On Monday, the Sunday Times ran an article questioning the decision of Reform U.K. to propose a public inquiry into COVID-19 excess deaths and “controversially” —its words — “vaccine harms”. The article’s author, a prominent political editor, writes, “I ask Tice [then-leader of Reform] whether these pledges risk legitimising dangerous conspiracy theories at a time when Britain is experiencing a resurgence in measles.”
Both the comment, and the apparent assuredness with which it was penned, struck me as curious. Barely 10 days ago, British front pages were awash with the report of the Inquiry into the U.K.’s contaminated blood scandal. The Sunday Times admirably played a leading role not only in exposing the scandal but in campaigning for meaningful compensation for the victims. “For almost 40 years, The Sunday Times has been a leading voice for justice for the victims of the scandal” reads one editorial, from just two weeks ago.
The infected blood scandal report, authored by inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff, makes for gruelling reading. Its 2,000 plus pages chart a litany of avoidable failure after avoidable failure, and a four decade long tale of corruption and cover-up spanning almost every layer of the civil service, the U.K.’s national health service, pharmaceutical companies and senior Government figures.
Few topics seem as highly vexed as the question of the extent of injury and death resulting from mass Covid vaccination. But one would need to be wilfully blind not to spot that much of what has been detailed in the Infected Blood report — potential harms unheeded; thousands robbed of healthy life; benefits overstated and risks downplayed; unethical and unnecessary treatment of children — mirrors what are now documented failings of public health policy during the pandemic.
Sure, there is ambiguity and uncertainty over the scale of harm (a point in large part aggravated by the refusal of public health authorities to release complete and timely data, in itself an uncanny echo of the failures of the blood scandal). But the reality, inconvenient for some, is that there is by now a documented paper trail evidencing widespread and serious procedural and substantive failings in the accelerated approval of the Covid vaccines and the manner of their roll-out in the U.K.
Such evidenced failings include widespread unacknowledged adverse reactions; serial safety and efficacy mis-marketing by pharma companies and governments alike; unorthodox, unethical and unlawful statements and behaviour of key public health individuals and organisations around the world during the pandemic period; and a highly contentious and deeply unethical rollout of the vaccination programme to children (the latter in fact a topic covered by the Sunday Times).
“Adopting an attitude of denial towards the risks of treatment”, “Falsely reassuring the public and patients”, states the Infected Blood Inquiry Report, words which might equally apply to the myriad of exaggerated and unqualified statements about safety and efficacy made in relation to the Covid vaccines.
“Failure to put patient safety first”, identified as a thematic failure of the blood scandal, has been the subject of a recent campaign by a high profile group of U.K. Parliamentarians about the behaviour of the U.K.’s medical regulator, the MHRA, in relation to the Covid vaccine.
The use of generic ‘stock’ lines (in the case of the contaminated blood scandal, that patients had received the “best treatment available” and that there was “no conclusive proof that AIDS has been transmitted from American blood products”) draws extensive criticism in the report for giving “false reassurance… lack[ing] candour and by not telling the whole truth”.
“The line, which was wrong from the very outset, then became entrenched for around 20 years: a dogma became a mantra. It was enshrined. It was never questioned,” says Sir Brian in the infected blood report. How would the ubiquitous ‘safe and effective’ canon of the Covid era stand up to such critique?
“A lack of openness, transparency and candour, shown by the NHS and Government, such that the truth has been hidden for decades”, says Sir Brian’s report in relation to events of 30 years ago. In recent months U.K. Parliamentarians have forced numerous parliamentary debates on the subject of excess deaths and possible links with the Covid vaccine. Each time concerns have been met with the same familiar platitudinal responses from the U.K. Government and its agencies. “There is no evidence linking excess deaths to the COVID-19 vaccine”; “Vaccines are the best way to protect people from COVID-19”. Parliamentarians’ letters calling for transparency over data have gone largely unanswered, and parallel Freedom of Information Act requests have been subjected to extensive delays and seemingly confected obstructions.
Yet not only has press commentary about the stark similarities between suspected pandemic era failings and the findings of the infected blood report been notable through its complete absence; but public figures such as Tice, who have consistently raised reasonable questions about vaccine harms and excess deaths, find themselves accused of stoking conspiracy theories. “I was treated like I was crazy and a conspiracy theorist,” said Jason Evans, whose father was killed by the contaminated blood scandal and who had tried to voice concerns long before it became fashionable to do so.
“Where things appear to have gone wrong, and safety has been compromised, an attempt should be made to learn the lessons as quickly as possible,” cautioned Sir Brian in the Infected Blood Report, and nowhere is our moral duty to learn from our failures greater than where those failures lead to preventable injury and death. Far from being traduced as conspiracy theorists, those questioning excess deaths and vaccine harms should be platformed and amplified. An inquiry into vaccine harms would signal a determination to learn from the infected blood scandal and a resolve to avoid the same cycle of decades-long failure and cover-up.
Sir Brian Langstaff concludes his report by saying: “It will be astonishing to anyone who reads this report that these events could have happened in the U.K. It may also be surprising that the questions why so many deaths and infections occurred have not had answers before now.”
Well, we have our answer, do we not? When a deep societal denialism prevents us from confronting contemporaneous failures, when dissenters are shamed and censored and open debate is closed down, what hope can there be for learning?
Molly Kingsley is a founder of children’s rights campaign group UsForThem. This article was first published on the UsForThem Substack page. Subscribe here.
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I had never heard of handball until seeing this article.
Me neither but I’m liking the players. A lot.
Brilliant news.
Ww need the IHF to dig their feet in and for the players to form a single, defiant block and give the IHF authorities a monumental sex and travel response.
This has the potential to be a real goody. A sporting war. Loads of publicity and lots of bad press for the poison pushers, statistics all over the place, tragic stories. Billy and Klaus flapping. Bourla nowhere to be seen. Fishy in his cave. Sage in a bunker somewhere. Michie on a fact- finding mission in Antartica and Raine AWOL.
Marvellous.
Come on you lot.
Oh I fervently hope so.
In my own circle of musicians we dodged a bullet when a minority of Karens on a management committee tried to make vaccination a requirement of performing a symphony concert. They failed to impose the requirement, but then the venue owners imposed their own restrictions which scuppered the concert at the last moment. It’s chaos. We can’t be sure that some unknown authoritarian Karen isn’t going to veto our next attempt. Legal action looks prohibitively expensive, presumably it would be ECHR Right of Assembly Case versus Article 13 lawfare.
That’s upsetting to hear.
All the best
Michie the Bichie in the snow ! Frostbite would be too kind ! Mind you her hatchet face would probably melt the thickest ice
Nice one Freddy
The person who runs the IHF needs to be named and publicly shamed for the petty tyrant that he is.
Not yet. We want a proper set to, something that even The Times cannot ignore.
Come on lads. Get in to them!
Being a personal fiefdom, The Times can ignore whatever it wants!
I’ve looked him up. His name is Hassan Moustafa.
He’s been the president of the federation since 2000. So he’s been running the sport for 22 years, being reelected 6 times, the last 3 unopposed.
I bet he runs it like a personal fiefdom. That’s how most of these international federations operate, accountable to no one but themselves.
The Sep Blatter of Handball then !
You beat me to it Freddy.
Since when does the International Handball Federation, a perfectly private organization, have the authority to prescribe mandatory medical procedures for people attending or playing handball matches?
NB: The obvious answer is It doesn’t.
Governments have signalled over the last three years that they are quite happy for private companies and NGOs to do as they like in this regard and essentially do their dirty promotion and enforcement work for them.
And these international sports federations are completely unaccountable to anyone but themselves. Not unlike the WHO or UN. They have these pseudo democratic processes that elevate a delegate from each country to a global council which then sets rules for the entire world. And because it’s “democratic” then everyone has to follow their rules.
The moment you open your eyes, it’s impossible not to see the world as just a series of cartels. The pharma cartel, the media cartel, the energy cartel, all the sports cartels, the tech cartels, the banking cartel… etc….
The thing is the IHF really doesn’t have this authority, no more than they can randomly arrest people on premises they happened to rent. It’s neither a sovereign government enforcing some laws on its own territory nor an organization created by sovereign governments which have chosen to delegate certain powers to it. The people behind this may have the chutzpah to try it nevertheless, on the grounds that bullying oftentimes works, but bullying is all they have to support their stance.
They can keep the players out of the tournament which belongs to them, unless there are laws explicitly prohibiting that sort of discrimination.
I don’t know what the laws in Sweden and Poland say in this regard.
Of course, the players can get together and decide to boycott. At this point, they’re insane if they don’t.
After Damar Hamlin, I find it hard to imagine there is any athlete of any note who is not concerned about the vaxxes and certainly don’t want any / any more at this point in time. It only stops when we make it stop.
I don’t think your theory that the IHF is a sovereign government which has automatic exterritoriality in any place it may rent somewhere and is thus not subject to the laws of the countries its operating in and authorized to make up its own laws as it sees fit and enforce them violently is correct. But please feel free to prove me wrong by coming up with something which shows that private associations of businesspeople do actually have these rights in Sweden and Poland.
Re private companies setting mandates…
The situation is really bad in Australia where it’s likely millions have been impacted by jab mandates set by state governments, businesses, sports clubs etc.
In regard to companies, I’m challenging the jab mandate set by Westpac Bank for its employees, a jab mandate which is still in place.
See my email to the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Westpac Group: Westpac and Covid jab mandates – why were employees denied a voluntary decision on this medical intervention? 4 January 2023.
Well maybe, but where were they when people including children were being forced, coerced and gaslighted into being injected and generally vilified if they weren’t.
Most sports governing bodies are inept, corrupt because they are monopolies. Competition is the only thing that can keep them on their toes. There is little to prevent a group of professionals setting up a more democratic leaner and meaner organisation and ensure by a comprehensive constitution that the tendency to corruption and being captured by bad actors is democratically blocked. Two competing governing bodies in a region or country tend to keep each other a bit more efficient and honest. Perhaps Iceland should make a start.
Now the “Long march through the institutions’ is complete the march through sporting associations seems well underway as the England squad demonstrated in Quatar.