I take issue with the conclusions of a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Science of the Total Environment under the title “Managing an evolving pandemic: Cryptic circulation of the Delta variant during the Omicron rise.”
These authors tend to believe that wastewater-based epidemiology combined with mathematical modeling allows for making predictions in regard of the evolutionary dynamics of this pandemic:
“According to the developed model, it can be expected that the Omicron levels will decrease until eliminated, while Delta variant will maintain its cryptic circulation. If this comes to pass, the mentioned cryptic circulation may result in the reemergence of a Delta morbidity wave or in the possible generation of a new threatening variant.”
One should – per definition – always be careful and skeptical about conclusions and predictions proposed by scientists who don’t seem to have an in-depth understanding of the immunology involved!
Variants can only replace previous variants provided they have a higher level of INTRINSIC infectiousness! It’s not because Omicron is highly infectious in vaccinees (i.e., in the vast majority of highly vaccinated population such as the population of Israel) that Omicron will replace Delta in wastewater! It has been published that diminished neutralizing capacity of anti-spike (S) antibodies (Abs)results in disproportionally high binding of non-neutralizing Abs to S-NTD (N-terminal domain of S protein), which explains enhanced susceptibility of vaccinees to breakthrough infection with Omicron but inhibits viral shedding and trans infection of Omicron at distant organs, including the lower respiratory and gastrointestinal tract, thereby reducing the incidence of severe disease in vaccinees (…). So, in other words, Ab-mediated enhancement of infection with Omicron in vaccinees does not translate into enhanced viral shedding from the gastrointestinal tract, which is the primary source of wastewater contamination. On the other hand, diminished shedding in vaccinees is likely compensated by its prolonged duration due to a delay in viral clearance (…). Selective shedding of highly infectious Omicron in vaccinees causes Omicron detection levels in wastewater to rapidly increase to then level off at wastewater detection levels that are higher than those observed for Delta. However, as the amount of Omicron virus shed from the gastrointestinal tract of vaccinees is not determined by the level of Omicron infectiousness in these vaccinated individuals but by the percentage of the population that got vaccinated and because Omicron’s intrinsic infectiousness is similar to that of Delta and, therefore, shed in comparable amounts by the non-vaccinated fraction of the population, it is not surprising to find that – although shed at a somewhat higher concentration in a highly vaccinated population – the Omicron variant is not replacing the Delta variant unless the population were to become vaccinated across all age groups (i.e., including children). Consequently, wastewater-based epidemiology does not supply a real-time image of viral infectivity / transmissibility in highly vaccinated populations as viral infectious behavior in such populations is not primarily determined by the intrinsic infectiousness of the viral variant but by Ab-mediated enhancement of viral infection in vaccinees.
In conclusion, monitoring of Delta and Omicron detection levels in wastewater restricts surveillance of prevalent variants to virus shed from the gastrointestinal tract and thereby ignores antibody-mediated mitigation of shedding. It, therefore, misrepresents differences in viral infectiousness, which is known to be very high for Omicron in a highly vaccinated population due to Ab-dependent enhancement of infection at the level of the upper respiratory tract.
Once again, mathematical modeling may be a challenging and fascinating exercise but is to be considered totally worthless when the immunological assumptions are wrong. It inevitably implies that the essence of the model predictions will also be wrong. There can be no doubt that population-level immune pressure on trans infection-inhibiting Abs is now paving the way for breeding variants that are not only highly infectious but also highly virulent in vaccinees. However, in contrast to what the authors of this publication believe, these new variants will not emerge from previous Delta variants. Delta does not enable highly vaccinated populations (e.g., the Israeli population) to exert immune pressure on viral virulence, simply because it is not fully resistant to potentially neutralizing anti-RBD Abs. So, please forget about any predictions derived from mathematical modeling that – despite lots of complexity – totally ignores the impact of population-level immune pressure on the infectious behavior of the virus. Such predictions are, of course, completely useless when it comes to understanding the evolutionary dynamics and management of a pandemic that has fully changed its natural course as a direct consequence of mass vaccination.
May 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine |
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Nearly every facet of the pandemic is iatrogenic
STAT News has a new article titled, “The ‘five pandemics’ driving 1 million U.S. Covid deaths.” Like almost everything they publish, the article is clever, well-written, and almost entirely wrong. The author, J. Emory Parker, claims that the pandemic is primarily a story of older, unvaccinated, rural, poor people with a deadly initial wave that has faded into a lower infection fatality rate today. I’m not going to refute it point-by-point other than to say that he is missing the forest for the trees.
Democrats now interpret all data through the lens of The Narrative(TM) that makes Dems look like heroes, Pharma look like Gods, and Republicans look like unwashed barbarians who deserve death for their failure to obey their betters. It’s not so much science as bougie-supremacy. Self-reflection, paradox, and admitting mistakes are of course banned from the bougie lexicon.
In this short article, I’ve stolen his title (in hopes of messing with the search engines) and I set the record straight. Any honest assessment of the last two years leads to the inexorable conclusion that every facet of the pandemic is a direct result of the intellectual and moral failures of the “expert class” itself.
1. Tony Fauci created the pandemic by funding risky gain-of-function research at a bioweapons lab in Wuhan China. Somehow a chimera virus, engineered to be more lethal to humans, escaped. No Tony Fauci, no pandemic. All else flows from this.
2. Fauci, the FDA, and CDC blocked access to prophylaxis and early treatment. The CDC’s own research showed that chloroquine is safe and effective for prophylaxis and early treatment of SARS coronaviruses (hydroxychloroquine is even safer than chloroquine). The U.S. had a massive stockpile for this very purpose that was never used. About 90% of Covid-19 fatalities in the U.S. could have been prevented if public health officials had followed proper protocols and used about twenty off-the-shelf treatments that are safe and effective. Instead the FDA and CDC ridiculed the best treatments, stopped doctors from prescribing them, and prohibited pharmacies from filling these prescriptions.
3. Hospitals used the wrong protocols and continue to use the wrong protocols. Failing to provide early treatment (turning people away from hospitals to preserve capacity), ventilators, and Remdesivir are all death sentences. Large hospitals have such abysmal outcomes because they used the wrong protocols and they seem to have no ability to course-correct based on actual data.
4. Blue states that followed the CDC’s advice to return Covid+ patients to nursing homes committed senicide — the systematic murder of the elderly. The death toll in the elderly was and is so high because they were never provided prophylaxis, immune support, nor any early treatment and their residences were intentionally seeded with the sick — once again in the misguided attempt to preserve hospital capacity(TM).
5. Promoting mass injections with negative efficacy, keeps the pandemic going indefinitely. These useless shots also seem to be driving the evolution of variants. The pandemic will never end as long as the government continues to promote these mRNA shots that lack sterilizing immunity.
The entire pandemic, from the origins, through the early days, until now, is a self-inflicted, man-made crisis. This is iatrogenic pandemicide — created, spread, and made more deadly by the people who claim that they are “experts”. Everything that public health has done for two years has made things significantly worse. As long as the people who are wrong about everything remain in power, the crisis will continue.
This is why we need a revolution.
May 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | CDC, Covid-19, FDA, United States |
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This is the second instalment of Paula Jardine’s five-part investigation into the planning behind ensuring vaccine acceptance and countering vaccine ‘hesitancy’. You can read Part 1, published yesterday, here.
IN 2010, as GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (now called The Vaccine Alliance) was setting out on its ambitious ten-year strategic plan called the Decade of the Vaccine, Dr Heidi Larson, a professor of anthropology, risk and decision science, set up the ‘Vaccine Confidence Project’ at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It was funded by vaccine manufacturers and their European lobby group in conjunction with the European Commission, UNICEF and University College London. The ubiquitous Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is unusually absent from this list. The project’s purpose was to challenge vaccine scepticism.
Larson explained: ‘I have a pretty mixed group – my team includes psychologists, anthropologists, social media analysts, mathematical modellers, and they all ask different kinds of questions. What we have in common is that we’re all working on the same challenge of trying to understand why people are questioning and refusing vaccines more than they used to.’
With the number of approved vaccines on national immunisation schedules increasing and with dozens of new vaccines in the pipeline, GAVI’s game plan had become ‘demand generation’, in other words getting people actively to seek out vaccination (the intention being for people to create bottom-up pressure on their governments). Strategic Objective 2 of the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP), the implementation plan for the Decade of the Vaccine, which remains today, is that ‘individuals and communities understand the value of vaccines and demand immunisation as both their right and responsibility.’
The GVAP reframing of vaccination in terms of rights and responsibilities transforms vaccination from an individual (private) medical choice (even in the context of a national public health programme) into a civic rights issue, pitting choice against a (spurious) socio-political ordinance. Writing on her blog, Larson explains, ‘Immunisation, since its beginning, has always walked a tense line between individual rights to choice and societal rights to health. A tense line between rights and responsibilities – the right to choose, with the caveat that it does not injure those around you.’
The principal value of this utilitarian collectivist perspective is that it displaces, for ‘the greater good’ (as defined by certain elites), the well-established medical ethics principle that the benefit of a procedure to each individual recipient must outweigh the risk. The assumption here is that for an act to be morally right it has to be judged only on its consequences for the majority. And since vaccines are supposed to induce immunity and consequently prevent transmission of infectious diseases, mass vaccination in pursuit of disease eradication must be for the greater good. As the utilitarians say, the end justifies the means.
Winning confidence in vaccines, which means winning trust in their safety and efficacy, is therefore imperative. From the health system administering them to the motives of the policy makers, this is the requisite of demand generation. When and where this fails has been dubbed ‘hesitancy’, the reluctance or refusal to be vaccinated despite the availability of vaccines (as though vaccines were, per se and in all circumstances, an unquestionable good regardless of the chequered history of many). According to a World Health Organisation working group report, ‘As hesitancy undermines demand, to achieve the GVAP defined vaccine demand goal, countries will need to address hesitancy. High rates of hesitancy mean low demand.’
Vaccines have been recognised by courts in the US, including its Supreme Court, as unavoidably unsafe products. However, based on the precedent of smallpox eradication, public health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) remain determined to use vaccination to eradicate diseases and therefore argue that the overall value of vaccines to the community outweighs the risk to any single individual.
Diseases are no longer just diseases, we’re told they’re vaccine preventable diseases. Evidence in the medical literature of people who fail to respond to vaccination (primary failure) or of waning protection following vaccination (secondary failure) is simply ignored. The single greater good concept has provided the justification for mandatory vaccination and, in Covid times, for restricting the freedoms of those who exercise their right to bodily autonomy by refusing a medical procedure. Those unlucky enough to be injured or die from vaccine administration are what the American bioethicist Dr Leroy Walters has called ‘injured recruits in the war on infectious disease’.
Despite the rationale that society benefits from universal vaccination, the burden of vaccine injury is largely borne by individuals. It’s now standard practice for vaccine manufacturers to bear no liability for their products. The precedent of indemnification was set by the ill-fated 1976 US swine flu vaccination campaign when the US government stepped in because insurers balked. It paid out almost as much in compensation for vaccine injuries as it spent on the programme, thanks to an active surveillance reporting system for vaccine injuries. Active surveillance has never been repeated. Today only 27 countries have compensation programmes for vaccine injuries, a small improvement on the dozen that had them when GAVI was created in 1999. As for the rest, their injured citizens are collateral damage in the Rockefeller-conceived War on Microbes.
May 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine, Gates Foundation, GAVI |
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The blitzkrieg culminates with a “Future Framework” to automatically deem all reformulated Covid-19 shots as “safe and effective” WITHOUT further clinical trials
I. FDA goes full Shock & Awe in the attempt to get several toxic shots authorized in quick succession
In a little noticed article in the Washington Post, the FDA revealed that they are going to hold FIVE meetings of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) in June. FIVE! The meetings have not been officially announced on the FDA website yet but the best guess at this point is as follows:
June 7, Novavax in adults
June 8, Moderna in adolescents (delayed for a year because of myocarditis concerns)
June 21, Moderna in kids <6
June 22, Pfizer in kids <5
June 28, “Future Framework” for Covid-19 shots
This is very troubling. It means that the FDA is shifting into Shock & Awe military strategy to try to push through five authorizations in quick succession — so that the public does not have time to think and react. This is not the proper way to do science, it is an attack on democracy, and if they succeed, the FDA will kill and injure millions of American for years to come.
Let’s talk about what we know about each of these shots and then talk about what we can do to stop the FDA from destroying our country.
II. Novavax is terrible and useless
Novavax is a protein subunit vaccine. Fellow Substacker Robyn Chuter has done the best deep dive that I’ve seen on Novavax:
Novavax – hope or hype?
Robyn reviewed 3 Novavax clinical trials and the results are always terrible:
• No reductions in hospitalizations.
• No reductions in deaths.
• Tiny absolute risk reduction for a couple months (and then, after six months, the control group gets injected too so there is no long term data).
• Significant risk of adverse events in the vaccinated group.
This is not a surprise. The SARS-CoV-2 virus was never a good candidate for a vaccine (in the same way that HIV and the common cold have never had a successful vaccine in spite of decades of efforts). Recombinant proteins are not safer nor more effective than mRNA — they just fails in different ways. Novavax also uses a proprietary new adjuvant, “Matrix M”, that is not well studied.
III. Moderna mRNA shots in adolescents and kids are useless and terrible
A few days ago, I did a deep dive into the problems with the Moderna mRNA shot in kids. To summarize briefly:
• The Moderna application to inject adolescents has been held up since June 2021, because the Moderna shot increases the risk of myocarditis.
• Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have all suspended the use of the Moderna mRNA shot in teenagers because it leads to myocarditis. Finland and Sweden even suspended its use in men under 30 years old.
• We have no data from the Moderna clinical trial in kids younger than 12 other than selective leaks to the NY Times. But we know that even with Moderna rigging the trials, the shot made no difference on clinically significant outcomes including infection, hospitalization, ICU visits, or death.
However the Moderna shot did cause fevers in 15% to 17% of kids and fevers over 104 degrees in 0.2% of kids (which, if you multiply that by the 18 million kids they want to inject = 36,000 kids with potentially permanent neurological injury from a shot that provides no benefit).
IV. Pfizer mRNA shots in kids under 5 are useless and terrible
I’ve done several articles on the dangers of Pfizer mRNA shots in kids under 5. To summarize briefly:
• There is no Covid emergency for children under five years old. The CDC’s own research shows that 74.2% of kids 0-11 already had natural immunity. That was as of February 2022 — by now the number is probably closer to 100%.
• The Pfizer mRNA shot does not work very well in kids. The Pfizer clinical trial in kids 6 months to four years old failed in December 2021 and failed again in February 2022. A study by the NY State Department of Health shows that against the Omicron variant, after one month the Pfizer shot was only 12% effective in kids 5 to 11. After 6 weeks, vaccine effectiveness was a shocking MINUS 41% (vaccinated children were significantly more likely to catch Covid than the unvaccinated).
• The harms from the Pfizer mRNA shot in children are catastrophic. There are now 47,736 VAERS reports of adverse events in children following Covid-19 shots. These reports likely understate harms by a factor of 41 to 100. There are numerous reports of fatalities in children following Covid-19 shots (including reports that mysteriously disappear).
For those who want more details, Michael Palmer, MD; Sucharit Bhakdi, MD; and Wolfgang Wodarg, MD produced a 50 page guide, “On the use of the Pfizer and the Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in children and adolescents.”
V. The FDA’s proposed “Future Framework” for Covid-19 Vaccines is the worst idea in the history of public health
The “Future Framework” is how the FDA plans to rig the process in perpetuity. The “Future Framework” will take the” “flu strain selection process” that is used every year — and apply it to future (reformulated) Covid-19 shots.
Manufacturers love this because then all future Covid-19 shots will be deemed automatically “safe and effective” WITHOUT FURTHER CLINICAL TRIALS because they are “biologically similar” to existing Covid-19 shots.
This approach does not work with the flu shot (last year the flu shot was somewhere between 0% and 14% effective) and it will not work with Covid-19 shots either.
Moderna is already signaling that they want to manufacture a Covid-19 shot with Wuhan and Beta strains — even though neither strain is still in widespread circulation.
If the “Future Framework” is approved, there will be no future clinical trial data submitted to the FDA in connection with Covid-19 shots in perpetuity.
VI. What is to be done. Talking points.
I imagine we are all tempted to just say/write:
• No Novavax in adults.
• No Moderna in adolescents.
• No Moderna in little kids.
• No Pfizer in little kids.
• No “Future Framework”.
The problem with that approach is that negating a frame reinforces a frame. So the more we just say NO, the more we reinforce the very thing we are trying to stop.
Furthermore, we do not want to leave the bougiecrats in an existential abyss because they are incapable of original thought. So if we just say no, they will not know what to do with themselves and will become panicked and vengeful and start lashing out.
So let’s find a way to reframe and give our country a path out of this valley of misery. My proposed talking points are as follows.
1. The FDA must revoke the existing authorizations for Moderna, Pfizer, and J&J Covid-19 shots and withdraw them from the market immediately. SARS-CoV-2 was never a good candidate for a vaccine. These shots do not stop infection, transmission, hospitalization, nor death. They appear to have negative efficacy and are driving the evolution of variants that evade vaccines. The pandemic will never stop as long as the FDA and CDC are promoting shots that lack sterilizing immunity.
2. The FDA and CDC must pivot to therapeutics. This was always the answer. The CDC’s own research showed that chloroquine is safe and effective for prophylaxis and early treatment of SARS coronaviruses (hydroxychloroquine is even safer than chloroquine). The best frontline doctors have found that ivermectin is a life saver if used early. About twenty off-the-shelf treatments are more effective than vaccines. Get these safe and effective medicines to people who need them and let doctors be doctors again and treat patients based on their own best clinical judgment.
3. Vaccine safety assessments must be based on actual science. That means:
• Large (50,000+ person) double blind randomized controlled trials with inert saline placebos conducted by an independent third party.
• Safety and efficacy studies for two years prior to any application followed by 20 years of follow up (with the control group intact).
• Greater than 90% efficacy with less than 1% Grade 3 Adverse Events.
• Proper monitoring for carcinogenesis, mutagenesis, and impairment of fertility.
VII. What is to be done. Whom to contact:
Please reach out and find a way to awaken the moral core of these 36 people:
You can use the talking points from above or share your own story and insights.
Political appointees:
Xavier Becerra
Secretary, Health & Human Services
200 Independence Avenue S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20201
c/o Sean McCluskie
sean.mccluskie@hhs.gov
https://twitter.com/XavierBecerra
Robert Califf
FDA Commissioner
Food and Drug Administration
Mail stop: HF-1
10903 New Hampshire Ave.
Silver Spring MD 20993-0002
phone: (301) 796-5400
fax: (301) 847-8752
commissioner@fda.hhs.gov
https://twitter.com/DrCaliff_FDA
Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH
White House Covid Czar
Brown University School of Public Health
121 South Main Street
Providence RI 02903
DeanofPublicHealth@brown.edu
https://twitter.com/ashishkjha
Rochelle Walensky
Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Roybal Building 21, Rm 12000
1600 Clifton Rd
Atlanta, GA 30333
phone: (404) 639-7000
Aux7@cdc.gov
https://twitter.com/CDCDirector
FDA staff:
Peter Marks
Director, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research
FDA, Mail stop: HFM-2
10903 New Hampshire Ave., WO71-7232
Silver Spring MD 20993-0002
phone: (240) 402-8116
fax: (301) 595-1310
Peter.Marks@fda.hhs.gov
Hong Yang
Biologist, FDA/CBER/OBE
Building WO71, Room 5338
Mail stop: HFM-210
Silver Spring MD 20993-0002
phone: (240) 402-8836
fax: (301) 595-1240
Hong.Yang@fda.hhs.gov
Richard Forshee
Associate Director, FDA/CBER/OBE
Building, WO71, Room 5342
Silver Spring MD 20993-0002
phone: (240) 402-8631
fax: (301) 595-1240
Richard.Forshee@fda.hhs.gov
Hui-Lee Wong
Associate Director for Innovation and Development,
Office of Biostatistics and Epidemiology,
Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research
White Oak Building 71, Room 5222
Silver Spring MD 20993-0002
phone: (240) 402-0473
Huilee.Wong@fda.hhs.gov
Leslie Ball
Office of Vaccines Research and Review
Division of Vaccines and Related Products Applications,
Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research
Building WO22, Room 6156
Silver Spring MD 20993-0002
phone: (301) 796-3399
Leslie.Ball@fda.hhs.gov
Doran L. Fink
Deputy Director – Clinical
Division of Vaccines and Related Products Applications
Office of Vaccines Research and Review, CBER
Mail stop HFM-475
Building WO71, Room 3314
Silver Spring MD 20993-0002
phone: (301) 796-1159
Doran.Fink@fda.hhs.gov
VRBPAC Members:
Hana El Sahly, M.D., Chair VRBPAC
Associate Professor
Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology
Department of Medicine
Section of Infectious Diseases
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX 77030
713-798-2058
hanae@bcm.edu
Paula Annunziato, M.D.
Vice President and Therapeutic Area Head
Vaccines Clinical Research
Merck
North Wales, PA 19454
paula.annunziato@merck.com
Adam C. Berger, Ph.D.
Director, Division of Clinical and Healthcare Research Policy
Office of Science Policy
Office of the Director
National Instituters of Health
6705 Rockledge Drive, Suite 630
Bethesda, MD 20892
(301) 827-9676
adam.berger@nih.gov
Henry H. Bernstein, D.O.
Professor of Pediatrics
Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell
Department of Pediatrics
Cohen Children’s Medical Center
New Hyde Park, NY 11042
phone: (516) 838-6415 (office)
fax: (516) 465-5399
hbernstein@northwell.edu
Captain Amanda Cohn
Chief Medical Officer
National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Rd
Atlanta, GA 30333 MS C-09
phone: (404) 639-6039
fax: (404) 315-4679
acohn@cdc.gov
anc0@cdc.gov
Holly Janes, Ph.D.
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center •
Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division
1100 Fairview Avenue North,
M2-C200
P.O. Box 19024
Seattle, Washington 98109 U.S.A.
phone: (206) 667.6353
hjanes@fredhutch.org
Hayley Gans, M.D.
Professor of Pediatrics
Department of Pediatrics
Stanford University Medical Center
Stanford, CA 94305
phone: (650) 723-5682
fax: (650) 725-8040
hgans@stanford.edu
David Kim, M.D.
CAPT, U.S. Public Health Services
Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
330 C Street SW, Suite L600
Washington, DC 20024
phone: (202) 795-7636
david.kim@hhs.gov
Arnold Monto, M.D.
Professor Emeritus
Department of Epidemiology
University of Michigan School of Public Health
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
phone: (734) 764-5453
fax: (734) 764-3192
asmonto@umich.edu
Paul Offit, M.D.
Professor of Pediatrics
Division of Infectious Diseases
Abramson Research Building
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, PA 19104
phone: (215) 590-2020
offit@chop.edu
https://twitter.com/DrPaulOffit
Steven Pergam, M.D.
Medical Director
Infection Prevention
Seattle Cancer Care Alliance
Seattle, WA 98109
phone: (206) 667-7126
spergam@fredhutch.org
https://twitter.com/PergamIC
Jay Portnoy, M.D.
Director, Division of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology
Children’s Mercy Hospitals & Clinics
2401 Gillham Road
Kansas City, MO 64108
phone: (816) 960-8885
fax: (816) 960-8888
Jportnoy@cmh.edu
Eric Rubin, M.D., Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
New England Journal of Medicine
Adjunct Professor
Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health
665 Huntington Ave
Building 1, Room 811
Boston, MA 02115
phone: (617) 432-3335
erubin@hsph.harvard.edu
erubin@nejm.org
Andrea Shane, M.D.
Professor of Pediatrics
Emory University School of Medicine
2015 Uppergate Drive NE, Rm. 504A
Atlanta, GA 30322
phone: (404) 727-9880 (direct)
(404) 727-5642 (main)
fax: (404) 727-8249
ashane@emory.edu
Geeta K. Swamy, M.D.
Senior Associate Dean
Vice Chair for Research & Faculty Development
Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology
Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine
Duke University
Box 3967 Med Ctr,
Durham, NC 27710
phone: (919) 681-5220
swamy002@mc.duke.edu
Temporary VRBPAC members (but their votes count just the same):
A. Oveta Fuller, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology,
University of Michigan Medical School
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
phone: (734) 647-3830
fullerao@umich.edu
Randy Hawkins, M.D.
Charles Drew University
1731 E. 120th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90059
(323) 563-4800
RandyHawkins@cdrewu.edu
James Hildreth, Sr., Ph.D., M.D.
Professor
Department of Internal Medicine
School of Medicine
President and Chief Executive Officer
Meharry Medical College
Nashville, TN 37205
officeofthepresident@mmc.edu
Jeannette Lee, Ph.D.
Professor Department of Biostatistics
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Little Rock, AR 72701
phone: (501) 526-6712
JYLee@uams.edu
Ofer Levy, M.D., Ph.D.
Staff Physician & Principal Investigator
Director, Precision Vaccines Program
Division of Infectious Diseases
Boston Children’s Hospital
Professor,
Harvard Medical School Associate Member
phone: (617) 919-2900
fax: (617) 730-0254
ofer.levy@childrens.harvard.edu
Wayne Marasco
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
450 Brookline Avenue
Jimmy Fund 824
Boston, MA 02215
Phone: (617) 632-2153
fax: (617) 632-3889
wayne_marasco@dfci.harvard.edu
H. Cody Meissner, M.D.
Professor of Pediatrics
Tufts University School of Medicine
Director, Pediatric Infectious Disease
Tufts Medical Center
Boston, MA 02111
phone: (617) 636-5227
fax: (617) 636-4300
cmeissner@tuftsmedicalcenter.org
Michael Nelson, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Medicine
Asthma, Allergy and Immunology Division
UVA Division of Asthma, Allergy & Immunology
PO Box 801355
Charlottesville, VA 22908
phone: (434) 297-8399
fax: (434) 924-5779
mrn8d@virginia.edu
Stanley Perlman, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Pediatrics
University of Iowa
3-712 Bowen Science Building (BSB)
51 Newton Rd
Iowa City, IA 52242
phone: (319) 335-8549
stanley-perlman@uiowa.edu
Mark Sawyer, M.D.
Professor of Clinical Pediatrics
8110 Birmingham Way
Bldg. 28, 1st Floor
San Diego, CA 92123
phone: (858) 966-7785
fax: (858) 966-8658
mhsawyer@ucsd.edu
Melinda Wharton, M.D., MPH
Associate Director for Vaccine Policy
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
1600 Clifton Road, Mailstop E05,
Atlanta, GA 30333
phone: (404) 639.8755
fax: (404) 639.8626
mew2@cdc.gov
I know that we’re all weary. We’ve been battling Pharma fascism for the last two years and battling against the FDA every day for the last few months. I imagine it’ll take about an hour to call or write to all 36 people on this list. It’s a heavy lift. But that’s the price of liberty. This is what it’s going to take to save our Republic. So let’s fire up our computers and get out our phones and generate the largest response in the history of the movement. Let’s make history together!
May 11, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | COVID-19 Vaccine, FDA, United States |
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THIS is the first of a special five-part investigation into the way in which, and why, winning ‘vaccine confidence’ became the primary goal of world health agencies, regardless of need, efficacy or risk.
Since the UK’s Covid-19 vaccine programme began in December 2020, 140million doses have been administered to 55million people, representing 73 per cent of the population.
The high level of acceptance of these vaccines, which were developed in one tenth of the normal time frame – and in the case of the mRNA vaccines using a novel technology never previously licensed for use in either humans or animals – is a remarkable testament to the level of public trust in vaccines.
It is arguably the end product of two decades of work, first by GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (now called The Vaccine Alliance) and recently by initiatives such as that of the London-based Vaccine Confidence Project, established to deliver the goal of universal childhood vaccination set 40 years ago by UNICEF, the United Nations children’s welfare organisation.
GAVI was set up in 1999 ‘to save children’s lives and protect people’s health through the widespread use of safe vaccines, with a particular focus on the needs of developing countries.’
It was founded at the instigation of Dr Seth Berkeley, its current CEO, who was then working for the Rockefeller Foundation. ‘We will have an outside body that can bring in industry (which the World Health Organisation can’t legally do), do advocacy and build a truly international alliance,’ he said.
The Vaccine Alliance, a public-private partnership financed by vaccine manufacturers, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and national governments, aimed to give impetus to the universal vaccination campaign and to revitalise the fortunes of a stagnating market for new vaccines. The UK government is currently is largest single donor, having made a five-year pledge in 2020 of £1.65billion.
Its initial focus was on gaining the ‘long-term commitment of client governments and donors to full immunisation’, the latter implying vaccination on schedule and for every possible disease. This was different to its twin, the concept of universal vaccination.
When GAVI was launched, a UNICEF employee and anthropologist, Dr Heidi Larson – who would later found the Vaccine Confidence Project – was chosen to lead its vaccine communications and advocacy work.
She later explained how the nature of the advocacy was soon to evolve away from the initial focus on client governments.
‘There was a growing epidemic of individuals and communities and even some government officials questioning and refusing vaccines,’ she said. ‘I ended up getting the nickname “Director of UNICEF’s Fire Department,” because it turned out to be a crisis management position, because people weren’t taking vaccines.
‘I saw what seemed to be a trend: The northern Nigeria boycott of the polio program made it into the international press, but it wasn’t one place, it was everywhere.
‘I didn’t have time in my day job to investigate what was going on there, because there was not a quick fix. That’s when I put together a proposal and got some seed money and founded the Vaccine Confidence Project.’
There is no seminal document laying out a case for universal vaccination. As a public policy objective, it originated with the Rockefeller Foundation (RF). Its end goal is to eradicate diseases one-by-one via vaccination, the so-called vertical approach to public health introduced by the RF soon after its founding in 1913. It was part of a package of cheap, technological quick fixes for health care in developing countries originally called Selective Primary Health Care.
These interim measures were necessary because matching the industrialised world’s standards of sanitation, clean water, nutrition and health care to reduce the disease burden was ‘prohibitively expensive’.
An RF trustee, James P Grant, had been appointed executive director of UNICEF in 1980, operating it as a rival to the vaccine-agnostic World Health Organisation of his era.
In 1980, in an article on the eradication of smallpox, WHO director-general Dr Halfdan Mahler did not even mention vaccines. Rather, he stressed: ‘Smallpox eradication is a sign, a token, of what can be achieved in breaking out of the cycle of ill-health, disease and poverty.’
But Grant engaged in what the New York Times called ‘tireless, peripatetic proselytising’, using his UNICEF pulpit to zealously promote vaccination.
With rearguard reinforcement from the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC), by 1984 he had brought the WHO, the agency meant to provide the technical lead, on board with ‘universal’ vaccination.
Today, UNICEF is a quasi-arm of the pharmaceutical industry. Figures in its most recent Immunisation Roadmap document show it is now responsible for distributing 40 per cent of vaccines in developing countries, while its 659 staff spend more than half their time managing immunisation programmes and supply chain logistics.
In Part 2 tomorrow, I will explain how GAVI’s ten-year strategic plan, the Decade of the Vaccine, set out to eliminate vaccine scepticism.
May 11, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, Gates Foundation, GAVI, Human rights, UK |
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This article was previously published September 19, 2019, and has been updated with new information.
In the U.S., an estimated 21 million American adults experienced at least one major depressive episode in 2020.1 The reported numbers for the past several years2 have consistently been highest among those aged between 18 and 25.3 However, not only is there evidence that depression is vastly overdiagnosed, but there’s also evidence showing it’s routinely mistreated.
With regard to overdiagnosis, it’s been ongoing for a long time, with one 2013 study4 finding only 38.4% of participants with clinician-identified depression actually met the DSM-4 criteria for a major depressive episode, and only 14.3% of seniors 65 and older met the criteria.
As for treatment, the vast majority are prescribed antidepressant drugs, despite the fact there’s little to no evidence to suggest they provide meaningful help, and plenty of evidence showing the harms are greater than patients are being told.
According to a 2017 study,5 1 in 6 Americans between the ages of 18 and 85 were on psychiatric drugs, most of them antidepressants, and 84.3% reported long-term use (three years or more). Out of 242 million U.S. adults, 12% were found to have filled one or more prescriptions for an antidepressant, specifically, in 2013. By 2021 in the midst of the pandemic, 1 in 4 Americans over age 18, or 50 million persons, were on prescription mental health drugs.6
According to data7 presented by a watchdog group in 2014, hundreds of thousands of toddlers are also being medicated with powerful psychiatric drugs, raising serious ethical questions, along with questions about the future mental and physical health of these children.
And, a study published in The BMJ in 20138 found that “In utero exposure to both SSRIs and non-selective monoamine reuptake inhibitors (tricyclic antidepressants) was associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorders, particularly without intellectual disability” in the offspring.
Studies are also shedding much needed light on the addictive nature of many antidepressants, and demonstrate that the benefits of these drugs have been overblown while their side effects — including suicidal ideation — and have been downplayed and ignored for decades, placing patients at unnecessary risk.
The Chemical Imbalance Myth
One researcher responsible for raising awareness about these important mental health issues is professor Peter C. Gøtzsche, a Danish physician-researcher and outspoken critic of the drug industry (as his book, “Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare,”9 suggests).
Gøtzsche helped found the Cochrane Collaboration in 1993 and later launched the Nordic Cochrane Centre. In 2018, he was expelled by the Cochrane governing board following the publication of a scathing critique of a Cochrane review of the HPV in which he and his coauthors pointed out several methodological flaws and conflicts of interest.
Over the past several years, Gøtzsche has published a number of scientific papers on antidepressants and media articles and a book discussing the findings. In a June 28, 2019 article,10 Gøtzsche addresses “the harmful myth” about chemical imbalances — a debunked hypothesis that continues to drive the use of antidepressants to this day. He writes, in part:11
“Psychiatrists routinely tell their patients that they are ill because they have a chemical imbalance in the brain and they will receive a drug that fixes this …
Last summer, one of my researchers and I collected information about depression from 39 popular websites in 10 countries, and we found that 29 (74%) websites attributed depression to a chemical imbalance or claimed that antidepressants could fix or correct that imbalance …
It has never been possible to show that common mental disorders start with a chemical imbalance in the brain. The studies that have claimed this are all unreliable.12
A difference in dopamine levels, for example, between patients with schizophrenia and healthy people cannot tell us anything about what started the psychosis … [I]f a lion attacks us, we get terribly frightened and produce stress hormones, but this does not prove that it was the stress hormones that made us scared.
People with psychoses have often suffered traumatic experiences in the past, so we should see these traumas as contributing causal factors and not reduce suffering to some biochemical imbalance that, if it exists at all, is more likely to be the result of the psychosis rather than its cause.13
The myth about chemical imbalance is very harmful. It makes people believe there is something seriously wrong with them, and sometimes they are even told that it is hereditary.
The result of this is that patients continue to take harmful drugs, year after year, perhaps even for the entirety of their lives. They fear what would happen if they stopped, particularly when the psychiatrists have told them that their situation is like patients with diabetes needing insulin.”
Real Cause of Depression Is Typically Ignored
According to Gøtzsche, there is no known mental health issue that is caused by an imbalance of brain chemicals. In many cases, the true cause is unknown, but “very often, it is a response to unhealthy living conditions,” he writes.14
He also cites the book,15 “Anxiety — The Inside Story: How Biological Psychiatry Got It Wrong,” written by Dr. Niall McLaren, in which the author shows that anxiety is a major factor in and trigger of most psychiatric disorders.
“A psychiatrist I respect highly, who only uses psychiatric drugs in rare cases … has said that most people are depressed because they live depressing lives,” Gøtzsche writes.
“No drug can help them live better lives. It has never been shown in placebo-controlled trials that a psychiatric drug can improve people’s lives — e.g., help them return to work, improve their social relationships or performance at school, or prevent crime and delinquency. The drugs worsen people’s lives, at least in the long run.16“
Gøtzsche rightfully points out that antipsychotic drugs create chemical imbalances; they don’t fix them. As a group, they’re also somewhat misnamed, as they do not address psychotic states. Rather, they are tranquilizers, rendering the patient passive. However, calming the patient down does not actually help them heal the underlying trauma that, in many cases, is what triggered the psychosis in the first place.
As noted in one 2012 meta-analysis17 of studies looking at childhood trauma — including sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional/psychological abuse, neglect, parental death and bullying — and subsequent risk of psychosis:
“There were significant associations between adversity and psychosis across all research designs … Patients with psychosis were 2.72 times more likely to have been exposed to childhood adversity than controls … The estimated population attributable risk was 33% (16%-47%). These findings indicate that childhood adversity is strongly associated with increased risk for psychosis.”
Economy of Influence in Psychiatry
A related article,18 written by investigative journalist Robert Whitaker in 2017, addresses the “economy of influence” driving the use of antidepressant drugs in psychiatric treatment — and the “social injury” that results. As noted by Whitaker, mental disorders were initially categorized according to a disease model in 1980 by the American Psychiatric Association.
“We’re all familiar with the second ‘economy of influence’ that has exerted a corrupting influence on psychiatry — pharmaceutical money — but I believe the guild influence is really the bigger problem,” he writes.
Whitaker details the corruption within the APA in his book “Psychiatry Under the Influence,” one facet of which is “the false story told to the public about drugs that fixed chemical imbalances in the brain.” Other forms of corrupt behavior include:
- The biased designs of clinical trials to achieve a predetermined result
- Spinning results to support preconceived conclusions
- Hiding poor long-term outcomes
- Expanding diagnostic categories for the purpose of commercial gain
- Creating clinical trial guidelines that promote drug use
In his article, Whitaker goes on to dissect a 2017 review19 published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, which Whitaker claims “defends the profession’s current protocols for prescribing antipsychotics, which includes their regular long-term use.”
As Whitaker points out, there’s ample evidence showing antipsychotic drugs worsen outcomes over the long term in those diagnosed with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia.
The review in question, led by American psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman, was aimed at answering persistent questions raised by the mounting of such evidence. Alas, their conclusions dismissed concerns that the current drug paradigm might be doing more harm than good.
“In a subsequent press release and a video for a Medscape commentary, Lieberman has touted it as proving that antipsychotics provide a great benefit, psychiatry’s protocols are just fine, and that the critics are ‘nefarious’ individuals intent on doing harm,” Whitaker writes.20
The Scientific Bias of Psychiatric Treatment
Five of the eight researchers listed on the review have financial ties to drug companies, three are speakers for multiple drug companies and all eight are psychiatrists, “and thus there is a ‘guild’ interest present in this review, given that they are investigating whether one of their treatments is harmful over the long-term,” Whitaker notes.21
Not surprisingly, the review ignored studies showing negative effects, including studies showing antipsychotics have a detrimental effect on brain volume. What’s more, while withdrawal studies support the use of antipsychotics as maintenance therapy over the long term, these studies do not address how the drugs affect patients’ long-term health.
“They simply reveal that once a person has stabilized on the medication, going abruptly off the drug is likely to lead to relapse,” Whitaker writes.22 “The focus on long-term outcomes, at least as presented by critics, provides evidence that psychiatry should adopt a selective-use protocol.
If first-episode patients are not immediately put on antipsychotics, there is a significant percentage that will recover, and this ‘spontaneous recovery’ puts them onto a good long-term course. As for patients treated with the medications, the goal would be to minimize long-term use, as there is evidence that antipsychotics, on the whole, worsen long-term outcomes.”
Vast Majority of Psychotic Patients Are Harmed, Not Helped
In his deconstruction of Lieberman’s review, Whitaker details how biased thinking influenced the review’s conclusions. It’s a rather long article, but well worth reading through if you want to understand how a scientific review can be skewed to accord with a preconceived view.
Details I want to highlight, however, include findings relating to the number needed to treat (NNT) and the percentage of patients harmed by the routine use of antipsychotic drugs as a first-line treatment.
As noted by Whitaker, while placebo-controlled studies reveal the effectiveness of a drug compared to an inert substance, they do not effectively reveal the ratio of benefit versus harm among the patient population. NNT refers to the number of patients that have to take the drug in order to get one positive response.
A meta-analysis cited in Lieberman’s review had an NNT of 6, meaning that six patients must take the drug in order for one to benefit from the treatment. The remaining five patients — 83% — are potentially harmed by the treatment. As noted by Whitaker:23
“The point … is this: reviewers seeking to promote their drug treatment as effective will look solely at whether it produces a superior response to placebo. This leads to a one-size-fits-all protocol.
Reviewers that want to assess the benefit-harm effect of the treatment on all patients will look at NNT numbers. In this instance, the NNT calculations argue for selective use of the drugs …”
Antidepressants Are Not Beneficial in the Long Term
While typically not as destructive as antipsychotics, antidepressants also leave a trail of destruction in their wake. A systematic review24 by Gøtzsche published in 2019 found studies assessing harm from selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) fail to provide a clear and accurate picture of the harms, and therefore “cannot be used to investigate persistent harms of antidepressants.”
In this review, Gøtzsche and colleagues sought to assess “harms of SSRIs … that persist after end of drug intake.” The primary outcomes included mortality, functional outcomes, quality of life and core psychiatric events. In all, 22 papers on 12 SSRI trials were included. Gøtzsche found several distinct problems with these trials. For starters, only two of the 12 trials had a drop-out rate below 20%.
Gøtzsche and his team also note that “Outcome reporting was less thorough during follow-up than for the intervention period and only two trials maintained the blind during follow-up.” Importantly, though, all of the 22 papers came to the conclusion that “the drugs were not beneficial in the long term.”
Another important finding was that all trials either “reported harms outcomes selectively or did not report any,” and “Only two trials reported on any of our primary outcomes (school attendance and number of heavy drinking days).”
A few years later, in April 2022, a study using data from the United States’ Medical Expenditures Panel Survey for patients who had depression found, “The real-world effect of using antidepressant medications does not continue to improve patients” health-related quality of life (HRQoL) over time.25
Antidepressants Are More Addictive Than Admitted
In a June 4, 2019, article,26 “The Depression Pill Epidemic,” Gøtzsche writes that antidepressant drugs:
“… do not have relevant effects on depression; they increase the risk of suicide and violence; and they make it more difficult for patients to live normal lives.27 They should therefore be avoided.
We have been fooled by the drug industry, corrupt doctors on industry payroll, and by our drug regulators.28 Surely, many patients and doctors believe the pills are helpful, but they cannot know this, because people tend to become much better with time even if they are not treated.29
This is why we need placebo-controlled trials to find out what the drugs do to people. Unfortunately, virtually all trials are flawed, exaggerate the benefits of the drugs, and underestimate their harms.”30
Addictive Nature of Antidepressants Skews Results
In his article,31 Gøtzsche reviews several of the strategies used in antidepressant drug trials to exaggerate benefits and underestimate the harms. One little-known truth that helps skew study results in the drug’s favor is the fact that antidepressants tend to be far more addictive than officially admitted. He explains how this conveniently hides the skewing of results as follows:32
“Virtually all patients in the trials are already on a drug similar to the one being tested against placebo. Therefore, as the drugs are addictive, some of the patients will get abstinence symptoms … when randomized to placebo …
These abstinence symptoms are very similar to those patients experience when they try to stop benzodiazepines. It is no wonder that new drugs outperform the placebo in patients who have experienced harm as a result of cold turkey effects.
To find out how long patients need to continue taking drugs, so-called maintenance (withdrawal) studies have been carried out, but such studies also are compromised by cold turkey effects. Leading psychiatrists don’t understand this, or they pretend they don’t.
Most interpret the maintenance studies of depression pills to mean that these drugs are very effective at preventing new episodes of depression and that patients should therefore continue taking the drugs for years or even for life.”
Scientific Literature Supports Reality of User Complaints
Over the years, several studies on the dependence and withdrawal reactions associated with SSRIs and other psychiatric drugs have been published, including the following:
•In a 2011 paper33 in the journal Addiction, Gøtzsche and his team looked at the difference between dependence and withdrawal reactions by comparing benzodiazepines and SSRIs. Benzodiazepines are known to cause dependence, while SSRIs are said to not be addictive.
Despite such claims, Gøtzsche’s team found that “discontinuation symptoms were described with similar terms for benzodiazepines and SSRIs and were very similar for 37 of 42 identified symptoms described as withdrawal reactions,” which led them to conclude that:
“Withdrawal reactions to selective serotonin re‐uptake inhibitors appear to be similar to those for benzodiazepines; referring to these reactions as part of a dependence syndrome in the case of benzodiazepines, but not selective serotonin re‐uptake inhibitors, does not seem rational.”
•Two years later, in 2013, Gøtzsche’s team published a paper34 in the International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, in which they analyzed “communications from drug agencies about benzodiazepine and SSRI withdrawal reactions over time.”
By searching the websites of drug agencies in Europe, the U.S., U.K. and Denmark, they found that it took years before drug regulators finally acknowledged the reality of benzodiazepine dependence and SSRI withdrawal reactions and began informing prescribers and patients about these risks.
A significant part of the problem, they found, is that drug agencies rely on spontaneous reporting of adverse effects, which “leads to underestimation and delayed information about the problems.”
In conclusion, they state that “Given the experience with the benzodiazepines, we believe the regulatory bodies should have required studies from the manufacturers that could have elucidated the dependence potential of the SSRIs before marketing authorization was granted.”
•A 2019 paper35 in the Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences journal notes “It took almost two decades after the SSRIs entered the market for the first systematic review to be published.” It also points out that reviews claiming withdrawal effects to be mild, brief in duration and rare “was at odds with the sparse but growing evidence base.”
In reality, “What the scientific literature reveals is in close agreement with the thousands of service user testimonies available online in large forums. It suggests that withdrawal reactions are quite common, that they may last from a few weeks to several months or even longer, and that they are often severe.”
Antidepressants Increase Your Risk of Suicide and Violence
In his June 2019 article,36 Gøtzsche also stresses the fact that antidepressants can be lethal. In one of his studies,37 published in 2016, he found antidepressants “double the occurrence of events that can lead to suicide and violence in healthy adult volunteers.”
Other research38 has shown they “increase aggression in children and adolescents by a factor of 2 to 3 — an important finding considering the many school shootings where the killers were on depression pills,” Gøtzsche writes.
In middle-aged women with stress urinary incontinence, the selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) duloxetine, which is also used to treat incontinence, has been shown to double the risk of a psychotic episode and increase the risk of violence and suicide four to five times,39 leading the authors to conclude that harms outweighed the benefits.
“I have described the dirty tricks and scientific dishonesty involved when drug companies and leading psychiatrists try convincing us that these drugs protect against suicide and other forms of violence,”40 Gøtzsche writes.41 “Even the FDA was forced to give in when it admitted in 2007, at least indirectly, that depression pills can cause suicide and madness at any age.
There is no doubt that the massive use of depression pills is harmful. In all countries where this relationship has been examined, the sharp rise in disability pensions due to psychiatric disorders has coincided with the rise of psychiatric drug usage, and depression pills are those which are used the most by far. This is not what one would expect if the drugs were helpful.”
Drugmaker Lied About Paxil’s Suicide Risk
In 2017, Wendy Dolin was awarded $3 million by a jury in a lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Paxil. Dolin’s husband committed suicide six days after taking his first dose of a Paxil generic, and evidence brought forth in the case convincingly showed his suicide was the result of the drug, not emotional stress or mental illness.42
The legal team behind that victory, Baum Hedlund Aristei Goldman, also represented other victims of Paxil-induced violence and death. At the time, attorney R. Brent Wisner said:43
“The Dolin verdict sent a clear message to GSK and other drug manufacturers that hiding data and manipulating science will not be tolerated … If you create a drug and know that it poses serious risks, regardless of whether consumers use the brand name or generic version of that drug, you have a duty to warn.”
GSK’s own clinical placebo-controlled trials actually revealed subjects on Paxil had nearly nine times the risk of attempting or committing suicide than the placebo group. To gain drug approval, GSK misrepresented this shocking data, falsely reporting a higher number of suicide attempts in the placebo group and deleting some of the suicide attempts in the drug group.
An internal GSK analysis of its suicide data also showed that “patients taking Paxil were nearly seven times more likely to attempt suicide than those on placebo,” Baum Hedlund Aristei Goldman reports, adding:44
“Jurors in the Dolin trial also heard from psychiatrist David Healy, one of the world’s foremost experts on Paxil and drugs in its class … Healy told the jurors that Paxil and drugs like it can create in some people a state of extreme ’emotional turmoil’ and intense inner restlessness known as akathisia …
‘People have described it like a state worse than death. Death will be a blessed relief. I want to jump out of my skin,’ Dr. Healy said. Healthy volunteer studies have found that akathisia can happen even to people with no psychiatric condition who take the drug …
Another Paxil side effect known to increase the risk of suicide is emotional blunting … apathy or emotional indifference … [E]motional blunting, combined with akathisia, can lead to a mental state in which an individual has thoughts of harming themselves or others, but is ‘numbed’ to the consequences of their actions. Drugs in the Paxil class can also cause someone to ‘go psychotic, become delirious,’ Dr. Healy explained.”
Hundreds of Thousands of Toddlers on Psychiatric Drugs
Considering the many serious psychological and physical risks associated with psychiatric drugs, it’s shocking to learn that hundreds of thousands of American toddlers are on them. In 2014, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a mental health watchdog group, highlighted data showing that in 2013:45
- 274,000 babies aged 1 and younger were given psychiatric drugs — Of these, 249,699 were on anti-anxiety meds like Xanax; 26,406 were on antidepressants such as Prozac or Paxil, 1,422 were on ADHD drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall, and 654 were on antipsychotics such as Risperdal and Zyprexa
- In the toddler category (2- to 3-year-olds), 318,997 were on anti-anxiety drugs, 46,102 were on antidepressants, 10,000 were prescribed ADHD drugs and 3,760 were on antipsychotics
- Among children aged 5 and younger, 1,080,168 were on psychiatric drugs
These are shocking figures that challenge logic. How and why are so many children, babies even, on addictive and dangerously mind-altering medications? Considering these statistics are 6 years old, chances are they’re even higher today. Just what will happen to all of these youngsters as they grow up? As mentioned in the article:46
“When it comes to the psychiatric drugs used to treat ADHD, these are referred to as ‘kiddie cocaine’ for a reason. Ritalin (methylphenidate), Adderall (amphetamine) and Concerta are all considered by the federal government as Schedule II drugs — the most addictive.
ADHD drugs also have serious side effects such as agitation, mania, aggressive or hostile behavior, seizures, hallucinations, and even sudden death, according to the National Institutes of Health …
As far as antipsychotics, antianxiety drugs and antidepressants, the FDA and international drug regulatory agencies cite side effects including, but not limited to, psychosis, mania, suicidal ideation, heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and even sudden death.”
Children Increasingly Prescribed Psych Drugs Off-Label
Making matters even worse, recent research shows the number of children being prescribed medication off-label is also on the rise. An example offered by StudyFinds.org,47 which reported the findings, is “a doctor recommending antidepressant medication for ADHD symptoms.”
The study,48 published in the journal Pediatrics, looked at trends in off-label drug prescriptions made for children under the age of 18 by office-based physicians between 2006 and 2015. Findings revealed:
“Physicians ordered ≥1 off-label systemic drug at 18.5% of visits, usually (74.6%) because of unapproved conditions. Off-label ordering was most common proportionally in neonates (83%) and in absolute terms among adolescents (322 orders out of 1000 visits).
Off-label ordering was associated with female sex, subspecialists, polypharmacy, and chronic conditions. Rates and reasons for off-label orders varied considerably by age. Relative and absolute rates of off-label orders rose over time. Among common classes, off-label orders for antihistamines and several psychotropics increased over time …
US office-based physicians have ordered systemic drugs off label for children at increasing rates, most often for unapproved conditions, despite recent efforts to increase evidence and drug approvals for children.”
The researchers were taken aback by the findings, and expressed serious concern over this trend. While legal, many of the drugs prescribed off-label have not been properly tested to ensure safety and efficacy for young children and adolescents.
As noted by senior author Daniel Horton, assistant professor of pediatrics and pediatric rheumatologist at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, “We don’t always understand how off-label medications will affect children, who don’t always respond to medications as adults do. They may not respond as desired to these drugs and could experience harmful effects.”
In 2020 mental health experts and reviewers were still at-odds over prescribing these drugs for children, yet hesitant to call a stop to it:49
“Antidepressants are prescribed for the treatment of a number of psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents, however there is still controversy about whether they should be used in this population …
Treatment decisions should be tailored to patients on an individual basis, so we recommend clinicians, patients and policy makers to refer to the evidence provided in the present meta-review and make decisions about the use of antidepressants in children and adolescents taking into account a number of clinical and personal variables.”
Educate Yourself About the Risks
If you, your child or another family member is on a psychiatric drug, I urge you to educate yourself about the true risks and to consider switching to safer alternatives. When it comes to children, I cannot fathom a situation in which a toddler would need a psychiatric drug and I find it shocking that there are so many doctors out there that, based on a subjective evaluation, would deem a psychiatric drug necessary.
Sources and References
May 11, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | SSRIs, United States |
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Have you read How to Prevent the Next Pandemic by Bill Gates yet? Well, I have, and let me tell you: it’s every bit as infuriating, nauseating, ridiculous, laughable and risible as you would expect. Here are the details.
Watch on Archive / BitChute / Odysee or Download the mp4
For those with limited bandwidth, CLICK HERE to download a smaller, lower file size version of this episode.
For those interested in audio quality, CLICK HERE for the highest-quality version of this episode (WARNING: very large download).
SHOW NOTES:
How to Prevent the Next Pandemic (video)
Who Is Bill Gates?
I Read The Great Narrative (So You Don’t Have To!)
Fact Check: Polio Vaccines, Tetanus Vaccines and the Gates Foundation
Partners in Health
A Framework for Understanding Pathogens, Explained by Sunetra Gupta
Rahm Emanuel argument
Meet the GERM team
Episode 417 – The Global Pandemic Treaty: What You Need to Know
Trump calling the Warp Speed MAGA jabs his “greatest achievement”
Trump was going to appoint RFK Jr. to head a vaccine safety panel
Bill Gates told him it was a bad idea?
Who Is Bill Gates?
WHO Cares What Celebrities Think – #PropagandaWatch
Japan logged record low number of newborns in 2021 with 842,897
The Real Anthony Fauci
A Letter to the Future
May 10, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Book Review, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted fast track designation to UB-311, a vaccine for Alzheimer’s disease made by biotechnology company Vaxxinity.1 The shot is an anti-amyloid beta immunotherapeutic vaccine that reportedly treats Alzheimer’s disease by targeting aggregated amyloid beta in the brain.2
Aside from the potential problems that can arise when a vaccine is rushed to market, the vaccine may be problematic from the get-go because amyloid beta may be a symptom of Alzheimer’s — not the cause — and could even have a protective role in the disease process.3
Fast-tracking a vaccine that’s targeting an isolated element of Alzheimer’s disease that is not the underlying cause is destined to be a massive disaster.
Alzheimer’s Vaccine Being Fast-Tracked to Market
UB-311 is being touted for eliciting a “robust and durable anti-amyloid beta antibody responses in patients,” according to Vaxxinity.4 Phase 1, Phase 2a and Phase 2a long-term extension trials have already been completed, with the company stating that the vaccine was “well tolerated in mild-to-moderate AD patients over three years of repeat dosing, with a safety profile comparable to placebo and no cases of amyloid-related imaging abnormalities-edema (“ARIA-E”) in the main study.”5
ARIA-E, a marker of fluid retention and microhemorrhages in the brain, occurs in about one-third of people taking the Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab (brand name Aduhelm).6 Similar to UB-311, Aduhelm was brought to market under an accelerated approval pathway by the FDA, despite uncertainty about the clinical benefit.7 The action sparked protests within the FDA advisory panel, and three members subsequently resigned.8
As an amyloid beta-directed antibody drug, Aduhelm also works by targeting amyloid beta in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, but the findings of ARIA-E in many taking the drugs are alarming. Adam Brickman with Columbia University, New York City, suggested that the drug could potentially make cognitive decline worse instead of better. “It’s hard to put a positive spin on the neuroimaging abnormalities,” he wrote. “… [W]e simply do not know the long-term consequences.”9
While Vaxxinity is touting no cases of ARIA-E among its subjects as a success, the same holds true about the vaccine in that no one knows the long-term consequences. Vaxxinity has planned a Phase 2b trial for late 2022.10 It’s worth noting that drug development for Alzheimer’s has so far been a dismal failure, with at least 300 failed trials to date.11
One study, which was a collaboration between Washington University in St. Louis, drug companies Eli Lilly and Roche, the National Institutes of Health and others, involved 194 participants, of which 52 took Roche’s drug gantenerumab and 52 took Eli Lilly’s solanezumab.12
The drugs were intended to remove amyloid beta (Aβ) from the brain, but they failed to achieve the primary outcome of the study, which was slowed cognitive decline, as measured by tests on thinking and memory.
In fact, while the drugs did target amyloid beta, they had no effect on cognitive measures, with the researchers writing, “Both drugs engaged their Aβ targets but neither demonstrated a beneficial effect on cognitive measures compared to controls.”13
Is Amyloid Beta the Problem?
Even if drugs reduce amyloid beta plaques in Alzheimer’s patients, how this translates to affecting cognitive decline remains to be seen. While Alzheimer’s is characterized by an accumulation of beta-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain, there is controversy over their role in the development of the disease.
As researchers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, department of dementia and higher brain function, wrote in Frontiers in Neuroscience :14
“The so-called amyloid hypothesis, that the accumulation and deposition of oligomeric or fibrillar amyloid β (Aβ) peptide is the primary cause of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), has been the mainstream concept underlying AD research for over 20 years. However, all attempts to develop Aβ-targeting drugs to treat AD have ended in failure.”
In 2009, researchers brought attention to the misguided premise of oversimplifying Alzheimer’s disease down to the amyloid-β protein precursor (AβPP) molecule, “implying that this molecule encapsulates AD so completely that the disease itself is almost of secondary importance.” This, they noted, ignores “the complexity of chronic diseases in general” and added:15
“A great deal of attention has focused on amyloid-β as the major pathogenic mechanisms with the ultimate goal of using amyloid-β lowering therapies as an avenue of treatment. Unfortunately, nearly a quarter century later, no tangible progress has been offered, whereas spectacular failure tends to be the most compelling.
We have long contended, as has substantial literature, that proteinaceous accumulations are simply downstream and, often, endstage manifestations of disease.
Their overall poor correlation with the level of dementia, and their presence in the cognitively intact is evidence that is often ignored as an inconvenient truth. Current research examining amyloid oligomers, therefore, will add copious details to what is, in essence, a reductionist distraction from upstream pleiotrophic processes such as oxidative stress, cell cycle dysfunction, and inflammation.
It is now long overdue that the neuroscientists avoid the pitfall of perseverating on ‘proteinopathies’ and recognize that the continued targeting of end stage lesions in the face of repeated failure, or worse, is a losing proposition.”
Amyloid Beta May Be Protective
There is even research to suggest that advanced protein aggregation, such as that seen in Alzheimer’s disease, could offer protective functions, perhaps protecting cells from toxic intermediates.16 Writing in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, researchers suggested that amyloid beta is a response to neuronal stress, one that functions as a protective adaptation to the disease.17
Amyloid beta, they argued, accumulates relatively late in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, and while it has been found to be toxic in cell culture models, this may not hold true in humans. Instead of the prevailing notion that a mutation leads to increased amyloid beta and that leads to Alzheimer’s, the team suggested that a mutation leads to Alzheimer’s, which in turn triggers increased amyloid beta:18
“Mutations lead to cellular stress, which, in turn, leads to increased amyloid-β … in AD, cellular stress precedes increases in amyloid-β … Proteins, such as amyloid-β, that are induced under oxidative conditions and act to lessen oxidative damage are typically thought of as antioxidants and, in this regard, we recently demonstrated that amyloid-β is a bona fide antioxidant that can act as a potent superoxide dismutase.”
This would explain, they suggest, why the brains of most elderly people contain amyloid-β, often in amounts similar to those found in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). They noted:19
“While such production and deposition of amyloid-β appears to successfully stave off age-related redox imbalances in normal aging, in AD, where there is a profound and chronic redox imbalance, the presence of amyloid-β, even at high levels, proves insufficient.”
The Link Between Alzheimer’s and Your Gut
If Alzheimer’s pathogenesis cannot be blamed entirely on amyloid beta, what, then, is the cause? It’s likely that many factors are to blame, with imbalances in gut microbiota among them. Research suggests, for example, that the bacteria in your intestines may influence brain functioning and can even promote neurodegeneration.20
In a study of 89 people, high blood levels of lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) and the short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) acetate and valerate were associated with large amyloid deposits in the brain.21 LPSs and SCFAs are markers of inflammation and proteins produced by intestinal bacteria.
High levels of butyrate — an SCFA produced when gut bacteria ferment fiber —were associated with less amyloid. The study represents a continuation of prior research by the team, which found that the gut microbiota in people with Alzheimer’s disease differs from those without the condition; in those with Alzheimer’s, microbial diversity is reduced, with certain bacteria being overrepresented and other microbes decreased.22
“Our results are indisputable: certain bacterial products of the intestinal microbiota are correlated with the quantity of amyloid plaques in the brain,” explains Moira Marizzoni, a study author with the Fatebenefratelli Center in Brescia, Italy.23
Still other research suggests gut microbiota may contribute to Alzheimer’s risk via multiple avenues, including by influencing aging, diabetes, sleep and circadian rhythm.24
It’s also possible, researchers hypothesize, that decades of factors such as diet, stress, aging and genetics, combine to disrupt gut permeability and the integrity of the blood-brain barrier, allowing the entry of inflammatory agents and pathogens and inducing an inflammatory response that triggers a neuroinflammatory response in the brain.25
There’s More to Alzheimer’s Than Amyloid Beta
UB-311 — the fast-tracked Alzheimer’s vaccine — is not going to touch the many complex factors leading to the development of Alzheimer’s disease and is likely to have unintended adverse consequences. Dietary factors, for instance, are being completely overlooked by focusing on a vaccine to target amyloid beta.
Not only does what you eat affect your gut health but it also impacts cholesterol, and cholesterol also plays an important role in the formation of memories and is vital for healthy neurological function. As noted by senior research scientist Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., insufficient fat and cholesterol in your brain play a crucial role in the Alzheimer’s disease process, detailed in her 2009 paper “APOE-4: The Clue to Why Low Fat Diet and Statins May Cause Alzheimer’s.”26
Time-restricted eating is another important strategy, as is reducing your intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids, also called PUFAs, found in vegetable oils, edible oils, seed oils, trans fat and plant oils. For a more targeted approach, natural options are available.
Animal and laboratory studies demonstrate that the spice saffron is neuroprotective, for instance. Data also show it is as effective as the drug memantine to treat moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease.27 One of the most comprehensive assessments of Alzheimer’s risk is Dr. Dale Bredesen’s ReCODE protocol, which evaluates 150 factors, including biochemistry, genetics and historical imaging, known to contribute to Alzheimer’s disease.
In his book, “The End of Alzheimer’s: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline,”28 which describes the complete protocol, you will also find a list of suggested screening tests and the recommended ranges for each test, along with some of Bredesen’s treatment suggestions.
Overall, nourishing your brain health is best done with a comprehensively healthy lifestyle. By leveraging 36 healthy lifestyle parameters, Bredesen was able to reverse Alzheimer’s in 9 out of 10 patients.
This included the use of exercise, ketogenic diet, optimized vitamin D and other hormones, increased sleep, meditation, detoxification and the elimination of gluten and processed food. For more details, you can download Bredesen’s full-text case paper online, which details the full program.29
Sources and References
May 10, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | United States |
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Samizdat – 10.05.2022
The number of Swedish adults diagnosed with mild forms of intellectual disability has increased sharply.
A review of statistics from the National Board of Health and Welfare by the trade newspaper Psykologtidningen has indicated that that the number of adult patients with mild forms of retardation has more than doubled, increasing by 143 percent, between the years 2008 and 2020.
In concrete figures, the number of adults diagnosed during this period increased from 1,133 to 3,114 people.
In some extreme cases, like the city of Örebro, the increase has been measured at an incredible 617 percent.
The National Board of Health and Welfare has no explanation for the spike.
“Obviously there has been an increase. It is therefore important to have a closer look at this,” Peter Salmi, a psychiatric investigator at the National Board of Health and Welfare, said in a statement.
According to Salmi, one possible explanation for the rise could be the fact that the diagnosis manual was updated in 2013. Before that, people with an IQ below 70 were automatically classified as mildly retarded. However, since then more importance is placed on how they function in everyday life and between 2013 and 2020, the number of diagnoses “only” increased by 37 percent.
Salmi further explained that investigations for ADHD and autism have increased in recent years, and those surveys include an aptitude test, which may have increased the number of diagnoses.
Mild intellectual disability (also referred to as mild developmental disorder) occurs in between 0.5 and 1.5 percent of the population. It implies shortcomings in theoretical thinking and learning. The affected individual perceives the outside world in a more concrete way and has difficulties understanding abstract words, symbols and descriptions.
May 10, 2022
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Science and Pseudo-Science |
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My previous post on Tuesday contained some highlights from the May 3 public hearing of New York’s Climate Action Council. The CAC is the body that is charged with devising a “Scoping Plan” to inform all us New Yorkers how we will achieve “zero carbon” electricity by 2030 and a “zero carbon” economy by 2050. I attended the hearing for about two and a half hours, during which about 60 people spoke.
Reflecting on the hearing a few days later, I think there are a few more highlights that would interest the readers, and will give some more insights into the nature of progressive thinking.
As stated in my prior post, of the 60 or so speakers, all but myself and four others were vigorous supporters of the critical necessity of achieving the stated zero carbon goals by the given dates as an urgent matter of saving our planet and our children. This was so despite what appeared to me to be manifestly huge issues of physical feasibility and cost that are almost certain to cause these grand “net zero” energy schemes to fail. The CAC’s draft “Scoping Plan,” as it currently exists for public comment, does not consider these feasibility or cost issues in any remotely adequate fashion, if at all. That fact did not appear to bother the overwhelming majority of the speakers.
So what are the things that do drive the thinking of these other 55 or so speakers, who apparently represent the large majority of New York City’s citizenry? The previous post mentioned fear as a common theme — fear that use of fossil fuels by us New Yorkers will bring on storms, floods and other disasters to threaten our lives and livelihoods. But what I failed to mention was another emotion that was even more prevalent in the comments — anger.
Anger at what, you might ask? Good question. I admit that this doesn’t make any sense, but here it is. The anger is directed at the fossil fuel producers and distributors who the commenters, with near unanimity, seemed to believe were hell-bent on destroying the planet. A substantial majority of the 60 or so comments that I listened to expressed this anger in one form or another, and it was an implicit undercurrent in most of the rest.
But, you might say, all of these people are in fact the users of the fossil fuels. Essentially all of them use electricity, which in New York currently comes about 60% from fossil fuels. The large majority of them drive cars, of which some 99% in New York use gasoline. Most of them heat their homes with natural gas, and cook with natural gas. Aren’t they themselves the ones who are responsible for the problem, if there is a problem? They use fossil-fuel-burning cars and furnaces and stoves because those vehicles and appliances are cheaper and/or work better than the alternatives. And yet, somehow these people have convinced themselves that they have no responsibility at all, and the use of gasoline and natural gas by them and others is a fault of evil producers and utilities.
On this theme, two commenters in particular stand out in my mind. First was a youngish (probably in her 30s) woman from Brooklyn who described herself as having a toddler in the apartment. After relating her fears for the toddler’s future in a world of changing climate, she got to the crux of her personal testimony, which was much more about anger than fear. The gas company was putting a dangerous substance into her stove, which when burned to cook gave off toxic substances and fumes that were putting the toddler’s health at risk. Her intense rage was palpable. She urged the CAC in the strongest terms to impose legal prohibitions that would prevent this kind of conduct going forward.
Put aside for the moment that this woman apparently had no idea that there is nothing toxic about the combustion products of natural gas, which are CO2 and water. But even more bizarre was that she apparently hadn’t figured out that if she is concerned about this subject, however irrationally, she can just go out and buy an electric stove tomorrow. And why hadn’t she done that? She didn’t say. The only reasons I can think of are that natural gas stoves work better than electric ones and are cheaper. Those are perfectly good reasons. But I wouldn’t recommend that you try to argue with this woman about why she has a gas stove. She is completely convinced that it has been foisted upon her by the evil gas companies who are intent on destroying the health of her toddler, let alone the planet. I doubt that any amount of logic or reason could talk her out of that belief.
And then there was the case of an equally irrational 60-something man, who said he was from Cedarhurst, Long Island. For those unfamiliar, Cedarhurst is a very wealthy suburb of large homes just outside the New York City limits. You may have seen Cedarhurst out the window of an airplane approaching JFK airport on a flight back from Europe. The guy in question styled his testimony as a confessional. He candidly admitted to his extreme climate guilt. But he claimed that he was unable to do anything about his large carbon footprint right now because the state had failed to compel the suppliers to provide him with zero emissions alternatives. He didn’t give us any details of what fuel he currently uses to heat his home, or to cook, but chose to focus on his driving. He stated that he wanted to buy an electric car, and was ready to do it, but was prevented from doing it. How was he prevented? Because there were no electric vehicle charging stations in his town! Needless to say, he was angry about that, and demanded that the state step up to order somebody to provide the charging stations, and provide funding to be sure that the charging stations got built.
Huh? Why didn’t this guy just get his own charging station at his own house? He didn’t mention that, so we are left to speculate. Again, the only thing I can think of is that he doesn’t want to spend his own money on this. Better to gin up some anger and demand that somebody else pay for it.
The thinking is that not only perfect fairness and justice, but also perfect climate, are easily within our reach if only our leaders summon the political will to order the evil people and companies to do the right thing, and perhaps provide some funding from the infinite free pile of government money. I guess, if you believe that, you are right to be angry that the leaders haven’t yet issued the necessary orders to get the job done. What’s wrong with them?
May 9, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science | United States |
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Vanessa Nakate
Climate activists’ ill-founded opposition to fossil fuels threatens to stop a major pipeline project in East Africa and stymie economic growth in Uganda and Tanzania — home to some of the world’s poorest people.
Uganda is betting big on its fossil fuel reserves. In February, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and France’s TotalEnergies agreed to invest $10 billion to develop two Ugandan oil reserves. But the landlocked country needs the East African Crude Oil Pipeline project (EACOP) to transport its product to a port in Tanzania.
The 895-mile-long pipeline from Uganda’s Lake Alberta region to the seaport of Tanga will be the longest electrically heated crude oil pipeline in the world and will carry 216,000 barrels per day. The project received a green light for construction after the completion of an Environment and Social Impact Assessment.
The Africa Report says that the investment will be huge: “(A)bout $10 billion will be invested in the sector (oil and gas) before first oil is produced in 2025, mainly on the pipeline, refinery, and infrastructure. The government has been commissioning road construction in the region where oil will be produced, in Buliisa and Hoima districts, and an airport is also being constructed in the region.” The project is expected to generate around 10,000 jobs even after the construction phase.
The Government of Uganda expects massive employment of its citizens during construction: “This will be through direct employment of about 14,000 people by the companies, indirect employment of about 45,000 people by the contractors, and induced employment of about 105,000 people as a result of utilization of other services by the oil and gas sector. Of the direct employment, 57 percent are expected to be Ugandans, which is expected to result in an estimated $48.5 million annual payment to Ugandan employees.”
However, the global war against fossil fuel has now reached Ugandan soil and extremists are determined to stop this lifesaving, economically critical project.
Vanessa Nakate of StopEACOP rants against the pipeline in a recent column in the New York Times, saying the project would bring poverty and destruction to the people of Africa. She also references extreme weather in implying the pipeline will worsen the climate.
During a visit to the ultra-rich Vatican, Vanessa says: “It is evident that there is no future in the fossil fuel industry…. we know the impacts on our food. We know the impacts on our water. We know the impacts on our livelihood…… the climate crisis is already affecting so many people not only in Uganda, but the African continent.”
But her reasons for opposing the pipeline are scientifically inaccurate and logically senseless.
She points to a forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that predicts African droughts. But IPCC, by its own admission, has indicated that extreme weather events have no significant correlation with rising global average temperatures. Neither has there been any significant increase in the frequency of extreme cyclones, droughts, rainfall, and fires. Even if droughts and cyclones were to increase, a better socio-economic condition would enable people to adapt more effectively.
Contrary to Vanessa’s hyperbole, the world is experiencing near optimum temperatures for global food production and the advancement of human society, much as it did 1,000 years ago during the Medieval Warm Period and 2,000 years ago during the Roman Warm Period. Globally, we now have better access to clean water, better access to nutritious food, people with higher income, and a very rapid increase in life expectancy rates. How are we in a crisis if climate is aiding the improvement of every metric used to measure the quality of people’s lives?
It is shocking how Vanessa ignores the plight of millions of her own people dwelling in persistent poverty and in need of affordable, dependable energy sources like coal, oil, and gas. It is less shocking if we understand the DNA of climate extremists, which has them deny the reality of energy needs and promote unreliable, primitive, and expensive wind turbines that even economic giants like Germany and the U.S. hesitate to adopt completely.
Climate extremists like Vanessa are fostering the continuation of abject poverty in Africa — a continent with the lowest level of electrification and highest rates of poverty in the world. Vanessa claims that the pipeline is another colonial project subjecting Africans to slavery. But, it is Vanessa and her ilk who are the colonialists and would-be slave masters.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Va., and holds a Master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, England. He resides in Bengaluru, India.
May 8, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Africa, New York Times |
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“World will ‘run out of food’ in 27 years, according to chilling doomsday prediction,” reads the headline in the Daily Star (UK). The article’s subtitle:
EXCLUSIVE: Scientists have issued a terrifying warning and have said the world could be left starving without any food in just over two decades, according to a chilling doomsday countdown
If the world doesn’t run out of food next year, as Sara Menker with Gro Intelligence warned back in 2017, scientists predict that we’ll run out in “exactly 27 years and 251 days left as of Sunday.”
In 2050? The author of the Daily Star article, Sian Hewitt, quotes sociobiologist Edward Wilson:
By then, there will be almost 10 billion people on the planet and the food demand will have increased by 70% compared to what we needed in 2017. The limit to how many people Earth can feed is set at 10 billion at the absolute maximum. The constraints of the biosphere are fixed, there’s no wiggle room here.
The amazing specificity of Wilson’s prediction is testimony to the advances that science and scientific predictions have made in just the last few years…. And, as if further evidence were necessary, Wilson is not alone:
Professor Julian Cribb, who has written books on the catastrophic prophecy, said: “This is a global food crisis and I don’t think I can see a way out of it.
It is arriving even faster than climate change.
Shortages of water, land, and energy combined with the increased demand from population and economic growth, will create a global food shortage around 2050.
World wars could become about food and water in years to come.
Jason Clay, World Wildlife Fund Senior Vice President, concurs:
To meet the increasing demand from a growing population, we will need to produce more food in the next 40 years than has been produced in the previous 8,000 years.
As does Paul Ehrlich:
The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.
And Peter Gunter:
Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.
And, of course, Thomas Malthus:
The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.
So, there you have it. The science is settled. We have nothing to fear from climate change.
May 8, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular |
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Aletho News
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