Health Break

No blogging from me today. Should be ok for tomorrow

Most Intensive Ivermectin Use Had 74 Percent Reduction in Excess Deaths

According to a new peer-reviewed ecological study, a natural experiment occurred when the government of Peru authorized ivermectin for use during the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in evidence of the drug’s effectiveness and ability to reduce excess deaths.

The paper’s results, published August 8 in Cureus, found a 74 percent reduction in excess deaths in 10 states with the most intensive ivermectin use over a 30-day period following peak deaths during the pandemic. When analyzing data across 25 states in Peru, researchers found these reductions in excess deaths correlated closely to ivermectin use during four months in 2020.

When ivermectin was available without restriction, there was a fourteenfold reduction in nationwide excess deaths. Once access to ivermectin was restricted by the government, a thirteenfold increase in excess deaths was observed in the two months following the limitation of its use. The findings align with summary data from the World Health Organization for the same time period in Peru.

Ivermectin is a widely-known and inexpensive treatment against parasitic diseases. Scientists believe the drug can also bind to the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, limiting its morbidity and infectivity.

Peru Promoted Then Restricted Access to Ivermectin

Before Peru implemented COVID-19 vaccine mandates, the country relied on mitigation strategies such as lockdowns and therapeutics to control the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, as did many other nations.

The Peruvian Ministry of Health, on May 8, 2020, approved ivermectin widely for use prompting 25 states in Peru to implement inpatient and outpatient treatments with ivermectin to different extents and in different time frames. Additionally, through the Mega-Operación Tayta (MOT)—a national program led by the Ministry of Defense—Peru’s government began distributing ivermectin on a wide scale.

Through a partnership with 11 other government agencies, MOT aimed to reach every targeted region with rapid response teams to detect COVID-19 cases, administer ivermectin, and provide food to encourage people to isolate for 15 days. Shortly thereafter, MOT began distributing the therapeutic to everyone identified as high-risk, regardless of whether they tested positive or were symptomatic for COVID-19.

The government of Peru independently tracked daily COVID-19 deaths and all-cause deaths through numerous Peruvian national health databases, allowing researchers to calculate excess deaths. Additionally, they extensively tracked data for deaths and other public health parameters allowing analysis of the potential efficacy of interventions such as ivermectin during the pandemic.

When President Francisco Sagasti took office on Nov. 17, 2020, the government stopped distributing ivermectin and made it available only by prescription. This made the drug significantly more difficult for people to obtain and allowed researchers to see nationwide changes in daily excess all-cause deaths before and after restrictions went into place.

Impact of Ivermectin on Excess Deaths

Excess all-cause deaths were calculated from the total deaths recorded for January through February 2020. During this period, monthly all-cause deaths fluctuated with a mean value of 5.2 percent and a standard deviation of 3.8 percent. By May 2020, total deaths fluctuated by more than double the baseline value calculated in January through February.

An analysis of excess all-cause deaths was performed state-by-state for those aged 60 years and older to establish the date of peak excess deaths during the pandemic’s first wave. Decreases in excess deaths from the peak date of death to 30 and 45 days afterward were tracked. The 25 states were then grouped by the extent of ivermectin distribution: maximal distribution—occurring through operation MOT, medium, and minimal.

Results showed that the 10 MOT states had a sharp decrease in excess deaths after reaching peak values—with a 74 percent drop at 30 days and an 86 percent drop at 45 days after the date of peak deaths. For 14 states that locally administered ivermectin, excess deaths dropped by 53 percent at 30 days and 70 percent at 45 days.

In Lima, where ivermectin treatments were delayed until August—four months after its initial pandemic surge in April—excess deaths only dropped by 25 percent at 30 days and 25 percent at 45 days after peak deaths on May 30.

According to the study, mean reductions in excess deaths 30 days after peak deaths were 74 percent, 53 percent, and 25 percent, respectively, for the maximal, medium, and minimal states that distributed ivermectin. Forty-five days after peak deaths, mean reductions were 86 percent, 70 percent, and 25 percent.

The researchers noted that ivermectin distribution may have yielded such positive numbers due to the drug’s ability to both prevent and treat COVID-19 when distributed to an at-risk population on a greater scale.

Similar Results Observed in Uttar Pradesh, India

Researchers noted similar results with ivermectin distribution in Uttar Pradesh, India, where government teams moved across 97,941 villages as part of a COVID-19 management program to distribute home medication kits that contained ivermectin, doxycycline, zinc, vitamins C and D3, and acetaminophen tablets.

After the mass distribution of ivermectin, the seven-day moving average of COVID-19 deaths in Uttar Pradesh decreased by 97 percent. The cumulative total of COVID-19 deaths per million in population from July 7, 2021, through April 1, 2023, was 4.3 in Uttar Pradesh, compared with 70.4 in all of India and 1,596.3 in the United States, according to the study.

Although Peru had more comprehensive data, the Uttar Pradesh data suggests using ivermectin may prevent and potentially treat COVID-19.

“These encouraging results from IVM [ivermectin] treatments in Peru and similar positive indications from Uttar Pradesh, India, which have populations of 33 million and 229 million, respectively, offer promising models for further mass deployments of IVM, as needs may arise, for both the treatment and prevention of COVID-19,” researchers concluded.

The authors considered factors that could influence their findings, such as the effects of a social isolation mandate imposed in May 2020, the varying genetic makeup of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, differences in seropositivity rates, and population densities across the 25 states. Still, researchers stated the extent and reliability of data showed other factors did not significantly influence study outcomes.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/most-intensive-ivermectin-use-had-74-percent-reduction-in-excess-deaths-in-peru-new-study-5470885

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Post-Vaccination Parsonage-Turner Syndrome: A Case Series

Cripes! I have something very like Parsonage-Turner Syndrome right at this moment: All sorts of painful symptoms in my right shoulder. And I have been Covid vaxxed. But the vax was years back and there is no associated muscle weakness so I suspect the resemblance is coincidental. I seem to be healing up anyway

Case reports on COVID-19 vaccination-related neurological events are appearing more frequently in the literature. TrialSite follows these case studies on adverse effects on the central and peripheral nervous system attributed to COVID-19 vaccines. The study summarized here describes six cases related to a rare neurological condition called “Parsonage-Turner syndrome (PTS)” that presented after COVID-19 vaccine shots.

Also called “brachial neuritis”, PTS is a neurological condition characterized by severe pain in the shoulder and upper arm followed by muscle weakness. It mainly affects motor nerves which are responsible for movement. These symptoms may last for months and are usually unilateral.

The condition is commonly seen in men as compared to women and although people of any age can develop the condition, the average age of onset is 41 years.

The study

The current case series published in Case Reports in Neurology in 2022 is entitled “Parsonage-Turner Syndrome Following COVID-19 Vaccination: Clinical and Electromyographic Findings in 6 Patients.”

Background

The reasons behind PTS are unclear, but reported causes include viral infections, surgery, vaccination, and trauma. One theory suggests that viral antigens in vaccines may trigger this syndrome. The condition is associated with various vaccines such as hepatitis B, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus vaccine, smallpox, and swine flu.

The authors of the case report mentioned that during the first six months of 2021, a rise in PTS diagnoses was observed. A possible reason could be COVID-19 vaccination, so they investigated it further. They suggested that a mechanism behind PTS may be an immunization-induced inflammatory reaction against brachial plexus nerve fibers. Although rare, other case studies investigating the relationship between COVID-19 vaccines and PTS have been reported.

Methodology

A retrospective analysis was performed with six patients who had acute onset of pain and weakness in their upper extremities post vaccination. These patients were referred for electrodiagnostic (EDX) investigation for their reported symptoms. EDX investigations include electromyography (EMG) and nerve conduction studies and aim to identify the cause of pain. It evaluates muscle and muscle nerve health.

Along with EDX evaluation, patients’ clinical symptoms, physical exams, MRI findings, COVID-19 vaccination history, and treatments were discussed. Other potential underlying reasons for PTS were excluded.

Findings

Four patients had received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine while two patients had received Moderna. Symptoms had arisen around 17 days after the injection in either the same arm with the injection site (five patients) or the other arm (one patient). Two patients had received the first dose and four had received the second dose before the symptom onset. EDX evaluation revealed abnormalities and further confirmed the diagnosis of PTS with localization of the disorder to the brachial plexus.

To treat the condition, patients received prednisone/prednisolone, gabapentin, and physical therapy. All of the patients showed improvement in their arm pain in follow-up evaluations. While three did not show improvement in weakness, the other three’s symptoms of muscle weakness improved.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/post-vaccination-parsonage-turner-syndrome-a-case-series-236a3340

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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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When corrupted science becomes a threat to population health

‘The medical-political complex tends towards suppression of science to aggrandise and enrich those in power. And, as the powerful become more successful, richer, and further intoxicated with power, the inconvenient truths of science are suppressed. When good science is suppressed, people die.’ BMJ executive editor Kamran Abbasi

Below is a section from the Australian Medical Professionals Society’s (AMPS) submission to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023. The full submission can be viewed here. We encourage you to make a submission here by August 20.

AMPS believes granting ACMA, a government-appointed entity, the authority to label information contradicting official messaging as misinformation or disinformation establishes an alarming and precarious precedent. This becomes especially concerning considering the growing awareness of the effect of corporate conflicts of interest, leading to biased reporting within academia, biased media content, skewed therapeutic guidelines, and profit-driven public policies. History is replete with instances showcasing the consequences of authorities making decisions without being held accountable or having to be transparent about their actions. We must be cautious when policies, based on concealed health advice for instance, are determined by those in power without the requirement for empirical validation, effectively bestowing them the power to define what qualifies as true information.

The extensive sway exerted by pharmaceutical companies’ financial interests across medical academia and public policy presents a notable jeopardy to the credibility of healthcare and societal welfare. The involvement of pharmaceutical companies in financing research, regulation, education, and policy endeavours introduces an intrinsic susceptibility to bias, potentially undermining the impartiality of scientific investigation and policy development. This dynamic could result in an undue prioritisation of profit-centred incentives, overshadowing the imperative of prioritising patient well-being and the broader public health.

Professor Ioannidis describes what he calls a ‘misinformation mess’ where he claims much-published research is not reliable. Having to negotiate such a mess in deciding exactly what is misinformation offers no benefit to patients or decision-makers. It is a risk to public health.

The government must consider that many prominent journal editors have drawn attention to the pervasive influence of financial conflicts of interest on the reliability of research findings.

‘Financial conflicts can compromise the integrity of research,’ warns Dr. Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of The BMJ, stressing the potential bias that can result from industry funding.

Dr. Jerome Kassirer, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, notes in his book, How medicine’s complicity with big business can endanger your health, the ‘shocking extent of these financial enticements and explains how they encourage bias, promote dangerously misleading medical information, raise the cost of medical care, and breed distrust’, highlighting the distortion such conflicts can introduce into the scientific record.

Dr. Virginia Barbour, founding editor of PLOS Medicine, adds, disclosure alone is insufficient to address conflicts, emphasising the need for greater transparency and safeguards against undue influence.

Dr Maria Angell, long-time editor in chief of the NEJM resigned more than 20 years ago after 20 years as editor because of what she described as the rising influence of the Pharmaceutical industry. She said in her book, The truth about drug companies: How they deceive us and what to do about it, ‘Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, big pharma uses it wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the US congress, the FDA, academic medical centres and the medical profession itself.’

These editorial voices collectively emphasise the imperative of robust disclosure mechanisms and stringent evaluation of financial conflicts to maintain the integrity and credibility of research in the face of commercial interests.

AMPS would argue that the demonisation of Ivermectin during the pandemic is a prime example of how financial conflicts of interests that claimed extensive evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of Ivermectin in the treatment and prevention of Covid resulted in harm.

Our submission to the TGA’s rescheduling of Ivermectin showed how statistically significant the evidence base is to support the clinical improvements in time to clinical recovery, time to viral clearance, and reduction in hospitalisation and death from this cheap, safe, fully approved, WHO essential medicine. This medication was banned by the TGA claiming safety and efficacy concerns when their own 2013 Australian Public Assessment Reports (AusPAR) demonstrated safety and instead recommended for example the use of provisionally approved very expensive Remdesivir. Remdesivir in the WHO Solidarity Trial reported in the NEJM was found to have ‘little or no effect on hospitalised patients with Covid, as indicated by overall mortality, initiation of ventilation, and duration of hospital stay’. In fact, in 2020 the WHO recommended against the use of Remdesivir in Covid patients. A study in the Lancet from September 2021 found, ‘No clinical benefit was observed from the use of Remdesivir in patients who were admitted to hospital for Covid, were symptomatic for more than 7 days, and required oxygen support.’ The banning of Ivermectin in favour of antivirals such as Remdesivir appears to make little evidentiary or clinical sense.

Dr Mike Magee, former physician spokesman for Pfizer, published in 2019 his book Code Blue: Inside America’s Medical Industrial Complex. He powerfully describes the corruption of the US healthcare system.

‘Cosy relationships and generous gratuities have demonstrated a remarkable ability to corrupt even those we would instinctively put on the side of the angels, including members of the biomedical research community, deans of medical schools, directors of continuing medical education programs, officers at the NIH and FDA, and even seemingly altruistic patient advocacy organisations like the American Cancer Society.’

AMPS has also written quite extensively about our concerns regarding the conflict between the government safety and efficacy claims for the Covid vaccinations and the lack of comprehensive safety and efficacy data surrounding these novel immunisations. While the accelerated development and emergency approvals were perhaps motivated by the global health crisis, some experts caution that the available data are not yet as extensive as in standard vaccine development processes.

AMPS has written about our concerns with these vaccines especially for children. According to our Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) AusPAR long-term safety data remains a critical gap in our understanding, emphasising the importance of continued post-vaccination pharmacovigilance. Dr. Peter Doshi, an associate editor at The BMJ, underscores the need for transparent and thorough reporting of clinical trial results to ensure the public’s confidence in these vaccines.

Financial conflicts of interest can erode trust in medical research, undermine the credibility of academic institutions, restrict access to transparent data, and ultimately result in the promotion of treatments or policies that prioritise corporate gain over the impartial pursuit of knowledge and the advancement of public welfare. Stricter safeguards and transparency measures are essential to mitigate these dangers and ensure that medical academia and public policy remain steadfastly committed to unbiased and evidence-based decision-making when seeking to define what constitutes mis-or-disinformation.

We should heed Abbasi’s warning before science itself becomes a threat to overall population health, or maybe we are too late.

‘Science is being suppressed for political and financial gain. Covid has unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, and it is harmful to public health. Politicians and industry are responsible for this opportunistic embezzlement. So too are scientists and health experts. The pandemic has revealed how the medical-political complex can be manipulated in an emergency — a time when it is even more important to safeguard science…’

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/when-science-becomes-a-threat-to-population-health

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For the COVID-19 Vaccine Injured: Time for Action

A recent letter to the editor of the Peninsula Daily News, a local press serving the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State shares some possible good news for persons struggling with injuries associated with the COVID-19 vaccines. Could real change be around the corner with the proposed bipartisan Vaccine Injury Compensation Act?

A local resident, Kathy Zelenka seeks to influence the area’s politicians to ensure they support the legislation. Why? Because “politicians need to hear that their constituents care.”

The Port Angeles, Washington State resident summarizes the challenge well: “To live in a world where people harmed by a medication are treated with mercy instead of censorship, people must make their voices heard.”

Reaching into the dark past of Germany during WW2, Zelenka cites a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who is known to have said, “Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Ms. Zelenka educates her local politicians Derek Kilmer and Patty Murray on the new Office of Long COVID Research and Practice launched by the Biden administration and recently reported on by TrialSite. Importantly, she urges local residents to press the politicians to add vaccine injury studies to that new office, or conversely, set up an equivalent office.

She suggests the politicians read “Insult to the Injured: The Case for Modernizing Vaccine Injury Compensation” a recent piece published in Health Affairs co-authored by an advisor to vaccine makers and the director of Vaccine Injury Litigation at George Washington University Law School.

The opinion writer rightly points out that “we need each other.”

React19 is supporting this vaccine injury compensation reform. The largest COVID-19 vaccine injured group in the United States, if not the world, shared some thoughts on the proposed bipartisan legislation.

The organization, which collaborates with TrialSite, is identified as a science-based non-profit offering financial, physical and emotional support for those suffering from long-term COVID-19 vaccine adverse events globally.

Serving React19 as Legal Affairs Director, Christopher A. Dreisbach told TrialSite via email that “in an ideal world the COVID-19 vaccine-injured would be able to hold the pharmaceutical industry directly accountable through personal injury actions. Nonetheless, this bill represents the next best thing.”

As TrialSite has reported, the current COVID-19 vaccine injured population must navigate the completely broken Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). The proposed legislation among other things would move the COVID-19 vaccine injured to the at least somewhat functional Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

According to React19’s counsel:

“By transitioning the COVID-19 vaccines to the VICP, this bill represents the comprehensive reform the vaccine-injured desperately deserve. We commend Representative Doggett and Representative Smucker for their bipartisan effort - an unfortunately rare occurrence in today’s highly polarized political environment.”

React19 has a message for politicians that might try to water down, dilute the proposed legislation:

“Incremental CICP reforms, proposed by other lawmakers, will not make a meaningful difference to the COVID-19 vaccine-injured. That program is simply too broken to fix. This bill is a welcome departure from such a short-cited approach.”

Given that over 230 million people are now considered fully vaccinated, TrialSite estimates that anywhere from half-a-million to just over 2 million people are in dire need of care, suffering with life changing injuries caused by the COVID-19 vaccines.

Many of these people are barely getting by, and the medical establishment hasn’t embraced vaccine injures as key opinion leaders in the National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have yet to step forward and open up the dialogue publicly.

It’s time they do so.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/for-the-covid-19-vaccine-injured-time-for-action-26b77ba5

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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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Another Sabbath thought

Did you know that, according to Genesis chapter 1 God did NOT create the heavens and the earth?  What's that?  You say.  What the heck am I talking about

What I am talking about is what the original Hebrew  Bible says, not what the King James version or some other translation says.

You see, the original Hebrew Bible is very exact when it refers to God. It uses a specific name for him: "Yahveh" (or Jehovah in English).  I have a copy of the Hebrew Bible so does it anywhere in Genesis 1 mention the Tetragramaton (Divine name in Hebrew)?  

It does not. The Tetragrammation is quite a short word, whereas Elohim is quite a long word.  You can't miss the difference.  What Genesis 1.1 to 1:3 says is that the Heavens and Earth were created by "Elohim", which in Hebrew means "gods", any gods.  Could be pagan gods.  Don't blame me.  That's what it says.

So what is going on?  Why is Genesis 1.1 to 1:3  so different from the rest of the Torah?  It's because that passage is what scholars politely call an  interpolation, in plain words a pious fraud.  It was not there when the original Torah was written.  It is a late addition, presumably put there by some priests.

The original creation story starts from Genesis 2:4.  And guess who gets a mention there straight away? Yahveh.  The divine name now appears.

So Genesis 1.1 to 1:3  is a document from somewhere much later than the rest of the Torah.  It dates from a time when Israelite priests had ceased using the divine name out of a fear of taking it in vain.  They used "Elohim" instead, as a respectful plural. It is quite a late document.

So Why?  Why did the priests do that? It's propaganda.  The Israelites have always had to exist among pagans and pagans all regard the Sun as a great god.  So they dedicate the first day of the week to him. So it has always been a battle for Israelites to defend their unique god.  

And one way they did that from early on was to defy custom and have their Holy day on the 7th day, not the 1st.  But that needed defending to the Israelite public.  They had to have a reason for celebrating the "wrong" day.  So in desperation the priests invented a story about God resting on the 7th day of  creation.  Keeping Saturday holy was simply following God's example.  Neat, eh?

I give a fuller account of the above matters here:

https://ntwords.blogspot.com/2017/03/#804425755551654534

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Australian Scientists Find Disturbing Patterns: COVID-19 Vaccines Correspond with Excess Deaths

Recently, Andre Madry, Ph.D., a Sydney, Australia-based signal processing and data analysis scientist, investigated excess mortality in Australia, seeking to better understand when any obvious warning signs were in fact apparent. A physicist by training, Madry was in touch with TrialSite to disseminate his recent research findings uploaded to ResearchGate. The findings are highly disturbing and while they are yet to be published in a scientific journal nor peer-reviewed, the data need to be taken seriously. The head-in-the-sand approach to excess mortality taken by some public health agencies doesn’t help establish greater trust, which is likely at an all time low since the pandemic.

Also reviewing the recent paper uploaded to ResearchGate is an Australian journalist, Rebekah Barnett. She reports on what she describes as an “in-depth analysis of Queensland mortality data” finding the surge in deaths after the mass COVID-19 primary series rollout.

TrialSite reported on surges in COVID-19 mortality after the mass vaccination event which seemed to have contradicted expected outcomes.

By April of last year in “Heavily Vaxxed Australia: First 3.5 months of 2022 has Double the COVID-19 Deaths from 2020-2021 Combined,” TrialSite reported on the disturbing surge of COVID-19 deaths after the mass COVID-19 vaccination roll out Down Under.

This is a growing topic as reported in this media. Just in March of this year in “Australian Excess Deaths Surge While COVID-19 Deaths Down—Could there be a Link to COVID-19 Vaccination?”, TrialSite points to Australian Bureau of Statistics released “Provisional Mortality Statistics,” a report revieing provisional deaths data as part of an ongoing effort to measure changes in patterns of mortality. This latest period is for the entire year of 2022. The agency Down Under reports there were 190,394 deaths that occurred by December 31, 2022, representing 25,235 (15.3%) excess over a historical average.

Now, Madry applies his quantitative acumen to the problem of excess deaths in Australia. Although the paper is not scientifically peer-reviewed (meaning it should not be cited as evidence till its published and reviewed by a scientific body) his report for the Australian Medical Professionals Society (AMPS) needs to be taken seriously.

The Australian Scientist purchased custom data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) segmented and stratified by age and years. Emphasizing the elderly cohort (aged 60 and above) the pragmatic, real-world emphasizing scientists understood this cohort represented the highest risk for death Down Under.

The study’s output reveals a surge in all-cause mortality across all age cohorts, with the highest rates, perhaps not surprisingly, in the age 80 years and above group. The Australian journalist Rebekah Barnett points out that Madry analysis not only reveals “the elderly dying a year or two early after exposure to a nasty virus” but emphasizes actual declining life expectancy in real time starting around March 2021. What’s that date known for? Of course, the mass COVID-19 vaccination program rollout.

Drilling into the State of Queensland mortality data, the analysis probes mortality trends across three data sets including 1) No Covid, no vaccinations in 2020; 2) No Covid, almost full population vaccination coverage (2021) and 3) Covid and almost full population vaccination coverage (2022).

The expert data analyst and signal processing specialist finds a clear surge in all-cause mortality among the elderly (age 60 and up) temporally corresponding with the mass primarily mRNA COVID-19 vaccine program execution starting by March 2021.

As summarized by Ms. Barnett in her Substack Dystopian Down Under, another surge occurs in Queensland with the onset of the Omicron wave leading to COVID-19 deaths. Madry points to the confounding due to the concurrent saturation of primary series and booster mass vaccination effort.

But is there a temporal association of death and COVID-19 vaccine rollout?

Yes, there is, according to Madry. Down Under journalist Barnett calls the temporal link between COVID-19 vaccination and all-cause mortality “striking.”

Officially, the reporter reminds all that the Australian government agency charged with protecting the public against medicines and vaccines, the Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA) acknowledges formally only 14 deaths linked to the jabs. Yet the surge’s timing raises real alarm.

Madry shared with the journalist that a willingness of other research groups, such as The Actuaries Institute and their COVID Mortality Working Group to “swallow the TGA’s official figure whole without any further analysis” represents not only a major shortcoming but even a potential red flag for some kind of mass head in the sand moment.

No matter how one slices and dices the Australian data, deaths associated with COVID-19 after mass vaccination raise disturbing questions that TrialSite posed over a year ago. Now an Australian scientist reveals in graphic detail a surge in all-cause mortality right about the time that mass COVID-19 vaccination commenced. Yes, this data must be published and scrutinized in depth, but TrialSite also suggests, yes this is a problem that cannot be ignored.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/australian-scientists-find-disturbing-patterns-covid-19-vaccines-correspond-with-excess-deaths-aad0dc14

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The collateral damage of lockdowns on children is still emerging

There has been plenty of evidence published over the past three years of the severe effects on children’s education and wellbeing of closing schools during Covid lockdowns, but a new study by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) and University College London (UCL) has a slightly different emphasis – linking children’s social and emotional development with the employment situation of their parents.

Overall, it found that 47 per cent of parents reported that their children’s social and emotional skills had declined during the pandemic – with just a sixth of parents reporting that there had been an improvement. The effect was more severe along younger children – 52 per cent of children of 4-7 year olds reported a decline in social and emotional skills, compared with 42 per cent among 12-15 year olds.

Children were more likely to be affected if their parents’ employment situation changed

However, in contrast to other studies, this one did not find that children from disadvantaged backgrounds suffered more – in fact, the effect seemed to be least among children whose parents are in the lowest income quintile, and greatest among those in the 4thincome quintile. The survey relied on parents’ replies, however, rather than independent assessments, so there may be an element of different levels of expectation in children’s development.

What the study did find, on the other hand, was that children were more likely to be affected if their parents’ employment situation changed. This was particularly the case even if their parents had been furloughed, and so were being kept afloat financially. The difference was not all that great, however – social and emotional skills were reported to have fallen in 51 per cent of children whose parents had been furloughed, compared with 45 per cent of children whose parents had not been furloughed.

A lot of research and comment on children’s wellbeing during Covid has focused on the closure of schools. But as this study hints there is another side to the subject: what was happening in the home while children were confined there. It ought not to be a surprise if children fared worse in homes where parents were suffering a significant amount of stress for their employment and financial situation.

There are still ministers and advisers involved in the Covid response who think Covid lockdowns were a success – or who, like Matt Hancock, think we should have faster and more severe lockdowns in future. As the IFS/UCL study shows, the evidence on the collateral damage of lockdowns is still being produced.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/the-collateral-damage-of-lockdowns-on-children-is-still-emerging

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Hybrid Immunity Surpasses Vaccination for COVID-19 Protection Against Omicron

Researchers from the Center for Infectious Disease Control, National institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands led by Mirjam J. Knol, a senior Epidemiologist at the Dutch Center of Infectious Disease Control, investigated natural (pre-existing infection-based) immunity to SARS-Cov-2, the virus behind COVID-19.

The Dutch researchers report in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications an increasing proportion of the population became immune to COVID-19 via vaccination and previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, i.e., hybrid immunity, possibly affecting the risk of new infection.

The goal of this investigation was to generate an estimation of the protective effect of previous infections and vaccinations on SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection. Tapping into data between January 10, 2022 and September 1, 2022 involving 43,257 adult participants in a prospective community-based cohort study in the Netherlands, the team’s output reveals that for participants with 2, 3 or 4 prior immunizing events (vaccination or previous infection), hybrid immunity is more protective against infection with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron than vaccine-induced immunity, up to at least 30 weeks after the last immunizing event.

The authors led by corresponding member Knol report variance in risk of infection are partly explained by differences in anti-Spike RBD (S) antibody concentration, which is associated with risk of infection in a dose-response manner.

Among participants with hybrid immunity, with one previous pre-Omicron infection, the authors fail to observe a relevant difference in risk of Omicron infection by sequence of vaccination(s) and infection. Furthermore, more immunizing events increase the protection against infection, however, there’s a limit: not above the level of the first weeks after the previous event.

Importantly, the authors note that based on mass vaccination concerns and so called “narrow immunity” or ‘original antigenic sin’ or immunological imprinting, the Dutch team reports, “We did not find evidence of a higher risk of Omicron infection in participants with hybrid immunity with a vaccination as first immunizing event compared to infection as first immunizing event.”

The authors wrap up that their “study shows that hybrid immunity confers better protection against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection than vaccine-induced immunity. This effect does not seem dependent on the sequence or number of immunizing events. It should be kept in mind that experiencing a SARS-CoV-2 infection carries significant risks, including severe COVID-19, post-covid syndrome and transmission to vulnerable people.”

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/hybrid-immunity-surpasses-vaccination-for-covid-19-protection-against-omicron-c77eca4b

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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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Stuck in a (Covid) time warp: End of the pandemic? Or just Intermission?

Supposedly, the pandemic is over. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it ended on 5 May. Yet the persecution of the unvaccinated continues.

Dazelle Peters, only 16 years old, has been denied a lung transplant. She suffers from an auto-immune condition and such people were excluded from the Covid vaccine trials so there is no data to support her immunisation. Indeed, at least two vaccine deaths in Australia occurred in healthy people with auto-immune conditions that were fatally exacerbated – Natalie Boyce who had antiphospholipid syndrome died after a Moderna vaccine and Roberto Garin who had cardiac sarcoidosis died after a Pfizer vaccine.

The hospital’s policy is not to perform transplants on unvaccinated people and Dazelle says she was told that if she didn’t get the jabs and caught the virus she would be a ‘major threat to everyone (in the hospital) who has done the right thing’.

Yet a report from the University of Freiburg by Reeg et al. shows ‘an impaired T cell response in solid organ transfers (SOT) following Sars-CoV-2 vaccination, with a potentially less robust development, compared to natural infection.’

Vicky Derderian, a slim 46-year-old mother of two, is trying to raise the money to get a heart transplant in India because she is being refused one in Australia. Vicky has been exempted by Australia’s Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation because she already has heart scarring from myocarditis but that’s not good enough for the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne which is denying her a transplant.

Never mind that a peer-reviewed Swiss study published on 20 July shows that 1-in-35 people who received the Moderna Covid booster had detectable heart injuries and women were almost five times as likely to be injured. The group tested was a healthy cohort with few preexisting heart problems and an average age of 37. How much worse would it be for Vicky?

Another study released this month by Marchand et al. showed that ‘Covid-19 vaccination may be associated with a small increase in cardiac-related mortality’. A study that came out in June from the prestigious US Cleveland Clinic shows that, ‘The risk of Covid-19 was lower in the “not up-to-date” group as compared to the “up-to-date” group.’ Put the two together and they show that a Covid jab makes you more likely to get Covid and more likely to die of heart trouble.

Unvaccinated people are encouraged to donate organs to others even though they are denied transplants. The wife of Garnet Harper, a 35-year-old Canadian man who died last month after he was denied a kidney transplant because he was unvaccinated was asked to donate his organs to a vaccinated person. She says the woman who made the request had no idea her husband was dying because he had been refused a transplant. Canadians opposed to persecuting the unvaccinated are calling on all Canadians to refuse to donate organs until the government ends its fatal discrimination.

But that’s not the end of the punishment in Australia. In South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland, healthcare workers are still not allowed to work unless they get vaccinated. (They are not the only ones.) In NSW, a case against vaccine mandates was lost in 2021, in Queensland, a case was heard in 2022 but no ruling has been delivered in more than 12 months. In South Australia, healthcare workers took their case to the employment tribunal in late June.

That was after the secretary of the federal Department of Health, Professor Brendan Murphy said in a parliamentary committee on 1 June, that in his view, as a clinician rather than as a public servant, Covid vaccine mandates were no longer justified.

But South Australia’s Chief Health Officer Nicola Spurrier – famous for claiming you could catch Covid from a football or a pizza box – is not for turning. Her indifference to evidence is breathtaking. The South Australian health department was forced to reveal in response to a freedom of information request from Liberal Senator Alex Antic that cardiac presentations in 18 to 44-year-old people in South Australia which remained steady at 1,100 per month from January 2018 to June 2021, drastically spiked from July 2021 to November 2021 when vaccines were rolled out to that age group, peaking at 2,172 presentations, with another spike in February when boosters were mandated. She doesn’t care. The laid-off workers, the heroes who faced Covid in 2020, are zero today.

Instead, the states that still ban unvaccinated staff are in a bidding war to attract vaccinated staff from interstate and abroad. They face dramatic shortfalls due to the thousands who have been laid off, while vaccinated workers and the general public have increased illnesses. In 2023, excess mortality is still running at 12 per cent above the baseline average.

Meanwhile, almost a thousand people have joined a class action suing the head of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and Professor Murphy for negligence or misfeasance in approving the vaccines which resulted in personal injury or the death of a loved one. The case which is being funded through donations is still open to be joined and will be heard next year.

The TGA’s own database shows that there have been 996 deaths reported which it is suspected were caused by the vaccine and 139,052 reports of injury. That’s one-third of all deaths reported to the TGA since the vaccines were rolled out and three-quarters of all injuries.

Meanwhile, despite promising a royal commission into the pandemic before coming to office, Labor refused to support a motion in the Senate this week by Senator Ralph Babet of the United Australia Party, to get one underway. The Liberals helped Labor out by offering pairs so that the motion was narrowly defeated. The guilty protecting each other?

Why do state and federal governments refuse to acknowledge what even Bill Gates admitted in January, that Covid jabs are ‘not infection-blocking, they’re not broad, so when new variants come up you lose protection, and they have very short duration, particularly in the people who matter who are old people’. Is it because they have entered into a partnership with Moderna giving them a massive conflict of interest? Is it because the WHO is already predicting with its spooky clairvoyance that the next pandemic bonanza is on the way? Perhaps the pandemic isn’t over, perhaps this is just intermission.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/stuck-in-a-covid-time-warp

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Heart Scarring Observed in Children Months After COVID-19 Vaccination: Study

Some children who experienced heart inflammation after COVID-19 vaccination had scarring on their hearts months later, a new long-term study found.

Researchers followed a group of 40 patients aged 12 to 18 for up to one year after the children were diagnosed with myocarditis, or heart inflammation, following vaccination with one of the messenger RNA shots from Pfizer or Moderna. They performed a series of tests, including echocardiograms.

Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, or cardiac MRIs, was performed on 39 of the 40 patients. Abnormal results came in for 26 of those who were imaged, including 19 who had late gadolinium enhancement, or signs of scarring.

The patients with abnormal results returned for follow-up cardiac MRIs at least five months after the initial tests and 15, or 58 percent, had residual late gadolinium enhancement (LGE). The one patient without an initial scan also had mild late gadolinium enhancement when scanned during a follow-up visit.

“Persistence of LGE in a significant subset of patients with up to 1 year of follow-up was observed,” Dr. Yiu-fai Cheung, with Hong Kong Children’s Hospital, and the other researchers wrote.

They said that the implications of the persistence remain unclear, but that given it is an indicator of subclinical heart dysfunction and scarring, “there exists a potential long-term effect on exercise capacity and cardiac functional reserve during stress.”

The study was published by Circulation. Authors reported no funding or disclosures.

Dr. Peter McCullough, an American cardiologist and president of the McCullough Foundation, said that the new data is consistent with what cardiologists are seeing in clinical practice.

“Serious cases of COVID-19 vaccine induced myocarditis are not resolved by cardiac MRI at one year of followup in the majority of cases. At some point, we must assume that late gadolinium enhancement represents a scar or permanent damage,” Dr. McCullough, who was not involved in the research, told The Epoch Times via email.

“COVID-19 vaccines should be pulled from the market immediately until further notice. Large scale research programs should be commissioned immediately on subclinical and clinical COVID-19 vaccine induced myocarditis with initial aims at risk stratification and mitigation for cardiac arrest,” he added.

Dr. Anish Koka, another American cardiologist who was not involved in the study, said that the persistent LGE signifies a scar that replaced the initially inflamed heart muscle.

“The good news is that the amount of scar is small. The bad news is that there is scar,” Dr. Koka wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Dr. Koka said that the level of scarring indicates there would likely not be a long-term impact, but that even small levels of scarring could be a foundation for future arrhythmias, with exercise serving as a trigger.

“All these kids (even those without scar) would need exercise stress tests at 6 months to attempt to prognosticate this,” Dr. Koka said.

Pfizer and Moderna did not respond to requests for comment on the study on myocarditis, a known side effect of both of the companies’ COVID-19 vaccines.

Myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination was first detected in early 2021, and an increasing number of studies have undercut claims from officials in the United States that the heart inflammation is mild and resolves without treatment.

A study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published in 2022, reported that among patients with follow-up cardiac MRIs, 54 percent had at least one abnormal finding, such as scarring.

The study relied on surveys from health care providers who examined the patients.

The providers later told the CDC that five to 13 months after the initial diagnosis, 14 percent of patients were still not cleared for all physical activity, and that multiple patients still had abnormal cardiac MRI findings. And in a separate set of surveys, many patients reported experiencing one or more symptoms beyond one year.

Also in 2022, Rhode Island doctors reported that eight of nine patients who were scanned a median of 94 days after initial diagnosis had persistent LGE, while U.S. researchers reported in 2023 that three of seven patients who were imaged a median of 107 days after diagnosis had persistent LGE.

Myocarditis can cause deaths, including sudden deaths, and deaths from myocarditis after vaccination have been confirmed in a number of countries, including South Korea, the United States, and Germany.

South Korean researchers reported in June that vaccine-induced myocarditis caused eight sudden deaths, all in people aged 45 or younger, and a new meta-analysis found COVID-19 vaccination was linked with an increased risk of cardiac-related death.

Vaccine-induced myocarditis primarily affects young people, particularly young males.

Some critics say that all people, or certain people, don’t need a vaccine, noting the risks as well as the high percentages of people who have been vaccinated, infected, or both.

The CDC still recommends people of all ages receive a COVID-19 vaccine, despite the risk of heart inflammation and other side effects and even as the effectiveness of the vaccines has become worse. In its most recent benefit-risk assessment, the CDC estimated that a million doses in children aged 12 to 17 would prevent up to 136 hospitalizations and one death. According to previous estimates from the CDC, a million second doses would lead to 48 cases of myocarditis in children aged 12 to 15 and 84 cases in children aged 16 or 17.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/some-vaccinated-children-have-heart-scars-after-myocarditis-long-term-study-5446348

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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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Doctors Can Prescribe Ivermectin for COVID-19: FDA Lawyer

Doctors are free to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID-19, a lawyer representing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said this week.

“FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID,” Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the FDA, said during oral arguments on Aug. 8 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

The government is defending the FDA’s repeated exhortations to people to not take ivermectin for COVID-19, including a post that said “Stop it.”

The case was brought by three doctors who allege the FDA unlawfully interfered with their practice of medicine with the statements. A federal judge dismissed the case in 2022, prompting an appeal.

“The fundamental issue in this case is straightforward. After the FDA approves the human drug for sale, does it then have the authority to interfere with how that drug is used within the doctor-patient relationship? The answer is no,” Jared Kelson, representing the doctors, told the appeals court.

The FDA on Aug. 21, 2021, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” The post, which linked to an FDA page that says people shouldn’t use ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19, went viral.

In other statements, the FDA said that ivermectin “isn’t authorized or approved to treat COVID-19” and “Q: Should I take ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19? A: No.”

Command or Not

“FDA made these statements in response to multiple reports of consumers being hospitalized, after self medicating with ivermectin intended for horses, which is available for purchase over the counter without the need for prescription,” Ms. Honold said.

A version of the drug for animals is available, but ivermectin is approved by the FDA for human use against diseases caused by parasites.

Ms. Honold said that the FDA didn’t purport to require anyone to do anything or to prohibit anyone from doing anything.

“What about when it said, ‘No, stop it’?” Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, on the panel that is hearing the appeal, asked. “Why isn’t that a command? If you were in English class, they would say that was a command.”

Ms. Honold described the statements as “merely quips.”

“Can you answer the question, please? Is that a command, ‘Stop it’?” Judge Elrod asked.

“In some contexts, those words could be construed as a command,” Ms. Honold said. “But in this context, where FDA was simply using these words in the context of a quippy tweet meant to share its informational article, those statements do not rise to the level of a command.”

The statements “don’t prohibit doctors from prescribing ivermectin to treat COVID or for any other purpose” Ms. Honold said. She noted that the FDA, along with the statements, said that people should consult their health care providers about COVID-19 treatments and that they could take medicine if it was prescribed by the provider.

“FDA is clearly acknowledging that doctors have the authority to prescribe human ivermectin to treat COVID. So they are not interfering with the authority of doctors to prescribe drugs or to practice medicine,” she said.

Judge Elrod is on the panel with Circuit Judges Edith Brown Clement and Don Willett. All three were appointed under President Donald Trump.

Federal Law

The plaintiffs are Drs. Paul Marik, Mary Bowden, and Robert Apter. They say they were professionally harmed by the FDA’s statements, including being terminated over efforts to prescribe ivermectin to patients.

Dr. Marik has noted that a number of studies support using ivermectin against COVID-19, as the FDA itself has acknowledged. Some other studies show little to no effect.

Federal law enables the FDA to provide information, such as reports of adverse reactions to drugs, but not medical advice, Mr. Kelson said.

“This is something the FDA has never been able to do. And it’s a bright line,” he told the court, adding later: “The clearest examples of where they have gone over the line are when they say things like, ‘You are not a horse, you are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.'”

Judges indicated they agree that the FDA lacks the power to give medical advice; Judge Clement said, “You’re not authorized to give medical advice.”

But Ms. Honold said the government “isn’t conceding that in this case.”

She also argued that Congress has empowered the FDA to protect public health and make sure regulated products are safe and effective, giving it the “inherent authority to further its mission by communicating information to the public about safe uses of drugs.”

A ruling in favor of the doctors would prevent the FDA from reporting on consumers suffering after cooking chicken with NyQuil or that opioid addiction is a problem, she claimed.

Mr. Kelson said that wasn’t accurate. “It’s when they step beyond that [and] start telling people how they should or should not be using approved drugs,” he said.

Ms. Honold also said that the courts can’t hold agencies accountable when they provide false or misleading information: “The FDA is politically accountable, just like all other executive agencies.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/health/doctors-can-prescribe-ivermectin-for-covid-19-fda-5456584

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COVID-19 Vagus Nerve Inflammation May Lead to Dysautonomia

New data may provide answers for those experiencing persistent symptoms long after their bout with COVID-19 has ended. These may include fatigue, lightheadedness, brain fog, cognitive issues, gastrointestinal problems, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, or an inability to tolerate upright postures.

A July 15 study published in Acta Neuropathologica suggests that SARS-CoV-2 infection may damage the nerves of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), causing an inflammatory response that can later lead to dysautonomia observed in long COVID patients.

Study Findings

Using several methods, researchers at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany performed a microscopic analysis of the vagus nerves in 27 deceased patients with COVID-19 and five controls who died of other causes, without COVID-19.

The vagus nerve is a vital component of the ANS that regulates critical functions such as digestion, respiratory and heart rate, and immune response. Vagus nerve signaling to the brainstem also controls the “sickness behavior response,” where the brain mounts flu-like symptoms including nausea, fatigue, pain, and other chronic symptoms in response to inflammation.

The researchers detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA in vagus nerve samples obtained from deceased patients with severe COVID-19 showing direct infection of the nerve was accompanied by inflammatory cell infiltration composed mostly of monocytes—a type of white blood cell that finds and destroys germs and eliminates infected cells. Their analysis revealed a “strong enrichment of genes regulating antiviral responses and interferon signaling,” supporting the idea that vagus nerve inflammation is a common phenomenon with COVID-19.

The researchers also analyzed 23 vagus nerve samples of deceased COVID-19 patients grouped into low, intermediate, and high SARS-CoV-2 RNA viral load to determine if the virus was directly detectable in the vagus nerve and if the viral load correlated with vagus nerve dysfunction. Results showed the virus was present in the vagus nerve and also determined there was a direct correlation between SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA load and dysfunction of the central nervous system.

Researchers then screened a cohort of 323 patients admitted to the emergency room between Feb. 13, 2020, and Aug. 15, 2022, categorized by whether they had mild, moderate, severe, critical, or lethal COVID-19. They found that the respiratory rate increased in survivors but decreased in non-survivors of critical COVID-19. These results suggest SARS-CoV-2 induces vagus nerve inflammation followed by autonomic dysfunction (respiratory rate decrease), which “contributes to critical disease courses and might contribute to dysautonomia observed in long COVID.”

Responding to the study, microbiologist Amy Proal of PolyBio Research Foundation wrote on X, “Because the vagus nerve is an essential component of the #autonomic nervous system and regulates body functions such as heart rate, digestion, and respiratory rate, direct infection of the nerve by SARS-CoV-2 may contribute to related symptoms.” She added, “The findings beg the question: Could persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection of the vagus nerve contribute to dysautonomia in #LongCovid?”

What is Dysautonomia?

Nearly 1 in 5 people in the United States continue to experience unexplained symptoms of long COVID after their infection ends, with as many as 66 percent of patients suffering from moderate to severe dysfunction of the ANS known as dysautonomia.

Dysautonomia is a disorder of the ANS, a part of the central nervous system that controls vital involuntary functions such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, skin and body temperature regulation, salivating, hormonal and bladder function, and sexual function. The ANS also plays a role in the acute “fight or flight” stress response and sends messages to and from internal organs.

Dysautonomia causes the ANS—which consists of the sympathetic, parasympathetic, and enteric nervous systems—to malfunction, either through an inability to perform its tasks or by causing too much activity, resulting in high blood pressure or a rapid heart rate. The condition can be confined to the arms and legs or spread throughout the entire body. It can be severe or mild, and may be reversible or worsen over time.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a common form of dysautonomia that has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic began and has been reported by those with long COVID and in those following COVID-19 vaccination.

Symptoms of POTS include but are not limited to lightheadedness, difficulty thinking or concentrating, severe and long-lasting fatigue, intolerance to exercise, blurred vision, low blood pressure, heart palpitations, tremors, and nausea.

Since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, 801 cases of POTS were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System as of July 28. This includes 597 cases attributed to Pfizer and 171 cases to Moderna.

Dysautonomia Associated With Long COVID or Post-Vaccine Syndromes

The Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) has played a major role in treating long COVID and post-vaccine injuries, including people with dysautonomia.

Many long COVID patients are vaccinated, making it difficult to determine whether their prolonged symptoms are due to COVID-19 or vaccine injury. Regardless, both are manifestations of “spike protein-related disease” and share a significant overlap in symptoms, pathogenesis, and treatment, according to the FLCCC.

The FLCCC has developed protocols for people with long COVID and those experiencing post-vaccine injuries, including POTS.

They recommend patients undergo a series of initial tests to determine whether they have long COVID, and a chest scan for those who have respiratory symptoms to differentiate between long COVID and post-vaccine syndrome.

Protocols are geared towards either long COVID (pdf) or post-vaccine injuries (pdf)—including dysautonomia disorders such as POTS—exercised under the care of a practitioner.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/health/covid-19-vagus-nerve-inflammation-may-lead-to-dysautonomia-new-study-5451263

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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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Some optimism

My illness seems to have receded a little of its own accord so I have been able today to blog pretty much as per usual. It's too early to be sure of anything, though, so whether I will do much tomorow remains to be seen

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Biden Admin Concedes No Evidence Behind Recommendation for 6 COVID Booster Shots a Year

President Joe Biden’s administration concedes that there is no scientific evidence to support an apparent recommendation to receive as many as six COVID-19 booster shots in a year.

After Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Biden appointee, wrote in a social media post on Nov. 29, 2022, that people should get vaccinated “if it’s been over 2 months since your last dose,” the Functional Government Initiative (FGI) filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents supporting the statements.

The watchdog organization then sued after the administration didn’t comply with timelines laid out in the law.

FGI asked for, among other documents: “Any scientific support relied on by Secretary Becerra when approving or issuing the tweet recommending that all Americans receive a booster shot every two months” and “any study, synopsis, or similar statement or document of scientific, academic, or government research on whether a bi-monthly booster shot will effectively prevent the transmission or susceptibility to COVID-19 and known active variants as of November 2022.”

It also asked for internal communications regarding Mr. Becerra’s statements.

In a new response, the government said it had no evidence to support Mr. Becerra’s recommendation.

“The department reviewed 1,263 pages of potentially responsive records captured in the agency’s search for this FOIA request. After a careful review of these records, I determined the 1,263 pages were not relevant to your request,” Alesia Williams, an official in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told FGI.

“The lack of a single of a single record supporting Secretary Becerra’s bold public health recommendation for six COVID boosters a year is a startling development,” Pete McGinnis, a spokesman for FGI, said in a statement.

“It is tremendously irresponsible for the government’s chief health official to fire off tweets recommending frequent injections of a new vaccine booster apparently based on no academic or scientific support,” Mr. McGinnis added.

“How can the public be assured that the agency is ‘following the science’ on other important public health matters when it demonstrates such clear disregard for basic scientific integrity standards on an issue as important as COVID vaccine shots?”

The group noted that Mr. Becerra, a lawyer by training, lacks a background in health. Doctors typically lead that department.

Booster Recommendations

As newer COVID-19 variants have emerged, the vaccines have performed increasingly worse. Federal officials inside HHS first cleared booster shots in 2021 due to the flagging effectiveness, and have since authorized and recommended additional shots.

In the spring of 2023, regulators had authorized, without clinical trial data, newly formulated versions of the vaccines aimed at Omicron subvariants. Federal officials had said that people should get a booster if more than two months had elapsed since their most recent shot. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said most people should only receive one additional shot, but that certain groups could receive more.

In another statement promoting vaccination, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed that a single shot would protect people from COVID-19 for an entire year. There’s no evidence supporting that claim.

Mr. Becerra said the day after the initial post: “An updated COVID vaccine can help protect you from the worst outcomes of COVID. If it’s been over 2 months since your last dose, make a plan to get one now.”

He later wrote: “Time to get your updated COVID vaccine if 1) You haven’t gotten the updated vaccine yet & had the primary series or original booster 2+ months ago 2) It’s been 3+ months since you’ve had COVID If you have a big event in 2+ weeks, it’s a good time to go.”

FGI said the differing messages were causing confusion and made it appear as if Mr. Becerra was, at least at one point, recommending up to six shots in a year.

HHS has declined to comment on the suit.

“The clear message from across the Administration is: Don’t wait,” an HHS spokesperson previously told The Epoch Times, after being asked about Mr. Becerra’s statements. “Get your free COVID-19 vaccine. It’s safe and effective. People can go to vaccines.gov to find free and easily available vaccines in their community.”

New Vaccines Coming

The updated slate of vaccines isn’t working well, prompting plans to implement new formulations that, for the first time, won’t include components of the Wuhan virus strain.

The updated shots are expected to be rolled out in the fall.

The CDC’s new director, Dr. Mandy Cohen, said recently that the agency is poised to recommend annual shots.

“We anticipate that COVID will become similar to flu shots, where it is going to be you get your annual flu shot and you get your annual COVID shot,” Dr. Cohen said.

The CDC didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chairman of the U.S. Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and other members asked the CDC (pdf) for information on the planned recommendation, noting that it would “mark a significant change in federal policy and guidance regarding COVID-19 vaccines and the way in which they are utilized.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/article/biden-admin-admits-no-evidence-behind-6-covid-booster-shots-a-year-recommendation-5449289

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UK Covid hotspots revealed as new variant Eris fuels surge in cases

With a new Covid-19 variant emerging across the UK, certain areas have seen an increase in cases and hospital admissions on the rise over the school summer holidays.

Named Eris after the Greek goddess of strife and discord, the descendant of the Omicron variant now accounts for as many as one in seven cases after it was first recorded in the UK last month.

The latest data from the UK Health Security Agency suggests that Eris, referred to as EG.5.1, represents 14.6% of all cases, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) adding it to the list of variants under monitoring.

However, health bosses at the UKHSA have said it is “not unexpected” to see new variants of Covid-19, with experts claiming it showed no signs of being more dangerous than previous strains.

This comes as hospital admissions have seen a recent spike, with an increase to 1.97 per 100,000 as of July 30. Data from the previous week recorded the hospital admission rate as 1.47 per 100,000, while those aged over 85 were the highest affected age group.

Hospitals in the South-West of England recorded the highest hospital admission rate, with an interactive map showing a 104% increase in Covid cases in Devon in the seven days leading up to 29 July.

Other Covid hotspots include Surrey, with a 103.3% increase, Derbyshire, with a 121.4% increase, as well as Cornwall, Somerset, Staffordshire, Darlington and Cumbria.

Experts have attributed the recent rise to a number of different reasons, including waning immunity, increased indoor mixing and the possibility that cinema trips to watch Barbie and Oppenheimer have caused the virus to spread.

According to the Zoe Health Study, estimated case numbers jumped by almost 200,000 last month, from 606,656 predicted cases on 4 July to 785,980 on 27 July.

Globally, the new variant Eris accounts for around 20% of Covid cases in Asia, 10% in Europe and seven per cent in North America. Common symptoms include a headache, mild or severe fatigue, a sore throat and a runny nose.

Independent Sage member Professor Christina Pagel told The Independent that she believed the UK is “definitely starting another wave” driven by the Omicron sub variants, Arcturus and Eris.

Sharing the latest Covid data, she said that there had been a 40 per cent jump in hospital admissions last week, with a 28 per cent jump in the number of patients in hospital primarily due to the disease.

However, the numbers overall remain low, with authorities continuing to monitor the situation as infection rates change.

Dr Meera Chand, Deputy Director of UKHSA, said: "It is not unexpected to see new variants of SARS-CoV-2 emerge. UKHSA continues to analyse available data relating to SARS-CoV-2 variants in the UK and abroad.

"EG.5.1 was designated as a variant on 31 July 2023 due to continued growth internationally and presence in the UK, allowing us to monitor it through our routine surveillance processes.”

"Vaccination remains our best defence against future COVID-19 waves, so it is still as important as ever that people come take up all the doses for which they are eligible as soon as possible.’’

Prof Francois Balloux, Professor of Computational Systems Biology and Director, UCL Genetics Institute, UCL, said: “The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant emerged nearly two years ago and rapidly became dominant worldwide. It has spawned a very large number of sub-variants constantly replacing other.

“The latest Omicron sub-variant to attract media attention is called EG.5.1. It is a direct descendent of the XBB.1.9.2 sub-variant, and carries one additional mutation in the spike protein. EG.5.1 is increasing in frequency and currently represents about 15% of the cases in the UK.

“Covid cases and hospitalisations have been going up slightly in the UK over recent days, but this starting from the lowest baseline since March 2020. As such, the recent increases in case numbers and hospitalisations may sound ominous when expressed in percentage increase, but the numbers remain small in absolute terms.

“The EG.5.1 variant plays only a minor role in the current increase in cases, which is driven primarily by the weather and constantly waning immunity. There is nothing that feels particularly concerning about EG.5.1, relative to the many other Omicron sub-variants in circulation.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/map-covid-cases-uk-eris-b2388876.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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End of my tether?

I am feeling very feeble indeed today for no obvious reason. Is the reason simply that I am 80? It's possible. Anyway I have put up a small offering on http://pcwatch.blogspot.com as usual

A Sabbath thought

Most Christians celebrate the pagan day of the Sun as their holy day. They justify that by saying that Christ rose from the dead on Sunday.  But he did not.  The women found the empty tomb on Sunday morning, which implies that he rose on the Saturday.  As it says in Matthew 28:

"After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he[a] lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead"

So Saturday is again the proper holy day

Still hanging in there

I am still in the grip of an ailment that deprives me of all of my energy. As before, however, I am battling on and have written something for http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH), which see

Another semi-hiatus

I am still in the grip of some mysterious illness that both gives me pain and saps me of all my energy. But you can't keep a good blogger down so I have once again written something for http://pcwatch.blogspot.com that I think will have wide interest

Still ailing

Despite still being rather fragile with ill health, I have managed to write something that I think will be of wide interest. It is now up on http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

Hiatus

I am not very well today so no blogging. I hope to be back tomorrow

Using vaccines as a political weapon, U.S. military leaders have wrecked the force’s combat readiness and morale

Under pressure from Republicans in Congress, the Defense Department announced at the start of this year that it would no longer require American service members to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The policy change faced fierce resistance from the military’s top brass, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. In a memo sent in January repealing the requirement for soldiers to be vaccinated, Secretary Austin continued to credit the vaccine with “the many lives we saved … and the high level of readiness we have maintained.”

But critics of the military’s COVID-19 policy, including active and former service members who spoke with Tablet for this article, tell a different story. They say that the requirement for troops to receive the new vaccines, which included those with natural immunity after recovering from previous COVID-19 infections, was damaging to morale and hurt the military’s combat readiness. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., has repeatedly pointed to medical data which suggests that enforcing mass vaccinations on a generally young and healthy population may have actually caused an increase in non-COVID-19 related health problems in the force, though the Defense Department has not provided him or Tablet with a clear interpretation of that data.

By the time the Pentagon announced it was ending the mandate, 96% of service members across the armed forces had been vaccinated. However, a significant number of troops declined the shots, objecting on religious, scientific, or medical grounds. Of those objectors, 8,339 were kicked out of the military, a loss that was particularly acute coming in the midst of the worst recruitment crisis in 50 years, which saw the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and Air Force all struggling to attract or retain members. The number of ejected objectors might continue to rise, as more service members who declined to get the jab are penalized for “refusing to obey a lawful order.” Many of those who were forced out, meanwhile, were given a “general” discharge rather than an “honorable” one, putting them at a disadvantage for future employment.

While a 96% compliance rate suggests general cohesion and a functioning military, the lurking reality is that a large percentage of troops who got the vaccine appear to have done so under duress. Tablet spoke with eight active and former service people for this article who come from some of the Army’s most prestigious units, as well as the Coast Guard. They paint a picture of a force that is divided and embittered and say that many of their compatriots resented being forced to take the shots against their will or even conscience in order to keep food on the table for their families. One soldier estimated that as many as 90% of his unit didn’t want to get the shots, and that many who caved now feel they should have held out for the mandate to be repealed. Another said he only knew three people in his entire platoon that got the shots “of their own volition” prior to the implementation of the mandate.

John Frankman, who declined the shot and left the Army in July 2023 after eight years of active service, including three as a Green Beret, told Tablet, “I’m getting out specifically because of the shot, even though it’s not mandatory anymore. I’ve lost out on enough opportunities, it doesn’t seem worthwhile for me to stay in.”

An Army infantryman from an elite unit who wished to remain anonymous told Tablet that he saw a senior noncommissioned officer from his unit tell a group of vaccine holdouts that they “were the reason America was in decline.” A paratrooper who spoke with Tablet anonymously said that leadership in his unit began an intense campaign to pressure soldiers to get the COVID-19 vaccines months before the Army officially implemented its mandate on Aug. 24, 2021. The paratrooper says that he heard a company commander in his unit say that he would “make my soldiers’ lives as miserable as fucking possible until they get the shot.”

They paint a picture of a force that is divided and embittered and say that many of their compatriots resented being forced to take the shots against their will or even conscience in order to keep food on the table for their families.

For the commanders, meanwhile, who were tasked with enforcing public health positions that turned out to be false, there are now concerns about reputational damage. “Soldiers know your position. You can say some untruths [and] no one’s going to give you a hard time about that,” said one former company commander. “But when you’re changing the story every week and obviously just saying nonsense because your higher command is telling you that … I saw personally that we were alienating our rank and file in a big way. We were losing their trust, and I didn’t want to be a part of that.”

In many cases, commanders embraced these policies with a commitment that went beyond the zeal for enforcing Army policies that is common among junior officers, according to the paratrooper. Rather, he calls the push to make soldiers get the COVID-19 vaccine the single most “divisive and destructive” event he witnessed in the military in more than a decade of service. As he would later write in a formal complaint submitted to the Army that was reviewed by Tablet, the COVID-19 vaccination “became by far the most important issue in our brigade and in the division.” That memo continued:

In order to get reluctant soldiers to take these experimental vaccines, commanders […] were encouraged to use all manners of persuasion and bullying, and even to do things that were plainly illegal (such as denying soldiers the right to attend career-enhancing military schools based on their vaccination status).
From the military’s standpoint, the mandate was not just a matter of life and death but also of national security. If infections swept through the ranks due to troops refusing to take available vaccines, not only would that destroy morale and discipline, but it could also leave the country unable to respond to an attack or emergency.

The problem with this argument is twofold: First, COVID-19 never posed a significant acute risk to healthy young people—the very demographic that overwhelmingly makes up the military—which means the vaccination drive was, at best, unnecessary. And secondly, according to several sources, the military’s approach to the vaccines, rather than emphasizing combat readiness, was used as a disciplinary tool to enforce political conformity and punish independent thought and ideological dissent.

“I’ve seen everything from [Don’t Ask Don’t Tell] repealed to gay marriage legalized to people are allowed to put gay pride flags in their offices now,” said a member of an elite infantry unit with over a decade of service. The jarring thing, he explained, was that the same military that boasts about its tolerance became rigidly intolerant on the question of bodily autonomy and vaccines. “You can get exemptions for religious beards if you’re Muslim, you can get an exemption to wear headgear, instead of your issued hat. That’s fine. I’m all for it … If you can do the job you should be allowed to do it … But then for a vaccine that’s violating the Nuremberg Code, and all of the sudden we’re the problem, that’s what’s bizarre to me.”

Many of those who refused the vaccines did so on the grounds that the mandate violated the Nuremberg Code of ethics for “permissible medical experiments.” The first line of the code reads, “The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.” Those citing the code point out that these COVID vaccines had not even finished their clinical trials at the time troops were being pressured and/or mandated to take them, and were therefore being asked to sacrifice their Nuremberg derived rights. Health authorities in the U.S. dismiss that claim on the grounds that the vaccines had received emergency authorizations and were therefore not strictly “experimental.”

With two exceptions, all the soldiers who spoke with Tablet insisted that they remain anonymous—even those who are already out of the service. One former officer in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, the Army’s legal branch, said: “The fact that I am not subject to the UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice], that there is no way that they can touch me, and yet I still don’t want to identify myself, should tell you something.”

That attorney, along with several other soldiers interviewed for this article (all of whom come from different backgrounds and do not share a clear set of political views) painted a disturbing picture that went beyond concerns about vaccine mandates. Given how intensely polarized national debates around COVID became, the Pentagon’s vaccination push—even in a best case scenario—was likely to cause some dissension in the ranks. But according to these current and former service members, the policy was not the result of medical or warfighting needs. Rather, they say that the emphasis on vaccinations was part of a larger push to overtly politicize the military—one of the only institutions left in the U.S. that still retains a degree of broad bipartisan support.

It may be tempting to dismiss this account as merely the grumbling of an isolated group, but their concerns echo a larger public debate. A series of recent reports, insider leaks, and congressional hearings have highlighted the tension between the military’s newfound adoption of ideological causes and its traditional warfighting mission. Indeed, there is no real question that the military has become more ideological in recent years since the top brass, moving in step with the White House, now openly touts the embrace of progressive diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. The debate is over whether such policies strengthen the military, as leaders from Secretary Austin down insist they do, or cripple it as whistleblowers, watchdog groups, and conservative politicians have claimed.

Last October, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar acknowledged that the military uses racial preferences as a criteria for acceptance to military service academies like West Point and ROTC contracts. The crucial point in Prelogar’s argument, and one that has been echoed by dozens of senior military leaders, including in an amicus brief filed to the Supreme Court last fall ahead of its ruling on affirmative actions policies in university admissions, is that engineering racial diversity is not simply a moral or social good but an imperative of warfighting. “It​​ is a critical national security imperative to attain diversity within the officer corps. And, at present, it’s not possible to achieve that diversity without race-conscious admissions,” Prelogar testified to the Supreme Court last October.

This is how the difficult and divisive questions about vaccinations—were they really necessary for healthy young people? Did the government and medical authorities misrepresent their risks and benefits?—became truly explosive. The Pentagon now treats its medical policies, diversity goals, and national security missions as inseparable if not interchangeable. That makes it nearly impossible for the military to do an honest internal assessment of how specific decisions affected the force and the nation’s overall warfighting capacity.

While the Pentagon at present may be ill-equipped to act as its own auditor, there is still a vital need for a clear-eyed assessment of how and why the military imposed vaccine mandates, and what the consequences of those mandates have been so far.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/thinning-the-ranks

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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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TrialSite in the Crosshairs: NewsGuard Attacks Any Media Countering “Official Truth”

Billing itself as “TRANSPARENT TOOLS TO COUNTER MISINFORMATION FOR READERS, BRANDS, AND DEMOCRACIES,” the nominally privately-owned NewsGuard is a fact-checker and browser tool which purports to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to truthful information. This firm has come under fire from both conservative and progressive media sources for its single-minded focus on allowing only one official version of reality to be presented to the public. Recently, NewsGuard contacted TrialSite (TSN) for the second time, essentially threatening to defame the site if it fails to take down or correct specific stories. All of this occurs in the context of 1) TrialSite currently suing the Trusted News Initiative for antitrust violations, and 2) a federal judge ordering the Biden administration to quit communicating with social media in efforts to stifle the First Amendment.

This article takes a look at the ”fact checker” and finds an obviously state-sponsored entity. Notably, while NewsGuard has critiqued TrialSite for publishing stories about problems with the COVID-19 vaccines, TSN has in fact, been one of the very few willing the publish the good, the bad, and the ugly about these medical products. In other words, TrialSite is one of the few objective media specializing in biomedical and health research producing unbiased news and analysis covering a range of points of view and data sources. TrialSite’s founder brings over two decades of direct experience developing FDA-compliant systems for clinical trials for the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies; this compares to the NewsGuard health editor that has exactly zero pragmatic real-world experience not only in life sciences but in healthcare generally. Why would this group try to harass TrialSite? How about what appears as blatant attempts of censorship?

Former CIA Director on advisory board

The Federalist, a conservative media source, offered us some insights into NewsGuard in 2022. They reported on NewsGuard advisory board member Michael Hayden, the “former” Central Intelligence Agency director (many folks believe there is no such thing as an ex-spy). Hayden is quoted as saying he is “perfectly fine” with misinformation as long as it serves purposes he approves of. The ex-spook served in the George W. Bush administration and also presided over the National Security Agency during the intelligence failure that was 911; a failure of cataclysmic proportions.

He commented on the fact that he was one of 50 intelligence veterans who signed a group letter prior to the 2020 election asserting that the indisputably true Hunter Biden laptop story was actually Russian propaganda. And the laptop contents tend to show that “then-candidate Joe Biden was lying when he denied ever discussing Hunter’s business with him, ‘or with anyone else.’”

The Federalist reports that actually, Joe Biden had met with Hunter’s partners and also “stood to personally profit from his son’s potentially criminal overseas ventures.” Also, NewsGuard is, “being deployed in schools to indoctrinate students regarding acceptable news sources.” As per this outlet, the “claims of Russian disinformation surrounding the laptop were disputed by the FBI, the Department of Justice, then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, and the Department of State all before Election Day.”

Report from the left

From the other side of the political spectrum, all the way back in 2019, The Black Agenda Report offered more scathing critiques of NewsGuard. Billing itself as “News, commentary and analysis from the black left,” this outlet argued that “it will soon become almost impossible to avoid this neocon-approved news site’s ranking systems on any technological device sold in the US.” In one example, MintPress Editor-in-Chief Mnar Muhawesh was “informed that it was under review by an organization called NewsGuard Technologies, which described itself to MintPress as simply a ‘news rating agency’ and asked Muhawesh to comment on a series of allegations, several of which were blatantly untrue.”

Yet an examination of the fact-checker shows that it is both funded by and connected to “the U.S. government, neo-conservatives, and powerful monied interests, all of whom have been working overtime since the 2016 election to silence dissent to American forever-wars and corporate-led oligarchy.”

The Report notes that NewsGuard was then lobbying hard to get its news site rankings “installed by default on computers in U.S. public libraries, schools, and universities as well as on all smartphones and computers sold in the United States.” And “Tom Ridge, the former secretary of Homeland Security…is on News Guard’s advisory board.”

Mainstream media misinformation given a pass

Per this left-wing media, NewsGuard’s bias can be seen in its high marks for CNN and the Washington Post, both of which have a history of their own misinformation. For example, in 2016, CNN reported that it was illegal for folks to read WikiLeaks releases and also “illegally colluded with the DNC to craft presidential debate questions.”

This CNN-Hillary Clinton collusion was quite clear at the time to savvy media consumers. Then in 2017, CNN published “a fake story that a Russian bank linked to a close ally of President Donald Trump was under Senate investigation. That same year, CNN was forced to retract a report that the Trump campaign had been tipped off early about WikiLeaks documents damaging to Hillary Clinton when it later learned the alert was about material already publicly available.”

And the Washington Post, “whose $600 million conflict of interest with the CIA goes unnoted by NewsGuard, has also published false stories since the 2016 election, including one article that falsely claimed that ‘Russian hackers’ had tapped into Vermont’s electrical grid.” Other NewsGuard advisors included Richard Stengel, a former Undersecretary of State who called his old government job “chief propagandist.”

And he has said that he is “not against propaganda. Every country does it and they have to do it to their own population, and I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.” Hypocritically, while NewsGuard judges media firms for transparency, its own “Securities and Exchange Commission Form D — which was filed March 5, 2018 — states that the company ‘declined to disclose’ the size of its total revenue.”

$749,387 from the Department of Defense

Further lack of transparency can be seen in the fact-checker’s “our investors” webpage. That page’s statement is, “Revenue Sources: NewsGuard’s revenue comes from Internet Service Providers, browsers, search engines, social platforms, education providers, hospital systems, advertising agencies, brand safety providers, researchers, and others paying to use NewsGuard’s ratings and Nutrition Labels and associated data.”

Yet publicly available data shows a $749,387 award from the US Department of Defense in 2021. Was this to vet COVID-19 information covering for Big Pharma?

And yet another conservative source, PragerU, has pointed out that “NewsGuard is partnered with Big Tech companies (like Microsoft), Big Pharma (like the PR firm for Pfizer—the maker of the COVID vaccine), government agencies (like the Department of Defense), and even national teachers unions (like the American Federation of Teachers) ‘to combat disinformation, especially around COVID-19 and elections’ according to the World Economic Forum.

They want to control the narrative on any and every topic—from climate change, COVID-19 treatments and vaccines to elections, Planned Parenthood, and the WEF (to name just a few!).”

Military contractor

Despite its limited description of its “investors” NewsGuard does acknowledge being a military contractor. Its own site says that its purview includes, “Equipping defense and military personnel with tools to track state-sponsored narratives---NewsGuard’s analysts are experienced journalists trained to identify and track state-sponsored disinformation sources and narratives targeting Western democracies. Using OSINT [Open-Source Intelligence] methods and a thorough, journalistic approach, NewsGuard’s team captures data and insights about disinformation sources and narratives that can be used by defense personnel as an early warning system about emerging threats and layered on to existing open-source collection and analysis tools to provide an additional layer of human-intelligence insights.” They go on to state that, “In 2020, NewsGuard was selected as a winner of a contest run by the National Security Innovation Network, a joint State Department and Department of Defense group seeking solutions that would help the agencies ‘evaluate disinformation narrative themes in near real-time.’ In the ensuing project, NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprints were combined with AI/ML social listening tools to monitor content containing state-sponsored mis- and disinformation and to identify state-sponsored sources publishing those false narratives.”

NewsGuard censored lab-leak theory of COVID-19

It has been noted by a US House Judiciary Committee witness that “NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index, both taxpayer-funded, are urging advertisers to boycott disfavored publications and direct their funding to favored ones. The organizations have been caught spreading disinformation, including that the COVID lab leak theory is a debunked conspiracy theory, and seeking to discredit publications which accurately reported on Hunter Biden’s laptop, such as the New York Post[.]” A military contractor with the CIA director on its advisory board deciding what we are allowed to hear---What could go wrong?

Finally, the chap who harasses TrialSite this time is the group’s health editor. This questionable organization’s health editor is a graduate from Columbia College in Chicago and has exactly zero healthcare experience. Couple that with TrialSite’s founder who has spent over two decades developing FDA-compliant clinical and regulatory systems for some of the largest pharmaceutical companies on the planet including a sizable Pfizer contract in 2006. TrialSite's network of experts know far more about FDA-regulated research than anything NewsGuard can muster. Plus, how can the organization hire a health editor with no pragmatic healthcare experience? Well, that tells you something else about NewsGuard. This serves as a front to protect the markets of the largest media companies, and likely, as a front for more nefarious state-sponsored censorship, although this is not conclusively proven just because a key advisory director is ex-CIA director and they get sizable DoD contracts. It most certainly smells and doesn’t bode well for democracy.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/trialsite-in-the-crosshairs-newsguard-attacks-any-media-countering-official-truth-0f44ca22

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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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