My previous post was the letter to the Journal of Medical Ethics as first designed. Before I was able to get it to the correct editor, this happened and a paragraph was added:
letter to the Journal of Medical Ethics (part of the BMJ) sent Jan 11, 2021:

Dear Editor,
(So far my initial comment...)
... after I found the video interview where Dr Mary Ramsey for PHE declares the safety of vaccines, I felt prompted to do a little research and - surprise, surprise: The first academic paper I found, from 2016, states that allergies to PEG will most likely be underdiagnosed. (I can provide that link from a fb post later if required; today a follow-up reference: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303372103_Immediate-type_hypersensitivity_to_polyethylene_glycols_PEGs_a_review).
Would it be fair to say that, given Dr Ramsay's position she could or even should have known of these findings? If at least one of those points is answered in the affirmative, then we have here a situation where, I am inclined to argue, an overcoming of epistemic injustice is actively prevented. Trustworthiness of a public authority rests on credibility, and that, like 'following the science' means in my understanding weighing the evidence one can reasonably have access to - not denying it.
Thank you.

Upon seeing an article in a journal on Medical Ethics@BMJ, I felt compelled to write to the editor Dear Editor, 
having scanned the article  by Julian S, philosopher in Oxford no less, in your journal's edition from Nov 2020 as I became aware of it just now, I feel I need to comment: The mandate to prevent harm from others requires a reasonable amount of knowledge what the risk to self is. To use a narrative extract from an autoethnographic case study as example:
"... what those people who experienced serious reaction to the covid vaccine are believed to have reacted to is an emulsifier called PEG -polyethylenglycol which sounds harmless enough. I was tested for allergies comprehensively by a very thorough specialist in Ger in 1996 and that because of a series of very light reactions to at that point unknown substances (potentially skin creams). I dare to assert that in the UK where I have lived for 20 years and worked in multidisciplinary health settings the first thing people would know about such an allergy would be if they suffered an anaphylactic shock. Prior to that most people would only/at best have been prescribed cortisone. I believe here enters what M. Fricker, UK philosopher in NY, calls epistemic injustice inherent in a system of health inequalities as prevalent in the UK and an approach to behaviourism in clinical practice I politely call blinkered. ":

As a Social Care Consultant, I remain available for Consultation to assist clients' self management and professionals' training to that end.
My own lived experience stems from surviving persistent emotional abuse in childhood - with a deep sense of meaning. I have always believed that humans are intrinsically good and that we all have the innate resources to recover. Psychodrama with a truly client-centred coach brought this to the fore some 35 years ago. Since then, I have done considerable research into intuition and insight facilitating presence to self as a process - and, yet more importantly, as a social worker I have shown how this approach helped clients who were all but written-off by the typical mainstream services. The greatest praise: One such client said to me 'I can talk to you because you are not afraid.' The greatest challenge: The conscientious decision to see through a legal case for defamation after Whistleblowing in NHS Mental Health Safeguarding: 'Better a break in your career than in your spine.'
I look forward to hearing from you.
P.S. One key moment connecting insights was ca 2007 hearing Jacqui Dillon, now Dr. JD, say at a Conference: We are all on the spectrum of human experience.
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Force feeding not in anorexia patient's best interests - UK Human Rights Blog, (Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust v AB [2020] EWCOP 40)

Force feeding not in anorexia patient's best interests - UK Human Rights...Patient suffering from extreme eating disorder found not to have capacity, but further gastro-nasal feeding was ...
One commentator on the Human Rights Blog  argues the case  had been about whether the patient had the mental capacity to decide against force-feeding..With respect, this kind of reducing matters to fine legal points in my eyes means removing substance and context from the case. Formally they may have been right. But what is Justice for if not decide real-life cases:The Trust would not have argued that the patient did not have capacity if it was not for the fact they, the Doctors, thought they knew what was best for the patient (in her best interest). It would be interesting to see whether the Judge did consider that these were Doctors who had been unable to treat  the patient with any success for years, and if so in what light:. Commonly, under prevalent psychiatric concepts the patient is seen as the problem and as resisting therapy. Increasingly, and rightly in my view, survivors of such treatment who found other means to get better, argue that instead of asking 'what's wrong with you' - the  question 'what happened to you' should be asked. In-depth psycho-social and cultural investigation would at least have the chance to enable the patient to see her stuckness as socially constructed.
While the Judgment may be preferred over the alternative in this case (which would have been to allow force-feeding) it seems to me, ultimately, the Judge may still have failed to address the causes and the context: The Trust, the doctors, in this case seem already far removed from thinking about the patient's best interest. Justice, perhaps with the help of expert witnesses, looking deeply at the reality of either application in this case might have contributed to reversing that, might have applied human wisdom:
The Doctors would not need to be force-fed, only encouraged to seek treatment  options the patient could agree on. Since it can be assumed that they have the capacity to do so, it seems to be negligent not to do so. I do not know what if any psycho-social interventions were tried in the case at hand. However, I deduct from the fact that the Doctors (and the Trust) arrived the view they did (about force-feeding being in the patient's best interest) and also from my own experience working with Psychiatrists and other medically oriented mental health professionals: Where the investigation how to help a human in their care does not cast a wide net reaching all their life circumstances and human reasons for those, the ethical roots of  do not reach deep enough to be nourished by the desire to truly support a valued independent life and vice versa. 
I have met one exception - a young female Doctor who maintained a deeply human approach even while the system in which she worked did not give her any tools to apply it. She, of course, too ended up feeding a system that worked against her. deepest intentions.

I wished I was more optimistic about what ca can achieve. I attended one local once on social care and the facilitators chosen (by whom?) were clearly afraid to be open and honest about critical issues as perceived by service users. I saw one trembling as she had to take notes. She was an NHS employee, if I remember. Let's hope I am wrong.

From what I have read about the risks for covid patients in ICU and on ventilators, I can't help wondering whether if those who cared for him had treated him like many other NHS patients, the Prime Minister  might have been less likely to have survived? But more importantly his look of utter bewilderment and exhaustion recently reminded me of the story I heard about Jacob Levy Moreno, the psychiatrist who developed Psychodrama. According to Moreno's own memories, he had been brought up by his mother to be slightly at risk of megalomania - until he played God in some children's game and - perhaps egged on - jumped from a wardrobe, in role. He broke his leg in the fall and - was cured from his former predicament. Boris Johnson appears not to have the opportunity to have his childhood dreams cut to size. The less than flattering report from one tutor at Eton does not appear to have had sufficient effect. Having been voted into office favoured by the voting system, he had no other option apparently than to create another scenario that could break more than his leg - not least because of the responsibility for a disastrous death rate from covid in the UK and a choice of advisor that more than distracts from his own personality issues perhaps. What a terrible learning curve for his subjects..  

 Looking forward to an online meeting this Thursday with international speakers. For one, it being advertised made me aware - I may be a retiree soon, but I can still play a role. Secondly, working in statutory services, in my fifties, as a locum senior social worker in my personal reflection meant a sort of reconciliation with the many ills of the world that had previously tended to depress me. Here I could do something, a core thing, for one person- and it changed my world.
The other thing it taught me, on a personal level was my understanding of the phrase 'let's agree to disagree' - a core of what had attracted me to come to Britain - was mine.  The Local Authority reps who found me me a bit too radical (even as they could not put their finger on it), not only ignored the professional guide lines for social workers which demand walking that tight rope - authority - advocacy, they genuinely could not relax into having differing views.  

Today I read on linkedin that NHS whistleblower Dr Chris Day has been granted a Hearing at the Court of Appeal to challenge the previous decision which was made without examination and cross-examination.  I am delighted for him. He rightly points out how much the NHS has spent on discrediting him.  You don't want me to work out what it could have been spent on. I take heart in the fact that nurses and doctors are currently speaking out about shortage of equipment,  Where accurate, I trust all this could well contribute to a development where the Public Interest Disclosure Act is no longer beind undermined.