KIT KLARENBERG
\nTHE GRAYZONE<\/p>\n
Throughout Britain\u2019s response to the COVID-19 crisis, a lobbying group known as the Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (iSAGE) served as a key driving force behind the government\u2019s most draconian lockdown policies.<\/p>\n
While it presented itself as a non-governmental organization composed of forward-thinking health experts,\u00a0The Grayzone\u00a0can reveal iSAGE not only maintains an array of ties to the British security state, while relying largely on political, rather than scientific, considerations when crafting policy recommendations.<\/p>\n
With Winter ahead in Europe and calls for the reimposition of COVID-19 restrictions\u00a0growing\u00a0<\/a>once again \u2014 not least from\u00a0iSAGE itself<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the outfit\u2019s endeavors provide a disturbing look at the role of the security state and mainstream media in corrupting British public health policy.<\/p>\n Nearly three years since the world first heard of COVID-19, societies across the globe are still reeling from prolonged lockdowns and harsh social restrictions, which many governments implemented in order to supposedly \u201cstop the spread\u201d of the virus. Britain is no exception, and while the full long-term impact of such measures remains unknown, some grueling effects are already painfully apparent.<\/p>\n Patients receiving care for cancer, cardiovascular, and respiratory disease\u00a0were prevented<\/a>\u00a0from accessing routine treatment;\u00a0rates of<\/a>\u00a0clinical depression and mobile phone addiction among university students skyrocketed; adults of all ages\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0worsening mental health conditions; and the number of Britons seeking help for drug addiction\u00a0increased by 81%<\/a>\u00a0between 2020 and 2021.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, school closures\u00a0exposed<\/a>\u00a0Britain\u2019s youth to food insecurity and increased likelihood of falling victim to domestic abuse, while the rapid digitization of education\u00a0further widened<\/a>\u00a0learning gaps between wealthy and low-income students in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were mesmerized by the once-in-a-century scale of the emergency and succeeded only in making a crisis even worse. In short, we panicked,\u201d\u00a0lamented<\/a>\u00a0Professor Mark Woolhouse, an Edinburgh University epidemiologist, in January 2022.<\/p>\n As with many contemporary critics of the British government\u2019s initial \u201cZero COVID\u201d strategy, Woolhouse argued a targeted response to protect the most vulnerable members of society, such as the elderly, would have done more to curb Britain\u2019s death toll than blanket, nationwide lockdowns.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was an epidemic crying out for a precision public health approach and it got the opposite,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n Behind some of the most socially destructive pandemic policies implemented by the British government was iSAGE, a shady organization founded by a Russia-obsessed Guardian pundit and advised by spies, behavioral psychologists and media influencers without backgrounds in science or medicine.<\/p>\n Founded in\u00a0May 2020<\/a>\u00a0by David King, former chief scientific adviser to Labour Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, iSAGE initially set out to agitate for greater transparency around state health policy,\u00a0while providing<\/a>\u00a0\u201crobust, unbiased advice\u201d to the public and government. Yet it rapidly transformed into a powerful, wholly unaccountable lobbying group, aggressively pushing for \u201cZero COVID\u201d measures.<\/p>\n For almost two years, iSAGE members were a fixture in both British and international media. Senior politicians and pundits effusively endorsed the group\u2019s pronouncements on the pandemic, and its weekly\u00a0YouTube briefings<\/a>\u00a0racked up tens of thousands of views. Its representatives used their popular platforms to call for extensive control and suppression measures, including contact tracing, mass testing, border quarantines, lockdowns, and the implementation of mitigation software in order to stop the transmission of COVID-19.<\/p>\n Confusion regarding iSAGE\u2019s name, given its obvious similarity to the British government\u2019s official Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), only increased the group\u2019s prominence. Very quickly after its launch, iSAGE began to not only work in parallel with its government namesake, but supplant it in the public mind.<\/p>\n Despite its enormous influence, iSAGE and its members have largely avoided public scrutiny. Little is known about the forces guiding and shaping its activities, or whether its representatives are advancing an ulterior agenda at odds with their stated commitment to providing \u201cunbiased\u201d scientific advice.<\/p>\n It was on iSAGE\u2019s official launch date in May 2020 that its founding objective of securing publication of the identities of SAGE, and its papers, was achieved. Previously, the body\u2019s composition and the evidence underpinning its decisions was\u00a0entirely hidden<\/a>\u00a0from public view, which stoked significant controversy, particularly given its initial heel-dragging over the implementation of protective COVID-19 measures.<\/p>\n Emboldened by this immediate success, former iSAGE member Allyson Pollock\u00a0claims the group<\/a>\u00a0\u201crapidly moved away\u201d from its initial transparency agenda \u201cto wanting to make policy\u201d itself. Unknown to the public at the time, iSAGE\u2019s transformation from government watchdog project into premier public health policy-making activist group prompted an internal revolt.<\/p>\n \u201cOften, [iSAGE] ended up advocating things when it hadn\u2019t sufficiently thought through the uncertainties in the evidence and the potential for harm,\u201d Pollock, who worked as a clinical professor of public health at Newcastle University, alleges. She cites \u201cprolonged lockdowns, school closures, and mass testing,\u201d as examples of iSAGE\u2019s misguided recommendations.<\/p>\n According to Pollock, the group offered policy advice \u201csometimes without sufficient scientific expertise or scientific evidence to inform it.\u201d She expressed vehement opposition when the group officially adopted its \u201cZero COVID\u201d position in July 2020, believing it lacked any basis in science. Two months later, the group declined to renew her membership.<\/p>\n iSAGE\u2019s push for Zero COVID appeared oddly timed, and the group itself acknowledged total eradication of a disease had only ever been achieved once in history, in the case of smallpox. Britain was at that point beginning to reopen after a four-month lockdown, in line with SAGE advice. In theory though, as iSAGE was an entirely separate entity from SAGE, it was free to advocate for whatever mitigation strategies it deemed appropriate.<\/p>\n In practice though, an overlap in the membership of both bodies as well as their virtually identical names blurred lines between the two groups. British government chief scientific advisor Patrick Vallance claims he\u00a0explicitly warned<\/a>\u00a0iSAGE founder David King against using any derivation of \u201cSAGE\u201d for the title of his new group, believing it would puzzle and mislead the public.<\/p>\n Despite apparently pledging to not emulate the name, King did so anyway. The \u201cIndependent\u201d prefix was even more problematic, as it clearly implied that SAGE was not a trustworthy, autonomous organization, while iSAGE issued impartial, more credible advice by contrast.<\/p>\n As predicted, the two groups\u2019 duplicate names muddied the waters on public and government messaging around COVID-19, leading to numerous troubling \u2014 if not outright dangerous \u2014 blunders on the part of journalists, pundits, and elected lawmakers alike.<\/p>\n SAGE member Ian Boyd claims such chaos was intentional. In\u00a0October 2021<\/a>, he told\u00a0The British Medical Journal<\/i>\u00a0the two groups\u2019 names \u201ccreated confusion and was a device used by those organising [iSAGE] to set up unnecessary friction.\u201d In the same article, another academic suggested iSAGE\u2019s title implied the body was \u201csomehow more authoritative than it actually is.\u201d<\/p>\n Public disorientation was compounded by the fact that several members of SAGE also moonlighted as iSAGE experts. Take the example of Susan Michie, a left-wing political activist and self-styled\u00a0\u201cbehavioural change\u201d expert who served with both iSAGE and SAGE, advising the secretive governmental\u00a0SPI-B council of behavioral psychologists that fear-mongered the public<\/a>\u00a0into compliance with official pandemic policy. Media reports on Michie almost universally referred to her simply as a \u201cSAGE scientist,\u201d creating the impression that her comments represented the British government\u2019s official position.<\/p>\n Michie became a symbol of iSAGE\u2019s advocacy for a permanent biomedical security state. During a June 2021 interview, she\u00a0argued<\/a>\u00a0that social distancing and mask mandates should \u201ccontinue forever.\u201d<\/p>\niSAGE pushes lockdowns \u201cwithout sufficient scientific expertise or scientific evidence to inform it\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n
iSAGE gathers influence by fueling confusion<\/h3>\n