Preliminary opinion
Biofides has followed the Corona pandemic and the reaction of the medical profession, health authorities and governments from the outset, intensively and always as critically as possible, drawing on our scientific training as a biologist.
In the Dutch version of the magazine ‘Communio’ (initiated by Cardinal Ratzinger), during the first months of the pandemic, we already wrote an article on the ethical aspect of vaccines which, in their development, testing and production phases, use cell cultures from aborted children. The Church has also spoken out on this subject. “Roma locuta, causa finita” (Augustine)…
With the roll-out of the new mRNA vaccines, still experimental, based on emergency authorisations, we have become more skeptical: if, for example, the Belgian authorities claim that the vaccines are “safe and effective”, when they’ve been tested for less than two months, as a scientist – I think – you can’t agree with that. I’m open to new medical technologies, but not by evacuating all rationality and my critical sense. The fact is that almost the entire world population has been put under intense pressure to move on to the third phase of research: testing a new drug on human subjects who have (or have not) been free to agree to it… On the basis of a pandemic which – according to our sources – could only endanger the lives of people over 65 and those with underlying health problems. And by doing away with existing, safe generic drugs that seem to work very well.
Since then, we have followed several sources, mainly in the English-speaking world, that also dare to be critical of the cause of the pandemic and the response to it, but also the “mainstream” sources, who are much less critical. We have always been extremely discreet on this subject, because one can quickly be labelled an “anti-vaxer” or a “conspiracy theorist”. We are not “anti-vax”, having – personaly – received an mRNA vaccine three times: twice AstraZenica, once Moderna (in Belgium, we couldn’t choose). I gave the vaccines the benefit of the doubt, given that I was over 60. My wife, who works in education, couldn’t escape vaccination because of the immense social pressure, with “the necessary reticence”: personal freedom had become almost non-existent. After my Moderna vaccination, I was very ill for some days.
Unlike the main stream, I don’t really have a problem with ‘conspiracy theories’, provided they are not simply held to be true, but tested, verified. “Conspiracies” are a reality, throughout human history. They can not be ruled out a priori, in the world of Big Pharma and the health authorities. Having a theory (or hypothesis) is not a “sin”, but it needs to be put to the test, not believed or rejected blindly. What we’re interested in is the truth. The term “conspiracy theory” is, in our opinion, ill-defined and then misused to silence certain people. For example: at first, the theory that the virus came from the Wuhan laboratory was considered a conspiracy theory. Today, the FBI recognizes it as ‘highly probable’, almost certain. So I avoid using this term in relation to people with whom I disagree, and I try to formulate my possible “theory” in such a way that it is only a hypothesis, so only provisionally, and invites for verification.
The same applies to the terms like “dis-, des-, of mis information”. It only exists when information is proven to be incorrect. I.e.: not because claims are deemed false by Google and Youtube. Not even if a health authority calls it disinformation, as if it were scientifically infallible. For instance: the FDA has admitted that Ivermectine could always be used for early treatment of a COVID infection and that it is NOT just a ‘horse medecine’. But they said almost the contrary, earlier during the pandemic. In Australia, doctors ended up in prison for prescribing Ivermectin. Can there still be a scientific debate or not? I have the impression that the term “disinformation” is used to “cancel out” certain people. There’s nothing worse than being accused of “disinformation” (without the interlocutor demonstrating that his information was incorrect). Caution is therefore the order of the day.
I expect my sources to be based on peer-reviewed scientific literature, or pre-publications thereof, to which I cautiously lend credibility. And on verifiable statements from pharmaceutical companies and health authorities. I follow them through intermediary sources such as existing doctors’ organizations and new ones that emerge due to dissatisfaction with “mainstream” views on the pandemic, which sometimes seem to ignore facts and science.
I take no firm or quasi-definitive position on this sensitive subject, but I do arrive at an overall picture that may be “politically incorrect” in today’s culture.
Vincent Kemme
Biofides.org
