Notably, there seems to be a total lack of reporting of this story outside Germany.

It’s worth making the point (again) that vaccine injury is well within the spectrum of debate that alt-media outlets such as TDS are willing to host, whereas “was there actually a novel virus causing a novel disease at all” is most definitely not.

Unfortunately, the “Question Everything” under their logo does have its limits, as I and others found out:

Sanity Unleashed

"Question Everything" (Except That Thing)

We contacted two prominent 'alternative' media outlets well-known for elevating COVID-dissident views and championing free speech/free press rights with a proposal to spark a public debate about the SARS-CoV-2 origin story and accompanying pandemic narrative. We asked if they would publish our article presenting questions to the chief proponents of the …

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2 years ago · 47 likes · 34 comments · Jonathan Engler and Martin Neil

The text of the article is reproduced below, but for the time poor this is a summary:

• Between 2006 and 2015 former European Society of Cardiology president Kim Fox1 and his wife (a pharmaceutical industry executive) set up and ran a company called Heart Research Ltd, of which they were the sole shareholders.

• This company was responsible for running at least 3 trials of a drugs called ivabradine on behalf of the manufacturer, Servier, a French pharmaceutical company.

• Fox and his wife personally made over £50m from the company.

• In 2006, as President of the ESC, he chaired an ESC taskforce that published a guideline recommending ivabradine for stable angina. This coincided with his own company running major trials on the drug. Later, when those trials (such as one called “BEAUTIFUL” in 2008) failed to meet their primary endpoints, he continued to publicly champion ivabradine as a ‘gold standard’.

• Fox did not publicly disclose massive financial stakes in the success or otherwise of ivabradine.

• Following an investigation, the ESC stripped Fox of honours for ethical failure; Fox claims legacy rules in place at the time permitted it.

• Ultimately, ivabradine was found to have questionable clinical value as well as causing significant cardiovascular harms.

An odd thing about this story which the author hasn’t mentioned is that Heart Research Ltd itself basically had few or no employees. They just contracted with other CROs to do the actual trials. It’s beyond weird that what was basically a shell company could have made over £50m.

Pharma companies may look like they are sloshing with cash but they are basically quite careful with their money. They like to think they are getting value out of suppliers and do NOT like the proverbial piss being taken. They would almost certainly have known the cost of the CRO work so could / should have known that Fox’s company was (to use popular parlance) “trousering” a fortune.

The case is yet another example of how egregious conflicts of interest which would astonish the average citizen are allowed to subsist within this industry. It seems unlikely that Fox broke any explicit rules, nor commit any actual crimes, which should lead anyone to question the relevant regulatory and criminal law frameworks.

By the way, here’s another COI case which I wrote about recently:

Sanity Unleashed

How Pharma hides its advertising in mainstream journalism.

Readers will be well aware that I do not regard the biopharmaceutical sector in high regard. One of the reasons for this is that it gets treated entirely differently to other industries. If someone retained as a consultant by a company sings the (unverified and speculative) praises of that company’s products and urges everyone to use them, most people w…

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2 months ago · 39 likes · 8 comments · Jonathan Engler

The full article reads as follows:

A historical case involving more than £50m shows what’s at stake in the debate around transparency of doctor-industry relations. Laura Spinney reports

A British cardiologist and former president of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) has been judged by the ESC to have committed severe misconduct after a Danish TV documentary reported that he had been involved in drawing up guidelines for the use of the heart drug ivabradine (Corlanor, Procoralan) while profiting from lucrative contracts with the drug’s maker.1

Between 2006 and 2015, Kim Fox, emeritus professor of clinical cardiology at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, and his wife Karen Summers, a former drug industry executive, received more than £50m as co-directors of the UK based contract research organisation Heart Research. This company was involved in running at least three clinical trials of ivabradine, made by French drug company Servier, that were published in the same period.

Most of the money Fox and Summers received came in the form of dividends and distributions paid to them as sole shareholders of Heart Research. The bulk of it—more than £33m, the equivalent of £47m today—came as a distribution of retained capital and profits on liquidation of the company in 2015.

Ivabradine, a sinus node inhibitor, works by slowing the heart rate and was first approved by the European Medicines Agency for treating stable angina in 2005. In 2006, when Fox became president of the ESC, he chaired an ESC taskforce that published a guideline recommending ivabradine as an alternative treatment for angina in patients who couldn’t tolerate beta blockers.2 At the time, Heart Research was already involved in the Servier funded Beautiful trial of ivabradine for coronary artery disease with left ventricular systolic dysfunction.3 The ESC guideline stated that its authors were asked to disclose conflicts of interest, but the document did not publicly identify what Fox had disclosed, just indicated that forms were available on “written request to the ESC president.”

When Fox’s term as ESC president concluded in 2008, he remained on the board for a further two years as the society’s past president. Although ivabradine had failed to meet the primary endpoint in Beautiful—of significant reduction in cardiovascular death or hospital admission for heart attack or heart failure—he described it publicly as the “gold standard for any anti-anginal, anti-ischaemic drug.”4

Talking to The BMJ, Irène Frachon, a pulmonologist in Brest, France, who took on Servier over another of its drugs (benfluorex sold under the brand name Mediator) in a highly publicised case, described the sums involved in the Fox case as “monstrous.” She said that it should have been obvious to Fox that, given his ties to the company, he should have recused himself from the guideline taskforce. “It stinks!” said John Martin, professor of cardiovascular science at University College London and a former vice president of the ESC. Rita Redberg, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and former editor in chief of JAMA Internal Medicine, told The BMJ that she felt sad on learning about the case: “It totally goes against the grain of the profession.”

Fox declined an interview request but sent a statement and agreed to answer The BMJ’s written questions. He “strongly denied” ESC’s conclusion of severe misconduct. He wrote that he “did not breach any [ESC] rules and regulations applicable at the time,” adding that “ESC was aware of his relevant interests, which were declared, transparent, and public, and the ESC had no apparent concerns at the time.”

Persistent doubts have been expressed about the safety and efficacy of ivabradine, although it remains an approved treatment for both angina and heart failure in Europe and for heart failure in the US. After the 2014 Signify trial—which also involved Heart Research—showed an increased risk of heart attack and cardiovascular death in a significant subset of patients, the European Medicines Agency reviewed the drug and issued warnings on its use in treating angina.56

After the Danish documentary aired in September 2024, the ESC commissioned an internal review of its guidelines pertaining to ivabradine, including the 2006 guideline that Fox chaired. The review, seen by The BMJ, concluded that the recommendations were “appropriate” and reported “no evidence to suggest a bias towards ivabradine.”

But many cardiologists now consider ivabradine a third line treatment at best.7 The independent French medical journal Préscrire advises doctors not to use it. Aroon Hingorani, a specialist in clinical pharmacology at University College London who previously directed UCL’s Institute of Cardiovascular Science, reviewed the evidence for The BMJ. He concluded that the harms outweighed the benefits: “I can’t really see any place for it, either in angina or in heart failure,” he said.

An eye watering sum

Many—and, in some contexts, most—clinicians have some form of financial link to drug companies. Such relationships are baked into the fabric of industry sponsored clinical trials, but the Fox case is striking for the eye watering sums involved and his eminence: as well as presiding over a globally influential medical association, he reportedly served as cardiologist to the late British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. And the revelations come at a time when some groups in Europe are pushing for reforms that would end voluntary declaration of conflicts of interest and enshrine greater transparency in law.

The Danish documentary originally aired on Denmark’s TV 2 channel.1 It was rebroadcast in Switzerland last year, but it hasn’t yet been televised in the English speaking world. Although questions had been asked for years about the ESC’s relationship with industry, both by its members and outside observers,89 it took a Danish exposé to trigger an internal investigation of Fox’s case.

There is no suggestion that Fox or his wife broke any laws, but the ESC told The BMJ that, in March 2025, the ESC ethics committee found that he “had failed to meet his ethical obligations and considered his behaviour as a severe misconduct.” Asked precisely what those obligations were, an ESC spokesperson responded that the committee had found that Fox “failed to recuse himself in the presence of a significant conflict of interest.”

After being presented with the committee’s findings early last year, Fox resigned from the ESC, placing himself outside the reach of disciplinary action. Nevertheless, the society stated that Fox was ineligible to rejoin and could not be invited as faculty to any ESC event—“the highest level of exclusion under ESC rules.” In May 2025, the board stripped him of the gold medal—the society’s highest honour—that he had been awarded as outgoing ESC president, and his name is no longer in the ESC’s website listing of past presidents.10

The ESC did not publicise its actions, but journalists who inquired were sent a statement about the case. The statement claims that the procedures by which the society draws up clinical guidelines are robust and says, “This process is entirely independent of industry influence.”

Under ESC rules in place in 2006, Fox was required to submit a paper based declaration of his interests to the society, but he would not have been obliged to mention the size of any payments, and his declarations would not have been made public. An ESC spokesperson said that the society no longer archived declarations made before 2011—when the process went online—and Fox did not provide his to The BMJ when requested.

The BMJ reviewed publications coauthored by Fox in the decade from 2005 and found that most of them disclosed his relationship with Servier. But as journals do not routinely ask authors to report the magnitude of their financial ties to industry, the scale of his was obscured.

Fox rejected the ethics committee’s findings. He told The BMJ that he had always declared any conflicts of interest and that he had resigned from the ESC because “he was not prepared to be judged on the basis of rules and regulations described in 2024 retrospectively for activities in 2006 to 2008.”

An ESC spokesperson admitted to The BMJ that its declarations process was relatively lax in the early 2000s and said that it had been substantially strengthened since. But former ESC vice president Martin said that his attempts to inject more transparency to the process were rejected by the board that included Fox. Martin recalled speaking at a board meeting in 2006, when Fox was president elect, about the need to publicise conflicts of interest, and his proposal being met “with a cool response.”

The impact of conflicts of interest on clinicians’ objectivity was already well documented in the early 2000s,11 and under the ethical conduct policies of both the ESC and the UK’s General Medical Council, Fox—then a practising clinician—would have been expected to put patients’ interests first and to avoid either exposing himself to, or being perceived as exposing himself to, undue influence.12 “We know that even small sums of money influence behaviour,” said Redberg.

Servier told The BMJ that it “strictly complies” with transparency guidelines established by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, a trade body. In a statement sent to TV 2 in 2024, a Servier spokesperson wrote: “As a cardiologist and leading expert in the field, Kim Fox was paid by Servier to advise on the clinical development of ivabradine and its indications, and to provide feedback on study results, all of which constitute routine practice in scientific collaborations.” They did not disclose the amount paid.

The ESC’s most recent past president, Franz Weidinger, declined to be interviewed by TV 2, as did the past president who immediately followed Fox, Roberto Ferrari, although the then chair of the clinical practice guidelines committee, Eva Prescott, defended the guidelines process in the documentary. In April 2026, the current president, Thomas Lüscher, agreed to speak to The BMJ.

Lüscher, who once worked alongside Fox at London’s Royal Brompton Hospital, expressed his shock at the case, but added, “There were always rumours.” Fox’s ownership of a contract research organisation was not itself a problem, he went on. “The problem was that he was at the same time secretary, then president elect, then president, and even worse, he talked at [industry sponsored] satellite symposia as the president, at our congress. Today this is unthinkable.”

Under current ESC rules, an annual income of €10 000 or more from industry related activities renders a person ineligible for a guidelines taskforce.13 The cap, which includes payments made to spouses and partners, was introduced in 2022. Since 2026, the board’s annual industry related activities for 2026 have been published on the ESC website, although no amounts are given.

Asked if the ESC had followed up on TV 2’s allegation that Fox’s case wasn’t unique, Lüscher said that, as a volunteer run organisation, it lacked the resources to conduct the necessary investigations.

Imperial College London, whose website still hosts Fox’s biography and publications, declined to comment on the case, but a spokesperson pointed out that “emeritus professor” was an honorary title that carried no remuneration and that its current conflict of interest policy was introduced in 2011. Lüscher said that he had informed Imperial’s leadership of the situation.

The case remains unreported in most of Europe and beyond, even though the ESC’s guidelines are influential worldwide. Benoy Shah had not heard of it by March of this year. A cardiologist at Southampton General Hospital in the UK, he and two of his students reported in 2021 that at least 80% of the authors of four key ESC guidelines had a relevant financial conflict of interest.14 Shah says that the study was inspired by a session he attended at the 2012 ESC congress, where fleetingly shown conflict of interest slides gave him an impression of an unhealthy proximity between presenters of updated guidelines and drug companies whose products featured in those guidelines. “I remember walking out of that session, halfway through, and thinking that this is all just a farce,” he said.

Calls for reform

The Fox story also spotlights the questions of whether payment transparency should be voluntary or mandatory and who should be responsible for it. In the US and France, so-called sunshine acts require industry to publicly report the exact monetary sums paid to hospitals and healthcare providers.1516 In the UK, a review led by Julia Cumberlege recommended a similar mandatory scheme, but the review’s lead researcher, Sonia Macleod of the University of Oxford, said that the government had so far resisted enacting this.17 “The current impetus in the innovation strategy is not to do anything that they perceive may be damaging to growth,” she said. “The life sciences and the pharmaceutical industries are a key element of [the government’s] growth strategy.” The resistance seems to extend into the community of healthcare professionals, too.

Piotr Ozieranski, a sociologist at the University of Bath who has studied the impact of sunshine acts, told The BMJ that, although they didn’t seem to have changed doctor behaviour or led to those with conflicts being excluded from decision making, they had enabled greater scrutiny of industry ties by journalists and transparency watchdogs and had knock-on effects on professional bodies.181920 Since at least 2021, the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology—which develop clinical guidelines jointly—have required members of the committees who write those guidelines to disclose the financial value of their relationships with industry. Under their current rules, disclosed payments are reported as “modest” or “significant” depending on which side of a $10 000 threshold they fall.

Some professional societies have taken to publishing authors’ financial relationships, reporting dollar amounts in bands.21 “On balance,” said Ozieranski, “industry self-regulation performs worse than disclosure mandated by sunshine acts.”2223

Redberg said that Fox’s case “could be the tip of the iceberg.” “There’s a lot of potential for these kinds of very unsavoury and unprofessional relationships.”

European cardiologists, meanwhile, are ruing the damage to their credibility, now that years of rumour and suspicion have been found to have substance. For Martin, the ESC has not done enough to restore public trust, and the recent revelations risk damaging the doctor-patient relationship while also leaving the volunteers who run the society feeling betrayed. He urged action. “The ESC board might be seen as tacitly complicit unless there is a thorough public investigation,” he said. “Many questions remain.”

Most of you will know by now that the mainstream media investigation into potential plagiarism by Jason Arday was triggered by Nathan Cofnas, a somewhat controversial individual who works as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Ghent.

The article in which he detailed the allegations is here:

Weinstein weighs in…

A few days ago I saw this post on X in which Brett Weinstein says that discovering some of Cofnas’s other views coloured his perspective on the tragic Arday story:

To be clear, my view is that the undisputed facts of the Arday case are extremely damning of the entire DEI ideology, Cambridge, and the further education sector as a whole, regardless of whatever other views someone who was part of uncovering the plagiarism might have1.

I find the stance that Weinstein is taking here is - and I struggle to find a better word for it - pathetic, and the characterisation of Cofnas as “the opposite of woke” in order to dismiss him and devalue his findings is both simplistic and cowardly.

Whilst perusing the responses to Weinstein’s post, I came across this one from 2023, posted many times:

For context, for those who don’t know, Petra De Sutter - as rector of Ghent University - was the individual behind the suspension of Nathan Cofnas.

By way of background, De Sutter:

• was born male, with given name Paul

• has worked as a gynaecologist

• was a senior politician in Belgium’s Green party

• spent 5 years as the country’s Deputy Prime Minister

• has been rector at Ghent University since April 2025

• was listed as an official participant representing Belgium at the April 2026 Bilderberg Conference in Washington DC2.

The full post linked above reads:

Most reposters of that were pointing out the irony of someone being accused of being a eugenicist (when, it’s clear, the comment by Cofnas in the video extract Weinstein played was meant ironically) subsequently being suspended by an actual eugenicist.

Is De Sutter a eugenecist?

Now, being a eugenicist is a pretty serious accusation, so I decided to delve a little further into that particular accusation in respect of De Sutter.

The X post above includes a 4-minute extract of this YouTube video of a Ted Talk given 8 years ago - which is worth watching in full:

The built-in transcription to that video on YouTube seems corrupted, so I actually created the transcript de novo - you can read it here. Here are some choice quotes:

• Having introduced Aldous Huxley, and referring to Brave New World, De Sutter says that he showed us some tools, or gave us some ways of thinking, of redesigning the human being

• The first tool will be the possibility to use stem cell technology—stem cell medicine—to derive gametes in the lab…..we’re not yet there, but it will probably take only a couple of more years before we can have stem cell–derived sperm and eggs in the human.

• …..this is the ultimate idea: you could, in this person, make eggs that are fertilized by his own sperm and think about the possibility of self-fertilization, or "solo procreation" if you wish.

• this will allow us to go towards "the perfect family" as we have envisioned it….the whole concept of "rainbow families" where sometimes two, three, or four people come, and they already visit our clinics asking to have one child—all three or all four of them.

• at any age we will be able to make sperm or eggs; we won't need any donor material anymore.

• … maybe we want in the future also to manipulate other characteristics that make people better, smarter, more beautiful, more successful in life, and so on

• This is a still from a very nice movie that, if you haven’t watched it, you really should watch if you’re interested in Aldous Huxley’s ideas: this is the movie Gattaca. Because in the Gattaca world—just as in the world of Aldous Huxley—procreation is not something that is connected with sexuality, or with relationship, or family building anymore. You just go to a clinic—or a factory, if you wish—and you give your gametes. And, of course, if you don't have gametes at that time, you give some piece of skin (we take a skin biopsy), and then after so many months, you can pick up your child which has been genetically enhanced and designed according to the features that you want.

I think it’s pretty clear that De Sutter holds views that many would regard as eugenicist.

(I wonder what effect - if any - these views of De Sutter will have on Weinstein’s judgment of her decision to suspend Cofnas?)

Near the end of the video, De Sutter mentions a Julian Savulescu, declaring that “I like to quote him because he's really a smart guy”.

De Sutter then quotes, approvingly, this from Savulescu:

“If one day we can use gene technologies to enhance the characteristics of our children, we have the moral duty to do so."

Who is Julian Savulescu?

Savulescu is a philosopher and bioethicist with multiple positions, including a Chair at Oxford University:

Here is one of his published papers (downloadable here):

Savulescu2006

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That paper is basically a discussion of the relative merits, including ethics, of the selection of fetuses with desirable characteristics (eg pre-implantation selection) versus "genetic enhancement” (eg modifying the genome of the embryo).

There is some discussion about whether attempting to create a fitter species might or might not be something which humanity should undertake, and what dangers this might bring.

However, ultimately the concerns are dismissed on utilitarian grounds and the notion that collectivism trumps individual rights. In other words, the ends justify the means. This quote typifies the approach:

Chilling enough for you?

Moral bioenhancement

If not, maybe consider some further work of his, which my friend and colleague pointed me towards. Here is a 2012 book Savulescu co-authored (click on image to download a PDF):

The authors’ position is that human technology has outpaced our evolved moral psychology and is now capable of destroying humanity. In order to prevent this, we apparently must pursue “moral bioenhancement” to expand global altruism.

In terms of what form such “bioenhancement” might take, the authors offer:

• Pharmaceutical interventions, for example substances like oxytocin (possibly delivered via nasal sprays) to increase trust, empathy, and generosity.

• SSRIs to reduce aggression, and promote cooperation.

• Genetic engineering to alter innate biological predispositions, such as reducing aggressive traits or enhancing empathetic capacities.

The authors also suggest that because of assymetry (whereby individuals can cause great harm to many), unless “moral dispositions” can be improved then mass surveillance is both necessary and desirable; any consequent loss of privacy would be morally justified and outweighed by the preservation of life and security.

Here is a direct quote which encapsulates the above:

Many people might think these views are somehow fringe. Unfortunately that is not the case.

The “covid” debacle showed us that many of the core ideologies on display in the above are quite broadly held by many in the fields of science and medicine. I have, in fact, written fairly extensively about the process of continual subjugation of individual rights and their replacement by communitarian attitudes.

The final point worth making is that the “bioenhancement” project was funded by Wellcome, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (in turn funded by the UK government), and a school which is part of Oxford University. From the publication itself:

I was curious as to the level of support given by these organisations, so I asked Gemini to research it (not having any free time to do this myself). For what it is worth, it responded as follows:

Now, I have no idea who Sama is, and have followed very little of his posts before. I tend to be suspicious of accounts which come from nowhere and appear to be promoting anti-establishment messaging whilst at the same time escaping censorship and suppression.

I am not going to comment further on that here as it’s not the focus of this post, which is that one specific element of Sama’s post on X particularly intrigued me, and that was this:

I had never heard of Christopher Ramsden before so decided to look into the story.

The paper to which Sama is referring is this 2016 article:

Here’s a PDF:

Bmj

1.24MB ∙ PDF file

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What is the paper all about?

In Minnesota between 1968 and 1973 a huge randomised trial was undertaken to determine the effects of replacing saturated fats with vegetable oil rich in linoleic acid. Important results remained unpublished in the medical literature until Ramsden’s 2016 paper.

Key features of the Minnesota Coronary Experiment were:

• A randomized, double-blind trial conducted from 1968–1973 involving 9,570 institutionalised men and women across seven Minnesota state facilities.

• Half the subjects received the “intervention diet”, in which saturated fatwas replaced with liquid corn oil and polyunsaturated margarine - ie a “cholesterol-lowering diet”.

• Those receiving the “control diet” continued their standard institutional diet maintaining a high saturated fat intake.

• Diets were served in a single line using encoded food trays and punch cards to track missed meals and ensure adherence. Nobody - other than those preparing the diets - knew which diet each subject was receiving.

• The endpoints intented to be measured included all-cause mortality, cardiovascular events, serum cholesterol levels, and postmortem evaluations of atherosclerosis and myocardial infarctions.

Numbers of patients involved:

• 16,825 participants completed initial screening forms.

• 7,255 individuals were no longer in the hospitals when the dietary phase commenced

• 9,570 participants were randomized into the study (4,756 allocated to the intervention diet and 4,814 to the control diet).

• 9,423 participants actually began and received their assigned diets (4,685 intervention and 4,738 control); 147 patients had zero days of diet exposure and were excluded from survival curves.

• 9,423 participants were included in the primary full-cohort Kaplan-Meier life tables analysed by Broste in his 1981 thesis (see below).

• 2,403 randomized participants remained on the study diets for at least one year; longitudinal serum cholesterol measurements were recovered and analyzed for 2,355 of these individuals (1,179 intervention and 1,176 control).

• Mortality and autopsy samples: Across the trial, 517 total deaths occurred, and 295 autopsies were completed; complete autopsy records for coronary/aortic atherosclerosis and myocardial infarction were recovered and analyzed for 149 patients (76 intervention and 73 control).

What happened to the results?

The trial completed in 1973, but for many years thereafter, no results were published. In a 1975 conference abstract at an American Heart Association meeting1 the methodology, population characteristics, and initial cardiovascular observations were presented.

At that time, and as Ramsden had found in his research for his 2016 paper, it was reported that no significant differences were observed between the treatment and control groups for cardiovascular events, cardiovascular deaths, or total mortality. A favorable trend in cardiovascular endpoints among certain younger participant subgroups (under age 50–55) who remained on the diet for longer periods was suggested. The fact that mortality trends looked unfavourable in the over-65s was NOT mentioned, nor any autopsy data.

No data on the relationship between individual cholesterol reduction and the risk of death was reported either, but this may be because at that time (1975) the computing power necessary to perform the complex time-based analyses was in its infancy.

In 1981 a student of the University of Minnesota called Steven Broste (a now-retired bio-statistician) completed a Master of Science thesis containing detailed Kaplan-Meier survival analyses and subgroup lifetables. This remained uncited and excluded from the scientific evidence base.

Here’s his thesis:

Broste Thesis Correction2179

38.6MB ∙ PDF file

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Broste’s analyses found the following:

• There was no mortality benefit in the diet group across all 9,423 randomized participants with follow-up.

• Excess mortality in the intervention group was confined primarily to participants aged 65 and older.

• Crude rates and survival curves for coronary heart disease deaths revealed no beneficial effect from the experimental cholesterol-lowering diet. In fact, coronary heart disease mortality was higher in the intervention diet group.

• Cox regression analysis showed cholesterol reductions were associated with a higher risk of death in those on the intervention diet for more than a year.

• Interaction and Compliance Findings: Multivariable regressions indicated that diet compliance and aging had a more severe, detrimental impact on mortality in the intervention cohort.

• In subjects aged 65 and older, excess mortality in the intervention diet group emerged and diverged between days 400 and 600.

• Lower BMI strongly predicted higher mortality (considered due to frailty and physical debilitation.

It should be noted that not all the above findings were statistically significant, although crucially these were:

• The association between the amount of cholesterol reduction and the risk of death in those on the diet for more than a year; (ie the greater the reduction from baseline, the higher the risk of death)

• Divergence of excess mortality (greater in the intervention diet group) between days 400–600 in >65s

In 1989, sixteen years after the trial ended, the principal investigators published an initial report in Arteriosclerosis (PDF below) describing overall null findings for cardiovascular events and mortality; they omitted any reporting of the relationship between cholesterol and mortality, a specific older-age subgroup analsys, or any autopsy data. Instead, they focused on the small, favorable trends in younger participants and emphasised that the trial was underpowered due to high patient turnover.

This is, by the way, despite the principal investigator and author - Ivan Frantz - being well aware of Broste’s work. He is thanked in the thesis and Ramsden described it as having been completed “under mentorship of MCE researchers”.

Frantz Et Al 1989 Test Of Effect Of Lipid Lowering By Diet On Cardiovascular Risk The Minnesota Coronary Survey

433KB ∙ PDF file

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Nothing more emerged regarding the study’s results until 2016 - when Ramsden et al published the BMJ piece referred to above.

In that paper, the authors repeated the analyses Broste performed and carried out additional analyses, using data obtained from the MCE archives, including that held on magnetic tape.

Their findings confirmed and expanded upon Broste’s findings:

• Replacing saturated fat with linoleic acid significantly lowered serum cholesterol but showed no reduction in all-cause mortality or coronary heart disease deaths

• In participants on the study diets for more than a year, each 30 mg/dl reduction in serum cholesterol was associated with a statistically significant 22% increase in the risk of death

• Subgroup survival analyses revealed an excess mortality hazard confined primarily to the >65s allocated to the intervention diet, in which the increased risk of death was 74%

• Data from 149 recovered autopsy reports showed no difference in coronary atherosclerosis or aortic atheroma between the groups, while myocardial infarctions were nearly twice as prevalent in the intervention diet group

Ramsden et al also performed a systematic review of all the trials of linoleic acid rich diets, which supported the hypothesis that they lowered cholesterol without reducing coronary heart disease mortality or total mortality, providing no overall clinical benefit.

Why did the data remain unpublished for so long?

That particular article did get some mainstream attention in the Washington Post (click on the picture to go to an archived version):

That article does address the question as to why the full results never made the light of day at the time. To quote:

2016 Wapo Article

4.35MB ∙ PDF file

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Ivan Franke’s son (Robert) gives some further clues as to what might have driven the non-publication in a forward to the supplement to the 2016 BMJ paper titled:

“Tribute to Dr. Ivan Frantz in leading the Minnesota Coronary Experiment team. Reared on Margarine and to the Tune of Spinning Ultracentrifuges: A Son’s Recollections of Ivan D. Frantz, Jr. During the Early Days of Lipid Research. Robert P. Frantz, M.D ”:

2016 Ramsden Supply Appendix Ramc027623

6.87MB ∙ PDF file

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Concluding remarks

This is a text-book example of publication bias in action. Results which didn’t fit the preconceived expectations of the investigators were simply held back, in this case for decades. The scientists struggled to believe the results and assumed that there must be something wrong with the study - not that maybe the results were actually disproving their hypothesis.

In fact, these results may never have seen the light of day had Christopher Ramsden not decided to go poking around the study archives.

In this particular case, pharma pressure appears to have been absent. The trial predates the emergence of the statins; however, their existence may have played a role in later non-publication. That pressure need not have been direct. The entire machinery of scientific publication has, for many decades now, been under the direct or indirect control of Big Pharma. The careers of many scientists are sustained by the belief that cholesterol is harmful and lowering it is net beneficial.

As Upton Sinclair famously said:

It is hard to get someone to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.

It also seems to me that there is an inherent bias towards publishing results which demonstrate that an intervention - whatever it might be - is beneficial. It is quite difficult for scientists raised on such a premise to admit that doing nothing might be preferable to doing something.

Given that serendipity was such an important factor in the ultimate uncovering of this data, we have to ask:

For several startling quotes from recent editors of the major scientific journals, see my recent article below:

Sanity Unleashed

Inside the corporate takeover of medical journals

Note 1. I updated this at 8 AM on 4th August 2026 to include links to quotes, and expanded Drummond Rennie’s quote…

Read more

a month ago · 52 likes · 32 comments · Jonathan Engler

See this piece, for example, in which I tell the story of Mao’s disastrous attempt to increase crop yields in China by eliminating sparrows:

I am always interested when people come up with attractive ways of saying things I agree with, so was fascinated by this post on X:

The post reads:

Please go to the post on X and watch the brief video of the double pendulum.

The claim made in the post is that a system set to an accurary of one trillionth of a degree becomes unpredictable after 10 seconds. I thought I’d try to verify it.

The most cited paper looking into this was this:

Shinbrot, T., Grebogi, C., Wisdom, J., & Yorke, J. A. (1992). Chaos in a double pendulum. American Journal of Physics, 60(6), 491–499. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.16860

Here’s a PDF:

Chaos In Double Pendulum

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The paper is pretty technical, so I have below inserted an AI-generated simplified version.

In brief, the investigators sought to measure the amount of divergence between two double-pendulums set off at identical times. They used precision-machined double pendulums and made measurements using high-speed photography multiple times from the exact same starting position,

The primary index for defining and measuring chaos is the Lyapunov exponent (“LE”), a mathematical measure of how fast two nearly identical starting states in a system diverge over time.

1. Negative values indicate systems which rapidly converge on a settled state (eg a single pendulum subject to air resistance)

2. Zero represents a neutral state (eg planetary orbit)

3. A positive value means the system is chaotic, and the value tells us how chaotic.

A Lyapunov exponent of x means that any starting errors in the system multiply at a rate of e (ie 2.718…) to the power of x.

So for an LE of 2 per second, starting errors multiply at a rate of 2.7 squared (ie to the power of 2), which is just over seven-fold.

For an LE of 7.5, errors multiply at a rate of around 1719-fold per second.

So how does this play out with an error of a trillionth of a degree - as per the post on X?

For the first couple of seconds, the differences might be imperceptible. But by 3.68 seconds they reach 1 degree and by 4 seconds divergence is obvious, at 10 degrees.

By just a second later the paths have fully separated (454 degrees - ie more than a full 360 deg rotation) and bear no relationship to each other at all.

Here’s a graph depicting the above:

Appendix - Gemini-generated simplified version of the Shinbrot paper:

Overview

Chaos is defined by an extreme sensitivity to starting conditions. In a chaotic system, any tiny difference between two starting setups multiplies exponentially over time, causing their paths to diverge rapidly and rendering long-term behavior unpredictable. This study provides both a visual demonstration and a precise measurement of chaos using a simple mechanical device: the double pendulum (a pendulum suspended from the end of another pendulum).

I. Introduction

In predictable systems, small discrepancies remain small. In chaotic systems, however, initial differences grow exponentially according to a rate constant known as the Lyapunov exponent. When this exponent is positive, tiny initial uncertainties balloon violently. While the double pendulum appears straightforward, its motion becomes wildly unpredictable when swung with sufficient energy. This paper details both a physical experiment and a computer simulation designed to measure this exponential divergence directly.

II. The Tandem Double Pendulum

To visually demonstrate this behavior, the authors built two identical double pendulums side by side:

• Small Angle Release: When released from a small angle, the pendulums swing neatly in sync, remaining matched even after 30 seconds. Their motion is stable, regular, and predictable.

• Large Angle Release: When released from a larger angle, their paths diverge almost immediately—splitting apart dramatically within just two seconds.

This divergence does not stem from manufacturing flaws or release errors; it is an unavoidable consequence of chaos. Because microscopic differences between the two pendulums cannot be eliminated, exponential growth rapidly drives them apart.

III. Cause of Exponential Growth

To explain why tiny errors compound so quickly, consider a classic ecological model: a population of lions and gazelles. When lions are scarce, their population multiplies rapidly. As prey becomes scarce, growth slows. This simple feedback creates a system where a mere 0.01% initial difference in prey count causes predictions to become 100% wrong within ten generations. To double the time over which you can predict the outcome, you would need to square your starting measurement precision—an impossible standard over long horizons.

The double pendulum exhibits the same dynamic. Its physical state depends on four interrelated variables: two angles and two speeds. When released from high angles, these governing equations amplify any initial displacement exponentially. By contrast, a single ordinary pendulum cannot be chaotic; its fluctuations average out to zero over time, whereas a high-energy double pendulum produces a sustained positive growth of errors.

IV. Measurement of Exponent

Physical Experiment

Rather than comparing two physical pendulums simultaneously, the authors released a single, precision-machined double pendulum multiple times from the exact same starting position.

• The pendulum was held in place by an electromagnet clamped to a stand to ensure identical starting coordinates.

• Releasing the magnet triggered a stroboscopic light flashing 25 times per second in a darkened room.

• Thin, reflective white stripes on the black-painted pendulum arms were captured on camera against a dark background.

• Using a drafting machine and a plumb line as a vertical baseline, successive arm angles were measured from the photographs with an accuracy of approximately 1 degree.

Numerical Experiment

The authors also modeled the system on a computer using standard mathematical integration methods. The simulated pendulum was assigned the exact dimensions, masses, and moments of inertia of the physical apparatus, allowing for a direct comparison.

V. Results

By tracking the geometric separation between different release trials over time, the authors mapped the rate of divergence:

• Experimental Growth Rate: Combining the physical trials yielded an average Lyapunov exponent of 7.5 / sec

• Simulated Growth Rate: The computer simulation produced an exponent of 7.9 / sec.

Both the physical and computer models displayed notable undulations during the first fraction of a second. These temporary pauses in error growth occurred because the outer arm briefly settled into a stable, self-correcting alignment under the pull of the inner arm before violent chaotic divergence resumed. Despite these short-term local fluctuations, the overall growth rate was strongly positive and matched closely across physical and numerical trials.

VI. Conclusion

The double pendulum serves as a practical, laboratory-scale confirmation of chaos theory. Both physical measurement and computer modeling verify that trajectory errors multiply exponentially with a positive Lyapunov exponent of approximately 7.5 - 7.9 / sec. The experiment quantitatively proves that even in simple, deterministic mechanical systems governed by classical laws of motion, absolute long-term predictability is practically impossible.

Some of these are little-known stories I just happen to come across. But some of them are huge meaty issues which others have looked into in some depth, but have just never become widely known.

The story of Biogen’s drug for Alzheimers, aduhelm, is one such example.

Imagine someone told you this:

• A drug for Alzheimer’s (which was later priced at around $50k / annum) failed its phase 3 efficacy trials, in that they were halted early due to “futility”1.

• Moreover, significant safety concerns were raised by the data from the trials.

• The FDA’s independent advisory committee voted unanimously (10-0) against approval.

• Instead of being canned, the manufacturer embarked on an undisclosed and extensive collaboration with FDA officials - involving off-the-record phone calls and meetings (in total, at least 115 total meetings, calls, and email exchanges over the 12-month period from July 2019) - to formulate a means by which the drugs could be approved on some other pretext, specifically a biological surrogate marker (the amount of amyloid plaque present) thought to play a role in Alzheimer’s disease.

• Senior leadership within the FDA made an administrative executive decision to approve it, overruling internal statisticians and the external advisory committee.

• This was despite substantial clinical data available to them at that time that showing reducing or removing amyloid plaque did not reliably halt, reverse, or meaningfully slow cognitive decline.

• In protest, three senior FDA officials resigned.

It is barely believable, but it actually happened.

But worse than that, no FDA officials were ever santioned or disciplined for the episode. In fact, the careers of the three officials mainly responsible moved in the opposite trajectory:

• Dr. Billy Dunn, who led 66 undocumented interactions with Biogen and bypassed the 10–0 Advisory Committee rejection, remained in his executive post until retiring in 2023. Thereafter he took a number of positions in the private sector.

• Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni who officially signed off on the surrogate-endpoint approval faced no sanctions and retained her high-level leadership post.

• Dr. Janet Woodcock (Acting Commissioner) faced no reprimand and retired with all her benefits intact.

In fact, no FDA official has ever been fired, had their pension stripped, or held legally liable for approving a drug that was subsequently proven to be dangerous (or ineffective).

Appendix:

House committee report (click on image to go to the landing page, from which the report can be downloaded):

Detailed timeline for Aduhelm created by Gemini AI:

The journalist-psychiatrist Dr Max Pemberton has made a documentary, to be screened on the UK’s Channel 4 at 8 PM on 18 August:

I have written very little about ADHD on this blog, but I have no doubt that regular readers could quite readily predict that I stand foursquare behind the thesis being put forward by this documentary:

I also believe that it is scandalous that “ADHD” - with all its podcasts, celebrity endorsements, private clinics and tens of thousands of “worried well” seeking the diagnosis which will explain (and then cure) everything that’s wrong with their lives - has become a highly profitable and self-reinforcing industry peddling dangerous drugs to the gullible.

This story has been featured in several mainstream outlets. Here are two examples (in each case click on the image to go to a non-paywalled version).

The Times:

The Daily Mail:

In the Times piece in particular Pemberton outlined a mechanism which I think is applicable to much of modern medicine - and non-medical science actually - which is how the application of a label onto what is essentially normal then becomes self-reinforcing:

This phenomenon is, quite clearly, closely linked to the notion of placebo and nocebo effects, about which I have written extensively (see articles here).

Other examples in modern medicine of the phenomenon whereby the labeling causes self-reinforcement include:

• Functional Neurological Disorder (FND)

• Chronic Lyme Disease

• Adult "Autism Spectrum Disorder" (ASD) / Social anxiety

• Mild traumatic brain injury, called by some “post-concussion syndrome")

• Lumbar degeneration

• Dysautonomia

• Food intolerances and "histamine intolerance" / "Mast Cell Activation Syndrome" (MCAS)

• Gender dysphoria

I am not - it must be emphasised - saying that all (or even most) cases of the above are necessarily social constructs exclusively caused by labeling and subsequent self-reinforcing mechanisms.

But what I do think is that in many cases this mechanism plays a part in the genesis and / or maintenence of the existence of these conditions.

To my list above I would of course add “covid”. I am still astonished that many critical thinkers I know well still believe a novel disease caused by a novel virus emerged in 2020, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary:

Where are the numbers? by Norman Fenton and Martin Neil

Why do people still believe in covid?

Sure, PCR was done badly but there was a novel virus, right…

Read more

2 years ago · 421 likes · 238 comments · Martin Neil, Jonathan Engler, and Norman Fenton

Sanity Unleashed

Inside the corporate takeover of medical journals

[I updated this at 8 AM on 4th August 2026 to include links to quotes, and expanded Drummond Rennie’s quote…

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a month ago · 51 likes · 31 comments · Jonathan Engler

Some people find listening to material easier than reading it.

I have, therefore, used Gemini to create this conversational podcast1.

As inputs, I pointed it to my recent article on the topic, as well as the 6 sources used in that piece, PDFs of which are below.

Richard Smith Pmed

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Drummond Integrity

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Horton What Is Medicine's 5 Sigma The Lancet

253KB ∙ PDF file

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Richard Smith 2021 Pmed

763KB ∙ PDF file

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Drummond Journal Of Law

789KB ∙ PDF file

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Marcia Angell Essay

5.23MB ∙ PDF file

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I have written extensively on this topic, in particular the below article in which I list all the evidence I had found at that point supporting the contention that the administration of such drugs prematurely ended the lives of (at least) thousands of people, thereafter being blamed on “the virus”:

Sanity Unleashed

Did testing and euthanasia protocols help create the appearance of a sudden-spreading deadly novel virus?

Some people were onto the midazolam / euthanasia story from very early on…

Read more

2 years ago · 265 likes · 112 comments · Jonathan Engler

It turns out that NG163 had a “relative” which was at least as dangerous - NG165, which acted to limit the use of antibiotics in “covid-positive” subjects during the “pandemic”:

In April this year I wrote a long(ish) article about the circumstances surrounding the sad death of 41-year old James Cameron in Dundee during “the pandemic”.

Sanity Unleashed

James Cameron: killed in Scotland at 41 by a "covid treatment protocol"?

(Before reading on, please note the disclaimer here…

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4 months ago · 65 likes · 19 comments · Jonathan Engler

James was admitted to hospital with what - during any other time - would have been diagnosed as pneumonia with sepsis and treated with (amongst other thigs) intravenous antibiotics. However, because of the “positive covid test” he didn’t receive antibiotics until it was too late, almost certainly contributing to his death

In the article I point out that he was actually entered into a clinical trial which precluded the possibility of him being treated with antibiotics.

Towards the end of the article I point out that the number of people who would have been denied antibiotics would not have been limited to those entering the particular trial which James was placed into:

At the time I wrote that, I had forgotten about the NICE guideline NG165, however via this comment under the article I was reminded of its existence:

Sure enough, NG165 is not available on the NICE website, but it can be found online, and here it is:

Nice Covid 19 Rapid Guideline Managing Suspected Or Confirmed Pneumonia In Adults In The Community

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The first point to note from that document is that it is abundantly clear that it is meant to be widely applied, not just “considered”:

Moreover, it was meant to supplant the then applicable guidelines for community-acquired pneumonia:

Minimising direct contact was a major theme of NG165:

The directive to minimise contact is repeated in section 3.

Section 3 also gives advice on how to distinguish between bacterial and viral pneumonia:

The differences seem rather vague (especially when considered via remote consultation) and the symptoms overlap substantially. Moreover, during the hysteria of the “emergency” when tests (which cross-reacted with the common cold) were being rolled out in their tens of thousands daily, it was difficult to avoid “a history of exposure to a known of suspected COVID-19” case, especially as many people had the ridiculous apps on their phone alerting them of any such possible contact.

I am, therefore, theorising that such guidance would have led to the vast majority of cases of run-of-the-mill respiratory illnesses during “the pandemic” being classed as “covid” - when they would not have been regarded as anything unusual prior to 2020.

The consequences of that, as the anonymous commenter pointed out above, were that the guidelines would have strongly discouraged antibiotic treatment, as specified in section 4:

Of course, we know that overall antibiotic usage declined during the pandemic (see here for EU data, for which similar is available for the UK), which, even if there had been a real pandemic of a respiratory pathogen, is the opposite of what should have happened (see the commentary in my article above, in which I point out that it is bacterial infection which kills during “influenza” outbreaks).

Conclusion

The official NICE guidelines NG163 and NG165 both provided treatment guidance which would have increased mortality from respiratory illnesses.

The additional deaths caused thereby were officially blamed on the novel coronavirus, and hence these guidelines played a role in propagating and maintaining the state of illusion of pandemicity.

Behind the Narrative 📣

The Death of France - The Secret Report Macron Is Hiding

It’s a typical afternoon in Saint-Denis, the narrow streets packed with people whose faces you cannot see. The women move in niqab, shapes without features, eyes that do not meet yours. The shop signs are in Arabic, the smell of cumin and lamb fat rises from every doorway, thick and permanent, as if the street itself has been marinated in another world…

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3 months ago · 2138 likes · 533 comments · Behind the Narrative 📣

It describes how the French security services delivered a classified report to Emmanuel Macron (“frères Musulmans et Islamisme Politique en France”1) which describes in detail a plan for an Islamic takeover of France led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

2025 05 02 Rapport Freres Musulmans

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The substack article claims that Macron ignored it, and even hid it from the public, and that the newspaper Le Figaro obtained it via a leak and made it public.

The archived Le Figaro article referred to can be found here and below as a PDF:

Le Figaro Article On Report

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Here’s an exec summary (AI-generated) of the above Le Figaro article in English:

Here’s a PDF of a machine translation of the full Le Figaro article:

Le Figaro Article Machine Translation Into English

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The main thing that jumped out at me was that the Le Figaro article makes no mention of there having been a leak, or that the report had in any way been hidden.

I think the substack author has got that particular part of this story wrong, though the parts outling the report’s contents, and how shocking they ought to be, seem to be accurate.

It looks like this was a government-commissioned report delivered to the executive, classified as secret for a (relatively short) period, then declassified and made public2.

Here’s a brief news report (in English) from May 2025 discussing the report and the government’s reaction to it:

I don’t think a minor error in the representation of how the report became public should detract from the importance of its contents, nor from the core message, which is that Western governments seem to be sleep-walking into a deliberately propagated transformation of their societies from the grassroots upwards.

However, I can add a fascinating observation from own experience.

After I had read the substack article, I decided to find the report itself so I could take a look through it. The bibliography didn’t give a link, only the report’s name.

So I enlisted the help of Gemini, and in this note I describe what happened.:

The fact that the report was NOT “leaked” and was apparently made very public and discussed throughout the media quite extensively makes it all the more disturbing that the first response of Gemini was to deny its existence.

Sanity Unleashed

Inside the corporate takeover of medical journals

The other day I met a doctor with over 40 years experience in both the clinical and academic spheres. He was with me on many issues of the day, including the poor quality of science being conducted, the criminal nature of the transgender movement, overdiagnosis and so on…

Read more

a month ago · 49 likes · 22 comments · Jonathan Engler

I think it’s worthwhile continuing to look at journals, since it is clear to me that huge swathes of the population, including scientists and doctors, don’t realise quite how bad things are.

Firstly, I want to say a few words on publication bias - the phenomenon whereby those with vested interests (and control over publication) rig the system so as to make research which yields results favourable to their interests more likely to be published, while suppressing the publication of work which has outcomes they don’t like.

I have already written a few pieces on this:

In this, I describe a 2008 paper which analysed the publication history of all the trials submitted to the FDA in connection with 12 anti-depressants.

Sanity Unleashed

Publication bias in action - it's worse than you think.

Publication bias is the phenomenon whereby a group with vested interests gets to influence which studies are published, or how they are characterised if they do get published…

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8 months ago · 31 likes · 3 comments · Jonathan Engler

The results were startling:

• 97% of the studies FDA viewed as positive were published.

• Of the studies FDA viewed as negative or questionable, ~60% weren’t published at all, and 30% actually conveyed a positive outcome. Less than 10% were published in a way which conveyed the Regulator’s perspective.

In the essay below, I pointed out that Pfizer appears to have “forgotten” about a large cohort of >26,000 subjects in its mRNA influenza-vaccine trial (which did not have favourable results) while ensuring publication of the data from its younger cohort, which claims superiority over the “traditional flu-shot”, though as I point out here it’s utter nonsense. (This cohort remains unpublished, to my knowledge.)

Sanity Unleashed

Publication bias: another Big Pharma trick

A couple of days ago I posted this…

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9 months ago · 43 likes · 15 comments · Jonathan Engler

It’s worth pointing out here that the phenomenon of publication bias is separate from, but acts in synergy with many other tactics which pharma use. Fixing publication bias won’t fix the problems if the science itself can’t be trusted.

Evidence of manipulated outcomes reporting.

The science reported in journals is often shoddy, but if it were just shoddy, that would be one thing.

However, what we actually observe is that clinical research is designed and analysed in ways which tilt the observed outcome in the direction favourable to those paying for it, as the below illustrates.

The other day I was reading a blog (here) on statistical methodology in clinical trials, and came across a link to a post on X which including the following striking graph:

A “z-value” is the number of standard deviation from the norm. When something is described as statistically significant at the 5% level, this is 2 (1.98 to be precise) SDs from the norm. The vertical dotted lines in the above, therefore, equate to “statistically significant”.

Now, obviously, you would expect the distributions to be normally distributed, like the classic bell curve. What you would NOT expect are sharp, unnatural cut-offs at the points which mark the boundaries between significance at the 5% level, or not.

That graph was reproduced from this 2021 paper by two Dutch statisticians. The actual source of the data, however, as the authors pointed out, was this 2019 paper by Adrian Barnett and Jonathan D Wren from Queensland, Australia.

E032506

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What Barnet and Wren did was this:

• They created a text-mining algorithm to extract all the typical ways in which ratio estimates (eg, odds ratios, hazard ratios and risk ratios) and confidence intervals are reported.

• They extracted over 968 000 intervals extracted from Medline abstracts from over 5900 journals, and over 350 000 intervals extracted from the full-text from over 2700 journals found by trawling Medline for all articles published since 1976.

• They repeated the exercise for a set of published estimates derived from a large amount of data collected for insurance claims; crucially, these estimates were not subject to any ‘significance seeking’ by researchers or journals.

The results

Further thoughts on these findings.

This is deeply unnatural. It raises several possibilities:

• That publication bias is resulting in more results of significance being published

• That the results are essentially manipulated to bring them inside the desired parameters

Clearly, from the comments under the original post on X, scientists are keener to focus in publication bias as the key reason, however that cannot explain the sharp, precision spike stacked immediately on the “right side” of the line. If journals simply selected for positive outcomes, you would see a smooth drop-off of non-significant studies, but the data that did get published would still follow natural probabilistic curves.

What this graph suggests - one could say proves - is active data manipulation, that is to say the active massage and forcing of non-significant numbers “across the finish line” before the paper is even submitted.

Bad as these might seem, bear in mind that the algorithm employed did not distinguish between primay and secondary endpoints - it just pulled out all estimates.

I have little doubt that due to the “special attention” being deployed on the primary measures, were it possible to focus on those the data would look even worse (for scientific integrity).

It should also be noted that many (most, in all likelihood) doctors only read the abstract to any journal articles, and the manipulation was worse for results contained there than in the full text.

Finally, it should be remembered that published trials are the “ingredients” of the systematic reviews and meta-analyses which form the bedrock of clinical decison-making and policy recommendations.

If these can’t be trusted, then nor can anything downstream of them.

In the words of Drummond Rennie (deputy editor NEJM 1977 to 1981, and JAMA 1983 to 2013) from a piece he wrote for Journal of Law and Policy in 2008:

Over the past thirty years, we have come to realize that the scientific record may be fabricated and in other ways fraudulent.

But having set up systems to deal with research misconduct, we are now discovering a vastly more important problem: the massive bias and distortion of the published evidence by researchers and their sponsors, both influenced by money.

Note 2. There’s an AI-generated audio version of this here:

The other day I met a doctor with over 40 years experience in both the clinical and academic spheres. He was with me on many issues of the day, including the poor quality of science being conducted, the criminal nature of the transgender movement, overdiagnosis and so on.

He was even with me that the pharmaceutical industry was basically corrupt.

However, when I put it to him that there is in fact virtually no mainstream science that could be trusted, he pushed back.

I wonder if he’s aware of the views of those who have been in the best possible position to observe the corrupt nature of medical science - mainstream medical journal editors.

Here are just a few notable quotes:

Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM):

“It is simply 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.”

…from her 2009 essay “Drug Companies & Medicine: How Tidily They Dance” in The New York Review of Books. (I also downloaded as a PDF here in case that link is inaccessible.)

Dr. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief, The Lancet

“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.”

…from a 2015 editorial for The Lancet.

Dr. Richard Smith, editor-in-chief of the BMJ for over a decade:

“Medical journals are an extension of the marketing arm of pharmaceutical companies... Trials funded by drug companies rarely produce unfavourable results and make up between two thirds and three quarters of the trials published in key journals.”

….from a 2005 essay for PLoS Medicine.

In a 2021 piece for the BMJ, Smith took an even harsher stance on health research integrity, writing:

“It may be time to stop assuming that research actually happened and is honestly reported, and assume that the research is fraudulent until there is some evidence to support it having happened and been honestly reported.”

Dr. Drummond Rennie, deputy editor NEJM 1977 to 1981, and JAMA 1983 to 2013:

It has been clear for at least two decades that, when clinical researchers have a financial stake in the results, it opens the door to a pervasive distortion of science (Rennie 2007). When a drug company sponsors a trial, the company employees usually select the drug tested, its dose, and the comparison drug. Company employees design the trial, often to produce the result they desire rather than to answer a scientific question. They have a powerful and fateful role in managing the trial, sometimes stopping it for reasons unrelated to science and despite any commitment to the trial participants (Psaty and Rennie 2003). They may even suppress the results completely (Rennie 1997).

From a 2007 essay in Health Services Research.

Thus the whole system is built on trust. Trust depends on there being someone accountable……I soon learned from repeated, bitter personal experience that, when scientists had a great deal at stake, some were prepared, in the name of prestige, to take short cuts, falsify, fabricate, plagiarize, bamboozle, lie, cheat, and throw away their reputations simply to notch up more publications, advance their careers and, of course, make more money

…from a piece he wrote for Journal of Law and Policy in 2008.

If you have any further examples, please put them into a comment below.

They refer to Sanofi’s “blockbuster” drug “Acomplia” (generic name: rimonabant) launched in 2006.

This drug - classed as a cannabinoid receptor blocker - was touted as the holy grail for obesity, smoking, and metabolic syndrome.

The BBC called it “The ultimate wonder drug... it doesn’t just cure obesity; it turns off the brain’s desire to overeat, smoke, and self-destruct”.

Sanofi sold a few hundred $ million of this before the drug was withdrawn after only a few years because it was associated with an increased risk of severe psychiatric disorders, notably extreme depression, anxiety, insomnia and aggression.

Who could possibly have predicted that interfering with highly-evolved physiological and psychological pathways such as satiety and pleasure could have adverse effects on mental health?

OK, so maybe everyone was a bit too stupid to have predicted it a couple of decades ago…but at least the lesson would be learned so it couldn’t happen again……

Fast forward to 2026:

By the way, I think this form of checking what’s already out there is the “sweet spot” for productive use of AI. I am basically asking it “what does the mainstream media say about these claims?”.

All I am basically doing is asking it to do the searches I would have to do myself. I wouldn’t necessarily trust the answers without further checking.

For the avoidance of doubt I am not claiming that there’s anything creative, novel or insightful about this.

For more writing about AI - see my articles here.

I saw this post on X this morning:

It reads:

I was aware of most of the above, but before resposting I wanted to check that everything there WAS accepted fact.

So I reproduced the text and asked Gemini:

This is the output:

For what it’s worth, Gemini added the following after it had completed the above:

With thanks to whose post on X alerted me to this. His post reads:

The first point to make about this is that I haven’t got the actual document from which that is a screenshot (it’s for members only), but I would imagine that the particular behaviour referred to is actually intended to be an example of “Relationship Diversity”, not “sexuality”.

Regardless, the point still stands, that this rebranding is prima facie evidence for moral and ethical decay. Language is being used here to strip away moral agency and normalize destructive and harmful behaviour.

George Orwell made the point that if thought can corrupt language, language can also corrupt thought1.

Here are a few other examples of rebranding2 which fall into the same category, but there are many more:

• “Minor attracted persons” = paedophilia

• “Medical assistance in dying” = assisting with suicide.

• “Mostly peaceful protests” = rioting, looting and destruction of property

• “Gender affirming care” = ideologically-driven child mutilation

• “Neurodivergence” = normal, but on the extremes of the bell curve distribution of personality traits

Here’s a PDF:

Jamainternal Cai 2026 Oi 260030 1780688242

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This has been widely reported in breathless and excited terms, as illustrated by the results of a search on Google:

Looking at the top result in the above - the European Medical Journal - by way of example:

The article repeats the study’s contention that the covid vaccine was associated with lower risks of:

• major adverse cardiovascular events.

• all-cause major adverse cardiovascular events

• all-cause hospitalisation

• all-cause death

I think it’s worthwhile looking at this study in some detail, as this paper - and the reaction to it - tells us much about what is wrong with science today.

Sanjeev Sabhlok’s claims about the study

Ever since I saw him make a fascinating presentation to Panda a few years ago, I have been following Sanjeev Sabhlok on X, Telegram and Facebook.

He has been giving regular updates on a textbook of public health he is writing. Through analysis of primary sources going back centuries, he seems to be coming to similar conclusions as myself (and no doubt much of the readership here):

I’d certainly recommend subscribing to his Telegram channel (here).

Though I applaud the work he is doing on public health, I believe he is still suffering from a blind spot (which I described here) in relation to vaccination.

On this very topic, this post by Sanjeev on Facebook caught my attention:

To save you having to click through to Facebook, it reads as follows:

The following graph from the paper was then inserted below:

I then replied (on Facebook) as follows:

In response, Sanjeev has doubled down on his praise for this study, stating (here) that he “still think[s] the JAMA study makes sense” and here that “the paper is not defective as you [referring to me] seem to think it is”.

However, I do believe that Sanjeev is intellectually honest and willing to consider alternative viewpoints. Later, he asked Miguel Hernán (a Harvard Professor specialising in causality) to opine on the study, stating (here) that “since he has written on the methodology, he can tell us if the methodology was used correctly”.

Miguel Hernan can essentially be regarded as the architect of the methodology employed in the JAMA trial which Sanjeev admired so greatly; in 2016 his seminal paper on the topic was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology (downloadable from here.)

Here’s a PDF:

Kwv254

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However, I don’t think the question as to whether the methodology was used correctly is the relevant one. A much bigger and more pertinent question is whether such emulated randomised trials are (for all practical purposes) capable of answering complex causal questions in the field of biology2 - not whether the methodology was followed properly.

Asking Hernan to opine on this matter is a bit like asking a proponent of frontal lobotomies to adjudge the validity of a paper reporting on the benefits of the procedure, based on how technically correct the surgeon was in carrying it out.

Prasad has similar doubts (FWIW)

In this piece, Prasad (correctly in my view) calls for trials of this nature to be clearly spelt out as being what they really are - observational studies. He makes the point that time and time again real-world observations have failed to reproduce the effects predicted by “target trials”.

Vinay Prasad's Observations and Thoughts

Time to rename target trials, 'observational studies'

I kept an open mind with target trials. I thought the logic made sense and their design was elegant. Yet recent high profile failures should make us all reconsider target trials…

Read more

2 months ago · 195 likes · 22 comments · Vinay Prasad

He is clearly as irritated as I am by the language chosen to describe these efforts, which somehow suggests that something akin to randomisation is being done. These are not randomised trials at all, but by the use of that word a veneer of respectability / credibility is being used to hide the true nature of these emulated trials - low quality observational evidence.

A particularly vocal critic of the methodology has been Frank Harrell3, Professor of Biostatistics at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine - who has also had experience advsing FDA on biostatistics (LinkedIn profile). There’s an interesting discussion on the methodology here. Harrel writes:

and

The essential problem with any study design which does not involve randomisation is that there will always be confounding which cannot be corrected for, that is to say a priori differences between the groups being compared which can or do explain some or all of the differences observed.

The authors of papers employing methodology such as that described by Hernan (and used in the JAMA paper we are discussing here) go to huge lengths to correct for such differences, but the fact is that they can only correct for differences which are known, observable and measurable, and for which the relationship between the difference and the effect on the outcome of interest has been reliably and accurately characterised.

He goes into more detail in this piece which is worth a read:

In that, he concludes that:

How “good” was the 2026 JAMA trial in terms of methodology?

I doubt very much that Hernan will answer Sanjeev’s request for help on X, so I had a go myself.

The essential nature of the study was as follows:

• The study was a “target-trial emulation” using US Veterans Affairs electronic health records from just over 1m veterans, with average age 70. Nearly all (92%) were male.

• The study compared adults receiving the 2024–2025 COVID-19 and influenza vaccines together against those receiving just the the influenza vaccine alone.

• Attempts to adjust for confounders were made using inverse probability of treatment and censoring weights.

In their methodology, the authors say they corrected for a huge range of covariates:

However, my point is that there will always be unknowns, and, moreover, for the known covariates the mathematical relationship between them and the outcome of interest might not be “nailed down”, as the authors do somewhat cursorily acknowledge (see below).

In 2023 Hansford et al published a systematic review “Reporting of Observational Studies Explicitly Aiming to Emulate Randomized Trials”.

In this, they evaluated how observational studies which explicitly aimed to emulate a target trial were reported in the literature. They discovered widespread inconsistency and detailed exactly where these publications fell short.

I have (with the help of Gemini) created a list of the elements which Hansford et al say should be addressed in an ideal study:

(To be clear, I am not judging the JAMA covid booster study’s validity in terms of assertions of causality by this exercise. I am just answering the question as to how well this study stacks up against the recipe for the methodology, the validity of which I do not accept to answer such complex questions.)

Having read through the paper, it seems that the authors did address all these requirements4 except for one: the paper falls short in terms of discussion over and identification of residual confounders (ie differences between the groups which aren’t corrected for by the methdology), the only mention of the possibility of which can be found in their final sentence of the “Strengths and Limitations” section:

What problems might there have been with residual confounding5?

1. How the known confounders are treated:

The way in which the known confounders are corrected for depends on what is assumed about the relationship between those characteristics and the outcome of interest. In this study, the authors cite a number of papers (numbers 9, 28–36 in their reference list) in this respect.

The quality of these papers would seem to be a critical factor in how well the differences between the groups have been “corrected,” since the model inherits its assumptions from those papers about which factors matter.

I am not going to exhaustively describe those papers here, but would point out that many of them rely on reliable and meaningful testing and categorisation practices, and most utilise test-negative designs (which have many issues6).

Moreover, these papers do in any event themselves specifically mention the following known issues:

• The inability to capture behavioral selection trends

• Missing data filled in using modeling based on mathematical assumptions

• Frailty which persists in the adjusted data, suggesting incomplete correction and hence unmatched groups.

2. Known differences which are simply ignored

Secondly, there are known differences here which have simply been ignored, most notably prior vaccine injury / adverse effects and the corresponding depletion of susceptibles in the treatment group.

Those in the “no covid vaccine” group did not mean “completely unvaccinated since 2020”; it meant “did not receive the updated 2024–2025 seasonal dose on day zero.” As a result, anyone who had received a prior version of the vaccine (like the 2021 booster or the 2023 XBB dose) more than 90 days prior to enrollment was indeed eligible to be placed in the “no vaccine” control group.

The authors did actually know this, so they adjusted for it in the analysis. But rather than separating out and reporting the subgroups, they lumped everyone together, artificially balancing the control and treatment groups so they have the same proportion of prior vaccine exposure. Whilst this does indeed balance things up (whilst potentially hiding certain effects in specific subgroups) the bigger problem here is that this totally ignores the biological reality of why these individuals did or didn’t have a further dose.

If an individual took a COVID vaccine in 2021 or 2022 and suffered an adverse cardiovascular event, a subclinical injury, or significant side effects, they would be much less likely to have a further dose. Therefore, the cohort of people who show up in late 2024 to get a same-day co-administration of both a flu shot and a new COVID booster are, by definition, a highly self-selected group of people who have successfully tolerated multiple prior doses without overt injury.

By pooling everyone who didn’t get the 2024–2025 booster into the control arm, the control arm inherently absorbs those who stopped vaccinating due to prior frailty, side effects, or clinical changes.

Even though the mathematical manipulation (ie inverse probability weighting) matches them “on paper” in terms of having received prior doses, it cannot measure the unrecorded biological reality of why they chose not to get the 2024 dose.

In other words, it treats health history as a static checklist, structurally blind to the reality that those who stop vaccinating frequently do so because they suffered prior adverse experiences, completely unbalancing the comparison groups on day zero. Put differently, the weighting procedure creates a mathematical fiction of balance on paper while leaving massive residual confounding intact in the real world.

3. Unknown unknowns

Thirdly, there may be differences between the groups (ie those who chose to have the covid vaccine along with the flu vaccine and those who didn’t) which are simply unknown. Biology is a complex system, our understanding of which is incomplete. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld: “We don’t know what we don’t know.”

Of course, a perfectly effective treatment can disappear in the presence of a perfectly opposing confounder, but equally a completely ineffective treatment can appear highly effective in the presence of a perfectly favourable confounder. Because there are unknown confounders, the debate around studies like this inevitably centres on the plausibility of the data and the biological effects claimed.

Notably, when studies have been published which suggest significant harms from vaccines, they are frequently dismissed as being observational in nature, or otherwise the spectre of missing and / or unknown confounders is raised. This would seem to represent a double standard.

A close look at the data shows that the JAMA trial spews out preposterous conclusions - and even more so than Prasad points out.

In the below article, Prasad makes the point that ACM reductions beginning so soon after dosing are an imprimateur of mismatched groups.

Vinay Prasad's Observations and Thoughts

A new JAMA IM paper on covid shots contains a preposterous result that invalidates the entire paper

A new paper in JAMA IM claims that the 24-25 covid booster reduces cardiovascular events, but the Supplement contains data that invalidates the entire paper. Here is the main result…

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3 months ago · 436 likes · 8 comments · Vinay Prasad

To quote Prasad:

Now, it is clear from his responses, that Sanjeev does NOT think this invalidates the study. In response to this specific point, he states (here):

I am not going to comment further on that, other than to say that believing that some cardio-protective effect - from an injection of something with accepted cardio-toxic mechanisms - better explains lower all-cause mortality than differences between the two groups is only explainable by seriously biased priors.

However, the preposterousness of the data isn’t just observable in that particular measure.

In this short NEJM article, the authors (one of which is Prasad) illustrate the absurdity of data reported for a booster trial from Israel, by showing that the data implies that the vaccinated cohort had a 94.8% lower rate of dying from non-COVID causes (like cancer, accidents, or heart attacks) than the unvaccinated group - something which cannot possibly be a biological effect of the injection.

In the recent 2026 JAMA study, a close analysis of the data reveals a similar preposterousness.

Here’s the raw and adjusted data from the paper. Remember that the purpose of the study was “To determine whether the 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine is associated with reduced risk of COVID-19–associated MACE7”.

A critical analysis of these findings reveals a stark divergence: the narrative constructed by multivariate mathematical models stands in direct opposition to the raw empiricism of the observed data.

The raw data demonstrates an unadjusted signal of elevated all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events within the vaccinated cohort relative to the unvaccinated. The investigators attribute this asymmetry to baseline confounding, asserting that the vaccinated cohort was inherently older, more comorbid, and characteristically frail. To neutralize this imbalance, the study deploys a complex algorithmic adjustment designed to construct an artificial parity between the groups.

This adjustment, however, forces a total inversion of the data. Excess (all-cause) mortality is reversed, and a small elevated rate of MACE is transformed to suggest significant protection.

When a mathematical adjustment actually reverses the observations, we should be sceptical and ask whether the magnitude of the reversal suggests that the methodology is not simply addressing confounding, but rather introducing artefact through over-correction?

The All-Cause mortality paradox

An analysis of the source of the claimed benefit is instructive. The study makes the following claims for the covid vaccine booster (per 10,000 individuals):

• 1 prevented covid-related cardiovascular deaths

• 16 prevented all-cause deaths

• 24 prevented all-cause cardiovascular events

The intervention appears to prevent far more total deaths than can be attributed to the target pathogen itself.

For this model to mirror reality, one must accept a biological impossibility: that the intervention prevents 16 times more total deaths and 24 times more total cardiac events than can be directly attributed to the target pathogen itself.

To address this paradox, the investigators point to a massive, speculative reservoir of undocumented, subclinical covid-related pathology. In other words, they are asking us to accept that this unmeasured, unverified variable simultaneously serves as the missing confounder and the primary justification for the model’s skewed output.

This is surely circular reasoning. The discrepancies between measured and estimated effects are being re-interpreted as evidence for hidden disease, rather than limitations of the model. The hypothesis has been made impossible to falsify.

Conclusion: modeling for the desired result?

Ultimately, these weighted estimates do not demonstrate that confounding has been eradicated; rather, they expose the extreme sensitivity of observational epidemiology to baseline modeling assumptions.

The more extreme the difference between the raw empirical inputs and the weighted outputs, the more heavily the conclusions rely on the absolute completeness (and correctness) of the model employed.

When a statistical apparatus yields conclusions that happen to align perfectly with establishment narrative but which contradicts the raw data, one has to ask whether the authors have simply devised a mechanism for “dealing with” recalcitrant data.

If the law supposes that….the law is a[n] ass — a[n] idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience.

Since then, of course, we have had an increasing number of decisions emanating from the courts which do support Mr Bumble’s suspicion that “the law is an ass”.

I present to you the case of Anurag Mohindru KC, a barrister practicing in the field of criminal law.

This matter came to my attention via this post on X:

The full post reads:

These are the facts as distilled from Johnson J’s judgment - which can be found here.

• Anurag Mohindru KC appealed a Bar Standards Board disciplinary tribunal order directing that he be disbarred following a finding of dishonesty.

• Mohindru was called to the Bar in 2004, took silk (KC) in 2020, and maintained a brilliantly successful and exemplary professional record.

• In November 2012, Mohindru submitted an entirely truthful and accurate tenancy application letter and work profile to a new set of criminal law chambers.

• During a February 2013 interview, a panel member mistakenly assumed Mohindru attended Oxford University and asked if he achieved a cricketing “blue”.

• Mohindru dishonestly replied that he had received an Oxford cricketing blue, prompting sceptical panel members to request a copy of his CV.

• Following the interview, Mohindru edited a digital document to falsely list “Medicine, Oxford University 1993-1994” and emailed it to the chambers.

• Mohindru subsequently withdrew his tenancy application, never provided the false CV to anyone else, and joined a completely different set of chambers.

• In August 2021, eight years later, the Bar Standards Board received an anonymous, undated letter of complaint alleging Mohindru lied about attending Oxford.

• Charged in February 2023, Mohindru initially denied the allegations and claimed a third party must have altered his digital CV document.

• A five-member disciplinary tribunal found the dishonesty charges proved in October 2025, culminating in this High Court appeal against his disbarment.

To my mind, the most significant element of this episode is the “doubling-down” when the allegations were first put to him by the Bar Standards Board.

At that time, rather than “fessing up”, he invented a further lie - that someone else must have altered the document.

In his Lordship’s view:

• The seriousness of past misconduct is fixed when it occurs; a failed defence cannot retrospectively aggravate the original misdemeanour.

• Professionals have the right to deny charges; penalizing them with harsher sanctions for an implausible defense unfairly infringes that right.

• Lying during an investigation must be charged separately, not used covertly to inflate the original sanction.

The BSB guidance lists “aggravating factors”, but of these Johnson J said:

Apparently, telling a barefaced lie when you’ve been found out is OK because it isn’t specifically mentioned in the guidance. Failing to attend the tribunal is an aggravating factor, as is is failing to cooperate and engage with it. But engaging and telling a lie (necessitating the commissioning of forensic evidence) is not?

Isn’t this the law (as stated by his Lordship) being an ass?

Moreover, the fact that failing to attend, cooperate with or engage with the tribunal are mentioned as aggravating factors clearly demonstrates that in drafting and adopting their guidelines the tribunal did not intend that there be no post-hoc aggravating factors, and Johnson J’s narrow interpretation appears to be simply wrong.

As for the assertion that the accused are entitled to run whatever defences they like and put the tribunal to proof - these are notions lifted from criminal law, rather than the professional regulatory environment. The average member of the public would - justifiably - be quite surprised to hear that lawyers - when responding to charges of dishonesty - can simply make up a defence out of thin air, and however unlikely such a defence is it does not then add to the seriousness of the matter.

One further point I would make is that there is a contradiction inherent in the judge’s reasoning:

• On the one hand he makes the point that he has been honest throughout his career and a long time has passed since the original incident without complaint. To quote:
  
  ”Mr Mohindru is not dishonest. He has shown over a two decade career that he has personal and professional integrity and that he is a highly regarded and successful silk.”
  

• But on the other hand, 2021 was the first time the allegation was put to him. He had no need to lie about this before then because nobody was raising it. Presumably, he thought he’d “got away with it”. However, on the very first occasion when it was put to him, he lied. He told a whopper which he must have known was untrue at the time.

At this point, I should clarify that although the judge did use the words - as per the post on X - “it would be wrong to impose the ultimate sanction merely because dishonesty is present” this was prefaced with “On the exceptional facts of the case, a lesser sanction can adequately mark the misconduct, protect the public, and maintain the reputation of the profession. That being the case…..”.

This does not alter my views. The very inclusion of the words “merely because dishonesty is present” - however prefaced - to my mind marks a serious departure from the standards the public are entitled to expect from barristers.

The final point I would make is this:

It has been said that the original lie only came to light because of an anonymous complaint made by a solicitor who had a dispute with Mohindru, and happened to be the wife of one of the barristers on the original interview panel.

Which makes me ask:

Firstly, Andrew Bridgen’s post:

I had not seen the document he referenced, which is the one found at this link:

(An archived version can be accessed here.)

The essence of the document is to warn practitioners about the risks of respiratory depression inherent in the combination of benzodiazepines and opiod drugs.

Midazolam is a benzodiazepine.

This document is dated 18 March 2020, and the earliest version of the infamous NG163 protocol I could find was indeed dated 16 days later, the 3rd April:

Nice Covid19 Gl (1)

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The essence of NG163 - for those who don’t know - is to direct clinicians to prioritise the relief of breathlessness and cough using powerful sedatives (like midazolam) in combination with opiates over any concerns about respiratory depression.

NG163 conflicts with the guidance written just 2 weeks before in a number of fundamental ways:

• The MHRA (alert bulletin) bans co-prescribing unless no alternative exists. NICE actively recommends combining them for severe COVID-19 breathlessness.

• The MHRA warns strictly against fatal respiratory depression. NICE states or at least implies that treatment must not be withheld due to fear of it.

• The MHRA demands the lowest possible doses to avoid toxicity. NICE advocates rapid, stepwise dose increases for adequate symptom relief.

• The MHRA mandates close, continuous monitoring for respiratory depression. NICE prioritizes rapid end-of-life comfort over protracted clinical safety monitoring.

• The MHRA regulates licensed, safe prescribing practices. NICE explicitly directs clinicians to use these combined drugs outside their UK marketing authorization.

• The MHRA focuses entirely on eliminating avoidable drug-induced mortality. NICE prioritizes immediate palliation of distressing asphyxiation over chemical safety risks.

• The MHRA restricts co-prescribing to the shortest duration possible. NICE schedules continuous 24-hour syringe driver infusions for dying patients.

• The MHRA applies broad safety warnings to all standard community patients. NICE creates an exception specifically for terminal pandemic respiratory failure.

• 9The MHRA warns generally of central nervous system sedation. NICE overrides this by adding opioids specifically to suppress distressing terminal coughs.

• The MHRA aims to prevent respiratory arrest from additive drug interactions. NICE accepts this sedative risk to relieve terminal pandemic distress.

Mr Bridgen accuses the authors of NG163 of knowing that their protocol would kill. To be honest, I am not sure that that is a particularly revelatory statement - NG163 was fashioned (by repurposing the “Liverpool Care Pathway”1) by people who appeared to genuinely believe there was a deadly virus on the loose2, and that this protocol would go some way towards easing the victims towards a more comfortable death.

Whether NG163 was actually designed with the specific intent to kill swathes of elderly and frail in order to simulate a pandemic is questionable. However, regardless of that, it is certainly the case that many people involved must have subsequently realised that this protocol DID cause the premature demise of many, and that such deaths were blamed on a virus, when for many of these the diagnosis of “covid” was (at most) reliant only on an oversensitive and under-specific, and hence for all practical purposes meaningless, test.

Disappointingly, these people maintain an omertà over these events.

Interestingly, I DID find an exception to the code of silence which I had not seen before in an article in the Sun, in which a Professor Pullicino spoke out:

Notably, he was retired, and it seems likely that this was why he felt able to speak out more freely.

The article states:

What of Dr Proffitt’s claims that “when prescribed and used appropriately, midazolam will not hasten or prolong someone’s death – it will just give comfort” and that there have not “been cases of euthanasia in care homes related to Covid-19”?

These views were clearly shared by the person who wrote this response to Mr Bridgen’s post:

However, what does the evidence actually suggest?

The first point to note is that there are in fact striking siliarities between NG163 and the LCP, as I pointed out here:

Sanity Unleashed

"Covid" euthanasia protocols and the UK's infamous "Liverpool Care Pathway"

This was one of my most widely read pieces…

Read more

6 months ago · 29 likes · 8 comments · Jonathan Engler

But to me, it’s the dosages involved which is the most striking and damning feature of NG163.

I went into some detail about that in this, one of my most widely-read articles:

Sanity Unleashed

Did testing and euthanasia protocols help create the appearance of a sudden-spreading deadly novel virus?

Some people were onto the midazolam / euthanasia story from very early on…

Read more

2 years ago · 265 likes · 112 comments · Jonathan Engler

To recap, the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care made some dosage recomendations. These used to be available here, but that link no longer works. However, I downloaded the document:

Brieifing Note Recommendations For Symptom Control Of Patients With Covid 19

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From that document, here are the recommendations for treating breathlessness, restlessness / anxiety, and acute agitation / delirium:

NG163 advises that opiods and benzodiazepines should be considered for patients with breathlessness who are “at the end of life”:

Needless to say, whether someone is considered to be at the end of life is highly dependent on how deadly the carer considers the illness to be. If they consider it to be extremely deadly, they will commence this regime, the patient will die, and that will reinforce to healthcare workers how deadly the disease was.

Dosage recommendations in the NICE guidleline (above) essentially mirror the above.

Table 4 is titled: End-of-life treatments for managing breathlessness for patients aged 18 years and over

It suggests a range of opiods and anti-sickness drugs, but also says this:

Table 5 is meant to apply in the last days and hours of life:

Concerning aspects of this include the following:

• It is not really clear what the difference between Tables 4 and 5 is meant to be, Table 4 is supposed to apply during “end of life” but Table 5 is said to be for “the last days and hours of life”. But if someone is not in the last days of life, how can they be said to be “at the end of life” when suffering from what was a recoverable illness?

• As mentioned above, there is an emphasis on not being concerned about the fear of respiratory depression.

• The doses specified are compatible with HUGE doses being given.

Further comments on dosage.

For every licensed prescription drug in the UK the manufacturer has to provide:

• A Summary of Product characteristics; for midazolam that can be found here.

• A patient information leaflet, which is below:

Pil

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Notable quotes from these documents include the following:

• Midazolam should be administered only by experienced physicians in a setting fully equipped for the monitoring and support of respiratory and cardiovascular function, or by persons specifically trained in the recognition and management of adverse reactions, including respiratory and cardiac resuscitation.

• Midazolam should be used only when age- and size-appropriate resuscitation facilities are available.

• Special caution is required for conscious sedation in patients with impaired respiratory function.

• Special caution is required when administering midazolam to high-risk patients:

  • adult patients over 60 years of age

  • chronically ill or debilitated patients, e.g….patients with chronic respiratory insufficiency

In the USA, strict rules also apply regarding labeling of drugs.

The FDA-approved labeling for midazolam can be found here and downloaded below:

208878orig1s000lbl

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The dosage and administration section starts on page 34. From that we see the same warnings as given in the UK, but emphasised even more:

In terms of dose, the following is suggested when given intravenously for “Sedation/anxiolysis/amnesia for procedures”:

• In the under 60s, no more than 2.5 mg titrated over 2 mins, more than 5 mg is ususlly unecessary. BUT: “If narcotic [ie opiod] premedication or other CNS depressants are used, patients will require approximately 30% less midazolam than unpremedicated patients.”

• Patients Age 60 or Older, and Debilitated or Chronically Ill Patients: the 2.5 mentioned above is reduced to 1.5 mg, and 5 to 3.5. The 30% reduction for opiod is 50% in this age group.

For induction of anaesthesia, in average adults under 55 who have also received an opiod, a dose of 0.25 mg /kg will usually suffice. Based on a 70 kg individual, this is ~15-20 mg.

For maintaining sedation, a dose of 1 to 7 mg / hour is suggested for typical adults, but clearly the elderly and frail will require much less.

Regarding the covid protocols (eg NG163) it must be recognised that most patients subject to them would have been elderly and frail. The doses recommended are quite wide-ranging, but they encompass some extremely high doses, eg increasing midazolam stepwise to 60 mg / 24 hours, which is 2.5 mg / hour.

Other important pieces of this story are:

• “Covid deaths” are tightly correlated to midazloam usage - see here for an article about a detailed analysis of the data by an Australian analyst.

• In this article of mine, I disuss how anxiety can lead to hyperventilation followed by profound hypoxia, after which patients would have been subjected to “covid protocols”.

As I stated in that article:

This article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph illustrates this perfectly; it features an interview with John Todd, professor of precision medicine at the University of Oxford, in which he discusses the shingles vaccine, and especially the claim that it reduces the incidence of dementia.

If you want to read it in full but have no DT subscription, see the below:

John Todd Shingles Vaccine Dt 10 June 2026

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As you can see from the below extract, he is pretty forthright in his recommendation.

Note that the difference in his recommendations for those in their 50s and older, and the under-50s strongly suggests that we “know” what the benefits are for the former, because they have been “examined”.

However, no comparative randomized clinical trial has demonstrated the same. The study which Professor Todd relies on (here) used statistical matching to mimic a “natural experiment,” and it remains an observational study showing an association rather than a clinically proven causal effect.

Such evidence is not usually regarded as sufficient to lead regulators to approve drugs, and indeed, the drug in question (the shingrix vaccine) has not been approved for the prevention of dementia.

In fact, the authors of the study (one of whom is Professor Todd) even admit this, stating that:

Now, it’s important to recognise that in the UK, the advertising of medicines is strictly governed by Part 14 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012, enforced by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Regulation 284 reads as follows.

284.—(1) A person may not publish an advertisement that is likely to lead to the use of a prescription only medicine.

However, some leeway is given to journalism, in respect of which see the official guidance document below:

Appendix 5 Guidelines For Journalists Re Pharma Promotion

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Even within that framework, this appears to be promotional, and I have submitted a complaint to MHRA which you can read below. I will let readers know if I receive a reply.

Daily Telegraph article 10 June 2026 re shingles vaccine; Regulation 284 breach.

Dear Sir or Madam,

In the attached Daily Telegraph article, John Todd - who by his own admission is a paid consultant for GSK - promotes GSK’s shingles vaccine for an unlicensed indication (prevention of dementia).

He speaks forthrightly and unequivocally about the benefits, for example: “To anyone over 50, I would say: get the shingles vaccine now”.

This is in breach of Regulation 284 of Part 14 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 which reads as follows.

284.—(1) A person may not publish an advertisement that is likely to lead to the use of a prescription only medicine.

I understand that there is a degree of leeway for independent journalism in terms of what is regarded as promotional (as described in the attached guidelines). However, notwithstanding these, this article would still seem to be in breach.

The guidelines make it clear that:

• proof of a commercial link to the sale of the product is not required

• articles should not actively encourage readers to seek a particular product from their healthcare provider and must take care not to exaggerate the potential benefits

• articles discussing healthcare issues, particularly medicines, ought to be factual, well balanced and accurate

That article breaches all these, and more. There is no balance. The claims made are unproven and theoretical. The article is essentially an advertisement but obviously is not labeled as such. Of course, it could not be, since promotion would breach the law, yet is cannot be the case that the law can be circumvented by simply not declaring the material as promotional, when it is.

I suggest that this article is in breach whether or not the manufacturer, GSK, had any hand in it. However, should the newspaper seek to claim full independence from GSK, then under the circumstances, I would suggest that the burden of proof in respect of the same is with GSK itself.

Hence I would expect to see:

1. Clear evidence that Prof Todd’s consultancy agreement explicitly forbids him from using his relationship with GSK to promote their products in the media.

2. Absolute proof that GSK’s PR team, medical affairs team, or external agencies had zero contact with The Telegraph or Miranda Levy regarding this piece.

To be clear though, proving independence from GSK would be a necessary but not sufficient point going towards the definition of this piece as promotional. Taken in the round, it is promotional whatever the involvement of the manufacturer, the nexus between Professor Todd and GSK being sufficient to create an intent to favour the fortunes of his client or employer (as the case may be).

Yours faithfully

Dr Jonathan Engler

The fact is that nobody who promotes the “lab leak theory” has been prepared to enter into a debate over whether there was in fact any novel pathogen spreading person-to-person in 2020.

Two of the most prominent outlets - which promote themselves as open to questioning anything - were pretty plain in their refusal, the Daily Sceptic even going as far as to state that:

You can read about our attempts to question the new consensus here:

Matt Ridley is, or course, one of the best-known proponents of the notion that “a lab leak caused a pandemic”, yet he himself has not been willing to enter into any debate about the strength of the foundations underpinning such a claim.

It seems to me, therefore, that he is basically guilty of the behaviour he finds so objectionable in others.

Neither he - nor any of the other promotors of this theory - have ever (publicly at least) addressed any of the questions we have repeatedly asked about this hypothesis, which are laid out quite clearly in this article: