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I Was Censored for Raising the Harms Lockdowns Have Done. And I’m Not Alone

by Hugh McCarthy
19 July 2023 12:30 PM

You wouldn’t have thought a talk about the welfare of our children was controversial. But it has turned out to be.

“There is a dangerous intolerant totalitarianism, aided by timidity, strangling debate in this country,” writes Professor Richard Ennos as he describes the disturbing cancellation of my proposed talk to parents.

The cancer of slowly killing free speech in Edinburgh and beyond continues, aggressively. Our event with Hugh McCarthy, a respected retired headteacher, and a former Director of Education of three Northern Ireland Learning Areas, someone who has presented directly to ministers, political party leaders and elected members, was refused several possible venues for the talk ‘What Are We Doing To Our Children?’ on grounds that were both spurious and unsettling.

“Anyone speaking out can be suppressed,” Prof. Ennos told Jeffrey Peel, adding that his group, Common Knowledge, has been denied venue after venue.

Censorship is, of course, rife. My cancellation demonstrates how far the tentacles of totalitarianism reach. And for me, it wasn’t the first time.

If you are proposing to vaccinate my child or grandchild, surely I am entitled to ask why, but doing so resulted in a ban from LinkedIn. And my attempts to obtain answers from the medical authorities fared no better, simply being ignored.

Similarly, if you are insisting that my child or grandchild wears a mask at school and on the bus for eight hours a day, I must be entitled to ask if you have carried out a risk-benefit assessment. But pointing this out and drawing attention to the potential damage to children resulted in me being silenced by the BBC, when the host closed the call despite me being an invited guest on his popular phone-in radio programme.

I further thought in a liberal democracy that I was allowed to ask questions such as, “What are we doing to our children?” Yet a talk on this topic in which I largely used Government data to highlight the adverse effects of Covid restrictions on children had to be given only to invitees and was subject to stringent security measures – and was then banned from YouTube for good measure.

The focus of my cancelled talk in Edinburgh was to be to present the evidence of the harms to children from restrictions while examining whether those harmful policies – masks, testing, isolation, school closures – actually worked. I was also to look at whether children were ever in danger from the virus or a danger to others, and therefore whether restrictions on them were necessary at all.

Arguably this is what any responsible society should be asking. And if the answers are ‘no’, somebody should be held responsible.

Apparently though, the Times, Telegraph, Express and others can say it, but I can’t.

Lockdown “damaged a generation“, the Telegraph reports former Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies saying. She told the Covid Inquiry of the “damage” lockdowns had done to children and that it was “awful” to see “these young people struggle”, according to the Express.

The Times reported similar comments from former Chancellor George Osborne, saying lockdown “harmed a generation of children”.

The Telegraph ran a further feature under the headline, ‘How lockdown broke a generation and no one seems to care’. It states: “New research has shown that lockdowns fuelled a staggering rise in teenage eating disorders – and this was not the only damage done.”

This is basically what I was going to say in Edinburgh. Why may they say it but I may not?

Should I be surprised, though, when world-leading scientists have suffered the same fate. Professor Norman Fenton explains how his status as a world expert “counted for nothing” and he became an “academic pariah” after his public criticism of Covid countermeasures such as lockdowns and vaccines. “Now no one is even prepared to review our papers let alone accept them,” he said. He is now “shunned by my academic colleagues”. ”Just having my name on a paper was enough to get it rejected.” His academic papers are now routinely being rejected, even by pre-print servers. Having been invited to speak at a major NHS event, the invitation was summarily withdrawn of the basis that he had questioned the efficacy of the vaccine.

The censorship has sometimes taken on an intimidatory tone as world-renowned scientists have been denigrated and subjected to threats. For example, the authors of the widely-endorsed Great Barrington Declaration were derided as “fringe scientists” by U.S. Government officials. Professor Sunetra Gupta in particular was subjected to intimidation and cancellation. I had offered her my support and complimented her on the roundtable discussion hosted by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in which she participated. She replied: “The round table has been taken down by YouTube – very depressing.”

The Great Barrington Declaration itself and its three authors were subject to a Government-sponsored attack, as reported in STAT:

Emails released through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the American Institute for Economic Research revealed worrisome communication between Director Francis Collins, Anthony Fauci and others within the National Institutes of Health in the fall of 2020. At issue was the Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter written in October 2020 and eventually signed by thousands of scientists. It argues that COVID-19 policy should focus on protecting the elderly and vulnerable, and largely re-open society and school for others.

Collins’s response to the memo signed by thousands of scientists demonstrates a clear intention to silence. Collins wrote:

This proposal from the three fringe epidemiologists who met with the Secretary seems to be getting a lot of attention – and even a co-signature from Nobel Prize-winner Mike Levitt at Stanford. There needs to be a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises.

The Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART) – a group of scientific and medical experts formed to present evidence around Covid policies – is similarly concerned about the suppression of freedom of speech and academic inquiry among scientists and other researchers. They write:

Once you are persona non grata for one of your beliefs, you become an ‘untouchable’. This culture of instant dismissal for an unpopular belief (regardless of whether it is accurate or not) has been exponentially rising in prominence in the last decade. It has led to a culture of self-censorship amplified by social media algorithms which merrily curate your timeline into a homogenous soup of unilateral agreement, obscuring anyone who may challenge your worldview.

Perhaps the biggest danger is indeed that we engage in self-censorship. The HART authors continue:

At heart is the realisation that it is not just a question of eradicating the physical act of censorship, as bad as it is. A much more insidious and evil practice seems to be rife, that of silencing a few outspoken people such that a larger minority choose to self-censor for reasons of self-preservation. The ‘official’ narrative… therefore prevails, unchecked.

Or as Professor Ennos puts it in his conversation with Jeffrey Peel: “There is incredible social stigma about being different – it takes a lot of courage, so we self-censor.”

Worryingly, some countries are taking censorship a stage further, starting to legislate directly against free speech. The Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill, for example, currently being debated in the Irish Senate (having been passed by the lower house) has been described by the Free Speech Union’s Toby Young as a “draconian anti-free speech law”.

Finally, there is the growing absence of democratic accountability. I have written of the order of 200 emails to individual politicians in our political parties and to Government medical officials asking why we are vaccinating children, why children are masked and why schools were closed. Most recently I asked if medical facilities had displayed information explaining to patients the meaning of, and their rights under, informed consent rules.

Most do not even afford me the courtesy of an acknowledgement, let alone answers to my questions.

In a second article, the HART authors write: 

So what is the truth, and who can speak it? While the answer to this question may not be clear-cut, one thing is absolutely crystal clear: if we are not allowed to talk about it, then it seems very unlikely that the mainstream narrative will resemble anything that is even remotely close to the truth. HART has more to say on this matter, and we intend to say it.

Brownstone Institute founder Jeffrey Tucker is even more forthright:

There will be no restoration of liberty, rights and truth until we come to terms with what happened, why, and how to prevent it in the future. Playing along with this conspiracy of silence surrounding a policy that effectively blotted out every advance in human rights since the Magna Carta is a disastrous error that could lead to the entrenchment of a new dark age.

Strong words indeed, but I fear he may not be wrong.

Hugh McCarthy is a retired headteacher in Northern Ireland who until recently served as a director on two of the province’s main education councils and who remains a ministerial appointment on one.

Tags: Cancel CultureCensorshipChildrenFree SpeechLockdownLockdown harmsSchoolsThe Science

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16 Comments
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Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
2 years ago

Apart from a snake bite antidote injection I’m beginning to think that all childhood vaccinations should be scrutinised ! It’s a pity there’s not a doctor out there to delve into them ! Oh wait a minute – Dr Wakefield did & look what happened !

86
-2
BurlingtonBertie
BurlingtonBertie
2 years ago
Reply to  Freddy Boy

A link to 160 papers which support the autism link FYI
There are a few who are delving into this.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/220807175/160-Research-Papers-Supporting-the-Vaccine-Autism-Link

17
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago
Reply to  Freddy Boy

This might be of interest.

https://odysee.com/@IvorCummins:f/Amazing_Short_Docu_on_the_History_of_Vaccine_Effectiveness:c

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JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago

Having learnt a bit about this lot, it seems that antibodies are short term structures created as part of a reaction to an infection, and should normally be thrown out as junk after recovery, with relevant T-cells being used for longer term records and future defence against the culprit, or it’s near-neighbours. Assuming that is the case, it’s no surprise that measuring antibody levels in various people leads to junk results. Lots of other places on this topic, but this is one of them – but note the date on it – about 2 years old: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-is-the-role-of-t-cells-in-covid-19-infection-why-immunity-is-about-more-than-antibodies/

If the so-called vaccines actually created long term memory, it would not look so good for the Pharma balance sheet, a cynic might say. They’re probably glad that the viruses mutate themselves – after all, that assists the corporate cash flow.

37
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JXB
JXB
2 years ago
Reply to  JohnK

T cells are first responders, and kill the body cells invaded by the virus to stop them being used for reproduction. Antibodies are secondary line of defence.

This T cell activity is at the site of infection, nasopharynx mucosal surface, and if successful greatly reduces viral load leaving antibodies as ‘mop up’ in the blood stream to kill the virus that have escaped.

If the T cell activity is not successful, the viral load may be so high that there are not enough antibodies to fight it.

12
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amanuensis
amanuensis
2 years ago
Reply to  JXB

This is fairly accurate — the antibodies are the ‘mopping up” agents, not the primary focus for infection control.

7
0
JaneDoeNL
JaneDoeNL
2 years ago

The entire so-called ‘protection’ provided by these shots has always and only been claimed to be based on the production of antibodies.

At the same time, the UKHSA vaxx surveillance report keeps stating that it is not known precisely what role antibodies play in protection, what level of antibodies, if any, actually provides protection. I believe various ‘scientists’, on the pfisser payroll and otherwise have also indicated that precisely what antibodies do in the grand scheme of things is not really known.

And still they inject this garbage into people, even after saying they have no idea whether the only active mechanism really does anything, even after a 1 1/2 years of seeing poke after poke fail, even as those poked suffer AEs and as time goes by they are at greater risk of infection than those unpoked.

I would also like to see similar studies for different age groups, were they ever even done? The poke seems to do a run-around of T-calls, causing the body to skip straight to antibody production – surely this applies to people of all ages? I believe it is worse in children in the sense their immune system is still developing and is being corrupted to work in an unnatural way, but I suspect the corruption of the immune system applies at all ages. And we still have no idea of possible long term damage to and corruption of the immune system.

And yet plenty of so-called scientists and medical professionals still back this garbage. Presumably they have always secretly believed that the sun revolves around the earth as well and that leeches will cure all ills.

37
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JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago
Reply to  JaneDoeNL

There is a fair bit about it here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5826622/ If you look at figure 3 it presents a graphical summary of what seems to happen to us across age groups. The term T-cell is a bit of a wide spectrum of subsets. In the graph, the term Trm (Tissue resident memory) is used. A point worth noting is that a lot of work is done on mice, but it appears that we are a bit more complex than those – after all, we live a lot longer! Thus the capability of hanging on to long term memory of certain things is more useful to us. Note that the article I sent a link to is dated as 2018 – well before the panic ensued.

13
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Sforzesca
Sforzesca
2 years ago

What an astonishing set of results from this study.
Anyone might think that there’s more to immunity than antibodies (Hello Mr. Patrick Vallance – and thanks for your BBC lecture to the nation during the early “pandemic”) and that the immune system must have some sort of reliable memory system.

Unless it’s been trashed by some form of genetically engineered therapy.
Vaccine induced ADE and or OAS anyone….

Just the start of the problems for the jabbed.

36
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marebobowl
marebobowl
2 years ago
Reply to  Sforzesca

Sadly. Dr.Geert Vanden Bossche told us this would happen.

1
0
True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
2 years ago

Indeed, without T-cells (and probably NK cells and whatever else), antibodies alone are useless or worse than useless. No wonder natural immunity is superior to the jabs.

Last edited 2 years ago by True Spirit of America Party
14
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JXB
JXB
2 years ago

Let’s get the terminology right. Infection = a pathogenic irgsnism such as a virus entering the body. Vaccination infects an individual with a dead, deactivated or similar harmless virus.

The immune response occurs ONLY if there is an infection, ie virus in the body, to fight it to stop it developing into disease (symptoms), although there may be some mild, short-lived noticeable symptoms.

Antibodies kill pathogens once inside the body but cannot stop them entering (infection) the body.

5
0
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  JXB

Mr Jones is traditionally unwilling to accept that. That’s why he’s publishing article after article about another study again detailing that umbrellas don’t prevent rain and that the coronation of Charles III did not revive his mother. Etc.

Some new ones: Turning the heating on in winter doesn’t cause a transition to summer. And switching the light on in the night doesn’t accelerate sunrise. All stuff socio-vaccinologists could publish an endless amount of studies about: In a recent experiment in Glasgow, fifteen randomly selected, quintuple-vaccinated SNP members simultaneously openend their umbrellas. But the effect on the rain was again uncertain. It stopped after a while but this also happened in areas not subject to the experiment. The science has again spoken!

Last edited 2 years ago by RW
3
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amanuensis
amanuensis
2 years ago

It has been known for some time that protection against coronavirus (in general, ie ‘some colds’) is mediated by cellular and not antibody immunity.

Quite why we’ve had the barrage of ‘ANTIBODIES!’ over the past two years is beyond me.

10
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True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
2 years ago

It’s not just the quantity of antibodies either. Quality matters as well. The wrong kind can be useless or even worse than useless.

5
0
marebobowl
marebobowl
2 years ago

A brave attempt to educate “the system”. Thank you.

0
0

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