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Pentagon’s Crafty Plan: Ukraine to Receive ‘Frankenstein’ Air Defenses From US

By Andrey Kots – Sputnik – 21.10.2023

The Pentagon has greenlit a new air defense project custom-made for Kiev. According to US media reports, Ukraine will receive anti-aircraft missile systems produced in an unusual manner by the US defense industry. Sputnik examines what Washington has in mind.

The Ukrainian military is experiencing a serious shortage of anti-aircraft defenses. This is because of the Russian forces’ use of long-range Lancet kamikaze drones, and the Russian Aerospace Forces deployment of precision-guided glide bombs, which have greatly thinned the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ frontline air defenses. To protect infantry and equipment, Kiev has been forced to move its air defense systems closer to the front, where they can fall prey to cheap Russian FPV drones.

Consequently, Kiev’s requests for advanced air defenses from its Western patrons have become increasingly urgent. The armed conflict that has broken out in the Middle East has exacerbated the problem. Israel asked for help from the US on the first day of hostilities. The Pentagon is on the horns of a dilemma – whether Israel or Ukraine is more deserving of its support. The latest rhetoric would suggest that Washington is more inclined to help Tel Aviv, with Ukraine left scrambling for whatever scraps are left.

Old ‘Monsters’ for the Frontline

Step forward the FrankenSAM (a portmanteau word of “Frankenstein” and “SAM” [surface-to-air missile]) program. The plan involves the development and production of improvised air defense systems using components and materials from Ukrainian, US and allied stockpiles. Old decommissioned anti-aircraft missiles will be repurposed as ammunition for these “chimeras”.

According to one major international news agency, the US Department of Defense believes this approach will quickly provide the Ukrainian Armed Forces with some much-needed air defense capabilities. This, in turn, will prepare the Ukrainian army for the winter campaign.
In this way, Washington hopes to achieve three goals at once: it will load its defense industry up with orders for “FrankenSAMs”, get rid of obsolete explosives, and demonstrate “support for its ally” to the world.

A Reagan-Era Veteran Missile

According to the media, the Pentagon is working on three projects as part of the FrankenSAM program. The first is almost finished: Ukraine will initially receive a ground-based short-range air defense system with AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles, according to the news agency’s source. Without going into detail, the source explained that the chassis, launchers, radar and other equipment for the system will be provided by the US and its allies. This, the media outlet noted, will help “meet Kiev’s vital air defense needs” and tackle related issues.

Washington announced the delivery of Sidewinder missiles in August, after the release of what was then its latest military aid package. This raised many questions, as the missile is of the air-to-air variety. Ukrainian fighter jets still in service are not capable of firing it without significant modifications to their on-board electronic systems, and the first F-16s for the Ukrainian armed forces are not expected until next spring at the earliest.

In addition, the Sidewinder is only effective at short range, whereas Russian pilots prefer long-range engagements. The news about the modification of these missiles for ground use clarifies the situation.

The AIM-9 Sidewinder is the grandfather of a weapons system that entered production in 1956 and has undergone several upgrades over the years. The forthcoming short-range air defense version of the system will be equipped with the 9M variant, introduced in 1983 and actively used during Operation Desert Storm. The period of most extensive production coincided with the years of this conflict.

In the early 2000s, this modification was replaced by the more advanced AIM-9X, with the Reagan-era AIM-9M variants stored away. It’s unknown how effective these 30-year-old missiles will be against modern Russian aircraft, but the fact is that the US has enough of these munitions to supply Ukraine for months.

Americanized ‘Buk’

The second offspring of the FrankenSAM project will be an air defense system based on early versions of the Soviet Buk missile system. The Americans plan to modernize Ukraine’s remaining inventory of these systems to accommodate outdated AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missiles, which were also introduced in 1956.

Unlike the AIM-9, the AIM-7 Sparrow is a medium-range air defense missile capable of engaging targets up to 20 to 25 kilometers away. The original Buk missiles have a much longer range, but it appears that Ukraine has almost none left.

It’s known that the “Buks” will be modified to use the RIM-7 Sea Sparrow ship-based variant of the missile. It seems to be easier to adapt a naval version for land-based launches than an airborne one. Also, similar adaptations have been made before. In the early 1990s, the Pentagon provided Taiwan with 500 RIM-7 missiles modified for ground-based launch. But during exercises in 2012, three of Taiwan’s Sea Sparrows malfunctioned and crashed into the sea, prompting Taipei to stop using the missiles.

It’s unlikely that the American Sparrow arsenal has miraculously become more reliable over the past 11 years. It’s also unclear whether these missiles will pose a greater threat to Russian aviation or to the Ukrainians themselves in the area where Ukrainian air defenses are deployed.

The same question applies to the third known component of the FrankenSAM project. The Pentagon is working on the modernization of the HAWK medium-range surface-to-air defense system, which was introduced in 1959. Ukraine already operates several of these systems, but no reports on their success have been published by Ukrainian command.
However, improvised air defenses can be effective. The Yugoslav experience in 1999 demonstrated this when an outdated Serbian S-125 system successfully shot down a state-of-the-art American stealth fighter, the F-117.

Furthermore, the FrankenSAM project is unlikely to be an attempt to move away from the Ukrainian issue and gradually cut off military supplies.

Rather, “the US and the European Union have a consolidated position whereby – at least for the next three years – the volume of arms and military equipment supplies to Ukraine will be maintained and will tend to increase,” said Igor Korotchenko, a military analyst and editor-in-chief of National Defense magazine. “We must not delude ourselves with false hopes and illusions that the support will stop, especially in light of recent reports of contradictions in the West.”

The FrankenSAM project is likely to be a temporary fix. The US is at present actively reviving its defense production to replenish depleted stockpiles – its own, Ukraine’s, and those of NATO allies. The purpose of these makeshift anti-aircraft missile “monsters” is to buy the Ukrainian military time until factories are operating at full capacity.

October 21, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s hospital bombing claims not credible – analysts

RT | October 21, 2023

Independent analysis of video and audio footage has revealed major inconsistencies with Israel’s claim that Palestinian militants were responsible for the deadly bombing of the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza this week.

The Christian-run hospital, also known as the Baptist Hospital, was destroyed in an explosion on Tuesday. Around 500 people were killed in the blast, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Th Israeli authorities have released two pieces of evidence that they say prove the building was hit by a Palestinian rocket: A video showing a salvo of Palestinian rockets flying from east to west, with one apparently breaking apart with a flash and falling on the hospital; and an intercepted telephone call in which Hamas militants purportedly discuss how rockets fired by the Islamic Jihad group had fallen short and landed in Gaza.

“The entire world should know: It was barbaric terrorists in Gaza that attacked the hospital in Gaza, and not the [Israel Defense Forces],” Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on social media on Tuesday night.

However, analysts at Al Jazeera and Channel 4 studied the video and concluded that the flash could not be linked with the subsequent explosion at the hospital. Al Jazeera noted that the flash “was in fact consistent with Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepting a missile fired from the Gaza Strip and destroying it in midair.”

In a second video shot near the blast site, an incoming rocket or missile can be heard screeching through the air before impacting the hospital. Earshot, an NGO specializing in audio analysis of footage from conflict zones and human rights cases, studied this video and found that the frequency of the incoming projectile indicates that it “approached the hospital from north-east, east or south-east,” while Israel claimed it approached from the west.

Forensic Architecture, a research agency based at the University of London, backed up Earshot’s findings, stating that the projectile likely came from the direction of Israel. Further analysis of the crater left at the hospital pointed to an approach from the north-east, the agency said.

Earshot also studied the telephone recording and found that unlike most calls, in which both parties’ voices are transmitted on the same audio channel, the recording consists of two separately-recorded voices stitched together. While Earshot said it “cannot categorically state that the audible dialogue is fake… the level of manipulation required to edit these two voices together disqualifies it as a source of credible evidence.”

In the immediate aftermath of the blast, Israeli government adviser Hananya Naftali wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that the “Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza,” before deleting the tweet minutes later.

Nevertheless, US President Joe Biden has sided with the Israeli telling of events, while Israel remains the culprit throughout the Arab world. “Everybody here believes that Israel is responsible for it,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told CNN on Wednesday. “The Israeli army is saying it’s not but… try and find anybody who’s going to believe it in this part of the world.”

October 21, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel must be internationally designated as terrorist entity: Iran FM spokesman

Press TV – October 21, 2023

The spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry has censured the ongoing Israeli onslaught in the besieged Gaza Strip, stating that the international community must designate the occupying Tel Aviv regime as a “terrorist entity” and put its leaders on trial over war crimes against Palestinians.

In a post published on his X account on Saturday, Nasser Kan’ani denounced the appalling Israeli atrocities against Palestinians and threats of bombardment of hospitals in the Gaza Strip.

“Following the catastrophic attacks on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital, mosques, schools and the Greek Orthodox church in Gaza, the Zionist regime has threatened to pound other hospitals in Gaza!” he wrote.

“Such horrendous crimes mean that the Zionist regime has crossed the limits of insanity,” said Kan’ani, adding that they amount to a morally shameful scandal for the governments that have long provided unconditional support to the Zionist regime while preaching to others about human rights.

Kan’ani stated that occupation, aggression, war, misdeeds, assassination, genocide, infanticide, attacks on mosques, churches, hospitals, ambulances and rescue vehicles, schools, houses and residential complexes, refugee camps and journalists, etc. are all crimes collectively manifested in the contemporary world by a bogus and terrorist regime entity called “Israel” with a 75-year-long record of relentless atrocities.

“Nowadays, all these crimes are being committed simultaneously and on a daily basis in Gaza just in front of the international community,” he said.

“All people advocating freedom, justice and fairness across the world demand that the Israeli regime be designated internationally as a terrorist entity, and that Zionist leaders be prosecuted and punished as war criminals,” Kan’ani asserted.

The United Nations says about half of Palestinians in Gaza have been made homeless, still trapped inside the enclave, which is known to be one of the most densely populated places on earth.

Health officials in Gaza say the Israeli bombardment has killed at least 4,137 people since October 7, when fighters from the Hamas resistance movement launched an unprecedented large-scale attack against the occupying Israeli regime. Another 13,162 individuals have also been injured.

Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for Gaza’s health ministry, confirmed that nearly 1,400 people, including 720 children, are still missing under the rubble.

Qudra also noted that 352 Palestinians were killed and 669 others wounded over the past 24 hours, including 16 victims who lost their lives in the aerial strike on the Greek Orthodox Church.

Seven general hospitals and 21 health centers are now out of service, he added, calling for international protection of hospitals and health facilities in Gaza in light of intensified Israeli aggression.

The Palestinian health official noted that 46 medical personnel were killed, and 85 others injured during Israeli airstrikes. At least 23 ambulances were destroyed as well.

October 21, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel settler: ‘Israel forces killed hostages, not Hamas’

Soldiers of Israeli army patrol in Kfar Aza settlement near Gaza, on October 15, 2023. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | October 21, 2023

Israeli settler Yasmin Porat has claimed that Israeli civilians were killed by Israeli forces and not by Hamas.

This came in an interview by Porat with an Israeli radio station on 15 October, where she said: “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages. There was very, very heavy crossfire and even tank shelling.”

The 44-year-old mother of three stated that she and other civilians were held by the Palestinians for several hours and were treated “humanely”.

A recording of her interview with Haboker Hazeh (This Morning) radio programme on state broadcaster Kan was circulated on social media.

It is worth noting that the interview was not included in the online edition of the Haboker Hazeh programme on 15 October and may have been censored.

Porat also gave an interview to Israel’s Channel 12 on Thursday, where she described that one of the Palestinian fighters who spoke Hebrew said to her: “Look at me well, we’re not going to kill you. We want to take you to Gaza. We are not going to kill you. So be calm; you’re not going to die.” The interview was published on X.

Porat added, “I was calm because I knew nothing would happen to me,” noting that although the fighters had loaded weapons, she did not see them shoot any captives or threaten them with weapons. She also said they provided them with water.

While the captives were waiting for the army to arrive, they were allowed to go outside to the lawn because of the afternoon heat. Porat reported that the Israeli forces announced its arrival with a barrage of heavy gunfire that wounded fighters and Israeli captives alike.

Porat recounted that she surrendered to the Israeli soldiers half an hour into the fierce battle that included “tens and hundreds and thousands of bullets and mortars flying in the air” and that one of the Palestinian fighters, a commander, decided to surrender, using her as a human shield.

October 21, 2023 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden laments Hamas attack on Israel ‘disrupted’ Saudi normalization

The Cradle | October 21, 2023

US President Joe Biden says that the historic Operation Al-Aqsa Flood carried out by resistance factions in Gaza aimed to disrupt a potential normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

“One of the reasons why they acted like they did, why Hamas moved on Israel, is because they knew I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden said on 20 October at a campaign fundraiser in Washington. “Because the Saudis wanted to recognize Israel, and that would in fact unite [West Asia].”

His comments came five days after he told CBS’ 60 Minutes that the prospect of normalization was still alive.

“Look, it’s just going to take time to get done,” Biden said. “It’s going to take time. But the direction, moving into the normalization makes sense for the Arab nations as well as Israel.”

In the weeks leading up to 7 October – the day Hamas and other Gaza resistance factions successfully stormed Israel’s southern settlements – the White House had been working around the clock to seal a “megadeal” with Saudi Arabia that would have seen the kingdom normalize ties with Israel in exchange for a US-sponsored civilian nuclear program, access to more advanced US weapons, and a firm defense pact with Washington that would have forced the US to come to the kingdom’s aid in case of attack.

Furthermore, Saudi Arabia publicly demanded concessions for the Palestinians in exchange for signing a normalization deal, insisting on establishing a Palestinian State along the lines of the 2002 Saudi Peace Initiative to garner any possible support from the Islamic world.

“Every day we get closer [to a deal with Israel],” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) told Fox News in late September.

“For us, the Palestinian issue is very important. We need to solve that part,” MbS added. “And we have a good negotiations strategy til now.”

However, in the wake of Israel’s campaign of genocide against the civilian population of Gaza, the kingdom was forced to “freeze” normalization talks and has thrown its support behind the plight of the Palestinians.

On Friday, the Saudi leader stressed the need “to stop military operations against civilians and infrastructure that affect their daily lives” and “create conditions to achieve lasting peace that ensures the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

The Saudi government has also refused to condemn the actions of the Gaza resistance, instead reminding Tel Aviv that Riyadh had issued repeated warnings of a possible escalation in light of “the ongoing occupation and the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights, as well as the repeated deliberate provocations against their sanctities.”

October 21, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Poll: 52% of Americans oppose sending weapons to Israel

MEMO | October 21, 2023

The results of a poll conducted in the US revealed that 52 per cent of Americans oppose their government sending weapons to Israel.

According to the poll conducted by CBS News, between 16-19 October, 57 per cent of participants support sending aid to Gaza.

Fifty-six per cent of Americans also expressed dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden’s policy regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Eighty-five per cent of participants expressed concern about the risk of a wider war in the Middle East, while 79 per cent expressed concern about the possibility of terrorism in the US.

Fifty-two per cent of Americans opposed Washington sending weapons and equipment to Israel, while 24 per cent said that Biden is providing too much support for Israel.

October 21, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

More Palestinians killed in early morning Israeli strikes across Gaza Strip

Press TV – October 21, 2023

At least 53 Palestinians have been killed and several others injured after Israeli military aircraft carried out a fresh round of airstrikes against various residential neighborhoods across the besieged Gaza Strip.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that the warplanes bombarded several buildings in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip early on Saturday, killing at least 14 people and wounding others.

The aerial raids also left several people missing beneath the rubble, according to the news agency.

At least 14 people were also killed in Jabalia town in the north of the Gaza Strip.

Moreover, Israeli fighter jets struck the eastern flank of the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing and wounding several people.

Israeli warplanes also pounded a number of residential buildings in the northwestern Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City, as well as the eastern and northern parts of Beit Lahiya, WAFA reported.

Houses were hit in Khan Yunis city as Israeli aircraft pounded the southern Gaza Strip with more air raids.

There were no immediate reports about the exact number of casualties and the extent of damage caused.

The United Nations says about half of Palestinians in Gaza have been rendered homeless while still trapped inside the enclave, which is known to be one of the most densely populated places on earth.

Health officials in Gaza say the Israeli bombardment has killed at least 4,137 people since October 7, when fighters from the Hamas resistance movement launched an unprecedented large-scale attack against the occupying Israeli regime. Another 13,162 individuals have also been injured.

Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for Gaza’s health ministry, confirmed that nearly 1,400 people, including 720 children, are still missing under the rubble.

Qudra also noted that 352 Palestinians were killed and 669 others wounded over the past 24 hours, including 16 victims who lost their lives in the aerial strike on the Greek Orthodox Church.

Seven general hospitals and 21 health centers are now out of service, he explained, calling for international protection of hospitals and health facilities in Gaza in light of the intensified Israeli aggression.

The senior Palestinian health official further said that 46 medical personnel were killed and 85 others injured during Israeli airstrikes. At least 23 ambulances were destroyed as well.

Rights bodies denounce West’s double standards

Meanwhile, international human rights organizations have slammed Western governments over their hypocrisy and double standards in the face of Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip.

Tom Porteous, the deputy program director at an international rights agency, said in a statement that while the United States and European countries denounced Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, there was no clear condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“Where is the clear condemnation of the cruel tightening of the 16-year closure of Gaza that amounts to collective punishment, a war crime? Where is the outrage at statements by Israeli political leaders that seek to blur the all-important distinction between civilians and combatants in Gaza even as they order ever more intense bombardment of this densely populated territory, reducing city blocks and neighborhoods to rubble? Where are the clear and unequivocal calls for Israel to respect international norms in its attack on Gaza, let alone for accountability?” he said.

He further described the West’s hypocrisy and double standards as “flagrant and obvious.”

October 21, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Biden Speech on Aid to Israel, Ukraine Embodied ‘America Last’ Policy, Says Ex-US Diplomat

Sputnik – 21.10.2023

WASHINGTON – The president made a rare address to the nation on Thursday in which he argued that funding Israel and Ukraine was a matter of US security.

President Joe Biden’s nationally broadcast speech seeking broad support for stepping up already huge levels of US aid to Ukraine and Israel was another unthinking, reflexive expression of the globalist mindset that has been destroying the US economy and society over the past several decades in pursuit of crazed international goals, former State Department diplomat James Carden said.

“The speech will be remembered, if at all, as a perfect encapsulation of the ‘America Last’ mindset of our ruling class, which privileges foreign countries over middle and working class Americans,” Carden said.

The US president said he was requesting that Congress fund renewed supplies of weapons and other aid to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime in Ukraine and he was linking that goal with pushing through a parallel enormous increased aid package to Israel as it prepares to invade Gaza to eliminate Hamas.

However, Carden pointed out that Biden paid no attention to the out of control crime, security, economic, social and drug crises now sweeping the United States.

Biden spent no time at all addressing the sufferings of the domestic communities that have been destroyed over the past three decades by free trade agreements, endless wars and an open border policy that has flooded the country with fentanyl and opioids which are killing what little remains of their communities, Carden said.

The almost-81-year-old president gave no hint of new thinking, moderation, compromise or flexibility in his address, Carden added.

“Biden’s speech signals that there will be no rethinking US policy toward Ukraine or the Middle East,” he said, adding that instead, the “strategic assumptions in the speech were absurd and obsolete”.

Biden’s comments “validated George Kennan’s view that the United States is similar to one of those prehistoric monsters with a body as long as this room and a brain the size of a pin,” Carden added.

The Biden administration is requesting from Congress funds in the amount of $106 billion, primarily for the defense needs of Ukraine and Israel, but also for strengthening the United States’ position in the Indo-Pacific and for operations on the southern US border. Of the total sum, the administration is requesting more than $60 billion for Ukraine.

October 21, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Israel threatens to bomb Gaza hospital housing 12,000 Palestinians

Press TV – October 20, 2023

A few days after killing hundreds of people by bombing a hospital in the Gaza Strip, Israel has threatened to attack yet another such facility in the coastal sliver, which has come to house thousands of Palestinians.

On Friday, Reuters cited the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) as saying that the Israeli military had warned it to “immediately evacuate” Gaza’s al-Quds hospital.

The facility is currently rendering services to more than 400 patients. It has also turned into a refuge for around 12,000 Palestinians, who have fled there amid a relentless Israeli war that has been pounding the Palestinian territory since October 7. The war has so far claimed more than 4,000 people.

The PRCS described “70%” of the displaced Palestinians inside the hospital as “children and women,” saying they “are in imminent danger.”

“This place could turn to ashes if those threats are carried out,” it said, asking, “Is there a world power capable of stopping the threats of the Israeli occupation army to bomb hospitals with innocent civilians inside?”

The Palestinian Red Crescent issued an urgent appeal to the international community, saying, “We call on the world to take immediate and urgent action to prevent a new massacre like the one that occurred on the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.”

More than 500 people lost their lives in an Israeli airstrike against al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday. Thousands of Palestinians were present at the facility when the attack took place.

Numerous world leaders have vehemently denounced the massacre. Major cities across the world have also turned into the scene of angry demonstrations against Tel Aviv’s indiscriminate campaign of bloodshed and destruction against the Palestinian territory.

The regime has been responsible for numerous deadly offensives against hospitals and other healthcare facilities across Gaza through both its near-daily attacks against the coastal sliver and several wars that it has waged against the territory in the past.

October 20, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

CDC Wants Pregnant Women to Get 4 Vaccines — More and More Women Are Saying ‘No’

By Mike Capuzzo | The Defender | October 18, 2023

NBC News on Tuesday led its online broadcast with what the network said was the biggest news in the world: “President Biden to visit Israel and vaccine hesitancy on the rise for pregnant women.”

As the winter respiratory illness season rapidly approaches, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the first time is recommending four vaccines during pregnancy: the flu vaccine, Tdap vaccine (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis, or whooping cough), RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) vaccine, and the COVID-19 vaccine.

But more women are saying “no” to their doctors who recommend COVID-19 and the other vaccines — even shutting down conversations with, “I’m not going to talk about it,” according to the NBC News report.

“We are meeting more resistance than I ever remember,” said Dr. Neil Silverman, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at UCLA Health. “We didn’t get this kind of pushback on this scale before the pandemic.”

“Now all vaccines are lumped together as ‘bad,’” he said.

NBC based its report on a CDC study, “Influenza, Tdap, and COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage and Hesitancy Among Pregnant Women,” published in the agency’s Sept. 29 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Medical experts interviewed by The Defender criticized the CDC’s recommendations and its report on vaccine hesitancy.

One of those experts, Dr. James Thorp, a Florida physician, board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology who has practiced obstetrics for more than 42 years, urged more women to say no to COVID-19 vaccines, in particular, which he called “an abomination of science and an abomination of a corrupted health care system.”

By continuing to push dangerous mRNA COVID-19 vaccines on pregnant women, Thorp said, the CDC is breaking the “golden rule” of pregnancy.

“The golden rule of pregnancy is you don’t ever, ever use a novel substance in pregnancy, ever,” he said. “And you don’t have to be a physician or nurse, you don’t have to have any education, to know that.”

Only 27% of survey respondents took COVID booster shot

The CDC study analyzed data from an internet panel survey conducted from March 28 to April 16, 2023. The CDC surveyed 1,814 respondents who were pregnant at any time from October 2022 to January 2023.

Key findings include:

  • Only 27.3% of women chose to take the COVID-19 bivalent booster vaccine before or during pregnancy during the 2022-23 flu season, nearly half the percent who agreed to take some other vaccines, the signal in the study indicating fear of COVID-19 vaccines tainted other vaccines, public health experts said.
  • Skepticism about vaccines has ballooned to taint the flu shot in the eyes of pregnant women, though the flu shot has been given to millions of pregnant women over several decades. Last year, the CDC study found, 47.2% of expectant mothers got their flu shots, down from 57.5% who got their flu shots during the pre-COVID-19 2019-20 season.
  • Among most of the 2,000 women who were pregnant during the peak of last year’s cold and flu season, or when the survey was conducted in March and April, almost a quarter said they were “very hesitant” about getting a flu shot, a significant increase in “vaccine hesitancy” over the 17.2% who said they had reservations during the 2021-22 respiratory illness season.
  • 55.4% of women with a recent live birth elected to receive Tdap vaccination during pregnancy, a number inching back from pre-pandemic levels, but “self-reported hesitancy towards influenza and Tdap vaccination during pregnancy increased among pregnant women from 2019–20 to 2022–23.”

Dr. Denise Jamieson, vice president for medical affairs at the University of Iowa Health Care and a spokesperson for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told NBC News that “even prior to the pandemic, it was a struggle to get pregnant women vaccinated.”

She said she is dismayed that “Tdap is just barely recovering from pre-pandemic levels” and “the number of women vaccinated for Covid is disappointing.”

Dr. Linda Eckert, an OB-GYN and global health and immunization expert at the University of Washington, said more of her patients have “a bias … about how they feel about a vaccine.”

When Eckert recommends a vaccine, more pregnant women now reply, “I’m not going to talk about it,” she said.

Dr. Melissa Simon, an OB-GYN at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, decried the rise in vaccine “myths, what I would call blatant disinformation that is intended to be more politically charged, not based in science.”

Pregnancy ‘much safer’ without ‘risks of vaccination’

Thorp, a specialist in maternal-fetal medicine who sees 6,000-7,000 high-risk pregnant patients a year, said he was horrified by the unprecedented level of complications, miscarriages and fetal deaths among his pregnant patients and their unborn children after the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are “the deadliest drug in the history of medicine, whether you call it a vaccine, a drug, a gene medicine, a medical intervention, whatever you call it,” he said. “And they knew it. The CDC knew it. HHS knew it. Pfizer knew it and tried to bury the data, which showed 1,223 deaths from its vaccine in the first 10 weeks, for 75 years.”

Thorp cited the more than 1 million illnesses and disabilities and thousands of deaths following COVID-19 vaccination reported in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), run by the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“If you take all the other vaccines in the U.S. in the last century and do a literature search,” he said, “the deaths and illnesses associated with the mRNA vaccines dwarf the dangers of all other vaccines combined.”

Captured government agencies and major media have for nearly three years continued to ignore the most dire vaccine impacts in U.S. history, which are especially tragic for pregnant women and their unborn children, Thorp said.

In December 2022, Thorp was the lead author of a groundbreaking preprint article on the dangers of COVID-19 vaccines to pregnant women and unborn children. The article was peer-reviewed and published in spring 2023 in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

The study analyzed adverse events after COVID-19 vaccines experienced by women of reproductive age, focusing on pregnancy and menstruation. It used data collected by the VAERS database from Jan. 1, 1998, to June 30, 2022, to compare injury reports on flu vaccines versus COVID-19 vaccines.

The study found that COVID-19 vaccines, when compared to flu vaccines, are associated with a greater than double rate of reported “menstrual abnormalities, miscarriage, fetal chromosomal abnormalities, fetal malformation, fetal cystic hygroma, fetal cardiac disorders, fetal arrhythmias, fetal cardiac arrest, fetal vascular malperfusion, fetal growth abnormalities, fetal abnormal surveillance, fetal placental thrombosis, low amniotic fluid, preeclampsia, premature delivery, preterm premature rupture of membrane, fetal death/stillbirth, and premature baby death.”

“Pregnancy complications and menstrual abnormalities are significantly more frequent following COVID-19 vaccinations than Influenza vaccinations,” the authors concluded.

According to Thorp, when he first alerted the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology — the most powerful of the three medical boards in his specialty — about the signals in VAERS, the board threatened to decertify him for spreading “misinformation.”

The board has since backed off, Thorp said, because “they know they’re wrong and I’m right.”

Thorp said he proved, with documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, another one of the three major OBG-YN medical societies, took “large sums of money” from the federal government to participate in “the largest 5th generation psyops warfare in the history of the world, a massive propaganda program to bury the data,” and threatened 61,000 doctors with loss of board certification that would end their careers if they deviated from the government line that the vaccines were “safe and effective and necessary.”

The CDC and other public health authorities, backed by major media, “targeted my patients with their propaganda,” Thorp said.

“They targeted women because women make all the healthcare decisions, not men,” he said. “And they went after women because pregnant women are the most vulnerable population in the world, not children, not the elderly. If you can capture pregnant women when you’re implementing a drug you can convince everyone in the world they should follow.”

Dr. Pierre Kory, president and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, disputed that any of the four CDC-recommended vaccines during pregnancy is necessary, but he said the COVID-19 vaccine is especially dangerous.

“It is my belief that the safety of those vaccines have never been truly proven, especially in terms of them leading to increased rates of many chronic illnesses in childhood,” he said.

Kory said he was appalled by what he said was an ongoing propaganda campaign of misinformation. “This is both absurd and unsurprising,” he said. “The level of pharmaceutical industry influence is being revealed to more Americans on a daily basis.”

Kory pointed to the CDC’s “truly alarming,” maternal mortality data for 2021. “My recommendation to the CDC is to focus more on why so many American mothers died suddenly in 2021, rather than continuing to blindly recommend mass vaccination of that patient population.”

Using the CDC’s mortality data from its March 16, 2023, report, Kory created a chart breaking out mortality rates for pregnant mothers under 25 years old. It showed a 38% increase in deaths for all mothers of all races and more than an 83% increase for young Hispanic mothers.

Dr. Peter McCullough told The Defender he was “concerned that unnecessary vaccines during pregnancy will cause fever in some women.”

“Fever is one of the most common triggers for miscarriage, stillbirth and premature labor,” he said. “Pregnancy is much safer when left to the natural progression of gestation without the risks of vaccination.”

“As a mother, the first thing I did, the first thing all mothers do, is evaluate what you’re consuming because it’s going directly into your baby,” said Laura Sextro, CEO of The Unity Project, a California-based nonprofit that fights for medical freedom and parental rights. “Pregnant women cut out fish because of high levels of mercury and lead, or maybe stop drinking Diet Coke.”

While mothers “go to great lengths to protect their child in the womb,” she urged more to become aware of the dangers of “injecting yourself” with the mRNA vaccine, which poses risks, both proven and unknown, to mothers and children.

“It’s an atrocity we’re seeing,” she said. “We’re seeing a dramatic uptick in spontaneous abortion in certain trimesters after women are given this vaccine.”

Sextro advised pregnant women that “the best way to protect you and baby is always make sure you’re asking questions.”

“If you’re not getting answers, it’s your right as a parent — just because the baby is in the womb doesn’t mean you’re not a parent — it is your responsibility to make sure that you stay informed and protect your child.”


Mike Capuzzo is the managing editor of The Defender. He is a former prize-winning reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Miami Herald, a science writer, and a regional magazine founding editor and publisher who has won more than 200 journalism awards as a writer, editor and publisher.

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.

October 20, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

The Double Standard Applied by the Covid Inquiry

When Taking Evidence from John Edmunds and Carl Heneghan Yesterday Inquiry Reveals its Bias

BY KIERAN SAXON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | OCTOBER 20, 2023

The contrast between the evidence sessions of Prof. John Edmunds (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, SAGE modeller) and Prof. Carl Heneghan at the Covid Inquiry yesterday was absolutely shocking and raises huge questions about the professionalism of the Inquiry.

The King’s Counsel in the morning spent hours questioning Edmunds in a friendly, at times obsequious manner, as he explained how misunderstood the modelling was, how it wasn’t needed to justify lockdowns – as the indicative Basic reproduction number (R0) and Indicative Fatality Rate (IFR) were enough – to justify earlier and harder lockdown measures. Yet, according to Edmunds, the modelling would still be needed in the future. Truly an “all things to all men modelling” – useful when needed to justify future lockdowns, yet hides in the corner when retrospectively scrutinised and compared with real-world data. Three key flaws in the Covid modelling have been highlighted:

  1. Over-estimation of the effect of mandatory NPIs versus under-estimation of the effect of voluntary NPIs.
  2. Over-estimation of ICU per hospitalised rates, where the Imperial College team doubled the rate of hospitalised patients going into ICU to 30% based on flawed data from China.
  3. Failure to take into account the impact of prior and innate immunity in the population, especially children and the asymptomatic.

These aren’t flaws that can be explained away by saying the scenarios changed with the reality of lockdowns. For example, ICU rates are unaffected by shelter-in-place orders and school closures.

The dangerous implication here is that the Covid Inquiry is lining us up for future restrictions based on indicative RO and IFR, a lockdown hair-trigger switch that gives more authority to the modellers.

The soft-ball questioning and praise from the Inquiry continued as the discussion moved to Summer 2020, circuit breakers and the elision from “flatten the curve” to “zero Covid”.

Then the Inquiry moved on to the Downing Street Summit, where other voices – counsel highlighting as the ‘let it rip’ brigade – were invited at short notice. The big reveal was that Angela McLean, who has replaced Sir Patrick Vallance as Chief Scientific Officer, referred to Carl Heneghan as a “f*ckwit” in a contemporaneous WhatsApp chat, while Edmunds challenged Heneghan’s epidemiological knowledge. In my view, the Inquiry raising the point in this way is indicative of a lack of professionalism.

The Inquiry was also keen to include another pet villain – Doctor Death – the sobriquet applied by McLean to refer to Rishi Sunak, for the perceived crime of pushing for Eat Out to Help Out to reinvigorate the pub and restaurant industry, and providing a much needed moral boost to the nation.

The questioning continued for hours, covering the narrative classics of Long Covid, why the Vaccine rollout should have been broader, etc., all carried out in a cosy relationship included Baroness Hallett’s freely-given praise for Edmund, Ferguson and the whole modelling team.

By contrast, the interrogation of Carl Heneghan started out with a blatant attempt to undermine his credentials, strongly re-buffed by Carl, setting a tone for the only adversarial evidence session I have seen at this Inquiry so far. Any discussion that strayed from the narrative was met with aggressive and hostile demands for ‘yes/no’ answers.

Counsel objected to Carl’s answer rightly pointing out the danger of lockdowns to care homes, as he wanted to concentrate on focused protection and the misrepresentation of it by Counsel as hermetically sealing up the old and vulnerable. The minimum of critical thinking could have told Counsel that it was about reducing risk where it was highest, rather than across the board.

Carl was challenged on his views on the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) – he broadly agreed with it, he explained, but didn’t sign at the time as he needed more evidence on the details as you would expect, before Counsel dived into the Downing Street conference call.

Carl was challenged on his definition of ‘Endemicity’ on that call (presumably Edmunds’ gotcha epidemiological point), with Counsel demanding that the spread of infection be “broad and predictable” for it to qualify as endemic, when seasonal spikes shown on a graph means it wasn’t. This was rebuffed in a strong response from Prof. Heneghan, emphasising the seasonal pattern of endemic respiratory viruses and the variability of testing data and evidence on the ground.

Carl’s response to being challenged on the “f*ckwit” comment was dignified and professional, indicating it signified a lack of professionalism from the author as well as a lack of willingness to engage in debate, and an assumption of certainty where there was great uncertainty. He further pointed out that the entire lockdown response was driven by modelling and failed to take into account empirical data or the reality on the ground. Counsel scuttled along to that favourite fallback of the lockdown zealots – Long Covid – where Carl educated the Inquiry by telling it there was no greater risk of lingering disease from Covid than from any other seasonal respiratory disease.

At this point, Counsel decided to end the very short proceedings, presumably to shield the carefully constructed narrative to live another day.

It was hard not to notice the stark contrast in the attitude and approach to the two witnesses and it raises further serious questions on the ability of this long and expensive public inquiry to professionally and impartially challenge the decision making that led to lockdowns.

Kieran Saxon is a member of UsForThem.

October 20, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Dr. McCullough Not Recommending Fall Vaccines for Healthy Adults and Children

Products are Not Compelling for Prevention of Severe COVID-19, Influenza, RSV

By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse  | October 20, 2023

I appeared on American Sunrise (10/18/23) with Dr. Gina Loudon to let America know I am not recommending COVID-19 XBB.1.5 Boosters, influenza, or respiratory syncytial virus vaccines for healthy adults or children. None of these vaccines are compelling and conditions are easily treatable. The EUA COVID-19 injections have been determined to be unsafe for human use by the World Council for Health and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

None of these vaccines have compelling efficacy. For example, the RENOIR Trial in 34,284 adults tested the unadjuvanted RSVpreF vaccine at a dose of 120 μg (containing 60 μg each of RSV A and RSV B antigens) (17,215 participants) versus placebo (17,069 participants). RSV-associated lower respiratory tract illness with at least two signs or symptoms occurred in 11 participants in the vaccine group and 33 participants in the placebo group, (vaccine efficacy, 66.7%; 96.66% confidence interval [CI], 28.8 to 85.8); 2 cases and 14 cases with least three signs or symptoms (vaccine efficacy, 85.7%; 96.66% CI, 32.0 to 98.7). RSV-associated acute respiratory illness occurred in 22 participants in the vaccine group and 58 participants in the placebo group, vaccine efficacy, 62.1%; 95% CI, 37.1 to 77.9). There were no hospitalizations or deaths mentioned in either group. Because data are sparse, we must rely on the lower limit of the confidence interval for treatment effect, which is unacceptable being far below 50% for all outcomes.

RSV, like influenza and COVID-19 are easily treatable infections at home. As you can see RSV is very rare with <1% of adults contracting the virus. Vaccinating the entire adult population is an excessive use of a poorly effective new product. For healthy persons, it is perfectly reasonable to skip fall vaccines and seek early treatment in the rare circumstance that one of these viral infections is contracted.

Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

President, McCullough Foundation

www.mcculloughfnd.org

October 20, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment