Almost 5 years is far too long to clearly tell the truth about the obvious and be considered a sincere and credible ally in it's pursuit. I won't invent excuses for any involved in this awful performance, it wasn't even that complicated to see.
There isn't even a compulsion to "tell the truth" - simply a duty to seek it and not pretend like certain questions are "settled science." It is ironic to apparently be unable to see that one's post is NOT merely about "lockdowns." It is laden with other assertions and assumptions. But those are somehow off limits to question or challenge. Puzzling, indeed.
I know you know this, Leo, but my article isn't really "for" or about Jay.
I only recently learned there's supposedly a flight response to it, outside of a get your balance, bearings or avoid avoid getting immediately bitten context It's alright to cover up when attacked, but if you don't throw a flurry of hard punches. especially years after the event. You're not really in the fight and are suffering from learned helplessness at best or shadow-boxing imho.
It's very difficult when people are valued first and foremost as social media assets/influencers.
There are many reasons I am moving the @Wood_House76 account to inactive status, but I can't deny that one reason is because I am very aware that I am "valued" by some only because I have 60K followers.
The Team Reality grouping--that label--had merit, as a quick way to identify people who were ready to support each other. But over time, disagreements emerge, people get offended by something that was said; and some people simply want to move on, whether that's leaving social media or no longer talking about all this.
It seems to me that Bhattacharya wants to salvage public health by giving them credit for handling a "pandemic" but wants to keep them from using bad tools like lockdowns the "next time around". To call public health out for committing a vast medical fraud is too far for JB to go.
What he doesn't seem to realize is that public health has become another politicized mess. which deserves to disappear. I haven't respected them for years and I think, after Covid, a large majority of the public doesn't respect them either.
I'm not sure that pushing JB or others to understand your point of view is going to ever get through because he's committed his whole life to improving medicine and public health policy and the cognitive dissonance is too hard for him to deal with so he blocks it out by blocking you.
I largely agree with what you've said and the difficulty of changing one's mind, especially when one is a) entrenched in a certain field, b) has been rewarded/elevated for holding certain views, and c) is disincentivized from changing or re-examining those views.
The reason it is difficult for me to simply give the GBD authors a "pass" is because their reputations are (in part) rooted in their identities as scientists who were censored and suppressed.
I don't see how it is possible for Dr. Bhattacharya to champion scientific/public policy debate and then act like certain topics are off limits, superfluous, or a waste of time
Further, as I say at the end of my post, if you make an assertion in public, then be prepared for people to counter it. Don't pretend your post was really only about "lockdowns" and didn't make other assertions.
We are not talking about an under-educated person here. We are talking about a professor at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. I'm no credentialist, but I have a PhD myself and therefore expect that those with certain training & skills to be able to entertain and engage with viewpoints that conflict with their own - even if only as a intellectual exercise or thought experiment.
For me, it has been to stop pretending that people who are allies on some things - or who were in the past - are actually allies on the questions I consider most critical. That doesn't make them "the enemy" or make the differences personal. The differences with Jay B are professional but have been taken as personal, due to his status.
Because I was blocked, I haven't engaged Jay or his views for awhile. I saw what he said to a colleague, which was very much like what he said to me over a year ago. See thread: https://x.com/Wood_House76/status/1652485154051325954
It would be nice if a group of people would write a respectful critique of the Great Barrington Declaration that also invites the three authors to revisit their own document and consider writing a 2.0 version that acknowledges where they weren't right, what questions remain, etc.
I have considered writing such a critique myself, but it's the kind of thing that would be far better written as a joint statement.
Thus far, I haven't found anyone who is open to that idea or would be willing to join me...which may be more a matter of reticence toward me than to the idea!
I’m up for it. I may not be able to cover everything in the GBD. I didn’t like it at the time & I said so to Sunetra Gupta, with whom I was in reasonably regular contact in 2H2020.
I’m convinced that contagion is not a phenomenon & that the evidence for that contention is freely available. I don’t see anyone having made a rebuttal to the mass of clinical evidence against symptomatic transmission.
If a person is willing to review that evidence, they will not be able to uphold the idea of pandemics. Lockdowns, masks, vaccines in general and mandates in particular end.
I agree the evidence for contagion - especially with respect to respiratory illness - is thin. If you don't catch a cold from the person you sleep with, shouldn't that raise a few questions for people?
Somebody got "mandating the use of face masks" put into that paper but it's out of context, you know. It would be funny except....
I am nobody but I had a few issues with some of what was in the GBD but signed it anyhow. Unfortunately, battle lines are still drawn over it so some people probably think reexamining it would cause the other side to say that they were right to condemn it. They are probably right.
If scientists and scholarly people cannot revisit and revise their prior work/assumptions in light of new evidence or realizations then I don't know what to say.
Re the Great Barrington Declaration authored by Martin Kulldorff, Sunetra Gupta and Jay Bhattacharya: https://gbdeclaration.org
Time for a very close look at this declaration…
These people dominated the supposed challenge to the Covid narrative…but did they really challenge the narrative on vaccines?
Are these people ‘vaccine experts’?
Seems to me they ultimately protected the vaccine agenda…
Who in the scientific/medical establishment effectively challenged the COVID-19 vaccine agenda in 2020? Against a disease it was known from the beginning wasn’t a serious threat to most people?
I questioned the COVID-19 vaccine agenda in March 2020, see my BMJ rapid response: Is it ethical to impede access to natural immunity? The case of SARS-CoV2: https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m1089/rr-6
And I now wonder if the so-called ‘experts’ have a clue about anything!
This area has been dominated by the ‘Church of Vaccination’ - time to tear it all down and start from scratch. How do we find any independent and objective ‘experts’ up to the task?
Have a think about this…about ‘public health experts’ setting up children to be exploited with vaccine products of no benefit to them…
BMJ Rapid Response - Is it ethical to vaccinate children to protect the elderly?
Dear Editor
In his rapid response, Dr Anand says "Are drugs, including vaccines and blood products, monitored conscientiously by the good doctors? I believe not."[1]
I also have my doubts in regards to doctors conscientiously monitoring the growing number of vaccine products being pressed upon the community.
There are many vaccine products on the burgeoning vaccination schedule for children, including annual flu vaccination, and now fast-tracked coronavirus vaccination is looming.
Do any doctors wonder about the extraordinary number of vaccinations and revaccinations given to children nowadays? We have no idea of the long-term cumulative effects of this ever-increasing vaccine load.
I was astonished recently to read in The Guardian that children in the UK are given the nasal spray flu vaccine to protect their grandparents, even though children do not often get severe flu.[2]
This was acknowledged by Professor Peter Openshaw, from Imperial College London, one of the members of the UK's Sage scientific advisory sub-group Nervtag, during a House of Lords science and technology committee meeting in June to discuss COVID-19 vaccine development.
And now there are plans afoot to vaccinate children against SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 to protect the elderly.
According to The Guardian article "A vaccine against Covid-19 may not work well in older people who are most at risk of becoming seriously ill and dying from the disease..." and this "may mean immunising others around them, such as children".
It's been reported that most paediatric cases with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection are mild and severe COVID-19 disease in children is rare. (See comment published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health[3])
How can it be ethical to vaccinate mass populations of children against SARS-CoV-2 to protect the elderly if most SARS-CoV-2 infections in children are mild, and severe COVID-19 disease in children is rare?
How can it be ethical to vaccinate mass populations of children against flu if children do not often get severe flu?
Vaccinations are medical interventions which have risks. It seems to me unethical to vaccinate someone against a disease which is not a significant threat to them to protect others, e.g. the elderly. This is a particularly serious matter to consider in countries which have coercive vaccination policies, e.g. Australia and the United States.
And now Reuters reports "AstraZeneca has been granted protection from future product liability claims related to its COVID-19 vaccine hopeful by most of the countries with which it has struck supply agreements..."
According to Reuters, Ruud Dobber, a member of Astra's senior executive team, said "This is a unique situation where we as a company simply cannot take the risk if in...four years the vaccine is showing side effects".[4]
So AstraZeneca has been granted protection from future product liability, and children around the world will be left with the risk of side effects in order to supposedly protect the elderly.
In my opinion this is not ethical.
What do doctors think about this, about vaccinating children with flu vaccines and future coronavirus vaccines to supposedly protect the elderly?
This is not to negate the risks of flu and SARS-CoV-2 for the elderly, but efforts should be concentrated on finding medications to help them directly, children’s right to their own natural defences should not be sacrificed in this regard.
Can Fiona Godlee and Rapid Recommendations editors please urgently consider this matter?
05 August 2020
Elizabeth M Hart
Independent citizen investigating the over-use of vaccine products and conflicts of interest in vaccination policy
Jessica, in my comment about my BMJ rapid response “Is it ethical to vaccinate children to protect the elderly?”, I outline how a House of Lords science and technology committee meeting, held in June 2020 to discuss COVID-19 vaccine development, was informed that children were vaccinated against flu to protect the elderly, and the same approach was planned to vaccinate children against SARS-CoV-2/‘Covid-19’ to protect the elderly, even though children weren’t at serious risk with the flu or ‘Covid’.
It’s stunning that the Lords, Baronesses, and Viscount attending the Lords committee meeting didn’t express outrage that children were being vaccinated to ‘protect the elderly’. What is the matter with these people? Where are their critical thinking skills? How could they stand by while children were lined up to have medical interventions of no benefit to them to purportedly protect old people?! It’s like the Asch experiment on steroids…
I agree with both you and Jessica, Elizabeth. The pandemic narrative needs pulling apart, whilst a major prop for this narrative, vaccines, also needs a deep and serious rethink. I can’t quite get my head around Jay’s belief that there was a pandemic, that lockdowns were awful and should not be repeated the next time, yet is a supporter of the vaccines, and vaccines in general. What does he think will be the tool used upon the population next time to enforce vaccination if lockdowns aren’t a thing? Given this concerning situation, he should at the very least be open to the views of others who state that pandemics aren’t possible. By blocking others and refusing to engage, he is promoting both the pandemic and vaccine industries, and therefore the human rights abuses that will be imposed on people to make them behave in a specific way.
Unfortunately, I think you are right that algorithmic censorship in particular is a contemporary alternative to assassination. They are two different methods of silencing dissent, and presumably those who employ the former would be willing to resort to the latter if the former does not work.
Re. Jay Bhattacharya: I don't think he works for the perpetrators. But I think that the perpetrators precisely control the censorship regime and the algorithms which are the invisible (to us) architecture of the censorship regime. Though I suspect I have a different notion of who the perpetrators are than most here. Anyone who enjoys great reach on social media today has to be staying within the acceptable limits of discourse that have been laid down in the back offices of platforms like X to please the censors.
I don't think he works for the perpetrators, but I think something very dangerous has occurred with him, the other GBD signatories, and other health freedom influencers - and that something is illustrated by Jay's responses to me, Martin, and Jonathan.
IDK. TBH, as you know, I think there are members of the "health freedom" movement who were frauds from the start. You know who I'm talking about and you know that they weren't really defenders of health freedom anyway. Jay obviously is not in that category. And then there are many others, even people whom I like and respect, who have been changed by the algorithm, who, to put it a bit harshly, have been corrupted by the algorithm. They know that they will no longer be influencers for long if they step out of bounds.
I wish Jay would challenge some of those limits. He has a particularly privileged position, at least on X, due to the role he was assigned by Musk in the "Twitter Files" -- even though, as you know, many people suffered much more extensive censorship than he did under 1.0 and the kind of censorship to which he was subject (back-office blacklisting) still goes on under 2.0 and in fact has become the norm there. I wish he would publicly call out Musk and X for that. Given the position he occupies in X mythology, THAT would be a truly revolutionary act, and I assume the algorithm would not be so kind to him thereafter.
But, anyhow, it's up to him. The best thing would be for him to speak for himself. I don't understand why he has blocked you and won't engage.
I did not seek to categorize, and I am in no way contending that Jay Bhattacharya is a fraud. On the contrary, his views are consistent with his background, training, publications, etc.
I agree that the algorithms on X are a big problem. One reason that I don't mind moving my active tweeting to a smaller account. I don't think the 60K+ followers even makes a difference. You are 100% right about the corruptive aspect, which I have been able to avoid because I don't GAF and am there to say what I am going to say, but I have watched others be corrupted by it.
Hi Domini, re “The pandemic narrative needs pulling apart…”
Please see above my recent response to Jessica re children being exploited with vaccine products of no benefit to them.
It’s incredible to think about! Mass populations of children being administered with flu and Covid-19 vaccine products to purportedly protect the elderly. This is grossly unethical!
I’m with you 100% Elizabeth. Administering vaccines to children to protect the elderly has become so normalised, that even if this protection is non existent (almost certainly is), then ripping apart this cornerstone of the vaccine industry will become very difficult. The relentless push of the mantra ‘for the greater good’ tells you all we need to know about the direction of travel at the moment. Until people wake up to the abuses that are the ever expanding childhood vaccine schedule, nothing will change.
Domini, it’s outrageous that “Administering vaccines to children to protect the elderly has become so normalised”!
People must be made to wake up! They have no idea what’s going on, how children are being exploited with a never-ending list of lucrative vaccine products and revaccinations, many in multi-component shots, with all manner of additives.
I’m not messing around with this any more…it’s POISON!
Often administered under duress, certainly without authentic valid informed consent.
We have to challenge what is going on, but the entire system is corrupted.
Also see my latest response to Jessica, above, re the Lords committee meeting in June 2020.
That’s a great letter - I wouldn’t have encountered it if I hadn’t seen it here.
You wrote that when it was assumed by nearly everyone that the vaccines would actually work. That hasn’t been the case, but your point is just as valid, maybe more so.
Children’s immune systems are naive but robust so they can acquire long lasting immunity to a virus from being exposed to it with mild effects. That is how it has worked from the beginning of time. So what could possibly be the benefit of vaccinating when there are many more, and constantly mutating?
The doctors and scientists behind the vaccination obsession make me think of a ten year old boy who decides to try drinking and driving. He thinks he know much more than he does.
The unfortunate irony here is that Dr. Jay, who I've met a few times out here in the Bay Area at freedom events, authored the 1st study that showed that the IFR of "COVID" was no higher than maybe a slightly bad seasonal flu. You'd think that would have sent him in the no pandemic direction (sure, call it a typical not-too-dangerous-to-the-general-population infectious microbe). At one of those events speaking to a couple hundred people who most certainly did not jab up, he admitted that he got the vax to protect his elderly father, much to our dismay. He must know by now that even the CDC admitted in July of 2021 it doesn't stop infection or transmission.
Doug, I have the impression that Bhattacharya's character instincts go toward avoiding conflict and open sharp dispute. He wants to get along with people, and with institutions. This would help explain why he didn't join Twitter until close to a year after the Declaration was done.
He's a super nice guy, but he's willing to have scientific debate. I think one of his biggest impediments is that by taking the stand up to the GBD level, he paid a huge professional price, having a bunch of Stanford professors signing group letters against him, etc. So going farther than that, since he still wants to stay at Stanford w/his tenure, is probably a bridge too far. The boldest critics of all things COVID are people who no longer are in the system, but are high-level researchers and completely understand the lies, like Mike Yeadon & Sasha Latapova, & are tugging from the outside on the Overton Window. Jay is still living inside of it.
Forgive me, but Jay Bhattacharya has not evinced a desire to have a scientific debate regarding many core issues, including whether there was a pandemic.
I do not deny that he received much approbation and unwarranted criticism from his colleagues; I followed all of it in real time and remember it well. As I said elsewhere in the comments, standing on principle alone and against one's colleagues is what we should expect of an academic at one of the most prestigious universities in the land. Being able to do that is (implicitly) prerequisite for holding the positions someone like Dr. Bhattacharya holds.
I would also add that neither GBD nor the signatories were ever "censored" in the true sense of the word. They and their views became known worldwide. (I, for one, didn't know who any of them were before 2020) Views that are truly censored are those you don't hear or read.
If he is not expressing certain views out of fear, then I'm not sure he is in a good position to lead a free speech fight. I don't think it's fear; I think he truly believes there was a pandemic, etc.
Him believing that isn't the problem; the problem is suggesting to other COVID dissidents that their challenges to his views about there having been a pandemic constitute a purity test, are naive, etc.
What concerns me is that he is not recognizing that his original post made assertions about there having been a pandemic and the pandemic being caused by SARS-CoV-2. When those assertions were challenged, he called "purity test" and implied it was simply a statement about lockdowns.
Jessica, have a close look at the link to the Lords committee minutes I posted in a previous comment. Think about what the ‘professors’ are saying - do they have a clue?!
If you want to call yourself a scientist you must be willing to continually challenge everything you believe. Even things you think you know for certain. Especially things you think you know for certain. Everything. Always. The prevailing scientific narrative so very often proves to be wrong or at least incomplete. That is perhaps the one scientific constant which has proven indisputable throughout history. Anyone unable to recognize that fact, anyone who instead remains unwilling to challenge the prevailing scientific narrative - either their own or other’s - by exploring alternative explanations is not fit to be called a scientist. They may be a technician or a salesman or a promoter or a puppet or a huckster or a fool, but they are not a scientist. Period. No exceptions. If you are unwilling to thoughtfully and respectfully consider well-researched, intelligent, cogent perspectives which challenge your deeply held convictions please do not pretend you are a scientist. No matter how many degrees you have, how many titles you have, how many times you believe you have been correct or how well respected your past work may be, you are not a scientist if you are not prepared to consider that you may be wrong. In the face of immense obstruction, obfuscation, derision and worse, Jessica Hocket has done incredible, well researched, intelligent, thoughtful work on her own initiative and at what must be significant personal expense - work which seriously calls into question the entire pandemic narrative. To my knowledge her work has not been intelligently and soberly refuted. To ignore her work, to deny it, to pretend it does not exist or is unworthy of serious consideration and debate, to childishly block her, is unprofessional and makes one unworthy of calling themself a scientist. Be better. You may well firmly believe you are right in all important respects regarding your views of the alleged pandemic and the responses thereto. However, I would suggest you consider how often throughout the entirety of history scientific beliefs held with absolute certainty eventually have proven to be wrong. No one ever thinks they are wrong. We cannot exist with ourselves if we live believing we are wrong, especially about important things, things that we and others fiercely believe in, especially in fields in which we are thought to hold great expertise. But the facts tell a different story. Quite often scientific beliefs prove to be wrong, and they are proven wrong by challengers initially derided and deemed unworthy, unqualified, illegitimate, wrongheaded or even crazy. To be a true scientist you must accept that you may be wrong. If not, fine, just don’t pretend you are a scientist.
Thank you for your encouragement and kind words. I will admit it’s been a tough couple of years focusing mostly on the NYC event. I’ve been fortunate to have some colleagues, but only one of those co-authors has been American, which is interesting.
I’ve never claimed that I am right - and I try to change my mind when the evidence compels me to do so.
I find it very strange that some prominent doctors and scientists are apparently not able to do the same.
It is you and those too few like you that enable others to retain faith in humanity. Your courage to relentlessly apply intelligence, insight and persistence pursuing what is right in the face of overwhelming resistance is nothing short of heroic. You have stood nearly alone armed only with questions, facts and reason before vast and powerful armies of darkness bent on destruction - a modern day Ulysses on a dangerous Odyssey battling monsters and dragons. As Karen Blixen said to Bror when he came to tell her of the death of Denys Fitch Hatton, “My God, you are brave.”
The world somehow produces the heroes necessary to inspire ordinary people to muster sufficient courage of their own to resist darkness and follow the truth. Often, even the courage of heroes proves insufficient for a time. Too many heroes are sacrificed on the pyre before the truth wins out, but that is what heroes do - they fight dragons. “I never had the slightest real doubt that heroes ought to fight with dragons. Adventure is a thing that chooses us, not a thing that we choose.”– G.K. Chesterton
I can only imagine how difficult these past few years have been for you. It is disappointing that you have had to endure your mission nearly alone. It should not be that hard to ask questions, apply reason and seek truth, but it is, certainly these days. Eventually truth wins because it must. We are all indebted to you. For what it’s worth you have my gratitude and admiration. Thank you seems wholly inadequate.
As GK Chesterton also said, "When a society loses its moral compass, it collapses from within.”
How perfect that you invoked Out of Africa. I own an original copy of the novel and the movie poster hangs in our family room :) What a great scene that is. Thank you.
"Nearly alone" is better than "entirely alone," and I've been fortunate to have been taken seriously by some.
Wish there were more women in this particular area of "study," but I'll take what I can get and keep doing the best as I can do as a non-scientist!
You are more a scientist than many of those who falsely brandish the title.
A few of my favorite sayings from actual scientists:
“Probably the most important scientific development of the twentieth century is that economics replaced curiosity as the driving force behind research.”
“We accept the proclamations of scientists in their lab coats with the same faith once reserved for priests. We have asked them to commit the same atrocities as the priests did when they were in charge. We have turned them into something almost as bad as lawyers.”
- - Kary Mullis - of PCR fame, who would be appalled at the bastardization of his invention
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. Stupidity is knowing the truth, seeing the truth but still believing the lies. And that is more infectious than any other disease.
• Stupidity: You think you know everything, without questioning. • Intelligence: You question everything you think you know.”
“If you’re serious about change, you have to go through uncomfortable situations and stop trying to dodge the process. It’s the only way to grow.”
- - Richard Feynman
"The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees."
-- Erwin Schrödinger
"In the sciences, the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man."
This shows the value you have as someone entirely outside the system. You have the freedom to ask if there really was a pandemic, but that’s out of bounds for him to discuss. Maybe he’s really saying what he thinks, or maybe he’s pulling his punches, either way it is a secondary issue for him, and not worth the trouble that would happen if he were to wade in.
For example, on the “Visualizing the Invisible” paper that you separately commented on, he (and John Ioannides) toss in the boilerplate about masks, etc (below) after a lot of mathematics that I assume is solid. That is probably the price they have to pay to get published, even when they are at the very highest point in the system. They still have to play by the rules. They can’t just say “there’s really no way to stop this so masks and everything else is a total waste of time at best”.
But you (and I) can, and if some scientist would like to prove how well masks, vaccines and travel restrictions work, then good luck with that.
"Our study suggests that, until vaccination and treatment become available, increasing population awareness, encouraging increased hygiene, mandating the use of face masks, restricting travel, and promoting physical distancing could be the most successful strategies to manage the impact of COVID-19 on both our economy and our health care system."
I would argue that he "waded in" when he said "next pandemic" and attributed SARS-CoV-2 as the cause. The COVID event covers years and a range of topics/areas of study. There are things I don't focus or comment on, simply because I have established a focus and specialty. (I don't study the COVID shot harms, for example, but do keep up in a modest way with those who do.)
Completely agree about things that "had" to be said in order to be published, which we could illustrate with hundreds, if not thousands, of COVID era papers.
They didn't have to mention masks in the paper at all, but let's say they did for political reasons or because some co-authors insisted. Okay. But they said mask MANDATES -- a locking down, if you will, of the face. In Illinois, a mask is considered a form of modified quarantine (per communicable disease code). That's actually how a lawsuit brought by parents was successful - it argued that the mask order violated the process for issuing quarantine directives (which include provision for objection/due process).
The exchange between Jay and I over that is telling because (in my opinion) I was not rude and did not make any personal attacks. Moreover, what prevented him from saying, "Yes, I regret the paper saying that, but I really felt at the time it might work. I now realize..."
Instead, my earnest question was called a purity test. I don't get it.
1) Your terrific comment here taught me something new: that a mask can be viewed as a "modified quarantine." I had a prior sense of this concept, but lacked framework/lingo to consider it. TY.
2) This is just a tidbit which I learned only yesterday. It's a tidbit that reinforces Dr. B's (et al's, as applicable) commitment to "the next pandemic." Dr. B is a founder of Global Collateral (GC) and on the Team. I explored the site/related. Here are a couple links of interest:
> In other words, we want to gather information and learn from it so that we know better what to do in the future.
> Our only allegiance is to the enduring principles of scientific inquiry.
> Our only motivation is scientific integrity and truth.
> Such an effort requires a rigorous approach to understanding both the theory and the evidence, as well as a willingness to ask difficult questions and be open to all possible answers.
> Why should people trust Collateral Global? Trust is invaluable – and in short supply.
---------
GC seems to be operating bare bones, though it IS active (if not completely up to date).
Back to your comment, you are 100% sane (not that you need my reality-check/opinion) to hope for/expect certain walk-backs from Dr. B, and to be puzzled that he is not only not interested, but demonstrably resistant/opposed in his pleasantly-hostile way. Because he does have a conscience, I wonder how he rationalizes it all at those two-o'clock-in-the-morning moments. Related, I was astonished & dismayed to see Dr. B promoting (in a tweet Oct. 9) the new Book "One Health and the Politics of COVID-19" By Laura Kahn.
Lastly, It's probably a typo, but allow me to confirm that it is not proper usage to say "between we"—"between us" is correct. Point being, it's "between Jay and me" (not "between Jay and I")."
It seems that what science and medicine needs most is also what they are the most resistant to - outsider perspective. Ignaz Semmelweis for instance thought doctors should wash their hands between patients and got criticized so much he went insane and died after being beaten. As a doctor he was an insider, but his opinion was totally outside the mainstream in the 1800s.
In fairness to Ioannides and Dr. B, it’s likely that as famous scientists they are always getting some version of “the world is flat and here is my 1000 page proof!” and have built up their defenses to tune that out completely, and so important thoughts that you and Jessica have never get considered.
I think Ronald Reagan’s perspective, that someone who agrees with 90% of what you think is an ally, is relevant here. In that sense, Drs. I and B are great allies.
Probably due to me having an academic background as well, outside of being in a leadership position in an organization, I don't really consider someone a colleague or associate in the true sense of the word unless I have signed my name next to theirs on something we have written or presented together. Even then, we are allied on that specific article/paper/book/presentation - not necessarily in all matters.
I understand your point to be something like this: in March 2020, Dr Ioannides used hard data from the Diamond Princess to estimate a CFR of about 0.3%, highly age stratified. He extrapolated this to predict about 10,000 deaths in the US that year, about the same as the flu.
Instead, there were 500,000 excess deaths in 2020. But he wasn’t wrong, the extra 490,000 deaths were iatrogenic. People were literally scared to death, or overdosed, etc. So there wasn’t a pandemic, it was manslaughter.
If that is a reasonably accurate summary of your perspective, I agree, but I can also try and put myself in Dr B’s. place. He’s already been smeared by Francis Collins and Tiny Tony, he’s an academic within the system, and as a human being, he probably feels that he’s done far more than his share already. If that is the case, I’m willing to look past his reluctance to say there was no pandemic.
My perspective is Democide + ongoing iatrogenic measures + fraud. The WHO lied when it said there was a new cause of death that came on the scene in 2020. There was no pandemic and pandemics are not possible.
I did not mention Dr. Ioannidis but has he expressed a view on New York City (for example) that proposes a proportion of deaths he assumes were iatrogenic? I would love for him to respond to my inquiry about a study conducted by someone at the center he co-directs, but have not received a response: https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/update-still-attempting-to-resolve
Even Ioannidis' estimates based on the DP incident were not divorced from mass testing and iatrogenic harms; moreover, they did not account for the number of deaths that could be expected to occur after a cruise among passengers with the age profile aboard the ship. That means his analysis did not attempt to evaluate if the allegedly new pathogen added risk of death and by how much.
It is immaterial to me in & of itself whether Jay Bhattacharya asserts there is a pandemic; he believes there was and evidently has no problem saying so. I have a problem with him saying that me or colleagues or anyone telling him we believe there was no pandemic is a purity test, especially in response to a tweet in which he asserted there was.
Many people were smeared, including me. Trolls tried to get my spouse fired multiple times due to what I was saying on Twitter. I could go on, but the point is I will not lionize someone simply because I can appreciate some things they did. I and many other people were standing up in real life in our own daily lives - and suffering the consequences. What does that have to do with whether someone should challenge our assertions? (Nothing.)
I'm glad we're having this dialogue because it illustrates my point in the article:
"...substantive and necessary scientific debate among those who dissent from the government’s COVID narrative is being avoided because people are afraid or loathe to publicly challenge [Jay Bhattacharya] and other high-profile individuals who are anti-mandate/anti-lockdown allies but pro-pandemic."
The fear and loathing stems from a desire to let the fact that he and others did some great things -- and are incredibly nice and smart and accomplished people (e.g., Norfolk Group https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/the-norfolk-groups-presumptive-pandemic) -- to somehow compel us all to avoid challenging him/them on matters of scientific and public policy import.
I disagree and will not follow that "rule." If people think that makes me a Mean Girl, fine. But the issue isn't personal and it's not an "attack" on Jay Bhattacharya's character. I have previously & publicly expressed some reservations about four men from Stanford (Atlas, Bhattacharya, Ioannidis, Levitt) appearing to have been leveraged by the U.S. government and other political interests - through no real fault of their own - and seem very reticence toward entertaining some very tough questions about the events of the first 5 months of 2020.
A friend put it this way to me: "None of us benefit from the pandemic paradigm. We only benefit from breaking it down."
Bhattacharya impresses me as a reluctant activist. Whether it was prompted by his kids not being able to go to school and other problems in his family, or more general concerns, he probably feels the lockdowns fight was forced on him by government misbehavior.
And, is more comfortable teaching classes and publishing research than battling on social media.
He was a fellow at the Hoover Institute, is public health policy expert, and a free speech advocate - among other things
Nothing compels him to have a Twitter account. John Ioannidis doesn't. And he did choose to battle by responding to Martin and Jonathan.
All of that is subordinate to the broader point that we have a "COVID Dissident" monolith that is not as promoting of diverse perspective as it pretends.
It's pretty shocking that there is no organized group in the U.S. that actively and seriously questions or challenges the pandemic declaration.
I’d bet that’s pretty close to the case. Nobody really wanted to be an activist, everyone was doing their own thing in their lives when the world went insane, and people like him were being smeared for not being insane.
I read for now, just sentence #2: ".... lose friends, followers, and associates because of what I’m going to say ...." - just where did that impulse come from ?! - I missed that turn in the cognitive culture - I just don't get it: you say one thing (the context is a single assertion) that is inconsistent with my belief set, and my simply turning my back and walking away is a legitimate, even encouraged response?!
I am falling behind, but I will read this and I promise you that if you praise Bhattacharya to the hilt (I currently think is role was exceedingly sinister) I will NOT unsubscribe!
Almost 5 years is far too long to clearly tell the truth about the obvious and be considered a sincere and credible ally in it's pursuit. I won't invent excuses for any involved in this awful performance, it wasn't even that complicated to see.
There isn't even a compulsion to "tell the truth" - simply a duty to seek it and not pretend like certain questions are "settled science." It is ironic to apparently be unable to see that one's post is NOT merely about "lockdowns." It is laden with other assertions and assumptions. But those are somehow off limits to question or challenge. Puzzling, indeed.
I know you know this, Leo, but my article isn't really "for" or about Jay.
It's about fear.
I only recently learned there's supposedly a flight response to it, outside of a get your balance, bearings or avoid avoid getting immediately bitten context It's alright to cover up when attacked, but if you don't throw a flurry of hard punches. especially years after the event. You're not really in the fight and are suffering from learned helplessness at best or shadow-boxing imho.
It's very difficult when people are valued first and foremost as social media assets/influencers.
There are many reasons I am moving the @Wood_House76 account to inactive status, but I can't deny that one reason is because I am very aware that I am "valued" by some only because I have 60K followers.
Not all cages have bars.
The Team Reality grouping--that label--had merit, as a quick way to identify people who were ready to support each other. But over time, disagreements emerge, people get offended by something that was said; and some people simply want to move on, whether that's leaving social media or no longer talking about all this.
It seems to me that Bhattacharya wants to salvage public health by giving them credit for handling a "pandemic" but wants to keep them from using bad tools like lockdowns the "next time around". To call public health out for committing a vast medical fraud is too far for JB to go.
What he doesn't seem to realize is that public health has become another politicized mess. which deserves to disappear. I haven't respected them for years and I think, after Covid, a large majority of the public doesn't respect them either.
I'm not sure that pushing JB or others to understand your point of view is going to ever get through because he's committed his whole life to improving medicine and public health policy and the cognitive dissonance is too hard for him to deal with so he blocks it out by blocking you.
Thanks for your comment.
I largely agree with what you've said and the difficulty of changing one's mind, especially when one is a) entrenched in a certain field, b) has been rewarded/elevated for holding certain views, and c) is disincentivized from changing or re-examining those views.
The reason it is difficult for me to simply give the GBD authors a "pass" is because their reputations are (in part) rooted in their identities as scientists who were censored and suppressed.
I don't see how it is possible for Dr. Bhattacharya to champion scientific/public policy debate and then act like certain topics are off limits, superfluous, or a waste of time
Further, as I say at the end of my post, if you make an assertion in public, then be prepared for people to counter it. Don't pretend your post was really only about "lockdowns" and didn't make other assertions.
We are not talking about an under-educated person here. We are talking about a professor at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. I'm no credentialist, but I have a PhD myself and therefore expect that those with certain training & skills to be able to entertain and engage with viewpoints that conflict with their own - even if only as a intellectual exercise or thought experiment.
In other words, the bar is high.
It's not only possible, it's what's happening!
You're right. He should be more open to challenges but direct confrontation isn't working. So what's plan B?
For me, it has been to stop pretending that people who are allies on some things - or who were in the past - are actually allies on the questions I consider most critical. That doesn't make them "the enemy" or make the differences personal. The differences with Jay B are professional but have been taken as personal, due to his status.
Because I was blocked, I haven't engaged Jay or his views for awhile. I saw what he said to a colleague, which was very much like what he said to me over a year ago. See thread: https://x.com/Wood_House76/status/1652485154051325954
It would be nice if a group of people would write a respectful critique of the Great Barrington Declaration that also invites the three authors to revisit their own document and consider writing a 2.0 version that acknowledges where they weren't right, what questions remain, etc.
I have considered writing such a critique myself, but it's the kind of thing that would be far better written as a joint statement.
Thus far, I haven't found anyone who is open to that idea or would be willing to join me...which may be more a matter of reticence toward me than to the idea!
Jessica,
I’m up for it. I may not be able to cover everything in the GBD. I didn’t like it at the time & I said so to Sunetra Gupta, with whom I was in reasonably regular contact in 2H2020.
I’m convinced that contagion is not a phenomenon & that the evidence for that contention is freely available. I don’t see anyone having made a rebuttal to the mass of clinical evidence against symptomatic transmission.
If a person is willing to review that evidence, they will not be able to uphold the idea of pandemics. Lockdowns, masks, vaccines in general and mandates in particular end.
Best wishes
Mike
I signed it at the time but would not sign it again - and I think the architects would be wise to revisit their document instead of enshrining it.
Consider this example of Norman Fenton and Martin Neil doing exactly that https://wherearethenumbers.substack.com/p/updating-our-own-priors-to-accommodate
I agree the evidence for contagion - especially with respect to respiratory illness - is thin. If you don't catch a cold from the person you sleep with, shouldn't that raise a few questions for people?
Somebody got "mandating the use of face masks" put into that paper but it's out of context, you know. It would be funny except....
I am nobody but I had a few issues with some of what was in the GBD but signed it anyhow. Unfortunately, battle lines are still drawn over it so some people probably think reexamining it would cause the other side to say that they were right to condemn it. They are probably right.
If scientists and scholarly people cannot revisit and revise their prior work/assumptions in light of new evidence or realizations then I don't know what to say.
Re the Great Barrington Declaration authored by Martin Kulldorff, Sunetra Gupta and Jay Bhattacharya: https://gbdeclaration.org
Time for a very close look at this declaration…
These people dominated the supposed challenge to the Covid narrative…but did they really challenge the narrative on vaccines?
Are these people ‘vaccine experts’?
Seems to me they ultimately protected the vaccine agenda…
Who in the scientific/medical establishment effectively challenged the COVID-19 vaccine agenda in 2020? Against a disease it was known from the beginning wasn’t a serious threat to most people?
I questioned the COVID-19 vaccine agenda in March 2020, see my BMJ rapid response: Is it ethical to impede access to natural immunity? The case of SARS-CoV2: https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m1089/rr-6
And I now wonder if the so-called ‘experts’ have a clue about anything!
This area has been dominated by the ‘Church of Vaccination’ - time to tear it all down and start from scratch. How do we find any independent and objective ‘experts’ up to the task?
Great letter, Elizabeth - I had never seen that.
Interesting to contrast what the WHO had said about "COVID-19" and young people with what the U.S. govt told citizens in mid-March 2020, and what was being reported from NYC https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/timeline-the-young-and-healthy-are
Thanks Jessica.
Speaking of young people, what do you think about my BMJ rapid response published in August 2020, specifically relevant to children… https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l108/rr-4
Have a think about this…about ‘public health experts’ setting up children to be exploited with vaccine products of no benefit to them…
BMJ Rapid Response - Is it ethical to vaccinate children to protect the elderly?
Dear Editor
In his rapid response, Dr Anand says "Are drugs, including vaccines and blood products, monitored conscientiously by the good doctors? I believe not."[1]
I also have my doubts in regards to doctors conscientiously monitoring the growing number of vaccine products being pressed upon the community.
There are many vaccine products on the burgeoning vaccination schedule for children, including annual flu vaccination, and now fast-tracked coronavirus vaccination is looming.
Do any doctors wonder about the extraordinary number of vaccinations and revaccinations given to children nowadays? We have no idea of the long-term cumulative effects of this ever-increasing vaccine load.
I was astonished recently to read in The Guardian that children in the UK are given the nasal spray flu vaccine to protect their grandparents, even though children do not often get severe flu.[2]
This was acknowledged by Professor Peter Openshaw, from Imperial College London, one of the members of the UK's Sage scientific advisory sub-group Nervtag, during a House of Lords science and technology committee meeting in June to discuss COVID-19 vaccine development.
And now there are plans afoot to vaccinate children against SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 to protect the elderly.
According to The Guardian article "A vaccine against Covid-19 may not work well in older people who are most at risk of becoming seriously ill and dying from the disease..." and this "may mean immunising others around them, such as children".
It's been reported that most paediatric cases with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection are mild and severe COVID-19 disease in children is rare. (See comment published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health[3])
How can it be ethical to vaccinate mass populations of children against SARS-CoV-2 to protect the elderly if most SARS-CoV-2 infections in children are mild, and severe COVID-19 disease in children is rare?
How can it be ethical to vaccinate mass populations of children against flu if children do not often get severe flu?
Vaccinations are medical interventions which have risks. It seems to me unethical to vaccinate someone against a disease which is not a significant threat to them to protect others, e.g. the elderly. This is a particularly serious matter to consider in countries which have coercive vaccination policies, e.g. Australia and the United States.
And now Reuters reports "AstraZeneca has been granted protection from future product liability claims related to its COVID-19 vaccine hopeful by most of the countries with which it has struck supply agreements..."
According to Reuters, Ruud Dobber, a member of Astra's senior executive team, said "This is a unique situation where we as a company simply cannot take the risk if in...four years the vaccine is showing side effects".[4]
So AstraZeneca has been granted protection from future product liability, and children around the world will be left with the risk of side effects in order to supposedly protect the elderly.
In my opinion this is not ethical.
What do doctors think about this, about vaccinating children with flu vaccines and future coronavirus vaccines to supposedly protect the elderly?
This is not to negate the risks of flu and SARS-CoV-2 for the elderly, but efforts should be concentrated on finding medications to help them directly, children’s right to their own natural defences should not be sacrificed in this regard.
Can Fiona Godlee and Rapid Recommendations editors please urgently consider this matter?
05 August 2020
Elizabeth M Hart
Independent citizen investigating the over-use of vaccine products and conflicts of interest in vaccination policy
Adelaide, Australia
Jessica, in my comment about my BMJ rapid response “Is it ethical to vaccinate children to protect the elderly?”, I outline how a House of Lords science and technology committee meeting, held in June 2020 to discuss COVID-19 vaccine development, was informed that children were vaccinated against flu to protect the elderly, and the same approach was planned to vaccinate children against SARS-CoV-2/‘Covid-19’ to protect the elderly, even though children weren’t at serious risk with the flu or ‘Covid’.
It’s stunning that the Lords, Baronesses, and Viscount attending the Lords committee meeting didn’t express outrage that children were being vaccinated to ‘protect the elderly’. What is the matter with these people? Where are their critical thinking skills? How could they stand by while children were lined up to have medical interventions of no benefit to them to purportedly protect old people?! It’s like the Asch experiment on steroids…
In September 2022 I wrote to two of the professors who presented at the Lords committee meeting - Peter Openshaw of Imperial College London and Arne Akbar of University College London, see: Peter Openshaw and Arne Akbar - Is it ethical to vaccinate the young to purportedly protect the old? https://vaccinationispolitical.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/peter-openshaw-and-arne-akbar-is-it-ethical-to-vaccinate-the-young-to-purportedly-protect-the-old.pdf
Check out the cc list on my email… Jay Bhattacharya and many others were copied on that email…
Also have a close look at the Lords committee minutes - honestly, do these so-called ‘experts’ have a clue what they’re talking about?! https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/557/pdf/
I agree with both you and Jessica, Elizabeth. The pandemic narrative needs pulling apart, whilst a major prop for this narrative, vaccines, also needs a deep and serious rethink. I can’t quite get my head around Jay’s belief that there was a pandemic, that lockdowns were awful and should not be repeated the next time, yet is a supporter of the vaccines, and vaccines in general. What does he think will be the tool used upon the population next time to enforce vaccination if lockdowns aren’t a thing? Given this concerning situation, he should at the very least be open to the views of others who state that pandemics aren’t possible. By blocking others and refusing to engage, he is promoting both the pandemic and vaccine industries, and therefore the human rights abuses that will be imposed on people to make them behave in a specific way.
🎯
The obvious conclusion is that he’s working for the perpetrators.
Most well known “experts” are working for the perpetrators.
Those who aren’t & who are judged as potentially influential are very heavily censored. This is in my opinion a modern alternative to assassination.
Or at least a “useful idiot” who furthers the agenda because he benefits from doing so.
Unfortunately, I think you are right that algorithmic censorship in particular is a contemporary alternative to assassination. They are two different methods of silencing dissent, and presumably those who employ the former would be willing to resort to the latter if the former does not work.
Re. Jay Bhattacharya: I don't think he works for the perpetrators. But I think that the perpetrators precisely control the censorship regime and the algorithms which are the invisible (to us) architecture of the censorship regime. Though I suspect I have a different notion of who the perpetrators are than most here. Anyone who enjoys great reach on social media today has to be staying within the acceptable limits of discourse that have been laid down in the back offices of platforms like X to please the censors.
I don't think he works for the perpetrators, but I think something very dangerous has occurred with him, the other GBD signatories, and other health freedom influencers - and that something is illustrated by Jay's responses to me, Martin, and Jonathan.
IDK. TBH, as you know, I think there are members of the "health freedom" movement who were frauds from the start. You know who I'm talking about and you know that they weren't really defenders of health freedom anyway. Jay obviously is not in that category. And then there are many others, even people whom I like and respect, who have been changed by the algorithm, who, to put it a bit harshly, have been corrupted by the algorithm. They know that they will no longer be influencers for long if they step out of bounds.
I wish Jay would challenge some of those limits. He has a particularly privileged position, at least on X, due to the role he was assigned by Musk in the "Twitter Files" -- even though, as you know, many people suffered much more extensive censorship than he did under 1.0 and the kind of censorship to which he was subject (back-office blacklisting) still goes on under 2.0 and in fact has become the norm there. I wish he would publicly call out Musk and X for that. Given the position he occupies in X mythology, THAT would be a truly revolutionary act, and I assume the algorithm would not be so kind to him thereafter.
But, anyhow, it's up to him. The best thing would be for him to speak for himself. I don't understand why he has blocked you and won't engage.
I did not seek to categorize, and I am in no way contending that Jay Bhattacharya is a fraud. On the contrary, his views are consistent with his background, training, publications, etc.
I agree that the algorithms on X are a big problem. One reason that I don't mind moving my active tweeting to a smaller account. I don't think the 60K+ followers even makes a difference. You are 100% right about the corruptive aspect, which I have been able to avoid because I don't GAF and am there to say what I am going to say, but I have watched others be corrupted by it.
Hi Domini, re “The pandemic narrative needs pulling apart…”
Please see above my recent response to Jessica re children being exploited with vaccine products of no benefit to them.
It’s incredible to think about! Mass populations of children being administered with flu and Covid-19 vaccine products to purportedly protect the elderly. This is grossly unethical!
I’m with you 100% Elizabeth. Administering vaccines to children to protect the elderly has become so normalised, that even if this protection is non existent (almost certainly is), then ripping apart this cornerstone of the vaccine industry will become very difficult. The relentless push of the mantra ‘for the greater good’ tells you all we need to know about the direction of travel at the moment. Until people wake up to the abuses that are the ever expanding childhood vaccine schedule, nothing will change.
Domini, it’s outrageous that “Administering vaccines to children to protect the elderly has become so normalised”!
People must be made to wake up! They have no idea what’s going on, how children are being exploited with a never-ending list of lucrative vaccine products and revaccinations, many in multi-component shots, with all manner of additives.
I’m not messing around with this any more…it’s POISON!
Often administered under duress, certainly without authentic valid informed consent.
We have to challenge what is going on, but the entire system is corrupted.
Also see my latest response to Jessica, above, re the Lords committee meeting in June 2020.
As ever I fully support your work and agree Elizabeth.
That’s a great letter - I wouldn’t have encountered it if I hadn’t seen it here.
You wrote that when it was assumed by nearly everyone that the vaccines would actually work. That hasn’t been the case, but your point is just as valid, maybe more so.
Children’s immune systems are naive but robust so they can acquire long lasting immunity to a virus from being exposed to it with mild effects. That is how it has worked from the beginning of time. So what could possibly be the benefit of vaccinating when there are many more, and constantly mutating?
The doctors and scientists behind the vaccination obsession make me think of a ten year old boy who decides to try drinking and driving. He thinks he know much more than he does.
Thanks Charles, please also see my recent responses to Jessica and Domini.
As Sinclair said: it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it
This could be applied not just to JB but perhaps even more appropriately to the likes of Pierre Kory and Peter McCullough
The unfortunate irony here is that Dr. Jay, who I've met a few times out here in the Bay Area at freedom events, authored the 1st study that showed that the IFR of "COVID" was no higher than maybe a slightly bad seasonal flu. You'd think that would have sent him in the no pandemic direction (sure, call it a typical not-too-dangerous-to-the-general-population infectious microbe). At one of those events speaking to a couple hundred people who most certainly did not jab up, he admitted that he got the vax to protect his elderly father, much to our dismay. He must know by now that even the CDC admitted in July of 2021 it doesn't stop infection or transmission.
Doug, I have the impression that Bhattacharya's character instincts go toward avoiding conflict and open sharp dispute. He wants to get along with people, and with institutions. This would help explain why he didn't join Twitter until close to a year after the Declaration was done.
Having met him, is that your impression as well?
He's a super nice guy, but he's willing to have scientific debate. I think one of his biggest impediments is that by taking the stand up to the GBD level, he paid a huge professional price, having a bunch of Stanford professors signing group letters against him, etc. So going farther than that, since he still wants to stay at Stanford w/his tenure, is probably a bridge too far. The boldest critics of all things COVID are people who no longer are in the system, but are high-level researchers and completely understand the lies, like Mike Yeadon & Sasha Latapova, & are tugging from the outside on the Overton Window. Jay is still living inside of it.
Forgive me, but Jay Bhattacharya has not evinced a desire to have a scientific debate regarding many core issues, including whether there was a pandemic.
I do not deny that he received much approbation and unwarranted criticism from his colleagues; I followed all of it in real time and remember it well. As I said elsewhere in the comments, standing on principle alone and against one's colleagues is what we should expect of an academic at one of the most prestigious universities in the land. Being able to do that is (implicitly) prerequisite for holding the positions someone like Dr. Bhattacharya holds.
I would also add that neither GBD nor the signatories were ever "censored" in the true sense of the word. They and their views became known worldwide. (I, for one, didn't know who any of them were before 2020) Views that are truly censored are those you don't hear or read.
If he is not expressing certain views out of fear, then I'm not sure he is in a good position to lead a free speech fight. I don't think it's fear; I think he truly believes there was a pandemic, etc.
Him believing that isn't the problem; the problem is suggesting to other COVID dissidents that their challenges to his views about there having been a pandemic constitute a purity test, are naive, etc.
I’m appalled that Jay Bhattacharya is unwilling to examine the counter proposition that there was no pandemic and that contagion is not a thing.
What concerns me is that he is not recognizing that his original post made assertions about there having been a pandemic and the pandemic being caused by SARS-CoV-2. When those assertions were challenged, he called "purity test" and implied it was simply a statement about lockdowns.
I don't get it
Jessica, have a close look at the link to the Lords committee minutes I posted in a previous comment. Think about what the ‘professors’ are saying - do they have a clue?!
https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/557/pdf/
If you want to call yourself a scientist you must be willing to continually challenge everything you believe. Even things you think you know for certain. Especially things you think you know for certain. Everything. Always. The prevailing scientific narrative so very often proves to be wrong or at least incomplete. That is perhaps the one scientific constant which has proven indisputable throughout history. Anyone unable to recognize that fact, anyone who instead remains unwilling to challenge the prevailing scientific narrative - either their own or other’s - by exploring alternative explanations is not fit to be called a scientist. They may be a technician or a salesman or a promoter or a puppet or a huckster or a fool, but they are not a scientist. Period. No exceptions. If you are unwilling to thoughtfully and respectfully consider well-researched, intelligent, cogent perspectives which challenge your deeply held convictions please do not pretend you are a scientist. No matter how many degrees you have, how many titles you have, how many times you believe you have been correct or how well respected your past work may be, you are not a scientist if you are not prepared to consider that you may be wrong. In the face of immense obstruction, obfuscation, derision and worse, Jessica Hocket has done incredible, well researched, intelligent, thoughtful work on her own initiative and at what must be significant personal expense - work which seriously calls into question the entire pandemic narrative. To my knowledge her work has not been intelligently and soberly refuted. To ignore her work, to deny it, to pretend it does not exist or is unworthy of serious consideration and debate, to childishly block her, is unprofessional and makes one unworthy of calling themself a scientist. Be better. You may well firmly believe you are right in all important respects regarding your views of the alleged pandemic and the responses thereto. However, I would suggest you consider how often throughout the entirety of history scientific beliefs held with absolute certainty eventually have proven to be wrong. No one ever thinks they are wrong. We cannot exist with ourselves if we live believing we are wrong, especially about important things, things that we and others fiercely believe in, especially in fields in which we are thought to hold great expertise. But the facts tell a different story. Quite often scientific beliefs prove to be wrong, and they are proven wrong by challengers initially derided and deemed unworthy, unqualified, illegitimate, wrongheaded or even crazy. To be a true scientist you must accept that you may be wrong. If not, fine, just don’t pretend you are a scientist.
Thank you for your encouragement and kind words. I will admit it’s been a tough couple of years focusing mostly on the NYC event. I’ve been fortunate to have some colleagues, but only one of those co-authors has been American, which is interesting.
I’ve never claimed that I am right - and I try to change my mind when the evidence compels me to do so.
I find it very strange that some prominent doctors and scientists are apparently not able to do the same.
It is you and those too few like you that enable others to retain faith in humanity. Your courage to relentlessly apply intelligence, insight and persistence pursuing what is right in the face of overwhelming resistance is nothing short of heroic. You have stood nearly alone armed only with questions, facts and reason before vast and powerful armies of darkness bent on destruction - a modern day Ulysses on a dangerous Odyssey battling monsters and dragons. As Karen Blixen said to Bror when he came to tell her of the death of Denys Fitch Hatton, “My God, you are brave.”
The world somehow produces the heroes necessary to inspire ordinary people to muster sufficient courage of their own to resist darkness and follow the truth. Often, even the courage of heroes proves insufficient for a time. Too many heroes are sacrificed on the pyre before the truth wins out, but that is what heroes do - they fight dragons. “I never had the slightest real doubt that heroes ought to fight with dragons. Adventure is a thing that chooses us, not a thing that we choose.”– G.K. Chesterton
I can only imagine how difficult these past few years have been for you. It is disappointing that you have had to endure your mission nearly alone. It should not be that hard to ask questions, apply reason and seek truth, but it is, certainly these days. Eventually truth wins because it must. We are all indebted to you. For what it’s worth you have my gratitude and admiration. Thank you seems wholly inadequate.
As GK Chesterton also said, "When a society loses its moral compass, it collapses from within.”
How perfect that you invoked Out of Africa. I own an original copy of the novel and the movie poster hangs in our family room :) What a great scene that is. Thank you.
"Nearly alone" is better than "entirely alone," and I've been fortunate to have been taken seriously by some.
Wish there were more women in this particular area of "study," but I'll take what I can get and keep doing the best as I can do as a non-scientist!
You are more a scientist than many of those who falsely brandish the title.
A few of my favorite sayings from actual scientists:
“Probably the most important scientific development of the twentieth century is that economics replaced curiosity as the driving force behind research.”
“We accept the proclamations of scientists in their lab coats with the same faith once reserved for priests. We have asked them to commit the same atrocities as the priests did when they were in charge. We have turned them into something almost as bad as lawyers.”
- - Kary Mullis - of PCR fame, who would be appalled at the bastardization of his invention
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. Stupidity is knowing the truth, seeing the truth but still believing the lies. And that is more infectious than any other disease.
• Stupidity: You think you know everything, without questioning. • Intelligence: You question everything you think you know.”
“If you’re serious about change, you have to go through uncomfortable situations and stop trying to dodge the process. It’s the only way to grow.”
- - Richard Feynman
"The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees."
-- Erwin Schrödinger
"In the sciences, the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man."
- - Galileo
Keep at it!
You haven’t lost me.
Well done.
I’m completely with you, Jessica.
https://open.substack.com/pub/suavek1/p/the-arguments-for-no-virus-part-8
This shows the value you have as someone entirely outside the system. You have the freedom to ask if there really was a pandemic, but that’s out of bounds for him to discuss. Maybe he’s really saying what he thinks, or maybe he’s pulling his punches, either way it is a secondary issue for him, and not worth the trouble that would happen if he were to wade in.
For example, on the “Visualizing the Invisible” paper that you separately commented on, he (and John Ioannides) toss in the boilerplate about masks, etc (below) after a lot of mathematics that I assume is solid. That is probably the price they have to pay to get published, even when they are at the very highest point in the system. They still have to play by the rules. They can’t just say “there’s really no way to stop this so masks and everything else is a total waste of time at best”.
But you (and I) can, and if some scientist would like to prove how well masks, vaccines and travel restrictions work, then good luck with that.
"Our study suggests that, until vaccination and treatment become available, increasing population awareness, encouraging increased hygiene, mandating the use of face masks, restricting travel, and promoting physical distancing could be the most successful strategies to manage the impact of COVID-19 on both our economy and our health care system."
Thanks for commenting.
I would argue that he "waded in" when he said "next pandemic" and attributed SARS-CoV-2 as the cause. The COVID event covers years and a range of topics/areas of study. There are things I don't focus or comment on, simply because I have established a focus and specialty. (I don't study the COVID shot harms, for example, but do keep up in a modest way with those who do.)
Completely agree about things that "had" to be said in order to be published, which we could illustrate with hundreds, if not thousands, of COVID era papers.
They didn't have to mention masks in the paper at all, but let's say they did for political reasons or because some co-authors insisted. Okay. But they said mask MANDATES -- a locking down, if you will, of the face. In Illinois, a mask is considered a form of modified quarantine (per communicable disease code). That's actually how a lawsuit brought by parents was successful - it argued that the mask order violated the process for issuing quarantine directives (which include provision for objection/due process).
The exchange between Jay and I over that is telling because (in my opinion) I was not rude and did not make any personal attacks. Moreover, what prevented him from saying, "Yes, I regret the paper saying that, but I really felt at the time it might work. I now realize..."
Instead, my earnest question was called a purity test. I don't get it.
1) Your terrific comment here taught me something new: that a mask can be viewed as a "modified quarantine." I had a prior sense of this concept, but lacked framework/lingo to consider it. TY.
2) This is just a tidbit which I learned only yesterday. It's a tidbit that reinforces Dr. B's (et al's, as applicable) commitment to "the next pandemic." Dr. B is a founder of Global Collateral (GC) and on the Team. I explored the site/related. Here are a couple links of interest:
https://collateralglobal.org/faqs/
AND
https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/5177271/accounts-and-annual-returns
Here are a few GC quotes of interest:
> In other words, we want to gather information and learn from it so that we know better what to do in the future.
> Our only allegiance is to the enduring principles of scientific inquiry.
> Our only motivation is scientific integrity and truth.
> Such an effort requires a rigorous approach to understanding both the theory and the evidence, as well as a willingness to ask difficult questions and be open to all possible answers.
> Why should people trust Collateral Global? Trust is invaluable – and in short supply.
---------
GC seems to be operating bare bones, though it IS active (if not completely up to date).
Back to your comment, you are 100% sane (not that you need my reality-check/opinion) to hope for/expect certain walk-backs from Dr. B, and to be puzzled that he is not only not interested, but demonstrably resistant/opposed in his pleasantly-hostile way. Because he does have a conscience, I wonder how he rationalizes it all at those two-o'clock-in-the-morning moments. Related, I was astonished & dismayed to see Dr. B promoting (in a tweet Oct. 9) the new Book "One Health and the Politics of COVID-19" By Laura Kahn.
Lastly, It's probably a typo, but allow me to confirm that it is not proper usage to say "between we"—"between us" is correct. Point being, it's "between Jay and me" (not "between Jay and I")."
John Ioannidis, another disaster area!
Another establishment insider ultimately protecting the narrative…
See my emails to Ioannidis…no response of course…
- John Ioannidis urges Australia to "push for vaccination very fast..." Why? 17 September 2021: https://vaccinationispolitical.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/john-ioannidis-urges-australia-to-_push-for-vaccination-very-fast..._-why_.pdf
- COVID-19 vaccination in Australia and John Ioannidis' advice, 1 October 2021: https://vaccinationispolitical.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/covid-19-vaccination-in-australia-and-john-ioannidis-advice-1.pdf
Note that Jay Bhattacharya and many others were copied on those emails too.
It seems that what science and medicine needs most is also what they are the most resistant to - outsider perspective. Ignaz Semmelweis for instance thought doctors should wash their hands between patients and got criticized so much he went insane and died after being beaten. As a doctor he was an insider, but his opinion was totally outside the mainstream in the 1800s.
In fairness to Ioannides and Dr. B, it’s likely that as famous scientists they are always getting some version of “the world is flat and here is my 1000 page proof!” and have built up their defenses to tune that out completely, and so important thoughts that you and Jessica have never get considered.
I think Ronald Reagan’s perspective, that someone who agrees with 90% of what you think is an ally, is relevant here. In that sense, Drs. I and B are great allies.
This isn't about ally vs enemy.
Probably due to me having an academic background as well, outside of being in a leadership position in an organization, I don't really consider someone a colleague or associate in the true sense of the word unless I have signed my name next to theirs on something we have written or presented together. Even then, we are allied on that specific article/paper/book/presentation - not necessarily in all matters.
I understand your point to be something like this: in March 2020, Dr Ioannides used hard data from the Diamond Princess to estimate a CFR of about 0.3%, highly age stratified. He extrapolated this to predict about 10,000 deaths in the US that year, about the same as the flu.
Instead, there were 500,000 excess deaths in 2020. But he wasn’t wrong, the extra 490,000 deaths were iatrogenic. People were literally scared to death, or overdosed, etc. So there wasn’t a pandemic, it was manslaughter.
If that is a reasonably accurate summary of your perspective, I agree, but I can also try and put myself in Dr B’s. place. He’s already been smeared by Francis Collins and Tiny Tony, he’s an academic within the system, and as a human being, he probably feels that he’s done far more than his share already. If that is the case, I’m willing to look past his reluctance to say there was no pandemic.
My perspective is Democide + ongoing iatrogenic measures + fraud. The WHO lied when it said there was a new cause of death that came on the scene in 2020. There was no pandemic and pandemics are not possible.
I did not mention Dr. Ioannidis but has he expressed a view on New York City (for example) that proposes a proportion of deaths he assumes were iatrogenic? I would love for him to respond to my inquiry about a study conducted by someone at the center he co-directs, but have not received a response: https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/update-still-attempting-to-resolve
Even Ioannidis' estimates based on the DP incident were not divorced from mass testing and iatrogenic harms; moreover, they did not account for the number of deaths that could be expected to occur after a cruise among passengers with the age profile aboard the ship. That means his analysis did not attempt to evaluate if the allegedly new pathogen added risk of death and by how much.
Todd Kenyon did a good analysis re: the DP with a comp to NYC. https://pandauncut.substack.com/p/what-the-diamond-princess-tells-us
(FWIW, here's my DP thread: https://x.com/Wood_House76/status/1633659235543179265)
It is immaterial to me in & of itself whether Jay Bhattacharya asserts there is a pandemic; he believes there was and evidently has no problem saying so. I have a problem with him saying that me or colleagues or anyone telling him we believe there was no pandemic is a purity test, especially in response to a tweet in which he asserted there was.
Many people were smeared, including me. Trolls tried to get my spouse fired multiple times due to what I was saying on Twitter. I could go on, but the point is I will not lionize someone simply because I can appreciate some things they did. I and many other people were standing up in real life in our own daily lives - and suffering the consequences. What does that have to do with whether someone should challenge our assertions? (Nothing.)
I'm glad we're having this dialogue because it illustrates my point in the article:
"...substantive and necessary scientific debate among those who dissent from the government’s COVID narrative is being avoided because people are afraid or loathe to publicly challenge [Jay Bhattacharya] and other high-profile individuals who are anti-mandate/anti-lockdown allies but pro-pandemic."
The fear and loathing stems from a desire to let the fact that he and others did some great things -- and are incredibly nice and smart and accomplished people (e.g., Norfolk Group https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/the-norfolk-groups-presumptive-pandemic) -- to somehow compel us all to avoid challenging him/them on matters of scientific and public policy import.
I disagree and will not follow that "rule." If people think that makes me a Mean Girl, fine. But the issue isn't personal and it's not an "attack" on Jay Bhattacharya's character. I have previously & publicly expressed some reservations about four men from Stanford (Atlas, Bhattacharya, Ioannidis, Levitt) appearing to have been leveraged by the U.S. government and other political interests - through no real fault of their own - and seem very reticence toward entertaining some very tough questions about the events of the first 5 months of 2020.
A friend put it this way to me: "None of us benefit from the pandemic paradigm. We only benefit from breaking it down."
I agree.
Jay doesn't.
The difference is not immaterial.
Bhattacharya impresses me as a reluctant activist. Whether it was prompted by his kids not being able to go to school and other problems in his family, or more general concerns, he probably feels the lockdowns fight was forced on him by government misbehavior.
And, is more comfortable teaching classes and publishing research than battling on social media.
He was a fellow at the Hoover Institute, is public health policy expert, and a free speech advocate - among other things
Nothing compels him to have a Twitter account. John Ioannidis doesn't. And he did choose to battle by responding to Martin and Jonathan.
All of that is subordinate to the broader point that we have a "COVID Dissident" monolith that is not as promoting of diverse perspective as it pretends.
It's pretty shocking that there is no organized group in the U.S. that actively and seriously questions or challenges the pandemic declaration.
I know very little about how those Twitter exchanges have gone. Don't have much else to say. But, have you considered mailing him a letter?
The exchanges are in the article above
I’d bet that’s pretty close to the case. Nobody really wanted to be an activist, everyone was doing their own thing in their lives when the world went insane, and people like him were being smeared for not being insane.
I read for now, just sentence #2: ".... lose friends, followers, and associates because of what I’m going to say ...." - just where did that impulse come from ?! - I missed that turn in the cognitive culture - I just don't get it: you say one thing (the context is a single assertion) that is inconsistent with my belief set, and my simply turning my back and walking away is a legitimate, even encouraged response?!
I am falling behind, but I will read this and I promise you that if you praise Bhattacharya to the hilt (I currently think is role was exceedingly sinister) I will NOT unsubscribe!