Friday, November 17, 2023
Thursday, November 16, 2023
Deleted post
The post originally here about vaccine contamination has been deleted by Google
It is however still available at the source I used:
https://principia-scientific.com/eye-opening-video-banned-from-social-media/
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Study Reveals Most Common Chronic Symptoms After COVID-19 Vaccination
A new study shows some of the most common chronic symptoms among people who began experiencing the problems after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.
The most common symptoms were exercise intolerance, excessive fatigue, numbness, brain fog, and neuropathy, researchers reported in the paper.
Insomnia, palpitations, myalgia, tinnitus, headache, burning sensations, and dizziness were also experienced by at least half of the participants in the study, which was funded in part by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Participants reported a median of 22 symptoms, with a ceiling of 35.
The study focused on people "who report a severe, debilitating chronic condition following COVID-19 vaccination" that "began soon after COVID-19 vaccination and persisted in many people for a year or more," the researchers said.
The study was led by Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Department of Internal Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine and Yilun Wu of the Yale School of Public Health's Department of Biostatistics.
It was published on Nov. 10 as a preprint ahead of peer review.
Methods
The paper comes from Yale's Listen to Immune, Symptom and Treatment Experiences Now (LISTEN) research, which examines both so-called long COVID and post-vaccine adverse events.
Researchers began recruiting participants in May 2022. Participants filled out a survey, and researchers had access to their health records.
The study featured adults who reported post-vaccination problems from May 2022 through July 2023. The 388 people who also reported so-called long COVID, or lingering symptoms after COVID-19 infection, were excluded. Another 146 people who didn't completely fill out the survey were also ultimately left out.
The median age of the participants was 46, and 80 percent were female. Approximately 88 percent live in the United States.
The design of the study means no causality could be confirmed, the researchers said. While they acknowledged the chronic symptoms could be caused by the vaccines, they alleged they could also be unrelated and have occurred by change, but also said the clustering of symptoms soon after vaccination "suggests a potential relationship."
Known side effects of the vaccines include heart inflammation, severe allergic shock, and Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
Other issues have been linked to the vaccines by some but aren't recognized as widely as confirmed side effects.
The symptoms could be quite painful. Participants reported a median of 80 on a scale of 100 when asked how bad their symptoms were on their worst days.
Lingering Symptoms
In the week before completing the survey, 93 percent of participants said they felt unease at least once.
More than eight out of 10 reported feeling fearful, and 81 percent reported feeling overwhelmed by worries.
Feelings of helplessness, depression, hopelessness, and worthlessness were also commonly reported.
Nearly the entire group said they felt rundown and 91 percent said they suffer from sleep problems.
On the other hand, half of participants reported being in good, very good, or excellent condition. Still, the rest reported fair, poor, or unknown status.
The symptoms started for many people soon after vaccination. The median time of symptom onset was three days. Seventy-seven percent of people experienced the symptoms after their first or second shot.
The study followed an NIH-authored paper that detailed 23 people who experienced persistent symptoms following COVID-19 vaccination.
A number of participants in the new study received new diagnoses after receiving a vaccine, including anxiety, neurological conditions, gastrointestinal issues, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.
Problems Before the Pandemic
Nearly half the participants had allergies before the pandemic, according to the study. About three quarters of the participants in total had at least one comorbidity, such as allergies.
Behind allergies, the most common comorbidities were gastrointestinal issues, with acid reflux as an example; anxiety disorders; depressive disorders; and asthma.
Arthritis, an autoimmune disease, high cholesterol, hypertension of high blood pressure, and migraines were also reported each by more than two dozen people.
Treatments Tried
Many participants tried multiple treatments for their symptoms. Nearly all tried probiotics, which help boost good bacteria in the body.
Vitamins and supplements were also frequently turned to, with vitamins b12, c, and d and ibuprofen being the most popular.
Anti-inflammatory drugs, including ibuprofen, were used by a majority of participants.
Oral steroids such as dexamethasone were used by about half of the group.
Lifestyle changes were also common, with 51 percent limiting exercise or exertion, 44 percent cutting alcohol or caffeine, and 44 percent increasing or decreasing how much salt they consumed. Another approximately four in 10 changed their diet.
************************************************
Suing AstraZeneca in UK—VITT Litigation Group Represents COVID-19 Vax Injured & Bereaved
The VITT Litigation Group was formed in the United Kingdom (UK) as a group of vaccine injured or bereaved due to blood-clotting complications linked to Vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) due to the AstraZeneca vaccine originally developed at University of Oxford. Representing the individuals and families whose lives were devastated due to this COVID-19 vaccine, the group represents individuals who have suffered life-changing illnesses and disability or have been bereaved due to VITT. A total of 80 people make up the group today.
Importantly, holding big pharmaceutical companies accountable represents a challenge in the UK. This is true particularly when the societal pressure has been for mass vaccination of a product that was rushed to market in response to a declared national and global emergency.
Background
As the group reports on its website coroners across the United Kingdom, namely England and Wales, NHS doctors and expert medical advisors appointed by the Government have all confirmed that VITT is caused by the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Widely recognized, VITT is defined by the Royal Society of Hematologists in the UK. The group reports that all legal claims are based on a confirmed diagnosis of VITT by treating consultant or in bereavement cases, via coroner.
Importantly, a majority of the litigants suffering from this adverse condition were before the jab, fit, healthy and at low risk from COVID-19-related complications. It should be acknowledged as well that none of the COVID-19 vaccines were ever sterilizing, in that they failed to eradicate SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
Call for Support
The group seeks financial donations to support the two legal cases they have filed against the British pharmaceutical company. However, to protect the right of others in their group to bring legal action, they need to issue remaining cases in Court.
The group is currently in the process of raising £10,000 for the Court issue fees to avoid the remaining claims running out of time due to statute of limitation.
TrialSite provides the VITT Litigation Group CrowdJustice link.
Call to Action: A healthy, vibrant biopharmaceuticals industry trusted by the public will need to take accountability for injuries, particularly if they were the result of deceptive practices. We note here at TrialSite that the VITT Litigation Group declares it’s not “anti-vaxx,” only pro-equity and justice. Those that seek to defect from accountability use the anti-vaxx label as part of ad hominem attacks to discredit legitimate critical problems.
********************************************************
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
***************************************************
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
No More COVID-19 Shots for Youth? A Bigger Politicization Agenda Behind COVID-19
“The real Covid jab scandal is finally emerging." A November 9 comment in The Telegraph provides a good introduction to the topic of why, when they faced little risk, we vaccinated kids for COVID-19. The conclusion is in the article’s subtitle: “The young and healthy, who were at minimal risk from Covid, should not have been told they had to take the vaccine.”
We learn that one Lisa Shaw, an award-winning BBC presenter, had her first COVID-19 vaccination on April 29, 2021. This 44-year-old mom thought she was doing her part to keep others safe. Within days, Shaw “developed a headache and stabbing pains behind her eyes which wouldn’t go away.” And by May 16, she was in hospital with blood clots in the brain. She could hardly speak, and a portion of her skull was removed to relieve pressure. Then, on May 21, Ms. Shaw died; the coroner found the death was due to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
“Ms. Shaw was previously fit and well,” yet it was “clearly established” that she died from a rare “vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT).” VITT is “a new condition which leads to swelling and bleeding of the brain.” Back in 2021, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock, as part of “strenuous efforts” to ease the public’s concerns, had said the AstraZeneca product was “a great British success story.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson even tweeted that, “It is truly fantastic news – and a triumph for British science….” Fast forward to yesterday, and TrialSite reported on a large lawsuit against that same vaccine in the UK maker—the plaintiff: the VITT Litigation Group.
“Severe brain injury”
Our next perspective comes from the BBC, also on November 9, “AstraZeneca faces legal challenge over Covid vaccine.” They note that the father of two, Jamie Scott, received his jab in April 2021, and that he thereby “suffered severe brain injury.” His case is being brought under the Consumer Protection Act and alleges that the product is “defective” in that it was more dangerous than folks were led to believe. Another 80 vaccine victims are due to launch a suit later in 2023. All are involved with the aforementioned VITT Litigation Group.
According to AstraZeneca, "Patient safety is our highest priority, and regulatory authorities have clear and stringent standards to ensure the safe use of all medicines, including vaccines---Our sympathy goes out to anyone who has lost loved ones or reported health problems--From the body of evidence in clinical trials and real-world data, Vaxzevria [the vaccine against Covid] has continuously been shown to have an acceptable safety profile and regulators around the world consistently state that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of extremely rare potential side effects."
“Vaccine-induced immune thrombosis and thrombocytopenia”
Many victims have obtained one-time £120,000 payments via the UK’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme. FOIA requests show that of 148 VDPS recipients, 144 had received that AstraZeneca product.
Scott’s wife Kate has told BBC, "Jamie has had over 250 rehabilitation sessions from specialists, he had to learn to walk again, to swallow, to talk. [He has had] memory problems---Although he has done very well with them, we are at the point now where this new version of Jamie… is the version that will go forward. He has cognition problems…he has aphasia. Severe headaches, blindness---We need the government to reform the vaccine damage payment scheme. It is inefficient and unfair…and then fair compensation." Within months of the AZ rollout, cases of post-vaccination blood clots began to arise. And the aforementioned “vaccine-induced immune thrombosis and thrombocytopenia (VITT) was eventually identified.”
Ironically, BBC is a target of a lawsuit TrialSite is participating in---a a key member of the Trusted News Initiative or “TNI.”
This media cabal consisting of top media and tech companies collaborated to ensure that critical message of the type TrialSite was reporting on was blocked from the public.
After presidential candidate Kennedy called TrialSite founder Daniel O’Connor to discuss the potential lawsuit, TrialSite joined to support what has been both censorship and a potential platform to destroy competition.
So, while the BBC has the green light to report on vaccine injuries now, back in early 2021, when TrialSite was one of the only media reporting on such events. They and the mainstream media followed national emergency scripts, chucking real journalism. So did the pharmaceutical trade press, TrialSite’s more direct competition. Not a peep to this day from the like about some of the more insidious externalities associated with COVID-19.
TrialSite reported on many of the front-line physicians who argued that the vast majority of COVID-19 cases were mild to moderate, especially among young people. This more independent, critical group of providers argued against the need for COVID-19 vaccination.
Put another way, the risks of vaccination outweighed the benefits, according to this cohort. The mainstream argument cited the surge in child hospitalization during Delta and the emergence of MIS-C as a reason for vaccination. Yet opinion contributors such as Geert Vanden Bossche have argued that this never justified mass vaccination of our youngest members of society.
TrialSite has repeatedly reported to the market that, to this day, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cannot verify the safety of Pfizer’s Comirnaty to the American public for both children and pregnant women.
Section 8.1 of the FDA packaged insert involving pregnancy:
“Available data on COMIRNATY administered to pregnant women are insufficient to inform vaccine-associated risks in pregnancy.” Section 8.4 for young children 12 and under states, “The safety and effectiveness of COMIRNATY in individuals younger than 12 years of age have not been established.”
Why are U.S. health authorities still pushing this vaccine on society’s most vulnerable people other than the elderly with no emergency, a case fatality rate at a level of influenza or even lower, and seemingly overwhelmingly mild to moderate upper respiratory infections, given the reports of side effects and no ability to verify the safety on the label?
WHO deprioritizes youth vaccination
Some nations are starting to get it, including the collection of health representatives that is the World Health Organization (WHO). On March 29, 2023, CNN offered another look at the subject of COVID-19 vaccines for youth, “WHO experts revise COVID-19 vaccine advice, say healthy kids and teens low risk.” They note that “The World Health Organization’s vaccine experts have revised their global COVID-19 vaccination recommendations, and healthy kids and teenagers considered low priority may not need to get a shot.”
This updated “roadmap” aims to “prioritize COVID-19 vaccines for those at greatest risk of death and severe disease, according to the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE).” A SAGE press release offered that “The public health impact of vaccinating healthy children and adolescents is comparatively much lower than the established benefits of traditional essential vaccines for children – such as the rotavirus, measles, and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines.”
TrialSite reported on prestigious academic medical centers such as Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, which have studied the matter and all but concluded the push for COVID-19 vaccines should be used for the more traditional vaccine schedule now, given declining rates due to heightened hesitancy.
At the core of the problem is that the current COVID-19 vaccines’ efficacy and risk mix just don’t compel objective pediatric care and research inquiry.
Science and medicine have been completely politicized during the pandemic. We will not go back to a more sane and rational time when the professionals respected their respective lanes.
The Biden Administration’s mandates (some of which were ruled unconstitutional) were announced in 2021, when we already knew the COVID-19 vaccines failed to stop viral transmission and were associated with some dangerous side effects, albeit relatively rare. It doesn’t matter, given the ever-milder strains involving Omicron. Of course, there were still outlier severe cases, and the elderly continued to face higher risk.
This author suggests the Biden move was, behind the scenes, a power play meant to reign in on an emerging medical freedom movement that was identified by the Washington power structure as aligned with MAGA and Trump. After all, even before the outrageous September 6 actions, tensions between opposing political viewpoints were boiling over. It seems American society hasn’t been so divided since perhaps the Vietnam War, maybe even since the Civil War. Social media and changing cultural dynamics fostered an environment of tribal division based on lifestyles and self-identified clicks.
The Biden Administration continues to exploit the pandemic, even if it's over—there is no more emergency—with at least $5 billion in taxpayer funding used so bureaucrats in Washington can pick winning vaccines and other medicinal countermeasures. It’s as if we are in a continuous emergency, or put another way, a new politicized reality.
This isn’t to deny that Trump also politicized the pandemic. He did so as well, first trying to deny its risk, acknowledged in the Woodward interviews. Operation Warp Speed became a somewhat corrupted free-for-all with billions of taxpayer dollars changing hands.
Ominous Roots
Of course, we here at TrialSite cannot be 100% certain, but this author puts forth with 90%+ confidence based on the evidence we have secured that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from the laboratory. We have government documentation that alleges it’s a homegrown (American) technology, and we speculate that it likely leaked inadvertently at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
We cannot be certain, and there is some evidence that the pathogen emerged before the Wuhan outbreak on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.
This is why it has been so difficult to discover the origin of this particular coronavirus, while the others (SARS-CoV/MERS) were discovered. All sorts of questionable actions have occurred. Even during the second investigation by WHO into the SARS-CoV-2 origins, the president of EcoHealth Alliance (Peter Daszak) was chosen to represent American interests. What? That’s the last person who should have traveled to Wuhan in early 2021.
This smelled as part of a broader coverup. EcoHealth Alliance has been all but proven to be part of a scheme to outsource gain-of-function to China on behalf of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH. See TrialSite’s early timeline and concerns about origin in “Origins of the Pandemic are Elusive & Timeline Reveals Glimpse into Path to Better Tomorrow.”
Remember all of the back and forth between Rand Paul and Fauci? What ever happened? Why has Sen. Ron Johnson sent dozens of letters inquiring into this or that in these bureaucracies with no response? Like so many other inquiries, they are made more for show for the specific tribal following than anything else.
We suspect a cover-up that includes both the Chinese government but also elements in the American government, as well as others, with intelligence agencies used to run cover and interference.
Why did the Missouri legal case uncover a rat’s nest of government intelligence operatives on Twitter?
Likely, a government operation was ordered to run the cover, help shape the narrative, and incite division and conflict. Some evidence emerged that some elements in the Central Intelligence Agency sought to buy out analysts who would express their real concerns about origins.
And, of course, Dr. Anthony Fauci served a key purpose, but he is just one of many who are part of the coverup, should we be correct. And few individuals likely have a comprehension of the whole story.
Again, based on our educated estimates, there’s a 10% chance we are off the mark, and all of this is something different. This has to be understood. I must convey that this is an opinion piece and not the formal stance of TrialSite Inc., a Delaware and Utah corporation that officially takes a far more conservative stance.
Time to Wake Up—Positive Transformation
Regardless, we here at TrialSite suggest Americans need to become more informed, educated, aware, vigilant, and less tribal, as well as less subjective about the unfolding world of research and medicine.
We suspect pressures and momentum for permanent politicization now, hence the importance of well-designed research--of paramount importance for the generation of evidence, as are critical media outlets to interpret results, vet subtle and not-so-subtle bias (such as commercial bias), and the like.
That’s what TrialSite is about, translating and summarizing for a broader audience the results of biomedical and health-related research from preclinical through to post-approval marketing. Given investors’ influence in life sciences, we are embracing more based on subscriber requests for deep dives into investor-related news about research.
TrialSite remains committed to biopharmaceutical research and the amazing revolution now unfolding in medicine, such as the dramatic personalized-driven transformation of cancer care.
But industry and government have been too entangled, as was the case with Operation Warp Speed and now NextGen. Advanced capitalist societies show a tendency for more intermingling between government and industry in ingenious ways. This is especially the case when exposed to the competitive realities of government/industry models, such as with the People’s Republic of China.
But the very innovative breakthroughs that create exponential exchange value necessitate the individualism, market dynamics and, competition, and liberties that were created and need to be preserved in the West (here is more of a concept and not necessarily an actual place).
Yet only a more critically thinking, aware, rational, and educated public, organized based on common issues of concern, can demand and direct more insightful and healthier political leadership that will hopefully disentangle some of the more ominous advancements driving the American political economy.
********************************************************
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
***************************************************
Monday, November 13, 2023
British Covid Inquiry is exposing lockdown’s dodgy models
Did we lock down on a false premise? Yesterday was Ben Warner’s turn at the Covid Inquiry. He was an adviser, and one of the ‘tech bros’ brought in by Dominic Cummings to advise No. 10 on data. He was present at many of the early Sage – and other – meetings where the government’s established mitigation (herd immunity) plan was switched to the suppression (lockdown) strategy.
In Dominic Cummings’ evidence to the inquiry last week, he said that models didn’t play a big part in moving the government towards lockdown. Part of the written inquiry evidence supplied by his data man, Ben Warner’s, supports that too. The Inquiry KC was keen to highlight this early on and flashed it up on screen: ‘It is not necessary to perform large scale simulations of an epidemic to understand the main effects of a mitigation versus a suppression strategy. Simple calculations allow for reasonable approximations of the outcome.’ Those ‘reasonable approximations of the outcome’ were that the NHS was going to be overwhelmed. Unless the harshest measures were imposed. Unless we locked down.
But these simple calculations and extrapolations are models too. They should be examined as such. It also cannot be denied that the models were then used as a comms tool for compliance. They were a not so subtle ‘nudge’ for Brits to do the right thing. They nudged advisers too.
Look further into the written statements – not just the bits highlighted by the KC – and Warner repeatedly mentions models, including those produced by Neil Ferguson. Indeed, of the importance of models for the eventual decision to lockdown his statement reads: ‘I am not aware of any meeting where the Prime Minister was asked to choose between a mitigation and a suppression strategy. But if that meeting had happened before the 15 March, I am confident that the right information and evidence was not put before him to inform the consequences of this decision, simply because Neil’s work did not exist before then.’ For these reasons, the models are certainly worth examining.
Models drive two fundamental points the inquiry is taking as established truth: lockdown works and lockdown was the only thing that could stop the NHS becoming overwhelmed. Almost every question the inquiry asks of any witness centres on these assumptions. In large part because many of those advising the government at the time also hold this view. But does the evidence support them?
Firstly, that lockdown works, is something the inquiry should seek to answer definitively. Indeed Lord Stevens, former NHS Chief Exec, said as much in his evidence last week. The second point – that lockdown was the only option – seems a flawed assumption too. There’s a growing body of evidence that Covid cases peaked before lockdowns were implemented – and not just in the UK. Google mobility data shows people taking their own precautions pre-lockdown too. But even more compelling is Sweden. Look at their first wave deaths compared with ours for the first wave. Different peaks but near identical trajectories.
To understand how these beliefs arose, and why they may be wrong, we need to look at the flaws within modelling as a discipline, and the specific type of models that were used during the pandemic. The code running them is described as ‘spaghetti’ code – meaning it’s built up and added to by different people over years and years and becomes an unruly mess that’s very difficult to decipher and therefore scrutinise. They’re a black box. The people using the results – ministers and advisors – just say what comes out. They don’t understand what goes on inside them. And the models (or at least not the prominent ones) did not react to live data.
But the flaw that undermined them more than any other is their total blindness to human behaviour change. They are built with a fundamental assumption. Only restrictions will bring down infections, and will bring down the R number. It’s hardcoded. It was ministers’ lack of understanding of this issue – perhaps more than anything else – that tipped the scales towards lockdown. It wasn’t until Omicron came along 18 months after the first lockdown that this became publicly apparent – giving us the perfect case study (as The Spectator pointed out at the time).
‘Deaths could hit 6,000 a day’, reported the newspapers on 17 December 2021. A day later documents for the 99th meeting of Sage were released which said that, without restrictions over and above ‘Plan B’, deaths would range from 600 to 6,000 a day. A summary of Sage advice, prepared for the Cabinet, gave three models of what could happen next:
Do nothing (ie, stick with ‘Plan B’) and face ‘a minimum peak’ of 3,000 hospitalisations a day and 600 to 6,000 deaths a day
Implement ‘Stage 2’ restrictions (household bubbles, etc) and cut daily deaths to a lower range: 500 to 3,000.
Implement ‘Stage 1’ restrictions (stay-at-home mandates) and cut deaths even further: to a range of 200 to 2,000 a day
After a long and fractious cabinet debate, the decision was to do nothing and wait for more data. ‘Government ignores scientists’ advice,’ fumed the BMJ. But the decision not to act meant that the quality of Sage advice could, for the first time, be tested, its ‘scenarios’ compared to actual.
The results were stark. On hospitalisations, beds occupied and deaths the models had vastly exaggerated what went on to happen. Human behaviour had been completely ignored even though by then the modellers had seen it first hand, not least in the ‘pingdemic’ of the summer that had just gone. Graham Medley – chair of SPI-M the modelling group – later described it to a parliamentary committee as: ‘By far the most effective three days in reduction of transmission that we’ve seen throughout the whole epidemic. Much more effective than any of the lockdowns’.
Whilst it took Omicron for the government and the public to realise this flaw, the modellers had known about it for years. Professor Neil Ferguson, when questioned on the issue at the inquiry, made that clear himself. Asked about Sage’s default assumption that only drivers of behaviour change were government restrictions, Ferguson mentioned an essay he had written in Nature in 2007. That essay – penned 13 years before Covid struck – contains many of the criticisms of the models discussed yesterday. ‘Today’s models largely ignore how epidemics change individual behaviour’, reads the subhead. The key quote from the piece is instructive: ‘Yet fundamental limitations remain in how well they [models] capture a key social parameter: human behaviour.’ He went on: ‘Most glaringly, the effects of behavioural responses to epidemics are given short shrift.’ The whole essay is worth reading. It sums up the glaring omission of self-motivated behaviour change. But it also begs a worrying question: why did government place so much weight behind them, despite this flaw being known 13 years before?
Even more baffling was why this affected the UK response specifically. Sweden managed to ignore models almost entirely, having been burnt by them in the past. The Danes even managed to reflect behaviour change in their models resulting in much more accurate outputs. Denmark’s Expert Group for Mathematical Modelling produced scenarios for Omicron hospitalisations that mapped well to reality.
Dr Camilla Holten-Møller – who chaired the Danish modelling group – gave evidence to the select committee hearing Medley had. She explained that they were very conscious to factor in behaviour change into their models: when cases reached a certain level in a local area, people would mix less. So the model was designed to reflect that.
Beyond behaviour change there are three often quoted defences of modelling:
The models were scenarios not forecasts.
The media unfairly criticises the ‘worst case scenario’ models.
Sage could only model what the government asked it to. Hence no consideration of side effects or damage to education, the economy and health.
The first of these arguments has been dismissed by some of the modellers themselves. At a Royal Society conference chaired by Sir Patrick Valance in June last year, Professor Steven Riley of the UKHSA made the point: ‘We can’t redefine commonly used words. If we have a chart that’s got a time axis and the time axis goes past the current day and there’s a line going off to that side of the chart then we are making forecasts. Whether we like it or not.’
The second – that we in the press paid too much attention to what were worst case scenarios – was picked apart by Professor Ferguson. He told the inquiry: ‘I was always uncomfortable with labelling what I felt was our central estimate as being the reasonable worst case. Because calling it the reasonable worst case, even if in theory policymakers are meant to be planning to it, makes it sound like it’s an unlikely eventuality, whilst in my view it was the most likely eventuality if nothing more was done.’ So: worst case scenarios were not seen by all as unlikely.
The third: that government asked the wrong questions – is harder to answer. Perhaps Baroness Hallet will get to the bottom of that in the years to come. But what’s clear now is the state has learnt nothing about the peril of using the modelling discipline. Look at the modelling paper used to justify Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban. That model spits out four scenarios. Each of them show a reduction in smoking, with three out of the four seeing smoking completely eradicated by 2050. A brilliantly successful policy then? But then look at the modelling assumptions: ‘In all scenarios, the model assumes smoking instigation rates reduce year-on-year to reflect ongoing increases in the age of sale.’ They spell it out in black and white. The key assumption for the model – the input to the black box – is that the policy works. There is no data you could put into that model that would even allow you to consider the possibility of no reduction in smoking and a massively illiberal policy failure.
The smoking models are trivial compared to those produced during the pandemic years – but they highlight the need for security. As more and more evidence from the inquiry comes out it’s clear how influential models are too, even if just to confirm what seemed obvious from more basic data. It’s hard to blame advisors, ministers and scientists for decisions made early on. Locking down while we figure things out was a perfectly reasonable approach. To look at and build the evidence. But was that time used to scrutinise the models? Consider less harmful approaches? The inquiry should try to find out.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/the-covid-inquiry-is-exposing-lockdowns-dodgy-models
**********************************************************Australian Medical Society Reports on Excess Deaths: Claims They Are Linked to COVID-19 Vax
An Australian medical professional society formed to protect and promote the interest of members in matters concerning their respective employment or professional engagement has been actively looking into problems with the COVID-19 government narrative, namely, the delta between the goals of the mass vaccination response to COVID-19 and the real-world data suggesting ongoing excess mortality.
The Australian Medical Professionals Society (AMPS) recently announced “Too Many Dead 2023: An Inquiry into Australia’s Excess Mortality,” a freely downloadable book investigating the troubling excess death rates Down Under, starting in 2021. They also held a conference late last month.
Political and medical authorities in Australia continue to evade the topic—perhaps even labeling activists investigating the disturbing trends as “anti-vaxxers.” In fact, the Australian Senate even held a vote to not have an inquiry into the excess deaths, which seems counter intuitive given their role as representatives of the people of Australia.
Regardless, AMPS and other concerned medical professionals initiated its own independent, dedicated investigation into the matter, the results of which accumulated in the data that was used to author the book.
AMPS reports that despite the severe limitations in some cases of current governmental regulatory pharmacovigilance systems, large numbers of adverse events, disability and deaths become continuously commonplace.
The claim: This group has come outright and declared that the vaccination programs meant to protect the people of Australia from SARS-COV-2, the virus behind COVID-19 are in fact, the cause of the excess deaths. An “iatrogenic” driven excess mortality, meaning these deaths according to these medical professionals are directly the result of the mass COVID-19 vaccination program.
How many excess deaths? AMPS alleges that after the extensive examination of the public health data, the excess mortality surges 12-17% above baseline averages, rates never seen since wartime. The apex of excess mortality surged in early 2021 and has persisted at what they group terms “unusual levels to this day.”
Of course, the mass vaccination program’s commencement did coincide with the start of 2021. TrialSite reported that by the end of the year, much of the Australian population was vaccinated yet in the first three-and-a-half months of 2022, twice as many people died in Australia from COVID-19 than in all of 2020 and 2021. In part, this can be explained by severe lockdowns in Australia. Inspired to some extent by Chinese “zero tolerance” COVID measures, Australia kept the virus at bay in much of 2020, and throughout parts of 2021.
Then, the majority of people got vaccinated, and restrictions and behaviors eased up, yet Delta and of course, the Omicron variants continued to circulate. Could it be that with waning vaccine durability and a lack of natural (preexisting infection) immunity in the population deaths then surged?
Regardless, the excess deaths are not only in Australia but observed worldwide. Back in Australia, AMPS has taken an active role to research and educate those interested in learning about this ongoing problem. In addition to the recently held conference they have held inquiries, communicated concerns with both politicians and regulators and various government agencies.
The recent conference last month featured some serious academic such as Professor Normal Fenton, a skeptical Professor Emeritus of Risk at Queen Mary University of London (retired as of Dec. 2022) and Director of Agena, a company that specializes in artificial intelligence and Bayesian probabilistic reasoning.
With several books and over 350 peer-reviewed articles, TrialSite has from time to time during the pandemic updated readers on some of his concerning analysis in the United Kingdom. Specifically for the UK, Fenton and colleagues have spent significant time and effort to show statistically how the COVID-19 vaccines appear to be associated with excess mortality.
********************************************************
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
***************************************************
Sunday, November 12, 2023
Growth in COVID-19 Adverse Events in VAERS
A recent Op-ed on Cancer events (post-COVID-19 vaccination) reported in VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System) examined in part the temporal increase of specific Cancer events from 2022 to 2023 post-COVID-19 vaccination. There were some Cancer events that experienced very rapid growth compared to the overall average. These results led to the conclusion that there would be value in identifying temporal increase of symptoms/diseases other than Cancer post-COVID-19 vaccination. The present Op-ed identifies temporal growth patterns of selected adverse events (from VAERS) that occurred post-COVID-19 vaccination. It does not identify post-COVID-19 vaccination long-term adverse events since these would take at least five years to emerge, and perhaps decades more.
METHODOLOGY
On 26 October 2023, CDC Wonder (a search engine for VAERS) was accessed, and searches were performed to identify symptoms (which in some cases are usually referred to as diseases) reported in VAERS for the periods ending in 2021, 2022,and third quarter 2023 (restricted to USA and Territories, COVID-19 vaccines). Selected symptoms were compared for the 2021, 2022, and 2023 periods, and patterns of temporal increase were discussed.
The symptoms were selected for specific broad disease categories based on key symptom findings from previous Trial Site News (TSN) Op-eds written by the author. These disease categories included Cancer (Link#1: Link#2), Cardiovascular, Neurological, Autoimmune, Endocrine, Reproductive-Pregnancy, Blood-Lymph, and Gastrointestinal. Symptoms from the Infections category were included as well.
RESULTS
Table 1A-1 shows the temporal increases in the selected symptoms/diseases. The column heading Code is:
Column 1 – CAT: the system/organ class for which the symptom is most appropriate. The category code shown for selected symptoms is 1) AUT=Autoimmune Disease; 2) BLD=Blood Disease;
3) CAN=Cancer; 4) END=Endocrine Disorder; 5) GAS=Gastrointestinal Disease; 6) HRT=Cardiac Disease; 7) INF=Infectious Disease; 8) NEU=Neurological Disease; 9) REP=Reproductive Problems.
Column 2 – SYMPTOM: the symptom as shown in VAERS;
Column 3 - #EV 2021: the number of cumulative events in VAERS at the end of 2021 (the number of times a symptom is reported is listed as the number of events);
Column 4 - #EV 2022: the number of cumulative events in VAERS at the end of 2022;
Column 5 - #EV 9-2023: the number of cumulative events in VAERS at the end of Sept 2023;
Column 6 - #EV 12-2023: the number of cumulative events in VAERS at the end of Dec 2023. This number was obtained by linearly extrapolating the number of events that occurred ONLY in the first nine months of 2023 to twelve months and then adding the twelve-month 2023-only number to the cumulative number of events recorded at the end of 2022;
Column 7 - RAT 2022/2021: the ratio of 1) cumulative events in VAERS at the end of 2022 to 2) cumulative events in VAERS at the end of 2021;
Column 8 - RAT 9-23/2022: the ratio of 1) cumulative events in VAERS at the end of Sept 2023 to 2) cumulative events in VAERS at the end of 2022;
Column 9 – RAT 12-23/2022: the ratio of 1) cumulative events in VAERS at the end of Dec 2023 to 2) cumulative events in VAERS at the end of 2022;
Column 10 – RAT 9-23/2021: the ratio of 1) cumulative events in VAERS at the end of Sept 2023 to 2) cumulative events in VAERS at the end of 2021;
Column 11 – RAT 12-23/2021: the ratio of 1) cumulative events in VAERS at the end of Dec 2023 to 2) cumulative events in VAERS at the end of 2021.
The entry INF in the ratio columns represents Infinity and signifies division by zero.
DISCUSSION
Integrity of the VAERS Database
The data used for analyses in the present study come directly from VAERS reports available to the public. Deficiencies in the VAERS data will translate directly to limitations and deficiencies in the results and conclusions. Thus, it is important to understand the integrity of the VAERS database.
The VAERS database is managed jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Federal Drug Administration (FDA). VAERS documents a small fraction of the adverse events that occur after any vaccine is administered. As of 29 September 2023, 989,033 adverse events were listed in VAERS (data obtained using CDC Wonder) for COVID-19 vaccines, whereas 810,033 adverse events (Symptoms, in VAERS terminology) were listed in VAERS for all other vaccines since ~1990. Thus, VAERS appears to have documented more adverse events post-COVID-19 vaccines (starting early 2021) than from all other vaccines combined (starting ~1990)!
VAERS uses the MedDRA (Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities) vocabulary to represent each of the ~18,000 symptoms listed in VAERS. MedDRA consists of five hierarchical levels of symptoms/diseases: System Organ Class (SOC), High-Level Group Terms (HLGT), High-Level Terms (HLT), Preferred Terms (PT); Lower-Level Terms (LLT). Only a subset of the bottom level is used for the VAERS terminology.
There are questions concerning the integrity of VAERS itself. There is no chain-of-custody record for VAERS data available to the public. The substack “Welcome the Eagle” has been tracking the contents of VAERS since at least early 2021 and has been reporting myriad manipulations of data by the VAERS database managers. A useful summary of the “Welcome the Eagle”-based VAERS manipulations is presented in the linked viewgraph summary.
One of the many issues shown in this comprehensive viewgraph summary is the extensive delay period from receipt of the data by CDC to when it is reported in VAERS. In some cases, it was shown to be well over a year. This is of particular concern for the present study, where the time occurrence of events is central to the analysis. For some long-latency diseases, such as cancers, the latency period compounded by the long report processing time could extend the actual VAERS reporting date well beyond the study horizon and the full extent of the COVID-19 vaccines’ (administered from late December 2020 to end of September 2023, the study period covered by the present Op-ed) impact would not be shown.
What would motivate such manipulations? The VAERS database is co-managed by the CDC and FDA. These organizations have allowed Emergency Use Authorization of the COVID-19 “vaccines” despite lack of adequate testing/clinical trials (or, in some cases, absence of human clinical trials) and have declared these injections to be safe and effective despite copious evidence to the contrary. Because these co-managers of VAERS will have to take their share of responsibility for the massive numbers of adverse effects from the COVID-19 injections that have been reported, it is probably safe to assume that any manipulations of VAERS under their co-management would be in the direction of suppressing the scope and number of adverse events. Thus, for the above and many other reasons, the numbers reported in VAERS, even when corrected with Under-Reporting Factors (URF), should be viewed as a very low floor on the scope and number of real-world adverse events.
https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/growth-in-covid-19-adverse-events-in-vaers-f0cdc5cd
***************************************************Biden’s COVID-19 Vax Mandates Spawn Lingering Bad Results
Last July, the highly productive House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, chaired by Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, conducted a hearing into the science and impact of the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates.
Biden, his congressional allies, and many medical societies insisted that these unprecedented government mandates were benign and beneficial. As Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., opined during the hearing, “I believe the vaccine is safe and effective. I believe it is the role of public health to vaccinate as many people as possible to prevent the spread of the virus.”
Well, it turns out that the robotic repetition of the “safe and effective” mantra deserves some sober qualifications. Over the past two years, there has been mounting evidence of adverse health consequences from the COVID-19 vaccines.
The simple fact is this: the COVID-19 vaccines, aiming to prevent grave illness and death, nonetheless can carry serious risks. As The New York Times recently reported, even among the elderly population, the prime candidates for vaccination, there are risks.
Based on preliminary research from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, there’s a heightened risk of stroke when older patients received the vaccine at “the same time” as the flu vaccine.
According to the New York Times account: “Those who received both COVID and flu vaccines saw a 20 percent increase in the risk of ischemic stroke with the Pfizer BioNTech bivalent shot, and an increase of 35 percent in the risk of transient ischemic stroke after the Moderna bivalent shot. (The bivalent shots were replaced in September with new formulations.)”
Since the Select Subcommittee hearing in July, new scientific reports reinforce the case for caution.
For example, researchers writing in the journal Biomedicines in August conducted a comprehensive literature review and confirmed that the spike protein found in both SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 vaccines is clearly pathogenic with a wide range of adverse effects, including cardiovascular and neurological consequences.
Likewise, researchers writing in the British Journal of Pharmacology in October found that the leading COVID-19 vaccines can increase cardiovascular risks. Confirming previous findings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still reporting a risk (although small) of myocarditis/heart inflammation among young adult males.
That finding is directly relevant to any vaccine-mandate policy, whether publicly or privately enforced, and that’s why many states have banned COVID-19 vaccine mandates for schoolchildren who are largely invulnerable to serious illness and death from the novel coronavirus.
House investigators also noted the deleterious effect of vaccine mandates on the doctor-patient relationship. Wenstrup observed that the determination about whether to undergo a medical treatment or procedures is usually made between a doctor and a patient, but instead, he noted, “the Biden administration inserted itself and defiled this sacred relationship that we as Americans have always treasured.”
It’s standard ethical practice for a doctor to provide a patient undergoing a medical intervention with information on the risks and benefits of a given procedure, and the patient responds by signing and dating a form certifying his or her informed consent.
Whenever a patient is confronted with a personal risk, his or her personal consent (not public coercion) is the only ethical imperative.
The problem of vaccine coercion, however, has not been confined to the public sector. Allison Williams, a reporter with ESPN, was a Select Subcommittee witness. On the advice of her personal physician, because she was taking fertility treatments, she refused the COVID-19 vaccine. That refusal, she testified, cost Williams her job.
Physicians, too, have been subject to coercion. While questioning Williams, Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, a doctor, related his conversations with fellow physicians who were likewise threatened with dismissal: “Hospital CEOs, mostly non-physicians, came after doctors and nurses that didn’t parrot the government’s vaccine talking points, and state medical boards threatened to take licenses away.”
Today, only 3.6% of Americans thus far have gotten the new COVID-19 shot. There has also been a decline in other vaccinations.
While Biden’s congressional allies, among others, attribute this decline to “misinformation,” Dr. Kevin Bardosh of the University of Washington in his subcommittee testimony blamed coercive COVID-19 vaccine policies:
Our analysis strongly suggests that mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policies have had damaging effects on public trust, vaccine confidence, political polarization, human rights, inequities and social well-being.
We question the effectiveness and consequences of coercive vaccination policy in pandemic response and urge the public health community and policymakers to return to nondiscriminatory, trust-based public health approaches.
Exactly.
Mandates are blunt instruments. Because they inflict a lot of collateral damage, blunt instruments make bad policy.
Biden’s attempted imposition of these mandates two years ago largely failed, but the damage they inflicted survived their demise. They compromised the doctor-patient relationship, further undermined public trust, and based on emerging scientific evidence, overrode legitimate safety concerns. That’s a hard lesson.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/01/bidens-covid-19-vax-mandates-spawn-lingering-bad-results
********************************************************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
***************************************************
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
