We’re now nearly four and a half years into the global COVID-19 pandemic, and the longer it goes on the more odd things happen in the contingent of people, be they physicians, scientists, or lay people, who have minimized the disease, peddled unproven—and now disproven—repurposed drugs as cures, claimed that SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, was due to a “lab leak,” and spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about COVID-19 vaccines. Sure, there are the usual crank fights (everyone versus Robert Malone, “inventor of mRNA vaccines,” comes to mind). One blast from the past whom I’ve seen resurfacing lately is Dr. Michael Yeadon. Before the pandemic, Yeadon worked for Pfizer in drug development for respiratory diseases as a vice-president of of the company’s allergy and respiratory research unit in Sandwich, Kent, and later formed his own biotech company. However, after the pandemic hit in 2020, he soon pivoted to become of the earliest purveyors of the antivax lie that COVID-19 vaccines cause infertility—in December 2021, just as the vaccines were rolling off the production lines for the first time in large quantities at Pfizer!—and later expanded his antivax fear mongering to claim that the vaccines were not just causing infertility but “depopulation.” Amazingly, it’s been over three years since I last wrote about this particular antivax crank, which is why his resurgence interests me.
So what has Michael Yeadon been up to lately? Remember how I mentioned above the quacks and cranks who promoted unproven—and now disproven—repurposed drugs like ivermectin to treat COVID-19? Beginning in late 2020, as it was becoming clear that the evidence regarding the original repurposed drug for COVID-19, hydroxychloroquine, was trending in a very negative direction (i.e., failing to support its efficacy for COVID-19), a veterinary deworming medicine that is also used to treat helminthic diseases (diseases caused by roundworms) in humans, became the new hydroxychloroquine. I’m referring, of course, to ivermectin, which became, either by itself or in combination with other unproven or disproven supplements, repurposed drugs, and the like, every COVID-19 quack’s favorite COVID cure. Heres’ where things get fun. I’ve been seeing across the wretched hive of scum and antivax quackery, Substack, a number of articles quoting Yeadon thusly about ivermectin:
Actually, it’s something I need to mention. I’ve only learned in the last three weeks, and so you probably won’t have heard it, but it all fits when I say it. You know that there was a- you know, ‘Team Hero’, the alternative media people. Not me, the people who are 100 times more famous around the world. I won’t mention them at this particular point, but you all know who I’m thinking. So many doctors who are Americans. And as soon as the pandemic arrived, they came up with ‘early treatment for Covid 19’ didn’t they? And they pushed and pushed and pushed. At first I thought there was a virus and said it was great that they were coming up with treatments. Then later when I realized there wasn’t, I thought they were- I thought, why are they pushing this stuff? I thought, they’re pushing harmless placebos on the worried well, and they’re providing a belief structure that there really is a pandemic. Otherwise, why would these clever people be going out of their way to sell you this stuff? And it’s like, unfortunately, it’s much worse than that, one of the centre stage drugs that they want you to take, Ivermectin, is one of the most violent fertility toxins I’ve ever come across. And I didn’t know this because, like you, you probably didn’t think to do the deep research. And I didn’t.
Here’s the whole video, on—where else?—Rumble:
This quote makes me realize that I totally forgot to write about Yeadon again a few months back, when he turned into a virus denier—yes, someone who denies that COVID-19 was a novel disease, that the coronavirus that causes it, SARS-CoV-2, was ever isolated, and that there ever was a pandemic, calling the backdrop to the pandemic “a global crime scene of unprecedented scale and nature” and the COVID-19 vaccines “potions against demons,” a “psyop.”
But enough about that. Yeadon has gone so far down the rabbit hole of COVID-19 conspiracies and antivax conspiracies that he apparently decided that he had to distinguish himself somehow in this population by inventing a conspiracy theory that would rile up his fellow conspiracy theorists, namely that “they”—this time all those quacks like the ones at the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance, who in the US were the most enthusiastic grifters selling ivermectin for COVID-19, before expanding to more general quackery, including cancer quackery, and “combining Eastern and Western medicine“—were in on the conspiracy. The idea seems to be that it wasn’t just the vaccines and the companies manufacturing them that were part of the psyops, but also all the quacks selling ivermectin as a cure-all for COVID-19, apparently knowing that it was supposedly a horrific toxin when it comes to fertility. Unsurprisingly, he claims to have this knowledge based on secret document leaks and studies:
So someone contacted me a few weeks ago with a bloody great dossier of papers that go back from its discovery and is unquestionably at around the doses you’re being required- you’re being suggested to take in rats and rabbits, and in some limited studies in humans, it reduces the ability to conceive and to grow babies to term. And doesn’t it fit? Doesn’t it fit? Why did this- There’s nothing that’s major on the world stage that’s accidental, I’m afraid. That’s the problem. And so now you know. There’s nothing major on the world stage that’s accidental. Who put ivermectin there? Well, the perpetrators did. And why did they put it there? It’s like if you don’t get jabbed and avoid impacts on your fertility, a good chunk of you will take ivermectin instead. And it gets worse. And then I’ll stop talking about this because I haven’t written about it yet, but it’s on my mind. There are lots of other supplements that the worried well take. And again, I had thought it was mainly a money making business. Right? A money making business. They’ll sell you K2 or whatever it is. And there’s loads of things I’ve never heard of. And you look at them in the health- the so-called health food store.
While I do have to admit, ironically enough, that Yeadon is correct about the supplement business peddling mostly useless products in order to make money, the rest of this is just more conspiracy mongering. I’ve perused PubMed for articles on ivermectin and fertility, and let’s just say that the studies that I’ve found have been…less than impressive with respect to a major effect on fertility that would justify Yeadon’s characterization of it as “one of the most violent fertility toxins” out there. I’m not saying that there isn’t some evidence that ivermectin has mild adverse effects on fertility, but the studies are conflicting, and the FDA even stated in 2020 that reduced sperm count or male sterility is not a known side effect of ivermectin. The claim seems to derive from a single study in 2011 published by the Scholars Research Library in an online journal called the Archives of Applied Science Research, which claims that it is a peer reviewed, open access online publication, but in reality appears to be a bottom-feeding pay-to-play “open access journal.” The rest of the fertility studies that I’ve been able to find are all animal studies in mice, rats, rabbits, horses, rams, and the like, with mixed results in rabbits, possible fertility issues in rodents, and no fertility issues in humans and larger animals.
None of that stops Yeadon from continuing to spin his conspiracy theory:
And my wife will often ask me what will this do? I’ve said, I’ve never heard of it. I was originally a biochemist and toxicologist. I’ve never heard of it. I have to look it up. It’s real. It does exist. But I thought they were just flogging benign placebos to the worried well, just to steal money off them. Unfortunately, it’s no so. Many of the supplements, including most of the really famous ones, hamper the elimination from your body of ivermectin. So if you are a person that thinks, well, I’m going to take care of my health and not have the jabs, I’ve got this ivermectin that will protect me, and I’ve got all these other supplements. And those supplements stop your body eliminating ivermectin. It’s a drug-drug- a negative drug drug interaction. It’s like this can’t be coincidence, folks. It’s not coincidence. But there were several of these health supplements that the papers specifically showed were what’s called PGP, P-glycoprotein, P-glycoprotein inhibitors, and ivermectin is secreted using P-glycoprotein pathways. And it was like, oh my God. And we have ivermectin in the bathroom cabinet and all the PGP inhibitor supplements in the in the kitchen cupboard, and we threw them all in the bin.”
Wow! The evil goes even deeper than I thought! According to the conspiracy theory, not only is ivermectin a “violent fertility toxin,” but all those other supplements “they” sell you with ivermectin make the situation worse because they supposedly block the body’s elimination of ivermectin! I couldn’t stand to listen to all of Yeadon’s appearance (the clip above is just a five-minute excerpt of a much longer video), but I was amused to see him go on and on about how you can “question” individual drugs or even a class of drugs like statins, but if you “question” vaccines you are in deep, deep doo-doo, so to speak, and professional societies will come crashing down on you like the proverbial ton of bricks.
Unsurprisingly, Tim Truth—a hilarious pseudonym for the podcaster interviewing Yeadon—laps this all up approvingly:
I’m gobsmacked by the ivermectin thing. I mean, that is a real, real shock.But I think what it shows is what Albert Pike famously said, you know, when they want a hero we will supply them. So, during the whole plandemic, the fake pandemic, there were various freedom fighters you hinted at, particularly American doctors who emerged apparently as heroes for our side, that they too were questioning the system and they were fighting back. The ones that get prominence are always working for the enemy, aren’t they?
Predictably, Yeadon answered yes, and continued on:
See, that’s the point. Without naming individuals, there are certain people who I would have regarded professionally as my peers pretty much. They’ve grown large organizations, the purpose of which is now absolutely clear to me.
Of course it is now. Like all conspiracy theorists, Yeadon thinks that he is the possessor of “hidden knowledge” to which only a very few brilliant or chosen people are privy.
While it’s not entirely unexpected to see Yeadon go full conspiracy crank, it was somewhat unexpected to see him go full conspiracy crank in a way that makes all the “brave maverick doctors” selling ivermectin as a cure-all for COVID-19 (and now cancer) part of the conspiracy by big pharma to pump everyone full of mRNA and thereby depopulate the earth. Totally expected is the reaction of some of those promoting ivermectin to Yeadon’s—in their eyes—heel turn. Tess Lawrie, for instance, who led the UK version of FLCCC, The BIRD Group, was most definitely not pleased. Ironically enough, she is correct about the studies used by Yeadon to back up his claim:
The notion that ivermectin may cause infertility has been floating around since 2021 based on decade-old, mainly animal studies. After scanning such studies in 2021, I did not find the claim to be credible based on the supporting evidence. The animal studies being shared as proof, I found to involve very high doses of ivermectin, given for long periods with very short term follow up. Anything given in high doses, including overdosing on water, can cause harm. In my opinion as a research scientist with expertise in evaluating bodies of evidence, much more research was needed before making a claim that ivermectin is harmful to human fertility.
Back in 2021, when this assertion was doing the rounds on social media, it felt to me to be more like a distraction, as it does now.
More amusingly, she also makes arguments based on—sort of—logic:
- If the globalists are secretly pro-ivermectin and are delighted that its widespread use for worms and other infections, inflammation, and cancer will contribute to genocide, why are all the doctors who use ivermectin being censored and losing their licences? Why aren’t we being embraced into the globalist fold and showered with Gates’ money and media coverage?
- Having been given billions of times worldwide, ivermectin clearly hasn’t managed to wipe us out yet so doesn’t seem to be a very good genocidal tool if it is such. Through our air, food and water, there are many more direct ways the globalists can harm and are harming us. In addition, they’re angling for more and forced lipid nanoparticle (LNP) biotech products to be given by our governments to us in the guise of ‘vaccines’.
- Are the animal studies being shared as evidence that ivermectin causes infertility really reflective of how ivermectin is being used in living men and women?
Silly Tess, the globalists are far more clever than you give them credit for. They are playing, as Yeadon puts it else where in the interview, eleven-dimensional chess. The answer to the first question is obviously: It’s a psyop. It’s what “They” want you to think, that “They” are opposed to ivermectin. In reality, “They” are “censoring” the brave mavericks because “They” know that martyring such brave mavericks will only make ivermectin more popular. As for the second point, I can say the same thing about the vaccines, which kill damned close to no one and do not cause infertility; they are clearly an even worse tool of global depopulation than ivermectin! The answer to the third question, of course, is, of course, no. The doses used in the animal studies were very, very high.
Let it not be said, however, that Lawrie herself isn’t prone to conspiracy theories in which ivermectin might be part of a global depopulation plot. It’s just that “They” won’t do it in the same way that Yeadon seems to think:
Do I think the globalists might try to use ivermectin as part of their depopulation agenda?
Yes, I do. It is clear that the globalists want to get access to our bodies to inject stuff. It occurred to me as far back as 2021 that they may well be planning an ivermectin injection to be rolled out in due course, and we see these being developed by the usual culprits.
So although the answer to the question above is YES, it is not for the reasons put forward; rather because the ivermectin injection deployed by these sociopaths would most likely contain the same harmful nanotechnology as the Covid-19 biotechnology, with LNPs and assorted other toxic ingredients.
“They” are most certainly incredibly clever, wouldn’t you say?
Dr. William Makis, the disgraced and delicensed nuclear medicine radiologist who falsely claims that he’s an oncologist and is one of the inventors—possibly the inventor—of the lie that COVID-19 vaccines cause “turbo cancers,” cancers much more aggressive and deadly than your ordinary run-of-the-mill cancers, is similarly not at all pleased with Yeadon’s new conspiracy theory, proclaiming that IVERMECTIN is under attack again – a threat to Cancer Industry & Vaccine Cartel, Ivermectin is now attacked as a “fertility toxin” just ahead of new mRNA Vaccines, new Pandemic and possible lockdowns. Unsurprisingly, Makis advocates treating these “turbo cancers” with ivermectin.
His response is one big rant:
My response to Dr. Mike Yeadon would be: “no, Ivermectin is not a violent anti-fertility drug”. It’s not even a non-violent “anti-fertility drug”. The peer reviewed literature doesn’t support such a statement and there is no real world evidence of this either.
Dr.Yeadon’s logic on “depopulation” completely falls apart as well. Young fertile people are not taking Ivermectin.
I would argue that Big Pharma’s “War on Ivermectin” has been one of the most costly blunders in the entire Pharmaceutical Industry’s history, instead of being some clever 5D chess game to trap the unvaccinated.
Millions of people have woken up to the corruption of Big Pharma – and if they lied about Ivermectin, they lied about statins, they lied about psychiatric drugs, they lied about childhood vaccines and they certainly lied about Influenza Vaccines and COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines. Stocks and profits are crashing, and Big pharma may never recover. 5D chess? I doubt it.
Oh dear. Lawrie thinks “They” are playing multidimensional chess, but Makis thinks “They” are stupid. Which is it?
Makis does, of course, have an “explanation” for why “They” are attacking ivermectin now. It’s fairly predictable, but it made me laugh nonetheless, perhaps because of its very predictability:
Millions of people are now learning about Ivermectin’s cancer fighting capabilities and Ivermectin represents an existential threat to a multi $100 billion Cancer Drug Industry hell bent on bringing failed mRNA Vaccine technology onboard, to profit from millions of people suffering from Cancer and especially mRNA Induced Turbo Cancer.
Ivermectin also remains an existential threat to the rollout of new mRNA Vaccines for Disease X, whether that Disease X is Influenza H5N1, Monkeypox or something else. They will lock us down and tell us that the new mRNA Vaccines are the “only way out of this Pandemic”. And they will ensure you don’t have access to Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine.
Wait a minute, “Dr.” Makis. That last strategy sounds rather clever; that is, if you believe that COVID-19 was a “plandemic,” that pharmaceutical companies rolled out the vaccines to profit even though they “knew” they were deadly, and that “They” are planning another “plandemic” with “Disease X” but want to make sure that you—yes, you!—don’t have access to ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, so that they can lock you down again and pump you full of new vaccines, all in order to give you turbo cancer.
Obviously, this is a situation in which everyone involved, including Yeadon, Lawrie, Makis, “Tim Truth,” and any other cranks and conspiracy theorists tempted to weigh in, are all wrong, all cranks, and all wingnuts. It is, however, quite entertaining to watch a crank fight like this. There is only one meme for this:
![Yeadon vs. Lawrie and Makis: Let Them Fight](https://i0.wp.com/www.respectfulinsolence.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/LetThemFight.jpg?resize=580%2C320&ssl=1)
Meanwhile, this will be Orac and other supporters of science-based medicine:
![Yeadon vs. Makis and Lawrie: Get out the popcorn](https://i0.wp.com/www.respectfulinsolence.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ZPopcorn.jpg?resize=580%2C295&ssl=1)
I really need to think of a new spin on this particular conspiracy theory that Yeadon is peddling that can piss both sides off.
25 replies on “Michael Yeadon turns on ivermectin, and hilarity ensues”
“It’s a psyop. It’s what “They” want you to think, that “They” are opposed to ivermectin. In reality, “They” are “censoring” the brave mavericks because “They” know that martyring such brave mavericks will only make ivermectin more popular.”
Exactly! Makis, McCullough and all those ivermectin-promoting FLCCC docs were led down the garden path, thinking they were thwarting the globalists, when they were actually dupes in Bill Gates’ nefarious conspiracy to poison fertility through ivermectin and vaccines, ensuring success of the mass population cull through a brilliantly engineered double-barreled scheme.
When do we get our checks?
I’ve said all along: you don’t get to control the entire world using the rather modest additional profit from vaccines without being smarter than the average bear. I often tease opponents with elaborate psyops-based reasons why “they” might engage contrarians as useful idiots.
Orac is just saying that Rumble is a relentless purveyor of nonsense to make Rumble more popular, allowing its subliminal messages encouraging library use
All this would be quite funny if it were a Monty Python comedy. Sadly it is not.
If you put them all in a big paper bag they couldn’t think their way out.
I’ll get back to this one later in more detail. But a comment from one of his quotes pretty much summarizes conspiracy thinking.
If we dial it back just a little as hyperbole, that statement is not necessarily bat-guano depending on your definitions of “the world stage” and “accidental”. As moon hoax debunker S.G. Collins observed — there are real conspiracies, e.g the military-industrial complex, or the whole J6 scheme — but they don’t capture the imagination of conspiracy theorists because they don’t afford WOW! revelations, and they’re too entrenched in reality to offer empowerment feelies.
So it is exactly the nasty elements on the world stage that are the products of obscure bad policy or large unrecognized structural factors that make people feel like manipulated objects. Ironically perhaps, many folks can only address and counter the wounds to their subjectivity metaphorically through displacement to a more exaggerated and manichean narrative.
What I mean by different concepts of “accidental” is things don’t fall into a binary of intended consequence on one hand and “act of god” or chaos/entropy/randomness on the other. What marks conspiracy theory is not a recognition that many problems are not accidents, but the assumption that when human choices yield problems, those choices were nefarious and intended exactly to produce a far greater harm than whatever bad thing is in evidence.
For something being applied here to the realm of product liability, it’s ‘weird’ in that it’s like negligence doesn’t exist. Take the case of the Ford Pinto’s that tended to explode when rear-ended because they came with a faulty filler tube between the gas cap and tank. If your sister was killed in such and explosion is it an “accident” that her car got rear-ended at all, or not-an-accident because Ford had discovered the problem yet forgone a recall because it would have cost more than they would lose in wrongful death suits? The conspiracy theorist indeed opts for not-an-accident, but cannot accept that it’s merely a callous product of bottom-line calculation. No, there has to be something more Bond-villain sinister… a depopulation scheme to establish world domination! Yeah, that’s the ticket!
“there are real conspiracies”
…but they’re never unraveled by amateur conspiracy theorists posting on the Internet.
I do think that this is a good point. Real conspiracies do exist, but usually they are pretty mundane in their objectives: More profit, cover up wrongdoing (often petty, like theft or cheating), etc. However, a conspiracy theorist can never seem to accept such petty motivations as greed, at least not on the scale we normally see. There has to be an overarching evil motivation that can include greed but can’t be limited to just petty greed. Oh, no. It has to include a desire for power, a desire to “depopulate the world” (for…reasons), a desire to utterly crush one’s opposition, etc.
” There has to be an overarching evil motivation..”
Exactly. Then, CT creators identify the perpetrator as being long entrenched evil, secret societies, world dominating cartels, TheDevil himself or extraterrestrial warlords hell bent on conquest.
If the evil is so overwhelming, whoever reveals/ opposes/ or will destroy it, must also be of similar magnitude. so that’s them. It’s not some DA in a courtroom accusing a tax cheat or small time perp. It is world shattering.
Denice said, “CT creators identify the perpetrator as being long entrenched evil, secret societies, world dominating cartels, TheDevil himself or extraterrestrial warlords hell bent on conquest.”
Yep.
From decades of observing these conspiracy kooks going back to usenet, and as Orac has mentioned before – One only needs to peel back the onion skin thin veneer of their delusion to find out who THEY® really are.
And it is invariably the same eevyil-doers…
Teh Jews!!!!11!!!
(Rothschilds, etc.)
ConspiraKooks are laughably transparent and not very nice people.
@ Reality:
I’ve noticed that the alt med/ anti-vaxxers have gone far beyond their original concerns since the Financial Crisis and taken on politics, economics, sociology, psychology, education- why not?
Their contrarianism has spread only encumbered by the limits of their vast egotism : they are the smartest guys in many rooms.
Yet their proclamations ring hollow reflecting an entirely superficial grasp of subject matters. One Prof advised that if you ever had to estimate someone’s general level of intellect or expertise, you might speculate: “Do they sound like people I interacted with at age 12, in secondary school, in college or in grad school?” which tells you all you need to know.
I agree with Collins that most real conspiracies are literally mundane in one way or another. But even the few kookier conspiracies with genuine real-world plausibility are largely ignored by conspiracy theorists.
It could be life imitating mythology, but it’s arguable there are now real conspiracies driven by Bond-villain-esque mad drives for power coming out of the tech-bro-verse. You know especially Peter Theil planning to live forever and rule a sea-steading regime. But few conspiracy theorists go there, either. I’ll argue that CTs MUST be unreal to fit the narrative template that enables their psychological function.
Now, maybe you don’t see JD Vance as a front man for a conspiracy. But the seeds for a CT are definitely there: On one hand we have an eccentric gay silicon valley billionaire visionary married to another man and prepping to dominate a post-apocalyptic world. On the other a homophobic self-styled hillbilly common-man conservative who condemns the childless and valorizes traditional marriage and parenting, even when those relationships are abusive. How is it then that these apparent polar opposites are joined at the hip?
Awhile back during one of those election-year panels on MSNBC with multiple hosts engaged in open-ended discussion, the question turned to what Musk, Theil et al were trying to achieve by pouring massive amounts of money into right-wing politics. A couple panelists expressed puzzlement, since they couldn’t see how these manuevers could generate a profit for the presumed greedheads. Then they turned to Stephanie Ruhl, the group’s expert business reporter, for an explanation. She replied that indeed it couldn’t be about the money, so it had to be about the power. These guys have such massive egos, she observed, they think they should run the world.
My point again is that this does NOT fill the below-the-surface requirements of conspiracy theory in the way that ivermectin depopulation does, and understanding why is key to understanding how CTs work.
Addendum: It comes to me that Orac and minions have noted here several times that if one wanted to make a credible inquiry into conspiratorial activity by Big Pharma, there are far more plausible targets than vaccines. But again, those would be too mundane, too easy to explain to satisfy the need for attention-getting drama.
It seems the common credo of these clowns is
“I don’t believe in any of these things that are based on data and studies. It has to be this other thing that is based on my imagination.”
Got it.
If you have a brain worm, perhaps Ivermectin would be recommended.
” There has to be an overarching evil motivation..”
Exactly. Then, CT creators identify the perpetrator as being long entrenched evil, secret societies, world dominating cartels, TheDevil himself or extraterrestrial warlords hell bent on conquest.
If the evil is so overwhelming, whoever reveals/ opposes/ or will destroy it, must also be of similar magnitude. so that’s them. It’s not some DA in a courtroom accusing a tax cheat or small time perp. It is world shattering.
Sorry for that double.
The “no-virus” people (Tim Truth, etc.) share some similarities with “flat-earth” people. Both categories are usually very inauthentic and seem to be paid to be out there to muddy the waters and cause confusion.
Their existence likely relates to the “inoculation theory” promoted by Sander van der Linden, who made very nice money off of that approach. His approach does work in the short run.
The idea of inoculation theory is to put forth something extremely stupid and ridiculous, that would associate with people espousing undesirable ideas and tarnish those ideas.
Sander has recently done a lot of work related to promoting COVID-19 vaccines and “inoculating” against COVID-19 vaccine skepticism, and the no-virus people are likely related to his inoculation work.
Virus denial has nothing to with social psychology. Originator was Bechamp in nineteenth century. Thus Koch postulates like growing bacteria in isolation.
You cannot do with malnutrition, or toxin.
Wait. You mean your posts aren’t intended to inoculate people against antivax lies? Why is Merck paying you then?
In other news…
RFK Jr “suspends”- not ends- his campaign, urges voters to still vote for him but not in (10?) battleground states, supports Trump, will campaign for him and may be part of his cabinet.
Make up your mind! ( if you still have one)
CNN, MSNBC
“Suspend” is the standard verbiage for ending a political campaign in the U.S. system. It’s due to campaign finance laws and regulations. “Suspending” a campaign gives the candidate a lot more legal flexibility in winding down their campaign operations and disposing of cash and assets.
Basically, no one in the U.S. system ever announces that they’re “ending” their campaign, and no one ever revives a “suspended” campaign. “Suspend” = “end” for all intents and purposes, other than technicalities of campaign finance laws and regulations.
At least from what some of his supporters say, one of their goals is still to take votes from Harris/Walz in blue states, so while you’re right, I think he still wants to affect the vote somewhat.
Is Yeadon and his interviewer saying Yeadon is not a prominent person, or that he, too, is somehow working for the enemy?
They’re saying that Yeadon is not a prominent person.
In part, it’s probably a part of the Brave Maverick Doctor schtick, and the ambivalence populists have towards expertise. Dr. Yeadon is an expert, but not, y’know, that kind of expert. He’s smart and knowledgeable, but he’s not part of the elite. At heart, he’s still a simple country doctor, applying good old fashioned common sense, instead of elitist jibberjabber.
It’s also hard to look at what Dr. Yeadon is saying, and not read a lot of it as simple jealous grievance.
and
It’s pretty hard for me to read that and not read it as jealous grievance. Dr. Yeadon’s “peers” are no better than him. He’s just as smart and well-qualified. He worked just as hard in the anti-establishment trenches, making the same arguments and raising the same alarms. And yet, somehow, a number of those “peers” have far exceeded him. They’ve gotten far more media attention. They’ve also “grown large organizations”, and not incidentally made a lot of money. Meanwhile, Dr. Yeadon hasn’t had much success converting his contrarianism into fame or fortune. Why?
It could be that Dr. Yeadon isn’t as smart and skilled and hard-working as he thinks he is….Nah, that can’t be it. It could be that fame and fortune are as dependent on dumb luck as on personal virtue…Nah, that can’t be it. So, what’s left? Why is everyone else so much more successful?
Corruption. It’s got to be corruption. “THEY” got to them. His former “peers” have all sold out to Big Pharma and the Globalists. They aren’t smarter or more skilled or harder-working or even just luckier. They’re just corrupt cogs in a corrupt machine. You see, Dr. Yeadon could have been just as prominent and successful as all of his former “peers”, but he’s too honest and principled. It’s not his fault that he hasn’t achieved the fame and fortune he rightly deserves, it’s the fault of a corrupt system and the sell-outs who stole what should have been his.