In an interview released on the 11th of May, UCD Professor Dolores Cahill claimed that the global lockdown in response to the COVID-19 crisis was unnecessary. Cahill also repeatedly made the controversial claim that once you have the virus, you are immune for life; a claim for which there is very little evidence as of yet. Indeed, the interview was packed full of misleading and inaccurate statements about the virus. The trusted fact-checker Health Feedback rated the interview as “based on inaccurate and misleading info”. 

Both YouTube and Facebook removed the video from their platforms for violating their misinformation policies after Business Insider reported that the video was “filled with misleading claims about COVID-19”. John Quinlan, co-founder of the independent fact checker Infotagion was quoted in that article as saying, “when we fact-checked this video we found there was no scientific evidence to support any of her claims”.

 

A History of Misinformation

First, let us take a look at who Dolores Cahill actually is. Cahill has impressive academic credentials and is considered a leading figure in proteomics: the study of how proteins function and interact with each other. Cahill has been involved in a number of impressive projects, and in 1997 co-founded a company called ‘Protagen AG’, which exists to this day under the name ‘Protagen Protein Services’. Strangely, however, there is no mention of her name on the Protagen website. The College Tribune approached Protagen for comment on Professor Cahill’s claims, but received no response. 

Cahill also worked at the prestigious ‘Max Planck Institute’ in Germany from 1995 to 2003. When Business Insider contacted the Institute for their article, they were told that “The work [Prof Cahill] performed at our Institute has no relation to the claims she has made with regards to the pandemic. The Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics distances itself very clearly from them, and we do not want to be associated with any of her claims in any way”. 

Cahill has not been publishing scientific papers for several years, with the last paper she co-authored in 2016 being retracted by Oxford University Press “due to the discovery of significant errors relating to methods and presentation of results”. Cahill has instead focused on politics. She is currently the chairperson of the fringe political party known as the ‘Irish Freedom Party’. The far-right party’s platform revolves around support for ‘Irexit’; the idea that Ireland should follow the UK in leaving the EU. Cahill’s ‘Which Candidate’ profile lists one of her main priorities as being “to stop Political Correctness being used to intimidate people from speaking the truth.” The party is yet to win a seat in an election. 

The Irish Freedom Party arose from a meeting in the RDS which was addressed by conservative brexiteer Nigel Farage. Party leader Hermann Kelly has repeatedly warned about the ‘Great Replacement’, a xenophobic conspiracy theory which claims that people are being intentionally replaced by immigrants. This ‘theory’ was cited by the shooters in both the El Paso and New Zealand mass shootings. Kelly also achieved widespread disdain in 2007 when he wrote a book which claimed that Magdalene Asylum victim Kathy O’Beirne had lied about her experiences. 

I mention these political affiliations only because they may be relevant to the claims Cahill has made surrounding the virus. It is important to remember when reading her claims, that far-right parties around the world have been opposing lockdowns on the basis that the ‘nanny-state’ is unjustly depriving people of their freedom. It is also important to remember that such governments, like those in the US, Brazil and Russia, have proven far less capable of slowing the spread of the disease, since they generally prioritise the health of the economy over the health of their citizens.

 

So, What Did Cahill Actually Say? 

Straight off the bat, Dolores came in hot with the claim: “There should be a lot of hope that this virus isn’t as dangerous as it has been shown to be, and also there’s major issues like the media are reporting the number of cases, when actually someone who has had the virus (like me, I had this virus in January and February), your immune system clears it after 10 days and then you are immune for life. So, you’re not a case. You’re immune for life. And so that is very important because the way it has been done in the media is as if a case is something dangerous.”

Ok, so a lot to unpack there already. First thing to say is that there is no evidence that someone who has had the virus is immune for life. To use the WHO’s words, “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection”. Our best guess, which is based on knowledge of other coronaviruses, is that someone who has been infected may be immune for a few months to 2 years, but that is very much still an unproven estimate. It all depends on the rate of mutation and the type of mutations which occur. 

When the media report the number of cases, they are not reporting the number of immune people. They are reporting the number of infected people. Whether or not those people will become immune after clearing the virus is unclear, but what is certain is that those people are likely to be infectious, and that their lives are at risk, particularly if they are elderly or have underlying conditions. So yes, a case is something dangerous. The media did not invent the approximately 400,000 people who have died globally at the time of writing. 

Cahill goes straight on to say: “we can see that in Ireland, as globally, half of the people who die are over 80 and that children and anyone under 50, unless they have chronic conditions like cystic fibrosis they will have no issue. So, what I am saying is there is no need for the lockdown and that we could actually all go back to work.”

The lockdown is indeed necessary. We all know already that elderly people are more vulnerable to this virus. In the absence of a lockdown, the virus would have spread through the population like wildfire, with low-risk people acting as a stepping-stone for the virus to reach vulnerable people like the elderly and those with underlying conditions. Our best shot at avoiding the mass deaths of vulnerable people, like we saw in Italy and now the US, was to stop the virus in its tracks. According to the vast majority of experts, the best way to do that was a lockdown. 

Many people have made the mistake of thinking that because the virus has not been quite as catastrophic as predicted for Ireland, that the lockdown was thus unnecessary. This fails to take into account the cause-and-effect relationship between the strength of the lockdown and the severity of the outbreak. Had we failed to lock the country down, things could have gone much, much worse. It is like landing an airplane, then saying ‘well, it turns out we didn’t need the pilots after all because we landed safely’. If the pilots had not been present, then the outcome would have been drastically different. 

Over 1,000 academics and scientists have now called on the government to revisit its stance on the lockdown, suggesting that the restrictions should continue until the virus is eliminated. 

Other claims made by Cahill include that between 7 and 15% of Irish people were already immune to COVID-19 before the current pandemic began. She claims this on the basis that people have developed immunity to diseases like the 2003 SARS outbreak or subsequent MERS outbreak. This is simply false. Based on her wording, it seems that Cahill is claiming that 7-15% of people worldwide have SARS and MERS antibodies, and then extrapolating to Ireland. WHO records show that between 1st November 2002 and 7th of August 2003, during the height of the outbreak, only 1 person in the Republic of Ireland contracted SARS. No cases of MERS have ever been reported in Ireland. It is extremely unclear, then, how between 343,000 and 735,000 Irish people could have developed immunity to these diseases as Cahill claims.

Cahill even claims that “practically everyone in the world” is immune to SARS, a claim which Health Feedback calls “baseless, […] as the vast majority of the world’s population has not been exposed to the SARS virus and therefore cannot have developed immunity to the virus.” Further, while it is possible that immunity to SARS could to some extent protect people from developing the more severe symptoms of COVID-19, these antibodies are likely to be localised around east Asia where SARS actually took hold. Moreover, we have yet to prove that SARS antibodies actually provide significant protection against COVID-19. There is preliminary evidence that this kind of ‘cross-reactive immunity’ can also occur in people who have had related coronaviruses like some of the viruses we call the ‘common cold’, but the jury is still out on that too. 

Cahill also claims that if we had quarantined people with underlying conditions and people over 80, then told them to take vitamins C and D and zinc for a few weeks, there would have been “no deaths”. According to Health Feedback, vitamin C has been shown to reduce the risk of respiratory infection, “but this effect has been observed only in individuals experiencing severe physical stress, such as marathon runners, and not in the general community”. 

It is also true that vitamin D protects against respiratory infection, but this is likely to only be the case if you already have a vitamin D deficiency. A significant amount of people do have such a vitamin D deficiency, so taking supplements (or getting more sun) can’t hurt. It would not, however, stop the virus dead in its tracks as Cahill claims. A recent study has found that vitamin K helps to protect against COVID-19 specifically, but again only if you already have a vitamin K deficiency

Cahill also claims that wearing face masks can lead to hypoxia which weakens the immune response. In other words, she is saying that the decreased amount of oxygen you inhale makes you less able to fight off the virus. Again, this has been thoroughly debunked. The use of masks does not result in hypoxia in healthy people, nor does it weaken the immune response. It is recommended that masks are not used on children under 2 with respiratory problems, but that is it. 

 

Enter Judy Mikovitz

Cahill cites an American scientist named Judy Mikovitz as one of her heroes. Mikovitz came under significant fire in 2011, when a ‘breakthrough’ study she had conducted on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) fell apart under scrutiny. The results Mikovitz found could not be replicated by other researchers, leading many to believe that there had been a contamination. Mikovitz has been in the news more recently for attacking US disease expert Anthony Fauci and claiming that face masks ‘activate’ COVID-19. Sound familiar? 

It may seem strange that Professor Cahill’s hero is a researcher who was not well-known in the scientific community prior to her breakthrough study being discredited. Mikovitz, however, has become a martyr for the ‘anti-vax’ movement and has called for an immediate moratorium on all vaccines. Mikovitz has also recently repeated the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 did not naturally jump from animals to humans; a theory that has been extensively debunked in the scientific literature. 

Both Mikovitz and Cahill are public supporters of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, despite some initial studies suggesting that it could, in some cases, be fatal to patients. In the interview, Cahill claims that hydroxychloroquine is the “most efficient treatment” and that there is an “oversupply” of the drug globally. While it remains somewhat unclear whether the drug will prove to be effective, we categorically do not have an ‘oversupply’ of it, with malaria running rampant across Africa. A study published in the journal Medicine in Drug Discovery in March states that “clinically justified or not, the current shortage for HCQ [hydroxychloroquine] is acute”.

The studies which came out in May claiming that the use of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 patients could increase fatalities were based on data from a small company called Surgisphere. This data is now coming under serious fire, with respected medical journal The Lancet retracting the study. According to The Guardian, Surgisphere has only 6 people in their employ; one of whom is a science fiction writer. The fact that this dataset may be unreliable, however, does not mean that the drug is in fact safe. A subsequent study, which has been hailed as relying on solid data and having a good methodology, found that hydroxychloroquine was “no better than a placebo”. I am not saying that hydroxychloroquine definitely does not work, but only that it is too early to say. 

The interview becomes more political towards the end, with Cahill calling for an inquiry into both RTÉ and the government for presenting the data in a misleading way. She claims that the media and politicians have been “using this as a fearmongering propaganda tool to try and take away rights from people and to make them more sick and to force vaccinations on us”. To respond strongly to a disease that has killed 400,000 people (that we know of) is not fearmongering, it is responsible leadership.

Another of Cahill’s claims is that people who have received a flu vaccine suffer a cytokine storm and more severe symptoms when exposed to COVID-19. This already debunked idea comes straight from the mouth of Judy Mikovitz. Mikovitz put forward the idea in a video called ‘Plandemic’ which has been heavily criticised for containing misinformation. Cytokine storms are an overreaction of the immune system to an infection. They can indeed be a complication of COVID-19 but have in no way been connected to flu vaccines. 

I hope that this information will go some way towards equipping people to refute the claims made by Cahill. Before being removed from YouTube and Facebook for containing misinformation, the video had been viewed over a million times, and it is still available online if you know where to look. These dangerously misleading claims will surely be repeated countless times, with Professor Cahill being cited as the seemingly reliable source. 

The truth is that a university professor with such an impressive background should be a reliable source for information at a time like this. If Cahill has simply made a great number of honest mistakes, then she should have done her research. If, and this is more likely in my view, she made these claims to further her political agenda, the university should investigate Cahill and consider relieving her of her position as a professor in the School of Medicine. 

Prof Cahill was contacted by The College Tribune for a comment but has not responded by the time of publishing. 

 

Adam Boland – Science Editor

 

70 thoughts on “UCD Doctor Makes Numerous False Claims About COVID-19

  1. Good article! I wrote a post after seeing her go viral in anti-vaxx/right wing interview circuit, her retracted paper was directly connected to the anti-vaxx movement and probably caused a lot of professional damage as a scientist:
    https://medium.com/@pippy_0338d/professor-dolores-cahill-anti-vaxxer-turned-covid-grifter-9b30a80e187

    I would imagine she wouldn’t lie about being a co-founder ‘Protagen AG’. But I did find one interesting tidbit from her CV:
    Since 2016, co-founding shareholder and Advisory Board member of Prof. Stephen Pennington’s UCD School of Medicine/Conway Institute spin-out company, Atturos Ltd. working to improve Prostate Cancer diagnosis (http://atturos.com/ and http://atturos.com/company/advisors/).
    She’s not on that web page anymore as an advisor, she was remove sometime since 2018, not a smoking gun but another data point that her scientific career is wrapping up.
    She’s not on that webpage anymore as an advisor, she was remove sometime since 2018, not a smoking gun but another datapoint that her scientific career is wrapping up.

    1. If nobody knows if you’re immune after having coronnavirus and if nobody knows YET IF hydroxycloriquine works why are you getting rid of Dolores. I think you’re all afraid of Dolores and Judy Mikovitz. Strong women speaking out. I’m sure all the people who have been taking hydroxyl clor. For the last 50 years would have liked to know that it COULD be fatal. I wonder how many are dead?????

      1. It is interesting Dolores Cahill has remarkable credentials, but she is a white female clearly over 50. The latter is why you and the fact checkers are having a field day spewling your and the democratic parties Covid19 scam. Why? In truth the only others to really suffer were the elder, elderly. You and the Democrats are at fault for all “false” hype. Not credible older females!!!!! And also … the hype has also brought even more age discrimination to those over 50.

    2. “The lockdown is indeed necessary. We all know already that elderly people are more vulnerable to this virus. In the absence of a lockdown, the virus would have spread through the population like wildfire, with low-risk people acting as a stepping-stone for the virus to reach vulnerable people like the elderly and those with underlying conditions. Our best shot at avoiding the mass deaths of vulnerable people, like we saw in Italy and now the US, was to stop the virus in its tracks. According to the vast majority of experts, the best way to do that was a lockdown. “…Utter tripe. Herd immunity would have taken care of business and indeed was well on the way to doing just that before the lockdown. Who are the so-called experts you refer to anyway Name them.
      Cahill is right and always was right .

    3. lol this cant be taken seriously. I stopped reading at “to use the who’s words….” seriously you think the general public is not aware of how utterly corrupt the WHO is and that Bill Gates funds it and is totally invested in vaccinating the world and culling the population …a matter which is recorded and cannot be denied. Go f-ck off back into the murderous swamp you crawled out of.

  2. Absolutely first class article. This charlatan has misled many because of her air of apparent academic authority and credibility. In reality her agenda is clearly political and she is part of an extremely dangerous, far-right, racist current in Irish society which fortunately has little support.

    1. Wouldn’t it be great to get Dolores Cahill and Judy Mitovits together with our Goverment advisors and have experts where a discussion could inform the public.
      We must be allowed question and debate in important matters such as this

      1. There is a problem of false balance: a live debate gives a false impression that these are two equal scientific arguments, which is why fringe scientists want a public debate rather than a scientific one. From my and other’s looking into Prof. Cahill’s and Dr. Mikovits claims, they are very often based on poor data, and definitely against the vast majority of experts in the field of virology / immunology / epidemiology.

        The process of science and peer review exists for a good reason. What Prof. Cahill’s and Dr. Mikovits want to do is to subvert the peer review process and want to directly convince the lay public.

        1. Pippy, then why not You step forward and put her in her place…? You seen to have all the high moral ground, science etc… How about these people too…? Are they ‘false’ for saying the same thing ? Dr Shiva Ayyadurai, Dr Rashid Buttar, Dr Zack Bush, Dr Vandana Shiva, Dr. Andrew Kaufman…etc. Are You, Pippy qualified to judge these people too ? I’d like to see that debate, sincerely !

          1. You’re some wingebag, Philip Kelleher. Go watch some more YouTube videos about Bill Gates being a lizard, because you clearly can’t read.

      2. The paytriot movement in Ireland have been desperate to politicise the lockdown, and while they correctly emphasise the failure to protect people in care homes, they also downplay the lethality of the virus and the need for any form of lockdown. They’ve developed a sudden interest in jobs and beaches but their frantic apocalyptic warnings are now being rendered ridiculous by the speed of re-opening. They’ve found themselves sounding like Michael O’Leary in their clamour for a return to business as usual. I guess that’s what happens when you get all your opinions from overseas.

      3. YES,…along with world experts such as; Dr Shiva Ayyadurai, Dr Rashid Buttar, Dr Zack Bush, Dr Vandana Shiva, Dr. Andrew Kaufman …

        1. Although the father of a microbiologist I have no competency in the science, however in the mid 1980’s I did undertake a once weekly return flight from Dublin to London. At the time there was an effective control of this route by Aer Lingus and BA. The price of the flights at that time was IR£320. Michael O’Leary came into play rescuing Ryanair and has subsequently kept the other air carriers honest. We all take advantage of reduced flights, so don’t knock him for expressing essentially a business opinion.

        2. And what about the opinions of Dr. Andy Riley, Dr. Desmond Coyle, Dr. George Byrne, Dr. David Nicholson, Dr. Declan Lynch, Dr. Ken Sweeney, Dr. Neil Hannon, Dr. Keith Cullen, Dr. Ciaran Donnelly, Dr. Mick McEvoy, Dr. Jack White, Dr. Henry Bigbigging, Dr. Hank Tree, Dr. Hiroshima Twinkie, Dr. Stick Bubblecart, Dr. Johnny Hellzapoppin’ , Dr. Luke Duke, Dr. Billy Ferry, Dr. Chewy Louie, Dr. John Hoop, Dr. Hairy Cakelinum, Dr. Ebula Conundrum, Dr. Peewee Stairmaster, Dr. Tight Head Lips, Dr. Jemima Racktouey, Dr. Jerry Twig, Dr. Spodo Komodo, and of course Dr. Canabrana Lammer.

    2. Has anyone fact checked Adam Boland’s article above. None of the information he has presented is definitive proof of accuracy or inaccuracy of her claims.

    1. My father is NOT A STATISTIC
      ELDERLY PEOPLE ARE NOT STATISTICS
      we are NOT YOUR LIVESTOCK TO BE EXPERIMENTED ON
      youre in for a rude awakening
      I know you wont but actually research who funds the WHO who profits from them who funds the media pushing this pharmaceutical terrorism

  3. A very well put together piece of astroturfing. It would be interesting to see who funds all your fact check sources

  4. This is a pathetic hit piece which bears no resemblance to a scientific argument.

    1. Here is the problem with that, there really is not a clear financial incentive to shut down economies like there was with tobacco companies.

      Most research labs were shut down, even virology labs, and unable to do their research during the lockdown. Healthcare/hospitals took an absolute beating because routine appointments/operations needed to be proposed and will likely be at reduced capacity for a long time.

      Even biotech companies like Abbott Laboratories who’ve shifted to diagnostics for COVID-19 can’t really be said to be making a killing. They suffered a huge drop in stock price in March like the rest of the stock market, and are only marginally better now than they were last year. I don’t see a huge vested interest in this side of the debate.

      There is definitely a incentive for a disgraced scientist like Dr. Mikovits (selling a new book), or Prof. Cahill (become a right wing politician), this counter narrative clearly benefits them financially/politically.

    2. But Cahill is the one saying hydroxychloroquine works (the data says otherwise) – how is that speaking against big pharma?

      1. This drug has long passed its private patent date. Any reliable pharma cpmpany can reproduce it at a proper price that any health service could afford..

      2. you clearly don’t see the big picture then, what else got ‘fast tracked’ and you missed also the shift that was about to blindside the people, so many things missed as in homework before slandering those who speak out would have been appropriate, or why speak out or why slander – such is the modern age, everyone an expert and publisher, like the author of this hit piece calling himself and editor

      3. Just bc you’re not smart enough to see through it doesn’t prove there’s no agenda.. pls..

  5. I laughed when I read the comments “A very well put together piece of astroturfing. It would be interesting to see who funds all your fact check sources” and “This is a pathetic hit piece which bears no resemblance to a scientific argument.” The fact is that Prof Cahill is the one who needs to check her facts and whos comments and opinion have no factual basis. The more pertinent question to ask might be – who funds Prof Cahill??? Are we really implying that a professor in a completely different field has superior expertise to doctors working in the WHO and experts in Public Health and Infectious Disaeases here in Ireland? Persumably nobody is shocked to hear she has not been asked to be part of any national advisory panels on these topics (because it really is an area she has zero expertise in, surprise surprise)? As a medical doctor, I strongly welcome this article as I have been utterly baffled and disgusted by her inaccurate and misleading statements made to the press, and I am delighted that someone has finally articulated all my concerns. Why is UCD not addressing this with Prof Cahill? Excellent article, well done!

    1. I cant tell you the names of who is auditing the auditors but the system is obviously working considering how quickly the article was retracted

      1. Adam Boland, Happy with your hatchet job, are you ? How about Dr Shiva Ayyadurai, Dr Rashid Buttar, Dr Zack Bush, Dr Vandana Shiva, Dr. Andrew Kaufman…. are these all making ‘false claims’ too…? And the MANY THOUSANDS of doctors around the world who are standing up against the Gates-dominated WHO narrative – are they also ‘making false claims’ ? Based on which experts ? Let us hear that debate, shall we ? Do You blindly trust the WHO ? What is your agenda here ? You are aware, are you not, of the questionable characters around the helm of that orginisation, not forgetting Anthony ‘dirty’ Fauci…? Are you, Adam, going to do an exposé on him, by chance….? Bill Gates…? Tedros Adhanom? How about the very questionable practices of the pharmaceutical companies, with their lack of any true scientific evidence of vaccine efficacy (no peer reviewed, double-blind studies, no comparative studies between the vaccinated and non-vaccinated, etc.), who are ‘steaming ahead’ to make a vaccine – regardless whether it gets used or not – because either way, and regardless of the collateral damage of a rushed vaccine that is being pushed through at an insane speed, there will be no consequences to the Industry, only profit – isn’t that correct !
        An exposé of ethics and practices of the Pharma Industry, would be you doing your job, Right ? But, if you are not open, honest and accountable to revealing truth – then you serve not Humanity, but something else.
        If you need help ‘following the money’, let Amazing Polly show you some interesting information. ~ https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=amazing+polly
        Regards
        – Philip

        1. Philip,

          Spot on. In their opinion the burden of proof is on you and on everyone that is against the mainstream native. In reality it must be the other way around. There are no believable statistics and no science to back up most of the claimed made by WHO and governments that are choking the life out of the world economy.

          Just a few days ago when the WHO representative spoke about the lack of evidence and how unlikely it is for a nonsymptomatic person to pass on the virust that is not as deadly as it was advertised to be, now that same person issued a so called correction to her statement. This new statement is based on a mathematical model and not science to say that up to 40% of infection transmission can be due to the spread from a no symptomatic subject.

          Absolute garbage.

          Regards
          Maxim

  6. The section in the article about myself is simply a collection of lies, mainly stripped off wikipedia by the look of it.
    As I have said publicly a number of time, as someone who studied biology, there is one human race, and I dont see evidence that there are distinct races. There is a continuum from whites to dark and everything in between.
    I have never espoused any doctrine of racial or white nationalism or superiority. I regard myself as Irish, not white. The British were white too, they didn’t exact help Ireland for a longtime.

    I don’t believe in conspiracy theories regarding replacement . The basic facts are, re OECD, ireland has 17% if its native born population living outside if Ireland.
    According g to CSO, 17% population in Irish republic are immigrants, non Irish nationals. No theories are necessary. Facts are clear.

    Secondly far from right wing etc, we believe in Free Speech, and oppose political correctness and closing down of free debate according to pervading fashion.

    Thirdly, through presentation of evidence if birth cert, school records and testimony of key and highly respected witnesses I was in my book able to show that Kathy O Bierne never attended a magdalen laundry and her book was based on lies. Ince my book came out, no publisher ever went near her again and she disappeared completely from the public square.

    This article certainly regarding me is baseless propaganda and false.

    1. Hermann,

      Here are some quotes from your Twitter feed and a quote published by the Irish Times:

      Sep 02, 2019: “…According to this, looks as if those talking about a Great Replacement in Ireland have a point. Who is doing the discrimination now?”

      Jun 28, 2019: “Population replacement continues apace over 120,000 “new Irish” since 2011….”

      Irish Times Sep 23, 2019: “The first thing they want to do is kill Irish kids and [they] want to replace them with every nationality who wants to come into our country,” Irish Freedom Party leader Hermann Kelly told Croft in an interview this year.”

    2. Thank You Maxim 🙂 * Truth is Powerful – and it Always Prevails !

  7. Interesting article; I agree with Andy – the public is entitled to a proper debate on these crucial matters but it seems we will only hear the opinions of ‘approved’ experts. Approved by whom?

    You point out that her academic credentials are impressive. They are. So is her employment record. Let’s park the politics for the moment. She may have some important knowledge and ideas. We need to hear people like her debate her findings with other academics in a proper setting.

    The truth of the matter seems to be that science knows very little about Covid and as a result, scientists all over the world are contradicting each other round every corner, leaving a confused and poorly informed public looking on.
    Be careful of using the word ‘debunked’. The Lancet article on the usefulness of hydroxychloroquine was used to debunk other findings – only to be withdrawn shortly afterwards when it was found to be full of short-comings. So who ‘audits’ the auditors?

    1. Except that anyone who works in science was immediately suspicious of her claims with no data. In fact she contradicted herself hugely by putting so much weight on having solid data to back up claims and then making claims with no evidence. I’m really surprised that UCD hasn’t retracted her professorship yet. I received the video of the interview via a WhatsApp from my mother and her circle of friends. I was appalled by how accepting they were of this woman’s claims but they thankfully agreed with me when I pointed out the flaws and the obvious political agenda. Not everyone has a child working in research so how many more people have been duped?

      1. But trust everything the WHO says, without question, Lucy Rockford ? Otherwise you would see the criminality in that orginisation, would you not ?….. and then we come to the pharma industry… Do YOU apply the same standards to that too…or, is that the business you work in and comply with ? Just asking

  8. This is an excellent article with each of Dolores Cahill’s false claims discounted in turn. I have been studying the covid-related scientific literature intensively since the end of February and there is absolutely no scientific basis for any of her claims regarding Covid19, life-long immunity, hydroxychlorine or benefits of vitamins to protect against Covid19.

  9. In elections, each party is invited to put forward their case and then discuss it in front of a presenter. This way, the public get to hear all aspects and make their own mind up. I note that Prof Cahill stated that she would appear on an RTE discussion programme, with any member of the Government or any Medical body for a TWO way discussion. Why doesn’t anyone who objects to her statements state their case on a level playing field. So let’s hear BOTH sides of the situation.

  10. This article is an excellent example of what happens when you question the official narrative. It is clearly part of a larger campaign to discredit Dolores Cahill and instigate a media frenzy to remove from her employment in UCD. So much for respecting the rights of free speech.

    In the above much reference is made the fact-checker site Health Feedback. This is an organisation that would seem setup by big pharma. It is part of the WHO Vaccine Safety project. It is long recognized that WHO are a corrupt organisation beholden to the big pharmaceuticals. Some of the funding for Health Feedback comes from Google and Facebook the very platforms which have become arbitators of truth and who banned her. All very circular. It is noted that John Quinlan co-founder Infotagion website is also a director of the PR company Iconic Labs who work in the social media space, probably along the lines of Cambridge Analytica. The real question is who are the key players and funders behind Infotagion. Back in April the British ministery of defence announced they were working to counter-act “fake covid” media and had anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000 people working on the problem full time with a further 20,000 at their disposal. Could they be sponsoring it perhaps?

    It is quite clear that once Dolores Cahill started questioning issues around vaccines with her paper in 2016 that was retracted, she was a marked woman from that point on and the machinery went into place to shut her down like it does very anyone who dares speaks ill of them. It’s worse than Catholic Ireland in the days gone by.

    Cahill stays she sold her company Protagen last year which presumably refers to her share in it. It was merged with a larger firm so receiving no reply is not evidence she never worked there.

    The Max Planck Institute is a set of government research institutes in Germany and therefore it would be highly unlikely for them to not stir clear of any controversy. Therefore their statement distancing themselves from her does not indicate much.

    In the article a quote from the WHO is used to debunk her. “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection…”. Why would we accept anything from this organisation whose sole agenda during this crisis has to be spread fear and encourage countries to stay in lockdown until the magic vaccine arrived.

    Cahill’s point is that RTE have been reporting infections reported which amounts to about 25k and then are using the ratio of deaths to this number to imply a certain death rate which is misleading. The ratio should of course be the number of deaths to the number of people who have been exposed to their virus and it is clear many people got their virus and had mild symptoms and this automatically means the death rate is far lower than implied. The best you are able to do to refute this is to say for elderly people or those with underlying conditions are at risk. If you listen to Cahill again you will realize these are the people we should have focused on and not all the healthy people. In a typical year elderly and people with underlying conditions are at risk to flu and it does kill them. The best you can then say is that “media did not invent the approximately 400,000 people who have died globally”. According to the WHO up to 650,000 people die each year from flu. So why don’t we lockdown every year?

    The rest of your piece goes on to try and discredit or at least play down the benefits of vitamin C, zinc and vitamin D. You may not realize it but these sound awfully like you are building the case for why we should all take vaccines. On the use of masks you say it is has been debunked. I doubt that. Anyone can roll out their doctor of choice to argue one way or the other but common sense would tell you that unless you are in a real plague, it is bound to interfere with your breathing in chronic low level way. We managed to survive all this time without them. Actually what Cahill says if you have symptoms you should wear a mask and stay at home. The whole logic of them is contra dictionary because on the one hand we know the vast majority of people are unaffected by the virus and yet we are supposed to wear a mask to protect us. Should we now wear masks for the rest of time to stop ourselves getting the common cold, flu and a host of other diseases? It makes no sense.

    Regarding Judy Mikovitz you imply she has an agenda. Now why would someone ruin their whole career and reputation. So that they could sell a book?
    The idea that people might have a conscience and try to expose corruption seems like an alien concept.

    1. There is no amount of evidence you can’t immediately bury by shoveling on more conspiracy.

      Someone fact checked the fringe scientist telling me what I want to be true? Must be funded by *spins conspiracy wheel* “Big Pharma”! Therefore I don’t need actually see if the claims are true.

      Congratulations, you’ve made your position falsifiable and not even wrong! Please join the Flat Earthers, Anti-vaxxers, HIV-AIDS denialists and Young Earth Creationists at the table for discarded scientific ideas.

      At some point you have to look at Cahill’s actual claims. This has been done already and pointed out using peer reviewed science to be utter nonsense.

    1. There is a big gap between trying to reinfect a Macaque a couple of weeks after initial infection and the statement that you are “immune for life”.

      The reason why immunologists are suspicious about the length of time infection will protect you from reinfection for this virus is because there is precedence in this exact virus family of reinfection within a couple years:
      https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/time-course-of-the-immune-response-to-experimental-coronavirus-infection-of-man/6C633E4EFDAEB2B4C0E39861A9F88B01

  11. Seems anyone with an alternativa view is automaticalky castigsted . Are we not capable if forming our one opiniones without always decima ting others. First publish the credentials of those “experts” used by the state and check peer reviews of their undoubtably perfect reseaech. Lets compare like with like.
    Also where is the fundinc coming from for all the UCD resesrch.

    1. If people can be reinforced after being exposed to Covid19 then there is no benefit in a vaccine

  12. She (Cahill) says the only things we can catch from each other are TB, Ebola, and small Pox?! And we just get everything else from door handles… That was enough for me. I like a good conspiracy theory, and think that vaccines can be made better and safer, but her claims are just bananas. Coupled with the political agenda… If she actually wanted people to take her seriously, she could have presented her arguments with some evidence and not just gloss over and lump things together in a way that made her sound like a raving lunatic. She very obviously doesn’t care about her Covid claims, just her political agenda about opening the economy. I get it, big pharma doesn’t like to be challenged, but these claims aren’t even a challenge, and have very little bases in reality.

  13. Why don’t you take up her offer of an open debate?She has been very clear on her willingness to participate in an open debate,however,RTE will not dare entertain the idea ,social media have chosen censorship,a fact that is quite suspicious when one considers the material they don’t censor,and journalists choose to partake in character assassination.The idea that the lockdown was necessary is far from being confirmed from the death ratio stats ,and the suspicion and evidence emerging of how death certificates were ‘doctored’ should be all the encouragment needed to open the debate.On the contrary,there seems to be a worrying eagerness to shut down the debate.

    1. False balance. And because she’s always going on about anti-vaxx stuff in her interviews I’d add: The resurgence of preventable disease to the list of reasons she shouldn’t be given a platform to convince non-scientists. If she wants a debate with experts she can publish science.

  14. It’s been widely accepted for years & well attested in scientific studies that having sufficient vitamins A, C, D and zinc helps boost the immune system and reduces risk of respiratory tract infections. #dolorescahill Incredible Govt & HSE
    barely mentioned this during Covid19

    Paolo Zanotto, Professor of Microbiology at the University of Sao Paulo, has released a list of 50 scientific references supporting the use of #hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19. Anti-hydroxy article withdrawn by Lancet after data shown to be fraudulent.
    https://t.co/zPPj4AAT3g

    The anti hydroxychloroquine study published in the Lancet had to be withdrawn recently as it was based on unsubstantiated fake data.

    Top global infectious diseases expert Dr Didier Raoult has advocated use of hydroxychloroquine against Covid19 since the beginning of the outbreak.

    1. Mr Kelly, it pains me to point that because I have been following your party’s doing for quite some time, being of an eurosceptic strain myself.

      I am unfortunately aghast as to how many ‘patriotic’ / right-leaning people have gone into full consipiracy theories with this crisis. And I am quite disappointed that Mrs Cahill did not do much better than other “5G-Bill Gates conspiracy” people in this interview with Dave Cahill (… she did even worse a few days later in one with Judy Mikovits and Sherri Tenpenny).

      Which makes me sort of sad because either it will weaken the credibility of your movement, either it will boost it somewhat by attracting semi-lunatics imho [Truth is I was already quite appealed at the level of sciences in this country, discussions around this only make me wonder, really…]

      Anyway… I notice your answer focus on the milder points of criticism in this article:

      1 – the vitamins / supplement (that may help at least some people. True HSE didn’t make a big fuss about it, but this sort of information is not really new and was available elsewhere).

      2 – the HCQ, which is still somewhat a ‘grey area’.

      However, even your defense of HCQ is not very convincing: first, this list of 50 references “supporting the use of HCQ for Covid19”: looking at it, I see about a third of these papers pre-date Covid19 (and the problem is not the anti-viral effect of HCQ in vitro, but its efficiency in vivo – it wouldn’t be the first time such effect is not carried over in vivo). Quite a few are just non-reviewed preprints (and some relatively oldish at this point), and many others rather inconclusive (e.g. conclusions like “showing some promises, further, more refined studies advised” ). At least one (Davido et al.) has been retracted (for ‘numerous methodological biases”, and it was apparently a diplomatic way to say things). And then there are DIdier Raoult / IHU work… so much to say there… As he is likely the cheeky one who started the hype about HCQ with his “Coronavirus : Game over” video clip back at the end of February….

      The methodology of Raoult studies is highly questionable too (and he has been nailed for it in the past); his answer to all objections is basically “I’m a genius, methodology is for the weaks, I don’t have time for it” (but note he has plenty of time for writing a book about the crisis, appearing in the celeb press medias, and making video clips to his own glory…), and he has recently joined an “anti-system” political party (too). He may be right, he may bewrong, but at this point the HCQ has not been proven to be the “miracle cure” that he (and Pr Cahil) was claiming it to be*. Only last week, two more studies (“Recovery”, an NHS-piloted RCT having enrolled thousands of patients, and one on prophylactic use of HCQ) were showing (again, and unfortunately) disappointing results. Whatever the outcome of the HCQ controversy in the long run, Pr Cahill had no good reasons whatsoever to be so sure that it was “the” treatment.

      And at least, even if I am suspicious of Raoult egomania and about the quality of his work, I haven’t heard Raoult so far spouting silliness about masks making you ill. Nor about immunity for life being a sure thing. Nor about SARS ‘circulating all over since 2003 and thus everyone being more or less immune”. Nor about a link between what has happened in Lombardy and “flue vaccines grown on dog tissues”. Nor about “no need for social distancing as this is only about “TB smallpox and Ebola” (my god she went so far on that one… has she never learn about measles, to mention a common one?).

      Do you have any comments on these points ?

      *Note – I have lots of family and friends in Belgium. Some are doctors and nurses. More than enough to know that HCQ has been widely use in the early weeks in attempting to treat COVID19. With – you might have guessed it – “disappointing results”. Even if the doctors didn’t say it (I have recordings from at least 2 of the main hospitals in Brussels and Liège mentioning it), only looking at the country ranking in terms of mortality/million people should be enough to doubt the efficiency of the “treatment”…

  15. This article is a disgrace and well said to the people who identified it as such, the facts and science are out there to debunk this piece of debunk and shame on the ‘editor’, another Gates Foundation Goalkeeper, hit piece precisely according to the tobacco science textbook. If I quoted the science would the venomous keyboard army spewing praise here and asserting their superior ‘logic’ understand it, clearly no real research interest on the part of this college tribune blog either, just tragic to see it quoted that brought me here…

    1. Funny how this miraculous science, we are all apparently too dumb to understand, is never cited. It’s almost like it doesn’t exist.

  16. The data is clearly showing that this virus is akin to a nasty flu. The all cause mortality numbers are bearing this out. What is most disturbing about this pandemic is the rampant vilification and censorship of anybody, no matter how good their credentials. who go against the prevailing government / media narrative and the WHO. This is really really bad for our society and our world. If we don’t stand up for freedom of speech and open debate it won’t be very long before we can’t. Do you really want to live in that world?

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