When is an Expert Not an Expert? The Case of Dr. Christopher Exley
Comparing Media Coverage of the Camelford Poisoning with the Autism Paper
Introduction
Our society, and particularly since the introduction of the ‘Covid pandemic’ in 2020, is heavily focused towards the promotion of experts. Experts, according to the technocratic elite, are the kind of people we need to run our society, particularly when it comes to ‘scientific’ policies. In reality, however, experts do not represent a ‘neutral’ science but in fact serve as representatives of economic interests. This can be seen with, for example, the United Kingdom’s alleged ‘expert’ Neil Ferguson and his incorrect predictions, who served as simply a technocratic cover for policies the establishment wanted to institute. However, it can also be seen in the case of experts with genuinely impeccable credentials, who are only interested in truth, who the establishment will not consider because their views oppose certain economic interests. This article will discuss Dr. Christopher Exley, an expert (or possibly the expert) on the negative health effects of human exposure to aluminium, and media coverage of his work.
Who is Dr. Christopher Exley?
Dr. Christopher Exley is one of the most highly credentialed, credible people in the ‘health freedom/vaccine sceptic’ movement, who is known for speaking out about the risks of human aluminium exposure, including aluminium adjuvants in vaccination. Dr. Exley is a former Professor of Bioinorganic Chemistry at Keele University, UK. He completed his Ph.D. on the topic of aluminium and acid rain and the effects on fish. In total he has published around 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers on the issue of aluminium.
One of the most notable issues he has addressed is the issue of aluminium exposure and Alzheimer’s disease, and how the two are connected. The idea that Alzheimer’s disease is caused by aluminium in the brain is somewhat controversial due to the necessity of aluminium to modern life. More specifically, it threatens the profits made by those in the aluminium industry, as well as those from expensive big pharma drugs, which have been a miserable failure in treating Alzheimer’s disease. For example, the Alzheimer’s Society, like all major charities, part of the establishment, has the following to say:
However, multiple other small and large scale studies have failed to find a convincing causal association between aluminium exposure in humans and Alzheimer’s disease.
This is of course a false statement. Dr Exley has demonstrated that those who died with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease had high levels of aluminium in brain tissue:
Aluminium was found in all 144 tissues and its concentration ranged from 0.01 to 35.65 μg/g dry wt. (Table 1). The mean aluminium content for whole brains (n = 12) ranged from 0.34(0.26) for individual A1 to 6.55(9.59) μg/g dry wt. for individual A8. Approximately 40% of tissues (57/144) had an aluminium content considered as pathologically-concerning (≥2.00 μg/g dry wt.) while approximately 58% of these tissues had an aluminium content considered as pathologically-significant (≥3.00 μg/g dry wt.). The brains of 11 out of 12 individuals had at least one tissue with a pathologically-significant content of aluminium.
In 2018, he and his colleagues published an even more controversial paper on aluminium in brain tissue in autism, that found autistic brains had extremely high aluminium levels:
The aluminium content of brain tissue in autism was consistently high. The mean (standard deviation) aluminium content across all 5 individuals for each lobe were 3.82(5.42), 2.30(2.00), 2.79(4.05) and 3.82(5.17) μg/g dry wt. for the occipital, frontal, temporal and parietal lobes respectively. These are some of the highest values for aluminium in human brain tissue yet recorded and one has to question why, for example, the aluminium content of the occipital lobe of a 15 year old boy would be 8.74 (11.59) μg/g dry wt.?
This paper was extremely controversial due to its implication that the aluminium adjuvants in vaccination enter the brain and cause autistic symptoms. The study even demonstrated the mechanism by which this happens, that the aluminium is ‘swallowed’ at the injection site by macrophages, and then is transported to the brain. The macrophages can remain loaded up with aluminium in the blood. Transportation to the brain takes place when there is an event in the brain, causing the brain to ‘call for help’ from macrophages. The aluminium is then dumped in the brain by these macrophages. In autism the aluminium ends up largely in the glial and microglial cells, which negatively affect the pruning of neurons in the brain (it is a reasonable assumption that this leads to the sensory issues seen in autism as the unsuccessfully pruned neurons latch on to the incorrect sensory triggers). As argued by the website Vaccine Papers, this aluminium triggers the IL-6 inflammation pathway, leading to extremely high levels of anxiety and dysfunction.
Media Coverage of Dr. Exley’s Research Example 1: The Camelford Poisoning
The next parts of this article seek to compare the coverage of Dr. Chris Exley in the mainstream media before and after the autism paper was published. While there are different examples of the media discussing his work including a few on his general Alzheimer’s research, this article will focus on the Camelford poisoning and its aftermath.
Camelford is a village in Cornwall. Aluminium sulphate, meant to be used in an early stage of water purification, was dunked into the wrong tank by an inept delivery driver back in 1988, leading to the direct presence of extremely high levels of aluminium in the drinking water in Camelford. This led to large amounts of complaints about the quality of the drinking water from Camelford residents, they complained that the water was black, sticky and caused the milk in tea to curdle. The authorities, of course, called this water safe and did not warn people of the risks of drinking the water. People from Camelford suffered from significant health problems both during the aluminium exposure and afterwards.
10 minute documentary on the Camelford poisoning.
Due to his expertise in aluminium, Dr. Christopher Exley became involved in the inquest of Carole Cross who was exposed to the toxic water in Camelford and died of a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease. Cross died in 2004 at the age of 59 after suffering from cerebral amyloid angiopathy.
Exley’s paper describes the symptoms suffered by Carole Cross before her death:
In May 2003 the woman, by then aged 58 years, was referred for investigation of deterioration of her mental state, which extended back over a period of several months. She had developed difficulty in finding words, problems with simple calculations and a heightened tendency to visual hallucinations. She also complained of headaches. On examination, she was unable to name objects or carry out any but very simple commands. By February 2004 she was aphasic, had lost weight and appeared anxious. Tone had now increased in the legs and there was an abnormal startle response and limited up gaze. She continued to deteriorate and died in April 2004.
It also describes what was found upon examination of Carole Cross’ brain.
Aluminium is usually found in brain tissue in the range of 0–2 μg/g dry weight.3 Aluminium in the brain cortex in this case ranged from values typical of Alzheimer’s disease, 3–7 μg/g dry weight,3 to one value, 11.01 μg/g dry weight, similar to that found in aluminium-induced encephalopathies4,5 to a higher value, 23.00 μg/g dry weight, typical of dialysis-associated encephalopathies.4,6
Several different mainstream media articles have cited Exley’s comments on the Camelford poisoning and the inquest of Carole Cross.
Here are some varying examples of Camelford poisoning coverage featuring Dr. Exley. This article, from 2014, portrays Exley as a scientist seeking to get to the heart of a government coverup:
At the forefront of the campaign to expose the link [between the poisoning and deaths in Camelford] is Christopher Exley, a professor in bioinorganic chemistry at Keele University, who examined Mr Gibbons’s brain after his death.
At last month’s inquest into Mr Gibbons’s death, Prof Exley reported finding a mean reading of 4.35 micrograms (mcg) of aluminium per gram of dry tissue in samples.
‘This is abnormally high,’ he told the coroner. ‘If one finds above one, it is a little unusual, if it is above two it is a bit more unusual but the level we have here is significantly high.’
This interview refers to him as ‘one of the world’s leading experts on aluminium’.
This article leads with Exley’s comments on the fact that the Camelford poisoning was ignored:
A scientist has described the Camelford water contamination as a “mass poisoning of 20,000 people that was ignored for 22 years”. Dr Chris Exley was giving evidence at the inquest of Carole Cross who lived in the area at the time of the contamination.
I will just note this for later:
Prof Exley, from Keele University, told the inquest in Taunton that although the incident happened 24 years ago, if people living in Camelford at that time were to drink daily at least one litre of mineral water with a high silicon content of more than 30mg, it would help remove aluminium from their brains.
CAMELFORD WATER POISONING: ALUMINIUM IN BRAIN ‘BEYOND BELIEF’
All of these articles clearly consider Dr. Exley to be a relevant authority on aluminium poisoning, Alzheimer’s disease and its causes and that it is perfectly legitimate to cite his work. Many of the articles have a favourable tone towards his, such as the Daily Mail article, whereas others are more neutral, but there is no indication that he is not an authority.
Media Coverage of Dr. Exley’s Research Example 2: The Autism Paper
Most of the articles on the Camelford poisoning mentioning Dr. Exley were published during 2010-2014, before Exley’s autism research and paper was published (in 2018). So let’s see how the media’s tone has changed regarding Exley’s work.
The Guardian, for example, claimed that he ‘angered health experts’ as if this is an inherently bad thing:
Prof Chris Exley angered health experts for claiming that tiny amounts of aluminium in inactivated vaccines, such as the HPV and whooping cough inoculations, may cause “the more severe and disabling form of autism”.
PROFESSOR WHO CLAIMS VACCINES LINKED TO AUTISM FUNDED THROUGH UNIVERSITY PORTAL
Their complaint is that Exley was able to accept donations via his research via a Keele University portal. (In reality, the University messed about with this portal and rejected a donation for the research from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. so this is oversimplistic.) The focus of the articles is on the idea of ‘misinformation’:
Prof Heidi J Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project based at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said social media companies should partner with scientists to combat vaccine disinformation online.
“Social media companies have the expertise and access to adjust the algorithms to mitigate rather than amplify negative information, but identifying which content is inaccurate and potentially causing illness or death should be guided by health and scientific experts.”
Note how a man they cited as an expert during the Camelford Poisoning has now become a ‘disinformation spreader’ due to a peer-reviewed scientific paper. The article essentially argues that Exley’s paper should be silenced by throttling any sort of reach on social media.
A later article again emphasises the ‘misinformation’ angle, again trying to get all funding for his research stopped (which eventually happened):
A British academic who has promoted anti-vaccine misinformation has raised more than £150,000 through a university donations portal to support his research during the coronavirus crisis, the Guardian can reveal.
KEELE UNIVERSITY ACCEPTING FUNDS FOR RESEARCHER WHO SHARED VACCINE MISINFORMATION
Another article, from the Mirror, discusses the silica water detox for aluminium. Note above, in the previous mainstream media article, that the idea of the silica water detox to remove aluminium is presented completely neutrally, it is neither endorsed nor criticised. The article from the Mirror is focused on smearing the company Silica Waters rather than about Exley directly. But of course as they Silica Waters company cites Exley’s research as a reason to promote the product the article is aimed at Exley in that sense.
But a People probe revealed that the scientist who wrote the papers the company relies upon is controversial academic Professor Chris Exley, who works at Keele University, Staffordshire.
PARENTS OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN TARGETED BY FIRM FLOGGING WATER TO ‘HELP’ CONDITION
Outside of the ridiculous idea of needing a ‘probe’ to ‘reveal’ the fact that Dr. Chris Exley is the scientist who is most associated with silica and aluminium research, the article is there to suggest that the silica water protocol does not work. However, despite trying to imply that Dr. Exley is is some way guilty of impropriety, the article offers no evidence or rational argument as to why the protocol does not work. They also cite what I call a neurodiversity parent who claims that the company is bad and exploitative, but again provides no rational argument as to why the silica water protocol is ineffective.
Conclusion
The topic of vaccine injury, and specifically the idea that vaccines can cause autism, is a red line that any person, no matter how many credentials they have cannot cross without the wrath of the establishment being poured down upon them. I have no doubt that some of Dr. Exley’s claims that he published prior to the autism paper were not popular with the establishment. Nevertheless the mainstream media accepted his expertise when it came to the Camelford poisoning and quoted him approvingly. The case of Dr. Exley neatly reveals the hypocrisy of the establishment when it comes to experts and how an expert is only an expert so long as they do not cross certain lines, beyond which they – as if by magic – become a ‘purveyor of disinformation’.
Image source: Photo by Leonid Altman on Pexels.com
Listen to Turfseer’s song EXPERT OPINION. The source of the totalitarian nightmare we find ourselves in today. https://turfseer.substack.com/p/expert-opinion
BONUS: Free PDF Download. BEST OF SUBSTACK VOLUME 1. Gems culled from Best Substacks with links to the full article. https://turfseer.substack.com/p/best-of-substack-volume-1
This is an amazing roundup. Thank you!
I’ve forced my boys through all kinds of biomedical protocols over the years. Detox protocols (daily foot baths, or round-the-clock chelation), restricted diets, an arsenal of supplements and sometimes medications. They’ve had endless therapy. I became exhausted and frustrated and abandoned most of it a year ago.
Then I started daily mineral water about three or four months ago. And last night, my oldest verbalized that he was lonely. That he was sad he did not have friends.
A year ago, he did not speak in more than one to two words at a time, and preferred no speech at all.
No one will ever convince me that Dr. Exley doesn’t know what he’s talking about.