While international celebrity, and animal activist, Ricky Gervais has been happy to encourage people to take a Covid-19 jab, he has been less keen to debate the vital role animal models have played in developing the vaccine.
After Gervais posted a tweet to his 14.5m followers showing him receiving the Covid-19 jab recently, EARA applauded this, but reminded him that animal models played an important role in both developing the vaccines and testing their efficacy and safety.
When EARA executive director, Kirk Leech, also tweeted back to Gervais about this inconsistency his account was quickly blocked.
In the past Ricky Gervais has been a strong critic of ‘cancel culture’ and has been quoted as saying: “If you don’t agree to someone’s right to say something you don’t agree with, you don’t agree with freedom of speech.”
Commenting on the blocking Kirk Leech said: “Clearly Ricky Gervais’s opposition to the use of animals in research stops when he benefits from it himself."
"When I highlighted this inconsistency he quickly blocked my account. I’m happy Gervais took the vaccine, but I think it’s fair to add the word hypocrite to his CV.”