Some health professionals in the UK felt they had to self-censor during the COVID-19 pandemic to protect their jobs, a veteran consultant surgeon has said.
“Very few of us are willing to speak out because—particularly if you have an NHS job—basically your job’s on the line if you speak out, and you'll get called in to speak to the medical director and told you’ve got to stop, and may be suspended,” he said.
Repeated Lockdowns
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the first national lockdown in England in late March 2020. Although not convinced it was the right way to go, Hinton said he didn’t have any criticisms for the initial lockdown given the difficult choice ministers were facing.“If politicians panic and they overdo things and they’re too cautious, well, they’re not going to get the blame for that. If they don’t do enough and it’s a disaster, they‘ll absolutely get the blame. So they’ll never take that risk,” Hinton said.
“But it was obvious from that point, that from then on, no further lockdown was necessary, and no further repeated lockdowns were necessary because the cases had just come down by themselves,” he contended.
Hinton said international data indicated “no positive correlation between harder, longer lockdowns and less COVID,” noting that lockdowns also caused harms such as to education and in terms of cancer diagnosis and treatment delays.
He also noted that the average age of deaths with COVID-19 was similar to the average age of deaths from other causes.
Unclear If mRNA Vaccines Would ‘Switch Off’
Hinton said he and his son, an orthopedic surgeon who had had COVID-19, decided to get the vaccines in early 2021—before realising the vaccines’ effectiveness in preventing transmission is limited and short-lived.“As doctors, we were being told it was our duty to take the vaccine because it was going to protect our vulnerable patients from catching COVID from us. Because if we took the vaccine, we couldn’t catch it, we couldn’t pass it on. We now know both those things are untrue,” he said.
He disputed authorities’ claim that no step had been skipped in the vaccines’ authorisation processes, saying it was “concerning” the way they were fast-tracked.
The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency previously said it was able to expedite the approval process by reviewing data as it came instead of waiting for all data to become available.
“[With] a normal vaccine, you’re injecting a known amount of some dead virus or something, and you know what the reaction to that will be. Here, you’re injecting a known amount of the mRNA, but two people could make completely different amounts of Spike protein from that.”
He equated that to giving some patients normal doses of paracetamol to treat a headache, while giving other patients 100 times the normal dose.
Hinton, who took two doses of the Pfizer vaccine in January and March 2021, said he’s still taking regular blood tests to monitor his spike protein antibodies, which can be obtained from COVID-19 infections or from the vaccines.
The results have been concerning, Hinton said. “I’m still making large amounts of Spike protein ... Will I forever? And will that cause a problem? I don’t know.”