I just read another beauty from Phil Shannon’s ‘Lockdownunder’ about that attribution error on steroids - ‘long covid’.
It made me think of an exchange I had about both ‘long covid’ and athlete deaths, and my spectacular failures at engaging anyone in discussion, summarised here by Robyn.
It also forces a comparison of the legendary Bill Bryson’s ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’, Chapter 27 ‘Ice Time’ - in which he details the resistance to understanding of glaciation by ‘experts’, while
“Local peasants, uncontaminated by scientific orthodoxy, knew better...”
It turns out it is equally difficult to find truth in Geology, with Big Oil applying political pressure, as it is in health, with Big Pharma doing the same. The locals in Leicester could have saved us a century of embarrassment and pseudoscience just as easily as the locals in any town with a glacier.
Pondering these points, I feel it worthwhile to share the e-mail I sent a friend. I wish I had Phil’s piece on hand at the time. I wish the injured and dead athletes were not still being blamed on long covid. I hope this convid madness does not last another century.
Perhaps publishing this, plus noting the context, will help capture the reality of the past 3 years in spite of the propaganda campaign. In the same way that letters between soldiers capture the reality of wars, despite the best efforts of the victors.
Email From April 4, 2022.
The recipient is/was my long-time friend. We previously discussed everything openly, especially health related things. They initiated the topic of sports deaths with a phone call - this was my response, which references the key points of the call. I have not heard from them since….
Thanks, this is a good study. As it was all pre covid, it can be used to establish an average number of sudden deaths across all age ranges, all levels of sport, and a time frame of up to an hour after sport finishes. (120 per year)
So it is a good article to use to check the prediction of the claim that the vax has increased deaths among sports people and deaths from all causes amongst everyone.
If we find that general mortality goes up, and that death or injury goes up after the vaccines are introduced, then there is correlation. If we find that those things only go up amongst the vaccinated population, then we have good evidence for a causative link. This journalist explores this idea really well.
Before we look there, it is important to note that fact checking is not a thing in science, logic or rational thinking. As our mate Russell introduces, fact checking organisations are practically 100% funded by industry interests, and the vaccine fact checkers are worse than usual.
In fact, fact check organisations themselves always fall back on the defence that they 'aren't really fact checkers' to get out of legal trouble. In simpler terms, fact checkers are the marketing department of the vaccine manufacturers, and if you seek truth, I suggest avoiding them like the plague.
Even so, they rarely outright lie. Instead, they often, perhaps always, use flawed argumentative techniques. In the case of Reuters on sports deaths, which I assume you were referencing when we spoke, they are constructing a straw man argument. They are starting with the false assumption that all claims of increased athlete death are from a single source - the Israel article. They then claim that by questioning an aspect of that article, it is disproven, and hence the entire claim is disproven.
A real attempt to present a counter argument to the claims of increased athlete deaths would address all aspects of the claim, including:
- Claims made by studies and whistleblowers
So where might we find correlation or causation to compare to the pre-covid athlete study?
- Actuarial data is usually the first place it appears
- or in anecdotal data, which would be a portion of the VAERS data around the world. This is a good link for you as it also answers your question about causality in VAERS reporting.
- We hope it appears in peer reviewed studies, but that system is really, really broken. Plus it takes a long time.
- Or we can apply the simple pub test. None of these players died, but do you really want to claim that 15 players not able to play is normal? Do we even need to 'prove' that this has only happened since the jab was introduced or is it obvious?
Wherever you reach with the athlete thing, I'd like to share a bit more with you. It's up to you whether you read it or not, but I'll feel better knowing you have the chance.
Regarding what I said about long covid: I hope your sister gets better, but long covid is another marketing term. Post viral complications are present for almost all viruses, and Covid has no greater incidence of these than any other.
Here's the list of adverse events Pfizer hid from the public.
Regarding my claims of conspiracy, that you are falsely attributing your mild covid to the vaccine, etc. I have attached a letter from some of the doctors trying to share the truth. It's a good summary and well referenced.
I know everyone is sick of Covid, and there is a lot of incentive to avoid learning that the experiment was so bad in reality. It is awful to accept this, as the implications for our loved ones and our trust in institutions is immense. Nevertheless, I truly hope you put some time and energy into this. Even if your opinions do not change, it'll make you a much better practitioner for your clients. Also, from a personal viewpoint, the fraudulent claims have been used to justify treating me like a second class citizen who does not have basic human rights, and I'd like this to stop at both a policy level, and from my family and friends.
Love n hugs,
Shane
I'm so sorry to read this, Shane. Your tone appears so warm and genuine, and it is clear you care about your friend. I can wholly sympathise regarding the painful feelings resulting from relationship breakdown over the vaccine debate (for want of a better term).
Maybe the 'experts' would have caught on faster if they'd applied the tenets of feminist glaciology: https://www.science.org/content/article/qa-author-feminist-glaciology-study-reflects-sudden-appearance-culture-wars.