A row has broken out over a question Richard Madeley asked Professor Susan Michie on Good Morning Britain. After she’d questioned the wisdom of lifting the mask mandate on July 19th, he asked her whether her judgment might be influenced by her membership of the Communist Party, given the top-down, big state authoritarianism of Communist regimes, or whether her views were purely based on “the science”. An excellent question, but she rather testily refused to answer, saying she’d been invited on to the programme in her capacity as a professor of psychology and wasn’t there to talk about politics.
You can watch the exchange on YouTube from the 14m 29s moment, but here is a transcript:
Richard Madeley: There’s a point I really have to put to you and you’ll be aware of this because there’s been a lot of commentary about this in the British media about you and it’s to do with your politics and you know what I’m going to ask you. You’ve been a member of the Communist Party for about 40 years now, you’re still a member, and we know that they’re statist. We look at Communist countries around the world and we see that they are tremendously top down dominant and controlled societies that they rule over. I just wonder – and I’m putting this question on behalf of those who wonder about your politics – if your politics actually informs your sense of control? It’s not just the medical arguments, but you have a kind of a political bent to want the state to tell people what to do?
Susan Michie: I’ve come on your programme as a scientist, as do all people who come on to your programme as scientists. They come on to talk about the evidence, relevant theories, how we approach our scientific disciplines, and you don’t ask other scientists about politics so I’m very happy to speak about science which is what my job is and to limit it to that.
RM: So you’re saying that your politics doesn’t inform your opinion on this subject?
SM: I’m saying that I agreed to come on this programme as a scientist and I’m very happy to talk to you about the issues that you’re raising as a scientist which is the same for other scientists that you invite on to the programme.
Madeleley moved on at that point, letting Michie wriggle off the hook, but good on him for asking the question. He’s been one of the few journalists in the mainstream media to ask tough questions of Government ministers and advisors about their management of the coronavirus crisis.
Needless to say, not everyone saw it that way. According to the Independent, Twitter users strongly disapproved.
Viewers of the show were unimpressed by Madeley’s line of questioning, accusing the presenter of taking “cheap shots” at Michie.
“If you missed Richard Madeley’s McCarthyite questioning of Professor Susan Michie, around 7.25am, do try to find it on catch up TV. It may scare the hell out of you,” one viewer commented.
“I try not to use profanity on here, struggling now as I have just witnessed the most pompous pathetic & rude Richard Madeley talking to a medical expert & equate her science knowledge with her politics,” another wrote.
One Twitter user posted: “That ‘question’ from Richard Madeley was basically to challenge Susan Michie’s scientific credentials and accuse her of wanting to live in a dictatorship, she put him in his place, he is a dangerous man.”
But my Twitter feed told a different story. Michael Senger, a longstanding lockdown sceptic, tweeted: “Susan Michie expresses outrage when asked if her 40-year membership in the Community Party might inform her policies. Apparently, it’s ok to be a communist, but not to ask if this migth be connected to her open endorsement of communist China’s policies.”
Tracey Follows then came up with an amusing reply to Michael’s tweet: “Well that’s the first psychologist/behavioural scientist I’ve heard not wanting to promote the notion of (unconscious bias) on the media for a very long time.”
The row rumbled on, with another “scientific expert” and masking zealot – Deepti Gurdasani – claiming it was “misogynistic” of Madeley to ask Michie about her politics – eh? – and demanding GMB issue an apology as a condition of her ever appearing on the programme again.
I really don’t get why it was “misogynistic” of Madeley to ask Susan Michie whether her hard left politics have affected her position on mask mandates. Of course they have! After all, forcing people to wear masks as a condition of participating in certain activities is a flagrant breach of their liberty and the reason Michie doesn’t care about that and thinks public health concerns should take priority (even though there’s precious little evidence that masks reduce transmission of the virus) must in part be because she’s a communist, who famously don’t put much value on individual freedom. And the reason Madeley hasn’t put the same question to other members of SAGE is not because Miche’s a woman, but because she’s the only one who’s been a member of the Communist Party for the past 40 years.
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Just for people’s information: Deepti Gurdasani’s zero Covid fanaticism is rooted in a personal tragedy — she admitted in a tweet on the 12th of July that she’s on double immunosuppression.
I just made a comment and got “waiting for approval”. It is the first time I have seen that message. I guess it might be because the comment was very long so this an experiment to test it.
This comment was posted with no problem – so I guess it was the length.
Moderator here, I’ve seen your very long post, we have no problem with it except its length. I approved it for publication 15 minutes ago, but if it isnt appearing, I suspect it is too long for the Comments format. On the Forum, for example, the limit is 2500 characters
No,wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. You don’t ask other “scientists” whether their political choices affect their understanding of “the science”( a note here,no such thing as “the science”,science evolves and understanding changes with new research). Having said that, mask wearing is a symbol of compliance not a health measure,one of few peer reviewed studies (the Danish study) shows little or no benefit,in any event written on the box of the ubiquitous blue mask it clearly states NOT SUITABLE FOR PREVENTING VIRAL TRANSMISSION.
Thing is if Michie gets the heave ho, she could do a Ferguson and never actually leave. Do people ever leave now, Blair got the boot years ago but still lurks in the shadows, organising his Blairites
what exactly is the purpose f having a COMMUNIST as a GOV advisor?? GET the Commy OUT I Say. She even had teh audacity to argue that she is a scientist fist!! She is a COMMUNIST FIRST.
The YouTube video doesn’t go to 14:29. Has it been edited to remove this section?
“… who famously don’t put much value on individual freedom…” for other people…
Amusing that a psychologist claims to be a scientist. Heavens, next thing will be Ferguson claiming to be a scientist: oh, just a mo.
Extremists should never be allowed anywhere near the slightest whiff of power and influence. The extreme right isn’t, so neither should the extreme left be. Anyone who has lived in luxury and safety in the west throughout many years of communism elsewhere, and seen the effect on those peoples – the suffering, deaths, the unimaginable terror and cruelty of all of these regimes yet would wish it to be instituted YET AGAIN…..should never, ever, hold any position in public life at all. Because they are not only delusional, but dangerously delusional. I consider this woman a public menace, a very real danger to my children and I wish she was ‘disappeared’, just like under her favoured authoritarian hand.
This Self Elected Independent SAGE is conning people. They sound “important” but are a bunch of Lefties who just appointed themselves as SAGE, and stuck Independent in front, which normally is not used so they are SAGE!!!
What a Psychologist is doing answering questions on masks I do not know. But what tickles me is that the lefties are going around claiming White People are Racial Biased, but if you ask them if their politics makes them biased, they get shirty. Great innit?
When Michie was reminded about her view that masks should be worn “forever”, she objected with the words “I said forever to some extent – but only ‘forever’ is quoted”. So, what does on earth does “forever to some extent” mean? Are these terms not opposites, or near opposites? How can a situation last “forever” and also “to some extent”? The woman is absolutely barking.
As you know George Orwell called it double think.
“doublethink is the act of holding, simultaneously, two opposite, individually exclusive ideas or opinions and believing in both simultaneously and absolutely. Doublethink requires using logic against logic or suspending disbelief in the contradiction.”
I don’t care if we never hear from Michie again, I would expect that her views are influenced by her politics which are based on a system that we have fought against, and I hope we continue to fight against. There is no place for communism in a free country, which I hope we are returning to being.
Lets put Susan Michie into context with other great Communists:
“It is acceptable to suffocate democracy for the sake of socioeconomic equality” – Lenin
“A lie told often enough becomes the truth” – Lenin
“To speak the truth is a petit-bourgeois habit, a luxury of worry-free and aimless people. To lie, on the contrary, is often justified by the lie’s aim” – Lenin
“Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.” – Lavrentiy Beria
“Given a short time with a psycho-politician you can alter forever the loyalty of a soldier in our hands or a statesman or a leader in his own country, or you can destroy his mind.” – Lavrentiy Beria
“To produce a maximum of chaos in the culture of the enemy is our first most important step. Our fruits are grown in chaos, distrust, economic depression and scientific turmoil. At least a weary populace can seek peace only in our offered Communist State, at last only Communism can resolve the problems of the masses.” – Lavrentiy Beria
“Better to kill an innocent by mistake than spare an enemy by mistake.” – Pol Pot
“He who protests is an enemy; he who opposes is a corpse.” – Pol Pot
“Darwin himself, in his day,… Read more »
Says everything that Michie and her mates are not thrown out of Sage already. Behavioural Psychology features 99% in Sage.
It is SAGE itself that is rotten to the core.
to ask Susan Michie whether her hard left politics have affected her position on mask mandates. Of course they have! After all, forcing people to wear masks as a condition of participating in certain activities is a flagrant breach of their liberty and the reason Michie doesn’t care about that and thinks public health concerns should take priority (even though there’s precious little evidence that masks reduce transmission of the virus) must in part be because she’s a communist, who famously don’t put much value on individual freedom.
Forcing people to wear masks in certain situations is a marginal breach of liberty – forcing people to take a test before they can drive a car by themselves is a much bigger constraint and we don’t complain much about that. Nor do we associate it with communism!
We don’t know if Michie cares about the breach of liberty or not (unless there is evidence elsewhere). Just because she thinks on balance mandatory masks are good idea it does not follow that she didn’t care about the downsides. It is just an assumption.
It doesn’t follow that Michie decided in favour of masks in part because she is a communist. That again is simply… Read more »
“Forcing people to wear masks in certain situations is a marginal breach of liberty – forcing people to take a test before they can drive a car by themselves is a much bigger constraint and we don’t complain much about that. Nor do we associate it with communism!”
You have this completely wrong. Mask wearing is a far more significant breach of liberty precisely because it is relatively trivial in terms of its practical effects – it represents a badge of submission and conformity. The clear knowledge of its irrelevance and the openness of the authorities’ lying about it (consider their complete reversal in the summer of 2020 when the only shortages were of covid cases and of fear), makes it all the more effective as such.
https://twitter.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1340738177817055235
Given SPI-B was on record as noting that lack of fear was a problem and it needed to be boosted, it’s unsustainable to pretend that mask mandates were not about maintaining fear and thereby compliance with the idea that “emergency measures” were justified.
“We don’t know if Michie cares about the breach of liberty or not (unless there is evidence elsewhere). Just because she thinks on balance mandatory masks are good idea… Read more »
The effectiveness of mask wearing is a matter of dispute. Carefully selected quotes without dates or context in a twitter post are not evidence! I know I won’t persuade anyone here that they are effective but given papers like this surely you can concede it is a matter of dispute.
I guess you are referring to this SPI-B document from March last year. It is a document laying out several options for increasing adherence to social distancing of which increasing level of perceived threat is just one. It clearly identifies increasing perceived threat with having a good understanding of the risk. There is no record I am aware of that the SPI-B decided to go for this option.
In any case it is a massive assumption that the mask mandate was introduced to increase the perceived threat when many experts think it has a substantial effect.
Actually I try not to make assumptions about people’s motivation. I might conjecture but I have been wrong too many times to be sure – unlike Toby who seems dead certain he knows what Michie’s motivation is.
In any case I try not to let any theories I might have about… Read more »
“There is no record I am aware of that the SPI-B decided to go for this option.” I think it’s pretty clear the govt have been actively promoting a disproportionately negative view of the situation.
You think it is clear. I don’t. I guess we aren’t much further forward.
How would you characterise the way the govt and their agencies and advisors have presented covid related information?
Interesting. Better than I might have expected under very difficult circumstances.
I’ve seen some surveys in this regard but cannot link to them, but anecdotally people tend to vastly overestimate the dangers of covid, and think it was an unprecedented public health emergency. I doubt that would be the case had they received unbiased information with a context.
I hope you will understand that I remain sceptical until I see some actual evidence as opposed to anecdotes.
Presenting raw number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths without making clear the accuracy of the test, the number of tests done, the basis on which the tests were done, the fact that people testing positive are not necessarily infectious, misrepresenting asymptomatic spread likelihood, more or less every model/prediction from SAGE and the rest of them, ignoring seasonality, ignoring counterfactuals like Sweden, various US States, confusing law with guidance, confusing deaths “with” with deaths “from”, presenting data with no historical context, speculating about variants when they had no real data about them, not mentioning some key facts about the vaccines (emergency basis, still in trials), not looking into alternative treatments, having no idea of the numbers of people being “hospitalised” counted as covid who actually had any covid symptoms.
I thought we were talking about evidence that people vastly overestimate the dangers of Covid? You have given me a list of things you think the government has done wrong (with no evidence or examples) which is quite different.
My original point was that the govt have deliberately chosen to present a very negative view of the situation, possibly triggered by the suggestions from SAGE. I have cited some choices they made in this regard.
Retracted due to political pressure – like the recent study in “Vaccines” which concluded that the risk benefit calculation for vaxxs meant the risks were not worth the benefits. None of this is about science – they told you from the start what it’s all about “THE NEW NORMAL”.
Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614/
Conclusion
The existing scientific evidences challenge the safety and efficacy of wearing facemask as preventive intervention for COVID-19. The data suggest that both medical and non-medical facemasks are ineffective to block human-to-human transmission of viral and infectious disease such SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, supporting against the usage of facemasks. Wearing facemasks has been demonstrated to have substantial adverse physiological and psychological effects. These include hypoxia, hypercapnia, shortness of breath, increased acidity and toxicity, activation of fear and stress response, rise in stress hormones, immunosuppression, fatigue, headaches, decline in cognitive performance, predisposition for viral and infectious illnesses, chronic stress, anxiety and depression. Long-term consequences of wearing facemask can cause health deterioration, developing and progression of chronic diseases and premature death. Governments, policy makers and health organizations should utilize prosper and scientific evidence-based approach with respect to wearing facemasks, when the latter is considered as… Read more »
Your first link is to a paper that has been retracted. The retraction notice is here. One of the points is “The manuscript misquotes and selectively cites published papers”. In view of that I am not going to spend a lot of time looking at the links.
The other link is just to a blog item.
Please – can’t one you simply give me a link to a single credible study that you believe proves masks don’t work?
You need to scroll down the page on LAV and you will find links to about 30 papers which answer your question. It couldn’t be any clearer. I know the paper was retracted – I wrote as such, and I have read their retraction notice, but if you think politics didn’t play a role you are naive. Equally, if you think the whole paper is invalid, you are naive. GO TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE TO FIND DOZENS OF LINKS TO MASK STUDIES
Most Recent Mask Studies
https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/masks-coming-back-despite-science-you-already-have-immunity-mrna-found-most-organs/
By LAV I assume you mean the first of the two links. As I thought I had explained, this paper has been retracted and one of the grounds is misquoting and selectively citing sources. However, nothing daunted, I had a look at some of the 67 references. Only 9 of them even mention masks in the title. The first two were WHO guidance on the use of masks, the third was a comparison of different types of masks for healthcare workers. At that point I thought this is silly. Maybe some of the titles that don’t mention masks are actually about masks. So I looked at 9 and 10, at least they mentioned Covid! However, on inspection, neither article referred to masks. At this point I thought, why I am doing all the work to find a reference to support your case?Just give me a link to a paper you think is good evidence. Is this so hard?
PS Blog items are not evidence.
I know you are being disingenuous but just to set the record straigh and to prove yet again you are wrong, here are all the studies you managed to miss despite being given very clear instructions on how to find them:
Most Recent Mask Studies
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.18.21257385v1.full-text
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987720333028
https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/
5 NIH/National Library of Medicine studies from 2004-2020 all finding verifiable health effects from wearing a face mask, including scientifically verified reduction in blood oxygen level:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29395560/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32590322/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15340662/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26579222/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31159777/
Cloth Mask Study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/
SOME of the mask studies on efficacy:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.01.20049528v1
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.20047217v2
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2749214
https://www.cmaj.ca/content/188/8/567
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5779801/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19216002/
https://aaqr.org/articles/aaqr-13-06-oa-0201.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/
https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/65/11/1934/4068747
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bio/23/2/23_61/_pdf/-char/en
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01658736
https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/0195-6701(91)90148-2/pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2493952/pdf/annrcse01509-0009.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20200717141836/https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data
https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25776/rapid-expert-consultation-on-the-effectiveness-of-fabric-masks-for-the-covid-19-pandemic-april-8-2020
https://www.nap.edu/read/25776/chapter/1#6
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article
https://academic.oup.com/annweh/article/54/7/789/202744
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6599448/
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1342
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00392-020-01704-y
https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/jide/journal-of-infectious-diseases-and-epidemiology-jide-6-130.php?jid=jide
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1130147308702355
Well I am not sure how I was supposed to find them. As far as I can see, they aren’t references in the paper you linked to.
However, thanks, you have come up with something we can discuss. The middle one is retracted but I will have a look at the other two. I see a stream of other links below but there is no way I would have time to look at them all.
TheFascistCoronaFraud
First thanks for all the links. I suspect you won’t believe me but the truth is I just didn’t realise they were in the blog item you linked to. You have to scroll through a lot of stuff to get to the links.
Obviously I don’t have time to look at them all. But I did look at the first thirteen. I was left wondering whether you or indeed the author of the blog had read them. Most were simply irrelevant. Two provided some (but not conclusive) evidence that masks are not effective, and two concluded they were to some extent effective. As my position is just that the use of masks is disputed I feel vindicated.
Of particular interest is the Cochrane review. As I expect you know, Cochrane do high quality metastudies. They concluded there was a general lack of quality trials and therefore a lack of evidence either way but recommended the use of masks based on experience with the SARS epidemic.
In case it is of interest, here are the 13 links with my brief comments. I do not intend to pursue this further as it has taken up far too much time already.
… Read more »
“The effectiveness of mask wearing is a matter of dispute.”
Not really. The dispute is over whether it might have some trivial impact at the margins. It’s clear that mask mandates overall have no impact on the development of real world epidemics.
As for the nice juxtaposition of your positions on mask effectiveness and government motivation, it’s a classic example of applying inappropriately high evidential standards to things you want to claim to be false and absurdly low to those you want to be true.
“Actually I try not to make assumptions about people’s motivation. I might conjecture but I have been wrong too many times to be sure – unlike Toby who seems dead certain he knows what Michie’s motivation is.“
You might believe this of yourself, but it’s almost certainly not true, at least in relation to politics.
Consider how you would respond for instance to a lifelong BNP member and genuine racist (as opposed to the far more common “racists”) in a governmental position. You would, I have very little doubt, have no problem making assumptions about that person’s motivations in addressing, say, border control policy.
That’s a pretty good analogy for drawing attention to Michie’s position… Read more »
You say it is clear that masks make little difference and your evidence is a twitter posting containing some quotes. I have provided a paper which links to 11 studies (of varying quality but all quantified studies with actual evidence) that have shown substantial effects.
I suggest the 11 studies are substantially more evidence than conjecture on government motivation based on an option that we don’t know they adopted.
I take your point about assuming motivation. I was wrong. There are circumstances where it is clear why someone is doing or saying something. I just think we are too inclined to jump to conclusions. However, even in the case of the BNP member I hope I would assess the truth of anything he said based on the evidence and not on the fact that he was a BNP member. (It is hard to do that, but it is logical).
I have to say the BNP example is a poor analogy to Michie. She was asked to give an opinion as a scientist on something which has both scientific and political aspects. Suppose that same BNP member was an acknowledged expert engineer. Then someone asked him about the viability of… Read more »
If you consider psychology a science, then she is a scientist, though as with most of SAGE they do not act in a scientific manner nor are they speaking in their capacity as scientists but as people with a political agenda.
Leaving that aside, which you may dispute, she’s not a scientist in the field of face coverings as they influence the spread of viruses, so my opinion on the matter is as valid as hers.
The real world evidence regarding masks shows no correlation between mask mandates and anything else, so for me it is case not proved. I’m against mask compulsion on principle, but would be willing to consider it a reasonable imposition if real world evidence of substantial benefits was compelling.
Will you be wearing a mask forever?
It is quite radical to dismiss psychology as a science. But that is one too many rabbit holes to explore.
I have only seen that snippet of the interview so I have no idea which aspects of mask wearing Michie was commenting on. In any case she was presumably part of scientific discussion about mask wearing and as a pyschologist would have been well equipped to assess the arguments of people with greater expertise in the area e.g. she would know what a good scientific trial looked like.
Did you see the list of 11 trials I linked to? Quite a lot of real world data there.
No I won’t wear a mask forever and I don’t think she really meant that.
I need to get on with my life – so I will stop there.
If you think they work in protecting others or yourself, why won’t you wear a mask? Do you think they work in protecting you, or others, or both?
OK. Back now. I do wear a mask I just don’t anticipate wearing one forever as the risk will eventually be negligible.
And do you do this to protect yourself, others, or both?
“You say it is clear that masks make little difference and your evidence is a twitter posting containing some quotes.”
No, my link to the twitter post was in support of the point that the authorities changed their position.
As for the evidence on mask wearing, the preponderance is very clearly against the hypothesis that they make any significant difference. I’m not interested in bothering to link to any of the several collections of studies and analyses of relative evidential weight that I’ve seen, nor the numerous graphs of epidemic progress showing no deflection whatsoever from mask mandates, because I don’t believe you are interested in the truth on these topics anyway. That’s clearly not what you are here for. Further, I’m pretty confident you are already well aware of them, and if not you could have found them very easily if yo were interested.
“However, even in the case of the BNP member I hope I would assess the truth of anything he said based on the evidence and not on the fact that he was a BNP member. ”
I doubt it, based on repeated experience. As I noted. you would be a very unusual human being and a… Read more »
I will just pick up on the one point.
I’m not interested in bothering to link to any of the several collections of studies and analyses of relative evidential weight that I’ve seen, nor the numerous graphs of epidemic progress showing no deflection whatsoever from mask mandates, because I don’t believe you are interested in the truth on these topics anyway. That’s clearly not what you are here for.
You have even extended your assumptions about motivations to me! What do you think I am here for? I suspect you are not going to believe me but I am here primarily to learn about different viewpoints and evidence that shakes my preconceptions is always interesting. Indeed I have changed my views on the efficacy of lockdowns as a result of this site.
“You have even extended your assumptions about motivations to me! What do you think I am here for? “
Yes, as we both agreed doing so is sometimes appropriate.
I do not know why you are here but I do not believe it is honest discussion. Anyone who had gone to the trouble of finding the studies supporting mask wearing (such as they are) who was genuinely interested would have easily been able to find the numerous studies refuting the hypothesis that mask mandates assist in dealing with respiratory virus epidemics.
Indeed, would have noticed the real world reality that mask mandates have made no systematic and significant observable impact on covid epidemics.
Yes, as we both agreed doing so is sometimes appropriate.
Yes – but I am bit surprised that you think it is appropriate in my case when the only thing you know about me is my comments on this forum. I am certainly not going to make any assumptions about your motivation.
Anyone who had gone to the trouble of finding the studies supporting mask wearing (such as they are) who was genuinely interested would have easily been able to find the numerous studies refuting the hypothesis that mask mandates assist in dealing with respiratory virus epidemics
It is not so easy as you think. I did a Google search on “are masks effective”. There were ten items on the first screen – all of them were to the effect that mask are effective. How long do I keep searching? When I do find something that is anti-mask how I am to know that it is one that you accept? One of the reasons for subscribing to this forum is to understand what sceptics believe is the best evidence for their case.
“Yes – but I am bit surprised that you think it is appropriate in my case when the only thing you know about me is my comments on this forum. “
Bear in mind that I specifically did not make any detailed positive assumptions about your motivation. All I did was eliminate one possible motivation. (All such assumptions are always, of course, rebuttable presumptions, though once honesty is in question – as with the government and medical authorities over covid – it becomes very difficult to present further plausible evidence at all.)
“When I do find something that is anti-mask how I am to know that it is one that you accept?“
From memory the AIER and possibly Ivor Cummins had large collections of mask studies, and weighed up the evidential qualities involved. Search for AIER mask evidence and you should find plenty.
Well assuming I am dishonest is a bit more than eliminating one possible motivation – there are many honest motivations!
I tried Googling “AIER mask evidence” and sure enough a lot of AIER articles were listed. But what a nightmare sorting through them. They are long, confusing, keep on referring to each other so you don’t know whether you are repeating yourself, and at least some of the links are grossly misrepresented (I gave up rather quickly as you can imagine). For example, a 2003 news item in the Sydney Morning Herald was described as “a recent publication”. If you are so sure that masks don’t work why don’t you just save a lot of time and confusion by giving me a link to a piece of evidence that you find convincing?
I just posted a tonne of evidence that masks produce no real benefits above. Any miniscule benefits they are shown to have are negated by the very real harms they cause to the wearer. They causd more harm than they prevent. Read my post above for evidence. Please go through the links on the page I linked to. Also interesting that you should say this :
“OK. Back now. I do wear a mask I just don’t anticipate wearing one forever as the risk will eventually be negligible.”
The risk of Covid19 IS NEGLIGIBLE. C19 has survival rate of 99.97% from NATURAL IMMUNITY in the under 70s!!! That’s the whole point. This whole charade is built on the bullshit notion that Covid19 is some dire threat. IT ISN’T which is why NOBODY SHOULD BE FORCED TO GO THROUGH ANY OF THIS CRAP
Please see my response to your tonne (sic) of evidence.
Please read the links I provided before writing them off. The Last American Vagabond links to dozens of studies, but you choose to ignore them and say it’s just a blog. IT LINKS TO DOZENS OF STUDIES WHICH PROVE THAT YET AGAIN YOU ARE WRONG AND MORE THAN LIKELY BEING DISINGENUOUS
You are looking for these headings at the bottom of this link https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/masks-coming-back-despite-science-you-already-have-immunity-mrna-found-most-organs/:
Most Recent Mask Studies
5 NIH/National Library of Medicine studies from 2004-2020 all finding verifiable health effects from wearing a face mask, including scientifically verified reduction in blood oxygen level:
Cloth Mask Study
SOME of the mask studies on efficacy:
I am sorry, I only just read this comment which is a shame because it would have saved a lot of confusion and crossness. Just to be clear, when you referred to LAV I thought you were referring to the retracted paper with its 60 odd references. So I never looked at the bottom of the LAV blog entry. This morning I understood what was going on (and you posted the links in multiple comments). You can see my response here.
Well this provides good support for my suspicions about your honesty. This kind of willful noncooperation and nit-picking strongly suggests you are not open-minded in the topic.
To save wasting time and energy I’m just going to repeat the prima facie refutation of the position you seek to argue for: look at all the graphs of epidemic progression and plot the dates of mask mandates. Note how often you can see an impact on the progress of the epidemic.
QED.
There are communists and there are communists. There are still some well-meaning but delusional Marxists who want to struggle for a future Utopia, despite the leasons of the twentieth century. Michie isn’t one of them. She has expressed admiration for CCP totalitarianism. The communist party of which she is a member received Soviet funding. It backed the Soviets sending in the tanks to crush the 1956 Hungarian uprising and the 1968 Prague Spring. Both a long time ago now, but she ought to be asked how she feels about those events now, and about the similarities between the psyops of totalitarian states and those of SPI-B.
Michie’s daft adherence to an irrelevant party is actually a distraction. This isn’t about traditional politics, which is, at best, a symptom – not a cause of certain mental frameworks.
It’s more interesting to consider what links the Johnsons, the Starmers and the Michies in brain-death.
“What links the Johnsons, the Starmers and the Michies in brain-death.”
The worship of collective healthcare, and the idea that the state is responsible for our health and therefore entitled to lock us down for our own supposed good or the greater good of society. The belief in the nanny state.
Current events have nothing to do with a “virus.”
Lest we forget: Covid (Covert ID)
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals” – C. S. Lewis
Rather than questioning her political belief, RM should have questioned the beliefs she holds that are dressed up as science.
Few, if any, on these advisory boards have an understanding of the transmission, infection, and disease process, and base their prognostications on ‘because’ without any ‘why’.
There is already a huge volume of published research, but as Churchill might have paraphrased “SAGE will often trip over relevant and important research that should cause them to consider the errors they are making, but they just pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and carry on as if nothing had happened”
Nothing wrong with questioning the political beliefs of someone who is in government or advising government. Madeley did the right thing here in addressing the issue pointedly ignored by almost every media and political commentator.
There’s a reason why the Communists and the National Socialists were bestest friends until they weren’t
Good on Richard Madeley even though he’s been a bit of a wet wank over quite a lot of this.
Since when has Psychology been a Science? I thought that Science has to be repeatable and verifiable, neither of which apply to Psychology.
Anyone can call themselves a ‘scientist’ these days or an ‘expert’ !
Richard Madeley was correct to ask, imply, infer that she wants us to be controlled in her totalitarian state. She didn’t like the truth
Once you realise this is not about a virus it becomes clear. This is an NGO takeover of elected governments, see how it doesnt affect non democratic countries. The money is coming from Mega rich Pharma
Spot on.
Susan Michie is NOT a scientist/expert as far as viruses, transmission, immunity is concerned!! The mistakes are a) having her and fellow behavourial qucks on ANY committee and b) giving her airtime full stop
She’s a behavioural pyschologist and a lot of the ‘qualifications’ are ones you can buy
She’s not there to address illness. She’s there to manipulate opinion and behaviour.
Granted, a supposedly democratic government should not be doing that at all,but given that’s what this “Conservative” government intended to do, a communist psychologist is probably the perfect adviser for the task.
Twitter is a cess pit used by Governments, politicians and other states to bombard their particular world view through mass tweets from centrally controlled operations. It should at
worst totally ignored and at best shut down. It has been allowed to have too great an influence on the life of this country’s people and not from a point of benefit. If all the politicos, businesses, and media outlets stopped using it, it would soon destroy itself through its bile and hate
“Scientist” has become an almost meaningless term. It seems to be a word that people use to give themselves status or to give their arguments more credibility but don’t for the life of me really know what it means any more.
see also “engineers”.
See, especially, “artists”.
About time that Professor Michie was called out. She is clearly a communist fifth columnist and, as such, ought to be interned until the current crisis is over. Conscious Bias runs through her public pronouncements like the writing in a dodgy stick of rock.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/health-psychology/people/michie/contact.htm
Wrong, Toby, she didn’t mention that she was a psychologist – merely that she was a scientist. Madeley’s fault was that he failed to follow up on this fact and failed to reveal that she was on Sage as a predictor and manipulator of public opinion …. therefore his question was entirely relevant. Unfortunately, like you, he failed to prepare his ground sufficiently thoroughly. However, you can easily be forgiven. Madeley will perhaps remain a slightly tragic figure in this debacle.
Indeed, she and her SAGE colleagues, many without medical knowledge but are advisers of all sorts, who met in the meetings in April and May 2020 are dubbed “the nudge unit”.
The problem is that Michie is continually wheeled out as if she is some sort of expert on public health or viruses or something actually relevant to the control of a pandemic. She has no expertise in virology, epidemiology, virology, disease transmission or the effectiveness of RPE. Her opinion on the effectiveness of masks is worthless. She is there to advise the government on how to manipulate the population into doing what they are told. Her very presence on Sage is extremely worrying.
She describes herself as a ‘scientist’. How about the next protest being outside her house?
For a ‘Communist’, one devoted to sharing, she certainly seems to have a big, and probably expensive, house. Looks like she’s a Capitalist when it comes to her own money.
She is a millionaire – descended wealth.
“I really don’t get why it was “misogynistic” of Madeley to ask Susan Michie whether her hard left politics have affected her position on mask mandates” Of course it wasn’t but there’s nothing to get. Simple case of losing the argument or being put on the spot and playing the victim to deflect attention away from your weak arguments. Michie and her ilk will be livid about dropping mask mandates – they can see their power ebbing way – and will get plenty of support. BBC news website says a backlash has started about the masks = BBC wants to keep them.
It wasn’t misogynistic but this is how things go these days. Don’t dare question anything unless it has approval by the self appointed Commisariat.