Dr John Campbell YouTube videos - what happened?

[SchnitzelVonCrummsTum]

Can anyone who's watched his videos more regularly than I have explain this to me? Seems to have gone from mainstream to pro-ivermectin in the space of a few months.

@leafyygreens

So proper analysis of data is necessary, properly and soberly reported, allow proper debate with 'respectable' dissenters on the 'respectable ' BBC

There is proper analysis of the impact of COVID on illness/deaths etc, from a huge number of sources, from different countries worldwide.

It is not the BBCs job to debate with anyone, it is their job to accurately report what epidemiologists are telling them.

I disagree with journalists fact checking Campbell (if that indeed was the article), and believe they should be quoting someone qualified. There are heaps of epidemiologists who have coherantly explained how Campbell has made the transistion from educator to full on conspiracy peddler, and explained the many many errors in his videos.

John Campbell is not a "respectable dissentener" given that he is not a scientist and indeed has no relevant qualifications for this particular area. This is evident in his videos where he makes very very basic mistakes and presents cherry picked data out of context.

Very much this. :)

I disagree - it absolutely is the BBC's job to interview those with opposing analyses. Because they're publicly funded.
Not this guy, if he is not up to scratch. But someone who is competent and can lay their case out. Go head to head with someone who disagrees. What normally should happen.

The notion of a second opinion in medicine is not exactly a new idea

@1Week

I disagree - it absolutely is the BBC's job to interview those with opposing analyses. Because they're publicly funded. Not this guy, if he is not up to scratch. But someone who is competent and can lay their case out. Go head to head with someone who disagrees. What normally should happen.

The notion of a second opinion in medicine is not exactly a new idea

That's exactly what I said @1week? Not sure who you're disagreeing with?

I pointed out it is not the job of a journalist to fact check John Campbell, nowhere did I say they shouldn't be interviewing people with relevant expertise

You were agreeing with my quoted post in your last reply, so not sure what's changed.

Not only is the way he pronounces the word covid irritating ('covv-id'), but he's getting worse with these faces he keeps pulling to camera. As if to say 'yikes' to reasonable theories and so undermining them but without actually saying anything he can be quoted on.

Here Dr Susan Oliver goes through his 'mice' video, with answers to clips of his vid. He is doing the face pulling again from about 10 minutes in.

'Weird Omicron Lab Mice Theories on Dr John Campbell's Channel'

Hi everyone! I signed up for this website simply to post here as I could not resist after having gone through 4-5 pages of this thread. The retired nurse John Campbell has indeed been pandering to conspiratorial types but I specifically want to point out that for anyone who doubts that he was simply presenting 17000 as a literally written number and nothing else, nope that's quite wrong. He is acting in bad faith and the proof I got for this was from a video posted by Prof Greg Tucker Kellogg where he uses a clip towards the end of his video, of Campbell himself...letting it slip from his own mouth. Here it is. Watch the last one minute if you're pressed for time but I recommend watch all of it if you can

I want to add to my previous comment that as you can see, this retired nurse, not an epidemiologist, not an actual practicing peer reviewer or researcher, said from his own mouth, that deaths are being "misreported by a factor of 7 to 8 to 9 times". And this should more than suffice for anyone who thinks he did not mean to say that the 17,000 number was "low" and by implication of that, covid deaths were far less. Well, this is pretty damning. And quite honestly deeply disturbing. Because this...is not just innocuous unintentional misinformation.

@ ravirai2k22. Thanks for the link, that was really interesting.

@pointythings

Flyonawalk, no, he did not. He is minimising COVID by saying only 17,000 people died from it and therefore we shouldn't have locked down etc. etc. Totally ignoring the other people whose deaths were caused by COVID because other conditions made them vulnerable. The bottom line is that these people would not have died in the way that they did if they had not contracted COVID. Basically, all COVID deaths matter and he is pushing the narrative that they do not. Pure COVID deaths are not the important ones that should drive the narrative about how we manage this pandemic because in this sense at least, all lives matter.

I see this kind of assumption from quite a few people - that when someone wants to talk about numbers who don't have comorbidity, for example - that they are "discounting other deaths.

I really think that's something you are bringing into it. And something fundamentally that is emotive. Looking at statistics, talking about which ones we should be making decisions around and when we should consider what - these are totally valid things. And if you are trying to say that it's immoral because it's discounting some deaths, it actually makes it impossible to look at data properly. How you look at it becomes about validating the value of individuals which has nothing to do with thinking about aggregate numbers.

While there are discussions to be had about what numbers are important, it is not at all helpful to bring this kind of element into such discussions, it really just comes off as manipulative. Understanding who dies and who is at risk is important and from a public policy standpoint it will affect what we do. It's not about saying we don't care about someones granny.

SantaClaws I beg to disagree. Counting only 'pure' COVID deaths minimises the serious impact of the disease. There is nothing 'manipulative' about pointing this out - in fact, I would argue that it is the COVID purists who are being manipulative by trying to make out that this virus isn't serious and that lockdown measures like the ones we had before we had vaccines were not necessary. One can argue about what measures are proportionate - I certainly wouldn't support further lockdowns in the light of Omicron. However, it is not bringing excess deaths where COVID was a contributing factor that is emotive and manipulative. It isn't about 'granny's life', it is about preventable deaths - and about preventing them.

@SantaClawsServiette

I think you're misunderstanding

The number quoted by John Campbell is the number of deaths which had coronavirus as the sole cause of death.

This is a gross underestimation as it discounts anyone who had a co-morbidity or anyone who died from a secondary complication such as stroke or sepis following infection. HTH.

It's not about saying we don't care about someones granny

Actually it is about that. This idea that because someone has an age related condition, high blood pressure or arthritis for example, that their life doesn't count in the same way as someone younger

I'm so sick of this "granny" word used as derogatory as well. I know grannies, and grandads, in their 40s. Infact I know a grandad in his 30s. I also know grannies in their 80s. What differnce does it make? They are all valued as family and society members

Why does it matter how old someone is if they die of/with of covid ?

Covid has brought life expectancy down. This is a fact and it's concerning not least because how much further down could it go in the future. It should worry is all

ravirai2k22

Yes he was caught bang to rights there in the last minutes of that video

@pointythings

SantaClaws I beg to disagree. Counting only 'pure' COVID deaths minimises the serious impact of the disease. There is nothing 'manipulative' about pointing this out - in fact, I would argue that it is the COVID purists who are being manipulative by trying to make out that this virus isn't serious and that lockdown measures like the ones we had before we had vaccines were not necessary. One can argue about what measures are proportionate - I certainly wouldn't support further lockdowns in the light of Omicron. However, it is not bringing excess deaths where COVID was a contributing factor that is emotive and manipulative. It isn't about 'granny's life', it is about preventable deaths - and about preventing them.

But no one is counting only those - we have those numbers. But it's perfectly valid to look at a disease that mainly targets those who are unwell and elderly differently than one which targets those who are well and young.

The idea that lockdown measures were unnecessary, or in some other way undesirable, is not a "manipulative" viewpoint, it's just a different one than you happen to have.

@SantaClawsServiette

As I said above, the 170,00 number is a huge underestimate because it is specifically where COVID is the sole cause of death.

This ignores anyone who dies from stroke, sepsis, pnemonia, ARDs etc, which are common ways to die from secondary complications from a coronavirus infection.

@Flaxmeadow

It's not about saying we don't care about someones granny

Actually it is about that. This idea that because someone has an age related condition, high blood pressure or arthritis for example, that their life doesn't count in the same way as someone younger

I'm so sick of this "granny" word used as derogatory as well. I know grannies, and grandads, in their 40s. Infact I know a grandad in his 30s. I also know grannies in their 80s. What differnce does it make? They are all valued as family and society members

Why does it matter how old someone is if they die of/with of covid ?

Covid has brought life expectancy down. This is a fact and it's concerning not least because how much further down could it go in the future. It should worry is all

No. No one has said "their life doesn't count in the same way". That is you.

Do you really think that when epidemiologists look at population data they are thinking in terms of validating the lives of individuals that die and saying that some don't matter? Would it be in any way useful for them to do so?

Everybody matters in terms of their family, community, relationships, their human value, and everybody dies, too.

Do you really think that when epidemiologists look at population data they are thinking in terms of validating the lives of individuals that die and saying that some don't matter? Would it be in any way useful for them to do so?

Nope it wouldn't be useful for us to do this, but neither is making wildly incorrect claims and using dodgy cherry picked data, as John Campbell does..

[quote leafyygreens]@SantaClawsServiette

I think you're misunderstanding

The number quoted by John Campbell is the number of deaths which had coronavirus as the sole cause of death.

This is a gross underestimation as it discounts anyone who had a co-morbidity or anyone who died from a secondary complication such as stroke or sepis following infection. HTH.[/quote]
Yes, and I think the former was probably what he was mainly trying to get at, so it would have been nice if they had been separated out.

But it's also not like that information wasn't there.

The OP is wondering about what's going on with Campbell, and I think the discussion kind of shows what the problem is, fundamentally - people have put this huge moral element on people talking about the subject in ways they don't like or think are looking at the wrong things.

There is very little trust in the people who are supposed to be trustworthy, and they try and compensate by controlling the narrative more tightly.

Which has the opposite effect of what they want.

@leafyygreens

Do you really think that when epidemiologists look at population data they are thinking in terms of validating the lives of individuals that die and saying that some don't matter? Would it be in any way useful for them to do so?

Nope it wouldn't be useful for us to do this, but neither is making wildly incorrect claims and using dodgy cherry picked data, as John Campbell does..

But people do it all the time. It's been done within the last 10 posts.

And it's different than saying someone's analysis is wrong. It's a manipulative moral argument about what data is the right data to notice. Not what is true.

Yes, and I think the former was probably what he was mainly trying to get at, so it would have been nice if they had been separated out

@SantaClawsServiette

I don't think you get it?

The 170,000 number is people who had COVID listed as their sole cause of death.

This discounts anyone who had a co-morbidity or anyone who died from a secondary complication such as stroke, sepsis or pnemonia etc, which is a common way to die from coronavirus. They will not be included in this number. Therefore it is not helpful when trying to discern the number of "healthy" people who died from COVID.

@SantaClawsServiette

And it's different than saying someone's analysis is wrong. It's a manipulative moral argument about what data is the right data to notice. Not what is true.

Nope, I don't think you understand what you are arguing, but this is how John Campbell has been so sucessful

The OP is wondering about what's going on with Campbell, and I think the discussion kind of shows what the problem is, fundamentally - people have put this huge moral element on people talking about the subject in ways they don't like or think are looking at the wrong things.

It has been discussed to death.

The issue with John Campbell is not how he discusses things or whether he's doing it in ways people don't like, it's that he uses cherry picked data out of context, makes very basic errors, and has no relevant qualifications to back up what he is saying.

Actual qualified people have explained the issues with his videos.

JC has outright accused the ONS of 'over counting' deaths from covid by a 'factor of 7, 8 or 9'. This is an outrageous, even dangerous, lie.

He has 2.19 million subscribers to his channel. He is spreading public health mis-information

@leafyygreens

Yes, and I think the former was probably what he was mainly trying to get at, so it would have been nice if they had been separated out

@SantaClawsServiette

I don't think you get it?

The 170,000 number is people who had COVID listed as their sole cause of death.

This discounts anyone who had a co-morbidity or anyone who died from a secondary complication such as stroke, sepsis or pnemonia etc, which is a common way to die from coronavirus. They will not be included in this number. Therefore it is not helpful when trying to discern the number of "healthy" people who died from COVID.

Um, yeah, I do. I'm not missing anything with that at all.

I think maybe you are missing something because you are not making sense.

This discounts anyone who had a co-morbidity or anyone who died from a secondary complication such as stroke, sepsis or pnemonia etc, which is a common way to die from coronavirus

Exactly this ☝️