With Professor Robert Clancy.
This month we ‘celebrate’ 5 years since the covid pandemic began in Australia. This is the 10th article I have written for Quadrant on covid pandemic management. Prior to the pandemic my 300+ publications had been in peer reviewed medical journals. Most reported research on airway immune protection which has been my passion for 50 years.
In 2019 the University of Newcastle awarded me a Doctor of Science for this work (I was informed that this was the first such award given by the University). My point is that in 2020 with the appearance of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing Covid-19), entirely by circumstance, I was as well placed as anyone to understand this new airway infection, its pathogenesis and its management. Specifically, the likely place for vaccination in the control of the pandemic. That is what I did.
So, why write 10 articles for Quadrant that were critical of the official response to the pandemic? The answer is a simple one. Everything I had understood about the history of pandemics, the science-based development of an Australian Pandemic Plan, the immunology of mucosal (airway) infections, and the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship, had been summarily replaced with a narrative centred on a genetic vaccine that had never been used in man, and that did not exist.
At this stage the medical press that I had worked with for 50 years had been bought by the narrative and would publish nothing that threatened to compromise it. The legacy press (including its ‘experts’) wore ignorance on a grubby sleeve. But these were the prisms through which medical professionals and the public would learn about the pandemic to inform decisions that affected their patient’s, and their own, health.
The narrative made no sense to me. It denied historic experience. It was confused with inherent dangers by neglecting what could be done, while failing to anticipate what might happen. The official Australian Pandemic Plan had been updated in 2019 for an anticipated influenza pandemic. This was modified to cover the new SARS-CoV-2 pandemic early in 2020. Experience with influenza was considered an appropriate model for a pandemic involving a corona virus mutant.
How did this narrative conflict with the Plan it replaced? First, it ignored the lessons of epidemiology and science. The corollary was the punitive lockdowns and senseless vaccine mandates. Second, it denied the use of safe, cheap and effective repurposed drugs, decisions that contributed to needless loss of life amongst the most vulnerable. Third and at its centre, it distorted views regarding what could be expected as clinical outcomes of a global mRNA vaccination programme, while minimising concerns an untested genetic vaccine may have unexpected adverse events.