Many good people will ‘do the right thing’ and spoil their vote this coming Friday. Many will ‘do the right thing’ and vote for one or other of the two candidates that have been shepherded onto the ballot sheet by the powers that be. Many will undoubtedly take the easiest option: blame the weather and not show up at all.
Of the usual fifty-odd percent of eligible voters, who arrive at polling stations as expected, more than likely the majority will vote for Catherine Connolly. In the unlikely event that more Fine Gael stalwarts from South Dublin, Cork and the more affluent suburbs show up, then Heather might rule the day – but that seems very unlikely.
Given the near inevitability of the outcome and the futility of participation in a game that has been rigged from the start, it’s hard to know which of the options is the most ‘right thing to do.’ Personally, if I manage to get the grass cut on polling day I will have done my civic duty.
As far as I can see, there’s about as much difference between the three options as there is any difference between the candidates themselves. In practical or political terms, both Heather and Catherine are on the ballot because neither will use the office of the Presidency to hold the main political parties to account in any practical or substantive way. Of course there will be lip-service to neutrality, wars, digital identities and so on, and perhaps we should be content with a bit of lip service. Either way, neither candidate poses any practical threat to the status quo. Neither candidate will use the office to effectively challenge those who have graciously paved the path to the Áras.
The major issues that face the nation: housing, health, immigration, public services and our neutrality will of course serve as talking points, but the Presidency will function in the usual perfunctory manner, as a kind of mood-music for the political establishment.
Aside from the machinations of ‘far-right extremists’, there appears to be no real appetite for practical change in Ireland. Nothing at least beyond a more trendy set of clothes for the Emperor. Crucially, neither candidate has any intention of raising any questions in respect of the behaviour of the three main parties throughout the Covid years. On that front the government, the opposition and both candidates are united. As Henry Ford said of his Model-T in 1919: “the customer can have any colour he wants, as long as it’s black.”
Seán Gallagher former Irish Presidential candidate.
No Big-Mouth Independents
The whips have ensured that no big-mouthed independents will appear on the ballot paper, independents who might have asked uncomfortable, unscripted questions. An independents who might have given those on the right of the political spectrum a place at the table perhaps?
Yet, it is not only right-wing extremists who are quick to recall the Covid years; the elderly who died, the money trails, the passports, the genetic vaccinations and so on. If not questions, then at least eyebrows are here and there being raised more generally in respect of issues like ‘excess deaths,’ and the increasing incidence of cancers in Ireland.
Even RTÉ is unafraid to admit that cancer was on the decline between 2011 and 2021 but that since 2021 the incidence in Ireland has soared, becoming the second highest in the EU in 2022. Today it is likely to be even higher. Excess deaths are another matter, but they too might step out from behind the shadows one day too.
It is perhaps unsurprising that most Irish voters do see differences between the candidates. To peruse the mainstream media in recent weeks, one would think we had a choice between chalk and cheese. In fairness, Irish voters apparently notice a distinction between Fianna Fail and Fianna Gael, and because Sinn Féin are in opposition and appear to often disagree with FFFG, voters see some differences there too.
I suspect that a growing number of Irish people (young people in particular) are coming to regard the apparent differences between the main political parties as purely superficial. During the Covid years the veil slipped for a time, as the three main parties showed their true colours, behaving in precisely the same manner: pandering to the same fears; promoting the same policies; advocating for the same pharmaceutical products; and pushing the same uncompromising agenda.
In truth, the difference between the main parties, like the difference between Catherine and Heather, is mostly ‘smoke and mirrors,’ entertainment created by the media for the purposes of buttering bread, earning a crust and paying the bills. Unfortunately, figuring out the truth requires intellectual investment, which usually pays poor dividends.
Perhaps we buy into notions of ‘difference’ between parties and between candidates because increasingly we lack that capacity to think deeply; to read a book instead of a tweet.
Despite the ascendancy of the soundbite, Irish voters are undoubtedly wearying of the same old packaging. The presidential Mary-model – featuring the heels, pearl necklace, Louise Kennedy suit and precision haircut – are the unmistakable hallmarks of the two Marys who have gone before. The familiar trappings at the very least have become dull and boring, if for no other reason that we grow tired of repetition.
The only evolution that Heather brings to the ‘Mary-model’ for Presidential success, is the fact that she is not a Mary. Those who will actually make a choice this Friday could not, and will not (in any significant numbers) vote for another Mary. If they do one can surely conclude that all hope is lost, both for Ireland and for the Oysters.
An evolution in our thinking, an intellectual escape from the paradigm of our post-colonial mindset, might be an impossibility, but that does not mean that we are not experiencing an evolution in how we see the world. We evolve cautiously, in small and slow increments. We may be insecure and await precedents to be established elsewhere in the U.K. or the U.S. but it does evolve.
The Mary-boat has sailed. It has had its presidential cruise and is scheduled to be up-cycled into something different, something ‘trending’ and a little bit more environmentally friendly.
Even my dachshund rolls his eyes and looks disappointed when I present him with a bowl of the dried dog-nuts we keep in the pantry. He has come to expect a few leftovers to be mixed in with the mundane.
Catherine Connolly.
‘An Element of Newness’
In respect of how the Presidential ‘rubber-stamp’ will be applied to legislation, Catherine might be no different to Heather, but she will bring a sufficient element of ‘newness’ and ‘difference’ to apply a veneer of ‘change’ lacquered on the planks of the same-old.
Catherine has a certain ruggedness about her, an edge that is ‘earthy’ and ‘progressive’. Her posters are less formal and contain a frequent, if veiled, nod to ‘pride’. Catherine hasn’t been wooed to the mainland to purchase a perfect smile. Unlike her competitor, there is nary a pearl necklace anywhere to be seen, and she is not afraid to wear an anorak, even when it’s not raining. There is something natural and home-grown about Catherine, and that certain-something will be sufficient to carry her all the way to the Áras.
When advanced capitalism sets the agenda for the general production of ‘news’ – costs increase the greater the scrutiny is applied to the issues. It would take a bit of depth and thought to arrive at the truth that there is little if any difference beneath the surface. It’s all about what’s trending, nothing more than that.
Authenticity (whatever that is when it’s at home) took a major hit from that oxymoron of ‘Artificial Intelligence’. Deeper issues escape the mainstream media because they require some thought. The more of that commodity required of legacy media the less marketable and consumer-friendly it becomes.
In respect of the ‘vote-spoilers’, few if any media outlets reap a harvest from that small herd of ‘right wing extremists,’ a cohort who are insisting they smell a rat somewhere. That motley crew of racist, flag-wielding loopers, have been smelling plague rats for more than five years now. The left in Dáil Eireann on the other hand are preoccupied with more pressing issues: Ukraine, gender, Palestine and pay gaps for example.
The election naysayers will be ignored by legacy media. The spoilers will scarcely get a mention, and the inevitable low turn-out will most likely be described as ‘only marginally worse than usual’.
Why should we expect anything different? Irish tenants elected their landlords to the English parliament for far longer than we have been freely voting for more of the same. It’s only a pity Jim Gavin bowed out after failing to return money owed to his tenant, as the analogy would require no further reference. We have a long and established tradition of voting for who we’ve been told to vote for. It’s a cultural trait which is quite possibly an integral component of a post-colonial make-up.
Our respect for the authorities who preserve and protect us from each other is predicated on the belief that they care for us – much in the same way as a farmer cares for his herd of milch cows. They have our best interests at heart, and thanks to democracy they remain answerable to ‘we the people.’ All that is necessary to buy into the myth is to show up and vote.
Heather Humphreys.
Our Proud History
Yes, we did have a Revolution and a War of Independence. We have built a mythology around that brief period in our history. We like to forget that only a handful of right and left-wing loopers showed up on Easter Sunday, and those in charge were spat on before being executed. Subsequently, much of our nationalism was self-sabotaged and consumed in the crucible of the Civil War. What little remained expired in the protracted bloodshed of the Northern Troubles.
Ireland is a subservient nation. To suggest otherwise would be to deny the unprecedented scale of our wilful compliance during the Covid years. Lockdowns might have been insane, but we had the longest ones in Europe. In general, we love rules, we love imposing them upon each other, and we respect our masters, just as long as we get to eat some of the long grass in the summer.
That the Presidential election has effectively been rigged; that the party whip was employed openly and unashamedly by Harris and Martin; speaks volumes and roars into some cavernous region of our national psyche.
We elect politicians who act out of a desire to rise through the ranks, and allow themselves to be directed by a whip, rather than being guided by their consciences. Our system of politics has become indistinguishable from the one that it replaced in 1922. Our politics exists primarily as a means for promotion of ambitious individuals within political parties. Harris and Martin are obvious examples.
The system ensures that only ‘yes-men’ or ‘yes-Marys’ rise to the top. One need only look at the mediocrities that reach the top of the pile to confirm that hypothesis. But what if those at the top of the party-political system are presently saying ‘yes’ to other shadowy institutions and individuals?
Today we may be living under a regime that is little more than an elaborate form of puppetry. We call it a ‘liberal democracy’ because we have the right to select the puppets.
Neither Humphreys nor Connolly can see the ‘wizard behind the curtain’. That’s what makes them viable candidates and good politicians. Or perhaps they do see the wizard, but view him as most of the puppets do: as a kind of benign or benevolent entity, who brings ’employment’ and ‘economic growth’ in his big sack.
Either way, the globalist tyrant behind the sheet of ballot paper, the fat man pulling the levers and speaking into the megaphone, remains hidden from view at best. Worse still is when we are entirely grateful to have him pulling the strings.
Acts of commission – such as an amputation of the wrong leg or a dose of morphine an order of magnitude higher than recommended – generally elicit moral outrage. This anger usually extends to the relatives of the deceased should the victim pass away. Based on figures from the U.S., where medical error is the third leading cause of death, we may infer that five thousands are dying each year occur as a result of medical examination or treatment in Ireland through either commission or omission. The likelihood is that the former outnumbers the latter (see Oops! Why Things Go Wrong: Understanding and Controlling Error by Niall Downey (Liffey Books, 2023))
Over the course of the past century the medical profession has been responsible for horrendous, large scale acts of commission, usually in service of an ideology that made perfect sense at the time. Thus, various documentaries depict old Nazi or Japanese doctors recalling with rheumy eyed nostalgia ‘the good old days’; when everything made sense and boiling, freezing, vivisecting and poisoning human beings was all in a day’s work.
Japanese Unit 731 inflicted unspeakable brutality on the population of China (Manchuria) and Korea. Their experiments were published in prestigious medical journals many of which were aware that the Manchurian monkey-subjects were in fact Chinese peasants (see Japan’s Infamous Unit 731 by Hal Green and Yuma Totani (Tuttle Classics, 2019). Many died during the experiments – one rarely survives vivisection – and the remainder were murdered before the laboratories were destroyed.
Most will be familiar with accounts of the Nazi doctors – of whom a tiny fraction were put on trial at Nuremberg in 1947 – and from which we derive the Nuremberg Code on human experimentation. 50% of German doctors were members of the Nazi party in the early 1940s by which time the euthanasia programme were in full swing.
Doctors’ trial, Nuremberg, 1946–1947.
For the Greater Good?
The rationale for carrying out much of this barbaric work was apparently ‘for the greater good’, clearly not of the subjects, but for those who held sway over life and death by virtue of their power. The academic brilliance of many of the Nazi doctors led to them being spirited away to the USA to prevent the Soviets accessing their genius. Many of today’s pharmaceutical companies benefitted from their discoveries, e.g. sulfanilamides, methadone, phenol to name but a few (See The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide by Robert Jay Lifton, Hachette Book Group, 1986).
Of course it wasn’t only the Germans and Japanese who had a penchant for inflicting carnage on the human race; the USA’s own Fort Detrick was a bio-weapons development site, which has had several accidents since the 1960s (See Pandemic, Inc.: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick, by J. David McSwane Simon and Schuster, 2022). It was even cited in Professor Jeffry Sachs’ 2022 Lancet report concerning the possible source of Sars-CoV2.
Less often discussed are acts of omission, unless one regards inordinately long waiting times for operations and treatments as omissions. These are not to be dismissed and would include the tragic deaths of children here in Ireland awaiting scoliosis surgery.
The type of omission that we wish to speak about is perhaps more sinister and it doesn’t lend itself to explanations such as ‘scarce resources’ or ‘bureaucratic bumbling.’ Some omissions hint at a systemic evil.
In 2020 at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic (a pandemic generated by fear and hysteria as much as illness), it was widely believed, and stated by the majority of family physicians, that there were no safe and effective treatments for the condition. After all, they had been told as much in a the guidelines that were issued by the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) in April 2020: ‘Care of the Covid-19 presumptive or test positive covid-19 patient at home, including management of the deteriorating patient.’ The document stated that 16% of those over eighty years could die and that 50% of deaths could occur in the community.
Repurposed Drugs
At that time, however, there was a growing number of doctors around the world using repurposed drugs, i.e. medications that were known to have effects outside of what they were designed to do, and that these features might be helpful to fighting this novel yet potentially deadly situation. This is referred to as ‘empirical treatment’ and doctors have been practising it for decades, if not centuries. Examples include the use of blood pressure tablets for headaches, aspirin in the treatment of heart attacks or sildenafil (Viagra). Many are eternally grateful for empiricism!
To the long list of empirical treatments one should add hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and ivermectin (IVM). However, these once safe, cheap and readily available drugs were transformed by a sustained media campaign into potentially lethal, prohibitively expensive and scarce medicines. Debate around their possible merits bordered on the disavowal of heresy. Indeed, mentioning them on social media platforms resulted in suspension or banning as an army of so-called ‘fact-checkers’ protected the world from empiricism.
Thus, the medical profession, scientists and public health officials abandoned critical faculties and moral courage and joined the mob to bray and bark out any nonsense fed to them by Anthony Fauci, Mike Ryan, Luke O’Neill and other such figures. None of whom had clinical responsibility for patients.
Whilst all of this was unfolding there were people within the Health Service Executive (HSE) here in Ireland, and no doubt in many similar organisations around the world, who knew that repurposed drugs could have had a vital role to play. Indeed, Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India with over 241 million inhabitants, made readily available, take-away packs containing these drugs.
Freedom of Information Request
A recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request reveals the National Clinical Advisor and Group Lead at the HSE was issuing entirely conflicting instructions to hospital CEO’s around the country in respect of Hydroxychloroquine. A letter to the CEO’s of Irish Hospitals ,dated 24/March/2020 instructs that:
Hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) has been identified as having antiviral activity against SARS-CoV2.There is sufficient rationale and pre-clinical evidence of effectiveness to include it as an antiviral treatment option and is included in the guideline.
Its use was not, however permitted in the community or the Nursing Homes. Even more bizarrely in another letter of the same date, issued by Primary Care Reimbursement and Eligibility at the HSE instructed that all pharmacists in Ireland to report any doctor writing prescriptions for this medication.
NPHET and/or the HSE had decided that patients would not be treated in the community despite us having effective medication (chloroquine has been known since 2002/3 to have antiviral properties) and despite it being prescribed, albeit empirically, by family physician (See: ‘Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread’Virology Journal, 2005).
Physicians working within the community – GP’s who cared sufficiently to question the guidelines – looked into using Hydroxychloroquine and found the available evidence instructing that Hydroxychloroquine was most effective if used early in treatment. This is a common theme with most antibiotic or antiviral medications. So, it ought to have been abundantly clear that hospital was not the place where the treatment was needed, nor the setting where the treatment might even work. Of the c. 2000 Covid deaths that occurred in the Irish Nursing Home Sector it is doubtful if any one of them had access to this ‘effective antiviral treatment,’ which might well have saved their lives.
It’s shocking to consider that while politicians, journalists and medics were ridiculing the U.S. President for using Hydroxychloroquine – at a time when Irish GP’s were being disciplined and placed under investigation for trying to use it to treat the sick and the dying – the doctors in charge of policy knew perfectly well that it was a safe and effective treatment.
Even if decisive evidence was lacking, their application might at least have given people hope, which could plausibly have had a placebo effect. It seems as if ‘hope’ is precisely what they wanted to remove. The absence of hope certainly contributed to many lonely deaths.
This seems to have been designed to serve a Pharmaceutical Agenda. You see Covid genetic vaccines were licensed for use under ‘Emergency Use Authorisation’ (EUA). They could only escape the necessity of appropriate trials and be released onto the market on condition that there were no available treatments. So, effective medications were withheld and carnage ensued in the nursing home sector, where victims were deprived of an opportunity to say goodbye to loved ones weeping in car parks. Their deaths facilitated a Pharmaceutical Agenda. They apparently died ‘for the greater good’.
This theme of no treatment, in spite of thousands of case studies from around the world, was perpetuated in a February 2021 HIQA report. It was an approach demonstrating either willful blindness or callous disregard for the need to ‘first do no harm.’
In hindsight, and having climbed in and out of so many rabbit holes, it’s hard not to believe that most people just follow orders – they don’t think, they don’t read, they just pay the mortgage, feed the children, get through the day and find comfort in wearing blinkers. And who could blame them?
The reality is probably more than most could bear. Manchurian Monkeys are everywhere and they need to be controlled. One can’t have liberal democracy upsetting the plans for a greater, if less populated, future. Thus, insidiously unelected and unaccountable bodies – such as the EU Commission, UN, IMF, WHO and WEF slowly dismantle any democratic processes that might thwart their path to political hegemony: suppressing free speech, the right of travel, right of assembly, bodily autonomy, online anonymity, cash transactions and soon perhaps all forms of political dissent.
Feature Image: Building of the Unit 731 bioweapon facility in Harbin
When the day becomes the night and the sky becomes the sea, when the clock strikes heavy and there’s no time for tea; and in our darkest hour, before my final rhyme, she will come back home to Wonderland and turn back the hands of time. The Cheshire Cat.
There are very good reasons why bathrooms are located at a remove from the dinner table: one should never defecate in the place where one eats. A barrister reminded me of this old adage one evening at dinner after I had bemoaned Ireland’s corrupt medico-legal system wherein plaintiffs (or more often their solicitors) pay their GPs handsomely to write medical reports for insurance claims. I’m sure my barrister friend would agree, however, that when the dining room has depreciated into the vandalised shell of an old tenement; it will inevitably become prone to unhygienic and antisocial usage.
No doubt it will surprise some to read of a GP complaining about General Practice and biting the proverbial hand that feeds. However, my position within the establishment is ‘as safe as houses’ after my criticism of Covid policy and the role many of my colleagues played during the pandemic. This led to me closing my practice in North Dublin, having resigned my appointment to the Medical Council in 2020.
I was subsequently placed under investigation for attending a public rally against lockdowns, and soon (three years later) the Medical Council is to decide upon my punishment, and that of the other doctors who failed in their duty to promote, unquestioningly, Government policy. Apparently, we were more influential and more of a danger to people than the Taoiseach or the TDs and judges in attendance at ‘Golf Gate’, ‘Party Gate’ and ‘Concert Gate’ etc.
Today I have little invested in General Practice. In truth I have come to see it as a social ill rather than an overall benefit to society. I knew it was unwell prior to Covid, I had taken up my Ministerial appointment to the Council in 2018 in the vain hope of changing it. My experience and the silence of so many colleagues during the Covid years, suggests to me that the illness may be terminal. Its pathology is genetic and runs much deeper than the financial incentive brought to bear on General Practice throughout the pandemic.
Myself and other Covid policy critics, have little left to lose, other than our licences, and a shared sense of disappointment in our profession. Realistically, I feel that disappointment could only be lifted by an unlikely paradigm shift; as such it will probably stay with us until the end. Having adhered to the Covid guidelines, yet being entirely guilty of the ‘crimes’, hopefully we will hold onto our licences and continue to be able to make a living. There are no guarantees. The establishment remains angered by dissent, and can be brutally vindictive when it wishes.
Medicine is sometimes described as something of an ego trip. I have to admit that on occasion it has become one for me, but not in the manner you might think. What I mean by ego trip is that lately, should I glance at headlines on the shelves, or overhear the radio as I push my trolley down the supermarket aisles, I find myself nodding and even chuckling quietly to myself.
The truth in respect of the Covid years remains as politically toxic as any virus. Occasionally however, it leaks into the air in flatulent forms of ‘I told you so’. I’m not alone in this mad little trip, the few doctors who spoke up against; nursing home deaths, masks, lockdowns and compulsory vaccines, also share in this little Pyrrhic victory.
We continue to be gagged, pursued by a certain cabal who pull the strings from within the medical establishment. Excess deaths, missed cancers, suicides and vaccine related injuries cannot remain concealed indefinitely. To coin a hopeful phrase from the current ascendancy ‘tiocfaidh ár lá’. Given the hitherto impossibility of their day ever coming (as it might at the next General Election); so too might we hope that ‘our day will come’.
In the Rare Auld Times
I have been practising as a GP for more than twenty years, and regardless of current trends in a more progressive parlance, I don’t mind expressing a fondness for things like community, traditions, or even the old-fashioned notion of ‘the Family Doctor’. Some things are not ‘old fashioned’ at all. That’s just a term that is applied in the pejorative, for particular motives.
In the olden-days (whenever they were), a reference to ‘years as a Doctor’, might have scooped some credibility from the idea that the longer one has practised at something, the better one performs in the role. Like poker or potty-training, practice means you are more likely to win, and less likely to ruin the carpet.
Today, with the exception of less technologically dependent skills, like piano or pottery, the longer one has practised, the more likely one is to be outdated; married to ‘old fashioned’ or ‘primitive’ methods.
Technology has become synonymous with progress towards the good. For many people, it has made the GP as redundant as the old notion of growing your own vegetables. In today’s world of instant food and information, people rarely visit the GP to dig up an ‘expert opinion’. Everybody’s got one of those – either in their head or at their fingertips. Many patients have already self-diagnosed, long before they’ve reached the waiting room. What they need is a signature, a scan, a test, a vaccine, or the usual panacea of the antibiotic. Augmentin has become a household brand-name, all too often (I am told) it is ‘the only one that works’.
It is an important and relatively recent development in medicine that there is no longer a distinction between what we ‘want’ and what we ‘need’. The distinction remains a valid one, but there are few people we can trust to make it for us. Most antibiotics prescribed in General Practice are prescribed inappropriately, and more often, solely on the basis of demand.
The internet has turned medicine into something of an amateur sport, one that everyone has a duty to participate in. I often hear people in the shops or passers-by on the pavement, applying diagnoses and medical terminology as though they were talking about cooking. Most people, with a rudimentary education, presume to know as much about a particular disease as the average GP. Often (but not always) the presumption is not too far off the mark.
The General Practitioner, despite his oxymoronic designation as a ‘specialist’, has become a somewhat self-conscious ‘jack of all trades’; anxious to avoid complaints and keep his dwindling supply of private customers happy as Larry. Being an expert on nothing, he can be challenged on almost everything, except maybe golf or football?
He does, however, remain slightly relevant to the average family as a sort of ‘medical handyman’; useful in the confirmation of a diagnosis, the issuing of prescriptions, or stamping forms. He’s not a real plumber or electrician, of course, but he can usually put you in touch with one and ‘get the ball rolling’ so to speak.
The erosion of his standing within society may have added to his insecurity. Lately he must increasingly rely upon the government to validate his existence and to mandate the attendance and the dependence of his flock.
By Trade I was a Cooper
Present company excluded, GPs are (generally speaking) not stupid people, we are at least educated, and some (among the old-fashioned ones at least) might even supplement their phone usage with an occasional book.
Many in the profession are not oblivious to the technological annexation of the lands that once belonged to the General Practitioner. Video and phone consultations are a cheaper and more accessible alternative to a waiting-room full of germs and viral pathogens. These types of consultations were becoming the ‘new-norm’, long before the current ‘new-norm’ replaced the older one.
Impending social irrelevance is a bitter pill for any professional, but we humans are a resilient lot. When plastics and Tupperware made the tinkering of the travelling community redundant, they wisely moved into tarmacadam and power tools.
Equally, General Practice must evolve as it struggles with its own increasing redundancy. During the pandemic, when the government invited GPs to an orgy of self-validation; saving the nation with a dirty cloth-mask and a syringe full of experimental vaccine; few of my colleagues asked any questions at all.
Few resisted the temptation of becoming a ‘hero without a cape’. Fewer still were impervious to the largess and financial incentive, associated with logic-defying Covid Policies. Even the then Taoiseach Dr Varadkar, cashed in on the kudos. He rejoined the Medical Register, and flew to Halting Sites to test the travelling community. What a tragedy it took a pandemic for a Taoiseach to fly to a halting site.
On the Corruption of the Youth
Lately, when I work at the out-of-hours service in Dublin, I do so in the company of a junior Doctor; a GP registrar whom I am supposed to supervise and teach for the duration of my shift. They are fortunate enough when assigned to me, as I hardly know enough to practise medicine, never mind teach it to anyone.
When I chat with these ‘newbies’ I am always surprised at the level of uncertainty they express in respect of their approaching identity as a fully qualified GP. In real terms what does that actually mean anymore? Most of them tell me they are seeking a ‘work life balance’, something very much at odds with the stubbornly persistent notion of what a family Doctor actually is, or perhaps was. A doctor who knows his patients and their families by name? Someone with a small efficient surgery in the heart of a community; a clinic where wounds are sutured, and lumps and bumps are removed or biopsied? Someone who does house calls, and stays for a cup of tea after the final palliative visit to the mum or dad who has just passed away?
Or is the modern GP a youthful, tech-savvy doctor in a hospital scrub top? Someone who works three days per week at a large office block with a shiny glass frontage? A reticent and cautious professional type, who refers the dying to the palliative care team, house calls to the out of hours service, and anything requiring intervention to the relevant ‘specialist’ at the hospital?
The former is an endangered species, confined to the fringes of rural Ireland.
The latter, the GP who works on contract at the busy clinic with the impenetrable waiting list, and the unfriendly receptionist, he or she has become the aspiration and practical or empirical reality.
Woke up one morning, looked out the window and I struggled for something to say, but you, you left me, just when I needed you most. Randy VanWarmer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u06A-77TN4
Not so long ago, my daughter interrupted some sage medical advice I was attempting to cast at her feet, by cooly stating: ‘Dad, who needs a GP when you have a smartphone?’ Her generation is an increasingly rare occurrence in the waiting room. Young adults have replaced most of what’s on offer at the GP, with a faster and cheaper consultation with Siri, Google, or Chat GPT.
Pharmacists issue medical advice, along with; contraceptives, skin care, and a host of over the counter remedies for common ills. Alcohol, Red Bull, illicit drugs, and street-Xanax are self-applied to a real epidemic, currently plaguing a generation. That hidden disease of mental illness and drug dependence is managed by parents and barely registers on the busy radar of Irish General Practice.
Young adults and teenagers have voted with their feet, unless they need a cert for school or for social welfare payments. The disengagement of young people (if they were ever engaged in the first place) is perhaps one of the sadder realities of General Practice. Arguably they are the cohort most in need of help in coping with; the porn, the drugs, the pressure, and the paradox of choice they must navigate alone, with a smartphone.
At one extreme we have the absence (or abstention) of young people, at the other extreme we have the professional neglect of elderly people within the Nursing Homes. The space between these two demographics, contains some of the abysmal failures of General Practice as it exists today and that is to say nothing of the unique needs of a diverse immigrant population, one that GP’s are neither trained nor even encouraged to understand.
What if the pharmacist could stamp forms or if patients could vouch for their own sick leave? Or if they could simply refer themselves for a routine blood test, or an appointment to see a consultant (as private patients often do); General Practice would be about as socially relevant as tits on a bull. If a couple of antibiotics were available over the counter (as they are in many countries), the meteor would impact and the dinosaurs would shuffle on towards oblivion.
Arguably there is precious little that an average GP can or will do in the community that a competent Nurse could not accomplish quickly and efficiently. Today, almost all minor surgical procedures are referred into queues at the major hospitals. In north Dublin the Out of Hours Service will neither suture a wound nor syringe an ear, which seem to be risky interventions in these litigious times. Almost everything nowadays is referred to a ‘real doctor’ at the hospital.
Ironically, the burgeoning bureaucracy of forms is not the bane of General Practice, it has become the umbilicus. A newly qualified GP can be as competent as he likes in respect of medicine yet, if he does not know how to use the practice software, to tick boxes and lodge claims for a myriad of HSE chronic-care payments, he or she is essentially unemployable.
The traditional mythology surrounding General Practice, the institution’s relationship with the HSE, all mean that like the banks, it is ‘too big to fail’. For example, the training body responsible for the production of new GPs (the ICGP) has complex ties with, and is paid by the HSE.
Like a recruiting agency, it supplies them with Doctors, who fill unattractive hospital posts around the country, as part of their ‘training’. These trainee GPs are also farmed out to provide free labour for select GPs around the country, whilst both the trainee and the ICGP are paid by the HSE. The ICGP is one of those illustrious quangos we Irish are in love with; a ‘registered charity’ with freebies for friends and financial investments as far afield as Saudi Arabia. Colleges and ‘non-profit’ medical organisations like the ICGP and the RCSI., pay no taxes, they share the spoils out in the form of benevolence, salaries and expense accounts.
The entire system of medical training in Ireland is defined by deeply embedded and legitimate forms of nepotism and corruption. Beaumont Hospital freely provides almost everything from patients and teachers to the toilet paper, for the Royal College of Surgeons. The College is a private medical school and it charges students up to €58 thousand per year in tuition for the six year course, three years of which are conducted at Beaumont Hospital. Bizarrely (or perhaps not) this private medical college is sustained by the largest ‘public’ hospital in the country.
Consultant Professors of this and that, can hardly find time to attend to surgeries or public clinics. They are often busy down the hall, at another theatre, lecturing to Saudi Princes and Emirs from Kuwait.
The RCSI (another registered charity), owns and operates a second Private Medical School in Bahrain, where it offers private medical training to Canadian and American Medical Students, for around €44 thousand per annum for the six year degree.
The Taoiseach’s leaking of contractual negotiations between the HSE and one of the rival GP organisations, is merely the tip of just one iceberg that has recently floated by. Off to melt away in warmer waters; like the long-forgotten intrigues and scandals at the IMO another quango who’s last CEO retired amid a teacup of controversy with a pension of ten million euro.
Medicine in Ireland, particularly medical training might well be described as a fermenting vat of rot. We have no swamp; the water is too putrid for any genuine forms of life, reptilian or otherwise.
The drugs don’t work, they just make you worse… Richard Ashcroft
The vast majority of medicines consumed in Ireland are prescriptions issued by General Practitioners. The Pharmaceutical industry from the local Pharmacist to Pfizer itself, depends on GPs for those scripts. A need that is more prescient and influential than those of any particular patient cohort.
This year, circa two billion euro in Exchequer funding was paid to a few pharma companies in return for drugs covered by the medical card scheme. That sum could be more than halved if a National Formulary of prescription drugs was put up for tender each year, as is the case in other countries like New Zealand for example.
Pharmaceutical lobbying, however, discreetly maintains the status quo. In Ireland corporate lobbying will hardly be investigated by a mainstream media, dependent upon corporate payments for advertising revenues and the salaries of A-list celebrities. The general acceptance of corporate influence over the state broadcaster suggests that most Irish people think ‘lobbying’ is something that might pertain to Wimbledon or tennis.
A prescription is often the most efficient way to end a consultation, it does not cost the Doctor a thought because they do not cost him a penny. In Irish Nursing Homes most residents have an extended shopping list of pointless medications, the phenomenon is referred to as ‘polypharmacy’. Many of the frail and emaciated are taking statins, in order to keep their cholesterol down; it’s a little bit like putting famine victims on diet pills. Sleeping pills, sedatives and expensive food supplements to compensate for an unpalatable diet of gruel are the norm for many.
As a consequence of being interlaced with a political and pharmaceutical agenda, and in abeyance to a certain type of mythology associated with the family doctor; Government underwrites General Practice to the extent that it consumes as much, if not more exchequer funding, than the entire Public Hospital system. Last year it cost four billion Euro to pay for GPs and Medical Card Prescriptions, an increase of 49% since 2016.
General Practice is a little bit like a religion in that it is sustained by some established patriarchal ideals. The notion of ‘doctor knows best’ or ‘just what the doctor ordered’ etc., is possibly more embedded in post-colonial or post Catholic societies.
Following the collapse of the Church in Ireland, the GP has become something of alocum tenens, for the parish priest. His is an ‘evidenced based’ religion, one that promises a healthy life; in place of the immodest and unsubstantiated offer of an everlasting one.
Despite a paucity of practical reasons for its preservation, General Practice is nonetheless sustained by popular demand, as a kind of impractical luxury. Like paying rent for a Lamborghini when a bicycle would be overkill. It is difficult to know whether the costly underwriting is motivated by the mythology; or whether it is mandated by the institution or the many others who gorge themselves upon a Health budget that knows no limits.
Church & State
The political preservation of General Practice is accomplished in several ways. You can be as sick as you like, but you will only get paid once the GP signs the IB1 form. Ironically if you are in hospital, a hospital Doctor will give you an IB1 form that you must then bring to your GP and pay for the pleasure of his or her signature.
GPs are responsible for the care of every elderly resident within the depressing environs of the Nursing Home Sector. In Ireland a Nursing Home can neither open nor operate without the supervision of a registered GP, a supervision that is at best light-touch, but is heavily paid for.
Illness benefit, driving licences, passports, nursing homes, access to the public hospital system, to the Emergency Department etc etc., are all stamped and signed by General Practice. These are the lands that belong to a post-colonial landlord, one who operates behind the general facade of a liberated Ireland.
Pharmaceutical companies have an ever increasing need for community GPs to push an agenda of pharmaceutical dependence upon the entire population. Arguably this agenda has gone unchecked for over half a century. Pharma companies provide jobs in Ireland and advertising revenues for the mainstream media, they should never be questioned; and so the executive board of the HPRA is dominated by ex-pharma employees.
Opiate dependence is barely a scratch on the surface; antidepressants, benzodiazepines, Lyrica, statins, antibiotics and polypharmacy in the elderly are more disturbing realities. Each of them are lucrative social tragedies, rarely spoken of in public. Like excess mortality or vaccine-related injuries they are confined to the realm of ‘conspiracy’.
Learned and encouraged helplessness within Irish society in respect of basic health, fear mongering by pharma and state agencies in the guise of various ‘health promotion’ campaigns, means that there will always be the need for a Doctor in the community; one who is almost as skilled as a Nurse, but has all the power and influence of a mafia boss.
I just checked in to see what condition my condition was in. Kenny Rogers
Thirty years ago when I began to study medicine there was this crazy notion that Doctors would ‘cure’ or ‘fight’ disease, whenever possible. That same general expectation of ‘cure’ has all but disappeared from the everyday language of modern medicine. It is no longer expected of the GP to cure, or even to attempt to do so. Long-term illness and ‘chronic management schemes’ have become the ‘ne plus ultra’.
Ironically, apart from cancer, the biggest killers in Ireland are indeed curable diseases; heart disease, type 2 Diabetes, vascular disease, obesity, depression etc. In recent years all of these conditions have evolved to be considered solely in the context of ‘chronic disease management’, associated with chronically diseased payments.
The gaping irony hardly registers. When I mention it to the trainees they return a blank confused expression, as though I were suggesting something possible and impossible at the same time. There is no space within the establishment to discuss the question as to how or why GPs have become facilitators instead of healers? This is another conversation generally confined to the realm of conspiracy.
In Ireland today illness is managed, no differently to a business, wherein profit is the bottom line. Tellingly, amid the mind-boggling array of payment types issued from the HSE to GPs, there is not a single payment or financial incentive in respect of ‘curing’ anything at all, never mind any of the curable diseases that actually kill most people.
In New Zealand, where I completed my GP training some years ago, GPs were actually paid a bonus if their prescribing of antibiotics remained below the national average. Most disease was treated (and often cured) within the community setting. In Irish General Practice ‘cure’ has become an anathema and disease has become our raison d’être.
Image Daniele Idini.
Halcyon Days
Any real or practical value that the GP brings to public health is (or was once) contingent upon the fading reality of the somewhat old-fashioned ‘Family Doctor’. That GP was (and occasionally is) part of a community of people living in close physical (as opposed to digital) proximity. People who are mutually dependent upon each other and the community, in small but positive ways. In the modern world of sprawling high-density estates, the notion of collective, integrative and supportive communities, is becoming little more than a sound-bite that estate agents use to sell houses.
There was once a time when the GP knew all or most of his patients very well. That knowledge was an essential and fundamental clinical tool, as important as the stethoscope, and impossible to replicate through any amount of technology. It was that intimate knowledge that would often determine an intervention, and whether a referral to the specialist was immediately necessary, or necessary at all.
Outside of the paperwork, most presentations in General Practice are motivated by some form of anxiety or worry. Intimate knowledge in respect of the family and the individual often allows the GP to distinguish between anxiety and pathophysiology.
Sometimes he might have got it wrong, but more often, he or she was in the right place. This lack of distinction or inability to distinguish between anxiety and physical pathology, is one of the things that annually overwhelms the health service. It is almost never discussed and is expressed regularly in the unintelligent language of a: ‘shortage of hospital beds’ and a ‘shortage of doctors’. We may not have a shortage of Doctors, rather than a genuine shortage of doctors who know their patients well, or know their patients at all.
The Doctor’s sometimes sage advice was an imperfect thing, derived from his unique knowledge of the person, from a love of learning and an understanding of science. He was also the victim and the enforcer of a particular zeitgeist and strict social paradigm; that aspect of medicine has never changed.
Although it remains a rather lucrative enterprise to have one’s HSE-income, and share it with no one; single handed practice is taxed with an unhealthy level of responsibility. No newly qualified GP would dream of setting up alone in today’s Ireland. Few, if any, single-handed practitioners could provide the type of service that people now expect. Sole practice was the first limb of the cat to vanish. The once ubiquitous ‘walk-in’ surgery once had a financial incentive, supposedly socialist medicine however is strictly by an appointment, generally for sometime next week.
Working for the Man
Presently in Ireland a couple of large corporate entities are hoovering up what remains of the small suburban practices or those rural practices with profitable lists of Medical Card holders. These companies will buy a practice and keep the principal GP on as a paid employee in order to control his Medical Card list.
For the most part, newly emerging GPs know nothing of the ‘halcyon days’, and are generally happy to start working for ‘the man’. They cannot be accused of selling their souls to the devil. In contemporary General Practice there is no place for old-fashioned things like souls, despite the overabundance of devils.
Such corporations pay 12.5% in corporation tax; yet when I had my own practice I paid 52%; the profit margins are a no-brainer. They will then harvest the greatest possible return from the various Medical Card payments, and chronic disease schemes. They can afford to pay GPs good salaries, and hire a minimum number to do the husbandry. This type of corporate General Practice is entirely unregulated in respect of the service it provides (or doesn’t provide) for patients.
These profit driven behemoths are presumed to function in the same way as the traditional Family Doctor. For the most part they are left to their own devices, sucking up a maximum amount of HSE payments and returning a token level of care. They conceal the inadequate service behind a rigid appointment system that keeps patients waiting, the workload at sustainable level, and profit margins as high as possible.
For all their faults these centres are the inevitable future for General Practice, they are what people think they want, and what politicians are eager to give them.
To interface with this industrial model, patients must increasingly learn to translate all of their pain into the unaccommodating language of medical pathology; human beings and their emotional realities become invisible and entirely medicalised. Deeper truths behind the pain, the fear, and the anxiety that are an increasing part of everyday life for all of us, evade this more sophisticated model of Primary Care. The emergent mystery becomes just another number on another waiting list.
Of Human Bondage
In my early twenties after reading Somerset Maugham’s novel Of Human Bondage, I thought about becoming a Doctor. I didn’t especially want to help people, but I wanted to be in a position whereby I could help them if I wished.
I might have wanted to ‘help people’ in some vague way, but I wanted to help myself first. For a time I probably translated this notion into the more noble expression that many of my colleagues prefer to cling to. It is refreshing to hear honest medical motives expressed in the more acceptable language of a ‘work life balance’.
Maugham’s novel is about all kinds of bondage, the one I wished to liberate myself from was poverty. Medicine has at least afforded me that compensation for the small price of my soul and at times my sanity. I never imagined that I would come to see the career itself as a kind of bondage; a darkening cave wherein we can no longer see the chains or the flickering shadows on the wall.
Many Doctors know there is no need for the antibiotic, no need for the hospital referral, the scope or the scan, and yet we increasingly act according to our own benefit, or that of our employers. Convenience and fear of complaint are the other silent incentives.
In Ireland and abroad, private obstetric care is more likely to result in a caesarean section, and a child with private health insurance is more likely to end up with grommets or a tonsillectomy. Medicine has always been an uncomfortable marriage between profit and compassion. Lately it seems that profit has separated, and is suing for divorce as well as damages.
Image Daniele Idini.
Hope Deferred?
Perhaps the only thing worth saving in General Practice – the most beautiful and essential thing – is the thing that has almost disappeared; the unique nature of the relationship between the family Doctor and the families who attend him or her.
That ‘thing’ is something many people may have once enjoyed and may still enjoy with some ‘old-fashioned’ GPs. It is the thing that saved many lives during the Pandemic, more so than; masks, vaccines or spending ten euro on a pint and a sandwich.
Any future validity for General Practice would be contingent upon training GPs properly, educating them (and patients) to participate in that old partnership in an honest and meaningful way. For the moment however, the relationship is broken. The modern GP is not trusted in the manner that the family doctor once was, and he is wary of his patients or views them solely as a means to a private end. The problem is a million light years away from medical schools, training bodies or public health campaigns, all of whom have their heads in the trough.
Before former Health Minister Mary Harney reformed the Medical Council in 2007, into a weapon for the indignant and a cosy club for political appointments; the family doctor might have been a man or woman with an honest opinion in respect of your health.
An opinion that you could take or leave as you saw fit. Presently, Doctors are not trained to be honest or even candid with patients, quite the contrary in fact. Candidness was something that was permitted years ago. Often (but not always), it was a good and a welcome kind of honesty. The GP had the ‘power’ to tell you that you were ‘too fat’, ‘overly anxious’ or that you didn’t need to be immediately referred for a battery of tests or scans on demand. The GP was frank, candid and honest, and was even expected to be so. Some Doctors and GPs were lazy in their old-fashioned power, and things were sometimes missed, like cancers and physical disease. People were sometimes abused with insensitive words or beaten with the religious paradigm of the day.
Today it is increasingly rare (if not impossible) to encounter a GP who would be willing to run the gauntlet of refusing a test or having a frank conversation with the newly emancipated patient turned consumer. Training bodies and the Medical Council indirectly insist upon an obsequious dishonesty as the gold standard. They advise Doctors to give ‘back pocket’ prescriptions, a euphemism for the unnecessary antibiotic on demand. Happy customers are presumed to equate with healthy patients. The universal goal is a consumer, pleased with the product they have purchased, or recently become entitled to.
A GP might be sanctioned for using the word ‘fat’ inappropriately, and yet he or she will be rewarded in various ways should he provide an inappropriate prescription for a trendy weight loss injection; a diabetic drug currently in short supply as it is being over prescribed in the community for cosmetic purposes.
As an institution, General Practice thrives upon; ignorance, compliance and government subsidy. Most consultations in primary care amount to a waste of time in respect of public health or genuine pathology. An increasing majority attend the GP simply because they have to, or because they have been encouraged or allowed themselves to become prescription drug addicts.
Sometimes, disease becomes an identity; a form of socially sanctioned escape from an unpleasant and painful life. Illness is very often the veil that is worn to conceal a deeper unhappiness. Often, chronic illness becomes a persona with a social and financial incentive, one that can be as alluring and addictive as any drug.
In my own experience far too many ‘sick’ people are simply very unhappy. General Practice in its current form is utterly ill-equipped to deal with, or even to recognise the unhappiness or anxiety that is its principal presentation.
Increasingly, during my years in clinical practice, I found that telling a patient that they are ‘normal’ or that they have ‘normal results’ can cause a kind of disappointment. For some people, telling them they are normal is like denying their pain, barring them from Kafka’s Castle, refusing them a diagnosis and an entry into the legitimate world of the sick.
Image: Daniele Idini
To Italy
“Are you the farmer? We’ve gone on holiday by mistake!”
‘Withnail and I’
In many countries the expensive appendage of General Practice has already disappeared. Outside of the catchment area of ‘old victorian ways’, one attends an accident-clinic in the event of an accident, and almost everything else is self-referred to a specialist; a hospital consultant with rooms in the nearby town or city.
In places like Northern Italy, the Middle East, the U.S. and many more, people do not need a magic letter from a GP to get to see a ‘real doctor’. One simply makes an appointment at the consultant clinic, the receptionist will assign the headache to the neurologist, or the gastritis to the gastroenterologist and so on. Sick children are brought to see paediatricians, those wishing to become more beautiful attend the plastic/cosmetic surgeon, and old people are brought to see a geriatrician before being dropped off at the nursing home. Friendly secretaries will triage and normally arrange a bed over the phone. The first consultation usually occurs with the patient in a bed on the hospital ward. The bill is sent to the state or the insurer.
I am not suggesting for a moment that this is a better system, it is a system that was the principal cause of the horrific scenes in Lombardy during the Pandemic. Covid killed too many elderly people, that much is true, but it was the condition and organisation of the Italian health service in Northern Italy that allowed Covid to become the catastrophe that dominated the television networks.
If we think about it, cholera and a few other diseases (rather than starvation) were responsible for half of all the deaths during the Irish Famine (1847-1851). Now, imagine the hue and cry that would emerge if some renowned British Epidemiologist tried to suggest that half of the total number of Famine victims did not die of the Famine, but died instead from a coincidental ‘pandemic’ of Asiatic Cholera? What remains of the IRA would undoubtedly issue a fatwa.
Apparently when it comes to the Great Famine, we are quite capable of recognising that social conditions (poverty/famine) created the environment where disease festered and then killed exponentially. We don’t blame Cholera for the Famine, we blame the famine for Cholera. It was the Famine that created the conditions for Cholera to thrive, and it was English policy that created the conditions for the Famine itself.
Equally, the Covid virus was not the principal cause of the terrible scenes in Northern Italy. It was the absence of community medicine that created the conditions necessary for the tragedy to unfold in the horrific manner that it did.
There is, and was, no system of community medicine throughout much of Northern Italy when Covid arrived. In Lombardy; frail, elderly people with Covid, had no one to call, other than consultants and specialists, who then flooded their hospitals with Covid and transformed them into the geriatric hotbeds of disease and mortality that provided the horror show, and fuelled the fear-frenzy. That same frenzy soon transformed Covid from a cohort specific disease, into a pandemic that requires universal vaccination, lockdowns and allegedly kills almost everyone it touches.
At home the Italian mistakes were coarsely imitated by the Irish Government as they cleared the public hospitals and transferred a mass of untested, convalescing hospital patients, into all available beds in the Nursing Homes. They introduced Covid into the sector en masse, firmly and strictly locked it in, and thereby caused (or at least facilitated) a wave of death that has yet to be investigated.
In 2016, Lombardy — home to more than 10 million people — saw only 90 medical school graduates go on to pursue specialised studies toward becoming general practitioners. They received annual scholarships of 11,000 euros (nearly $13,000), less than half those secured by people preparing for specialties like cardiology. The numbers have grown in recent years, but not enough to replace retiring general practitioners, medical associations say.
The point I am making here, is that despite the fact that General Practice might well be an overall pathology in Ireland; that is not to say that the institution does not accomplish some purely accidental good. A broken clock will tell the right time twice a day.
Many Irish lives were inadvertently saved by the fact that patients had a relationship with a Doctor (their Family Doctor). One whom they could call and who would tell them what they should or should not do.
Despite the fact that medical advice from the oracle of General Practice amounted to little more than: ‘stay at home and suffer on’; it was the simple fact of having a relationship with a contactable GP that reassured and ultimately saved lives.
Needless to say, (proportionally at least) far more lives were saved by GPs like Dr Pat Morrissey in Adare, and several others – some of whom who became part of a covert network who insisted (despite threats from the IMC president) upon doing more for very sick patients – than simply telling them to ‘stay at home until they turned blue’.
Public health officials were quick to see the value of this old-relationship and offered GPs an unvouched blank cheque, to the tune of €30 per reassuring phone call. However, beyond a phone consultation, Irish GPs by and large did not provide any interventional ‘care’ for those whom they advised to ‘stay at home’.
Nonetheless they saved lives and avoided an Italian-type tragedy simply because those lives had access to a Doctor within their own community. During Covid, it did not matter if GPs were wilfully useless; it only mattered that people had access by phone, by video-link or smoke signal. They were not entirely alone.
The miracle of science was with them, and they stayed in the safest place, far away from established medicine. Whilst Covid patients were in contact with their GP, they were cared for at home by their families. This was not the case in Northern Italy where even a token degree of Community Medicine was non-existent. A passage from the NYT article states the following:
When the first wave hit, Milan — a city of more than 1.3 million — had only five doctors expert in public health and hygiene, said Roberto Carlo Rossi, president of Milan’s Doctors’ and Dentists’ Guild. They were responsible for setting up a testing and contact tracing regimen.
Where most Irish GPs did in fact care for patients in practical terms, was in the Nursing Home. We were the responsible physicians and were the only ones allowed in.
As a consequence of our careless ‘care’, combined with political ineptitude; over a thousand died alone, and in truly horrible conditions, all within a matter of months. During that time Covid payments in respect of their care were doubled, trebled and quadrupled, in spite of the death rate and the abject failure to deliver what might be described (in third world terminology) as ‘the very basics’.
The survival of honest medicine may depend upon an old-fashioned relationship with a different type of Doctor. One who is often found to be ‘non-compliant’ at Medical Council Hearings. Yet, to paraphrase an old philosopher: ‘there may be a different court, one that is higher than the Courts of men; one where a great many of the judgements of this world, will doubtlessly be overturned.’
I would imagine I am no different to many people in that I suffer from a degree of anxiety. Prior to 2019, this usually manifested in a mild degree of agoraphobia. I could manage a packed train or a bus whenever necessary, but concerts, bustling streets, or shopping malls were always places to be avoided.
In recent years I have found that my tendency to avoid crowds, has become a more acute need, extending to the company of people whom I don’t know very well. On a ‘one to one’ basis I don’t mind engaging – my misanthropic default is often proven wrong – as I encounter people whose ideas emanate from outside the RTÉ news bubble.
As such, attending for my car’s NCT test last week was not an impossible task, but something I was not looking forward to.
I moved from Dublin to county Leitrim some months ago, and as a consequence my agoraphobia is almost entirely under wraps. There are very few people where I live, down a little laneway off a quiet road, just outside the small town of Ballinamore, in the shadow of the Iron Mountains.
Leitrim is relatively unmolested by the excesses of modernity. The population of the county would only half fill Croke Park. Forestry, fracking, semi-abandoned villages with neglected vernacular architecture, garbage in the hedgerows and ugly one-off houses, are among the few assaults a sensitive soul must endure.
I am very fortunate to live across the road from an entire family of agoraphobics; an IRA veteran and his wife and family. They home-school their kids and similarly hide from the world; wary of its narrow materialistic ideals, the ongoing romance with consumption and superfluous technology.
The two eldest sons of this family spend their days tinkering about with old cars: painting, sanding, welding bits of metal and fixing engines. Unemployed but gainfully so. Like me, they hide from a world they are somewhat apprehensive and mistrustful of.
The evenings in my garden are quiet enough to hear an owl hoot in the twilight. The old Gods still reside here. Sometimes I join my neighbours across the lane for a smoke and a cup of tea, free of judgements. I gaze in wonder at the mechanical heaps of rust and rot they are about to resuscitate.
The ‘lads’ did a service on my Yaris to get her ready for the NCT, changing the oil and brake pads. My wife hoovered it out, and I was ordered to give it a power-wash and click the rear seatbelts in place, as they are supposed to be visible – all in preparation for the big day.
Since resigning my Dublin medical practicein protest at the mad Covid Policies, and as a means of avoiding injecting children with the stuff that was called a ‘vaccine’, I have had a lot more time to myself.
Time to devote to bees, a polytunnel, NCT’s and other hitherto trivial things. Indeed, my wife was most concerned that the car should pass, as our son needs to use it for his driving test next month.
The test centre in Carrick-on-Shannon is about a forty minute drive from our cottage. As you have probably guessed, despite the attention of the two lads and all the hoovering and power-washing, the car failed. A front coil-spring wasn’t up to scratch, and one brake bulb was brighter than the other.
I wasn’t surprised given the car is ten years old. When I told the lads the news they laughed and told me to get the parts and they would address the ‘problems.’ This I did, and after finishing the work they showed me the old coil-spring. Apparently (they informed me) a coil spring is one of the suspension springs for the car.
They put the the old one before me and said that it was perfect, save for a bit of rust at the tip of one end. They insisted that this would cause no problem to the car, saying that the spring was tested under the heading of ‘suspension’; that it passed the physical test and that this was printed on the fault sheet that had been returned to me.
I then asked: “if it passed the actual test of its integrity and function, how did it fail the test?” They informed me that the chap who was looking underneath the car, saw rust on the spring and that it was a ‘visual failure’.
The lads aren’t highly educated by any means, so what would they know? They insist that for the most part the NCT is just “a multi-million money making racket”, an enormous source of revenue for a few people, and a way for government and car dealers to get perfectly decent cars off the road and replaced by new ones.
Buying new cars is, of course, really good for the environment, particularly if they have big lithium batteries. Across Dublin suburbia, dizzying heights of environmental virtue can be scaled at the bottle bank if one can pull up in a battery powered car.
Nonetheless, I find it hard to get too worked up about the nefarious powers behind the NCT network. The ideals of capitalism are pretty much universal at this stage. I was happy enough that the bulb and spring had been replaced and the car was ready for her retest. I had already devoted an afternoon to the first one.
The following week I returned for the re-test at my scheduled time of 4.30pm. The little waiting room was packed. The tests were running behind time. They didn’t get to my car until well after 5pm. I had plenty of time to listen to the people around me come and go, sharing their stories of success and failure.
Some years ago I read The Wayward Bus, a little known work by John Steinbeck. It’s one of my favourite stories, concerning a group of people travelling on a bus, all from different social and cultural backgrounds.
The bus breaks down on a lonely road, and when it does the barriers that normally separate people also break down.
As a consequence of either boredom or necessity, when these barriers come down we may be compelled to get to know one another. I suspect that most people have had the subliminal experience of finding themselves stuck somewhere in the company of strangers, united by unforeseen circumstance.
The experience was also recently masterfully explored and brought to a beautiful conclusion in the film ‘Triangle of Sadness’. In that passengers and crew of a luxury yacht find themselves stranded on a beach and are compelled to get to know each other after the boat sinks.
Stripped of the relevance of their wealth and station, all must rely on actual abilities to survive. It’s a wonderful film with some great twists. Perhaps when the ship of humanity flounders, if we have time, we might pause and get to know each other a little better?
With Irish media placing unprecedented focus on climate change during #COP26 we recall an unhealthy dependence on advertising revenue from the car industry that appears to influence transport coverage in particular.https://t.co/wXx0LOgPVB@think_or_swim@WilliamsJon@ian_lumley
As we sat in the waiting room of the NCT office I dealt with my agoraphobia by going outside for a smoke, at the point when people were getting to know each other, and social interaction seemed imminent.
There was no public toilet in the centre and no coffee machine, nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. It was cold outside and a cigarette doesn’t last as long as an NCT test.
There were about ten of us seated in the plastic chairs around the wall of the waiting room. Occasionally the NCT man would magically appear at the empty hatch and call out a name for one of us. The chit-chat and various horror stories associated with tests and re-tests had brought us together, to the point where success or failure of one’s test became a shared experience.
Soon, a round of applause was being awarded to each successful testee (no pun intended). Commiserations and a few empathetic sighs were offered to the failures.
At last my name was called and I went to the Perspex hatch to receive the news. The man taped on his computer, and I caught a glimpse of the green and yellow of a new NCT cert emerge from the printer. The few who remained in the waiting room were anxious to know if I was deserving of applause or commiserations.
Not wishing to be a sour-hole, I turned to the row of seats and gave my comrades two-thumbs up, informing all that I had joined the ranks of the victorious. A round of applause was tendered, and a middle-aged lady seated with her daughter offered me a handshake – which seemed a little over the top!
Her daughter should have been heartily confused but seemed rather amused, the rules that applied to strangers were out the window.
As I took the certificate, however, I noticed that the date on the new cert was only valid until May 2023. So, I had passed the test, but my car was deemed roadworthy for less than four months, at which time it would have to be retested. I felt certain this was a mistake, and brought it to the attention of the attendant.
“This cert is only valid for four months,” I said. “I thought the test would be valid for at least a year?”
He took the forms back from me and looked them over. “Your last test is out of date for over six months,” he replied, by way of explanation.
By then I was a bit irked, having paid for a test, and then having paid for a re-test, and now being expected to test the car again in four months’ time.
There was a three month wait for my first test, so, effectively, I would have to book the car in next week in order to be on time for the next test!
Despite being conscious of the fact that he was only the messenger, I still wished to shoot him (metaphorically speaking of course).
I replied: “but you are not testing the forms, you are testing the car, and the car has passed the test.”
Unfortunately, the starter motor was jammed, the spark plug failed to ignite and the attendant hadn’t a clue what I was banging on about. He smiled and then disappeared from behind the screen like the cat from Alice in Wonderland.
My questioning and dissatisfaction did not go unnoticed by the small crowd in the waiting room. I looked about their faces as I departed with my Pyrrhic ‘victory’ in hand. One or two of the faces appeared sympathetic to my plight, others seemed mildly indignant that despite having passed the test, I still seemed unhappy – making a fuss and potentially causing a delay.
I felt the breath quicken in my chest. It was as though, for a moment I had been plunged back into the near forgotten Covid days of ‘put up and shut up’, because we are ‘all in this together’.
As I departed a large poster on the pane of the waiting room door said ‘goodbye.’ The poster was covered with smiley emojis encouraging people to buy an NCT disc-pocket that sticks in the window and holds ones new cert. ‘Hooray! I passed my NCT’. I wonder do people actually buy these gimmicks on top of paying for their test?
The poster reminded me of the smiley buttons that the HSE were dispensing to the vaccinated during Covid. I also recalled the free iodine tablets that were dispensed by the Government when they worried about the Sellafield nuclear reactor exploding, and that then reminded me of the Millennium Candle that came in the post at the turn of the century.
I’m not sure how or why I should feel that these little tokens are related in some indistinct manner – all buttons and smiley faces to stick in the window or upon one’s chest. I recalled where I had wanted to stick the candle when it arrived in the post.
The phrase ‘all in this together’ still makes me nauseous. As an old farmer in Rush where I once had my surgery used to say: “Don’t piss on my back and tell me it’s raining.”
I suspect that for many people it’s always raining in Ireland, a golden shower that moves from Leinster House, and then on to Mizen Head and Malin Head, each day of the year. Yet I am perhaps cynical enough to believe that we get our just political deserts.
One need only watch the recent rebranding of Bertie Ahern as the population is groomed into accepting him being provided with an armchair in the Áras. Or that recent RTÉ documentary that had Sean Quinn weeping, and staring wistfully out upon the lakes of Cavan, from the third story of his palace, like Ozymandias King of Kings.
One of the impossibilities of democracy – perhaps its greatest limitation – is a tendency to elect politicians who tell us what we want to hear. Nowadays our cast of chosen doctors – like the bishops of old – tell us what we want to hear, and give us the pills we have been groomed to demand. Should they venture outside of this brief and tell us what we need to hear, the ice generally thins beneath their feet.
Perhaps the greatest evil in the world is in the realms of paedophilia, and when this was exposed within the Church, it ended many people’s belief in and respect for Catholicism.
There is of course a sinister underbelly to our scandals, and that is the strangely complicit nature of “we the people”, whether it’s in the pew, or in the waiting room at the NCT centre.
I recall, as I made my confirmation at the National School in Swords County Dublin, how my classmates and I innocently queued down the church aisle to partake in the ritual honour of kneeling and kissing the Bishop’s ring.
We did it because we were sent up to do it by our parents. I also remember answering proudly in the affirmative when my grandmother asked me if I had I kissed the ring.
I was also an alter boy for a time, a role that was foisted on me by my grandmother, with the full and enthusiastic backing of my parents. Had I perhaps returned home and informed them that something ‘bad’ had happened, that I had been ‘interfered’ with, I probably would have been given a clip on the ear, or simply told to shut up.
Most kids who were victims of abuse, said nothing to their parents, and the reasons for this are rarely ever spoken about in Ireland. You can perhaps find traces of this in the NCT centre, or see it on the face of a teenager who is sent home from school because he has had his ear pierced.
My parents were not bad parents, they were just typical of their time. My point here is that in Ireland we like to think that paedophilia within the Church was entirely the fault of the Church and the priests. I tend to disagree. Parents, the state and society at large were as much a part of the problem, perhaps the bigger part. ‘We the people’ were invested in the scandal as much as the perpetrators. It seems that all too often we are ‘all in this together’.
Ireland will never be capable of really face up to the abuse scandals because we will never accept the blame for our own part. We will never question our gullibility, but our children might, as they are less likely to suffer from our co-dependence upon RTÉ.
In all likelihood, we will never explain the scandal of Covid policies, the waste and the suicides, because we the people were so invested in the narrative; a tsunami of indignant virtue in the midst of a state sanctioned pogrom in the nursing home sector.
What has this to do with my NCT? Perhaps nothing. But the lads were right, it is indeed just a racket for making money and taking perfectly decent cars off the road – another racket that we are all complicit in.
It’s no different to the Covid racket where billions in potential hospitals, schools and footpaths, were foolishly handed over to Big Pharma and men in yachts. In Ireland being ‘all in this together’ comes with an unspoken historical warning : you are either with us or against us.
Against us, and you run the gauntlet of vilification or exclusion, at best being depicted as a weirdo, at worst a bad apple. If you are with us, ‘there is one for everyone in the audience’, and any ‘minor inconveniences’ one might be compelled to endure becomes just another shower of golden rain.
’From my experience of my patients on the front line since March 2020, I estimate that between 1% and 10% of the Irish population have suffered from a serious traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidal ideation as a direct result of the government instigated media propaganda and lockdown, which works out at between 48 000 and 480 000 people of this country. This must be seen as a national tragedy, if not a massive crime against the Irish people, perhaps the worst since the great famine..’ Dr Gerry Waters submission to the High Court, prior to his suspension from the medical register, April 2021 as quoted in the British Medical Journal.
Looking out upon a ‘snot-green’ sea, I wonder how our ancestors explained the emergence of the craggy rocks and pools. Today we might smile at the idea that the ebb and flow of the tide being the work of ‘spirits’ or gods of sand and stone. Yet perhaps there is a ‘spirit’ of our time? The zeitgeist; a shared belief-system that interprets our world and is the ultimate arbiter of truth itself? Perhaps it is this ‘spirit’ that future generations might equally recognise as a thing that is drenched in myth and fallacy?
Lately it seems that truth, like the tide, is constantly shifting. Our mute and collective response to Covid-19 policies suggests we have indeed entered a ‘Post-Truth’ era, where truth has gone the way of video and record stores, to become almost entirely subscription based.
I was once of the belief that science served to shape and guide public opinion. I have lately come to feel that when science does not align itself with public opinion, it is dismissed as the ramblings of a madman.
In recent years the most basic scientific principles, even the simple notion of ‘cause and effect’ have been temporarily suspended. Presently, science is in the service of the zeitgeist. It no longer informs public opinion, instead it is used as a drunk might see a lamp post; more for support than illumination.
Frank Armstrong reviews a new book on the Irish government's response Covid-19 and wonders whether it will be said once again: “We didn’t know, no one told us”https://t.co/vikPQsuFMa@broadsheet_ie@danieleidiniph1
During and prior to Covid, Europe and Ireland, enjoyed several years of what economists call ‘quantitative easing’. In layman’s terms this means printing lots of money in order to keep people content, or at least to keep them spending.
The world is apparently a better place when we are all spending freely. Economists call this ‘economic growth.’ Strangely the cause and effect of this simple expedient is entirely lost on most people. The countless billions that have been pumped into European economies in recent years, now means that money is worth less, which is generally referred to as inflation.
At home, in addition to inflation, our Covid-related crises: deaths in nursing homes, suicides, mental health, missed cancer diagnoses, along with enormous political blunders, were all effectively obscured by a bonfire of some fifty billion euro.
The light of that conflagration was bright enough to relegate our home-grown crises into the shadows of relative obscurity.
The idea that we are experiencing inflation as a consequence of two years of fiscal dissipation is, either roundly ignored or blamed upon other crises. One does not hear such a strange assertion on RTÉ, which itself received a significant share of that fiscal dissipation for its ‘public service’ broadcasting.
We hear nothing about the government’s responsibility for social destruction and economic waste. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine must have come as a relief. Now the priority is that ‘Putin must go’, an idea seemingly oblivious to the fact that much of the world might have to go down with him.
As Minister for Health for the initial phase of our Covid crisis, Simon Harris stated notoriously: “Remember this is coronavirus Covid-19 – that means there have been 18 other coronaviruses and I don’t think they have actually successfully found a vaccine for any.” Less comically, both he and members of NPHET are still protected from any review into nursing home deaths.
Nor are the main opposition parties, including Sinn Fein, blameless in respect of the temporary madness. I suspect that when they inevitably get hold of the piggy bank they are unlikely to call for any kind of revision to the narrative. We were ‘all in this together’ after all.
Nonetheless, as inflation continues and war escalates, the appetite for truth will surely grow, albeit at a remove from the big glasshouse on Nutley Lane.
When it is safe to speak and ask honest questions, and once the capacity for relating cause and effect returns, calls for a review of the past two years of policy might yet begin in earnest.
The state broadcaster descended into wild scaremongering throughout the pandemic, and failed to cover anything else. We cannot be expected to make informed political choices as long the nonsense continues, and it is clear that the rot starts at the top.https://t.co/R326gIfNz8
Some truths seem to persist for longer than others. Scientific truths endure not because they are more precious than myth, but simply because they are (or they remain) largely inescapable.
During the Covid years, scientific truths succumbed to a form of relativism. Thus, one could have any scientific ‘truth’, as long as it was consistent with the fear-frenzy and the dominant narrative that Covid was the only challenge our government ought to address.
In contrast, unpopular truths became the subject of a formal and informal censorship. Science has become strangely ‘right wing’ in its obedience to pharmaceutical companies and its lack of tolerance for essential questions and contrary facts. Yet Karl Popper once argued; ‘the demand for scientific objectivity makes it inevitable that every scientific statement must remain tentative for ever.’
In the presence of industry-led censorship, neither science nor democracy functions properly. Yet many people still believe that the scientific discourse is free. Sadly, unscientific views on masks, lockdowns and administering genetic vaccinations to children and pregnant women are (for the moment at least) considered to accord perfectly with the scientific evidence.
Entire national policies were based upon a flawed epidemiology of Covid. That epidemiology was described almost everywhere in the context of ‘deaths per million’, despite Covid being from its inception a disease with a cohort-specific mortality.
Indeed, mortality itself was defined in the context of deaths ‘with’ Covid-19 as opposed to ‘from’ Covid-19. PCR testing remains the gold standard in determining a ‘Covid case’ as opposed to detecting traces of virus in an asymptomatic individual who has recently been exposed to the virus.
In response to Covid-19, foundational principles of science and epidemiology were turned on their heads to satiate a politically profitable narrative. Such contortions are unsustainable in the long term.
The majority desperately feared Covid, and so an aggressive cold virus – dangerous to the elderly and infirm – became a disease almost entirely inflated by a politically inflated fear.
Science was annexed to supply an array of ‘facts’ to substantiate this fear and pursue the enormous wave of Covid ‘research’ funding from a strange marriage between Big Pharma and the State. Fearmongers were given seemingly unlimited time on TV and radio. In contrast, ‘contrarians’ were issued with legal threats and ongoing investigations.
It is worth bearing in mind that science has generally co-existed with unscientific ideas. Thus, religion and science have jousted for centuries. However, when governments depend upon science to justify draconian laws and unprecedented spending; to question ‘the science’ becomes a direct challenge to the government itself.
When governments depended on the Church for legitimacy, for anyone to question its religious tenets was a dangerous heresy, rooted out by Inquisition if necessary.
In respect of the medical profession the government has a powerful tool to silence doctors, which is the Irish Medical Council (IMC). The Medical Regulator acts as ‘Grand Inquisitor’, answerable only to the Minister for Health.
During the Covid crisis, anyone in my profession who openly criticised the Science associated with policy, was immediately condemned as a ‘conspiracy theorist’.
These ‘misinformed medics’ represented, (and in most cases still represent) a ‘clear and present danger’ to public health. They were heretics were to be rooted out; removed from society like a cancerous prostate gland.
The danger we pose is not towards public health, but rather towards the public’s understanding of the issue. The social operation is ongoing, and the IMC remains its enthusiastic surgeon.
We are where we are today because of the GREATEST Political and Scientific Blunders in History!
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It is not an easy thing for a doctor who spends the best part of his or her working life trying to solve people’s immediate problems, to be suddenly turned into a kind of pathology, and confined to the world of the anti-vaxxer and right-wing conspiracy theorist.
Yet that is the fate of any doctor who voiced criticism of Covid-policy. We remain under formal investigations, heading towards the end-game of sanctions and potential strike-offs. The personal struggles behind these investigations are given no public attention.
The necessity of belonging, to a society, to a fraternity of peers, even continuing to belong to one’s own family, all become tenuous when one is considered a pariah. For some, including myself, the isolation has led to a breakdown of sorts. My own ‘crash’ came in the form of simply running out of gas: facing up to the fact that my ‘gas’ is considered as a form of flatulence by most of my colleagues.
I have worked hard at keeping my family together, and that has been as much as I can handle, finding solace in bee keeping and a polytunnel. For other colleagues and their families, the consequences have been far more devastating.
In the mid-nineteenth century the Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis suggested that surgeons were spreading disease by not washing their hands between operations. He was ostracised for his conspiratorial assertion. Ridiculed and vilified, he ended his days in a lunatic asylum.
Irish communities draw their strengths from being close knit, but this can lead to a damaging conformity, as our history with the Catholic Church readily demonstrates. Neighbours and friends soon learn who the ‘anti-vax’ doctor is. A whisper at the school gate or a snub in the supermarket may not qualify as an assault, yet it can be just as hurtful to the spouse or daughter of a ‘dangerous’ doctor.
There are, and were, many Irish doctors who publicly and privately rejected much of our conflicting and often, frankly, comical Covid policies. Too many to list here.
However, the pressures brought to bear from without, and the enormous financial incentives for the majority of GPs, were sufficient to ensure that serious questions, or even discussion, in respect of policies, was cancelled from the outset. Some GPs have their bicycle clubs sponsored by Pfizer and were most keen not to bite the hand that feeds.
I occupy a rather unpleasant space as one of the first to speak out against ‘scientific’ polices that led to upwards of a thousand deaths in Irish nursing homes over a period of a few months in early 2020.
I stood at bedside and watched my patients die, whilst a spouse or loved one sat crying in the car park or staring through the window outside. I struggled to obtain medicines, oxygen and PPE. Many, if not most, deaths were the consequence of a policy of dumping untested hospital patients into nursing homes to make way for a Covid-19 ‘tsunami’ that ultimately manifested in empty makeshift hospitals and tic-toc videos of dancing medics.
An enduring myth in respect of those who died in the nursing homes is that that the ‘tragedy’ occurred everywhere equally. Yet throughout Europe, during the first wave, the highest per capita death toll in care homes occurred in Ireland. We hold the dubious record of being second highest in the world after Canada.
Those who complained about these deaths to the regulator, became the subject of investigation by the regulator, while those responsible are feted as heroes.
In March of 2020, I attempted to ‘whistle blow’ on the unfolding catastrophe of incompetence, and deprivation within the nursing homes. I resigned my Ministerial appointment in the hope that the Medical Council might investigate what might be considered as criminal manslaughter.
Yet they chose to ignore the dead and investigated me instead. In the media I found myself being dismissed as a ‘far right’, ‘conspiracy theorist’ and ‘anti-vaxxer’.
Far right is funny, as I am proudly left and liberal in my thinking. Anti-vaxxer is even funnier, as I have given more vaccines than I have had hot dinners. But ‘funny’ is perhaps the wrong word because it conceals some of the hurt endured by own family.
In one article in the Independent I was described as among those doctors giving ‘horse de-wormer’ to Covid patients.
Propaganda is a powerful tool. The wild accusations came late in the pandemic and seemed designed to highlight the ‘ridiculous’ things going on outside of the general medical adherence to ‘official guidelines’.
Other Doctors who went much further than I could have gone have suffered more than insult and isolation. They and their loved ones are more courageous, and deserving of a voice that will be heard as soon as science is liberated from the shackles of dominant interests.
One such man is Dr Gerry Waters who adamantly refused to administer Covid-19 vaccinations to his non-vulnerable patients, and refused to refer patients for farcical PCR testing. From the start of the pandemic, he fully comprehended, who is, and who is not at risk from Covid-19.
He recognised that masking and injecting children was ethically and scientifically wrong, and fully understood that the essential impartiality of science had been hijacked by politics and media. In a partial validation of Dr Waters’ fears, the Irish public have smelled a rat, and to date, less than 25% of eligible children have taken the vaccine. Our rather expensive over-stock (some 4 million doses) is presently being donated to Mexico and elsewhere. A mere €25 million to be added to the bonfire.
Dr Waters stayed true to his conviction that, beyond protecting the elderly, Covid lockdown policy was socially destructive and itself seriously pathogenic.
Doubtless, he was of the same view as a friend of mine, a former dean of medical studies at RCSI, who told me: ‘we would have been far better off, had we done nothing at all.’ Imagine what could have been done to improve the country with the billions that were wasted?
Some Doctors in Ireland remain convinced that many people, old and young, could be alive today were it not for the inept response and draconian measures. Effectively, what began as a rallying cry to ‘protect the vulnerable’, culminated in policies that effectively threw them under the bus. Instructively, suicide statistics and missed diagnoses, for the Covid period have yet to be released.
After speaking the truth as he saw it, Dr Waters was rapidly investigated, tried, and subsequently suspended from the medical register; deprived of a livelihood and compelled (it would seem) to live out the remainder of his days in ignominy.
I am somewhat pleased that I managed to avoid administering this genetic vaccine. I contend to this day that many or most GPs in Ireland haven’t the faintest clue as to what a genetic vaccine actually is, never mind how they work and what are the potential risks involved. Unlike Dr Waters I took the less courageous step of simply resigning my post, before vaccinations became part of public policy.
For a time, I had been able to separate my practice of medicine from my convictions. Indeed, I have been doing that for years. I suspect most doctors operate with this contradiction most days, at least when we write prescriptions for medicines that many people don’t require.
At the start of the pandemic in 2020 I could work within the guidelines; refer for testing; visit my nursing home; wear a silly mask in the supermarket. As long as I showed that I was formally participating in the farce, I was relatively safe from the regulator.
However soon after resigning, they placed me under investigation, although they could find nothing to hang me with; except my opinion, contradicting NPHET and Professor Luke O’Neill, and a vocal stance in respect of the nursing home dead.
A lot of people, including many of my former patients were unhappy to see me closing the practice. Yet, regardless of my practical adherence to policy, my position as an advocate of only vaccinating the vulnerable, became untenable.
Every week I would hear from nurses, teachers, students and employees who were being threatened with dismissal unless they received the vaccine. I have never witnessed such a blatant assault on human rights. I shudder to this day when I recall how so many people were coerced and intimidated by the government, and by members of my profession.
Formal resignation from the HSE was my only option, as long as I wished to continue working as a GP. Private GPs are not contractually obligated to vaccinate anyone. I could manage by doing private work for a friend, and out of hours work at an on-call centre.
I am somewhat alarmed by the fact that this article of mine was published several months ago.. it's been fact checked by friends and enemies alike and as yet I have not received a single contradiction or criticism.https://t.co/qaNltNw45M
To state that the IMC was satisfied with silencing whistle-blowers or making an example of Dr Waters would be a gross understatement. Almost every doctor in Ireland who refuted policy and did not resign from their post, was either fired or placed under investigation.
Thus, Martin Feely a respected surgeon and clinical director of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group, was forced to resign; Dr Pat Morrisey a principled and dedicated GP in Adare was both fired from the board of Shannon Doc, and placed under ongoing investigation by the Medical Council.
Offending doctors received written warnings from the then President of the Council, and others were placed under investigation for failing in their new duty to: ‘promote public health guidelines.’
One legacy of our colonial administration is a very efficient tax system, another is the efficient censorship of heretical opinions.
After two years as a member of the IMC I am entirely convinced that it is neither fit for purpose, nor does it have a practical leg to stand on when it comes to regulation. For the most part it makes its own work as it presides over a ‘General Register’ with little or no regulation at all.
Thus, untrained specialists are invited to come to Ireland from almost anywhere in Europe, and practice wherever and however they see fit, without specialist training; a situation that supplies regional and rural hospitals with ‘affordable’ specialists.
The public must suck up the consequences and the IMC keeps itself busy with the inevitable mistakes and complaints. For unqualified and untrained specialists, the back door into Ireland is through the front door of the IMC.
The most difficult consequence for a doctor who is placed under investigation by the IMC is without a doubt the process of investigation itself. I recognise this as a ‘gamekeeper who has turned poacher’. Much of my time at the IMC was spent on the Council’s Preliminary Complaints Committee, tasked with conducting the initial investigation into complaints against doctors.
Once entangled in the Kafkaesque web of a formal inquiry, there is no escape until the investigation is completed. In many cases this takes several years. Formal letters are sent back and forth, requesting clarifications and further information, which must be formally replied to.
One cannot leave the country to work or volunteer abroad. One cannot easily change job, as any new or prospective employers must be informed that an investigation is ongoing. One’s professional life is essentially frozen beneath a question-mark.
Doctors who were openly critical of the Covid response, have been under investigation for over two years now. The IMC has chosen (with the notable exception of Dr Waters) to prolong these dissections for as long as possible.
It seems that what is important for both the government and the Council is that doctors critical of policy should remain under investigation for as long as possible. Anything he or she might say or do, any comment made whilst under investigation, can readily become part of the investigation itself.
Moreover, to refuse to engage fully with an investigation, to refuse to reply to the regular formal correspondence, is itself grounds for an immediate suspension.
The absurd basis of the investigation into me, is that I made an appearance at a public demonstration in 2020 and ‘may not have sanitised my hands between hand-shakes.’
To my knowledge, all of the GPs under investigation are locked into the process based on equally frivolous grounds. The pretext for investigation is unimportant, the investigations are sufficiently punitive and sufficiently censorious, hence their protracted duration.
Perhaps the main reason for my now coming out of ‘hiding’, to tap impotently upon my keyboard, has been recent correspondence from the IMC. Some doctors have recently been informed that the investigations will now proceed to the next level of ‘formal hearings.’
After the IMC has finished its investigation process, it can then decide either to close the case, or proceed to a full Fitness to Practice Hearing. In this instance the doctor in question must appear before the Council’s court room, and plead a case for their continued right to earn a living. As these cases relate to a doctor’s opinion rather than any clinical practice, medical insurers have declined to pay for legal representation, and the doctor must pay for his own legal counsel.
There is a rich irony here, in that most if not all of the doctors under investigation, have themselves lodged formal complaints with the IMC in respect of registered doctors on NPHET, for ‘unscientific policies’ or financial conflicts of interest.
For example, several Doctors have lodged complaints against the President of the Irish College of General Practitioners in respect of his openly encouraging medical discrimination against non-vaccinated patients.
Also, at the height of the pandemic, Leo Varadkar re-registered as a doctor, helping to ‘man the phones’ and visit halting sites to test the Travelling Community. It was all a rather vulgar PR stunt lapped up by the media with a relish normally reserved for freshly baked cake.
However, when Dr Varadkar re-registered he became open to complaints to the IMC, along with Dr Holohan, and several other key policymakers. Without exception, not one of these complaints have been investigated. Instead, it is the doctors who lodged them who find themselves under ongoing investigations.
At a point when Leo Varadkar was found to have been leaking sensitive and lucrative contract details to a friend in General Practice, the then President of the Medical Council was busy issuing written warnings to fellow GPs that they had an ethical duty ‘promote government policy’.
Some doctors in Ireland felt a moral and scientific obligation to understand how Covid vaccines work prior to administering them. Many advocated caution, particularly in respect of pregnancy and young healthy children.
My friend in Wexford is one example. A respected GP, a man of science and integrity, he vaccinated all of his elderly and vulnerable patients in keeping with HSE guidelines, but when it came to pregnant women and healthy young children he called for caution.
He reminded colleagues of their ethical obligation to ‘first do no harm’, and made no secret of his concerns and fears. In doing so he stepped outside of the public health policy, and into the crosshairs of the IMC.
Each IMC investigation and each insulting article in the media, along with the invective and scorn that is heaped on contrarians from within the profession itself, comes at a cost. In his case, a deep personal cost.
The most painful barbs are the ones that are cast into one’s private life. Spouses and children are no less attached to a doctor than they are attached to any husband or wife. Even with the best will in the world no doctor can keep the ramifications of an investigation from creeping into the most intimate spaces.
Those who objected to Covid policies are treated to daily realities that are small thorns: a neighbour looking at you with scorn; former friends crossing to the other side of the street; wives or children being subjected to insult or abuse simply because they are related to the newly christened ‘right-wing’ or ‘anti-vaxx’ doctor.
My friend in Wexford tried hard to toe the line whilst preserving his integrity and an uncompromising commitment to the welfare of his patients. He has a family and bills to pay. Full resignation from the HSE is not a financial option for all. He tried to work within the guidelines, whilst at the same time urging caution. He continued to work, for the sake of his patients, his family, to pay his mortgage, and help his daughters get through college.
Were he on his own and without dependants he (and probably me) might have stood tall and offered the Medical Council the two fingered salute, as Gerry Waters had courageously done.
He (like me), tried desperately for a time to justify his position to our profession, to our colleagues, with articles, references, papers from the most esteemed of Medical Journals etc. He pointed to the lack of safety data on the vaccine during pregnancy and in children. It was to no avail. His position was akin to a lamb trying to convince a pack of wolves of the virtues of vegetarianism.
Nonetheless, he defended his position upon an internet forum exclusive to GPs; and despite my words of caution, they tore him to pieces.
A couple of months ago, my brave friend found himself parked in a lonely spot in Wexford. When the authorities located him, he had taken enough pills to silence the wolves forever.
After two weeks in intensive care and a return from near death, he returned home to count his blessings, recover from his ordeal, and begin a life-long process of recovery.
As a member of the IMC I was always intrigued at the efficacy and authority that a wealthy quango can wield. There is a sense of limitless power within the inner circle – reminiscent of a well-funded Big House – with a special relationship with the Minister.
At the IMC there is a department devoted to briefing and monitoring the press for issues that relate to the medical profession. Before each Council meeting a member of this office addresses the Council with a summary of what is happening in the media. It runs a little bit like “…and now what it says in the papers.”
I mention this to highlight that my friend, the Wexford GP, his near death, and the harrowing experience of his family and many of his patients, was highlighted in the national papers and the local press. Having gone missing for some days, news of his disappearance was reported in the national media.
There can be no doubt that the Medical Council was well-briefed about his ordeal. Yet within a week or two of his discharge from hospital he (and by proxy his family) received his letter from the IMC, informing him that he has been placed under formal investigation for his failure to promote Covid vaccination policy. He now faces an impending fitness to practice hearing, whereupon it will be decided if he too will be deprived of an ability to earn a living.
In its role as Grand Inquisitor, the Medical Council has destroyed the professional lives of many doctors, before, during and after Covid.
In my view, Irish Medicine is as rotten as any pathology it might pretend to address. This is a rot reflecting a wider rot in our political system. Perhaps it extends deep into the zeitgeist itself.
There is much to address in Irish medicine including inter alia our current mental health crisis, polypharmacy, corruption within the medical schools, defective specialist training schemes, deaths in nursing homes, relationship between pharmaceutical companies and research institutions, tensions between the public and private health sectors, and a general lack of regulation, but none of these seem to be of any concern to the IMC.
When the dust settled at the end of our last national crisis, the banking regulator was ultimately recognised as being guilty of catastrophic failures in respect of its duties and obligations. I suspect that if science is ever liberated from special interests, and media is free from a particular type of agenda, history will be seen to have repeated itself yet again.
Our teetering or collapsing system of medical care in Ireland is equally the consequence of an incompetent, and morally bankrupt, regulator. As usual, there is no one to ‘police the police’, only a fickle public opinion, and a Minister who is as much dependent on the regulator as they are answerable to him.
As a post-colonial society, and in the ‘spirit’ of our times, we tip the cap, with the same deference as ever to the ‘Big House’.
Editor’s Note: Having previously published Vaccination: A Matter of Trust with Caveats, we now anticipate objections from some readers to an article that may provoke vaccine hesitancy, at a point when rapid rollout to the entire adult population is widely touted as the only path out of interminable lockdowns. The author of this article, Dr. Marcus de Brun, however, is a medical doctor, and prior to his resignation last year– in protest against the government’s handling of the pandemic – a member of the Irish Medical Council. He also holds a first class degree in microbiology from TCD. Thus, we believe it is incumbent on Cassandra Voices as ‘a home for independent voices to inspire new thinking’ to provide this platform for him to articulate fully a public stance that he would not vaccinate a healthy person with any of the four vaccines currently on offer in Ireland. All the more so in a period of crisis, we maintain it is vital to give space to informed arguments that go against the grain. We invite comment and/or rebuttal, and ask if you appreciate this article that you offer a contribution to this publication, either through signing up with us on Patreon or through a single donation Buy Me A Coffee.
Having recently stated publicly that I would ‘not administer a genetic-vaccine to a healthy animal, never mind a ‘healthy human being,’ I have been asked by friends (and foes) to clarify this statement, and will attempt to do so here.
Speaking as a qualified Microbiologist, l would NOT administer an mRNA vaccine to a healthy animal, never mind a healthy human being.
At present, vaccines produced by four companies (Pfizer, Moderna, Astra Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson) are available on the European market. All four are ‘genetic vaccines’ in that they are composed of synthetic DNA or RNA that is contained within a membrane or shell. In construction and appearance the vaccine is very similar to the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the coronavirus disease known as Covid-19. The vaccine gains entry to human cells by a process that is almost identical to the manner by which a virus generally gains access to host cells. This process is called ‘transfection’.
Each of these vaccines work by introducing either DNA or RNA into host cells. The genetic material then instructs host cells to make a piece of the coronavirus (the spike protein) that is then released into the blood stream or tissues. There, the spike protein will trigger an immune response. Following this immune response, the vaccinated individual will retain some immunity; they will have antibodies and white cells that can now recognise Covid-19 and attack it before it has a chance to cause a serious infection.
The AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are DNA vaccines,[i] which transfect DNA into the Nucleus of host cells. The Pfizer and Moderna Vaccines are RNA vaccines, these transfect their RNA into the cytoplasm of host cells. The difference will be explained later; however, the initial process is the same: human cells take up synthetic viral genes, those genes then direct those cells to begin manufacturing the spike-protein of Covid-19. The cells will then release the nascent spike-protein into the bloodstream or tissues, where it will then function as a ‘traditional vaccine.’
In essence, the distinction between genetic-vaccines and ‘traditional vaccines’ is that the latter would involve a person being injected with killed or inactive virus or spike-protein, which would then cause our immune systems to mount a response. Each of these novel genetic-vaccines however, insert genetic material into human cells. These synthetic genes then ‘hijack’ those cells or ‘convert’ them to manufacture and release the spike-protein. With a genetic vaccine, pharma does not make the vaccine, our own cells are programmed to do the work instead, a process entirely different from that of a ‘traditional vaccine’.
Out with the Old…
For the first time in my medical career of some twenty years, I am presented with the apparent necessity of vaccinating young healthy people with experimental vaccines, against a disease for which they have little or no risk of suffering life-threatening,[ii] or even serious long-term[iii] illness. The vast majority of ‘vulnerable’ people to whom they might pass Covid-19 have already been either vaccinated or been exposed to the virus.[iv]
I have an article today in @statnews making the case that we need to start thinking more critically, and speaking more cautiously, about “Long COVID.” https://t.co/WCGxyxKe37
In Ireland according to our Central Statistics Office, during the past 12 months up to the end of January 2021; amongst the entire population of 1-24yr olds, there have been 55,565 PCR confirmed cases of Covid-19. Out of those cases, there has not been a single death recorded; from, by, or associated with Covid-19.[v] It has been reported that a single Covid-related death in this cohort (1-24yrs) did occur in February of this year. However, this has yet to appear in the figures published by the CSO.
Young nurses, medical staff, care workers, are being pressured into taking a vaccine they probably don’t need themselves, despite residents under their care having been almost all vaccinated already. Now Covid-19 genetic-vaccines are being tested upon children as young as six months old.[vi]
We are where we are today because of the GREATEST Political and Scientific Blunders in History!
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A Scarcity of Serious Questions? Or a Scarcity of Serious Media?
The justification for many, if not most, policies during this crisis has largely been based on ‘mortality data’. In contrast, Swedish authorities have enforced relatively few restrictions, nor made masks mandatory. In Ireland, the CSO indicate that 92% of all Covid-related deaths have occurred in those over 65 years of age.[vii]
In Sweden that cohort of their population is 3.17 times greater Ireland’s. Thus, if we roughly compare the Swedish mortality total (at the time of writing) of 13,262, to the Irish total of 4588, and if we then multiply the Irish mortality total by 3.17, we arrive at a figure of 14,544, which is significantly higher than the comparable Swedish total.
We are crudely, but reasonably, comparing ‘like with like’ to reveal glaring potential problems with our own relatively draconian Covid policies. When compared with Sweden, our own version of lockdown seems to have had no benefit in terms of preventing mortality. It might not be unreasonable to assert that our stricter policies may have contributed to a relatively higher mortality. Yet, perhaps the biggest question here is: why are there so few questions being posed in the media in respect of the efficacy of masks, lockdowns or vaccination policies?
On the rare occasion questions are raised in our national media, it as if an ‘anti-vaxxer’, ‘right-wing loon’, or political extremist is trying to gate crash what might otherwise be a rather sedate and respectable party.
Pro-Vaxxer
In the good old days before Covid, in Ireland, and around the world, we only vaccinated those who were vulnerable to, or at risk from a specific disease. We still vaccinate children against an array of illnesses that adults have not been, and are not routinely vaccinated against; Rotavirus and Meningitis B are but two obvious examples. Adults are equally susceptible to infection by either, but they are not as vulnerable to serious illness, and so are not vaccinated. Previously, we only ever vaccinated the vulnerable and those at risk; recently, however, that good science and common sense has been turned on its head.
It is suggested that we should vaccinate young healthy people who have little if anything to fear from Covid-19. A paediatric genetic-vaccine is expected to be available later this year. It is argued that even though children are generally not susceptible to serious disease, they should be vaccinated in order to protect the vulnerable and achieve ‘herd-immunity.’ In the meantime, the vulnerable have in large part already been either been vaccinated already, exposed or sadly passed away.
If getting the disease does not give immunity, how do you think that a vaccine that makes the same spike protein as the virus makes will give immunity?
If getting the disease does not give immunity, how do you think that a vaccine that makes the same spike protein as the virus makes will give immunity? https://t.co/UGlSeE8LhW
Between March and June, 2020, 96% of additional deaths related to COVID-19 in Europe occurred in patients aged older than 70 years[ix] We have clearly lost sight of whom we are trying to protect, and what we are trying to protect them from. Presently we have a national obsession with conformity, and an ostensible adherence to guidelines. Despite empirical truths, and substantial contrary evidence, we are being corralled into what increasingly appears to be a specific belief-system surrounding Covid-19, and its threat to the entire population.
Those who have read George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) will be familiar with the threats issued to the hapless animals: ‘Jones the farmer will return, and destroy all of your good work!’ In contemporary parlance, he will return with ‘Long Covid,’[x] and frightening ‘New Variants’ with him.
Politicians have applied policies that are in keeping with this notion of ‘universal severity’ in response to a virus where 86% of those infected did not have virus symptoms, such as cough, fever, and loss of taste or smell., according to a UK study from October.[xi] Many of our Covid policies arrive with the benefit of preserving established governments from demonstrations and assemblies calling for policy revisions and or enquiries.
My own calls for a public enquiry into nursing home deaths, or my pleas on behalf of common sense and natural science, are at best ignored by media. As are those of colleagues who feel and believe as I do, including Limerick GP Dr. Pat Morrissey, and Wexford GP Dr Gerry Waters, who was recently suspended by the Medical Council for refusing to adhere to and promote current public health guidance. Others who have openly spoken out against current policies have been subjected to investigation by the Medical Council, and ongoing vilification by many of our peers. Speaking out returns precious few short term dividends.
Throughout much of Europe since the outset of the crisis, governments, like our own, are presently controlled by proxy scientific-panels or unelected expert committees. Governments claim to be simply ‘following their scientists advice,’ whilst the scientists insist that they are merely informing the government and not directing government policy. In this apparently blameless political ‘no man’s land’, the stage is perfectly set for blameless political atrocities.
War of the Words: ‘Genetic vs ‘Traditional’
Many scientists and physicians prefer to describe most Covid-19 vaccines as ‘gene therapy’. It is a phrase that no doubt serves as much to antagonise proponents, as it does to inform them. However, it is as good a place as anywhere to start.
Genetic vaccines are certainly not ‘traditional’ vaccines. The licence for their use against Covid-19 throughout Europe was granted under emergency legislation that permits manufacturers to skip phase 4 safety trials that would have otherwise delayed their distribution. Advocates insist that skipping this final phase was absolutely necessary to resolve the current crisis.
There is much to this argument, and we will not dive into it here. However, one point should be made. There are at least two off-patent (cheap and safe) drugs, Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin, that may be effective in treating Covid-19. These drugs are not, however, licensed for use in treating Covid in many Western countries, (particularly the wealthier ones who can afford the novel vaccines).
If either, or both, drugs had been licensed, this might have proved an obstacle to the granting of emergency use licences for Covid-19 vaccines. The reason for this is that grounds for emergency licensing of genetic-vaccines are substantially reinforced, as long as there are no other pharmacological treatments available at the time.
Edward Jenner (1749-1823)
A Traditional ‘Vaccine’
In China the practice of inoculation against diseases such as smallpox was established as far back as 200 BC.[xii] It is likely that traditional medicine, tribesmen and ancient civilisations used, or at least inadvertently ‘knew’ something of the benefits of limited exposure to a disease, in order to establish some degree of immunity.
Our own modern era of the ‘traditional’ vaccine begins when Edward Jenner (1749-1823) noticed that milkmaids appeared to be relatively immune to smallpox, a viral illness that was, in Jenner’s day, responsible for widespread suffering and death.
Jenner observed that something was being transmitted from the cows to the milkmaids, effectively protecting them against smallpox. Cows contract cowpox. It’s not the same disease as smallpox, but as the respective viruses are so similar, whenever the hands of a milkmaid came into contact with a blister or pox on the udder of a cow infected with cow-pox; the milkmaid would be exposed to this very similar virus.
In these instances the cowpox virus or ‘pieces’ of it, would enter the milkmaid’s blood stream through a cut or minor abrasion on her hands. The virus would be identified by her immune system as a ‘pathogen’ or disease-causing agent. White cells would attack the cowpox virus, causing it to break apart. Those same white cells would manufacture antibodies; little Y-shaped proteins that will stick to surface-proteins on the virus, and cause it to be directly destroyed, or recognised by other white cells that will mobilise to destroy it.
All of this complex immunology would of course be occurring within the milkmaid’s blood, whilst she happily milked her cows. She might notice a slight blister, a little pus, or minor swelling around one of the abrasions on her overworked hands. The slight redness might be ignored, and would inevitably fade away. However this localised reaction would have heralded exposure to cowpox. The cowpox antibodies would then persist in her blood, remaining attached to the surface of many of her circulating white blood cells; protecting her or “vaccinating” her against small-pox.
If the milkmaid should later come into contact with smallpox, those newly formed cowpox antibodies would be ready to mount an early and more efficient immune response. Her antibodies to the cowpox virus could attach to the smallpox virus, recruit other white cells – killer t-cells etc – onto the scene, and mount a pre-emptive response. This would be fast enough to eradicate the smallpox infection before it had an opportunity to spread and cause severe illness or death. It was Jenner’s genius that ultimately brought this reality to light.
Jenner collected some of the pus that oozed from the udders of cows infected with cowpox. He swirled it about in a drop of water, placed it in a glass vial and then offered it to the world as the prevention for small-pox. Half a century later Louis Pasteur coined the phrase ‘vaccination’ after vacca, the Latin for cow. The paradigm in respect of human medicine and public health had shifted forever.
Louis Pasteur.
Perhaps the real hero of the vaccination story was an eight-year-old boy by the name of James Phipps, the son of Jenner’s gardener. On May 14th 1796, Jenner made a small incision into James’s arm, and rubbed in a drop of his magical ‘pus-paste’, making little James the first to be given a vaccine in the modern sense.
Thankfully, little James proved immune to the various small-pox ‘exposures’ and challenges that Jenner then came up with. At the time small-pox was responsible for almost 10% of annual deaths in England. Jenner sent his results in a paper to the Royal Society for publication, but his paper was ignored.
Having had the audacity to suggest pus from an infected cow’s udder, as a cure for smallpox, Jenner was at first dismissed as an eccentric by his peers. Yet, rather than disappearing into obscurity, he persisted. He vaccinated a further twenty-three people, and having seen little James survive, he even included his own eleven-month old son Robert, in this first ever vaccine trial.
At that stage the medical establishment found it impossible to ignore his findings, which soon attracted widespread interest amongst the medical fraternity. However, it was not until 1840, some forty-four-years after his first attempt to publish his results, that the British Government began offering Jenner’s vaccination, free of charge, to the general public.
The same but different
Since Jenner’s day, ‘traditional vaccines’ have functioned in precisely the same way. Pharmaceutical companies take a virus or bacterium, they break it up, kill it, or leave it intact but render it weaker or ineffective ‘the same but different.’ They then take the bug (or pieces of the bug), swish them around in a little drop of water, add in a few elements that act as preservatives and immune-stimulants; then we doctors inject those pieces into people, thereby preventing many from succumbing to various infective diseases. The vaccination exposes us to a bug or pieces of a bug causing our immune system to generate antibodies and white blood cells that will persist in our circulation and be ready to launch a pre-emptive strike against the bug or a similar bug if it is encountered again: we have, in essence, become immune.
So what is different about genetic-vaccines? Well here’s where the story becomes a little nuanced. Let’s try to put it in terms we might relate to.
To begin with we must remind ourselves that: all living things are composed of cells, which is perhaps the most basic tenet of biology.
Image of a recreated 1918 influenza virus.
Viruses are not considered ‘living things’, because they are not ‘cells’ and neither are they made up of cells. They are formally referred to as ‘obligate intracellular parasites.’ They only become ‘alive;’ and can only replicate, after entering host cells, at which point they replicate or multiply within host cells. Once inside a cell the virus hijacks the cell’s own processes for making things that the cell needs for itself. The infected cell then becomes a virus factory, it swells with new virus particles, until it bursts, dies, and releases its payload of new virions into the bloodstream, or fluid outside of the cell membrane.
It is only when a virus is outside the cell, within the blood stream or tissues, that it might be recognised by white cells or antibodies, and become the subject of an immune response. When a virus is inside one of our cells, there are some discrete ways this cell can let other cells know that it has become infected; there are means by which the immune system detects that one of our own cells has a virus inside it. However, these are comparatively slow, indefinite and uncertain processes and will not be discussed here. The major and most important way the immune system clears viruses is by getting at them before they get inside our cells.
Once a virus is inside a cell, for the most part, it is hidden from the immune system. This point will be crucial to understanding the distinction between a genetic vaccine, and a traditional vaccine.
All Cells Look a Little, or a Lot, Like a Fried Egg:
Under a microscope, all cells appear a little like fried eggs. Almost all of them have the same basic plan, the yellow yolk being the nucleus; the white of the egg, the ‘cytoplasm;’ and the outer margin of the fried egg (the crispy brown edge) being the ‘cell membrane’ or wall surrounding the cell. To learn the basics of how genetic vaccines work, we need only refer to this analogy, but we must understand our ‘egg’ a little better before we put the toast on.
The yellow yolk, or nucleus, contains all of our DNA. To understand what DNA looks like, imagine your fly, not the one buzzing at the window, but the zip on your trousers. It is composed of two sides or strands that are linked together when your zipper is up, and separated when your zipper is down.
DNA is like an extremely long length of closed zip. Imagine this super long ‘zip’ coiled into individual space-saving packages, like neat balls of wool. Each of these little packages is called a chromosome and (with the exception of sperm cells and egg cells) the nucleus of each of our cells contains forty-six of these little balls of wool; twenty-three from mum, and twenty-three from dad.
All forty-six are packed into the nucleus, the yellow yolk of our analogous egg. When we, or one of our cells, needs something; a protein, a hormone, a replacement part etc., the information to make what the cell needs (the recipe for all of life’s necessities) is coded for in that length of closed zip, our DNA.
Each of the ‘teeth’ along the length of the zip strands, represent a single letter of the genetic code. An entire message may contain many letters, or teeth, along a specific length or piece of the zip. The lengths of zip that contain messages (or recipes) are called our ‘genes.’
The ‘message’ within a gene is like a recipe in a cookbook. It contains a coded instruction for how to make the protein, enzyme etc., or whatever it is that the cell wants or needs. The DNA code is in the nucleus, and the basic ingredients are located in the cytoplasm, and it is in the cytoplasm (the egg-white) where the item required is assembled and manufactured. The raw materials for manufacture get into the cytoplasm, when they are absorbed across the cell membrane (the crispy brown bit at the edge of our fried egg). These raw materials are the amino-acids, sugars and vitamins etc., that we receive in our diet.
To kick off the process, when a cell needs to make something, a signal is sent from the white of the egg (the cytoplasm) into the nucleus. That signal makes its way to the ball of wool or chromosome that contains the particular recipe, or code for the ingredients that will make up whatever is needed by the cell. When the signal reaches the chromosome containing the particular recipe or gene, the ball of wool is loosened slightly, and a relatively small length of closed zip (or DNA containing that recipe), is unzipped. One side of the opened zip is then copied into a piece of mRNA.
That copy of one side of the unzipped zip is called messenger RNA. In most textbooks it (the mRNA) looks exactly as I have described it: a single side of a zip. This messenger RNA then exits through pores in the nucleus. It enters the white of the egg, where this mRNA ‘recipe’ is then read or translated, and whatever it is the cell needs can now be manufactured within the cytoplasm or the white of the egg.
The Ribosome
When the strand of messenger RNA leaves the nucleus and enters the cytoplasm it is immediately found by a fascinating little cytoplasmic protein called a ‘ribosome’. The ribosome attaches to the mRNA. It then slides along this single strand of zip, and as it does so, ‘reads’ the code, and then makes a little strand, like a bead of pearls (a polypeptide). That strand of polypeptide then curls and folds itself into a little ball or blob; and this little blob of protein, is the very thing that the cell was looking for in the first place.
It might be a structural protein, an enzyme, a building block, a replacement part, or whatever. When the ribosome slides along the piece of mRNA it makes this new little string that will ultimately fold upon itself to become the required product. This wonderful orchestral process is as ancient as life itself and is called ‘translation.’
It is one of the rare occasions when jargon makes sense, for the little piece of mRNA, has indeed been ‘translated’ into a protein or ‘final product’ by the ribosome. The cell has now manufactured the thing that it needs, and after a few translations, the mRNA then degrades. No more ribosomes can attach to it, and no further product can be manufactured from it. If the cell wants another product it must send another message into the nucleus and call for another mRNA copy to be made in the nucleus and sent into the cytoplasm. It is a beautifully organised process, integral not simply to human life but to all life on the planet.
How Does a Genetic-Vaccine Work?
If you got all of that, you have grasped some of the fundamentals of cell biology and we are now able to ask: how does a genetic vaccine work?
Most of us have seen an image or an artist’s impression of what a coronavirus looks like. A little ball, covered in spikes, like a medieval weapon swung from the end of a chain. Inside this little ball are the virus’s own genes. These genes are in the form of strands of RNA; the same type of RNA that is made in the nucleus of our cells, and sent into the cytoplasm for the manufacture of all ‘things’ that the cell needs.
SARS-CoV-2
The main difference between the RNA strands within a coronavirus, and those that naturally emerge from the nucleus of our own cells, is that coronavirus RNA does not code for ‘things’ that our cells might need. On the contrary, it codes for pieces that make up the coronavirus itself.
When a coronavirus binds to the outside of one of the cells in our respiratory tract, it releases its RNA into those cells – into the white of the egg – and there, instead of making proteins that are needed by our cells, our ribosomes attach to their viral RNA and begin to manufacture (or translate) proteins that make up the physical structure of the virus. The host cell has now becomes a virus-making factory; the cytoplasm swells with viral particles; the cell bursts, and thousands of new viruses (virions) are released into the bloodstream, or the fluid that lies outside of the cell membrane.
A genetic vaccine looks like, and functions, in almost exactly the same manner as the coronavirus itself. If a genetic vaccine could be visualised, it would look like a little sphere that encapsulates a piece of viral RNA or DNA (depending on which of the four vaccines we are considering). The role of the sphere is to protect the RNA or DNA inside the vaccine, and, most importantly, to bind it to human cells in a manner that will allow the piece of RNA or DNA to enter host cells at the site where the ‘vaccine’ is injected.
For an RNA containing vaccine (Pfizer & Moderna) once the vaccine RNA gets inside our cells, our ribosomes attach and translate the RNA into a piece of the virus (one of the spike proteins). The host cell will then swell with spike proteins, and release them into the blood stream or body fluids outside the cell. There, the spike-protein will trigger the same immune response that Jenner and the traditional vaccines make use of.
For DNA vaccines (Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca) the vaccine-DNA makes its way into the nucleus of our cells where it begins working (and is treated the same as our own DNA). It is copied into a piece of mRNA that will then travel into the cytoplasm and be translated by ribosomes into spike-proteins. Because genetic vaccines cannot infect cells, the process whereby a genetic-vaccine enters host cells is referred to as ‘transfection’.
It is only after the transfected host cell releases spike-protein into the blood stream that our genetic-vaccine begins working in the ‘traditional’ way. In reality, it is the cellular process for the manufacture of things which has been hijacked, and the ‘traditional vaccine’ is being made inside one’s own cells. The ‘vaccine’ is released into our blood stream in the same way that a cell infected with a virus releases new virus into the blood stream or tissues.
The final result might be the same, however, where a genetic-vaccine is different is in its mechanism it operates inside cells at a level of intimacy that Jenner could never have imagined. Because DNA vaccines enter the nucleus of our cells, and are treated as our own DNA, they come with a risk of damaging our own DNA, causing mutations, including, potentially, cancer. The potential is indeed an established fact. It is no less established than the fact that there is a link between smoking and cancer.
Consider when a piece of synthetic DNA comes within intimate proximity of a relatively enormous coiled ball of DNA that is dynamically unwinding and unravelling in response to the daily activities of the cell. Is there a chance that this relatively small piece of synthetic DNA might become incorporated into or interfere with the normal function of our own DNA? Before Covid, the answer was an emphatic yes. However of late, the mere suggestion will undoubtedly be treated as something of a ‘conspiracy theory’.
It is for this and other reasons that genetic-vaccines have not been previously licensed for use in humans prior to the current crisis. Thus, a 2013 paper[xiii]published in Germs, the respected Journal of Infectious Diseases lists the established disadvantages of DNA vaccines.
Of the 4 Genetic Vaccines currently available, 2 are RNA based (Pfizer/Moderna), & 2 are DNA based (AstraZen/J&J). Here's what non-bias (pre-covid) Science, states about the disadvantages of DNA Vaccines:
Very limited forms of gene therapy are available in the treatment of terminal cancers. However, pharmaceutical companies have not been able to market this form of medicine, outside of the laboratory, on human populations.[xiv] A cynic might reasonably argue that companies are exploiting the current crisis in order to expedite safety trials and open the market for ‘gene-therapy’.
There is nothing new here, this type of therapy, whereby patients are administered the gene for a missing or desired product, has been in development for several decades. The major difficulty for pharmaceutical companies has been how to get it out of the laboratory and past the paralysis of safety trials. It is certainly easy to see that if our cells are programmed to make and release spike-proteins, they can also be programmed to release other kinds of proteins, drugs and potential therapies directly into the human blood stream or tissues.[xv] Getting this type of therapy past regulators, and avoiding meaningful debate, has, (for better or worse), clearly been accomplished within the context of the current crisis.
From a simple economic perspective, if human cells can be programmed to take on the role of manufacturing the ‘drug’, numerous difficulties in respect of production, costs, delivery, and even safety trials, are relatively easily overcome. The paradigm shift that resulted from Jenner’s development of vaccination could pale into insignificance compared to the potential game changer of genetic-vaccine.
If, indeed, these vaccines are going to protect people from Covid-19, and they come with the added benefit of paving the way for novel therapies, why are people like me getting our proverbial knickers in a twist?
Again the answer is not that complicated. The cellular process of ‘translation’ that is being ‘hijacked’ by the relevant pharmaceutical companies, does not belong to them, to our respiratory cells, or even human cells. As mentioned already, it is a process that belongs to ALL cells, in ALL species. In essence it ‘belongs’ to all living things in Nature.
If anything happens to go wrong, the consequences are not limited to human beings, as the process being ‘hijacked’ is not exclusive to us. It ‘belongs’ to all life on Earth. The consequence of error, may extend further than a little nausea or swelling at the injection site.[xvi] Potential consequences extend to all cells that utilize the same process, and come in contact with the manufactured DNA or RNA.
DNA or RNA? Red or White?
Whilst the potential for either of the two available DNA vaccines to integrate into, or damage, human DNA is well established; there is an argument being made that this cannot possibly occur with the two available RNA vaccines.
Generally speaking within our cells once RNA is copied or made in the nucleus it moves into the cytoplasm. It does not travel backwards. RNA does not move back inside the nucleus and incorporate into our DNA. However, the key words here are: ‘generally speaking.’
Nature (generally speaking) blocks this possibility because the copied RNA that exits the nucleus, is different to DNA. It is an RNA copy of the DNA, the RNA cannot bind or interact with DNA. In the first instance RNA is a single stranded copy of one side of the zip. In the second instance the ‘teeth’ on the newly copied RNA are slightly different. They are tweaked with a sugar molecule called ribose, they are ‘ribosylated’ and therefore cannot readily recombine with DNA. (The ‘R’ in RNA simply means Ribosylated Nucleic Acid.)
The RNA does indeed code for the same message that is contained within the DNA, but the teeth, or the letters of the RNA code, are slightly different. RNA does not travel backwards and interfere with DNA. Generally speaking they are incompatible, and cannot interfere with each other. Therefore, when the vaccine makers insist that the pieces of RNA that they have transfected into our cells do not interact with our DNA; well, they aren’t spoofing. It doesn’t normally happen that RNA interferes with DNA.
So that’s what it says on the tin. However, there are two points that must be considered before we take this claim at face value. The first is a question of ‘precedence’ and the second is a question of scale.
Does it happen in humans and in Nature that RNA can travel backwards into the nucleus and interfere with or incorporate into DNA? The simple answer to this question is a definite yes! RNA can and does travel backwards to incorporate itself into our DNA. This retrograde move, (where RNA sequences become incorporated into DNA) is called reverse-transcription. The reason for the use of ‘retro’ in the word retrovirus, is because retroviruses, and many other viruses, make use of reverse-transcription, converting RNA into DNA that will then integrate into our own DNA.
HIV and HTLV (a human virus that causes t-cell leukaemia) are examples of viral infections, where RNA is converted backwards into DNA which then ‘interferes’ with our own DNA inside the nucleus of our cells. These viruses contain RNA, and they also carry an enzyme called ‘reverse transcriptase’. This enzyme converts RNA backwards into DNA. Retroviruses and other viruses (such as Hepatitis B) introduce the reverse-transcriptase enzyme into our cells when they infect them.[xvii] Furthermore, our own cells normally produce and use this enzyme (reverse transcriptase) inside the nucleus, where it has some ‘house-keeping’ roles in maintaining our own DNA.[xviii]
Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that within the human genome some 8% of our DNA is composed of DNA that was originally viral RNA. Infections with RNA viruses whose genes have since become permanently incorporated into our own DNA. These sequences are called ‘Human Endogenous Retroviral Sequences’ or HERVS.[xix] Many of them persist within our genome because they may code for proteins or things that are likely to be of some benefit to us; genes brought into our genome from outside the cell, via the natural, dynamic interaction between viruses, retroviruses and human DNA.
Many more of these endogenous retroviral (originally RNA) sequences are mysteriously redundant, and science is yet to learn of their function in sickness or in health. The fact remains that they are present; been present for countless millennia; may be integral to our evolution as a species; and are certainly with us ‘until death do us part.’ They should serve to remind us that there is a long established history of communication between viral and human genetics; an interaction that we should attempt to understand before it is blindly manipulated.
Interconnectedness
Too often viruses are portrayed as static structures, distinct from our own genetic material and distinct from one another. This is quite simply a rather primitive concept, the same kind of thinking that removes human beings and the consequence of our actions from Nature. It is part of the reason we remain largely incapable of seeing and appreciating the vast web of interconnectedness that dependently joins us to whales, rain forests, and even viruses.
We depend upon viruses for our genetics, as we depend upon yeast for our beer. Often viruses depend upon each other to cause infection. In certain instances, if a particular virus is missing something, a part or component (without which it is defective or deficient), the missing part is supplied by another helper-virus. There are helper-viruses, and there is an entire family of viruses (dependoviruses) that are entirely dependent upon assistance from helper-viruses. For example, in Humans, Hepatitis D virus is activated, only in the presence of Hepatitis B virus. Essentially, in order to function, the D-virus ‘borrows’ some missing parts from the B virus.
In short, viruses are not ‘monogamous recluses’: interacting with each other; helping each other; interacting with our genetic material within the cytoplasm and within the nucleus. It does not matters if that genetic material has come from the nucleus of our own cells, or been synthesized in the labs at Johnson and Johnson.[xx]
A Question of Scale
There is no such thing as a ‘perfect process’. Do something for the first time and you might do it right, do it right enough times, and you will eventually do it wrong.
When vaccine RNA or DNA hijacks a natural cellular processes and transforms the cell to vaccine or spike-protein production; how many times does this ‘event’ occur in the tissue of the person who has thus been vaccinated? Thousands, or several thousands of times? How many times has it occurred when several billion people are vaccinated? I don’t know the answer to this question. However, when a process is repeated billions of times, mistakes are no longer ‘possible’, they are inevitable. Such mistakes or mutations are not only inevitable but are essential, lying at the heart of evolution itself.
The End is Nigh?
There is certainly a mountain of spin and delusion on either side of the ‘genetic-vaccine’ or ‘gene-therapy’ debate, and we must keep matters in perspective. Genetic modification is here to stay, for better or for worse. The argument in respect of unforeseen genetic consequence to ourselves and/or other species is an old one. It began with ‘Dolly’ the sheep, and has raged for some time around the desirability of genetically modified foods.
Ironically, the introduction of synthetic genes into vegetables, created something of an international furore, yet the transfection of synthetic genes into millions of regular human beings has created far less controversy. Debate or discussion on the subject of genetic modification or therapy, its necessity, utility, or potential harm, is long overdue; although perhaps it might be a case of too little, too late.
Today, many of the foods we eat have been genetically modified to some degree. Genetically modified food is, however, met with and processed by the acid and digestive enzymes in our guts. The synthetic genes in GM products do not (as far as we know) enter our cells, they do not attempt to manipulate our own cellular or genetic processes.
There is clearly an urgent need to revisit this debate in light of these new vaccines. The battle may have been lost in respect of GM crops, but there is a reasonable argument to be advanced this time round as ‘human genetic processes’ are being tampered with, rather than sheep, beetroot or soya beans.
The Right Hashtag?
In recent years discourse and protest have become strangely predictable, organised around or stimulated by whatever happens to be trending on social media. It seems the right hashtag hasn’t been developed for ‘debate’ in respect of current pandemic policy, even as that policy extends into the function of our own cells.
How many people in Ireland, or around the world, know how a Covid vaccine work? How many clinicians are aware for that matter? When debate does erupt in relatively small pockets around the country it is hijacked by extremists or dismissed as being organised and attended by extremists. Social media appears to be moderating our behaviour to a greater degree than even genetics.
The health of our society depends far more on constructing a more honest and happier version of ourselves. We need to re-evaluate materialism, define happiness, reduce consumption, eat less (or no) meat, take plastics out of our food chain and ecosystems, restore and preserve habitats, protect and understand a biodiversity upon which we are entirely dependent. All of this, and more, is not contingent on genetic modification, no more than it is dependent on us getting to Mars.
Therefore, for the reasons I have outlined, I would not inject a healthy animal with an experimental genetic-vaccine, never mind a healthy human being.
[i] Jonathan Corum and Carl Zimmer, ‘How the Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Works,’ New York Times, March 22nd, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/health/oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine.html
[ii] Smriti Mallapaty, ‘The coronavirus is most deadly if you are older and male — new data reveal the risks’ August 28th, 2020, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2
[iii] Adam W. Gaffney, ‘We need to start thinking more critically — and speaking more cautiously — about long Covid’ Statnews, March 22nd, 2021, https://www.statnews.com/2021/03/22/we-need-to-start-thinking-more-critically-speaking-cautiously-long-covid/
[iv] Conor Pope, Vivienne Clarke, ‘Vaccination rollout in nursing homes almost complete, HSE says,’ February 12th, 2020, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/vaccination-rollout-in-nursing-homes-almost-complete-hse-says-1.4483250
[vi] Moderna Announces First Participants Dosed in Phase 2/3 Study of COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate in Pediatric Population https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-announces-first-participants-dosed-phase-23-study-0
[ix] ‘Immune evasion means we need a new COVID-19 social contract’, The Lancet, February 18th, 2021, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(21)00036-0/fulltext
[x] Jeremy Divine, ‘The Dubious Origins of Long Covid’, Wall Street Journal, March 22nd, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dubious-origins-of-long-covid-11616452583
[xi] Angela Betsaida B. Laguipo, ‘86 percent of the UK’s COVID-19 patients have no symptoms,’ News Medical Life Sciences, October 9th, 2020, https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201009/86-percent-of-the-UKs-COVID-19-patients-have-no-symptoms.aspx
[xii] The History of Vaccines, Chinese Smallpox Inoculation, https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/early-chinese-inoculation
[xiv] Kristina Fiore, ‘Want to Know More About mRNA Before Your COVID Jab?’ Medpage Today, December 3rd, 2020, https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/89998
[xv] Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 17, pages261–279(2018)
[xvi] Nicola Davis, ‘Covid vaccine side-effects: what are they, who gets them and why?’ The Guardian, March 18th, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/18/covid-vaccine-side-effects-what-are-they-who-gets-them-and-why
[xvii] Medical Microbiology. 4th edition (Chapter 62).Galveston (TX): University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston; 1996.
[xviii] Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Apr; 83(8): 2531–2535.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.8.2531, https://www.nature.com/articles/1205081
[xix] PMCID: PMC7139688 PMID: 32155827 Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs): Shaping the Innate Immune Response in Cancers.
[xx] Knipe, David M.; Howley, Peter M. (2007). Fields Virology (5th ed.). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. pp. 126–7.
In August of last year I wrote an article pointing to the impending consequence of the Irish government’s rolling lockdown policy, ‘The Perfect Storm’[i] gathering on the horizon over the country. By that I meant a significant second wave of Covid-19 – to hit this winter. I made that prediction based on the following factors:
An elevated number of potential viral hosts, which is a consequence of suppression of natural-immunity.
Increased life of the virus in the external environment due to decreased daylight
Raised levels of social anxiety and subsequent susceptibility to illness/infection
Continued persistence of the virus at low levels within Irish society
The ‘storm’ made landfall at the start of January, leading to the imposition of an extreme lockdown for the third time – with children denied their constitutional right to an education – amid renewed fears the hospital system would be overwhelmed, as many elderly in care homes passed away once again.
Sadly, this ‘third’ wave actually commenced in week 48 of 2020 (22/11/2020), while the country was still under Level 5 Lockdown restrictions, according to a report by the HSPC.[ii]
Could additional deaths have been averted if the Taoiseach had not sought ‘a meaningful Christmas’; or if NEPHT’s advice had been followed to the letter – permitting house visits rather than opening restaurants and gastropubs[iii] at the start of December? Based on the HSPC report that seems doubtful. And I would question whether most Irish people would have willingly foregone sociability throughout the depths of winter – there was certainly no political clamour to cancel Christmas – having endured near-constant lockdown since March. But you never know.
Furthermore, without a Christmas spending spree many indigenous retailers and restaurateurs might have been forced out of business – to the unrestrained joy of Jeff Bezos, Tescos and the rest.
But in Ireland, as ever, we desperately need someone to blame third time round; anyone other than NPHET that has managed to preserve a reputation for scientific insight despite the damage it is doing to the country. So, instead of questioning the government’s response, youngsters – who may have availed of a brief chink of light to socialize – are scapegoated.
Other than that we find talk of selfish immigrants returning home over Christmas to see loved ones. And now attacks on those who escaped the overwhelming doom and gloom for a post-Christmas break. Yet, whatever one’s thoughts on the sustainability of flying, it is notable that just 1% of cases since the pandemic began have been traced to travel abroad.
Lockdown Policy
In the midst of any crisis scientific arguments compete to establish the best way forward. In the case of Covid-19 in Ireland ‘the argument’ has been remarkably one-sided. Discussions in the media are generally over the severity of lockdowns to be employed – this hitherto unheard of public health intervention with enormous collateral damage, which has somehow been normalised.
From the outset I have been convinced that the Irish government at the prompting of the WHO – along with most other Western governments – adopted an erroneous approach, based on a flawed epidemiological assessment, which led Leo Varadkar to suggest there could be a staggering 85,000 deaths[iv] in Ireland.
Virtually alone in Europe, the Swedish health authorities (relatively free of political interference) stood apart, refusing to lockdown in March, 2020. I would argue that this softer approach has been to the benefit of the vast majority of people living there – and may even lead to a lower death toll in the end – compared to the trauma of lockdowns experienced by citizens in most other European countries.
Notably, during the first wave almost 92% of confirmed deaths from Covid-19 in Ireland were among over sixty-five-year-olds,[v] and when this Irish cohort is compared to Sweden’s considerably older population a very different picture emerges; in contrast to the usual truck of ‘deaths per capita’ and ‘deaths per million.’
Hats off to the impressively organised states of Norway and Finland, where Covid-19 mortality has remained very low indeed, but vigorous track and trace strategy operating in these countries have proved ineffective elsewhere; even Germany is floundering this winter, having been locked down for months.
Revealingly, in March 2020 the Director-General of the Norwegian Institute for Public Health Camilla Stoltenberg[vi] recommended that her government should keep schools open – as in Sweden – and was advocating last June for a softer approach in the likely event of a second wave.
Now, as the death toll from Covid-19 in Ireland steadily converges with Sweden’s – especially when adjusted for the relative age of each population – it remains to be seen whether much-vaunted, but still experimental, vaccines will significantly alter the respective death tolls.
I maintain that a policy of keeping the Irish population under rolling lockdowns until the whole population is vaccinated will have a worse impact on the nation’s long-term health than any mortality or morbidity that may be avoided.
Zero Covid Utopianism
The frankly bizarre ‘option’ of Zero Covid-19 that has been grasped by some on the left, and the right, in Ireland is a form of Utopianism. It ignores the virtual impossibility of eradicating an aerosol, sub-microscopic pathogen such as Covid-19 from Ireland. Moreover, we remain one of the most globalized societies in the world with over half-a-million foreign born resident in the country[vii] and an Irish-born diaspora of three million;[viii] rely on international trade for most commodities; besides having a porous border to the North.
Moreover, New Zealand and Australia are currently enjoying summer, when respiratory viruses retreat. This seasonal effect is enhanced by a depleted ozone layer over the Southern Hemisphere – causing the world’s highest rate of skin cancers[ix] – which elevates the level of UV light that destroys viruses. Both countries are also insulated from the rest of the world by vast oceans and an uninhabited landmass. Even still, outbreaks occurred in New Zealand and Melbourne last winter, prompting draconian responses.
Notably, however, the maximum number of cases that Melbourne – with a population almost the size of Ireland’s – experienced in a single day was just seven hundred, and it required an extreme 112-day lockdown[x] – and/or the arrival of spring before an apparent elimination. In contrast, case numbers in Ireland have exceeded eight thousand in a single day.
Covid-19: Southern Dreaming
A Zero-Covid approach assumes the island of Ireland is sealed hermetically. Good luck with telling the DUP that they have to follow the rules of the South! And ‘success’ would presumably give way to a permanent state of siege against the viral dangers posed by the outside world.
At this point even New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden has had enough, acknowledging the long-term impossibility of pursuing Zero Covid she recently said: ‘Our goal has to be though, to get the management of Covid-19 to a similar place as we do seasonally, with the flu. It won’t be a disease that we will see simply disappear after one round of vaccine.’[xi]
Comparing Ireland to East Asian countries may also be inappropriate as, Wuhan apart, no single country in that region has experienced a significant outbreak. Notably, Japan, which has avoided locking down throughout the crisis experienced forty times as many flu and pneumonia deaths during that period. This suggests other factors – East Asia has been the geographic origin of several modern coronavirus epidemics – may be inhibiting the spread of Covid-19 there.[xii]
‘Zero Covid’ is as much a vote-winner, as a zero tolerance for crime or any other virtuous objective, but it’s political claptrap from an taxidermized left and a neoconservative right, furnished by scientists that seemingly have no conception of biological realities.
“The only thing that brings this deadly virus to our shores is human bodies.“
It is sobering what dark emotions the pandemic unleashed. I can only hope that in a year, to most, this statement will sound the way it would have sounded a year ago. https://t.co/GVRYtlVw1P
The success of any institution might be summed up by the notion that it is only as good as its ability to predict the future. Throughout human history we have had two powerful methods of prediction: science and religion. If not religion, we might define this in terms of ‘faith,’ or an ‘unscientific’ belief system of some kind or other.
If the Romans, the Egyptians, the Spartans, or the Native Americans, had done a ‘better’ job predicting the future, the world would be a different place. Thus, the success or persistence of any individual, nation, or civilisation, is based on an ability to reliably predict the future. Our faith in science is strengthened solely by this condition, and undermined when predictions go awry.
Galileo Galilei, 1636 portrait by Justus Sustermans.
Galileo’s prognostications in respect of the Earth and the Sun led him into conflict with the dominant powers of his day. The accuracy of his predictions disturbed the established cosmic order, as any heresy does. The predictions of Einstein had a similar effect on Newtonian Physics, and now Quantum Mechanics has become the sacred cow. Final judgements on the success or otherwise of policies are, of course, made through the prism of hindsight.
Two Schools of Thought
At present around the world there are two broad scientific schools[xiv] of thought in respect of how to respond to Covid-19. On one side there is a dominant view: that we are in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, where humanity is dealing with a virus that will kill, and perhaps permanently incapacitate, many millions more than it has already done; and that the correct response for any government should be to impose a lockdown and mandate masks until the ‘scientific cavalry’ arrive, carrying their novel genetic vaccinations as shields to save the day.
On the other side there are the conspiracy theorists, Covid-deniers, and a minority of scientists who consider most most masks in use to be ineffective, and who argue that restrictions and lockdowns cause more harm than good. These scientists have advocated protecting the vulnerable and permitting an equilibrium of natural immunity to emerge within the non-vulnerable majority as the least harmful way forward.
The question for ordinary people and politicians, then, is where does the truth lie? Or, more accurately, who is correctly predicting the future?
When the dust settles in a few years, perhaps we’ll see that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. An appreciation of a middle way, or synthesis, is evident in Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell’s acknowledgement in June that mistakes were made in the first wave.[xv] Such concessions to human fallibility seem to be the preserve of Scandinavian leaders. This may explain why increased restrictions have been introduced in Sweden during their second wave, though its government has refrained from imposing a lockdown, and the emphasis is still on personal responsibility.
Last April I resigned my position on the Irish Medical Council to the shock of family, friends and former colleagues. I did so because I believed a catastrophe was immanent, and that hundreds of nursing home residents would die as a consequence of political ineptitude and mass hysteria. As it transpired, 62% of deaths in Ireland occurred in this setting during the first wave of the pandemic, the second highest proportion in the world.[xix]
A prominent doctor has resigned from the Medical Council over the government's handling of #COVID19 in nursing homes.
Dr Marcus de Brun said residents have been treated as "an afterthough".
I take no comfort that my fears were realised, and have since also resigned as a contracted employee of the HSE. I could no longer, in good conscience, enforce guidelines upon staff and patients I do not consider either efficacious or ethical.
I would argue that a failure to conduct a proper inquiry into the decision-making that led to this carnage has led to avoidable mortality in this second wave in the care home setting. Any enquiry would surely have highlighted the inadequacy of safety protocols in these settings, and the absence of real expertise on NPHET.
Before my small Covid-19 rebellion, in March 2020, I circulated a paper on the response to Covid called The Mismanagement of Covid-19 in Ireland. Its premise was (and remains) quite simple: that Covid-19 is a viral illness with a mortality confined to a relatively small and manageable subset of our population.[xx]
I argued that Ireland’s gross demographic – the youngest population in Europe – is (and was) the key to navigating a safe path through the crisis. With a relatively low population of over sixty-fives – approximately 650,000 – this amounted to a manageable population of those truly vulnerable.
I also noted how, unlike during influenza pandemics of the past, children and young adults were not dying of this disease, and that the vast majority of adults without serious underlying conditions were also relatively (if not entirely) immune to significant consequence.
Long Covid
A current cause for concern with Covid-19, which may be deterring our governments from permitting younger people from resuming their lives is so-called ‘Long Covid,’ or Covid ‘Long Haulers’ as this is referred to in the U.S..
This is a condition that appears to fit within the category of a post-viral syndrome, or post-viral fatigue;[xxi] which is ‘a sense of tiredness and weakness that lingers after a person has fought off a viral infection. It can arise even after common infections, such as the flu.’
In October one of the leading advocates for Long Covid patients, and a firm advocate of draconian policies, Oxford University’s Professor Trish Greenhalgh clarified that Long Covid is only very rarely a long-term affliction:
The reviews we’ve done seem to suggest that whilst a tiny minority of people, perhaps one per cent of everyone who gets Covid-19, are still ill six months later, and whilst about a third of people aren’t better at three weeks, most people whose condition drags on are going to get better, slowly but steadily, between three weeks and three months.[xxii]
Fatigue is a symptom of a number of diseases—anaemia, depression, chronic infection, cancer, autoimmune disorders and thyroid disorders among them. But no apparent cause can be found for a state of extreme and disabling exhaustion that has acquired a number of names, the most generally accepted worldwide being chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). In the UK, where it is (often incorrectly) known as ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis), 150 000 people are said to be affected. Other terms used for the condition are postviral fatigue syndrome (PVFS) and chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS).[xxiii]
So, we can conclude that Long Covid is hardly a new phenomenon, and while the pandemic is likely to create an additional burden on health services, the extent of the problem needs to be put in context: perhapsone percent of sufferers are still ill after six months.
Moreover, the impact of Covid-19 is significant heightened by environmental factors such as air quality[xxiv] and poor nutrition. I would argue, therefore, that the threat of Long Covid is insufficient grounds for closing universities and denying young people the chance of a social life beyond walking the block.
In my March paper I also observed that Covid-19 is a member of the coronavirus family responsible for many common colds,[xxvii] and that such viruses are seasonal, in that they are eliminated especially by increasing UV light (and the population’s tendency to retreat indoors). These were hardly earth-shattering revelations, and have been noted by many other doctors and scientists around the globe.
Globally, Covid cases peaked on Jan 7th and have declined 28% in three weeks.
This also appears to be a global decline, with cases falling from recent peaks on all continents: pic.twitter.com/c7vNfYZPlU
I also compared the population of over sixty-five-year-olds in Ireland, to the equivalent cohort in the U.K., noting there are roughly twenty-times the number of over sixty-five in the UK (while the overall population is less than ten times that number); so I assumed U.K. mortality would be in the region of twenty times that of Ireland’s.
In this respect, Ireland has performed significantly better than the U.K., but other factors such as population density and an elevated risk of severe disease among BAME groups[xxviii], may account for the higher relative death toll there. It should also be emphasised that the U.K. has almost the highest rate of mortality in the world.
Like many other doctors and scientists, I argued that in the absence of a proven cure or vaccine at that time for Covid-19, humanity is (or was) very much operating at the whim of nature. Thus, without a cure we were (and to a certain extent still are) subjected to natural forces, as I assumed this virus would spread widely through the population. All we could do, then, was ‘flatten the curve,’ protect the vulnerable, and await a safe vaccine.
At the outset of the crisis that was the mantra behind which the public united. Flattening the curve would reduce the rate at which the vulnerable would present for treatments in hospitals. This would protect the system form being overwhelmed, bringing an increased chance of survival for those badly afflicted.
‘Protect the NHS’ from collapse was a similar cry across the water. That made sense at the outset of the crisis. The reiteration of these ‘priorities’ might now illicit a yawn, as our national health authorities did not use the flattened time and space to increase ICU capacity substantially, which brings the ‘necessity’ of recurring lockdowns.
Hysteria
Since March of last year events have taken a strange turn. With fear and hysteria at the helm politicians lost their nerves. The mantra shifted from ‘flatten the curve’, to ‘protect everyone from this deadly disease,’ despite it becoming clear that the infection fatality rate (IFR) is considerably lower than the 0.9% assumed initially. Now a paper on the WHO website states that the infection fatality rate for the disease is less than 0.2% ‘in most locations.’[xxix]
Perversely, children have become the focus of inordinate efforts; locked indoors, locked out of school and forced into wearing masks. We have insisted upon protecting them from a disease that has not caused a single child death in Ireland throughout the entire crisis.[xxx]
Troublingly, when Covid-19 panic gripped the nation, politicians and mainstream media listened only to the scientific ‘authorities’ that fed the hysteria and justified everything from political incompetence to profligate expenditure. Hospitals were emptied in preparation for an approaching ‘tsunami’ of illness, as tens of thousands of deaths were incorrectly predicted by politicians and esteemed professors, all of whom continue to profess, and have even grown in esteem.
Covid patients were dumped from hospitals into Nursing Homes, and tests were withheld from residents lest they run short for the healthy-hysterical. The vulnerable were not only abandoned, but too many of them were crushed in the stampede.
Thus, there is the shocking case of a resident in a Meath care home discovered to have had a maggot-infested a wound.[xxxi] What began as a campaign to protect the vulnerable, had turned into nothing short of a manslaughter machine.
At the End of the Day
The natural endpoint for viral infection in respect of many viral pathogens is of course ‘herd immunity.’ This is the point where a sufficient proportion of a population have been exposed to and develop full or partial immunity to a particular pathogen, such that its rate of reproduction is below 1 most of the time.
With insufficient hosts, a virus can no longer spread easily. This is not full elimination but an endemic equilibrium within the population, with a certain annual death toll tolerated – such as is the case with influenza, which kills up to a thousand people a year in Ireland, despite the availability of a vaccine.
This natural evolution, or pathogenesis, is also helped along by the seasonal shift from spring to summer. Increasing daylight reduces the level of viral particles, and people spend more time out of doors, or ventilate their living spaces in warmer conditions. This is how nature brings an end to seasonal colds and flus. Yet curiously this basic piece of natural science was largely ignored in March. Talk of UV light became highly politicised and thence poisoned.
The Swedes
Sweden provided a template for a country acting within the bounds of common sense and science. From the outset health authorities there endeavoured to protect a vulnerable aged cohort, leading to a natural-immunity developing within the population. In permitting this to occur they also took the precaution of doubling ICU capacity[xxxii] which, like Ireland’s, had been among the lowest in Europe when the pandemic began.
Comparison between Sweden and Ireland cannot be made on a like-for-like basis, any more than the Irish can be compared to any other national group; however, some relevant comparisons can be drawn in respect of population demographics.
Sweden has twice Ireland’s population, but 3.2 times the number of over sixty-five-years-olds. Ireland has not quite experienced just over a third of Sweden’s mortality (11,815 v 3,418); but while Ireland’s death rate from Covid-19 has been steadily increasing over the month of January, Sweden’s has flattened to point where, according to the WHO, Sweden’s death toll has been in single figures since the start of February, while Ireland has been experiencing daily deaths over one hundred.
There may be a further uptick in Covid deaths in Sweden once schools reopen – and even a third wave – but the hopeful signs are that the country is now reaching a herd immunity threshold – one that has brought less suffering overall when compared to other jurisdictions.
A similar comparison can be drawn between Sweden and most other European states, implying, in most situations, that mortality is not significantly reduced by lockdown policies. Yet invariably whenever one reads about Sweden in mainstream Irish media[xxxiii] comparisons are only drawn with best-in-class Scandinavian neighbours, where lockdowns have also been, for the most part, avoided.
Lockdowns are likely to increase mortality through missed cancer screenings, dysfunctional health services, serious mental health impacts, besides the ‘shadow-pandemic’ of domestic violence that has occurred under lockdown.
The writing on the wall?
What of the good people on the opposite side of the Swedish argument? It is fair to say that lockdowns can flatten the curve. This is apparent if we compare mortality graphs on the Euromomo website that tracks excess deaths across Europe. It shows that Sweden did not see the same kind of spike on their graph of mortality during the first wave as in other countries that locked down, but experienced a steady decline, which in July led the New York Times to state prematurely that ‘Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale’[xxxiv]
The question is whether the short-term benefits of lockdowns in terms of averted-deaths are worth the cost? Or, were lockdowns necessary, and will they ultimately translate into lives being saved rather than simply deferring deaths? Perhaps the truth lies in the middle of these arguments but I know which side I lean.
Lockdowns do not prevent deaths, but slow the rate of infection and mortality. They can only ease the burden on hospital or tertiary care services. The purpose of lockdown should be to insure that the sick can access the best treatment available, and should not be ‘a primary means of controlling the virus’[xxxv] according to leading authorities in the WHO, as we are experiencing in Ireland.
Although the mortality figures in Ireland still lag behind Sweden’s I suspect this is deferred mortality and does not represent patients who have been cured or saved. The curve has been flattened. Thus far, lockdown policies have had the beneficial effect of decreasing mortality by less than 20% compared to Sweden’s when adjusted for our respective age profiles. In my view, however, what may simply be deferred mortality, cannot justify the burden of lockdowns on the wider population.
Only when the crisis has passed, and with the benefit of hindsight, will it be possible to determine if the Swedes broadly got things right. Although, it is more appropriate in the context of a disease that has killed thousands of people – and caused suffering to most of the rest of the population – to state that some countries will have managed it better than others. For sure, no one will have got everything ‘right’.
Assuming vaccines do not represent a panacea, if it transpires that most Irish mortality is confined to the nursing home sector, and that all lockdowns accomplish is to preserve a larger number of potential hosts for successive seasonal resurgences then the pandemic will have been a more painful and long-running saga in Ireland than it might otherwise have been.
[i] Marcus de Brun, ‘The Perfect Storm’, Cassandra Voices, August 19th, 2020, https://cassandravoices.com/science-environment/covid-19-the-perfect-storm/
[ii] Epidemiology of COVID-19Outbreaks/Clustersin IrelandWeekly Report Prepared by HPSC on25thJanuary 2021, https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/surveillance/covid-19outbreaksclustersinireland/COVID-19%20Weekly%20Outbreak%20Report_Week032021_25012021_WebVersion_final.pdf
[iii] Digital Desk Staff, ‘Opening hospitality will mean limiting Christmas gatherings, Nphet warns’, November 26th, 2020, Extra.ie, https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/nphet-strongly-opposed-to-parts-of-governments-lockdown-exit-plan-1042387.html
[iv] ‘Up to 85,000 Irish people could die from coronavirus in worst-case scenario, Taoiseach indicates, as three more diagnosed’ John Downing, Eilish O’Regan and Gabija Gataveckaite, Irish Independent, March 9th, 2020, https://www.independent.ie/world-news/coronavirus/up-to-85000-irish-people-could-die-from-coronavirus-in-worst-case-scenario-taoiseach-indicates-as-three-more-diagnosed-39029363.html
[v] COVID-19 Deaths and Cases, Central Statistics Office, https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/br/b-cdc/covid-19deathsandcases/
[vi] ‘Norwegian health chief: we advised against closing schools’, 10 June, 2020, Unherd, https://unherd.com/thepost/norwegian-health-chief-we-advised-against-closing-schools/
[vii] ‘Census of Population 2016 – Profile 7 Migration and Diversity’, https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp7md/p7md/p7anii/
[viii] Ciara Kenny, ‘ The global Irish: Where do they live?’, February 4th, 2015, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/generation-emigration/the-global-irish-where-do-they-live-1.2089347?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Flife-and-style%2Fgeneration-emigration%2Fthe-global-irish-where-do-they-live-1.2089347
[ix] American Institute of Cancer Research, Skin cancer statistics, https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/cancer-trends/skin-cancer-statistics
[x] Phil Mercer, ‘Covid: Melbourne’s hard-won success after a marathon lockdown’, 26th of October, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54654646
[xi] Luke Malpass, ‘Jacinda Ardern declares 2021 ‘the year of the vaccine’’, January 21st, 2021, Stuff, https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/124012148/jacinda-ardern-declares-2021-the-year-of-the-vaccine
[xii] Ramesh Thakur, ‘The West should envy Japan’s COVID-19 response’ January 10th, 2021, Japan Times, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2021/01/10/commentary/japan-commentary/west-japan-coronavirus-response/
[xiii] Gabriel Scally: It is essential Ireland tightens borders in fight against Covid-19, January 30th, 2020, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/gabriel-scally-it-is-essential-ireland-tightens-borders-in-fight-against-covid-19-1.4471283
[xiv] Sarah Bosley, ‘Covid UK: scientists at loggerheads over approach to new restrictions’, September 22nd, 2020, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/22/scientists-disagree-over-targeted-versus-nationwide-measures-to-tackle-covid
[xvi] Sebastian Rushworth M.D., ‘Here’s a graph they don’t want you to see’, 25th of January, 2021, https://sebastianrushworth.com/2021/01/25/heres-a-graph-they-dont-want-you-to-see/
[xvii] Sheena Cruickshank ‘A new study suggests coronavirus antibodies fade over time – but how concerned should we be?’ October 27th, 2020, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/a-new-study-suggests-coronavirus-antibodies-fade-over-time-but-how-concerned-should-we-be-148957
[xviii] Amy Kazmin, ‘India’s tumbling Covid cases raises question: Is the pandemic burning itself out?’ February 1st, 2021, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/india-s-tumbling-covid-cases-raises-question-is-the-pandemic-burning-itself-out-1.4472406?mode=amp
[xix] Fergal Bowers, ‘High percentage of virus deaths in Ireland’s care homes highlighted in comparison report
[xx] Mismanagement of Covid in Ireland’ May 27th, RTE, https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0527/1143036-covid-deaths-ireland/
[xxi] ‘What to know about post-viral syndrome’ Medical News Today, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326619
[xxii] Jennifer Rigby, ‘Why long Covid can be really grim, but is rarer than you think’, October 3rd, 2020 The Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/long-covid-can-really-grim-rarer-think/
[xxiv] Matt Cole et al, ‘Air pollution exposure linked to higher COVID-19 cases and deaths – new study’, July 13th, 2020, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/air-pollution-exposure-linked-to-higher-covid-19-cases-and-deaths-new-study-141620
[xxv] Meredith Wadman, ‘Why COVID-19 is more deadly in people with obesity—even if they’re young’, September 8th, 2020, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/why-covid-19-more-deadly-people-obesity-even-if-theyre-young
[xxvi] Shauna Bowers, ‘Irish policies to tackle obesity ‘fall behind international best practice’ – report’, November 9th, 2020, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/irish-policies-to-tackle-obesity-fall-behind-international-best-practice-report-1.4403921?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fhealth%2Firish-policies-to-tackle-obesity-fall-behind-international-best-practice-report-1.4403921
[xxvii] Anthony King, ‘Coronavirus family now a prime suspect in previous pandemics,’ February 4th, 2020, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/coronavirus-family-now-a-prime-suspect-in-previous-pandemics-1.4463053
[xxviii] Tom Kirby, ‘Evidence mounts on the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on ethnic minorities’, The Lancet, May 8th, 2020, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30228-9/fulltext
[xxix] Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data
John P A Ioannidis, WHO, September 13th, 2020, https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/99/1/20-265892/en/
[xxx] (According to the CSO there have been 20,402 confirmed cases of Covid amongst the age group 0-24yrs, during the period from Feb 2020 to December 2020 and not a single recorded death in Ireland. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/br/b-cdc/covid-19deathsandcasesseries18/
[xxxi] Simon Carswell, ‘Widow ‘outraged’ by footage of husband’s facial wound’, August 26th, 2020, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/widow-outraged-by-footage-of-husband-s-facial-wound-1.4338831?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fhealth%2Fwidow-outraged-by-footage-of-husband-s-facial-wound-1.4338831
[xxxii] Emma Lofgren, ‘’The biggest challenge of our time’: How Sweden doubled intensive care capacity amid Covid-19 pandemic’, June 23rd, 2020, The Local, https://www.thelocal.com/20200623/how-sweden-doubled-intensive-care-capacity-to-treat-coronavirus-patients
[xxxiii] Suzanne Cahill, ‘Coronavirus lockdowns are still a step too far for Sweden’, February 3rd, 2021, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/coronavirus-lockdowns-are-still-a-step-too-far-for-sweden-1.4473119?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fopinion%2Fcoronavirus-lockdowns-are-still-a-step-too-far-for-sweden-1.4473119
[xxxv] Michelle Doyle, ‘WHO doctor says lockdowns should not be main coronavirus defence’, October 12th, 2020, ABC, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-12/world-health-organization-coronavirus-lockdown-advice/12753688
It’s been difficult finding the words to express my worsening mood and deepening depression. I’m referring specifically to my subconscious responses to altered public behaviour and the marks left by social reaction to Covid-19. For the first time in my life, I’m noticing increasing anxiety and, with the stress, a direct link to declining health. I’ve been struggling with this worsening dynamic over the last month or two, trying to get to grips with it. Trying to better understand its cause. I’m sure I’m not alone in this.
2/7/1986 President Reagan with William F Buckley in the White House Residence during Private birthday party in honor of President Reagan’s 75th Birthday
on the other hand, is hardly even capitalist in outlook. It is really an offshoot of a more authoritarian leftism combined with a fundamentalist, morally self-righteous neocolonialism informed by ‘Christian’ values. It is associated in particular with the administrations of George W. Bush, with Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle its most prominent ideologues.
There are thousands of content moderators, who are paid to view objectionable posts and decide which need to be removed from digital platforms. Many are severely traumatized by the images of hate, abuse and violence they see on a daily basis so that we, our families and children get to see ‘WARNING: The following post or content may be disturbing to some viewers.’
From Spain, Connor Blennerhassett brought a report on the ordeal suffered by vegan activist Juan Manuel Bustamante, who spent sixteen months in jail on trumped-up terrorist crimes: ‘a Kafkaesque nightmare that saw him pass through five of Spain’s most notorious prisons, often locked up in solitary confinement and denied a vegan diet by his captors, who also beat him. It ruined his family’s finances and lead him to attempt to take his life after his release.’
Icaria, Greece
Over in Greece Frank Armstrong found a hardening of borders, and attitudes, in the wake of the pandemic, and drew wisdom from the writings of Albert Camus:
Albert Camus in The Rebel (1951), identified an enduring tension between a Caesarian Marxist project that permits all manner of atrocity on the journey to earthly paradise, and an approach he identifies with Ancient Greece, characterised by moderation, incrementalism and respect for tradition. He suggests:
The profound conflict of this century is, perhaps, not so much between the German ideologies of history and Christian political concepts, which in a certain way are accomplices, as between German dreams and Mediterranean traditions … in other words, between history and nature.
Vietnam. Image (c) Hectic Fish
Also, for the first time since his arrival, Hectic Fish was also able to travel around Vietnam, he proceeded to the territory of the Mnong accompanied by a copy of Rachel Carson’s The Marginal World ‘the otherworldly essay that opens The Edge of the Sea.’
The shore is an ancient world, for as long as there has been an earth and sea there has been this place of the meeting of land and water. Yet it is a world that keeps alive the sense of continuing creation and of the relentless drive of life. Each time that I enter it, I gain some new awareness of its beauty and its deeper meanings, sensing that intricate fabric of life by which one creature is linked with another, and each with its surroundings.
There was also fiction fromSarah Johnson with ‘The Candidate for the Roberts Prize’ where ‘The significance of discovery lies exactly in the degree to which it can be appreciated and put to use by the human community.’ And Glenda Miller’s ‘The Club’ in which an experience of cancer prepares her for the agonies of the birthing process.
Next election onwards, there’ll be a second vote for those who turn up with, under their arm, a print copy of one of the larger newspapers and answer a few unobtrusive questions to prove they’ve consumed it correctly.
A third for those who also present receipts that show they’ve dined sufficiently in restaurants with at least four stars, and a note from the maitre d that they know their way around the cutlery.
A fourth for the lucky few in possession – to boot – of a ticket for one of those pampering spas at which one temporarily discards worldly things to have one’s darker parts irrigated of all subversive thoughts.
So when all’s said and counted, people who shouldn’t matter can go back to not mattering.
When a researcher publishes a research paper he or she is obliged to state clearly any funding source. The reasons for this are entirely obvious. Most ‘bad’, ‘faulty’, or ‘unreliable’ research is tainted by the interests of those who have provided financial support.
There is nothing new in any of this, and scientific literature is replete with examples – from the use of Thalidimode for morning sickness to Andrew Wakefield linking the MMR vaccine to autism etc. – of bad or biased science. That is not to say necessarily that a scientist or expert offering scientific guidance has been influenced by the overt or covert desires of his sponsors; however, to preserve impartiality he must declare any sponsors before ‘expert’ or ‘scientific’ conclusions are tendered.
Unfortunately, the same rigorous insistence on transparency in respect of funding does not extend to appearances on TV or Radio. Thus, if an ‘expert’ appears to promote a particular therapy, vaccination, or social behaviour, he is not obliged to declare a vested interests or private sponsorship.
It falls to the media source itself – the newspaper or interviewer – to ascertain the affiliations or funding of a particular ‘expert,’ either prior to or during the delivery of scientific conclusions or guidance. This process is integral to maintaining ethical standards within journalism. It is particularly incumbent upon-state funded media, whose income is derived from mandatory licence fees that such standards are not compromised. Without this the general populace could find itself following faulty advice or guidelines to the advantage of ‘he who pays the piper.’
This is precisely the dark territory we have entered in respect of public health guidelines on masks, lockdowns and vaccinations in response to Covid-19.
Obligatory Mask-Wearing
The Irish government has recently made it compulsory to wear surgical face masks on all public transport and inside shops.[i] If a person refuses to comply, without providing a ‘valid’ medical reason, he or she faces a fine of €2500, or a prison sentence of up to six months. The Gardai are to police the validity of such medical reasons. The ethics of a law requiring a Garda to question a member of the public on his or her medical condition in a public places has yet to be discussed in a meaningful manner, despite the clear infringement on an individual’s constitutional right to privacy.
In respect of masks, there are indeed many strong counterarguments, drawn from respectable scientific literature,[ii]against the anti-viral efficacy of masks, the safety of prolonged mask use; besides the social division they create, pitting advocates on both sides against one another.
Indeed, the near pointless nature of mask-wearing has been pointed out to the Oireachtas by its own commissioned expert witness: Professor Carl Heneghan director of University of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine.
Cloth masks are likely to do more harm than good, as it has been stated in many sources that viral particles are so small that the protection offered by most masks is analogous to ‘keeping flies off ones property with a chain-link fence.’ The plastic welder type face shield, in vogue among hotel staff, can reasonably be described as ridiculous in terms of its potential to protect against this virus, or anything at all for that matter. They are, like most masks, little more than a placebo.
Masks afford wearers the delusion of protection. If one wishes to become aware of the appropriate attire to wear to effectively limit transmission of an aerosol or airborne virus from one person to another, there are plenty of images available online showing what ‘medical-grade’ protective attire and masks looks like.
Hazmat suit.
The serious question then arises; ‘when will the population be released from an obligation to wear masks?’
There is no disputing that Covid-19 remains in circulation in Ireland: cases are detected daily and a small number of deaths continue to be reported. There are reasonable concerns that there will be an uptick in cases during the winter months. Historically, coronaviruses cause 30-40% of the common cold which peaks in winter and ‘dies off’ in the summer months. The natural history of coronaviruses is extensively described in the literature.
Therefore, the end game for public mask wearing, the ‘get out of jail card’, or release from the ’duty to mask’ has little to do with the mask itself, which in practical terms is little more than more symbolic; informing or even indoctrinating an awareness of the ‘danger’ of the virus. The public can only stop wearing masks once the virus is no longer circulating in society. The only mechanism by which it can disappear is through the development of immunity within most of the population.
Mandatory masks imply ‘mandatory’ protection for elderly vulnerable people and for young, healthy, non-vulnerable alike. Yet young healthy people have practically nothing to fear from Covid-19, again this is repeatedly cited in almost all available literature. Therefore, when the majority of healthy people within society are ‘protected’ from exposure by masks they are compelled to be protected from developing a natural-immunity through an otherwise natural exposure to the virus. This crucial point has been missing from the non-existent debate in the Irish media on the issue of mask wearing.
When the state makes mask-wearing mandatory, the state has formally rejected natural-immunity among the non-vulnerable.
When the State rejects ‘natural-immunity,’ indeed when it wilfully or legislatively deprives the non-vulnerable individual of opportunities to acquire natural immunity, the State is then compelled to adopt the only alternative to natural-immunity, and that ‘only alternative’ is a vaccine.
Thus, if the only means of eradicating the virus is reaching a herd immunity threshold – assuming we do not reach zero Covid and hermetically seal our borders indefinitely in a new Tír na nÓg – it follows then that the majority of society must eventually be vaccinated in order to achieve immunity. Given that masks have been mandated, it is entirely consistent with government policy that the ‘eagerly’ awaited vaccine must also be mandated.
Warp Speed
Perhaps the foremost expert who has been advocating compulsory mask-wearing in the general public has been Professor Luke O’Neill, a Trinity College biochemist, and head of its immunology department. Professor O’Neill is not a Medical Doctor, nor has he a qualification in public health or epidemiology. Most recently he has been to the fore in insisting mandatory masks should be extended to secondary school students.
As an advocate of compulsory mask wearing, it follows that Professor O’Neill should be a proponent of a universally administered Covid-19 vaccine. Notably, Professor O’Neill’s Twitter feed has included enthusiastic countdowns for the vaccine being rushed through clinical trials at ‘warp speed.’[viii]
Warp speed continues for vaccine- 3 enter final phase of testing (having successfully passed the previous 2) with 18 close behind and 125 more at earlier stages. pic.twitter.com/MMS1FxFLUS
There is nothing new here, and nothing is being uncovered or exposed. Professor O’Neill’s position is neither unusual nor indeed unreasonable. It is entirely expected. Any proponent of universal mask-wearing cannot avoid being a proponent of vaccination as the means of escaping the imposition of the mask – universal vaccination is the only escape from the universal mask.
The relevant question may be whether Professor O’Neill is a proponent of compulsory masks because compulsory masks may only be escaped via compulsory vaccination?
The subtle shift, lost on many, is that the current measures have transformed the positive anticipation of a vaccination for those at risk, into a formal obligation for universal vaccination.
Mask wearers (in theory at least) remain ‘potential hosts’ for Covid-19; natural internal immunity having been officially avoided; immunity can only come from the pharmaceutical industry. Failing to make this connection is a failure of simple logic.
If universal vaccination is the logical conclusion of mask-wearing, and if indeed members of the public are threatened with jail if they fail to comply; it would seem entirely reasonable to establish any potential conflicts of interest that might exist between any scientific proponents of masks, and the manufacturers of a vaccine, very likely to be compulsory for all; a proposal also mooted in other jurisdictions.
#BREAKING Scott Morrison says he expects to make vaccination against coronavirus 'as mandatory as you can possibly make it' once it becomes available https://t.co/03LINcxjmf
One does not wish to focus upon Professor O’Neill unduly; however, as he has been perhaps the most publicly visible scientist to promote masks for all it is not unreasonable to examine his relationship with vaccine manufacturers, and operation ‘warp-speed’.
Sitryx was founded in 2018 with seed funding from SV Health Investors and raised $30 million Series A funding from an international syndicate of specialist investors including SV Health Investors, Sofinnova Partners, Longwood Fund and GSK. In 2020 Sitryx formed an exclusive global licensing and research collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company. Lilly also became an investor in the company.[xiv]
What we can at least say is that a cautionary approach to vaccination would be antagonistic to Sitryx’s primary funders. Whilst mandatory vaccination could result in a transfer of enormous tax revenues into the coffers of those companies fortunate enough to win the ‘race’ for the vaccine.
It is interesting to note that at the outset of the crisis, Professor O’Neill was interviewed on the Late Late Show. At that time he declared that masks were ‘pointless’, if not ‘dangerous’. He described the new coronavirus as an “evil virus” that could get into people’s bodies “through their eyes.” When asked why he thought people were wearing them he replied good humouredly they had watched “too many horror movies”.
Strangely, however, within a matter of weeks the good professor had entirely changed his mind on the issue and continues to assert that masks are indeed entirely essential and should be mandated for almost everyone.
Through no fault of his own, Professor O’Neill’s potential conflict of interest has been wilfully ignored in the national and mainstream media. To my knowledge, he has not once been asked about the relationship between his biotech company, and his sponsors at GSK or Lilly pharmaceuticals, having appeared on almost every talk show on radio and television in the land.
An Alternative?
Partiality towards the bio-tech agenda and public health guidance, might be in the public interest, if masks and subsequent vaccine were in fact the only option available. The general public have been led to believe that mask wearing regulations are ‘for the greater good’, and that those who object are reckless, anarchic, or simply ignorant.
Throughout the pandemic the Swedish approach has been far less draconian than in most European countries, permitting (without encouraging) it’s healthy non-vulnerable citizens to be exposed to the virus within the community setting, and thereby developing natural immunity, a policy that is somewhat in keeping with the natural cycle of viral colds and flues. This takes advantage of natural processes to encourage its natural extinction or diminished severity.
This reduces the potential hosts within society and the attendant risk of the virus spreading to vulnerable or elderly communities. In the face of widespread international criticism[xvi] the country has persisted with the closest model to the much maligned notion of ‘herd immunity.’ Recently the UK press, including the Financial Times[xvii] and Daily Telegraph[xviii], have awoken to the relative success of the Swedish approach, media sources are increasingly joining the ranks of the ‘converted’.
The same model that the UK initially opted for, but later dismissed based on defective modelling from Imperial College, which suggested that a ‘herd immunity’ approach would lead to half a million deaths in the UK,[xix] a model that has since been shown to have been deeply flawed, and based on flawed epidemiology.[xx]
The Swedish approach by avoiding compulsory mask-wearing is not entirely dependent upon universal vaccination as their only ‘end game’. That is not to say that the Swedes will avoid or decline a vaccine when or if it arrives on the market; it is merely that their approach is not locked-into a vaccine as the principal source of immunity for the population. The Swedes have maintained the right to ‘opt’ for a mask and, as such, and have preserved the right to ‘opt’ for a vaccine too.
Regardless of what a country may choose in respect of vaccination, the Swedes will certainly have more of a ‘choice’ relative to those countries that continue to more actively avoid exposure among their healthy non-vulnerable citizens.
Social Division
The recent transformation of many aspects of the external environment, into something of a hospital ward, through the wearing of masks by many, and avoidance by many more, is certainly a new departure in the social habits for most people in Ireland and beyond.
Many are under the impression that mask wearing either in public, in shops or on public transport, is not simply ‘a good idea’ but integral to saving lives. Battle lines have been drawn between the ‘sensible’, and the ‘reckless’.
The state and national media are on the side of the ostensibly sensible, and mainstream media is presently flooded with a positive insistence upon masks. Regardless of the government’s insistence, and the concurrence of mainstream media, large numbers of people refuse to comply, and social division is apparent on the streets, among neighbours and even within families.
This division is a consequence of government policy, and that policy is not based upon any agreed international standard. Interestingly, however, there is little evidence of debate on the subject. This lack of dialogue, and indeed the active suppression of views contradicting the official line, is a very worrying development within a supposedly democratic society, where a diverse range of opinions should be heard.
The present social policy of mandating compliance is a difficult road to navigate without infringing human rights, as members of the public who choose not to wear a mask must disclose their most intimate and private medical details to members of An Garda Síochana in public places, if they are to avoid arrest, fines or imprisonment.
In the recent past an individual’s personal medical details were entirely private and a doctor might be struck off the medical register or sued for sharing this information, without informed consent. Under the current emergency legislation a member of the Gardaí must elicit a quasi-medical history from a non-mask wearer and be satisfied as to its reliability if the non-mask wearer is to avoid arrest. Inalienable human rights to privacy, have been entirely brushed aside.
Unfortunately the consequence of current policy is leading to what might be described as the most divisive situation in Ireland since the civil war. There are those who believe that they are ‘saving lives’; their own, their countrymen and the vulnerable. Opponents believe that wearing a mask is harmful to one’s health, will do nothing to save lives and that there are sinister, political and even corporate motives behind the directives.
Each side of the divide is ostensibly concerned about public welfare. However, those conforming to the narrative are generally presumed correct, whilst nonconformists are readily dismissed as wearing ‘tinfoil-hats’, or being conspiracy theorists, or even ‘anti-vaxxers.’
Presently, the division within society is only simmering. There have been occasional incidences of angry exchanges between both sides, yet these are mostly confined to the zones where mask wearing and other guidelines are compulsory; public transport, and social settings where other guidelines such as social distancing within pubs, restaurants or social venues also apply.
For most of us, wearing a mask on the bus, in the shops, or having the local publican issue a dodgy food receipt so that we can have a pint without fear of being arrested, may not be insurmountable limitations. If we are compliant we are unlikely to be questioning the guidelines, and will be looking forward to a return to normality. Fortunately, for the government it is difficult to look forwards and backwards at the same time. Sure enough, dialogue pertaining to mistakes, missed screenings, deaths in nursing homes etc. are all rather conveniently eclipsed by the current political mask wearing debate. It might be argued that there is indeed a malevolent purpose to this.
If a division erupts into violence or aggression, the parties involved are generally on the extremist fringes of either side of the divide. This is unlikely to remain the case.
I believe we have been led here by motives that are not in the interests of the greater public. The social division that is being fostered, may (for the present time) be manifest only at the level of ‘wearing the jersey’ and shouting up for one’s team. Yet this relatively benign manifestation is likely to evolve into a more sinister version of itself. This is perhaps inevitable as the associated stresses upon either side will undoubtedly increase in the coming months.
Second Wave?
At the time of writing deaths from Covid-19 have declined to almost nothing in Ireland and throughout most of Europe. The question that is in most people’s mind is whether or not this decline will continue throughout the autumn and winter months?
Covid-19 is member of the coronavirus family, responsible for some 30-40% of the yearly or seasonal ‘colds’ that affect almost all nations.[xxi] With it still circulating, we can expect a seasonal increase in cases in the coming months. Our normal or historical experience with the cold and flu viruses each year sees their arrival some time in Autumn, peaking around March or April, and then waning before generally expiring in late Spring or early Summer.
There are two significant factors influencing this process. The first being the natural immunity that develops within society as most people are exposed to and recover from the cold virus. The second factor being the increase in the length of daylight and the effects of daylight (UV-light) upon aerosols, droplets or viral particles on external surfaces. There is nothing new in any of these assertions, which are basic tenets of microbiological science.
Therefore, we can conclude, that as the virus is still here, and as the measures to date have been moderately effective in preventing a build-up in natural-immunity within the population, as the days shorten, a resurgence seems inevitable.
Stress and Disease
In my twenty years of experience as a physician I have noted what many doctors have observed since the dawn of medicine itself. This is the simple empirical truth that psychological stress is a major factor in the subjective evolution or pathogenesis of ALL disease. This truism applies more for some diseases, less in others, but is indeed true for all disease. In many cases psychological stress is the sole factor that pushes the generally tolerable symptoms of minor illness, firmly and definitively into the realm of significant pathology. Indeed, the NHS advise that loneliness can make the symptoms of a cold virus feel worse.[xxii]
Today, the language of psychological and emotional pain has been almost entirely medicalised. Now when one is talking about one’s ‘medical’ illness or one’s ‘diagnosis’, it takes the skill of a competent psychoanalyst to uncover the subjective psychological truths that invariably unite one’s medical ‘pain’ to a deeper insecurity – its emotional or psychological fountainhead. The process is an introspective one, and nowadays most of us are cut off from making these connections.
For some it may be a simple lack of emotional-intelligence, for many more it is simply easier to run with the medical diagnosis, and just take the pill.
I am not asserting that pain is ‘caused’ by emotion or psychology. It is not; it is caused by disease. However, emotion or psychology will determine the tolerability of pain and can push the sub-clinical pain into the realm of clinical manifestation. It will and does make almost all disease worse.
An Honest Version of the Self
Likewise too, when people become angry, on either side of the mask wearing-divide, there is a history to that anger, one that connects it to deeper and more profound frustrations. This is an important factor, rarely considered by a medical establishment that is in thrall to the idea of the human subject as a ‘biological machine’. One where symptoms are mechanical faults, requiring mechanical or physical remedies. Almost all of these remedies must then be purchased. Modern cures are rarely derived from nature, from introspection or the pursuit of an honest version of the self.
This is entirely relevant to the subjective ‘deeper’ angers, insecurities and frustrations that are easily brought to the surface in many people, when the scapegoat of an inferior or non-compliant ‘other’ is provided or even offered up by the powers-that-be. History is our teacher here, and as usual she is wilfully ignored.
I mention the influence of psychological stress to highlight the observation that it is a major determinant in one’s experience with Covid-19 as with any dis-ease. Psychological stress is (medically speaking) a self-fulling prophecy. People who are most anxious about becoming ill are most likely to become ill. If you ask yourself often enough whether or not you have a headache, you will eventually experience one.
The same applies to Covid-19. Most people who are exposed to the virus do not even know they have been exposed. Many experience little more than a common cold or flu like illness, many more experience nothing at all. As is the case with the common cold, the crucial factor that determines where one is likely to fall upon the spectrum of suffering, is not simply the cold-virus itself, but rather the physical and importantly the mental health of the ‘victim’. There is no individual more acutely aware of his symptoms, than someone who is most anxious about his health.
Back to School
Psychological stress for some members of our society has an equally seasonal component. Each September when Irish children return to school, the stress levels within many Irish families, (particularly those with young children) begin to rise.
There are immediate demands for uniforms, books, lists, shoes, sportswear, transport etc, all of which place a significant burden on parents, especially mothers. Returning to school this year for most families will be fraught with many additional anxieties.
Children may have to wear masks, visors, social distance in the classroom and the playground, be prevented from bringing lunch boxes, and perhaps have their uniforms washed daily. Schools may not be able to accommodate required classroom sizes and schedules for attendance may have to be altered. The familiar routine is to be a ‘thing of the past’ – the implications for increased stress upon parents and children are incalculable. Let us organize all of this into a list of observations
An elevated number of potential viral hosts, which is a consequence of suppression of natural-immunity.
Increased life of the virus in the external environment due to decreased daylight
Raised levels of social anxiety and subsequent susceptibility to illness/infection
Continued persistence of the virus at low levels within Irish society
These factors suggest a resurgence of the virus this winter, and taken in context with the existing level of social stress, and the inevitable increase in those stresses next month; it is not unreasonable to suggest a ‘perfect storm’ is gathering.
It is highly likely that the present level of bitterness or anger between both sides of the mask wearing divide willl be where that stress and pain becomes publicly manifest. The deeper tragedy at play, is the fact that each side of the division will be seen as the aggresor. Yet those who have fostered the division remain immune to any degree of scrutiny for past mistakes, while dark clouds are on the horizon.
[i] Orla Dwyer, ‘Explainer: Everything to know about new face covering regulations’, thejournal.ie, August 10th, 2020, https://www.thejournal.ie/when-and-how-to-wear-a-face-covering-ireland-5171841-Aug2020/
[ii] David Isaacs et al, ‘Do facemasks protect against COVID‐19?’, Journal of Paediatric Child Health, June 16th, 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7323223/?fbclid=IwAR15wQ0gOySIs8c7I4m9qsCiPJT6E66pM9Hiwr82AKeAPfcmfmKctK9qG1Y#__ffn_sectitle
[iii] Catherine Fegan, ‘’Many in nursing homes died deaths that certainly could have been prevented’’, Irish Independent, June 13th, 2020, https://www.independent.ie/world-news/coronavirus/many-in-nursing-homes-died-deaths-that-certainly-could-have-been-prevented-39282569.html
[iv] Sarah Fulham-McQuillan, ‘Strong legal basis for making Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory’, Irish Times, June 27th, 2020, https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/strong-legal-basis-for-making-covid-19-vaccinations-mandatory-1.4313941?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fopinion%2Fstrong-legal-basis-for-making-covid-19-vaccinations-mandatory-1.4313941
[v] Simon Carswell, ‘Coronavirus: Ireland has ‘no significant’ herd immunity, study shows’, July 20th, 2020, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/coronavirus-ireland-has-no-significant-herd-immunity-study-shows-1.4308216
[vi]F. Javier Ibarrondo, Ph.D. et al, ‘Rapid Decay of Anti–SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies in Persons with Mild Covid-19’, July 27th, 2020, The New England Journal of Medicine. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc2025179
[vii] Katherine J. Wu, ‘Scientists See Signs of Lasting Immunity to Covid-19, Even After Mild Infections’, New York Times, August 16th, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/16/health/coronavirus-immunity-antibodies.html
[xii] ‘Lilly Initiates Phase 3 Trial of LY-CoV555 for Prevention of COVID-19 at Long-Term Care Facilities in Partnership with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)’ https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/lilly-initiates-phase-3-trial-ly-cov555-prevention-covid-19-long
[xiii] ‘New biopharmaceutical company Sitryx launches with $30 million fundraising to develop disease modifying therapeutics in immunometabolism’, October 8th, 2018, https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/10/08/1617744/0/en/New-biopharmaceutical-company-Sitryx-launches-with-30-million-fundraising-to-develop-disease-modifying-therapeutics-in-immunometabolism.html
[xv] VOA News, ‘Norway Makes First Face Mask Recommendation Since Pandemic Began’, VOA, August 14th, 2020, https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/norway-makes-first-face-mask-recommendation-pandemic-began
[xvi] Peter S. Gordon, ‘Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale’, New York Times, July 7th, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html
[xvii] Richard Milne ‘Sweden’s pandemic no longer stands out’, Financial Times, August 9th, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/7acfc5b8-d96f-455b-9f36-b70dc850428f
[xviii] Allister Herd, ‘Sweden’s success shows the true cost of our arrogant, failed establishment’, The Telegraph, August 10th, 2020 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/12/swedens-success-shows-true-cost-arrogant-failed-establishment/
[xix] Mark Landler and Stephen Castle, ‘Behind the Virus Report That Jarred the U.S. and the U.K. to Action’, New York Times, March 17th, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/world/europe/coronavirus-imperial-college-johnson.html
[xx] See: David Richards and Konstantin Boudnik, ‘Neil Ferguson’s Imperial model could be the most devastating software mistake of all time’, The Telegraph, May 16th, 2020,
And: Freddie Sayers, ‘Nobel prize-winning scientist: the Covid-19 epidemic was never exponential’, Unherd, May 2nd, 2020, https://unherd.com/thepost/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-the-covid-19-epidemic-was-never-exponential/
[xxi] J. Black, Micriobiology Principles & Applications, (1993) p.580
[xxii] ‘Loneliness may make cold symptoms feel worse’, NHS, March, 2017, https://www.nhs.uk/news/mental-health/loneliness-may-make-cold-symptoms-feel-worse/
