Spotlight on the Experts

...and the repressed peasants

Disclaimer: I may still be under the effects of anaesthetic from my recent operation and I may write what I actually think about certain experts. Apologies for any bad language in advance. The subtitle will make sense at the end.

By now most Australian readers will be aware of the “COVID Spotlight” program on legacy media Channel 7, that aired last weekend. It’s now making the rounds on independent media internationally.

It was supposed to be some sort of review of Covid policies. There were two infectious disease experts, a former state premier and champion of the people, economics Professor Gigi Foster on the panel.

Lena was watching it on her computer the other day with headphones on and was shouting at her computer during one segment with the infectious disease experts. I thought oh-oh another stupid show. The bullshit really messes with me sometimes and I don’t know whether I can watch the whole thing.

Gigi had alerted the Australians for Science and Freedom community about the show and was hoping it would be a good cut, based on what she experienced at the filming. As it turns out some members of the audience recorded audio and so we have some insight into the reaction of the audience to stupid statements. This was of course mostly cut from the final product.

The show has been written about by Rebekah Barnett here.

Alison Bevege, who was in the audience writes here on what didn’t make the cut:

Spotlight on Seven: What didn't make the cut might save your life

Philip Altman writes here and aussie17 here. I have taken some screenshots from the clips in aussie17’s substack’s embedded video.

Infection Diseases Expert No 1

This is a guy who is telling us about health. I wondered how old he is. From twitter:

Holy genetically modified organisms Batman!

What happened?

I think I’ll get my health advice from someone like Professor Ian Brighthope

He’s actually somewhat older (it was an honour to be with him on the Terms of Reference Inquiry) See his recent article on Vitamin C

Vitamin C won't go away professor.

By the way one of the first things that formed my views of what was going on was when my wife Lena, who is a naturopath, early on in the pandemic thought she was doing a community service, and did a little post on facebook saying to keep up Vitamin C levels. She got banned from facebook for this misinformation! I wasn’t a social media user and it was for me one of the “what the…” moments, that something is not right here.

Back to the Professor.

In the video clip in aussie17’s post here a lawyer asks the Professor a question about long covid and why aren’t they studying the vaccination status of people to try to understand why there is now chronic illness in winter and it’s not in the unvaccinated. It’s a very succinct question, as we would expect from a lawyer. The answer provided is complete bullshit. He starts by stating irrelevant information:

Australia has amongst the best immunologists in the world. We have won Nobel prizes.

Look at me, look at me I’m an immunologist I must be amongst the best in the world. It’s like saying we have some of the best politicians in the world, we give them knighthoods. And we know the two of the worst Premiers in Australia just got our highest King’s birthday honours. What we need is people with common sense not people with prizes.

This question sets the professor into condescending expert mode:

As for being healthy that’s great I’m really pleased for you.

It comes across as a rude child. It’s pathetic. At this point Professor Gigi is rolling her eyes.

By the way Professor Gigi, on a recent trip to West Australia, ran the Rottnest Island Marathon. It might actually be better to get health advice from an economist.

Then the Professor claims that the people who get covid who haven’t been vaccinated get more severe disease and they are more likely to get long covid. He knows there is no such data on long covid. It’s complete bullshit.

The data is falling apart on the first part of the statement. The people who get more severe disease are old with a median age of death from Covid above that of the median age of death from all causes. People in that category, vaccinated and unvaccinated are very different and all the studies on the severe disease are confounded. He knows it but they trot out the same rubbish. There’s no context.

The question was about healthy, unvaccinated people and the chronic illness in the whole population. And it basically gets down to why were younger working age people coerced into getting vaccinated?

This professor is a complete waste of space. He needs to take a break, take some supplements, and look after his health, via non genetically modifying means.

Expert Immunologist No 2

This fellow sees his chance to come across as the wise one. He knows what’s what.

At the start of the pandemic I was still following some mainstream media. I remember this guy interviewed when the Health Minister, Greg Hunt, had taken the Covid vaccine and a few days later he was in hospital. But it was nothing to do with the vaccine. I remember Professor No 2 being asked about it and I remember his eyes shifting from side to side when asked. I can’t find that video, maybe someone remembers it.

Let’s dig into this guy’s track record.

Here is Greg Hunt virtue signalling, getting his vaccine, in the video embedded in a facebook post here.

Greg Hunt gets a lollipop.

He was doing this “in a bid to counter vaccine hesitancy” as the AstraZeneca clots were already being reported as early as March 2021. He gets a lollipop afterwards. On Sunday March 10 2021, he gets his lollipop, On Tuesday he’s in hospital with cellulitis.

This was our chance for the Prime Minister “ScoMo” to take over another portfolio. From this article:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will act as health minister until Mr Hunt returns to work.

Mr Morrison was part of the first group of Australians to receive the Pfizer vaccine over a fortnight ago, while Mr Hunt waited to receive the AstraZeneca jab publicly.

But his admission to hospital sparked concern the public relations campaign could be undermined, but Mr Morrison told reporters on Wednesday he was “certain” it was not linked to the vaccine.

ScoMo was “certain” it was not linked. From his track record it may have not been so certain. OK while we’re talking about it, let’s look at the volunteers OpenDAEN.info website and filter on “cellulitis”.

Hmmm 295 cases, 65 serious, 3 deaths. But they are “certain” its not related. Hopefully Hunt’s case was reported to DAEN, irrespective of whether they are certain it’s not related.

From Wikipedia: Gregory Andrew Hunt (born 18 November 1965) is an Australian former politician who was the Minister for Health between January 2017 and May 2022. So in March 2021 he was 55. From OpenDAEN reports section at that time. Well guess what? cellulitis seems to be a common reaction to AstraZeneca.

I wonder if it was reported. The first 55-year-old was reported a month later in April. Serious means the person probably went to hospital, which Hunt did. But this may be a different 55 year old because they were “certain” for the Health Minister it was not linked to the vaccination. From searching around for other articles at the time you find bullshit factchecks like this one.

This factcheck goes on to say, in condescending mode, like the Professors, that the cellulitis was in his leg and not in his arm where it was injected, stupid peasants. That’s equivalent to saying myocarditis couldn’t be caused by the jab because it wasn’t injected into the heart. OMG.

Anyway I digress, I also remember Professor No 2 confirming that cellulitis in the leg could not be caused by an injection in the arm. I know I’m supposed to be writing about the data but it gets down to how easy it is to bullshit and say things are “certain” or it’s a coincidence. The quick search I did in OpenDAEN.info could not be done in the TGA’s unfit-for-purpose DAEN system.

Our expert no 2 in the Spotlight segment above goes on to say, at 1:38 mark:

13 billion doses given world wide… the research doesn’t stop….

Hand waving

Then he actually says this.

If we are going to see really, really, really, rare side effects… and we haven’t heard anything unusual at this point

WHAT?  Three really’s. “We haven’t heard anything unusual”. Did he actually say that? The guy must have been hiding in his home office with a mask. He hasn’t heard that 23% of all the adverse events in the 53 year history of the DAEN for ALL medicines are from Covid vaccines and for cardiac disorders it is 38%. Let’s leave it there.

He has a track record in bullshit. In this video from March 16 2021, when the AstraZeneca blood clots were already becoming a concern.

He comes out and explains to us that people are going to have heart attacks and blood clots anyway so there is nothing to be concerned.

It’s interesting to look back at this crap. In the same news video above from 2021 (1:20 mark) one of our good Senators, Matt Canavan, is expressing concern, even back then. He was one of the politicians who bothered to turn up at the Excess Mortality Inquiry last month. He asked us some very thoughtful questions. In the video his own party goes on to rebuke him. Interesting to look back at these records. Certain people had conscience right from the start.

Senator Matt Canavan

He expresses in the clip that the TGA is not infallible. It’s “not the Vatican” he says. The Vatican analogy is good. These experts believe themselves to be anointed clerics. They can say things like “really, really, really rare” and “we would know”, and we are to believe them. From the reactions of the audience (listen to the edited out audio clips) the clerics may be starting to get worried that the peasants don’t believe them.

The Former Premier

Sky News did a review of Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk’s performance on the Spotlight program

The host gives a good account in the short 4 minute video. The Premier says:

I still stand by what we did to keep Queenslanders safe. And the end result was that we only had, tragically, seven deaths, during that whole period of two years, before we opened up our borders, so I think the results show that it did work.

Do you trust this sincere person?

During this period of two years families were torn apart. Families across the borders were not allowed to see parents at end of life, or attend funerals. There were horrific stories….and she stands by it.

Perhaps I’m not going to be so harsh on the politician, we expect them to be sneaky with the words and misrepresent the truth, except of course for the handful of genuine politicians we have in our Australian parliament.

OK let’s break the former Premier’s statement down. Those of you who have been with me for a while in this substack know I did an in depth look at mortality in Queensland. See my chapter in AMPS Too Many Dead (p273). First, the seven deaths she is referring to weren’t actually deaths from Covid circulating in the community in Queensland. They occurred on the cruise ships early on in the pandemic (3 from the Ruby Princess) or were Queenslanders who died outside the state. We found that data from data uncovered in the court case brought by the Doctors Against Mandates in Queensland. So the former Premier tells us the results show that it worked. Yes, they kept COVID out, just like the Chinese government did. What happened to mortality in Queensland?

What the analysis shows is that, while there were no locally acquired Covid deaths, mortality in older ages (above 60) shot up shortly after introduction of the new medicines.

Mortality in the older ages, adjusting for trend and population, by the end of 2021 was worse than the very bad influenza season of 2017. What could have caused that? There was no influenza recorded in Queensland in 2021. We found data on burials and cremations in Queensland, and I have included this in our submission to the Excess Mortality Inquiry.

See the arrow for the third quarter of 2021, burials and creations are higher than any previous quarter in the record. And the Premier was keeping Queenslanders safe. She didn’t keep older Queenslanders safe. What she did was keep grave diggers busy and tore apart families at the most distressing times of their lives.

Well that’s enough for now

Professor Gigi made some very good comments during the show, you can hear her talk to Member of Parliament, Russell Broadbent, the day after in a short 4 minute video about the experience.

And for something amusing to finish this long post, that I needed to get off my chest so I can get on with other things, the repressed peasants are not putting up with the the rubbish from the clerics any more.