Jul 6, 2026 · 59 min · 13 segments
Professor Robert Clancy is a prominent Australian clinicalimmunologist, researcher, and emeritus academic, widely recognised as a pioneer in mucosal immunology. He holds a BS.Med (Hons) and a MBBS…
Robert ClancyGuest
Alex AnticHost
In fact, as your viewers would see, I didn't graduate yesterday and COVID was a remarkable time for me because I was looking at what I wanted to do.
And COVID came along and it was sort of exactly my area and what I thought would happen didn't happen.
It's not exactly an enjoyable time because by telling what I believed is the truth, what actually was happening from my experience, obviously garnered a certain amount of response that I didn't enjoy.
There's a lot that I want to get into about what happened, but I always think, and I want to know at some point, you know, what it was in you that made you, you know, sort of stand against, you know, what you were seeing.
But there would have been a moment, presumably, where you said, hang on, I'm not sure this is the right approach or what are we doing or what's happening.
So let's cast our minds back to the start of 2020 and we're all watching, you know, actually earlier probably.
I mean, I don't know, if you perhaps were watching this earlier, you probably were in your line of work, but...
What was the thought process? How did you get from, you know, mild-mannered immunologist, if I understood that because I sounded amusing, to sort of, you know, throwing your fists around and saying this is not, we shouldn't be doing this?
We expected it to be influenza, and it wasn't influenza, but of course, shaped very much along those lines.
We had a formula, in fact, a plan that was put in place, one that evolved over a long period of time.
And based on a careful understanding and research, much of it in Australia, we were very strong in the appropriate disciplines.
And it laid out all the guidelines that people like myself had contributed to and had accepted as being the way to go.
And I think that what woke me up was that the plan disappeared nearly as fast as it was written and was replaced by a narrative that just didn't make sense to me scientifically and medically.
In fact, as your viewers would see, I didn't graduate yesterday and COVID was a remarkable time for me because I was looking at what I wanted to do.
And COVID came along and it was sort of exactly my area and what I thought would happen didn't happen.
It's not exactly an enjoyable time because by telling what I believed is the truth, what actually was happening from my experience, obviously garnered a certain amount of response that I didn't enjoy.
There's a lot that I want to get into about what happened, but I always think, and I want to know at some point, you know, what it was in you that made you, you know, sort of stand against, you know, what you were seeing.
But there would have been a moment, presumably, where you said, hang on, I'm not sure this is the right approach or what are we doing or what's happening.
So let's cast our minds back to the start of 2020 and we're all watching, you know, actually earlier probably.
I mean, I don't know, if you perhaps were watching this earlier, you probably were in your line of work, but...
What was the thought process? How did you get from, you know, mild-mannered immunologist, if I understood that because I sounded amusing, to sort of, you know, throwing your fists around and saying this is not, we shouldn't be doing this?
We expected it to be influenza, and it wasn't influenza, but of course, shaped very much along those lines.
We had a formula, in fact, a plan that was put in place, one that evolved over a long period of time.
And based on a careful understanding and research, much of it in Australia, we were very strong in the appropriate disciplines.
And it laid out all the guidelines that people like myself had contributed to and had accepted as being the way to go.
And I think that what woke me up was that the plan disappeared nearly as fast as it was written and was replaced by a narrative that just didn't make sense to me scientifically and medically.
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