Wednesday, March 08, 2023
UConn Health Worker Study: mRNA Vaccine Effectiveness Wanes—Hybrid Immunity Superior
Yet more evidence surfaces that so-called hybrid immunity trumped vaccine-induced immunity, according to recent study findings published in the journal Vaccines. Led by UConn Health investigators, the recent study reveals that healthcare workers who were vaccinated yet went on to experience symptomatic COVID-19 gained more robust immunity than those who didn’t experience a breakthrough symptomatic infection. The study just adds to the evidence that current mRNA COVID-19 vaccine durability isn’t sufficient for a robust, sustainable, long-term vaccine product.
While healthcare workers such as nurses, doctors, and other staff experienced high rates of SARS-CoV-2 exposure, especially early on during the pandemic, University of Connecticut’s UConn Today reports that this cohort was an ideal group to study the effects of the COVID-19 vaccines that were available by spring 2021.
As reported by Kim Krieger at the university’s communications department, the UConn study team recruited 296 of their colleagues to participate in a vaccine study that began that spring, including 46 who had already had COVID.
Study subjects were inoculated with either the Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) or the Moderna (mRNA-1273) mRNA vaccines, whichever was available at the time. (Originally the study included healthcare workers vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson’s product, but not enough participants ended up receiving that vaccine to make the results statistically significant.)
The UConn health workers in the study had their blood tested for neutralizing antibodies at two months post-vaccination, then at five months, and again at nine months.
Summary of the Effects
UConn reports on the science behind the neutralizing antibodies--they specifically attack the parts of the virus important for infection. Other antibodies might react to parts of the virus but be ineffective at stopping it from infecting other cells. Not all antibody tests look specifically for neutralizing antibodies, and that specificity is one of this study’s strengths, says UConn School of Medicine chief of infectious diseases Kevin Dieckhaus, one of the authors.
Waning Effectiveness of mRNA Vaccines
As reported by Dieckhaus and colleagues, the data becomes clear--the mRNA vaccines elicit a strong neutralizing antibody response in the first few months from people who have never been infected with COVID before. But the level of neutralizing antibodies drops off steeply by nine months.
Hybrid Coverage Stronger
In people who have already been infected with COVID, the response is stronger: the neutralizing antibody response is higher initially and doesn’t drop off as steeply over time. And in both groups, getting a fever, aches, or a sore arm after vaccination predicted a stronger, longer lasting neutralizing antibody response.
The data confirms what earlier studies had reported. In middle aged people, the antibody response from the vaccines is relatively strong but short lived.
Principal Investigator POV
Dieckhaus went on the record regarding their findings: “Prior infection with COVID meant you were more likely to have a sustained immune response. It definitely sets your immune system to respond in a more vigorous way to the vaccination.”
What’s Next?
The researchers are continuing the study and currently tracking antibody levels in participants who received boosters, as well as whether they have contracted COVID since being vaccinated. They hope to help answer other questions, such as whether the antibody response to boosters behaves similarly over time to the initial shots, and why some people get infected with COVID repeatedly while others don’t.
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CDC’s Risk-Benefit Assessment for New COVID-19 Vaccines Flawed: Experts
A new U.S. government comparison of COVID-19 vaccine risks and benefits exaggerated benefits and downplayed risks, experts say.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently provided a risk-benefit assessment for the updated bivalent vaccines. One assessment was for adolescents aged 12 to 17.
The CDC estimated that a million doses in the age group, over a period of six months, would prevent up to 136 hospitalizations and zero or one death. But it relied on effectiveness estimates from an outdated, non-peer-reviewed CDC study that analyzed only data for adults. Hospitalization rates included hospitalizations for which COVID-19 was an incidental reason, not a primary reason, for admission.
“When we look at both the potential benefits and harms for adolescents together, using the hospitalization ranges from the sensitivity analyses, we see that per million doses we would expect to prevent between 31 and 136 hospitalizations, nine to 40 ICU admissions, and one death,” Megan Wallace, a CDC official, said while presenting the assessment.
A second version, which took into account incidental hospitalizations, lowered the estimate of hospitalizations prevented to between 17 and 75.
Both versions noted that, in a single CDC-run surveillance system, there have been zero myocarditis cases among young people who received a bivalent booster. But fewer than 100,000 doses have been given to adolescents in the system, and as many as 62 cases per million doses could occur in young males, a footnote reads.
Myocarditis, or heart inflammation, is one of the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines, and it’s most prevalent in young males.
Critics took issue with the presentation.
“It’s definitely flawed,” Allison Krug, an epidemiologist, told The Epoch Times.
Among the issues: using hospitalization rates from COVID-NET, which don’t include rates for children, and not including outpatient medical encounters, as some researchers have done, when searching for myocarditis cases.
“The risk-benefit analysis is a marketing strategy to maximize uptake of the vaccine,” Krug said. “It is not an honest effort to estimate risks and benefits because it ignores the most durable protection on the ‘market’—immunity from prior infection—which is near universal now.”
She has performed risk-benefit analyses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for adolescent boys and for booster mandates at colleges.
Dr. Tracy Hoeg, another epidemiologist, described the assessment as “top level incompetence” as the CDC, she said, tried “to justify giving bivalent boosters to children.” She pointed out that the CDC study used to estimate hospitalizations prevented didn’t include adjustments for factors such as the likelihood of being tested.
The CDC and Wallace didn’t respond to requests for comment.
No Clinical Data
U.S. authorities have had to rely on observational data for the bivalent boosters from Pfizer and Moderna, which were authorized and recommended in fall 2022, because there are still no clinical effectiveness data available six months later. Mice data were used to justify authorizing the vaccines.
Pfizer and Moderna haven’t responded to requests for comment about when the data from their trials will be available.
Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, announced on March 1 that it had asked U.S. regulators to authorize a bivalent booster for children younger than 5 years old based on data from its trials, claiming that the data show that the bivalent elicited a higher level of neutralizing antibodies and that the safety profile “remained similar to that of the original vaccine.”
Multiple members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, to whom the CDC presented the risk-benefit assessment, noted the lack of trial data after they were asked whether authorities should transition to an annual booster moving forward.
“I would like to see a study saying, ‘OK, you’ve just got one bivalent vaccine. What is the benefit? And how long does that last?’ I think that would enhance the confidence in making a change rather than inferring the data,” Dr. Camille Kotton, one of the advisers, said.
Both Kotton and Dr. Matthew Daley said they wanted trials examining the vaccines, although Daley floated one comparing coadministration of influenza and COVID-19 vaccines with administering each of the vaccines separately.
“We would learn a lot about immunogenicity and safety,” Daley said. “That might be valuable for this conversation.”
Inflated Death Toll
Officials have repeatedly pointed to how some children have died from COVID-19 as justification for recommending that children get vaccinated, despite the dearth of effectiveness data for even the original shots in the population.
The CDC has used inflated children’s death data before and has refused requests to make a correction.
Dr. Sara Oliver, a CDC official, presented death data on a slide during the recent meeting. The claim was that 1,489 COVID-19 deaths had occurred in children aged 6 months to 17 years, but the total included children aged 0 to 5 months.
Oliver didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Kelley Krohnert, a Georgia mother who has repeatedly fact-checked false CDC claims, noted that the slide also included deaths of which COVID-19 was a contributing cause, not the underlying cause.
“Yet another example of why I argue CDC acts more as a sales/marketing agency than a health agency,” she wrote on Twitter.
New Myocarditis Study
The presentations happened after researchers in Canada reported a higher incidence of myocarditis or pericarditis, a related condition, after Pfizer or Moderna vaccination, particularly after the second dose of a primary series.
Analyzing health records from Quebec, Canada, the researchers found that there was a 15 times higher incidence than expected within seven days of a second dose among males aged 16 and 17 and a 7.6 times higher incidence among males aged 12 to 15.
Of 77 incidents, 63 occurred among males, and 51 occurred after dose two. All but three of the adolescents were assessed in the emergency department, and 34 were hospitalized.
Myocarditis can lead to long-term problems, including heart failure and death, other research has shown.
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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, March 07, 2023
Anti-Mandate Hollywood Speaks Up Against COVID-19 Vaccines
A large group of Hollywood actors says they have been locked out of their union buildings and blocked from competing for roles because they decided against taking the COVID-19 shot.
In exclusive interviews with The Epoch Times, the celebrities said they have sent more than 800 “unanswered” emails to their union, SAG–AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), about its continued enforcement of what they call an unconstitutional mandate that violates their right to informed consent and protection against what they characterize as medical experimentation with overwhelming proof of potentially dangerous health risks.
Emails, memos, and other correspondence shared with The Epoch Times show that COVID-19 vaccine mandates are in fact as much a battleground issue in Hollywood as it has been for military and health care workers.
Like others, actors told The Epoch Times that their requests for religious exemptions from the vaccines have been ignored, despite that a “return to work agreement” established by SAG–AFTRA explicitly says producers must consider them.
According to a SAG–AFTRA memo, 1 in 4 productions have mandated the vaccine for so-called Zone A workers, which includes on-set performers.
“No business that I know of, including our own government, requires testing before you enter a building, including hospitals,” “Summer of ’70” director Ed Rollin wrote in a recent email to SAG–AFTRA President Fran Drescher, best known for her role in the 1990s TV hit “The Nanny.”
Some actors also shared stories of the health problems they developed after caving to the expectation that they get the COVID-19 vaccine, such as Hollywood stuntwoman and actress Michelle Jubilee Gonzales, who told The Epoch Times that she believes she developed both reproductive and cardiac-related health problems immediately after getting an injection.
“SAG–AFTRA is no longer running like a member-run union but rather a tyranny with Duncan Crabtree-Ireland at the helm,” said Gonzales, whose credits include the TV series “Stargate Origins” and stunts in the 2022 Marvel blockbuster “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”
“It is criminal what is happening under his usurped leadership.”
Crabtree-Ireland, the executive director of SAG–AFTRA, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Pushback Escalates
The controversy heated up three weeks ago when SAG–AFTRA, along with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, decided to extend COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other protocols for members.
This past week, the group of actors called for a debate on the issue with their own medical experts pitted against a retired pediatrician that SAG–AFTRA contracts with to establish their pro-vaccine mandate policy. Union executives, including Drescher, declined.
The debate continued into this weekend with actor Woody Harrelson sending shock waves throughout national media and sparking a frenzy of social media posts over his unscripted monologue mocking COVID-19 vaccine mandates on “Saturday Night Live” on Feb. 25.
In talking about a fictional script he pretended to have rejected, Harrelson said:
“The movie goes like this: The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians, and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes—and people only can come out if they take the cartels’ drugs and keep taking them over and over.
“I threw the script away—I mean, who’s going to believe that crazy idea?”
Also this weekend, actors against the vaccine mandate organized a protest of Sunday night’s annual SAG Awards ceremony. It is being aired live on Feb. 26 from the swanky Fairmont Copley Plaza in Los Angeles. A party hosted by People Magazine is planned—which drew charges of hypocrisy from the actors since it listed no vaccine requirements.
What Hollywood’s Anti-Mandate Actors Are Saying
The day before the awards, actress Maya Dunbar of “The Mentalist” told The Epoch Times that refusing the COVID-19 injection has become like the “scarlet letter” in Hollywood.
“Thousands of us [have] been gaslit, demeaned, and kept out of meetings,” she said, adding that early in the pandemic, she could understand the criticism of vaccine skeptics, but not now with all of the negative evidence regarding the safety of the vaccines.
“It has honestly been the most horrific experience our family has ever gone through.”
She and her husband, Rockmond Dunbar, have four children, whom they homeschool. They left California over that state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Last year, Rockmond Dunbar filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Disney after being fired from the set of Fox’s popular TV show “9-1-1” for refusing the jab.
Disney also rejected Rockmond Dunbar’s medical and religious requests for exemption from the experimental injections.
The veteran actor, who’s been in major shows for the past 30 years, has not been able to land any roles since, and has been shunned and subject to hateful criticism, Maya Dunbar said, in the very industry that claims to embrace diversity.
“This is a Godless industry,” she said, pointing to Hollywood’s heavy reliance on big pharma advertising, which she sees as the true reason why, as she put it, “a blind pharmaceutical kind of frenzy cult” has been created in Hollywood.
“You have a lot of people who just don’t want to lose what they have—their worldly treasures, and if that means having to shill some shots or some pills or whatever [it] is, that’s what it means.”
She emphasized that her husband’s lawsuit was filed under the religious beliefs they hold as members of the Church of Universal Wisdom, which forbids vaccines.
Other actors have also filed lawsuits after being refused roles or barred from sets, while others told The Epoch Times they are planning to do the same. The discrimination against their medical choices is becoming a growing legal battle that belies the hyperbole that Hollywood is a bedlam filled with pro-mandate “liberals.”
In contradicting more Hollywood stigmatism, several actors point to the fact that the industry embraces the pro-abortion “My body, my choice” slogan, but abandons the edict over COVID-19 vaccination.
The contradiction was first raised at SAG–AFTRA’s national convention by actor and Hollywood voiceover artist Erik Nicolaisen, who became a household face in 2013 when he starred in a popular but controversial Super Bowl commercial for Volkswagen, in which he portrayed a white man who spoke Jamaican.
“They squelched any discussion of it,” Nicolaisen, who served as a union delegate at the time, told The Epoch Times. “That’s how they dealt with the contradiction.”
Who’s Responsible?
Nicolaisen joins several actors who place especially heavy blame on Drescher, the union’s president, for not supporting actors opposed to COVID-19 vaccine mandates, as well as for not putting more pressure on the union as well as productions to allow personal choice. Drescher reportedly experienced her own adverse reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine.
Boston-based actor Chuck Slavin, who serves on SAG’s New England board, is also critical of Drescher for not objecting strongly enough to the union’s mandate.
He and other actors have called the vaccine mandates “Nazi-like protocols” akin to directing unvaccinated actors to wear armbands.
“On this issue, she is acting more like a Hollywood actress than a union president,” Slavin told The Epoch Times. Slavin’s credits include “Boston’s Finest” and “Annabelle Hooper.”
Drescher didn’t respond to requests for comment.
In a Feb. 9 interview with Variety magazine, Drescher indicated that she supports measures to prevent the spread of disease on sets and that increasingly fewer productions are mandating the shot—a trend she expects to continue.
“I have been outspoken about my position on this, but I’m really only one person,” she said. “It’s not a dictatorship. And I have kept the conversation alive.”
In a recent exchange of emails that contained occasionally fiery debates—with some between Drescher, Slavin, and other actors—Drescher pointed out to Slavin that the extension of the vaccine mandate was based on a survey of actors that showed the majority of them supported keeping the order in place.
Drescher conceded that many surveys turned in by actors were omitted from the results because they were submitted anonymously, asserting that they could have been completed by “someone’s grandmother for all we knew.”
But as some actors—like major Hollywood stuntman Peter Antico, who works with big names such as Sylvester Stallone—pointed out, the survey grossly underrepresents union members’ views, counting just 7,696 responses, representing around 5 percent of SAG–AFTRA’s 160,000 members.
The results, which were shared with The Epoch Times, show that 67.1 percent wanted the mandate to stay in place, 26.1 percent didn’t, and about 6.8 percent didn’t respond to the question.
“’Do it for grandma’ was a lie,” Antico said. “These are now irrefutable facts. Crabtree-Ireland and President Drescher have refused an open debate on these facts, nor have they demonstrated common sense. And as a result, they have irrevocably harmed thousands of members.”
Actors Say Industry Violating Constitutional Rights
Drescher has also encouraged those not wanting to take the vaccine to apply for an exemption.
The problem with her position, several actors told The Epoch Times, is that none of their exemptions have even been considered, let alone granted.
Antico, Slavin, Dunbar, Nicolaisen, and Gonzales—along with some high-name recognition actors who asked to remain anonymous—heavily emphasized that SAG–AFTRA is violating their Title VII rights, which require employers to accommodate employees’ religious beliefs.
It’s the same argument under which health care workers have won lawsuits against hospitals that have denied them exemptions from the experimental vaccine.
In a recent exchange of emails with a SAG–AFTRA lawyer, “La Cible” and “Eleanor” actress Imoya Monroque asked the attorney to send her copies of the “so-called reports” that back the union’s mandate policy.
“Do you live in a vacuum or a bubble?” Monroque asked in a Feb. 21 email, detailing evidence that the vaccines are not only ineffective at preventing transmission and infection, but also dangerous.
The basis of her ire was the union’s decision to bar her and a group of actors from using the members’ lounge for a meeting at its New York location without proof of vaccination.
Union attorney Jason Touretz told Monroque by email that the decision was “due to the unreasonable risk” they would pose to other members.
Maya Dunbar said the argument is hypocritical at best, with SAG–AFTRA hosting unvetted COVID-19 parties in the same buildings where they had exiled unvaccinated union members who “pay the same dues” to support the facilities and union like the vaccinated actors they are supporting. She also pointed to all the industry events they attend, as well as other high-profile events like sports games including the recent Super Bowl.
“The reality is, they know they have done so many members wrong and they don’t want to have to deal with us, face us because they don’t want to be accountable,” she said. “We’ve been completely shut out and shut up.”
A recent memo circulated by Crabtree-Ireland to union members outraged anti-mandate actors.
“We recognize that some of our members face challenges in securing employment if they are unable to or choose not to be vaccinated, but we also acknowledge the many members who would be unable to work or who would choose not to work in an unvaccinated workplace due to the additional risk involved,” stated Crabtree-Ireland, who was first hired in 2021 as SAG–AFTRA’s top executive.
Slavin said when he and other actors contacted Crabtree-Ireland about the comment, the executive director basically replied with the attitude that there are “two kinds of actors—those who are vaccinated and can work, and those who are unvaccinated and cannot work.”
‘I Only Did It to Keep My Job’
Union actor Lynne Marie Merzejewski, who made appearances on “Desperate Housewives” and “CSI: New York,” told The Epoch Times that she was so opposed to the vaccine that she was “literally crying in the corner of CVS” trying to muster the strength to do what she said she knew was wrong.
“I had worked so long to get where I was. I only did it to keep my job,” she said.
Unfortunately, Merzejewski’s fears proved true and she developed several medical conditions right after taking the shot, including peripheral neuropathy in one of her legs, that she had never experienced before.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/anti-mandate-hollywood-speaks-up-against-covid-vaccine_5083894.html
****************************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) 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, March 06, 2023
High Dose Vitamin D May Treat Incurable Diseases: Experts
Vitamin D supplements are currently recommended at a dose of 600 international units (IU) per day by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), alongside a warning about potential toxicities if people take more.
But for some people, supplementing with what would be seen as a very high dose of vitamin D every day may reap health benefits rather than toxicities, experts suggest.
In 2019, board-certified internist Dr. Patrick McCullough published a report on the experiences of three patients who were taking high doses of 20,000 to 60,000 IUs of vitamin D daily for many years, all three of whom have since seen significant health improvements.
One patient started supplementing with vitamin D3 eight years before the publication of the report and saw his asthma attacks decline from five or six severe exacerbations per year to only one serious exacerbation from 2011 to 2019.
He initially started at 10,000 IUs per day, and by the time of publication, he had stopped most of his asthma medication and was taking 30,000 IUs daily.
Another patient’s ulcerated hand lesion, which was presumed to be a form of skin cancer, shrank after taking high doses.
One patient had extensive psoriasis plaques across his scalp, forehead, and ears, as well as smaller plaques on his chest, abdomen, elbows, and thighs. He was given 50,000 IUs of vitamin D2 and soon saw a dramatic improvement in his psoriasis. His skin cleared after a few months of treatment and he was able to stop using steroid creams and medicated shampoos.
While the clinical improvements are impressive, the dosages these patients received—which would be considered potentially toxic—are particularly astounding.
Adequate Versus Optimal Dose
The current NIH recommendations stem from a 2010 dietary reference by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) (pdf).
The reference suggests a daily intake of 600 IU to reach a serum level of 20 ng/ml vitamin D in the blood—an adequate amount. It set an upper tolerable limit of 4,000 IUs per day; therefore, any dosage higher than that would be considered a high dose.
Yet some experts believe that the current recommendations are not sufficient for optimal health.
McCullough argued that “the current doses recommended by the IOM are sub-physiologic,” meaning that they are below the natural needs of the body. Instead, McCullough proposed that 10,000 IUs a day would be the adequate physiologic dose.
His arguments have been echoed by other health care professionals.
Prior to the IOM’s recommendations, experts from the Council for Responsible Nutrition suggested increasing the maximum daily limit be set to 10,000 IUs a day, after finding no toxicities in vitamin D clinical trials where a person was given 10,000 IUs or even higher dosages.
In 2011, the Endocrine Society similarly said that up to 10,000 IUs per day was safe for adults.
The disparities in the dosage limits are caused by the different considerations in the potential health benefits of vitamin D.
The IOM’s lower dosage recommendations were based mainly on the role of vitamin D in promoting bone health by enhancing calcium absorption. However, the Endocrine Society and other experts argue that vitamin D may also play important roles in other systems and organs, suggesting that the dosage be adjusted accordingly.
Vitamin D Is More Than a Vitamin
Multiple papers in the literature show that vitamin D has a host of roles across multiple processes and organs. Most cells have a specific receptor for vitamin D, and when the vitamin D molecule binds to its receptor, it can activate around 2,000 genes in the body.
Vitamin D expert William Grant, who has published over 300 papers on vitamin D, told The Epoch Times that vitamin D should be viewed as a hormone rather than a vitamin. Vitamins are micronutrients; the body uses them in small amounts for their assisting role in establishing health pathways.
Vitamin D, however, acts on many genetic pathways as a direct contributor rather than an assistant, regulating calcium levels and parathyroid hormones, and interacting with immune cells, neurons, pancreatic cells, and many more.
Most importantly, while all the other vitamins have to be obtained through the diet, the body naturally produces vitamin D from sunlight. Many studies have also shown that without sun exposure, it is quite difficult to obtain sufficient vitamin D through a natural diet alone.
Deficiencies in vitamin D are associated with poor cardiovascular health, diabetes, hypertension, cancer mortalities, cognitive decline, infections, autoimmune disease, and allergies.
600 IUs May Not Be Enough for Overall Health
For this reason, some experts suggest that vitamin D is needed in a much higher dose than what is being recommended to maintain general health.
Board-certified internist and integrative physician Dr. Ana Mihalcea said that most of her patients need 10,000 IUs a day to reach optimal function with their cognition and energy levels.
Many of her patients came to her with fatigue, muscle weakness, and poor cognitive abilities, all of which may be linked to vitamin D deficiencies despite these patients being at an “adequate” level of 20 ng/ml.
Once she boosted their serum levels to 70 ng/ml or more using supplements, some of them saw great improvements. Mihalcea indicates that vitamin D deficiencies may have been the culprit for their symptoms.
Optimal Dose Differs Among Patients
A surgeon and physician for more than 20 years, Dr. Joseph Bosiljevac likewise reports great variability in optimal vitamin D serum levels among different patients.
He told The Epoch Times that some patients see great improvements once their levels hit 60 ng/ml, and he would deem them sufficient, but other patients may need 120 ng/ml or more.
Studies have shown that vitamin D toxicities may develop when serum vitamin D levels hit above 150 ng/ml, though McCullough said he has seen some patients operate fine at more than 200 ng/ml.
High-Dose Vitamin D as Medicine
Doctors say people with certain pathologies may need more vitamin D than healthy people. Some people with incurable diseases have made a great recovery after being prescribed high-dose vitamin D. The extra vitamin D can be used “as a medicine, not just a preventative vitamin,” said Mihalcea.
Research has indicated that sufficient vitamin D levels may reduce the risk of many conditions, from cardiovascular disease to allergies.
Autoimmune Disease
Autoimmune diseases occur when the body’s immune system starts attacking healthy tissues. It is associated with inflammation.
Vitamin D regulates immune cells, reduces inflammation, and activates immune cells that counteract autoimmune responses.
Some autoimmune disease patients have vitamin D resistance; the person becomes less responsive to vitamin D supplementation and sun exposure. Therefore, they need higher doses of vitamin D to raise their serum vitamin D levels to a suitable range.
Autoimmune specialist Dr. Cicero Coimbra, who authored the famous Coimbra Protocol, has found many of his patients with multiple sclerosis reach remission after taking massive doses of vitamin D, along with other supplements.
The protocol can start as low as 150 IU per kilogram of body weight and can potentially increase to doses as high as 1,000 IUs per kilogram of body weight daily, provided that patients are routinely tested to ensure their parathyroid hormones, calcium, and other micronutrient levels are in balance.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Coimbra said that his clinic has treated over 15,000 patients with autoimmune diseases; among multiple sclerosis patients, around 85 percent reach remission. His protocol has also been used in rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, and Crohn’s disease around the world, with the majority of patients following these protocols reporting significant improvements.
Regarding those who do not respond well to vitamin D treatment, Coimbra has observed that most tend to experience a high level of stress, and only by changing the way they respond to stress do they start to see improvements.
Cancer
Higher doses of vitamin D are associated with lower risks of cancer progression and mortality.
Deficiencies in B-group vitamins, vitamin C, iron, zinc, magnesium, and selenium have been linked with increased cancer risks.
Many observational studies on cancer patients have found vitamin D deficiency to also be a risk factor.
A 2016 report found that women whose vitamin D levels were raised above 40 ng/ml had a more than 65 percent lower risk of cancer incidence. Another 2019 study that followed end-term colon cancer patients found that those who increased their vitamin D levels experienced a slower worsening of their symptoms.
Grant’s research shows that vitamin D reduces the risk of cancer incidence by affecting differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis (disintegration) of cells, prevents mortality by reducing the formation of new blood vessels to sustain tumor growth, and reduces metastasis.
Since vitamin D acts by blocking pathways that promote further cancer growth and metastasis, it is better at preventing cancer mortalities than cancer incidence, Grant said.
It is worth noting that cancer can be triggered by a multitude of factors including environmental toxins, smoking, radiation, genetics, and inflammation, many of which cannot be controlled by vitamin D intake alone.
Furthermore, it is still uncertain if vitamin D will be effective for all cancers, and the reason for cancer patients’ ailments vary from one to another.
Nonetheless, there have been case reports of cancer remission after taking high doses of vitamin D, though other factors may play into patients’ recovery.
Anesthesiologist Dr. Judson Sommerville said his patient’s wife was told by highly renowned cancer center MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, that she only had six months to live due to advanced ovarian cancer. She figured she had nothing to lose so she started taking high doses of vitamin D3 together with magnesium.
The patient’s wife started feeling better, and after a few months, she went to the doctor for a check-up. “They examined her and to their surprise, found her cancer-free,” Sommerville said. It has been almost 12 years and the cancer still hasn’t recurred.
Brain Health
Low vitamin D levels have been associated with higher risks of anxiety, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and autism.
Vitamin D regulates chemicals in the brain that help neurons in the cortex and the hippocampus grow and survive. These two areas are involved in memory and cognitive functions, processing emotions, and complex motor functions.
Mihalcea said that the brain fog her patients experience as part of their deficiency would alleviate once she raised their vitamin D levels.
Psychiatrist Dr. John J. Cannell has said in an interview with ZME Science that in treating children with autism, he has found that giving them a higher dose of 5,000 IUs a day helped nearly 80 percent of these children with their symptoms.
“My experience, having treated about 100 children with autism, is that 25 percent respond dramatically to high dose vitamin D, 50 percent respond significantly, and 25 percent do not respond at all,” he said.
How Much Vitamin D Is Necessary?
Board-certified internist Dr. Syed Haider recommends a certain amount of sun exposure as the best option to get vitamin D, since it is impossible to develop toxicities from sun exposure, as the body has a mechanism to prevent further production.
Yet with most people living in urban areas and being indoors for most of the daytime, taking supplements is probably the most convenient option.
A person can supplement with either the plant-based vitamin D2, known as ergocalciferol, or the animal-based vitamin D3, also known as cholecalciferol. The two vitamins are not synonymous with each other; when ingested, the body produces different metabolites.
Between the two, doctors tend to prescribe D2 as it is more available on the market, but the more recommended version is D3. The body absorbs it better, and it also lasts longer in the body.
Moreover, D3 may be less associated with toxicities, as the body is more tolerant of it.
It is advisable to take vitamin D with K2 and magnesium when supplementing, as this will prevent vitamin D toxicity.
Both K2 and magnesium help deposit calcium in the bones rather than the arteries, and therefore prevents hypercalcemia, which can occur as a result of vitamin D toxicity.
Mihalcea emphasized the importance of testing serum vitamin D levels as an indication for dosage, since the following conditions may all impair the absorption of vitamin D:
Inflammation
Stress
Obesity
Poor gut health
Endocrinologist and vitamin D expert Dr. Michael Holick has shown obese people tend to be deficient since the extra fat in their bodies sequesters more vitamin D in their cells rather than allowing it to free-float in serum, which is why obese people tend to need several times more than the recommended dosage.
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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, March 05, 2023
Biden Official: ‘Natural Immunity Is Not Something We Believe in’ for COVID-19
A Biden administration official told Congress that “natural immunity is not something we believe in” for members of the U.S. military who have had COVID-19, just days after a British study showed prior infection protects people as well as or better than vaccination.
The armed forces will instead continue to push service members to take the COVID-19 vaccine “and boosters,” the military undersecretary and chief diversity officer announced, before denying an inspector general’s report that officials reviewed Christians’ requests for religious exemptions only 12 minutes before dismissing them.
“We don’t know about natural immunity there, as far as how it works and how effective it is,” replied Gil Cisneros, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, after Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., raised the U.K. study during Tuesday’s congressional hearing.
“There’s no good evidence and the research is still going on as to how we need to progress with this,” said Cisneros. “But as for right now, natural immunity is not something we believe in for this, and so we are still moving forward.”
The Lancet, a world-renowned U.K. medical journal, published a meta-study Feb. 16 that concluded, “The level of protection afforded by previous infection is at least as high, if not higher than that provided by two-dose vaccination.” Numerous researchers have found natural immunity confers equal or “greater protection” against the novel coronavirus than the COVID-19 shot.
The political appointee’s statement seemingly flies in the face of the Democrats’ longstanding claim to be the “party of science” due to their faith in man-made climate change, a status highlighted by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in the last election. “We choose science over fiction!” Biden told voters on the campaign trail in August 2019. “We choose truth over facts!” Cisneros confirmed the Biden administration will extend its insistence on vaccination.
“The department continues to encourage service members and civilian employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and boosters,” said Cisneros, who is also chief diversity and inclusion officer tasked with “ensuring the workforce is representative and inclusive.” He said Biden’s vaccine-centered “policies continue to succeed at protecting our people and the nation’s security.”
Only a “small fraction” of service members refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine “and approximately 8,100 were subsequently separated” from their employment involuntarily, Cisneros said. His numbers come in lower than figures compiled late last year and published the day of the hearing by The Associated Press. “More than 8.400 troops were forced out of the military” by Biden vaccine policies, the AP reported—including 3,717 Marines, 2,041 members of the Navy, 1,841 from the Army, and 834 from the Air Force.
“Are we stronger or weaker as a country” after thousands of soldiers left military service “because of the vax mandate?” asked Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.
“Congressman, I would say we are as strong as ever,” Cisneros replied.
“How are we stronger after losing 8,400 service members?” demanded Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo., a combat veteran. The Biden administration had “unlawfully purged” these members from the service and should reinstate them “with their full benefits, with their back pay.”
Cisneros defended their dismissal as “appropriate disciplinary action” necessary “to maintain good order and discipline.”
Cisneros and Alford also clashed over the military’s mass denial of religious exemptions, often based on the fact that the Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines were developed or tested on aborted embryonic fetal cells.
Multiple Biden political appointees overseeing the armed forces, including Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo, testified Tuesday that each application for a faith-based exemption received “a careful and individualized review to ensure that we upheld constitutionally protected First Amendment rights,” which “considered the individual facts of each individual case.” Yet a memo from acting Defense Department Inspector General Sean O’Donnell last June revealed the Biden administration engaged in “a trend of generalized assessments rather than the individualized assessment that is required by [f]ederal law.”
“The average review period was about 12 minutes,” O’Donnell said, which is “insufficient.”
“I don’t think it was done in 12 minutes,” replied Cisneros when confronted with the report.
“You’re on record saying the DOD inspector general is incorrect on this?” asked Alford.
“I think the DOD inspector general looked at some kind of numbers and kinda did it and wrote a letter to the secretary about his opinion,” Cisneros asserted without evidence.
Multiple officials refused to say whether they replied to religious exemption applications with form letters. But Cisneros—who entered politics after winning a $266 million Mega Millions jackpot and earned a 13% rating from FRC Action during his single term as a Democratic congressman—confirmed that the Biden administration only granted religious accommodations to those already scheduled to retire or otherwise leave the service within six months.
A review found 70% of those early in the Biden administration for refusing to comply with its vaccine mandate received a general discharge, rather than an honorable discharge, which usually indicates subpar performance—a possible red flag to future employers. Veterans wishing to dispute their discharge status must appeal to a military board of corrections.
Those fired over the COVID-19 jab may now reenlist, and stalled promotions may resume, but so far, interest has been low. The Navy had “single digits” of people who had been discharged from service attempt to return to the service, Navy Undersecretary Erik Raven testified.
The termination of thousands of enlistees, including an unknown number of officers—the Biden appointees refused to answer how many—comes during a services-wide recruitment crisis. The Army missed recruitment goals by 15,000 soldiers last year. Critics cite the vaccination mandate along with the Biden administration’s focus on teaching critical race theory and transgender pronoun usage as contributing factors degrading military readiness. “We cannot afford the loss of any more soldiers,” Alford said.
Yet some Democrats lamented that the COVID-19 vaccination requirement had been lifted. “I have to tell you, the fact that we now do not make it mandatory gives me great pause,” said Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., during the hearing.
Religious liberty advocates hoped the subcommittee’s initial meeting would act as a first step toward bringing justice to pro-life Christians denied the right to live out their convictions while protecting their fellow Americans.
“Repealing the COVID shot mandate for military members does not end the abuse our service members have endured. Our military members who love God and love America have been horribly abused and they must be honored again,” said Mat Staver, founder of the religious freedom watchdog Liberty Counsel, which filed class-action lawsuits on behalf of Christian service members. “Hopefully, this hearing will be the beginning of rectifying the wrongs the Biden administration has done to our brave military heroes.”
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UK: The public have a right to know about the lockdown files
Having read thousands of Matt Hancock’s messages, I can see why he doesn’t want this discussions to become public. It’s embarrassingly clear that no one on that WhatsApp thread ever thought they’d be scrutinised by the rest of the cabinet, let alone parliament, let alone the rest of the country. They had all thought the official Covid inquiry would serve as a device of cover-up, kicking this all into the long grass at least until after the general election.
Hancock says Isabel Oakeshott abused his trust by taking the material he gave her to ghostwrite his diary and putting it into the public domain. I have no idea what the two of them agreed, but I’m not sure it matters given the balance of public interest. I have yet to see any journalist argue that – in the same situation – they would have kept all of these files secret. Yes, it would have been a very difficult choice. But who is arguing that she made the wrong choice?
‘There is absolutely no public interest case for this huge breach,’ says Hancock. He’s dead wrong
Well, there is one person. ‘There is absolutely no public interest case for this huge breach,’ says Hancock. ‘All the materials for the book have already been made available to the Inquiry, which is the right, and only, place for everything to be considered properly and the right lessons to be learned.’ He’s dead wrong.
The Swine Flu Inquiry was over in weeks: rightly so, in pandemic planning there’s no time to lose in learning lessons. The official Covid inquiry has no deadline and could take years. It seems to have as its main remit going slow, thereby providing a shield to hide behind – so no politician has to answer any questions on the pandemic until after the general election. As we say in the leading article of today’s magazine, this may be in the Tory party’s interest (Sunak knows better than most what horrors it will uncover) but it’s not in the national interest.
The decisions made on WhatsApp by Hancock and his fellow ministers decided the fate and liberty of millions: I cannot think of a recent story where there has been a larger public interest in full disclosure. If you’re a parent whose children were told to wear masks in corridors because ministers follow the best scientific and medical advice, there is a clear public interest in knowing that this ‘advice’ was political – about not wanting to be outshone by Nicola Sturgeon. Chris Whitty was asked: whats the science?
If you’re parent of a large family effectively grounded because the ‘rule of six’ was imposed on the under-12s – when it was not in Wales or Scotland – there is a clear public interest in knowing that the government knew there was no ‘robust rationale’ for including children but backed the controversial policy regardless, keeping thousands of children apart from their friends and grandparents. There is such a thing as the public’s right to know: Hancock seems oblivious to this now, just as he was then.
Hancock will also know – because he does, of course, have all the messages – that these stories are just the start. The role of journalism in a democracy is to cast light where politicians would prefer there to be darkness (or the half-light of a tardy official inquiry). The Daily Telegraph is throwing open the windows to now see the logic and the forces that shaped all of their lives. I’ve sat in the secret room with the Telegraph team who went over it all time and time again to make sure what they published had the full context. So I don’t think Hancock will get anywhere with his claims that the conversations have been maliciously edited: he can publish anything himself if he genuinely thinks he has been misquoted.
He is right to say that there is a major limitation to the ‘Lockdown Files’: they show lockdown from the perspective of just one man (and all the conversations he was involved in) and there will be other perspectives that we have not seen. That’s why we can do with them being published, and straight away. Keeping them private will spare the blushes of a few politicians and advisers. But making them public will allow the transparency, debate and lesson-learning that you’d expect in a democracy. What reason is there, really, for keeping everyone in the dark even now?
Rarely do journalists have the opportunity to put entire conversations into the public domain and offer enough material to start vital conversations that ministers would rather avoid. This isn’t exposing anyone’s private life: this is about how we are governed. And how we can learn from mistakes to better protect society next time. The Daily Telegraph has started a process that government cannot stop: that should be obvious now. If they think context is missing, then they can add it. But they should – and, now, cannot – prevent those affected by the lockdowns from getting the answers they so richly deserve.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/03/the-public-have-a-right-to-know-about-the-lockdown-files
****************************************************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, March 03, 2023
No jab, no transplant: Australia's Covid vaccine rules are heartless and senseless
Vicky Derderian is a fighter. For seven years her heart has struggled to pump blood around her body, stretching thinner and growing weaker, a condition called dilated cardiomyopathy. In 2020, she was fitted biventricular assist devices, implantable pumps that help both sides of her heart function while she awaits a transplant.
There’s only one obstacle. The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne insists she get a Covid vaccine even though Vicky has a permanent exemption provided by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) because of the well-known risk that Covid vaccines can trigger heart inflammation.
Dr Peter McCullough, one of the most published cardiologists in the world, has been in Australia this month speaking at sold-out events about treating Covid. He says that under no circumstances should Vicky, or any heart transplant patient, get a Covid vaccine because of the damage it can do to the heart.
That’s what happened to Natalie Boyce. She was only 21 and a competitive netball player. Yet she died of heart failure at the Alfred in March 2022, six weeks after receiving a Moderna booster.
Natalie had been diagnosed with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), an autoimmune disorder that can cause the body to make antibodies that attack the cells lining blood vessels causing blood clots. People with a history of autoimmune disorders were excluded from the Covid vaccine clinical trials because it was recognised the vaccine might trigger dangerous clotting. Sure enough, in March 2021, a 27-year-old woman with undiagnosed APS developed catastrophic clotting and kidney failure. She survived thanks to the expert care she received and her case was published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology on 7 December 2021.
Tragically, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) failed to warn Australians of the risk Covid vaccines pose to people with APS. Three months later Natalie died after the Moderna booster triggered catastrophic clotting causing kidney and heart failure.
The TGA has also refused to warn Australians that the Pfizer Covid vaccine triggered fatal myocarditis in Roberto Garin, a healthy 52-year-old father of two who died a week after his first jab. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) accepted that Roberto’s death was caused by a Covid vaccine. It lists a total of 15 deaths in this category. The TGA only lists 14. The ABS explains the difference by noting that it accepts expert reports while waiting for a coronial finding, which can take years. Despite repeated approaches, the TGA refuses to explain, on the record, why it has not accepted the findings of the expert forensic pathologist Bernard l’Ons.
L’Ons found that Roberto had an undiagnosed sarcoidosis, a benign inflammatory condition affecting his heart. The heart also showed a clear transition from cardiac sarcoidosis to fulminating myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle so rapid and severe that it is frequently fatal. Critically, l’Ons dates the time of transition to the time of Covid-19 vaccination.
So concerned was l’Ons that he suggested sarcoid patients receive an echocardiogram prior to a Pfizer Covid-19 vaccination to check whether the sarcoidosis affected their heart so that if it did, alternative vaccination types could be considered.
In the context of a pandemic caused by a novel pathogen and the use of novel vaccines which have only provisional approval, why is the TGA sitting on this vital information? Dr l’Ons’ warning is acutely important to Vicky. She has already been diagnosed with ‘chronic heart inflammation suggestive of untreated myocarditis’ and ‘likely cardiac sarcoidosis’. Dr McCullough says if Vicky’s heart sustains any more damage it is almost certainly going to be lethal.
Desperate to get the authorities to respect Vicky’s vaccine exemption, her husband John asked Victorian Senator Ralph Babet of the United Australia Party to raise her case in the Senate, which he did. It led to national television coverage. On the Today program Dr Nick Coatsworth, Australia’s former deputy chief medical officer, told Vicky she should get a Covid vaccine because if she got Covid after her transplant not only might she die, her transplanted heart would die with her.
This makes no sense. Everybody from Bill Gates to Albert Bourla has admitted that Covid vaccines don’t stop infection. More importantly, vaccination is more dangerous for Vicky than infection. This is because the vaccine is injected into the body and circulates in the blood stream where it can enter the cells of any tissue or organ in the body – including her heart – and create spike proteins which are always inflammatory.
A respiratory infection, on the other hand, starts in the mucous membranes of the nose, giving Vicky a chance to fight it off with her innate immune system aided by nasal sprays, antivirals and anti-inflammatory drugs before it gets into her lungs and from there into her blood stream.
It has also now been admitted, in a study published in the Lancet on 16 February and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation no less, that vaccine immunity wanes far more rapidly than infection-acquired immunity. That is hardly surprising since it is true for every other infection yet this fact has been denied for most of the pandemic by US and Australian health authorities.
Not only does vaccine immunity wane rapidly, it isn’t triggered until the virus gets into the blood, whereas infection immunity kicks in in the nose. In addition, a study conducted in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Freiburg and published in the peer-reviewed journal Pathogens this month shows that in heart transplant recipients natural infection gives superior immunity compared to vaccination.
A last problem for Vicky is that there are studies in corneal and lung transplantation which show that vaccination in either the donor or the recipient can increase the risk of organ rejection or failure. There is no data yet on heart transplants but in an ideal world, says Dr McCullough, it would be better to receive a donated organ from an unvaccinated person.
Nobody knows better than Vicky that this is not an ideal world as she battles on in search of doctors and regulators with a heart and a brain.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/02/no-jab-no-transplant/
*****************************************************Prominent Greek Scientists Urge the Need to Investigate Safety Risks Associated with COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines
The influence of opinions depends on the talent, resources, and capacity behind the scientific-related endeavor. A group of high-powered scientists affiliated with various medical and biological-related institutes within National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece last year, while emphasizing the central prominence of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccination program in response to the pandemic, raised serious concerns about adverse effects (AEs) likely associated with either proinflammatory action of constituent lipid nanoparticles used to deliver the products (vaccine formulation) developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, in addition, the impacts of the spike (S) protein and/or its subunits/peptide fragments in human tissue or organs.
Importantly, the Greek scientists’ opinions published in CellPress emphasize the criticality driving the need for more research probing the cellular/molecular basis of the mRNA vaccine-induced AEs as part of a broader endeavor to develop better safety profiles not to mention earn greater trust among the public.
Represented by corresponding author Ioannis P. Trougakos, a cellular and developmental biologist, the study authors emphasize that little is known about the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines other than they induce a robust immune response against SARS-CoV-2. Importantly, “their cellular/molecular mode of action and the etiology of the induced adverse events (AEs) remain elusive.”
What’s some key points from this prominent group of Greek scientists?
The delta between what government regulators, public health officials, and industry convey to the public and the actual truth may be considerably wide, unfortunately. The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, an overwhelming formal consensus across most of the developed world. But how safe are they really?
According to Trougakos and colleagues, “Current knowledge on this topic originates mostly from cell-based assays or from model organisms.”
In this study, the collaborators affiliated with National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, an institution in continuous operation since 1837, now one of the largest universities in Europe as measured by enrollment, introduce possible mechanisms of action associated with COVID-19 mRNA vaccine adverse effects, which can lead to vaccine injury.
Key points include:
Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) probably have a broad distribution in human tissues/ organs
LNPs along with packaged mRNA may exert a proinflammatory action in the body
While the mRNA vaccines encode the Spike protein , potential shedding of antigen and/or related peptide fragments into the body’s circulation may in fact occur
Binding of circulating S protein to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) along with other possible actions involving “molecular mimicry with human proteins” may induce vaccination-related AEs
Bombshell revelations at the time during mid-2022, the authors still declared that the COVID-19 “benefit-risk profile remains” favoring the mRNA vaccines. With so little known about these mechanisms of action and any long-term effects of these products, the authors may be under pressure to reinforce the key vaccination point. But they make no mistake in declaring that a “public health priority” must be the ongoing monitoring of COVID-19 vaccinated recipients.
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France Taking a Step Back from the COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines for Healthy Population—Acknowledge Low Uptake, Weak Durability
The French National Authority for Health (HAS) recently recommended that a bivalent omicron booster dose of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines be available this fall for persons deemed at risk, from the elderly to the immunocompromised, as this Western European nation moves to an annual paradigm similar to the influenza vaccine. Persons that French health authorities suggest should consider a booster include individuals aged 65 years and up, persons diagnosed with comorbidities, pregnant women, and immunocompromised as well as regulatory persons in constant contact with the latter, such as health professionals.
Importantly, the direct HAS recommendations are critical of the current COVID-19 mRNA bivalent omicron booster vaccines, acknowledging poor vaccine durability and incredibly low vaccination coverage. French society via HAS carefully expresses their growing critical view of these vaccines while at the same time recommending for the most at risk of society. The French press such as Le Monde minimizes the critical edge within the direct recommendations.
What’s driving these changes?
According to the report in France titled Vaccination strategy against COVID-19: Anticipation of vaccination campaigns in 2023 VACCINE RECOMMENDATION,” posted recently on Feb. 24, 2023, HAS emphasizes their unfolding decision-making is based on a dynamic, unfolding reality where they must balance the following elements:
First and foremost, an incredibly low vaccination rate (with booster) based on number of booster doses available and eligible population
Natural immunity—the French government now fully embraces the power of pre-infection-based natural immunity declaring, “The probably high, but unknown to date, proportion of the population benefiting from protection linked to natural or hybrid.”
The decrease in vaccine protection against infection and/or symptomatic forms after a few weeks, regardless of a person’s age.
The lack of the ability to predict high degree of protection based on residual protection beyond 9 months (they note decrease in protection due to durability challenges accelerates for persons 80 and above)—the very people that need it.
Importantly, HAS isn’t recommending extra doses for healthy persons, including children, as the pandemic-driven paradigm is now clearly transitioning to an endemic way of life. While independent, this influential body’s opinions are typically adhered to by the French government as they start to classify the COVID-19 shots much like the flu jabs.
Overall, French society is moving fully into endemic mode, away from a pandemic paradigm where boosters are recommended for everyone every six months or so. But interestingly, the critical, skeptical tone of the most recent formal recommendations are diluted in the mainstream press such as Le Monde.
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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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Thursday, March 02, 2023
FBI director confirms COVID 'most likely' leaked from Wuhan lab and claims China is 'thwarting and obfuscating' U.S. investigations
It was always nonsense that the Wuhan lab could not be blamed. The first infections were just about outside its front door! Some coincidence! Its point of origin is not strict proof but it has to be the default conclusion in lieu of better evidence. And the fact that China did a big coverup of what happened in the lab is another indicator of where the virus originated.
The only reason why the role of the Wuhan lab was excluded was the Leftist elite's sympathy for Communist regimes. To this day they still speak well of Castro. And need I mention their constant apologies for the Soviet regime while it existed?
FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed the agency's conclusion that the COVID pandemic was probably the result of a lab leak in Wuhan, China.
Commenting for the first time on Tuesday about the FBI's judgment, Wray reiterated his agency's initial findings from 2021, adding that the Chinese government has allegedly worked to undermine the damning results.
'The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,' Wray told Fox News. 'Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.'
Wray's comments come as the White House continues to struggle to come to a 'consensus' on how the virus originated despite a Energy Department probe coming to the same conclusion as the FBI.
The FBI first came to the conclusion in 2021, saying it had 'moderate confidence' that the pandemic that gripped the world was a result of an accidental leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Wray said the work was conducted by top experts in the FBI and US government who specialize in monitoring potential outbreaks.
'The FBI has folks, agents, professionals, analysts, virologists, microbiologists, etc, who focus, specifically, on the dangers of biological threats, which includes things like novel viruses like COVID, and the concerns that in the wrong hands some bad guys, some hostile nation state, a terrorist, a criminal, the threats that that could pose,' Wray said.
'So here, you’re talking about a leak at a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans, and that’s precisely what that capability was designed for.'
Despite the FBI's conclusion, Wray added that Beijing has continuously tried to undercut the US government's work.
'I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that we're doing, the work that our US government and close foreign partners are doing, and that's unfortunate for everybody,' he told Fox.
One such case occured earlier this week when China's foreign ministry pushed back at the Energy Department's analysis that the outbreak likely originated with a leak from a Chinese research lab in Wuhan.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning accused unnamed parties of trying to smear or vilify China – even amid continued calls for China to provide full access to information from its Wuhan facility.
'Certain parties should stop rehashing the "lab leak" narrative, stop smearing China and stop politicizing origins-tracing,' she said during a press briefing Monday
She talked up Chinese cooperation with investigating agencies, although in 2021 China rejected a World Health Organization effort to hold a second phase of its investigation. The group has denied abandoning its inquiry amid China's obstacles.
On Sunday, the Energy Department, which maintains a group of national labs, joined the FBI in the possibility of a lab leak as the possible origin of the virus – although it reached the conclusion with 'low confidence' as numerous other agencies back a traditional spread originating in the environment.
The Energy Department's report revealed it reversed its previous position and has used new research to conclude that the COVID-19 virus most likely leaked from a Chinese research lab.
The new conclusion was issued in an update to a 2021 document prepared by the director of National Intelligence and was recently provided to White House lawmakers, the Wall Street Journal reported.
While the Energy Department joined the FBI in saying the virus likely spread from a lab in Wuhan, four other agencies are still said to favor the 'natural spillover' theory that the virus escaped via an animal at a nearby meat market.
Two agencies, one of which is the CIA, are yet to declare a definitive position.
The Energy Department's change of tune is important because the agency is known for its expertise as it oversees various US laboratories, some of which carry out biological research.
With the mixed conclusions coming from US agencies, the White House on Monday was forced to admit the lack of a consensus.
'There is not a consensus right now in the U.S. government about exactly how it started. There's just not an intelligence community consensus,' said national security spokesman Adm. John Kirby.
Kirby got hit with a series of questions about the report, which pointed to the lab leak as a likely source – even as other agencies attributed the pandemic to a virus that mutated in the environment.
Kirby pointed to that lack of agreement, even as the White House defended infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci's blasts against conspiracy theories and refused to say how the US might act against China if the theory that its labs were responsible holds up.
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The Greatest Cover-Up in Human History
First, it was supposedly a conspiracy theory. Then, it was banned. Finally, it was true.
The so-called "lab leak" theory of the origins of COVID-19 -- the theory that COVID-19 originated in at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and then was unintentionally loosed -- was always the most probable explanation for the outbreak of the deadly virus. After all, as Jon Stewart correctly joked in 2021, "'Oh, my God, there's a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China. What do we do?' 'Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab.' The disease is the same name as the lab. That's just a little too weird, don't you think?"
But for well over a year, it was considered verboten to mention the lab leak theory. When Senator Tom Cotton, R-Ark., posited the possibility of a lab leak in February 2020, he was roundly mocked by the media. The New York Times headlined, "Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins." Scientific American headlined -- in March 2022! -- "The Lab-Leak Hypothesis Made It Harder for Scientists to Seek the Truth." Facebook actively quashed attempts to disseminate the theory; Dr. Anthony Fauci went on national television and downplayed the theory.
Two reasons are obvious. The first: powerful institutions had a stake in downplaying the Chinese origins of the virus in order to shift blame to the rest of the world. Certainly, that was China's game: In all likelihood, COVID-19 was spreading in China as early as October 2019, and the government covered it up for months. But that was also the game of the World Health Organization. Members of the American government like Fauci also had a stake in smothering questions about American funding for gain-of-function research in Wuhan.
Then there's the second reason: all the wrong people were repeating the lab leak theory. As one of MSNBC's resident hacks, Mehdi Hasan, admitted on Twitter, "The simple reason why so many people weren't keen to discuss the 'lab leak' theory is because it was originally conflated by the right with 'Chinese bio weapon' conspiracies and continues to be conflated by the right with anti-Fauci conspiracies. Blame the conspiracy theorists." As Nate Silver correctly noted, "The Bad People thought the lab leak might be true, therefore as journalists we couldn't be expected to actually evaluate the evidence for it."
Herein lies a lesson: A huge number of people have decided that there are a cadre of people who are so vile that any opinion they touch is immediately toxified beyond investigation. Claims are not to be evaluated on their own merits; instead, we can simply determine whether a claim ought to be supported based on those who posit it. This helps to explain why political crossover has become nearly impossible: We're not judging the claims of our opponents; we're judging (SET ITAL) each (END ITAL) other. And this means that we can discard any argument simply by dint of the fact that we don't like the person offering it.
Among members of the general population, this is a problem, but not a fundamental one. But among those who pose as "experts" -- the people who are supposed to serve as guides for people who outsource their political information, from media to scientific institutions -- it's a fatal error. After all, experts are supposed to be impartial adjudicators of the evidence. That's their entire job. We can evaluate on our own who we don't like -- but we often need help to determine whether an argument has merit or not. When experts become "just like us," they undermine their raison d'etre.
And that's precisely what happened with COVID-19. Whether it was ignoring the actual evidence regarding masks and mask mandates, the evidence regarding post-vaccination transmissibility or the evidence regarding the lab leak theory, experts decided that the wrong people had to be ignored. But they were wrong. And now they have no credibility left.
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Australian Premier has called for an end of Covid-19 vaccines mandates, saying the jab has no impact on transmission
The NSW Premier has dropped a bombshell on talkback radio telling listeners there is “no evidence” Covid vaccines stop transmission.
Dominic Perrottet, a month out from what polls are indicating could be a lineball state election, was fielding talkback calls on 2GB with Ben Fordham when he made the claim.
John a paramedic, told the Premier that both he and his wife, an emergency nurse, lost their jobs due to the vaccine mandates.
Both are still unemployed.
“We are down in Sydney at the industrial relations committee trying to get her job back,” John said.
Doesn’t it seem disingenuous you are offering $10,000 sign-on bonuses to nurses to get them back into the industry, and me and my wife can’t work, my job still hasn’t been replaced as a paramedic. It’s an absolute disgrace.”
The Premier told John he has repeatedly told the public and private sector to end vaccine mandates.
“I have made it very clear, and I couldn’t be clearer to the public service here in NSW to end vaccine mandates and the majority of the public service have done so,” a frustrated Premier said “I have also made it clear to the private sector.
“I have made it clear for the simple reason that there is no evidence that the vaccines stop transmission.”
Fordham said that employers – in both the private and public sector – were not listening, lamenting it was “crazy” the mandates were persisting despite the shortage of paramedics and nurses.
Mr Perrottet then reiterated there was “no evidence” the vaccine stops transmission. “It is based on the evidence, there is no evidence that in this current environment that vaccines stop transmission,” he said.
Mr Perrottet said health facilities imposed some vaccine requirements on workers before the pandemic, usually for influenza, and that was the point he wanted to get back to.
“In the areas of the public service that I can make that direction, I have it and it has been enacted,” he said.
The NSW Premier was known as the most liberal out of the state and territory leaders on masks and vaccine mandates during the pandemic.
In December 2021, during the Omicron wave, he backflipped on his “personal responsibility” approach to mask-wearing by reintroducing a mandate requiring them to be worn indoors while also reinstating social distancing measures in hospitality venues.
The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) has recommended that everyone over the age of 18 who has not been infected with Covid or received a vaccine within the last six months should get a fifth shot.
The fifth jab was previously only available for people who are severely immunocompromised.
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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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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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