The Commons Chamber inside the Houses of Parliament. Credit: Justin Tallis - WPA Pool/Getty
North and south, up and down, left and right. We all need directions in life. In fact, we’d be lost without them.
They simplify and summarise, stripping out the detail – but that’s what makes them so valuable. They provide us with a common frame of reference, a way of gauging where we stand in relation to one another.
Democracy, too, needs directions. For all the details of policy making, all the nuances of ideology, we, as voters, need a straightforward way of lining up the options and making our choices. By reducing the complexities to a single dimension, that’s exactly what the Left-Right spectrum does for us.
It may be crude, it may be simplistic – but in the democratic era, it has untangled the mess, sorting politicians into parties, and parties into coalitions.
It also puts the focus on the issues that matter most. The central proposition of modern politics is the state. How big should it be? How much should it spend, tax, redistribute, regulate? The details are complex, but the fundamental choice is not: do you want a bigger state or a smaller one? Go left for the former; right for the latter.
But what if that’s not how it works anymore? What if politics has become about something else?
From Brexit to Trump to the populist triumph in Italy, the established order is under attack. There is talk of political realignment. But realignment along what axis? If it’s no longer Left-versus-Right, then what are the defining directions of the new spectrum?
This deep dive is an attempt to find answers. It comes in three parts:
- First, where did Left and Right come from? How did they end up defining our politics? And why are they now losing their grip?
- Second, what are the alternatives to Left-versus-Right? Why has ‘open-versus-closed’ emerged as the front runner? And who’s pushing the idea?
- Third, what is the true meaning of Open and Closed? What is it doing to democracy? And are the advocates of ‘Open’ really as open as they think they are?
For more on these new directions, read on.
The origin of left and right
Let’s begin at the beginning. Or what is supposed to be the beginning.
In the English language, the first reference to Left and Right as political categories is in Thomas Carlyle’s 1837 history of the French Revolution. It comes from his description of the National Constituent Assembly – the first ‘parliament’ of revolutionary France, where supporters of the king and supporters of the revolution sat on opposite sides of the chamber:1
“…if we glance into that Assembly Hall of theirs, it will be found, as is natural, ‘most irregular.’ As many as ‘a hundred members are on their feet at once;’ no rule in making motions, or only commencements of a rule; Spectators’ Gallery allowed to applaud, and even to hiss… Nevertheless, as in all human Assemblages, like does begin arranging itself to like… Rudiments of Methods disclose themselves; rudiments of Parties. There is a Right Side (Cote Droit), a Left Side (Cote Gauche); sitting on M. le President’s right hand, or on his left: the Cote Droit conservative; the Cote Gauche destructive.”
The Assembly, formed in 1789, was soon for the chop (as indeed were many of its members). However, the symbolism of its seating arrangement would persist in the various bodies that succeeded it – those most attached to the established order on the right, those keenest on radical change on the left, and those between the extremes in the centre.
Over the next two hundred years, these labels would attach themselves to the politics of other nations – whether or not their legislative bodies followed the same physical layout.
So, is that all there is to it – just an accident of history? The legacy of a seating arrangement that might just as easily have gone the other way? Absolutely not. The symbolic meaning of left and right is much older the French Revolution. In fact, it pre-dates history itself.
Most human beings are right-handed. Our right hands are typically stronger and more dextrous than the left. It is a physical bias strong enough to shape language. For instance, the English word ‘dexterity’ is derived from the Latin for right-handed; whereas the word ‘left‘ has Germanic origins meaning weak or foolish.
The word ‘right‘ goes all the way back to the Proto-Indo-European root word *reg from which we also get words like ‘regular’, ‘straight’, ‘correct’, ‘adroit’, ‘royal’ and ‘rule’.
Both literally and symbolically, ‘right’ embodies normality, ability and thus the natural order of things. The left embodies the opposite.
In fact, from a leftie perspective it gets worse. Because most people use their right hand to eat with, many cultures have made a point of using the left hand to perform tasks that include contact with dirt and excrement.2 Across the Middle East, and many other parts of the world, touching food with the left hand is a cultural taboo.
The unsavoury associations of the left hand are perhaps compounded by an element of fear. In contests of physical prowess, whether on the battlefield or the sporting arena, the left-hander presents the right-hander with an unfamiliar opponent – one capable of delivering blows from an unaccustomed direction.
This left-handedness isn’t just unusual, it’s also subversive – if not downright sinister.
We see the symbolism of left and right in religion too. In the New Testament, Christ, as the Good Shepherd, separates the sheep (i.e. the righteous) from the goats (i.e. the fallen), placing the former on his right side and the latter on his left.3 Comparable metaphors can be found in non-Abrahamic faiths too. For intance, Hindu traditions distinguish between the concepts of daksinachara (the ‘right-hand path’ of orthodox, virtuous spiritual practice) and vamacara (the ‘left-hand path’ of heterodox, transgressive spiritual practice).
Left and right in politics
The political association of the right with the established order and the left with challenges to that order is therefore no accident. It is deeply encoded within culture, language and religion – and thus applying the same symbols to politics came naturally. But why did it take so long for politics to acquire its ‘wings’?
It wasn’t until the Enlightenment period that internal division along ideological lines came to be seen as anything other than a mortal threat to the integrity of the realm. Before that the only alternative to a unified, if hierarchical, society was assumed to be bloody chaos – which is why the established order (and the shared religious assumptions that underpinned it) was ferociously defended.
The Reformation would, of course, shatter the religious unity of western Christendom, but within each state it was generally expected that the people would follow the same religion as their rulers: the principle of cuius regio, eius religio (whose realm, his religion).
In the Enlightenment period, the old certainties and structures would be loosened. In some states, such as England, the process was evolutionary; in others, like France, it was revolutionary. The English approach allowed for the gradual accommodation of a widening range of religious and economic interests within a continuing, though not immutable, constitutional framework. However, in France, where the ancien régime was unaccommodating, change could only come about through the repudiation of established sources of authority. What was once regarded as right was right no longer.
In one form or another, the struggle to break with the pre-modern past would go on to define the politics of the West in the 19th century. However, the bourgeois revolt against the aristocratic order was just the beginning.
As a different kind of revolution – the Industrial Revolution – gathered pace, it created the conditions for the rise (and, in many places, the revolt) of an urban working class. Moreover, the Industrial Age was also a ‘Bureaucratic Age‘, with transport and communication technologies enabling the centralisation of political and economic power. For the first time, state ownership of the means of production, the wholesale redistribution of wealth and the creation of a modern welfare state – i.e. socialism – became a viable proposition with a powerful political constituency.
As a result, the bourgeois revolutionaries found themselves outflanked on the left by socialist revolutionaries. Indeed, left and right were redefined. Instead of corresponding to the enemies and the defenders of the aristocratic order, the labels became attached to the enemies and defenders of the capitalist order. 4
Parties that had been thought of as being on the left, but opposed socialism, found themselves moving to the right. One of the best examples of this realignment comes from Denmark, where the main party of the centre-right is called Venstre. This confuses outsiders because venstre is the Danish word for ‘left’. There is, however, a logical explanation: In the 19th century, Venstre really was a party of the left – as the term was then understood; but when socialism emerged as an electoral force, the political spectrum was redefined and Venstre along with it.
We can therefore think in terms of a ’19th-century Left’ and a ’20th-century Left’. To this day, support for, or opposition to, the ideas of the latter defines the Left-Right political spectrum.
That said, it’s worth noting that while the ’19th-century Left’ triumphed over the aristocratic order; there was, in the West, no clear victory for the ’20th-century Left’ over its enemy – the capitalist order. At best, it forced a compromise: the so-called ‘mixed economy’ of publicly and privately-owned industries. By the final decades of the 20th century not even that could be maintained. The mixed economy gave way to the weaker compromise of ‘neoliberalism‘ – i.e. in which the welfare state continued, but nationalised industry was privatised. Furthermore, the fall of the Soviet Bloc and the transmutation of communism in China cleared the way for the globalisation of the capitalist order.
The global financial crisis of 2007-08, followed by the Great Recession, could have marked another turning point – this time in favour of the Left. But while the flaws of neoliberalism were painfully exposed, and are yet to be adequately reformed, the contemporary Left has failed to provide a coherent economic alternative. And that’s not even the Left’s biggest problem.
Though the dominance of neoliberalism can be seen as a success for the Right, the Left still had a powerful role to play as the most enthusiastic redistributor of the proceeds of growth. 5 But in the decade of austerity since the crash, neoliberalism has not provided much in the way of proceeds for the Left to redistribute from; and, as mentioned, the Left has not provided a replacement for neoliberalism. This leaves the Left without a purpose and, increasingly, without power.
Across Europe, social democrats are in crisis. Once dominant parties of government are haemorrhaging votes and in many cases (e.g. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Greece) dwindling away to minor party status. In part, this is due to the electoral rise of the radical and alternative Left. However, parties of protest are a poor substitute for parties of government. To date, the only one of the left-wing populist parties to gain power is SYRIZA in Greece – and its fate has been to implement a savage programme of cuts on behalf of the Eurozone authorities.
An end to Left and Right?
The decline of the mainstream Left isn’t just an issue for one side of the political divide. A Left incapable of making a difference to economic policy calls into question the relevance of the entire Left-Right spectrum.
A clear sign that old distinctions are collapsing is the growing ease with which parties of the mainstream Left and Right now find themselves in government together. For instance, three of the last four German governments have been ‘grand coalitions’ between the centre-right Christian Democrats and the centre-left Social Democrats. Since 2010, Left-Right coalitions have been formed in a number of other European countries including Italy, the Netherlands and Austria. One could argue that Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche! movement is also a Left-Right coalition – albeit in the form of a new party designed for the purpose.
The old model of centre-left and centre-right alternating in government and opposition can no longer be taken for granted. Parties and politicians that were once rivals for power are increasingly likely to find themselves as partners.
There is a parallel here with the political realignment that took place at the beginning of the 20th century. A clear sign that the liberal parties of the ’19th-century Left’ had ceased to be the actual left was when they joined forces with their old enemies on the Right – against the rising influence of socialism.
But how exact is the parallel between what happened to ’19th-century Left’ and what might be happening now to the ‘20th-century Left’?
Is there, for instance, an emerging ‘21st-century Left’, capable of (a) redefining Left and Right as completely as the socialists did a hundred years ago; and (b) displacing the previous incarnation of the Left at the ballot box ?
There is, but only up to a point.
Ideologically, left-wing populist movements are good at saying what they are against (neoliberalism, etc), but not so good at articulating what they are for. There is no new ‘big idea’ whose impact is even remotely comparable to that of socialism in the 20th century.
The closest it gets are the ‘post-work’ ideas6 of the accelerationists and others. However, ‘post-workism’ is a response to economic conditions that don’t exist yet i.e. a super-productive economy in which human workers are largely replaced by robots. The socialism of the late 19th was able to flourish in the 20th because it was a response to economic conditions that most people experienced in their daily lives. Furthermore, the socialist parties of the era – whether communist, democratic socialist or social democrat – offered not just a protest against those conditions, but also a means of changing them.
Protest can still make an impact at the ballot box, of course. In countries across Europe, there’s no doubt that the populist Left has taken votes away from the mainstream left.
And yet the radical Left is not the only, or even the biggest, threat to the mainstream Left. In many countries, the most shattering blow to the latter’s voter base has come from populists who don’t belong to any kind of Left: a far from exhaustive list includes UKIP in the UK, the National Front in France, the AfD in Germany, the Five Star Movement and the League in Italy, the Sweden Democrats in Sweden, the Danish People’s Party in Denmark, the Party of Freedom in the Netherlands, the Freedom Party in Austria and, of course, the ‘alt-right’ and the wider Trump phenomenon in America.
With the exception of Five Star, these movements are usually classified as ‘right-wing populists’.
They are certainly populist in the sense of being anti-establishment, but in what what sense are they right-wing? In terms of the economic issues that are most definitive of the conventional left-right political spectrum, parties of the ‘populist Right’ are generally to the Left of the mainstream Right and often to the left of the mainstream Left too.
Most of these movements don’t define themselves by conventional categories of Left and Right anyway. The degree of state involvement in the economy is, for them, a secondary issue. Indeed, their mission is to polarise politics along an entirely different axis. As their support increases, they are succeeding – sometimes pushing the mainstream left and right into unholy alliance, sometimes pushing one or both out of power altogether.
The Left-Right spectrum is falling to bits; what might replace it is the subject of part two of this series.
FOOTNOTES
- Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History, 1837, Book VI, Chapter 2
- For instance, the Chinese character for right-handed is composed of the symbols for hand and mouth, while the character for left-handed is features symbols for hand and work
- Matthew 25: 31-46
- In Russia, where a bourgeois revolution (or evolution) hadn’t happened, revolution, when it did occur, brought down the aristocracy and capitalism at the same time
- The era of ‘high neoliberalism’ – from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the fall of Lehman Brothers – was defined by centre-left leaders like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroeder.
- See, for instance, Andy Beckett, ‘Post-work: the radical idea of a world without jobs’, Guardian, 19 January 2018
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeI’m hearing more stories from friends and relatives about side effects from the mRNA vaccine booster shot. Some people, including me, are reacting very strongly to it and sometimes new or existing health conditions flare up. This phenomenon is little reported in the media. My last remaining aunt, who is in her eighties, is now reluctant to receive a second booster because of her reaction to the first one, even though she is at high risk from covid. The adenovirus-based vaccines are an important alternative to the mRNA shots.
I’m not antivax and I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but collective experience now suggests there are aspects to the mRNA vaccines not being fully and fairly reported. Many thanks to experts such as Drs. Stabell-Benn and Bhattacharya for continuing to push for open discussion around covid disease and vaccination.
Of course, this will surely have nothing to do with the fact that Ursula von der Leyen is married to the Medical Director of the US biotech company Orgenesis, which has close links to Pfizer.
May have been ??? wit was a b….y blunder and I bet you that Valneva who is taking a beating on the stock market will be on the rebound the minute brokers hear of this story.
since I first wrote this post, the New York Times covid thread sent me to this ……which pretty much matches what this danish Professor says. Plus….I googled her….not one nasty word about who she is what she does. Interesting figure about Japan and that works for the rest of the world…..20 % infect about 85 %. Stay away from crowd, especially inside, enjoy the outdoor/ side……simply what the swedes have said all along without any lockdown.
Japan, like many other countries including China, Korea, India, and the Russian Federation, have mandatory childhood BCG vaccines against tuberculosis. These countries have so far a relatively low per capita death rate from COVID-19 compared to countries that have no mandatory BCG vaccines (USA, Spain, France, Italy, The Netherlands). What further distinguishes Japan is that the BCG vaccine strain used in Japan, Brazil, and Russia is one of the original strains, while further modified BCG strains are used for vaccination in European countries. This association between BCG vaccination and apparent low COVID-19 incidence in Japan has spurred the idea that these two things may be linked (for more discussions on this topic, visit https://www.jsatonotes.com/2020/03/if-i-were-north-americaneuropeanaustral.html and https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/kimuramasato/20200405-00171556/).
How would BCG, an attenuated bacterial vaccine completely unrelated to COVID-19, provide protection? Michai Netea and colleagues hypothesized that the vaccine may boost “trained immunity” (Netea et al, 2016)—in other words, certain immune stimuli may induce a prolonged state of resistance against pathogens in general, by elevating the expression levels of resistance factors. Studies have shown that receipt of BCG vaccine was associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality within the first 1–60 months: The average relative risks were 0.70 (95% confidence interval 0.49–1.01) from five clinical trials (Higgins et al, 2016). Furthermore, Netea and colleagues showed that BCG vaccination reduced the levels of viremia caused by the yellow fever virus live attenuated vaccine (Arts et al, 2018), and post-BCG increase of IL-1β production strongly correlated with lower viremia after yellow fever virus administration. A placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial of 1,000 healthcare workers in The Netherlands has started, and a similar trial is planned to begin at the Max Planck Institute (de Vrieze, 2020). The outcomes of these trials will help us to understand whether and how BCG confers resistance to other pathogens including SARS-CoV-2.
I had been wondering if anyone had done a study on those who had a BCG inoculation versus those who had not.
Another useful – and well known – weapon in the armoury against panicdemics perhaps?
This highlights the problems of mixing political decision making with the supposedly disinterested process of scientific evaluation of the effectiveness of different vaccines and why commercial interests can lead to attempts to smear rival views. Did Ursula VDL support Pfizer over Astra for political or commercial reasons or from a genuine belief that she was making the right disinterested call? Who knows. Highlighting the family connection while being suspicious could, of course, be regarded as the sort of smear that is used by the advocated of Astra. The difficulty of analysing scientific trials and the pressures of politics and commerce combine to result in understandable paranoia among the public.
ah Pfizer… that company who just reported $7BN(!) in PROFITS(!) recently… well well…
I sometimes wonder how much our “leaders” grin and twist their lips slyly when alone with themselves after they contemplate what they do in order to increase their enormous wealth at the expense of the common person. It takes a unique individual to gain satisfaction from that and yet sleep at night, completely debased and soulless.
My son died two days after receiving his first Pfizer vaccine. He was 46 years old and Type 1 diabetic since he was 22 months old. He had chest pains that evening and went to the ER and went home and died in his sleep on the third night. Autopsy concluded that he died from arteriosclerosis. He was in good health otherwise. I believe the vaccine caused it. I had received both vaccines (Pfizer) before he received his and am having my first episode of shingles a year later. I believe more studies need to be done. The hype to vaccinate the world so quickly may have done more damage than good.
Very sorry to hear that Carol. I developed a clot in my knee. Please see my other post here.
Now that the vax’s are obsolete what’s the point of getting either one? I wasn’t ANTI-VAX…. before NOW!
When I received my first Pfizer shot, I developed a swelling in my right knee within 24 hours. I checked into emergency a couple of days later and a young doctor after checking out the condition insisted that this is not a blood clot but an infection or an injury inside the knee, even though he could not produce evidence for either. The timing he said was purely coincidental. I insisted on a blood test, which he authorized. A D-Dimer test was performed on the blood sample and a week later the result came back. Indeed it was a blood clot. After two weeks, the clot subsided. I feel pretty lucky that this did not develop in a critical place. I had no symptoms in my next Pfizer and Moderna shots.
I find it unnerving that physicians have become politicized and so readily wish to push a certain narrative, because they believe it to be socially beneficial. That is not the job of the emergency room doctor to decide on social benefits. It is unethical for a physician to put the unproven or even proven good of the “community” over the imminent safety of the individual. If I had known about this Danish study at that time, I would have taken the AZ or J&J vaccine.
Merkel is the one who shot Astrazenecca like a clay pigeon, joined. 45 minutes later out of Montauban by Macron himself who had not a single clue.
The Germans did it……so we have to join. Look at the mess we’re in after this profound uttering !!!
Merkel hiding in her cave now…..not so smug
q’d here what comes out à study regarding Japan and why they didn’t suffer the same ordeal Europe did. Talk about population density which what I get when mentioning Sweden. Incidentally, it is Norbotten, the most north province not exactly known for its population density, that there was the most cases at the peak of the pandemic.
Japan, like many other countries including China, Korea, India, and the Russian Federation, have mandatory childhood BCG vaccines against tuberculosis. These countries have so far a relatively low per capita death rate from COVID-19 compared to countries that have no mandatory BCG vaccines (USA, Spain, France, Italy, The Netherlands). What further distinguishes Japan is that the BCG vaccine strain used in Japan, Brazil, and Russia is one of the original strains, while further modified BCG strains are used for vaccination in European countries. This association between BCG vaccination and apparent low COVID-19 incidence in Japan has spurred the idea that these two things may be linked (for more discussions on this topic, visit https://www.jsatonotes.com/2020/03/if-i-were-north-americaneuropeanaustral.html and https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/kimuramasato/20200405-00171556/).
How would BCG, an attenuated bacterial vaccine completely unrelated to COVID-19, provide protection? Michai Netea and colleagues hypothesized that the vaccine may boost “trained immunity” (Netea et al, 2016)—in other words, certain immune stimuli may induce a prolonged state of resistance against pathogens in general, by elevating the expression levels of resistance factors. Studies have shown that receipt of BCG vaccine was associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality within the first 1–60 months: The average relative risks were 0.70 (95% confidence interval 0.49–1.01) from five clinical trials (Higgins et al, 2016). Furthermore, Netea and colleagues showed that BCG vaccination reduced the levels of viremia caused by the yellow fever virus live attenuated vaccine (Arts et al, 2018), and post-BCG increase of IL-1β production strongly correlated with lower viremia after yellow fever virus administration. A placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial of 1,000 healthcare workers in The Netherlands has started, and a similar trial is planned to begin at the Max Planck Institute (de Vrieze, 2020). The outcomes of these trials will help us to understand whether and how BCG confers resistance to other pathogens including SARS-CoV-2.
I am 58 years old, and I have 4 adult children, 2 of them and myself have been vaccinated with the MRNA Vaccines. I have received 3 doses of the Pfizer Vaccine, my Son (age 25) has received 2 doses of the Pfizer Vaccine and my Daughter (age 38) has received 2 doses of the Moderna Vaccine. ALL 3 of us have become very ill since being vaccinated, with similar symptoms, including muscle aches and stiffness in the joints, heart palpitations, unable to stand, walk or carry out any form of simple activity for long without being overcome with the distressing feeling that we can’t catch our breath, a racing heart beat and the sensation that we’re going to pass out! My Son HAS actually passed out on about three occasions! It has caused both my Type II Diabetes and my MS symptoms to flare up and become worse, so I am now also suffering from permanent, and sometimes debilitating dizziness, and I have recently also been diagnosed with Hypothyroidism as well! In contrast, my other two Daughters, aged 37 and 35, who decided NOT to be vaccinated with ANY of the Covid-19 vaccines available here in the UK, are both feeling fine health wise, so go figure! I have absolutely NO DOUBTS at all that it is the MRNA Vaccines that have impacted our health, but with a NHS that REFUSES to even ‘discuss’ the possibility that the MRNA Vaccines could physically ‘DAMAGE’ recipients health, we have no possible way to actually ‘prove’ that our health has been damaged by the MRNA Vaccine! I have now lost ALL TRUST in both the NHS and big Pharma, as my 2 vaccinated adult children have now very likely had their health PERMANENTLY DAMAGED, ruining the rest of their lives, and the way I myself am now feeling, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I actually DIE before I turn 60 years old! I am also NOT an anti-vaxxer, or a conspiracy theorist, before this happened to me and my adult children, I had ALWAYS had ALL the recommended vaccinations, for Mumps, Measles etc, and I had always done the same with my children as well when they were growing up! R.W
Yes I tried to tell my daughters not to take this vaccine as I did quite a bit of research. Iam 72 and not on any medications one would say fit and healthy. However both of my daughters have not been well after the vaccines the younger daughter who is having her secind baby had been asked to get her booster as she had taken the two moderna jabs. Well after having having the booster her 4th jab she has had problems where she now has to inject herself eachday with an anticolagulant not sure if this is warfrin/ rat poison and I find this horrendous as this will cross into the placenta. She is in the nhs and was pushed to take this ir not work. I am now healthier than my children and no flu problems as I have never had the flu jab, so my immune system is excellent. My neighbour who is the same age as myself had taken the jabs after her fourth dose she was admitted into hospital and kept for 48 hours after was sent home with a perscription for warfrin and a card to carry at all times potential stroke. All the other neighbours that did not take the vaccine are perfectly healthy.
The strange thing is the meeting that took place with Witty etc in March 2021 here is a goverment paper which tells of the affects of those vaccinated. .Page 10 para 32
32. The resurgence in both hospitalisations and deaths is dominated by those that have received two doses of the vaccine, comprising around 60% and 70% of the wave respectively. This can be attributed to the high levels of uptake in the most at-risk age groups, such that immunisation failures account for more serious illness than unvaccinated individuals. This is discussed further in paragraphs 55 and 56.
link here https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/975909/S1182_SPI-M-O_Summary_of_modelling_of_easing_roadmap_step_2_restrictions.pdf
I had the J&J with booster since at least tried technology. I believe its a simple case of pay-for-play with the FDA. It is a thoroughly corrupt agency. Pfizer has always been given the inside track even though Moderna has been shown to perform better than Pfizer. I am not surprised and am delighted to see the adenovector vaccines perform best.
Listen to this TED talk by Prof. Stabell-Benn four years ago:
https://www.ted.com/talks/christine_stabell_benn_how_vaccines_train_the_immune_system_in_ways_no_one_expected/transcript
Less than one year after receiving the Pfizer doses of Covid vaccine I became ill with giant cell arteritis and polymyalgia rheumatica, an autoimmune disease of the vascular system. It’s a rare disease. I wonder if the incidence will rise in the future ?
My cousins suffered flare ups of existing illnesses. I am not anti-vax but I think more research is needed on the immune compromised and vaccines.
This may be wide of the mark but more major league players are being hit by pitches thrown this year. Is part of the side effect of MRNA a weakening of the heart muscles and a change in the energy patterns of muscles in general. Just musing.
L Friedman
Rising prices for petrol might be another side effect.
Well it looks like the so called scientific revolution ends with covid because nobody knows what the f is really happening for sure.
Sorry to be dense. Can someone explain what all-cause mortality means and how it is measured?
I have an idea of what it means but I’m not sure. So you take a group of people who have been given the same vaccine and then you count how many of them die for whatever reason. But there must be a time limit on that since we will all die sometime. And also does it make any difference if those people were healthy or not before the vaccine was administered.
You take the people who have received one vaccine, and then count how many have died, from all causes. You then compare them to the people who got a different vaccine, or no vaccine at all. If when you are done counting, you conclude that the people who got mRNA vaccines, while not dying of covid, are dying of other things at a much higher rate than those who did not, you begin to worry if the mRNA vaccines depress your immune system so much that diseases you already had cannot be dealt with on an ongoing basis. Vaccinated people are reporting a surge in herpes type viral diseases, epstein-barr (mononucleois) and CMV infections. These are the sort of things that sit around dormant in most people who have recovered from them and never, or rarely cause them trouble again. They also do not usually kill you, even if they do reoccur. So we need to drill down more on ‘is there a pattern as to how these people died?’ But things like Epstein-Barr, which up until very recently was filed under ‘virus of no particular concern, though mononucleosis is very annoying’ and which is present in 95% of people world-wide is now known to be implicated for something like 40% of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and is now implicated for Multiple Sclerosis, too. Since we don’t know the exact mechanism about how this happens, we don’t know how dangerous to your health having your EBV come out of where it has been lying dormant is. But the answer could be, _very_.
And, of course, EBV is just one virus ….
Thanks Laura, when you say “count how many have died” shouldn’t there be some kind of time limit on that? Wouldn’t you have to say something like “count how many have died within 6 months of the vaccination”. Because we all die sometime. I’m not trying to be funny but “Any cause” covers a wide range of effects some long term and some short term. I was thinking of the practicalities of actually collecting the data. You’ve got a list of people who were vaccinated, when they were vaccinated and when they died. I assume you don’t need to know what caused their death (which might be ‘run over by a bus’) only that they died. In this study I guess it covers a period of say 12 to 18 months after vaccination so any affects longer than that would not be noticed. Is that right?
The answer to your question can be found in the ‘Methods’ section of the study publication which can be reached using the link in the article. The answer is a bit complicated.
In brief, in January 2022 they searched PubMed for all random controlled trials of mRNA and adenovirus covid vaccines. They grouped deaths of all trial participants into various categories (covid, accident, etc).
They examined mortality risk (overall risk of dying as result of vaccination as measured during the follow up periods of the underlying vaccination studies) rather than mortality rate (risk of dying in a specific time period) because the follow up times after vaccination were not the same for all vaccine studies analyzed in this meta-analysis. I think that’s the key study design feature for your question. You’re doubtless correct that if you follow a group of people long enough they all die. In this meta-analysis, the longest period of time in which risk of dying was measured was the longest analysis period in any of the vaccine studies combined in this meta-analysis, which was a few months. Hope that helps.
Hi Steve,
“All-cause mortality” does literally mean ‘death from any/all causes’, yes.
Clinical trials often (though not always) include ‘all-cause mortality as a ‘clinical endpoint’, which means that they monitor this metric in addition to other metrics they’re running the trials to establish. An example…
Let’s rewind back to the early days of developing cancer drugs, and a trial is being done to see if this exciting new drug can successfully shrink a tumour, and if so by how much. So tumour shrinkage is the key clinical endpoint of this trial. So far so good.
But, what if it turns out that the drug is great at shrinking tumours, but it’s also highly toxic and is killing the participants (not just their tumours). This is crucial to know, because the goal of medicine is overall health. We don’t want to shrink a tumour but kill the patient, so it’s common to add all-cause mortality as a further clinical endpoint, so we can monitor whether people in the intervention group are dying at a lower or higher rate than the control group.
So why monitor ‘all causes’ of mortality, and not just ‘did people die of drug-related reactions’ in this trial? …the answer is that the drug could be causing harm/death in patients, via opaque mechanisms that are hard to attribute. All-cause mortality is crude metric (and often other clinical endpoints are used as well to check for further specific health markers) but ACM let’s us see the headline safety signal very clearly. If more people are dying in the intervention group than in the placebo group, then we have an alarm going off and we can respond to that safety signal quickly and investigate.
To your question about timeframes for monitoring adverse effects and death, it varies by study. Naturally, if you wanted to game the system and have your drug look better, you’d have a shorter monitoring window (or perhaps not even include ACM as a clinical endpoint… cough, cough, Pfizer). That would be bad practice, but it happens a lot.
Thanks JJ, There is another time effect I thought of. Suppose vaccine A works brilliantly. It gives 100% protection. But only for a month after which it gives no protection. Vaccine B only gives say 50% protection but it gives that protection for 3 months. I’m not sure of the maths here but I think if you looked at the figures over a 1 month period vaccine A would look best. Over a 3 month period vaccine B would look best.
It’s actually worse than that. Let us say that you are an evil person, and have produced a substance which, when injected, for 10 days makes it very much more likely that you will catch covid. It doesn’t protect against the disease at all. (Note, I am not saying that this is what the existing vaccines are. This is a thought experiment.)
Then you design a trial where people aren’t counted as vaccinated until 14 days after having received their dose. You then go out and vaccinate people. The only result of this is that lots of newly vaccinated people get sick, by your design. And many die. But all of them will be counted in the unvaccinated side of the ledger. This would be a case of ‘how to lie with statistics’ in its simple and pure form. The more you harmed people, the better your results would look.
This is the sort of lying that people who are in positions of public trust are supposed to protect the public against. And it’s easy to check for. It’s not as if the people who run the trials don’t know when the people caught the disease, and couldn’t answer questions about the incidence in the newly vaccinated. ‘Would it be a good idea for people to isolate for 14 days after receiving a dose of the vaccine?’ is something that we ought to be able to answer. “Yes. No. Not when cases are low, but yes when they are over such-and-such threshold”. It’s not that hard a question, given that you have the data.
But when you look at the results of drug trials, what you often see is a game of cat-and-mouse where the drug manufacturers are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the regulators. Or worse, where the regulators are already captured, and just need some study to cloak their decisions with the appearance of good judgement.
This is why we need to take the drug trials out of the hands of the industry that produces them, and approval out of an administrative class that is shielded from all responsibility when things turn out badly, and hand it over to something that more subject to popular control and oversight.
They must know there are many who already saw this coming and knew everything they said was a lie.
My role was with the real threat which is unpredictable but it is a natural happening as it happend long ago. Amaizing, who would have thought that they would use a jab and try to scare the public into taking this as it worked well with the propaganda.
I am surprised so many fell for this especially intelligent people, whom never questiond!
I watched a film recently which was just as the covid senario where people took this pill given by the goverment on their own accord under the beleif they would die a painful death of they did not.At the end of the film the only survivor was a young cleaver boy who refused. Almost like the allegory of the cave by Plato. No one wanted to see the light..
I am still wondering where this virus is as I have had a flu type virus in 2019 lasted 48 hours and have not been ill since but my two vaccinated daughters have been very ill after these jabs and boosters with colds and sores now a pregnant daughter who has to inject herself daily with an anticolagulant into her tummy and being in herseven month.
So from what I have witnessed these jabs are not fit for humans and should be withdrawn. .
Here is something interesting which I had passed to my neighbours too over a year ago
page 10 para 32
32. The resurgence in both hospitalisations and deaths is dominated by those that have received two doses of the vaccine, comprising around 60% and 70% of the wave respectively. This can be attributed to the high levels of uptake in the most at-risk age groups, such that immunisation failures account for more serious illness than unvaccinated individuals. This is discussed further in paragraphs 55 and 56.
link here https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/975909/S1182_SPI-M-O_Summary_of_modelling_of_easing_roadmap_step_2_restrictions.pdf
If one would be looking for real answers they would look to NASA and the problem with the sun where this natural phenomina with the sun is taking place and what it means for the modern world as we know it. The affects will worsen and displacement of people together with the food shortages will cause a big problem so go figure why this is happening.The events to come will remove the surpless without mans intervention.
Forgive me as I am angry what they have done to my daughters.
Thanks for that explanation. Few treatments are entirely without side effects and it takes time to establish what they are and whether the burden of the side effects outweighs the benefits. Unfortunately, commercial and/or political pressures can delay or disrupt acceptance of the scientific work done to establish where the balance lies.
My daughter was really healthy played tennis and very active with a toddler as well as a working medic.
I tried to tell my daughters not to take any of these vaccines, as I did quite a bit of research. I am 72 and not on any medications one would say fit and healthy.and a good diet just as my fit daughter prior to the vaccines. However both of my daughters have not been well after the vaccines the younger daughter who is having her secind baby had been asked to get her fourth booster in her second trimester of pregnancy baby due in in Feb 2023 as she had taken the moderna jabs. Well after having having this booster her 4th jab she has had problems where she now has to inject herself eachday with an anticolagulant not sure if this is warfrin/ rat poison and I find this horrendous as this will cross into the placenta. She is in the nhs and was pushed to take this or not work.
I am now healthier than my children and no flu problems, I have never had the flu jabs, so my immune system is excellent. My neighbour who is the same age as myself had taken the jabs after her fourth dose she was admitted into hospital with pulpatations and kept for 48 hours after was sent home with a perscription for warfrin and a card to carry at all times potential stroke. All the other neighbours that did not take the vaccine are perfectly healthy. (A lucky escape from the horror others are experiencing)
The strange thing is the meeting that took place with Witty etc in March 2021 here is a goverment paper which tells of the affects of those vaccinated. .Page 10 para 32
32. The resurgence in both hospitalisations and deaths is dominated by those that have received two doses of the vaccine, comprising around 60% and 70% of the wave respectively. This can be attributed to the high levels of uptake in the most at-risk age groups, such that immunisation failures account for more serious illness than unvaccinated individuals. This is discussed further in paragraphs 55 and 56.
link here https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/975909/S1182_SPI-M-O_Summary_of_modelling_of_easing_roadmap_step_2_restrictions.pdf
Well Iknow who to hold accountable for the coercion and the threats of no work. My message to my grand children is to trust no one,go by your own instincts and understand the rats who are not your friends. .
Did Dr. Christine Stabell-Benn misspoke at 30:00 ? Didn’t she really mean she does not recommend mRNA to BELOW 50 not “above”. Asking since she thinks mrna reward outweighs risk for over 75.
I presume these adenovirus vaccines (AZ and JJ) were non-live vaccines. But Prof Christine in her 2018 TED talk flagged below suggests non-live vaccines are less beneficial than live vaccines (sometimes even harmful). But even so these non-live vaccines appear to be more beneficial than mRNA ones.
AZ is not good either. I got full body neuropathy from AZ vax.
Medical research in the United States has, on average, lower quality than medical research in the European Union because American organizations use affirmative action (which gives preferential treatment to Hispanics and Africans) to hire scientists, engineers, physicians, etc.
Get more info about affirmative action.
The issue of which type of vaccine is best is interesting but the question of whether vaccines are useful seems to not be well addressed in this study. The value of a vaccine is not just to the person being vaccinated but to others who might not be infected by a person if the vaccine reduces that person’s chances of being infected. Also, it reduces the chances of a virus mutating and non of that was considered by this study.
Except that I have it on good authority from a virologist researcher that in at least the case of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine the trial data showed that post vaccination a person was over 300% more likely to contract Covid than prior to vaccination. Also there is study data that shows from both Israel and other countries that vaccinated asymptomatic cases post vaccination shed virus and are just as likely to infect another person as a fully symptomatic un-vaccinated person. Myself and My fiancee are perfect examples of that. After waiting hoping for more conclusive data we VERY reluctantly decided to get vaccinated in late May 2021. Mostly because it was becoming clear that her career in health care working at a cancer infusion clinic would be terminated if she did not follow through with her employers forced vaccination mandate. Secondarily, we had a long planned trip to Mexico scheduled for October 2021 and were concerned we would not be allowed to travel by the Gestapo’s in the US government without vaccination proof. She got Pfizer and I got JnJ. We both worked all through Covid in 2020 and 2021 as our jobs were “essential”. During that time we know with absolute certainty that in combination we were directly exposed no less than 38 times. Yet never got Covid. Post vaccination and the drop off of protection in the 3-4 month range seem to be when you are most susceptible to catching Covid. Well GUESS WHAT? After being exposed literally dozens of times we both got Covid in Sept 2021 precisely 3-4 months post vaccination and just before our October trip. We are both in good health and historically are rarely sick. Since we got vaccinated both of us have had repeated head colds and suspect we had Covid again earlier this spring. No we did not test this spring but the symptoms matched. The year since we got vaccinated has been the most generally UN-healthy year we have both ever had. I regret completely getting vaccinated and there is absolutely NO WAY IN HELL I will ever get any booster shots of these Garbage vaccines. My fiancee has had the more serious and consistent nagging colds and sinus infections that I and she got the mRNA. I have constant joint aches and pain that I never had before. These started almost immediately after getting the JnJ shot.