offguardian--2020-10-06--ANOTHER 10 Experts Questioning the Coronavirus Panic

Last month Dr Martin Feeley was forced to resign from his Health Board position after publicly stating that the virus was not dangerous and lockdown policies were doing more harm than good .
Only a few days ago , Dr Marcus De Brun – an Irish GP who resigned from his government post in protest over their Covid policies – deleted his twitter [ archive link ] and declared he was “ stepping back ” from public debate concerning the pandemic .
These individual examples paint a grander picture – slowly but surely the medical experts countering the “ pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and pushed out of the conversation .
When the last dissenting voice is finally shut down , the establishment will claim the “ science is settled.
” Well the science is not settled and , to help remind everyone of that , here are 10 more experts questioning the Coronavirus crisis .
Dr Dolores Cahill is an Irish research scientist specialising in immunology and oncology , and professor of Translational Science at the University College Dublin School of Medicine .
Sh has been a science advisor for three national governments – Ireland , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vice Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Inovative Medicine Initiative .
She has also been asked to resign from her post at the IMI due to her stance on Covid19 .
What she says : [ T ] here ’ s two things , two major things I want to say to people…First of all there should be a lot of hope that this virus is not as dangerous as it is being shown to be , and also there ’ s major issues , like the media are reporting the number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had the virus – like me I had this virus in January and February – your immune system clears it after ten days and then you are immune for life .
So you ’ re not a case you are immune for life… [ … ] Then the second thing is we can see that in Ireland , as in globally , half of the people who die are over 80 and that we ’ ll say children and anyone under 50 – unless they have chronic conditions like cystic fibrosis – they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I am saying is there is no need for the lockdown and that we could all actually go back to work .
Prof Carl Heneghan is a British general practitioner physician , director of the University of Oxford ’ s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine , and a Fellow of Kellogg College .
He is also Editor-in-Chief of BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine .
He is one of the founders of AllTrials , an international initiative calling for all studies to be published , and their results reported .
What he says : In the course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have gone through a few thousand papers reporting studies on all aspects of Covid-19 spread .
We found that not very many defined a case of Covid , which is a sign of sloppiness when that is what you are looking for .
Those that did , reported different definitions and ways of ascertaining what they meant by a ‘ case ’ .
Now this may seem a pedantic academic remark , but in reality , it underlines the chaos which has crept into Covid-19 science and decision-making .
[ … ] What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how do different nations define a case ?
We looked at the definition of a case given by the World Health Organisation , the US and EU Centres for Disease Control , China , Italy , Spain , France .
[ … ] The UK government definition is based on clinical symptoms , and testing is recommended for cases who are well enough to remain in the community .
No guidance is given as to how to interpret such a test or any decisions .
Interestingly the Public Health England explanation of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : ‘ If a person has both a negative and a positive test , then only their positive test will be counted .
If a person is tested as positive under both pillar 1 and pillar 2 , then only the first positive case is counted.
’ An asymptomatic person who tested positive could have two confirmatory negative tests , but would still count as a confirmed case .
But in Wales , data is deduplicated on 42-day episodes ; if someone is tested twice , 43 days apart , they will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
[ … ] We have already written about the inappropriate use of the PCR test as currently used , and the delightful vagueness of the statement is pregnant with consequences .
Arbitrary thresholds may be so high that the UK may be heading for perpetual lockdown , as every minute fragment and debris of the coronavirus will count as positive .
We deduce that a reported ‘ case ’ is most probably simply the result of a positive PCR test .
The new guidance is meaningless unless it provides a clear threshold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many whose test turns up positive , there may be nothing recorded about any clinical symptoms .
– “ What does a case of Covid-19 really mean ?
” , The Spectator 14th September 2020* It is essential to adjust for the number of tests being done .
Leicester and Oldham have seen significant increases in testing in a short time .
Leicester , for example in the first two weeks of July did more tests than anywhere else in England : 15,122 tests completed in the two weeks up to 13th July @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people without the disease who test positive ) to drive the increase in community ( Pillar 2 ) cases is substantial , particularly because the accuracy of the test and the detection of viable viruses within a community setting is unclear .
*Co-authored with Dr Tom Jefferson , who appeared on a previous edition of this series .
Dr Karol Sikora is a British physician specialising in oncology and professor of Medicine at the University of Buckingham .
He is a founder and medical director of Rutherford Health , a company providing proton @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the World Health Organization Cancer Program and Director of Medical Oncology at the Bahamas Cancer Centre .
What he says : In summary , our view is that the existing policy path is inconsistent with the known risk-profile of Covid-19 and should be reconsidered .
The unstated objective currently appears to be one of suppression of the virus , until such a time that a vaccine can be deployed .
This objective is increasingly unfeasible ( notwithstanding our more specific concerns regarding existing policies ) and is leading to significant harm across all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ benefits .
[ … ] [ B ] ehavioural interventions that seek to increase the personal threat perception of Covid should be reconsidered , as they likely contribute to adverse physical and mental health impacts beyond Covid .
Consideration should also be given to whether policies that are intended to ‘ reassure ’ , may in fact reinforce a heightened perception of risk .
Providing the public with objective information on the actual risk they face from Covid-19 , by age and health status , would be preferable .
– “ Boris Johnson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , The Spectator 21st September** **Co-authored with Dr Carl Heneghan ( above ) and Dr Sunetra Gupta , who appeared in a previous edition of this series .
Dr Michael Yeadon is a British doctor and research scientist , the former chief science officer with Pfizer , and co-Founder of Ziarco Pharma Ltd. What he says : I believe I have identified a serious , really a fatal flaw in the PCR test used in what is called by the UK Government the Pillar 2 screening – that is , testing many people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] [ The UK ] Government decided to call a person a ‘ case ’ if their swab sample was positive for viral RNA , which is what is measured in PCR .
A person ’ s sample can be positive if they have the virus [ … ] They can also be positive if they ’ ve had the virus some weeks or months ago and recovered .
It ’ s faintly possible that high loads of related , but different coronaviruses…might also react in the PCR test .
But there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person can be positive and that ’ s a random process .
This may have multiple causes , such as the amplification technique not being perfect and so amplifying the ‘ bait ’ sequences placed in with the sample , with the aim of marrying up with related SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA .
There will be many other contributions to such positives .
These are what are called false positives .
[ … ] Because of the high false positive rate and the low prevalence , almost every positive test , a so-called case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this year has been a FALSE POSITIVE .
Not just a few percent .
Not a quarter or even a half of the positives are FALSE , but around 90 % of them .
– Lies , Damned Lies and Covid Statistics – the Deadly Danger of False Positives , LockdownSceptics.org , 20th September 2020 Dr Jean-François Toussaint is a French doctor and professor of physiology at the Université Paris-Descartes .
He is also director of the Institute for Biomedical Research and Sports Epidemiology ( IRMES ) and a former member of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What he says : In addition to those directly linked to the essential measures to combat SARS-CoV-2 , the social , economic and health consequences of generalized confinement will be considerable .
It is to be expected that all of these effects will lead to a decline in life expectancy in the coming years .
[ … ] [ The Lockdown ] was guided by estimates that were proposed on March 12…In this work , however , many things were wrong : the models were wrong , the projections were wrong ; the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justifications remain unfounded .
And the studies currently published repeat the same errors : naive and outdated models , unstable algorithms , useless predictions…Yet it is on such simulations that the paralysis of half of humanity was played out .
An inappropriate response can lead to the death of an individual .
At the level of a society , it can cause its collapse and block the future of our children .
– “ First assessment of Covid-19 : Have we succumbed to panic ?
” , UP Magazine 28th May 2020 ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a British surgeon , medical researcher and NIHR Clinical Lecturer & Speciality Registrar in Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Hull York Medical School .
What he says : Although it is important to mitigate loss of life wherever possible , we can never reduce risk to zero .
The majority of people will survive from their natural immunity defences .
While waiting for a vaccine then , I don ’ t believe that we should be destroying the income and livelihoods of millions of people , preventing children ’ s education and social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diseases such as cancer , as this will cause more harm than the virus in the long-term .
– Three reasons why a coronavirus vaccine might not be possible , The Spectator 23rd May 2020 [ W ] e have learnt during this pandemic that there are alternative and less draconian methods , such as those successfully employed in nations like Sweden and Taiwan , that can be integrated with lessons we may have learnt in the UK ( such as the importance of protecting care homes ) to create effective and more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more likely to adhere to .
While it is important that we do not take the threat of this virus lightly and do all we can to protect the most vulnerable in our society , it is equally important that many of the rights we take for granted – such as the right to work , the right for our children to receive the optimum education and the right to peacefully assemble – are not compromised unnecessarily .
If not , we may be setting a very dangerous precedent .
Dr Martin Feeley @ @ @ @ @ @ @ introduction – is an Irish physician and former Senior Doctor with Ireland ’ s Health Service Executive and clinical director of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group .
After giving an interview in which he questioned the “ draconian ” loockdown on September 12th , he was pressured into resigning on September 18th .
What he says : The media reaction to these cases , ie , with the gravity appropriate to reporting deaths from a major catastrophe , borders on hysteria .
Opening a newscast with the number of people testing positive for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which many don ’ t even know they have , is scaremongering .
The Irish experience is very similar [ to the United States ] – up to mid-August 94 per cent of deaths were in patients with underlying medical conditions .
A Stanford-led group analysed over 100,000 Covid-19-related deaths in Europe , including Ireland , and the US and concluded that “ deaths for people under 65 without predisposing conditions were remarkably uncommon ” .
Another important feature is the number of people who contract the virus and remain completely asymptomatic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Diamond Princess cruise liner and the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier almost 66 per cent of the positive tests were completely asymptomatic , while a report from China suggests 78 per cent of cases were asymptomatic .
– “ Young and healthy need to be allowed to live their lives ” , Irish Times 24th September 2020 Dr Beda M. Stadler is a Swiss molecular biologist and former director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Bern .
Stadler carried out basic research in the field of allergology and autoimmunity and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ human or artificial antibodies .
What he says : I could slap myself , because I looked at Sars-CoV2- way too long with panic .
I am also somewhat annoyed with many of my immunology colleagues who so far have left the discussion about Covid-19 to virologist and epidemiologist .
I feel it is time to criticise some of the main and completely wrong public statements about this virus .
Firstly , it was wrong to claim that this virus was novel .
Secondly , It was even more wrong to claim that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immunity against this virus .
Thirdly , it was the crowning of stupidity to claim that someone could have Covid-19 without any symptoms at all or even to pass the disease along without showing any symptoms whatsoever .
[ … ] Those young and healthy people who currently walk around with a mask on their faces would be better off wearing a helmet instead , because the risk of something falling on their head is greater than that of getting a serious case of Covid-19 .
– “ Coronavirus : Why Everyone is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ Original German ] [ Translated into English by BacktoReason on Medium ] Dr Stefan Hockertz is a German researcher in the field of biology , biotechnology and pharmacology , and a former professor of toxicology , pharmacology and molecular immunotoxicology the University of Hamburg , as well as member of the Fraunhofer working group for toxicology and environmental medicine .
Dr Hockertz has also worked as the director of the Institute for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University Hospital Eppendorf , and the founder and managing director of TPI @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What he says : ***Both co-written with Dr Harald Walach , a German psychologist and professor of research methodology in complementary medicine at Viadrina European University Frankfurt .
Docs4OpenDebate is collection of healthcare workers based in Belgium .
Last month they posted an open letter to the Belgian government demanding an end to lockdown , in that time the letter has accrued over 13,000 signatures – 561 one of whom are medical doctors .
Their inclusion could justifiably turn this from “ 10 Experts ” into “ 570 experts ” , but that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Covid-19 is not a cold virus , but a well treatable condition with a mortality rate comparable to the seasonal flu .
In other words , there is no longer an insurmountable obstacle to public health .
There is no state of emergency .
[ … ] An open discussion on corona measures means that , in addition to the years of life gained by corona patients , we must also take into account other factors affecting the health of the entire population .
These include damage in the psychosocial domain ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , intra-family violence and child abuse ) 16 and economic damage .
If we take this collateral damage into account , the current policy is out of all proportion , the proverbial use of a sledgehammer to crack a nut .
We find it shocking that the government is invoking health as a reason for the emergency law .
As doctors and health professionals , in the face of a virus which , in terms of its harmfulness , mortality and transmissibility , approaches the seasonal influenza , we can only reject these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an immediate end to all measures .
BONUS : Dr Sucharit Bhakdi , the first expert featured on our very first list , has since published a book on the coronavirus crisis .
Corona : False Alarm , is available in English and German from all major book sellers .
Altogether our collection of experts now numbers over 40 , and it ’ s far from exhaustive .
In fact , if you include those who signed the open letters , we ’ re well past 1000 at this point .
Remember this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ covid denier ” , or attempt to paint a false consensus by declaring the “ science is settled ” .
For the next entry in this series we are considering a “ Legal Experts ” list – lawyers , judges who have challenged the lockdowns on the basis of civil liberties and human rights .
If you are aware of any please do post them below .

Last month Dr Martin Feeley was forced to resign from his Health Board position after publicly stating that the virus was not dangerous and lockdown policies were doing more harm than good.
These individual examples paint a grander picture – slowly but surely the medical experts countering the “pandemic” narrative are being censored, removed and pushed out of the conversation. When the last dissenting voice is finally shut down, the establishment will claim the “science is settled.”
Well the science is not settled and, to help remind everyone of that, here are 10 more experts questioning the Coronavirus crisis.
*
Dr Dolores Cahill is an Irish research scientist specialising in immunology and oncology, and professor of Translational Science at the University College Dublin School of Medicine. Sh has been a science advisor for three national governments – Ireland, Sweden and Germany – and is the Vice Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Inovative Medicine Initiative.
She has also been asked to resign from her post at the IMI due to her stance on Covid19.
What she says:
[T]here’s two things, two major things I want to say to people…First of all there should be a lot of hope that this virus is not as dangerous as it is being shown to be, and also there’s major issues, like the media are reporting the number of cases when actually someone who has had the virus – like me I had this virus in January and February – your immune system clears it after ten days and then you are immune for life. So you’re not a case you are immune for life…
[…]
Then the second thing is we can see that in Ireland, as in globally, half of the people who die are over 80 and that we’ll say children and anyone under 50 – unless they have chronic conditions like cystic fibrosis – they will have no issue. So what I am saying is there is no need for the lockdown and that we could all actually go back to work. Interview with Computing Forever, 11th May 2020: Public talk from 22nd September 2020:
*
Prof Carl Heneghan is a British general practitioner physician, director of the University of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, and a Fellow of Kellogg College. He is also Editor-in-Chief of BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine. He is one of the founders of AllTrials, an international initiative calling for all studies to be published, and their results reported.
What he says:
In the course of our evidence gathering activities, we have gone through a few thousand papers reporting studies on all aspects of Covid-19 spread. We found that not very many defined a case of Covid, which is a sign of sloppiness when that is what you are looking for. Those that did, reported different definitions and ways of ascertaining what they meant by a ‘case’. Now this may seem a pedantic academic remark, but in reality, it underlines the chaos which has crept into Covid-19 science and decision-making.
[…]
What does a Covid 19 case mean and how do different nations define a case? We looked at the definition of a case given by the World Health Organisation, the US and EU Centres for Disease Control, China, Italy, Spain, France.
[…]
The UK government definition is based on clinical symptoms, and testing is recommended for cases who are well enough to remain in the community. No guidance is given as to how to interpret such a test or any decisions. Interestingly the Public Health England explanation of the methods for counting cases is as follows: ‘If a person has both a negative and a positive test, then only their positive test will be counted. If a person is tested as positive under both pillar 1 and pillar 2, then only the first positive case is counted.’ An asymptomatic person who tested positive could have two confirmatory negative tests, but would still count as a confirmed case. But in Wales, data is deduplicated on 42-day episodes; if someone is tested twice, 43 days apart, they will be included in the case count measure twice.
[…]
We have already written about the inappropriate use of the PCR test as currently used, and the delightful vagueness of the statement is pregnant with consequences. Arbitrary thresholds may be so high that the UK may be heading for perpetual lockdown, as every minute fragment and debris of the coronavirus will count as positive. We deduce that a reported ‘case’ is most probably simply the result of a positive PCR test. The new guidance is meaningless unless it provides a clear threshold for the limits of detection. For many whose test turns up positive, there may be nothing recorded about any clinical symptoms. – “What does a case of Covid-19 really mean?”, The Spectator 14th September 2020* * It is essential to adjust for the number of tests being done. Leicester and Oldham have seen significant increases in testing in a short time. Leicester, for example in the first two weeks of July did more tests than anywhere else in England: 15,122 tests completed in the two weeks up to 13th July. The potential for false-positives (those people without the disease who test positive) to drive the increase in community (Pillar 2) cases is substantial, particularly because the accuracy of the test and the detection of viable viruses within a community setting is unclear. – COVID cases in England aren’t rising: here’s why, CEBM 2nd August 2020
*Co-authored with Dr Tom Jefferson, who appeared on a previous edition of this series.
*
Dr Karol Sikora is a British physician specialising in oncology and professor of Medicine at the University of Buckingham. He is a founder and medical director of Rutherford Health, a company providing proton therapy services, the former director of the World Health Organization Cancer Program and Director of Medical Oncology at the Bahamas Cancer Centre.
What he says:
In summary, our view is that the existing policy path is inconsistent with the known risk-profile of Covid-19 and should be reconsidered. The unstated objective currently appears to be one of suppression of the virus, until such a time that a vaccine can be deployed. This objective is increasingly unfeasible (notwithstanding our more specific concerns regarding existing policies) and is leading to significant harm across all age groups, which likely offsets any benefits.
[…]
[B]ehavioural interventions that seek to increase the personal threat perception of Covid should be reconsidered, as they likely contribute to adverse physical and mental health impacts beyond Covid. Consideration should also be given to whether policies that are intended to ‘reassure’, may in fact reinforce a heightened perception of risk. Providing the public with objective information on the actual risk they face from Covid-19, by age and health status, would be preferable. – “Boris Johnson Must Urgently Rethink His Covid Policy”, The Spectator 21st September** Interview with UnHerd, 18th May 2020:
**Co-authored with Dr Carl Heneghan (above) and Dr Sunetra Gupta, who appeared in a previous edition of this series.
*
Dr Michael Yeadon is a British doctor and research scientist, the former chief science officer with Pfizer, and co-Founder of Ziarco Pharma Ltd.
What he says:
I believe I have identified a serious, really a fatal flaw in the PCR test used in what is called by the UK Government the Pillar 2 screening – that is, testing many people out in their communities.
[…]
[The UK] Government decided to call a person a ‘case’ if their swab sample was positive for viral RNA, which is what is measured in PCR. A person’s sample can be positive if they have the virus […] They can also be positive if they’ve had the virus some weeks or months ago and recovered. It’s faintly possible that high loads of related, but different coronaviruses…might also react in the PCR test. But there’s a final setting in which a person can be positive and that’s a random process. This may have multiple causes, such as the amplification technique not being perfect and so amplifying the ‘bait’ sequences placed in with the sample, with the aim of marrying up with related SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA. There will be many other contributions to such positives. These are what are called false positives.
[…]
Because of the high false positive rate and the low prevalence, almost every positive test, a so-called case, identified by Pillar 2 since May of this year has been a FALSE POSITIVE. Not just a few percent. Not a quarter or even a half of the positives are FALSE, but around 90% of them. – Lies, Damned Lies and Covid Statistics – the Deadly Danger of False Positives, LockdownSceptics.org, 20th September 2020
*
Dr Jean-François Toussaint is a French doctor and professor of physiology at the Université Paris-Descartes. He is also director of the Institute for Biomedical Research and Sports Epidemiology (IRMES) and a former member of the High Council of Public Health.
What he says:
In addition to those directly linked to the essential measures to combat SARS-CoV-2, the social, economic and health consequences of generalized confinement will be considerable. It is to be expected that all of these effects will lead to a decline in life expectancy in the coming years.
[…]
[The Lockdown] was guided by estimates that were proposed on March 12…In this work, however, many things were wrong: the models were wrong, the projections were wrong; the simulations are still not reproducible, the justifications remain unfounded. And the studies currently published repeat the same errors: naive and outdated models, unstable algorithms, useless predictions…Yet it is on such simulations that the paralysis of half of humanity was played out. An inappropriate response can lead to the death of an individual. At the level of a society, it can cause its collapse and block the future of our children. – “First assessment of Covid-19: Have we succumbed to panic?”, UP Magazine 28th May 2020 (translated from French)
*
Dr Priyad Ariyaratnam is a British surgeon, medical researcher and NIHR Clinical Lecturer & Speciality Registrar in Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Hull York Medical School.
What he says:
Although it is important to mitigate loss of life wherever possible, we can never reduce risk to zero. The majority of people will survive from their natural immunity defences. While waiting for a vaccine then, I don’t believe that we should be destroying the income and livelihoods of millions of people, preventing children’s education and social development unnecessarily or cancelling treatment for other diseases such as cancer, as this will cause more harm than the virus in the long-term. – Three reasons why a coronavirus vaccine might not be possible, The Spectator 23rd May 2020 * [W]e have learnt during this pandemic that there are alternative and less draconian methods, such as those successfully employed in nations like Sweden and Taiwan, that can be integrated with lessons we may have learnt in the UK (such as the importance of protecting care homes) to create effective and more socially acceptable strategies that the population is more likely to adhere to. While it is important that we do not take the threat of this virus lightly and do all we can to protect the most vulnerable in our society, it is equally important that many of the rights we take for granted – such as the right to work, the right for our children to receive the optimum education and the right to peacefully assemble – are not compromised unnecessarily. If not, we may be setting a very dangerous precedent. – The coronavirus crackdown sets a dangerous precedent, The Spectator 25th September 2020
*
Dr Martin Feeley – who you may remember from the introduction – is an Irish physician and former Senior Doctor with Ireland’s Health Service Executive and clinical director of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group.
After giving an interview in which he questioned the “draconian” loockdown on September 12th, he was pressured into resigning on September 18th.
What he says:
The media reaction to these cases, ie, with the gravity appropriate to reporting deaths from a major catastrophe, borders on hysteria. Opening a newscast with the number of people testing positive for a condition less dangerous than the flu, which many don’t even know they have, is scaremongering. – “‘Draconian’ restrictions around Covid-19 condemned by HSE doctor”, Irish Times 12th September 2020 * The Irish experience is very similar [to the United States] – up to mid-August 94 per cent of deaths were in patients with underlying medical conditions. A Stanford-led group analysed over 100,000 Covid-19-related deaths in Europe, including Ireland, and the US and concluded that “deaths for people under 65 without predisposing conditions were remarkably uncommon”. Another important feature is the number of people who contract the virus and remain completely asymptomatic. In extremely well-defined scenarios such as the Diamond Princess cruise liner and the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier almost 66 per cent of the positive tests were completely asymptomatic, while a report from China suggests 78 per cent of cases were asymptomatic. – “Young and healthy need to be allowed to live their lives”, Irish Times 24th September 2020
*
Dr Beda M. Stadler is a Swiss molecular biologist and former director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Bern. Stadler carried out basic research in the field of allergology and autoimmunity and applied research for the production of recombinant human or artificial antibodies.
What he says:
I could slap myself, because I looked at Sars-CoV2- way too long with panic. I am also somewhat annoyed with many of my immunology colleagues who so far have left the discussion about Covid-19 to virologist and epidemiologist. I feel it is time to criticise some of the main and completely wrong public statements about this virus. Firstly, it was wrong to claim that this virus was novel. Secondly, It was even more wrong to claim that the population would not already have some immunity against this virus. Thirdly, it was the crowning of stupidity to claim that someone could have Covid-19 without any symptoms at all or even to pass the disease along without showing any symptoms whatsoever.
[…]
Those young and healthy people who currently walk around with a mask on their faces would be better off wearing a helmet instead, because the risk of something falling on their head is greater than that of getting a serious case of Covid-19. – “Coronavirus: Why Everyone is Wrong”, WeltWoche 10th June 2020 [Original German] [Translated into English by BacktoReason on Medium]
*
Dr Stefan Hockertz is a German researcher in the field of biology, biotechnology and pharmacology, and a former professor of toxicology, pharmacology and molecular immunotoxicology the University of Hamburg, as well as member of the Fraunhofer working group for toxicology and environmental medicine.
Dr Hockertz has also worked as the director of the Institute for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University Hospital Eppendorf, and the founder and managing director of TPI Consult, a biotech research company.
What he says:
The data from clearly delineated populations, such as from the cruise ship Diamond Princess, or all traced contacts of the first 100 Taiwanese cases (Cheng et al., 2020) speak a clear language that is supported by a new modeling study: the virus does not infect everyone indistinctly. Obviously, natural immunity can prevent a lot of infections which is the reason, why Gomes and colleagues estimate that only 7%–18% infected persons in a population are enough to reach herd immunity. This is actually good news helping science to understand this infection, and it was our goal to point to this feature of the infection, which was already visible in the Wuhan data. – “A reply to Dr. Pan and Dr. Wu”, letter printed in the journal Toxicology issue 441, August 2020*** * Were the public health measures indeed causal, as is widely assumed, in halting the spread of the virus? The data do not seem to support this conclusion. Why then would the reproduction number R0 fall under 1 already on the 24th of Jan, just one day after traffic lockdown, when the median incubation time is assumed to be roughly 5 days? Why would a person have a 29% lower chance during the second period to become a severe or critical case, when no public health measures were in place, if the lockdown and following measures were in fact causal for not only containing the virus but also preventing severe cases? – “Wuhan Covid19 data – more questions than answers”, letter to the journal Toxicology issue 440, July 2020***
***Both co-written with Dr Harald Walach, a German psychologist and professor of research methodology in complementary medicine at Viadrina European University Frankfurt.
*
Docs4OpenDebate is collection of healthcare workers based in Belgium. Last month they posted an open letter to the Belgian government demanding an end to lockdown, in that time the letter has accrued over 13,000 signatures – 561 one of whom are medical doctors. Their inclusion could justifiably turn this from “10 Experts” into “570 experts”, but that feels like overkill.
What they say:
Covid-19 is not a cold virus, but a well treatable condition with a mortality rate comparable to the seasonal flu. In other words, there is no longer an insurmountable obstacle to public health. There is no state of emergency.
[…]
An open discussion on corona measures means that, in addition to the years of life gained by corona patients, we must also take into account other factors affecting the health of the entire population. These include damage in the psychosocial domain (increase in depression, anxiety, suicides, intra-family violence and child abuse)16 and economic damage. If we take this collateral damage into account, the current policy is out of all proportion, the proverbial use of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. We find it shocking that the government is invoking health as a reason for the emergency law. As doctors and health professionals, in the face of a virus which, in terms of its harmfulness, mortality and transmissibility, approaches the seasonal influenza, we can only reject these extremely disproportionate measures. We therefore demand an immediate end to all measures. – “Belgian Healthcare Workers Call for End to Lockdown”, 5th September 2020
*
BONUS: Dr Sucharit Bhakdi, the first expert featured on our very first list, has since published a book on the coronavirus crisis. Corona: False Alarm, is available in English and German from all major book sellers.
*
Altogether our collection of experts now numbers over 40, and it’s far from exhaustive. In fact, if you include those who signed the open letters, we’re well past 1000 at this point.
Remember this when the mainstream media call you a “covid denier”, or attempt to paint a false consensus by declaring the “science is settled”.
For the next entry in this series we are considering a “Legal Experts” list – lawyers, judges who have challenged the lockdowns on the basis of civil liberties and human rights. If you are aware of any please do post them below.


offguardian--2020-10-06--The War on Truth, Dissent and Free Speech

On Saturday 13 June 2020 the Times newspaper published its third attack on academics associated with researching British government propaganda and the war in Syria .
This time the attack focused on smearing myself and Professor David Miller with the objective of discrediting an academic organization we established , the Organisation for Propaganda Studies ( OPS ) , designed to foster research and writing on propaganda .
The article contained multiple falsehoods and distortions and was similar in style to previous attacks aimed at character assassination mainly through employment of the ‘ conspiracy theorist ’ smear .
Most prominently the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Working Group on Syria , Propaganda and Media ( WGSPM ) , of which myself and Miller are also members , with the OPS .
Formal complaints from the OPS are in process and the Times has already been forced to issue a number of corrections .
Of course , character assassination as a propaganda tactic is widespread and there is even a Routledge academic handbook on the subject , the ‘ Routledge Handbook of Character Assassination and Reputation Management ’ , which was published in 2019 and contains 30 odd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been amplified by similar pieces written by Chris York for the Huffington Post .
In total , approximately 20 articles have been produced attacking those of us who are working on the war in Syria and questioning important aspects of UK propaganda operations .
The bulk of these articles have been written by just two journalists , Dominic Kennedy for the Times newspaper and Chris York for the Huffington Post .
This represents an extraordinarily intensive and sustained campaign against us .
Why on earth have we gotten into so much trouble @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instructive .
Attention first started to be paid by former Guardian journalist Brian Whitaker in February 2018 when he penned a series of crude hatchet pieces on his blog smearing academics associated with the then newly established WGSPM .
At that point Huffington Post journalist Chris York had already been attempting for several months to make contact with me , Professor Tim Hayward and journalist Vanessa Beeley .
But it was several weeks after Whitaker ’ s smears that the attacks started in earnest .
Following the now controversial alleged chemical weapon attack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ April 2018 , the US UK and France bombed Syrian government targets claiming Syria was responsible for the attack .
At the same moment these air attacks were underway , the Times of London published four articles which included one on the Front page , photographs of some of us from WGSPM and an editorial .
These articles smeared the academics as ‘ conspiracy theorists ’ for questioning official narratives regarding chemical weapon attacks in Syria , as ‘ Assadists ’ and also implied the existence of nefarious links with Russia .
Chris @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Times attack with multiple articles attacking us .
The articles followed a similar pattern to the Times ’ hatchet pieces involving allegations of ‘ conspiracism ’ , ‘ war crimes denial ’ , being pro Assad and pro Putin etc .
More than two years later , attack pieces are still being published .
The vast bulk of the output of WGSPM has concerned the issues of alleged chemical weapon attacks in Syria and , in particular , the Douma event .
The working group ’ s briefing notes documented serious anomalies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in particular , critically analysed both the OPCW investigations of these alleged attacks and also identified the involvement of UK-linked actors , including the late James Le Mesurier ( founder of the White Helmets ) and Hamish de Bretton-Gordon .
The evidence , as the working group briefing notes set out , is that the OPCW Douma investigation was manipulated in order to ensure the finger was pointed at Syrian government responsibility for the alleged chemical weapon attack .
In reality , the evidence did not demonstrate an attack had occurred and , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ having been staged .
Our findings have been presented at an event at the UK House of Commons and at the Harvard-Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons .
The WGSPM has not been alone in raising questions and a wide body of material now corroborates its work .
For example , even at the time of the Douma attack credible individuals voiced doubt about the likelihood of the Syrian government launching a chemical weapon attack in Douma just as its forces were on the brink of retaking the enclave .
For example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Admiral Lord West questioned the tactical logic of any such an attack and the latter raised the possibility the event was carried out by opposition groups .
Following the publication of the final OPCW report on Douma in March 2019 , an engineering report was leaked to WGSPM and which concluded that the chlorine gas cylinders had likely been manually placed at the alleged attack scenes rather than having been dropped from a Syrian air force helicopter .
This engineering report , it subsequently transpired , had been rejected by OPCW management @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 2019 the Courage Foundation hosted a panel at which a former OPCW official briefed a panel of trusted and authoritative individuals , including José Bustani the first Director General of the OPCW , about significant procedural and scientific flaws regarding chemistry , ballistics , toxicology and witness statements .
An open letter addressed to OPCW states parties from the Courage Foundation followed and was signed by eminent voices such as Professor Noam Chomsky , Hans von Sponeck ( former UN Assistant Secretary-General ) , GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun , former UNSCOM weapons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ producer Oliver Stone and John Pilger .
Since then , multiple documents have been published by Wikileaks evidencing irregularities with respect to the Douma FFM investigation whilst journalists such as Peter Hitchens ( Mail on Sunday ) , Stefania Maurizi ( formerly of La Repubblica ) and Robert Fisk ( The Independent ) have reported on the issue .
Peter Hitchens has been a particularly vociferous voice defending the reputations of two OPCW staff who have been subjected to a malicious internal investigation aimed at smearing their reputations .
In 2020 , further @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the United States including statements from further OPCW persons and , most recently , Aaron Maté published an article in the leading US current affairs magazine The Nation .
Finally , and by no means least , former OPCW inspector Ian Henderson addressed an Arria Formula meeting of the UN Security Council at which he detailed the irregularities and misconduct he had experienced with respect to the FFM Douma investigation .
In September 2020 , a second Arria Formula meeting was held at which OPCW Syia FFMs and the Douma investigation were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the former OPCW Inspector Ian Henderson .
And , this week at a UN Security Council meeting , a statement from OPCW First Director-General José Bustani was read out in which yet again raised concerns about the conduct of the OPCW Douma investigation .
To any casual observer it should be abundantly clear that the activities and output of the WGSPM is entirely legitimate .
Our work has been at the forefront of an issue that has been discussed by mainstream media journalist and has been corroborated by information from people within @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Times of London and the Huffington Post published approximately 20 articles ( including three Times leaders ) in 2 years targeting us ?
In general , the behaviour of both the Times and the Huffington Post is disturbing and suggestive of a deliberate campaign aimed at suppressing public debate regarding both the war in Syria and the involvement of the UK government in supporting activities aimed at the overthrow of the Syrian government .
UK involvement in the Syrian war has included direct support for opposition groups as well as potentially criminal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the staging of alleged chemical weapon attacks .
In the last few weeks , a large volume of FCO documents have been leaked which document a vast ‘ strategic communication ’ operation aimed at supporting the war against Syria .
According to Ben Norton from the Grayzone : In fact , there are some indications that the media attacks might be the direct result of deliberate media alignment with the UK government position on Syria and its well-established policy seeking to overthrow the existing Syrian government .
Specifically , two of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the academics , Dominic Kennedy and Deborah Haynes , are identified in leaked documents as being associated with the UK government-funded propaganda operation known as the Integrity Initiative .
The Integrity Initiative leaks provided powerful insights on how propaganda operations were being built around “ clusters ” of journalists .
Haynes has subsequently denied involvement with the article whilst Kennedy has repeatedly refused to answer questions regarding the relationship between his articles and the Integrity Initiative .
Most notably , Times columnist Oliver Kamm has stated in public that the late James Le @ @ @ @ @ @ @ newspaper to urge us to keep on their [ the academics ] case ’ .
Regarding Huffington Post , Chris York ’ s line manager , Jess Brammar , is a member of the Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee which works with the UK government on influencing and controlling media reporting of defence and security related issues .
Further information regarding the organizational details and scale of media-related activities aimed at suppressing criticism of UK Syria policy is still being investigated and information will be published in due course by WGSPM .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ as of yet , unclear whether the attacks are at the behest of those involved in UK government/FCO strategic communication operations related to Syria , it is certainly the case that they have a deleterious impact on open public debate and academic research .
People might reasonably expect mainstream media to uphold , defend and encourage research and debate , as opposed to smear honest academics who are simply doing their jobs .
Even more seriously , the available evidence indicates that the alleged attack in Douma involved the murder of captive civilians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely involve an extremely serious , and indeed horrific , war crime .
Those seeking to hinder those in pursuit of the truth run the risk of complicity , whether knowing or unknowingly , in a war crime and run legal jeopardy as a result .
A final note .
The late Julian Perry Robinson , one of the world ’ s leading experts on chemical and biological weapons , was in communication with the Working Group .
In an earlier era , Robinson played a key role challenging the false claim made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Laos and Cambodia were deploying toxins .
At the time of his death , he was completing a chronology regarding chemical weapons and the war in Syria .
Writing about the events surrounding alleged chemical weapon attacks in Syria and the vicious attacks against WGSPM , he noted that : It was Julian Perry Robinson who subsequently invited WGSPM member Professor Paul McKeigue to present at the Harvard-Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons roundtable meeting in March 2020 .
If a figure of such standing and brilliance wished for his colleagues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this leave the Times and the Huffington Post who have so relentlessly sought to silence us through character assassination and smears ?
Not , I would suggest , in a very good place .
Dr Piers Robinson is a director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies and convenor of the Working Group on Syria , Propaganda and Media .
He writes here in a personal capacity .

Dr Piers Robinson
On Saturday 13 June 2020 the Times newspaper published its third attack on academics associated with researching British government propaganda and the war in Syria. This time the attack focused on smearing myself and Professor David Miller with the objective of discrediting an academic organization we established, the Organisation for Propaganda Studies (OPS), designed to foster research and writing on propaganda.
The article contained multiple falsehoods and distortions and was similar in style to previous attacks aimed at character assassination mainly through employment of the ‘conspiracy theorist’ smear. Most prominently the hatchet pieces misleadingly conflated work by members of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (WGSPM), of which myself and Miller are also members, with the OPS. Formal complaints from the OPS are in process and the Times has already been forced to issue a number of corrections.
Of course, character assassination as a propaganda tactic is widespread and there is even a Routledge academic handbook on the subject, the ‘Routledge Handbook of Character Assassination and Reputation Management’, which was published in 2019 and contains 30 odd chapters. The attacks by the Times have been amplified by similar pieces written by Chris York for the Huffington Post.
In total, approximately 20 articles have been produced attacking those of us who are working on the war in Syria and questioning important aspects of UK propaganda operations. The bulk of these articles have been written by just two journalists, Dominic Kennedy for the Times newspaper and Chris York for the Huffington Post. This represents an extraordinarily intensive and sustained campaign against us.
Why on earth have we gotten into so much trouble?
A history of the attacks is instructive. Attention first started to be paid by former Guardian journalist Brian Whitaker in February 2018 when he penned a series of crude hatchet pieces on his blog smearing academics associated with the then newly established WGSPM. At that point Huffington Post journalist Chris York had already been attempting for several months to make contact with me, Professor Tim Hayward and journalist Vanessa Beeley.
But it was several weeks after Whitaker’s smears that the attacks started in earnest. Following the now controversial alleged chemical weapon attack in Douma, Syria, on 7th April 2018, the US UK and France bombed Syrian government targets claiming Syria was responsible for the attack. At the same moment these air attacks were underway, the Times of London published four articles which included one on the Front page, photographs of some of us from WGSPM and an editorial.
These articles smeared the academics as ‘conspiracy theorists’ for questioning official narratives regarding chemical weapon attacks in Syria, as ‘Assadists’ and also implied the existence of nefarious links with Russia. Chris York of the Huffington Post then followed the Times attack with multiple articles attacking us. The articles followed a similar pattern to the Times’ hatchet pieces involving allegations of ‘conspiracism’, ‘war crimes denial’, being pro Assad and pro Putin etc. More than two years later, attack pieces are still being published.
The vast bulk of the output of WGSPM has concerned the issues of alleged chemical weapon attacks in Syria and, in particular, the Douma event. The working group’s briefing notes documented serious anomalies and issues regarding these attacks and, in particular, critically analysed both the OPCW investigations of these alleged attacks and also identified the involvement of UK-linked actors, including the late James Le Mesurier (founder of the White Helmets) and Hamish de Bretton-Gordon.
The evidence, as the working group briefing notes set out, is that the OPCW Douma investigation was manipulated in order to ensure the finger was pointed at Syrian government responsibility for the alleged chemical weapon attack. In reality, the evidence did not demonstrate an attack had occurred and, in fact, pointed toward the attack having been staged.
Our findings have been presented at an event at the UK House of Commons and at the Harvard-Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons.
The WGSPM has not been alone in raising questions and a wide body of material now corroborates its work. For example, even at the time of the Douma attack credible individuals voiced doubt about the likelihood of the Syrian government launching a chemical weapon attack in Douma just as its forces were on the brink of retaking the enclave.
For example, both retired Major General Jonathan Shaw and Admiral Lord West questioned the tactical logic of any such an attack and the latter raised the possibility the event was carried out by opposition groups.
Following the publication of the final OPCW report on Douma in March 2019, an engineering report was leaked to WGSPM and which concluded that the chlorine gas cylinders had likely been manually placed at the alleged attack scenes rather than having been dropped from a Syrian air force helicopter. This engineering report, it subsequently transpired, had been rejected by OPCW management on spurious grounds.
During the Autumn of 2019 the Courage Foundation hosted a panel at which a former OPCW official briefed a panel of trusted and authoritative individuals, including José Bustani the first Director General of the OPCW, about significant procedural and scientific flaws regarding chemistry, ballistics, toxicology and witness statements.
An open letter addressed to OPCW states parties from the Courage Foundation followed and was signed by eminent voices such as Professor Noam Chomsky, Hans von Sponeck (former UN Assistant Secretary-General), GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun, former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter, film director and producer Oliver Stone and John Pilger.
Since then, multiple documents have been published by Wikileaks evidencing irregularities with respect to the Douma FFM investigation whilst journalists such as Peter Hitchens (Mail on Sunday), Stefania Maurizi (formerly of La Repubblica) and Robert Fisk (The Independent) have reported on the issue.
Peter Hitchens has been a particularly vociferous voice defending the reputations of two OPCW staff who have been subjected to a malicious internal investigation aimed at smearing their reputations. In 2020, further leaks have been published by The Grayzone in the United States including statements from further OPCW persons and, most recently, Aaron Maté published an article in the leading US current affairs magazine The Nation.
Finally, and by no means least, former OPCW inspector Ian Henderson addressed an Arria Formula meeting of the UN Security Council at which he detailed the irregularities and misconduct he had experienced with respect to the FFM Douma investigation. In September 2020, a second Arria Formula meeting was held at which OPCW Syia FFMs and the Douma investigation were again debated and which included, again, the former OPCW Inspector Ian Henderson. And, this week at a UN Security Council meeting, a statement from OPCW First Director-General José Bustani was read out in which yet again raised concerns about the conduct of the OPCW Douma investigation.
To any casual observer it should be abundantly clear that the activities and output of the WGSPM is entirely legitimate. Our work has been at the forefront of an issue that has been discussed by mainstream media journalist and has been corroborated by information from people within the OPCW itself.
Why then has the Times of London and the Huffington Post published approximately 20 articles (including three Times leaders) in 2 years targeting us?
In general, the behaviour of both the Times and the Huffington Post is disturbing and suggestive of a deliberate campaign aimed at suppressing public debate regarding both the war in Syria and the involvement of the UK government in supporting activities aimed at the overthrow of the Syrian government.
UK involvement in the Syrian war has included direct support for opposition groups as well as potentially criminal activity relating to the OPCW and connection with the staging of alleged chemical weapon attacks.
In the last few weeks, a large volume of FCO documents have been leaked which document a vast ‘strategic communication’ operation aimed at supporting the war against Syria. According to Ben Norton from the Grayzone:
[V]irtually every major Western corporate media outlet was influenced by the UK government-funded disinformation campaign exposed in the trove of leaked documents, from the New York Times to the Washington Post, CNN to The Guardian, the BBC to Buzzfeed.
In fact, there are some indications that the media attacks might be the direct result of deliberate media alignment with the UK government position on Syria and its well-established policy seeking to overthrow the existing Syrian government. Specifically, two of the authors of the original Times attack on the academics, Dominic Kennedy and Deborah Haynes, are identified in leaked documents as being associated with the UK government-funded propaganda operation known as the Integrity Initiative.
The Integrity Initiative leaks provided powerful insights on how propaganda operations were being built around “clusters” of journalists. Haynes has subsequently denied involvement with the article whilst Kennedy has repeatedly refused to answer questions regarding the relationship between his articles and the Integrity Initiative.
Most notably, Times columnist Oliver Kamm has stated in public that the late James Le Mesurier ‘had reached out to this newspaper to urge us to keep on their [the academics] case’.
Regarding Huffington Post, Chris York’s line manager, Jess Brammar, is a member of the Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee which works with the UK government on influencing and controlling media reporting of defence and security related issues. Further information regarding the organizational details and scale of media-related activities aimed at suppressing criticism of UK Syria policy is still being investigated and information will be published in due course by WGSPM.
However, even if it is, as of yet, unclear whether the attacks are at the behest of those involved in UK government/FCO strategic communication operations related to Syria, it is certainly the case that they have a deleterious impact on open public debate and academic research. People might reasonably expect mainstream media to uphold, defend and encourage research and debate, as opposed to smear honest academics who are simply doing their jobs.
Even more seriously, the available evidence indicates that the alleged attack in Douma involved the murder of captive civilians. That means the event surrounding Douma likely involve an extremely serious, and indeed horrific, war crime. Those seeking to hinder those in pursuit of the truth run the risk of complicity, whether knowing or unknowingly, in a war crime and run legal jeopardy as a result.
A final note. The late Julian Perry Robinson, one of the world’s leading experts on chemical and biological weapons, was in communication with the Working Group. In an earlier era, Robinson played a key role challenging the false claim made by the US government that Soviet-backed forces in Laos and Cambodia were deploying toxins.
At the time of his death, he was completing a chronology regarding chemical weapons and the war in Syria. Writing about the events surrounding alleged chemical weapon attacks in Syria and the vicious attacks against WGSPM, he noted that:
It is not immediately clear from their pronouncements that the critics of the WGSPM just quoted have in fact adequately studied the Group’s publications. They certainly seem not to have done their reading with the care that might have been expected ahead of such vicious denigrations. So is the Group simply becoming a victim of the fake news and other acts of information warfare it has itself been seeking to counter? Is the WGSPM being maliciously targeted by enemies that its principled research and outreach seem to have created? Part 8: The Chemical Warfare Reported From Syria: a documented chronology detailing reports of events in Syria since 1982 said to have involved use of chemical weapons, by Julian Perry Robinson
It was Julian Perry Robinson who subsequently invited WGSPM member Professor Paul McKeigue to present at the Harvard-Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons roundtable meeting in March 2020.
If a figure of such standing and brilliance wished for his colleagues to hear our analysis, where does this leave the Times and the Huffington Post who have so relentlessly sought to silence us through character assassination and smears?
Not, I would suggest, in a very good place.
Dr Piers Robinson is a director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies and convenor of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media. He writes here in a personal capacity.


offguardian--2020-10-07--Petition to Support Mark Crispin Miller and Academic Freedom

If you believe in academic freedom , as well as free speech overall , please consider signing this petition , and sharing it with others who believe that higher education must be free from censorship of any kind , whether by the state , corporations , foreign interests , pressure groups , or by the university itself .
A full professor in NYU ’ s Department of Media , Culture and Communication ( since 1997 ) , and a recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller , Guggenheim and Ingram Merrill Foundations , Prof. Miller teaches a course on propaganda , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ modern propaganda , but — necessarily — on propaganda drives ongoing at the time .
The aim is to teach students to identify such drives for what they are , think carefully about their claims , seek out whatever data and/or arguments have been blacked out or misreported to protect those claims from contradiction , and look into the interests financing and managing the propaganda , so as to figure out its purpose .
On Sept. 20 , after a class discussion of the case for universal masking as defense against transmission of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not participate ) , a student took to Twitter to express her fury that Prof. Miller had brought up the randomized , controlled tests—all of those so far conducted on the subject—finding that masks and ventilators are ineffective at preventing such transmission , because the COVID-19 virions are too small for such expedients to block them .
Prof. Miller urged the students to read those studies , as well as others that purport to show the opposite , with due attention to the scientific reviews thereof , and possible financial links between the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Big Pharma and the Gates Foundation .
Prof. Miller followed up by providing the links to the former studies ( not easily found on Google , though they have all appeared in reputable medical journals ) , and other materials , including a video of a debate on the subject .
The student was so outraged by Prof. Miller even mentioning those studies that she called on NYU to fire him : Having contacted NYU ’ s bias response line to report him , and getting no satisfaction there , the student @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Miller ’ s termination , due to his “ unhealthy amount of skepticism around health professionals , ” and a range of other posts that she had seen on News from Underground , Prof. Miller ’ s website , and found no less insidious , misreporting that their sources were “ many far right and conspiracy websites , ” and therefore , evidently , not worth reading .
The student ’ s call provoked a storm of tweets , many attacking her , and others thanking her—one of which was posted by Prof. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to act on her demand : Soon after this pledge of institutional support , the dean of NYU ’ s Steinhardt School ( in which Prof. Miller teaches ) , together with a doctor who advises them on COVID-19 policy , emailed each of Prof. Miller ’ s students ( without putting him on copy ) , starting with a ritual nod to “ academic freedom , ” then hinting that the studies noted in that class were dangerous misinformation .
To set them straight , the two advised the students to consult @ @ @ @ @ @ @ list of several recent studies finding that masks are effective against COVID-19 .
Thus that student ’ s tweets immediately prompted NYU to take her side , and several media outlets to attack Prof. Miller for his dissidence , without interviewing him .
The following week , NYU followed up by urging him to cancel his propaganda course next term , and , instead , teach two sections of his course on cinema .
Their rationale was that it would be “ better for the department , ” because enrollment in the latter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so are the enrollments for Prof. Miller ’ s propaganda course , which has earned the highest praises from its students .
For testimonials from Prof. Miller ’ s students click here .
Below is the text change.org petition , you can sign it here .
We the undersigned support the academic freedom of Prof. Mark Crispin Miller , now under siege at New York University for urging students in his propaganda course to read scientific literature on the effectiveness of masks against transmission of COVID-19 .
We see his situation as but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward rigid censorship of expert views on urgent subjects of all kinds ; so this petition is not just in his defense , but a protest on behalf of all professors , doctors , scientists and journalists who have been gagged , or punished for their rights to freely research , study , and interpret data on a variety of matters regardless of their controversial nature .
Censorship is nothing new .
We have been edging toward it ever more for decades , as both academia and the media have long discouraged free @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of all kinds , as those who would attempt to tackle them empirically have been slandered as “ conspiracy theorists ” or “ truthers ” and other slurs deployed to shut them up , or purge them as purveyors of “ misinformation , ” “ fake science ” or “ hate speech.
” Such censorship has blocked the sort of open , civil , reasoned give-and-take without which higher education—indeed , any education—is impossible , as is scientific progress overall .
We see Prof. Miller ’ s situation as a flashpoint in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protect free speech and free inquiry .
NYU officials have no right to intervene in Prof. Miller ’ s courses or message his students surreptitiously undermining his integrity as an instructor .
They have no right to deprive him of the courses he was hired to teach and they should not join in a public smear campaign against the very rights they should uphold at a university .
That so stated , we urge that NYU respect his academic freedom , and thereby set a good example for all other schools with faculty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ education ” there will be mere training for compliance , stunting students ’ minds instead of opening them—a practice fatal to democracy , and , finally , to humanity itself .

If you believe in academic freedom, as well as free speech overall, please consider signing this petition, and sharing it with others who believe that higher education must be free from censorship of any kind, whether by the state, corporations, foreign interests, pressure groups, or by the university itself.
A full professor in NYU’s Department of Media, Culture and Communication (since 1997), and a recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Ingram Merrill Foundations, Prof. Miller teaches a course on propaganda, focusing not only on the history of modern propaganda, but — necessarily — on propaganda drives ongoing at the time.
The aim is to teach students to identify such drives for what they are, think carefully about their claims, seek out whatever data and/or arguments have been blacked out or misreported to protect those claims from contradiction, and look into the interests financing and managing the propaganda, so as to figure out its purpose.
On Sept. 20, after a class discussion of the case for universal masking as defense against transmission of SARS-COV-2 (in which discussion she did not participate), a student took to Twitter to express her fury that Prof. Miller had brought up the randomized, controlled tests—all of those so far conducted on the subject—finding that masks and ventilators are ineffective at preventing such transmission, because the COVID-19 virions are too small for such expedients to block them.
Prof. Miller urged the students to read those studies, as well as others that purport to show the opposite, with due attention to the scientific reviews thereof, and possible financial links between the researchers conducting them, and such interests as Big Pharma and the Gates Foundation. Prof. Miller followed up by providing the links to the former studies (not easily found on Google, though they have all appeared in reputable medical journals), and other materials, including a video of a debate on the subject.
The student was so outraged by Prof. Miller even mentioning those studies that she called on NYU to fire him:
I hope @nyuniversity, @nyusteinhardt, and @mccNYU agree that this professor should not be trusted with educating and advising students, and I hope they take immediate steps to relieve him of these duties. 8/ — Julia Jackson (@julia_jacks) September 21, 2020
Having contacted NYU’s bias response line to report him, and getting no satisfaction there, the student kept on tweeting her demand for Prof. Miller’s termination, due to his “unhealthy amount of skepticism around health professionals,” and a range of other posts that she had seen on News from Underground, Prof. Miller’s website, and found no less insidious, misreporting that their sources were “many far right and conspiracy websites,” and therefore, evidently, not worth reading.
The student’s call provoked a storm of tweets, many attacking her, and others thanking her—one of which was posted by Prof. Miller’s department chair, promising to act on her demand:
Julia, thank you for reporting this issue. We as a department have made this a priority and are discussing next steps.”
Soon after this pledge of institutional support, the dean of NYU’s Steinhardt School (in which Prof. Miller teaches), together with a doctor who advises them on COVID-19 policy, emailed each of Prof. Miller’s students (without putting him on copy), starting with a ritual nod to “academic freedom,” then hinting that the studies noted in that class were dangerous misinformation. To set them straight, the two advised the students to consult the “authoritative” CDC—specifically, its list of several recent studies finding that masks are effective against COVID-19.
(That the CDC itself, as well as Dr. Fauci, had, until April, publicly adhered to the consensus of those “dangerous” studies went unmentioned.) The two concluded with a stern reminder that the students are obliged to mask on campus (although Prof. Miller had made quite clear that he was not suggesting that they break NYU’s rule, which he observes himself.)
Thus that student’s tweets immediately prompted NYU to take her side, and several media outlets to attack Prof. Miller for his dissidence, without interviewing him. The following week, NYU followed up by urging him to cancel his propaganda course next term, and, instead, teach two sections of his course on cinema. Their rationale was that it would be “better for the department,” because enrollment in the latter course is always high; but then so are the enrollments for Prof. Miller’s propaganda course, which has earned the highest praises from its students.
For testimonials from Prof. Miller’s students click here.
Below is the text change.org petition, you can sign it here.
We the undersigned support the academic freedom of Prof. Mark Crispin Miller, now under siege at New York University for urging students in his propaganda course to read scientific literature on the effectiveness of masks against transmission of COVID-19. We see his situation as but one example of a growing global trend toward rigid censorship of expert views on urgent subjects of all kinds; so this petition is not just in his defense, but a protest on behalf of all professors, doctors, scientists and journalists who have been gagged, or punished for their rights to freely research, study, and interpret data on a variety of matters regardless of their controversial nature. Censorship is nothing new. We have been edging toward it ever more for decades, as both academia and the media have long discouraged free investigation and discussion of urgent public questions of all kinds, as those who would attempt to tackle them empirically have been slandered as “conspiracy theorists” or “truthers” and other slurs deployed to shut them up, or purge them as purveyors of “misinformation,” “fake science” or “hate speech.” Such censorship has blocked the sort of open, civil, reasoned give-and-take without which higher education—indeed, any education—is impossible, as is scientific progress overall. We see Prof. Miller’s situation as a flashpoint in the struggle not just to reclaim but to protect free speech and free inquiry. NYU officials have no right to intervene in Prof. Miller’s courses or message his students surreptitiously undermining his integrity as an instructor. They have no right to deprive him of the courses he was hired to teach and they should not join in a public smear campaign against the very rights they should uphold at a university. That so stated, we urge that NYU respect his academic freedom, and thereby set a good example for all other schools with faculty who dare contest official narratives. Otherwise, “education” there will be mere training for compliance, stunting students’ minds instead of opening them—a practice fatal to democracy, and, finally, to humanity itself.


offguardian--2020-10-08--GM Cotton in India is a template for ‘monumental irreversible catastrophe’

Cotton is the only genetically modified ( GM ) crop that has been officially approved in India and has been cultivated ( illegally then legally ) in the country for more than 20 years .
Although GM mustard has been approved for commercial cultivation by India ’ s apex regulatory body for GM crops ( the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee , GEAC ) , a public interest litigation led by Aruna Rodrigues is before the Supreme Court challenging that decision and commercialisation of the crop is on hold .
The push to drive GM food crops into India has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ February 2010 , the government placed an indefinite moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal after numerous independent scientific experts from India and abroad had pointed out safety concerns .
Minister Jairam Ramesh therefore rejected the commercialisation of Bt brinjal .
He imposed a moratorium on its release till such time independent scientific studies establish the safety of the product from the point of view of its long-term impact on human health and the environment , including the rich genetic wealth existing in brinjal in India .
The moratorium has not been lifted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still not been met .
Regulatory processes have been shown to lack competency , possess endemic conflicts of interest and demonstrate a lack of expertise in GMO risk assessment protocols , including food safety assessment and the assessment of environmental impacts .
Not to be deterred by any of this , the GEAC is now facilitating final-stage trials of a new Bt brinjal ( event 142 ) .
It also seems dismissive of the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee ( TEC ) Final Report in 2013 which was scathing about the prevailing regulatory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ result , the TEC recommended a 10-year moratorium on the commercial release of all GM crops .
Immediately after the 2010 moratorium was announced , the GEAC carried on regardless and went straight ahead and sanctioned fresh trials for the new Bt brinjal .
It appears that developers-cum-lobbyists were actually sitting on regulatory bodies as event 142 was proceeding , granting biosafety clearance and claiming all tests are complete , despite data being kept out of the public domain .
Colin Todhunter : The government has asserted that hybrid insecticidal Bt cotton in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ argues that it is a template for the introduction of GM food crops .
Aruna Rodrigues : The metric used to pronounce the grand success of hybrid Bt cotton is adoption/total production data as opposed to the real measure of performance , which is yield expressed as kg lint/ha and for the farmer , total net income/ha .
The error is so basic that it is embarrassing that supposedly leading public sector scientists can err in such manner .
But this is deliberate because the official agenda to promote GMOs is being openly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to back a decision of such profound importance and irreversible ramifications .
They want to use hybrid Bt cotton as the model to introduce other Bt crops , principally food crops .
And indeed , thousands of field trials of Bt crops have never been stopped , not even when the central government overturned the commercial approval of Bt brinjal a decade ago and imposed an indefinite moratorium .
CT : Renowned international experts have argued that we now have definitive evidence of the failure of Bt cotton in India , not least @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use that is back to pre-Bt era levels , increasing pest resistance and rising input costs .
AR : The scientific evaluation of Bt cotton is the work of eminent scientists : Prof Dr Andrew Gutierrez , with Dr Hans Herren ( World Food Prize Laureate ) , Dr Peter Kenmore ( former head of FAO Plant Protection ) and Dr Keshav Kranthi ( former Director of the Central Institute of Cotton Research , India ’ s apex cotton institute ) .
Together , they have nailed the data and analyses of hybrid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its definitive failure .
( See ‘ International scientists highlight failure of GM Bt cotton in India ’ on GMWatch.org and ‘ International Webinar on Bt Cotton in India : Myths & Realities ’ on YouTube ) The use of hybrids has played an important role in the failure of hybrid Bt cotton , the development of the yield plateau in India , high production costs and low productivity .
The data show that suicides increase with economic distress , ( Gutierrez et al ; ‘ Bioeconomics of hybrid Bt cotton and suicides @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Environmental Sciences Europe ) – low yield , rising costs and low net income .
The low yield is related to inappropriate hybrid Bt varieties and low planting densities and falling net revenues due to stagnant yield , unstable cotton prices and escalating costs of production .
Also entering this equation are insecticide-induced pests and insecticide resistance , increasing resistance in pink bollworms to Bt toxins and the vagaries of weather on hybrids .
American bollworm resistance is also increasing .
By 2013 , pre-Bt era of 2002 levels of insecticide use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that reducing insecticide use was the raison d ’ etre for the Bt technology ; it has no trait for yield .
Most hybrid cottons are long season of 180-200 day duration that increases the opportunities for pest resurgence and outbreaks .
Additionally , hybrids require stable water and more fertiliser .
In 13 years , the cost of cultivation increased 302 % .
In 15 years , there was a 450 % increase in labour costs .
Costs of hybrid seed , insecticide and fertiliser increased more than 250 to 300 % @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 5971/ha in 2003 ( pre-Bt ) but plummeted to net losses of Rs .
6286 in 2015 ( Kranthi : Cost of cultivation ) .
CT : How does the performance of Bt cotton in India compare with elsewhere ?
AR : Hybrid Bt cotton was designed to increase yield and quality , but India ’ s global rank is 36 in terms of yield out of the 75 cotton growing countries .
This ranking leaves India behind at least 21 major producing countries , including many in Africa , which do not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pollinated varieties .
The top eight producers use high density plantings of appropriate varieties that are approximately six-fold higher than commonly used in India .
Herein lies the solution for India in the potential of high-density short-season cotton .
CT : The use of long-season hybrids in India seems unique .
You and others have argued that the only reason to combine GM technology with hybrids was to serve as a value capture mechanism : for the seed companies to extract profit at the expense of farmers because in India international property rights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they are in the West through signed contracts .
But there have been other implications .
Can you say something about these hybrids ?
AR : The use of hybrid cotton is unique to India , being sold as a value-capture mechanism to enable seed companies to safeguard their profit and side-step intellectual property rights concerns .
The hybrid technology disallows seed saving by millions of small farmers who can not be controlled by threats of lawsuits .
There is no other reason why hybrid technology was used ; but it added significantly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Non-hybrid cotton varieties in other cotton growing countries are grown at densities of more than 100,000 plants per hectare , which is at least five times higher than India ’ s national average density of 18,500 plants per hectare .
Scientific trials conducted with non-Bt varieties in all the cotton growing states of India and in more than 6,894 demonstrations in farmer fields by government agencies during 2012 to 2016 unequivocally show that high density planting results in higher yields compared to the most popular high priced Bt cotton hybrids .
Furthermore , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consistently high yields above the national average of Bt cotton hybrids .
The high price of hybrid Bt seed engenders low planting densities in India that contributes greatly to low yields .
High-density short-season planting of non-GM straight line varieties of desi cotton and American cotton species that interrupt the lifecycle of the pink bollworm is required .
This simple insight has important implications and provides the basis for a proven solution against pests .
CT : Bt is a toxin encoding gene .
And yet the proposal is to incorporate it in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ across all sections of Indian society .
Can you say a little about Bt toxicity and the implications for brinjal ?
AR : The question of the toxicity of Bt proteins is circumvented by the regulators accepting a discredited version of cry toxicity based on a Monsanto myth that Bt toxins are only toxic to alkaline gut systems of insects , not the acidic stomachs of mammals .
There is plenty of proof that Bt proteins are indeed toxic to both humans and animals ( Schubert letter of Nov 2009 to Minister Jairam @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scientific review of Bt brinjal ) .
Failed Bt cotton is indeed the model for hybrid Bt brinjal and for monumental catastrophe .
CT : Bt brinjal has been sanctioned for final-stage field trials .
If , in 2010 , Hybrid Bt brinjal was deemed unsuitable for India , given that these trials are going ahead , what if anything has changed ?
AR : Nothing has changed .
The Bt gene is still a Bt gene and it is a toxin .
It is worth reading an excerpt from the letter Prof @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2009 : We now have the immeasurable advantage of the definitive assessment of the failure of hybrid Bt cotton across all relevant measures .
We must use this knowledge to the benefit of our nation and Indian agriculture .
Bt Brinjal Event 142 is also planned in hybrids that will increase seed costs and prevent seed saving .
One thing is crystal clear and it is worth repeating for warning and emphasis : hybrid Bt cotton is a negative model for hybrid Bt brinjal ; for a monumental irreversible catastrophe .
Virtually no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Bt brinjal more than 10 years ago .
It stands as the only test case where the raw data was subsequently assessed by several eminent international scientists .
They found a virtual vacuum .
None of this engenders confidence in the regulators as responsible or trustworthy .
Furthermore , GMO contamination in what is a centre of diversity is of paramount importance .
Our regulators have an uncanny ability to focus on two crops ( mustard and brinjal ) of great genetic diversity .
There are about 9,000 accessions of mustard in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ centre of origin/diversity of brinjal with the richest germplasm in the world .
I only have questions of our regulators because the things they do are fundamentally in error .
And the list is endless .
They also want to open up Indian agriculture to the second front of GM technology , herbicide tolerant crops , when chemicals ( e.g.
, glyphosate ) are documented to pose serious environmental and health risks .
The only option is to stop all environmental release of GMOs , because we are at serious risk from our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ petitioners ’ stance in the Supreme Court .
Four official reports support the petitioners and two of them belong to the Parliamentary process in India of Parliamentary Standing Committees ( PSCs ) , which are appointed across party lines .
Both PSCs were unanimous that Indian regulation is seriously awry , both for a lack of expertise and an endemic conflict of interest .
Both PSCs recommended a moratorium on GMOs .
CT : Given the vast genetic diversity of mustard and brinjal in India , developed over millennia , it is clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ established for these ( or any other ) GM crops .
Why is the government pushing so hard for GMOs ?
AR : We don ’ t have independent regulation in India , not just in the sense of the regulators themselves , but also attendant ministries and institutions are rife with conflicts of interest .
They promote GMOs .
The glaring example is the regulatory body called the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation of the Department of Biotechnology , in the Ministry of Science and Technology ( DBT ) .
In this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ development and also promotes it .
The GEAC has historically had a serious conflict of interest with the line between the regulators and the regulated difficult to distinguish and partly explains why the government is pushing GMOs so hard .

Colin Todhunter
Cotton is the only genetically modified (GM) crop that has been officially approved in India and has been cultivated (illegally then legally) in the country for more than 20 years. Although GM mustard has been approved for commercial cultivation by India’s apex regulatory body for GM crops (the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, GEAC), a public interest litigation led by Aruna Rodrigues is before the Supreme Court challenging that decision and commercialisation of the crop is on hold.
The push to drive GM food crops into India has been happening for many years. Back in February 2010, the government placed an indefinite moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal after numerous independent scientific experts from India and abroad had pointed out safety concerns.
Minister Jairam Ramesh therefore rejected the commercialisation of Bt brinjal. He imposed a moratorium on its release till such time independent scientific studies establish the safety of the product from the point of view of its long-term impact on human health and the environment, including the rich genetic wealth existing in brinjal in India.
The moratorium has not been lifted and the conditions Ramesh set out have still not been met. Regulatory processes have been shown to lack competency, possess endemic conflicts of interest and demonstrate a lack of expertise in GMO risk assessment protocols, including food safety assessment and the assessment of environmental impacts.
Not to be deterred by any of this, the GEAC is now facilitating final-stage trials of a new Bt brinjal (event 142). It also seems dismissive of the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) Final Report in 2013 which was scathing about the prevailing regulatory system for GM crops. As a result, the TEC recommended a 10-year moratorium on the commercial release of all GM crops.
Immediately after the 2010 moratorium was announced, the GEAC carried on regardless and went straight ahead and sanctioned fresh trials for the new Bt brinjal. It appears that developers-cum-lobbyists were actually sitting on regulatory bodies as event 142 was proceeding, granting biosafety clearance and claiming all tests are complete, despite data being kept out of the public domain.
I recently contacted Aruna Rodrigues to discuss the current situation.
*
Colin Todhunter: The government has asserted that hybrid insecticidal Bt cotton in India has been an outstanding success and argues that it is a template for the introduction of GM food crops.
Aruna Rodrigues: The metric used to pronounce the grand success of hybrid Bt cotton is adoption/total production data as opposed to the real measure of performance, which is yield expressed as kg lint/ha and for the farmer, total net income/ha. The error is so basic that it is embarrassing that supposedly leading public sector scientists can err in such manner. But this is deliberate because the official agenda to promote GMOs is being openly espoused without any factual data or science to back a decision of such profound importance and irreversible ramifications.
They want to use hybrid Bt cotton as the model to introduce other Bt crops, principally food crops. And indeed, thousands of field trials of Bt crops have never been stopped, not even when the central government overturned the commercial approval of Bt brinjal a decade ago and imposed an indefinite moratorium.
CT: Renowned international experts have argued that we now have definitive evidence of the failure of Bt cotton in India, not least in terms of stagnant yields, pesticide use that is back to pre-Bt era levels, increasing pest resistance and rising input costs.
AR: The scientific evaluation of Bt cotton is the work of eminent scientists: Prof Dr Andrew Gutierrez, with Dr Hans Herren (World Food Prize Laureate), Dr Peter Kenmore (former head of FAO Plant Protection) and Dr Keshav Kranthi (former Director of the Central Institute of Cotton Research, India’s apex cotton institute). Together, they have nailed the data and analyses of hybrid Bt cotton to provide conclusive proof of its definitive failure. (See ‘International scientists highlight failure of GM Bt cotton in India’ on GMWatch.org and ‘International Webinar on Bt Cotton in India: Myths & Realities’ on YouTube)
The use of hybrids has played an important role in the failure of hybrid Bt cotton, the development of the yield plateau in India, high production costs and low productivity. The data show that suicides increase with economic distress, (Gutierrez et al; ‘Bioeconomics of hybrid Bt cotton and suicides’ in the process of being published by Environmental Sciences Europe) – low yield, rising costs and low net income. The low yield is related to inappropriate hybrid Bt varieties and low planting densities and falling net revenues due to stagnant yield, unstable cotton prices and escalating costs of production.
Also entering this equation are insecticide-induced pests and insecticide resistance, increasing resistance in pink bollworms to Bt toxins and the vagaries of weather on hybrids. American bollworm resistance is also increasing. By 2013, pre-Bt era of 2002 levels of insecticide use were surpassed. It should be noted that reducing insecticide use was the raison d’etre for the Bt technology; it has no trait for yield.
Most hybrid cottons are long season of 180-200 day duration that increases the opportunities for pest resurgence and outbreaks. Additionally, hybrids require stable water and more fertiliser.
In 13 years, the cost of cultivation increased 302%. In 15 years, there was a 450% increase in labour costs. Costs of hybrid seed, insecticide and fertiliser increased more than 250 to 300%. And net profit was Rs. 5971/ha in 2003 (pre-Bt) but plummeted to net losses of Rs. 6286 in 2015 (Kranthi: Cost of cultivation).
CT: How does the performance of Bt cotton in India compare with elsewhere?
AR: Hybrid Bt cotton was designed to increase yield and quality, but India’s global rank is 36 in terms of yield out of the 75 cotton growing countries. This ranking leaves India behind at least 21 major producing countries, including many in Africa, which do not employ GM cotton and cultivate only open pollinated varieties. The top eight producers use high density plantings of appropriate varieties that are approximately six-fold higher than commonly used in India. Herein lies the solution for India in the potential of high-density short-season cotton.
CT: The use of long-season hybrids in India seems unique. You and others have argued that the only reason to combine GM technology with hybrids was to serve as a value capture mechanism: for the seed companies to extract profit at the expense of farmers because in India international property rights on seeds cannot be enforced like they are in the West through signed contracts. But there have been other implications. Can you say something about these hybrids?
AR: The use of hybrid cotton is unique to India, being sold as a value-capture mechanism to enable seed companies to safeguard their profit and side-step intellectual property rights concerns. The hybrid technology disallows seed saving by millions of small farmers who cannot be controlled by threats of lawsuits. There is no other reason why hybrid technology was used; but it added significantly to the failure of Bt cotton.
Non-hybrid cotton varieties in other cotton growing countries are grown at densities of more than 100,000 plants per hectare, which is at least five times higher than India’s national average density of 18,500 plants per hectare.
Scientific trials conducted with non-Bt varieties in all the cotton growing states of India and in more than 6,894 demonstrations in farmer fields by government agencies during 2012 to 2016 unequivocally show that high density planting results in higher yields compared to the most popular high priced Bt cotton hybrids.
Furthermore, long staple desi cotton varieties also give consistently high yields above the national average of Bt cotton hybrids. The high price of hybrid Bt seed engenders low planting densities in India that contributes greatly to low yields.
High-density short-season planting of non-GM straight line varieties of desi cotton and American cotton species that interrupt the lifecycle of the pink bollworm is required. This simple insight has important implications and provides the basis for a proven solution against pests.
CT: Bt is a toxin encoding gene. And yet the proposal is to incorporate it in brinjal, a vegetable that is eaten across all sections of Indian society. Can you say a little about Bt toxicity and the implications for brinjal?
AR: The question of the toxicity of Bt proteins is circumvented by the regulators accepting a discredited version of cry toxicity based on a Monsanto myth that Bt toxins are only toxic to alkaline gut systems of insects, not the acidic stomachs of mammals. There is plenty of proof that Bt proteins are indeed toxic to both humans and animals (Schubert letter of Nov 2009 to Minister Jairam Ramesh, when he called for a scientific review of Bt brinjal). Failed Bt cotton is indeed the model for hybrid Bt brinjal and for monumental catastrophe.
CT: Bt brinjal has been sanctioned for final-stage field trials. If, in 2010, Hybrid Bt brinjal was deemed unsuitable for India, given that these trials are going ahead, what if anything has changed?
AR: Nothing has changed. The Bt gene is still a Bt gene and it is a toxin. It is worth reading an excerpt from the letter Prof David Schubert wrote to Jairam Ramesh in 2009:
It is virtually certain that within the vast Indian population a large number of people eating Bt brinjal are going to be or will become allergic to this foreign protein; this number cannot be predicted and some of the immune responses will likely be severe, causing anaphylaxis and possibly fatalities. Since there will be no way of tracking these adverse reactions within the population, and since once Bt brinjal is commercially grown, its genetic presence within a major calorie source for the Indian population is irreversible, a simple decision has to be made. Is the negligible benefit of Bt brinjal worth the clear risk? My conclusion is that it is not worth the risk and that it would be a profound disservice to India if Bt brinjal were allowed to enter her food supply.
We now have the immeasurable advantage of the definitive assessment of the failure of hybrid Bt cotton across all relevant measures. We must use this knowledge to the benefit of our nation and Indian agriculture. Bt Brinjal Event 142 is also planned in hybrids that will increase seed costs and prevent seed saving.
One thing is crystal clear and it is worth repeating for warning and emphasis: hybrid Bt cotton is a negative model for hybrid Bt brinjal; for a monumental irreversible catastrophe.
Virtually no safety testing/risk assessment protocols were carried out for Bt brinjal more than 10 years ago. It stands as the only test case where the raw data was subsequently assessed by several eminent international scientists. They found a virtual vacuum. None of this engenders confidence in the regulators as responsible or trustworthy.
Furthermore, GMO contamination in what is a centre of diversity is of paramount importance. Our regulators have an uncanny ability to focus on two crops (mustard and brinjal) of great genetic diversity. There are about 9,000 accessions of mustard in our gene banks and India is a centre of origin/diversity of brinjal with the richest germplasm in the world.
I only have questions of our regulators because the things they do are fundamentally in error. And the list is endless. They also want to open up Indian agriculture to the second front of GM technology, herbicide tolerant crops, when chemicals (e.g., glyphosate) are documented to pose serious environmental and health risks.
The only option is to stop all environmental release of GMOs, because we are at serious risk from our own regulators. This is not just petitioners’ stance in the Supreme Court. Four official reports support the petitioners and two of them belong to the Parliamentary process in India of Parliamentary Standing Committees (PSCs), which are appointed across party lines. Both PSCs were unanimous that Indian regulation is seriously awry, both for a lack of expertise and an endemic conflict of interest. Both PSCs recommended a moratorium on GMOs.
CT: Given the vast genetic diversity of mustard and brinjal in India, developed over millennia, it is clear that ‘need’ has not been established for these (or any other) GM crops. Why is the government pushing so hard for GMOs?
AR: We don’t have independent regulation in India, not just in the sense of the regulators themselves, but also attendant ministries and institutions are rife with conflicts of interest. They promote GMOs. The glaring example is the regulatory body called the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation of the Department of Biotechnology, in the Ministry of Science and Technology (DBT). In this case, the DBT funds GM mustard development and also promotes it. The GEAC has historically had a serious conflict of interest with the line between the regulators and the regulated difficult to distinguish and partly explains why the government is pushing GMOs so hard.