"If you then discovered that the majority of the committee members had financial interests in the drug being developed, how would you feel?" 1/n
@zoeharcombe @RosemaryFreiTO @simondolan @Francis_Hoar @BreesAnna @toadmeister @NeilClark66 @allisonpearson
https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/11/sage-conflicts-of-interest/

#KBF
"The advice was stay home if you’re sick, wash your hands, protect the vulnerable, most people will have a mild illness, wearing face masks is “usually quite a bad idea“, & “big gatherings don’t have a big effect so we don’t want to disrupt people’s lives.” 2/n

"1) Organisations invested in vaccines make money from vaccines. If people acquire natural immunity, they have reduced or no need for a vaccine and thus the potential gain for the vaccine company is reduced." 3/n

"2) Locking people in their homes and other lockdown measures will reduce the number of people who acquire natural immunity." 4/n

"The notable exception was that @neil_ferguson resigned from the SAGE committee when it became known (on 5th May) that he had broken lockdown rules" 5/n

" @neil_ferguson is a member of NERVTAG (The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group), as are many members of SAGE (which means that the main committee is largely using a subset of that committee to advise itself). 6/n

"12 out of 20 work for/have received funding from organisations involved in the Covid-19 vaccine. Those 12 don’t include Vallance with personal pharmaceutical conflicts or Whitty with historical funding from the Gates foundation." 7/n

Who is on SAGE?
"...4 more are modellers/statisticians, 2 are experts in how to manipulate human behaviour... 3 hold senior roles in the 2 universities leading the vaccine race ... no immunologists ...two virologists" 8/n

“A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened… The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard‐hitting emotional messaging based on accurate information about risk.” 9/n

This is not public health. This is manipulation.
"The paper has sections on coercion, compulsion and how to harness “social disapproval” to coerce people into doing what government wants them to do." 10/n https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7276722/

"SAGE knows that people need to be frightened into compliance for their strategy to work ... I wonder if that fear might turn to anger if people realise that the committee may not be the independent body that it has been assumed to be." 11/n

An investigation into conflict of interest is needed.
A separation between corporation interests, research and government officials must be ensured through system change. Otherwise, history will keep on repeating itself. 12/12