More details have emerged on the measures of Karl Lauterbach’s Health Ministry to conceal internal details of the pandemic response from the German public.
To recap: On September 1st, the second session of the Brandenburg Corona Committee compelled former RKI (public health institute) Chief Lothar Wieler to testify on Covid measures and the vaccines, as part of a broader inquiry into the response by the state parliament of Brandenburg. Only in Brandenburg did the AfD have enough votes to call such an investigative body into existence; establishment parties blocked similar efforts in all other German states. Wieler and a fellow apparatchik from the Paul Ehrlich Institute (medicines regulator) ended up arguing that they have yet to evaluate the vast majority of adverse event reports, because there are too many of them.
The story of Wieler’s testimony included bizarre details about the prior restrictions the Health Ministry had placed on what he could talk about, and the extraordinary lengths they went to enforce them:
Lothar Wieler was accompanied by an employee of the Federal Ministry of Health, a certain Heiko Rottmann-Großner. … He testified that his task was to ensure that Wieler was complying with his leave to testify. As a civil servant, Wieler requires authorisation to provide information on matters that are subject to official secrecy. The authorisation regulates in detail the topics on which a witness in the civil service may not provide information.
According to media reports, Wieler’s authorisation was multiple pages long… [Rottmann-Großner] repeatedly gave hand signals to Wieler during the questioning, and occasionally he also passed notes to him. Committee members complained of this practice, and ultimately compelled [Rottmann-Großner] to sit two chairs further away from Wieler.
The Health Ministry refuses to elaborate on what Wieler’s authorisation contained, but yesterday Nordkurier published additional details, and they are… very intriguing:
Lars Hünich (AfD) is a member of the Committee and was able to see [Wieler’s] testimonial authorisation. He told this newspaper: “It contained very strict conditions and a whole series of restrictions for Mr. Wieler. For example, he was forbidden to bring files with him. In addition, according to the document, he was only allowed to speak on matters that had to do with Brandenburg and fell within the investigative competence of the Brandenburg state parliament. The words “state investigative competence” were underlined and bolded.” (emphasis added, and below)
So far, these seem to be little more than blanket efforts to limit the utility of Wieler’s testimony. But then it gets stranger:
According to Hünich, another section of the authorisation dealt with the possible “violation of constitutional rights”. Hünich: “Here the word constitutional rights was bolded and underlined. As far as I can remember, it was about the constitutional rights of third parties that could possibly be harmed in the context of the hearing, regarding matters that exceeded the investigative committee’s mandate.
I submit that this is very, very odd. But the strangest bit is at the end:
Another point concerned information and remarks that were classified as secret. Hünich: “The word ‘secret’ was bolded and underlined.” Specifically, it was about information and facts that were classified as secret by the federal Government, among other things, “for the protection of the Federal Republic and to avert damage to the security of Germany or its international relations with foreign states”. These matters were to be discussed “only in non-public session under conditions of secrecy”. If an exchange on this should be “impossible under conditions of secrecy, he would not allowed to comment”, Hünich continues.
Moreover, if there were any doubts about the admissibility of statements according to the described restrictions, they were “not to be made”. Hünich: “He was further told that he would have to telephone the Ministry of Health about these matters, or perhaps contact the Federal Government to clarify them.”
I want to let this stand mostly without commentary, but I will add one point. In the meagre Covidian revelations we have so far seen in the Federal Republic, I can think of one other instance in which information was withheld to spare German relations with a foreign state. This was in the email releases surrounding the genesis of the so-called ‘panic paper’ in March 2020, which established the practical and theoretical groundwork for German lockdowns. In the documents, repeated mentions of “China” (and probably also “Wuhan”) were consistently blacked out, with the justification that this was necessary “to avert negative consequences for international relations”.
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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].