The CDC Is Breaking Trust in Childhood Vaccination

On June 18, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officially recommended Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for all children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years. While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the agency responsible for authorizing emergency use of vaccines, it’s the CDC that crafts subsequent messaging, makes specific recommendations, and prioritizes who can, should, or should not get vaccinated. In her briefing, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky strongly urged all parents of the nearly 20 million American children in this age group to vaccinate them as soon as possible.

For some parents, Walensky’s briefing came as a huge relief. But if polling from May is anything to go by, a larger number of parents likely greeted the recommendation with skepticism. Even before the underwhelming trial results came out, only 18% of surveyed parents reported that they planned to vaccinate their babies and toddlers. Nationally, uptake in minors between the ages of 5 and 11 as of June 22, 2022, was 29% receiving two doses, and 36% receiving one, but vaccine requirements for sports, camps, and other activities likely drove an unknown percentage of vaccination in this age group.

The Dissidents

There remains, moreover, no solid consensus among physicians about the importance of vaccinating healthy children against COVID-19. A survey from December 2021 indicates that as many as 30%-40% may not be recommending COVID vaccination for children ages 5 to 17, to say nothing of infants. A recent editorial in The Lancet expressed uncertainty about whether the benefits of vaccinating healthy 5- to 11-year-olds outweigh the risks, especially in those with a history of infection.

The gap between the CDC’s enthusiasm for vaccinating all children against COVID and that of parents and health care providers is unlikely to be bridged by approval under Emergency Use Authorization. Approval for the COVID vaccines in infants and toddlers is based on two trials that used changes in antibody levels as an estimate of efficacy, but did not assess protection from severe disease, hospitalization, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), important outcomes that parents worry about. In a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) meeting on June 28, Pfizer Vice President for Viral Vaccines Kena Swanson even acknowledged that “there is no established correlate” between antibody levels and protection from disease.

In the Pfizer trial, the confidence interval—which shows the possible range of protection level—was alarmingly wide, with the lower bound suggesting the possibility of a 380% increase in the chance of infection after the third dose. Additionally, neither trial met the 50% efficacy requirement established by the FDA for approval of adult COVID vaccines. Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine official, told Congress in May that the efficacy requirement would be lowered for the pediatric vaccine simply because vaccine efficacy against the omicron variant was lower in general.

With rates of severe disease now much lower in children than at the start of the pandemic—due to higher levels of natural immunity and lower rates of severe disease caused by omicron—trials would have needed to enroll hundreds of thousands of children, if not over a million, in order to detect a significant impact of the pediatric vaccine against severe disease. Vaccine companies could have conducted such time-consuming and costly trials, especially if there had been interest in international collaboration. But there was no economic incentive to do so, and every economic incentive not to: Speed, not providing meaningful information to parents and physicians about safety and efficacy, was the priority of U.S. regulatory agencies.

Because Pfizer and Moderna were permitted to seek approval for pediatric COVID vaccines under the emergency use pathway, Moderna only enrolled 6,300 total children in trials (4,700 in the vaccine group and 1,600 in the placebo group), and Pfizer only enrolled 4,526 total (2,750 in the vaccine group and 1,776 in the placebo), with two-thirds dropping out before the third dose. The trials, in other words, enrolled only a fraction of the number of participants that would have been required to determine efficacy against end points like severe disease, hospitalization, and rare adverse events such as myocarditis, which has been linked to COVID vaccination in males in the 12- to 17-year-old age group at a rate of up to 1 in 2,700.

Furthermore, the follow-up time after the second dose of Moderna and the third dose of Pfizer was only 1-3 months. Data from adults show protection against infection is transient, though protection against severe disease so far seems longer lasting. For the Moderna vaccine, efficacy against infection was not statistically significant for children between 6 months and 2 years, according to one of the company’s two analyses. In the Pfizer trial, there was no evidence of efficacy for the first two doses against omicron for this age group; the “effect” seen after the third dose was so uncertain that it is impossible to draw firm conclusions about how well the vaccine worked to prevent cases.

Still more puzzling is the fact that neither Pfizer nor Moderna—despite continued assurances that mRNA vaccines are uniquely flexible, allowing manufacturers to quickly tweak vaccines to match new variants—has released an updated version of their product: The pediatric vaccines now being administered target an outdated variant. In addition, the infant and toddler trials were mostly limited to children who had not been previously infected with COVID (estimates based on blood work showed less than 15% of children enrolled had previously been infected). With 75% of children nationally having already been infected by February 2022, the immune-naive children enrolled in the trial were not representative of their age group at large.

The general trust deficit is more troubling than skepticism toward this particular vaccine.

Even in the already troubled context of the last two years, the CDC’s unqualified recommendation to vaccinate every young child against COVID may further contribute to the profound chasm of trust between U.S. citizens and their public health agencies. In January, a Hart poll found that only 44% of respondents said they believe what the CDC says; a March Gallup poll put it at 32%. Evidence of trust slippage can be seen even in highly vaccinated places like Portland, Oregon, where CDC recommendations were for the most part embraced unquestioningly during the pandemic. Despite the CDC’s recommendation that all children 5 and up should receive a booster, as of June 26 only 8.7% of children ages 5-11 in the Portland area are boosted, compared to 3.9% in the entire state of Oregon. (The CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics have not made nationwide data available.)

The general trust deficit is more troubling than skepticism toward this particular vaccine, because it could conceivably drive down uptake of other childhood vaccines that we know are more important to children’s health, such as those against measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, polio, and Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib). This is not an alarmist or trivial concern, as vaccinations are one of the most lifesaving medical interventions in human history, rivaled perhaps only by antibiotics. In 1800, 46% of American children did not make it to age 5, and the majority died from what are now vaccine-preventable diseases. The smallpox vaccine alone is estimated to have saved 150 million to 200 million lives. Rates of diseases such as tetanus, rubella, polio, Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib) have declined by 99% since widespread childhood vaccination became commonplace in the 20th century.

It is therefore worth our attention when, for example, a recent letter in the New England Journal of Medicine noted that flu shot uptake has decreased over the pandemic, which the authors suspect may be due to growing vaccine hesitancy in general. The CDC published a study in April showing that childhood vaccination rates fell by only 1% in 2021, a small proportion of the total when spread over 70 million children. But given that many of these vaccines require two or three doses for full coverage, this still translates to several million missing doses, and could threaten herd immunity for diseases such as measles, which require very high percentages of the population to be vaccinated. It is also difficult to separate out the factors behind this drop in coverage, because schools and local clinics—where many low-income children receive vaccines—were closed for much of the last two years. But it is reasonable to at least assume that low trust in the CDC, the agency responsible for making evidence-based recommendations about vaccines, is not helping.

Compare the CDC’s response to vaccine hesitancy during COVID to a similar challenge in the late 1990s and early 2000s: rotavirus. Only a year after Andrew Wakefield’s false claims in 1998 that the MMR vaccines caused autism—leading to one of the most disastrous setbacks for vaccination uptake in history—Wyeth’s RotaShield vaccine was pulled off the market due to evidence it caused a rare and serious intestinal malfunction (intussusception) in babies. The effect of the RotaShield withdrawal so hard on the heels of the Wakefield disaster is hard to isolate, but CDC officials acknowledged that the combined events led to “a particularly turbulent period” for U.S. vaccine programs. Referring to vaccine hesitancy that might result from the RotaShield adverse events, the CDC’s Dr. John Livengood remarked at the time that the CDC “shouldn’t be seen as withholding information right now.”

The original trial for RotaShield had enrolled 10,054 vaccine recipients and 4,633 placebo recipients. During a February 1998 meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (the same body that recently met to discuss the pediatric COVID vaccines), an FDA panel member, Dr. Margaret Rennels, noted that more babies in the vaccine group experienced intestinal intussusception than in the placebo group by about 2.5-fold, with a rate of 1/2011 (0.05%) in the vaccine group compared with 1/4633 (0.02%) in the placebo. But because the absolute numbers were small, and the trial was also relatively small, intestinal intussusception did not achieve statistical significance. RotaShield was licensed by the FDA in 1998, widely rolled out, and championed by the CDC in the spring of 1999. Intussusception was not mentioned further, and the issue was buried in a 19-page document where it was listed as a side effect that did not occur significantly more often in vaccinated babies than in the control group.

By summer, however, officials at the CDC grew concerned about a growing number of intussusception reports from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), and were anxious not to lose gains made during the Carter and Clinton administrations in raising general childhood vaccination rates. By the end of President Clinton’s first term, toddler immunization rates had achieved what was then an all-time high, thanks to Vaccines for Children, a program that expanded access to free and low-cost vaccination.

The CDC was also cognizant that Wakefield’s false claims were continuing to spur a growing movement of vaccine hesitancy. As a result, the CDC—then under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey Koplan—immediately launched a large-scale investigation into the RotaShield VAERS reports. The investigation concluded that one additional case of intussusception was attributable to the vaccine for every 5,000-10,000 infants vaccinated—lower than rates of myocarditis due to vaccine injury in COVID-vaccinated adolescent males age 12-17.

RotaShield was pulled off the market that October. To justify the decision to pull a vaccine that was 85% effective at preventing hospitalization from a viral infection that had killed hundreds of thousands of infants worldwide, CDC personnel wrote the following:

At a time when many parents express concerns about the safety of vaccines and vaccine adverse events are the focus of increasing attention by the public, media, and U.S. Congress, the wisdom of recommending a vaccine that causes a severe adverse reaction in an estimated 1 in 10,000 infants must be considered.

The next vaccine against rotavirus—RotaTeq, made by Merck and released in 2004—was only released after the Rotavirus Efficacy and Safety Trial (REST) trial, which was notable for its “[randomized] design, large sample size, detailed execution, continuous safety monitoring, and lengthy duration,” and was undertaken in direct response to the perceived failures of the RotaShield trial. The authors of a paper describing its execution wrote, “The design and conduct of this study may serve as a useful tool for planning other future clinical trials, especially those evaluating uncommon adverse events.” The REST trial was conducted in 11 countries at more than 500 study sites and enrolled 70,000 subjects (including over 35,000 infants from the United States), making it one of the largest vaccine clinical trials ever conducted pre-approval. Post-approval, Merck conducted an additional study enrolling more than 85,000 infants.

The obvious drawback of a trial like REST is that it took four years to complete (though today it could almost certainly be completed faster due to advances in recruitment methods). A multiyear trial was simply not an option during COVID, which is why the notably small and short COVID vaccine trials were allowed to serve as the basis for approval under the emergency use provision. But because COVID so rarely causes severe disease in children, and current COVID vaccines do not reliably prevent transmission, especially after a few months, it is difficult to understand how such small trials could be justified without meaningful endpoints for this age group.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/cdc-is-endangering-childhood-vaccination-progress

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)

<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)

<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

<a href="https://australian-politics.blogspot.com/">http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/</a> (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)

<a href="https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/">https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/</a> <b>(IMMIGRATION WATCH)</b>

<a href="https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/">https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/</a> (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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Infection of wildlife biologist highlights risks of virus hunting

The illness was mysterious. A 25-year-old graduate student had been hospitalized with a high fever, muscle and joint pain, a stiff neck, fatigue, sores in her throat, and a metallic taste in her mouth. She soon developed an angry rash. To make the diagnosis, her doctors had an important data point to consider: Days earlier, the woman had returned to the United States from a field expedition in South Sudan and Uganda, where she had been capturing and collecting the blood and tissue of bats and rodents. That information proved critical — and is newly relevant given concerns that the pandemic may have come from a research accident. Three days after she was admitted to the hospital in 2012, tests determined that the student was infected with a novel virus that infects a type of fruit bat that lives in the rural areas of Uganda.

The graduate student recovered and left the hospital two weeks later. But the incident, which was written up in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases in 2014, proved scientifically important. Not only did it allow for the identification of the Sosuga virus — a paramyxovirus named for Southern Sudan and Uganda — and the knowledge that the bat virus can infect and sicken people, the woman’s infection also pointed to the dangers posed by the kind of research she was doing: trapping, manipulating, and dissecting animals suspected of being infected with novel disease-causing viruses.

Biosafety experts have long worried over the possibility that scientists seeking dangerous viruses in the wild could inadvertently become infected in the course of either capturing or coming into contact with the saliva, urine, or feces of the animals. The case of the Sosuga virus shows that those concerns are well founded.

Virus hunter Michael Callahan, an infectious disease doctor who has worked for federal agencies on global disease outbreak and the tracking of wildlife pathogens, has vividly described the high risks faced by field researchers. “Squirming, clawed and toothy animals bite and scratch during collection of body fluids. Teeth and talons easily penetrate the thin gloves required to maintain dexterity when handling fragile wildlife,” he wrote in Politico in 2021. “The fact that researchers are not infected every time they do a field collection is a question that continues to stump us.”

With more than 6 million people now dead from Covid-19, the catastrophic potential of a researcher becoming infected with a wildlife pathogen has become inescapable. While the origins of the current pandemic are still unclear, it remains possible that virus hunting could have been the cause. Rocco Casagrande, a biochemist who was hired by the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Science Policy to assess the risks of gain-of-function research, thinks a natural spillover of the virus from animals to people, a lab accident, or what he calls a “prospecting based accident” are equally likely potential causes of the initial outbreak. He imagined the prospecting scenario as “the researchers in Wuhan looking for bat viruses found one and got infected outside of the lab.”

Even as the very real chance remains that the search for new viruses led to this cataclysmic event, scientists hoping to prevent viral outbreaks continue to seek out new bat coronaviruses and other potential pandemic pathogens around the world.

Ask the Bats

The search for pathogens that infect animals is driven by the desire to prevent and prepare for their possible transmission to people. But that work, which spans the globe and is funded in large part by the U.S. government, can sometimes result in human infection — exactly the outcome it is meant to prevent.

Virus hunting — or wildlife disease ecology, as DeeAnn Reeder prefers to call it — is a field that has come under increasing scrutiny during the Covid pandemic. For Reeder, a professor of biology at Bucknell College who led the 2012 expedition on which the graduate student was infected, one of the central purposes of her research in Africa on bats’ immune responses to viruses is to understand how humans might react to the same infectious agents, knowledge she says can protect us if the pathogens jump from animals to humans. “If you want to understand how to survive a coronavirus, or if you want to understand how to survive a filovirus — Ebola fits within that context — you need to ask the bats because they know how to do it,” said Reeder.

Reeder, who put up her first bat net in South Sudan in 2008, continues to do wildlife research in Uganda. No one has previously reported her connection to the work. “I’ve never been contacted by a reporter on that particular story,” Reeder said, after being asked whether the Sosuga virus infection occurred during research on one of her projects. “I’ve always been surprised about that.” Reeder would not confirm the identity of the researcher on her project who was sickened, citing privacy concerns.

The Sosuga case shows that concerns about viral transmission from wild animals to researchers are not just theoretical. It is still unclear exactly how the infection occurred. While the graduate student only occasionally used protective gear when working with animal specimens, when she visited the bat caves she wore a paper Tyvek suit that’s become the hallmark of virus hunters, gum boots, bite-resistant gloves, and even an air-powered respirator known as a PAPR that looks like an astronaut’s helmet. The researcher did not report being bitten or scratched by any of the animals she encountered.

“Maybe outside the cave before they put the respirators on, she leaned against a rock that had been peed on, because we know that it could be in the kidneys of this particular bat species,” said Reeder. “But that’s just conjecture, which is the scary part.”

https://theintercept.com/2022/07/02/virus-infection-bat-biosafety

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Australians to get Omicron booster

Australia is set to be one of the first countries in the world to get access to an Omicron booster jab.

Moderna’s new Covid vaccine designed to fight the original Wuhan strain of the virus, as well as the Omicron variant, is currently being assessed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

“If approved, the company will be able to supply this new Omicron-containing bivalent booster vaccine within weeks- putting Australia among the first countries in the world to have access to this new COVID-19 vaccine,” Moderna’s managing director in Australia Michael Azrak told News Corp.

Health Minister Mark Butler told News Corp he wanted to be on “the front foot” in accessing the most up to date vaccines.

“I’ve had encouraging discussions with Moderna and Pfizer about the challenges of the new sub-variants and the positive developments in vaccine technology,” Mr Butler said.

“My department is in negotiations about future supply arrangements, including for under 5-year-olds and the variant vaccines,” he said.

Epidemiologists and other experts have been calling for more Australians to get a fourth jab as hospitals and health services buckle under massive pressure from both Covid and the flu.

The government’s expert advisory group on vaccines the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) was meeting on Wednesday to decide whether more Australians should get access to a fourth Covid booster.

There are more than 16 million unused doses of the existing Covid vaccines siting in warehouses and doctors clinics.

Currently a fourth dose is only available to the elderly and those who are immunocompromised or suffering certain chronic conditions.

The existing Covid vaccines were designed to work against the original Wuhan variant.

A fourth dose of these vaccines has been shown in Israel to provide a 10-30 per cent increase in resistance to infection but this protection wanes within five to eight weeks.

However, this could be enough to get Australia through the worst of the winter outbreak.

But there is concern about whether the original jab provides much protection against the new BA. 4 and BA. 5 variants sweeping the nation.

These variants appear resistant to the existing vaccine and the antibodies produced by people who were infected with the original Omicron variant.

Mr Butler has appointed former Health Department chief Jane Halton to review Australia’s vaccine purchasing arrangements. She is expected to report within weeks.

Moderna said it “continues to have constructive discussions with the Australian Government regarding the supply of Moderna’s next generation Omicron containing bivalent vaccine booster for people 18 years and older”.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/omicron-booster-jab-being-assessed-by-tga/news-story/9a80767d004229d01c0f11abdfd6e7ce

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Australia: Too late for mask mandates as Omicron continues to drive high case numbers

Omicron’s measles-like infectiousness, five times higher than any other Covid strain, is driving the continued high number of cases across the nation, but experts say Australia has done relatively well in terms of controlling case numbers.

They also say it is now too late for governments to impose restrictive rules and mask mandates, with the path out of Covid reliant instead on better public health messaging, better vaccines and earlier access to antivirals.

The reach of Omicron is clear in the numbers as the nation reached a grim milestone on Sunday, surpassing 10,000 Covid-­related deaths since the virus landed here in January 2020.

Of those deaths, almost 8000 were in the first half of this year when Omicron has been the dominant strain.

The majority of mortalities occurred in Victoria and NSW, with the states recording 3934 and 3590 deaths, respectively.

The 2022 death toll is nearly four times the previous two years’ mortality rate combined, with 905 reported in 2020 and 1323 in 2021, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

While increased movement and relaxed rules following lockdowns caused transmission to increase, Deakin University chair in epidemiology Catherine Bennett blamed the arrival of Omicron and sub variants “first and foremost” for skyrocketing cases.

“It’s the most infectious variant we’ve had. It’s more equivalent to measles than the first strain and more than five times more infectious,” Professor Bennett said.

“It’s because we’ve got these sub variants. Every time the numbers start to drop a little bit, the next sub variant comes along with not even a brief respite between.”

Ms Bennett said while masks had been proven to reduce transmission, the debate over reintroducing mandates was too late.

“This is the long haul now. You have to move from rules to something else and that something else is really good public health communication and really good education … what I think we have missed is converting to a new way of managing this disease.”

Griffith University Infectious Diseases and Immunology director Nigel McMillan said targeted vaccines were the clear next step in combating the Omicron strain.

“What we’re really holding out for, of course, is that the next vaccine to come on to the market will be a multicomponent vaccine,” he said. “It’ll have the ancestral strain, plus Omicron, and that vaccine will be much, much better in terms of preventing infection, and even much, much better at preventing hospitalisation and serious illness.”

Professor McMillan said we should be making antivirals more accessible during earlier stages of infection. “Antivirals reduce the ability of the virus to grow inside you and therefore give your body a chance to recover better to limit the infection and for your immune system to kick in and really give you full recovery. “However, they have to be used early on in infection.”

Currently, antiviral drugs are limited to people who are moderately to severely immunocompromised or those aged over 65 with some sort of comorbidity, such as diabetes.

Professor McMillan has called on them to be made more widely available if supply allows.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/too-late-for-mask-mandates-as-omicron-continues-to-drive-high-case-numbers/news-story/8f8693ad143e581d94db5fb7cf82c3d9

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3 Reasons America Is Great

1. A Culture of Self-Government

Americans, even before the birth of the United States in 1776, have always been a self-governing people. One of the first orders of business for the Pilgrim settlers when they arrived on the shores of Massachusetts was to create the Mayflower Compact, a basic statement of self-government and loyalty to the British crown.

The Jamestown colony in Virginia set up the House of Burgesses in 1619, the first legislative assembly in the New World.

Following their heritage, the British colonies in America almost immediately established institutions of self-government where community participation in the creation and upholding of laws was extensive.

But in the almost two centuries between the arrival of British colonists in America and the American Revolution, the colonists’ attachment to self-government deepened in comparison to their cousins back in England, where representation was often more symbolic rather than actual.

Amid Parliament’s ultimately foolish attempts to ham-handedly rein in the colonies at the end of the French and Indian War, it was the Crown that triggered the separation, the drive for total independence.

The thought of losing their grip on self-government made the colonists believe that they would soon end up in the vice of absolute tyranny. After years of discontent and pleading with British authorities to loosen their grip of control, the colonies rebelled.

The Declaration of Independence, a remarkable and timeless document, did not just lay out the essential God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in its most famous lines.

It also lays out the blow by blow steps of the British government and the colonies to establish that it was not just the rights of the colonists that had been violated, but that the very tools of self-government that could have rectified the situation had been arbitrarily stripped from them.

Americans were a people fitted for liberty and would tolerate no less.

2. The Constitution and the Rule of Law

When the Founding Fathers set about creating our own system of government, they codified the principles of self-government to serve countless generations unborn.

After the false start, so to speak, of the Articles of Confederation, the Framers wrote, and the American people ratified, the Constitution of the United States.

This remarkable document created a framework of America’s federal system that lasts still today despite the countless societal changes that have occurred in the last two centuries.

And while, in many ways, that constitutional and federal system has been eroded over time, Americans have remained committed to the idea of the Constitution as the glue that defines our government and binds Americans under a single system with many parts.

This is the cornerstone of liberty and order that defines our republic, ensures that we have an energetic but ultimately limited government.

Certainly, other nations have codified their laws and created founding documents of many stripes, but none matches the enduring legacy of the Constitution of the United States.

The American civilization may be young, but our system of government is quite old, and has excelled through the test of time.

3. The American Dream

Self-government and the Constitution have made America strong and adaptable to changing circumstances. Just as importantly, they’ve created a system whereby the average person can thrive and prosper.

The country’s strength lies in the millions of free-born, self-governing, and self-sufficient people who have taken the protections our unique government provides and created the most wealthy and prosperous nation in human history.

Americans are, and have always been, an enterprising people. But more than just create wealth, we have used our wealth and prosperity.

America’s attachment to the rule of law and defense of private property has allowed the growth of an expansive middle-class.

Yes, America has produced many titans of industry, but the real source of our strength is the fact that the average American has had opportunities to generate wealth and prosperity and create a vibrant civil society.

Many homesteaders went West to get rich, but many more went West to build families and ensure that their children would have a better life than they had.

That’s the spirit of America.

We have used our tremendous resources not only to improve our own lives but the lives of others.

And because of our enormous prosperity Americans remain, by far, the most generous people on Earth.

This Fourth of July, as with every Independence Day, we should be thankful and grateful to be Americans, we should be proud of what our country—though imperfect as all of mankind is imperfect—has accomplished.

It is important and essential that at this time we remember, defend, and pass on what has made this country great.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/07/02/3-reasons-america-is-great/

4 July, 2022

'Our country is going to hell in a hand-basket': WWII veteran celebrating 100th birthday breaks down in TEARS while discussing current state of America

It's hard to disagree with him. Who ever foresaw calls to defund the police and prosecutors who refuse to prosecute?

Remembering his time in the Marines, Carl Spurlin Dekel said that while fighting in the war was his biggest pride, soldiers had not died for the America of today

It comes amid plummeting approval ratings for those in the country's highest offices, including President Joe Biden

A World War II American veteran celebrating his 100th birthday broke down in tears as he discussed the current state of the country.

Reminiscing about his time in the Marines, Tampa Bay veteran Carl Spurlin Dekel said that while fighting in the war was his biggest pride, slain soldiers had not died for the America of today.

'People don't realize what they have,' Dekel told Fox13.

'The things we did and the things we fought for and the boys that died for it, it's all gone down the drain. Our country is going to hell in a hand-basket.'

Dekel became inconsolable as he spoke about the contrasts between the America he grew up in and the current state of affairs in the country.

His remarks came during an interview to commemorate Dekel's 100th birthday, which the Silver-medal holder spent with friends and family.

Dekel said he had lived a good life and hinted at his appreciation for the little things as the reason behind his longevity and good health.

'I really believe in this whole world and believe everything is beautiful. I mean if I wake up in the morning and see these plants, and all of those flowers, and the green grass in the ground, that's beautiful,' he told Fox13.

Dekel proudly showed his many medals from his time in the Marines. But the war veteran burst into tears when thinking about the friends he had lost to the war.

'We haven't got the country we had when I was raised, not at all,' he said.

'Nobody will have the fun I had. Nobody will have the opportunity I had. It's just not the same. And that's not what our boys, that's not what they died for.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10978487/WWII-veteran-celebrating-100th-birthday-breaks-discussing-current-state-America.html

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'Armed insurrection': What weapons did the Capitol rioters carry?

Recently, Scott MacFarlane, an NBC4 reporter in Washington who covers the Capitol riot prosecutions, tweeted, "As of tonight at least 65 of the Jan. 6 defendants have been charged with 'entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon.' A counterpunch to those who argued this didn't appear like 'an armed insurrection.'"

It was just a tweet, which, by definition, can't contain much information, but it left open the question: What weapons did they have? What were the arms in the "armed insurrection"?

The Justice Department maintains a website listing the defendants and the federal charges against them in the sprawling Jan. 6 investigation. At this moment, about 670 people have been charged, many of them with misdemeanors such as "Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building."

Of the cases involving weapons, there are four main charges: "Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers Using a Dangerous Weapon"; "Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon"; "Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon"; and "Engaging in Physical Violence in a Restricted Building with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon."

Going through the Justice Department site, as well as some media databases, I counted 82 defendants who have been charged with at least one of those offenses. It's possible I missed a few, but I think they represent the vast majority of those who face weapons-related charges in the Capitol riot investigation. In each charge, prosecutors have specified the weapon the defendant is accused of using.

A few observations on the list. First, on the issue of guns. Five suspects — Christopher Michael Alberts, Lonnie Leroy Coffman, Mark Sami Ibrahim, Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr., and Guy Wesley Reffitt — are charged with possessing firearms. But none are charged with using them during the riot.

Alberts was arrested at 7:25 p.m., after the riot was over, when police enforcing the District of Columbia curfew suspected he had a handgun under his coat as he was leaving.

Coffman was arrested at about 6:30 p.m. after he told police that he was trying to get to his parked pickup truck. Officers found two handguns on Coffman's person and two more guns, along with possible bomb-making materials, in the truck.

Ibrahim was a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who had given his notice to resign and was on personal leave on Jan. 6; at the riot, he was carrying his DEA-issued badge and pistol.

Meredith was not in Washington at all for the riot. He arrived later that evening after allegedly texting a threatening message about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Meredith told police that "he had two firearms in his truck, and he knew that he was not supposed to have the firearms in Washington, DC. Therefore, he moved the firearms to his trailer," according to court documents. Officers found a handgun, a rifle, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in the trailer.

Finally, court papers say Reffitt had a handgun on his person on Jan. 6.

So, those are the gun cases. Many observers have pointed out that other rioters surely had guns. Since so few were arrested and searched at the scene, that is impossible to know. But it's certainly possible. What is more certain is that none of the suspects fired any guns at any point during the riot. The only shot that was fired during that time was by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd, who shot and killed rioter Ashli Babbitt as she tried to force her way into an area near the House chamber.

As for the rest of the weapons, six defendants are charged with having a knife, although none are accused of using the weapon on another person. Five defendants are accused of having a Taser or stun gun. Three are charged with having an ax. Four are charged with having a baseball bat. Seven are charged with having a crutch. Eleven are charged with having a baton of some sort. Thirteen are accused of having some sort of pepper or other irritant spray. Nineteen are charged with having a pole, usually a pole for the flags they carried. Eight are accused of having a shield, several of them police shields they apparently took at the scene.

Some of the weapons were obviously brought with the intention of being in a fight. Others were clearly improvised on the spur of the moment; in one case, the deadly or dangerous weapon used was a desk drawer. In another, it was a traffic barrier. In yet another, it was a helmet. That doesn't mean those objects could not be dangerous; one could beat a person to death with a desk drawer. But it does suggest the rioter did not arrive at the Capitol bent on armed insurrection.

In addition, the overall numbers are relatively small. Eighty-two people charged with weapons-related offenses, out of how many? That is about 12% of the 670 or so currently charged. And 670 is smaller than the total number of rioters on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6. Does that amount to an "armed insurrection"? Especially when just five people have been charged with possessing firearms, the weapon of choice for modern armed insurrectionists, and one of them didn't arrive until after it was all over, and none of them fired the weapons, even in the intensity of the physical struggle that day?

And that is the problem with the "armed insurrection" talking point. By any current American standard of civil disorder, what happened on Jan. 6 was a riot. There were some instigators, and there were many more followers. A small number were anticipating a fight, probably with antifa. And as the day went on, some people lost their heads and did things they should regret for a very long time. But a look at the Justice Department prosecutions simply does not make the case that it was an "armed insurrection."

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/armed-insurrection-what-weapons-capitol-rioters-carry

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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'Our country is going to hell in a hand-basket': WWII veteran celebrating 100th birthday breaks down in TEARS while discussing current state of America

It's hard to disagree with him. Who ever foresaw calls to defund the police and prosecutors who refuse to prosecute?

Remembering his time in the Marines, Carl Spurlin Dekel said that while fighting in the war was his biggest pride, soldiers had not died for the America of today

It comes amid plummeting approval ratings for those in the country's highest offices, including President Joe Biden

A World War II American veteran celebrating his 100th birthday broke down in tears as he discussed the current state of the country.

Reminiscing about his time in the Marines, Tampa Bay veteran Carl Spurlin Dekel said that while fighting in the war was his biggest pride, slain soldiers had not died for the America of today.

'People don't realize what they have,' Dekel told Fox13.

'The things we did and the things we fought for and the boys that died for it, it's all gone down the drain. Our country is going to hell in a hand-basket.'

Dekel became inconsolable as he spoke about the contrasts between the America he grew up in and the current state of affairs in the country.

His remarks came during an interview to commemorate Dekel's 100th birthday, which the Silver-medal holder spent with friends and family.

Dekel said he had lived a good life and hinted at his appreciation for the little things as the reason behind his longevity and good health.

'I really believe in this whole world and believe everything is beautiful. I mean if I wake up in the morning and see these plants, and all of those flowers, and the green grass in the ground, that's beautiful,' he told Fox13.

Dekel proudly showed his many medals from his time in the Marines. But the war veteran burst into tears when thinking about the friends he had lost to the war.

'We haven't got the country we had when I was raised, not at all,' he said.

'Nobody will have the fun I had. Nobody will have the opportunity I had. It's just not the same. And that's not what our boys, that's not what they died for.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10978487/WWII-veteran-celebrating-100th-birthday-breaks-discussing-current-state-America.html

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'Armed insurrection': What weapons did the Capitol rioters carry?

Recently, Scott MacFarlane, an NBC4 reporter in Washington who covers the Capitol riot prosecutions, tweeted, "As of tonight at least 65 of the Jan. 6 defendants have been charged with 'entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon.' A counterpunch to those who argued this didn't appear like 'an armed insurrection.'"

It was just a tweet, which, by definition, can't contain much information, but it left open the question: What weapons did they have? What were the arms in the "armed insurrection"?

The Justice Department maintains a website listing the defendants and the federal charges against them in the sprawling Jan. 6 investigation. At this moment, about 670 people have been charged, many of them with misdemeanors such as "Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building."

Of the cases involving weapons, there are four main charges: "Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers Using a Dangerous Weapon"; "Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon"; "Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon"; and "Engaging in Physical Violence in a Restricted Building with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon."

Going through the Justice Department site, as well as some media databases, I counted 82 defendants who have been charged with at least one of those offenses. It's possible I missed a few, but I think they represent the vast majority of those who face weapons-related charges in the Capitol riot investigation. In each charge, prosecutors have specified the weapon the defendant is accused of using.

A few observations on the list. First, on the issue of guns. Five suspects — Christopher Michael Alberts, Lonnie Leroy Coffman, Mark Sami Ibrahim, Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr., and Guy Wesley Reffitt — are charged with possessing firearms. But none are charged with using them during the riot.

Alberts was arrested at 7:25 p.m., after the riot was over, when police enforcing the District of Columbia curfew suspected he had a handgun under his coat as he was leaving.

Coffman was arrested at about 6:30 p.m. after he told police that he was trying to get to his parked pickup truck. Officers found two handguns on Coffman's person and two more guns, along with possible bomb-making materials, in the truck.

Ibrahim was a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who had given his notice to resign and was on personal leave on Jan. 6; at the riot, he was carrying his DEA-issued badge and pistol.

Meredith was not in Washington at all for the riot. He arrived later that evening after allegedly texting a threatening message about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Meredith told police that "he had two firearms in his truck, and he knew that he was not supposed to have the firearms in Washington, DC. Therefore, he moved the firearms to his trailer," according to court documents. Officers found a handgun, a rifle, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in the trailer.

Finally, court papers say Reffitt had a handgun on his person on Jan. 6.

So, those are the gun cases. Many observers have pointed out that other rioters surely had guns. Since so few were arrested and searched at the scene, that is impossible to know. But it's certainly possible. What is more certain is that none of the suspects fired any guns at any point during the riot. The only shot that was fired during that time was by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd, who shot and killed rioter Ashli Babbitt as she tried to force her way into an area near the House chamber.

As for the rest of the weapons, six defendants are charged with having a knife, although none are accused of using the weapon on another person. Five defendants are accused of having a Taser or stun gun. Three are charged with having an ax. Four are charged with having a baseball bat. Seven are charged with having a crutch. Eleven are charged with having a baton of some sort. Thirteen are accused of having some sort of pepper or other irritant spray. Nineteen are charged with having a pole, usually a pole for the flags they carried. Eight are accused of having a shield, several of them police shields they apparently took at the scene.

Some of the weapons were obviously brought with the intention of being in a fight. Others were clearly improvised on the spur of the moment; in one case, the deadly or dangerous weapon used was a desk drawer. In another, it was a traffic barrier. In yet another, it was a helmet. That doesn't mean those objects could not be dangerous; one could beat a person to death with a desk drawer. But it does suggest the rioter did not arrive at the Capitol bent on armed insurrection.

In addition, the overall numbers are relatively small. Eighty-two people charged with weapons-related offenses, out of how many? That is about 12% of the 670 or so currently charged. And 670 is smaller than the total number of rioters on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6. Does that amount to an "armed insurrection"? Especially when just five people have been charged with possessing firearms, the weapon of choice for modern armed insurrectionists, and one of them didn't arrive until after it was all over, and none of them fired the weapons, even in the intensity of the physical struggle that day?

And that is the problem with the "armed insurrection" talking point. By any current American standard of civil disorder, what happened on Jan. 6 was a riot. There were some instigators, and there were many more followers. A small number were anticipating a fight, probably with antifa. And as the day went on, some people lost their heads and did things they should regret for a very long time. But a look at the Justice Department prosecutions simply does not make the case that it was an "armed insurrection."

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/armed-insurrection-what-weapons-capitol-rioters-carry

************************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Top FDA advisor warns that new Covid-19 booster formulated for Omicron variant are 'no better' than existing shots

A key advisor to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning that plans for the U.S. government to roll out Covid-19 boosters tailored to the Omicron variant could be in vain, as the shots provide little that existing shots don't already.

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and member of the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), wrote in a STAT News op-ed that he would like to see more data in favor of the shots before the government made a heavy investment into them.

Offit was one of two VRBPAC members who voted against the shots, which were recommended by the agency's top advisory panel on vaccines by a 19-2 vote on Tuesday.

The FDA is aiming to get reformulated Covid-19 shots that specifically target the Omicron variant out to Americans as early as October. Currently available shots were formulated to target the virtually extinct original Wuhan strain of the virus. Antibodies provided by the original shots still are effective at preventing severe infection or death from Omicron, which is also a generally more mild variant compared to its predecessors.

It comes as Covid cases in America remain steady, with the nation recorded 110,688 cases per day and 376 deaths per day.

The Omicron variant emerged in late 2021 and took the world by storm: It was the most mutated version of the virus yet, and its ability to circumvent vaccine immunity caught the largely vaccinated population of many developed countries off-guard.

It rapidly spread, causing case figures in the U.S. to reach 800,000 daily.

This sparked demand for Covid-19 boosters that could specifically target the mutant strain and prevent infection.

Both Pfizer and Moderna have updated their jabs since and are expected to soon receive authorization from the FDA to roll out the shots either this week or next.

Offit notes that in data submitted by both companies, the additional Omicron booster raised the antibody levels twofold, though he doubts they'll provide much effectiveness overall.

'That kind of twofold difference is, for example, similar to the modestly greater peak in neutralizing antibodies triggered by the first two doses of the Moderna vaccine compared with the Pfizer vaccine,' he explained, noting that the protections provided were similar.

'Those two vaccines provided almost identical protection against mild and severe Covid-19, although the benefits of the Pfizer vaccine waned a bit quicker over time.'

Data submitted by the companies focused on antibody levels found in blood samples pulled from trial participants.

Antibodies provide diminishing returns, though, and doubling antibody levels does not exactly provide double the protection.

Offit says data on actual protection from infection, hospitalization and death needs to be collected first to determine how valuable these newly formulated shots are.

'Moderna and Pfizer executives have claimed that the Omicron vaccines will be protective for longer. That may be true, but how long is longer? A few weeks? A month or two?' he asks.

The FDA is eager to get these shots out, already setting targets for rollout before they've even been authorized.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, the agency's top regulatory body for vaccines, said Tuesday the aim was to make Omicron-specific jabs available by September.

Demand for the shots may have plummeted in recent months even as Americans' worry about the pandemic seems to decline.

A May Gallup poll found that only 31 percent of Americans report being either 'somewhat worried' or 'very worried' about catching Covid.

The poll signals the shifting state of the virus as America approaches the summer months. In previous years, the warm weather months have come with large, devastating virus surges.

The survey was conducted in mid-April, when the trend of declining cases that had existed for nearly three months to that point began to reverse.

Participants were asked of their feelings about the pandemic, the virus and what sort of personal mitigations strategies they were using - or ignoring - in their day-to-day life.

The study also found that 64 percent of Americans believed the pandemic was 'getting better.' At the time of the survey, cases had just dropped below 30,000 per day, making it one of the lowest points since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

Around 21 percent of Americans said they believed the situation was about the same, and only 12 percent believed it was getting worse. The last time this few Americans believed the situation was worsening was summer 2021, when cases were at a low point, just before the explosion of the Delta variant.

These optimistic feelings have led to some changes in behavior as well. Only 17 percent of Americans reported they were still social distancing, the lowest percentage so far. Just under a third of Americans said they have avoided large crowds, a fifth reported avoiding public places and just 15 percent avoided small gatherings.

Those figures are also all pandemic-lows, Gallup reports.

Despite shifts in social distancing, Americans seem to be clinging on to masks. The poll found that half of Americans still wear a face mask in public places. While the 50 percent figure is also a pandemic low, it's significantly higher than the number of people reporting they're still worried about the virus.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10969609/Top-FDA-advisor-warns-new-COVID-19-booster-formulated-Omicron-variant-no-better.html

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America’s abortion debate isn’t coming to Britain

Probably because Britain is much less religious

Once again, Westminster politics has mistaken Britain for America. The Conservative party may be in hoc to a blonde tousle-haired populist, but it isn’t quietly stacking the judiciary with pro-life justices in order to ban abortion. This is partly because the British constitution doesn’t work that way, but mostly because there’s no popular demand to do so.

For all that it may be convenient to pretend otherwise, abortion is simply not a salient political issue in Britain. Keir Starmer described the Supreme Court’s decision as ‘a massive setback for women’s rights’. Boris Johnson called it a ‘big step backwards’, stating that he has ‘always believed in a woman’s right to choose’. For the Liberal Democrats, Layla Moran noted that ‘here we are not under threat, thank God’.

There is a remarkable degree of consensus between parties on what the law should be, and this reflects the views of the public. Some 85 per cent of the population believe women should have the right to an abortion. Just 5 per cent do not. Over 53 per cent of the population want to keep the time limits as they are or increase them, compared to 28 per cent in favour of reductions or bans. It’s reasonable to feel sympathy for those affected by American politics. It isn’t reasonable to pretend what happens there could happen here.

Obviously, this hasn’t stopped people trying. From hyperventilating articles on the threat posed to women’s rights in Britain to politicians tabling urgent questions in parliament on the government’s response to American domestic matters, the usual confusion of British and American politics has been in full swing.

Labour MP Stella Creasy tweeted that Britons should ‘be prepared’. After all, ‘no one thought American Supreme Court would ever overturn a right previously granted either’. Her message to Americans? ‘Your fight is our fight. They won’t stop trying to control women’. Another MP, Diana Johnson, claimed that ‘right-wing American groups and media will now feel fully emboldened to campaign for the rolling back of women’s rights in the United Kingdom’.

Quite how this is meant to happen isn’t clear. Every such article and argument eventually concedes two points: there’s no mass movement arguing for the change, and there’s no party advocating for it. To this, we can add one more: where there is pressure for abortion law to change, it has generally been in a progressive direction.

Britain’s Conservative party has been in power for 12 years. In this time, parliament has consistently moved to make abortion easier. In 2017, a scheme was introduced to fund abortions in England – and travel costs – for Northern Irish women. In 2018, legislation was passed to allow women to take the second abortion pill at home. In 2019, Westminster altered Northern Irish law – going above devolution – to decriminalise abortion and allow access. In 2020, taking both abortion pills at home was temporarily legalised. And in 2022, this was made permanent, while the government passed regulations to ensure that abortion services were provided in Northern Ireland.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Once again, with feeling: Britain is not America, no matter how much we seem to think it is. When people ask what the Roe decision means for Britain, it’s no different to asking what the decision to protect concealed carry rights means for policing in London. It’s an irrelevance to day-to-day British life, no matter how much social media may give the impression that our own rights hang in the balance.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/06/americas-abortion-debate-isnt-coming-to-britain/

************************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Six-month-old babies could soon be vaccinated for Covid-19 in Australia as Pfizer jumps key hurdle

This is alarming. An immature immune system might not cope well with what is often a harmful vaccine

Australia is a step closer to having Covid-19 vaccinations for children aged six months to five years, with Pfizer approved to submit an application to the medical regulator.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration has granted a provisional determination to Pfizer, which would allow the pharmaceutical giant to apply to extend vaccine use to the younger cohort.

Currently, the Pfizer vaccine has been approved for those aged five and over but there has been talk of extending its use to younger children, after US regulators recently approved a similar move.

A spokesman for the TGA said the provisional determination was the first step.

'The TGA considered all eligibility criteria, including evidence of a plan to submit comprehensive clinical data and the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic,' he said.

'Approval and potential supply in Australia would only commence should the vaccine be approved as safe and effective by the TGA and recommended for administration to this age group by ATAGI.'

The Moderna vaccine for children under five is already being considered for approval by the administration.

Health Minister Mark Butler did not want to put an exact timeframe on when a rollout of the pediatric vaccine would be approved.

'The TGA will take the time it needs to take, that's always been our approach, it was the former government's approach,' he told reporters in Canberra. 'I'm happy with however long they take to do the job properly.'

Mr Butler said discussions had taken place with Moderna and Pfizer to make sure vaccines were ready to be distributed once they were formally approved.

However, the health minister said it was too early to predict what the take-up rate might be.

'We have a great track record in this country of up-to-five immunisations generally,' he said.

'What the take up will be by parents of under fives is a little unknown, we'll be considering what support and information we provide to parents about this.'

The TGA said the determination did not mean Pfizer had yet submitted an application, or that it had been approved; only that it had been allowed to apply for expanded use.

Australia is on track to record its 10,000th death from the virus within days.

NSW, Victoria and Queensland together recorded 50 fatalities in the latest 24-hour reporting period, as the national toll rose to 9897.

NSW Health is warning of a rise in cases this winter as new sub-variants take over, making people vulnerable to a second dose.

The BA.2 sub-lineage remains the dominant variant. However, it is expected BA.4 and BA.5 will soon become so and are likely to be associated with an increase in infections.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10967961/Children-young-six-months-soon-vaccinated-Covid-19-Australia.html

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Vanishing vaccine mandates

This week, with hardly a whisper from its chief public health officers, Australia largely abandoned its vaccine mandates. For the most part, they remain in force only for those working in health and aged care or with those with disabilities. There has been no explanation given as to why unvaccinated workers can now be ‘welcomed back’ into workplaces. There has been no apology to those who lost their jobs for refusing to be jabbed, or who lost their lives, or their good health, following vaccination. So far, 889 deaths have been reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) which may have been caused by vaccination and almost 133,000 people have reported a vaccine injury including more than 140 heart attacks, 360 myocardial infarctions, 500 strokes, 1,400 cases of deep vein thrombosis and 1,500 pulmonary embolisms.

So, why the sudden change in policy? Here’s one possibility. An Israeli study of 5.7 million people, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June, shows that unvaccinated people who gained immunity through infection, were far better protected from Covid than people who were double vaccinated. And while the study did not have enough cases of severe Covid to be definitive, it showed that unvaccinated people with natural immunity were also better protected from severe Covid.

Thus, after more than two years of advising premiers to abandon their pandemic plans and paralyse the entire country until everyone was immunised with experimental vaccines, it seems that our public health officers were wrong. Oops. Not only has Australia wasted billions of dollars on lockdowns, it has damaged the health of the vast majority of Australians by making them more vulnerable to infection with Covid.

Increased vulnerability to infection might explain why, in NSW, teachers who were forced to be double vaccinated to retain their jobs were off sick for a combined 430,351 days in the first six months of this year, an increase of 145,491 days compared to pre-pandemic levels.

It might also explain why excess mortality continues to run at a record high. Excess deaths in March were still almost 10 per cent above the historical baseline and deaths for the first three months of the year were 17.5 per cent higher than the historical average.

This spectacular public health failure was undoubtedly exacerbated by the failure to heed the lessons of early treatment of Covid-19. This time last year, on 26 June, NSW entered its long Delta lockdown. At that time, India was just emerging from its Delta spike. On 26 June 2021, Covid deaths in India were 284 per million, while in Australia they were only 35 per million. A year later on 26 June, deaths per million in Australia and India are identical – 376 per million. What happened?

A year ago, health officials in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India, with 240 million inhabitants, advised that they were using a multi-drug cocktail of repurposed medications including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid with astonishing success. From a peak of 34,455 on 29 April, cases plunged to 178 on 26 June. A year later there is an average of one death per day.

The contrast with Australia could not be more stark. Australia’s public health officers weren’t content simply to disregard the evidence of Uttar Pradesh’s success with a multi-drug therapy that included ivermectin, the TGA went further than any other country in the world and on 10 September 2021 banned the use of ivermectin for the treatment of Covid.

In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not ban ivermectin, but it is now being sued by three eminent physicians over ‘its unlawful attempts to interfere with the practice of medicine’, specifically its ‘crusade to halt the use of Ivermectin to treat Covid-19’. The case is being prosecuted by former Ambassador Boyden Gray, who was White House counsel to President George H.W. Bush and who is representing Drs. Mary Talley Bowden, Paul E. Marik, and Robert L. Apter. They maintain that the FDA had no right to mount a campaign against a drug that had been approved and attempts to do so amounted to unlawful interference in the practice of medicine, a right reserved to the states in the US. As a result of the FDA’s actions, the doctors were referred to medical boards for disciplinary proceedings and were forced to resign from positions in hospitals.

Unfortunately, public health officials in Australia pursued the same policy of persecuting doctors who dared to criticise official public health policy. For example, Dr Paul Oosterhuis, a NSW anaesthetist with over thirty years experience in critical care and resuscitation, had his registration as a medical practitioner suspended on 3 September because of four anonymous complaints made to the Medical Council of NSW about his Facebook posts, which encouraged people to take vitamin D, zinc and seek early treatment with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine if they became infected with Covid. In May, Dr Oosterhuis turned the tables on the Medical Council by taking them to the Supreme Court of NSW for failing to refer the complaints about him to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Two days before the case was to be heard on 12 May, the NSW Medical Council revoked his suspension. Perhaps they were stung by a judgement in the Supreme Court of NSW in April which characterised their conduct in relation to another doctor as ‘irrational’ and lacking any ‘evidentiary foundation’.

Dr Oosterhuis was not the only doctor to be punished in this way. Dr Robert Brennan, a general practitioner in NSW had his medical registration suspended for signing a newsletter from the Covid Medical Network, now the Australian Medical Network, which advocated early treatment and challenged the evidence base for lockdowns, and for mask and vaccine mandates. After conferring with the Medical Council of NSW, the Health Care Commission revoked his suspension on 17 May but warned they might take action against him again if he promoted messages ‘not in accordance with public health orders’.

In Victoria, Dr Mark Hobart is still fighting to have his medical registration restored after it was suspended for the ‘crime’ of issuing temporary exemptions to people who were concerned about the safety and efficacy of the Covid vaccines. Considering public health officials have now quietly abandoned most of their mandates, and the vaccines have been shown to be ineffective in preventing the spread of Covid, one wonders on what grounds they can possibly justify his suspension. Presumably, like their counterparts in NSW, they will abandon the case days before it comes to court but, if the NSW Medical Council is any guide, an apology, and compensation, will take a lot longer.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/07/vanishing-vaccine-mandates/

************************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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New COVID variants BA.4 and BA.5 now make up over HALF of US cases as experts fear strains will fuel another summer surge

New COVID-19 variants are starting to rise in the United States, with the highly feared BA.4 and BA.5 strains now making up around half of active cases in the nation - according to most recently available sequencing data.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed Tuesday that the strains combine for 52 percent of sequenced cases during the week that ended on June 25 - combining to overtake the previously dominant BA 2.12.1 strain.

Both strains are believed to have originated in South Africa, where the original Omicron strain was first spotted as well. Unlike previous sub-variants of the highly infectious strains, they are believed to be capable of evading natural immunity provided by previous Omicron infection.

This presents a great challenge for health officials, as many that should be safe from infection for months into the future may suddenly get unexpectedly re-infected and spark another surge.

These variants' rise have not made much of an impact on case figures yet, though. Daily infections have increased 10 percent to 109,384 per day, a range it has remained in for the last month. The U.S. is also recorded 398 deaths per day, a 14 percent week-over-week increase.

The BA.5 variant now makes up 36.6 percent of sequenced cases, according to the CDC, only trailing BA 2.12.1 (42 percent of sequenced cases) as the nation's most prevalent strain. BA.4, which shares many of the same traits as BA.5, makes up 15.7 percent of cases.

Every single sequenced cases in the U.S. is a form of the Omicron variant as the highly infectious strain that emerged in late 2021 has snuffed out other versions of the virus.

The once-dominant BA.2 'stealth' variant now makes up less than six percent of Covid cases in the U.S. The original BA.1 Omicron strain is no longer being detected.

The strains have alarmed health officials after early data from South Africa showed that natural immunity a person has from a previous infection is not as effective against them as it is other strains.

While their rise has not yet impacted national case figures, some experts are warning that more localized outbreaks are on the way.

In New York City, Dr Jay Varma, former public health advisor to Mayor Bill de Blasio, warns that BA.5 could the reason case figures in the nation's largest city are no longer declining.

'The decline of reported [COVID-19] cases in NYC has stopped. Reported cases are at a high plateau, which means actual transmission is very high when you account for the >20x under-counting. This is likely the beginning of a BA.5 wave,' he said in a tweet.

According to CDC data, BA.5 makes up nearly one-in-three cases in the New York and New Jersey region. BA.4 makes up nearly 12 percent of cases while BA 2.12.1 remains dominant.

Unlike usual Covid strains, which take root along the east coast before spreading west over time, these two strains have taken root on the other side of the country first.

BA.5 makes up 36 percent of sequenced cases along the west coast and 38 percent in the Pacific Northwest. It is most prevalent in in the Dust Bowl, where it makes up 41 percent of sequenced cases and the southwest, where it is at 40 percent.

New strains that break the general rules of the pandemic - that once a person is infected they can not catch the virus again for some time - change the calculus of the virus response.

Fearing the new strains, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to roll out newly formulated COVID-19 vaccines that specifically target the Omicron variant.

By a 19-2 vote, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) approved plans to rollout newly formulated vaccines this fall - citing the vaccine resistant traits of the Omicron variant.

All currently available versions of the COVID-19 vaccines are formulated to the original Wuhan strain that emerged two years ago.

While they are still effective at preventing severe infection or death in a majority of cases, the Omicron variant has mutated in a way to avoid front end protection from infection.

This change allows for both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to begin distribution of newly formulated shots that should be able to prevent infection from the Omicron variant - along with previous versions of the virus.

The FDA is expected to follow the lead of its advisors and issue emergency use authorization to the new jabs at some point this week.

After the FDA, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will also likely authorize the shots.

Dr Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, the FDA's top regulatory body for vaccines, said Tuesday morning he hoped to make the new shots available as early as this October.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10965617/COVID-19-BA-4-BA-5-variants-make-HALF-cases.html

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The CDC is deceiving us again — this time covering up for unsafe hospitals

If you have to go to the hospital, you don’t want to end up in a dangerous one. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention knows which hospitals are riskiest, but it’s hiding that information from you — your safety be damned. The feds seem to think they work for the hospital industry, not for you.

Whenever a hospital has a superbug outbreak, the CDC conceals its identity, referring only to “Hospital A.” A lot of good that does patients looking for safe care, especially patients with compromised immune systems, cancer or HIV.

It’s no joke to find out, after you’re already in the hospital, that a superbug is raging room to room or has invaded the nursery where your newborn will be placed. That’s what happens when the CDC hides outbreaks.

Now the CDC is playing statistical tricks to hide how many people have caught COVID in hospitals and to block the public from seeing which hospitals have had the biggest problems — “partly on fears of embarrassing hospitals,” Politico reports.

The stakes are high; 21% of patients who catch COVID in the hospital never make it out, Kaiser Health News found — triple the death rate for patients who don’t catch COVID.

Though the pandemic may be fading, vulnerable patients need to know which hospitals proved proficient at preventing the spread of COVID inside their walls. It’s a safety measure.

Over the course of the pandemic, tens of thousands of patients went into the hospital for other reasons — such as hip surgery, kidney disease or a heart attack — and got infected with COVID.

The CDC is rigging the definition of hospital-acquired COVID to hide this problem.

The agency says only patients who test positive after being hospitalized at least 14 days are considered infected by the hospital. That eliminates almost everyone. The average patient stays only 4.6 days.

The CDC definition also excludes any patient who left the hospital and then developed symptoms or picked up the virus in the emergency room.

It’s a coverup. The United Kingdom and many European countries count COVID infections diagnosed seven or eight days after patients enter as hospital-acquired.

At some hospitals, more than 5% of patients caught COVID there, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of state data and Medicare billing data. The CDC refuses to name these hospitals, defying Freedom of Information Act requests from the media.

When a plane crashes, the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t conceal the identity of the airline. Why does the CDC cover up for a hospital?

To be fair, the pandemic hit some regions and some hospitals harder than others. But it’s also true that some hospitals took precautions to stop the virus from spreading and succeeded in providing safer care than others.

Some hospitals tested all incoming patients for the virus and retested days later to be sure. Testing proved critical, because most patients who contracted COVID in the hospitals got it from another patient. At Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, eight out of nine patients who became infected caught COVID from the patient sharing their room, per the Annals of Internal Medicine.

In January, during the Omicron surge, rates of hospital-acquired COVID were higher in New York than the national average, though lower than in Washington, DC, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of unpublished federal data. Trouble is, citywide averages don’t tell you what you need to know — the adequacy of infection prevention in your hospital.

It’s time to end the CDC’s secrecy in the service of hospitals. The CDC’s ploy to hide hospital-acquired COVID is a red flag.

Call the CDC the Centers for Deception and Coverups. The nation should be demanding a health agency that deals honestly with the public. If you have health problems, your life could depend on it.

https://nypost.com/2022/06/28/the-cdc-is-deceiving-us-again-by-covering-up-for-unsafe-hospitals/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Doctors urge CDC to revise stringent COVID-19 measures for kids: They 'have been steamrolled'

During presidential remarks on COVID-19 vaccines for children under five-years-old, President Joe Biden alarmed folks on Twitter when he spoke of the government preparing for the 'second pandemic.'

Trying to help people who one signer said had been "steamrolled" by draconian COVID-19 guidelines, a letter from prominent medical professionals this week called on the Biden administration to strongly revise its mitigation guidelines for children.

"The most defenseless people in America have been steamrolled by many COVID policies," Dr. Marty Makary told Fox News Digital. "The last people in America to be forced to wear masks were waiters, waitresses and children… At this point, we need to stop the excessive restrictions that continue to harm children. And that's why I signed on."

Makary was one of the 29 doctors and scientists to sign the letter from Urgency of Normal, which was formed over concerns that continued COVID-19 measures for U.S. children are doing more harm than good and rejecting a holistic approach to pediatric health. Addressing White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha and Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, they declared the emergency phase of coronavirus is over and said it's time to restore "equitable and maximal access to education, sports, and social connectedness for all children. Their health and well-being depend on it."

"We strongly urge you to revise the CDC’s COVID-19 guidelines with regards to testing, isolation, and vaccine recommendations for children to ensure that public health policies are not doing more harm than good," their letter stated, led by Dr. Vinay Prasad and Dr. Lucy McBride. It was co-signed by dozens of parent organizations, many of them formed to urge school re-openings during the pandemic.

"Many European countries, U.S. states and Canadian provinces have already updated their COVID-19 policies to reflect that vaccines and infection-acquired immunity have reduced the risk of a severe COVID-19 outcome for youth, and to acknowledge that all mitigation measures have unintended consequences. Massachusetts, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, British Columbia and elsewhere have recommended an end to routine screening testing and mandatory isolation periods for children. Most have also eliminated any COVID-19 vaccine requirements for children to fully participate in public life."

Dr. Nicole Saphier, a Fox News contributor, also signed onto the letter.

"I would say the majority of Americans feel that COVID is in the rearview mirror for us. Our policies are not reflecting that," she told Fox News Digital.

Between widespread vaccinations, milder variants and protective natural immunity, coronavirus has become more of a bad cold for most people than anything truly severe, she said. Yet, there are still elementary schools sending children home for five days if they're positive for COVID-19, regardless of symptoms, and college students who can't stay on campus if they haven't been boosted.

"We have to get back to where we've always been with kids. Meaning, if your kid's sick, keep them home from school. If they're not, send them to school," Saphier said.

The letter harped on the ruinous consequences of prolonged school closures, which have included learning loss, widening achievement gaps between high- and low-income students, as well as rising mental health issues and long-term educational disruptions. Children have also been statistically at a scant risk of severe outcomes from the virus throughout the pandemic; according to the CDC, those aged 0-17 make up about 22.3 percent of the U.S. population but have accounted for about 0.1 percent of all COVID-19 deaths.

It's well past time for the Biden administration to get with the rest of the world and relax the stringent measures, the letter argued.

"We have never systematically screened and isolated children, nor forcibly excluded them from school or other activities, for other respiratory viruses," the letter stated. "Instead, affected individuals have been able to return to work or school as soon as they are fever-free for 24 hours and symptoms are improving, without testing. At this point, the CDC should recommend these same common-sense policies for COVID-19, as other nations have done, protecting high risk groups while facilitating unrestricted return to work and school."

Among their recommendations were to replace asymptomatic testing with a "test-to-treat" approach that focuses on treating vulnerable and immunocompromised youngsters, and rescind the CDC recommendation against vaccinating and boosting healthy, young people. The CDC continues to recommend "universal" indoor mask use in areas of high COVID transmission, "screening testing for high-risk activities such as indoor sports and extracurricular activities," and isolating for at least five days if unvaccinated and exposed to COVID-19.

The letter came the same week as the Biden administration scaled up efforts to vaccinate children under 5 years old, the last age group that has not been inoculated. Makary, a Johns Hopkins health policy expert and surgeon, questioned why there is a "disproportionate enthusiasm" around vaccinating kids under five years old.

"We see this lockstep, sort of toeing the party line that simply violates the very nature of a scientific forum," the Fox News contributor said. "There appears to be this agenda-driven series of policies that go against a large body of scientific data… Why are we immunizing children who are already immune? That's never made sense medically."

"Many medical COVID policies at institutions are being written by general counsels, lawyers who perceive that they cannot be out of step with CDC guidelines," he added. "One of the goals of the letter is to make it known that a large chorus of physicians, of respected physicians, have, just in perspective, looked at the comprehensive health and not just transmission of one virus. And the cure cannot be worse than the disease. We shut kids out of school, ignited a mental health crisis, all in the name of burning a village in order to save it. It's time for kids to get back to normal life. Population immunity is impeccably high."

"A lot of places are hiding behind the safety net of the CDC," Saphier said. "Well, if they do anything that goes against what the CDC says, and then something actually happens, they're concerned about liability, but this shouldn't be about liability. What about the liability of the harm that we have done to these children and people in general with these COVID policies?"

Makary and Saphier see media responsibility for the U.S. still being an "outlier" in its COVID mitigation measures. A study found last year that U.S. media coverage had been far more negative than its counterparts in the rest of the world, with drastic consequences, particularly for more liberal readers. HBO late-night host Bill Maher scolded the liberal press for "scaring the s--t" out of people and leading them to believe a COVID diagnosis was likely to land them in the hospital.

"There continues to be a blind parroting by the mainstream media of government doctors putting out dogmatic COVID policies," Makary said.

Saphier, whose book "Panic Attack" delved into what she called playing politics with science around COVID-19, said the media promulgated fear throughout the pandemic.

"As soon as more data became evident, it should have been, protect the vulnerable while the remaining country goes on," she said. "But again, they were very delayed in acknowledging this, and even in some places they are still not, as we are seeing the mandates in colleges and even the children, you still have children in preschool in New York City wearing masks when there's not one shred of evidence demonstrating a benefit. But there certainly is evidence demonstrating harm."

"At this point, it's clear that children are going to be most healthy if they are allowed to live their lives," Makary said.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/doctors-urge-cdc-revise-stringent-covid-19-measures-kids-they-have-been-steamrolled

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More Than 1M Voters Switch to GOP in Warning for Dems

A political shift is beginning to take hold across the U.S. as tens of thousands of suburban swing voters who helped fuel the Democratic Party’s gains in recent years are becoming Republicans.

More than 1 million voters across 43 states have switched to the Republican Party over the last year, according to voter registration data analyzed by The Associated Press. The previously unreported number reflects a phenomenon that is playing out in virtually every region of the country — Democratic and Republican states along with cities and small towns — in the period since President Joe Biden replaced former President Donald Trump.

But nowhere is the shift more pronounced — and dangerous for Democrats — than in the suburbs, where well-educated swing voters who turned against Trump’s Republican Party in recent years appear to be swinging back. Over the last year, far more people are switching to the GOP across suburban counties from Denver to Atlanta and Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Republicans also gained ground in counties around medium-size cities such as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Raleigh, North Carolina; Augusta, Georgia; and Des Moines, Iowa.

Ben Smith, who lives in suburban Larimer County, Colorado, north of Denver, said he reluctantly registered as a Republican earlier in the year after becoming increasingly concerned about the Democrats’ support in some localities for mandatory COVID-19 vaccines, the party’s inability to quell violent crime and its frequent focus on racial justice.

“It’s more so a rejection of the left than embracing the right,” said Smith, a 37-year-old professional counselor whose transition away from the Democratic Party began five or six years ago when he registered as a libertarian.

The AP examined nearly 1.7 million voters who had likely switched affiliations across 42 states for which there is data over the last 12 months, according to L2, a political data firm. L2 uses a combination of state voter records and statistical modeling to determine party affiliation. While party switching is not uncommon, the data shows a definite reversal from the period while Trump was in office, when Democrats enjoyed a slight edge in the number of party switchers nationwide.

But over the last year, roughly two-thirds of the 1.7 million voters who changed their party affiliation shifted to the Republican Party. In all, more than 1 million people became Republicans compared to about 630,000 who became Democrats.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/06/27/more_than_1m_voters_switch_to_gop_in_warning_for_dems_147806.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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