During our national vaccine rollout, Australians have been cajoled with fear, threats, shifting messages, and the silencing of dissent. Something doesn’t sit right about the way Australia is dealing with this virus. We can and must do better.
For those who have been happily vaccinated, there is a sense of optimism in the air. Lockdowns are ending. Our country has run a successful vaccination program with some of the highest take-up rates in the world. Life is returning to normal.
But this is not everyone’s experience. The Sydney Morning Herald this week reported that 10,000 Australians have filed coronavirus vaccine injury claims.
Hundreds of thousands of other Australians are out of work for a different reason: they were sacked after deciding not to take one of the provisionally-approved vaccines.
Despite perfect health, many Aussies are still under discriminatory lockdowns. While everyone else is out and about, they are only allowed to leave their home for ‘essential’ reasons and cannot travel freely within their own state. Tens of thousands will be barred from seeing their interstate loved ones for Christmas if they do not take a government-mandated injection.
This isn’t normal.
You may not be personally affected by these realities, but many of your compatriots are. You may even feel like the punishment they face is justified. But have you tried putting yourself in their shoes? Have you stepped back to take a look at the bigger picture in Australia?
There are a lot of things that don’t sit right about Australia’s response to Covid.
1. The Vaccines Are Not Living Up to Their Promises
There is consistent worldwide data showing that the Covid-19 vaccines significantly reduce rates of serious illness, hospitalisation and death among those who contract the virus. We can be very thankful for this.
However, we still lack scientific consensus on whether the vaccines prevent transmission of the virus. Some published studies suggest that they do help reduce it. Others do not. A recent paper published in The Lancet revealed that fully vaccinated people are just as likely as unvaccinated to pass the virus onto others in a household setting.
Granted, being vaccinated means that you are less likely to become sick in the first place. But the suppression of symptoms has an unintended consequence: those who are vaccinated but sick may be spreading the virus unawares.
These facts — and the flaws of the vaccine passport system — were exposed last month when three Sydney gyms and even the Melbourne Cup saw large Covid outbreaks, despite all present being vaccinated.
Moreover, the vaccines have rapidly waning efficacy. Booster shots are now being required by an increasing number of nations just months after “full vaccination”. We can expect the same in Australia soon.
2. The Vaccines are Killing and Maiming Australians
Do you know how many Australians have died as a result of taking a Covid-19 vaccine? (Hint: the answer isn’t zero).
To date, 656 suspected vaccine-induced deaths have been reported through the TGA’s Database of Adverse Event Notifications (DAEN). Only nine of these deaths have been acknowledged by the TGA as being caused by a vaccine (all were attributed to the AstraZeneca shot). The TGA claims that the remaining 647 reported deaths have only a “coincidental association” with vaccination.
This seems highly unlikely, when the TGA has acknowledged suspected vaccination links to over 500 cases of myocarditis — a condition that has a first-year mortality rate of 20 per cent. Bizarrely, in the last two months, 161 suspected vaccine-induced deaths have been reported to DAEN, and the TGA claims that precisely none of them were caused by a vaccine.
Australia’s Covid-19 death toll, which currently sits at approximately 1,900 — is determined very differently. That number includes all people who have died with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in their bodies, unless there is a clear alternative cause of death that cannot be related to the virus. In other words, the bar is set very low for inclusion in this statistic. The Covid-19 virus is “guilty until proven innocent”.
But in the case of vaccine deaths, it is the opposite. The TGA sets a very high bar for inclusion in the vaccine death toll by assuming that the vaccines are “innocent until proven guilty”.
It is not just vaccine-induced deaths that should concern us. Myocarditis — which poses the greatest risk to young men taking an mRNA (Pfizer or Moderna) vaccine — is a very serious condition. Only 50 per cent of those who contract it survive after five years.
This is now the fate of hundreds of Australians who took for granted the government’s “safe and effective” messaging. It is also the fate of many who knew the risks but were vaccinated under duress to save their job or home: a choice they never wished to make.
It is true that the rates of these adverse effects are statistically low: some 80,000 reports after 37 million doses of vaccine. But for those who suffer and die, statistics are cold comfort.
Where has our nation’s compassion gone? Nothing that kills or maims should be mandated.
3. Australia Has Suspended its Human Rights Obligations
Australia has long been praised as one of the staunchest defenders of human rights globally. But on the international stage, we are now infamous for setting aside the human rights of our own citizens.
Melbourne is one of the most locked-down cities in the world, with six separate lockdowns and almost 250 days of effective home detention. It is the only city in Australia’s history to see unarmed protesters shot at by police with rubber bullets. Premier Dan Andrews now seeks to make his sweeping pandemic powers permanent through legislation — a move widely condemned by human rights advocates and 60 of Victoria’s top lawyers.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and state Premiers routinely celebrate vaccine milestones on social media. But they paper over the vast coercive powers they have wielded to deliver such outcomes.
The Australian Immunisation Handbook explains that vaccines “must be given voluntarily in the absence of undue pressure, coercion or manipulation”. Article 6 of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights agrees:
Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information.
Instead, millions of Australians were deprived of their freedom of movement and assembly and their right to work. Then they were told they can gain these rights back from the government by being vaccinated. But even then, how many who were vaccinated were made aware of the deaths and adverse events outlined above?
At best, Australian governments have practiced extracted consent. It is certainly not “informed consent” as we have long known it.
A vaccine that is safe and effective should sell itself without the need for undue pressure. A person’s health alone should be enough reason for them to consent to a medical treatment. Feeding one’s family, paying the mortgage or seeing loved ones across state borders should not be used as bargaining chips by the government.
4. Alternative Treatments Have Been Banned
Ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19 has been poo-pooed in much of the Western world as a dangerous “horse medicine”. While the drug is also used by veterinarians, some 4 billion doses of Ivermectin have been administered to humans in the four decades since it was discovered. Ivermectin won a Nobel Prize in 2015; it has an incredible safety profile; and it is on the World Health Organisation’s list of essential medicines.
Ivermectin’s patent has also expired, which means it is no longer able to generate profits for governments or pharmaceutical companies.
In early 2020, world-renowned Australian professor Dr Thomas Borody discovered an effective treatment regime for Covid-19 called ‘triple therapy’. By treating patients early with Ivermectin, Doxycycline and Zinc, Borody has seen amazing success. Out of 600 Covid-19 patients treated with the therapy, only five were admitted to hospital and none died. An equivalent control group of 600 patients not treated with it saw 70 hospital admissions and six deaths.
The literature is increasingly clear that Ivermectin is both safe and effective in the treatment of Covid-19. A recent meta-analysis published in the American Journal of Therapeutics found that Ivermectin probably reduces deaths by 62 per cent and possibly reduces transmission by as much as 86 per cent.
Despite this, the TGA recently banned Australian doctors from prescribing Ivermectin for Covid-19. Their reasons were threefold. They are concerned that the use of Ivermectin will discourage Australians from being vaccinated; that social media may cause people to take the drug in the wrong dosage; and that using it for Covid-19 could spark a national shortage of Ivermectin for other uses.
But these reasons make little sense. First, people can choose both vaccination and Ivermectin. Second, if they are prescribed Ivermectin by their doctor, they will know the correct dosage. And third, if there is a shortage of the drug, Australia can meet that demand just as we have with the vaccines. TGA’s reason for banning Ivermectin evidently has nothing to do with Ivermectin’s safety or efficacy — a truly puzzling situation.
Meanwhile, Pfizer has just released a new antiviral drug called Paxlovid, which we are assured is nothing like Ivermectin. The chemical structure of Paxlovid is brand new, making it able to be patented and profitable. However, its modality of action against the Covid virus is precisely the same as that of Ivermectin. This has led some to dub it ‘Pfizermectin’.
There are other odd and unexplainable events surrounding the last 18 months. Why, for example, are most Australians not aware that Vitamin C, Vitamin D and Zinc deficiencies are clear underlying risk factors for Covid-19 patients?
The disease is also highly discriminatory against the overweight and obese. Why has good diet and exercise for the able-bodied not been encouraged by our public health officials as much as scanning QR codes or staying at home?
Why are we still not using rapid antigen testing when we know the vaccinated can be sick and spread the virus?
Why are so few people asking these important questions?
5. Medical Professionals Have Been Silenced
In a recent Discernable interview, host Matt Wong asked Dr Carolyne Bosak, a GP, her thoughts on the lifting of lockdowns. Eerily, she replied, “I have an opinion but I actually can’t really express it freely.” She went on to explain a chilling situation.
Most Australians are unaware that registered health practitioners have been given a gag order by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). Under threat of losing their license, they must abide by the following ‘position statement’:
Any promotion of anti-vaccination statements or health advice which contradicts the best available scientific evidence or seeks to actively undermine the national immunisation campaign (including via social media) is not supported by National Boards and may be in breach of the codes of conduct and subject to investigation and possible regulatory action.
To put it simply, if an Australian doctor wrote the article you are currently reading, their entire career could be at risk. To speak openly of vaccination deaths and injuries, alternative treatments, or even human rights abuses could be a career-ending move for GPs in today’s Australia.
Consider what this means for informed consent. Unless all GPs are as honest as Dr Bosak, patients who seek medical advice about vaccination will assume their doctor’s counsel is honest and unrestrained. Little do they know that AHPRA, via threats, has already ensured that only one opinion will be available to them as a patient.
There is a distinctly Soviet feel to this silencing of Australia’s medical professionals.
Where are Good Leaders When You Need Them?
I was a pastor for five years, in which time I learned a lot about good leadership. Almost any leadership book you read will tell you that leadership is influence, not power — and that the way to lead well is to be trustworthy, empathetic and responsive to those you are leading.
This is not what we have seen from our leaders and institutions over the last 18 months. Instead, we have been cajoled with fear, threats, shifting messages, and the silencing of dissent.
Do an image search for charts that explain cycles of abuse or clues that you might be in a controlling relationship. That these accurately depict what Australians have endured since March 2020 is a blight on our nation. How will we repair the damage that has been done to Australia’s social fabric?
Soon we will be vaccinating our children, exposing them to serious risks from the vaccine when the virus itself presents nearly no threat to them. In the past, when the world was at war, Australian adults fought and died to save the nation’s children. Soon we will do the opposite — sacrificing children to save adults — all in the name of panic and public health.
People have lost livelihoods, small businesses, homes, family and friends for refusing to take a vaccine that has known serious risks, waning efficacy, and will not achieve herd immunity.
In a first for modern times, Australia now has a two-tiered society; medical segregation that punishes any who refuse to go against their conscience or better judgment to partake in the national vaccine rollout.
These are challenging times for our nation. No one wanted the Covid-19 disaster, and few would want the mantle of leadership in such difficult circumstances. But Australia could be doing so much better. We need to ask more of our leadership.
And we need to pray for Australia.
Good intentions or otherwise, we have strayed a long way from “first, do no harm”. Somehow, we must find our way out of this mess.
Originally published at the Daily Declaration. Image by Matteo Jorjoson at Unsplash.
Well said Kurt, thanks for sharing. It’s mind boggling how all of this information does not spark more of an uprising amongst the happily jabbed population.
The devil has come to steal kill and destroy and all that promote this criminal activity are complicit. I just watched a doco about the Amish Community in the US… they decided to all get COVID together, about 300 of them… they weathered it, no fatalities as I recall, stayed at home… now they have all come through with herd immunity….as I see it, the vax is more deadly than the bioweapon Fauci funded…. wolves are herding the sheep and care not an iota for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…confirming again that the love of $ is the root of all evil. Billionaires want to be Trillionaires.
Truly scary when you compile it as well as this. Dr Robert Malone believes that the conspiracy all started with a 2019 think tank at John Hopkins University, convened by Bill Gates and endorsed by WHO. The “battle plan” that they concocted has largely been followed, across the world, to perfection. And still failing miserably. SO scary.
Hi Kurt,
As a physician, I can’t help but address a few issues you raise
#1 The Vaccines Are Not Living Up to Their Promises
I am not entirely sure what your point is. There are certainly concerns about waning vaccine efficacy, but as you acknowledge, it has been highly effective at reducing hospitalisations and deaths. Despite increasing infections due to relaxed restrictions in Australia, we are longer seeing the horrific number of deaths as last year. Our overburdened hospital system could not tolerate a sustained increase in COVID cases. We need to ensure the public can continue to access acute care despite this pandemic. And what’s the alternative? Accept a 1 in 8 chance that person over the age of 70 who contracts COVID will die from it?
#2 The Vaccines are Killing and Maiming Australians
I agree that vaccine-induced myocarditis is a concerning, though still relatively rare side effect of the mrNA vaccines e.g. Pfizer, Moderna. However, so far it has shown to be usually mild and self-limiting. If you carefully read the article you referenced, myocarditis has a number of different causes that include both infections (such as COVID) and drugs. The prognosis highly depends on the cause and will range from extremely good to extremely poor. The figure you quote of 50% survival after 5 years is a misleading statistic to use for this situation.
4. Alternative Treatments Have Been Banned
For good reason. Particularly where the quality of the evidence is poor and it may cause the public to excessively rely on these treatments as protection
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34318930/
I agree that Ivermectin at typically prescribed doses has a low side effect profile, but that does not form an argument to support its routine use. Unfortunately, even the more recently developed anti-virals have not proven to be the magic bullet against COVID. Only a handful of agents have historically ever been shown to be useful against any viral infection. They are challenging organisms to combat once they are caught. Our best defense is vaccination.
#5. Medical Professionals Have Been Silenced
It might be considered a huge overstep by our registration authority to restrict free speech, but the real targets are professionals who have mis-represented the science and by doing so seriously undermine our public health response. They are held to a higher standard of behaviour. This does not exclude the possibility clinical equipoise if the science is equivocal. You must realise this pandemic has been the single biggest global threat in modern history. COVID has killed at least five times the number of people that influenza usually does. And this is despite the onerous impacts of masking, restricted travel and lockdowns. If we had loosened these without widespread vaccines, the impacts would have been far worse.
Finally, I won’t dispute that restrictions have taken a heavy toll on many people at a social, emotional and economic level. And there maybe those who continually chafe at the loss of freedoms and seemingly heavy handed attitude of our leaders. Nevertheless, without widespread vaccination and a cautious exit strategy, my concern is that will just prolong the suffering with the lives and livelihood of many more people being affected.
Dear Derek, thank you for your feedback. It is difficult to respond to everything you raise but to challenge you on several points:
– The IFR of Covid-19 for people aged over 70 is not even close to 12.5%. And my argument that the vaccines are not living up to their promises is not an argument to dispense with them altogether – it is an argument against mandated vaccines, as the context of my article makes clear.
– You say that the 50% mortality rate over 5 years for myocarditis is a “misleading statistic” to use – but on what basis? You have made an assertion but provided no data. The fact that we don’t have 5 years of data on covid vaccine-induced myocarditis is reason for caution, not a lack thereof.
– The data on Ivermectin is far better than you indicate (see https://ivmmeta.com/). Meta analysis using the most serious outcome reported shows 66% [53‑76%] and 85% [75‑91%] improvement for early treatment and prophylaxis. Results are very robust — in worst case exclusion sensitivity analysis 56 of 67 studies must be excluded to avoid finding statistically significant efficacy.
– Regarding the AHPRA gag order, it is not good enough to say that “the real targets are the bad guys”. That’s how all censorship is excused. The climate of censorship and threat of registration loss means the good guys can’t speak out either. But they are speaking behind closed doors in significant numbers.
– I have no problem with widespread vaccination – though as I have expressed, there needs to be far more honesty about and a better response to vaccine deaths and injuries. My primary concern (as you will find in all of my articles on this subject) is that we have abandoned our national and international human rights obligations by using fear, threats and coercion to force the vaccination rate up – something we should never have done and certainly should not be doing with a vaccine that is known to pose the risks that these ones do.
Hello Kurt,
Thank you for your response. It provides me some insight into your position. I feel it would be pointless to debate the data. However, I would comment that age-adjusted case-fatality rates has already been derived from public-access Victorian data and was published in a peer-reviewed journal. Similarly, the meta-analysis on Ivermectin that I referenced was conducted by the Cochrane collaboration. They are well established in this form of methodology and have transparent and declared processes by which studies are identified and analysed. But let’s cast aside whether ‘whose data is right’, or if it has been interfered with by ambitious politicians, profiteering Big Pharma, deceitful academic researchers, or the indoctrinated medical establishment all to some devious end. It seem the greatest bone of contention is whether we should we interfere with individual rights and freedoms for some alleged or fabricated ‘greater good’.
As a general rule, I am all for autonomy and self-determination. If people don’t get to choose what they do without punishment then there is no true freedom. It’s just an illusion. But let me take you down the same slippery slope argument you offer but in the opposite direction. Let me suggest that we completely dispense with laws or regulations. Shall we instead hope and trust that each person will behave according to the keen intellect and rational thought given to them, out of the goodness of their heart, and selfless concern for their fellow neighbour? Would they also lead to an equally just, civil (and free) society. For instance, there are a number of solemn regulations that govern my professional actions that are likely to infringe on other people’s rights. I can instruct the firearms registrar to remove a firearm from a disordered patient with a disabling mental illness. I can advise family services that a child is at serious risk of harm or death from their parent. I am obliged to report a potentially impaired fellow health care worker with substance abuse. I can report a driver with a significant medical condition who is a threat to other road users to the motor registration body. Whose interests supervene? I won’t venture into what your position is on this, but my concessions is that it is somewhere in the middle. Our middles might be different but let’s assume that mask wearing, travel, social distancing and vaccinations were just optional ‘serving suggestions’ offered by our elected democratic leaders. I wonder where we would be in December 2021, almost two years into a global pandemic by a novel Coronavirus. What would this world of freedom look like? Who would benefit and who would be harmed?
Regards,
Derek
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Phillipians 2:3-4
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34154563/
Thanks for your response Derek. Yes, the data on these issues appears to be quite contested so it seems there is little use crossing swords over it further. Regarding your slippery slope question: like many others, I believe you have been led to embrace a binary view on this issue – either no rules and therefore covid anarchy, or rules and therefore compliance. Between these two extreme positions is a wide open space called common sense. If a disease presents a genuine threat to a person, their loved ones and the community around them, that person will take sensible measures to mitigate that risk. Though the conditioning of the last 2 years may tell you otherwise, people do in fact choose to self-isolate, work from home, socially distance and take other measures to avoid contracting covid-19 even if they are not mandated to by their governments. I have done so myself at various times – I don’t want the virus even though my risk of dying from it is very small. Sadly, most people have lost their belief in the common sense of others, not because people aren’t practicing it but because governments have stepped in with extremely heavy-handed rules that mandates such behaviours and therefore prevents us from seeing people’s voluntary decision-making. An authoritarian attitude is now rife in Western cultures, one that assumes people will not act in a certain way unless they are compelled to do so. It is impossible to overstate how much damage this has done to our social fabric and the future of our freedoms.
Hi Kurt,
Thank you for the clarification of your position. The binary view is that Western democracies are now dictatorships and that the public largely is bereft of commonsense requiring firm paternalistic direction. It’s all a matter of degrees isn’t it? Our governments could certainly be more authoritarian than currently (e.g. China) and similarly more liberal and permissive as well (e.g. Sweden). Thus, it seems we are just occupying different parts of the continuum. I continue to think about where I sit between the two extremes. On on hand, it only takes a few people to ruin it for others e.g. super-spreader events, yet on the other hand, I am concerned (like you) that some people will deliberately spite the process because of draconian laws. I do have reservations about punishing people for not being vaccinated. As an experienced clinician, I know this approach is rarely a useful approach to change attitudes or behaviour. However, if a unvaccinated person wanted to visit a nursing home or some other vulnerable person, I would definitely draw a line. Sometimes, the risk is too significant to justify respecting someone’s freedom. Thanks for the discussion.
Best,
Derek
Is there any way to get a direct link to the whistleblower video involving Queensland Health staff? I can’t seem to find it anywhere else, but I’d really love to share it with people who don’t use email and also probably wouldn’t read the article.
Yes, here it is: https://rumble.com/vp3h2w-whistleblowers-speak-on-covid-19-vaccine-injuries-long.html.
Thanks so much!
Here we are in January 2022 and now boosters, segregation n mandates and oh so much more are on on the political n medical ‘menu’ and….words fail me.
With that in mind I would like to do something I could never in a million years have imagined doing, until now.
Having completed my 1st reading of your book Cross and Culture which left me in deep silence then found me again, in prayer…… Check out Romans 1:18-36 .
Reading this Bible quote on completion of your book Cross and Culture, is by far the most contextual presentation of prophetic communication I have experienced to date….
I reckon your relationship with His spirit is profound Kurt.
Blessings to you n yours.
Kaylene Emery
There I’ve done it. I am now quoting scripture !