Politicians and governments are suppressing science. They do so in the
public interest, they say, to accelerate availability of diagnostics and
treatments. They do so to support innovation, to bring products to market
at unprecedented speed. Both of these reasons are partly plausible; the
greatest deceptions are founded in a grain of truth. But the underlying
behaviour is troubling.

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4425?fbclid=IwAR1S4Q7gJ8ESiwFtE9z7JCc8GVWyAKunP7pk9AG96ggRxqQGFMtnZSckgCE

Science is being suppressed for political and financial gain. Covid-19 has
unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, and it is harmful to public
health.1 Politicians and industry are responsible for this opportunistic
embezzlement. So too are scientists and health experts. The pandemic has
revealed how the medical-political complex can be manipulated in an
emergency—a time when it is even more important to safeguard science.

The UK’s pandemic response provides at least four examples of suppression
of science or scientists. First, the membership, research, and
deliberations of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) were
initially secret until a press leak forced transparency.2 The leak
revealed inappropriate involvement of government advisers in SAGE, while
exposing under-representation from public health, clinical care, women,
and ethnic minorities. Indeed, the government was also recently ordered to
release a 2016 report on deficiencies in pandemic preparedness, Operation
Cygnus, following a verdict from the Information Commissioner’s Office.34

Next, a Public Health England report on covid-19 and inequalities. The
report’s publication was delayed by England’s Department of Health; a
section on ethnic minorities was initially withheld and then, following a
public outcry, was published as part of a follow-up report.56 Authors from
Public Health England were instructed not to talk to the media. Third, on
15 October, the editor of the Lancet complained that an author of a
research paper, a UK government scientist, was blocked by the government
from speaking to media because of a “difficult political landscape.”7

Now, a new example concerns the controversy over point-of-care antibody
testing for covid-19.8 The prime minister’s Operation Moonshot depends on
immediate and wide availability of accurate rapid diagnostic tests.9 It
also depends on the questionable logic of mass screening—currently being
trialled in Liverpool with a suboptimal PCR test.1011

The incident relates to research published this week by The BMJ, which
finds that the government procured an antibody test that in real world
tests falls well short of performance claims made by its
manufacturers.1213 Researchers from Public Health England and
collaborating institutions sensibly pushed to publish their study findings
before the government committed to buying a million of these tests but
were blocked by the health department and the prime minister’s office.14
Why was it important to procure this product without due scrutiny? Prior
publication of research on a preprint server or a government website is
compatible with The BMJ’s publication policy. As if to prove a point,
Public Health England then unsuccessfully attempted to block The BMJ’s
press release about the research paper.

Politicians often claim to follow the science, but that is a misleading
oversimplification. Science is rarely absolute. It rarely applies to every
setting or every population. It doesn’t make sense to slavishly follow
science or evidence. A better approach is for politicians, the publicly
appointed decision makers, to be informed and guided by science when they
decide policy for their public. But even that approach retains public and
professional trust only if science is available for scrutiny and free of
political interference, and if the system is transparent and not
compromised by conflicts of interest.

Suppression of science and scientists is not new or a peculiarly British
phenomenon. In the US, President Trump’s government manipulated the Food
and Drug Administration to hastily approve unproved drugs such as
hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir.15 Globally, people, policies, and
procurement are being corrupted by political and commercial agendas.16

The UK’s pandemic response relies too heavily on scientists and other
government appointees with worrying competing interests, including
shareholdings in companies that manufacture covid-19 diagnostic tests,
treatments, and vaccines.17 Government appointees are able to ignore or
cherry pick science—another form of misuse—and indulge in anti-competitive
practices that favour their own products and those of friends and
associates.18

How might science be safeguarded in these exceptional times? The first
step is full disclosure of competing interests from government,
politicians, scientific advisers, and appointees, such as the heads of
test and trace, diagnostic test procurement, and vaccine delivery. The
next step is full transparency about decision making systems, processes,
and knowing who is accountable for what.

Once transparency and accountability are established as norms, individuals
employed by government should ideally only work in areas unrelated to
their competing interests. Expertise is possible without competing
interests. If such a strict rule becomes impractical, minimum good
practice is that people with competing interests must not be involved in
decisions on products and policies in which they have a financial interest.

Governments and industry must also stop announcing critical science policy
by press release. Such ill judged moves leave science, the media, and
stock markets vulnerable to manipulation. Clear, open, and advance
publication of the scientific basis for policy, procurements, and wonder
drugs is a fundamental requirement.19

The stakes are high for politicians, scientific advisers, and government
appointees. Their careers and bank balances may hinge on the decisions
that they make. But they have a higher responsibility and duty to the
public. Science is a public good. It doesn’t need to be followed blindly,
but it does need to be fairly considered. Importantly, suppressing
science, whether by delaying publication, cherry picking favourable
research, or gagging scientists, is a danger to public health, causing
deaths by exposing people to unsafe or ineffective interventions and
preventing them from benefiting from better ones. When entangled with
commercial decisions it is also maladministration of taxpayers’ money.

Politicisation of science was enthusiastically deployed by some of
history’s worst autocrats and dictators, and it is now regrettably
commonplace in democracies.20 The medical-political complex tends towards
suppression of science to aggrandise and enrich those in power. And, as
the powerful become more successful, richer, and further intoxicated with
power, the inconvenient truths of science are suppressed. When good
science is suppressed, people die.

### - same as it ever was really? corruption running from the top to the
bottom in every possible arena & area because that's how this world has
always been run! the owners (& their politicians) being naught but
gangsters in sheep's clothing!

wallyworld has thus always been as-bent as a nine-dollar note...

crooked! (iow: bs) ALL the way down ;)

what's the hum in the alley by the joker ?
something about we won't get fooled again?

when you're not afraid of being lying sack of shit
you can fool just about anyone. even sorcerers.

> what's the hum in the alley by the joker ?
> something about we won't get fooled again?

### - simple truth, is we were all being fooled all along heh... 100%

that there's never a time in wallyworld when we aren't being taken for a
ride :D

the whole thing's a crock!

> when you're not afraid of being lying sack of shit
> you can fool just about anyone. even sorcerers.

### - the more ya believe in summat is the more real-seeming it
is/all-becomes see? it's not 'questioning' the reality of something that
makes it so ultimately real-seeming and final (just like madness heh) and
in wallyworld they never question anything! it's taboo NOT to fit in!

i mean, just how the hell do ya possibly explain to some kid that was born
& raised exclusively in wallyworld, that beyond 'everything' he thinks he
knows & believes in there's another world altogether???

a far bigger one! huge!

this being precisely where orwell appears walking around the ruins of
london, muttering to himself: look at 'em goddammit! there's bombs
going-off on their heads and everything and it's STILL like nothing's
happening?? it's like they're all half asleep or something!

and then he rushed off and wrote '1984' heh ;)

and they 'love' that book ya know? they just don't understand it at all
lol :)))

(he's speaks very loudly 'between' the lines)