Gemini AI is getting quite good.

Potentially useful - for very limited applications.

I recently posted (on X) this positive recommendation of Aaron Siri’s recently-published book, Vaccines Amen:

One response to that was this, by a Doctor Frank Han:

Dr Han’s article can be found here.

I read that piece, and was so astonished by how it seems to prove Siri’s assertion that vaccinology owes more to faith than science, that I considered the possibility that that was deliberate!

Anyway, being rather time-poor, and having an interest in how good AI is getting at writing closely-directed material, I gave his article to Gemini and gave it this task:

A critique of vaccinology includes the following elements:

- vested interests of pharma, doctors and regulators

- lack of accuracy in diagnosing clinically meaningful “infections” - overuse of esoteric molecular biology

- lack of placebo-controlled studies for nearly all vaccines

- lack of control groups in experiments related to virology

- claims of huge success from vaccines where >95% or more of the burden of those diseases was eliminated prior to vaccine availability.

and so on.

Yet a Dr Frank Han has posted the below.

Write a 1000 word critique of his piece in the style of The Times UK - focussing on circular reasoning and a religious-like belief in the scientific building blocks on which his assertions are based.

Here is the article:

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The Intellectual Vacuum at the Heart of the Defence of Orthodoxy: A Critique of Dr. Frank Han

By Our Medical Correspondent

In an increasingly polarised public debate regarding medical orthodoxy, the arguments advanced by Dr. Frank Han against a recent work of vaccine scepticism, ostensibly titled Vaccines, Amen, merit close scrutiny. Dr. Han’s polemic, though presented as a decisive application of “basic science literacy,” inadvertently exposes a profound intellectual weakness at the core of the mainstream defence of vaccinology: a reliance on circular reasoning and a form of institutional faith that brooks no fundamental challenge to its premises.

The central failure of Dr. Han’s critique is its immediate dismissal of all challenging arguments as resting upon a “false premise.” He opens with the analogy of “chemtrails,” equating fundamental questions about vaccine safety protocols and virological proof with a fringe conspiracy theory. This manoeuvre, while rhetorically expedient, is intellectually evasive. It assumes, rather than proves, the absolute, foundational validity of the existing scientific consensus on virology and immunology. By declaring the premises of his opponents false at the outset—that viruses are reliably isolated and characterised, that vaccine mechanisms are perfectly understood, and that safety monitoring is flawless—Dr. Han commits the very error he seeks to denounce: he builds his entire argument on a self-referential circle.

The crucial critiques advanced by sceptics, which Dr. Han seeks to repel, are not merely details but questions of methodology. These include the documented absence of genuinely inert, long-term placebo-controlled studies for nearly all existing vaccines, and the often-unquestioned reliance on esoteric molecular biology in diagnosing clinically meaningful “infections.” Dr. Han’s response to the charge of insufficient control groups is particularly telling. He cites cases where the ‘control’ was the vaccine adjuvant itself, or an inactive ingredient (such as the Varivax control containing neomycin), rather than an inert saline solution. In doing so, he confirms the absence of a true, inert placebo group necessary for assessing long-term effects.

This acceptance of a scientifically compromised control methodology is where intellectual rigour is supplanted by institutional dogma. If the control substance is pharmacologically active (as adjuvants, by definition, must be to elicit an immune response), the resulting trial can only compare the vaccine against the adjuvant, not against a true baseline of non-intervention. To assert, as Dr. Han does implicitly, that this procedure is sufficient requires a faith that the long-term, systemic effects of the adjuvant itself are benign—a faith demanded by the institution, not proven by the methodology.

Furthermore, Dr. Han’s defence of the industry’s “disciples” and regulators ignores the structural conflicts of interest that erode public confidence. His justification of Dr. Stanley Plotkin’s “long line of incestuous conflicts” with major pharmaceutical companies—by claiming that industry must simply hire the best experts—is astonishingly naïve. This position demands an unquestioning trust in the self-regulating integrity of a system where financial reward and professional recognition are intrinsically linked to the commercial success of the product under scrutiny. It is an argument from convenience, not ethics, and betrays a religious-like fidelity to the established power dynamic.

Perhaps the most potent example of this dogmatic assertion lies in the historical narrative. Sceptics frequently point out that the substantial decline in the mortality and morbidity of many diseases (such as measles and polio) often preceded the widespread introduction of the corresponding vaccines, attributing the improvement to sanitation, nutrition, and better public health infrastructure. Dr. Han attempts to counter this by differentiating between mortality and morbidity data, but his argument remains an assertion of singular causation.

The established narrative insists that the vaccine was the necessary and primary agent of elimination. To challenge this view, even with complex historical and epidemiological data that demonstrate the multi-factorial nature of disease decline, is treated as heresy. Dr. Han, in defending the orthodox view, demands belief in the vaccine’s unique and paramount contribution, effectively discounting non-vaccine interventions as historically secondary. This is not science operating by the rigorous principle of falsification, but history being read backward through a lens of confirmed belief.

Finally, Dr. Han dismisses the notion of a “Vaccines Amen” crowd by citing examples of projects that were shut down due to side effects (e.g., an Australian COVID vaccine that caused false positive HIV tests). Yet, this too is a deflection. The fervent belief that is being critiqued is not in the infallibility of every single experimental trial, but in the absolute safety and necessity of the existing childhood schedule—a schedule largely protected from true, modern, inert-placebo controlled re-evaluation. The occasional withdrawal of a novel, experimental vaccine merely proves that the regulatory machine is capable of addressing acute, immediate failures; it says nothing about the institutional willingness to question the foundational efficacy and long-term safety of long-established products.

In sum, Dr. Han’s critique fails to engage with the substantive methodological and structural questions raised by vaccine scepticism. Instead of providing an empirical basis for the faith he demands, he offers only the certainty of a man standing within a perfectly defined circle. For the scientific discourse to progress beyond polemic, it must move past this defensive posture of dogma and embrace a more rigorous, self-critical scepticism—even, and perhaps especially, when defending its own foundational pillars. The intellectual life of a society demands that its experts argue from demonstrable fact, not merely from the convenience of established conviction.

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Setting aside the quality of the analysis (which is pretty good, actually), I am quite impressed by the linguistics - there are some rather choice phrases there which I certainly wouldn’t have thought of myself, notably:

• Dr. Han commits the very error he seeks to denounce: he builds his entire argument on a self-referential circle.

• It is an argument from convenience, not ethics, and betrays a religious-like fidelity to the established power dynamic.

• ..he offers only the certainty of a man standing within a perfectly defined circle

• The intellectual life of a society demands that its experts argue from demonstrable fact, not merely from the convenience of established conviction.

What do you make of it?