Brownstone Institute
The Media Ignored the Parliamentary Debate on Vaccine Safety
From the Brownstone Institute
On Monday, there was a debate in the UK Parliament on Covid vaccine safety. Cast into shadow by a storm of reporting on the appointment of the UK’s latest Prime Minister, it received virtually no mainstream press attention. This is unfortunate, as the issues it raises – about the scale of adverse vaccine reactions, excess death trends, potential breaches of medical ethics, and regulatory capture – are deserving of both airtime and urgent investigation.
In the UK as elsewhere the scale of adverse reactions from the Covid-19 vaccine is bitterly contested. The Parliamentary debate was no different – on the one hand Elliot Colburn (MP) repeated the orthodoxy that serious adverse events were “incredibly rare” and that such events as are reported are “typically mild, with individuals usually recovering within a short time;” whilst others cited evidence which casts doubt on that official narrative.
Sir Christopher Chope (MP) pointed out that other data sets have put risks much higher than the “12 reports per 1 million doses” pinpointed by Colburn as the Pfizer-suspected myocarditis reporting rate – “The Paul Ehrlich Institute is the German regulator responsible for vaccine safety,” he explained, before noting that on 20 July 2022, “…the institute confirmed that one in 5,000 people was seriously affected after a vaccination.”
These concerns were echoed by Andrew Bridgen (MP) noting that “…[a] study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, included 7,806 children aged five or younger who were followed for an average of 91.4 days after their first Pfizer vaccination. The study showed that one in 500 children under five years of age who received a Pfizer mRNA…covid vaccine were hospitalised with a vaccine injury, and one in 200 had symptoms ongoing for weeks or months afterwards.”
One does not have to subscribe to a particular view of which of these data sets are more accurate to recognise that there are now at the very least serious questions to be asked and answered about the scale of adverse reactions. As Chope noted in relation to the German data, it “is serious information coming from the regulator of a country that is highly respected for the quality of its healthcare.” The same could be said of the well-documented analysis carried out by the Floridian health department indicating an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males aged 18 to 39 within 28 days following mRNA vaccination. These are not baseless concerns from a radical fringe; they are significant issues raised by respectable scientific and health authorities.
The continued refusal of the UK Government and the arms of the State to countenance let alone embrace a transparent review of the Covid vaccine rollout feels increasingly illegitimate the longer it continues, as too does the failure to discuss let alone investigate the cause of the well-documented rise in excess deaths.
As Bridgen asked, “What is the Government’s analysis of the excess deaths that we are suffering in this country, across Europe and in the Americas? Even a casual glance at the data shows a strong correlation between vaccine uptake and the excess deaths in those regions. Surely we must have an investigation. Tens of thousands more people than expected are dying. This is really important, and if we do not get it right, no one will believe us, and trust in politicians, in medicine and in our medical system will be lost.”
The other key thread running through the debate was that, however many lives the vaccine rollout may have saved, unanswered questions remain from a medical ethics perspective. “Why was vaccination extended to the whole population? I do not think we have ever had a completely satisfactory answer to that question,” asked Danny Kruger (MP), before adding “I ask it again, because my concern is that extending the vaccination programme became an operation in public persuasion—an operation in which dissent was unhelpful or even immoral, and an operation that justified the suppression and even vilification of those who raised concerns.”
Likewise, said Kruger, “I worry about whether we can say that consent was fully informed in all cases,” before adding “Throughout, there has been misinformation in favour of the vaccine,” referencing the now highly discredited official line that the vaccine was 95% effective, and that it would stop transmission.
Nowhere are the ethics of the vaccine rollout murkier than in relation to children, where the perceived lack of benefit relative to risk is most pronounced. Again Kruger stuck his neck out in a valiant attempt to shine light: “…we had the notorious claim by Professor Chris Whitty that even though the vaccine brought no benefit to children, children should be vaccinated to protect wider society…again, [this] feels like a profound break with medical ethics.”
The significance of these comments cannot be overstated: Parliamentarians from the governing Conservative Party are now expressly acknowledging that the Government’s authoritarian policy on the Covid vaccine rollout, combatting of vaccine hesitancy, and suppression of legitimate dissenting voices may have breached key tenets of medical ethics.
One of the consistent features of the last two years has been the tendency of vaccine evangelicals to dismiss anyone questioning the rollout as fringe anti-vaxxers – a lazy, vicious slur, designed to delegitimise serious debate.
And yet during this week’s Parliamentary debate, elected representatives appeared guilty of the same ideological laziness, Elliot Colburn (MP) dismissing out of hand Sir Christopher Chope’s question as to whether he had seen Oracle Film’s “Safe and Effective: A Second Opinion.” Many would maintain that in the context of a debate specifically on vaccine safety, Chope’s was an eminently reasonable question, and yet Colburn’s answer –
“I have not seen that publication, although I have read a lot of the significant amounts of material that have been shoved through my constituency office door by a large number of anti-vax protesters, who have flyposted my office on no less than a dozen occasions, and intimidated my 18-year-old apprentice and the people who live above my constituency office. Given that the content of that literature includes climate change denial, moon landing denial and so on, I am inclined to ignore it completely.”
This is an astonishing dismissal coming from an elected Parliamentarian – disrespectful to those who have suffered serious adverse reactions as a result of the vaccine and outright dangerous in its presumed intent of stifling debate in, of all places, the debating chambers of the UK Parliament.
At many points during the debate the degree of Establishment disinterest, bordering on wilful blindness, underlined: “The Government seems to be in denial about the risks of these vaccines,” noted Chope, with Kruger adding, “I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group on covid-19 vaccine damage…The APPG looks at vaccine injuries, and we had what I think was our first meeting last week in a Committee room in Portcullis House. I am afraid there were only a tiny handful of colleagues there, but well over a hundred members of the public attended, which is not the usual story for an APPG.”
Both the lack of any mainstream reporting of this debate – arguably an abject failure to hold the Government to account as should be a core role of a free press – and the refusal to investigate the underlying concerns are deeply regrettable. The Covid Public Inquiry in the UK will consider the vaccine rollout process, but it is not apparent that it will question vaccine safety – this seems unlikely in the current climate of suppression – and in any case the timescales for that inquiry run into years. This is far too long in the context of a medical intervention which continues to be marketed and rolled out nationwide.
In all of this there are unanswered questions about the role and independence of key regulatory bodies in the UK. As Danny Kruger (MP) summed it up, “I mentioned that the MHRA is funded by the pharmaceutical companies that produce the drugs and vaccines that it regulates. There might be some universe in which that makes sense, but this is not it.” That sentiment will be shared by the many of us who have watched, aghast, as foundational rubicons of medical ethics have been crossed, seemingly in pursuit of nothing more noble than the Prime Minister’s vaccine rollout ‘success’ statistics and Pfizer’s bottom line.
One does not have to agree with all of the points made by the MPs, and one does not have to dispute the fact that the vaccine rollout saved lives, to understand that questions raised by elected politicians in this debate – around the scale of adverse events, potential breaches of medical ethics and regulatory capture – are serious. They are all the more so given the context: far from being solely a historical event, the booster programme and rollout continues, including to children whom parents, medical professionals, and indeed Government Ministers, owe a special duty of care.
In the UK Parliamentary system Select Committees of MPs play an important role in holding both the private and public sector accountable to Parliament and thus, in some small way, to the people of the UK. With powers to call witnesses to attend and to require difficult questions to be answered, and with legal protection from retaliatory actions and political pressures, a Select Committee hearing may be the forum of last resort for this controversial politically-charged issue to be probed.
The last Select Committee hearing for the pharmaceutical industry took place in 2005. It concluded that lax regulatory oversight had contributed to an industry whose influence was out of control and plagued by practices “which act against the public interest.” Another hearing is overdue.
Author
From the Brownstone Institute
Way back in the B.C. era (Before Covid), I taught Medical Humanities and Bioethics at an American medical school. One of my older colleagues – I’ll call him Dr. Quinlan – was a prominent member of the faculty and a nationally recognized proponent of physician-assisted suicide.
Dr. Quinlan was a very nice man. He was soft-spoken, friendly, and intelligent. He had originally become involved in the subject of physician-assisted suicide by accident, while trying to help a patient near the end of her life who was suffering terribly.
That particular clinical case, which Dr. Quinlan wrote up and published in a major medical journal, launched a second career of sorts for him, as he became a leading figure in the physician-assisted suicide movement. In fact, he was lead plaintiff in a challenge of New York’s then-prohibition against physician-assisted suicide.
The case eventually went all the way to the US Supreme Court, which added to his fame. As it happened, SCOTUS ruled 9-0 against him, definitively establishing that there is no “right to die” enshrined in the Constitution, and affirming that the state has a compelling interest to protect the vulnerable.
SCOTUS’s unanimous decision against Dr. Quinlan meant that his side had somehow pulled off the impressive feat of uniting Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and all points in between against their cause. (I never quite saw how that added to his luster, but such is the Academy.)
At any rate, I once had a conversation with Dr. Quinlan about physician-assisted suicide. I told him that I opposed it ever becoming legal. I recall he calmly, pleasantly asked me why I felt that way.
First, I acknowledged that his formative case must have been very tough, and allowed that maybe, just maybe, he had done right in that exceptionally difficult situation. But as the legal saying goes, hard cases make bad law.
Second, as a clinical physician, I felt strongly that no patient should ever see their doctor and have to wonder if he was coming to help keep them alive or to kill them.
Finally, perhaps most importantly, there’s this thing called the slippery slope.
As I recall, he replied that he couldn’t imagine the slippery slope becoming a problem in a matter so profound as causing a patient’s death.
Well, maybe not with you personally, Dr. Quinlan, I thought. I said no more.
But having done my residency at a major liver transplant center in Boston, I had had more than enough experience with the rather slapdash ethics of the organ transplantation world. The opaque shuffling of patients up and down the transplant list, the endless and rather macabre scrounging for donors, and the nebulous, vaguely sinister concept of brain death had all unsettled me.
Prior to residency, I had attended medical school in Canada. In those days, the McGill University Faculty of Medicine was still almost Victorian in its ways: an old-school, stiff-upper-lip, Workaholics-Anonymous-chapter-house sort of place. The ethic was hard work, personal accountability for mistakes, and above all primum non nocere – first, do no harm.
Fast forward to today’s soft-core totalitarian state of Canada, the land of debanking and convicting peaceful protesters, persecuting honest physicians for speaking obvious truth, fining people $25,000 for hiking on their own property, and spitefully seeking to slaughter harmless animals precisely because they may hold unique medical and scientific value.
To all those offenses against liberty, morality, and basic decency, we must add Canada’s aggressive policy of legalizing, and, in fact, encouraging industrial-scale physician-assisted suicide. Under Canada’s Medical Assistance In Dying (MAiD) program, which has been in place only since 2016, physician-assisted suicide now accounts for a terrifying 4.7 percent of all deaths in Canada.
MAiD will be permitted for patients suffering from mental illness in Canada in 2027, putting it on par with the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland.
To its credit, and unlike the Netherlands and Belgium, Canada does not allow minors to access MAiD. Not yet.
However, patients scheduled to be terminated via MAiD in Canada are actively recruited to have their organs harvested. In fact, MAiD accounts for 6 percent of all deceased organ donors in Canada.
In summary, in Canada, in less than 10 years, physician-assisted suicide has gone from illegal to both an epidemic cause of death and a highly successful organ-harvesting source for the organ transplantation industry.
Physician-assisted suicide has not slid down the slippery slope in Canada. It has thrown itself off the face of El Capitan.
And now, at long last, physician-assisted suicide may be coming to New York. It has passed the House and Senate, and just awaits the Governor’s signature. It seems that the 9-0 Supreme Court shellacking back in the day was just a bump in the road. The long march through the institutions, indeed.
For a brief period in Western history, roughly from the introduction of antibiotics until Covid, hospitals ceased to be a place one entered fully expecting to die. It appears that era is coming to an end.
Covid demonstrated that Western allopathic medicine has a dark, sadistic, anti-human side – fueled by 20th-century scientism and 21st-century technocratic globalism – to which it is increasingly turning. Physician-assisted suicide is a growing part of this death cult transformation. It should be fought at every step.
I have not seen Dr. Quinlan in years. I do not know how he might feel about my slippery slope argument today.
I still believe I was correct.
From the Brownstone Institute
Many news outlets reported the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday by saying President Donald Trump had missed out (Washington Post, Yahoo, Hindustan Times, Huffington Post), not won (USA Today), fallen short (AP News), lost (Time), etc. There is even a meme doing the rounds about ‘Trump Wine.’ ‘Made from sour grapes,’ the label explains, ‘This is a full bodied and bitter vintage guaranteed to leave a nasty taste in your mouth for years.’
For the record, the prize was awarded to María Corina Machado for her courageous and sustained opposition to Venezuela’s ruling regime. Trump called to congratulate her. Given his own attacks on the Venezuelan president, his anger will be partly mollified, and he could even back her with practical support. He nonetheless attacked the prize committee, and the White House assailed it for putting politics before peace.
He could be in serious contention next year. If his Gaza peace plan is implemented and holds until next October, he should get it. That he is unlikely to do so is more a reflection on the award and less on Trump.
So He Won the Nobel Peace Prize. Meh!
Alfred Nobel’s will stipulates the prize should be awarded to the person who has contributed the most to promote ‘fraternity between nations…abolition or reduction of standing armies and…holding and promotion of peace congresses.’ Over the decades, this has expanded progressively to embrace human rights, political dissent, environmentalism, race, gender, and other social justice causes.
On these grounds, I would have thought the Covid resistance should have been a winner. The emphasis has shifted from outcomes and actual work to advocacy. In honouring President Barack Obama in 2009, the Nobel committee embarrassed itself, patronised him, and demeaned the prize. His biggest accomplishment was the choice of his predecessor as president: the prize was a one-finger send-off to President George W. Bush.
There have been other strange laureates, including those prone to wage war (Henry Kissinger, 1973), tainted through association with terrorism (Yasser Arafat, 1994), and contributions to fields beyond peace, such as planting millions of trees. Some laureates were subsequently discovered to have embellished their record, and others proved to be flawed champions of human rights who had won them the treasured accolade.
Conversely, Mahatma Gandhi did not get the prize, not for his contributions to the theory and practice of non-violence, nor for his role in toppling the British Raj as the curtain raiser to worldwide decolonisation. The sad reality is how little practical difference the prize has made to the causes it espoused. They bring baubles and honour to the laureates, but the prize has lost much of its lustre as far as results go.
Trump Was Not a Serious Contender
The nomination processes start in September and nominations close on 31 January. The five-member Norwegian Nobel committee scrutinises the list of candidates and whittles it down between February and October. The prize is announced on or close to 10 October, the date Alfred Nobel died, and the award ceremony is held in Oslo in early December.
The calendar rules out a newly elected president in his first year, with the risible exception of Obama. The period under review was 2024. Trump’s claims to have ended seven wars and boasts of ‘nobody’s ever done that’ are not taken seriously beyond the narrow circle of fervent devotees, sycophantic courtiers, and supplicant foreign leaders eager to ingratiate themselves with over-the-top flattery.
Trump Could Be in Serious Contention Next Year
Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan falls into three conceptual-cum-chronological parts: today, tomorrow, and the day after. At the time of writing, in a hinge moment in the two-year war, Israel has implemented a ceasefire in Gaza, Hamas has agreed to release Israeli hostages on 13-14 October, and Israel will release around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners (today’s agenda). So why are the ‘Ceasefire Now!’ mobs not out on the streets celebrating joyously instead of looking morose and discombobulated? Perhaps they’ve been robbed of the meaning of life?
The second part (tomorrow) requires Hamas demilitarisation, surrender, amnesty, no role in Gaza’s future governance, resumption of aid deliveries, Israeli military pullbacks, a temporary international stabilisation force, and a technocratic transitional administration. The third part, the agenda for the day after, calls for the deradicalisation of Gaza, its reconstruction and development, an international Peace Board to oversee implementation of the plan, governance reforms of the Palestinian Authority, and, over the horizon, Palestinian statehood.
There are too many potential pitfalls to rest easy on the prospects for success. Will Hamas commit military and political suicide? How can the call for democracy in Gaza and the West Bank be reconciled with Hamas as the most popular group among Palestinians? Can Israel’s fractious governing coalition survive?
Both Hamas and Israel have a long record of agreeing to demands under pressure but sabotaging their implementation at points of vulnerability. The broad Arab support could weaken as difficulties arise. The presence of the internationally toxic Tony Blair on the Peace Board could derail the project. Hamas has reportedly called on all factions to reject Blair’s involvement. Hamas official Basem Naim, while thanking Trump for his positive role in the peace deal, explained that ‘Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims and maybe a lot [of] people around the world still remember his [Blair’s] role in causing the killing of thousands or millions of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.’
It would be a stupendous achievement for all the complicated moving parts to come together in stable equilibrium. What cannot and should not be denied is the breathtaking diplomatic coup already achieved. Only Trump could have pulled this off.
The very traits that are so offputting in one context helped him to get here: narcissism; bullying and impatience; bull in a china shop style of diplomacy; indifference to what others think; dislike of wars and love of real estate development; bottomless faith in his own vision, negotiating skills, and ability to read others; personal relationships with key players in the region; and credibility as both the ultimate guarantor of Israel’s security and preparedness to use force if obstructed. Israelis trust him; Hamas and Iran fear him.
The combined Israeli-US attacks to degrade Iran’s nuclear capability underlined the credibility of threats of force against recalcitrant opponents. Unilateral Israeli strikes on Hamas leaders in Qatar highlighted to uninvolved Arabs the very real dangers of continued escalation amidst the grim Israeli determination to rid themselves of Hamas once and for all.
Trump Is Likely to Be Overlooked
Russia has sometimes been the object of the Nobel Peace Prize. The mischievous President Vladimir Putin has suggested Trump may be too good for the prize. Trump’s disdain for and hostility to international institutions and assaults on the pillars of the liberal international order would have rubbed Norwegians, among the world’s strongest supporters of rules-based international governance, net zero, and foreign aid, the wrong way.
Brash and public lobbying for the prize, like calling the Norwegian prime minister, is counterproductive. The committee is fiercely independent. Nominees are advised against making the nomination public, let alone orchestrating an advocacy campaign. Yet, one laureate is believed to have mobilised his entire government for quiet lobbying behind the scenes, and another to have bad-mouthed a leading rival to friendly journalists.
Most crucially, given that Scandinavian character traits tip towards the opposite end of the scale, it’s hard to see the committee overlooking Trump’s loud flaws, vanity, braggadocio, and lack of grace and humility. Trump supporters discount his character traits and take his policies and results seriously. Haters cannot get over the flaws to seriously evaluate policies and outcomes. No prizes for guessing which group the Nobel committee is likely to belong to. As is currently fashionable to say when cancelling someone, Trump’s values do not align with those of the committee and the ideals of the prize.
Author
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