We are writing to you, as when Professor Heneghan was leaving the stand on October 18th, you stated, “if there are other matters that you wish me to explore, by all means submit them in writing”. Professor Heneghan’s oral evidence lasted precisely one hour and, of the 12 points he was asked to prepare for and address, his views on the Great Barrington Declaration were discussed. This was the last issue on the list.
As we have already provided a 75-page submission, we are going to summarise some of the points and make observations on the day’s testimonies.
Firstly, we are deeply disappointed by the level of detail and tone adopted when Professor Heneghan gave evidence. In the preceding exchange with Professor Edmunds, both Mr. O’Connor and Professor Edmunds appear to have identified Professor Heneghan as a target for foul language, while the transcript mentioned someone else entirely without you intervening. Was this an arranged exchange? The text mentioned X, and Mr. O’Connor asked the witness, “does that refer to Y?” and the witness answered, “Yes”.
The tone of Mr. O’Connor’s questions was fawning and leading, but when Professor Heneghan gave evidence, the tone changed instantly and was adversarial. You had the chance to explore some of the basic scientific questions based on events. This opportunity was lost by allowing the KC to ask questions which had nothing to do with Professor Heneghan’s contribution to clarifying the contradictions, harms and uncertainty on the basis of events.
To remind you, here is the transcript of one of the exchanges:
In Professor Gupta’s evidence, she stated: “I was invited to attend with Carl Heneghan, Anders Tegnell, John Edmunds and Angela McLean. Other than John Edmunds, all invitees were broadly in favour of the ‘Swedish’ strategy outlined by Tegnell.”
So, if Professor McLean considered Heneghan a “f*****t,” why did she later agree with the approach of Professor Heneghan, the author of the Great Barrington Declaration, and that of Sweden as proposed by Dr. Anders Tegnell?
Having reviewed the WhatsApp messages, the timings of Professor McLean’s expletive (we were let into the Zoom meeting at approx. 17.35, and the profanity occurred at 17.48) suggests she was making assumptions before listening to any of Prof. Heneghan’s evidence. If, indeed, she was referring to Professor Heneghan.
She subsequently changed her mind to follow Sweden. Professor Heneghan can verify that Professor McLean supported Sweden’s approach at the end of the meeting (some two hours after the expletive). Is there not something illogical about the whole exchange worth investigating?
Professor Edmunds was further allowed to say –
Well, I mean, I had interrupted Professor Heneghan at one point because he was making some really basic epidemiological errors, the sorts of ones that we teach our students on day one, and I couldn’t let it go after a while. And so I did interrupt, and so – and that slightly put the wind out of his sails, and – so, yes.
– without being questioned as to what the errors were.
Fraser Nelson makes the following point in the Spectator:
“Every statistic is wrong.” This, surely, is the substantive point that the inquiry should have picked up upon. What statistics was he referring to? And were they wrong? But this expensive inquiry seems not to care about points of substance.
The inquiry will learn nothing if it cannot establish what factors or evidence were correctly interpreted. Therefore, for the record, we request that Professor Edmunds list the errors he referred to in his testimony.
Any further references to errors by witnesses to other witnesses should be interrogated for their veracity and informed by the evidence and allow a right of reply. For example, comparisons between modelling scenarios and real-world data make it possible to evaluate whether they correctly forecast reality. Evaluations of the poor performance of models can inform the inquiry’s lessons that need to be learnt.
This letter is not about whether witnesses should be robustly interviewed. We are concerned that the differential treatment damages public confidence in the U.K.’s Covid Inquiry and will bias the inquiry’s findings. We have received countless messages highlighting this issue:
I watched Carl Heneghan giving evidence at the Covid Inquiry. If I had any doubt this Covid Inquiry was going to be a biased exercise, I have no doubt now. He was constantly rudely interrupted with hostile questions. As ever, Prof. Heneghan remained calm and polite.
There were numerous articles written about the interaction. The Telegraph, the Mail and the Spectator are some examples. In the Telegraph, Professor Dingwall considers “Carl Heneghan’s treatment at the hands of the Covid Inquiry beggars belief”, and David Frost considers “the Covid inquiry isn’t interested in the truth about lockdown”.
We respectfully suggest that you instruct the KCs to refrain from character assassination attempts and try to investigate what happened and the scientific and public health basis for some of the decisions made as an impartial inquest should do.
We consider the WhatsApp messages and diaries should be published in full as it would allow the inquiry to dispense with the tittle-tattle and get on with the serious business of learning lessons, particularly as an increasing number of people are losing faith in the inquiry’s work.
Professor Heneghan was given the following list of topics on Tuesday October 10th that would be discussed with him as a witness.
- Professional background, qualifications and expertise.
- Testing and detection of cases.
- Test and Trace Programme.
- Modelling.
- Understanding and interpretation of data.
- Interactions with U.K. Government decision-makers:
- Non-pharmaceutical interventions;
- Identification of the vulnerable;
- Care home neglect;
- Nosocomial infection;
- September 20th 2020 meeting with the Prime Minister.
- The Great Barrington Declaration.
The Inquiry had the opportunity to interview Professor Heneghan as one of the only experts with clinical epidemiological skills and direct health care expertise, including care home experience. However, it chose not to, and the opportunity was wasted on peripheral issues.
In his examination of Professor Heneghan’s expertise, the KC glossed over that he has twice been a top 100 NHS Clinical Leader and an NIHR Senior Investigator. In 2019, he received a Lifetime Achievement award from the University of Oxford Medical Science Division for teaching. His DPhil is rooted in clinical epidemiology, and he has also contributed to the most extensive collection of evidence on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The KC also omitted his pivotal role in the publication of antiviral reviews during the Swine Flu pandemic (see joint publications) and his role in the Covid pandemic of pointing out several epidemiological errors in the interpretation of the data.
To remind you of the science which should have been debated, we offer a list of topics:
- How was a case of Covid defined?
- How was a Covid hospital admission defined?
- How was a Covid death defined?
- Did the definitions have any impact on the perception and management of pandemic services?
- What was the point of mass testing as carried out during the pandemic?
- Were the tests used adequate and well interpreted by those responsible?
- What was done to minimise the risk to those in care homes, either residents or new intakes from ‘cleared’ hospitals?
- Why are models so central to the debate when they are mostly based on assumptions?
- Did the predictions from models reflect the following realities?
- What was the basis of the scientific evidence used in decision-making?
- What was the basis of the scientific evidence used in the models?
- Why were measures such as school closures and vaccinations aimed at those least at risk of disease and its consequences?
- Why has there been a dearth of research on the mode of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and of organised attempts to plug that gap?
- Why were the lessons of the Italian Lombardy outbreak (which peaked by March 9th 2020 without any society-wide interventions) not used to inform policy?
- Why does the inquiry continuously refer to Chinese evidence, which is of dubious generalisability to Europe?
- Why is the inquiry not exploring the collateral damage caused by the numerous restrictions?
In the pre-meeting, minutes before Professor Heneghan gave evidence, several new items of evidence were produced, giving him no time to prepare. These items of evidence were not in the report. We respectfully suggest that you instruct the KCs to stick to the evidence proposals and the proposed areas of questioning as stated in the witness preparation email. We also respectfully suggest that timekeeping be improved and distributed in a fairer way across witnesses.
In the spirit of learning lessons, we will write further on several issues discussed but would first appreciate clarification on the following points:
- Please list the mistakes that were made by Professor Heneghan, according to Professor Edmunds, so that we can respond.
- Please explain why there is a differential approach to witnesses and why the evidence submission was ignored, given the topics that Professor Heneghan was asked to prepare.
- We also request that this submission, and any future submissions, be appended to Professor Heneghan’s written submission INQ000280651 dated September 24th 2023 and placed in the public record.
Yours sincerely
Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson
October 26th 2023
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, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.
Stop Press: In a follow-up post, Heneghan and Jefferson invite readers to compare the treatment of Carl and John Edmunds in two video excerpts.
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“Please list the mistakes that were made by Professor Heneghan, according to Professor Edmunds, so that we can respond.” Try this for a list:-
Thank you for your saint-like patience and grace.
The country, and history, are taking note.
Great list of questions – To remind you of the science which should have been debated, we offer a list of topics
Missing a few imo:
I am reminded of “Lord of the Flies” where the children were running the place.
It is so good that you did this, it lets them know that you cannot be bullied and shut down no matter how they try. The pity is that they aren’t trying very hard to disguise the fact that the outcome of the inquiry was decided before it even began, and what is being played out is a theatre, a badly written and directed play that fools no one, not even the MSM who supported all the madness. What is does evidence, is the contempt that they hold the public in, and the lack of respect they have for honest scientists.
Don’t give up, there are millions behind you. Thank you.
Excellent post
The Inquiry isn’t intended to examine the evidence. The conclusion has already been reached – everything the Establishment did was correct and appropriate, except it should have been done harder, sooner and longer.
Now they’re just stringing it out as long as possible to ensure that everyone involved is long-gone.
“Now they’re just stringing it out as long as possible to ensure that everyone involved is long-gone” and those employed to run this theatre are remunerated at vast expense to the taxpayers.
The legal “profession” do not have it in their DNA to move things along at pace. They suggest that they are being thorough, the reality is they charge by the hour.
Absolutely, this enquiry has nothing to do with finding the truth and everything to do with vindicating the Deep State and lining their pockets at the same time. Despicable people and rotten to the core.
Brilliant!
Confidence in this inquiry has not survived Hallett’s risible catchphrase:
“I’m sorry, I’m not following, Sir Peter. If there’s a possible benefit, what’s the downside?”
She and ‘Sir Peter’ have both now become figures of fun, the Alan Partridges of government inquiries.
We await more hilarity with aching sides and watery eyes……
But the relatives of those no longer with us, as a consequence of the incompetence these nincompoops are supposed to be investigating, are, rightly, incandescent at this ‘De haut en bas’ display of smug self gratification by this bunch of pompous charlatans.
The polite request is likely to fall on death ears, it’s rather penning a letter to Mengele respectfully asking he be a bit more cuddly towards Jews. Hallet is as dodgy as and has not a shred of moral decency, she is rotten to the core as well as brainless.
Crikey! When is the lid going to blow off this scam, in which the entire world was conned by ‘Covid’…you know, the killer disease that doesn’t kill most people…
But they terrorised most people with this phoney disease, restricted them, locked them down, muzzled them, ‘tested’ them, put them under surveillance, destroyed their privacy, deliberately ‘nudged’ and demoralised them and, worst of all, trashed voluntary informed consent for the worse than useless injections, and stole personal autonomy and bodily integrity…they stole freedom…
And what’s at the base of this diabolical crime? Neil Ferguson et al’s infamous Report 9, which recommended ‘suppression’ of the virus, aka lockdown and restrictions, “until a vaccine becomes available…”
It wasn’t disclosed in Ferguson et al’s report that Ferguson is funded by arguably the world’s biggest promoter of vaccine products, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation… Talk about a conflict of interest!
And there was Gates, running the show in May 2020, giving Boris Johnson and Kate Bingham their instructions, see: PM call with Bill and Melinda Gates:19 May 2020.
Ditch the fake ‘Covid Inquiry’ gravy train, let’s get the criminal investigation under way for this ginormous global crime.
Re conflicts of interest, this document is an interesting read…
SAGE COVID-19 Register of Participants’ Interests
I would have thought Dido Harding would need to declare that her spouse is an MP.
Absolutely brilliant. This is exactly how to deal with Hallett and her pantomime, show it up for the farce that it is. The disrespect visited upon Professor Heneghan is sadly becoming more prevalent in public life and not unexpectedly is debasing our genuinely scientific institutions and people. This has to be called out, not because I envisage it ceasing but in order that the public record be made good.
On a side note – the opening paragraph is clumsily written.
Appropriate comment from Derek and Clive—-“and I turned to the manager, and with all the dignity I could muster, I said, “Is this any way to run a f##king Ball Room?””
“Is this any way to run a f##king Ball Room?””
Truly apposite words from the venerable duo.
Why ‘respectfully’?
Contempt is best made known.
Apart from some new gong for the head of the enquiry, what is this process going to achieve apart from some significant earnings for many barristers and their support teams. Such an obvious waste of money
It isn’t designed to achieve anything other than being part of the covid charade. A deadly pandemic must have an expensive inquiry.
I’m not sure but I think there’s a possibility that it’s Angela Merkel chairing this enquiry rather than the Baroness…
Might as well be Lord Lucan, Shergar, Elvis or indeed a WW2 bomber for all the “good “ that’s (not) coming out of this.
Well done Carl and Tom, but some grammatical howlers in your submission make it difficult to follow and occasionally even suggest the opposite of what is intended. Respectfully suggest you run future communications past a good writer of English (no rudeness intended). But lets hope Hallett et al put their house in order as a result, neverthless. Sadly, something tells me they won’t.
Hallett deserves the sort of respect given to insects squashed on the car’s windscreen.
Nah! That’s too quick and painless.
OK point taken. How about a piece of dog turd you’ve stepped in on your way to a night out?
I looked at the ‘stop press’ videos. Hallett’s thanks to Edmunds made me want to vomit and those to Heneghan were unworthy of a numbskull thug, let alone a high ranking member of our legal “profession”.
I just don’t know how Professor Heneghan is able to bear the injustice and shameless bias of this public dishonesty and slander.
I simply wanted to say how desperately sorry I am that he has had to endure this following his noble and dedicated work in trying to save lives in the face of a terrible attack against humankind in the name of covid-19 and a so called vaccine.
There are so many of us who are deeply grateful to him and all the others who stood up bravely against the establishment and are fighting to protect us from this terrible danger clearly, in my opinion, inflicted on the world with deliberate and careful planning that began very many years ago.
We have seen the strange ‘hydra’ like items were seen in the ‘vaccine’ under microscope and the horrible long strings of black matter drawn from the bodies of the dead who died after being injected, plus the investigations of vaccinated bloods under microscope. All of these came to our attention and it was clear we were not being injected to improve our health or to prevent a virus.
I urge everyone to watch the 1992 Barcelona Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games, from the ship sequence. The ship is afloat on a sea of cells. There are syringes and viruses. There is a huge virus with dead people. And at approx. 45.30 a black ‘hydra’ type of thing waves around. At the end of the ‘battle’ the music changes to a Chines style and, decorated in Yellow, new people take over to reorder everybody.