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More Children Die From the COVID Shot Than From COVID

By Dr. Joseph Mercola | January 7, 2022

The video above features Collette Martin, a practicing nurse who testified before a Louisiana Health and Welfare Committee hearing December 6, 2021.1,2 Martin claims she and her colleagues have witnessed “terrifying” reactions to the COVID shots among children — including blood clots, heart attacks, encephalopathy and arrhythmias — yet their concerns are simply dismissed.

Among elderly patients, she’s noticed an uptick in falls and acute onset of confusion “without any known etiology.” Coworkers are also experiencing side effects, such as vision and cardiovascular problems.

Martin points out that few doctors or nurses are aware the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) even exists, so injury reports are not being filed. Hospitals also are not gathering data on COVID jab injuries in any other ways, so there’s no data to investigate even if you wanted to. According to Martin:

“We are not just seeing severe acute [short term] reactions with this vaccine, but we have zero idea what any long-term reactions are. Cancers, autoimmune [disorders], infertility. We just don’t know.

We are potentially sacrificing our children for fear of MAYBE dying, getting sick of a virus — a virus with a 99% survival rate. As of now, we have more children that died from the COVID vaccine than COVID itself.

And then, for the Health Department to come out and say the new variant [Omicron] has all the side effects of the vaccine reactions we’re currently seeing — it’s maddening, and I don’t understand why more people don’t see it. I think they do, but they fear speaking out and, even worse, being fired … Which side of history will you be on? I have to know that this madness will stop.”

Martin also states she believes the hospital treatment protocol is killing COVID patients. Doctors agree that it’s “not working,” but that “it’s all we have.” But “that’s simply not true,” she says. “It’s just what the CDC will allow us to give.”

What the VAERS Data Tell Us About COVID Jab Risks

I recently interviewed Jessica Rose, Ph.D., a research fellow at the Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge in Israel, about what the VAERS data tell us about the COVID jabs’ risks. As noted by Rose, the average number of adverse event reports following vaccination for the past 10 years has been about 39,000 annually, with an average of 155 deaths. That’s for all available vaccines combined.

The COVID jabs alone now account for 983,756 adverse event reports as of December 17, 2021, including 20,622 deaths3 — and this doesn’t include the underreporting factor, which we know is significant and likely ranges from five to 40 times higher than reported. Most doctors and nurses don’t even know what VAERS is and even if they do, they chose not to report the incidents.

You can’t even compare the COVID shots to other vaccines. They’re by far the most dangerous injections ever created, yet there doesn’t appear to be a cutoff for acceptable harm. No one within the CDC or Food and Drug Administration, which jointly run VAERS, has addressed these shocking numbers. Both agencies outrageously deny that a single death can be attributed to the COVID jabs, which is simply impossible. It’s not statistically plausible.

The FDA and CDC are also ignoring standard data analyses that can shed light on causation. It’s known as the Bradford Hill criteria — a set of 10 criteria that need to be satisfied in order to show strong evidence of causal relationship. One of the most important of these criteria is temporality, because one thing has to come before the other, and the shorter the duration between two events, the higher the likelihood of a causative effect.

Well, in the case of the COVID jabs, 50% of the deaths occur within 48 hours of injection. It’s simply not conceivable that 10,000 people died two days after their shot from something other than the shot. It cannot all be coincidence. Especially since so many of them are younger, with no underlying lethal conditions that threaten to take them out on any given day. A full 80% have died within one week of their jab, which is still incredibly close in terms of temporality.4

Children Risk Permanent Heart Damage

Aside from the immediate risk of death, children are also at risk for potentially lifelong health problems from the jab. Myocarditis (heart inflammation) has emerged as one of the most common problems, especially among boys and young men.

In early September 2021, Tracy Beth Hoeg and colleagues posted an analysis5 of VAERS data on the preprint server medRxiv, showing that more than 86% of the children aged 12 to 17 who report symptoms of myocarditis were severe enough to require hospitalization.

Cases of myocarditis explode after the second shot, Hoeg found, and disproportionally affect boys. A full 90% of post-jab myocarditis reports are males, and 85% of reports occurred after the second dose. According to Hoeg et. al.:6

“The estimated incidence of CAEs [cardiac adverse events] among boys aged 12-15 years following the second dose was 162 per million; the incidence among boys aged 16-17 years was 94 per million. The estimated incidence of CAEs among girls was 13 per million in both age groups.”

No doubt, doctors are seeing an increase in myocarditis, but few are willing to talk about it. In a recent Substack post, Steve Kirsch writes:7

“I just read a comment on my private ‘healthcare providers only’ substack. An estimated100X elevation in rate of myocarditis, but nobody will learn of it since cardiologists aren’t going to speak out for fear of retribution.

His comment was a private conversation he had with a pediatric cardiologist. The cardiologist is never going to say this in public, to the press, or have his name revealed since his first duty is to his family (keeping his job).

If a ‘fact checker’ called the cardiologist, he might either refuse to comment or say ‘I’m seeing somewhat more cases after the vaccine rolled out.’ Here’s the exact comment that was posted to the private substack:

‘Pre-jab, one or two cases per year of myocarditis. Now, half his waiting room. Tells parents they are ‘studying’ the causality. Refers them to infectious disease specialist for discussions on their other children.

Admits he and about 50% of his colleagues know what’s going on but are too terrified to speak out for fear of retaliation from hospitals and state licensing boards.

Other 50% don’t want to know, don’t care and/or are reveling in the cognitive dissonance (like Dr. Harvey [Cohen] at Stanford) and/or letting loose their authoritarian demon. Good luck with these former colleagues of mine. The stench is overpowering.’

… From 1 or 2 cases per year to ‘half his waiting room.’ I don’t know the size of his waiting room, but it’s at least two people since he said ‘half.’ So, the rate has increased by: 250 day per year open/1.5 avg cases per year=166X.”

Myocarditis Is Not a Mild, Inconsequential Side Effect

Together with Dr. Peter McCullough, in October 2021 Rose also submitted a paper8 on myocarditis cases in VAERS following the COVID jabs to the journal Current Problems in Cardiology. Everything was set for publication when, suddenly, the journal changed its mind and took it down.

You can still find the pre-proof on Rose’s website, though. The data clearly show that myocarditis is inversely correlated to age, so the risk gets higher the younger you are. The risk is also dose-dependent, with boys having a sixfold greater risk of myocarditis following the second dose.

While our health authorities are shrugging off this risk saying cases are “mild,” that’s a frightening lie. The damage to the heart is typically permanent, and the three- to five-year survival rate for myocarditis has historically ranged from 56% to 83%.9

Patients with acute fulminant myocarditis (characterized by severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction requiring drug therapy or mechanical circulatory support10) who survive the acute stage have a survival rate of 93% at 11 years, whereas those with acute nonfulminant myocarditis (left ventricular systolic dysfunction, but otherwise hemodynamically stable11) have a survival rate of just 45% at 11 years.12

This could mean that anywhere from 7% to 55% of the teens injured by these shots today might not survive into their late 20s or early 30s. Some might not even make it into their early 20s! How is this possibly an acceptable tradeoff for a virus you have practically zero risk of dying from as a child or adolescent?

Excess Deaths Are Exploding, Including Among Teens

Throughout the pandemic, the COVID jab was held out as the way back to normalcy. Yet, despite mass injections and boosters, excess deaths keep rising. For example, in the week ending November 12, 2021, the U.K. reported 2,047 more deaths13 than occurred during the same period between 2015 and 2019.

COVID-19 cannot be entirely to blame, as it was listed on the death certificates for only 1,197 people. Even more telling is the fact that, since July 2021, non-COVID deaths in the U.K. have been higher than the weekly average in the five years prior to the pandemic. Heart disease and strokes appear to be behind many of the excess deaths, and both are known side effects of the COVID jab.

In a November 28, 2021, Twitter post,14 Silicon Valley software engineer Ben M. (@USMortality) revealed that in the preceding 13 weeks, about 107,700 seniors died above the normal rate, despite a 98.7% vaccination rate. In another example, he used data from the CDC and census.gov to show excess deaths rising in Vermont even as the majority of adults have been injected.15

“Vermont had 71% of their entire population vaccinated by June 1, 2021,” he tweeted. “That’s 83% of their adult population, yet they are seeing the most excess deaths now since the pandemic!”

Even more disturbing, British data show deaths among teenagers have spiked since that age group became eligible for the COVID shots.16 Between the week ending June 26 and the week ending September 18, 2020, 148 deaths were reported among 15- to 19-year-olds. Between the week ending June 25, 2021, and the week ending September 17, 2021, 217 deaths occurred in that age group. That’s an increase of 47%!

Deaths from COVID-19 also went up among 15- to 19-year-olds after the shots were rolled out for this age group. Significant concerns have been raised about the possibility that COVID-19 vaccines could worsen COVID-19 disease via antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE).17 Is that what’s going on here? As reported by The Exposé, which conducted the investigation:18

“Correlation does not equal causation, but it is extremely concerning to see that deaths have increased by 47% among teens over the age of 15, and COVID-19 deaths have also increased among this age group since they started receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, and it is perhaps one coincidence too far.”

Omicron Poses No Risk to Young People

As noted in a recent analysis by Dr. Robert Malone,19 (who recently got banned from Twitter but can be found on Substack), the risk-benefit ratio of the COVID shot is becoming even more inverted with the emergence of Omicron, as this variant produces far milder illness than previous variants, putting children at even lower risk of hospitalization or death from infection than they were before, and their risk was already negligible.

Malone is currently spearheading the second Physicians Declaration20 by the International Alliance of Physicians and Medical Scientists, which has been signed by more than 16,000 doctors and scientists, stating that “healthy children shall not be subjected to forced vaccination” as their clinical risk from SARS-CoV-2 infection is negligible and long term safety of the shots cannot be determined prior to such policies being enacted.

Not only are children at high risk for severe adverse events from the shots, but having healthy, unvaccinated children in the population is crucial to achieving herd immunity.

Shots Double Risk of Acute Coronary Syndrome

Researchers have also found Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 shots dramatically increase biomarkers associated with thrombosis, cardiomyopathy and other vascular events following injection.21

People who had received two doses of the mRNA jab more than doubled their five-year risk of acute coronary syndrome (ACS), the researchers found, driving it from an average of 11% to 25%. ACS is an umbrella term that includes not only heart attacks, but also a range of other conditions involving abruptly reduced blood flow to your heart. In a November 21, 2021, tweet, cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra wrote:22

“Extraordinary, disturbing, upsetting. We now have evidence of a plausible biological mechanism of how mRNA vaccine may be contributing to increased cardiac events. The abstract is published in the highest impact cardiology journal so we must take these findings very seriously.”

AMA Is A-OK With Sacrificing Children

Tragically, it’s not only the CDC and FDA that have been captured by the drug industry and who are sacrificing public health, including the health of our children, in order to further the technocratic Great Reset agenda.

Even the American Medical Association, which is supposed to lobby for physicians and medical students in the U.S. and promote medicine for the betterment of public health, has abandoned all semblance of ethics, transparency and honesty.

In a mid-November 2021 article on the AMA’s website, “COVID-19 Vaccine for Kids: How We Know It’s Safe,”23 contributing news writer Tanya Albert Henry cites data straight from Pfizer’s press release, and then goes on to claim we “know it’s safe” because “younger children see the same side effects as has been seen in adults and teens.” Based on the VAERS data, that should send shivers down parents’ backs.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics is on board with vaccinating this age group, along with the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Pediatrics Infectious Diseases Society, said Dr. Fryhofer, chair-elect the AMA Board of Trustees,” Henry writes.

“Dr. Fryhofer … noted that myocarditis has been a rare occurrence after the second dose of the mRNA vaccines. ‘The observed risk is highest in young males age 12 to 29, but COVID infection can also cause myocarditis,’ she pointed out. ‘For adolescents and young adults, the risk of myocarditis caused by COVID infection is much higher than after mRNA vaccination.’”

Really? Where did Fryhofer get that idea? I’ve not seen any data to back that up, and Henry doesn’t provide any.

What Do the VAERS Data Show?

Research published in 201724 calculated the background rate of myocarditis in children and youth, showing it occurs at a rate of four cases per million per year. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2020 there were 73.1 million people under the age of 18 in the U.S.25 That means the background rate for myocarditis in adolescents (18 and younger) would be about 292 cases per year.

As of December 17, 2021, looking only at U.S. reports and excluding the international ones, VAERS had received:26

  • 308 cases of myocarditis among 18-year-olds
  • 252 cases among 17-year-olds
  • 226 cases in 16-year-olds
  • 256 cases in 15-year-olds
  • 193 in 14-year-olds
  • 132 in 13-year-olds

In total, that’s 1,475 cases of myocarditis in teens aged 18 and younger — five times the background rate. And again, this does not take into account the underreporting rate, which has been calculated to be anywhere from five to 40.

Meanwhile, the CDC27 claims that, between March 2020 and January 2021, “the risk for myocarditis was 0.146% among patients diagnosed with COVID-19,” compared to a background rate of 0.009% among patients who did not have a diagnosis of COVID-19.

After adjusting for “patient and hospital characteristics,” COVID-19 patients between the ages of 16 and 39 were on average seven times more likely to develop myocarditis than those without COVID.

That said, the CDC stressed that “Overall, myocarditis was uncommon” among all patients, COVID or not. What’s more, only 23.7% of myocarditis patients between the ages of 16 and 24 had a history of COVID-19, so a majority of the cases in that age group were not due to COVID.

We’re also not talking about big numbers in terms of actual COVID infections. The weekly adolescent hospitalization rate peaked at 2.1 per 100,000 in early January 2021, declined to 0.6 per 100,000 in mid-March, and rose to 1.3 per 100,000 in April.28

Using that peak hospitalization rate of 2.1 per 100,000 (or 21 per million) in this age group, and assuming the risk for myocarditis is 0.146% among COVID-positive patients, we get a myocarditis-from-COVID rate among adolescents of 0.03 per million. That’s a far cry from the normal background rate of four cases per million, so the risk of getting myocarditis from SARS-CoV-2 infection is probably quite small.

Now, assuming the COVID hospitalization rate for adolescents is 21 per million, and we have 73.1 million adolescents, we could expect there to be 1,535 hospitalizations for COVID in this age group in a year. If 0.146% of those 1,535 teens develop myocarditis, we could expect 2.2 cases of myocarditis to occur in this age group each year, among those who come down with COVID.

In summary, based on CDC statistics, we could expect just over two teens to contract myocarditis from COVID-19 infection. Meanwhile, we have 1,475 cases reported following the COVID jab in just six months (shots for 12- to 17-year-olds were authorized July 30, 202129).

Taking into account underreporting, the real number could be anywhere between 7,375 and 59,000 — again, in just six months! To estimate an annual rate, we’d have to double it, giving us anywhere from 14,750 to 118,000 cases of myocarditis. So, is it actually true that “For adolescents and young adults, the risk of myocarditis caused by COVID infection is much higher than after mRNA vaccination”? I doubt it.

Can You Lessen the Damaging Effects?

There is absolutely no medical rationale or justification for children and teens to get a COVID shot. It’s all risk and no gain. If for whatever reason your son or daughter has already received one or more jabs, and you hope to lessen their risk of cardiac and cardiovascular complications, there are a few basic strategies I would suggest implementing.

Keep in mind these suggestions DO NOT supersede or cancel out any medical advice they may receive from their pediatrician. These are really only recommendations for when there are no adverse symptoms. If your child experiences any symptoms of a cardiac or cardiovascular problem, seek immediate medical attention.

1. First and foremost, do not give them another shot or booster.

2. Measure their vitamin D level and make sure they take enough vitamin D orally and/or get sensible sun exposure to make sure their level is between 60 ng/mL and 80 ng/ml (150 to 200 nmol/l).

3. Eliminate all vegetable (seed) oils in their diet. This involves eliminating nearly all processed foods and most meals in restaurants unless you convince the chef to only cook with butter. Avoid any sauces or salad dressings as they are loaded with seed oils.

Also avoid conventionally raised chicken and pork as they are very high in linoleic acid, the omega-6 fat that is far too high in nearly everyone and contributes to oxidative stress that causes heart disease.

4. Consider giving them around 500 milligrams per day of NAC, as it helps prevent blood clots and is a precursor for the important antioxidant glutathione.

5. Consider fibrinolytic enzymes that digest the fibrin that leads to blood clots, strokes and pulmonary embolisms. The dose is typically two to six capsules, twice a day, but must be taken on an empty stomach, either an hour before or two hours after a meal. Otherwise, the enzymes will merely act as a digestive enzyme rather than digesting fibrin.

Sources and References

January 8, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

American Academy of Pediatrics Shills for Big Pharma, Pushes COVID Vaccines for Kids

By David Marks | The Defender | October 28, 2021

The public relations campaign to push COVID vaccines on children is at full throttle, as evidenced by a telling opinion piece published Tuesday in the New York Times — the same day an advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended granting Emergency Use Authorization for Pfizer’s shot for 5- to 11-year-olds.

In her op-ed, Dr. Lee Savio Beers — president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) — bluntly dictated the requisite information under the headline: “Yes, You’ll Want to Vaccinate Your Kids Against Covid. An Expert Explains Why.”

Times readers might make wiser decisions if they had more information about the true risks to their children. Beers acknowledged the widely supported data demonstrating children are at very low risk for severe illness or death — then made an eloquent though unfounded case for why they should be vaccinated anyway.

Beers declared vaccinating children will help slow the spread of the disease — contradicting conclusive studies that show vaccines do not stop transmission.

Beers and the AAP might have some conflict of interest due to the close financial and professional relationship they have with Pfizer.

Yet no one blinks, as an expert comes forward to front a product, manufactured by his pharmaceutical pals, as the FDA prepares to make an important decision.

Beers’ attempt at persuasion is a classic snake-oil sales pitch, declaring the special qualities of his cure, albeit with no supporting data.

With unfounded confidence, she projects sacrosanct wisdom, even daring to say: “The expanded availability of vaccines should bring peace of mind to many families …”

The extremis of vaccine promotion has reached a ludicrous new level. However, the damage that is about to be inflicted on children is criminal.

Although the FDA heard concerns about the practicality and risks of vaccinating young children, it seemed members of the panel had already made up their minds.

U.S. government regulators and their colleagues at the AAP are complicit in devious criminality.

The AAP has a history of supporting the position of Big Pharma. It includes denying the dangers of mercury and thimerosal in vaccines, endorsing routine HPV vaccines and recommending Ritalin, a psychiatric drug, for 4-year-olds.

The academy also officially denied any dangers of GMO foods, including milk containing growth hormones — proven to have disease-inducing estrogen levels — suggesting there are no benefits to organic products.

Before trusting the latest sage advice from Beers and the AAP, parents should know the AAP was ambiguous for years, and certainly didn’t mount any campaign around the issue, even though they were aware of the evidence linking pesticides and cancer in children.

How many children’s lives could have been saved if there were opinion pieces in newspapers across the country warning about the risks of household chemicals?

The AAP’s failure to alert the public to the known risk of childhood leukemia from chemical exposure before birth and a child’s early years is negligent, yet the academy wasted no time in advising parents to inject a risky, experimental vaccine into healthy young children for a virus that poses little if any risk to them.

Severe illness and deaths among children are much greater than the repercussions of the COVID virus, yet the scare tactics are being ramped up to sell the vaccine.

In what is potentially the greatest historical instance of iatrogenesis, the youth of America are about to participate in an experiment promulgated by those who should be protecting them.

If the AAP is truly concerned about children’s health, we should be reading opinion pieces regarding the dangers of environmental toxins, the benefits of breastfeeding in reducing cancerdietary risks of denatured foods and concerns for the immense pressure that children are under to conform to a society distorted by the pressure to consume at any cost.

David Marks is an investigative reporter and documentary producer. His new book, “The Way,” is an interpretation of the Chinese classic, the Tao Te Ching, available at LaoTzu-TheWay.org.

© [Article Date] Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

October 31, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Pediatricians Remove Info on Mask Risks, Dangers for Kids

By Dr. Joseph Mercola | September 20, 2021

Throughout 2020 and 2021, ever since the declared COVID-19 pandemic, government officials consistently have been inconsistent in their assessments and recommendations for public health. In August 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) joined the ranks when they endorsed the CDC’s recommendation for masking.1

Since they did not want to be seen holding inconsistent positions, they removed years of information from their website that explained the importance of facial cues to early brain and child development. The removal of the content culminated August 12, 2021, with the fourth in a series of tweets, in which they said:2

“Babies and young children study faces, so you may worry that having masked caregivers would harm children’s language development. There are no studies to support this concern. Young children will use other clues like gestures and tone of voice.”

At the end of the tweet, they provided a link to an article on HealthyChildren.org3 that suggested “… when one sense is taken away, the others may be heightened.” The series of tweets was aimed at masking in general, stating:4

  • Masks work to reduce the spread of COVID-19 among children
  • Masks are a vital part of keeping kids safe at school this fall
  • Masks do not compromise children’s breathing
  • Being around adults wearing masks doesn’t delay babies’ speech or language development

Experts argue over the efficacy and necessity of masking a population that has minimal risk from the virus. You need look no further than the CDC’s website,5 which shows that children ages birth to 17 had a death rate of 0.08% in 2021 and 0.05% in 2020. Yet, it was the final statement — that masking doesn’t affect children’s development — that unleashed a reaction on Twitter from parents, speech therapists and physicians who heartedly disagreed.

American Academy of Pediatrics Caught in a Quandary

To support the unsubstantiated long-term use of masks, the AAP turned their back on years of research and their own information on the importance of facial cues with infants to protect and promote brain growth and development.

To make this work, the organization has taken down significant sections from their website about early childhood development. Reuters6 asked why the content was removed the weekend after the tweets were published. They were told the content was in the process of being migrated to a different platform.

A spokesperson told Reuters, “The AAP can confirm that our web content migration has nothing to do with AAP’s mask guidance.”7 They assured Reuters the content would be republished, but were unsure about the timeline; they expect it to be complete by the end of the year.

In other words, this well-funded and organized group is coincidentally “migrating” one key section of web content that curiously contradicts their new mask guidance, and planned this so it would take months to complete.

According to Reuters,8 any links to this content that come up in the search engine are now redirected to the AAP’s homepage. However, not all the content has been deleted since other organizations use the AAP documents to educate their clients.

For example, the “Building ‘Piece’ of Mind” pdf that was pulled as a resource on the AAP website9 is available on the Ohio Bold Beginning! site and branded with the Ohio chapter of the AAP.10 You can also download the full document from an Internet archive.11

The now “migrated” document encourages parents to pay attention to their emotional responses to their children, since “Feelings are a language that your infant understands early in life.”12 Yet, without facial cues, it’s challenging for adults, much less children, to read and understand emotional reactions. In the migrated document, the AAP says:

“As your baby grows, social smiles lead to conversations. For example: When you smile, your infant will smile back … This ‘dance’ between you and your baby is fun for both of you. It is a great way to encourage your baby’s new skills as they appear. For this important dance to work, calmly and consistently meet your baby’s needs … and smile!”

But how is that supposed to work if your baby is staring at you and other adults who have two-thirds of their faces covered with masks? How do babies know you’re smiling if your entire face is covered up? In response to the AAP, Dr. James Todaro, who runs the website MedicineUncensored, tweeted:13

“AAP in 2018: ‘How Do Infants Learn? Infants love to look at you and hear your voice. In fact, faces, with all their expressions, usually are more interesting than toys. Spend time talking, singing, and laughing. Play games of touching, stroking, and peek-a-boo.’

AAP in 2021: ‘Babies and young children study faces, so you may worry that having masked caregivers would harm children’s language development. There are no studies to support this concern. Young children will use other clues like gestures and tone of voice.’”

Did Pfizer’s Funding of the AAP Influence Their Mask Policy?

Shortly after the AAP took down their facial cue documents and posted their new masking recommendations for children, a retired chief of police questioned the AAP’s motives — and in a telling opinion piece for Law Enforcement Today,14 he revealed that Pfizer is one of the AAP’s largest funders.

Twitter users15 noticed it too, with several asking what would Pfizer’s funding have to do with the AAP’s mask recommendations. Finally, one person figured it out, saying, “perhaps the plan is to get parents so fed up with their children having to wear them they break down and get them the vax.”

In fact, the AAP itself linked vaccination to mandatory mask-wearing quite clearly when they talked with NBC news,16 which reported: “The AAP said universal masking is necessary because much of the student population is not vaccinated, and it’s hard for schools to determine who is as new variants emerge that might spread more easily among children.”

When you consider that another COVID vaccine maker, Johnson & Johnson, is also a funder for the AAP — and that Dr. Anthony Fauci made the news September 9, 2021,17 saying that vaccines for children as young as 6 months may be ready as soon as November 2021 — the idea that the AAP would consider setting the stage for parents to come begging for a vaccine doesn’t sound so off the wall.

Not Just Children Are Affected

An AAP staffer was quoted in Live From Studio 6B,18 saying, “AAP recommends masks in schools and public settings to protect children. These documents are more about interactions between infants and their parents or primary caregiver, much of which will be in a home setting where masks are usually not needed.”

However, masking facial cues affects infants and young children in day care situations and when they are out of their home. This impacts “social referencing,” which the AAP finds important to child development and refers to the ability to read the face of a stranger.19

Research20 shows mothers have unique central nervous system responses when they first see the face of their newborn. This demonstrates the significance of facial cues in building mother-infant bonding. Yet, as comments on a Twitter thread point out, infants and children are not the only ones suffering from a lack of facial cues. Twitter user MDaly is a mother and teacher, who commented:21

“I teach English to students who are not native English speakers. Wearing a mask absolutely affected their language development last year. I had to ask students to repeatedly speak up and repeat themselves which negatively affects their self-esteem as well.”

A letter to the editor in The BMJ 22 expounds on the challenges faced by adults who are hearing impaired with mandatory masking. Health care has always been challenging for those with hearing impairment, especially in emergency departments where the noise level is high. Alexandra Dumitru is hearing impaired and commented:23

“Zero common sense. It’s tragic what our health institutions have become. First the CDC, now this — even adults benefit from seeing a full face. As someone hearing impaired masks have been a nightmare for me. Kids copy adults; they need to see mouths move.”

Data Are Sparse for a Very Good Reason

The AAP stated that there were no studies to support the concern that baby’s and young children’s development would be impeded by the constant use of masks in the adults who care for them. Yet, as one person on Twitter said, “If you don’t study something, you can say there are no studies.”24

However, the data are sparse and there are no studies analyzing the effect of masking on young children because before 2020 it would never have passed an ethical review board. Imagine gathering a cohort of 40 infants. Nearly from the time of birth 20 parents would wear masks anytime they had interactions with their children. The other 20 would serve as a control group, being raised in a way formerly advised by the AAP.

After five years of what could only be called abusive behavior, psychiatrists and behavior psychologists would test these children to find their brain development, language development and ability to recognize facial cues are stunted. And yet, the AAP would like us to believe that won’t happen — without testing infant development in an environment known to be detrimental, we cannot extrapolate the information and understand it would be detrimental.

In 1990, the world discovered a carefully guarded secret of the Romanian Communist Party’s leader, Nicolae Ceauşescu.25 After his execution the new government brought in Western psychologists and child specialists to help deal with the 170,000 children who were abandoned in orphanages where they received no interaction with adults.

Charles A. Nelson III, a professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, recounts his introduction to the environment these children lived in. He recalled:26

“I walked into an institution in Bucharest one afternoon, and there was a small child standing there sobbing. He was heartbroken and had wet his pants. I asked, ‘What’s going on with that child?’ A worker said, ‘Well, his mother abandoned him this morning and he’s been like that all day.’ That was it. No one comforted the little boy or picked him up. That was my introduction.”

The children in the orphanages of Romania not only didn’t have “face time” with their caregivers, but also didn’t have any comfort or interaction. It’s not hard to imagine how an infant, who relies on cues from other people to learn and grow, could be stunted by having little exposure to facial expressions.

The Still Face Experiment

The horrific environment these children and young adults lived in was the largest human experiment in which children did not receive interaction from other humans. Until, that is, 2020 and 2021, when many infants and children are being raised in an environment where they are unable to read facial cues. In this short video, you’ll see what happens during the “still face” experiment when the infant does not get a response from the mother.

The still face experiment demonstrated how infants are vulnerable to the emotional or nonemotional reactions of people. In the COVID-19 pandemic, infants and children are lacking visual facial cues, but the expectation is they continue to receive emotional interaction at the same level they did before the mask mandates.

Research has demonstrated that when parents struggle to be emotionally present with their children, the children grow up having more trouble with trust and regulating their own emotions.27 However, there has been no data before 2020 to determine if masking facial cues would cause children to grow up with the same issues.

Are Facial Cues Recognizable Through Masks?

Research produced after 2020 has demonstrated that children and adults struggle to recognize emotion in people who are masked. How this will affect overall child development and whether the children can “catch up” if mask mandates are ever removed, is yet to be determined.

For example, in one study28 published by the University of Wisconsin-Madison in December 2020, researchers engaged children ages 7 to 13 and showed them photos of people exhibiting six different emotions. Without the masks, the children identified the emotions correctly 66% of the time.29

However, when masks were in place, this dropped to between 18% and 28% for sadness, fear and anger. A second study30 in children ages 3 to 5 years demonstrated that the younger children had even more difficulty.

The data were in line with past literature that confirmed that a face mask affected understanding emotions. They found the toddlers’ performance was more influenced by a mask than older children and adults.31

Similar studies have also been performed with adults. One study32 published in September 2020 with 41 healthy adults aged 18 to 87 years presented the participants with photos of six different expressions.

When the photos were not wearing masks, the overall performance for identifying emotions was 89.5%. This dropped significantly when masks were in place. A second study33 published in Scientific Reports in 2021, analyzed the effects of masking to measure emotion recognition and trust attribution in 122 adult men and women.

The researchers found that standard masks interfered with both measures and made it more difficult to identify an individual they had already encountered when the mask was removed.

Data produced since 2020 have shown that masks do an excellent job of masking a person’s ability to read emotions, but likely do not have the same efficacy in slowing the spread of a virus. The question we therefore must ask is, what will be the long-term effect on the emotional and mental health of society as the generation of children raised without full exposure to facial cues become doctors, lawyers, businesspeople and politicians?

Sources and References

September 20, 2021 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Does the American Academy of Pediatrics Put Corporate Profits Ahead of Children’s Health?

By GARY NULL AND RICHARD GALE | CounterPunch | December 22, 2012

The United Nations recently announced that its Fifth Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee session, scheduled for January 2013, would propose a binding treaty to ban ethylmercury (commonly known as thimerosal) from all medications and vaccines worldwide. That is welcome news. But it has laid bare the battle lines between those government health departments and professional medical organizations who value the health of children and those who favor drug profiteering.

It is no surprise that the pharmaceutical industry and its special interest groups are moving aggressively to oppose a UN treaty ban on mercury. After all, one of Big Pharma’s prime directives is to resist any legislation, domestic or international, that threatens its sales and revenues.  But it is a big surprise, indeed, that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)—once a leader in advocating the removal of mercury from all medical products and vaccines—would now suddenly hold hands with Big Pharma to oppose the UN’s proposal.

Why would the AAP join with Big Pharma to oppose the UN mercury ban?  Why would it back-pedal away from its earlier confirmation that vaccine mercury is toxic and poses serious health risks? A look at the history of the AAP’s position on mercury will show us why. In its July 2001 issue of Pediatrics, the AAP released its official position on mercury: “Mercury in all its forms is toxic to the fetus and children, and efforts should be made to reduce exposure to the extent possible to pregnant women and children as well as the general population.”[1]  Yet in the recent December 17 2012 issue of Pediatrics, former AAP president Louis Cooper writes, “Science clearly documented that we can’t find hazards from thimerosal in vaccines… The preservative plays a critical role in distribution of vaccine to the global community. It was a no-brainer what our position needed to be.”[2]

The AAP’s original warning against thimerosal arrived a year following the illegal secret meeting convened by the CDC at the Simpsonwood retreat center near the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta. At that meeting, federal and international health officials, executives from the vaccine industry, and members of professional medical associations, including the AAP, were informed about the CDC’s analysis of vaccine injury reports in its Vaccine Safety Database (VSD). The study, known as the Verstraeten study after the name of its chief investigator, concluded that there was a direct link between vaccine mercury and the rise in autism. In a letter published in the journal Pediatrics, Dr. Eric Coleman at the FDA wrote, “the fact is, no preclinical or clinical studies were ever conducted to specifically examine the safety of thimerosal at the doses found when used in multiple infant and childhood vaccines. Thus, there is no conclusive evidence because there were no studies.”[3]

The Verstraeten study also led to Congressional hearings. The CDC was reprimanded for negligence, careless scientific oversight, conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical industry and administrative incompetence regarding decisions to protect children’s health.  Eventually policies were enforced to remove thimerosal from vaccines given in the US; although this mandate was never carried out thoroughly to this day.

However, thimerosal reduction and removal only applied to vaccines distributed in the US. Vaccine makers continued to manufacture vaccines containing thimerosal to other countries, particularly in the developing world. American stockpiles of mercury containing vaccines were simply sold and exported overseas.

During a period of several years the CDC further manipulated, massaged, and distorted the original Verstraeten research to hide any data that would suggest possible causality between mercury and autistic disorders. On five separate occasions Dr. Verstraeten slanted data. For example, 25% of reported vaccine injuries were cherry picked and removed to generate statistical confusion. The CDC’s final paper was published in the AAP’s Pediatrics journal and declared vaccine thimerosal safe and does not contribute to neurological damage in infants and children. As a side note, Dr. Verstraeten had already slipped out of the CDC to work for GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccine division when his paper was published.

The CDC’s publication in Pediatrics completely altered how vaccines would be manufactured for American children and resurrected the thimerosal-autism debate. But more important it is among the greatest scientific perversions in the history of medical literature.  The AAP was complicit in the fraud for having failed to conduct due diligence and proper peer-review before approving it for publication. Instead the Academy sided with Big Pharma’s favorite lobbying group—the CDC.

The story of the secret Simpsonwood meeting, the CDC’s subsequent fraudulent studies, Congressional investigations and the National Institute of Environmental Health Science’s analysis of the CDD’s research is well documented. However, what is less known is the CDC’s attempts to avoid answering many NIEHS and Congress’s complaints.  In a letter to Pediatrics, Dr. Ken Stoller, a UCLA pediatrician and a former fellow of the AAP, noted how then CDC Director Dr. Julie Geberding in the final moments under pressure to give account for the CDC’s wide range of errors in its study stated, “CDC concurs that conducting ecologic analysis using VSD administrative data to address potential associations between thimerosal exposure and the risk of autism spectrum disorder is not useful.”[4]

And here is the rub. Every study the pro-vaccine community quotes to discredit a thimerosal-autism association is either an ecologic study (investigating and comparing statistics between one or more populations) or cohort study (looking at risks or illness in the history of a group or population). Both types of studies are inferior to controlled studies looking at medical conditions in vitro or in vivo. Neither do they follow sound scientific protocol in order to draw definitive conclusions.  Moreover, the most frequent criticism of ecologic and cohort research is the wide scope of deceptive data manipulation such studies lend themselves to in order to arrive at the researcher’s desired result.  For example, in CDC studies, the agency has never compared autism rates in vaccinated children with a population of children who were unvaccinated or had not received mercury laced vaccines.  The lack of such a study should have been a no-brainer for the AAP.

Therefore, if the CDC ecologic study was ruled bogus by its own head of the agency, then why should any credibility be given to other ecologic and cohort studies performed, supported by and/or funded by the CDC.  And it is only such studies that are repeatedly quoted and referred to by thimerosal-autism deniers.

Not a single study in the vaccine industry’s arsenal is biologic. The federal health agencies refuse to conduct convincing biologic studies to bring the thimerosal-autism debate to closure. The reason is simple: there is not an ounce of evidence that such studies would conclude in their favor, otherwise such research would have been performed during this decades long argument.

Nevertheless, independent biologic studies have shown repeatedly that thimerosal is linked to neurological degeneration, including autism, Asperger’s, ADD and ADHD, tics and seizures, etc.  A recent review of all thimerosal research recorded in the National Institutes of Health publication database, PubMed, by the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Universidade de Brasilia in Brazil determined that the biologic data reveals 1) low doses of thimerosal against isolated human and animal brain cells found in all studies characteristic mercury neurotoxicity, 2) there has yet to be studies showing the neurotoxic effects when thimersosal is combined with aluminum, another neurotoxic chemical and common vaccine ingredient, and 3) animal studies show that thimerosal exposure leads to the accumulation of inorganic mercury in the brain.[5]

Dr. Stoller concludes that we now “have a generation of pediatricians, who face perhaps the greatest iatrogenic accident in the history of pediatrics, who actually need to be deprogrammed to understand what the true nature of all neuro-behavioral problems are that they confront without any understanding of etiology or potential interventions.”[6] And the organization mandated to assure America’s pediatricians remain ignorant about the dangers of thimerosal-containing vaccines is the AAP.

A favorite rationale voiced frequently by professional medical associations, such as the AAP and AMA, is since we don’t have conclusive proof to confirm the health risks of a particular vaccine, or chemical found in every day foods and products, or a GM frankenfood, then it is best to side with private industry rather than adopt preventative cautionary measures until such proof is determined.  Common sense unveils this distorted logic, which exonerates the drug, food and chemical industries from having to prove their product is safe before entering the market.

Although AAP has taken positive social stands to improve child welfare, it has failed to protect children from their greatest enemy — the pharmaceutical and chemical industrial complex.  To its credit the Academy has opposed budget reductions affecting the health and welfare of children in poverty; it supports funding that would increase consumption of fruits and vegetables  in school programs, and has supported the removal of school soda vending machines in its fight against obesity. But when addressing the prevention of diseases that directly affect the medical industry, the AAP’s record is dismal.  Among its official recommendations favoring corporate profit rather than promoting pediatric health are the following:

Routine HPV Vaccine.  AAP officially supports the CDC’s recommendation that all males, starting at age 11, be routinely vaccinated with Merck’s quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine (Gardasil). Earlier the Academy gave its full approval for routine vaccination of all school aged girls. Since then, Drs. Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic at the University of British Columbia have published a peer-review study of their investigation into brain tissues from two New Zealand teenagers who died after Gardasil vaccinations. In both cases, DNA from the vaccine’s HPV virus was found embedded in the girl’s brain cells, which resulted in the likely cause of death. [7]

Psychiatric Drugs for Four-Year Olds.  In 2011, AAP changed their recommendations for prescribing mood-altering psychiatric and psychotropic medications to children.  The Academy reduced the age for diagnosing ADHD to 4 years from its prior threshold of 6 years.  Its recommendations are that behavioral therapy precede administering drugs, in particular Ritalin. Yet this recommendation will unlikely be followed.  Today, less than 20 percent of practicing psychiatrists perform behavioral therapy and prescribing drugs is now the ruling paradigm regardless of age. Ritalin is classified in the same category with cocaine, morphine and opium. Its adverse effects include hallucinations, mania, heart problems and death.  But the AAP seems to be fine with that for pre-schoolers. Then again, the AAP’s chairman for ADHD guidelines, Dr. Mark Wolraich, is a consultant for psychotropic drug companies including Shire Pharmaceutical, Eli Lilly, Shinogi and Next Wave Pharmaceuticals.[8]

Statin Drugs for Children. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) has investigated AAP’s financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. At the time AAP officially recommended prescribing statin drugs to lower cholesterol for children, it had received over $1.4 million in contributions from major statin makers, including Merck, Abbott and Bristol Myers Squibb.[9]  The Academy also had lowered the minimum age for children to take statins from 10 years to 8 years. Among the statins being prescribed, the FDA expanded warning list of adverse effects to include liver injury, memory loss, increased diabetes risk, and muscle damage.[10]

Genetically Modified Food.  During the autumn 2012 battle in California to mandate labeling of genetically modified foods, AAP fell on the side of Monsanto, DuPont and other agro-chemical corporations. In the Academy’s official report on its position regarding GM produce, it agrees with the seed industry that GM and organic products are nutritionally equivalent.  “Current evidence,’ the report reads, ‘does not support any meaningful nutritional benefits or deficits from eating organic compared to conventionally grown foods, and there are no well-powered human studies that directly demonstrate health benefits or disease protection as a result of consuming an organic diet.”[11]  Neither has the Academy come out publicly to favor the urgent need for safety trials to be conducted on GM foods before entering the food supply.

Milk and Dairy.  In its GMO statement, the AAP claims there are no significant health benefits from organic milk and downplayed the risks posed from growth hormone and estrogen given to dairy cattle. The reports states, “Ingestion of milk from estrogen-treated cows appears to be safe for children.”[12] Apparently the AAP had a moment of unconsciousness during the time studies flooded journals showing that genetically modified bovine growth factor (rBGH) increased IGF-1, which contribute to prostate, breast, colorectum, gastrointestinal and lung cancers.[13]

Pesticides.  The AAP is ambiguous regarding the dangers and health risks of pesticides, although all independent research shows chemical pesticides contribute to serious diseases that are appearing increasing among American children. The Academy’s policy report on GMOs states, “Although chronic pesticide exposure and measurable pesticide metabolites seem undesirable and potentially unhealthy, no studies to date have experimentally examined the causal relationship between exposure to pesticides directly from conventionally grown foods and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes.”

Water Fluoridation. AAP continues to support the Department of Health and Human Services’ and the Environmental Protection Agency’s commitment to water fluoridation. In 2005, EPA employee unions called for a moratorium on fluoridation programs after a cover-up at Harvard’s School of Dental Medicine leaked and revealed elevated risk of fatal bone cancer in young boys consuming fluoride.  However, the US remains one of the few developed countries that continue the barbaric practice of water fluoridation. Throughout most of Europe, 97% of nation populations drink fluoride-free water. The Swedish government health authorities officially state that there is no credible safety data available to support fluoride; Japan’s official policy is that water fluoridation “may cause health problems.” As early as 1977, Germany’s association of water experts rejected fluoridation” because “the so-called optimal fluoride concentration of 1 mg per liter is close to the dose at which long-term damage to the human body is to be expected.”

* * *

We believe there should be an independent Congressional investigation overseen by experts in immunology and public health science to review all existing studies that have been used as a basis for determining the safety and efficacy of schedules for all vaccines. We propose a long-term human study comparing one group of vaccinated people following existing protocols and another group given no vaccines, followed on a three month basis for five years, to determine which group is provided with a statistically significant benefit. However, no one affiliated with the study should have any direct or indirect financial ties to any vaccine industry or pharmaceutical interest nor should anyone be selected who has shown previous bias on the topic.

Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the genomic industry. Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on nutrition and natural health and a multi-award-winning director of progressive documentary films, including Vaccine Nation and Autism: Made in the USA.

Notes

[1]  Levin, Myron “Battle Lines Drawn Over Mercury in Shots” Los Angeles Times, April 10, 2006)

[2]  Tavernise, S  “Vaccine Rule is Said to Hurt Health Efforts”  New York Times, December 17, 2012

[3]  Stoller, K  http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2008/06/ken-stollers-letter-to-pediatrics-on.html

[4]  Ibid.

[5]  Dorea JG. “Integrating Experimental (In Vitro and In Vivo) Neurotoxicity Studies of Low-dose Thimerosal Relevant to Vaccines” Neurochem Res. 2011 Feb 25.

[6] Stoller, K  op cit.

[7]  Tomljenovic L, Shaw C. “Death after Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination: Causal or Coincidental?” Pharmaceutical Regulatory  Affairs, doi.org/10.4172/2167-7689.S12-001

[8]  Citizens Commission on Human Rights “American Academy of Pediatrics Promotes Big Pharma Agenda Drugging 4-year-olds” October 17, 2011  http://www.cchrint.org

[9]  Ibid

[10]  “FDA Expands Advice on Statin Risks”  http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm293330.htm

[11]  Forman J, Silverstein J, “Organic Foods: Health and Environmental Advantages and Disadvantages” http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/10/15/peds.2012-2579

[12]  Petersen A, “Report Supports Organic Produce but Not Milk” Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2012

[13]  Food and Water Watch, “rBGH: What the Research Shows” http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/factsheet/what-research-shows/

December 22, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Comments Off on Why Does the American Academy of Pediatrics Put Corporate Profits Ahead of Children’s Health?