Guest Post by Malcolm Kendrick
The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.”
Edward Grey
Several years ago, I wrote a book called Doctoring Data. It was my attempt to help people navigate their way through medical headlines and medical data.
One of the main reasons I was stimulated to write it, is because I had become deeply concerned that science, especially medical science, had been almost fully taken over by commercial interests. With the end result that much of the data we were getting bombarded with was enormously biased, and thus corrupted. I wanted to show how some of this bias gets built-in.
I was not alone in my concerns. As far back as 2005, John Ioannidis wrote the very highly cited paper ‘Why most Published Research Findings are False’. It has been downloaded and read by many, many, thousands of researchers over the years, so they can’t say they don’t know:
Moreover for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.”
Marcia Angell, who edited the New England Journal of Medicine for twenty years, wrote the following. It is a quote I have used many times, in many different talks:
It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.”
Peter Gotzsche, who set up the Nordic Cochrane Collaboration, and who was booted out of said Cochrane collaboration for questioning the HPV vaccine (used to prevent cervical cancer) wrote the book. Deadly Medicine and Organised Crime [How big pharma has corrupted healthcare].
The book cover states:
The main reason we take so many drugs is that drug companies don’t sell drugs, they sell lies about drugs…virtually everything we know about drugs is what the companies have chosen to tell us and our doctors… if you don’t believe the system is out of control, please e-mail me and explain why drugs are the third leading cause of death.”
Richard Smith edited the British Medical Journal (BMJ) for many years. He now writes a blog, amongst other things. A few years ago, he commented:
Twenty years ago this week, the statistician Doug Altman published an editorial in the BMJ arguing that much medical research was of poor quality and misleading. In his editorial entitled ‘The scandal of Poor Medical Research.’ Altman wrote that much research was seriously flawed through the use of inappropriate designs, unrepresentative sample, small sample, incorrect methods of analysis and faulty interpretation… Twenty years later, I feel that things are not better, but worse…
In 2002 I spent eight marvellous weeks in a 15th palazzo in Venice writing a book on medical journals, the major outlets for medical research, and the dismal conclusion that things were badly wrong with journals and the research they published. My confidence that ‘things can only get better’ has largely drained away.”
Essentially, medical research has inexorably turned into an industry. A very lucrative industry. Many medical journals now charge authors thousands of dollars to publish their research. This ensures that it is very difficult for any researcher, not supported by a university, or a pharmaceutical company, to afford to publish anything, unless they are independently wealthy.
The journals then have the cheek to claim copyright, and charge money to anyone who actually wants to read, or download the full paper. Fifty dollars for a few on-line pages! They then bill for reprints, they charge for advertising. Those who had the temerity to write the article get nothing – and nor do the peer reviewers.
It is all very profitable. Last time I looked the Return on Investment (profit) was thirty-five per-cent for the big publishing houses. It was Robert Maxwell who first saw this opportunity for money-making.
Driven by financial imperative, the research itself has also, inevitably, become biased. He who pays the paper calls the tune. Pharmaceutical companies, food manufacturers and suchlike. They can certainly afford the publication fees.
In addition to all the financial and peer-review pressure, if you dare swim against the approved mainstream views you will, very often, be ruthlessly attacked. As many people know, I am a critic of the cholesterol hypothesis, along with my band of brothers…we few, we happy few. In the 1970s, Kilmer McCully, who plays double bass in our band, was looking into a cause of cardiovascular disease that went against the mainstream view. This is what happened to him:
Thomas N. James, a cardiologist and president of the University of Texas Medical Branch who was also the president of the American Heart Association in 1979 and ’80, is even harsher [regarding the treatment of McCully]. ”It was worse than that – you couldn’t get ideas funded that went in other directions than cholesterol,” he says. ”You were intentionally discouraged from pursuing alternative questions. I’ve never dealt with a subject in my life that elicited such an immediate hostile response.”
It took two years for McCully to find a new research job. His children were reaching college age; he and his wife refinanced their house and borrowed from her parents. McCully says that his job search developed a pattern: he would hear of an opening, go for interviews and then the process would grind to a stop. Finally, he heard rumors of what he calls ”poison phone calls” from Harvard. ”It smelled to high heaven,” he says.’
McCully says that when he was interviewed on Canadian television after he left Harvard, he received a call from the public-affairs director of Mass. General. ”He told me to shut up,” McCully recalls. ”He said he didn’t want the names of Harvard and Mass. General associated with my theories.’
More recently, I was sent a link to an article outlining the attacks made on another researcher who published a paper that found that being overweight meant having a (slightly) lower risk of death than being of ‘normal weight. This, would never do:
A naïve researcher published a scientific article in a respectable journal. She thought her article was straightforward and defensible. It used only publicly available data, and her findings were consistent with much of the literature on the topic. Her coauthors included two distinguished statisticians.
To her surprise, her publication was met with unusual attacks from some unexpected sources within the research community. These attacks were by and large not pursued through normal channels of scientific discussion. Her research became the target of an aggressive campaign that included insults, errors, misinformation, social media posts, behind-the-scenes gossip and maneuvers, and complaints to her employer.
The goal appeared to be to undermine and discredit her work. The controversy was something deliberately manufactured, and the attacks primarily consisted of repeated assertions of preconceived opinions. She learned first-hand the antagonism that could be provoked by inconvenient scientific findings. Guidelines and recommendations should be based on objective and unbiased data. Development of public health policy and clinical recommendations is complex and needs to be evidence-based rather than belief-based. This can be challenging when a hot-button topic is involved.
Those who lead the attacks on her were my very favourite researchers, Walter Willet and Frank Hu. Two eminent researchers from Harvard who I nickname Tweedledum and Tweedledummer. Harvard itself has become an institution, which, along with Oxford University, comes up a lot in tales of bullying and intimidation. Willet and Hu are internationally known for promoting vegetarian and vegan diets. Willet is a key figure in the EAT-Lancet initiative.
Where is science in all this? I feel the need to state, at this point, that I don’t mind attacks on ideas. I like robust debate. Science can only progress through a process of new hypotheses being proposed, being attacked, being refined and strengthened – or obliterated. But what we see now is not science. It is the obliteration of science itself:
Anyone who has been a scientist for more than 20 years will realize that there has been a progressive decline in the honesty of communications between scientists, between scientists and their institutions and the outside world.
Yet, real science must be an area where truth is the rule; or else the activity simply stops being scient and becomes something else: Zombie science. Zombie science is a science that is dead, but is artificially keep moving by a continual infusion of funding. From a distance Zombie science looks like the real thing, the surface features of a science are in place – white coats, laboratories, computer programming, PhDs, papers, conferences, prizes etc. But the Zombie is not interested in the pursuit of truth – its citations are externally-controlled and directed at non-scientific goals, and inside the Zombie everything is rotten…
Scientists are usually too careful and clever to risk telling outright lies, but instead they push the envelope of exaggeration, selectivity and distortion as far as possible. And tolerance for this kind of untruthfulness has greatly increased over recent years. So, it is now routine for scientists deliberately to ‘hype’ the significance of their status and performance and ‘spin’ the importance of their research.
– Bruce Charlton: Professor of Theoretical Medicine
I was already pretty depressed with the direction that medical science was taking. Then COVID19 came along, the distortion and hype became so outrageous that I almost gave up trying to establish what was true, and was just made up nonsense.
For example, I stated, right at the start of the COVID19 pandemic, that vitamin D could be important in protecting against the virus. For having the audacity to say this, I was attacked by the fact checkers. Indeed, anyone promoting vitamin D to reduce the risk of COVID19 infection, was ruthlessly hounded.
Guess what. Here from 17th June:
Hospitalized COVID-19 patients are far more likely to die or to end up in severe or critical condition if they are vitamin D-deficient, Israeli researchers have found.
In a study conducted in a Galilee hospital, 26 percent of vitamin D-deficient coronavirus patients died, while among other patients the figure was at 3%.
“This is a very, very significant discrepancy, which represents a big clue that starting the disease with very low vitamin D leads to increased mortality and more severity,” Dr. Amir Bashkin, endocrinologist and part of the research team, told The Times of Israel.”
I also recommended vitamin C for those already in hospital. Again, I was attacked, as was everyone who has dared to mention COVID19 and vitamin C in the same sentence.
Yet, we know that vitamin C is essential for the health and wellbeing of blood vessels, and the endothelial cells that line them. In severe infection the body burns through vitamin C, and people can become ‘scrobutic’ (the name given to severe lack of vitamin C).
Vitamin C is also known to have powerful anti-viral activity. It has been known for years. Here, from an article in 1996:
Over the years, it has become well recognized that ascorbate can bolster the natural defense mechanisms of the host and provide protection not only against infectious disease, but also against cancer and other chronic degenerative diseases. The functions involved in ascorbate’s enhancement of host resistance to disease include its biosynthetic (hy-droxylating), antioxidant, and immunostimulatory activities. In addition, ascorbate exerts a direct antiviral action that may confer specific protection against viral disease. The vitamin has been found to inactivate a wide spectrum of viruses as well as suppress viral replication abd expression in infected cell.”
I like quoting research on vitamins from way before COVID19 appeared, where people were simply looking at Vitamin C without the entire medico-industrial complex looking over their shoulder, ready to stamp out anything they don’t like.
Despite a mass of evidence that Vitamin C has benefits against viral infection, it is a complete no-go area and no-one even dares to research it now. Facebook removes any content relating to Vitamin C and COVID19.
As of today, any criticism of the mainstream narrative is simply being removed. Those who dare to raise their heads above the parapet, have them chopped off:
Dr Francis Christian, practising surgeon and clinical professor of general surgery at the University of Saskatchewan, has been immediately suspended from all teaching and will be permanently removed from his role as of September.
Dr Christian has been a surgeon for more than 20 years and began working in Saskatoon in 2007. He was appointed Director of the Surgical Humanities Program and Director of Quality and Patient Safety in 2018 and co-founded the Surgical Humanities Program. Dr. Christian is also the Editor of the Journal of The Surgical Humanities.
On June 17th Dr Christian released a statement to over 200 of his colleagues, expressing concern over the lack of informed consent involved in Canada’s “Covid19 vaccination” program, especially regarding children.
To be clear, Dr Christian’s position is hardly an extreme one.
He believes the virus is real, he believes in vaccination as a general principle, he believes the elderly and vulnerable may benefit from the Covid “vaccine”… he simply doesn’t agree it should be used on children, and feels parents are not being given enough information for properly informed consent.
When I wrote Doctoring Data, a few years ago, I included the following thoughts about the increasing censorship and punishment that was already very clearly out in the open:
…where does it end? Well, we know where it ends.
First, they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist
Then they came for the socialists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist
Then they came from the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist
Then they came for me, and there was no-one left to speak for me
Do you think this is a massive over-reaction? Do I really believe that we are heading for some form of totalitarian stated, where dissent against the medical ‘experts’ will be punishable by imprisonment? Well, yes, I do. We are already in a situation where doctors who fail to follow the dreaded ‘guidelines’ can be sued, or dragged in front the General Medical Council, and struck of. Thus losing their job and income…
Where next?
The lamps are not just going out all over Europe. They are going out, all over the world.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
As a medical researcher, I have been asked to peer review too many papers to count. The only reason I typically agreed was for altruistic motives, because I thought I contributed to the collective effort to find the truth. I always chose to do the review myself, spent a lot of time on it and went over the data carefully. However, I never got access to the source data. So who knows if it was all fabricated? It was also a time consuming job, unpaid and thankless. Not surprisingly, most of my colleagues outsourced the task to the most junior PhD students on the team, who had no interest in it or knowledge of how to do it properly. Garbage in – garbage out, as they say.
I have also had good research of my own rejected because it was novel or unacceptable to the current opinion of the “experts in the field”. I am not proud of it, but I have written bad papers, but they were accepted into prestigious journals because my mentor was friends with the editor-in-chief.
“Publications” as a measure of prestige or quality of research is dead. Scientific literature, as we know now, has been captured like everything in society and will never be useful in its current form. When this shit it all done with in a decade or so, if we are still alive, we need to build, from the ground up, a new society including a new political system, a new way to elect leaders or somehow manage politics, a new education system, a new financial system, and also a new system of science and medicine.
Unfortunately Doctors and the practice of Medicine, whether it be human or veterinary has devolved to the level of being nothing more than pill pushers and drug dealers.
Glad you said it, so that you wouldn’t think I was lumping you in with them if I said it.
My new vet is a covidiot, but at the same time very thorough clinician that considers as many systems as possible. So I don’t know what to make of him. I don’t really understand the practice of medicine.
And surgeries?
Kaiser Permanente sets the standard for medical pushers and dealers.
I have appreciated and enjoyed your posts in the short time you’ve been here.
Keep up the excellent postings!
This is the problem with the people who say “it’s peer-reviewed science” as if that means it has in some way been absolutely proven truth.
Granted, most of such people have never even read a “peer-reviewed science” paper, much less been involved in the peer-review process.
It seems sometimes like most people think that “peer review” is some necessary part of the scientific method and that peer reviewers are replicating experiments and confirming the accuracy of underlying results and data.
I would venture that at least half of all published, peer reviewed, “science” is utter B.S. — i.e., intentionally or accidentally false information presented through a veneer of statistical chicanery and convoluted wording.
The only department I hear talking about publication prestige is analytical chem. Politics still goes on there, but they are weirdos. I know one guy using “green energy” pitches to pursue is own pet interests by creatively relating them.
Will have to google all these people. Oh no, I am using google…!
It’s great these doctors and scientists are waking up and speaking out. However this whole situation is greater than bad, commercial science/medicine. It’s warfare. We are in a war and they are on the frontlines whether they want to be or not.
In a way this is encouraging because most of them are decent people and smart. They also influence many.
“Smart” means nothing. As Nassim Taleb calls them “intellectual yet idiot”. In fact, I have found that there is a positive correlation between educational level, presumed IQ and being dumbed down and brainwashed. Last year, the roofer that I paid cash under the table was the only one who came to our house unmasked and shook my hand happily upon completion of an excellent job.
I’ve heard that con artists prefer to victimize intelligent people, because it’s easier. Average and below tend to know what they don’t know, go on gut instinct, and shy away from the too-good-to-be-true scams that they can’t figure out. Most have been burned before. An intelligent person will work the con-artist. He wants to believe. He can see how it might work. He thinks of himself as trustworthy, and that other people are just like him. He is greedy, but doesn’t know it.
Incidentally, my younger brother was a con man, and all his victims that I know of were intelligent people. Professionals, educated etc.
I think many, if not most intellectuals are very good at conning themselves. They will believe anything, no matter how absurd. Especially if there is money in it for them or social currency.
Number 1.
I get severe Eye Rollytytus — like those spinning symbols on a slot machine — whenever I see “Studies say ..”.
While there ARE valid “studies” out there, they are too far and few between, and I don’t have the time or expertise to analyze any of them, soooo … my default stance is to assume that any “Studies say” comment will be followed by Reams Of Bullshit.
=======
Number 2.
Just follow the goddamned money.
“Study finds no direct link between smoking and cancer!”
With very little effort you discover that study was funded by Phillip Morris. Right away you should be able to glean that that study ain’t worth shit, except maybe as toilet paper.
Money (G.R.E.E.D.) is the god of this age, it literally drives everything, even science, and somehow, some way, we must find a way to KILL IT and replace it back better.
Damn Stucky, you FINALLY agree with me?
I think I agree with you on many things.
I consider you a brother from another mother.
But hey, those reams of bullshit are from prestigeous institutions.
The “healthcare system” and its main components is corrupt and is all about the shekels?
Auntie is shocked; shocked I tell you.
A big “shoutout” to hospital” systems” too. Just overwhelmed by the ‘ROna”. Overwhelmed!
Just you wait for the bill, comrade.
I think we’ve probably all read about the several papers published a few years back that confirmed, that 2/3’s of the papers submitted were either straight up fraudulent or contained gross errors bordering on fraud. The papers with the most ‘errors’ were those from the medical research field.
The peer review process is also not without problems either as shown by another researcher who took accepted papers and changed the names to more controversial authors, then resubmitted the papers. Of which they promptly were rejected even tho the content was unchanged.
Imo, the biggest problem is the funding. The publish or perish mentality encourages researchers to pump out papers showing the merits of the anticipated results the funding is looking for. So fudging data or outright lying is acceptable because much of the data is never released and when asked for, refused to be shown. Michael Mann comes to mind where he makes climate change predictions based on faulty models then refuses to show his data. Or Ferguson and his covid prediction model… data, those inconvenient things that tends to reveal the lairs for what they are…
Trust little, verify everything…. its an informational war
What an excellent article. The Precautionary Principle is dead, medicine is no longer a science, no longer a healing practice, what it is is a business model where profit is first and foremost. It began when Rockefeller unleashed the Flexner brothers to bride medical schools into only providing an allopathic education and then went on to forming the American Murder Association (AMA).
Take the profits from the bogus information about cholesterol, LDL and HDL (their fear of cholesterol is mis-founded). They claim that LDL is bad and HDL is good, and therefore they prescribe deadly statin drugs to lower LDL. They don’t talk about nutrition, they just prescribe deadly statins. And they don’t talk about increasing HDL, because they don’t have a drug that will do that.
As a retired Cardiac RN I can tell you that medical care has devolved into collecting information, documenting that information, and documenting that you documented it.
They used to be hospitals, now they are corporations run by charge capture depts. and insurance providers.
I suppose doctors will learn to organize when the rest of us do. All their associations are converged and out of their control.
Back in the mid-70s we thought she was pregnant, so got a referral to an Gyn/Obn for testing. Afterwards we met with him in his office; his desk was piled high with magazines and journals. On top was one entitled “Medical Economics”. That sure was a shock compared to office visits to the old family doc who cared for every one of us kids as well as parents 20 years earlier.
Some of them ARE organizing, in an underground sort of way, secretly. I am on a listserv of over 1200 medical professionals who would fit right into this group. They know the truth and are discussing strategies. They are discussing all of the fraudulent “research papers” coming out, the rigged statistics, how to get alternative viewpoints into writing etc. They have all concluded that our agencies such as the CDC, FDA, NIH as well as our journals are compromised. So the only way to save people is to go to them directly, trying to push two narratives: First, vaccines are unnecessary, unsafe and ineffective. Noone should get vaccinated, not the elderly or the young. Second, early outpatient therapy has been suppressed, but should be widespread. Those things need to be done right now. Only later can we spend time on prosecuting those in charge with crimes against humanity and reorganizing society and the medical system.
A patient cured is a customer lost.
If you lined up doctors, dentists, university professors, used car salesmen, mechanics, politicians, and carnival barkers; I think doctors might … maybe … rank second-to-last in trustworthiness … a hair above politicians.
Cholesterol is something I am confident to argue with my doctors with if they use anything but qualified statements or proceed as if those qualified statements are fact. There are a few others. Good doctors pay attention to their fields and understand chemistry and read papers, but that specialization has its own problems.
I have not spoken with any doctors aware of the discovery of the CNS lymphatic system in 2015, yet its implications are enormous.
I have experimented a couple times in recent months with stopping my statin med (aks the Fat Pill). About a week after going pill free there are few if any sore muscles and my body seems better able to face the fact that is is pushing 7 decades. On the down side, there is loose evidence out there that the Fat Pill may provide some protection against the china virus; waiting for confirmation on that one from the fake doctor on tv with the white lab coat.
Soluble fiber is the only known way to control blood cholesterol. If anyone tells you different, I would be skeptical. Cholesterol itself is just correlated to vascular disease, so this kind of medicine is more similar to buying lottery tickets unless you have history and symptoms.
I came to the conclusion that the most meaningful research isn’t allowed in all sorts of areas. Another conclusion I came to is that I would not want to put more knowledge into the hands of those responsible for this system.
I was recently sent a 10 part series entitled “Europa: the last battle”. I’ve made it through part 5 thus far. Needless to say everything we’ve been taught (in every sphere of interest) is utter nonsense. Have you seen this? Thoughts?
I’ve not been much of a historian, I prefer the actual sciences, but never imagined the info contained within. So completely foreign…
Civilization is defined by people willing to pay historians.
And people who put in a lot of effort to be ignorant apparently…
Put vets in there too. Besides every one of them in my area being covidians the one we used once keeps sending us ‘wellness check’ postcards for our older dog. Right.
We just moved here and haven’t found an older vet (they usually do big animals too). We had a great one in Broadus who hadn’t even heard about human level pricing yet. Bet he didn’t wear or require a mask. It made it affordable to have horses and sled dogs.
Anyway I plan to ask each time if they are using mRNA treatment in any of their shots and will probably only go with rabies from now on.
I expected vets to think more critically than MDs not less. But every vet in two counties (but my previous one, retired) subscribes to covidianism.
An excellent discourse Malcolm, thank you and you are of course correct in all respects as far as my understanding goes. I am researching evolution in a similar vein:
This says it all:
A SOBER WARNING
• First they came for the unmasked and I did not speak out because I wore a mask.
• Then they came for the unvaccinated and I did not speak out because I was vaccinated.
• Then they came with medical passports and I said nothing because I still believed in the science.
• Then they came after all dissenters and silenced them and I said nothing because I still believed in
their narrative.
• Then they came for all of the unvaccinated and there was no one left to speak for humanity.
• Then they came for everyone (whether vaccinated or not ,because being vaccinated will simply not
save you from their stated depopulation plan) and there was no one left to speak for humanity ‘
This is adapted, for today’s times, from that famous piece by Martin Niemoller during Hitlers WW2 reign of terror.
Like many things in modern life Medicine has been corrupted by the emergence of a formal narrative concerning, in this case, what they call the “best practice” model. This has been floridly demonstrated under the COVID regime, where, given the supposed emergency, we are still being forced to support and endorse dogmas that benefit Globalism and Big Capital, and reject and discourage possible alternative models of care.
Getting your drug/device/treatment onto the assumed compendia of “Best Practice” has been a holy grail of Big medicine/Pharma for a long time now. It’s one reason why medical debacles (Vioxx) perpetuate over multiple sites because no-one dares question “Best Practice” lest they find themselves ostracized and reported to registering authorities.