Hello everyone, never been here before but found this thread by searching on John Campbell. Having read all of the thread I'm pretty dumbfounded by many of the comments and feel like I'm living in a parallel universe to some of you! Anyway, just want to make a few points, in no particular order.
I came across John's YouTube channel around April 2021. Since then I've watched his talks almost daily, and wish I'd found them earlier.
I'm not suggesting he is for everyone (clearly not ;)) but, for me, he is a source of information on Covid and other health matters, which is accessible, and trustworthy, which he delivers in a calm, engaging manner. He obviously knows his way around the scientific papers after years of practice and is able to “translate” them for the benefit of the layperson.
I do wonder if some of his critics think of themselves as “pure” scientists and, as such, consider his presentations to be somewhat dumbing-down?
To the people who say he has gone full “QAnon conspiracy theorist/down the rabbit hole”... that is such a lazy, cliched epithet that I won't even dignify it with a response. He regularly interviews medics and scientists (as well as others) on his videos, from all around the world – I doubt very much if they would want to associate with him if they considered him a conspiracy theorist, disreputable or a spreader of disinformation.
Regarding his channel, he has produced a huge body of work, covering a fairly comprehensive area. It doesn't surprise me that he occasionally gets things wrong, but, from what I've seen, he admits when he does and corrects his errors. I've seen his subscribers increase from less than a million to over two million in the time I've been watching. His videos are viewed by huge numbers as soon as he uploads them. (Given the number of people trying to make money from YouTube videos, I wonder if there is some jealousy going on here...?)
His commenters, from all across the world, certainly aren't unanimous in their praise but, on the whole, he has earned a huge amount of respect and gratitude during the course of the pandemic. Numerous people say they trust his information more than that of their own governments and that he has kept them sane! This doesn't seem to have gone to his head but who knows...
Regarding Ivermectin, he was initially neutral on its efficacy. Then he conducted an in-depth interview with Dr Tess Lawrie, following her meta-analysis of small-scale studies. He was persuaded. He mentions ivermectin from time to time, mainly to bemoan the fact that there haven't been any major studies to either prove or disprove its efficacy.
He has been consistently pro-vaccine AND pro-treatment. Now that vaccination is being proposed for very young children, he isn't necessarily in favour, instead saying there should be a cost/benefit analysis.
Regarding the “17,000” video, yes, I was left confused by what, if anything, he was implying. However, when the BBC seemed to lump him in with those who want to minimise the death figures in the UK, he was genuinely upset and was at pains to point out that he wasn't belitting the deaths amongst people with co-morbidities. I took that in good faith.
Regarding the “mice” video – I think that was him considering someone's theory about the origin of Omicron (ie where has it been lurking?) – he wasn't agreeing with the theory but was simply examining it out of interest.
I could continue but this is probably now TL;DR so I'll stop.
Yes, you could call me a “fan” and I've recommended him to many people... while also asking them what are their trusted sources of information. No one has come up with anything better...