Wednesday, January 18, 2023
DOJ Still Fighting in Court for Forced Masking on Transportation
On April 18, 2022 U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle struck down President Joe Biden's mask mandate for air and rail transportation. The Department of Justice quickly appealed the decision after a request from the Centers for Disease Control.
"To protect CDC’s public health authority beyond the ongoing assessment announced last week, CDC has asked DOJ to proceed with an appeal in Health Freedom Defense Fund, Inc., et al., v. Biden, et al. It is CDC’s continuing assessment that at this time an order requiring masking in the indoor transportation corridor remains necessary for the public health. CDC will continue to monitor public health conditions to determine whether such an order remains necessary. CDC believes this is a lawful order, well within CDC’s legal authority to protect public health," the CDC released in a statement.
At the time, the White House admitted the appeal was to preserve the power of the federal government.
When the mandate was lifted, flights erupted with cheers.
Nearly a year later, federal attorneys are still working to force masking on transportation.
The Eleventh Circuit of Appeals will hear arguments over a federal mask mandate on Tuesday, Jan. 17.
Beginning at 9 a.m., attorneys will present arguments over the transportation mask mandate.
The appeal drew criticism from the U.S. Travel Association, which along with other industry groups had been pressuring the Biden administration for months to end the mask mandate for travel.
The Health Freedom Defense Fund outlined arguments in court documents, stating they believe the CDC has no legal authority to adopt a mask mandate.
Following today's hearing, the court will decide whether to affirm the decision to strike down the mask mandate. A judge will draft a written decision which may go through several rounds before a majority of the court agrees and the written decision is published.
DOJ continues this fight despite President Joe Biden declaring the pandemic is over and after a recent admission from White House COVID Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha that masks don't work to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
**************************************************
Omicron Subvariant XBB.1.5 Could Be More Likely to Infect Vaccinated: NYC Health Officials
The Omicron XBB.1.5 variant of COVID-19 is more likely to infect individuals who have been vaccinated, according to New York City health officials.
“Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 now accounts for 73 percent of all sequenced COVID-19 cases in NYC. XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible form of COVID-19 that we know of to date and may be more likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or already had COVID-19,” the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wrote on Twitter on Jan. 13.
Despite this, the department urged New Yorkers to get vaccinated and receive the updated COVID-19 booster shot, stating that doing so “is still the best way to protect yourself from hospitalization and death from COVID-19, including from these new variants.”
The XBB.1.5 variant is quickly becoming the dominant subvariant in the United States. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that XBB.1.5 accounted for an estimated 43 percent of COVID-19 cases in the country for the week ending Jan. 14.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this month that the subvariant is on the rise in the United States and Europe and has now been identified in more than 25 countries.
The subvariant has now overtaken the BQ.1.1 subvariant, which was first identified in September, and which now accounts for an estimated 28.8 percent of cases in the country, according to CDC data.
XBB.1.5 Unlikely to Increase Severity
Although there has been a surge in XBB.1.5 cases, the WHO has stated that the variant does not have any mutations known to increase the severity of the virus in individuals.
In a risk assessment (pdf) published on Jan. 11, the health body said that XBB.1.5, based on its genetic characteristics and early growth rate estimates, may contribute to a surge in cases around the world but it “does not carry any mutation known to be associated with potential change in severity.”
Barbara Mahon, head of the CDC’s proposed Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division, also told CBS News on Jan. 6 that there is no suggestion that XBB.1.5 is more severe than previous strains of Omicron.
The WHO in its risk assessment did, however, note that “the overall confidence in the assessment is low” owing to a lack of data on the subvariant, most of which come from the United States, and said that more data and laboratory testing is needed to know for sure how severe the subvariant is.
The health body also noted that XBB.1.5 is one of the COVID-19 subvariants that is most resistant to antibodies acquired from vaccination or previous infection.
According to the CDC, approximately 666,511,603 vaccine doses have been administered in the United States, of which 268,556,888 people have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 229,359,062 have completed the primary series of vaccinations.
Vaccine Effectiveness Only Lasts 3 Months
Additionally, 15.9 percent of the U.S. population aged 5 and over have received the updated bivalent booster shot.
In an interview with Science News on Jan. 13, infectious diseases specialist Peter Chin-Hong of the University of California, San Francisco, stated that vaccinations are likely to provide just three months of protection against the XBB.1.5 variant of COVID-19.
“The new updated boosters generally work a little better than the old vaccines in terms of overall efficacy and preventing infection. But with these new slippery variants like XBB.1.5 … if you’re looking to prevent infections, even a mild infection, the vaccines are probably going to last maybe three months,” Chin-Hong said.
“But if you’re talking about preventing me from dying or going to the hospital, those vaccines are going to give me a boost of protection for many, many months, probably until next winter for most people. For older people, older than 65, if they’re not boosted today, then it’s a problem,” the infectious diseases specialist added.
****************************************************
Here's Why the CDC Just Launched 'Additional Investigation' of COVID Vaccine Safety
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Friday afternoon — in something of a pre-weekend news dump — that the agency's Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) has "met the statistical criteria to prompt additional investigation into whether there was a safety concern for ischemic stroke in people ages 65 and older who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent."
It's worth noting that the CDC's VSD is different from its Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
The CDC's Friday updated emphasized that "[t]o date, no other safety systems have shown a similar signal and multiple subsequent analyses have not validated this signal" and that "[n]o change is recommended in COVID-19 vaccination practice" at this time while an additional investigation is conducted.
The CDC explains more about the signal that met its threshold for additional investigation:
Rapid-response investigation of the signal in the VSD raised a question of whether people 65 and older who have received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent were more likely to have an ischemic stroke in the 21 days following vaccination compared with days 22-44 following vaccination.
This preliminary signal has not been identified with the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent. There also may be other confounding factors contributing to the signal identified in the VSD that merit further investigation.
Furthermore, it is important to note that, to date, no other safety systems have shown a similar signal and multiple subsequent analyses have not validated this signal:
A large study of updated (bivalent) vaccines (from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna) using the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services database revealed no increased risk of ischemic stroke
A preliminary study using the Veterans Affairs database did not indicate an increased risk of ischemic stroke following an updated (bivalent) vaccine
The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) managed by CDC and FDA has not seen an increase in reporting of ischemic strokes following the updated (bivalent) vaccine
Pfizer-BioNTech’s global safety database has not indicated a signal for ischemic stroke with the updated (bivalent) vaccine
Other countries have not observed an increased risk for ischemic stroke with updated (bivalent) vaccines
Although the totality of the data currently suggests that it is very unlikely that the signal in VSD represents a true clinical risk, we believe it is important to share this information with the public, as we have in the past, when one of our safety monitoring systems detects a signal. CDC and FDA will continue to evaluate additional data from these and other vaccine safety systems. These data and additional analyses will be discussed at the upcoming January 26 meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.
So while the CDC is firm in its belief that a "true clinical risk" does not exist in terms of ischemic stroke in the three weeks after a person over 65 received the Pfizer COVID vaccine, there have been enough reports for a signal to trigger further investigation which has not yet allowed the potential risk to be ruled out.
Dr. Marty Makary shared the CDC's update on vaccine safety and issued a call for the raw data that prompted the additional level of review to be made public, allowing Americans and their doctors to have all the information that exists to use in their decisions about vaccination.
**************************************************
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) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
**************************************************
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
Evidence of Serious Adverse Events in What Is Believed to Be One of the Most Effective Vaccines
The decline of public trust in COVID-19 vaccines significantly impacts vaccination rates against routine childhood diseases. This multiple-part series explores the international research done over the past two decades on the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine—believed to be one of the most effective vaccines developed to date.
Summary of Key Facts
This multiple-part series offers a thorough analysis of concerns raised about HPV vaccination following the global HPV campaign, which commenced in 2006.
In the United States, the HPV vaccine was reported to have a disproportionately higher percentage of adverse events of fainting and blood clots in the veins. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledges that fainting can happen following the HPV vaccine, and recommends sitting or lying down to get the shot, then waiting for 15 minutes afterward.
International scientists found that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) logged a substantial increase in reports of premature ovarian failure (POF) from 1.4 per year before 2006 to 22.2 per year after the HPV vaccine approval, yielding a Proportional Reporting Ratio of 46.1.
The HPV vaccine is widely regarded as one of the most effective vaccines developed to date. Nevertheless, safety issues have been raised following its approval, and in response, additional research has been published and litigation has been brought on behalf of those with a vaccine injury.
In this HPV vaccine series, Parts I and II explain how the vaccine works and the evidence suggesting there may be legitimate safety concerns. The remaining parts present questions about real-world vaccine effectiveness and identify specific ingredients which may pose harm.
The information presented here is drawn from peer-reviewed scientific literature from the United States, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, France, and Japan, as well as statistics published by public health agencies in each of these countries. More than 100 hours of research and internal peer review among scientists with experience in infectious diseases, virology, clinical trials, and vaccine epidemiology have been invested in presenting this summary of the evidence.
Large registry-based studies have identified plausible associations between HPV vaccination and autoimmune conditions, including premature ovarian insufficiency or failure (POI/POF), Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), and chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS).
While it is easy to be enthusiastic about recent advances in human vaccine technology, we should keep in mind that achieving real and lasting good health is much more than just the absence of a certain virus.
What Is Human Papillomavirus (HPV)?
According to the CDC, HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the United States.
HPV is a small DNA virus infecting human cutaneous epithelial cells in the mucosa and skin. More than 150 strains of the HPV virus have been identified.
HPV infection is so common that the majority of sexually active people will get it at some point in their lives, even if they have only one or very few sexual partners. It can spread through sexual intercourse and oral sex. It can also pass between people through skin-to-skin contact, even by people who have no symptoms.
HPV infection causes genital warts, some of which can turn into cancer. For the most part, however, HPV infection is benign. More than 90 percent of HPV infections cause no clinical symptoms and are self-limited, meaning the virus is cleared by the body via natural immunological defenses.
***************************************************
Pentagon Appears to Have No Plan to Reinstate Troops Discharged for Refusing Vaccine Mandate
The Department of Defense has rescinded the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for service members. But the Pentagon doesn’t appear to have a plan to reinstate military personnel who lost their jobs for refusing the vaccine.
The Daily Signal asked the Defense Department whether there would be an effort to bring military personnel who had been discharged for refusing the vaccine back into the military.
“Regarding your final question, former service members may petition their Military Department’s Discharge Review Boards and Boards for Correction of Military or Naval Records to individually review and correct personnel records, including records regarding the characterization of their discharge,” Pentagon spokesperson Lisa Lawrence told The Daily Signal in an email Wednesday.
The Defense Department issued a memo Tuesday explaining that military members dismissed for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine may be eligible to receive an honorable discharge, but the memo did not acknowledge any plan to reinstate those men and women.
The Pentagon confirmed to The Daily Signal in December that a total of 8,424 military members have been discharged for refusing the vaccine.
“[Defense] Secretary Lloyd Austin’s rescinding of the military vaccine mandate is long overdue,” the newly-elected head of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., told The Daily Signal in an email Wednesday.
“Service members punished for refusing the mandate should be reinstated,” said Green, a three-tour combat veteran. “Those who do not wish to return should receive full veteran benefits where appropriate for their service to our country, and service members who were ineligible for these veteran benefits should also retroactively receive them in full.”
The military vaccine mandate came to an end Dec. 23, with the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2023.
More than two weeks after the vaccine mandate expired, but within the allotted 30-day period to release the new guidance, the Pentagon issued a memo announcing the official end of the mandate.
“Section 525 of the NDAA for [fiscal year] 2023 requires me to rescind the mandate that members of the armed forces be vaccinated against COVID-19 …. I hereby rescind that memorandum,” Austin wrote in the memo.
The memo explains that “individuals currently serving in the armed forces” will not be dismissed “solely on the basis of their refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccination if they sought an accommodation on religious, administrative, or medical grounds.”
Lawrence, the Pentagon spokesperson, told The Daily Signal that “Secretary Austin is directing the secretaries of the military departments to cease any ongoing reviews of current service members’ religious, administrative, or medical accommodation requests solely for exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine or appeals of denials of such requests.”
Download
Ahead of Congress’ vote on the NDAA in December, Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin introduced an amendment that would have allowed those who refused the vaccine to be reinstated and provided with back pay. The amendment failed.
“This vaccine mandate never should have been put in place,” Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., told The Daily Signal. “It has negatively impacted recruitment and the ability to maintain the amount of military men and women needed to keep our country safe.”
Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said that forcing military members to choose between getting vaccinated and having a livelihood “was completely inappropriate and contrary to the very freedoms those service members defend.”
“Just as troubling is this apparent delay for the [Pentagon] to formally issue its memo on the rescission of the mandate, more than two weeks after this was directed through the NDAA,” he added.
Mike Berry, director of military affairs for First Liberty Institute, said in a statement Wednesday that while the “secretary of defense did as Congress directed,” it was “the bare minimum owed to our brave service members.”
“In fact, the secretary’s memo still permits military commanders to require the vaccine in making decisions regarding unvaccinated service members,” Berry said. “There are still far too many in our military who were forced out or are still facing career-ending actions because of the COVID vaccine mandate. America owes it to those who defend our Constitution and our freedoms to ensure they do not lose theirs.”
*********************************************************
FDA Adviser Says Young and Healthy People Shouldn’t Get Latest COVID Boosters
A vaccine adviser to the Food and Drug Administration is questioning whether young, healthy people should get new COVID-19 boosters, arguing those shots should be used for older individuals.
“I believe we should stop trying to prevent all symptomatic infections in healthy, young people by boosting them with vaccines containing mRNA from strains that might disappear a few months later,” wrote Dr. Paul A. Offit, an FDA vaccine panel adviser and professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, in New England Journal of Medicine on Jan. 11.
In his article, Offit cited two studies suggesting that bivalent boosters, which target the original COVID-19 strain and two Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA. 5, do not “elicit superior immune responses.”
“Why did the strategy for significantly increasing BA.4 and BA.5 neutralizing antibodies using a bivalent vaccine fail?” he asked. “The most likely explanation is imprinting. The immune systems of people immunized with the bivalent vaccine, all of whom had previously been vaccinated, were primed to respond to the ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2. They therefore probably responded to epitopes shared by BA.4 and BA.5 and the ancestral strain, rather than to new epitopes on BA.4 and BA.5.”
Offit noted that based on those studies, “boosting with a bivalent vaccine is likely to have a similar effect as boosting with a monovalent vaccine” but stressed that “booster dosing is probably best reserved for the people most likely to need protection against severe disease.”
Another doctor appeared to agree with Offit’s conclusions regarding “imprinting.” Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told U.S. News that “it may be that people’s immune systems are so primed to respond to the ancestral strain spike protein that a reformulated booster is unable to fully stimulate the immune system because it has been ‘imprinted’ by the original version of the virus.”
Data and studies have shown that older adults and people who have compromised immune systems are most at risk of developing severe COVID-19 symptoms, hospitalization, and death. Children, meanwhile, have long been shown to have the lowest chance of death, hospitalization, or developing severe symptoms since the pandemic started.
Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and FDA said that everyone over the age of 6 months get updated boosters at least two months after their last doses of the vaccine. The bivalent boosters were authorized under emergency use for children aged 6 months to 4 years on Dec. 9.
Meanwhile, a small number of Americans have received the updated boosters, according to the CDC. As of Jan. 4, some 15 percent of individuals aged 5 and older received the bivalent shots, while about 38 percent of adults aged 65 and older have gotten them.
That same CDC data also shows that about 80.9 percent of all Americans received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine since they were rolled out two years ago, while 69 percent have completed their initial, “primary series.”
An FDA spokesperson Abigail Capobianco responded to Offit’s article this week, telling NBC News that Offit allegedly used “selective” data to reach his conclusions and that “we strongly believe that the totality of the available evidence continues to support the use of these vaccines in all age groups.”
“Dr. Offit is entitled to his opinion about the effectiveness of the COVID-19 bivalent vaccines used as boosters,” Capobianco also said.
Earlier this week, Offit told CNN that the CDC and FDA said they were not provided with real-world data on how well the bivalent booster performs at blocking transmission of the virus before those boosters were approved by the federal agencies. Data showed that about 1.9 percent of people who got the first booster were infected, compared with 3.2 percent who got the bivalent shot, CNN reported.
“I was angry to find out that there was data that was relevant to our decision that we didn’t get to see,” Offit told CNN. “Decisions that are made for the public have to be made based on all available information—not just some information, but all information.”
The FDA’s vaccine panel is scheduled to meet on Jan. 26 to determine future vaccination regimens to address COVID-19.
**************************************************
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) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
**************************************************
Monday, January 16, 2023
Medical researcher Calls for Withdrawal of Pfizer, Moderna COVID-19 Vaccines Following New Research
An American doctor is joining the calls for the withdrawal of the messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccines, pointing to new research that highlights a connection between the shots and adverse events.
Dr. Joseph Fraiman, a doctor based in Louisiana who also conducts research on COVID-19 and other health issues, says it’s time to halt the administration of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines until new clinical trials prove the benefits from the vaccines outweigh the harms.
The new research, including a reanalysis of the trials for the vaccines, raise concerns about whether the benefits from the vaccines outweigh the harms, according to the doctor.
“I don’t see how anyone couldn’t be certain that the benefits are outweighing the harms on a population level, or even in the high-risk groups. I don’t see the evidence to support that claim,” Fraiman told The Epoch Times. “But I also can’t say that there’s evidence to support that it’s potentially more harmful, but there’s also uncertainty here. … Given that scenario, I believe that people should not be given the [vaccines] outside of a clinical trial, because we need to figure out … if their benefits outweigh harm or if harm outweighs benefits.”
“The only thing that can answer that question is going to be a randomized trial,” he added.
Pfizer and Moderna did not respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which cleared the shots and has never stopped promoting them, did not return an inquiry.
The Data
Fraiman led a study that reanalyzed the original Pfizer and Moderna trials. He and his colleagues concluded in a study published following peer review that the vaccinated were at higher risk of serious adverse events.
That’s one data point. Another is the identification of safety signals, or adverse events, that are potentially caused by the vaccines but require further study. The FDA revealed in December 2022 that the Pfizer vaccine was linked to blood clotting in elderly individuals. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which recommends the vaccines for virtually all Americans, found hundreds of other signals in its research, according to records obtained by The Epoch Times.
Several serious problems that can lead to death have been causally linked, or proven to be caused by the vaccines. They include myocarditis, or heart inflammation.
While U.S. health officials have repeatedly downplayed the severity of myocarditis and a related condition, pericarditis, German researchers who dug into the deaths of 25 people who died suddenly at home after vaccination ruled out every potential cause except for vaccination for five of the people. They reported their results in a study that was published after peer review in late 2022.
“Given alternative causes are unlikely to cause myocarditis within one week of vaccination, this is essentially conclusive evidence that we’re seeing sudden cardiac deaths from the vaccines,” Fraiman said.
Fraiman also noted that excess mortality, or deaths from all causes, have risen during the pandemic—with spikes correlating with the introduction of the vaccines. Vaccines may not have caused the additional deaths, he says, but some researchers, including British professors Norman Fenton and Martin Neil, have examined the data and found a signal that the vaccines were linked to at least some of the excess deaths. U.S. officials say some of the deaths may be from COVID-19.
Initial Thoughts
When the vaccines were first introduced, Fraiman backed giving them to the elderly and others at high risk from COVID-19, or people of all ages with serious underlying health conditions. He says he also did not recommend against vaccination for any ages, though he told younger family members he was not sure if it was a good idea to get a jab.
Fraiman also says the vaccines likely reduced hospitalizations in the first two quarters of 2021, recalling how he did not see a single vaccinated person in his hospital until June of that year.
When he and the other scientists discovered the vaccinated were at higher risk of serious problems, he shifted to a stance of the harms likely outweighing the benefits among healthy people.
With the new evidence of harm, along with Omicron being less dangerous and more likely to evade vaccine immunity, Fraiman questions whether the benefits outweigh the serious harms even among the elderly and otherwise infirm.
“I see the likelihood that the harm could outweigh the benefit in the group who stood to benefit the most from the vaccine,” he said.
Standards Fall
Clinical trial data on the vaccines have been hard to come by, especially trials not run by the vaccine makers themselves, and the standards for the trials have been lowered over time.
The FDA authorized shots for children based on immunobridging, or trial data that found the vaccines triggered a similar antibody response in kids than that in adults. For the new bivalent boosters, created because the original vaccines have been providing much lower levels of protection against Omicron and its subvariants, no clinical data, not even antibody measurements, was provided at all. Months later, that data is still not available to the public.
Some observational studies have estimated the boosters provide subpar protection against infection and solid protection, at least initially, against hospitalization. Randomized, controlled trials are typically considered superior.
Fraiman recommends withdrawing the vaccines and U.S. officials going to the vaccine makers and asking them to demonstrate the benefits outweigh the harms in light of the changed dynamics of the pandemic. The trials should feature investigators looking closely at each COVID-19 hospitalization to distinguish whether they were caused by COVID-19, or the COVID-19 diagnosis was incidental. That distinction is known widely as being hospitalized, or dying, with COVID-19 versus from COVID-19.
The trial would take five or six months, similar to the original ones, Fraiman says.
Other Calls
Some countries, such as Denmark, meanwhile, have stopped offering booster shots to certain segments of the population. A growing number of experts, meanwhile, are calling for the administration of the Moderna and Pfizer shots, which are by far the most administered in the United States, to be halted.
The group includes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a British doctor who turned against the vaccines in 2022 due to the growing evidence of side effects. Malhotra’s citations included the Moderna and Pfizer trials, which showed no reduction in mortality or severe disease, and the research led by Fraiman.
Linda Wastila, director of policy and research of the Peter Lamy Center for Drug Therapy and Aging at the University of Maryland, said she agrees with Fraiman, pointing to the research as well as data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Reports of thousands of post-vaccination deaths have been lodged with the system, in addition to hundreds of thousands of injuries.
“I’m a data scientist, and I’m overwhelmed by the congruence of all these data coming together so rapidly, all painting a horrific picture of vaccine harms that really cannot be ignored,” Wastila told The Epoch Times via email.
Wastila called for the removal of the vaccines from the market immediately, at least until safety signals identified by the CDC and FDA are closely studied.
“In not doing so, FDA and the rest of government agencies pushing these products are not only placing millions at risk for injury or death, they also are successfully encouraging rapid distrust of the institutions that are supposed to protect us,” she said.
There are other experts, such as Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who have recommended against certain populations getting vaccinated, such as healthy young men, because they’re at higher risk of one or more side effects and stand to gain little benefit against a disease that already poses minimal risk to them. Still, other experts continue to back the vaccination of virtually all people, including Dr. Ashish Jha, coordinator of the White House COVID-19 response.
*************************************************
Oh, So That’s What Moderna Forgot to Tell Us About Their COVID Vaccine
The more we learn about these COVID vaccines, the more I sort of regret getting the vaccine. I already survived the virus pre-vaccine, but still got vaccinated and boosted. I’m shocked that I haven’t had a cardiac event, given how scores of young people are “dying suddenly.” I’ll have more about that later, but the death rates for young Americans have spiked, and there may be some inquiries into how these vaccines might be a factor.
Today, we’re going to piggyback off something our friends at RedState touched upon concerning Moderna not being forthcoming about some data about the vaccine. Information about the reinfection rate was buried, and an FDA panel member is not too pleased about that development. What’s even more surprising is that CNN is the outlet who reported on the incomplete disclosure of Moderna’s vaccine:
“I was angry to find out that there was data that was relevant to our decision that we didn’t get to see,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, a group of external advisers that helps the FDA make vaccine decisions. “Decisions that are made for the public have to be made based on all available information – not just some information, but all information.”
At a meeting of this FDA advisory group in June and a meeting in September of a panel that advises the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the experts were presented with reams of information indicating that the new vaccine worked better than the one already on shelves, according to a review of videos and transcripts of those meetings and slide presentations made by Moderna, CDC and FDA officials.
That data – called immunogenicity data – was based on blood work done on study participants to assess how well each vaccine elicited antibodies that fight off the Omicron strain of the virus that causes Covid-19.
The data that was not presented to the experts looked at actual infections: who caught Covid-19 and who did not.
Streiff adds:
There are a few observations that can be made here. First, omitting critical data to the FDA advisory committee isn’t an oversight. Moderna’s team either knew the proposed vaccine had nearly double the current vaccine and deliberately didn’t flag that data, or they are idiots. It isn’t easy to come up with other alternatives.
The reason they did it is pretty simple. Money.
And let’s not forget that these pharmaceutical companies have full immunity from legal action. These companies can get a legal shield, but there shouldn’t be the same protections for the gun industry which has enemies at the gates looking to litigate them into extinction. They didn’t disclose all the data over money and for the sheer fact that no legal fallout could ever occur. I’m sadly not shocked there was a failure to disclose all the data before the political class, Fauci, and the Democrats forced this down our throats by threatening our employment.
**************************************************
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) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
**************************************************
Sunday, January 15, 2023
The official response to Covid was modern-deay Lysenkoism
Comment from Australia
‘Truth, like all other good things, may be loved unwisely – may be pursued too keenly – may cost too much.’ (Spigelman, 2004).
Has this statement by Vice-Chancellor Knight Bruce in 1846 become the principle to which governments, health regulators, and the pharmaceutical industry proclaim?
Well, perhaps Dr Kerryn Phelps and her wife, in their disclosure just before Christmas 2022 admitting that they had suffered severe side effects from their Covid vaccines, would agree. But why are we no longer seeing the daily media parade at 11 am from Health Ministers, regulators, and fringe-dwelling health bureaucrats with little to no clinical experience with Covid addressing the serious adverse effects and deaths from vaccines?
If we recall, government Ministers and bureaucrats across the country all marched to the beat of the same drum – get vaccinated as the alternative of being ostracised. Losing your livelihood and being publicly ridiculed was too much for the majority. We could not move outside a 5km radius, work, or visit loved ones for fear of transmitting the virus unless we were injected. Strangely the Supreme Court held that this was not coercion, because apparently you had a choice as to whether you wanted to work or travel outside the ‘5km bubble’, but of course, this was predicated on whether you had the jab.
Daily briefings similar to a kindergarten roll call for Australians became a generic message about the importance of addressing Covid in the community with no response to genuine concerns from those seeking relevant, accurate, and scientifically proven data.
It is ironic that given we are entering the third year of the Covid era, Public Health Officials continue to use the only two weapons in the fight against the continual increase in Covid Infections: facemasks and further boosters for prior injections that did not stop transmission, hospitalisations, or deaths.
Meanwhile, antivirals with decades of safety data are now being prescribed despite being made previously illegal and/or banned by regulators, all in an effort to socially construct a perception that the only thing that could save humanity was an untested mRNA injection. Or was this to ensure the Bio Security Act 2015 (Commonwealth) was complied with, ensuring that ‘no other medications were available’, thereby perceivably justifying a national campaign of social and medical coercion? I will leave this logical conundrum for you to grapple with, as many still need help understanding this line of reasoning.
Could the flood of experimental vaccines mandated upon the Australian population have, in effect, put ordinary Australians on trial? Greg Hunt, the former Federal Health Minister, said of the Pfizer and other Covid injections, ‘The world is engaged in the largest clinical vaccination trial.’ (Roberts, 2022) I would go further and say, in history…
The phrase ‘on trial’ does not solely relate to being tried in a court of law. It can apply when a government observes people to see whether they succeed or fail. It seems that government priorities now depend on getting people to act differently through enforced compliance whilst reducing transparency and accountability measures. (Shergold, 2007; Boughey, 2021)
One could assume that following the rollout of the injections, there are now two groups of people:
Those who complied with the government’s policy to get injected; and
Those that have now been put on Santa’s naughty list.
In return, they cannot work or engage in what was normal life free from government intervention, harassment and, in some cases, State-sponsored police brutality, similar to that of paramilitary organisation exacting extra curial punishment for not complying with the edicts of their grand masters.
Reminiscent of Trofim Lysenko (Lysenkoism), whose maligned ideological influence dominated biology in the Soviet Union, Lysenko, like the health bureaucrats of today, owe their ascendancy to the repeated promises of fear, doom, and insecurity, topics that worked well in Marxist-driven society.
As Lysenko’s power grew, he smothered scientific debate despite the fact that his strategy was and remains an epic failure. He crushed all opposition by deploying the State’s apparatuses to censor, intimidate, arrest, and execute scientists until the only scientists left standing were those who sold their souls to the Lysenkoism doctrine.
The result was the development of an ideology-based pseudo-science (a mere semblance of science wrapped in politics, State-run media marketing, and ideology) that did not base itself on evidence. Instead, ideology was enforced through coercion and paramilitary doctrines. State apparatuses such as Courts (if one made it to the court) were not there to hear the evidence; rather, they were used to sanitise the public record and act as gatekeepers of truth, holding back knowledge. They held back knowledge using State-sponsored experts rewarded through promotions for their loyal adherence to the cause.
The Lysenko phenomenon is the most extreme but by no means the only example of the perversion of science by ideology (as seen in Germany during the second world war and later prosecuted through Nuremberg), often with the acquiescence of the scientific community. Over the past three years, legislation has been introduced to silence medical practitioners/scientists in California (USA) and Queensland (Australia), which does not give us confidence that nothing of the kind could happen today in what used to be legally obliged participatory democracies. Perhaps the parliamentary Ministers and health bureaucrats during Covid have aligned themselves with this doctrine…?
It is apparent that politicians and so-called experts had not seen any scientific data to support their claim that the vaccines were safe and effective because we know now that the manufacturer did not have this data. So, what evidence did ATAGI, State-sponsored experts, and the TGA rely on to approve these vaccines if the manufacturer did not have that data available? The TGA states on its website:
Before any Covid-19 vaccine is approved for use in Australia, it will be subject to the well-established and rigorous assessment and approval processes of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
One of the most poignant examples relates to the experts and high-level politicians all over Australia and the world stating that the science supported their claims when in fact, no such science existed.
We heard many notable prominent people go on the public record and state (words to the effect), ‘if you get vaccinated you will not get the virus’ or ‘get vaccinated to save your grandmother and family’.
Well, all you have to do is refer to the statement of Greg Hunt above relating to the World’s biggest ‘clinical trial’. So who is telling fibs? The manufacturer, doctors, health bureaucrats, and/or politicians? Or, is this a well-coordinated program where it is the consumer who must work out the dangers as to who is responsible (similar to the Abbott and Costello movie): ‘Who’s on first? No… Who is on second!’ Or will the doctors and injectors be thrown under the bus and held to account under the learned intermediary doctrine (LID)?
The Lysenko affair stands as a classic example of how politics can corrupt and undermine the rational, proven approach of the evidence-based scientific method. Subtle subversion of the scientific method occurs at many levels, but as with Lysenko, there must be a root and branch adoption by the highest institutions of power to ensure that the burden of proof for the ‘commoner’ is perceivably futile. And those who question the ideology are publicly ridiculed by the Fourth Estate (media) and reprimanded for daring to challenge ‘their’ agenda with evidence.
The traditional common law method of induction in our legal system is the principle of a fair trial (Spigelman, 2004) yet, according to Phelps in her recent submission to Parliament:
‘The burden of proof seems to have been placed on the vaccine injured.’ (Phelps, 2022)
I too have written previously about the burden of proof being shifted so far that the consumer must prove a product or medical device is dangerous rather than well-resourced multi-national pharmaceutical companies to prove they are safe. In simple legal terms, the bar is so high, it is difficult for anyone to suggest that any future plaintiffs may have a fair hearing.
The High Court has provided an opinion relating to the burden of proof and how it can be managed in Kuczborski v Queensland (2014) inter alia, in which it was noted that the Parliament may reverse the onus of proof, but will this be enough if its interpretation is misguided?
For people to have confidence in any system, it needs to be perceived as open, balanced, transparent, and operate without fear or favour; this is something that has yet to occur because all we have seen is censorship, exclusion, ridicule, and propaganda which is creating the impression of an alternate reality, one where truth has been manipulated to become misinformation, and misinformation has become truth.
Many may not be aware from the Kassam Judgement that 6,000 individual patient medical records, 50 per cent vaccinated and 50 per cent not vaccinated were before the court. Of the 6,000, only four people passed away due to advanced Covid (that is, they arrived at the hospital too late). More telling is that Dr Bryan Tyson provided the (anti-viral) treatment protocol to the Supreme Court of NSW that assisted the remaining patients (5,996) in recovering. Yet the State expert Prof Kristine Macartney was declared an impressive witness even though Prof Macartney conceded that she had never treated a Covid patient. Still, we know that this was a golden opportunity for the administrative bodies to take notice for the sake of community safety, but did they? Indeed, the mystery of Lysenko’s Australian-adopted science continues to evade logic.
Evidence is now emerging from NSW Health data indicating that it is the jabbed presenting high levels of hospital admissions. The media have not hyped the message that the unjabbed may not be at significant risk, but the data is telling if anyone decides to examine it closely without bias
Almost 18 months later from the plaintiffs in Kassam adducing evidence and placing their stake in the sand, documents emerged from Pfizer revealing this untold truth to all that there was never any research to support the experts making representations that the injections reduced or stopped transmission; a topic very quickly deflected or ignored in the legacy media networks. Indeed, Australia’s chief health officers conceded they had never read the Pfizer nonclinical report, so where on earth did experts and politicians get their information from if it was not the manufacturer?
Perhaps government experts should have called upon the Kassam plaintiffs’ experts, who had demonstrated extraordinary insight when they made submissions in the NSW Supreme Court to Chief Justice Beech-Jones at CL that lockdowns do not stop transmission, nor does the Covid injection provide lasting immunity or stop transmission rates, thereby rendering any lockdowns and fines nugatory and legally unreasonable. However, anyone questioning such anomalies were labelled ‘anti-vaxxer’, a bullying term that strangely also attaches to those who have been vaccine injured.
But who benefits from this forced clinical trial – Big Pharma! Perhaps this is why the burden of proof has shifted from the manufacturer to the consumer. Or could this be a military operation whereby the military, acting as prime movers, deployed vaccines as militaristic countermeasures against a perceived biological attack? (Altman et al, 2022). In either case, both do not accord with transparent democratic processes and appear to contravene the Nuremberg code. The court created this code (U.S.A. v. Karl Brandt et al.: The Doctors’ Trial) to combat gross institutionalised overreach and mass experimentation on populations. It has become clear that there are apparent complexities associated with institutions providing a balanced approach to accessing information to allow consumers to meet the burden of proof.
Presently the consumer has an insurmountable task to establish any causal link between injury or death. Rather than engaging in an adversarial struggle with the opponent, they find themselves battling a government-sponsored ideology promulgated by the legacy media that places pressure on institutions to toe the line, thereby unreasonably shifting the burden of proof on the consumer. Perhaps next, we will see the vehicle manufacturers rely on consumers to do their own car crash tests, too; only time will tell.
By virtue of the preponderance of the evidence, the burden of proof has been switched so much that it has legally muzzled the consumer/patient/doctors, and scientists in what should be a balanced system governed by the Rule of Law. Even where a consumer may seek information, it is often an unreasonably tedious and costly threshold because it is difficult for a consumer to gain access to the data under Freedom of Information laws. A sentiment shared by Sir Anthony Mason (2007), who stated: ‘The Freedom of Information Act 1982 had proven to be a “substantial disappointment.’
This has placed a disproportionate disadvantage on individuals who cannot have confidence in a system perceived to be broken by the significant erosion of certain key administrative institutions and values. Some of these issues involve the institutions of government withholding key documents such as vaccine procurement contracts from the public or the documents relating to the discussions of the National Cabinet meetings about the federal and state government rollout of jabs.
Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical industry has been able to establish with governments a special type of privilege within the legal system, which has made it very difficult for consumers to demonstrate that vaccines (along with many other pharmaceuticals) can ever be at fault for anything.
This privilege often carried through lobbying and grants, has been aided to a great extent by medical regulatory bodies such as the TGA and APHRA, silencing those that seek to question or challenge the increasing concerns surrounding the safety and efficacy of these drugs. (Burger, 2020)
These facts raise a very relevant question as to whether the onus of proof has shifted to such an extent that pharmaceutical companies are just ‘too big to fail’ or is it just part of a counterfeit business plan where million-dollar settlements are factored into the business plan – yes! Preempted.
Without engaging in litigation and risking costs orders, consumers are held hostage by an almost prohibitive costs regime restricting access in matters of significant public interest. Perhaps this is the goal of Lysenkoism, or perhaps not? The same cannot be said for multi-national companies who are prepared to defend their special privileges at any cost!
Australians like Phelps and many others before her, who fell into line to take their shots, are suffering. Many only took their shots to save their jobs, but now they are still waiting for compensation. All over the world, millions of people have died, and hundreds of millions are living with severe adverse reactions, including the suspected deaths of ‘children’. These people are not just statistics in some database – no, they are human beings, family members, and loved ones that deserve to be heard, but is it an uncanny coincidence that cases coming before Courts ‘globally’ appear to be dismissed often with adverse costs orders, despite the laser-focused temporal correlations being evident?
Individuals now face difficulties after suffering a vaccine-related injury. Many Australians are still awaiting compensation after more than one year of lodging their report to the TGA. Indeed, a forensic pathologist report of patient (X) (also tendered in the Kassam case) directly linked a vaccine to the death of a 51-year-old father. This family is still waiting for compensation and still waiting for the TGA to list the death on their public website. Perhaps these delays are not intentional due to a large number of reports that have clogged the system. But suppose the daily media parades announcing the deaths of the elderly with comorbidities on the hour were sufficient, then why are we not seeing the same treatment for those injured by the so-called vaccine or gene therapy now?
Has the ‘pat on the back’ given to many Australians from the government for complying with their policy to get vaccinated become a ‘slap in the face’?
As suggested in the journal articles reviewed, what is becoming increasingly clearer is that the experts claiming boosters improve protection against the XBB variant may be the ones engaging in disinformation, and this squarely places them at potential risk of breaching the California and Queensland legislation relating to disinformation.
Why were government officials left in the dark if the Kassam plaintiffs knew this truth from publicly available scientific data 18 months ago? This is clear, the state of scientific knowledge was available in 2020, and by the time Kassam went to the hearing, that knowledge had progressed sufficiently to provide protections for Australian citizens. But, this was not to be. Since our letter dated July 7, 2021, to Brad Hazzard and Co in response to community concerns about the safety and efficacy of the various Covid vaccines, we have unfortunately seen these numbers increase considerably. We raised questions relating to the conduct of some of Australia’s highest institutions, such as the TGA and AHPRA, aligned universities, and health bureaucrats all vying for research grants and recognition.
Our letter, written before vaccine-related injuries and deaths were as bad as they are now, clearly articulated these risks and essentially puts politicians and courts on notice. We are still waiting for a response from the government addressing these concerns.
Sadly, many Australian citizens have paid the ultimate price as a result, and many families were unaware of the true state of scientific knowledge because it was censored, ridiculed, and shunned. Although a clear vindication of the Kassam plaintiff’s position is on the cards, it is too late for many families who have lost loved ones, something we warned would occur. However, there are many courageous and ethically minded senators and politicians from all over the world, such as Senators Gerard Rennick, Alex Antic, Malcolm Roberts, Matt Canavan, Ralph Babet, Pauline Hanson, Craig Kelly (former MP), Senator Rand Paul, Rob Johnson (USA), and European parliamentarians who have continually voiced concerns over the manner in which the injections were rolled out across their respective continents.
Lawyers from around the world have united, strongly driven by perceived injustices against humanity, such as Aaron Siri, Thomas Renz, and Reiner Fuellmich et al., and have launched actions and continue to do their duty to ensure the Rule of Law is followed internationally.
Lessons learnt over the past few years have taught us that the idea of informed and valid consent has become a thing of the past with relentless labelling of people as ‘anti-vaxxers’ that chose to seek information about the safety and efficacy of these vaccines. In fact, what Dr Kerryn Phelps and others injured by the vaccine have come to know is that in exchange for speaking out about their vaccine injury, they are rubber-stamped as anti-vaxxers, the go-to attack line by the captured legacy media.
We have been directly involved with matters concerning long-serving police members (without disciplinary records) who have been dismissed from employment for electing, under their ‘informed consent rights’, not to comply with the Commissioner’s Direction to be vaccinated. These hardworking Police Officers, who only 12 months earlier were labelled heroes, cannot find employment in other industries, such as the security industry, because the Commissioner has sacked them for misconduct and classified them as not having sufficient ‘integrity’. Minister Paul Whelan MP, in his second reading speech to Parliament, on November 13, 1996, said:
‘The vast majority of police are, of course, hardworking and honest. They are constantly let down by the corrupt and incompetent. It is essential that these undesirable elements are removed to allow talent to blossom and performance to improve.’
He further stated:
‘The government recognises that the authority to terminate employment under the Commissioner’s confidence provisions vests considerable power in the Commissioner … checks, and balances are required to ensure that it is only used as it is meant to be, and is neither exceeded nor abused.’
Whilst we deeply respect our Police forces, I merely point out that Lysenkoism appears to be thriving in Australia in 2023.
Similar to Maoist China we have also seen Fair Work Commission members sent into reeducation for towing the party line. One stark example is Jennifer Kimber v Sapphire Coast Community Aged Care Ltd[2021] FWCFB 6015 Deputy President Lyndell Dean stated that mandatory immunisation could not be justified in ‘almost every workplace in Australia’.
‘All Australians should vigorously oppose the introduction of a system of medical apartheid and segregation in Australia,’ she said. ‘It is an abhorrent concept and is morally and ethically wrong, and the antithesis of our democratic way of life and everything we value.’
In a move from Maoist China, Deputy President Dean was removed from hearing any further vaccine-related cases and was required to undertake ‘re-education’. Anyone who understands history will tell you that similar conduct occurred in China if one did not adhere to the Communist party line.
Many brave professionals worldwide risked their livelihoods to fulfil their duty to raise the alarm about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing Covid policies. These ethically minded doctors, scientists, and social advocates, such as Prof Jay Bhattacharya, Prof Gupta, Prof Martin Kulldorff, Dr Peter McCullough, Prof Clancy, Dr Malhotra, Dr Phillip Altman, Dr Hobart, Dr Sabine Hazan, Dr Maryanne Demasi, Dr Chris Neill, Dr Cosford, Prof Brighthope, Dr Ryan Cole, Dr Bryan Tyson, Dr Michael Palmer, the late Dr Zelenko, Prof Robert Clancy, Dr Geert Vanden Bossche, Ivor Cummings, Dr Ah Khan Syed, Arkmedic, Nicki Evans, and JikkyLeaks (to name a few); along with tens of thousands of others, signed the Great Barrington Declaration. Many social media personalities also spoke out about the experimental vaccines’ effects on ordinary Australians’ daily lives, such as Graham Hood, John Larter, and prominent journalists Alan Jones, Rowan Dean et al. I dread to think how worse our society would be if it were not for these individuals.
**************************************************
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) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
**************************************************
Saturday, January 14, 2023
My pictorial home page
Every year I put up what I call my pictorial home page as a memoir of the year in political and social commentary just past. I have now put up my memoir of 2022. See here. At the foot of the post is a link taking you to the previous year. If for some reason you do wish to explore my cogitations of years past, my backup site may be more convenient.
My recipe blog
After a long hiatus, I have just put up a new recipe on my Recipe Blog. It is for an unusual but very tasty meal
******************************************************
Friday, January 13, 2023
Vaccinated people still getting Covid
Officials in Washington state recorded jumps in post-vaccination infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in mid-2021, according to newly disclosed internal emails.
Fifteen percent of COVID-19 cases and 25 percent of COVID-19 hospitalizations from July 1 to July 20, 2021, were vaccinated—up from 2 percent between February and June that year, Chris Spitters, the health officer for the Snohomish County Health District, wrote in one of the messages. A fifth of the deaths attributed to COVID-19 were vaccinated.
Spitters also detailed a COVID-19 outbreak in a long-term care facility with over a dozen breakthrough, or post-vaccination, cases.
Dr. Yuan-Po Tu, of The Everett Clinic, responded by saying that about 20 percent of people testing positive in the clinic were fully vaccinated. “ALL 3 vaccines are breaking through,” Tu wrote.
Dr. James Cook, chief medical officer at the Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, told Spitters and Tu that some hospitalized patients were vaccinated and the majority of workers who were testing positive were fully vaccinated.
“I don’t think any have been hospitalized but I’m not 100% sure,” Cook wrote.
The emails, all sent on July 30, 2021, were obtained and published recently by Ari Hoffman, a 570 KVI radio host and an editor for The Post Millennial. They were reviewed by The Epoch Times, which confirmed their authenticity.
The emails were sent after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a study showing that 74 percent of COVID-19 cases from an outbreak in Massachusetts occurred among fully vaccinated people, undercutting claims from top health officials that the vaccinated would not get infected. The outbreak investigation prompted the agency to recommend vaccinated people wear masks indoors, a reversal from about two months prior.
Spitters said in his missive that the outbreak study provided “sobering news” and predicted a “rocky road ahead.”
“We really need to reframe our public education approach to emphasizing vaccination along with the other prevention measures rather than the faded illusion of vaccination instead of other prevention measures. The stellar individual protection afforded by vaccination is no longer, nor is the dream of getting out from under COVID on July 1,” he said, referring to President Joe Biden declaring that COVID-19 “no longer controls our lives” and that the country had achieved “independence from COVID-19” thanks to vaccination.
“Effectiveness is still good compared to many other vaccines and higher coverage would still do us a lot of good, but the vaccine effectiveness is clearly no longer what it was just a couple of months ago and folks should manage themselves accordingly,” Spitters added.
Snohomish County officials had said in June 2021 that the county’s COVID-19 metrics were dropping “thanks in large part to the growing number of people getting vaccinated.” Spitters had said that “relief is on the horizon.”
Just weeks later, with metrics rising, the county’s health agency acknowledged that people who were vaccinated could still become infected, but described breakthrough infections as “occasional” and the vaccinated as better off when it came to illness, hospitalization, and death.
“Local public health officials were publicly discussing breakthrough infections in summer 2021, as were many healthcare professionals, researchers, and scientists. Throughout the COVID-19 response, local public health has consistently been in communication about the best disease prevention measures to keep our communities healthy,” Dr. Dennis Worsham and Dr. James Lewis, now the top two health officials in the country, told The Epoch Times via email in response to a query about the internal messages.
“It is not a surprise to have breakthrough infections. Even vaccines that work very well are not a 100% guarantee against infection, and we don’t expect them to be. What we continue to see, though, is that fully vaccinated (and now boosted, particularly with the new bivalent booster) individuals are much less likely to require hospitalization or die of COVID-19 related complications,” they added.
Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, in August 2021 imposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates for public workers, healthcare workers, and teachers, claiming that the mandates would be crucial in “defeating this deadly disease.” When the vaccines first rolled out, experts hoped the shots would work well enough to drastically diminish or even eliminate the virus, or reach herd immunity. But by the end of 2021, with the vaccines performing worse than expected, they were acknowledging that may not be possible.
Other Emails
In another jurisdiction in Washington state in July 2021, Lewis flagged the rising number of breakthrough infections in a separate email chain.
Lewis, at the time an epidemiologist with Seattle and King County’s health department, told colleagues he’d been speaking with contact tracers who “are hearing stories all day from people who are vaccinated and getting COVID.”
One example, he said, was a party to celebrate vaccination that forced attendees to provide proof of vaccination to enter.
Tracers identified at least nine people who attended the party who had tested positive, Lewis said in an email.
The Facebook listing for the event called it “Operation Inoculation: A Critical Community Vaccination Celebration” and said 258 people registered to go.
“You did it! You’ve survived one of the worst pandemics and presidencies in U.S. History. There’s no question we’ve only yet begun to deal with the fallout, but thanks to all of you who have fulfilled your Civic Responsibility to get vaccinated, we’re on the road to recovery, and we think that’s something to celebrate. If you’ve had your shots, join us for a good old-fashioned, party-like-it’s-2016 Burner Party,” the listing stated.
“Sorry for the bad news,” Lewis wrote, adding that the tracers wanted to know what guidance on masking and quarantining they should give to vaccinated people.
Another set of messages released by Hoffman showed Worsham, at the time the interim director of the Seattle and King County Public Health, reporting a spike in metrics to then-Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, who asked for more information on how many breakthrough cases were happening and what the severity of the disease was like in the vaccinated. Worsham asked health workers for information.
“We do have information and are working on talking points for Jeff—should be ready tomorrow,” Sargis Pogosjans, one of the workers, wrote. “I think the context is extremely important—an increased proportion of fully vaccinated cases should be expected since the vaccine is not 100% effective against infection and now, the population of fully vaccinated residents outnumber unvaccinated residents.”
“I agree with you Sargis—we are being clear in our conversations that we do expect people who are vaccinated to become infected with COVID,” Worsham replied. “As our population becomes more vaccinated—we do anticipate we will see more given that more people are vaccinated AND that vaccines are not 100% effective in protecting you from the virus.”
The talking points were not included in the emails.
Dr. Jeff Duchin, the health officer for Seattle and King County, told The Epoch Times via email that breakthrough infections were discussed nationally in the summer of 2021 and that the county communicated publicly about the trend.
“The fact that breakthrough infections occur does not mean vaccines do not work or provide important protection against serious COVID-19 infections. Vaccines provide substantial protection against serious COVID-19 even though protection against transmission is lower, and vaccination plus other layered protections are most effective at preventing transmission,” Duchin said, pointing to studies from the CDC and a study from Nature that estimated vaccines reduce transmission.
Clinical trials have not shown that vaccines reduce transmission and a Pfizer executive recently acknowledged that was not studied.
The papers from the CDC and other researchers have also shown that the vaccines provide little protection—the effectiveness even turns negative after time—against infection, and worse shielding against severe illness, since the Omicron variant emerged in late 2021. Observational data indicate the latest boosters, authorized and recommended in late 2022, protect poorly against infection and solidly against hospitalization.
***********************************************************
Robert F. Kennedy and others Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against "Trusted News Initiative"
A first-of-its-kind antitrust action was filed Tuesday against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), The Washington Post, Reuters, and Associated Press, seeking damages totaling millions of dollars based on the collusive censorship of online health and political news publishers who dared to question the narrative relating to vital matters such as COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine mandates. TrialSite has been at the forefront of researching, analyzing, and reporting on medical research and was invited directly by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to participate in this groundbreaking action targeting dangerous censorship.
Background
The lawsuit reveals that by March 2020, a partnership was created called the Trusted News Initiative (TNI) between Big Tech and legacy media to exclude rival publishers from the dominant internet platforms. On Dec. 10, 2020, TNI agreed to focus on combatting the spread of harmful vaccine disinformation. This coordinated effort is, by definition, a classic unlawful “group boycott” to damage the ability of smaller publishers to compete or even survive. Members of the TNI include legacy media outlets the BBC, The Washington Post, Reuters, Financial Times, and Associated Press, along with social media and tech giants—Twitter, Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Microsoft/LinkedIn, and Google/YouTube. TNI members collectively hold 90% of the overall social media market, a 90% share of the social networking market, 75% of the video hosting market, and over 90% of the search-engine market.
Antitrust Violations
The complaint points to multiple examples of what plaintiffs’ state violates antitrust laws. “By their own admission, members of the ‘Trusted News Initiative’ (‘TNI’) agreed to work together, and have in fact, worked together, to exclude from the world’s dominant Internet platforms rival news publishers who engage in reporting that challenges and competes with TNI members’ reporting on certain issues relating to COVID-19 and U.S. politics. For example, TNI members deemed the following to be ‘misinformation’ that could not be published on the world’s dominant Internet platforms: (A) claims that COVID originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China; (B) claims that the COVID vaccines do not prevent infection; (C) claims that vaccinated persons can transmit COVID to others; and (D) claims that compromising emails and videos were found on a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden. …The TNI did not only prevent Internet users from making these claims; it shut down online news publishers who reported that such claims were being made by potentially credible sources, such as scientists and physicians.” Dr. Ben Tapper, Dr. Joseph Mercola, founder of The Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft, independent journalists Ben Swann and Erin Elizabeth Finn, independent news outlets TrialSite News and Creative Destruction Media, and health-freedom activists Ty and Charlene Bollinger join Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Children’s Health Defense (CHD) as plaintiffs.
Kennedy Goes on the Record
“My uncle, President Kennedy, and my father, the Attorney General, sought to prosecute antitrust laws that are still on the nation’s books with vigor,” said Kennedy. “As private enforcers of those laws, we are confident that the Federal Court in Texas will vindicate our bedrock freedom to compete with legacy media in the marketplace of ideas.”
**************************************************
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) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
**************************************************
Thursday, January 12, 2023
On America’s moral compass in the face of covid
At long last, media censorship of the scientific debate during the covid-19 pandemic has become undeniable. Censoring portrayed an illusion of consensus and intimidated scientifically valid disagreement. Policymakers and citizens were deceived by those suffocating scientific data and perspectives on risk, mitigation effectiveness, biological immunity, lockdowns, and especially the impacts of covid and the policies themselves on children.
Perhaps censorship explains why the standard recommendations fifteen years prior to this pandemic remain unknown to the public. Henderson’s 2006 classic review clearly stated two related, but separate, conclusions: lockdowns were not effective, and lockdowns were extremely harmful, including: “Closing schools for longer periods (greater than ten to fourteen days at the beginning of an epidemic) in hopes of mitigating the epidemic by decreasing contacts among students is not warranted”; “There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people for extended periods”; and “The negative consequences of large-scale quarantine are so extreme . . . that this mitigation measure should be eliminated from serious consideration.”
All honest leaders, all individuals with integrity, should acknowledge that people were directly damaged and even died from the censorship of truth.
But as important as the censorship revelations have been, we may be witnessing yet another misdirection. Focusing on social media as the main culprit permits a flee from responsibility by lockdown advocates, including Drs. Fauci, Birx, Walensky, and countless academics filling America’s “expert class.” If that deflection of responsibility is swallowed by the public, then reintroduction of similarly reckless, destructive, and morally indefensible policies by those in power remains a viable possibility.
The factual record must be clarified, or history will undergo an Orwellian rewrite and the truth will vanish. The United States has been a shameful outlier among its peer nations. America uniquely sacrificed its children by closing in-person schools in 2020 and 2021, forcing testing and quarantining of asymptomatic, healthy students and requiring injection of experimental drugs in schoolchildren with no clear benefit to them.
Uncertainties existed in early 2020, but one fact was already clear—healthy children did not have significant risk of serious illness or death from this virus. Since spring 2020, cdc data had shown those under twenty years of age have a 99.997 percent chance of survival. From studies from early 2020 and through today in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, France, Australia, Germany, Greece, South Korea and the United Kingdom confirmed the miniscule risk to children and further that almost all coronavirus transmission to children comes from adults, not the other way around. And opened schools never showed significant dangers to children, the community, or teachers—a demographically low-risk group with half its members younger than forty-one and 82 percent under fifty-five. Known in 2020, those facts were verified in multiple studies, including from Brown University, Duke University, Norway, and others.
At this point, no one should need to cite the January 2023 analysis of the pre-vaccination period, until the end of 2020, also corresponding to when the virus was in its most lethal form. It showed the median ifr (infection fatality ratio) was 0.0003 percent for those zero to nineteen years of age, meaning a survival rate of 99.9997 percent. Consistent with the very low ifr, Levitt et al. (2022) showed no excess deaths among children and adolescents during the pandemic in almost any country that has reliable death registration data. For perspective, analyzing only the younger age groups, Iuliano et al. (2018) estimated the absolute numbers of fatalities were lower than seasonal flu fatalities based on data from ninety-two countries over pre-pandemic years (Ioannidis, 2022). Perhaps our university scientists will admit in one of their signed group letters that the ifr of the flu is higher for children—it is deadlier—than covid, even in this virus’s most lethal form and before any vaccination, according to cdc data over ten years?
After the first two months of closures in March and April of 2020, data also showed what was common sense to any parent—distance learning was already a proven failure, and closing schools severely harmed children, especially in low-income and single-parent families. Reading and math losses approached 30 to 50 percent after spring 2020 closures. In Fairfax, Virginia, F-grades increased by 83 percent; two F-grades were up 300 percent in middle school and 50 percent in high school. Failing grades surged in Los Angeles, especially among disadvantaged kids. Losses beyond learning were predictable, because schools are where we often first detect hearing/vision impairment; nutrition is a key need for poor children that is met in school; conflict resolution, language, social skills, physical activity, and more are learned from in-person schooling.
From the spring 2020 social isolation, serious health harms were already inflicted on our children—noted by the cdc itself, including spikes in mental illness, drug abuse, and suicidal ideation. That’s besides the nearly 300,000 cases of child abuse, unreported to authorities in spring 2020 because schools are the number one agency where child abuse is noticed. Longer-term harms were also recognized back in 2020, especially for kids in lower income families.
While most peer nations in western Europe opened schools for the 2020–21 school year, even during their otherwise stringent lockdowns, the vast majority of America’s governors closed in-person schools for the school year. Ignoring all the data and the August 12, 2020 White House public event I helped organize with experts, parents, and educators detailing the importance of children returning to school, America’s officials followed the extreme views of White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Deborah Birx and niaid Director Anthony Fauci. As of September 10, 2020, only 18 percent of U.S. K-12 students were attending in-person schools, while over 60 percent of U.S. students were attending schools that were virtual—only during that period, according to Burbio. Only 15% of California’s more than 6 million children in public elementary and secondary schools were in-person that 2020 school year. That contrasts to Florida, where 100 percent of students were offered in-person school.
Inept government bureaucrats and academics doling out guidance contrary to science were not the sole impetus for the malfeasance. The largest teachers’ unions actively pressured schools to remain closed for in-person learning in the fall of 2020, even in the face of low local case rates. It was not until spring of 2021 where more than half of America’s K-12 schools offered full-time in-person learning, according to Burbio school tracker, although California still lagged, ranking dead last of all fifty states for in-person schooling through 2021–2022. Pressure for school closure continued even into 2022 by the Chicago Teachers Union and New York Federation of Teachers. Teachers who insisted—even back in the fall of 2020—that they were at higher risk than other professions were either lying or simply did not understand the facts; either way, they proved wholly unworthy of being entrusted to teach children.
A March 2021 nationwide analysis of insurance claims revealed the horrifying toll on our children from that uniquely American school closure policy of 2020. Mental health care visits for teenagers and college-aged children skyrocketed; self-harm visits by teenagers to doctors (e.g., extinguishing cigarettes on skin, slashing wrists) doubled to tripled versus 2019; manic-depressive and anxiety disorder visits to doctors by college-aged kids skyrocketed; overdoses and substance use disorders in teenagers increased by 40 percent to 120 percent. Our college-aged kids now have an obesity crisis—more than half reported an unwanted weight gain during the 2020 lockdowns, and it averaged twenty-eight pounds, according to the American Psychological Association.
The scandalous legacy of those who convinced officials to close schools was highlighted in the October 2022 naep Report Card on America’s school performance, reporting the largest score drops in math since the initial assessments more than thirty years ago, worse in children from low-income families. unicef’s The State of Global Learning Poverty: 2022 Update confirmed that sinful outcome: “The increases (in learning poverty) have been especially large in . . . the regions where schools have been closed the longest”; “remote learning was largely ineffective and a poor substitute for in-person schooling. . . . Widespread school closures have disproportionally affected students from disadvantaged backgrounds”; and “recent analysis suggests that learning losses are concentrated among poor students.” Was I mistaken when I thought we especially cared about poor children in this country?
In what might be the most unforgivable action to date, more than one thousand universities forced healthy college students to receive experimental vaccines for a disease that poses miniscule risk to young people. That went well beyond forced testing of students—what the cdc itself had already declared “illegal and unethical” in its now-removed post of October 13, 2020. Then, in a frightening illustration of the unethical extensions of science denial, several top academic medical centers—Duke, Johns Hopkins, Stanford—ran a clinical trial injecting the financial sponsor’s covid vaccines into healthy infants and toddlers for an illness from which those subjects have miniscule risk for serious consequence. The researchers justified the drug’s success on indirect evidence of serum antibodies, rather than true clinical protection, because it prevented infection in only 37 to 51 percent, and because no subject, not even in the placebo group, had serious illness or death.
In Kafkaesque fashion, the America’s fda granted an emergency use authorization, or eua, on December 8, 2022, at a time when there is not a public health emergency from covid for children. Do most Americans realize that dating back to 2021, several other countries did not recommend, and some even forbade, covid vaccines in children without underlying illnesses—Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and others? Has the United States become a society that wants to use children as shields by injecting them with experimental drugs? It is not an overstatement to suggest that university scientists today have become this century’s Flat Earthers, but with an added dose of serious ethical and moral failure.
Finally, many elite American universities disqualified themselves on the most basic requirements of conduct for being trusted with our nation’s most precious assets—the minds of our younger generation. Professors engaged in censure, bullying, and character assassination to win arguments by comparing scientifically valid ideas, all of which have been proven correct, including targeted protection, to “eugenics” and the “Tuskegee syphilis experiments.” While this is not the first episode in American history to remind us of Joseph Welch’s famous lament “Have you no sense of decency?”, to many it illustrates today’s most disturbing deficit in our country—a lack of simple civility to others.
Nelson Mandela observed “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” America failed the test. From school closures to the reprehensible injection of experimental drugs into our own children as shields for adults, the heinous legacy of all who recommended and implemented those policies is serious physical and psychological damage to our children, especially the poor, the totality of which will not be known for decades. We urgently need to restore moral leadership of our nation’s institutions across the board, or the free and ethical society ideal of the United States has lost its legitimacy.
https://newcriterion.com/blogs/dispatch/sins-against-children
**************************************************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) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
**************************************************
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
Pfizer Board Member Pressured Twitter to Censor Posts on Natural Immunity, Low COVID Risk to Children
A Pfizer board member who used to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lobbied Twitter to take action against a post accurately pointing out that natural immunity is superior to COVID-19 vaccination, according to an email released on Jan. 9.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb wrote on Aug. 27, 2021, to Twitter executive Todd O’Boyle to request Twitter take action against a post from Dr. Brett Giroir, another former FDA commissioner.
“This is the kind of stuff that’s corrosive. Here he draws a sweeping conclusion off a single retrospective study in Israel that hasn’t been peer reviewed. But this tweet will end up going viral and driving news coverage,” Gottlieb wrote.
Giroir had written that it was clear natural immunity, or post-infection immunity, “is superior to vaccine immunity, by ALOT.” He said there was no scientific justification to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination if a person had natural immunity. “If no previous infection? Get vaccinated!” he also wrote.
Giroir pointed to what was at the time a preprint study from Israeli researchers that found, after analyzing health records, that natural immunity provided better protection than vaccination. The study was later published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases following peer review.
Researchers said the data “demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.” BNT162b2 is the trade name for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, which is the main shot used in Israel.
Gottlieb’s email triggered messages on Jira, Twitter’s internal messaging system, according to journalist Alex Berenson, who was granted access to Twitter’s internal files by CEO Elon Musk.
“Please see this report from the former FDA commissioner,” O’Boyle wrote.
A Twitter analyst who reviewed the post determined it did not violate any misinformation rules but Twitter still put a tag on it, claiming to all users who viewed it that it was “misleading” and directing them to a link that would show “why health officials recommend a vaccine for most people.” The tag prevented people from replying to, sharing, or liking Giroir’s post.
Gottlieb later defended his actions, saying he targeted posts that he thought included “false and inflammatory” information. Giroir said “my tweet was accurate then, and it remains so now” and that Twitter never responded to him.
Another Message
Gottlieb later messaged O’Boyle again, flagging a post from Justin Hart, a critic of lockdowns and a skeptic of COVID-19 vaccines, Berenson reported.
Gottlieb took issue with Hart writing that “sticks and stones may break my bones but a viral pathogen with a child mortality rate of <>0% has cost our children nearly three years of schooling.”
COVID-19 poses little mortality risk to young, healthy people, studies and data show.
Gottlieb did not detail why he wanted to censor Hart, but the objection came shortly before the U.S. government authorized and recommended Pfizer’s vaccine for children aged 5 to 11.
O’Boyle sent the request to Twitter analysts, failing for a second time to disclose Gottlieb’s ties to Pfizer. The complaint did not trigger any action.
“Our team of ragtag analysts, activists, moms and dads have been going after Scott since April 2020 when he repeatedly advocated for school closures and lockdowns. He doesn’t like people pushing back on the narrative,” Hart told The Epoch Times in a Twitter message.
Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.
Tried to Get Journalist Banned
Gottlieb also tried to get Berenson, a former New York Times reporter who now authors a Substack, banned from Twitter, a message released in 2022 showed.
The message showed that Gottlieb forwarded a blog post from Berenson to a Twitter worker, writing that Berenson calling Dr. Anthony Fauci arrogant was an example of why Fauci, at the time the head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, needed a security detail.
Four days later, and a day after Gottlieb met with Twitter workers, Twitter banned Berenson for allegedly violating its rules on COVID-19 misinformation.
Gottlieb defended his actions.
“I’ve raised concerns around social media broadly,” Gottlieb said during an appearance on CNBC. “And I’ve done it around the threats that are being made on these platforms, and the inability of these platforms to police direct threats, physical threats about people, that’s my concerns around social media, and what’s going on in that ecosystem.”
“I am very concerned with physical threats being made against people’s safety and the people who gin up those threats against individuals,” he also said.
Berenson responded that he’d never threatened Fauci or Gottlieb and referred to Gottlieb’s comments.
In the post that triggered Gottlieb’s email, Berenson criticized Fauci for saying that “attacks on me are attacks on science” and how he handled the U.S. pandemic response.
Berenson was reinstated to Twitter in 2022 as part of a settlement of a lawsuit he brought against the company. Berenson obtained Gottlieb’s email about Fauci’s post during discovery. Before the settlement agreement, a judge had concluded that Berenson plausibly alleged Twitter failed to abide by a policy of five strikes before banning the journalist.
******************************************************
Covidians And Their Paper-Thin Skins
In the pre-Musk Twitter days, pencil-necked leftist overlords would simply censor dissidents for daring to cite inconvenient facts. That’s because they don’t like to be challenged or even politely questioned openly. They know their dumb ideas can’t stand up to scrutiny, so instead of rethinking and revising those dumb ideas they look for ways to ‘win’ the debate by silencing the opposition.
Now, since silencing the opposition - on Twitter at least - is a bit more difficult, many leftists have developed a particularly silly habit of simply blocking en masse anyone who disagrees with them. This is especially true of the Covidian Left, whose notoriously thin skin makes Donald Trump’s notoriously thin skin seem like rhinoceros hide.
If you want an example of this, simply go to a random Covidian’s 2,476th post about how everyone should “mask up” to avoid the literal plague and post a reply countering that view with data and/or maybe even a slight bit of mockery. If that reply gains any traction at all - and sometimes even if it doesn’t - you’ll be blocked faster than you can say “Fauci ouchie,” never again granted the privilege of seeing that Covidian’s wise and virtuous tweets (without a burner account anyway).
I’ve found this out the hard way more times than I can count, probably because I have a hard time abiding stupidity and I just can’t leave well enough alone. The pro-mask stuff is particularly loathsome. It was bad enough in 2020, but spouting the same nonsense in 2023 has about the same scientific credibility as a bird-beak-wearing plague doctor from the Middle Ages who want to treat what ails you with bloodletting and a fine tonic of arsenic and mercury. These morons just won’t let it go, and countering their nonsense has become a civic duty at this point. Which triggers THEIR ‘civic duty,’ which is to immediately block me.
Cases in point: In response to a Covidian posting a picture of her negative test and absurdly declaring party guests would have to do the same along with eating with the windows open and wearing masks between bites, I helpfully wrote, “I’d hate for someone to get a sniffle. Can’t be too careful.” Blocked. In response to a Covidian telling us how she managed to avoid Covid until she couldn’t avoid it any longer, I empathetically wrote, “My instinct is to make fun of you but what I feel is sadness for you. Imagine living this way for years to avoid a cold. It’s unsustainable, as you’ve found out, and even if it ‘worked,’ you’ve now wrecked your immune system. How could all that be worth it?” Again, blocked. In response to a Covidian asking those still masking to “raise their hand,” I simply pointed out that it was “an IQ test” that they “failed miserably.” Predictably, blocked. Heck, I’ve even been blocked by Taylor Lorenz and to my recollection, I’ve never once engaged with her feed.
Enter “Dr.” Lucky Tran, a leftist “science communicator” at Columbia University who is an ardent member of the masking cult. I thought I had bucked the trend with this guy when he followed me even after a particularly snarky response to one of his calls for not just masking, but a return to mask mandates. Just trying to be helped out of a genuine concern for this clown’s state of mind, I replied, “Masks and mask mandates would make zero difference regarding transmission. Zero. You are in a cult. Seek help.”
After that, Tran followed me. I then followed him back, because I’m always open to dialogue and debate with those who disagree with me. Shortly after, another Tran post caught my eye:
“A leftist told me their excuse for not masking was that shaming individuals were not a good way to build solidarity,” he wrote. “You know what breaks solidarity? Locking the most vulnerable out of society because you won’t do the bare minimum.” To which I replied, “Your or anyone else’s health is not my responsibility. If the vulnerable think masks work, they are welcome to wear as many masks as they like, or even a respirator or hazmat suit. Nobody is stopping them.”
What happened after that? You guessed it, insta-block. I’m thinking Tran had meant to block me on the previous post but accidentally clicked ‘follow’ instead. Fine. He has a full right to do so. But it just bolsters my point that conservatives welcome debate while leftists stifle it to protect their obnoxious, untenable positions.
My timeline on Twitter includes plenty of people posting to disagree, call me names, and even make fun of my receding hairline (that cuts deep, Shrek!). Unless they are an obvious bot - and by obvious bot I mean some glamour shot with 0 followers whose profile says to contact her for a great time - I don’t block them. When I have time, I occasionally even engage them in the discussion, because that’s what Twitter is supposed to be about. The fact that virtually none of these people do the same tells you everything you need to know.
**************************************************
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) Also here
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
**************************************************
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
