The Manipulation and Suppression of Science Part 2: Great Barrington Declaration
The Philippines is currently undergoing one of the longest lockdowns in the world due to COVID with ever increasing debt and economic collapse. With the ever growing tensions for almost 2 years, is it really a small virus that is keeping people at bay from normal or could it be some other factors and players that may either present itself as incompetent or malevolent. These series will be divided into 4 different parts as this series will explore the COVID psychosis.
The censorship and suppression of science and scientific debate has been rampant throughout this lockdown period in treating COVID-19 and has been both a nationwide and global crisis. In a situation such as this, one would expect that our public officials and health care workers to be open to any treatments possible for the betterment of health and ending this crisis but unfortunately that is not the case. Previously in Part 1 of the series, we discussed about the suppression of early treatment for COVID. In this part we will focus more on the Great Barrington Declaration, the people behind it and their actual goals as well as the smearing campaign against this movement. I would encourage the readers to read Part 1 of the series some of the content of this part are linked to Part 1 as well.
What is the Great Barrington Declaration?
In October of 2020, epidemiologists Dr. Martin Kuldorff of Harvard Universuty, Dr. Sunetra Gupta Oxford University, and Dr. Jay Battacharya of Stanford University (Figure 1) created the Great Barrington Declaration as a response to the COVID-19 lockdowns. They saw the effects of lockdowns towards the mental health of people, the other diseases of different people, and the collapsing economy which can lead to livelihoods ruined.
Figure 1. Dr. Martin Kuldorff (Left), Dr. Sunetra Gupta (Center), Dr. Jay Battacharya (Right)
Focus Protection
The Great Barrington Declaration’s biggest policy is “Focus Protection”. Focused protection focuses on minimizing overall COVID deaths and other illnesses and protecting the most vulnerable in the population with different kinds of treatments. And this entire policy is definitely possible as there are situations wherein this is possible which includes the fact that kids with COVID have virtually little to zero risk of COVID and in fact have the same or higher risk with the flu/influenza and pneumonia. In a peer-reviewed meta-analysis from renowned Stanford physician-scientist professor John Ionnidis which was bulleted by the World Health Organizations, patients under 70 have a 99.5 % survival rate which shows age is the most important factor. With an illness that has a high survival rate for a good chunk of the population and the ones only above 70+ who are vulnerable, focus protection is possible. Another factor as to how this focus protection program can be implemented aside from the high survival rate of a good chunk of a population is the use of early treatment with the likes of Ivermectin, Vitamin C and D, and etc. with different protocols given by independent organizations of physicians and scientists which includes the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) Alliance and locally the Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDCPH) which was tackled in Part 1 of the series on early treatment. These early treatments not only saved critical patients but can also be use as protocols for prophylaxis for one’s lifestyle especially to the elderly and the ones with co-morbidities to avoid COVID due to how safe these treatments are relatively.
Lockdown and its factors
A 62-page meta-analysis study from John Hopkins University was published recently in January 2022 regarding the COVID lockdowns. It showed that the lockdowns have not made any difference to COVID-19 mortality compared to no lockdowns. In the study, it shows that lockdowns in both Europe in the USA showed only a 0.2% difference in COVID-19 mortality. Although the analysis found some outliers including the closing of bars resulting to 10% reduction in mortality, the overall met-analysis still show little to no effect that lockdowns reduce the overall mortality. With this in mind in regards to the COVID lockdown, including the usual protocols of social distancing and isolation, these protocols lead to the likes of less hospital visits and physician-patient care which leads to different health problems which may include less cancer screenings and cardiovascular issues as well as missed surgeries or the decrease of childhood vaccinations for the parents who choose to do so. Another big factor that gets ignored would be the pandemic of mental health. In 2021, there is an estimated 76 million extra cases of depression and 53 million cases of anxiety in 2020 compared to the previous years. In 2021, depression and anxiety only increased 28% and 26% respectively with the lockdown implementations. Among the highest demographic with mental health issues are the ones in the age between 15-24 years of age according to a UNICEF report and this is most likely rooted from anger and issues regarding the future of the globe. In addition to the increase of mental health issues, anxiety and fear-related issues are also underlying conditions of COVID-19 as there is a large cross-sectional study of over 500,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients (Figure 2) which was published by the Center for Disease and Control (CDC) and it showed that anxiety and fear-disorders are the strongest risk factors of severe COVID-illness and even death.
Figure 2. Adjusted Risk Ratios (95% CI) of ICU Admission, IMV, and Death, by Frequent Underlying Medical Conditions Among Adults Hospitalized With COVID-19 in Premier Healthcare Database Special COVID-19 Release (PHD-SR), March 2020–March 2021 (Published by CDC)
Economy wise, the UNICEF report states that the mental issues of 15-24 year olds correlate as well to the economy as approximately $387 billion dollars of human potential are lost in a global scale affecting plenty of different countries’ economies. The downfall of the economy also led to at least 97 million people being led to extreme poverty with a record high global debt of $296 million dollars with a global issuance to bonds and loans that reached $1.2 trillion which is an all-time high. With all of these different factors that show signs of decline of societies, the lockdown measures definitely has not worked and led to much more collateral damage. The presence of food price hikes and inflation rises due to the lack of food due to the disruption of the supply chain by the COVID lockdowns globally.
Great Barrington Declaration in the Philippines
In the Philippines, the Gross Domestic Product fell at an all-time low at -9.6% in the last 2 decades (Figure 3). Although the GDP has risen back 5.6%, in the last 2 decades debt has rose to an all-time high at nearly P12 trillion at the end of 2021 (Figure 3) which was approximately a 27% increase from the debt in 2020. In addition to this, the lockdowns lead to an increase in poverty nationally with close to 4 million people with an increase in poverty incidence rate to 23.7% in 2021 and these are all rooted to the restrictions given by the COVID lockdowns due to its restrictions. Mental health issues are on the rise as well as the suicide rate of the country has increased by 57% in 2020 compared to 2019 before the lockdowns. The most affected in the mental-health side of things are the students. In a study by Philippine One Health University Network and the Southeast Asian One Health University Network showed that National Capital Region (NCR) students experienced high levels of stress with 19 %, 22 % admitted feeling depressive symptoms, 36 %admitted to anxiety, and close to 26 % admitted to having a terrible time coping with the pandemic’s impact.
Figure 3. National Debt of the Philippines (Top) & National GDP of the Philippines (Bottom)
Locally the group Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDCPH) have been promoting this focus protection with alternative and early treatments since plenty of alternative treatments are out there especially towards the elderly and the ones with co-morbidities and have been opening. Unfortunately up to this day, our own government officials and medical establishments ignore these early treatments and logistics in opening the economy properly. We still are stuck in the belief that vaccines are the only way out even though it has failed in Metro Manila. In addition to the vaccines, the Philippine government borrowed and spent high amount of money from the World Bank and we spent up to P44 billion for vaccines which is part of the P12 trillion national debt the country has. Unfortunately, more outbreaks occurred specifically within Metro Manila early January 2022 despite the fact that nearly 100% of the population are fully vaccinated with patients who are vaccinated also being hospitalized and infected (Figure 4).
Figure 4. January 2022 outbreak in Metro Manila showing vaccinated getting hospitalizations and infections
Figure 5. Registered Deaths in the Philippines the last 10 years from Philippine Statistics Authority
Figure 6. Ten Leading Causes of Death in the Philippines in 2020 from Philippine Statistics Authority
The question one may ask is, can the Great Barrington Declaration be implanted in the Philippines? According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), total recorded deaths in the Philippines in 2020 during the COVID Lockdowns was 613,936 which was a 1% decline (Figure 5) from the total recorded deaths from 2019. For a virus that is so deadly and airborne everywhere as stated by the health authorities which include the Department of Health, the death rate of the country has fallen am I right? In addition, the number one cause of death in 2020 were ischemic heart diseases at 105, 281 deaths (Figure 6). COVID on the other hand was at 20,872 which is outside the top 5 and for a deadly virus that is being feared by the media that is said to kill plenty, it is not as deadly as one may expect. Furthermore beside “COVID-19” in the graph, it is stated that “virus is not identified” which makes it all the more suspicious. With these data, the policies of the declaration can be implemented with supporting evidences that COVID is not deadly for a good part of the population and the fact that early treatments did exist to treat the condition which are promoted by grassroots groups which may include CDCPH and its doctors which including Dr. Alan Landrito and his protocol which includes ivermectin which showed to be effective.
The Smearing of the Great Barrington Declaration
In the US, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was requested by the American Institute of Economics Research. Email communication was revealed in the FOIA act of the National Institute of Health (NIH) director in Francis Collins and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Anthony Fauci in regards to the Great Barrington Declaration (Figure 7). The email dates back on October of 2020 when the Declaration initiated and was revealed that both Collins and Fauci did a “quick and devastating” published take down of the Great Barrington Declaration. Supposedly around that time, the Great Barrington Declaration were also about to have an open scientific debate about the lockdown policies with their counterpart, the Jon Snow Memorandum. At this time, the people would’ve had a chance to listen to scientists from different sides debating and discussing their policies and sides in tackling the lockdowns but was blocked by the “orbiters of truth” in Collins and Fauci and telling physicians and scientists to pretty much stay quiet about debates on lockdowns as these are dangerous. Unfortunately, the global economy and poverty has continually increased since this incident.
Figure 7. Email communication between NIH Director Francis Collins and NIAID Director Anthony Fauci
Another piece of misinformation and smearing is the fact that the Great Barrington Declaration is calling the declaration and its policies a “libertarian free-market think tank associated with climate change denial” as said in their Wikipedia if one searches it up (Figure 8) . However in actuality, the Declaration states again that it is not a laissez-faire/libertarian “let-it rip” approach (Figure 9) but rather a middle ground to open the economy for the healthy and protecting the vulnerable especially the elderly. The folks of the Declaration are open to any discussion in protecting people most specifically the elderly in general with any possible safe treatment without the ruining of livelihood and economic collapse. As Dr. Battacharya himself stated in the interview with Lex Fridman that these people are misinforming to the public about the policies of their declaration and spreading propaganda rather than proper scientific discussion.
Figure 8. Wikipedia misinformation on the Great Barrington Declaration
Figure 9. The Great Barring Declaration’s response to the “misinformation”
For nearly 2 years, a good amount of the world are still under COVID lockdowns which includes here in the Philippines. In addition, the implementation of vaccination mandates as well as other restrictive policies which include “no vax, no ride” has really affected the middle poor and middle class Filipinos and their livelihood. Over 65,000 scientists worldwide have signed the Great Barrington Declaration as overtime it seems to be the most rational process as the economy of the globe is at the collapse with restrictions that came at a cost of the livelihood of many people. Science progresses through debate, discussion, and scrutiny. Science was not built by censoring and attacking others at a personal level such as with the likes of Collins and Fauci. And the consequence of no open debate has led to more economic and societal collapse and uncertainty of people causing protests. With this, people and scientific institutions are much more open now to a debate with opening back the economy as well as giving early and safe treatment to the vulnerable. However, the big disappointment was the fact that this could have been implemented earlier and even as few months into the lockdown in 2020 to advise the public properly.
Long lockdowns are not the solution to the problem as shown with the economic decline and the rise of debt and poverty as well as mental-health issues on the rise such as anxiety, depression, and fear which can be a strong risk to severe COVID including other co-morbidities. Open and civilized discussion in adjusting to the logistics is key to avoid the damage our politicians and most big medical establishments have caused towards the public. These damages are difficult to overcome and the medical and scientific community as well as the governments and the overall public must come together and wake-up before things could get worse.
And with this, I’ll end this article with this classic Albert Einstein quote to summarize everything here…
- CODE BLACK
The Manipulation and Suppression of Science Part 3: Vaccines and Immunity COMING SOON!