As a director of the U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance, the U.K.’s most recognised and respected organisation advocating every individual’s right to informed consent, bodily autonomy and medical choice, I was shocked and appalled to read the article “Understanding and neutralising COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation“, published in the BMJ on November 22nd 2022. The article contains insinuations and unsubstantiated and unreferenced allegations concerning the UKMFA (and other organisations including HART, UsForThem and Children’s Health Defense) and which appeared to seek to undermine the contribution of our organisations to a critical debate of national importance.
My shock at the tone and text of the article, and its inclusion in a highly respected medical journal like the BMJ, has been echoed by notable scientists and doctors around the world including Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who posted this strongly worded tweet calling out the “authoritarian nonsense” proposed by the authors of the article, which violates “key civil rights” and is “inconsistent with long standing free speech norms in democratic countries”.
My fellow directors and I were disappointed not to have been offered the customary ‘right to reply’ by the BMJ before the article was published, and we have, therefore, been compelled to write an open letter of complaint to Dr. Karam Abbasi, the Editor in Chief of the BMJ, to be published as our rebuttal to the article (reprinted in full below). In it we comment that it is regrettable that the approach of the authors borders on the defamatory, is manifestly unscientific, and falls short of the editorial standards that the BMJ professes to uphold. In our letter we request an immediate retraction of this article and a published apology.
It is deeply disturbing that there should be such a blatant push to silence legitimate scientific debate and to seek to exclude opposing voices from the U.K. COVID-19 Inquiry. We contend that the main aims and objectives of a public inquiry are to scrutinise and evaluate all the policies that the Government implemented and to carry out a retrospective full cost-benefit analysis and assessment of any resulting collateral damage. Now is the time to calmly and rationally assess all the arguments and evidence that campaigning groups have tried to present – much of it, due to extreme censorship, deliberately kept away from the public and political sphere for debate.
The call by the authors of this BMJ article to promote and enforce only one ideology in a totalitarian way, the unsubstantiated smearing of named organisations, and the stated aim to outlaw any other viewpoint, should have made this article unsuitable for publication in a respected scientific journal such as the BMJ.
November 25th 2022
Open Letter from the UK Medical Freedom Alliance to Dr Kamran Abbasi, BMJ Editor in Chief
Re: BMJ 2022;379:e070331 “Understanding and neutralising COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation“
Dear Dr. Abbasi
We are the Directors of the U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance (UKMFA), an independent organisation run by a team of medical professionals, academics, scientists and lawyers, and the U.K.’s most recognised and respected organisation advocating every individual’s right to informed consent, bodily autonomy and medical choice.
The UKMFA was named in the above referenced article, published in the BMJ on November 22nd 2022, and we take issue with insinuations and unsubstantiated and unreferenced allegations contained therein, concerning the UKMFA, which appear to seek to undermine our contribution to a critical debate of national importance.
It is regrettable that the approach of the authors borders on the defamatory, is manifestly unscientific and falls short of the editorial standards that your journal professes to uphold. Furthermore, we are disappointed not to have been offered the customary ‘right to reply’ before the article was published.
The authors imply (by association) that the UKMFA is secretly and generously funded.
Throughout the pandemic, some people have opposed almost all measures introduced by Governments at Westminster and in the devolved administrations, from the initial lockdown to mask mandates and vaccination certificates. Their messages are similar to those promulgated by adherents to an extreme libertarian philosophy that is now prominent in some sections of society in the United States. Some benefit from generous funding from those opposed to what they term ‘big government’, and some of their messaging has been claimed to include evidence that is fabricated, distorted, or taken out of context. (emphasis added)
Aside from the defamatory implication that the UKMFA occupies the far-right fringes of a political debate, for which the authors provide no evidence, we wish to clarify that the UKMFA is solely funded through modest donations from members of the public, which cover website and other administrative costs, and is staffed by unpaid volunteers.
Further, as quoted below, the authors explicitly (and wrongly) claim that the UKMFA has “opposed vaccination”. This is an obvious attempt to smear and discredit the UKMFA and label our organisation as ‘anti-vaxxers’, with no evidence cited to support that claim.
This raises the question of what a campaign is. When different groups submit versions of the same text, the connection is obvious. But other links are less obvious: for example, the BBC reports that UsForThem, which has attracted high level support from politicians in its campaign against restrictions in schools, has links with the Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART), which in turn has worked on a campaign against children being vaccinated against COVID-19. HART, meanwhile, shares members with groups that have opposed vaccination, such as the U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance and the Children’s Health Defense. (emphasis added)
The UKMFA’s sole publications to date on the topic of vaccines are concerned only with Covid vaccines, products of which the long-term safety remains unverified, and on which the medical community should surely welcome a healthy and open public debate. Although we have always campaigned for the Covid vaccines not to be administered to healthy children, we have only recently called for the entire Covid vaccine rollout to be halted, based on glaring safety signals and overwhelming evidence of harm from thousands of published papers, real world data and official safety databases from around the world.
A key remit of the UKMFA is to provide evidence-based information for individuals, doctors and other healthcare professionals to aid the process of informed consent in line with well-established principles of medical ethics and law. All the material we publish is evidence-based and fully referenced, which the article’s authors fail to acknowledge, apparently preferring ad hominem attack. We would be delighted to engage the authors in a debate on the science, should they find time away from writing propaganda pieces.
Several statements in the article contain an unsupported assumption of objective truth and assume a primacy of one view only. The authors have failed to interrogate their assumptions or accept the possibility of error. They also fail to recognise that the scientific method fundamentally involves constantly challenging existing hypotheses and developing them as new evidence or data becomes available; that there is no such thing as a ‘consensus’ in science or medicine; and that debate and discussion are essential for science and medicine to be practised ethically and safely. These basic concepts are ignored by the authors and instead identified as a problem to be solved e.g. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, several groups have been active in opposing evidence based public health measures.” (emphasis added)
Regarding the statement below, we can assure you that in a climate of extreme censorship of opposing views, the UKMFA has had no mainstream media voice, as opposed to the Government’s constant voice in the press and media.
The public inquiry should do three things. Firstly, it should examine the extent to which groups promoting contrarian messages were able to influence policy. We think it unlikely that they were able to do so directly but, given their links to the media and influential politicians, they should be investigated. (emphasis added)
To label a different view as “contrarian” is pejorative and highly subjective. We contend that the main aims and objectives of a public inquiry are to scrutinise and evaluate all the policies that the Government implemented and to undertake a retrospective full cost-benefit analysis and assessment of any resulting collateral damage. Now is the time to calmly and rationally assess all the arguments and evidence that campaigning groups have tried to present but, due to censorship, were deliberately kept away from the public and political sphere for debate.
As the authors concede:
The discussion will likely centre on the science, but it will also consider ideology, in particular the relation between individuals, society and the state. When is it justifiable to impose restrictions on one group of people to protect others, for example? Some people take the view that it hardly ever is. (emphasis added)
The article seeks to promote and enforce only one ideology in a totalitarian way, smearing and seeking to outlaw any other viewpoint, which should have made it unsuitable for publication in a respected scientific journal such as the BMJ.
In an open society, which affirms principles of free speech and rational debate, dissenting and minority voices play a vital role in making a full and honest assessment of the radical policies that were implemented during the pandemic, to help avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future. It is thoroughly dishonest of the authors to suggest that all the experts are on the side of the mainstream ‘public health’ view, and that there are no experts in their respective fields who disagree with the paths taken. There are many such experts around the world and these experts should not be silenced.
Considering the above, we respectfully request an immediate retraction of the article and a published apology from the authors.
Yours sincerely
Dr. Elizabeth Evans, MA(Cantab), MBBS(Hons), DRCOG – CEO, U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance
Dr. Jon Rogers, MBChB, MRCGP, DRCOG – Director, U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance
Dr. Sarah Myhill, MBBS – Director, U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance
Adrienne Benjamin, MBA, BSc – Director, U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance
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That’s a tour de force of a letter!
Thanks for writing it
Read Viz for more laughs and better science. The BMJ (Bill and Melinda Journal) and The Lancet jumped the shark some time ago.
What a risible position to find themselves in and what more vivid example can there be of ‘painting themselves into a corner’.
What a suppurating stench emerges when the lies are stacked so high and so precariously.
The letter is fine although the restraint is unnecessary. Personally I would have ripped the article apart, bit by bit. Viciously.
At least the authors have shown their colours. No need to take any notice of their uneducated tripe again, they can be consigned to the dustbin.
Where is Peter Doshi?
He gave up, clearly. He understands that the jabs are not vaccines. Must be an awful position to be in.
Whoo, over the target.
I haven’t read the BMJ article, but from what I’ve seen of it here it demonstrates the level of ignorance and banal evil that our society is up against.
Yet it’s hardly surprising that these sort of people want to suppress criticism now – by all rights, and if and when the truth comes out, many of them will be looking at very long jail sentences.
I hope and pray that they pay for the crimes they’ve committed.
The BMJ is captured. Let them expose themselves, don’t interrupt them.
Their hubris, desperation and extremism will hopefully be their downfall
The BMJ know, seemingly quite well, which side their bread is buttered. Does anyone here know where the butter comes from?
Great name btw.
Can’t imagine…
Yep give ‘em enough rope….
But there never was a pandemic. Unless you count the one of government misinformation.
The problem with smear articles of this kind is that they’re luring the people thus attacked into defending themselves, often heatedly, against the contained allegiations, thus promulgating a kind of conversation of the author’s choosing[*] and – ideally – burying whatever the attacked the group was actually trying to communicate under a tsunami of irrelevant noise.
This is a standard disinformation tactic.
[*] eg, intentionally crude example, Is or isn’t UKFSMA a fascist organization?
I’m not entirely sure why the author is so shocked; the entire establishment in most rich world countries has been captured by these people.
At least, it’s a good, honest reaction.
There is relentless hubris eminating from the pro-jab, pro-lockdown side of the debate, that always attempts to silence dissenting opinion. This occurs whether the holder of the opinion is a professor of medicine, or a reporter.
I have never seen this push for censorship from our side, merely a desire for robust discussion.
But then again, history has never shown us tolerance by a ruling elite class for dissenting thought.
I have never seen this push for censorship from our side, merely a desire for robust discussion.
That’s why I think we’re going to win (if ‘win’ is the right word, after all that as happened).
I suspect that’s correct, though as you say, “win” may not be the most apt term! In small ways the truth is becoming more evident to an ever- increasing number of people.
It is very worrying that so many journals and institutes consider it is acceptable for them to aid the suppression of freedom which the political class gives wvery sign of leading. The silence of MPs and Peers is shocking.
The article wasn’t peer reviewed, was it?! Not very well written, either. Referring to the shadowy & extreme-left leaning CCDH simply as an innocuous ‘non-profit’ is its own disinformation; to compare questioning of a clearly biassed and manipulated narrative to the machinations of the tobacco industry is outright malevolence. But of even more concern is the apparent intent to sway the process and outcome of the Covid-19 public enquiry, using all the nudge and psyops methods it mentions in its playbook. The only upside is that by doing so it has, to a certain extent at least, shown its own hand and what we’re up against next time. Forewarned is forearmed and all that.
‘BMJ’ and the phrase ‘respected journal’ should no longer appear in the same sentence – it went over to the dark side a long time ago.
The. BMJ article appears to have been written by people with no clinical background, bar one (Martin McKee, whose opinion I have disagreed with before). I am firmly of the view that measured responses are more effective than rant and applaud UKMFA for its restraint.
They ask “The public inquiry should do three things. Firstly, it should examine the extent to which groups promoting contrarian messages were able to influence policy. We think it unlikely that they were able to do so directly but, given their links to the media and influential politicians, they should be investigated. (emphasis added)”.
The answer is that they were not able to do so directly, as I myself discovered early on. All my attempts to engage failed. This is a major plank of my personal submission to the Hallett Inquiry, which I sent this week, suggesting that ignoring my professional clinical advice led to the unnecessary deaths of possibly 25000 people in the UK.
The BMJ has been running a series of articles on what the COVID inquiry should be looking at. I have responded to a couple but this one I missed. I think UKFMA should send their letter through the journal’s Rapid Response channel ans see what happens.
Have just realised why I missed it – it’s in this weeks issue, which hasn’t yet dropped through my door. There are some wider points to be made so I will be following my own advice and penning a Rapid Response!
…yes, one of the ‘authors’ ….Karam Bales, is an ‘executive member of the National Education Union’…”Together we’ll shape the future of education”.
Personally I wouldn’t want him ‘shaping’ (or as we call it in the real world..propagandising..) anything for my children….but feel free to look him up……he has a Twitter page where he and Deepti Gurdasani (another ‘author!) decry anyone who doesn’t agree with mask wearing…..!!
Look on the bright side. We currently have the most inept governance and a police force akin to the Keystone Cops. They haven’t a snowball in hells chance of muzzling us.
Does the BMJ receive any funding from TBMGF per chance? Just asking.
While I agree with the article, and I hope a retraction is forthcoming…we have obviously passed the point of no return where independence, honesty and integrity is concerned. The BMJ, sadly, is no more trustworthy or worth reading than any of the MSM…ALL the opinions are bought and paid for….
This is pretty obvious to millions of us, which is why they desperately need to close down any dissent…
The London school for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has been a cheerleader and promoter of the ‘vaccines’ from the beginning…..and suffice to say a little bit of investigation shows that one of the lead authors, and the chair of the ‘advisory group’ on the paper are from the said London school of hygiene and tropical medicine…(LSHTM)…(Martin McKee/Kara Hanson)
Outside of the USA, Oxford University and the LSHTM are the two biggest recipients of funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation…and between 2014-2018 the LSHTM received $344 million…..
Once I started going down the ‘funding’ rabbit hole I also found this….from 2021..
https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2021/vaccine-confidence-projecttm-awarded-macarthur-funds-supporting-equitable
The Vaccine Confidence Project™ awarded MacArthur funds supporting an equitable recovery from the pandemic..The VCP has spent the last ten years listening to understand the drivers of vaccine confidence. Through the Vaccine Confidence Index™, a tool for mapping confidence, the VCP has helped to inform the strategies and designs for immunization programs so human and financial resources can be designed for and with the communities they serve. A significant grant has been awarded to the LSHTM….
The MacArthur Foundation is funded by private donation..Microsoft being just one…(shock horror)!,”……..and round and round they go…….
Methinks the Gates-funded Propagandists in the Global Health Bureaucracies are rattled by their failure to shut down dissent and are very well aware of the large and growing evidence that their methods have made a bad situation far, far worse.
Well done to the authors of this letter for magnificently calling the BMJ out.
“Throughout the pandemic, some people have opposed almost all measures introduced by Governments at Westminster and in the devolved administrations, from the initial lockdown to mask mandates and vaccination certificates”
Er yes mainly because they were all totally stupid, ineffective and in most cases life threatening and dangerous.
You have to realize that – when The Good People[tm] govern – opposition becomes a crime perpetrated by The Bad People[tm]. This is also again centrally controlled wording. I’ve read the same in German as justification why a singer of German ditties most popular in the early 1980s (Nena) shouldn’t be allowed to appear on shows of the German public broadcasters anymore — during the pandemic, she opposed government decisions, especially about mandatory social distancing at her concerts. This cannot be tolerated by The Spanish Inquisition[tm].