‘Covid’ and the Corruption of Medical Science
This is about a book that presents fourteen essays that Professor Robert Clancy published in Quadrant between January 2021 and June 2026
Robert is an emeritus professor and clinical immunologist who spent about fifty years researching airway and mucosal immunity, mostly at the University of Newcastle.
The essays appear in the order they were written, and each has a new “preamble” setting out the state of the pandemic when it was published.
The publisher presents the book as a record of what one experienced immunologist thought as events unfolded, not with hindsight.
Robert did not start out opposed to vaccination. His first essay supported vaccinating Australians, but even then, he questioned what the new vaccines could be expected to do. The book’s overall explanation is that Australia dropped a long, successful tradition of independent, science-based pandemic planning.
In its place came a “narrative” driven by commercial and political interests, much of it from the United States, centred on a barely tested genetic vaccine. Dissent was suppressed, cheap treatments were banned, and the institutions that should have corrected the course failed to do so.
The scientific framework of mucosal immunology and the influenza model
Robert builds every chapter sound immunological argument. Covid, like influenza, mainly infects the mucosal lining of the airways. Protection there depends on the mucosal immune system, which works quite separately from the “systemic” immune system that injected vaccines stimulate.
Injected vaccines produce IgG antibodies in the blood. These work very well against diseases like measles or polio, where the pathogen passes through the blood on the way to its target organ, which is why those vaccines can give “sterilising” immunity and herd immunity.
Against an airway virus, blood antibodies act only once the virus “escapes” from the mucosa into the lungs and bloodstream, which is the stage of severe disease.
From this, and from 80 years of experience with influenza vaccines, Robert predicted in December 2020 how the Covid vaccines would / would not perform:
· They would reduce severe disease but do little to prevent infection or transmission.
· Protection would be short-lived and weaker in the elderly.
· Viral mutation would require repeated reformulation.
· Herd immunity would be unattainable.
Clearly, history and development of scientific understanding has validated these predictions.
A second idea becomes more important as the book goes on. The mucosal immune system includes strong suppressor (“T regulatory”) cells that stop the body overreacting to the huge number of microbes living on mucosal surfaces.
Repeated exposure to an antigen strengthens this suppression.
That is the principle behind allergy desensitisation shots. Robert therefore realised that closely spaced boosters, combined with natural infection, pushed populations towards “immune tolerance,” where vaccination leads to more infection rather than less.
He cites the rise in IgG4 antibodies after repeated mRNA doses as a marker of this tolerance. He also identifies that the problem is worse with mRNA vaccines because the dose of spike protein they produce in the body cannot be controlled.
The essays in sequence
January 2021, “A Realistic Approach to Community Management.”
Robert proposed a “four-pillar” plan: public health measures, vaccination, early treatment before hospital, and hospital care. He warned against “vaccine nirvana alongside therapeutic nihilism.”
He questioned the vaccine 90% efficacy claims, citing Peter Doshi’s analysis of FDA data, and noted the short follow-up period. He favoured traditional protein-based vaccines such as Novavax.
He also presented the evidence that supported hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and ivermectin (IVM) as early treatments. He says the hostile reaction to this essay from politicians and the ABC led his own university to issue a statement that he was not a Covid expert.
July 2021, “Where Are We At?”
Robert set out a five-step plan, still including vaccinating 80 percent of the population. However, he was already raising increasing vaccine safety concerns: VAERS death reports for mRNA vaccines far above the rate that led to the 1976 swine flu vaccine being withdrawn, and possible harm from spike protein spreading through the body.
He argued that people who had recovered from Covid did not need vaccination and that Australia should keep control of vaccine production locally.
October 2021, “Covid Strategy Beyond Lockdown.”
Robert compared the UK, Israel, Sweden and Iceland. He concluded that lockdowns only delay infection and that Australia’s “Covid-free” strategy had left its population immunologically naive. He questioned whether children needed vaccination and raised concerns regarding myocarditis adverse reactions in young males.
December 2021, “We Can’t Vaccinate This Pandemic Away.”
Robert cites a report of about 600 Australian patients treated with an ivermectin combination by frontline doctors, with no deaths. He attacks the TGA’s restriction of ivermectin prescribing and AHPRA’s warnings to doctors. He contrasts this with the rapid government purchase of Merck’s molnupiravir.
August 2022, “The Suppression of Useful Covid-19 Treatments.”
He compares the patented antivirals (molnupiravir, Paxlovid, remdesivir) with HCQ and ivermectin, concluding the old drugs have better evidence and safety. He gives a detailed critique of the TOGETHER trial of ivermectin published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
November 2022, “The Problem with the Covid Narrative.”
Robert describes the professional bodies’ silence. The Society for Mucosal Immunology, which he co-founded and whose “gold sponsor” was Pfizer, did not respond to his approach. The College of Pathologists declined his proposal for a national post-mortem study and referred him to the TGA. He develops the tolerance argument and describes Covid as having become “a pandemic of the vaccinated.”
May 2023, “The Curious Tale of Hydroxychloroquine.”
He treats HCQ as a metaphor for what went wrong. Robert says he wrote about 20,000 HCQ prescriptions in his career without a major side effect. He traces how the drug was discredited: the Raoult and Zelenko studies, the association with Trump, the retracted Surgisphere paper, and large trials in hospitalised patients, which he says were the wrong group to study because antivirals must be given early.
He argues the WHO’s handling of HCQ was a “rehearsal” for centralising control over medical decisions.
June 2024, “Ivermectin and the Cure for Long Covid.”
Robert criticises the parliamentary inquiry into Long Covid for listing symptoms without probing causes. Drawing on his group’s earlier work on fatigue in elite athletes, he proposes that Long Covid belongs to the chronic fatigue syndrome family.
In his model, a genetically predisposed person fails to clear an antigen (here, persistent spike protein), which drives chronic inflammation and fatigue.
November 2024, “Covid and the Sounds of Silence.”
He lists episodes of when legitimate debate was suppressed debate.
· a journal debate on HCQ
· a chapter he wrote for a NSW Treasury anniversary book, which was dropped
· former NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s admission that vaccine mandates were a mistake
· the building of an mRNA factory at Macquarie University
· Professor Nikolai Petrovsky’s Australian protein-based vaccine being sidelined
· the Senate excess-deaths inquiry, which he says published only 27% of submissions
He proposes an independent Australian advisory group, a revived pandemic plan, and a full inquiry.
March 2025, “The Problem That Won’t Go Away.”
This is a five-year report card. Quebec studies show protection against hospitalisation falling from 93% in 2021 to 54% for the XBB booster, then 23% against the later JN.1 and 0% against KP variants.
He reads this as evidence of tolerance plus a growing mismatch between vaccine strains and circulating strains. He raises fertility concerns, including a Czech study and animal data. Comparing Sweden with Australia, he argues Sweden did better on infections, deaths and the economy.
He calls for a pause in mRNA vaccine use and points to Moderna’s paused RSV trial in infants.
September 2025, “Vaccines Ain’t Vaccines.”
This chapter defends traditional childhood vaccines. Robert argues that disappointment with mRNA Covid vaccines must not undermine confidence in the 27 proven protein-based vaccines on the schedule.
He recalls children dying of measles and whooping cough when he was young. He also floats the idea that repeated Covid boosters may be causing broad “bystander” immune suppression. As evidence he cites the Cleveland Clinic’s 27 percent rise in influenza among covid vaccinated staff, a Swiss study of respiratory infections, and Australia’s record whooping cough numbers in 2024.
January 2026, “Post Covid Vaccination Syndrome: The Flagship of Covid.”
Robert argues that post-vaccine syndrome, once put at 0.003 percent, affects about 12 percent of vaccinees, based on a German survey of 4,632 people. He estimates around a million Australians are adversely affected, at a cost of about $10 billion a year.
He describes three “waves” of harm.
- early organ damage from spike protein toxicity and the T-cell response
-
chronic systemic inflammation with energy-activated fatigue
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possible genetic effects linked to DNA contamination, reverse transcription and ribosomal “frameshifting”
He reports treating 25 early patients with ivermectin, which binds spike protein. Of the seven who completed symptom scoring, five improved by more than 50%. He calls for large randomised trials.
May 2026, “Why WHO?”
Robert traces Australia’s history of independent pandemic leadership: John Ashburton Thompson and the 1900 plague, Cumpston, CSL, Burnet and the 2020 national plan. He argues that a once-strong College of Physicians has decayed and left a leadership vacuum.
He criticises the WHO’s funding ties to Gates-linked bodies (CEPI, GAVI) and Moderna, and Jane Halton’s roles in CEPI and COVAX. He urges Australia not to sign the WHO’s International Health Regulations amendments, which he frames as a matter of sovereignty, and advises the new Australian CDC to stay independent.
June 2026, “Not All Excess Pandemic Deaths Were Caused by Covid.”
Written with analyst Clare Pain, this chapter argues that the Australian Bureau of Statistics changed its baseline in ways that lowered its excess-death estimate. It also argues that Covid deaths were inflated by counting people who died “with” Covid, by PCR false positives, and by some influenza deaths being recorded as Covid.
Using Andrew Madry’s model of about 52,000 excess deaths from 2020 to 2025, and subtracting about 29,000 Covid deaths, he identifies roughly 23,000 unexplained deaths.
He cites:
· Wilson Sy’s finding of a correlation between vaccine doses and excess deaths about 21 weeks later
· excess deaths in Queensland starting before Covid arrived there
· Japanese data on 18–21 million vaccination records
· a TGA adverse-event database showing far more death reports for Covid vaccines than for all other vaccines combined.
He contrasts this with the TGA accepting only 14 vaccine-linked deaths, just one of them after an mRNA vaccine.
Recurring arguments about institutions
Throughout the book, Robert identifies that medical science was “corrupted.” He gives a variety of sources of evidence to support this contention.
- Pharmaceutical companies shaped the evidence. Vaccine studies were short and observational, which captured a “healthy vaccinee” bias. Trials of cheap repurposed drugs were “designed to fail” by enrolling late-stage hospital patients.
- Leading journals (The Lancet, NEJM) published flawed pro-narrative work and refused to engage with critics.
- Fact-checkers, social media and the legacy press, the ABC in particular, enforced orthodoxy.
- Regulators banned off-label prescribing, and doctors lost their registration, which undermined the doctor-patient relationship.
- Universities such as Monash became financially tied to Moderna. He cites Kylie Wagstaff’s ivermectin research, which he says was delayed for years.
Epilogue, postscript and addendum
The Epilogue sums up the lessons. Outcomes in airway infection depend on the biology of the infection, not on how the vaccine is delivered. Antigen dose matters. Australia must regain its independence.
Robert also promotes an alternative: an oral “immunobiotic” of killed airway bacteria developed by his Newcastle group, which he says strengthens the gut-to-airway pathway of immune protection.
He ends with an anecdote about a patient with post-vaccine syndrome who, unable to get a prescription, improved after taking ivermectin sheep drench, (of course we would advise against this as only drugs prescribed by a medical practitioner should be taken).
The Postscript quotes a Gemini Deep Research analysis by Ronald Kostoff that echoes his concerns about mRNA vaccines. The Addendum reproduces the rejected review article, which pulls together his evidence on waning efficacy, tolerance, contamination, and adverse events including cancer, Alzheimer’s and myocarditis.
How the book’s claims sit with ‘mainstream’ evidence
Never let it be said that we are deaf to persuasion or not open to counter arguments when supported by appropriate scientific evidence. We most certainly are.
However, there is no getting away from the fact that much of the content of this book sits uncomfortably with the current mainstream narrative.
We are of course open to counter argument and would suggest that mainstream opinion also demonstrates the same openness.
That basic scientific principles will be applied, that evidence-based medicine should be respected and that fundamental principles of medicine such as ‘first do no harm’ and ‘informed consent’ of reinstated to their paramount position.
See more here substack.com
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