I wonder what @QMUL thinks of @profnfenton retweeting a post from an anti-vax conspiracy nut accusing colleague @dgurdasani1 of "misrepresenting the data" on covid deaths amongst vaccinated people?
Particularly ironic given Fenton's own record of mangling data...
Unsurprisingly, Dr Syed's claim that vaccination *increases* your risk of dying if you catch covid by 73% is utter nonsense.
A quick look at the ONS data shows the proportion of covid deaths in the oldest (most vaccinated) age groups has been falling. Exactly as you'd expect.
His whole argument rests on either ignoring the age of people who were vaccinated entirely or (in a later post) assuming that everyone who died was elderly.
Which, as I've just shown above, is far from true.
Even if he was right (which he isn't), it wouldn't mean the vaccines aren't working. Because they also make you far less likely to catch covid in the first place.
You can see the impact of this in Bolton. Compare the split between under and over 60s in this wave to the last two:
Given Fenton doesn't check his own workings, it's hardly surprising he didn't bother to check if the wild anti-vax claim that he amplified (and the attack on his fellow @QMUL lecturer, who is far more qualified in this area) is in any way credible.
Maybe the Professor of Risk Management should have considered the risk that Dr Syed is a crank?
A quick scroll through his timeline shows he's a climate change denier, retweets QAnon nonsense about the Clintons murdering people, and thinks vaccines caused the winter covid surge.
Of course, Fenton has previous in this area, thanks to his association through @hartgroup_org with Joel Smalley, who has repeatedly claimed that vaccination rather than the Alpha (Kent) variant caused the big spike in deaths over winter.
Now @profnfenton is just flat out spreading anti-vax disinformation, complete with conspiracy theory nonsense about the "mainstream media" looking for the "correct narrative".
There is no narrative. The story isn't true and has already been debunked.
Relevant background: some rando on Twitter claimed he heard on the radio that Eriksen was vaccinated recently. Thousands of anti-vaxxers spread the rumour.
The only source for the story seems to be a 2 month old Twitter account with 113 followers, who claims he heard it on a radio station that denies it said that.
But thanks to confirmation bias, far more prominent anti-vaxxers shared the rumour and refuse to believe it's not true.
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Last week Andrew Bridgen claimed Ukraine might be working on a dirty bomb to use in a "false flag" attack in Europe. Unsurprisingly his comments have now been amplified by the Russian military and state media, and echoed back by Russian assets and useful idiots here in the UK. 🧵
Andrew Bridgen had an "incredibly productive" meeting with the Russian ambassador in London earlier this year.
Since then he's claimed Rishi Sunak called the election to avoid being a wartime PM, and that Ukraine's planning a "false flag" nuclear attack in Europe "like 9/11". 😳
Meanwhile Russian assets and useful idiots here in the UK have been amplifying these claims of false flag attacks and dirty bombs.
John and Irina Mappin at least are known to have visited the Russian embassy recently, and all frequently share Russian propaganda on social media.
Reform's manifesto (or "contract") panders to conspiracy theorists, falsely linking covid vaccines to excess deaths and pledging to "reject" the WEF, WHO and digital currencies.
Unsurprising, given many of their supporters and candidates have rather odd views on these topics. 🧵
Nigel Farage and his Reform Party recently got an endorsement from Laurence Fox of the similarly named Reclaim Party.
Farage even recorded a video with Fox, who has repeatedly compared the Pride flag to the Swastika and promoted Islamophobia.
With friends like these...
Laurence Fox's fiancée also took selfies with Farage while out supporting him in Clacton.
She's recently claimed (amongst many other things) that the pandemic didn't happen and that "they" manipulate the weather to rob us of vital Vitamin D. Right before a heat wave started. 🤦♂️
Reform's candidate in Edinburgh South West, Ian Harper, was a vocal backer of ivermectin, and the grifters and frauds who promoted it as a cure for covid. In his bio for Reform, he talks about a "globalist agenda" seeking to "collapse society".
Not the worst thing he's said. 🧵
Ian Harper's first Twitter account was suspended, and he's now locked his second (presumably to stop voters seeing it). Luckily the internet (and its archives) remembers.
Most of his pandemic posts seem to consist of vastly exaggerated claims about the wonders of ivermectin. 🙄
Unsurprisingly Reform's Ian Harper was an enthusiastic supporter of Tess Lawrie, founder of a British group called BIRD which promoted the dewormer ivermectin as a miracle "cure" for covid, much of it based on flawed or outright fraudulent studies.
Reform's candidate in Twickenham is a member of anti-vax misinformation group HART. In leaked chat logs, Alex Starling called vaccinating children "a perverted abomination", and talked about sneaking HART content and campaigns into articles he wrote for UK news site Reaction. 🧵
If you've not come across them before, HART identify as "a group of highly qualified doctors, scientists and other experts" who just "question the narrative". But many of their members believe covid vaccines were designed to depopulate the Earth! 😳
Alex Starling fit right in at HART, calling wearing masks at school "depraved cruelty" and vaccinating children against covid "a perverted abomination". He also repeatedly suggested covid vaccines work in the same way lions "work" on a herd of zebras, "by taking out the weakest".
John Mappin appeared on Russian TV at the weekend, claiming the British public doesn't support Ukraine. Because he spoke to a few friends, and they all love Russia too. 🤷♂️
Mappin often retweets Putin's propaganda, and last year claimed he could instantly end the Ukraine war. 🤔
Russian asset / useful idiot John Mappin has also been out campaigning for Nigel Farage in Clacton-on-Sea. Haven't they suffered enough already?
Mappin previously backed Andrew Bridgen, after the MP compared covid vaccines to the Holocaust. Just the man you want on your side. 🤦♂️
John Mappin rather optimistically claimed afterwards that Nigel Farage is going to be Prime Minister, hailing him for "one of the most brilliant and sanest speeches in this island's history". 🤪
But then he's already fallen for Scientology, QAnon, and covid conspiracy theories.
The BMJ has had to issue a statement after everyone from The Telegraph and former Brexit Minister David Davis to anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists claimed that covid vaccines may be responsible for excess deaths, based on a dubious study published in @BMJPublicHealth. 🧵
The Telegraph's @sarahknapton has a history of this. Two years ago she tried to blame excess deaths (including some covid deaths!) on lockdowns, with a clickbait headline that the article (behind a paywall) failed to support. This is more of the same.
As for the BMJ article that inspired all of this, it simply takes excess death data from 47 "western" countries (ranging from the US and UK to Australia and New Zealand to Bulgaria and Moldova), adds them all up, then engages in a lot of vague arm waving.