Fighting Goliath: Exposing the flawed science and statistics behind the COVID-19 event

by Norman Fenton, Martin Neil

“Fenton & Neil were pioneers in exposing the extent to which flawed and easily manipulated data were used to mislead the public about Covid-19 vaccine safety. This book catalogues their findings.”
— Robert F. Kennedy Jnr

This book is about how the official Covid-19 narrative was based on flawed and manipulated data and science. This narrative claimed that a deadly virus emerged from China, creating a ‘pandemic’ and that humanity was eventually saved by unprecedented lockdowns, and the deployment of a safe and effective miracle vaccine. We question these official claims and show how statistics and science were manipulated to create the hysteria needed to convince people to fear ‘the virus’ and in response adopt extraordinary changes in their behaviour.

We expose the flawed and manipulative thinking that underlies modern virology, epidemiology and respiratory medicine and how these latent scientific vulnerabilities were exploited to spin a narrative used to manipulate medical decision making, public health and personal behaviour.

We describe our fight against the establishment ‘Goliath’, exposing the fact that the data and science underlying the Covid-19 event, in both its origins and response, did not ‘add up’. This includes battles against the UK government, regulators, the Orwellian manipulation of the BBC, and academic censorship. We describe our attempts to reveal the flawed and dangerous scientific ideas and wrongheaded assumptions that resulted in the unnecessary collapse of economies and global decline in health.

“So much of the official narrative regarding Covid science was based on faulty methods and faulty ideas. In this book, Norman Fenton & Martin Neil detail the work and thinking they did to untangle the mess and make sense of the data. The next time there is a pandemic declared, the world would do well to embrace incisive voices and thinkers like Norman and Martin so that the policy responses imposed do not create more suffering than they prevent.”
— Professor Jay Bhattacharya PhD, Director of Stanford University’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging

“This book documents how the medical community, public health officials, and government agencies misled an unsuspecting public into taking what appears to be the most unsafe vaccine in human history. This book is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it explains to the public how the authorities manipulated the data to fool the public. On the other hand, it also serves as a guidebook to people in power on how to mislead the public without getting caught.”
— Steve Kirsch, entrepreneur and founder of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation

“This book chronicles Norman & Martin’s fight against lockdowns and the narrative of a miraculous vaccine that saved us from a deadly virus”
— Toby Young, Associate Editor of The Spectator magazine and creator of the Daily Sceptic blog

“This volume captures the authors’ evolving understanding of what has happened to the scientific method, clinical trial ethics, medical and other freedoms, honesty in public discourse and governance since 2020. Careful reading of the book reveals that what has happened is much more frightening than anything an alleged novel pathogen might have done to the way we live our lives.”
— Mike Yeadon, PhD, ex Chief Scientist and VP, Pfizer Inc.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction

702 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 30, 2024

Reviews

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

"do you ever ask
who engineers your consent
where your free will went?"

I think that this will be a historically important book (https://wherearethenumbers.substack.c...) and as such it makes an interesting comparison with Raissa Berg's 'Acquired Traits' (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...) since they both concern Lysenkoism. The first, the strange Lysenkoism that is currently corrupting Western science, the second the original Lysenkoism. I would recommend reading this book along with Berg's.

The thesis of the book, within the context of the Lysenkoist analysis is essentially irrelevant - the book could be about any topic of public science and how a scientist is treated if they don't follow Vaclav Havel's recommendation in his essay, about Posttotalitarianism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pow...), and feign subordination to the current group think.

Not only the analysis of current Lysenkoism will be of interest to the future historian but the description of institutional failure. The statistics office that was censured for not being able to count is one of many examples.

A part of the book describes the propaganda that was used to enable the scheme. During this part of the book, the tennis scene from the film Blowup (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TYyh...) comes to mind. Alternatively, Vermeer's The Lacemaker for those who are familiar with the details.

But this is to come at the book from some snobby superior position that is born of familiarity with the authors' previous work. They are both very accomplished in their field and have previously written the standard text book on a topic called Bayesian networks as well as a plethora of scientific papers on this subject. They have won accolades from many sources including the UK government for their work. If I didn't know that ... how would I feel, what would I think reading this book? I would like to say that I would engage with the book and objectively weigh their evidence and thesis within it. But, it's so difficult to disentangle myself from what I already know. From a scientific point of view the references provide a treasure trove of examples of Bayesian networks and their applications - if you're into that sort of thing it's worth reading for that alone. But I think anyone reading this review will note that I've ducked the question. When a scientist considers aspects of science that are outside his area of expertise then the scientist is simply another lay person. There are many examples of this throughout the book. To take one, they cite a paper that found evidence of carcinogenicity in the covid spike protein; if the spike protein is carcinogenic, to give people the spike protein in the form of a vaccine is to given them a carcinogen. Upon checking the reference it was found to be pulled. However, I doubt very few readers of the book could determine whether the paper was pulled because the thesis presented was wrong, or the paper was pulled for some other inconsequential (to the thesis) error.

So, to come back to the question that I twice ducked: if I were ignorant of the reputation of the authors, of their previous books, of their previous accolades what would I think? I think I would be ignorantly dismissive of the book. I think I would read it in a prejudicial manner, littering my thoughts with bigoted, "yeah, right" comments and use the lazy self-thought-stopping tired pejorative 'conspiracy theorists'.

[Kerem · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a regular follower of Fenton and Neil's "where are the numbers?" substack throughout covid-19, so it was great to see this book coming out as a collection of many of their key pieces. As top statisticians, Fenton and Neil started their journey with deep dives into cheap tricks such as in case numbers or statistical nonsense in papers published in so-called prestigious journals, but quickly expanded to many aspects of the bizarre period from 2020 t0 2023. The book is not only an excellent summary of the "interesting times" we lived through (and when you read it, you will re-live it), but also shows the evolution of Fenton and Neil's thought process (including how their initial assumptions were too naive and wrong.) Read it to remember it (and, hopefully, not to repeat again with the next "crisis" around the corner.)

[Stephanie Fairey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw it coming, but still...

Excellent breakdown of facts and schemes. Although I didnt agree with all of it, overall an excellent read. Thoroughly recommended.