‘The effect does not prove the cause’ – Aristotle

Sometimes people make the mistake of seeing the symptoms of a particular disease as proof of the existence of an alleged virus that would have caused that particular disease. They see the effect as proof of the cause. This is a fallacy.

‘But I got sick overnight, you know,’ someone said the other day. ‘I suddenly had a high fever and completely lost my smell and taste. Normally I am never sick and now it lasted for three weeks, so I must have contracted covid somewhere.’ No, the effect (symptoms) does not prove the cause (virus). The fact that you suddenly got sick does not prove that you were infected with Sars-Cov-2, the alleged virus that is said to cause covid. It only proves that you got sick from something. From what? Well, perhaps from the fear of getting sick, which stressed your body all out, along with the nocebo effect: if everyone suggests often enough that illness is inevitable (think 2020 for a moment), there is a high probability (statistically more than 40%) that you will actually get sick. It could also have been a sudden or accumulative reaction to chemicals and pesticides in the air, water or food; or maybe there was unusually high radiation in your environment that you reacted violently to, like at the time 5G was being rolled out in the Netherlands. Or perhaps it was a combination of all these things. Point is: the fact that you got sick does not prove that the cause was a virus. The effect does not prove the cause.

In response to last Saturday’s article in De Andere Krant, Viruses don’t cause disease, because they don’t exist, an emotional GP wrote: ‘In South Africa, I saw with my own eyes what the HIV-virus does. Seeing little children of less than a year old die because the anti-HIV medication was out of stock time and again during the mother’s pregnancy, allowing transmission to still occur … This article is disinformation. This has to stop.’ In her perception, the said article denied the severity of the fact that so many children in South Africa are dying in appalling conditions. It doesn’t. Having to watch young children die (the effect) is of course heartbreaking and traumatizing, but it is not proof of the existence of the HIV-virus (the cause). That is not to say that the symptoms or the disease and its accompanying pain and suffering are not real. It does mean that there is another cause for the severely emaciated and dying babies in South Africa. Which ones are those? Chronic malnutrition of mother and baby is the obvious one. Another cause could be poisoning: many industries have settled in Africa because the laws there are less stringent than in the West and so they can use pesticides and chemicals in much greater numbers. Many drugs rejected in the West are sold in Africa. The dangerous anti-HIV drugs also have serious side effects. This GP’s emotion is understandable, but emotion is not proof of HIV or any other virus. The effect does not prove the cause.

One vet reacted extremely vehemently to the suggestion that viruses do not exist. ‘You know what you should do?’ he snapped at me. ‘Go do development work in Kenya for a few years, like I did. Then you will see for yourself what happens when a child is bitten by a rabid dog. When you see with your own eyes what misery rabies causes, you’ll squeak differently.’ Then he walked away. This vet also saw the consequence: a child getting sick after a dog bite, as evidence of the cause: the rabies virus. But what did he really see? He saw a child getting seriously ill after being bitten by a dog. So most likely, the child came into contact with something via the dog that made him sick. A virus, or something else? Had the dog suffered neurological damage and was he in so much pain that he was driven to madness, just like cows during mad cow disease? Had he run across a field freshly sprayed with pesticides? Had he eaten a rotting piece of meat? I don’t know, I wasn’t there. This vet was there, but he didn’t see the cause either. He concluded that the rabies virus exists, not because he has seen it, smelled it, heard it or felt it, but because he has learnt that rabies is caused by the rabies virus. Observing rabies in humans confirmed this for him. He believes that the effect (rabies) is proof of the cause (the rabies virus), but that too is an assumption and not a fact. The effect does not prove the cause.

Today I got talking to an elderly woman, a very kind lady it seemed, who had contracted polio when she was five years old. ‘It was one evening in 1952. I had a stiff neck and didn’t feel well. My mother called the GP and he said it was probably polio. The next day, we went to the hospital. I remember exactly how it felt, the moment I noticed something was wrong with my little legs. It was on the steps of the hospital. I shouted to my mother: ‘Mummy, mummy, my little legs!’ From the bottom of the steps, I felt the paralysis rising up into my little legs. That was the polio. You don’t have to believe me, but I can still feel it now when I think about it. We barely made it to the hospital. I was immediately taken to a little room where I had to stay by myself, without my parents. A nun put me in a cot and said, ‘You are not allowed to come out’. I did so anyway, but when I wanted to climb back into bed, I noticed that I couldn’t. I grabbed a chair, but at that moment I lost consciousness. I don’t know how long it took, but I suddenly found myself back in that cot, totally paralyzed. I could only breathe and I knew nothing else, just that I was paralyzed. I could only lie motionless and look out through the only window in the room. For six weeks I laid paralyzed and isolated in that little room. In the months that followed I recovered spontaneously, but very soon distinct deformities developed on my right arm, shoulder, hand and right leg. I remained a polio patient all my life. I am now old and virtually immobile. So it was indeed polio, but no, the polio virus does not exist according to you anti-vaxxers. So now you know: I did have polio due to a polio virus, didn’t I !!! Explain it to me if you have other arguments. Whatever you guys claim, IT WAS A VIRUS. This is my true story.’

For this lady too, the disease (polio) and the virus (polio virus) are so intertwined that she cannot tell them apart. And she too believes that what she sees as the consequence (she got polio) proves that the cause was the polio virus. I said to her: ‘I understand what you went through as a child, but you are making the mistake many other people make as well: you are confusing the symptoms with the virus. Of course it is a true story, nobody denies that, but you cannot say: I was paralyzed, HENCE it was a virus. Many children got polio after being vaccinated, maybe you too. Many children got polio after somehow coming into contact with chemicals or pesticides, maybe you too. This is not about believing, but knowing. Suppose polio is not caused by a virus but by something else, wouldn’t you want to know? Suppose there are other causes, therefore other cures, wouldn’t that be fantastic, hopeful news?’

She didn’t want to hear about it. She replied strongly: ‘Whichever way you look at it, you will never find out. Go and talk to post-polio patients and let them tell their story. Maybe then you will come to the right understanding regarding the origin of polio. I don’t understand why all sorts of outrageous theories and assumptions are now being put forward so suddenly, just to prove you right. Do you know the book ‘Polio, a disease never to forget’? There are all the heartbreaking stories with attached pictures, but you are not really interested in the cases, only the cause!’

Her passionate response touched me. Was she right? Was I more interested in the causes of polio than the victims of polio? Did I just want to be right and therefore ignored her suffering? Should I have had more space for her story, instead of immediately starting to talk about the true causes of polio? Somehow her reaction was understandable, because if you confuse the symptoms with the virus and believe that your symptoms are proof of the virus and then someone claims that the virus does not exist, then it feels as if your symptoms, your illness, your suffering and pain did not exist either. Of course, it would be very cruel to deny that and you would have every right to be outraged and angry in that case. The only question is: what was the cause? That is where the ambiguity lies, not in whether the symptoms were real.

And yet the lady had a point, because indeed: it is not about being right, it is about finding the best way to eradicate polio, rabies, HIV and other diseases from the world. And that will only work if we know the true causes of disease. At the end of our conversation, the lady said something very nice: ‘When you have found the causes, proclaim it to all the world.’ I wanted to respond with: ‘I’m already doing that!’ but I held back, because I did not need to be right.

Sanne Burger
sanneburger.com