Conflicts of Interests – just how deep is the swamp?

WHO ELSE is “advising”, freaking out and leading up the garden path to national destruction our not-0verly-bright government?

by Steve Cook

A close advisor of the government during this whole COVID19 fiasco has been the discredited professor, Neil Ferguson, renowned for the catastrophic inaccuracy of his mathematical modelling concerning several prior epidemics.

This has prompted large numbers of concerned citizens to question why the hell the government acted on advice from this moron, as Elon Musk has called him.

It marks the government as slightly dim and highly credulous to say the least – unless of course the government has an agenda that makes it desirable to prefer this fool’s alarmist advice over that of people more sensible.

But this got me wondering WHO ELSE is “advising”, freaking out and leading up the garden path to national destruction our not-0verly-bright government?

So I found out that there is an advisory group known as SAGE that has been the government’s main source of advice during the crisis. Here is SAGE’s WIKIPEDIA ENTRY if you want to look them up.

The Wikipedia entry includes this fascinating line, “The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) is a UK governmental advisory body that advises central government in emergencies. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, SAGE was criticised for a lack of transparency. For their security and safety, and on advice from the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, the list of current members is not disclosed.”

The secrecy thing rang alarm bells. Why so secretive? Why does the government not want the public to know who is giving it advice? Would it not be better that we DO know exactly who is guiding our own government? Is there something to hide?

So, in the wake of other scandals concerning vested interests within the government (Chris Whitty, Hancock , Ferguson’s Imperial College taking funds from Gates etc) I wondered, are there any other conflicts or potential conflicts of interest here?

Oh dear God, yes there are! SAGE is riddled with them to a degree far greater than I was expecting.

Fortunately, the Wikipedia entry included, “A report in The Guardian stated that attendees at an April 2020 meeting of the group included:

Senior advisers:

Sir Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Adviser (chair)
Professor Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Adviser

Medical and scientific experts:

Professor John Aston, statistician, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Home Office
Meera Chand, microbiologist
Sir Ian Diamond, National Statistician
Professor John Edmunds, epidemiologist
Sir Jeremy Farrar, medical researcher
Professor Neil Ferguson, epidemiologist
Professor Peter Horby, epidemiologist
Professor Angela McLean, mathematical biologist
Professor Graham Medley, epidemiologist
Dr Edward Mullins, clinical adviser
Professor Sharon Peacock, microbiologist
Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director for England
Professor Andrew Rambaut, molecular biologist
Emma Reed, emergency planner
Professor Brooke Rogers, social psychologist
James Rubin, psychologist
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, influenza specialist, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England
Professor Charlotte Watts, epidemiologist, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Department for International Development
Professor Maria Zambon, virologist

Political advisers:

Dominic Cummings
Dr Ben Warner, data scientist.”

If you pull a string on the members of this panel, you find something interesting (and please note that for the purposes of this brief article, I am NOT including links to the pharmaceutical industry).

So here goes (and these approximations in fact embrace virtually THE ENTIRE PANEL:

Several members are from Oxford University – which received funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
At least two are from Imperial College London – which received funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Several are from Kings College London – which received funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
At least one is from the University of Aberdeen – which received funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
At least two are from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine – which received funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Several from University College London – which received funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
One from the University of Edinburgh – which received funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
One from the University of Liverpool – which received funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

None of this necessarily proves any wrong doing on the part of any of SAGE’s members but knowing the Gates’ massive multi-billion dollar investment in pharmaceuticals and vaccines, their vested interest in whipping up a suitably scary epidemic to boost sales and the potential leverage that their “philanthropic”funding gives them over the recipient, we concerned citizens have a right to be seriously concerned as to the impartiality of the advice by which our government is being influenced.

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