Monday, June 19, 2023
COVID-Vaccinated MORE Likely to Be Hospitalized: CDC Data
There are some problems with inferences here but a complete reversal of the expected result is extreme and seems unlikely to be explained by confounds etc. We may have to allow that the vaccines are more harmful than helpful in the medium term
COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization turned negative over time, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data presented on June 15.
The effectiveness against hospitalization plummeted to negative 8 percent for people who received one of the old COVID-19 vaccines, according to data from a CDC-run hospital network.
A dose of one of the updated bivalent vaccines moved the protection above zero, to 29 percent, but the protection fell back to negative 8 percent beyond 89 days, the data show.
The protection estimates were for adults without a compromised immune system from Jan. 23 to May 24, when the XBB strain was dominant in the United States. The data came from people hospitalized at one of 25 hospitals across 20 states that are part of the Investigating Respiratory Viruses in the Acutely Ill network. Both cases and controls were hospitalized with COVID-like illness but the cases tested positive for COVID-19 and the controls tested negative for COVID-19.
“We see a pattern of waning against hospitalization,” Dr. Ruth Link-Gelles of the CDC said while presenting the data to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel as they consider updating the composition of the vaccines.
Link-Gelles didn’t specifically comment on how the effectiveness turned negative but noted the wide confidence intervals for some of the effectiveness estimates.
The bivalent vaccines, made by Moderna and Pfizer, were introduced in the fall of 2022 with the hopes of improving protection against hospitalization and death after the old vaccines proved increasingly incapable of providing sustained shielding.
Dr. Robert Malone, who helped invent the messenger RNA technology utilized by the vaccine companies in their vaccines, said that the negative effectiveness is consistent with prior data such as a study from the Cleveland Clinic that found each successive vaccine dose increased the risk of infection.
Other papers have also estimated that protection against infection turns negative over time. Some datasets have indicated that vaccinated people were at higher risk of hospitalization, long seen as a surrogate for severe disease.
Researchers in one recent paper said that repeated vaccination—some Americans have received a half-dozen COVID-19 shots in under three years—weakens immune systems, potentially making people susceptible to life-threatening conditions such as cancer.
The estimates were negative even after CDC officials made adjustments for factors such as age, sex, and ethnicity. The median time since the last dose for the people who only received one or more doses of an old vaccine was 464 days. For the group who received a bivalent vaccine but saw effectiveness turn negative, the median time was 137 days.
Other Data
Data from another network found that protection neared zero over time.
Among adults deemed immunocompetent after XBB became dominant, the protection from the old vaccines against hospitalization was measured at 9 percent in the CDC’s VISION network. A shot of a bivalent vaccine increased protection to 51 percent, but the shielding plunged to 20 percent 90 to 179 days after the shot.
From September 2022 to May 2023, immunocompromised adults in the same network who only received an old vaccine had just 3 percent protection against hospitalization.
A bivalent shot increased the protection to 39 percent, although the shielding was reduced to 11 percent beyond 119 days.
VISION includes sites across 11 states, including Kaiser Permanente Northern California and Columbia University in New York.
Under half of each age group in the United States has received a bivalent dose, including 43 percent of those age 65 and older and 0.6 percent of 2- to 4-year-olds.
The CDC didn’t present data on the effectiveness against infection.
XBB became dominant in the United States in January, displacing BA.5 and its subvariants. The bivalents contain a BA.4/BA.5 component in addition to the Wuhan component. The FDA plans to update the vaccines to target XBB and its sublineages for a renewed vaccine campaign in late 2023 and early 2024.
“We’re concerned that we may have another wave of COVID-19 during the time when the virus has further evolved, immunity of the population has waned further, and we move indoors for wintertime,” Dr. Peter Marks, an FDA official, said during the meeting.
Turn to ‘Critical Illness’
Officials have increasingly been focusing on protection against so-called critical illness, or intensive care unit admission or death, as protection against hospitalization drops lower and lower.
Protection against critical illness from a bivalent was 58 percent initially and only dropped to 48 percent, according to data from VISION during XBB’s predominance.
There weren’t enough critical cases in the Investigating Respiratory Viruses in the Acutely Ill network to provide estimates of protection against critical illness, Link-Gelles said.
She said that patterns of waning with the bivalent vaccines “have been very similar to what we knew from the monovalent vaccine” and that U.S. officials don’t make vaccine policy decisions “based solely on vaccine effectiveness data.”
Limitations of the data include the high levels of prior infection, or natural immunity, and potential differences between unvaccinated and vaccinated people, officials said.
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Chinese Researchers Demonstrate in Lab D-glucosamine Inhibits SARS-CoV-2 and other Coronaviruses
Researchers from the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, China report in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on the urgent need for the development of broad-spectrum antiviral therapies targeting not only SARS-CoV-2 but also all other coronaviruses, which may either reemerge or emerge for the first time, not to mention mutant variants that can cause so much trouble as humanity discovered during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For example, in China, directed by top-down command and control ethos, this led to extremely costly (both in terms of human health and economy) societal lockdowns, finally changing the so-called “zero tolerance COVID policy” toward the end of the pandemic. In this study involving both infected cells and mice, a dietary supplement with 50 years of use as a regimen against osteoarthritis could possibly, as a supplement administered at daily doses help reduce the impacts of SARS-CoV-2. Of course, more research, including human trials, is needed to investigate the potential of D-glucosamine (GlcN) as a regimen against COVID-19, but the output from this study demonstrates promise.
This research, represented by corresponding authors Chengfeng Qin and Xiaotao Daun, both employed at the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology identified a possible target for broad-spectrum antiviral therapy centering on O-GlcNAcylation, a posttranslational modification derived from hexosamine biosynthetic pathway (HBP), and essential for virus-induced MAVS activation and IFN signaling.
In the lab, the team from the People’s Republic of China identified that a common dietary supplement known as D-glucosamine (GlcN), “enhanced MAVS-mediated IFN signaling, meaning that this low-cost accessible supplement exhibits a broad-spectrum antiviral activity.”
What about applied coronaviruses, however? Before answering that question, a brief overview of D-glucosamine.
What is D-glucosamine?
A naturally occurring amino sugar, D-glucosamine is a building block for various important molecules in the body. It’s a derivative of glucose and is commonly found in the exoskeletons of shellfish, as well as in the tissues of some fungi and microorganisms.
It’s often used as a dietary supplement in support of joint health.
Any studies in humans to date?
Yes. These authors point to a recent clinical study (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04706416) reporting that orally administrated N-acetyl glucosamine (NAG), a downstream metabolite of GlcN, decreases the mortality rate and improves clinical outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients. That was a phase 1 study sponsored by Quantinosis.ai LLC. See the link.
A total of five studies involving D-glucosamine are registered in Clincialtials.gov. They include three complete studies and two active studies. The two active studies include the use of a drug sulodexide which is a mixture of glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) composed of dermatan sulfate (DS) and fast-moving heparin.
The study
The investigational team set up a model for infection based on human lung epithelial cells like Calu-3 and human liver cancer cell line Huh7. The study team used GlcN ultimately at 20mM for 3 h on the Calu-3 or Huh7 cells infected with SARS-CoV-2 at a multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 1.
At 24 hours of infection, the team “observed that SARS-CoV-2 infected cells showed a significantly enhanced intensity of cellular O-GlcNAcylation compared to the non-infected group.”
According to Qin, Duan and their colleagues as conveyed in Nature this observation indicated that SARS-CoV-2 does promote HBP metabolism and protein O-GlcNAcylation in host cells.
Similar to other observations in RSV virus-based infections (e.g., IAV and VSV) they report, “As expected, we found that GlcN significantly increased the cellular level of O-GlcNAcylation and substantially suppressed SARS-CoV-2 replication in infected lung epithelial cells as measured by SARS-CoV-2 spike protein expression.”
The authors further report, “Virus titers in the supernatant were significantly reduced (P < 0.01) in GlcN treatment group.” Additionally, Qin, Duan and colleagues write in their study, “Time course measurements (6 to 24 h post-infection) further confirmed our observation, GlcN treatment significantly inhibited replication of SARS-CoV-2, consistent with titer reduction.”
Moving on, the authors further report the median effective concentration (EC50) value of GlcN against SARS-CoV-2: “GlcN inhibited SARS-CoV-2 infection in Calu-3 cells with a EC50 value of 11.82 mM.”
The authors also conducted an investigation to better understand the viral mechanism of GlcN against the novel coronavirus showcasing intriguing observations that the supplement led to “a considerable increase of both phosphorylated IRF3 and phosphorylated TBK1 and thereby promoted IFN signaling in response to SARS-CoV-2. This in turn decreased the expression of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the GlcN treatment group.”
What about the antiviral effect of GlcN against SARS-CoV-2 in vivo? The authors used mice that were infected and treated with the targeted regimen. While the body weight of the orally GlcN-based treatment of mice remained normal, a review of the impact of GlcN against samples of the mice lungs, spleens and livers showed no inducement of systemic IFN response.
The regimen demonstrated potential against at least a couple of other coronaviruses suggesting the potential for application against a broad spectrum of coronaviruses as well.
Overall, the authors report:
“Taken together, this study demonstrated that GlcN enhances SARS-CoV-2 induced IFNs signaling and restricts SARS-CoV-2 replication in multiple human cell lines. In the SARS-CoV-2 infected mouse model, prophylactic administration of GlcN at a clinical-relevant dose significantly reduces the viral load in lung and trachea, and considerably alleviates lung inflammation.”
Summary
This lab study in China demonstrates that GlcN shows potential efficacy against multiple coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2 in both cell-based and mouse infection models.
The authors remind us:
“GlcN has been clinically applied for the treatment of osteoarthritis for more than 50 years. As a nutrient supplement, orally administered GlcN at daily doses ranging from 750 to 3500 mg is well tolerated in human subjects. Given the safety profile and its broad-spectrum anti-HCoVs activity, GlcN may serve as a promising drug for preventing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and its emerging variants in healthy populations.”
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Sunday, June 18, 2023
The Nail in the COVID Coffin
We can now say definitively that the virus came from the Wuhan lab because three named workers were the earliest to become infected.
Granted, the American people have mostly moved beyond COVID-19, both literally and figuratively. But there are still some vital housekeeping matters to take care of — and as of this week, one less of them: We now know definitively, not speculatively, from whence it came. As independent journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag write on Substack:
After years of official pronouncements to the contrary, significant new evidence has emerged that strengthens the case that the SARS-CoV-2 virus accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
According to multiple U.S. government officials interviewed as part of a lengthy investigation by Public and Racket, the first people infected by the virus, “patients zero,” included Ben Hu, a researcher who led the WIV’s “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses, which increases the infectiousness of viruses.
“Strengthens the case”? These gents are being too modest. This closes the case and puts a nail in its coffin, to mix our metaphors. It’s one thing to identify the Wuhan lab as the source of the deadly scourge, but it’s another thing entirely to name individual names, which is what this new report does: the aforementioned Ben Hu, and Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. These are three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2, and they all worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
B-b-b-but, but, they could’ve all been shopping for some fresh dog or pangolin at that nearby wet market!
Yeah, right.
This, of course, isn’t the first time that anyone has claimed COVID-19 came from a lab. Heck, this humble correspondent has been claiming it for years. And doubling down on it.
As for those apologies, we aren’t holding our breath. Still, it’s instructive to remember just how wrong these people have been proven to be. Even lefty Jon Stewart, who came out of retirement to address his people’s Krazy Glue adherence to the theory that a bat flew into the cloaca of a turkey and resulted in the deaths of — depending on who’s counting — more than 1.1 million deaths in the U.S. and nearly seven million deaths worldwide.
It’s also worth remembering the evolution of the blame. As first, everyone was calling it “the Wuhan coronavirus.” But then the ChiComs put the arm on their leftist fellow travelers here in the U.S., and pretty soon it became racist to imply that the Wuhan coronavirus was in fact the Wuhan coronavirus. Take a look.
But merely identifying the Wuhan lab and its earliest victims isn’t the end of it. There’s also the matter of the Chinese military’s involvement. As Shellenberger writes elsewhere on Substack: “You may recall that The New York Times called Robert F. Kennedy a ‘conspiracy theorist’ for saying Covid resulted from a bio-weapons program. And yet one of the State Department cables [which were recently obtained via a FOIA request] shows a connection between China’s biotechnology sector and the Chinese military (People’s Liberation Army), which included its construction of the Wuhan lab.”
The ChiComs’ military involvement in COVID-19 gained momentum earlier this week, when the UK’s Sunday Times published a bombshell report about it. As our Nate Jackson wrote:
Researchers “were combining the world’s most deadly coronaviruses to create a new mutant virus,” the Times says. This gain-of-function research using viruses collected from bats was funded in part with U.S. taxpayer money funneled from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through EcoHealth Alliance, which almost certainly lied to keep the funding coming, and conducted by “researchers from the Chinese military” who were “pursuing bioweapons.”
We wonder: Will the commie apologists affix the “RACIST!” label to those of us who are now suggesting, with ever-increasing evidence, that the Red Chinese military is behind all this? Time will tell. And time will tell whether the ChiComs will pay any real price for what they’ve done. (By the way: How is it racist to think that the Chinese are both intelligent enough to develop a deadly virus and stupid enough to accidentally leak it, but it’s not racist to accuse them of shopping at these weird wet markets and eating dogs and bats and pangolins and hedgehogs?)
National Review’s Jim Geraghty reminds us what happened to an honest Chinese doctor who tried to alert the rest of the world to what was happening back when it could’ve saved millions of lives:
The problem was that when those doctors tried to pull the alarm, the local, regional, and national Chinese government authorities above them kept shutting down their efforts until it was too late. Dr. Li Wenliang got dragged into a police station and was berated for “rumormongering” and for “publishing untrue statements,” and threatened with prosecution. A little more than a month later, the virus that he had desperately tried to warn his countrymen and the world about killed him.
Earlier in the week, Geraghty noted an exhaustive Times of London piece which leads folks to a single inevitable conclusion — or one of two conclusions, if you’re a dead-ender who can’t agree with Donald Trump under any circumstances: “Either Covid-19 plagued the globe because of an accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in late 2019, or an absolutely remarkable series of coincidences, against overwhelming odds, led to a virus that has never been found in nature infecting a human being just down the road where the WIV was doing gain-of-function research on the virus in nature that is most similar to SARS-CoV-2.”
The question now is: What are we going to do about it — not only with respect to the Chinese, who have yet to atone for it, but also regarding those here in the U.S. who went to such extraordinary lengths to defend the purveyors, to hide the truth, and to rewrite history?
As blogger and public health expert Michael Hanna writes, “The most troubling part for me is knowing that this will likely happen again, and again — unless some very nasty consequences are brought to bear for those who knowingly or unknowingly enabled this unmitigated disaster in funding and oversight of biohazardous research.”
https://patriotpost.us/articles/98113
****************************************************US presidency through the Covid lens
We stand at a Covid cross-roads. On one side, there is by now a wealth of studies demonstrating the negligible benefits of the key pandemic interventions. In May the US finally ended its ban on unvaccinated foreigners’ entry into the country. A study by Kevin Bardosch looked at 600 publications using a ‘harm framework’ to conclude that ‘the collateral damage of the pandemic response was substantial, wide-ranging and will leave behind a legacy of harm for hundreds of millions of people in the years ahead’, exactly as many of us warned from the beginning. In June a major peer-reviewed meta-analysis of 20,000 studies from the Institute of Economic Affairs by US, Swedish and Danish researchers concluded that, regarding stringent lockdowns, in the words of co-author Steve Hanke, ‘the lives saved were a drop in the bucket compared to the staggering collateral costs imposed’.
On the other hand, there remain many disquieting indicators of the continuing hold that the failed and discredited narratives have on policymakers and publics to suggest that the insanity could be repeated at short notice. For example, Biden’s pick as the new CDC director, Mandy Cohen, is a lockdown, mask and vaccine fanatic. On 14 August 2020 she tweeted a photo of herself wearing a mask imprinted with a portrait of the execrable Anthony Fauci. Many of the worst offenders on lockdown, masks and vaccines have been honoured with gongs while the likes of Oxford University’s Carl Heneghan and Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya were monitored by the government’s Counter-Disinformation Unit and heavily censored on social media. Governments remain stubbornly resistant to investigating the concerning phenomenon of excess deaths. The WHO and the European Commission have launched a digital health initiative for creating global vaccine passports. The WHO effort at expanded powers to rule over the world through a new treaty and/or amended international health regulations remains on track.
President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning, in his farewell address of 17 January 1961, of ‘the military-industrial complex’ is one of the most quoted phrases of any US president. In the same speech, he also warned of another danger: ‘The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money’ such that ‘public policy could… become the captive of a scientific-technological elite’. The lens of how various leaders managed the pandemic therefore helps us to frame the contest in terms of their respective culpability in enabling and facilitating the grave attacks on freedoms, versus their capacity and willingness to resist and reverse the blanket of authoritarianism that has suffocated liberal democracies since 2020.
Because of the dominant influence of America on the rest of the democratic world, the US presidential contest has unique global resonance. Lord Sumption, the former UK Supreme Court justice, said in May 2020 that ‘the lockdown is without doubt the greatest interference with personal liberty in our history’. On 18 May US Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch echoed Sumption: ‘Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country’.
In this perspective, the ideal Republican and Democratic champions would be Ron DeSantis and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. No one else comes close in the two parties to their record in forceful opposition to lockdowns, masks and vaccines. For them to triumph in the primaries would mean the campaign will be a referendum on Covid, the resistance heroes win the public debate, and the new president has a clear mandate to revert to pre-Covid normality. At present both are miles behind the two front-runners Trump and Biden in the RealClearPolitics poll of polls and betting averages. However, both DeSantis and Kennedy are well clear of other candidates. Considering both have only recently declared, this is an impressive solid base on which to build.
Democrats have been unsettled by the high profile and surging support for Kennedy. On many character and judgment attributes, voters rate Kennedy higher than Biden. In the Echelon poll in May Kennedy scored a massive 40 per cent net favourability advantage over Biden. Little wonder Republican political consultant Douglas MacKinnon believes that Kennedy will be the Democratic nominee. Of course, the media continues to smear Kennedy for kooky conspiracy theories even as many have come true. But he has name recognition, speaks with passion and gravitas and as an experienced trial lawyer, has good debating skills.
In DeSantis, Trump faces the most successful, best funded and best prepared intra-party opponent of his political career. DeSantis gained national profile for turning a marginal victory in 2018 into a landslide in 2022, colouring America’s biggest swing state from rosé to ruby red. Many Americans applaud DeSantis for the fightback against the metastasising woke ideology. He famously declared ‘Florida is where woke goes to die’. Good leaders pick highly capable aides and work well with them over many years. Trump is notable for the rapid churn of most of his hand-picked senior aides. He demands total loyalty but gives none in return. For most of this year, the focus of Trump’s ire and schoolyard insults has been DeSantis. The Republican base loves DeSantis, if less than Trump, and reviles former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. In his desperation to wound DeSantis on Covid management, Trump has gone full-on Cuomosexual, besties with benefits. Because Cuomo is toxic among diehard Republicans, Trump risks damaging his own standing with them.
In a one-minute video rant, Trump accused Florida of having the third-worst Covid death rate in the US. ‘Even [former New York governor Andrew] Cuomo did better, he was number 4’. Put aside the fact that Trump himself moved to Florida. On the raw figures, the US national average is 352.5 Covid deaths per 100,000 people. Florida is tenth-worst with 412.1 deaths/100k and New York ranks 16 with 399.1 deaths/100k. But the CDC’s state-by-state analysis of age-adjusted Covid mortality (a more accurate mortality metric) gives the national average as 282.9. Florida ranks a lowly 36 among the 50 mainland states with 245.2 compared to New York’s 311.7 that put it at number 17. Trump’s instincts may have been libertarian but he allowed himself to be manipulated into policies that have produced disastrous consequences. DeSantis attacked Trump for turning over the country to Fauci in Match 2020 that ‘destroyed millions of peoples’ lives’.
Trump’s federal indictment on 9 June for holding classified documents throws a wrench into all calculations: will it derail his candidacy or solidify support in anger at the Democrats’ weaponisation of the criminal justice system?
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/us-presidency-through-the-covid-lens/
********************************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Friday, June 16, 2023
mRNA vaccines fast-tracked for Australian agriculture
After the spectacular failure of mRNA vaccines in human trials, the agricultural industry is pushing ahead with mRNA vaccines for livestock engaged in the food industry.
Whispers of stock ‘dying suddenly’ will no doubt become a complaint of farmers in the future, summarily ignored by government in the same way officials refuse to listen to serious concerns about dam-building restrictions, price hikes on Ag products, ridiculous fees and charges, incomprehensible red and green tape, biosecurity regulations that do nothing, and – fresh out of Western Australia – expensive negotiations with Indigenous groups who have never set foot on the land they claim to ‘own’.
In one example that mRNA is on its way Down Under, on May 2, 2023, Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) announced funding for a project to ‘test mRNA vaccines that can be rapidly mass-produced in Australia in the event of a lumpy skin disease or other exotic disease outbreak’.
The Manager for Animal Wellbeing, released a statement saying:
‘This project will develop a mRNA vaccine pipeline initially for LSD, but potentially for other emergency diseases. This will enable capacity for rapid mass production of a vaccine for LSD in the event of an outbreak. No LSD vaccines are registered for use in Australia yet. While some vaccines exist overseas, the path to registration in Australia for traditionally-produced [vaccines] is longer than that of an mRNA vaccine.’
Why are traditional vaccines, which have safety records that outstrip mRNA vaccines, subject to longer approval periods than mRNA vaccines? That sounds like a significant structural failure within Australia’s health body that, instead of being fixed, has the potential to be exploited by manufacturers looking to cash in on mRNA.
mRNA vaccines are quick to produce and ‘nimble’, which is why pharmaceutical companies like them – but that doesn’t mean that they are safe, effective, or suitable for consumers whether those are humans or livestock.
A 2022 article in PubMed Central notes: ‘Recently, the successful application of mRNA vaccines against Covid has further validated the platform and opened the floodgates to mRNA vaccine’s potential in infectious disease prevention, especially in the veterinary field.’
No doubt this is why we keep hearing bleatings of ‘emergency’ and ‘outbreak’ in the same breath as mRNA, as if to remind us of the mantra used during the Covid era to embark on what the former Health Minister referred to as the ‘largest clinical trial – the largest global vaccine trial ever’. Look how that turned out.
The fall-out of Covid mRNA vaccines is likely to continue for the best part of a century as a percentage of vaccinated individuals ‘die suddenly’ or suffer from long-term debilitating illnesses. These are quickly becoming a burden for the health industry and state finances after vaccine manufacturers hand-waved responsibility because it was an ‘emergency’. Most nations are setting up compensation pools of cash to cope with the growing list of individuals who claim to have been harmed.
Another excuse used to feather the nest of mRNA vaccines is that they are thought to provide the solution for influenza-style viruses which traditional vaccines have proven ineffective against. Everyone wants to see an effective vaccine against respiratory viruses, but it’s almost as if the doe-eyed vaccine industry has put on a blindfold for the last three years. mRNA Covid vaccines did next to nothing to combat or control the influenza-style Covid and do not, based on what we have seen, offer any advantage to traditional vaccines for this problem beyond the feel-good marketing headlines. There is a strong argument that for the majority of the population, they did more harm than good.
Instead of suspending all mRNA vaccines until we understand what went wrong, they are being given priority treatment by regulators and championed by manufacturers who love the competitive edge of speed their production offers. Governments, particularly the (broke?) Victorian state government, are funnelling tens of millions into mRNA development to keep capitalising on the political popularity they enjoyed during the Covid era.
MLA note that mRNA vaccines should be ready for use within two years and while everyone is busy stressing that this will be a ‘voluntary’ option for the farming community, vaccines inside the agricultural industry rarely are if a producer wishes to sell their product into domestic and international markets. If we go down the mRNA vaccine production line, it is extremely likely that Australians will be eating mRNA-vaccinated livestock within a couple of years with very little understanding of what this will mean health-wise.
Anyone who criticises mRNA vaccines or their potential future within the agricultural industry are paraded through the press as ‘conspiracy theorists’ with publications quick to send out the fact-checkers to insist that it’s pure fear-mongering to suggest fragments of these vaccines will end up in the food chain.
Except, it was a ‘conspiracy theory’ to suggest that the human body would continue making Covid mRNA vaccines long after the injection, or to raise concerns that it would leave the site of the injection. Not only did the fears described as ‘conspiracy’ prove to be true, the behaviour and side effects of Covid mRNA vaccines are reaching well beyond what anyone predicted.
How sure are we that in the rush to saturate the market with mRNA vaccines, that proper long-term testing will be conducted, particularly when it comes to lingering in meat and milk? Will it impact high-risk activities such as calving, given there is a strong suspicion that Covid vaccines are responsible for a spike in human miscarriages?
Keep in mind that we are still being told Covid vaccines are ‘safe and effective’. The Australian government, sitting on a pile of unwanted vaccines, is spending public money on marketing campaigns, encouraging Australians to go and get their booster shots at the same time other countries have removed Covid vaccines.
At least some States in the US are taking note, rushing to pass legislation to ban the use of mRNA vaccines for animals involved in the food industry whose meat or milk is produced for human consumption. Idaho is one example where it will be a misdemeanour to use mRNA vaccines – and that includes the Covid vaccines.
Australians need to be aware that mRNA vaccines are coming for the agricultural industry and they will likely be compulsory. America is having a serious conversation about whether this should be allowed, and Australia needs to do the same thing. It is perfectly reasonable to require extensive long-term safety data before we revolutionise agriculture.
This conversation will not happen on its own. Australia’s agricultural elite resemble a body of yes-men nodding furiously toward mRNA. Family farmers – disempowered, constrained, and demoralised – have no voice in this matter. Their wishes will be bulldozed by a small collection of billion-dollar farming entities, several of which are foreign-owned.
If Australians care about what they eat, it’s time to start making a racket.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/mrna-vaccines-fast-tracked-for-australian-agriculture
************************************Vaccine advisory group to meet, including vaccine critics
Current vaccines of little use
TrialSite has reported that this week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Vaccines and Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), a group of independent experts in the fields of virology and vaccinology, will meet tomorrow, Thursday June 15 from 8:30AM to 5:00PM ET, accessible via YouTube.
Among other presenters and speakers will be David Wiseman, Ph.D., a frequent TrialSite contributor and critique as to how government agencies such as the FDA have conducted its affairs during the pandemic. TrialSite has reported how both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) have made the call to accelerate the move away from the current COVID-19 vaccine formulations to more relevant Omicron strains such as those associated with XBB lineages.
TrialSite wrote and warned frequently during the early parts of the mass countermeasure roll out that it would be difficult to impossible to control SARS-CoV-2 with vaccines. A dynamic, mutating RNA virus, the pathogen drastically changed over the last couple years, emerging as not only more transmissible but also less severe. The pathogen increasingly evaded the defensive powers of the COVID-19 vaccines.
The FDA’s briefing artifacts point to a comparable direction for the American vaccine regulator. TrialSite reviewed the artifacts, finding that Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax need to advance formulations, becoming monovalent again, targeting the Omicron XBB sublineages with an emphasis on XBB.1.5, XBB.1.6 or XBB.2.3. The FDA now embraces a process comparable to how the specific annual influenza vaccine is selected.
The current COVID-19 vaccine in use in America, the bivalent booster (index strain plus Omicron BA.4/BA.5), has emerged as the only vaccine product recommended by the FDA. But there is just one problem: The strains that this vaccine targets are basically extinct. The quality of this product as measured by durability and breadth of effectiveness is questionable---at least this is the case according to TrialSite. Also as TrialSite’s founder recently argues for in an opinion piece, the government should invest in more detailed safety reviews.
So, expected at tomorrow’s meeting is that a strain will be selected, and then the pharmaceutical companies of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax will be expected to update their platforms with the targeted updated strains. Importantly, as is the case with WHO, EMA and CDC, the pharmaceutical vaccine makers will not have to revalidate their platforms. This means that human clinical trials data will likely not be required assuming a sufficient collection of prespecified data meeting key targets are provided by the vaccine makers before authorization by the agency. However, this process has detractors, such as Dr. David Wiseman, who argues changes to formulation have included material modifications to the vaccines necessitating validation—meaning extensive clinical trials to verify efficacy and safety.
The current bivalent BA.4/BA.5 vaccine now streamlined as the only option in America based on a handful of studies affords only nominal to slightly improved neutralizing antibody protection against current predominant SARS-CoV-2 Omicron strains such as XBB and XBB.1 than compared to three doses of the original monovalent jab.
Moreover, the bivalent jabs met significant hesitance among the American healthcare market, COVID-19 or not. Americans were increasingly hesitant due to a confluence of factors including concerns about vaccine quality and safety. Under 20% of the eligible population opted to even receive the jab.
By February of 2023, the CDC reported that the XBB 1.5, an Omicron lineage, emerged as the predominant SARS-CoV-2 pathogen in circulation. First detected in October 2022, by May 2023, the University of Nebraska reported XBB.1.5 emerged with 53.8% of all cases, followed by XBB.1.16 with 15.1% of cases, and XBB.1.8.1 with 11.8 of cases. According to Dr. Mark Rupp, “The original omicron variant is gone now.”
The FDA has noted in the past that “intrinsic viral factors” such as rate of mutation and recombination potential suggest greater transmissibility and adaptation to the human host while host immune response and a confluence of other forces may contribute to selection of variants. An outspoken critic, Belgium vaccine specialist Geert vanden Bossche has gone on the record that it was a mistake to conduct a mass vaccination in the middle of a pandemic. While the conventional wisdom of medical and scientific establishments, often unduly influenced by industry, points to the vaccines saving millions of lives.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Thursday, June 15, 2023
Wuhan lab engineered dangerous mutant coronaviruses, worked with Chinese military to develop bioweapons and pre-pandemic COVID vaccines, according to eye-opening report
Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China were intentionally merging dangerous coronaviruses to create new mutant viruses just before the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to a new report. At the same time, the Chinese military was pursuing biological weapons while also funding researchers at the Wuhan lab, investigators reportedly said.
"As the world emerged from lockdown, U.S. State Department investigators were given access to secret intelligence on what had been happening in China in the months and years before COVID emerged," the report read. "More than a dozen investigators were given unparalleled access to 'metadata, phone information and internet information' from intercepts collected by the U.S. intelligence services."
The Sunday Times spoke with three members of the investigative team, which determined: "Wuhan scientists were conducting experiments on RaTG13 from the Moijang mine, and that covert military research, including laboratory animal experiments, was being done at the institute before the pandemic."
The source claimed that scientists at the Wuhan lab were working on nine different COVID variants.
In 2012, six men clearing an abandoned copper mine in the Mojiang region of south China were infected with a mystery illness, that had symptoms of fever, coughs, and pneumonia. Three of the men required treatment at a hospital and later died. The men did not test positive for any known illnesses, but did have antibodies for an unknown coronavirus.
The cave in Mojiang had a large bat colony, and the cave was littered with guano – bat feces.
A virus was recovered from the cave in the remote mountains of Yunnan province in southern China. The discovery was made by the team led by Dr. Shi Zhengli – a top Chinese researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, who was known as China's "bat woman."
Around 2018, the Wuhan Institute of Virology reportedly began combining SARS-like viruses with the cave virus labeled as "WIV1," using the Wuhan lab's initials. Rutgers University Professor of Chemical Biology Richard Ebright described the project as the most dangerous coronavirus experiment ever undertaken.
The combination of viruses killed 75% of the albino mice with human-like lungs that were infected with – three times as lethal as the original WIV1.
The Sunday Times stated, "The scientists had created a highly infectious super-coronavirus with a terrifying kill-rate that in all probability would never have emerged in nature. The new genetically modified virus was not COVID-19 but it might have been even more deadly if it had leaked."
The gain-of-function experiment was partially funded by EcoHealth Alliance's grant money. However, documents obtained by the Freedom of Information Act show that the deaths of the infected mice were not mentioned in an April 2018 progress report to the NIH by EcoHealth Alliance's president Peter Daszak.
Daszak reportedly applied for more funding, and asked for $14 million over three years from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. However, DARPA rejected the application to fund the research.
"The application, entitled Defuse — which names Daszak, Shi and Baric — proposed the Wuhan laboratory find large numbers of new SARS viruses and mix some of them with their two deadly strains from the Shitou cave — WIV1 and SHC014 — to see what would happen," the Sunday Times said.
In November 2019, several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology purportedly got sick and were taken to a hospital with symptoms similar to COVID. A relative of one of the laboratory workers allegedly died from the same mystery illness.
"We were rock-solid confident that this was likely COVID-19 because they were working on advanced coronavirus research in the laboratory," an investigator said. "They’re trained biologists in their thirties and forties. Thirty-five-year-old scientists don’t get very sick with influenza.”
At the time of the outbreak, which was a month before the West was made aware of the mystery virus, researchers at the Wuhan lab were conducting dangerous experiments, according to the Sunday Times, citing two U.S. researchers who collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The investigators also saw evidence that the institute was conducting “serial passaging” experiments on at least one of the mine viruses. This is a process in which lab animals are infected with viruses and monitored to see which strain is harmful to their health. The most damaging strain is selected for repeat experiments to encourage the pathogens to mutate into something more deadly.
The investigators spoke to a Wuhan institute insider who alleged serial passaging experiments were being carried out on RaTG13. “Humanized mice with the serial passaging is a toxic combination,” said a source. “It speeds up the natural mutation process. So instead of taking years to mutate, it can take weeks or months. It guarantees that you accelerate the natural process."
Dr. Steven Quay, a U.S. scientist who advised the State Department on its investigation, said, "There has never been an example of a bat virus directly infecting humans and killing."
Quay believes COVID-19 was created by inserting a furin cleavage site into one of the mine viruses and then serial passaging it through humanized mice. He submitted a statement to the U.S. Senate explaining the process. “You infect the mice, wait a week or so, and then recover the virus from the sickest mice. Then you repeat. In a matter of weeks this directed evolution will produce a virus that can kill every humanized mouse.” This explains why from the beginning of the outbreak, he says, the pandemic virus was so remarkably well adapted to infect humans.
The Sunday Times noted that there is no published information about the experiments because it was a top-secret program funded by the Chinese military. U.S. State Department investigators determined that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had conducted experiments on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017.
The report stated, "The investigators believe the Chinese military had taken an interest in developing a vaccine for the viruses so they could be used as potential bioweapons. If a country could inoculate its population against its own secret virus, it might have a weapon to shift the balance of world power."
A U.S. investigator told the British outlet, "My view is that the reason Mojiang was covered up was due to military secrecy related to [the army’s] pursuit of dual use capabilities in virological biological weapons and vaccines."
The Sunday Times reported:
The PLA had its own vaccine specialist, Zhou Yusen, a decorated military scientist at the academy, who had collaborated with the Wuhan scientists on a study of the MERS coronavirus and was working with them at the time of the outbreak. Suspicion fell on him after the pandemic because he produced a patent for a COVID vaccine with remarkable speed in February 2020, little more than a month after the outbreak of the virus had first been admitted to the world by China.
A report published in April, co-authored by Dr Robert Kadlec, who was responsible for the U.S.’s vaccine development program, concluded that Zhou’s team must have been working on a vaccine no later than November 2019 — just as the pandemic began.
Zhou died in May 2020, at age 54.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/wuhan-lab-leak-chinese-military-covid
**************************************************Back to the Future of COVID-19--Event at White House Requires Unvaxxed to Don a Mask
Yes, the pandemic and its corresponding emergency ended last month. Yes, the Omicron variant of SARS-COV-2, overall, has far less severe impacts as measured in number of hospitalization and mortality cases than previous COVID-19 surges. And yes, the science is quite clear at this point that the COVID-19 vaccines are not sterilizing, meaning they do not stop viral transmission in any predictable manner and hence, do not control the pathogen’s spread in any expected way. The jabs are associated with reduced morbidity and mortality. No, the news, apparently, hasn’t hit the Biden White House. Evidencing such a reality, according to multiple reports, a group of NCAA athletes were invited to the White House by President Joe Biden, accompanied by first lady Jill Biden to attend “College Athlete Day” on June 12. In association with this event, members of Congress were invited to attend by the White House’s Office of Legislative Affairs. The lawmakers had to get a COVID-19 test in advance of the event and if they were unvaccinated, they were required to wear a mask, according to a Fox News account.
This news allegation brought back the spring of 2021. During that time, while TrialSite was already reporting on studies evidencing the prospect of breakthrough infection due to the combination of a mutating pathogen and COVID-19 vaccine durability challenges, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Walensky told Americans that if they got vaccinated with one of the COVID-19 vaccines they could lose their masks—vaccinated persons no longer would be required to wear the mask indoors or outdoors in a majority of circumstances.
Yet by late July, the CDC reversed that decision, declaring again that fully vaccinated people in the U.S would need to wear a mask against, at least in doors in locations where COVID-19 transmission rates were high. Why the reversal? Among other things, the durability challenges associated with the vaccines were now apparent in the unfolding science.
Fast forward to June 12, 2023, and regardless of the facts delineated at the top of this article, while the members of Congress attending the event don’t need to take a COVID-19 test, they do need to come masked and prepared to socially distance themselves.
According to Fox News, the email invitation declared:
“Masking Guidance: Fully vaccinated guests are not required to wear a mask on the White House grounds. Guests who are not fully vaccinated must wear a mask at all times and maintain at least 6 feet distance from others while on the White House grounds.”
This decision represents a political one for the most part. While some fear of COVID-19 lingers, the organizers of this event, or some influential group within the White House, wants to reinforce the value of the COVID-19 vaccines.
SARS-CoV-2 emerges as a pathogen comparable to influenza. This comparison is now made by both the World Health Organization as well as the CDC when it comes to planning ongoing vaccination schedule planning. During flu season, is it normal at all to segregate those persons that received their flu shot from those that did not—and demanding that the latter wear masks. When will people wake up to the ludicrous, divisive nature of these actions?
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Wednesday, June 14, 2023
Tuesday, June 13, 2023
The Clash of Truth and Power: Exposing the Underbelly of COVID-19 Censorship
While Twitter’s Yoel Roth was reluctant to shut down accounts on the basis of a false Russian disinformation narrative, those kinds of hurdles were no longer a problem when COVID arrived. If it was in the name of COVID, anything went, no questions asked.
In fact, in some cases, the government did not even have to ask. For instance, it wasn’t Anthony Fauci who reached out to Facebook. It was Facebook that reached out to Fauci.
On March 15, 2020, one day before “15 days to slow” the spread was announced, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg emailed Fauci to propose collaboration between Fauci and Facebook on putting out what Zuckerberg called “authoritative information from reliable sources.”
Fauci responded favorably and so Facebook’s COVID censorship regime in coordination with Fauci was born.
That regime entailed “not allow[ing] false claims about the vaccines or vaccination programs which public health experts have advised us could lead to COVID-19 vaccine rejection”
And it wasn’t just vaccines. Posts about hydroxychloroquine were also censored by Facebook, not because it was best practice but because that was the government line supported by Fauci. The same happened with Ivermectin.
Recall that getting the mRNA vaccines approved in fast track mode was only legally possible if there were no other treatments available. It is no wonder then that government actors such as Fauci and social media giants such as Facebook made sure that even just talking about alternative treatments was effectively forbidden.
The censorship regime grew so quickly and so wide that preeminent epidemiologists such as Jay Bhattacharya were not only silenced for their views but called “fringe epidemiologists”– by the head of the National Institutes of Health no less.
What was it that Bhattacharya said that got him and his colleagues that label? It was the Great Barrington Declaration which, as we know now—and many knew back then—merely stated mainstream epidemiological doctrine. There was nothing fringe about it whatsoever.
But the label worked and Bhattacharya and his colleagues Martin Kulldorff and Sunetra Gupta were ostracized from the scientific community and by the media.
Ironically, the Great Barrington Declaration is now widely accepted as the common sense approach to COVID. But when it mattered, the government, the media, and social media censored any mention of it.
We at The Epoch Times strongly rejected this and went in the other direction. We were among the first to give alternative voices a platform to be heard.
We had some experience with this from the Russia collusion saga where we were also among the first media outlets to pursue the real facts and not the Washington, D.C. narrative. Everything we wrote at that time has now been vindicated by the Durham Report which was published earlier this week.
The same can be said with respect to COVID. We were the first to report on many stories that were being censored by the corporate media. Lockdowns, masks, vaccines, and so on. I did not know Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff before COVID. We got to know each other because they resisted the censorship and Epoch was open to their ideas.
The Epoch Times also produced a documentary on the origin of COVID which was first broadcast on April 7, 2020, just as Anthony Fauci had started pushing his natural origin narrative.
I’ve just rewatched our documentary and looking back, we got almost everything right about the Wuhan lab. In fact two days after we first broadcast the documentary, the director of Anthony Fauci’s stateside lab at Galveston, a man called James Le Duc, who also happened to have personally trained Wuhan lab staff, started privately discussing our documentary with colleagues. They were all very much aware that the pandemic likely started at the lab.
So while Epoch was being chastised as a conspiracy theory outlet, the people at the center of the affair were privately discussing that Epoch was putting out the facts. It took years of FOIA litigation to obtain the emails of these public health officials which is how we know that their private views were the opposite of their public views.
Sadly, it was during this time that we were demonetized by YouTube—which is another indicator of the huge toolkit that tech giants have in controlling speech.
While I’m on the topic of YouTube, I can also share with you that we used to upload rough cuts of some of our upcoming shows on YouTube as a convenient way to collect comments from contributors. These videos were unlisted and not public. Only a few people had access. Yet when the videos talked about vaccines or masks, YouTube would take them down.
I don’t think we had a personal censor, it’s just that the algorithm scanned these videos, found that it contained certain forbidden words and so they were taken down. That’s the pernicious impact of technology.
Which brings us back to the First Amendment. A hundred years of American jurisprudence has maintained that in a free society speech must be free, even if it is untruthful.
As recently as 2012, Justice Anthony Kennedy—in United States v. Alvarez—affirmed that “The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true …. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth.”
If the Great Barrington Declaration was unreasoned and uninformed, well, then free speech would have exposed its defects.
But there were no defects, which is why it had to be aggressively suppressed instead. That is the lesson here. Speech is not suppressed because it is wrong, it is suppressed because it interferes with someone’s agenda.
So what was the agenda and why did the government, the media, and social media rally around this one agenda rather than let alternative voices on COVID be heard?
There are of course many factors and many theories. Take Fauci for instance. He had many reasons to push a false narrative on COVID. For one thing, he knew there was a strong likelihood that his funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology had caused the pandemic in the first place.
But he had other reasons too. Fauci’s entire career had been centered on discovering universal vaccines. This is why he was pushing gain-of-function experiments. COVID was a once in a lifetime opportunity to fast track an entirely new genre of vaccines and to do it on a global scale. Correctly pointing out that COVID was not particularly dangerous for large swathes of the population, or highlighting the existence of alternative remedies, stood in the way of Fauci’s universal vaccine ambitions.
But that’s just Fauci. Why did everyone else jump on the bandwagon, casting aside a hundred years of not only medical science but also of hard earned civil liberties?
I think to answer that, we have to go back to Trump. When I talked about the beginnings of the government censorship regime, I did not only do so for historical context but also to show how Trump—specifically a deep dislike of Trump among the Washington, D.C. Beltway crowd—drove these efforts.
And I think it was that same motivation that drove many of the COVID censorship efforts. That’s not to say that there would have been no COVID censorship without Trump but dislike of Trump was certainly the glue that allowed all these various forces to coalesce.
When Trump said the virus came out of the Wuhan lab, there was an instant push toward the opposite narrative. When Trump said to try hydroxychloroquine, there was an instant push to outlaw off-label use of it. When Trump said to reopen the economy, the entire media complex aggressively pushed against that.
You get the point. Again and again, the forces of censorship were united by their dislike of Trump.
So how do we stop it from happening again?
One of the things that the pandemic starkly exposed is that there is a mechanism that can manufacture perceived consensus in our society, even when nothing near a consensus actually exists. It exposed that as human beings, many of us are susceptible to being influenced by that perceived consensus, journalists, scientists, government leaders, bureaucrats, and lay people alike.
We’re susceptible to this “megaphone,” as I like to call it.
The megaphone can influence us to dislike Trump, or dislike him more, or to dislike the person the powers that be anoint as the next Trump. It can influence us to be suspicious of, and even to demonize so-called “fringe epidemiologists” or “the unvaccinated.” It generates in us emotions that become deeply entrenched.
So what can we do?
We can set up and support parallel, truth-seeking organizations like The Chicago Thinker and The Epoch Times, like Hillsdale’s Academy for Science and Freedom that Drs. Arnn, Atlas, Bhattacharya & Kulldorff started to foster truth seeking in science (amazing that I have to say that!), like the Academic Sanity Consortium that is organizing this event.
But I would argue that it’s the censorship regime that has emerged as of 2017 that has particularly supercharged the megaphone.
The only immediate path is the legal path. Now is the time to set clear boundaries in stone, preferably by the Supreme Court.
That is why the case brought against the government by Missouri and Louisiana is so important. The case seeks a declaration that the government cannot get involved in policing speech. The declaration would block all federal government officials from collaborating, coercing, and colluding with media or social media companies to interfere with First Amendment rights.
Although Missouri and Louisiana have won a string of victories, the case will likely end up in the Supreme Court—which we should welcome.
A strong declaration from the Supreme Court that these public-private censorship efforts we saw during COVID are unlawful is probably the best insurance we can hope for right now to prevent future abuses
https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-clash-of-truth-and-power-exposing-the-underbelly-of-covid-19-censorship_5310698.html ?
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Monday, June 12, 2023
Mark Zuckerberg admits the establishment censored coronavirus skepticism that ended up being true or debatable: 'It really undermines trust'
Mark Zuckerberg said that the establishment was wrong to censor skepticism during the coronavirus pandemic that ended up being either true or debatable.
Zuckerberg, who is the CEO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, made the comments during an interview on the "Lex Fridman Podcast" while explaining the difficulties of identifying misinformation on social media.
"So misinformation, I think, has been a really tricky one because there are things that are obviously false, right, or they may be factual but may not be harmful. So are you gonna censor someone for just being wrong? If there's no kind of harm implication of what they're doing? There's a bunch of real issues and challenges there," said Zuckerberg.
"Just take some of the stuff around COVID earlier in the pandemic where there were real health implications, but there hadn't been time to fully vet a bunch of the scientific assumptions," he continued.
They don’t want you to see this … Big Tech does its best to limit what news you see. Make sure you see our stories daily — directly to your inbox.
"Unfortunately, I think a lot of the kind of establishment on that kind of waffled on a bunch of facts and asked for a bunch of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or true. And that stuff is really tough, right?" he added.
"It really undermines trust," Zuckerberg concluded.
Zuckerberg has been criticized by many on the right, most notably for censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story just ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
In an interview with Joe Rogan in August, Zuckerberg said that Facebook censored the story on the basis that the FBI had previously warned about the possibility of Russian disinformation being released in order to damage the Biden presidential campaign.
"We just kind of thought, hey look, if the FBI, which I still view is a legitimate institution in this country, it's a very professional law enforcement, they come to us and tell us that we need to be on guard about something, then I want to take that seriously," he explained at the time.
Zuckerberg said that they restricted the reach of the story after believing it fit the guidelines of Russian disinformation issued by the FBI. He said he didn't remember whether the FBI specifically singled out the Hunter Biden laptop story as disinformation.
Can Fluvoxamine Help Mitigate Some of the Problems with Long COVID? Dr. Eric Lenze is on a Mission
TrialSite has extensively chronicled fluvoxamine research during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the effort while Dr. David Boulware submitted an emergency use authorization (EUA) request to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but unfortunately, the agency rejected the initiative.
Involved early on with the research, Dr. Eric Lenze is at it again. The Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis investigator serves as Principal Investigator of the clinical trial titled “Fluvoxamine as a Treatment for Long COVID-19: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial.”
The study tests the effects of fluvoxamine as a treatment for Long COVID. It’s estimated that anywhere between 10%-30% of persons infected with COVID-19 may be afflicted with the condition. According to some surveys, 14+ million people in the U.S. may struggle with some form of the condition. The investigator-initiated study is made possible by Washington University School of Medicine and a fund for COVID-19 studies called Balvi.
The study drug
An FDA-approved SSRI for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), it’s been demonstrated in previous research that it can help prevent hospitalization in patients with COVID-19 (STOP COVID and TOGETHER trials). TrialSite reminds that tech entrepreneur Steve Kirsch put $1 million of his own money into the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund (CETF) which helps early on investigate the SSRI drug’s efficacy against COVID-19. An early contributor to TrialSite via opinion editorials, Kirsch has become an intense anti-vax activist which was covered by MIT Technology Review.
This trial is testing whether fluvoxamine helps to improve symptoms and the negative impacts of long COVID. Importantly, Dr. Lenze, previously interviewed by TrialSite on the topic of fluvoxamine, leads this study. He has emerged as a leading key opinion leader on the topic of SSRI and SARS-CoV-2.
The study
Targeting 300 long COVID patients, the study investigates the use of fluvoxamine, an economical repurposed, FDA approved drug, as a promising drug for treatment of long COVID.
As far as study participants, they 1) are post-COVID-19 (at least 3 months since initial COVID symptoms and/or test confirming SARS-CoV-2 infection); and 2) have evidence of neurocognitive Long COVID (e.g., "brain fog", trouble concentrating, etc.) which is causing suffering and/or impairment.
Lenze and supporting staff seek in this study to determine whether fluvoxamine (1) reduces long COVID symptoms, 2) improves cognitive performance.
For the current study, Lenze and team at Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis will randomize participants to fluvoxamine, which is initially dosed at their preference, vs. placebo.
In the study, first, each participant will receive an acute dose of fluvoxamine: one dose of 25mg, then one dose of 50mg, then one dose of 100mg. Lenze and team will assess their subjective reaction to these test doses and use the information to randomize them to an individually tailored course of fluvoxamine, vs. a matched placebo, for 16 weeks.
The investigators at this prestigious trial site communicate that the benefits of their study methodology include (1) participants are more likely to accept randomization and continue in the study if randomized to a dose they've already tested and accepted; (2) participants' initial response, if any, to the acute dose may allow future precision-medicine use of fluvoxamine, allowing physicians to give patients a test dose and then a full trial preferentially to participants who are likely to respond.
After the randomized portion of the trial, participants will be given an opportunity to participate in open-label treatment with fluvoxamine for 16 weeks. At the end of treatment, the study medication will be tapered off over an approximate 1–2-week period, depending on the final dose of study medication, and adjusted as appropriate if they experience discontinuation symptoms. Outcome assessments will be a combination of patient-reported assessments, validated neuropsychological tests, and biomarkers of underlying inflammatory pathophysiology.
The study’s primary outcome measure? Number of participants with improvement of long COVID symptoms over an 18-week duration.
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SARS-CoV-2 Mutations Evade manufactured antibodies
Not much use against Omicron
A prestigious team of UK-based scientists at University of Oxford, and the UK Health Security Agency investigate dynamics associated with monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19. mAbs such as casirivimab+imdevimab were administered in combinations to minimize virus escape from neutralization, while other mAbs such as sotrovimab targeted specified conserved regions.
Now according to the Oxford-based scientists unprecedented genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in England has led to a “genome-first approach to detect emerging drug resistance in Delta and Omicron cases treated with casirivimab+imdevimab and sotrovimab respectively.” The scientists demonstrate using surface plasmon resonance and pseudoviral neutralization assays how SARS-CoV-2 mutations reduce or do away with mAb Aantibody affinity and neutralizing activity.
In this study, the investigators describe how the mutations occur within the antibody epitopes and for the Regeneron-developed casirivimab+imdevimab multiple mutations are identified, simultaneously impacting both components. They also demonstrate how, especially with Omicron, the pathogen evades Sotrovimab.
The study shows how the pathogen evades the neutralizing impacts of both classes of mAb. With Omicron mutation, Sotrovimab demonstrated an approximately sixfold reduction in neutralization.
The team’s experiment employs both plasmon resonance, an optical technique used to measure molecular interactions in real time, and pseudoviral neutralization assays to demonstrate in the lab how the mutations lessen, or completely render the mAbs not useful. The British-based scientists declare that this process is likely driven by immune evasion. Additionally, they showcase selected mutations and their lessening of associated neutralizing activity of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine-induced serum.
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Mark Zuckerberg said that the establishment was wrong to censor skepticism during the coronavirus pandemic that ended up being either true or debatable.
Zuckerberg, who is the CEO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, made the comments during an interview on the "Lex Fridman Podcast" while explaining the difficulties of identifying misinformation on social media.
"So misinformation, I think, has been a really tricky one because there are things that are obviously false, right, or they may be factual but may not be harmful. So are you gonna censor someone for just being wrong? If there's no kind of harm implication of what they're doing? There's a bunch of real issues and challenges there," said Zuckerberg.
"Just take some of the stuff around COVID earlier in the pandemic where there were real health implications, but there hadn't been time to fully vet a bunch of the scientific assumptions," he continued.
They don’t want you to see this … Big Tech does its best to limit what news you see. Make sure you see our stories daily — directly to your inbox.
"Unfortunately, I think a lot of the kind of establishment on that kind of waffled on a bunch of facts and asked for a bunch of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or true. And that stuff is really tough, right?" he added.
"It really undermines trust," Zuckerberg concluded.
Zuckerberg has been criticized by many on the right, most notably for censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story just ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
In an interview with Joe Rogan in August, Zuckerberg said that Facebook censored the story on the basis that the FBI had previously warned about the possibility of Russian disinformation being released in order to damage the Biden presidential campaign.
"We just kind of thought, hey look, if the FBI, which I still view is a legitimate institution in this country, it's a very professional law enforcement, they come to us and tell us that we need to be on guard about something, then I want to take that seriously," he explained at the time.
Zuckerberg said that they restricted the reach of the story after believing it fit the guidelines of Russian disinformation issued by the FBI. He said he didn't remember whether the FBI specifically singled out the Hunter Biden laptop story as disinformation.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/zuckerberg-misinformation-covid-censor
***********************************************Can Fluvoxamine Help Mitigate Some of the Problems with Long COVID? Dr. Eric Lenze is on a Mission
TrialSite has extensively chronicled fluvoxamine research during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the effort while Dr. David Boulware submitted an emergency use authorization (EUA) request to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but unfortunately, the agency rejected the initiative.
Involved early on with the research, Dr. Eric Lenze is at it again. The Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis investigator serves as Principal Investigator of the clinical trial titled “Fluvoxamine as a Treatment for Long COVID-19: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial.”
The study tests the effects of fluvoxamine as a treatment for Long COVID. It’s estimated that anywhere between 10%-30% of persons infected with COVID-19 may be afflicted with the condition. According to some surveys, 14+ million people in the U.S. may struggle with some form of the condition. The investigator-initiated study is made possible by Washington University School of Medicine and a fund for COVID-19 studies called Balvi.
The study drug
An FDA-approved SSRI for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), it’s been demonstrated in previous research that it can help prevent hospitalization in patients with COVID-19 (STOP COVID and TOGETHER trials). TrialSite reminds that tech entrepreneur Steve Kirsch put $1 million of his own money into the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund (CETF) which helps early on investigate the SSRI drug’s efficacy against COVID-19. An early contributor to TrialSite via opinion editorials, Kirsch has become an intense anti-vax activist which was covered by MIT Technology Review.
This trial is testing whether fluvoxamine helps to improve symptoms and the negative impacts of long COVID. Importantly, Dr. Lenze, previously interviewed by TrialSite on the topic of fluvoxamine, leads this study. He has emerged as a leading key opinion leader on the topic of SSRI and SARS-CoV-2.
The study
Targeting 300 long COVID patients, the study investigates the use of fluvoxamine, an economical repurposed, FDA approved drug, as a promising drug for treatment of long COVID.
As far as study participants, they 1) are post-COVID-19 (at least 3 months since initial COVID symptoms and/or test confirming SARS-CoV-2 infection); and 2) have evidence of neurocognitive Long COVID (e.g., "brain fog", trouble concentrating, etc.) which is causing suffering and/or impairment.
Lenze and supporting staff seek in this study to determine whether fluvoxamine (1) reduces long COVID symptoms, 2) improves cognitive performance.
For the current study, Lenze and team at Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis will randomize participants to fluvoxamine, which is initially dosed at their preference, vs. placebo.
In the study, first, each participant will receive an acute dose of fluvoxamine: one dose of 25mg, then one dose of 50mg, then one dose of 100mg. Lenze and team will assess their subjective reaction to these test doses and use the information to randomize them to an individually tailored course of fluvoxamine, vs. a matched placebo, for 16 weeks.
The investigators at this prestigious trial site communicate that the benefits of their study methodology include (1) participants are more likely to accept randomization and continue in the study if randomized to a dose they've already tested and accepted; (2) participants' initial response, if any, to the acute dose may allow future precision-medicine use of fluvoxamine, allowing physicians to give patients a test dose and then a full trial preferentially to participants who are likely to respond.
After the randomized portion of the trial, participants will be given an opportunity to participate in open-label treatment with fluvoxamine for 16 weeks. At the end of treatment, the study medication will be tapered off over an approximate 1–2-week period, depending on the final dose of study medication, and adjusted as appropriate if they experience discontinuation symptoms. Outcome assessments will be a combination of patient-reported assessments, validated neuropsychological tests, and biomarkers of underlying inflammatory pathophysiology.
The study’s primary outcome measure? Number of participants with improvement of long COVID symptoms over an 18-week duration.
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SARS-CoV-2 Mutations Evade manufactured antibodies
Not much use against Omicron
A prestigious team of UK-based scientists at University of Oxford, and the UK Health Security Agency investigate dynamics associated with monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19. mAbs such as casirivimab+imdevimab were administered in combinations to minimize virus escape from neutralization, while other mAbs such as sotrovimab targeted specified conserved regions.
Now according to the Oxford-based scientists unprecedented genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in England has led to a “genome-first approach to detect emerging drug resistance in Delta and Omicron cases treated with casirivimab+imdevimab and sotrovimab respectively.” The scientists demonstrate using surface plasmon resonance and pseudoviral neutralization assays how SARS-CoV-2 mutations reduce or do away with mAb Aantibody affinity and neutralizing activity.
In this study, the investigators describe how the mutations occur within the antibody epitopes and for the Regeneron-developed casirivimab+imdevimab multiple mutations are identified, simultaneously impacting both components. They also demonstrate how, especially with Omicron, the pathogen evades Sotrovimab.
The study shows how the pathogen evades the neutralizing impacts of both classes of mAb. With Omicron mutation, Sotrovimab demonstrated an approximately sixfold reduction in neutralization.
The team’s experiment employs both plasmon resonance, an optical technique used to measure molecular interactions in real time, and pseudoviral neutralization assays to demonstrate in the lab how the mutations lessen, or completely render the mAbs not useful. The British-based scientists declare that this process is likely driven by immune evasion. Additionally, they showcase selected mutations and their lessening of associated neutralizing activity of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine-induced serum.
https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/sars-cov-2-mutations-evade-mabs-sterilizing-impact-b03340f0
********************************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Sunday, June 11, 2023
British cardiologist calls for mRNA vaccines to be suspended due to heart risks
A British cardiologist has called for Covid vaccines to be suspended in Australia due to heart risks, accusing the TGA of a “cover-up”.
A controversial British cardiologist has called for the Pfizer and Moderna Covid shots to be suspended in Australia until the risk of heart complications is better understood, saying prior vaccines “have been pulled for much less”.
Dr Aseem Malhotra, who has emerged as one of the most high-profile figures in the anti-vaccine movement and is currently in Australia on a speaking tour, said it was a “no-brainer” and accused the medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), of ignoring the clear safety signal from its own reporting system once the rollout was well under way.
“People can be forgiving if new information comes in, we know people make mistakes — but once you get that information back, them not acting on it … the problem is the cover-up is worse than the crime,” he said.
The 45-year-old boasts an impressive resume but has become a polarising figure since last year, when he first called for the suspension of mRNA Covid vaccines and started making claims — which have been disputed by fact checkers — about their dangers.
Professor Marc Dweck, chair of clinical cardiology at the University of Edinburgh, told The Guardian in January that Dr Malhotra’s opinions were “misguided and in fact dangerous”.
“The vast majority of cardiologists do not agree with his views and they are not based upon robust science,” he said. “I would strongly urge patients to disregard his comments, which seem to be more concerned with furthering his profile … rather than the wellbeing of the public.”
Dr Malhotra, a National Health Service-trained consultant cardiologist and prominent public health commentator for many years in the UK — particularly on diet-related illnesses and the pharmaceutical industry — appeared on breakfast TV in 2021 to encourage Britons to get vaccinated.
But last July, his father, Dr Kailash Chand, former deputy chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) died unexpectedly of a cardiac arrest at 73.
“At the time people were trolling me, saying it was the vaccine, and I got really angry and blocked them, because that was not my mindset — but then I started to notice increased incidences in cardiac deaths and I started to wonder,” he told The Telegraph earlier this year.
He would come to attribute the death of his father, who he described as “one of the fittest guys I knew”, to the Covid booster shot six months earlier.
“Previous scans showed he had nothing significant, no underlying conditions,” he said.
Dr Malhotra has since courted controversy with inflammatory statements on social media linking high-profile deaths or injuries to the vaccine, such as the on-field cardiac arrest of American football player Damar Hamlin in January.
In April, Hamlin told reporters that “the diagnosis of what happened to me was commotio cordis”, or a “direct blow at a specific point in your heartbeat that causes cardiac arrest”.
Dr Malhotra has also linked unusually high excess death rates in many developed countries to the vaccination rollout.
That claim has been widely disputed by experts, who instead attribute the rise in deaths to factors including Covid itself, undiagnosed illnesses after lockdowns, and strain on health services.
In January, the BBC was forced to apologise after Dr Malhotra “hijacked” a live TV interview to claim that “Covid mRNA vaccines do carry a cardiovascular risk” and call for the rollout to be suspended pending an inquiry into excess deaths.
But Dr Malhotra is unrepentant.
“Basically, all patients with unexpected heart attacks or cardiac arrests have to be seen as being caused by the vaccine until proven otherwise — even several months later, so even, I would say, up to two years since having the vax,” he said.
“As a cardiologist, it is unusual to see sudden cardiac death. We have a mechanism of action, it would be unscientific not to include it as a potential cause. What the vaccine does is it accelerates the progress of coronary artery disease, so someone who otherwise wouldn’t have is going to present several months or a year later.”
In recent months Dr Malhotra has been on a “world tour of activism”, even making an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience in April.
The description for his Australian tour says he will be “raising public awareness about vaccine injuries and providing a risk-benefit, evidence-based analysis of the Covid vaccines with special emphasis on cardiovascular complications and solutions”.
Despite speaking at a series of sold-out events in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and the Gold Coast, Dr Malhotra’s Australian tour has been met with a virtual media blackout.
Save for an appearance on Sky News Australia and an article in the small local publication Canberra Weekly about his speech there, most media outlets have steered well clear.
Dr Malhotra said it only highlighted the disconnect between the public and institutions including government, health and media.
“What’s really interesting is everyone comes up to me and is aware, and doctors are seeing stuff, but they are generally afraid to say anything,” he said, adding he was meeting many doctors at his talks.
“You could argue I’m speaking to an echo chamber … [but] the professionals are very supportive — they’re horrified, sad. When you speak to people on the ground, taxi drivers, shopkeepers, everyone is aware of someone they know, either a family member or friend, who suffered a serious adverse event.”
Dr Malhotra said the “objective evidence to support the fact there is a disconnect between the public and the establishment is people are not turning up” to get boosters.
According to the most recent Health Department figures, 16.5 million Australians, or 82 per cent, had their last Covid vaccine more than six months ago, making them “out of date” under the new definition.
Just under 3.1 million, or 15 per cent, have had a vaccine within the last six months.
“There is a massive drop among people who are recommended to have boosters,” he said. “That [loss of trust] is not a good recipe — where does that lead us next?”
Myocarditis and pericarditis — inflammation of the heart or lining around the heart — are known but rare side effects of the mRNA vaccines.
According to the TGA, myocarditis is reported in one to two out of every 100,000 people who receive Pfizer or Moderna, but young men and boys are more at risk.
“These are usually temporary conditions, with most people getting better within a few days,” the TGA says. “Vaccination against Covid-19 is the most effective way to reduce deaths and severe illness from infection. The protective benefits of vaccination far outweigh the potential risks.”
As of May 28, 2023, the TGA has received 138,730 total adverse event reports from 67.4 million doses administered, a rate of 0.2 per cent.
The medicines regulator has identified 14 reports where the cause of death was linked to vaccination, from 986 reports received and reviewed.
But Dr Malhotra is one of a growing number of health professionals arguing the true rate of serious adverse events is far higher than reported.
He accused the TGA of “wilful blindness”.
“Think about it from a psychological perspective — they are responsible in a way for approving and the mandating of these vaccines for all Australian citizens — it’s not easy to suddenly acknowledge what they’ve done is harm people to such a significant degree,” he said.
“It’s much easier to bury your head in the sand. I would be mortified to know what I’d done, even accidentally. But having said that, it is their job — there has to be accountability.”
He stressed he was a supporter of vaccines, and that’s why “people have to believe in the safety of vaccines”.
“Historically, traditional vaccines have a serious adverse event rate of one in one million — other vaccines have been pulled for much less,” he said, citing the 1976 swine flu vaccine which carried a one in 100,000 risk of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and the 1999 rotavirus vaccine which was linked to bowel obstruction at a rate of one in 10,000.
In December, former AMA president Dr Kerryn Phelps broke her silence about the “devastating” vaccine injury she and her wife suffered after Pfizer.
In a bombshell submission to parliament’s Long Covid inquiry, the former federal MP revealed she had spoken with other doctors “who have themselves experienced a serious and persistent adverse event” but that “vaccine injury is a subject that few in the medical profession have wanted to talk about”.
“Regulators of the medical profession have censored public discussion about adverse events following immunisation, with threats to doctors not to make any public statements about anything that ‘might undermine the government’s vaccine rollout’ or risk suspension or loss of their registration,” she said.
Last week, Dr Phelps lent her tacit support to Dr Malhotra’s visit, sharing the Canberra Weekly article on social media in which he called for an inquiry into mRNA vaccines.
She declined to comment, however, saying she had not attended his talk in person.
Another high-profile physician, 2020 Australian of the Year Dr James Muecke, attended Dr Malhotra’s Adelaide talk over the weekend, happily posing for a photo afterwards.
But Dr Malhotra said there was a “culture of fear” with some people reluctant to even be seen attending his talks.
“All of this is suppression of free speech — Australians need to know their democracy is under attack,” he said.
The speaking tour is being arranged by the Australian Medical Professionals’ Society (AMPS) — one of several splinter organisations born out of opposition to Covid vaccine mandates in 2021 — and sponsored by Gold Coast-based internet radio station TNT Radio, which the website Crikey recently described as “a home for Australia’s fringe political figures and international conspiracy theorists”.
Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Sally McManus in 2021 branded AMPS and other groups under the umbrella of Queensland-based Red Union as “fake unions run by LNP members and their associates set up to try and divide working people”.
Dr Malhotra countered that the smearing of anyone raising concerns as anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists or “cookers” was “part of the playbook” of the drug industry.
“One of the ways is through opposition fragmentation — it involves smearing and deplatforming those who are countering their narrative,” he said.
“This is not unusual. This is deliberate. If there are people who are in opposition, this is how we discredit them, this is how we frame them to other people in society. Big tobacco did it for many years — this is not new.”
********************************************************
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
***************************************************
Friday, June 09, 2023
Thursday, June 08, 2023
Risk Factors Associated With Post−COVID-19 Condition
A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
TINY benefit from vaccination -- OR 0.57. Long Covid was
basically just as common in vaccinated and unvaccinated people
Vasiliki Tsampasian et al.
Question Which individuals are at risk of developing post−COVID-19 condition (PCC)?
Findings This systematic review and meta-analysis of 41 studies including 860 783 patients found that female sex, older age, higher body mass index, smoking, preexisting comorbidities, and previous hospitalization or ICU admission were risk factors significantly associated with developing PCC, and that SARS-CoV-2 vaccination with 2 doses was associated with lower risk of PCC.
Meanings The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis provide a profile of the characteristics associated with increased risk of developing PCC and suggest that vaccination may be protective against PCC.
Abstract
Importance Post−COVID-19 condition (PCC) is a complex heterogeneous disorder that has affected the lives of millions of people globally. Identification of potential risk factors to better understand who is at risk of developing PCC is important because it would allow for early and appropriate clinical support.
Objective To evaluate the demographic characteristics and comorbidities that have been found to be associated with an increased risk of developing PCC.
Data sources Medline and Embase databases were systematically searched from inception to December 5, 2022.
Study Selection The meta-analysis included all published studies that investigated the risk factors and/or predictors of PCC in adult (≥18 years) patients.
Data Extraction and Synthesis Odds ratios (ORs) for each risk factor were pooled from the selected studies. For each potential risk factor, the random-effects model was used to compare the risk of developing PCC between individuals with and without the risk factor. Data analyses were performed from December 5, 2022, to February 10, 2023.
Main Outcomes and Measures The risk factors for PCC included patient age; sex; body mass index, calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared; smoking status; comorbidities, including anxiety and/or depression, asthma, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, immunosuppression, and ischemic heart disease; previous hospitalization or ICU (intensive care unit) admission with COVID-19; and previous vaccination against COVID-19.
Results The initial search yielded 5334 records of which 255 articles underwent full-text evaluation, which identified 41 articles and a total of 860 783 patients that were included. The findings of the meta-analysis showed that female sex (OR, 1.56; 95% CI, 1.41-1.73), age (OR, 1.21; 95% CI, 1.11-1.33), high BMI (OR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.08-1.23), and smoking (OR, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.07-1.13) were associated with an increased risk of developing PCC. In addition, the presence of comorbidities and previous hospitalization or ICU admission were found to be associated with high risk of PCC (OR, 2.48; 95% CI, 1.97-3.13 and OR, 2.37; 95% CI, 2.18-2.56, respectively). Patients who had been vaccinated against COVID-19 with 2 doses had a significantly lower risk of developing PCC compared with patients who were not vaccinated (OR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.43-0.76).
Conclusions and Relevance This systematic review and meta-analysis demonstrated that certain demographic characteristics (eg, age and sex), comorbidities, and severe COVID-19 were associated with an increased risk of PCC, whereas vaccination had a protective role against developing PCC sequelae. These findings may enable a better understanding of who may develop PCC and provide additional evidence for the benefits of vaccination.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2802877
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Some Sudden Deaths Caused by COVID-19 Vaccines, Autopsies Confirm
Some sudden deaths were caused by COVID-19 vaccines, autopsies have confirmed.
Eight people who died suddenly after receiving a messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine died due to a type of vaccine-induced heart inflammation called myocarditis, South Korean authorities said after reviewing the autopsies.
“Vaccine-related myocarditis was the only possible cause of death,” Dr. Kye Hun Kim of the Chonnam National University Hospital and other South Korean researchers said.
All of the sudden cardiac deaths (SCD) occurred in people aged 45 or younger, including a 33-year-old man who died just one day after receiving a second dose of Moderna’s vaccine and a 30-year-old woman who died three days after receiving a first dose of Pfizer’s shot.
Myocarditis wasn’t suspected as a clinical diagnosis or cause of death before the autopsies, researchers said.
Thirteen other deaths were recorded among those who experienced myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination but no autopsy results were detailed. Some of those who died had received AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine.
The results show the need for “careful monitoring or warning of SCD as a potentially fatal complication of COVID-19 vaccination, especially in individuals who are ages under 45 years with mRNA vaccination,” according to the researchers, who reported the findings in a study published by the European Heart Journal on June 2.
The study was funded by the South Korean government.
Dr. Andrew Bostom, a retired professor of medicine in the United States who wasn’t involved in the research, said the results emphasize why mandating and promoting vaccines for younger people was wrong.
“These are people who ostensibly did not need the vaccine,” Bostom told The Epoch Times after reviewing the paper. “That’s what adds insult to injury.”
The overall occurrence of myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination was rare, according to the study, though one of its limitations is that the true number could be higher.
Out of 44.2 million people who received at least one dose of the Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, or AstraZeneca vaccines between Feb. 26, 2021, to Dec. 31, 2021, 1,533 cases of suspected myocarditis were reported to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Out of those, an expert adjudication committee confirmed 480 cases of vaccine-induced myocarditis.
The cases primarily happened in males and people under 40. All but 18 were caused by an mRNA vaccine.
The overall rate was one case per 100,000 vaccinated persons. The highest rates were in 12- to 17-year-olds, with 3.7 cases per 100,000 and 5.2 cases per 100,000 males.
The numbers weren’t broken down by vaccine type and age, meaning the rates were diluted because they included non-mRNA vaccine recipients. Excluding non-mRNA shots has led to the estimation of higher rates in other places, such as 75.9 cases per one million second Pfizer doses in 16- and 17-year-old American males.
Both those numbers and the Korean figures are prone to underreporting. In Korea, authorities automatically excluded any cases involving myocarditis developed 43 days or more after vaccination as well as any cases that included a positive COVID-19 test, despite some experts asserting there’s stronger evidence for vaccine-caused myocarditis than COVID-19-induced heart inflammation.
“We have kids showing up, young adults showing up with chest pain, and most of them end up in the hospital for 24, 48, 72 hours and they go home. But are we missing people that are dying before they get to the hospital?” Dr. Anish Koka, an American cardiologist, told The Epoch Times after reviewing the study.
“Now, just because we live in the real world and we’re not seeing avalanches of kids dying, we know that it’s a rare signal, but how rare is it? Is it happening?” he added. “The new study clearly shows that it’s happening. No doubt we’ve had deaths happen in the U.S. post-vaccine that have just not been attributed correctly.”
Myocarditis is a known side effect of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and can cause death, according to previous research and medical examiners. Symptoms included chest pain, trouble sleeping, and fever. While many people who experience myocarditis after vaccination are discharged from the hospital within a day or two, they can still suffer from long-term problems.
The new study classified 1 in 5 vaccine-induced myocarditis cases as severe. Those cases involved one or more of the following: intensive care unit admission, fulminant myocarditis, usage of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, heart transplantation, and death.
“A fifth of the cases were determined to be serious,” Bostom said. “It’s disturbing.”
Reporting System
South Korea’s government established a reporting system for all adverse events following vaccination before COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out, tying it to a national compensation system that pays for medical expenses related to the adverse events.
The system even provides compensation to people who cannot establish causality to a vaccine but provide evidence such as temporal association, or the event happening soon after vaccination. Authorities also grant money to people who suffer mild effects.
More than 20,000 people were compensated through the program as of August 2022.
In contrast, the system in the United States has compensated just four people as of May 1, and rejected a number whose doctors diagnosed them with vaccine injuries.
Both countries require health care workers to report certain events after vaccination, such as myocarditis, though not all cases have been reported, at least in the United States.
U.S. officials have reviewed autopsies done on people who died after receiving COVID-19 vaccines but have refused to release them. In an update in February, officials said they would provide some information from the autopsy reports but to date have not done so.
********************************************************
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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