Dear Thought Police: You're Not the Boss of Me

The people are waking up. And we will not forget what's been done to us.

In most of my columns here on Substack, I discuss science and disputed “facts.” But this one is personal. As protests grow all over the world and The Science™ and The Narrative™ start to crumble, I am reminded of all those heroic individuals who stood up early and stuck to their principles, often putting themselves and their careers at risk. I am reminded of Dr. Francis Christian, the Saskatchewan surgeon who got fired for the sin of advocating for informed consent. I’m reminded of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration who, after being labelled as “fringe epidemiologists” and having their careers derailed, have been proven right 18 months too late. There are others, many others, too numerous to mention.

Of course I’m also reminded of the experiences of my husband, Dr. Chris Milburn, the other half of this “pair o docs”. Many of you know the story of how Chris lost his job as director of ER for the Eastern Zone of the NSHA for the sin of speaking out. I’ve written about this extensively here and here. Speaking out came at a significant cost for Chris, and there may be further costs for both of us for continuing to speak out. Every time I say something publicly, I worry that I’ll go home and find a letter from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of NS in my mailbox. But staying silent would, in the long run, extract a greater toll. The CPSNS may take my medical license, but they can’t take my soul.

The suppression of scientific debate over the past two years has had devastating costs. Incalculable costs. The direct health-related costs of failed public health policies which should have (and could have) been stopped long ago will continue to reverberate through the years and decades to come. There will be increased deaths from missed and delayed cancer diagnosis, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, mental health and addiction problems, and developmental delay in children, to name just a few. And of course there will be the direct and indirect economic costs, which we may never recover from. But the more ephemeral costs might be the worst of all: the loss of trust in our legacy media and our institutions—including, perhaps most tragically, our public health institutions. The destruction of families. The shameful spectacle of medical apartheid which will, some day—mark my words—be considered in the same light as the internment of Japanese Canadian citizens during World War 2.

I have more years of post-secondary education than I care to count. I am well acquainted with the “laptop classes” who have sat at home (or in their comfortable offices) making up the rules for which others have had to pay most of the price. They made up these rules, as the experts™ of the laptop class always do, on the assumption that “the people” are stupid. On the assumption that they have to tell us what to do “for our own good” or worse, “for the common good,” a chilling phrase which—as every good student of history knows—has caused more harm to be done and more lives to be lost than perhaps any other.

But I grew up in a blue collar family in a blue collar neighbourhood in a blue collar town. A place where people haven’t had the common sense educated out of them. The people who started the current protest movement—the truckers—are still my people. And my people are angry. As they should be. I’m angry.

COVID will end at some point and at that time we will start to reflect on it and count up the costs. Those who have lied to us, those who have whipped up irrational fear and forced failed and destructive policies on us (either through malice or, more commonly, through a combination of ignorance and hubris) will try to justify their actions by saying it was a crisis. That they couldn’t have known their policies would fail to prevent the spread of the virus, or that they would extract such hideous costs.

Sorry, laptop class experts™, but no. We might have been able to forgive you for this during the first half of 2020. But now, after almost two years of you applying your jackbooted heel to the throats of those who were trying to warn you, you do not get to claim that you couldn’t have foreseen this outcome. The internet is a wonderful thing. We have the receipts. We know who knew—or should have known—what, when. We, the people, will not forget.

I’ll end my own rant with a brilliant rant from a fellow physician, initially posted on Twitter and re-posted by fellow Substacker, el gato malo—who is worth following, btw. I couldn’t have said this better myself, so I won’t bother trying. Apologies for the inconsistent font, but that’s what happens when you cut and paste from Twitter.