PHYSICIANS TRY TO HEAL THE DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP
Interview begins at 11 minutes:
No inquiry would be better than this inquiry
It doesn’t look good for balance or evidence when the Covid-19 inquiry is asking for lateral flow tests and masks
BY LAURA DODSWORTH | JUNE 13, 2023
The first Covid-19 inquiry public hearing will be held today, following the preliminary hearings which began in February. The inquiry will call witnesses to give evidence under oath and they will then be questioned by barristers and the chair, Baroness Hallett.
There is no deadline for the inquiry’s conclusion. It is an eye-wateringly expensive investigation, currently estimated to cost £114 million, but it will potentially run to more than the Bloody Sunday inquiry which was nearly £200 million. 63 lawyers are working directly for the inquiry and a further 100 are named as representatives. MP Graham Stringer has commented that this is a ‘very expensive and very bloated’ inquiry and it may be used to ‘kick things into [the] very long grass’.
It is important not to pre-judge the outcome of the inquiry, but it has been increasingly difficult to be hopeful for the inquiry’s fairness and value for money. After the imbalance of the modules and core participants, the first serious dark cloud to descend was the lamentable list of 150 questions put by Baroness Hallett to Boris Johnson. Now, they are only questions and we don’t have the answers yet, but to give you an idea, question 45 was particularly chilling:
45. To what extent did the UK Government have regard during the period January to March 2020 to the response of other countries to Covid-19? Did you consider taking more stringent measures in response to Covid-19 such as those seen in, for example, Taiwan, Singapore, New Zealand etc? What, if any, assumptions were made about how such measures would (or would not) work in the UK?
Why not Sweden? It did not impose strict lockdowns, or close schools for under 16s and currently has the one of the world’s lowest excess mortality figures. This inquiry appears to favour stringency above existing pandemic planning, minimum economic and social disruption, and low excess deaths.
But there was worse to come. If you thought that the curtain had closed on Covid safety pantomime, think again. Broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer has tweeted that the Covid-19 inquiry policy is for staff and visitors to take weekly lateral flow tests if they attend daily, and test in advance for individual days. The inquiry’s Covid policy goes further than government recommendations, asking those who test positive to stay away. The largely pointless face masks are welcome. The air will be purified, sanitising stations available and a ‘disinfectant fogging treatment will be used on the surfaces in the hearing room, viewing room and other rooms each evening’.
While some of the attendees who have lost loved ones to Covid may appreciate these gestures, they are nevertheless gestures. The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, for instance, does not publish such a ‘thorough’ Covid policy.
Psychologists found lockdown in itself was a primary reason why so many people were willing to abide by the rules from the start – believing the threat must be very severe if the government was willing to impose such drastic measures. In other words, ‘if the government is doing this, it must be really bad’. This supposition was reinforced by a concerted behavioural psychology campaign, a blitzkrieg of advertising, Downing Street briefings, unbalanced media coverage, the Covid death data dashboard, the most punitive laws and fines since the Dark Ages and the ongoing restrictions, tiers, rules and isolating lockdowns.
And now the people running the inquiry think we need more lateral flow tests and masks. The country has been institutionalised by Covid fear-mongering and the inmates are now running the asylum inquiry.
After dressing up in masks, taking weekly lateral flow tests for years and processing the answers to biased questions, the inmates at the inquiry will simply deduce that the walls were not ‘funny’ enough, not built early or high enough. Next time there is a pandemic, people will be able to say ‘Baroness Hallett’s report stated that the UK government didn’t lock down fast – or hard – enough. We won’t make that mistake again!’ There will be no redemption, just a long, hard sentence, swiftly imposed. Once again, lives will be ruined, not saved.
It would be better to have no inquiry than this inquiry.
Dr. McCullough Testifies in the Pennsylvania Senate
Four Domains of COVID-19 Vaccine Injury Syndromes Revealed
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | June 9, 2023
On Friday June 9, 2023, I returned to the Pennsylvania Senate on request by former military officer and American hero, Senator Doug Mastriano (R-33). The session was co-chaired by Senator Cris Dush (R-25). Co-presenters included Steve Kirsch, Founder of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, and attorney Tom Renz. I organized my comments along the lines of this outline:
- Update on the US design and blueprint of SARS-CoV-2 from Baric et al at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, funding by the NIH and outsourcing of the research plans via the EcoHealth Alliance to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in Wuhan, China.
- COVID-19 vaccine injury syndromes
- Cardiovascular
- Neurological
- Thrombotic
- Immunological
- Questions from Senators and Representatives answered
- Shedding
- Risk benefit analysis of COVID-19 vaccines
- Failure of vaccine efficacy
- Reason why SARS-CoV-2 was created
- Global results of mass indiscriminate COVID-19 vaccination—winners and losers
Shadowy UK Unit Surveilled Telegram Posts, Had Hourly Contact With Social Platforms
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 12, 2023
The Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU), an enigmatic arm of the UK government that monitors misinformation, was relentlessly liaising with social media platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic, sometimes on an hourly basis. This revelation came from the unit’s leader, Sarah Connolly, who spilled the beans on the operation in front of MPs.
Zooming in: Connolly depicted the unit as primarily tasked with “passing information over” to social media companies to persuade them to pull the plug on certain posts. She claimed that the unit was in cahoots with “almost all” platforms, engaging in discussions “daily, sometimes hourly,” The Telegraph reported.
The decision-making process was swift. Connolly detailed, “If somebody from the cell says: ‘We are worried about this,’ that goes immediately to the top of the pile. Whoever it is in whatever company.”
The CDU’s flagging efforts weren’t for naught, as 90% of content flagged by the CDU was either annihilated or its diffusion curtailed.
Another hat: Connolly was pulling double duty as she also chaired the Counter-Disinformation Policy Forum, a group tracking misinformation for six months during the pandemic. This forum was essentially designed to take the baton for the CDU’s “sometimes hourly” contact with social media firms.
What counts as disinformation?: Connolly’s disclosures indicate that the CDU isn’t frugal with labeling content as disinformation. She cited vaccine skeptic discussions surrounding side effects and claims of hasty development as the most concerning content.
Voices of dissent: MP David Davis isn’t onboard with the CDU’s modus operandi. He urged for the unit’s dissolution and a subsequent investigation by a parliamentary committee. Davis lambasted the unit, saying the “most paranoid wing of Government is interfering in the democratic process” and called for an investigation backed by the “biggest combination of power, access and speed.” Davis has spoken out against such practices in the past.
Opaque operations: The government is tight-lipped when it comes to divulging specifics about the CDU, such as staff count and budget.
Official word: A government spokesperson chimed in, stating, “As we have repeatedly made clear, the primary purpose of the unit was to track narratives, not individuals. It does not have, and has never had, the power to remove online content – on occasions where it encountered content considered to be in breach of social media platforms’ own terms of service, it was referred to them for consideration. When referrals were made during Covid, over 90 per cent of them were ultimately found to be in breach of terms of service. It is important to remember that this engagement with social media platforms was undertaken at the height of an unprecedented pandemic when the government’s overriding concern was to protect public health.”
Telegram: Though it was not one of the platforms the government had hourly contact with, the CDU also monitored Telegram posts, including ones related to Prof. Carl Heneghan, a prominent epidemiologist and a critic of lockdown measures. The information is sourced from documents released by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and obtained by The Telegraph.
The App: Telegram, the messaging app in question, is WhatsApp’s lesser-known cousin, with a bent on free speech. It has end-to-end encryption for confidential chatter and features public channels, where posts are on display for all.
The Data Trail: The documents reveal “sample Telegram posts” concerning Prof. Heneghan’s sharp critiques on the utility of face masks in stopping the coronavirus. It’s worth noting that the CDU’s data cache traces public channels on Telegram, not private conversations.
Official Stance: Sources within say that gathering these posts was aimed to “better understand how to analyze narratives on social media.” They deny any ulterior motives, asserting that the CDU did not see it as “an attempt to identify disinformation.”
Smoke and Mirrors? Despite assurances that the CDU “has never tracked the activity of individuals” and that Prof. Heneghan was “never monitored,” the extent of data collected by the unit remains shrouded in mystery. This discovery is turning heads.
Shadow Play: The plot thickens with whispers of intelligence agencies possibly colluding with the CDU. The government, tight-lipped and citing national security, has only added fuel to the conspiracy fire.
Prof. Heneghan Weighs In: The professor himself isn’t mincing words. He told The Telegraph, “The effect of these tactics is chilling.” He added, “The Counter-Disinformation Unit’s tactics included looking at posts from ‘popular channels’ on Telegram, a platform we didn’t use. It’s likely these were groups, but it’s not clear to us how they were identified or how they gathered the material.”
A Prospective Study of the Incidence of Myocarditis/Pericarditis and New Onset Cardiac Symptoms following Smallpox and Influenza Vaccination
Spontaneous Reporting Grossly Underestimates True Incidence
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | June 11, 2023
We have been barraged by government agency statements and peer-reviewed publications from academic medical centers asserting that serious complications from COVID-19 vaccination are “rare.” Often, investigators take a number of spontaneously reported events from a data system, and in error, divide that number by the total injections given in a period of time. This is incorrect since not all individuals who took the vaccine were assessed for the outcome and we cannot assume they are OK.
Engler et al from Military Vaccine Agency-Vaccine Healthcare Centers Network (currently Defense Health Agency, Immunization Healthcare Branch), make this point with an analysis of myocarditis after smallpox and trivalent influenza vaccination. Both study cohorts were evaluated during a pre-immunization visit and up to 2 post-vaccine visits (day 5–8 and/or day 9–28). Baseline data including age, race/ethnicity, sex, cardiac risk factors, atopic/medical history, and fitness assessments as measured by physical training abilities, were collected on the day of the SPX or TIV immunization. Clinical data including cardiac symptoms with visual analogue scale rating (0–10) of severity, 12-lead electrocardiograms (ECG), and troponin-T were collected at baseline and at between days 5 and 30.
Engler RJ, Nelson MR, Collins LC Jr, Spooner C, Hemann BA, Gibbs BT, Atwood JE, Howard RS, Chang AS, Cruser DL, Gates DG, Vernalis MN, Lengkeek MS, McClenathan BM, Jaffe AS, Cooper LT, Black S, Carlson C, Wilson C, Davis RL. A prospective study of the incidence of myocarditis/pericarditis and new onset cardiac symptoms following smallpox and influenza vaccination. PLoS One. 2015 Mar 20;10(3):e0118283. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0118283. PMID: 25793705; PMCID: PMC4368609.
While there were no myopericarditis events with the influenza vaccine, there were 5 cases with the smallpox shot. Compared to historical rates of spontaneous reporting, there was a fourfold increased incidence of cardiac symptoms when assessed prospectively.
In vaccine safety research, we should not trust any assertions of “rarity” unless it is a prospective cohort study in which all recipients are checked. We should focus on the absolute number of serious adverse events which are the crude data. These numbers cannot be argued with our understanding that they indeed happened, but are likely to be a gross underestimate of reality.
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‘Reckless in the Extreme’: FDA Panel Recommends New RSV Shot for Use in Healthy Infants
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 9, 2023
Advisors to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday recommended approval of AstraZeneca’s new monoclonal antibody, which the drugmaker said is designed to protect infants and toddlers up to age 2 from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
The drug, nirsevimab, would be delivered to newborns in a single shot at birth or “just before the start of a baby’s first RSV season, or as a larger dose in a second RSV season in children who are highly vulnerable,” CNN reported.
Members of the independent committee, which includes several pediatricians, “were enthusiastic about the potential” of the antibody, STAT reported, as was Thomas Triomphe, executive vice president of vaccines at Sanofi, which will market the drug in the U.S.
In a statement, Triomphe said:
“Most babies hospitalized with RSV are born at term and healthy, which is why interventions specifically designed to protect all infants are likely to result in the greatest impact.
“We are encouraged by the advisory committee’s positive vote based on the compelling clinical development program supporting nirsevimab and its breakthrough potential to reduce the magnitude of annual RSV burden.”
But medical experts interviewed by The Defender raised a number of concerns, including what they said was inadequate safety testing.
“It’s preposterous to give this drug prophylactically, especially without adequate safety testing,” said Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., senior director of science and research for Children’s Health Defense (CHD).
AstraZeneca reported only 48% efficacy for the drug. And Hooker noted that the “circulating half-life of the antibodies is probably less than one month so the protection would be minimal at best.”
Hooker also commented on the fact that 12 infant deaths were recorded during the clinical trial, which the FDA committee claimed were “unrelated” to the antibody:
“It appears that this vote was meant to bolster uptake and popularity of the RSV vaccines that are now approved for maternal use. The very low rate of effectiveness for such a therapy is troubling as the conservative estimate is below 50%, which is usually a hard metric for drug approval.
“Also, it seems odd that four infants in the trial would die of cardiac arrest — with no information given, it leaves one to wonder why these children would die in such a way. Also, there should be further investigation into the two SIDS [sudden infant death syndrome] deaths that occurred during the trial.”
Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist, biological warfare epidemiologist and member of CHD’s scientific advisory committee, told The Defender,“It is reckless in the extreme to inject very young babies with an inadequately tested monoclonal antibody drug to prevent a condition that for most of them will be no more than a cold.”
Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough told The Defender that while monoclonal antibodies are “generally safe” for children, he questioned the benefit of such a treatment for what he called a “mild” infection. He said:
“Monoclonal antibodies are generally safe in children and adults; however, I am concerned broad infant population uptake may disrupt normal thymus and immune system development that easily handle infections such as RSV, influenza, rhinovirus, adenovirus and SARS-CoV-2.
“RSV is a characteristically mild infantile infection easily resolved with conventional nebulizers. I believe nirsevimab would not be clinical-indicated for all infants and likely would be utilized in high-risk babies with congenital heart or lung disease, such as cystic fibrosis, or those with prior thoracotomies for heart surgery, where respiratory mechanics would be compromised.”
The FDA committee’s positive recommendation for nirsevimab, also known as Beyfortus, comes just weeks after the agency approved GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals’ Arexvy, the first-ever RSV vaccine for older adults, and recommended Abrysvo, Pfizer’s RSV vaccine for pregnant women.
According to CNBC, the FDA is expected to make a final decision on nirsevimab in the third quarter of this year.
Nass told The Defender that while the FDA is not obligated to follow the panel’s advice, “it almost always does so.”
FDA: Infant deaths during clinical trial ‘unrelated’ to the treatment
CNBC reported that the FDA review identified no safety concerns with nirsevimab, but also reported that 12 infants died during the trials.
According to CNBC:
“Four died from cardiac disease, two died from gastroenteritis, two died from unknown causes but were likely cases [of] sudden infant death syndrome, one died from a tumor, one died from COVID, one died from a skull fracture, and one died of pneumonia.”
Dr. Melissa Baylor, who according to CNBC is “an FDA official,” said, “Most deaths were due to an underlying disease. None of the deaths appeared to be related to nirsevimab.”
But according to STAT, “There are questions that remain to be answered” about nirsevimab that require “further study.”
For instance, no data are available “about whether giving nirsevimab to a baby whose mother was vaccinated against RSV during pregnancy would give the infant more protection or would be a waste of the product.”
STAT noted that several members of the FDA committee “worried that the dose given in the first year of life might be too small to benefit a baby who was 8 months or older when receiving the injection, depending on the size of the baby.”
Baylor also expressed concerns about how nirsevimab would interact with vaccines in development — such as Pfizer’s Abrysvo — that confer protective antibodies to the fetus by administering the shot to the mother.
CNBC reported that “Other monoclonal antibodies have been associated with serious allergic reactions, skin rashes and other hypersensitivity reactions.”
According to Baylor, the FDA did not identify “any cases of serious allergic reactions in the nirsevimab trials,” while “cases of skin rash and hypersensitivity reactions were low in infants who received the antibody.” She added that cases of such side effects are expected to be observed if the treatment receives FDA approval.
Manish Shroff, AstraZeneca’s head of patient safety, said, “Safety is of utmost importance” to the drugmaker and that it will “keep a close eye” on the safety of nirsevimab via a “global monitoring system,” CNBC reported.
According to Endpoints News, nirsevimab has already received regulatory approval in the EU, U.K. and Canada, but “it has not yet launched in any of those markets.”
According to CNBC, “Nirsevimab is administered as a single injection with the dose depending on the infant’s weight.”
Infants weighing less than 5 kilograms will receive a 50 mg dose for their first RSV season, while those over 5 kilograms will receive a 100 mg injection. Children under age 2 who “remain at risk for severe RSV” in their second season would then receive an additional 200 mg injection of the antibody.
Nirsevimab is not the first monoclonal antibody for RSV. According to STAT, AstraZeneca’s Synagis (palivizumab) is approved in the U.S. and EU, and “protects against infection in high-risk infants.”
According to CNBC, it is intended “only for preterm infants and those with lung and congenital heart conditions that are [at] high risk of severe disease” and is administered monthly, whereas nirsevimab “would be administered to healthy infants.”
Endpoints News reported that “AstraZeneca leads all development and manufacturing activities” for nirsevimab, “while Sanofi is responsible for marketing activities and revenue recognition” — for which the drugmaker paid $129 million “to be part of the collaboration.”
Is RSV really a danger for most infants?
CNBC previously reported that the U.S. “suffered an unusually severe RSV season” this past winter. The New York Times reported on a “tripledemic” involving RSV, flu and COVID-19, “that swamped children’s hospitals and some I.C.U. wards.”
One U.S. county — Orange County, California — declared a local health emergency and issued a proclamation of local emergency in November 2022, citing rising RSV cases among children in the region, and the Biden administration subsequently declared a public health emergency that month.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly all children are infected with RSV before the age of 2.
While CNBC characterized RSV as a “public health threat” that “kills nearly 100 babies in the United States every year,” Nass questioned the danger it poses to most infants.
In May, Nass wrote that the CDC published a paper on RSV deaths in infants between 2009 and 2021, which found “were only a total of 300 deaths in children less than one year over the 12 years, or 25 on average per year.”
Nass added that the number of injuries that may be caused by vaccines or other treatments during pregnancy “is almost certainly going to outweigh the loss of 25 babies a year from RSV.”
In her remarks to The Defender, Nass drew comparisons with the hepatitis B vaccine for children, saying that adverse effects from the treatment may appear later in childhood and are not likely to be connected to the drug:
“The hepatitis B vaccine, recommended for all children at birth in the US, and received by about 75%, was never tested for babies’ safety — over more than a few days — before the program started, or since.
“Because no one can know what a very young baby will become at birth, it is impossible to attribute a lower IQ, hyperactivity, less nimble limbs or any other problem that shows up later, to an injected drug given shortly after birth. So those connections, if any, are unlikely to be identified.”
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Beware of Studies Concluding Autism is Not Associated with Childhood Vaccination
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | June 3, 2023
As an epidemiologist, I can tell you it takes considerable training and scholarship to determine whether or not a study is valid and to determine if the conclusions are supported by the data. When it comes to childhood vaccines, the world is becoming skeptical of the vaccine industry since the CDC ACIP panel has added the EUA unsafe, ineffective mRNA COVID-19 vaccines for infants starting at 6 months of age.
With the ever expanding ACIP schedule of vaccine quantity and intensity of injections there has been a skyrocketing rate of autism. This has triggered scientists to go back and look at the studies published at the time to reassure parents that routine vaccines did not cause autism. Because so many shots are given at once, it is probably not any individual product that is the culprit, rather “hyper-vaccination” of a bundle of vaccine products that invokes a neurotropic, cytokine mediated inflammatory reaction that in some causes febrile seizures, autism, and immediate death. There are factors related to susceptibility including older parents and siblings with autism, but it remains that hyper-vaccination is a likely provocateur.
Madsen et al used Danish automated health data to evaluate the association of the MMR at age 15 months and autism. Only 40/422 had charts reviewed to verify the diagnosis of autism. Because it is an important diagnosis, all 422 cases should have been adjudicated by two blinded expert child psychiatrists. This study was unlikely to find an association from the outset since not all the vaccines where considered as a “bundle” and compared to children who went “natural” meaning completely unvaccinated with any product.
Madsen KM, Hviid A, Vestergaard M, Schendel D, Wohlfahrt J, Thorsen P, Olsen J, Melbye M. A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism. N Engl J Med. 2002 Nov 7;347(19):1477-82. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa021134. PMID: 12421889.
To make matters worse, the authors found 18% had missed the MMR at 15 months. That proportion seemed high to me so I checked another source. In 2015-2016 Holt et al performed a chart review and found that 55% of those MMR “unvaccinated” in the Danish system were indeed received the MMR documented in the medical record. Hence the Madsen analysis is invalid since both groups had largely received the MMR shot at age 15 months and there was no reporting of the true control group of interest—completely unvaccinated children.
Holt N, Mygind A, Bro F. Danish MMR vaccination coverage is considerably higher than reported. Dan Med J. 2017 Feb;64(2):A5345. PMID: 28157059.
In studies that are using unadjudicated, automated sources of data, misclassification often biases the results to the null hypothesis making a Type II error, that is, failing to find an association when indeed it is present.
Here is a summary of why Madsen does not rule out MMR or hyper-vaccination as a cause of autism:
- non-randomized study with no true placebo group
- all 442 cases of autism were not adjudicated by at least two independent child psychiatrists to confirm the diagnosis
- Danish automated data due no capture all the MMR vaccinations; some (~55%) of the “unvaccinated” had received the MMR vaccine
- MMR was not considered as part of the multi-injection bundle of hyper-vaccinated children compared to completely natural unvaccinated kids, which is the real control group of interest for autism
A similar paper using the same data sources, nearly identical study design, and equally flawed analysis was published similarly in Annals of Internal Medicine in 2019 (Hviid et al). In summary, we cannot rely on the Madsen or Hviid studies to rule out the MMR as a partial determinant of autism. Moreover, studies that make strong conclusions with such faulty data are suspect for investigator bias—meaning the authors intentionally wanted to rule out the association perhaps to advance the vaccine agenda, appease their institutions or research sponsors, or otherwise wished to be willfully blind to the possibility that childhood hyper-vaccination is a determinant of autism.
FDA admits it has no records indicating covid-19 vaccine safety protocols were followed
By Aaron Siri | ICAN | June 9, 2023
From early in the pandemic, the government has been promising the public that it was taking COVID-19 vaccine safety “very seriously,” and that the vaccines had been subject to “the most intense safety monitoring program in U.S. history.” ICAN likes to confirm these claims for itself but when it tried to do just that, it uncovered that the FDA actually deviated from long-standing protocols concerning vaccine safety.
Since May 9, 2008, the FDA has had vaccine safety procedures in place detailed in a Standard Operating Procedures and Policies (SOPP) document. This document “describes the procedures that the [FDA] staff should routinely follow to coordinate rapid responses to complex vaccine safety issues,” and discusses a Vaccine Safety Team whose “key purpose” is to “coordinate [FDA] rapid responses to vaccine safety issues … and to serve as a resource [] to identify data and policy needs pertaining to vaccine safety.”
One office in the FDA is crucial to this goal and acts as the “official contact for VAERS and is responsible for processing and review of the reports,” as well as “for forwarding those reports to the appropriate contacts within CBER for further action and follow-up.” For example, its staff members identify VAERS adverse event reports that “need a rapid response and complex coordination,” after which they are supposed to “immediately” inform certain FDA management who then alert other sub-agencies.
Given the lofty talk by federal health agencies claiming that COVID vaccines were subject to “the most rigorous – and accurate – review processes globally,” one would think that the FDA, at a minimum, subjected them to at least these already ridiculously weak pre-existing standards for vaccine safety monitoring.
But, after ICAN’s attorneys submitted records requests to the FDA seeking documents on the FDA’s policies concerning the identification of VAERS reports requiring a “rapid response,” as well as documents showing that the FDA had actually followed up on the individual VAERS reports that required a “rapid response,” the FDA replied more than year later with an incredible response: “A search of our records did not locate any documents responsive to your request.”
In a nutshell, the FDA has essentially admitted that it is not following even its own set of already watered-down procedures for vaccine safety monitoring that were in place prior to COVID.
When the curtain is pulled back on the purported “thorough” and “intense” safety monitoring, there is yet again nothing to see. So much for the FDA’s promise to look out for the American people. ICAN will continue to monitor the FDA and share any important updates.
See below for more instances where ICAN uncovered instances where “health” agencies made unsupported claims to the public:
‘Medical Gaslighting’: Physicians Speak Out Against COVID Policies, Call for Reform
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 5, 2023
The Global Health Project last week released a video titled “The Oath,” in which physicians describe the effect on doctors, patients and the healthcare system of silencing dissent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The filmmakers also called on doctors to commit to making foundational changes so that what happened during the pandemic never happens again.
The film features six doctors — Elizabeth Lafay, D.O., Steven Klayman, D.C., Timothy Stonesifer, D.O., Molly Rutherford, M.D., MPH, Michael Turner, M.D., and Amy Offutt, M.D. — who said they are “saying what tens of thousands of silenced medical professionals from all over the world have not been able to say.”
Throughout the video, they respond to a series of questions.
Responding to the first question, “When did you begin to have doubts?” they described how they lost faith in institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Lancet and the pharmaceutical companies as they saw well-respected doctors silenced, articles retracted and corrupted clinical trials exposed.
It became clear the agencies were not acting in the public interest, Turner said, because “they’re captured, they’re paid off, they’re corrupt.“
In response to the second question, “How have people been harmed?” they discussed spiking levels of anxiety and depression that began with the fearmongering at the start of the pandemic.
Lafay described working in the ER during the early days of the pandemic when the hospitals emptied out and there were few COVID-19 patients — but many people arriving with “horrible, debilitating anxiety and depression.”
People stuck at home in front of the television absorbed the message “Stay home, don’t be with your family, don’t be with your friends. Isolate, hibernate,” Offutt said. “It’s really taken its toll.”
“People are fearful and I think that was the goal, to make people fearful and be forced into taking this vaccine,” Klayman added.
They said many people no longer trust the medical profession because doctors have been silent on what happened and that many doctors felt they could not speak out.
As the names of pharmaceutical giants such as Novartis, Merck, Pfizer, GSK (formerly GlaxoSmithKline), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others flashed across the screen, Lafay said:
“It’s really tough because we’re all owned at this point. It’s easier for me to come on camera maybe and say some things like this because I am an independent practitioner now. If you don’t have your [own] practice, then you really can’t help people.
“And I think that is where a lot of [practitioners’] fear comes from, the fear of not being employed.”
But there are larger moral issues at stake, too, Klayman said, adding: “Are you going to give in to what is wrong? Or are you going to fight for what is right?”
Offutt said she thought “fixing the broken system” begins with rebuilding the doctor-patient relationship. Doctors used to spend more time with patients, she said, but then, “It became a business, and I was just one of the employees.”
“There is uniformity and conformity that’s encouraged, and the decision-makers at the top usually are not physicians, and this is a big problem, right?” Turner asked. Instead, they are lawyers looking to minimize risk and accountants looking to maximize profits.
When doctors work for these corporations, Lafay said, insurance and pharmaceutical companies are calling the shots:
“We don’t really have a voice anymore. We’re not really making choices that are best for our patients. We’re checking boxes.
“Unless we fight for the doctor-patient relationship and work to maintain privacy and decision-making that is based on an individual patient scenario, then that will be lost. The art of medicine will be gone, and we may as well be replaced by artificial intelligence.”
The doctors said in order to heal, you should “own your health” — eat well, get sunshine, move around, connect in person and to other people.
“I think doctors who maybe did some things that they regret should come out and acknowledge what they did and assure patients that they’re going to learn from it and change,” Rutherford said. “And then I think we need the truth. We need to investigate, why did all of this happen and how can we keep this from ever happening again?”
Turner said people from across the political spectrum and all walks of life are starting to come together around principles such as “accountability, honesty, respect, self-determination, bodily autonomy, freedom.”
“There’s an awakening going on, so it’s exciting and we’re gonna come out the other side,” he said.
The video closes with the oath:
“I solemnly swear to listen to my patients, respect their wishes, and together make the best choices for that individual and to do no harm.”
Video marks launch of Global Health Project
The video release marked the launch of the Global Health Project, an organization hoping to raise awareness of the coercive power exerted on society by global health agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic and to build a movement to create a better system.
The group began as a conversation among physicians and health researchers about what happened during the pandemic and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again, Andrea Nazarenko, Ph.D., a spokesperson for the organization, told The Defender.
The group hopes the video will open the door for conversation, Katarina Lindley, D.O., family physician and another group spokesperson, said.
A doctor might hear the physicians’ stories and say, “That’s exactly how it happened to me,” she said. Or, patients can go to their doctors and raise these issues with them.
Lindley also said that statements by global leaders, the World Health Organization’s proposed pandemic treaty and amendments to the International Health Regulations, and other evidence point to the fact something like the COVID-19 pandemic can happen again, and if it does, the Global Health Project wants to build an informed and connected public. She continued:
“So our hope is that by sharing these stories, by empowering the public as well, we want them to question things … when new things come along. And if they feel in their gut something is wrong, they need to trust their gut, then they really become advocates for themselves, for their family, for their friends.
“And I’m hoping that physicians will remember why they took the Hippocratic oath … And there’s lots of things that we need to start questioning that maybe we didn’t question before.”
While the changes they are talking about are systemic, Lindley said it starts in the doctor-patient relationship.
When someone’s car breaks down, she said, they usually try to find a good mechanic by asking friends and shopping around.
“I think when it comes to medicine and healthcare, we kind of almost need to do the same thing. Shop around … interview your doctor. Even if you have insurance and you’re assigned to a doctor, you don’t have to accept the doctor.”
People can find doctors who are independent, who have “stepped away from the matrix, as I call it,” Lindley said, so they can build great relationships with patients.
Nazarenko added:
“Ultimately, what we experienced during the pandemic was traumatic. We are suffering from collective trauma at a societal level. Just like any other trauma, this trauma will not disappear by ‘moving on’ and ‘forgetting about it.’ Trauma must be processed.
“Unfortunately, what we are facing right now is the mainstream narrative telling us to ‘forget about it,’ to ‘just move on,’ and to ignore our feelings (‘just let it go’). This is medical gaslighting at a population level. In any other relationship, we would identify this as the behavior of an abuser.
“If we want to move on and create a world of togetherness, we need to talk about it. We don’t all need to agree on everything — but we need to have the conversation.
“Silence leaves us vulnerable to this happening again. They separated us for a reason. This video is about bringing people together again and engaging in authentic conversations.”
Watch here:
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Deaths from the flu – do not seek and ye shall not find
By Professor Martin Neil | TCW Defending Freedom | June 7, 2023
The flu vanished from the UK in the winter of 2020/21 and did not return for another year, as I wrote in TCW here. The official reason is that the novel and deadly SARS-CoV-2 virus ‘outcompeted’ flu and replaced it as a primary cause of death during that time. However there appears to have been a collective and systemic failure in flu surveillance and flu death reporting systems in the UK during 2020 and into 2021. Thus, it is possible that the failure to detect and report flu (and deaths recorded as due to it) may better explain the mystery of vanishing flu rather than viral interference from SARS-Cov-2.
A mix of surveillance systems consistently reported on flu before 2020 and continued to have some role to play post-spring 2020 until flu returned at the end of 2021. In the UK, flu surveillance is performed via clinical surveillance by primary care (based on networks of GPs), the FluDetector and the FluSurvey systems.
Credence has been given to the idea of tracking pandemics using machine learning via Google Trends data, the UK’s FluDetector system being one such system. FluDetector reported that flu disappeared in 2020/21, yet this is totally at odds with Google’s own data and UKHSA reports, both of which report a clear signal for flu in the UK in 2020/21. What the Google data does show is that people were concerned enough about flu that they searched for flu on the internet in significant numbers, even when apparently in the middle of a deadly pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, a virus they were told was more novel and more deadly than the flu. It is also notable that the number of searches for flu in 2020 were not significantly different from those conducted in previous years in the UK.
The UK FluSurvey system was originally conceived to survey a panel of self-selecting participants for signs and symptoms of influenza-like illnesses (ILIs). In March 2020 it was repurposed to cover both Covid-19 and flu symptoms, and the routine questionnaire was adapted to capture Covid-19 specific information. The FluSurvey system tracked ILI incidence only until week 20 of 2020, and never updated this data. It was decided no longer to track both flu and Covid from November 2020 but report this change in policy only in January 2021. The FluSurvey then stated it (presciently) knew in January 2021 that the flu season had now begun and did so after (supposedly) witnessing the near eradication of flu from March 2020 to May 2020. Fever and cough symptoms were still tracked and peaked in the same way as in previous years and this continued, but tracking ILI incidence was abandoned, thus reducing the strength of the flu signal.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have a legal duty to report mortality statistics for each year. The 2020 statistics for England and Wales exclude any report on influenza and pneumonia deaths, and instead are wholly focused on deaths ‘involving’ Covid-19. In contrast, their 2021 statistics report on influenza and pneumonia deaths, starting on January 8. So, for 2020 any reporting of flu deaths was completely abandoned in favour of Covid-19 reports, and flu is included only in surveillance reports from 2021, thus giving the impression flu had disappeared in the intervening period.
In response to a freedom of information request about flu in 2020 the ONS obfuscated its answer by using a different death code, ‘respiratory disease’ rather than flu, for the period up to May 2020, and may have done so to hide the deaths that should have been attributed to flu. This FoI request shows that there were 2,287 flu deaths in March 2020, which is not greatly different from the 3,324 Covid-19 deaths that same month; yet SARS-CoV-2 was considered to be a significantly greater threat to public health. Furthermore, in January 2021 the ONS reported that there were almost as many deaths involving flu (5,719) as there were involving Cc
Evidence for the presence of flu is available from other data sources. Data for pneumonia and flu deaths can be extracted from the UK NOMIS (official census and labour market statistics) system. When we queried this system, we were quite shocked to find that it returns 20,130 influenza and pneumonia deaths for 2020, at a rate consistent with previous years (eg 26,342 in 2019). The presence of flu deaths in 2020 in the UK is repeated elsewhere. In the US, influenza and pneumonia numbers are similar in 2020 to previous years, as reported by the CDC, with 53,544 deaths in 2020 compared with between approximately 50-60k deaths in each year from 2015 to 2019.
Despite these facts, the WHO’s international flu surveillance system, FluNet, shows no significant flu for 2020/21 in either the UK or US.
The fact that these failures cut across all parts which comprise the UK flu surveillance and reporting system suggests that this failure is not coincidental, as do the observed inconsistencies in changing patterns of flu surveillance and reporting across different branches of UK public health.
In a previous article we pointed out the dearth of virological evidence for viral interference causing SARS-CoV-2 to ‘outcompete’ flu. These new findings relating to reporting systems also strongly suggest that viral interference between SARS-CoV-2 and the flu is a myth. Flu was present in 2020 and some of the respiratory deaths attributed solely to SAR-CoV-2 may have also involved flu in some significant way.
This is based on an original article co-authored with Professor Norman Fenton, Nick Hudson and Jonathan Engler. The extended version is available from the substack Where are the Numbers?
Mayo Clinic Suspended Professor Over Comments On Covid And Transgenderism
By Ben Squires | Reclaim The Net | June 8, 2023
The Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science suspended a professor for deviating from “prescribed messaging” and placed a gag order on him, Foundation For Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) says. The college handed down the punishment despite its free speech promise to faculty and students.
On March 5, professor Michael Joyner was suspended without pay for speaking to the press, which is common for him as he is a prominent academic.
After he commented about plasma treatment for Covid and transgender sports performance on The New York Times, CNN, and other outlets, Mayo Clinic said he “failed to communicate in accordance with prescribed messaging.”
Administrators said that “reflect[ed] poorly on Mayo Clinic’s brand and reputation” and led them to “question whether … [he is] able to appropriately represent Mayo Clinic in media interactions.”
However, Joyner did not speak on behalf of the college, he spoke for himself. In letters to the college, FIRE explained that faculty members have the right to speak as private citizens.
After suspending him without pay, Joyner was told he must vet “each individual media request through Public Affairs … [to] determine what topics are appropriate and are responsible for protecting Mayo Clinic’s brand and reputation” and cease “engagement in offline conversations with reporters.”
In simpler terms, he was told to shut up. When he does speak, he must discuss “approved topics only and stick to prescribed messaging.”
Mayo Clinic is in violation of the institution’s Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom Policy, which promises “academic freedom and freedom of expression for all learners and faculty … which includes the right to discuss and present scholarly opinions and conclusions without fear of retribution or retaliation” even “if those opinions and conclusions conflict with those of the faculty or institution.”
In response to a letter from FIRE about upholding free speech and academic freedom, Mayo Clinic said disciplinary “action taken against Dr. Joyner did not involve a gag order and did not violate our academic freedom policy.”
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Trans ‘milk’ as good as the real thing – NHS
RT | February 18, 2024
The drug-induced nipple secretions of trans women are as good as mothers’ breast milk for babies, the University of Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust claimed in a letter to campaigners made public in a report by British think tank the Policy Exchange on Sunday.
The healthcare trust’s medical director, Rachel James, argued that the off-label prescription drug cocktail men transitioning to female take in order to produce milk was “similar to the natural hormones which encourage lactation to develop when the baby is newly born.”
“The evidence which is available demonstrates that the milk is comparable to that produced following the birth of a baby,” James wrote in the letter, sent to Children of Transitioners last August.
Biological men who wish to lactate must first take hormones to grow milk glands and then take high doses of either domperidone or metoclopramide to stimulate milk production. Neither drug is approved for this use, though they are occasionally prescribed off-label to biological women who have trouble lactating.
However, domperidone’s own manufacturer, Janssen, warns patients the drug “may cause unwanted side effects affecting the heart in a breastfed baby” and “should be used during breastfeeding only if your physician considers this clearly necessary.” … continue
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