Friday, May 26, 2023
Thursday, May 25, 2023
Breakthrough: Hong Kong Study Demonstrates SIM01 Treats Long COVID Symptoms
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) reports that 70% of patients in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China who have recovered from COVID-19 continue to suffer from at least one long COVID symptom by month six after onset of SARS-CoV-2 infection. With no proven therapeutic regimen to address long COVID, CUHK is quickly becoming a microbiome (gut health) research hub. They conducted a triple-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial revealing that modulation of the gut microbiome using oral microencapsulated live bacteria (SIM01) developed at CUHK led to marked improvement in long COVID symptoms.
Notable news, this was not broadcast widely in the West. The findings were presented recently at the late breaking abstract plenary session at Digestive Disease Week 2023 in Chicago. Once these results are scrutinized by the broader scientific community along with advancement of human research could lead to a compelling therapeutic answer to long COVID.
Gut microbiome research watchers: CUHK increasingly becomes a leading hub for this pioneering research, discovering an intricate, intertwined connection between internal bacteria and the condition afflicting possibly hundreds of millions of people worldwide. With an urgent need to identify effective therapeutic interventions for long COVID symptoms, particularly when debilitating, breakthroughs in Hong Kong may point to therapeutic pathways. Biotech’s in the USA, Europe and elsewhere should look into SIM01.
Who is behind this latest CUHK research?
Professor Martin Wong, Professor from the Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care as well as Francis KL Chan, Dean and Director of the Centre for Gut Microbiota Research, CU Medicine and Professor Siew Ng, CU Medicine’s Croucher Professor in Medical Sciences and Director of Microbiota I-Center (MagIC).
What does the research show so far?
In the CUHK announcement, the Hong Kong-based academic research center’s Professor Martin Wong Chi-sang first defined long COVID and explained that the contagion affects various organs in the body, with potentially debilitating impacts.
Previous studies by CU Medicine, again, arguably the leading academic research center in the world when it comes to the intersection of the gut microbiome and long COVID, demonstrate that patients with long COVID symptoms were linked to altered gut microbial signatures.
Last year, the Hong Kong team reported results from an open?label, proof?of?concept study published in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology showing that the use of SIM01 hastened antibody formation against SARS?CoV?2, reduced nasopharyngeal viral load, reduced pro?inflammatory immune markers and restored gut dysbiosis in hospitalized COVID?19 patients. TrialSite has actively chronicled the CHUK team. This finding suggests that modulation of the gut microbiota represents a potentially useful intervention.
Now, with a bigger triple-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial (the RECOVERY study) points to the efficacy of SIM01--improving long COVID symptoms across multiple systems and organs.
What is SIM01?
CU Medicine researchers invented SIM01using big data and machine-learning technologies as part of the discovery process. Developed based on a microbiome formula, the team developed the experimental regimen containing Bifidobacteria strains, galactooligosaccharides, xylooligosaccharide and resistant dextrin into an oral formula using microencapsulation, an advanced food processing technology using which any compound can be encapsulated into a specified material, making a tiny sphere of diameter ranging from 1 μm to several μm.
The study results
From 2021 to 2022, a total of 463 recovered patients with at least one long COVID symptom joined the RECOVERY study. Their mean age was 49 years old, and 65.4% were female. Nearly 70% of participants were suspected to have been infected with the Omicron variant. All subjects were randomly assigned to receive SIM01 or a placebo containing low dose Vitamin C for six months.
CUHK investigators report on compelling results, finding that significantly more patients who received SIM01 than those who had placebo evidenced improvement in digestive problems, fatigue, difficulty in concentrating, memory loss and general unwellness at six months follow-up.
Additional metagenomic analysis of study participant stool samples revealed that SIM01 resulted in increased bacteria diversity, increased abundance of “favorable” bacteria and reduced abundance of “unfavorable” bacteria in the gut, highlighting the effectiveness of SIM01 in restoring gut dysbiosis.
Professor Siew Ng, CU Medicine’s Croucher Professor of Medical Sciences and Director of Microbiota I-Center (MagIC), commented, “To our knowledge, this is the first clinical trial to show that modulation of the gut microbiome can improve long COVID symptoms including memory and concentration problems. These data support the importance of the gut-brain axis. Restoring a healthy gut microbiota is a novel approach to improve neurological symptoms via the production of beneficial metabolites from gut bacteria that circulate to the brain to improve brain function.
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Cardiovascular Disease Death Soars Worldwide-- particularly in poor countries
A new study released by the World Heart Federation reveals a truly global cardiovascular disease crisis unfolding over the last few decades, particularly intensifying in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). The World Heart Report launched at the 2023 World Heart Summit, offers a detailed breakdown of cardiovascular disease risk and mortality data across the globe, combined with the group’s reviews of country-to-country health policy initiatives to mitigate this scourge. Deaths linked to cardiovascular disease increased from 12.1 million in 1990, to 20.5 million in 2021, making this therapeutic contagion the biggest killer worldwide. While it’s assumed by many that the rich, developed world represents the highest burden of cardiovascular deaths, the opposite is true: four in five cardiovascular disease death occur in LMICs.
The report was made possible by the Novartis Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the multinational Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company Novartis.
A non-governmental organization (NGO), the World Heart Federation sponsored the report. The World Heart Federation was formed in 1978 by the coming together of the International Society of Cardiology and the International Cardiology Federation first under the name “the International Society and Federation of Cardiology.” By 1998, they changed their name to the current one. Representing over 200 organizations across 100 countries, the World Heart Federation champions global cardiovascular health pursuing the organization's mission to provide information about heart-related research, care and treatments. The organization declares on its website that it’s the only cardiovascular-focused organization “in official relations with the World Health Organization.”
The study authors report the highest concentration of cardiovascular disease deaths occurred in the Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia region. Importantly, over the past three decades, total cardiovascular disease deaths increased mostly due to ageing and a growing population. But actual cardiovascular disease death rates declined from 345.5 deaths per 100,000 people in 1990 to 239.9 deaths per 100,000 people in 2019. The declining rates are enjoyed more by rich developed countries than LMICs.
The study’s authors are listed below. One co-author, Professor Fausto Pinto, a former World Heart Federation President went on the record:
“The data doesn’t lie. This report confirms the serious threat that cardiovascular disease poses all over the world, particularly in low-and middle-income countries. Up to 80 percent of premature heart attacks and strokes can be prevented. It’s vital that countries prioritize rolling out tools and policies to protect people from CVD.”
A confluence of factors contributes to the growing deaths including high blood pressure, air pollution, tobacco use and elevated LDL cholesterol. Overall, a key finding is that risk factors vary across regions, making it vital that countries be aware of their risk profile. It also found that countries that invest more in healthcare as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) have lower CVD death rates, while CVD death rates are higher in countries where people pay more out-of-pocket for healthcare.
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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, May 24, 2023
Myocarditis with Ventricular Tachycardia Following Bivalent COVID-19 mRNA Vaccination
In the elderly with baseline heart disease, any degree of cardiovascular injury could be disastrous as published by Yamamoto et al., a case report involving the death of an 81-year-old man after his fifth mRNA shot.
The authors report this man decompensated within a day of his fifth shot and required defibrillation, mechanical ventilation and full life support measures for myocarditis which precipitated the cardiac arrest, conduction defects and heart failure. He stayed in the hospital for over a month.
Yamamoto et al., Myocarditis with ventricular tachycardia following bivalent COVID-19 mRNA vaccination, 2023.
The authors summarize the recent growing literature on COVID-19 vaccine induced myocarditis: “This report indicates the need to suspect myocarditis based on clinical presentation and the importance of multimodality diagnosis using electrocardiography, echocardiography, laboratory testing, myocardial scintigraphy, and CMR. In our case, CMR showed LGE in the inferolateral segments of the epicardial to mid layers, which has been reported to be a characteristic finding in patient with mRNA vaccine-associated myocarditis. Endocardial biopsy is the gold standard for detecting myocarditis but is invasive and thought to have less sensitivity in disorders resulting from epicardial and patchy diseases such as myocarditis.
On the other hand, CMR is considered to be the cornerstone for diagnosis of vaccine-associated myocarditis due to its high diagnostic performance, with a reported sensitivity of 88% and specificity of 96% in community-acquired myocarditis. The COVID-19 vaccine is thought to cause myocarditis via direct damage by free spike protein and induction of inflammatory cytokines (e.g., IL-1β and IL-6) by the lipid nanoparticles covering the mRNA. Expression of free spike protein may increase after the initial bivalent vaccination because antibodies against the spike protein of the BA.4-5 variant are yet to be generated.
In autopsy cases, histology has shown patchy interstitial myocardial T-lymphocytic infiltration (T-cell dominant; CD4>>CD8) associated with damage to myocytes.6 Molecular mimicry between myocyte tissue and the SARS-COV2 spike protein may also produce an anti-myocytic immune response.6 Therefore, T lymphocyte-mediated cell injury and heart-specific autoimmunity have been suggested as mechanisms of post-vaccine myocarditis.”6
I wonder how many elderly patients have died within a few days of the COVID-19 vaccine, unrecognized and not reported by families, doctors or others. Only all-cause mortality data published in the coming months to years will give us a clue. In the meantime, all seniors should understand that even if prior shots were tolerated, the next one could be fatal.
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Conspiracy-Driven Osteopath Dies at 57--Didn’t Believe in COVID-19 Narrative but Lacked Proof for His Claims
What happened to Dr. Rashid Buttar? Known for outlandish claims about the COVID-19 pandemic, at least, according to the mainstream media—he was even part of a group tagged the “Disinformation dozen”—he died suddenly May 18, at the age of 57. He was able to get on CNN where he was alleged to have made exaggerated claims and later told people he had been poisoned. Was there a connection?
British-born but raised in the U.S. Midwest, Buttar was a licensed osteopath doctor based in Charlotte, North Carolina. He had a long history of run-ins with the medical establishment and was labeled a quack and an “anti-vaxxer” by the mainstream media and medical establishment. See evidence of a 2008 encounter via Quack Watch.
Buttar, undoubtedly troubled by growing confluence of industry and medicine, increasingly embraced alternative medicines and approaches, contrary to mainstream acceptance. For example his views, deemed controversial, for the use of chelation therapy for a number of conditions, this type of claim is frowned upon as there is no Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized procedure associated with such claims. The FDA issued a warning on chelation claims back in 2016.
He was reprimanded on two occasions by the North Carolina Board of Medical Examiners for unprofessional conduct plus once cited by the FDA for illegal marketing of unapproved and adulterated drugs.
His videos were available via the Next News Network.
Buttar was branded a conspiracy theory for making claims that among other things, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was at least, partially behind the creation of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen.
Yet TrialSite has chronicled how the mainstream media and medical establishment ridiculed discussion of a lab leak theory after Dr. Anthony Fauci seemingly suppressed any critical vetting of the lab leak hypothesis early on in the pandemic. Such government-related suppression will make folks paranoid, as they will wonder “What is he trying to cover up?” Transparency and accessibility to data and government activity is important for a free and open democratic market economy and society.
And to this day the origins of SARS-CoV-2 hasn’t been proven yet, but a growing momentum suspects a lab leak origin, including contingents in the U.S. government and in intelligence agencies.
There is considerable evidence that Fauci’s NIAID had outsourced coronavirus research to Wuhan Institute of Virology via the EcoHealth Alliance nonprofit group.
While there could be something to the claim that NIAID and EcoHealth were outsourcing coronavirus research to Wuhan (maybe even gain-of-function activity) Buttar pushed the envelope with ever more outlandish declarations such as that “everyone who has had the vaccine would be dead by 2025.”
While there is a cult-like group continuously declaring that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are bioweapons meant to kill people, TrialSite has extensively reviewed contracts involved with the federal government’s procurement (including Department of Defense-related entities) and all of them point to contractual call for a safe and effective vaccine.
Most likely coronavirus research, including some joint NIAID and DoD dual use R&D activity goes back at least a few decades. It’s how a post-World War II American system gained geopolitical and socio-economic superiority. But contradictory forces now threaten the unraveling of that post World War II order.
Think about the internet—it wasn’t Al Gore that invented the amazing network making the world a much smaller place. It actually started in the 1960s as a way for government researchers to share information and collaborate. Back then computers were not only huge, but also immobile, and to share data in one computer meant traveling to the site of that computer, or alternatively go through the process of having magnetic computer tapes sent via snail mail. But this network of computers, first funded by government and defense interests, further developed in universities and companies in the private sector, leading to a revolution in how we live and work---and of course paving the way for fortunes to be made—the ultimate point.
Ditto for life sciences which undergoes a trajectory that includes lots of private sector but also public and government and defense R&D. Myriad aims involved, ultimately in America profit seeking motives transcend the social, political and cultural milieu.
So just because the DoD is involved with the triggering of a national emergency due to the deadliest pandemic since the Spanish American flu doesn’t mean that the resulting countermeasures are meant for warfare, even if at some point along the historical R&D trajectory defense research was a factor.
TrialSite has received significant hate mail when using logical, reasoning and contractual evidence to critically question the sensationalistic claims from individuals claiming to know definitively that the vaccines are designed with nefarious intent.
During his CNN interview, Buttar made a few claims all of which we believe are sensationalized, including 1) more people are dying from the COVID-19 vaccines than from COVID-19 itself 2) the Red Cross won’t accept blood from COVID-19 vaccinated people 3) most people who took COVID-19 vaccines will be dead by 2025 and 4) definitely declare COVID-19 a staged, planned operation politically motivated as part of a secret global plot to depopulate the earth.
In the interview with Drew Griffin, Buttar backs off a claim comparing Fauci directly to Hitler, which is often the case with COVID-19 criticism making exaggeration declarations online, often for clicks, dollars and recognition. TrialSite has observed a whole COVID-19 counter industry form often driven ultimately by monetization via various channels.
What’s the reference to poisoning?
Recently Buttar was interviewed by CNN and claimed that he had been given poison “200 times of what was in the vaccine” reports.
Now deceased with no cause of death disclosed, it’s not known what happened and why he was recently in intensive care. In an interview with Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson earlier in the month, the skinny Buttar told her, “I went through a very difficult personal health challenge a few months ago.”
Full court press
Mainstream media has been tough on Buttar, referring him to an “Antivax crank” and touting that if he would have received the mRNA vax, they would have cited that as the cause of his demise. Some activists actually blame “vaccine shedding” or alleging poisoning for his death. Vaccine proponents have pointed the finger that Buttar’s anti-Covid vaccine conspiracy rhetoric broadcast to millions via social media caused the loss of life during the pandemic.
Confirmed death?
A friend of Buttar, Sayer Ji founder of GreenMedInfo.com and co-founder of Stand for Health Freedom confirmed the doctor’s death via a tweet declaring “In loving memory of Dr. Rashid Buttar, 1966-2023 It is with sadness, yet great appreciation, that we pay tribute to my friend and colleague Dr. Rashid Buttar, who passed away on May 18th.”
The GreenMedInfo blog owner Sayer Ji confirmed that just weeks earlier he was in the ICU for 6 days purportedly with both a stroke and diagnosis. Ji shared that the doctor allegedly told him he had biomarkers consistent with adverse events from mRNA vaccination, which of course never happened with him. Ji notes, “As you will see in the video, he believed that he was experiencing the result of shedding…from the transgenic mRNA jabs.”
Some in the medical freedom movement believe that the COVID-19 response is a part of a broader initiative to usher in totalitarian controls over Western society.
Yet this media suspects SARS-CoV-2, if made in a lab, was more than likely an accidental event and that government responses were defensive but coordinated to some extent with World Health Organization involvement. Although it could be the case that if the pandemic did start with a leak there has been a considerable cover up. But this doesn’t mean an all-encompassing plot by say, the Word Economic Forum, to impose global domination. Life’s far more complex than that, or at least that is the general consensus of ours.
While conspiracy theorists rage, often important unfolding events and manifestations represent the evolving, often historically rooted, dynamic results of interest seeking behavior involving conflicting spheres of influential, social, economic and political life. In a hybrid capitalist market and administrative State-entangled system such as ours the march to continuously capture ever more value, often through disruptive, or destructive, leads to an observation that nearly everything could be deemed an orchestrated series of actions—a possible foundation for a conspiracy. While simultaneously, one could come to the complete opposite conclusion, that human systems such as ours face the ongoing menace of completely unraveling, into a far darker, more perilous abyss.
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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, May 23, 2023
Lax Indian sterility precautions for eye drops cause 4 Deaths + 4 Lose Eyeballs: Drugs Linked to Rare Bacteria
After previous episodes of laxity, I have personally long maintained a blanket policy of never using pharmaceuticals from India
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now collaborate with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as state and local health department investigating 81 people who have succumbed to a rare bacterial strain linked to recalled eye drop products produced by Global Pharma Chennai, India ( EzriCare Artificial Tears, Delsam Pharma Artificial Tears and Delsam Pharma Artificial Ointment) which were recalled a few months ago in February of this year.
Fourteen people have suffered vision loss, and four people have had to have their eyeballs removed, and another four people have died. This outbreak is concerning as the bacteria behind the infections and deaths, known as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, is resistant to standard antibiotics. Based on US health agency’s flagging, Indian inspectors visited a plant near Chennai, India, that produced the eyedrops which led to the identification of how the products were produced, exposing inadequate sterility controls and measures.
Now cases have spread across 18 states, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.
In a case that generated little U.S. media notice acting on a U.S. concern, Tamil Nadu’s Drug Controller and members of the Indian Central Drug Control Authority paid a surprise visit to inspect Global Pharma facility at 2 AM in early February, as reported by Indian press.
TrialSite breaks down this crisis.
How many people have the CDC identified so far in the U.S. affected? 81, 4 deaths, 4 people have lost their eyeballs, 14 people have lost their eyesight.
What’s causing the outbreak?
A drug-resistant strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The outbreak strain, carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa with Verona integron-mediated metallo-β-lactamase and Guiana extended-spectrum-β-lactamase (VIM-GES-CRPA), had never been reported in the United States prior to this outbreak.
What types of infections is the outbreak associated with?
The outbreak is associated with multiple types of infections, including eye infections.
What are the culpable products?
The investigation has identified EzriCare artificial tears as a common exposure for many patients. CDC and FDA recommend clinicians and patients stop using and discard EzriCare Artificial Tears and two additional products made by the same manufacturer, Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Tears, and Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Ointment.
What’s the CDC’s current update?
As of May 15, 2023, CDC, in partnership with state and local health departments, identified 81 patients in 18 states (CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, IL, NC, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, PA, SD, TX, UT, WA, WI) with VIM-GES-CRPA, a rare strain of extensively drug-resistant P. aeruginosa. This represents an increase of 13 patients since the last update. Among these 13 patients, 6 (46%) had specimens collected prior to the February 2, 2023, manufacturer recall of products associated with this outbreak. These cases were confirmed after the recall date due to the time it takes for testing to confirm the outbreak strain and because of retrospective reporting of infections. Of the 7 patients who had specimens collected after the recall, most either resided in long-term care facilities with other known cases or reported use of a recalled brand of artificial tears.
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Net Zero politicians: liars, scoundrels, and morons
The lies told by politicians usually have no consequences. Their intellectual dishonesty, as a species, is such that citizens go to the polls assuming election promises have an expiry date similar to nine-day-old milk.
If the lie is a promise to ‘lower taxes’, the inevitable raising of taxes several months later is met with a groan in the same way that the purchaser of a used car sees an oil stain develop on the garage floor. There’s a sense of resignation rather than rage. After all, you’re the one that shook hands with a shonky dealer.
Fast-forward three years, and that same politician is likely to be re-elected on a follow-up promise to subsidise mechanics working on repairs for all leaking and broken used cars – provided they become members of a union.
Do you see how this works?
Even though people were ripped off by failed election promises the first time, they are motivated to vote for the same bunch of scoundrels in the hope they’ll fix the problem their policies caused. Then we have a whole new group of mechanics tempted by government-contracted work which they can only secure if they make a permanent commitment to an institution aligned with that political party.
Is this kind of governance good for society? No. It encourages the sale of crap cars and a generation of mechanics who earn their living from failed government policy. The only clever thing it does is create a cycle of dependence where each broken election promise serves as a platform for the next campaign. Solving problems is a thankless task, but creating them … well, that’s genius.
Remember the Covid era? Governments in every state employed hundreds of thousands of ‘health’ workers to man vaccine booths, check vaccine certificates, work in quarantine centres, clean public spaces, and police the behaviour of citizens. It was a Goliath, publicly-funded industry that encouraged all of those people to vote for politicians who promised to protect Covid jobs. Is it good for society to remain in a permanent pandemic state? No. But it’s good for those workers, operating at the expense of an ever-diminishing pool of genuine private wealth creators. Eventually people turn around and wonder where this economic disaster came from. Never mind, surely the government will fix it…
The are no consequences for political parties that operate in this fashion. They remain in power, gaining bewildering majorities, until society falls to bits and the ruling party has no choice but to donate the mess to the opposition with little more than a box of band-aids in the Treasury.
This is the standard Labor model for government. Barter. Break. Bleed. Bail.
Unfortunately, the other half of this equation is an opposition that is prepared to forgo political glory and instead clean up the mess created by its rivals. For the first time in Australian history, the Liberal Party has decided to dismiss its historical duty and ‘get in on the game’, leaving the country with no one to stop the economy from crossing the red line.
If this nauseous feeling seems familiar, it’s because this is the cycle adopted by major parties across the world for Net Zero. We have to give them credit for a Bond-level deceit after bureaucracies, such as the United Nations, got bored with ‘world peace’ and decided to invent an existential problem which they used to con nations into spending trillions every year to ‘fix’ – even though you cannot fix something that isn’t real. It’s the same scam run by tribal wizards extorting favours in exchange for ‘weather dances’. While they might not be saving the planet, the United Nations did give themselves a new purpose. Maybe it’s for the best, given how terrible the whole ‘world peace’ initiative is looking.
In summary, the global leadership line goes: ‘There’s an apocalypse coming, but vote for us and we can save you!’
This comes with a range of feel-good slogans like, ‘clean, cheap, reliable energy’ and, ‘be a good global citizen’, but the underlying policy is the same: ‘your taxes can change the weather’. It’s the fashionably acceptable version of the white saviour syndrome where the same people that used to take gap years in Africa now stick a banner on their social media profile, shrug off rising prices, and delude themselves into thinking that makes them a good person.
Humans have been paying for their sins and silencing their existential fears this way for a long time. Politicians prey on this kind of thinking. What’s not to love about Net Zero? You get to be a good citizen, businesses compete on slogans instead of product quality, and the government ends up rich. Everybody wins! Well, not exactly. There are plenty of problems with Net Zero – power bills for one, and the blackouts for another. Pretty soon we’re going to hear from disgruntled landowners as the government reclaims their properties to build transmissions lines, and if Chris Bowen gets his way regarding offshore wind farms – the entire East Coast of Australia is going to march on Canberra. That’s before we get to the mounting pile of renewables corpses to contend with and society’s blind eye to real pollution which sits unattended in our waterways.
‘But don’t worry! Vote for us again and this time we’ll give you a discount on your power bills!’ Woe be to the idiots that fall for that one.
There’s now an entire class of workers with no ideological investment in the spiritual cause of Net Zero. Their lack of faith is irrelevant, because Net Zero policies mean they’re struggling to keep their businesses going. Instead of punishing politicians for endangering their livelihoods, humans do a very strange thing: they vote for the same guys on the promise of it being ‘fixed’.
This is how Net Zero manages to wreck the economy and increase its popularity. It’ll happen again and again and again until those businesses shut down and the population ends up on welfare. Then they want more welfare. Then taxes are raised to pay for it. Then they want more… Those voters have to vote for the government, or their welfare cycle vanishes.
Australia will die long before the lights go out. These are not the politicians of Australia’s infancy. They are not going to have a common sense epiphany and do the right thing for the survival of the nation. Hard choices and self sacrifice are not phrases found in the language of career politicians and factional seat warmers. The rats that scurry around in Canberra have their eye on lucrative international positions and corporate jobs. They’ll move on to bigger salaries. No consequences, remember?
The next slogan is already being promoted: ‘Vote for us and we’ll give some of you a government handout for your power bills! (And raise taxes on the rest of you suckers.)’
What was that last bit?
Maybe we’ll get lucky next time if we vote for them again. That’s what people think as they are reminded by wall-to-wall state-funded media that the apocalypse is on its way.
I’m not sure how to make this any clearer: stop voting for liars, scoundrels, and morons.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/net-zero-politicians-liars-scoundrels-and-morons
**************************************************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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Monday, May 22, 2023
Justice Gorsuch Slams COVID Emergency Powers: ‘Greatest Intrusions on Civil Liberties’ in ‘Peacetime History’
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch on Thursday lamented what he calls an intrusion into civil liberties by pandemic emergency decrees since the start of COVID-19 as the high court dismissed a suit on Title 42 as moot.
“Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country,” Gorsuch, one of six conservative-leaning Supreme Court justices, said in an opinion accompanying the court’s decision (pdf) published on Thursday.
Gorsuch wrote that emergency decrees ordering vaccine mandates and lockdowns issued by federal and state executive agencies resulted in an accumulation of power in those agencies and accompanied this loss of liberties during the pandemic.
“The concentration of power in the hands of so few may be efficient and sometimes popular. But it does not tend toward sound government,” the justice wrote. “However wise one person or his advisors may be, that is no substitute for the wisdom of the whole of the American people that can be tapped in the legislative process.”
This view, some experts say, shines a light on the high court’s vision of restoring a balance of power in the federal government to that more aligned with America’s founders.
“My first reaction to reading Justice Gorsuch’s comments was that the Constitution is waking up,” attorney Jeff Childers told The Epoch Times in an interview on Friday. Childers fought—and won—against local governments in a mask mandate and another vaccine mandate case in Florida.
Gorsuch’s warning came as the Supreme Court dismissed a case brought by Republican attorney generals to keep in place Title 42, the emergency measure that the Trump administration implemented in March 2020 as a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both Trump and Biden administrations used Title 42 to expel illegal immigrants.
While the state’s case hinges on the more technical question of whether they can intervene in a case in another state to keep Title 42 in place, Gorsuch’s opinion indicated that the high court believed this question is no longer relevant as the public health emergency—to which Title 42 was designed as a reaction—ended in April.
Technicalities aside, Gorsuch took the opportunity to reflect on the bigger picture: namely, what he sees as a threat to civil liberties during the COVID pandemic when “executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale.”
Loss of Civil Liberties
The Title 42 case brought by the states illustrates this threat to civil liberties, Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, wrote in his Thursday opinion.
He acknowledged that the surging illegal immigration across the border is a “crisis,” and so was COVID. But he warned that “the current border crisis is not a COVID crisis,” and the fact that the executive branch used the pandemic as the pretext to deal with another crisis at the border is emblematic of the broader, fear-driven response from U.S. institutions that may have led to “the loss of many cherished civil liberties” during COVID.
“Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale. Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private. They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on,” the justice said, adding that violators were threatened with criminal sanctions and federal officials pressured social media companies into suppressing views they disagree with.
“They used a workplace-safety agency to issue a vaccination mandate for most working Americans. They threatened to fire noncompliant employees and warned that service members who refused to vaccinate might face dishonorable discharge and confinement,” he wrote.
Gorsuch also noted the apparent inaction of the legislative branch—state legislatures and Congress—in response to these executive decrees and how the judicial branch, which was “bound to protect our liberties addressed a few—but hardly all—of the intrusions upon them.”
“In some cases, like this one, courts even allowed themselves to be used to perpetuate emergency public-health decrees for collateral purposes, itself a form of emergency-lawmaking-by-litigation,” Gorsuch added, referring to the effort by Republican states to keep Title 42. Collateral purposes refer to purposes other than those originally intended by the decree or law.
The conservative justice warned that an important lesson from the pandemic is that “fear and the desire for safety are powerful forces,” and, citing Aristotle, noted that “even the ancients warned that democracies can degenerate toward autocracy in the face of fear.”
“Make no mistake—decisive executive action is sometimes necessary and appropriate,” he added. “But if emergency decrees promise to solve some problems, they threaten to generate others.
“And rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.”
A Need for Reflection
H. Jefferson Powell, a prominent constitutional scholar who teaches law at Duke Law School, echoed Gorsuch’s view that the country should reflect on what the government did in response to Covid via emergency powers.
He quoted an opinion of Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson in the landmark Steel Seizure Case, that the founders “suspected that emergency powers would tend to kindle emergencies.”
“My only disagreement with the assertion is that I see no reason to qualify it with ‘may’ – I do not think there is any question that the intrusions imposed because of the Covid virus on the civil liberties that Americans ordinarily exercise were the greatest in our peacetime history,” Powell, who served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Clinton administration, wrote to The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
“This is, simply put, a historical fact, which Justice Gorsuch chose (understandably) to present in non-dogmatic terms,” Powell wrote.
John Malcolm, vice president of the Institute for Constitutional Government at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said that Gorsuch’s Thursday opinion reflected a “course correction” on the Supreme Court’s view of executive overreach that has been taking place since Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, started her tenure in 2020.
A prime example of that correction, Malcolm said, was when the court ruled (pdf) in a 5-4 vote in favor of a group of religious adherents in New York who sued the state to remove COVID restrictions imposed on worship activities via emergency decrees.
The New York case, with Barrett on the bench, was similar in facts to two earlier cases in Nevada and California, but its ruling ran counter to the two earlier rulings that were made when the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg was part of the Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court said enough—this goes too far, and [the state executive branch] is impinging on the free exercise rights of these religious adherents,” Malcolm said.
Looking at the more distant past, Malcolm noted that out of about 80 national emergencies declared from the beginning of the 20th century to today, 41 are still in effect—not including the COVID public health emergency, which ended in April.
Each one of these emergency declarations, he said, “gives the president and executive branch agencies extraordinary powers,” or power that goes beyond what the law normally prescribes.
“Now there’s something wrong with that.”
He observed that Gorsuch was making an “incredibly powerful statement” calling Americans to “not to step back and defer, but to step up and debate” during these emergencies: “Is this an emergency? Or are we going to let it curtail our civil liberties? If so, how? And in what ways? And for how long?”
Agreeing with Gorsuch’s view that these extraordinary authorities need to be seriously examined, Malcolm suggested: “What [Congress] probably needs to do is have a sunset provision that says, you can declare an emergency, but unless we reauthorize it, that emergency officially ends after six months, a year, two years, some reasonable time period.”
A Consequential Ruling to Come
According to Zack Smith, Manager of the Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program in Heritage’s Meese Center, a future case in the Supreme Court may curb the power of executive agencies by subjecting their actions to a higher degree of scrutiny from the courts.
That case involves a dispute between fishing companies and the Biden administration, in which attorneys for the fishing companies asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Chevron doctrine, a Supreme Court precedent set in 1984.
The Chevron doctrine has led to the “exponential growth of the Code of Federal Regulations and overregulation by unaccountable agencies,” the attorneys for the fishing companies wrote to the Supreme Court in a filing (pdf).
Under this doctrine, Smith explained, courts must give way to executive agencies (such as the Environmental Protection Agency) in interpreting certain ambiguous laws—provided their interpretation is reasonable.
The consequence, Smith indicated, is that courts are sometimes barred from ruling against these agencies, even when these agencies interpret the law differently than the court would have.
“And that’s not really the way our system of government is supposed to work,” Smith said. “It’s not the duty of the courts to defer generally to executive branch officials. It’s their duty to interpret the law and say what the law is.”
Reflecting on Gorsuch’s comments on Thursday, Smith criticized the current “bureaucratic morass” in the executive branch: “You essentially have an executive branch agency making their own rules, prosecuting violations of those rules, and then adjudicating prosecutions—that’s a concentration of power.”
“So, if Chevron is overturned, that would be a very big decision—and we go a long way, I think, to restoring the proper balance of power between our different branches of government,” Smith said.
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Rebel doctors speak
From the Australian Medical Professionals Society
We have seen censorship unparalleled in the scope of its reach in human history, especially in the treatment of Covid. Doctors who have dissented from official state-sanctioned treatment diktats have been and continue to be sanctioned by the medical regulator, and egregiously unfairly fired from their positions.
The restrictions on prescribing ivermectin have recently been dropped by the TGA. The provisionally approved Covid vaccines have been associated with unprecedented harm and demonstrated negative efficacy; alarmingly, there are still official recommendations for their continued usage.
The unprecedented squashing of scientific debate by the regulatory authorities enabled by MainStream Media and social media censorship, which continues to this day, is a major block to the advancement of healthcare in this country and around the world. This is highly destructive to the foundations of an open and free democracy. If the medical profession is happy to unquestioningly accept the dictates of health bureaucrats instead of scientific debate, this is to the detriment of patients’ health.
The doctors at the Australian Medical Professionals Society have invited the doctors of the Australian Medical Association to a public debate on the government’s response to Covid with a particular focus on the safety and efficacy of the provisionally approved Covid vaccines. Health Professionals must be free to publicly debate public policy using the most up to date scientific evidence and their clinical judgment, unhindered by government regulatory censorship. We would also like to debate the ethical egresses forced on the medical profession and the public by the imposition of mandates.
In modern medicine, our symbol is that of a Physician’s staff with an Asclepiusian snake wrapped around it. Asclepius was the Greek God of healing, and Hippocrates was a student of his. Asclepius made use of a magic potion, which when drawn from the right side of the Gorgon would kill, and from the left side could cure. It speaks to the duality as our role as healers, we seek to heal, but we also have the capacity to harm. The way we minimise harm to our patients is to always allow open discourse, and courteous dialogue amongst health professionals so that the best ideas can prevail.
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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, May 21, 2023
‘Millions of Lives Lost’ in Pandemic Mainly From Pharma-Government Nexus, Says Critical Care Expert
Dr. Pierre Kory, a pulmonary and critical care medicine specialist, is blaming the nexus between the pharma industry and the government along with corrupt medical journals for deceiving the public about COVID-19 and vaccines, which resulted in “millions of lives lost.”
“I always knew pharma was bad. I didn’t understand that they are literally a criminal syndicate, who have been committing crimes for decades. They pay fines, then move on and continue their standard operating business,” Kory said in an April 28 interview with EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program. “When it came to government, I wasn’t aware of how corporations have literally taken over almost all the agencies of government. The response to COVID was controlled and conducted by the pharmaceutical industry, with probably even bigger powers behind them.”
To understand how the pharma industry’s propaganda works, Kory claims to have looked at three years of every policy issued by government agencies.
“All you had to ask yourself was, ‘What would a pharmaceutical company want?’ Voila, there was your policy. Every single policy was in line with serving the interests of a pharmaceutical company,” he said.
“Guess what that brought us? It brought us multiple humanitarian catastrophes, millions of lives lost from the suppression of early treatment, millions of people dead around the world from the vaccines, and now epidemics of vaccine injury and long COVID with very little treatment.
“Ultimately, it was a war of information. All of the destruction was about information and how it was controlled. I was already transformed before the Twitter Files. The Twitter Files are just absolutely astonishing. Government intelligence agencies and health agencies were literally controlling Twitter, and what was showing up on Twitter,” he said.
In a March 17 exposé, investigative journalist Matt Taibbi revealed the alleged collusion between Stanford University’s Virality Project (VP) and Twitter to censor what they deemed to be misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. VP is also said to have colluded with the American government.
“Though the Virality Project reviewed content on a mass scale for Twitter, Google/YouTube, Facebook/Instagram, Medium, TikTok, and Pinterest, it knowingly targeted true material and legitimate political opinion, while often being factually wrong itself,” Taibbi said on Twitter.
The initiative “accelerated the evolution of digital censorship, moving it from judging truth/untruth to a new, scarier model, openly focused on political narrative at the expense of fact.”
Compromised Media and Medical Journals
According to Kory, corporations are funding media agencies to promote vaccine campaigns and censor any information that would raise the levels of vaccine hesitancy among people. “It’s almost like you’re watching a military operation, and they’re using all of the institutions of society.
“I saw a global propaganda and censorship campaign which made the world go mad,” he said. “I saw them do things with this blanket of propaganda and censorship, like mandating these vaccines for young children, who had basically zero risk of anything serious happening to them from COVID.
“They mandated these vaccines and people lost their jobs. They were victimized and vilified for being unvaccinated, along with those who were adjacent to them. If you were anywhere near an unvaccinated person, you still got attacked. The most absurd thing was the people who got vaccinated and then got injured.”
Another tactic the media used was fearmongering. “The fear and dangers of COVID were constantly propagated,” Kory said.
“It was a war where the voices of truth and sanity were getting drowned out by lies that were told for different objectives. The CEO of Moderna has $4 billion [in] wealth. The pharmaceutical companies made tens to hundreds of billions with this massive transfer of wealth. It has been a really difficult three years.”
Kory also highlighted the role played by medical journals during the pandemic. “The high-impact medical journals played a massive role in the human toll of COVID by censoring positive studies of repurposed drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin,” he noted.
“They published clearly fraudulent trials that were designed to fail; to show that ivermectin didn’t work, and to show that hydroxychloroquine didn’t work.
“They also manipulated trials showing the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. Remember 95 percent effective, then to 70, 50, 30 percent? Then, they said, ‘Okay. It doesn’t work for transmission, but it still protects against hospitalization and death.’ The reality is that nothing was ever true, and they were just shifting their stories.”
According to Kory, the propaganda and censorship carried out by high-impact medical journals have been so massive that he is unable to trust them.
“When I read a study, the first thing I read now is about the conflicts of interest. That’s all you have to read. Once you read a study and you see that they have numerous conflicts of interest with the actual molecule or compound or medicine that’s being studied, you cannot trust that paper,” Kory said.
“It may be true. It may not be true. But I refuse to act on a paper whose conclusions were reached by investigators who have direct conflicts of interest with their findings. There’s no more objectivity.”
War on Repurposed Drugs
Kory also insists that there is a “war” against repurposed drugs. He pointed out that when the National Institutes of Health (NIG) finally decided to conduct a large randomized controlled trial on ivermectin, the individual they chose as its principal investigator was a “woman from Duke who they gave a $140 million grant to, who has stock in a competitor to ivermectin.
“She has conflicts of interest with Gilead Sciences, who manufactures remdesivir. She’s got a long rap sheet of pharmaceutical industry influences, as does almost every other investigator on that trial.
“What are they studying? They’re studying a drug that would decimate the COVID market for every single one of those pharmaceutical companies. Can anyone actually believe they’re going to lead to anything but a predetermined result?”
Kory claims to have a collection of a large number of rejection letters from medical journals that were sent to investigators who had conducted “good randomized controlled trials, showing phenomenal benefits of ivermectin.
“The rejection letters were all the same, ‘I’m sorry, this topic is not of sufficient interest to our readers at this time,’” Kory said. “You either want to laugh at that or cry, because in the middle of a global pandemic with people dying across the world, they said that a positive trial of ivermectin was not of sufficient interest to their readership. This is how it’s done.”
Kory talked about reading an article sent by one of his colleagues that finally made him understand how the pharma industry and propaganda worked to manipulate the world.
“It’s a short and very powerful article, and they outlined each tactic. I said, ‘Wait. I’ve seen this. I’ve seen that. They did this yesterday. They did that to me two days ago. This is what they’re doing to the FLCCC [Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance].’
“It was almost like getting the teacher’s edition to the world. Suddenly, it was like a light went on. I said, ‘That’s what is happening. The FLCCC and I have launched ourselves into the middle of a decades-long war on repurposed drugs. This is not about ivermectin, and it’s not about hydroxychloroquine,” he said. “The disinformation has been going on for a long time.”
Multiple studies have been done on ivermectin’s impact on COVID-19. A study from 2020 led by the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute had shown that a single dose of ivermectin could stop the COVID-19 virus from growing in cell culture.
“Even a single dose could essentially remove all viral RNA (effectively removed all genetic material of the virus) by 48 hours and that even at 24 hours there was a really significant reduction in it,” Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute’s Dr. Kylie Wagstaff said at the time.
In 2021, government from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh claimed that the use of ivermectin allowed them to maintain a lower fatality as well as positivity rate amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Global Coverup Exposed, Pharma-Military Links
“The scale helped expose it,” Kory said while talking about the global COVID-19 propaganda, “but also the fact that it failed.
“You could see that it failed early on, and how much they had to do to hide that. If it had been a success, it would not have exposed anything. In fact, it would’ve entrenched it even more.
“You saw a failed medical experiment being covered up on a global scale. It was the cover-up. There is the old adage, ‘It’s not the crime that gets you in trouble, it’s the cover-up’. It was the fact that they had to cover up a global catastrophe, and there’s no way to do that.
“The truth is starting to come out now. You’re starting to see more and more investigations. I wouldn’t call them tribunals, but some of the state legislators are starting to look harder.”
Kory also highlighted the links between the American military and COVID-19 vaccines. “Pharma was working for the military to make these vaccines,” he said.
“The contracts were all from the Department of Defense. That was a Department of Defense contract. The Department of Defense did not do their due diligence in ensuring safety. The manufacturing of these products violated every CGMP [Current Good Manufacturing Practice] standard, which is an FDA regulation.”
“There’s never been a product, even a baby seat, a car seat, a car, a can of peaches, nothing has had this level of adverse events reported, including deaths and the variation between lots. It was a manufacturing catastrophe.
“If the pharmaceutical industry was working correctly, those things would’ve been stopped and taken off the market immediately,” Kory stated. “But it was just an unrelenting push through the media, even the government and the Department of Defense.”
Kory compared the COVID-19 policies implemented in the country to some sort of military exercise. “Let’s say it (COVID-19) was an accident and our government had been preparing for this massive countermeasure, and it really was the military that was employing a military countermeasure.
“That actually makes some sense, because when you see all of the medical ethics that were violated, that’s telling you it’s not health care. We still have a sense of ethics, and they forgot it overnight. It sounded like a military exercise, where you have to sacrifice 100 people to take that hill.
“The VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] exploded, and with the amount of deaths that were reported within the first weeks, nobody looked at it. It was nothing but attacking VAERS as a source of data, ‘Nothing to see here.’ It was like the military seeing the battlefield strewn with soldiers and just moving ahead, ‘You have to get your objective.’”
“The corporations benefited and profited greatly, but the conduct was like nothing we’ve ever seen before.”
VAERS Deaths And Adverse Events
According to a Dec. 22 analysis published by The Epoch Times, a total of 909,868 adverse events were reported in the VAERS system related to all six COVID-19 vaccines in the United States as of Dec. 9. This included 96,140 serious adverse events and 15,733 deaths.
In contrast, total adverse events for major vaccines related to other diseases like seasonal flu, hepatitis B, HPV, measles, and polio only came to 380,490. There were 28,058 serious adverse events and 3,185 reported deaths.
Documents disclosed in March showed that the number of vaccine injury reports that popped up after COVID-19 vaccination began exceeding the expectations of officials.
The contractor hired to process reports to the VAERS system had only estimated a maximum of 1,000 reports per day as the “worst-case scenario.”
However, this limit was broken in December 2020, less than three weeks after regulators greenlit COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. By Jan. 10, 2021, the number of daily reports exceeded 4,500.
In February this year, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo claimed that there was a 4,400 percent jump in life-threatening conditions reported in the state with VAERS since the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
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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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Friday, May 19, 2023
Brief Hiatus
I am once again going to take Friday off blogging. I have had a very busy social life today, involving substantial time with three different ladies, so I have at the moment neither the time nor the energy for blogging. Tomorrow is also my Sabbath so I expect to be back blogging as usual on Sunday
Thursday, May 18, 2023
New COVID Origin Report Includes Some of the Most Chilling Revelations We've Heard to Date
On Wednesday morning, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)'s office released a chilling 328-page report about the origins of COVID-19. While a press release from March highlights how the report is "[b]ased on vast troves of previously undisclosed documents and fresh analysis of previously known but inadequately scrutinized information," much of what is included serves to bolster what many already feared about the virus, and about China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The release back in March noted that the report is based on almost 18 months worth of investigations, and that it "uncovered and will reveal evidence that was either previously unknown or otherwise ignored by the U.S. government." The senator referred to it as "a groundbreaking look at what was happening in China during the years and months leading up to the known outbreak of the pandemic."
It took even longer to put together the final product.
"After years of censorship, there is growing evidence that some type of lab accident is responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic. This report, which took two years to compile, edit, and refine, is a groundbreaking look at what was happening in China during the years and months leading up to the known outbreak of the pandemic," Rubio said in a statement about the report's release. "I am grateful to the staff, fellows, and outside experts who worked to connect the dots. Their work helps fill in some critical blanks and has already contributed to other reports, hearings, and investigations. The implications are impossible to ignore: Beijing hid the truth. This report reinforces the need to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable."
An executive summary and a short documentary were also released.
The documentary features a narrator walking viewers through documentation and footage to do with lab technicians in China working on gain-of-function. The senator himself is also featured, as he delves into such information. At one point, he provides perhaps the best explanation of gain-of-function research you'll hear, as well as a warning about its dangers.
"What that basically means is that you take a naturally occurring virus that you would find in nature, and you reverse it, you engineer it, you mess with it, and you make it contagious in humans, so there might be a virus in an animal and it may not be infectious in humans," Rubio explains about gain-of-function. He also warns "but you change it in the laboratory. You make it infectious in humans. And the reason why you do that is because you try to predict how a virus that today's only found in animals could evolve into one that would be dangerous in humans. You try to predict it, you try to invent it yourself. And once you've invented it, then you try to find a cure for it. And the problem is, once you invent it someone might get infected with it."
The virus became known in late 2019, closer to 2020. The "CDC Museum COVID-19 Timeline" from the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) begins on January 1, 2020.
The World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared it to be a pandemic in March 2020, and the United States following suit shortly after when it comes to declaring a public health emergency. Both ended just recently. As the report's findings detail, however, it was really in the middle of 2019 where events worth paying attention to took place, leading up to "a serious biosafety incident" that occurred later that year.
Early warning signs appeared when the head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) inspected the state-run Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in April of 2019 and warned of a need for upgrades. The WIV went on to pursue costly projects, but it ended up not being enough, because in July 2019 the CCP secretary of the WIV still spoke of "current shortcomings and foundational problems in the construction, operation, and maintenance" of the lab complex, with the director of the WIV calling on staff to "prioritize solving the urgent problems we are currently facing."
What happened next took place in a timeline sooner and with more chilling urgency that the CCP sought to cover up than the rest of the world knew about at the time.
For it was on September 12, 2019 when the WIV shut down its online database in the middle of the night. On September 18, the WIV advised the airport of a drill for the outbreak of a "novel coronavius." Mere days later, on September 21, a resident known as Su died from what may have been COVID-19. Several more cases were documented in November 2019, but were kept hidden. Eventually, a Chinese official traveled from Beijing to the WIV to deliver "important oral and written instructions."
The CCP was not prepared or well-equipped. In October 2019, the Chinese legislature reviewed a draft biosecurity law and noted that "currently the biosecurity situation in our country is grim" and listed "laboratories that leak biological agents" as one of several threats about the "the complex and grave situation currently facing safety work."
CCP officials at the WIV published a report that gave arguably the most chilling but also accurate descriptions of the virus, and from those that would know. "Once you have opened the stores test tubes, it is just as if having opened Pandora’s Box. These viruses come without a shadow and leave without a trace," the report said.
What else happened in 2019? Chinese scientists were working on a vaccine, with their own research methodology indicating they began working on it no later than November 2019, almost two months before the virus' existence was even disclosed by Beijing.
From December 2019-October 2021, WIV researchers also filed patents for inventions meant to address the lab's differential air pressure system, biocontainment equipment, and waste handling process. "Any one of these problems could have allowed a pathogen to escape the lab complex. WIV researchers confirmed this by explaining that their inventions were designed to prevent precisely such a scenario," the executive summary mentions.
"As the disease spread, it was only a matter of time before the news of the outbreak came out. The moment came on December 30, when rebellious Chinese doctors blew the whistle on their own government," the documentary's narrator also explains. "Shortly after the CCP finally admitted to the truth, but only part of the truth. Two years later, China still refuses to review what really happened."
While some admissions came in December, with the official timeline saying the first cases occurred that month, Rubio points out in the documentary that they were already closing schools by November 2019. "So something's already happening. Well, we don't know exactly that at that point. They began to see evidence of it spread or that they knew they had a lab leak and they were taking proactive measures, but they start closing schools in November of 2019 when they claimed that the first known cases worn until late December of 2019," he explains.
In February 2020, still before the rest of the world was so deeply impacted, a campaign was launched to strengthen biosafety through inspections, stricter regulations, and the elimination of unauthorized research. "Just as Beijing was denying the possibility that COVID-19 came from a lab on the world stage, it was warning its own officials of such risks and rolling out new measures to prevent lab accidents," the executive summary aptly points out.
In case you needed any more evidence to believe that the theory about this virus originating from the Wuhan wet market is bogus, Chinese scientists determined as early as January 2020 that the wet market was likely not the origin of the virus. It's also still the official position of the Chinese CDC.
On Tuesday night, the eve of the report's release, Rubio appeared on Fox News' "Hannity" where he teased the report, explaining that it includes "previously unknown information that builds on an investigation that happened last year." Such insight "was not included as part of it, so we want to make sure the public sees it," Rubio told host Sean Hannity about the new information.
"You start to see all sorts of internal communications within the Chinese government and researchers about the urgent need for biosecurity measures at both the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Institute of Health. You begin to add a mountain of circumstantial evidence. No single piece by itself is determinative. But you put it all together," Rubio explained about connecting the dots.
In the documentary, Rubio acknowledges that "I'm not sure we'll ever know the entire story," though he does offer "I think now we have enough pieces put together to really change the entire narrative." He goes on to share that "I think this additional circumstantial evidence that's been gathered which is pretty compelling and which was never been seen before will weigh heavily towards those odds towards something bad happened in one of these laboratories and infected someone, they took it out into the general population, and they changed the course of history."
Regardless of how, exactly, we got the COVID-19 virus and what we may never truly be sure of, one major takeaway that cannot be denied is that the dangerous ambitions of the CCP is something to be feared and acted upon. In addition to being someone who uses his position of power to get to the bottom of the virus' origins, Rubio has been a leading figure in warning about the dangers posed by China. Perhaps this is his greatest piece of evidence yet.
"The world deserves to know the real origin of the disease that has caused so much suffering. The Chinese Communist Party must be held accountable for his lies. And we must never stop trying to uncover the truth," Rubio says to conclude the documentary.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2023/05/17/covid-origins-report-n2623351
********************************************************Tory MP Faces Political Exile for COVD-19 Vaccine Skepticism & Reference to Holocaust
As reported last month by The Guardian, Most of the political establishment in the United Kingdom has shunned Tory (Conservative Party) MP Andrew Bridgen. A few months prior, as reported by TrialSite, he had been removed from his whip position for comparing the COVID-19 vaccine programs as the worst human event after the Holocaust. Then in April, he was permanently expelled from the Conservative Party.
Bridgen has been in Parliament since 2010, and he has been acting as an independent since his original comments. The North-West Leicestershire MP had tweeted a ZeroHedge article, “which purported to show the health risks from Covid vaccines.” Bridgen also tweeted: “As one consultant cardiologist said to me, this is the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust.” This came after weeks of “increasingly anti-vaccine social media posts, as well as messages to journalists, many of which openly backed conspiracy theories.” One Conservative spokesperson stated that, “Mr. Bridgen was expelled from the Conservative party on April 12, following the recommendation of a disciplinary panel. He has 28 days from this date to appeal.”
The MP “should not be countenanced”
The under-fire MP argued that the fact that he was kicked out the Conservative Party, “only confirms the culture of corruption, collusion and cover-ups which plagues our political system----I have been a vocal critic of the vaccine rollout and the party have been sure to make an example of me. I am grateful for my newfound freedom and will continue to fight for justice for all those harmed, injured and bereaved due to governmental incompetence.”
The largest Jewish communal organization in the UK approved of the expulsion, noting that: “Suggesting that Covid vaccines are the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust is not an opinion which should be countenanced in any serious political party.”
Bridgen joins Reclaim Party as its first MP
In a May 9 follow-up article, The National reported that Bridgen was joining the nascent Reclaim Party after being booted from the Tories. Bridgen has officially announced he will make this move. He is now the first MP ever from the Reclaim Party. The MP said that “There is a huge chasm now between our Parliament and what goes on in Westminster and the people.” He offered that he was joining Reclaim, “because they respect free speech as the basis for every aspect of our democracy and our society.”
In an interview on Rumble, the dissident MP said that he decided that he had to speak out when vaccines were approved for 6-month-old; this policy was then changed. He believes that his discipline was designed to set an example for MP’s: if you step out of line, you're out. And the MP finds it suspicious that the ideas of the World Economic Forum’s Klaus Schwab was implemented in lockstep around the western world. As an example, the vague “Build Back Better” was promoted in some ways everywhere and all at once.
The Reclaim Party Manifesto
While The Reclaim Party has embraced the medical freedom surge, the byproduct of government emergency responses to COVID-19, the party was launched in 2020 by Lawrence Fox, a British actor and right wing populist activist thanks to funding from Jeremy Hosking, the British businessman and political donor purportedly worth about £375 million. Part of a movement of nationalist-populist tendencies emerging in the developed world over the past several years, that movement may merge with groups challenging the official COVID-19 narratives in the developed world.
The new party has an uphill battle to take on the three dominant parties in the UK: The Conservative Party, Labor Group and the Liberal Democrats.
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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, May 17, 2023
Leaked Pentagon Report Forensically Dismantled Fauci-Led Natural Origin Study
Researchers at the Department of Defense wrote a devastating takedown of the Proximal Origin study, which was used by Dr. Anthony Fauci as proof that the COVID-19 virus had come from nature.
The takedown, dated May 26, 2020, was written in the form of a working paper called “Critical analysis of Andersen et al. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2.” It was authored by Commander Jean-Paul Chretien, a Navy doctor working at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and Dr. Robert Cutlip, a research scientist at the Defense Intelligence Agency. The paper came to light on May 15, when it was leaked to the public via virus origins search group DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19).
The working paper forensically dismantles the natural origin case made in Proximal Origin and concludes, “The arguments that Andersen et al. use to support a natural-origin scenario for SARS-CoV-2 are based not on scientific analysis, but on unwarranted assumptions.”
The existence of this internal Pentagon paper is crucial, as it proves that government officials were well aware in the early months of the pandemic that there was no evidence in support of a natural origin of the COVID-19 virus. Additionally, given the crushing discrediting of Proximal Origin, Pentagon officials would also have been aware of Fauci’s efforts to seed a false narrative about the origin of COVID-19.
Proximal Origin was initially conceived by Fauci during a secret teleconference held on Feb. 1, 2020. The ostensible purpose of the teleconference was to deflect attention from a possible lab origin of COVID-19 and to shift the focus to a natural origin theory. Fauci directed a number of scientists, led by Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research and Robert Garry of Tulane Medical School, to pen a study that could be used to discredit the lab leak theory. Despite being directly involved in the inception of the paper, as well as in shaping its arguments, Fauci’s role was concealed from the public. Fauci later bestowed Andersen and Garry with lavish taxpayer-funded grants.
The defects in Proximal Origin were immediately noticed by reviewers at science journal Nature. This fact only became known late last year from emails obtained via the Freedom of Information Act by independent journalist Jimmy Tobias. However, with the help of Jeremy Farrar, who now is the chief scientist of the World Health Organization and who had helped Fauci shape the natural origin narrative, Proximal Origin was accepted for publication in Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020. It boldly concluded that no “laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”
On April 17, 2020, President Donald Trump confirmed that the COVID-19 pandemic likely started in a Wuhan laboratory in China. On the same day, while attending a White House press conference, Fauci categorically dismissed the possibility of a lab origin of COVID-19, citing Proximal Origin as corroboration. Fauci feigned independence, telling reporters that he could not recall the names of the authors. What was not known at the time was that Fauci not only knew the authors well, but had personally led the effort to have Proximal Origin written.
Proximal Origin became the media’s go-to natural origin authority, repeating Fauci’s claim that the paper provided dispositive proof that COVID-19 had come out of nature. It also became the most-read article on COVID-19 and one of the most cited academic papers of all time.
Yet, while the public was being told by Fauci and the media that Proximal Origin had settled the origin debate, Pentagon researchers came to a very different conclusion.
Epoch Times Photo
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci waits for the beginning of a hearing before the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies of Senate Appropriations Committee at Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 17, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Chretien and Cutlip found that COVID-19’s features, which Proximal Origin ascribed to natural evolution, were actually “consistent with another scenario: that SARS-CoV-2 was developed in a laboratory, by methods that leading coronavirus researchers commonly use to investigate how the viruses infect cells and cause disease, assess the potential for animal coronaviruses to jump to humans, and develop drugs and vaccines.”
One of those features is COVID-19’s furin cleavage site, which makes the virus particularly infectious in humans. This feature has never been observed in any naturally occurring betacoronaviruses. Proximal Origin claimed that since this feature was not part of any known laboratory-generated virus, it had to have arisen through a “natural evolutionary process.” As Chretien and Cutlip point out, this argument is “not based on scientific analysis but on an assumption that the prior work would have been published if it had been done.”
According to the Pentagon report, a similar argument made in Proximal Origin about COVID-19’s receptor binding domain, the part of a virus that allows it to dock to cells in humans or animals, was “not a scientific argument but rather an assumption of intent and methodology for a hypothesized scientist.”
The Pentagon report also highlights a major logical flaw in Proximal Origin in that it relies on a lack of publications about particular aspects of coronavirus engineering as a reason to conclude that such engineering did not take place. For instance, Proximal Origin claims that “the genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone.” As Chretien and Cutlip point out, “The absence of a publication does not mean that the research was not done.”
In what is perhaps the most notable portion of the Chretien and Cutlip paper, the authors note the collaboration between Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina, a pioneer of gain-of-function experiments, and Shi Zhengli, the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As Chretien and Cutlip point out, Baric and Shi carried out an experiment in 2015 that mirrored how the COVID-19 virus would have been engineered in a laboratory. The direct link between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the know-how needed to make COVID-19 was not mentioned in Proximal Origin.
While Chretien and Cutlip did not offer a definitive answer on the origin of COVID-19, they concluded that none of the arguments in Proximal Origin lessened the plausibility of a laboratory origin. Proximal Origin claimed to have done the exact opposite.
Given the sweeping nature of the takedown of Proximal Origin, the question is why the public was not told about the Pentagon’s paper, which was fully paid for by taxpayers?
Instead, the Pentagon, which was led at the time by Trump appointee Mark Esper, allowed Fauci’s false origin narrative to fester. One of the two authors, Cutlip, left the Department of Defense in 2021. The circumstances of his departure are not known. Cutlip’s bio states that he is currently a visiting professor at Fairmont State University in West Virginia. The bio also states that Cutlip was part of “the Corona Virus Task Force, providing intelligence to the President of the United States.” It is not known whether Cutlip shared his insights with either Trump or President Joe Biden.
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Feds Fall Woefully Short with COVID-19 Vax Injury Compensation: CICP Director: No Computer Systems!
With almost 12,000 people having filed claims with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), the vaccine injury compensation scheme established with the national public health emergency, just a few of these injured persons have secured any payment, and those compensated are done so on average at $1,500 per claimant. Mainstream media inches its way into coverage, discussion and commentary.
It is a tragic situation for those injured by vaccines that were often mandated to take. The government, while overreaching in many respects during the pandemic, did little to nothing to anticipate the tens of thousands that would claim injuries. The program is understaffed, and now, a director from the Countermeasure Injury Compensation Program (CICP) told a Georgia-based Congressperson that they had no technology to support the scale up of the program. Also, the CICP program is severely understaffed. Who in the federal government is responsible for this reality?
Most recently, WXIA-TV (11Alive) television station in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, affiliated with NBC covered this disturbing problem. Owned by Tegna Inc. alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate WAT, the piece reveals that only 706 claims have been processed to date, with the vast majority denied.
Enter one case study on the waiting game: Allen Storey. Still recovering after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine two years ago, bills have mounted. Waiting in limbo, 11Alive investigated, discovering that Mike Collins, representing the 10th District of Georgia, demanded to discuss the growing crisis with CICP leadership.
The CICP’s leadership now claims that technology is the core of the problem, writes Rebecca Lindstrom for 11Alive. For example, Collins reports the CICP director program laments the lack of technology to support the scale out of the program:
“They did not even have a computer system in place, a software system to handle people making requests or even inquiring about what their status was, which was what you were talking about in y'all's reporting.”
Although CICP recently launched a claims portal to track claims, they are purportedly requesting $15 million from Congress to “enhance communication” as well as “substantially increase its capacity to review at least 2,000 claims.”
Crisis scenario
This is clearly not enough. While CICP hopes to access technology that can help the federal group scale up to 2,000 claims, this is nowhere near enough. At the current case load rate of claimed COVID-19 vaccine-related injuries, the CICP director informed Congressman Collins that it would take five years to get to them.
In addition to the lack of technology which represents a complete lack of planning on the part of the federal government, Collins reports to 11Alive that “a third of the federal employees have been working from home. And that just doesn't work very well.”
Last year, the CICP funded only 34 positions to deal with over 11,000 claims and now the federal group proposes a budget for an additional 42 full-time employees. But will this be enough?
“You're asking the same questions that we ask,” Collins said. “They don't know how many people they employ; the federal government, these departments, they don't know. And so that's one of the big issues that we have. You're right. Do you have enough people who are inefficient, or do you not have enough people?”
COVID-19 vaccine injured struggling
The plight of the Storey family was featured in this latest piece from 11Alive. With an average payout to date of $1,500 (and just a few persons compensated), Allen Storey’s bills accumulate to what will likely be in the tens of thousands.
What are people injured by the COVID-19 vaccines supposed to do? In many cases they were mandated to get the shots, and that same government compelling the procedure waived all liability of the vaccine manufacturers.
Groups such as React19 have been launched in the private sector to support persons injured by the COVID-19 vaccines. While that nonprofit has recruited a network of now over 20,000 vaccine injured people and over 200 doctors supporting this class of care, this is nowhere near enough to deal with the accumulating demand.
Rebecca Lindstrom reports that likely, most persons injured by the COVID-19 vaccines are not even aware of the CICP program. According to Allen Storey, “I don’t think most people know this program exists. You can probably walk down and 10 out of 10 people don’t know about it. I don’t know how they would find out about it if they weren’t specifically looking for this program. Most doctors don’t even know about it.”
This lack of awareness also represents a problem for persons injured by the vaccines seeking help from the private sector. React19 has often been censored by Facebook, traditionally, the number one social network for patient groups. Why the censorship? A confluence of government, media and social tech companies have collaborated during the pandemic to censor key information including stories about COVID-19 vaccine injuries, even if the information is truthful.
Clearly, the federal government has on the one hand, completely overstepped its boundaries during the pandemic while at the same time, when it comes to caring for the nation’s population damaged by the mass vaccination program they stepped back, doing not nearly enough.
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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, May 16, 2023
All of a sudden, ivermectin is safe again
Dr. Julie Sladden is writing from Australia:
Has anyone else noticed a pattern around the Covid-related restrictions of the past three years?
Each infringement felt like a wave crashing on the shore of Australian freedoms, which, after a while, would quietly recede into the background with little fanfare, media, or attention. So it was with the introduction of lockdowns, masks, and mandates.
No wonder we’ve all felt ‘at sea’.
On May 3, 2023, the TGA quietly announced it was removing the prescribing restrictions on ivermectin. These restrictions were imposed on September 10, 2021 in an effort to stop doctors prescribing the drug to treat Covid.
These original restrictions were described as an ‘extraordinary intervention’.
Ivermectin is an (actual) ‘safe and effective’ medication with decades of safety data and known side effects. Heck, it’s even on the World Health Organisation’s list of essential medications. At the time, ivermectin was being used by several countries around the world to treat Covid and several studies were in process of being conducted.
But why would the TGA restrict ivermectin? Good question. The reasons given for the amendment to the Poisons Standard include:
A rise in the number of off-label prescriptions of ivermectin.
A significant increase in personal importation of ivermectin into Australia.
Concern that people who had been prescribed ivermectin might believe themselves to be protected and therefore not get vaccinated.
Concern that ivermectin would come into short supply in Australia.
Ivermectin also has the potential to cause severe adverse events, particularly when taken in high doses; though oral ivermectin is generally well-tolerated at recommended doses.
Nowhere, back in September 2021, did the TGA say there had been a rise in serious adverse events associated with ivermectin. The closest the regulator came was stating a ‘potential’ to cause severe adverse events.
Hmm… So, if a therapeutic agent is restricted for ‘potentially’ causing serious adverse events, what happens when a therapeutic agent actually causes serious adverse events?
Let’s move on.
The concern that ivermectin would come into short supply is perplexing. As an ‘off-patent’ drug, ivermectin is incredibly cheap to make (around 55 US cents per course of treatment) and widely available. As one commentator ponders, ‘If the TGA foresaw a potential shortage, why did no one in the Australian government think to phone an order through to Indiamart?’ Another good question.
In light of the above, the rise in number of off-label prescriptions of ivermectin and increase in personal importation is no reason to restrict a medication. These signals should be taken as an indication to investigate (why is it being used and what is the ‘front-line’ experience) and educate (regarding potential side effects). According to Dr Peter McCullough, ‘About two dozen countries have ivermectin as a first-line treatment for Covid in their government guidelines.’ They can’t all be wrong.
Furthermore, the increased prescription and importation heralds another consideration, something prohibition taught our friends across the Pacific: when you prohibit something the people want, you just drive it underground.
The reason that incited me most back in September 2021 was the ‘concern that people who had been prescribed ivermectin might … not get vaccinated’.
So, as the government funneled the Australian people down the ‘vaccine or bust’ pathway with mass coercion, an essentially safe and potentially significant therapeutic option was removed. This was done not because it was causing harm, but because it might stop people from getting the ‘experimental’ injection.
I find this outrageous.
Why? Because in a time of ‘unknowns’, the TGA put its weight behind an injection with minimal safety data over a medication with a known safety and therapeutic profile.
So, in what seems like a miracle, ivermectin is now deemed ‘safe’ again.
‘How can ivermectin go from being a toxic horse de-wormer in 2021 and then be declared to have a low safety risk in 2023?’ asks Pharmacologist and Drug Regulatory Affairs consultant Dr Philip Altman. Yet another good question.
In my opinion, the only reason a therapeutic agent like ivermectin, with a proven track record, should be restricted is a demonstrated safety signal that truly indicates the health of Australians is at risk. To do otherwise makes no sense to me.
Dr Philip Altman takes it further, ‘If the Australian TGA cannot tell the difference between a toxic horse deworming medicine and a potentially life-saving, widely used, essential safe medicine – they should not exist.’
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/all-of-a-sudden-ivermectin-is-safe-again/
****************************************************Fired Teachers Who Refused COVID Vaccine to Get Full Reinstatement and Back Pay
Three Rhode Island teachers who were fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine have been offered their jobs back with full back pay after reaching a settlement with the school district.
Teachers Stephanie Hines, Brittany DiOrio, and Kerri Thurber were terminated from their positions in Barrington Public Schools after they had requested a religious exemption after the school mandated employees get the vaccine.
Last week, their attorney, Greg Piccirilli, and the school district said they had reached a settlement, allowing the teachers to return to their jobs. They are also each entitled to $33,333 in damages along with their back pay. DiOrio will get $150,000, Thurber will get $128,000, and Hines will receive $65,000 under the agreement.
“The three teachers have the opportunity to return to teaching positions within the Barrington School District should they choose to do so, at the steps they would have been at had they worked continuously,” the Barrington Public Schools district said in a statement on May 11.
In a statement to the Boston Globe, Piccirilli said that his clients are “extremely gratified that they’ve been vindicated in their position,” adding that he will get $50,000 in attorneys fees as part of the settlement. “A lot of people were dismissive and skeptical of their claims at the time,” he told the Boston Globe. “They went through a lot of personal trauma dealing with this. Their faith has gotten them through this.”
Meanwhile, Barrington Public Schools told the Providence Journal that it reached the settlement because the litigation would likely put a drag on the school’s resources and funding. It attempted to distance itself from its own vaccine mandate by claiming that it was dealing with the spread of COVID-19, although there is a growing body of evidence that shows the vaccines do not prevent the spread of the virus.
“Our district was navigating an unprecedented health pandemic and leaned on the important recommendations by the CDC and the Rhode Island Department of Health to ensure the safety of our students and school community,” the Barrington School Committee said Thursday, according to the outlet. “Our then-policy helped combat the pressing public health crisis of the time, while keeping schools open, and [was] one that nearly all faculty and staff adhered to.”
It added that “we determined this ongoing, expensive litigation” would likely continue for a lengthy period of time, and a resolution should be reached because the “administration’s time, and our district’s financial resources, should be spent on the daily work and mission of Barrington Public Schools … our School Committee looks forward to continuing to support this important work.”
Details
The three were first placed on unpaid leave in late 2021 before they were fired in January 2022, according to statements made by the district and the teachers. During a hearing in Barrington in October 2021, DiOrio said that she “did nothing wrong.”
“I have done nothing wrong. This is destroying my future ability to earn a living,” she said of the mandate. “What makes me more of a threat now? Is this how a highly-rated school department treats its people?”
At the time, Sara Rapport, a lawyer representing the School Committee, said that the teachers were violating the school policy for not complying, adding that committees have the plenary authority over school interests. She said that the teachers’ decision not to get vaccinated pose a greater risk to students.
“Teachers have a right not to be vaccinated,” she said in late 2021. “But every decision has consequences. Religious beliefs do not override the health and safety of the community.”
It’s not clear if Thurber, Hines, or DiOrio will return to their previous teaching positions. During an interview with Legal Insurrection, Piccirilli said that the settlement should be seen as a victory for others who were fired because they refused to take COVID-19 vaccines.
“They’ve shown amazing resilience to stick by their faith. A lot of other people with similar situations have gone through this. And hopefully [this resolution] will serve as an example of how others should be vindicated the same way, for sticking up for what they believe in,” he said.
Last year, a Rhode Island Superior Court judge issued a ruling in favor of the three teachers who were fired, saying the district violated the state’s Open Meetings Act laws over their mandating the vaccine. The Barrington School Committee said after the ruling that officials disagree with the judge’s opinion.
“This case is not about whether mandating vaccinations is appropriate. Regardless of the significant political stance which the public may take for or against that issue, the issue here is whether the Barrington School Committee provided sufficient notice before enacting the Emergency Policy on COVID-19 Related Issues in August and September 2021. This Court finds that violations occurred,” Judge Jeffrey Lanphear wrote at the time.
Piccirilli, meanwhile, has said that the school committee did not possess the legal authority to implement a vaccine mandate and asserted it didn’t follow proper procedures in carrying it out. For example, he said that the district didn’t advertise it correctly.
“It’s shocking to me that the rule of law seems to have gone out the window in a lot of these situations,” Piccirilli said in 2021, reported the Globe. “There’s supposed to be a process.”
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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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