CDC Falsely Claims To Major Media Outlet That the 7.7% Medical Care Figure Was Wrong!
After ICAN obtained the v-safe data and published to the world that 7.7% of v-safe users sought medical care (and that the CDC hid this number from the public for two years), Reuters reached out to my firm stating it had received comment from the CDC regarding this figure.
Incredibly, CDC told Reuters that the 7.7% figure was grossly inflated because it claimed there were 10 million records in v-safe, not 10 million users. Here is the exact email I received from Reuters:
“CDC says v-safe has 10 million records, not 10 million users, and that one person could submit multiple records of seeking medical care for the same adverse event. Which makes the 7.7% statistic problematic… Is that something ICAN was aware of or able to adjust for?”
Based on the CDC’s claim, the major news outlet asked if ICAN would be modifying its claim of 7.7%. But it was the CDC’s claim that was categorically false!
ICAN was correct: there were 10 million v-safe users, not 10 million records; and the 7.7% also did not double-count because it was the number of unique v-users who submitted one or more reports of seeking medical care.
The CDC was plainly pushing the major news to declare ICAN’s claim false and, hence, characterize it as misinformation.
Had Reuters just accepted the CDC’s claim, as typically occurs, it likely would have published a story declaring ICAN’s 7.7% figure to be false information.
Luckily, to its credit and because one of its reporters proceeded objectively and with integrity, this news outlet did not just take the CDC’s word for its claim. It actually gave us an opportunity to respond to this claim. (Albeit not by asking if ICAN believed it was wrong but by asking if it would adjust the figure it published.)
CDC Proven Wrong
Showing that the CDC was wrong was simple. All we had to do was use the CDC’s own data it provided to ICAN!
The data the CDC provided to ICAN clearly and without any doubt showed that ICAN was using the precise and correct number of v-safe users and the number of unique v-safe users who reported needing medical care. Meaning, the 7.7% was absolutely accurate – without any doubt.
We sent this proof and asked Reuters to please ask that CDC substantiate with actual proof, not just conclusory assertions, how ICAN was supposedly wrong and spreading misinformation. And again, to Reuter’s credit, because it demanded proof from the CDC, the CDC eventually relented!
The CDC finally conceded that v-safe did in fact have approximately 10 million users and, hence, the 7.7% figure of those who reported seeking medical care was accurate.
With that, I expected that interaction would be one heck of a story in and of itself! I foresaw a Reuters story that disclosed this CDC behavior – here was the CDC trying to get a major news outlet to publish false information! It was trying to get it to write that the 7.7% figure was incorrect.
That should have been its own major story. And although Reuters did publish a story about v-safe, thus far, these behind-the-scenes communications have not been published. I expect they never will, other than in this article.
CDC Asks Reuters to Ask ICAN for a Copy of CDC’s V-Safe Data
It gets even worse. Making plain that the CDC officials communicating with Reuters were not concerned about the facts, and instead were focused solely on pushing their “safe and effective” mantra which is typically not questioned, they further revealed the agency’s disfunction: the CDC officials asked Reuters if it could get a copy of the v-safe data from ICAN and send it back to the CDC representatives Reuters were dealing with so they can review that data. If that sounds nutty, it is because it is.
Just so you don’t think you misread the foregoing, let me repeat: CDC asked Reuters to get the v-safe data that CDC had given to ICAN days before, and then send that data back to the CDC to review.
You can’t make this stuff up. Mind you, the data had already all been made public on ICAN’s website.
What this shows is that these CDC officials were driving forward to push a major news outlet to claim to the world that ICAN’s claim of 7.7% was false without actually looking at the data to assure their claim was accurate. It also shows an incredible level of disfunction at the CDC; instead of getting the data internally, they had to ask a news outlet to get its own data produced to ICAN to then send it back to CDC.
And these are the folk that have effectively dictated what level of civil and individual rights most Americans would have over the last three years!
CDC Seeks to Deceive Again
When the foregoing gambit by the CDC did not work, it had a new gambit. It tried to get Reuters to publish that the 7.7% figure was misleading by claiming to Reuters that “[i]n the first week after vaccination, reports of seeking any medical care … range from 1-3% (depending on vaccine, age group and dose).”
But as we explained to Reuters, even this is not true. For example, 3.36% of those younger than 3 years old reported receiving medical care within one week of receiving the Moderna vaccine.
Even if all combinations of vaccine, age group, and dose resulted in between 1% to 3% of infants, children, or adults seeking medical care within one week, that is not necessarily an insignificant figure! Why is this somehow comforting? Especially in the context of vaccinating the entire country.
And why should the reports of medical care on days 14 or 21 or 28 be ignored? Is it because the CDC thought it was not relevant information? And, if so, why in the world ask v-safe users to submit this information on these days? Or is it because the CDC did not like what the numbers showed? I will let you be the judge.
As noted above, and a sad irony, when medical care is sought during the first seven days, the CDC presumably attributes that to expected reactogenicity and tells the public to not be concerned. And if it occurs beyond seven days, it pretends as if that data does not exist – even though harms from COVID-19 vaccines, as the CDC well knows, can occur well after the first seven days, as discussed in depth in part 7 of this v-safe substack series.
Also, here, we are talking about a novel medical product, hence heightening the need for assessing its long-term safety – certainly beyond 7 days post-vaccination.
This shows how the sausage is made in mainstream media. But for the actual tenacity – I would even say courageous – pushback from a Reuters reporter, the story around ICAN’s v-safe claims could have ended very differently.
The real story I can only imagine this reporter would have liked to publish, the one I told above, however, would no doubt be a step too far for Reuters as an organization – at least for now, until brave journalists become the typical journalist.
March 7, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | CDC, COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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Virologists who worked to squelch consideration of a lab origin of COVID-19 in early 2020 worked in tandem with leaders in scientific research funding, according to their private emails.
Leaders of the National Institutes of Health in the United States and the Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom played an undisclosed role in persuading virologists to write an influential article asserting a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2, according to a memo released Sunday by investigators with the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
By mid-February 2020, social media sites in the West and in China buzzed with speculation about a possible connection between the emerging novel coronavirus pandemic and labs specializing in coronaviruses at its epicenter.
The “lab leak theory” cast suspicion not only on the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its neighboring labs, but also on their esteemed funders and collaborators in the West.
A March 2020 paper in Nature Medicine titled “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” assured the public that the virus’ genome demonstrated an origin in wildlife. Hundreds of news organizations cited the article to assert that the lab leak theory was a “conspiracy theory.”
But the new congressional memo shows that the lead author of the article told the scientific journal that the writing had been “prompted” by then-Wellcome Trust Director Jeremy Farrar, leader of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, and NIH Director Francis Collins.
The virologists met with Farrar, Fauci and Collins in a private teleconference on February 1, 2020, emails released under the Freedom of Information Act have shown — a meeting some scientists have criticized as improper.
“There has been a lot of speculation, fear mongering, and conspiracies put forward in this space,” acknowledged lead author Kristian Andersen in a February 12 email, according to the new memo.
“Prompted by Jeremy Farrah [sic], Tony Fauci, and Francis Collins, Eddie Holmes, Andrew Rambaut, Bob Garry, Ian Lipkin, and myself have been working through much of the (primarily) genetic data to provide agnostic and scientifically informed hypothesis around the origin of the virus,” continued Andersen, a virologist with Scripps Research.
The involvement of heavyweights in scientific funding in the article was not disclosed to the public.
NIH funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan that strengthened SARS-related viruses, an NIH letter confirmed in 2021. Emails exchanged by Collins and Fauci and a private meeting between Fauci and a gain-of-function virologist in February 2020 suggests they were concerned about this connection in the days prior to the article being drafted.
While Wellcome is among the world’s largest philanthropies, a link between Wellcome and the lab complex in Wuhan has not been established. A spokesperson for Wellcome did not respond to a request for comment.
Farrar — who was recently appointed as chief scientist of the World Health Organization — shepherded the paper and made small edits to the article, the new congressional memo shows.
Farrar asked Andersen to change the sentence “it is unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of an existing SARS-related coronavirus.” He suggested changing “unlikely” to “improbable.” Andersen agreed.
Farrar said he would push Nature to publish the article. Its sister publication Nature Medicine would eventually publish the manuscript a few weeks later. Parent company Springer Nature did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The involvement of Collins, Fauci and Farrar in the article was not disclosed until it was made apparent in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in June 2021, 15 months after the article had first made its enormous impact.
The virologists have given shifting explanations of the purpose of the article, the new memo also shows.
When hoping to demonstrate their integrity to the journal, Andersen said discussion of the evidence had been “agnostic.”
However when speaking to gain-of-function virologists who did not want to give credence to the possibility of a lab origin at all, the authors assured them that their purpose was to demonstrate the lab leak theory was outlandish from the jump.
“Our main work over the past couple of weeks has been to disprove any type of lab theory,” Andersen wrote in an email on February 8, 2020.
NIH’s office of the director, NIAID and the Wellcome Trust did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“The SARS-CoV-2 sequence was released in mid-January 2020 and by February scientists were trying to tell us where it came from. Actually, where it didn’t come from. That was premature by any call,” said virologist Simon Wain Hobson, an emeritus professor at the Institut Pasteur, who was not involved in the article. “Arguments of authority don’t wash. Data counts. Science needs time.”
The virologists’ article was cited by Fauci and the mainstream media to push back on claims that SARS-CoV-2 was a bioweapon among hawkish politicians in the U.S. But the new congressional memo also shows that the virologists were motivated at least in part by concerns about discussion of the possibility among regular Chinese citizens.
‘Pre-adapted’
The virologists behind the “proximal origin” article have strongly denounced accusations they were improperly swayed by the participation of influential funders of scientific research. They have asserted that they seriously considered the lab leak theory but that evidence accumulated in favor of a natural origin, assuaging their earlier concerns about the Wuhan lab.
However the congressional memo raises new questions about the idea that the virologists ever seriously considered the lab leak theory.
Columbia University virologist Ian Lipkin wrote on February 11, 2020, that an early draft of the article “does not eliminate the possibility of inadvertent release following adaptation through selection in culture at the institute in Wuhan,” citing a “nightmare of circumstantial evidence” at the Wuhan lab.
The new congressional memo shows for the first time that Holmes wrote on February 11, 2020, that he agreed with Lipkin’s assessment, even after he had drafted the first version of the article that would dispel the lab leak theory.
Holmes also said he had concerns about how quickly the virus had emerged in humans, apparently without detection in a likely zoonotic reservoir, in contrast to the SARS epidemic.
“It is indeed striking that this virus is so closely related to SARS yet is behaving so differently. Seems to have been pre-adapted for human spread since the get go,” Holmes said.
The “proximal origin” article nodded to the fact that SARS-CoV-2 appeared pre-adapted to humans.
But scientists who have stated that SARS-CoV-2 appeared pre-adapted to humans in more straightforward terms, and who left open the possibility that the adaptation had occurred in the lab, have received fierce backlash.
The pangolin data
Questions about the integrity of the impactful “proximal origin” article first swirled nearly two years ago.
A series of emails released under FOIA in 2021 and 2022 demonstrated that the authors had expressed private concerns about a lab origin before doing a public about-face.
“Andersen wrote on January 31, 2020, that he, Holmes and Tulane University virologist Robert Garry found that “the genome looks inconsistent with natural evolution.”
Garry wrote on February 2, 2020, that he could not understand how SARS-CoV-2 could have emerged naturally after comparing its genome to a highly similar virus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology: “I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature. Do the alignment of the spikes at the amino acid level … stunning.”
Yet the “proximal origin” article asserted that any lab origin theory was implausible.
Congressional Republicans have sought answers about whether the private teleconference with powerful funders of scientific research on February 1, 2020, had an improper influence.
The virologists have rebutted that claim in part by pointing to the emergence of data in China describing coronavirus data suggesting a highly similar receptor binding domain in pangolins around the same time they were drafting the article.
Pangolins are highly trafficked in China, though rarely sold live in wet markets.
But the new congressional memo suggests that Andersen, the article’s lead author, did not find that the pangolin data alone provided sufficient evidence in favor of a natural origin.
“The newly available pangolin sequences do not elucidate the origin of SARS-CoV-2 or refute a lab origin,” Andersen said in an email on February 21, 2020. “[T]here is no evidence on present data that the pangolin CoVs are directly related to the COVID-19 epidemic.”
Congressional investigators state in the memo that given the pangolin data was apparently not the compelling evidence in favor of a natural origin theory, the factor that likely pushed the scientists toward the natural origin theory was undue influence by Collins, Fauci and Farrar.
“The pangolin data was not the compelling factor,” the memo reads. “To this day, the only known intervening event was the February 1 conference call with Dr. Fauci.”
Meanwhile, Stanley Perlman, a University of Iowa virologist who edited one of the papers describing the pangolin coronavirus data, said that the new congressional memo has not changed his stance in favor of a natural origin. However the publication did issue a correction stating that pangolins were an unlikely intermediate host in 2021.
The committee also asserts that Andersen’s private statements contradict assertions made by a lawyer for Scripps Research in an August 2021 letter.
Asked about the apparent discrepancies, a Republican aide responded that “the select subcommittee is continuing to evaluate all available evidence, including whether or not Dr. Andersen was truthful to the committee.”
Asked whether the scientists scrutinized in the memo, including Fauci, would be called to testify, the aide said that “the select subcommittee previously requested their testimony and those plans have not changed.”
Despite the scrutiny that has fallen on Fauci — President Joe Biden’s former chief medical adviser — Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, said in a Face the Nation interview Sunday that the investigation would seek to work in bipartisan fashion.
“I just want to get to facts,” Wenstrup said. “There’s going to be some moments, I’m sure, of some emotions flaring. The last three years have been tough on everybody.”
March 7, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, NIH, Wellcome Trust |
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COVID-19 is the story of how governments around the “developed” world corralled their populations into the acceptance of novel, draconian measures to combat a virus. The most extraordinary of these measures was the mandating of experimental “vaccines” to large segments of the population. The vaccines were relentlessly promoted as “safe and effective” by public health authorities notwithstanding reports of tens of thousands of deaths attributed to the vaccines. In COVID-19, “science” was exposed as propaganda of the US and other governments.
The question is, how did this happen? How did science, the intellectual centerpiece of western civilization, get reduced to a cheap dictatorial tool?
Part of the answer may lie in Project Apollo; the US program that purportedly successfully mounted manned expeditions to the moon.
There is strong, independent confirmation of successful expeditions to the moon. Retro-reflectors placed on the surface of the moon in the Apollo 11, 14 and 15 missions have been detected at diverse observatories. However, the question of whether these missions to the moon were manned, is much more contentious. Imagery from the “missions” is unconvincing. Also, the inability of the US government to provide technical background to the missions raises doubts.
The most objective evidence provided by the US government of its claim to have reached the moon with manned spaceflight is a collection of specimens purportedly gathered from the surface of the moon. The collection includes 842 pounds of rocks and dust from the six missions. Studies have not explicitly tested whether the samples were truly from the moon. However, hundreds, if not thousands, of studies have been performed using these samples. The volume of studies alone implies the authenticity of the the samples.
A closer look at these studies, however, finds that scientists struggled to reconcile findings from the moon specimens with fundamental scientific principles. Some of the problematic observations were:
- One Moon rock has a crystal structure that is typical of rocks formed on the Earth. Development of an explanatory model is ongoing. Investigators suggest the possibility that the particular rock arrived from the Earth as a meteor.
- Certain meteorites found on the Earth resemble moon rocks. The similarity gave rise to the theory of lunar meteorites by which rocks arrive at the Earth after ejection from the lunar surface.
- Extraordinary similarity between Moon rocks and Earth’s silicate crust and mantle. Development of a model to explain this similarity is ongoing.
- Moon rocks exhibit magnetization although the Moon lacks a magnetic field. Development of explanatory models is ongoing.
In sum, scientific analysis of samples purportedly obtained from the Moon do not confirm the success of Project Apollo to place a man on the Moon. The belief that manned Moon missions were successful is really only based on the credibility of the US government.
March 5, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | United States |
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Net Zero Plans Are Dangerous and Unsupported by Science and the Scientific Method
Net Zero initiatives of governments and private organizations are scientifically invalid and will lead to worldwide impoverishment and starvation if implemented, according to a paper published by the CO2 Coalition.
The 46-page paper details how the objectives of Net Zero to eliminate the use of fossil fuels and the emissions of greenhouse gases are based on analytical methods that violate fundamental tenets of the scientific method which originated more than 300 years ago.
“Reliable scientific knowledge is determined by the scientific method, where theoretical predictions are validated by observations or rejected by failing to do so,” say the paper’s authors – two renowned physicists and a geologist of more than 40 years.
“Agreement with observations is the measure of scientific truth,” continues the paper. “Scientific progress proceeds by the interplay of theory and observation. Theory explains observations and makes predictions of what will be observed in the future. Observations anchor understanding and weed out theories that don’t work.”
The paper predicts global starvation if fossil fuels are eliminated. At risk in coming decades would be half of the world’s 8.5 billion to 10 billion people who are fed by crops grown with fertilizers derived from fossil fuels. Listed as an example of Net Zero’s potential consequences is the economic and social calamity of Sri Lanka which had banned the use of fertilizers and pesticides made from fossil fuels.
“The recent experience in Sri Lanka provides a red alert. The world has just witnessed the collapse of the once bountiful agricultural sector of Sri Lanka as a result of government restrictions on mineral fertilizer,” the paper says.
The paper says that 600 million years of geological evidence shows that CO2 levels are near a record low and that atmospheric increases of the gas follow warming periods rather than precede them.
These data “are good enough to demolish the argument that atmospheric CO2 concentrations control Earth’s climate and the theory that fossil fuels and CO2 will cause catastrophic global warming. They will not.”
The paper’s authors are Dr. William Happer, Professor of Physics, Emeritus, Princeton University; Dr. Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Gregory Wrightstone, a geologist and executive director of the CO2 Coalition.
The paper says Net Zero regulations and actions are scientifically invalid because they:
- Fabricate data or omit data that contradict their conclusions. Net Zero proponents regularly report that extreme weather is more severe and frequent because of climate change while the evidence shows no increase – and, in some cases, a decrease – in such events.
- Rely on computer models that do not work. An analysis of 102 computer models used by Net Zero proponents found that 101 of them had failed to match real-world observations. “Simply stated, the (computer) model essential to every government Net Zero regulation, action and the trillions of dollars subsidizing renewables and electric cars, trucks, home heating, appliances and many other products do not work,” said the paper.
- Rely on findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that are government opinions, not science. The paper says that the conclusions of IPCC scientists that contradict the narrative of catastrophic global warming from fossil fuels are rewritten by government bureaucrats for public reports to support the false narrative of Net Zero proponents.
- Omit the extraordinary social benefits of CO2 and fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide, including that from the burning of fossil fuels, serves as plant food that increases crop production and enables the feeding of more people. CO2, as well as the greenhouse gases of methane and nitrous oxide, help to keep Earth at temperatures conducive to life; without them, people would suffer. Fossil fuels are economical and abundant sources of energy necessary for modern societies and are critical feedstocks for fertilizers and pesticides that support the lives of billions of people.
- Omit the disastrous consequences of reducing fossil fuels and CO2 emissions to Net Zero. “It cannot be overemphasized that eliminating fossil fuels and implementing Net Zero policies and actions mean the elimination of fossil fuel-derived nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides that will result in about half the world’s population not having enough food to eat,” says the paper.
- Reject the science that demonstrates there is no risk of catastrophic global warming caused by fossil fuels and CO2. “We are not aware of any reliable science that supports the National Climate Assessment’s or others’ theory that fossil fuels and CO2 will cause catastrophic global warming,” said the paper’s authors, “We have written extensively on this issue for decades.”
The Arlington-based CO2 Coalition is a nonprofit organization of more than 100 scientists and researchers engaged in educating the public and policymakers on the benefits of carbon dioxide and on the role of the gas in climate dynamics.
You may download a printable version of Challenging Net Zero with Science here.
March 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular |
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Four of the world’s top experts in environmental health are calling for prevention and precaution when it comes to public exposure to radiofrequency (RF) radiation.
The scientists — including the former director of the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) — last month published a preprint review of the most recent studies on the effects of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) and RF radiation on different life forms and humans, and the epidemiological evidence for cancer due to RF radiation from cellphone use.
The authors concluded there is “substantial scientific evidence” that “RF radiation causes cancer, endocrinological, neurological and other adverse health effects” — and that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has failed to protect public health.
They accused the FCC of ignoring the “Precautionary Principle,” commonly used in toxicology, and also the Bradford Hill criteria, a set of principles commonly used in epidemiology for establishing a causal relationship, in evaluating the risks of RF radiation.
“This article is a clarion call for prevention and precaution,” said Devra Davis, Ph.D., M.P.H., a toxicologist and epidemiologist who co-authored the paper.
“We know enough now to take steps to reduce exposure to this. … It’s time,” said Davis, who also is founder and president of the Environmental Health Trust, and founding director of the Center for Environmental Oncology and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.
The paper’s other authors are:
Birnbaum and Taylor are members of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, the nation’s premier association of distinguished researchers.
Davis was founding director of the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology of the U.S. National Research Council for the National Academy of Sciences, a private society of distinguished scholars.
Cumulatively, the four authors have published more than 1,600 peer-reviewed articles.
Davis told The Defender there is a “plethora” of experimental and epidemiological evidence that establishes a causal relationship between EMR-RF and cancer.
Studies also have shown that EMR/RF can cause DNA damage, and that it can adversely affect fetal development and the endocrine system.
“EMF/RF functions like a classic endocrine disruptor by impairing both male and female reproductive functions,” the authors said.
They pointed out that senior advisers to the World Health Organization, including Dr. Lennart Hardell, have said that if RF radiation were evaluated based on more current studies, it would likely be upgraded to a probable — if not confirmed — human carcinogen.
Davis said the paper is a “landmark” article — “but the landmark is built on the shoulders of a number of others,” she added.
Many researchers — including James Lin, Ph.D., Louis Slesin, Ph.D., Joel Moskowitz, Ph.D., Lennart Hardell, M.D., Ph.D., Cindy Sage, M.A. and Dr. David Carpenter — have worked “relentlessly” on the issue of RF radiation, she said.
‘Industry-affiliated scientists’ distort public discourse on RF radiation
According to the authors, the public discourse around RF radiation has been distorted by some “fundamentally flawed” yet widely publicized reports — written by “industry-affiliated scientists” — purporting to show “no health risk.”
The paper evolved from the authors’ discussions of “several peer-reviewed papers that provided biased analysis, most notably the 2021 review by David Robert Grimes, Ph.D. published in JAMA Oncology,” Davis told Microwave News.
“It is imperative to insist on a complete picture of the evidence and not the whitewashed or distorted version currently promoted,” the authors said.
More independent research on RF radiation — free from bias by the telecom industry — is required. Without this, the authors said, “We are effectively conducting an uncontrolled experiment on ourselves, our families, and our children.”
The authors also criticized the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for dismissing many of the studies that have shown adverse effects from RF radiation, including the $30 million NTP study done in 2018, which showed “clear evidence” that electromagnetic radiation is associated with cancer and DNA damage.
According to Davis, the FDA’s rejection of the NTP study was “deeply flawed” and “deeply hypocritical.”
The FDA in 1999 requested the NTP study cellphone radiation, she said. FDA officials were intimately involved in reviewing the study design plans.
“Then when the results came out and some people didn’t like it, the FDA began to trash talk their own study,” Davis said.
Davis said the scientific and regulatory battle around RF radiation today reminded her and her co-authors of the earlier battle around tobacco.
“We were there in the early days when — believe it or not — 70% of surgeons smoked. And in the 1970s and 1980s, the tobacco industry gave the National Cancer Institute $11 million to study how to make a safe cigarette,” Davis said.
There was a scientific debate “that went on for years longer than it should have” about whether or not tobacco was safe for the environments of children.
“In 1983, when I was the executive director for the National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, we put together a committee to answer the question of whether it was okay to have smoking on airplanes,” Davis said.
At the time, that was a scientific question, she said, adding that the committee — after reviewing the research — became the first in the world to issue a ban on smoking in airplanes.
Davis said scientists and the public realized the studies suggesting tobacco was safe were “manufactured” by the tobacco industry — and the same thing is happening now with RF radiation and the telecom industry, she added.
Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2021), and a master’s degree in communication and leadership from Gonzaga University (2015). Her scholarship has been published in Health Communication. She has taught at various academic institutions in the United States and is fluent in Spanish.
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.
March 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science | FDA, United States |
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THIS is an open letter to New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins
Mr Hipkins
Two publications by the Ministry of Health itself present evidence that within the government there is knowledge that the Pfizer mRNA Covid vaccine cannot be regarded as safe and effective. Therefore, from now on, there is no credible legal defence that the government can advance to cover its failure to openly inform individuals and the public at large of the inherent health risks of Covid vaccines.
Until now the government’s public announcements, including your own under the previous administration, relied on the argument that the government is ‘following the science’ and monitoring international Covid journal publishing. This was never credible, but allowed room for a fanciful defence (certainly a weak argument) of ‘accident, ignorance, misapprehension, or misdirection’ in any possible legal case brought under criminal or civil law. This can no longer be the case.
Firstly, a paper was published on February 3 2023 in the Lancet authored by our own Ministry of Health, Adverse Events Following the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine (Pfizer-BioNtech) in Aotearoa New Zealand. The paper reveals there is a statistically significant association between Pfizer mRNA vaccination and both myocarditis and acute kidney injury (AKI). The study examined the comprehensive medical records of four million NZers. There were 1,778 more cases of AKI than predicted from historical pre-pandemic rates, an alarming rate of one case for every 2,200 vaccinations. In addition to AKI and myocarditis, researchers also found elevated rates of blood clots and platelet damage.
Secondly, information concerning mortality in 2021, 2022, and 2023 correlated with vaccination status has been released by Health New Zealand following a Freedom of Information (OIA) request. The figures are signed off by Astrid Koornneef, Interim Director of Prevention, National Public Health Service.
The released figures include all NZ registered deaths by month. The figures show that for the last six months of 2022, 80 per cent of all people dying in New Zealand had received Pfizer mRNA booster shots. Yet, according to official government figures updated 14 February 2023, only 73.2 per cent of those eligible (18+ years) have received a booster. In other words, booster recipients are disproportionately represented among registered all-cause deaths. For more analysis refer here.
These two data sets certainly point towards serious risks associated with Pfizer mRNA Covid vaccination and stand in need of further investigation. The first investigated outcomes only within 21 days of Covid vaccination, the second indicates serious effects persist in the general population past 21 days. Taken together these point to a need for analysis of the causes of the current high rates of hospital admissions and deaths with reference to vaccination status.
Despite the ongoing need for more investigation, the results are sufficiently concerning according to ordinary standards of vaccine risk assessment to require an immediate halt to vaccine administration. This has not happened. Instead your Minister of Health, Ayesha Verrall, has announced a new booster shot for everyone over 30. Verrall did not reveal the concerning new safety data to the public. Instead, she has urged people to receive the vaccine as a priority.
Findings of this type are not unique to New Zealand: increasingly publications in learned journals are highlighting concerns about Covid vaccine safety. There is much academic debate in progress which has received little or no coverage in New Zealand media. Your government appears to share the burden of responsibility for a lack of balanced coverage in NZ mainstream media.
There appears to be a misapprehension among NZ health professionals concerning the reliability of biotechnology vaccine manufacturing standards. Data points to huge variability in safety by vaccine batch. The following chart records serious vaccine injury and death by batch number in the USA sourced from publicly available VAERS data sets. You can see that the number of injuries varies hugely by batch. A few injury numbers are similar to those recorded following flu vaccination, but most batches lead to injury volumes considerably higher, up to 14 times higher.
As early as January 18 2021 Orange County California medical authorities flagged an unusually high pattern of injury and death associated with a single batch they had been administering. Pfizer should have immediately alerted New Zealand authorities to such anomalies. They probably had a contractual obligation to do so. Now that it has become a matter of public comment, it should not be possible to continue to assert Covid vaccine safety. NZ has a code of Good Manufacturing Process for pharmaceuticals. This includes a requirement for uniformity of pharmaceutical medicine contents and action. Apparently, Pfizer Covid vaccines do not meet our code.
The scientific evidence concerning the lack of Covid vaccine safety has not reduced the stitched-up action of government intelligence services, the police, and Te Punaha Matatini’s [a research centre] Disinformation Project in coordination with media and social media to monitor and reduce the reach of those raising pertinent questions. As you know, under the Prime Minister’s office there is interagency co-ordination for mis/disinformation monitoring and response. This involves multiple government departments. If these programmes and participants are not fully informed of the legitimacy of concerns about Covid vaccine safety, this amounts to misdirection and possibly harassment on the part of the Prime Minister’s office itself.
I and many others believe New Zealand has struggled to define its relationship with unregulated global influences in the modern era. There is much scope for commercial and geopolitical misdirection even via established channels of medical, military, and political cooperation. We need to be more alert as a nation to our own sovereign and economic interests especially when we consider health and the legal protections that have been afforded to multinational interests like Pfizer and others.
You are newly appointed to a position of power and influence. You have stated that you intend to reconsider the policies followed under your predecessor. It was therefore very surprising to find your Minister of Health doubling down on vaccine requirements against the weight of her own department’s findings. I urge you to look into this very thoroughly. As a lawyer, you must realise that going against the weight of safety evidence is very much a betrayal of the trust the public has placed in the government.
I hope you will announce a revision and retraction of Covid response policies in the light of the new evidence that is being published. Apparently New Zealand has acquired 1.7million doses of Pfizer bi-valent vaccines. Why? Have you considered returning them as not fit for purpose? The weight of evidence points in that direction, evidence that is accumulating by the week in learned journals.
It seems clear that we have passed a point where policy mistakes can be described as accidental. If continued, they will appear to be deliberate. The public stands in need of an honest explanation. It may take courage to speak out, but doing so will be a mark of integrity and genuine concern for health and safety.
Yours sincerely
Guy Hatchard PhD
March 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | COVID-19 Vaccine, New Zealand |
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One of the most tiresome features of the covid era has been the growth industry of ‘fact-checkers’ generously funded by Government, Pharma companies and the likes of Bill Gates to silence anybody challenging the ‘official narrative’. The Law, Health and Technology Newsletter has covered this extensively.
There have been a few ludicrous attempts to ‘fact-check’ my own work but, as an example of how biased and incompetent these people are, I present a request I received today from an AFP fact-checker asking me to help ‘debunk’ something …. and my self-explanatory response to it (I have spared the ‘fact-checker’ personal embarrassment by removing their name).
From: XXXXXX
Sent: Thursday, March 2, 2023 9:17 PM
To: Norman Fenton
Subject: Media Request (AFP) – Addressing Misinterpretations of ONS Covid-19 Data
Hello professor,
I hope you are well. I am a fact-check reporter at AFP based in Washington DC. I am working to debunk online articles that claim English health data indicates that fully vaccinated people are far more likely to die of Covid-19 than those who have not received the shots. Several articles have made this allegation, citing this ONS dataset: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsbyvaccinationstatusengland
For reference, I will archive examples of these articles making the claims here and here.
Based on this ONS insight and a previous bulletin, which says the data is not intended to show vaccine efficacy, it seems like the article is misinterpreting the dataset. Would you be able to offer comment with a brief explanation as to how this sort of data is supposed to be read and used?
Thank you for your consideration,
XXXXXXXX
Agence France-Presse (AFP)
Office #: (202) 414-0527
From: Norman Fenton
Sent: Thursday, March 2, 2023 9:44 PM
To: XXXXXXX
Subject: RE: Media Request (AFP) – Addressing Misinterpretations of ONS Covid-19 Data
Dear XXXXX
Like all mainstream “fact checkers” you clearly have no understanding of what it is you are checking.
The ONS dataset is so flawed and biased that even the Statistics Regulator agreed with us that it could not be used to make any inferences about vaccine efficacy or safety. But you are missing the big problem here.
Instead of focusing on those who are using the data to suggest the vaccine is not as safe and effective as claimed, what you should be focused on are the government and mainstream media who (against the advice of the Statistics Regulator) are using the ONS data to claim the vaccine is safe and effective. Have a look at this article in the Daily Mail – this is one you should be fact checking. Why aren’t you doing that?
Our most recent article covers this whole issue of the ONS data:
The latest ONS data on deaths by covid vaccination status
In fact, if you make adjustments for the multiple flaws and biases in the ONS data, then it is increasingly clear that the vaccinated have a higher all-cause mortality in many age groups, especially the under 50’s. In other words, the evidence increasingly points to the need for the covid vaccine programme to be shut down completely. But that isn’t the message you want to portray is it, because your funders are the ones pushing the vaccines?
Only one of the links to examples of reports you were seeking to ‘debunk’ seems to be working, namely the article in The Expose. The claim there is that the ONS report reveals that “the Vaccinated account for 9 in every 10 COVID Deaths over the past TWO Years”. Based on the ONS dataset this is correct. Of course, without knowing the true proportion of vaccinated in each age group, we still cannot conclude that the vaccinated are at higher risk of death from covid. But the article is not claiming that, it is simply stating the FACT that a far higher number of vaccinated people have died of covid than unvaccinated since Jan 2022. That the number of vaccinated people who have died of covid is 25,768 is relevant, because we were told by people like you that this could not possibly happen; the vaccines were supposed to have ‘stopped hospitalisation and death from covid’.
Yours
Norman Fenton
March 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine |
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Yet another narrative reversal sees parts of the U.S. Government now saying COVID came from a Chinese lab. The HighWire reveals who kept this information from the American public from the beginning and why the same players are back at it with bird flu.
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | March 2, 2023
The great lies of COVID-19 pushed on the world by global health agencies and mainstream media are unraveling before our eyes. Del walks through the ‘10 Myths Told By Covid Experts’ published by Johns Hopkins Surgeon, Marty Makary, MD, pinpointing when and where The HighWire was brave enough to report on debunking each one, going all the way back to January of 2020.
March 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | China, Covid-19, United States |
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All 5 are supposed to “search for the truth,” but increasingly seek to conceal important truths.
The writer who publishes the Eugyppius Substack recently posted a scathing criticism of “academia.”
This essay got me thinking about all the institutions in the world that now seem to be completely captured; more specifically, all the institutions that are supposed to exist to “search for the truth” and now clearly exists to conceal truths and advance untruths.
At the top of this list are these five institutions:
I think tens of millions of Americans would agree with me that mainstream or corporate news organizations should not be trusted to provide fair and balanced coverage of the issues most important to the public.
As I have pointed out in other articles, it’s virtually impossible to find any serious articles that question any of the “authorized” Covid narratives. Not only does the establishment press push and endorse bogus or dubious storylines, they censor and attack people who are skeptical of official pronouncements.
Genuine journalists would be skeptical of the pronouncements of powerful figures and should always “search for the truth.” The fact this objective no longer applies in corporate newsrooms has tremendous and detrimental implications for society … today and in the future.
Those who practice real science are also supposed to make their living “searching for the truth.” By nature, a “scientist” should question, challenge and test accepted theories to see if they are, in fact, true.
Again, thanks to Covid, tens of millions of Americans are now beginning to question whether the majority of credentialed “scientists” are actually performing this vital task.
Many people now believe that scientists are unwilling to debunk false or dubious scientific theories. Instead, many (government-funded) scientists argue that the “science is settled” when it’s clearly not. Just like the corporate journalists, these scientists inflict further harm on society by attacking, censoring, bullying and cancelling their colleagues who do perform this vital role.
In short, they effectively prevent superior science from informing public policy.
For millions of citizens, the difference between false and correct science can be the difference between life and death. Millions of additional citizens are forced to needlessly endure life-altering pain and suffering as a result of “accepted” science that is wrong.
I would argue that journalism and science are the two most important professions and institutions in the world as the public needs to be able to discern what is true and what is not true if correct or wise policies are to be pursued.
Policies based on incorrect premises have the potential to cause harm to virtually every citizen on the planet. The fact “science” now seems to be corrupted – and is no longer interested in “searching for the truth” – constitutes one of the gravest and most ominous developments of our times.
As Eugyppius reinforces with his provocative essay, “academia” is another institution that is supposed to exist to “search for the truth.”
Euggypius focuses on the shortcomings of college academics. Again, I think all would agree that college is the place we send our children so they can increase their knowledge of important subjects. As all the great philosophers tell us, the quest for knowledge is found through a search for the truth.
However, what if large expanses of the “knowledge” these professors are imparting to students is dubious or wrong? What if, just like so many scientists and journalists, these academics are concealing real truths and intentionally or unintentionally spreading dangerous non-truths?
If this is the case, our college system is “educating” our future leaders by promulgating bogus or dubious “accepted truths.” Even worse, they are preventing the spread of ideas that could save lives and improve the quality of life of the world’s citizens.
Of course, it should be noted that the majority of “science” performed in today’s world comes from scientists who work for colleges.
Colleges are also supposed to teach and develop critical-thinking skills in students. However, it seems increasingly obvious that the vast majority of academics lack the ability to think critically. This, or many academics seem more interested in promoting their personal agendas instead of questioning what is true and what is false or uncertain.
In the past, colleges did seem to have many professors who valued a search for the truth. Today, the groupthink among college professors and administrators is approaching 100 percent.
All colleges celebrate “diversity,” but they recoil against diversity of thought and scholarship. In reality, they are afraid of genuine debate or, more specifically, any campus voices that push back against their dogma.
As these academics influence tens of millions of students who are supposed to become “future leaders,” the long-term detrimental effects of this “indoctrination” are impossible to calculate (but frightening to ponder).
Certain employees who work in government are also supposed to seek the truth and expose individuals and organizations that are perpetrating untruths (fraud).
Members of Congress have oversight over every government department or agency that is allocated taxpayer dollars. If government agencies and officials are concealing truths that could harm countless citizens, it’s Congress’s job to expose this.
Yet again, I’m sure tens of millions of Americans would agree with me that senators and representatives have abdicated this responsibility. They effectively allow fraudulent and Unconstitutional edicts and “emergency orders” to control the lives of every citizen in the country.
Prosecutors are also government employees. No one would deny that it is the job of prosecutors to “search for the truth” (find the real facts) and bring criminal charges against individuals who are harming others by promoting untruths and/or violating the law or Constitution.
The third branch of government, the Judiciary, must also be questioned as judges at all levels have the power to control what cases can (and cannot) be tried in a court of law.
Once a criminal or civil case is placed on the docket, the same judges have the power to influence how these cases are tried. By not approving important prosecutions or lawsuits or by hamstringing the efforts of advocates to fully present their arguments, judges can also “conceal the truth.”
Elected representatives and government prosecutors (and too many judges) seem to have increasingly made an intentional decision to not perform their oversight or regulation duties, which effectively conceals the truth from the public.
Trial lawyers are another important professional class as attorneys can file lawsuits on behalf of clients who have been injured or harmed by the actions of defendants. Lawsuits are also filed by family members of those who may have died as a results of defendant actions.
Significantly, trial lawyers can demand testimony under oath and compel defendants to turn over important evidence or documents (discovery). They can cross-exam witnesses who may be lying, which allows a jury to determine whose testimony is or isn’t believable.
While this “search for the truth” can and has been abused with lawsuits that lack merit, the ability of any injured or harmed citizen to seek redress for wrongs is a vital component of our system of justice.
In the Covid era, it’s already clear that the plaintiff’s trial bar (with a few exceptions) is not going to represent clients who have suffered deaths, medical harm or financial damages (or citizens whose civil liberties have been violated by ignoring the language include in the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution).
If injuries have occurred, the legal proceedings that would document these “truth” are not taking place (again, with a few exceptions). By not filing lawsuits on the behalf of tens of millions of citizens who suffered some form of harm, the trial lawyers are, in effect, concealing the truth.
Our society includes at least five key institutions or professions whose most important function is to seek the truth. All five of these institutions are supposed to expose untruths, especially those which have the potential to produce great harm among the citizenry.
As I see it, all five institutions are now “captured” and – at least as it involves Covid subjects – are more interested in concealing truths that challenge the authorized narratives.
In a recent article, I tried to identify how the “madness” of our Covid times actually came to pass. That article focussed on pivotal events of the last few years.
However, a deeper treatment of the “how” question would highlight the important role played by the above-cited institutions and professions. It took many years for all of these institutions to become largely or completely “captured,” but the fact this happened also explains how so much harm was inflicted on legions of victims who have not received any form of justice.
I’ll conclude this essay with the same sentence I wrote in a July 2020 Covid article published by uncoverDC.com.
When a genuine search for the truth is increasingly viewed as taboo or off-limits, the prognosis for a nation we all want to see survive and prosper is probably bleak.
March 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine |
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There has been renewed discussion of the origin of Covid in the media. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the US Department of Energy has come down firmly on the side of a laboratory origin of Covid-19 from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. On Fox News, the former director of US National Intelligence John Ratcliffe commented: ‘The idea that Covid-19 has a natural origin has always been at odds with our intelligence . . . it is due to a lab leak. From the beginning scientists have not been able to explain why there is a furin cleavage site within the genetic make up of Covid-19 . . . This is something that happens when scientists insert a snippet of manipulated material into viruses.’
UK commentator Piers Morgan responded: ‘I think that the truth is that science, by its very nature, will evolve with facts. And so you have to give them some leeway for that . . . So I do think in the future, we’ve got to examine the science. You’ve got to listen to all ranges of opinions, and people have got to stop being cancelled on social media for raising concerns, which now look like they were absolutely right.’
US Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson went further in a 20-minute excoriation of the Biden administration’s Covid policy. Carlson wanted to know: has the administration’s policy to fund biotechnology research in China changed? (Watch Carlson here, begins at 3 minutes).
Some, including late-night talk-show host Stephen Colbert, have accused the DoE of lacking sufficient qualifications to decide on the lab leak theory, saying: ‘Stay in your lane’. (Is Colbert even vaguely qualified himself?) In fact as the authoritative Washington Post reports the DoE employed highly qualified and skilled scientists (including members of the Energy Department’s Z-Division, which since the 1960s has been involved in secretive investigations of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons threats by U.S. adversaries, including China and Russia), who undertook detailed scientific assessment of genetic evidence and classified information. After the dust of misinformation had cleared the DoE’s conclusion that there was a lab leak was inevitable.
It was the job of the FBI to investigate how the truth was being manipulated and they have also come out firmly and publicly on the side of the lab leak theory (it’s not a theory, there is overwhelming evidence). Early in 2021, a highly qualified geneticist friend wrote to me that he and many of his colleagues were sure that Covid was engineered in a lab because of its highly unusual genetic structure, but he added the codicil: please don’t mention my name. This was going on all over the world in differing forms. Some of them were verging on the corrupt.
All this information is in the public domain, but still the BBC published two dismissive articles on its home page on Wednesday. One covered the FBI announcement, but said the FBI conclusion was not backed by any evidence. The other was an explainer article entitled ‘Covid origin: Why the Wuhan lab-leak theory is so disputed‘. A more blatant attempt to muddy the waters of truth could not be imagined. The article forgot to discuss the genetic evidence which clearly points to gene-edited inserts in the virus genome.
But you might ask, why would anyone in government or science seek to hide the truth from the public? Good question. The answer possibly lies in the murky history of military involvement in genetics and the pandemic. You might recall conspiracy theories circulating since the discovery of DNA and gene editing in the 20th century. According to these ideas, military powers were supposedly going to invent weapons that would target specific ethnic groups and win wars because their genetically different opponents were all going to fall down dead, felled by a man-made virus.
In truth, all humans share so much DNA that any genetic weapon is going to affect everyone worldwide including you and me. Remember that military planners are not geneticists, but like almost everyone else on the planet, they are very susceptible to genetic fantasies. They believed wrongly that anything might be possible for genetic science. Whether their motivations were offensive or defensive was irrelevant. To counter any potential offensive weapon from the other side, they were going to have to first create possible offensive weapons, before trying to design a defensive counter. Sound familiar? Gain of function research to weaponise viruses in order to design a vaccine?
The problem we now know is that, as reported in this study, no lab is ever going to be secure. The history of recombinant DNA biotech labs contains a long list of unintended leaks and accidents. The result has been a pandemic whose final outcome still remains unknown. The military, governments, pharmaceutical companies, and scientists from a number of countries are very busy trying to hide their involvement, telling us that all this is just a natural disaster. This amounts to a giant geopolitical cover-up. The US, China, Britain and France, all of whom were involved in the creation and funding of the Wuhan Virology Laboratory, are paying for favourable comments from their media and anyone else who is corrupt enough to shill for them.
As a last resort, some people are arguing that the origin of Covid is irrelevant. It isn’t. The lab origin of Covid should bring us all together. Whether we think Covid is the main threat or the vaccine is, they both came from a biotech lab carrying out genetic experiments. We can safely forget about the geopolitical arguments explaining who was to blame: China or the USA, and instead shout loudly from the rooftops that biotech experiments have got to stop.
Research shows biotech interventions are inherently mutagenic, they have led to permanent degradation of genetic function and consequently health, as this alarming recent assessment of the Pfizer and Moderna bivalent vaccine shows (the same vaccine our government has announced it will give to everyone over 30 in New Zealand). So don’t think that by taking the latest vaccine you are helping society. The mRNA vaccines pose a danger to everyone in the world, all cultures, all races, religious or agnostic, left or right. We share DNA and we have a common interest to protect ourselves from scientists, media, and governments who are putting financial interests and political objectives ahead of the safety of the entire 8billion population of the world.
We are going through an unprecedented societal upheaval. It increasingly appears to be man-made. The repeated political mantra ‘Trust the Science’ has proven to be mere political demagoguery, devoid of real scientific content. Keeping a steady head, carefully shifting through the evidence, and applying caution are needed now. The evidence is out: with confidence we know that Covid and Covid vaccines came from laboratories whose operation is inherently dangerous. They have already killed millions, and want to be given carte blanche to do whatever they wish. Time to call a halt. For more information go to https://GLOBE.GLOBAL
March 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | BBC, China, Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, France, UK, United States |
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As glasses help people focus their eyes to see,” medical experts from the American Academy of Pediatrics rule, “medications help children with ADHD focus their thoughts better and ignore distractions.” In their view, as well as in the view of multiple other expert consortiums, the most appropriate way to treat the “lifelong impairing condition” of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is by taking stimulant medications on a daily basis.
Although stimulants, as suggested by their name, are frequently abused for stimulating (potentially addictive) sensations of high energy, euphoria, and potency, they are often compared to harmless medical aids, such as eyeglasses or walking crutches. Numerous studies, we are told, support their efficacy and safety, and evidence-based medicine dictates that these substances will be administered to children with ADHD as the first-line treatment.
There is only one, huge problem. ADHD is currently the most common childhood disorder in Western-oriented countries. Its ever-increasing rates are now skyrocketing. The documented prevalence of ADHD is not about 3 percent, as it used to be when the disorder was first introduced in 1980. In 2014, a survey by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that over 20 percent of 12-year-old boys were diagnosed with this “lifelong condition.”
In 2020, thousands of real-life medical records from Israel suggested that over 20 percent of all children and young adults (5-20 years) received a formal diagnosis of ADHD. This means that hundreds of millions of children around the world are eligible for this diagnosis and that most of them (about 80 percent), including very young, preschool children, will be prescribed with its treatment-of-choice, as if regular use of stimulants is indeed comparable to eyeglasses.
Stimulant brands for ADHD, such as Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall, or Vyvanse rank at the top of the best-selling lists of medications for children. Indeed, the American dream may play a significant role in the proliferation of such cognitive enhancers in the US, but the rush for the magic pills crosses national borders. In fact, the ‘semi-final’ countries that are currently ‘winning’ the Ritalin Olympics, according to the International Narcotics Control Board, are: Iceland, Israel, Canada, and Holland.
But what if the scientific consensus is wrong? What if the medications for ADHD are not as effective and as safe as we are told? After all, stimulant medications are powerful psychoactive substances, which are prohibited to use without medical prescriptions, under federal drug laws. Like all psychoactive drugs, which affect the central nervous system, stimulant medications are designed to penetrate the blood-brain barrier – the specialized tissue and blood vessels that normally prevent harmful substances from reaching the brain. In this way, stimulant medications are essentially impacting the biochemical processes of our brain – that miraculous organ that makes us who we are.
In my new book ADHD is Not an Illness and Ritalin is Not a Cure: A Comprehensive Rebuttal of the (alleged) Scientific Consensus, I do my best to answer these disturbing questions. The first part of the book offers a step-by-step refutation of the notion that ADHD meets the required criteria for a neuropsychiatric condition. In fact, a close reading of the available science suggests that the vast majority of the diagnoses simply reflects common and pretty normative childhood behaviors that underwent unjustified medicalization. The second part of the book uncovers the massive evidence that exists against the efficacy and safety of the treatment-of-choice for ADHD.
Hundreds of studies, published in well-recognized, mainstream academic journals tell a totally different story than the one told by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Stimulant medications are nothing like eyeglasses. Of course, it is impossible to summarize an entire book here, but I do wish to outline three principal failures in the common comparison between stimulant medications and eyeglasses – or any other daily used, harmless medical aids for that matter, such as walking crutches.
- Even without considering the specific criticism about the validity of ADHD, the very comparison between organic/bodily conditions, which are typically measured through objective tools, to amorphic psychiatric labels that rely exclusively on subjective assessments of behaviors, is inappropriate and misleading. The ‘brain deficit’ and the ‘chemical imbalance’ that have been associated with ADHD are unproven myths. Stimulants do not ‘fix’ biochemical imbalances and they can easily be used also by non-ADHD individuals to enhance cognitive performance (even though these individuals are not assumed to have this alleged ‘brain deficit’).
- As opposed to visual impairments that restrict the individual’s everyday functioning, regardless of school demands, the primary impairment in ADHD is manifested in school settings. Eyeglasses and walking crutches are needed outside of school premises as well, even during weekends and holidays. ADHD, in contrast, seems to be a ‘seasonal disease’ (despite endless efforts to exaggerate and extend its negative outcomes to non-school-related settings). When schools are closed, its daily medical management is often no longer needed. This simple real-life fact is even acknowledged, to some extent, in the official Ritalin leaflet, which states that: “During the course of treatment for ADHD, the doctor may tell you to stop taking Ritalin for certain periods of time (e.g., every weekend or school vacations) to see if it is still necessary to take it.” Incidentally, these ‘treatment breaks,’ according to the leaflet, “also help prevent a slow-down in growth that sometimes occurs when children take this medicine for a long time” – a noteworthy point that brings us to the third, and most important error in the comparison between stimulant medications and other daily, physical/medical aids, such as eyeglasses.
- The benign examples used by proponents of the medications, such as eyeglasses or walking crutches are not regulated by the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. Typically, these medical aids do not cause serious physiological and emotional adverse reactions. If stimulant drugs are as safe as experts say, like “Tylenol and aspirin,” why do we insist that they will be medically prescribed by licensed physicians? This question has philosophical and societal implications. After all, if the medications are safe and helpful to various populations (i.e., not only to people with ADHD), what is the moral justification to prohibit their usage among non-diagnosed individuals? This is unjustified discrimination. Moreover, why are we condemning (non-diagnosed) students who use these medications to improve their grades? If regular use of Ritalin and alike is so safe, why not place them on the pharmacies’ shelves, next to the non-prescription pain relievers, moisturizers, and chocolate energy bars?
The last rhetorical questions illustrate how far the eyeglasses metaphor is from the clinical reality and the scientific evidence regarding ADHD and stimulant medications. ADHD medications are not fundamentally different from other psychoactive drugs that cross the blood-brain barrier. At first usage, they may trigger intense sensations of potency or euphoria, but when used for prolonged periods, their desired effects subside, and their unwanted negative effects start to emerge. The brain recognizes these psychoactive substances as neurotoxins and activates a compensatory mechanism in an attempt to fight the harmful invaders. It is this activation of the compensatory mechanism, not the ADHD, that might cause the biochemical imbalance in the brain.
I realize that these last sentences may sound provocative. I therefore encourage readers not to ‘trust’ this short article blindly, but to dive with me into the deep (and sometimes dirty) water of the scientific literature. Despite the academic orientation of my book, I made sure to make the science available to most readers through plain language, illustrative stories, and real-life examples. And even if you disagree with some of its content, I am positive that, by the end of the reading, you will ask yourself, like I did: How is it possible that such critical information about ADHD and stimulant medications is being hidden from us? Does it really make sense to compare these drugs to eyeglasses? Are we medicating millions of ADHD children without proper scientific justification?
March 2, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Book Review, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Canada, Human rights, Iceland, Israel, United States |
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Convening for the first time on Tuesday, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic presented the testimony of four public health experts, as part of a roundtable: “Preparing For the Future By Learning From the Past: Examining COVID Policy Decisions.”
The agenda for the subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), focused on government policy pertaining to COVID-19, including vaccine mandates and other public health guidance.
In his opening remarks, Wenstrup said the subcommittee will examine the origins of COVID-19, policies surrounding gain-of-function, research, the impacts of lockdowns and other government policies, including school closures, and “vaccine and therapeutic development and the subsequent mandates.”
“We are here to deliver an after-action review of the past three years,” said Wenstrup. “To learn from the past, not just what went wrong, but what was done right, and to prepare for the future. This is work that must be done, must be done thoroughly, and must be done with reverence with an eye toward the truth and based on facts.”
The experts who testified included Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine at Stanford University; Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Marty Makary, M.D., M.P.H., chief of islet transplant surgery and professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University; and Georges C. Benjamin, M.D., M.A.C.P., executive director of the American Public Health Association.
In introducing the experts, Wenstrup said they can “help us chart a path forward; to help us understand what policies went wrong and how we, as a country, can improve.”
Wenstrup cited examples like the vaccine mandates imposed by the Biden administration, ignoring natural immunity, the harm caused to elders forced into nursing homes, and the consequences of stopping in-person learning and implementing remote work, particularly in the public sector.
“The American people deserve to know and understand how and why these impactful decisions were made,” said Wenstrup. “Did we create unnecessary fear in some, and dangerous ambivalence in others?”
“At the end of this process, our goal is to produce a product, hopefully bipartisan, based on knowledge and lessons learned,” he stated.
Ranking member Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) focused on American lives lost during the pandemic, stating that it “was real and not a hoax” and “laid bare vulnerabilities and inequities in our public health infrastructure and our economy.”
“We need to understand the lessons, learn all the barriers of misinformation, disinformation, the politicization of this and avoid those for the fake of our nation, in order to save more lives,” Ruiz said.
Most of the witnesses shared critical words about the overall public health response to COVID-19, which Kulldorff described as “the worst public health mistakes in history.”
Makary said “public health officials have made many tragic mistakes during the pandemic,” including:
“Ignoring natural immunity, dismissing the lab leak as a conspiracy, closing schools, masking toddlers … pushing boosters for young people, bypassing FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] expert panel customary votes that we’ve been using for decades, telling people to wash their hands like crazy.”
Bhattacharya said:
“The American people deserve answers to fundamental questions about the pandemic. On what empirical basis were schools closed? Did public health decision-makers consider the harms of their policies as thoroughly as their putative benefits? Why did authorities ignore recovered immunity or failure of the vaccine to prevent disease transmission?”
“Scientists and people vehemently disagreed about the wisdom of lockdowns, school closures, vaccine mandates and discrimination and so much else,” he added. “There’s near-universal agreement that what we did failed.”
Benjamin, the only expert who was generally supportive of the overall public health response, said, “We must remember the limited information we had when we made those decisions … and also the fact that our knowledge base and science continues to evolve over time.”
He added, “We created a safe and effective vaccine by every standard that we understand safety and efficacy today, in record time.”
Wenstrup praised the quick development of vaccines, describing it as “amazing,” but added, “but we knew from the trials that even people that were vaccinated got COVID” and “we also knew that vaccines produce variants and we should be expecting that.”
Citing the early public health response focusing on COVID-19 at the expense of other patients and health issues, he said one of his constituents, an elderly man, had an operation for “a painful hernia” canceled, ultimately resulting in his death.
Several experts addressed this type of inflexibility. Makary said that while “public health officials are not wrong for making recommendations based on the knowledge that they had at the time … that’s not actually what happened.”
“They were wrong because they refused to evolve their positions as the data became abundantly clear,” he said.
Nursing home policies, hospital visitation restrictions ‘a human rights violation’
Kulldorff said one of the two “major failures” of the public health response was “the failure to properly and optimally protect older Americans,” including “nursing home residents.” He described “sending sick people to nursing homes” as “criminal.”
“We also didn’t protect older working-age Americans in their 60s and 70s, while the ‘laptop class’ was often working from home, whether they were in their 20s or 30s or 40s,” he said. “The way we dealt with the pandemic was the worst assault on poor people, working Americans, the middle class [since] segregation and the Vietnam War.”
Kulldorff, who along with Bhattacharya helped draft the “Great Barrington Declaration” on “the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies,” said that when the group “proposed very concrete things for how to better protect older Americans” they were “slandered.”
Bhattacharya, in turn, said “the public health establishment … abandoned an essential commitment to science” in “sending COVID-19-infected patients back to nursing homes.”
Experts also addressed broader restrictions on hospital visitation during the pandemic. “To date, no randomized controlled trial has been conducted … against the cruel and inhumane hospital visitation policies that prevented people from seeing their dying loved ones,” said Makary, who described this failure as “a human rights violation.”
‘A house of cards that’s now falling apart’
Several of Tuesday’s witnesses focused on pandemic lockdown policies.
According to Bhattacharya, “By early 2022, about 95% of Americans had contracted COVID, despite the harsh countermeasures in most states.”
Bhattacharya described the policies as a “widespread violation of civil liberties.” He referenced a “Johns Hopkins University meta-analysis [finding] that lockdowns had failed to contain the spread of COVID.”
“At best, [lockdowns] temporarily protected the ‘laptop class’ who could work from home without losing their jobs, perhaps 30% of the population, while being served by the working class,” he added.
Kulldorff said such measures were themselves responsible for many deaths.
“Lockdown harms, school closures, people not going to medical visits … has killed many Americans and will continue to do so in the next few years,” he said, adding that “the lockdowns had enormously negative consequences on public health.”
For example, screening and treatment on cardiovascular disease and other ailments “plummeted,” Kulldorff said.
“The pandemic response is a house of cards that’s now falling apart,” he added.
Several of the experts focused on school closures, with Kulldorff stating, “I don’t think there’s anybody left who thinks that school closures were a good idea.”
Bhattacharya said school closures helped create “tremendous collateral harm” and “have set kids behind in ways that will lead them to worse outcomes as adults, including shorter, poorer lives.”
Mandates ‘ignored clear scientific data’
Bhattacharya questioned why “public health authorities ignore[d] clear scientific data that COVID infection [and] acquired immunity is as strong or stronger than vaccine-acquired immunity.”
“Vaccine mandates forced many frontline workers … to choose between their careers and a vaccine that provides less protection than the natural immunity they already had,” he said.
According to Makary, “Young healthy people were essentially spared from this pandemic,” with “an infection fatality rate no worse than influenza.” However, he said, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) denied knowledge of studies confirming these findings.
Benjamin said, “We were all kind of surprised the kids did kind of well,” although “there were some children that got … multisystem inflammatory syndrome.”
Defending the COVID-19 vaccines, Benjamin said:
“We have learned that if you do get native infection — meaning you aren’t immunized [and get infected], and then if you get vaccinated — you have a really, really, really robust response, and that’s great science and I’m glad we’re learning about that.”
Makary took a different view, saying, “The greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the United States government” when it claimed “vaccinated immunity was far greater than natural immunity” and that “masks were effective.”
Makary referred to the recently published Cochrane meta-analysis showing that masks did not prevent the spread of COVID-19 while pointing out that myocarditis is “four to 28 times more common after the vaccine” but that the government has said “young people benefit from a booster.”
Kulldorff referred to the example of Sweden, describing it as the “one Western country who did very well during the pandemic” and that had “mostly voluntary measures” and a “very light approach,” instead of lockdowns and mandates.
“Sweden, together with other Scandinavian countries, [had] the least excess death in the world,” said Kulldorff.
Prompted by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, M.D. (R-Iowa), who said, “It wasn’t until I came to Congress that I found out infection-acquired immunity was a novel concept,” Kulldorff stated, “I guess we knew about it since 430 B.C., the Athenian Plague, until 2020, and then we didn’t know about it for three years, and now we know about it again.”
Makary said that since the time of the Athenian Plague, natural immunity had been observed, “and yet it was considered a conspiracy theory or something we couldn’t trust or believe in because we didn’t know the long-term protection. Well, we didn’t know the long-term protection of the vaccines either.”
“There has not been recognition that there is immunity after having had an infection,” said Kulldorff. There “was never a reason to mandate that vaccine for people that all had COVID. There was recently a study of mass vaccinations that shows [they] had zero or very little benefit.”
Benjamin, however, argued that in terms of natural immunity, “We generally don’t do that in medicine, particularly when we have a therapeutic option that will prevent it.”
“Many faced with these anti-scientific choices will never trust public health authorities again,” Bhattacharya said. “Public health bureaucrats operated more like dictators than scientists during the pandemic, sealing themselves off from credible outside criticism.”
As a result, said Bhattacharya, “I’ve seen a rise in vaccine hesitancy for essential vaccines like measles [and] DPT,” describing this as “quite alarming.”
Kuldorff concurred. “By forcing children to have a vaccine that they don’t need because they’ve already had the disease, that undermines the trust in other vaccines,” he said, characterizing this as “very, very serious.”
“It’ll take decades to restore some of this damaged trust” in public health authorities, added Makary.
Kulldorff said, “These failures are due to abandonment of basic principles of public health,” including an exclusive focus on one disease at the expense of all others, and “trying to suppress or eradicate COVID, which was impossible.”
Makary asked, “Why do we have the same policies for everybody?” He noted the “biases” of COVID-19 policy decision-makers, whom he described as “a small, non-diverse, like-minded group making all the decisions, and they were HIV researchers” even though “in HIV, there’s no natural immunity.”
“CDC and the FDA and people at the NIH [National Institutes of Health] made up their mind before the trials were completed,” said Makary. “They decided babies were going to get vaccines before the study was done. And then [they] found no statistically significant difference in efficacy between the two groups and they just authorized it anyway.”
“Why are we even doing trials? Why do we even have an FDA?” asked Makary.
Where do scientists whose careers were destroyed go to get their reputations back?
Ruiz said, “We are still dealing with the long-term implications of this public health crisis,” citing “the spread of misinformation or disinformation” as having “undermined the American people’s trust in our nation’s public health institutions and in each other.”
Ruiz said “misinformation” and “disinformation” may “lead to non-compliance or failure of therapeutics where people are making decisions that put themselves and their families in harm’s way.” But most of the experts took a different view.
Bhattacharya said that “under the banner of combating misinformation, government health agencies use their power to collaborate with social media companies to control the public conversation about COVID science and policy,” noting that he was put on a “trends blacklist” by Twitter as a result, leading to his participation in a lawsuit against the Biden administration based on censorship claims.
“I personally have faced censorship,” Bhattacharya said, “from government sources during the pandemic, including … slander and denigration. You need to involve outside voices respectfully in order to get the full set of people … or else bad decisions will get made, just as they were during this pandemic,” he added.
Kulldorff referred to the Great Barrington Declaration, saying that when it was presented, he and its authors were “slandered instead of taking it seriously,” while Bhattacharya said there was “a media campaign to take down our proposal, which tens of thousands of doctors, epidemiologists and scientists endorsed.”
“Where do the scientists whose careers were destroyed … go to get their reputations back?” he asked.
While Benjamin claimed, “There are many people out there who have a large bullhorn who have made it worse,” he conceded that “nobody should be censored.”
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.
March 2, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, FDA, Human rights, United States |
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