Thank you Karyse Day [1] for drawing attention to the problem of the bias and intimidation inherent in the term "anti-vaxxer". The term has been around perhaps since the 19th century but has evolved a new context. Three years ago I drew attention to the remarks of Seth Berkley, director of the vaccine lobby organisation GAVI, in the Spectator proposing that "anti-vaxxers" be excluded from social media, which meant in effect not only that certain people should not be allowed on social media but that criticism of vaccines should not be allowed on a generic basis - an extremely serious matter[2].
Unfortunately, this has also been a hobby-horse of the present Prime Minister. In August last year Reuter's recorded Boris Johnson as saying [3]:
“I’m afraid people have just been listening to that superstitious mumbo-jumbo on the internet, all that anti-vax stuff..."
On 24 September 2020 he told the UN [4]:
“There are today people who are still actually anti-science, a whole movement called ‘the anti-vaxxers’ who refuse to acknowledge the evidence that vaccinations have eradicated smallpox and who by their prejudices are actually endangering the very children they want to protect."
By February this year the Sunday Telegraph was reporting [5]:
"Posting anti-vaccine propaganda on social media could become criminal offence, Law Commissioner says
New Law Commissioner Penney Lewis is leading wide-ranging review into whether UK's offence and abuse laws are fit for the Social Media age..."
And once again the Prime Minister was quoted last month [6]:
“There’s all these anti-vaxxers now,” Johnson told medical workers at a doctor’s surgery in London. “They are nuts, they are nuts.”
While there are a lot of very fed up people I am extremely dubious there is a movement called "the anti-vaxxers" or that they are posting propaganda: at the very best this is a simplistic claim [7,8]. At a time when the government is supposedly trying to earn trust for a range of potential SAR-CoV-2 vaccines the continued disparagement and repression of people who raise questions about a class of products - which after all cannot be inherently safe - speaks for itself. It creates an atmosphere of prejudice and intimidation - such as described in the Cumberlege review [9] and should be seen and understood for what it is.
At the end, Tom Jefferson says, “We are regressing to the 80s where you pick and choose your evidence."
Intriguing. I wonder what specifically Mr. Jefferson is referring to. Perhaps the science around AIDS? IDK.
I also wonder if we really have to go all the way back to the 80's to find people picking and choosing their evidence. It seems to me that people who have favored medicine or medical treatments based upon, say, plants (which are the original source of a great many patented and approved medicines) have consistently faced a kind of "religious opposition" to their message for decades.
I mean, is Mr. Jefferson suggesting this "religion" works in historical waves? Were the 80's bad but the 90's good? When was there ever a golden era of honest scientific evaluation of alternative solutions and narratives? When was there a time of honest and courageous medical journalism? Did that ever really exist?
I cannot talk to my sister or her family about the Covid shots or any vaccines which she still to this day believes are perfectly safe. The key word is BELIEVE. Yes it’s so true that this is now in the world of a religion- a fanatical one at that.
Excellent, thank you. Censorship of certain scientific viewpoints has, to me, been one of the most alarming things about the Covid era. I first noticed it with the demonization of John Ioannidis in March 2020.
Thanks. Vaccines indeed fit into the narrative as a sort of magic that protects against “cooties.” Our human instinctual fear of “cooties” explains MUCH of the spectrum of COVID irrationality. https://youtu.be/AlTzoV1kqE8
The truth needs no protection, only partial-truths do.
We allowed this to happen by handing over our responsibilities to soulless institutions that only values matter, status and ideology. No wonder we are marginalised, consumed by the beast we handed our power too.
Thanks for the great article: Push back. We have to make these Institutions irrelevant by becoming self-reliant and replacing this corrupt all consuming system.
The vaccine group had almost DOUBLE the incidence rate of neoplasms as the placebo group (0.95 vaccine vs. 0.51 placebo).
Ditto for immune system disorders (1.05 vaccine vs. 0.51 placebo).
And reproductive system and breast disorders were also worrisomely elevated (2.00 vaccine vs. 1.25 placebo). That one is notably concerning because the table shows the increase is concentrated in the younger age group. Alarmingly, the FDA briefing document ( https://www.fda.gov/media/158912/download - Page 67) shows 25 miscarriages compared to 41 live births.
Thank you Paul. It seems to me that slowly and painfully the truth about all this is being exposed. First the likely origin of the virus was highlighted, then the truth that the vaccines did not prevent onward transmission was accepted. Slowly the lack of efficacy of NPIs is coming out (particularly exposed by the ongoing disaster in China), and now we have to consider the issue of what is causing excess deaths in middle aged people in a number of countries. Keep on keeping on. We have to hope the truth will eventually surface.
Even if the vaccine were 100% safe and 100% effective, even if it were a placebo, we would still be morally obliged to reject it, because it is imposed by coercion, by a mandate. By acquiescing to medical coercion we would be acquiescing to the taking away of the right to free medical consent not just from ourselves but from our children and from future generations, and we do not have the right to do this. Every other right can be subverted by medical coercion, even if not today than someday in the future. Nothing exposes people to a greater risk of harm than taking away their right to free medical consent. We also know from history that what governments do to people is far worse than any naturally occurring virus.
Thanks Paul, I warned where this was going in this Rapid Response to a report of the Cumberlege review in BMJ August 2020.
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3099/rr-5
Regarding the Use of the Term "Anti-Vaxxer"
Dear Editor
Thank you Karyse Day [1] for drawing attention to the problem of the bias and intimidation inherent in the term "anti-vaxxer". The term has been around perhaps since the 19th century but has evolved a new context. Three years ago I drew attention to the remarks of Seth Berkley, director of the vaccine lobby organisation GAVI, in the Spectator proposing that "anti-vaxxers" be excluded from social media, which meant in effect not only that certain people should not be allowed on social media but that criticism of vaccines should not be allowed on a generic basis - an extremely serious matter[2].
Unfortunately, this has also been a hobby-horse of the present Prime Minister. In August last year Reuter's recorded Boris Johnson as saying [3]:
“I’m afraid people have just been listening to that superstitious mumbo-jumbo on the internet, all that anti-vax stuff..."
On 24 September 2020 he told the UN [4]:
“There are today people who are still actually anti-science, a whole movement called ‘the anti-vaxxers’ who refuse to acknowledge the evidence that vaccinations have eradicated smallpox and who by their prejudices are actually endangering the very children they want to protect."
By February this year the Sunday Telegraph was reporting [5]:
"Posting anti-vaccine propaganda on social media could become criminal offence, Law Commissioner says
New Law Commissioner Penney Lewis is leading wide-ranging review into whether UK's offence and abuse laws are fit for the Social Media age..."
And once again the Prime Minister was quoted last month [6]:
“There’s all these anti-vaxxers now,” Johnson told medical workers at a doctor’s surgery in London. “They are nuts, they are nuts.”
While there are a lot of very fed up people I am extremely dubious there is a movement called "the anti-vaxxers" or that they are posting propaganda: at the very best this is a simplistic claim [7,8]. At a time when the government is supposedly trying to earn trust for a range of potential SAR-CoV-2 vaccines the continued disparagement and repression of people who raise questions about a class of products - which after all cannot be inherently safe - speaks for itself. It creates an atmosphere of prejudice and intimidation - such as described in the Cumberlege review [9] and should be seen and understood for what it is.
[1] Karyse Day, 'Re: Cumberlege review exposes stubborn and dangerous flaws in healthcare', 25 August 2020, https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3099/rr-3
[2] John Stone, ' The Shadow War on Disease: Arbitrary, Oppressive and Unaccountable Medicine', 9 July 2017, https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2449/rr-13
[3] 'UK's Johnson slams 'mumbo-jumbo' about vaccines after measles rates rise', Reuter's 19 August 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-health/uks-johnson-slams-mumb...
[4] United Kingdom - Prime Minister Addresses General Debate, 74th Session (UN 24 September 2019) @ 8.30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf4YEyh7erE&app=desktop
[5] Mike Wright, 'Posting anti-vaccine propaganda on social media could become criminal offence, Law Commissioner says', 1 February 2020, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/01/posting-anti-vaccine-propaga...
[6] 'Johnson says anti-vaxxers 'are nuts'', Reuter's 24 July 2020, https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-vaccinatio-...
[7] John Stone, 'An appeal to authority is not the same as an appeal to knowledge', 15 May 2019, https://www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l2144/rr-0
[8] John Stone, 'Brave new World', 17 May 2019, https://www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l2144/rr-5
[9] Helen Haskell, 'Cumberlege review exposes stubborn and dangerous flaws in healthcare'
BMJ 2020; 370 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3099 (Published 06 August 2020)
At the end, Tom Jefferson says, “We are regressing to the 80s where you pick and choose your evidence."
Intriguing. I wonder what specifically Mr. Jefferson is referring to. Perhaps the science around AIDS? IDK.
I also wonder if we really have to go all the way back to the 80's to find people picking and choosing their evidence. It seems to me that people who have favored medicine or medical treatments based upon, say, plants (which are the original source of a great many patented and approved medicines) have consistently faced a kind of "religious opposition" to their message for decades.
I mean, is Mr. Jefferson suggesting this "religion" works in historical waves? Were the 80's bad but the 90's good? When was there ever a golden era of honest scientific evaluation of alternative solutions and narratives? When was there a time of honest and courageous medical journalism? Did that ever really exist?
I cannot talk to my sister or her family about the Covid shots or any vaccines which she still to this day believes are perfectly safe. The key word is BELIEVE. Yes it’s so true that this is now in the world of a religion- a fanatical one at that.
Excellent, thank you. Censorship of certain scientific viewpoints has, to me, been one of the most alarming things about the Covid era. I first noticed it with the demonization of John Ioannidis in March 2020.
Thanks. Vaccines indeed fit into the narrative as a sort of magic that protects against “cooties.” Our human instinctual fear of “cooties” explains MUCH of the spectrum of COVID irrationality. https://youtu.be/AlTzoV1kqE8
Wonderful post. One of the punchiest on the issue of censorship/wrongthink to date.
The truth needs no protection, only partial-truths do.
We allowed this to happen by handing over our responsibilities to soulless institutions that only values matter, status and ideology. No wonder we are marginalised, consumed by the beast we handed our power too.
Thanks for the great article: Push back. We have to make these Institutions irrelevant by becoming self-reliant and replacing this corrupt all consuming system.
Vaccines are not vaccines, magically...
They are a religious experience of worship of viruganda. Big Harma has us hypnotized.
Like US of Arrogance war in Russia, hacksxxxines are a loser for all.
Suicide is trending ....get yours now we are told....how kind...
yep .. black magic in very many ways
Here are some alarming facts about the supposedly "safer" Novavax:
Source- Clinical trial NEJM publication (Supplementary Appendix, Table S14): https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMoa2116185/suppl_file/nejmoa2116185_appendix.pdf - see page 48
The vaccine group had almost DOUBLE the incidence rate of neoplasms as the placebo group (0.95 vaccine vs. 0.51 placebo).
Ditto for immune system disorders (1.05 vaccine vs. 0.51 placebo).
And reproductive system and breast disorders were also worrisomely elevated (2.00 vaccine vs. 1.25 placebo). That one is notably concerning because the table shows the increase is concentrated in the younger age group. Alarmingly, the FDA briefing document ( https://www.fda.gov/media/158912/download - Page 67) shows 25 miscarriages compared to 41 live births.
"Antibodies are like electrolytes."
https://twitter.com/GauteNilsen/status/1567955591980515328
Thank you Paul. It seems to me that slowly and painfully the truth about all this is being exposed. First the likely origin of the virus was highlighted, then the truth that the vaccines did not prevent onward transmission was accepted. Slowly the lack of efficacy of NPIs is coming out (particularly exposed by the ongoing disaster in China), and now we have to consider the issue of what is causing excess deaths in middle aged people in a number of countries. Keep on keeping on. We have to hope the truth will eventually surface.
Even if the vaccine were 100% safe and 100% effective, even if it were a placebo, we would still be morally obliged to reject it, because it is imposed by coercion, by a mandate. By acquiescing to medical coercion we would be acquiescing to the taking away of the right to free medical consent not just from ourselves but from our children and from future generations, and we do not have the right to do this. Every other right can be subverted by medical coercion, even if not today than someday in the future. Nothing exposes people to a greater risk of harm than taking away their right to free medical consent. We also know from history that what governments do to people is far worse than any naturally occurring virus.