Sunday, June 16, 2024
Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaigns during Covid pandemic, whistleblowers reveal
There has been a phenomenal amount of propaganda surrounding Covid vaccines
The US military carried out secret campaigns to spread anti-vaccine sentiment and counter China's rising global influence.
The covert operation, which has never been previously reported, targeted people living in the Philippines to instill doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied to the island nation by China.
The misinformation campaign targeted millions across multiple countries and officials tailored the propaganda to audiences also across Central Asia and the Middle East to spread fear of China's vaccines among Muslims.
Through fake internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, and residents of several other countries, the US military's propaganda efforts were aimed at specifically slamming aid supplied by China, which was doing so to gain favorable public opinion and geopolitical leverage.
America's tactics also included calling into question the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China's Sinovac shot.
Officials who spoke of the concerted efforts said it's possible the US's actions led to unnecessary Covid infections and potential deaths, as well as spread anti-vax sentiments across the world regarding all available vaccines, including ones made in America.
A Reuters investigation identified at least 300 accounts on X that matched descriptions shared by former US military officials familiar with the Philippines operation.
Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan '#Chinaangvirus,' which translated to 'China is the virus' from the Philippine's Tagalog language.
'COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don't trust China!' a typical tweet from July 2020 said.
The words accompanied a photo of a syringe next to a Chinese flag and a chart of surging infections.
Another post read: 'From China – PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real.'
After Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles, determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data.
In uncovering the operation, Reuters interviewed more than two dozen current and former US officials, military contractors, social media analysts and academic researchers.
Reporters also reviewed Facebook, X and Instagram posts, technical data and documents about a set of fake social media accounts used by the military. Some were active for more than five years.
The American military's anti-vax effort began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021, Reuters determined.
Tailoring the propaganda to audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China's vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day.
A key part of the strategy was to amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China's shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law, which prohibits the consumption of pork.
The military program was started under former President Donald Trump and continued months into Joe Biden's presidency – even after concerned social media executives warned the new administration the Pentagon had been promoting misinformation.
The Biden White House issued an order in spring 2021 banning the effort, which also disparaged vaccines produced by other rivals, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review.
The US military is prohibited from targeting Americans with propaganda, and the investigation found no evidence the Pentagon's influence operation did so.
Spokespeople for Trump and Biden did not respond to Reuter's requests for comment about the program.
A senior Defense Department official acknowledged the military engaged in secret propaganda to disparage China's vaccine in the developing world, but the official declined to provide details.
A Pentagon spokeswoman said the military 'uses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter those malign influence attacks aimed at the US, allies, and partners.'
She also noted China had started a 'disinformation campaign to falsely blame the United States for the spread of COVID-19.'
In an email, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it has long maintained the US government manipulates social media and spreads misinformation.
A spokesperson for the Philippines Department of Health, however, said the 'findings by Reuters deserve to be investigated and heard by the appropriate authorities of the involved countries.'
Additionally, some American public health experts who were made aware of the campaign also condemned the program, saying it put civilians in jeopardy for potential geopolitical gain.
'I don't think it's defensible,' said Dr Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine.
Lucey, a former military physician who assisted in the response to the 2001 anthrax attacks, added: 'I'm extremely dismayed, disappointed and disillusioned to hear that the US government would do that.'
The effort to stoke fear about Chinese inoculations risked undermining overall public trust in government health initiatives, including U.S.-made vaccines that became available later, Lucey and others said.
Although the Chinese vaccines were found to be less effective than the American-led shots by Pfizer and Moderna, all were approved by the World Health Organization.
Research published recently has shown when individuals develop skepticism toward a single vaccine, those doubts often lead to uncertainty about other inoculations.
Together, the phony accounts used by the military had tens of thousands of followers during the program. Reuters could not determine how widely the disinformation was viewed, or to what extent the posts may have caused Covid deaths by dissuading people from getting vaccinated.
Following the campaign's secret launch, however, then-Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte had grown so dismayed by how few Filipinos were willing to be vaccinated he threatened to arrest people who refused vaccinations.
When he addressed the vaccination issue, the Philippines had among the worst inoculation rates in Southeast Asia. Only 2.1million of its 114million citizens were fully vaccinated – far short of the government's target of 70 million.
By the time Duterte spoke, Covid cases exceeded 1.3million and nearly 24,000 Filipinos had died from the virus.
A spokesperson for Duterte did not make the former president available for an interview.
Some Filipino healthcare professionals and former officials contacted by Reuters were shocked by America's anti-vax effort, which they say exploited an already vulnerable population.
The campaign also reinforced what one former health secretary called an already longstanding suspicion of China.
Filipinos were unwilling to trust China's Sinovac, which first became available in the country in March 2021, said Esperanza Cabral, who served as health secretary under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
'I'm sure that there are lots of people who died from Covid who did not need to die from Covid,' she said.
To implement the anti-vax campaign, the DoD overrode strong objections from top US diplomats. Sources involved in its planning and execution told Reuters the Pentagon, which ran the program through the military's psychological warfare operations center in Florida, disregarded the impact the propaganda could have had.
Psychological warfare has played a role in US military operations for more than a hundred years, although it has changed in style and substance over time.
'We weren't looking at this from a public health perspective,' said a senior military officer involved in the program. 'We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud.'
The Pentagon's anti-vax propaganda came in response to China's own efforts to spread false information about the origins of Covid, which emerged in China in late 2019.
But in March 2020, Chinese government officials claimed, without evidence, the virus may have been first brought to China by an American service member who participated in an international military sports competition in Wuhan the previous year.
Chinese officials also suggested the virus may have originated in a US Army research facility at Fort Detrick, Maryland. There's no evidence for those claims.
Mirroring Beijing's public statements, Chinese intelligence operatives set up networks of fake social media accounts to promote the Fort Detrick conspiracy, according to a US Justice Department complaint.
Beijing didn't limit its influence efforts to propaganda. It announced an ambitious Covid assistance program, which included sending masks, ventilators and its own vaccines – still being tested at the time – to struggling countries.
In May 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the vaccine China was developing would be made available as a 'global public good,' and would ensure 'vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries.'
Sinovac was the primary vaccine available in the Philippines for about a year until US-made vaccines became more widely available there in early 2022.
China's offers of assistance were tilting the geopolitical playing field across the developing world, including in the Philippines, which the US already had a tense relationship with.
Duterte said in a July 2020 speech he had made 'a plea' to Xi that the Philippines be at the front of the line as China rolled out vaccines.
He vowed the Philippines would no longer challenge Beijing's aggressive expansion in the South China Sea, upending a key security understanding Manila had long held with America.
Days later, China's foreign minister announced Beijing would grant Duterte's plea for priority access to the vaccine, as part of a 'new highlight in bilateral relations.'
China's growing influence fueled efforts by US military leaders to launch the secret propaganda operation, Reuters uncovered.
'We didn't do a good job sharing vaccines with partners. So what was left to us was to throw shade on China's,' a senior US military officer involved in the campaign told Reuters.
At least six senior State Department officials responsible for the Central Asian region objected to this approach to Pentagon officials and said a health crisis was the wrong time to instill fear or anger through a psychological operation, or psyop.
But in spring 2020, General Jonathan Braga, a senior US military commander responsible for Southeast Asia, turned to a small group of psychological-warfare soldiers and contractors in Tampa to counter Beijing's COVID efforts.
In trailers and buildings at a facility on Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base, US military personnel and contractors would use anonymous accounts on X, Facebook and other social media to spread what became an anti-vax message.
China's efforts to gain geopolitical clout from the pandemic gave General Braga justification to launch the propaganda campaign, sources said.
By summer 2020, the military's operation moved into new territory and darker messaging, eventually drawing the attention of social media executives.
In regions beyond Southeast Asia, senior officers in the US Central Command, which oversees military operations across the Middle East and Central Asia, launched their own version of the COVID psyop, three former military officials told Reuters.
The Pentagon also covertly spread its messages on Facebook and Instagram, alarming executives at parent company Meta who had long been tracking the military accounts, according to former military officials.
Facebook executives had first approached the Pentagon in the summer of 2020, warning the military that Facebook workers had easily identified the military's phony accounts, according to three former US officials and another person familiar with the matter.
The government, Facebook argued, was violating the social site's policies by operating the bogus accounts and by spreading Covid misinformation.
The military argued many of its fake accounts were being used for counterterrorism and asked Facebook not to take down the content, according to two people familiar with the exchange.
The Pentagon pledged to stop spreading Covid-related propaganda, but some of the accounts continued to remain active on Facebook and the anti-vax campaign continued into 2021 as Biden took office.
By spring 2021, the National Security Council ordered the military to stop all anti-vaccine messaging.
'We were told we needed to be pro-vaccine, pro all vaccines,' said a former senior military officer who helped oversee the program.
Even so, Reuters found some anti-vax posts that continued through April 2021 and other deceptive Covid-related messaging that extended into that summer in multiple countries.
Reuters could not determine why the campaign didn't end immediately with the NSC's order. In response to questions from Reuters, the NSC declined to comment.
The senior DoD official said those complaints led to an internal review in late 2021, which uncovered the anti-vaccine operation. The probe also turned up other social and political messaging that was 'many, many leagues away' from any acceptable military objective.
The official would not elaborate.
The review intensified in 2022, the official said, after a group of academic researchers at Stanford University flagged some of the same accounts as pro-Western bots in a public report.
The high-level Pentagon review was first reported by the Washington Post, which also reported that the military used fake social media accounts to counter China's message that Covid came from the United States. But the Post report did not reveal that the program evolved into the anti-vax propaganda campaign uncovered by Reuters.
The Pentagon's internal audit concluded the military's primary contractor handling the campaign, General Dynamics IT, had employed sloppy tradecraft, taking inadequate steps to hide the origin of the fake accounts, said a person with direct knowledge of the review.
The review also found military leaders didn't maintain enough control over its psyop contractors, the person said.
A spokesperson for General Dynamics IT declined to comment.
Nevertheless, the Pentagon's covert propaganda efforts are set to continue.
In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote the US military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using 'disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.'
And in February, General Dynamics IT won a $493million contract with the mission to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military.
*************************************************
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
*********************************************************
Thursday, June 13, 2024
‘Multibillion-dollar failure’: Australian doctors rip into Covid response
A top doctor has ripped into Australia’s handling of the Covid pandemic, accusing the government of spreading “misinformation” and putting people at risk.
Dr Kerryn Phelps accused the government of fuelling mistrust of health authorities while overselling the “safety and efficacy” of vaccines, and ignoring those suffering serious adverse events from the jabs.
Dr Phelps, who first went public in late 2022 about the “devastating” vaccine injury both she and her wife had suffered after a Pfizer jab, said while there was “a lot that our public health agencies got right during this pandemic”, significant mistakes were made.
The former MP for Wentworth and Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney, and past president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), is one of dozens of doctors and medical professionals who made public submissions to the federal government’s Covid-19 Response Inquiry.
Dr Phelps slammed “confusing misinformation” spread by authorities early on.
This included claims that Covid was not airborne, there was “no need for masks”, children did not spread the disease and that “herd immunity” could be reached.
All of this turned out to be false.
She said the consequence of the “let it rip” decision in late 2021 led to a “massive number of infections and excess Covid-related deaths estimated by actuaries to be 20,000 in 2022”.
“Political decisions were made, and public health advice was provided based on this misinformation, fuelling mistrust in subsequent advice emanating from those sources,” she said.
Regarding the vaccine rollout, Dr Phelps said “doctors and the public were assured that the vaccines would reduce the risk of severe disease, hospitalisations and death from the virus” and the “information being disseminated emphasised their claimed ‘safety and efficacy’”.
“Of course, early in the rollout of the vaccines, little was known about the potential range of adverse effects of the vaccine,” she said.
“In the urgency to vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as possible, patients who had suffered significant vaccine injury were encouraged or mandated to have subsequent doses with inadequate evidence for the potential damage this might do to someone who had already suffered an adverse reaction to the vaccine.
“It was extremely difficult for patients who had been affected to obtain a medical exemption.”
Another consequence of this lack of information about adverse events “was that many patients report that they were not believed, or their doctors initially did not recognise the diagnosis or did not have treatment protocols in place”.
“This meant that patients had to take matters into their own hands and set up advocacy groups such as Coverse to share experiences and provide much needed support,” she said.
“It also became evident that these were not sterilising vaccines, and that while they were reported to provide some protection against severe disease and long Covid, they would not stop infection or transmission or the development of long Covid.”
For future pandemics, Dr Phelps called for a “return to the precautionary principle and the fundamentals of public health and disease prevention” and a “comprehensive plan for research and development of treatments”, including sterilising vaccines.
Among the recommendations in her submission were for greater access to high-quality N95 masks with associated mandates in healthcare facilities, a “concerted and sustained effort” to reduce Covid transmission in schools, a return to isolation for infected individuals during the infectious period with appropriate financial support, and expansion of hybrid work and education.
She also called for research into the underlying mechanisms of vaccine injury, better follow-up of adverse events reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and identification of barriers to reporting such reactions, as well as better information for GPs and a review of the Covid-19 Vaccine Claims Scheme.
In a separate submission to the inquiry, Kooyong MP Dr Monique Ryan was strongly critical of the “extent and severity” of Morrison government’s “failures” during Covid.
In her submission she cited “lack of preparedness” for a global pandemic, inadequate quarantine and testing, delays in procurement and rollout of vaccines and failure to “combat widespread public misinformation” about the jabs.
But the Teal MP also said the government had failed to “adequately address community concerns regarding side-effects of vaccinations”, which she said were “not well communicated to the general public” contributing to “mistrust of the system”.
“Constituents also reported unreasonable delays and rejection of claims by the Covid-19 Vaccine Claims Scheme,” Dr Ryan said.
A number of submissions also highlighted human rights concerns around Covid measures.
The Queensland Human Rights Commission (QHRC) said it had received more than 1500 complaints, the majority related to border closures, hotel quarantine, and mandatory mask and vaccination requirements.
“Rights raised in relation to these complaints included recognition and equality before the law, the right not to be subject to medical treatment without consent, privacy and reputation, humane treatment when deprived of liberty, and freedom of movement,” it said.
Queensland GP Dr Melissa McCann, who is leading a vaccine injury class action against the federal government, said in her submission it was “difficult to know” whether the key Covid response measures “could have been managed any worse”.
“The Covid-19 vaccinations have been perhaps the most egregious health response measure in recorded history,” she said.
“The success of a vaccination campaign is not measured by the percentage of population who were convinced to be vaccinated, despite this being reported by various official sources as evidence of a successful program.
“A successful vaccination campaign ought to result in the majority of vaccinated persons not becoming infected with the disease the vaccines were designed to protect against.
“A successful campaign would result in reduced number of cases and reduced transmission of disease throughout a population following the vaccination campaign.
“It ought to result in small numbers of adverse events after vaccination and such events comparable with traditional vaccines. It ought to result in an overall reduction in severe disease, deaths caused by the disease and reduction in overall excess mortality across a population.”
By all of these measures, the Covid vaccination campaign “has been a complete failure despite the multibillion-dollar investment”, she argued.
**************************************************
SARS-CoV-2 Hit Some Children Hard, with MIS-C and Neurological Symptoms
Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) pediatrician-scientist Michael Wolf, M.D. recently authored a commentary in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Network. Affiliated with VUMC’s Division of Critical Care Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Dr. Wolf articulates that children and adolescents hospitalized with infectious and inflammatory conditions get exposed to the risk of neurological symptoms. This means from the physician’s point of view, he/she must identify those at greatest risk for more serious neurological conditions.
According to one study (Francoeur et al.) looking at the issue from a pediatric neurocritical care perspective, the VUMC physician informs that in the authors’ secondary analysis of the pediatric Global Consortium Study of Neurologic Dysfunction in COVID-19 (GCS-NeuroCOVID), severe neurological manifestations were strikingly common in hospitalized children and adolescents (i.e., from birth to <18 years) with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), occurring in 18.0% and 24.8%, respectively.
TrialSite reminds that children’s hospitalization was always far lower than adults, however, with the delta variant of concern the hospitalization rate increased as did the incidence of MIS-C. Such incidence declined again with the onset of omicron.
But nonetheless, a small sample—rare—but as we describe in TrialSite as “real” damage to our children can occur, as pointed out by Dr. Wolf.
For example, he points out in JAMA Network, “Acute encephalopathy accounted for most of the neurological sequelae in both conditions.”
Acute encephalopathy is a rapidly developing brain dysfunction that can be caused by a number of factors, including metabolic, toxic, epileptic, or infection-related issues. It can also be caused by structural disturbances. Acute encephalopathy can lead to a range of symptoms
According to Dr. Wolf, the study demonstrated an association between severe neurological manifestations and new functional or neurocognitive morbidity, as measured by the Functional Status Scale and the Pediatric Cerebral Performance Category scale.
The study involved a large global cohort of hospitalized young patients with a group of experts backing the diagnoses. The resulting analysis highlights the strengths and also some limitations of such datasets, pointing to the need to better understand risk factors for and downstream consequences of neurological conditions linked to children and adolescents hospitalized with neurological conditions.
*************************************************
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
*********************************************************
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Katie told her father she was going to get the Covid vaccine. He had no idea it would be their last conversation ever
The issue here is that no young people needed to get the vaccine. It was only the elderly who were at serious risk of dying. And even oldies were often not seriously affected. I am 80 but cruised through it all with two RAT tests showing negative.
So all the vaccination pressure on young people was evil. It just added real risks to them with no benefit
The devastated family of a fit and healthy young actor who died a fortnight after taking a Covid vaccine have called out the callous 'indifference' of society and government to her death.
Katie Lees, 34, took the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine in July 2021, driven by her desire to 'do her bit' to help bring lockdown to an end.
But just 13 days later her family were forced to make the harrowing decision to turn off her life support.
Ms Lees, an actor and comedian who lived in Sydney's inner-west, had suffered a severe vaccine-induced blood clot in her brain.
'The last time I ever spoke to her on the morning of July 22 (and) she said, "I’m getting my AstraZeneca this afternoon." She said to me how proud she was for doing it,' Katie's father, Ian, told news.com.au.
'It turned out that was the last time I would ever speak to her. She was actually following the government’s advice, trying to do the right thing for the sake of the community.'
Mr Lees, 66, said the hardest part about his daughter's death was that people didn't believe the vaccine had killed her and met the news with 'silence, mockery, discrediting and disbelief'.
'We’d say to people our daughter died from the AstraZeneca vaccine and they’d say, "Oh really? How do you know?",' he said.
In a public submission to the federal government’s Covid Response Inquiry, Ms Lee's parents said they were galled by the 'indifference of our society to her death'.
'Every morning, our first thought is how Katie died and the sinking feeling that we were used and discarded by our government, by AstraZeneca and by our society,' they wrote.
They added: 'Katie did not need the vaccine — she wouldn’t have died if she got Covid.
'Katie took this action, not because she was worried about getting Covid, but because she was deeply concerned about the impact of lockdowns on the life of communities and the mental health of individuals.'
The AstraZeneca vaccine was estimated to have saved millions of lives during the pandemic but it also caused rare, and sometimes fatal, blood clots.
In April, AstraZeneca admitted in a UK court that its vaccine could, in very rare instances, could lead to Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome, which causes people to have blood clots and a low blood platelet count.
The vaccine, which was discontinued in Australia in March 2023, was withdrawn globally last month with the manufacturer citing commercial reasons for the decision.
Of the 14 Australians acknowledged by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to have died from Covid vaccines, 13 were from AstraZeneca and one from Moderna.
Ms Lees developed headaches and a rash immediately after her vaccination but doctors did not think anything of it. Just over a week later on August 1 she woke up with a severe headache and started vomiting. A CT scan showed a severe clot in her brain.
'Katie slipped into deep unconsciousness around 3pm and never regained consciousness,' her parents wrote in their submission to the inquiry.
The devastated family said that they had been left 'emotionally, mentally and physically traumatised by the way Katie died, the lack of support from government and the pharmaceutical industry and the alienation we feel from the mainstream narrative in our society'.
The family who received $70,000 in compensation for Katie’s death, said they hated being branded 'anti-vaxxers'.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13512289/Katie-Lees-AstraZeneca-vaccine-died.html
**************************************************Well-Designed Meta-Analysis Suggests Ivermectin Could be Used for Mild-to-Moderate COVID-19; But Proceed with Caution
Medical research affiliated with Xiamen University, Southeast University and Xiamen University Schools of Medicine designed a systematic, meta-analysis, part of an ongoing investigation into the use of ivermectin as an off-label regimen for the COVID-19 indication. A controversial topic, one which is the West among medical establishments is basically settled against use, nonetheless, the drug’s use continues in many parts of the world including the United States. Hence the interest in ongoing study and in this case, the authors led by Zhilong Song at Xiamen University School of Public Health and colleagues scoured key repositories (PubMed/Medline, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, medRxiv and bioRxiv) to collect all relevant studies tracking till June 2023.
Their meta-analysis endpoint included A) all-cause mortality; B) mechanical ventilation (MV) requirement, C) PCR negative conversion and D) adverse events (AEs) of course representing the safety of the drug. To assess and mitigate bias risk plus evaluate quality of evidence, the authors utilized the Revman 5.4 software package. A total of 33 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) covering 10,849 patients were included in this study. There was no significant difference in all-cause mortality rates or PCR negative conversion between ivermectin and controls.
However, when evaluating MV requirement the authors report significant differences (RR 0.67, 95% CI 0.47–0.96) as well as adverse events (AEs) (RR 0.87, 95% CI 0.80–0.95) between the two groups. The authors conclude, “Ivermectin could reduce the risk of MV requirement and AEs in patients with COVID-19 without increasing other risks. In the absence of a better alternative, clinicians could use it with caution.”
This is an important point given recent studies revealing the leading antiviral against COVID-19 Paxlovid did not have any impact as compared to the placebo. A study TrialSite published yesterday also showed neither Paxlovid nor molnupiravir had the expected impact against important endpoints such as mortality.
Conducted by the prestigious RECOVERY investigators at the University of Oxford, the findings are not a good look for both Pfizer and Merck. The results have not yet been peer-reviewed.
This topic is not trivial, given the fact that COVID-19 vaccination failed to eradicate the pathogen sufficiently to lead to herd immunity. A dynamic, ever-mutating virus, SARS-CoV-2 will continue circling the globe. Hence the importance of various antiviral options.
Interestingly, the Chinese researcher points to multiple changing variants plus “anti-vaccination movements” worldwide as a factor driving the ongoing ivermectin discussion.
Again, while the U.S. medical establishment has come to a consensus that ivermectin offers no benefit even for mild to moderate COVID-19, sufficient data around the world points to the potential sustainability of an alternative account.
The authors point to some focused websites tracking the effectiveness of IVM for COVID-19 (covid19criticalcare.com) and (https://ivmmeta.com). The Chinese authors argue that these resources are considered misinformation. Why? “Most of which are not peer-reviewed, do not present the eligible criteria used in the selection process, and do not display statistical criteria for assessing the effectiveness and heterogeneity among included studies.”
Regardless, the authors behind this latest study acknowledge the criticality of drug repositioning, a tried-and-true pathway to new potential indications.
Does ivermectin fit the classic candidate as a repositioned drug—with the prerequisite safety and pharmacokinetic profiling? A semisynthetic, anti-parasite agent associated with Nobel Prize-winning scientists, at least in a cell culture in a lab setting, the drug inhibits viral and replication scenarios. In fact, it can reduce the concentration of viral RNA by nearly 5000-fold as was demonstrated in Australia in Spring 2020.
Especially when including long COVID, the demand for effective pharmacotherapies targeting SARS-CoV-2 will likely only grow.
Findings
No significant difference in all-cause mortality rates or PCR negative conversion between IVM and controls. There were significant differences in MV requirement (RR 0.67, 95% CI 0.47–0.96) and AEs (RR 0.87, 95% CI 0.80–0.95) between the two groups. Ivermectin could reduce the risk of MV requirement and AEs in patients with COVID-19, without increasing other risks. In the absence of a better alternative, clinicians could use it with caution.
***********************************************
Dr Nick Coatsworth makes a stunning admission about the Covid jab
Dr Nick Coatsworth, who helped lead Australia's response to Covid-19, has revealed he will not be getting any more vaccinations for the virus.
Speaking with Ben Fordham on 2GB on Wednesday, the former public face of Australia's fight against Covid-19 made the stunning admission he is done with Covid vaccines.
'Are you still being vaccinated for Covid?' Fordham asked.
'No,' Dr Coatsworth said.
'When did you stop doing that?'
'About two years ago, I had three vaccines, and that's been enough for me.'
'Any reason why?' Fordham asked.
'Because I don't think I need any more Ben, and the science tells me that I don't,' Dr Coatsworth said.
The current advice from the Department of Health and Aged care states: 'Regular COVID-19 vaccinations (also known as boosters) are the best way to maintain your protection against severe illness, hospitalisation and death from Covid-19.
'They are especially important for anyone aged 65 years or older and people at higher risk of severe Covid-19.
'As with all vaccinations, people are encouraged to discuss the vaccine options available to them with their health practitioner.'
This is not the first controversial statement Dr Coatsworth - Australia's former deputy chief health officer - has made about the Covid vaccine.
In February this year Dr Coatsworth admitted that imposing vaccine mandates was wrong in the wake of the Queensland Supreme Court finding that forcing police and paramedics to take the jab or lose their jobs was 'unlawful'.
In his inquiry submission Dr Coatsworth said mandates should only be a 'last resort', 'time limited', and be imposed by governments not employers.
Although Dr Coatsworth noted Australia had assembled a top team of medical experts to advise on managing the pandemic, he said they lacked an ethical framework meaning the focus became too narrow.
'This allowed the creation of a 'disease control at all costs' policy path dependence, which, whilst suited to the first wave, was poorly suited to the vaccine era,' he said.
Dr Coatsworth argued the restriction and testing policies adopted to constrain the first deadliest strain of Covid in 2020 lingered well past their relative benefit, leading to nationwide workforce and testing shortages.
He also thought the differing approaches among states, and between states and the federal government, confused the public and eroded human rights.
'I strongly encourage the inquiry to recommend amendment of the Biosecurity Act to ensure that all disease control powers are vested in the federal government during a national biosecurity emergency,' Dr Coatsworth wrote.
Dr Coatsworth was appointed as one of three new deputy chief medical officers under Brendan Murphy at the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
He now works as a doctor in Canberra and is contracted to Nine-Fairfax channels and newspapers as a presenter and health expert.
He appeared on the Fordham program to spruik a new TV show he is presenting with Tracy Grimshaw, Do You Want To Live Forever?
*************************************************
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*********************************************************
Tuesday, June 11, 2024
Monaco Study—Failure of Pfizer Vax to Stop COVID-19 Viral Transmission—Openly Question Current mRNA Vaccines as Tool to Manage Pandemic
For the period July 2021 to September 2022, the study team tapped into and organized 20,443 contacts via 6,320 index cases from Monaco’s COVID-19 Public Health Program. Key to the group’s study agenda was better understanding the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine by calculating secondary attack rates (SAR) in Monaco households (n=13,877), schools (n=2,508) as well as occupational settings (n=6,499). Althaus and colleagues utilized binomial regression with a complementary log-log link function to measure adjusted hazard ratios (aHR) and vaccine effectiveness (aVE) for index cases to infect contacts and contacts to be infected in households.
The authors candidly express protective limitations with the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine declaring protection “…against transmission and infection was low for delta and omicron BA.1&2, regardless of the number of vaccine doses and previous SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
Furthermore, the epidemiological researchers reveal “no significant vaccine effect for omicron BA.4&5.” Perhaps this peer-reviewed study is the first to essentially declare the COVID-19 vaccines not an effective tool for protecting against SARS-CoV-2.
Among the authors of this study are a pair of Directorates of Health Affairs for the city-state who declared, “Health authorities carrying out vaccination campaigns should bear in mind that the current generation of COVID-19 vaccines may not represent an effective tool in protecting individuals from either transmitting or acquiring SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
The authors suggest that messaging should have focused on the prevention of morbidity and mortality, but that effectiveness rate was not covered in this investigation.
Findings
The authors generated data points to a SAR at 55% (95% CI 54–57) and 50% (48–51) among unvaccinated and vaccinated contacts, respectively. The SAR was 32% (28–36) and 12% (10–13) in workplaces, and 7% (6–9) and 6% (3–10) in schools, among unvaccinated and vaccinated contacts respectively.
When looking at the Monaco households, “the aHR was lower in contacts than in index cases (aHR 0.68 [0.55–0.83] and 0.93 [0.74–1.1] for delta; aHR 0.73 [0.66–0.81] and 0.89 [0.80–0.99] for omicron BA.1&2, respectively).”
The bombshells continued, as Althaus and colleagues found, “Vaccination had no significant effect on either direct or indirect aVE for omicron BA.4&5.” Of course, a handful of different reasons could explain this, but the Monaco-based research finally calls out in plain language the stark reality of their findings.
The direct aVE in contacts was 32% (17, 45) and 27% (19, 34), and for index cases the indirect aVE was 7% (− 17, 26) and 11% (1, 20) for delta and omicron BA.1&2, respectively.
Further, “The greatest aVE was in contacts with a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and a single vaccine dose during the omicron BA.1&2 period (45% [27, 59]), while the lowest were found in contacts with either three vaccine doses (aVE − 24% [− 63, 6]) or one single dose and a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection (aVE − 36% [− 198, 38]) during the omicron BA.4&5 period.”
What are some of the strengths of this study?
Monaco is small enough to have a well-managed and controlled national program with a robust data set, with routine surveillance and immunization access covering individual data on index cases and contacts for SARS-CoV-2.
The authors point out that the robust data includes several levels of disaggregation (age, gender, presence of symptoms, various dates) to produce vaccine effectiveness outputs in various settings.
So, the sponsor—the Monaco Health Program afforded the authors to prospectively investigate all contacts of a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, enabling the quantification of viral infection and direct and indirect vaccine effectiveness in real-world settings over a 14-month period.
Based on the data did vaccination matter much when it came to secondary attack rate in households?
No. The SAR for households was approximately 50%, representing the highest infection attack rates regardless of index cases and contacts’ vaccination statuses.
Did occupational and school settings exhibit lower rates of infection?
Yes.
What could explain this difference?
The authors suggest, “Infection pressure (duration and type for contact) as well as non-pharmaceutical interventions such as mask-wearing or social distancing.”
Do the authors raise troubling questions about how some health authorities issued statements that were not accurate?
Yes. While the authors acknowledge no one really knows how effective the COVID-19 vaccines were at preventing transmission, “some national campaigns promoted COVID-19 vaccine as a protective measure for “protecting others”, which may have created potential distrust, undermining population adherence to future immunization recommendations.”
Do the study authors suggest the messaging should have focused on the prevention of more severe disease, morbidity and mortality?
Yes. The focus of the mRNA vaccines as a tool to help prevent severe disease and mortality and the role of non-pharmacological measures on transmission may help the population to better understand, and therefore accept, public health interventions.
************************************************
Federal Court Revives Lawsuit Against Los Angeles COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate
A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit challenging the COVID-19 vaccine mandate imposed by the Los Angeles school district, noting that the record doesn’t clearly show whether the vaccines prevent transmission of the illness.
The Health Freedom Defense Fund and other challengers to the mandate asserted that it violated the due process and equal protection rights of district employees, in part because the vaccines, unlike traditional vaccines, “are not effective” in preventing infection.
U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer disagreed, throwing out the case in 2022. She ruled that even if the COVID-19 vaccines don’t prevent infection, mandates can be imposed under a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court ruling because the vaccines reduce symptoms and prevent severe disease and death.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on June 7 reversed that ruling, finding that Judge Fischer extended the 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts ruling “beyond its public health rationale—government’s power to mandate prophylactic measures aimed at preventing the recipient from spreading disease to others—to also govern ‘forced medical treatment’ for the recipient’s benefit.”
U.S. Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson, writing for the 2–1 majority, added, “At this stage, we must accept plaintiffs’ allegations that the vaccine does not prevent the spread of COVID-19 as true. And, because of this, Jacobson does not apply.” That position was reached after lawyers for the defendants provided facts about the vaccines that “do not contradict plaintiffs’ allegations.”
Lawyers for the district had pointed out that a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publication describes the COVID-19 vaccines as “safe and effective” although the publication doesn’t detail effectiveness against transmission.
The majority also concluded that the case isn’t moot even after the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in 2023 rescinded the mandate. That move only came after the appeals court heard arguments in the case, and comments from district board members indicated the mandate could be reimposed in the future. In 2021, the district added an option for employees to be frequently tested for COVID-19 in lieu of a vaccine after being sued, only to remove the option after a different suit was thrown out.
“LAUSD’s pattern of withdrawing and then reinstating its vaccination policies is enough to keep this case alive,” Judge Nelson said.
He was joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel Collins.
The ruling remanded the case back to Judge Fischer “for further proceedings under the correct legal standard.”
In a concurring opinion, Judge Collins said the allegations in the case implicate “the fundamental right to refuse medical treatment,” pointing to more recent Supreme Court rulings, including a 1997 decision in which the court stated that the “‘right of a competent individual to refuse medical treatment’ was ‘entirely consistent with this nation’s history and constitutional traditions,’ in light of ’the common-law rule that forced medication was a battery, and the long legal tradition protecting the decision to refuse unwanted medical treatment.'”
In a dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Daly Hawkins said that the school district “has averred that, absent a very unlikely return to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it will not reinstate the policy.”
“Neither the speculative possibility of a future pandemic nor LAUSD’s power to adopt another vaccination policy save this case,” the judge said.
Judges Nelson and Collins were appointed by President Donald Trump. Judge Hawkins is an appointee of President Bill Clinton. Judge Fischer is an appointee of President George W. Bush.
Leslie Manookian, president of the Health Freedom Defense Fund, said in a statement that the Ninth Circuit’s ruling “made clear that [Americans’] cherished rights to self-determination, including the sacred right of bodily autonomy in matters of health, are not negotiable.”
A spokesperson for the school district told The Epoch Times via email, “Los Angeles Unified is reviewing the Ninth Circuit ruling and assessing the district’s options.”
*************************************************
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*********************************************************
Sunday, June 09, 2024
Former CDC chief Dr Robert Redfield has blasted Covid-19 vaccine mandates, lockdowns as a ‘terrible mistake’
Robert Redfield, the former head of the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said mandating Covid-19 vaccine was a “terrible decision” and lockdowns and school closures were a “big mistake”.
Dr Redfield, an esteemed virologist who led the CDC from 2018 to 2021, said the pharmaceutical giants had a “huge influence” over convincing governments that everyone including children should be coerced into being vaccinated and boosted during the pandemic.
“We absolutely never should have mandated vaccines, it was a terrible decision … the rationale for mandating vaccines for healthy firefighters and policemen, those in the military, hospital workers, teachers, was emotional, it shouldn’t have happened,” he said in an interview with Chris Cuomo published on Wednesday (Thursday AEST).
Dr Redfield, 72, said the Covid-19 vaccines, which the Biden administration tried to mandate for all workers in late 2021, worked to prevent serious illness and death for vulnerable, older patients “over 65” but weren’t suitable for healthy young people, didn’t prevent transmission and wore off after six months at most.
“If you came down and visited me and interviewed my patients, you’d interview patient after patient that did not have Covid, but are very sick, long covid patients, and it’s all from the vaccine,” he added, in comments that would have been censored on social media and censured publicly during the pandemic.
A ‘v-safe’ survey by the CDC released in late 2022 found 7.7 per cent of around a million American recipients sought medical attention after their Covid-19 vaccination. Western Australian data published last year found the Covid-19 vaccines, which were lauded as safe and effective, caused injuries at 24 times the rate of other approved vaccines.
“I remember Biden saying, you know, this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. … I was saying, wait a minute, two thirds of the people that I’m seeing infected in Maryland have been vaccinated, these vaccines don’t last”.
Dr Redfield, who continues to practise medicine privately in Maryland, was sidelined in 2020 for suggesting SARS-Cov2, the virus that causes Covid-19, might have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology rather than ‘spilt over’ from the animal kingdom naturally, a theory that’s since become more credible.
In a one-hour interview with Mr Cuomo, whose brother Andrew Cuomo as New York governor became the face of tough Covid-19 mandates in 2020, Dr Redfield said countries “made a big mistake and paid a big price” by locking down their societies for months, on and off for up to two years.
“You know, I’m not sure people will accept responsibility, those people that really pushed it, because it was unfortunate, it was emotional,” he said. “There’s no question there was overreach,
Following China’s example, most governments imposed lockdowns from March 2020, lasting well into 2021 in some jurisdictions, unprecedented policies that triggered massive public borrowing, record unemployment, inflation, social unrest and permanent learning loss, in the US at least, for students from low-income families.
“I was very much against closing schools, I thought the kids were probably safer in schools, most kids were getting infected in the community and from the dinner table, not from the school, a lot of that was emotionalism with teachers,” he said.
Dr Redfield’s interview emerged a few days after Dr Anthony Fauci, president Joe Biden’s former top Covid-19 adviser, admitted in widely reported congressional testimony that the ‘lab leak theory’ was no longer a conspiracy theory and pandemic measures should “consider the balance” of costs and benefits next time.
***********************************************************
Top oncologists weigh in on the rise of rare and unusual cancers in young people - and the links to Covid
Scientists studying a rise in rare and unusual cancers in young people are turning their attention to an unlikely culprit: Covid.
Preliminary research on cells has indicated the virus may fuel the growth of tumors and shut down the body's defense against them - but the theory is widely disputed.
There is, however a consensus among doctors: they're seeing more young and relatively healthy people with obscure forms of the disease after the pandemic.
One doctor told DailyMail.com the theory that Covid is driving these cases doesn't hold up because the trend predates the outbreak. Early-onset cancers of all forms have been on the rise, increasing by 79 percent globally from 1990 to 2019, the year before the pandemic.
Other experts found the Covid theory more convincing. They pointed to the fact that already one in four cancer have been linked to other viruses, such as HPV.
Kasra Jahankhani, an Iranian immunologist and lead researcher on a 2023 report on the topic told DailyMail.com: 'It's really controversial and there is a lot of debate around the topic, but we think there are many ways SARs Covid infection could affect cancers.'
His research suggested that the coronavirus can change genes that usually stop tumors from forming and cause widespread inflammation throughout the body.
This inflammation in combination with reduced defenses might lead to the development of cancer cells in various organs, they wrote.
Viral associations with cancers are 'unfortunately common,' said Dr Landau, oncologist and contributor for The Mesothelioma Center at Asbestos.com.
With the human papilloma virus (HPV), for example, it is believed that the virus itself can inject its DNA into the body's cells, which can cause a mutation that leads to growth of cancerous cells.
'Essentially, the virus is trying to take over our body's cells to promote its own growth and survival.
'But mutating cells to continuously grow is, at a simple level, how cancers develop,' Dr Landau told DailyMail.com.
However, not all experts are in agreement. Dr Suneel Kamath, an oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic, ruled out a link between Covid and cancer.
'The trends in rising incidence of cancer in younger people, such as bile duct, colorectal, breast, lung and gastric, have been happening for years, even decades before Covid-19 existed, and they are still happening,' he told DailyMail.com.
Colon cancer diagnoses in particular among under-50s have reached epidemic levels. Nearly 18,000 cases are diagnosed among this age group every year in the US compared to 12,000 a year pre-2000.
Colon cancer deaths among young people are also expected to double by 2030, experts have warned.
Uterine cancer has also risen two percent each year in people under 50 since the mid-1990s.
Early-onset breast cancer has also increased by 3.8 percent annually between 2016-2019, and cancer rates do not appear to have sped up dramatically since Covid.
But experts have said that it might be too early to see that impact, as 'the long term implications of the pandemic will evolve over time,' Dr Landau said.
CDC data shows that more people are being told they have cancer now than they were prior to the pandemic. In 2021, 9.8 percent of adults reported having ever been told by a doctor that they had cancer. In 2019, that proportion of adults was 9.5 percent.
One of the possible links between Covid and cancer is a gene called P53, which suppresses cancerous tumors in the body by stopping cells with mutated or damaged DNA from dividing, Jahankhani explained.
His research team found that the tumor suppressor gene P53 may be 'degraded' by SARS-CoV-2 and effectively blocked.
This means it can no longer stop tumors growing. Other research has found that lower levels of P53 can make people more susceptible to cancer.
Another factor involves the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), which is a key system that regulates blood pressure in the body.
When the SARS-CoV-2 virus binds to ACE2 receptor, it stops the RAAS from functioning properly.
This in turn causes inflammation and oxidative stress, which are factors in cancer progression and development.
Another way Covid and cancer might be linked is by proteins called cytokines.
When the body gets an infection such as Covid, the immune system will begin to fight it off, including using cytokines as a defense system against the virus.
The proteins tell immune cells what to do and also tell the body to produce more of them to ensure a knockout blow is delivered to the infection.
But sometimes too many cytokines can be released, which puts the immune system into overdrive and creates a heightened inflammatory response.
The release of cytokines is often what makes us feel sick when we have an infection, Dr Landau said.
'But these same cytokines can cause harm to the body, and that harm can increase cancer risk, especially if they remain elevated in the long term,' he said.
This heightened inflammatory response occurs with long Covid, he added.
Too much inflammation can damage tissues and DNA and has been linked to the development of autoimmune conditions, as well as cancer.
Inflammation also causes changes to chromosomes in cells, and repeated changes can cause cells to become cancerous.
This abundance of cytokines can also lead to the emergence of cancer stem cells in organs like the lungs and pancreas, as well as bile ducts.
Because Covid infection occurs directly and indirectly in several organs, including the lungs, brain and kidneys, the researchers believe cancer stem cells can develop in multiple organs.
Stem cells are cells that have the ability the develop into many different cell types in the body.
Cancer stem cells, meanwhile, occur in tumors and have the ability to divide and renew, which grows and spreads the tumor.
They can originate from adult tissue stem cells and initiate a tumor, particularly if there is lots of inflammation from Covid.
And while researchers cannot definitively rule out the Covid vaccines as playing a role, Jahankhani said there is no evidence that this is the case.
His team 'didn't find anything' to support the idea that the Covid shot drove up cancer rates.
The evidence supporting the virus theory appears to be much stronger, he added.
Dr Landau acknowledged that although there have been blood clot issues after the Covid vaccine, 'a clear link with development of cancer is not yet known.'
'We suspect the cancer risk would come from the virus itself, rather than the vaccine, but it will take years of follow up studies to truly understand this,' he said.
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*********************************************************
Robert Redfield, the former head of the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said mandating Covid-19 vaccine was a “terrible decision” and lockdowns and school closures were a “big mistake”.
Dr Redfield, an esteemed virologist who led the CDC from 2018 to 2021, said the pharmaceutical giants had a “huge influence” over convincing governments that everyone including children should be coerced into being vaccinated and boosted during the pandemic.
“We absolutely never should have mandated vaccines, it was a terrible decision … the rationale for mandating vaccines for healthy firefighters and policemen, those in the military, hospital workers, teachers, was emotional, it shouldn’t have happened,” he said in an interview with Chris Cuomo published on Wednesday (Thursday AEST).
Dr Redfield, 72, said the Covid-19 vaccines, which the Biden administration tried to mandate for all workers in late 2021, worked to prevent serious illness and death for vulnerable, older patients “over 65” but weren’t suitable for healthy young people, didn’t prevent transmission and wore off after six months at most.
“If you came down and visited me and interviewed my patients, you’d interview patient after patient that did not have Covid, but are very sick, long covid patients, and it’s all from the vaccine,” he added, in comments that would have been censored on social media and censured publicly during the pandemic.
A ‘v-safe’ survey by the CDC released in late 2022 found 7.7 per cent of around a million American recipients sought medical attention after their Covid-19 vaccination. Western Australian data published last year found the Covid-19 vaccines, which were lauded as safe and effective, caused injuries at 24 times the rate of other approved vaccines.
“I remember Biden saying, you know, this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. … I was saying, wait a minute, two thirds of the people that I’m seeing infected in Maryland have been vaccinated, these vaccines don’t last”.
Dr Redfield, who continues to practise medicine privately in Maryland, was sidelined in 2020 for suggesting SARS-Cov2, the virus that causes Covid-19, might have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology rather than ‘spilt over’ from the animal kingdom naturally, a theory that’s since become more credible.
In a one-hour interview with Mr Cuomo, whose brother Andrew Cuomo as New York governor became the face of tough Covid-19 mandates in 2020, Dr Redfield said countries “made a big mistake and paid a big price” by locking down their societies for months, on and off for up to two years.
“You know, I’m not sure people will accept responsibility, those people that really pushed it, because it was unfortunate, it was emotional,” he said. “There’s no question there was overreach,
Following China’s example, most governments imposed lockdowns from March 2020, lasting well into 2021 in some jurisdictions, unprecedented policies that triggered massive public borrowing, record unemployment, inflation, social unrest and permanent learning loss, in the US at least, for students from low-income families.
“I was very much against closing schools, I thought the kids were probably safer in schools, most kids were getting infected in the community and from the dinner table, not from the school, a lot of that was emotionalism with teachers,” he said.
Dr Redfield’s interview emerged a few days after Dr Anthony Fauci, president Joe Biden’s former top Covid-19 adviser, admitted in widely reported congressional testimony that the ‘lab leak theory’ was no longer a conspiracy theory and pandemic measures should “consider the balance” of costs and benefits next time.
***********************************************************
Top oncologists weigh in on the rise of rare and unusual cancers in young people - and the links to Covid
Scientists studying a rise in rare and unusual cancers in young people are turning their attention to an unlikely culprit: Covid.
Preliminary research on cells has indicated the virus may fuel the growth of tumors and shut down the body's defense against them - but the theory is widely disputed.
There is, however a consensus among doctors: they're seeing more young and relatively healthy people with obscure forms of the disease after the pandemic.
One doctor told DailyMail.com the theory that Covid is driving these cases doesn't hold up because the trend predates the outbreak. Early-onset cancers of all forms have been on the rise, increasing by 79 percent globally from 1990 to 2019, the year before the pandemic.
Other experts found the Covid theory more convincing. They pointed to the fact that already one in four cancer have been linked to other viruses, such as HPV.
Kasra Jahankhani, an Iranian immunologist and lead researcher on a 2023 report on the topic told DailyMail.com: 'It's really controversial and there is a lot of debate around the topic, but we think there are many ways SARs Covid infection could affect cancers.'
His research suggested that the coronavirus can change genes that usually stop tumors from forming and cause widespread inflammation throughout the body.
This inflammation in combination with reduced defenses might lead to the development of cancer cells in various organs, they wrote.
Viral associations with cancers are 'unfortunately common,' said Dr Landau, oncologist and contributor for The Mesothelioma Center at Asbestos.com.
With the human papilloma virus (HPV), for example, it is believed that the virus itself can inject its DNA into the body's cells, which can cause a mutation that leads to growth of cancerous cells.
'Essentially, the virus is trying to take over our body's cells to promote its own growth and survival.
'But mutating cells to continuously grow is, at a simple level, how cancers develop,' Dr Landau told DailyMail.com.
However, not all experts are in agreement. Dr Suneel Kamath, an oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic, ruled out a link between Covid and cancer.
'The trends in rising incidence of cancer in younger people, such as bile duct, colorectal, breast, lung and gastric, have been happening for years, even decades before Covid-19 existed, and they are still happening,' he told DailyMail.com.
Colon cancer diagnoses in particular among under-50s have reached epidemic levels. Nearly 18,000 cases are diagnosed among this age group every year in the US compared to 12,000 a year pre-2000.
Colon cancer deaths among young people are also expected to double by 2030, experts have warned.
Uterine cancer has also risen two percent each year in people under 50 since the mid-1990s.
Early-onset breast cancer has also increased by 3.8 percent annually between 2016-2019, and cancer rates do not appear to have sped up dramatically since Covid.
But experts have said that it might be too early to see that impact, as 'the long term implications of the pandemic will evolve over time,' Dr Landau said.
CDC data shows that more people are being told they have cancer now than they were prior to the pandemic. In 2021, 9.8 percent of adults reported having ever been told by a doctor that they had cancer. In 2019, that proportion of adults was 9.5 percent.
One of the possible links between Covid and cancer is a gene called P53, which suppresses cancerous tumors in the body by stopping cells with mutated or damaged DNA from dividing, Jahankhani explained.
His research team found that the tumor suppressor gene P53 may be 'degraded' by SARS-CoV-2 and effectively blocked.
This means it can no longer stop tumors growing. Other research has found that lower levels of P53 can make people more susceptible to cancer.
Another factor involves the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), which is a key system that regulates blood pressure in the body.
When the SARS-CoV-2 virus binds to ACE2 receptor, it stops the RAAS from functioning properly.
This in turn causes inflammation and oxidative stress, which are factors in cancer progression and development.
Another way Covid and cancer might be linked is by proteins called cytokines.
When the body gets an infection such as Covid, the immune system will begin to fight it off, including using cytokines as a defense system against the virus.
The proteins tell immune cells what to do and also tell the body to produce more of them to ensure a knockout blow is delivered to the infection.
But sometimes too many cytokines can be released, which puts the immune system into overdrive and creates a heightened inflammatory response.
The release of cytokines is often what makes us feel sick when we have an infection, Dr Landau said.
'But these same cytokines can cause harm to the body, and that harm can increase cancer risk, especially if they remain elevated in the long term,' he said.
This heightened inflammatory response occurs with long Covid, he added.
Too much inflammation can damage tissues and DNA and has been linked to the development of autoimmune conditions, as well as cancer.
Inflammation also causes changes to chromosomes in cells, and repeated changes can cause cells to become cancerous.
This abundance of cytokines can also lead to the emergence of cancer stem cells in organs like the lungs and pancreas, as well as bile ducts.
Because Covid infection occurs directly and indirectly in several organs, including the lungs, brain and kidneys, the researchers believe cancer stem cells can develop in multiple organs.
Stem cells are cells that have the ability the develop into many different cell types in the body.
Cancer stem cells, meanwhile, occur in tumors and have the ability to divide and renew, which grows and spreads the tumor.
They can originate from adult tissue stem cells and initiate a tumor, particularly if there is lots of inflammation from Covid.
And while researchers cannot definitively rule out the Covid vaccines as playing a role, Jahankhani said there is no evidence that this is the case.
His team 'didn't find anything' to support the idea that the Covid shot drove up cancer rates.
The evidence supporting the virus theory appears to be much stronger, he added.
Dr Landau acknowledged that although there have been blood clot issues after the Covid vaccine, 'a clear link with development of cancer is not yet known.'
'We suspect the cancer risk would come from the virus itself, rather than the vaccine, but it will take years of follow up studies to truly understand this,' he said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13506321/cancer-Covid-infection-supercharge-tumors.html
*************************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*********************************************************
Thursday, June 06, 2024
Amsterdam UMC Medical Researchers Population Study Raises Specter of COVID-19 Vaccine Possible Ties to Excess Mortality
Mainstream media dips toes even further into the topic of vaccine injury waters as a major epidemiological study led by researchers in The Netherlands featured high excess mortality during the pandemic, raising the prospect that the COVID-19 vaccines may be tied to the mortality. While the authors cannot make any declarative claims or establish any causation, they call for serious inquiry into this public health crisis.
The UK’s The Telegraph and other media reported on an epidemiological investigation into excess deaths during the period 2020-2022. Are COVID-19 vaccine injuries potentially linked to these excess deaths?
Published in The BMJ Public Health and led by Saskia Mostert, Assistant Professor CA - Cancer Treatment and quality of life, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics and colleagues, the study is titled “Excess mortality across countries in the Western World since the COVID-19 pandemic: ‘Our World in Data estimates of January 2020 to December 2022.”
The study team designed an all-cause mortality assessment tapping into the Our World in Data database, assessing mortality as a deviation between the reported number of deaths in a country during a certain week or month in 2020 until 2022, and the expected number of deaths in a country for that period until normal conditions.
For the baseline of expected deaths, the authors embrace the Karlinsky and Kobak model which is based on historical death data in a country from 2015 until 2019 and accounts for seasonal variation and year-to-year trends in mortality.
Findings
Tracking 3,098,456 excess deaths in 47 nations across the Western World from January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2022, 41 of the countries, or 87% of the total, in 2020 experienced excess mortality. By 2021, however, excess deaths climbed to 42 countries (89%), and in 2022, the excess death count went to 43 countries (91%).
The authors point out, “In 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic onset and implementation of containment measures, records present 1 033 122 excess deaths (P-score 11.4%).” By 2021—a year that included both COVID-19 containment measures and mass vaccination, the excess death toll was 1,256,942 (P-score 13.8%). By 2022, most, if not all, COVID-19 restrictions were lifted while the mass vaccination persisted, and excess deaths continued at 808,292 (P-score 8.8%).
The authors conclude that “Excess mortality has remained high in the Western World for three consecutive years, despite the implementation of containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines. This raises serious concerns. Government leaders and policymakers need to thoroughly investigate underlying causes of persistent excess mortality.”
What’s Going On?
Mainstream media’s attention on this topic is late but not unexpected. The authors report “unprecedented” figures that “raised serious concerns,” and consequently, they call on governments to fully investigate the underlying causes, including possible vaccine harms.
As reported in The Telegraph piece, the Amsterdam-based investigators go on the record: “Although COVID-19 vaccines were provided to guard civilians from suffering morbidity and mortality from the COVID-19 virus, suspected adverse events have been documented as well.”
“Both medical professionals and citizens have reported serious injuries and deaths following vaccination to various official databases in the Western World.”
They added: “During the pandemic, it was emphasized by politicians and the media on a daily basis that every COVID-19 death mattered, and every life deserved protection through containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the same moral should apply.”
********************************************
Judge Finally Rejects Victoria Dep. Of Health Bureaucrats, Records Justifying Extreme COVID-19 Response Measures to be Released
Some of the most rigid COVID-19 response policies in the Western world occurred in Australia, in places like the state of Victoria, with its multiple lengthy lockdowns. Melbourne with three major lockdowns, had some of the toughest Covid rules in the world and the longest lockdown at least among the democratic nations.
What was behind those lockdowns? How were decisions made? What was the evidence used to justify a process that would have a profound impact on the economy, children’s education and psychology and more? Local activists have spent four years attempting to access the trove of records and documentation, yet to the Department of Health for Victoria, good government doesn’t come with transparency. Until now that is, however, as the secret documents supporting the state’s COVID-19 lockdowns will soon be released after the state lost a legal battle to maintain secrecy.
So, what happened?
Just this past week, a judge at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ordered the department to process freedom of information requests it had refused for the briefings provided to the Chief Health Officer, Deputy Chief Health Officer and Minister for Health relating to public health orders made in 2020, reports Chantelle Francis for News.com.
It turns out that the leadership within the Department of Health for Victoria believes it to be above any Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for the past four years.
David Davis, a Liberal MP made multiple attempts, three in all, to access the justification for the severe lockdowns, and each and every time his effort was rejected by the Department of Health. Why? The request would substantially and unreasonably divert resources.
Davis then initiated a review process, one that’s a legal requirement to be completed within a specific period of time via the Victorian Information Commissioner yet that commissioner failed to follow the law, not reaching a decision within the statutory period.
In that case, the head of the COVID-19 response at the time, Jeroen Weimar, according to the News.com account complained meeting Mr. Davis’s combined FOI requests would take the agency about four years’ worth of work effort.
That claim was backed by Michael Cain, the department’s manager of FOI and legal compliance.
Legal Intervention
But Judge Caitlin English, Vice President of the Victorian Civil Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), ruled in a different direction. The judge was not convinced that the health department had reasonably estimated the resources required to process the requests and noted the “strong public interest” in the information.
While acknowledging responding to the FOI would take a substantial effort, Judge English declared nonetheless it was manageable for the department.
The judge’s order stated:
“The Department, bearing the onus, has not satisfied me on the evidence that the work involved in processing the request would substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the agency from its other operations.” As a consequence, she emphasized, “I direct the agency to process Mr. Davis’s requests in accordance with the FOI Act.”
Now, this judicial ruled that over 115 briefs backing the state government’s public health orders may be released, at an average of 40 to 60 pages each.
Conclusion
Given the extreme nature of the Victoria COVID-19 response in the form of public health orders, the externalities born by the public, plus limited publicly available information as to the justification, the judge’s decision for transparency points to a significant public interest concern.
According to MP Davis, “The second wave as it surged into effect in July 2020 drove my series of freedom of information requests on 7 July, 13 July, and 17 July of the then Department of Health and Human Services for the briefings behind the decisions to impose the public health orders.”
*************************************************
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*********************************************************
Monday, June 03, 2024
Dr. Anthony Fauci confesses he 'made up' covid rules including 6 feet social distancing and masking kids
Bombshell testimony from Dr. Anthony Fauci reveals he made up the six foot social distancing rule and other measures to 'protect' Americans from covid.
Republicans put out the full transcript of their sit down interview with Fauci from January just days before his highly-anticipated public testimony on Monday.
They plan to grill him about covid restrictions he put in place, that he admitted didn't do much to 'slow the spread' of the virus.
Kids' learning loss and social setbacks have been well documented, with one National Institute of Health (NIH) study calling the impact of mask use on students' literacy and learning 'very negative.'
And the impacts from social distancing caused 'depression, generalized anxiety, acute stress, and intrusive thoughts,' another NIH study found.
Speaking to counsel on behalf of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic earlier this year, Fauci told Republicans that the six foot social distancing rule 'sort of just appeared' and that he did not recall how it came about.
'You know, I don't recall. It sort of just appeared,' he said according to committee transcripts when pressed on how the rule came about.
He added he 'was not aware of studies' that supported the social distancing, conceding that such studies 'would be very difficult' to do.
In addition to not recalling any evidence supporting social distancing, Fauci also told the committee's counsel that he didn't remember reading anything to support that masking kids would prevent COVID.
'Do you recall reviewing any studies or data supporting masking for children?' he was asked.
'I might have,' he responded before adding 'but I don't recall specifically that I did.'
The pandemic patriarch also testified that he had not followed any studies after the fact regarding the impacts that forced mask wearing had on children, of which there have been many.
And his answer was an ironic COVID-esque pun, 'I still think that's up in the air,' Fauci said about whether masking kids was a solid way to prevent transmission.
Further, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) told the counsel that he believes the lab leak theory - the idea that COVID began at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) - is a real 'possibility.'
'I think people have made conspiracy aspects from it,' he said, adding 'it could be a lab leak.'
'So I think that in and of itself isn't inherently a conspiracy theory, but some people spin off things from that that are kind of crazy.'
His admission that COVID may have began at the WIV comes four years after he backed the publication of a paper which threw cold water on the lab leak theory called the 'Proximal Origin' paper.
The coronavirus committee has dedicated months to discovering the origins of the virus that upended so many lives and resulted in the deaths of 6 million people globally.
Recently they have discovered that Fauci's former top aide, Dr. David Morens, routinely conducted work on his personal email account and deleted files to avoid government transparency laws under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
His disregard for FOIA requests was so blatant that be bragged in emails to colleagues that he learned how to make official correspondence 'disappear' and that he would delete things he didn't 'want to see in the New York Times.'
Emails from Morens uncovered by the committee further revealed that he boasted about having a 'secret back channel' to Fauci where he could clandestinely communicate with the former NIAID director.
That revelation shocked the committee's chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, so thoroughly that he demanded Fauci turnover his personal email and phone records to the investigative body.
Also shocking, is Fauci's admission to the committee in January that he 'never' looks at the grants that he signed off on, some of which total to millions of taxpayer dollars.
'You know, technically, I sign off on each council, but I don't see the grants and what they are. I never look at what grants are there,' he told the committee's counsel.
Further, he said he was 'not certain' that foreign labs that receive U.S. grant money, such as the WIV - which was studying coronaviruses using U.S. taxpayer dollars at the time the pandemic began - operate at the same standards of American labs.
Fauci also said that the money he gave out as a part of the NIAID grant process did not go through any national security reviews.
Additionally, the former director said he was unaware of any conflicts of interest among his staff, which included his senior advisor Dr. Morens.
However, Morens testified before the committee on May 22 that he helped his 'best friend' EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak with his nonprofit's work.
Morens said he helped edit press releases for EcoHealth and worked to restore grant funding for the nonprofit after it's funding was terminated in the wake of the COVID outbreak in 2020.
NIH, which employs Morens, funded Daszak's EcoHealth to the tune of millions of dollars.
Still, Fauci said he was unaware that Morens had any conflicts of interests.
The committee will surely seek to clarify Fauci and Moren's 'secret back channel' of communication during the June 3 hearing.
*******************************************************
Drugmakers’ Secret Royalty Payments to Fauci’s NIAID Exploded After Pandemic: Report
Secret royalty payments from drug companies to scientists, researchers, executives, and other employees of the National Institutes for Health (NIH) exploded following the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2021, according to a new report from a non-profit government watchdog.
“In 2022 and 2023, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies paid the [NIH] a sum of $710,381,160 in third-party royalties. These were payments healthcare companies made to NIH, its leadership and scientists to license medical inventions created in federal, taxpayer-funded labs,” OpenTheBooks.com reports in an analysis being made public Monday as former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci testifies before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. The Epoch Times obtained a copy of the full report.
“The National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), led until recently by Dr. Anthony Fauci, collected nearly all of it: $690,218,610 of the $710 million,” the report said.
The $710 million total for 2022-2023 is double the $325 million OpentheBooks.com previously reported was paid to NIH employees between 2009 and 2021. The non-profit watchdog has had to take NIH to federal court twice for failing to provide requested data not covered by any of the nine exemptions to the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Among the recipients of royalties was NIAID’s John Mascola, who was selected to manage Operation Warp Speed, the government’s crash program to develop a vaccine for the Coronavirus.
More than 1.2 million Americans have been reported as dying as a result of contracting the virus since January 2020.
Dr. Mascola, who managed NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center since 2013, received royalty payments from Moderna since 2018, when he selected the company as one of the government’s partners in Operation Warp Speed.
Moderna received more than $10 billion from the government between 2020 and 2022 for its work developing a vaccine and delivering millions of doses to health care agencies. In the years 2013 to 2017, the government paid Moderna $60 million for development work on the mRNA technology that is the basis of the Coronavirus vaccine.
OpentheBooks.com obtained the data on which its report is based from NIH after the agency resisted providing the information in response to the group’s second FOIA request, which was filed in conjunction with Judicial Watch, a non-profit legal firm that specializes in FOIA litigation.
Media Claims It Was Duped by Fauci-Funded Scientists on Covid Origins, but Is That Really True? | Truth Over News
The NIH was required to provide the names of government employees receiving the royalty payments, the amounts paid, and when they were paid. But OpenTheBooks.com claims in its report that the government is still refusing to disclose the names of NIH employees in connection with 4,851 royalty payments between 2009 and 2021.
In addition, nearly 1,000 names of NIH employees getting royalty payments made in 2022 and 2023 are being withheld. The government cites the FOIA’s exemption, which is meant to protect private firms’ commercial trade secrets.
“Why the names of NIH scientists are considered ‘confidential’ or ’trade secrets’ is unexplained, and something we are fighting in our ongoing FOIA litigation ... We have no idea who these scientists are, what they are in charge of, or why their names are redacted. All of this raises significant questions about conflicts-of-interest within the royalty structure at the NIH for obvious reasons,” the report said.
Dr. Fauci is expected to be questioned by members of the subcommittee about the secret royalty payments and why agency officials are defying the FOIA’s requirement that all federal documents that are not covered by the exemptions must be made available to the public on request.
Dr. David Morens, formerly one of Dr. Fauci’s closest advisers at NIH, testified before the panel about how he was advised by officials in the NIH FOIA office on how to avoid disclosure of emails, text messages, and other communications considered potentially embarrassing.
A spokesman for NIH could not be reached late Sunday for comment.
*************************************************
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*********************************************************
Sunday, June 02, 2024
Emails Show Dr. Fauci Bribed Scientists to Discredit the Lab Leak Theory
Since he appears to have had some role in financing the lab studies concerned, his motive can be guessed
Newly released emails unearthed by the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic show Dr. Anthony Fauci bribed scientists with taxpayer funded grants to discredit the lab leak theory. Fauci rewarded scientists with millions of dollars for doing this bidding. Then, his chief-of-staff covered his tracks by illegally evading Freedom of Information Act laws.
Fauci had an interest in discrediting the lab leak theory on behalf of EcoHealth, the group that partnered with Fauci through National Institute of Health grants to conduct illegal and dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology -- where COVID-19 was engineered according to intelligence assessments. Ecohealth was debarred and banned from receiving federal grants for conducting the illegal and unethical experiments. In January 2020, Fauci was informed through email by an NIH scientist that the virus looked "engineered."
Fauci was regularly referred to as "the Godfather" of gain-of-function research and created an intimidating environment conducive to corruption and retribution for not bowing to his demands -- which manipulated "scientific" conclusions.
"The head of the funding, the head of the entire field, really, is Anthony Fauci," Washington Post reporter Josh Rogin said during an interview with Megyn Kelly in April 2021. "He's the godfather of gain-of-function research as we know it. That, again, just what I said right there, is too hot for TV because people don’t want to think about the fact that our hero of the pandemic… might also have been connected to this research, which might also have been connected to the outbreak."
In addition to bribing scientists, Fauci enlisted Facebook to censor all stories about the lab leak theory on the social media platform.
A newly surfaced email from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, which was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from Buzzfeed, may explain why Facebook was censoring the information.
"Tony: I wanted to send a note of thanks for your leadership and everything you're doing to make our country's response to this outbreak as effective as possible. I also wanted to share a few ideas of ways we could help you get your message out but I understand you're incredibly busy, so don't feel a need to reply unless these seem interesting," Zuckerberg wrote in an email to Fauci on March 15, 2020, adding that he wanted to help get "authoritative" information out to the masses.
Fauci responded to Zuckerberg directly and worked with him on a number of messaging projects for the platform.
When Fauci was asked about the lab leak theory in April 2020, he downplayed the idea. Facebook then started removing posts and conversations about the lab leak theory from their platform.
***********************************************
UK: One in 20 infected with mild Covid in the first wave are STILL battling illness, study shows
One in 20 people infected with mild Covid in the first wave of the pandemic were left with lingering symptoms up to three years later, research has suggested.
US scientists found respiratory and neurological issues were the common problems still reported by those struck down with the virus in 2020.
And the researchers, who tracked more than 135,000 Americans with Covid, also discovered a 34 per cent higher risk of problems with all organs among people hit hardest with Covid and hospitalised.
Experts today labelled the findings an 'important new lesson' and warned the virus 'should not be trivialized'.
Dr Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University and senior author of the study said: 'We aren't sure why the virus's effects linger for so long.
'Possibly it has to do with viral persistence, chronic inflammation, immune dysfunction or all the above.
'We tend to think of infections as mostly short-term illnesses with health effects that manifest around the time of infection.
'Our data challenges this notion. I feel Covid continues to teach us — and this is an important new lesson — that a brief, seemingly innocuous or benign encounter with the virus can still lead to health problems years later.'
He added: 'Addressing this knowledge gap is critical to enhance our understanding of long Covid and will help inform care for people suffering from long Covid.'
US Government data suggests up to 10 per cent of people infected with virus have experienced long Covid.
Often self-diagnosed, the term was coined for a number of symptoms following Covid infection, which can persist for months or even years after the initial infection.
Around 1.9million people in the UK are reported to suffer with it, with the term covering everything from fatigue and breathlessness to muscle and joint pain.
The researchers analyzed data from 114,000 veterans with mild Covid who did not require hospitalisation, over 20,000 patients hospitalised with the virus and 5.2million veterans who never received a Covid diagnosis.
All were enrolled in the study between March and December 2020.
Over a follow-up of three years, they found the risk of long Covid stood at 23 per cent one year after infection.
This fell to 16 per cent or roughly one in six after two years.
Concerningly, they also found that among those who weren't hospitalised, Covid had contributed to 10 lost years of healthy life per 1,000 people, three years after infection.
By comparison, those who were hospitalised with Covid had lost 90 years of healthy life per 1,000 people.
In the US, heart disease and cancer cause around 50 years of lost healthy life, while strokes contribute to roughly 10 years, per 1,000 people.
Writing in the journal, Nature Medicine, the researchers, said: 'Although preventing severe disease is important, strategies to reduce the risk of post-acute and long-term health loss in people with mild Covid are also needed.'
However, they also acknowledged the study mainly involved veterans who were 'mostly older', white and male and may not be reflective of other populations.
Participants also contracted the virus in 2020 — an era predating Covid vaccines — suggesting their infection may have been more severe.
Dr Al-Aly added: 'Covid is a serious threat to the long-term health and well-being of people and it should not be trivialized.
'Even three years out, you might have forgotten about Covid, but it hasn’t forgotten about you.
'People might think they're out of the woods, because they had the virus and did not experience health problems.
'But three years after infection, the virus could still be wreaking havoc and causing disease or illness in the gut, lungs or brain.'
It comes as Covid cases continue to slowly increase across the UK, after infection rates dwindled over the spring.
Earlier this month, health chiefs issued an alert over a new variant, nicknamed FLiRT, they had begun monitoring.
It makes up around 30 per cent of new cases in the UK currently.
FLiRT also accounts for roughly a quarter of new cases in the US, surveillance data suggests.
Virologists are using the term FLiRT to describe a family of different variants — KP.2, KP.3, JN.1.7, JN.1.1, and KP.1.1.
They are all descendants of the JN.1 variant that has been dominant in the UK for the past few months. That itself was dubbed Juno.
Ministers have repeatedly said that they won't resort to imposing lockdowns unless a doomsday variant.
A wall of immunity among the population — built up by repeated waves of infection and vaccine rollouts — has given officials confidence to consign pandemic-era measures to history.
Spikes in Covid cases can still cause mass illness across the country, sparking chaos in schools, the health service and public transport.
Officials also no longer track the prevalence of the virus in the same way they used to, as part of the Government's ushering in of pre-Covid normalities.
*************************************************
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*********************************************************
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
