Yesterday I summarized key points made by Dr. Michael Yeadon, former Pfizer Inc. VP and Chief Science Officer, concerning Covid vaccines and and the public policy response to the Covid pandemic. Here, I consider the validity of four of those claims.
First: asymptomatic transmission is a lie.
This is the premise of Yeadon's claim that locking down asymptomatic people, as a means to stop viral spread, makes no sense.
On the face of it, the claim is plausible: Only when the virus has multiplied sufficiently to induce coughing, sneezing, and a running nose is the virus easily spread, whether by physical contact or the spread of airborne droplets of mucus and saliva.
Thus, says Yeadon, we should quarantine the sick not the healthy, "that is what we have always done."
But what we have always done does not stop viral spread as the almost yearly return of the flu confirms, despite the fact that people expressing symptoms of the flu stay home.
And the reason that people with the flu staying home does not stop the spread is for the obvious reason that until they become symptomatic, people infected by the flu virus do not stay home, which means that there is "asymptomatic transmission."
In particular, "asymptomatic transmission" most likely occurs during the few hours between a person becoming aware that they are sick and the time they are able to sequester themselves at home.
Thus, it is not necessarily a mistake to quarantine all but essential workers during an epidemic of what is considered a dangerous disease.
Moreover, even if it is true, as Yeadon claims, that "we have never done that," i.e., quarantine the healthy, that fact has no bearing on the question of the best public policy today. Furthermore, there is a clear distinction between the present circumstances, and hence the most appropriate policies, and times of epidemics past.
For example, in London, during the plague years of the early 17th Century, infected individuals were required to remain at home. Any seen in public with the marks of the plague upon them were liable to death by hanging.
But that asymptomatic individuals were free to go about their business in plague-ridden London during the early sixteen hundreds was a matter of absolute necessity for the reason that a large proportion of the population was essential to maintain the production and distribution of food and other essential services.
Today, economic conditions are totally different. In the developed world, a mere one percent of the population is sufficient to maintain full agricultural production, and another several percent suffice to move and process the food, keep the lights on, chlorinate the water, and run the sewage plant. For the rest, they might just as well be locked up if that is what it takes to "bend the curve."
Second: Immunity to infection depends, primarily, not on antibodies, but on T-cells.
Is that claim true? As a non expert, I won't presume to say. However, it seems to be the case that robust and durable immunity to a viral pathogen does depend on T-Cell immunity, whereas, antibody immunity, for example that induced by "vaccination" with Covid spike protein mRNA, even if effective in preventing the manifestation of disease in infected individuals, will likely fade within months.
Third: Covid is less of a threat that the flu, except to the elderly and those with certain predisposing conditions
This I believe is correct and it underlies Yeadon's message, which is this:
We should have allowed Covid to spread freely, while seeking to quarantine only the elderly and others at particular risk of death from Covid. Had that been the policy adopted, herd immunity would have been achieved before the end of last year, and Covid, otherwise known as SARS COV 2 would be a thing of the past, as is the case with SARS COV 1 with which it has an 80% genetic similarity.
Fourth: Booster shots now being prepared by Yeadon's old employer Pfizer Inc. and other mRNA vaccine suppliers will be designed not only to handle Covid variants that escape control by the current Covid vaccines, but to induce genetic diseases, cancer, liver failure whatever, as a population reduction measure.
This has to be nonsense. Genetic vaccines, whether of RNA or DNA cannot have secret ingredients. There must be literally thousands of people around the world capable of reading the nucleotide sequence of a nucleic acid "vaccine" and understanding its intended purpose. The inclusion, for example, of CRISPR technology to modify the genetic code of the treated person would be immediately apparent, likewise the inclusion of cancer-causing genes or other lethal components. What that means is that the monstrous crime against humanity that Yeadon proclaims to be the purpose of the ongoing Covid vaccination program would be impossible to perpetrate without exposure.
But if Yeadon's key point is nonsense, what does that mean? Possible it means simply that Dr. Yeadon is off his head. That does happen to highly intelligent people, and there is no doubt that Yeadon is highly intelligent.
Alternatively, the explanation seems to be that Yeadon is a mouthpiece for extremely nasty propaganda, which works as follows:
Yeadon's key point, that the vaccines are a depopulation weapon designed to kill you, is obvious nonsense, therefore, everything Yeadon says is nonsense, which thus falsifies the idea that:
(a) Instead of wrecking economies with lockdowns, Governments should have allowed the virus uncontrolled spread to achieve herd immunity, which would have ended the SARS COV 2 pandemic, months ago.
(b) That antibody-inducing M-RNA "vaccines" are essentially useless if not worse than useless.
So it would appear that whatever his intention, Yeadon's public statements about Covid vaccines have the perverse effect of convincing many people that Covid-related public policies pursued by Western governments, including the planned introduction of vaccine passports which Yeadon has quite correctly, in my view, inveighed against, have all been for the best in the best of all possible worlds, whereas in fact, the opposite is almost certainly case.
Related:
"Genetic vaccines, whether of RNA or DNA cannot have secret ingredients. There must be literally thousands of people around the world capable of reading the nucleotide sequence of a nucleic acid "vaccine" and understanding its intended purpose."
ReplyDeleteCertainly this statement in itself is true. I question what follows from it.
I can sequence a strand of mRNA and know it codes for a spike protein, for example.
However, I cannot predict a priori all the things which happen inside the extremely complex environment of a human body once this mRNA is injected into it and the spike protein begins to be produced.
That's why we have heretofore insisted on the most stringent testing of any new pharmaceutical before we administer it to living and breathing human beings.
We have had safety standards and we haven't regretted it. Anyone who watches the pharmaceutical industry understands without these regulatory safeguards, the profit-making motivation leads to recklessness and can lead to the most undesirable consequences.
Such as thalidomide babies. Or silent springs.
Now, on a sudden, caution has been thrown to the wind. Why?
I really don't see why Yeadon can't speculate. He has his reasons, and in fact, a lot of other informed opinion aligns with it. I am surprised to see you reverse your opinion on these matters. For example, I am not sure you've really refuted the falsity of asymptomatic transmission. It just appears to me Yeadon has done something to upset you. What is that?
I'd like to point out genetic material is not the only thing contained in these vaccines. They are an incredibly complex mixture of substances. It is not out of the question the adjuvants of these vaccines have adverse effects. We do not know.
Are many people dying right now or not? Is there a "spike" of very sick young people at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital or not? How about in India? Was there a period of herd immunity in India, with very low death counts, or not?
I am completely confused. In Fairbanks, businesses which required masking and hand-washing on entry for more than a year have discontinued this practice. People who have received both shots believe they are immune and are no longer heeding the pandemic limitations.
You know, if there is asymptomatic transmission, as you now appear to believe, you are advocating the permanency of the pandemic procedures. You are also joining those who would consign 99% of humanity to the junk pile where we throw away all that is useless. Certainly this would be me, as I am not, "essential". Maybe you aren't either, if you are a scientist.
Thanks for that!
DeleteI will get back after some reflection.
If your condemnation of Yeadon is justified, Ron Unz's censorship of your posts was also justified.
ReplyDeleteThere's little doubt Unz believed your questions and comments were malicious propaganda and he was doing his civic duty removing them.
I have not found your own speculations of a depopulation motivation behind this far-fetched. But then maybe I have been the dupe of a malicious propagandist. Lucky you've been disenfranchised by Google and the others, who similarly may well have believed they were doing the world a favor sidelining a loonie's malicious propaganda.
That seems a bit uncivil. I said I would respond to your comments, which I believe I am able to do in a rational way, yet you spam me with abuse.
DeleteI am surprised at your emotional reaction to arguments which, whether or not flawed, represent a position that is open to rational evaluation.
As for Ron Unz, support him by all means if you share his one-track fixation, unsupported by any compelling argument or empirical fact, that Covid was deliberately loosed upon the world by members of the US military participating in the Wuhan military games (which judged by the blow-back would have been a remarkably dumb action even by the standards of the US military), but this is hardly the place to discuss what Ron Unz thinks about comments I may have made on his, in my view, absurd propaganda pieces about Covid-19.
Anyway, I will address your critique of this post, but since I have no desire to engage in an exchange of epithets and abuse, I will not proceed in haste.
Re-reading my post, I find nothing to object to concerning what I said about asymptomatic transmission.
DeleteYes I accept it as true that sick people are more infectious than those incubating a pathogen but not yet displaying symptoms of disease.
However, my point, namely, that people who become symptomatic whether from flu or Covid-19 generally go into isolation is surely correct. Therefore, the spread of infection depends on transmission during the asymptomatic phase of the infection, or most probably, as I noted, during the earliest symptomatic phase, i.e., during the time it takes for an infected person experiencing disease symptoms to withdraw from social interaction and take to their bed.
To restrict such spread, lockdown of as much of the population as possible seems the only means. At least that is what is now generally accepted. If you can show that assumption to be false, let's hear the argument.
What I said about T-cell immunity versus antibody immunity is not, I think, a matter in dispute. Further, what I said about allowing the virus to spread leading to herd immunity based on robust and durable T-cell immunity is both correct and consistent with what Yeadon has said.
What would have been the cost of such a policy in terms of deaths, relative to the cost of the "vaccination" path followed, neither I, nor probably anyone else, could reasonably claim to know.
But the implication is that the m-RNA vaccination campaign, by reducing the spread of the virus, has prevented the emergence of durable T-cell based immunity and an end to SARS COV2.
So I take it that the key point with which you disagree is my contention that "booster vaccines", "top-up shots" etc., could not be used to induce fatal illnesses such as cancer, liver failure etc.
This is certainly a technical point, and as my last direct involvement with nucleic acids research was in the 60's, I certainly claim no special expertise. But I await your refutation of the claim that a supposed spike protein mRNA vaccine could harbor a mechanism for the induction of cancer or other lethal disease that would be unapparent to specialists in the genomics field.
The only plausible exception to that claim, it seems to me, being that the spike protein itself could have deadly long-term effects, a contention that would however, seem difficult to demonstrate in advance.
It is the case, however, that the spike protein is known to have detrimental effects on human fertility, a side effect of vaccination that needs to be investigated. More about that in another post.
To sum up, the "vaccination" campaign has prevented the attainment of long-lived, T-Cell-based, Covid herd immunity. This I believe was at a mistake if not a crime, and in that I am in agreement with Dr. Yeadon.
However, I am readily acknowledge that the costs, short- and long-term of either strategy is unknown and probably incalculable.
What I also claim is that by wildly asserting that nucleic acid based vaccines will be used to cull the world's population Yeadon undermines his own credibility, thereby seeming to validate the orthodox pro-vax policies adopted by most countries in response to the pandemic.
Sorry about that, CS. I posted the second thing before I noticed your response to the first thing. If I'd seen it, I wouldn't have posted that.
ReplyDeleteYour about-face alarms me.
Even the best epidemiologists, virologists, and immunologists have been aware we are faced with a situation where we must decide and act on very limited information.
One of our first discussions was of Nicholas Taleb, perhaps an expert on facing situations where we must decide and act on very limited information. He fully supported the most drastic of measures, being willing to believe this might be far worse than the bubonic plague.
The real reason I didn't think Taleb was correct here was because I am a conspiracy theorist, and I have observed a thing or two about the way governments conspire to gain ever more power and control. This made me "immune" to hype about the severity of this virus. I'd witnessed, and theorized, the way germs-- the dreaded germs! were made to be what we all feared. It certainly wasn't fear of God any more. Of course, this made me a kook, something I never lost sight of. Thing is, it has also made me mostly right in an uncanny way.
Okay, I posted without seeing your further post.
ReplyDeleteI'll pick this up tomorrow.
Thanks for responding to me, brother. Thanks for hosting me here.
You're welcome, mate.
DeleteAlways enjoy an argument. Usually I win. And when I don't win, I am thankful to learn something.
You're welcome, mate.
DeleteAlways enjoy an argument. Usually I win. And when I don't win, I am thankful to learn something.
But now I've modified the title of this piece, making it less provocative, I hope.
DeleteLet's argue about asymptomatic transmission.
ReplyDeleteYou say there is asymptomatic transmission as evidenced by the annual flu.
I say asymptomatic transmission was never attributed to any virus prior to the "novel" Covid19 virus.
Virologists, epidemiologists, and immunologists were spooked by Covid19 because they were being told this was unlike anything we'd ever known before.
Those that believed Fauci, the Chinese, and other government sources were willing to endorse the government's proposed drastic measures.
Those that thought asymptomatic transmission was impossible, because it had been considered impossible prior to Covid19, objected, saying these measures were neither scientific nor safe.
I consider it false people self-isolated when they had the seasonal flu.
Prior to this, people dragged themselves to work, whether they felt like it or not.
You've never had a co-worker with a sniffly, red nose and watery eyes, who maybe preferred to be in bed, but couldn't afford the dock on pay?
Even if you haven't, I can assure you this was a very, very common thing.
The grocery store clerk with the seasonal flu and a family to feed did go to work, if she had the strength to get out of bed, and only the most severe symptoms sapped her of that strength.
She infected many, many people. And this was not a crime or a catastrophe. It was an inconvenience, perhaps, a nuisance, perhaps. It was also part of what made the annual flu season just an annual season.
I've never had a flu shot, and I never will, God help me. I had a bad flu back in 2007. I made it through. I prefer to stay far, far away from M.D.'s if at all possible. That grocery clerk does too, if for no other reason than their expense.
You merely repeat what I have already acknowledged. But what you say about the behaviour of people with flu is true also of people with Covid. Therefore, if you want to stop all transmission, whether of flu or covid, you have to quarantine everyone, including those who are asymptomatic plus those who acting as if they were asymptomatic.
DeleteAnd the point is this: You cannot stop the spread by quarantining only the sick. Even if, as in 17th Century England you hanged symptomatics who failed to stay home, you'd still have people who first develop symptoms while on the job and who therefore pass the virus on.
Furthermore, what exactly is the proof that there is no such thing as purely asymptomatic transmission. I am sure a bunch of infected but asymptomatic college kids could pass around a virus. That's what they did in Manchester, England where, last September, 5% of the entire population university district of Manchester had Covid at the same time.
No, you and Yeadon are simply wrong. You cannot stop the spread without preventing human contact, which means quarantine for the entire population to be protected, whether symptomatic or not.
You can't stop the spread. Full stop. That's the point. You can't even stop the spread with the most drastic "quarantine" ever instituted. Full stop.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, what's the real reason behind the global "quarantine"?
We're not a bunch of idiots and if Covid19 had been the bubonic plague we would have self isolated without the government telling us what to do. The people who did commingle under those circumstances would get the bubonic plague and they wouldn't commingle any more. Too bad.
Too bad people use tobacco products, get lung cancer and so forth, and die. And so on.(They do clog our hospitals, too, by the way. They are most of what a physician sees in hospitals.)
But let me grant you the possibility the "quarantine" was initially a very good idea. We didn't know what we were dealing with...There were a lot of maybe's.
As we learned more about the disease, many of these were cleared up. Yet the "quarantine" continued though the "quarantine" was an increasingly suspect idea. Why?
When Yeadon said "we'd never done this before" re: the "quarantine" he was surely not referring to every response to plague in world history. He was referring to the numerous previous times in MODERN history, and probably especially to the more recent, much hyped flu seasons of the last ten to twenty years. This included a coronavirus outbreak, too.
I suppose you are technically correct Yeadon was wrong in that statement, but beyond that, it seems silly. The bubonic plague was caused by a bacteria, not a virus. It was spread by rodents. So without a knowledge of bacteria or a contagion being spread by rodents, people were pretty much screwed no matter what they did, quarantine the sick or everyone or anything. It pretty much had to die out on its own, which it eventually did.
We have science and considerable understanding of what's happening to us. It isn't necessarily real-time, meaning there is a delay. HOWEVER, it has been discovered to be best to wait until you know what you are doing BEFORE you do it. It is entirely possible to ignorantly thrash about wildly in a harmful way and accomplish NOTHING. That's precisely what we're doing. Likely the harm we're doing now will vastly outweigh the original harm of Covid19, if it already hasn't.
If there is asymptomatic transmission, it isn't just me and Yeadon who are simply wrong. It is the vast majority of scientists. And your argument is very frail and fallacious. It's been impossible to stop flu spread and therefore there is asymptomatic transmission. I suspect you're spoiling for a fight. I don't really wish to give you one because if someone is determined to win this kind of fight, yep, they will win it. Out of respect and appreciation, I'll take a shot. That's all.
We seem to have a disagreement without a difference.
DeleteIn particular, we are in agreement that once it was established that Covid mortality in healthy individuals under 65 was slight to non-existent extreme measures to stop the spread were unjustifiable and indeed outrageous.
From that point on, the object of public policy should have been to protect, i.e., quarantine, the elderly, while allowing the virus to spread freely until herd immunity had been achieved and the virus had died out for lack of susceptible hosts.
This is the important epidemiological argument that Yeadon has very effectively made. However, Yeadon has, I believe, greatly damaged his credibility on this vital point by making unsubstantiated and what seem to me to be highly improbable claims to the effect that the vaccination campaign is designed to kill us all.
Maybe I am wrong. Maybe Yeadon can substantiate his claim about the vaccines. But if so he should put some cards on the table. Instead he resists being questioned. In an interview with James Delingpole, for example, he barely allows the normally quite verbal Delingpole to speak. And in a comment thread at Unz.Com, he made a comment but refused to answer questions addressed to him.
Such determination to impose a narrative without debate raises the obvious question, is Yeadon making propaganda, or could it be that he has developed a schizophrenic Messiah complex.
In the absence of a good answer to the question "Why are they doing this?" I think it is natural to provide one, which is ultimately an assessment of motives. It is difficult to read motives in people we know and love, let alone people we don't even know. We shouldn't have to do this in the first place. Previously we've slid down a slippery slope, but what's taken place here is unprecedented. Thus, I myself see not the slightest reason to assign a pure motive to what "they've" done to us and what they plan to do to us. "They" probably see 99% of us as useless feeders and shitters, junking up "their" planet. From "their" point of view the most benign thing "they" might line up for us is the most rigid totalitarian control of our behavior ever seen in human history. "Hopefully" that's the worst, or the best, or-- what can I say? From "MY" point of view that's worse than death. At least for "myself". Whatever. To reach their objectives "they" have always been willing to slaughter us, or, rather, have us slaughter each other. Even if millions die worldwide in this mess, that's nothing, really. 20th century wars killed many, many more than that. The most that alone accomplishes is the feeders and shitters go into high gear breeding for awhile to catch back up. As in Germany and the USSR and elsewhere. From "my" point of view, this is senseless. Of course, I genuinely cherish human and other forms of life. I know a phony line when I hear it, too. And the "this is for your own good" coming from "them" gives me the freaking chills.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure that I do cherish human life to such an extent as it exists on Earth today.
DeleteSince the time of my father's birth, human population has increased around eight-fold, with consequences that seem generally regrettable.
But whatever I personally may feel about the land of my birth made progressively more hideous through urban and suburban expansion, while the indigenous population is increasingly elbowed aside by literally millions upon millions of immigrants of alien race, religion and culture, one can be sure that the elite see the emergence of a gigantic, and massively resource-depleting proletariat with revulsion.
Moreover, not only are the proles surely repellent in the eyes of the elite, but worse, they are superfluous. In an age of automation and artificial intelligence a pair of hands is no longer worth its keep.
What then to expect? Global depopulation, for sure.
We've already seen a good start to that in the developed world where the cost of labor far exceeds its value in a globalized economy. This has been achieved by, among other means, state-funded abortion, the promotion of women in the workforce, and an end to motherhood as a vocation.
And now Covid has made a useful contribution, driving down fertility rates of western countries by ten percent or so, an effect likely to persist as the result of demoralization and economic damage due to national lockdowns.
In addition there are the direct effects of the virus including erectile dysfunction, reduced sperm count, etc.
Better, one imagines, would have been to proceed on the basis of an open discussion about optimizing population and conserving human cultural and racial diversity. But under the philistinism of the likes of Gates, Musk and Bezos, we will surely see a top-down drive to a world of the Eloi and the Morlocks.
What I think is important about COVID is that the survival rate for anyone younger than eighty is over 99%, and the average age of those dying from the disease matches or slightly exceeds life expectancy. This actually was established through data from cruise ships where the disease spread in February and March 2020. I took a planned trip to New York City, then the epicenter of the disease in the United States, because I had studied the data beforehand and realized there was nothing to be concerned about.
ReplyDeleteSo the best response was actually to do nothing. The lockdowns, "new normal" controls, illegal executive issued emergency orders, masks, followed by the vaccines were all unwarranted simply because the disease, while it spread widely quickly, was just not that dangerous. And it doesn't take many adverse reactions to get to the point where the gene therapy ("vaccines") are more likely to harm you than the disease.
So obviously there was and is some other agenda, but it is anyone's guess what it is. I actually don't buy the depopulation stuff because I think the elites love having lots and lots of slaves, and if they wanted depopulation there were better ways to do it (like creating a disease that was actually painful and deadly, which would have the bonus that "vaccine hesitancy" would not have been problem). But maybe depopulation is on the agenda. We really don't know. I've taken lots of vaccines and I just don't think it makes sense to take one not regulatory approved that is supposed to lesson the symptoms of something with a 99% plus survival rate.
Your assessment of the disease and what would have been a rational public policy response to it, makes good sense. In fact, your conclusions seem rather obvious, although it has taken me a long time to reach them -- indicating that the propaganda justifying the economically disruptive and seemingly ridiculous government actions has been highly effective.
DeleteAs to depopulation, one can be sure that the few hundred really rich people will have all of the slaves, servants and other dependents that they need to satisfy their egos, even in a world with only a few hundred million people. What the rich would gain through depopulation is elimination of so much of what the rich no doubt consider to be human trash cluttering the best beaches, and just generally consuming the world's natural resources to no useful (to the rich) purpose.
By the way, I have handle and a google account, but it seems that anon comments on this site are likeliest to get through. In the past I was able to go the anon route and post some sort of fake name, but not now.
ReplyDeleteI'm puzzled that you are not free to use any handle you want here. But there is much about Google that puzzles me, so I may be unable to facilitate the use of your preferred name. About the only people that I deliberately block are those offering escort services and the like. However, if you were to mention your preferred handle, I will check to see that I have not inadvertently blocked it.
Delete