Re: Coronavirus
 

I used to work in Academia, and still have lots of contacts in Admin and Research (especially medical) - there is no way this kind of thing could have been covered up.

Academics talk to each other (a lot) - it's how they work.

Re: Coronavirus
 

You have a much higher chance of being shot but they've done very little to suspend gun ownership, talk about priorities

Re: Coronavirus
 

They also contradict each other a lot.

If there's anywhere cronyism is going to further a career with a nudge and a wink from politicians it's almost certainly in the UK.

You don't necessarily have to outright lie, however selective presentation of data to create enough uncertainty to muddy the waters for long enough for Government policy to prevail.

Someone paid that herd immunity stooge Gupta. So I refuse to accept that on blanket terms that academics are whiter than white.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes, they did so well at Empire building. Respected the world over.

The Caribbean colony that brought down Scotland https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27405350

Re: Coronavirus
 

Well if someone was going to misinterpret the spirit of the post it was always likely to be you, a complete staple of the thread.

Re: Coronavirus
 

No one said that - however, the amount of people involved (funders, Principle Investigators, researchers, Research Students (grad & post-grad), peer reviewers, Research Ethics boards, support staff, civil servants, etc.), I find it hard to believe that nothing would have leaked if there were any shenanigans.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Not all of those people would necessarily have access to, or input at the stage of monitoring the MHRA yellow card system. Someone somewhere has to decide what constitutes statistically significant and then do a benefit/risk analysis. Get a couple of behavioural scientists hanging about to carp on about undermining the “get vaccinated” message and voila you just raised the bar, despite knowing there’s a risk.

For a full clinical trial yes you couldn’t outright fabricate findings. Where anomalies arise they’ll get clearly identified (e.g. the first AstraZeneca press release rushed out the day after Pfizer’s). However once you are into modelling and “best guess” scenarios - including prescribing medications in conditions outside those seen in clinical trials - you are suddenly relying on smaller subsets of results and analysis and selective studies.

These don’t necessarily need to stand up to scrutiny long term - just long enough to get a few favourable press releases before someone, somewhere points out that your subset of the population might be disproportionately young, disproportionately less likely to be disabled, more likely to have been previously infected, etc.

Re: Coronavirus
 

And then, later on (medium to long term), when the "real facts" come out?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Hide behind best judgement, difficult decisions to be made quickly, etc. Limitations of the scope of the study. Wave a Union Flag and slag off Brussels. Go to the House of Lords, pass go and collect £163 a day.

Plenty of opportunities as long as you stay on the right side of the fence where you look borderline incompetent at worst. Just look at Jenny Harries.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Stefan Simanowitz says it's not BoJo.
https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/s...93242010173440

Re: Coronavirus
 

The "duck test" holds...

---------- Post added at 23:50 ---------- Previous post was at 23:42 ----------

Not real world - looked what happened when the Torygraph promoted the UCL model on reaching Herd Immunity recently - all the rest of Academia pointed out the flaws.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Never knowingly disappoint.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Hardly related, but as a firearms certificate holder, I can tell you thats completely incorrect. :dozey:
Shootings with legally held guns in the UK are almost non existant, so you dont have a much higher chance at all.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Has the UK suspended that vaccine as well or something...

Re: Coronavirus
 

However the "rest of Academia" needs data to be able to do this.

Herd immunity Monday was demonstrably ridiculous because of the amount of data in the public domain - number of vaccines, theoretical maximum vaccine efficacy, knowledge that this drops with variants and the fact the textbook HIT needs an equal distribution of "immune" people throughout a population.

However to flip that on it's head what's the real world consequences of the UCL academics who came up with such a flawed paper? None. I appreciate nobody died however it could have, despite being discredited, some impact on population behaviours going forward. The rebuttals didn't get the same prominence from the same publications.

There's enough of the population who think it's all a hoax, think it's an authoritarian Government trying to cling onto unprecedented powers that it gives those who have been in denial all along further literature to reference that we don't need restrictions.

However there will be no consequence for these academics for publishing nonsense off their own back. Now do it on the Government dime and at least you get money for it.