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Prof Norman Fenton

@profnfenton

Nov 23

https://twitter.com/OurWorldInData/status/1860019061926559773

1. Why now is @OurWorldInData pushing the ludicrous claim of 20 million lives saved by the covid vaxx based on the garbage modelling paper from Imperial that was published in 2022?

https://twitter.com/OurWorldInData/status/1860019061926559773

2. Here is the analogy I used to debunk that type of modelling in 2022

3. Maybe it's because the very recent paper by Ioannidis et al - which also claims many lives saved based on equally ludicruous modelling - doesn't claim as many as 20 million saved.
wherearethenumbers.substack.com/p/et-tu-john

Read 4 tweets

Prof Norman Fenton

@profnfenton

Nov 21

1. This post is about the new study by Ioannidis et al that claims millions of lives were saved by the covid vaxx.

Full reference links are in the subsequent parts of the thread:

Imagine that we want to test the claim that a special diet - let’s call it D - that consists of consuming 10,000 calories a day without any exercise will lead to weight loss of 50 pounds in 5 weeks. To make such a bold claim you would expect us to examine the evidence by comparing the recorded weight of people before and after being on the diet.

But suppose instead our ‘evidence’ is nothing other than following mathematical model:

Weight loss after n weeks in pounds = n x efficiency_D

where efficiency_D is the average weekly weight loss of diet D.

Suppose further that we assume:

efficiency_D = 10

Then, with these assumptions we compute

Weight loss after 5 weeks in pounds = 5 x 10 = 50

QED! We can now trust the claim that the special diet D does indeed lead to weight loss of 50 pounds in 5 weeks and we can believe this with full certainty (hand on heart).

Would you be convinced by this argument? Or would you be very uncomfortable and highly suspicious that there is some sleight of hand here? Bearing in mind the objective of the study is to test the claim don’t you find it odd that the main assumption in the model (namely efficiency_D = 10) is essentially the very claim we are endeavouring to test?!

Isn’t it all a bit circular and self-serving?

Well, it turns out that a study medrxiv.org/content/10.110… claiming to test the claim that the covid vaccine has saved millions of lives (just like a previous study from Imperial) is based not on any comparison of empirical mortality data between populations of vaccinated and unvaccinated, but rather on the above ‘scientific’ methodology.

This scientific study applied the same highly sophisticated logic and similar circular assumptions used to test the claims about the special diet, D, namely that:

Without vaccination Covid infects and kills a lot of people.

The vaccine is effective; specifically, people who do not get the vaccine are four times more likely to get covid than those who do.

The vaccine is perfectly safe, i.e. nobody dies as a side effect from the vaccine.

The first named author of this paper is none other than one of the most highly respected scientists in the world, John Ioannidis of Stanford University, who used real-world data in 2020 to demonstrate that Covid was nothing like as deadly as was being claimed.

And here, in its entirety, is the mathematical model contained within the paper which was used to claim that 14.8 million life years were saved by the vaccine:

For each population age group, the number of lives L saved in that age group is:

L = N x PI x IFR x VE

Where:

N: number of people in that age group

PI: number of people in that age group who (absent a vaccine) would be infected with covid

IFR: infection fatality rate in that age group (i.e. the proportion of people infected who die)

VE: the vaccine efficacy in the age group (which is one minus the ratio of the percentage vaccinated who get covid and the percentage unvaccinated who get covid)

With the exception of N, each of the actual values assumed in the equation are fanciful, being based on a myriad of unproven the assumptions, such as that Covid ‘case’ numbers were accurate. Specifically:

PI is assumed to be 20% (i.e. in the absence of the vaccine it is assumed 20% of the population are assumed to have got Covid).

IFR in each age group is based on Ioannidis’s work which showed that the elderly were at much higher risk; but the values are still based on the (flawed) assumptions that those classified as being Covid cases did in fact have the disease and those that died did indeed die from Covid disease.

The VE is based on the assumption that those classified as Covid cases did in fact have the disease. More importantly, the data used is based on studies that we have shown are systemically flawed. Likewise, the paper assumes (pre-Omicron) that VE = 75%, i.e. that an unvaccinated person is four times as likely to get covid than an unvaccinated person. This is nonsense.

While a number of people have publicly criticised the paper, one point that nobody seems to have raised is that it does, unwittingly, demonstrate an extremely important point, namely:

Since no real-world data provide evidence that the vaccines saved lives then we know that the estimates of vaccine effective - such as the 75% assumed in the study - are, empirically, wrong.

Perhaps this was the real discrete conclusion that Ioannidis hoped would be inferred from the paper? If not, why would he wish to be associated with garbage work operating under the misnomer that it is genuine ‘research’ is inexplicable if not mysterious.

The front cover of the paper states that there was no funding or conflicts of interest associated with the paper, although it states that “The work of John Ioannidis is supported by an unrestricted gift from Sue and Bob O’Donnell to Stanford University.”

Although this Ioannidis paper has not yet been peer-reviewed it is already being used as ‘overwhelming evidence’ of how great the vaccines were. The 2022 Imperial paper, which claimed 20 million lives saved by the vaccine, was published in no less a journal than the Lancet despite being based on similar circular ludicrous assumptions. It has since been used in multiple reports and high-level forums as justifying the motivation to push for the continued roll-out of the vaccine.

2. As explained in this brief video (made after the ludicrous Imperial study was published in @TheLancet ) we cannot simply ignore or laugh at such nonsense:

@TheLancet 3. Here is a report from @hartgroup_org that looked at the Imperial study
hartgroup.org/imperial-fanta…

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Prof Norman Fenton

@profnfenton

Oct 16

1. Apparently most people are still completely unaware of this:

2. As covered in Chapter 1 of my book with @MartinNeil9 on 12 March 2020 the PM Boris Johnson was adamant there was no need for lockdown and in particular that no major sporting events should the cancelled as some were suggesting.

3. But on 13 March 2020 (by 'chance' the very same day that Covid was reclassified as NOT being a high consequence infectious disease) the high profile Arsenal football manager Mickel Arteta was announced as testing positive for Covid.

Read 7 tweets

Prof Norman Fenton

@profnfenton

Sep 8

Covid, flu and excess deaths in Northern Ireland
1. Thanks to Kathy Gray we have replies to FOIs corroborating the main thesis in our book: covid was never a deadly pandemic, many flu deaths were likely classified as covid & responses to covid cause excess deaths. Key points:

2. In the entire 4-year period of covid up to March 2024 there were a total of just 275 deaths due to covid alone and that figure includes deaths which mentioned covid with pneumonia.

3. In the 15-44 age group there were just 8 deaths. Moreover, the youngest person in this age group was 38, so no one younger than 38 died from covid in Northern Ireland in the entire 4 year period.

Read 7 tweets

Prof Norman Fenton

@profnfenton

Aug 30

1. Our book “Fighting Goliath: Exposing the flawed science and statistics behind the COVID-19 event” is now available on Amazon in paperback, hardback and kindle. @MartinNeil9

Robert F. Kennedy Jnr @RobertKennedyJr

“Fenton & Neil were pioneers in exposing the extent to which flawed and easily manipulated data were used to mislead the public about Covid-19 vaccine safety. This book catalogues their findings.”amazon.com/Fighting-Golia…

2. With Foreword by Nick Hudson and special contributions from Clare Craig, Jonathan Engler, Jessica Hockett and Scott McLachlan @NickHudsonCT, @ClareCraigPath, @jengleruk, .@Wood_House76 and @LawHealthTech

Some of the testimonials we’ve had so far ....

3. Jay Bhattacharya @DrJBhattacharya

“So much of the official narrative regarding Covid science was based on faulty methods and faulty ideas. In this book, Norman Fenton & Martin Neil detail the work and thinking they did to untangle the mess and make sense of the data. The next time there is a pandemic declared, the world would do well to embrace incisive voices and thinkers like Norman and Martin so that the policy responses imposed do not create more suffering than they prevent.”

Read 15 tweets

Prof Norman Fenton

@profnfenton

May 15

1. This is quite a long thred and the new explosive information is in part 3 of the thread.
In June 2023 I reported about how a talk I was due to give at the NHS Health and Care Analytics Conference 2023 was cancelled not because of its content (it was about Bayesian network applications) but because of my ‘controversial views’ about the covid vaccines.

In July 2023 I reported on the heavily redacted response from Birmingham University (who were hosting the conference) to my subject access request. In August 2023 I reported on the astonishing response from the NHS to an FOI request that somebody, who I did not know, had made about the cancellation.

All these reports are on our blog wherearethenumbers (the one that X shadow bans links to ...)

2. After that I finally got a response from the NHS to my own subject access request about the cancellation. For legal reasons I never reported on that or what happened thereafter because The Free Speech Union lawyers submitted a formal request for an apology on my behalf and a small payment to a charity. Because there has as yet been no resolution there are still limits to what I can say publicly. But I can reveal some snippets of what the NHS and their lawyers said.

The NHS response to the subject access request contained a covering letter and 17 different heavily redacted documents, each of which contained a thread of one or more emails about me. Four of the documents were simply email threads in which I had participated before and after the cancellation - so nothing new there. Nine of the documents were correspondence from, presumably, members of the public who had made formal complaints to the NHS about my cancellation.

It was nice to know that people had complained on my behalf, but the most interesting aspect of the exchange was that the documents contained no responses from the NHS and no information as to whether the NHS ever did reply to these complaints.

The remaining four documents were internal communications announcing, and later confirming, that my talk was cancelled, instructing people to remove my name, close down the associated Eventbrite announcement, etc. Hence, there was little new in the subject access request response to shed light on the real reasons and process that led up to their decision to cancel my appearance. And, to this day, the Conference Chair Ben Goldacre has refused to respond to any of the multiple requests for information about this...

3. However, following the Free Speech Union letter the NHS lawyers sent a lengthy response that contained many remarkable and offensive statements about me. First, they explicitly referred to tweets I had made AFTER the cancellation announcement on 20 June 2023. They stated (in point 6 of their letter):

Since 20 June 2023, the Defendant has been aware that the Claimant also maintains an active profile on Twitter as a controversialist. For example, in recent weeks, he has repeatedly tweeted arguments against the conviction of NHS nurse Lucy Letby for the murder of seven babies. He is a climate crisis denier, tweeting and retweeting about climate change as “climate catastrophe propaganda” and criticising “the tyrannical Net Zero policies being foisted upon us all under the guise of solving the non-existent ‘global boiling crisis’”.

While I certainly stand by the claims about “climate catastrophe propaganda”, the statement that I “repeatedly tweeted arguments against the conviction of NHS nurse Lucy Letby for the murder of seven babies.” is false. It seems to be based on the fact that I had simply posted a video interview I made with a colleague who raised concerns about the conviction and followed that up with links to his articles about it.

In point 7, apart from the fact that they object to tweets which simply state the truth about covid, they bizarrely imply that I am some kind of Hitler fan for using the ‘clown world’ icons in tweets. This is despite the fact that I had very publicly stated in a viral video in March 2023 that I was a Jew whose father was the sole survivor in his large family of the Nazi Holocaust:

The Claimant’s tweets about Covid 19 are less moderate than his “position” as expressed in your letter. He tweets allegations that the “mainstream media” or “MSM” has lied about Covid, that death tolls have been inflated and even that there has not been a pandemic. For example, he tweeted that the “MSM” have “frame[d] Trump as a liar when he was the one telling the truth about it”. He regularly ends his tweets about Covid with the clown emoji followed by the world emoji, meaning “clown world” (“🤡🌏”). This is an alt-right internet meme, which originated in 4chan and is also known as the “Honkler” or “Heil Honkler” sign1 within the American white supremacist movement. Honkler joins “Honk” with “Hitler”. It is a dog whistle conveying that “the left” are creating a “clown world”.

The reference to Trump above concerned the media’s response to his statement in 2020 that he believed the claimed 3.4% covid fatality rate was too high. Trump was of course right, and the mainstream media were wrong.

In point 8 they attempt to paint me as an ignorant anti-vaxxer, and totally misrepresent some tweets I posted:

In particular, the Claimant often tweets inflammatory messages condemning the basic interventions supported by the NHS and health services all over the world. This includes explicitly anti-Vaxx tweets, not only challenging vaccination for younger age groups (as mentioned in your letter) but for all age groups. For example, he recently tweeted about the NHS winter Covid booster campaign, which only targets older age groups and those at risk: “They’ll repeat the mantra ‘they stop hospitalisation & death’. So, here’s a reminder of why that’s garbage too.” In the same tweet thread, he stated “every Covid test is an unnecessary medical intervention”, accompanied by a child’s face, crying and covered in blood.

The explanation for my cancellation is contained in point 11 of their letter, which amusingly refers to The Great Reset as a ‘well-known covid conspiracy theory’

On 20 June 2023, the HACA Conference organisers were in an internal meeting when a Twitter user tweeted at them asking if they had seen the Claimant’s Twitter feed and suggesting that they should take a look. Some present at the meeting immediately did so and were very concerned by what they saw, which included sensationalist material, dog whistles and conspiracy theories. For example, they saw a tweet praising a project to “disrupt global tyranny”, advertised by the slogan “resist the great reset”, which refers to a well-known covid conspiracy theory. They saw another tweet alleging that “data scams have sustained ‘official’ narratives” in respect of Covid. Those present at the meeting felt the implication of many of the tweets was the NHS and Government is actively lying about harming patients with COVID vaccines as part of a globalist takeover of democratic governments. It was decided that inviting the Claimant to speak at this NHS conference would be inappropriate and would conflict in a damaging way with the NHS position on vaccination. They were also concerned that inviting the Claimant would implicitly endorse his public persona, which might deter NHS staff from attending the conference.

In Points 18 and 20 they provide the following further rationale for the cancellation:

First, and most importantly, the decision furthers the objective of protection of health. All NHS bodies (and UK public authorities more widely) maintain clear and consistent messaging on the importance of vaccination against Covid 19 and other diseases. Since the pandemic, there has been a significant rise in the anti-Vaxx movement, which in turn risks jeopardising the vital public health benefits of high vaccine uptake. There are grave public health risks arising from any declining trust in vaccines and in NHS advice more generally. Put bluntly, a refusal to accept vaccination risks lives. The anti-Vaxx and Covid-sceptic movement has been fuelled by the kind of inflammatory tweets found on the Claimant’s Twitter feed. As is well known, media platforms (particularly social media platforms such as Twitter) have been enormously influential in the spread of vaccine hesitancy. Such platforms have been used to spread widespread disinformation about the effectiveness or safety of vaccination both by individuals and by hostile state actors such as Russia. The influence of commentary upon social media platforms is magnified, where those who post on such platforms speak from a position of apparent authority.

Second, the decision furthers the objective of the protection of the MLSCU’s reputation. MLSCU’s functions include advancing innovation and research within the NHS. In order to carry out this function effectively, it needs to maintain the trust of NHS professionals. It does this by inviting credible individuals to share their research. While the Claimant has conducted well-respected research as an academic, his public profile contains extremist, controversialist positions, including alt-right memes and conspiracy theories. MLSCU was entitled to take the view that its own reputation and ability to carry out its functions could be undermined by hosting the Claimant. Further, any erosion in the credibility of the MLSCU could have an indirect adverse impact on the protection of health, if NHS professionals were to forego the opportunity to access important research shared by the MLSCU.

Further reasons are provided in points 27, 28:

The decision is justified by reference to his inflammatory and controversialist profile on Twitter, covering a wide range of subjects on which the Claimant has no particular academic expertise and expressed in a style that extends to far right dog whistles. Both the content and style of large numbers of tweets by the Claimant mean that they clearly are not “academic expression”.This decision addresses the risk that placing the Claimant on an NHS platform would be reported or perceived by anti-Vaxxers and the public as an endorsement of his extreme statements on Twitter, as well as leading to potential loss of trust in MLCSU. This risk would subsist regardless of whether he spoke on these issues at the conference. There would be no way of ensuring that the Claimant’s presence at the conference was always reported on social media with a relevant disclaimer.

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