The BBC recently ran a story claiming that the Antarctic ocean currents were heading for collapse, and to drive home the scare there was even a reference to the 2004 climate disaster film, The Day After Tomorrow. Rapidly melting Antarctic ice was reported to be causing a dramatic slowdown in deep ocean currents, “and could have a disastrous effect on the climate”. Like most of these fanciful scare stories, “could” is doing a lot of the heavy lifting work. But alas, missing from this Net Zero-promoting, model-inventing Armageddon tall tale was a note that the Antarctica ice cap appears to be in balance, and is not actually melting.
According to a paper written by NASA satellite ice-mapping scientists in 2021, Antarctica is “close to balance” in the period 2012-16 at -12 +/- 64 Gt a-1. Gt are gigatonnes and the formula is a scientific way of saying that as near as damn it, well within a margin of error, the Antarctica ice sheet loss is, more or less, zero. Back to 1992, the scientists found large total gains for the sheet.
According to the story in the BBC, reported faithfully in numerous media, as fresh water from the ice cap melts, sea water becomes less salty and dense and a downwards movement of water towards the sea bottom is interrupted. This in turn can affect world oceanic currents. The activist science blog the Conversation reported that “torrents of Antarctic meltwater are slowing the currents that drive our vital ocean ‘overturning’ – and threaten its collapse”. The BBC noted that a similar collapse in the North Atlantic was depicted in The Day After Tomorrow.
As regular readers will recall, the Daily Sceptic has observed that Antarctica is a difficult neighbourhood for activists to get a good scare story going. Over the last seven decades, there has been little or no warming over large parts of the continent. According to a recent paper, (Singh and Polvani), the Antarctica sea ice has “modestly expanded”, and warming has been “nearly non-existent” over much of the ice sheet. According to NASA figures, the ice loss is 0.0005% per year.
The latest scare arises from a paper published in Nature. It is the product of climate models – the BBC noting that the scientists spent 35 million computer hours over two years collecting their results. However, this story is also of considerable interest since it shows that the BBC and most mainstream media are seemingly incapable of questioning any statement that promotes human-caused climate change and the proposed command-and-control Net Zero political solution. This endemic lack of curiosity means that vast areas of science, including atmospheric physics and chemistry, together with weather, geology and geography, are simply off limits in case any doubt should be cast on the suggestion that humans control the CO2 climate thermostat.
The study lead author, Professor Matthew England from Sydney’s University of New South Wales, is able to state, without any inquiring question or contradiction, that “our modelling shows that if global carbon emissions continue at the current rate, then the Antarctica overturning will slow by more than 40% in the next 30 years”. The BBC repeats emissions continuing at the current rate, but England’s paper states that his model has been loaded with a “high emissions” scenario. The paper is behind a paywall, but the abstract in which this admission occurs is freely available.
These “high emission” scenarios are almost certainly RCP8.5 and SSP5-8.5 that forecast global rises in temperatures of 4-5°C within less than 80 years. As Dr. Judith Curry has recently pointed out, these have been dropped in many science circles on the grounds they are recognised as implausible. Global warming of barely 0.1°C over the last 20 years is almost certainly a factor in this reassessment. Nevertheless, Curry notes that many of the extreme events based on the scenarios are still quoted in IPCC documents. “Rejecting these extreme scenarios has rendered obsolete much of the climate literature and assessments of the last decade,” she states.
Not at the BBC, of course. Settled science – the Science – cannot move on because it suffers from the anti-science proposition that it is somehow settled. Model results suggest deep water circulation in the Antarctic could slow at twice the rate of decline in the North Atlantic, reports the BBC. “It’s stunning to see that happen so quickly,” said climatologist Alan Mix from Oregon State University, a co-author of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment. “It appears to be kicking into gear right now. That’s headline news,” he told Reuters. No, Dr. Mix, it’s a model based on assumptions that are regularly contradicted by the data. Some climatologists it appears have trouble distinguishing fact from their own fevered predictions.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
April 6, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | BBC |
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AIDS. It was the defining epidemic of a generation. But it was also the coming of age for many leading scientists and doctors who came to realize that blaming the illnesses known as AIDS on a virus was not only unsupported by science, it was downright nonsensical. What were the true causes of the many illnesses labelled AIDS around the world? How many suffered from their misdiagnosis? The prescription of repurposed AZT drugs arguable did more harm than good for vulnerable patients. As it turns out, some familiar suspects like Dr. Anthony Fauci were in key gatekeeping positions back then. How the scientific establishment fell into a deadly HIV-AIDS delusion is crucial to understanding other so-called ‘global pandemics’, and what it means to be healthy’ in the eyes of the medical industry today. Watch:
Bitchute link
Run time: 1 hrs 46 min
Production: Paradigm Shift Pictures (2022)
April 6, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | United States |
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Dark times for political opponents, skeptics of dubious science.
Governments weaponizing the justice authorities to go after political opponents and protest movement leaders seems to have become vogue nowadays in the once democratic western hemisphere.
Victims of the tactic often face dubious charges, some even having to spend months in detention as authorities drag their feet carrying out the “legal” process.
Corona lockdown protest leader Michael Ballweg (left) released from the Stuttgart-Stammheim prison after detention on dubious charges. Image cropped from AUF 1 here.
For example, in Germany a number of physicians have been charged and even jailed for allegedly issuing “false mask exemptions” or “false vaccination exemption” certificates to patients who fear the experimental, shoddily launched COVID vaccine. Critics accuse the authorities of using these heavy handed tactics to intimidate legitimate political opponents into silence.
Ballweg released after 9 months of detention
One high profile example in Germany is Michael Ballweg, the founder of the Corona restrictions protest movement dubbed “Querdenken” (unorthodox thinking). Today we know that the “querdenkers” were right about a lot of things, and huge amounts of damage could have been avoided had their warnings been taken seriously.
But instead, the government and media got paranoid and scared of the Ballweg’s protest movement. The media characterized the movement as fringe right wingers who threatened “our democracy”. Last June, Ballweg was arrested and dragged to jail on dubious charges.
Today, after more than 9 months detention, he was finally allowed to leave Stuttgart-Stammheim prison. The Stuttgart Higher Regional Court on Tuesday lifted the arrest warrant in exchange for a condition.
Ballweg had been in pre-trial detention since June 2022 on suspicion of money laundering and fraud. Suspicion is all that’s needed nowadays to arrest unwanted voices.
AUF 1 reports:
Previously, several appeals against Ballweg’s pre-trial detention had come to nothing. As part of the nine-month trial, he can now leave prison. The reason for the revocation of the arrest warrant was proportionality. The expected punishment in case of a conviction was too small to justify a longer pre-trial detention.
Ballweg’s lawyer Dr. Alexander Christ commented on the decision: “I am happy for my client!”
Allegations reduced, allegations dropped
Last week, the allegations were significantly reduced: for example, parts of the money laundering allegations against Ballweg were dropped. Most recently, Ballweg had only been accused of attempted fraud. The prosecution worked with the daring legal construct of an “unsuccessful attempt”. Nobody had ever been harmed by Ballweg.
Lawyer Dr. Alexander Christ from Ballweg’s legal team appeared in an interview with Austria’s AUF1 last week and reported numerous inconsistencies in the 120-page indictment. For example, money laundering allegations that had already been dropped resurfaced in the indictment. “A tale,” summarized Dr. Christ.”
The release of Ballweg is certainly good news. But leading a protest and speaking up against the government still remains dangerously risky today.
April 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, Germany, Human rights |
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Twin Epidemics of Concordant Neuropsychiatric Disease
The CDC indicates that 1 in 36 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) according to estimates from CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. This represents a sharp increase up from 1 in 10,000 in 1970. There has also been a less well delineated rise in gender dysphoria (GD) which is driving the clinical development of transgender medicine.
A natural question is: could ASD and GD be linked? While the epidemiology of both conditions is not well developed, several papers have reviewed the available evidence and have found a link. Van Der Miesen et al, in a narrative review concluded that about 20% of GD patients indeed have ASD.
Van Der Miesen AI, Hurley H, De Vries AL. Gender dysphoria and autism spectrum disorder: A narrative review. Int Rev Psychiatry. 2016;28(1):70-80. doi: 10.3109/09540261.2015.1111199. Epub 2016 Jan 12. PMID: 26753812.
When large, well performed epidemiological studies are completed it would not be a surprise if ASD is found to be an independent risk factor for GD. More complex analyses will be needed to understand if both conditions, which co-exist, have common pathophysiological determinants.
So the next time there is a news story on transgender rights, surgical advancement, hormone therapy, and psychological outcomes, keep in mind that autism is likely playing a role in the interpretation of what is portrayed to the public.
Data & Statistics on Autism Spectrum Disorder, CDC 2023
Van Der Miesen AI, Hurley H, De Vries AL. Gender dysphoria and autism spectrum disorder: A narrative review. Int Rev Psychiatry. 2016;28(1):70-80. doi: 10.3109/09540261.2015.1111199. Epub 2016 Jan 12. PMID: 26753812.
April 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular |
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A North Carolina district court ordered Merck to turn over all of its Gardasil adverse events databases to plaintiffs suing the pharmaceutical giant for injuries allegedly caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.
The databases, which include information from the Merck Adverse Event Reporting and Review System (MARRS) — Merck’s version of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — should contain all of the reports pertaining to Gardasil adverse events submitted by physicians, patients and publications, plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Baum told The Defender.
In his March 20 order, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Conrad, Jr., said, “Plaintiffs’ and their experts should have the same opportunity as Merck to review and analyze the entirety of the data.”
Merck until now has refused to make the entire MARRS databases available to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.
Gardasil is a widely used vaccine commonly administered to teens and young adults before they are sexually active to protect against HPV infections, which can be sexually transmitted later in life.
HPV infections may lead to the development of cervical cancer. However, most infections are benign and resolve on their own.
The firm Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Children’s Health Defense chairman-on-leave, have filed more than two dozen lawsuits on behalf of young people injured by Gardasil, alleging Merck knowingly and fraudulently concealed the vaccine’s risks.
The lawsuits are some of the more than 80 pending in the federal court system, and that number is expected to grow. In August 2022, a judicial panel consolidated the lawsuits into a single federal courtroom.
Some of the signature impacts observed following HPV vaccination — which afflict a number of the plaintiffs — include permanently disabling autoimmune and neurological conditions such as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), fibromyalgia and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, The Defender reported.
There have been thousands of reports of adverse events worldwide, peer-reviewed scientific literature from the U.S., Australia, Denmark, Sweden, France and Japan, and statistics published by public health agencies in each of these countries that demonstrate plausible associations between HPV vaccination and autoimmune conditions.
Merck maintains there is no safety signal in the data for autoimmune conditions. The plaintiffs allege Merck made this argument by discounting reports.
Baum told The Defender access to this full database of adverse event reports should allow experts to better analyze the full extent of post-Gardasil autoimmune symptom clusters, and demonstrate there is a “statistically significant causal connection between Gardasil and autoimmune conditions.”
Gardasil’s long history of autoimmune adverse events
While Merck markets Gardasil as “safe and effective,” safety signals emerged even early, during the vaccine’s clinical trials. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the vaccine Fast Track approval after only a six-month review process.
In 2006, Gardasil was licensed across the U.S. and Europe. But within a few years, reports of serious adverse events appeared — first in the media and then in academic journals.
In 2013, Gardasil was responsible in the U.S. for three-fifths of all serious vaccine reactions reported in young women under age 30, including 64% of deaths and 81% of cases of permanent disability.
Similarly, disproportionately high rates of adverse events were reported in Australia, Japan, and other European countries at that time.
Yet in 2014, the FDA approved a new version of the vaccine, the nine-valent Gardasil 9. And in 2016 — when GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) withdrew its poorly competing bivalent HPV vaccine Cervarix from the U.S. market — Gardasil 9 became “the only game in town.”
Gardasil 9 is FDA-approved for males and females ages 9 through 45 years.
In 2015, because of the high number of serious adverse events reports in Denmark and around the world, the Danish Health and Medicines Authority asked the European Commission to investigate the relationship between Gardasil and serious adverse events.
Several months later, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) — a European equivalent to the FDA — issued a report concluding there was no link between HPV vaccines and serious neurological adverse events.
But a leaked, confidential EMA document showed substantial disagreement among the agency’s experts.
An article published in The BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine also revealed the EMA made its evaluation based on flawed data and analysis provided by vaccine manufacturers, dismissed compelling evidence from independent researchers and the Uppsala Monitoring Centre, and sought input from experts with financial conflicts of interest, in violation of its own rules.
Given the ongoing safety concerns associated with the revelations of the EMA’s flawed study, Rebecca Chandler et al. conducted further research on the link between the HPV vaccine and autoimmune disorders, which was published in Drug Safety in 2017.
Autoimmune disorders can be difficult to identify and take a long time to diagnose because they are typically characterized by combinations of a wide range of symptoms that can be linked to a number of illnesses.
Any one symptom on its own may not provide enough information to alert a physician to the underlying cause.
To identify autoimmune disorders associated with the HPV vaccine, Chandler and her team did a cluster analysis of VigiBase, the World Health Organization (WHO) international database of suspected adverse drug reactions.
They conducted a statistical analysis of reports on HPV adverse events, looking for clusters of symptoms associated with autoimmune conditions like POTS, CRPS and CFS — rather than looking only for cases where an autoimmune disorder was definitively diagnosed — and found statistically significant rates of serious adverse events associated with Gardasil.
It is one of several recent studies linking Gardasil with autoimmune issues.
As part of this now-consolidated lawsuit, the plaintiffs have been seeking access to Merck’s database for several years in order to do a cluster analysis on all of the data Merck has collected.
Suing Big Pharma for vaccine injury difficult — but possible
Vaccine makers can be held liable for injuries caused by a fully licensed vaccine — unless that vaccine is added to the CDC’s childhood vaccination schedule.
The HPV vaccine is listed on that schedule.
People injured by vaccines listed on the childhood schedule can seek compensation through the taxpayer-funded National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), a no-fault alternative to the traditional legal system for resolving vaccine injury claims.
But many people are unaware that claimants who are dissatisfied with the outcome of the VICP process can sue the pharmaceutical company directly in civil court as long as that claimant completed the VICP process.
Baum told The Defender that the VICP has paid out more than $70 million to people making claims regarding Gardasil, but that over the last few years, they stopped making payments for autoimmune conditions, without explanation.
The lawsuits against Merck alleging the HPV vaccine caused debilitating autoimmune complications are a result of this process.
Baum also told The Defender that a claimant has only three years from the onset of symptoms to file a complaint, but because autoimmune disorders are challenging to diagnose, many people are not diagnosed until the statute of limitations has expired.
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.
April 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | EMA, FDA, United States |
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Saying “Climate change is mostly natural,” could be a criminal offence, if Swiss politician Valentine Python gets her way.
Climate change for some has turned into a real doomsday cult, where a small group of people has excessive control over its members and require unwavering devotion. The climate cult members are in fact so brainwashed that they are convinced it’s the Gospel Truth and that disagreement is heresy of dangerous criminals. So it’s not surprising some climate cult members are calling for a Catholic Church model Climate Inquisition to root out and punish the heresy.
Marcel Odermatt of Switzerland’s online WELTWOCHE reports on how one Swiss Green politician wants to make “climate-sceptic statements”, i.e. free speech, a criminal offence.
Green National Councillor Valentine Python, 47, is calling for “climate denial” to be declared a crime.
Ms. Python believes statements casting doubt on man’s dominance over the global climate hinders efforts to educate children on the dangers of climate change, and so obstruct adopting “effective measures”.
28% of youth ignoring climate alarm
Germany’s Pleiteticker elaborates on why Ms. Python is all agitated about people having other opinions and cites a recent French study that found 28 percent of young people consider climate change to be a natural phenomenon against which no special measures are necessary.
Based on such results, Ms. Python claims there’s been a “decline in the scientific understanding of the world” and that the state needs to take action against “climate-skeptical statements”.
“She compares these [statements] to calls for anti-Semitism and racism. Such calls could lead to violence and would violate human rights. The National Councillor believes that the ‘unrestricted dissemination of climate-sceptic views’ could fall under the same law”, reports Pleiteticker. “Python seems to consider herself in possession of an immutable scientific truth. Apparently, Python is not interested in convincing dissenters, but in banning their thoughts and imposing penalties on them.”
April 2, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | Human rights, Switzerland |
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The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) met for three days — behind closed doors, except for a two-hour public comment period — to review the epidemiological, clinical and biological evidence on adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines.
The committee will generate a report that will be used to add injuries to the federal vaccine injury table, which lists known adverse events associated with existing vaccines.
This list helps the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) and Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) — both part of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) — to decide whether to compensate vaccine injury claims.
Historically, NASEM meetings have been open to the public — but this year’s meetings were closed, except for the two hours of public comment required by federal law.
NASEM livestreamed the public comment period, during which each speaker was limited to three minutes of comments.
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense was among those who delivered comments.
Hooker told the committee:
“I have little hope that this National Academies committee of experts will do anything but simply rubber stamp the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines that were recommended and even mandated to the population of the United States.”
The committee is meant to be a neutral external body, but the review is done at the request of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and partially funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Hooker said:
“This is the same CDC that discovered as early as February 19, 2021, that mRNA vaccines were causing myocarditis in adolescent and young males, just 10 weeks after the rollout of the first vaccines.
“However, CDC immunization safety officials, including director Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, hid this information until they made the tacit assertion over three months later on May 27, 2021, that there might be a connection between vaccines and myocarditis.
“While CDC officials lied about this adverse event, the U.S. vaccination rate climbed from 8% to over 50% — increasing profit to the vaccine manufacturers who have fully captured this agency.”
Vaccine injury lawyer Aaron Siri told the committee that in his experience helping clients to file claims, past NASEM reports were “incredibly consequential.”
“They are documents that are going to be used by the federal government to fulfill their duty … to fight against any claim of compensation,” Siri said, adding:
“Your task, as I understand it, is to review the medical literature. But understand that pharmaceutical companies don’t have an interest in conducting the studies and neither do our federal health agencies.”
He said the experts he has deposed use the absence of evidence in these reports for any given side effect as evidence the side effect doesn’t exist. They then deny people’s injury claims on that basis.
Siri implored the committee to take seriously the testimonies offered by vaccine-injured people in the public comments when considering what to include in the report.
The committee is led by Kathleen Stratton, Ph.D., who was involved with the 2004 Institute of Medicine report cited as “proof” that vaccines don’t cause autism when there were 5,000 cases pending with the VICP.
Leaked documents showed that Stratton coordinated with the CDC to deny any links between vaccines and autism.
Reed Grimes, M.D., Ph.D., director of the division of injury compensation at the HRSA, and Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, deputy director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, gave presentations at the committee’s first meeting, which was held in January and posted online.
The committee is also reviewing the literature on the administration of vaccines and shoulder injuries. Its findings are expected in March 2024.
Vaccine Injury Compensation Program ‘would be unrecognizable’ to its founders
The more than 30 people who made public comments included vaccine-injured people, physicians, attorneys, researchers working to identify vaccine injuries and treatments, and members of the React19 advocacy group, which has compiled 3,400 peer-reviewed studies listing COVID-19 vaccine adverse events.
Speakers shared extensive personal, scientific and legal evidence of adverse events associated with the COVID-19 vaccines.
Vaccine-injured speakers included Brianne Dressen, who received a dose of AstraZeneca’s vaccine as a volunteer in a clinical trial. Her debilitating side effects, including POTS, tinnitus and other symptoms were not included in the AstraZeneca clinical trial report, even despite the fact they were recognized by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Dressen told the committee she remained “perplexed” by the scientific process and said, “I ask for you to please take an honest and unbiased look at the literature that exists. Please do your part and make sure that these people that are suffering are not discarded, that we are not erased and we are not dismissed.”
Dr. Joseph Fraiman, the lead author of a peer-reviewed study on serious mRNA vaccine side effects, spoke to share the results of his research with the committee, emphasizing that there was “no question” that serious adverse events were associated with the mRNA vaccines.
The many speakers drawing attention to severe side effects linked to the vaccines included Dr. Peter McCullough, who drew the committee’s attention to the fact that “Pfizer reported 1,223 deaths that occurred in their 90-day mandatory part post-marketing data.”
He reminded the committee that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) attempted to block the release of Pfizer’s clinical trial data, and that research ongoing at multiple U.S. universities indicates hundreds of thousands of deaths are associated with the vaccine.
McCullough said:
“I conclude that the National Academies should join in support for full withdrawal of COVID-19 vaccines from current use in the United States, and they begin a fair evaluation and compensation for the large number of individuals who have suffered vaccine injuries, disabilities, and deaths.”
Dr. Meryl Nass, internist and biological warfare epidemiologist, said the committee must bear in mind the FDA’s Benefit-Risk Assessment and drug regulatory decision-making, which, she said, “states for a drug to be approved for marketing FDA must determine that the drug is effective and that its expected benefits outweigh its potential risks to patients.”
She presented data — noting the committee did not allow any commenters to share slides they had prepared for the committee — showing how quickly efficacy wanes for any of the vaccines.
Albert Benavides, who runs the Vaersaware.com website told the committee that miscoding or undercoding and delayed publication in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has hidden thousands of serious adverse events.
Several speakers commented on the way these reports are misused by the VICP and the CICP.
Professor Renee Gentry, director of the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic at The George Washington University Law School, told the committee that over the last ten years, she witnessed, “the aggressive delegitimization of all non-table vaccine injuries by HHS.”
She said the HHS has aggressively fought against any claims regarding injuries not on the list, despite the fact that vaccine people are legally permitted to make claims for injuries whether they are on the list or not.
She said:
“The hard line drawn by HHS in contesting these cases, I believe, contravenes congressional intent as well as the intent of this committee and pushed the vaccine court further into the protracted litigation of the civil arena that Congress hopes to avoid.”
She explained that the stakeholders that created the VICP — vaccine manufacturers, lawyers and parents — set it up to be petitioner-friendly, informal, generous and non-adversarial, adding:
“The congressional record at the time recorded Congress’ admonition that it was better to compensate someone who was not injured by the vaccine than to fail to compensate someone who was …
“I believe the VICP as it exists today would be unrecognizable to those original stakeholders. In some circumstances, HHS’ unrelenting opposition to vaccine injuries using epidemiology discussed by this committee has resulted in the elimination of entire categories of injuries …
“In order to guarantee a strong and successful universal immunization program, you must have a vibrant safety net for those rare individuals who are injured. A compensation program must be a reasonable and meaningful alternative to civil litigation or it has failed.”
How does vaccine injury compensation work?
The PREP Act protects vaccine makers from liability for injuries or deaths associated with Emergency Use Authorization vaccines, but can be held liable for injuries caused by a fully licensed vaccine — unless that vaccine is added to the CDC’s childhood vaccination schedule.
The COVID-19 vaccine was added to the schedule earlier this year.
People injured by vaccines listed on the childhood schedule can seek compensation through the taxpayer-funded VICP, a no-fault alternative to the traditional legal system for resolving vaccine injury claims.
However, the revisions voted on by the ACIP committee last year explicitly state (slide 24) that the COVID-19 vaccines are not covered under the VICP.
Instead, the COVID-19 vaccines added to the childhood schedule will remain covered by the CICP.
As of Jan. 1, 2023, since the CICP was established in 2010, 11,596 claims have been filed (95% COVID-19-related).
Only 19 claims related to COVID-19 filed with the CICP have been found eligible for compensation, though no compensation has yet been paid.
10,604 claims are still under review.
During the first NASEM meeting, Dr. Chandy John, professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, asked HRSA’s Grimes when the COVID-19 vaccines that are fully approved by the FDA would move from coverage under CICP to VICP, saying many concerned parents were asking this question of their infectious disease group.
Grimes gave no timeline. Instead, he simply listed the steps in the process.
He said to move to CICP coverage, a vaccine needs to be recommended for routine administration for children and pregnant women, it needs to have an excise tax imposed upon it through the legislature, and there needs to be a notice of coverage published in the federal record.
“So once those things all happen that is when the CICP would cover the COVID-19 vaccines, if those three things were all to happen.”
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for . 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.
April 2, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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A recent publication by the world-renowned scientific group, The Cochrane Collaboration, has shown that masks did little to nothing positive during the pandemic response. Following the release of this study, New York Times opinion writer, Zeynep Tufekci, along with the editor-in-chief of the Cochrane Collaboration, Karla Soares-Weiser, threw the authors of the mask study under the bus. Jefferey Jaxen does a deep dive to uncover the important details of this story.
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | March 30, 2023
Despite the CDC preparing for the COVID shot rollout in 2020, newly released internal documents reveal that VAERS, the system for tracking vaccine adverse events, was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of submissions despite expecting record reports. Even after planning for a ‘worse case scenario’ of 1,000 reports per day, an untenable deluge swamped the system and its contractors in just 6 days after going live. But it didn’t stop there. Jeffery Jaxen reports.
April 1, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video, War Crimes | CDC, COVID-19 Vaccine, Joe Biden, United States |
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The Information Age, for all its wonders in the vast and instant access to any topic imaginable, is really quite a paradox. Accessible information should ideally lead to greater knowledge and understanding. Yet, information is not always true or accurate, causing confusion and misleading recipients. Journalists and news organizations, therefore, bear a duty to their readers to investigate and verify information before publishing.
Vetting information should be relatively easy in some cases. So why do today’s media authors insist on being parrot-like mouthpieces instead of ethical, investigative journalists? Why do they not dig anymore? Why not question and confirm or correct information before publishing articles that get viewed by the masses, creating perceptions with a reckless disregard for the truth?
Forbes, TravelPulse, Sky Sports, and Express Daily among other outlets reported on Thursday that the United States has voted to end its restrictions against unvaccinated foreign travelers. Some of these articles quote Geoff Freeman, CEO of the US Travel Association, following a statement published on the organization’s website that appears to have since been deleted. In the quotes, Freeman praised the Senate’s passage of H.J.Res. 7, a bill terminating the national covid emergency declaration in the US, suggesting that this bill removed the travel vaccine mandate for visitors to the US.
Had any of these authors or their editors read the text of the bill, they would have at least questioned the accuracy of US Travel’s official commentary that the bill has any effect on the international travel ban. Instead, each news outlet in rapid succession published similar, misleading articles. Quintessential irresponsible journalism–erroneous reporting compounded with a “whisper down the lane” effect that because information has been reported, and then reported by multiple sources, it is now true albeit a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
The truth is the US has not lifted the travel ban. It is still in place without expiration, and will only be terminated by President Biden upon recommendation by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Hope in that respect is grim for both citizens and noncitizens harmed and kept apart from loved ones by the restriction.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra testified before the House of Representatives on March 28th that “the actions that our Administration is taking with regard to American citizens is to protect them as best possible against covid. The actions we take with regard to those trying to enter the country are somewhat similar, but there are some differences because these are folks who are asking for permission to come into the U.S.” Representative Claudia Tenney (R-NY) asked if the decision to not lift vaccine mandates was political, to which Secretary Becerra responded that the mandates, including the travel restrictions, are “based on science and the evidence.”
While testifying, Becerra–a lawyer–is oblivious to statements made by his own CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky. Walensky told the public in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that “vaccines are no longer effective at preventing disease.”
The CDC also updated its guidance to “no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur…” as of August 19, 2022. However, the CDC has not yet removed the Amended Order banning unvaccinated travelers. In their official comment regarding the travel restrictions, the CDC responded that the order is simply an implementation of President Biden’s Proclamation 10294, and the agency defers status updates to the White House.
Given Becerra’s recent testimony, it is apparent that he is also unaware that the global scientists in the World Health Organization have recommended since July of 2021 that governments not require international travelers to be vaccinated against covid for entry.
He further testified that he does not have the authority to issue “waivers” of the vaccine requirement for foreign travelers, which begs the question: Does Becerra know that he is responsible for advising President Biden to terminate the travel restriction? If he followed the science and the evidence, as he testified his Department does, then he should have advised President Biden to end Proclamation 10294 in the summer of 2022.
Alas, the only measures before Congress that would legislate an end to the covid travel restrictions have been stalled in the Senate. As of Thursday, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has twice asked his colleagues to unanimously consent to pass HR 185, a bill offered by Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) that passed the House in February to terminate the CDC Amended Order requiring the covid vaccine for air passengers. Both calls for consent were quashed by objections.
Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) objected, believing Congress should not set precedent by ending any programs of President Biden’s public health emergency before the Administration was ready. At Lee’s second request for unanimous consent, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) stood and objected for then-absent Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT).
Although not all of the reasons for Sanders’ objections were read into the record, the “most compelling” objection, per Booker, was that covid originated outside of the US and “many health professionals” believe keeping unvaccinated noncitizens out will curb the spread of the disease and future variants.
Now that the objections have stalled any legislative action on HR 185, the Senate may need to hold a roll call vote to pass the bill and send it to President Biden, who has not promised to veto. Such a vote is not expected prior to April 17th, as Senators will be out of DC for state work.
Certain media outlets have also mistakenly published that the covid travel restrictions are due to end on April 10th. No doubt, their assumption comes from the TSA Security Directive, which orders airlines to comply with Proclamation 10294. Unfortunately, the agency renews this directive so long as Proclamation 10294 remains in place.
It cannot be said enough that Proclamation 10294 and the CDC Amended Order implementing President Biden’s policy have no expiration date. Indeed, the White House only promised the restriction would “be reviewed” prior to the anticipated May 11th end to the covid public health emergency–there is no offered end date.
Further, the Proclamation is based on the National Immigration Act. Although the national covid emergency spawned the development of this now-defunct policy, the legal authority rationalizing it will remain well beyond the termination of any emergency, allowing the policy itself to be enforced until removed.
An official from the White House advised that ending the national covid emergency does not end the travel restrictions, and those restrictions remain in effect at this time under Proclamation 10294 and the CDC’s Amended Order. The official did not provide an anticipated end date when asked.
To make this abundantly clear for the public: Presidential Proclamation 10294 requiring non-citizen non-immigrants be vaccinated to enter the US will only end if President Biden rescinds it, Congress repeals it, or the Judiciary strikes it down. To date, no lawsuits have been filed challenging the ban on foreign visitors.
March 31, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Joe Biden, United States |
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Recently, my colleague and I completed a systematic review of the serious harms associated with covid-19 vaccines.
My co-author Peter Gøtzsche, is a Danish physician with four decades of research experience, publishing 97 papers in the “big five” (BMJ, Lancet, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, and New England Journal of Medicine) and 19 Cochrane reviews.
My previous report on how serious harms were downplayed or excluded from the covid-19 trials, became the impetus for this review.
Also, concerns have been raised about the reliability of clinical trial data because of the pharmaceutical industry’s long history of falsifying data and deliberately hiding harms.
In the case of covid-19 vaccines, neither the vaccine manufacturers, nor the drug regulators allowed independent researchers to examine the raw trial data, forcing transparency advocates to sue the FDA for access to the documents.
In our review, we focused on serious adverse events (SAEs) associated with covid-19 vaccines, documented in the published literature (search cut-off date was 4 April 2022).
We defined SAEs according to the European Medicines Agency definition:
An adverse reaction that results in death, is life-threatening, requires hospitalisation or prolongation of existing hospitalisation, results in persistent or significant disability or incapacity, or is a birth defect.
Here are the salient points:
- Many of the studies we reviewed were of very poor quality and published in journals that failed to identify fundamental errors.
- To date, the most methodologically rigorous systematic review of SAEs was conducted by Fraiman et al, which re-analysed trial data from two pivotal randomised trials of the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer & Moderna), including SAEs from the websites of the FDA and Health Canada. The risk of an SAE following vaccination exceeded the risk of hospitalisation from covid-19.
- The adenovirus vector vaccines increased the risk of venous thrombosis and thrombocytopenia. (Authorities have responded by suspending the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine across many European countries, and in the US, regulators have advised restricted use of Janssen’s vaccine).
- The mRNA-based vaccines increased the risk of myocarditis, with a mortality of about 1-2 per 200 cases. It was more common in younger males.
- We found evidence of serious neurological harms, including Bell’s palsy, Guillain-Barré syndrome, myasthenic disorder and stroke, which are likely due to an autoimmune reaction from mRNA and adenoviral vector vaccines.
- Severe harms, i.e. those that prevent daily activities, were underreported in the randomised trials.
- Severe harms were very common in studies of fully vaccinated people receiving boosters (3rd dose), and in a study of vaccination of previously infected people (i.e. those with naturally acquired immunity).
- Drug regulators and other authorities have been very slow in following up signals of serious harms.
- Given the difficulties of accessing regulatory data, obfuscations, and documented underreporting, we find it likely that there are other serious harms of the covid-19 vaccines, than those uncovered so far.
- Population-wide recommendations for covid vaccination and boosters ignore the negative benefit to harm balance in low-risk groups such as children and people who have already recovered from covid-19 (natural immunity).
The full manuscript has been uploaded as a PRE-PRINT.
March 29, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine |
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An Australian senator’s motion to hold an inquiry into the World Health Organization‘s (WHO’s) controversial international pandemic treaty was blocked after Labor and Greens voted against it.
The treaty, which will be legally binding under international law, will expand the WHO’s surveillance powers, allow the unelected global health agency to target “misinformation,” and more. The next stage of discussions on the treaty will begin next week.
The motion, which was introduced by Senator Malcolm Roberts, called for the WHO’s international pandemic treaty to be referred to the Foreign Affairs Defense and Trade References Committee for an inquiry.
Numerous lawmakers supported the motion and blasted the pandemic treaty during a debate.
Senator Roberts accused WHO Director-General of “misleading the public about what the WHO is doing with the pandemic treaty.”
Senator Ralph Babet warned about the “ever-encroaching power of the WHO” and blasted those who had dismissed criticism of the pandemic treaty as a “conspiracy theory.”
Senator Geraard Rennick said that Australia risks being influenced by the “vibe” of the WHO if the treaty passes and pointed to the way where Australia would “religiously… follow the orders or the proclamations from the WHO without any questioning” during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Senator Alex Antic highlighted the mass censorship that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic and criticized the way people were branded “conspiracy theorists” if they went against the establishment’s Covid narrative.
“Anyone who defied the WHO’s supposedly expert advice, including emminent medical professionals, were censored and vilified by the media and Big Tech at the behest of government and these organizations and… the only narrative that was allowed oxygen were those parroting the WHO,” Antic added. “Many Australian Health Care Providers were suspended for contradicting what was ultimately the WHO’s position on Covid-19 vaccines. Their predictions and observations have turned out to be correct and we’ll see how that narrative is slowly changing.”
Senator Matthew Canavan said Australia “should be getting out of the World Health Organization because of their negligent handling of the coronavirus” and pointed to several of the unelected health agency’s missteps during the pandemic.
However, several senators opposed the motion and praised the WHO.
“This is actually a good thing,” Senator Dorinda Cox said in reference to the treaty. “It’s important that we learn from the responses of governments right across the world so that we can do better next time.”
Senator David Shoebridge claimed that criticism of the WHO’s pandemic treaty was “disinformation” being pushed by a “conspiracy club.”
Despite strong support for the motion from several senators, it was ultimately defeated by two votes, with Labor and Greens voting against it.
You can watch the full debate on this motion here.
This is one of several recent efforts to shine a light on the WHO’s far-reaching pandemic treaty. United States (US) Senator Ron Johnson recently introduced an amendment to require Senate ratification for any pandemic agreement with the WHO. However, Johnson’s attempt to scrutinize the treaty was also defeated.
March 29, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Australia, WHO |
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Systematic Review of 50 Studies with 548 Hearts Does not Find Heart Inflammation as Significant Contributor to Death
From the original Baric study demonstrating beta-coronavirus loading in laboratory models can cause myocarditis to the first year of the COVID-19 crisis there has been a concern that SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans could cause heart inflammation. Epidemiologic studies relying on ICD codes triggered by routine cardiac troponin testing and or results implied that hospitalized patients were developing myocarditis with the respiratory illness. None of these studies were confirmed with clinical adjudication or autopsy. In 2020 the NCAA Big Ten athletic conference, US Military, and many other organizations screened for myocarditis on clinical grounds—handful of cases were found without any reported hospitalizations or deaths. Tuvali, et al from Israel, demonstrated that myocarditis in 2020 was not any more common that the low levels of baseline myocarditis from parvovirus, giant cell, and other conditions.
Almamlouk et al performed a systematic review of 50 autopsy studies and 548 hearts of patients who died of or with COVID-19. Usual post-mortem findings of tissue edema and necrosis were reported commonly. About two thirds of hearts had SARS-CoV-2 found in the tissue. However, none of the hearts had extensive myocarditis as the cause of death.
Almamlouk R, Kashour T, Obeidat S, Bois MC, Maleszewski JJ, Omrani OA, Tleyjeh R, Berbari E, Chakhachiro Z, Zein-Sabatto B, Gerberi D, Tleyjeh IM; Cardiac Autopsy in COVID-19 Study Group; Paniz Mondolfi AE, Finn AV, Duarte-Neto AN, Rapkiewicz AV, Frustaci A, Keresztesi AA, Hanley B, Märkl B, Lardi C, Bryce C, Lindner D, Aguiar D, Westermann D, Stroberg E, Duval EJ, Youd E, Bulfamante GP, Salmon I, Auer J, Maleszewski JJ, Hirschbühl K, Absil L, Barton LM, Ferraz da Silva LF, Moore L, Dolhnikoff M, Lammens M, Bois MC, Osborn M, Remmelink M, Nascimento Saldiva PH, Jorens PG, Craver R, Aparecida de Almeida Monteiro R, Scendoni R, Mukhopadhyay S, Suzuki T, Mauad T, Fracasso T, Grimes Z. COVID-19-Associated cardiac pathology at the postmortem evaluation: a collaborative systematic review. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2022 Aug;28(8):1066-1075. doi: 10.1016/j.cmi.2022.03.021. Epub 2022 Mar 23. PMID: 35339672; PMCID: PMC8941843.
In summary, this review should be the nail in the coffin in ruling out COVID-19 illness as a cause of fatal myocarditis. Despite the virus being found in heart tissue, it was not causing significant inflammation. The explosion of fatal myocarditis by report of unexplained cardiac arrest, adjudication, and at necropsy must have another explanation than SARS-CoV-2 infection. The only new proven cause of heart damage in human populations is COVID-19 vaccination. Vaccines used in America (Pfizer, Moderna, Janssen, Novavax) have been demonstrated to cause myocarditis as published in the peer-reviewed literature.
These observations call for immediate access to the CDC COVID-19 vaccine administration database for physicians and other providers who are managing the burgeoning caseload of myocarditis. This will be the only way the epidemiology of COVID-19 vaccine induced myocarditis can be studied and patient outcomes can be improved.
Daniels CJ, Rajpal S, Greenshields JT, Rosenthal GL, Chung EH, Terrin M, Jeudy J, Mattson SE, Law IH, Borchers J, Kovacs R, Kovan J, Rifat SF, Albrecht J, Bento AI, Albers L, Bernhardt D, Day C, Hecht S, Hipskind A, Mjaanes J, Olson D, Rooks YL, Somers EC, Tong MS, Wisinski J, Womack J, Esopenko C, Kratochvil CJ, Rink LD; Big Ten COVID-19 Cardiac Registry Investigators. Prevalence of Clinical and Subclinical Myocarditis in Competitive Athletes With Recent SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Results From the Big Ten COVID-19 Cardiac Registry. JAMA Cardiol. 2021 Sep 1;6(9):1078-1087. doi: 10.1001/jamacardio.2021.2065. PMID: 34042947; PMCID: PMC8160916.
Tuvali O, Tshori S, Derazne E, Hannuna RR, Afek A, Haberman D, Sella G, George J. The Incidence of Myocarditis and Pericarditis in Post COVID-19 Unvaccinated Patients-A Large Population-Based Study. J Clin Med. 2022 Apr 15;11(8):2219. doi: 10.3390/jcm11082219. PMID: 35456309; PMCID: PMC9025013.
Almamlouk R, Kashour T, Obeidat S, Bois MC, Maleszewski JJ, Omrani OA, Tleyjeh R, Berbari E, Chakhachiro Z, Zein-Sabatto B, Gerberi D, Tleyjeh IM; Cardiac Autopsy in COVID-19 Study Group; Paniz Mondolfi AE, Finn AV, Duarte-Neto AN, Rapkiewicz AV, Frustaci A, Keresztesi AA, Hanley B, Märkl B, Lardi C, Bryce C, Lindner D, Aguiar D, Westermann D, Stroberg E, Duval EJ, Youd E, Bulfamante GP, Salmon I, Auer J, Maleszewski JJ, Hirschbühl K, Absil L, Barton LM, Ferraz da Silva LF, Moore L, Dolhnikoff M, Lammens M, Bois MC, Osborn M, Remmelink M, Nascimento Saldiva PH, Jorens PG, Craver R, Aparecida de Almeida Monteiro R, Scendoni R, Mukhopadhyay S, Suzuki T, Mauad T, Fracasso T, Grimes Z. COVID-19-Associated cardiac pathology at the postmortem evaluation: a collaborative systematic review. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2022 Aug;28(8):1066-1075. doi: 10.1016/j.cmi.2022.03.021. Epub 2022 Mar 23. PMID: 35339672; PMCID: PMC8941843.
March 28, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine |
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