The Death And Resurrection Of Science

Free debate became a thing of the past; social media removed impeccable science if it went against official announcements; and the media were complacent with this new world order and often participated uncritically in the public humiliation of those who spoke out.

The people singled out in the email were Carl Heneghan and his co-worker Tom Jefferson, and Peter C Gøtzsche because they had all spoken out about the harms of lockdowns.

Maliciously, Head did not discuss the science but called Jefferson and Gøtzsche "Anti-vaccine activists" and noted that, "There's quite a lot to Heneghan, and I imagine I am only aware of a small amount of it." Head opined that Heneghan's work "Is of great interest and use to the anti-vax community, which says a lot." It doesn't.

Some people called Heneghan "Anti-science" for daring to convey the results of the randomised trials of face masks.

Heneghan posted a link on Facebook to an article he had written about the Danish trial of face masks for preventing Covid-19 that did not find an effect, and Facebook immediately labelled the article "False information. Checked by independent fact-checkers." As Heneghan noted, there was nothing in his article that was "False."

Katy Minshall, head of UK public policy at Twitter: "Well, it is not Twitter saying he is wrong or misleading, it is the CDC and health authorities around the world, and with that tweet you are referring to, my understanding is that it said, if you have had Covid-19 before, you have natural immunity and you don't need the vaccine. That's different to what the CDC and other health authorities around the world have said, which is that vaccines are effective in most people. What we want to do is that, when people see that tweet, to really quickly direct them to authoritative sources of information like the CDC or the NHS or the Department of Health, so they can see what the official guidance is and make up their own mind."

A large trial in Bangladesh appeared to have shown a small effect, but the 1% difference in the number of people with reported Covid-like illnesses could easily have been caused by physical distancing, which was practiced by 5% more villagers in the face mask group than in the control group. 

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-death-and-resurrection-of-science/