What is Worse Than a Liar?

A Hypocritical Liar

Jan 27, 2024

It has been two years, six months, and five days (917 total days) since the administration of my employer, the University of Guelph, banned me from accessing my office and laboratory. I spoke truths about COVID-19 when much of the world was not ready to hear them. As I am still expected to work, I would like to have access to my work spaces. Segregation makes me feel less than human.

- B. Bridle -

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
- Matthew 7:3-5, New International Version of the Bible -

I do not purport to be a so-called ‘expert in debunking misinformation’. But there are a growing number of people that do make this claim. This is ridiculous. Every person has expertise in something, whether it be playing a video game, coaching football, or scholarship in a field of biology. An expert can readily identify a non-expert. For example, if you are watching a basketball game with someone and they declare the team has scored a ‘touchdown’ after the point guard hit ‘nothing but net’, you can be reasonably certain that they haven’t had a lot of involvement in that particular sport. As such, a person claiming to be an expert at identifying all forms of misinformation is just somebody desperately seeking to have their points of view count for more than those held by others. This is an all-too-common tactic emerging from the ivory towers of academia.

I have devoted my career to becoming a subject matter expert in the interdisciplinary field of viral immunology. Therefore, I am readily able to identify the people who should know far better than to pretend to speak with authority in this area. As a proponent of academic freedom and free speech, these people are certainly welcome to say what they want. But if such a person has mounted defamatory attacks against me for the purpose of de-platforming me, it grabs my attention. When I find out that they are using taxpayer dollars and a position at a public academic institution to do this, it really grabs my attention. And when I discover that they are using their ‘make believe expertise’ to prolifically lie to the public while never being willing to engage in real-time two-way communication, then I feel compelled to say something. I will speak up when lies have the potential to harm the public and their ability to make fully informed decisions. Misinforming the public is always wrong. But, it’s worse when the misinformer is doing it while accusing subject matter experts sharing science-backed truths as being the spreaders of misinformation. The dictionary defines such a person as being a hypocrite.

Enter Doctor, sorry, I mean Mister Professor Timothy Caulfield, holder of a Masters of Law degree. Having never met this person, nor knowing who he was, many members of the public brought to my attention the fact that he was mercilessly berating not only them, but also me, as disseminating misinformation about COVID-19. So, I looked into who this fellow was. I was shocked to see that he had been elevated to almost god-like status in the made-up field of ‘misinformation expertise’ and has been endlessly outspoken about issues related to health science for which he is lacking in qualifications.

Caulfield’s antics against critically thinking and well-informed members of the public, all while using their tax dollars to do it, is akin to a golf commentator stepping into the position of air traffic controller. It doesn’t matter how confidently such a person speaks into the microphone or how many accolades they claim to have received, they will be placing others at risk and should recuse themselves from such unqualified influence. The truth is, Caulfield is guilty of having disseminated truck loads of misinformation about COVID-19 (and many other aspects of health science) over the years. I have proven this here, here, here, here, and here.

People pointed out to me that Caulfield used a recent visit to the Canadian Province of Alberta by Tucker Carlson as a catalyst for continuing to sound off about COVID-19. I was referred to an article that Caulfield published. You can find it at this link. It is entitled, “Lies, Damn Lies, and Tucker Carlson: It should be obvious that this guy’s pants are on fire. But his audience doesn’t care“. I read the article and can tell you that it is a fine example of hypocrisy. The title, “Lies, Damn Lies, and Timothy Caulfield: It should be obvious that this guy’s pants are on fire. But his audience doesn’t care”, could readily be used for any piece of writing assessing Caulfield’s track record when it comes to large swaths of his opining about health science.

I haven’t known too many academics that promote division among people to the degree that Caulfield does. He seems to like to be inflammatory and accusatory in his communications, with prolific use of divisive labeling, and all done in a high-handed fashion. Many people have reported to me that they find this unbecoming of a human being, let alone an academic professional.

The article constitutes a tirade from Caulfield directed against Tucker Carlson, whom he repeatedly accuses of spreading misinformation. Caulfield also seems to have a ‘bee in his bonnet’ over the political direction that his province has taken; sorry, Mr. Prof. Caulfield, that occurrence, which was driven by the ‘fringe minority’, is called democracy.

Caulfield touches down on all kinds of topics, which fits his self-professed ‘expertise in debunking every topic under the sun’. As for me, I like to stay in my lane. So, I will reserve my critiques to what he said about COVID-19.

How many utterances of misinformation does it take for an article to be deemed untrustworthy?

I may not be an expert in politics and the many other things that Caulfield discussed in his article, but, when I identify misinformation being disseminated, that causes me to question the validity of the entire article.

This is why I felt compelled to correct Caulfield’s record…

“Studies have clearly demonstrated the vaccines—that 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine scientific success story—saved millions of lives and reduced hospitalizations and the burden on health care systems.”
- Caulfield -

Reference to the COVID-19 shots as being supported by a Nobel Prize is a typical tactic of Caulfield. What Caulfield is trying to convince the reader is that ‘if something received a big award, then it must be very, very good’. This is the kind of hearsay evidence that someone trained in law should know is invalid. Among many problems with this approach is that he failed to note that the award did not go to the COVID-19 shots, it was for the generation of synthetic RNA. In fact, it is the synthetic nature of the modified RNA in the COVID-19 shots that causes it to remain in the body for vastly longer times than what people like Caulfield claimed when they originally proposed it was almost as fragile as natural messenger RNA. Whoops, that original claim was off by a lot! The Nobel Prize-winning technology is why COVID-19 shots have so many undesirable effects, including passing the modified RNA through breast milk to suckling babies.

According to Caulfield’s logic in flaunting the Nobel Prize, frontal lobotomies must also be one of the greatest things since sliced bread. After all, António Egas Moniz won the Nobel Prize in 1949 for developing frontal lobotomies.

So, what three studies does Caulfield cite to make his grandiose claim about COVID-19 shots?

A study entitled, “Unveiling the Impact of COVID-19 Vaccines: A Meta-Analysis of Survival Rates Among Patients in the United States Based on Vaccination Status“. Here is the full citation:
Ikeokwu AE, Lawrence R, Osieme ED, Gidado KM, Guy C, Dolapo O. Unveiling the Impact of COVID-19 Vaccines: A Meta-Analysis of Survival Rates Among Patients in the United States Based on Vaccination Status. Cureus. 2023 Aug 10;15(8):e43282. doi: 10.7759/cureus.43282. PMID: 37692577; PMCID: PMC10492612.

I have no problem with the journal, nor the track records of the authors, but want to be blunt so people can place this into perspective. This journal has an impact factor of only 1.2. Also, four of the five authors have published a total of only five papers that have garnered a grand total of only seven citations. The fifth, a co-author of the paper, has published only five additional papers and has a total of only 136 citations. This is not what one would define as a ‘powerhouse team of researchers’ publishing in a journal with a big impact. I only point this out because it is amazing how many times Caulfield and his array of Science Up First members accuse others of ‘relying on low-impact/questionable papers’. This is called hypocrisy.

Further, Caulfield failed to disclose that none of the authors are subject matter experts in immunology or virology, let alone the immunological subdiscipline of vaccinology. This was recognizable right away when the authors stated, “Evidence for mortality from COVID-19 infection by vaccination status”. One does not get infected with COVID-19. Instead, people can get infected with the virus called SARS-CoV-2, and a subset of those will go on to develop the disease called COVID-19. Words matter in science and non-experts tend to misuse subject-specific terms.

It is also interesting to note that Caulfield failed to tell anybody about the core weakness of the paper, which had to be openly admitted by the authors of the study. Specifically, the authors stated…

“Evidence for mortality from COVID-19 infection by vaccination status was available from seven observational studies included a total of 21,618,297 patients. After rating down one level for study design, we considered the evidence to be low-quality for an observational study design. These observational studies suggest that COVID-19 vaccination may substantially reduce mortality (OR 2.46, 95% CI 1.71 to 3.53; low-quality evidence). “

Isn’t it convenient for Caulfield to have left out the fact that the conclusion of the study was based on low-quality evidence. The authors define what this means in this table from their paper…

…in other words, “the true effect may be substantially different from the estimate of the effect”.

Then one needs to consider that all COVID-19-associated clinical data are unreliable due to egregious errors such as failing to diagnose the disease properly (a PCR test result is insufficient on its own), contaminating mortality data with deaths that were not caused by COVID-19, etc. So, in reality, the data in this study are of ‘very low certainty’.

Simply parroting misleading statements from the abstract or conclusions of a paper is nothing more than hearsay, and a sign that a person lacks expertise. The accurate way for Caulfield to have disseminated the results of this study to the public would have been to state something like the following…

“The authors of the paper, who relied on papers full of uninterpretable data, claimed COVID-19 shots could reduce mortality. But, their confidence is limited by the fact that their conclusion could be substantially different from reality.“

Not so convincing anymore is it?

A study entitled, “Global impact of the first year of COVID-19 vaccination: a mathematical modelling study“. Here is the full citation:
Watson OJ, Barnsley G, Toor J, Hogan AB, Winskill P, Ghani AC. Global impact of the first year of COVID-19 vaccination: a mathematical modelling study. Lancet Infect Dis. 2022 Sep;22(9):1293-1302. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00320-6. Epub 2022 Jun 23. Erratum in: Lancet Infect Dis. 2023 Oct;23(10):e400. PMID: 35753318; PMCID: PMC9225255.

Really, Caulfield?!? The title of the paper highlights two critical issues with this study. First, it is outdated; data are from the first year of the declared pandemic. Second, it is based on mathematical modeling. And the entire world knows how accurate those models were in the first year! With the ever-growing avalanche of ‘real-world data’, this cherry-picked outdated description of a modeling game is all that Caulfield could come up with?!? This reeks of desperation and demonstrates that he does not have his pulse on the cutting-edge data. Caulfield, get your head out of the make-believe world of misused mathematical modelling and have a crack at studying the plethora of real data that have accumulated over the past several years. Claiming that make-believe is real doesn’t make it real.

Did Caulfield mention the conflicts of interest that the authors of the paper had with respect to funding? No. And I wonder why. Perhaps it is because this was the list of funders…

“Schmidt Science Fellowship in partnership with the Rhodes Trust; WHO; UK Medical Research Council; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; National Institute for Health Research; and Community Jameel.”

…some of these might have a wee bit of an interest in commercializing novel medical products.

Cherry-picking a single irrelevant study is not how one convinces the public that a statement is supported by the overwhelming weight of the scientific evidence. Of course, the cited study also suffers from the aforementioned problem of relying on inherently untrustworthy data, and the mathematical model omits important scientific facts such as, but not limited to, the validity of naturally acquired immunity.

A study entitled, “Estimating the impact of vaccination on reducing COVID-19 burden in the United States: December 2020 to March 2022“. Here is the full citation:

Sah P, Vilches TN, Pandey A, Schneider EC, Moghadas SM, Galvani AP. Estimating the impact of vaccination on reducing COVID-19 burden in the United States: December 2020 to March 2022. J Glob Health. 2022 Sep 3;12:03062. doi: 10.7189/jogh.12.03062. PMID: 36056814; PMCID: PMC9441009.

Seriously?!? You must be kidding. This is another mathematical modeling paper that was published more than one year ago. I am not going to waste my time repeating why a theoretical modeling paper holds no weight at a time when there is a profound amount of real data available for analysis. Picking another theoretical paper to justify statements clearly suggests there is either fear of delving into the real data sets or an inability to do so, or both.

Caulfield goes on the say…

“Vaccines may have also potentially lowered the risk of developing, and the severity of, long COVID. Sure, complain about details surrounding the rollout, the inequitable distribution, and the political posturing associated with the vaccines, but they very obviously “worked” (a.k.a.: saving human lives and reducing human suffering).”
- Caulfield -

Caulfield, you failed to reference a single piece of primary scientific evidence here. This invalidates the message, especially when coming from a non-expert. There are lots of data arguing the opposite conclusions. Let’s discuss them sometime.

Caulfield also failed to discuss the cons of COVID-19 shots. Does he not realize that there is not a single medical intervention that comes with zero risk? Was this failure to attempt to provide any balance in his article the result of there being such a vast amount of primary evidence of harms and concerns? …perhaps too much evidence to summarize it succinctly?

I could go on, but won’t. Just recognize that Caufield’s misinformed attempts to teach the public about COVID-19 continues while he remains resolute in his refusal to openly discuss his ideas with experts that he accused of spreading misinformation. This has nothing to do with his ‘following of proper debunking techniques’, or ‘to engage in a discussion is to lend weight to misinformation’. Let’s call it what it is. It is an open acknowledgement of how obvious his misinformation would be if forced to defend it in real time with an expert.

For anybody who still thinks that Caulfield is an expert on COVID-19, please review the history of his social media account that is funded by grant monies originating from your tax dollars. He went from having many ‘believers’ early on to having become one of the most ratio’d self-proclaimed COVID-19 experts in the world. Having devoted followers change their mind about a person’s messaging speaks volumes.

GRADE-ing the Message

As per the GRADE system described in the table above, Caulfield’s conclusions are based on ‘very low certainty evidence’, meaning that they are ‘likely’ wrong.

Caulfield, stick to your lane and stop spreading misinformation about COVID-19. Hypocrisy does not garner respect. Please recognize how much you have been ratio’d on your social media account. Most of the world has left your COVID-19 misinformation behind. Sir, when even your most devout non-expert followers ascertain that your information about COVID-19 cannot be trusted, it is time to move on, preferably to something for which you do have subject matter expertise. But, once proven a liar, much time and energy must be invested into regaining people’s faith in your messaging.

Until you start telling the truth about COVID-19 shots, or at least shut-up and stop spreading misinformation, I will continue to feel compelled to speak out. Not because many are listening to you anymore, but because a few powerbrokers that can harm a lot of people continue to milk you for the propaganda that they desperately require.

They just can’t stop tugging the teats of Timmy!

To quote Caulfield from his own article… “[Insert the name of a self-proclaimed misinformation expert that spreads misinformation] is the post-truth poster boy. Let’s put that legacy to constructive use. He should remind all of us—including Canadian politicians—to be especially cautious and skeptical when we see content that plays to our emotions, preconceived beliefs, and ideological convictions.”

Be careful who you accuse, because it could be, as Caulfield points out, “an on-the-nose mirror accusation”.