Exclusive: What Was It Like Being a ‘Canary In a Covid World’? Doctors, Activists Speak Out
Dec 18, 2023
In exclusive interviews with The Defender, the editor and several contributing authors of “Canary In a Covid World” chronicle the censorship and consequences they faced for questioning COVID-19 orthodoxy amid restrictions and mandates.
Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free.
What was it like being a proverbial “canary in a coal mine” during the years of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the face of severe restrictions, mandates and large-scale censorship? In the book, “Canary In a Covid World: How Propaganda and Censorship Changed Our (My) World,” prominent thought leaders set out to answer that question.
Featuring essays from 34 contemporary thought leaders, “Canary In a Covid World” chronicles the authors’ personal and professional experiences dealing with several forms of censorship: in the press and mass media, on social media platforms, and within the ranks of academic, scientific and medical institutions and licensing boards.
Among the authors are figures from the realm of politics, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), U.K. Member of Parliament Christopher Chope, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Damage, and Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida surgeon general and professor of medicine at the University of Florida.
Prominent doctors also contributed chapters, including Drs. Pierre Kory and Paul Marik, co-founders of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, British cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, and Dr. George Fareed, who, together with Dr. Brian Tyson, has treated over 20,000 COVID-19 patients.
Among academics and scientists, contributors included Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D., professor emeritus and senior research scientist in the epidemiology of chronic disease at the Yale School of Public Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine, economics and health research policy at Stanford, Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., author of “Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom,” and scientist Denis Rancourt.
Vocal advocates for vaccine safety were also among the contributors, including Steve Kirsch, founder of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, and COVID-19 vaccine injury victim-turned-activist Brianne Dressen, co-founder of React19.
In an exclusive interview, C.H. Klotz, editor of “Canary In a Covid World,” told The Defender the essays the book contains “would never find a home in mainstream media due to censorship,” adding that they “take the reader through the COVID story, from the mandates, to the vaccines, to the truckers’ protest in Canada, to off-label therapeutics, to vaccine injuries and much more.”
Klotz said that what stood out the most to him about the contributors was their courage.
“The fundamental thread that ties them together is censorship,” Klotz said. “Every voice has found themselves silenced at one point or another as the propaganda has marginalized them.”
“We wanted to diffuse the anger that often goes with discussion on the COVID narrative. We wanted to counteract brainwashing,” he said. “We felt if we could bring these voices together, to sing as one voice, others might finally be willing to listen.”
These efforts are beginning to succeed, Klotz said. The book is now available in the U.K. House of Commons Library, was hand-delivered to the wife of Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, the country’s main opposition party, and was pictured being held by Sean Buckley, leader of Canada’s National Citizens Inquiry.
According to Klotz, while he “entertained several offers to publish the book,” it was ultimately released by Canary House Publishing — to support several of the organizations that have been outspoken in countering establishment narratives.
“It seemed to make the most sense where we could ensure that $3 from each book sold could be donated to three organizations which are doing tremendous work — Children’s Health Defense, the Informed Consent Action Network and React19,” Klotz said.
In exclusive interviews with The Defender, several of the contributors to “Canary In a Covid World” talked about their experiences as “canaries” during the pandemic, and shared their views regarding the broader contribution of the book to the public debate about COVID-19.
Colin McAdam: ‘People without a voice can still be heard’
“Canary In a Covid World” opens with a chapter by internationally acclaimed novelist Colin McAdam titled, “Where Your Fear Begins.”
This essay, according to McAdam, examines “the competing views of COVID — the dominant one that exploited fear and insisted that life is about avoiding death, and the subversive one, which said that life is about living.”
In this chapter, McAdam goes on to talk about his experience participating in the trucker convoy when it reached the Canadian capital of Ottawa — an experience which “opened my eyes to many things, one of which was bravery,” he told The Defender.
Participation in the convoy “show[ed] me that it was possible and necessary to speak out,” McAdam said. “No public voice in Canada, and few people globally, had been addressing the true nature of COVID or the harms of imposing lockdowns and mandates.”
“The truckers, simply by uniting, making themselves visible and loud, were able to draw attention to public inertia, to the mendacity of the media and the government’s harmful policies,” McAdam added. “They showed me that people without a voice can still be heard.”
Addressing the reluctance of many of his peers and those in the creative industries, such as writers and musicians, McAdam said, “The COVID crisis demonstrated the power of fear, but it wasn’t simply fear of the disease. The more destructive and lingering fear has been that of being ostracized.”
“If I see that the dominant group believes in x and y, regardless of how absurd x and y might be, then my fear of losing my place in the group will override everything and I will declare my belief in x and y — at the cost of every conviction, every truth — because losing my place in the group will mean a loss of status and income,” McAdam said.
This mentality was far from limited to the creative industries, he added.
“Artists stood out to me because we are supposed to be the compassionate and curious ones. But the uncompassionate behavior of artists was not unique. Physicians are meant to treat disease, but they didn’t. University professors are meant to ask questions, but they didn’t,” he said.
“No one did what they were supposed to do because the message was that they would lose their jobs and status if they didn’t follow the dominant narrative,” he added.
For McAdam, the prevalence of this line of thinking “reveals the astonishing power of propaganda, but it also reaffirms what George Orwell observed in his preface to ‘Animal Farm’ — propaganda is most successful and sinister when it is self-imposed, when the intelligentsia believe and embrace it for the sake of their own dominance.”
Addressing the broader significance of being a “canary in a COVID world,” McAdam said, “If the message from above is to be brave, unity and kindness will emerge, but if the message is to be afraid, society will collapse.”
Dr. James Thorp: Hospitals, medical journals ‘terminally corrupt’
Missouri-based obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. James Thorp told The Defender that in his 44 years of practice, he has “never, ever … seen such rampant corruption of the government and the hospitals and the medical journals.”
Calling such entities “terminally corrupt,” Thorp said, “Their level of corruption in the last four years has accelerated on a slope that is unprecedented compared to the prior decades or centuries.”
It is this corruption that forms the basis of his chapter, titled “The Most Egregious Violation of Medical Ethics in the History of Medicine, co-written with Maggie Thorp, J.D., MACP.
“My chapter is about the travesty and the egregious violation of medical ethics by pushing a novel untested vaccine in pregnancy,” he said. “It’s the most egregious violation of medical ethics ever in the history of medicine, maybe in the history of the world.”
This was done with the guidance of government agencies and with the complicity of the mass media, Thorp said.
“Even liberal media outlets now acknowledge that $5 trillion or more … were used to push a lethal, blatantly false narrative of the COVID-19 experimental gene therapy,” he said, noting that Freedom of Information Act requests the Thorps filed revealed the funding and connections between federal agencies and medical licensing boards.
Thorp also highlighted the role of so-called “trusted community leaders” in perpetuating establishment COVID-19 messaging to the public. According to Thorp, money for such efforts was distributed through a program known as the COVID-19 Community Corps.
“They gave these bribe monies of over $13 billion to about 300 sectors, covering every stitch of the social fabric of our society,” he said. “They put up a massive number of really very lying and deceitful promotions, like, for example, ‘Go get your COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy, otherwise you will die and your baby will die.’”
“These are grossly false fear tactics that are academically false,” Thorp said.
“Just remember, he who pays the piper calls the tune,” he said, noting that with such funding, media outlets routinely “demonized” and “defamed” scientists who expressed contrary opinions regarding COVID-19.
Dr. Mary O’Connor: ‘You will lose family members and friends’
In 2021, Dr. Mary O’Connor was one of four Canadian doctors who faced legal proceedings brought by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) for issuing “false” medical exemptions for the COVID-19 vaccine — with GlobalNews accusing these doctors of “undermining the fight against COVID-19.”
O’Connor’s chapter, titled “My Message to the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons,” is a response to the ordeal she faced.
O’Connor told The Defender she wanted to tell her story about her battle with the CPSO as she fought to protect her patients’ rights — “their right to choose their own medical treatment and their right of privacy of their medical history.”
“I wanted people to understand that the CPSO has been co-opted … from their original role, which was to protect patients,” she said. “Instead, they are now complicit with the injuries and deaths of many people.”
O’Connor, who saw “many adverse reactions” among her patients, said she also wanted to raise awareness about the dangers associated with the COVID-19 vaccines — and of threats to medical privacy.
“I wanted people to realize that they were coerced to take a medical treatment, i.e., injections, which were still investigational and dangerous,” she said.
O’Connor maintains that the shots were not vaccines and they failed to prevent infection or stop the spread of the virus. “The majority of the population just didn’t know, couldn’t see it. They were lied to,” she said.
“I wanted people to realize that their private medical charts are no longer safe,” O’Connor said, addressing the efforts of the CPSO to confiscate the medical records of her patients who received an exemption — demands O’Connor said she refused.
“Now, the CPSO, if they believe there is ‘an emergency,’ have given themselves the power to take and examine any patient chart,” she said.
According to O’Connor, CPSO also forbade doctors from questioning or debating official COVID-19 measures and policies. O’Connor said, “CPSO went on to threaten physicians with punishment, investigations and disciplinary action.”
“We were also forbidden to use alternate treatments to treat COVID,” O’Connor added. “Particularly forbidden were ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which I had used in my practice years before with no adverse effects.”
Instead, patients’ deaths “were hastened in hospital with use of ventilators and remdesivir,” O’Connor said. “The truth was suppressed everywhere.”
According to O’Connor, there were risks involved with being a “truth-teller,” but benefits as well.
“You will lose family members and friends. You may lose your job and income, and maybe your housing,” she said. “But there are huge rewards. You gain the serenity of knowing you are on the side of truth, and you meet a fantastic new group of friends.”
Margaret Anna Alice: ‘Mistakes were not made’
For writer and blogger Margaret Anna Alice, whose writings have focused on health, politics, mass control and propaganda, with a focus on COVID-19, silencing dissenting opinions represents a decisive step toward atrocities against humankind. She highlighted these points in her chapter, titled “A Primer for the Propagandized.”
“Totalitarianism, genocide, war — these atrocities are only possible thanks to the twin forces of propaganda and censorship: propaganda to promulgate the menticidal narrative and censorship to silence the truth-tellers exposing the lies upon which that narrative is based,” she told The Defender.
Such efforts are based on psychology, behavioral science and “nudging,” Alice said.
“Behavioral psychologists, cult leaders, and Bernaysian front groups know how to emotionally manipulate the populace into believing preposterous notions,” she said. “All it takes is a cup of fear, a pinch of rage, a dash of envy and a generous sprinkling of cognitive biases to bypass people’s critical thinking capacities, intuition and survival instincts.”
Alice said lockdowns and social distancing represent examples of such techniques.
“Biderman’s Chart of Coercion provides a manual for implementation, including isolation, a torture technique that inflicts neurological changes as Naomi Wolf and I discussed in her recent Dissident Dialogue,” she said, noting that she launched her blog in April 2021 with “A Primer for the Propagandized,” discussing such techniques.
The result of this, Alice said, was “unquestionably a religion — or, more precisely, a Covidian cult,” which she described in her chapter as an “ideological mass psychosis” with no relation to science.
“If this were about science, the Media-Pharmaceutical–Big-Tech complex would not be memory-holing every dissenting voice, vilifying every thought criminal, and censoring every legitimate inquiry in quest of the truth,” Alice wrote.
While a commonly heard narrative in the aftermath of the pandemic is that “mistakes” were made by policymakers and public health experts, Alice warned that the events of the past four years were not accidental but intentional and that the public must be more vigilant going forward.
“It is only by comprehending how the past four years occurred that we can prevent future encroachments on our rights, liberties, and lives by the ‘philanthropaths,’ tyrants, supranational entities, governments, COVID ‘kapos,’ and colluders,” she said.
“Each chapter of ‘Canary In a Covid World’ contributes a puzzle piece, and together, they form a clear picture showing that mistakes were not made — and why we must seek justice to prevent the repetition of the crimes against humanity that continue unabated to this day,” she added.
‘It’s possible, and vitally important, to speak out’
Klotz and the contributors described “Canary In a Covid World” as a book that compiles truths that were suppressed during the pandemic and urged the public to read the book.
Describing it as “one of the most important books” that has been published about COVID-19, Thorp said it contains “a compilation of experts with irrefutable credentials of truth-seeking,” who are “being persecuted because they are invoking their First Amendment right and their right as scientists to speak the truth and to interpret data.”
“This book does a lot,” McAdam said. “It informs readers about the forces that created their misunderstanding of COVID. It tells stories of suffering — vaccine injuries, losses of livelihood, destroyed reputations — that have not been broadcast in mainstream media.”
“I think one of its simplest and strongest messages is that COVID is a treatable disease — a message delivered by genuine physicians who have treated tens of thousands of patients,” McAdam added. “If this knowledge alone had been broadcast, I think the world would not have collapsed as it did.”
“We are all telling the truth,” O’Connor said. “Many of us didn’t know it at the beginning but were blessed to find it. We have told the truth in spite of huge negative consequences, and we are coming from many directions — those who didn’t know at first, those who knew and tried to tell others, experts from all walks of life.”
The contributors also shared a message of hope and optimism.
“There is a lot in the book that might and should make people angry, but overall what I feel is that it’s a book about kindness,” McAdam said. “Many of these people have stood up to incredibly powerful forces in order to truly care for people. And perhaps on the whole the book demonstrates that it’s possible, and vitally important, to speak out.”
“We are just regular people telling what we saw and learned,” O’Connor said. “We will speak out no matter what.”
Klotz told The Defender that an audiobook version of “Canary In a Covid World” was recently released, while a French language version and a sequel “focused purely on the financial interests behind COVID” are planned.
He added his hope that “Canary In a Covid World” will “open the eyes of those people who have questions and are ready to consider that the ‘truths’ their governments have told them, might not be so true after all.”
The Defender’s Michael Nevradakis was a contributing author to “Canary In a Covid World.” His chapter, “Fact-checking the ‘Fact-checkers’: Standing Up for the Truth in the Age of COVID Censorship,” focuses on the antitrust and First Amendment free speech lawsuit filed on May 31 by Children’s Health Defense against the Trusted News Initiative.
