A couple of day's ago Toby flagged up two very interesting articles in Der Spiegel:
I'm also reading "Corona False Alarm" in which Dr Sucharit Bhakdi describes what's going on in similar terms, calling it a "pandemic-driven vaccination hype".
As someone who's never before questioned the good intentions of the WHO and public health officials I'm beginning to smell a big rat. It seems incredible but the more I read the more I wonder what other evidence there is to support this view of "why are they doing this" (to quote Ivor Cummins).
As someone who quit smoking and now vapes, and watched what the major health organisations did around vaping, it became apparent very quickly how corrupt the WHO, and in fact pretty much all organisations dealing with the pharmaceutical industry are.
Obviously the WHO really put it out there with their appointment of Mugabe too.
Rachel, I think it has a lot to do with déformation professionnelle (also known as nerdview). If your work is in epidemics, you notice all the evidence that might be interpreted as pointing to an epidemic, and think that it actually points to one. And since your job is to take a special interest in serious epidemics (serious by number or by severity of illness), you will likewise be on the lookout for signs of seriousness. It is just like doctors who specialise in promoting healthy eating who, in a supermarket, will always notice the doughnuts and think how evil they are.
Then you present your concerns to other epidemiologists and virologists, because they are the only people with the expertise to go through your work in detail and criticise it. But their critical faculties will also be blunted by their specialist training. They will agree that this could be really bad. They are less likely to think of reasons why it might turn out not to be so bad. They may think of some such reasons, but not many of them.
The same will go for the pharmaceutical companies. They don't need to think "A nasty disease means a nice profit" - and if they are decent human beings, they won't think that. But when concerns are presented to them, they have no reason to undermine the conclusion of the experts that this could be really bad and a vaccine would be jolly useful.
Then the experts go to the politicians and paint a picture of overwhelmed hospitals. The politicians and the advisers around them may not be biased by specialist training, but their lack of that training makes it very difficult for them to challenge what the experts say.
So all in all, a well-intentioned decision-making procedure which turns out to be hopeless and to lead to dreadful over-reactions.
Rachel, I think it has a lot to do with déformation professionnelle (also known as nerdview). If your work is in epidemics, you notice all the evidence that might be interpreted as pointing to an epidemic, and think that it actually points to one. And since your job is to take a special interest in serious epidemics (serious by number or by severity of illness), you will likewise be on the lookout for signs of seriousness.
Yes. This starts off in early age as "throwing rattle out of pram" syndrome. The infant has a specific interest in its rattle and it seeks to encourage wider interest and response from others.
Those others wrongly identify an apparent problem of a rattle being on the ground without realising it was deliberately chucked out there for them.
A couple of day's ago Toby flagged up two very interesting articles in Der Spiegel:
It's also very telling that an article on the swine flu vaccination controversy in Forbes magazine got disappeared recently from the Forbes website.
https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/world-health-organization-swine-flu-pandemic-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html#1575b7a848e 8"> https://web.archive.org/web/20201011163656if_/https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/world-health-organization-swine-flu-pandemic-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html#1575b7a848e8
This one is also interesting:
