Being sceptical is one thing. Being just plain wrong is another. And in the broad spectrum of Covid scepticism, Dr. Sam Bailey takes the extreme biscuit both for believing and promoting the most abject misinformation regarding viruses. In a nutshell, she does not believe they exist. I am aware of others in the same camp and, slightly along the spectrum there are those who, while they may believe in viruses, do not believe in the existence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Of course, there have long been those like discredited Peter Duesberg who have, for example, claimed that HIV does not cause AIDS. I would like to hear Duesberg or Sam Bailey explain how haemophiliacs contracted AIDS from blood infusions. Somehow, I think they’ll have a stock response to that one.
They are all, demonstrably, wrong but stubbornly adhere to their views. I must make it clear that, while I think they are wrong and that their views are potentially damaging, they have every right to express those views. But I do wish that there was a forum for proper debate on these issues. The mainstream scientific community tends to hold people like virus deniers (and ‘anti-vaxxers’) in contempt and not worthy of debate. The mainstream media will not allow them airtime. This is wrong, especially in the age of COVID-19 as, while I am a fully signed up lockdown sceptic, these people are spreading erroneous views by other routes and are simply not being challenged.
However, I sense a similar attitude amongst the virus deniers who tend to promote their views on increasingly bizarre websites and within such a deafening echo chamber that they are completely unable to hear, yet alone contemplate, alternative views. They certainly don’t listen. If I am allowed to make the obvious case for the existence of viruses, by tackling some of the excesses of the virus deniers I hope that someone from their camp may be willing and permitted to provide a counterattack.
I must put my own lockdown and, indeed, Covid scepticism on the line here. I have been opposed to lockdown from the outset and, preceded only by Toby Young and Peter Hitchens, I think I was one of the first in print in the Salisbury Review with my own views. Patently, I am not a virus denier, but I do hold a fair degree of Covid scepticism in the sense that I believe that the harmful effects of the novel coronavirus, in terms of its ability to infect and the consequences of COVID-19, were grossly exaggerated. I have been in print many times on these issues, for example in Unity News Network and TCW Defending Freedom. I also signed an early petition raised by Piers Corbyn asking the U.K. Government if the novel coronavirus had been isolated. Not my best idea and one which led to a great deal of ‘whataboutery’ (the tu quoque logical fallacy) aimed at discrediting me. On the other hand, the Government response was enlightening/unenlightening – depending on your position – and could easily have been summarised as ‘no’. As a result, the Government did not cover itself in glory as it could have added ‘but’ and went on to provide the argument for the existence of the novel coronavirus. Instead, the virus deniers saw this as a ‘gotcha’ moment, and it merely fuelled their fire.
Dr. Sam Bailey
Dr. Sam Bailey is a photogenic New Zealand doctor who has abandoned medicine. She promotes her views through her own website and on whatever other platforms to which she can gain access. The virus deniers, including Sam Bailey, are prone to publishing lengthy videos nearly always involving the same people. Frankly, these are extremely tedious to watch. Her views have been debunked regarding the existence of viruses but, possibly unknown to many who are unwilling to wade into the depths and breadths of her views, she denies germ theory completely. If you have any doubts about this then I urge you to take the time to listen, in full, to her recent interview with James Delingpole on his Delingpod podcast. Here she is given free rein to express her views which become increasingly outlandish as the podcast progresses.
The Truth About Viruses
This essay is prompted by the most recent video from Sam Bailey: The Truth About Viruses published on March 9th 2022. She is to be congratulated for its brevity – it is only 17 minutes long – but it is presented in a typically sneering, sarcastic and patronising manner. Consequently, it is hard to know who she is trying to convince. However, whatever her style of presentation, the problem with The Truth About Viruses is that it is not the truth about viruses. It is hard to understand how Sam Bailey arrives at her views and it is not necessary to be a virus denier to be highly critical of the way the pandemic was managed. After all, anti (Covid) ‘vaxxer’ supreme, Dr. Mike Yeadon made it clear in his excellent interview with Neil Oliver on GB News that he believes a unique virus exists. The HART Group led by Dr. John Lee, who have mounted the most credible and well-informed responses to the UK lockdown, is not stocked with virus deniers. This is exemplified in David Clews’ interview with Dr. Ros Jones of HART on Unity News Network.
It is hard to know where to start but, since she denies germ theory itself – as properly understood – I will start here with Dr Bailey’s views on whether anything exists that can cause an infection and spread between people. Louis Pasteur comes in for criticism by Bailey in her Delingpod interview. I am sure Pasteur was not perfect but he did knock the theory of spontaneous generation a body blow with his swan neck flask experiment. The theory of spontaneous generation, to which people including Florence Nightingale adhered long after Hooke discovered moulds and Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria, proposed that maggots arose spontaneously in meat, rats arose spontaneously in rubbish heaps and that, for example, nutrient media such as broth likewise became mouldy. Pasteur prepared a broth and placed it in a flask with a swan shaped neck (pictured). He left the flask tilted so that the opening of the flask pointed downwards, and the broth remained fresh. Once he tilted the flask so that the opening pointed upwards, the broth became mouldy. Conclusion: infection was not spontaneous but caused by air borne particles and these probably included both fungal spores and bacteria. The best thing about the swan neck flask experiment is that it is reproducible; I know because I have done it. Without expressing it as such, Dr. Bailey has batted the theory of disease back into the 19th Century. Edward Jenner was another scoundrel according to Bailey and, while his experiments would not have passed muster with an NHS ethics committee, you can see where Bailey is going and leading her disciples into the realm of the ‘anti-vaxxers’, a topic which I will not explore here.
It is clear in her most recent video that she has studied the arguments which purport to demonstrate viruses exist. She mentions, in passing, the famous TMV (tobacco mosaic virus) in a ‘that’s all very well’ kind of way. But the fact is that the TMV has been sufficiently purified for its structure to be studied by scanning electron microscopy; and that represents a very high level of both isolation and purity. A plant virus it may be, with no animal equivalent, but it is the case that disproves, in a Popperian way, the argument often repeated by the virus deniers that ‘no virus has ever been purified’. Some have been sufficiently purified for study by X-ray crystallography and that represents an extremely high level of purification.
How do we know viruses exist?
It is very hard to mount a coherent argument against the specific way Bailey argues as she cherry picks pieces of viral evidence, such as not adhering to Koch’s postulates or not always being purified or visible under a microscope. But the fact is that the existence of any virus is triangulated by an array of increasingly sophisticated laboratory techniques whereby theories may be tested, cultures grown, and infectivity demonstrated. In fact, a great many viruses have been purified, often against the odds. Viral proteins, including on the novel coronavirus, are largely glycoproteins and these alone, due to heterogeneity in structure, are very hard to purify to a level where, for example, they could be crystallised. While methods for the purification of glycoproteins have improved, I recall a glycoprotein expert once telling me that if someone holds up a test tube and claims it contains a purified solution of glycoprotein, he or she is lying.
The virus deniers trot out the Koch’s postulates argument repeatedly, even though Koch’s postulates were simply one way – long before the advent of amino acid and nucleotide sequencing methods – of demonstrating the presence of a bacterium. Koch’s postulates go something like this: find an infected animal; extract some infected tissue; introduce that to an uninfected animal, and if the poor thing becomes infected you have a bacterial infection. Koch’s postulates were never intended to be applied to viruses – the existence of which were not known when Koch postulated. In any case, bacteria are much more universally infective than viruses, which tend to be very specific. The original SARS, which almost certainly jumped species, is very unusual for that very reason and, for example, bird flu does not infect humans. The jury remains out on whether SARS-CoV-2, which possibly jumped species, did so spontaneously or after a ‘gain of function’ nudge.
I have corresponded with Siouxsie Wiles, a major debunker of the Koch’s postulates argument, at Auckland University in New Zealand over this point and over the point regarding ‘purification’ of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It transpires that the purification of the novel coronavirus argument is a straw dog created by the viral deniers. In fact, nobody has claimed that it has been purified. However, it has been ‘isolated’, which is a different concept whereby studies are carried out to check it is there. According to Siouxsie Wiles, the virus has been found in hundreds of disparate samples and subsequently sequenced. The viral deniers point to the way the sequence was merely pieced together in the early stages, thus proposing a hoax. But this is how viruses are sequenced. What they omit to say, and as explained in Chan and Ridley’s Viral, which I reviewed for the Salisbury Review, there are mega databases of coronaviruses, mainly held and reluctantly shared by the Chinese, whereby emerging sequences from the sequencing work can be assembled and compared. Molecular biologists know which sequences of nucleotides (the genetic letters) can run together and often precisely what they code for.
Of course, Bailey has this covered; the whole field of molecular biology, predicated as it is on Mendelian genetics is, of course, bogus. She points to some arbitrary and far too early date for the origins of molecular biology, but it originated at the University of Edinburgh in the 1970s under Professor Sir Ken Murray. I know, I was there at the time, and he lectured to me. In any case, as explained to me by Siouxsie Wiles, it is not necessary to purify the coronavirus and as Dr. Ros Jones says in her Unity News Network interview with David Clews, this is not how it is done; the virus is cultured. This is about as close to Koch’s postulates as you could get: grow the purported virus in a cellular culture and identify it by sequencing. Introduce what you have to some other cultured cells alongside a control culture. If the one with the purported virus shows subsequent evidence for the presence of the virus and the other does not, that is about as watertight an experiment as I can think of.
Bailey and co. try to debunk all the methods that are used in virology and to deny the whole field of laboratory science. The only possible retort can be that no method is perfect, and experiments often fail to show what is being hypothesised. That is an argument for rather than against science, which constantly tries to improve its methods. I recall a whole room being dedicated to a huge amino acid sequencer when I was a PhD student. Now, amino acid sequencing can be done on a microchip. I frankly doubt that Sam Bailey has any idea how sophisticated and painstaking scientific laboratory research is. Perhaps she has not done any herself?
COVID-19
I have had Covid, despite the remarkable claims by my virus denying friends to the contrary. How do I know I had it: it hit me like an express train; I felt terrible for two days and slept for 29 of 48 hours, rather like the flu. My taste was not lost but my sense of smell became incredibly deranged, not something that I had experienced after many bouts of flu in my 66 years. When I felt worst, I reluctantly took a lateral flow test (LFT). This showed up positive almost instantly and with a thick test line. As I felt better the test – which as it uses antibodies is highly specific but not very sensitive – took longer to show and the line became fainter. Of course, the virus deniers have this one covered under the rubric that immunology is also bogus, antibodies are not at all specific and will pick up anything. My ‘gotcha’ to this is: if I run a pregnancy test which uses antibodies to detect human chorionic gonadotropin, will it show me I am pregnant?
I have no real grasp of what our virus deniers think is wrong with people who ‘come down’ with a virus, and not necessarily Covid. They seem to explain it through a series of completely untestable ideas which include a mixture of mass hysteria and viral infections (which don’t exist) being the body cleaning out impurities. Eschewing modern medicine, Bailey and co. promote the need for fresher air, an organic diet, no medicines of any kind (Big Pharma all baddies) and generally returning to the land and a more primitive and less stressful way of life. All hail to them on that last point, but if that involves me wiping my backside with a stick, then count me out.
Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry.
UPDATE: Dr. Sam Bailey has responded to this article. Find her piece here.
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solves a problem to access those large fees – and another benefit, our lecturers will be able to promote democracy to China’s up and comi…. – LOL – maybe not
It is amazing how our oh-so-careful universties can adjust their principles when money is involved.
Keeping Blairs education industry going. When my son was looking at going to uni I said no Mickey Mouse courses and no Micky Mouse Universities. (He studied Chemical Engineering at a Russell group uni).
Universities have become (more so) holding bays for the young, who self fund 3 years before going into the job market, to do a job they could of started at 16. (I was talking to somebody in the village and the grass was being cut. The person said it was his grandson cutting the grass and he had a Phd in Psychology).
there’s a growing industry in behaviour science
Indeed – we can be assured that those taking STEM courses will be free from undue influence, and deal only in a truth based on scientific method. That has been so obvius over the last 18 months. We need more versed in the critical thinking of a science and technology dominated culture.
The issue is less simple, and – as always ‘Follow the Money’ is the guide. Chinese students are BIG money, and offending the Chinese is not the road to wealth.
Why are we using our limited training capacity as an export product?
If we wish to train Chinese students, open branches in China.
But as our democratic rights are being swiftly eroded by our once Conservative government to bring about an enforced communist type regime, how useful those students will be over here to advertise the benefits of communism! What a clever ploy. The Imperial College will be delighted. I bet only the most zealous are permitted to come.
“communist type regime”
It’s just the natural (if unforseen by addicts) trajectory of the Tory addiction to capital accumulation at the expense of anything else, not the con of ‘communism’ used as a front for the same.
Some British private schools (which are increasingly abandoning the British middle class in favour of the more lucrative global elite) are indeed opening branches in China.
Let me get this straight. 2 years ago a virus escaped from China and arrived in several countries at a time corresponding to the arrival of Chinese students to universities across the world. Since then we have had universities stopping face to face tuition, because of this virus. Now we have those same universities bussing in students from that same country.
Yep…but God forbid you want a week on the Costas!
PUB’s Three Notice Process To Stop Schools Vaxxing Children
By popular and urgent demand, here lies PUB’s three notice process to deal with the clear and present threat that UK schools will be offering the experimental COVID-19 ‘vaccines’ to 12-17 year olds next month, following the JCVI’s recent u-turn on its 15/07/2021 assessment that the risk outweighed the benefits of vaxxing anybody under 18.
https://www.thebernician.net/pubs-three-notice-process-to-stop-schools-vaxxing-children/
Chinese students are welcome. Chinese politics can fuck off. The UK is not a fucking COMMUNIST country. And the politicians who are committing treason by importing Chinese Communist Party policy like lockdown and vaxpass and credit scores etc, well please fuck off to China and live your fucking dream there you dirty traitorous pieces of filth. These scumbags better pay for these crimes.
CCP and Tory Party = different guises in differing contexts for grabbing the boodle and the power. Simple.
Academia hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party. Bought and laid for.
Meanwhile, the CCP exploits the Chinese peoplemas slave labour and kills Christians.
How many of these ‘students’ are CCP operatives? What about stealing our IPR?
None of this matters, only the need for Vice Chancellors to top up their obscene salaries and promote their woke agendas.
It’s known as unregulated ‘global capitalism’ – favoured by both the Tories and Labour since 1980 and that ludicrous figure with the handbag.
And the university most closely linked with China is… yes, Imperial.
Hello Mr.Ferguson
How does Ferguson manage ordering from a chinese menu?
…I’ll have 200,000 Number 54,000’s please.
Are you sure?
Of course I am! My computer model says so.
Okay. Do you want wafers with that?
Course I don’t want f’ing wafers…… (copyright Monty Python)
Daughter of a friend of mine, in New Zealand, was a student recruitment officer and flew in and out of China, recruiting, on behalf of the Catholic school she worked for. She’s been NZ bound for a while now so not sure what is going to happen there.
A friendly reminder to British students: You’re forced to wear face masks etc because it is conjectured that it will help with attracting and maintaining a sizable number of these guys who are much more important than you because more money is (reportedly) to be made of that.
Aren’t Chinese people in the uk quite successful compared to other groups eg white working class boys and BME? Yet another means of infiltration and turning the indigenous population into second class citizens?
There were a lot of Chinese students at my university 20 years ago. I have absolutely no idea how they passed anything though as none of them could speak a word of intelligible English. I don’t mean that to sound small-minded, I’m all for studying abroad but I can’t imagine doing it without a decent grasp of the language. I just kinda assumed that the Uni didn’t mind when they were paying so much. It was super annoying to have to attempt to work with any of them on anything that wasn’t in the universal language of maths though.
Well, lots of valuable products are made in China these days – including the students, with related cash flow for the universities. Not necessarily beneficial to our local people, though.
Get the CCP sleepers topped up
Fascinating. So universities are able to organise chartered flights for their Chinese students.. but large food organisations in the country cannot organise drivers to deliver food to Uk shops. Yes, this makes complete sense.
And the wealth of China comes from energy generated largely by coal with a sizable amount of nuclear and environmentally disruptive Hydro. It’s a funny old world and will be even funnier if the Taliban turn up at COP26. How will the XR supporting and woke universities square any of this?
When we are constantly under economic and security threats from the Chinese, we import this vast army of Chinese students with obvious non-west allegiance, just to earn a buck? Are we utterly barking mad?
Just another way the East is winning and we are losing. When it becomes all about money this happens.
World peace may be great, we’ll never know it. Why is it bad to recognise that we have enemies.
So they fly in Chinese students who then have to sit in the rooms remotely accessing courses? They could do that from China.
The treatment of students during the government’s pandemic shows that universities are not “centres of learning”. The insistence on mask wearing proves that.