How low can COVID-19 catastrophists go?

It was one of the last apprenticeships in that specialised field in Queensland before it became a full-time university course, but when I completed it after three years, I tossed it all in to take off on a round- Australia spearfishing adventure before deciding what I really wanted to do with the rest of my life. (Nothing like some deep water experiences with sharks to focus the mind.)

I already knew I didn't want to come back to finish a final year at university to become a fully-fledged pharmacist, even though I was already a qualified dispenser. Why? Well, several reasons - I found much of the work involved scraping labels off bottles before pasting a new label on, counting pills and occasionally actually making and mixing potions from scratch, according to time-honoured formulae in a weighty tome, the British Pharmacopia.

Maybe it didn't help when I was questioned by a detective when a patient died after taking a sleeping mixture I had dispensed, even though I was later cleared after forensic tests showed the medicine contained the correct level of ingredients and the poor bloke had swallowed an overdose. But possibly the last straw had something to do with a drug I had dispensed many times to pregnant young women suffering morning sickness. Finally the authorities woke up to the fact that the "cure" - thalidomide, was causing horrific birth defects. Sound familiar?

So I put pharmacy in the "been there, done that" basket and eventually more by chance than design, stumbled into journalism. But that's another story.

Fast forward to February 2021, when the novel new covid vaccines were rolled out in Australia after being developed and provisionally approved in record time without any long-term human trials.The fact that the manufacturers were granted immunity from liability in any subsequent mishaps, rang a big alarm. Some had records of huge fines for past misdemeanours.

There were also some experts including highly qualified epidemiologists sounding warning bells, particularly in Europe and the US. Some adverse events might only become apparent months or even years after the jabs were administered, but that was dismissed as ratbag conspiracy theory, disinformation and misinformation.

Well not any more, and hopefully the Queensland Supreme court ruling that the vaccine mandates were unlawful mainly because they didn't take into account those workers' 'human rights' will lead to justifiable and wide-ranging compensations.

As Rowan Dean wrote in The Spectator Australia, "The news, of course, is to be welcomed. It is the first crack in the dam wall and will hopefully be followed by significant class actions and further court cases.

Here, here! And let's hope that the issue does not become bogged down in appeals courts by a government with a guilty conscience and deep pockets.

Finally, my short-lived dispensing career was never a waste of time and it actually saved one of our young son's lives when a pharmacist dispensed the wrong medication which I recognised as a potent heart drug that could have stopped his from beating!

Again, that's another story.