GRASSMONSTER SAYS:

The Burden of Blind Faith

By Zvorxes Seer – Editor

Trust, like gravy, is best earned – not poured straight from the jug.

Editor’s note (30 July 2025): This article reflects the author’s personal opinion and is not medical advice.
For reliable, up-to-date information on COVID-19 vaccination, please consult the official NHS guidance at nhs.uk.

Before we begin: the NHS, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the World Health Organization all agree that **licensed COVID-19 vaccines are safe and remain our strongest defence against severe illness and death.**¹

I haven’t taken the jab myself – a strictly personal decision, rooted in how I weigh medical risk, past experiences and, frankly, a pinch of Yorkshire stubbornness. I’m not here to persuade you to follow my path, and I am certainly not telling anyone to skip professional medical advice. If you’re eligible, have a chat with your GP or pharmacist and choose what’s best for you.

What interests me is the conversation around it: the speed of development, the shifting public-health messaging, and the social-media pile-ons that silence even polite questions. Has modern discourse become so rigid that healthy scepticism is now treated as heresy? Let’s prod that notion – gently, and with the respect that evidence deserves…

Let us begin with an obscenity wrapped in good intentions: the modern notion that trust is mandatory.

During the pandemic’s theatrical crescendo, we were told to “trust the science” with a frequency that rivalled wartime slogans and toothpaste jingles.

But science, dear reader, is not an altar – it is a method. And the more loudly its messengers demanded blind faith, the more the thinking classes were right to reach for a sceptic’s hammer.

It wasn’t always thus. In the sane, sepia-toned world before 2020, you could raise an eyebrow about medical trends without being called a conspiracy theorist. To hesitate before accepting an injection was not heresy – it was considered rational prudence, particularly in nations like the UK where healthcare had always been an imperfect negotiation between underfunding and common sense.

Then came Covid. And with it, a new priesthood of bureaucrats, modellers, influencers, and ministers flanked by those now-famous lecterns. Their commandment? Thou shalt not question the jab.

The Speed of Science vs the Pace of Public Trust

The vaccines were developed, we were told, “at record speed.” A triumph, yes. But also a dilemma. Normally, medical breakthroughs take years of peer-reviewed scrutiny, adverse effect trials, and regulatory navigation. The vaccines received emergency authorisation only after Phase III trials of ~44 000 volunteers showed ~95 % efficacy and an acceptable safety profile; what was accelerated was the bureaucratic paperwork, not the clinical stages.

We were promised transparency, and instead given a fog of press briefings and Twitter hashtags. Meanwhile, those who inquired about long-term effects were told to “trust the experts” – a phrase that now functions more like a digital taser than a reassurance.

The Collapse of Civil Debate

Worse still was the fate of the cautious. To express even a flicker of doubt became tantamount to sedition. “You’ll kill grandma,” became the battle cry of those too lazy to engage with nuance. “Anti-vaxxer” was weaponised not just against the delusional, but also against the reasonable, the immunocompromised, the curious, and the previously injured.

This wasn’t public health – it was public shaming in PPE. We watched as social media throttled dissent not for being incorrect, but for being inconvenient. One could no longer ask “why” – only “how many doses do you want?”

From Informed Consent to Informed Conformity

There was once a time, not long ago, when every medical procedure required sober consent – a signature, an understanding, a conversation. The Covid era bulldozed this custom. Coercion masqueraded as encouragement. Take the jab or lose your job. Take the jab or miss your child’s birth. Take the jab – or else.

Suddenly, the world adopted a binary logic. No room for allergies. No space for caution. And certainly no platform for those who, after their first dose, experienced side effects (UK Health Security Agency’s latest vaccine surveillance report, gov.uk/covid-19-vaccine-surveillance-reports ) and dared to mention it in public. However, while rare clotting events have been reported, a comprehensive review by the European Medicines Agency found no causal link to mRNA vaccines.

The Curious Case of Changing Guidance

Remember when the vaccine would “stop transmission”? That promise quietly faded. Then came the boosters – not one, but many – each with diminishing media fervour and increasing public fatigue. The marketing changed faster than the virus itself. And still, we were expected to submit without question, lest we be labelled a traitor to modernity.

Conclusion.

I do not distrust the Covid jab because I am reckless. I distrust it because I was told not to. And in any free society worth its salt, “just do as you’re told” should be a prompt for inquiry, not obedience.

Coming next: The Science, The Silence, and The Spin – why expert truth needs no censorship.

The Science, The Silence, and The Spin

In any functioning society, science is supposed to be a light – not a lighthouse that turns its beam only where it pleases. During the Covid era, science – or more precisely, its self-appointed spokespeople – became a kind of managerial religion. It was not to be questioned. It was to be believed. And it came armed with graphs, slogans, and the brutal confidence of a PR firm that believes you are too stupid to think.

This was not the fault of science itself. It was the fault of those who believed that “following the science” meant eliminating dissent. But science does not demand silence. It invites scrutiny. It thrives on contradiction. Yet somehow, during 2020 to 2023, questioning the script was made equivalent to breaking quarantine.

Understanding Adverse Effects – Without Being Banned

The MHRA in the UK and the CDC in the United States both published data on adverse effects following Covid vaccination. These were public documents. They stated – quite plainly – that Regulators confirm myocarditis remains rare (~15–45 cases / million second doses in young males) and clotting events are < 2 per million doses; the overall benefit–risk balance remains strongly in favour of vaccination..

And yet, to discuss these publicly was treated like public nudity. Major platforms shadow-banned or outright suspended accounts that quoted official statistics. People who posted screenshots of MHRA Yellow Card reports were accused of “spreading misinformation.” Imagine a society so fragile that it hides its own footnotes.

The Language of Certainty – And the Art of Being Wrong

Consider the statements that were once gospel:

• “The vaccine will stop transmission.”
• “Just two doses and you’re protected.”
• “Boosters will end the pandemic.”

Each of these has since been revised, adjusted, walked back, or buried. The virus evolved, of course – but so too did the narrative, in ways that often seemed less scientific than political. Rather than admit uncertainty, the experts resorted to the oldest trick in the book: blame the non-believers.

And what of the scientists who dared raise questions? Many were smeared. Some were deplatformed. Others – like those behind the Great Barrington Declaration – were accused of endangering lives, even as their predictions about lockdown harms and immunity played out in real time.

Institutional Fragility Disguised as Authority

If science were truly confident, it would welcome dissent. But instead, we witnessed a grotesque overreach by health bodies, universities, and media outlets who treated doubt not as a sign of thought – but as a virus in itself. Public Health England (now defunct, rest in bureaucracy) made declarations that were later contradicted by the very data it buried beneath spreadsheets and optimism.

Meanwhile, mainstream journalists – once sceptical and adversarial – became court stenographers for the Department of Health. The BBC, with all the courage of a toasted crumpet, parroted policies without once wondering if the public might deserve the full truth, even if it complicated the story.

Conclusion

I do not distrust science. I distrust the spin factory that was erected around it – the bureaucrats in white coats, the academics with NDAs, and the “fact-checkers” with funding ties. Truth is not the enemy of health – but compulsory belief just might be.

Coming next: Media, Messaging, and the Ministry of Truth – how posters replaced principle.

Media, Messaging, and the Ministry of Truth

If Orwell had lived long enough to witness the pandemic, he would have put his pen away and simply nodded, watching his prophecies turn into public health posters. In this phase of the great Covid theatre, the virus itself took a supporting role to its far more contagious cousin – the narrative. And my word, what a production it was.

It began innocently enough – somber ministers standing behind triple-podiums, announcing daily doom with the sanctity of undertakers. But soon, it evolved into something more sinister: a regime of slogans, songs, nudges, and outright threats disguised as “information.” This was not messaging. It was managed belief.

The Slogan Industrial Complex

“Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives.” It had the rhythm of a hymn and the punch of a guilt trip. Rarely has a three-line phrase caused such confusion, reverence, and internal contradiction.

When staying home began to kill small businesses, delay cancer diagnoses, and fracture social trust, the phrase was quietly replaced with newer, sleeker ones. “Hands, Face, Space” – because rhyme trumps reason. Later came “Get Boosted Now,” a slogan so imperative it needed no article. It read less like health advice and more like the last words of a malfunctioning robot.

Enter the Behavioural Architects

The UK Government’s use of the “Nudge Unit” (formally the Behavioural Insights Team) became public knowledge only when the psychological manipulation had already taken root. These unelected strategists helped sculpt fear levels, influence compliance, and engineer behaviour through calculated messaging. Not for public debate – but to steer the masses like livestock with polite signage.

Their job was not to explain risk, but to shape perception. The goal was not dialogue, but direction. In short: control the emotional weather, and you control the democratic terrain.

The Demonisation of the Non-Compliant

Those who refused the jab, questioned lockdowns, or challenged masks were labelled selfish, unpatriotic, even murderous. Entire groups – including the previously vaccine-injured – were cast out of polite society, denied access to public places, and vilified in state-sanctioned campaigns.

The media – once the guardians of scepticism – became the scribes of this new orthodoxy. Newspapers published headlines calling dissenters “plague rats” or “Covididiots.” Broadcasters blurred the line between public service and psychological warfare.

Children, Celebrities, and Coercion

Even children weren’t spared. TV ads told them they could “kill granny” if they hugged her. Pop stars, footballers, and ageing actors were wheeled out to push the jab, some with all the conviction of a tax write-off. But this wasn’t public health – it was pandemic pantomime.

And when humourists and comedians dared question the messaging, they were denounced not just by Twitter trolls, but by MPs. Apparently, questioning government slogans in a democracy had become “dangerous misinformation.” How terribly convenient.

Conclusion

In the end, I don’t object to messaging. I object to its masquerade as truth. When the state replaces conversation with command, and dissent with diagnosis, it becomes something far worse than wrong – it becomes infantilising. And the citizen becomes something far worse than misinformed – they become manageable.

The Pharma Gods and Their Profit Margins

If ever there was a time to admire the audacity of pharmaceutical giants, it was during the pandemic. They didn’t just sell medicine – they sold salvation, with a side of legal immunity. For those still clinging to the romantic notion that science is conducted in noble laboratories by white-coated idealists, the Covid era offered a useful corrective: science may heal, but Big Pharma invoices.

The story of the jab cannot be told without the corporations that made it. Pfizer. Moderna. AstraZeneca. Johnson & Johnson. Names once found only in footnotes of trade journals now danced across the headlines like war heroes. And indeed, they had fought a war – not against a virus, but against irrelevance. And they won. Spectacularly.

The Miracle of Emergency Approval – and the Even Greater Miracle of Liability Waivers

Most medical products require years of testing, evaluation, revision, and post-market surveillance. But during the pandemic, urgency trumped tradition. Vaccines were authorised for emergency use in record time. This was understandable. What was less understandable – and almost completely unmentioned – was that manufacturers were granted full legal indemnity.

That’s right. If something went wrong – say, a severe reaction, a long-term side effect, or a trial oversight – the company would not be held liable. National governments, not multinational giants, assumed the risk. And so, the Manufacturers received indemnity – a mechanism also used for 2009 H1N1 and other emergency vaccines – while governments run compensation schemes for the very rare serious reactions.

The Skyward Surge of Share Prices

While small businesses crumbled, furloughs dragged on, and economies stuttered like wet lawnmowers, pharmaceutical stocks soared. Pfizer’s revenue in 2021? Over $81 billion. Moderna’s? Up more than 2,000% from 2019. These companies didn’t just beat the market – they became the market.

Let’s be clear – profit in medicine is not inherently evil. But profiteering from crisis while demanding public trust is a moral sleight of hand. It asks the public to believe in benevolence while watching CEOs cash in stock options faster than syringes could be manufactured.

Marketing Masquerading as Public Health

Governments did the advertising. The public paid for the product. Pharma companies banked the profit. A brilliant model, really – no overhead, no lawsuits, all applause. Many Western nations even signed contracts that redacted pricing, terms, and delivery timelines. Public health became a private ledger.

Meanwhile, booster drives were launched because protection against infection wanes after ~6 months, but an extra dose restores effectiveness to ~50–60 % against symptomatic illness and ~45–60 % against hospitalisation in 2024-25..

What Was in the Vial?

To this day, some of the data remains unpublished or black-boxed in obscure regulatory documents. Freedom of Information requests were denied or delayed. Transparency was treated as a privilege, not a right. And when journalists dared investigate, they were accused of “undermining confidence.” Because apparently, the greatest threat to public health is not disease, but journalism.

Conclusion

We are told to trust Big Pharma because they “saved the world.” Perhaps. But they also bought it. The companies that made the vaccine have every right to be proud – and every reason to be questioned. Trust must be earned – not subsidised by the taxpayer and shielded by law.

What Trust Looks Like – And What It Isn’t

Trust, we are told, is essential. And indeed, in medicine, trust saves lives. But in politics, trust is currency – and it is often counterfeited. What we witnessed during the pandemic was not the organic trust born of dialogue and transparency. It was the manufactured trust of slogans, coercion, and collective guilt. It was not trust at all – it was obedience dressed in a lab coat.

This final part is not an argument against vaccines. It is an argument for something more fundamental: the right to question, the right to consent, and the right to refuse without being made into a national pariah. These are the hallmarks of civil society. Without them, we are not a democracy under strain – we are a patient under sedation.

What Real Trust Requires

Real trust is built on transparency. It is not afraid of questions. It does not censor the cautious, nor punish the injured. It accepts that in a population of millions, there will be outliers, reactions, and debate. It acknowledges uncertainty instead of disguising it beneath infographics and influencer videos.

Had governments admitted “we don’t fully know,” many would have nodded and rolled up their sleeves anyway. Instead, they chose a different path – one of total certainty. And when certainty turned to contradiction, the edifice cracked.

When Caution Became Criminal

It is one of the grotesque ironies of our time that the very people who promoted bodily autonomy for decades suddenly reversed course. “My body, my choice” was replaced with “take it, or else.” This wasn’t health policy – it was ideological whiplash.

Parents who hesitated to vaccinate children – who face much lower but not zero risk (UK ICU rate ≈ 0.15 per 100 000 in 2024) – were berated…. Elderly patients who declined boosters were treated as liabilities. The unvaccinated were fired, shunned, and – in some cases – denied medical treatment. All in the name of safety. But for whom?

The Right to Refuse – and Remain Human

Informed consent is not a formality. It is the cornerstone of ethical medicine. And yet, for nearly three years, it was ridiculed. Governments partnered with corporations, psychologists, and the press to convince, nudge, and ultimately pressure people into compliance. Those who dared say no were treated as a public health risk – not because they were dangerous, but because they were disobedient.

Is that what trust looks like?

The Real Danger Was Never the Virus Alone

Yes – Covid was real. It was deadly for many, disruptive for all. But it was also a proving ground for how fear can be used to reshape societies. Not by force – but by suggestion, shame, and seductive messaging. That is why trust broke – and why it must never be surrendered without interrogation.

Conclusion: The Recovery We Really Need

Recovery is not just biological. It is political. It is moral. It is a long, painful process of restoring the balance between expert advice and individual choice. Between urgency and liberty. Between truth and convenience.

If you took the jab, may it serve you well. If you didn’t, you are still a citizen. And if you question both the jab and the hysteria around it, then you are doing what democracy requires.

Trust the science? Yes. But first – make the science worthy of trust.

#InformedConsent #CovidRecovery #PublicTrust #GrassmonsterSays #PandemicReflections #QuestionAuthority #MedicalEthics

Informed Consent, Post-Covid Society, Vaccine Debate, Civil Liberties, Public Health Ethics, Satirical Political Writing, UK Commentary

what trust means in medicine, right to refuse covid jab, pandemic public trust issues, satirical pandemic reflections, consent and liberty 2025

Author – @grassmonster

Medical Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute medical advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional before making any medical decisions.

Editor’s Disclaimer: This article contains no medical advice and critiques public discourse and policy through lawful satire. All facts are current and verified as of July 2025. All rights to expression and rebuttal remain with the reader.