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Pfizer Vaccine Clinical Trials Poorly Designed From the Start, Analysis Shows

By Madhava Setty, M.D. | The Defender | December 22, 2021

The disagreements around whether COVID-19 vaccinations are “safe and effective” stem not only from the subjective nature of such descriptors but also from the lack of consensus around the data used to substantiate or refute such a claim.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR) often draw from limited observations, and their assessment of vaccine effectiveness is based on relatively small subsets of our population.

Their conclusions are sometimes reflective of outdated data and conflict with their own recommendations.

For example, here the CDC’s latest estimation of vaccine effectiveness is upwards of 80% in preventing COVID-19 (i.e. the risk of becoming infected is 5 times less if vaccinated). Why then the recommendation for boosters?

Note that this latest metric is based on the CDC’s most recent data from more than one month ago and represents data drawn only from 27 jurisdictions.

Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, is a former advisory board member of the Covid Tracking Project, a team that worked to collect and synthesize local COVID-19 during the peak of the pandemic.

Politico recently quoted Topol:

“I think we’ve done a horrible job from day one in data tracking for the pandemic. We’re not tracking all the things that we need to to get a handle on what’s going on. It is embarrassing.”

Meanwhile, vaccine injuries continue to accumulate in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and go unacknowledged, making any constructive discussion around risk impossible.

In order to find common ground, it is perhaps most appropriate to focus on published data from the vaccine trials themselves.

Was Emergency Use Authorization justified? Was the current confusion around vaccine effectiveness and safety predictable from the beginning?

A presentation by the Canadian COVID Care Alliance

Canadian COVID Care Alliance (CCCA) is a group of “Independent Canadian doctors, scientists and healthcare professionals committed to providing top quality and balanced evidence-based information to the Canadian public about COVID-19 so that hospitalizations can be reduced, lives saved and our country restored as safely as possible.”

CCCA assembled a presentation that comprehensively demonstrates how Pfizer’s purported randomized placebo-controlled, double-blinded study veered away from methodologies that would have answered the safety and efficacy questions definitively.

In this concise slide deck with an explanatory video, CCCA powerfully summarized why Pfizer’s trial was not designed to adequately demonstrate its product’s safety and efficacy.

Here are a few key points from the CCCA presentation:

  • Initial data demonstrated a high relative risk reduction of infection yet this amounted to an absolute risk reduction of only 0.84%. It is the absolute risk reduction that determines the risk-benefit ratio required to make informed decisions around inoculation.
  • Early unblinding: Several months before publishing six-month observational results Pfizer opted to offer its product to those participants who received the placebo. By eliminating nearly all participants in the placebo wing Pfizer effectively closed the curtain on its experiment because long-term comparisons can no longer be made.
  • All-cause mortality and morbidity, the only sensible outcomes to use in determining efficacy and risk, were not considered. Indeed, all-cause mortality was higher in the vaccinated group after six months.
  • Severe adverse events outnumbered cases of severe COVID prevented after six months of observation.
  • Trial participants were not reflective of the most vulnerable members of our population — more than 50% of people dying from COVID are 75 years of age or older. This age group made up only 4.4% of trial participants. Also, 95% of those who have died from COVID had one or more comorbidities. Nearly 80% of trial participants had none.
  • Not every trial participant was tested for COVID. Asymptomatic or paucisymptomatic (presenting few symptoms) cases were missed.

Questions regarding unblinding and data integrity

The CCCA presentation also resurrects a puzzling observation mentioned in a briefing document Pfizer submitted only to the FDA’s Vaccine and Related Biologic Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) of the FDA, but nowhere else — including the widely cited summary of the trial reported in New England Journal of Medicine.

According to the document, 3,410 participants were suspected from their clinical presentation of having COVID but they were excluded from efficacy calculations because a diagnosis could not be confirmed through PCR testing.

The CCCA presentation presumes this large group of participants was never tested. The wording in the VRBPAC briefing document is indeed vague, stating the participants were “not PCR-confirmed” in one sentence and “unconfirmed” in another.

Assuming Pfizer’s investigators followed their study protocol, these participants were in fact tested. Yet that forces us to accept that more than 3,400 participants who had symptoms of COVID were suffering from other illnesses, not COVID.

In other words, there were 3,580 participants who clinically presented with COVID (3,410 suspected and 170 confirmed). Of these, more than 95% tested negative. This is difficult to accept in a group where clinical suspicion is high.

However, with no further testing by the investigators, we are left to accept these numbers as reported.

Peter Doshi, Ph.D., senior editor at The BMJ, explained the implications of this result in detail, in an opinion piece published nearly one year ago.

In his widely discussed commentary, Doshi noted another baffling finding in the Pfizer data. Within 7 days of administration of the second of two doses, 371 (310 in the vaccinated group and 61 in the placebo group) trial participants were withdrawn from the study due to “important protocol deviations.”

Of course, protocol deviations occur, but why were five times more vaccine recipients excluded than placebo recipients at that point in the study?

Although there were nearly 40,000 participants in the evaluable population, only 170 contributed to the efficacy calculation with regard to protection from infection, and only 10 with regard to protection from severe infection.

In other words, just a handful of incorrectly diagnosed and categorized participants could easily result in a substantially different estimation of the vaccine’s efficacy and safety.

Statistician and educator Mathew Crawford pointed out the likelihood of such a disparity between groups is exceedingly unlikely. However, because the investigators should have been blinded, we must accept this as an extraordinary coincidence.

Incredibly, the very same disparity occurred in the pediatric trials (ages 5 to 11). Table 12 from the corresponding summary to the FDA’s VRBPAC indicated 3.1% of children were removed from the trial if they received the vaccine compared to 0.5% if they received the placebo.

Once again, there is a factor of 5 difference at exactly the same point in the trial (within 7 days of dose 2). It is true that the vaccine formulation requires steps prior to administration that are not required with the placebo, but why didn’t these protocol deviations happen with the first dose as well? What happened to these vaccine recipients soon after they received their second dose?

These remarkable “coincidences” can be best explained if we are willing to consider the possibility that the investigators were not, in fact, blinded. This is precisely the most damning allegation by whistleblower Brook Jackson, formerly a regional director at Ventavia, one of several clinical research organizations conducting Pfizer’s vaccine trials in 2020.

In addition to the unblinding of investigators, Jackson also accused Ventavia of falsifying data.

These are weighty accusations. Why should we believe her? Because her story is corroborated by the trial data themselves.

She was fired within a day of reporting her concerns directly to the FDA. Her story was covered in The BMJ Nov. 2. Mainstream media has yet to report on it.

Conclusion

Though public health authorities continue to proclaim these products are safe and effective, every week brings more and more evidence to the contrary.

A thorough analysis of data from Pfizer’s vaccine trials reveals more questions than answers. Claims the vaccine maker’s product is performing “as expected” may not be so far from the truth.

© 2021 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

How RFK Jr. went from “a good guy” to an “anti-vaxxer”

By Steve Kirsch | December 22, 2021

Here’s the quick summary of the story of how science convinced RFK Jr to become a truthteller about vaccines:

  1. Back in the 1990’s, RFK was trying to get public attention about the presence of mercury in fish due to pollution from coal plants. This is well known. He was respected as an environmentalist. Everyone (except the coal companies) loved him.
  2. When he gave lectures, he noticed that a half dozen women would always arrive early and get seats at the front. After each lecture, they would try to get him interested in vaccines causing autism due to the mercury in the vaccines. They sought him out because he was a force and knew about mercury. They thought it would be a perfect fit.
  3. But every time, Kennedy rejected their efforts. He wanted to stay focused on his environmental mission.
  4. Finally, one of the women showed up on his doorstep with an 18” high stack of technical papers printed from medical journals. She said, “I’m not leaving until you read these.” That got his attention. He read all the papers. He was alarmed by what he had read.
  5. He then contacted his friends (they were still his friends at that time) in the CDC and FDA asking them about why they were recommending pregnant women avoid fish, while at the same time recommending these same women get vaccines containing lots of mercury. None of the people at the agencies could answer his questions. They all said, “Talk to Paul Offit.”
  6. In 2005, RFK called Offit. Offit said the reason why it was OK was that the mercury in thimerosal only lasted a week in the bloodstream; it was quickly eliminated per Pichichero (see this reference for a discussion).
  7. But RFK had read all the papers. He knew he was being lied to. He immediately cited the pivotal study (by Burbacher in April 2005) that looked at where the mercury “disappeared to.” It went out of the bloodstream and accumulated in the brain where it permanently remained. Offit was speechless. Offit didn’t think anyone knew about the Burbacher study. Offit then acknowledged he knew about the Burbacher study, but said that other papers had overturned that study and offered to send RFK the references. Those references never arrived. That sealed the deal for RFK and led to his famous “Deadly Immunity” article in July 2005.
  8. Shortly thereafter, Lyn Redwood, one of RFK’s friends, pointed him to the Simpsonwood transcripts showing the CDC knew about the dangers of thimerosal in July1999 and discussed it in a meeting on June 7 and 8, 2000 where the transcripts remained secret until finally released via FOIA request. It turns out, there were several versions of the Verstraeten paper (see “A “SIGNAL” DISAPPEARS ACROSS FIVE GENERATIONS OF STUDY”) each version making the effect on autism smaller (7.62, 2.48, 1.69 was the effect size on autism where 2 or more is very concerning) but there was an admission in an email on December 17, 1999 that Verstraeten sent to colleagues Robert Davis and Frank DeStefano under the subject line “It just won’t go away,” by which one presumes he meant the association between thimerosal and NDDs. At the Simpsonwood meeting, the scientists admitted that they couldn’t rule out that the mercury could be causing a whole host of diseases. They also pointed out that the meeting transcript might be disclosed via FOIA requests, so people were quite guarded in their comments. It was clearly serious because they gathered experts from all over the country for an urgent meeting that lasted nearly two days. They wouldn’t have done that if there wasn’t a serious problem.

In short, RFK Jr. was persuaded the vaccines were unsafe based on science and how people acted to deliberately cover it up. It’s no more complicated than that.

Postscript

The original Verstraten VSD data sets on thimerasol were turned over to a third party to keep them out of reach of FOIA. VSD data is more heavily guarded than the gold in Ft. Knox. Its all there; the vaccine damage to children’s health since 1986.

Here we are today, over twenty years after thimerosal was known to cause problems. We know for sure it causes mercury accumulation in the brain. Here’s the most recent review showing RFK was right: 22 studies showing ethyl- and methylmercury cross the blood-brain barrier using the same LAT system: “In total, these studies indicate that ethylmercury-containing compounds and Thimerosal readily cross the BBB, convert, for the most part, to highly toxic inorganic mercury-containing compounds, which significantly and persistently bind to tissues in the brain, even in the absence of concurrent detectable blood mercury levels.” In short, it goes from the blood to your brain where it stays for the rest of your life.

Of course, the CDC is still lying about it today on their website:

This is why the CDC doesn’t want to debate Kennedy, me, or anyone else on vaccine safety. They would be exposed as deliberately lying to the public. They can’t have that happen. This is why they are relentless in attacking RFK Jr.

If the truth ever got out to the public, say in a Joe Rogan interview, they’d be toast. Remember, you heard it here first :).

Fast forward to today

Clearly, the CDC can completely get away with lies about the safety of thimerosal even 20 years later.

So they are going to use similar techniques to convince everyone the current vaccines are safe, even in light of all the evidence that it isn’t. And they’ll get away with it for decades even after killing over 150,000 Americans in 2021 without anyone noticing.

Silencing critics through censorship, de-platforming, ad hominem attacks, and refusing to debate are all techniques they engage in today to hide the truth and keep it hidden for decades.

Any doctor or pharmacist or other medical professional who speaks against the narrative will be punished through loss of ability to earn a living, loss of medical licensing, or in some cases, loss of life. I can’t tell you how many calls I get a day of medical boards going after people who speak out when they discover that the vaccines are killing and/or injuring people.

The censorship and intimidation grows stronger and stronger every day because more and more people are waking up to the truth.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | 5 Comments

34,337 Deaths 3,120,439 Injuries Following COVID Shots in European Database

UK Public Data Show 35 Deaths 213 Hospitalizations Among Booster Triple Vaccinated

By Brian Shilhavy | Health Impact News | December 22, 2021

The European (EEA and non-EEA countries) database of suspected drug reaction reports is EudraVigilance, verified by European Medicines Agency (EMA), and they are now reporting 32,649 fatalities, and 3,003,296 injuries following injections of four experimental COVID-19 shots:

From the total of injuries recorded, almost half of them (1,470,537) are serious injuries.

“Seriousness provides information on the suspected undesirable effect; it can be classified as ‘serious’ if it corresponds to a medical occurrence that results in death, is life-threatening, requires inpatient hospitalisation, results in another medically important condition, or prolongation of existing hospitalisation, results in persistent or significant disability or incapacity, or is a congenital anomaly/birth defect.”

A Health Impact News subscriber in Europe ran the reports for each of the four COVID-19 shots we are including here. It is a lot of work to tabulate each reaction with injuries and fatalities, since there is no place on the EudraVigilance system we have found that tabulates all the results.

Since we have started publishing this, others from Europe have also calculated the numbers and confirmed the totals.*

Here is the summary data through December 18, 2021.

Total reactions for the mRNA vaccine Tozinameran (code BNT162b2,Comirnaty) from BioNTech/ Pfizer: 15,788 deaths and 1,476,269 injuries to 18/12/2021

  • 40,271   Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 226 deaths
  • 47,256   Cardiac disorders incl. 2,310 deaths
  • 433        Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 41 deaths
  • 19,912   Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 11 deaths
  • 1,504     Endocrine disorders incl. 5 deaths
  • 22,804   Eye disorders incl. 35 deaths
  • 120,263 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 637 deaths
  • 370,545 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 4,452 deaths
  • 1,691     Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 82 deaths
  • 16,314   Immune system disorders incl. 84 deaths
  • 61,494   Infections and infestations incl. 1,649 deaths
  • 25,540   Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 279 deaths
  • 36,772   Investigations incl. 476 deaths
  • 10,065   Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 264 deaths
  • 179,558 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 196 deaths
  • 1,362     Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 128 deaths
  • 246,596 Nervous system disorders incl. 1,694 deaths
  • 2,127     Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 64 deaths
  • 223        Product issues incl. 3 deaths
  • 26,890   Psychiatric disorders incl. 191 deaths
  • 5,314     Renal and urinary disorders incl. 249 deaths
  • 55,551   Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 5 deaths
  • 63,512   Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 1,742 deaths
  • 68,837   Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 134 deaths
  • 3,257     Social circumstances incl. 21 deaths
  • 10,192   Surgical and medical procedures incl. 122 deaths
  • 37,986   Vascular disorders incl. 688 deaths

Total reactions for the mRNA vaccine mRNA-1273(CX-024414) from Moderna: 9,612 deaths and 431,805 injuries to 18/12/2021

  • 9,176     Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 106 deaths
  • 14,538   Cardiac disorders incl. 1,000 deaths
  • 174        Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 8 deaths
  • 5,244     Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 4 deaths
  • 409        Endocrine disorders incl. 4 deaths
  • 6,337     Eye disorders incl. 33 deaths
  • 35,162   Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 359 deaths
  • 114,485 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 3,239 deaths
  • 693        Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 47 deaths
  • 4,314     Immune system disorders incl. 17 deaths
  • 16,686   Infections and infestations incl. 907 deaths
  • 8,851     Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 180 deaths
  • 8,917     Investigations incl. 263 deaths
  • 4,138     Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 231 deaths
  • 51,645   Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 193 deaths
  • 595        Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 76 deaths
  • 72,360   Nervous system disorders incl. 919 deaths
  • 785        Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 6 deaths
  • 91           Product issues incl. 4 deaths
  • 7,887     Psychiatric disorders incl. 158 deaths
  • 2,553     Renal and urinary disorders incl. 183 deaths
  • 9,972     Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 8 deaths
  • 19,269   Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 1,032 deaths
  • 23,101   Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 84 deaths
  • 1,956     Social circumstances incl. 40 deaths
  • 1,946     Surgical and medical procedures incl. 150 deaths
  • 10,521   Vascular disorders incl. 361 deaths

Total reactions for the vaccine AZD1222/VAXZEVRIA (CHADOX1 NCOV-19) from Oxford/ AstraZeneca: 6,862 deaths and 1,103,016 injuries to 18/12/2021

  • 13,469   Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 255 deaths
  • 19,919   Cardiac disorders incl. 753 deaths
  • 208        Congenital familial and genetic disorders incl. 7 deaths
  • 13,018   Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 5 deaths
  • 642        Endocrine disorders incl. 4 deaths
  • 19,414   Eye disorders incl. 30 deaths
  • 104,504 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 370 deaths
  • 289,568 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 1,614 deaths
  • 985        Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 63 deaths
  • 5,105     Immune system disorders incl. 31 deaths
  • 34,377   Infections and infestations incl. 471 deaths
  • 12,816   Injury poisoning and procedural complications incl. 184 deaths
  • 24,316   Investigations incl. 178 deaths
  • 12,629   Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 101 deaths
  • 163,096 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 125 deaths
  • 684        Neoplasms benign malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 29 deaths
  • 226,199 Nervous system disorders incl. 1,047 deaths
  • 558        Pregnancy puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 17 deaths
  • 193        Product issues incl. 1 death
  • 20,437   Psychiatric disorders incl. 62 deaths
  • 4,164     Renal and urinary disorders incl. 66 deaths
  • 15,992   Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 2 deaths
  • 39,444   Respiratory thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 880 deaths
  • 50,458   Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 54 deaths
  • 1,563     Social circumstances incl. 6 deaths
  • 1,611     Surgical and medical procedures incl. 29 deaths
  • 27,647   Vascular disorders incl. 478 deaths

Total reactions for the COVID-19 vaccine JANSSEN (AD26.COV2.S) from Johnson & Johnson: 2,075 deaths and 109,349 injuries to 18/12/2021

  • 1,068     Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 44 deaths
  • 2,052     Cardiac disorders incl. 173 deaths
  • 41           Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 1 death
  • 1,146     Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 2 deaths
  • 87           Endocrine disorders incl. 1 deaths
  • 1,475     Eye disorders incl. 7 deaths
  • 8,932     Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 84 deaths
  • 28,855   General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 559 deaths
  • 138        Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 13 deaths
  • 489        Immune system disorders incl. 10 deaths
  • 5,092     Infections and infestations incl. 165 deaths
  • 1,011     Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 21 deaths
  • 5,043     Investigations incl. 115 deaths
  • 687        Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 51 deaths
  • 15,638   Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 47 deaths
  • 68           Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 6 deaths
  • 21,175   Nervous system disorders incl. 224 deaths
  • 46           Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 1 death
  • 29           Product issues
  • 1,551     Psychiatric disorders incl. 20 deaths
  • 462        Renal and urinary disorders incl. 27 deaths
  • 2,485     Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 6 deaths
  • 3,937     Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 268 deaths
  • 3,370     Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 9 deaths
  • 358        Social circumstances incl. 4 deaths
  • 745        Surgical and medical procedures incl. 61 deaths
  • 3,369     Vascular disorders incl. 156 deaths

*These totals are estimates based on reports submitted to EudraVigilance. Totals may be much higher based on percentage of adverse reactions that are reported. Some of these reports may also be reported to the individual country’s adverse reaction databases, such as the U.S. VAERS database and the UK Yellow Card system. The fatalities are grouped by symptoms, and some fatalities may have resulted from multiple symptoms.

Meanwhile, The Exposé is reporting that public health data in the UK shows that the vast majority of deaths and hospitalizations in the UK are among those vaccinated, and now there are 35 deaths and 213 hospitalizations being reported among those who have received booster shots and are triple-vaccinated.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , | 4 Comments

Australia’s new Online Safety Act will fine platforms that don’t remove content when ordered

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | December 22, 2021

Australia has passed a new law that will force Google and other search engines to remove content or risk huge fines.

The Online Safety Act will come into effect on January 23. Sites will have only 24 hours to remove harmful content. The penalty for non-compliance is $110,000 for individuals and $550,000 for companies.

The act also applies for apps on both Android and iOS devices.

The eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant also has the authority to name and shame platforms that do not comply with content takedown requests.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph newspaper, Inman Grant Said: “There aren’t powers like these anywhere in the world. We will use them judiciously. But we feel emboldened to tackle the worst of the worst content.”

Enforcement will apply to both local and international sites.

The Commissioner said that the focus of the act is content with the potential to cause “serious psychological or physical harm.”
Insulting someone might not meet the threshold, unless it is something that will “do more than hurt a person’s feelings.”

Before eSafety can get involved, someone has to make a complaint to the platform hosting the content.

In 2020, eSafety received about 21,000 complaints, a 90% increase from 2019.

“With these new powers, we will now be able to take real action to disrupt the trade in this distressing material and if online service providers fail to comply with our removal notices, they will face very real and significant consequences,” Inman Grant said.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | 1 Comment

Unveiled documents expose countless civilian deaths and war crimes committed by the US

By Paul Antonopoulos | December 22, 2021

Since the early 2000’s, drone use in warfare became more prominent in US military planning and engagement. Successive US presidents, particularly Barack Obama, promised that the use of all-seeing drones and precision bombs would reduce civilian casualties. However, documents unveiled by the New York Times show flawed intelligence, faulty targeting, years of civilian deaths, and perhaps most disturbingly, scant accountability.

The New York Times shockingly outlines various cases of civilians in the Middle East, including children, being killed by US drone strikes with no repercussions for the war crime. The cases they outline were drawn from a hidden Pentagon archive of American airstrikes in the Middle East since 2014, i.e., since the US campaign against ISIS began.

The trove of documents revealed that by the US military’s own assessments, there were more than 1,300 reports of civilian casualties by American airstrikes. The author of the article, Azmat Khan, said that the unveiled documents “lays bare how the air war has been marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting, and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children, a sharp contrast to the American government’s image of war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs.”

She added that “despite the Pentagon’s highly codified system for examining civilian casualties, pledges of transparency and accountability have given way to opacity and impunity.” Khan also explained how despite the 1,300 reports of civilian casualties, “only [in] a handful of cases were the assessments made public” and “not a single record provided includes a finding of wrongdoing or disciplinary action.”

Despite thousands of people devastated by reckless American airstrikes, including survivors being left with horrific disabilities and expensive medical bills, less than a dozen of condolence payments were made to victims. This is an unsurprising outcome considering that the efforts to identify root causes or lessons learned from intelligence failures are rare.

Obama called the strikes against ISIS as “the most precise air campaign in history” and lauded it as being more protective for troops and civilians alike. However, this belief was contradicted by Captain Bill Urban, the spokesman for the US Central Command. In responding to questions from The Times, he said that “even with the best technology in the world, mistakes do happen, whether based on incomplete information or misinterpretation of the information available.”

Although he claimed that the US tries to learn “from those mistakes”, “[…] works diligently to avoid such harm” and “investigate each credible instance,” the evidence proves otherwise as the hidden documents show civilians regularly as collateral victims.

The Times, as Khan says, “did what military officials admit they have not done: analyzed the casualty assessments in aggregate to discern patterns of failed intelligence, decision-making and execution.” The investigation found that although it is impossible to determine the full civilian death toll from US strikes, it is certainly far higher than the 1,417 victims that the Pentagon actually admits to.

The newspaper found that many civilian casualties had been summarily discounted, on-the-ground reporting involving a sampling of credible cases were dismissed, and lessons rarely learned.

It is unsurprising that lessons were not learned when chat logs accompanying some assessments revealed that American soldiers treated drone strikes as if they were playing video games. In one recorded case, American soldiers expressed glee over getting to fire in an area ostensibly “poppin” with ISIS fighters — without spotting the children in their midst. By removing soldiers from the ground and putting them behind a computer monitor, it not only reduces on-the-ground intelligence, but also desensitizes soldiers to the social and familial effects that their criminal actions have on ordinary civilians.

Captain Urban attempts to downplay this desensitization by saying that drone operators often “do not have the luxury of time” and that “the fog of war can lead to decisions that tragically result in civilian harm.”

However, in another recorded case in Mosul in 2016, three civilians were killed in a US-approved strike because they had decided to save more-precise weapons for other imminent strikes. In fact, The Times analysis found that civilians were frequently killed in airstrikes that were planned well in advance. This makes a mockery of Captain Urban’s claims that there are “collateral scans”. Disturbingly, some of these “collateral scans” were found to be only 11 seconds long.

Such lazy intelligence gathering has resulted in schools, bakeries and hospitals in Syria and Iraq being hit by targeted strikes, especially after they were removed from the “no-strike” list. For all the benevolence that the US espouses, especially in its “humanitarian interventions” (as it advertises its occupations of Syria and Iraq), its use of drones is really something incredible – operators treating strikes like playing video games, thousands of innocent civilians (including children) being exterminated, and no recourse or responsibility to face.

Effectively no courts, no judges and no prosecution for some of the worst war crimes perpetrated in modern history.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

EU’s top court allows European firms to scrap Iran deals

Press TV – December 22, 2021

The EU’s supreme court has intervened to protect European companies against legal action by Iran for failing to fulfill their contractual obligations.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg has ruled that EU companies can end contracts with Iranian firms if upholding the deals would lead to “disproportionate economic loss” as a result of US sanctions.

The ruling was prompted by a lawsuit from the German branch of Iran’s Bank Melli against Deutsche Telekom after the telecommunications provider terminated a contract with the bank in 2018 prior to its expiry.

The decision effectively neutralizes a “blocking statute” that prohibited individuals and companies in the European Union from complying with US sanctions imposed in 2018 by then US president Donald Trump after he decided to withdraw unilaterally from the Iran nuclear deal.

As per their obligations under the nuclear deal, the Europeans issued the statute in order to keep Iran in the agreement, but companies in the bloc quickly severed ties rather than risk running afoul of the US.

Under the blocking statute, European firms must seek a legal exemption for withdrawing from Iran due to US sanctions and those failing to do so could be penalized by their governments. Firms, however, can twist the law if they claim that their withdrawal is a business decision.

The court on Tuesday paid lip service to the EU blocking statute in its ruling, saying “the prohibition imposed by EU law on complying with secondary sanctions laid down by the United States against Iran may be relied on in civil proceedings”.

But the judges also said the rules of the blocking statute “cannot infringe the freedom to conduct a business by leading to disproportionate economic loss”.

The Higher Regional Court in Hamburg will have to decide whether upholding the contract with Bank Melli would expose Deutsche Telekom to such a disproportionate economic loss.

Observers believe the decision is a foregone conclusion, given that Deutsche Telekom makes about half of its turnover with its US business.

The ECJ said the Hamburg judges must take into account that Deutsche Telekom did not apply for an exemption from the EU blocking statute’s rules.

Other European measures taken to maintain open trade channels with Iran have equally proven to be empty shells.

For example, Iranians have got almost nothing from the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Agreement (SHTA) since it was launched in January 2020 with the support and consent of the US.

The Swiss trade channel much publicized by Washington as a purportedly secure way of delivering humanitarian assistance to Iran at a time of sanctions has failed to process even a single deal on Iranian medicine imports.

The channel was meant to find a way around the US sanctions to use Iranian funds deposited abroad to buy food and medicine for the country via the Swiss bank BCP.

However, companies seeking to participate in the scheme have found it very difficult to comply with the criteria set by the US government to avoid violating the general rules governing the sanctions, said the report.

Fabian Maienfisch, a spokesman for Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), which oversees the channel, has admitted in the past that the initiative had effectively failed to meet its objectives.

Such failures and the ECJ’s ruling prove statements by the Iranian government that the Europeans are disingenuous in dealing with the Islamic Republic.

The ruling comes as Iran and the Europeans continue negotiations in Vienna to find a way to remove the US sanctions.

A possible revival of the agreement would require the European companies to return to Iran and fulfill their obligations, but the EU court decision appears to be intentionally timed to provide them a leeway for further violations.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel ‘infuriated’ by claim Christians are ‘driven away’ from Jerusalem

RT | December 21, 2021

Church leaders in Jerusalem have complained that “fringe radical” settler groups are mounting a violent “systematic attempt” to drive Christians from the city. Israel has criticized their statement as “baseless” and “infuriating.”

Last week, the Patriarchs and Heads of Local Churches of Jerusalem – a collection of various Christian denominations – launched a campaign to protest“frequent and sustained” radical violence and “strategic property” acquisition. They said these tactics were aimed at “diminishing the Christian presence.”

In a statement issued by the Diocese of Jerusalem, the church leaders pointed to “countless incidents” of physical and verbal assaults against priests, “intimidation” of local Christians and the “desecration” of holy sites and churches. They called out the “failure of local politicians, officials and law enforcement agencies” to stem the violence, which they dated back to 2012.

The joint statement was signed by the leadership of all the city’s major churches, including the Custody of the Holy Land representing the Vatican, the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and the head of the Anglican Church.

The campaign was amplified by the UK’s Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who tweeted the joint declaration last Tuesday and termed it a “heart-cry” and an “unprecedented statement … about the future of Christians in the Holy Land.” The World Council of Churches and other bodies also lent support.

The church heads also requested “urgent dialogue” with political authorities in “Israel, Palestine and Jordan,” noting that these were bound by a “declared commitment” to protect religious freedom. Besides dealing with the “challenges presented by radical groups,” the talks would explore the creation of a “special Christian cultural and heritage zone to safeguard the integrity of the Christian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem.”

The allegations of Christians being discriminated against in Jerusalem have since attracted media attention, with the Israeli government finally responding to them this week.

In a statement on Monday, the Israeli foreign ministry branded the concerns as “baseless” and “infuriating” and claimed that they “distort the reality of the Christian community” in the country.

“Religious leaders have a critical role to play in education for tolerance and coexistence, and Church leaders should be expected to understand their responsibility and the consequences of what they have published, which could lead to violence and bring harm to innocent people,” the ministry said.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 3 Comments

The US is Gaining a Foothold in Uzbekistan

By Valery Kulikov – New Eastern Outlook – 22.12.2021 

To create sustainable groundwork for further expansion into Central Asia, Washington has recently placed particular emphasis on developing relations and cooperation with Uzbekistan.

One of such work areas in this country has been the active opening of “American Corners” in Uzbekistan. It is a US government-supported global network of more than 600 open-access educational centers, already implanted in more than 140 countries, seemingly dedicated to “spreading American culture and American values to every country in the world.” However, created in modern libraries, they are one of the main elements of American soft power. The US Embassy opened an “American Corner” in Qarshi in March 2021; the US Embassy plans to open at least six more such facilities throughout Uzbekistan. It has already allocated over $860,000.

Another area of US expansion in Uzbekistan is USAID’s aspirations to take control of the country’s pharmaceutical industry. To this end, USAID has opened a so-called “Quality Club” in Uzbekistan, which, it says, will promote the development of the pharmaceutical industry and local pharmaceutical manufacturers. According to a US Embassy release, the assistance will consist of discussions on updates, problems, and solutions related to regulating drugs and medical devices in Uzbekistan. US representatives present at the “Quality Club” opening discussed the current state of the Uzbek pharmaceutical industry, the contribution of local medicine producers to the common market, and achievements, obstacles, and development directions in the pharmaceutical industry. The advertising declarations of the US Embassy sounded, as always, noble, unless, of course, one keeps in mind that American charities do not do anything for nothing.

For the sake of objectivity in assessing this event, it should be recalled that there is a rigorous certification in the field of pharmaceutical products. And this, in particular, is clearly illustrated by the pharmaceutical war on vaccines against coronavirus. The United States has done quite a lot to keep the Russian Sputnik V vaccine out of that market. Therefore, it is easy to assume that the result of USAID activities will not be the promotion of Uzbek pharmaceutical products on the American and European markets, but the imposition of imports of American drugs to Uzbekistan and the capture of the Uzbek pharmaceutical market. As for the Uzbek industry, which has shown significant growth in recent years, it is unlikely to survive under pressure from USAID and Western corporations, as multinational corporations do not need competitors.

However, in addition to gaining complete control of Uzbekistan’s pharmaceutical industry, USAID has another goal. And it lies in the expansion through Uzbekistan to the entire EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union ) pharmaceutical industry, given that this Central Asian state has obtained observer status in the Eurasian Union and has already begun to adapt its national standards to EAEU requirements. And, given the importance of the EAEU market, USAID expects to take appropriate positions in the EAEU market through the mediation of Uzbekistan and gain access to the latest pharmaceutical developments in the EAEU.

However, the recently intensified “outreach to Uzbekistan” is being carried out by Washington not only in these directions. For example, recently, in Uzbekistan, there have been active discussions of political and economic partnership between the two countries with the participation of Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu. The most promising directions of further expansion of the bilateral economic partnership, including mining, chemical, agriculture, textile, and other industries, have been outlined during the meeting held on December 13 in Tashkent. The US side emphasized that in the eleven months of 2021, trade turnover between the two countries increased by 48.5% compared to the same period in 2020. In addition, the number of enterprises with American capital in Uzbekistan has doubled over the past few years. The sides expressed readiness to hold in the first half of 2022 a business forum for representatives of American and Uzbek business communities jointly with the American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce (AUCC).

The US representatives also stressed the importance of strengthening security cooperation by deepening ties between defense, law enforcement, border, and customs agencies. The United States expressed gratitude for the assistance provided by Uzbekistan to humanitarian aid providers at the Termez Cargo Center and welcomed Uzbekistan’s initiative to establish a regional logistics hub in Termez under the auspices of the UN to provide urgent humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan.

In the conditions mentioned above, the intensification of military cooperation with Uzbekistan remains on the active agenda of Washington. Uzbekistan remains the most convenient Central Asian country to locate a US Air Force base or counterterrorism center, targeting Afghanistan. Hence, discussions of American and NATO partners with Tashkent continue. Like many post-Soviet republics, Uzbekistan has partnered with NATO for peace since the 1990s, participating in consultations, delegation exchanges, and even joint troop maneuvers on US soil. And yet, for the past 20 years, Uzbek servicemen have not helped the Pentagon in Afghanistan with weapons in their hands like Georgians, Ukrainians and others. On the contrary, closer to the finish line of the infamous US mission in Afghanistan, Tashkent began to successfully establish constructive relations with the Taliban’s “political office” and promote Uzbek-Afghan economic cooperation projects.

Nevertheless, Washington has not given up hope of strengthening the strategic partnership with Uzbekistan in military projects or facilities. The regional choices are too limited. Therefore, representatives of CENTCOM will appear more than once in Tashkent, but the influence of Americans on the situation in the hot region will steadily diminish.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , , , , | 1 Comment

The Fear of Those Still-Secret CIA Records on the JFK Assassination

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 20, 2021

One of the amusing aspects of the ongoing controversy over those still-secret CIA records relating to the Kennedy assassination has been the reaction of lone-nut theorists. Hardly any of them, if any at all, are publicly calling on President Biden to disclose those records now rather than delaying disclosure for another year.

What’s up with that? Surely, lone-nut theorists don’t really buy into the “national security” rationale for keeping 58-year-old records relating to the assassination secret from the American people. I don’t know of anyone who really buys into that rationale. After all, what do they think will happen if those records are suddenly disclosed — that the Cuban communist army will invade Miami and start moving up the coast toward Washington? 

I’ll tell you why those lone-nut theorists don’t demand immediate disclosure of those documents? They’re scared. Very scared. They fear, at least on a subconscious level, that those remaining records include powerful circumstantial evidence establishing that what happened on November 22, 1963, was a regime-change operation on the part of the national-security establishment. Why else would they still be hiding those records? No, the Cuban army is not going to invade Miami and start moving north toward Washington.

And no, I’m not suggesting that those 58-year-old, still-secret CIA records contain a confession of wrongdoing. Nobody would be stupid enough to put a confession into writing. And even if someone was that stupid, no one would be stupid enough to deliver such a confession to the Assassination Records Review Board or the National Archives.

The JFK assassination is like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. Imagine a really complicated puzzle that has 1000 small pieces to it. Your kids have lost 25 percent of the pieces. You decide to put the puzzle together anyway. You finish it. Even though you’ve only got 75 percent of it completed, you can still tell that it’s a picture of the Eiffel Tower. Then, you find several more pieces. You now have 80 percent of the pieces and you’re able to see the Eiffel Tower more clearly.

That’s the way it is with the Kennedy assassination. With around 75 percent of the pieces, one can see that this was a national-security state regime-change operation. What those remaining records will do is disclose several more small pieces that make the regime-change picture even clearer. That’s why they are hiding them. That’s why they have hidden them for 58 years. That’s why they will continue hiding them, even past Biden’s December 22, 2022, deadline for disclosure. It’s because those still-secret records contain additional incriminating pieces to the puzzle that further fill out the regime-change mosaic.

Permit me to address three factors regarding the Kennedy assassination.

The first one is what I call the Inconceivable Doctrine. It holds that it is just inconceivable that the Pentagon and the CIA would conduct a regime-change operation against President Kennedy.

Really? How can it be inconceivable given the fact that the Pentagon and the CIA engaged in regime-change operations against presidents and prime ministers of foreign countries, both before and after the Kennedy assassination?

Their violent coup in Iran in 1953 that ousted the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, from office.

Their assassination of Congo leader Patrice Lumumba.

Their regime-change operation in Guatemala in 1954, in which they ousted the democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, from office and also targeted him for assassination.

Their repeated assassination attempts against Cuban president Fidel Castro.

Their kidnapping and assassination of General Rene Schneider, the overall commander of Chile’s armed forces.

Their violent coup in Chile against the democratically elected president, Salvador
Allende, which left him dead.

Their participation in Operation Condor, the top-secret kidnapping, torture, and assassination program in South America. 

Given those regime-change operations and Operation Condor, how can it be inconceivable that they would do the same to a democratically elected U.S. president, especially one whose policies they are convinced pose a grave threat to national security. 

What lone-nut theorists just do not want to confront is the fact that the little monster that was brought into existence to assassinate and regime-change foreign leaders and others turned inward to protect America from a president whose philosophy and policies, they were convinced, posed a grave threat to national security — a much graver threat, in fact, than those other leaders posed who they assassinated or regime-changed. See FFF’s book JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne.

The second factor: In the Guatemalan and Chilean regime-change operations, the U.S. national-security establishment told their national-security counterparts in those two countries that the latter had the moral duty to protect their countries by ousting their president whose policies supposedly posed a grave threat to their own national security. How can a domestic regime-change operation be inconceivable given that mindset on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment?

The third factor: The fraudulent autopsy. In the 1990s, the Assassination Records Review Board broke the dam of silence surrounding the autopsy that the U.S. national-security establishment conducted on Kennedy’s body just a few hours after the assassination. 

Consider just one aspect to the fraudulent autopsy — the two brain exams that were conducted, the second of which did not involve President Kennedy’s brain.

For 30 years, the national-security establishment had succeeded in keeping its autopsy on Kennedy’s body secret from the American people. It did this by “classifying” it and forcing military personnel involved in the autopsy to sign written secrecy oaths. The personnel were threatened with severe punitive actions if they ever talked about what they had done or seen.

For 30 years, the three military pathologists who conducted the autopsy claimed that there was only one brain examination. That was a lie. And there is no innocent explanation for that lie. It is incriminating, highly incriminating. 

The ARRB staff determined that there were two brain exams. John Stringer, the official photographer for the autopsy, told the ARRB that he was at the first brain exam. He told them that at that exam, the brain was “sectioned” or cut like a loaf of bread. That’s standard procedure in gunshot wounds to the head. 

Stringer also stated that the photographs of the brain in the official autopsy records were not the photographs he took. 

Stringer also told the ARRB that he was not at the second brain exam, which was attended by all three military pathologists and some unknown photographer. At that second brain exam, the brain was not sectioned. That could not have been the brain at the first brain exam because a sectioned brain cannot reconstitute itself. 

And that’s just the tip of the autopsy iceberg. See my books The Kennedy Autopsy and The Kennedy Autopsy 2. 

As I have repeatedly stated over the years, there is no innocent explanation for a fraudulent autopsy. Certainly no lone-nut theorist has ever come up with one. That’s how we know that this was a national-security state regime-change operation. A fraudulent autopsy necessarily means cover-up in the assassination itself, especially given that the scheme for a fraudulent autopsy was launched at Parkland Hospital at the moment Kennedy was declared dead. See The Kennedy Autopsy.

Notice something important about all this: Whenever lone-nut theorists say that there isn’t evidence of a domestic regime-change operation, they never — repeat never! — address the fraudulent brain exams and the fraudulent autopsy. That’s because they know that a fraudulent brain exam and a fraudulent autopsy necessarily mean a national-security regime-change operation carried out against Kennedy.

The sooner America comes to grips with the fact that the Kennedy assassination is every bit a part of our legacy as a national-security state as all the other regime-change operations, the better off we will be. Acknowledging the truth about out national-security legacy will be the first step in ridding ourselves of the evil system known as a national-security state and restoring our founding governmental system of a limited-government republic.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

Leaked NHS Report Claims London Hospitals “Likely to Be Overwhelmed” Within Three Weeks. We’ve Heard That Before

By Will Jones | The Daily Sceptic | December 22, 2021

An internal NHS report leaked to the Health Service Journal claims that hospitals and ambulances in London are “likely to become overwhelmed due to rising Covid demand in the next two to three weeks”.

This is despite the fact that, as NHS Providers Chief Chris Hopson points out: “The overall numbers remain relatively low compared to the January 2021 peak – 1,819 Covid patients currently in London versus 7,917 on January 18th 2021.”

Let’s bear in mind also that last winter an internal NHS briefing, again leaked to the Health Service Journal, claimed that under the “best” scenario London would have a shortfall of 1,515 general and acute beds by January 19th. Yet the briefing also stated London has 15,600 general and acute beds, which is almost double what turned out in fact to be the peak Covid winter occupancy of 7,917 beds on January 18th.

Nationally, at the winter peak on January 18th there were 8,696 unoccupied beds, 26,902 beds occupied by Covid patients and 50,204 beds occupied by non-Covid patients.

It’s also worth remembering that the NHS has a beds crisis every winter, as this selection of Guardian headlines illustrates. (See also the image at the top of headlines from the 2017-18 winter crisis.)


Yet the NHS coped, just as it did last year when almost no one was vaccinated. If there are systemic capacity problems in the NHS which mean it can’t get through winter without cancelling elective procedures then those need to be addressed. But it should go without saying that this is no excuse to impose costly, illiberal restrictions on society.

Civil liberties should not be so cheap that they may be suspended to make up for the failings of a poorly managed health service with insufficient resources committed to frontline services.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

No Deaths From Taking Vitamins

By Andrew W. Saul | Principia Scientific International | December 22, 2021

The 38th annual report from the American Association of Poison Control Centers shows zero deaths from vitamins.

Supporting data is in Table 22B, p 1476-1478, at the very end of the report published in Clinical Toxicology. [1]

It is interesting that it is so quietly placed way back there where nary a news reporter is likely to see it.

The AAPCC reports zero deaths from multiple vitamins.

And, there were no deaths whatsoever from vitamin A, niacin, pyridoxine (B-6) any other B-vitamin.

There were no deaths from vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, or from any vitamin at all.

On page 1477 there is an allegation of a single death attributed to an unspecified, unknown “Miscellaneous Vitamin.”

The obvious uncertainly of such a listing diminishes any claim of validity.

There were no fatalities from amino acids, creatine, blue-green algae, glucosamine, or chondroitin.

There were no deaths from any homeopathic remedy, Asian medicine, Hispanic medicine, or Ayurvedic medicine. None.

Zero deaths from vitamins.

Want to bet this will never be on the evening news?

Well, have you seen it there? And why not? After all, over half of the U.S. population takes daily nutritional supplements. A Harris Poll showed that for American adults, the number is 86 percent. [2]

But let’s just use the low number.

Should each of those people take only one single tablet daily, that still makes close to 170,000,000 individual doses per day, for a total of well over 60 billion doses annually.

Since many persons take far more than just one single vitamin tablet, actual consumption is considerably higher, and the safety of vitamin supplements is all the more remarkable.

Throughout the entire year, coast to coast across the entire USA, there was not one single death from a vitamin.

If vitamin supplements are allegedly so “dangerous,” as the FDA, the news media, and even some physicians still claim, then where are the bodies?

References:

  1. Gummin DD, Mowry JB, Beuhler MC et al. 2020 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System (NPDS): 38th Annual Report. Clinical Toxicology 2021, 59:12. https://doi.org/10.1080/15563650.2021.1989785 or https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15563650.2021.1989785
  2. https://osteopathic.org/2019/01/16/poll-finds-86-of-americans-take-vitamins-or-supplements-yet-only-21-have-a-confirmed-nutritional-deficiency/

Andrew W. Saul is Editor-in-Chief of the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, now in its 18th year of free publication. He is also a member of the Japanese College of Intravenous Therapy; the Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame; and is author or coauthor of twelve books. He has no financial connection whatsoever to the supplement or health products industry.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | 2 Comments

Sen. Johnson Requests Records From Top Medical Journals on Retracted Studies, Including Flawed HCQ Study

The Defender | December 21, 2021

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has written to The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine seeking records on two retracted studies from mid-2020. Johnson particularly called out The Lancet study, which suggested hydroxychloroquine could boost the risk of death in COVID patients.

“Although this fraudulent study was ultimately retracted, it is concerning and shameful that, in the midst of a pandemic, The Lancet published such a misleading paper on a potential early treatment for COVID-19,” said Johnson, the ranking member on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in a letter dated Dec. 14.

Johnson seeks all records of the journals’ communication on the two studies, including communication with the papers’ authors; U.S. government employees; individuals who encouraged the studies’ publication; and the supplier of the two studies’ datasets, Surgisphere, a healthcare analytics company.

Despite The Lancet paper’s retraction, its initial publication halted trials on hydroxychloroquine’s use and sullied its reputation more broadly. The Washington Post and other major media headlined the increased risk of death, and health authorities took action globally within days of the paper’s publication.

The World Health Organization and the UK’s drug regulator halted trials of the drug in COVID settings. France reversed an earlier decision to allow hydroxychloroquine’s use in COVID patients.

Readers of The Lancet quickly noted the study cited implausibly high numbers of COVID cases in 2020, and journalists failed to find any hospitals that had contributed data, despite the study’s claim that more than 96,000 hospital patients participated.

The Lancet retracted the study two weeks after publication.

Sen. Johnson also requested information from The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on another study retracted in June 2020.

Johnson explained in his letter, the NEJM paper reportedly found that “taking certain blood pressure drugs, including angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, didn’t appear to increase the risk of death among COVID-19 patients, as some researchers had suggested.”

However, the study’s authors wrote to the NEJM a few weeks after the study was published, acknowledging they could not validate the primary data supporting the study and apologized “to the editors and to readers of the Journal for the difficulties that this has caused.”

Johnson has requested all records by Jan. 4, 2022.

© 2021 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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