Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Scientists: Nearly 4 Decades Of Climate Model Failure Undermines Confidence In Future Predictions

By Kenneth Richard | No Tricks Zone | November 9, 2023

IPCC models rooted in assumptions that we humans can and do control the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation with our daily-activity CO2 emissions have been wrong since the mid-1980s. Why should we still believe in them?

The latest IPCC report continues to say it is “very likely” the Atlantic Meridional Ocean Circulation (AMOC), a fundamental climate parameter, will weaken (and unleash cooling, catastrophic storms, drought, floods) in the 21st century.

But, as the authors of a new study note, since the mid-1980s the 84 (CMIP5) and 56 (CMIP6) AMOC models have been contradicted by observations in both magnitude and sign. The AMOC has not been declining in response to increases in atmospheric CO2. There is even evidence of trend increases.

“[W]e find that neither the CMIP5 nor the CMIP6 ensemble mean are successful at representing the observational AMOC data. … We show that both the magnitude of the trend in the AMOC over different time periods and often even the sign of the trend differs between observations and climate model ensemble mean, with the magnitude of the trend difference becoming even greater when looking at the CMIP6 ensemble compared to CMIP5.”

So, as the scientists ask, why should we trust future modeled predictions?

“[I]f these models cannot reproduce past variations, why should we be so confident about their ability to predict the future?”

November 17, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

Stop Misinforming about Malaria’s Spread, Washington Post

By Linnea Lueken | Climate Realism | October 24, 2023

A recent Washington Post (The Post) story, “Where Malaria is Spreading,” claims that climate change could put over 5 billion people at risk of malaria by 2040, primarily due to expanding seasons where mosquitoes can spread the disease, migrating mosquitoes, and increased populations and stagnant water caused by unusual flooding. This is false. Malaria already has a wide distribution, with many areas only avoiding it being endemic due to past suppression efforts. Population growth in areas where the disease remains common may lead to more instances of the disease unless available preventative and prophylactic measures are taken. However, there is no evidence malaria will spread geographically, due to either modestly rising temperatures or increased moisture.

The Post’s article, written by authors Rachel Chason, Kevin Crowe, John Muyskens, and Jahi Chikwendiu, mainly focuses on malaria’s increase in Mozambique. It has seen a 10 percent increase in malaria cases over the past six years. The Post than ties Mozambique’s malaria increase to claims made in a Lancet study, “Projecting the risk of mosquito-borne diseases in a warmer and more populated world: a multi-model, multi-scenario intercomparison modelling study,” which used climate and mosquito-borne disease models to estimate how the transmission seasons and population densities might change with global warming.

The study’s authors say their modelling shows malaria suitability may increase by 1-6 months in tropical highlands in Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Americas. Dengue sees similar results, with suitability increasing in lowlands in the Western Pacific and the Eastern Mediterranean by 4 months.

Shamefully, like many studies making misleading and alarming claims attributed to climate change, the Lancet study uses the climate modelling scenario RCP8.5 (RCP meaning representative concentration pathway), which climate scientists admit runs way too hot. Any research that built upon that scenario is going to produce extremely skewed results, because RCP8.5 involves an amount of released carbon dioxide that is actually impossible, even if all the fossil fuels on the planet were burned.

While the Lancet study is suspect, it may still seem logical to assume that the modest warming of the past hundred or so years has and will continue to expand the range of mosquitoes, as well as the number of days during the year in which they are active and biting. However, a large body of research refutes this assumption.

A chapter in Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels, discusses the results of more than a dozen peer-reviewed studies which demonstrate that temperature alone is not enough to guarantee migration or longer survival of mosquitoes or mosquito-borne illnesses like malaria. There are far more factors that come into play, including human interventions, that outweigh temperature alone.

The report explains:

Gething et al. (2010), writing specifically about malaria, may have put it best when they said there has been “a decoupling of the geographical climate malaria relationship over the twentieth century, indicating that non-climatic factors have profoundly confounded this relationship over time.

More examples from Climate Change Reconsidered are discussed in a Climate Realism post, “Environment Journal Wrong About Climate Change Increasing Malaria,” including papers by a vector-borne disease expert, Paul Reiter, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which explain that while reemergence of malaria and similar diseases in some regions is concerning, “it is facile to attribute this resurgence to climate change.”

The Post admits that endemic malaria “was eliminated in North America and Europe in the mid-1900s, with a better understanding of how to control it.” This is true, and what’s more, a 2010 Nature study (Gething et al.) found that malaria was probably endemic on 58 percent of the world’s surface in 1900, before the period of modern warming, and only 30 percent by 2007, after decades of modest warming.

Almost every credible study, not based on biased computer models, rejects the myopic causal view of the relationship between climate and malaria.

Extreme weather, The Post claims, like flooding are causing cases to rise in places like Mozambique, with “experts” telling them that the frightening trend is likely to continue. While The Post suggests the trends are mostly due to climate change, they also admit that other factors like “increased resistance of mosquitoes to insecticides and of the parasite to drugs” and improved disease reporting and tracking have played a role in the reported increase.

Flooding is unlikely to cause an increase in mosquito-borne illness, because even the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports only low confidence that there is even any sign climate change has impacted flooding. Mozambique, a South-East African nation, has suffered some flooding in recent years, but as discussed in Climate Realismhere, any link to long-term climate change lacks evidence. Flooding is a regular occurrence in many parts of southern Africa, and population increases means that during the rainy season more people are living near mosquito-friendly standing water.

Before running this alarming story, The Washington Post should have examined the wider body of research available concerning mosquito-borne illnesses. There is no evidence that warming is currently causing, or will lead to, an increase in malaria cases or deaths. Facts, not fearmongering, should guide The Post’s and other legitimate news outlets’ coverage of climate and disease issues.

November 17, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Sahara Expert Says Desert Shrinking, Calls Alarmist Tipping Points “Complete Nonsense”

Climate tipping points are much more fantasy than science 

By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | November 11, 2023

Austrian AUF 1 has posted posted a video interview with prominent German geologist and Sahara expert Dr. Stefan Kröpelin,

Sahara has been shrinking over the past decades. Image: NASA

Dr. Kröpelin is an award-wining geologist and climate researcher at the University of Cologne and specializes in studying the eastern Sahara desert and its climatic history. He’s been active out in the field there for more than 40 years.

In the Auf 1 interview, Dr. Kröpelin contradicts the alarmist claims of growing deserts and rapidly approaching climate tipping points. He says that already in the late 1980s rains had begun spreading into northern Sudan and have since indeed developed into a trend. Since then, rains have increased and vegetation has spread northwards. “The desert is shrinking; it is not growing.”

Kröpelin confirms that when the last ice age ended some 12,000 years ago, the eastern Sahara turned green with vegetation, teemed with wildlife and had numerous bodies of water 5000 – 10,000 years ago (more here).

Later in the interview Kröpelin explains how the eastern Sahara climate was reconstructed using a vast multitude of sediment cores and the proxy data they yielded. According to the German geology expert: “The most important studies that we conducted all show that after the ice age, when global temperatures rose, the Sahara greened” … “the monsoon rains increased, the ground water rose”. This all led to vegetation and wildlife taking hold over thousands of year.

Then over the past few thousands of years, the region dried out. It didn’t happen all of a sudden like climate models suggest.

Modelers don’t understand climate complexity

When asked about dramatic tipping points (8:00) such as those claimed to be approaching by the Potsdam Institute (PIK), Kröpelin says he’s very skeptical and doesn’t believe crisis scenarios such as those proposed by former PIK head, Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber. He says people making such claims “never did any studies themselves in any climate zone on the earth and they don’t understand how complex climate change is.”

Except for catastrophic geological events, “it’s not how nature works,” Kröpelin says. “Things change gradually.”

The claims that “we have to be careful that things don’t get half a degree warmer, otherwise everything will collapse, is of course complete nonsense.”

“I would say this concept [tipping points] is baseless. Much more indicates that they won’t happen than that they will happen.”

Late last year in Munich, he called the notion of CO2-induced climate tipping points scientifically outlandish. He also called the prospect of the Sahara spreading into Europe preposterous.

November 17, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Calls to ‘Stop the Shots’ Intensify

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 15, 2023

Activist groups, medical organizations and doctors around the globe are launching initiatives seeking to halt the administration of the COVID-19 vaccines or to have them pulled from the market altogether.

These efforts, including educational campaigns, legal challenges and petitions, cite the high number of adverse events and revelations regarding vaccine contamination as factors that may lead to the vaccines being recalled.

Several individuals involved with these initiatives told The Defender their efforts are beginning to make a noticeable difference — but that more work is needed.

“People are waking up to the fact that they were misled, and they are starting to demand answers from their elected officials and the safety and regulatory agencies that they trusted with the health of their children, but who lied to them,” said Janci Lindsay, Ph.D., director of toxicology and molecular biology for Toxicology Support Services and co-founder of the We The People 50 — Recall The Shots campaign.

Bradford Geyer, an attorney with the FormerFedsGroup Freedom Foundation, which launched the We The People 50 initiative, told The Defender the response to the initiative has been supportive.

“Our movement is clearly growing, as Americans and citizens of other nations realize what governments and Big Pharma have done to them.”

COVID vaccines ‘must be stopped for the sake of humanity’

In the U.S., the We The People 50 initiative is calling for “the recall of the COVID-19 genetic ‘vaccines’ due to the large numbers of deaths, disabilities, and unreasonable harm they pose.”

The initiative is made up of doctors, scientists, attorneys, advocates, authors, researchers, victims and concerned citizens, according to Lindsay, who said the group’s mission is to save lives and protect the most vulnerable groups from these dangerous genetic vaccines.

“We are potentially contaminating the entire human gene pool with these reckless technologies, with almost zero oversight as to their consequences to humans, animals and the environment,” Lindsay said. “It must be stopped for the sake of humanity.”

The campaign was inspired by Dr. John Witcher, a Mississippi doctor who advocated for the recall of the COVID-19 vaccines in his state. Witcher, a former gubernatorial candidate in Mississippi, told The Defender his efforts began in September 2021, when he launched Mississippi Against Mandates.

Initially, the movement organized protests and rallies and a public awareness campaign, opposing vaccine mandates. “Our primary focus was to stop the mandates and be cautious of the shots,” Witcher said.

According to Witcher, a turning point came in late October 2021, when Dr. Peter McCullough spoke at a roundtable organized by the Mississippi group, during which he said the COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe for humans.

After that, Witcher said, the group “turned not just against the mandates but against the shots.”

In February, what was previously a statewide effort became a national initiative, following a meeting at the Mississippi Capitol where McCullough and other doctors, and several vaccine-injured individuals and their family members, spoke.

The We The People 50 campaign was spun off of the February event, Witcher said.

Lindsay said that based on Witcher’s efforts, she connected with Carolyn Blakeman, media director and task force coordinator of the FormerFedsGroup, to launch the campaign nationwide, seeking to “take this strategy of bringing a small group of testifying experts from all health disciplines, as well as vaccine-injured, to all 50 states.”

Recent research revealed that a significant percentage of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are contaminated with DNA and bacterial contaminants that can alter the human genome and trigger cancer and other serious conditions. Last month, Health Canada acknowledged the presence of such contamination in COVID-19 vaccines.

Genome integrity, informed consent, medical autonomy among key issues

“We have met with state legislators and with state attorneys and have spoken at multiple county commissioner meetings,” Lindsay said. “[We] helped draft laws around genetic vaccine safety, informed consent, medical autonomy, the right to maintain genome integrity, the right to be free from non-consensual transfection (shedding) and the right to deny coerced or forced medical treatments.”

According to Lindsay, the group “plans to leverage” consumer product protection statutes in several states “to get the shots pulled outright, or at the very least, to force the states to provide true informed consent.”

The initiative also calls into question the legal immunity of vaccine manufacturers under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, on the basis of state consumer protection laws and willful misconduct laws.

Geyer said, “The basis for such action is that these vaccines are contaminated and adulterated and proven to be dangerous and deadly.”

class-action lawsuit filed in California in September on behalf of two remdesivir victims and supported by the FormerFedsGroup is based on similar arguments — namely that Gilead, remdesivir’s distributor, may have violated California laws against using deceptive practices, including the Consumer Legal Remedies Act.

“The end goal is to get these shots pulled out of the consumer product stream and the genetic vaccine platform, banned in its entirety and those who developed, manufactured and administered these shots under false pretext, held accountable,” Lindsay said.

Geyer added, “The ultimate goal of the initiative would be to pressure local and state governments to take action by denying the access of citizens, particularly children, to these gene therapies.”

“We realize that a lot of it’s a political battle,” Witcher said. “We have to get our politicians involved and turn the tide, and certainly we need lawyers involved. So we’re just trying to educate people and to advocate for and protect people.”

AAPS calls for COVID vaccine moratorium: ‘Numerous safety signals’ ignored

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), “a non-partisan professional association of physicians in all types of practices and specialties across the country,” has called for a moratorium on COVID-19 shot mandates and genetic injections.

A March 2023 AAPS statement says: “Informed consent is a bedrock principle of medical ethics, yet millions of people have taken COVID-19 injections under duress,” even though “The long-term effects of the novel mRNA or DNA technology and the lipid nanoparticles involved in their administration … cannot possibly be known.”

“Numerous safety signals, including excess sudden deaths, that would in the past have prompted immediate withdrawal of vaccines or drugs from the market,” have been observed, according to the AAPS.

As a result, the AAPS states that “COVID-19 genetic injections should be withdrawn from the market” and “All mandates, including requirements for school attendance or work, should immediately be withdrawn.”

Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the AAPS, told The Defender that the organization’s call for a moratorium was prompted by the increase in vaccine mandates for uncommon, mild or treatable diseases. She said that “AAPS has always been against mass treatment that does not consider individual patients’ needs and [their] consent.”

Notably, in 2000, the AAPS issued a resolution opposing vaccine mandates, citing the importance of informed consent.

In November 2020, the AAPS said there were “many unknowns” related to the COVID-19 vaccines, including “long-term adverse effects,” adding that treatments like hydroxychloroquine have prevented COVID-19 deaths “without the adverse effects that could occur in vaccinating vast numbers of healthy people.”

When asked why other medical associations have not joined AAPS in calling for a moratorium on the COVID-19 vaccines, Orient cited conflicts of interest and fear of retaliation by government or private stakeholders.

World Council for Health: ‘Collateral damage’ of COVID vaccines unprecedented

Another organization calling for a moratorium on the administration of the COVID-19 vaccines is the World Council for Health (WCH), which last month convened an expert panel that discussed the presence of “cancer-promoting DNA contamination” in the vaccines.

According to the WCH, the panel concluded that “Covid vaccines are contaminated with foreign DNA and … SV40, a cancer-promoting genetic sequence,” and “qualify as GMO (genetically modified organism) products, which require approval in addition to that required for older, more traditional vaccines.”

“Informed consent for these products is impossible as the risks of the products have never been formally and transparently assessed by regulators and are not fully known,” the organization states.

As a result, the WCH called for “An immediate moratorium on these novel genetic ‘vaccines,’” in a statement which, according to Nic Robinson, the organization’s operations manager, was sent to U.K. members of Parliament.

Christof Plothe, D.O., a member of the WCH’s steering committee, told The Defender that “No medical intervention has ever created as much ‘collateral damage’ to the health of the people” as the COVID-19 vaccines.

“We now know that the likelihood of contracting COVID-19 and even dying of COVID-19 increases after each injection,” he said, adding, “In light of the unacceptable DNA plasmid contamination and the undeclared genetic sequences in the Pfizer vials, we have to fear integration of foreign genetic sequences, with unknown consequences.”

As a follow-up to last month’s panel of medical experts, the WCH will organize an expert international legal panel on Nov. 20, according to Robinson.

He added that the WCH has organized country councils, “a key strategic part of our plan to decentralize and inform individuals and communities and push back against centralized power and overreach, including COVID vaccine mandates and lockdowns.”

“The red line has been crossed, and every human being in charge of their distribution, whether in pharma, politics, medical regulatory bodies or the media, now has to say, stop the shots,” Plothe said.

The WCH has previously issued calls for the COVID-19 vaccines to be withdrawn, including in June 2022, based on the release of a WCH report on COVID-19 vaccine-related adverse reactions, and in September 2022, following the release of a peer-reviewed paper on such adverse events.

In June 2021, Dr. Tess Lawrie, co-founder of the WCH, called upon the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to immediately halt the administration of the COVID-19 vaccines, citing a high number of deaths and injuries.

‘Few actions more necessary or noble’ than stopping mRNA COVID vaccines

A group of German doctors has also launched an initiative to end COVID-19 vaccinations — by reaching out to their colleagues in the medical profession.

An open letter authored by German doctors Uta Kristein Haberecht and Monika Grühn, and by Harald Walach, Ph.D., founder of the Change Health Science Institute in Germany and professional research fellow at Kazimieras Simonavicius University in Lithuania, is attempting to alert other doctors about the risks of the COVID-19 vaccines.

The letter states:

“At the beginning of the pandemic, it was quite understandable that there were calls from various quarters to find a vaccine and distribute it quickly. It was assumed that the COVID-19 disease was dangerous to the general population, and that a vaccine could eliminate that danger. Therefore, regulatory hurdles for these substances were set low and potential danger signals were ignored.

“We have gained a great deal of new insights. … The vaccines offer much less protection than was originally anticipated … at the price of far more side effects than had been assumed and that one is willing to accept with other vaccines.”

The letter, which includes a scientific appendix with over 50 scholarly references, discusses concerns about the spike protein’s toxicity and its impact on fertility.

The letter calls for sharing differing scientific opinions and for public agencies and policymakers to conduct accurate surveys, investigations and audits through independent research.

“A dialogue at eye level is crucial for the preservation and maintenance of the medical ethos (Geneva ConventionsNuremberg Code),” the letter adds.

Grühn told The Defender :

“We critical thinkers often keep to ourselves, but many other doctors and healthcare professionals know very little about the dangers of the genetic vaccine platform, while being informed one-sidedly. Often, they do not have the time to do their own investigations.

“It therefore makes sense to approach them in a friendly and clear fashion and provide them with factual information so that they can form their own opinion.”

Walach told The Defender :

“There are now a lot of studies published that show the shots do not prevent infection. They do not prevent serious illness. They do not reduce mortality by any appreciable margin. But they produce many side effects.”

“Given that the benefits are very small to non-existent and the potential problems many, this must be stopped,” he said, adding “The mainstream press has not taken up any of these well-documented facts, and thus this is largely unknown to the public.”

In New Zealand, another doctor is also taking action. Dr. Emanuel Garcia, a psychiatrist who relocated from the U.S., has produced a petition calling upon the country’s government to ban all mRNA-based therapeutics.

According to the petition:

“mRNA therapeutics pose potentially catastrophic dangers; a recent study of the risks of mRNA vaccination shows that it can modify the human genome; many other aspects of mRNA-based therapies are unknown; the human genome is the very genetic blueprint of every individual, defines our health and well-being, and should be an inviolable entity.”

“In the past New Zealand has taken a pioneering position on the use of nuclear arms. We should do so now for mRNA-based interventions,” it states.

Writing on his Substack, Garcia said, “I can think of few actions more necessary or noble for a country to take at this time.”

The Malaysian Council for Health, the Malaysian Alliance for Effective Covid Control, and Persatuan Pengguna Islam Malaysia issued a joint statement on Nov. 7 questioning the continued administration of the COVID-19 vaccines.

The statement references an increase in excess deaths in Malaysia and the contamination of the COVID-19 vaccines, stating that such contamination “has legal implications.” The statement suggests the legal immunity of vaccine manufacturers should “be nullified” on the basis that the contaminants are “undeclared ingredient[s].”

“Malaysian consumers would like to know if the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency … of our health ministry is aware of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine contamination,” the statement says. “As this is both a very serious matter and alarming, the alleged malfeasance may also be a case of assisting and abetting.”

Legal cases worldwide target COVID vaccines

In Australia, attorney Katie Ashby-Koppens is seeking an injunction against Pfizer and Moderna on the basis that they are distributing products — their COVID-19 vaccines — containing GMOs, without a license to do so.

In a recent interview, Ashby-Koppens said, “The allegations are that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are genetically modified organisms by way of definition under the Gene Technology Act in Australia, as they are capable of transferring genetic material.”

“The fact that they are able to transfer genetic material means that those products should have been properly considered by the gene technology regulator in Australia. And they were not,” she added.

In Costa Rica, an ongoing court case will rule on a call to halt COVID-19 vaccines.

In a case filed by Interest of Justice (IOJ) against Costa Rica’s government, the country’s Administrative Contentious Court of Appeals, IOJ argues that authorities “lied” about COVID-19 vaccines being “safe and effective,” claiming they were aware the vaccines are “known to be harmful” and that “death is common.”

A hearing took place on Nov. 9 in which precautionary measures (akin to a temporary injunction) requested by IOJ were denied. However, according to IOJ, the judges appeared sympathetic and “extremely concerned” and granted IOJ the opportunity to submit a new filing, which will lead to a trial.

Experts including Dr. Mike Yeadon, former global head of respiratory diseases for Pfizer and current IOJ chief scientist, and internist Ana Mihalcea, M.D., Ph.D., testified remotely.

In South Africa, a lawsuit filed in January with the Pretoria High Court by three non-profit organizations seeks a moratorium on the administration of the COVID-19 vaccines.

Shabnam Palesa Mohamed is the executive director of Children’s Health Defense Africa and founder of the health advocacy organization Transformative Health Justice, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit. She told The Defender they’ve called for COVID-19 shots to be stopped until a full and independent investigation is conducted into their safety and efficacy.

The lawsuit includes a letter signed by over 100 South African healthcare workers attesting to adverse events they have observed in patients who received the COVID-19 vaccines and references the death of 14-year-old Yamkela Seplan, who developed a severe lump on her arm post-vaccination and subsequently died.

The first part of the case was heard in September and a ruling is pending.

‘We should not lose any time’

Several experts expressed a sense of urgency. Walach told The Defender, “It is feared that the mod-RNA platform will be surreptitiously used for standard vaccines as well.”

“We should not lose any time, as the health and lives of many of our fellow human beings are at stake,” Grühn said. “The aim is to extend this hazardous modRNA technology to many other vaccines.”

In a recent interview, German-Thai microbiologist Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi told The Defender that the present moment represents the best chance we’ve ever had to oppose continued administration of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.

“We need to grasp this chance” because of “the knowledge that is now available that these vaccines are condemning humanity to oblivion,” he said, adding they “contain substances that will alter you genetically. You will not be the same human.”

“These are gene-therapeutic preventive medications, and they should be called by their real name and not ‘vaccinations,’” Walach said. “As soon as this becomes clear, people might think twice.”

“The end goal is, of course, total control over us, meaning not only over our finances, but also over our genes,” Bhakdi said.

Experts also called for legal consequences for the agencies and individuals who authorized the administration of the COVID-19 vaccines to the public.

“More is needed. [We] demand that safety signals be investigated promptly and thoroughly, as has been customary and is required by law,” Orient said.

“Politicians and regulators that are responsible for this, and media that created the fear atmosphere that allowed for this to go unnoticed, should answer for this,” Walach said.

“The COVID response violated constitutional rights and medical ethics,” Orient said. “Officials need to be held individually accountable. Emergency powers need to be constrained. We need institutions independent of the medical-industrial-regulatory-censorship complex.”

“Our members and loved ones were grievously mistreated and betrayed by the nation’s public health agencies and they seek accountability and justice,” Geyer said. “Our movement is growing, and U.S. politicians of all stripes will find it increasingly untenable to ignore us. We look forward to the day when the guilty parties are held accountable.”


Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

November 16, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism | | Leave a comment

YouTube Boasts About Elevating “Quality” Content, Collaborating With the WHO, and Suppressing “Misinformation”

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 15, 2023

YouTube (Google) is yet another in a series of tech behemoths that feel the need to declare their stance on content, including its effective algorithmic manipulation, just as US primaries are ushering the country into another year of presidential elections.

Beating around that bush – Google representatives now talk about processes, procedures, and tools of censorship of health-related information that, unfortunately, can easily be “repurposed” to serve other, for example, political ends.

Much of the conversation rests on what Google wants to portray as its laurels from “the previous epidemic” – which too many people and creators see from a diametrically opposed point of view, as a dark time of nearly unbridled censorship and suppression of free speech.

A video now published by Yahoo Finance reveals not only that Google has a “chief clinical officer,” but also how that officer, Michael Howell, sees the role of this super powerful tech corporation in determining what users are likely to see, see first, or see at all on a platform like YouTube.

Howell, naturally, sees nothing wrong with this and even, to all intents and purposes, brags that YouTube is working to make sure legacy media have advantage over independent creators, and that the latter may easily face censorship.

That’s the takeaway from his words, which he chose to phrase thus: YouTube works to “lift up high quality content, even as we work to lower, and make less prominent content that isn’t accurate or helpful to users.”

The whole interview is positioned as an exploration of how “misinformation grows and spreads” supposedly in sync with the amount of content and the number of users. There is even the assertion made by Yahoo that medical sector “misinformation” is not only very present among users but also “in the broader medical community.”

While this may or may not signal continued censorship of “disfavored” medical professionals, YouTube Head of Healthcare & Public Health (yes, that’s a YouTube job title these days, too) Dr. Garth Graham shared that the platform is the first to start “labeling health information that’s coming from licensed doctors, licensed nurses, licensed healthcare professionals.”

And even after all these years of sometimes completely arbitrary censorship YouTube is supposed to be taken as a “credible source of information (users) can trust” – as it works with the National Academy of Medicine and of course, the World Health Organization (WHO) to craft its definitions, and then “raise that up” – i.e., algorithmically promote, at the expense of other content.

Graham had more curious things to say, such as that while clearly committed to censoring what (or, whatever) Google decides is “delicate (sic) and dangerous information” – people are still supposed to view it as an “open platform”!

Either Graham doesn’t know what an open platform is, or he hopes YouTube/Google users don’t.

There’s also a good amount of patronizing toward those users, as in them needing to be hand-held (by Google) pretty much all the way in order to discern information from misinformation and make appropriate decisions.

“So, you know, we’re an open platform, but the real goal is how do you balance getting good information to people at the right time (…) while making sure that we remove delicate or dangerous information.”

Asked how Google has already managed (shocker) to get the government to participate in posting videos promoting their policies and what “conversations” preceded this, the Google exec said that “the entire healthcare eco-system” was already “energized” to get their message across.

And he counted the government as well as hospitals and physicians as part of this eco-system. One of them, last but not least, is the WHO.

What we know for certain from a great number of internal documents that have emerged over the past months both from Twitter and Facebook is that these two were being “led” to do certain things by the government and its agencies.

Google’s position in the interview is suggested to be the opposite – namely, at one point Howell is asked if the company basically instructed all these national and international healthcare players on what content to make, and have “trending” (mostly artificially, one might add.)

Howell dances around this question – or statement – by saying that the (pandemic) produced a community of creators from the health sector.

But as we know, many of them also got their voices silenced, however, that is not something anyone should expect Google to address.

Instead, the talk is obviously about the “approved” community of healthcare creators.

But, says Howell: “If there’s no good content out there that people want to watch, it’s very hard to show (that) content to users.”

And, cynics would say – then you write an algorithm that shoves that content into everybody’s “recommended” videos anyway.

But, Howell decided to claim that “people responded well to YouTube’s partnerships” – where that last word means, government and international bodies and institutions.

November 15, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , | 1 Comment

Dear Lord, protect us from Our Local Epidemiologist

She knows not what she’s doing and she and her ilk are killing and harming too many people. Amen.

Your Local Epidemiologist at one of her Disinformation Galas. She doesn’t look too traumatized to me.
BY BILL RICE, JR. | NOVEMBER 15, 2023

America’s local epidemiologist is a lady named Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, who publishes the most popular and lucrative “Science” newsletter on Substack. The Substack is called Your Local Epidemiologist.

Since she is my local epidemiologist and has more than 211,000 subscribers (more than 20,000 paid), I sometimes read Dr. Jetelina’s dispatches to see what I shouldn’t think.

Her latest dispatch informed me our local epidemiologist is extremely concerned about the rise in vaccine hesitancy. But what really frightens her is the continued prevalence of misinformation and disinformation and the fact fewer people seem to be trusting our trusted public institutions and experts like herself.

A few excerpts from recent newsletters should give readers a sense of why this particular influencer is terrified for her own safety and the safety of all the other scientists she argues are being “harassed” for speaking “the truth.” As I’m prone to do, I’ll offer a few of my own editorial comments on her editorial comments.

***

In her most recent article, the headline expresses Dr. Jetelina’s concern.

Drop in routine vaccinations

Driven by an increase in vaccine exemptions and misinformation.

The lede paragraph (emphasis added):

“CDC released the latest vaccine exemptions and routine vaccination rates data for last school year. This, coupled with new data on growing acceptance of vaccine misinformation, shows a slow, painful bleed.”

Re-stated: Despite 46 months of highly-coordinated, non-stop, ultra-expensive efforts to defeat vaccine hesitancy, it turns out too many members of the the public still have a “growing acceptance of vaccine misinformation.” If this was not the case, Our Local Epidemiologist (OLE) wouldn’t be so alarmed and wouldn’t have written all these stories.

OLE asks, What is indirectly causing a decline in vaccinations?” and then answers her own question:

Misinformation is increasingOur information landscape has dramatically changed—false news spreads 6 times faster than the truth on social media, and 70% of Americans get health news on social media. Public health has not kept up.”

One might ask who gets to determine “the truth?” The answer, of course, would be: People like Our Local Epidemiologist.

By far, the most massive “social media” platform is Facebook … so I guess Facebook is letting vaccine “false information” spread to its one billion users.

This strikes me as a giant fib as I personally know Facebook has suspended my account at least a half dozen times and, when my account wasn’t suspended, any post I made about a Covid topic was “flagged” or seen by zero people brave enough to hit my post with a “like.”

It would be interesting information to learn how many millions of people have been temporarily or permanently banned or shadow-banned by Facebook’s algorithms, Artificial Intelligence and the company’s more than 15,000 “content moderators.” 

Whatever this number, it’s not nearly large enough for America’s terrified and frustrated local epidemiologist.

Get Vaccinated or Else …

More specifically, OLE says the lack of sufficient censorship is “is directly impacting behaviors like getting vaccinated.”

I now know the answer to just about every public health issue for OLE is more vaccines and more people getting more of these vaccines.

Like the devil, OLE mixes the truth with lies. The first five words of this sentence convey an obvious truth:

Loss of trust in institutions also drives misinformation and behaviors,” she writes, adding, “This … will surely have dire consequences to communities.”

So what really bothers OLE is that more people have “lost trust in institutions.”

In the thousands of words she’s written about the plagues of misinformation and disinformation, she doesn’t tell us why so many people might have lost faith in their now non-trusted institutions …. except, the only possible answer (for her) … the public has been getting “disinformation” from social media.

It took Our Local Epidemiologist years to get her credentials to become OLE, but one could condense the operative curriculum message to one sentence: “Everyone get your dad-blasted vaccines!”

I think I’ve got it. Not enough censorship = too much disinformation, which leads to too much “vaccine hesitancy” which = “dire consequences” – which means everyone is going to die … from Covid, the flu, RSV and the measles.

***

In a linked article from June 27, 2023, OLE agues that not only are communities going to be in dire straits due to vaccine hesitancy, the nation’s narrative-spouting scientists are also increasingly coming under attack.

The headline gives us OLE’s “truth” …

Harassment is out of control’

In this article, OLE reports that she feels increasingly threatened and gives us the example of another scientist, Peter Hotez, who “experienced pile-ons, stalking, and bullying after events unfolded on Twitter. So much so that law enforcement got involved. A complete nightmare.”

Some readers will remember Hotez as the pediatrician/scientist who was afraid to debate Robert Kennedy, Jr. on Joe Rogan’s podcast show.

As far as I can tell, nobody has physically attacked Hotez and his family members are still alive. This ensured that the “survival rate” (from mob violence) of narrative-spouting epidemiologists remains 100 percent.

Whatever happened to the Hotez family … “… He’s not alone. These nightmares are now a common occurrence for scientists and physicians in public health. Both online and offline. For vaccines. For gun violence. For reproductive health. And apparently for wildfires now, too.”

“It’s gotten out of control, which becomes an individual risk as well as a risk to the communities we serve.”

According to this sub headline ….

This is a huge problem

Vaccine deaths, injuries and lockdowns that caused suicides and millions of people to lose their jobs was NOT even an itty-bitty problem … but all these nightmarish non-attacks on well-paid, heroic scientists and doctors are a “huge problem.”

I didn’t know any of this, but I do now.

In her article on terrorized scientists, OLE doesn’t mention whether any “pro-vaxxers” have threatened the life of, say, Robert Kennedy, Jr.. Or if any of the hundreds of thousands of scientists, doctors and nurses who questioned the necessity of Covid vaccines have perhaps suffered some measure of unpleasantness due to their views.

Per Our Local Epidemiologist, it’s only “anti-vaxxers” who bully, smear and attack others.

political scientist might also ask who actually possesses the power to fire large numbers of people or who has the power to discriminate against unpopular minorities who should not be allowed to use a water fountain … attend a play or travel outside of the country.

OLE informs us with another sub-headline:

‘Women scientists are particularly at risk’

OLE even published an anonymous note someone left her.

I hate to suggest I might be tougher than Our Local Epidemiologist, but if someone left me a note like this I don’t think I’d be traumatized the rest of my life … or even for two seconds.

Speaking for all the terrorized scientists, OLE writes:

“… too often scientists assume the consequences alone. This takes a significant personal toll.

Which makes me wonder what terrible consequences people like her have been forced bear alone or what this “significant toll” really was or is.

In the case of OLE, before Covid, she was an obscure epidemiologist nobody had heard of. Today, she is a millionaire Substack author who also works for the CDC and the White House.

As she informed us in another article, Dr. Jetelina has been asked to speak at “quite a few” conferences:

“Last week I was invited to the Nobel Prize Summit on information integrity at the National Academy of Science. I’ve attended quite a few of these types of events lately—discussions on mis- and disinformation’s impact on truth, trust, and hope.”

So one toll on her is that she’s been invited to participate at the “Nobel Prize Summit on information integrity at the National Academy of Science” plus a lot of other swanky Disinformation Galas.

I’m sure she was heckled relentlessly by her colleagues and was constantly looking over her shoulder in case some bellboy slipped her a note saying he’s not impressed by her brand of epidemiology.

I include this excerpt to illustrate it’s not just OLE who’s worried about mis- and disinformation – it’s everyone who’s attending all these summits.

My main take-away from the whining of OLE is that her colleagues (millions of them) mean business about stopping this mis- and disinformation.

If you haven’t picked up on her views yet, here they are in another sub-headline:

Mis/disinformation is a major problem.

This sentence must be what really irks our local epidemiologist:

Truth is now debatable.”

Here, I can only assume that her debating point is that the truth should NOT be “debatable.”

However, I bet she’d get a debate on this point from Socrates, a man who was put to death for asking politically-incorrect questions.

“No questioning allowed” equals no debate, which actually equals no Scientific Method – which is what Our Local Epidemiologist really espouses.

These sentences dropped my jaw:

The major challenge in scientific communication is that the truth is now networked by peers. Because of this, disinformation and misinformation are eroding public trust in science, becoming a threat to the planet, and costing lives.”

(Aside: The same day I read several articles by OLE, I listened to this classic rift from the late great George Carlin, who told us years ago our planet was one tough sucker and was going to be just fine – even if too many people used plastic or drive in gas-powered cars.)

MORE worry-mongering from OLE …

“But it goes beyond a pandemic—climate change, routine vaccinations, gun violence, reproductive health. Everyone—the private sector, government, researchers, and communities nationally and internationally—is rightfully worried.”

FWIW, this is brazen misinformation.  Everyone is NOT “worried.” For example, I’m not.  In fact, for hundreds of millions of people, the things that worry Our Local Epidemiologist have never caused us to lose one wink of sleep.

This, in fact, is what really worries OLE and her colleagues at the Disinformation Junkets. Not enough people are worried about the things she says we should be worried about.

Not only do we no longer trust our institutions – which have of been spectacularly wrong on everything Covid-related – we don’t trust people like her either.

In fact, what worries us is that people like her have so much power and influence over our lives.

Not only this, she wants more control and power. And since she is our local epidemiologist and consults with the CDC and White House, she’s probably going to get what she wants.

Let me close with a headline that gives us OLE’s professional diagnosis. When it comes to the plague of disinformation and misinformation, What the world has is …

Too much talk. Too little action.

Writes OLE:

“I’m getting increasingly frustrated with inaction.”

Institutions are needed for the long-term solution:

  • GovernmentsCongressional courage is needed. In the U.S., other government entities have a role, too: the National Institute of Health (train scientists to communicate and translate; prioritize funding more research in this space)the FDA and CDC … Department of Defense (create a robust, well-funded surveillance system to understand where, how, and what health misinformation is circulating in real-time) …. State governments have a role with medical boards and local action, too.
  • Private industry needs to get their act together: Is this truly the future we want? The lowest hanging fruit is transparency: content moderation, algorithm impacts, data processing, and integrity policies …”

OLE is not subtle; I get her point …

It’s not like Our Local Epidemiologist is camouflaging what she wants. What OLE really wants is for Big Brother to quit pussy-footing around and scare the hell out of many more people, create a lot more “surveillance systems” and use our state medical boards to repeal the licenses of more “science deniers.”

In conclusion, Our Local Epidemiologist is a menace; she’s the worst nightmare for anyone who still values free speech, scientific debate and prefers a “public health” system that’s not killing and maiming so many members of the public.

November 15, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | 2 Comments

Elon Musk’s Comments On Mechanical Ventilation Betrayed A Stunning Amount of Ignorance – Part 1

BY PIERRE KORY, MD, MPA | NOVEMBER 15, 2023

Recently, Elon Musk was interviewed by Joe Rogan where he shared that, early in Covid, he had access to front-line data in China and “talked to doctors from Wuhan,” implying that if we had known what he knew, our use of mechanical ventilation would have been different. That is almost certainly true but he then went on to make several inaccurate statements which I think further fuel widespread misunderstanding and overestimation of the actual negative impacts of mechanical ventilation use during Covid in the U.S.

Now, I find it shocking that I might be putting myself in a position to defend the U.S. Covid response as that would be an outrageous endeavor, however, I take issue with his subsequent statements on mechanical ventilation use as they were almost completely wrong (almost).

I hate misinformation (inaccurate /false information) about Covid and I believe Elon trafficked in the same. I do not believe he did so out of willful, malevolent intent as that would be disinformation (what the now corporate controlled U.S. government regime does to us). His comments were instead borne of a stunning amount of ignorance regarding the real risks of mechanical ventilation and exactly how mechanical ventilation was misused (and not misused) both in China and in the U.S. during that first wave. So, here is my attempt to “set the record straight.”

ELON: “We had 20,000 employees in China and during the first wave we had nobody die and nobody get ill.”

This is both interesting and unsurprising and almost certainly accurate. It brings back harsh memories of all the fear porn that was being blasted out by the world’s media with cherry-picked images of scenes from the hardest hit areas like Wuhan, Lombardy, New York, Seattle etc. They did this while the vast majority of urban areas in the country and around the world did not experience such tidal waves of people in acute respiratory failure.

Although news media trying to get as many eyeballs glued to their shows is not new (i.e. “if it bleeds it leads”) in early Covid, it soon became apparent to many (in my world at least) that they also did so to instill widespread fear to increase compliance with what were soon to be draconian violations of civil liberty, bodily autonomy, informed consent, and free speech. Those violations were deemed necessary in their plight to coerce the entire U.S. population to be vaccinated. This is probably a good time to re-read the anonymous poem I posted last year titled “Message to the Unvaccinated.” Link here:

However, on this point of instilling the greatest amount of fear possible, a recent post by A Midwestern Doctor quoted Scott Atlas, a completely sane member of the White House’s insane Coronavirus Task Force:

As often happened, Fauci spoke up to support Dr. Birx’s concerns, saying people need to be warned even more strongly about the dangers of the virus spreading, about wearing masks and distancing. He claimed Americans didn’t think the virus was serious, and that was the reason cases spread. I was honestly surprised. I thought people were already panic-stricken. Normal life had virtually ceased to exist, even eliminating serious medical care or last visits with dying family. Meanwhile the media were on-message 24/7, instructing the public about masks and social distancing; there were signs and announcements demanding masks and diagrams about distancing everywhere; healthy young people were outside riding bicycles or driving their cars alone, wearing masks. Indeed, surveys showed that most adults perceived grossly exaggerated risks, particularly but not only younger people; and yes, a high percentage were obeying the edicts, distancing and wearing masks, according to virtually every published survey.

I challenged him to clarify his point, because I couldn’t believe my ears. “So you think people aren’t frightened enough?”

He [Fauci] said, “Yes, they need to be more afraid.”

To me, this was another moment of Kafkaesque absurdity. I replied, “I totally disagree. People are paralyzed with fear. Fear is one of the main problems at this point.” Inside, I was also shocked at his thought process, as such an influential face of the pandemic. Instilling fear in the public is absolutely counter to what a leader in public health should do. To me, it is frankly immoral, although I kept that to myself.”

Note: Fauci also fear-mongered for his own benefit throughout the AIDS crisis (which amongst other things created significant stigmatization towards the gay community as Fauci asserted without evidence that HIV might be transmitted without physical contact).


ELON: I called doctors in Wuhan and asked “what are some of the biggest mistakes you made in the first wave” and they said “we put far too many people on mechanical ventilators.”

My motivation for writing this post is to try to correct (but not completely refute) the now widespread, strong belief that it was the “ventilators” that killed people and that if we did not use mechanical ventilators, many lives would have been saved. Or, similarly, “if they hadn’t put my (wife/mother/father etc) on a ventilator, they would be alive today.”

I largely and strongly disagree with the latter assessment (but not completely). The reason for my disagreement is that, based on my experiences running Covid ICU’s at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, Greenville Memorial Hospital in South Carolina, St. Lukes Medical Center in Milwaukee, and Aspirus Wausau in Central Wisconsin, it wasn’t the vents that killed people. It was the lack of effective treatments being adopted.

Initially, it was the lack of any treatment (i.e. “supportive care only” approaches, particularly at UW) that led to widespread death after what was often weeks on a ventilator and later it morphed into sub-optimal, insufficiently aggressive, sometimes harmful, monolithic treatments like Remdesivir and a modest dose of corticosteroids instead of a broad, multi-component, safe, synergistic combination of therapies such as the MATH+ protocol that FLCCC members were using and recommending for hospital patients (forgive me for I am biased). However, Elon then said the following regarding mechanical ventilation:

“This is what is exactly damaging the lungs it is not Covid. The treatment, the cure is worse than the disease.”

“People yelled at me saying I am not a doctor but I said yeah but I do make spaceships with life support systems, what do you do?”

Well, Elon, although I don’t build spaceships, I actually used and taught mechanical ventilation to keep people alive for a living and did so throughout most of Covid. Further, mechanical ventilation was a deep interest if not passion of mine for almost 20 years prior.

The act of of sedating and paralyzing someone to place an endotracheal tube through their vocal cords and into their trachea is called “intubation” and is required to transition someone to support by an invasive mechanical ventilator. What I witnessed in the first wave (but not later waves) was doctors favoring “early intubation/mechanical ventilation” out of fear that the patient would suddenly crash (intubating a “crashing” patient is a higher risk procedure). And yes, another subtle, but not overt motivation, very early on, was to “protect” staff from exhaled breath due to fear of heated high flow nasal cannulas (this is an intermediate support device often used to avoid intubation) – more on this issue/aspect in Part 3 which is already available here).

Now, although it is true that each extra day on a ventilator can worsen prognosis, the harms are much more from prolonged, poorly responsive illness requiring prolonged sedation and immobility which then cause confusion/delirium and disuse atrophy of the muscles. So for him to say it is the ventilators which damage the lungs more than Covid is completely off – know that patients with neurological injuries affecting respiration can be kept alive safely on ventilators for weeks to months to years to decades without significant “damage” accumulating to the lungs.

Admittedly, the situation of someone with a lung injury is different in that inappropriate ventilator settings can certainly further damage the lungs, but with modern ventilator techniques such as low tidal volumes, daily spontaneous breathing trials, use of appropriate positive-end expiratory pressure, highly responsive inhalation triggers etc, the harms of mechanical ventilation to the lungs are generally minimal.

To wit, I have successfully extubated thousands of patients in my career despite devastating injuries to their lungs requiring prolonged periods on the ventilator, even in situations where the ventilator was particularly difficult to set in order to achieve the holy grail of mechanical ventilation, that of “patient-ventilator synchrony.” All I am saying is that his comment on the harms of mechanical ventilation was grossly overstated to an un-credible degree. He then went further:

“The treatment is worse than the disease.”

Ugh. Mechanical ventilation is not and has never been a treatment, it is simply a means to support a patient’s breathing to keep them alive while you administer therapies (more on this below) to reverse the underlying insult or infection that landed them on the ventilator in the first place – no-one, and I mean no-one in medicine has ever viewed the ventilator as a treatment or cure for anything.

However, the initial practice of “early intubation” caused unmanageable and chaotic situations in many hospitals by increasing demand for ICU rooms and ventilators, but I will argue below that this situation was almost completely fueled by the lack of effective treatments being adopted.

This is a key distinction, i.e the harm of ineffectively or not treating the disease far, far outweighed the harms of intubating too early. Further, “early” intubations largely occurred during the first wave, and as physicians became more familiar with the disease they began to defer intubation to much more advanced degrees of respiratory failure and hypoxemia (obviously there were exceptions to this, but, as I mentioned above, I travelled and worked fairly widely, and in each center I found that the ICU docs quickly learned to defer intubation to as late as possible in Covid induced hypoxemic respiratory failure. This issue is what I will explore in further detail in Part 2.

I instead maintain that the absurdly high death rates in many hospitals in the U.S and across the world in the early waves of Covid was due to an over-reliance on “supportive care only” approaches (i.e. limiting interventions to just supplemental oxygen, fluids, nutrition, fever suppressants, mechanical ventilation). Rarely were effective treatments targeting the underlying pathophysiology being offerred at most academic medical centers based on the widespread belief that patients were dying of a viral pneumonia and that no effective anti-viral therapies existed.

What was not being sufficiently taught or disseminated at that time is that Covid-19 disease had multiple phases, i.e. an early “viral replicative phase” marked by typical viral syndrome symptoms such as cough, fever, congestion, sore throat, fatigue etc with a minority of those patients then going on to develop the later “hyper-inflammatory phase” involving the lungs. The FLCCC tried very hard to alert “the system” to the fact that early studies found no live, culturable virus in patient secretions beyond Day 6 (cue the folks who state there is no virus and/or they don’t exist. To those, all I can offer is this excellent post addressing the issue by A Midwestern Doctor).

Thus, after about Day 6, a minority of Covid-19 patients began to develop morphed a hyper-inflammatory, pulmonary phase due largely to activated macrophages (an immune cell) as well as micro-clumping or clotting of blood cells and proteins. In this latter phase, anti-inflammatory or immunosuppressive therapies combined with anti-coagulants were required (this is why the FLCCC recommended corticosteroids and blood thinners in hospital patients from the outset and were observing excellent results with early use).

To wit, my first paper on Covid (and the one I am most proud of) was initially drafted in April of 2020. I argued then that Covid-19 pulmonary disease was not a viral pneumonia but instead an “organizing pneumonia” (a form of lung injury with many causes (viruses are only one of them) but whose mainstay of therapy is corticosteroids).

From the abstract:

I arrived at that hypothesis after a couple of weeks of being mystified by the repeated presentations of Covid patients with what was called at the time, “happy hypoxia”, i.e. the state of requiring high amounts of supplemental oxygen yet without exhibiting a significant increase in the work of breathing.

I knew I had seen “happy hypoxia” on a couple of occasions in my career but could not remember what was wrong with those patients until one morning during a shower before an ICU shift in New York City it hit me – “these patients remind me of patients with organizing pneumonia!” As soon as I got to work, before my shift, I called Dr. Jeff Kanne at the University of Wisconsin, one of the top chest radiologists in the world and an expert on organizing pneumonia.

“Jeff, what would you say if I told you that I think that all of these Covid patients are suffering from organizing pneumonia?” I asked. His answer? “Of course they are. We wrote this up in March in the journal Radiology after an expert panel that I chaired completed our review of all the CT scans from Wuhan.” They had actually written in their expert report that “the most common reported CT findings in Covid-19 patients are typical of an organizing pneumonia pattern of lung injury.

“Clinicians don’t read radiology journals,” I shouted into the phone. “We need to publish this in a clinical medical journal! Like NOW!” We quickly agreed that we would write it up together.

I went home after my ICU shift and started working furiously. The paper included radiographic, pathologic, and clinical evidence to try to prove that the pulmonary phase of Covid-19 was an organizing pneumonia and that the first line of therapy for this condition was (wait for it)… corticosteroids.

Note that my paper above was not published until September 2020 due to 5 journals rejecting it, with one journal rejecting it because a peer-reviewer said “this cannot be published until a randomized controlled trial of corticosteroids is conducted.” Welcome to my life.

The problem we in the FLCCC had with getting the world to use corticosteroids in the hospital phase were many and will be explored in Part 2 (already available).

November 15, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Mayo Clinic is Sued For Suspending Doctor Over Online Posts on Covid and Transgenderism

By Ben Squires | Reclaim The Net | November 15, 2023

Dr. Michael Joyner, backed by the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA), has initiated a lawsuit against the Mayo Clinic College, including its president and board chair. The suit arises from disciplinary actions taken against Joyner following his public comments on topics within his field of expertise. Specifically, the controversy revolves around statements he made to the New York Times about gender differences in athletic performance and to CNN regarding the use of convalescent plasma in COVID-19 treatment. The Mayo Clinic’s response, which involved suspension, salary review implications, and strict media interview oversight, is at the heart of this legal challenge.

We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.

Lucas Morel, chair of the AFA’s academic committee, emphasized the lawsuit’s significance, asserting that “academic freedom is a key guarantor of scientific integrity.”

Morel expects the case to establish a precedent for the freedom of scientists and academics to express their professional opinions without undue influence from financial or political interests. The AFA, which previously supported Joyner during his disciplinary hearings, is now financing this lawsuit, highlighting the organization’s commitment to protecting academic freedom.

Joyner’s legal action, filed with the State of Minnesota’s Third Judicial District, seeks compensation for the damages incurred from the disciplinary measures. These included a week-long unpaid suspension, denial of salary increase, and a potential termination threat, all of which have reportedly harmed Joyner’s finances and professional reputation. The lawsuit, handled by Allen Harris Law, was filed after allowing the defendants to review and respond, which they declined.

November 15, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

WHY ARE CANCERS INCREASING IN YOUNG ADULTS?

Dr Been | June 22, 2023

Source: http://www.odysee.com/@FrontlineCovid19CriticalCareAlliance:c/Why-Are-Cancers-Increasing-in-Young-Adults:1

Cancers are increasing at an alarming rate, especially in young adults. Let’s review the statistics of the increase and possible contributing factors.

DrBeen: Medical Education Online

http://www.drbeen.com

November 15, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

CDC Runs Two VAERS Systems — The Public Can Access Only One of Them

By John-Michael Dumais | The Defender | November 14, 2023

When Dr. Robert Sullivan collapsed on his treadmill three weeks after his second COVID-19 vaccine in early 2021, he fell into a “nightmare” ordeal that he said exposed glaring deficiencies in the nation’s vaccine safety monitoring system.

Diagnosed with sudden onset pulmonary hypertension, the healthy and fit 49-year-old anesthesiologist from Maryland attempted to file a report through the government-run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

But like others interviewed in a recent investigation by The BMJ, Sullivan hit barrier after barrier when trying to submit and update his report.

Almost three years later, still grappling with debilitating symptoms, Sullivan’s experience highlights the systemic problems with the U.S. adverse events monitoring system run jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

From doctors unable to file reports to disappearing data, limits on transparency and lack of resources to follow up on concerning vaccine reactions, experts warn VAERS is failing to detect critical safety signals.

According to one of those experts — VAERS researcher Albert Benavides, whose experience includes HMO claims auditing, data analytics and revenue cycle management — VAERS’ failure isn’t accidental.

“It is not broken,” Benavides wrote in his Substack coverage of The BMJ investigation. “VAERS runs cover for the big pharma cabal.”

‘They even delete legitimate reports’

Like others interviewed by The BMJ, Sullivan experienced limited follow-up after submitting his VAERS report. He received only a temporary report number months after his initial submission.

A physician named “Helen” (pseudonym) told The BMJ that fewer than 20% of concerning reports get follow-up, including many deaths she reported.

In consultation with Benavides, an audit by React19 found that 1 in 3 COVID-19 vaccine adverse events reports in VAERS were either not posted publicly or were deleted. React19 is a nonprofit that collects stories of people injured by the mRNA vaccines.

According to The BMJ, of those queried by React19, “22% had never been given a permanent VAERS ID number and 12% had disappeared from the system entirely.”

Benavides, who publishes the VAERSAware dashboards documenting many of the problems with VAERS, said there is even deeper dysfunction in the VAERS system — from inventing symptoms to deleting reports.

“VAERS does not publish all legitimate reports received,” Benavides told The Defender. “They throttle publication of reports. They even delete legitimate reports.”

For a system dependent on voluntary engagement, these restrictive policies keep critical data hidden, according to Benavides.

In 2007, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contracted with Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHC) to review the VAERS system. In 2010, HPHC filed its r report, which determined that 1 in 39 people experienced vaccine injuries and that only around 1% of vaccine-related injuries or deaths are ever reported to VAERS.

The CDC, which operates under HHS, scuttled the study, refused to take calls from the researchers and declined to upgrade the VAERS system when a new, much more effective system was developed.

‘Blind spots are self-created’

VAERS “collects reports of symptoms, diagnoses, hospital admissions, and deaths after vaccination for the purpose of capturing post-market safety signals,” according to The BMJ.

But the limited transparency of VAERS data presents barriers to proper analysis, according to The BMJ’s investigation and researchers like Benavides.

The public — including doctors and other report submitters — can access only incomplete initial reports, not updates with vital details.

This means outcomes like death are often excluded if the initial report was for an injury and a subsequent death report was filed.

“I made the false assumption that my conversation [with VAERS] would result in an adjustment to the publicly reported case,” Patrick Whelan, M.D., Ph.D., told The BMJ.

Whelan, a rheumatologist and researcher at the University of California Los Angeles, in 2022 filed a report of a cardiac arrest in a 7-year-old male patient after COVID-19 vaccination.

“I assumed that, since it was a catastrophic event, the safety committee would want to hear about it right away,” Whelan said. But nobody called him or requested an update after his submission.

“There was no mechanism for [updating] it,” Whelan told The BMJ. “The only option I had was to make a new VAERS report.” Without updates, the VAERS data showed that the boy was still hospitalized.

Whelan is one the authors of a recent critique of the Cochrane Review that concluded the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were not dangerous.

The problem with VAERS is not limited to a lack of adequate follow-up but to the incomplete and often inaccurate information found there.

“VAERS in effect allows typos, truncated lot #’s, UNK [unknown] ages, UNK vax dates, UNK death dates, etc. to pass through into publication,” Benavides said.

Benavides said specific data — including ethnicity, hospital names, attending physicians, submitter’s relationship to the patient, patient and submitter addresses, telephone numbers and emails — collected by VAERS are not published,

“Any blind spots are self-created, in my opinion,” he said.

Agencies maintain two separate VAERS databases — public gets to see only one

“There’s two parts to VAERS, the front end and back end,” stated Narayan Nair, division director for the FDA’s Division of Pharmacovigilance at a December 2022 meeting with advocates, according to The BMJ. “Anything from medical records by law can’t be posted on the public-facing system,” he said.

The BMJ investigation discovered that the FDA and CDC maintain two separate VAERS databases, one available to the public that contains only initial reports, and a private back-end system containing all of the updates and corrections.

“Anything derived from medical records by law” cannot be posted on the public-facing system, Nair told the advocates, according to The BMJ.

In an apparent contradiction to this claim, The BMJ noted the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), which collects post-marketing information on drug reactions, posts its updates publicly.

Sullivan, who met Nair years before COVID-19 and considers him a friend, told The Defender that if this “very bright, kind and caring person” could not fix VAERS, “I don’t think it’s fixable.”

CDC says it reviewed 20,000 reports of deaths — none were related to COVID shots

Withholding outcome data like deaths obscures critical safety signals, experts contend.

James Gill, a medical examiner, reported the death of a 15-year-old patient after vaccination, but the case was dismissed by the CDC despite autopsy evidence, according to the BMJ investigation.

Physician “Helen” told The BMJ that after filing reports on her medical patients, including six who had died, she received only a single request for medical records on the death and two for hospital-admitted patients.

The standard operating procedure for COVID-19 vaccine reports in VAERS, according to The BMJ, is for reports to be processed quickly and for “serious reports” to receive special review by CDC staff.

However, while some other countries have acknowledged the probable connection between the mRNA vaccines and death, the CDC, while claiming to have reviewed nearly 20,000 death reports, has yet to acknowledge a single death linked to the COVID-19 vaccines, The BMJ said.

Benavides provided The Defender examples of VAERS “deleting legitimate reports,” not just duplicates or false claims.

“VAERS even deleted dead Pfizer Trial patients,” he said, claiming that this report, for example, was not a “duplicate” and did not appear to be fake.

Benavides said:

“There are currently about 50 deaths that are not counted as deaths because the correct box is not checked off.

“There are thousands of reports and about 100 deaths in ‘UNKNOWN VAX TYPE’ in VAERS. Read the narrative to see these are clearly C19 jab-related deaths.

“There are over a thousand cardiac arrests where they are not marked as dead, and I question if they actually survived because there is no mention of ROSC [return of spontaneous circulation].”

“Why couldn’t VAERS populate the ages of these dead kids before publication?” Benavides said, pointing to this report on his website.

Physicians report only FDA-recognized adverse events

Ralph Edwards, former director of the Uppsala Monitoring Centre and until recently editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, told The BMJ the regulators may be relying too heavily on past epidemiological data, especially for new types of adverse events. “If something hasn’t been heard of before, it tends to be ignored,” he said.

Without guidance to report potential risks, doctors also face barriers. “Physicians are only willing to talk about FDA-recognized vaccine adverse events,” stated physician “Helen” in a 2021 meeting between the FDA and physicians and advocates, according to The BMJ.

Svetlana Blitshteyn, a neurologist and researcher at the University at Buffalo, New York, told The BMJ if physicians are not educated to look for a specific condition, they’re unlikely to test for it or know how to treat it.

Sullivan told The Defender he believes his experience of developing pulmonary hypertension after taking the mRNA vaccine is one such safety signal the CDC and FDA are overlooking — a condition he believes many athletes have unknowingly developed.

Sullivan co-authored a paper of his and one other similar case of post-vaccine pulmonary hypertension. According to the paper:

“Pulmonary hypertension is a serious disease characterized by damage to lung vasculature and restricted blood flow through narrowed arteries from the right to left heart. The onset of symptoms is typically insidious, progressive and incurable, leading to right heart failure and premature death.”

“Athletes are canaries in the coal mine,” Sullivan told The Defender, speaking of the unusual numbers of athlete deaths since the rollout of the vaccine. Sullivan thinks that those with superior physical conditioning, like him, stand a better chance of survival with early detection.

However, he said, “Athletes will get echocardiography, and it will be essentially normal. The only way to tell for sure is to do a right-heart catheterization” that can identify the anomaly.

Sullivan believes the lives of many athletes could still be saved if the reporting system recognized and investigated the signal — and said he would be happy to join a project dedicated to this goal.

He also told The Defender he believes many of the sudden deaths reported in the 25- to 44-year-old age group are a result of this hidden condition.

‘The buck stops with the CDC for reforms’

Critics point to choices by the CDC as compounding VAERS’ passive design and understaffing issues.

Despite over 1.7 million reports since the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, staffing was not boosted accordingly, according to statements the CDC made to The BMJ.

A Freedom of Information Act request by The BMJ revealed Pfizer has nearly 1,000 more full-time employees working on vaccine surveillance than the CDC. Records showed in 2021, Pfizer on-boarded 600 additional full-time employees to handle the volume of adverse reports and planned to hire 200 more.

Physician “Helen” in The BMJ article called for an end to the “negative feedback loop” whereby the FDA fails to list adverse reactions because passive surveillance systems like the FDA’s don’t display them, while at the same time, because of that lack of disclosure, “physicians are blinded to the adverse reactions in their patients, and thus aren’t reporting them.”

“The buck stops with the CDC for reforms needed to open up data,” Benavides told The Defender, adding several suggestions that could immediately improve VAERS:

“Revert back to pre-January 2011 when VAERS did append initial reports with follow-up data, including death. Take off the arbitrary 30-minute time limit to file a report before getting kicked off. Make the process easier to submit follow-up data.”

When asked why the incompetence of VAERS had been allowed to continue for so long, Sullivan told The Defender, “Because of the lack of product liability” for the vaccines “and the surge to defend economic interests.”

Sullivan said he’d like to see the following changes to the system:

  • Pharmaceutical advertising banned.
  • Pharmaceutical company revenues devoted to advertising instead be spent on R&D.
  • The tax money collected on pharma profits be directly sent to victim injury funds.

Yale cardiologist takes on study of COVID vaccine injuries

Benavides said he spoke with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) Monday and is also in discussion with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic to address the concerns with VAERS, including the under-publishing of reports.

“That’s a long overdue prospect and it would be incredible to actually get some analysis by that committee,” he said.

Another bright spot comes from news reported in The BMJ’s investigation that Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist and researcher at Yale University, has been recruiting members of React19 to study their vaccine injuries.

“We are working hard to understand the experience, clinical course, and potential mechanisms of the ailments reported by those who have had severe symptoms arise soon after the vaccination,” Krumholz told The BMJ.

Sullivan told The Defender that medical science is “just beginning to catalog the damage to the heart” from the vaccines but that “in order to treat something, you have to diagnose it” — and that, because of the shortcomings with VAERS, “we have yet to scratch the surface of that.”

Sullivan, now almost three years into his ordeal, is outliving his initial prognosis.

“I have a grim diagnosis hanging over me, but I’m optimistic because I’m still here,” he said. “I had something bad happen to me, but I’ve met so many amazing, wonderful people along the way who are just interested in truth.”

“I’m going to live the best and most productive life I can with the time I have left,” Sullivan said, helping others who “have this cloud hanging over their future.”


John-Michael Dumais is a news editor for The Defender. He has been a writer and community organizer on a variety of issues, including the death penalty, war, health freedom and all things related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Eight items of major concern regarding the proposed WHO treaty and IHR amendments

By Meryl Nass, MD | November 13, 2023

1.  Biological warfare agent proliferation.

The treaty and the proposed amendments instruct nations that they must perform surveillance for potential pandemic pathogens, build or maintain sequencing labs, and both share actual specimens with the WHO (where a BioHub has been created for this purpose) and also share the sequences online. This demands the proliferation of biological weapons agents — which I believe is a crime (based on my interpretation of Security Council Resolution 1540 and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention).

1 a.  The June 2, 2023 “Bureau text” version of the treaty also called for nations performing Gain-of-Function research to reduce “administrative impediments” to the work.  In other words, restrictions on the research should be relaxed, which would make lab leaks more likely to occur. This paragraph was removed from the October 30, 2023 version of the treaty.

2.  Giving the WHO a blank check to create new rules in the future

The treaty calls for a Conference of Parties and a new WHO Secretariat to be created in the future that will make rules for how the pandemic prevention and response apparatus will work—which provides essentially a blank, signed contract to the WHO to create whatever rules it wants.

3.  Liability-free vaccines developed at warp speed will be produced

The treaty calls for rapid vaccine development /production and shaving time off all aspects of vaccine development, testing and manufacture. This requires vaccines to be used without licenses, and the treaty calls for nations to have laws in place to issue Emergency Use Authorizations for this purpose, and to “manage” liability issues. See “The WHO’s Proposed Treaty will Increase Man-Made Pandemics” for more information about this. The US, EU and others have specifically called for 100-day vaccine development and an additional 30 days for production of pandemic vaccines. This would allow for no meaningful human testing.

4.  Human rights guarantees have been removed in the new amendments

The amendments removed “human rights, dignity and freedom of persons” from the existing IHR language. Following complaints, this phrase was later inserted into the Treaty–but the treaty may not be accepted in 2024. Meanwhile, the amendments require only a simple majority to pass, are being written in secret, and so it is likely that the most problematic issues will be found in the amendments.

5.  Social media surveillance and censorship of citizens is required

Both the amendments and the treaty call for nation states to perform surveillance of their citizens’ social media, and to censor and prevent the spread of information that does not conform to the WHO’s public health narratives. Yet the treaty also calls for citizens to be free to access information, while they are to be protected from “infodemics,” which are defined as too much information. Citizens must also be stopped from spreading mis- and disinformation.

6.  We may not learn what is in the amendments until after they are passed

The amendments have been negotiated entirely in secret for the past nine months, while there have been multiple consecutive drafts of the pandemic treaty released to the public during that time. And while the negotiated amendments were to be tabled for public review in January, the WHO’s principal legal officer has provided a legal fig leaf to avoid the obligation of making them public 4 months ahead of the vote. Will the public even see the amendments before a vote on them occurs?

Why is there such secrecy regarding the proposed amendments?

7.  The WHO Director-General could become your personal physician

According to the proposed amendments, the WHO D-G would be able to commandeer and move medical supplies from one country to another, decide what treatments can be used, and restrict the use of other treatments.

8.  When will the WHO be able to use its newly minted powers?

The amendments will come into force after a declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is made. However, a declaration of a potential PHEIC will also trigger these powers. The powers can be extended even after a PHEIC is over, as we have seen with COVID and monkeypox (MPOX) declarations by the D-G.

The treaty will be in force continuously, requiring no declaration or pandemic to confer new powers to the WHO.

See detailed report:

Why is Everyone Concerned About the WHO?

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

What does the WHO say about its power to enforce the Pandemic Treaty (and International Health Regulations)?

By MERYL NASS | NOVEMBER 12, 2023

Many people have insisted that the WHO could not make the US do anything. Let me remind those people that the US government under Biden is instrumental in pushing forward the WHO proposals, and so it will comply. Here is what the WHO says:

What is meant by a  ‘convention, agreement or other international instrument’?

Conventions, framework agreements and treaties are all examples of international instruments, which are legal agreements made between countries that are binding.  

Why did WHO’s Member States decide to create an accord for pandemic preparedness and response?

In light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO’s 194 Member States established a process to draft and negotiate a new convention, agreement, or other international instrument (referred to in the rest of this FAQ, generally, as an “accord”) on pandemic preparedness and response. This was driven by the need to ensure communities, governments, and all sectors of society – within countries and globally – are better prepared and protected, in order to prevent and respond to future pandemics. The great loss of human life, disruption to households and societies at large, and impact on development are among the factors cited by governments to support the need for lasting action to prevent a repeat of such crises.

[Ho ho ho—Nass]

At the heart of the proposed accord is the need to ensure equity in both access to the tools needed to prevent pandemics (including technologies like vaccines, personal protective equipment, information and expertise) and access to health care for all people.

[If this were true, why do the treaty and amendments only discuss health “coverage” which means health insurance, rather than health care? The WHO knows the difference, but only demands “coverage”—a sop to the insurance industry.

Furthermore, the WHO demands censorship of information not in agreement with the WHO’s narratives, not free sharing of information—so much for information equity—and its so-called expertise was used to overdose hospitalized patients with HCQ without informed consent, when these unfortunates were enrolled in the WHO’s “SOLIDARITY” trial. Its expertise led to demanding that nations stop the use of HCQ and ivermectin for COVID and administer more shots. Who needs this expertise? —Nass]

Who else is involved in the process for the accord?

Besides WHO Member States, the process for developing a possible new accord is providing extensive opportunities for engagement with relevant stakeholders, including other United Nations system bodies, and a wide range of other non-State actors in official relations with the WHOto ensure robust and inclusive participation in the proceedings of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body. Furthermore, WHO is seeking complementary inputs through public hearings with stakeholders including: international organizations; civil society; the private sector; philanthropic organizations; scientific, medical, public policy and academic institutions and other entities with relevant knowledge, experience and/or expertise.

[In other words, Bill Gates, who was the largest funder of the WHO the year Trump defunded the organization, gets the lion’s share of input, while we peons get none. Trump then turned around and funded Gate’s’ charity GAVI with the money, and GAVI turned around and gave it back to the WHO. That was our money, by the way.—Nass]

—There is more of this nonsense on this webpage, but you can go look it up yourself if you have the stomach for it.—Meryl

November 12, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment