SAGE conflicts of interest


Executive summary

* As late as March 11th, 2020, the UK government and medical officers issued practical and minimally disruptive advice to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.

* On March 16th, the now infamous Neil Ferguson/Imperial College paper was published predicting over 500,000 deaths in the UK and 2.2 million in the US if suppression measures were not introduced.

* Stricter measures were announced on the day that paper was published, and the first UK lockdown was announced a week later, on March 23rd. US states variously followed suit.

* The committee that has been advising the government throughout this period is called the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). Ferguson was a member of this committee until he resigned in May for having broken lockdown rules.

* This week’s note examines the key influencers on SAGE and their conflicts of interest:

– Organisations invested in vaccines make money from vaccines. People who acquire natural immunity have less/no need for a vaccine. If people are locked in their homes, they have less chance of acquiring natural immunity.

– Twelve out of 20 key influencers work for/have received funding from organisations involved in the Covid-19 vaccine.

– There are four times more modellers/statisticians and experts in behaviour manipulation on the committee than there are virologists. There are no immunologists.

* It doesn’t matter if a drug is good or bad. It matters that those who have a financial interest in that drug are conflicted if they give advice that protects the financial interest in that drug.

Introduction

Imagine that a new disease emerged. It presented less risk of death than a lightning strike for school-age children (Ref i), but it was particularly nasty for the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. A committee decided that draconian measures – the likes of which had never been experienced or studied – should be imposed on the entire population until a drug to ease the disease outcome arrived. If you then discovered that the majority of the committee members had financial interests in the drug being developed, how would you feel?

Background

The conflicts that I am going to go through in this note are primarily related to vaccines, but this is a note about conflicts and not vaccines. The background to the issues is as follows…

On March 11th, 2020, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Jenny Harries, held at briefing at Downing Street. A five minute video summarised the evidence and advice to the British people (Ref ii). The advice was stay home if you’re sick, wash your hands, protect the vulnerable, most people will have a mild illness, wearing face masks is “usually quite a bad idea“, and “big gatherings don’t have a big effect so we don’t want to disrupt people’s lives.” Dr Harries summed up the UK position by saying, “so, as a professional, I am absolutely delighted that we are following the science and the evidence.” The science has not changed, but the advice has.

On March 16th, Neil Ferguson/Imperial College published a non-peer-reviewed paper which said that unless a suppression strategy were adopted “we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US not accounting for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed on mortality” (Ref iii). Prime Minister Johnson announced stricter measures that day and then, a week later, on March 23rd, he announced that the UK would be put into lockdown for three weeks “to avoid the NHS being overwhelmed.

Professor Johan Giesecke is an infectious disease specialist and advisor to the Swedish government. He was the World Health Organization (WHO) leader of the revision of the International Health Regulations and he was the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) a post he held between 2005-2014 (Ref iv). Just before five minutes into this interview (Ref v), Professor Giesecke explained the Sweden coronavirus strategy: “Herd immunity isn’t the strategy; it’s a by-product of the strategy. The strategy is to protect the old and the frail.” Giesecke summarised the policies introduced in Sweden as: there’s no lockdown. People are free to go out. There’s no police to stop you in the street. People are asked to stay inside but there’s no reinforcement. We have a rule that a crowd cannot be bigger than 50 people. The upper schools are closed. Schools up to the age of 15-16 are open. Nursing homes are closed to visitors. Sweden didn’t do nothing; therefore, but Sweden did treat their grown-ups like grown-ups. Giesecke then described the Sweden strategy as “It’s very similar to the one the UK had before there was a famous paper by the Imperial College by the modellers, that came out and the day after you made a U-Turn in England.”

Giesecke said of the Ferguson/Imperial paper: “I don’t think any other scientific endeavour has made such an impression on the world as that rather [pause] debatable paper.” “It was very much so overly pessimistic.”

In this context, there are two fundamental issues with the committee making decisions about lockdowns having vaccine conflicts:

1) Organisations invested in vaccines make money from vaccines. If people acquire natural immunity, they have reduced or no need for a vaccine and thus the potential gain for the vaccine company is reduced.

2) Locking people in their homes and other lockdown measures will reduce the number of people who acquire natural immunity.

It’s that simple.

As Giesecke explained, the Ferguson/Imperial paper had global impact, since its dire warnings were heeded around the world. Ferguson’s history of abysmally inaccurate models must be noted upfront. As just one example, in 2005, Ferguson predicted that up to 150 million people could be killed from bird flu. In fact, 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009 (Ref vi). When challenged about his March 2020 Covid-19 model, Ferguson admitted that it was based on undocumented, 13-year-old, computer code that was intended to be used for a influenza pandemic, rather than a coronavirus. Ferguson refused to release his original code so that other scientists could check his results. When software engineers finally got hold of some of the code, they tore it apart in hours (Ref vii).

In this context, let’s examine the key influencers who managed to get the UK into lockdown 1 and who have just succeeded in returning the UK to lockdown 2.

Method

The minutes from the SAGE committee meetings are available thanks to the efforts of businessman Simon Dolan. He has fought in the courts to ensure that the minutes are openly available, as part of his ongoing legal action that the measures imposed on the UK have been illegal and disproportionate (Ref viii). The minutes were finally published on Friday 29th May (Ref ix).

I have gone through the minutes to get the list of attendees and then assessed the key influencers on the committee. This was done by attendance and importance. I examined the first 30 minutes, from meeting 1 on January 22nd, 2020 to meeting 30 on April 30th, 2020 (Ref x). This covered the important period from early discussions about the virus situation in China… to the Downing Street Briefings on 16th March and then the UK lockdown announcement on 23rd March… to the point where Johnson declared, in a briefing on 30th April, “we are past the peak of this disease” (Ref xi).

There were 25 people who attended 5 meetings or fewer – 10 attending just 1 meeting during that 3-month period – whose influence would have been minimal. The key influencers were the 20 people who attended at least half (15 or more) of the 30 meetings I examined. I checked to see if these were still the key attendees in the more recent minutes (meeting 55, 3rd September and meeting 61, 8th October as examples) and they essentially were. The notable exception was that Ferguson resigned from the SAGE committee when it became known (on 5th May) that he had broken lockdown rules (Ref xii). He had attended every one of the first 30 meetings. The only other person with that 100% attendance record was Sir Patrick Vallance. Ferguson’s influence has not gone, however. He is a member of NERVTAG (The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group), as are many members of SAGE (which means that the main committee is largely using a subset of that committee to advise itself). Additionally, Ferguson is still given airtime by the media to continue to issue his apocalyptic predictions.

The details of the conflicts of these key influencers are below.

The 20 key influencers

In what follows: GCSA = Government Chief Scientific Advisor, CSA = Chief Scientific Advisor, CMO = Chief Medical Officer and LSHTM = London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Please note that the references for the table are reported separately at the end of this note.

Examination of the 20 key influencers on SAGE reveals the following:

1) 11 out of 20 work for the government (some hold government roles in addition to other roles).

2) 12 out of 20 work for/have received funding from organisations involved in the Covid-19 vaccine. Those 12 don’t include Vallance with personal pharmaceutical conflicts or Whitty with historical funding from the Gates foundation. Three work for Imperial College and two work for Oxford University – the two forerunners in the Covid-19 vaccine race in the UK – each receiving millions of pounds from government(s) (Ref xiii). Three more work for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with its own vaccine centre (working on Covid-19 among other vaccines). One works for UCL, which is working with Imperial on its vaccine. Two work for Wellcome/the Wellcome Sanger Institute and one has received funding from the latter. Two members have double conflicts – Peter Horby with Oxford University and Wellcome and Wendy Barclay with Imperial College and Wellcome.

3) Taking the major role only (to keep this totalling 20), 5 are Chief Scientific Advisors in government (2 of these are modellers/statisticians); 4 more are modellers/statisticians, 2 are experts in how to manipulate human behaviour, 3 are medical officers/directors, 3 hold senior roles in the 2 universities leading the vaccine race, and 3 work for/have been funded by Wellcome (as above, 2 of the university members also have conflicts with Wellcome.)

4) There are no immunologists among the key influencers on the SAGE committee. There are two virologists. Wendy Barclay has particular expertise in flu and works for Imperial College and her laboratory is funded by Wellcome. The other, Maria Zambon, also works for Imperial and has “specific interest in RNA viruses, antivirals and vaccines.” Zambon and Ferguson were named in a 2010 article exposing the fact that: “A third of the experts advising the World Health Organisation about the swine flu pandemic had ties to drugs firms, it has emerged.”

Zambon and Ferguson are not the only SAGE members to have history of working together. As another example, Whitty, Ferguson, Farrar, and Edmunds collaborated on an Ebola paper entitled “Infectious disease: Tough choices to reduce Ebola transmission” (Ref xiv). The two behaviour experts among the key influencers have also collaborated on this controversial paper (Ref xv). The following extract from the paper has been widely cited as evidence to show how fear has been used to coerce UK citizens: “A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened… The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hardhitting emotional messaging based on accurate information about risk.” The paper has sections on coercion, compulsion and how to harness “social disapproval” to coerce people into doing what government wants them to do.

Given that the media was interested 10 years ago when one third of the experts advising the WHO on swine flu had drug conflicts, the media should surely be interested now that 12-14 out of 20 have such conflicts (Ref xvi). It doesn’t matter if a drug is good or bad. It matters that those who have a financial interest in that drug are conflicted if they give advice that protects the financial interest in that drug.

The advice emanating from SAGE is currently under scrutiny as never before. The Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, which has been an exemplar of rigour during the Covid-19 period, has highlighted the inaccuracies in the recent forecasts that have resulted in Lockdown 2 (Ref xvii). Slides broadcast on national TV on 31st October were revised downwards by the time the slides were published on line. The two main drivers of SAGE – Vallance and Whitty – were summoned to appear before the Science and Technology Committee on 3rd November where Vallance expressed regret for frightening people. But SAGE knows that people need to be frightened into compliance for their strategy to work, as the SAGE behaviour advisors documented in their academic paper. I wonder if that fear might turn to anger if people realise that the committee may not be the independent body that it has been assumed to be.

References for the article

Ref i) https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3259
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/09/school-age-children-likely-hit-lightning-die-coronavirus-oxbridge/
Ref ii) https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=227850301597915
Ref iii) https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
Ref iv) https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/strategic-and-technical-advisory-group-for-infectious-hazards/members/biographies/en/index2.html
Rev v) https://unherd.com/thepost/coming-up-epidemiologist-prof-johan-giesecke-shares-lessons-from-sweden/
Ref vi) https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/so-the-real-scandal-is-why-did-anyone-ever-listen-to-this-guy/
Ref vii) https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/
Rev viii) https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/may/16/government-legal-action-refusal-to-publish-sage-minutes-lockdown
Ref ix) https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-publishes-sage-minutes
Ref x) The meeting minutes ceased being searchable from meeting 18 on the 23rd March, which made analysis more difficult.
Ref xi) https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-ministers-statement-on-coronavirus-covid-19-30-april-2020
Ref xii) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/exclusive-government-scientist-neil-ferguson-resigns-breaking/
Ref xiii) 17 May “So far the government has invested £47 million in the Oxford and Imperial vaccine programmes. But today I can announce an additional £84 million of new government funding to help accelerate their work… I can also confirm that with government support, Oxford University has finalised a global licensing agreement with AstraZeneca for the commercialisation and manufacturing of the Oxford vaccine.” https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/business-secretarys-statement-on-coronavirus-covid-19-17-may-2020
Ref xiv) https://www.nature.com/news/infectious-disease-tough-choices-to-reduce-ebola-transmission-1.16298
Ref xv) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7276722/
Ref xvi) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1302505/WHO-swine-flu-advisers-ties-drug-firms-Experts-linked-vaccine-producers.html
Ref xvii) https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/the-innacuracoes-in-the-sage-models/

References for the table

Ref 1 : https://www.gov.uk/government/people/patrick-vallance
Ref 2: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/23/revealed-sir-patrick-vallance-has-600000-shareholding-firm-contracted/
Ref 3: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/neil.ferguson
Ref 4: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/business-secretarys-statement-on-coronavirus-covid-19-17-may-2020
17 May “So far the government has invested £47 million in the Oxford and Imperial vaccine programmes. But today I can announce an additional £84 million of new government funding to help accelerate their work… I can also confirm that with government support, Oxford University has finalised a global licensing agreement with AstraZeneca for the commercialisation and manufacturing of the Oxford vaccine.”
Ref 5: https://www.gov.uk/government/people/christopher-whitty
Ref 6: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/lsoh-lso030408.php
Ref 7: https://www.gov.uk/government/people/charlotte-watts
Ref 8: http://strive.lshtm.ac.uk/people/charlotte-watts
Ref 9: https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/centres/vaccine-centre/covid-19
Ref 10: https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/research-action/features/maths-maps-modellers-tackling-covid-19
Ref 11: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2015/03/26/clare-wenham-and-john-edmunds-how-effective-is-this-years-flu-vaccine/
Ref 12: https://www.gov.uk/government/people/jonathan-van-tam
Ref 13: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/james-rubin
Ref 14: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7276722/ “A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened… The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard‐hitting emotional messaging based on accurate information about risk”
Ref 15: https://www.gov.uk/government/people/john-aston and http://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/network/john-aston/
Ref 16: https://www.isirv.org/site/index.php/council-members/11-antiviral-group/165-maria-zambon
Ref 17: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/nihr-hpru-respiratory-infections/people/ and https://www.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/nihr-hpru-respiratory-infections/research-themes/influenza/
Ref 18: https://www.who.int/ihr/procedures/emerg_comm_members_20140616/en/
Ref 19: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1302505/WHO-swine-flu-advisers-ties-drug-firms-Experts-linked-vaccine-producers.html
Ref 20: https://www.gov.uk/government/people/angela-mclean
Ref 21: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/brooke-rogers
Ref 22: https://www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/team/peter-horby
Ref 23: https://www.england.nhs.uk/author/professor-stephen-h-powis/ and https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/headlines/2020/apr/profile-professor-stephen-powis
Ref 24: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/jul/covid-19-vaccine-trialled-healthy-volunteers
Ref 25: https://www.sanger.ac.uk/external_person/peacock-sharon/
Ref 26: https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2016/AstraZeneca-launches-integrated-genomics-approach-to-transform-drug-discovery-and-development-22042016.html#!
Ref 27: https://www.gov.uk/government/people/carole-mundell
Ref 28: https://wellcome.org/about-us/executive-leadership-team
Ref 29: https://wellcome.org/about-us/teams/vaccines-team
Ref 30: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/w.barclay
Ref 31: https://www.ed.ac.uk/edinburgh-infectious-diseases/research/themes/disease-dynamics/andrew-rambaut
Ref 32: https://twitter.com/arambaut/status/1254827417761431555?lang=en and https://www.cogconsortium.uk/about/
Ref 33: https://www.gov.uk/government/people/ian-diamond

66 thoughts on “SAGE conflicts of interest

  • May 15, 2021 at 12:41 pm
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    As an ordinary non-scientific member of the population, I have read your article on Sage and its conflicts with great interest. It would surely seem unusual if senior medical people advising the government did not have links to pharmaceutical companies for research and exchange of professional ideas and practices ? Do you have any evidence that direct personal financial benefit to one or more Sage members would arise from stimulating un-necessary demand ? How do we assess what is necessary demand ? Also, is there evidence that allowing unfettered freedom of movement during a pandemic would give a level of natural immunity that would result in fewer deaths than by applying a “lock-down” ? I would be interested to know your thoughts on the results of the vaccination roll-out to date (15th May 2021) : do you consider it to be a success so far, or an un-necessary waste of resources? Do you consider that it would have been better to have “let the pandemic rip” ?

  • February 22, 2021 at 2:14 am
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    Thanks for this conflict of interest information on SAGE.
    SAGE is having a devastating impact, not just in the UK, but their influence is being felt around the world, e.g. the Neil Ferguson modelling paper has also impacted in Australia re lockdowns.
    Conflicts of interest are huge, all around the world.
    In Australia, vaccination policy is awash with conflicts of interest and secrecy.
    I’ve been campaigning for transparency for years, it’s a cesspit here.
    For some background, see my recent email to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison: No Jab, No Pay/No Play – coercive coronavirus vaccination in Australia – PM Scott Morrison and the Murdoch Media: https://vaccinationispolitical.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/no-jab-no-pay-no-play-coercive-vaccination-in-australia.pdf

    • February 22, 2021 at 4:34 pm
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      Hi Elizabeth
      Many thanks for your kind comment.
      Ferguson’s disastrous modelling has indeed had repercussions around the world. Had coca-cola been behind a report saying everyone needed to be locked in for a year until coca-cola had developed something, the world would have been in uproar. The fact that vaccine companies have been saying the same in effect has been seen as reasonable!
      Australia has been striking indeed! I covered it with the US and UK last summer (https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/06/covid-19-deaths-excess-deaths/)
      What happens when/if Australia opens up and there’s no natural immunity and viruses will mutate continually to get round lockdowns and vaccines and…
      I hope things improve for us all soon
      Best wishes – Zoe

  • February 13, 2021 at 7:16 pm
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    HI Zoe, I have taken a copy of this article, usually they “vanish” . It is way too good not to keep.
    I followed you on Twitter, unfortunately my pushing back is upsetting people and twitter deletes my accounts.
    Your article is very much in live to research I have done over the months, there is too much money and unchecked, companies seem to appear in company house and are awarded multimillion pounds contract.
    The media is NOT responding, they have been given ££££ in advertising and advertising is cash, and in Naples we say “you put bread on the table i call you daddy” .
    no journalist is taking the government head on, but are giving the “scientists” an easy ride.
    Keep posting stuff like this is useful and extremely appreciated … THANKS

  • January 31, 2021 at 4:54 pm
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    Quite right. The virology and immunology experts advising government should not be drawn from the world of academic or commercial virology or immunology. Government should call on unbiased people for this and if that means seeking advice from say, people with expertise in astrology or woodworking then so be it.

    • February 8, 2021 at 6:25 pm
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      Hi John,

      That’s a fair comment and I agree that it would probably be impossible to put together an unbiased group. That being said, conflicts of interest are supposed to be publicly stated. Furthermore, due to the rapidly changing nature of this situation, ‘science’ is not being conducted as normal (e.g. peer-review). The decision to abandon the WHO 2019 pandemic guidelines and engage in a historically unprecedented national lockdown strategy on the basis of one non-peer-reviewed paper deserves, however, to be criticised.

  • January 19, 2021 at 11:31 am
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    I was interested to read the part about vaccine companies not wanting people to get natural immunity. Since early December 2020 I have been trying to launch a petition on the government website asking that people are tested for T cell immunity before being vaccinated since there is no point in vaccinating people with immunity.

    My first attempt was rejected by the Petitions Committee as: “It included confidential, libellous, false, unproven or defamatory information, or a reference to a case where there are active legal proceedings.”

    I appealed and asked them to explain which statements were at issue.

    Their response was: ” … we couldn’t accept a petition that implied the immunity of certain people to Covid-19, when there does not appear to be any independent research demonstrating that T-cell tests can establish that a person is immune to – as opposed to having an effective immune response – to Covid-19. Similarly, we couldn’t accept a petition that implied that certain categories of people are at particular risk of certain reactions to any Covid-19 vaccines, when there does not appear to be any evidence that this is the case. Both of these implications are made in the following passage (from my petition):

    “I am asking the Government to mandate GPs to offer T-cell immunity testing prior to COVID-19 vaccination.

    “All potential vaccine recipients should be fully informed of the possible risks of vaccinating immune people, e.g. immune enhancement and antibody-dependent enhancement, and offered a test.”

    The bit about T cell tests not showing immunity because there is no “independent research” – does that infer that there is research that is not “independent”? Also, I didn’t know there was a difference between “being immune to” and “having an immune response to” Covid-19!

    I have now re-written the petition to, hopefully, by-pass the “false, incorrect, etc” statements but will have to wait for approval, again!

    • January 19, 2021 at 11:34 am
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      Hi Casie
      Many thanks for sharing that – very interesting and also worrying! Like the WHO redefining the term herd immunity to exclude natural acquired immunity. There’s some strange stuff going on!
      Best wishes – Zoe

  • December 3, 2020 at 11:27 pm
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    Thank you for all your efforts in presenting this so clearly.

    This was an indulgent read for me, I have thought the same for some time. Alas, I will (painfully) continue to also seek opposing views because to remain balanced we must all continually challenge our biases and question our beliefs. Minds are like parachutes, right?

    As Gandhi once said, “Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth”

  • November 28, 2020 at 5:03 pm
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    Thank you for this great article. I have shared it with my family and friends who are slowly waking to what really is happening in pharmaland.

  • November 22, 2020 at 4:52 pm
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    Amazing article! Many thanks for putting this together in a clear format, Zoë. We need more people like you.

  • November 20, 2020 at 11:41 pm
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    Hi from Tübingen, S. Germany…..
    Main Stream Science is a religion and much of science is based on religious values e.g. Einsteinian Relativity, Big Bang Theory, which is Jesuit Theology etc.

    The Big Boobs Theory, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, The Inflationary Universe, The Finite Universe etc. were “invented” to patch up gaping holes in bad theories. They should have changed the theories, but the faithful priests and monks fought against this heresy.

    The Particle Theory of Light was decided by Mob Rule and not by consensus.It has NOT been proven.
    The Big Bang Theory is more absurd than the Flat Earth Theory, which very few believed anyway ( you only have to stand by the sea to recognise this ).
    The Earth was known to be a sphere long before even Pythagorous.

    More than 120 years ago HALF, or more, of Electromagnetism was censored from Physics, which is supposed to be the most objective of the Hard Sciences.
    Physics is the foundation of ALL the Hard Sciences, including biology/ medicine.

    Over-Unity ( so-called Free-Energy ) is a FACT but most of the theories, inventions and scientists / engineers / inventors are heavily repressed and even killed.

    If anyone would like further discussion they can contact me on my non-profit, Open Source “Blog”.

    Take care Zoe.. A really good article…. United we stand, divided we fall.
    Dhan
    This is the second comment that dissapeared ( minus the Blog link ).

  • November 20, 2020 at 11:38 pm
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    Hi Doc from Tübingen, S. Germany…..
    In contrast, look what has happened to Noakes and Dr. Thyer ( GcMAF THerapy ) and to Professors Mr. & Mrs. RUGGIERO ( inventors of the GcMAF Therapy, Bravo a real Probiotic, Rerum and recently IMUNO.
    Dr. Bradstreet being murded etc.
    It is an incredible inhuman scandal.
    Look what happened to Dr. Gerd Hamer , who was here in Tübingen….
    These things have to stop…
    These “people” have to be called to account.
    ……………………………….. Take care ……. Dhan
    This was my first comment that vanished,minus my Blog link……

    • November 21, 2020 at 9:35 am
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      Ah yes – links do tend to end up in spam, as they think someone’s advertising something. Many thanks for trying again
      Best wishes – Zoe

  • November 19, 2020 at 2:42 pm
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    Hi Doc,
    What happened to my 2 previous comments?
    Is your anti-spam software censoring me or your staff.
    You don’t have to publish my, very good, comments.
    But you could have the decency to inform me.

    Dhan

    • November 19, 2020 at 2:55 pm
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      Hi Dhan
      This is the only comment we can see from you and there are none in spam.
      Best wishes – Zoe

      • November 20, 2020 at 1:54 pm
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        Hi Zoe,
        I have just replied to a comment by Charlie.
        Let us see if you receive that…………….. Take care….. Dhan

        • November 20, 2020 at 3:22 pm
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          Hi Dhan
          Just as well you mentioned it as that one did end up in spam! Just unspammed it – not sure what word triggered the spam diversion – who knows!
          Best wishes – Zoe

  • November 13, 2020 at 2:27 pm
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    Excellent work. It is heartening to read such information and to see the support you and others like the Global Doctors Alliance get. I am a doctor and I know that there are many other educated people who are not afraid to stick their heads above the parapet. Keep up the good work. Please share this with others.

  • November 13, 2020 at 9:44 am
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    Excellent article Zoe. I have felt uncomfortable about SAGE from the beginning. I think “conflict of interests” is an understatement.It explains a huge part of the mess we are in. It cannot be right that these people have been trusted to make impartial and good advice for the public. It has ulterior motives and must be questioned. Who selected them and why? Can you trust a passionate communist?Can you trust the Behavioural Change motives? It makes me uneasy and initially I was worried that I may be becoming paranoid, but now I am convinced SAGE are in the driving seat.
    Hancock and Johnson are back seat passengers.

    • November 13, 2020 at 10:13 am
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      Hi Diane
      As someone said on twitter – I don’t remember voting for SAGE! The way they know each other and have worked together previously it troubling. If they’re thinking in the same way, where is the challenge coming from?!
      Best wishes – Zoe

    • November 15, 2020 at 3:17 pm
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      I felt extremely uneasy when I first heard of them. Any group giving itself a title with an acronym like this sounds very suspect – like something out of a cheap scifi movie.

  • November 11, 2020 at 11:48 pm
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    Well done on a sterling job, Zoe.

    (Neil Ferguson’s unit at Imperial also receives funding from the Bill & Melinda Fund … obviously heavily invested in vaccines).

  • November 11, 2020 at 8:46 pm
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    And the general public are still scared enough for so many people to be wandering around in the open air wearing face masks!

  • November 11, 2020 at 11:31 am
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    Absolutely fantastic article. Pretty much just as I had thought for a while. So very well written, along with all the evidence to back up what you stated.. Scare the general public enough and they will do exactly as they are told.

  • November 10, 2020 at 11:17 pm
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    Firstly not only Sweden, but there are other countries that decided to not fall into a trap of this global hysteria. Start searching for info.
    Secondly, these people in sage are interested more than anything in making money and going into academia (as you have written above) has ecxactly brought them to the place where they are today and they always wanted to be

  • November 10, 2020 at 9:21 pm
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    All this destruction and greed for a vaccine that has been developed primarily to reduce the severity of Covid19 symptoms such as headache, fever, sore throat and cough. The vaccine will be seen to be a successful as by the time this 2 shot vaccination programme is completed on the coerced and frightened NHS staff and general public as we will have reached herd immunity anyway.

    • November 12, 2020 at 10:37 am
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      I don’t think you have understood the issue here. I saw sad news from Madrid last March in which an elderly widow with covid was crying through her coughs outside a hospital which was too full to admit her. The pressing issue is to avoid death, and not just from coronavirus, by lack of hospital beds. By focusing exclusively on making a vaccine, many governments are be missing the opportunity to investigate acquired immunity, vitamin therapy and other drug therapies, for which there is little or no funding from the private sector.

    • November 15, 2020 at 6:32 pm
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      This vaccine will not be safe do not take it many Doctors won’t.

  • November 10, 2020 at 8:42 pm
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    An interesting article. I think it is also important to consider the role of those in the leadership positions in SAGE. It only takes the most senior to make a comment such as ‘we don’t KNOW for certain whether anyone will have immunity, and we have to plan for the worst case’ and other more junior attendees will accept this and proceed to work on that basis. It takes an awful lot of guts and self-assurance to risk your career by challenging the direction set at the top.
    Somebody coming out of big Pharma into a Gov advisory role will be seen by big Pharma as part of their influencing route into Gov. Not explicit but certainly implicit.

  • November 10, 2020 at 7:02 pm
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    Good day Charles ,im just wondering how far you are prepared to believe all this rubbish until its too late and you realise you have been had. Its easy to see why all these scientific folk would bend the truth to suit their aims ….cold hard money ,end of. Do you really believe their principles would be that strong? Dont you find it suspicious that Mr Whitty is funded by Bill Gates who has massive investment in vaccines wether needed or not and one day hopes to put chips inside all of us so they know everything we do .This is just the start ……wait until they start penalising us for not taking the vaccine ,i hope i am wrong but from where i am standing these sage folk are no better than the german nazi,s for what they have imposed on us ….we should stand against it for the youngsters to have a decent life ,otherwise we,ve failed them.

  • November 10, 2020 at 12:06 pm
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    Zoe you are a bloody genius and this is one of the best articles. I have shared the hell out of it.

    I’m so relieved that you, who I respect SO MUCH on other matters, have seen the light and can see through this insanity and corruption!

  • November 10, 2020 at 9:41 am
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    What bit of” conflict of interest” don’t you get! These people are “un-accountable” for their actions and the “certainty” of lockdown is being ignored in favour of the “risk” of covid. Just wake up, PCR tests are massively flawed with up to 90% false positive results. The lockdown is not the answer, TCell immunity is widespread but is expensive to test for and another process which we can’t afford. The economic damage caused by this lockdown will cause many more deaths than covid, that is a fact!

  • November 10, 2020 at 8:17 am
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    Thank you for an excellent article. I have spent this whole CV period concentrating on keeping myself as fit as possible as I know that will strengthen my immunity and help me combat CV if I got it. To me, the Govts emphasis on staying inside is extremely very harmful for mental and physical health and ‘lockdowns’ do more harm than good even before you consider the huge financial implications.

    Although the mistakes that have been made are not all down to one person, this about Ferguson spoke volumes…. “2005, Ferguson predicted that up to 150 million people could be killed from bird flu. In fact, 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009” . I continue to switch off the news and avoid predictions from SAGE for my mental well-being.

  • November 10, 2020 at 7:51 am
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    This is a very good read. I really appreciate the lengths that you have gone to in order to educate the people in the truths.
    Keep up the good work and thanks again.

  • November 9, 2020 at 10:39 pm
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    Thank you for your work Dr Harcombe. Why am I not surprised that this turns out to be a racket like so much else. Hopefully this can contribute to the inquiry when it is held.

  • November 9, 2020 at 9:56 pm
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    You know this is total rubbish…right? To suggest that scientists who have dedicated their lives to trying to prevent pandemics, through things like vaccines, are conflicted because they work on developing vaccines is as insulting as it is hilariously circular. (Also are we meant to think there’s some kind of global conspiracy? Otherwise it doesn’t make sense that everywhere else except Sweden went for lockdown too.) If these people were interested in making lots of money rather than solving scientific issues they wouldn’t have gone into academia. There is a lot of corruption in the government and it’s important to keep an eye out for it everywhere – and also I support questioning the covid response robustly where there have been (and there have been!!) failures – but I really hope that you reread this article and on reflection realise that it’s arguments just don’t make any sense at all.

    • November 10, 2020 at 2:13 pm
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      To be fair, the dominance of people working in the field of vaccination reflects the government’s assumptions about health – that the disease will be managed by a vaccine (so they have vaccination experts to manage the disease, a closed circle of thought). If the government were looking for solutions complementary to vaccination, they would be funding wider research (and maybe they are), for example into acquired immunity. Here is a link to an interesting therapy which I would like to hear much more about: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/health/coronavirus-ferrets-vaccine-spray.html

      No wonder the scientific advisory group for nutrition and NICE put out a lukewarm response to vitamin D supplementation in July – the benefits of non-vaccine and non-drug therapies are off their radar.

      Do you think SAGE would let Zoe in?

      • November 10, 2020 at 6:44 pm
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        Interesting with the nasal spray testing. Iodine , diluted and made into a spray is an excellent vaccine alternative, no side effects too so does not need huge funding to demonstrate its health giving properties. Dr Myhill is a proponent of iodine as a first line of defence, I would like to hear of talks between her and the advisery board as this would be in our best interest, it would build some trust too .

    • November 11, 2020 at 4:26 pm
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      Charlie darling, dedicated doesn’t preclude incorruptible nor does entering academia/ solving scientific issues preclude making money. You yourself have even said there’s a lot of corruption in the government and it’s worth keeping an eye on. What’s the point of saying that if you then refuse to believe the robust information and very well laid out arguments set out in front of you? How else do you intend to ‘keep an eye’ ? Regarding your question, “…are we meant to think there’s some kind of global conspiracy? ” Yes, yes, yes!
      Kindest regards,
      The Empress whose husband was fooled into walking the streets naked.

    • November 11, 2020 at 11:28 pm
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      Of course there is no “global conspiracy”: a conspiracy is by definition secret. These people make no secret of their agenda, it is there for all to read. Start with the WEF website. The Fabians knew years ago that for people to ignore you, you only have to make it boring. Trying to keep something secret only attracts attention.

      • November 14, 2020 at 12:53 pm
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        Spot on. Covid, masks, vaccines, are a smokescreen distracting us from the real agenda at work here: Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum buddies spell it out in boring detail. They call it The Great Reset: The Fourth Industrial Revolution. They instigated the covid scare as cover for the final push into agenda 2030. What they have planned is not fun. If Trump fails to win the American election, it’s curtains. As he has said: It’s not me they’re after; it’s you. I am just in the way.

    • November 11, 2020 at 11:44 pm
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      Charlie (and everyone).
      There are two quotations that everyone should be aware of when considering the extent to which “scientists” achieve the objectivity that they should. Both are from editors of prestigious journals.

      1 Richard Horton, editor-in-chief, The Lancet, in The Lancet, 11 April, 2015, Vol 385, “Offline: What is medicine’s 5 sigma?”:

      “The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.  Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness…

      “The apparent endemicity of bad research behaviour is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data. Journal editors deserve their fair share of criticism too. We aid and abet the worst behaviours. Our acquiescence to the impact factor fuels an unhealthy competition to win a place in a select few journals. Our love of ‘significance’ pollutes the literature with many a statistical fairy-tale…Journals are not the only miscreants. Universities are in a perpetual struggle for money and talent…

      2 “It is simly no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines.  I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” Marcia Angell.

      The difference between everyday thinking and science is that the process of science consists of employing a variety of techniques gleaned over centuries for overcoming our natural cognitive biases. Strictly speaking, unless the funding is independent of results or even the subject studied, it could be called research, but not science.

    • November 15, 2020 at 6:44 pm
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      I am sorry but, have you not seen the document signed by thousands of doctors academics immunologists etc about how much of this is pure lies and fear. In Germany many are now taking court action. You naivety will one day be show how you cannot except other forms of argument other than the single narrative we are being fed relentlessly.

    • November 20, 2020 at 1:49 pm
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      The “Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions”.
      You make too many unfounded assumptions, especially about people.
      Even if you are correct about the majority of scientists that isn’t the issue.
      What is vitally important is that a small amount of very powerful and corrupt
      “scientists” and decision makers can influence the whole population. Combined with a
      very corrupt media,which is owned by the same people who own the Pharmaceutical Companies.

      You can’t prove any of your assumptions, especially the lack of conspiracies: On the contrary there
      is a lot of evidence to prove that there are some very serious conspiracies taking place.

      Academia is a very good wage earner, with many perks like free holidays ( conferences ) in exotic
      regions, publishing contracts, bribes / gifts, status boosts, groupies etc., etc.

      You gloss over the government corruption as though it was just fiddling about with the lunch bill.
      And similarly with the Covid failures, as though all the Old and Infirm dying , unnecessarily, in such inhuman conditions was just like parking on double yellow lines.

      You should reread your comment and realise that you are projecting your dysfunctional mind-set
      onto Dr. Harcombe.
      Your fear is that once you accept the evidence presented here and by other good researchers
      your World-View will start to change, and that can be frightening.

    • February 3, 2021 at 9:41 pm
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      Perhaps you might like to explain why the UK is not using ivermectin despite its proven efficacy?

  • November 9, 2020 at 9:23 pm
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    Thanks. Lots off facts to digest.
    “I’m to scared to be afraid” And I’m not scared of the virus. There is no law any more. No-one is controlling the government madness. They are doing whatever they want.

  • November 9, 2020 at 8:52 pm
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    Brilliant. Utterly brilliant. Thank you. You speak so much sense on so many levels.

  • November 9, 2020 at 8:39 pm
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    Thank you for detailing what I had thought might well be the case. Explains the inexplicable behaviour from a Govt supposedly comprising of intelligent people with our best interests at heart! It can’t have helped that the Prime Minsiter himself caught Covid and was left to sweat it out until he became dangerously ill. It must have left him tired.

  • November 9, 2020 at 7:09 pm
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    “Nicole Junkermann and Daniel Korski have many common interests in the big tech sector. In 2017 and 2018, they both began to invest and focus on mass surveillance technology and future healthcare-related tech with great intensity. If one didn’t know any better, one may come to the conclusion that both Junkermann and Korski had inside knowledge of a coming healthcare crisis, such as a pandemic. Conveniently for Korski’s and Junkermann’s investment portfolios, the current pandemic has become an excuse for government to take away our current civil liberties and implement widespread mass surveillance technologies on an unwitting public.”
    From the linked article:-

    https://unlimitedhangout.com/2020/10/investigative-reports/korski/

  • November 9, 2020 at 3:39 pm
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    Bloody good work. Does make me wonder why no-one has done this before.

  • November 9, 2020 at 2:56 pm
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    Great work and about time someone detailed the obvious improper dealing of this Corrupt government, I am sure this is the tip of the iceberg!!

    Thanks for your hard work!

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