10 Oct update: This article confirms that fullfact are the ones who really need to be fact checked continually. Seems we were not the only people they are harrassing for simply reporting what was in the ONS data.
Readers of this blog will be aware that anybody who challenges (or even deviates slightly from) the 'official narrative' on Covid-19 is likely to be subject to both censorship and attempts to discredit.
It is somewhat flattering to know that our own work is considered a sufficient challenge to the narrative that we have now come to the attention of the self-appointed 'fact checking' organization fullfact.org.
Even long before Covid, fullfact.org had a record of getting things provably wrong. Moreover, its biases and lack of independence have even previously been exposed by the UK Govt itself. There have been multiple documented instances of this organization’s errors in its Covid19 reporting such as here.
A representative of fullfact contacted me yesterday about our article which showed that the Government's own most recent data does not support the claims made for vaccine effectiveness/safety (suggesting more evidence was needed before it could really be claimed to be safe and effective).
The correspondence (reproduced below) demonstrates how fullfact work and also how incompetent they are. They search for somebody on twitter who is trying to discredit the claim they wish to say is false and assume that such a person is an authoritative source. The fact that twitter hides critical responses to this 'authoritative source' compounds their confirmation bias.
Dear Professor Fenton
I'm writing from Full Fact about your recent blog on the ONS's ASMR data by vaccination status.
According to this twitter thread (which you may have seen?), the trends you identify in the blog do not necessarily reflect concerning clinical outcomes, but are what you would expect to see as the age profile of the vaccinated groups changed over time. Do you agree with this?
I noticed that your blog says: "It is also important to note that the population of vaccinated people is becoming sufficiently large and representative that the criticality of age adjustment becomes much diminished. We will be doing a follow-up analysis that takes account of this." This sounds like it would address the issue. Do you know when this follow-up analysis will be published?
All the best
Full Fact
fullfact.org
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My response:
Dear <NAME REMOVED>
For a supposed ‘fact checker’ I find it interesting that you failed to check that I had not only seen the thread by Michael George that you referred to but had made 3 responses to it (screenshot below); here are the actual links to my response:
https://twitter.com/profnfenton/status/1442395816144949256?s=20
https://twitter.com/profnfenton/status/1442115313038868480?s=20
https://twitter.com/profnfenton/status/1442114417622228992?s=20
Of course, because organizations like yours try to discredit anybody who challenges the ‘official’ narrative on Covid-19, anybody who does challenge this narrative tends to get shadow-banned on twitter; indeed my replies to hit pieces like that of Michael George are not easy to find.
We are indeed working on a follow-up analysis which is massively complicated by the fact that the ONS and PHE will not release the age categorized data on vaccination status and all-cause deaths.
Perhaps your investigative time would be better spent finding out why the ONS and PHE refuse to release this crucial data (without which their ASMR claims cannot be checked or verified).
Norman Fenton
This is the dumb follow-up which I will not respond to. Whatever we say they will no doubt mark our article as 'fake news' or 'false'.
Hi Norman
Thanks for sharing those responses, which I hadn't
seen.
Your replies don't seem to address Michael George's central point, however, which is that the rising trend you identify is a result of the changing age profile of the vaccinated groups. Do you disagree with that?
Just for the record, given your second reply, do you agree that your blog does not provide evidence that the vaccines are harmful?
