Neil Ferguson

Neil Ferguson   (academic, epidemiologist)
Nationality	UK
Member of	"Team Worst Case Scenario", NERVTAG, Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies
Interests	• COVID-19 • COVID-19/Lockdown

Not to be confused with Niall Ferguson the poly-Bilderberger historian.

Neil Ferguson' is an epidemiologist who has studied pandemics. He was the main responsible for the research that sparked the mass culling of farm animals during the 'mad cow disease'-scare and the 2001 epidemic of foot and mouth disease , which both later turned to be unnecessary; and in 2020, the warnings that COVID-19 might kill 250,000 people.

Foot and Mouth Disease

In 2001, as foot and mouth disease (FMD) broke out in parts of Britain, Ferguson and his team at Imperial College produced predictive modelling - which was later criticised as “not fit for purpose.”

At the time, however, it proved highly influential and helped to persuade Tony Blair’s government to carry out a widespread pre-emptive culling which ultimately led to the deaths of more than six million cattle, sheep and pigs. The cost to the economy was later estimated at £10 billion.

The model produced in 2001 by Professor Ferguson and his colleagues at Imperial College suggested that the culling of animals include not only those found to be infected with the virus but also those on adjacent farms even if there was no physical evidence of infection.

“Extensive culling is sadly the only option for controlling the current British epidemic, and it is essential that the control measures now in place be maintained as case numbers decline to ensure eradication,” said their report, published after the cull began.

A 2011 paper, Destructive Tension: mathematics versus experience – the progress and control of the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic in Great Britain, found that the government ordered the destruction of millions of animals because of “severely flawed” modelling.

According to one of its authors - the former head of the Pirbright Laboratory at the Institute for Animal Health, Dr Alex Donaldson - Ferguson’s models made a “serious error” by “ignoring the species composition of farms,” and the fact that the disease spread faster between some species than others.

The report stated: “The mathematical models were, at best, crude estimations that could not differentiate risk between farms and, at worst, inaccurate representations of the epidemiology of FMD.”

Mad Cow Disease

Separately, Ferguson predicted that up to 150,000 people could die from bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE,'mad cow disease’) and its equivalent in sheep if it made the leap to humans. Per 2020, there have been fewer than 200 deaths from the human form of BSE and none resulting from sheep to human transmission. The result was an EU ban on British beef exports; and the eventual killing and incineration of over 3.7 million cattle.

Bird Flu

In 2005, Ferguson claimed that up to 200 million people would be killed by bird-flu or H5N1. By early 2006, the WHO had only linked 78 deaths to the virus, out of 147 reported cases.

Swine Flu

In 2009, Ferguson and his team at Imperial College advised the government that swine flu or H1N1 would probably kill 65,000 people in the UK. In the end, swine flu claimed the lives of 457 people in the UK.

COVID-19

Ferguson warned that COVID-19 might kill 250,000 people in the UK lockdown measures were not enforced to slow its spread.

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation	“The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded two models to “predict” the spread of COVID-19. The Imperial College London and the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle predicted that 2.2-million Americans would die unless drastic lockdown measures were followed. Both colleges quickly reduced their predictions, but the world is still in lockdown as a result of it. In 2005, the Imperial College of London predicted that 200-million people worldwide would be killed by bird flu. When the “crisis’ was over, the virus had killed 78 people worldwide. In 2009, the College predicted that the swine flu would kill 65,000 people in the UK, but the final number was 457. From 2006 through 2018, the Gates Foundation donated $185-million to the College to continue their good work.”	William Engdahl Jon Rappoport	1 May 2020

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