Prof. Dr. Andreas Sönnichsen,
- scientist, specialist in internal and general medicine, university
lecturer, author and politician with the party dieBasis.
- from 2004 to 2006 research associate at the Department of General Medicine, Preventive
and Rehabilitative Medicine at the University of Marburg - from
2006 to 2012 professor and head of the Institute of General, Family and
Preventive Medicine at Paracelsus University Salzburg - from 2012
professor and head of the Institute of General and Family Medicine at Witten/Herdecke
University.
- October 2018 - March 2022 Professor and Head of the Department of General and
Family Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna
Main research areas: Patient safety, medication safety, health
services research and evidence-based medicine.
- Chairman of the German Network from March 2019 to January 2021
Evidence-based medicine
(DNEbM). - published in March 2020 as Chairman of the German Network
Evidence-based medicine
a critical statement on the corona measures with the question Where is the evidence?
Moderator: Mr. Sönnichsen, nice to have you here.
With what expectations did you come to today's congress symposium?
Sönnichsen: I think it's great that this is happening, because the process of coming to terms with the coronavirus
crisis is stalling, as there are of course objections from various sides.
I am very pleased that the AfD has taken the initiative
to tackle this reappraisal.
This is already the second symposium of the AfD.
There is already a parliamentary committee of inquiry in Brandenburg.
That means there is movement.
I am glad that there is this parliamentary force that is
driving this movement forward.
I believe that we are simply taking a big step forward here today.
And of course with the media that are there.
Moderator: In your keynote speech earlier, you also mentioned
that there were various conflicts of
interest when it came to vaccination approvals.
Also just what was or was not stated in the studies.
To what extent should or could there be a reappraisal?
Sönnichsen: Yes, that's actually quite interesting.
This is something that we at the German Network for Evidence-based Medicine
have been criticizing for 25 years,
namely that many drug approval studies are very much tainted by conflicts of interest.
And if you look at the Pfizer study for the vaccine, for example, the publication
in the New England Journal states that Pfizer was responsible
for the design of the study, the conduct of the study, the evaluation of the
study and the publication of the study.
And most of the authors on this paper are Pfizer employees.
So what can you expect from the results of this study?
It is an unacceptable situation in medicine that
there are practically no independent studies.
And unfortunately, it has to be said, this problem of conflicts of interest continues.
Take a look at the EMA. The EMA is mainly financed by the pharmaceutical industry.
The WHO is predominantly funded by the pharmaceutical industry or organizations with conflicts of interest
such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is ultimately an extended arm of the
pharmaceutical industry in this case.
This means that we live in a completely corrupt medical system in
which ultimately only pecuniary interests are pursued.
And we need a general change, a general new beginning towards
a human-centered medicine that is independent
of these industry interests.
Moderator: You also said earlier, I don't remember the exact
wording, but something along the lines
that these measures, which then followed, were unlawful.
And that in turn would be a case for the courts.
So that these things are not only dealt with medically,
but also by the judiciary.
To what extent do you see the current state of play here?
How would you assess our current situation, what the judiciary
has or has not done?
Sönnichsen: Well, the problem is that we have an enabling act that
was passed by the Bundestag.
In other words, the parliamentarians have actually given up their control
function and thus made it possible for the
federal government, above all the Ministry of Health and the Minister of Health, to enact things
without a parliamentary resolution.
So that means lockdown, quarantine regulations, compulsory masks and so on and so forth.
Right up to the whole vaccination campaign, of course.
In other words, it would be unlawful and it is actually unlawful because
the preconditions, namely the epidemic situation of national
scope, never existed.
I'm just not a lawyer and in the end they will try to talk their way out of it.
Yes, it was lawful because the Bundestag established the epidemic emergency,
which did not exist at the time, namely on March 25,
when this law was passed.
The peak of the first wave had already passed in Germany on March 16.
This means that the figures were down significantly on March 25.
The first wave was overcome.
It has not led to an overload of hospitals.
It was even overcome before the lockdown and the serious measures were even taken.
And that of course makes them de facto illegal, because there was no longer any reason for them.
We'll see what the lawyers make of it now.
But you actually have to take a legal approach.
Moderator: Well, that didn't go as well as we would have liked.
But it's over now and somehow it's all far too diffuse anyway.
Let's just look to the future and hope that it doesn't happen again.
Is that the right approach now, to simply say, well, it's over, we've suffered, but
at some point you have to look forward
again and not just tear everything apart.
How do you feel about this?
Sönnichsen: I think that's why I'm here today.
I believe that you have to do that.
You really have to look back and take another close look at
what was known at what time.
Because on March 25, when this Enabling Act was passed, many
things were already known.
Our first statement from the German Network
Evidence-based medicine was published on March 20, five days earlier.
We had the data from China. In China, the wave was over.
We knew from the Chinese data that the infection mortality rate is around 0.15 percent,
i.e. in the range of normal influenza.
We already knew about the Italian figures in mid-March; it was mainly elderly people
who had died here who had significant pre-existing conditions.
We knew that the overall mortality rate in Italy was practically unaffected by Covid deaths.
It was all known. So you can't say today that we didn't know back then.
All the figures on the pandemic were known and the measures were decided anyway.
It is now very obvious why the whole thing was done.
It was done to keep panic high in the population and to increase the willingness to vaccinate,
so to speak, with foresight.
The long-term goal was vaccination.
After all, all other possible forms of therapy were rejected and vaccination was presented as having no alternative.
None of this is true. There were many alternatives for dealing with this crisis.
They just weren't noticed.
They wanted to push this vaccination through, against their better judgment and common sense.
Many people have come to harm as a result.
You can't just say, well,
it just happened, let's put an end to it and move on.
No, it needs to be dealt with, also to counteract similar abuses in the future.
Above all, of course, to prevent the WHO from now also initiating a
pandemic treaty that would grant the WHO rights of intervention in national law.
And this opens the door to future pandemics and similarly catastrophic mismanagement.
Moderator: When you say all these things were known.
I think it is always important to ask the question, who knew them?
In discussions with politicians, I kept getting the answer that they
got it all wrong because the situation looks like this or that.
There was virtually no willingness on the one hand, but perhaps
also a great lack of knowledge
on the other, where such gaps opened up and the measures
were implemented.
How do you assess this situation, because you are also very politically active and in contact with others.
How did you experience that?
So is it a problem that the people who matter in politics don't know about these publications?
Or is it a lack of willingness to deal with it?
Sönnichsen:
So you can actually look back today and just say that it was a deliberate lie.
It was a deliberate lie, there's no other way to put it.
The RKI, for example, has an influenza working group and they
have done a great job throughout the coronavirus period.
They publish the Influenza Weekly Report every week.
At the beginning of 2020, it was also possible to see every week how many patients were hospitalized with
severe acute respiratory infections and what percentage of them were coronavirus patients.
That was all known. So the RKI was aware of this.
And if the management of the RKI then claims something different from the data available
and published by its own departments, then it must be said that
it is simply a lie.
So it can't be any other way.
And of course it was a deliberate lie, because the narrative of the corona epidemic, the corona pandemic,
had to be fed, so to speak, in order to then come around the corner with the
vaccination as the only savior.
And that is of course definitely justiciable.
So I would say that is justiciable.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think the people who deliberately lied back then, against their better judgment, in
order to maintain this panic, need to be taken to task.
Moderator: So, to summarize, we are far from being out of the whole story. Quite
the opposite, it still is, it still affects us more than ever presumably.
If a reappraisal is now taking place, or is taking place this weekend, it is very
clear that there is also a great willingness among international experts to
take a closer look at this matter.
To what extent should or could the next steps in such a reappraisal look like?
What would be your recommendations or wishes?
Sönnichsen: Yes, so my wish would be, please dear media, not just exemplary media like
yours, but dear media, ARD, ZDF, Süddeutsche Zeitung, FAZ, Zeit, please finally
open your eyes and return to appropriate, balanced reporting.
So you've been reading nothing but propaganda in these media for the last three years, so to speak.
And that's where the train must go, so that we get media again, a media landscape in which there is
broad discussion, in which opinions are not marginalized, or not opinions but
facts are marginalized and defamed as right-wing extremist ranting or whatever.
It's unbelievable what happened.
I mean, I have always referred to studies and actual data with my statements.
And what happened to me is common knowledge, the scientific establishment is completely down there.
So if you confuse science with ideology, as has happened in the last three years, then there
is no more science. Science thrives on discourse.
And I have been willing for the whole three years and am still willing to sit
down and discuss with the people who represent other things here.
But the willingness is not there from the others. So that's what I would like to see.
I would like to sit down with Mr. Drosten and Mr. Wieler and confront them with the figures
and then hear what they have to say.
Mr. Wieler, these are your figures from your own institute. How can you explain this?
I would like to ask him that question.
Well, he is now being asked this question in the committee of inquiry in Brandenburg, for example. And the squirrel feeds with difficulty. Slowly, step by step, we make progress.
But the truth will not be stopped.
And what I find particularly scandalous is that people are still being vaccinated
and harmed with these vaccines. Corona, so now Corona is really just a cold.
So severe cases have become extremely rare with the new variants.
There is no longer any reason to vaccinate anyone against this disease.
As long as it is not one hundred percent clear that the safety concerns that are now arising everywhere are unfounded, nothing
will happen. My prediction is that these vaccines will come off the market next year at the latest.