Physio-metabolic and clinical consequences of wearing face masks—Systematic review with meta-analysis and comprehensive evaluation

Kai Kisielinski et al

Background: As face masks became mandatory in most countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, adverse effects require substantiated investigation.

Methods: A systematic review of 2,168 studies on adverse medical mask effects yielded 54 publications for synthesis and 37 studies for meta-analysis (on n = 8,641, m = 2,482, f = 6,159, age = 34.8 ± 12.5). The median trial duration was only 18 min (IQR = 50) for our comprehensive evaluation of mask induced physio-metabolic and clinical outcomes.

Results: We found significant effects in both medical surgical and N95 masks, with a greater impact of the second. These effects included decreased SpO2 (overall Standard Mean Difference, SMD = −0.24, 95% CI = −0.38 to −0.11, p < 0.001) and minute ventilation (SMD = −0.72, 95% CI = −0.99 to −0.46, p < 0.001), simultaneous increased in blood-CO2 (SMD = +0.64, 95% CI = 0.31–0.96, p < 0.001), heart rate (N95: SMD = +0.22, 95% CI = 0.03–0.41, p = 0.02), systolic blood pressure (surgical: SMD = +0.21, 95% CI = 0.03–0.39, p = 0.02), skin temperature (overall SMD = +0.80 95% CI = 0.23–1.38, p = 0.006) and humidity (SMD +2.24, 95% CI = 1.32–3.17, p < 0.001). Effects on exertion (overall SMD = +0.9, surgical = +0.63, N95 = +1.19), discomfort (SMD = +1.16), dyspnoea (SMD = +1.46), heat (SMD = +0.70), and humidity (SMD = +0.9) were significant in n = 373 with a robust relationship to mask wearing (p < 0.006 to p < 0.001). Pooled symptom prevalence (n = 8,128) was significant for: headache (62%, p < 0.001), acne (38%, p < 0.001), skin irritation (36%, p < 0.001), dyspnoea (33%, p < 0.001), heat (26%, p < 0.001), itching (26%, p < 0.001), voice disorder (23%, p < 0.03), and dizziness (5%, p = 0.01).

Discussion: Masks interfered with O2-uptake and CO2-release and compromised respiratory compensation. Though evaluated wearing durations are shorter than daily/prolonged use, outcomes independently validate mask-induced exhaustion-syndrome (MIES) and down-stream physio-metabolic disfunctions. MIES can have long-term clinical consequences, especially for vulnerable groups. So far, several mask related symptoms may have been misinterpreted as long COVID-19 symptoms. In any case, the possible MIES contrasts with the WHO definition of health.

Conclusion: Face mask side-effects must be assessed (risk-benefit) against the available evidence of their effectiveness against viral transmissions. In the absence of strong empirical evidence of effectiveness, mask wearing should not be mandated let alone enforced by law.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1125150/full

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COVID-19 May Have Troubling Impacts—May Shrink Numerous Parts of the Brain

What are the prolonged neurological clinical consequences related to brain changes in persons with mild COVID-19 infection, if any? Researchers from India sought to answer this and other questions via a systemic review of investigations targeting COVID-19 and the human brain. What is the possible connection of COVID-19 and direct brain injury via encephalopathy (a disease of the brain that alters brain function or structure), for example?

In this review, the investigators, including corresponding author Puranam Revanth Kumar, Ph.D., affiliated with IFHE University, Hyderabad, found that when compared to a control group, study subjects who tested positive for COVID-19 presented more brain shrinkage, grey matter shrinkage and tissue damage. This damage primarily afflicts segments of the human brain linked to odor, ambiguity, strokes, reduced attention, headaches, sensor abnormalities, depression and mental abilities for a few months post the first infection.

Published in the Journal of Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, TrialSite provides a breakdown of this study result---outcomes which didn’t find much media attention in North America.

While SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, leads to respiratory disease, the novel coronavirus infection can also have negative impacts on the brain. This means that the disease symptoms are not just limited to respiratory systems but rather can impact other organs in the human body.

Viruses, in general, can affect neurological systems. With COVID-19, numerous studies point to significant incidences of neurological and cognitive abnormalities in the infected. Citing studies such as Raahimi et al., 2021, the current authors point to evidence that COVID-19 can impact the brain directly.

Does COVID-19 invade the human brain?

In this study, the authors from India point to evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is able to penetrate the brain. Here the systematic review of existing studies reveals that even mild COVID-19 infection can shrink the brain by up to 2%. The team reported that based on their evaluation of existing studies (some using various scans), patients with COVID-19, even a mild version, can lose up to 0.2% to 2% of their olfactory cortex (part of the brain that helps with smell).

Summary of review

The latest study published in the peer-reviewed journal Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, authored by Puranam Revanth Kumar, B Shilpa, and Rajesh Kumar Jha, reports that continued neurological clinical consequences related to brain changes can occur in individuals with mild forms of COVID-19. When compared to a control group, people identified as positive had more brain and grey matter shrinkage and tissue damage.

The team based in the southern India city of Hyderabad reported, “The damage occurs predominantly in areas of the brain that are associated with odor, ambiguity, strokes, reduced attention, headaches, sensory abnormalities, depression, and mental abilities for a few months after the first infection.”

Even a mild COVID-19 infection shows the potential to shrink an individual’s brain. And the symptoms are offering lots of supporting data points---after all, the viral infection can trigger all sorts of mental/behavioral health and neurologically related conditions from brain fog to loss of smell. The researchers point to numerous autopsy studies supporting the premise.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/covid-19-may-have-troubling-impactsmay-shrink-numerous-part-of-the-brain-75a99dc0

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Canadian Nurse Sues Health System for Dismissal Over Covid Concerns

The Covid pandemic introduced the world to a different form of discrimination, and fast. An intense bias against the unvaccinated, even though the science revealed by late spring 2021 that the vaccine would not stop transmission. The primary benefit of COVID-19 vaccination is that it reduced the chances of more severe symptoms leading to hospitalization or worse—but the protective effects didn’t last long hence the need for booster doses. As it’s been pointed out, vaccination is a medical procedure, and in most cases a patient has a right to participate or not participate. However, moves made by governments and private entities around the world to encourage vaccination are leading to severe restrictions on those who choose to refuse the vaccine.

In many cases a vaccine mandate was a condition of employment and resulted in lawsuits by public servants. Such vaccination requirements are actually nothing new once a vaccine has been established as safe and effective. Persons employed by the military or in health systems traditionally were required to take certain vaccines. Of course, the childhood vaccination schedule has critical vaccine recommendations adopted as mandatory by schools.

But in the case of COVID-19 with a rapidly-developed, non-sterilizing vaccine (doesn’t stop the transmission) substantial numbers were cautious or “hesitant”. About 30% of the U.S. population opted to not receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Just under 20% of Canada’s population decided to not receive the vaccines. One of those persons was a nurse now suing a healthcare provider in Canada, claiming she was wrongfully dismissed because of her views on vaccination and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Concerns About how the Pandemic was “Managed”

Debra Carritt was employed in the healthcare sector since 1993 as an emergency medical technician and paramedic. In 2012 she started working as a nurse for the Alberta Health System (AHS). She then rose to the level of a unit manager. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Carritt voiced concerns about the way AHS was handling the crisis. She was subsequently dismissed for her opinion the health system had “open discrimination judgement and hostility toward” unvaccinated patients and staff and treated them with “harassment and discrimination.” Carritt alleges AHS tried to coerce the staff into getting vaccinated.

Filed a Lawsuit After Dismissal

In September of 2021 Carritt wrote a letter to the Chief Executive Officer of AHS claiming the provincial health system was mismanaging the crisis which led to bed shortages because AHS was “supporting fear mongering by media agencies and the government by recording and sharing daily virus infection statistics despite similar statistics not being kept and shared for any previous infectious disease outbreaks”.

These concerns were outlined in both her letters, which received no response from management. After getting no response Carritt sent another letter six days later. That letter also was shunned by AHS. Carritt then gave an online interview because she felt she “had exhausted all of the formal grievance and reporting mechanisms.” The interview was conducted with a media organization labelled right wing. She was fired in December of 2021.

44 Page Claim

According to the 44 page “statement of claim” filed by Carritt with the Court of King’s Bench in Calgary, Alberta AHS failed “to acknowledge or comprehend the adverse health effects members of the public would experience though continued 'fight or flight' reactions experienced as a result of those individuals living with a continued heightened sense of fear through conditions AHS created".

Regarding her interview, the claim says, "Mrs. Carritt expressly denies that her representations and conduct during the interview violated the (social media and e-professionalism guidelines) as alleged or at all. In the alternative, Mrs. Carritt states, and the fact is, that her representations and conduct during the interview met and exemplified the standards in those guidelines by, among other things, complying with her 'professional and ethical obligations to protect the public and maintain conduct that reflects trustworthiness.” She is seeking over $420,000 in lost pay and another $250,000 in punitive damages as well as $3 million for alleged negligence. The lawsuit was filed on March 17, 2023.

Received a Disciplinary Note

In January of 2022, Carritt received a disciplinary note from the College & Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta saying Carritt "failed to demonstrate adequate judgement and failed to demonstrate a professional presence" during her media interview. The note continues saying Carritt made statement regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, Covid-19 vaccination and related issues that did not align with one or more employer policies and that were potentially misleading, after identifying herself as a registered nurse and that she worked as a unit manager working for a major health authority."

According to the note Carritt agreed to complete a “reflexive essay” and pay a fine. For whatever reason, during the Covid crisis, even with authorities claiming concern about public health and public safety, when healthcare workers voiced opinions about rules and mandates, concern got tossed, as employers and governments followed rigid, hierarchical marching orders.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/canadian-nurse-sues-health-system-for-dismissal-over-covid-concerns-8677608d

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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) Also here

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

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

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

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

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

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Infant/Young Children Antibody Response Against SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Duration Markedly Superior to Adults

Push to vaccinate children not based on the facts

Researchers affiliated with Emory University in Atlanta and colleagues represented by Jens Wrammert, Ph.D., investigated the natural immune response of children. Although understudied during the earlier parts of the pandemic, it emerged that adults could mount broad and durable immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, the natural immunity features in children remain understudied and not well understood.

Interestingly, although severe cases of SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, have in all reality been quite rare in the infant/child cohort, infants as young as six months old to young children became intense targets for vaccination by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In this study, the Emory University physicians and scientists, along with colleagues, investigated humoral responses to COVID-19 in 23 infants/young children prior to and post-COVID-19 infection. Finding that in this vulnerable cohort, antibody responses to SARS-COV-2 spike antigens peaked about 30 days after infection, they were maintained for 500 days with minimal decay—representing a major finding.

The results of the findings here cannot be ignored (although they need to be peer-reviewed and published)—infants and young children’s natural immune response to COVID-19 appears to last markedly longer than adults! Yet this group was targeted intensively for vaccination with little data associated with this vulnerable cohorts’ immune response and COVID-19.

The findings

Finding that the levels of humoral responses in the infant and children cohort were comparable to a recovered adult cohort who recovered from mild/moderate COVID-19, the authors report “both binding and neutralization titers in WT SARS-CoV-2 were more durable in infants/young children, with spike and RBD IgG antibody half-life nearly 4X as long as in adults.”

Addressing comparable “functional breadth” of both adults as well as young children and infants and their responses to COVID-19, they found a “similar reactivity against a panel of recent and previously circulating viral variants.”

Importantly when conducting an IgG subtype analysis, the study team reports the following observations:

IgG1 more prevalent in both adults and infants and young children response to SARS-CoV-2

IgG3 more frequently prevalent in adults

IgG2 more frequently prevalent in infants/young children

Implications

The study authors point out that these findings “raise important questions regarding differential regulation of humoral immunity in infants/young children and adults,” which could have implications for not only when vaccine boosters are given but also overall booster strategies in the age cohort.

Breakdown

First and foremost, the authors recognize that about 25% of all COVID-19 cases in infants and young children are asymptomatic and that there are few COVID-19-related deaths associated with this vulnerable age group.

But why have national health authorities been keen on vaccination of children as young as six months?

One prominent reason is because severe COVID-19 is more common in young infants as compared to older children. This is possibly because the immune system in children so young is still developing. Frankly, little is known about how the immature immune system of a six-month-old infant reacts to COVID-19, or for that matter, how COVID-19 infection may impact the young child’s immune system.

Also, the durability of the very young person to infant’s immunity is even less understood, writes the Emory University affiliated authors.

Why is it so difficult to understand young children's immune system and, thus, response to COVID-19?

It’s quite difficult to design and execute multi-sample longitudinal studies in this cohort, among other factors. Consequently, the importance of studying not only the initial magnitude but also the long-term durability of infection-induced immune responses in this vulnerable cohort (infant to young children) becomes mission critical.

So, is it possible that in absence of this vitally important data an assumption was made that vaccination for children as young as six is vitally important for protection?
Absolutely. hat assumption is bolstered by data showing (via correlates of protection) that COVID-19 vaccination induced protective antibodies in young children and infants.

But what about for a more optimized, scientifically-driven vaccination scheme in very young children and infants—isn’t more data needed?

Absolutely, and that fact represents a key driver for this study. The authors point out that “a deeper understanding of the breadth of humoral immune responses against continuously emerging viral variants in infants/young children is vital for optimizing the timing of current vaccination strategies in this age group.”

Where did the investigators in the current study obtain the data?

The study team was able to tap into and leverage findings from a prospective, longitudinal birth cohort of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination in early life conducted at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center—known as the IMPRINT study (NCT05436184).

What’s the IMPRINT study?

As reported in the preprint server medRxiv, IMPRINT involved the weekly administration of mid-turbinate nasal swabs offering the ability to identify in real-time the presence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in infants and young children.

The study team at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, led by Principal Investigator Mary Staat, MD, MPH, collected multiple blood samples from a targeted 1,500 infant participants over a period of up to 500 days post the initial positive SARS-CoV-2 swab.

Thereafter, the study team compared and analyzed an adult cohort (involving previously collected blood samples) from patients with PCR-confirmed COVID-19 that were followed up for up to 350 days post-infection.

Why are the findings notable in this study?

The Emory University affiliated authors and colleagues point out that:

“While the initial magnitude of the SARS-CoV-2 specific antibody response in adults and infants/young children was comparable, the titers in our infant cohort were maintained over the study period, while in adults, the titers declined with a half-life of 180 days.”

The authors point to four other studies backing these findings.

What else is noteworthy in the current study?

While the investigators' most recent finding suggests a “major difference in terms of durability of humoral immunity” between adults and children (children’s natural immunity against COVID-19 last longer!), the team reports that “the breadth of these responses was similar in adults and infants/young children.” This means that the immune response was comparable against an array of SARS-CoV-2 variants.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/infantyoung-children-antibody-response-against-sars-cov-2-infection-duration-markedly-superior-to-adults-ba900889

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Challenging Covid’s tyranny came at a heavy personal price

Adam Creighton

Three years ago this month my life was turned upside down when I suggested in this column we might be overreacting to Covid-19.

The column triggered a torrent of hate mail that lasted well over a year, and I began to receive persistent and violent threats. I was forced to change my name on social media accounts and my parents became seriously worried for my safety. Some of the attacks were so awful, I considered taking legal action.

It was less than a month after England’s chief health officer, Chris Whitty, explained at a press conference that Covid-19 was not a particularly lethal virus, many wouldn’t get it, and of those who did the vast bulk wouldn’t know they had it, or suffer only a “mild to moderate” illness at worse.

Those facts never changed, but it was too late. By mid-April, our ostensibly civil and rational society had lost its mind, consumed by an insidious culture of consent.

All that mattered was stopping the virus – which most of us ended up getting at least once – and to hell with the human rights, social and economic costs, or earlier pandemic plans.

“Perhaps a hysteria has gripped the nation … the hankering for total lockdown was being cheered on largely by those who would be relatively unaffected by it … the costs will be profound,” I wrote, in what was the first of many criticisms that followed.

But I couldn’t have imagined back then just how damning the data would become, as a new book by Toby Green and Thomas Fazi, The Covid Consensus, now makes clear.

The benefits of our authoritarian response proved so meagre, the costs so enormous – including the inflation we’re still enduring – the last few years must qualify as the biggest public policy disaster outside of wartime.

Australian governments sprayed the best part of half a trillion dollars of public funds against the wall; not to mention the disruption they caused to ordinary lives in the community.

According to OECD data, we ended up with around the same or even a greater number of excess deaths over the last three years as Sweden, a country that was relentlessly attacked for allowing its people to maintain normal lives, with a similar rate of urbanisation and development to Australia.

“I thought Sweden would have higher excess mortality but less economic and social damage, but it had a lower mortality as well,” noted British science writer Matt Ridley last month, after it became clear no matter how the statistics were cut, Sweden emerged with relatively few excess deaths; indeed fewer, or around the same, as Australia.

“Quite astounding: Sweden took a lot of flak for its Covid-19 policies but actually it has done best in Europe,” added Danish environmental analyst Bjorn Lomborg.

On some measures, Sweden did better than any other developed nation on excess deaths. If there is a greater humiliation of experts in modern history, I’m yet to hear it.

The same was true in some parts of the US, which for political and constitutional reasons, managed to resist the zeitgeist, recording the same, or fewer deaths than other jurisdictions, without the destructive madness.

Historians will not look back at the figures of how many died from or with Covid-19. Instead they will look at excess deaths, the number of deaths compared to what might have been expected.

But the coup de grace must belong to China, whose policies in Wuhan inspired many governments to junk their pandemic plans, which had previously emphasised keeping calm and running societies as normally as possible.

In 2020, China’s response was widely praised, based on the CCP’s own dubious Covid-19 figures. But the country’s lockdowns spectacularly failed to contain the virus, and appeared to make little difference when they were ultimately lifted – to the disappointment of those desperate to keep the flame of authoritarianism alive.

Liberal democracies failed miserably during the pandemic, as our institutions, media, academia and bureaucracies careened into hysteria and authoritarianism, trashing human rights and traditional medical ethics over a virus that our grandparents would’ve barely noticed.

You can only imagine what a slightly more lethal virus would have done. As a society we are far less rational and free than we claim.

The gap between our civilisation and China’s has shrunk markedly, too, as government institutions worked hand-in-hand in the US (of all places) with social media companies to suppress dissent and bolster the “the science”, which turned out to be wrong on almost everything. The pandemic response in Australia and elsewhere was a harbinger of a totalitarian future that surely none of us want to encourage.

In my view, those deserving the greatest contempt are the tenured academics and senior public servants who, unless they were mentally deficient, must have known from a very early stage in the pandemic that “the measures” were failing, but continued to cheer them on anyway.

Only an honest evaluation of the gigantic errors of the past can steel us against a repeat of such extremism.

It is fitting, then, to quote the 17th-century Swedish statesman, Axel Oxenstierna, who once commented: “Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?”

If we didn’t know then, we certainly do now.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/challenging-covids-tyranny-came-at-a-heavy-personal-price/news-story/9e2f82f68da3f552d93ad83cbfb6f295?net_sub_id=%40%40%40%40%40%40%40%40%40&type=curated&position=2&overallPos=6

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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) Also here

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

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

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

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

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

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Bad batches of Pfizer mRNA Vaccines?

A trio of Danish researchers led by high powered physician-investigator Peter Riis Hansen, Department of Cardiology, Copenhagen University Hospital-Herleve and Gentofe recently had a research letter published in peer reviewed journal European Journal of Clinical Investigation. Titled “Batch-dependent safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine,” the investigators found three groupings of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination batches with low, medium and high rates of adverse events. According to TrialSite contributor Dr. David Wiseman, “Is this modRNA degradation or DNA contamination.” The findings may correspond to Sasha Latypova contributions to TrialSite concerning various levels of vaccine safety associated with batches.

Background

By November 2022, 701 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are linked to 971,021 suspected adverse events (SAEs) in the European Union. The authors point out that “vaccine vials with individual doses are supplied in batches with stringent quality control to ensure batch and dose uniformity.” They noted that at the individual vaccine batch level, clinical data was never reported and that a scenario “highly unlikely” would be “batch-dependent variation in clinical efficacy and safety of authorized vaccines.” Yet the prospect of investigation into “batch dependent variation” was worthy of investigation, according to the authors. Hence the study, an investigation into SAEs between the different Pfizer-BioNTech batches administered across Denmark and its 5.8 million people from December 2020, to January 11, 2022. This inquiry was possible because all SAE cases are linked with corresponding vaccine batch labels reported to and classified by the Danish Medical Agency according to seriousness of SAE as well as numbers of Pfizer-BioNTech doses in individual vaccine batches registered by the Danish Serum Institute. This data is publicly available if requested.

The study

By linking individual SAES to the batch label(s) of Pfizer-BioNTech dose(s) administered by subject, the authors could report on SAEs at the batch level in Denmark.

They divided total number of SAEs associated by batch by the number of doses in the batch to obtain the rate of SAEs per 1000 doses. They could not apply conventional regression statistics due to the significant heterogenous aspect to the observed relationship between number of SAEs and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses. Rather, the authors employed use of non-hierarchical cluster analysis and general linear model (GLM) test for differences in SAE rates between batches, with reporting conforming to the EQUATOR guidelines.

So, what did they find?

52 different BNT162b2 batches was associated with 7,835,280 doses administered to 3,748,215 persons (2340-814,320 doses per batch), and 43,496 SAEs were registered in 13,365 persons which came to 3.19 ± 0.03 (mean ± SEM) SAEs per person. “In each person, individual SAEs were associated with vaccine doses from 1.531 ± 0.004 batches resulting in a total of 66,587 SAEs distributed between the 52 batches.”

The authors had to further analyze 61,847 batch-identifiable SAEs because batch labels were not fully registered or even missing for a total of 7.11% of all Danish SAEs. Out of this analysis 14,509 (23.5%0 were classified as severe SAEs with 579 (0.9%) involving SAE-related deaths.

Vaccine-related SAEs per 1000 doses varies between batches which was an unexpected find for the Danish authors. They reported “2.32 (0.09–3.59) (median [interquartile range]) SAEs per 1000 doses, and significant heterogeneity (p < .0001) was observed in the relationship between numbers of SAEs per 1000 doses and numbers of doses in the individual batches.”

As Wiseman recently noted, the authors found three groupings of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination batches with low, medium and high rates of adverse events. The authors noted:

“Compared to the rates of all SAEs, serious SAEs and SAE-related deaths per 1.000 doses were much less frequent and numbers of these SAEs per 1000 doses displayed considerably greater variability between batches, with lesser separation between the three trendlines.”

They further identified:

“The observed variation in SAE rates and seriousness between BTN162b2 vaccine batches in this nationwide study was contrary to the expected homogenous rate and distribution of SAEs between batches.”

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/danish-bombshell-three-levels-of-pfizer-mrna-vax-batches-with-various-association-to-saes-including-deaths-8291d37c

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Big Pharma Is Coming for Your Food: All Eyes Should Be on Missouri

Two years ago, moms led a revolution. Many of us refused to accept an untested gene therapy “vaccine” rushed to market during unnecessary and prolonged Covid lockdowns. The years since have vindicated moms: Our concerns about adverse reactions and potentially life-altering complications are, unfortunately, proving to be true. Courageous patriots fought unethical vaccine mandates and drew attention to the lack of informed consent as pharmaceutical corporations experimented on the population at large.

What you might not have seen coming is that Big Pharma has a back door to mass distributing the vaccine: the food supply. Moms for America learned from industry sources that this month farmers and ranchers will begin using mRNA vaccines on cattle and pigs. From the mainstream media? Crickets.

Not everyone is accepting this unprecedented power grab. Brave legislators in Missouri are facing off against the agricultural lobbyists and big corporations. Missouri House Bill 1169 is a simple measure to require disclosure of gene therapy products in everything from food to cosmetics, including soap. This two-page bill would not ban anything. It simply requires that products we purchase to consume or apply to our bodies are appropriately labeled if they contain materials that can alter our genetic material.

The disclosure bill defines a “gene therapy” as “any product with any capacity to alter, interfere with, or otherwise act in any manner similar or equivalent to genes.” If these substances were not going into our food supply, why are the lobbyists pitching a fit? The level of outrage among agricultural associations and professional lobbyist groups suggests that this is a very big deal.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kimberlyfletcher/2023/04/14/big-pharma-is-coming-for-your-food-all-eyes-should-be-on-missouri-n2621925

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Civil Society Group in Canada Intensifies Its Investigation Into COVID-19: Was Pandemic Convenient Excuse for Government Overreach?

Canada’s Nationwide Citizens Inquiry (NCI) continues a private, civic society investigation into the COVID-19 response organize and led by that country’s national government. Afterall, this is the country that initially had no real strategy for COVID-19 vaccination, depending on a deal with China’s CanSino Biologics, which ultimately failed miserably. Canada, traditionally a solid long-time partner of the United States surprisingly did not participate in Operation Warp Speed initiated by former President Donald Trump.

This week the group will continue to conduct hearings this time in Winnipeg this Thursday, April 13, 2023. A group of prominent expert witnesses will offer their point of view, analysis and testimony. The country’s majority political class used the pandemic has a means to tighten their grip on power.

For example, during the well-publicized trucker protests, persons who contributed financially to those grassroots, political protests in some cases had their bank accounts frozen. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau enacted the Canadian Emergencies Act, arguing it wasn’t overreach given the mounting crisis across the country. On the other hand, an alternative point of view suggests Trudeau’s actions caused a breakdown in government, and Civil Liberties groups have claimed the use of the Emergencies Act was an abuse of government power.

NCI is a Canada-wide citizen-led and citizen-funded initiative to investigate governments’ COVID-19 policies in a fair and impartial manner that is completely independent from government. Through questioning led by lawyers, individual Canadians and experts will present evidence under oath to Independent Commissioners. The first six days of hearings were held in Truro, NS and Toronto, ON.

These expert witnesses include:

Natalie Bjorklund Gordon – Geneticist and Epidemiologist
Stephen Theriault – Medical microbiologist
Jessica Rose – Expert on the VAERS data
Staff Sgt Rick Abott – Edmonton Police Officer
Jay Bhattacharya – Professor of Medicine at Stanford, co-author The Great Barrington Declaration
Jeffrey Tucker – Founder of the Brownstone Institute
Deanne McLeod – Medical Researcher
Charley Hooper – Researcher on Early Covid Treatment

The Winnipeg hearings, from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Central, will be broadcast live on the NCI website and on the NCI Rumble Channel. Follow the NCI on social media:
https://twitter.com/Inquiry_Canada and https://www.facebook.com/NationalCitizensInquiry

The Winnipeg venue is Holiday Inn Winnipeg – Airport West, 2520 Portage Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3J 3T6 Ph. (204) 885-4478

The conference organizations report that due to limited space in the room, the public is asked to arrange for access through Eventbrite.

Members of the media are asked to provide identification to NCI volunteers on site to obtain access. Prior notification of attendance to press@nationalcitizensinquiry.ca will assist in assuring seating.

NCI spokesperson, Michelle Leduc Catlin, will be at the hearings and is a contact for assistance.

Other hearings are planned in other locations across this vast country to the north of the U.S.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/civil-society-group-in-canada-intensifies-its-investigation-into-covid-19-was-pandemic-convenient-excuse-for-government-overreach-382f58ba

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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) Also here

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

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

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

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

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

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The corrupted science behind Biden’s COVID vax mandates

President Joe Biden decreed on Sept. 9, 2021, that more than 100 million Americans must get COVID-vaccine injections.

But newly disclosed emails show that the Food and Drug Administration finding behind that order, official certification of the jabs as “safe and effective,” was the result of a bureaucratic bait-and-switch.

The FDA had approved COVID vaccines on an emergency-use basis in December 2020, before Biden even took office.

The White House assumed that was the silver bullet to enable Biden to save Americans from COVID.

But it soon became clear that many Americans were hesitating to get jabbed, in part because the FDA approval was solely for emergency use.

Many Americans have long been wary of vaccines, including health-care workers who avoid flu shots.

The president championed vaccines with evangelical fervor.

“You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations,” he insisted in a July 21, 2021, CNN town hall.

Biden’s claim was false, spurred by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decision to ignore any “breakthrough” COVID infections that did not result in death or hospitalization.

As for the emergency-only approval, Biden assured the audience that “the group of scientists we put together” will “get a final approval” very soon.

In fact, when Pfizer applied for full approval in May 2021, the FDA said it aimed to announce a decision in January 2022.

But that wasn’t fast enough for the Biden White House.

Newly released emails reveal that Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock was concerned because “states cannot require mandatory vaccination” without FDA final approval, according to the chief of FDA’s vaccine-review office, Marion Gruber.

Gruber warned that a thorough evaluation was needed due to “increasing evidence of association of this vaccine and development of myocarditis (especially in young males).”

After Gruber balked, Woodcock placed a loyal subordinate in charge of the process, and the vaccine got full approval Aug. 23.

Biden boasted that day of achieving a COVID “key milestone” and labeled FDA approval the “gold standard,” proving vaccines were safe and effective.

The White House arm-twisting spurred a “mutiny” at the FDA, as Politico put it: Gruber and her top deputy resigned in protest.

When Biden gave his vaccine-mandate speech Sept. 9, he promised to “finish the job [on COVID] with truth, with science.”

But the White House had already buried the truth and effectively exiled dissenting scientists.

Indeed, another key Biden claim had already fallen apart: that vaccines stop transmission.

Late July 2021 brought news that almost 500 vaccinated people contracted COVID on holiday visits to Provincetown, Mass.

On July 30, The Washington Post and New York Times published leaked Centers for Disease Control and Prevention documents warning that vaccines were utterly failing to stop transmission.

The Times tweeted, “The Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox and may be spread by vaccinated people as easily as the unvaccinated.”

Biden White House COVID spokesman Ben Wakana hysterically denounced The WaPo as “completely irresponsible” and flogged the Times with an all-caps outburst: “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.”

But on Aug. 5, CDC chief Rochelle Walensky admitted that vaccines failed to “prevent transmission” of COVID.

The following week, a Mayo Clinic study indicated that the Pfizer vaccine had become only 42% effective — below the standard the FDA normally required for vaccine approval.

None of that mattered to an administration that had decided vaccines were everything: Biden announced his private-employee mandate Sept. 9.

And the FDA final approval prompted many schools, colleges and other organizations to impose their own mandates. (This, when it was already clear that young people faced minimal risk from COVID.)

Yet the vaccines were already proving less effective against the new COVID variants that experts had long predicted would occur.

By January 2022, the nation was seeing a million new COVID cases a day, and still-frightening numbers of deaths among both the vaccinated and unvaccinated — while the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s vaccine mandate for 84 million private employees on the 13th.

The COVID vaccine’s rushed approval was the pharmaceutical version of a riverboat gamble.

Yet the administration is still pushing new jabs, including boosters — ignoring risks such as the threat of myocarditis among vaccinated younger males (a four- to 28-fold elevated risk).

The CDC is investigating a possible link between Pfizer vaccines and strokes in the elderly.

COVID vaccines can still provide protection for the elderly and people with severe health problems. But since early 2022, most COVID fatalities have occurred among the fully vaccinated.

More medical research is necessary to reveal the benefits and risks of the vaccines.

Meanwhile, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is demanding a bevy of documents from the FDA on its rushed vaccine approval, while Biden policymakers continue to treat transparency as a plague to avoid at all costs.

If and when federal files are finally opened, how many other COVID policy scandals will be revealed?

https://nypost.com/2023/04/14/the-corrupted-science-behind-bidens-covid-vax-mandates/

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Another Doctor in Canada Investigated for Prescribing Ivermectin for COVID-19

Canadian physicians continue to get harassed and even formally disciplined for using repurposed medications to treat COVID-19, yet ones not accepted by national regulators for that particular indication. Most recently, Dr. Tshipita Kabongo at the Integrated Wellness and Health Balance Centre, part of the Saskatchewan Health Authority in Regina, Canada, found out about the professional perils of prescribing ivermectin. Because the doctor allegedly was prescribing ivermectin between April 2020 and March 2022, to prevent and or treat COVID-19, the physician faces allegations of professional misconduct.

Thus far, the allegations haven’t been admitted but now are under review by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan (the College) discipline committee. This isn’t these physicians first run in with “the College”: in 2016 he was sanctioned

The recent allegations

“(Kabongo) failed to know and/or adhere to the College Policy on Complementary and Alternative Therapies.” Further, the allegations continue that the physician wrote one or more ivermectin prescriptions not “medically indicated” while precluding other “evidence-informed” regimens. Finally, medical records were not adequately documented.

While it’s acknowledged and understood by “the College” that patients maintain a right to make decisions about their own healthcare, they also inform about the doctor’s responsibilities in such scenarios, particularly during the pandemic.

Recently, the College pointed to their policies in association with the charges against the ivermectin prescriber: “It is unethical to engage in or to aid and abet in treatment which has no acceptable scientific basis, may be dangerous, may deceive the patient by giving false hope, or which may cause the patient to delay in seeking conventional care until his or her condition becomes irreversible.”

“No scientific basis”

Government and corporate health systems combined with academic medical centers uniformly take the stance that while lab studies showed the ability of ivermectin to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 entry into the body, Canadian media actually lies, declaring, “No clinical trials have reported benefits with ivermectin for COVID patients.”

While it’s true that a handful of major studies haven’t turned up conclusive evidence in the drug’s favor, some of these study designs have been challenged in that the doses were too low, the regimen was administered to late in the infection life cycle and other factors such as weight were not methodically dealt with.

But what they don’t mention is the 95 studies involving ivermectin and COVID-19 involving 1,023 scientists around the world and 134,554 patients across 27 countries. Significant data from some of these studies reveals real promise, but they are completely discounted by aforementioned entities that essentially serve as gatekeepers for medicine.

Several countries temporarily authorized the use of ivermectin on an emergency basis during the height of the pandemic, from India and Peru to Slovakia and even municipalities in southern Brazil. The Mexico City health agency conducted a large public health real time ivermectin study showing good results. Uttar Pradesh’s massive public health initiative using a combination of ivermectin and doxycycline, wildly successful, was blacked out by the press.

Although the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a press release touting that Indian state’s health agency’s success with the COVID-19 response, they omitted the components of the home medicine kit, which again included ivermectin and doxycycline. Western media has outright lied about this piece of history, calling it misinformation. The entire chapter of history during the pandemic involving ivermectin’s use in mostly low-and middle-income countries is avoided by mainstream medicine altogether.

Importantly, representatives from three separate nations were in touch with TrialSite at various stages of the pandemic asking this media to take down articles highlighting the particular nation’s authorization of ivermectin for emergency use. Why? We learned that they were afraid of WHO reprisal.

A website tracks all ivermectin studies but unfortunately, the purveyors of the study tracker choose to remain anonymous which doesn’t really contribute to credibility. Undoubtedly, fear of reprisal and loss of academic or industry jobs is likely the reason. But on the other hand, TrialSite has taken on industry or academia, when necessary, when pursuing the truth in biomedical research—and has paid the price with censorship on YouTube and social media, but during these times, has taken a stand on matters.

TrialSite also has found that as COVID-19 mutates and as new crises emerge such as long COVID and post-COVID-19 vaccine injuries, some prominent doctors that at one point or another during the pandemic prescribed ivermectin now argue that the drug provides minimal to even no value for treating conditions such as long COVID, vaccine injuries and the like.

As it continues to be a controversial topic, some doctors and supporters have embraced the drug with religious fervor with the medical establishment doing all it could to ignore or avoid any positive signals. Frankly, this is not a scientific based approach from either side.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/another-doctor-in-canada-investigated-for-prescribing-ivermectin-for-covid-19-d1fd7d1b

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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) Also here

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

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

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

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

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

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Lies, damn lies and statistcs

After the release of his emails under Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, Dr Anthony Fauci and his friends must vie for first place as the greatest conspirators of the Covid era. He is equally in the running to be the greatest source of disinformation on just about every aspect of the pandemic, ably assisted by ‘experts’ and public health authorities around the world.

Fauci could be relied on to misinform on any topic from the origin of the virus and the necessity of lockdowns to the demonisation of the unvaccinated and the safety and efficacy of the novel genetically-induced vaccines.

Fauci’s performance was a tour de force that involved overturning decades, even millennia of knowledge about infection. . It required the wholesale abandonment of the scientific method as the empirical means of acquiring knowledge because it relies on careful observation, truthful interpretation, rigorous skepticism and robust debate. It is not possible to engage in science without freedom of thought and speech but free speech was deemed so dangerous that doctors, scientists, academics and anyone who questioned the world according to Fauci was cancelled.

Why didn’t the mainstream media question any of this? Why, as Adam Creighton asks in an excellent article in the Australian this week, was the media so credulous and incurious, so ‘naive to the financial and political forces that pushed governments to eschew the more sensible path of voluntary Covid-19 vaccination’?

It is not necessary to speculate to answer that question. When Elon Musk bought Twitter in October last year he opened up the company’s internal communications to journalists including Bari Weiss, the former opinion editor for the New York Times who resigned after being bullied by woke colleague; Matt Taibbi, a former contributing editor to Rolling Stone and staunch critic of mainstream media; and Dr Michael Shellenberger, a former Democratic candidate for governor of California, environmental activist and strong supporter of nuclear energy. All three would have been seen as sympathetic to the Left at some point but each has been cancelled for their commitment to truth-telling. They are now up to their 19th Twitter file exposé.

Shellenberger explains in an interview with Joe Rogan this week that what they expected to find inside Twitter were ultra-progressive leftists who were biased in their content moderation. What they uncovered were documents and communications exposing a ‘censorship-industrial complex’, a huge operation run by current and former US government officials and contractors from a host of agencies including the FBI, the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. This complex worked with a network of university think tanks and NGOs called the ‘Election Integrity Partnership’ to outsource the censorship of Americans in the lead up to the 2020 election. They did this to avoid violating the First Amendment which protects freedom of speech from government censorship.

None of this is surprising except the audacity of the whole endeavour. It was clear after the British people voted for Brexit and Americans elected Trump that the Democrats were going to do everything in their power to prevent his re-election. They blamed the Big Tech titans for his election to pressure them in to cooperating. They used ‘the complex’ to cook up the Steele dossier which they fed to mainstream media to propagate the Trump-Russia collusion fabrication. The security agencies framed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation so that social media would censor it in the lead-up to the 2020 election. From that point there was no great leap to branding the Covid lab leak as a conspiracy theory. They censored anyone who contradicted the official narrative.

Even parents grieving the death of their children killed by the vaccine.

In Australia, the Bureau of Statistics has revealed the death toll for 2022. An extra 25,235 Australians died unexpectedly – 10,000 from Covid and 15,000 from what? It was the biggest increase in mortality numerically since the Spanish flu of 1919 but more than half of the deaths weren’t caused by the pandemic virus. Did the vaccine play a role? The media didn’t ask. As Stalin would have said, it’s just a statistic.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/04/damn-statistics/ ?

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Inflation dips to 5 percent as demand begins collapsing, Fed set to keep increasing

By Robert Romano

The consumer price index has continued to descend from its June 2022 peak of 9.1 percent down to a still elevated 5 percent in March 2023, according to the latest reading from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The decrease was almost exclusively due energy prices continuing to stabilize, with oil prices being down in March, with gasoline down 4.6 percent and fuel oil down 4 percent in just a month.

Electricity was down 0.7 percent and piped gas service was down another 7.1 percent in March, following an 8 percent drop in February.

But that was before OPEC+ slashed production in early April, which has seen light sweet crude oil rise from about $67 a barrel in late March to now about $83 a barrel in April, a 24 percent increase that will surely find its way to gas prices over the next several weeks.

The production cut was predicated on anticipated weaker demand, and so over the longer term prices could wind up dropping anyway.

However, the sudden rise in oil prices could serve notice on the Federal Reserve that inflation pressures due to supply issues are still very much an issue, as much as the $6 trillion that was printed, borrowed and spent for Covid is, which came at a time of production halts, economic lockdowns and paying people to stay home.

The M2 money supply increased dramatically from $15.3 trillion in Feb. 2020 to a peak of $22 trillion by April 2022, a massive 43.7 percent, leading to the inflation spike, where consumer inflation reached 9.1 percent in June 2022. By the time Russia invaded Ukraine in Feb. 2022—further worsening global supply issues—consumer inflation was already north of 7.5 percent. The M2 money supply has now decreased a bit to $21.1 trillion.

On March 22, the Federal Reserve noted that continued increases of the Federal Funds Rate, or “additional policy firming,” could be on the horizon, stating, “the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 4-3/4 to 5 percent. The Committee will closely monitor incoming information and assess the implications for monetary policy. The Committee anticipates that some additional policy firming may be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2 percent over time.”

The central bank added, “In determining the extent of future increases in the target range, the Committee will take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the lags with which monetary policy affects economic activity and inflation, and economic and financial developments.”

In just a year, the Fed has gone from 0.08 percent in Feb. 2022 on the effective Federal Funds Rate — at which point inflation was already 7.5 percent — to now 4.65 percent in March, leading to much hand-wringing on Wall Street about interest rates rising faster than ever.

To be certain, it is one of the quicker paces of increases of the Federal Funds Rate in recent memory, looking a bit further back in history, it looks a lot like the rate increases that combated the inflation of the 1970s and 1980s.

For example, in 1981, when the effective Federal Funds Rate rose from 14.7 percent in March 1981 to 19.1 percent in June 1981, a 4.4 percent increase.

That was dwarfed by 1980, when rose from about 9 percent in July 1980 to 19.1 percent in Jan. 1981, a 10.1 percent increase.

Or in 1979, when it rose from about 10.1 percent in April 1979 to about 17.6 percent in April 1980, a 7.5 percent increase.

Or 1973, hen it rose from Sept. 1972 to Sept. 1973, from about 4.9 percent to 10.8 percent, a 5.9 percent increase.

Those were rocky times, too, but what the Fed is doing is by no means unprecedented. What was unprecedented was printing $6 trillion and simultaneously shutting the economy down and reducing production—too much money chasing too few goods.

The Fed’s rate hikes come as 10-year treasuries remain at about 3.37 percent of this writing, and 30-year mortgage interest rates are at about 6.3 percent as existing home sales remain down about 22.6 percent from their 2022 highs a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors.

The news comes as the annual growth of consumer credit appears to have peaked at 8.1 percent in Oct. 2022, flattening slightly to 7.8 percent annualized by Dec. 2022 and then ticked up to 7.9 percent Jan. 2023 and now is down to 7.6 percent in Feb. 2023, which could be a sign of weakening demand. Usually, it peaks just before or at the beginning recessions, and then will slow down significantly once unemployment begins rising.

Either way, a slowdown in the growth of consumer credit could indicate American households are maxing out on their credit cards, which will have a dampening effect on demand going forward.

And yet, unemployment remains at historic lows of 3.5 percent, and with the Fed projecting a 4.6 percent unemployment rate in 2024, as many as 2 million job losses still appear to remain on the horizon, meaning there’s still room for the Fed move rates higher. To be certain at 5 percent inflation, it would only take another quarter point hike or so to get the Fed’s interest rate above that of the consumer inflation rate. Stay tuned.

https://dailytorch.com/2023/04/inflation-dips-to-5-percent-as-demand-begins-collapsing-fed-set-to-keep-increasing/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=625c775a-3216-4b7f-9e77-e5da812a7e40

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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) Also here

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

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

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

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

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

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You Can't Say That!

John Stossel

Over the past three years, we reporters learned there were certain things that we weren't allowed to say. Not long ago, in fact, my new video may have been censored.

One dangerous idea, we were told, was that COVID might have been created in a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That seems very possible, since the institute studied coronaviruses in bats, and America's National Institutes of Health gave the lab money to perform "gain-of-function" research, experiments where scientists try to make a virus more virulent or transmissible.

A Washington Post writer worried the lab leak theory "could increase racist attacks against Chinese people and further fuel anti-Asian hate."

The establishment media fell in line, insisting that COVID most likely came from a local market that sold animals.

Left-wing TV mocked the lab theory as a "fringe idea" that came from "a certain corner of the right."

"This coronavirus was not manmade," said MSNBC's Chris Hayes, confidently, "That is not a possibility."

Not even a possibility?

Debate about it, we were told, posed a new threat: misinformation.

Facebook banned the lab leak theory, calling it a "false claim."

But now the U.S. Department of Energy says the pandemic most likely came from a lab leak. FBI director Christopher Wray now says the origin of the pandemic is "most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan."

For two years, the most likely explanation was censored.

Do the media gatekeepers apologize for their censorship? No.

The closest to an admission of guilt I found was from Chris Hayes, who eventually said, "There's a kernel of truth to the idea that some folks were too quick to shut down the lab leak theory."

There was more than "a kernel of truth." Again and again, politically correct media silenced people who spoke the truth.

Facebook throttled the reach of science journalist John Tierney's articles simply because he reported, accurately, that requiring masks can hurt kids.

YouTube suspended Sen. Rand Paul for saying, "Most of the masks you get over the counter don't work."

But what they said is true. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance to say cloth masks are not very effective. And now a big study failed to find evidence that wearing even good masks stops the spread of viruses.

Probably the most blatant censorship was Twitter's shutting down the New York Post's reporting about Hunter Biden's laptop.

Twitter wouldn't let users decide for themselves. The company just called the Post's report "potentially harmful" and blocked users from sharing it.

Facebook, as usual, was sneakier, suppressing the story instead of banning it outright. That's what they do to my climate change reporting.

Today, the media admit the Post story is true. But they don't admit they were wrong. Now they just say things like, "Nobody cares about Hunter Biden's laptop."

Bad as the media are, what's worse is that government wanted to censor.

Sen. Mark Warner complained, "We've done nothing in terms of content regulation!"

Fortunately, his colleagues were not as irresponsible as he; no censorship legislation passed. But government did apply lots of pressure.

The White House asked Facebook to kill what they called "disinformation," even urging them to censor private WhatsApp messages.

Now that Elon Musk owns Twitter and opened up the company's internal files, we know that censorhip requests came from "every corner" of government, as journalist Matt Taibbi put it.

Even individual politicians tried to censor.

Maine Sen. Angus King's staff complained about Twitter accounts that they considered "anti-King." Rep. Adam Schiff's office asked Twitter to suppress search results.

Fortunately, Twitter refused.

But the sad truth is that lots of government agencies and media tyrants want to limit what you read and hear.

At least now, we can speak the truth:

COVID probably was created in a Chinese lab.

Masks are unlikely to provide much protection and requiring them can harm kids. Hunter Biden did lots of sleazy things.

Self-appointed censors tried to shut us up, but eventually, the truth almost always comes out.

https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2023/04/12/you-cant-say-that-n2621830

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Intriguing results of new national poll about COVID and vaccine deaths

This is an opinion survey so is no way equivalent to autopsies etc but it is surely of some weight

Looks like there been massive under-counting of COVID and vaccine deaths.

A new poll by Rasmussen has some data that validates what many of us already believe, namely that the vaccines are dangerous, unsafe and need to be pulled from the market immediately.

The survey of 1,078 American adults was conducted on March 27-29, 2023 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

A big finding is that nearly as many Americans believe someone close to them died from side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine as died from the disease/infection itself.

This latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 11% of American adults say a member of their household died from COVID-19, while 86% answer no. That percentage equates to roughly 25 million adults. Both the 11% and 25 million figures are incredibly high. They also equate to a very high number of households, many millions. Are all these figures consistent with what CDC says is the total number of COVID deaths of just over 1 million? NO! The survey result indicates a massive under-counting of COVID deaths by the government. And that many more millions of Americans died from COVID! How can this be explained? One possible answer is that many deaths occurred at homes rather than hospitals. Another is that ordinary people viewed some deaths in their household were incorrectly attributed to various ordinary health problems (such as cardiac deaths) were actually caused by COVID infection.

Ten percent (10%) say a member of their household has died whose death they think may have been caused by side effects of COVID-19 vaccines, while 85% say there were no such deaths in their household. This figure is shockingly inconsistent with the approved narrative, actually propaganda, of “safe and effective” which has been so actively spread by corporate (“main stream”) media and the US Government and the entire public health and health care establishments. Here too this survey result indicates a massive under-counting of vaccine deaths if some 25 million Americans have this view. Various studies indicate a total of some 500,000 vaccine deaths.

These findings come at a time when overall concern about COVID-19 is clearly on the decline. Forty-eight percent (48)% of Americans are less concerned about COVID-19 than they were a year ago, compared to 20% who say they’re more concerned. Thirty-one percent (31%) say their concern about COVID-19 has not changed much in the past year.

More Democrats (16%) than Republicans (12%) or those not affiliated with either major party (6%) say a member of their household died from COVID-19. More Republicans (15%) than Democrats (13%) or the unaffiliated (5%) say a member of their household has died whose death they think may have been caused by side effects of COVID-19 vaccines.

The section above is key, because the difference between Democrats and Republicans is almost the same concerning either deaths from COVID or COVID vaccines. If there had been statistical significance between these two groups, Rasmussen would have indicated that.

Please keep in mind that it is now widely accepted by those who follow the data that the COVID vaccines available in the United States do not prevent infection, replication, or spread of SARS-CoV-2, and do not prevent either hospitalized disease or death from COVID-19 disease. Given these facts, references to these biologic medical products as “vaccines” is merely propaganda. They clearly do not “vaccinate” in the classic sense. But they make billions of dollars for vaccine makers.

Other details about the poll:

Fifty-five percent (55%) of Republicans, 43% of Democrats and 45% of the unaffiliated are less concerned about COVID-19 than they were a year ago. Thirty-one percent (31%) of Democrats, 17% of Republicans and 13% of the unaffiliated are more concerned about COVID-19 than they were a year ago.

The only significant male-female divide on these questions is that more men (24%) than women (17%) say they’re more concerned about COVID-19 than they were a year ago. This is particularly true for men under 40.

Adults under 40 are significantly more likely than their elders to say they’re more concerned about COVID-19 than they were a year ago. A solid majority of Americans over 40 have become less concerned about COVID-19 in the past year, but just 35% of those under 40 feel the same. Women under 40 are most likely to answer yes when asked whether a household member has died either due to COVID-19 or to side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Fifty percent (50%) of whites, 39% of blacks and 46% of other minorities are less concerned about COVID-19 than they were a year ago. Nineteen percent (19%) of whites, 24% of blacks and 22% of other minorities are more concerned about COVID-19 than they were a year ago. Whites and blacks are less likely than other minorities to say a household member has died either due to COVID-19 or to side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Married adults and those with children at home are more likely than their single or childless peers to say a household member has died either due to COVID-19 or to side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Americans with annual incomes over $100,000 are more likely to say they’re more concerned about COVID-19 than they were a year ago, compared to those with lower incomes. Higher income Americans are also more likely to say a member of their household died from COVID-19.

Remarkably, among those who say a member of their household died from COVID-19, 54% also say a member of their household has died whose death they think may have been caused by side effects of COVID-19 vaccines.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/intriguing-results-of-new-national-poll-about-covid-and-vaccine-deaths-eae926c4

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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) Also here

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

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

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

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

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

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Coal generation rising despite global net-zero ambition

Australia generated a quarter of its electricity from solar and wind in 2022, more than double the global average, a think tank says.

Wind and solar are also accelerating worldwide, research released on Wednesday shows, with last year’s global rise in solar generation enough to have met the annual electricity demand of Australia.

The report by independent energy think tank Ember found last year may have been the peak of electricity emissions and the final year of fossil power growth, with clean power forecast to meet all demand growth this year.

But the report also found global coal-fired generation was still rising (up 1.1 per cent) even as wind and solar surged (19 per cent).

The electricity sector, in Australia and worldwide, is the biggest greenhouse gas emitter and must decarbonise if international net zero goals are to be met.

A cleaner power supply is also expected to trigger the electrification of big polluters in heavy industry and transport.

“Tracking progress on how our electricity is generated is critical, as it is not only a huge source of greenhouse gases, it is also needed as an enabler of a cleaner and more efficient energy system overall,” Ember’s chair Baroness Bryony Worthington said.

While 2022 may be seen as the turning point, fossil fuels are still providing the backbone of the electricity system in many large economies including Australia, according to the Global Electricity Review 2023.

However, the carbon intensity fell to a record low in 2022 on record growth in wind and solar, which counted for 12 per cent of the global electricity mix – up from 10 per cent in 2021.

Solar generation rose by almost a quarter (24 per cent), making it the fastest-growing electricity source for 18 years in a row, while wind generation grew by 17 per cent.

Gas power generation eased 0.2 per cent in 2022, falling for the second time in three years as high gas prices continue.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made many governments rethink their plans amid spiking fossil fuel prices and security concerns about relying on fossil fuel imports, but it also accelerated electrification with rising consumer demand for electric cars and heat pumps.

Gas-to-coal switching was limited in 2022 because gas was already mostly more expensive, with only 31 gigawatts of new gas power plants built in 2022, which was the lowest in 18 years.

A gas power phase-down is now within reach for the first time, the report said.

But last year also saw the lowest number of coal plant closures in seven years as countries relied on the fossil fuel to maintain back-up capacity.

Coal power remained the single largest source of electricity, producing more than a third (36 per cent) of global electricity in 2022.

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8155621/coal-generation-rising-despite-global-net-zero-ambition/

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NOAA Proposes to Ignore Whales Killed by Offshore Wind

The death of numerous whales off New Jersey, mostly humpbacks, deserves a lot of attention. The federal NOAA Fisheries agency is responsible for whales. An outrageous statement by their spokesperson got me to do some research on humpback whale deaths. The evidence appears to suggest that offshore wind development is killing whales by the hundreds.

“NOAA said it has been studying what it calls 'unusual mortality events' involving 174 humpback whales along the East Coast since January 2016," reports The Morning Call. "Agency spokesperson Lauren Gaches said that period pre-dates offshore wind preparation activities in the region."

The humpback death rate roughly tripled starting in 2016. But the claim that this huge jump in mortality predates offshore wind preparation activities is wildly false. In fact, it coincides with the large scale onset of these activities.

To begin with, offshore lease sales really geared up 2015-16, with nine sales off New Jersey, New York, Delaware and Massachusetts. These sales generated a lot of activity, including damaging sonar. In fact, 2016 saw the beginning of what are called site characterization surveys. These surveys are licensed by NOAA Fisheries under "Incidental Harassment Authorizations" or IHAs.

There is misleading jargon here. These IHAs are "incidental" to offshore wind development. They are not incidental to the whales. The term “harassment” includes injuring the whales. That is called level A harassment, while level B harassment just causes behavior changes or temporary deafness, which can also be deadly.

NOAA has issued 46 one-year IHAs for offshore wind sites, each authorizing the harassment of numerous whales. Site characterization typically includes use of what I call “machine gun sonar.” This device emits an incredibly loud noise every few seconds, often for hours or days at a time, as it maps the sea floor.

There are lots of ways this sonar blasting can cause whales to die. Simply fleeing the noise could cause ship strikes or fish gear entanglements, the two leading causes of whale deaths. Or the whales could be deafened, to be struck later. Note that defenders of offshore wind often point to ship strikes as somehow showing that sonar is not the culprit. In fact, it is evidence sonar is guilty.

The point is that the huge 2016 jump in annual humpback mortality coincides with the jump in NOAA IHAs. Nor is this just about humpbacks. There are the severely endangered North Atlantic Right Whales, on the verge of extinction. Their precipitous decline also began in 2016.

Clearly we need a moratorium on new IHAs until the safety of the whales can be assured. But "Damn the whales, full speed ahead" is the policy of Biden's NOAA. They now propose to approve yet another New Jersey site survey, just 10 miles off Atlantic City.

The survey area is an incredible 2,300 square miles. Ironically, the project is called Atlantic Shores, which is where all the dead whales are washing up. In fact, this is a renewal of a prior permit. NOAA acts as though nothing has changed, ignoring the horrible New Jersey whale deaths.

NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is taking public comments on this preposterous proposal (details below).

NMFS predicts that a great many marine mammals will be subjected to unsafe levels of survey noise. Here are the staggering numbers by category:

42 Whales

2,534 Dolphins

142 Porpoises

1,472 Seals

"....[O]nly Level B harassment is proposed for authorization, which NMFS expects would be of a lower severity, predominately in the form of avoidance of the sound sources that may cause a temporary abandonment of the location during active source use that may result in a temporary interruption of foraging activities for some species," NOAA's bureaucratic argument reads. "NMFS does not expect that the proposed activity will have long-term or permanent impacts as the acoustic source would be mobile and would leave the area within a specific amount of time for which the animals could return to the area."

In short, these thousands of critters will get the hell out of the way and come home when the survey is over, in a year or so. Apparently NMFS thinks this massive forced relocation is harmless. Here are two harmful possibilities, among many.

First, the site is deliberately in a relatively low ship traffic area, surrounded by high traffic zones. This is one of the busiest ship traffic areas in the world. Being forced to relocate into higher traffic areas is virtually certain to increase the incidence of fatal ship strikes.

Second, moving this many animals into territory already occupied by similar animals should greatly increase the population densities for each species. But the food supply remains the same, which could lead to food scarcity.

The treatment of the severely endangered North Atlantic Right Whale is especially egregious. NOAA says this: "...the size of the survey area (5,868 km2) in comparison with the entire migratory habitat for the North Atlantic right whale (269,448 km2) is small, representing 2.11 percent of the entire migratory corridor."

Right Whales migrate through the area twice a year, going between offshore Georgia and New England so the "corridor" is indeed large, but this is irrelevant. What is crucial is that the survey area is about 35 miles wide east to west and the migrating whales presently pass through it. Thus the survey has the effect of blocking the migration, or seriously disrupting it.

NOAA maintains this proposed harassment is exempt from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). They claim there is "no anticipated serious injury or mortality." They should anticipate a little harder. NEPA requires assessment if injury is reasonably likely. Injury and death certainly are reasonably likely here, to thousands of supposedly protected marine mammals, including the severely endangered Right Whales. More deeply, the Atlantic Shores Wind Project has yet to be approved and may never be. Site surveys should not be authorized until the Project is approved.

Comments should be addressed to Jolie Harrison, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service. Written comments should be submitted via email to ITP.Potlock@noaa.gov. In the offshore wind stampede Biden's National Marine Fisheries Service has lost sight of its mission to protect marine mammals. Just say no to NOAA.

https://townhall.com/columnists/davidwojick/2023/04/12/noaa-proposes-to-ignore-whales-killed-by-offshore-wind-n2621801

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Science betrayal

Peter Ridd

There is no surer proof that people are losing faith in the scientific establishment than the recent Rasmussen poll of Americans which found 60 per cent of respondents agreeing that, ‘Climate change has become a religion that “actually has nothing to do with the climate” and is really about power and control”.’ Even 45 per cent of Democrats agreed.

This is a staggering result considering the relentless barrage from almost every major science organisation on earth asserting that climate change is ‘real’ and dangerous. Despite all the indoctrination at universities, all the stories in the media by climate ‘experts’, a solid majority thinks they are being conned.

Why have so many people reached this conclusion?

It is not because the general population has been reading up on the history of climate science. I doubt those 60 per cent of Americans know that the climate was hotter when the Egyptians were building pyramids, that American wildfires burnt a far greater area in the 1930s than in recent decades, or that the Great Barrier Reef has never had more coral.

But they can smell a rat, and they can recognise a high-pressure salesman. The alarmist side has cried ‘Wolf!’ hundreds of times too many, and its treatment of those who dare to dissent only makes the rat smell worse.

The public everywhere realises how strange it is that all the effects of climate change are supposedly terrible – that there is nothing good. Consider somebody gazing out of their window in Montana, onto mounting snow drifts in minus 20°C temperatures – they might think it odd that a couple of degrees warmer could be such a universally bad thing.

But the scientific establishment argues that it will not just get hotter, it will also get colder. Do the institutions honestly expect us not to question the peculiar nature of this argument – however much we would like to believe them because we know we should believe ‘The Science’?

And one does not have to delve too deeply into the institutions’ evidence to see that a lot does not make sense. For example, last month’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report again argued that the world’s coral reefs will lose 90 per cent of their coral with a trivial 1.5°C temperature increase – of which, it claims, we have already experienced more than one degree. But data from the Australian Institute of Marine Science shows that corals at the colder southern end of the Great Barrier Reef will grow at least 30 per cent faster in the event of such a temperature rise. Corals like it hot. Maybe corals living in the planet’s hottest water extremes are in trouble, but surely then, some of the corals in the cooler parts of the world must benefit from a little extra warmth? Not according to the IPCC.

And let us not forget science’s dirty open secret. Detailed checks show that roughly 50 per cent of the recent scientific reports, which have been peer-reviewed, are wrong. It is called the ‘replication crisis’. All the big science institutions have known about it for a decade, but they do not like to talk about it. It is too embarrassing. Perhaps the Australian Academy of Science could write an article to The Spectator Australia explaining the problem and how it proposes to solve it.

What other profession gets it wrong so often? Thank goodness scientists are not airline pilots.

The general distrust of scientists revealed by the Rasmussen poll was most probably turbocharged by the Covid scare, and especially by the manner with which dissenters were treated. For example, those who argued that it was possible the virus originated in the Wuhan virology lab, rather than the city’s wet market, were simply labelled racist. But, of all the huge cities and all the wet markets in all of China, what is the chance that Covid popped up, entirely naturally, exactly where virologists were experimenting with Corona viruses? The answer is very roughly just 10 per cent – at most. There are ten cities in China as big or bigger than Wuhan. It was always a valid question to ask about a lab-leak. Even the CIA has stated that the lab-leak theory is plausible.

But people want to trust science institutions. People want to believe that the Great Barrier Reef is almost doomed, despite the wonderful news about record coral cover. This is because if the reef is not doomed, they must face the possibility of something worse – that they have been deceived by institutions they have always trusted implicitly. Organisations such as the ABC and CSIRO, which we have traditionally put on a pedestal. People cannot handle that thought – not immediately at least – but they come around eventually. The Rasmussen Poll, and those 60 per cent of Americans who see climate change is a religion, proves that.

We must make it possible for people to trust ‘science’ again. But that means it must become trustworthy. So far, the science institutions are still in denial.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/04/science-betrayal/

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Australia: State of the Climate 2022

Warming has stopped. For how long? The warmest year so far was 2019. Note that they record temperatures in decades. Differences between individual years are so slight. And note the paucity of figures. That is because the differences are in tenths of one degree, sometimes only hundredths. And the total difference between now and 1910 is tiny

Australia has warmed, on average, by 1.47 ± 0.24 °C since national records began in 1910, with most warming occurring since 1950. Every decade since 1950 has been warmer than preceding decades. The warming in Australia is consistent with global trends, with the degree of warming similar to the overall average across the world’s land areas.

Australia’s warmest year on record was 2019. The eight years from 2013–20 all rank among the 10 warmest years on record. The long-term warming trend means that most years are now warmer than almost any observed during the 20th century.

Warming is observed across Australia in all months with both day and night-time temperatures increasing. This shift is accompanied by an increased number of extreme nationally averaged daily heat events across all months, including a greater frequency of very hot days in summer. For example, 2019 experienced 41 extremely warm days, about triple the highest number in any year prior to 2000. Also in 2019, there were 33 days when national daily average maximum temperatures exceeded 39 °C, a larger number than seen in the 59 years from 1960–2018 combined. Increasing trends in extreme heat are observed at locations across all of Australia. Extreme heat has caused more deaths in Australia than any other natural hazard and has major impacts on ecosystems and infrastructure.

There has also been an increase in the frequency of months that are much warmer than usual. Very high monthly maximum temperatures that occurred nearly 2 per cent of the time in 1960–89 now (2007–21) occur over 11 per cent of the time. This is about a sixfold increase over the period. Very high monthly night-time temperatures, which are also a major contributor to heat stress, occurred nearly 2 per cent of the time in 1960–89 but now occur around 10 per cent of the time.

The frequencies of extremely cold days and nights have declined across Australia. An exception is for extremely cold nights in parts of south-east and south-west Australia, which have seen significant cool season drying, and hence more clear winter nights. This results in colder nights due to increased heat loss from the ground. The frequency of frost in these parts has been relatively unchanged since the 1980s.

http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/australias-changing-climate.shtml

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

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

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

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

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

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

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Chinese Scientists Systematically Evaluate State of mRNA Vaccines—Expect a ‘Revolution’

Chinese researchers led by Xia Guo and Xinghong Gao at Zunyi Medical University in Guizhou province in the mountainous southwest of the People’s Republic of China and colleagues recently conducted a survey of the rapidly developed mRNA vaccine technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reporting that the breakthroughs have opened up new doors of mRNA research targeting other viral vaccines, particularly for non-replication structure mRNA vaccines of viral disease.

The current review centers on the existing mRNA vaccines, “which are of great value for candidates for clinical applications in viral diseases.” How are the current early generation of mRNA vaccines and their vaccine development process getting optimized? Why are mRNA immunomodulators important in the treatment of viral diseases? How can vaccine developers ensure in the future that mRNA vaccines employed for use in clinical medicine are

A) more stable

B) offer higher translation efficiency,

C) lead to superior immune efficacy and safety,

D) involve even more compressed production time as well as E) lower production costs than traditional vaccines? What about serious adverse events? What breakthroughs can improve the track record? What’s the outlook for use of mRNA vaccines as part of “preventive or therapeutic” strategies to control diseases in the future?

Considered “third generation” vaccines, the reason for the big push of this technology includes A) ability for rapid response to pathogen mutation, B) simple production process and C) easy scalability, according to the Chinese study authors. Although this media has questions on some of these assumptions such as ease of production process.

Now widely used around the world (perhaps a key goal underlying the massive response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic) the authors in this entry in Virology Journal first breakdown mRNA vaccines—what they are, their mechanism of action, etc.

With the “theoretical capacity to produce any protein,” the confluence of positive forces leads to promising future, even 'revolutionary' vaccines, the authors. But challenges persist.

For example, a major “stumbling block” for the industry involves the lack of stability associated with single-stranded mRNA—as soon as it enters the organism it is “identified and degraded by pattern recognition receptor (PRR), leading to “huge” development challenges associated with mRNA.

Safety Issues Remain a Challenge

Also, the authors acknowledge the safety issues mounting with the novel vaccines on the market. They declare “…some adverse events of mRNA vaccines, such as hepatitis, allergic reactions caused by polyethylene glycol (PEG), and viral reactivation, still require researchers to continuously improve vaccine production technologies or delivery systems continuously.”

So what techniques are being used to ensure superior, more stable outcomes?

It turns out “several techniques” have emerged leading to more stable mRNAs as the biotechnology both “develops and matures.” Some of these advances the authors discuss:

Synthetic structure-modified RNAs are used to replace natural RNAs to synthesize mRNAs that can evade recognition by the body's immune system as "non-self" components and be eliminated such as pseudouridine (Ψ). Moderna has incorporated this strategy for mRNA-1273.

5' cap structures, 3' poly(A) tails, and UTR sequences can also stabilize mRNA and thus increase translation efficiency, such as optimization in these regions used in Pfizer-BioNTech’s BNT162b2.

The authors argue that advanced new formulation methods such as lipid nanoparticles can help protect mRNA and trigger immune response—an example is the LMP used in Moderna’s mRNA-1388.

So based on a systematic review of existing mRNA vaccines with prospective potential in the clinic targeting viral diseases, the authors attempt to develop and impart a “theoretical reference” for mRNA vaccine research targeting viral diseas

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/chinese-scientists-systematically-evaluate-state-of-mrna-vaccinesexpect-a-revolution-93bc98b4

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COVID-19 Spike Protein Accumulates in the Skull-Meninges-Brain Axis: Is the Vaccine’s Induced Spike Protein a Risk as Well?

A large team of researchers mostly from German academic medical centers including Institute for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (iTERM), Helmholtz Center Munich and Institute for Stroke and Dementia Research, Klinikum der Universität München, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich but also Denmark investigated neurological issues associated with SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19.

From brain fog to brain tissue loss, the pandemic raised concern about COVID-19’s acute and potential chronic impact on the central nervous system. Designing the study to make use of mouse models and human post-mortem tissue-based studies, the Europe-based team investigated the presence and distribution of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in what’s known as the “skull-meninges-brain axis.”

What did they find? It turns out the spike protein does accumulate in the skull marrow, brain meninges and brain parenchyma. When injecting the spike protein in this series of lab experiments researchers report that “the spike protein alone caused cell death in the brain” which suggests a “direct effect on brain tissue.” But even in the deceased when conducting post-mortem analyses the study authors report the “presence of spike protein in the skull of deceased long after their COVID infection. Could the spike protein contribute to long-term neurological symptoms?

More Details

In this fascinating yet not yet peer reviewed output, the study team represented by corresponding author Ali Ertürk reports:

“The spike protein was associated with neutrophil-related pathways and dysregulation of the proteins involved in the PI3K-AKT as well as complement and coagulation pathway.”

Could it be that the spike protein associated with COVID-19 shuttles from the central nervous system borders into the brain parenchyma, and that identified differently regulated pathways suggests neurological insights into underlying mechanisms of the pathogen. Also, the unfortunate prospect of lawn-term consequences of SARS-CoV-2 and present diagnostic and therapeutic opportunities.

And what about vaccination? Given the mRNA vaccines instruct the body to produce the spike protein could some of the neurological problems reported, albeit rare, can add up given over 270 million people received their primary series in the United States.

In fact the research team pointed out that “The lack of evidence for the viral presence and especially viral replication in the brain led to the hypothesis that virus shed proteins circulating in the bloodstream may promote an inflammatory response independent of direct viral infection of the affected organs, including the brain. Notably, the highly immunogenic spike protein, also used in COVID-19 vaccines, might be a candidate for triggering infection-independent effects.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/covid-19-spike-protein-accumulates-in-the-skull-meningesbrain-axis-is-the-vaccines-induced-spike-protein-a-risk-as-well-d12fb976

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Senator Rand Paul Proposes Legislation to Reform “Fauci’s NIH”

Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky has had a continuing feud with not only Dr. Anthony Fauci but the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well, seeking transparency and answers to questions about gain-of-function and SARS-CoV-2 origins. Paul has repeatedly accused Fauci and the NIH of funding gain of function research at the Wuhan Lab through the non-profit EcoHealth Alliance. Wuhan keeps surfacing as a possible source of the Covid pandemic. EcoHealth Alliance received taxpayer money from the NIH, actually serving as an intermediary to Wuhan Virology Institute. Paul has also questioned Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) regarding royalties paid to Fauci and a possible conflict of interest.

Paul wanted to know why the NIH redacts all the data associated with royalty payments, including employee name, amount, and associated company. Fauci claimed according to regulations, these details don’t have to be revealed. But Paul focused more on gain of function and is now taking steps to curtail both gain of function and what the Kentucky senator labeled Anthony Fauci’s “abuse of office”.

NIH Reform Act

In an op-ed for Fox News, Paul lays out his plan to reform what he calls “Fauci’s NIH”. According to Paul, Fauci “headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for over 38 years, and by the time he retired he was drawing the largest salary in the entire federal government.” Paul writes, “Though the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic are still unknown, some scientists believe it may have begun in a lab. If so, the virus may have developed from a research method like the ones Dr. Fauci was bankrolling.

The American people deserve better. That’s why I recently introduced the NIH Reform Act to divide the NIAID into three parts that align with its stated mission ‘to better understand, treat, and ultimately prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases.' The three new agencies would be the National Institute of Allergic Diseases, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Immunologic Diseases.

Paul compares Fauci’s time in office and his power to that of J. Edgar Hoover, the founder and former head of the FBI. Paul points out how Hoover had amassed a lot of power and much of what the FBI director did was unconstitutional and “few were brave enough to speak out against them.”

Working with Rep. Chip Roy

Paul has introduced the NIH Reform Act with Representative Chip Roy, Republican of Texas. In order to limit the power of the new heads of the agencies the director of each institute would be appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate and not permitted to serve more than two terms of five years. As Paul points out in his press release, “This type of reorganization is nothing new.

For example, in the aftermath of J. Edgar Hoover’s decades-long tenure as head of the FBI, Congress passed a law in 1976 limiting the FBI Director to a single 10-year term, and as recently as 2012, Congress eliminated one center within the NIH and replaced it with a new one.

In the aftermath of the damage done by pandemic-era mandates and restrictions, Congress must enact the NIH Reform Act to ensure that one official cannot claim the unquestioned authority to dictate the governmental responses to public health questions.” Given Rand Paul’s history with Anthony Fauci it will be interesting to see how a split Congress will react to Paul’s NIH Reform Act.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/senator-rand-paul-proposes-legislation-to-reform-faucis-nih-0c1519a7

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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) Also here

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

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

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

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

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

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