There follows an open letter from Dr. Christian Buckland, Chairman of the Board of the U.K. Council for Psychotherapy, to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemning the “use of unethical psychological techniques and behavioural science on the unknowing and non-consenting U.K. public”. Among numerous harms are that the use of techniques to increase fear, shame and guilt “materially undermined, if not removed, the U.K. population’s ability to give valid informed consent to taking a COVID-19 vaccine”.
April 28th 2023
Dear Prime Minister,
I am the Chairman of the Board of the U.K. Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), one of the UK’s foremost psychological governing bodies. However, I write this open letter in my own capacity. I believe I have a professional obligation to write to you in an attempt to protect the public from any further harm caused by the unethical application of psychological research and practice.
I unreservedly condemn the U.K. Government’s use of unethical psychological techniques intended to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt, under the guise of behavioural science and insights which were designed to change the public’s behaviour without their knowledge and conscious participation. It is now clear that in 2020 the U.K. Government deliberately chose to artificially inflate the level of fear within the U.K. population by exaggerating the risk factors of COVID-19, and concomitantly downplaying the protective factors. We also witnessed the Government’s promotion of social disapproval and guilt messaging. These techniques were embedded into a multi-channel, co-ordinated public health campaign designed to change the public’s behaviour without their knowledge. Moreover, in tandem with the mainstream media, the Government also proactively suppressed, censored and ostracised any healthcare professional or scientist who suggested alternative responses to COIVD-19, or who simply questioned the messaging and measures being implemented by the Government.
Evidence of the recommendation of using unethical psychological techniques to gain behavioural change
The Government document titled ‘Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures’ was written for the Government by the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) which is a subgroup of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).
The premise of the document was to provide options for changing the behaviour of the U.K. public without their knowledge. A passage within this document states: “A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”. It makes certain recommendations including:
- “The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard hitting emotional messaging”
- “Coercion”
- “Social disapproval”
The recommendations made by SPI-B included ones intended to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt. Psychological practitioners know that deliberately trying to frighten someone into change with erroneous or exaggerated information can easily cause long-term psychological damage. We also know that using social disapproval can create splits and divisions within society, and that inducing feelings of guilt can elevate the risk of suicide.
SPI-B also included a simple risk assessment matrix which acknowledges that the “spill over effects” of using media to increase the sense of personal threat and of using social disapproval “could be negative”. There is also a statement demonstrating there was a conversation regarding the spill over effects, although this does not appear to be fully documented. The risk factors and ethics of using fear, shame, guilt and coercion would almost certainly have been known to the members of SPI-B because several members were British Psychological Society (BPS) registered chartered psychologists. In an interview with one of the members of SPI-B, BPS registered educational psychologist Dr. Gavin Morgan, he refers to the use of fear by his SPI-B colleagues and says (as relayed by Laura Dodsworth, in A State of Fear pp. 262,263):
“Clearly using fear as a means of control is not ethical. What you do as a psychologist is co-construction. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government.” … Was it unethical to use fear, I asked? “Well I didn’t suggest we use fear.” But your colleagues did. What do you think of that? He paused. “Oh God.” Another reluctant pause. “It’s not ethical,” he said.
Like Dr. Morgan, any BPS registered psychologists within SPI-B would or should have recognised that recommending the Government uses fear as a means of controlling the public breached their professional code of ethics and conduct. An urgent investigation is required both by the U.K. Government and the BPS. Two specific points of the British Psychological Society Code of Ethics and Conduct (2021) that may have been broken are (with my emphasis):
3.3 Responsibility. Because of their acknowledged expertise, members of the Society often enjoy professional autonomy; responsibility is an essential element of autonomy. Members must accept appropriate responsibility for what is within their power, control or management. Awareness of responsibility ensures that the trust of others is not abused, the power of influence is properly managed and that duty towards others is always paramount. Statement of values: Members value their responsibilities to persons and peoples, to the general public, and to the profession and science of psychology, including the avoidance of harm and the prevention of misuse or abuse of their contribution to society. In applying these values, psychologists should consider:
- Professional accountability;
- Responsible use of their knowledge and skills;
- Respect for the welfare of humans, non-humans and the living world;
- Potentially competing duties.
3.4 Integrity. Acting with integrity includes being honest, truthful, accurate and consistent in one’s actions, words, decisions, methods and outcomes. It requires setting self-interest to one side and being objective and open to challenge in one’s behaviour in a professional context. Statement of values: Members value honesty, probity, accuracy, clarity and fairness in their interactions with all persons and peoples, and seek to promote integrity in all facets of their scientific and professional endeavours”.
Evidence that psychological techniques to induce fear, shame, guilt and coercion were used on the U.K. public
The SPI-B document in question demonstrates that the options of eliciting feelings of fear, shame, guilt and the use of coercion was recommended to the U.K. Government. There is evidence that those options were indeed subsequently deployed on the U.K. population.
In August 2022, you stated:
In every brief, we tried to say: let’s stop the ‘fear narrative’. It was always wrong from the beginning. I constantly said it was wrong… It was wrong to scare people like that.
Additionally, leaked WhatsApp messages from the former Health Minister at the time, Matt Hancock, published in the Daily Telegraph in March 2023, confirm that fear and guilt were used:
Hancock: We frighten the pants of everyone with the new strain. But the complications with that Brexit is taking the top line
Poole: Yep that’s what will get proper bahviour (sic) change
Hancock: When do we deploy the new variant …
Case: Ramping up messaging – the fear/guilt factor vital
The above are just two examples where senior Government Ministers recognised that fear and guilt was used as drivers for behavioural change of the UK population without their knowledge.
The existing literature
It is important to acknowledge that the above-mentioned psychological techniques were used on the U.K. population without their knowledge or consent, and that this in direct contradiction of long-established and carefully considered behavioural science advice which made clear that, in theory and practice, the consent of the public is paramount. According to a 2010 Institute for Government report:
The use of MINDSPACE (or other ‘nudge’ type policy tools) may require careful handling – in essence, the public need to give permission and help shape how such tools are used. (p10)
Continuing, the report states:
Policy-makers wishing to use these tools summarised in MINDSPACE need the approval of the public to do so. (p74)
Further literature supports that permission from the public is essential. David Halpern wrote in 2015:
If there is one great risk to the application of behavioural insights in policy, it is that the thread of public permission wears too thin. If governments, or indeed communities or companies, wish to use behavioural insights, they must seek and maintain the permission of the public to do so. (p365)
As there was no approval obtained, the options recommended and deployed were not in alignment with the principles of behavioural science.
It is important to highlight that the same kinds of techniques were used on children in relation to mask wearing, social distancing and vaccine uptake, with many techniques continuing into 2022. These techniques violated UNICEF’s recommendations from its ethical toolkit for behavioural science projects directed at children. The tool-kit states:
A core idea underlying the applied behavioural science approach is that interventions should not restrict choice and should transparently communicate project goals. When designing an intervention, practitioners should determine how transparent it will be to those affected by it. They should ensure that children and parents can easily opt out, and should design feedback mechanisms so that children and their parents can voice concerns, see the outcomes of their objections, and hold decision-makers to account.
The behavioural science literature also indicates a potential link between the misuse of behavioural psychology and an increased risk of suicide, stemming from an All Party Parliamentary Group Report on the Morse Review into the Loan Charge in 2020. One of the recommendations within the report demands:
An independent assessment and a suspension of HMRC’s use of behavioural psychology / behavioural insights, in light of the ongoing suicide risk to those impacted by the Loan Charge.
The literature highlights that approval from the public must be sought and maintained. Additionally, all behavioural science projects directed at children must have effective feedback mechanisms and methods of opting out, with decision makers able to be held accountable. There are also existing potential concerns that behavioural science may increase suicide levels. These important ethical aspects and safety signals appear to have been ignored. The lessons of history warn us that in times of existential crisis, whether real or only perceived, our ethics are at risk of being abandoned, and psychological knowledge can become misused by governments:
Under some historical conditions or circumstances and contexts, psychologists and psychological knowledge were in danger of being abused by political powers, largely for clandestine purposes, such as conducting torture or the persecution of political opponents. (Maercker A, Guski-Leinwand S, 2018)
It is of grave concern that the actions of the U.K. Government during the Covid era potentially fit into the category of abusing psychological knowledge and being absent of ethics, thus require serious investigation.
The impact of psychological pressure on informed consent
For the sake of brevity, I will not reiterate the multiple concerns already documented by others surrounding the consequences of the Government’s actions around lockdown, hospital discharges, school closures and mask mandates. I do, however, wish to highlight one extremely serious consequence that I believe has occurred as a direct result of the use of unethical psychological techniques and behavioural insights on the unknowing public: by adopting the techniques used, the Government significantly and materially undermined, if not removed, the U.K. population’s ability to give valid informed consent to taking a COVID-19 vaccine.
According to Public Health England:
Consent must be obtained before starting any treatment or physical investigation or before providing personal care for a patient. This includes the administration of all vaccines.
Also,
It is a legal and ethical principle that valid consent must be obtained before starting personal care, treatment or investigations.
Also,
For consent to immunisation to the (sic) valid, it must be given freely, voluntarily and without coercion by an appropriately informed person who has the mental capacity to consent to the administration of the vaccines in question.
From the above, it is clear that for medical consent to be valid it must be given without coercion. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines coercion as:
The threat or use of punitive measures against states, groups or individuals in order for them to undertake or desist from specified actions. In addition to the threat of or limited use of force (or both), coercion may entail economic sanctions, psychological pressures, and social ostracism.
The psychological techniques used by the U.K. Government fall under that definition of coercion. If follows that according to Public Health England’s statements and for the general public at least, consent to immunisation was invalidated by the behaviour of the U.K. Government. It is also important to highlight that there have been serious injuries and death directly linked to the COVID-19 vaccine. Many of those injured or who have died would not have taken a vaccine if they had not been psychologically pressured, feared being ostracised socially and were given accurate information.
The removal of the general population’s ability to give informed medical consent is of the gravest concern, and a severe and dangerous consequence of using behavioural insights and psychological techniques on an unknowing public.
Conclusion
The need to hold tightly to professional ethics, in particular to the ethical principle of informed consent, is not just an ‘academic’ issue. It is a matter of practical and fundamental importance to responsible government.
According to David Halpern, “Behavioural insights, like any other form of knowledge, can be used for good or bad” (p348). It is my opinion that the use of behavioural insights and psychological techniques designed to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt utilised by the U.K. Government since March 2020 has been unethical. The consequences are still unravelling but they appear to include serious damage to trust in government and its agencies, the NHS and the medical and scientific professions.
I propose that there be an immediate cessation of the use of all behavioural science techniques designed to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt used by the Government pending an urgent, open and independent inquiry. This inquiry should also have as an objective the re-establishment of ethical frameworks necessary to protect the public and to provide accountability. I would welcome a discussion on this most important of matters.
Most respectfully
Dr. Christian Buckland
Doctor of Psychology in Psychotherapy and Counselling
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Although this is excellent and the author should ( in a normal world ) have a great deal of clout, shall we bet money on this letter going absolutely nowhere and having literally zero impact? Just like all the other countless studies and pieces of evidence that demonstrate the public were well and truly shafted and damaged beyond repair due to the restrictions and death jabs. The culprits are all seemingly untouchable. It will go on the pile marked ”ignore and move on”. Nobody will be held to account and no heads will roll. I mean, Bridgen has been booted out for raising valid concerns and quoting government data and the filthy Hancockroach is still inhabiting Parliament. Enough said.
Very, very sadly I have to agree with you Mogs.
On the plus side this is another card marked against the government and there is no way Fishy can plead ignorance. Furthermore, the whole head space industry has now been placed on notice so further anti human antics can quite rightly just be called out.
There are also plenty in the trick cycle conglomerates who must now realise that their unethical manoeuvres have been recognised and outed and the relevant authorities are wise to them.
It would be nice to believe that defenestrations of those most guilty of mind thuggery antics would now follow but I suppose that is a forlorn expectation. Perhaps though some of the BPS foot soldiers might grow a pair on the back of this letter.
A welcome development if somewhat belated.
NB. Dr Gary Sidley (? apologies if I have got the name wrong) deserves praise here because he has fought a lone battle on this front since the war began.
Worse still, if all these people had raised their voices at the beginning, when the narrative was still being constructed, then maybe just maybe things might have been different.
But they all come out now when it’s safe. Not when it’s all over and little can be done any more.
One can only hope that next time – because I think we all know it’s coming – they’ll have the guts to push back at the outset when it’s most needed, but I’m not holding my breath.
It’s all going to be filed under [The] appalling subculture of those who live by conspiracy theories. The anti-vaccine campaign is one of those. After all, you cannot be more antivaxx than dying of an injection just because you wrongheadedly don’t believe it’s going to save you.
Dear Reverend Jim Jones
I do not understand why the People’s Temple has failed to announce that its Kool Aid is killing people. I was first to notice people keeling over shortly after their first drink this morning.
I have shared my evidence with the Kool Aid mixer, the nice lady serving it to your congregation, and the people forcing the congregation to drink it. None of them will answer any questions. They don’t even want to see the evidence! This is highly unprofessional.
If you do not reply to this email I will be forced to call for an independent enquiry.
Sincerely
Miss Dolly
A really nice little piece of satire.
OTOH, this edifice will only crumble if its wall are withered away sandcorn by sandcorn and I think the attitude you’re mocking is a necessary part of that as it makes the demonstrative anti-antivaxxers look ever more deranged and hysterical.
Good to hear more and more people coming out with this now. Although many people on our side believe that such statements will never come to anything, I’m more hopeful. The cumulative effect of the increasing number of such utterances will I think tell decisively in the end. That’s not to say though that there isn’t a long and painful road to travel down yet.
But facts are stubborn things, and the covid lies are disappearing down the drain fast – leaving the perpetrators increasingly exposed.
And yet … it was all obvious three years ago to anyone with more than about six independently operating brain cells.
And now it’s too late. The damage is done. The vaccine poison is in the bodies of the vast majority of people in this country, and indeed the Western World. Coercion aside, the zombies weren’t even told the stabs were still in the experimental phase – on this point alone they were robbed of informed consent. And the children who were stabbed to ‘protect granny’ were outright lied to.
A Crime Against Humanity. I can’t think of any other way of putting it. Then again, stupidity always did, and always, will come at a price.
And yet … it was all obvious three years ago to anyone with more than about six independently operating brain cells.
Totally agree. One benefit of the Rona fascism is that there is now a large and hard core part of the pop who is unplugged from the matrix and they won’t go back into their pods.
It is obvious that the entire quacksine industry needs to go and most of the drugs that people ingest which feed more diseases which are ‘treated’ by more drugs….
IMO the bastards showed their hands during Rona. Their NWO will be much much harder to realise now. Having said that I still believe 50%-60% of the pop are very stupid.
Brezinski’s 1970s book Technetronics ie Scientism and the NWO is a prescient work which lays out their plans quite clearly. Many of the objectives are being realised.
One benefit of the Rona fascism is that there is now a large and hard core part of the pop who is unplugged from the matrix and they won’t go back into their pods. … IMO the bastards showed their hands during Rona. Their NWO will be much much harder to realise now.
Indeed, while say 50-60% of the population haven’t seen through the scams yet, I do believe that sufficient number have to ensure that any attempt at a Corona II will prove very difficult. I always said that if just 20% of people had refused to wear masks the whole rona scam would have fallen apart. I think we have the 20% now. But that doesn’t mean to say here aren’t some painful and ugly battles ahead though.
The biggest crime against humanity since….
OMG you’re an anti….
In simple terms: they know what they were doing, and are keeping quiet about it. The longer term risk may be that public loss of reputation leads to a broad spread of health problems, if people are less confident about using the medical trade early enough.
Don’t forget that Covid-19 broke the laws of Mathematics in ignorance of the prior art (dating back to 1927 at least) when it grew exponentially.
Dr Buckland,
The “vaccines” are not vaccines.
Kind regards,
MAk
At least he didn’t use the “P” word
Where was he 3 years ago.
Apologies if he was on our side then, but I’ve never heard of him until now.
Also, he’d be better if he’d known even a scintilla about the dangers of mRNA jabs.
I was thinking the exact same thing. Please explain what the point of this is now that the horse bolted from the stable what seems like eons ago? I know I sound unkind but it’s about as timely as somebody installing a burglar alarm *after* their house has been pillaged. Laura Dodsworth wrote her famous book on the subject ages ago, and she’s not even an expert in the field of psychology, but this chap couldn’t even write a letter?! Is this yet another example of ”experts” being too cowardly to speak up at the time but now that the storm has blown over they finally rediscover their backbone ( and code of ethics ) and tentatively raise their heads above the parapet, confident that they’re no longer in the firing line? To my mind this is way too little far too late.
He’s been around. Just because you’ve never heard for him it doesn’t mean he hasn’t been active the past 3 years. There are many active people who we’ll never hear about.
Three years ago there were only a few hundred who publicly protested in London that this was pure psy-ops to scare the population, although doubtless many more sceptics nevertheless stayed at home. The numbers grew to tens of thousands by 2021. The media, as briefed in advance, reported it as “conspiracy theorists”, though the atmosphere was more like a day out in the park.
I went once and wish I could have gone more often. Unfortunately, since my income had been severely impacted, I simply couldn’t afford the £70 rail fare.
Christian is a colleague of mine and I know for a fact that he has worked pretty tirelessly since 2020 campaigning on these issues. He’s not been chairman of the UKCP for long, hence why you might not have heard of his work before now.
He’s published book reviews in journals around psychological manipulation during the early lockdowns, spoken at national conferences (e.g. the Better Way conference in Bath), had articles on vaccine injury published in the mainstream press, and has done significant work around treatment for vaccine injured patients through contributing to the amazing work of UKCV family. The idea of him not knowing a ‘scintilla’ about the dangers of the jabs is hilarious. He has actually been featured in the documentary Safe and Effective: A Second Opinion (Video 2022) and has done more than most in raising awareness around the safety profile of the covid vaccines.
It would be really great if rather than jumping cynically all over people who are trying to good work and risking their careers to stop these things happening again, people who write here did their research first. Rather than attack people on your own side by writing knee-jerk things in haste and ignorance, wouldn’t it be better to offer them your support?
Just a thought…
Sounds like a fair comment – and thus hats off to Dr Buckland. I hope he continues to push hard now. It really is an excellent letter, and reading between the lines it’s impossible to think he hasn’t had these views for a very long time – clearly this isn’t a position he’s come to only recently.
The psychology of three years ago for us sceptics was tricky: we had our own beliefs, what was plainly starring us in the face, but it was a very lonely place to be (e.g. this site didn’t turn up until about May 2020). And we we getting hammered for it – likewise masks when they came in, and the stabs. Unsurprisingly there’s a little residual bitterness. I’ll stick out my neck and say anyone on here who was a sceptic back in March/April 2020 will know what I am talking about.
What was incredibly frustrating was that apparently no one – no one – in positions of expertise or responsibility was speaking out, and didn’t start to do so for a very long time, by when it was becoming comparatively ‘safe’ to do so. Hence I think some of the frustration now from the early sceptics.
I guess Bob Moran is a good example, laying into anyone whom he sees as joining the sceptic bandwagon late. Now I’m a great BM fan and believe he’s shown immense courage in fighting the corona fascism. But even if formerly compliant ‘experts’ are joining late then to my cynical/pragmatic mind they should be brought into the fold. As I posted earlier, I believe there are far bigger battles. ahead if our society is going to beat the corona-type-fascism, and our side is going to need all the firepower it can muster.
Yes, I can understand the frustration of sceptics who suffered so much in those early days, and their cynicism that comes with seeing new professionals starting to speak out and get kudos for their views – I can well understand the sentiments of ‘where were you when we needed you the most?’
However, as you say, I believe it would be wise for us to think in more pragmatic and less purist terms about this process of our views gaining momentum in the MSM.
I can’t think of a single instance of radical social change which hasn’t been started by a few lone voices in the wilderness (of which I would argue Dr Buckland has been one, on the issue of covid) who are massively slandered and persecuted at the time they first speak out.
These lone voices are then joined by more and more people over time – and as the movement grows, it of course becomes safer for others to speak. I think that’s where we’re now at around this issue. Of course it’s easier now. It’s why the people who speak out initially are often remembered for their heroism, and rightly so.
But actual change will only happen when we get enough people speaking out. It really is a numbers game at this stage. It’s been the way throughout history, why did we think this issue would be any different?
Think of all the instances of genuine social change, if early anti-slavery campaigners had just turned against those who started petitioning alongside them a few years in, how likely would it have been to succeed as a movement?
Let’s work with reality, people, and not be so puritanical and cynical, please!!
Thanks again and I hope you become a DS regular, your insights would be appreciated.
Yes, I agree.
Well even Piers Morgan is a vaccine sceptic of sorts now. So a little cynicism on the sceptic side is surely justified.
On a serious point though. As I say, the text of Dr Buckland’s letter gives the impression of a long gestation, and thus implies that the views therein are long established.
It was very easy for people like me to be ‘sceptic’ from Day 1, as I wasn’t threatened with any career price, just a few stupid words from people whom intellectually and even morally I believed had let themselves down, badly.
But say you were in a position of supposed influence like Dr Buckland? What was the best time to speak out? Was it right at the start? Or to do so then did it risk complete ostracism and thus your intervention having much less impact than at a more opportune time? In short, given the lack or receptive ears, wouldn’t the intervention have been largely wasted at the very start?
An analogy might be in occupied France (I know, I’m risking Godwin’s law now) – if you were opposed to the Nazis what should you have done? Start behind-the-scenes fighting straight away, and probably be rounded up and shot after a short time, having achieved effectively nothing? Or keep your head down and wait till the time when the enemy was becoming vulnerable and strike when real damage might be caused?
You write:
These lone voices are then joined by more and more people over time – and as the movement grows, it of course becomes safer for others to speak. I think that’s where we’re now at around this issue.
Yes, I agree. And I’m all for more and more people. speaking out and thus building the foundations by which the perpetrators of what has been a horrendous crime, the magnitude of which I think we’ve scarcely begin to grasp, can be held to account.
Thanks for putting the record straight and for commenting.
Point taken, and I do apologise but only to a degree.
When Clown World started about 3 years age the main voices of sanity were the likes of Mike Yeadon, Clare Craig, Ryan Cole, Knut Wittkowski, Pierre Corry, Peter McCullough, Carl Heneghan etc.
Dr Buckland I’d never heard of until today. But that may be my fault.
Maybe if he’d tried harder earlier more of a difference would have been made?
That said, all credit to him, we need all the help we can get without the risk of falling out ourselves
Hear, hear
Multi-millionaire communist Susan Michie should end her days in solitary confinement.
Triple-masked.
This is HUGE to come from the UKCP. I am genuinely shocked he has written this letter. Now we need BACP, NCS, BPS, HCPC, NMC and others to follow suit.
The regulatory bodies (although UKCP is voluntary membership) have mostly been largely complicit in the government propaganda. Susan Michie (BPS) was one of the worst abusers of her position, using fear and psychological manipulation to terrify people and traumatise them. She should be immediately disbarred.
It’s massive!
I would encourage anyone reading this who is a psychologist, therapist or counsellor (or just a concerned member of the public) to write directly to their professional body, asking them to support Dr Buckland’s call for a full Inquiry and to finally begin engaging with the ethical issues surrounding the misuse of psychological techniques by government agencies.
Many of us spoke out about this at the time and had our complaints buried by the different professional bodies who responded with radio silence and a complete refusal to engage with the issue despite our repeated complaints.
The tide is turning, and this letter is a positive sign that dialogue around these issues is more and more possible. It’s important for all of us to now re-engage with the governing bodies and get our professional voices heard.
But will his letter be published across the whole MSM?
Excellent.
Why hasn’t your association expelled those that are members?
Fear is the key to dictatorship
************************************
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
He took his time, didn’t he?
Stable doors and horses come to mind
Great letter.
If I remember correctly each MP was provided with a copy of the book ‘State of fear’ by Laura Dodsworth, when this was first published.
This letter serves as a reminder!
Dear Dr Buckland
Thank you for your letter. These issues will be considered during the Covid Pandemic Public Inquiry, which will report in about 10 years’ time when the guilty parties are long gone.
Now piss off.
Yours sincerely
Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister.
More than likely.
Maybe this has already been mentioned here, but of course the obvious parallel here is in the current spreading of fear, especially among children, by the media and politicians relating to the “horrors” of climate change. I’d be interested to hear Dr Buckland’s take on this.
Bravo!
immensely important. Thank you Dr Buckland, you are an honourable man.
The government’s owning of SPI-B advice did more than destroy the public’s ability to consent to vaccines. It showed that the authorities, including the learned professions, could not be trusted. Since the behavioural scientists were cock-a-hoop at the ease with which they could manipulate the people where does that leave democracy? The sign in a Manchester shop remains valid: “In God we trust. Everyone else pays cash”. And only God can provide what Dr Buckland is asking for. The government doesn’t do ethical frameworks AFAIK.