Pfizer Vaccine Clinical Trials Poorly Designed From the Start, Analysis Shows
By Madhava Setty, M.D. | The Defender | December 22, 2021
The disagreements around whether COVID-19 vaccinations are “safe and effective” stem not only from the subjective nature of such descriptors but also from the lack of consensus around the data used to substantiate or refute such a claim.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR) often draw from limited observations, and their assessment of vaccine effectiveness is based on relatively small subsets of our population.
Their conclusions are sometimes reflective of outdated data and conflict with their own recommendations.
For example, here the CDC’s latest estimation of vaccine effectiveness is upwards of 80% in preventing COVID-19 (i.e. the risk of becoming infected is 5 times less if vaccinated). Why then the recommendation for boosters?
Note that this latest metric is based on the CDC’s most recent data from more than one month ago and represents data drawn only from 27 jurisdictions.
Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, is a former advisory board member of the Covid Tracking Project, a team that worked to collect and synthesize local COVID-19 during the peak of the pandemic.
Politico recently quoted Topol:
“I think we’ve done a horrible job from day one in data tracking for the pandemic. We’re not tracking all the things that we need to to get a handle on what’s going on. It is embarrassing.”
Meanwhile, vaccine injuries continue to accumulate in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and go unacknowledged, making any constructive discussion around risk impossible.
In order to find common ground, it is perhaps most appropriate to focus on published data from the vaccine trials themselves.
Was Emergency Use Authorization justified? Was the current confusion around vaccine effectiveness and safety predictable from the beginning?
A presentation by the Canadian COVID Care Alliance
Canadian COVID Care Alliance (CCCA) is a group of “Independent Canadian doctors, scientists and healthcare professionals committed to providing top quality and balanced evidence-based information to the Canadian public about COVID-19 so that hospitalizations can be reduced, lives saved and our country restored as safely as possible.”
CCCA assembled a presentation that comprehensively demonstrates how Pfizer’s purported randomized placebo-controlled, double-blinded study veered away from methodologies that would have answered the safety and efficacy questions definitively.
In this concise slide deck with an explanatory video, CCCA powerfully summarized why Pfizer’s trial was not designed to adequately demonstrate its product’s safety and efficacy.
Here are a few key points from the CCCA presentation:
- Initial data demonstrated a high relative risk reduction of infection yet this amounted to an absolute risk reduction of only 0.84%. It is the absolute risk reduction that determines the risk-benefit ratio required to make informed decisions around inoculation.
- Early unblinding: Several months before publishing six-month observational results Pfizer opted to offer its product to those participants who received the placebo. By eliminating nearly all participants in the placebo wing Pfizer effectively closed the curtain on its experiment because long-term comparisons can no longer be made.
- All-cause mortality and morbidity, the only sensible outcomes to use in determining efficacy and risk, were not considered. Indeed, all-cause mortality was higher in the vaccinated group after six months.
- Severe adverse events outnumbered cases of severe COVID prevented after six months of observation.
- Trial participants were not reflective of the most vulnerable members of our population — more than 50% of people dying from COVID are 75 years of age or older. This age group made up only 4.4% of trial participants. Also, 95% of those who have died from COVID had one or more comorbidities. Nearly 80% of trial participants had none.
- Not every trial participant was tested for COVID. Asymptomatic or paucisymptomatic (presenting few symptoms) cases were missed.
Questions regarding unblinding and data integrity
The CCCA presentation also resurrects a puzzling observation mentioned in a briefing document Pfizer submitted only to the FDA’s Vaccine and Related Biologic Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) of the FDA, but nowhere else — including the widely cited summary of the trial reported in New England Journal of Medicine.
According to the document, 3,410 participants were suspected from their clinical presentation of having COVID but they were excluded from efficacy calculations because a diagnosis could not be confirmed through PCR testing.
The CCCA presentation presumes this large group of participants was never tested. The wording in the VRBPAC briefing document is indeed vague, stating the participants were “not PCR-confirmed” in one sentence and “unconfirmed” in another.
Assuming Pfizer’s investigators followed their study protocol, these participants were in fact tested. Yet that forces us to accept that more than 3,400 participants who had symptoms of COVID were suffering from other illnesses, not COVID.
In other words, there were 3,580 participants who clinically presented with COVID (3,410 suspected and 170 confirmed). Of these, more than 95% tested negative. This is difficult to accept in a group where clinical suspicion is high.
However, with no further testing by the investigators, we are left to accept these numbers as reported.
Peter Doshi, Ph.D., senior editor at The BMJ, explained the implications of this result in detail, in an opinion piece published nearly one year ago.
In his widely discussed commentary, Doshi noted another baffling finding in the Pfizer data. Within 7 days of administration of the second of two doses, 371 (310 in the vaccinated group and 61 in the placebo group) trial participants were withdrawn from the study due to “important protocol deviations.”
Of course, protocol deviations occur, but why were five times more vaccine recipients excluded than placebo recipients at that point in the study?
Although there were nearly 40,000 participants in the evaluable population, only 170 contributed to the efficacy calculation with regard to protection from infection, and only 10 with regard to protection from severe infection.
In other words, just a handful of incorrectly diagnosed and categorized participants could easily result in a substantially different estimation of the vaccine’s efficacy and safety.
Statistician and educator Mathew Crawford pointed out the likelihood of such a disparity between groups is exceedingly unlikely. However, because the investigators should have been blinded, we must accept this as an extraordinary coincidence.
Incredibly, the very same disparity occurred in the pediatric trials (ages 5 to 11). Table 12 from the corresponding summary to the FDA’s VRBPAC indicated 3.1% of children were removed from the trial if they received the vaccine compared to 0.5% if they received the placebo.
Once again, there is a factor of 5 difference at exactly the same point in the trial (within 7 days of dose 2). It is true that the vaccine formulation requires steps prior to administration that are not required with the placebo, but why didn’t these protocol deviations happen with the first dose as well? What happened to these vaccine recipients soon after they received their second dose?
These remarkable “coincidences” can be best explained if we are willing to consider the possibility that the investigators were not, in fact, blinded. This is precisely the most damning allegation by whistleblower Brook Jackson, formerly a regional director at Ventavia, one of several clinical research organizations conducting Pfizer’s vaccine trials in 2020.
In addition to the unblinding of investigators, Jackson also accused Ventavia of falsifying data.
These are weighty accusations. Why should we believe her? Because her story is corroborated by the trial data themselves.
She was fired within a day of reporting her concerns directly to the FDA. Her story was covered in The BMJ Nov. 2. Mainstream media has yet to report on it.
Conclusion
Though public health authorities continue to proclaim these products are safe and effective, every week brings more and more evidence to the contrary.
A thorough analysis of data from Pfizer’s vaccine trials reveals more questions than answers. Claims the vaccine maker’s product is performing “as expected” may not be so far from the truth.
© 2021 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
EU’s top court allows European firms to scrap Iran deals
Press TV – December 22, 2021
The EU’s supreme court has intervened to protect European companies against legal action by Iran for failing to fulfill their contractual obligations.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg has ruled that EU companies can end contracts with Iranian firms if upholding the deals would lead to “disproportionate economic loss” as a result of US sanctions.
The ruling was prompted by a lawsuit from the German branch of Iran’s Bank Melli against Deutsche Telekom after the telecommunications provider terminated a contract with the bank in 2018 prior to its expiry.
The decision effectively neutralizes a “blocking statute” that prohibited individuals and companies in the European Union from complying with US sanctions imposed in 2018 by then US president Donald Trump after he decided to withdraw unilaterally from the Iran nuclear deal.
As per their obligations under the nuclear deal, the Europeans issued the statute in order to keep Iran in the agreement, but companies in the bloc quickly severed ties rather than risk running afoul of the US.
Under the blocking statute, European firms must seek a legal exemption for withdrawing from Iran due to US sanctions and those failing to do so could be penalized by their governments. Firms, however, can twist the law if they claim that their withdrawal is a business decision.
The court on Tuesday paid lip service to the EU blocking statute in its ruling, saying “the prohibition imposed by EU law on complying with secondary sanctions laid down by the United States against Iran may be relied on in civil proceedings”.
But the judges also said the rules of the blocking statute “cannot infringe the freedom to conduct a business by leading to disproportionate economic loss”.
The Higher Regional Court in Hamburg will have to decide whether upholding the contract with Bank Melli would expose Deutsche Telekom to such a disproportionate economic loss.
Observers believe the decision is a foregone conclusion, given that Deutsche Telekom makes about half of its turnover with its US business.
The ECJ said the Hamburg judges must take into account that Deutsche Telekom did not apply for an exemption from the EU blocking statute’s rules.
Other European measures taken to maintain open trade channels with Iran have equally proven to be empty shells.
For example, Iranians have got almost nothing from the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Agreement (SHTA) since it was launched in January 2020 with the support and consent of the US.
The Swiss trade channel much publicized by Washington as a purportedly secure way of delivering humanitarian assistance to Iran at a time of sanctions has failed to process even a single deal on Iranian medicine imports.
The channel was meant to find a way around the US sanctions to use Iranian funds deposited abroad to buy food and medicine for the country via the Swiss bank BCP.
However, companies seeking to participate in the scheme have found it very difficult to comply with the criteria set by the US government to avoid violating the general rules governing the sanctions, said the report.
Fabian Maienfisch, a spokesman for Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), which oversees the channel, has admitted in the past that the initiative had effectively failed to meet its objectives.
Such failures and the ECJ’s ruling prove statements by the Iranian government that the Europeans are disingenuous in dealing with the Islamic Republic.
The ruling comes as Iran and the Europeans continue negotiations in Vienna to find a way to remove the US sanctions.
A possible revival of the agreement would require the European companies to return to Iran and fulfill their obligations, but the EU court decision appears to be intentionally timed to provide them a leeway for further violations.
The US is Gaining a Foothold in Uzbekistan
By Valery Kulikov – New Eastern Outlook – 22.12.2021
To create sustainable groundwork for further expansion into Central Asia, Washington has recently placed particular emphasis on developing relations and cooperation with Uzbekistan.
One of such work areas in this country has been the active opening of “American Corners” in Uzbekistan. It is a US government-supported global network of more than 600 open-access educational centers, already implanted in more than 140 countries, seemingly dedicated to “spreading American culture and American values to every country in the world.” However, created in modern libraries, they are one of the main elements of American soft power. The US Embassy opened an “American Corner” in Qarshi in March 2021; the US Embassy plans to open at least six more such facilities throughout Uzbekistan. It has already allocated over $860,000.
Another area of US expansion in Uzbekistan is USAID’s aspirations to take control of the country’s pharmaceutical industry. To this end, USAID has opened a so-called “Quality Club” in Uzbekistan, which, it says, will promote the development of the pharmaceutical industry and local pharmaceutical manufacturers. According to a US Embassy release, the assistance will consist of discussions on updates, problems, and solutions related to regulating drugs and medical devices in Uzbekistan. US representatives present at the “Quality Club” opening discussed the current state of the Uzbek pharmaceutical industry, the contribution of local medicine producers to the common market, and achievements, obstacles, and development directions in the pharmaceutical industry. The advertising declarations of the US Embassy sounded, as always, noble, unless, of course, one keeps in mind that American charities do not do anything for nothing.
For the sake of objectivity in assessing this event, it should be recalled that there is a rigorous certification in the field of pharmaceutical products. And this, in particular, is clearly illustrated by the pharmaceutical war on vaccines against coronavirus. The United States has done quite a lot to keep the Russian Sputnik V vaccine out of that market. Therefore, it is easy to assume that the result of USAID activities will not be the promotion of Uzbek pharmaceutical products on the American and European markets, but the imposition of imports of American drugs to Uzbekistan and the capture of the Uzbek pharmaceutical market. As for the Uzbek industry, which has shown significant growth in recent years, it is unlikely to survive under pressure from USAID and Western corporations, as multinational corporations do not need competitors.
However, in addition to gaining complete control of Uzbekistan’s pharmaceutical industry, USAID has another goal. And it lies in the expansion through Uzbekistan to the entire EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union ) pharmaceutical industry, given that this Central Asian state has obtained observer status in the Eurasian Union and has already begun to adapt its national standards to EAEU requirements. And, given the importance of the EAEU market, USAID expects to take appropriate positions in the EAEU market through the mediation of Uzbekistan and gain access to the latest pharmaceutical developments in the EAEU.
However, the recently intensified “outreach to Uzbekistan” is being carried out by Washington not only in these directions. For example, recently, in Uzbekistan, there have been active discussions of political and economic partnership between the two countries with the participation of Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu. The most promising directions of further expansion of the bilateral economic partnership, including mining, chemical, agriculture, textile, and other industries, have been outlined during the meeting held on December 13 in Tashkent. The US side emphasized that in the eleven months of 2021, trade turnover between the two countries increased by 48.5% compared to the same period in 2020. In addition, the number of enterprises with American capital in Uzbekistan has doubled over the past few years. The sides expressed readiness to hold in the first half of 2022 a business forum for representatives of American and Uzbek business communities jointly with the American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce (AUCC).
The US representatives also stressed the importance of strengthening security cooperation by deepening ties between defense, law enforcement, border, and customs agencies. The United States expressed gratitude for the assistance provided by Uzbekistan to humanitarian aid providers at the Termez Cargo Center and welcomed Uzbekistan’s initiative to establish a regional logistics hub in Termez under the auspices of the UN to provide urgent humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan.
In the conditions mentioned above, the intensification of military cooperation with Uzbekistan remains on the active agenda of Washington. Uzbekistan remains the most convenient Central Asian country to locate a US Air Force base or counterterrorism center, targeting Afghanistan. Hence, discussions of American and NATO partners with Tashkent continue. Like many post-Soviet republics, Uzbekistan has partnered with NATO for peace since the 1990s, participating in consultations, delegation exchanges, and even joint troop maneuvers on US soil. And yet, for the past 20 years, Uzbek servicemen have not helped the Pentagon in Afghanistan with weapons in their hands like Georgians, Ukrainians and others. On the contrary, closer to the finish line of the infamous US mission in Afghanistan, Tashkent began to successfully establish constructive relations with the Taliban’s “political office” and promote Uzbek-Afghan economic cooperation projects.
Nevertheless, Washington has not given up hope of strengthening the strategic partnership with Uzbekistan in military projects or facilities. The regional choices are too limited. Therefore, representatives of CENTCOM will appear more than once in Tashkent, but the influence of Americans on the situation in the hot region will steadily diminish.
The Fear of Those Still-Secret CIA Records on the JFK Assassination
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 20, 2021
One of the amusing aspects of the ongoing controversy over those still-secret CIA records relating to the Kennedy assassination has been the reaction of lone-nut theorists. Hardly any of them, if any at all, are publicly calling on President Biden to disclose those records now rather than delaying disclosure for another year.
What’s up with that? Surely, lone-nut theorists don’t really buy into the “national security” rationale for keeping 58-year-old records relating to the assassination secret from the American people. I don’t know of anyone who really buys into that rationale. After all, what do they think will happen if those records are suddenly disclosed — that the Cuban communist army will invade Miami and start moving up the coast toward Washington?
I’ll tell you why those lone-nut theorists don’t demand immediate disclosure of those documents? They’re scared. Very scared. They fear, at least on a subconscious level, that those remaining records include powerful circumstantial evidence establishing that what happened on November 22, 1963, was a regime-change operation on the part of the national-security establishment. Why else would they still be hiding those records? No, the Cuban army is not going to invade Miami and start moving north toward Washington.
And no, I’m not suggesting that those 58-year-old, still-secret CIA records contain a confession of wrongdoing. Nobody would be stupid enough to put a confession into writing. And even if someone was that stupid, no one would be stupid enough to deliver such a confession to the Assassination Records Review Board or the National Archives.
The JFK assassination is like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. Imagine a really complicated puzzle that has 1000 small pieces to it. Your kids have lost 25 percent of the pieces. You decide to put the puzzle together anyway. You finish it. Even though you’ve only got 75 percent of it completed, you can still tell that it’s a picture of the Eiffel Tower. Then, you find several more pieces. You now have 80 percent of the pieces and you’re able to see the Eiffel Tower more clearly.
That’s the way it is with the Kennedy assassination. With around 75 percent of the pieces, one can see that this was a national-security state regime-change operation. What those remaining records will do is disclose several more small pieces that make the regime-change picture even clearer. That’s why they are hiding them. That’s why they have hidden them for 58 years. That’s why they will continue hiding them, even past Biden’s December 22, 2022, deadline for disclosure. It’s because those still-secret records contain additional incriminating pieces to the puzzle that further fill out the regime-change mosaic.
Permit me to address three factors regarding the Kennedy assassination.
The first one is what I call the Inconceivable Doctrine. It holds that it is just inconceivable that the Pentagon and the CIA would conduct a regime-change operation against President Kennedy.
Really? How can it be inconceivable given the fact that the Pentagon and the CIA engaged in regime-change operations against presidents and prime ministers of foreign countries, both before and after the Kennedy assassination?
Their violent coup in Iran in 1953 that ousted the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, from office.
Their assassination of Congo leader Patrice Lumumba.
Their regime-change operation in Guatemala in 1954, in which they ousted the democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, from office and also targeted him for assassination.
Their repeated assassination attempts against Cuban president Fidel Castro.
Their kidnapping and assassination of General Rene Schneider, the overall commander of Chile’s armed forces.
Their violent coup in Chile against the democratically elected president, Salvador
Allende, which left him dead.
Their participation in Operation Condor, the top-secret kidnapping, torture, and assassination program in South America.
Given those regime-change operations and Operation Condor, how can it be inconceivable that they would do the same to a democratically elected U.S. president, especially one whose policies they are convinced pose a grave threat to national security.
What lone-nut theorists just do not want to confront is the fact that the little monster that was brought into existence to assassinate and regime-change foreign leaders and others turned inward to protect America from a president whose philosophy and policies, they were convinced, posed a grave threat to national security — a much graver threat, in fact, than those other leaders posed who they assassinated or regime-changed. See FFF’s book JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne.
The second factor: In the Guatemalan and Chilean regime-change operations, the U.S. national-security establishment told their national-security counterparts in those two countries that the latter had the moral duty to protect their countries by ousting their president whose policies supposedly posed a grave threat to their own national security. How can a domestic regime-change operation be inconceivable given that mindset on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment?
The third factor: The fraudulent autopsy. In the 1990s, the Assassination Records Review Board broke the dam of silence surrounding the autopsy that the U.S. national-security establishment conducted on Kennedy’s body just a few hours after the assassination.
Consider just one aspect to the fraudulent autopsy — the two brain exams that were conducted, the second of which did not involve President Kennedy’s brain.
For 30 years, the national-security establishment had succeeded in keeping its autopsy on Kennedy’s body secret from the American people. It did this by “classifying” it and forcing military personnel involved in the autopsy to sign written secrecy oaths. The personnel were threatened with severe punitive actions if they ever talked about what they had done or seen.
For 30 years, the three military pathologists who conducted the autopsy claimed that there was only one brain examination. That was a lie. And there is no innocent explanation for that lie. It is incriminating, highly incriminating.
The ARRB staff determined that there were two brain exams. John Stringer, the official photographer for the autopsy, told the ARRB that he was at the first brain exam. He told them that at that exam, the brain was “sectioned” or cut like a loaf of bread. That’s standard procedure in gunshot wounds to the head.
Stringer also stated that the photographs of the brain in the official autopsy records were not the photographs he took.
Stringer also told the ARRB that he was not at the second brain exam, which was attended by all three military pathologists and some unknown photographer. At that second brain exam, the brain was not sectioned. That could not have been the brain at the first brain exam because a sectioned brain cannot reconstitute itself.
And that’s just the tip of the autopsy iceberg. See my books The Kennedy Autopsy and The Kennedy Autopsy 2.
As I have repeatedly stated over the years, there is no innocent explanation for a fraudulent autopsy. Certainly no lone-nut theorist has ever come up with one. That’s how we know that this was a national-security state regime-change operation. A fraudulent autopsy necessarily means cover-up in the assassination itself, especially given that the scheme for a fraudulent autopsy was launched at Parkland Hospital at the moment Kennedy was declared dead. See The Kennedy Autopsy.
Notice something important about all this: Whenever lone-nut theorists say that there isn’t evidence of a domestic regime-change operation, they never — repeat never! — address the fraudulent brain exams and the fraudulent autopsy. That’s because they know that a fraudulent brain exam and a fraudulent autopsy necessarily mean a national-security regime-change operation carried out against Kennedy.
The sooner America comes to grips with the fact that the Kennedy assassination is every bit a part of our legacy as a national-security state as all the other regime-change operations, the better off we will be. Acknowledging the truth about out national-security legacy will be the first step in ridding ourselves of the evil system known as a national-security state and restoring our founding governmental system of a limited-government republic.
Leaked NHS Report Claims London Hospitals “Likely to Be Overwhelmed” Within Three Weeks. We’ve Heard That Before
By Will Jones | The Daily Sceptic | December 22, 2021
An internal NHS report leaked to the Health Service Journal claims that hospitals and ambulances in London are “likely to become overwhelmed due to rising Covid demand in the next two to three weeks”.
This is despite the fact that, as NHS Providers Chief Chris Hopson points out: “The overall numbers remain relatively low compared to the January 2021 peak – 1,819 Covid patients currently in London versus 7,917 on January 18th 2021.”
Let’s bear in mind also that last winter an internal NHS briefing, again leaked to the Health Service Journal, claimed that under the “best” scenario London would have a shortfall of 1,515 general and acute beds by January 19th. Yet the briefing also stated London has 15,600 general and acute beds, which is almost double what turned out in fact to be the peak Covid winter occupancy of 7,917 beds on January 18th.
Nationally, at the winter peak on January 18th there were 8,696 unoccupied beds, 26,902 beds occupied by Covid patients and 50,204 beds occupied by non-Covid patients.
It’s also worth remembering that the NHS has a beds crisis every winter, as this selection of Guardian headlines illustrates. (See also the image at the top of headlines from the 2017-18 winter crisis.)
Yet the NHS coped, just as it did last year when almost no one was vaccinated. If there are systemic capacity problems in the NHS which mean it can’t get through winter without cancelling elective procedures then those need to be addressed. But it should go without saying that this is no excuse to impose costly, illiberal restrictions on society.
Civil liberties should not be so cheap that they may be suspended to make up for the failings of a poorly managed health service with insufficient resources committed to frontline services.
Sen. Johnson Requests Records From Top Medical Journals on Retracted Studies, Including Flawed HCQ Study
The Defender | December 21, 2021
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has written to The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine seeking records on two retracted studies from mid-2020. Johnson particularly called out The Lancet study, which suggested hydroxychloroquine could boost the risk of death in COVID patients.
“Although this fraudulent study was ultimately retracted, it is concerning and shameful that, in the midst of a pandemic, The Lancet published such a misleading paper on a potential early treatment for COVID-19,” said Johnson, the ranking member on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in a letter dated Dec. 14.
Johnson seeks all records of the journals’ communication on the two studies, including communication with the papers’ authors; U.S. government employees; individuals who encouraged the studies’ publication; and the supplier of the two studies’ datasets, Surgisphere, a healthcare analytics company.
Despite The Lancet paper’s retraction, its initial publication halted trials on hydroxychloroquine’s use and sullied its reputation more broadly. The Washington Post and other major media headlined the increased risk of death, and health authorities took action globally within days of the paper’s publication.
The World Health Organization and the UK’s drug regulator halted trials of the drug in COVID settings. France reversed an earlier decision to allow hydroxychloroquine’s use in COVID patients.
Readers of The Lancet quickly noted the study cited implausibly high numbers of COVID cases in 2020, and journalists failed to find any hospitals that had contributed data, despite the study’s claim that more than 96,000 hospital patients participated.
The Lancet retracted the study two weeks after publication.
Sen. Johnson also requested information from The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on another study retracted in June 2020.
Johnson explained in his letter, the NEJM paper reportedly found that “taking certain blood pressure drugs, including angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, didn’t appear to increase the risk of death among COVID-19 patients, as some researchers had suggested.”
However, the study’s authors wrote to the NEJM a few weeks after the study was published, acknowledging they could not validate the primary data supporting the study and apologized “to the editors and to readers of the Journal for the difficulties that this has caused.”
Johnson has requested all records by Jan. 4, 2022.
© 2021 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
Doctors Told To Prescribe Less Antidepressants Because They Don’t Work
By Richie Allen | December 21, 2021
A review has found that there is little evidence that antidepressants are effective and that doctors should prescribe them less frequently and for shorter time periods. One in six adults in the UK were on antidepressants in 2020.
According to The Times :
…. many patients had side effects and withdrawal symptoms, which could be severe, researchers said.
Trial data had failed to show a “clinically relevant” difference between the drugs and a placebo, according to the findings, published online in the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin.
An estimated 7.8 million people in England — roughly one adult in six — were given at least one prescription for antidepressants in 2019-20. Rates were 50 per cent higher in women and the number of youngsters aged between 12 and 17 who were prescribed the drugs more than doubled between 2005 and 2017.
The researchers, from University College London and Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, said the balance between benefit and harm from the drugs was uncertain and that “we should revisit the widespread — and growing — prescription of antidepressants”.
Doctors have known for years that antidepressants are useless and come with potentially harmful side-effects. Why do they continue to prescribe them then?
Dr. James Davies is the author of “Cracked: Why Psychiatry Is Doing More Harm Than Good.” Back in 2014, he told Channel 4:
“The so-called advantages of these medicines have been oversold and overplayed by the pharmaceutical industry and by members of the medical profession who have been recruited by the industry to sell up the advantages to other doctors and to their patients.
This has led to a belief that people in the general public tend to have that these pills tend to work. They don’t work better than placebo for most people.
I think what we have seen is a cultural shift in how we manage and respond to emotional discontent. There is a growing suspicion of emotional discontent and a growing need to get rid of it as soon as possible. Pills seem to offer us a solution.
Most people taking antidepressants are not mentally ill. They are suffering from natural, normal – albeit painful – human responses to the different things they have got themselves caught up in – things that these medicines were never designed to treat.
People are presenting to their GPs with common life problems and the GPs don’t want to send them away empty-handed.”
GP’s who prescribe antidepressants, simply because they don’t want to send a patient home empty-handed, should be struck off. Those GP’s are little more than drug dealers.
Davies is right. The pharmaceutical industry has oversold and overplayed the benefits of antidepressants. In fact, they’ve lied about the benefits. They know their drugs don’t work. They’ve spent billions bribing legislators and regulators to get their useless and dangerous drugs approved in every country in the world.
These are the same gangsters pushing covid jabs today. How could you possibly believe them when they declare their jabs to be safe and effective?
I don’t.
Complaint to Ofcom
Source: BIT
By Laura Dodsworth | 21st December 2021
Dear Melanie Dawes,
We are writing to alert you to a broadcast license complaint we have made about Sky UK. Our complaint concerns a partnership between Sky and Behavioural Insights U.K., Known as the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), a limited company partly owned by the Government. We believe this partnership – and, in particular, Sky’s adoption of BIT’s recommendations about how to help the Conservative Government successfully implement one of its most political contentious policy, namely, Net Zero – contravenes the Broadcasting Code.
The partnership we’re referring to resulted in the publication of ‘The Power of TV: Nudging Viewers to Decarbonise their Lifestyles’ and the launch of Sky’s ‘Sky Zero’ campaign, which recommended that broadcasters make use of “behavioural science principles”, including subliminal messaging (“nudging” in the parlance of BIT, which is colloquially known as the Nudge Unit), to encourage viewers to endorse and comply with Conservative Government policy. Alarmingly, the report recommends broadcasters utilize sophisticated psychological techniques to change the behaviour of children “because of the important influence they have on the attitude and behaviours of their parents”.
Summary
We are concerned that this partnership and Sky’s adoption of BIT’s recommendations:
- Will affect the political impartiality of news and wider programming on Sky’s channels;
- Reveals an inappropriate relationship between a company which, when the report was published, was part owned by the U.K. Government, and a licensed U.K. broadcaster. Sky referred to BIT as “independent” in its video to promote this partnership, yet Sky will be aware that BIT was at the time part owned by the U.K. Cabinet Office. Until the Cabinet Office’s share was bought by NESTA earlier this month, the company was commonly referred to as “the Government’s Nudge Unit” and advised the Government on how to influence the public using sophisticated psychological techniques, particularly when it comes to getting people to comply with Government policies;
- Is an attempt to affect viewers’ attitudes and behaviour, including those of children, through the use of indirect, subliminal messaging (“nudging”) with a view to securing their support and compliance with one of the most politically contentious policy of the Conservative Government, namely, Net Zero.
- Reveals a historic relationship between behavioural scientists employed by the U.K. Government and broadcasters to promote Government policies: “behaviour change via broadcasting and traditional media has historically been aimed at improving public health, boosting gender equality, and reducing violence. Imagine the potential for emissions reductions if the same methods were used to encourage sustainable behaviours!” This historic relationship warrants further investigation since it may include historic breaches of the Broadcasting Code by Sky and other broadcasters.
The Complaint
Below are the specific contraventions of Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code that we are concerned about:
2.11 Broadcasters must not use techniques which exploit the possibility of conveying a message to viewers or listeners, or of otherwise influencing their minds without their being aware, or fully aware, of what has occurred. [Section two: Harm and Offence, The Broadcasting Code.]
The jointly-published report by BIT and Sky reveals their intention to subtly influence viewers’ attitudes and behaviour in indirect, subliminal ways by using sophisticated psychological techniques based on behavioural science. The aim is to change viewers minds, including the minds of children, about a politically contentious issue by using these techniques so viewers aren’t fully aware that an attempt is being made to change their minds. The underlying assumption is that this subtle, indirect messaging is a more effective way of changing people’s attitudes and behaviour than more overt messaging since the messages will be absorbed semi-consciously – catching viewers off guard, as it were, and bypassing their critical faculties. The use of this “nudging” would be less objectionable if these techniques were being recommended to promote an apolitical, uncontentious agenda. But the recommendation of the joint report is that these sophisticated psychological techniques be used to persuade viewers to endorse one of the Conservative Government most politically contentious policies, namely, Net Zero.
The foreword to the report, authored by David Halpern, the CEO of BIT, says:
Societal-level behaviour change is needed to tackle climate change… From changing what we buy and what we eat, to changing the technologies we use to heat our homes and travel, reaching Net Zero is conditional on large numbers of people taking up green behaviours and products.
Broadcast organisations and content creators therefore have a unique opportunity to make a difference for the planet. Through the programs that they produce, the characters that they create, the plot-lines that they develop, and the adverts that they broadcast, content creators have the potential to have a far-reaching impact on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of citizens, and to spark conversations in boardrooms and political arenas alike. They are also pivotally placed to help people sift through the maze of choices and claims, to adopt behaviours – and products – that can get us to a greener future.
The BIT report goes on to recommend a variety of subtle psychological techniques that broadcasters can use to promote this agenda, including using celebrities, on-screen presenters and dramatic characters as “role models”, e.g. advocates for the Net Zero policy, plot-lines, product placement, and editorially endorsing the Net Zero policy in news and current affairs programmes, as well as in drama programmes, travel programmes, DIY programmes and cookery programmes. Indeed, no area of Sky’s output across its various channels is to be left unaffected by this agenda.
Dana Strong, Group Chief Executive, Sky, agrees with this aim. She says in her foreword:
As Europe’s largest media and entertainment organisation, we also want to accelerate our industry’s efforts to drive global progress towards net zero.
However, it is now widely accepted that we must shift the behaviour of millions of people to deliver on our collective net zero goals…
We know that what we broadcast has the power to change how we as consumers feel and act. What we see on our screens can shock us, inspire us, educate us, and entertain us. [Our emphasis.]
5.1: News, in whatever form, must be reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality. [Section five: Due impartiality and due accuracy, The Broadcasting Code.]
The report suggests that, “Audiences’ knowledge on what to do and how can be improved by documentaries; DIY, travel, and cookery shows; and news coverage.”
This is an explicit call for broadcasters to encourage viewers to comply (“what to do and how”) with a controversial Conservative Government policy in news programmes, which is a breach of the Broadcasting Code’s “due impartiality” requirement.
In addition, the Climate Content Pledge (undertaken by 12 major U.K. media companies, including Sky) promises:
We will incorporate climate change considerations into all our editorial processes, informed by science and behavioural insight.
It is a breach of the “due impartiality” requirement for “climate change considerations”, e.g. promotion of the Government’s Net Zero policy, to be woven into all editorial processes, which include those in news and current affairs.
5.5: Due impartiality on matters of political or industrial controversy and matters relating to current public policy must be preserved on the part of any person providing a service (listed above). This may be achieved within a programme or over a series of programmes taken as a whole. [Section five: Due impartiality and due accuracy, The Broadcasting Code.]
As well as news and current affairs, other programming – such as DIY, travel and cookery programmes – must maintain “due impartiality on matters of political and industrial controversy and matters relating to current policy”. Yet the joint report by BIT and Sky encourages broadcasters to persuade viewers to comply with a controversial political (and industrial) policy, namely, Net Zero, which is a breach of this requirement. No balance of views and opinions or debate about this controversial Government policy is proposed, only suggestions as to how best to get viewers to change their attitudes and “behaviours” to align with the policy.
5.12: In dealing with matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy an appropriately wide range of significant views must be included and given due weight in each programme or in clearly linked and timely programmes. Views and facts must not be misrepresented. [Section five: Due impartiality and due accuracy, The Broadcasting Code.]
A commitment to promoting the Conservative Government’s goal of Net Zero will necessitate the exclusion of a wide range of alternative views, including those of numerous members of Parliament, other elected representatives, as well as distinguished climate scientists, experts on energy policy and environment correspondents. Excluding or marginalizing people who dissent from the Net Zero policy is surely a breach of this requirement. Broadcasters have an obligation to ensure viewers are exposed to a wide range of different viewpoints about this politically contentious policy.
9.1: Broadcasters must maintain independent editorial control over programming. [Section nine: Commercial references on TV, The Broadcasting Code.]
The report’s suggestion – that U.K. broadcasters incorporate the recommendations of a company partly owned by the U.K. Government, as it was at the time – implicitly undermines independent editorial integrity.
Product placement
The report recommends product placement to encourage people to support the Net Zero policy. Below are two examples:
Product placement directly impacts behaviour, it can influence key outcomes such as brand attention, knowledge, interest, recall, recognition, and purchase intent, which is encouraging for the potential impact that background green content could have on viewers. This can be explained by the “mere exposure effect”, where people often develop preferences for things simply because they are familiar with them.
Use green product placement and model green actions in the background to improve familiarity, create positive attitudes and norms.
This contravenes Ofcom’s rules which state that “product placement must not impair broadcasters’ editorial independence and must always be editorially justified. This means that programmes cannot be created or distorted so that they become vehicles for the purposes of featuring product placement.”
Conclusion
We find the collaboration between a major U.K. broadcaster and a company that was part-owned by the Cabinet Office until earlier this month to promote one of the most politically contentious policies of the current Conservative Government deeply alarming. The report jointly published by BIT and Sky seems to be unaware of the obligations imposed on broadcasters by the Broadcasting Code to maintain “due impartiality” across all their output, particularly news and current affairs, and the need to expose viewers to a wide range of views when it comes to “matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy”. On the contrary, Sky recommends that all U.K. broadcasters adopt a hard editorial bias when it comes to the promotion of the Government’s controversial Net Zero policy, and proudly boasts that it is adopting these recommendations itself.
We are particularly concerned about Sky’s enthusiastic embrace of subtle and sophisticated psychological techniques, rooted in behavioural science, to promote endorsement of and compliance with the Net Zero policy, as well as its evangelism in trying to get other broadcasters to use these techniques. To take just one example, the use of product placement to try and influence viewers’ attitudes and behaviour towards this controversial policy is a flagrant breach of Section Two of the Broadcasting Code, which explicitly prohibits the use of “techniques which exploit the possibility of conveying a message to viewers or listeners, or of otherwise influencing their minds without their being aware, or fully aware, of what has occurred”. Far from being concerned that the use of product placement may persuade viewers to endorse a politically controversial policy without their being fully aware of it, BIT and Sky appear to be recommending its use for precisely that reason. The recommendation in the report that such techniques are deployed to change the behaviour of children – and the implication that Sky is currently doing precisely that across all its channels – is unconscionable.
We hope you will investigate our complaint with the urgency we believe it merits.
Yours sincerely,
Laura Dodsworth
Toby Young
CC: The RT Hon Nadine Dorries MP, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport; Lucy Powell MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
The OPCW Douma Investigation: Manipulation of Key Toxicology and Related Information Regarding Alleged Victims between the Original Interim Report and the Final Report
Dr Piers Robinson, Convenor, Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media | December 2021
This report, reviewed by three experts, has been extracted from a larger report analysing the OPCW Douma investigation and which will be published in full at a later date. For comments, further information and corrections please contact Dr Piers Robinson at piers.robinson@propagandastudies.org, piers.robinson@propagandastudies.ac.uk or piers.robinson@me.com
Table of Contents
1. Overview
2. Redaction of Key Toxicology Finding Ruling Out Chlorine Gas as Cause of Death
3. Redaction of Information Concerning Gas Dispersion and Build Up
4. Deletion of Contradictory Information Regarding Location of Deceased in Basements
4.1 Deceased in Basement
4.2 Inconsistencies with Respect to Death Toll and Burial of Victims
5. Obfuscation and Failure to Resolve Unexplained ‘Country X’ Witness Testimony Regarding Nerve Agent Symptoms
6. Unresolved Questions Regarding the Authenticity of Events at Location 2
7. Discussion and Recommendations for Next Steps
1. Overview
This report is extracted from a larger report, in progress, which systematically documents the alterations and redactions observed across the OPCW Fact Finding Mission reports- The Original Interim Report, the Secretly Redacted Interim Report, the Published Interim Report and the Final Report.[1] The focus of this report is on critical information regarding the 43 victims at Douma who are reported to have been killed as a result of the alleged chemical weapon attack in Douma, 7 April 2018. No traces of any nerve agent such as sarin were found. As is now known, the Final OPCW report, which reported there were reasonable grounds to conclude chlorine gas was used as a weapon, has been challenged by a significant number of experts whilst two former OPCW scientists involved with the investigation have reported what amounts to malpractice and fraud during the OPCW investigation.
This report shows how significant information relating to the Douma victims has been manipulated, with no apparent justification, through alterations or redactions between the Original Interim Report and the Final Report. At the very least this manipulation of information indicates that the circumstances surrounding the deaths are far from clear. At worst the manipulations indicate an attempt to conceal the truth about what happened to the civilians. Key findings are as follows:
- A toxicology assessment by four NATO toxicologists/pharmacologists from Germany with expertise in chemical weapons poisoning which ruled out chlorine gas as a cause of death was reported in the Original Interim Report but omitted from the Final Report.
- Information questioning the feasibility of a fatal build-up of gas, especially in the basement of the alleged attack site at Location 2, although clearly set out in the Original Interim Report, was omitted from the Final Report.
- Contradicting witness testimonies regarding deceased victims at the alleged attack site ‘Location 2’, although detailed in the Original Interim Report, are excluded from or obfuscated in the Final Report.
- Witness accounts indicating contradictory information regarding casualty numbers and who was responsible for burying them have been obfuscated come the Final Report.
- Divergent witness testimony between ‘Damascus’ witnesses and ‘Country X’ witnesses, with only the latter reporting symptoms associated with a chemical attack, is clearly demarcated in the Original Interim Report but obfuscated and unresolved in the Final Report.
- Information regarding the ‘repositioning’ of bodies through the course of the night 7-8 April 2018, evident in open-source images circulated by activists, is clearly stated in the Original Interim Report but downplayed in the Final Report.
- Information raising question marks over the authenticity of foam-like material observed on some of the victims, whilst mentioned in the Final Report, is left unexplored and unresolved.
The implications of these manipulations are discussed more fully in Section 7. Briefly, the exclusion of the key toxicology assessment ruling out chlorine gas, which indicates that the victims were not killed by chlorine gas at Location 2, is significant because it obfuscates the fact that no clear explanation for cause of death could be established. As such, the deaths of 43 civilians remains unexplained. Conflicting and inconsistent statements from alleged witnesses in ‘Country X’ – numbers and whereabouts of the deceased at Location 2 and nerve agent symptoms – is concerning and, when combined with the downplaying of information relating to the ‘re-positioning’ of bodies and possibly inauthentic foam-like material observed on some of the decedents, indicates that the Final Report elided information potentially relevant to a finding that at least some of the events at Location 2 were manipulated or staged. Finally, the significant discrepancies in witness accounts regarding the number of deceased, their burial in a mass grave along with other victims, as well as obfuscation of exactly who buried the deceased, reinforces the concern that the circumstances surrounding the civilian deaths in Douma on 7 April 2018 have been obfuscated in the Final Report.
2. Redaction of Key Toxicology Finding Ruling Out Chlorine Gas as Cause of Death
The finding that no nerve agents, such as sarin, or their degradation products were present in the environmental and biological samples, together with the fact that chemical analysis showed samples had apparently been in contact with a substance or substances containing a reactive chlorine atom, was puzzling; the signs and symptoms exhibited by the victims was, the investigators argued, inconsistent with poisoning from a choking agent such as chlorine gas. The Original Interim Report proceeds to identify the principal incongruencies – the almost instantaneous occurrence of pulmonary oedema and associated copious frothing at the mouth and nose, and the apparent immediate collapse and death of the victims who were within meters of an escape route – which according to the investigators rule out chlorine gas being the cause of death at Location 2 (see Image 1).
Image1: Photograph taken of some of the victims at Location 2 and distributed via Opposition Media
These principal inconsistencies were confirmed at a meeting held with chemical warfare toxicologists/pharmacologists in early June 2018).[2] Minutes written up for toxicology meeting conclude by stating ‘that the key “take-away message” from the meeting was that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine, and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified’. These minutes were confirmed[3] by the other OPCW officials who had attended, including the Head of OPCW Laboratory. These principal inconsistencies are set out clearly in the opening summary section of the Original Interim Report as follows:
‘Some of the signs and symptoms described by witnesses and noted in photos and video recordings taken by witnesses, of the alleged victims are not consistent with exposure to chlorine-containing choking or blood agents such as chlorine gas, phosgene or cyanogen chloride. Specifically, the rapid onset of heavy buccal and nasal frothing in many victims, as well as the colour of the secretions, is not indicative of intoxification from such chemicals.
The large number of decedents in the one location (allegedly 40 to 50), most of whom were seen in videos and photos strewn on the floor of the apartments away from open windows, and within a few meters of an escape to un-poisoned or less toxic air, is at odds with intoxication by chlorine-based choking or blood agents, even at high concentrations.’ (Original Interim Report [Summary]; paras 1.10-1.11, p. 3)
In the ‘Epidemiology’ section of the same report (paras 7.70-7.91; pp: 26-29) it is first noted that the apparent rapid onset of symptoms and death are consistent with a fast-acting nerve agent such as sarin:
‘A highly debilitating agent, in the opinion of the FFM team, would have to have been released in order to cause the rapid onset of symptoms described by witnesses and observed in the videos where large numbers of decedents are concentrated in different apartments at Location 2. The rapid onset of heavy salivation and frothing from the mouth would be more consistent with exposure to a highly toxic nerve agent than a chocking (sic) agent such as chlorine or phosgene. However, analytical results showed no indication of organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products present in samples collected at the scene of the alleged attack or in biomedical samples from victims’. (Original Interim Report: para 7.81; p. 27)
Before then identifying the principal inconsistencies with respect to chlorine gas:
a) Pulmonary edema [sic] and excessive frothing from the mouth have been reported in cases of exposure to lethal doses of chlorine gas or other toxic chlorine-based agents such as phosgene or cyanogen chloride [7] [8] [9]. However, indications are that pulmonary edema, particularly in the case of phosgene, is a late pathological effect of exposure and in cases of high exposure levels death can result before pulmonary edema develops [8] [9]. The white of [sic] light-cream colour of the froth presented by victims is not in keeping with exposure to choking agents, where secretions are characteristically pinkish in colour when frothing does occur,
‘The rapid, and in some reported cases, immediate onset of frothing described by victims is not considered consistent with exposure to chlorine-based choking or blood agents. The opinion of a number of toxicologists, specialists in chemical-weapons-related intoxication supported this assessment’. (Original Interim Report: para 7.82; pp. 26- 27)
b) In order to produce such rapid incapacitation that victims would be unable to escape the toxic gas from the location of the alleged chemical attack (see 3D layout of the building and description), a respiratory irritant such as chlorine or phosgene would almost certainly need to have rapidly accumulated to very high concentrations. It is considered unlikely, given the location of the suspected source of the toxic chemical as well as the configuration and condition of the building, that such concentrations would not[sic] have been attained, particularly in the basement. Moreover, if such high concentrations had developed, as mentioned above, reports suggest that asphyxiation would have been the likely cause of death before pulmonary edema and frothing could develop [10]. (Original Interim Report: para 7.83; p. 27)
c) ‘It should be expected that on encountering the irritant gas, victims would instinctively have retreated and exited the building, which was within a few metres away.’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.84; p. 27)
d) ‘Based on the above observations, expert opinions of toxicologists specialized in chemical weapons exposure, and published scientific knowledge in this area, the FFM team considers that chlorine gas or other reactive chlorine-containing toxic agents such a phosgene or cyanogen chloride would not have resulted in the severe and rapid frothing symptoms reported by witnesses and observed in video footage and photos.’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.85; p. 27)
However, whilst the Original Interim Report communicates clearly the findings that both the arrangement of bodies and the observed symptoms are not compatible with chlorine poisoning, the Final Report obfuscates this finding as follows.
The Summary section of the Final Report contains no reference to the principal inconsistencies and the ruling out of chlorine gas. Instead, the summary section makes reference to both (a) witness observations alleging 43 decedents at Location 2 and that the FFM did not examine the bodies (Final Report [Summary]: para 2.10; p. 3) and (b) that ‘many of the signs and symptoms reported … indicate exposure to an inhalant irritant or toxic substance’ (Final Report [Summary]: para 2.11; p. 4). It then concludes: … based on the information reviewed and with the absence of biomedical samples from the dead bodies or any autopsy records, it is not currently possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical’ (Final Report [Summary]: para 2.11; p. 4). The formulation of words used avoids making any explicit statement ruling out chlorine, thus leaving the possibility that chlorine might have been a cause. As such, the key conclusion that chlorine gas was not likely to have been the cause of death, confirmed during the June 2018 consultation with NATO toxicologists, is absent from the Final Report summary.
Furthermore, in an apparent attempt to strengthen the suggestion that the victims were killed in a chemical attack, the Final Report summary (para 2.10; p. 3) claims that ‘[a] United Nations agency also reported cases of death by exposure to a toxic chemical’ and references two UN (Human Rights Council [HRC]) reports[4]. This claim is misleading in that neither of the UN reports, both written while the OPCW’s Douma investigation was still ongoing and which rely primarily on witness testimony, state any firm conclusions regarding cause of death:
The Commission of Inquiry has been investigating this incident. The available evidence is largely consistent with the use of chlorine, but this in and of itself does not explain other reported symptoms, which are more consistent with the use of another chemical agent, most likely a nerve gas. The Commission’s investigations are on-going. (Report A: p. 14).
And in a section of the HRC report headed ‘Ongoing Investigations’:
‘… the Commission cannot make yet any conclusions concerning the exact cause of death, in particular on whether another agent was used in addition to chlorine that may have caused or contributed to deaths and injuries’ (Report B: p. 17).
As such, nothing substantive can be drawn from the cited UN reports as they, in fact, cite clear reservations about the cause of death that undermine the Final Report’s conclusion of chlorine being the likely cause of death.[5] This is a misleading move and one that is reinforced by repeated referencing of the two UN reports in the conclusion section of the Final Report (para 9.5: p. 30-31). Furthermore, it is notable that the latest report from the UN HRC on this issue does not include Douma as one of its 38 cases of chemical weapons use in Syria, because it did not meet the evidentiary threshold necessary to conclude an attack had occurred.[6]
The principal inconsistencies and ruling out of chlorine gas are also expunged from the body of the Final Report. Specifically, the Epidemiology section does at least include the important observation that only a fast-acting agent (which chlorine gas is not) would readily explain the apparently immediate collapse and death of victims at Location 2:
‘The victims do not appear to have been in the midst of attempting self-extrication or respiratory protection when they collapsed, indicating a very rapid or instant onset. This type of rapid collapse is indicative of an agent capable of quickly killing or immobilizing’ (Final Report: para 8.96; p. 29).
However, the principal inconsistencies identified in the Original Interim Report that lead to the conclusion that chlorine gas was inconsistent with the cause of death at Location 2 – immediate appearance of pulmonary oedema and copious visible frothing plus the rapid collapse of victims in piles – are absent. Instead, the ‘Epidemiology Analysis’ spends several paragraphs describing, amongst other things, the various symptoms observed in media and reported by witnesses before concluding that ‘it is not currently possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical’ (Final Report: paras 8.70-8.103; pp: 25-30). Again, as with the summary section, the formulation of words used avoids committing to any explicit statement either ruling out or affirming chlorine use, thus leaving the possibility that chlorine might have been a cause. Via this apparent linguistic sleight of hand, the original finding, that ‘symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine’[7], is elided.
No explanation or justification for this expunging of an unequivocal expert opinion can be identified in the Final Report. Whilst the report does refer to later consultations with toxicologists in September and October 2018, it provides no information about what they said that might help to explain or justify the suppression. It is also notable and concerning that the Final Report makes no mention of the original consultation with the NATO toxicologists; the only consultations shown in the report timeline are those obtained during the Autumn of 2018 (Final Report: Annex 3; pp; 40-41).
3. Redaction of Information Concerning Gas Dispersion and Build Up
Regarding the feasibility of gas concentration reaching lethal levels, a section titled ‘Analysis of the possible route of dispersion of the alleged toxic chemicals or chemicals in Location 2’, included discussion of likely dispersion routes for gas at Location 2 (Original Interim Report: paras 7.24-7.26; pp. 15-16, including Images 2 and 3). In this section the report noted that each level on the staircase had a ‘tall glass-shattered window’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.19; p. 13) which provided routes ‘for horizontal dissipation of the toxic gas towards the exterior’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.25; p. 15). It is also noted that no direct route could be identified through which chlorine gas from the cylinder, which had landed on a balcony several floors up from ground-level, could directly reach the basement: ‘It would also appear that for chlorine to reach lethal concentration in the basement, the gas dispersion would almost certainly need to have come from the exterior, given the absence of a clear dispersion path from within the building’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.25; p. 15).
Images 2 & 3: Sample of diagrams from Original Interim Report relating to building layout and dispersion routes.
Drawing upon this analysis, the Original Interim Report then notes in the Epidemiology Section that:
In order to produce such rapid incapacitation that victims would be unable to escape the toxic gas from the location of the alleged chemical attack (see 3D layout of the building and description), a respiratory irritant such as chlorine or phosgene would almost certainly need to have rapidly accumulated to very high concentrations. It is considered unlikely, given the location of the suspected source of the toxic chemical as well as the configuration and condition of the building, that such concentrations would not [sic] have been attained, particularly in the basement. (Original Interim Report: para 7.83; p. 28)
Unlike the Original Interim Report, the Final Report contains no discussion of possible dispersion routes and the feasibility of dangerous concentrations of gas having built up so rapidly. The existence of glass-shattered windows on the staircase at each level plus the absence of any direct route for gas to pass into the basement are mentioned (Final Report: paras 8.24 and 8.25; pp. 15-16), but no analysis is provided, unlike in the Original Interim Report, as to what these facts mean with respect to the likely dispersion of any chlorine gas. Also of relevance here is the fact that the Original Interim Report documents significant inconsistencies in witness testimony regarding reports of victims in the basement at Location 2 and elsewhere.
4. Deletion of Contradictory Information Regarding Location of Deceased in Basements
Witness testimony regarding the presence of deceased in the basement at Location 2, and information regarding the number of deceased and their burial, are facts present in the Original Interim Report but removed from the Final Report.
4.1 Deceased in Basement
The Original Interim Report noted significant variations in witness testimony relating to the finding of deceased in basements. Specifically:
there were variations … in the numbers of bodies and their distributions throughout location 2 as observed in video footage and photos, compared to the numbers provided by witnesses who were interviewed. According to statements from witnesses, “many people they presumed dead, were lying on the floor of the basement”. (Original Interim Report: para 7.69; p. 23).
The Original Interim Report sets out these discrepancies in a table identifying four witnesses (Witnesses 1919, 1742, 1753 and 1920) who claim to have seen between ‘some’ and ’40-50’ decedents in the basement at Location 2 (Original Interim Report: p. 24 and see Image 4).
Image 4: Table detailing ‘Country X’ witness reports regarding location of mortal victims (Original Interim Report: p. 24)
However, no evidence could be found to corroborate the claims bodies had been found in any basements:
The FFM did not obtain any video footage or photos of dead casualties lying in the basement of location 2 or being removed from there. There were also no photos or video footage available to the FFM team of the other two basements or of decedents, where three witnesses interviewed claimed to have been exposed to chlorine’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.69; pp. 23- 24)
This information is important[8] because it highlights the question of how the victims could have been poisoned and killed in the basement of the building at Location 2 by gas from a cylinder that had landed on a balcony four floors above. As noted above in Section 3 – Redaction of Information Concerning Gas Dispersion and Build Up – the basement only had an entrance from the street. This implied that the chlorine would need to have descended inside the building gone out on to the street and re-entered the basement in lethal concentrations, an unproven and unlikely scenario.
Notably, the Secretly Redacted Interim Report redacts information concerning the lack of evidence for witness claims regarding observing deceased in the basement at location 2. The paragraph cited immediately above is altered in the Secretly Redacted Interim Report to read:
Three of the seven casualties were purportedly exposed at two buildings, the exact locations of which were not known or visited by the FFM team. No photographs or videos of the locations or victims of the alleged attacks at these locations were available to the FFM team. (Secretly Redacted Interim Report: para 7.29; p. 15)
As such, the Secretly Redacted Interim Report obfuscates the key discrepancy noted in the Original Interim Report about the contradiction between witness claims that deceased had been seen in the basement at Location 2 and there being no obvious explanation for how chlorine gas could have entered that basement and reached lethal concentrations. The wording is also deceptive in that, by noting the absence of photographs or videos at the two other buildings, it implies there were video and films available for the Location 2 basement. No mention of this issue is made in the Published Interim Report which states only that ‘[a]nalysis of the testimonies is ongoing’ (para 8.17; p. 11).
The issues raised by these particular witness claims remain unresolved in the Final Report which continues to exclude the detailed table (see Image 4) that appeared in the Original Interim Report. In particular, the problematic claim made by four witnesses that bodies were seen in the basement at Location 2 is obfuscated in the Final Report: Whilst the Final Report refers to some witnesses ‘seeing decedents in the basement of the building’ [at location 2] (Final Report: para 2.10 p. 3 and para 9.5; p. 30), at another point it makes no mention of deceased in the basement at Location 2: ‘Witness accounts place the deceased lying on the stairs, inside apartments on multiple levels of Location 2, inside basements of neighbouring buildings across the area, on rooftops and on the streets’ (Final Report: para 8.62; p. 24). As with the Secretly Redacted Interim Report and Published Interim Report, no mention is made of the fact that the FFM ‘did not obtain any video footage or photos of dead casualties lying in the basement of Location 2 or being removed from there’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.69; p. 23-24).
These obfuscations are not trivial. As already explained, there was no plausible explanation established for how chlorine gas could have travelled down several flights of stairs at location 2, to then move out onto a street and then re-enter the building to enter the basement, and then build up sufficient concentration to cause multiple deaths. A possibility raised by these inconsistencies is that witness reports of there having been deceased in the basement are untrue.
4.2 Inconsistencies with Respect to Death Toll and Burial of Victims
In the Original Interim Report two witnesses (1787 & 1780) report 150-300 total dead (Original Interim Report: p. 24 and see Image 4). In addition, the report also states that the ‘SCD’ [‘Syrian Civil Defence’/White Helmets] were in charge of burying the deceased in co-ordination with the local council. Most of the witnesses reported to be unaware of the location of the burial sites’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.50; p. 21). The Original Interim Report also notes that ‘Witnesses who were involved in burial preparations recounted that the victims of the alleged chemical attack were buried in a mass grave with other casualties’ (para 7.66; p. 23). Additionally, in a 2019 interview with ‘civil society leaders’ from Douma it is claimed, according to the translation, that there were 187 bodies found in ‘bunkers’. As pointed out by Adam Larson, one of the individuals in the 2019 interview was also recorded during the 2013 alleged sarin attack in East Ghouta:
In the subsequent reports there appears to be no further mention of either the higher death toll claims or the reference to burial in a mass grave alongside other victims[9]. The Final Report states:
The FFM could not establish the precise number of casualties; however some sources reported that it ranged between 50 and 500. Other sources denied the presence of chemically -related casualties. (Final Report: para 8.73; p. 26)
In the Final Report it is no longer clarified who was responsible for burying the victims and says instead:
Prior to the military campaign, the SCD was in charge of burying the deceased in coordination with the local council. A number of witnesses reported that they were unaware of the location of the burial sites. (Final Report: para 8.47; p. 22)
This alteration obfuscates whether or not the SCD were responsible for burying the deceased. At the time of the alleged attack in Douma, a British journalist, Jose Ensor, reported that those responsible for the burial were ‘local residents and members of Jaish al-Islam [the militant opposition group in Douma]’ and that the intent was to preserve evidence. Recently, Raed Saleh (Head of the ‘SCD’/White Helmets) was interviewed by the BBC and he stated [according to the BBC translation]:
The dead were buried in one place. It was a mass grave. It wasn’t the first time we buried people like that. Because when these attacks happen, we don’t have enough cemeteries all the time. There are too many dead. We didn’t gather evidence from the bodies themselves. We took samples from things like animal corpse and clothes and other effects. We told investigators location of the grave and met with investigators at the Turkish border to hand over the evidence we had gathered. (BBC ‘Mayday’, Episode ‘The Cylinder on the Bed’).
Overall, alterations and inconsistent claims as to the total number of deceased and who was responsible for burying the civilians inevitably means that key events surrounding the deaths in Douma remain left unclear in the Final Report.
5. Obfuscation and Failure to Resolve Unexplained ‘Country X’ Witness Testimony Regarding Nerve Agent Symptoms
The Original Interim Report states in its Epidemiology section that:
Witnesses interviewed in Damascus present a narrative whereby, on April 7 around the time of the alleged chemical attacks, casualties arrived at Location 1 displaying symptoms commensurate with asphyxiation from dust and fumes as a result of bombing. The symptoms included dysponea [sic], cough and asthmatic exacerbation secondary to exposure to smoke and dust. Witnesses and victims interviewed in Country X describe symptoms that included shortness of breath, a burning sensation in the chest, oral hypersecretion, ocular irritation, visual disturbances, lacrimation, dysphonia, nausea, vomiting, pruritus, and in the case of some surviving victims, constricted pupils. (Original Interim Report: para 7.77; p: 26-27)
The Original Interim Report also notes that hallucinations, which are not a symptom of chlorine poisoning (Original Interim Report: para 7.60; p: 23, were reported. ‘Country X’ witnesses are witnesses interviewed in Turkey, believed to have been arranged via the ‘SCD’/White Helmets, whilst ‘Damascus’ (including Douma) witnesses were interviewed in Syria and had been provided via Syrian government authorities.
The symptoms reported by Country X witnesses include those indicative of both chlorine poisoning and nerve agent poisoning (especially ‘constricted pupils’ and [immediate/rapid] oral hypersecretion) whilst those from Damascus indicate symptoms consistent only with dust and fumes. The Final Report, however, does not clearly delineate the reports from Damascus and Country X witnesses and thus obfuscates this important divergence:
Broadly, patients were reported to display shortness of breath, burning sensation in the chest, oral hypersecretion or foaming, and occular [sic] irritation. Additional complaints were visual disturbance, lacrimation, dysohonia [sic], nausea, vomiting and pruritus. A non-specific number of patients classified as severe manifested with seizure activity described as flexion of arms and wrists. Medical personnel reported the absence of any signs of external trauma. (Final Report, para 8.79; p. 26)
The Final Report also obfuscates the fact that Country X witnesses reported constricted pupils, again a key sarin/nerve agent indicator, by removing it from the list in paragraph 8.79 and instead discussing the reporting of both constricted pupils miosis (constricted pupils) and mydriasis (dilated pupils) in the following paragraph: ‘An unknown number of patients were reported to have manifested miosis or mydriasis. Although interviewed medical staff or physicians did not directly observe miosis, one support staff stated that four casualties who were classified as severe were directly observed to be presenting mydriasis’. (Final Report: para 8.80; p. 27). The fact that hallucinations had been reported, which are not a symptom of chlorine poisoning, was removed from the Final Report.
These important inconsistencies – reporting of a symptom not associated with chlorine poisoning (hallucinations) and symptoms associated with nerve agent poisoning (constricted pupils and [immediate/rapid] oral hypersecretion) – coming from Country X witnesses are unresolved in the Final Report.
6. Unresolved Questions Regarding the Authenticity of Events at Location 2
It is noted in the Epidemiology section of the Original Interim Report that: ‘[t]he white or light-cream colour of the froth presented by victims is not in keeping with exposure to choking agents, where secretions are characteristically pinkish in colour when frothing does occur’ (Para 7.82; p. 27). A related issue regarding the authenticity of events at Location 2 concerns the finding that, based on analysis of media, ‘it is apparent that some of the victims have been moved and re-positioned between video recordings’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.69; p. 24). According to Stephen MacIntyre, at least one of the re-positioned victims, indicated by analysis of publicly available video footage,[10] appears to show profuse white foaming only after repositioning:
In another film placed online a boy with profuse foaming from the mouth is shown being moved the following day and here the foam-like material has clearly persisted and is semi-rigid (See here tt 1.13-1.36):
The Final Report does appear to reflect some doubt about the authenticity of the white foam seen on some of the victims noting that ‘[m]any of the victims present with white, foam-like oral and nasal secretions, similar in appearance to fulminate pulmonary oedema but in multiple cases much more profound and seemingly persistent’ (Final Report: para 8.90; p. 28). It also notes that ‘[w]hen comparing adult and paediatric groups, there does not appear to be any correlation in secretion presence, absence or amount’ (Final Report: para 8.70; p. 28). In paragraph 8.98 the Final Report states that:
The airways secretions seen in many cases are similar to those seen with exposure to some chemical weapons, toxic industrial chemicals and toxic does of pharmaceutical agents but are more profound and seem to have a consistency more like viscous foam than secretions typically originating from the upper or lower airways. Notably, there are casualties both with and without secretions that are in very close proximity to one another. (Final Report: para 8.98; p. 29)
However, no analysis of these inconsistencies is offered and the matter is seemingly dismissed by the vague assertion that ‘[i]n general, the presence and context of the airways secretions indicate exposure to a chemical substance’ (Final Report: para 8.98; p. 8.98).
In addition, the media evidence showing that bodies were reposition during the course of the night of 7-8 April 2018, whilst clearly referenced in the body of the Original Interim Report (‘it is apparent that some of the victims have been moved and re-positioned between video recordings’ (Original Interim Report: para 7.69; p. 24), is relegated to the annex of the Final Report and with the wording altered to: ‘[f]rom the various videos showing the deceased victims throughout the interior of Location 2 some of the victims had been moved between video recordings’ (Final Report: Annex 11; p. 103). As noted above, at least one of the victims, shown in the publicly available video footage,[11] does not show the appearance of white foaming until after the body had been re-positioned. As such the Final Report, through deletions and obfuscations, suppresses information which indicates that certain aspects of events at Location 2 were questionable.
7. Discussion and Recommendations for Next Steps
A scenario in which up to forty-three civilians are supposed to have died almost immediately from chlorine gas poisoning at Location 2 was clearly questioned by the FFM Douma team and then corroborated via a consultation with NATO toxicology experts. The fact that the toxicological assessment ruling out chlorine gas at Location 2 as a possible cause of death was expunged from the Final Report, without any explanation or justification, is of serious concern and indicates that there was an attempt within the OPCW to censor doubts, based on scientific analysis, that the civilians were killed by chlorine gas at Location 2. As detailed in Section 1, it is notable that UN (HCR) reports from 2018 also raised question marks over the cause of death and their recent 2021 report has not included Douma as one of its established cases of chemical attack.
This unexplained redaction is made more worrying by the absence of detailed discussion regarding the likelihood of lethal gas concentrations particularly in the basement at Location 2 – a discussion present in the Original Interim Report but absent from the Final Report – and inconsistent and uncorroborated witness testimony relating to the finding of deceased in the basement at Location 2 and in other basements. Furthermore, witness testimony reporting a much higher death toll and the burying of civilians in a mass grave along with other decedents is absent from the Final Report. At the same time, identification of who was responsible for burial of the deceased is obfuscated in the Final Report. Inexplicable reports of nerve agent symptoms, de-emphasizing information regarding the ‘repositioning’ of some of the deceased, and failing to evaluate fully the questionable white, foam-like material on victims, further contribute to a pattern in which contradictory or ‘inconvenient’ information is being redacted, obfuscated or left unresolved come the Final Report.
In summary, important information which casts doubt on the plausibility of the scenario in which chlorine gas killed 43 civilians at Location 2 – a toxicology report ruling out chlorine gas as a cause of death, analysis of gas dispersion routes questioning the likelihood of a lethal concentration of gas – have been removed from the Final Report with no obvious justification. At the same time, information indicating unreliable or inconsistent witness testimony – reporting of deceased in basements and nerve agent-like symptoms – has been removed and/or obfuscated whilst information indicating possible fabrication – ‘re-positioning’ of bodies and questionable white foam-like material appearing on some of the victims – is downplayed. As such, information that might have contributed to a finding that no attack had occurred – stated in the Original Interim Report as the possibility that ‘b. The fatalities resulted from a non-chemical-related incident’, has been sidelined or is absent from the Final Report, with no supporting scientific justification. At the same time, this apparently selective use of evidence does appear to be consistent with the following claim made in the Final Report:
The FFM team based its findings on whether there were reasonable grounds to believe that chemical weapons were used, based on a reliable body of evidence consistent with other information tending to show that an incident or event happened (Final Report: Footnote 9; p. 8)
This statement suggests that the drafters of the Final FFM report were primarily interested in gathering evidence which supported the allegation that a chemical weapon attack occurred. Such an approach would likely lead to the sidelining counter-evidence and, therefore, is neither objective nor robust and falls short of basic investigative and scientific standards.
With these points in mind, the following steps should now be taken:
1. The OPCW must explain the grounds for removing the original assessment, offered by four NATO toxicologists, that the death of the victims at Location 2 was inconsistent with poisoning by chlorine gas. If it cannot do so, an updated Douma Report needs to reinstate this important conclusion.
2. The mechanism by which there could ever have been sufficient build-up of chlorine gas to kill the victims, apparently immediately, in any part of Location 2, needs to be fully evaluated and then reported.
3. Inconsistent and uncorroborated witness testimony pertaining to the presence of large numbers of deceased in basement areas and the reporting of nerve agent symptoms needs to be revisited and a determination made as to whether these witnesses can be considered reliable.
4. Evidence of ‘re-positioning’ of bodies and the questionable white foam like material needs to be evaluated in detail via an expert-led systematic review of the available photographic images and video footage.
5. More generally, the methodology employed by the team drafting the Douma Final FFM Report needs to be critically evaluated in order to determine the extent to which a pre-determined objective – finding of reasonable grounds to conclude the alleged attack occurred- was obtained through systematic selective use of evidence.
6. In addition, and given the uncertainty regarding the numbers of deceased and their burial, clarification is necessary as to both who was responsible for burying the deceased and the numbers buried. The location of the mass grave(s) should be identified with a view to possible exhumation as part of a war crime investigation. It can be noted that the OPCW, the leadership of the ‘SCD’/White Helmets, Syrian government authorities and Local Leaders from Douma, amongst possible others, would all be expected to assist with these important clarifications. Both the International Criminal Court and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (UNHRC) should be kept updated on all these issues.
[1] The reports are available at https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/FirstdraftInterimReport/, https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/RedactedInterimReport/, https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/S_series/2018/en/s-1645-2018_e_.pdf, and https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2019/03/s-1731-2019%28e%29.pdf. Download date 3 June 2021.
[2]Minutes of the meeting, written three months after the consultation, are available here: https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/actual_toxicology_meeting_redacted/. Download date 14 September 2020.
[3] See https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/correctly_redacted_emails_re_toxicology_minutes/page-3/#pagination. Download date 15 September 2020.
[4] REPORT A: United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) – Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic – report, 38th Session, 20 June 2018 (A/HRC/38/CRP.3) and REPORT B: HRC – Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic report to the General Assembly, – 39th Session, 10 – 28 September 2018 (A/HRC/39/65).
[5] It is notable that a New York Times article published on 20 June 2018 reported that the Commission had doubts about the cause of death and withheld information from the official report issued the same day. It quotes an official as saying “with the April 7 attack in particular, more information was needed, including precisely what killed the 49 people. If we’re not sure what the cause of death was, we may be looking in the wrong place”. See https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/world/middleeast/un-syria-eastern-ghouta.html.
[6] See A/HRC/46/54, https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G21/014/36/PDF/G2101436.pdf?OpenElement. Download date 3 June 2021.
[7] https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/actual_toxicology_meeting_redacted/page-2/#pagination.
[8] It is also important in that it is entirely inconsistent with the video evidence and other witness accounts. No videos were seen (or no witnesses claimed) of bodies in or being moved from the basement.
[9] The Final Report does mention mass burial in paragraph 7.8, p. 10, but excludes information claiming that the deceased were buried alongside other decedents.
[10] https://climateaudit.org/2018/04/24/douma-videos-and-photos/. Download date 2 May 2021.
[11] https://climateaudit.org/2018/04/24/douma-videos-and-photos/. Download date 2 May 2021.
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