Re-evaluating Dr John Campbell

LadyHonoriaDedlock

Cite some of Dr Campbell's peer-reviewed papers in reputable journals and I might consider giving him the time of day, even if that's ten minutes before bedtime.

Otherwise a YouTube interview with Neil Oliver, a known subscriber to antisemitic and "New World Order" conspiracy theories who has no medical qualifications, on a minority media channel with an openly-declared populist agenda, doesn't suggest that he should be given any more weight than any other charlatan huffing and puffing on far-right websites.

When I want to review the available research I'll turn to the serious medical and scientific journals.

I think you've missed the point that Dr John is actually reporting on the latest data being analysed and published by the experts in the field. If you read the reports that have gone through the politicians first, you may get a different story.

His latest video looks at the leaked emails from Hancock, Whittie, Vallance and others and make it very clear that their primary aim was to ramp up the fear factor. It wasn't about the science! These latest revelations mean that these people are finished, professionally and personally. They have to hope that they have made enough money out of this to find somewhere that can hide.

MayBee70

I have re evaluated Dr John Campbell. I followed all of his advice from January 2020. He advised me to wear masks. He advised me to have the vaccine. He is now anti vaccine and says he was wrong to advise me to wear masks. So how do I know that his current advice to catch covid because it boosts your immunity to it is good advice if he was wrong about the other advice he gave me. I can’t help but wonder if the OP only became a follower of Dr Campbell when he became an anti vacc’er? I no longer follow his advice.

Dr John was following the guidelines from public bodies that he had trusted as a medical professional. Unlike many of his colleagues he was prepared to put his head above the parapet when it was clear that the public stance was not supported by the published data. After the emails derived from Hancock's office were published this week, it is clear that he was on to something. When the evidence changes, we have to re-evaluate. Have you ever been on jury service?

Blossoming

Grandmabatty I worry about Neil Oliver’s mental health, he’s changed so much over the past 3 years.

Britain has changed as well. He has just questioned what is going on, rather than allowing those in charge to do untold damage to the population. He's a critical thinker who like many of us is scared about where it is all leading and what they'll do next.

It's probably worth mentioning that John Campbell PhD is not a medical doctor. He holds a nursing diploma and indeed had some experience as an A&E nurse many years ago, but for most of his career he trained nurses at the University of Cumbria and elsewhere. He's also written or co-written a couple of books on nursing practice. His PhD thesis at the University of Bolton was on the use of online materials in the training of nurses.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but the BMA might well be taking an interest in his emphasis on the "Dr" part implying that he speaks as an expert on medical matters, particularly vaccines and immunology, fields.

Campbell uses cherry-picked research abstracts and non-peer-reviewed articles and social media postings to make his claims in his videos. You can see them critically debunked here

healthfeedback.org/claimreview/video-john-campbell-historical-vaccines-covid-19-misleads-vaccine-safety/

but to save time you might like to note the key takeaway from that article from two months ago:

"Multiple peer-reviewed published studies have shown that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh its risks. Benefits from vaccination take longer to appear compared to harms, which usually appear within the first six weeks following vaccination. Consequently, studies that aim to reliably compare the risks and benefits of vaccination require time to obtain a complete picture."

Veridica

LadyHonoriaDedlock

Cite some of Dr Campbell's peer-reviewed papers in reputable journals and I might consider giving him the time of day, even if that's ten minutes before bedtime.

Otherwise a YouTube interview with Neil Oliver, a known subscriber to antisemitic and "New World Order" conspiracy theories who has no medical qualifications, on a minority media channel with an openly-declared populist agenda, doesn't suggest that he should be given any more weight than any other charlatan huffing and puffing on far-right websites.

When I want to review the available research I'll turn to the serious medical and scientific journals.

I think you've missed the point that Dr John is actually reporting on the latest data being analysed and published by the experts in the field. If you read the reports that have gone through the politicians first, you may get a different story.

His latest video looks at the leaked emails from Hancock, Whittie, Vallance and others and make it very clear that their primary aim was to ramp up the fear factor. It wasn't about the science! These latest revelations mean that these people are finished, professionally and personally. They have to hope that they have made enough money out of this to find somewhere that can hide.

What ramped up my fear factor was seeing the number of people dying from covid and knowing people that died of it.

I suspect Dr John Campbell has realised that you get more followers on social media from being a contrarian than giving boring old facts.

Veridica

LadyHonoriaDedlock

Cite some of Dr Campbell's peer-reviewed papers in reputable journals and I might consider giving him the time of day, even if that's ten minutes before bedtime.

Otherwise a YouTube interview with Neil Oliver, a known subscriber to antisemitic and "New World Order" conspiracy theories who has no medical qualifications, on a minority media channel with an openly-declared populist agenda, doesn't suggest that he should be given any more weight than any other charlatan huffing and puffing on far-right websites.

When I want to review the available research I'll turn to the serious medical and scientific journals.

I think you've missed the point that Dr John is actually reporting on the latest data being analysed and published by the experts in the field. If you read the reports that have gone through the politicians first, you may get a different story.

His latest video looks at the leaked emails from Hancock, Whittie, Vallance and others and make it very clear that their primary aim was to ramp up the fear factor. It wasn't about the science! These latest revelations mean that these people are finished, professionally and personally. They have to hope that they have made enough money out of this to find somewhere that can hide.

I think YOU are missing the point that Dr John Campbell is highly selective about the information he presents.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I used to be one of his regular viewers. Then I recommended him to my partner, who is a professor of biochemistry and was working on one aspect of coronaviruses at the time. He pointed out that Campbell was presenting hypotheses as fact. I stopped watching regularly, but occasionally watch one of his videos, which seem to have strayed even further from fact and, in some cases, are downright dangerous.

LadyHonoriaDedlock

It's probably worth mentioning that John Campbell PhD is not a medical doctor. He holds a nursing diploma and indeed had some experience as an A&E nurse many years ago, but for most of his career he trained nurses at the University of Cumbria and elsewhere. He's also written or co-written a couple of books on nursing practice. His PhD thesis at the University of Bolton was on the use of online materials in the training of nurses.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but the BMA might well be taking an interest in his emphasis on the "Dr" part implying that he speaks as an expert on medical matters, particularly vaccines and immunology, fields.

Campbell uses cherry-picked research abstracts and non-peer-reviewed articles and social media postings to make his claims in his videos. You can see them critically debunked here

healthfeedback.org/claimreview/video-john-campbell-historical-vaccines-covid-19-misleads-vaccine-safety/

but to save time you might like to note the key takeaway from that article from two months ago:

"Multiple peer-reviewed published studies have shown that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh its risks. Benefits from vaccination take longer to appear compared to harms, which usually appear within the first six weeks following vaccination. Consequently, studies that aim to reliably compare the risks and benefits of vaccination require time to obtain a complete picture."

One of the first rules of research is to check sources. Health feedback.org is part of the WHO whose highest single donor is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. At present the WHO is trying to exert world wide control over pandemic preparation. Tedros, the person in charge isn't a medical doctor, he has a PhD, like Campbell. His career success could be connected to his links with Gates and the Clintons and the lobbying company he used to get elected as Director General. I think an investigation into vested interests would be necessary before going any further.

Lot of spurious fact checking organisations have sprung up in the past two years. Looking at the editorial board of this one, there doesn't seem to be anyone over 30. Their track record isn't great either. One article they debunked was from the NY Post which it claimed "Perpetuated the unfounded claim that the virus causing Covid 19 is man made" Well, the jury has switched its view on that one now. They even claim to have fact checked the Cochrane review and discredited it. This was an absolute gold standard piece of work which is a lot more creditable than Healthfeedback.org.

The style of the article is confusing and the headlines are not clearly borne out by the actual text. It starts by going after Campbell and then talks about things being implied or inferred The thing is that nobody will come up with an explanation of what caused the incredibly serious numbers of excess deaths-they just know it couldn't be the vaccine! This is not convincing. At another point they say that the benefits of vaccines are long term, implying that short term criticisms are unfair. Well if Pfizer and Moderna couldn't guarantee long term safety, they shouldn't have been allowed to proceed with it!

The encouraging thing for me is that John Campbell has got people in high places very worried that they have to go to such lengths to discredit him

Veridica There is no doubt that mistakes were made in the way Covid was managed by all countries. But hindsight is a wonderful thing!

You aren't differentiating between facts and opinions.

Policy makers will spend years arguing about the decisions which were made. However, there is very little doubt about the science behind coronavirus. Dr John Campbell has on occasions misrepresented the science and, as a result, I became increasingly cynical about much of what he was saying. In some cases, he is just wrong.

Throughout the pandemic - and even now - I prefer to follow real scientists without any of the spin from the government, the loony conspiracy theorists or the Great Barrington Group propagandists. Dr John Campbell doesn't have anything valuable to say.

Well said growstuff. Now I've said my piece I'll go and do something more productive.

Veridica unfortunately your comments contain many classic phrases and language so typically used by conspiracy theorists. As growstuff has said, you’re just stating your opinions. And I don’t think your lecturing tone is winning anyone over.

For what it’s worth, no drug or vaccine is EVER licensed & launched with a guarantee of long term safety. That’s not my opinion, it’s a fact.

It’s very obvious that a lot of intelligent people had a defective shit detector when it came to John Campbell.
In a previous life he would have been a snake oil salesman.

Interesting www.veridica.ro/en

You have chosen a very interesting username, Veridica

Veridica means true, truthful.

argymargy

Veridica unfortunately your comments contain many classic phrases and language so typically used by conspiracy theorists. As growstuff has said, you’re just stating your opinions. And I don’t think your lecturing tone is winning anyone over.

For what it’s worth, no drug or vaccine is EVER licensed & launched with a guarantee of long term safety. That’s not my opinion, it’s a fact.

It may be useful to look at other sources. Laura Dodsworth's book "State of Fear" has been widely acclaimed over the past year. It analysed how the behavioural scientists who made up the majority of scientists on SAGE controlled public opinion. Laura has her own site and I've just been sent a clip (below) which is her take on the "Lockdown Files". I think what Campbell is saying ties in with this. Like her, I am concerned that many people don't want to hear the truth. Sorry if it sounds like lecturing, I spent all my working life in Further and Higher Ed., and whatever I may have done wrong, it got me from the East End into a principalship. Old habits die hard!

From Laura Dodsworth:
We don’t like to believe we can be manipulated, let alone that we have been manipulated. No one wants to believe they were conned into disproportionate levels of fear. It is embarrassing to acknowledge you were persuaded into un-evidenced (and sometimes pointless) behaviours, from wearing masks, to standing onspaced dots, to staying at home for months. We engaged in many acts of individual and society-wide destruction. It’s easier to believe that theywere necessary and for the greater good.

The Telegraph’s Lockdown Files exposé should be the final episode in a slow revealing of the propaganda, behavioural psychology and weaponisation of fear. But some will not see it.

‘Cognitive dissonance is when you encounter information that contradicts how you perceive the world and doesn’t fit into your idea of reality,’ says psychologist Patrick Fagan. ‘Research shows that brain activity spikes when you are presented with something that doesn’t make sense and doesn’t fit with your expectations. Re-engineering your idea of reality is painful and difficult. The mind only lets you see what it thinks you can handle. It is very traumatic to realise you were lied to by people you trusted and did things that were damaging. So you adopt psychological defence mechanisms, such as denial, minimisation, rationalisation and projection.’
Since Matt Hancock's WhatsApp messages have been published, we have seen some of these defence mechanisms kick in. Some people outright deny the authenticity of the messages. The messages have been minimised with accusations of ‘cherry-picking’. People rationalise that the severity of the situation justified Hancock’s intention to ‘scare the pants’ off us. They believe ‘Project Fear’ was part of a noble lie for the greater good. (Although that ignores what the messages also revealed about the early understanding of stratification of risk by age and comorbidity. We were never all equally at risk.) Journalists have turned on Isabel Oakeshott and made her the story, rather than interrogate the contents of the WhatsApp messages - it makes it easier to ignore their failure to ask the right questions at the time.
This cognitive dissonance was ironically partly induced by the act of lockdown itself. One study found that people judged the risk of Covid based on the fact the government imposed a lockdown – in other words, they thought it must be really bad for the government to do something so drastic.

MerylStreep

It’s very obvious that a lot of intelligent people had a defective shit detector when it came to John Campbell.
In a previous life he would have been a snake oil salesman.

To be fair to him he did provide a lot of stats regarding infection rates etc in a far more easy to understand way than the government briefings. And, through his blogs I knew when the vaccine was going to be rolled out. He was telling us that something bad was happening in China ages before the news media in this country started reporting on it. It was due to him that we prepared for lockdowns and my daughter set up a support group for vulnerable people ages before the government did anything to help people. Lots of respected people did appear on his blogs:Tim Spector, the Dr from Med Cram etc. He also questioned why more wasn’t been done to find suitable anti virals. It was only after he spoke to an American man who said he had been damaged by the vaccine that he became very anti vacc and full of conspiracy theories.

Not read all the comments on here but I think we're slowly realising the world went collectively mad.

People were hugely critical of the government not shutting down sooner. Not being hard enough. Not closing borders etc etc.

Bizarre thing is they kept banging on about following the science but they clearly weren't. They were going full on to panic everyone.

The press were rabid. Every day, news and magazine type shows were banging on and on. How many deaths. Horrendous behaviour by a couple walking their dog in the middle of nowhere. The horror about the beach at Bournemouth. Was it Bournemouth? No spikes occurred. It was impossible to voice any other opinion.

The leader of Scotland being praised for wanting more and more lockdowns.

Daily briefings

I'd love to know how history will look back on this

And yes, I did lose one relative and a good friend to covid before anyone asks

Zoejory

And yes, I did lose one relative and a good friend to covid before anyone asks

So do you think we should have let the virus rip through the population, probably killing even more people but thereby reaching endemicity sooner? Ie Johnson’s ‘let the bodies pile high’ approach?

MayBee70

Zoejory

And yes, I did lose one relative and a good friend to covid before anyone asks

So do you think we should have let the virus rip through the population, probably killing even more people but thereby reaching endemicity sooner? Ie Johnson’s ‘let the bodies pile high’ approach?

It didn't rip through Sweden. The data shows they came out of it well. No doubt it was a nasty, unknown virus but there was no evidence that it was the return of the Black Death. The system in Sweden has confidence in its medics and scientists and lets them take charge, not the politicians. It was clear at the start who was vulnerable and attention should have been focussed on the elderly. It finished with a median age of death still about 82.
Covid wasn't the only killer in town. There is plenty of data on the numbers whose lives were cut short by lockdowns. And now we have all the excess deaths and the likelihood that the so-called vaccines were the main cause.

Quite honestly many of the lockdown rules were plain daft
Go out for a walk just once a day why what would happen if you went out twice
Wear a mask when entering a restaurant but then remove it when seated what was the point of that?
Only sit on tables of 6 that one was the rule when we went on holiday 2021 there was 8 of us. I pointed out to the hotel it was ridiculous we were to be together all week they did change their minds.

While I agree that some of the measures to reduce deaths in the pandemic were ridiculous, and other measures such as increased ventilation were slow to be adopted, the suggestion that excess deaths are due to vaccines is not supported by evidence.
And now we have all the excess deaths and the likelihood that the so-called vaccines were the main cause.

This site compares death rates from Covid and excess deaths in the 7 richest countries in the world.

pandem-ic.com/japan-and-us-are-worlds-apart-on-pandemic-mortality/

Despite older population and high vaccination rates, Japan had much lower rates of death from Covid and excess deaths. Some of the factors suggested are high rates of mask wearing and a healthier population than US and UK.

There is a very good MedCram blog about excess deaths. I think it said is was down to people not being diagnosed with life threatening illnesses. Which was not possible because the NHS was struggling to cope with all of the people seriously ill with covid. As for Sweden, I think there are a lot of misconceptions about how they dealt with covid and I don’t think they had the totally relaxed attitude that people assume they had.

isn't sweden a much bigger country with a much smaller population than uk ?

MayBee70

Zoejory

And yes, I did lose one relative and a good friend to covid before anyone asks

So do you think we should have let the virus rip through the population, probably killing even more people but thereby reaching endemicity sooner? Ie Johnson’s ‘let the bodies pile high’ approach?

The first lockdown was necessary. It enabled medics and scientists alike to discover what they were dealing with it and how to treat it.

An awful lot of what happened later was unnecessary.

www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p522