Large Real World-Evidence Study Finds COVID-19 Vax + Paxlovid Benefit Against Hospitalization

Nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) developed by Pfizer, is an antiviral medication that is indicated for individuals with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who are at risk of progression to severe COVID-19. While initially studied on unvaccinated persons, a growing number of observational investigations provide evidence of the potential for significant protection by Paxlovid against hospitalization among vaccinated individuals at elevated risk for severe COVID-19.

Not a lot of data avails scientists seeking to assess the risk reduction from antivirals together with vaccination. Here, the study team led by researchers from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as the U.S. market’s leading electronic health record (EHR) vendor Epic to estimate the stepwise benefit of monovalent vaccination and Paxlovid against COVID-19 hospitalization in the United States. Overall, the findings complement previous research indicating Paxlovid affords additional protection in high-risk individuals, even if vaccinated.

The findings here, according to the joint CDC and Epic team, complement previous research pointing to the protective overlay afforded by Paxlovid in high-risk individuals, even if vaccinated.

This line of research had not yet examined the protection of treatment and vaccination combined. Treatment with Paxlovid without vaccination does not reduce risk of hospitalization to levels seen in treated individuals with three or more vaccinations.

While the burden and impact of COVID-19 in future respiratory seasons are uncertain, the authors of this study suggest the combination of vaccination and oral antiviral treatment for eligible patients remains an important tool against COVID-19 hospitalization and death. The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recently recommended the 2023-2024 (monovalent, XBB-containing) COVID-19 vaccines in persons ≥ 6 months of age. The CDC-led study paper suggests clinicians should consider treatment with Paxlovid among all adults who are at high-risk of severe COVID-19 disease, including vaccinated persons.

Important Caveat

Importantly, this study was limited to adults infected with COVID-19 during the period April and August 2022, and may not be applicable in the current landscape of population hybrid immunity and SARS-CoV-2 strain evolution. The authors acknowledge that more updated estimates over time are necessary to better understand the impact of vaccination and antiviral treatment. The risk-benefit analyses for COVID-19 vaccination have likely changed. Plus, the medical establishment to date has yet to accept the dozens of peer reviewed manuscripts showing risk with the mRNA induced spike protein, capable of distribution in tissue and organs throughout the body, albeit in rare to relatively rare cases.

There are risks associated with COVID-19 vaccination that are not openly talked about in mainstream media, or even to this day in the trade press; but they are discussed in TrialSite, an independent, objective unbiased (as humanly possible) media platform tracking the world of biomedical research. Additionally, the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen has become milder during the Omicron stage, with a case fatality rate similar to influenza. Of course, the risk increases with age as well as co-morbidities and immunocompromised status.

The Study

The CDC and Epic research team conducted the retrospective analysis of patient records in Cosmos, a real world-evidence dataset that, at the time of this study, included EHR information from >160 million individual users of U.S health systems covered by Epic. Inclusion criteria and definitions were described previously in a prior study of real-world effectiveness of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir in this population. Non-pregnant adults were eligible for inclusion if aged ≥50 years or if aged ≥18 years with an underlying health condition associated with progression to severe COVID-19 disease documented in their medical record. All included patients had a COVID-19 diagnosis (defined as a diagnostic code or positive SARS-CoV-2 test result) associated with an outpatient encounter during April 1–August 31, 2022, indicating mild-to-moderate COVID-19.

The investigational team considered patients to have received nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) if verified it was prescribed during the five days after their COVID-19 diagnosis. Vaccination status was categorized on the date of COVID19 diagnosis using data available in the Cosmos system. As reported in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, vaccination categories included 1) unvaccinated if no COVID-19 vaccine had been received; 2) 2 mRNA vaccine-dose recipients if ≥14 days had elapsed since receipt of the second dose and no subsequent doses had been received or <7 days receipt of third dose; 3) ≥3 mRNA vaccine-dose recipients if ≥7 days had elapsed since receipt of the third dose; and 4) other vaccine recipient if any Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine, other vaccine, or only 1 mRNA vaccine dose had been received any time before COVID19 diagnosis.

The primary outcome was COVID-19 hospitalization within 30 days after diagnosis. A COVID-19 hospitalization was defined as having a COVID-19 specific diagnosis associated with the admission.

The group estimated protection against hospitalization by the Paxlovid combination combined with COVID19 mRNA vaccination based on statistics generated from Cox regression. Presenting adjusted hazard ratios (aHR) for hospitalization adjusting for age group, sex, race and ethnicity, social vulnerability index of the address of residence, number of underlying health conditions, region of residence, and previous infection defined as having a COVID-19 diagnosis code or positive SARS-CoV-2 test result (nucleic acid amplification or antigen) >90 days prior to the included COVID-19 diagnosis.

The reference group comprised unvaccinated individuals who had not received Paxlovid.

Results

Among the unvaccinated, 35,826/141,931 (20.2%) received Paxlovid compared to 42,355/157011 (27.0%) of patients who received 2 mRNA doses, and 130,778/330,448 (33.0%) of those who had received 3 or more mRNA vaccine doses.

During April–September 2022, 5,296 of 731,349 patients (0.72%) with COVID-19 were hospitalized within 30 days after their initial diagnosis.

Hospitalization Rates

After receipt of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir and 3 or more mRNA vaccine doses, there were an estimated 16.9 fewer hospitalizations per 100,000 person-days compared to those who were unvaccinated and untreated.

According to the group of authors:

“Compared with patients who were unvaccinated and had not received a COVID-19 treatment, the rate of COVID-19 hospitalization was lower among both those who were vaccinated but did not receive nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (two mRNA doses, aHR 0.74, 95%CI: 0.67–0.80; three or more mRNA doses, aHR 0.51, 95%CI: 0.47–0.55) and those who were unvaccinated but after receipt of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (0.47, 95%CI: 0.40–0.55).

After receipt of both treatment and vaccination, the hospitalization rate was reduced further (two mRNA doses and nirmatrelvir-ritonavir aHR 0.33, 95%CI: 0.29–0.39) with the lowest rate of COVID-19 hospitalization among those after receiving three or more mRNA vaccine doses and nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (aHR 0.22, 95%CI: 0.19– 0.24).”

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/large-real-world-evidence-study-finds-covid-19-vax-paxlovid-benefit-against-hospitalization-f87de1a6

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How low can Covid catastrophists go?

Who’d have guessed that there would be two startling revelations about the great Covid over-reach in the space of about a week, upholding claims previously dismissed as conspiracy theories and misinformation?

First came a peer-reviewed scientific study which linked Covid vaccines to a range of serious health disorders. It was soon followed by the Queensland Supreme Court ruling that vaccine mandates imposed on police and ambulance workers in the state were unlawful.

Both provided a welcome dose of reality after the worst days of lockdowns and vaccine roll-outs when we were bombarded with the message that the jabs were ‘safe and effective’. Years later, we know for certain that they do not prevent contraction or transmission of the virus and there’s an acknowledged chance they could cause serious harm and even death.

Some of us have been aware of this for a long time, but vaccine promoters, including Big Pharma and government bureaucrats, insist that the risk is ‘very low’, the acknowledged disorders are ‘rare’, and that vaccines provide the best means of protection against Covid.

But how low is ‘very low’ and how ‘rare’ is rare? Let’s look at the latest findings from the largest vaccine safety study to date conducted by the Global Vaccine Data Network. A research division of the World Health Organisation, it reportedly looked at 99 million vaccinated individuals across six continents.

The study confirmed connections between Covid vaccines produced by Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca to several serious but ‘rare conditions’.

According to a report in Forbes:

While the side effects are serious, the chance of experiencing them is low. Some highlighted increases include a 6.1-fold increase in myocarditis from the second dose of the Moderna mRNA vaccine. Cases of pericarditis had a 6.9-fold increase as a result of the third dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. There is a 2.5-times greater risk of developing Guillain-Barré syndrome from the AstraZeneca vaccine along with a 3.2-times greater risk of developing blood clots from the same vaccine. There is a 3.8-times greater risk of getting acute disseminated encephalomyelitis from the Moderna vaccine, and a 2.2-fold increase in the AstraZeneca vaccine.

When choosing to get vaccinated, it is important to weigh the benefits and risks of the vaccine. Information like this makes it easier to make the right choice…

Well thanks, but my wife and I made that choice a few years ago and we remain very glad we did, given there are some still trying to pedal the message that a six to seven times chance of contracting a serious heart condition is ‘low’.

I’m reminded of the old Chubby Checker hit Limbo Rock, ‘How low can you go’? Much lower than that, if you want to convince people the vaccines are safe – let alone effective.

My own long-term scepticism possibly has links back to my first job after leaving high school many moons ago, when I undertook a pharmacy apprenticeship in a very busy regional pharmacy.

Maybe it didn’t help when I was questioned by a detective when a patient died after taking a sleeping mixture I had dispensed, even though I was later cleared after forensic tests showed the medicine contained the correct level of ingredients and the poor bloke had swallowed an overdose. But possibly the last straw had something to do with a drug I had dispensed many times to pregnant young women suffering morning sickness. Finally, the authorities woke up to the fact that the ‘cure’ – thalidomide – was causing horrific birth defects. Sound familiar?

Fast forward to February 2021, when the novel Covid vaccines were rolled out in Australia after being developed and approved in record time without long-term human trials. Manufacturers were granted immunity from liability for subsequent mishaps despite some of these companies having records of huge fines for past problems.

There were also experts, including highly qualified epidemiologists, sounding warning bells, particularly in Europe and America. Some adverse events might only become apparent months or even years after the jabs were administered, but that was dismissed as ratbag conspiracy theory, disinformation, and misinformation.

Well not any more, and hopefully the Queensland Supreme court ruling that some of these vaccine mandates were unlawful will lead to justifiable and wide-ranging compensations.

As Rowan Dean wrote in The Spectator Australia, ‘The news, of course, is to be welcomed. It is the first crack in the dam wall and will hopefully be followed by significant class actions and further court cases…’

Here, here! And let’s hope that the issue does not become bogged down in appeals courts by a government with a guilty conscience and deep pockets.

Finally, my short-lived dispensing career was never a waste of time and it actually saved one of our young son’s lives when a pharmacist dispensed the wrong medication which I recognised as a potent heart drug that could have stopped his from beating!

Again, that’s another story.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/how-low-can-covid-catastrophists-go/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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COVID-19 Vaccines Can Affect Menstrual Cycle, Researchers Find

Researchers confirmed that COVID-19 vaccines are linked to changes in the menstrual cycle, according to a study published in March.

Published in the Obstetrics & Gynecology journal on March 1, Oregon Health & Science University researchers found that women who received a COVID-19 shot in the first half of their menstrual cycle are more likely to receive cycle length changes than those who received the vaccine in the second half.

Those researchers used data from 20,000 users of a birth control app that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to determine what effects the vaccine has on the cycle. Most of the women whose data was analyzed were under the age of 35, while 28 percent were from North America, 33 percent were from Europe, and another 32 percent were from the United Kingdom, they said.

Some were vaccinated and some were not. For those who were vaccinated, 63 percent received an mRNA vaccine, the paper said.

“Individuals vaccinated in the follicular phase experienced an average 1-day longer adjusted cycle length with a first or second dose of COVID-19 vaccine compared with their pre-vaccination average,” the authors of the paper said, referring to women who got a dose of the vaccine during the first half of their cycle.

Those who got the vaccine in the second half or those who were not vaccinated experienced no changes, they found.

The authors added that there is now “a body of evidence demonstrating that the ... vaccine is associated with temporary menstrual cycle disturbances at the population level,” adding that “the underlying mechanism for a vaccine-related cycle length disturbance is still under investigation.”

“The leading hypothesis is that these disturbances are due to the immune response that vaccines are designed to produce,” the study said, adding that “the immune and reproductive systems interact closely with one another.” Cytokines, which are small proteins that control the immune system’s activity and are produced “as an early event in the vaccine response,” can impact that process, they added.

Little research has been conducted in the past on how vaccines—whether for COVID-19 or others—could influence the menstrual cycle, the study’s authors further noted.

Responding to the study’s findings, Dr. Alison Edelman, the lead author of the paper with the Oregon university, said that “we do know the immune and reproductive systems interact closely with one another,” adding that with vaccinations, “it is certainly plausible that individuals may see temporary changes in their menstrual cycle due to the immune response.”
Their findings also suggested that there may be changes in the length of the cycle, although they appear to be short-lived. But they added that women who notice significant changes should contact a healthcare provider.

And earlier in 2022, another set of researchers wrote that for women who received one of the COVID-19 vaccines, around 42 percent of respondents said they experienced increased menstrual bleeding. A majority of those who weren’t menstruating reported breakthrough bleeding after getting the shot, including two-thirds of women who were post-menopausal and slightly less than two-thirds of women who were using hormone treatments.

Most respondents received an mRNA vaccine made by either Moderna or Pfizer. But some also received Novavax, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca shots, according to the paper.

“We focused our analysis on those who regularly menstruate and those who do not currently menstruate but have in the past. The latter group included postmenopausal individuals and those on hormonal therapies that suppress menstruation, for whom bleeding is especially surprising,” Kathryn Clancy, a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said in a statement about the study’s findings at the time.

And it is not the first time that the same Oregon Health & Science University researchers found COVID-19 vaccines are associated with a change in the cycle. In 2022, they found that the change was pegged at under one day, and no change in menses length was detected.

While the study did not find vaccination associated with changes in menses length, “questions remain about other possible changes in menstrual cycles, such as menstrual symptoms, unscheduled bleeding, and changes in the quality and quantity of menstrual bleeding,” they wrote.

Pfizer Official’s Concerns

About a year ago, a Pfizer employee was seen in an undercover video telling a reporter with Project Veritas that he was concerned about the mRNA shot’s possible side-effects relating to menstrual cycles.

“There is something irregular about the menstrual cycles. So people will have to investigate that down the line because that is a little concerning,” the Pfizer official said in the video, adding that it “shouldn’t be interfering” with the cycles.

“I hope we don’t discover something really bad down the line,” he later added.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/covid-19-vaccines-can-impact-menstrual-cycle-researchers-find-5599612?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=undefined-title-0

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COVID-19 Shot Hesitancy Driven by Knowledge of Adverse Events

People who did not comply with COVID-19 vaccine requirements were hesitant because they knew someone who had experienced a health problem after getting the injection, according to recent research.

“Knowing someone who experienced a health problem following COVID-19 injection reduced the likelihood of injection, the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research reported.

Such people “were more likely to oppose injection mandates and passports.

Conversely, “knowing someone who had health problems following the COVID-19 illness increased the likelihood of injection,” the journal said.

Among those who were aware of at least one individual who experienced COVID-19 injection adverse events, they said they knew about 57 deaths following vaccination.

“The health issues reported ranged from serious problems such as cardiac arrests and other heart-related problems, blood clots and other circulatory problems, to neurological issues, as well as milder effects such as feeling sick, headache, fever, etc.”

The study, published on Feb. 16, investigated the factors that made people support or protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates and passports. Researchers collected information from an online survey completed by 2,840 individuals in December 2021.
It found that 22 percent of the respondents knew at least one person who experienced a health issue after getting vaccinated.

The authors cited other studies on vaccine hesitancy in the context of influenza to point out that “vaccination status [in these studies] is influenced by beliefs regarding vaccine safety, effectiveness in infection prevention, and the gravity of the illness that might be prevented.”

They cited a survey published by Rasmussen Reports in March last year which found that “nearly as many Americans believe someone close to them died from side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine as died from the disease itself.”
This survey combined with the results of the present study “affirms that opposition to COVID-19 injection mandates and passports has increased over time,” the researchers wrote.

Moreover, the findings of the study suggest that policymakers may find it difficult to “engender a consensus” when it comes to pushing for vaccine mandates and passports, the researchers stated.

The study found that having COVID-19 illness was not associated with preferences for injection mandates. However, those who were injected were found to be “much less likely to oppose injection mandates than are those that did not receive the injection.”

Race was a “strong predictor” of injection mandates, with minority populations like African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians being “less inclined” to oppose such regulations than Caucasians.

“Political identity is also important: Compared to Democrats, those who self-identify as Republicans are more likely to oppose mandates. Those who identify as Independent also tend to oppose injection mandates.”

One of the authors of the study is Mark Skidmore, a professor and Morris Chair in State and Local Government Finance and Policy at Michigan State University (MSU). He has previously published research in several journals like Economic Inquiry, Economics Letters, and the Journal of Urban Economics. The second author, Fernanda Alfaro, is a Ph.D. student at MSU.
Regarding funding and conflicts of interest, researchers said they received funds from an individual donor.

Safety Concerns and Vaccine Hesitancy

In a recent post at the International Center for Law and Economics, health economist Roger Bate points out that the COVID-19 vaccines “were not as effective as originally claimed, and were effectively forced onto many people in order for them to work, attend school, or travel.”
“There is early evidence that these and other factors may currently be contributing to heightened vaccine hesitancy, with potentially serious consequences for public health.”

A July 2022 analysis published in BMJ Global Health also raised similar concerns. It argued that mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies were “scientifically questionable” and were more likely to result in harm than good.

“Restricting people’s access to work, education, public transport, and social life based on COVID-19 vaccination status impinges on human rights, promotes stigma and social polarisation, and adversely affects health and well-being,” it said.

The restrictive COVID-19 policies “may lead to a widening of health and economic inequalities, detrimental long-term impacts on trust in government and scientific institutions, and reduce the uptake of future public health measures, including COVID-19 vaccines as well as routine immunizations.”

In an interview with Fox News last year, Dr. Robert Redfield, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that federal officials pushed a “false perception” that the COVID-19 vaccines provided “complete” immunization.
“There was such an attempt to not let anybody get any hint that maybe vaccines weren’t foolproof, which, of course, we now know they have significant limitations,” he stated.

“I always said … my position was just tell the American public the truth: There are side effects to vaccines. Tell them the truth, and don’t try to package it.”

Commenting on the Feb. 16 study, cardiologist Peter A. McCullough said in a Substack post that vaccine hesitancy would be higher in 2024 “as more injuries, disabilities, and deaths have been reported as a result of the novel genetic products” since the 2021 survey.

“When it comes to COVID-19 vaccination, hesitancy is a good thing demonstrating the population is concerned about consumer product safety of the mRNA and adenoviral DNA technology,” he wrote. Dr. McCullough also criticized the American Medical Association’s (AMA) view on vaccine hesitancy.

The AMA website has this statement: “While the AMA is a strong advocate for the effectiveness and safety of vaccines, we recognize that some members of the public may have historical, cultural, or religious reasons to distrust the vaccination process.”

The AMA’s views on the factors driving vaccine hesitancy are inapplicable, Dr. McCullough said. “Attempts to overcome vaccine hesitancy are likely to be harmful.”

Some experts have also raised concerns about vaccine hesitancy triggered during COVID-19 extending to other vaccines as well.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/covid-19-shot-hesitancy-driven-by-knowledge-of-adverse-events-5599981?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=undefined-title-1

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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CDC drops 5-day isolation guidance for COVID-19 cases

The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control on Friday rolled back its longstanding five-day isolation guidance for people who come down with COVID-19.

Under the updated guidelines, the CDC says those infected with the coronavirus can return to work or the public just one full day after their fever subsides.

“Today’s announcement reflects the progress we have made in protecting against severe illness from COVID-19,” agency Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a statement.

“However, we still must use the commonsense solutions we know work to protect ourselves and others from serious illness from respiratory viruses—this includes vaccination, treatment, and staying home when we get sick.”

The guidelines for isolation have not been updated since Dec. 2021, when CDC had shortened the recommended isolation time for Americans with asymptomatic cases to five days from the previous guidance of 10 days.

The announcement follows reports last month that the policy change was in the works due to a decrease in infections.

The US has seen an overall decline in COVID-19 cases — 17,300 people were hospitalized and 510 people died from the virus during the week of Feb. 17, the most recent CDC data available.

The updated guidelines, however, do not affect workers at nursing homes and other health care facilities. Medical personnel should follow recommendations to stay home at least seven days after symptoms first appear, and that they test negative within two days of returning to work, according to the CDC.

While the guidelines have been significantly scaled back, health officials are still urging sick persons to take extra precautions in the first five days following an infection.

Those with COVID-19 are encouraged to stay home until 24 hours after a fever, stay up to date with vaccinations, wearing a mask and social distancing — all of which reflects guidelines similar to other highly contagious viruses.

“While every respiratory virus does not act the same, adopting a unified approach to limiting disease spread makes recommendations easier to follow and thus more likely to be adopted and does not rely on individuals to test for illness, a practice that data indicates is uneven,” the CDC said in the announcement.

https://nypost.com/2024/03/01/us-news/cdc-drops-five-day-isolation-rules-for-covid-19-infections/

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Covid pandemic could have been avoided and contained to Wuhan, professor claims

The Covid pandemic could have been avoided and contained to Wuhan, a professor has claimed in a damning book that lifts the lid on Chinese blunders that allowed the virus to spread across the globe and kill millions of people.

'Wuhan: How the Covid-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled Out of Control', by leading author Professor Dali Yang was published on Friday and explores the pandemic in forensic detail.

Prof Yang draws a devastating conclusion that the pandemic, which started with the first known patients in the eastern Chinese city in late December 2019, was not inevitable.

The book explores key events that came before a lockdown was imposed on Wuhan, including how a mass banquet was held on January 18 that saw more than 100,000 people come together despite health officials knowing the virus was spreading.

Prof Yang offers a deep analysis of who knew what and when about the virus, but barely touches on the origins of Covid-19, The Telegraph reports.

It instead looks at the individual heroism seen during the pandemic as well as the flawed decision-making and lack of clarity as officials tried to deal with a mysterious 'pneumonia of unknown etiology'.

Prof Yang concludes that the global pandemic, which led to the deaths of an estimated 13.3 to 16.6million people worldwide, could have been prevented.

'I do think there was a meaningful chance that the pandemic could have been avoided,' Prof Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, told The Telegraph.

The professor believes that Chinese health authorities were dealt a 'remarkably strong hand of cards' in the early days of the virus breaking out.

'China is a country with significant capabilities, which could have advanced the knowledge and response more rapidly at the end of December 2019,' he added.

But he says any advantage was destroyed by a authoritarian political system that was not prepared for the emergency.

The pandemic dates back to when several of Wuhan's doctors at some of China's best hospitals discovered that a 'pneumonia of unknown etiology' in the city was showing sign of 'human-to-human' transmission.

Experts had feared that the virus was linked to the SARS coronavirus that plagued East Asia between 2002 and 2004. On doctor told the local Centre for Disease Control (CDC): 'It's a disease we've never encountered before, it's also a family [cluster of] infections. Something is definitely wrong!'

Coronavirus was confirmed by Vision Medicals, a lab based in Guangzhou, who tested 'Patient A' - a 65-year-old man with severe pneumonia and 'multiple scattered patchy faint opacities in both lungs'.

'Due to the sensitivity of the diagnostic results', the lab only confirmed the positive test result for a SARS-like coronavirus to the hospital over the phone and not in writing.

Doctors found it was 81 per cent similar to the first SARS coronavirus outbreak. And screenshots that appeared online showed the virus was instantly recognised as something that 'should be treated in the same class as the plague' in order to contain it.

Despite growing evidence pointing towards a possible pandemic, the local CDC was slow in its response.

Gao Fu, the director general of the national CDC, only head about the Wuhan outbreak via social media on December 30.

And while he acted swiftly with emergency responses, the next few weeks were marred by mistakes, censorship and political interests which failed to stop the virus spreading rampantly.

'The first week in January became a pivotal turning point for handling the outbreak. Just the wrong kind,' the book states. 'The failure to act before January 20 was monumental.'

One of the biggest mistakes was failing to respond to several cases in Wuhan that were not linked to the Huanan Seafood Market - the location of the first clusters.

Prof Yang suggests that when the market was therefore closed, people believed the virus was under control and the virus was able to spread amid a false sense of security.

Other factors that contributed to working against containing the virus was China's political tradition of suppressing information to maintain social stability.

'Clearly many [doctors] are heroes but, if you read between the lines, they also operated within constraints,' Prof Yang said.

'It's clearly not a black and white picture but shades of grey. Some of the most heroic doctors happened to be also ones who might not have spoken up like they could have. It's a very complicated picture.'

Doctors who did speak out were reprimanded by police and infections among hospital staff were covered up .

Even as Wuhan moved closer towards a lockdown, high-profile events such as Chinese New Year celebrations were still showcased to try and prove everything was under control.

It was Taiwan’s Dr Chuang Yin-ching who said the outbreak was much worse than feared on January 13 2020. When he returned, Taiwan issued a travel alert for Wuhan and tightened border controls.

But back in Wuhan, the severity of the virus continued to be downplayed and it was left to Dr Zhong Nanshan, 83, a trusted veteran of the first SARS epidemic, to warn that Covid was 'certainly transmissible from human to human'.

He confirmed that cases were being seen in Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai, and Zhejiang and even abroad in Japan, South Korea and Thailand. At this point, China was put on alert and citizens were advised to wear face masks.

However, New Year celebrations still took place in the Wuhan and Hubei province, with residents invited to apply for 200,000 free passes to visit landmark sites. Local media praised performers for continuing despite being sick.

By the time Wuhan was sealed off from the rest of the world on January 23, some 500,000 people had left the country for the holidays.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13147891/Covid-pandemic-avoided-contained-Wuhan-professor-claims-Experts-book-lifts-lid-Chinese-blunders-allowed-virus-spread-globe.html

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Lockdowns may be GOOD for you

Strange findings

Lockdowns during the Covid pandemic led to two 'fascinating' changes in babies bodies that may have protected them against disease and allergies, a study has found.

Researchers from University College Cork in Ireland found that children born while the world was locked down during Covid had an altered gut microbiome - the ecosystem of 'good' and 'bad' bacteria in the gut that aid in digestion, destroys harmful bacteria and helps control the immune system.

The biome was found to be more beneficial in the infants.

Researchers believe this led 'Covid babies' to have lower than expected rates of allergic conditions, such as food allergies, compared to pre-pandemic babies, the scientists found.

They also required fewer antibiotics to treat illnesses.

Researchers analyzed fecal samples from 351 Irish babies born in the first three months of the pandemic, between March and May 2020, and compared them to samples from babies born before the pandemic.

Online questionnaires were used to collect information on diet, home environment and health to account for variables.

Stool samples were collected at six, 12 and 24 months and allergy testing was performed at 12 and 24 months.

The Covid newborns were found to have more of the beneficial microbes gained from their mother after birth, which could act as a defense against allergic diseases.

If individuals have a disrupted gut microbiome, this may lead to the development of food allergies.

Babies born in the pandemic had lower allergy rates: About five percent of the Covid babies had developed a food allergy at age one, compared to 22.8 percent in the pre-Covid babies.

Researchers said that mothers had passed on the beneficial microbes to their babies while pregnant, and they gained additional ones from the environment after they were born.

The study also found that babies born during lockdowns had fewer infections because they were not exposed to germs and bacteria.

This meant they needed fewer antibiotics - which kill good bacteria - leading to a better microbiome.

The lockdown babies were also breastfed for longer, which provided additional benefits.

Of the Covid babies, only 17 percent of infants required an antibiotic by one year of age.

In the pre-pandemic cohort, meanwhile, 80 percent of babies had taken antibiotics by 12 months.

This was 'fascinating outcome,' joint senior author Liam O'Mahony, professor of immunology at the University College Cork, said, and 'correlated with higher levels of beneficial bacteria such as bifidobacteria.'

Professor Jonathan Hourihane, consultant pediatrician at Children's Health Ireland Temple Street and joint senior author of the study, said: 'This study offers a new perspective on the impact of social isolation in early life on the gut microbiome.

'Notably, the lower allergy rates among newborns during the lockdown could highlight the impact of lifestyle and environmental factors, such as frequent antibiotic use, on the rise of allergic diseases.'

The researchers hope to re-examine the children when they are five years old to see if there are any long-term impacts of the early changes in gut microbiome.

The study was published in the journal Allergy.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13146861/Covid-pandemic-babies-two-fascinating-biological-changes-study-finds.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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CDC Tracking BA.2.87.1, New Omicron Subvariant With Potential to Evade Immunity

Experts detected a strain of SARS-CoV-2 with more than 30 changes in its spike protein compared with Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced. The newer Omicron subvariant, known as BA.2.87.1, has infected at least 9 people in South Africa since September 2023. No cases have been reported in the US or outside South Africa, the CDC noted in its update.

The large number of changes in spike proteins raises the possibility that the new strain could escape the immunity people have acquired from vaccines or infection. Still, the relatively few cases suggest the variant is not highly transmissible right now.

Although the CDC is carefully monitoring the new strain, the agency expects that current vaccines and treatments will continue to be effective.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2815864

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Scientist claims ‘smoking gun’ evidence COVID-19 intentionally created by researchers in Chinese lab

COVID-19 may have been created in a Chinese lab, a British professor told the UN Wednesday, with another expert claiming that evidence of the likelihood has reached “the level of a smoking gun.”

Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, was quoted saying in a new Wall Street Journal article that the virus that killed millions around the world may actually have been manmade in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.

He cited evidence found in a 2018 document from the lab that talked of making such a virus.

“[The document] elevates the evidence provided by the genome sequence from the level of noteworthy to the level of a smoking gun,” Ebright said in the piece by former New York Times editor Nicholas Wade.

The papers from the lab cited by Ebright contained drafts and notes regarding a grant proposal called Project DEFUSE, which sought to test engineering bat coronaviruses in a way that would make them more easily transmissible to humans.

The proposal was ultimately rejected and denied funding by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, but Wade suggested that their work could have been carried out by researchers in Wuhan who had secured Chinese government funding.

“Viruses made according to the DEFUSE protocol could have been available by the time Covid-19 broke out, sometime between August and November 2019,” wrote Wade, a former science editor of the New York Times.

“This would account for the otherwise unexplained timing of the pandemic along with its place of origin.”

Along with the research notes, Wade claimed the specific genetic structure of the coronavirus that allowed it to infect humans served as another strong indication of “the virus’s laboratory birth.”

“Whereas most viruses require repeated tries to switch from an animal host to people, SARS-CoV-2 infected humans out of the box, as if it had been preadapted while growing in the humanized mice called for in the DEFUSE protocol,” Wade wrote.

While scientists continue to debate whether the coronavirus pandemic was a natural occurrence or manmade, Ebright believed there was credibility that the work proposed by the now-controversial EcoHealth Alliance led to the development COVID-19.

Following the release of the 2018 documents — which were published by US Right to Know through a Freedom of Information Act request — Ebright said there was clearer evidence that the virus was manufactured in a lab, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The 2018 documents contained drafts and notes regarding Project DEFUSE and how to synthesize bat coronaviruses to make them more transmissible.

The researchers proposed introducing “appropriate human-specific cleavage sites” to the spike proteins of SARS-related viruses in the lab, the same method several biologists have said could have been used to synthesize the coronavirus that led to the pandemic.

According to the documents, the researchers had planned to conduct a portion of the research at the Wuhan lab where they noted that safety conditions were not up to US standards, to the point where they claimed American scientists would “likely freak out.”

While COVID-19’s origins remain a mystery, Dr. Filippa Lentzos, an associate professor of science and international security at King’s College London, said the world needed to acknowledge that the possibility exists that the virus was synthesized.

Speaking before the UN in New York on Wednesday, Lentzos presented the work of the Independent Task Force on Research with Pandemic Risks, which calls on scientists the world over to follow stricter regulations lest another worldwide breakout occur, the Telegraph reports.

“We have to acknowledge the fact that the pandemic could have started from some research-related incident,” Lentzos said.

“Are we going to find that out? In my view, I think it’s very unlikely that we will. We need to do better in the future,” she added. “We are going to see more ambiguous events.”

https://nypost.com/2024/02/29/world-news/scientists-may-have-started-the-covid-pandemic-article/

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Angry nurses rally at Gold Coast University Hospital, demand jobs back

A vindictive bureaucracy at work. They don't like admitting that they were wrong

Dozens of placard-waving nurses and other healthcare workers took part in the rally outside Gold Coast University Hospital on Saturday.

It followed fury this week after The Courier-Mail revealed leaked Queensland Health emails telling a veteran nurse that “we are unable to re-employ any staff who were officially terminated” for refusing the jab.

Queensland Health boss Michael Walsh said the edict was incorrect and wrote to all hospital and health services in the state on Friday telling them there was no directive not to reinstate sacked workers.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman this week repeatedly denied there were any barriers to hundreds of workers who refused to comply with the vaccination mandate from returning to work.

But nurses protesting on the Gold Coast said they were still struggling to get their jobs back.

They included 23-year veteran intensive care nurse Michelle Williams, who said she tried to reapply at the major hospital she was sacked from in 2021 but was told there were no vacancies - only to see a job ad for a position.

“It’s frustrating, it’s really frustrating,” she said. “Patients are suffering and they’ve got very junior staff looking after them. “There’s so many of us with so much experience and our experience is just going to waste.”

Ms Williams said Ms Fentiman needed to “stop lying to us”.

“We want to come back to work, we’ve done nothing wrong except not follow this one (vaccine) direction,” she said. “We’re not criminals. We’re people who love our jobs, we love looking after patients and we just want to help people. “We just want to come back to work and do what we love doing, and that’s helping people get better.”

Ella Leach, secretary of the Nurses Professional Association of Queensland, said Ms Fentiman had not responded to an invitation to attend or at least endorse the rally.

Ms Leach said the minister had been sent the names and experience of 350 sacked health care workers who wanted to return and “Shannon should be reaching out to them directly” instead of making them reapply.

“There’s just zero excuse … we want her to take some actual action,” she said.

“These people were born to be nurses and health professionals - they want to work. It doesn’t make them happy hearing that the system’s crumbling, it makes them desperately angry and upset. “All they want to do is work.”

Ms Leach was herself sacked from Queensland Children’s Hospital for refusing the vaccine - in January this year, four months after the mandate was lifted, and despite being seven months’ pregnant. She launched unfair dismissal action against Queensland Health.

Ms Leach said many sacked healthcare workers who had reapplied for jobs with Queensland Health were still being rejected because of their “disciplinary action history” in refusing the vaccine.

“These people have decades of experience and they are desperately needed,” she said.

Ms Leach said 6000 nurses were predicted to retire in 2024 but Queensland Health was hiring nurses from interstate or overseas, with incentives of up to $70,000.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/angry-nurses-rally-at-gold-coast-university-hospital-demand-jobs-back/news-story/37d0412f8b3f3371999b35dc15483c12

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Top Cardiologist Reports 47-Fold Increase in Serious Myocarditis Post Covid Vaccinations

Dr. Dean Patterson, a leading consultant cardiologist in Guernsey and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, has written to the U.K. medical professional regulator the General Medical Council (GMC) calling for an investigation into harms from the COVID-19 vaccines, in a letter first published on Dr. Aseem Malhotra’s website.

February 19th 2024
Charlie Massey
Chair of Executive Board
The General Medical Council

Dear Mr. Massey,

I am writing to express my enthusiastic support for Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a distinguished medical professional who, through his dedication to improving public health and promoting evidence-based medicines, has inspired numerous medical professionals to speak out in support of non-pharmaceutical management of chronic illness. He has been attacked for his stance in the past, in respect to his views on sugar and statins. He today again stands accused of spreading dangerous misinformation by a group of medical professionals who appear dedicated to reducing science and medical practice to an echo chamber.

It is indeed a sad irony that Dr. Malhotra has been labeled an anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist, as he himself took the initial COVID-19 vaccine, recommended it to others and even his father. He later realised that serious safety signals were being reported and understandably has concerns that the COVID-19 vaccine may have contributed to accelerated fatal acute myocardial infarction in his father.

Over the past 18 years, I have been a partner, consultant cardiologist and general physician at the Medical Specialist Group and Princess Elizabeth Hospital in Guernsey with a population of 63,000. Here I am proud to say, we provide a consultant-only service which leads to exceptional continuity of care compared to the NHS where multiple tiers of doctors working shifts care for patients.

In my personal experience, the COVID-19 vaccine has caused me intolerable concern for patient safety here in Guernsey. In my 33 years of medical practice, I have never witnessed such harm from a therapeutic intervention. I lost a female patient due to myocarditis aged 42 in 2021. A 63-year-fit woman died from myocarditis one month after her booster vaccine in 2022 after getting breathless within one week of the injection. In addition, I personally cared for a 20-year-old male with severe myocarditis which developed within 24 hours of his second Pfizer vaccine. In the first year of the rollout, I diagnosed 20 patients with myocarditis and 15 cases of pericarditis, including one death (42 year-old) and another who required an ICD (79-year-old male). In the 16 years prior to this, I would on average diagnose two to three myocarditis cases per year, with serious cases being limited to one every three to four years. The U.K. ONS data for England and Wales show 250 hospital admissions for myocarditis over 10 years. This equates to two per 10 years for Guernsey. In the first year of the rollout, we had 10 hospital admissions for myocarditis. In the second year of vaccine rollout, I have seen another 18 myocarditis cases, including the death of the 63-year-old woman listed above.

In addition, I have noticed an increase in the number of heart failure and acute myocardial infarction cases. I am currently auditing the ambulatory ECG data as I believe there has been an increase in arrhythmia burden. Incredibly, the side-effects don’t stop there, as we have seen a doubling of the stroke numbers recently with an increase in overall thrombo-embolic disease since the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines.

I am therefore writing not only in support of Dr. Malhotra’s views on this matter but also to inform you that the medical establishment appears blind to the harm. I am extremely concerned that medical practice itself will be irreparably damaged by the fallout from the mishandling of the Covid vaccine side effects. Dr. Malhotra must be supported in his efforts to shine a light on this.

While the GMC is mandated to protect patients and regulate doctors, currently the GMC finds itself in a regulatory vacuum where it, like many mainstream doctors, is unable to openly support what should be an urgent independent investigation into Covid vaccine safety.

It is my opinion that the side-effects being detected are the tip of the iceberg. Healthcare professionals are quite poor at reporting Yellow Card cases, while the NHS doctors are overburdened and unlikely to spend 30-45 minutes submitting a Yellow Card incident. This is particularly the case when the same doctors have been indoctrinated with the statement that the Covid vaccines are safe and effective, while the evidence for this safety and effectiveness from double blind placebo controlled studies is extremely weak.

The initial Covid studies were due to complete in Q4 2023 and we await the final report, notwithstanding the major flaw that most of the placebo group have been vaccinated in 2021. A paper published very recently (K. Faksova, et al., ‘COVID-19 vaccines and adverse events of special interest: A multinational Global Vaccine Data Network cohort study of 99 million vaccinated individuals‘, Vaccine, 2024) shows significant side-effects based upon this known under reporting.

Cardiologists in the main continue to blame COVID-19 infection as the cause for the harms I am seeing. However I have not diagnosed a single case of post-COVID-19 myocarditis prior to the vaccine rollout in Guernsey. The U.K. Government website from 2021 to date states that Covid causes myocarditis. The evidence it lists for this is flawed. One study it uses as evidence by Buckley et al. (‘Prevalence and clinical outcomes of myocarditis and pericarditis in 718,365 COVID-19 patients‘, Eur J Clin Invest. 2021) concluded that myocarditis had a prevalence of 5% in Covid patients. This study used data from the USA EMR records, which is poisoned by the flow of money. It is well documented that hospitals in the USA were paid $37,000 if a patient with Covid was admitted to ICU. ICU admissions would be promoted in patients with ‘multi-system involvement’. A rise in troponin, however insignificant, would be the rationale for diagnosing myocarditis and the accompanying $37,000 payment when the patient was admitted to ICU.

It is well known within the cardiologist circle pre-Covid that patients with sepsis often have a rise in troponin and the rise is proportional to age and co-morbidities and not indicative of myocarditis or a heart attack. In 2020, Guernsey had 20,000 Covid cases, which according to the paper by Buckley et al. would lead to 1,000 cases of myocarditis, but I have not diagnosed a single case of myocarditis prior to the vaccine rollout.

Dr. Melissa Heightman, a UCL Long Covid expert, is on record when speaking at the Acute and General medicine conference in 2022, stated that after MDT with cardiologists about the late gadolinium being seen on CMRI scans, they concluded it was just the usual background noise.

In the paper by Buckley et al. above they reference a paper by Puntmann et al. (‘Outcomes of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Patients Recently Recovered From Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)’, JAMA Cardiol. 2020) which erroneously concluded that 78 of 100 subjects recovered from mild Covid without cardiac symptoms had myocardial involvement on their cardiac MRI scans.

The correct interpretation is that the abnormalities seen were due to the same background noise referred to by Dr. Heightman, amplified further by the study done in Germany using 3 Tesla MRI scanners.

In the U.K. we use in the main 1.5 Tesla MRI scanners. More power equals more noise!

It is my opinion that the GMC must not only support whistleblowers like Dr. Malhotra, but urgently put in place the following:

* A working group to investigate the COVID-19 vaccine safety. May I suggest you speak with Dr. Yvonne Young from the UKHSA and Dr. Melissa Heighten (UCL) to invite their views on this matter? I am part of a growing group of doctors who would like to be part of this investigation, as I am sure Dr. Malhotra would be.

* A helpline to support doctors afraid of speaking out.

* A helpline to support those who are vaccine injured. Clearly the GMC should seek support from the MHRA and U.K. Government with funding for this work.

* A panel should be established to open discussion and reporting the above strategy in the media, in a calm unbiased manner to avoid undue stress on the general population and the healthcare system.

In conclusion, I wholeheartedly endorse Dr. Aseem Malhotra and believe that his unwavering commitment to advancing a more patient-centric, evidence-based approach to healthcare makes him a valuable asset to the medical community. I am confident that his contributions in relation to exposing the truth about the COVID-19 vaccine safety will continue to have a lasting impact on the health and wellbeing of countless individuals. There are many doctors and healthcare professionals who will openly endorse my view, but sadly there are a silent majority who will only endorse my view quietly in private conversation.

Unfortunately, medicine finds itself standing at crossroads. There are significant seeds of division. The question for you is therefore: are you going to heal these wounds or empower the irreversible split of healthcare that beckons in an increasingly uncertain future?

Sincerely,

Dr. Dean Patterson MBCHB, FRCP

Pathologist Dr. Clare Craig writes on X that, assuming Dr. Patterson saw all the cases on the island, “that would equate to 35,000 myo- and pericarditis cases in U.K. and 200,000 in USA”.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/02/27/top-cardiologist-reports-47-fold-increase-in-serious-myocarditis-post-covid-vaccinations-as-he-calls-on-gmc-to-investigate/

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Australia: Queensland Supreme Court finds some Covid vaccine orders unlawful

They were the three words of the week, if not of the year: ‘vaccine’, ‘mandates’ and ‘unlawful’. That was the key takeout from the decision handed down this week by the Queensland Supreme Court in a case largely financed by mining gazillionaire and political agitator Clive Palmer. Specifically, the Covid-19 vaccine mandates, implemented in the form of directions given to Queensland police and ambulance service workers, were made unlawfully, the court has ruled, partly because they didn’t take into account those workers’ ‘human rights’.

The news, of course, is to be welcomed. It is the first crack in the dam wall and will hopefully be followed by significant class actions and further court cases. Ideally, one might hope that certain senior politicians, senior bureaucrats, doctors and corporate heads will wind up in prison for their collective roles in the grotesque Covid abuse of power, following a royal commission. However, there is the chance that the Queensland case will be overturned on appeal, as the powers-that-be attempt to reassert their censorship and crushing authoritarianism over what remains the most disgraceful period in our history.

Alone – and we really do mean alone – among the Australian mainstream media, indeed in many instances the world media, The Spectator Australia fought from the very beginning against the vaccine mandates, the lockdowns, the mask mandates, the school closures, the banning of perfectly good (and cheap) alternative treatments for Covid and the fraudulent claims being made about the safety of the mRNA ‘vaccines’. Dismissed as conspiracy theorists, extreme right-wingers, anti-vaxxers and a whole list of other pejoratives, this magazine and its astonishing collection of writers can hold their heads high – Rebecca Weisser, Ramesh Thakur, Julie Sladden, Kara Thomas, Alexandra Marshall, David Flint, David Adler, James Allan, Rocco Loiacono, Robert Clancy, Rowan Dean and many others. Of course, there were a miserable handful of writers, and readers, who were appalled by our Covid scepticism and took their writing skills or subscriptions to other media outlets more in tune with their views. They are not missed.

On 22 May 2021, as powerful voices and commentators within the Australian media frantically urged the government to introduce vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, we wrote on this page:

So we will be blunt on this particular occasion: if Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Health Minister Greg Hunt or any members of the federal or ‘national’ cabinets seek to impose a ‘vaccine passport’ that restricts the freedom of movement and liberties of Australians, they will potentially be guilty of human rights abuses and even crimes against humanity.

Any number of conventions and laws exist that make it a criminal offence for a government or its bureaucrats to coerce or make mandatory any form of medical treatment against the will of the individual. Such laws and conventions were brought in as a direct result of the atrocities of the second world war and the revolting medical experiments conducted by not only the Nazis but other totalitarian regimes against their own people.

Make no mistake; a ‘vaccine passport’ denying liberties and restricting the free movement of Australians within their own country will be the most sinister and disgraceful act by an Australian government against its own people in our history. This is for one simple reason: governments and bureaucracies have no right to enforce or to coerce an individual to take a medical treatment or drug against the individual’s better instincts or judgment.

In any free society, the government’s role is to persuade, not to coerce or to mandate.

It is a fine line between encouraging or incentivising vaccination and coercing it, but telling traumatised Australians that they can, for example, only visit their loved ones or carry on their normal business if they inject a certain drug is completely unacceptable and indeed reprehensible. Persuasion is all very well. Coercion and emotional or financial blackmail are not.

Then on 3 July 2021, we wrote:

"It is on the coronavirus that an absence of any genuine political convictions on the part of the PM and his advisers is most apparent. Devoid of a bedrock of political philosophy to stand upon, the government makes it up as it goes along, reacting, presumably, to internal polling as much as to media hysteria. It is not a pretty sight"

Kudos to Queensland Judge Glenn Martin for having the courage and moral fortitude to put into law what was always self-evident to any self-respecting conservative. The vaccine mandates trashed every ethical, moral, medical and human rights principle in a free democracy.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/mandatory-vindication/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Excess Death Disappearing Act

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the United Kingdom has unfurled a new methodology for calculating excess deaths.

At the helm of this change is Julie Stanborough, ONS’s deputy director for Data and Analysis for Social Care and Health, and a seasoned veteran in the realm of government statistics. She spun her numerical narratives previously for the Cabinet Office during the COVID-19 crisis, and before that, in the labyrinthine corridors of HM Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions.

Ms. Stanborough has promised a regime of continuous refinement for these newly minted estimates of excess deaths, now intriguingly tagged as “Official Statistics in Development.”

She said, “In the spirit of continuous improvement, we will regularly review estimates of excess deaths produced by the new methodology, with further refinements being undertaken if necessary. As such, the new estimates will be labelled as Official Statistics in Development while further review, testing, and development work is undertaken.”

In place of the old method, Ms. Stanborough has ushered in a statistical model that she explains will rely on age-specific mortality rates.

The ONS is now posing the question—how many deaths would we expect there to be within the context of an evolving population?

The introduction of the new calculation method, has been dissected with clinical precision by health campaigner John Campbell, revealing startling disparities between the old and new figures, with the latter method significantly reducing the count of excess deaths.

David Dickson, a forensic investigator, has unveiled an even more shocking revelation, accusing the ONS of erasing some 68,000 excess deaths from the 2023 records through this statistical manoeuvre.

This open-ended commitment to iterative adjustment begs the question: What necessitated this methodological metamorphosis in the first place?

The recalibration of numbers has cast the pandemic’s mortality in a starkly different light, artificially amplifying the lethality of the pandemic year in comparison to the previous counts of excess mortality.

The complexity of the new model equation is seemingly decipherable only by someone such as Rainman, raising suspicions about the motivations behind such opaque adjustments.

Ms. Stanborough has said, “It’s important to note that excess deaths estimates are just that—estimates. They cannot be counted on an individual basis, as can be done for death registrations. They are estimated using statistical techniques and, as a result, there is no single ‘true’ measure of excess deaths.”

Thus, while statistical manipulations may have obscured relative increases in mortality, the immutable facts of absolute death counts remain more resistant to concealment.

Dr. Thomas Binder has pointed out that a similar strategy of adjusting excess mortality expectations was previously employed by StatSchweiz in Switzerland, particularly affecting younger demographics.

Lifting the Shroud

Amidst this backdrop of statistical shuffling, a rigorous investigation by Denis Rancourt, Maurine Baudin, Joseph Hickey, and Jérémie Mercier has pierced through the fog with their illuminating study on COVID-19 vaccine-associated mortality across the southern hemisphere.

Their empirical scrutiny of the vaccination campaigns across 17 countries has revealed a damning narrative: the mass vaccination efforts have failed to demonstrably impact all-cause mortality rates, contradicting the prevailing vaccine discourse.

The study has meticulously correlated the timing of mortality spikes with the aggressive rollout of vaccine boosters, challenging the purported benefits of COVID-19 vaccinations.

Far from reducing mortality, the data suggested a sinister association between vaccination campaigns and subsequent increases in death rates.

This revelation has cast a long shadow over the global push for COVID-19 vaccinations, demanding a sober reassessment of their safety and efficacy.

Mr. Rancourt and his team’s findings not only have questioned the utility of these vaccines in curtailing the virus but also have shone the spotlight on the critical need for a more discerning and empirical approach to public health policy.

As the narrative around excess deaths and COVID-19 vaccines has continued to evolve, the ONS’s new methodology for calculating excess deaths has added another layer of complexity to an already convoluted debate.

With politicians like UK MP Andrew Bridgen advocating for inquiries into excess mortality, the ONS’s adjustments now threaten to obscure these crucial investigations, potentially eroding public trust in governmental transparency.

This latest episode in the annals of public health statistics serves as a poignant reminder of the adage, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

In the end, the quest for truth in the age of COVID-19 has become ever more entangled in the webs of statistical reinterpretation, leaving the public yearning for clarity amidst a sea of numbers.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/the-excess-death-disappearing-act-5595747

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CDC Reveals ‘Changing Threat’ of COVID-19

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Feb. 23 that hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 are overall on the decline in recent years despite some episodic episodes of elevated transmission.

“Severe outcomes from COVID-19 have substantially decreased since 2020 and 2021,” the agency said. Hospital admissions in the United States for COVID-19 have dropped by more than 60 percent from the peak in 2021, and have also decreased to just 900,000 hospitalizations in 2023—from 2.5 million in 2021.
“The decline in deaths associated with COVID-19 is even more dramatic than the drop in hospitalizations. In 2021, over 450,000 deaths among Americans were associated with COVID-19, while in 2023, that number fell to roughly 75,000,” it said.

The federal agency further noted that COVID-19 infections have stayed at a level similar to previous years, but the chance of being hospitalized has dropped.

“While other factors are involved, the increase in the percent of the population with COVID-19 antibodies indicates that rising population immunity is partially responsible for the decline in severity,” the agency said. “In January 2021, only 21 percent of people aged 16 years and older had COVID-19 antibodies.”

At the same time, the CDC said that hospitalization rates have dropped across all age groups. But it stressed that certain older adults, infants, pre-existing medical conditions still appear to have a higher risk of developing a severe case of COVID-19, adding that adults aged 65 and older accounted for 63 percent of hospitalizations and 88 percent of in-hospital deaths from the virus for the first half of 2023.

More than 90 percent of that group had “multiple pre-existing medical conditions,” and it also noted that infants aged six months and younger have higher rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations, the CDC said.

Despite the positive update, the CDC warned that the virus is a “public health threat” and again recommended everyone, including infants and pregnant women, to take one of the updated booster vaccines. It once again suggested that people wear masks and improve ventilation in closed areas.

On Feb. 16, the CDC said that the 2023–24 respiratory illness season appears to have peaked but stressed it is “far from over.” It noted that hospitalizations for COVID-19, influenza, and RSV have dropped in recent weeks.

“However, respiratory disease activity remains elevated, and some flu activity indicators have increased again,” according to the agency’s update. “Test positivity for flu rose nationally in late January and has leveled off since but continues to increase in parts of the country. Emergency department visits for flu have been going up in some areas of the county.”
Notably, the combined peak for hospitalizations associated with the three viruses “was not as high” as the previous season, adding that there were also “fewer reports of healthcare strain” for 2023 and 2024. Overall hospitalizations and deaths for the flu and COVID-19 were lower, too, it added.

Major COVID Study

This month, researchers from the Global Vaccine Data Network—an arm of the World Health Organization—looked at about a dozen medical conditions considered adverse events of special interest in a population study of 99 million people who were vaccinated.
“The size of the population in this study increased the possibility of identifying rare potential vaccine safety signals,” lead author Kristýna Faksová of the Department of Epidemiology Research, Statens Serum Institut in Denmark, said in a news release. “Single sites or regions are unlikely to have a large enough population to detect very rare signals,” she added.

Cases of a type of heart inflammation known as myocarditis were found in first, second, and third doses of the Pfizer mRNA shot, while the rate was higher in Moderna’s second shot, according to the research.

Pericarditis, which is inflammation of the pericardium, saw a 6.9-times higher risk in people who took AstraZeneca’s vaccine, while there was a 1.7-fold to 2.6-fold chance of developing the condition after taking Moderna’s first and fourth dose, respective, it found.

“This unparalleled scenario underscores the pressing need for comprehensive vaccine safety monitoring, as very rare adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines may only come to light after administration to millions of individuals,” the authors wrote.

They also found an increase in Guillain-Barré syndrome for those who received the AstraZeneca shot within a few weeks, and higher-than-anticipated cases of disseminated encephalomyelitis, a form of inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, among people who got the Moderna first vaccine dose.

“Moreover, overall risk–benefit evaluations of vaccination should take the risk associated with infection into account, as multiple studies demonstrated higher risk of developing the events under study, such as GBS, myocarditis, or ADEM, following SARS-CoV-2 infection than vaccination,” the authors concluded.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/cdc-reveals-changing-threat-of-covid-19-post-5596131?ea_src=ai_recommender&ea_med=desktop_health

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Study Finds Hearing and Balance Disorders Among COVID-19 Vaccinated

More cases of hearing and balance disorders have been observed after people received COVID-19 vaccines, according to a recent study, which asked vaccinated people to remain alert to such complications.

The Australian peer-reviewed study, published in the Vaccine journal on Feb. 22, aimed to determine whether there was an increase in “audiovestibular events” following COVID-19 vaccination in south-eastern Australia. Audiovestibular refers to conditions related to hearing and balance disorders.

“Healthcare providers and vaccinees should be alert to potential audiovestibular complaints after COVID-19 vaccination,” the authors said.

Increase in Incidences of Vertigo, Tinnitus

Researchers found a rise in vertigo and tinnitus cases after vaccination. Tinnitus is a condition that makes an individual hear sounds like humming, ringing, or rushing, in the absence of external stimuli. Vertigo makes people feel like they’re spinning, and can result in dizziness.

“Our study found an increased relative incidence of vertigo in the 42 days following mRNA vaccines, and an increased relative incidence of tinnitus in the 42 days following both Vaxzevria adenovirus vector and mRNA vaccines,” researchers wrote.

“We are the first to confirm this increased relative incidence of tinnitus and vertigo post COVID-19 vaccines,“ they stated. They speculated that the audiovestibular events may be an ”immune mediated injury” triggered by the COVID-19 vaccines.

No Rise in Cases of Hearing Loss

In the same study, the researchers reported that there was “no increased relative incidence in hearing loss” in the 42 days following any COVID-19 vaccine.

They noted that the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data and studies conducted on the Finnish and Danish health care registry have found “found no association between sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) and COVID-19 vaccination.”

As such, the authors concluded that their analysis “supports the opinion that there is no increased incidence of hearing loss following COVID-19 vaccines.”

The authors pointed out a limitation—that their study could not account for any concurrent COVID-19 infections, which other studies have suggested could be associated with audiovestibular events.

“COVID-19 infection is an important potential confounder of the association between COVID-19 vaccination and audiovestibular events,” they wrote.

Researchers collected vaccine-related data from two databases in Australia, selecting 45,350 records via SAEFVIC, and 4.94 million records via POLAR, for the time period from January 2021 to March 2023.

SAEFVIC is the central spontaneous reporting service for adverse events following vaccinations in the Australian state of Victoria. The POLAR platform collects and processes general practice data on behalf of Primary Health Networks in Australia. Multiple researchers in the study declared receiving funding from the Department of Health, Victoria. SAEFVIC is funded by the department.

Out of the 45,350 SAEFVIC records, researchers identified 415 cases of vertigo, 226 incidences of tinnitus, and 76 hearing losses. From the POLAR platform, 13,924 reports of vertigo, 4,000 incidences of tinnitus, and 3,214 hearing losses were identified.

Researchers recorded the impact of two types of vaccines—AstraZeneca’s adenovirus vector vaccine and mRNA-based vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

The researchers found an increase in vertigo incidence following mRNA vaccines, and an increase in tinnitus incidence following both AstraZeneca and mRNA vaccines.

The reporting rate for audiovestibular events was found to be higher for AstraZeneca shots compared to the mRNA vaccines. In addition, more audiovestibular events were identified after the first dose of AstraZeneca than its second dose, while no such difference was observed for the mRNA vaccines.

Sudden Deafness

SSNHL, commonly known as sudden deafness, refers to an unexplained, rapid loss of hearing either at once or over a few days, caused by damage to the inner ear or the nerve from the ear to the brain. The condition usually affects only a single ear.
Researchers noted that some studies did find an association between Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine and SSNHL, but that the population or the effect size in those studies “was very small.”

One such study was published in February 2022—a cohort study of over 2.6 million patients in Israel. Of the 2,602,557 patients who received the first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, 91 cases of SSNHL were reported. Of the 2,441,719 people who received the second dose, 79 SSNHL cases were identified.

While the “effect size is very small,” the researchers of that study said their findings suggest the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine “might be associated with increased risk of SSNHL.”

Tinnitus Takes Toll on Quality of Life

Back in 2021, Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group in Rochester, Minnesota, developed tinnitus after receiving his second shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. While he experienced ringing in both ears, the situation was worse in the left ear.

“It was like someone suddenly blew a dog whistle in my ear … It has been pretty much unrelenting,” he said in an interview with MedPage Today in March 2022. The outlet did not specify which vaccine he received, however it noted that, “Given his personal situation, [Mr. Poland] will look to protein subunit vaccines that are in development but not yet authorized by the [Food and Drug Administration], such as those from Novavax, Medicago, and Sanofi.”

At the time, Mr. Poland said there could be tens of thousands of people affected in the United States and potentially millions globally.

“What has been heartbreaking about this, as a seasoned physician, are the emails I get from people that, this has affected their life so badly, they have told me they are going to take their own life,” he told the outlet.

The World Health Organization said in 2022 (pdf) that, up to February 2021, it received 367 reports of tinnitus following COVID-19 vaccination, including 56 that were grouped with hearing losses. The majority (293 cases, or 80 percent) received the Pfizer vaccine. More than 70 percent of the total tinnitus cases were among females. Over a third of the reports were from healthcare professionals.

From the 367 cases, 97 incidents (26 percent) were recorded as serious. This included 59 cases classified as “other medically important condition,” 33 as “disabling/incapacitating,” and eight reports as “caused/prolonged hospitalization.” Two incidences were reported as “life-threatening.”

The organization also separately reported 164 cases of hearing loss, of which 104 cases (63 percent) were found among females.

In an interview with The Epoch Times, Mary, who declined to disclose her last name, said that she started experiencing tinnitus an hour after the first Pfizer shot in 2021. When she contacted the pharmacy where she was vaccinated, Mary was told that tinnitus wasn’t a side effect.

Even after taking steroid therapy as recommended by a physician, her condition didn’t improve. “I complained about it so much in the beginning … especially in the first couple of weeks,” she said. ‘I cried. I broke down.”

Despite facing difficulties, Mary could not openly discuss her concerns with her family, friends, or health providers. “I felt comfortable saying that I had tinnitus, but I was afraid to tell people that it started an hour after the vaccine ... I didn’t want people to think that I’m an anti-vaxxer,” she stated.

“But it’s my own experience, and the fact that I was afraid to say that is really sad.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/study-finds-hearing-and-balance-disorders-among-covid-19-vaccinated-5594475?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=top-news-australia-top-news-0-large-2

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Australia: Leftist health commentator admits some Covid vaccines had serious side effects after largest ever study released

See:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X24001270?via%3Dihub#s0090

ABC health expert Norman Swan has admitted the Covid vaccines produced unexpected side effects but considers them to be akin to 'winning the lotto three times in your lifetime'.

Dr Swan was commenting on the largest ever study done into adverse reactions from Covid vaccines which was published last week.

'They uncovered side effects they hadn’t quite expected and they did show up as a signal there,' Dr Swan told ABC interviewer Jeremy Fernandez on Monday.

However, Dr Swan stressed that the side effects seen in the study's 99million subjects who received Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca shots were 'rare'.

He said Guillain-Barre syndrome was a side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine that received particular attention in the study.

He described it as a 'descending paralysis of the body that affects the nervous system'.

'Usually in most people it is a temporary phenomenon but it can be quite serious at the time,' Dr Swan said.

An unexpected side effect of the Moderna vaccine was acute disseminated encephalomyelitis.

'So, this is essentially a brain inflammation usually seen in children but in this case in older people, these are largely 20 to 60-year-olds,' Dr Swan said.

'He described the condition as 'self-limiting and quite nasty'.

Dr Swan said that this condition was still extremely rare with only seven cases seen out of 10million injections.

He likened the probability of getting it to 'winning the biggest lotto three times in your lifetime'.

Asked how applicable the study was to Australians, Dr Swan said it included Aussies and people from similar countries such as Canada.

Dr Swan has been a strong advocate for getting the Covid vaccines despite initially dismissing their likely efficacy and saying those who took them were 'guinea pigs'.

In July 2022 the Scottish-born medical commentator revealed he had caught Covid for the second time despite having four jabs.

The study Dr Swan was citing involved an international coalition of vaccine experts who looked for 13 medical conditions among 99million vaccine recipients across eight countries.

They confirmed that the shots made by Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca are linked to significantly higher risk of five medical afflictions including Guillain-Barre syndrome.

But the study also warned of several other disorders that they said warranted further investigation, including the links between a brain-swelling condition and the Moderna shot.

However, the team says the absolute risk of developing any one of the conditions remains small.

They said 13billion doses of vaccines had been administered and there have only been 2,000 cases of all conditions.

Their research was published in the journal Vaccine.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13128663/ABC-health-expert-Dr-Norman-Swan-admits-Covid-vaccines-effects-largest-study-released.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Voters, Not the Doctor’s Union, Will Elect or Reject Vaccine Critic

Tasmania goes to early polls on March 23. The centre-right Liberal Party has selected Dr. Julie Sladden, a registered general practitioner and emergency medicine doctor since 1997, to contest the northern electorate of Bass.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) wants her deselected.

AMA Tasmania vice president, Dr. Annette Barratt, says Dr. Sladden’s candidacy is “untenable.” Premier Jeremy Rockliff is standing by her.

Dr. Sladden closed her practice in 2021 because of strong objections to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Writing in the Spectator Australia in 2022, she explained that as a well-travelled doctor, she was more vaccinated than most people.

When the COVID vaccines arrived on the scene, she calculated her COVID infection survival rate was 99 percent.

Early data showed comparable transmission rates between the vaccinated and unvaccinated, but also some worrying safety signals with no long-term toxicity, carcinogenicity, genotoxicity, or fertility studies.

She concluded that for her, “the risks did not outweigh the benefits, especially if it meant I could still infect my patients.”

Her efforts to communicate her concerns to Tasmanian politicians mostly fell on deaf ears. That is when, as far as the health establishment is concerned, she became an “anti-vaxxer.”

She has penned many thoughtful, informative, and well-written articles since then.

Her six-month-old article for Brownstone on “The Vax-Gene Files,” co-authored with Julian Gillespie, remains the 10th most popular article on that site. My respect for her grew with her work with the Australians for Science and Freedom that I helped to establish.

There is a legitimate debate to be had on the efficacy and effectiveness of COVID vaccines in preventing/reducing infection and transmission, on the age-disaggregated harms-benefits equation, and on the science and ethics underpinning mandates, as opposed to recommendations and guidance.

This worldwide ongoing debate is being conducted by well-qualified and highly credentialed people.

Dr. Barratt believes “COVID vaccines have saved lives and continue to do so.” This remains the prevailing opinion in the medical establishment.

But many experts share doubts about the net benefits of universal COVID-vaccination and have come together in groups like the Australian Medical Professionals’ Society (AMPS), the Health Advisory & Recovery Team (HART) in the UK, and the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) in the United States.
These alliances were needed because critics of COVID-19 interventions felt the full force of stifling intellectual conformity. Regulators threatened dissenting doctors with professional disciplinary action.

Although the threat was carried out in only a few instances, the modest numbers do not invalidate the tactic.

On the medical freedom side, that which is beyond question is not science but dogma. Science is a work in progress, not an encyclopaedia of facts. The long arc of science bends towards truth, but progress is neither linear nor irreversible.

Scientists have a responsibility to subject the existing consensus to searching scrutiny in line with empirical observations. They must have the corresponding right to challenge the prevailing dominant narratives.

Diversity viewpoints on contested elements of knowledge, and rejection of attempts to suppress dissenting voices, provide necessary guardrails against reverses of knowledge.

On the political freedom side, it’s extraordinary that anyone should seek to deny a duly selected candidate, of any political party, the opportunity to contest an election. Pre-selection is a matter solely for the party concerned. Voting is a matter for the citizens of Tasmania.

Who appointed the AMA as the custodians of Australian democracy?

Did Australia’s COVID-19 policy interventions represent the greatest triumph of public policy, with an unprecedented high number of lives saved as a result of timely, decisive, and appropriate measures instituted by governments acting on the science- and evidence-based advice of experts? Or will they prove to be the biggest public policy disaster of all time?

The 2020–22/23 years were among the most disruptive in many countries, including Australia. The herd panic of early 2020 led to an abandonment of good process, an abandonment of carefully prepared pandemic preparedness plans, and a centralisation of decision-making in a narrow circle of heads of government, ministers, and health bureaucrats and experts.

The rules and regulations made on the run represented a hysterical mix of ignorance, incompetence, and/or malfeasance. The damaging health, mental health, social, educational, and economic consequences will continue to impact public life well into the future.

Core Principles

The doctor-patient relationship in Western societies has long been governed by four important principles: the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship; first, do no harm or at least, avoid doing more harm than good; informed consent; and prioritising the health outcomes of the patient over that of any collective group.
All four principles were gravely compromised with COVID.

Colleges and bureaucrats operating at a remote distance are not better placed than the doctor to assess the best interests of the patient.

The AMA should have been at the forefront of vigorously defending the sacrosanct principles that have delivered Australians among the best health outcomes in the world.

Instead, Dr. Barratt and the AMA are betraying authoritarian instincts in seeking to remove Dr. Sladden as a duly pre-selected candidate.

Little wonder that some doctors express concern the AMA has morphed from a union representing doctors into a bureaucratic institution run by careerists. Often, in my opinion, they seem more interested in attacking other doctors than representing the best interests of the diverse group.

They are free to challenge Dr. Sladden to a debate and argue their case for mandatory vaccines.

Good luck with that in the current political environment, with only 3.3 percent of 18-64 year olds choosing to be boosted in the last six months.
The criticism of Dr. Sladden is a bad development for the health of Australian democracy.

In fact, it is the AMA that owes the people of Tasmania an apology for this unwarranted intrusion into the electoral process.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/tasmanian-voters-not-the-doctors-union-will-elect-or-reject-sladden-5594626

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UK Health Advisory Team Calls For Suspension Of Covid Boosters

Britain’s Health Advisory and Recovery Team co-chair Dr. Claire Craig, supported by the UK Medical Freedom Alliance, and Children’s Covid Vaccine Advisory Council, issued this joint open letter to Victoria Atkins, MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on February 6, 2024

This letter was appended with dozens of physician-scientist signatures.

To: The Right Hon Victoria Atkins, MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

CC: Dame Jenny Harries, CEO UKHSA; Professor Sir Christopher Whitty, CMO; Maria Caulfield MP

Dear Ms Atkins

Re: Urgent Review of Excess Deaths

Firstly, congratulations on your recent appointment as Secretary of State at the DHSC.

Your three months in office have given you time to see for yourself how much the NHS is struggling; with rising waiting lists, low staff morale and the devastating strike action. You will also be aware of the ongoing and concerning excess deaths in the UK, recently debated in Parliament.

The fact that this is occurring in many Western countries and across all age groups, particularly younger adults for whom there were no excess deaths during 2020, should trigger alarm bells and prompt an urgent investigation.

In addition, in parallel with increased deaths, there has been a significant rise in levels of sickness and disability recorded throughout the working age population.

This has resulted in not only increased demands on the health service, but also has impacted the health and resilience of NHS staff themselves, with resulting high levels of staff sickness and absence, causing additional strain on an already struggling system.

The causes of excess mortality and morbidity are likely multifactorial, including the physical and mental impacts of lockdowns, delays in accessing treatment and long-term effects of Covid-19 itself.

However, a fourth potential factor appears to be being deliberately ignored: that is, any possible role of the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines. The timing of the rise in disabilities and deaths should make the vaccinations a definite suspect. As early as November 2020, many scientists and doctors, including those in UKMFA, were highlighting the potential risks of a rushed vaccine.

Until this question has been thoroughly investigated, it is premature and reckless to be talking of using mRNA technology for future prophylactic vaccines (we take no view on the development of mRNA vaccines for their previously-intended role as therapeutic anti-cancer agents).

We are concerned that the Government is focused on the business opportunity for the UK, offered by the expansion of use of these technologies, but are ignoring potential risks to public health from these products, particularly to the immune and cardiovascular systems.

The failure of COVID vaccines to stop viral circulation is obvious to all. The obviousness of this failure, along with growing concern about the products’ safety – evidenced by poor uptake among those eligible – is undermining public trust in vaccination more generally, including where it is indubitably useful.

We have written repeatedly to the MHRA, the CMOs, the JCVI, and to your predecessor, regarding the many risks of rolling these vaccines out to children. Members of the Pandemic Response All Party Parliamentary Group also wrote a letter in January 2022, over two years ago, regarding increased all-cause mortality in 15–19-year-old males.

The first three signatories on this letter were all asked by Baroness Hallett to provide Witness Statements for Module 4 of the UK Covid-19 Public Inquiry; these we have recently submitted, only to learn that the date for the Module 4 hearings has been inexplicably and disappointingly postponed, likely until after the general election.

In the interim we therefore call upon you to suspend the booster programme, pending an immediate review into all aspects of Covid vaccine safety, as outlined in our letter to the MHRA a year ago.

The health of the nation’s citizens is of paramount concern and must surely be a high priority for an incoming Minister.

We entreat you to apply the precautionary principle regarding the use of these products, which have been linked (in published scientific literature, adverse event databases and real-world epidemiological data) to numerous short- and long-term safety issues, particularly after multiple doses.

Pausing their use is now becoming widely recognised to be the only rational, responsible and morally justifiable course of action.

We wish you well in the challenging job you have ahead.

Yours sincerely

Open letters such as these are important all over the world because they prompt actions that should be taken, provide notice to the public that concerns are real, and take away plausible deniability for political leaders concerning the Covid vaccine safety debacle.

https://principia-scientific.com/uk-health-advisory-team-calls-for-suspension-of-covid-boosters/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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