Category Archives: Science

An expert on BBC news this morning was decrying the high false negative rate of “lateral flow” COVID tests, in the light of a study which re-tested negative asymptomatic students with PCR tests, and found half a dozen positives. This suggested that statistically 60 students in the group were in fact infected, rather than the three (if I remember rightly) revealed by the original test.

With the death of John le Carré this last week, I felt it was about time I read some of his work, as opposed to seeing the film versions on TV. So I picked his December 2000 book The Constant Gardener, since in dealing with the rapacity and unscrupulousness of Big Pharma, it seemed somehow topical.

You can download the FDA Briefing document on the new vaccine, presumably compiled by Pfizer, here, which is the nearest we have yet to a scientific paper on the vaccine trial used to authorise the vaccine here in Britain.

Wikipedia is always pretty mainstream, because their zealous moderators censor anyone they consider not to be mainstream. You don’t do well if you’re deemed a “pseudoscientist” or a “conspiracy theorist.” That being so, it’s instructive to read their article on RNA vaccines, because today is the very first time one of these has been given official approval to whack into the whole population of Britain, starting with the most vulnerable. The roll-out has been greeted with vast enthusiasm – at least from official sources – rather akin to that which greeted Tony Blair as a kind of Messiah in his election victory in 1997. Journalists and legacy news consumers are … Continue reading →

I’m never quite sure what proportion of my readers are highly science-literate and informed, and what proportion are not. In any case, Google searchers do come across these posts. So with your indulgence it’s time for a simple update on why the UK’s continuing lockdowns and mass testing are no more than the quickest way to destroy the country socially and economically for no benefit whatsoever. To understate the case somewhat.

So said the excellent Laurence Fox on Talk Radio last evening. His meaning was that, like any endemic virus, we just need to get back to normal life, even if that means civil disobedience to a government now ruling entirely by fear. But the phrase “isn’t going anywhere,” whilst it can mean we’re lumbered with COVID, would also be true if the virus were stone cold dead. And there seems to be increasing evidence that, in effect, it is.