COVID Opinions #1: Prof. Beda Stadler

***I revamped this entire article after receiving mixed feedback about its previously sarcastic angle.***

The world has become more polarized than ever. Opinions are being censored. Doctors are being censored. Even some scientists have been banned from YouTube altogether, simply because some of their opinions went against what public officials deem to be the truth.

This is a very dangerous slippery slope. Science can only evolve if we look at all angles of a problem, engage in scientific debate and hear from a wide array of people who might have completely different views.

In this new series of articles, I’ll be featuring highly respected scientists who are expressing opinions about many aspects of the COVID pandemic that do not fit the mainstream narrative, and who are therefore often ignored in the media.

My goal in presenting these experts with you is not to argue that these contrarians possess the ultimate truth, but to present you with the other side — and help you reach a balanced understanding of this crisis, and empower you to think for yourself and take your own decisions.

 

Table of Contents

Prof. Beda Stadler: When One of The Most Recognized Immunologists Speaks His Mind 

1- COVID Antibody Tests Are Too Specific, And Vastly Underestimate How Many People Are Immune

2- COVID Shares Many Parts With Other Coronaviruses, Which Explains The Background Level of Immunity We’re Seeing

3- He Initially Went Along With ‘Flatten The Curve’, But Quickly Realized Models Were Based On What He Calls ‘Bullshit’ Assumptions

4- The COVID PCR Test Often Cannot Tell You If You Have An Active Infection, If You Can Spread The Virus, If You’ve Just Had It In The Past — And The Abusive Testing Has Created So Much Nonsense And Panic

5- Mask Wearing Has Become A Religious Belief, Hasn’t Made A Difference In COVID Spread, And Is Supported By Weak Science At Best

6 – Argentina Shows Us How Ineffective Masks And Lockdowns Are

7- Doctors Cannot Identify COVID Based on Symptoms Alone, And Many People Have Co-Infections

8- Italy Never Had A Real Crisis, Just A Few Localized Issues

9- Sweden Did A Huge Mistake With Nursing Homes, But Otherwise Did Great — Without Lockdowns

10- The Vast Majority of the Population Was Already Immune to COVID Due to Exposure to Other Cold-Inducing Coronaviruses

11- So-Called COVID “Long-Term Effects” Are Rooted In Confirmation Bias And Fear Mongering

12- Many of His Colleagues Think The Same, But Don’t Want To Risk Their Career By Speaking Their Truth (Groupthink Is Taking Over)

 

Conclusion: No Other Immunologist Dared Attack Him On His Views, So Far

Special Thanks

 

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Prof. Beda Stadler: When One of The Most Recognized Immunologists Speaks His Mind 

Professor Beda Stadler is the former director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Bern, a biologist and professor emeritus.

In early June, Stadler wrote a controversial article in the Swiss magazine Weltwoche (World Week) on June 10th. His article was re-posted on Medium on July 1st, and he also gave an interview to engineer Ivor Cummins on July 28th.

He shared the following views that go completely against everything we’ve been hearing about the virus:

 

1- COVID Antibody Tests Are Too Specific, And Vastly Underestimate How Many People Are Immune

“Most of the assays are focused on being specific, and on only measuring SARS-CoV-2. They all make the same thing: They make antibodies against the spike protein. But for many other viruses, other parts of the protein also contribute to immunity. And even to protection. That has been described even for influenza.

For influenza it’s known that some of the core proteins of the influenza virus provide immunity.”

Translation: Serology (antibody) studies are a poor reflection of what fraction of a given population is immune to COVID. The latest indications is that when 10-20% of a population has antibodies, the virus burns out or slows down dramatically due to sufficient population-level immunity.

 

2- COVID Shares Many Parts With Other Coronaviruses, Which Explains The Background Level of Immunity We’re Seeing

“The first assumption of all these modelers who sold ‘flatten the curve’ to all the politicians was that they all believed that the virus is new. Of course it’s kind of a new virus! But many parts of the virus are not new. It has other coronaviruses that are relatives.”

 

3- He Initially Went Along With ‘Flatten The Curve’, But Quickly Realized Models Were Based On What He Calls ‘Bullshit’ Assumptions

“I had a problem with this ‘flatten the curve’, but I went along with it I must say, to my own shame. Because they said or else the collateral damage that arises is too big, because all the hospitals will be overwhelmed, everybody knows the story. […]

But then, all over Europe, the curve came down… and, independent of whether there was a harsh lockdown or not. It was just: Whatever a country did, it didn’t matter, the curves were coming down. 

So that means that all [what] the model calculators did, all their self-made computer programs… that was basically bullshit, because there was a basic immunity there.”

 

4- The COVID PCR Test Often Cannot Tell You If You Have An Active Infection, If You Can Spread The Virus, If You’ve Just Had It In The Past — And The Abusive Testing Has Created So Much Nonsense And Panic

“The most panic-inducing principle [is that] most media still speak about ‘today we have so many new infections’ which is totally… it’s not true! A virus, it’s a particle. It goes to everybody. So if somebody is immune, the virus also hosts inside this body. And it will multiply even a little bit.

But if you’re immune, you attack the virus first with the antibodies and you immediately make debris, the virus is destroyed, you have only part of the virus around in your tissue if you make a swab, or in your blood if you test it.

You will find this debris, and part of this debris will be nucleic acid, it’s RNA. And if you make a PCR [test], all these people will test positive because the assay will pick up [….] only a tiny piece of RNA that is then amplified. And this assay cannot tell you whether you have the virus, or you just have some dead chunks of the virus which still gives you a positive result.

Corona-positive with a PCR: Everybody should realize this doesn’t mean it’s virulent, which means it can make you sick… all this is not in this test. […] No other virus on this planet has been accompanied by so much testing — testing that has created so much nonsense and panic.”

Translation: COVID tests are very unreliable, as I’ve explained in length in my previous articles. This becomes even more important in late stages of a pandemic. When you test large amounts of people who are asymptomatic, you get large amounts of false-positive tests. (More here.)

 

5- Mask Wearing Has Become A Religious Belief, Hasn’t Made A Difference In COVID Spread, And Is Supported By Weak Science At Best

“The most dangerous thing you can say in Switzerland is that the face mask doesn’t protect you. If you say this you’re almost lynched! Just because you said this.

There is no way we can discuss religious questions with [a] rational approach. You have no chance anymore. […]”

Ivor Cummins: “The reality is that […] the mandatory masks came in at all different dates. The curves never changed at all. Nothing. And that makes sense because 40 years of science have been unanimous, pretty much, that influenza viruses, surgical masks and coverings are just ineffective. So it agrees with the science. 

It doesn’t agree with the science of June 2020. I saw a flurry of papers coming out that said ‘masks could be good’… and they were overwhelmingly associational and modeling papers. So a few weeks of papers have overturned a few decades of accepted scientific sense. What do you think of this mask thing?”

Stadler: “I think the same way and I said that in the region where I am [Nick’s note: In Switzerland], since 5 weeks, not a single case — nobody died. I said ‘maybe it’s better to wear a helmet than a mask, because the chance that someone will drop something on your head is greater than picking the virus up.

[…] This is now a religious question. Wearing a mask is like wearing a cross around your neck. The sad thing is all those people who want the mask, this is a way they can force and put pressure on other people. And they like that… that they can suppress other people.

All of a sudden, Mr. Nobody, in public, has the right to shout at somebody because they don’t wear a mask. He becomes a policeman. He gets all the right to attack other people. It’s this Facebook mentality…”

Translation: Mask wearing for all is a policy that is still debated among scientists. The evidence that it’s working to slow down COVID spread is mixed.

 

6 – Argentina Shows Us How Ineffective Masks And Lockdowns Are

“Argentina has the longest lockdown since 4 months. Total lockdown. If you go on the street, the police will get you, if you don’t have a good reason like going to the doctor or emergency shopping or whatever. No other country is having at the moment such a harsh lockdown.

And total mask wearing principle. Everybody has them. The curves are going up, up, up. Not only the infections, but also the death rate. So whoever is saying ‘wear a mask’, they should look to Argentina. They wear masks like nobody wears them… there’s no effect.”

 

7- Doctors Cannot Identify COVID Based on Symptoms Alone, And Many People Have Co-Infections

“These cold viruses, they migrate around the world. That’s why we [see a seasonal effect]. We have rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, influenza viruses, coronaviruses — they’re all together. And for years — we have an influenza sentinel in Switzerland, you know… I was always mad that they call this “influenza sentinel”, because it always looked like these are influenza patients.

But a doctor cannot discriminate between a heavy adeno-, rhino-, influenza or corona if he just looks at the patient. It looks so similar. These so-called “flu diseases” were always a mix of different viruses. And actually if you look into science, there’s probably more than 200 viruses that create flu-like symptoms.

We have now tested for corona like hell, but many of these patients probably had at the same time some other viruses. They all come together, and it could have worsened the disease.”

[Nick’s note: I first talked about this glaring problem back in early April. 96% of doctors in Korea could not successfully identify COVID in patients based on symptoms alone, and yet all the “probable” COVID cases that were added a few weeks into the pandemic were based on symptoms alone…]

 

8- Italy Never Had A Real Crisis, Just A Few Localized Issues

“This has to be stated again and again… Italy did not have a problem. It was certain regions, and especially certain hospitals that every year had a problem with the flu already.

Some of my Italian friends get very nervous because they work in hospitals that are doing perfectly well, they never had a big problem, and they’ve treated patients.

If we point fingers to Italy and Spain, we should pinpoint certain regions within [these countries].”

 

9- Sweden Did A Huge Mistake With Nursing Homes, But Otherwise Did Great — Without Lockdowns

Sweden minimally admitted that the major strategy that every country should have had – protect the vulnerable people, in that they made a mistake. And to my total astonishment, they apologized for it! Can you imagine one of our politicians apologizing for some things that they did? I’ve never seen this.

And Sweden did this. […] More than half the deaths they had were in [nursing homes]. If you subtract these deaths for which they have apologized, it was mainly in the region of Stockholm… the death rate is exactly the same as Switzerland. Without the lockdown, without all this…”

 

10- The Vast Majority of the Population Was Already Immune to COVID Due to Exposure to Other Cold-Inducing Coronaviruses

“If you take the deaths, and those who have to go to the hospital […] — the rest is immune [to COVID]. The rest had a small cold, like every year, and suffered a little bit. If your immunity is perfect, you don’t feel anything.

[…] All the rest which had strong symptoms — so that they had to go to hospitals, are those people who didn’t have a strong enough immunity. Take this percentage, turn it around, and you come to about 80% of people who are probably immune [to COVID].”

Read More: Karl Friston: up to 80% not even susceptible to Covid-19

 

11- So-Called COVID “Long-Term Effects” Are Rooted In Confirmation Bias And Fear Mongering

“In Switzerland, those who create the most panic still are medical doctors. It started some time ago when they said ‘be careful, this disease can make Kawasaki syndrome’. And it was a paper with I think 6 children, 3 have corona, 3 not… it was enough to say that… I got mails from doctors saying ‘did you hear this? Be careful what you say!’. […] That’s bullshit.

Now we hear about “long-term consequences”. Long-term disease. The funny thing about it is… it’s the type of disease that normally anti-vaxxers say ‘vaccines are doing it’. Now we’re seeing medical doctors come up with these strange… like the fatigue syndrome, or whatever… diseases that never were a disease and never are one. But with nice names, you know. Now all these diseases come up as long-term damages. Or then they say ‘oh, months later after COVID the lungs still have some problems’ — of course! If you destroyed parts of the lung, it doesn’t grow back in two days.

You have the same problem if you have the flu. But nobody looked at these effects because it’s just the flu! […] Whatever happens later on that may be due to the flu… nobody was interested in it.”

[Nick’s note: I hate the term “anti-vaxxer” and personally find it an extremely ignorant attempt at discrediting a large group of people who want to ensure vaccines are proven safe and effective — without corporate influence tainting the science.

We’re also facing an epidemic of chronic diseases, including mystery illness that is sometimes called “chronic fatigue syndrome”. According to my research it’s a bit of a misnomer and includes people with undiagnosed electro hypersensitivity, chemical sensitivity and a slew of other conditions. These people have diseases that are very real, but misdiagnosed. My 2 cents.]

 

12- Many of His Colleagues Think The Same, But Don’t Want To Risk Their Career By Speaking Their Truth (Groupthink Is Taking Over)

Ivor Cummins: You called some of your colleagues “immunity deniers”, kind of jokingly, but making the point that actual immunology people are speaking incorrectly on these fundamentals we’re talking about. Why is that? Why is it so widespread? Is there a fear amongst community that we’ve all got to say the same thing, that you can’t speak out like you are?

Stadler: I think you’re making a valid point, and I draw the conclusion from emails and telephones I had from young immunologists… I had written some articles for Swiss newspaper about immunity, cross-reaction and all this — and then, they called me up and said “thank you very much for saying this! We say this amongst our friends, but even then we are shut down… and we do not dare to say it in public. We still have a career in front of us.”

 

Conclusion: No Other Immunologist Dared Attack Him On His Views, So Far

“To be fair, and to my own astonishment, in Switzerland, when I brought up this principle and said ‘Listen, our herd immunity is already there because there is this cross-reaction that we have, almost everybody has this’ and then I explained this…

Until today, I have not heard from a single immunologist within Switzerland that I was wrong, and that this is not true. […] If I say other things usually they like to attack me! It is so obvious that they do not dare to attack me. 

[…] I know you hate the principle of herd immunity because the epidemiologists, they all said ‘this is from the devil, you cannot do it, it’s dangerous, just look at Sweden’, and so on… but now, look at the new data:

Most of the people are actually immune already. So we do not have to protect the people. We have to protect the vulnerable people. That’s the strategy. Nobody had this strategy all over the world, and it’s the most obvious strategy to follow.”

 

Special Thanks

I’d like to single out the work of Ivor Cummins, who has been interviewing some of the best scientific minds on a vast array of topics for the last several years. His analysis of the COVID data has been nothing short of incredible, and his use of logic and rational thinking has been an inspiration. To support Ivor’s work, visit his Patreon page and choose the level of membership that fits your circumstances.

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