Updates (Feb 2026)
BBC lack of coverage…; “You cannot change your sex”; icy Great Lakes; “our cancer mystery”; measles scaremongering; the VDPS; germ versus terrain; BBC bias; “Hacking wiki again”; digital ID pushback
Below is February’s Updates post. As ever, a warm welcome to new subscribers.
Many thanks to readers sharing articles, which is always appreciated. And much gratitude to everyone for reading.
BBC lack of coverage of the Rape Gang Inquiry
Further to this post…
…I noted with interest the BBC’s response to:
We have received complaints from people who felt there was a lack of coverage of the “rape gang inquiry” backed by Rupert Lowe MP
The BBC says:
We have limited resources and it is not possible to report on every story which is of interest to our audiences. We know that not everyone will agree with our choices of what to cover, or the prominence stories are given. Our news editors make these complex decisions based on their editorial merit and the other stories in the news that day. These decisions are made for editorial and practical reasons and should not be taken as indicative of bias.
Make of that what you will.
Here is part of the response of Raja Miah, a longtime campaigner for the victims of the rape gangs:
“You cannot change your sex”
On the subject of the BBC, and further to this post…
…I am reminded of this 2021 Question Time exchange between Lord Winston, Emeritus Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College London, and Fiona Bruce (paid £410,000-£414,999 by the BBC in 2024/2025):
[Bruce] You’ve mentioned Kathleen Stock [British philosopher who argues that saying trans women are not women is a reasonable view to hold in the UK]… and that’s a trans issue, but obviously academic freedom has… been talked about in a number of areas…
[Winston] I was rather hoping that you’d be interested in my opinion as a biologist, which seems rather more important…
[Bruce] I’m just saying… the issue of academic freedom isn’t solely…
[Winston] I’m about to say something that will mean that you will probably want to edit the program when I finish…
[Bruce] Okay, we’re all braced for it…
[Winston] I will say this categorically… that you cannot change your sex. Your sex actually is there in every single cell in the body. You have a chromosomal sex. Y you have genetic sex. You have hormonal sex. You have all sorts of different kinds… psychological… brain sex… they’re all different. And we are very confused about this unfortunately, and regrettably it’s got into this argument that people…will now accuse me of being transphobic…
[Bruce] Obviously there are trans people who say you absolutely can [change your sex]…
[Winston] Well, unfortunately you can’t say this publicly. This is one of the big problems… even saying this on this program undoubtedly will result in my getting a huge amount of hate mail. It always does. But I do think it’s a big issue about the attitudes… There are of course issues which are important about young people who are confused about their sex, but we won’t go down that route here… But it does affect a whole lot of issues in schools and elsewhere in our society. Of course we should accept people as they are. Overall, I think it’s a very sad thing that we can’t discuss biological science without actually getting completely caught up emotionally with something which is really completely wrong.
[Bruce] Well, as I say, there are people who would vehemently disagree with you, so I’m just going to make that clear…
I wonder what conversations went on behind the scenes at the BBC after that appearance. I guess that might have been Lord Winston’s last appearance on the programme.
I am reminded of how David Bellamy and Johnny Ball were sidelined by the BBC after questioning the climate change narrative…
…while David Attenborough was retained and lauded as a national treasure…
Icy Great Lakes
Which reminds me…
Further to posts such as this one…
…I was intrigued to see from the Great Lakes Ice Tracker that, after minimal ice cover in 2023 and 2024, and a fairly average year in 2025, the extent of ice this year is back up at around 50%:
Lake Erie is representative: whereas it had hardly any ice in 2023 and 2024, this year it is almost completely covered, much like in 2025:
“Our cancer mystery”
Turning to health, and further to this post on vaccines and cancer…
…I noted with interest that Time magazine is now openly discussing “Our Cancer Mystery”…
…but without reference to the elephant.
And Pfizer are openly asking the question, “Why are more young adults getting cancer?”
Who can reply? Accounts @pfizer mentioned can reply
Pfizer… the company that made a fortune from mRNA injections during the covid era, and has recently spent more than $50 billion in acquiring companies with products to treat cancer…
I am reminded of the Good Jobs First website which provides details of offences committed by pharmaceutical companies.
Here is what the site has for Pfizer:
Scroll down for the individual penalty records…
And keep scrolling…
I am also reminded of the UK’s Cancer Act 1939:
The Act includes the following:
Measles scaremongering
Still on health, and further to this post re “Superflu”…
…for which the latest data is here…
…it is also worth looking at the data in the context of the recent scaremongering re measles:
Here is the measles chart from the UKHSA dashboard at the time of writing:
As to vaccination, maybe there are good reasons why people are losing trust in what the authorities tell us about vaccines…?
Some obvious questions in relation to measles:
How does limiting the availability of a single measles vaccine help?
Why is the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine being combined with chickenpox despite the known significant added risks? (NB the V in MMRV stands for varicella, i.e. chickenpox)
And why are the authorities not more honest about the risks?
Conclusions: We identified a serious mortality safety signal following MMR/MMRV vaccination in the United States. A substantial number of reported deaths were documented, with patterns demonstrating pronounced alignment across age, temporality, routine-dose timing, concomitant vaccine exposure, and recurring clinical presentations—including fever, seizures, SIDS, and cardiac arrest. Reported deaths were predominantly concentrated in children under 2 years of age, and the majority occurred within the first 14 days following vaccination…
For context, here are the historic numbers for measles deaths in England and Wales:
The measles vaccine was introduced in 1968 (indicated by the red bar).
Taking those figures at face value, and assuming that the deaths were actually caused by measles, it was plainly not vaccination that caused the substantial improvement in public health outcomes between 1940 and 1968. Presumably better nutrition and antibiotics to treat post-measles bacterial pneumonia played their part.
As to the US, here is a chart from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), showing death rates for measles between 1900 and 1960:
The first measles vaccination in the US was in 1963…
Scrolling up at the above link reveals charts with similar patterns for diphtheria, dysentery, typhoid fever and tuberculosis.
Moreover, mortality rates from scarlet fever show a similar profile…
…and there has never been a vaccine for scarlet fever…
The Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS)
Still on vaccines, and further to posts such as this one…
I read with interest this recent BBC article:
Nearly £50m of taxpayers’ money has been paid by the NHS to an outsourced firm assessing claims of medical harm caused by vaccines…
The figure is eight times the amount originally estimated for the assessment work carried out by Crawford & Company Adjusters - and almost £20m more than the total so far awarded to those injured or bereaved as a result of Covid vaccines…
Created in 1979, the VDPS currently offers a one-off tax-free payment of £120,000 if it is medically proven that, on the balance of probability, a vaccine has caused severe disabilities…
The figure of £120,000, set in 2007, has not risen since. If it had risen with inflation, it would now be over £200,000.
As of mid-November last year, 249 people had received payouts for harm caused by Covid vaccinations.
The payments totalled £29.8m, funded by the UK government and paid separately from the Crawford contract…
The original contract between the NHS and Crawford is publicly available, but has been heavily redacted.
Leaving aside the trustworthiness of the BBC on the subject of covid vaccine safety and the actual number of people harmed (or worse), I find it striking that the total amount paid out to those with life-changing injuries is substantially less than that paid to the private company doing the assessments.
Germ versus terrain
More generally re health, and further to this three-part post featuring an interview with diagnostic pathologist Dr Clare Craig…
I recommend this article…
…which provides an accessible overview of the “germ versus terrain” debate, and includes discussion of a susceptibility model where infectious agents are necessary but not sufficient.
(For anyone wondering, “germ theory” essentially says that microbes get into the body and make us sick. Whereas “terrain theory” says that such infectious agents are essentially everywhere, but only cause sickness when the body is in a weakened state due to lack of immunity, poor general health, nutritional deficiency etc.)
“Hacking wiki again”
I have been following some of the revelations…
…in the context of the release of more of the Epstein files (searchable here).
And further to this article…
…I was intrigued to see this email — titled “Hacking wiki again” — written to Epstein himself:
Digital ID pushback
Finally, and further to this post…
…and this cartoon from last week’s updates…
Together have a useful tool (for those in the UK) that generates an editable message to contact your MP:
Also, this UK Government and Parliament petition has been gaining traction:
I wonder how the government will respond.
Previous Updates posts
January: Streisand again; yet another personal story; ambulance calls; sex-selective abortions; Talla context; reputation; after the event; a woman who said No; defections to Reform; digital ID via children
December: What will be the next “Talla”?; climate snippets; mask pushback; Spiked; “Superflu”; vax trial testimony; staying sceptical; can’t stop Christmas...
November: Vaccine harms; the persecution of Dr David Cartland; a global purge of independent leaders; the BBC and Ofcom; climate; a secret UK Cabinet Office meeting; Enoch Burke; NI Public Health Bill halted
October: Climate data deleted; folic acid in flour; Pizza Hut; digital ID film; vaccines; determinants of autism; growing awareness re covid protocols; Labour’s 1964 manifesto; technocrats; China and the WHO
Unexpected Turns homepage
The most-read articles can be found here