The Great Barrington Declaration, which advocates a focused protection strategy for dealing with COVID-19, was published in October last year – before many countries around the world imposed their winter lockdowns.
Recently, The BMJ Opinion – a journalistic offshoot of the well-known medical journal – published a very belated hit piece against the authors. As you might expect, it’s light on scientific arguments and heavy on tactics like ad hominem, guilt by association and appeals to authority.
The authors, David Gorski and Gavin Yamey, really don’t mince words. For example, they describe the Declaration (which has been signed by hundreds of scientists and healthcare professionals) as a “well-funded sophisticated science denialist campaign based on ideological and corporate interests”.
Not exactly a respectful way to talk about your colleagues. But it’s hardly the first time the Declaration’s critics have sunk to this level. Just last month, Jay Bhattacharya became the subject of a censorious petition which claimed that he “sows mistrust of policies designed to protect the public health”.
Gorski and Yamey begin their article by criticising the Declaration’s authors for collaborating with the American Institute for Economic Research, which they claim is a “libertarian, climate-denialist, free market think tank”.
I’m not sure why this is a ‘gotcha’. Lockdown is about as un-libertarian a policy as you could imagine, so it’s not really surprising that a libertarian think tank would oppose it. And in any case, the Declaration’s website clearly states that the document was “was written and signed at the American Institute for Economic Research”.
Martin Kulldorff has since clarified that the AIER president and board did not know about the Declaration until after it was published. But even if they had done, so what? As Kulldorff notes, universities like Duke and Stanford have received money from the Koch brothers. Should we therefore completely disregard what their academics have to say?
Gorski and Yamey’s next move is to cite social media censorship of lockdown sceptics as evidence that their arguments constitute ‘misinformation’. (Incidentally, that term – which basically means ‘information that’s missing from the mainstream narrative’ – appears no fewer than six times in the article.)
However, this argument relies on circular logic: ‘Something was censored on social media? Therefore, it’s misinformation. How do we know? Well, misinformation is what social media companies censor.’ In reality, of course, the fact that something was censored is no indication whatsoever that it’s factually incorrect.
The authors then allege that when Sunetra Gupta and Carl Heneghan met Boris Johnson in September of last year, they were successful in “persuading him to delay” a ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown, which could have forestalled the second wave of infections.
As historian Phil Magness has already noted, this argument is deficient on two counts. It’s not clear that Gupta and Heneghan did persuade the Prime Minister to shelve the ‘circuit breaker’ idea. But even if they did, there’s no reason to believe that policy would’ve prevented a large number of deaths.
Finally, Gorski and Yamey compare lockdown sceptics to ‘climate science deniers’, insofar as both groups “argue that evidence-based public health measures do not work”. They call for experts to push back against the Great Barrington Declaration by highlighting “scientific consensus”, citing the John Snow Memorandum.
Of course, the pro-lockdown John Snow Memorandum is just another public statement signed by scientists and health professionals. If it constitutes “scientific consensus”, then so does the Great Barrington Declaration. I’m only aware of one attempt to gauge overall expert opinion on focused protection: the survey by Daniele Fanelli.
He asked scientists who’d published at least one relevant paper, “In light of current evidence, to what extent do you support a ‘focused protection’ policy against COVID-19, like that proposed in the Great Barrington Declaration?” Of those who responded, more than 50% said “partially”, “mostly” or “fully”.
Regardless of the exact number of experts who support focused protection, claiming there is a “scientific consensus” against it is simply false. Long before the Declaration itself was published, many scientists had proposed some version of precision shielding. In fact, this was basically the U.K.’s plan until the middle of March, 2020.
On March 5th, Chris Whitty told the Health and Social Care Committee that we are “very keen” to “minimise economic and social disruption”, and mentioned that “one of the best things we can do” is “isolate older people from the virus”.
Another prominent scientist who has argued in favour of focused protection is Sir David Spiegelhalter. In an article published on May 29th, he and George Davey Smith said that we ought to “stratify shielding according to risk” because lockdown is “seriously damaging many aspects of people’s lives”.
They noted that this would require “a shift away from the notion that we are all seriously threatened by the disease, which has led to levels of personal fear being strikingly mismatched to objective risk of death”.
Among the ad hominems, appeals to authority and repeated uses of ‘misinformation’, finding a scientific argument in Gorski and Yamey’s article is not easy. And given that the content’s almost a year out of date, I’m not sure why the authors felt the need to publish it.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
They really do not have the first idea, do they?
If only being to hold a sword for an hour or so was adequate qualification to run the country,
Oo look she can hold a sword and sounds posh, quick make the half wit pm. The Tories are just commie lite. I can’t believe I used to feel affiliated to this party.
Sour faced non entity ! Responded to Andrew Bridgens recent Jab damage address to HOP by immediately calling him a conspiracy theorist ! It’s all we need to know !
The Mord’s responses to Andrew Bridgen have been excessively rude, crude and dismissive. Her lack of decency and manners is extremely hard to take.
And also dangerous. Accusing an Mp of being a conspiracy theorist for telling the truth based on the gov’ts stats, is highly worrying.
A dangerous choice.
They are rats fighting to keep above water as the ship is sinking. They know they’re doomed.
I hate that we’ll get a Lab govt, but the Tories need to be euthanised and clear the field for a real opposition party.
Just vote Reform.
No, they are pro vacc
It doesn’t matter if Tice was fool enough to be pro-vacc in the past. Maybe he’s learnt some sense by now, or will be replaced by Farage as Party leader. Their migration policy is crap too and needs radical change. But their main use is as an alternative to the dire Uniparty in elections across the country. It’s an opportunity for voters to give liblabcon a kicking and throw a spanner in the works. After 100 years of incompetence and/or betrayal, the loss of seats and more defections might shake Westminster’s complacency and lead to new political alignments.
Personally, if the Three Stooges Uniparty is the only choice on the GE ballot, I won’t bother voting. If there is a nationalist, patriotic candidate in my constituency he/she will get my vote. Failing that, a Reform candidate will do.
Every Reform candidate is a Patriot. It is essential, mandatory. We don’t have any filthy WEF affiliates. We will not have traitors to our country.
Let’s hope you are right. But some critics regard Reform as the ‘turquoise party’ and not much different from the unconservative Conservatives in outlook and principle.
A ‘Net Zero’ migration policy -one in, one out – is ridiculously weak and wishy washy. The majority of voters want much stronger meat than that. First, we are sick of hearing the term ‘Net Zero’ applied to anything – it’s meaningless and vapid. Second, what’s the use of a policy that says if a true Brit in despair for his country’s future flees the UK, it’s fine to let any foreigner in to replace him even though we have a population vastly inflated by unproductive foreigners already; and far too many of them are hostile to our culture and values?
Reform will only live up to its name when it promises to radically reform the dangerous immigration policies of the last 75 years – treacherous policies that threaten to turn us into a 3rd world country, or worse.
They have been educated. Not pro vax anymore. They will have a proper investigation.
Vote for change:
Reform will stop this woke nonsense, the climate scam and get to the bottom of the excess deaths and vaccine injuries. Day 1.
She made up her ‘Naval’ credentials. Is seen as “not too sharp and lazy”. Pally with Bill Gates, who wrote the foreward to her book ‘Greater’. Don’t mention her brother. The only thing she has going for her is she’s not Rishi Sunak. Talk about damned by faint praise.
Wake up Uk, a klaus stooge.
Yep, Mordaunt has been seen at WEF rallies along with other UK politicians who have no damn business to be at a convocation of unelected poop-heads led by a megalomaniac hiding in plain sight dressed as Ming the Merciless and doing a good impression of a Bond villain minus the cat. You’d think the politicos would have a tad more political sense than Charles 3, but they don’t.
Curious ….. why don’t you want to mention her brother? Genuine question.
But No. 10’s handling of some recent events has been so astonishingly bad
Read: Being faced with an unpleasant reality, Rishi hasn’t been Net Zero enough and people with money are getting seriously pissed off with that.
No, people are fed up with the Unelected Hindu Billionaire for stalling the Post Office compensation payments in order to benefit his father-in-law, one of the world’s richest men, who stands to lose £millions from his investments in Horizon.
People are also fed up with him because he’s useless and incompetent.
I’m not so sure about that. Moderate Tory is code language for New Labour types in the Tory party, the supposed replacement for Rishi seems to be the kind of figurehead these people would like to employ and the timing, wrt to recent announcements of Net Zero heresies by him, is very suspicious.
[Rishi also isn’t a billionaire, only, together with his wife, about ½ of that. His father in law is a retired founder of an Indian IT company with no obvious ties to Fujitsu or Horizon. Considering that the privatisation of Royal Mail didn’t happen that long ago, such payment would also certainly be shouldered by UK taxpayers.]
Fishy’s father-in-law owns Infosys I believe. I understand it is quite a large company.
Ms Mordaunt WEF lover and biological woman denier, she won’t save the Conservatives they are toast and they deserve to be .
When is Andrew Bridgen going to join Reform, instead of trying to tackle the entire House of Commons on his own?
I expect George G will soon be joining Andrew in arraigning the house & asking lots of difficult questions.
“Will the real George Galloway please stand up?”
“Following George Galloway’s shock Rochdale by-election win, a tweet has gone viral purporting to show two entirely distinct letters from the erstwhile Workers Party of Britain candidate.
saad https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/svg/1f1ec-1f1e7.svg ⸆⸉ on X: “GEORGE GALLOWAY HAS DIFFERENT CAMPAIGN LETTERS FOR WHITE AND MUSLIM HOUSEHOLDS IN ROCHDALE
https://t.co/swSsfQxf2t” / X (twitter.com)
One letter, for white households, looks as though it was airlifted straight out of the Tory manifesto. Centring on wooly themes of Britishness, family, and the importance of law and order, the letter reads: “I believe in peaceful change. I will fight for more and smarter policing. And I will expose any cover-up of crime”.
But in a letter purportedly for Muslim households, the tone is rather different: “A‘Salaam o Aleukum. The last 130 days have shocked the ummah to its core. The killing of thousands of our brothers and sisters in Gaza is a war crime, and Israel must be held to account”.
“I, George Galloway, have fought for Muslims at home and abroad for all of my life, and paid a price for it.”
Will the real George Galloway please stand up? (Along with his first three Muslim wives?)
https://unherd.com/newsroom/news-round-up-george-galloway-covid-gender-clinics/
My point was that GG is not going to be so easy to shut up as he has the support of the Muslim vote.
And my point was that he has no interest in helping the Indigenous British people of Rochdale, whose ancestors built Britain into a great nation, and whose children have suffered so much at the hands of Pakistani Muslim Rape Gangs whose loyalty is to Pakistan. He said himself that his election victory was “For Gaza”. He is a Communist Traitor, part of the Unholy Muslim-Marxist Alliance bent on the destruction of western civilisation, including his own ancestral homeland of Scotland.
And “the Muslim vote” means nothing to a people who don’t believe in democracy, but are just using it to establish The Global Caliphate, giving their postal ballots to their local mosque to fill in as the mosque dictates. The whole thing is a farce.
How long will that Muslim vote last though when they find he is unable to deliver on any of his promises with regards to Gaza?
So basically he’s copying the LibDems long-term strategy of saying what the audience wants to hear in different locations and to different demographics.
Nothing new.
I doubt if the Speaker will give him the opportunity. We learned a couple of weeks’ ago that there is nothing impartial about Hoyle.
When reform acknowledges the covid vaxxes are dangerous and have caused thousands of serious adverse events and deaths.
Tice recently called for an Inquiry into excess deaths and the efficacy or otherwise of the jabs.
““We need an inquiry into the vaccine injuries. That will be in our contract to the people. “There has to be an inquiry. It needs to happen quickly and there needs to be proper payments made to those who are injured.”
Never mind payments, what’s needed is complete reform of the way medicines are approved, and probably criminal charges.
She probably wants to avoid being dragged to the ‘leadership’ now. She could try to maintain her career by becoming leader once the Conservatives are in opposition – provided she’s still an MP after that. I suspect that only ‘moderates’ and ‘wets’ will stay with the party after the election.
But what is a “moderate”? — Because if it means a hand wring, do nothing of any significance, don’t offend anyone, keep on with the Net Zero and mass immigration type of person then I want nothing to do with “moderates”.
Totally agree.
However, her career won’t survive if she’s the ‘leader’ of the Conservatives at the next election. It’s a poisoned chalice.
Only because they refuse to be conservatives. If they were in the retail business they would be selling bread butter and milk and all the other safe stuff. ——We need the conservatives to be right of centre and not selling us “safe” politics.
There is a damn fine pension for life if you can get your foot in Downing St for a few hours as PM.
Mrs Thatcher used to call the moderates her ‘grey men’. The do nothing placeholders of an MP’s seat.
Other than her love of trans, woke ideology, I have no idea what her views are.
It’s typical of the Tories that they have abandoned their rule that say Party members, not the parliamentary party, should pick the next leader. Going against this rule will lose them even more supports.
And if Sunak goes, Hunt has to as well. The pair of them are poison.
If the back room boys appoint another leader, it proves they made a mistake with Sunak, so can’t be trusted.
There is no ‘right wing’ in the Tory Party…
An extremely dangerous move, a WEF puppet.
She will come with all the emotional and safety obsessed weaknesses of that gender. We need a man with iron in his spine and a cold heart, to resolve this country’s systemic problems.
Like Maggie Thatcher, you mean?
Try not to be as sexist against the female sex as a tranny in a frock invading a women’s changing room, women’s sport or a women’s prison in hope of committing dark deeds.
So basically, the main qualification for someone becoming PM these days is wearing a rather fetching outfit for a Coronation and the ability to hold a heavy sword aloft whilst maintaining a serious face.
I won’t be forgetting the “trans women are women” statement ….. regardless of any back-peddling she’s made since.
As the saying goes: nothing’s so bad it can’t get worse.
Let’s face it no one really cares who leads the tory party at the moment.
Most people ‘seem’ to have already made up their minds that they don’t want any more conservative government so who leads the party is irrelevant and will be until the next term, or even the one after ends.
Of course with the fixed term parliament act now toast, that could be a fairly short space of time but the conservatives still need time to re-invent themselves.
Why?
They are all WEF traitors
blob:https://dailysceptic.org/7dbb9686-ed3f-4b2a-ac5d-e477f60a0cc3