I want to be clear that I would not put my name to a publication that I felt compromised my principles or that I could not stand behind.
I can cite 3-4 instances from 2020 and years prior where I made such decisions--and they were very difficult. As much as I regret (for example) pulling out of a co-signing on a NYT op-ed, the regret is only related to "not being in the NYT" (which is ego/vanity talking).
It's hard to imagine publishing something and then having to "disclaim" it immediately. If I had changed my mind in the course of a paper being submitted and approved, to the point of having to present myself "in print" and for posterity as believing in a concept or phenomenon I did not "believe in" at the time -- or leave relevant facts undisclosed (e.g., the euthanizing of hospital and care home residents) -- I would pull my name immediately and make a separate statement upon publication of the final piece.
All of that said, I cannot impose my principles (or the standards I THINK I would have in a situation) on to others. What makes a decision unprincipled for me may not violate principles someone else holds. We all set lines we will not cross; sometimes, the lines move due to reasons we could not have anticipated at the outset of an endeavor.
In any event, there is maturity and wisdom in taking seriously the questions and feedback of those one knows to be honest/honestly seeking the truth.
"Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy." - Proverbs 27:6
Fenton is clearly one of the good guys but in admitting that the only way to get the paper published was to concede there was a pandemic renders everything else useless palaver. If there was no pandemic no interventions of any kind—shots, NPI, lockdowns—would ever need to be discussed. I recall a discussion Jay Bhattacharya had with Jonathan Engler about how counterproductive it is to have a purity test—A PURITY TEST!!—ie no pandemic— in order to advance discussion.
He’s right—no pandemic, no discussion and of course endless discussion is what he and his ilk are about.
Currently in the UK there are two Covid19 Inquiries, one for the UK as a whole, and one for Scotland. The premise of both Inquiries is that there was a pandemic of a deadly, contagious respiratory disease and the object of the Inquiries is to learn how best to respond to the next pandemic by learning the lessons from this one. In this way the fiction that there was a pandemic is to be written into the history books, it will be admitted that some mistakes were made, but it will be argued that this was understandable under the circumstances, and no-one was really to blame. Producing a peer reviewed paper whose premise is that there was a pandemic, and which analyses the mistakes that were made, plays right along with this establishment strategy and ensures that the energies of dissidents are completely wasted in fulminating over the 'mistakes' that were made. In contrast at the Scottish People's Covid19 Inquiry earlier this year our conclusion was that there was no pandemic, and that the Scottish government and NHS put in place actions and protocols designed to kill in order to simulate a pandemic. https://www.ukcolumn.org/the-scottish-peoples-covid-19-inquiry .These actions were successful, and all the evidence is there to back this up ranging from death statistics to personal testimonies. That is the message that I would like to see in a peer reviewed article. I understand that there are different strategies that can be adopted for moving the Overton window, but I don't think it is useful to accept one lie in order to expose other lies.
It seems to me that one of the main reasons that the covid narrative was successfully propagated was that so many scientists and doctors refused to stand up and speak what they knew to be the truth.
It is a grave error to accept the pandemic lie just to get published. And by definition that route prevents one from honestly answering the question: "What lessons can be learned from the management of the COVID-19 pandemic?"
If there was no pandemic, then no response was necessary. The fundamental lesson, therefore, is to first establish that a pandemic was happening.
I knew on January 9, 2020 that this thing was a hoax being overplayed by the MSM. A good percentage of people knew it too, hence the popularity of terms such as "scamdemic" and "plandemic."
The next "lesson" is the importance of identifying who "managed" the event and why - for as the title of their paper implies, it is almost certain that the event was being managed.
Re: management - the headline question is written in the passive voice but the content of the paper speaks to management by elected/appointed governing officials of respective countries.
Conceding to 'pandemic' supports the WHO, CCP, et al's contention that a health-related event was occurring and in need of management.
True: the title's idea of managing the event is quite different from the notion that the narrative was managed.
I suppose, therefore, that another lesson is that we need to establish credible proof whether or not humans even have the capacity to "manage" a pandemic. Even if one accepts that covid caused a pandemic, it seems the evidence leans to support the position that we are woefully unable to manage one.
We probably first need to establish if pandemics are a thing.
Part of doing so is establishing the role/function of the entities called viruses and determining if there is any proof they are causal of illness, spread from human to human and/or circulate in the air etc.
Thinking about true disasters govt IS able to "manage," I'm coming up short. They can spot and track hurricanes fairly well, right? They then "manage" evacuations and the damage resulting from impact.
We're supposed to believe pandemics can be portended and surveillance used to "spot" them early, just in time, or too late. I'm not buying that
Fenton’s right: I do object to conceding the covidians’ premise. He had to do it to get the paper published? Who’s his target audience? People who read the IJPH? They’re in on it. For that matter, how many doctors and nurses read it? Not many, is my guess. He didn’t convert any of his readers to the “no pandemic” idea and by agreeing that one happened the authors made it impossible to convert them because they took the idea entirely off the table. Education and persuasion weren’t the authors’ goals, so what were they?
It’s the people who don’t read the IJPH who need to hear from legitimate sources that there was no pandemic. Publish in popular and social media. Go on podcasts. That’s how you get visibility and educate above-average normal people, and eventually Joe Average, too. And maybe, once you’ve raised your profile in those formats, it either won’t matter what the sold-out editors do because it’ll become common knowledge that they’re flogging an agenda, not doing science; or they’ll have to change their submission policies. Either way, the momentum for your own credibility stops dead when you grant your opponents’ premises. “Concessions” are appropriate only when two opposing parties agree on fundamentals: You can bargain with a seller over the price you’re willing to pay for his product and determine a mutually agreeable number. The premise you’ve both accepted is that of voluntary trade. But if the seller wants to get paid and the “buyer” doesn’t want to pay at all, what would a concession look like?
Beyond that, discussing the “adverse consequences” as though something really happened also completely absolves the perpetrators of their guilt and enables their ongoing lies. They knew what they were doing. Mistakes of that size are not made innocently. Papers like this hand an outright win to the tyrants *in the damned title.* They get to keep pretending that they’re serious-minded, deeply concerned public serpents who were trying to do their best for the joyless proles and just got a little overzealous when they ideated about camps because they care so fucking much. So no: I cannot get on board with Quinn, et. al.’s “tactic,” which isn’t a tactic as much as a big slobbering bootlick: “When men reduce their virtues to the approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute; when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous, it’s picked up by scoundrels—and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously uncompromising evil.”
Because HART made a "No Pandemic" statement in 2023 (covered here https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/there-was-no-pandemic-in-2020) I would have liked to have seen an acknowledgment of the fact that the group's stated position was compromised. I would also appreciate seeing the version of the manuscript that was initially submitted to IJPH.
Different topic, but along those lines, the pre-print and published versions of the paper that classified and named SARS-CoV-2 revealed some interesting differences
Did the manuscript submitted to IJPH say there was NOT a pandemic, and then editors said they had to change it? Were the concessions to the 'official narrative' concessions requested/required by fellow authors (e.g., Robert Malone)?
As with the naming of SARS-CoV-2, Corman Drosten paper, GBD, C-D critique, and other group efforts, from a historical perspective, such details are fascinating (and, I think, important).
Someday I'd like to see prominent people start publicly yelling about it when their views are suppressed like the authors' were. "Yeah, we got our paper published. Would you like to see what we had to leave out to get that done? Would you like to guess how many times people get declined because they submitted research that doesn't align with the approved narratives? Would you like to consider how much knowledge we take for granted today would never have entered our lives, if over the centuries self-appointed gatekeepers had used something other than the truth when deciding to let it be heard? Galileo could tell you. The Church could tell you. How many Galileos go unheard today because being right isn't part of Journal X's editorial policy?"
It guarantees that only approved ideas get air time. The dogs stay leashed and controlled by their masters. It suits everyone because the "researchers" don't have to innovate, just conciliate; the bankrollers get the results they want; and the laboratories and universities don't have to do any heavy lifting in the areas of knowledge, discernment, or objective standards for quality, neither for their employees nor their employees' output.
I want to be clear that I would not put my name to a publication that I felt compromised my principles or that I could not stand behind.
I can cite 3-4 instances from 2020 and years prior where I made such decisions--and they were very difficult. As much as I regret (for example) pulling out of a co-signing on a NYT op-ed, the regret is only related to "not being in the NYT" (which is ego/vanity talking).
It's hard to imagine publishing something and then having to "disclaim" it immediately. If I had changed my mind in the course of a paper being submitted and approved, to the point of having to present myself "in print" and for posterity as believing in a concept or phenomenon I did not "believe in" at the time -- or leave relevant facts undisclosed (e.g., the euthanizing of hospital and care home residents) -- I would pull my name immediately and make a separate statement upon publication of the final piece.
All of that said, I cannot impose my principles (or the standards I THINK I would have in a situation) on to others. What makes a decision unprincipled for me may not violate principles someone else holds. We all set lines we will not cross; sometimes, the lines move due to reasons we could not have anticipated at the outset of an endeavor.
In any event, there is maturity and wisdom in taking seriously the questions and feedback of those one knows to be honest/honestly seeking the truth.
"Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy." - Proverbs 27:6
You kept your integrity intact. Not many people can say that about themselves.
In those situations, yes
I make no claims to perfection and am a sinner in need of a Savior, just as we all are.
My point is alluding to those instances was to establish that I have faced and had to make make decisions very similar the one Quinn et al faced
Fenton is clearly one of the good guys but in admitting that the only way to get the paper published was to concede there was a pandemic renders everything else useless palaver. If there was no pandemic no interventions of any kind—shots, NPI, lockdowns—would ever need to be discussed. I recall a discussion Jay Bhattacharya had with Jonathan Engler about how counterproductive it is to have a purity test—A PURITY TEST!!—ie no pandemic— in order to advance discussion.
He’s right—no pandemic, no discussion and of course endless discussion is what he and his ilk are about.
JE pasted the tweet above. (I'm blocked by JB and therefore can't!)
Related articles: https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/jay-bhattacharya-and-the-resistance
https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/congratulations-dr-bhattacharya
A year earlier (October 2023), Jay used "purity test" with me as well. See link to exchange in this post: https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/there-was-no-pandemic-jay
It's not a "purity test" to assert a different perspective on an issue or question.
Here it is:
https://x.com/drjbhattacharya/status/1837786010060534148
Currently in the UK there are two Covid19 Inquiries, one for the UK as a whole, and one for Scotland. The premise of both Inquiries is that there was a pandemic of a deadly, contagious respiratory disease and the object of the Inquiries is to learn how best to respond to the next pandemic by learning the lessons from this one. In this way the fiction that there was a pandemic is to be written into the history books, it will be admitted that some mistakes were made, but it will be argued that this was understandable under the circumstances, and no-one was really to blame. Producing a peer reviewed paper whose premise is that there was a pandemic, and which analyses the mistakes that were made, plays right along with this establishment strategy and ensures that the energies of dissidents are completely wasted in fulminating over the 'mistakes' that were made. In contrast at the Scottish People's Covid19 Inquiry earlier this year our conclusion was that there was no pandemic, and that the Scottish government and NHS put in place actions and protocols designed to kill in order to simulate a pandemic. https://www.ukcolumn.org/the-scottish-peoples-covid-19-inquiry .These actions were successful, and all the evidence is there to back this up ranging from death statistics to personal testimonies. That is the message that I would like to see in a peer reviewed article. I understand that there are different strategies that can be adopted for moving the Overton window, but I don't think it is useful to accept one lie in order to expose other lies.
I watched the new documentary, “The Agenda”, last night.
Disappointed. The editor chose to reinforce the false narrative of virus + contagion = vaccine. Nobody who challenges the narrative.
Lots of good material in the film, for sure.
The filmmaker has editorial rights. I have audience rights.
I’m not going to promote it. It sticks in my throat.
It seems to me that one of the main reasons that the covid narrative was successfully propagated was that so many scientists and doctors refused to stand up and speak what they knew to be the truth.
It is a grave error to accept the pandemic lie just to get published. And by definition that route prevents one from honestly answering the question: "What lessons can be learned from the management of the COVID-19 pandemic?"
If there was no pandemic, then no response was necessary. The fundamental lesson, therefore, is to first establish that a pandemic was happening.
I knew on January 9, 2020 that this thing was a hoax being overplayed by the MSM. A good percentage of people knew it too, hence the popularity of terms such as "scamdemic" and "plandemic."
I agree.
Unless ethics prevents it, I would like the authors to post the version they submitted for publication.
The next "lesson" is the importance of identifying who "managed" the event and why - for as the title of their paper implies, it is almost certain that the event was being managed.
Re: management - the headline question is written in the passive voice but the content of the paper speaks to management by elected/appointed governing officials of respective countries.
Conceding to 'pandemic' supports the WHO, CCP, et al's contention that a health-related event was occurring and in need of management.
All WHO 'pandemic' definitions are problematic: https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/there-was-no-pandemic-by-any-who
True: the title's idea of managing the event is quite different from the notion that the narrative was managed.
I suppose, therefore, that another lesson is that we need to establish credible proof whether or not humans even have the capacity to "manage" a pandemic. Even if one accepts that covid caused a pandemic, it seems the evidence leans to support the position that we are woefully unable to manage one.
We probably first need to establish if pandemics are a thing.
Part of doing so is establishing the role/function of the entities called viruses and determining if there is any proof they are causal of illness, spread from human to human and/or circulate in the air etc.
Thinking about true disasters govt IS able to "manage," I'm coming up short. They can spot and track hurricanes fairly well, right? They then "manage" evacuations and the damage resulting from impact.
We're supposed to believe pandemics can be portended and surveillance used to "spot" them early, just in time, or too late. I'm not buying that
Fenton’s right: I do object to conceding the covidians’ premise. He had to do it to get the paper published? Who’s his target audience? People who read the IJPH? They’re in on it. For that matter, how many doctors and nurses read it? Not many, is my guess. He didn’t convert any of his readers to the “no pandemic” idea and by agreeing that one happened the authors made it impossible to convert them because they took the idea entirely off the table. Education and persuasion weren’t the authors’ goals, so what were they?
It’s the people who don’t read the IJPH who need to hear from legitimate sources that there was no pandemic. Publish in popular and social media. Go on podcasts. That’s how you get visibility and educate above-average normal people, and eventually Joe Average, too. And maybe, once you’ve raised your profile in those formats, it either won’t matter what the sold-out editors do because it’ll become common knowledge that they’re flogging an agenda, not doing science; or they’ll have to change their submission policies. Either way, the momentum for your own credibility stops dead when you grant your opponents’ premises. “Concessions” are appropriate only when two opposing parties agree on fundamentals: You can bargain with a seller over the price you’re willing to pay for his product and determine a mutually agreeable number. The premise you’ve both accepted is that of voluntary trade. But if the seller wants to get paid and the “buyer” doesn’t want to pay at all, what would a concession look like?
Beyond that, discussing the “adverse consequences” as though something really happened also completely absolves the perpetrators of their guilt and enables their ongoing lies. They knew what they were doing. Mistakes of that size are not made innocently. Papers like this hand an outright win to the tyrants *in the damned title.* They get to keep pretending that they’re serious-minded, deeply concerned public serpents who were trying to do their best for the joyless proles and just got a little overzealous when they ideated about camps because they care so fucking much. So no: I cannot get on board with Quinn, et. al.’s “tactic,” which isn’t a tactic as much as a big slobbering bootlick: “When men reduce their virtues to the approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute; when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous, it’s picked up by scoundrels—and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously uncompromising evil.”
The goal was to get into an academic journal.
Norman Fenton is a principled individual - notably, unlike many of us, he did not sign the Great Barrington Declaration and saw it for what it was.
Seven authors (including the lead author) are affiliated with HART group, which also published the press release. https://hartuk.substack.com/p/what-lessons-can-be-learned-from
Because HART made a "No Pandemic" statement in 2023 (covered here https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/there-was-no-pandemic-in-2020) I would have liked to have seen an acknowledgment of the fact that the group's stated position was compromised. I would also appreciate seeing the version of the manuscript that was initially submitted to IJPH.
Different topic, but along those lines, the pre-print and published versions of the paper that classified and named SARS-CoV-2 revealed some interesting differences
https://sanityunleashed.substack.com/p/sars-cov-2-whats-in-a-name-everything
https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/the-sars-cov-2-name-game-long-read
Did the manuscript submitted to IJPH say there was NOT a pandemic, and then editors said they had to change it? Were the concessions to the 'official narrative' concessions requested/required by fellow authors (e.g., Robert Malone)?
As with the naming of SARS-CoV-2, Corman Drosten paper, GBD, C-D critique, and other group efforts, from a historical perspective, such details are fascinating (and, I think, important).
In that case they met their goal.
Someday I'd like to see prominent people start publicly yelling about it when their views are suppressed like the authors' were. "Yeah, we got our paper published. Would you like to see what we had to leave out to get that done? Would you like to guess how many times people get declined because they submitted research that doesn't align with the approved narratives? Would you like to consider how much knowledge we take for granted today would never have entered our lives, if over the centuries self-appointed gatekeepers had used something other than the truth when deciding to let it be heard? Galileo could tell you. The Church could tell you. How many Galileos go unheard today because being right isn't part of Journal X's editorial policy?"
Bingo
It would not surprise me if the practice of peer review was intentionally started to destroy science.
It makes no sense. The reader of an article review it by debate, critique, new article etc. And so there is progress towards truth.
This peer review thing just makes it difficult both to write and to critique.
Works in theory but not in practice, due in part to perverse and unfortunate incentives
It guarantees that only approved ideas get air time. The dogs stay leashed and controlled by their masters. It suits everyone because the "researchers" don't have to innovate, just conciliate; the bankrollers get the results they want; and the laboratories and universities don't have to do any heavy lifting in the areas of knowledge, discernment, or objective standards for quality, neither for their employees nor their employees' output.
Live from Coronavirus Field: The Permitted Dissenters Take On the PCR Superstars. They’re allowed to grumble—but not to win. In a rigged game of virological theater, the real penalty is thinking outside the germ. https://turfseer.substack.com/p/live-from-coronavirus-field-the-permitted