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Putting Big Pharma on Trial in the COVID-19 Era, Part 2

“Nurse prepares to vaccinate children” by World Bank Photo Collection is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
By Rebecca Strong | February 16, 2022

Part 1, Part 3

Big Pharma Lawsuits, Scandals, and Cover-Ups

While the OxyContin craze is undoubtedly one of the highest-profile examples of big pharma’s deception, there are dozens of other stories like this. Here are a few standouts:

In the 1980s, Bayer continued selling blood clotting products to third-world countries even though they were fully aware those products had been contaminated with HIV. The reason? The “financial investment in the product was considered too high to destroy the inventory.” Predictably, about 20,000 of the hemophiliacs who were infused with these tainted products then tested positive for HIV and eventually developed AIDS, and many later died of it.

In 2004, Johnson & Johnson was slapped with a series of lawsuits for illegally promoting off-label use of their heartburn drug Propulsid for children despite internal company emails confirming major safety concerns (as in, deaths during the drug trials). Documentation from the lawsuits showed that dozens of studies sponsored by Johnson & Johnson highlighting the risks of this drug were never published.

The FDA estimates that GSK’s Avandia caused 83,000 heart attacks between 1999 and 2007. Internal documents from GSK prove that when they began studying the effects of the drug as early as 1999, they discovered it caused a higher risk of heart attacks than a similar drug it was meant to replace. Rather than publish these findings, they spent a decade illegally concealing them (and meanwhile, banking $3.2 billion annually for this drug by 2006). Finally, a 2007 New England Journal of Medicine study linked Avandia to a 43% increased risk of heart attacks, and a 64% increased risk of death from heart disease. Avandia is still FDA approved and available in the U.S.

In 2009, Pfizer was forced to pay $2.3 billion, the largest healthcare fraud settlement in history at that time, for paying illegal kickbacks to doctors and promoting off-label uses of its drugs. Specifically, a former employee revealed that Pfizer reps were encouraged and incentivized to sell Bextra and 12 other drugs for conditions they were never FDA approved for, and at doses up to eight times what’s recommended. “I was expected to increase profits at all costs, even when sales meant endangering lives,” the whistleblower said.

When it was discovered that AstraZeneca was promoting the antipsychotic medication Seroquel for uses that were not approved by the FDA as safe and effective, the company was hit with a $520 million fine in 2010. For years, AstraZeneca had been encouraging psychiatrists and other physicians to prescribe Seroquel for a vast range of seemingly unrelated off-label conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, anger management, ADHD, dementia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and sleeplessness. AstraZeneca also violated the federal Anti-Kickback Statute by paying doctors to spread the word about these unapproved uses of Seroquel via promotional lectures and while traveling to resort locations.

In 2012, GSK paid a $3 billion fine for bribing doctors by flying them and their spouses to five-star resorts, and for illegally promoting drugs for off-label uses. What’s worse — GSK withheld clinical trial results that showed its antidepressant Paxil not only doesn’t work for adolescents and children but more alarmingly, that it can increase the likelihood of suicidal thoughts in this group. A 1998 GSK internal memo revealed that the company intentionally concealed this data to minimize any “potential negative commercial impact.”

In 2021, an ex-AstraZeneca sales rep sued her former employer, claiming they fired her for refusing to promote drugs for uses that weren’t FDA-approved. The employee alleges that on multiple occasions, she expressed concerns to her boss about “misleading” information that didn’t have enough support from medical research, and off-label promotions of certain drugs. Her supervisor reportedly not only ignored these concerns but pressured her to approve statements she didn’t agree with and threatened to remove her from regional and national positions if she didn’t comply. According to the plaintiff, she missed out on a raise and a bonus because she refused to break the law.

At the top of 2022, a panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit against Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, and GE Healthcare, which claims they helped finance terrorist attacks against U.S. service members and other Americans in Iraq. The suit alleges that from 2005–2011, these companies regularly offered bribes (including free drugs and medical devices) totaling millions of dollars annually to Iraq’s Ministry of Health in order to secure drug contracts. These corrupt payments then allegedly funded weapons and training for the Mahdi Army, which until 2008, was largely considered one of the most dangerous groups in Iraq.

Another especially worrisome factor is that pharmaceutical companies are conducting an ever-increasing number of clinical trials in third-world countries, where people may be less educated, and there are also far fewer safety regulations. Pfizer’s 1996 experimental trials with Trovan on Nigerian childrenwith meningitis — without informed consent — is just one nauseating example. When a former medical director in Pfizer’s central research division warned the company both before and after the study that their methods in this trial were “improper and unsafe,” he was promptly fired. Families of the Nigerian children who died or were left blind, brain damaged, or paralyzed after the study sued Pfizer, and the company ultimately settled out of court. In 1998, the FDA approved Trovan only for adults. The drug was later banned from European markets due to reports of fatal liver disease and restricted to strictly emergency care in the U.S. Pfizer still denies any wrongdoing.

But all that is just the tip of the iceberg. If you’d like to dive a little further down the rabbit hole — and I’ll warn you, it’s a deep one — a quick Google search for “big pharma lawsuits” will reveal the industry’s dark track record of bribery, dishonesty, and fraud.

In fact, big pharma happens to be the biggest defrauder of the federal government when it comes to the False Claims Act, otherwise known as the “Lincoln Law.” During our interview, Panara told me she has friends still working for big pharma who would be willing to speak out about crooked activity they’ve observed, but are too afraid of being blacklisted by the industry. A newly proposed update to the False Claims Act would help to protect and support whistleblowers in their efforts to hold pharmaceutical companies liable, by helping to prevent that kind of retaliation and making it harder for the companies charged to dismiss these cases. It should come as no surprise that Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck, and a flock of other big pharma firms are currently lobbying to block the update. Naturally, they wouldn’t want to make it any easier for ex-employees to expose their wrongdoings, potentially costing them billions more in fines.

Something to keep in mind: these are the same people who produced, marketed, and are profiting from the COVID-19 vaccines. The same people who manipulate research, pay off decision-makers to push their drugs, cover up negative research results to avoid financial losses, and knowingly put innocent citizens in harm’s way. The same people who told America: “Take as much OxyContin as you want around the clock! It’s very safe and not addictive!” (while laughing all the way to the bank).

So, ask yourself this: if a partner, friend, or family member repeatedly lied to you — and not just little white lies, but big ones that put your health and safety at risk — would you continue to trust them?

To be continued…

April 9, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Vaccinated Have Up To SIX Times the Infection Rate of Unvaccinated, NZ Government Data Show

By Amanuensis | The Daily Sceptic | April 9, 2022

New Zealand is a fascinating country – amazing geography, likeable population, and, unlike its neighbour Australia, most of its wildlife isn’t planning on killing you at the slightest opportunity. It is also fascinating with respect to Covid because its population has a very high vaccination rate across all age groups (well, down to five), but up until recently there has been negligible natural immunity to Covid. Because of these two factors, New Zealand was always going to be of interest as soon as Covid arrived properly, if only to see how its vaccination efforts had protected its population.

For those who missed it, since the end of last year New Zealand has had a succession of Covid waves. These started small, but in the most recent wave, taking place during February and March, infection rates were enormous – if we had these infection rates in the U.K. we’d have peaked at approximately 350,000 cases per day (rather than around 200,000). What’s more, it looks like New Zealand exceeded its testing capacity during that wave, suggesting that peak infections were probably even higher. It is relevant to note that during February and March, New Zealand had over 90% of all the cases it has ever had and most of the rest occurred in January – prior to 2022 New Zealand reported very few Covid infections.

So much for the Covid vaccines protecting against infection – but what do the data look like in detail?

Cases

New Zealand is somewhat helpful in that it does publish daily cases, hospitalisations and deaths by vaccine status; somewhat because it doesn’t allow easy access to anything other than the current day’s report. Thankfully, the Wayback Machine ensures that at least some web pages aren’t forever lost to history. These data were collated for dates since mid February 2022 and smoothed with a seven-day moving average to create a time series of Covid cases by vaccine status.

The first time the above graph popped up on my computer screen I had to go and double check all the data sources – and then I triple checked them. The data shown on the graph are notable for several reasons:

  • Firstly the obvious one – during the most recent Covid wave there was a much lower infection rate in the unvaccinated, compared with those that had been given one, two or three doses of vaccine. What’s more, this isn’t a small effect – over the period shown approximately:
    • 10% of the triple vaccinated in New Zealand were infected.
    • 14% of the single vaccinated were infected.
    • An astounding 18% of the double vaccinated were infected.
    • Yet only 3% of the unvaccinated appear to have been infected.
  • The order of the effect is unexpected – for some time in the U.K. the highest case rates have been found in the triple vaccinated, with case rates in the single and double jabbed much lower. In New Zealand the highest rates are seen in the double vaccinated.
  • The data for cases in the double dosed appear to have an earlier peak than seen in the data for the unvaccinated, single jabbed and triple jabbed.
  • The fall from peak cases to the most recent data point is also interesting. Case rates in the unvaccinated, single dosed and the double dosed have all fallen approximately 45% since their respective peaks, however, case rates in the triple vaccinated have only fallen approximately 20% since their peak. This is rather concerning, as it suggests that we might find that the boosted population maintain a viral reservoir for Covid, ensuring that case rates take much longer to fall to trivial levels and hindering attempts to get society back to a post-Covid normal.

The infections data from New Zealand allow us to estimate the vaccine effectiveness for the Covid vaccines in the absence of natural immunity.

Unadjusted estimates of vaccine effectiveness against infection as at end of March 2022

These data are in contrast to recent data from the U.K., which show one and two doses of vaccine to have a VE of minus-50% to minus-100%, and the booster to have a VE of around minus-300%. While this sounds counterintuitive, it is possible that we’re seeing a complex interplay between a waning of the impact of the vaccine and the impact of additional vaccine doses:

  • The U.K. vaccinated early, allowing for the impact of those early vaccine doses to have waned significantly for those choosing not to top-up their ‘protection’.
  • The Covid vaccines appear to have a period of approximately two to three months where their impact on the immune system is different than in later periods; this is possibly due to the creation of short-lived IgA (mucosal) antibodies. In the U.K., booster vaccinations were given in autumn 2021, and thus most individuals will have been beyond this period when the Omicron variant’s first wave appeared in December.

In New Zealand, the timescales are very different: those given the booster dose will still be in the two-three month period where short-lived immune responses dominate; those given two doses will be in the proposed period of maximal vaccine negative impact; while those that chose not to accept the offer of a second vaccine dose will be in the period where vaccine effects are waning.

There’s one more point to add for cases in New Zealand, and it relates to the U.K. For months, the UKHSA has been telling us that one possible reason for us seeing far fewer cases in the unvaccinated compared with the vaccinated is because the unvaccinated have natural immunity following high infection rates previously (presumably because the unvaccinated are reckless and didn’t follow lockdown rules – I imagine that they also ride motorcycles too quickly, set off fireworks indoors and play with matches while filling up the car). These data from New Zealand, which at the time had very few individuals previously infected with Covid, show lower case rates in the unvaccinated without any significant levels of natural immunity, contradicting the claim of the UKHSA and eliminating one of its reasons for ignoring the alarming data.

Hospitalisations

Analysis of the hospitalisations data offered by the New Zealand authorities is made complex by there being no stratification of the hospitalisations by age group, and the lack of complete vaccinations data by age. However, U.K. data show that in recent weeks approximately 95% of hospitalisations were in those aged over 60; assuming that this will also hold true for the New Zealand population allows us to offer a indicative analysis of the likely impact for that age group of the vaccines on hospitalisations in the country.

The analysis is also hindered by the data on vaccine coverage for those aged over 60 not differentiating between those that have had only one dose of vaccine and those that are unvaccinated. This might in isolation from other data appear to be ‘sensible’ – after all, the single dosed have the ‘least protection’ as well as ‘the longest time for protection to wane’. However, the data shown in the previous section suggest that the unvaccinated and those having taken a single dose of vaccine are in no way comparable, and that considering them as a single group could lead to misleading conclusions. Nevertheless, that’s the hand that’s been dealt for us.

The data are somewhat surprising. While those given a booster dose of vaccine seem to have lower levels of hospitalisations than found in the group containing the unvaccinated and those given only one dose of vaccine – as might be expected – the double dosed have significantly higher hospitalisation rates.

Also interesting is the trend in the data:

  • Hospitalisations in the unvaccinated/single-dosed appear to peak earliest – we have also seen this effect in U.K. data, usually in the form of dire warnings early in each Covid wave that the only people being hospitalised are the unvaccinated, only for the warnings to go quiet later in the Covid wave when the data move in the opposite direction.
  • Hospitalisations in those given two doses of vaccine appear to peak towards the end of the period shown.
  • Hospitalisations in the boosted population appear to show little signs of slowing down, let alone reducing, over the period in question. Note also that this group saw a fourfold increase over the time period shown, whereas the double dose and single-dose/unvaccinated group both saw a 25% increase, albeit with an intermediate period with higher hospitalisation rates.

It was not possible to properly disentangle the hospitalisations data for the unvaccinated, but the data suggest that in aggregate those having taken two or three doses of vaccine (when the two groups are put together) have approximately 45% lower risk of hospitalisation than the unvaccinated/single-dosed. It is worth noting that in the U.K. data we see higher hospitalisation rates in the single vaccinated in those aged over 60, compared with the unvaccinated. It is possible that the same pattern is found in New Zealand, only ‘covered up’ by the co-mingling of the data. If this is the case then the apparent protection offered by the vaccine in the two or three dose individuals will be somewhat lower than 45%.

Deaths

The mortality data from New Zealand are also complicated because the health authorities lump together into one group all the unvaccinated and those having taken a single dose of vaccine. Beyond that complication, deaths data can be tricky to analyse, because there are such huge differences in death rates from (or with) Covid by age. Fortunately, the mortality data offered by the New Zealand authorities do include deaths by age group, which allows a finer analysis than was possible with the infections and hospitalisations data.

Covid mortality per 100,000 per week, by vaccination status and age

The above table suggests that while those given three doses of vaccine have a decreased risk of death from (or with) Covid compared with the mortality rate in the strange group called ‘unvaccinated or one dose’, the risk of death is greatest in those given two doses of vaccine.

However, it is possible that New Zealand’s data have a similar pattern to that seen in the U.K. (and elsewhere), where dose effects are complicated by the health of those given each vaccine, namely that those closest to death were spared a dose of vaccine, and thus concentrated deaths into the very small number left in the prior dose group. A comparison of the data for ‘unvaccinated or one dose’ with ‘two or three doses’ suggests that the vaccines do still protect against death, but only to a very low degree in younger age groups.

Covid mortality per 100,000 per week, by vaccination status and age

The data above support the use of vaccination to protect against death from (or with) Covid for those aged over 80. On the other hand, the mortality rate in those aged under 60 is very low, and the estimated vaccine effectiveness in protecting against death for those aged under 80 is only approximately 30% – once again, the real-world vaccine effectiveness estimate is rather low. It is also of note that these rather poor figures for the protection offered by the vaccines against mortality come from a country that started vaccination rather late (summer 2021) and where most of the population were only given their booster doses two to three months ago. These data suggest that the vaccines simply do not offer substantive protection against death for newer Covid variants, rather than it simply being a case of waning vaccine protection.

It is also important to note that the data on the benefits of the vaccine in protecting against death shown above should be treated with caution:

  • Data on deaths in the unvaccinated and those given a single dose of vaccine are co-mingled; the New Zealand hospitalisation data suggest that death rates might be greater in the single-jabbed.
  • The vaccinated appear to have significant increased risk of catching Covid, which contributes to overall risk of serious disease and death.
  • These calculations do not include any consideration of the risk of side-effects and complications following vaccination.

Overall mortality

One other aspect of the data coming from New Zealand that is of interest relating to Covid is excess mortality. These data are of interest because New Zealand managed to keep itself more-or-less clear of Covid until the last few months of 2021, and even then case numbers were very low until 2022, with the result that Covid deaths were negligible prior to 2022. With that in mind, its excess death data between the start of 2020 and the end of 2021 are very interesting.

Many countries around the world had a peak in excess deaths in the first quarter of 2020, followed by a significant reduction in deaths into mid 2020. There has been speculation that this pattern was seen because Covid infections in early 2020 killed the most vulnerable, leaving a period in which there were fewer people left to die.  However, New Zealand also has this pattern of excess deaths in the first half of 2020 (black data points in the graph above) without Covid infections, suggesting that the reduction in deaths seen in mid 2020 were a result of lockdown. The reason for the excess deaths in New Zealand in the first quarter of 2020 are not at all clear.

Most countries then saw an increase in deaths towards the end of 2020; this has been explained by a resurgence in Covid cases. However, New Zealand saw a similar pattern without Covid infections (red data points). It is possible that this increase was caused by the impact of the reduced healthcare provision during the extreme lockdown – though there are no data to support this supposition. There are reports that the New Zealand healthcare system experienced its busiest summer (January and February) on record with hospitals across the country reaching ‘crisis point’ and several emergency departments at capacity. The cause of this healthcare pressure is unclear, however.

Perhaps the most interesting data in the graph above are seen in 2021. During the first half of 2021 excess deaths slowly reduced from the high seen at the start of 2021 (green data points), perhaps a result of healthcare provision returning to normal. However, around mid-year the trend reversed and excess deaths started to climb again (purple data points). Again, it must be pointed out that there were very few Covid cases in New Zealand at this time, and negligible deaths. Just about the only unusual things occurring in the country at that time were a lack of international travel, restrictions in day-to-day activities for the population and an enormous mass vaccination campaign using novel, under-tested vaccines.

During 2020-2022, there were approximately 2,000 excess deaths in New Zealand, a significant number in a country with a population of five million. We don’t know the proportion that occurred because of lockdown, vaccines or something else; all that we do know is that they weren’t a result of Covid.

Note on data analysis methods. Infection, hospitalisation and mortality data were obtained from the New Zealand Ministry for Health (using Wayback Machine for historical data). Vaccination data were also obtained from the NZ Ministry for Health. Population data were obtained from Stats.govt.nz. Vaccination data were offset by seven days for the infections analysis to account for the Ministry for Health’s definition of vaccine status at infection. An additional seven days offset was applied for hospitalisation, and 14 days for death, to account for the typical timescales of disease progression.

Amanuensis is an ex-academic and senior Government scientist. He blogs at Bartram’s Folly.

April 9, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

On the Systemic Failure of Western Journalism to Comprehend and Report on Complex Matters

eugyppius | April 9, 2022

Chris Bray, who writes Tell Me How This Ends, has a fantastic essay about the years he spent covering a complex international legal dispute. Basically, historians had conducted confidential interviews of former IRA members about their activities during the Troubles. UK police, when they learned of this, attempted to subpoena these tapes, leading to a years-long court battle:

Without wading back into the exceptionally complicated details of that long controversy, I learned two things from the experience that have never left me. …

First … I would have email exchanges with newspaper reporters who wanted me to tell them what happened … Over two years, through events in a trial court and in an appellate court, with multiple parties pursuing complicated and divergent courses, reporters would not read. … They wanted the tl;dr, in a sentence or two. “Yeah, what’s it say?” …

Second, as I wrote about the implications of the subpoenas, I made complicated arguments about complicated events … [A]s I wrote in the Irish press, the American academic press, a group blog for academic historians in the United States, and my own sad little blog, every argument I made was dismissed as pro-IRA idiocy. The police are investigating a murder, you fucking moron! What the hell is wrong with you, IDIOT!?!? Commenters explored the precise cause and scope of my breathtaking idiocy: Is this Chris Bray person just really stupid, or is he, like, working for the terrorists?

Please read and share the whole thing. As Bray himself notes, these lessons apply equally well to the insipid media discourse around Corona and all matters related to the vaccines. Indeed, his experience is basically identical to mine.

We – myself and many others – have now spent two years obsessively tracking national Corona statistics across multiple jurisdictions, we’ve read hundreds and hundreds of scientific papers, and we’ve developed a lot of reasonable if complex arguments about what is happening, what Corona policies have achieved, and what is to be done. Anytime a mainstream journalist or politician is forced to comment on any of our intellectual production, though, we’re dismissed as a bunch of eugenicist anti-science anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists who just want old people to die.

Journalism depends on simple, one-dimensional analyses, and journalists themselves prioritise social interactions and the spoken word over papers and documentary evidence. Their coverage ends up being dominated by a small collection of bad actors and manipulative personalities like Eric Feigl-Ding, who reduce matters of enormous complexity to simple slogans and flat, unidirectional policy demands, like social distancing forever and infinite vaccination.

I would add that this cartoon crayola coverage exercises a perverse influence on the science itself. The legal system has developed, over generations, means of insulating itself from the pressures of journalism; these aren’t perfect, but at least lawyers and judges are on guard. When it comes to science, it’s pretty much the opposite. Researchers eager for attention and grant funding chase the attention of lunatic media personalities and hystericist politicians with motivated reasoning, misleading argumentation, and a bias against any finding that cuts against consensus press narratives.

April 9, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Unheeded US warning toward India highlights antipathy of non-Western countries

Global Times | April 7, 2022

The US warned India once again. White House top economic adviser Brian Deese claimed on Wednesday that the consequences of New Delhi’s “more explicit strategic alignment” with Moscow would be “significant and long-term.”

What a bullying manner! This is an open threat by the US toward India on the latter’s own business. When it comes to the Ukraine crisis, the US is blatantly displaying its hegemonic mentality – either you are with the US, or against the US. This echoes exactly the same slogan of George W. Bush, made in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, said Zhao Gancheng, a research fellow at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies.

The US is again telling the world: As a superpower, it has the right to define who you are.

Even if India has not “aligned” with Russia, and has kept a relatively balanced position during the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the US does not buy it.

“Remaining neutral makes no sense to the US. What Washington wants from New Delhi is completely standing by the side of the US,” Zhao said.

The US is afraid that ties among China, Russia and India may further develop due to the Ukraine crisis, although systematic cooperation of the three countries is not rare.

Moreover, the US expects that everything goes well in terms of the Quad summit, which is schedule to be held in Japan, tentatively by the end of June. Yet, if India does not make a statement in line with the US expectation, the summit may hardly take place. Constant warnings over “consequences” against India emerged from the US, revealing Washington’s anxiety.

Before Deese’s remarks, the US has already warned India more than once against constructing alternate payment mechanisms with Russia or buying more oil from Russia. Yet the threats turned out to be in vain, as India benefits from its ties with Russia, which can’t be substituted by the US.

Also, India’s response mirrors an increasingly obvious trend – the US has underestimated the antipathy the rest of the world holds for it. Not only India, but the majority of the general public in China and Latin American countries and other developing world have not taken sides with the US in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, even if the US believes it is standing on the moral high ground. They do not support sanctioning Russia. As Gérard Araud, former French ambassador to the US, put it, even if they don’t particularly like Russia, a lot of non-Westerners are supporting it only because they are confronting with the West.

Quite a few countries have long been bullied by the US. They have long developed a rebellious psychology. This time, the more sanctions Washington imposes on Russia due to the conflict, the more aversion the US will have to face.

The US has long believed it masters superior strength, values, and civilization, which in turn has given birth to its overbearing arrogance. As a result, when interacting with non-Western countries, the US either coerces them or issues warnings to them. Since Washington is accustomed to dealing with others from a position of strength, its relations with other countries have never been on an equal footing, Li Haidong, a professor from the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, told the Global Times.

That’s why the world has been witnessing the US talking about the so-called democracy while it makes dictatorial orders toward other countries.

The resentment from non-Western countries toward such hegemonic arrogance has long been lurking. It is now surfacing during the ongoing Ukraine crisis, along with the real status of the US in international society – It has imposed sanctions on Russia yet has failed to reach expected effects; It claims to be on the justified side, but most countries believe it is the US-led NATO that has turned Ukraine into a pawn, threw it under the bus, and worse, attempted to prolong the war; It pushed India, one of its closest partners, to take sides, but only gained India’s cold shoulder.

Since the outbreak of the conflict, Indian people seem to have been fed up with the US putting pressure on or threatening India. Many of them asked: What kind of a partner is this? New Delhi’s current balanced diplomacy is thus warmly welcomed by the Indian public. This is a sign of their repugnance toward Washington.

Today, the US would be self-defeating if it stubbornly believes that whoever it cozies up to would feel honored and dance to its tune. Gone is the time when US warnings work.

April 9, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran: Zionist Entity’s Naked Terrorism Root Cause of Unrest in Palestine

Al-Manar | April 9, 2022

Iran decried the “apartheid Zionist regime’s naked acts of terrorism” as the root cause of unrest across the occupied Palestinian territories.

In a statement released on Friday night, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh reacted to the recent developments in occupied Palestine.

“Racism, repression, carnage, incarceration, massive deprivation and daily humiliation of the oppressed Palestinian people and also the naked terror by the apartheid Zionist regime are the root causes of all tensions in the occupied territories,” the statement read, as cited by Tasnim news agency.

Khatibzadeh said the defenseless people of Palestine have a legitimate, clear and natural right to fight against the occupiers in response to the repeated Israeli crimes.

The Iranian spokesman also reaffirmed Islamic Republic’s support for the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people’s fight for freedom.

Khatibzadeh, meanwhile, urged all nations, governments and international bodies to move toward providing the Palestinian people with security “in line with the principle of legitimate defense against occupation and terrorist activities by the apartheid Zionist regime and to prevent the aggression and brutal crimes of Zionists in Palestine.”

April 9, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine to use POWs for false flag op – Russia

Samizdat | April 9, 2022

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Saturday that Ukraine will use the bodies of captured Russian soldiers to manipulate Western reporters in Irpin, a town near Kiev. Ukraine previously accused Moscow of killing hundreds of civilians in the area around the capital, which Russia denies.

Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said Kiev is “preparing another provocation with the goal of accusing Russia of mass killings of civilians.”

Konashenkov claimed that Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officials are planning to take the bodies of people who “died from Ukrainian artillery” from a morgue to the basement of one of the buildings on the eastern outskirts of Irpin.

“The SBU will then stage the ‘neutralization’ of a ‘Russian reconnaissance unit’ at the Pushcha-Vodytsia forest, which will [according to Kiev] arrive in Irpin to ‘kill the witnesses of Russia’s war crimes.’”

The spokesman claimed that the Ukrainian forces will present the “bodies of captured Russian soldiers, who had been tortured and killed by nationalists” as “evidence” to the Western media.

Ukraine earlier accused Russian troops of killing more than 400 civilians in Bucha, also near the capital. EU officials and foreign reporters were shown what Kiev said were mass graves and bodies of people shot execution style. Moscow has denied any involvement in the deaths, insisting that the killings happened after its forces retreated from the area late last month.

Earlier, Moscow launched an investigation after several videos which emerged online, purportedly showing Ukrainian fighters torturing and executing Russian soldiers. Kiev claimed the videos were staged and said that its soldiers do not violate the rules of war.

April 9, 2022 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | | Leave a comment

Shutting Down Russia Bashing, Western Financed NGOs in Moscow

By Stephen Lendman | April 9, 2022

On Friday, Russia’s Justice Ministry ordered the closure of hostile Western NGOs in the country.

To date, 15 organizations were removed from its registry of international groups for “violations of the current legislation of the Russian Federation” — with no further elaboration.

They include offices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Institute for International Education, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Aga Khan Foundation, and the Wspolnota Polska Association.

On Friday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI) were added to Russia’s persona non grata list.

Both organizations publish defamatory reports on invented US/Western enemies.

They operate as mouthpieces for their interests.

They’re imperial tools.

HRW’s executive director Kenneth Roth is a former US federal prosecutor.

His predecessor Aryeh Neier left to become president of George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

Other past and present HRW staffers are former US officials or have ties to sources and groups representing Washington’s geopolitical interests — including the infamous undemocratic National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Like HRW, AI fronts for powerful US/Western interests.

Both organizations are more concerned about serving their funding sources and publicity to attract more of the same than human rights.

Russia shut down HRW for fake news rubbish like the following, saying:

“Today, Russia is more repressive than it has ever been in the post-Soviet era (sic).”

“(A)uthorities crack down on critical media, harass peaceful protesters, engage in smear campaigns against independent groups, and stifle them with fines (sic).”

In early April, HRW defied reality by falsely accusing Russian forces in Ukraine of “rape… summary execution(s), (along with) committing laws-of-war violations against civilians (sic), (and) looting civilian property (sic).”

HRW provided no verifiable evidence to support what it falsely claimed to document — because none exists.

It falsely claimed that Russian forces “rounded up” men in Ukraine and “executed them (sic).”

Ignoring generous humanitarian aid provided by Russian forces to Ukrainians, HRW falsely accused them of forcibly “taking food, firewood, clothing, and other items” in areas of the country where they’ve operated.

In response to shutting down its office and de-registering the group, HRW’s Roth said the following:

“This new iron curtain (sic) will not stop our ongoing efforts to defend the rights of all Russians and to protect civilians in Ukraine (sic).”

He lied accusing Moscow of “criminalizing” independent war reporting.

There’s nothing remotely “independent” about US/Western NGOs, notably not imperial tools like HRW, AI and other groups that are bribed with big bucks to serve their interests.

Ignoring democracy as it should be in Russia compared to US/Western fantasy versions, Roth falsely accused the country of “turn(ing) toward authoritarianism (sic).”

The above Big Lies were followed by an appeal for donations to continue its bashing of invented US/Western enemies.

Russia shut down AI for falsely accusing its authorities of “violat(ing) the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly…torture…disappearances…deportation of refugees and asylum seekers (along with) failure to address domestic violence (sic).”

It lied accusing Russia of “aggression in Ukraine (sic).”

It lied claiming that Russian forces “extrajudicially executed civilians in” the country (sic).

It lied saying that they’re responsible for “horrifying violence (and) widespread intimidation (sic).”

AI’s head Agnes Callamard turned truth on its head, falsely claiming that Russian forces are “kill(ing) unarmed civilians…in their homes and streets in acts of unspeakable cruelty and shocking brutality (sic),” adding:

“We gathered (so-called) evidence that Russian forces have committed extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings (sic).”

“People in Ukraine are facing a catastrophic human rights crisis.”

“People are dying, including children, and many thousands of lives are at risk.”

“Take action to demand that the Russian authorities stop this act of aggression and protect civilians now (sic).”

All of the above and lots more of the same apply to Nazified Ukrainian forces — clearly not Russia.

Yet HRW and AI falsely accused Moscow of their war crimes and related atrocities — in deference to their US/Western donors.

AI lied accusing Russian authorities of “an unprecedented, nationwide crackdown on independent journalism, anti-war protests and dissenting voices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (sic).”

“The Kremlin remains hellbent on hiding the human cost of its war and has blocked independent news sites and social media (sic).”

The above applies to how US/Western regimes operate, not Russia.

In response to Russia’s shutdown of its office, AI’s Callamard falsely said the following:

“Amnesty’s closing down in Russia is only the latest in a long list of organizations that have been punished for defending human rights (sic) and speaking the truth to the Russian authorities (sic).”

“In a country where scores of activists and dissidents have been imprisoned, killed or exiled (sic), where independent media has been smeared, blocked or forced to self-censor (sic), and where civil society organizations have been outlawed or liquidated (sic), you must be doing something right if the Kremlin tries to shut you up (sic).”

Russia should have shut down imperial tools HRW and AI long ago.

Pretending support for human rights belies how they, in fact, operate.

The rights and interests of US/Western donors alone are served — at the expense of what both organizations falsely claim to stand for.

April 9, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Cardiac Disorders Account for 20% of 1.2 Million Injuries Reported After COVID Vaccines, VAERS Data Show

By Megan Redshaw | The Defender | April 8, 2022

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released new data showing a total of 1,217,333 reports of adverse events following COVID vaccines were submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 1, 2022, to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.

The data included a total of 26,699 reports of deaths — an increase of 303 over the previous week — and 217,301 of serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period — up 2,780 compared with the previous week.

Excluding “foreign reports” to VAERS, 803,613 adverse events, including 12,304 deaths and 79,094 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S. between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 1, 2022.

Foreign reports are reports foreign subsidiaries send to U.S. vaccine manufacturers. Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, if a manufacturer is notified of a foreign case report that describes an event that is both serious and does not appear on the product’s labeling, the manufacturer is required to submit the report to VAERS.

Of the 12,304 U.S. deaths reported as of April  1, 17% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 21% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 59% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.

In the U.S., 561 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of April 1, including 331 million doses of Pfizer, 211 million doses of Moderna and 19 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (J&J).

Every Friday, VAERS publishes vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.

Historically, VAERS has been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to April 1, 2022, for 5- to 11-year-olds show:

  • 10,157 adverse events, including 239 rated as serious and 5 reported deaths.
    The most recent death involves a 7-year-old boy (VAERS I.D. 2152560) from Washington who died 13 days after receiving his first dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine when he went into shock and suffered cardiac arrest. He was unable to be resuscitated and died in the emergency department.
  • 17 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation).
    The CDC uses a narrowed case definition of “myocarditis,” which excludes cases of cardiac arrest, ischemic strokes and deaths due to heart problems that occur before one has the chance to go to the emergency department.
  • 38 reports of blood clotting disorders.

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to April 1, 2022, for 12- to 17-year-olds show:

  • 30,954 adverse events, including 1,778 rated as serious and 44 reported deaths.
    The most recent death reported to VAERS involves a 15-year-old girl (VAERS I.D. 2201554) from South Dakota who developed COVID despite receiving two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech. She received her first dose of Pfizer on July 30, 2021, and her second dose on August 20, 2021. She presented to the ER on January 15, 2022, with abdominal pain, tested positive for COVID, was put on a ventilator and subsequently passed away.
  • 68 reports of anaphylaxis among 12- to 17-year-olds where the reaction was life-threatening, required treatment or resulted in death — with 96% of cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
  • 650 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis, with 638 cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
  • 165 reports of blood clotting disorders, with all cases attributed to Pfizer.

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to April 1, 2022, for all age groups combined, show:

April 8, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Senator Klobuchar refuses to answer whether “misinformation” bill will ban saying “there are only two sexes”

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | April 8, 2022

During her appearance at the “Disinformation and Erosion of Democracy” conference, Senator Amy Klobuchar refused to answer a question about whether her Health Misinformation Act would result in the statement “there are only two sexes, male and female” being banned from Big Tech platforms.

Klobuchar’s bill was introduced in July 2021 and would reduce the scope of the civil liability immunity online platforms receive under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act if passed.

Currently, Section 230 gives online platforms and other “interactive computer services” immunity from civil liability if they act in “good faith” to restrict access to content that they or their users deem to be “obscene” or “objectionable.” Klobuchar’s bill would remove this immunity for platforms that use algorithms to promote “health misinformation” that’s “related to an existing public health emergency, as declared by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.”

At the Disinformation and Erosion of Democracy conference, Evita Duffy, co-founder and managing editor of The Chicago Thinker, pressed Klobuchar on how health misinformation would be defined under this bill.

“If I were to say that there are only two sexes, male and female, would that be considered misinformation that you think should be banned speech on social media platforms?” Duffy said.

Klobuchar responded by refusing to address the question.

“I’m not going to get into what misinformation,” Klobuchar said.

Klobuchar continued by insisting that the bill applies specifically to “vaccine misinformation” in a “public health crisis.”

While Klobuchar claimed that the bill is limited to so-called vaccine misinformation, the Health Misinformation Act’s proposal to amend Section 230 doesn’t actually mention vaccine misinformation. Instead, it proposes that providers of online platforms should be “treated as the publisher or speaker of health misinformation… if the provider promotes that health misinformation through an algorithm.”

Additionally, health misinformation isn’t defined in the bill; the power to define this pivotal term is handed over to the Secretary of Health and Human Services who will consult with “the heads of other relevant federal agencies and outside experts” when coming up with the definition.

The bill didn’t have the support of a single Republican when it was announced. Center-left tech policy activism group Chamber of Progress also warned that Democrats would “regret” the bill and that it would “turn future Republican Presidents into the speech police.”

April 8, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

The Hypocrisy of Medical Experts

By Vinay Prasad | April 3, 2022

On the one hand, there are many biomedical faculty who are passionately arguing why 2-4 year olds should be forced to wear cloth masks. (NY City is fighting this in the courts). Even though there is no randomized data, even though cloth masks failed in adults (let alone toddlers), even though it contradicts the WHO, even though it fails common sense, we must keep doing this!

On the other hand, doctors post pictures of them attending industry sponsored academic conferences. Getting drinks and partying. Packed in tight rooms. No masks. Praising each other for their work. Drenched in financial conflict of interest and pro-new and pro-costly bias.

How can both these things be true?

We are facing such a health emergency that we have to mask toddlers by force of law AND we can continue to enjoy entirely superfluous medical gatherings that risk viral spread.

Don’t say it’s vaccines.

Because the vaccinated, boosted 50 year old, elevated BMI doc with comorbidities has far higher risk than the healthy, unvax’d 4 year old.

Don’t say it’s about spreading the virus.

Both can spread the virus to others.

Don’t say it’s about the activities, importance.

The adult’s entirely excessive medical conference is less important than the child’s early education.

COVID-19 policy reveals the selfishness of adults, the indifference to kids, and the hypocrisy of medicine. It’s disgusting to witness and history will judge it poorly.

April 8, 2022 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

No guilty verdicts in alleged governor kidnapping plot

Samizdat | April 8, 2022

A jury in Michigan on Friday acquitted two men, and was unable to return a verdict on two others, who were accused of hatching a plot to kidnap and possibly execute Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. The FBI was heavily involved in the scheme, and the men argued that they were enticed into planning the kidnapping by a dozen agency informants.

Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta were found not guilty of conspiracy, with Harris also acquitted of firearms and explosives charges. A mistrial was declared in the cases of the two other men, Adam Fox and Barry Croft, meaning that while the pair walked free on Friday, the government can try them again in the future.

“We’ll be ready for another trial. … We’ll eventually get what we wanted out of this, which is the truth and the justice I think Adam is entitled to,” Fox’s attorney, Christopher Gibbons, told reporters after the verdicts were delivered.

“Our governor was never in any danger,” Caserta’s lawyer, Michael Hill, said outside the federal courthouse in Grand Rapids.

The four men were arrested in October 2020, when an undercover FBI informant drove them to a warehouse where they were under the impression that they would be buying explosives. Instead, they were handcuffed and led away by waiting agents.

A total of 14 men were arrested, while two others, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, pled guilty and testified during the trial, and eight others are awaiting trial in state courts. The government contended that the group planned to abduct Whitmer from her vacation home, place her “on trial,” and sentence her to death, thus kicking off a second civil war.

Defense lawyers argued from the outset that the men were set up by the FBI. Court documents revealed that at least a dozen confidential FBI informants took part in the alleged plot, and that the suspects were easily manipulated by their undercover comrades. Fox, whom the government attempted to paint as the ringleader of the band, was referred to by Garbin as “Captain Autism,” and the four men’s lawyers argued throughout the case that their clients lacked the mental wherewithal to orchestrate a complex kidnapping plot.

“I keep trying to push, press on them, where are you guys wanting to go with this? Because I’m wanting [to] know, are you wasting my time in a sense?” one informant said during the operation to his FBI superiors, suggesting that the agency was heavily involved in pushing the men to commit crimes.

According to an analysis of court documents by Revolver News, a right-wing US news site, the plotters’ driver and “explosives expert” were both agents, while the militia’s head of security was an undercover informant. An FBI source was present at every meeting leading up to the supposed kidnap attempt and, of the five men who drove a van to kidnap Whitmer, three were FBI agents and informants.

Agents also testified at length against Harris, Caserta, Fox, and Croft during their weeks-long trial.

The case ignited intense debate in the US about the supposed threat of “domestic terrorism.” Following the pro-Trump riot on Capitol Hill last January, which some suspect was also instigated by federal agents, countering this alleged threat became a central pillar of the Biden administration’s policy platform.

In the months between the kidnapping plot and the Capitol Hill riot, the head of the FBI field office in Detroit who oversaw the infiltration of the plot, Steven D’Antuono, was promoted to lead the agency’s Washington, DC field office.

Conservatives cheered Friday’s result. “Can’t downplay what happened in Michigan today,” pundit Jack Posobiec wrote on Twitter. “An FBI agent’s testimony used to be an instant guilty verdict from juries. Now their credibility is such a disaster that they’re losing cases that used to be slam dunks.”

Whitmer, a Democrat, saw things differently. “Today, Michiganders… are living through the normalization of political violence,” her chief of staff wrote in a statement. “There must be accountability and consequences for those who commit heinous crimes. Without accountability, extremists will be emboldened.”

April 8, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , | Leave a comment

The British are now officially hiding Covid vaccine data

… and they are lying about the reason why

By Alex Berenson | April 7, 2022

Until last week, the British government offered the best source of raw data on the efficacy of the Covid vaccines. Each Thursday, the UK Health Security Agency reported the number of new infections, hospitalizations, and deaths by vaccine status.

Since last fall, and especially since the Omicron variant hit, the reports have presented an increasingly dismal picture of vaccine efficacy. Last week’s report showed that in March, nearly 90 percent of adults hospitalized for Covid were vaccinated. And OVER 90 percent of deaths were in the vaccinated:

The importance of these reports is hard to overstate.

They were the single best source of raw data about how well the Covid vaccines were or were not working anywhere in the world. It was a long-running sequential series with clearly defined rules from a large country with high vaccine coverage.

Plus, because the British have national health insurance, the government could determine with near-certainty who had been vaccinated. As you can see, fewer than 1 percent of the people in the reports are called “unlinked” – meaning their vaccine status was undetermined.

AS OF THIS WEEK’S REPORT THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT IS NO LONGER PROVIDING THESE CHARTS.

The British government is offering the nonsensical excuse that it can no longer provide the figures because it has ended free universal testing for Covid: Such changes in testing policies affect the ability to robustly monitor COVID-19 cases by vaccination status, therefore, from the week 14 report onwards this section of the report will no longer be published.

The British government is lying.

Even if the end of free testing somehow affected its ability to provide “robust” data about infections, it would make no difference to the hospitalization or death figures, which are far more important. Unless Covid patients are going to be hospitalized anonymously, the Health Security Agency will still be able to match their names (and the names on death certificates) against vaccination records.

In fact the British government would be derelict not to continue to collect the data, and it surely will. But the public will no longer see it.

Why?

One reason and one reason only. Ever since I mentioned the existence of these reports to Joe Rogan in October, they have become an embarrassment. They are impossible to spin, and the clearest possible signal of vaccine failure.

But hiding the numbers won’t make the vaccines work better. It will just make people less likely to believe anything else public health authorities tell them about Covid and the vaccines – if that’s even possible at this point.

April 8, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

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