More Studies Confirm the COVID Jab Does More Harm Than Good

A peer-reviewed scientific review in the Journal of Insulin Resistance, written by cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, calls for the immediate suspension of all COVID shots as real-world data show they cause more harm than good

The COVID jabs are an absolute disaster, with injuries and deaths piling up by the day. Yet so-called health authorities, doctors, media, drug makers and many of the jabbed themselves claim there’s nothing to see here. Ever since their release, brave medical professionals have spoken out against them, calling for a more cautious approach.

Now, a peer-reviewed scientific review,1 2 3 published in two parts4 5 in the Journal of Insulin Resistance calls for the immediate suspension of all COVID shots as real-world data show they cause more harm than good.

According to this paper, “Curing the Pandemic of Misinformation on COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Through Real Evidence-Based Medicine,” authored by cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra:

“In the non-elderly population the ‘number needed to treat’ to prevent a single death runs into the thousands. Re-analysis of randomized controlled trials using the messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology suggests a greater risk of serious adverse events from the vaccines than being hospitalized from COVID-19.

Pharmacovigilance systems and real-world safety data, coupled with plausible mechanisms of harm, are deeply concerning, especially in relation to cardiovascular safety.

Mirroring a potential signal from the Pfizer Phase 3 trial, a significant rise in cardiac arrest calls to ambulances in England was seen in 2021, with similar data emerging from Israel in the 16–39-year-old age group.

Conclusion: It cannot be said that the consent to receive these agents was fully informed, as is required ethically and legally. A pause and reappraisal of global vaccination policies for COVID-19 is long overdue.”

COVID Jab Boomerang

In recent months, disability, excess mortality and live birth statistics all point in the same direction. Something horrific started happening around April 2021, and continues to get worse. Something is killing an extraordinary number of people in the prime of their life, who should have decades left to live. Something is causing people to file for permanent disability in numbers we’ve not seen before.

What changed in the world, in 2021? That is the question. The answer is ridiculously simple to answer, yet many choose to drive their heads deeper into the sand than face plain facts. The COVID shots, using mRNA technology to trigger antibody production in a way that had never been used before, were rolled out in 2021 under emergency use authorization. That’s what changed.

At the time of their rollout, human trials were far from finished, and much of their value had already been destroyed by unblinding the trials and offering the real injection to everyone in the placebo groups.6

This year, we’ve also come to realize that Pfizer, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have all repeatedly lied about the safety and effectiveness of the shots, as Pfizer’s own trial data show they’re about as dangerous as they come.

The only reason we now know this is because the FDA was sued and forced by a judge to release the trial data they initially wanted to keep hidden for 75 years. Pfizer data is now being released at a pace of 55,000 pages per month,7 and these batches have proven to be a treasure trove of bad and worse news.

Pfizer hid serious injuries, falsely categorizing almost all of them as unrelated to the shot without investigation, and misrepresented data showing massive risks as being of no concern. Participants who suffered serious injuries were often simply withdrawn from the trial, and their data excluded from the results.8

Real-world data now conclusively show these risks are extremely real. For example, Pfizer’s Phase 3 clinical trial showed an increased risk for cardiac problems, and during 2021, U.K. ambulance services recorded an extra 27,800 cardiac arrest calls above the national average in previous years, or about 500 per day9 10 — and disproportionally among the young.11 Importantly, COVID-19 cannot account for this rise, as the relevant increase began in the spring of 2021.

A Change of Heart

In his paper, Malhotra details his personal journey from staunch COVID jab proponent to concerned questioner. He got Pfizer’s two-dose regimen at the end of January 2021.

A few months later, his father, who also got the shot, suffered cardiac arrest six months after his second dose. The post-mortem findings were “shocking and inexplicable,” Malhotra writes, and got him to take another look at the data.

“After six months of critically appraising the data myself, speaking to eminent scientists involved in COVID-19 research, vaccine safety and development, and two investigative medical journalists, I have slowly and reluctantly concluded that contrary to my own initial dogmatic beliefs, Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine is far from being as safe and effective as we first thought,” Malhotra writes.12

He goes on to review how post-mortem examination revealed his father, who was extremely active and fit, had severe blockages in two of the three major arteries. His left anterior descending artery was 90% blocked and his right coronary was 75% blocked. The last scan, “a few years earlier,” according to Malhotra, had revealed perfect blood flow and no obstructions. He continues:13

“I couldn’t explain his post-mortem findings, especially as there was no evidence of an actual heart attack … This was precisely my own special area of research. That is, how to delay progression of heart disease and even potentially reverse it … Then, in November 2021, I was made aware of a peer-reviewed abstract published in Circulation, with concerning findings.

In over 500 middle-aged patients under regular follow up, using a predictive score model based on inflammatory markers that are strongly correlated with risk of heart attack, the mRNA vaccine was associated with significantly increasing the risk of a coronary event within five years from 11% pre-mRNA vaccine to 25% 2–10 weeks post mRNA vaccine.

An early and relevant criticism of the validity of the findings was that there was no control group, but nevertheless, even if partially correct, that would mean that there would be a large acceleration in progression of coronary artery disease, and more importantly heart attack risk, within months of taking the jab.

I wondered whether my father’s Pfizer vaccination, which he received six months earlier, could have contributed to his unexplained premature death and so I began to critically appraise the data.”

Data Points to Consider

Malhotra reviews a number of data points in the paper, including:14

Pfizer data showing there were four cardiac arrests in the injection group and only one in the placebo group.

The misleading use of relative risk reduction (95%) when speaking of effectiveness, rather than absolute risk reduction, which was only 0.84%.

119 people would have to be injected to prevent one positive test, which may or may not be indicative of infection.

Pfizer’s trial found no statistically significant reduction in serious illness or COVID mortality from the injection over the course of six months (the length of the trial). Moreover, the risk of serious COVID-19 infection in the placebo group was only 0.04%, showing just how low the risk of serious illness was in the first place, and this despite the fact that the regions chosen for the trial were chosen for their perceived high prevalence of infection.

While there were two deaths from COVID in the placebo group and only one COVID death in the injection group, all-cause mortality over a longer period revealed 19 deaths in the injection group and 17 deaths in the placebo group.

The pediatric trial used a surrogate measure of antibody levels rather than reduction in symptomatic infection, even though there was no known correlation between antibody levels and protection from infection. The FDA even warns that: “[R]esults from currently authorized SARS-COV-2 antibody tests should not be used to evaluate a person’s level of immunity or protection from COVID-19 at any time, and especially after the person received a COVID-19 vaccination.”

Extrapolating Data to Determine Protection Against Death
Malhotra goes on to describe how he extrapolated data to determine the level of protection these mRNA shots provide against COVID-related death:15

“Now that we know what the published trial did and did not show in terms of the vaccine efficacy, we can attempt to extrapolate what the effect of the vaccine would be in reducing mortality or any other adverse outcome from the virus.

If there is a 1 in 119 chance the vaccine protects you from getting symptomatic infection from ancestral variants, then to find the protection against death, this figure (n = 119) must be multiplied by the number of infections that lead to a single death for each age group.

This would give (for up to two months after the inoculation) the absolute risk reduction (for death) from the vaccine. For example, if my risk at age 44 from dying from Delta (should I get infected with it) is 1 in 3,000, then the absolute risk reduction from the vaccine protecting me from death is 1 over 3,000 multiplied by 119, that is, 1 per 357,000 …

From observational data it is possible to calculate the number who would need to be vaccinated to prevent a COVID-19 death. For example, comparing the population death rates during the Delta wave gives 230 for people over 80s needing to be vaccinated to prevent a single death in that period with that number rising to 520 for people in their 70s and 10,000 for people in their 40s …

Depending on your age, several hundreds or thousands of people like you would need to be injected in order to prevent one person from dying from the Delta variant of COVID-19 over a period of around three months.

For the over 80s, this figure is at least 230, but it rises the younger you are, reaching at least 2,600 for people in their 50s, 10,000 for those in their 40s, and 93,000 for those between 18 and 29 years. For omicron, which has been shown to be 30% – 50% less lethal, meaning significantly more people would need to be vaccinated to prevent one death.”

What Are the Harms?

Next, Malhotra reviews the harms, noting that one of the most common side effects reported is myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart, especially among young men. He rejects health authorities’ claim that myocarditis is far more prevalent in those who suffer serious COVID infection, stating:16

“Incidence of myocarditis rocketed from spring 2021 when vaccines were rolled out to the younger cohorts having remained within normal levels for the full year prior, despite COVID-19.

With the most up-to-date evidence, a paper from Israel found that the infection itself, prior to roll- out of the vaccine, conferred no increase in the risks of either myocarditis or pericarditis from COVID-19, strongly suggesting that the increases observed in earlier studies were because of the mRNA vaccines, with or without COVID-19 infections as an additional risk in the vaccinated …

Although vaccine-induced myocarditis is not often fatal in young adults, MRI scans reveal that, of the ones admitted to hospital, approximately 80% have some degree of myocardial damage. It is like suffering a small heart attack and sustaining some — likely permanent — heart muscle injury.”

Data from Israel shows myocarditis post-jab is occurring at a rate of 1 in 6,000. Hong Kong data from male children and teens found a rate of 1 in 2,700. Data from the British Yellow Card system shows 1 in 120 people who have received at least one mRNA injection suffer an adverse event “that is beyond mild.”

In Norway, Malhotra notes, the rate of serious adverse events post-jab is 1 in 1,000 after two doses of Pfizer. These are injuries that are life changing for the worse.

In all, nearly 500,000 adverse events had been reported to the Yellow Card system when Malhotra wrote this paper, which he points out is “unprecedented in the modern medical era and equals the total number of reports received in the first 40 years of the Yellow Card reporting system (for all medicines — not just vaccines) up to 2020.”

What VAERS Data Tell Us

The same trend is seen in the U.S., where the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has received more adverse event reports for the COVID jabs than all other vaccines over the last 30 years combined. Malhotra writes:

“As with the UK’s system, the level of reports — including serious ones — associated with COVID-19 vaccines is completely unprecedented. For example, over 24,000 deaths have now been recorded in VAERS as of March 2, 2022; 29% of these occurred within 48 h of injection, and half within two weeks.

The average reporting rate prior to 2020 was less than 300 deaths per annum. One explanation often given for this is that the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out is unprecedented in scope; however, this is not valid, since (for the last decade at any rate) the United States has administered 150 million – 200 million vaccinations annually.”

Another criticism of VAERS is that ‘anyone can make an entry,’ yet, in fact, an analysis of a sample of 250 early deaths suggested that the vast majority are hospital or physician entries, and knowingly filing a false VAERS report is a violation of Federal law punishable by fine and imprisonment.

Given that VAERS was set up to generate early signals of potential harm for new vaccines, and was instrumental in doing so for several products, it seems perverse to only now criticize it as unreliable when there seem to have been no changes in the way it operates.”

It has been estimated that serious adverse effects that are officially reported are actually a gross underestimate, and this should be borne in mind … For example, a paper by David Kessler (a former FDA Commissioner) cites data suggesting that as few as 1% of serious adverse events are reported to the FDA. Similarly, in relation to the Yellow Card scheme in the United Kingdom, it has been estimated that only 10% of serious adverse effects are reported.”

1 in 800 Absolute Risk of Serious Side Effect

Malhotra also cites a recent study17 “coauthored by some of the most trusted medical scientists in the world in relation to data transparency,” which looked at data from the FDA, Health Canada and the Pfizer and Moderna trials.

Researchers looking at data from the FDA, Health Canada and the Pfizer and Moderna trials concluded the absolute risk of a serious adverse event from the mRNA shots was 1 in 800, which massively exceeds the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization found in randomized controlled trials.

They concluded the absolute risk of a serious adverse event from the mRNA shots was 1 in 800, which massively exceeds the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization found in randomized controlled trials.

“Given these observations, and reappraisal of the randomized controlled trial data of mRNA products, it seems difficult to argue that the vaccine roll-out has been net beneficial in all age groups … and when the possible short-, medium- and unknown longer-term harms are considered (especially for multiple injections, robust safety data for which simply does not exist), the roll-out into the entire population seems, at best, a reckless gamble,” Malhotra writes.18

“It’s important to acknowledge that the risks of adverse events from the vaccine remain constant, whereas the benefits reduce over time, as new variants are (1) less virulent and (2) not targeted by an outdated product.

Having appraised the data, it remains a real possibility that my father’s sudden cardiac death was related to the vaccine. A pause and reappraisal of vaccination Policies for COVID-19 is long overdue.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/more-studies-confirm-the-covid-jab-does-more-harm-than-good_4774529.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Australian Vaccinologist Opens Up mRNA Vaccine Safety Record in Systematic Literature & Date Review

What’s the real track record of the mRNA-based vaccines developed at a historic rate during the Operation Warp Speed initiative set up by previous President Donald Trump during the first year of the pandemic?

Significant claims were made with a near-selling-like fervor emanating from key federal government agencies in the United States and most other developed nations. The mainstream media overwhelmingly touts only the positive attributes of these products, which are countermeasures to a national declared emergency, America.

As challenges were introduced, from vaccine durability issues to the ongoing mutations---predicted by plenty of scientists who understand RNA viruses such as influenza or HIV/AIDS--the media seemingly presented ready-made talking points that positioned the products overwhelmingly positive. Afterall, billions of taxpayer funds were allocated into not only the early research, clinical development, and manufacturing of the vaccines, but also the heretofore not seen federally sponsored vaccination campaign which served as a marketing support for the primary companies of both Pfizer and Moderna.

Certainly, the products have helped soften the deadly, sharp edge of the COVID-19 pandemic, but what were the cost externalities as measured in human safety, loss productivity, and other costs to society with centralized government overreach of medical activity? Was the safety record claimed what manifested in reality? While the whole world now knows the mRNA vaccines, just like the flu vaccines, couldn’t control the pathogen’s spread in totality (however, there are cases where the vaccine has served to help control the pandemic), how effective are the vaccine products in the real world at controlling the pandemic?

How about staving off more serious disease and death in high-risk populations—the groups that most benefit from such products? An Australian scientist that leads a national and international reference laboratory for respiratory bacterial pathogens involving the identification, serotyping, genotyping, sequencing, and antimicrobial sensitivity testing for both veterinary and pharmaceutical clients, along with a colleague released a sharp critique of the COVID-19 vaccines.

Dr. Conny Turni and colleague Astrid Lefringhausen explore the above topics in “COVID-19 Vaccines—An Australian Review” published in the Journal of Clinical & Experimental Immunology.

No Lightweight Prose

With expertise in vaccines and topics such as antibiotic sensitivity for determining optimal sample sites for collecting pathogens as well as understanding the connections of different pathogens with disease, the development of animal infection models, and classification of bacteria and epidemiology of pathogens, Dr. Turni is no lightweight.

Profound Questions

Why have hundreds of millions worldwide needed to be vaccinated as many as four times within a twelve-month period? What are the effects of this ongoing countermeasure-driven medical endeavor on the human body? The clinical trial basis of the authorization was based only on a primary series of mRNA-based vaccines (two doses). Taking an Australian perspective, which TrialSite has followed, this demonstrates that double the number of persons died Down Under in the first three months of 2022 than all of 2020 and 2021 despite an already very high vaccination rate by the start of the year.

What were the promises and predictions from Australian authorities versus the actual facts on the ground? How about the safety and efficacy? Is there a substantial delta between what was promoted versus actuals? Just how safe, or unsafe are the countermeasures? What are the long-term side effects and how do these impact risk-benefit analyses?

Conducting a systematic literature and government data review, the authors establish the situation that merits investigation—the intensive push by the government for nearly everyone (including children as young as five and pregnant women) to get vaccinated. Yet, clinical research in all reality was ongoing. With a fourth booster dose administered in the elderly and other at-risk persons in just over a year from the first primary series, the long-term externalities as measured in human health cannot be known.

Crisis-driven Innovation

Vaccines often take many years to develop due to the difficulty associated with the development of this class of medical intervention—typically, a biological preparation that offers the human host active acquired immunity to a particular infectious pathogen. The vaccine usually contains an agent (like a weakened virus) that stimulates the human body’s immune system to not only recognize but also destroy the specific threat.

Vaccines are powerful medicinal interventions, and along with public health infrastructure breakthroughs over a century ago, helped transform developed economies. Some vaccines all but prevent the disease; they have served to control what were once horrific diseases such as polio. Others are used more as a therapeutic agent prophylactically to reduce the probability of the health threat such as with the influenza vaccine. While during the development and the authorization the COVID-19 vaccines were promoted like the former, in reality they perform like the latter scenario.

mRNA, developed over the last couple decades, introduced a new genetic way of inducing the human immune system’s ability to fight and overtake viruses. The onset of COVID-19 was the event fully exploited by the pharmaceutical industry and government research agencies to leverage public resources and assets to rapidly advance this promising technology. With COVID-19 came the intervention needed to achieve a faster, more economical, and adept way to produce vaccines. Done under national and global emergency, the countermeasures had to be safe and effective.

A Tenuous Foundation

First, in the “Initial Information” section of this literature review, Dr. Turni and Ms. Lefringhausen point out that the producers of the vaccines, government health agencies, and medical societies all declared that the “mRNA vaccines were supposed to remain at the injection site and be taken up by the lymphatic system.” This, and other basic premises represented a vital covenant with the public.

Yet according to the authors, “this assumption proved to be wrong.” They point to an autopsy of a person that unfortunately died as a result of the mRNA vaccination: “It was found that the vaccine disperses rapidly from the injection site and can be found in nearly all parts of the body.”

TrialSite has tracked numerous studies, mostly case series based on one death that evidence temporary wide distribution of the spike protein throughout the body for some short period of time.

The Australian literature review authors point out that although positioned to the contrary, the vaccine payload could cross both the blood-brain barrier and the blood-placenta barrier which is referenced in a European Medicines Agency assessment report targeting Moderna’s vaccine. They note, “mRNA could be detected in the brain following intramuscular administration at about 2% of the level found in plasma.” See the report on page 47: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/ assessment-report/spikevax-previously-covid-19-vaccine [1]moderna-epar-public-assessment-report_en.pdf (the EMA has taken the report down).

The authors also point to 2021, when Japanese researchers found “a disproportionately high mortality due to cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and intracranial hemorrhaging,” but this causal link couldn’t be proven. Yet authorities didn’t bother to do autopsies. Again, TrialSite has reported on many dozens of examples of post-vaccine injury studies mostly in the form of summaries of case series.

What about the claim “that the mRNA will degrade quickly?” While mRNA is supposed to break down within a few minutes to hours, writes the authors, the COVID-19 vaccines is “nucleoside-modified to reduce potential innate immune recognition, and it has been shown that production of the spike protein in some vaccines is kept up for an extraordinary long time.”

The Australians point to studies such as Röltgen et al, for examples showing that the mRNA vaccine may persist in the human body for up to 60 days. In fact, the 60 days was the endpoint so the duration could be longer. The authors declare, “It is thus unknown and impossible to define how much of the spike protein is actually produced in the vaccinated.” How about how much antigen is associated with each dose injection? Dr. Turni and Ms. Lefringhausen point out that:

“For a ‘so-called’ vaccine that is using the human body as the production facility, there is no possible quantification of antigen. This is highly variable and dependent on the amount and stability of nanoparticles in the injection, age, and fitness of the vaccinee, their immune status, and the injection technique—if a blood vessel is directly injected, the nanoparticles will travel in minutes to all major organs including the brain. It is therefore impossible to assess how much spike protein any individual vaccinee produces following an inoculation.”

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/australian-vaccinologist-opens-up-mrna-vaccine-safety-record-in-systematic-literature-date-review-c9e96283

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COVID Mandates Are Being Lifted but Still Continue—End the "National Emergency"

In the last two years, many states in America experienced highly coercive and authoritarian enforcement of the COVID “vaccine,” “shot” or “jab,” particularly among the federal, military, corporate, medical and academic sectors.

It would be an understatement to suggest that many Americans thought their community had transformed into a police state. But there was pushback by those who championed personal liberty—to assert one’s right as a sovereign human being, as a member of “we, the people,” and not as a property of the state.

And here is an fascinating statistic: while 60 to 70 percent of people in Canada and many European nations have received an additional COVID shot following the two-dose protocol, only 33 percent of the U.S. population have received a booster dose as of September 20.

Now, a number of large corporations have dropped their mandate.

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. has reportedly lifted all COVID-related requirements. The global financial institution will no longer require its employees to be jabbed or tested and wear face masks to enter most offices. However, unjabbed workers in New York City (NYC) will still need an approved religious or medical exemption to enter office spaces.

Moreover, JPMorgan Chase & Co. also changed its policy in March, stating they will hire unjabbed individuals again.

According to an announcement on Cisco Systems, Inc.’s website in June, the worldwide leader in IT and networking has ceased to require inoculated employees for “office entry, travel, event attendance, or visiting customers, partners, and other third parties.”

The reasons behind these decisions are arguably multifactorial, perhaps in response to an updated “guidance” from federal health officials or a potential staff shortage.

Jeff Levin-Scherz, a population health leader & Assistant Professor at Harvard Chan School of Public Health, reasons these companies “decided that the rationale for [mandates] had become weak enough that they don’t want to continue.”

Erin Grau is the co-founder & COO of Charter, a media company focused on transforming every workplace to “catalyze a new era of dynamic organizations where all workers thrive.” According to Axios, she states there is an effort by executives to reduce any barriers to entry for new hires. Furthermore, the COVID-related requirements are reportedly expensive and time-consuming for employers. Frankly, it’s one big unnecessary hassle.

And to this end, here’s a shoutout to the folks in the Big Apple. In late September, it was reported that private businesses in NYC could stop demanding that their employees be jabbed, starting in early November. Instead, the private sector companies will be permitted to establish their own “vaccine” policies. However, this new rule doesn’t apply to city workers, who will still need to show evidence of inoculation to contribute to the economy.

Some clinics and airlines have (sort of) followed suit
As early as mid-December 2021, some of the largest U.S. hospital systems dropped employee COVID requirements. According to The Wall Street Journal, Tenet Healthcare and Cleveland Clinic were among the companies dropping the mandates.

Such a policy change occurred as several hospitals dealt with ongoing labor shortages and increased labor costs. For example, a Mercer Healthcare industry leader told CBS12 News, “Even a loss of a few people in healthcare today is much more problematic than it’s ever been. The industry is having a heck of a time dealing with turnover.” Indeed, for some, the COVID shots mandate could be “the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

It’s a numbers game. The more people refuse to comply with such invasive rules, the less likely it’s possible for any federal-based or private-based company to enforce these coercive policies. Such institutions can keep terminating employment or push workers aside with unpaid leave—but practically speaking, for how many and for how long?

https://ckeeganan.substack.com/p/covid-mandates-are-being-lifted-but

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Costs of Long COVID

More than 6 million people have died from COVID-19 worldwide, including nearly 1 million in the US.1 But mortality is not the only adverse consequence of COVID-19. Many survivors suffer long-term impairment, officially termed postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection and commonly called long COVID.

Long COVID—typically defined as symptoms lasting more than 30 days after acute COVID infection—has received some public attention, but it is not nearly as intense as it is for acute COVID-19 infection. Support groups are devoted to the condition, and Congress has allocated more than $1 billion to the National Institutes of Health to study it. But the relatively meager attention that has been paid to long COVID is unfortunate because its health and economic consequences are likely to be every bit as substantial as those due to acute illness.

People who have more severe COVID-19 are more likely to experience long COVID, but severe acute disease is not a prerequisite. Long COVID has been found in people with only mild initial illness. The most common symptom of long COVID is fatigue.2 More severe cases involve damage to a variety of organ systems (the lungs, heart, nervous system, kidneys, and liver have all been implicated), along with mental health impairment. Researchers have hypothesized that physiological pathways may involve direct consequences of the viral infection along with inflammatory or autoimmune responses.

Because many prevalence estimates are based on convenience samples of members of COVID-19 support groups or people who had severe acute disease, the population prevalence of long COVID is not entirely known.3 British population data suggest that 22% to 38% of people with the infection will have at least 1 COVID-19 symptom 12 weeks after initial symptom onset, and 12% to 17% will have 3 or more symptoms.2

Rates this high translate to an enormous number of people with long COVID. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that as of May 5, 2022, the US has had roughly 81 million cases of COVID-19 and 994 187 COVID deaths. Even the lower-end estimate of 12% of people with 3 or more symptoms of long COVID implies that 9.6 million people in the US may have developed long COVID—roughly 10 times the number of COVID-19 deaths. It is not known how long people with long COVID will be symptomatic, but recovery in the first year of long COVID for affected individuals may be very slow.4

Reduced health is not the only consequence of long COVID. People with the condition work and earn less than they would have otherwise. One survey found that 44% of people with long COVID were out of the labor force and 51% worked fewer hours.5 In the economy as a whole, more than 1 million people may be out of the workforce at any given time because of long COVID.6

This reduction in labor supply is a direct earning loss. If 1 million people are out of the labor force because of long COVID, the lost income would be more than $50 billion annually. People out of the workforce because of long COVID disproportionately worked in service jobs, including health care, social care, and retail.7 The widely noted shortage of workers in these sectors is driving up both wages and prices. Part of the recent surge in inflation in the US may thus be related to long COVID.

People who are no longer able to work may also apply for Social Security Disability Insurance. To date, there has been no sustained increase in disability insurance applications since the onset of COVID-19. This is good news, though it bears watching as disability centers continue reopening from their COVID-19 shutdowns.

Increased medical spending is another consequence of long COVID. The medical costs for treating long COVID have not been estimated, but costs have been estimated for similar conditions. If treatment of long COVID is similar to treatment of myalgic encephalomyelitis (chronic fatigue syndrome), these estimated costs could be about $9000 per person annually.8

In an October 2020 analysis, we estimated9 the then-nascent COVID-19 pandemic might result in $2.6 trillion of cost as a result of long COVID. Unfortunately, our estimate seems very much on target.

The massive cost of long COVID has several policy implications. Investing in treatments for long COVID is obviously a high priority. According to a recent report from the Rockefeller Foundation, progress to date has been “achingly slow” and that needs to change.10 Experimenting with ways to make employment easier for people with long-term complications is also a high priority. People with chronic fatigue may be better able to work at home or with frequent breaks than they can with a time-delimited office day and a long commute. By speeding up the transition to telework, enhanced employment opportunities for those with long COVID may be possible.

In addition, the economic cost of long COVID reinforces the value of comprehensive actions to prevent and treat new infections. Mask mandates are unpopular in many areas and a substantial share of the public resists being vaccinated—though each action should still be encouraged. But additional progress might also be made through expanding rapid COVID-19 test capability, global surveillance to detect new SARS-CoV-2 variants, and immediate action should any such variants be detected. Such measures have associated costs, but no matter how large these costs are, they pale compared with the potential benefits.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2792505

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Newly Obtained Emails Shed More Light on CDC’s False Vaccine Safety Monitoring Statements

Newly obtained emails show the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made a false statement on COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring in 2021, months before agency officials gave false statements on the matter to The Epoch Times.

The emails also show top officials in the agency discussing performing safety monitoring on a key database for myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation that has been linked to the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

The CDC promised in 2021 in a set of operating procedures to perform a type of analysis called Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) on reports of adverse reactions following COVID-19 vaccination. The reports are submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which officials have described as “the nation’s early warning system” for post-vaccination adverse events. The CDC also said in an updated set of operating procedures in 2022 that it would perform the analysis.

But the CDC has made false statements three times this year on PRRs, initially saying such analysis was outside the agency’s purview, then saying the analysis was performed starting in 2021, then saying the analysis did not begin until 2022. The newly obtained emails show that an official falsely said the CDC does not perform PRR analysis to an editor in 2021.

John Gregory, a health editor at NewsGuard, wrote to the CDC on Oct. 19, 2021, asking for a comment regarding a claim that the CDC’s PRR analysis cannot accurately identify when a vaccine causes adverse events, one of the emails shows. Martha Sharan, a CDC spokeswoman, sent the query to Dr. John Su, who leads the CDC’s VAERS team, and Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, who also works on vaccine safety.

Their responses were redacted apart from a comment on NewsGuard. Sharan then wrote that she’d spoken to Gregory.

“I spoke to the reporter and explained that CDC does not do PPR analysis. The reporter is not going to pursue this any further!” she wrote, adding later that she meant PRR.

That contradicts the operating procedures, which state that the CDC “will perform Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) analysis” on VAERS reports.

“We let our published content speak for itself,” Gregory told The Epoch Times in an email when notified that the CDC does actually perform PRRs.

‘That’s a New One to Me’

In June 2022, the CDC falsely told Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit, that PRR analysis is “outside of th[e] agency’s purview.” An Associated Press reporter, Angelo Fichera, flagged a Children’s Health Defense article on the statement to the CDC, asking whether the CDC had ever performed the analysis, according to the newly obtained emails.

Kristen Nordlund, another CDC spokeswoman, forwarded the query to Sharan. “Martha—thoughts on this one?” she asked.

“That’s a new one on me—proportional reporting ratios’—I need to send this one to John,” Sharan responded.

Sharan later sent a statement about PRRs to The Associated Press and the Washington Examiner.

The Associated Press and NewsGuard never published stories on the topic. After The Epoch Times reported on contradictory statements from the CDC, the Examiner published an article about the developments.

Fichera, Sharan, and Su did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

The emails were obtained by The Epoch Times and an independent researcher through FOIA requests.

“The CDC claims to be vigilantly and transparently monitoring the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, but when it comes to Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) analysis, the CDC’s broken promises, inconsistent statements, stonewalling, and double standards tell a different story,” Mary Holland, president and general counsel of Children’s Health Defense, told The Epoch Times via email.

“When asked about PRR analysis in connection with COVID vaccines—through FOIA, media, and congressional requests—CDC has made conflicting statements, some of them false. When confronted about the statements, the CDC claimed, essentially, that PRR analysis is not worth doing. And for the few months of PRR the CDC now says it has completed, the CDC has failed to make the results public, despite requests from multiple sources.”

“Children’s Health Defense calls on the CDC to do the right thing: do the analysis, and make the results available,” she added.

Timeline of CDC emails and statements. Some are being reported for the first time in this story

“I spoke to the reporter and explained that CDC does not do PPR analysis. The reporter is not going to pursue this any further!” – Martha Sharan to CDC colleagues, Oct. 19, 2021. (source: FOIA response to independent researcher)
“Correction – that should say PRR.” – Martha Sharan to CDC colleagues, Oct. 19, 2021. (FOIA response to independent researcher)

“[P]rogram staff within the Immunization and Safety Office inform me that no PRRs were conducted by CDC. Furthermore, data mining is outside of th[e] agency’s purview.” – Roger Andoh, June 16, 2022. (letter to Children’s Health Defense)

“That’s a new one on me – proportional reporting ratios’ – I need to send this one to John.” – Martha Sharan to CDC colleagues, June 22, 2022 (FOIA response to The Epoch Times)

“[P]rogram staff within the Immunization and Safety Office inform me that no PRRs were conducted by CDC. Furthermore, data mining is outside of the agency’s purview.” – Bruno Viana to Roger Andoh, June 30, 2022 (FOIA response to The Epoch Times)

“CDC has been performing PRRs since Feb 2021, and continues to do so to date.” – Dr. John Su, July 18, 2022 (statement to The Epoch Times)

“CDC has revisited several FOIA requests and as a result of its review CDC is issuing corrections. … In reference to Proportional Reporting Ratios (PRRs) – CDC performed PRRs from March 25, 2022 through July 31, 2022.” – Martha Sharan, Aug. 8, 2022. (statement to The Epoch Times)

“CDC performed PRR analysis between March 25, 2022, through July 31, 2022. CDC also recently addressed a previous statement made to the Epoch Times to clarify PRR were not run between February 26, 2021, to September 30, 2021.” – Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Sept. 12, 2022 (letter to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.))

A member of the U.S. military receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at Camp Foster in Ginowan, Japan, on April 28, 2021. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

https://www.theepochtimes.com/exclusive-newly-obtained-emails-shed-more-light-on-cdcs-false-vaccine-safety-monitoring-statements_4768562.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Prominent Physicians’ Bombshell: Does it Make Sense to Vaccinate Healthy Young People Against COVID-19 Anymore?

A Chief Scientific Officer with a biotech, a prominent physician-scientist from Case Western Reserve University, and a top Pulmonary physician at University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences, Toledo recently bucked the universal COVID-19 vaccination narrative based on the results of an extensive literature review investigation, evaluating the pros and cons of COVID-19 vaccination of young adults.

Their findings go counter to the major narrative and need to be heard more loudly. Given the risk-benefit analyses, does mass vaccination of such young person’s make sense? Published in the journal European Society of Medicine, the authors acknowledge that while targeted vaccination of at-risk populations saved lives as the pandemic unfolded, they argue the ongoing mutation of the RNA-based virus continues to generate variants more capable of vaccine-induced antibody evasion. Given what amounts to a durability challenge with the vaccines in an ecosystem of mutation—which this media suggests started during the Delta surge during 2021—the research suggests the following

1) vaccination offers ever limiting protection even after booster from infection and spreading of SARS-CoV-2;

2) the vast majority of young healthy adults develop only mild to no symptoms associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection—especially with the latest mutation Omicron--

3) sequential vaccination and booster dose associates with incidence of autoimmune complications (they note complications not associated with natural infections) and

4) the trend toward immunity imprinted via natural infection as well as durable protection against COVID-19 arise from what the authors deem numerous assessments leading to the choice to natural infection for at least some cohorts.

The authors conclude that at least for the cohort including “young healthy adults, some of the risks and disadvantages afforded by vaccination prevail over the medical benefit” in what can only be labeled bombshell study output when reviewing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for example.

Importantly, the authors represented by Dr. John Nemunaitis and colleagues are by no means anti- vaxxers. In fact, they are very adamant about vaccination of at-risk cohorts from the immunocompromised to the elderly to individuals with comorbidities.

Nemunaitis brings an impressive physician-scientists’ background to the literature search-based study--a Chief Scientific Officer with the biotech Gradalis, he has specialized in oncology and hematology and is board certified in internal medicine. With over three decades of experience, Dr. Nemunaitis who previously worked at University of Toledo Eleanor N. Dana Cancer Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and the University of Washington School of Medicine, reports along with his colleagues that with the advent of the Omicron variant, the vast majority of COVID-19 cases observed include mild upper respiratory tract infection, appearing in the healthy young “as an ideal ‘natural vaccine’ to induce herd immunity.” Dr. Nemunaitis and colleagues suggest these infections are diminishing new variant development and may serve to “reduce duration of future pandemics in combination with vaccination of elderly and immunocompromised.”

In this study, the team first reviews the justifications for administering the supplemental booster vaccine during the pandemic. Thereafter, the authors drill into cardiac toxicity reports associated with the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines linking both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to spikes in adverse events such as myocarditis and pericarditis, often urgent problems with long term health implications. The authors go even more granular, investigating the literature associated with spike-protein-related cardio toxicity while then turning their intellectual attention to the long-term risks associated with the spike protein booster vaccination. They then delve into the limiting factors associated with the COVID-19 vaccines involving both durability challenges and the ongoing mutations from the RNA-based SARS-CoV-2. They review natural immunity as well as inconsistent antibody response, while also reviewing literature measuring T cell memory response.

Conclusion

The authors share a conclusion that this media has suggested may get underreported, declaring:

Numerous toxic activities occasionally leading to hospitalization and prolonged debilitation or even death from multiple COVID-19 vaccination and boost-induced causes increased risk of breakthrough infection and shedding of virus to other vaccinated or unvaccinated subjects, but also raise doubts of what they deem the risk-benefit calculus at least for the young healthy cohort “where health risk from natural SARS-CoV-2 infection is minimal.”

Of course, this finding deviates markedly from CDC and other medical society guidelines which recommend a one-size-fits-all mass vaccination to eradicate the pathogen point of view. That mindset may have made sense assuming the pathogen’s risk to more in society was higher coupled with its ability to better control transmission, but this hasn’t been the case since the onset of Delta, accelerating with Omicron.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/prominent-physicians-bombshell-does-it-make-sense-to-vaccinate-healthy-young-people-against-covid-19-anymore-a9dbc420

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COVID Vaccine Does Mess With Women’s Health

Women of all ages, but particularly of childbearing years, are now being told that the COVID-19 vaccines have side effects that range from menstrual abnormalities to fetal health and development complications including miscarriage. Study after study is confirming these adverse side effects.

Yet people who had been reporting these adverse events were censored on social media and their stories were deemed “misinformation.” People lost their jobs for following their gut or their religious convictions and refusing to take the vaccines. Predictably, the truth is slowly trickling out about the COVID vaccines, and it isn’t all good.

In women, the most commonly reported side effect was the disruption of the menstrual cycle. Women were told that there was no link between the vaccine and their reproduction system. So-called “experts” laughed at them and told them that this was a rumor, a conspiracy theory. This past Tuesday, the National Institutes of Health confirmed that this symptom was not all in women’s heads, and no lesser a source than The Washington Post published a story on this. No apology, no acknowledgement that it had dismissed women’s experiences; the best the Post could offer was the changes in periods were “temporary” for “most people.”

This is the least of the revelations that have been disclosed about the effect of the COVID vaccines on women’s health.

Another study by researchers at New York University has found that trace amounts of the Moderna and Pfizer COVID vaccinations were detected in 45% of nursing mothers. This is disturbing considering the number of study participants was 11. Five participants received Moderna and the other six received Pfizer.

This study did not make any assertions about what the consequences would be for those mothers who followed the “best guidance” and gave their babies tainted milk. It also notes that “caution is warranted about breastfeeding children younger than 6 months in the first 48 hours after maternal vaccination until more safety studies are conducted.” Why six months? Why does it suggest a breastfeeding mother not nurse her child for 48 hours? These are the types of questions concerned mothers are asking.

One study that isn’t peer-reviewed but had tens of thousands of participants worldwide compiled several other concerning trends associated with the COVID vaccine. The study’s conclusion is as follows: “Governments and public health agencies worldwide are stepping back from COVID-19 vaccine mandates and are beginning to recommend against or even prohibiting COVID-19 mandates and vaccinations for vulnerable groups such as children, pregnant women, and lactating women. Yet, the US continues promoting COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters in all groups, including pregnant women. This study supports the recommendations of the UK’s Medicines & Healthcare and The World Council of Health against COVID-19 vaccination and boosters for pregnant and lactating women.”

As a mother who was both pregnant and then nursing during the vaccine push, I can testify that the pressure to get a vaccine for the health of the baby was immense. It was peddled on the pregnancy apps. It was voiced by doctors and nurses at the hospital. Though it was never said out loud, the subtext was clear: If you don’t get the vaccine, you’re already a bad mother. For those mothers who did get the vaccine to make sure that they were doing the best for their young children, this is not on them. We can only hope and pray that this manipulation by all the institutions around us didn’t set up our very young children for health problems down the road such as myocarditis.

Though guidances by the CDC are being loosened, President Joe Biden and his team are still pushing the mRNA COVID vaccines. Perhaps doubling down isn’t in the best interest of the American people. It’s certainly proving to have side effects for women.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/91691-covid-vaccine-does-mess-with-womens-health-2022-09-30

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Hundreds of thousands of Americans sought medical care after getting a COVID-19 vaccine, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data released on Oct. 3.

Some 782,900 people reported seeking medical attention, emergency room care, and/or hospitalization following COVID-19 vaccination. Another 2.5 million people reported needing to miss school, work, or other normal activities as a result of a health event after getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

The reports were made to the CDC’s V-safe program, a new vaccine safety monitoring system to which users can report issues through smartphones.

The CDC released the data to the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) after being sued over not producing the data when asked by the nonprofit. ICAN posted a dashboard summarizing the data.

“It took numerous legal demands, appeals, and two lawsuits, and over a year, but the CDC finally capitulated and agreed to a court order requiring them to do what they should have done from day one, release the V-safe data to the public,” Aaron Siri, a lawyer representing ICAN in the case, told The Epoch Times in an email.

About 10 million people utilized V-safe during the period of time the data covers: Dec. 14, 2020, to July 31, 2022. About 231 million Americans received at least one vaccine doses during that time.

The V-safe users reported about 71 million symptoms.

The most commonly reported symptoms were chills (3.5 million), swelling (3.6 million), joint pain (4 million), muscle or body aches (7.8 million), headache (9.7 million), fatigue (12.7 million), and general pain (19.5 million).

About 4.2 million of the symptoms were of severe severity.

Users of V-safe filled in data for about 13,000 infants younger than two, reporting over 33,000 symptoms, including pain, loss of appetite, and irritability.

The data produced so far by the CDC does not include free-text responses, according to ICAN. The data covered fields where users checked boxes.

ICAN, founded by film producer Del Bigtree, said that the newly revealed data “reveals shocking information that should have caused the CDC to immediately shut down its COVID-19 vaccine program,” citing the percentage of people who reported needing to get care or missing school, work, or other normal activities, as well as the reported adverse events.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/hundreds-of-thousands-of-americans-sought-medical-care-after-covid-19-vaccination-cdc-data_4772435.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Reserve Banks Have Destroyed the ‘Culture of Thrift’: Nigel Farage

British political leader Nigel Farage has warned that years of low interest rate lending has discouraged the younger generation from saving.

He told The Epoch Times it was “astonishing” central banks have failed to recognise that years of cheap lending—particularly during the COVID-19 era—would eventually lead to the current wave of inflation that has gripped developed countries around the world. In response, Reserve Bank chiefs have, in lockstep, raised interest rates to try and curb rising living costs.

The former Brexit Party leader, and a key architect behind Brexit, made the comments on Oct. 1 from Sydney, where conservatives had gathered for CPAC Australia—the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“It was just astonishing. Rates should have been raised a very long time ago,” Farage said. “I actually think having reasonable interest rates will be a healthier thing because we’ve just destroyed the culture of thrift, destroyed it, and made it very difficult for people.”

“We’ve had roaring house prices, and low income-to-savings. A lot of the younger generation are saying, ‘What’s the point of saving? I’ll just go and spend what I’ve got in my pocket,” he added.

“The misjudgments, frankly, have been absolutely enormous, and they blame it on [Vladimir] Putin’s actions. Well, there’s this thing called monetary inflation, and if you print billions and trillions of dollars and pounds, that’s what happens.”

Between 2020 to 2021, many governments adopted hard lockdowns to deal with the pandemic. However, such moves also required government subsidies to keep businesses and families afloat when the economy was largely forced to shut down.

This led to Reserve Banks the world over printing large volumes of cash to inject into the economy. Economists now attribute these actions to the high inflation families are experiencing today, which have been exacerbated by global events like supply chain shortages and the war in Ukraine.

Don’t Try to Out-Left the Left

Meanwhile, Farage also warned conservative-leaning political parties against copying progressive policy platforms, saying they may miss out capitalising on global trends sweeping the world.

“If you decide to tack towards either a Labour-lite or you try to ‘out-Green’ the Greens—you ain’t gonna win,” he said. “Because you’re not recognising the big shift happening in the [conservative movement] across the Western world in America and Britain.”

“The middle classes that used to be conservative voters now vote much more ‘social democrat.’ And the working-class voters—traditionally Labour or Democrat voters—are now more inclined to vote Republican or conservative,” he added. “That is a big social demographic trend that has been going on now for some years, and if you tap back towards the ‘teals,’ then I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place.”

Farage was referring to the teal movement in Australia that contributed to a change in federal government, after several inner-city seats, traditionally held by the centre-right Liberal Party, fell to independent MPs professing stronger action on climate change.

The Liberal Party is now in the process of soul-searching and identifying its policy platform going forward. Opposition leader Peter Dutton has hinted at targeting small business owners and working-class Australians.

A Message to Conservatives

During his address to the CPAC Australia conference, Farage said there was a yearning for strong conservative leadership in Australia.

“The single most important, interesting thing in this trip is that everywhere I’ve been … ordinary Australians are coming up to me and saying, ‘We’re worried about the future of our country, we’re worried about what Australia is becoming, and we cannot believe the lack of conservative courage and leadership.'”

He called on attendees to “use your power” and elect “better” conservative politicians who won’t be influenced by big business, mainstream media, social media, or being criticised.

Farage said it was important to take a “moral stand” and promote values such as freedom, tradition, and what was established by earlier generations.

“In Australia, America, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, right across the English-speaking world, we face exactly the same challenges.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/reserve-banks-have-destroyed-the-culture-of-thrift-nigel-farage_4768902.html

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The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization

Civilization is fragile. It hinges on ensuring the stuff of life.

To be able to eat, to move about, to have shelter, to be free from state or tribal coercion, to be secure abroad, and safe at home—only that allows cultures to be freed from the daily drudgery of mere survival.

Civilization alone permits humans to pursue sophisticated scientific research, the arts, and the finer aspects of culture.

So, the great achievement of Western civilization—consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism in partnership with religious belief, free market economics, and constant self-critique and audit—was to liberate people from daily worry over state violence, random crime, famine, and an often-unforgiving nature.

But so often the resulting leisure and affluence instead deluded arrogant Western societies into thinking that modern man no longer needed to worry about the fruits of civilization he took to be his elemental birthright.

As a result, the once prosperous Greek city-state, Roman Empire, Renaissance republics, and European democracies of the 1930s imploded—as civilization went headlong in reverse.

We in the modern Western world are now facing just such a crisis.

We talk grandly about the globalized Great Reset. We blindly accept the faddish New Green Deal. We virtue signal about defunding the police. We merely shrug at open borders. And we brag about banning fertilizers and pesticides, outlawing the internal combustion engine, and discounting Armageddon in the nuclear age—as if on autopilot we have already reached utopia.

But meanwhile Westerners are systematically destroying the very elements of our civilization that permitted such fantasies in the first place.

Take fuel. Europeans arrogantly lectured the world that they no longer need traditional fuels. So, they shut down nuclear power plants. They stopped drilling for oil and gas. And they banned coal.

What followed was a dystopian nightmare. Europeans will burn dirty wood this winter as their civilization reverts from postmodern abundance to premodern survival.

The Biden administration ossified oil fields. It canceled new federal oil and gas leases. It stopped pipeline construction and hectored investors to shun fossil fuels.

When scarcity naturally followed, fuel prices soared.

The middle class has now mortgaged its upward mobility to ensure that they might afford gasoline, heating oil, and skyrocketing electricity.

The duty of the Pentagon is to keep America safe by deterring enemies, reassuring allies, and winning over neutrals. It is not to hector soldiers based on their race. It is not to indoctrinate recruits in the woke agenda. It is not to become a partisan political force.

The result of those suicidal Pentagon detours is the fiasco in Afghanistan, the aggression of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the new bellicosity of China, and the loud threats of rogue regimes like Iran.

At home, the Biden administration inexplicably destroyed the southern border, as if civilized nations of the past never needed such boundaries.

Utter chaos followed. Three million migrants have poured into the United States. While some cross over clandestinely, others clear border stations without an adequate audit, and largely without skills, high-school diplomas, or capital.

The streets of our cities are anarchical—and by intent.

Defunding the police, emptying the jails, and destroying the criminal justice system unleashed a wave of criminals. It is now open season on the weak and innocent.

America is racing backwards into the 19th-century Wild West. Predators maim, kill, and rob with impunity. Felons correctly conclude that bankrupt postmodern “critical legal theory” will ensure them exemption from punishment.

Few Americans know anything about agriculture, except to expect limitless supplies of inexpensive, safe, and nutritious food at their beck and call.

But that entitlement for 330 million hungry mouths requires massive water projects, and new dams and reservoirs. Farmers rely on steady supplies of fertilizer, fuels, and chemicals. Take away that support—as green nihilists are attempting—and millions will soon go hungry, as they have since the dawn of civilization.

Perhaps nearly a million homeless now live on the streets of America. Our major cities have turned medieval with their open sewers, garbage-strewn sidewalks, and violent vagrants.

So, we are in a great experiment in which regressive progressivism discounts all the institutions, and the methodologies of the past that have guaranteed a safe, affluent, well-fed, and sheltered America.

Instead, we arrogantly are reverting to a new feudalism as the wealthy elite—terrified of what they have wrought—selfishly retreat to their private keeps.

But the rest who suffer the consequences of elite flirtations with nihilism cannot even afford food, shelter, and fuel. And they now feel unsafe, both as individuals and as Americans.

As we suffer self-inflicted mass looting, random street violence, hyperinflation, a nonexistent border, unaffordable fuel, and a collapsing military, Americans will come to appreciate just how thin is the veneer of their civilization.

When stripped away, we are relearning that what lies just beneath is utterly terrifying.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-thinnest-veneer-of-civilization_4769276.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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FDA Withholding Autopsy Results on People Who Died After Getting COVID-19 Vaccines

Does Vitamin D help with Covid?

YOU CAN’T LIVE without vitamins; that’s an absolute no. These macronutrients are the grease to our gears, making sure all our bodily systems are running and operating in mint condition. A deficiency in any one of the essential 13 vitamins can lead to a whole host of health problems, sickness, and possibly death.

During the pandemic, there was one vitamin in particular — vitamin D — that received quite a hullabaloo as a potential therapeutic agent against Covid-19. This was in due part to vitamin D’s influence on the immune system and being potentially protective against respiratory infections based on past research. Notably, when then-President Donald Trump got the coronavirus, his physician revealed that along with a course of the antiviral drug remdesivir and antibody cocktail Regeneron, Trump’s treatment regimen included a vitamin D supplement.

But there’s been a lot of back and forth over whether supplementing with vitamin D actually helps make Covid-19 less severe or even prevents the disease to begin with. And according to two studies published this month in the British Medical Journal, it might not. The two papers, one conducted in the U.K. and the other in Norway, found that vitamin D supplements did not appear to protect against catching Covid-19 or other respiratory tract infections. These findings aren’t a definitive answer to the vitamin D-coronavirus question — both studies have limitations which we’ll get into. But they do raise the importance of continuing research into finding easy-to-implement solutions to keep the spiky virus at bay.

HERE’S THE BACKGROUND — Vitamin D belongs to a group of fat-soluble vitamins, meaning these nutrients are better absorbed when you eat high-fat foods and are stored in adipose tissue, the liver, and skeletal muscles. Because fat-soluble vitamins stay in the body much longer than water-soluble vitamins that need regular replacement, for the most part, you can have too much of a good thing (aka toxicity) when these vitamins are consumed in excessive amounts.

The human body naturally produces vitamin D (which comes in many forms) after we’re hit with some feel-good sunbeams. The exact mechanism involves ultraviolet B (UVB) energy converting cholesterol, which is abundant in the skin, into an active form of the vitamin called vitamin D2. Dietary supplements come in vitamin D2 and vitamin D3. The latter is slightly more active, therefore more effective, and what most clinicians recommend.

Vitamin D is best known for its role in keeping bones healthy by helping us absorb calcium and phosphate during digestion (thereby preventing osteoporosis). As for its role in immune health, which is where its influence on Covid-19 infection comes in, some studies have shown taking a supplement regularly may prevent autoimmune diseases and metastatic or fatal cancers. Other studies have found that vitamin D may quell inflammation, which may be the link between the vitamin and Covid-19. Additionally, this association appeared to carry some weight as scientists observed high rates of vitamin D deficiency running in tandem with severe Covid-19, especially in Black and Hispanic communities where such a deficiency is highest.

WHAT THEY DID — In the U.K. and Norwegian study, the aim was straightforward: To see if vitamin D, whether as a vitamin D3 supplement or fortified in a teaspoon of cod liver, could prevent Covid-19 infection.

Researchers led by the University of London conducted a phase three randomized, controlled trial enrolling 6,200 volunteers ages 16 years and older from a much larger research cohort called COVIDENCE UK and tested their vitamin D levels. Anyone who had insufficient concentrations of the vitamin in their blood, determined through a finger prick test and defined as less than 75 nanograms per deciliter, was given either a high (3,200 international units per day) or low (800 international units per day) dose of vitamin D3. These individuals, who were mostly women in their 60s, were followed for six months from December 2020 to June 2021.

Up north in Scandinavia, researchers led by a team at Oslo University gave over 34,000 Norwegians aged 18 to 75 years five milliliters of cod liver oil daily (containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D) or a placebo in the form of corn oil. The participants, also mostly women but trending younger (around 45 years old) were followed up for six months as well from November 2020 to June 2021.

WHAT THEY FOUND — Neither study found vitamin D made a dramatic difference in the number of Covid-19 infections, serious illness (including hospitalizations and any deaths), or other respiratory tract infections between the controls and those taking the vitamin in whichever form.

"Among people aged 16 years and older with a high baseline prevalence of suboptimal vitamin D status, implementation of a population level test-and-treat approach to vitamin D supplementation was not associated with a reduction in risk of all cause acute respiratory tract infection or Covid-19," authors of the UK study wrote.

“Daily supplementation with cod liver oil, a low dose vitamin D, eicosapentaenoic acid, and docosahexaenoic acid supplement, for six months during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic among Norwegian adults, did not reduce the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection, serious Covid-19, or other acute respiratory infections,” the Norwegian researchers wrote in their study.

DIGGING INTO THE DETAILS — Before you go off and chuck your bottle of Nature Made’s D3 in the nearest trash, these two studies do have a number of limitations, the most glaring being vaccination.

In an accompanying editorial, Peter Bergman, a physician and clinical researcher in Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet, who was not involved in either study, said having a sizable number of people already vaccinated (over 35 percent in the Norway study) or undergoing vaccination (from one percent to 89 percent in the U.K. study) may have masked any protective effects of vitamin D.

There’s also the issue of representation in either study. In the UK study, “men, people from ethnic minorities, and those with lower educational attainment were relatively under-represented compared with the general population,” the study authors wrote, thereby affecting the generalizability of their findings.

While the Norwegian study was quite large with over 34,000 participants, most were women, “relatively young and healthy, and 86.3 percent had adequate vitamin D levels… at baseline,” said Bergman. And the fact that cod liver was used, which contains large amounts of vitamin A, also means vitamin D’s ability to regulate the immune system could have been interfered with.

WHAT’S NEXT — While these two studies don’t suggest you forgo vitamin D outright (because you definitely need it for your health and well-being), it’s no substitute for Covid-19 vaccination, at least in individuals with normal levels of the vitamin.

“Importantly, these new trials remain compatible with the two large meta-analyses suggesting that vitamin D supplementation may be beneficial for vitamin D deficient individuals,” wrote Bergman, who also recommended certain groups at risk for low vitamin D, such as those with darker skin, pregnant women, and the elderly with chronic disease consult their physician before supplementing.

https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/covid-19-vitamin-d-prevention-myth-science

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Pfizer Covid vaccine caused 'debilitating' lesions om her tongue that left 60-year-old woman unable to eat for months

A 60-year-old woman suffered 'debilitating' lesions on her tongue after receiving Pfizer's Covid vaccine – with each shot making her symptoms worse.

Her side effects, which also included a dry mouth and inflammation, were so painful she was left unable to eat.

Doctors struggled to find the culprit for nine months, during which she lost 17 pounds (8kg).

By the time she was finally diagnosed, her swollen tongue had began to split open leaving deep, agonizing sores.

She was diagnosed with Sjögren's syndrome, a condition that sees the immune system go haywire and damage healthy parts of the body. Her symptoms were finally cured with a six-week course of topical steroids.

Doctors chronicled the rare side effect in a report published last month in the American Journal of Case Reports.

The unidentified patient, from Australia, received three vaccine doses in total – two of which formed the initial course, as well as a single booster.

Similar symptoms were also documented in patients infected with coronavirus, which led to the condition being dubbed 'Covid tongue'.

Oral sores are not a new phenomenon after a vaccine and have been spotted in people following flu, hepatitis B and papillomavirus jabs.

But only a handful of cases have been reported after Covid vaccines, despite billions of doses being administered worldwide.

The unnamed patient developed sores in her mouth about three days after receiving the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Her symptoms had partially abated before she received the second dose, after which the symptoms returned still more severely.

She underwent a cadre of blood tests to rule out other diagnoses such as HPV and other infections.

She was referred to an outpatient rheumatology clinic with suspected Sjogren syndrome, an autoimmune disease which causes the immune system to attack glands that produce moisture in the eyes, mouth, and other parts of the body.

Doctors first prescribed a topical version of clonazepam, a benzodiazepine that when ingested orally, can treat burning mouth syndrome.

When that did little to alleviate her symptoms, doctors prescribed an oral steroid which caused symptoms to improve 60 per cent, but treatment stopped because it was causing the woman abdominal pain.

Doctors finally settled on a lower dose topical iteration of the steroids dissolved in water and taken consistently for about six weeks until symptoms abated.

The condition was not easily diagnosed and doctors were puzzled at first. While oral symptoms can be associated with the Pfizer vaccine, they are uncommon and likely under recognized by providers who do not specialize in oral healthcare.

Writing in the journal, the doctors said: 'A subsequent review of the timeline of history and medications, including vaccinations, identified a clear relationship between the exacerbation of oral symptoms after each [Pfizer-BioNTech] vaccination.'

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) database for Covid vaccine side effects does not include oral symptoms.

A major caveat is that reporting the adverse effects is voluntary and therefore cases may be underreported.

'This case demonstrates that oral symptoms can be associated with BNT162b2 vaccination, which is likely under-recognized by practitioners outside the field of oral health,' the doctors said in the case study.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11235577/Woman-60-suffers-agonizing-TONGUE-ulcers-getting-Pfizer-COVID-vaccine.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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We need to talk about "excess deaths"

Have both the vaccines and the lockdowns done long-term harm?

The Scottish Covid Recovery Committee is undertaking an inquiry into the cause of excess deaths. Data shows that the number of deaths in Scotland have been well above the 5-year average for most of the time since the pandemic began. Curiously, excess death figures far exceed those accounted for by Covid.

This long spate of unexpected deaths is highlighted by the recent passing of a notable Scottish athlete, 37-year-old Rab Wardell. He died from an apparent cardiac arrest while lying in bed next to his partner, Olympic champion Katie Archibald, two days after winning a Scottish mountain bike title.

Excess deaths are not only limited to Scotland – they have been noted around the globe.

While the death toll from Covid reached 5.94 million at the end of 2021, the WHO estimate excess deaths within the same time frame at around 15 million. A systematic analysis in The Lancet of deaths from around the world during 2020-21 put the figure of excess deaths at 18.2 million. This matches the model built by The Economist, which also suggests that the total excess deaths are over three times that accounted for by Covid. But most countries are (inconceivably) not actively investigating the causes of this mysterious mass death event.

What’s alarming is that excess deaths are increasing, even as Covid wanes.

If normal patterns were followed, the large number of excess deaths among the elderly, who are by far the most vulnerable to Covid, would have peaked in the first two years of the pandemic and then fallen to below-average levels in 2022 to compensate (as happens in bad flu seasons). However, excess deaths remain statistically higher than average for the elderly.

Excess deaths are also increasing in the young, again strongly suggesting that this is occurring for reasons other than Covid given the extremely low mortality rate for those under 40. The Telegraph reported on August 18 that, for the past 14 out of 15 weeks in England and Wales, there have been an average of 1,000 excess deaths each week, none of which were due to Covid.

There are various hypotheses to explain excess deaths.

From the early days of lockdowns, many warned of the negative consequences of such a blunt, draconian, and myopic strategy including the scientists from Oxford, Harvard, and Stanford universities who drafted the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration and the tens of thousands of medical scientists and practitioners who have signed it.

Their concerns have sadly materialised. In America, deaths from drug overdose broke records in 2020 and 2021. They will likely do so again in 2022. In the UK and America, deaths from alcohol abuse increased by almost 19 per cent and 25.5 per cent, respectively. Youth suicide noticeably increased during the pandemic in the America, while a survey in Victoria found that nearly 10 per cent of Victorians, or some 600,000 people, seriously considered suicide during the height of the extended 2020 lockdown.

Furthermore, as I have written previously, the pandemic response has resulted in dramatic reductions in people seeking medical care for other deadly illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease, leading to predictably protracted and elevated deaths from chronic illnesses that went undiagnosed and untreated, the debt of which will continue to manifest for years. Ironically, multiple studies have found no evidence that lockdowns reduced Covid deaths.

Another factor that has been little spoken about is mass vaccinations. This, dare we say it, unprecedented event needs to be considered in order to explain excess youth deaths.

A JAMA study that examined the data of over 192 million people in America who took the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer or Moderna) found that the risk of myocarditis after receiving these vaccines was increased, especially in adolescent males.

An earlier JAMA study found that among the more than 2 million people in America who took mRNA vaccines, cases of pericarditis were even more numerous after vaccination than myocarditis.

A JAMA Cardiology study, examining more than 23 million people in four Nordic countries, also found increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis after mRNA vaccines, particularly in young males and especially after the second dose.

A recent paper in Circulation that examined more than 42 million people in England found that for men under the age of 40, the second dose of Moderna vaccine was associated with much higher incidents of myocarditis than SARS-CoV-2 infection itself.

Although the mechanism of how vaccines may be causing myocarditis remains unclear, a similar phenomenon had been described following smallpox vaccination in young people.

While the absolute numbers are fairly small, this phenomenon might well contribute to the sharp rise in the number of unexplained deaths among young athletes, which is a pattern seen globally across multiple sporting industries.

The negative effects of vaccines are not limited to inflammation of the heart. A thorough 2021 analysis of the Phase III trial data from Pfizer, Moderna, and Jansen vaccines concluded that they may have caused more negative side effects than having done good. The German Ministry of Health recently released a statement that the reporting rate of severe adverse reactions after a Covid vaccination in Germany was one in every 5,000 doses. Given most people have had at least two doses, the risk of severe adverse reaction is conceivably higher than one in every 2,000 vaccinated people.

Even for Covid itself, the vaccines may have negative effects. A September New England Journal of Medicine study found that in children between 5-11 years of age, the vaccines gave only temporary protection which then became negative within months (meaning that the vaccinated become more likely to be infected than the unvaccinated), whereas natural immunity from previous infection still offered around 50 per cent protection after a year. This begs the question, is the haphazard vaccination of children increasing their vulnerability to Covid?

The cultural tide regarding transparent analysis and public debate about vaccine adverse effects seems to be turning, while adult-like discussion has only recently become possible.

The former New York Times journalist Alex Berenson, who questioned the glowing vaccine PR in the early days of mass vaccine rollout, was banned from Twitter. He sued and won, as many of his criticisms and doubts have been shown to be accurate. What is most concerning is that the lawsuit revealed that the White House had pressured Twitter into banning Berenson, effectively curtailing journalistic inquiry into an issue affecting the entire human species. And Bereson is by no means the only one that had faced censorship.

If leaders around the world were willing to unscrupulously and severely disrupt the lives and livelihoods of billions of people for a virus that has killed 6.5 million people over two and a half years (for context, over 60 million people die each year), they are morally and ethically bound to at least investigate the causes of excess deaths that are three times as numerous, especially if some of the causes are likely the results of Covid policies. By the same token, those in leadership positions who had censored free inquiry, discussion, and debate during the pandemic should face serious scrutiny and consequences.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/we-need-to-talk-about-excess-censored/

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California surgeon slams state's 'destructive' bill that would punish doctors for COVID 'misinformation'

A California surgeon spoke out Tuesday against a state bill that would punish doctors for spreading COVID-19 "misinformation" on key issues, including vaccinations and medications.

Dr. Peter Mazolewski, a board-certified general surgeon, ripped the proposal that now sits on Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk after legislative approval, telling host Dana Perino that the policy could be "destructive" and "dangerous."

"It'll be dangerous to patient care, it'll be destructive in the sense that there will be no scientific progression," he said on "America's Newsroom" Tuesday.

Mazolewski warned that the bill could also establish a "dangerous" precedent for similar bills to come, particularly for those concerning other medical conditions.

He added that the repercussions of restrictive medical information laws could be disastrous, creating a mass exodus from the industry across the state.

"We all know that there's been contemporary scientific consensus regarding COVID that has been wrong. It has actually been refuted partially and fully," he said.

"We can go back to many issues: One percent mortality, closing schools is healthy for our children, wearing masks helps prevent the dissemination, [if you get] vaccines you won't get ill at all, vaccines won't allow for transmission of disease. We know all of these have been refuted," he added.

Mazolewski said California medical boards would be empowered to determine appropriate punishments for doctors who commit relevant offenses.

In a joint Fox News op-ed, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Dr. Pierre Kory urged Newsom to "kill this terrible bill and prevent a hostile takeover of medicine by oppressive government censors."

https://www.foxnews.com/media/california-surgeon-slams-states-destructive-bill-punish-doctors-covid-misinformation

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Record Deaths in Australia from COVID-19 Despite 96.4% of 16+ Fully Vaxxed

Despite the fact that the population of Australia is nearly universally vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, TrialSite has reported that record numbers of deaths accumulated at the beginning of 2022. This is despite the universal protection of the vaccine. Yet breakthrough infections led to growing numbers of deaths in the most at-risk cohorts such as the elderly.

Now, mainstream media starts to acknowledge the trend. Recently, the Sydney Morning Herald reports in “COVID complications Push Australian deaths to highest number in 40 years,” that based on an analysis of the Australian Bureau of Statistics population data that total deaths nationwide are 18% higher in the quarter when compared to the prior year, rising from 36,100 to 46,200 deaths.

Labeled as “COVID-19’s hidden impact,” more people have died in Australia in the March quarter than any time in the last 41 years. Half the deaths in this period were from COVID despite an overwhelming vaccination rate.

Australia is one of the most vaccinated populations in the world against COVID-19 yet as TrialSite reported earlier this year has experienced unprecedented pandemic related deaths. Does this trend evidence a failure of the COVID-19 vaccines?

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/record-deaths-in-australia-from-covid-19-despite-96.4-of-16-fully-vaxxed-9cff928d

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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