147095
The Weekly Sceptic Live The Weekly Sceptic Live The Weekly Sceptic Live
  • Log in
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Newsletter
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

The Shameful Crushing of Dissenters

by Dr Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson
12 December 2022 4:10 PM

You may have questioned the veracity of government pandemic interventions: it might have been masks, the rule of six or the 10 o’clock curfew; it may have been the modelling that finally tipped you over the edge. But without dissenters to the Government’s pandemic policies, it would have taken much longer to exit lockdowns, and if China is anything to go by, we might not yet have re-emerged. 

With the publication of Matt Hancock’s diaries, we’re discovering the true extent of the Government’s suppression strategies and those behind them.

In July 2020, we wrote in the Spectator about whether face masks help. The article was motivated by the rollout of mask mandates at the end of the month. We expressed the uncertainty in the evidence-base and the setting of policy based on “opinions, radical views and political influence”.

This article went largely unchallenged. However, this all changed in November 2020, when we further published on the only European community trial of masks and the update of our Cochrane Review that found no significant effect for facemask wearers.

The Danish trial done during the pandemic joined 16 other trials carried out over the years at times of variable respiratory agents’ circulation in showing no significant effect, either if compared to not wearing masks at all or wearing other types of face coverings, irrespective of setting.

Despite hundreds of positive comments, the article got censored by Facebook. It led to a vitriolic campaign of denigration with sundry personal attacks, personal losses of posts, complaint procedures to our institutions, smear campaigns and the setting up of websites backed by ministers to attack dissenting academics and journalists.

But we now learn from Isabel Oakeshott’s piece that the attacks were partly orchestrated by Hancock, who harnessed the full power of the state to silence ‘dissenters’. 

As far as Hancock was concerned, anyone who fundamentally disagreed with his approach was mad and dangerous and needed to be shut down.

These were the actions of the Right Honourable Minister, the Health Secretary. Make of that what you will, but actions considered acceptable in a communist state were now mainstream and, as it seems, acceptable at the heart of Government.   

According to Oakeshott’s piece, the origins of mask mandates in the community were Dominic Cummings’s obsession with masks and a desire to please Ms. Sturgeon. However, the most important figures “Hancock, Whitty and Johnson knew full well that non-medical masks do very little to prevent transmission of the virus”. You could readily translate this to the fact that there was no high quality evidence to support mandates, as we pointed out in July 2020.

The taking down of the Spectator article by Facebook was just the start of the campaign. You could say we were naïve, but we didn’t realise we were enemy number one, along with some of our academic and journalist colleagues within a democratic state that used all its powers to silence those seen to peddle ‘radioactive’ views when in fact, all we were doing was looking at the available evidence – something we have done for decades across a range of healthcare interventions.

Fact-checking sites published critiques of our Spectator article. What they didn’t tell you is Facebook now funded them. Also, the Government didn’t tell you they were cosying up to social media sites to harness their influence. Oakeshott again:

Hancock reveals that his special adviser was speaking to Twitter about ‘tweaking their algorithms’. Later he personally texted his old coalition colleague Nick Clegg, now a big cheese at Facebook, to enlist his help.

In the U.S., Anthony Fauci is being deposed (required to give evidence) for his part in attacking scientists. A U.S. District Judge granted the request to depose Fauci, amongst others, because the Biden administration actively worked with social media companies to censor ‘disfavored’ viewpoints, likely in violation of First Amendment rights.

Yet in the U.K., the former minister gets to be a celebrity. Attempts to uncover the truth through Freedom of Information requests for meetings between Hancock and Clegg go unanswered. Backbench MPs should be outraged; instead, there is silence – those at the heart of the decision-making have moved on to better things.  

An anonymous BBC journalist stated to an All-Party Parliamentary Group of MPs and Peers how bad the situation was:

I am having to give this evidence anonymously because of the climate of fear within the newsroom of ‘going against the narrative’. When the daily death toll was read out – something we had never done for any other disease – my worry about the impact of the fearmongering on our audience increased. I raised my concerns with senior colleagues and the reply came back that suggested anyone who thinks differently from the editorial agenda is a ‘dissenter’ and lacks credibility regardless of their peer-reviewed and accredited experience, qualifications and education.

Alas, this is not all. According to the UKHSA, the official scientific rationale for mask mandates in the community is based on a review last updated in the summer of 2021 of 28 studies, two of which are trials and the rest studies of abysmal quality. The review, identified through a Parliamentary Question, is in two parts: the main body and supplementary tables reporting the data. The problem is that the review is full of errors: the two parts do not match and appear to have been written separately and not even proofread.

The events are now clear. Policies affecting millions were decided on whims, independent scientists were persecuted, and grossly substandard work was cooked up to justify an evidence-free policy if anyone bothered to look.

Yes, this is the U.K. In the absence of dissenters, only the people can ask questions and change the status quo. We pity and express solidarity with our colleagues who have lost their jobs, suffered threats and undergone the hairdryer treatment – however, we’d like them to keep going as they are doing. 

At the outset, we expressed the uncertainty in the evidence-base. Little has changed – the pandemic intervention policies were largely based on bad science, opinions and political views.

Dr. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack blog, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.

Tags: CensorshipCOVID-19LockdownMasksmatt hancockMisinformationTwitter

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

Elon Musk Invites Jay Bhattacharya to Twitter HQ to Discover Why ‘Twitter 1.0’ Cancelled Him Over Lockdown Dissent

Next Post

Global Poll Shock: Four in 10 People Believe Climate Change is Mainly Due to Natural Causes

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

30 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

 

DONATE

PODCAST

Nick Dixon and Toby Young Talk About the Attack on Kellie-Jay Keen by Trans Rights Activists, the BBC’s Perverse Insistence on Calling a Rapist “Her” and the Brutal Cancellation of Alfie Brown

by Will Jones
28 March 2023
0

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editors Picks

Britain’s Backlash Against LTNs: Fed-Up Residents Torch Road Blocks Hours After They Were Installed

28 March 2023
by Will Jones

In Defence of Andrew Bridgen’s Speech to Parliament on the Risks vs Benefits of Covid Vaccination

28 March 2023
by Norman Fenton, Clare Craig, Martin Neil, Jonathan Engler and Mr Law

The Great Food Reset Has Begun

28 March 2023
by Will Jones

News Round-Up

28 March 2023
by Will Jones

The Dumb Chain of Events that Brought Face Mask Tyranny to the West

28 March 2023
by Eugyppius

In Defence of Andrew Bridgen’s Speech to Parliament on the Risks vs Benefits of Covid Vaccination

30

The Dumb Chain of Events that Brought Face Mask Tyranny to the West

25

The Bad Science Behind Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ Anti-Car Crusade

26

News Round-Up

35

Britain’s Backlash Against LTNs: Fed-Up Residents Torch Road Blocks Hours After They Were Installed

15

In Defence of Andrew Bridgen’s Speech to Parliament on the Risks vs Benefits of Covid Vaccination

28 March 2023
by Norman Fenton, Clare Craig, Martin Neil, Jonathan Engler and Mr Law

The Dumb Chain of Events that Brought Face Mask Tyranny to the West

28 March 2023
by Eugyppius

The Bad Science Behind Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ Anti-Car Crusade

28 March 2023
by Ben Pile

Mainstream Media’s New Obsession: Labelling Criticism of 15-Minute Cities ‘Conspiracy Theories’

27 March 2023
by Rebekah Barnett

Almost Everything Is “Institutionally Racist”

27 March 2023
by Noah Carl

POSTS BY DATE

December 2022
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Nov   Jan »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Please note: To be able to comment on our articles you'll need to be a registered donor

Already have an account?
Please click here to login Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment