It's one hour. It's sensible. It's New Zealand's Silenced documentary.

The COVID-19 Campaign was so much more than a 'public health' emergency. 'Silenced' draws attention to what else went on behind the scenes.

In October 2022 a journalist contacted me and asked if I would take part in a documentary. I was cautious as, having watched the massive polarisation of media in the past 3 years, I required assurance that the resulting content would be acceptable to the average Kiwi.

I believed that it was of critical importance that the resulting product would shed light on the methods by which powerful institutions had strategically acted to supress and curtail strategically important information. It was important that the director and producers calmly and logically shed light on the struggles of highly principled people, such as Williams, O’Reilly and Thornley. That the information would assist civil society in such a way that this knowledge might help draw families and communities together. That it wouldn’t persist in polarising and ‘othering’ (usually without context) those that stood outside the official COVID-19 campaign consensus.

Blanchard delivered on her promise.

Journalist, writer/director Sam Blanchard and the team at Candlelight Productions have approached this subject professionally, thoughtfully and cautiously. I had not met Blanchard before she approached me. The team undertook the project on a shoestring budget. You can easily watch on their web platform, Silenced.co.nz, or watch on Vimeo or Rumble.

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This week Liz Gunn of FreeNZ took time out to interview Sam and myself about the documentary.

https://rumble.com/v2gv2f6-samantha-blanchard-and-jodie-bruning-silenced-documentary-out-now.html

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How Sociology fits in.

If you’re new to this Talking Risk Substack, a good way to familiarise yourself with my COVID-19 related research might be by checking out this rerecording of a paper

https://rumble.com/v2gvgfk-science-for-whom-elite-control-of-scientific-information-in-nz-during-covid.html

presentation (original transcript) I gave at the Australian Sociological Association (TASA) conference in November 2022. I recently rerecorded the talk for quick and convenient access, but with increased references shown throughout the talk to underpin my discussion.

It was received at the conference with glazed eyes and a somewhat confused response.

Sociology might be charged to draw attention to the ways by which personal troubles are public issues; to articulate the attraction of the powerful to panopticon-like surveillance mechanisms; who claim the god-trick of seeing everything from nowhere. Sociologists help us talk about emissions and exposures, and how the navigation of individual risk is mired in uncertainty. They wise us up to how regulatory decisions reflect social and political influence; and to tactical medicalisation; and the methods by which the shaping the production of science and information is wound into the political economy of the corporate sector. Sociologists help us talk about what it is to be silenced through ignorance and not knowing. Why powerful institutions work to keep contradictory information outside of thought; and control what we know, and what we don’t know.

But somehow official COVID-19 Campaign nudging processes that shepherded the public to gravitate to QR code surveillance; to accept a genetic vaccine; while simultaneously conducting boundary work to exclude the ‘absurd’ claims of the dissenters, did not spark the curiosity of the global sociological community.

I can only presume firstly, that the few that tried to draw attention to broader information, couldn’t get past editorial teams or conservative and frightened colleagues.

However, secondly, modern university (so-called academic) environments (overtly and tacitly) suppress critical thought that contradicts management agendas, i.e. the promotion of commercial activity and private-public partnerships. In order to remain in academia, if scholars and academics were to securely pursue their desired (politically appropriate) research trajectory, it was politically necessary to pragmatically acquiesce. To fail to purposefully seek out controversial and contradictory information, months before mandates were locked in.

(Private-public partnerships are a popular mechanism of control in fascist states, so possibly not the best operating model for universities in democratic states).

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Quick History.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic I had access to the Auckland University library, and so wasn’t stymied by paywalls. My master’s thesis directly researched how science research policy created barriers for scientists to research the drivers of health harms. Therefore, I knew there was no independent place for scientific research where scientists could research risk from an injection that instructed the body to reproduce an antigen in uncontrolled quantities.

I had learnt through personal experience that OpEds discussing environmental health issues that differed from government consensus were unlikely to be published. I had no illusions about where loyalty in legacy (mainstream) media in Aotearoa New Zealand, really did lie. Most of the public hadn’t had such experiences.

From early 2020, many medical doctor colleagues at PSGR and other trustees were discussing the unfolding event. From the start, it was the elderly and the populations with complex chronic disease profiles, that we were most concerned about.

I was roughly documenting the data that I was identifying through literature searches, and it remains published on PSGR in draft form in the COVID-19 section. It was not comfortable for the PSGR to be publishing this, and we made this clear by stating on the home page:

The information, submissions and other contents on this website are provided by PSGR in the public interest and for professional scientific and medical discussion. This does not imply that all of the views expressed are held by all Trustees. Links to other sources of information do not imply an endorsement by PSGR of that organisation.

Later, in October of 2021 the PSGR presented to the  COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2). Our report was lengthy. We then presented orally to the Health Select Committee. We drew attention to early data demonstrating that vaccine failure was evident, and that waning and breakthrough infection was already increasingly common. We then drew attention to evidence the gene therapy ‘vaccine’ was not as safe as claimed. We also identified that vulnerable populations could benefit from treatments other than the gene therapy ‘vaccine’.

We consider that the report is robust and has stood the test of time.

Then, in April 2022 I released the Emergency Powers paper under my own name. It is republished in chapter form on Substack. It documents the fear-based propaganda regime, and the failure of the New Zealand Covid-science fraternity to broadly review scientific information, including information that might have contradicted their perspectives.

Other Substack articles take deeper dives, such as to highlight the role of ethics, the absence of ethical principles - and ethics committees; or elucidate how the weak regulatory system was riddled with loopholes (2-part discussion ); or how the agencies have prevaricated and failed to demonstrate evidence of literature reviews to promote trust, and demonstrate that the Covid-science fraternity were reviewing the state of science (and not just company data) as the COVID-19 pandemic progressed.

The actions of officials and elected members to develop statutes to trample on established principles of law; to fail to set in place obligations outside of company data; and produce mountains of delegated legislation outside public processes; suggests - if the status quo remains - that the COVID-19 campaign may serve as a precedent for future harms.

Please share the documentary Silenced with your friends and family. If you would like to contact Candlelight Productions please email them - info@silenced.co.nz.