Losers, loss and denying evidence in 2020

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, AVN, COVID-19, Denialism, Health, Human Rights, Immunisation, Judy Wilyman, Meryl Dorey, Science, Skeptic, Social Media, Vaxxed by Paul Gallagher

Losers. 2020 has seen a lot of them.

Whether genuine loss, disadvantage through the actions of others or continuing a failing streak, this year has served up a global platter. The COVID-19 pandemic has dictated that when it comes to denial of evidence SARS-CoV-2, its spread and how we managed the fallout were topics of choice. Conspiracies ran wild and we were even confronted with an infodemic. As usual so many who gain entry to these troubled pages are full throttle in a failing streak but convinced they have a winning strategy.

Denial of evidence may effect one in a small way. Such as rejecting the scientific consensus on the necessity of multi-vitamins and continuing to pay for expensive urine. Using vitamins or herbs to manage or “cure” an illness or injury can carry more serious implications. Not least being the shift in critical thinking that permits one to embrace an anti-science ideology, perhaps without initially realising this. Continuing to reject the scientific consensus on alternatives to medicine, one may ultimately delay seeking genuine medicine for a serious and ultimately terminal condition. Or refuse vaccination to prevent a nasty, harmful and potentially lethal condition.

Losers who believe they are on a winning streak inevitably ensure loss and disadvantage for the gullible who believe what they say or sadly for the innocents who rely on their judgement for health and wellbeing. The anti-vaccination movement continued unabated this year and swelled into a truly awful beast once it fed on COVID-19 disinformation. Necessary restrictions on crowd size and movement provided the ideal template for those already peddling terms like “health fascism” to insist the entire pandemic was a plot to control the population.

Of course this was a first world trend. Thanks to the positive impact of effective public health policies, education, medicine, law, public order and available media, quality of life is high. So high in fact we can invent faux abuses of our rights. Long before Karen from Brighton ignored travel restrictions because she had “walked all the streets” of that upper class suburb the notion of enduring lockdown to control the spread of COVID-19 was too much for self appointed freedom warriors. Social media losers vented their manufactured angst. Yet with our quality of life so good, a government that failed most frequently in climate policy and a P.M. who crept off to Hawaii during Australia’s bushfire crisis, it took months before ‘freedom day’ protestors gained attention. Even then it was for being deceptive in the making of their crisis.

Speaking of pretending life is tough, one term that kept popping up in anti-vaccine member emails was a favourite from AVN president Aneeta Hafemeister. “Show up. Speak up. Be brave.” The email linked to above was sent to members in mid January and peddled disinformation that the WHO had questioned vaccine safety. This calculated move involved the use of the WHO logo in the AVN press release. In fact Prof. Heidi Larson, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Vaccine Confidence Project had spoken at the global vaccine summit in December 2019. The AVN selectively misrepresented what she said to convey a false impression.

On February 3rd the WHO legal counsel wrote to the AVN warning them to stop using the logo and to make it clear the press release was not approved by the WHO. In what would become a signature move for the AVN over 2020 they cowered into submission removing the press release and posting the WHO letter on their site. This was accompanied by standard antivax rhetoric and the claim that they had “responded” to the WHO. Members would be kept informed of “all correspondence”. But of course the WHO would never reply to their delirious mandates. Nor, later in the year, did any of the councils, parks or a business that banned their bus.

Hafemeister’s quote on being brave hadn’t really hit home at AVN Central it seems although it continued in member emails. Hafemeister would take her quotes to bizarre levels. In a May Facebook video promoting the AVN Vaxxed bus she went so far as to voice the worn out anti-vaxxer quote from Margaret Mead. Hit the audio button below or delight in the MP3 file.

“So never doubt that a small group of people can change the world because indeed it is the only thing that ever has”. AVN president Aneeta Hafemeister May 31st 2020.

There’s little point restating the AVN’s exploitation of those who have lost a loved one to death or injury and are vulnerable to the ‘vaccine injury’ profit machine. You can delve into the reality behind the scheme here and marvel at the scope of the delusion on sale here. Meryl Dorey scored extra points for claiming in April that her personal opinion was that viruses could only be transmitted by injection, then deleting the comment once it was made public.

The politicisation of hydroxychloroquine began on the back of Donald Trump’s endorsement of the drug. Despite a number of studies demonstrating cardiac problems linked to the drug shortly after and ultimately refuting its worth [2] the “triumph of hope over facts” continues on Twitter and elsewhere. It seems to be linked to denial of evidence supporting lockdowns and the use of PCR. A strong supporter of Trump and hydroxychloroquine is Chris Kenny of Sky News. Kenny is a stand out loser in our apparently lucky country. He has spent an inordinate amount of time this year launching attack after attack on Paul Barry, Media Watch and the ABC.

I covered this back in May and had a good look at Kenny’s flawed defence of hydroxychloroquine. His argument was simple. There are studies not yet finished. Thus Paul Barry who, Kenny repeats ad nauseam, hosts the most expensive 15 minutes of TV in Australia should apologise to his audience who, he also repeats ad nauseam, pay for the show. Kenny wrongly kept referring to a QLD study. The study however is looking into a very specific application of hydroxychloroquine for healthy young health professionals as a preventive measure. It is not studying the impact of treating COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine. Kenny should be the one apologising.

In May he claimed “Barry and Media Watch preach global warming alarmism, promote leftist climate policies [and] defend the ABC”. Well. That does sound a lot like presenting the evidence News Corp tends to suppress. All this was part of an attempt to accuse Paul Barry of holding a biased opinion against George Pell despite his successful appeal. At the time I pointed out that Barry was the only journalist to argue that claiming Pell had simply been found “not guilty” was flawed. Barry argued that as one is innocent until proven guilty Pell was in fact innocent. Kenny however had taken a statement of Barry’s out of context and informed Sky viewers, “How about that for fairness and courage? What a whimp“.

It was a low point for Kenny who promotes himself as an arbiter of the ABC and Media Watch. As I covered back in May, Paul Barry had not only defended Pell but had soundly criticised the ABC for biased reporting on the topic in certain areas on certain shows. Well surprise! On 18 December Kenny presented his latest episode attacking the ABC. It included unsubstantiated comments about ABC bias toward Pell. One of the clips Kenny used to support this was the part of the Media Watch segment I’d cited in which Barry highlights the failure of Louise Milligan and Four Corners to report on Pell’s defence. This again shows Kenny to be biased in selection of material and deceptive in its omission.

Episodes of The Kenny Report (2020) devoted to attacking the ABC and Paul Barry have reached twenty that I know of since April. One included citing Alan Jones’ praise for hydroxychloroquine. That’s a handy introduction as Jones deserves a mention for appearing on Pete Evans’ podcast for a lengthy interview. You may subject yourself to the podcast here. It perhaps goes without saying that there’s enough on Pete Evans being an enemy of reason this year to satisfy the greatest of curiosities. There’s nothing I can add to it.

Judy Wilyman however. Well that’s a different story. She featured quite a lot supporting pretty much every COVID conspiracy going. Hosting service of her newsletters, Mailchimp, had clearly had enough. They closed her account and deleted all of her archived newsletters. Judy was not happy. Many others were delighted schadenfreude style. Wilyman claims COVID is a hoax and for years knew such a scam was coming. Perhaps most bizarre was the Natural and Common Law Tribunal for Public Health and Justice on which she sat as a judge. Using the International Criminal Code this group indicted most world leaders, international banks and entertainment companies, developers, inventors, etc, etc.

The 108 page indictment is too long for this post but some observations on Wilyman are crucial. On page 100 we learn that Prince Charles, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Google and Ray Kurzweil are involved in creating a;

5G/AI artificial intelligence Coronavirus as a nanoparticle energy weapon [delivering] remote energy virus, virus, bacteria or other form of artificial intelligence induced remote directed energy weapon as part of a 5G/AI Coronavirus Genocide….

And that they;

…are entrained by and in criminal co-conspiracy with PPAI, a sentient Off-planet, predatory, pathogenic, invading Inorganic AI Artificial Intelligence, and are “entrained AI proxies, AI hosts, and AI sponsors” in creating and maintaining the 5G/AI Coronavirus Genocide that is causing imminent and irreparable harm to all human beings similarly situated.

Also these villains;

…appear to be among the key PPAI-entrained AI proxies, AI hosts, and AI sponsors for the sentient Off- planet, predatory, pathogenic, invading Inorganic AI Artificial Intelligence.

And I thought Musk’s greatest crime was naming his child.

Prince Charles also apparently covered up the invading alien intelligence and had the British Royal Society investigate potential problems with nanotechnology. This led to some media chatter about gray goo. The British Royal Society concluded in 2004 that such technology was too far in the future to be a problem worthy of present concern. Ergo, we were duped and horror awaits us.

Wilyman actually published this article about the tribunal on her site at the time. It was later deleted. It’s worth speculating as to why. Perhaps Brian Martin who has published two papers defending her from accusations of conspiracy theory thinking advised her to think it over. Also one James Lyons-Weiler who publishes antivax articles is keen to promote a scholarly face with antivax ’studies’. He endorsed Wilyman’s work in December last year and was the praise-singing, reviewing editor of her most recent publication, ‘Misapplication of the Precautionary Principle has Misplaced the Burden of Proof of Vaccine Safety’.

US resident Lyons-Weiler deserves a mention for his November 2020 paper contending that vaccinated children are less healthy than unvaccinated. Manifest flaws with key methodology are presented here. The AVN donated US $5,000 to this project. The money had come from donations for previous projects such as a promised High Court challenge to the No Jab No Pay legislation. The remaining float was just under AU $80,000. In a February 2019 email they urged members to donate to a GoFundMe page to help fund the study. It’s worth noting that funds raised for a purported challenge to Australian legislation were ultimately given to a US anti-vaxxer to help fund his US based project.

Brian Martin must surely be mentioned for evidence denial in 2020 thanks to publication of his paper Dealing with Conspiracy Theory Attributions in April this year. It focuses on defending both Judy Wilyman and the AVN from having conspiracy theories “attributed” to them. Granted these are very specific conspiracy theories and his publication is, shall we say, unique. However Brian still fails to grasp the larger issues of academic veracity and intellectual honesty involved here. Issues of public health sabotage aren’t quite ready for semi-philosophical musing.

Judy Mikovits and her appalling Plandemic scam must of course be mentioned. Not least because despite heroic efforts to convince critics of the validity of her claims so many were able to be deemed fake as soon as she spoke. For example her reliance on the study of Greg Wolfe was tacky. Claiming his research supported her contention was demonstrably fallacious. His research sample was during the 2017-2018 winter. Long before COVID-19 was detected. He later wrote a Letter to the Editor stressing the error of anti-vaccine claims. Of her claims.

A special mention must go to all those who have misrepresented the risk of COVID-19 vaccines before distribution but particularly after. Cases of anaphylaxis were rare given the total number of vaccinations. One wonders how the anti-vaccine lobby would react if peanut butter sandwiches were rolled out to the same population. The mysterious-cannot-be-found Khalilah Mitchell, RN with Bell’s Palsy was so clearly suspicious I wondered at why it was picked up so quickly.

There are so many I would like to mention but time does not permit. Do visit the many fact checking publications and sites that are available.

Of course, there’s always next year.

Video: A Song for Anti-vaxxers by Flo & Joan

Play Video

Last update: 1 Jan. 2021

♠︎ ♠︎ ♠︎ ♠︎

31May2020

Chris Kenny attacks Paul Barry, Media Watch and the ABC

Posted in Climate Change, Denialism, General, Health, Human Rights, Legal, Media, Skeptic by Paul Gallagher

Last month Chris Kenny used his programme The Kenny Report on Sky News to launch a knee jerk attack against Media Watch and particularly its host Paul Barry.

It would seem that the facts about hydroxychloroquine not supporting the constant praise Donald Trump gave it as a treatment or preventative for COVID-19 did not sit well with Mr. Kenny. He was having none of the notion that these facts and the manner in which the media did or did not report them could be accurately presented on Media Watch.

His frequently personal, highly opinionated attack on Paul Barry fails to present necessary evidence whilst liberally applying the very deception he accuses Barry of. Kenny’s numerous contentions have become somewhat more relevant in light of the WHO suspending its trial of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 due to safety concerns. [Update: The WHO has resumed the trial of hydroxychloroquine after the study leading to the suspension was retracted by the Lancet. Full update after post]. However first some background on Trump and a review of the Media Watch segment in question.

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a veritable cornucopia of weird and wonderful personalities making a range of deceptive, dangerous, conspiratorial or just plain wrong claims.

With respect to hydroxychloroquine as a treatment or prophylactic for COVID-19 the evidence and advice has, from the beginning, been clear. Trials were needed to establish if and how the drug should be taken. Within weeks treatment trials revealed serious problems and fatalities whilst warnings about its use as a prophylactic were unambiguous.

In the latter case warnings were more widespread after Donald Trump began to promote it. On March 19th in a White House press briefing Trump demonstrated a grave error of comprehension. Hydroxychloroquine has been used in the treatment and prevention of malaria for decades. Where suitable it is also prescribed in the management of rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

In a textbook example of why scientific advisors must be consulted by politicians who comment on health matters, Trump’s error of reasoning was to assume this prior, specific use of hydroxychloroquine meant it was apparently safe for other uses. In a March 19 press briefing he said in part;

Nothing will stand in our way as we pursue any avenue to find what best works against this horrible virus.

Now, a drug called chloroquine — and some people would add to it “hydroxy-.” Hydroxychloroquine. So chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine. Now, this is a common malaria drug. It is also a drug used for strong arthritis. If somebody has pretty serious arthritis, also uses this in a somewhat different form. But it is known as a malaria drug, and it’s been around for a long time and it’s very powerful.

But the nice part is, it’s been around for a long time, so we know that if it — if things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody.

Five days later after taking a form of chloroquine an Arizona man died from cardiac arrest and his wife was hospitalised. They had ingested chloroquine phosphate which is not a medicinal form of chloroquine.

Despite Trump’s enthusiasm for hydroxychloroquine Dr. Anthony Fauci had urged caution. The day after Trump’s briefing, during his own COVID-19 briefing, Fauci answered reporters who were querying the use of the drug as a treatment. He stated;

The answer is no, and the evidence that you’re talking about … is anecdotal evidence.

Nonetheless, Trump followed by tweeting the drug was a “game changer” and almost a month later on April 14th Trump was still confusing its prior use with presumed general safety [Media Watch – 16 sec mark];

What do you have to lose? They’ve been taking it for forty years for malaria.

That was quite a statement. Particularly given what we know now. Trump announced on May 18th he’d been taking hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic for a week and a half. On May 20th he announced he would stop his “regimen” in a day or two. However almost a month earlier on April 24th the FDA had warned of the serious side effects of hydroxychloroquine [2]. They cautioned it should not be used outside a hospital or clinical trial.

The need for more research into the potential of hydroxychloroquine was reinforced by authorities from the very early days of Trump’s glowing praise for the drug. On the same day as his “what do you have to lose?” comment, it was reported that a high dose trial in Brazil looking at treatment of COVID-19 was abandoned due to a trend toward lethality.

On April 14th Science Alert reported in part;

After 11 patients died across both dosage groups, the team halted the high-dose arm of the trial on day six, citing more heart rhythm problems in the high-dose group, and “a trend toward higher lethality”.

Which brings us to the Media Watch segment, Hydroxychloroquine disappoints, of Monday April 27th. You can watch the segment (6.42) and access the transcript here. Or you can listen to the audio below or grab the mp3 file here (© ABC).

——————————–

Paul Barry does exactly what one would expect from Media Watch. He reported on findings from VA hospitals in the USA of higher mortality in those given hydroxychloroquine and the drug’s lack of efficacy. He stressed that the study was not randomised and hadn’t been peer reviewed, but was being taken seriously. He also reported on the disappointing trial results from Brazil and presented the well known tweets from Trump and Giuliani. The latter claiming a 100% success rate of hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19 was taken down by Twitter. Viewers were also presented with the chorus of hydroxychloroquine support from Fox News and quotes from Trump.

Shining a light on Australian media Barry quite fairly reported on Sky News Australia. After Dr. Fauci and others had warned hydroxychloroquine hadn’t been adequately tested and may be dangerous Sky reporters cited “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as the cause for US media reporting on the problems with Trump’s claims and the facts about the drug.

Rather than present evidence to support Trump’s claims or efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, Sky News contended that it was hatred of Trump that led to reporting of its dangers. Chris Kenny argued that the “real world clinical assessment of this drug at the moment”, was that doctors and dentists were “putting it aside” for themselves or their family.

Kenny also demonstrated the same grave error of comprehension as did Trump. On April 2nd he was promoting the claims of Dr. Vladimir Zelenko who had published a YouTube video making unverified claims about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine given with zinc and antibiotics to treat COVID-19. The same method is known to cause cardiac problems.

Chris Kenny informed his viewers;

Now we know this drug is safe. People have been taking it for these other conditions for decades. So this does hold out great hope.

Yet Zelenko’s claims had already been exposed as unproven. Paul Barry noted it was reported on Snopes;

Zelenko’s claims, however, rest solely on taking him at his word: He has published no data, described no study design, and reported no analysis.

Zelenko’s video was rightly removed from YouTube. Kenny “wondered” if this censorship was due to Zelenko signing off his video with over the top praise for Trump. He professed his love, blessings and hope that God protects [President Trump]. It is now known Zelenko falsely claimed the trial he was enthusiastically promoting as successful had FDA approval. This has brought him to the attention of a US Federal prosecutor.

Paul Barry went on to note Alan Jones thought hydroxychloroquine should be “rushed into the front-line”. Again, as with Trump and Kenny we see the same lack of basic critical thought. Yes, Jones argued;

...given the drug has been around for more than 50 years, it’s approved, the data on it is well established it’s perplexing that we don’t instruct the use of the drug now with the monitoring of existing coronavirus cases to see the results.

Barry continued the segment by including a response to Jones from Professor Peter Collignon of ANU in which he warns of the drugs toxicity and stresses the need for more trials. He finished with playing the footage of Donald Trump’s comments about injecting disinfectant.

Chris Kenny seems to have taken great offence at the content of this Media Watch segment, despite what is the demonstrably factual content. On The Kenny Report of March 28th he launched an attack at Paul Barry, Media Watch its researchers and funding, and the ABC itself. He spent seven minutes of his time on air to do so claiming the ABC and Paul Barry had a “bizarre new enemy to attack”. Namely hydroxychloroquine.

You can watch The Kenny Report here and access a summary beneath it. Or you can listen to the audio below or grab the mp3 file here (© Sky News).

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In last months post on government cuts to ABC funding I touched on some points that are relevant to this post. Namely the terminology used by Sky News and Chris Kenny to convince viewers that the ABC has a leftist ideology. This is a bold claim and when attacking Media Watch the onus is on Chris Kenny to present not just peer reviewed evidence, but a scientific consensus based on the same to defend climate change denial and now the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19.

What is immediately apparent is Kenny’s frequent attacks on ABC funding. In the seven minutes he refers to taxpayer funding of the ABC and Media Watch five times. It’s difficult to imagine even his most devoted fans simply swallowing that. Each time he repeats a version of viewers being presented with “ideological deceit, deceptive tosh, rot, etc”. Kenny begins by telling his audience that Media Watch, “gets a lot wrong – deliberately wrong”. He continues;

One of the most over-resourced shows on television it uses taxpayers money for an ideological platform. It’s supposed to be a media watchdog standing up for truth, accuracy and the like, but what it does is distort the truth and promote inaccuracies in order to promote its own ideological agenda. This breaches the law of course, it breaches the ABC Charter.

This final claim about the ABC Charter is a calculated low blow designed to create significant problems for the ABC which is presently enduring a three year freeze of funding that began in June 2019. This will cost the ABC $83.7 million over the three years. 800 staff have lost their jobs. Yet most significantly as I wrote last month, the ABC has already stressed that the present cuts threaten delivery of the ABC Charter. Yet Kenny contends he is unveiling an “ideological agenda” of Media Watch. Speaking of which, he continues;

Barry and Media Watch preach global warming alarmism, promote leftist climate policies, defend the ABC and attack anyone right of centre. Especially if they work for News Corp – owners of this station. I’ve detailed their deceptions many times before, and I won’t stop.

He goes on to present a “recent example documented in detail by Andrew Bolt”. This is apparently how Media Watch acquitted the ABC over its “obsessive, biased, unfair, relentless and clearly wrong headed persecution of Cardinal George Pell over many years”. He presents an edited clip of Paul Barry speaking on Media Watch. Barry states;

And did the ABC get their judgements on Pell one hundred percent right? Probably not. Was it a witch hunt and a dark day for journalism? I for one do not think so.

Kenny returns with;

How about that for fairness and courage? What a whimp.

The deception employed here by Chris Kenny to create the bogus impression that Paul Barry is biased in favour of the ABC and against George Pell is highly significant. The out-take is from the lengthy Media Watch segment, Pell – The final verdict. When viewed in its entirety we see Barry is critical of ABC identities and programmes when warranted. We also learn that the story of an investigation into Pell was broken by Andrew Bolt’s own paper, the Herald Sun, in February 2016.

Paul Barry also argued against two respected ABC identities that claimed Pell was not “innocent”. Rather it was found there was insufficient evidence to convict. Barry responded to this as follows;

Technically that may be right.

But the principle of our legal system is you’re innocent until proven guilty. And after a unanimous seven-nil verdict from the High Court, you surely can’t argue that Pell is not innocent of the charges.

There are other examples of Barry criticising the ABC. Such as Louise Milligan and Four Corners for not canvassing Pell’s defence, but rather focusing on those who condemned Pell. Or of Barry citing the ABC’s fairness. ABC’s 7:30 did consider if Pell’s conviction was wrong, interviewing Frank Brennan. When Pell’s first appeal was dismissed The Drum had lawyer Richard Beasley appear and he raised concerns that reasonable doubt wasn’t found.

Over the Pell trial and appeals the ABC gave airtime to a large number of Pell supporters. Added to this must go the number of times his supporters turned down an invitation to appear on the ABC. There are many examples of the ABC’s fairness and bipartisanship with respect to Pell. What stands out is Paul Barry’s dedication to applying the same standards to the ABC as to anywhere else. More so in the spirit of Media Watch he has a right to examine if the Pell case was in the public interest and deserving of in depth coverage. Indeed it was, particularly in view of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. This is what Pell told that Royal Commission;

My own position is that you never disbelieve a complaint. But then it has to be assessed as to see just whether it is valid and true and plausible.

– Revelation, ABC, 2 April, 2020

Thus Chris Kenny’s attack against Paul Barry with respect to Cardinal George Pell and purported ABC bias is without foundation. More so, Kenny has deceived his viewers by using a Media Watch clip out of context. The significance of this rests not least on the accusations of deception Kenny goes on to make against Paul Barry.

Kenny moves on to hydroxychloroquine, claiming the ABC and Paul Barry “don’t like the bloke who speaks positively about it”. Despite the evidence of hydroxychloroquine dangers outlined above, Kenny contends the ABC and Barry are, “actually lining up against drugs that are being trialled around the world. Why? Because the US President hopes they’ll work. I kid you not the left have become that nutty over Donald Trump”.

Kenny contended bias by omission because Paul Barry didn’t include two Australian trials, one of which is currently looking at the prophylactic application of hydroxychloroquine. Kenny made much of the fact he would be speaking to that trial’s lead investigator Professor Marc Pellegrini of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne. Unfortunately for Chris Kenny it’s not at all clear why ongoing trials support his contention that hydroxychloroquine should be considered safe or that Barry is misleading viewers.

At the time it was known the subjects – all healthcare workers – would be well, fit and rigorously assessed prior to entering the prophylactic trial. To fast forward, recently after the WHO stopped the hydroxychloroquine research of the global Solidarity trial on COVID-19 patients SBS reported that Prof. Pellegrini stated;

The WHO Solidarity trial is worlds apart from what we are doing. Understand that it’s very, very different.

On May 20th Clinical Trials Arena reported;

Pellegrini said: “COVID SHIELD is gold standard in its design as a multi-centre, randomised, double-blind study.

“The trial is focused on our frontline and allied healthcare workers who are at an increased risk of infection due to repeated exposure caring for sick patients. Our aim is to help these people stay safe, well, and able to continue in their vital roles.”

The trial will recruit 2,250 participants who will receive hydroxychloroquine or a placebo tablet over four months.

The other QLD study was part of a national trial looking at both hydroxychloroquine, and lopinavir-ritonavir (a combination treatment used to treat HIV) in the treatment of COVID-19. There were no available results at the time and Paul Barry was not hiding the truth. The focus of his Media Watch segment was media. Not a discussion of various hydroxychloroquine trials.

Well before Kenny went to air the FDA warned of severe heart problems in patients given hydroxychloroquine. Still Kenny attacked Media Watch researchers and bemoaned their funding claiming Barry selectively omits items if they don’t fit “his thesis”.

Kenny worked hard to whip up anger over taxpayer funding of the ABC. He returned to his comment that the real world clinical assessment of hydroxychloroquine was that health professionals were “putting it aside”. This was because he knew that Paul Barry’s “large research team” had received this correspondence from the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia. In it the PSA president notes that there has been an unprecedented demand for hydroxychloroquine following some promising data on the treatment of COVID-19 and Trump’s support of the drug.

It goes on to mention reports from pharmacists that doctors are prescribing for doctors and their families, as are dentists. Non-medical prescribers are prescribing bulk amounts. There is no mention of conclusive data supporting treatment of COVID-19. Key parts of the correspondence include;

If this medication does indeed have the efficacy that we would desire against COVID-19 then it needs to be prescribed and used judiciously. […]

Our strong advice to pharmacists at this point in time, until further advice is available, is to refuse the dispensing of hydroxychloroquine if there is not a genuine need, and that need is for those indications for what it is approved for – inflammatory conditions or the suppression and treatment of malaria. […]

The only way this [treatment of patients who genuinely need the drug] is possible is for prescribers to not write prescriptions for this medicine as a ‘just in case’ measure and for pharmacists to refuse the supply outside of these indications at this point in time.

I’m quite baffled as to why Kenny thinks this letter supports the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine or why he thinks Paul Barry should have included it in his segment. Barry did not accuse Kenny of lying about GPs and dentists grabbing a supply of the drug. Rather, the issue is that Kenny believes such rash behaviour by some health professionals is a “real world clinical assessment of this drug at the moment”. The fact is such off-label prescribing is most certainly not a clinical assessment and to tell viewers this, may have serious, dangerous consequences. TGA amendments to hydroxychloroquine prescription give a clear picture now and did so at the time Kenny went to air.

Kenny was also concerned that Media Watch didn’t mention his interviews with the PSA, Peter Doherty and a number with Professor Peter Collignon of the ANU. This is unusual given what Collignon had said on Alan Jones’ breakfast show on April 9th as reported on the very Media Watch segment Kenny accuses of being selectively and deceptively biased. Collignon stated;

The reality is it’s hard to believe why this drug would work. Now, like all other drugs, I think we’ve got to have an open mind and study them. But there’s as many reports showing it doesn’t work as there are, and it’s not a drug that hasn’t got any toxicity. People have already died from heart conditions by taking this drug in inappropriate dose.

Professor Collignon later told Media Watch by email that larger and more definitive studies were needed and that;

I am even more sceptical as more data is coming in.

Yet Kenny omitted this instead telling his audience;

Paul Barry has deliberately hidden and distorted the truth in order to pretend that we have been misleading you. It’s that brazen, that unhinged and it’s done with your taxpayers money.

Kenny also decided to leave out any mention of Vladimir Zelenko despite him being previously mentioned to support Kenny’s claim of left wing bias against Trump, hence bias against hydroxychloroquine. Zelenko has recently labelled negative data on the drug as “garbage”. Nor did he mention Dr. Anthony Fauci or his position on the drug. He does mention Paul Barry’s reporting of Trump suggesting injection of disinfectant. Kenny then observes;

That’s the level at which Barry operates. Like a kid on Twitter he wants to pretend that the President recommends mainlining Dettol. It’s that inane.

Kenny goes on to disapprove of Barry’s salary which he’s paid, “to produce fifteen minutes of deceptive tosh a week”. He’s not happy that, “up to a dozen researchers” are paid either. Research, Kenny contends, that is, “left out if the facts get in the way of [Barry’s] thesis”. He finishes off with more of the same, this time including a taunt;

The ABC spends, what, two or three million dollars a year on this programme of ideological deceit. And then they scream for more funds – more of your taxes. Good luck with that Ita.

Kenny’s performance is really worth watching. The evidence shows that the one omitting relevant material to deceive his audience is Chris Kenny himself despite his proclamations about Paul Barry. He may have a predetermined, erroneous notion of what Media Watch should be and how it should run. Yet given the many deliberate and malicious references to ABC funding and the motivation of Paul Barry it’s a safe bet that Kenny’s intentions are nefarious. He’s lashing out at Paul Barry and Media Watch because the facts aren’t to his liking or his ideology.

The denial of evidence can always have serious consequences and regarding climate change already has. However at the present time with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic orchestrated deception like that presented by Kenny is not only outrageous, but immoral. The fact is that today so much of right wing rhetoric is anti-science and indeed post truth. That Kenny would cling to his anecdotal belief that the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine can be gleaned from it being snapped up by some health professionals is a failure of critical thinking. That he tried to defend this by tacking together various claims that Paul Barry had omitted material he felt supported his belief gives disturbing insight into the logical fallacies he entertains.

There is really no doubt. Hydroxychloroquine has not been shown to be of genuine benefit in fighting COVID-19 as data stands. Hydroxychloroquine should not be used for COVID-19 outside of clinical trials. Donald Trump was wrong to promote it. Sky News journalists are politically motivated in defending Trump.

Chris Kenny is wrong. He failed to present the evidence. Paul Barry and Media Watch are right. The evidence in this case is what the ABC presented.

UPDATE 6/6/2020:

At the time this post was published The Guardian had previously reported that Australian researchers had raised concerns about the origins of data used for the Lancet study. The same researchers stressed there was no evidence that hydroxychloroquine was safe of effective.
The day after this post was published the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine placed expressions of concern on their studies.
NEJM expression of concern.
Lancet expression of concern.
The Lancet issued a statement.
The Lancet retracts its study.
NEJM retracts its study.
Retraction Watch report that NEJM and the Lancet retracted their studies.
More here on this episode of Coronacast 5/6/2020.

30Apr2020

Government cuts to ABC harm quality journalism

Posted in Climate Change, Denialism, General, Health, Human Rights, Legal, Media, Religion, Scam, Science, Skeptic by Paul Gallagher

Sky News Australia, owned by News Corp, has a well earned reputation for denying the evidence of climate change and the need for reducing carbon emissions, which host Chris Kenny recently referred to as “leftist climate policies”.

The occasion was indulgence in what has earned the outlet another, equally concerning reputation. Regular attacks directed at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation based on the contention that they promote biased leftist ideology. That the ABC leads unwarranted leftist media campaigns, the most significant recently being an apparent “attack” on Cardinal George Pell, although it was News Corp which first reported charges brought against Pell. Since Pell’s High court acquittal of historical child sexual abuse charges the tone and pace from Sky News seem to have increased.

More so a specific amount is levelled at ABC Media Watch and its host, Paul Barry. Yet they fail to mention it was Paul Barry on Media Watch who tackled the claims that Pell was not innocent because he had been found not guilty due to reasonable doubt. Barry insisted that Pell was innocent until proven guilty. As he was now not guilty, has was innocent.

The brazenness combined with the shoddiness of these attacks has been percolating for years. Accusations in the main are made with no real evidence, simply opinion. This is doubly true when it comes to attributing motivation to the ABC or its journalists. The present environment that allows the confidence for Sky to present what is often junk journalism often with the aim of smearing the ABC exists in very large part thanks to successive Coalition governments.

Australian Government criticism of the ABC has a long history and its tone reflects what party is in power at the time. Yet moves to manipulate the ABC through budget cuts and misleading verbal attacks about “ideological bias” have proven to be from the game book of the Coalition. Despite a pre-election promise to maintain budgets of both the SBS and the ABC, the Howard government targetted both. His governments 1996 budget included a 2% ($55 million) annual cut to ABC funding beginning in 1997-98. And an independent review of the ABC was commissioned to be led by Bob Manfield.

Howard continued to verbally attack the ABC over his four terms. His former Chief-of-Staff Graeme Morris described the ABC as “our enemies talking to our friends”. Dennis Muller (Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne) noted in The Conversation in February last year that Howard himself labelled the ABC nightly news as “Labors home video”.

And that;

Howard’s communications minister, Richard Alston, kept up an unremitting barrage of complaints that the ABC was biased. This culminated in 2003 with 68 complaints about the coverage of the second Gulf War. An independent review panel upheld 17 of these but found no systematic bias.

I could not agree more with Muller that;

This playbook – repeated funding cuts, relentless allegations of bias, and recurring inquiries into the ABC’s efficiency and scope – has been followed to the letter by the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison administrations.

Interesting then that The Howard Years, in which he worked at shaping his legacy, was a successful ABC-TV event.

But I really wonder if Howard could have foreseen what he’d put in motion. Yes Howard was conservative. Morally, socially and politically. His fawning to the Australian Christian Lobby left behind inestimable damage in that it swung the gates wide for organised bigoted fundamentalism. His record of demonstrable apathy in response to climate change and his capitulation to the Greenhouse Mafia was inescapable. Less than eight months ago in a keynote speech to mining industry representatives he criticised “climate change zealots” and perhaps foolishly said he was “agnostic” when it came to climate change.

But John Winston Howard was not anti-science as were those around him. Of course, when we look at the evidence of climate change there is really no room for agnosticism. Yet Howard was defending his legacy and the contribution Australia’s mining industry had made to economic stability during the GFC of 2008. He didn’t deny the existence of climate change or label it a leftist conspiracy without foundation.

Certainly he was not an enemy of reason. Climate change aside he understood the importance of evidence and the risk of turning ones back on it. Perhaps he wondered at the wisdom of the Liberal Party Council. On June 16th 2018 they voted to privatise the ABC, despite this going against the very pursuit of journalistic independence that led to the founding of the ABC. The Institute of Public Affairs was delighted with the prospect of privatising the ABC. Two members of the IPA had published a book on “how to do it” just a month before.

This wasn’t a sudden decision in conservative politics. By then the Abbott-Turnbull administrations had already cut $338 million from ABC funding since 2014. The 2018 Budget handed down by then Treasurer Scott Morrison included a three year freeze on ABC funding beginning in June 2019. He said at the time, “everyone has to live within their means”. The tied funding of $43.7 million will cost the broadcaster $83.7 million in budget cuts over three years, on top of the cumulative $254 million in cuts since 2014. There was no better news in the 2019 budget.

It was reported in The Conversation in April last year;

This has resulted in an accumulated reduction in available funding of A$393 million over a five-year period, starting from May 2014. According to current budget forecasts, this also means the ABC stands to lose A$783 million in funding by 2022, unless steps are taken to remedy the situation.

Earlier this month Opposition leader Anthony Albanese asked the PM to reconsider the ABC budget freeze in respect of their essential role over the bushfire season and now the coronavirus pandemic. SBS reported;

“Will the Prime Minister restore funding so the ABC can keep doing its job so effectively?” [asked Albanese]

Mr Morrison responded: “The ABC is doing an excellent job and they’ll continue doing that job with the resources that have been provided to them.”

“Like all agencies, like all Australians, they will all do the best job they can with the resources they have available to them.”

The funding cuts are brutal and are a clear sign of the federal government’s aim to restrict the journalistic vision of the ABC. The ABC was clear in stressing that the most recent cuts threaten delivery of the ABC Charter requirements. More so 800 staff have lost their jobs. As I noted above, I wonder if Howard would be comfortable with this. Leading up to the last Federal election Labor promised to reverse the budget freeze and ensure the $83.7 million the ABC stood to lose. They also promised $60 million to the ABC and SBS.

Writing about the Young Liberals call in late June 2018 to sell the ABC, Vincent O’Donnell noted;

But most members of the conservative movement are hostile to the ABC because it is said to be biased. Accusations of bias are useful tools to undermine confidence and support for the ABC…

[…]

…there are folk whose political beliefs are so far to the right that just about all of Australia, and most of the world, is to the left. Any media that reflects this reality is necessarily left wing and biased.

Intermingling of the Coalition government and right wing conservative journalists criticising the ABC goes back some time. In August 2014 a parliamentary library research paper noted (part 4: Disbanding the network);

Following its victory in the 2013 election, the Abbott Government became increasingly critical of the Australian Network for what it argued [were] overly negative representations of Australia. In addition, Prime Minister Abbott was critical of the ABC’s overall reporting stances; the Prime Minister claiming the ABC took everyone’s side but Australia’s.

The same paper reported in Box 5: Spy scandal and the role of the media that the ABC had reported on Edward Snowden’s leaked information that Australian intelligence officials tried to tap the phones of Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife. The ABC also reported on asylum seeker claims that they had been abused by members of the Australian Navy. In respect of the Indonesian phone tapping incident Chris Kenny, “accused the broadcaster of embarrassing Australia and Indonesia, undermining co-operative relations and diminishing national security”.

Andrew Bolt contended that the ABC, “was ‘not just biased. It is a massive organ of state media, strangling private voices and imposing a Leftist orthodoxy that thinks it fine to publish security secrets’.” The ABC apologised with respect to the asylum seeker claims, saying it was sorry if the report had led people to assume they believed the claims. Their intention was to present the material “as claims worthy of further investigation”.

The government continued to criticise the ABC, accusing it of “maligning Navy personnel”. Defence Minister at the time, David Johnston claimed the ABC had “maliciously maligned” the Navy and contended that their reporting justified an investigation. In March 2014 the ABC reported evidence supporting abuse of asylum seekers in Indonesian detention centres. The then Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison, argued the claims had no credibility and that the ABC should “move on”.

The same research paper includes in Box 1 – One man’s satire another man’s distress, which covers a 2013 Chaser segment wherein a photoshopped image of News Corp journalist Chris Kenny having sex with a dog was shown. Initially the ABC refused to apologise arguing that viewers were, “adequately warned by an onscreen classification symbol and accompanying voice over of the likelihood of seeing potentially offensive content”.

The point I wish to make here is relevant to the opening paragraphs. Kenny did have a defender. On Media Watch Paul Barry firmly disagreed with the ABC and The Chaser view of satire, arguing it was neither satirical nor clever. The saga rolled on for a time with further developments, some serious, some frivolous. Ultimately the ABC did apologise to Kenny.

These examples deal almost exclusively with TV journalism. Of course Media Watch ranges across radio, internet, social media, printed news and TV. Ongoing criticism and bullying of the ABC by the Coalition government is quite telling. As Muller wrote in Constant attacks on the ABC will come back to haunt the Coalition government;

The bipartisan political vision for the ABC was that it should not be vulnerable to sectional interests or commercial pressures, but should exist to serve the public interest in the widest sense

The ABC cannot do this without financial and factual support from governments. More so attacks on the ABC from unapologetic right wing ideological bastions such as Sky News are indicative of a wider social problem. A lack of critical thought and an inability to understand and respect the impact of evidence.

It may well be worth looking more closely at that soon.