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.

I'm really grateful for this thread - notably, that some of the voices that are in support of JC have explained their rationale in so much detail and have therefore given an opportunity for others to provide a reasoned refutation.

I vehemently disagree with these voices but letting the posts stand really means that the errors in reasoning and critical thought are crystal clear to readers. Some of the replies to @ollyollyoxenfree (thank you for your patience, btw) are particularly enlightening to anyone unfamiliar with how disingenuous some of the 'alternative' narrative can be.

No vaccine is safe for everyone. Some people will be negatively affected. Fact. Who those people are? Who knows. This is why I believe that each individual should have their own agency over their own person, over their own health, because people have been and can be harmed by these particular vaccines.

Shocking that this is a controversial stance that some feel must be silenced these days.

@FromEden

No vaccine is safe for everyone. Some people will be negatively affected. Fact. Who those people are? Who knows. This is why I believe that each individual should have their own agency over their own person, over their own health, because people have been and can be harmed by these particular vaccines.

Shocking that this is a controversial stance that some feel must be silenced these days.

People do have agency. They can choose not to be vaccinated. Like every other choice, that comes with consequences. Hope that's simple enough.

John Campbell’s video today addresses the article on BBC Online which sought to undermine his video about the true number of excess deaths during the pandemic.

As ever he is factual and clear in his explanations.

I admire him for continuing with his truthful messages in the face of deceit and attempts to discredit him.

What consequences do you think should befall someone who chooses not to get vaccinated pointythings?

I'm not opposed to vaccine mandates in theory, but for this milder strain, with levels of transmission barely effected, and multiple doses required, it's not worth burning through a huge amount of social capital and cohesion.
There's very little gain.
I'm definitely against political and social consequences for the unvaxxed.

It isn't about Omicron, is it? It's about getting on top of the pandemic and reducing the potential for constant new strains while there is such a large poool of unvaccinated people.

As for consequences - I have no problems with peoI ple being shut out of the extras in life. I would oppose charging people in the UK for healthcare if they are not vaccinated because that is not the principle of how the NHS works - but if restaurants, hotels, leisure facilities and the like want to not serve unvaccinated people I am fine with that. Unless you have a valid medical reason for not getting vaccinated, you aren't doing your bit. Same for those ditching masks and social distances the moment Boris and co say it's OK. My next door neigbour is a cancer survivor with a compromised immune system due to chemo. If my choice is to have him able to go out and enjoy life because the wilfully unvaccinated have limitations put on them, all the better. He's vaccinated and has done the responsible thing and it isn't his fault that because of his cancer, his immune system doesn't do as well with the vaccine.

As for patient facing NHS workers refusing the vaccine - words fail.

I'm a cancer survivor myself, my immune system is pretty subpar. I had Omicron last week, brought home from school by the kids. Did not get a bad dose thankfully - standard for Omicron.
Which is a massive relief that this is what we are dealing with now.

I still don't think it is right to shame people for making their own decisions about their own bodies.

The fact is, Omicron is a much milder illness for most.
The vaccines don't put much of a dent in transmission rates. That puts the decision to vaccinate into the personal health sphere rather than the public health sphere.

While there are vast swathes of the developing world unnvaccinated, and reports of wild animals carrying covid, and vaccinated people contracting and transmitting the virus, we already have a vast pool from where further mutations may come.

So what's the advantage of coercing people into doing something they don't want to do?

It's overreach and authoritarian. Harmful to a society that's already taken a lot of knocks over the last couple of years.

@Flyonawalk

John Campbell’s video today addresses the article on BBC Online which sought to undermine his video about the true number of excess deaths during the pandemic.

As ever he is factual and clear in his explanations.

I admire him for continuing with his truthful messages in the face of deceit and attempts to discredit him.

I'm not sure that video achieved much other than to try and turn himself into the victim and manipulate us with the sob stories.

The problem with the 17000 deaths video was not the data he quoted but the manner in which he spun it as a cover-up or conspiracy, and heavily implied that deaths of 150000+ people with health conditions or older people were not significant. Many of the comments under his video went further to dismiss the deaths some of which were horrible to read and he did nothing to moderate this on his own channel.

I thought the BBC article was a good explanation and I fully agree that only counting 'pure' COVID deaths discounts the real impact of the virus. Not to mention devaluing the lives of anyone who has a long term condition which would otherwise allow the person to live a long, healthy and productive life. Anyone endorsing this man is a prat who doesn't value human life.

@pointythings

I thought the BBC article was a good explanation and I fully agree that only counting 'pure' COVID deaths discounts the real impact of the virus. Not to mention devaluing the lives of anyone who has a long term condition which would otherwise allow the person to live a long, healthy and productive life. Anyone endorsing this man is a prat who doesn't value human life.

Completely agree.

To anyone else who admire his approach, John Campbell’s ‘Data, we want it all’ addresses the importance of accurate counting and interpretation.

The people who deliberately misled the public (and the public who didn’t care to examine properly) have shown appalling disregard for life throughout these last two years.

Hopefully this will be analysed and lessons learned, so the youngest and poorest are not so badly abused by policies in future.

@Flyonawalk

To anyone else who admire his approach, John Campbell’s ‘Data, we want it all’ addresses the importance of accurate counting and interpretation.

The people who deliberately misled the public (and the public who didn’t care to examine properly) have shown appalling disregard for life throughout these last two years.

Hopefully this will be analysed and lessons learned, so the youngest and poorest are not so badly abused by policies in future.

Ah yes, and the man who only counts 'pure' COVID deaths and ignores the lost lives of people with underlying conditions who would have lived long lives were it not for COVID - he's not showing an appalling disregard for life at all.

@pointythings How did he ignore other lost lives? He acknowledged the numbers of excess deaths while attempting to be accurate about reasons why people died.

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.

@pointythings He is questioning making public health policy on the back of misleading and exaggerated figures.

Many of us have questioned lockdown from the beginning, on the basis of the colossal harms it was bound to inflict.

A lot of people grudgingly accepted lockdown because they were told that hundred of thousand of lives were at risk. Whether or not that was true is relevant. It could prevent similar mistakes in future.

Beg to disagree vehemently. No, we should not have further lockdowns (but should push vaccination and work to engage the unwilling) - but the first lockdown was necessary. The second could probably have been avoided if the government had acted earlier. But the point remains - there was always a choice to be made about which lives should be protected, and John Campbell is on the wrong side of that moral divide.

And yes, I have teenage children who lived through both lockdowns. It was tough, but they understood the need.

Im interested in the comments under his videos. They always appear to agree with him, which is strange because he has so many other, better qualified, Youtubers criticising him ATM. You'd think there would be at least a few negative comments, especially since his Ivermectin nonsense and the Japan thing but there isn't

Is he removing negative comments?

Part of working to engage the unwilling is being honest.
I never watched Dr John's videos so am making a broader point.
If 17k deaths were due to Covid alone that's a bare bald fact that needs to be acknowledged.
The unwilling don't trust the authorities because they feel they've been manipulated and 'nudged' using spin and half facts. Rightly or wrong, that's how they feel.

Right now we are in a good position that could be used wisely. Omicron is the best strain so far and the wave is peaking. We are coming onto a good time of year . This time could be spent winning peoples trust and getting prepared for a possible bad strain next autum/winter.

So proper analysis of data is necessary, properly and soberly reported, allow proper debate with 'respectable' dissenters on the 'respectable ' BBC - and I hope the next few months allows the space for that.
It will go a long way I think to persuading the untrusting. They need to be brought back for societal reasons as much as medical.

1Week I agree with you, we are coming into a period where we have an opportunity to do better. But I'm worried about the hard core of people who have fallen down the QAnon conspiracy rabbit hole - these people will never engage with a rational debate because their world view doesn't allow it. However, engaging people who can still be reached is worthwhile.

I honestly don't think there is as many of them as it seems - though I'm just basing that off the idea that Social media exaggerates.
I do think the traditional media bears a lot of blame. The seeds were sown with Brexit imo, on the BBC it was unmistakably if unspoken the view that half the country were racists or thick. Same with voting Tory. Now I'm gone off topic but it that just alienates people and leaves them oppositional by default. When you sense unfairness and manipulation you start reading between the lines.
That would be straightforward but not easy to solve.
I hope they do it because divisive topics aren't going away, not are crises or internet Pied Pipers.

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.

And I don't think it should be taken lightly the sheer amount of income he is generating through his youtube channel, of which the more controversial the video, the more revenue he generates.

The issues in specific videos have been outlined in this and many other threads. I am unenthused to do it for the latest, given that all I'm doing is giving him more money, encouraging more clicks, and tomorrow another poster will share his latest update and the sorry cycle begins again...

There is a lot of data still emerging.
The 17k figure is accurate. Now we need to analyse what accounts for the big gap between 17k and 157k. It's not a lot of bus accidents being used to bump up the figures. Is it age, it is weight, is it cancer patients.

Now do masks, now do vaccinations for children.
Obviously there are different 'respectable' views on the efficacy of these as different countries have different policies.
All epidemiologists don't speak with one voice.

People know when they are getting one approved view - it's approved views only and if you don't agree you're a framed as a crank, despite advocating for -say, Norwegian vaccine protocol for 16 year olds. ( I don't know what their protocols are, it's just an example)

That's the dynamic that gives people pause.
The general public doesn't know much about virology, but everyone knows about power, greed, office politics, arrogance, paternalism. That's what they sense, rightly or wrong.

More transparency and more winning trust back before next winter please

All epidemiologists don't speak with one voice.

I didn't say they did - I said there was a huge amount of analysis conducted, by people who are actually qualified to do this.

John Campbell, who the thread is about, is not a scientist. He is not presenting a representative summary of the findings we do have. He is presenting data from a FOI request (which is publicly available despite him claiming it was buried) without any relevant context

Right, I get you. I'm making a broader point I suppose, trying to get at why I think many people follow other sources.
Trying to drill down into legitimacy. Probably a bit overbroad for a thread on just one person.