Thursday, June 13, 2024
‘Multibillion-dollar failure’: Australian doctors rip into Covid response
A top doctor has ripped into Australia’s handling of the Covid pandemic, accusing the government of spreading “misinformation” and putting people at risk.
Dr Kerryn Phelps accused the government of fuelling mistrust of health authorities while overselling the “safety and efficacy” of vaccines, and ignoring those suffering serious adverse events from the jabs.
Dr Phelps, who first went public in late 2022 about the “devastating” vaccine injury both she and her wife had suffered after a Pfizer jab, said while there was “a lot that our public health agencies got right during this pandemic”, significant mistakes were made.
The former MP for Wentworth and Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney, and past president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), is one of dozens of doctors and medical professionals who made public submissions to the federal government’s Covid-19 Response Inquiry.
Dr Phelps slammed “confusing misinformation” spread by authorities early on.
This included claims that Covid was not airborne, there was “no need for masks”, children did not spread the disease and that “herd immunity” could be reached.
All of this turned out to be false.
She said the consequence of the “let it rip” decision in late 2021 led to a “massive number of infections and excess Covid-related deaths estimated by actuaries to be 20,000 in 2022”.
“Political decisions were made, and public health advice was provided based on this misinformation, fuelling mistrust in subsequent advice emanating from those sources,” she said.
Regarding the vaccine rollout, Dr Phelps said “doctors and the public were assured that the vaccines would reduce the risk of severe disease, hospitalisations and death from the virus” and the “information being disseminated emphasised their claimed ‘safety and efficacy’”.
“Of course, early in the rollout of the vaccines, little was known about the potential range of adverse effects of the vaccine,” she said.
“In the urgency to vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as possible, patients who had suffered significant vaccine injury were encouraged or mandated to have subsequent doses with inadequate evidence for the potential damage this might do to someone who had already suffered an adverse reaction to the vaccine.
“It was extremely difficult for patients who had been affected to obtain a medical exemption.”
Another consequence of this lack of information about adverse events “was that many patients report that they were not believed, or their doctors initially did not recognise the diagnosis or did not have treatment protocols in place”.
“This meant that patients had to take matters into their own hands and set up advocacy groups such as Coverse to share experiences and provide much needed support,” she said.
“It also became evident that these were not sterilising vaccines, and that while they were reported to provide some protection against severe disease and long Covid, they would not stop infection or transmission or the development of long Covid.”
For future pandemics, Dr Phelps called for a “return to the precautionary principle and the fundamentals of public health and disease prevention” and a “comprehensive plan for research and development of treatments”, including sterilising vaccines.
Among the recommendations in her submission were for greater access to high-quality N95 masks with associated mandates in healthcare facilities, a “concerted and sustained effort” to reduce Covid transmission in schools, a return to isolation for infected individuals during the infectious period with appropriate financial support, and expansion of hybrid work and education.
She also called for research into the underlying mechanisms of vaccine injury, better follow-up of adverse events reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and identification of barriers to reporting such reactions, as well as better information for GPs and a review of the Covid-19 Vaccine Claims Scheme.
In a separate submission to the inquiry, Kooyong MP Dr Monique Ryan was strongly critical of the “extent and severity” of Morrison government’s “failures” during Covid.
In her submission she cited “lack of preparedness” for a global pandemic, inadequate quarantine and testing, delays in procurement and rollout of vaccines and failure to “combat widespread public misinformation” about the jabs.
But the Teal MP also said the government had failed to “adequately address community concerns regarding side-effects of vaccinations”, which she said were “not well communicated to the general public” contributing to “mistrust of the system”.
“Constituents also reported unreasonable delays and rejection of claims by the Covid-19 Vaccine Claims Scheme,” Dr Ryan said.
A number of submissions also highlighted human rights concerns around Covid measures.
The Queensland Human Rights Commission (QHRC) said it had received more than 1500 complaints, the majority related to border closures, hotel quarantine, and mandatory mask and vaccination requirements.
“Rights raised in relation to these complaints included recognition and equality before the law, the right not to be subject to medical treatment without consent, privacy and reputation, humane treatment when deprived of liberty, and freedom of movement,” it said.
Queensland GP Dr Melissa McCann, who is leading a vaccine injury class action against the federal government, said in her submission it was “difficult to know” whether the key Covid response measures “could have been managed any worse”.
“The Covid-19 vaccinations have been perhaps the most egregious health response measure in recorded history,” she said.
“The success of a vaccination campaign is not measured by the percentage of population who were convinced to be vaccinated, despite this being reported by various official sources as evidence of a successful program.
“A successful vaccination campaign ought to result in the majority of vaccinated persons not becoming infected with the disease the vaccines were designed to protect against.
“A successful campaign would result in reduced number of cases and reduced transmission of disease throughout a population following the vaccination campaign.
“It ought to result in small numbers of adverse events after vaccination and such events comparable with traditional vaccines. It ought to result in an overall reduction in severe disease, deaths caused by the disease and reduction in overall excess mortality across a population.”
By all of these measures, the Covid vaccination campaign “has been a complete failure despite the multibillion-dollar investment”, she argued.
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SARS-CoV-2 Hit Some Children Hard, with MIS-C and Neurological Symptoms
Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) pediatrician-scientist Michael Wolf, M.D. recently authored a commentary in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Network. Affiliated with VUMC’s Division of Critical Care Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Dr. Wolf articulates that children and adolescents hospitalized with infectious and inflammatory conditions get exposed to the risk of neurological symptoms. This means from the physician’s point of view, he/she must identify those at greatest risk for more serious neurological conditions.
According to one study (Francoeur et al.) looking at the issue from a pediatric neurocritical care perspective, the VUMC physician informs that in the authors’ secondary analysis of the pediatric Global Consortium Study of Neurologic Dysfunction in COVID-19 (GCS-NeuroCOVID), severe neurological manifestations were strikingly common in hospitalized children and adolescents (i.e., from birth to <18 years) with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), occurring in 18.0% and 24.8%, respectively.
TrialSite reminds that children’s hospitalization was always far lower than adults, however, with the delta variant of concern the hospitalization rate increased as did the incidence of MIS-C. Such incidence declined again with the onset of omicron.
But nonetheless, a small sample—rare—but as we describe in TrialSite as “real” damage to our children can occur, as pointed out by Dr. Wolf.
For example, he points out in JAMA Network, “Acute encephalopathy accounted for most of the neurological sequelae in both conditions.”
Acute encephalopathy is a rapidly developing brain dysfunction that can be caused by a number of factors, including metabolic, toxic, epileptic, or infection-related issues. It can also be caused by structural disturbances. Acute encephalopathy can lead to a range of symptoms
According to Dr. Wolf, the study demonstrated an association between severe neurological manifestations and new functional or neurocognitive morbidity, as measured by the Functional Status Scale and the Pediatric Cerebral Performance Category scale.
The study involved a large global cohort of hospitalized young patients with a group of experts backing the diagnoses. The resulting analysis highlights the strengths and also some limitations of such datasets, pointing to the need to better understand risk factors for and downstream consequences of neurological conditions linked to children and adolescents hospitalized with neurological conditions.
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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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Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Katie told her father she was going to get the Covid vaccine. He had no idea it would be their last conversation ever
The issue here is that no young people needed to get the vaccine. It was only the elderly who were at serious risk of dying. And even oldies were often not seriously affected. I am 80 but cruised through it all with two RAT tests showing negative.
So all the vaccination pressure on young people was evil. It just added real risks to them with no benefit
The devastated family of a fit and healthy young actor who died a fortnight after taking a Covid vaccine have called out the callous 'indifference' of society and government to her death.
Katie Lees, 34, took the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine in July 2021, driven by her desire to 'do her bit' to help bring lockdown to an end.
But just 13 days later her family were forced to make the harrowing decision to turn off her life support.
Ms Lees, an actor and comedian who lived in Sydney's inner-west, had suffered a severe vaccine-induced blood clot in her brain.
'The last time I ever spoke to her on the morning of July 22 (and) she said, "I’m getting my AstraZeneca this afternoon." She said to me how proud she was for doing it,' Katie's father, Ian, told news.com.au.
'It turned out that was the last time I would ever speak to her. She was actually following the government’s advice, trying to do the right thing for the sake of the community.'
Mr Lees, 66, said the hardest part about his daughter's death was that people didn't believe the vaccine had killed her and met the news with 'silence, mockery, discrediting and disbelief'.
'We’d say to people our daughter died from the AstraZeneca vaccine and they’d say, "Oh really? How do you know?",' he said.
In a public submission to the federal government’s Covid Response Inquiry, Ms Lee's parents said they were galled by the 'indifference of our society to her death'.
'Every morning, our first thought is how Katie died and the sinking feeling that we were used and discarded by our government, by AstraZeneca and by our society,' they wrote.
They added: 'Katie did not need the vaccine — she wouldn’t have died if she got Covid.
'Katie took this action, not because she was worried about getting Covid, but because she was deeply concerned about the impact of lockdowns on the life of communities and the mental health of individuals.'
The AstraZeneca vaccine was estimated to have saved millions of lives during the pandemic but it also caused rare, and sometimes fatal, blood clots.
In April, AstraZeneca admitted in a UK court that its vaccine could, in very rare instances, could lead to Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome, which causes people to have blood clots and a low blood platelet count.
The vaccine, which was discontinued in Australia in March 2023, was withdrawn globally last month with the manufacturer citing commercial reasons for the decision.
Of the 14 Australians acknowledged by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to have died from Covid vaccines, 13 were from AstraZeneca and one from Moderna.
Ms Lees developed headaches and a rash immediately after her vaccination but doctors did not think anything of it. Just over a week later on August 1 she woke up with a severe headache and started vomiting. A CT scan showed a severe clot in her brain.
'Katie slipped into deep unconsciousness around 3pm and never regained consciousness,' her parents wrote in their submission to the inquiry.
The devastated family said that they had been left 'emotionally, mentally and physically traumatised by the way Katie died, the lack of support from government and the pharmaceutical industry and the alienation we feel from the mainstream narrative in our society'.
The family who received $70,000 in compensation for Katie’s death, said they hated being branded 'anti-vaxxers'.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13512289/Katie-Lees-AstraZeneca-vaccine-died.html
**************************************************Well-Designed Meta-Analysis Suggests Ivermectin Could be Used for Mild-to-Moderate COVID-19; But Proceed with Caution
Medical research affiliated with Xiamen University, Southeast University and Xiamen University Schools of Medicine designed a systematic, meta-analysis, part of an ongoing investigation into the use of ivermectin as an off-label regimen for the COVID-19 indication. A controversial topic, one which is the West among medical establishments is basically settled against use, nonetheless, the drug’s use continues in many parts of the world including the United States. Hence the interest in ongoing study and in this case, the authors led by Zhilong Song at Xiamen University School of Public Health and colleagues scoured key repositories (PubMed/Medline, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, medRxiv and bioRxiv) to collect all relevant studies tracking till June 2023.
Their meta-analysis endpoint included A) all-cause mortality; B) mechanical ventilation (MV) requirement, C) PCR negative conversion and D) adverse events (AEs) of course representing the safety of the drug. To assess and mitigate bias risk plus evaluate quality of evidence, the authors utilized the Revman 5.4 software package. A total of 33 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) covering 10,849 patients were included in this study. There was no significant difference in all-cause mortality rates or PCR negative conversion between ivermectin and controls.
However, when evaluating MV requirement the authors report significant differences (RR 0.67, 95% CI 0.47–0.96) as well as adverse events (AEs) (RR 0.87, 95% CI 0.80–0.95) between the two groups. The authors conclude, “Ivermectin could reduce the risk of MV requirement and AEs in patients with COVID-19 without increasing other risks. In the absence of a better alternative, clinicians could use it with caution.”
This is an important point given recent studies revealing the leading antiviral against COVID-19 Paxlovid did not have any impact as compared to the placebo. A study TrialSite published yesterday also showed neither Paxlovid nor molnupiravir had the expected impact against important endpoints such as mortality.
Conducted by the prestigious RECOVERY investigators at the University of Oxford, the findings are not a good look for both Pfizer and Merck. The results have not yet been peer-reviewed.
This topic is not trivial, given the fact that COVID-19 vaccination failed to eradicate the pathogen sufficiently to lead to herd immunity. A dynamic, ever-mutating virus, SARS-CoV-2 will continue circling the globe. Hence the importance of various antiviral options.
Interestingly, the Chinese researcher points to multiple changing variants plus “anti-vaccination movements” worldwide as a factor driving the ongoing ivermectin discussion.
Again, while the U.S. medical establishment has come to a consensus that ivermectin offers no benefit even for mild to moderate COVID-19, sufficient data around the world points to the potential sustainability of an alternative account.
The authors point to some focused websites tracking the effectiveness of IVM for COVID-19 (covid19criticalcare.com) and (https://ivmmeta.com). The Chinese authors argue that these resources are considered misinformation. Why? “Most of which are not peer-reviewed, do not present the eligible criteria used in the selection process, and do not display statistical criteria for assessing the effectiveness and heterogeneity among included studies.”
Regardless, the authors behind this latest study acknowledge the criticality of drug repositioning, a tried-and-true pathway to new potential indications.
Does ivermectin fit the classic candidate as a repositioned drug—with the prerequisite safety and pharmacokinetic profiling? A semisynthetic, anti-parasite agent associated with Nobel Prize-winning scientists, at least in a cell culture in a lab setting, the drug inhibits viral and replication scenarios. In fact, it can reduce the concentration of viral RNA by nearly 5000-fold as was demonstrated in Australia in Spring 2020.
Especially when including long COVID, the demand for effective pharmacotherapies targeting SARS-CoV-2 will likely only grow.
Findings
No significant difference in all-cause mortality rates or PCR negative conversion between IVM and controls. There were significant differences in MV requirement (RR 0.67, 95% CI 0.47–0.96) and AEs (RR 0.87, 95% CI 0.80–0.95) between the two groups. Ivermectin could reduce the risk of MV requirement and AEs in patients with COVID-19, without increasing other risks. In the absence of a better alternative, clinicians could use it with caution.
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Dr Nick Coatsworth makes a stunning admission about the Covid jab
Dr Nick Coatsworth, who helped lead Australia's response to Covid-19, has revealed he will not be getting any more vaccinations for the virus.
Speaking with Ben Fordham on 2GB on Wednesday, the former public face of Australia's fight against Covid-19 made the stunning admission he is done with Covid vaccines.
'Are you still being vaccinated for Covid?' Fordham asked.
'No,' Dr Coatsworth said.
'When did you stop doing that?'
'About two years ago, I had three vaccines, and that's been enough for me.'
'Any reason why?' Fordham asked.
'Because I don't think I need any more Ben, and the science tells me that I don't,' Dr Coatsworth said.
The current advice from the Department of Health and Aged care states: 'Regular COVID-19 vaccinations (also known as boosters) are the best way to maintain your protection against severe illness, hospitalisation and death from Covid-19.
'They are especially important for anyone aged 65 years or older and people at higher risk of severe Covid-19.
'As with all vaccinations, people are encouraged to discuss the vaccine options available to them with their health practitioner.'
This is not the first controversial statement Dr Coatsworth - Australia's former deputy chief health officer - has made about the Covid vaccine.
In February this year Dr Coatsworth admitted that imposing vaccine mandates was wrong in the wake of the Queensland Supreme Court finding that forcing police and paramedics to take the jab or lose their jobs was 'unlawful'.
In his inquiry submission Dr Coatsworth said mandates should only be a 'last resort', 'time limited', and be imposed by governments not employers.
Although Dr Coatsworth noted Australia had assembled a top team of medical experts to advise on managing the pandemic, he said they lacked an ethical framework meaning the focus became too narrow.
'This allowed the creation of a 'disease control at all costs' policy path dependence, which, whilst suited to the first wave, was poorly suited to the vaccine era,' he said.
Dr Coatsworth argued the restriction and testing policies adopted to constrain the first deadliest strain of Covid in 2020 lingered well past their relative benefit, leading to nationwide workforce and testing shortages.
He also thought the differing approaches among states, and between states and the federal government, confused the public and eroded human rights.
'I strongly encourage the inquiry to recommend amendment of the Biosecurity Act to ensure that all disease control powers are vested in the federal government during a national biosecurity emergency,' Dr Coatsworth wrote.
Dr Coatsworth was appointed as one of three new deputy chief medical officers under Brendan Murphy at the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
He now works as a doctor in Canberra and is contracted to Nine-Fairfax channels and newspapers as a presenter and health expert.
He appeared on the Fordham program to spruik a new TV show he is presenting with Tracy Grimshaw, Do You Want To Live Forever?
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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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Tuesday, June 11, 2024
Monaco Study—Failure of Pfizer Vax to Stop COVID-19 Viral Transmission—Openly Question Current mRNA Vaccines as Tool to Manage Pandemic
For the period July 2021 to September 2022, the study team tapped into and organized 20,443 contacts via 6,320 index cases from Monaco’s COVID-19 Public Health Program. Key to the group’s study agenda was better understanding the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine by calculating secondary attack rates (SAR) in Monaco households (n=13,877), schools (n=2,508) as well as occupational settings (n=6,499). Althaus and colleagues utilized binomial regression with a complementary log-log link function to measure adjusted hazard ratios (aHR) and vaccine effectiveness (aVE) for index cases to infect contacts and contacts to be infected in households.
The authors candidly express protective limitations with the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine declaring protection “…against transmission and infection was low for delta and omicron BA.1&2, regardless of the number of vaccine doses and previous SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
Furthermore, the epidemiological researchers reveal “no significant vaccine effect for omicron BA.4&5.” Perhaps this peer-reviewed study is the first to essentially declare the COVID-19 vaccines not an effective tool for protecting against SARS-CoV-2.
Among the authors of this study are a pair of Directorates of Health Affairs for the city-state who declared, “Health authorities carrying out vaccination campaigns should bear in mind that the current generation of COVID-19 vaccines may not represent an effective tool in protecting individuals from either transmitting or acquiring SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
The authors suggest that messaging should have focused on the prevention of morbidity and mortality, but that effectiveness rate was not covered in this investigation.
Findings
The authors generated data points to a SAR at 55% (95% CI 54–57) and 50% (48–51) among unvaccinated and vaccinated contacts, respectively. The SAR was 32% (28–36) and 12% (10–13) in workplaces, and 7% (6–9) and 6% (3–10) in schools, among unvaccinated and vaccinated contacts respectively.
When looking at the Monaco households, “the aHR was lower in contacts than in index cases (aHR 0.68 [0.55–0.83] and 0.93 [0.74–1.1] for delta; aHR 0.73 [0.66–0.81] and 0.89 [0.80–0.99] for omicron BA.1&2, respectively).”
The bombshells continued, as Althaus and colleagues found, “Vaccination had no significant effect on either direct or indirect aVE for omicron BA.4&5.” Of course, a handful of different reasons could explain this, but the Monaco-based research finally calls out in plain language the stark reality of their findings.
The direct aVE in contacts was 32% (17, 45) and 27% (19, 34), and for index cases the indirect aVE was 7% (− 17, 26) and 11% (1, 20) for delta and omicron BA.1&2, respectively.
Further, “The greatest aVE was in contacts with a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and a single vaccine dose during the omicron BA.1&2 period (45% [27, 59]), while the lowest were found in contacts with either three vaccine doses (aVE − 24% [− 63, 6]) or one single dose and a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection (aVE − 36% [− 198, 38]) during the omicron BA.4&5 period.”
What are some of the strengths of this study?
Monaco is small enough to have a well-managed and controlled national program with a robust data set, with routine surveillance and immunization access covering individual data on index cases and contacts for SARS-CoV-2.
The authors point out that the robust data includes several levels of disaggregation (age, gender, presence of symptoms, various dates) to produce vaccine effectiveness outputs in various settings.
So, the sponsor—the Monaco Health Program afforded the authors to prospectively investigate all contacts of a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, enabling the quantification of viral infection and direct and indirect vaccine effectiveness in real-world settings over a 14-month period.
Based on the data did vaccination matter much when it came to secondary attack rate in households?
No. The SAR for households was approximately 50%, representing the highest infection attack rates regardless of index cases and contacts’ vaccination statuses.
Did occupational and school settings exhibit lower rates of infection?
Yes.
What could explain this difference?
The authors suggest, “Infection pressure (duration and type for contact) as well as non-pharmaceutical interventions such as mask-wearing or social distancing.”
Do the authors raise troubling questions about how some health authorities issued statements that were not accurate?
Yes. While the authors acknowledge no one really knows how effective the COVID-19 vaccines were at preventing transmission, “some national campaigns promoted COVID-19 vaccine as a protective measure for “protecting others”, which may have created potential distrust, undermining population adherence to future immunization recommendations.”
Do the study authors suggest the messaging should have focused on the prevention of more severe disease, morbidity and mortality?
Yes. The focus of the mRNA vaccines as a tool to help prevent severe disease and mortality and the role of non-pharmacological measures on transmission may help the population to better understand, and therefore accept, public health interventions.
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Federal Court Revives Lawsuit Against Los Angeles COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate
A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit challenging the COVID-19 vaccine mandate imposed by the Los Angeles school district, noting that the record doesn’t clearly show whether the vaccines prevent transmission of the illness.
The Health Freedom Defense Fund and other challengers to the mandate asserted that it violated the due process and equal protection rights of district employees, in part because the vaccines, unlike traditional vaccines, “are not effective” in preventing infection.
U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer disagreed, throwing out the case in 2022. She ruled that even if the COVID-19 vaccines don’t prevent infection, mandates can be imposed under a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court ruling because the vaccines reduce symptoms and prevent severe disease and death.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on June 7 reversed that ruling, finding that Judge Fischer extended the 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts ruling “beyond its public health rationale—government’s power to mandate prophylactic measures aimed at preventing the recipient from spreading disease to others—to also govern ‘forced medical treatment’ for the recipient’s benefit.”
U.S. Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson, writing for the 2–1 majority, added, “At this stage, we must accept plaintiffs’ allegations that the vaccine does not prevent the spread of COVID-19 as true. And, because of this, Jacobson does not apply.” That position was reached after lawyers for the defendants provided facts about the vaccines that “do not contradict plaintiffs’ allegations.”
Lawyers for the district had pointed out that a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publication describes the COVID-19 vaccines as “safe and effective” although the publication doesn’t detail effectiveness against transmission.
The majority also concluded that the case isn’t moot even after the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in 2023 rescinded the mandate. That move only came after the appeals court heard arguments in the case, and comments from district board members indicated the mandate could be reimposed in the future. In 2021, the district added an option for employees to be frequently tested for COVID-19 in lieu of a vaccine after being sued, only to remove the option after a different suit was thrown out.
“LAUSD’s pattern of withdrawing and then reinstating its vaccination policies is enough to keep this case alive,” Judge Nelson said.
He was joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel Collins.
The ruling remanded the case back to Judge Fischer “for further proceedings under the correct legal standard.”
In a concurring opinion, Judge Collins said the allegations in the case implicate “the fundamental right to refuse medical treatment,” pointing to more recent Supreme Court rulings, including a 1997 decision in which the court stated that the “‘right of a competent individual to refuse medical treatment’ was ‘entirely consistent with this nation’s history and constitutional traditions,’ in light of ’the common-law rule that forced medication was a battery, and the long legal tradition protecting the decision to refuse unwanted medical treatment.'”
In a dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Daly Hawkins said that the school district “has averred that, absent a very unlikely return to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it will not reinstate the policy.”
“Neither the speculative possibility of a future pandemic nor LAUSD’s power to adopt another vaccination policy save this case,” the judge said.
Judges Nelson and Collins were appointed by President Donald Trump. Judge Hawkins is an appointee of President Bill Clinton. Judge Fischer is an appointee of President George W. Bush.
Leslie Manookian, president of the Health Freedom Defense Fund, said in a statement that the Ninth Circuit’s ruling “made clear that [Americans’] cherished rights to self-determination, including the sacred right of bodily autonomy in matters of health, are not negotiable.”
A spokesperson for the school district told The Epoch Times via email, “Los Angeles Unified is reviewing the Ninth Circuit ruling and assessing the district’s options.”
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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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Sunday, June 09, 2024
Former CDC chief Dr Robert Redfield has blasted Covid-19 vaccine mandates, lockdowns as a ‘terrible mistake’
Robert Redfield, the former head of the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said mandating Covid-19 vaccine was a “terrible decision” and lockdowns and school closures were a “big mistake”.
Dr Redfield, an esteemed virologist who led the CDC from 2018 to 2021, said the pharmaceutical giants had a “huge influence” over convincing governments that everyone including children should be coerced into being vaccinated and boosted during the pandemic.
“We absolutely never should have mandated vaccines, it was a terrible decision … the rationale for mandating vaccines for healthy firefighters and policemen, those in the military, hospital workers, teachers, was emotional, it shouldn’t have happened,” he said in an interview with Chris Cuomo published on Wednesday (Thursday AEST).
Dr Redfield, 72, said the Covid-19 vaccines, which the Biden administration tried to mandate for all workers in late 2021, worked to prevent serious illness and death for vulnerable, older patients “over 65” but weren’t suitable for healthy young people, didn’t prevent transmission and wore off after six months at most.
“If you came down and visited me and interviewed my patients, you’d interview patient after patient that did not have Covid, but are very sick, long covid patients, and it’s all from the vaccine,” he added, in comments that would have been censored on social media and censured publicly during the pandemic.
A ‘v-safe’ survey by the CDC released in late 2022 found 7.7 per cent of around a million American recipients sought medical attention after their Covid-19 vaccination. Western Australian data published last year found the Covid-19 vaccines, which were lauded as safe and effective, caused injuries at 24 times the rate of other approved vaccines.
“I remember Biden saying, you know, this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. … I was saying, wait a minute, two thirds of the people that I’m seeing infected in Maryland have been vaccinated, these vaccines don’t last”.
Dr Redfield, who continues to practise medicine privately in Maryland, was sidelined in 2020 for suggesting SARS-Cov2, the virus that causes Covid-19, might have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology rather than ‘spilt over’ from the animal kingdom naturally, a theory that’s since become more credible.
In a one-hour interview with Mr Cuomo, whose brother Andrew Cuomo as New York governor became the face of tough Covid-19 mandates in 2020, Dr Redfield said countries “made a big mistake and paid a big price” by locking down their societies for months, on and off for up to two years.
“You know, I’m not sure people will accept responsibility, those people that really pushed it, because it was unfortunate, it was emotional,” he said. “There’s no question there was overreach,
Following China’s example, most governments imposed lockdowns from March 2020, lasting well into 2021 in some jurisdictions, unprecedented policies that triggered massive public borrowing, record unemployment, inflation, social unrest and permanent learning loss, in the US at least, for students from low-income families.
“I was very much against closing schools, I thought the kids were probably safer in schools, most kids were getting infected in the community and from the dinner table, not from the school, a lot of that was emotionalism with teachers,” he said.
Dr Redfield’s interview emerged a few days after Dr Anthony Fauci, president Joe Biden’s former top Covid-19 adviser, admitted in widely reported congressional testimony that the ‘lab leak theory’ was no longer a conspiracy theory and pandemic measures should “consider the balance” of costs and benefits next time.
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Top oncologists weigh in on the rise of rare and unusual cancers in young people - and the links to Covid
Scientists studying a rise in rare and unusual cancers in young people are turning their attention to an unlikely culprit: Covid.
Preliminary research on cells has indicated the virus may fuel the growth of tumors and shut down the body's defense against them - but the theory is widely disputed.
There is, however a consensus among doctors: they're seeing more young and relatively healthy people with obscure forms of the disease after the pandemic.
One doctor told DailyMail.com the theory that Covid is driving these cases doesn't hold up because the trend predates the outbreak. Early-onset cancers of all forms have been on the rise, increasing by 79 percent globally from 1990 to 2019, the year before the pandemic.
Other experts found the Covid theory more convincing. They pointed to the fact that already one in four cancer have been linked to other viruses, such as HPV.
Kasra Jahankhani, an Iranian immunologist and lead researcher on a 2023 report on the topic told DailyMail.com: 'It's really controversial and there is a lot of debate around the topic, but we think there are many ways SARs Covid infection could affect cancers.'
His research suggested that the coronavirus can change genes that usually stop tumors from forming and cause widespread inflammation throughout the body.
This inflammation in combination with reduced defenses might lead to the development of cancer cells in various organs, they wrote.
Viral associations with cancers are 'unfortunately common,' said Dr Landau, oncologist and contributor for The Mesothelioma Center at Asbestos.com.
With the human papilloma virus (HPV), for example, it is believed that the virus itself can inject its DNA into the body's cells, which can cause a mutation that leads to growth of cancerous cells.
'Essentially, the virus is trying to take over our body's cells to promote its own growth and survival.
'But mutating cells to continuously grow is, at a simple level, how cancers develop,' Dr Landau told DailyMail.com.
However, not all experts are in agreement. Dr Suneel Kamath, an oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic, ruled out a link between Covid and cancer.
'The trends in rising incidence of cancer in younger people, such as bile duct, colorectal, breast, lung and gastric, have been happening for years, even decades before Covid-19 existed, and they are still happening,' he told DailyMail.com.
Colon cancer diagnoses in particular among under-50s have reached epidemic levels. Nearly 18,000 cases are diagnosed among this age group every year in the US compared to 12,000 a year pre-2000.
Colon cancer deaths among young people are also expected to double by 2030, experts have warned.
Uterine cancer has also risen two percent each year in people under 50 since the mid-1990s.
Early-onset breast cancer has also increased by 3.8 percent annually between 2016-2019, and cancer rates do not appear to have sped up dramatically since Covid.
But experts have said that it might be too early to see that impact, as 'the long term implications of the pandemic will evolve over time,' Dr Landau said.
CDC data shows that more people are being told they have cancer now than they were prior to the pandemic. In 2021, 9.8 percent of adults reported having ever been told by a doctor that they had cancer. In 2019, that proportion of adults was 9.5 percent.
One of the possible links between Covid and cancer is a gene called P53, which suppresses cancerous tumors in the body by stopping cells with mutated or damaged DNA from dividing, Jahankhani explained.
His research team found that the tumor suppressor gene P53 may be 'degraded' by SARS-CoV-2 and effectively blocked.
This means it can no longer stop tumors growing. Other research has found that lower levels of P53 can make people more susceptible to cancer.
Another factor involves the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), which is a key system that regulates blood pressure in the body.
When the SARS-CoV-2 virus binds to ACE2 receptor, it stops the RAAS from functioning properly.
This in turn causes inflammation and oxidative stress, which are factors in cancer progression and development.
Another way Covid and cancer might be linked is by proteins called cytokines.
When the body gets an infection such as Covid, the immune system will begin to fight it off, including using cytokines as a defense system against the virus.
The proteins tell immune cells what to do and also tell the body to produce more of them to ensure a knockout blow is delivered to the infection.
But sometimes too many cytokines can be released, which puts the immune system into overdrive and creates a heightened inflammatory response.
The release of cytokines is often what makes us feel sick when we have an infection, Dr Landau said.
'But these same cytokines can cause harm to the body, and that harm can increase cancer risk, especially if they remain elevated in the long term,' he said.
This heightened inflammatory response occurs with long Covid, he added.
Too much inflammation can damage tissues and DNA and has been linked to the development of autoimmune conditions, as well as cancer.
Inflammation also causes changes to chromosomes in cells, and repeated changes can cause cells to become cancerous.
This abundance of cytokines can also lead to the emergence of cancer stem cells in organs like the lungs and pancreas, as well as bile ducts.
Because Covid infection occurs directly and indirectly in several organs, including the lungs, brain and kidneys, the researchers believe cancer stem cells can develop in multiple organs.
Stem cells are cells that have the ability the develop into many different cell types in the body.
Cancer stem cells, meanwhile, occur in tumors and have the ability to divide and renew, which grows and spreads the tumor.
They can originate from adult tissue stem cells and initiate a tumor, particularly if there is lots of inflammation from Covid.
And while researchers cannot definitively rule out the Covid vaccines as playing a role, Jahankhani said there is no evidence that this is the case.
His team 'didn't find anything' to support the idea that the Covid shot drove up cancer rates.
The evidence supporting the virus theory appears to be much stronger, he added.
Dr Landau acknowledged that although there have been blood clot issues after the Covid vaccine, 'a clear link with development of cancer is not yet known.'
'We suspect the cancer risk would come from the virus itself, rather than the vaccine, but it will take years of follow up studies to truly understand this,' he said.
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
*********************************************************
Robert Redfield, the former head of the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said mandating Covid-19 vaccine was a “terrible decision” and lockdowns and school closures were a “big mistake”.
Dr Redfield, an esteemed virologist who led the CDC from 2018 to 2021, said the pharmaceutical giants had a “huge influence” over convincing governments that everyone including children should be coerced into being vaccinated and boosted during the pandemic.
“We absolutely never should have mandated vaccines, it was a terrible decision … the rationale for mandating vaccines for healthy firefighters and policemen, those in the military, hospital workers, teachers, was emotional, it shouldn’t have happened,” he said in an interview with Chris Cuomo published on Wednesday (Thursday AEST).
Dr Redfield, 72, said the Covid-19 vaccines, which the Biden administration tried to mandate for all workers in late 2021, worked to prevent serious illness and death for vulnerable, older patients “over 65” but weren’t suitable for healthy young people, didn’t prevent transmission and wore off after six months at most.
“If you came down and visited me and interviewed my patients, you’d interview patient after patient that did not have Covid, but are very sick, long covid patients, and it’s all from the vaccine,” he added, in comments that would have been censored on social media and censured publicly during the pandemic.
A ‘v-safe’ survey by the CDC released in late 2022 found 7.7 per cent of around a million American recipients sought medical attention after their Covid-19 vaccination. Western Australian data published last year found the Covid-19 vaccines, which were lauded as safe and effective, caused injuries at 24 times the rate of other approved vaccines.
“I remember Biden saying, you know, this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. … I was saying, wait a minute, two thirds of the people that I’m seeing infected in Maryland have been vaccinated, these vaccines don’t last”.
Dr Redfield, who continues to practise medicine privately in Maryland, was sidelined in 2020 for suggesting SARS-Cov2, the virus that causes Covid-19, might have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology rather than ‘spilt over’ from the animal kingdom naturally, a theory that’s since become more credible.
In a one-hour interview with Mr Cuomo, whose brother Andrew Cuomo as New York governor became the face of tough Covid-19 mandates in 2020, Dr Redfield said countries “made a big mistake and paid a big price” by locking down their societies for months, on and off for up to two years.
“You know, I’m not sure people will accept responsibility, those people that really pushed it, because it was unfortunate, it was emotional,” he said. “There’s no question there was overreach,
Following China’s example, most governments imposed lockdowns from March 2020, lasting well into 2021 in some jurisdictions, unprecedented policies that triggered massive public borrowing, record unemployment, inflation, social unrest and permanent learning loss, in the US at least, for students from low-income families.
“I was very much against closing schools, I thought the kids were probably safer in schools, most kids were getting infected in the community and from the dinner table, not from the school, a lot of that was emotionalism with teachers,” he said.
Dr Redfield’s interview emerged a few days after Dr Anthony Fauci, president Joe Biden’s former top Covid-19 adviser, admitted in widely reported congressional testimony that the ‘lab leak theory’ was no longer a conspiracy theory and pandemic measures should “consider the balance” of costs and benefits next time.
***********************************************************
Top oncologists weigh in on the rise of rare and unusual cancers in young people - and the links to Covid
Scientists studying a rise in rare and unusual cancers in young people are turning their attention to an unlikely culprit: Covid.
Preliminary research on cells has indicated the virus may fuel the growth of tumors and shut down the body's defense against them - but the theory is widely disputed.
There is, however a consensus among doctors: they're seeing more young and relatively healthy people with obscure forms of the disease after the pandemic.
One doctor told DailyMail.com the theory that Covid is driving these cases doesn't hold up because the trend predates the outbreak. Early-onset cancers of all forms have been on the rise, increasing by 79 percent globally from 1990 to 2019, the year before the pandemic.
Other experts found the Covid theory more convincing. They pointed to the fact that already one in four cancer have been linked to other viruses, such as HPV.
Kasra Jahankhani, an Iranian immunologist and lead researcher on a 2023 report on the topic told DailyMail.com: 'It's really controversial and there is a lot of debate around the topic, but we think there are many ways SARs Covid infection could affect cancers.'
His research suggested that the coronavirus can change genes that usually stop tumors from forming and cause widespread inflammation throughout the body.
This inflammation in combination with reduced defenses might lead to the development of cancer cells in various organs, they wrote.
Viral associations with cancers are 'unfortunately common,' said Dr Landau, oncologist and contributor for The Mesothelioma Center at Asbestos.com.
With the human papilloma virus (HPV), for example, it is believed that the virus itself can inject its DNA into the body's cells, which can cause a mutation that leads to growth of cancerous cells.
'Essentially, the virus is trying to take over our body's cells to promote its own growth and survival.
'But mutating cells to continuously grow is, at a simple level, how cancers develop,' Dr Landau told DailyMail.com.
However, not all experts are in agreement. Dr Suneel Kamath, an oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic, ruled out a link between Covid and cancer.
'The trends in rising incidence of cancer in younger people, such as bile duct, colorectal, breast, lung and gastric, have been happening for years, even decades before Covid-19 existed, and they are still happening,' he told DailyMail.com.
Colon cancer diagnoses in particular among under-50s have reached epidemic levels. Nearly 18,000 cases are diagnosed among this age group every year in the US compared to 12,000 a year pre-2000.
Colon cancer deaths among young people are also expected to double by 2030, experts have warned.
Uterine cancer has also risen two percent each year in people under 50 since the mid-1990s.
Early-onset breast cancer has also increased by 3.8 percent annually between 2016-2019, and cancer rates do not appear to have sped up dramatically since Covid.
But experts have said that it might be too early to see that impact, as 'the long term implications of the pandemic will evolve over time,' Dr Landau said.
CDC data shows that more people are being told they have cancer now than they were prior to the pandemic. In 2021, 9.8 percent of adults reported having ever been told by a doctor that they had cancer. In 2019, that proportion of adults was 9.5 percent.
One of the possible links between Covid and cancer is a gene called P53, which suppresses cancerous tumors in the body by stopping cells with mutated or damaged DNA from dividing, Jahankhani explained.
His research team found that the tumor suppressor gene P53 may be 'degraded' by SARS-CoV-2 and effectively blocked.
This means it can no longer stop tumors growing. Other research has found that lower levels of P53 can make people more susceptible to cancer.
Another factor involves the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), which is a key system that regulates blood pressure in the body.
When the SARS-CoV-2 virus binds to ACE2 receptor, it stops the RAAS from functioning properly.
This in turn causes inflammation and oxidative stress, which are factors in cancer progression and development.
Another way Covid and cancer might be linked is by proteins called cytokines.
When the body gets an infection such as Covid, the immune system will begin to fight it off, including using cytokines as a defense system against the virus.
The proteins tell immune cells what to do and also tell the body to produce more of them to ensure a knockout blow is delivered to the infection.
But sometimes too many cytokines can be released, which puts the immune system into overdrive and creates a heightened inflammatory response.
The release of cytokines is often what makes us feel sick when we have an infection, Dr Landau said.
'But these same cytokines can cause harm to the body, and that harm can increase cancer risk, especially if they remain elevated in the long term,' he said.
This heightened inflammatory response occurs with long Covid, he added.
Too much inflammation can damage tissues and DNA and has been linked to the development of autoimmune conditions, as well as cancer.
Inflammation also causes changes to chromosomes in cells, and repeated changes can cause cells to become cancerous.
This abundance of cytokines can also lead to the emergence of cancer stem cells in organs like the lungs and pancreas, as well as bile ducts.
Because Covid infection occurs directly and indirectly in several organs, including the lungs, brain and kidneys, the researchers believe cancer stem cells can develop in multiple organs.
Stem cells are cells that have the ability the develop into many different cell types in the body.
Cancer stem cells, meanwhile, occur in tumors and have the ability to divide and renew, which grows and spreads the tumor.
They can originate from adult tissue stem cells and initiate a tumor, particularly if there is lots of inflammation from Covid.
And while researchers cannot definitively rule out the Covid vaccines as playing a role, Jahankhani said there is no evidence that this is the case.
His team 'didn't find anything' to support the idea that the Covid shot drove up cancer rates.
The evidence supporting the virus theory appears to be much stronger, he added.
Dr Landau acknowledged that although there have been blood clot issues after the Covid vaccine, 'a clear link with development of cancer is not yet known.'
'We suspect the cancer risk would come from the virus itself, rather than the vaccine, but it will take years of follow up studies to truly understand this,' he said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13506321/cancer-Covid-infection-supercharge-tumors.html
*************************************************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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