Thoughts on economics and liberty

Category: Science

There was absolutely no covid “pandemic” in Sweden – FINAL PROOF.

Every few days I check whether Swedish Statistical agency has updated their mortality rate data till 2022. Today I find that they have done so (they do that in end-March every year).

https://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se/pxweb/en/ssd/START__BE__BE0101__BE0101I/Dodstal/

This 2-year average chart is very important since it gets rid of the try tinder effect of 2019 mild flu in Sweden. We see clearly from it that there has been NO CHANGE IN THE DOWNWARD SLOPE OF THE MORTALITY RATE CURVE FOR THE PAST 20 YEARS. NO PANDEMIC.

Q.E.D.

I’ve made this chart, uploaded here. A lower resolution image below. Pl. share.

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In 1802, the Annals of Medicine reported the vast exaggerations re: influenza

Jason Gavrilis has located this wonderfully old but evocative piece: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5110691/pdf/annmededinb75123-0488.pdf

I’ve cleaned out the Old English spellings for the first few paras and have annotated in colour.

We can CLEARLY recognise the echoes of covid hysteria in this!

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ANNALS OF MEDICINE, 1802.    

Since the publication of our last volume, no disease has claimed more attention from medical practitioners than the Influenza, which has raged very generally in many different parts of Europe, but particularly in Paris, in London, and in Edinburgh. We need hardly mention, that in newspaper paragraphs, and in vague conversations, many groundless and absurd stories have been circulated respecting it. Thus, among other particulars, it has been currently reported, that in the city of Edinburgh in one day, about the beginning of April, no less than an hundred patients were buried, all of whom died of the influenza; and that in one day about the end of March, one gentleman, in extensive practice, had been called to no less than one thousand patients labouring under this disease. But although our readers will readily conclude, that in these reports there has been a wonderful degree of exaggeration, and we can assure them from good authority, that, the present period, the greatest number of deaths from all diseases put together in Edinburgh, has never exceeded a hundred in any one week; yet it is an undoubted fact, that since the beginning of March, the influenza has been both a frequent and sometimes a fatal disease in Edinburgh.

But if exaggerated accounts have been given respecting the frequency and fatality of this complaint, no less groundless and wonderful stories have been propagated by ignorant or designing men respecting its nature and peculiarities. It has been represented by some, who ought to know better, as a new and most tremendous disease, which, unless happily remedied by a peculiar mode of treatment, will prove certainly fatal. But we need not observe to the candid reader, that such reports have no other foundation but the weakest credulity, or the lowest artifice.

The Influenza, as it has appeared in Edinburgh, in 1803, is precisely the same disease which has extended itself at different periods for near a thousand years past over almost the whole of Europe. We may refer those who wish for the most particular account of the authors who have described it, as appearing at different periods, to the Nosologia Methodica of Dr Cullen, under the genus Catarrhus. But we shall here present our readers with a short view of these Authors, in chronological order, as giving descriptions of different epidemics.

And so on…

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My next TOI blog post: Public health is not a science

See:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/seeing-the-invisible/public-health-is-not-a-science/

I’ve added this comment to the article:

I’ve discovered that I’m not the first person in human history to discover that public health is not a science. Eminent public health specialists have said so:

1988: “public health is not a science, but a form of social activism” (Sander Greenland of the UCLA School of Public Health in the 1988 book, Causal Inference ed. Kenneth Rothman)

1999: “Public health is not a science, rather an art or even better, a craft . It applies scientific concepts, strategies, and methods, which it borrows from disciplines like sociology, ecology , epidemiology, psychology” (In Keepers of the Central Fire by Lorelei Anne Lambert Colomeda)

2010: “Like the field of medicine from which it emanates, public health is more a process of intervention than a research activity. … public health is not a science”.(V. Ridde in an article in Research and Reports in Tropical Medicine)

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A note on the logarithmic impact of CO2 on global warming

This is something I’ve come across a long time ago but a couple of people challenged it recently. Both have been muted since they were not adding any value. But the discussion was still illuminating.

First, the diagram from Ian Plimer’s book:

The Royal Society makes a similar point but then waves its arms about to claim that it STILL warms significantly. That’s not substantiated and those who’ve debated with me have not provided any alternative.

I wrote to Prof. Plimer for his evidence of this chart and he’s not responded yet. But Prof. William Happer did say the following:

Note that Prof. Happer is NOT saying that Arhhenius is right or even that Plimer is right. All he’s saying is the the Plimer graph is QUALITATIVELY right. And to see a modern interpretation, he cites this paper: https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/10.1119/1.3681188.

The following equation is seen in this 2012 paper:

Now, it is argued that the original Arhhenius assumptions were all wrong, so we can’t use this logarithmic equation.

The Wilson et al paper insists that it is merely using simplifications – and that the actual relationship is more complex. He then compares the results of simplified models with the more complex ones and they broadly match.

So as far as I’m concerned, it remains valid for common discourse to continue to use the logarithmic model since the key point is that doubling CO2 doesn’t double the temperature (or anything as extreme as that). There is a declining impact on temperature of increased CO2.

Now the logic of this is very clear – but I won’t go into it here: have explained elsewhere. But the key point is that there is nothing to panic.

See this decision tree: https://www.sabhlokcity.com/2011/02/the-common-sense-co2-decision-tree/.

Essentially, we are not in the “panic” zone.

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