What the EMA Leak Tells Us About... The Public

Yes, dear viewer, you're guilty too

It’s usually bad form for a publication to criticise their own audience, although one could consider this a wider remark on society as a whole, however this frank honesty needs to be desperately said, and I think open dialogue is crucial to improving society as a whole, especially in the realm of healthcare.

I could understand the media betrayal.

I could understand the government betrayal.

I could even, through gritted teeth, understand the betrayal by clinical review.

What I cannot understand is the betrayal by the public.

No Conflict Of Interest

A common theme with betrayal is it nearly always involves a conflict of interest. “Regulators” have financial ties. Government “representatives” have financial ties. “Reviewers” have financial ties. Maybe, even, a few of the public.

But the overwhelming majority of the public? No conflicts of interest. None.

Which begs me the question, why did the public let everybody down when it came to the EMA leak?

Unclear Motivations

When I first decided to cover the EMA leak, I figured most people’s recluctance would be that it was a hoax. After all, I was a random nobody reporting on these documents, and the first accusation a spin doctor usually invents is the claim it is “made up” or “invented”. I figured if I could get at least one clinical reviewer to review and confirm the documents, I was in the clear.

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) took up the ball and did due dilligence, and confirmed that the documents were indeed authentic, and had credible grounds for concern. Great, one clinical reviewer doing their job.

But then there was this deafening silence. I thought maybe the public lacked a layman’s explanation, a medical understanding. I proceeded to break down the terminology and concerns in a concise way, with visual evidence and references, in a video.

My video covering the topic didn’t break (at the time) 130 views (it is now a meagre 420 with my persisent efforts and hasn’t increased in the last few months). A video that should have, for all intents and purposes, gone viral, if not to forewarn people.

The Public Just Did Not Care

The numbers of viewership on even the BMJ’s own reporting was equally as dismal, even now, it’s a pretty poor showing for an explosive document:

Only 4,403 tweets. Ouch. I’ve seen stupid, shallow, anorexic memes get more re-tweets. As for the 54 news outlets? Most of them were obscure ones (ever heard of “Newsbreak”, “Phyisician’s Weekly” or “Zougla”?), and the few that weren’t, involved articles begging Biden to relax restrictions on COVID-19 shots. That’s right. Ignore the consequences.

Only 2 Wikipedia pages, and only blogged in 4 posts. I’ve written about it more times in this tiny Substack. Pulled and examined more data from it.

Public Shoot Themselves In The Foot

By mistreating any leaked documents to the public in this fashion, treating them as a less important thing than a goddamn meme, the public are doing a disservice to those who take risks, both in leaking the information, and in reporting it. Then they wonder why they never discover any major health issues until it is too late.

Is it really that hard to “retweet” or “repost” on a website a single article link to at least the BMJ? 4,403 tweets is godawful. An insult. And in doing so, the public discourage any further whistleblowers or leakers coming forward, because why the hell would any of them go to jail for you selfish c**ts?

You literally treat their information sources like dirt, to be ignored. 2 years of my life I spent trying to draw attention to this leak, a rare opportunity to see inside how corrupt regulatory agencies work, and the public just throw it away. ‘Oh, that’s interesting’ toss. Back to retweeting memes.

Can The Public Improve Themselves?

Yes they can. Start not just to repost it yourself, but garner wider attention to it. Proactively go explore, meet people, refer to industry specialists, talk to politicians, speak with other people. Make it common knowledge. ‘Hey, did you know there’s evidence of mRNA instability in the COVID-19 shots?’. It’s proven, confirmed, peer reviewed externally, backed up, verified.

The public keep getting abused, and then just forgetting about it and going back to memes and stupid s**t, and you wonder why governments day-after-day keep abusing you. Sure, the news report is dry as paint and boring, it’s not the latest ‘political death battle’…

But Your Fucking Life Is At Stake

You literally have a conflict of interest to publicly go report it non-stop until it’s accepted by everybody. Ignorance on the subject puts your life at stake. It puts others’ lives at stake. It’s not fun, of course it isn’t… it’s serious. Deadly, deadly serious.

Doesn’t matter if someone agrees with you or not. Post it, have them read it, move on to the next person. Finance billboards. Setup a website. Citizen Journalists are not superman, they need the public’s help. And yet I bet you’ll go back to reposting NBC, Fox news and other major news outlets that hate your guts and did not report on this topic to you.

Your society becomes what you tolerate and accept. And right now, the public accept corruption and poor health standards, and loves shallow pointless memes that don’t convey any new information, and the public evidently hate information leaks and Citizen Journalists.

Do Better. I know you can.

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