The biomedical world has an irritating habit of latching onto social science terminology and tossing it around without really understanding what it means. The ‘precautionary principle’ is a good example. This phrase has been around for about 40 years in social scientific and legal studies of regulation.
The concept of the precautionary principle was first developed in relation to public policy on environmental issues but later extended into studies of occupational health and safety and the rollout of innovative technologies more generally.
In the course of the Covid pandemic, it has rolled off a large number of medical tongues but in completely the opposite direction to that established by every other field that makes use of the term.
The precautionary principle has never encouraged the introduction of innovations, programmes or interventions on the basis that they just might do some good.
It is, in fact, a conservative principle that says innovations should not be permitted unless it is established that benefits will be greater than harms. It tells the advocates for innovation that they have to look just as hard for harms as for benefits. If the harms are theoretical, then research must be done to generate evidence about them before the innovation can be considered further.
The best-known example is probably that of genetically modified food crops (GMOs). These first emerged from the lab in the mid-1990s. The basis for GMOs is brilliant science, but the developers had not done sufficient work to establish their impacts on other varieties of the same species, other species, food availability for wildlife, or human health. It was just assumed, with good reason, that genetically modified tomatoes, cotton or maize would be identical to varieties produced by conventional breeding. Many environmental and consumer groups in Europe did not agree. In the absence of evidence that these crops did not present the theoretical risks identified by their critics, they were not allowed onto the market. Their advocates could not show that the risks had been exaggerated or that any harms were outweighed by the benefits.
In many ways, the underlying principle is familiar to clinicians as primum non nocere: the first duty of a doctor is to do no harm. This is incorporated in many regulations surrounding the pharmaceutical and device industries. Safety cannot be assumed but must be demonstrated. Of course, there is an element of proportionality. If a drug is intended to extend the life of terminally ill cancer patients, it may be appropriate to tolerate a higher risk of adverse effects than in an indigestion cure aimed at a mass market.
As might be imagined, the precautionary principle is not popular with would-be innovators, who find that they cannot get their products to market as quickly and cheaply as they would like. The GMO experience eventually led the European Union to clarify its intention that the precautionary principle should provide a pathway to market rather than a barrier. The pharmaceutical industry, in particular, has advocated an ‘innovation principle’, where products would be licensed unless there was substantial evidence of harm. This inverts the precautionary principle in much the same way as some of its medical uses during the pandemic.
Emergency conditions do not justify the abandonment of the precautionary principle. If action is urgent, but benefits and harms are uncertain, then the actions or innovations must be temporary, provisional and closely monitored with a view to withdrawing or halting them if their benefits are not proportionate to their harms. Doing stuff ‘just in case’ or ‘it might help’ is not sufficient.
Pandemic policies would have looked very different if the precautionary principle had been applied correctly, especially to non-pharmaceutical interventions. These should have been examined with the well-established tools of regulation studies in social science and law to consider their legitimacy, proportionality and effectiveness.
Dr. Robert Dingwall, a former Government adviser on the JCVI and NERVTAG during the COVID-19 pandemic, is Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University and a consulting sociologist, researcher, writer and entrepreneur. This article first appeared on Trust the Evidence.
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.
A psychologist – evidently too ignorant and stupid to understand the issues here, because you’d have to be profoundly ignorant, or profoundly stupid, or lying, to claim to still believe that this disease is genuinely frightening..
No surprise he’s advising this government and being given a platform to harm the country through membership of SAGE.
How very very true. We know many of these so called “academics” today are virtually pig-ignorant. They certainly have no understanding of history, culture and creativity.
Many seem wholly unqualified to offer anything other than personal opinions or prejudices. It’s all roughly equivalent to running a suggestions box, tombola or lucky (?) Dip. A pity that the Mail and others are so dense that they don’t realise these vile, overvalued fools are conning them.
They do realise it — The Daily Mail and others are just looking for headlines and clicks — they don’t give a fig what damage it is doing to genuinely frightened people —- The Daily Mail have been a disgrace
What bleeds, leads
The Mail and others are in on the con!
Many in the media and in government benefit personally from Pharmaceutical company profits, and ‘Big Pharma’ advertising keeps many media outlets afloat
Or spirituality..in it’s widest sense.
Nether ignorant nor stupid, but greedy, corrupt and intent on hanging onto the influence and power enjoyed by SAGE members for the last 16 months. Never in the field of human science was so much suffering inflicted on so many by so few experts.
This guy is a social psychologist. As far as I can see, he’s no expert in the domains of physical health or mental health. The fact that he’s so frightened at the prospect of dropping further covid restrictions suggests that he’s suffering with his own mental health and needs professional help.
Yes – it does – What is wrong with this man —
His mental health may be poor, however, I’m sure his financial health is excellent.
Surely he’s not taking advantage – unbelievable.
Most SAGE members are leaching off the taxpayer. They are socialists and communists and need to be swept away like dead leaves on the garden path.
Isn’t Michie a millionaire commie, straight out of the Chinese model
This arsehole should front at our local Stand in The Park and talk to some real people whose lives have been devastated by this ‘ behavioural brainwashing stuff they peddle in the safety of their comfy houses…
How about standing him in front of a firing squad?
We have to hope that Javid holds his nerve, because it’s pretty much a given that over the next fortnight the SAGEers are going to be popping up in the media regularly with their ‘too soon’ predictions of doom, and trying to force the government to do what they are told.
Try telling that to all the sectors of the economy who have had their livelihoods trashed over the past 18 months…
I don’t think the twat has stepped out his front door for the past year, sat at home sorting his book collection A-Z earning his full salary thinking I’m alright jack. No fuckin’ clue about the real world.
I am wondering why lockdown sceptics gave this gentleman so much air time? No one even heard of him til this article. But suddenly he is given centre stage.
Gentleman?
A gentleman is indeed a rarity nowadays.
Quite – not dealing almost daily with hospitality having to self-isolate because somebody else tested positive with a test that’s got problems to say the least. Javid was completely right in saying that we can improve people’s overall health by opening up. It’s time for Covid trumps all other diseases to simply stop.
Yes, the next fortnight is going to be relentless interviews and articles like this trying to get government to back down. Javid should try to get Greg Abbott and Ron De Santis to publicly support him to counter it.
I wish he would get DeSantis or Abbott to publicly support him…. I do wonder Javid will recognise anyone with a backbone – he hasn’t seen one in our Government that is for sure
Again and Kristi Noem!!
And Kristi Noem. People always forget about South Dakota and I think she’s the best and that’s not just for the obvious reason – honest!
“Please sir! I’ve found a variant. It looks really scary!!”
How do they find the variants? (Genuine question)
The answer to his question is him.
He’s just too stupid to realise that what matters is the health of everyone in every respect, not just the handful that get covid. The moron doesn’t realise he is actually destroying the physical and mental health of millions.
I bet he does but this is his 15 minutes of fame.
Or does he?
Sajid javid is not really making the decisions, this is being driven by somebody bigger than mr. Javid and it isn’t sage.
Pharma Gates?
An idiot from Independent SAGE just turned up on the BBC. They aren’t letting go.
Professor Stephen Reicher is quite clearly mad. Can he really be a ‘leading’ psychologist or is he just some nutter off the street who blagged his way into a SAGE meeting and has never left. I think the only part of his description that is correct is the ‘psycho’ part. How can the government uncritically accept the blathering of these people?
You hide away in your book lined study mate, and let the rest of us get on with it. Bet all his books are shit, too. Twat.
He works on things like the collective psychology of fear. No aurprises there.
Marxist dialectical bollox…or porn…
Stephen Reicher; whoever you are, (a complete, irrelevant nonentity as far as I’m concerned)…..
Please, please…. just fuck off.
Couldn’t put it better myself.
Neither could I!
#me too! Sorry couldn’t resist it.
Well argued, and to the point.
But what about his life work: putting the shits up the populace for no discernible reason? Surely he’s entitled to some praise?
Reicher should examine his own behaviour. As a behavioural researcher on the economic side I would suggest that like many psychologists his own neuroticism and narcissism is the driving behaviour. As one of the chief plague bell ringers, his grandiose fearmongering will be played up by the equally guilty MSM. I am no Tory supporter but from a policy point view Javid needs to keep his eyes on the prize and put SAGE and it’s catastrophic cast of hand wringers and panic merchants back in the box.
Dear Professor Reicher, precisely which modelling outputs did you “vote” against since you were appointed a member of SAGE or, if that is not the case, do you consider the number of positive cases resulting from RT PCR tests with a CT of over 35 to be a true and accurate measure of people who are infectious at the time of their test, regardless of their symptoms? Have you lobbied within SAGE for confirmatory tests in EACH RT PCR derived positive test – yes or no? Have you agreed with the definition of CV19 death – as amended – and what is the precise number of deaths following a RT PCR derived positive test, within the period where the virus is known to reach a critical load, where no co-morbidities have existed, since January 2020? Finally did you agree with the downgrading of CV19 from a “High Consequence Infectious Disease” in March 2020?
If the answers are , in turn, All of them, No, Yes, No, small and No, why are you still a member of SAGE? If you have answered in a different way to any of the questions in the last sentence, please shut up, get out a bit more and don’t darken doors again.
I’m not going to add anything intelligent to this conversation other than my contempt with the following words:
Fuck off you utter delusional cretin!
Sometimes straightforward profanity is the only reasonable response.
SAGE members, most of whom appear to have few qualifications and even less sense, are as numerous as fleas on a dog’s back. This latest oracle is merely a halfwit
Hands up who voted for SAGE?
I take it that upticks don’t count!
If you’re scared buy a stock of ffp3 masks or a hazmat suit.
Your health is your problem, not mine. My immune system works.
And lock yourself in your wardrobe…forever.
I’ve purposely created this account because someone finally needs to do something to shoot what I believe to be the biggest of all COVID lies: «Your behaviour affects my health.»
(and therefore, I’m justified to demand whatever I want from you to – unselfishly – protect me).
No, Sir Babyboomer (likely — the guy seems to keep his age secret), it doesn’t. As side effect of living and the corresponding bodily functions – completely beyond my control – my body might get infected with a virus. This virus may then – again completely beyond my control – pass on to other people in the same accidental way. YOUR behaviour affects your health. If you mix with other people, the above may also happen to your body. So don’t. We won’t miss you.
Well said!!
Baby Boomer here. I am horrified, disgusted, and a whole lot of unprintable stuff, with some of my fellow boomers. Note that it is limited to boomers ….
No offence intendend. I realize this is a bit of a broad brush. However, the scamdemic is again (to a large degree, at least) the work of the same people who have been behind every carefully orchestrated media armageddon in Europe (and the USA) since some time in the 1970s (the original one was “OMG! We’ll run out of oil!!”, in case someone still remembers that — ironically, one of the present crazes is “OMG! We’ll not run out of oil!!”).
As member of the “generation in between we pretend that doesn’t exist” (ie, Im too young to belong to them and too old to be among their children), I’m meanwhile thoroughly tired of this, because it seems someone else spent all of my life “fighting” against ever-changing imaginary desasters.
As Nietzsche once put it: One of the mark of the decadent is to transform the observation “I’m going under.” into the imperative “Everything shall perish!”
I’m a boomer too and similarly disgusted with almost all my boomer friends and relatives. I have been called “selfish” and “stupid” for refusing the vax and also “silly”. When challenged, none came up with any justification for their remarks. I’m incredulous
What’s frightening is that these collectivist ideologues have the power to have you committed and to shut down public life.
There isn’t a shred of evidence that “your behavior affects my health”. All the studies have shown that non-pharmaceutical interventions do nothing to stop the spread of the pandemic. We need to make sure that people like this never have any influence over our freedoms again.
What I find equally despicable is that MailOnLine and other media outlets trawl for such people and their Tweets knowing full well it sets people off against each other once again. Make no mistake, MSM NEVER want the current situation to end as they clearly love the division it creates.
Bang on!
Spot on, the MSM, of which the DM is by far the worst, doesn’t want this to end. All they care about is stirring up controversy, uncertainty and fear.
Sadly This is TREE
That was supposed to say TRUE
“Your behaviour affects my health.”
Well, your influence on governmental edicts affects the mental health of a significant proportion of the populace, and drives people to suicide.
We’ve had two incidents on the bridge near where I live this week, resulting in one death and one, luckily (!) surviving, albeit with shattered limbs. This takes the running total of jumpers to five in the last six months. Normally, we have zero incidents each year. And an acquaintance is off to the funeral of a friend’s son next week, who killed himself at home, leaving behind his young children. Of course, each of these six incidents might have nothing to do with the ongoing restrictions, but as I said, normally we get a minimal number of suicides locally.
Obviously, Mr Reicher, you value your own health above the lives of these six young men.
Mr Reicher can sit in his nice home whilst other people go to work to empty his bins, keep his utilities flowing in and out and pick, pack and deliver his internet orders. Did he offer to change places with any of these people so they could shelter at home?
Well said!
Reicher and his like are parasites, in the true sense of the word.
Looks like Mr Reicher hasn’t quite finished his public control experiment just yet, I bet he’s gutted. All the Sage scientists should be told to shut up by the government but Bozo is to pathetic. The MSM will have the Sage morons singing their fear laden doom for the next fortnight until number 10 submits again.
well it is but not for the reason you’re implying. Pretty sure covid isn’t killing youngsters like flu does.
I don’t often bother, but I just googled this person. He comes across as a nasty piece of work.
Anyone who remains a communist after the cruel and bloody history of the 20th century just has to be a nasty piece of work. And most of SAGE, if not all of them, are commies.
There is no doubt in my mind that a thorough and intensive investigation needs to be undertaken on the role that members of SAGE have embarked upon during this inhumane Covid debacle.
Just one of the lunatics currently in charge of the asylum..Och away wid ye ..ya self serving cowering timerous beastie!
The ATL appeals – “but we’ve all been jabbed” – are both pitiful and comical.
What a complete arse!
And …
“this isn’t an ‘I’ thing, it’s a ‘we’ thing.”
is really wacky because, in reality, it is 180 degrees the other way around. It is _they_, who are the embodiment of the ‘I’ mentality.
All of these deluded fanatics proclaiming that they are motivated by the ‘We’ principle.
What?!?!
This arse-about-face alternate-reality shit is extremely galling.
He and Michie have been instrumental in the fearmongering of the government throughout.
They have committed enough damage.
No more should it be allowed.
And yet the PM allows it. Is it his weakness, or are they following his orders, or what? We shall probably never know.
Johnson is merely a protected puppet who HAS to do as he is told….How on earth do you think a completely useless, lazy, low IQ, talentless imbecile has got so high up the ladder? He has survived so many scandals and misdemeanors that would have ended the careers of most other people years ago!!!
Does anyone know about this guy’s politics? Do we have another Communist here?
More theatre. Now I see what they will do with Javid, they will play on the fear and show him to be too reckless when actually he speaking on true themes. Behavioural brainwashing continues…
Its tempting to think these people are deuded. But they are not. They know exactly the effect of their words. They are the personification of evil.
What has happened is that they very recklessly agreed to the jab and are so much in denial about its inadequacies and dangers that for the survival of their fragile egos they need to prove that lockdowns and vaccines are the saviours
But yes that is evil behaviour
Fuck me the comments below that first Twitter post. I’d love to tear their silly comments, bed wetting lies and terrible attempts at logic to shreds here but really I cannot deal with the rage it would entail.
Don’t get excited. It’s all scripted.
the prospect of being hauled in front of Nuremberg II for crimes against humanity.
Now THAT is something that should be keeping him awake!
I hope so
I accept his premise that my actions have consequences and I take full responsibility for them.
Call off all the rules, let us do as we like and I will take personal responsibility for any harm I cause. If you can prove I made some one ill and died as a result I will take the rap.
Now will this psychologist who wants to tell everyone else how to live their lives take responsibility for his actions and for any damage.or harm he causes?
This (his premise) is just nonsense: Viruses spread independently of conscious human actions. There’s only one thing people can control here and that’s their own exposure.
Each time one of these fkers opens their mouths it adds 2 years to the date when I might sit down and think about having the vaccine.
Two articles that epitomise the debate, this is opinion of a learned man – we just don’t know what he has learned is any good.
Then we have John A. Fairclough, an Hon. Consultant Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon at the University Hospital of Wales and Professor Emeritus at Cardiff Metropolitan University – a lifetime of integrity expressed in medical science.
Javid is in a different league to his predecessor he has already demonstrated his integrity – remember when PM wanted him to sack his treasury team – he resigned before betraying trust. He will go where he sees integrity.
A politician who recognises and values integrity? What miracle is this?
He’s a psychologist. He knows nothing about viruses and everything about how to manipulate people.
I live in fife near st andrews. All I can say is what a wanker!
The new nhs woke mantra to define life henceforth is ‘your behaviour affects my health’. Buy the rainbow sloganed t-shirts, posters and bracelets now.
I have come to despise the ubiquitous rainbow motif. Of course, there was nothing originally wrong with the rainbow. Unfortunately though (as happened with the defiling of the swastika), it has been appropriated by a bunch of arseholes. Because of what the ‘rainbow’ has now become synonymous with, I just regard it with contempt wherever I see it plastered.
A bit shite really.
Roy G Biv would be spinning in his grave.
I even get gloomy when I see a real rainbow, because it makes me think of the National Hellhole Disservice.
But I’m working on that. I will reclaim my rainbows.
Javid is going to have to be tough. I looked at his Twitter and there is some nasty push back there … usual stuff “Tories want to infect our children with a deadly disease”, “Tories interested in money over health”. It will be hard to resist all the covidista crap that will be thrown at him. And perhaps I am being silly thinking he could get his de Santas moment if he holds to this?
Here’s my letter to the DM in response:
Dear Sir/Madam,
If only psychologist Reicher could spare us and confine his opinionated rants to his subject area and deliver them only to SAGE! (MailOnline 4th July). This, of course, is merely a professional expectation so naturally far too much to hope for from this ludicrous fearmonger who seems recently to be focused solely on self-promotion and the media. Oh but then again, he’s presumably one of the “evil” individuals inciting fear across the UK via Govt advice in order to control and coerce us by utilising highly dubious and unethical means.
But on “we” versus “I”, what nonsense! If Reicher had given the remotest thought to the costs versus benefits of his absurd opinions, he might bump in to the extraordinary idea that he is the “I” and entirely selfish.
Yours faithfully
Professor Fionn Dunne
The DM are up to their old tricks. This guy appears not to be a member of SAGE but he is a member of Independent SAGE as of course is Susan Michie, who is a member of both.
Ah, if he is independent sage this then is a zero covid push back.
Yes, have now included links to the memberships of SAGE and Independent SAGE
Sorry, here are the links;
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response-membership/list-of-participants-of-sage-and-related-sub-groups#scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage
https://www.independentsage.org/
Yes, well done – this is evidently a man prepared to see children die of experimental vaccines.
It’s for their own good. If they die of the vaccine they won’t die of covid. Which is good.
BOTH SAGE and Independent SAGE are infested with complete and utter EVIL, grossly overpaid rubbish, so whichever committee of talentless clowns he is on is irrelevant!!
When this is all over (and it will be) these power-hungry self-serving maniacs will no longer be relevant anymore, their earnings will fall dramatically and in most cases dry up completely and they will have to go back to the dull humdrum lives they came from and become the sad little boring twerps they were before the lockdowns began begging for government funds – this is what these experts fear most … an end to the gravy train – and this why they must keep the fear going.
Meanwhile in Florida …
.
Notice the manipulation of words to change the meaning. Javid says we will have to learn to live with Covid19, just like we have learned to live with flu. Reicher twists that and claims that Javid thinks Covid19 *is* flu.
Who exatcly voted for the Behavourial & Psychology Party in 2019?
I guess the fact he’s being paraded by the media means Javid is not a fully fledged member of the Covidian cult at least for the time being.
Why are these far left activists advising a conservative PM on covid lockowns?
Left-wing bias of scientists on Independent Sage urging for harsher Covid rules
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15177360/left-wing-bias-of-independent-sage/
Personally, I’m a lot more worried by the likes of Professor Third Reicher being given an uncritical platform.
Quick scan of the Twitter comments shows how many zero Covid acolytes are still at work – and they call us tinfoil hatters.
Can someone on here remind me of the New Zealand lady doctor’s name and where I can find her videos? Is she censored on youtube?
Dr Sam Bailey. She has a YouTube channel but only posts content that will not be censored. Try her odysee channel:
https://odysee.com/@drsambailey:c
many thanks
I am genuinely surprised that there hasn’t been at least one attempt to take out a member of SAGE by somebody whose life and livelihood has been destroyed by them.
Lucky that there hasn’t been, though, that would be very helpful to them.
Not a scientist, a witch doctator, a communist doomsday cultist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Reicher
http://bbcprisonstudy.org/bbc-prison-study.php?p=56
Prof Reicher studies collective behaviour. He participated in the BBC prison study, looking at how groups behave when divided into “prisoners” and “guards”.
He has all the credentials for advising the government on how to manipulate the public during this coronascam, to maintain fear and submission.
Independent SAGE are a political organisation with political aims. They seemingly have free rein to campaign for their aims on MSM, whilst some are officially advising the Government. Their views are extremist and dangerous. How is this allowed to happen? I’m sick and tired of hearing from these lunatics, when distinguished alternative voices are being censored and silenced.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1457950/lockdown-labour-scientists-plot-bit-more-restrictions
“The Sunday Express has learnt that members of Independent Sage are to be part of the launch of an international group called the World Health Network which will push for a “zero covid” strategy of maintaining lockdowns. The revelation came at an online meeting of the Zero Covid campaign group last week where trade union officials told attendees about how covid is a means of recruiting members and how the ultimate goal has to be “to bring down capitalism.”
“It follows MPs last month questioning why three Independent Sage members including Professor Michie, her husband Professor Robert West, and Professor Stephen Reicher, all behavioural scientists, are also official government advisors.”
Surely senior government types are aware of all this? Why are they even tolerating communists, etc. having ANY influence on policy? Time and again we vote against this type of thing and yet here we are again…
Is psychology a science? There appears to be considerable debate and disagreement over that and many, myself included, believe it to be a pseudoscience.
So, perhaps the headline should be “SAGE Pseudoscientist …….” , the latter of which appear to be over-represented on SAGE.
There have been some very good practitioners in the Black Arts of “psychology” in the fairly recent past. Hitler, Goebbels, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam, the ISIS gang and a few others spring immediately to mind. None of them were at St. Andrews, but perhaps this Milo Mindbender should stick to giving advice to that woman in charge of the Republic of Scotland.
The truly frightening thing is that idiots like this are ‘educating’ our children.
What a wuss.
As for Indie Sage, words fail me, until I recall seeing Alice Roberts on BBC Breakfast TV once. She appeared to be so alarmed at the toxicity of chicken that she warned against washing the plastic containers it’s sold in; she advised bagging it up and disposing of it unwashed. Apparently the droplets from washing the container would splatter all over surfaces (she must be a very messy cook) and cause contamination and collywobbles (or, lingering, agonising death…)
She’s probably vegan. She should stick to digging holes, go back to Time Team and stop being a pain.
Where do they find these people?
I once wrote an email to Dr Alice Roberts, asking some “silly” questions about the content of one of her nonsensical BBC episodes. I did eventually receive a response from her (quite a few months later) but it had absolutely nothing to do with the content of my email.
Enough said.
“Your behaviour affects my health”. Well how ironic.
Looking and listening to this man brings symptoms of sickness on me —
Stephen Reicher is not qualified to tell us whether the virus is flu or not. I can’t help wondering if some of the money in his current account has come from Bill and Mel.
A SAGE scientist frightened?
About bloody time.
Sack the lot of them for the way they have spread fear.
They would be if only protesters gathered outside their homes. Their addresses need to be published.
What a 100% useless MORON
Clearly its time for SAGE to be disbanded. Government advisors cannot be twittering against government policy. It is time for them to be silenced.
At last SAGE is being sent a message by a minister that scares them rather than the other way round and the poor things don’t like it their power is being removed their influence is being ignored!! Great give it to them minister shut up and get back to you lab it’s over!!
Lab? Most of them are behavioural psychologists and computer modellers, the former, woke Lefties, and the latter if their predictions are anything to go by, would be as well off with an abacus as a computer.
So he does not want to loose his power- it mist have been enjoyable watching the sheeple cowering and running to corners to escape the shepherd.
The one piece of evidence these SAGE health tyrants are currently able to quote are the daily case numbers (dodgy test results). In all this talk of easing restrictions there does not seem to have been any talk of winding down the ludicrous testing system. Indeed they are talking of increasing testing in schools to replace the isolation procedure.
These tests themselves are harmful and we should stop testing children. The tests themselves are ludicrous, I understand that for these LFT tests you do the test yourself and enter the results yourself, testing done in this way should only ever be used as an early indicator that you maybe need a properly conducted accurate test, DIY tests should not be used to guide Public Health Policy.
But everyday they publish these scary lists of infections (dodgy tests) and these SAGE tyrants use this information to underpin their statements. Yet there seems no sign that this testing monster is going to be put back in its box.
Not to mention that children are getting positive tests using orange juice, coca cola, etc. Adults can do that too of course……
Hear hear!!
There’s nothing scary about these “infections”. We’re presently in a completely new phase of this “pandemic” because the number of “infections” per number of “hospitalizations” has risen to unparallelled heights very steeply since April, keeps rising and the rise is accelerating.
This number has reached 40 once, on the day when a large number of cases accidentally dropped on the floor due to limitation of Excel was added. It was below 20 most of the time during the “winter wave”. As of 2021/07/01, the number had reached 121.5.
NB: Graph has been created from official government numbers (published as JSON).
Taking someone seriously who believes that swimming and swimming caps are rascist is beyond parody.
Isn’t this a bit like a Barclays Bank employee telling the media that the Barclay brothers are ripping people off? Adviser’s advise, bosses take their advice or they don’t. If they don’t and then the advisers go behind their boss’s back and moan about it to the world, should they actually keep their jobs?
Don’t think the Barclays are associated with the bank. Easy assumption to make, but no.
What about Banksy?
Daily testing in schools is hidden in there. More grooming of children to be compliant to abuse.
I would prefer to read an article about ivermectin. What a great time to use it. Will the UK ever come out of lockdown? Does anyone else think Sajid Javid decided to treat COVID like flu blah blah blah two minutes after taking the job as health secretary. Of course he didn’t. He is taking his orders from higher up and I don’t mean sage.
‘SAGE’, if ever there was a misnomer , it’s that. They ars a bunch of pseudo intellectuals, brainwashed by a Left education system and bent on bringing the rest of civilisation down to their miserable level.
Once again I ask, why on earth is anyone still taking any notice of idiots like this?
How is a psychologist considered any more qualified to pronounce on this then the very intelligent gentleman who just cleaned my windows? Our society is nuts.
Too many of these so-called experts have driven our response to covid with devastating effects. Believing 128,000 deaths is a badge of honour is totally sick when a different response would have made a big difference. Psychology is seen as a soft science no two would ever agree on anything and have no expertise on covid to be taken seriously. I hope as the new health secretary becomes more established sage will be seen how damaging they were and be closed down or at least be made up of real experts.
Quite honestly I couldn’t give a damn what the liars at Sage say. They should all face the consequences of their actions sooner rather than later.
Which is why I think protests should be outside the homes of members of these SAGE committees.
His 15 minutes of fame, and the gravy train that goes with it, are coming to an end. Sad.
If only.
Stephen Reicher, frightened. Well here’s my remedy, crawl back into the hole you came from and stay there…
Unbe-fucking-lievable! “…this isn’t an ‘I’ thing, it’s a ‘we’ thing. Your behaviour affects my health.”
Here’s a man speaking on behalf of an organisation that is promoting unconsensual medical experimentation on the whole of the UK population; is stifling peoples’ ability to run a business, get an education, worship, get married, socialise, travel, hug an aging relative or attend their funeral, and is encouraging people to cover their faces with rags that are produced, packaged and marketed with no safety regulations, are known to harbour life-threatening pathogens, are causing the wearer to inhale up to 6 times the safe level of carbon dioxide and are scientifically contentious regarding their efficacy. And yet – according to Stephen Reicher – *I’m* a danger to *his* health.
We need a good succinct response to this garbage. Any ideas?
Succinct response –
.303″, 45 calibre or 7.62mm any or all to head / chest
Are they for me MJ or the person subject of my rant? If it’s me, in some ways it would be a mercy killing
Haha, yes Felice. On reflection, that was quite a long sentence wasn’t it?
“Consider yourself lucky that my behaviour DOESN’T affect your health right now” :->
Saj’s huge in tray says a lot about Hancock and it’s nothing good. Basically he lost the plot to the disservice of us all
Ahhh have just read that a trade union leader say people returning to work need to be confident that the work place is “Covid Secure”!! Those two words make me want to scream!! Which bit of learn to live with risk does he not understand!! And the is no such thing as Covid Secure
We need ALL behavioural pseudo scientists out of Government now. They are not in the best interests of our mental health or our future as a society. It seems to me they have captured the population through fiendish means and intend to use our vulnerability to further their social experiments.
I did a psychology degree and came to the conclusion that the old ways of strong families and caring communities were the best way forward in crises. We have been broken by people who care nothing for these traditions.
Nudgers by definition think that only they know best. They do not trust people at all and to an overwhelming degree actually detest humans.
Noone should have ever enlisted or tasked them with anything, let alone listen to them.
Professor Stephen Reicher, followed by psychologist, followed by SAGE says it all. These guys need locking away and forbidden to speak publicly about their “advice” and send it through proper – peer reviewed – channels.
Another one pushing the obscene vaccine agenda when cures/remedies and preventive measures are well established and proven to be effective in other parts of the world but have been deliberately suppressed by Big Pharma and governments. In other words, the remedies should have absolute priority over experimental vaccines.
Can someone PLEASE tell these SAGE (non-)scientists that they must remain silent. Their job is NOT to ‘message’ the public, which has a continual record of unjustified scaremongering.
1. He is a psychologist so what’s the fucker doing on SAGE ?.
2. He is a psychologist so what does he know about viruses and epidemiology ?.
SAGE are the enemy
Aye, the enemy, and a very clever one, at that. Saying the masks must be worn to protect others was a master-stroke of social and behavioural engineering.
Is this ignorant and stupid individual from the Goebbels and Mengele Memorial Brigade (GMMB) really worth a comment?
This is how stupid the effer is…
https://twitter.com/ReicherStephen/status/1411636130936672257
Actually thinks comparing a situation where we abandon the Highway Code with Javid’s approach to Covid management is perceptive and a clincher of an argument. Watatwat.
His attempts at philosophy (thinking the fact that as creatures made of genes we can alter our genetic code destroys determinism as phisophical idea) also show what a shallow thinker he is. And yet he wants to rule over us and decide all the health risks we are prepared to take.
Johnson is absolutley useless to have allowed this situation to develop where third rate intellects on SAGE call the shots.
So being able to change DNA frees us from the laws of physics?
Let us not be distracted by those little shits wheeled out in support of the huge tornado of the global shit-show.
The mind-games and the manipulation never stopped.
Third rate intellectuals are all that you can expect because anyone that’s good at their job and intelligent generally gets on with things, whereas ‘frightened’ people like this end up looking for the safety of the public sector or academia.
Don’t people like this have have concept of how to operate as part of a key and hopefully secure advisory board to the government? If I had somebody working on such a sensitive project, they’d be shown the door if they kept going on social media to undermine the position. I’ve be allied to medical communications for a long time and I’m pretty sure that health care professionals taking part in advisory boards are bound by NDA.
If they don’t agree with the decisions that the government are making then resign and attack from a neutral position. But don’t make cheap shots from the side lines. It makes a mockery of the entire process.
Especially when all you have to say can be summarised as ‘Lies and Bullshit. ‘
He looks like Vic Reeves, or the guy of Mythbusters.
Oh god have just listened to my boss’s going on about how to proceed after the 19th and to say they are on planet Covid is an understatement!! Dear god mass brain washing has happened! It looks like unless Boris definitely says you don’t have to we will still be hands face space!!
I know what I’d be telling him…
Worth watching
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuMbRBTZhCY&feature=youtu.be
One thing I find annoying about this site is that clicking on links does not open a separate window, and clicking on the back button comes back to this page but at a different level. The reddit LS site opens a different window, I think that’s much better.
a) The flu is more dangerous than Covid.
b) At most, it’s us versus them, not an I versus We thing.
Saying so confesses what this is really about for him and his lot though: the replacement ofbour unalienable individual rights in the name of utilitarianism, with the leaders of those utilitarian movements calling the shots and having absolute power.
Which is why this must be resisted and overturned again!
Bit late to this particular party, still, I need to get something off my chest.
Fuck off, Mr “Professor” Reicher. Fuck right off and don’t come back. Perhaps fuck off to Uganda – I gather from today’s news that you’ll fit right in.
Oh, did I forget to tell you to fuck off?
Another devi. I’m famous for five minutes. I’m chief bedwetter. I’m chief doom monger. I’m so so sick of these zpurts.
I think Boris & Co have a big line-up of them. It looks as if they’ve missed the Grinch’s answerphone message:
“If you utter so much as one syllable, I’LL HUNT YOU DOWN AND GUT YOU LIKE A FISH!”
The key message of the pandemic,” he said on Twitter, “is this isn’t an ‘I’ thing, it’s a ‘we’ thing. Your behaviour affects my health.”
And is it a ‘we’ thing when it comes to care home deaths, and no ICU for elderly covid patients, and cancer treatment stopped, and screening stopped, and children subjected to mental torture and all the other harms we have been subjected to..? What an evil selfish man.. one of those Laura Dodsworth’s book documents.
Millions of jobs lost…careers that haven’t taken off…weddings postponed…lovers denied the chance to meet…places not seen…
This sickj-looking man is the very sympol of the anti-life spirit that has taken hold of academia.
Daily testing of pupils isn’t freedom, or a return to anything worth having. Testing is a nonsense.
I see Reicher from the hallowed but ‘totally divorced from reality’ establishment the University of St Andrews is looking rather worn out and perhaps a tad nervous.
Can he and his pitiful ilk dimly discern the sound of tumbrels in the distance?
I hope so.
And what the hell his profession knows about anything beyond their favourite experiments – such as seeing if an ‘instructor’ can get a ‘subject’ to electrocute a ‘victim’, is quite beyond me.
Presumably he’s had the vaccine. Could explain his very unhealthy look and his continuing fear he might catch Covid.
So some people will still wear their Masks in crowded places out of courtesy!! So those of who won’t be will be made to feel bad!! Shame on you Boris and co for that sung virtue signalling statement!! You should have kept your personal decision to your self!!
Never felt bad so far why would I now?
If I could invent a voodoo doll that actually inflicted pain on these brain dead, obfuscating idiots, there would be a row of at least a dozen somewhere in my home that would be attended to regularly every week. It is only articles like John Fairclough’s here on the 4th July that actually keep me sane.
I worked for 30 years as a frontline RN/RM with many brilliant and experienced medics. A few were a disappointment, but largely they were dedicated, practical men and women who enhanced our professional life and taught us a great deal.
After years of puerile public health advice I’m not sure why I thought the PHE version would present a similar learned and considered front during a pandemic, but I did have some considerable expectations. They have, almost without exception, been utterly dismal.
This has been a year of anti-science on the public health front. If Whitty and his few medically trained sidekicks, followed by their acolyte behaviourists and related modellers, had wandered up and down in apothecaries garb and masks, ringing bells and chanting, we would have had just as much sense applied as they actually set forth on their regular lecturn sermons.
End of rant. Apologies.
Yet another member of SAGE aiming to extend their 15 minutes of ‘fame’.
I’m sure that no right thinking person takes any notice of this nonsense any more than they take heed of Ferguson’s wildly inaccurate apocalyptic predictions. These people are nothing but dangerous clowns.