It’s as predictable as climate alarmism in summer: yet another pile-on of a conservative heretic by the usual deranged mob of leftist politicians and their journalist bootlickers – and yet another instance of “Scotty from Marketing” gutlessly ditching one of his own to try and “get ahead of the story”. Where Morrison has found the backbone to commendably stand up to China’s bullying is anyone’s guess – because he sure as hell can’t seem to grow a spine at home when the left come baying for one of his own MPs.
The latest victim is “rogue” MP, Craig Kelly.
Kelly was pilloried because he talked to Sydney Labor MP Tanya Plibersek in the corridors of parliament on Wednesday about one of the right’s favourite pandemic obsessions — the use of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19.
The drug has been “culture warred” globally because former US president Donald Trump said mid-year that he was taking it. From that moment criticising it has been an article of faith on the left; defending it, the province of the right.
Or, the province of those who prefer to weigh up the evidence rather than blindly accept authoritarian edicts handed down from on high. While it is probably true that at least some on the right are simply digging the trenches in opposition to the left, the fact of the matter is that, this time, the right have some pretty good evidence on their side. All the left have got is “Orange Man Bad!” and spurious appeals to authority.
Yet journalists who have followed the debate globally know HCQ is being used widely, especially in Asia, where it is often used early in the infection with zinc. Large studies have been equivocal but the drug has serious advocates in epidemiology in the US. The Sydney Morning Herald on Friday did well publishing pieces by immunologist Robert Clancy supporting use of HCQ and another drug Kelly recommends, Ivermectin. It also ran a piece from prominent epidemiologist Catherine Bennett that was equivocal but still open-minded about HCQ.
There seems to be some pretty good evidence to support the use of HCQ and ivermectin. That evidence should be evaluated on its merits, not simply dismissed out of hand on the basis that “Trump said it”. That is the most un-scientific argument imaginable. The very fact that HCQ, for instance, has been used safely for decades, yet was suddenly placed under new restrictions by Australian authorities almost immediately following Trump’s endorsement, shows that public health bureaucrats are playing politics, not practising evidence-based policy.
And, no matter what a gaggle of leftist hacks want to believe, Craig Kelly is mostly right.
A full fact check would confirm much of what Kelly has said of the drug is true. HCQ is used to treat COVID in India, the Czech Republic and some states in the US. Yet Kelly is wrong to say Australian lives are at risk because it is not used here: COVID-19 is almost non-existent here. Kelly stumbled by appearing unconvinced on COVID vaccinations but insists he is no anti-vaxxer.
If HCQ is effective at treating COVID and COVID is most definitely present (as “almost non-existent” necessarily entails), then it is a fact that the lives of those Australians infected may be being put at risk by refusing a well-supported treatment. And so what if Kelly is unconvinced on the efficacy and safety of the COVID vaccinations? There’s at least some grounds for this. That doesn’t at all contradict Kelly’s assertion that he is not an anti-vaxxer.
This writer is doggedly pro-vaccination. I have my flu shot every year and other vaccinations as scheduled or necessary (tetanus, for example). That doesn’t mean that I’m not also cautious about the COVID vaccines. I’ll probably end up getting it, eventually, but I sure as hell won’t be railroaded by media-political bullying – and I will absolutely resist any attempts to force it on anyone.
Of course, this is far from the first time that Kelly has been lied about by “fact-checkers”.
The ABC fact check unit was previously forced to concede in December 2018 that Kelly was correct when he cited a study from Auckland University to argue many Pacific atolls were actually rising above sea level.
Most of Kelly’s pronouncements on Sky News and much on his controversial Facebook page concern climate. Net zero emissions of CO2 by 2050 is a Kelly obsession, but a journalistic piety that seldom triggers a sceptical thought in the media world. Yet there is plenty of evidence much of what the media has reported about Australia’s role in emissions reduction is wrong.
And Craig Kelly is right. Just as he was right when he said that Australia’s century-long trend has been to higher rainfall, not less. No matter how the ABC’s lying “Fact Check Unit” tried to obfuscate and frame him.
Politicians and journalists should always question scientists, and never be “cancelled” for doing so. Doctors and scientists should advise on health and environment policy but elected politicians must always decide and be accountable.
The Australian
That’s not science, it’s dogma. The left-media have made fetishes of a new, lab-coated priestly caste. Because they so often choose not to remember, doctors and scientists should be reminded that they are often wrong – and with sometimes devastating consequences – and told to mind their place.
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