Why Are People Losing Confidence in Vaccines?
BY DR DAVID PATON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | NOVEMBER 8, 2022
A new peer reviewed article in the journal Vaccine has been published comparing surveys data on attitudes to vaccination from before the pandemic with attitudes now.
The authors report that “paradoxically, despite the success of COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, vaccine confidence has significantly declined since the onset of the pandemic”.
I am not quite sure why the authors appear so surprised at their result but a clue can be found in their use of the word “despite”. In many countries the “success” of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign relied in large part in pressuring, bullying and sometimes coercing people to get vaccinated.
Now if governments tell you that getting vaccinated is in your best interests, but that nonetheless those who choose not to get vaccinated will be pilloried in the press and on social media, barred from participating in normal everyday activities and, in some cases, sacked from their employment, perhaps we should not be surprised that people start to doubt whether those governments really do have their best interests at heart.
And those doubts have substance behind them. From a very early stage, it was clear that for many people, the known risks from vaccination probably outweighed any likely benefit. This was most obvious for those who had already had Covid (and for whom the marginal impact of vaccination in preventing a further infection was small), for groups who faced very low risks of serious illness if they contracted Covid and especially for young males for whom vaccination seems to be bring additional risks of heart problems.
But instead of acknowledging that Covid-19 vaccines may make sense for some people and not everyone, too many public health officials, scientists and politicians have systematically downplayed immunity from previous infection, brushed aside concerns over side effects and dismissed concerns that the roll out to the whole population was rushed given uncertainty over long term effects.
The latter was a particularly serious error. Right from the start of the roll out the public was assured that the vaccines had been thoroughly tested. Yet in May 2021, the Government decided to stop providing the AstraZeneca vaccine to under 40s due to the relatively high rate of blood clots. That decision would have been little consolation to the families of the 73 people whose deaths the MHRA report as being linked to that vaccine.
Rather than taking that as a lesson, authorities around the world doubled down and rolled out vaccine mandates, passports and travel restrictions as a way of twisting more arms into receiving the jab. Ironically, these measures were aimed primarily at young people for whom the benefits of vaccination were lowest and (particularly for males) the risks seem highest.
The official rationale for these policies was that vaccination would help protect others from being infected. We now know that there was never any evidence to back this up. And when official data started to suggest that the vaccinated may be getting infected at similar if not greater rates than the unvaccinated, the response of some journalists was not to probe further and investigate but to encourage the authorities to suppress the data. Truly, you could not make it up.
Researchers such as Alex de Figueiredo from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine warned at the time that coercion was likely to lead to a loss of trust in vaccination more generally. With the latest research paper, we have firm evidence that this is indeed the case.
It is not unreasonable to conclude that the most dangerous ‘anti-vaxxers’ over the past two years have not been fringe conspiracy theorists but governments and the public health establishment itself.
It’s a sorry state of affairs, but where do we go from here? Well public health leaders could start by switching tack. Rather than setting out to persuade everyone to get vaccinated, they could concentrate on providing good information about benefits and risks to help people decide whether vaccination is right for them. If, at the same time, they start to engage honestly with those who have suffered side effects and acknowledge the high level of uncertainty that still exists in the evidence, perhaps they can begin to regain some of the trust they have so negligently lost.
David Paton is Professor of Industrial Economics at Nottingham University Business School.
Pfizer Press Release on New Bivalent Booster Raises More Questions Than It Answers
By Madhava Setty, M.D. | The Defender | November 9, 2022
Pfizer last week announced what some media outlets called “good news” about its COVID-19 bivalent booster, for which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in August granted Emergency Use Authorization on the basis of testing conducted on eight mice.
In a press release, Pfizer summarized the updated data from its phase 2/3 clinical trial on the Pfizer-BioNTech Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent COVID-19 vaccine:
- Bivalent booster elicited approximately 4-fold higher neutralizing antibody titers against Omicron BA.4/BA.5 sublineages compared to the original COVID-19 vaccine in individuals older than 55 years of age.
- One month after a 30-µg booster dose of the bivalent vaccine, Omicron BA.4/BA.5-neutralizing antibody titers increased 13.2-fold from pre-booster levels in adults older than 55 years of age and 9.5-fold in adults 18 to 55 years of age, compared to a 2.9-fold increase in adults older than 55 years of age who received the original booster vaccine.
- Safety and tolerability profile of bivalent booster remains favorable and similar to the original COVID-19 vaccine.
In simplest terms, the bivalent booster increased antibodies to the Omicron sublineages by a factor of 13.2, whereas the original booster increased them by a factor of only 2.9.
This increase was seen only in people over age 55.
Although the new booster produced a more modest increase (9.5 fold) in antibodies in the younger age group (18-55), Pfizer chose not to report what the response was in the age-matched group who received the original booster.
Did the bivalent booster offer any advantage in people younger than 55? Pfizer’s press release sidesteps this important question by focusing only on the results in the 55 or older cohort.
Dr. Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, stated:
“These data demonstrate that our BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent vaccine works as conceptually planned in providing stronger protection against the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages.”
By “these data” Sahin is referring only to those 55 or older as no comparative results were given in the 18-55 group. But how does he know that this rise in antibody levels will provide “stronger protection against the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages?”
Were there any clinical outcome differences in terms of COVID-19 infections? None were recorded. Neither were any recorded in the preliminary data from the same study reported in a previous Pfizer press release.
This was likely why Sahin cautiously stated at that time:
“These preliminary findings are consistent with our preclinical data showing a substantial increase in the neutralizing antibody response against the Omicron sublineages BA.4 and BA.5.”
At what point does an “increase in the neutralizing antibody response” confer “stronger protection?”
Sahin doesn’t know — and neither does the FDA, which insisted that despite this uncertainty, the agency had enough grounds to cajole/compel/coerce those who acquired SARS-CoV-2 antibodies from a previous bout with COVID-19 to get jabbed anyway.
Questions about the two groups
The 36 people over age 55 who received the new bivalent formulation used in this comparison were taken from a larger pool of participants. They were “evenly stratified between those who had evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection and those who did not.”
Furthermore, Pfizer informed us that the “control” group — those people who received the original booster formulation — were also a subgroup of participants but were taken from a different study “while ensuring the same equal stratification.” This group is thus called a “comparator group” and is not a true control group.
How did Pfizer decide which participants to use from the two separate studies?
Pfizer assured us the trial participants they used in the comparative group were “randomly selected.” However, we are not told how Pfizer selected those in the bivalent booster cohort.
Did they choose participants who had particularly high antibody responses? Were those in the comparative group actually chosen randomly — or were they chosen because of their particularly low responses?
In fairness, we are dissecting a press release and not any published research. However, given the company’s poor track record on transparency and integrity, these questions are not entirely unfounded.
In any case, there would be little incentive for Pfizer to cherry-pick participant data to showcase the benefit of its new bivalent booster. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has already granted Pfizer Emergency Use Authorization for the bivalent booster.
However, Pfizer admitted that there was a difference between the two groups. The interval between the booster and the trial participant’s last exposure to a vaccine was significantly longer in those who received the bivalent booster (10-11 vs. 7 months). Could this difference affect the antibody responses in the two groups?
Pfizer shrugs this off, explaining that “Despite this difference, pre-booster antibody titers were similar for both.”
But pre-booster antibody titers were not the metric of interest — it was the difference in antibody titers before and after that Pfizer was seeking to compare. At least one study indicates that a longer interval between vaccine exposure results in a greater antibody response.
Furthermore, Pfizer’s results indicate that the antibody response was lower in those who had a previous bout of COVID-19, or as they put it, “greater in those without prior infection.”
As early as February 2022, the CDC reported that 57.7% of the U.S. population had been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 through seroprevalence studies. Not only is this most recently available data nine months old, but the CDC also admitted that this was an underestimate because breakthrough infections result in lower anti-N titers (vaccinated people who succumb to COVID-19 generate lower levels of anti-nucleocapsid antibodies than those who are unvaccinated).
In other words, unless you are in the minority and have not had COVID-19, you can look forward to a lower antibody response from the bivalent booster.
What about safety?
“The safety profile remains favorable for the bivalent vaccine and consistent with the original vaccine,” according to Pfizer.
And Pfizer knows this because three dozen bivalent booster recipients didn’t suffer any serious adverse events after one month of observation.
Apparently, Pfizer continues to believe that its original COVID-19 vaccine has a favorable safety profile — despite the more than 31,000 reports of deaths submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS (most occurring in the first seven days after inoculation), the 7.8% of vaccinated people who reported to V-safe that they sought medical attention after a COVID-19 vaccine and the nearly 80,000 serious adverse events and 1,223 deaths reported within three months of the vaccine’s roll-out, according to Pfizer’s own post-marketing analysis.
Ongoing studies will not determine any benefit
Despite reporting only inconsequential data in three dozen people over the age of 55, Pfizer announced in the same press release:
“A booster dose of the BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent vaccine has been authorized for emergency use by the FDA for ages 5 years and older and has also been granted marketing authorization in the EU by the European Commission following a positive opinion from the EMA for ages 12 years and older. An application for marketing authorization of the BA.4/BA.5 booster has been submitted to the EMA for children ages 5 through 11.”
And more good news:
“[Pfizer and BioNTech] also initiated a Phase 1/2/3 trial in September 2022, to evaluate the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of different doses and dosing regimens of the companies’ Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent vaccine among children 6 months through 11 years of age.”
Yes. It is important for parents to know what dose their child can tolerate.
However, conspicuously missing in the design of this ongoing pediatric trial is the determination of efficacy — how good the product is in protecting children from contracting COVID-19 or from negative COVID-19 outcomes (death, hospitalization, ER visits, etc.). Isn’t that the point of a “vaccine” trial?
Apparently not — at least not according to the study description:
“The purpose of this clinical trial is to learn about the safety, extent of the side effects, and immune responses of the study vaccine (called bivalent BNT162b2 Omicron containing vaccine) in healthy children.”
Although having an estimated enrollment of 2,270 children, this ongoing trial will not answer the primary question parents will ask: Will this therapy benefit my kid?
Rather it will only allow Pfizer and BioNTech to determine how powerful their experimental mRNA product is in provoking infants and children to generate Omicron-specific antibodies.
Why are Pfizer and BioNTech not interested in proving their product does anything meaningful? Could it be because they realize this would be an impossible task?
Using data from nine months ago, the CDC reported that at least 75% of children in this age group had already acquired natural immunity to this disease. It is highly improbable that this study could demonstrate any differences in COVID-19 infection rates or outcomes, even with more than 2,000 children enrolled.
Madhava Setty, M.D. is senior science editor for The Defender.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Germany wants more scrutiny of Twitter after Elon Musk takeover
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | November 10, 2022
Germany’s ruling party the Social Democrats (SPD) has called for more scrutiny of Twitter, following the takeover by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
There have been mixed reactions to the new ownership of Twitter. Some politicians are complaining about a potential rise in “misinformation” and “hate speech,” while some are anticipating the changes he plans to make to make the platform more free-speech-friendly.
Some members of SPD have called on the relevant regulators and Justice Minister Marco Buschmann to put Twitter under tighter scrutiny to make sure it follows EU’s rules on content.
“For me, the fact that Twitter is being taken over by somebody who wants to use the network for political purposes even more strongly is highly problematic,” SPD party chief Lars Klingbeil said, speaking to a local newspaper, Handelsblatt.
“Should the variety of opinion be limited further, authorities will have to take resolute action.”
Jens Zimmermann, the party’s digital policy spokesperson, was also critical of the new ownership of Twitter. He noted that the recent mass layoffs will make it difficult for Twitter to fulfill the EU rules on content moderation and fail to respond to complaints related to harmful content.
He said that the federal justice office should “put Twitter under strict scrutiny.”
Former Greek soccer player Vassilis Tsiartas is sentenced over Facebook post accused of being transphobic
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | November 10, 2022
Former Greek soccer player Vassilis Tsiartas was fined 5,000 euro ($5,008) and given a 10-month suspended prison sentence for criticizing the legalization of gender transition surgery in children.
Tsiartas was taken to court by the Transgender Support Association, which accused him of violating a law against “racism” that contains provisions against inciting violence or hatred based on gender ideology.
In 2017, responding to a law legalizing gender identity, the former soccer player posted on Facebook that he hoped “the first sex changes are carried out on the children of those who ratified this abomination.” He added, “Legitimize pedophiles too, to complete the crimes.”
Tsiartas is the first person to be convicted under the law against incitement to violence or hatred. The Transgender Support Association called the conviction “particularly important for the transgender community.” It added that it will continue fighting “all forms of intolerance, racism, and incitement to discrimination, hatred, and violence.”
The LGBT group also wants to “fully safeguard the human rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ and especially transgender people in every sector of the public and private sphere.”
Tsiartas plans to appeal the ruling, according to the Greek Reporter.
Savior Al Gore wields windmills to stop the storms and end the Culture of Death
By Jo Nova | November 8, 2022
Like a conglomerate witch-doctor cum pagan-preacher the only thing Al Gore recycles is the overproof grade hellfire of centuries past. Chieftain Al will stop the storms if only everyone will do as he says and invest in his climate asset fund. For he cometh armed with windmills that stop rain-bombs and solar panels that hold back the sea.
Like medieval Occult leaders, superstitious rain dancers, and healers with magical cures, the modern witchdoctors have satellites and simulations, but run on the same old formula since time began. Fear, smear, demons, and magic. All prophesies are ambiguous. Nothing he sayth can be falsified.
Coal, apparently, is not just a source of emissions, but a veritable “culture of death.” Despite the era of coal being a time of record crop yields, bountiful food, travel, and exponential world population growth. Despite the working class of today being richer than the kings of centuries past.
One day, he promises, after he is safely dead, all weather will be good weather, and only the perfect amount of rain will fall, and ski seasons will start and end on the same day each year. Trust me, he says.
Damian Carrington, at The Guardian, swallows the whole prospectus:
Al Gore has pleaded for leaders to end what he calls ‘this culture of death’
The former US vice-president Al Gore is on fist-waving, passionate form in front of world leaders at Cop27. “We continue to use the thin blue atmosphere as an open sewer,” he says. “It is getting steadily worse. We have a credibility problem – all of us – we are not doing enough.”
Gore says we can continue the “culture of death” by continuing to dig up fossil fuels, and cites vast floods in Pakistan, heatwaves and “rain bombs” in China, and a million displaced in Nigeria.
And the valley of death will spread, and 1 billion immigrants will move into your home. (And you thought the southern US border crisis was bad?)
“The current areas of the world considered uninhabitable by doctors are small today but due to expand,” he says, with 1 billion migrants potentially crossing international borders this century, with all the colossal difficulties that would bring. If we stop subsidizing the culture of death and back renewable energy instead we can survive, Gore says, and no new fossil fuel projects are acceptable.
Here me O’ Minions — take this essence of arsenic, I mean lithium, and it shall cure your poverty:
Instead, Gore says, “Africa can be a renewable energy superpower”. He says 40% of world potential is in Africa.
Sure, Africa can be a renewable energy superpower, just like nowhere on Earth is. Europe can’t manage it, but Chad will show the way.
Of course, those who question their Occult Leader are racist pigs:
He says the dash for gas in Africa, a contentious issue at COP27, is a new form of colonisation, with the fuel to be sent to rich nations. He quotes the late archbishop Desmond Tutu as saying climate change is the apartheid of our time.
Somehow drilling gas in Africa for Europe is “colonisation” but using African children to mine cobalt for our batteries is the work of saints. Often the same saints want to segregate nations according to skin color. When did Al Gore say “All Lives Matter?” I can’t recall…
Toss in an attempt at being a Concern-Troll:
[Gore] also warns about stranded assets of billions, especially in Africa, if climate action closes oil and gas plants early.
Shucks. The last thing Al Gore wants is Africans to be lifted out of energy poverty.
So much better to keep casting those spells and doing rain dances. Africans are just his stage props.
Saskatchewan premier slams Trudeau’s radical climate agenda
By Anthony Murdoch | Life Site News | November 8, 2022
REGINA, Saskatchewan — Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has bluntly announced that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s extreme environmental policies can go to “hell,” and that his province will assert full autonomy over its natural resources.
“To hell with that!” Moe told the Saskatchewan legislature’s speaker of the house during a debate about the Trudeau government’s environmental policies on November 3.
Reading sections of a recent report by Pipeline News verbatim, Moe quoted the outlet saying, “‘Thou shalt not use coal for power generation post-2030,’ the federal government hath said. ‘And it’s moving to do the same with natural gas by 2035.’”
“‘On November 1, the Province of Saskatchewan said, ‘To hell with that,’ but in a more sophisticated, legal manner,’” Moe added, further quoting the article’s humorous, mocking tone.
While Moe employed a joking tone while quoting the report, he continued in a serious manner to blast Trudeau’s environmental policy goals, stating that “a fossil fuel phase–out by 2035″ is “going to make for an awfully cold house in Saskatoon on Jan. 1, 2036,” adding that “One needs to look no further than the European Union” to see the impacts of such policies.
“I would say for the rest of the world to observe and it’s on full display for the world to observe. The energy costs in the European Union over the last number of years due to enacting these solely environmental focus policies have been skyrocketing,” stressed the politician.
As mentioned by Moe, the Trudeau government’s current environmental goals – which are in lockstep with the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” – include phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades.
The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil-fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – of which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.
Pushing back against federal interference in the energy sector, the government of Saskatchewan introduced the Saskatchewan First Act on November 1 to “confirm Saskatchewan’s autonomy and exclusive jurisdiction over its natural resources.”
In specific, the new piece of legislation will amend the province’s constitution to make it so that the province has “sovereign autonomy and asserts Saskatchewan’s exclusive legislative jurisdiction under the Constitution of Canada over a number of areas,” such as the “exploration for non-renewable natural resources.”
The Saskatchewan First Act will also allow the province to choose what fuel it wants to use to power its electrical grid, independent of the dictates of the federal government.
Alberta also pushes back
Last week in neighboring province of Alberta, newly-selected Premier Danielle Smith also accused the Trudeau government of pushing “hostile policies” towards the province that have “been led by the most extreme left on environmental, social and governance ratings.”
She noted that such policies “focus so narrowly just on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions and the demonization campaign that has happened against our energy industry, which sadly, the federal government with [Minister of Environment and Climate Change] Steven Guilbeault is aligned with.”
Smith applauded Moe’s Saskatchewan First Act, and said that in Alberta her soon-to-be-released Sovereignty Act will likewise help assert the province’s autonomy over its abundant natural resources, and prevent federal government overreach.
“This is the reason we have to stand up to Ottawa. They have no right to regulate our industry.”
While Trudeau’s plan has been pushed under the guise of “sustainability,” his intention to decrease nitrous oxide emissions by limiting the use of fertilizer is something farmers have warned will reduce profits and could lead to food shortages.
Moreover, experts are warning that the Trudeau government’s new “clean fuel” regulations, which come into effect next year, will cost Canadian workers – many of whom are already struggling under decades-high inflation rates – an extra $1,277 annually on average.
Facebook launches new tools to “combat climate misinformation”
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | November 9, 2022
The world’s largest social network, Facebook, has announced plans to increase its elevation of “authoritative climate information” and expand its “fact checking” of content that it deems to be climate misinformation.
Facebook will expand its fact-checking tools by increasing the availability of its “Climate Science Center” (a page that contains “factual resources from the world’s leading climate organizations and actionable steps people can take in their everyday lives to combat climate change”) to 165 countries and expanding its “Climate Inform Labels” (labels that are added to Facebook posts and link to posts from the Climate Science Center).
The tech giant has also launched a “Climate Science Literacy Initiative” that will “pre-bunk climate misinformation” by running ads that “feature five of the most common techniques used to misrepresent climate change.”
To boost “authoritative” climate information, Facebook is testing a new “Climate Pledges” feature in Groups and has committed to amplifying the voices of “trusted organizations in the climate space.”
This new Climate Pledges feature was developed with inputs from the United Nations (UN) and contains what it calls “expert-backed climate solutions” that “spark conversation” within Groups and “help people understand the most impactful actions they can take.”
Facebook is also working closely with several climate change groups such as Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub, Cambridge Social Decision-Making Laboratory, and Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Facebook will boost these organizations by “providing ad credits, insights and support to help them share reliable information about climate change, and inform users about common techniques used to spread myths about climate science.”
Facebook’s announcement of these changes follows it and other tech giants facing mounting pressure to censor content that challenges the mainstream climate change narrative as climate groups, science groups, and even tech employees demand more censorship.
Not only has there been an increased push for Big Tech platforms to censor climate content that deviates from the mainstream narrative but influential groups, banks, and executives are also pushing for increased tracking and surveillance of individual carbon usage as a proposed strategy for combating climate change.
WEF: Eco-anxiety a Driver of the Mental Health Pandemic
By Igor Chudov | November 9, 2022
Big news from the World Economic Forum’s agenda article: Eco-anxiety is a major mental health issue for our young people.
67% of young people are concerned about the impact of climate change on their mental health.
Reread this, please!
They are not merely worried about climate change. They are concerned about the impact of worrying about “climate change” on their MENTAL HEALTH!
Since many of my readers are not currently suffering from eco-anxiety, some may not immediately understand the mental struggle. But it is real, I assure you.
So bad is the climate change anxiety that there exists a “Climate Psychiatry Alliance,” an organization of psychiatrists helping those suffering from climate change anxiety. Watch the co-founder of “Climate Psychiatry Alliance” explain her work helping sufferers of climate anxiety.
World Economic Forum’s article acknowledges that there is a mental health pandemic caused by eco-anxiety:
Identifying as female, using social media, and having a sense of helplessness all increase susceptibility to this new global mental health pandemic.
Fortunately, the WEF has a suggestion on how to cope with climate anxiety: engage in activism. A young sufferer of climate change anxiety Sofia Palau, did just that. To alleviate her sense of helplessness, she joined a youth climate activism group, “Youth vs. Apocalypse,” whose purpose is actually to create MORE climate anxiety:
No doubt, like most in-groups, “Youth vs. Apocalypse” take pains to validate and normalize their climate anxieties. Having “climate change panic attacks” is a matter of course for them and is celebrated.
Recruiting more young people into their climate advocacy group reaffirms their general outlook. It finds an outlet for frustrations that rule its members. Watch the video if you want.
The WEF agenda article explains the theoretical underpinnings:
While emotion-focused coping has been the most common strategy used by adolescents and young adults to date, research has found that meaning-focused coping is the most effective in regards to eco-anxiety. When done correctly, meaning-focused coping, such as getting involved in the fight against climate change through volunteering or campaigning, facilitates positive emotions like hope without ignoring negative ones like anger or anxiety.
The end result is processing, rather than getting stuck in, anxiety and feeling motivated to engage in activism and other pro-environmental behavior.
What is the result? More and more anxiety-affected young people suffering from real mental health problems, with adults in charge recommending that they get together and recruit more people who would also be made to suffer from climate anxiety.
The likely outcome is mass psychosis or mass formation of people who are good and well-intentioned but stuck in an anxiety-ridden in-group circular dynamic.
This pandemic of climate fear is not entirely dissimilar to the “mass formation” that Matias Desmet discussed so many times concerning whipping up fear during the Covid pandemic. Is the climate anxiety mass formation purely accidental? Not really.
All this is facilitated by rich old men with well-positioned investments, of course.
The press, sponsored by the same rich old men, intentionally creates climate anxiety in people also:
Kids are particularly targeted with child-friendly but anxiety-provoking messaging:
Please be Respectful to Your Own Kids!
I hope my somewhat tongue-in-cheek but completely accurate retelling of what is going on in the mental health/climate activism world was interesting and perhaps made you smile.
Do NOT, please, make my story into a justification to dismiss your children! If your children, or young friends, suffer from climate anxiety, remember that
- they are human beings
- they base their emotions on what they see on TV and on their social feeds
- that stuff is important to them
- rebelliousness is a part of growing up
- anxiety, helplessness, and hysteria do NOT need to be parts of growing up
- we live in an uncertain world, and some of their concerns may be justified
- the number one goal is NOT to lose their trust and respect
- never dismiss them as persons or make fun of their anxieties
Any parent whose child has ANY anxiety needs to engage with the child, listen to them, NOT be judgmental, offer support, etc. Our children are NOT copies of ourselves (I bet you changed compared to when you were 16 also,) and we cannot force them to think the way we want.
A bonus is instilling a sense of self-reliance and internal locus of control in your children so that they do not feel “helplessness” and are not compelled to be a part of groups to normalize their anxieties. Helplessness drives many bad decisions and affects mental and physical health.
I am not a child psychiatrist or anything, but if my own hypothetical daughter (I have two great sons) suffered from climate anxiety, I would listen to her extensively. Then I would plant trees with her and make her dig big holes (the bigger, the better) to plant larger trees. Small trees are too easy. Perhaps plant a garden to “use less diesel fuel to grow food.”
Challenge some of their most anxiety-provoking beliefs without dismissing them. Explain how this tree needs CO2 to grow. That could give the child a sense of purpose and balance instead of falling prey to lunatic groups like “Youth Apocalypse.”
If you, my reader, disagree with me, you are welcome to comment and explain why.
My message would be remiss without noting that we, Covid-skeptics, also form an in-group with a very special narrative. Being vilified and targeted by the media, of course, does not help. Worrying about our health and loved ones could also create anxiety — oftentimes justified. A sense of helplessness among the unvaccinated was purposely instilled:
I am also, frankly, worried about what will happen with excess mortality and reduction in births!
Thus, we could be susceptible to the same challenges as some climate-anxious young people. So let’s make sure that we keep each other challenged, debate, and use our virtual gatherings to at least somewhat alleviate our anxieties instead of always whipping them up.
I am personally guilty of making several anxiety–provoking posts. I kind of realized that a while ago and try to mix them with good news to keep the balance.
Sorry if I sound too opinionated. Guilty as charged.
British Economy May Be Left Paralyzed Due to Soaring Mental Disorders
Samizdat – 10.11.2022
The number of British citizens neither working nor looking for a job has grown dramatically since the beginning of the pandemic. Much of this can be attributed to mental health issues, which could impede the UK’s economic growth, economists warn.
According to research carried out by a UK media outlet, the number of economically inactive people in Britain rose by 537,500 between June 2019 and June 2022. About 450,000 of these cases were connected to mental health issues. The number of economically inactive people in the UK has skyrocketed to almost nine million. Britons are plagued by depression and anxiety disorders, the research shows.
This trend will have a negative impact on the British economy, the analysts warn. For instance, Deloitte’s research unit states that mental disorders of employees affect the productivity and turnover of companies. According to their report, annual costs associated with poor mental health have increased by 25% since the outbreak of COVID-19.
The epidemic of mental disorders will affect the British economy globally, economists claim.
Many experts claim the “rise in economic inactivity will hold UK growth back.” Economically inactive people do not contribute to public finances. Furthermore, the disability benefits bill in the UK has already reached £14.7 billion.
Mental disorders are among a number of conditions that may qualify for disability benefits. Depression and anxiety disorders are on the list, but in general any mental condition qualifies if it prevents a person from gaining or maintaining employment.
STOP the Infanticide! 5,000% Increase in Fetal Deaths Following COVID-19 Vaccines!
The U.S. Government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) was updated today, and there are now 4,534 fetal deaths recorded in VAERS following COVID-19 vaccines given to pregnant and child-bearing women. (Source.)
And these recorded fetal deaths are but a fraction of the real number of unborn children who have died since the COVID-19 experimental vaccines were given emergency use authorization, as a previous report published for Department of Health and Human Services stated that fewer than 1% of all vaccine adverse events are actually reported to VAERS. (Source.)
Three of these fetal deaths have followed the new Bivalent COVID-19 booster shots from Pfizer and Moderna, including a 26-year-old woman from Arizona who developed breast cancer following the vaccine, and chose to have chemotherapy and terminate the life of her unborn child.
VAERS ID: 2447825: Began noting a breast lump 9/2021 Biopsied ER/PR + HER 2- breast cancer MRI 3/17/2022 with hepatic mets multiple small pulmonary mets also noted. Liver biopsy 4/1/22 consistent with metastatic breast cancer. Noted to be pregnant when she went for port-a-cath.
Choose to terminate pregnancy 3/31/22 to allow for complete chemo. ACT 4/5/22-7/23/22 . PET noted resolved axillary nodules and pulmonary nodules, Liver mets responding but still with activity. Sarted Lupron and anastrozole 8/10/22, Kisqoli addes 8/23/22.
I am not saying MRNA vaccines caused this but I have seen way more and way younger breast cancer in this remote population in than in a very long career.
We have had 18 new cancers since the vaccines only 1 was unvaccinated. This is the youngest ever. (Source.)
By way of contrast, for the 30 years prior to the emergency use authorization of the COVID-19 vaccines, there were 2,245 reported cases of fetal deaths following all FDA-approved vaccines, or about 75 fetal deaths per year. (Source.)
Taking the total fetal deaths following COVID-19 vaccines for the year 2021, 3,774 fetal deaths (source), that is an increase of 4,943% over the yearly average of fetal deaths following all FDA-approved vaccines for the previous 30 years.
Besides these government statistics from VAERS, medical professionals are corroborating this evidence of infanticide by COVID-19 vaccines based on the increase they are seeing in fetal deaths and stillborn babies following the roll outs of the COVID-19 vaccines.
An alleged leaked email from a “managing nurse” from a hospital in Fresno, California, states that there has been an increase in stillbirths following the COVID-19 vaccines, and that this trend is expected to continue according to Epoch Times.
This follows a report we recently published by Dr. John Campbell regarding the increase in neonatal deaths in Scotland.
And that follows another report we published last month (October, 2022) from Dr. James Thorp, a board certified OBGYN and Maternal Fetal Medicine Physician with over 43 years of obstetrical experience, who was interviewed by Dr. Drew Pensky and stated that in the past two years since the mRNA COVID vaccines were introduced, he has seen an “off-the-charts” rise in sudden fetal death and adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as fetal malformation and even fetal cardiac arrest, among his patients.
Who watches the watchmen?
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | November 8, 2022
Early this month, HART outlined the detailed mechanisms that have been deployed to crush constructive dissent in the Covid era. The assault on the rational mind has been one of shock & awe — a concerted effort to ridicule, gaslight and coerce those considering the ultimate heresy of questioning what they have been told to believe. “Moving at the speed of science” (big pharma terms and conditions apply) seems to imply the opposite of what normal human beings would describe as the scientific method.
Bloated and corrupt monopolies tend, over time, to buckle and collapse under the weight of their own inconsistencies. Discrepancies become harder to paper over; the truth will out. ‘Fact’-checkers — so often funded by those their ‘fact’-checks protect — are increasingly having to back-pedal and deal with periodic humiliation as they post-rationalise their obviously fallible discernment.
Despite all these bloopers, ‘fact’-checkers are still hawking their wares: much like flares and chaff on the battlefield, they distract, distort and deflect efforts to engage in substantive debate. It is usually best to ignore their antics — engaging in serious dissection of straw men erected by po-faced (yet well-funded) narrative ninnies just stymies effort that could otherwise be expending on sorting wheat from chaff. After all — cui bono? If one has spotted a genuine warning signal that might undermine a profitable grift, is it not likely that the peddler of that grift will wish to muddy the waters so as to protect their racket? The more the fact-checkers squirm as they face up to a litany of their own contradictory assertions, the more it highlights the work of those that are scientifically critiquing the pronouncements emanating from big pharma’s marketing mouthpieces.
It is no secret that members of HART devoted some of their spare time in support of Dr Aseem Malhotra whose two peer-reviewed journal papers were recently published in the Journal of Insulin Resistance (the JIR Papers ). Up popped the usual suspects with a cacophony of denigrating ad hominem and otherwise spurious attacks. To be quite honest, the more abusive and baseless these are, the more likely it is that they do not have anything material to contribute, and the noise just brings the papers to the attention of a wider audience.
On a more positive note, some of the ‘fact’-checkers at least sugar-coat their ‘findings’ in polite language. This is to be encouraged — after all, the thrust & parry of scientific discourse requires hypotheses to be challenged. Science Feedback, via their subsidiary Health Feedback, wrote a long article in response to Dr Malhotra’s JIR Papers. It seems they did not really have much of a legitimate complaint, because the first 350-odd words are devoted to ‘criticism by association’. One might paraphrase: “Dr Malhotra has links to HART, who have said things that big pharma do not like!”.
Moving on, Health Feedback attempts to undermine the evidence presented in the JIR Papers that the mRNA injections “might do more harm than good”, which they claim is unsupported, citing a supposed p-hacking issue in the conclusions of one (a pre-print) of the 48 references in the Part I of Dr Malhotra’s papers. It is bold of Health Feedback to attempt to rubbish this claim given the conclusions of a 23 million-strong cohort study published in JAMA Cardiology in April 2022 that supported this statement. Subsequently, a pre-print has also demonstrated that mRNA boosters resulted in 18 severe adverse events for every Covid hospitalisation prevented for 18-29 year-olds, and another new publication from Japanese researchers finds that: “SARS-CoV-2 vaccination was associated with higher risk of myocarditis death, not only in young adults but also in all age groups including the elderly. Considering [the] healthy vaccinee effect, the risk may be 4 times or higher than the apparent risk of myocarditis death. Underreporting should also be considered. Based on this study, risk of myocarditis following SARS-CoV-2 vaccination may be more serious than that reported previously”.
While of course the last two of these papers only became available after their ‘fact’-check, Health Feedback still doubles down on its claims by arguing in a subsequent section that there is little evidence that post-vaccine myocarditis has long-term health implications. This is a classic ‘hostage to fortune’ statement which, over time, will answer itself — in the meantime, why should unsuspecting vaccinees be unwitting guinea pigs in a real-world experiment to find this out? It is somewhat pertinent that this question is being asked in a week that Moderna admitted — deep in the supplementary data from a clinical trial of its mRNA injections — that there had been a “new-onset Type 1 diabetes mellitus and diabetic ketoacidosis” in a one-year-old infant which was considered related by the trial assessors. No need for a ‘fact’-check on this one: this tragedy is both a travesty and the truth.
Health Feedback takes the above criticisms as supporting evidence for the claim that Dr Malhotra has deployed a ‘cherry picking’ strategy to ignore evidence that does not support his conclusions. This is a touch rich. Dr Malhotra covered a lot of ground in the JIR Papers, citing almost 110 references, a large proportion of which are published journal papers. A legitimate response to the JIR Papers is to challenge the specific claims made and to seek to challenge the logic that underpins the conclusions. The p-hacking point (which was invalid as explained by HART member Prof Fenton here) that they bring to bear is a useful challenge that contributed to the debate — it just so happens that Health Feedback’s response strengthens Dr Malhotra’s argument by allowing these other references to be brought to the attention of the reader.
As for the various (slightly pathetic, it has to be said) attempts to ridicule and “play the man, not the ball” with respect to organisations like HART, characterising us as misinformation spreaders: these are particularly noteworthy for their lack of supporting evidence. We would encourage Health Feedback to interrogate our output and come up with specific evidence of their claim. While they are at it, they might like to comment on this somewhat unfortunate statement from one of Health Feedback’s front of house members:
“The experts are saying that the vaccines do not reduce transmission, but that is an inaccurate statement,” [Dr Monica] Gandhi says. “Vaccines have always decreased transmission. What they should be saying is that the clinical trials were not designed to test for asymptomatic infection, but there is every biological reason in the world to believe that they will reduce asymptomatic transmission”.
The highlighted text above is incorrect: it is well known that so-called ‘leaky vaccines’ do “not prevent infection, viral replication or transmission”. Call the ‘fact’-checkers. Oh.
And as for ‘every biological reason’ to ‘believe’… are ‘fact’-checkers in the business of proving things scientifically or amplifying beliefs? Real-world evidence seems to indicate that transmission seems to be somewhat unaffected — or possibly worsened — by the injections.
Given that this statement was published in a March 2021 Association of American Medical Colleges article that was claiming to address vaccine hesitancy (read: coerce people to participate in the mRNA injection scheme), perhaps Health Feedback might wish to look at the plank in its own eye while addressing any motes in Dr Malhotra’s?
HART applauds Dr Malhotra’s attempts to sound the alarm that the precautionary principle is not being adhered to. The Nelsonian ignorance of various ‘public health’ bodies — who keep declaring that they “really do not see the signal” — is the real villain of the piece.
All in all, HART welcomes the publicity that outfits like Health Feedback provide, despite the disappointing ‘fact’-checking moniker. They are, in a somewhat peculiar way, furthering scientific discourse by advertising Dr Malhotra’s work to the wider public. We are honoured to be associated with brave and principled people such as him.
Pfizer to fast-track more vaccines for pregnant moms, despite mounting evidence rushed COVID shots harmed babies
The Defender | November 9, 2022
On Nov. 1, Pfizer issued a press release about an investigational vaccine for pregnant women the company said will protect babies from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
Not coincidentally, RSV is the latest viral bugaboo to hit the headlines, with frantic news accounts of “overwhelmed” hospitals sounding eerily reminiscent of the early coronavirus fear-mongering.
Buoyed by the successful global marketing of its COVID-19 jabs — an estimated 49% of pregnant women worldwide reportedly views the vaccines favorably and almost 1 in 4 pregnant women in the U.S. took them — Pfizer is hoping to hit another home run with the RSV vaccine.
The vaccine maker said it intends to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval by the end of the year.
The FDA, meanwhile, has been busy handing out “Breakthrough Therapy” designations to Pfizer as if they were papal dispensations, signaling a regulatory willingness to speed up approval not only for Pfizer’s RSV vaccine but also for a maternal Group B Streptococcus (GBS) vaccine the company is developing.
To this expedient end, the FDA allowed Pfizer to “stop the [RSV] study short,” halting enrollment at about 7,400 participants — though the trial was supposed to involve 10,000 pregnant women.
Researchers devoted to vaccine orthodoxy pay lip service to the need for an extra-high evidentiary bar for pregnancy vaccines — stating that such vaccines should not only prove they reduce illness, with minimal reactogenicity in the woman, the fetus and the neonate, but should also “demonstrate safety or lack of evidence of harm.”
However, those turn out to be empty words.
In fact, the influenza and Tdap (tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis) vaccines that public health agencies have long recommended for pregnant women never underwent any clinical trial safety testing in that population, and the FDA never licensed those vaccines specifically for pregnant women.
Moreover, flu shots and Tdap shots have never even resulted in any statistically significant reduction in the outcomes they are supposed to address.
With the advent of Emergency Use Authorization COVID-19 vaccines, the FDA, Pfizer and other manufacturers barely made any pretense of assessing maternal safety, and likely “colluded together to conceal damaging data” about high rates of fetal death.
Other researchers, however — and even vaccine insiders — began to speak out in 2021.
For example, Canadian researchers writing in late 2021 worried that many of the systemic reactions commonly reported after COVID-19 vaccination might be “sufficient to affect fetal/neonatal development.”
Those authors included vaccinologist Byram Bridle, Ph.D., who earlier in 2021 characterized the COVID-19 vaccines’ disturbing biodistribution and accumulation in vital organs as “a big mistake,” and neurology professor Dr. Steven Pelech, who expressed repeated concerns about myocarditis and the vaccines’ risks to young people.
Now, as horrified pregnant women who took the COVID-19 jabs experience skyrocketing miscarriages, stillbirths and fetal malformations, they are wondering why regulators issued no warnings.
But as Pfizer’s exuberant RSV press release and the FDA’s complacent endorsement of clinical trial shortcuts suggest, vaccine makers and regulators not only intend to ignore or bulldoze even the most outsized safety signals but are clearly positioning themselves to go after pregnant women in an even bigger way.
‘Quibbles’ and questions
The details provided — or omitted — about Pfizer’s RSV clinical trial exemplify manufacturers’ and regulators’ cavalier approach toward pregnant women.
Commenting on Pfizer’s announcement, family physician Dr. Buzz Hollander — who clarified that he is predisposed to celebrate the new RSV vaccine offering — nonetheless noted a number of serious criticisms:
- Pfizer released “just a press release” but no data, making it “impossible to pick [the vaccine’s declared efficacy] apart.”
- Pfizer offered no explanation as to how it defined “severe” disease, its primary endpoint.
- A year into the trial, Pfizer fishily altered an important endpoint, defying a fundamental clinical trial design principle that “involves setting out in advance the endpoints that will be assessed.”
- In Hollander’s words, Pfizer “switched their secondary (critical!) endpoint of RSV hospitalizations to 360 days from 180 days… and then inspired my suspicion by not reporting any hospitalization data, interim or otherwise, in their breathless press release.”
- Researchers have published only one small safety study for the RSV shot, about which Hollander said: “I quibble with studies finding >40% of placebo participants reporting systemic symptoms; when queried enticingly enough, half of us might recall a headache or some fatigue the day after our placebo shot, and that can bury a difference in real adverse reactions compared to the vaccine group.”
- Curtailing study enrollment was unwise, Hollander said, because “bigger is better when it comes to … finding safety signals.”
- Earlier this year, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) “stopped cold” a three-times-bigger trial of a similar RSV vaccine for pregnant women after detecting a safety signal, yet there has been no discussion as to why Pfizer’s maternal RSV vaccine is “fine” while GSK’s was deemed “untouchable.”
Hollander’s modest conclusion: “We should have all learned by now that even the appearance of cutting corners in the vaccine approval process will carry its own unknown costs.”
Readers reacting to Hollander’s post were less circumspect. One acerbically remarked, “The problem here is Pfizer. They’ve paid billions in fines for shady practices and data manipulation. And that was before the Covid vaccines (for which they’re indemnified).”
Another reader expressed his reservations even more succinctly: “Trust Pfizer numbers? You must be joking.”
Adverse pregnancy outcomes after COVID vaccination — no joke
As Pfizer, with the FDA’s help, tees itself up to “dominat[e] the maternal RSV vaccine market,” OB-GYNs on the front lines of maternal care are stepping forth to sound the alarm about the COVID-19 shots’ infanticidal fallout.
Dr. Kimberly Biss recently tweeted, “Since the vaccine rollout started, we have seen in our practice a decrease in new OB numbers, which would be infertility, by about 50%; we’ve also seen an increase in miscarriage rate by about 50%, and … probably about a 25% increase in abnormal pap smears as well as cervical malignancies.”
Similarly, Dr. James Thorp, in multiple interviews, described an “off-the-charts” rise in sudden fetal death and other adverse outcomes, including fetal malformation and fetal cardiac arrest.
Asked to comment on information recently leaked from a California hospital, Thorp characterized the uptick in fetal deaths — from under 6 per 1,000 in 2020 to more than 29 per 1,000 following the rollout of COVID-19 injections — as being “way way beyond” what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordinarily would consider a safety signal.
Thorp published a preprint in September (along with co-authors who include Children’s Health Defense’s Megan Redshaw) describing “significantly more frequent” pregnancy-related adverse events reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, after COVID-19 shots than in the aftermath of flu shots — which themselves are far from benign.
Cataloging significant increases in “miscarriage, fetal chromosomal abnormalities, fetal malformation, fetal cystic hygroma, fetal cardiac disorders, fetal arrhythmia, fetal cardiac arrest, fetal vascular mal-perfusion, fetal growth abnormalities, fetal abnormal surveillance, fetal placental thrombosis, low amniotic fluid, and fetal death/stillbirth” and also menstrual abnormalities, Thorp and co-authors called for a “worldwide moratorium on the use of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy.”
For children who survive, Thorp suggested they may suffer from lifelong “vaccine-induced acquired immune deficiency syndrome.”
In Scotland, meanwhile, the government ordered an investigation into the “spike in newborn baby deaths” in 2021 and 2022, an increase “larger than expected from chance alone.”
Even in a gerrymandered study clearly designed to exonerate the COVID-19 shots during pregnancy — focusing on immediate reactions after a first or second dose and hampered by “limited perinatal outcome assessment” — researchers found that 4.4-7.5% of pregnant women reported obstetrical symptoms.
Careless and worse
As Substack writer Etana Hecht wrote last May, “The topic of pregnant and nursing moms getting vaccinated under encouragement and coercion is painful,” particularly once one becomes aware of “how carelessly the most precious among us are being treated.”
That carelessness is evident as we witness some of the same players involved in the COVID-19 vaccine fiasco now circling back around to help build the case for Pfizer’s RSV vaccine.
That includes figures such as Dr. Robert Frenck, the Pfizer-beholden principal investigator of the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital clinical trial that tested the company’s COVID-19 shot in children. Frenck reported 12-year-old Maddie de Garay’s serious vaccine injuries to the FDA as a mere “stomachache.”
Graphs clearly show that none of the vaccines pushed on pregnant women are safe for babies or moms — but given that from one-fourth to one-half of pregnant women acquiesce to getting them, those who know the truth need to work even harder to get the word out.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
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From the Archives
A sample of vaccine and injectable medication tragedies during my lifetime
This is what happens when you demand speedy production in an era of politicized regulation
By Meryl Nass, MD | February 12, 2022
All these tragedies have been due to failures of testing or failures in manufacturing processes. Most occurred before vaccine manufacturers were given virtually complete protection from liability in 1987.
With the duration of patent exclusivity determining how much new products earn, products are rushed to market as quickly as possible, most using a shortened path for FDA review. Recalls and market removals of approved products are much more common than they used to be. We can only expect more of these disasters in the future, especially if the products are mandated for everyone. … continue
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- No Tricks Zone
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