How Researchers Overwrite Reality to Vilify the Unvaccinated for the Trudeau Liberals

Another exampled scientific malfeasance during the pandemic

Throughout the pandemic Canadians were led to believe that scientific research was behind the lockdowns, the maskings, the closing of restaurants, schools and churches and ultimately the need to be vaccinated and that the vaccines were safe and effective. Although the pandemic is some two years behind us now, the dishonesty and malfeasance on the matter of ‘the science’ by our government leaders, our public health officials, the mainstream media and a good chunk of the scientific and medical community is still being laid bare.

Dr. R.N. Watteel, PhD, Statistics, and a BSc, Mathematics and Physics.

The book, Fisman’s Fraud - The Rise of Canadian Hate Science, written by  Dr. R.N. Watteel lays out another example of this type of chicanery. Published in 2023, Watteel, a Canadian statistician and mathematician, recounts how the Liberal government contracted a trio* ‘experts’ headed up by Dr. David Fisman, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Toronto’s (UofT) Dalla Lana School of Public Health, to prepare a report using falsified data to justify its mandates and restrictions, and its vilification of the unvaccinated. It was also intended to assist the Trudeau government in compelling further compliance from Canadians to get vaccinated and boosted and to continue supporting his government’s vaccine mandates. Not surprisingly the book has been virtually ignored by mainstream media, undoubtedly because they were one of the culprits in helping to promote this fraud. 

Or you can make a one time donation to my newsletter via Ko-fi.

*Two co-authors of the study – Ashleigh R. Tuite, PhD Epidemiology and Mathematical Modelling, Asst. Professor, Dalla Lana School of Health and Afia Amoako UofT student, studying epidemiology 

Dr. David Fisman, Dr. Ashleigh Tuite, and Afia Amoako

First let’s set the stage. By the fall of 2021, it was already becoming clear that the COVID vaccines the Trudeau government was obsessively pushing on Canadians offered little protection from the virus for the vast majority of recipients. Yet, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was still busy vilifying the unvaccinated, blaming them for spreading the virus and driving a wedge between those who had been vaccinated, and those who had chosen not to, for his own political gain. And he was still pressuring parents to get their kids vaccinated and telling kids themselves to take the jab.

He was also still encouraging provinces to continue their ridiculous vaccine passport programs that he had also encouraged and endorsed. (Most provinces  dropped all vaccine passports in February of 2022–interestingly during the Freedom Convoy protests–with some holding out until March 2022). Additionally, the Trudeau government, which had introduced its draconian vaccine travel mandates — barring the unvaccinated from travelling on trains or planes in Canada or internationally— in November of 2021, was still stubbornly refused to drop them. In fact, they extended them to truckers crossing the Canada-US border, the move that sparked the Freedom Convoy.

*The government ultimately suspended the travel mandates in June of 2022, note, they only suspended them, meaning they could reinstate them at any time. 

There was plenty of data available to tell the government it should end its vaccine mandates and public health restrictions, because they were not particularly effective. Public Health Ontario (PHO) had begun tracking the hospitalization rates of vaccinated COVID patients versus the unvaccinated to determine the effectiveness of the vaccines after they were introduced. When the Omicron wave of the virus emerged in the winter and spring of 2021-22, there were record levels of COVID infections. Yet, PHO’s data clearly indicated that there were greater incidents of COVID cases amongst the vaccinated, rather than the unvaccinated.

By mid-January 2022, as Omicron took hold, and when almost 80 percent of eligible Ontarians were vaccinated, twice as many vaccinated people were being hospitalized for COVID, as opposed to the unvaccinated. The data made it abundantly clear that the vaccines were not preventing transmission. Additionally, it did not appear that the vaccines even prevented severe outcomes, which had been promised in an effort to further remedy vaccine hesitancy, because six times as many vaccinated patients required admittance to Intensive Care Units (ICU), compared to the unvaccinated. The only people who seemed to benefit from the vaccines were people over the age of 70 where vaccines did appear to lower the incidence or hospitalization, ICU admittance and death. The  vaccines didn’t prevent infection or transmission in the majority of the population. As well, given that so many vaccinated people were getting infected, it could hardly be the unvaccinated, who actually had lower rates of infection and hospitalization, who were responsible for spreading the disease. This was just Ontario data, but given that it is Canada’s largest province, with a population of 15 million, it is likely results in other provinces were similar. So much for Trudeau’s claims that the unvaccinated were spreading the virus. 

The Trudeau government didn’t like those statistics because they didn’t support its narrative that the unvaccinated were responsible for the spread of the virus and should therefore be treated like lepers. Nor did the data make a good case for the harsh restrictions and measures the Trudeau government was continuing to impose on Canadians, particularly the vaccine travel mandates. And the data certainly didn’t help the government’s campaign to get more people vaccinated and boosted, as booster shots came onto the scene in the fall of 2021. Enter Dr. David Fisman et al, ready and waiting to compile a study for the Trudeau government that would shore up its case for COVID restrictions, vaccine mandates, and vilifying the unvaccinated.

To make it all appear legitimate, Fisman’s study was funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR), which is simply a government agency that funds a good deal of Canadian health research projects. CIHR does, however, have a reputation for funding ‘politically correct’ research. For example it provided $18 million to ‘researchers’ at the University of British Columbia to help them determine that ‘safe’ drug injection centres were highly beneficial. Anyone who has taken a walk through the streets of downtown Vancouver or any other BC city, of late, can see how well that turned out.  

Fisman, it should be noted, throughout the pandemic, aggressively supported harsh COVID response measures and restrictions. This included lockdowns, stay at home orders, school closures, mask mandates, masking of children in schools, vaccine mandates, vaccine ‘passports’ and travel restrictions as well as backing Trudeau's calls to exclude the unvaccinated from much of society. He also had ties to major pharmaceutical companies that stood to gain from his study’s results and mandatory vaccine stance. This included Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Seqirus and Sanofi-Pasteur

He also worked with various unions and associations during the pandemic seeking special COVID related accommodations and mandatory vaccine policies. One of those associations was the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), who paid Fisman to argue against the reopening of schools while he was serving on the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table (OTS), which ultimately resulted in his resignation from the OTS. Fisman was a staunch partisan supporter of the federal Liberals during the pandemic often expressing his disdain for both the federal and provincial conservatives on social media. For example, while Ontario Conservative Premier Doug Ford had imposed some of the most severe COVID restrictions in the country, Fisman criticized Ford for not going far enough. He publicly criticized provincial Conservative governments for their COVID responses, while actively promoting provincial Liberal and NDP governments and their strong vaccine mandates. Leading up to the 2021 federal election and the 2022 Ontario provincial election Fisman launched hostile social media attacks against the Conservative parties. Given his overt Liberal partisanship, pro-COVID restrictions stance and apparent lack of scruples, it is likely Fisman was handpicked by the Trudeau government to head up this ‘study’.

And this is where Dr. Watteel’s book, Fisman’s Fraud comes into play. As an expert statistician and mathematician, when she read Fisman’s study, which was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) in April of 2022, she couldn’t believe what she was reading. Dr. Watteel could see that it was clear that the modelling Fisman had used in the study was fabricated. According to Watteel, the scenario they developed didn’t even specifically involve the COVID 19 virus; it simply used a generic seasonal respiratory disease. They completely omitted any reference to readily available real-world data (like the data produced by PHO). In fact their ‘modelling’ was completely contrary to that data, yet they went on to state their contrived results as facts. They concocted results that essentially ignored reality to scapegoat the unvaccinated, turning them into pariahs, and excluding them from all aspects of public life.

This chart from PHO clearly illustrates that by January of 2022 and onward, more vaccinated, the (blue chart graphs), were in hospital than the unvaccinated. This real-world data was completely ignored by Fisman

In essence they overwrote the Omicron surge, where statistics clearly indicated that the higher rates of infection and hospitalizations were disproportionately among the vaccinated and turned it upside down with a fake simulation designed to show the exact opposite trend. In an effort to present this simulated trend, indicating COVID cases were much higher in unvaccinated than the vaccinated was based on real people, they eliminated references to the modelling, while repeatedly using the word people throughout the paper. Yet, it was clear their model was designed to generate the results they wanted – the results the government wanted – that was that the unvaccinated were the cause of the spread of the virus. To use Dr. Watteel’s words. “They passed off their fabricated results as a fact, despite no real data being used, no hypothesis being tested, and no model validation of any kind.” 

Once the study was published the mainstream media didn't bother to question the study’s validity or the contrived modelling that was used, they just ran with it. The result was dozens of articles and reports in all of Canada’s mainstream news outlets warning people of the dire risk the unvaccinated presented to the vaccinated. The vaccine was hailed as a highly effective tool capable of protecting people from the virus, yet somehow it was completely incapable of doing so, if a vaccinated person was exposed to an unvaccinated one, get that logic straight, if you can. The media, it seemed, never bothered to challenge such an absurd notion. Numerous reports, articles and interviews citing Fisman’s paper painted the unvaccinated as reckless and selfish, who had no regard for others. 

Unvaccinated disproportionately risk safety of those vaccinated against COVID 19. Globe and Mail, April 25, 2022

Unvaccinated people increase risk of COVID 19 infection among vaccinated: study Global News, April 25, 2022

Mixing with the unvaccinated increases COVID 19 risk for vaccinated study finds Canadian Press (carried on all major Canadian newspapers and news outlets) April 25th 2022.

Fisman himself engaged in numerous media interviews, podcasts and social media exchanges where he discussed his fraudulent study and cast the unvaccinated as casual spreaders of disease who posed an unacceptable risk to the vaccinated. He compared the decision not to get the shot to such reckless behaviours as drunk driving and insinuated that the unvaccinated  were largely responsible for overburdening hospitals and causing the cancellation of surgeries for cardiac and cancer patients. 

Dr. Watteel, along with more than 20 other scientists and researchers openly questioned how Fisman’s paper, an incredibly flawed piece of work, could have passed a true scientific review process and end up being published in the CMAJ. The criticisms came from highly credentialed scientists.

As a researcher who has published and reviewed many scientific papers, I can tell you the article by Fisman et al is the worst one I have ever seen. Byram Bridle PhD Viral Immunology

You could get kicked out of university for this and would most certainly fail your modelling course. Jessica Rose BSc. Applied Math, MSc. Immunology, PhD Computational Biology.

But, when Dr. Watteel and other scientists and researchers approached CMAJ to request it retract the paper or publish a corrected one; their requests were ostensibly ignored by CMAJ. Such a non-response would seem to imply complicity on the part of the organization in terms of its peer review process and publishing the study.  

Dr. Watteel then took her complaint to the University of Toronto’s Research Oversight and Compliance Office (ROCO). In a letter to ROCO she detailed the fraudulent research and requested they investigate the researchers involved. ROCO displayed extreme reluctance to look into the matter and ultimately closed the file. She also went to the CIHR who had funded the study to seek a retraction, but after a lengthy review process CIHR decided the matter was simply a matter of ‘differences of scholarly opinion’. From Dr. Watteel’s perspective, the response or rather non-response of these organizations, indicated that they were all complicit in the processes that led to the development and publication of the fraudulent study. 

In a final attempt Dr. Watteel went to the of the Ontario Provincial Police’s Anti Rackets Branch who are responsible for investigating frauds, but they weren’t interested in looking into a large scale scientific fraud. Coming up against these brick walls, as she attempted to expose what she, and other research scientists viewed as a major scientific fraud is what prompted Dr. Watteel to write her book. She found it particularly agregious that they not only used false data, but used it to provide the government the grounds on which to continue to impose discriminatory policies on one group of people – those who chose not to take the COVID 19 vaccines. And, this, from Dr. Watteel’s perspective is what she refers to ‘hate science’. 

“While there has been no shortage of poor quality studies over the course of the pandemic, the Fisman debacle signifies malignant intent behind the faux transmission narrative. Alarmingly three top institutions spanning academia, medicine, and health research staunchly supported the overt fraud. They continued to do so in full knowledge that the fabricated results were used to stigmatize and discriminate against an identifiable group with the view to violate basic rights and freedom.” Dr. R.N. Watteel

Remember this, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, told the unvaccinated, they would not be able to board planes or trains to travel….

Did you hear what he said? Trudeau says to the unvaccinated, “don’t think you can get on a plane or a train, and put vaccinated people at risk”. How does that make sense? If a person is vaccinated, and the vaccines protect them, how is an unvaccinated person putting them at risk? It is easy to understand how the government might want to contract a group of hand picked scientists to concoct a study to uphold such an absurdity.

Dr. Watteel’s book provides a blow by blow account of how and why this fraud occurred and reveals the nature of the corruption around allowing it to be propagated and legitimized by the media, the government, the academic, and scientific institutions and even the courts. It doesn’t pull any punches. If you are interested in giving it a read it is available on Amazon.  

Or you can make a one time donation to my newsletter via Ko-fi.