Wednesday, March 29, 2023



Is China winning the Covid wars?

Has China won the Covid wars? In January, Vice-Premier Liu He proclaimed at Davos that China was ‘back to normal’. In February, its Politburo Standing Committee gloated that it had achieved a ‘decisive victory’ over Covid and all its policies had been ‘totally right’. Last week, it started issuing visas to foreigners and unlike the US, you don’t need a Covid vaccine to enter the country.

China ended its draconian zero-Covid policies in December. Yet, for all its totalitarian zeal, vaccination was never mandatory. China also never approved the use of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine even though it could have, instead relying on traditional vaccines made with an inactivated virus.

Naturally, Big Pharma’s gene vaccine shills predicted a Covid in China massacre with up to 1.5 million deaths. This is more than the 1.1 million Covid deaths in the US over the last three years in absolute terms although a fraction in per capita terms.

So how many people died of Covid in China? Covid figures are rubbery everywhere. China’s Covid wave peaked in early January and was over by early February, with China reporting this week that 120,576 people had died. Officials estimated that about 10 per cent of people died of Covid pneumonia and the rest died with Covid due to complications from underlying comorbidities. The average age at death was 80, with 90 per cent aged over 65 and 57 per cent aged 80 and over. This sounds very much like the cohort of sick and elderly people who died in Australia both before and after vaccination.

It was all very disappointing to Western devotees of mRNA vaccines. ‘Can a million people vanish from the planet without the world knowing?’, the Atlantic asked forlornly.

While data from China is always dubious, there is no doubt that China was determined not just to keep its Covid statistics as low as possible but also to keep Covid deaths low too, even if it meant welding people into their apartments. It was the 21st century equivalent of the Soviet Union getting an astronaut into space before the US or winning the most gold medals at the Olympics.

This was in stark contrast to former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and former UK health minister Matt Hancock whose policies dramatically increased elderly deaths.

The West also ridiculed or banned early treatment of Covid with ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, whereas the Chinese used chloroquine which was shown in 36 studies to improve outcomes by 62 per cent.

Conversely, China did not use remdesivir, a drug which all independent studies show increases the risk of death by 3 per cent. The US federal government, on the other hand, gives a 20 per cent bonus to hospitals that prescribe remdesivir to Medicare patients.

The Chinese Communist party treats its citizens like a prize herd of cattle. It doesn’t ask them what they think but it does care about their health. In contrast, the Green ideologues in the West see humanity as a pest, in plague proportions, to be culled. This is overlaid by Big Pharma’s view that a pandemic is a business opportunity, that you can never have too many jabs, and a patient cured is a customer lost.

Fear in China was used to cement Xi’s control of the country, in the West it was used to soften people up for experimental injections.

A clip of Dr Anthony Fauci, then the White House chief medical adviser, and the Mayor of Washington DC, Muriel Bowser, knocking on doors to drum up vaccination in a poor black neighbourhood in June 2021 illustrates the point. A young, healthy-looking black man angrily tells them, ‘Nine months is definitely not enough for nobody to be taking no vaccination that you-all came up with. When you start talking about paying people to get vaccinated, when you start talking about incentivising things to get people vaccinated, it’s something else going on with that,’ he adds. ‘Your campaign is about fear. It’s about inciting fear in people. You-all attack people with fear. That’s what this pandemic is – it’s fear, it’s fear, this pandemic. That’s all it is,’ he says as Fauci and Bowser beat an embarrassed retreat.

‘Vaccine hesitancy still runs deep’ in China, Reuters reported in December. And why not? Chinese vaccines haven’t stopped transmission and people told the reporter they feared the side effects such as heart attacks more than Covid. But the government shied away from heavy-handed mandates. Who would have imagined that Communist China would respect bodily autonomy more than Australia or the US?

With even the US saying that it will end its Covid vaccine requirement for foreign visitors in May, the spotlight is increasingly on vaccine injuries and deaths.

In Japan last week, politician Hirofumi Yanagase urged the government to admit the truth about vaccine injuries pointing out that deaths in Japan increased by 210,000 last year, the highest number since the second world war. Dr Masanori Fukushima, an expert in infectious diseases and professor emeritus at Kyoto University filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government last month for refusing to acknowledge the causal link between vaccines and deaths. More than 2,000 Japanese deaths have been reported after vaccination, yet the first vaccine-linked death was only admitted by the Japanese Ministry of Health on 10 March.

In the US, former Blackrock portfolio manager Edward Dowd will release a report next week about the dramatic increase in excess deaths, disabilities and injuries since the rollout of the vaccines. The latest data his team has analysed comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It reveals a dramatic increase in lost work time, an increase of 50 per cent compared with previous years which he thinks is due to vaccine injuries and the weakened immune systems of the vaccinated. His partner, leading insurance analyst Josh Stirling says the implications for insurance companies are dramatic as they face huge payouts for the injured and the dead.

It is often said that doctors bury their mistakes. In this case, insurers, and ultimately all of us, will pay for them. Will the cost be higher in the West than in China? It’s hard to say. These days, life seems to be distressingly cheap everywhere.

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

Biden Administration Hit With Class-Action Lawsuit Over Pressuring Big Tech to Censor discussion of vaccines

President Joe Biden’s administration has been hit with a class-action lawsuit over how the president and other top officials pressured Big Tech to censor users.

Lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his group Children’s Health Defense, and Louisiana resident Connie Sampognaro brought the suit in U.S. court in Louisiana against Biden and top officials like Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and White House assistant Rob Flaherty.

The pressure the officials and their agencies brought to bear against Twitter and other Big Tech companies to crack down on alleged mis- and disinformation, including targeting Kennedy personally, violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, according to the new suit.

“It is well established that the government violates the Constitution if it uses coercive threats to induce private parties to censor protected speech or if it engages in collusive joint action with private parties to violate the First Amendment,” the suit states.

The legal action rests in part on evidence that has been uncovered by litigation in the same court brought by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri.

That lawsuit has produced documents from the government and Big Tech companies showing repeated efforts by U.S. officials to get the companies to take action against users.

The efforts paid off, with companies regularly telling officials they were working on restricting information. That included any content that purportedly discouraged vaccines even when the content was true, one Facebook employee told the White House. In some cases, though, the government itself provided misinformation that was cited to take action against users, the documents show.

The censorship efforts are “responsible even now for the online suppression of facts and opinions about the COVID vaccines that might lead people to become ‘hesitant’ about COVID vaccine mandates … depriving Americans of information and opinion on matters of the highest public importance,” the new suit states.

Kennedy was named as a top spreader of mis- and disinformation by an outside group, whose analysis was promoted by then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki from the White House. Kennedy was later banned from multiple platforms, including Instagram. Kennedy provides news analyses to followers and relies on facts and opinions for the analyses, the suit states. The bans and censorship “prevented Kennedy from knowing the number and seriousness of first-hand accounts of vaccine injuries and reporting that information to his followers,” it says.

“U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said, ‘Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.’ It also violates the constitution,” Kennedy said in a statement. “The collaboration between the White House and health and intelligence agency bureaucrats to silence criticism of presidential policies is an assault on the most fundamental foundation stone of American Democracy.”

“If Government can censor its critics, there is no atrocity it cannot commit. The public has been deprived of truthful, life-and-death information over the last three years; this lawsuit aims to have government censorship end, as it must, because it is unlawful under our constitution,” added Mary Holland, president and general counsel for Children’s Health Defense, which says its aim is to “end childhood health epidemics by working aggressively to eliminate harmful exposures, hold those responsible accountable and establish safeguards to prevent future harm.”

The suit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee who is also overseeing the other case. Doughty recently rejected the government attempt to dismiss that action.

The Census Bureau, State Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and the FBI declined to comment. Other defendants, including the White House and the Department of Justice, did not respond to requests for comments.

The administration has argued before that its pressure on Big Tech companies does not “plausibly amount to coercion,” even in cases where heightened rhetoric, like when Biden said that failing to take action was “killing people,” was used.

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

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, March 28, 2023

Certain Covid vaccines might TREBLE risk of sudden cardiac death in women under 30, official data shows

Official statitics about Covid have very low credibility so the findings below should be taken with a lump of salt

Government analysts trawled through data from England's historic roll-out in order to re-check the safety profile of vaccines in under-30s.

No significant increase in deaths among the vaccinated was uncovered, debunking one of the biggest current conspiracy theories surrounding the lockdown-banishing scheme.

Although when the results were broken down further, experts found an elevated risk of cardiac-related deaths in women for one type of jab.

Data collected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed women who got a non-mRNA jab were 3.5 times more likely to die of such ailments within 12 weeks of being vaccinated.

This was compared to after that time-frame, as opposed to the unvaccinated.

Looking at the figures this way allowed the ONS team to spot any noticeable link to vaccination.

Some deaths linked to vaccines might have been missed in official figures, hence the need to look at the data another way.

Non-mRNA jabs include ones made by AstraZeneca and Novavax, which were the only two available during the period the study covered.

Although, no data on specific vaccine brand was included in the analysis. In the US, the Johnson and Johnson was one of the non-mRNA jabs used.

Writing in the journal Nature, the ONS team concluded that 11 cardiac deaths in young women may be attributable to non-mRNA jabs.

However, the study doesn't directly prove that any deaths were caused by any vaccine.

Fatalities could, for example, have been from an unrelated health condition or even a Covid infection itself given the virus is known to cause similar cardiac effects.

Researchers said young women given non-mRNA jabs in the period studied tended to be classified as clinically vulnerable, hence why they were prioritized for jabs.

This factor may have explained their increased risk of death, the team suggested.

No similar heightened risk was found in men. Academics did not offer a reason as to why, however, as that was beyond the scope of the analysis.

Nor did they uncover any proof that mRNA jabs, such as ones made by Pfizer and Moderna, carried such risk.

That disproves a conspiracy theory beloved by anti-vaxxers that the mRNA shots are responsible for a wave of 'sudden' deaths.

In fact, the study, which also examined the general risk of death after testing positive for Covid , found unvaccinated young people had significantly higher chance of dying than the jabbed from 'all causes'.

Researchers opted to look at the 12 week period post vaccination as this was the original time period set between vaccination doses.

The analysis was based on data from between December 8 2020, when Covid jabs were first rolled out, until May 25 last year.

It included people in England between the ages of 12 and 29, with researchers looking at this group specifically in response to some studies pointing to a risk of cardiac diseases in young people post-Covid vaccination.

While credited with saving the nation from an endless lockdown and thousands of lives, Covid vaccines, like any medical treatment, aren't risk free.

For example, mRNA vaccines can, in extremely rare cases, cause myocarditis. This inflammation of the heart is particularly a risk for young men and boys.

And the AstraZeneca jab was withdrawn for the under-40s in the UK in April 2021 after it was linked to a rare, but life-threatening, risk of developing blood clots.

Vahé Nafilyan, a senior statistician at the ONS, said overall the study showed mRNA vaccines, which have now been used for the majority of vaccinated young Brits, are generally safe.

'We find no evidence the risk of cardiac or all cause death is increased in the weeks following vaccination with mRNA vaccines,' he said.

However, he added they did find that young women given a non-mRNA Covid jab had a 3.52 times higher chance of cardiac death in the 12 weeks after.

While a 3.52 times increase in risk seems large, it should be noted that the actual number of deaths is estimated to be relatively small.

Office for National Statistics analysts estimate almost 1.7m Brits were carrying the virus on any given day in the week to March 13. This a jump of almost 14 per cent on the week before
Office for National Statistics analysts estimate almost 1.7m Brits were carrying the virus on any given day in the week to March 13. This a jump of almost 14 per cent on the week before

It equates to six cardiac deaths per 100,000 females vaccinated with at least a first dose of a non-mRNA vaccine.

But Mr Nafilyan said the context in which those jabs were given and to whom needed to be considered. 'Vaccination with the main non-mRNA vaccine used in the UK was stopped for young people following safety concerns in April 2021,' he said.

'And most of the young people who received it would have been prioritised due to clinical vulnerability or being healthcare workers.

'Therefore, these results cannot be generalised to the population as a whole.

'Whilst vaccination carries some risks, these need to be assessed in light of its benefits.'

The ONS analysis did not speculate why women seemed to be at greater risk of cardiac death following their first non-mRNA Covid jab compared to men.

While the data did record men had an estimated 1.18 increased risk of cardiac death following their first non-mRNA Covid jab, the ONS said the evidence wasn't strong enough to establish a link as these few deaths could just be down to chance.

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

Covid coming apart at the seams

Panic saw 100 years of evidence-based pandemic response programs junked as superstition-driven diktat took over in the wish to be seen to be doing something. Britain’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said on 13 March 2020, ‘If you locked down absolutely everything, probably for a period of four months or more, then you would suppress the virus. But when you do that and then release it, it all comes back again.’

That’s what has happened here. Covid is now endemic. It will circulate throughout the world and keep returning with mutating variants. People who have been infected and/or vaccinated can contract and transmit it. We have little choice but to learn to live with it. What’s important is to make sure the right policy lessons are learnt so that never again, neither for a novel coronavirus nor for any other infections disease, do we go down the path of public policy insanity to lock up the whole country and give total power and control to sociopaths and psychopaths.

Fear was instrumentalised to terrify citizens. A 2021 Yale study concluded that public health messaging was effective in shaming and embarrassing people into getting vaccinated both to protect themselves and in the belief this would also expedite the date for the entire community to be released from all restrictions. Yet vaccines were tested for reducing the likelihood of infection leading to serious illness and death, not for protecting against infection and transmission. Robert Blumen notes: ‘Covid injections were a treatment, not a vaccine’. Manufacturers and health authorities ignored the more troublesome concepts of absolute risk reduction and numbers needed to vaccinate. Instead, they concentrated on weaponising the relative risk reduction of 95 per cent so that people were misled into believing it meant 95 per cent protection against infection, rather than a 95 per cent reduction in the risk of those infected to progress to severe disease.

There would never have been the widespread public backing for vaxports if people had not been misled into exaggerating the threat from Covid by several factorfold and mistaking relative for absolute risk reduction. This led them into the false belief that mass vaccination would end the pandemic and the unvaccinated were prolonging that day of release. The brainwashing was so effective that to this day many insist that Novak Djokovic has been protected from Covid by the high rate of vaccination.

The Covid policy house of cards has been tumbling down during the month I was in India. The explosive lockdown files in the UK have blown apart the official narrative and confirmed that we the sceptics were right in our dark suspicions of the motives, scientific basis and evidence behind government decisions. Yet, even we did not fully grasp just how venal, evil and utterly contemptuous of their citizens those in charge of our health, lives, livelihoods and children’s future were.

Many suspicions voiced by sceptics from early 2020 onwards and mocked as conspiracy theories have turned into plausible claims and even accepted facts The virus might have originated in the Wuhan laboratory after all. Dodgy Covid modelling dressed up outliers as reasonable case scenarios. Lockdowns failed to stop the spread and eradicate the virus. They increased non-Covid deaths and caused other grave harms.

School closures did not curb transmission but did cause long-term harm to children’s education, development and emotional wellbeing. Masks stopped neither infection nor transmission. Infection confers natural immunity. Covid vaccines do not stop infection, hospitalisation, death or transmission. The safety of vaccines using new technology had not been definitively established for the short- or long-term. Vaccine harms are real and substantial yet safety signals have been summarily dismissed and ignored. mRNA vaccines are not confined to the arm but spread rapidly to other parts, including reproductive organs, with worrying consequences for fertility and births.

The harm-benefit equation of vaccines is, like the disease burden itself, steeply age-differentiated. Healthy young people do not need initial or booster doses. Vaccination mandates don’t increase vaccine take-up but can fuel cross-vaccine hesitancy. Suppression of sceptical and dissenting voices lessen trust in public health officials, experts, institutions and scientists. Estimates of ‘long Covid’ were inflated (CDC estimate of 20 per cent of Covid infections against UK study’s estimate of three) by using generalised, non-specific symptoms like mild fatigue and weakness.

Health policy interventions involve policy trade-offs just like all other policy choices. Cost-benefit analysis is therefore an essential prerequisite, not an optional add-on.

Regulators seem to have become vaccine enablers, more committed to defend vaccines from criticism than protect people from harm. Germany’s Die Welt became the first major mainstream publication to report on the allegations of fraud in Pfizer’s clinical trials. Participants who suffered adverse events were unblinded and removed and the death of Pfizer subjects was covered up. The New York Times has taken the European Commission to court over President Ursula von der Leyen’s refusal to release her text messages with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, in which she personally negotiated the purchase of up to 1.8 billion doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine.

On 15 February, Florida issued a health alert on mRNA Covid-19 vaccine safety. By now, the vast majority of Covid deaths in many countries are among the vaccinated and boosted. This proves conclusively the ineffectiveness of vaccines at the community level, demolishes the premise of vaccine mandates, but leaves open the possibility of net protective benefits for target groups like the elderly and people with serious underlying health issues.

The swirling propaganda notwithstanding, not every vaccinated person who died was killed by the vaccine; not every vaccinated person who didn’t die from a Covid infection lives because of the vaccine; not all unvaccinated to survive an infection owe their lives to being unjabbed. All such claims should be rigorously scrutinised and discussed with the increasing flow of data and a growing body of studies. The imperative need is to investigate the phenomenon of vaccine injuries and excess deaths. The refusal of governments to do so is exasperating but perhaps also very telling: never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer. The policy conclusions are to demand local clinical trials for new products and not rely on overseas results; end revenue dependence of regulators on the pharmaceutical industry; disclose financial links of regulators, doctors and researchers with Pharma; end legal indemnity for vaccine manufacturers; lift mandates in public settings; and prohibit companies from imposing them in most business settings, leaving it instead for people to make informed decisions in consultation with their doctors free from threats of sanctions.

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

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, March 27, 2023


Problem

I am ill and have been sleeping most of the day. So I have not put up much. Hopefully better tomorrow

Sunday, March 26, 2023



US Appeals Court Blocks COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Federal Workers

A federal appeals court has halted the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal workers nationwide.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans ruled (pdf) in an en banc hearing on Thursday to keep a preliminary injunction on the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in place amid ongoing litigation over the matter.

En banc is a legal term that means a case is heard by the entire bench of a court, rather than just by a panel of judges selected from the bench.

The latest move by the full appeals court of 16 full-time judges reverses a previous ruling that was made by a smaller panel of judges from the same appeals court. That three-judge panel had ruled in April 2022 to uphold the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal workers.

Executive Order

President Joe Biden in September 2021 issued an executive order requiring federal workers to get COVID-19 vaccines, otherwise they would face disciplinary actions, which might include being fired. The order permitted exceptions for religious and medical reasons.

Feds for Medical Freedom, a group of about 6,000 federal workers, brought a lawsuit against the order, saying it likely exceeded the president’s authority.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee in January 2022 ordered the preliminary injunction on the vaccine mandate. At the time, the Biden administration said nearly 98 percent of covered employees had been vaccinated against COVID-19.

The case moved to the 5th Circuit. The majority ruling by a three-judge panel in April 2022 overturned Brown’s decision and determined that the plaintiffs should have taken their complaints elsewhere. Specifically, Judge Carl Stewart, a Clinton appointee, wrote in the majority decision that the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) of 1978 “precludes district court adjudication of federal statutory and constitutional claims.”

Under the CSRA, federal workers facing adverse actions may appeal to an entity called the Merit Systems Protection Board, which decides whether the worker was properly disciplined. If the worker prevails, the board can order an agency to reinstate the worker or undertake other measures. Employees who disagree with the board can appeal to a federal appeals court.

At the time, Judge Rhesa Barksdale, a George H.W. Bush appointee, dissented from the majority and said that Biden’s vaccine executive order doesn’t constitute an alleged adverse action subject to the CSRA.

Exceeded His Authority

The full appeals court on Thursday found that the case falls outside the jurisdiction of the CSRA because the federal workers are challenging the vaccine mandate on the grounds that Biden exceeded his authority.

The majority of the court rejected arguments from the Biden administration that the president has the same authority as a CEO of a private corporation to mandate vaccinations for its employees.

“Plaintiffs’ complaint does not challenge any personnel action reviewable under the CSRA. Nor does it challenge any personnel action they could hypothetically incur in the future,” Judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump nominee, wrote in Thursday’s opinion (pdf) for a 10-member majority. “Rather, plaintiffs claim that the President’s vaccine mandate violates the U.S. Constitution and the [Administrative Procedure Act].”

Oldham and the majority said that federal law does not apply to “private, irreversible medical decisions made in consultation with private medical professionals outside the federal workplace.”

Judge Stephen Higginson, an Obama nominee, wrote the main dissenting opinion.

“For the wrong reasons, our court correctly concludes that we do have jurisdiction,” Higginson wrote. “But contrary to a dozen federal courts—and having left a government motion to stay the district court’s injunction pending for more than a year—our court still refuses to say why the President does not have the power to regulate workplace safety for his employees.”

Moving forward, Judge Oldham noted, “When the parties proceed to the merits in the district court, the plaintiffs will have to prove that whatever injunction they request is broad enough to protect against their proven injuries and no broader.

“And the Government will have another chance to show that any permanent injunction should be narrower than the preliminary one.

“And both sides will have to grapple with the White House’s announcement that the COVID emergency will finally end on May 11, 2023.”

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

UK: The faltering Covid Inquiry – and how to get it back on track

The Covid Inquiry is in danger of losing public trust. Many bereaved feel they are being marginalised, hearings have been delayed, vital government documents have yet to be shared with key participants – and now it seems potential evidence is disappearing.

As a lawyer for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, one of 28 groups involved in the first module of the inquiry, I have seen first hand how legal proceedings are already falling by the wayside.

If the inquiry does not run as openly and robustly as it should, potentially undermining its final findings, there is a risk that justice will not be served for those who mishandled our country’s response to Covid-19.

Many of the families I am working with suffered heartbreaking losses throughout the pandemic. Mothers. Fathers. Siblings. Children. Covid has claimed many people. It is only just that the loved ones of the deceased are given the answers they deserve.

The Telegraph’s Lockdown Files have already offered a unique insight into how the government handled the earlier stages of the pandemic.

They demonstrate policy being formulated on the hoof, ministers tussling to boost their own image, messages that mocked teachers and quarantined holidaymakers, and deep concerns, which were “kept out of the news,” over the impact that Eat Out to Help Out was having on Covid infections.

But they also show reasoned discussion between advisers, experts and officials. Some ministers were sensible in their proposals and policy ideas. There was sound and considered advice from the government's leading scientists, too, whether it regarded vaccines, shielding or testing. Whether this advice was appropriately followed is another matter.

It is therefore vital that the inquiry goes even further than The Telegraph in getting to the bottom of the government’s decision-making during the pandemic, in demonstrating where and how the UK got it wrong, but also where and how it got it right.

We also need to know how experts were chosen – whose advice was listened to and whose was ignored? And how were final decisions made? Was the necessary protocol in place for developing and implementing big policy proposals?

If the inquiry fails to answer these questions, crucial lessons will not be learnt, leaving future generations at risk of making the same mistakes when confronted with the next pandemic.

Inquiry ‘off to a rocky start’

It is early days for Chair Baroness Heather Hallett and her team. With just minor adjustments here and there, she will be able to correct the course of the inquiry and bring it back on track, before any real damage is done to proceedings.

The solutions I offer are straightforward and supported by many other core participant lawyers who share my frustrations.

These include providing the bereaved with a voice. There is a legal obligation to promote effective engagement of the families and others most closely affected. The Inquiry should recognise that their involvement enhances, not undermines, the process. The bereaved are eager to cooperate.

Chair Hallett indicated at the start of the hearings that the bereaved would be “front and centre” of the inquiry but many feel that they are not welcome and are being paid lip service only.

They point to the decision to not allow pen portraits – a way of commemorating the dead – during hearings. Clearly, the inquiry cannot hear from every bereaved, but that does not mean they could not hear from some.

Giving one family a day the opportunity to speak in court, for no more than five minutes, would not take up an unreasonable amount of time and, more importantly, would bring a human element to an inquiry that is at risk of getting lost in its own bureaucracy.

There is also a need for greater openness. From my experience, the inquiry team is unnecessarily secretive about the different modules, their themes and dates, and who will be involved at each stage.

We would also ask for openness from other core participants – early position statements setting out what they did right and where they concede they went wrong would save months of hearing time and millions of pounds.

It makes sense that the inquiry liaises with us. We have valuable experience that could benefit and improve proceedings. As one example, we urge Chair Hallett to agree in principle to allow the direct questioning of witnesses, instead of having to submit written questions via the inquiry team.

Lastly, more funding is needed. My clients are fortunate to have been provided financial support to scour through and analyse the vast tranche of documents related to the UK’s pandemic pandemic.

But other groups, such as Solace Women’s Aid and the TUC, have not been so lucky. In reality, they need all the help they can get if they’re to meaningfully contribute to the inquiry.

For a whole host of reasons, the Inquiry has gotten off to a rocky start. Yet the Chair is highly experienced, competent and has already shown a willingness to listen to core participants’ requests, having agreed to commission an expert who will examine pre-Covid structural racism for Module 2.

As such, I remain hopeful that Chair Hallett intends to conduct a thorough, incisive and fearless inquiry. My clients want to help her do this and I am sure that many other core participants feel the same way. Please let us help.

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

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

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

Friday, March 24, 2023



Pfizer Identified ‘Most Likely’ Mechanism for Heart Inflammation After COVID-19 Vaccination

Pfizer examined possible ways its COVID-19 vaccine causes heart inflammation, a newly disclosed document shows.

The company, in a 2022 white paper, acknowledged that its vaccine, BNT162b2, may be causing myocarditis—which is heart inflammation—and a related condition called pericarditis. Pfizer scientists claimed that the inflammation likely wasn’t the result of direct cardiotoxicity but didn’t rule out several other possible mechanisms, including that it stemmed from immune activity.

The immune system may be triggered by lipid nanoparticles that, in the messenger RNA (mRNA) shot, deliver the spike protein, the document says.

“Although the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine is optimized to reduce its detection by the innate immune system through the addition of nucleoside modifications and minimizing double-strand RNA impurity, it is possible, especially in certain individuals with genetic predisposition and underlying conditions that the immune responses to mRNA may not be sufficiently turned down and drive the activation of an innate and adaptive immune response,” the scientists wrote in the white paper.

“This may lead to the excessive activation of proinflammatory cascades which contribute to the development of myocarditis,” they wrote.

Myocarditis is a serious condition that can be deadly for some people. Many occurrences after COVID-19 vaccination have been in healthy, young people, with young males particularly at risk. The incidence is as high as 78.7 per million second doses in males aged 16 or 17, according to reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, with several dozen cases being reported after the second dose among 12- to 15-year-old and 18- to 24-year-old males.

Myocarditis also is an issue after booster vaccination, data from the United States and other countries show.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is among the entities that have said the evidence shows the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines cause myocarditis.

‘Has Not Been Made’

In the February 2022 paper, obtained and published by Project Veritas, Pfizer employees say that the company hadn’t defined myocarditis as an adverse reaction to its vaccine, meaning it hadn’t agreed that its vaccine causes myocarditis. It claimed that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks, but a growing number of experts disagree, especially for young people.

Pfizer didn’t respond to requests for comment, including whether it has changed its stance on myocarditis in the intervening time.

Pfizer scientists used similar language to that used publicly by the company, acknowledging that there had been “increased cases of myocarditis and pericarditis” after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination. They claimed that most people recovered, but studies show myocarditis has long-term effects for some patients. Myocarditis has killed some people.

The scientists also noted that the true number of myocarditis cases after vaccination “is likely underestimated” because it can be difficult to assess milder cases.

Possible Mechanisms

Scientists are still trying to figure out how the mRNA shots cause heart inflammation.

In the paper, Pfizer scientists said the “most likely” mechanism was immune-mediated. The lipid nanoparticles, they said, may activate immune responses. The nanoparticles could also lead to the development of autoantibodies, or antibodies that attack a person’s immune system, they said, pointing to the case of a 52-year-old man who developed myocarditis that may have involved the generation of autoantibodies.

Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough reviewed the paper. He told The Epoch Times via email that the lipid nanoparticles in the mRNA shot are “widely distributed in the body in the circulation for a month or more,” which “allows myocardial blood flow to repeatedly bathe the heart with vaccine products activating systemic and tissue immune response.”

Researchers have detected mRNA in the blood weeks after vaccination.

A third possible mechanism is molecular mimicry, or the introduction of antigen structures that appear similar to but aren’t, normal human structures, making it difficult for the immune system to properly classify them.

Pfizer scientists undertook a study to look at whether certain proteins that contain peptides, or a series of amino acids, could lead to immune responses triggered by the vaccine to “cross react with human proteins.” They identified several with 100 percent similarity to human proteins, but neither is “expressed predominantly in the heart.” Another six proteins were identified with algorithms, and one, nebulette, “has a heart-specific expression profile and may be involved in cardiac myofibril assembly.” Testing is needed to determine whether nebulette leads to cross-reactivity, the scientists said.

They ruled molecular mimicry an “unlikely mechanism.”

Malone’s View

Dr. Robert Malone, who helped develop the mRNA technology, said that lipid nanoparticles do activate the human immune system and that the RNA in the vaccine leads to inflammatory responses in the cells and tissues.

“This strong proinflammatory response of the mRNA/lipoplexes is the reason I (and others including [biotechnology company] Genzyme) abandoned further research into this technology in the late 1990s and turned to other delivery methods such as direct (‘naked’) injection and use of pulsed electrical fields,” Malone told The Epoch Times via email.

“It is reasonable to hypothesize that such proinflammatory processes might damage heart and other tissues. One key risk factor for COVID disease, and potentially for the post-vaccination syndrome, is a proinflammatory state such as is seen with both diabetes and pre-diabetes. That’s also consistent with this hypothesis,” he said.

Cardiotoxicity from the spike protein, which has been shown to linger in the body for weeks or even months after injection with the vaccine, is one possible mechanism for myocarditis.

“What we can conclude is that spike is a protein is a toxin. It acts through multiple mechanisms. One of those mechanisms appears to be eliciting a variety of autoimmune phenomena,” Malone said. “It’s known that viral myocarditis often acts through this autoimmune mechanism. And it’s reasonable to infer that the similar mechanism might be occurring in the case of these vaccines that are eliciting immune response against the virus proteins.

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

Highly contagious killer fungus spreads in Covid aftershock

A highly-contagious killer fungus with no easy cure is rapidly spreading throughout the population after the widespread adoption of moist, fungus-friendly face masks during the Covid pandemic, health authorities warned.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warned of the “alarming” rise in drug resistant Candid auris after cases more than quadrupled in three years and spread to more than half of America.

The fungus, which can kill up to 60 per cent of people infected within 90 days, was declared an “urgent threat” in 2019 when less than 500 cases were reported. The number of infected patients almost tripled by 2021 with 1,474 cases reported in more than 30 US states. In 2022, the number climbed again to 2,377 infections, according to the CDC.

The “dramatic increase”, reported in a research paper published in the Annals of Medicine, was likely worsened by Covid-19 pandemic measures, according to CDC officials.

The study’s lead author Dr Meghan Lyman, a medical officer in the mycotic diseases branch of the CDC, said in a series of interviews the agency was worried about what would happen during Covid lockdowns, as the agency screened less for the fungus, which thrives in the ideal conditions found in face masks, gloves, and nursing gowns reused during supply shortages of the pandemic.

It also grows in ventilators and other medical equipment found in hospitals and long-term care like nursing homes.

Almost all samples tested were resistant to at least one form of antiviral drug. The research found that 86 per cent of samples were resistant to a class of drugs called Azoles, a type of antifungal.

The number of cases resistant to the treatment of echinocandins – a last line of defence for the critically ill – tripled in 2021 compared to the previous two years with 1.2 per cent resistance, the study found.

“The rise in echinocandin-resistant cases and evidence of transmission is particularly concerning because echinocandins are first-line therapy for invasive Candida infections, including C auris,” Ms Lyman wrote.

When the fungus infects the blood, heart or brain, more than one in three people with the invasive C auris are killed.

Patients who survive remain “colonised” for years after successful treatment. If resistance to echinocandins continues to rapidly increase, treatment could become near impossible.

While the fungus has been found in more than 30 states in the US, the highest concentrations were detected in the warmer climates of California, Nevada, Texas and Florida.

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

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, March 23, 2023



Were vaccines a political treatment for public fear?

Alexandra Marshall

‘All of the public health response [around Covid] appeared to be focused on ‘well’ people, and none of it was focused on sick people,’ said Dr Peter McCullough, during an interview with myself and Julie Sladden.

It was a critical observation made of a pandemic that, unlike most pandemics in history, had only a tiny fraction of the population presenting with serious health problems at any given point.

Normally this would mean that the health response had plenty of space to focus its attentions on those few individuals who were ill. Instead, the bulk of the money, pharmaceutical resources, and messaging was directed at the health response for those who were healthy – the people who were not sick and who had very little chance of ever becoming so. As McCullough added, ‘vaccines are not a treatment’.

‘I understand the enthusiasm for vaccines, but it doesn’t help a sick person. A sick person – whether they took a vaccine or not – they need treatment, and that’s it. People were in this mode of thinking where the only thing they could think of was a vaccine. As soon as the discussion shifted to treatment, people started to go blank.’

How often did we hear our Prime Minister, State Premiers, Health Officials, or medical bureaucrats talk about the great treatments on offer for Covid? About the only consistent messaging we had on that front was ‘take a Panadol’ even though it is not an anti-viral.

We had an entire Covid campaign saturating the airwaves with one word only: vaccines.

McCullough and his colleagues have been bizarrely hounded by the one-track-mind press for daring to ask questions about Covid treatments which, if you’re sick with the virus, are the most important thing. Why are treatments controversial? When, in history, has the medical community turned its back on helping sick people like it did during Covid? We ended up at a point where medical leaders were indicating that the unvaccinated should be left to their fates rather than helped.

It makes you wonder how much corporate power was involved in the lucrative sale of vaccines that saw them pitched as the one and only route to salvation. Objectively, it is a ridiculous way to approach a virus, and yet the aftereffects of this heavily politicised era of medicine persist.

In trying to work out why the focus was heavily shifted to vaccines by the political class, I asked McCullough, ‘Regardless of whether the vaccines work or not, were they in some way used to treat fear?’

Given that politicians had recklessly endorsed ‘fear’ as their primary tool to court public obedience during the opening months of Covid, I wanted to know if the vaccines were a way to treat public fear and bring it down to a manageable level. How else can you calm a terrified population except to offer them absolute safety with a single-shot wonder drug?

Indeed, that is how it was marketed. ‘Get the shot and you can go to work! Get vaccinated and you can go out to restaurants! Want your life back? Get vaccinated!’

McCullough replied:

‘I think that utilisation of fear – and we have outlined that in our book with John Leake and myself – is that a suppression of early treatment (those who are actively campaigning to suppress early treatment) are the same entities that were later going to massively promote the vaccines as safe and effective. The two are linked.

‘For instance, the American Medical Association, which took money from the federal government to promote vaccines, they launched a campaign in the United States. Their campaign was to abolish the use of ivermectin. To abolish its use.

‘Why would the American Medical Association, which is basically a political action committee for doctors, take an interest in this specific medicine? Why don’t they want to abolish fentanyl use or abolish a certain diabetes drug? Why have they only taken an interest in ivermectin?

‘Well, they were the ones who most vigorously supported (Covid) vaccines. And so we see these benefits over and over again. Suppression of early treatment linked to the promotion of the vaccines.’

I then pointed out to McCullough:

‘Our politicians had a big problem. Australia was a long way behind the rest of the world and everyone was terrified (of Covid). They didn’t want to go out and they didn’t leave their houses. The vaccines were sold to us as a way to safely go back out into the world. It was a way of undoing the political damage that had been done.

‘And politicians don’t seem to show a lot of interest in the clinical data. Do Covid vaccines work? Was it preventing transmission? They weren’t particularly interested. And this lack of data has been a serious problem.’

McCullough agreed, saying that the lack of transparency should be very concerning to the public.

‘John (Leake) and I just returned from India, and there is a complete lack of transparency on any clinical trial data of Indians and vaccines. It went all the way to the Supreme Court and at the Supreme Court, they still will not release any information to the public.’

Personally, I have always found the manipulation of public fear in historical political events fascinating if not disturbing. While we expect it, or at least understand it inside more primitive regimes – it was confronting to see the so-called ‘progressive’ political leaders of our Age claw hungrily at the chance to control the public with cheap headlines.

Victoria and Western Australia, in particular, appeared to revel in the power that fear-based politics granted them, with both state governments racing to expand and enshrine unlimited emergency powers that are still in existence. For what? A virus that, had the press said nothing, the population may not have noticed except to remark on a bad flu going around…

While I have no problem with private companies exploring the development of vaccines, or politicians informing us of public health concerns, what we witnessed on a global scale was nothing short of a power grab. Silencing criticism of vaccines makes sense when you realise that vaccines are a political tool. If their reputation is damaged, it also harms the validity of the political regimes that endorsed them.

Given that there were no consequences for political leaders, the slaughter of liberty is happening again through the existential fear of ‘Climate Change’ – which is an eco-fascist political movement, not an accurate representation of the cyclic behaviour of the planet’s climate.

John Leake, who was also present at the interview, added his thoughts to the debate.

‘I think that it’s illuminating for people to conceptualise this whole problem as a movement of the state to assume authoritarian control of a population or citizenry. The British Commonwealth parliamentary tradition is getting in the way of a centralised authoritarian approach to politics. So, it’s an authoritarian movement and it’s a militarisation of the practice of medicine.

‘Once people begin to conceptualise this emerging pandemic – it’s kind of like a foreign army. I mean, it’s like an invader. The state invokes emergency powers. It’s an emergency. By definition, an emergency requires extraordinary means to deal with this extraordinarily problem. And all of you smart-ass doctors better shut up because we have a plan in place etc…

‘That’s what happened. It’s that simple. And I tell people, if you want to understand this, it’s the War Powers Act of 1941, after the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbour. Congress passed the War Powers Act that authorised the US government to detain and intern Japanese-American citizens. So it’s a very, very similar authoritarian action that explains this militarisation of medical policy.’

When I asked my follow-up question to McCullough about why, realistically, would a medical authority or government withhold statistical data on Covid at a national level, he replied:

‘It is because, as John pointed out, countries had in place contingency plans for something like this to occur in the United States. It was memorialised in the 2005 PREP Act. And the PREP Act basically said that there’s a list of things we’re concerned about – Anthrax, Monkey pox, SARS, a nuclear holocaust, insecticide poisoning – and they said that if these things happen, we will put this plan into operation.

‘The plan is specifically a national security operation and the terms that are used are military terms like ‘countermeasures’ and ‘emergency countermeasures’. Countermeasures aren’t public health measures. They are saying, “We’re going to do this, whether it works or not.”

‘In war, they hand out machine guns. If they shoot straight or they don’t shoot straight, they’re going to say, “Listen, we’re giving you this machine gun and you’re going to use it.” World governments have shown no interest in re-evaluating the vaccines and safety of the vaccines. It’s just like handing out a machine gun. People’s minds are thinking that we’re in a war.’

Using vaccines as a military strategy after creating an environment of intense public fear might be one of the most irresponsible and disgusting chapters in modern history.

A consequence of this behaviour was the segregation, discrimination, and hate-fuelled environment that developed between friends, family, and our places of work in a previously harmonious country. Those cracks have not healed – they may never heal.

As I said on my Twitter: ‘Many ask why the unvaccinated can’t “move on” from the public abuse of the Covid years. I’ll tell you why. It’s like discovering your partner is secretly an axe-murderer with a narcotics hobby. It doesn’t matter how calm and charming they are now – you’ve seen what they can do.’

That is how I feel as I walk through the shopping centre, glancing at the shops and cafes whose owners viewed me as public enemy number one for months on end. As for the lifelong friends who hurled abuse, there is nothing that can ever be said to erase the knowledge that at the first whisper of ‘fear’, they were prepared to throw me to the government wolves.

This is how people behave when under the influence of authoritarian regimes. They betray those closest in order to maintain their image as ‘good citizens’ in a type of behaviour that goes so much deeper than simple fear of a virus. After all, if they were afraid of the virus, they would have paid more attention to genuine science – not idiocy such as ‘sitting rather than standing in pubs’ and believing that bottle shops are ‘safe’ but the local shoe shop is ‘dangerous’.

There is no excuse for what happened to our society during Covid. How many people stayed silent while others were persecuted and financially traumatised? How many said nothing as their co-workers were sacked? How many confronted business owners as people were left standing outside on the pavement? How many actually took a risk to uphold everything we thought we knew about civilisation?

As someone who stood on the outside, my friends were few and far between indeed.

Did we learn our lesson as a civilisation? Are we going to do it again? As I said to McCullough, our premiers are still passing legislation to increase their powers – not remove them.

‘I think the public is far down the path to a greater degree of lessons learned and not letting this happen again,’ he said. ‘But sadly, so many people in the public have arrived at that after losses.’

Covid was the first true pandemic to happen to Western Civilisation when almost the entire population is not used to death. We are ‘generation cotton wool’. We haven’t seen a ‘great war’. We haven’t had a period of starvation. There has not been a recession so severe we had to walk the streets barefoot and destitute. We don’t lose half our children to disease. We’re so safe and bored that the biggest problem facing our children is what gender they feel like presenting each day.

Fear in the crib is far easier to exploit. What happened during Covid would not have worked on a battle-hardened populace.

Society has to understand mortality and the reality of cyclic risk. Another pandemic will come along, but it is not an excuse to terrify the public or collapse our civil liberties. Wrecking the economy doesn’t save lives and emergency power in the hands of politicians is more dangerous than any flu.

Finally, as citizens, it is our responsibility to make sure we are never again so easily manipulated into committing abuses of human rights on our peers. If the state asks us to violate every pillar of civilisation – tell them ‘no’. How sad and pathetic it would be to discover that the most free and prosperous empire in human history ended because its people embraced entry-level propaganda.

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

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, March 22, 2023


Central Venous Thrombosis Of The Brain After Covid Infection And Vaccination

Peter McCullough is a fearless critic of conventional views about Covid and the response to it. So I read his article below with interest and attention. I was however rather confounded to see him claiming that a journal article showed the opposite of what the journal claimed.

The journal clearly claimed that the pathology they studied was vastly much less frequent among people vaccinated against Covid. McCullouch, in contrast, said that the pathology was just as likely to be found in unvaccinated people.

Looking at the raw numbers, however, I think I can follow McCulloch's reasoning. The actual numbers of people with the pathology were very small: 9 cases in the vaccinated group and 6 in the unvaccinated group. That might seem to show the vaccinated group being worse off but it overlooks the size of the populations those groups were drawn from (the denominator). As a PERCENTAGE of their respective populations, the vaccinated group was much better off.

What McCulloch does, however is to reject the denominators given. He thinks that the vaccinated group were much easier to access statistically so no comparable estimates of the denominators were possible. He just looks at the raw number of cases and says that is what matters. I think he has a point -- but the pathology is a very rare one anyway so may not be worth sustained attention

I reproduce the journal abstract below as well as McCulloch's commentary


Proponents of COVID-19 mass vaccination acknowledge that similar disastrous outcomes occur with both SARS-CoV-2 infection and the COVID-19 vaccines (myocarditis, blood clots, neurological problems)

They position a tradeoff and suggest you should risk it with the vaccine in hopes its lower than that of the infection.

Since 94 percent of Americans have had the COVID-19, its water under the bridge for the infection.

Early therapy reduces the invasive systemic manifestations of the illness and markedly reduces hospitalization and death including from complications.

With vaccination its a different story, the full force of engineered Spike protein is felt in the body with each shot and per case, the severity of the side effect is far worse than that with COVID-19.

Tu, et al illustrated this principle while analyzing central venous thrombosis which is a blood clot in the major vein of the brain which is a medical emergency requiring, hospitalization, intravenous or subcutaneous blood thinners, serial imaging, observation and in some cases surgery.

Tu attempted to divide cases by large denominators to minimize risk; that is invalid in safety research since not all cases can be found particularly fatal ones without an autopsy.

The important findings from Tu are in the tables.

Central venous thrombosis after vaccination was a catastrophe with more cases, greater need for therapy, more brain surgery, and higher degrees of neurologic impairment at discharge for those who took the mRNA vaccine.

Under no circumstances could someone accept a blood clot in the brain with the vaccine in the hopes of not getting COVID-19.

That tradeoff is untenable and yet another reason why vaccine promoters have lost trust from a discerning public.

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

Incidence of Cerebral Venous Thrombosis Following SARS-CoV-2 Infection vs mRNA SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination in Singapore

Tian Ming Tu et al.

Key Points

Question What is the risk of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) after diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with after messenger RNA (mRNA)-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccination?

Findings In this observational cohort study of 62 447 individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection and 3 006 662 individuals who received mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in Singapore from January 23, 2020, to August 3, 2021, the incidence rate ratio of CVT requiring hospitalization within 6 weeks of SARS-CoV-2 infection was 32 times higher compared with after mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.

Meaning These findings suggest that the risk of CVT after SARS-CoV-2 infection is higher than after mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.

Abstract

Importance Reports of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) after messenger RNA (mRNA)-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccination has caused safety concerns, but CVT is also known to occur after SARS-CoV-2 infection. Comparing the relative incidence of CVT after infection vs vaccination may provide a better perspective of this complication.

Objective To compare the incidence rates and clinical characteristics of CVT following either SARS-CoV-2 infection or mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

Design, Setting, and Participants Between January 23, 2020, and August 3, 2021, this observational cohort study was conducted at all public acute hospitals in Singapore, where patients hospitalized with CVT within 6 weeks of SARS-CoV-2 infection or after mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccination (BNT162b2 [Pfizer-BioNTech] or mRNA-1273 [Moderna]) were identified. Diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection was based on quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction or positive serology. National SARS-CoV-2 infection data were obtained from the National Centre for Infectious Disease, Singapore, and vaccination data were obtained from the National Immunisation Registry, Singapore.

Exposures SARS-CoV-2 infection or mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

Main Outcomes and Measures Clinical characteristics, crude incidence rate (IR), and incidence rate ratio (IRR) of CVT after SARS-CoV-2 infection and after mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.

Results Among 62 447 individuals diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infections included in this study, 58 989 (94.5%) were male; the median (range) age was 34 (0-102) years; 6 CVT cases were identified (all were male; median [range] age was 33.5 [27-40] years). Among 3 006 662 individuals who received at least 1 dose of mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, 1 626 623 (54.1%) were male; the median (range) age was 50 (12-121) years; 9 CVT cases were identified (7 male individuals [77.8%]; median [range] age: 60 [46-76] years). The crude IR of CVT after SARS-CoV-2 infections was 83.3 per 100 000 person-years (95% CI, 30.6-181.2 per 100 000 person-years) and 2.59 per 100 000 person-years (95% CI, 1.19-4.92 per 100 000 person-years) after mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. Six (66.7%) received BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine and 3 (33.3%) received mRNA-1273 (Moderna) vaccine. The crude IRR of CVT hospitalizations with SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with those who received mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccination was 32.1 (95% CI, 9.40-101; P < .001).

Conclusions and Relevance The incidence rate of CVT after SARS-CoV-2 infection was significantly higher compared with after mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. CVT remained rare after mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, reinforcing its safety.

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

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, March 21, 2023


Physician Assistant Fired for Reporting COVID-19 Vaccine Adverse Events to VAERS

For her efforts to report injuries to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) and to educate others in her hospital system on doing the same, Physician Assistant Deborah Conrad said she was labeled an anti-vaxxer and fired from her job.

Today, the New York-based Conrad tells her story at medical freedom conferences throughout the country, the most recent being one in Mississippi where physicians, scientists, and the vaccine injured warned state lawmakers to pull the COVID-19 vaccines from the market.

Conrad told The Epoch Times she began to see early danger signals in 2021 upon the vaccine rollout, and with that, resistance among her colleagues to report on them.

“After the vaccines came out, there was this uptick in unusual symptoms, some of which I had never seen in my 20-year career,” Conrad said. “In every case, it was in somebody who had received the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Conrad said she had never admitted an adult patient with RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) until the COVID-19 vaccines. “And every patient who came in with RSV was vaccinated for COVID,” Conrad said. “It wasn’t normal.”

Then, there were the adolescents with no previous medical conditions who had gotten the COVID-19 vaccine a week prior and, suddenly, they were struck with pneumonia and not able to function, she said. “They weren’t able to walk or eat, and they were completely and totally fatigued,” Conrad said.

This was in 2021 before myocarditis was being discussed, so many of those early cases that were probably myocarditis were diagnosed as pneumonia, she said.

“A lot of these myocarditis cases came in with fevers because of this massive inflammatory response that was taking place in the body, so they would be labeled as septic, treated as if we were treating pneumonia or fevers of unknown origin,” Conrad said. “We’d treat them with antibiotics and all sorts of other things, not realizing that they were having heart failure.”

Conrad began reporting to VAERS, which she said was an overwhelming task not made easy by its multiple user-interface complications. “My entire life had been taken over by doing these VAERS reports by myself,” she said.

In meetings with leadership, she would propose implementing a reporting system and hiring someone to manage the reports, she said.

‘A Hostile Environment’

“They kept telling me we’re looking into it and we’ll get back to you,” Conrad said. “Around April 2021, leadership came back and said no one else is reporting injuries—implying that I was crazy and there was nothing really going on with the vaccines.”

Leadership then audited her reports, she said and concluded that she was overreporting.

“I was then told that by doing VAERS reports and even discussing VAERS that it was an admission that the vaccines were unsafe, so it’s contributing to vaccine hesitancy,” Conrad said.

From there, it became a “very hostile environment” that compelled her to seek legal counsel, who wrote letters to the Department of Health, the CDC, and the FDA.

“No one cared,” Conrad said. “Finally, I had had it. It was so unethical; I couldn’t take it anymore. These VAERS reports are critical to assuring these vaccines are safe for us all. I could no longer be a part of a system that is lying to the American people.”

Conrad decided to become a whistleblower, telling her story on Del Bigtree’s The Highwire, knowing, she said, that it would cost her job.

“I couldn’t remain silent, even if it meant losing my career and everything I worked for,” she said. “I was fired a few weeks later and walked out like a criminal in front of all my peers.”

The initiative and education she had brought forth to report to VAERS were squashed that day, she said.

According to Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), under the National Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, it’s a federal requirement for health care workers to report vaccine-related adverse events to VAERS.

Fisher, whose son was harmed by the DTP vaccine in 1980, worked with other parents of vaccine-injured children in establishing the NVIC in 1982.

“The 1986 Act was driven by parents of DPT vaccine injured children asking the government to pass legislation to secure vaccine safety informing, recording, reporting, and research provisions in the vaccination system to make it safer, and to create a federal compensation system alternative to a lawsuit against manufacturers of vaccines that injure or kill children,” Fisher told The Epoch Times.

In addition to NVIC arguing that physicians and vaccine manufacturers should be giving informed consent and report injuries, the organization maintained they should also continue to be held accountable in a civil court to serve as an incentive for physicians to administer vaccines responsibly, for manufacturers to produce safer vaccines, and for adequate federal compensation to vaccine-injured children.

“The vaccine manufacturers responded to our call for federal legislation reforming the vaccination system by threatening to leave the US without childhood vaccines unless the government gave them a blanket liability shield for harm caused by vaccines, arguing that if the FDA licensed a childhood vaccine as ‘safe,’ and the CDC recommended the vaccine for universal use by all children, and the states mandated the vaccine for daycare and school entry, then the vaccine manufacturer should not be held liable for harm caused by the product,” Fisher said.

When the Act passed, physicians were still liable for medical malpractice claims and pharmaceutical companies remained liable for product design defect claims in civil court, Fisher said.

“Unfortunately, the 1986 Act looks nothing today like when it was passed in 1986,” Fisher said. “In 1987, Congress passed an amendment to give a liability shield to doctors and vaccine providers. Over the next decades, amendments were added that weakened or eliminated safety provisions and the ability of children to receive federal compensation.”

In 1990, VAERS was launched; however, Fisher said, there are no legal consequences for a doctor’s failure to file a report.

“That’s because Congress made it a federal requirement in the 1986 Act to report but did not include legal penalties when vaccine companies or vaccine providers fail to report,” Fisher wrote.

‘A Prescription for Tyranny’

In 2011, amid hundreds of lawsuits linking autism to vaccine injuries, Fisher said the U.S. Supreme Court ignored the legislative language and reasons for the 1986 Act when it shielded vaccine manufacturers from all civil liability for vaccine injuries and deaths.

The federal government had sided with Big Pharma, Fisher said.

“At this point, those of us who worked on the 1986 Act with Congress know that our trust was betrayed by politicians who made backroom deals with drug companies, medical trade organizations, and federal agencies to gut the Act after it was passed and give the pharmaceutical industry what it wanted in 1986 and could not get: a complete liability shield for vaccine injuries and deaths,” Fisher said.

The 2011 case—Bruesewitz v. Wyeth—centered around the parents of Hanna Bruesewitz, who alleged their daughter’s neurological problems were caused by a vaccine made by Wyeth, which was a Pennsylvania pharmaceutical company before it consolidated with Pfizer.

The 1986 Act established a vaccine court to confirm vaccine injuries and award damages. After losing in the vaccine court, the Bruesewitz family brought the case to the highest court.

Marcia Coyle with The National Law Journal told PBS NewsHour in 2011 that there were only eight Justices presiding over the case because Justice Elena Kagan had recused herself due to her involvement as Solicitor General of the United States representing the federal government on the case.

“The Obama administration is supporting Wyeth laboratories saying that this lawsuit is barred,” Coyle said. “So, there are eight Justices. There could have been seven. The Chief Justice [John Roberts] had recused himself in the initial stages because he owns stock in Wyeth and he sold the stock in order to participate now.”

The pharmaceutical companies’ entanglement with federal officials wasn’t what Fisher said she would call an example of public health.

In a 2011 commentary on the ruling, she said, “This is exploitation of a captive people by a pharmaceutical industry seeking unlimited profits and by doctors and physicians of authority who have never seen a vaccine they did not want to mandate. It is a drug company stockholder’s dream, a health care consumer’s worst nightmare, and prescription for tyranny.”

In the wake of the decision, the 1986 Act seemed to lose its relevance, and the importance of reporting to VAERS became downplayed. Allegations that vaccines caused autism were ridiculed in pop culture’s media campaigns such as magicians Penn and Teller widely shared video promoting the vaccines and shutting down those who questioned their safety while ignoring what groups like NVIC were initially calling for: not the eradication of vaccines but safer vaccines with no mandates.

In retrospect, Fisher said, “Had the Supreme Court upheld the spirit and intent of the Act as originally passed in 1986, we may have been able to hold mRNA COVID vaccine manufacturers liable for design defect in a civil court of law today.”

The COVID-19 vaccines were issued under emergency use authorization, which grants the manufacturers immunity from liability.

‘The Whole System Is Corrupt’

Conrad herself said in her education as a physician’s assistant she never trained to even acknowledge VAERS or adverse events.

“When it came to learning about the vaccines, we learned the basic immunology associated with the vaccines and the adult and childhood schedule, but there’s no discussion on their side effects,” Conrad said. “We go into practice with the idea that vaccines are safe and effective. I never considered otherwise until COVID-19 happened.”

Among the insights the pandemic delivered has been that the unethical relationship between federal officials and the pharmaceutical-industrial complex has been going on much longer than many realize, Conrad said.

“This whole system is corrupt,” Conrad said. “The light in this whole experience for me is that now I’m aware of how deep the lies and corruption really are.”

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

Biden Signs Bill to Declassify COVID Origins Intelligence on Wuhan Lab

President Joe Biden on March 20 signed into law a bill mandating declassification of COVID origin-related intelligence, saying that he shares “Congress’s goal of releasing as much information as possible” on the issue.

“We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics,” Biden said in a statement. “My Administration will continue to review all classified information relating to COVID19’s origins, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

He added that, in implementing the legislation, the administration will “declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security.”

This month, both the Senate and the House unanimously passed the bipartisan bill, dubbed “COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023,” before sending it to Biden’s desk. The bill directs the director of national intelligence to “declassify any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin” of COVID-19.

Efforts to find out the origin of COVID-19 have consistently met with resistance from China, where the communist regime has covered up cases, silenced whistleblowers trying to sound warnings on the virus’s danger from the onset of the pandemic, and repeatedly refused outside investigators to probe the virus origins.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been the center of contention as a suspected source where the virus may have leaked.

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

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, March 20, 2023



How the West Abetted Beijing’s Censorship of the Lab Leak Theory

“Debunked.” “Dangerous.” “Unhelpful.” These were some of the terms heaped on the theory that COVID-19 might have spilled from a lab in China, accidentally or not. Suggesting the virus may have been linked to a Chinese lab would swiftly earn one the label of “conspiracy theorist.”

That was the case for at least 18 months since the pandemic erupted from China, where the ruling communist regime has repeatedly thwarted efforts by citizen journalists and the outside world to probe the virus origins, and covered up the true death toll.

Three years on, the world is still in the dark about how the pandemic began. But mainstream discussion has gone through an about-face on the lab leak theory. The once-maligned hypothesis has gained significant traction—so much so that the FBI recently sided with the Energy Department in assessing that COVID-19 was “likely” the result of a lab leak.

But for many who have long sounded the alarm on the Wuhan lab, the U.S. government was too late to the game.

“My initial thoughts are where have they been for the last two-and-a-half years?” Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who sits on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, told The Epoch Times’ sister media NTD. “The entire world should have risen up and made China financially responsible for what had happened.”

Censorship

Concerns about the Wuhan lab came on early in the pandemic. At the time when Beijing was still blaming a wet market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan as the virus source, The Epoch Times released a documentary titled “Tracking Down the Origin of Wuhan Coronavirus” drawing attention to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which houses a biosafety level 4 facility that had been working on coronavirus research, and—as it was later revealed—highly-risky experiments that could make a virus more lethal.

Across different platforms, that video generated tens of millions of views shortly after its launch.

But rather than allowing further examination of these concerns, an all-out campaign was launched in the United States to shut down discussion of the Wuhan lab’s possible role in spawning the pandemic.

Facebook went on to mark the documentary as “false,” but a key source for the fact-checkers’ claim was not independent: a Singapore-based scientist who herself worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and praised the facility’s researchers as “incredibly competent, hardworking, and are excellent scientists with superb track records.”

These statements would later come under doubt as evidence of the lab’s risky experiments and lax biosafety standards came to light. But in 2020, they were enough to trigger a near-blanket media shutdown. Idaho state Rep. Heather Scott, a Republican and a biologist, was ridiculed by local media for sharing the video and getting a fact-check label.

Washington Post in a widely-cited article accused Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who called for questions to be asked about the lab, of “repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked.” It issued a correction in 2021 to remove the word “conspiracy theory,” which it acknowledged was an inaccurate characterization because there was no consensus about COVID origin.

‘Something Was Very Fishy’

As open discussion of the COVID origins was being muzzled in the West, China’s communist party was waging a full-fledged campaign to silence critics of its handling of the pandemic.

Law enforcement reprimanded doctors who sounded an early alarm on the virus, warning them not to “fear monger.” Citizen journalists were imprisoned. Chinese officials and state media, while hailing the communist leadership as exemplary in its global pandemic response, further exploited the rise of anti-Asian attacks in the United States by framing Western criticism of the regime’s handling of the outbreak as racist.

The result was that the world at large echoed narratives from China with little questioning.

But for Hans Mahncke, who has been documenting the U.S. suppression of the lab leak hypothesis for for The Epoch Times for the past two years, his suspicions were aroused as as soon as Chinese authorities took the unprecedented step on Jan. 23, 2020 to lock down the virus ground-zero Wuhan, a city of over 11 million.

“I knew something was very fishy,” he said in an interview, noting that Beijing hadn’t done so when severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) broke out from China in 2002, which by official accounts infected thousands worldwide.

“If you’re going to lock down the city, you’re not going to do it for a SARS virus,” Mahncke said, noting SARS’ relatively low transmissibility. This convinced him right then that the Chinese leader Xi Jinping “must have had some extra information, some data point that made him do something very out of the ordinary.”

More evidence soon emerged indicating something was off: the existence of a lab doing coronavirus research in the COVID-19 hotspot; a short Feb. 6 paper by two Wuhan university researchers—taken offline shortly after—pointed to WIV as a possible place where the “killer coronavirus” could have come from; the Wuhan facility’s senior virologist Shi Zhengli had for years been studying SARS-like coronaviruses, on which she published papers as early as 2015.

“I had to sort of bite my tongue a bit because I knew that if you said it publicly, or if you said it too stringently, you would get deleted off of social media,” he said, noting that he had seen friends censored from Twitter for lab leak comments.

“We could not just go into the public and say these things, because immediately you’d either have your Twitter account canceled, you would be shunned, you would get into trouble at work. You’d be called a ‘conspiracy theorist,’ you would have trolls and other people harass you.”

Something clicked for Mahncke as he followed the World Health Organization-backed (WHO) probe in Wuhan in early 2021. The mission, conducted with heavy involvement from the Chinese side, dismissed the lab incident hypothesis as “extremely unlikely.”

But after reading further into the investigators’ background, Mahncke realized that Peter Daszak, the U.S. expert on the WHO task force, had not only worked closely with researchers at the Wuhan lab but was instrumental in stymying discussion of the lab leak hypothethis during the pandemic’s early days.

Over the next months, internal documents released under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) would show that Daszak had a more than passing friendship with the WIV staff. His New York-based nonprofit, EcoHealth Alliance, funneled hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan lab for virus research, including “gain of function” studies that could make existing pathogens more dangerous.

Anthony Fauci, who recently stepped down as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that funded EcoHealth’s projects, initiated a call in early February 2020 after a team of scientists flagged concerns that the virus may have been engineered. Four participants of the teleconference, Daszak included, went on to draft “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” a paper that was widely circulated through media and used by many to assert the primacy of the natural origin theory.

Hitting a Brick Wall

When reports about a virus outbreak in China were first emerging in early January 2020, immunologist Nikolai Petrovsky was at his holiday house in Colorado to escape the blistering heat back at home in Australia.

About a week before Wuhan went into a full lockdown, the WHO was still repeating the Chinese claim that the virus was unlikely to be transmissible between humans. But on Petrovsky’s social media feeds, locals were posting images of dead bodies on stretchers and Chinese police welding apartment doors.

The official Chinese message, and the WHO’s amplification of it, was “outrageous,” Petrovsky, a Flinders University professor specializing in vaccine development, told The Epoch Times.

“I immediately recognized this was a serious virus that wasn’t being treated seriously. And when you don’t treat a serious virus seriously, you end up with a disaster.”

Shelving his vacation plans, Petrovsky began to run supercomputer modeling studies on the COVID viral sequence, hoping to find out which animal the virus came from.

By March, the analysis had yielded something no one in his team was looking for. The virus seemed better adapted to a human cell than any of the potential animal hosts identified.

“So then we said: ‘Well, how could that happen? Either the virus was spreading in humans for years with no one knowing it, which seems highly unlikely,’” he said. “Or, SARS-CoV-2 could have met a human cell in a laboratory dish.”

“It was like a light bulb moment,” Petrovsky said. “To us, it was just an obvious explanation for a finding that we had confirmed.”

As Petrovsky was pondering the lab hypothesis, Daszak was organizing a group of health experts to shut down challenges that the virus isn’t from nature. He was behind a statement co-signed by more than two dozen scientists, including four EcoHealth associates, that appeared in the medical journal Lancet in February 2020, which praised their Chinese counterparts for their “remarkable” efforts to fight the outbreak and sharing results “transparently” with the global health community, and derided alternative theories about the virus origin as “rumors” and “conspiracy.”

Petrovsky was shocked. “Politics should have no role in scientific investigation, and as far as I could see this article was purely about politics, containing no actual factual data,” he said. “Science should be neutral and just about finding the truth. It’s not about whether that truth is politically convenient or not.”

But this political ploy had real-world impacts on Petrovsky pursuing the science: getting his team’s findings published in scientific publications became next to impossible.

“We just hit brick walls,” said Petrovsky. “Several of the big publishers send it back to us in 48 hours without even reviewing.”

It took about a year of appeals and dealing with “very antagonistic reviewers” before prominent science journal Nature agreed to accept their paper. By then the landscape had changed: More scientists were coming forward urging a deeper look into the lab leak possibility, and President Joe Biden, acknowledging the scenario to be plausible, had ordered his intelligence agencies to produce a report on the virus origins within 90 days.

But the damage from the delay was hard to undo.

“By that time, the paper had much less impact,” said Petrovsky, because everyone had been convinced by the highly promoted Nature Medicine commentary that the virus must have had an animal source “and anyone suggesting otherwise, was a conspiracy theorist.”

“It appeared by then they were satisfied that their global disinformation campaign had been so successful at creating a smokescreen that it was now safe to let other data come out figuring everyone would ignore it or just attribute it to a conspiracy theory,” he added.

“And that is exactly how it played out.”

Inside the government, the atmosphere was no less intense. David Asher, who spearheaded a State Department task force probing the COVID origins in 2020, recalled being troubled by the military takeover of the WIV days after Wuhan lockdown. So he reached to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for expert opinion beginning in late Spring that year.

The NIH’s entanglement with the Wuhan lab wasn’t known at the time. But to his surprise, the institute provided “no investigative file” and pointed him to the Proximal Origin article.

The NIH head at the time, Francis Collins, “told us through their staff, not directly, that we should just trust the Chinese,” Asher, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told The Epoch Times. “My answer was, ‘If that’s your basis for your analysis, then you have no basis for your analysis.’”

“So they were basically operating in a way that was totally inconsistent with transparency, the truth, and any sort of accountability.”

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

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

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