page.
In the next and final page, in the ‘Group results by’ open ‘Symptons’ drop down menu, scroll down and choose ‘ Vaers ID’. Then choose your desired parameters. To finish press any ‘Send’. Your report will appear soon after. Food for thought. Bear in mind also that NO data on adverse reactions, including deaths, is being till now reported here in UK. Just an uptick of ‘Covid 19′ deaths. I might wait until the lab rats’ results come in. I’ll give it a ten year trials period, and then some.
Meantime, on the bright side.
https://thefreedomfestival.uk/
But remember that Harvard researches have shown that VAERS only collects less than 1% of cases – it is reactive rather than proactive. How it is possible to rely on a voluntary system with such experimental drugs escapes me. There should be follow up calls every few days then weekly after vaccination. I also understand that adverse effects cannot be reported if they weren’t found during the trials – is that really true?
As well as the grounds on which he was arrested, there was little more Piers Corbyn could have done to shore up the Right’s antisemitism calumny against his brother. A small child could have told him how his Auschwitz analogy would be used by the media. So **** that idiot and all his far right libertarian apologists.
“However the incident betrays the very real shift in society towards intolerance of non-mainstream views.”
Not society, the state.
PS starting a sentence with “however” is a solecism.
The state suppression of Piers Corbyn’s leaflet wouldn’t be tolerated by society unless there was strong social pressure against the manipulation of Nazi imagery to magnify the emotional impact of an argument, as with Godwin’s law. People who defend the re-purposing of Nazi death camp imagery are putting themselves in the frame for social ostracism.
P.S. Most people aren’t especially keen on grammar Nazis either. 🙂
“I know many of you revere Strunk and White, but this is one instance in which nearly all modern style guides have decided that the classic advice is unreasonable. The modern style guides don’t call starting a sentence with however an error.
Here’s why: when you put a comma after however at the beginning of a sentence, everyone knows it means “nevertheless.” There’s no reason to outlaw a perfectly reasonable use of the word when you can solve the problem with a comma. Some writers have even gone so far as to say it is preferable to start sentences with however instead of burying the word in the middle of a sentence, because putting it at the beginning makes the connection between sentences more clear and therefore makes the text easier to scan.”
— Can You Start a Sentence with the Word “However”?
Whose strong social pressure? How is it manifested? This is another argument for censorship and you allude to Nazis when you criticise me. Where’s the strong social pressure now?
Style guides? Are they American? Never use “however” except when deriding illiterate Americans and English English Lit graduates.
How about, ‘However he thought about it, it always seemed to him to be wrong.’?
Never use that word.
Never use “however” or “likewise”, “additionally”, “moreover” and terms like “a series of [plural]” when the plural says it in one word. It isn’t difficult, pick the right words and write them in the right order.
Dear Craig
What a shock to hear your views on vaccines. In relation to polio can I ask whether your remembrance is of wild polio or the vaccine induced polio?
Immoral not to have a vaccine? You may be ‘woke’ when it comes to the corruption of the courts and political system, but have you chosen to stay ignorant when it comes to the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry?
Please educate yourself if you are going to give ‘your opinion’ and backing to the corruption of the vaccine pandemic. Your readers deserve no less from you if you are going to condemn them as being immoral for having their eyes open!
See:
Childrenshealthdefense.org – RFK
Jacob Puliyel
Vaxxed 1 and 2 – Polly Tommy, Del Bigtree
The Truth About Vaccines – Ty and Charlene
The lack of safety testing, contaminates in vaccines, cover up and deceit is phenomenal. Please be as thorough with this subject as you have learnt to be with politics.
Thank you
Bec
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/government-corruption/what-polio-vaccine-injury-looks-like-decades-later/
Polio vaccine (Sarin I think) is a live virus that mutates to pathogenic strains from time to time. This is sad but the solution is more vaccination to eradicate the mutated pathogenic strain. It would be nice to have a mRNA polio vaccine that can’t mutate but the expense may prevent any being made. Polio is a terrible price to pay for herd immunity and a salient reminder that a live vaccine actually means what it says. Live virus.
Wikipedia reports only a few hundred active case of polio world wide. These are mostly vaccine derived strains. The wild strain infections may be less than a hundred. Polio virus is close to extinction but the suffering continues for want of a safer vaccine.
Your first sentence was an unhappy start, Jon. There have been two main types of polio vaccine, “killed” (inactivated) and live, invented respectively by Jonas Salk and by Albert Sabin. (Sarin is an extremely toxic nerve agent).
I was one of the many children worldwide who was sheltered by loving and anxious parents from the perceived deadly threat of wild polio. When the vaccines arrived everyone heaved a sigh of relief. But that was not the real story. Like so many other infectious diseases, and conditions mistaken for infectious diseases, polio was suppressed not by vaccines but by improved hygiene and diet. Anyone sincerely interested in the facts could begin by consulting Chapter 12 of “Dissolving Illusions” by Dr Suzanne Humphries and Roman Bystrianik.
It is interesting that many conditions ascribed to infectious pathogens seem likely to be caused, at least in part, by exposure to pollutants in air, water, food, etc. From a corporate point of view this is actually quite a promising situation. The pollution emitted by corporate products can be blamed on a virus, thus avoiding the expense and bad publicity that would otherwise be inevitable. Better still, further expensive products – vaccines and other drugs – can be sold to combat the supposed pathogen.
Profit and trebles all round!
Thanks, Bec. I quite agree.
We all face the problem of what to believe about complex matters about which we have not had time or inclination to inform ourselves. The easiest, and default, policy is simply to accept whatever “authority” tells us.
Unfortunately, authorities of all kinds often deliberately misinform us for various reasons. In such a case, “it is better to keep one’s mouth shut and risk being thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt”.
A drawing would be less inappropriate if the subject had been about Care Homes rather than Vaccines.
When will they forcefully inject Julian Assange? There will be no choice in prisons.
Belmarsh prison health workers are probably particularly caring and sensitive people 🙁
and the injections less fatal than those used in Auschwitz. 🙂
Perhaps Julian’s already dead. He should have been released or the grounds of appeal filed by 29 Feb.
No mention of this on MSM or SM????
forcibly
Fact checking is all the rage these days
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-are-pharmaceutical-companies-immune-covid-19-vaccine-lawsuits-1562793
“The Facts
According to 42 U.S. Code § 300aa–22, “No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine after October 1, 1988, if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.”
In other words, companies that manufacture vaccines are not liable if someone has an allergic reaction or injury after being vaccinated.
However, individuals can file a petition with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to receive compensation if they are found to have been injured by one of the vaccines covered by VICP. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration under HHS, “even in cases in which such a finding is not made, petitioners may receive compensation through a settlement.”
VICP, also known as “vaccine court” has been accepting petitions, also known as claims, since 1988, and has paid about $4.4 billion in overall compensation, according to CNBC.
Though VICP covers vaccines for diseases including human papillomavirus (HPV), measles, mumps, polio and seasonal influenza, it does not cover any COVID-19 vaccines.”
Neat the way they added that little bit at the end “it does not cover any COVID-19 vaccines”
“…even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings”.
Doncha just *love* the law? So often everything depends on exactly how you interpret one single word.
What is meant by “properly”? Remember the huge batch of vaccine that was outlawed by California and had to be withdrawn, while other batches of the identical vaccine went on being administered?
What can we infer from that, except that the manufacturer had insufficient control over the manufacturing process to ensure that all batches were safe? Why would that one batch have been unsafe, and what caused the danger? Presumably some impurities or foreign material found their way into the mixture. Creating enough vaccine for billions of doses cannot be done by careful scientists with hand-held test tubes. It has to be done in huge vats, which cannot be guaranteed sterile.
And if “proper” warnings were given, perhaps no one would be foolhardy enough to take the vaccine.
Does this mean that the costs have been socialised but not the profits?
The more you read the more you learn, and I recall many years ago thinking certain opinions were crank until I researched the subject, like vivisection. Many argued the ethics of experimenting on animals, but this was met with the refrain humans before animals, which is similar to the case for eating meat, but then someone posed the elementary question can trial results from animal tests transfer to humans, if not then vivisection is a fraud and there are companies who test without animals, but they’re small compared to Big Pharma, but why, if animal testing is a fraud? Unless it isn’t!
But if it is, think of the corruption of science and politicians that must be involved, and I fear this applies across the board and is why I have acquired knee jerk scepticism to government policy, but again on an elementary observation that big profits are made from making people ill rather than healthy, but the immunity is democratic accountability, which you may have noticed has been removed during the prolonged emergency.
The Executive is ruling by decree and all elections have been cancelled for at least a year, and you’re arrested for putting out election leaflets. Piers says he’s standing in the GLA elections, which the government have announced will proceed, assuming another variant doesn’t emerge the day before to scupper things.
Craig
I have championed and popularised you blog since I discovered it about two years ago.
However – and I’m shocked – your pronouncements on vaccines in general, their histories, and the cov vaccines in particular, display some mixture of (i) naivety, (ii) susceptibility to government-Pharma propaganda, (iii) arrogance of arguing from untested tenets – at least.
Other commenters here have brought up several of the relevant valid counterpoints.
Being at one year into the plandemic now, I wouldn’t even try to educate anyone capable of making the statements about vaccines such as those you posted in your blog today. I will excuse you on grounds that you’ve been busy looking elsewhere this past year, and haven’t sought out and paid heed to the information provided by dissenters from the propaganda. Of course, it isn’t easy to find the dissenting information online, due to the increased censorship of online information that began last year.
Major blooper, Craig.
Craig’s pronouncements show an understanding of the science.
Unlike much of the commentary which instead shows a deliberate willingness to disregard understanding of science and much else.
I ask myself for what purpose?
No they don’t – they indicate a complete lack of.
Above comment to Kempe this to ET
“For what purpose” are people disregarding the quack science?
Because it is dangerous.
Explain to me why it is “quack science.”
Explain to me why it is “quack science.”
No
Your response was to Kempe’s “Craig’s pronouncements show an understanding of the science.”
Which was utter nonsense
But if you want to give me an example of where Craig has shown a good understanding of science in regards to the Covid Vaccines / Experimental Pathogens, then I will respond and explain why Craig and you are wrong (in scientific terms).
“Your response was to Kempe’s “Craig’s pronouncements show an understanding of the science.”
No, it was specifically to you and your use of the term “quack science.” That is why I used the reply button under your comment.
“Explain to me why it is “quack science.”
No”
Indeed, because you are unable to justify your comment. Double blinded randomised control trials are the gold standard for the elucidation of benefit or not from some action. Such trials were used to assess these vaccines. That is not quack science.
“But if you want to give me an example of where Craig has shown a good understanding of science in regards to the Covid Vaccines”
OK, here we go.
“I have no qualification that makes my view any more authoritative than yours.”
He admits he has no qualification related to immunology or other relevant field. A good start.
“But it seems to me probable that the massive advances in knowledge of how vaccines work within the body……….”
I don’t entirely agree with this but there have been advances that rest upon previous discoveries. Knowledge builds upon former knowledge (which incidentally is an argument against patents). The short-term safety data of the new vaccines against Sars-Cov-2 is similar to that of other established vaccines. By that I mean that the relatively minor adverse reactions such as a sore arm, injection site soreness, short-term tiredness etc and the more serious adverse reactions such as anaphylaxis are similar to other vaccines. From that we can infer that they are no more or less harmful than the established vaccines in the short term. Does that mean we can infer that the long-term adverse reactions are likely to be similar to established vaccines? Not entirely, but we can reasonably claim that they are likely to be. We, as humans, do this all the time. We infer from previous experience. I stick my hand in the fire and it hurts. I reasonable expect that if I do it again it will hurt that time also. Therefore I avoid doing so. I put a wool jumper on to help against the cold and I find that it indeed does keep me warmer. I reasonably expect that the next time it is cold and I advise someone to put on a wool jumper that it will help them to stay warmer too. We have previous experience of vaccines and their propensity to protect against disease by provoking an immune response. Our new vaccines provoke an immune response. There is accumulated data from the trials that said immune response protects against symptomatic disease. I have a reasonable expectation that will help. There is more and more data accumulating from already vaccinated people that this benefit is borne out. (cf. Israel) It is short-term data, that is undeniable. We cannot have long-term data until, well, time has elapsed. Should we withhold such a benefit in the short term because we fear the long-term unlikely consequences to help with a disease that is killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of people globally? It’s a difficult call. It relies on the balance of probabilities. In my view (and, it appears, also in Craig’s view) that balance of probabilities tends towards vaccination.
Talking about science itself as “the science” displays a complete lack of understanding about science.
Yes it’s better than the next stage of defence – insults and abuse.
And when it gets really telling we get deleted
explain “quack science”?
yes explain “quack science”. according to you, if somebody gets run over by a car, and as a result they get brain damage and they die, the real cause of death is not getting run over, but the “comorbidity” of their damaged brain.
“Craig’s pronouncements show an understanding of the science”.
True, Kempe, with the proviso that it is a *very slight* understanding of the *official* science.
An apparently endless stream of wisdom from Mushy the self pitying troll.
I’m slightly appalled by this remark:
“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”
Vaccines are a racket – by definition alone. There may be some that have done genuine good – the ones we grew up with that address the “big killers” and give lifelong immunity. But we are into a whole new ball game now where the medical-industrial complex is consciously or unconsciously attempting to establish a permanent dependency on medical technology just for social participation. It’s nothing to do with “good health”.
Even in the current crisis there would have been plenty of ways out of it without vaccines as there are successful treatments available for severe cases but discussion of these is simply dismissed and censored. The ADE phenomenon described by another commenter is real and dangerous. It should be declared formally as a potential risk but is not.
I’m amazed Craig cannot see this. At the very least it’s cause for an open mind on the matter rather than adding to the peer-pressure bullying of people who value their health and do not wish to follow this route. The “greater good” ironically is a metaphor used to disenfranchise populations. There is in reality no conflict between the “greater good” and individual diversity of opinion and liberty.
@ ET
“I ask myself for what purpose”?
Well for the extremes its the external battle over an idea over who rules, the rich or the poor, the elites or the people. The truth is the rich elites rule, but they don’t have it all their own way, and recently there has been a populist revolt, a natural event throughout history, which is in the process of being suppressed under guise of suppressing a virus, using vaccines as an ankle tag.
Trump won a landslide victory but the election was given to Biden by the Democrat and Republican establishments because Trump was the outsider reviled by both, and similar happened to Corbyn and the populists see this and understand the role of the virus as a smokescreen, whereas the general public and many experts are just bewildered by the whole thing, as if its just a gigantic mistake.
As someone said to me, they side with the elites, because the crumbs from a rich mans table, will be more than supporting the poor, and that role on here is served by the tag-team (with or without Integrity), who see nothing wrong, no cause for concern, with indemnifying the drug cartels and presumably all involved in the experimental vaccination roll out, hence the need for consent (indemnity) forms people have to sign before their jab.
I know patients do sign consent forms before certain operations, but for a ‘flu’ jab! The reason is because they’re experimental and so you have Government/BBC saying its your duty to take it, but “on your head be it” if it goes wrong. And this is what prompts those in the middle to debate the whole thing and be suspicious when only given half the story. For example for a year we have had a cumulative covid-related body count, but no mention of overall deaths to avoid putting things in context.
Very good point. “Deaths from all causes” statistics are the only true instructive metric and Covid-19 barely made a detectable footrpint on it. I’ve never seen such extreme obsession with creating fear and propaganda. They NEEDED to keep the case numbers as high as possible to justify policy which is why all these “asymptomatics” are redefined as “cases”. Governments have taken advice from behavioural scientists on how to coerce people into fear, guilt, paralysis, you name it. The economy is destoyed. People’s liveliehoods (and in some cases lives) is destroyed. Ironically, hospital capacity is also decimated. While it’s true that hospitals keep some people alive, the economy keeps EVERYBODY alive and the damage done now is going to be many times worse than the number saved by the use of ICU places.
It really is haunting.
Who are the “THEY” in your scenario here, indymike?
THEY fake the results. THEY make us scared. THEY demand we take vaccine. THEY pretend there’s a very serious contagious, planet-wide virus doing the rounds. THEY destroyed our economies.
Doubtless THEY also control undertakers, coroners, every branch of medicine and medical science, all governments of every political persuasion – from communist to fascist, from liberal democracies to dictatorships.
Who are THEY? Do THEY also control banks and the media? Do tell!
I suspect from your tone that your request for enlightenment is insincere, glenn_uk, but I will respond anyway.
Remember the old explanation of the Golden Rule? “Them that has the gold makes the rules”. That is basically the complete answer. Most governments – especially that of the USA and the countries that have copied it most slavishly – are entirely controlled by the rich and powerful. Not through any organised conspiracy, but simply through the propensity of people to like money and power and to prefer getting more of them than less. Thus politicans who are supposed, theoretically, to represent the people in fact represent only those who have given them money, and thus power. In return they pass laws handed to them by the rich and powerful, who thus get an extravagant return on their investment – usually well over a thousandfold, and sometimes a millionfold.
“THEY fake the results”. As might be expected of experienced politicians and business leaders, this is done subtly and efficiently – by requiring tests that are certain to produce incorrect results. It is well enough known that PCR is not a diagnostic procedure at all, let alone a reliable one, to take that for granted. When PCR is used according to the Drosten formula and on a population few of whom have the virus, false positives dominate. Voila!
“THEY make us scared”. If you have read the media or watched the BBC in the past year, this needs no explanation. UK Column have actually read out leaked memos from the Cabinet Office stressing the urgent need “to make the population more frightened”.
“THEY pretend there’s a very serious… virus…” Again, if you have read the media, watched the BBC, or listened to any government or NHS announcement in the past year, you have heard such statements almost continuously. In fact, experienced doctors and scientists with specialised knowledge say that the virus causes no more harm than a bad seasonal flu. But no one listens to them, any more than anyone listened to those experts who said that Iraq had no WMD. The motives are glaringly obvious: profits and reputation. Corporations can make vast profits, and “experts” who support the government line can look forward to promotion, preferment, wealth and fame. Conversely, anyone who dissents… And government always leaps at any chance to increase its powers – which it never gives up.
“THEY destroyed our economies”. Well, that’s an exceptionally easy one. I am sure you know the answer perfectly well yourself. Our governments did that to us, and it’s obvious how.
As for “undertakers, coroners…”, etc. I don’t see how an undertaker comes into it. He collects dead bodies and arranges funerals. Coroners were expressly forbidden to require post-mortems, for fear that the truth might emerge.Nowadays doctors have very little discretion in what they say and do, and as you know very well any doctor or nurse who departs from the official line is likely to be sacked or even (for doctors) struck off.
I must admit to being disappointed in Russia’s reaction: Belarus more or less ignored the lurgy, and has suffered about one third as many deaths per thousand attributed to it than Russia, which imposed far more stringent measures.
Finally, “Do THEY also control banks and media?” Well, duh. Where do you think the rich and powerful derive their wealth and power from? The banks are literally where all the money is kept, and nowadays the media do exactly what they are told. There are some honourable exceptions among the “alternative” media, but even RT and Mr Murray’s bloghave pretty much accepted the establishment line.
As for why journalists and editors parrot the government story, Noam Chomsky memorably explained that to Andrew Marr.
‘Marr: “How can you know that I’m self-censoring? How can you know that journalists are…”
‘Chomsky: “I’m not saying you’re self censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting”’.
– Transcript of interview between Noam Chomsky and Andrew Marr (Feb. 14, 1996) https://scratchindog.blogspot.com/2015/07/transcript-of-interview-between-noam.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2EPgix5_5w
Oh, I see I forgot to make explicit why the rich and powerful should have wanted to bring about this catastrophe…
“wo shocking headlines that sum up Covid: Billionaires MADE $3.9 trillion during the pandemic, while workers LOST $3.7 trillion”
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/514054-covid-pandemic-billionaires-richer/
Basically, straight out of the pockets of the poor into the stock accounts of the rich.
Savvy?
It’s a shame that the names of the likes of Chomsky (and Assange earlier) are raised so spuriously, as if they are agreeing with your specific case.
You need to come up with a grand internally consistent conspiracy and then provide proof. Not just little bits of “Hey – this looks suspicious”, “how about this odd fact?” “Something somewhere might have happened” – and so on.
For instance, you’re claiming ALL coroners are prohibited from investigating Covid-19 deaths – specifically “for fear that the truth might emerge”. I think that’s just nonsense, and simply asserting lots of things like that do not make your case. Prove it, for all countries.
Of course governments would want to make people take a pandemic more seriously, when it was rampaging out of control, with so many people disregarding the dangers it was growing at an exponential rate. Why do you find that so sinister? And how can you take that as being “proof” that some sort of fix is in?
Did you know the government wanted people to take the Nazis seriously too, back in WW-2? I suppose that is just frightening people for no reason, and proof Nazis never existed, using your curious logic.
It’s astonishing you dismiss the cases reported in all democracies, but decide Belarus has such benign and truthful leadership you can take their reported cases as read. Actually, you have a bit more work to do there – shouldn’t Belarus join North Korea and claim (truthfully, naturally!) that there are no cases at all?
It appears you like to thread and weave and make out an enormous conspiracy is afoot, without actually producing one scrap of evidence for what has to be the largest undertaking for a hoax of all time. To which end, you cannot even come up with a sensible goal.
Tom – A most impressive rebuttal.
Tom
You are suffering from a severe case of coniurare doctrina. The statements are generalizations which ignore many conspicuous exceptions and then there are other statements that are frankly completely false.
“Thus politicians who are supposed, theoretically, to represent the people in fact represent only those who have given them money, and thus power. “
So let us for the sake of argument agree with you that most governments of Europe and perhaps even Russia are guilty as charged. But why would governments of countries like Cuba, Venezuela and Iran also be doing the same? What is in it for them? Or are they just pretending to be opposed to the USG and acolytes and playing along?
“Nowadays doctors have very little discretion in what they say and do, and as you know very well any doctor or nurse who departs from the official line is likely to be sacked or even (for doctors) struck off.”
You obviously have a very dim view of the professionalism of doctors who are pretending to work hard saving lives, which are really not needing to be saved, but pretending to do so. And these doctors are from all parts of the world, including China, Russia, US, UK, Cuba and so on. How dumb has this profession become? They are all sheep and cannot remember that they have signed the Hippocratic oath. They have all been silenced by these fascistic states operating a world government under the control of ? Lizards maybe?
““THEY fake the results”. As might be expected of experienced politicians and business leaders, this is done subtly and efficiently – by requiring tests that are certain to produce incorrect results. It is well enough known that PCR is not a diagnostic procedure at all, let alone a reliable one, to take that for granted. When PCR is used according to the Drosten formula and on a population few of whom have the virus, false positives dominate. Voila!”
OMG, how do we start? So the governments commissioned the scientists to devise a test for a fake virus and then asked them to make it so rubbish that it can produce results as required. This is not just fiction, it is very bad fiction. No publisher would accept such a silly plot, it just does not make any sense whatsoever. If I remember correctly, governments were told everything by the scientists, they knew nothing and ordered nothing. If you have any proof of what you say, please tell us.
Then
“It is well enough known that PCR is not a diagnostic procedure at all, let alone a reliable one, to take that for granted. When PCR is used according to the Drosten formula and on a population few of whom have the virus, false positives dominate. Voila!”
Well known by whom exactly? OffGuardian, Global Research, UK column? What exactly do those websites or their sources know about the PCR? It is a very highly specific test and with a high degree of specificity with a positive predictive result of as much 100% as you can ever get. It is not so good on false negatives as this depends on things like sampling, viral load and others. You may have interpreted what was said in a wrong way. If the PCR is positive in a sample then it is as near as given that the specific RNA is from a specific organism. It is the basis of all forensic tests and go and ask any forensic scientist. What you may have misunderstood is the the PCR does not diagnose that someone has the disease, Covid-19 but has had a brush with the virus at some point, may be an asymptomatic carrier or may have got over the disease and has no viable virus.
Now let me tell you another way you can tell how many false positives there are by just making one simple observation. Many countries like New Zealand, China, South Korea and others are actively testing their populations frequently. They should still be reporting positive cases if what you say is true, but look at their figures, I am sure you can access this information easily.
Yes indeed a bad case of doctrinitis coniurare.
The conspiracy of profit, Glenn. You play dumb, but you know it very well. As does every other person not in a coma.
https://www.covidfaq.co/Claim-PCR-tests-are-not-finding-real-cases-15a55602b203473a9001927903805815
That s a good summary of all the points of discussion regarding PCR testing.
Further as regards the media, the two links I posted in this later comment are very relevant to the corruption of both the mass mainstream media and medical journals.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/02/piers-corbyn-and-free-speech/comment-page-4/#comment-975824
“Very good point. “Deaths from all causes” statistics are the only true instructive metric”
Indeed, let’s look at deaths from all causes.
“Covid-19 barely made a detectable footrpint on it.”
From ONS data.
2020 All Deaths = 604,045
5yr avg Yearly All Deaths = 531,129
2019 All Deaths = 527,234
76,811 increase over 2019 or 13.8% that figure being 12.7% of total 2020 deaths. 72,916 increase over the 5 year avg or 13.7%.
The 2020 figures break down age groups in 5 year increments whereas the previous years don’t. So that said I looked at the age group 15-44 and 45-64 as that was what was available in the previous years.
2019 age 15-44 = 14714
2020 age 15-44 = 15443
2020-2019 15-44 age = 729 or 4.95% increase over 2019 or 4.72% of 2020 deaths for that age group.
2019 age 45-64 = 63195
2020 age 45-54 = 71979
2020-2019 45-64 age = 8784 or 13.9% increase over 2019 or 12.2% of 2020 deaths for that age group.
covid related deaths (mentioned on death cert) 2020 = 77,686
“Barely a detectable footprint” indeed! What would constitute a “detectable footprint” to you, indymike?
Your percentages are completely up the wall.
Do the correct percentage difference between 2018 and 2020 for overall deaths in the UK.
(2019 was a low year)
It’s a little bit more complicated than that, which ET took the time to _try_ to explain to you.
Maybe the problem is that you are just unable to understand? No shame in that. But you don’t need to make it so embarrassingly clear, repeatedly and at length.
OK.
All deaths figures from ONS:
2020 608.016
2018 541,589
That makes 66,427 more deaths in 2020 than 2018. That is 12.2% higher than 2018.
Hope that helps.
@ ET
I won’t examine too closely or dispute your figures, but simply point out your ” covid related deaths (mentioned on death cert) 2020 = 77,686″ includes those who died WITH and died FROM Covid-19. And so means the figure has been artificially inflated and includes anyone dying within 28 days (used to be far more days until spotted),using the unreliable PCR test, that’s adjusted on purpose above 35 cycles to give Positive mostly False Positives results as required. But if we consider your 77,686 mortality figure alongside the following report it means far more died due to the lockdown than from the virus.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9203279/Government-estimates-220-000-true-death-toll-pandemic.html
We have had this discussion about death certification in another thread Dave. At length. Whether or not you take the death certification cause of death at face value still doesn’t explain the very large increase in deaths compared to a five year average. Strangely though, the excess in deaths in 2020 compared to either 2019 or the five year average are remarkably similar to the numbers of covid related deaths.
I am not going to second guess the doctors filling out the death certificates. I know how difficult they can sometimes be to fill out and the lengths doctors will go to to fill them out accurately.
ET – the overall death rate for 2020 (wk 1 thru 52) was 566,092. Your percentages as a result are flawed and not representative.
(https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/latest)
To better understand the severity of the current death rate it is more instructive to view annual deaths over a wider period – say 20 years. Analysis over this time-frame shows that the current death rate, whilst higher than the five year average, is not abnormal.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
I am not wrong. In actual fact, using the weekly all deaths data from ONS (week 1 Jan 3 2020 – week 53 Jan 1 2021) for 2020 the total is 614,114 deaths. I used the sum function in the spread sheet. Nowhere in your linked page can I find the figure you give.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/monthlyfiguresondeathsregisteredbyareaofusualresidence
Using the monthly data from ONS the total deaths for 2020 (Jan 1 to Dec 31) amount to 608.016. Again summing the monthly figures in the spread sheet.
There is a slight difference in the two figures because the dates are not exactly the same. There will be small changes as some deaths will not have been registered as yet due to coroner’s cases, admin mistakes etc.
The figures I used were from a little while back and will have been adjusted. My percentages may be marginally different with the adjusted figures. Keep in mind that the previous year’s data includes the excess winter deaths figures as does 2020. The picture is still the same.
@Dave
“Well for the extremes its the external battle over an idea over who rules, the rich or the poor, the elites or the people.”
I don’t disagree with you here Dave. For sure we need a better grasp on what constitutes good governance and what its purpose is and on what premise (and indeed promise) such purpose is founded. Isn’t that the fight that has been raging since, well, forever? Where I don’t agree with you is that fighting over whether there is a new virus which is killing people (which it clearly is) is helpful in that fight. It just distracts.
In general Dave verbal consent would be considered sufficient for the administration of other vaccines but good practice would require that you documented that verbal consent. The purpose of consent forms has evolved over the years thanks to good litigation. In my view it is a welcome development. Patients ought to be fully informed of any potential adverse outcomes for any considered procedure and also of the alternatives which would include doing nothing (often the most difficult choice).
I have said before that I think the consent forms as they are currently designed for vaccination against Sars-Cov-2 are useless. There is nowhere to write that you have discussed the potential adverse outcomes. I can almost guarantee that someone will litigate on that basis. More power to them is all I can say.
Just as an aside. Pre printed consent forms where the relevant adverse outcomes are pre-printed are also frowned upon. It is too easy to say to a patient go away and read that and if you agree sign it. Your role as a doctor is to ensure that your patient is not just aware of potential harms but also understands the possibilities. That means that you must be versatile in adapting your presentation of potential harms in a way that your patient can understand both the risks and their implications should they happen. It can be tricky at times. Also, as a patient, you have the right to say “I don’t want to hear it, just do what you think is best for me.” Another tricky situation.
Everyone has the right not to be vaccinated. I somewhat agree with Craig that people who refuse vaccination, for example, against measles rely somewhat on those that do agree to be vaccinated for a degree of protection. Whether it is immoral is another question and I would draw on the fact that everyone has a right to refuse treatment even if such refusal puts them in harms way. There is however a kind of societal bond. We, I think, would all mostly agree that driving under the influence is wrong. Would you consider it immoral? Many would. I’ll also pretty much bet that most of us have done that at some point in our lives. 30 years ago atttudes would have been different. Society evolves. These are tough questions. How best ought we to proceed? What criteria can we use to make these judgement calls?
Piers Corbyn’s statement provides context to the debacle, which supports the view here that it is an attack on freedom of expression and comes close to other situations reported on this blog in that the drawing evidently was a response to an egregious headline in the Evening Standard, which no doubt as msm expects to get away unchallenged with its hyperbolic bullshit.
“Further to a police phone call 3rd Feb I volunteered to answer questions from police (re leaflets first issued in December) at Walworth police station. There they formally arrested me to enable fuller questioning with which I fully cooperated.
I with my solicitor gave a full detailed rebuttal of the claim of “malicious communication”. The police also looked in my flat and found nothing. The police made no charges. Bail is to March 1st.
We point out in the leaflet that the Evening Standard headline 27th Nov VACCINES ARE SAFE PATH TO FREEDOM is a lie and horribly similar to the Nazi sign WORK SETS YOU FREE (Arbeit Macht Frei) on Auschwitz 1 work camp (for left-wingers – which was followed later by further totally horrific camps for Jews). We illustrated this point with an artist’s drawing.
The claim by police prompted by certain politicians that this was malicious or anti-semitic is a monstrous attack on freedom of expression.
When police and politicians choose what an artist does we know we are in a dangerous place.
The attacks are politically motivated and an orchestrated attempt 6 weeks after the leaflets first came out to divert from high level published expert international scientific concerns expressed in the leaflet and on http://www.StopNewNormal.net that the injections (not in fact vaccines) released in UK and other places are not safe – having caused deaths and severe adverse reactions, are still experimental, and for which the manufacturers have no liability for deaths or injury.”
“When police and politicians choose what an artist does we know we are in a dangerous place”.
Indeed. Curiously, in Europe (and presumably the UK) it is open season on Christianity and Islam – but Judaism, Jews and Israel are off limits.
Possibly that is because Christianity and Islam are simply religions, which anyone may join at any time. Whereas being Jewish is far more complicated – if you wish it to be.
Ray A
February 6, 2021 at 06:46
“Dr John,
It is very rare for PhD’s to style themselves Dr. You wouldn’t be trying to argue from authority would you?”
What utter tosh – Ray A – and you know it.
Universities offer three levels of degree: bachelor, master and doctor – doctor being the highest level of attainment.
In the UK medical practitioners are styled Dr as a courtesy – since most hold bachelor of medicine degrees – MB. It is an accepted convention, and originates from a time when members of the lowly medical trade wished to elevate themselves to a higher plane. They do not have the title by academic right, unlike someone with a PhD who has an absolute right to be styled ‘Doctor’.
Most of the experts you will see on the news – on any subject – introduced as ‘doctor’ will be PhDs. Look at the staff list in any university and it will abound with those styled ‘Dr’ by virtue of their doctoral degree. Strictly speaking, ONLY those individuals holding university doctorates are entitled BY RIGHT to be styled ‘doctor’.
My reading of Dr O’Dowd’s comments is that he is a scientist in a relevant subject area and that he is going to be taking the vaccine, based on his understanding of the science.
You may deem that as ‘trying to argue from authority’ in a snide and a deprecating way. But you see, Dr O’Dowd IS arguing from authority.
That authority derives from 3-4 years study to obtain a BSc followed by a further 3-5 years research to be awarded his doctorate. Dr O’Dowd also tells us he then did further research and worked as an academic in universities researching and teaching. His work in this research is published in learned journals. The universities that employed him trusted that authority to the extent that it awarded his students degrees based on his teaching and examining them.
That, in my view gives him authority in his subject area – which he tells us is biochemistry. He is well placed to understand and comment on the value of vaccination – which is all he has done.
So now to your little piece of deprecation: You have a point of view on the vaccines – based precisely on what learning and knowledge? Based on what expertise? Based on what deep insight in science and medicine?
Dr O’Dowd comes along with an opposing point of view – based on substantial knowledge and expertise. So what do you do Ray from your anonymous nom-de-plume?
You play the man; you cast snide and snot at him for daring to undermine your views that are based on – well, what on earth are they based on? Not knowledge, not learning, not published scientific research – which I doubt you could even read and understand. Not years of teaching in universities and doing further research reviewed by peers and published.
So you snivel and snide and hope to undermine the message, not by reasoned argument, but by sneer and deprecation.
You may not like this – but science is a learned profession. Only those with learning in it can speak with authority on it. Those with the higher authority are those with higher learning in it – denoted by the titles Doctor, Professor etc. These are short-hand to signify that the person speaking actually knows something about which he or she speaks.
What do YOU know Ray A? Wherein resides YOUR authority? What are YOUR qualifications?
You are, of course, entitled to your view – and WE are entitled to measure the worth of that view – and whose views we should take seriously.
Well that convinces me Mushy!
What a penetrating intellect you have!
Mr McNair
I have a degree in Biochemistry from Cambridge (3 years highly intensive study), a PhD in molecular virology from Glasgow (studying viruses which infect whole populations, causing cancer in a small subset of infected people and being more likely to cause disease in those with immunocompromise) and 4 years working on developing viral vectors for gene therapy. I wrote published reviews of gene therapy in learned monographs, published original research in peer-reviewed journals and passed on my technical knowledge to the next generation of students.
In my next life, quite a bit of my work involved engaging with Universities, professors, lecturers and other researchers to determine whether their research could be turned into commercial value. That meant I did not defer to authority, I was DULY DILIGENT in determining whether or not the assertions made by very senior Professors etc stood up to rigorous professional scrutiny. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t.
First lesson to learn from that is that academics are often entirely ignorant of the patent filing space, thinking that ‘peer reviewed publication’ is all that matters. Industry of course tends not to publish nearly as much, as they prefer to obtain IP protection for their discoveries or simply retain secret know-how in-house. So you should be very careful before assigning all-knowing expertise to academics, since they often have not reviewed the patent filing space adequately.
The second thing to understand about academics is that they are interested in ‘high impact publications’, which are arbitrarily defined by how many times they are quoted in the academic literature. That is a very very questionable basis for ‘quality’, it is a far better basis for ‘being top of the pops charts’. Getting buzzwords into the title of your paper is very important there. It’s a bit like looking at the quality of journalists…..
The third thing you should learn is quite how top-down and authoritarian the medical culture is in the West. The concept of ‘Key Opinion Leaders’ is used by Big Pharma to shape narratives; they get the KOLs on board (sometimes with financial inducements) who then pass down dictums to the sheep below. You would be amazed quite how few doctors actually think independently. I learned all about this when doing consultancy for a big pharma company…..
The fourth thing you should learn is how utterly lacking in objectivity the medical community is about exposing misconduct. There is no question that Peter Horby’s ‘study’ on hydroxychloroquine, deliberately designed to quash HCQ usage, was the work of an utterly corrupt and biddable tool of the pharmaceutical industry. His work was just as bad, if not worse, than that of Andrew Wakefield concerning MMR. But Wakefield was raising issues antithetical to Big Pharma interests, whereas Horby was doing their bidding. Either both or neither should have been thrown out. We all know what actually happened…..and it wasn’t Peter Horby being sacked by the University of Oxford, was it??
So I guess I can speak with some ‘authority’ too.
I can speak with the authority of not having to brown-nose committee members who dole out multimillion pound grant funding. No academic seeking that sort of funding can ever step out of line, even once. Career over if they do. So never consider what they say without first considering what they NEED to say….
I can speak with the authority of being both educated to the cutting edge of medical technology and having worked with senior business and government officials. I don’t belong to any trades union and I’m not trying to climb any greasy poles.
I can speak with the authority of knowing how the Security Services use doctors to spy on the general population (my sister is a spook and a medical consultant to boot).
And I can speak with absolute authority about the fact that none of the Government Ministers, advisors nor media sirens have seen a single penny drop in their generous salaries since March 2020, which renders all their holier-than-thou behaviour absolutely disgusting. There are no Labour nor SNP MPs who behave any better, it’s nothing to do with Conservatives, it’s to do with being on the public sector gravy train. I am not on that gravy train and I could only join it if I committed to betraying the people I was purportedly employed to represent.
I am sure Mr Murray prefers grand titles like Professor, Minister, CEO and the like. It’s what the Establishment uses to establish controllable narratives.
But if you want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, you need people who got off the gravy train, put truth before prestige and educated themselves sufficiently to be able to use a scythe through the mangrove swamps of propaganda that the Establishment always uses to ensure that getting out to the truthful blue yonder is a feat beyond the vast majority of honest and humble souls…..
Unfortunately, Rhys Jaggar, you are mostly correct to point out what you have pointed out. Where you are incorrect is that you seem to assume you and only you have realised what you have pointed out.
Just because part of how a system operates is corrupt or corruptable doesn’t mean the whole system is corrupt nor that the system is corrupted all of the time.
Not all research is corrupted. Not all people involved in research are corrupted or corruptable.
Look at Rhys’ swaggering last paragraph. He really does consider himself not only more intelligent and knowledgeable than almost everyone else, he’s also the most virtuous, truthful and ethical person in the business (or indeed, has ever existed).
That’s when he takes a break from advocating for the summary execution of people he doesn’t like, and/or the torture of their children. No, seriously.
Surely a Nobel prize cannot be far behind?
You have stepped outside of the guidelines and rules for this area of discussion.
Discuss the content of a comment and NOT the commenter.
I do hope that the Moderators are on the ball today..
Excuse me, John, but Rhys was putting himself across as a paragon of virtue and medical excellence. He brought his character into it, arguing from authority if you like, so that we should take his position more on trust than substance.
Having done so, it is only fair to point out that the character he brings as a reference to his positions might have a bit more weight, if that character did not also advocate – for example – the torture of children of people he doesn’t like.
Rather a vicious and undiluted ad hominem, glenn_uk.
Well Dr Jaggar,
I guess my old Alma Mater, Glasgow came as a bit of a culture shock to you after the rarified atmosphere of life on the Fens. As would the regime of Subak-Sharpe in Virolgy – or was he gone by the time you got there?
I do not doubt there is much truth in what you write, although you do not say whether it came as a disappointment that you did not progress to an academic career.
Of course tech-transfer ‘professionals’ (as they like to call themselves) hate academic publication since prior publication can often, if not invariably, ‘blow-up’ a patent – the whole point being that the patent itself is the publication that matters to screw out for private profit the value created by the public purse in the science performed.
In contrast, scientists – most of whom have little interest in the tortuous process of patent filing, and the limited prospects of any return via licensing – and no interest at all in spinning out of the university to become sullied in the business world. And indeed many take the highly principled stance embodied by John Sulston who was in favour of science in the public interest, such as free public access of scientific information and against the patenting of genes and the privatisation of genetic technologies.
I guess your career choice was an uphill struggle for you.
But forbye all that, I have no doubt about your expertise and knowledge – a PhD from Glasgow, one of Scotland’s ancient universities (founded in 1456 – older than most Cambridge Colleges) is a precious thing, and would not have been awarded to you without academic and scientific cause.
What I would like to know – and what has been the main topic that intrigues me in this thread, is this: Knowing what you know, will you be taking any of the vaccines if offered to you? – this being the best shorthand distillation of a view of the vaccine in terms of the discussions here.
Well said. As Upton Sinclair said “ it’s difficult for a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it” or to put it in simpler terms he who pays the piper, plays tunes!!!!
Nuclear “contamination” is in fact a very good thing; it causes mutation of DNA, which is the enabler of evolution. Governments should nuke other countries or sabotage their nuclear reactors because the radioactive substances released would help the next generation be superior. It would also enable our DNA to change and thus adapt, which would enable us to overcome diseases and correct genetic defects.
Don’t believe the lying governments, the mainstream media and the bought scientists and “experts” who say that radioactivity is dangerous; they’re all just trying to hold us back, shackle our DNA and prevent us improving.
Spread the word! Someone make and post a video; when the corrupt YouTube remove it, that will be proof that what I say is true!
You disbelieve me? Go look at the area around Chernobyl; wildlife is flourishing as nowhere else, it is a site of special scientific interest for its unparalleled biodiversity. Look at the glorious natural environment around Windscale…
The corrupt governments have moved the people out and spread scare stories so that the people don’t find out about radioactivity’s beneficial effects upon nature. Through their bought and paid for “experts” they have even circulated fake pictures of horrific deformities in wildlife from around Chernobyl, but how can you be sure that these are from a reliable source?
[end irony]
That shows you how simple it is to create a conspiracy theory. As an exercise, volunteers can now go and cherry-pick quotes from scientists and papers and gather them all into one place to make it look like there’s a massive but suppressed body of evidence for the nonsense I’ve posted above. You can then pitch expert versus expert, or make videos and play battling YouToobs.
Have fun, folks. And in the mean time, try looking up “birds aren’t real”.
[irony again]
Why else would there be so much secrecy around nuclear tech? They don’t want us to know that we’d evolve and improve, because they know we would then see through their lies and be free! We would overcome them and they would no longer be The Elite!
Why else would they restrict access to radioactive materials and nuclear premises, and bury nuclear “waste” deep underground in guarded repositories? It’s to keep the sheeple in the dark.
Haha, well played that man! (though i think it will go way over their heads)
You must have missed the work of far-right genius Art Robinson, Clark:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/16/1961239/-Crazy-Stupid-Republican-of-the-Day-Art-Robinson-2020-Update
He is very fond of the notion of “radiation hormesis”, advocating for nuclear waste to be introduced into homes, so we can benefit from the benign mutations that would take place. But that’s just for starters.
Thanks Clark, you have made my a
dull misty and rainy afternoon, I am wearing a smile for a while. Beats the pain in my left leg.
I will offer my body up to the altar with all the other guinea pigs soon. Our vaccine centre has just switched from Pfizer to Astra Seneca, wonder whether Im allowed to ask why? when its my turn. Keep well down there and dont enter any tunnels, they are full…:)
I’m gonna call it Clarkionism. Clarkionites of the world unite to battle this exestential threat. Demand irradiation.
i would go irradiate myself in the microwave, but i won’t fit and if i amputate my head i fear i would not live to realize the beneficial effects.
That would be no good pretzelattack. It has to be ionising radiation. Gamma rays are apparrently the best as they penetrate better to the deep organs of state inside all of us. Also the Incredible Hulk was irradiated with gamma rays and look at him. Holywood has a way of hiding the truth in the open. Proves Clark is correct.
This blog tends to have temperate discussions when compared with some other places. There are outbreaks of hostility but they are not particularly unpleasant. However, this particular post has touched a nerve not with its main theme – free speech – but with Craig’s quite understandable passing comment that he does not agree with Piers Corbyn’s position. Many things are capable of being true and false, neither true nor false and both true and false. It’s shame if people think their eyes are open, whilst others are closed and that only they can now see the truth. Its always worth listening to the other side and reconsidering one’s own position. It doesn’t hurt to be wrong. There should be a constant dialectic. Certainty is fixed and lifeless.
I think one of the reasons I come to this blog is because I understand the use of English here. I cannot make sense of the gobbledygook that I find in other places.
Wow, looking at most of these comments makes me wish I’d invested in tin foil!
They appear to be shocked that Craig doesn’t have the full tinfoil suit in his wardrobe.
I like this blog because there are a lot of informed contributors from both sides of the argument and the debate is generally respectful. Didn’t ex wisest man in Greece, Socrates, question his every belief?
Questioning belief is one thing. Aggressively asserting that a mysterious “THEY” are coming to get us, control every government, control scientists and every agency, fake death reports and conjurer up fake pandemics to collapse economies so they can take control… etc. etc. – that’s not quite so useful a contribution. About half the posts here are somewhere along those lines.
Well Socrates would have quite a time with these deniers and fabulists, questioning the basis of their beliefs.
The denialists would then have accused Socrates on being “in on it” too! That, or Socrates must be an Establishment stooge, terrified of their brave truth-telling, he’s one of the “sheeple”, etc. .
“The denialists would then have accused Socrates on being “in on it” too! That, or Socrates must be an Establishment stooge, terrified of their brave truth-telling, he’s one of the “sheeple”, etc. .”
Glenn, this is so stupefyingly incoherent I worry about you. Aren’t you ever bored doing smug incuriosity and nothing else? Don’t you ache to step outside the tedium of your narrow range of confirmation bias? Is there no horizon you don’t pretend to know, both coming and going, before you even arrive?
Goodwin, would you care to state which comments make you feel that way, and – more important – why?
Otherwise your declaration of your personal feelings lacks interest.
Chris Witty, in March, I think…
David Levesconte (@DavidLevescont1) Tweeted: Wow..?
RT.. https://t.co/p6SIB18HUU
Scroll through these Pfizer Vaccine Adverse Reaction Reports
NB Death reported as Not Life Threatening
https://medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?EVENTS=on&PAGENO=1125&PERPAGE=10&ESORT=&REVERSESORT=&VAX=(COVID19)
And bear in mind in the US adverse reaction reports re drug trials are under reported;
“Adverse events from drugs and vaccines are common, but under reported. Although 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported.”;
https://www.nvic.org/CMSTemplates/NVIC/Pdf/FDA/ahrq-vaers-report-2011.pdf
What kind of Trial is it when you do not have the results as evidence to base your conclusions on?
Both those references are from the “National vaccine information center” (despite having different domains), an anti-vaxxer group dedicated to fearmongering and misinformation. Do you get information from any reputable sources? Did you dig those quotes above from that website because you read it extensively, or did you find it elsewhere and stick it here?
If you don’t like those sources try this
https://vaers.hhs.gov/data.html
Create your own report, if you can’t work how to do it let me know and I will see if I can help.
The results are extremely distressing and only the tip of a very large dark iceberg.
If you don’t like the results take it up with Uncle Sam
It’s always the same when you look at their sources. Apparently the bulk of medical data and analysis is a huge conspiracy, which would take some incredible organising, but random oddball sites are gospel and not subject to the ‘critical analysis’ they claim to make on mainstream accounts.
“Apparently the bulk of medical data and analysis is a huge conspiracy, which would take some incredible organising…”
No more “incredible organising” than it takes for iron filings to stick to a magnet. Money talks, and most people prefer praise and promotion to censure and being ignored (or fired).
Oh really, how persuasive.
for the second time, define what you mean by Quack science, Mushy quack a duck, you are not convincing here. Linking to crap sites should equal to O/T comments…. just sayin.
Analysis of 2020 mortality numbers
I will draw from two papers that analyzed the 2020 mortality rates in the UK. The first one listed is quite short with the second article much longer. Both use data from the ONS and illustrate that however we might want to categorize “Covid” there simply was not a viral pandemic in 2020 and that the illusion conjured was a matter of fraud.
The first reason I think this to be important is that the data is clear (unlike CDC data in the US) and is readily accessible to any reader.
The second reason these pieces are important is that the results from these analyses can be extrapolated to virtually all other Western nations as similar/or the very same policies were put in place that resulted in the described distortions found in these articles.
This gives us an easy-to-understand template for how the “Covid” mortality figures here in the United States were conjured.
Here are the two articles :
https://dailyexpose.co.uk/2021/01/30/investigation-100k-covid-deaths/
https://architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk/2021/01/27/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-manufacturing-the-crisis/
– Comparing the death rate of 2020 with previous 20 years. 2020 rate was 1,037/100,000 in the UK. Highest in 10 years but not the highest in the last 20 years. What happened?
2008 had a death rate of 1,084/100,000
2005 had 1,137/100,000. Every year prior to 2009 had a higher death rate that 2020;
– UK Lockdown was towards end of March in 2020;
– At home deaths began to escalate in April. 5 year avg. for deaths in April previous to 2020 was 9,384. In April 2020 there were 16,909 at home deaths;
– 5 year average for deaths in care homes in April was 8,691. In April 2020 there were 26,541 deaths that occurred in care homes. Astronomical increase;
– Hospital data for April 2017- 2020:
April-June 2017– 91,724 beds occupied= 89% occupancy rate;
April-June 2018– 91,056 beds occupied= 90% occupancy rate;
April-June 2019– 91,730 beds occupied= 90% occupancy rate;
April-June 2020 58,005 beds occupied= 62% occupancy rate.
2018 – April – 1,984,369 attended A&E (Ambulance and Emergency)
2019 – April – 2,112,165 attended A&E
2020 – April – 916,581 attended A&E
Important Notes:
30% less hospital beds occupied in April – June 2020 compared with previous 3 years;
A&E in April 2020 was 57% down from 2019.
These numbers explain the high numbers of at home deaths.
Increase in deaths occurring at home and in care homes in April 2020 due to not being treated for illnesses in hospital. No acute care in private homes or care homes.
CAUSE OF DEATHS USING DECEMBER 2020 AS EXAMPLE:
– Leading cause of death was stated as “Covid-19 deaths”= 10,973 deaths for December 2020;
– 2nd leading cause of death in December 2020- Dementia and Alzheimer’s= 5281 deaths;
Previous 5 year average for December= 28,198 deaths due to Dementia and Alzheimer’s;
This is a 500%+ alteration from previous 5 years. A statistical impossibility.
– Heart disease deaths in December 2020= 4,635
December 5 year average, 21,997
This represents a near 500% statistical deviation from previous 5 year average- also not possible.
– Chronic lower respiratory disease deaths December 2020= 1,790
December 5 year average, 13,384.
This represents about a 700% detour from the 5 year average. Not possible.
– Influenza and pneumonia deaths December 2020, 1,190
December 5 year average= 11,295.
This represents about a 1000% deviation from the 5 year average. What is left to say?
And so on…. tables are included with the first article.
It seems it would take quite a monumental argument to prove that these death certificates have not been manipulated. It would take an even grander argument to illustrate that the NHS was under pressure at any time as during the height of the “pandemic” at home deaths soared to record heights and hospital and emergency services sunk to all-time lows..
Why waste precious time on all this crap? Do you seriously believe you will convince any sane person that covid is some worldwide, cross-ideological conspiracy?
:0)
I’m not wasting precious time.
I’m using the freedom of speech to voice a view.
Same as everyone.
Scroll on..
Since you have this wonderful freedom of speech, why don’t you use it to voice something worthwhile – as Dom suggested?
“worldwide, cross-ideological conspiracy?”.
.
Have you looked into the World Economic Forum and it’s plans for everyone over the next 10 years ?
Quote – “in 2030 you will own nothing and you will be happy”.
Conspiracy meaning multiple people / agencies meeting and planning.
The use of the word ‘conspiracy’ to deride someone has become enormously tiresome..
Even if you could establish some credible connection between a quote at Davos and the gargantuan faking of a global pandemic by millions and millions of people (you can’t) you would have to account for the enthusiastic collusion of governments ideologically opposed to the schemes of billionaires.
I should congratulate you though because Graham below seems to be absolutely all in. It took next to nothing.
“you would have to account for the enthusiastic collusion of governments ideologically opposed to the schemes of billionaires”….
No he doesn’t (have to account for that). It’s a matter of record that heads of state are all signed up to this. From Canada to Australia, UK to Italy. Google World Economy Forum “young global leaders”. They’re groomed from the earliest stage in their careers – not to represent the views of their own population but rather the transnational corporate, banking and industrial interests. Doesn’t matter if they’re left wing/right wing. What matters is they’re compliant.
People like Trump & Alex Salmond are too much of their own personalities for this cult which is why they get heaved by any manner of means.
Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe I’m not the brightest of people. But Mr Pillagers analysis seems to be a honest attempt at understanding what is going on. Even if he is incorrect, calling his hard work “crap” and dismissing him as a ‘conspiracy theorist’ doesn’t add to the debate. I expect that kind of behavior BTL at the guardian 😉
Thank you Mr Pillager, for what seems to me, an intelligent, well researched and insightful post.
It wasn’t JPs analysis, though Graham, I doubt he gave it a moment’s thought. It was a cut&paste job from some denialist and cor-blimey sites, dedicated to misinformation (such as “wearing masks cause permanent brain damage!”), selected not to bring the truth, but to push down a narrative long made up in advance.
Can you prove this assertion or is it just more ad-hom character assassination?
You can prove it yourself – just look up the references he provided. If you can be bothered.
They even ask you to donate at those sources. Maybe that will get you interested – it’s all about the money, right? 😉
You accused him of plagiarism, I believe. Can you prove it?
A highly selective use of data with assertions unsupported by evidence. Sadly, there are legions of people doing similar home made attempts at data analysis and proclaiming the results as ‘proof’ of some grand conspiracy. I know it might be irritating for you, but when you make such grand claims, then you must expect to taken up on it. And no, I am not going to spend all afternoon on combing through it line by line. There are much better things to do. And there are far more calm and rational analyses of the data available. But I guess they must all be wrong, all those people who spend their lives in the thick of it, and who understand the ways you can use and misuse data.
And yet the grand conspiracy remains, as it has always remained, the profit motive. The conspiracy of profit. You know exactly what I’m talking about.
I have no idea what you are talking about, other than offering a laughably simplistic excuse as a reason for the conspiracists efforts. How interesting that so many with the same song have landed on Craig’s blog for this subject and not for others.
Well, you keep insisting everyone is supposed to be pushing a ‘grand conspiracy’ theory. I was trying to be helpful and identify it for you. It’s called wealth and power.
Very impressive, John: You make very powerful arguments and have done a lot of research.
Until recently, like most of us, I was convinced to accept that Covid was a real new world wide pandemic – regardless of government and media propaganda. The evidence seems to be in front of our eyes because all the mainstream news media are constantly telling us how full and overflowing are the hospitals – and we see how exhausted the staff are.
However, might not the truth of the matter be that there are simply fewer doctors and nurses available – as well as fewer beds – as you
pointed out. So I for one, would not dispute that the NHS IS overwhelmed but is it due to Covid or more likely is it due to understaffing and lack of preparation by the government? (the NHS has struggled for years with understaffing).
There are even some experts who deny that there is such a thing as Covid because such a virus hasn’t been actually isolated to be shown as a definitive virus.
Why are there so many links and conflicts of interests between the WHO, epidemiologists generally, and Big Pharma?
All I can say is that UK and US governments can hardly blame people like me for being confused and undecided because we read fake information on the internet or social media when the governments themselves constantly bombard us with disinformation and downright lies via a complicit mainstream media.
If only our mainstream media employed more real journalists who actually asked politicians relevant if awkward questions like those I mention.
The powers that be may or may not be literally planning Full Spectrum Dominance but by God it certainly feels like it.
There is indisputably, an ever increasing tendency by US and UK governments to be enforcing more surveillance, more cancelling of dissident views and draconian measures, generally.
It’s nothing new of course, but I believe that our spineless, unquestioning, immoral media are every bit as guilty for our sham democracies as are the politicians.
I was waiting for the punch-line – surely you’re not serious? Actually, I know you’re not serious. Sincere, maybe, but not serious.
Good work John.
A clear and lucid portrayal of the facts.
I wouldn’t however jump to the conclusion that the death certificates were manipulated. I think it has more to do with the changes that the government made last year: making it a simplistic task to record covid as the cause of death opposed to the other causes listed. It can be argued that this change was done in good faith as part of the (feared) pandemic planning. These covid death certificates, therefore, aren’t necessarily wrong as a consequence, it just makes them unhelpful when comparing against previous years.
M: ” A clear and lucid portrayal of the facts.”
It is nothing of the kind. I know you denialists feel obliged to praise each other’s posts without fail, but use some critical thinking – please.
You need to explain how every government – worldwide – has seen almost precisely the same proportion of increase in deaths to the number of Covid-19 cases identified. It works state by state in the US too. Now how do you suppose “THEY” managed that?
The sheer lunacy of believing – without evidence – that this is a gigantic hoax perpetrated by every agency worldwide is so staggering that it’s hard to know where to begin. Yet you denialists splutter with indignation that such outrageous nonsense is not being received politely and seriously, even while people are dying in their thousands EACH DAY due to the perpetration of these lies.
Denialism = Deaths. Just like the denialism of AIDS had a huge death toll. Just as the denialism of climate change is doing the same. You denialists must be very smug and proud of yourselves, at the enormous body count your campaign is racking up.
Deaths in last 5 years rounded
2016 491 000
2017 499 000
2018 506 000
2019 496 000
2020 570 000
To make numbers fit their agenda they like deaths per 100000 and they go 10 years back. Due to immigration of younger people in last 10 years size of population increased and deaths being around the same measured per 100000 death rate is higher
In 2008 deaths were 476 000 or 1081 per 100 000
In 2020 570000 or 1037
coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
Scenario: elderly gentleman gets temperature and breathing problem and ends up in hospital. He get tested positive for Covid19. Gets on Oxygen and later on respirator. His lungs and heart struggle and he dies. Is it conspiracy to put Covid 19 on his death certificate ?
My point is, virus attacks respiratory system as the name suggest. Heart pumps blood carrying oxygen, not enough Oxygen no life.
“This first amendment, which would not require resolution by Parliament for 40 days from when it returned from its extended recess on 21 April, added COVID-19 and SARs-CoV-2 to the list of, respectively ‘notifiable’ diseases and ‘causative agents’. Under this change to legislation, medical practitioners have a statutory duty to record COVID-19 on a death certificate”
From your second link copy and pasted. This is simply wrong. It is straight up totally and utterly wrong. A notifiable disease requires that it is reported to the relevant bodies not that it is put on a death certificate. There are many other notifiable diseases such as measles. For an exhaustive list see:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/notifiable-diseases-and-causative-organisms-how-to-report
Having read that I cba reading the rest. How can you take what this guy has to say seriously?
The government page detailing adding Sars-Cov-2 and covd to the list:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coronavirus-covid-19-listed-as-a-notifiable-disease
Furthermore, the guy cites the WHO “INTERNATIONAL GUIDELINES FOR CERTIFICATION AND CLASSIFICATION (CODING) OF COVID-19AS CAUSE OF DEATH”
https://www.who.int/classifications/icd/Guidelines_Cause_of_Death_COVID-19-20200420-EN.pdf?ua=1
Read the whole document and you will see that they specifically state:
Note: Persons with COVID-19 may die of other diseases or accidents, such cases are not deaths due to COVID-19 and should not be certified as such. In case you think that COVID-19 aggravated the consequences of the accident, you may report COVID-19 in Part2. Please remember to indicate the manner of death and record in part 1 the exact kind of an incident or other external cause.
Also, this guy again selectively cites “To clear up any confusion this may cause to a doctor filling out the death certificate of an 80-year-old patient who has died of cancer and tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 post mortem, the WHO instructed medical professionals: ‘Always apply these instructions, whether they can be considered medically correct or not.”
Again, utter bullshit. Below is the context of the instructions. Read carefully.
“Certifiers use a range of terms to describe COVID-19 as a cause of death, a sample can be found in the annex of this document.Although both categories, U07.1 (COVID-19, virus identified) and U07.2 (COVID-19, virus not identified) are suitable for cause of death coding, it is recognized that in many countries detail as to the laboratory confirmation of COVID-19 will NOT be reported on the death certificate. In the absence of this detail, it is recommended, for mortality purposes only, to code COVID-19 provisionally to U07.1 unless it is stated as “probable” or “suspected”.
The international rules and guideline for selecting the underlying cause of death for statistical tabulation apply when COVID-19 is reported on a death certificate but, given the intense public health requirements for data, COVID-19 is not considered as due to, or as an obvious consequence of, anything else in analogy to the coding rules applied for INFLUENZA. Further to this, there is no provision in the classification to link COVID-19 to other causes or modify its coding in any way.
With reference to section 4.2.3 of volume 2 of ICD-10, the purpose of mortality classification (coding) is to produce the most useful cause of death statistics possible. Thus, whether a sequence is listed as ‘rejected’ or ‘accepted’ may reflect interests of importance for public health rather than what is acceptable from a purely medical point of view. Therefore, always apply these instructions, whether they can be considered medically correct or not. Individual countries should not correct what is
COVID-19 -GUIDELINESFOR DEATH CERTIFICATION AND CODING9assumed to be an error, since changes at the national level will lead to data that are less comparable to data from other countries, and thus less useful for analysis.
A manual plausibility check is recommended for certificates where COVID-19 is reported, in particular for certificates where COVID-19 was reported but not selected as the underlying cause of death for statistical tabulation.
Please read the whole document in context.
The AstraZeneca injection is not a vaccine that works in the way that the smallpox or measles vaccines work, it is gene therapy. It hijacks your cells to make the supposed particle that causes the suite of symptoms called COVID.
I’m sure you are right to trust that a for-profit company has your best interests at heart and this will not have any adverse effects in the long term, despite the alleged agent and its cure only being computer models.
If you are prepared to take the chance that it will improve your resistance to the assumed causitive agent go for it, but dont expect everyone to be convinced by that promise.
Additionally;
“We looked at evidence for or against a genuine pandemic of a respiratory virus. If we actually had a pandemic of a Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), wouldn’t you expect that there would be more medical oxygen used?” Dr. Huber observed.
“We found something very interesting. Wall Street does not like bogus stories. Wall Street does not like hoaxes. The earning statements for medical oxygen providers must be on target,” Dr. Huber noted. “We looked at the suppliers and distributors of the three biggest Medical Oxygen companies listed on Wall Street.”
Dr. Huber’s investigative team found that annual sales actually declined from 2019 to 2020. The three largest medical oxygen providers (Air Products APD; Air Liquide AIQUY; and Linde LIN) combined sales in 2019 were $64 billion dollars. The combined total for 2020 dropped to $61 billion.
Dr. Huber’s forensic investigation team also realized that if hospitals were being overwhelmed with Covid-19 pandemic patients, the hospitals would need to purchase significantly more equipment and supplies, such as I.V. bags and poles, as well as syringes. They checked the Wall Street number for the five largest companies that provide medical supplies.
“The five largest medical supply companies in the US are: McKesson, Amerisource Bergen, Henry Schein, Cardinal Health and Medline Industries,” Dr. Huber explained. “Although these five companies’ sales increased slightly in 2020 over 2019, the growth rate for the past year has slowed compared to the five-year aggregate overall growth rate for these companies.”
https://jamesfetzer.org/2021/02/clever-forensic-investigation-offers-compelling-evidence-covid-19-is-a-scamdemic/
From Wikipedia: James Henry Fetzer is a former professor of the philosophy of science at the University of Minnesota Duluth, conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier.
The denialists always have _such_ impeccable sources!
… just to add to this :
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/James_H._Fetzer
Besides doing the usual rounds with far-right and flat out nut-case chat shows on the profitable pundit circuit, Fetzer pretends school shootings never happened, claims Israel was behind everything from 9/11 to “false flag” operations worldwide, that a scary far-left conspiracy is afoot to take everyone’s guns away – hence claiming the Sandy Hook massacre never took place.
All the usual paranoid rabid right-wing nuttery, in other words.
Shame the company they keep doesn’t dampen the evangelical zeal of the denialists posting here. They shamelessly reference the most discreditable of individuals, while calling decent and honest medics in this country liars and killers.
Unbelievable.
To glenn_uk:
“The denialists always have _such_ impeccable sources!”
So you think Wikipedia is an impeccable source? Don’t make me laugh. Their site pages are constantly being edited by intelligence agents or their supporters in the media. Have you not read Craig’s previous comments about the lack of neutrality of Wikipedia.
Even if there is some truth in what you are saying, you should be addressing the government information fakery and their media lackeys: That’s were the problems starts.
Moreover, Wikipedia editors have complete anonymity which some interested parties have spent years trying to penetrate.
It is the politicians’ and spooks’ wet dream.
Nevertheless I should add that I find Wikipedia reliable for objective subjects such as maths and (uncontroversial) science. Even most history – although less so since perhaps 1800.
Irritant: The guy is a crank. It’s not just wikipedia saying that. Jesus!
DeQuincey – “The AstraZeneca injection is not a vaccine that works in the way that the smallpox or measles vaccines work, it is gene therapy. It hijacks your cells to make the supposed particle that causes the suite of symptoms called COVID.”
No. The mRNA makes your cells produce most of just the spike protein of the virus, just enough for your immune system to learn to recognise it. All other parts of the virus, including its all important reproductive parts, are not encoded in the mRNA.
– – – – – – – –
Fetzer is indeed a Holocaust denier. Here are his own words, in the introduction to a book by Nicholas Kollerstrom:
– …The only explanation for this embarrassing omission is that the intercepted data seriously contradicts, even refutes, the orthodox “Holocaust” narrative. The revealed information does not expose a program of mass murder and racial genocide. Quite the opposite: it reveals that the Germans were determined, desperate even, to reduce the death rate in their work camps, which was caused by catastrophic typhus epidemics.
– Were the British here hoodwinked by the Nazis, as some historians to this day try to claim-or is the truth both simpler and more shocking?
– In 1988 and 1991 forensic studies threw light on the question of whether the claimed gas chambers at Auschwitz had served as slaughter houses for hundreds of thousands of people. Both studies concluded that the only facilities where Zyklon B gas had been used were hygienic rather than homicidal, killing bugs rather than Jews.
DeQuincey, what about you? Do you deny the Holocaust too? I often find that conspiracy theorists are also anti-Semitic.
I was completely ignorant of how mRNA vaccines work until I took just half an hour last night to read the layman’s explanation on the CDC and Pfizer sites. I don’t know how people have taken what was explicitly stated as “It uses your cells’ machinery to create the same protein on the virus spike which is used to infiltrate your cells, and presents it to your immune system. The cell then returns to normal function. The RNA doesn’t interact with the cell nucleus itself, and is broken down after.” as “it hijacks your cells to make the part of the virus that makes you ill”.
It’s not the ‘particles’ that make you ill; it’s the destruction of cells by the entire virus as it *does* thoroughly hijack a cell and forces it to create viral copies until it bursts. I learned that in half an hour too.
Do people just go straight to some third-party misinterpretation because they see “the man” and assume it’s all going to be lies?
I’m all for looking at all sources, but at least check the accepted ones first.
I did not mention a conspiracy, do you know something I don’t?
Fetzer did not write the article, just published it.
I have no idea about Fetzer, but I am able look at other people’s ideas and aree of disagree on a case by case basis.
The holocaust was not mentioned, but thanks for your illustration of a straw man argument.
Just an observation: those urging caution towards covid vaccines are in general making their case politely, attempting to justify their position with science, reason and logic. In contrast, the most uncritical supporters of vaccines are in general the rudest and most unscientific, taking it as a given that their sources are unimpeachable, using sarcasm and terms such as covid-denier and antivaxxers which deter reasoned discussion. Don’t take my word for it, check for yourselves.
Well said, “Ankle Sum”:
Comments by “John Pilliger” were dismissed because he had “cut and pasted” them.
Well, at least he was using ONS statistics – and I can’t think of any better source of statistics to base an argument on…
Another bit of disinformation from glenn_uk is that Professor Fetzer is a Holocaust Denier.
Well, whatever Wikipedia says – he is NOT. I’ve read what Fetzer actually says about the Holocaust and at no point does he deny that it happened.
You can put anything you like on Wikipedia (if it suits the establishment group think) and most people will swallow it – including me. However, I’m learning to spit back out much of the drivel from Wikipedia since learning of the sinister ways with which it is being exploited.
Like others, I use it a lot for everyday non-political information, it is probably quite reliable for that purpose but I refuse to give the cheeky buggers a donation when according to what I’ve read, they are not completely independently funded as stated.
Yes, Irritant, that is a good example. Covid denier = Holocaust denier, no logic, just a smear, an appeal to emotion rather than reason.
It’s surely a coincidence that many of the Covid deniers are also far-right stooges, white supremacists, climate change deniers, and rabid Trump supporters. And a few holocaust deniers to boot. Funny that, don’t you think?
Glen-uk.
You have put yourself forward as a representative of those I described as “the most uncritical supporters of vaccines are in general the rudest and most unscientific, taking it as a given that their sources are unimpeachable, using sarcasm and terms such as covid-denier and antivaxxers which deter reasoned discussion.” I agree, you do seem to be representative.
I note you reference rationalwiki as a source for your claims that Fetzer is an antisemitic conspiracy theorist and therefore his opinions on vaccines don’t count. I’d never heard of Fetzer before, but if he is being smeared by rationalwiki, he must be doing something right. I looked up Craig Murray on the same website. Guess how they describe him? As an antisemitic conspiracy theorist! In a short article, they use ‘antisemitic’ 9 times and ‘conspiracy’ 7 times.
What you going to do now? Apologise for smearing Fetzer or boycott Craig murray? Or continue cherrypicking your sources?
LINK = https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Craig_Murray
AS: You linked to that rationalwiki about Craig Murray.
It states “some” consider him a conspiracy theorist and an anti-Semite. Why might he attract that charge?
Not because of anything he’s written. It is more because his blog’s comments are filled with ravings from conspiracy theorists who love referencing the far-right and holocaust deniers – and I offer this sub-thread as a case in point.
If you like, Ankle Sum, you can read more about Prof Fetzer in The Chronicle of Higher Education: https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-professor-of-denial/
Still cherrypicking, Glenn? The article you are defending is a hatchet job of smear and innuendo. FFS, at one point they say “It isn’t clear that Murray goes so far as to claim there is an international Jewish Conspiracy” (I’ve rearranged their weasel wording but retained the essence of their smear). Really, Glenn, do you think that’s justified too?
I wouldn’t make such a big deal out of this, only you did complain about others doing a “cut&paste job” from a dodgy website, and referred sarcastically to ““The denialists always have _such_ impeccable sources!”
Enough already, I’ll leave it there, but thank you for illustrating the stereotype so accurately.
You’re blowing a lot of smoke, Ankle Sum, but the fact of the matter is that your boy Fetzer is a holocaust denier – he admits it himself.
Why are you trying so hard to defend him, and waving around furiously to distract from that fact? I’ve got a good idea why, but you can give us your own reason if you like.
“Another bit of disinformation from glenn_uk is that Professor Fetzer is a Holocaust Denier.
Well, whatever Wikipedia says – he is NOT.
Maybe you need to read more widely then. Did you ever encounter this quote from Prof. Fetzer?
“I am a Holocaust denier, but not in the broader sense”
Horse’s mouth. Nuff said.
When I see a whole load of commenters pile in to declare that a self-declared Holocaust denier is not a Holocaust denier, I tend to wonder if we have a bunch of actual Nazis coordinating to propagandise on this site. Maybe they coordinate by posting under other names at Stormfront or similar.
Nazis, but the nice, polite sort. You know; great company until they’re stamping their jackboots on your face.
Yes, funny how so many of these people have suddenly turned out, and many use the same ‘impeccable’ sources.