Wednesday, March 01, 2023
Do masks work? Debunking the debunker: Pueyo's attempt to debunk Cochrane fails
It is acknowledged that Mr Pueyo is not a scientist and it shows. Cochrane reviews are respected as the best evidence summary in epidemiological research and their practices are clearly scientific.
Mr Puoyo appears to be unaware of the importance of effect sizes, but the Chochrane reviewers certainly were aware. If the effect was so small as to have possibly occurred by chance, the Cochrane reviewers did the normal thing and "accepted the nul hypothesis". In this case, if mask wearing could be shown to have only a very small benefit, the Cochrane reviewers rightly concluded that they had no demonstrable effect.
Mr Pueyo's comments are in a long twitter thread here. He gets a lot of things wrong but I will refer to just two of the matters he raises.
1.) About the Aieollo et al study, Mr Pueyo excitedly declares: "The study SUPPORTS masks! But somehow, this Cochrane meta-analysis turns it around"
He totally ignores that the effect concerned was not statistically significant. It was in other words likely a random effect. In science such small effects are accepted as meaning no effect
2.) He also declares of the Abaluck study that "This is the gold standard of mask studies". I agree that it was very good. But what does it show? Again an effect so tiny as not to be accepted as proof of anything: The RR was .87. An RR of 2.0 or more would have been required to be sure that anything real was going on.
I could go on but Mr Pueyo clearly is unfamiliar with normal scientific method. The Cochrane authors WERE following normal scientific procedures in concliuding that there was no evidence to show that masks have any effect. His critique of them fails
A major Covid study which came to the stunning conclusion that face masks were all but useless has been torn to shreds in a scathing take-down.
A recent Cochrane Review – considered the gold standard of evidence-based medicine – assessed 78 high-quality scientific studies, and found “wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference” when comparing masking with non-masking to prevent Covid-19.
What’s more, the review found, even for health care workers providing routine care, “there were no clear differences” between medical or surgical masks versus N95s.
The bombshell findings proved controversial, with mask critics seizing on the findings to slam government responses to the pandemic, while supporters argued a different conclusion might have been reached if more and better studies had been available.
But now, Tomas Pueyo – a Silicon Valley executive and writer who made headlines with his detailed modelling of Covid’s spread during the pandemic – has weighed in on the debate, poring over the details and claiming what he found was “so ridiculous it was funny”.
Taking to Twitter, Mr Pueyo – who is not a scientist, but a noted author who analyses “how the world works to shape the future” – said Oxford epidemiologist and the review’s lead author Tom Jefferson’s claim that “there is just no evidence that masks make any difference, full stop” was a “hardcore statement”.
He then broke down the review’s findings to argue his point, revealing there were three groups of studies included.
The first, which covered flu and Covid-like illnesses, found that masks probably work.
The second, which included lab-confirmed flu and Covid cases, found masks increase infections by +1 per cent, and the results for the third lab-confirmed non flu/Covid viruses were -42 per cent.
“But that’s not saying ‘masks don’t work’. That’s saying, ‘We don’t know if masks work.’ Quite a different statement!” he explained.
He then narrowed the findings down further, noting that some studies included in the review were from as far back as the noughties while others included alarmingly small sample sizes.
In one particularly problematic study included in the review, 7700 people out of millions making the Hajj annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca from 2013 to 2015 – well before Covid struck – were given free masks and told to wear them for four out of up to six days of the pilgrimage.
Unsurprisingly, that trial was “unable to provide conclusive evidence on face mask efficacy against viral respiratory infections most likely due to poor adherence to protocol”.
However, that clearly flawed study was used by the review to argue that masks increased infections by 40 per cent.
“I mean, they’re technically right on that 40 per cent. That’s what the study recorded. But they couldn’t claim [with] a straight face that masks did that pre-Covid, when nobody had a political opinion about it, or where 2nd order effects (‘mask-wearers are too confident!’) were very unlikely,” Mr Pueyo posted.
Meanwhile, he found that another study, which actually included data collected during the pandemic, found Covid infections were lower by 18 per cent among mask wearers.
He argued the “Cochrane magicians” mixed the studies to claim masks were ineffective by disregarding the original studies’ own conclusions, counting “implausible results”, such as in the Hajj example, and doubling the weight of “convenient” studies.
“If you just go to these primary studies, you realise NONE of them support the conclusion of the meta-analysis. Brutal. If you adjust the math accordingly, you find that there’s just two relevant studies … and both say: MASKS WORK,” he continued.
“In the meantime, it sounds like very flimsy data to make bombastic statements like the one from the lead author of the study … especially since … It’s not what his own study says!”
Mr Pueyo’s criticisms of the review echo those of Australian epidemiologist and biosecurity expert Professor Raina MacIntyre, who told news.com.au recently there was “overwhelming evidence [masks] work”.
“The Cochrane review combined studies that were dissimilar – they were in different settings (healthcare and community) and measuring different outcomes (continuous use of N95 vs intermittent),” she said.
“This is like comparing apples with oranges.”
Burnet Institute director and CEO Professor Brendan Crabb shared Prof MacIntyre’s views, arguing it would be a “big mistake, a risk to public health” to perpetuate a view that face masks are of little benefit in the battle against Covid-19.
“A randomised controlled trial is not the way to determine real-world effectiveness of these clearly spectacularly successful tools,” he said. Am amazing statement!
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CDC Spreads False Information About COVID-19 Vaccine Safety
A top U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official gave false information about COVID-19 vaccine safety to the agency's vaccine advisory panel, and a spokesperson for the agency refused to correct the misinformation.
Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, director of the CDC's Immunization Safety Office, presented on COVID-19 vaccine safety to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Feb. 24.
Shimabukuro went over updates to the safety signal for ischemic stroke following Pfizer bivalent booster vaccination that CDC officials detected in one of the agency's monitoring systems.
After sharing the updates, he made a false statement.
"No safety signals were detected for ischemic stroke for the primary series or monovalent boosters for Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines in U.S. and global monitoring," Shimabukuro said.
That's not true. The CDC identified ischemic stroke as a safety signal following Moderna and Pfizer vaccination after analyzing reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a different system, which the agency co-manages.
Asked for comment, Shimabukuro didn't respond. But a CDC spokesperson doubled down on the false claim.
"The statement from Dr. Shimabukuro's slides is correct. There have not been any safety signals detected at this time in the U.S. for ischemic stroke for the primary series or monovalent boosters," Katherina Grusich, the spokesperson, told The Epoch Times in an email.
The CDC has previously offered misinformation and refused to correct it.
Barbara Loe Fisher, president and co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, said what unfolded was concerning.
"Those of us who worked with Congress to secure vaccine safety informing, recording, and reporting provisions in the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act-of which VAERS was one-are deeply concerned that federal health officials are deliberately ignoring signals in VAERS and that mRNA COVID shots are causing ischemic strokes and other potentially fatal complications," Fisher told The Epoch Times in an email.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology.
Bivalent boosters from both companies were authorized in the fall of 2022, but the primary series are still composed of the original vaccines, sometimes referred to as monovalent shots.
Shimabukuro's statement had an impact. After his presentation, while the slide with the false information was on the screen, a member of the panel highlighted it.
"I think it's important to note [the statement] for the public," Veronica McNally, president and CEO of the Fanny Strong Foundation, said before reading it in full.
Another False Statement
Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot, a member of the advisory panel, also offered false information about the safety signal.
"Previous surveillance in . U.S. systems found no evidence of increased risk of ischemic stroke or TIA [transient ischemic attack] after the primary series or monovalent COVID-19 booster vaccination for either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna products," Keipp Talbot, an associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University, said during the meeting.
Keipp Talbot didn't respond to a request for comment.
The CDC announced in January that it detected a statistical signal for ischemic stroke in the elderly following Pfizer bivalent vaccination, based on records from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a CDC-run system.
Dr. Evelyn Twentyman, also a CDC official, said in the meeting that a review of the signal uncovered no signal in any other system for the bivalent boosters and "when data for the two mRNA vaccine types are combined." She also said no ischemic stroke signal was found in other monitoring systems, including VAERS.
Twentyman referred a request for comment to Grusich, who said: "CDC has not detected a signal for ischemic stroke following bivalent Pfizer or Moderna vaccination in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System."
Shimabukuro said an analysis of 224 reports of ischemic stroke or TIA following mRNA bivalent vaccination, as of Feb. 6, verified 67 and that 130 others are under review. The number of reports wasn't above the background rates or the occurrence of stroke among the general elderly population.
Some 2,200 cases of ischemic stroke have been reported to VAERS after mRNA vaccination, including bivalent shots, as of Feb. 10. Millions of other adverse event reports have been lodged. According to previous research (pdf), adverse events are underreported to VAERS.
Signal Hidden From Public
The CDC identified hundreds of signals for the monovalent Pfizer and Moderna vaccines when it performed an analysis called proportional reporting ratio on VAERS data for the first time in 2022.
The CDC didn't alert the public to its findings. The Epoch Times released the results of the analysis after obtaining it through a Freedom of Information Act.
The analysis was conducted on adverse events reported after vaccination from Dec. 14, 2020, to July 29, 2022.
Brianne Dressen, who was injured by the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, helped start a group called React19 to advocate for the vaccine injured. She said U.S. authorities are ignoring people who suffered strokes from the vaccines.
"The CDC's own data certainly shows this is happening," Dressen told The Epoch Times via email. "Why deny this is happening? People know when they're being lied to. It erodes public trust and their ultimate goal to increase vaccine uptake. It also hurts those suffering with these disorders who are in need of adequate recognition and care."
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Tuesday, February 28, 2023
U.S. senators are calling for President Joe Biden’s administration to declassify materials regarding the origins of COVID-19
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wrote on Twitter that documents described in a Wall Street Journal report “should be declassified.”
“President Biden needs to declassify everything we know today,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) added.
According to the report, the U.S. Energy Department is assessing that the pandemic likely started from a Wuhan laboratory leak.
The assessment was described in a document authored by the office of Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, a Biden appointee, the Journal reported.
The Energy Department, the White House, and Haines’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The Energy Department told news outlets in a statement that it “continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as the President directed.”
Biden in 2021 said he had asked the intelligence community “to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion” on the origins of COVID-19.
In an assessment (pdf) declassified later that year, the intelligence community, which Haines oversees, was split as to the origins of COVID-19.
Four intelligence community elements assessed with low confidence that COVID-19 came from animals, while one element stated that the pandemic likely started with “a laboratory-associated incident” at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to the declassified report.
Three other elements “remain unable to coalesce around either explanation,” the report stated. “All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident.”
The individual elements weren’t identified.
Intelligence community entities include the FBI, the Energy Department, and the CIA.
The State Department has assessed, in a document (pdf) made public in 2022, that a lab leak was the most likely origin of COVID-19.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Feb. 26 said he would introduce legislation that would make all U.S. intelligence reports on COVID-19 “open to the people.”
No Animal Host Found
The first COVID-19 cases were detected in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. The United States has funded experiments at the Wuhan lab there.
No animal host for the virus that causes COVID-19 has been identified to date. Chinese Communist Party officials have repeatedly rebuffed attempts to probe the origins of the pandemic and have made various unsubstantiated claims, including that the illness stemmed from U.S. experiments.
The new reporting, top Republicans said, bolsters the position that the virus originated in the lab.
“This report affirms our belief that the substantial circumstantial evidence favors COVID-19 emerging from a research-related incident,” Rep. Cathy Rodgers (R-Wash.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Reps. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) and Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), members of the panel, said in a joint statement.
“These revelations also further strengthen the need to uncover why high-ranking government officials, with help from Big Tech and the media, sought early on to silence any debate into a plausible theory of a lab incident while the Chinese Communist Party stonewalled investigations by the global scientific community,” they added.
Dr. Anthony Fauci and other top government officials worked to suppress talk of a possible lab leak.
Sullivan Responds
Asked about the new report, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on CNN on Feb. 26 that “there is a variety of views in the intelligence community.”
Sullivan said he wouldn’t confirm or deny the Journal’s reporting but confirmed that Biden had asked that the department “be brought into this assessment because he wants to put every tool at use to be able to figure out what happened here.”
“If we gain any further insight or information, we will share it with Congress and we will share it with the American people. But, right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question,” he added.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said on NBC on Feb. 26 that public hearings need to be held on the matter.
“I think we need to have public hearings on this and really dig into it,” he said. “Think about what just happened over the last three years: one of the biggest pandemics in a century. A lot of evidence that it’s coming from the Chinese, and when other countries even raise it, like Australia, the Chinese use their coercive economic activities to shut people up. So I think we need to do extensive hearings.”
The Republican-held House has launched probes of COVID-19, including the pandemic origins and COVID-19 vaccines.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), who chairs the new House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, told The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet NTD Television that investigating the origins is important.
“Specifically to the origins, we feel it’s important to understand the evolution of [it] … and the more we know—whether it’s lab or natural—the more we know about it, the greater ability we would have to protect ourselves in the future,” he said.
The House Oversight Committee told outlets that intelligence officials responded to a Feb. 13 letter from Wenstrup and Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) asking for information about the COVID-19 origins. The panel said that it “is reviewing the classified information provided.”
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Censorship, PC agendas block fact-checking on Covid-19’s origins
Censorship and political posturing in the US has irreparably damaged our understanding of how the Covid-19 pandemic began.
Social media giants expunged content querying whether the virus escaped from a Wuhan laboratory.
Distinguished medical journals refused to publish scientific papers that examined whether the SARS-Cov2 virus may be a man-manipulated construct.
And purportedly trusted media outlets, such as the ABC in Australia, labelled the suggestion that a Wuhan laboratory might be responsible for the outbreak a conspiracy theory.
They did so as early as May 2020, misleading viewers, discouraging scientific debate and hosing down journalistic inquiry.
Media Watch host Paul Barry ridiculed our reporting at News Corp on the gain-of-function experiments scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were undertaking prior to the pandemic. “So, how likely is it that the virus escaped from that Chinese lab? Well, in short, it’s not,” he said authoritatively, on-air.
Yet now two US intelligence agencies have concluded that Covid-19 most likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. They are the FBI and the Department of Energy.
Another two agencies, including the CIA, are undecided while four say it’s more likely that the virus arose naturally.
None of these agencies has a high degree of confidence in their position.
As the President’s National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, told CNN on Sunday the intelligence community was divided on the question of how the pandemic began.
We might be able to answer this question with more confidence had censorship and political correctness not stymied research on this topic three years ago.
It’s stunning to think there has still not been a thorough, bipartisan investigation in the style of the 9/11 Commission, which interviewed over 1200 people in 10 countries, reviewing half a million pages of documents.
This is an action US President Joe Biden could take immediately which could help us come to a definitive view about how the pandemic began.
The National Institutes of Health, which funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, is still refusing to hand over documents. It is going to court rather than disclose information that could implicate it further in the dangerous research that was underway in Wuhan.
It’s nonsense to say there is no evidence to suggest the virus leaked from a laboratory.
The evidence is not definitive, it is not conclusive, but it is overwhelming.
Consider the research Wuhan scientists were undertaking to make bat coronaviruses more lethal and more transmissible, the concerns over safety protocols held by its own laboratory director, the cover-up at the laboratory itself in November 2019 and the way the CCP reacted when the virus began to spread.
There’s certainly more evidence linking the Wuhan Institute of Virology to the start of Covid-19 than there is evidence to support the theory that the most infectious virus in a century simply arose naturally.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Monday, February 27, 2023
There's NOT enough data to support multiple annual Covid vaccines, CDC advisers say
A leading Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expert panel says people with weakened immune systems do not need more than one annual Covid booster.
The Advisory Committee For Immunization Practices (ACIP) said Friday that there is no reason for the elderly or immunocompromised to receive multiple shots in one year.
This goes against current CDC guidance, which recommends people most vulnerable to the virus to receive shots more often than once a year.
They did recommend the group who are most at risk from the virus receive a dose each fall, just before the winter season where the virus generally surges.
It is yet another setback for America's leading public health agencies, whose trust from the public has fallen dramatically during the Covid pandemic.
In the spring of 2022, the CDC recommended immunocompromised and people over age 50 receive an additional shot if they had received their first booster at least four months earlier.
The CDC advisers did not vote on new recommendations for how the COVID-19 shots should be administered on Friday.
But ACIP advised showing flexibility in recommendations for those with compromised or weakened immune systems to allow more frequent doses for those most vulnerable to severe COVID.
Both the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are working on how to best update COVID vaccines to target circulating variants annually, similar to flu vaccine campaigns.
About 53.3million people in the United States - around 16 percent of the US population - have received a Covid booster shot since updated versions of the vaccines were authorized in September.
That compares with 230million people, around 70 percent of the population, that received an initial two-dose series of the Covid vaccines.
The CDC's guidance being shunned by its own panel of experts is another setback for the beleaguered agency.
A report in January led by Julie Gerberding, who served as the CDC's director from 2002 to 2009, said the agency needed a reset and was not fit for purpose.
'The big picture here is, we all see the need for a reset of the agency,' Julie Gerberding, who served at the CDC's director from 2002 to 2009 and now a CSIS member, told CNN.
'Some of the reset has to be structural, some of it needs to be activity that only Congress can really manage and that has to do with how the budget is structured, the size and scope of the budget and the flexibilities or lack thereof.'
Report: CDC is not fit for purpose, has lost public's trust and needs a complete overhaul
The embattled agency has faced a rocky few years marred by repeated troubles during the Covid pandemic.
Another hindrance the agency faces, according to the report is that it is based in Atlanta, more than 500 miles from the Nation's Capital.
While communication is simplified in the digital age, experts fear the proximity of CDC from the federal government hub adds unnecessary barriers.
An NBC poll last year found that only 44 percent of Americans, and just one-in-five Republicans - trusted the agency on Covid.
Many lost trust in the agency because of its support for school closures, letting mask orders on public transportation last too long, and for its slow reaction to changes in the pandemic landscape.
This is the second major call for an overhaul of America's leading public health agency.
In August, Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the agency, internally told her staff the agency must focus more on public health issues and less on the publishing of research.
She had taken her post in early 2021, mid-way through the pandemic.
Experts said the CDC was slow to recognize how much virus was entering the US from Europe, to recommend people wear masks, to say the virus can spread through the air, and to ramp up systematic testing for new variants.
The decision resulted from a review Walensky ordered in April after the CDC faced heavy criticism for its mixed messaging on the Covid pandemic.
The agency gave muddled and confusing recommendations on masking and other mitigation efforts.
The guidance during the pandemic has been 'confusing and overwhelming,' according to the CDC briefing document provided by the agency to the New York Times.
The review also found that the CDC often takes too long to publish data people needed to make decisions and that the agency should be more transparent about what it does and doesn't know, a CDC official told the Wall Street Journal.
There were staff shortages too with those tasked with leading the CDC's covid team rotating out after a few months.
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Xylitol Nasal Spray Prevents SARS-CoV-2 Infection
Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
The sophisticated American consumer has grown accustomed to the gold-standard for drug and health products—the prospective randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (RCT).
Operation Warp Speed (OWS) was supposed to be a churning mill of large RCT’s to help the nation understand what conclusively is effective in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.
Unfortunately, after three years, has delivered failed products (remdesivir, baricitinib, molnupiravir, COVID-19 vaccines) and small inconclusive trials of products that doctors have found effective in practice including off-target generic antivirals and anticoagulants.
OWS did not test simple, affordable, available prevention strategies. Fortunately such RCTs where done outside of the US and have brought us important findings.
Balmforth et al, conducted a prospective double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of a xylitol based nasal spray in the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection in exposed healthcare workers in two hospitals in Uttar Pradesh, India.
Xylitol is known to have anti-infective and anti-inflammatory properties and is used in XLEAR nasal spray and anti-infective chewing gum to prevent dental caries.
Balmforth found that SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed by serology was 71 percent lower with xylitol compared to placebo [36 cases (13.1 percent) Vs 97 cases (34.5 percent); odds ratio [OR] 0.29 (95 percent CI; 0.18–0.45), p < 0.0001].
Fewer clinical symptoms were also seen in the test group [57 cases (17.6 percent) vs 112 cases (34.6 percent); OR 0.40, (95 percent CI; 0.27–0.59), p < 0.0001]. No harmful effects were associated with xylitol.
A smaller study of xylitol nasal spray in mild COVID-19 cases demonstrated that persistent loss of smell may be eliminated with xylitol nasal spray during the acute congestion phase.
I have been impressed with the RCTs of topical nasal sprays and gargles in COVID-19 far more than those with oral or intravenous drugs.
Xylitol available as XLEAR in US pharmacies is one of several choices for local nasopharyngeal protection and treatment of COVID-19.
https://principia-scientific.com/xylitol-nasal-spray-prevents-sars-cov-2-infection/
***************************************************Republicans React to Energy Department’s Reported Finding That COVID ‘Likely’ Leaked From Wuhan Lab
Republican lawmakers responded to a news report saying that the U.S. Energy Department had concluded the lab leak theory was “likely,” saying that the finding supports what many have long suspected.
A Wall Street Journal article on Feb. 26 reported that a classified intelligence report by the Energy Department said that the virus likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“So the government caught up to what Real America knew all along,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote in a Twitter post on Sunday.
The responses came as GOP lawmakers ramp up investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and allegations of government-big tech censorship of the debate.
The Energy Department was previously undecided on the issue but now joins the FBI in corroborating the lab leak hypothesis, according to the report. Several people who have read the report said the Department’s judgment was made with “low confidence,” the Journal reported.
Responding to the report on Sunday, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN that the intelligence community does not have a “definitive answer” on the matter at this point.
Republican lawmakers have been vocal about the theory that the virus leaked from the Wuhan laboratory soon after the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Initially, some health professionals and legacy media outlets dismissed the theory, labeling the theory’s proponents as racist and conspiracy theorists.
Fauci
Some lawmakers also accused Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), of colluding with big tech companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, and censoring stories about the lab leak theory via what these companies describe as a crackdown on “misinformation.”
“Fauci knew this immediately but dismissed it because of funding for the Wuhan lab,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) wrote in another post. “We know what happened next — when Fauci spoke Big Tech censored. I exposed this collusion as AG and I’ll work to ensure this type of censorship never happens again.”
“Americans knew this from Day One,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “Unfortunately, Big Tech and Big Government silenced them.”
Republicans and critics of Fauci have raised concerns about the NIAID’s funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology via the non-governmental organization EcoHealth Alliance, including for research described by experts as gain-of-function. The NIAID issued about 3.4 million in grants to EcoHealth.
Gain-of-function research makes the virus more deadly by enhancing its pathogenicity, its ability to cause disease and harm the host, or transmissibility, how easily it spreads.
The NIH has denied that the grants were for gain-of-function research, while Fauci has defended the decision to issue the grants to EcoHealth.
“More evidence continues to mount that COVID came from the Wuhan lab. We’ve uncovered emails showing Dr. Fauci was warned that the virus looked man-made & came from a lab, but he may have acted to cover it up. Why? We need answers & accountability,” wrote the official Twitter account of the House Oversight Republican Committee.
Republicans on the committee previously disclosed internal NIH emails that showed Fauci was informed by senior scientists early in the pandemic that the theory that COVID-19 had a natural origin was “highly unlikely,” even while Fauci was publicly promoting the natural origin theory.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Sunday, February 26, 2023
Finally a vaccine to banish Covid for good? Nasal spray reduces risk of infection 86% — nearly DOUBLE protection given by shot in arm
A nasal vaccine that could finally curb Covid infections is one step closer to a reality after promising early trial results.
The inhaled vaccine, made by researchers in Georgia, successfully reduced the risk of symptomatic Covid infections by 86 percent for three months in people who received it as a booster - almost double the protection the mRNA boosters provide.
While still in early stages, it is an exciting development that could prove more effective than the booster doses administered as injections.
The nasal, or ‘mucosal’ vaccines are appealing for their ability to prime immune cells in the mucous membranes that line the nostril cavities and the mouth where the coronavirus first enters the body, and stop the virus in its tracks.
Nasal vaccines such as the one currently in development at Georgia-based startup Blue Lake Biotechnology Inc. concentrate the immune protection in the upper airways, positioning powerful antibodies right on the frontlines.
In their phase 1 trial starting in August 2021, researchers at Blue Lake Biotechnology included 72 participants ages 18 to 55 who had already received two doses of an mRNA vaccine as well as unvaccinated healthy people. They plan to expand the sample size and will continue recruiting subjects through December.
The vaccine technology relies on a type of parainfluenza virus that has been encoded with Covid’s trademark spike protein to train the immune system to recognize and fight it off.
Once the vaccine contents are inhaled, little bits of the parainfluenza virus replicate inside the nasal cavity to such an extent that it triggers an immune response without actually getting the person sick.
Dr Biao He, founder and CEO of Blue Lake Biotechnology said: ‘We were pleasantly surprised to see indications of a protective effect in this Phase 1 trial.’
‘We are excited and encouraged with this result, and through our affiliate, CyanVac LLC, we have submitted a protocol to FDA for a randomized controlled phase 2 trial in which we look forward to more fully evaluating the immunogenicity of the vaccine and to better understanding its protective efficacy.’
The immune response launched by the nasal spray vaccine could potentially be significantly more robust than a vaccine administered via syringe.
In addition to prompting a strong immune response, nasal vaccine technology could ease pressure on health professionals giving vaccine injections, cut medical waste and provide better vaccine access to developing countries.
Booster shots currently in use across the US have been shown to reduce symptomatic infections by 43 percent in people 65 and younger over roughly the same amount of time that the spray is able to confer 86 percent protection.
People in the trials who received the nasal spray experienced fewer adverse reactions than those who received the injectable vaccine.
Nasal spray vaccines will appear to many a less invasive means of gaining protection against severe illness, potentially attracting the needle-phobic vaccine holdouts.
The finished product is still a ways off and this is the type of next generation Covid vaccines that public health officials have said are urgently needed in the event that a new variant that is able to circumvent vaccine protection arises.
Dr Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research within the Food and Drug Administration and fellow experts at Brown University said late last year: ‘Introduction of these bivalent boosters likely only represents a temporizing measure until variants emerge that necessitate additional booster vaccination or modification of the current generation of vaccines.
‘Serious consideration therefore needs to be given to the development of a distinctly improved generation of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines offering longer protection with greater scope.’
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Protection From New COVID-19 Vaccines Drops Sharply Within Months: CDC
The new COVID-19 vaccines provide a boost to protection against hospitalization but that shielding wanes within months, according to unpublished data presented on Feb. 24.
A bivalent Pfizer or Moderna booster increased protection against hospitalization initially by 52 percent, but that protection dropped to 36 percent beyond 59 days, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers said.
The researchers separately looked at the protection people who had received two or more monovalent doses, or doses of the original vaccines, and no bivalent booster. They found that people aged 18 to 64 had just 19 percent protection against COVID-19 associated hospitalization and those aged 65 and older had just 28 percent protection.
That means the protection after two months was around 60 percent in total for the elderly and goes below 50 percent for all other adults.
The data came from the CDC’s VISION network. Data from a different CDC-run network, called IVY, showed “minimal to no residual protection” against hospitalization from the original vaccine, Dr. Amadea Britton, a CDC official, said. Two or more monovalent doses provided just 17 percent protection, with uncertain confidence intervals.
A bivalent vaccine on top of a monovalent primary series brought the protection to just 55 percent at seven or more days after the booster.
Waning wasn’t measured in the IVY network.
The bivalent vaccines were authorized and recommended in the fall of 2022 despite no clinical trial data being available. Clinical efficacy data remains unavailable at present.
The COVID-19 vaccines are authorized in the United States to prevent COVID-19 disease but officials have increasingly described the goal of vaccination as preventing severe disease, because the vaccines have performed worse and worse against symptomatic infection as newer variants have emerged.
The effectiveness against severe disease may be higher than against hospitalization, according to Britton.
A third CDC network, Increasing Community Access to Testing, found that a new booster initially provided 65 percent protection against symptomatic infection for children aged 5 to 11, and 68 percent protection for children aged 12 to 17.
That protection waned to 54 percent by three months in the younger group and 53 percent by five months in the older group.
A bivalent booster worked much worse in adults, according to other unpublished data from the network presented for the first time during the meeting.
A bivalent increased protection against symptomatic infection by just 38 percent in the elderly, with protection dropping to 21 percent by five months. In people aged 50 to 64, protection started at 46 percent and waned to 28 percent; among adults aged 18 to 49, protection started at 51 percent and waned to 41 percent.
The protection estimates were relative, being measured against two to four doses of an original vaccine. Previous research has found that the original vaccine provides little protection against symptomatic Omicron infection, with some estimating the protection turning negative over time.
“The pattern of waning against symptomatic infection is very similar to what was observed after monovalent booster doses, with VE against symptomatic infection decreasing to minimal protection by around five to six months,” Britton said.
Change in Vaccine
The updated Pfizer and Moderna vaccines target the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron, in addition to the Wuhan strain. The original vaccines were aimed at only the latter. The updated vaccines are only available currently as booster shots.
U.S. authorities are preparing to replace all of the original Pfizer and Moderna vaccines with the bivalent. Advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration backed the move in a recent meeting, and advisers to the CDC on Thursday largely agreed the move would be good.
They cited the improvement in protection the bivalents bestow, however minimal, and the hope that simplifying the vaccines would lead to more uptake.
Many Americans have declined to get any boosters, and even fewer have received one of the new bivalents. The overwhelming majority of parents have chosen not to get their children even a primary series, amid the drop in effectiveness and growing concerns about short- and long-term side effects like heart inflammation.
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New Study Finds ‘No Evidence’ That City-Wide Vaccine Mandates Impacted the Spread of COVID-19
During the pandemic, a slew of left-wing cities established vaccine mandates that required employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Those who did not comply faced suspension and termination from their jobs. Many cities took this a step further and mandated all businesses to require patrons to present their vaccine papers in order to enter the business.
This week, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University unveiled a new study,“Indoor Vaccine Mandates in US Cities, Vaccination Behavior, and COVID-19 Outcomes.” The study questioned the efficacy of vaccine mandates in cities that implemented such mandates to visit indoor businesses, which included Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.
“City vaccine mandates were arguably among the most restrictive and polarizing regulations ever enacted in the United States,” the study write-up said. “Millions of people were prevented from entering restaurants, bars, gyms, theaters, sports arenas, and other public indoor areas without proof of COVID-19 vaccination. The mandates negatively affected unvaccinated individuals and businesses that were not allowed to serve unvaccinated customers.”
The write-up noted that supporters of the mandates said that it would uptick vaccination rates that the spread of COVID-19 would decrease. But, the study shows that this did not happen.
“We find no evidence that the announcement or implementation of indoor vaccine mandate in the cities listed had any significant effect on vaccine uptake, COVID-19 cases, or COVID-19 deaths, and this is largely consistent for all US cities that implemented the mandate,” the study stated.
In New York City, specifically, more than 90 percent of restaurants reported having “customer-related” challenges over the vaccine mandate. And, over 1,400 city workers were fired for refusing to get vaccinated.
"COVID cases were not affected by the mandate, COVID deaths were not affected by it, and people were not more likely to get vaccinated at all in the first place," Vitor Melo, a postdoctoral fellow at the Mercatus Center and one of the authors of the study told Fox 5 DC.
"The idea behind the mandate is more people are gonna get vaccinated, therefore we’re gonna reduce the spread of COVID," Melo added. "That first step really didn’t happen."
One of the reasons why, Melo explained, is because people would travel to neighboring areas without vaccine mandates to go out to eat, etc. In the Washington, D.C. area, for example, people would go out to Arlington, Virginia.
The study pointed out that studies detailing country-wide mandates, like in Europe, were effective and resulted in more people getting a dose of the vaccine. City-wide mandates in America did not have this effect.
“The authors find that city-level mandates had smaller effect on vaccine uptake (and consequently on COVID-19 cases and deaths) than nationwide mandates— and thus failed to achieve their intended objectives,” it concluded.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Friday, February 24, 2023
F is for Fauci’s failed vaccines
The ‘worst possible thing you could do is vaccinate someone and make them worse,’ said Dr Anthony Fauci on March 26, 2020. He was talking about vaccine associated enhanced disease (VAED), the nightmare scenario where a vaccine not only fails to prevent infection, it causes a more serious illness in a vaccinated person than one who is unvaccinated.
To prevent just such a catastrophe, a global, non-profit vaccine safety research network was created in 2000 called the Brighton Collaboration (BC). Its task is to develop vaccine safety protocols to monitor whether new vaccines were protecting people or making them sicker than unvaccinated people. In 2020, BC experts published a peer-reviewed paper defining vaccine enhanced disease in relation to Covid vaccines.
The BC is no anti-vaxxer organisation. It is funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation whose single largest private donor is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
But the BC experts state bluntly that any Covid infection in a vaccinated person after the normal time it takes to develop immunity is a ‘vaccine failure’ and that, ‘All cases of vaccine failure should be investigated for VAED’, that is, vaccine enhanced disease.
In simple terms this means that every time a vaccinated person gets Covid, their infection should be investigated to see if it is more severe or more frequent than a Covid infection in an unvaccinated person with equivalent health status, especially if they are hospitalised, go into ICU or die.
NSW data over the last six months shows that the rate of Covid cases, hospitalisation and care in an ICU ward all increase exponentially with each additional dose. The rate of Covid deaths are also 1.2 times higher in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. Yet, public health officials have just announced that a fifth vaccine will now be available for all. It doesn’t make sense. But it has taken a young GP from the Whitsunday Islands, Dr Melissa McCann, to reveal the disturbing safety signals that public health officials are ignoring.
McCann was vaccinated like most doctors but she started to notice an alarming increase in adverse events in her practice as the vaccine was rolled out. She audited the cases and examined the database of adverse events collated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and found a dramatic increase in strokes, heart attacks and neurological disorders compared with previous years.
McCann knew that in 2010, Western Australia halted and then suspended the rollout of the childhood flu vaccine after an increase in the proportional reporting ratio (PRR) of febrile convulsions from one to two.
On 1 November, 2021 she wrote to the federal health minister and TGA detailing her findings and requesting an immediate suspension of the vaccination program. Nothing happened.
But McCann didn’t give up. Through Freedom of Information (FOI) disclosures, she discovered that the TGA was ignoring an increase of ratios for many serious adverse events including an increase of over 20 for myocarditis and over 50 for pulmonary infarction – when a clot blocks an artery to the lung causing part of it to die.
These were not the only alarm bells ringing. The increase strongly coincided with the vaccine rollout and there was mounting evidence in hundreds of published medical reports that the vaccine could cause precisely the adverse events that were occurring.
In March last year, McCann and 14 other doctors wrote again to the federal health minister and the TGA requesting an immediate suspension of the vaccine program and a review of safety issues including risks due to microRNA sequences in the vaccines which potentially cause cancer, the unknown metabolism of the lipid nanoparticles that deliver the mRNA into the cells which is highly inflammatory, stays in the body for an unknown period of time, can cross the blood brain barrier invading neurological tissues, and penetrate cells in the ovaries and the testes. The TGA again dismissed the doctors concerns.
So McCann soldiered on with an arduous FOI process uncovering three cases where a 7-year-old boy, a 9-year-old girl and a young woman of 24 had each died of cardiac arrest after a Pfizer vaccine. In these cases the ‘Decision’ recorded was ‘causality’ or ‘causality assessment outcome’ as opposed to ‘causality unlikely’ or ‘causality?’ which appeared on other records.
The TGA claims that ‘causality’ on these reports means a ‘clear decision on causality could not be made for these cases at the point in time that the document was released’. Yet, the TGA failed to make the reports public on its FOI disclosure log as it is obliged to do. When McCann asked why, the TGA wrote that the reports ‘contain sensitive personal information about deceased person’ and ‘disclosure of the documents could undermine public confidence and reduce the willingness of the public to report adverse events to the TGA’. This seems highly unlikely especially since there is no information about the deceased other than their age.
McCann then made a submission to the House of Representatives’ ‘Inquiry into Long COVID and Repeated COVID Infections’ which pointed out that what people call ‘long Covid’ is mostly ‘vaccine failure’ resulting in severe disease, probably enhanced by the vaccine. Mysteriously, her submission, unlike the 546 others, was only published on the parliamentary website this week, after she appeared with world-famous Covid experts Dr Peter McCullough and Dr Pierre Kory at sold-out events in three states organised by the United Australia Party
Outraged by the fact that at present most people with vaccine injuries, including the families of the dead, are not able to access compensation and have been mocked and ostracised, McCann has become a patient advocate and is preparing a class action for compensation to be filed in the Federal Court.
On 11 January, Fauci wrote in an article published in Cell Host & Microbe that the Covid vaccines are ‘reminiscent’ of ‘sub-optimal’ flu vaccines in that both ‘elicit incomplete and short-lived protection against evolving virus variants’ that, unsurprisingly, have not ended the pandemic. Fauci says nothing about vaccine injuries and spiralling excess mortality in highly vaccinated countries. That task has been left to a heroic Aussie doctor who so far has proved more than up to the task.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/02/f-is-for-faucis-failed-vaccines/
*************************************************Republican Senators Push Back Against Accord Giving WHO Power Over US Pandemic Response
As member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) prepare to gather in Switzerland next week to negotiate final terms of an accord that will give the WHO centralized authority over U.S. policy in the case of a pandemic, Republican senators are pushing back with an effort to reinforce congressional power to authorize treaties.
The draft accord, which would be “legally binding” on all 194 member nations, gives the WHO the authority to declare pandemics and submits member countries to “the central role of the WHO as the directing and coordinating authority on international health work,” in areas like lockdowns, treatments, medical supply chains, surveillance, and “disinformation and false news,” once a pandemic is declared.
Seventeen U.S. senators, led by Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), introduced the “No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act” on Feb 15, which states that the pandemic accord must be deemed a treaty, thus requiring the consent of a supermajority of the Senate, which is two-thirds, or 67 senators. The legislation comes as the WHO gears up to present what it calls the “zero draft” of the accord, negotiated with the help of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, to all member nations on Feb. 27 to agree final terms.
Other sponsors of the bill included Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), and Katie Britt (R-Ala.).
“The WHO, along with our federal health agencies, failed miserably in their response to COVID-19,” Sen. Johnson stated. “This failure should not be rewarded with a new international treaty that would increase the WHO’s power at the expense of American sovereignty.”
But some doubt this bill, even if approved, will stop the WHO accord from going into effect once President Joe Biden signs it.
“With all due respect to the sponsoring senators, that will not do the trick,” Francis Boyle, professor of international law at Illinois University, told The Epoch Times. The reason, he said, is that the WHO accord is drafted specifically to circumvent the Senate-approval process, and Congress instead should immediately withhold its yearly contributions to the WHO and take the United States out of the organization.
Currently, the United States is the largest contributor to the WHO’s $6.72 billion budget, of which $1.25 billion is for “health emergencies.” The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the second largest donor to the WHO, contributing 9 percent of its budget in 2021; China is the third.
Will Biden Need Senate Approval for WHO Accord?
It remains unclear if the Biden administration will need Senate approval for the WHO accord to go into effect. The accord itself states that it will become effective and legally binding on member states “provisionally,” as soon as it is signed and before any national legislatures approve it.
“The Biden administration can indicate that it is provisionally bringing this treaty into force upon the mere signature of the treaty,” Boyle said. “Hence, it will come into force here in the United States provisionally until the Senate decides whether or not it is going to give its advice and consent to the treaty. I personally know of no other U.S. treaty that provides for its provisional application pending the U.S. Senate giving its advice and consent to the treaty.”
While the U.S. Constitution states that the president can make treaties “provided two-thirds of the senators present concur,” American presidents have increasingly been signing international agreements without Senate consent, and those agreements have taken effect in the United States regardless.
According to the Senate’s website: “Treaties to which the United States is a party also have the force of federal legislation, forming part of what the Constitution calls ‘the supreme Law of the Land’ … In recent decades, presidents have frequently entered the United States into international agreements without the advice and consent of the Senate. These are called ‘executive agreements.’ Though not brought before the Senate for approval, executive agreements are still binding on the parties under international law.”
A report by Justia, a legal analysis and marketing firm, states that “the executive agreement has surpassed in number and perhaps in international influence the treaty formally signed, submitted for ratification to the Senate, and proclaimed upon ratification.
“During the first half-century of its independence, the United States was party to 60 treaties but to only 27 published executive agreements,” the report states. “Between 1939 and 1993, executive agreements comprised more than 90 percent of the international agreements concluded.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has on several occasions supported the notion that these executive agreements constitute federal law and supersede state laws and regulations. This includes State of Missouri v. Holland, which ruled that treaties supersede state laws, and United States v. Belmont, which ruled that executive agreements without Senate consent are legally binding on Americans. Under the U.S. Constitution, health policy falls under state jurisdiction, but the WHO pandemic accord may be a way to bring health policy under the jurisdiction of the federal government, once the WHO declares a pandemic.
Increasingly, the Biden administration is looking toward international agreements to do what it can’t get be achieved through Congress. Most recently, having failed to increase corporate taxes in Congress, the Biden administration entered into an international agreement with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to set minimum tax levels on all corporations within signatory countries. While GOP lawmakers said the agreement had “no path forward” toward approval as a treaty, provisions written into the agreement allowed foreign countries to tax U.S.-based corporate profits as a punitive measure, if senators do not approve it.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Dissolution Of Spike Protein By Nattokinase
Dr Peter McCullough
Far and away the most common question I get from those who took one of the COVID-19 vaccines is: “how do I get this out of my body.”
The mRNA and adenoviral DNA products were rolled out with no idea on how or when the body would ever breakdown the genetic code.
The synthetic mRNA carried on lipid nanoparticles appears to be resistant to breakdown by human ribonucleases by design so the product would be long-lasting and produce the protein product of interest for a considerable time period.
This would be an advantage for a normal human protein being replaced in a rare genetic deficiency state (e.g. alpha galactosidase in Fabry’s disease). However, it is a big problem when the protein is the pathogenic SARS-CoV-2 Spike. The adenoviral DNA (Janssen) should broken down by deoxyribonuclease, however this has not been exhaustively studied.
This leaves dissolution of Spike protein as a therapeutic goal for the vaccine injured. With the respiratory infection, Spike is processed and activated by cellular proteases including transmembrane serine protein 2 (TMPRSS2), cathepsin, and furin.
With vaccination, these systems may be avoided by systemic administration and production of Spike protein within cells. As a result, the pathogenesis of vaccine injury syndromes is believed to be driven by accumulation of Spike protein in cells, tissues, and organs.
Nattokinase is an enzyme is produced by fermenting soybeans with bacteria Bacillus subtilis var. natto and has been available as an oral supplement. It degrades fibrinogen, factor VII, cytokines, and factor VIII and has been studied for its cardiovascular benefits.
Out of all the available therapies I have used in my practice and among all the proposed detoxification agents, I believe nattokinase and related peptides hold the greatest promise for patients at this time.
Tanikawa et al examined the effect of nattokinase on the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. In the first experiment they demonstrated that Spike was degraded in a time and dose dependent manner in a cell lysate preparation that could be analogous to a vaccine recipient.
The second experiment demonstrated that nattokinase degraded the Spike protein in SARS-CoV-2 infected cells. This reproduced a similar study done by Oba and colleagues in 2021.
Nattokinase is dosed in fibrinolytic units (FU) per gram and can vary according to purity. Kurosawa and colleagues have shown in humans that after a single oral dose of 2000 FU D-dimer concentrations at 6, and 8 hours, and blood fibrin/fibrinogen degradation products at 4 hours after administration elevated significantly (p < 0.05, respectively).
Thus an empiric starting dose could be 2000 FU twice a day. Full pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies have not been completed, but several years of market use as an over-the-counter supplement suggests nattokinase is safe with the main caveat being excessive bleeding and cautions with concurrent antiplatelet and anticoagulant drugs.
Based on these findings, nattokinase and similar products such as serrapeptase should undergo well-funded, accelerated preclinical and clinical development programs. The issue at hand is the urgency of time, similar to that with SARS-CoV-2 infection and empiric early therapy.
It will take up to 20 years to have a fully developed pharmaceutical profile to characterize the safety and efficacy of nattokinase in the treatment of vaccine injury and post-COVID syndromes. Large number of people are sick now and many believe empiric treatment is justified given sufficiently low risk of side effects and potentially high reward.
My recommendation is to discuss this with your doctor or seek a specialist in holistic or naturopathic medicine who is experienced with the safety profile of nattokinase in a range of applications.
https://principia-scientific.com/dissolution-of-spike-protein-by-nattokinase/
***************************************************Over 60 Scientists Call For An End To Covid-19 ‘Vaccines’
The German Working Group for Covid Vaccine Analysis – which includes over 60 scientists, doctors, lawyers, and journalists – published their “Summary of Preliminary Findings” on the toxic substances they are finding in covid-19 vaccine samples and the changes they are seeing in the blood samples taken from vaccinated individuals.
The scientists “frequently observed an unusually rapid disintegration of the different types of cells in the vaccinated blood” and found concerning rouleaux formations of red blood cells specifically in the vaccinated samples. Because of these issues, the Working Group is calling for all covid-19 vaccine programs to end.”
“In order to avert a direct and imminent danger to human life and public safety, we ask that the Covid-19 vaccination programmes be discontinued immediately,” the Group’s report stated. The report has been sent to all members of the Lower House of Parliament in Germany and is being investigated by scientists and doctors of various disciplines.
Covid-19 Vaccines Damage The Blood, Impede Circulation
The foreign, complex structures that have been isolated in the vaccine lots have also been found in the blood of vaccinated individuals. The Working Group used artificial intelligence to examine, with precision, differences in the blood of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.
These toxic substances are having a profound negative impact on the blood of vaccinated individuals, as seen under dark-field microscopy. These inflammatory changes to the blood are taking place regardless of the incidence and severity of the side effects that vaccinated individuals experience.
The covid-19 vaccines can cause long term changes in blood composition, without the vaccinated person being aware of these changes. The scientists wrote that the foreign objects are not the result of contamination because they are found in different blood samples from various vaccine lots.
They warn that the size of the objects can “lead to disruption in the blood circulation in the vessels.” Much of the damage is predicated on the stability of the envelope of the lipid nanoparticles.
The lipid nano-particles are designed to evade detection and deliver mRNA instructions to the cells. When the nanoparticles remain stable and effectively do their job, the blood damage is more severe and the vaccine side effects are more frequent and pronounced. The researchers warn:
The stability of the lipid nano-particle envelope is closely correlated with the incidence of vaccine side effects and injury.
The more stable this envelope, the greater the amount of mRNA that penetrates cells, where the production of spike proteins then takes place.
These results correspond with the findings of pathologists who have carried out autopsies on people who died due to vaccine injury.
Spike proteins were detected in damaged tissue. Researchers suspect that the spike protein is, in itself, toxic.
The vaccine’s mRNA is encapsulated in a protective envelope of nano lipids. These nano lipids are made out of multiple layers of polyethylene glycol (PEG). Some people have antibodies to PEG, due to previous exposure to vaccines and pharmaceuticals that contain PEG.
This may explain the different reactions to the vaccine. If a person’s immune system recognizes, attacks, and breaks down the PEG, then the mRNA will degrade and not make it to the ribosomes of the cells. If this happens, then the vaccine does not produce the spike proteins, does not cause a further immune response, and does not cause subsequent damage.
Microscopic Analysis Finds Various Metallic Elements In Covid-19 Vaccines
Researchers used scanning electron microscopy (“SEM”) and corresponding energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (“EDX”) to investigate the different vials of covid-19 vaccines. The analysis found metallic elements in the Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca vaccines.
These metallic elements included caesium, potassium, calcium, barium, cobalt, iron, chromium, titanium, cerium, gadolinium, aluminum, silicon, and sulfur. These elements were not found in the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen), Lubecavax, and Influspit Tetra vaccines.
The group hypothesized why the caesium was used in the vaccine. “From a medical point of view, caesium has no therapeutic value; on the contrary, one would have to assume that the addition of caesium disturbs the potassium balance and could cause vital cells (e.g., defense cells) to die in order to possibly accelerate the effect of the vaccination or to avoid endangering that effect.”
The Moderna vaccine also contained antimony, a highly toxic metal that could be used as an antiprotozoal adjuvant, serving an immunosuppressive effect. Notably, the vaccines contain pentavalent sodium stibogluconate.
The side effects of this substance mirror the side effects commonly reported after vaccination, including: nausea, vomiting, myalgia, headache, lethargy and ECG changes.
Long term side effects of pentavalent sodium stibogluconate administration in the blood also mirror long term side effects of vaccinated individuals, including damage to the liver and heart, pneumonia, blood count damage, and liver dysfunction.
https://principia-scientific.com/over-60-scientists-call-for-an-end-to-covid-19-vaccines/
***************************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Wednesday, February 22, 2023
Are covid-19 vaccine-induced adverse cardiovascular events rare?
When compared with Flu vaccines, Covid vaccines are much more dangerous
COVID-19 vaccine-induced adverse cardiovascular events (ACEs) have been judged as “rare” (and many times as mild and temporary) by the major promoters of these vaccines (caveat: these injections prevent neither infection nor viral transmission, so they are not vaccines in the classical sense). To ascertain the frequency of COVID-19 vaccine-induced ACEs, we have examined the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database for reports of ACEs. Since some ACEs can have latency/incubation periods of a decade or more, we have also addressed the issue of Early Warning Indicators that could identify COVID-19 vaccine-induced ACEs on or over the horizon. Finally, we have compared ACEs reported following COVID-19 vaccines with those reported following influenza vaccines for similar numbers of vaccine doses delivered. In Appendix 1, we have also addressed the relevance of human clinical trials to the issues addressed in this OpEd.
While imperfect (as are most publicly-available vaccine adverse events reporting systems), VAERS is a reasonable system for identifying safety signals related to vaccines. One major VAERS deficiency is that only a small fraction of vaccine-related adverse events is reported to VAERS. A study by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, using electronic tracking, showed that “fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported”. This is an average value over all adverse events; it may be worse for some ACEs.
The Harvard Pilgrim Health Care study tracked reporting habits to VAERS for thirty days. Therefore, the 1% number should be termed a thirty-day reporting fraction. For adverse events that tend to occur rapidly, like headache, fever, chills, rashes, anaphylactic shock, blood clots, etc., a thirty-day study may offer a reasonable window. Some ACEs, however, may take a decade or more to emerge, and a thirty-day window would be grossly inadequate for accurate reporting. The numbers shown in the present analysis should be viewed as a “floor” of what the real-world numbers are. To get a more complete picture of the total ACEs of the COVID-19 vaccines, these numbers should be supplemented by ACE Early Warning Indicators whose abnormal values could emerge shortly after the injection, and allow some prediction of what lies on or over the horizon.
METHODOLOGY
The VAERS database was initially accessed on 20 December 2022. The vaccines were limited to COVID-19 vaccines from all manufacturers, and the VAERS reports were for the USA. All adverse event types (termed Symptoms in VAERS) were retrieved. There were ~17,000 adverse event types retrieved, including ~5,000 with zero entries (the latter were not analyzed, although when scaling from VAERS entries to real-world numbers, they could possibly amount to tens of events for each symptom). A comprehensive query (consisting of myriad synonyms of ACEs) was used to search the VAERS database, and retrieve ACE-related adverse events.
On 10 February 2023, the VAERS database was accessed to get similar information for the influenza vaccines from all manufacturers, and the VAERS reports were for the USA. The time period for the latter was selected to cover similar numbers of doses for the flu vaccines and the COVID-19 vaccines.
On 14 February 2023, the VAERS database was accessed to obtain parametric proximity data for assessing the fraction of ACEs that were reported seven and fourteen days past injection.
RESULTS
Before presenting the numbers, we need to define what is an ACE event reported in VAERS. Is it 1) a biomarker associated with the eventual emergence of ACE, 2) a group of biomarkers reflecting pre-clinical ACE, 3) a newly-diagnosed ACE, 4) an ACE that has been exacerbated, or 5) an ACE death? While all five are valid candidates, the present study concentrates on items 3) and 4), with the one exception that Troponins were included (since they were listed as a possible event).
This restriction to items 3) and 4) substantially under-reports the COVID-19 vaccine adverse events that may eventually result in ACEs, because it excludes abnormalities in ACE risk biomarkers (with the exception of Troponins). These abnormalities in the appropriate ACE risk biomarkers would provide an Early Warning Indicator for potential ACEs to emerge in the near or far future. A few potential Early Warning Indicators for ACEs are shown in the following: myocardial injury (Cardiac troponin I (cTnI) and T (cTnT), High-sensitivity cardiac troponin (hs-cTn), Heart-type fatty acid binding protein (H-FABP)); inflammation (High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), Growth-differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15), Fibrinogen, Uric acid (UA)); plaque instability/rupture (Pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A (PAPP-A), Myeloperoxidase (MPO), Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs)); platelet activation (Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 (Lp-PLA2), Secretory phospholipase A2 (sPLA2), Soluble CD40 ligand (sCD40L)); neurohormonal activation (Copeptin, Mid-regional-pro-adrenomedullin (MR-proADM)); myocardial dysfunction or stress (Natriuretic peptides, ST2, Endothelin-1 (ET-1), Galectin-3 (Gal3), Neuregulin-1 (NRG-1)); microRNAs (miRNAs). A broader group of ACE biomarkers, which includes most of the biomarkers listed above, can be found in Figure 1 of the following link, and a broader group can be found in Table 1 of the following link.
Most of the ACE risk biomarkers listed above did not appear in the VAERS output for Symptoms, even for the events that have zero entries. Assessment of abnormalities in these risk biomarkers would provide a more accurate picture of what can be expected in the mid and long-term from the injections given already.
The results for items 3) and 4), and Troponins, follow. There were ~1020 different ACEs reported in VAERS for the COVID-19 vaccines, with ~156000 total number of events. Converting these VAERS entries to real-world numbers of COVID-19 vaccine-induced ACEs requires three major assumptions, and some minor ones. The major assumptions are 1) the ACEs reported in VAERS following the administration of COVID-19 vaccines are in fact caused in part or in whole by the COVID-19 vaccines, 2) the under-reporting factor (URF) to be used for ACE scale-up to real-world numbers can be approximated for very conservative estimation purposes by the Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare thirty-day URFs, and 3) the fraction of the VAERS ACE entries to which the URF should be applied can be approximated by autopsy results for fraction of post-COVID-19 vaccine deaths that can be attributed to the COVID-19 vaccine.
Assumption 1)
Assumption 1) is based on four sources of evidence: i) the biological mechanisms responsible for cardiovascular damage; ii) the autopsy results confirming the operability of the biological mechanisms; iii) a comparison with similar influenza vaccination data to estimate the cardiovascular damage expected (based on extrapolations of pre-pandemic adverse cardiovascular events); and iv) a parametric study showing the fraction of symptoms that occurred within seven and fourteen days of onset from the injections.
i). Biological Mechanisms
The COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are injected in the deltoid muscle, and a fraction enters the bloodstream directly or indirectly (link 1; link2). The mRNA that enters the bloodstream is able to survive because of protection by the LNP encapsulation. As the Pfizer pharmacovigilance studies showed, the LNP package concentrates in a number of organs.
The damage to the blood vessels in the circulatory system, and then to the tissues and organs, has been described most eloquently in a video by Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, a world-renowned microbiologist: “the vaccines cause cells deep inside our body to express the viral spike protein, which they were never meant to do by nature. Any cell which expresses this foreign antigen on its surface will come under attack by the immune system, which will involve both IgG antibodies and cytotoxic T-lymphocytes. This may occur in any organ, but the damage will be most severe in vital organs. We are seeing now that the heart is affected in many young people, leading to myocarditis or even sudden cardiac arrest and death.”.
Thus, while all tissues and organs in the body will be potential targets of this induced autoimmune process, those of the circulatory system will be prime targets because of their proximity to the circulating LNP-enclosed mRNA. The spike proteins expressed on the surface of the endothelial cells (those that line the interior of the blood vessels and are in closest proximity to the innate immune system components flowing by in the bloodstream) are able to interact with the platelets flowing by and initiate the clotting process. So, the net effect is coagulation and clotting of the blood, destruction of the endothelium, and subsequent destruction of the tissues and organs as the LNP package transitions from the bloodstream through the ruptured endothelium into the surrounding tissues and organs.
Given this mode of action, the question we should be asking is not why we are experiencing such large numbers of ACES, but rather why wouldn’t we expect a massive number of ACEs resulting from these vaccinations? In some sense, why doesn’t almost every mRNA vaccine recipient experience one or more ACEs?
The answer may lie in the existence of so-called “hot lots”. Some analysts have correlated VAERS vaccine lot numbers with serious adverse events, and have found some of the vaccine lots are responsible for far more serious adverse events than other lots (link 1; link 2). Explanations for this are manifold, but shoddy manufacturing processes are one credible explanation. Many/most of the vaccines produced are not fully functional, and their potential for damage is muted. If this turns out to be true after further validation, it means the toxicity of the mRNA vaccines per functional dose are higher than have been calculated.
The ACEs represented in the peer-reviewed literature have focused on myocarditis (e.g., link 1; link 2; link 3; link 4; link 5). Because of the censorship that exists in the biomedical peer-reviewed literature today, many other ACEs have not been addressed. However, as Appendix 2 shows, the different types of ACEs are monumental, as one would expect from the operational mechanisms of the injectant, and some ACEs are large compared to myocarditis. The alternative biomedical literature is a much more credible source of real-world information on the causes and extent of ACEs.
ii). Autopsy Results
Autopsies have been the most credible source of information about the extent of the COVID-19 vaccine-induced damage, although they have been discouraged by governments around the world. Some that have been made available show the extent of the damage in detail, and confirm the theory of damage expressed by Dr. Bhakdi and many others. While different organs may receive the bulk of the damage in different individuals, most autopsies show the heart to be a major target. Typically, the autopsies show the spike protein infiltration into an organ (or tissue), the rupture of the endothelium, and the infiltration of the lymphocytes (which attack the cells that express the spike protein on the surface and thereby damage the organ (or tissue)). This infiltration of spike protein appears to be a classic convection-diffusion process, with convection mainly through the bloodstream and diffusion through the tissues/organs. As long as the body continues to function like a spike protein factory, which appears to be one consequence of the injection, the infiltration of spike protein and associated damage will continue. With the addition of periodic boosters, the spike protein “factory” is replenished, and the damage will continue to spread. It is difficult for me to see how anyone who has been injected with a functional mRNA vaccine can avoid this damage, and the associated adverse effects on lifespan.
iii). Comparison with Similar Influenza Vaccination Data
The VAERS entries for ACEs can be viewed as consisting of two parts: the numbers expected for any ACE based on extrapolation of historical pre-pandemic trends, and the numbers for the ACE due to the COVID-19 vaccines. Since the numbers expected would be about the same for influenza and COVID-19, these background numbers can be bounded based on the influenza data. We did a simple comparison of some of the highest frequency ACEs reported here with their counterparts for the influenza vaccines reported in VAERS. We selected influenza, since it is a respiratory viral disease and has a number of features in common with COVID-19.
There have been about 670 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered in the USA since late December 2020, and about 717 million doses of influenza vaccines administered in the USA since the beginning of 2019. Thus, the number of doses is relatively similar for the influenza vaccines and the COVID-19 vaccines over the time periods selected. Table 1 compares VAERS entries for selected ACEs (those with high entry numbers for COVID-19 vaccines) between influenza vaccines and COVID-19 vaccines.
Thus, for similar dose numbers, and an even longer average tracking times for the flu vaccines, the VAERS ACEs entries for the flu vaccines are almost two orders of magnitude less than for the COVID-19 vaccines. While the number of ACEs induced by the vaccines could be vastly different for the two cases, one would expect the background levels of ACEs (the numbers of ACEs expected based on extrapolation of historical trends) to be roughly similar. If anything, they would be larger for the flu vaccines because of the increased time period over which they were administered relative to the COVID-19 vaccine administration period.
The small number of ACEs (<2% of COVID-19 numbers) reported for the flu vaccines would suggest 1) most of the COVID-19 ACE entries were vaccine-induced, and 2) the ACE onsets following injection were accelerated sufficiently by the COVID-19 injections that the ACEs could be linked to the shots and would motivate reporting to VAERS by the healthcare provider! Conversely, in the case of the flu vaccines, almost all ACEs that occurred post-vaccine may have been sufficiently far removed in time from the injection that the healthcare provider was not motivated to report them to VAERS.
Additionally, I have seen many videos of testimonies by healthcare providers that they were heavily discouraged from reporting post-COVID-19 vaccine adverse events to VAERS, while I have never seen or read of similar discouragement for flu vaccine reporting. This deliberate suppression of reporting post-COVID-19 vaccine adverse events to VAERS lends further argument for increasing the URFs of COVID-19 vaccine adverse events.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Tuesday, February 21, 2023
The Covidians
There seems to be a growing resignation to the fact that the Covid vaccines wane much sooner than initially hoped. At first, of course, the hope was that one shot - or double-shot - would do the trick. That soon devolved to every year, like the flu shot. Now, the understanding seems to be that the boosters ‘last’ about 3-4 months, and someone who wants to stay ‘up to date’ is going to have to get - count ‘em - four shots every year. The more knowledgeable Covidians don’t seem to think anymore that these ‘vaccines’ prevent them from catching Covid in the first place, but they still consider they are protected from getting severely ill or dying. (The vaccinated people who do get severely sick and die from Covid? Well, they were probably going to die anyway.)
With that realization has come growing pockets of concern about the volume of the mRNA spike protein. That was surprising to me since these lemmings tend to trust Big Pharma and anything it wants to put into their bodies most of all. If anything, injecting bucketloads of mRNA spike protein into their systems should be a sacrament as holy to these people as anything a religion could provide to any of us. But, as it turns out, even Branch Covidians are noticing and pointing out uncomfortable side effects, even if they still fail to acknowledge the many deaths and permanent impairments Covid vaccines are likely responsible for (those are always just ‘coincidences,’ don’t you know). I noticed several tweets pointing out concern at this many mRNA shots and even stating how uncomfortable their last shot was because of this or that side effect they experienced. Many in this camp have expressed a desire to switch to a non-mRNA vaccine like the recently approved Novavax, and some even stated that they have already gone out of their way - even crossing state lines - to do so.
Masking, unfortunately, but not surprisingly, maintains its revered status as an Icon of the Covidian religion. Except, while worshippers continue to insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that any face covering is better than no face covering, the shift to at least an N95 or better as a standard of quality and protection is complete. A true Covidian won’t go indoors near people in any setting without a mask, preferably an N95. For those who want to ‘protect’ themselves as much as possible, the cadence seems to be ‘updated vaccine plus masking.’
Covidians on Twitter love hashtags like #CovidIsntOver and #LongCovid. They consistently use them to point out that the virus is still out there, waiting to strike them dead at any point or give them a lifetime of medical issues - a.k.a. #LongCovid. The latter is how they keep the fear alive among the few still willing to listen. Of course, everyone knows or seems to know that Covid has become a cold for most people. Still, if hard-core Covidians can keep the base scared of unknown weird maladies that could last a lifetime, they can keep them ‘masked and vaxxed’ in perpetuity.
Finally, despite all the measures they are still entirely in favor of, Covidians seem to be grudgingly resigning themselves to the fact that they will likely continue getting Covid over and over again in perpetuity. Still, that doesn’t keep them from strictly adhering to their religious dogma of masking and vaccines. It’s a paradox, but they don’t seem to notice or care. Through it all, like any religion, there’s an apocalyptic tenor, a sense that they would love for the virus to return in some deadly form where they are proven right, and the doubters (us) are proven wrong once and for all.
If any of that sounds familiar, remember, it’s a religion.
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The major mistake Australia made during the Covid-19 lockdowns: Top professor describes hated rule as 'absolutely atrocious'
Peter Collignon - one of Australia's most trusted voices through the Covid crisis - has said restrictions on outdoor activities during the Covid-lockdown was 'absolutely atrocious' and a major mistake.
The infectious diseases doctor tweeted on Monday that 'restrictions on outdoor activities (during Covid lockdowns) was a major mistake'.
He said his warnings from the start of the pandemic that preventing people from going out to exercise had been proven right - 'We should never in the future stop people from being outdoors.'
Professor Collignon told Daily Mail Australia that 'No matter how hard you look, you can not find (much Covid) transmission outdoors.
'There was some - there was a report in the US of someone talking to somebody for 15 minutes outside and getting Covid, and there were some building workers in Singapore who probably got it outdoors.
'But basically, outdoors, there's very little transmission of Covid. The effective R (the rate of passing Covid on to another person) was much less than one.
'In other words, you didn't transmit it much,' he said.
The doctor, who lectures at the Australian National University's medical school in Canberra, said restrictions on outdoor exercise 'was a real mistake'.
'There was a lot of hysteria about people going to beaches and to parks, and you could only be out for an hour a day and closing parks for children.'
He said while it could not have been guaranteed that no transmission would have occurred outdoors, 'it would have been minimal and should have easily been handled by contract tracing and testing'.
Prof Collignon said this is not a conclusion he has come to with the benefit of looking back, that he had been 'saying that three years ago too'.
Photos on social media showing crowded beaches during lockdowns - implying that people were breaking the law - were misleading, he said.
'They did it with telephoto lenses which made it look like people were really close together.
'But when you looked at aerial views from drones, people were more than two metres apart.'
Prof Collignon said at the time that lockdowns such as closing national parks so people couldn't go walking were 'not sensible'.
'And in retrospect, it looks an absolutely atrocious mistake to have made those rules,' he said.
The issue of travelling in a crowded space to get to a beach or park during lockdowns complicated matters, though.
'If you had to travel by train or bus or a crowded car to get there, that's a risk. But it's being indoors that's the big risk.
'If you can go in your own transport to an outdoor venue, you had no more risk of acquiring Covid from anybody not in your household.'
Prof Collignon also addressed the issue of the increased number of drownings this summer being blamed in part on children not having been able to learn to swim in pools due to lockdowns.
'I am under the impression, and it's based on hearsay, but there have been less children learning to swim over the last few years than in the years beforehand,' he said.
'It all depends on the data ... on how many children aged two to six have drowned and how different that is (from pre-pandemic numbers).
'Because that is the age group that would have been affected by not being able to learn to swim (due to lockdowns).'
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Biden Admin Negotiates Deal to Give WHO Authority Over US Pandemic Policies
The Biden administration is preparing to sign up the United States to a “legally binding” accord with the World Health Organization (WHO) that would give this Geneva-based UN subsidiary the authority to dictate America’s policies during a pandemic.
Despite widespread criticism of the WHO’s response to the COVID pandemic, U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra joined with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in September 2022 to announce “the U.S.-WHO Strategic Dialogue.” Together, they developed a “platform to maximize the longstanding U.S. government-WHO partnership, and to protect and promote the health of all people around the globe, including the American people.”
These discussions and others spawned the “zero draft” (pdf) of a pandemic treaty, published on Feb. 1, which now seeks ratification by all 194 WHO member states. A meeting of the WHO’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) is scheduled for Feb. 27 to work out the final terms, which all members will then sign.
Written under the banner of “the world together equitably,” the zero draft grants the WHO the power to declare and manage a global pandemic emergency. Once a health emergency is declared, all signatories, including the United States, would submit to the authority of the WHO regarding treatments, government regulations such as lockdowns and vaccine mandates, global supply chains, and monitoring and surveillance of populations.
Centralized Pandemic Response
“They want to see a centralized, vaccine-and-medication-based response, and a very restrictive response in terms of controlling populations,” David Bell, a public health physician and former WHO staffer specializing in epidemic policy, told The Epoch Times. “They get to decide what is a health emergency, and they are putting in place a surveillance mechanism that will ensure that there are potential emergencies to declare.”
The WHO pandemic treaty is part of a two-track effort, coinciding with an initiative by the World Health Assembly (WHA) to create new global pandemic regulations that would also supersede the laws of member states. The WHA is the rule-making body of the WHO, comprised of representatives from the member states.
“Both [initiatives] are fatally dangerous,” Francis Boyle, professor of international law at Illinois University, told The Epoch Times. “Either one or both would set up a worldwide medical police state under the control of the WHO, and in particular WHO Director-General Tedros. If either one or both of these go through, Tedros or his successor will be able to issue orders that will go all the way down the pipe to your primary care physicians.”
Physician Meryl Nass told The Epoch Times: “If these rules go through as currently drafted, I, as a doctor, will be told what I am allowed to give a patient and what I am prohibited from giving a patient whenever the WHO declares a public health emergency. So they can tell you you’re getting remdesivir, but you can’t have hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin. What they’re also saying is they believe in equity, which means everybody in the world gets vaccinated, whether or not you need it, whether or not you’re already immune.”
Regarding medical treatments, the accord would require member nations to “monitor and regulate against substandard and falsified pandemic-related products.” Based on previous WHO and Biden administration policy, this would likely include forcing populations to take newly-developed vaccines while preventing doctors from prescribing non-vaccine treatments or medicines.
Circumventing America’s Constitution
A key question surrounding the accord is whether the Biden administration can bind America to treaties and agreements without the consent of the U.S. Senate, which is required under the Constitution. The zero draft concedes that, per international law, treaties between countries must be ratified by national legislatures, thus respecting the right of their citizens to consent. However, the draft also includes a clause that the accord will go into effect on a “provisional” basis, as soon as it is signed by delegates to the WHO, and therefore it will be legally binding on members without being ratified by legislatures.
“Whoever drafted this clause knew as much about U.S. constitutional law and international law as I did, and deliberately drafted it to circumvent the power of the Senate to give its advice and consent to treaties, to provisionally bring it into force immediately upon signature,” Boyle said. In addition, “the Biden administration will take the position that this is an international executive agreement that the president can conclude of his own accord without approval by Congress, and is binding on the United States of America, including all state and local democratically elected officials, governors, attorney generals and health officials.”
In July 2020, then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from membership in the WHO. Citing the WHO’s dismal performance in responding to the COVID pandemic and its ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Trump said that U.S. funding of approximately half a billion dollars per year would also cease.
In response, then-presidential-candidate Joe Biden vowed: “On my first day as President, I will rejoin the WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage.” Biden kept his promise and took it one step further, negotiating the pandemic accord.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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