John O'Looney

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Given the recognition he deserves.
John O’Looney, a funeral director and antivaxer, had been due to speak at the march but is believed to be in hospital with COVID.
—Tom Ball, The Sunday Times[1]
Yes, Mr Amis, it’s very droll. I’m just wondering whether perhaps the name you’ve given to this eccentric conspiracy theorist is a touch lacking in subtlety.
—Michael Deacon, The Telegraph[2]

John O'Looney (1968–)[3] is a British funeral director,[4] antivaxxer, and COVID-19 denialist known for catching COVID-19, supporting clottish claims about the vaccinated, and exemplifying nominative determinism.Wikipedia

Deny, deny, deny, pivot[edit]

Early in the pandemic O'Looney expressed concerns over the emotional and financial burdens being placed on families by the pandemic and resultant government restrictions on funeral attendance, which he attempted to alleviate by offering half-price unattended, cremation-only funerals.[5][6]

Westminster meeting[edit]

In September 2021, O'Looney was part of an anti-vax brian trust, including non-practicing and seemingly confused solicitor Anna de Buisseret, Dolores Cahill, obstetrician turned ivermectin pusher Tess Lawrie, and suspended GP turned holistic practioner Sam White, which met with a “senior” Tory MP, said by O'Looney to be head of the 1922 CommitteeWikipedia Sir Graham Brady,Wikipedia to call for the COVID vaccine rollout to be paused “as a matter of urgency” and for those vaccines to “at no point” be given to children. Brady, while not confirming the meeting had taken place, clarified that if it had, it would not amount to an endorsement of their views.[7][8]

Following the identification of Omicron variant in November 2021, O'Looney claimed the virus was just a common cold and that the COVID-19 vaccine, like chemotherapy, inhibited the immune system, in a video statement:

We're in winter and there are colds and flus about at this time of the year. These people [who have been vaccinated] can't fight it off. The government were very quick to label it as Omicron, a new variant. — John O'Looney[9]

He would soon find out how wrong he was.

ICC request[edit]

In early December 2021, O'Looney, along with Piers Corbyn, former Pfizer pharmacologist turned antivax activist Michael Yeadon,Wikipedia and others, filed a spurious request for the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute Boris Johnson, Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab and others, for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide of the British peoples.[2]

On December 14, 2021, O'Looney doubled down on his mistaken belief about Omicron being a common cold and the vaccine inhibiting the immune system, in a Tweet that did not age well:

Just getting over the cold doing the rounds - three days in and I'm feeling back on the right path. This is the one that is decimating the "protected" for weeks. Wonder why I'm so resilient ? — John O'Looney

Curiously, the ICC seem not to have taken up the request to investigate.

Let the UK Live[edit]

Later that month, O'Looney was supposed to join Corbyn and failed local UKIP crusader Jeff Wyatt in leading a "Let the UK Live" anti-vax "freedom rally" in Milton Keynes, which got confused, mistook a test-and-trace centre for a vaccine centre,[10] and ended up disrupting Ashley Banjo & Diversity's performance of the Jack and the Beanstalk pantomime at the Milton Keynes Theatre.[11] Unfortunately, he was unable to attend as he had been in the ICU having discovered first-hand the reality of the pandemic he had previously denied, finally admitting:

I was initially sceptical about Covid but I can confirm it’s validity and it is very nasty. But I can also tell you it is 100% man-made this is not a natural virus and this is an attack on all of us – it’s a bio weapon. — John O'Looney[4][9][12]

O'Looney, with the assistance of retired policeman turned sovereign citizen Mark Sexton, discharged himself from hospital on Christmas Eve against medical advice claiming, "I feel very fortunate to have escaped hospital (I never dreamt I would have lived to say that)." O'Looney subsequently told tall tales of how he foiled the doctors' attempts to kill him by refusing their experimental treatments (including something called remdesivir)Wikipedia and eventually escaping; how the staff became suspiciously frustrated by his repeated refusal of treatment; oh and also how the food they served was tasteless (although that last one may have been due to the COVID).[9][12]

I’d say I actually feel like I’ve been poisoned – this is my thing but a natural virus and these bastards have a lot to answer for. I’d urge people to avoid hospital at all costs personally based on my experience in it. There was no emphasis on healing me at all and the focus was only on getting me to agree to as many experimental drugs as the Oxford University rep could coerce me into agreeing to take In fact in the few days I was in there I met a consultant just once briefly and for the time it took him to accept I wasn’t going to be a guinea pig. I never saw him again after that, but I was visited several times by the gates funded Oxford university rep at my bedside …… I’ve never ever seen this type of mercenary Frankenstein bullshit in a British hospital before and never want to see it again. — John O'Looney[9][13]

Now convinced of the reality of the pandemic, O'Looney quickly pivoted to anti-vax activism.

Died Suddenly[edit]

O'Looney has been a vocal supporter of the entirely unsubstantiated claims made by fellow funeral director Richard Hirschman that the vaccinated are being killed by a previously unknown type of blood clot which takes the shape of the blood vessel it grows in. He even appeared alongside Hirschman in Stew Peters'Wikipedia discredited "documentary" Died SuddenlyWikipedia despite numerous fact-checks from pathologists and fellow embalmers that these were normal clots, and any increase was most likely due to the extended time bodies were spending in refrigeration O'Looney himself had noted early in the pandemic.[14][15][16]

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong[edit]

O'Looney has made a litany of false claims in viral videos debunked by fact checkers throughout the pandemic.[17][18]

Pandemic lunacy[edit]

The WHO did not change the definition of pandemic, which is declared “when there have been verified community-level outbreaks of a new influenza virus, passing from human-to-human, in two or more countries in more than one WHO region,” despite O'Looney's claim it was redefined to allow a harmless flu to be classified as such.[17]

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is, according to overwhelming scientific consensus, a zoonotic spillover, and not, as O'Looney has variously claimed, either a harmless flu[17] or a man-made bio-weapon engineered to frighten people into getting vaccinated. Furthermore, ivermectin has been shown to have no effect on controlling the virus, contrary to O'Looney's claim. Finally, anecdotal evidence is not sufficient to counter either of these facts, no matter what O'Looney says.[18]

73,766 deaths due to COVID-19 in England and Wales were registered between March and December 2020, contrary to O'Looney's claim of no “pandemic death rate” that year. Furthermore, widespread death in care homes in the first wave of the pandemic was, in fact, due to COVID-19 and not, as he claims, a government euthanasia campaign using end of life care drug midazolam.[17] Finally, his claim of seeing vials in the bins is not the evidence for the 1,000% increase in the use of the drug he claims it is.[18]

Face-masks have been found useful in preventing the spread of Covid-19, despite O'Looney's claims to the contrary. And there is no evidence for his claim they cause pneumonia.[17]

Authorised COVID-19 vaccines have been through the normal trial stages with the results published in peer-reviewed journals, despite O'Looney's claims to the contrary.[17] Furthermore, the vaccinated are not dying suddenly from myocarditis or turbo cancers nor do they illuminate under a UV light as he has claimed. And, finally, this not, as he seems to fear, a sign that it is the Mark of the Beast.[18]

The highest ranks of the political class did not avoid the vaccine, despite O'Looney's claim that this is the reason they are not dying suddenly in large numbers. Furthermore the majority are surprisingly human, contrary to his claims that they have no humanity in them and are literally not human.[18]

Other lunacy[edit]

There is no evidence that surveys are being undertaken to replace every single farm in the UK with a solar farm, despite O'Looney apparently being told this in a lengthy conversation with the surveyor looking over the farmland at the back of his house.[18]

Unfortunately, it has been impossible to fact check O'Looney's claim that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire features, "golden orbs of wisdom that fell from the tree of life," as it is unclear what the hell that even means.[18]

References[edit]

  1. Antivaxers threaten ‘radical action’ after boxing drills on beach by Tom Ball (January 1, 2022) The Sunday Times (archived January 1, 2022)
  2. 2.0 2.1 Way of the Worldl by Michael Deacon (January 4, 2022) The Telegraph
  3. John O'LOONEY Companies House
  4. 4.0 4.1 Milton Keynes funeral director who's an avid anti-vaxxer ends up in hospital with Covid by Sally Murrer (January 4, 2022) MK Citizen
  5. Funeral director demands help for people struggling to pay for funerals of loved ones in Milton Keynes by Sally Murrer (April 6, 2020) MK Citizen
  6. Coronavirus: Bodies 'could be left at hospital' amid virus finance fears by Matt Precey (April 7, 2020) BBC Look East
  7. Covid antivaxers ‘met senior Conservative MP’ Sir Graham Brady by Tom Whipple (September 30, 2021) The Sunday Times (archived September 30, 2021)
  8. Senior Tory MP Sir Graham Brady ‘met with anti-vaxxers’ by Zoe Tidman (September 30, 2021) The Independent
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Leading anti-vaxxer finally admits COVID is real after being taken to ICU with virus by Jimmy Nsubuga (January 5, 2021) Yahoo! News
  10. Anti-vaxxers storm Covid testing centre during ‘freedom’ rally in Milton Keynes by Léonie Chao-Fong (December 29, 2021) The Guardian
  11. Covid: Anti-vax protesters disrupt Milton Keynes NHS test centre (December 30, 2021) BBC News
  12. 12.0 12.1 Leading British anti-vaxxer hospitalised with covid by Kieran Galpin (January 6, 2022) JOE
  13. Leading anti-vaxxer funeral director misses rally with Piers Corbyn after being admitted to ICU with 'very nasty' Covid - but urges followers NOT to go to hospital if they catch virus by Mark Duell (January 5, 2022) Mail Online
  14. Embalmers finding ‘strange clots’ in jabbed people, by Naseem Ferdowsi (February 9, 2022) PolitiFact
  15. 'Died Suddenly' film amplifies false Covid-19 vaccine claims by Marisha Goldhamer (November 29, 2022) AFP Fact Check
  16. ‘Died Suddenly’ Pushes Bogus Depopulation Theory by Saranac Hale Spencer, Jessica McDonald and Catalina Jaramillo (December 1, 2022) FactCheck.org
  17. 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 17.5 False claims from funeral director about facemasks, vaccines and the pandemic by Daniella de Block Golding (October 28, 2021) Full Fact
  18. 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6 YouTube Dr interviews man who thinks vaccinated people might "illuminate". by Culture Catz (April 14, 2024) YouTube