John Bye Profile picture
Apr 9, 2021 16 tweets 7 min read Read on X
Carl Heneghan's latest article for the @spectator shows the professor of Evidence Based Medicine is either misreading or misrepresenting the evidence.

At least 90% of the deaths he lists in an article called the "hidden death toll of lockdown" are actually covid deaths!
He says it's "hard to imagine, let alone measure, the side effects of lockdowns", and kind of proves that by listing lots of deaths that mostly have nothing to do with lockdown.

The data he's using seems to be from here:

app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjo…

So what does it actually say?
Claim 1) "28,200 more deaths among diabetics than we'd normally expect".

This is true, but very misleading. Because 23,667 of those "diabetes" deaths actually listed covid as the underlying cause of death!

So most of them definitely aren't lockdown deaths. They're covid deaths!
Also, almost all the excess diabetes deaths that *weren't* listed as being directly caused by covid happened around the first wave peak.

It seems highly unlikely that the first lockdown somehow killed about 500 diabetics a week almost instantly .. but later ones didn't kill any.
Claim 2) "For people with heart disease, it’s 17,100".

Again, technically this is true, but what he's not telling you is that 16,200 of those were people with heart disease who died from covid.

So again, almost all of these are categorically NOT lockdown deaths.
Claim 3) "For dementia and Alzheimer’s, it’s 22,800."

This one's a bit more complex. But the short answer is that there were 27,000 deaths involving dementia and Alzheimer’s where covid was the underlying cause of death.

So non-covid dementia deaths are actually BELOW average!
The long answer is there were some excess dementia deaths in the first wave that weren't attributed to covid.

But since then non-covid dementia deaths have been at or below average, despite months of continuing restrictions on care home visits, which Heneghan cites as a concern.
Also, it's now thought that many of those first wave dementia deaths were actually undiagnosed covid.

There was little or no testing in care homes at the time, and we now know covid symptoms in elderly people can look a lot like dementia.

manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/…
So far then Carl Heneghan has listed 68,000 excess deaths, but a quick look at the data shows almost 63,000 of those (92%!) listed covid as the underlying cause of death.

As sceptics would put it, they died "with" heart disease, diabetes or dementia, but they died "from" covid.
Given that the article is titled "the hidden death toll of lockdown", you would be forgiven for thinking that the excess deaths he lists are in some way related to lockdown.

But almost all of them were directly caused by covid!

They're NOT lockdown deaths, hidden or otherwise.
Either he doesn't understand the data he's using or he's deliberately misleading readers. Neither is a good look for a professor of Evidence Based Medicine.

He's implying lockdown killed tens of thousands of people. But there's no evidence to support it.

The only area that's not so clear cut is his claim that there's been a "big rise in at-home deaths".

This is true. But it's continued all year largely regardless of the level of lockdown restrictions, and is fairly closely mirrored by below average non-covid deaths in hospital.
It seems likely that due to changes in palliative care and people being unable or unwilling to go to hospital, at least some excess home deaths are people who would otherwise have died in hospital or hospice.

But Heneghan tries to link them to his phony lockdown deaths.
The whole article seems more like random rambling than a coherent argument about how many deaths may have been caused by lockdown measures.

After listing the misleading excess death figures, he has nothing more to say about lockdown, but instead has a jab at Neil Ferguson. 🙄
Casual readers are likely to go away thinking that lockdown has killed tens of thousands of people.

It certainly seems to be the narrative Heneghan and The Spectator are pushing.

But it simply isn't true, and the deaths the article lists are almost all directly caused by covid!
Update: It looks like even Heneghan and the Spectator have realised how wildly misleading the article was, and quietly reworded it today to admit that "most were categorised as Covid deaths". Which somehow still implies maybe they weren't.

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More from @_johnbye

Aug 30
Aseem Malhotra has been confirmed as a speaker at next weekend's Reform UK conference. The increasingly anti-vaccine cardio crank is already Chief Health Advisor to Farage's anti-WHO "Action on World Health" campaign, and now seems to be angling for a job with Reform too. 🧵 Image
This intersection of far right politics and anti-vaccine health contrarians in the UK is no surprise, after Reform's 2024 manifesto pandered to conspiracy theorists, many of whom helped out on their campaign or even stood as candidates for the party.

Reform's links to anti-vaxxers in the UK go back years. Richard Tice was in contact with ivermectin pusher Tess Lawrie and pandemic denier Jonathan Engler in 2021 and several Reform / Brexit Party veterans were involved in the covid conspiracy movement.

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Aug 28
Advance UK recently announced its committee, which includes anti-vax data mangler Norman Fenton, racist conspiracy theorist Jim Ferguson, climate change denier Paul Burgess, and conspiracy theory website editor Kathy Gyngell. 🧵 Image
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Paul Burgess was environment spokesman for the far right For Britain Movement (a UKIP splinter group which, like Reform splinter group Advance UK, was backed by Tommy Robinson). He's also appeared on GB News as a "climate commentator".

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Read 5 tweets
Aug 20
The co-founder of "Operation Raise the Colours" (the recent spate of people putting English flags on lamp posts) is an old friend of Tommy Robinson who says he's been "16 years by his side", and had breakfast with Robinson after his release from jail earlier this year. 🧵 Image
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Tommy Robinson's mate Andy Saxon and his "Operation Raise the Colours" have also had support from UKIP leader / Turning Point UK COO Nick Tenconi (recently seen giving what looked like a Nazi salute), far right Britain First Party and its co-leader / ex BNP member Paul Golding. Image
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Before his "Operation Raise the Colours" gained momentum recently, Saxon posted support for Britain First and its "remigration" campaign to remove immigrants from the UK, as well as offensive and sometimes threatening Islamophobic content.

This is who's supplying those flags. Image
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Jun 23
🧵 Kate Shemirani's daughter sadly died last year, after refusing chemotherapy for her cancer, in favour of the kind of extreme quackery promoted by her mum.

Refusing to take responsibility, Kate accused the NHS of homicide and subjecting her daughter to medical experimentation.
Kate Shemirani and her ex-husband issued a statement after their daughter's death, wildly claiming that it was part of "a systemic pattern of state-sponsored medical homicide and institutional cover-up" by the NHS, and suggesting that she was part of an "unregulated drug trial". Image
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Inevitably, Kate Shemirani and her allies are using the tragedy to raise money, claiming "they have taken her daughter". Their target is up to £100,000 to challenge the outcome of an inquest that hasn't even happened yet. So far they've only raised £2,455 from gullible followers. Image
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May 26
Dilbert creator Scott Adams has sadly got prostate cancer. After going down a rabbit hole during the pandemic though, he turned to Canadian quack William Makis who (as always) recommended ivermectin and fenbendazole. Which did not work. Now they're in an unseemly row over it. 🧵 Image
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Ivermectin pusher William Makis responded to Scott Adams' post by claiming he didn't follow his "protocol" (which Adams denies), his cancer was "probably" caused by covid vaccines, and that he "didn't discount the possibility" that Adams was part of a plot to discredit him. 😬 Image
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Unsurprisingly Scott Adams is giving short shrift to Makis and other quacks and their followers, who are trying to blame his cancer on covid vaccines or encourage him to try anti-parasitics, vitamins, fasting, diets and other dodgy "cures" for his cancer. Image
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Feb 17
This week sees the second "ARC Forum" in London, a right wing talking shop with overtones of Islamophobia, transphobia and climate change denial, funded by Paul Marshall and Legatum, who are also behind GB News.

Unsurprisingly there are a lot of familiar faces there... 🧵 Image
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Alan Miller from anti-lockdown turned anti-everything group Together is on a panel.

He was interviewed at ARC Forum by right wing channel Newsmax Australia, and was apparently "shocked to learn" that, according to them, Australia has no free speech and supports trans people. 🤷‍♂️ Image
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Read 8 tweets

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