Neil Ferguson

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Person.png Neil Ferguson   Campfire Wiki WebsiteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(academic, epidemiologist, deep state tool?)
Nial Ferguson.jpg
BornNeil Morris Ferguson
1968
England
NationalityUK
Alma materLinacre College (Oxford), Lady Margaret Hall (Oxford)
Member of"Team Worst Case Scenario", NERVTAG, Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies
Interests • COVID-19
• COVID-19/Lockdown
• mathematical modelling
Academic used by the UK deep state to create frightening epidemiological models. In 2020 his group promoted the UK COVID Lockdown. Resigned from the SAGE after breaking the lockdown rules.

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

Professor Neil Ferguson is an epidemiologist whose mathematical modelling of pandemics predicted huge death rates and sparked the mass culling of farm animals during the mad cow disease-scare and the 2001 epidemic of foot and mouth disease (both of which later turned out to be unnecessary).[1] In 2020 he suggested that COVID-19 might kill 250,000 people (or even more[2]), a figure he later revised sharply downward.[3]

He resigned from the SAGE advisory committee after he was caught contravening his own lockdown rules by hosting visits from his lover, Antonia Staats, who was working as a senior campaigner on climate change for the US-based online network Avaaz,[4] He publicly apologised for the low quality of his computer code after a derivative of his epidemiological model was published in May 2020.[5], illustrating how he did not believe his own modelling.

Official narrative

Since 1996 he has built an impressive reputation in the area of modelling and risk assessment research. This work included generating the first reliable estimates of the maximum possible scale of the human vCJD epidemic. In 2001, he developed mathematical models of the foot and mouth epidemic and this work played a major role in the scientific advice that helped shape the measures adopted to control that outbreak. He has taken a lead role in developing enhanced epidemiological prediction and analysis tools for smallpox and other bioterrorist outbreaks, and is involved in advising the UK government, the EU and the US in this area. His exceptional skills have made important advances in applied and basic research that impact on a broad range of infectious disease disciplines.[6]

The Guardian presented Ferguson as a workaholic.[7]

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.”[By whom?] 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[8], found that the government ordered the destruction of millions of animals because of “severely flawed” modelling.

According to one of its authors - former head of the Pirbright Institute 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 from sheep to human transmission.[9] The result was an EU ban on British beef exports; and the eventual killing and incineration of over 3.7 million cattle[10].

Bird Flu

In 2005, Ferguson claimed that up to 200 million people would be killed by bird-flu or H5N1[11]. By early 2006, the WHO had only linked 78 deaths to the virus, out of 147 reported cases.[12]

Swine Flu

In 2009, Ferguson and his team at Imperial College advised the government that Swine flu (H1N1) would probably kill 65,000 people in the UK[13]. He was also one of 16 experts for the emergency committee of the WHO which recommended the declaration of the Swine flu pandemic. At the time he declared consultancy fees from GlaxoSmithKline, Baxter, and Roche.[14] In the end, Swine flu claimed the lives of 457 people in the UK.

COVID-19

Neil Ferguson tweet.png

Ferguson warned that COVID-19 might kill 250,000 people in the UK if lockdown measures were not enforced to slow its spread.[15] On 13th February he stated his predictive models were “not absurd.”[16] His computer program has been called a "buggy mess that looks more like a bowl of angel hair pasta than a finely tuned piece of programming" and he used a 13 year old database to feed it.[17][18] Other analysis points out: "There are numerous bugs in the code and the documentation suggests to run it several times and take the average."[19]


 

Related Quotation

PageQuoteAuthorDate
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

 

Event Participated in

EventStartEndLocation(s)Description
Halifax International Security Forum/202020 November 202022 November 2020Halifax
Nova Scotia
Canada
Annual spooky conference in November, this year held online instead of in Canada due to Covid lockdowns.
Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.



References

  1. "Neil Ferguson, the scientist who convinced Boris Johnson of UK coronavirus lockdown, criticised in past for flawed research"
  2. "The Dubious COVID Models, The Tests and Now the Consequences"
  3. "No, a COVID Scientist Didn’t Walk Back His Prediction"
  4. "The strange bedfellows of Professor Panic"
  5. "Code Review of Ferguson’s Model"
  6. https://acmedsci.ac.uk/fellows/fellows-directory/ordinary-fellows/fellow/Neil%20M-Ferguson-0033z00002qIIb4AAG
  7. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/05/uk-coronavirus-adviser-prof-neil-ferguson-resigns-after-breaking-lockdown-rules
  8. "Destructive tension: mathematics versus experience--the progress and control of the 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic in Great Britain"
  9. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TJ3o0jX4GxMJ:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/28/neil-ferguson-scientist-convinced-boris-johnson-uk-coronavirus-lockdown-criticised/+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au
  10. "The spread of mad cow disease"
  11. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/30/birdflu.jamessturcke
  12. https://www.prb.org/avian-flu-and-influenza-pandemics/
  13. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/six-questions-that-neil-ferguson-should-be-asked
  14. https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1277632/coronavirus-uk-neil-ferguson-epidemiology-virus-covid-19-vaccine-boris-johnson-spt
  15. "Government should be 'calling off the dogs' and relaxing lockdown rules, scientific adviser says"
  16. "LOKIN-20: The Lockdown Regime Causes Increasing Health Concerns"
  17. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8327641/Coronavirus-modelling-Professor-Neil-Ferguson-branded-mess-experts.html
  18. https://www.voltairenet.org/article209749.html
  19. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/corruption/i-have-reviewed-fergusons-code/ saved at Archive.org saved at Archive.is