Many governments in recent years have bemoaned the increase of “mis” and “dis” information and have drafted and passed laws to try and eliminate this from the public discourse. Mainstream media appears to have been caught up in this narrative so let’s try to critically analyse a report of Barry Young’s arrest and appearance in court late last year to see how they stand up against a “fact-check”.
The article in question: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2023/12/former-te-whatu-ora-worker-barry-young-pleads-not-guilty-to-leaking-vaccine-data.html
- The charge was described as “leaking large amounts ..” and “dishonestly accessing ..“. Now I don’t know what the precise legal description of the charge was, but perhaps it is worth pointing out a couple of things in this regard:
- Barry Young was employed by NZ Health to design, build, and maintain the database in question and as such he would be required to access it frequently. Technically it does not make too much sense to differentiate between an “honest” and “dishonest” access.
- The word “leak” along with “dishonest” attempts to pre-judge his motives and actions without taking into account his side of the account. For example, my view is that he was collecting evidence of a significant crime, attempting to follow the whistleblower protection procedures available to citizens of NZ in that position.
- Liz Gunn is described as a “conspiracy theorist“. A proper unbiased report would not introduce a fellow journalist with a derogatory term like this as a judgement designed to invoke derision and personal attack.
- Margie Apa says “an individual downloaded a large amount of vaccine-related information and published it on an overseas website“. This statement is misleading. Assuming she is referring to Barry Young as the “individual“, then it was NOT Barry Young that “published” the information; it was Steve Kirsch. Not only that, but Steve did NOT publish the information verbatim but made adjustments to the detail to ensure that no one could be personally identified by the data made public. This was actually confirmed by Apa when she is quoted as saying “.. has not found any National Health Index Numbers or personally identifiable information“
- Apa is also quoted as stating “ .. confirmed the data had been taken down from the overseas website and an Employment Relations Authority injunction was preventing it from being published elsewhere“. If she said that, then it is absolutely FALSE. Once published the data was downloaded by numerous people all around the world, and in fact can be downloaded from this website. Who is she trying to fool? Only those who have no understanding of how the internet works and have lost all powers of critical thinking. In actual fact, one could quite rightly suggest that she is trying to spread misinformation.
- Apa is quoted as saying “.. had no clinical background or experience with vaccine knowledge“. What a strange remark! So Barry didn’t have this experience or knowledge but obviously he knows a lot more about databases and analysing data. If I witness a gunman shooting several people walking down the street and I subsequently find them lying in a great pool of blood not breathing, I don’t have to be a trained doctor or policeman to provide evidence that they were killed by the gunman. Margie Apa seems to want us to assume that her Health department expert clinicians are the only ones qualified to speak on vaccine safety. Sounds a bit like Jacinda trying to persuade the NZ people that the government should be their only source of truth. Fortunately there are more and more people seeing through that lie these days!
- Apa also states about Barry; “.. appeared to be trying to spread misinformation“. Again, this is a very strange statement. The information that he did spread (tried successfully) was direct from the NZ Health database. Is she trying to imply this data was incorrect? No – of course not. Barry had examined the data and found some very disturbing results. These results have never been refuted by Health NZ and in regards to the impact of vaccines, there is more and more scientific data being released that proves Barry’s concerns. In fact he is attempting to do the very opposite of what is claimed. He is not trying to spread misinformation, he is trying to spread TRUTH.
These attempts to continue to protect the “safe and effective” narrative are wearing very thin. Tring to hide data, bully and censor opposition is having the exact opposite effect – people are becoming more and more suspicious. Just release good quality, anonymised data along with logical supporting analysis and then the trust can be restored.
In conclusion, my judgement on this article and statements from Margie Apa: SIGNIFICANTLY FALSE and MISLEADING.