Another Friday hiatus

A combination of medical matters and social matters kept me too busy to blog today. A pic of one of the very pleasant ladies concerned below

Covid guru Sir Patrick Vallance claims experts were used as 'human shields' for British Government and officials 'cherry-picked' science to justify decisions

Experts were used as 'human shields' for the Government, whose officials 'cherry-picked' science to justify Covid decision-making, Sir Patrick Vallance's pandemic diaries claimed.

The Chief Scientific Adviser, who regularly addressed the nation alongside ministers during press conferences, wrote that Downing Street sought to justify its actions by claiming they were 'following the science'.

And he accused an unnamed official of 'completely rewriting' scientific advice on social distancing, the Covid-19 Inquiry in London heard today.

Sir Patrick's previously undisclosed contemporaneous notes described the intervention as 'extraordinary'.

And he described No 10 as being 'at war with itself', leaving then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson 'caught in the middle'.

Others accused Mr Johnson, who was admitted to intensive care after falling ill with Covid in April 2020, of 'flip-flopping', and of poor and delayed decision-making.

Meanwhile Dominic Cummings, the former Downing Street senior adviser, is said to sent a message to one colleague saying the Cabinet Office was 'terrifyingly shit' as the Government pondered introducing the first, unprecedented lockdown measures in March 2020.

Hugo Keith KC, lead counsel to the Inquiry, told the first day of the probe's second module into Government action that 'the WhatsApp messages between ... Johnson, Cummings and others betray a depressing picture of a toxic atmosphere, factional infighting and internecine attacks on colleagues'.

And he said Mr Cummings claimed Cabinet was 'not the place for serious discussion or decisions'.

Mr Keith said: 'It was a rubber stamp, the main function of which was to function as political theatre.

'Perhaps more importantly, he says Cabinet committees were scripted – ministers were given scripts to read out, and conclusions were drafted in advance, so problems were simply not grappled with.'

Mr Keith suggested Mr Cummings, who left No 10 in November 2020 after a series of internal rows, was 'himself a source of instability'.

Mr Keith also referred to several entries in Sir Patrick's daily notebooks, revealing frictions at the heart of Government.

In one, Sir Patrick said: 'Morning PM meeting, (Mr Johnson) wants everything normal by September... he is now completely bullish.'

In another, from May 2020, he wrote: 'Ministers tried to make the science give the answers, rather than them making decisions.'

Sir Patrick, a member of Sage (the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), added: 'I am worried that a "Sage is trouble" vibe is appearing in Number 10.

'There is a paper from No 10 Cabinet Office for one metre, two metre review (into Government's social distancing measures).

'Some person has completely rewritten the science advice as though it's the definitive version. They've just cherry picked – quite extraordinary.'

Mr Keith said the diaries 'speak of Sage, of the CMO (Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty) and the CSA being positioned as human shields'.

He added: 'Sage was a scientific advisory body, it produced the science.

'It couldn't integrate economic and societal considerations. So who did? The Government of course.'

And he said then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak's 'eat out to help out' scheme designed to support the hospitality sector went ahead without the approval of the most senior scientific advisers, nor was it informed by evidence on the impact it would be likely to have on infection transmission.

Mr Keith said inquiry chairman Baroness Heather Hallett would have to determine the extent to which the Government may have dawdled while Covid cases began ramping up internationally in the start of 2020.

He said: 'Some argue that had the Government reacted with greater urgency and to greater effect in January and February, it might not have been forced into making the extraordinary, far-reaching decisions that it later found itself obliged to take.'

He said: 'Never again can a virus be allowed to lead to so many deaths and so much suffering.'

The hearing opened with a 20-minute film featuring testimonies from those bereaved and affected by Covid.

One widower, Alan Handley, whose wife Susan died with Covid, hit out at government officials for flouting restrictions on the day less than a dozen people were permitted to gather for her funeral.

He said: 'To compound the grief of my wife's passing, on the day of her funeral — only eight people were allowed to attend — and then to find out the day of my wife's funeral, under those draconian restrictions, that government officials were holding parties on the very same day... My wife deserved better.'

Baroness Hallett appeared moved by the footage, and said she needed to reach conclusions and make recommendations to reduce suffering in the future 'when the next pandemic hits the UK is pressing'.

She said: 'I say "when" the next pandemic hits the UK because the evidence in module one suggested it is not if another pandemic will hit us but when.'

More than 230,000 people have died with Covid-19 in the UK.

The inquiry, which has already cost in excess of £40million, is set to conclude in 2026.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12589393/Covid-guru-Sir-Patrick-Vallance-claims-experts-used-human-shields-Government-officials-cherry-picked-science-justify-decisions.html

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Facing the Highly Mutated Variant BA.2.86

Vaccinations may not help

Following EG.5, the latest highly mutated COVID-19 variant, BA.2.86 (also known as Pirola), is spreading in multiple countries. BA.2.86 is a subvariant of omicron, with over 35 genetic mutations on its spike protein, making it more capable of immune escape. Medical experts recommend increasing the intake of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients to boost immunity.

BA.2.86 was first discovered in Denmark in July, and it has since been detected in human or wastewater samples from the United States, Canada, Denmark, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, and Thailand.

According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated at the end of August, approximately 97 percent of Americans have developed SARS-CoV-2 antibodies due to prior infection, vaccination, or a combination. However, the significant number of mutations in BA.2.86 raises concerns about whether the immunity acquired from vaccines and previous infections is adequate to combat it.

According to the CDC, it is currently unclear whether the BA.2.86 variant will lead to more severe illness, but these highly diverged lineages may arise in immunocompromised individuals with prolonged infections.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the world has experienced multiple waves of pandemic peaks caused by virus strains like alpha, delta, and omicron. The various variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that have evolved continue to alter the virus' transmissibility and pathogenicity, presenting challenges to medical treatment and prevention measures.

In August, the CDC stated that the existing tests used for COVID-19 detection and the medications used to treat the disease appear effective against BA.2.86. Updated COVID-19 vaccines are set to be released before the end of September, with the expectation of significantly reducing the risk of severe illness and hospitalization.

However, will that be the case? A recent study analyzed the impact of vaccination and natural immunity on COVID-19 infection rates. The research team conducted this study with 96,201 male inmates across 33 California state prisons, analyzing their data from January to July 2023.
The research findings showed that the infection rate in the bivalent-vaccinated group was 3.24 percent, whereas the infection rate in the entirely unvaccinated group was 2.72 percent. When the data were filtered for individuals aged 50 and above, infection rates were 4.07 and 3.1 percent, respectively. Among individuals aged 65 and above, the bivalent-vaccinated group had an infection rate of 6.45 percent, higher than the 4.5 percent rate observed in the entirely unvaccinated group.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/facing-the-highly-mutated-variant-ba-2-86-strategies-to-strengthen-your-innate-immunity-and-guard-against-infection-5495980

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Australian Medical Doctors May Need to Arm Themselves with a Law Degree

Australian doctors have expressed displeasure with medical regulatory bodies like Ahpra and the TGA, stating that doctors with different views are being targeted and suspended. TrialSite interviewed some doctors who served in the system and who were suspended unfairly for expressing differing opinions. They emphasized that to be fully protected in the Australian health system, doctors may need to be well-versed in the law before they start practicing.

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) regulates medical practice in Australia. Some doctors fear that people anonymously use Ahpra as a weapon against them. There are also concerns that external bodies in the United States like the Federation of State Medical Board (FSMB) may influence the International Association of Medical Regulatory Authorities (IAMRA). The IAMRA is responsible for effective medical regulation worldwide. They achieve this by providing guidance to the medical profession and bolstering scientific, educational and collaborative activities in the field.

What does the FSMB do?

Founded in 1912, the FSMB is a body or association representing state medical licensing in the U.S. Its CEO, Dr. Humayun Chaudhry, is regarded as one of the most influential physicians in the U.S. He released healthcare policies that were approved by the American Medical Association and authored research papers on how to boost vaccine usage. In April 2022, the FSMB adopted a misinformation policy and released a manifesto to be heavy-handed with doctors spreading misinformation. This raised suspicions, especially among vaccine-hesitant doctors, as there appeared to be a seeming connection between Dr. Chaudhry's effort to influence the vaccine-hesitant and “boost vaccine usage” and his strict approach towards doctors expressing hesitancy or spreading opposing information about the vaccines.

Pressured by regulatory bodies

Interestingly, medical authorities from different countries, including Australia, formed an international arm in September 2000, IAMRA. The IAMRA– a non-profit–supports medical regulatory bodies globally. In June 2004, the IAMRA said that it was separate from the FSMB. However, Chaudhry was IAMRA secretary and FSMB CEO at the same time in 2020.

Before the FSMB's adoption of the misinformation policy, the IAMRA had hosted webinars in 2020, to address ethical concerns among doctors and educate them on ways to combat COVID-19 misinformation. An Australian doctor, who would prefer to stay anonymous, said, "... in 2021, as I said, their agenda was to be heavy-handed with all doctors who spread misinformation."

Ahpra wields a strong authority in Australia. As such, a few doctors were concerned that the FSMB may have influenced decisions at Ahpra because its current CEO, Martin Fletcher, was a director at the IAMRA until the end of 2022. He was one of the panelists in a global webinar educating regulators on how to respond to the challenge of vaccine-hesitant doctors.

Were these concerns justified?

The Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA) and Ahpra are at the forefront of fighting COVID-19 misinformation, and they continually advocate for the dissemination of the right information on vaccine safety.

In 2023, Ahpra released a 2021 survey result reflecting the distrust among doctors of its regulatory services. Doctors in Australia had the most negative views compared with other health practitioners, and only 35% of doctors had positive reviews of Ahpra.

Part of the result said, "Distrust was undercut by practitioners’ personal views of how the COVID-19 pandemic was handled, but also related to perceived unfairness and injustice of Ahpra and the Boards’ processes."

In October 2021, the TGA suspended a medical doctor for using ivermectin on a patient with severe COVID-19 symptoms. The patient had initially sought treatment at another hospital but had only been told to wear a mask and isolate, without receiving any early treatment. As the patient’s condition had worsened after returning home, they had sought treatment from the doctor instead of going back home due to concerns about being unable to say goodbye to their family if they were to pass away.

A junior doctor in that hospital then made a complaint, stating that there was a case of polypharmacy and encephalopathy.

Speaking with TrialSite, she said, "I wanted to find out what happened to my patient, so I called this doctor up… She basically said to me that she didn't know why she made a complaint against me and that her boss was the one who actually told her to make the complaint."

The junior doctor’s supervisor was Associate Professor Naren Gunja, a toxicologist at the Westmead Hospital. She mentioned that she’d tried speaking to him, but he didn’t listen to her.

"So, I did a bit of research and discovered that he actually went to the media and spoke about a case of ivermectin overdose in a patient that he had treated at casualty," she continued.

“I couldn’t understand why Dr. Gunja, a toxicologist, chose to warn the public about the risk of ivermectin. It is well known that taking ivermectin in combination with other medications can effectively treat COVID-19, and the occurrence of ivermectin overdose is rare.”

The ivermectin overdose case went viral from September 1 to September 3, 2021, after Gunja had spoken to the media, advising the public to ignore online claims that ivermectin was a cure for COVID-19. And on September 10, 2021, the TGA banned ivermectin as an off-label treatment for COVID-19.

According to our source, a second complaint came from an anonymous source with the pseudonym – John Smith. Eventually, the evidence presented in the complaint was traced back to Ahpra. All these contributed to her suspension in October 2021.

Additionally, in February 2021, the COVID Medical Network came under intense scrutiny from the TGA for endorsing the off-label use of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19 infection.

The COVID Medical Network (CMN) is a group of doctors in Australia who have reservations about COVID-19 vaccines and have voiced their dissatisfaction with the government's pandemic response. Instead of recommending vaccines, they prescribe alternative medications like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to address and curb the effects of COVID-19 infection.

This may explain why a doctor had to publicly renounce and dis-endorse the group within seven days to regain medical registration after being urgently suspended for having a link on her website to the CMN website.

A case of corruption among regulatory bodies

In October 2022, the Australian government made over 30 changes to the national law guiding the regulation and registration of doctors. This also included disciplinary action against doctors who had broken the law. It was called the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2022.

This law gave Ahpra the power to release a public statement regarding a practitioner who is under assessment or investigation if there was a "reasonable belief" that the practitioner's behavior, performance or health could seriously endanger public safety. Some doctors fear that Ahpra or the TGA could use this law as a means of bullying.

According to our first anonymous source, Ahpra weaponized the reasonable belief concept to take down medical doctors with different beliefs.

She implied that Ahpra could influence the subjective state of mind of the medical board by making statements about a doctor with no medical basis. "It has so much power. They can target any doctor they like. All it needs to do is to have an anonymous complaint against a particular doctor, and that doctor could be urgently suspended without verification of the facts."

People have complained that Ahpra bullies and has numerous scandals. After three Senate, a state inquiry into Ahpra’s conduct and according to recent polls, many doctors, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and the Australian Medical Association (AMA) remain unhappy with Ahpra’s framework. Ahpra is an agency with a five-year contract with the National Board to carry out administrative duties like notifications and collection of subscriptions.

The regulatory power lies with the Board, not Ahpra, and one anonymous doctor said that the Board was negligent in renewing its contract with Ahpra, knowing the level of incompetence of Ahpra officials. She added that perhaps the Board liked this arrangement, as most complaints are deflected away from the Board and directed against Ahpra.

The TGA was also accused of hiding vaccine side effects like myocarditis from the public, making people doubt its authenticity. They also allegedly concealed the death of several previously healthy children from vaccine side effects, as they were afraid it would promote vaccine hesitancy.

To curb corruption among regulatory bodies like the TGA, the Australian government introduced the National Anti-corruption Commission (NACC) in July 2023. Ahpra and the Medical Board are not answerable to either the state, federal parliament or the NACC. Many doctors believe they should be accountable.

Do doctors need a law degree for protection?

During TrialSite's conversation with the sources, they hinted that the insurance company lawyers meant to protect doctors were actually supporting the medical council and Ahpra. If this is true, doctors may need to become experts in law to make the right choices when getting advice from lawyers, especially if they end up in such a situation.

When TrialSite inquired if the medical board's actions would make doctors anxious about reporting adverse effects and other related matters, they firmly responded that the board's actions had caused underreporting. Apparently, doctors were afraid of saying or doing anything that would earn them a suspension.

Even so, some doctors have challenged the system and are legally smart about it. An example is Dr. William Bay, an Australian doctor in Queensland and the leader of the Queensland People’s Protest (QPP). TrialSite has previously reported on Dr. Bay's protests against the COVID-19 vaccines in Australia. He had previously received a suspension for disrupting an Australian Medical Association conference. He then took legal action against the medical board and Ahpra, aiming to have the suspension revoked. At the time of authoring this article, Dr. Bay was still waiting for the final verdict from the Court.

Dr. Gary Fettke, an orthopedic surgeon, also faced a four-and-a-half-year legal case initiated by Ahpra starting in 2014 for giving nutritional and weight loss advice to his patients. The case was challenged along legal and procedural grounds, and then, using the National Health Practitioner Ombudsman’s Intervention (NHPO), was reviewed independently.

Speaking to TrialSite, Fettke said, “Nonetheless, we had to become 'expert' in the National Law, as the Indemnifiers are not supportive of preserving your practicing rights, nor reputation.” Additionally, he added that because these insurance company lawyers were mainly responsible for financial liability, they found it safer and cheaper to side with Ahpra.

These are examples of people who may have understood their legal rights as doctors.

Final thoughts

To treat patients in the best way possible, doctors in Australia may need to learn to navigate the legal system strategically. While this may not apply universally, Ahpra's survey indicates decreased confidence in the system among practitioners. So, beyond relying solely on medical defense insurance providers in Australia, doctors may require additional safeguards to function effectively within the healthcare system. Of course, from another perspective—the top down, government and medical establishment’s point of view doctors should simply line up and follow the guidance.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/australian-medical-doctors-may-need-to-arm-themselves-with-a-law-degree-eec4a375

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Do COVID-19 Vaccines Link to Cancer? 3/4 Reviewers Accept but Frontiers in Oncology Reject Manuscript

A recent paper uploaded to the Authorea preprint server, involves the possibility that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines could trigger changes leading to oncogenesis. Led by Rachel Valdes Angues, a senior researcher and Post Doc at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), and researcher Yolanda Perea Bustos, the pair point to a hypothesis for COVID-19 vaccines and oncogenesis, also known as tumorigenesis or carcinogenesis, a phenomenon referring to the process by which normal cells are transformed into cancer cells. This process represents one that is complex, and multistep, one that involves various genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors. Overall, oncogenesis leads to the development and progression of cancer. The pair express a disturbing hypothesis, one that’s based on reviews of the medical literature: that COVID-19 vaccines may predispose some cancer patients to cancer progression, recurrence, and/or metastasis.

The recent paper was submitted to Frontiers in Oncology. Interestingly, three of the reviewers endorsed the paper's publication yet the paper was rejected on “editorial grounds.” Does the topic raise an inconvenient topic? This manuscript has not been peer-reviewed and should not be cited as evidence. But TrialSite calls attention to the disturbing premise, one that should be further vetted.

What’s this hypothesis based on? According to the two authors whose paper was rejected for “editorial” reasons, they argue, “One that raises alarm of “biological plausibility (i.e., induction of lymphopenia and inflammation; downregulation of ACE2 expression; activation of oncogenic cascades; sequestration of tumor suppressor proteins; dysregulation of the G4-RNA-protein binding system and type I IFN responses; unsilencing of LINE-1 retrotransposons) together with growing anecdotal evidence and reports filed to Vaccine Adverse Effects Report System (VAERS) suggesting that some cancer patients experienced disease exacerbation or recurrence following COVID-19 vaccination. In light of the above, and because some of these concerns also apply to cancer patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, we encourage the scientific and medical community to urgently evaluate the impact of both COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccination on cancer biology, adjusting public health recommendations accordingly.”

What is this hypothesis?

The pair hypothesize that “COVID-19 and/or certain COVID-19 vaccines generate a pro-tumorigenic milieu that predisposes some (stable) cancer patients and survivors to disease progression and/or (metastatic) recurrence.” Importantly, the vaccines covered in this hypothesis include those that “promote the endogenous production of SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) glycoprotein” including the two mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna) and the adenovirus-vectored vaccines (Johnson & Johnson and Oxford/AstraZeneca).

Limitations of this hypothesis

The authors to their credit acknowledge that studying the matter of COVID-19 and cancer, using VAERS and other sources remains a tricky research affair. It’s likely difficult to truly prove that COVID-19 vaccines induce cancer because of the “other clinical and social factors resulting from the 111 pandemic, such as adverse effects related to SARS-CoV-2 infection (29,30); steep declines in cancer 112 screening, diagnosis and treatment (31); adoption of unhealthy behaviors (i.e., increased alcohol 113 consumption, reduced physical activity) during long pandemic lockdowns (32); stress induced by the 114 COVID-19 crisis (33); and the assumption that millions of adults will remain unemployed and without health insurance; will independently contribute to cancer mortality in the months and years to come.”

Evidentiary Summary

The pair articulate that COVID-19 vaccine-based “SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein-based vaccines, and particularly mRNA vaccines, can possibly initiate a set of biological mechanisms that could, in theory, “collectively generate a (transient) pro-tumorigenic environment favorable to cancer progression and/or reactivation of dormant cancer cells (DCCs).”

Such tragic adverse events would be “attributed to the pro-inflammatory action of the lipid nanoparticles (LNPs); the impaired type I interferon (IFN) response and/or translational dysregulation of cellular microRNAs triggered by structurally modified mRNA (mRNA vaccines); as well as to the unique nature, expression pattern, binding profile, and proinflammatory and tumorigenic effects of the produced antigens, namely the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and/or its subunits S1 and S2 (mRNA and adenovirus-vectorized 127 vaccines).”

Biodistribution evidence points to the possibility at least in rare occasions of substantial levels of soluble spike and/or its subunits and peptide fragments in the circulation of vaccinees, possibly persisting for weeks, or even months.

Could it be the case that sustained and systemic distribution of spike within the human body promote a range of unforeseen interactions with angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), the entry receptor for SARS132 CoV-2, either in its soluble circulating form or expressed in cells from various tissues and organs? As part of this hypothesis, the authors point out that in most cases, the spike protein associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself usually only impacts respiratory tract tissues and organs.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/do-covid-19-vaccines-link-to-oncogenesis-34-reviewers-accept-but-frontiers-in-oncology-reject-manuscript-55bc7a4e

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Children’s Health Defense Australia: saving our kids after Covid lockdowns

Julie Sladden

Few would disagree that the health of the children today foreshadows the health of the population tomorrow. With that in mind, the past three years of pandemic fear and dystopia have upset any preconceived ideas that the health of the people is on solid ground. In a worldwide response that saw nations lockdown, mask up, and mass vaccinate – ‘to protect grandma’ – it seems scant regard was paid to the cost incurred on the future generation.

Australia was ground zero for many of the more tyrannical restrictions of freedom and it didn’t go unnoticed. ‘The whole world is alarmed by what’s happening in Australia,’ said Robert F. Kennedy Jnr., founder of Children’s Health Defense US. With many states enforcing closed schools, masking of children, social distancing, and mandates, it will be years before the full impact of these actions is known.

As early data emerges on the impact on education, health, and social development it seems those who might pay the greatest price are the next generation. It is timely then that the Australian Chapter of the Children’s Health Defense was officially launched on August 26 this year.

With a board packed with expertise – Professor Robyn Cosford, Emeritus Professor Ramesh Thakur, lawyers Julian Gillespie and Peter Fam, Dr Astrid Lefringhausen, AMPS secretary and registered nurse Kara Thomas, and medical freedom advocate Cloi Geddes – Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Australia is well placed to bring light to, and stand against, the incursions on children’s health over the Covid years. But the story doesn’t begin there. The Covid response may simply be the catalyst, in Australia at least, for a light to be shone on the deterioration in the health of children over recent decades.

‘What we’re seeing in our children now … is an epidemic of chronic disease,’ explains Professor Cosford. ‘The sorts of things that we used to be seeing in older adults, in our grandparents, and our great aunts and uncles. We don’t expect to be seeing them in our children. We’re seeing an epidemic of immunological disorders where nearly half of the children have some kind of allergic-type disease, and we have autoimmune diseases occurring in our children which never have been seen before… We have an epidemic of mental health … (with) some 40 per cent (suffering) with depression, anxiety, OCD, panic disorders, and so on.’

‘And then there’s a big epidemic we’re seeing of neurodevelopmental disorders … one in ten diagnosed with ADHD, one in five with learning disorders, (and) one in 36 with autism. These (figures) have increased dramatically over the last 20-30 years and were unheard of before now.’

With a mission to ‘end childhood health epidemics’ the road ahead looks long. These alarming trends in the health of our children have been brewing for years and now may well have been exacerbated by the additional insult inflicted by the Covid response.

‘I ask as a grandparent: Why did we use children and adolescents as human shields to protect the supposed grown-ups and elderly?’ asks Ramesh Thakur, in his presentation titled Our Enemy the Government. ‘A major study recently concluded that lockdown harmed the emotional development of almost half of all British children.’ With lockdowns, closing of schools, restricted socialising, and masking it seems the price was paid by the young, who were least at risk, ‘…for a few more months of existing without living by the elderly most at risk,’ concludes Thakur.

More concerning and down-right disturbing, information is delivered during the launch by fellow presenters including the adverse effects of the Covid injections, censorship of free speech in science and medicine, DNA contamination in the Pfizer Covid injections, and legal cases in process which aim to protect our future generations.

Julian Gillespie described the heartache of ‘being belted by a judiciary that’s not acting like a judiciary’ in the recent AVN Babies case. Despite this, an unexpected benefit was the growth in support as the story spread around the nation.

‘Even though we didn’t get the correct and proper decision from the High Court, there was a massive outpouring of donors who told their friends who watched our videos with Maria Z, or Graham Hood, Health Alliance Australia, and AMPS. Parents would (start to) question (as) those videos… were pushed out across the country.’

Speaking to supporters Gillespie is clear, ‘It is correct to feel good that you participated. It did make a difference. You’ve enabled us to get the message out which is just the most important thing to allow the court of public opinion to make its mind up. (And) there are millions of us who can share the information and (help) save lives.’

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/10/childrens-health-defense-australia-saving-our-kids-after-covid-lockdowns

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Doctor Peter McCullough: Stop all COVID-19 Vaccination Now

As TrialSite has reported, on September 13, Dr. Peter McCullough spoke at an event hosted at the European Parliament, and he called for an immediate end to use of any existing COVID-19 vaccines. The prominent cardiologist, clinical investigator and public health scientist, often outspoken in his challenging of the U.S. government’s strategy to combat COVID-19, shared at the hearing that the pandemic included two separate waves of crisis or injury: SARS-CoV-2 and the mRNA vaccines.

The Dallas area-based physician that’s become a regular on various media—usually conservative leaning-- argues that a pharmaceutical syndicate led by the WHO, Bill Gates, GAVI, the EMA, and the US’s CDC, NIH, and FDA usurped the practice of medicine, away from the front-line doctors that placed patient health first and foremost priority. This group of organizations, he says, are operating as a carefully coordinated unit. This has been a problem, as an example this syndicate covered up the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Dr. Anthony Fauci and other leaders conspired to hide the fact that this virus was created by a US-funded lab in Wuhan, China.

“Environment of therapeutic nihilism”

And the WHO did not help doctors in their efforts to treat folks with COVID-19, creating an “environment of therapeutic nihilism” in which it was advised that people in an early stage of the disease not receive treatment. TrialSite reported on all sorts of examples which in some ways, support the claims of the much-criticized physician.

For example, early on during the pandemic, a pharmacist in a Florida -based health system developed the ICAM protocol which reportedly was saving hundreds of lives. TrialSite learned after the pharmacist got herself in trouble after our report, that the CEO cut the protocol which included blood thinners and other FDA approved drugs, as their contracts with Pfizer during the pandemic precluded them from actually doing anything to treat COVID-19 patients off label.

Early on during the pandemic, TrialSite chronicled front line doctors around the world and their use of different combinations of off label drugs such as ivermectin, a drug used by hundreds of millions in the tropics as an anti-parasite regimen. Studies in the U.S. such as the ICON study, published in the journal Chest, showed off-label early treatment may help at least mild to moderate COVID-19 patients. Later, NIH supported studies pointed to no effectiveness. Yet McCullough, a frequent contributor of opinion pieces to TrialSite, at the onset of the pandemic experimented with various combinations, even publishing an analysis of the COVID-19 disease lifecycle, and appropriate off label combinations to treat patients.

McCullough says that there are two things that prevent hospitalization or death: early intervention and natural immunity. To this day, WHO is not embracing early treatment. He also argues that the majority of bad COVID-19 outcomes could have been prevented with treatment.

Does mRNA ever leave?

Moving on to crisis number two, according to McCullough, contrasting to most medical establishment reports saying the contrary, since 2021 vaccines have “ravaged” the world’s population. When 75% of people in the US got a COVID-19 vaccine, McCullough was publicly calling out that this was a major mistake. He says that our vaccines “code for the worst part of the virus” and that our approach was the “worst possible.” There have been no studies showing that mRNA ever leaves the body, and so far, research has found spike proteins up to six months after vaccination. While there are plenty of data points that mRNA leaves the body via the lymphatic system, the outspoken doctor is correct that at least in some rare cases, the mRNA’s spike protein may circulate in the human body for up to a couple years. TrialSite has reported on nearly a dozen studies that in the aggregate lead to serious evidence for the unfolding science to not be what the government presents.

Three false narratives

Based on about 3,500+ studies, categories of harm from these vaccines include cardiovascular, such as mass cardiac deaths in young athletes with myocarditis from the vaccine; neurological; clotting “like never seen before” with spikes found within clots which are larger and more resistant to medication than pre-vaccine norms and immunological.

McCullough is the senior author of the largest study of post-vaccination autopsies. He reported to the European MPs that he and colleagues found that 73% of deaths that occurred after vaccination were due to the vaccine. He shared that the world faces three false narratives: 1) the initial fear and lockdowns; 2) the safety and efficacy of the vaccines; and 3) the claim that the surge in heart problems is caused by COVID-19 itself.

15% adverse event rate?

Per the doctor, the technical criteria for causality in medicine are met, so it is clear that the vaccine is causing the medical complications. And there are issues with varying adverse event rates among different batches of the same vaccine. In a study in Denmark with three batches, one of them was related to the prevalence of sudden death. Analysis shows that in Europe 4.2% of batches are “bad.”

He cites another CDC database of 10 million self-reports showing that 7.7% of that cohort after vaccination needed to go see a doctor in a clinic or hospital. According to a Zogby poll, 15% of vaccinated folks had an adverse event. While TrialSite’s far more conservative estimate of between about 0.2% to 0.8% of those vaccinated face life-altering injuries. Even in the conservative estimation of TrialSite that leaves anywhere from just under half-a-million to over 2 million people in need of care.

“No one should ever take another one of these shots,” states McCullough to the European MPs. According to the cardiologist, the World Council for Health looked at 30 “safety databases” and opined that the COVID-19 vaccines should be taken off the market forthwith.

Is McCullough right or not? Or perhaps, some core truth lies somewhere in between what the good Dallas, Texas doctor opines, and the government’s ongoing position that the products are fully safe and effective?

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/doctor-peter-mccullough-stop-all-covid-19-vaccination-now-9c304cab

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UK Qualitative Study: Long COVID’s Adverse Impacts on Children’s Health, Education, Overall Quality of Life

Children are significantly impacted by long COVID, both direct health and school experience according to the results of a recent study published BMJ Open. Led by the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford in England, the pioneering qualitative study investigated the impact of Long Covid on children and young people’s experiences of school. In addition to the University of Oxford, the universities of Stirling and Aberdeen helped conduct the study.

Key researchers include Dr Alice MacLean, lead author and researcher based within the Institute for Social Marketing and Health, University of Stirling, Sue Ziebland, Principle Investigator for the study and Professor of Medical Sociology based within Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford and Dr Cervantée Wild, co-author and researcher based within Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford.

The University of Oxford included a quote from a study subject, 11-year-old Mae who had long COVID for eight months to convey the essence of findings:

'I have really bad meltdowns where I just want to be back to normal [...] I do half days at school [...] go in at like 11am, and I come home and I just, I’m crying [and] ‘I just want to be normal again.”

The Study

The researchers carried out narrative interviews over video calls or telephone between October 2021 and July 2022. They engaged with 22 children and young people (aged 10-18) and 15 parents and caregivers of those aged 5-18 years, all dealing with the persistent aftermath of Covid-19 infection – Long Covid.

Participants were recruited through routes including social media, Long Covid support groups, clinicians, and community groups to capture a varied spectrum of experiences. The researchers particularly focused on what interviewees said about the impact of Long Covid on schooling and education.

Troubled Conditions

As reported by University of Oxford the study findings point to the vital role school plays in children’s return to a ‘normal life’ after enduring COVID-19.

Yet, life has changed for good since COVID-19. That’s because returning to school was often a false hope, rather than a genuine return to normality. Why? The study team found that extreme fatigue meant full school attendance was often a quick route back into illness.

As one 13-year-old boy described: 'I couldn't really do anything [with friends] at break. I was just resting. I struggled going up the stairs. I can’t do PE. Yeah, I just feel tired after every lesson.’

For those managing to attend school part-time, juggling studies and social activities with enough rest to avoid making symptoms worse was a big challenge. The University of Oxford shared a 16-year-old’s explanation:

‘The hardest part is not being able to go to school or like see people my age, socialise and everything. It’s all like online for me now over like social media or messages [...] seeing other people [...] my age that are going out in school or doing all their exams [and] doing lots of things throughout the summer that I would like to be able to do, but I just can’t. I think that’s quite hard.’

‘Cut off’ & Falling Behind

Young people valued education highly but felt cut off from friends and stressed about falling behind due to frequent absences. Parents told of difficulties liaising with schools, particularly around getting validation about legitimate illness from already overburdened healthcare. School support varied drastically, spanning from skepticism to empathy and tailored adjustment.

PI POV

According to lead author Dr. Maclean, “This research clearly shows that absence from school due to Long Covid has a stressful and isolating impact on children and young people. The findings highlight the need for greater awareness and understanding of Long Covid in schools, and for tailored support to enable those affected to engage with school in a way that is manageable and not detrimental to their physical or mental health.”

According to Sue Ziebland:

“Our study provides practical recommendations for how healthcare and education professionals can better support children and young people in managing their Long Covid symptoms alongside school demands. These have the potential to improve experiences for young people with Long Covid and reduce pressures on their caregivers. Listening to and validating the experiences of children and young people with Long Covid is vital.”

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/uk-qualitative-study-long-covids-adverse-impacts-on-childrens-health-education-overall-quality-of-life-d2b2afe2

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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During the pandemic, the U.S. government violated my free speech rights and those of my scientist colleagues for questioning the federal government’s COVID-19 policies

Jay Bhattacharya

American government officials, working in concert with Big Tech companies, defamed and suppressed me and my colleagues for criticizing official pandemic policies—criticism that has been proven prescient. While this may sound like a conspiracy theory, it is a documented fact, and one recently confirmed by a federal circuit court.

In August 2022, the Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general asked me to join as a plaintiff in a lawsuit, represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, against the Biden administration. The suit aims to end the government’s role in this censorship and restore the free speech rights of all Americans in the digital town square.

Lawyers in the Missouri v. Biden case took sworn depositions from many federal officials involved in the censorship efforts, including Anthony Fauci. During the hourslong deposition, Fauci showed a striking inability to answer basic questions about his pandemic management, replying “I don’t recall” over 170 times.

Legal discovery unearthed email exchanges between the government and social media companies showing an administration willing to threaten the use of its regulatory power to harm social media companies that did not comply with censorship demands.

The case revealed that a dozen federal agencies pressured social media companies Google, Facebook, and Twitter to censor and suppress speech contradicting federal pandemic priorities.

In the name of slowing the spread of harmful misinformation, the administration forced the censorship of scientific facts that didn’t fit its narrative de jour. This included facts relating to the evidence for immunity after COVID-19 recovery, the inefficacy of mask mandates, and the inability of the vaccine to stop disease transmission. True or false, if speech interfered with the government’s priorities, it had to go.

On July 4, U.S. Federal District Court Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction in the case, ordering the government to immediately stop coercing social media companies to censor protected free speech. In his decision, Doughty called the administration’s censorship infrastructure an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.”

In my November 2021 testimony in the House of Representatives, I used this exact phrase to describe the government’s censorship efforts. For this heresy, I faced slanderous accusations by Rep. Jamie Raskin, who accused me of wanting to let the virus “rip.” Raskin was joined by fellow Democrat Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who tried to smear my reputation on the grounds that I spoke with a Chinese journalist in April 2020.

Judge Doughty’s ruling decried the vast federal censorship enterprise dictating to social media companies who and what to censor, and ordered it to end. But the Biden administration immediately appealed the decision, claiming that it needed to be able to censor scientists or else public health would be endangered and people would die. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals granted it an administrative stay that lasted until mid-September, permitting the Biden administration to continue violating the First Amendment.

After a long month, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that that pandemic policy critics were not imagining these violations. The Biden administration did indeed strong-arm social media companies into doing its bidding.

The court found that the Biden White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office, and the FBI have “engaged in a years-long pressure campaign [on social media outlets] designed to ensure that the censorship aligned with the government’s preferred viewpoints.”

The appellate judges described a pattern of government officials making “threats of ‘fundamental reforms’ like regulatory changes and increased enforcement actions that would ensure the platforms were ‘held accountable.’”

But, beyond express threats, there was always an “unspoken ‘or else.’” The implication was clear. If social media companies did not comply, the administration would work to harm the economic interests of the companies. Paraphrasing Al Capone, “Well that’s a nice company you have there. Shame if something were to happen to it,” the government insinuated.

“The officials’ campaign succeeded. The platforms, in capitulation to state-sponsored pressure, changed their moderation policies,” the 5th Circuit judges wrote, and they renewed the injunction against the government’s violation of free speech rights. Here is the full order, filled with many glorious adverbs:

Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. That includes, but is not limited to, compelling the platforms to act, such as by intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply with any request, or supervising, directing, or otherwise meaningfully controlling the social media companies’ decision-making processes.

The federal government can no longer threaten social media companies with destruction if they don’t censor scientists on behalf of the government. The ruling is a victory for every American since it is a victory for free speech rights.

Although I am thrilled by it, the decision isn’t perfect. Some entities at the heart of the government’s censorship enterprise can still organize to suppress speech.

For instance, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the Department of Homeland Security can still work with academics to develop a hit list for government censorship. And the National Institutes of Health, Fauci’s old organization, can still coordinate devastating takedowns of outside scientists critical of government policy.

So, what did the government want censored?

The trouble began on Oct. 4, 2020, when my colleagues and I—Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine at Harvard University, and Dr. Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford—published the Great Barrington Declaration. It called for an end to economic lockdowns, school shutdowns, and similar restrictive policies because they disproportionately harm the young and economically disadvantaged while conferring limited benefits.

The declaration endorsed a “focused protection” approach that called for strong measures to protect high-risk populations while allowing lower-risk individuals to return to normal life with reasonable precautions. Tens of thousands of doctors and public health scientists signed on to our statement.

With hindsight, it is clear that this strategy was the right one. Sweden, which in large part eschewed lockdown and, after early problems, embraced focused protection of older populations, had among the lowest age-adjusted all-cause excess deaths of nearly every other country in Europe and suffered none of the learning loss for its elementary school children. Similarly, Florida has lower cumulative age-adjusted all-cause excess deaths than lockdown-crazy California since the start of the pandemic.

In the poorest parts of the world, the lockdowns were an even greater disaster. By spring 2020, the United Nations was already warning that the economic disruptions caused by the lockdowns would lead to 130 million or more people starving. The World Bank warned the lockdowns would throw 100 million people into dire poverty.

Some version of those predictions came true—millions of the world’s poorest suffered from the West’s lockdowns. Over the past 40 years, the world’s economies globalized, becoming more interdependent. At a stroke, the lockdowns broke the promise the world’s rich nations had implicitly made to poor nations. The rich nations had told the poor: Reorganize your economies, connect yourself to the world, and you will become more prosperous. This worked, with 1 billion people lifted out of dire poverty over the last half-century.

But the lockdowns violated that promise. The supply chain disruptions that predictably followed them meant millions of poor people in sub-Saharan Africa, Bangladesh, and elsewhere lost their jobs and could no longer feed their families.

In California, where I live, the government closed public schools and disrupted our children’s education for two straight academic years. The educational disruption was very unevenly distributed, with the poorest students and minority students suffering the greatest educational losses. By contrast, Sweden kept its schools open for students under 16 throughout the pandemic. The Swedes let their children live near-normal lives with no masks, no social distancing, and no forced isolation. As a result, Swedish kids suffered no educational loss.

The lockdowns, then, were a form of trickle-down epidemiology. The idea seemed to be that we should protect the well-to-do from the virus and that protection would somehow trickle down to protect the poor and the vulnerable. The strategy failed, as a large fraction of the deaths attributable to COVID-19 hit the vulnerable elderly.

The government wanted to suppress the fact that there were prominent scientists who opposed the lockdowns and had alternate ideas—like the Great Barrington Declaration—that might have worked better. They wanted to maintain an illusion of total consensus in favor of Fauci’s ideas, as if he were indeed the high pope of science. When he told an interviewer, “Everyone knows I represent science. If you criticize me, you are not simply criticizing a man, you are criticizing science itself,” he meant it unironically.

Federal officials immediately targeted the Great Barrington Declaration for suppression. Four days after the declaration’s publication, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins emailed Fauci to organize a “devastating takedown” of the document. Almost immediately, social media companies such as Google/YouTube, Reddit, and Facebook censored mentions of the declaration.

In 2021, Twitter blacklisted me for posting a link to the Great Barrington Declaration. YouTube censored a video of a public policy roundtable of me with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the “crime” of telling him the scientific evidence for masking children is weak.

At the height of the pandemic, I found myself smeared for my supposed political views, and my views about COVID-19 policy and epidemiology were removed from the public square on all manner of social networks.

It is impossible for me not to speculate about what might have happened had our proposal been met with a more typical scientific spirit rather than censorship and vitriol.

For anyone with an open mind, the Great Barrington Declaration represented a return to the old pandemic management strategy that had served the world well for a century—identify and protect the vulnerable, develop treatments and countermeasures as rapidly as possible, and disrupt the lives of the rest of society as little as possible since such disruption is likely to cause more harm than good.

Without censorship, we might have won that debate, and if so, the world could have moved along a different and better path in the last three and a half years, with less death and less suffering.

Since I started with a story about how dissidents skirted the Soviet censorship regime, I will close with a story about Trofim Lysenko, the famous Russian biologist.

Josef Stalin’s favorite scientist was a biologist who did not believe in Mendelian genetics—one of the most important ideas in biology. He thought it was all hokum, inconsistent with communist ideology, which emphasized the importance of nurture over nature. Lysenko developed a theory that if you expose seeds to cold before you plant them, they will be more resistant to cold, and thereby, crop output could be increased dramatically.

I hope it is not a surprise to readers to learn that Lysenko was wrong about the science. Nevertheless, Lysenko convinced Stalin that his ideas were right, and Stalin rewarded him by making him the director of the USSR’s Institute for Genetics for more than 20 years. Stalin gave him the Order of Lenin eight times.

Lysenko used his power to destroy any biologist who disagreed with him. He smeared and demoted the reputations of rival scientists who thought Mendelian genetics was true. Stalin sent some of these disfavored scientists to Siberia, where they died. Lysenko censored the scientific discussion in the Soviet Union so no one dared question his theories.

The result was mass starvation. Soviet agriculture stalled, and millions died in famines caused by Lysenko’s ideas put into practice. Some sources say that Ukraine and China under Mao Zedong also followed Lysenko’s ideas, causing millions more to starve there.

Censorship is the death of science and inevitably leads to the death of people. America should be a bulwark against it, but it was not during the pandemic. Though the tide is turning with the Missouri v. Biden case, we must reform our scientific institutions so what happened during the pandemic never happens again.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/09/22/american-pandemic-samizdat/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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