Should Scientists be Allowed to Tell the Truth?

The answer to this question ought to be obvious. If the policies are flawed, of course scientists should debate them, in fact it is their duty to do so.

BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE

THORSTEINN SIGLAUGSSON   OCTOBER 29, 2023

hould Scientists Openly Debate Vaccine Policies?” This is the title of video published by Dr. Paul Offit which appeared in transcript in MedpageToday on October 20th. Offit works at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and he is also a member of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

The answer to this question ought to be obvious. If the policies are flawed, of course scientists should debate them, in fact it is their duty to do so. But as Offit describes, this has often not been the case when it comes to the Covid-19 vaccine policies. He discusses two examples.

The first has to do with the so-called “bivalent booster” vaccines offered in late 2021 and early 2022. There was no evidence those so-called boosters made any difference against the new strains they were supposed to be effective against.

In fact all studies showed clearly how they made no difference at all against those new strains. Still, Offit says, public health officials kept pushing them as “dramatically better”. And that’s a lie of course.

The second example has to do with the US authorities now recommending yet another booster for everyone from 6 months up, while most countries only recommend them to high-risk groups. According to Offit, the rationale given for the wholesale recommendation is not that the officials believe everyone should have the boosters. The rationale is that if they are recommended to everyone, the high-risk groups are more likely to accept them. Interestingly, Offit seems ready to accept this as long as the message works this way.

But let’s put this into the context of reality as it actually is. It is known, and has been known for a long time, how those vaccines cause myocarditis and pericarditis in young males. Let’s now imagine a parent asked one of those health officials if they should inject their 15-year-old boy with the booster, for a disease that is essentially harmless to him.

What would the reply be? Would the official tell the parent to disregard the message? Of course not. Instead, to be consistent, he would go on to scare the parent into having the boy injected, lying about the severity of the infection, and if asked, no doubt lying about the side effects also. In other words, he would lie, knowing that the child would be worse off after the injection. Offit avoids discussing this scenario.

In fact he avoids all discussion of the well-documented harmful side effects from the vaccines. He knows of course that if he discussed this, the transcript would never have made it into MedpageToday, his video would surely have been removed from YouTube, and most likely he would have been kicked off the committee.

Just like Dr. Martin Kulldorff was kicked off the vaccine safety subcommittee after openly criticising the decision not to offer the Moderna vaccine to the elderly only, a decision that was in fact reversed a few days later. But Kulldorff had opened up the discussion of how those products might benefit some, but not others, and that was an unforgivable crime.

Offit distinguishes between broad and nuanced messaging. Nuanced messaging is telling people who should have the medication and who should not. Broad messaging is telling people everyone should have the medication, whether they need it or not. But in the end, all he is really doing is to distinguish between telling the truth and lying.

A more fitting title for the MedpageToday article would therefore have been: “Should Scientists be Allowed to Tell the Truth?” Since the start of the Covid-19 madness, they haven’t, and until recently, and to a large extent still, truth has been under the most vigorous and co-ordinated attack in recent times.

Still, considering the comments under that MedpageToday article, where only medical professionals can comment, it looks as if we might be beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. A dim light, for sure, but it will grow brighter. And despite its shortcomings, Offit’s piece should be welcomed, as it serves only to strengthen that light.

Republished from the author’s Substack

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Thorsteinn Siglaugsson is an Icelandic consultant, entrepreneur and writer and contributes regularly to The Daily Sceptic as well as various Icelandic publications. He holds a BA degree in philosophy and an MBA from INSEAD. Thorsteinn is a certified expert in the Theory of Constraints and author of From Symptoms to Causes – Applying the Logical Thinking Process to an Everyday Problem.

https://brownstone.org/articles/should-scientists-be-allowed-to-tell-the-truth/