News Round-Up: AstraZeneca on Dangerous Side Effects of Their Covid Vaccine, Cambridge Professor on Climate Change and 'Transphobic' Ban in Premier League
Every week, the editorial team of Freedom Research compiles a round-up of news that caught our eye, or what felt like under-reported aspects of news deserving more attention.
Over the past week, the following topics attracted our attention:
AstraZeneca admits their Covid vaccine can cause a deadly blood clotting side effect.
Cambridge University professor: fighting climate change is not science, it's ideology.
English football club accuses a female fan of 'transphobia': she was banned from stadium.
Sweden: members of crime gangs used love affairs to get classified information from police officers.
Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf resigns: will life get better for the Scots?
AstraZeneca admits their Covid vaccine can cause a deadly blood clotting side effect
That AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine could cause life-threatening blood clotting as a side effect was actually made clear already back in 2021 when these vaccines were launched. Due to the risk, AstraZeneca jabs were suspended in many countries.

At the same time, however, it was constantly reiterated that cases of blood clots are very rare and all in all there are more benefits than harm in getting the jab. Although the life-threatening side effect has since been confirmed by the medicines regulatory authorities, AstraZeneca itself had not yet publicly acknowledged it. Now, however, the company has had to admit it in the context of a court case at London High Court in the UK. Victims of vaccine injuries and their families are seeking damages from the company in court, with claims reaching up to £20 million (€23.4 million) per case. AstraZeneca has contested the claims, but admitted in a document submitted to the court in February that their vaccine indeed 'can, in very rare cases, cause TTS'. TTS is short for thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome – a medical condition where a person suffers blood clots along with a low platelet count. Platelets typically help the blood to clot.
Cambridge University professor: fighting climate change is not science, it's ideology
Young people are terrified that climate change will destroy Earth, but the world is not actually ending, says Mike Hulme, professor of human geography at the University of Cambridge. According to Hulme, humanity is not teetering on a cliff's edge, at risk of imminent catastrophe if we don't reach Net Zero carbon emissions by a certain date, reports The Daily Mail.
In his most recent book, Climate Change Isn't Everything, Hulme argued that belief in the urgent fight against climate change has shot far past the territory of science and become an ideology. Hulme calls the new ideology "climatism" and points out that if we place too much emphasis on trying to slow the Earth's warming, it will prevent us from addressing other serious problems. For example, in the fight against climate change, we are not dealing with the situation in poorer countries and helping people out of poverty.
According to Hulme, many journalists, advocates, and casual observers of climate change have become devotees of climatism, inaccurately attributing many events that happen in the world as being caused by climate change. He gives examples of fires, floods, or damaging hurricanes. 'No matter how complex a particular causal chain might be, it's a very convenient shorthand to say, 'Oh, well, this was caused by climate change,'' Hulme says.

Hulme does not argue that climate change has no impact. Rather, his message is that the things we do will not prevent these impacts – such as disasters – from happening. “Fundamentally, we're going to have to deal with hurricanes, and we're not going to deal with them just by cutting our carbon emissions,” he says. The solutions, he argues, will include better forecasting, better early warning systems, better emergency plans, and better infrastructure.
As another example, Hulme points out that Western European governments are not willing to put money into helping people in poorer countries, for example, to get rid of open wood-burning cookers which are common in many rural villages in the global south. This causes very high mortality levels, particularly among women and children. “Liquid petroleum gas (LPG) is much cleaner, much more efficient, much easier for women and girls to get access to,' he says. “But in the name of climate change, well, we can't put money into LPG transition, because that's a fossil fuel.”
Hulme emphasizes that the risks associated with climate change are important to attend to. “We do need smart climate policies, whether it's mitigation or adaptation,' he says. “We need energy transitions away from carbon-emitting energy sources, and that energy transition is going to come through innovation,” he adds.
English football club accuses a female fan of "transphobia": she was banned from stadium
English football club Newcastle United has banned one of its supporters from coming to their stadium to cheer them on because she made posts on social media critical of trans ideology, reports The Telegraph. Linzi Smith, 34, is herself a lesbian and is active in the fight for homosexual rights and women's rights. For example, she has expressed that there are simple biological facts of there being men and women. In her posts on X she has pointed out that the trans movement, which denies this fact, is very homophobic because it wants to 'trans the gay away'. In addition, Smith has posted that she believes some people who consider themselves transgender suffer from a mental illness – a view that is probably not so uncommon, as many people may find it otherwise inexplicable why, for example, some adult men start calling themselves women and want to go into girls' changing rooms.
However, Smith's postings were subject to a complaint at the football club, in a claim that trans people would not feel safe sitting near her during a game. Instead of dismissing this allegation and complaint, the football club asked the league to secretly investigate Smith. The Premier League conducted the investigation without Smith's knowledge - compiling a detailed dossier on her, describing where she lives and works, and even where she walks her dog. Newcastle United handed over the file to the police, who, after questioning Smith, concluded that there was no basis for prosecuting the woman.

However, the club itself banned Smith from the stadium until 2026. Smith, through lawyers, is now demanding compensation from the club and the league for spying on her, as well as the lifting of the ban. If the demands are not met, she is prepared to take legal action. “I always thought we lived in a society where people could express their opinions freely without fear that it could ruin their life. The actions of Newcastle United and the Premier League have had a hugely detrimental effect on me, and it seems that legal action is the only way to ensure that these powerful organisations understand the law and the right that everyone has to freedom of speech,” Smith commented.
Sweden: members of crime gangs used love affairs to get classified information from police officers
Around 30 Swedish police officers have been implicated in a scandal that has come to light, involving the leaking of key police information to criminal groups. The information was sometimes so sensitive that it led to several deadly altercations on the streets. What makes it particularly poignant is the fact that criminal groups obtained their information from police officers who had allowed themselves to be seduced and exploited by gangsters.
An investigation by the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter revealed more than 500 cases of Swedish police leaking classified information to criminals. The information concerned ongoing investigations, upcoming raids, or competing gangs. The newspaper also found evidence that leaks concerning information on rival criminals helped in several attacks on enemy gang members, ending in at least four murders.

The newspaper's research is based on interviews with around 50 sources in law enforcement and the criminal underworld. The findings are backed by hundreds of public documents. It was revealed that in many cases, the gang members used quite unconventional methods to obtain the information, such as starting 'sexual relationships with strategically selected [female] police officers.'
In one such example, a young woman met her criminal boyfriend through a dating app while she was still a cadet. When she joined the police, she regularly provided her boyfriend with classified information over a period of four years, until she was caught. However, there are many more similar cases, many of them involving much more experienced police officers.
The situation is even more embarrassing for the fact that Sweden is suffering from criminal gang violence. Only recently, we wrote about how a father and his son were killed by criminals on the street as they cycled to the swimming pool. The father got into a conflict with the criminals and was shot in the head. In early February, however, bombs exploded on a daily basis in Swedish cities as various drug gangs engaged in a power struggle. This gang violence and organised crime rivalry in Sweden is directly linked to large-scale immigration. In other words, the leaders of these violent gangs, which make their main livelihood from the drug trade, are themselves immigrants and typically involve young people with an immigrant background.
The problems of uncontrolled immigration in Sweden, and the labelling of citizens who highlight the problems as spreading misinformation, etc, were also discussed in a recent analysis we published.
Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf resigns: will life get better for the Scots?
Scotland's First Minister and leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Humza Yousaf resigned on Monday. Yousaf has been in the spotlight recently over the hate crime law that came into force in Scotland at the beginning of April. The law attracted thousands of complaints in its first days, most of which were surprisingly made against Yousaf himself. Yousaf, who was minister of justice at the time of the law's passage in 2021 and was involved in pushing it through parliament, found himself the target of his own law because of a speech he had given back in May 2020, in which, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, he suggested that white people held too much power in Scotland. Among other things, he noted that he is often "the only non-white person in the room " and then listed the various office holders, all of whom are white in Scotland. Now under the hate crime law people complained that this speech was racist.
But such attention is not the reason Yousaf resigned. His resignation has to do with his decision to end his party's partnership with the Scottish Greens. Tensions between the partners arose for a number of reasons. Firstly, Yousaf wanted to soften the so-called climate targets a little, seeking to cancel a pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 75% by 2030. The overall target of zero CO2 by 2045 was still in place, but the Greens were not happy with his decision. Another stumbling block that angered the Greens was the ban on puberty blockers for under-18s, which stunt children's normal development and cause serious and irreversible damage to their health. This decision was taken in April, following the publication of a highly publicised report by Dr. Hilary Cass, commissioned by the National Health Service England (NHS), which proved that the provision of what is termed 'transgender health care' has no evidence of its effectiveness, and many whose health is damaged in this way later experience traumas and regret everything.
John Swinney, former Deputy First Minister, is now set to become the SNP's new leader and First Minister. Looking at his positions on key controversial issues, it is unlikely that the situation in Scotland will improve. Swinney, along with his SNP colleagues, voted in favour of the hate crime law back in 2021. He confirmed that he backs the law when it was implemented in April this year. In December 2022, Swinney voted for the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which would have allowed children as young as 16 to apply to legally change their gender without any accompanying medical evidence. This law, and the strong protests against it, was one of the reasons for the resignation of the previous first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, in February 2023. The UK government blocked the law from receiving royal assent.

Swinney has been vocal on climate change and Net Zero and voted for the Climate Change Bill in 2019 – which reduced the target to Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.
Re the Astra Zeneca 'vaccine', I look forward to the Jenner Institute being prosecuted (it won't be of course) for delivering a harmful product:
https://warwickvegan.substack.com/p/bad-pharma
Message for Mike Hulme.
Please check the science that confirms that GHG emissions are not dangerous. Fossil fuels provide more than 80% of our energy and do not result in changing our climate.
Adaption is what is needed to plan for the risks of the changing climate. Please do not blame fossil fuels and emissions.. We all need more CO2 to grow better crops. Mike, can you dispute that fact?