Sunday, November 13, 2022


‘Masks reduce racism’ study is latest sign US medical establishment is insanely, perilously woke

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine purports to show that mask policies in schools work to contain COVID. But that’s not all: The authors conclude, “We believe that universal masking may be especially useful for mitigating effects of structural racism in schools, including potential deepening of educational inequities.”

Sure, masks help fix structural racism. Why not? And the next study will show masking fights climate change.

No, what this study shows is that much of the medical establishment continues to be intensely woke — and deeply dishonest because of it. Just as the “experts” told us gathering in crowds wasn’t OK in spring of 2020, but just weeks later protesting for Black Lives Matter somehow was.

This dishonesty is going to hurt us all for a long time.

As for this study specifically: It does not prove what the authors intended to. It’s just the latest in a push by agenda-driven scientists, and the media who love them, to get people back in masks.

The study centers on two Massachusetts school districts that didn’t remove their mask mandates as soon as the state allowed, in March 2022, but kept them until June. A few months later, they saw slightly lower COVID rates than the other districts.

It’s amazing that COVID could lay in wait like that, ready to punish those who behaved badly months earlier. What’s even more startling: COVID rates in all the schools were higher before anyone took off their mask — but that uncomfortable fact goes unmentioned in the write-up.

Plus, the study doesn’t look at actual mask use, just the mandates. Nor does it account for any differences in behavior, income level, lifestyles and so on. (Which also means it can’t show a thing about masks and “structural racism,” whatever that is anyway.)

Oh, and: It’s an “observational” study — the kind the left dismissed as irrelevant when we’d point out that New Mexico and next-door Utah had very similar COVID trajectories despite very different masking policies. Or that Europe largely didn’t mask kids in school at all but had similar or lower rates than we did. None of that counted.

Which didn’t stop The New York Times’ Roni Caryn Rabin from promoting the new study as “a so-called natural experiment” and breathlessly concluding, “The bottom line: Masking mandates were linked with significantly reduced numbers of Covid cases in schools.”

This is full-on nonsense. The mask mandates did no such thing. New Mexico-Utah and Europe are just part of the avalanche of “natural experiments” that prove it.

It’s pathetic that in November 2022, we have to keep pointing out the obvious — and that garbage science like this destroys everyone’s confidence in the medical field.

Pre-COVID, trusting the medical establishment was the default for all of us, most conservatives included. I’m firmly on the right, but when the health agencies told me in the early days of the pandemic that masking worked, I believed them.

Yet things quickly stopped making sense. Masking outside seemed ludicrous right off the bat, yet it would be a long time before these same health agencies admitted it.

Not until April 25, 2021, did Dr. Anthony Fauci say, “It’s common sense to know that the risk when you are outdoors, which we have been saying all along, is extremely low, and if you are vaccinated it’s even lower.”

He had not, actually, been saying that all along — and those of us who had that “common sense” got targeted and ridiculed for being “anti-science.”

It wasn’t that we stopped “believing” in masking. It’s that we were lied to and then realized it.

And “common sense” did not prevail at all in blue areas. My family moved to Florida in January 2022 because our kids were still forced to mask at their New York City public schools, outdoors.

These bonkers policies destroyed the trust of so many people, and it will be far more difficult than it seems to restore it.

Again, the problem isn’t just with masking. It’s that the medical establishment has gone fully woke. Wokeness goes hand-in-hand with forced conformity.

No one is allowed to step out of the woke lines — though those lines are free to shift at any time. It’s very Soviet.

Under those rules, you can’t be critical of even this cockamamie study; you’re supposed to see that someone squiggled some lines on a graph and pretends it “proves” something it clearly doesn’t because you need to support your “side.”

Inside the woke echo chamber, you even have to embrace insane ideas like “masking fights racism.”

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CDC boss tests positive for Covid AGAIN: Rochelle Walensky is diagnosed with virus just days after being given the all-clear

The head of the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has tested positive for Covid again - after a course of Paxlovid saw her recover from the virus.

Dr Rochelle Walensky initially tested positive on October 21 and tested negative sometime in recent days after taking Pfizer's antiviral pill.

But the CDC said today her symptoms had returned and she was positive for the virus again on Sunday, October 30.

Paxlovid has proven effective at preventing serious disease and death among those at highest risk, including older people and those who are immune compromised.

Some who take the drug have experienced a return of symptoms after completing Paxlovid’s five-day regimen of pills.

These include President Joe Biden and Dr Anthony Fauci, who both also had their symptoms rebound after recovering using the drug.

Dr Walensky, 53, has received four doses of the COVID-19 vaccines, including a bivalent booster received on September 22.

The agency reports that she is suffering mild symptoms and will take part in her planned meeting virtually.

Walensky has received four shots of a COVID-19 vaccine up to this point.

Her agency has warned repeatedly for Americans to get the bivalent booster in an effort to stave off a winter surge of the virus.

Uptick has been low so far, though, with only 22.8million having received the shot in the two months it has been available.

Up to 5.3 per cent of people that use Paxlovid will experience a rebound of symptoms. These include President Biden, who first tested positive for the virus on July 21 of this year.

He would then leave isolation after two consecutive negative tests, but then test positive for the virus once again on July 30.

Dr Fauci experienced a similar phenomenon when he caught Covid in June. He said that he beat the virus after a five day course of the drug. After testing negative for three days, his symptoms then returned.

Both President Biden and Dr Fauci fully recovered from the virus in the following weeks.

Scientists have not been able to determine why this rebound occurs, but believe it could be tied to the way the drug functions.

Paxlovid fights Covid by preventing its replication. After a course of a drug is finished, their could still be some infected cells lingering in a person's body.

Once the Paxlovid is no longer around to stop replication, the virus is able to begin infected the body once more.

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FDA Regulators: Peter Doshi has a Message for You

Peter Doshi, Ph.D., is most certainly an accomplished, influential figure in American biomedical research. A senior editor of the respected medical journal, The BMJ, as well as an associate professor of pharmaceutical health services research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, Dr. Doshi could be classified as a clinical investigator heavyweight in any biomedical scientist match. An expert in not only the drug approval process but also how risks and benefits associated with medicinal products are evaluated, communicated, and ultimately approved, the Baltimore-based academic researcher and scientist has dedicated his career to improving the process of generating medical evidence.

TrialSite has showcased his and colleagues’ recent investigations raising concerning questions about COVID-19 vaccine safety, particularly in low-risk cohorts.

Although the indisputable pedigree, intellectual firepower, and an extensive network of connections are all in place, Doshi’s critique of the COVID-19 vaccines is completely evaded by mainstream academia, regulators, and industry.

Why? Because there has been so much pressure built up from the highest circles of power in Washington to drive a mass vaccination program during the pandemic that a certain top-down, politically-inspired rigidity has compromised objectivity, veracity, and frankly, morals and ethics.

Those regulatory and compliance professionals charged with doing their job are, unfortunately, missing in action. Doshi, a moral operator who isn’t worried about McMansion payments or keeping up with the academic ‘Joneses,’ takes an ever more proactive stand, calling out the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to start handling their business, properly.

Disturbing Safety Signals Need Investigation

For example, the Baltimore-based academic and clinical research expert shared his findings, conveying his growing concern as to what happened to the Gold Standard regulatory agency. Why is the FDA MIA?

Doshi, who has communicated with TrialSite from time to time, shares that the safety signal he and colleagues have uncovered is troubling, to say the least.

Both Pfizer and Moderna’s Phase 3 clinical trials data suggest an investigation is needed, and now! Serious adverse events—those events that the companies themselves have classified as being the most concerning, are too high not to notice. This is no trivial matter, to be minimized and marginalized by the FDA, CDC, NIH, and others, not to mention political representatives. Clearly, the companies can’t get themselves to do the right thing as they and their shareholders are blinded by avarice and an insatiable urge for ever more capital accumulation. True, the shareholders demand such behavior but there’s ultimately a bigger, more sustained corporate brand health imperative that the CEOs must understand and ultimately embrace.

Doshi is one but a few lonely voices in academia calling for regulators to get off their tails and back into an independent regulatory groove. While political agendas and pharmaceutical sirens have lured the FDA’s independent regulatory ship into precarious, dangerous straits, the vaccine safety data calls for getting back on course—immediately.

What’s the trial data show?

Doshi shares that the trial data are indicating that serious adverse events occur at around 1 in 800 people vaccinated—“so 1 additional serious adverse event for every 800 people vaccinated.” This is a disturbingly high safety signal. For comparison, previous vaccines typically produce about 1 or 2 serious adverse events per million vaccinated persons.

Doshi reminds today’s regulators that at any other point in time there would be a serious investigation. For example, he recalls back in 1976: a small boost in the risk of a serious neurological disorder known as Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) associated with the swine flu vaccine necessitated stopping the immunization to investigate. At that time, the rate of incidence was approximately 1 additional case of GBS for every 100,000 people who got the swine flu.

This is all very troubling—especially with the impact of the safety signal on low-risk groups—centering on young people. Doshi’s calls for a review should have long ago been heard.

Regulators—Are you Listening?

Dr. Doshi understands his obligation, regardless of political or career fallout, to intensify the call to the leadership at the FDA to wake up and start an investigation.

First reminding the FDA of their responsibilities and duties as the agency entrusted to protect public health, Doshi prompts the regulators that they need to be able to conduct an independent replication of the trial data using the individual participant data from the trials.

Second, he instructs the FDA leadership to ensure immediate receipt of all the necessary trial data—not summaries of the data. Finally, the Maryland-based professor directs the FDA to review this data with as much scrutiny as possible. He reminds all: “That’s the responsibility that I think a regulator has.”

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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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