The unit provides no transparency
The UK Government’s “disinformation” unit is “working,” the Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said, after she was challenged by the Labour party who said the shadowy unit shut down last year.
In the UK, both the Conservative and Labour governments support more online censorship.
“It’s not the case, it’s not true; it is there, it is working,” Nadine Dorries said in response to a question this week.
“That work takes place daily, and daily we work to remove content online that is harmful and particularly when it comes to Covid-19, daily we have contact with the online providers.”
Ministers in the UK government created a “disinformation unit” to fight the spread of “false” information about COVID-19. The government felt that people were getting misleading information about the virus on social media.
The disinformation unit included civil servants in Whitehall. They were to work with communication experts and collaborate with social media companies.
At the time, then-Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “Defending the country from misinformation and digital interference is a top priority. As part of our ongoing work to tackle these threats we have brought together expert teams to make sure we can respond effectively should these threats be identified in relation to the spread of Covid-19.
“This work includes regular engagement with the social media companies, which are well placed to monitor interference and limit the spread of disinformation, and will make sure we are on the front foot to act if required.”
The team was supposed to focus on disinformation, which refers to the deliberate spreading of false information for personal gain or “trolling.”
The misleading information the government was concerned about included recommendations of cures that are ineffective or potentially “dangerous” and “false claims” about the origin of the coronavirus.
Social media companies had already begun flagging Covid-related misinformation and directing users to what they deemed reliable sources.
January 8, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
Leave a comment
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 aletho |
Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | AMA, American Academy of Pediatrics, CDC, COVID-19 Vaccine, FDA, United States |
Leave a comment
In an internal memo sent by El Camino Hospital CMO Mark Adams to hospital staff, he disclosed three things that nobody is supposed to know and that the mainstream press is just never going to cover.
But hey, I’m not in the mainstream press, so I will cover it.
Here are the three key admissions:
- “Currently, 57% of our hospitalized COVID patients are fully vaccinated.” In other words, a clear majority, almost 2/3 of the COVID patients in the hospital, are fully vaccinated. This suggests that the vaccines hardly work at all since this is slightly less than the vaccination rate in the area.
- “Only one patient is on a ventilator which is consistent with the evidence that the Omicron variant is more contagious but less virulent.” This suggests that all the panic and lockdowns to prepare for Omicron are insane.
- “SCC public health has issued a new order that potentially might cripple our ability to provide patient care. This is the only county in CA that is mandating that no health care worker (HCW) that is not boosted or has an approved exemption from vaccination can continue to work after January 24.” In short, in my opinion, Dr. Adams has correctly determined that Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody is a complete bozo and is deliberately compromising patient safety because she can’t interpret the science correctly. He’s just making this accusation a lot more tactfully and diplomatically than I ever would. This just shows you how out of control our public health officials are. There is effectively no oversight for the reckless decisions of these people.
Kudos to Dr. Adams for telling the truth.
Here’s the memo:
MEMO
To: El Camino Health Medical Staff
From: Mark Adams CMO
Subject: COVID-19 Update
Date: January 6, 2022
Colleagues:
We are now in the midst of a COVID-19 surge driven by the Omicron variant.
…
Currently, 57% of our hospitalized COVID patients are fully vaccinated. Most have underlying medical conditions such as immunocompromised. Only one patient is on a ventilator which is consistent with the evidence that the Omicron variant is more contagious but less virulent. Unlike during previous surges, our biggest challenge this time is not the patients but staffing. We are seeing many community acquired infections in our employees making it difficult to fully staff the hospitals. To help maintain adequate staffing and still maintain a safe environment for patients we have modified our isolation and quarantine policies to reflect the differences in the behavior of the Omicron variant. Anyone who is exposed but asymptomatic can continue to work unless symptoms develop without the need for testing. Anyone who becomes symptomatic and tests positive must isolate for 5 days then if asymptomatic for 24 hours may return to work without testing. For physicians who are symptomatic but need to work, we continue to offer special testing. The physician can contact the house supervisor (AHM) who will bring a test kit to the car in the parking lot, the physician swabs themselves, the AHM then delivers the test to the lab and provides the rapid test result to the waiting physician. This is only for symptomatic must work situations. (Asymptomatic testing is now in short supply so cannot always be readily available.)
SCC public health has issued a new order that potentially might cripple our ability to provide patient care. This is the only county in CA that is mandating that no health care worker (HCW) that is not boosted or has an approved exemption from vaccination can continue to work after January 24. We believe this is an overreach and is not consistent with the evolution of the effects of the Omicron variant. Hopefully, this will be reconsidered.
Because of the potential for a continued increase in hospitalized COVID-19 patients and further staffing shortages we may need to reduce/restrict elective procedures at our facilities. We are monitoring this on a day to day basis but please be prepared that this could be necessary in the near short term. We will keep you updated on that possibility.
We do have a limited supply of sotrovimab for IV infusion for high risk patients that test positive to prevent worsening symptoms. This is administered in the ED. Paxlovid distribution will be controlled by the state and has not yet been released.
The bottom line is that the “pandemic” is changing to “endemic” so will most likely be with us for an extended period of time. This means that while it is no longer an emergency or crisis it is something that we must adapt to and accept as a regular part of our health care business.
Mark Adams, MD, FACS
Chief Medical Officer, Administration Department
2500 Grant Rd, Mountain View, CA 94040
Pandemic of the unvaccinated?
Just one more thing…
Didn’t the CDC say earlier this year that this is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”?
For example, this article from US News and World Report (July 16, 2021) says:
The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday warned that COVID-19 is becoming a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the coronavirus are increasing nationwide, adding that over 97% of new hospitalizations are in patients who are unvaccinated.
“There is a clear message that is coming through,” Walensky said at a press briefing. “This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated. We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk, and communities that are fully vaccinated are generally faring well.”
Someone is lying to you. Hint: It isn’t Mark Adams.
Of course it is certainly possible that El Camino Hospital is a statistical outlier. But that’s a huge difference from what is claimed, so is statistically unlikely.
And for those accusing me (without any evidence) of cherry picking from confidential internal memos meant for hospital staff only, let me clarify that this is the only such memo of this type I’ve ever received. So you can’t use the cherry picking argument.
Maybe it is time for our CDC Director to start telling the American people the truth?
Nah. Not going to happen.
January 7, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
Leave a comment
I know the liberal judges still seem to have no idea that the vaccines don’t end infection or transmission, but they aren’t the majority.
Here’s the current lead of the New York Times article about today’s Supreme Court hearings on the mandates. It shows the conservative justices – importantly, including Chief Justice John Roberts – have serious questions about the most important mandate, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule that covers workers at big companies:
The OSHA mandate is clearly at the greatest risk, as it is the biggest reach both legally and medically. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services mandate on health-care workers at least fits with what CMS does, and trying to protect patients from communicable disease is a worthy goal. (Too bad the Covid vaccines don’t stop infection or transmission.)
I suspect the OSHA mandate goes. What happens to health-care workers may depend on whether Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh know the science well enough to understand how useless the vaccines have become. If not, they might just decide to split the difference and allow the CMS mandate to move forward. That would be a (seemingly) reasonable decision, and Roberts likes to seem reasonable…
January 7, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
Leave a comment
On behalf of a client, my firm requested that the FDA produce all the data submitted by Pfizer to license its Covid-19 vaccine. The FDA asked the Court for permission to only be required to produce at a rate of 500 pages per month, which would have taken over 75 years to produce all the documents.
I am pleased to report that a federal judge soundly rejected the FDA’s request and ordered the FDA to produce all the data at a clip of 55,000 pages per month!
This is a great win for transparency and removes one of the strangleholds federal “health” authorities have had on the data needed for independent scientists to offer solutions and address serious issues with the current vaccine program – issues which include waning immunity, variants evading vaccine immunity, and, as the CDC has confirmed, that the vaccines do not prevent transmission.
No person should ever be coerced to engage in an unwanted medical procedure. And while it is bad enough the government violated this basic liberty right by mandating the Covid-19 vaccine, the government also wanted to hide the data by waiting to fully produce what it relied upon to license this product until almost every American alive today is dead. That form of governance is destructive to liberty and antithetical to the openness required in a democratic society.
In ordering the release of the documents in a timely manner, the Judge recognized that the release of this data is of paramount public importance and should be one of the FDA’s highest priorities. He then aptly quoted James Madison as saying a “popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy” and John F. Kennedy as explaining that a “nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
The following is the full text of the Judge’s order, a copy of which is also available here.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
PHMPT, Plaintiff v. FDA, Defendant, No. 4:21-cv-1058-P
ORDER
This case involves the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”). Specifically, at issue is Plaintiff’s FOIA request seeking “[a]ll data and information for the Pfizer Vaccine enumerated in 21 C.F.R. § 601.51(e) with the exception of publicly available reports on the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System” from the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”). See ECF No. 1. As has become standard, the Parties failed to agree to a mutually acceptable production schedule; instead, they submitted dueling production schedules for this Court’s consideration. Accordingly, the Court held a conference with the Parties to determine an appropriate production schedule.[1] See ECF Nos. 21, 34.
“Open government is fundamentally an American issue” – it is neither a Republican nor a Democrat issue.[2] As James Madison wrote, “[a] popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps, both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”[3] John F. Kennedy likewise recognized that “a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”[4] And, particularly appropriate in this case, John McCain (correctly) noted that “[e]xcessive administrative secrecy . . . feeds conspiracy theories and reduces the public’s confidence in the government.”[5]
Echoing these sentiments, “[t]he basic purpose of FOIA is to ensure an informed citizenry, [which is] vital to the functioning of a democratic society.” NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. 214, 242 (1977). “FOIA was [therefore] enacted to ‘pierce the veil of administrative secrecy and to open agency action to the light of public scrutiny.’” Batton v. Evers, 598 F.3d 169, 175 (5th Cir. 2010) (quoting Dep’t of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 361 (1976)). And “Congress has long recognized that ‘information is often useful only if it is timely’ and that, therefore ‘excessive delay by the agency in its response is often tantamount to denial.’” Open Soc’y Just. Initiative v. CIA, 399 F. Supp. 3d 161, 165 (S.D.N.Y. 2019) (quoting H.R. REP. NO. 93-876, at 6271 (1974)). When needed, a court “may use its equitable powers to require an agency to process documents according to a court-imposed timeline.” Clemente v. FBI, 71 F. Supp. 3d 262, 269 (D.D.C. 2014).
Here, the Court recognizes the “unduly burdensome” challenges that this FOIA request may present to the FDA. See generally ECF Nos. 23, 30, 34. But, as expressed at the scheduling conference, there may not be a “more important issue at the Food and Drug Administration . . . than the pandemic, the Pfizer vaccine, getting every American vaccinated, [and] making sure that the American public is assured that this was not [] rush[ed] on behalf of the United States . . . .” ECF No. 34 at 46. Accordingly, the Court concludes that this FOIA request is of paramount public importance.
“[S]tale information is of little value.” Payne Enters., Inc. v. United States, 837 F.2d 486, 494 (D.C. Cir. 1988). The Court, agreeing with this truism, therefore concludes that the expeditious completion of Plaintiff’s request is not only practicable, but necessary. See Bloomberg, L.P. v. FDA, 500 F. Supp. 2d 371, 378 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 15, 2007) (“[I]t is the compelling need for such public understanding that drives the urgency of the request.”). To that end, the Court further concludes that the production rate, as detailed below, appropriately balances the need for unprecedented urgency in processing this request with the FDA’s concerns regarding the burdens of production. See Halpern v. FBI, 181 F.3d 279, 284–85 (2nd Cir. 1991) (“[FOIA] emphasizes a preference for the fullest possible agency disclosure of such information consistent with a responsible balancing of competing concerns . . . .”).
Accordingly, having considered the Parties’ arguments, filings in support, and the applicable law, the Court ORDERS that:
1. The FDA shall produce the “more than 12,000 pages” articulated in its own proposal, see ECF No. 29 at 24, on or before January 31, 2022.
2. The FDA shall produce the remaining documents at a rate of 55,000 pages every 30 days, with the first production being due on or before March 1, 2022, until production is complete.
3. To the extent the FDA asserts any privilege, exemption, or exclusion as to any responsive record or portion thereof, FDA shall, concurrent with each production required by this Order, produce a redacted version of the record, redacting only those portions as to which privilege, exemption, or exclusion is asserted.
4. The Parties shall submit a Joint Status Report detailing the progress of the rolling production by April 1, 2022, and every 90 days thereafter.[6]
SO ORDERED on this 6th day of January, 2022.
[1] Surprisingly, the FDA did not send an agency representative to the scheduling conference.
[2] 151 CONG. REC. S1521 (daily ed. Feb. 16, 2005) (statement of Sen. John Cornyn).
[3] Letter from James Madison to W.T. Barry (August 4, 1822), in 9 WRITINGS OF JAMES MADISON 103 (S. Hunt ed., 1910).
[4] John F. Kennedy, Remarks on the 20th Anniversary of the Voice of America (Feb. 26, 1962).
[5] America After 9/11: Freedom Preserved or Freedom Lost?: Hearing Before the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 108th Cong. 302 (2003).
[6] Although the Court does not decide whether the FDA correctly denied Plaintiff’s request for expedited processing, the issue is not moot. Should the Parties seek to file motions for summary judgment, the Court will take up the issue then.
January 7, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine |
Leave a comment
Omicron’s feeble attack on the lungs could make it less dangerous. Kozlov M. Nature. 2022 Jan 5. doi: 10.1038/d41586-022-00007-8. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34987210.
“Early indications from South Africa and the United Kingdom signal that the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is less dangerous than its predecessor Delta. Now, a series of laboratory studies offers a tantalizing explanation for the difference: Omicron does not infect cells deep in the lung as readily as it does those in the upper airways.”
Importance: I discussed this back on December 15th in my Substack article:
“Has Omicron shifted receptor binding specificity away from deep lung tissue? Could this be why it appears that Omicron is less severe than other variants?”
Now this has been confirmed in an animal model.
The importance of this research is also that it answers the question of whether those who have neither been infected or vaccinated will have a less severe course of disease. That answer is good news. Omicron is milder for everyone, significantly milder.
The CDC has now approved boosters for ages 12-17 years of age. Of course we all know that this age cohort, particularly young men, has significant adverse events. So, we all have to ask why is this happening? Omicron is mild, there is no need for a vaccine or a booster that does not stop transmission. In fact, there is even evidence that the vaccinated are catching Omicron more easily!
The truth is most of us have had some variant of COVID-19. But even if we haven’t, we will experience Omicron as a cold. But the vaccine has many adverse events – here are just a some of the peer reviewed literature on these side effects and death.
So, please parents – do your homework – make your decisions based on facts.
Omicron Variant (B.1.1.529): Infectivity, Vaccine Breakthrough, and Antibody Resistance. J Chem Inf Model. 2022 Jan 6. doi: 10.1021/acs.jcim.1c01451. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34989238.
Abstract
“… Here, we present a comprehensive quantitative analysis of Omicron’s infectivity, vaccine breakthrough, and antibody resistance. An artificial intelligence (AI) model, which has been trained with tens of thousands of experimental data and extensively validated by experimental results on SARS-CoV-2, reveals that Omicron may be over 10 times more contagious than the original virus or about 2.8 times as infectious as the Delta variant. On the basis of 185 three-dimensional (3D) structures of antibody-RBD complexes, we unveil that Omicron may have an 88% likelihood to escape current vaccines.
… However, its impacts on GlaxoSmithKline’s sotrovimab appear to be mild.”
Importance:
Based on modeling, the Omicron may have an 88% likelihood to escape current vaccines.
Do I need to write more?
Age-associated SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infection and changes in immune response in mouse model. Emerg Microbes Infect. 2022 Jan 6:1-36. doi: 10.1080/22221751.2022.2026741. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34989330.
Highlights:
Older individuals are at higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe outcome but the underlying mechanisms are incompletely understood. In addition, how age modulates SARS-CoV-2 re-infection and vaccine breakthrough infections remains largely unexplored. Here, we investigated age-associated SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis, immune responses, and the occurrence of re-infection and vaccine breakthrough infection utilizing a wild type C57BL/6N mouse model.
- The study demonstrates that interferon and adaptive antibody response upon SARS-CoV-2 challenge are significantly impaired in aged mice in comparison to young mice, which results in more effective virus replication and severe disease manifestations in the respiratory tract.
- Aged mice also showed increased susceptibility to re-infection due to insufficient immune protection acquired during primary infection.
Importance:
“In mice, a two-dose COVID-19 mRNA vaccination conferred limited adaptive immune response among the aged mice which rendered them susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
The significant adverse event profile of the genetic vaccines, combined with the more mild disease profile of Omicron has to raise the possibility that the boosters may not be good “medicine,” even for the elderly.
We will have more variants- natural immunity is robust and more broadly protective. Omicron is going to rip through the US population.
Maybe it is time to entirely re-evaluate our entire SARS-CoV-2 vaccination program?
January 7, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine |
Leave a comment
Before the COVID vaccines, cardiac arrest = very rare
Before the COVID vaccines, it was very rare for a healthy 13-old-year to die from a heart attack.
After the COVID vaccines, cardiac arrest = not so rare
Now, with the rollout of the COVID vaccines, it is becoming commonplace.
Remember Jacob Clynick, the 13-year old from Minnesota who died of cardiac arrest on June 20, 2021, just 3 days after his second Pfizer shot?
Here’s his VAERS record memorializing his death. Here’s the Defender story that appeared shortly after his death.
Fast forward 6 months later, there is still no investigation into his death! See this story which appeared in the Defender yesterday. It references emails which indicate that the autopsy had been completed prior to June 28, 2021. Silence from the CDC regarding the cause of death. Seriously?!?!? Jacob dies just 3 days after the jab due to cardiac arrest and six months later, despite the myocarditis link that they admit, they cannot figure this one out? WTF? Where is the accountability?
Ernest Ramirez’s son died of cardiac arrest as well, but he was 16. Dr. Peter McCullough looked at the death records and determined the death was caused by the vaccine. No acknowledgement from the CDC. Again, where is the accountability? Does the CDC have a better qualified expert than Peter McCullough? Did McCullough goof? Well, we don’t know because nobody is talking.
I’m pretty sure there isn’t any accountability left at the CDC. They completely glossed over the fact that the causes of death of the 14 kids (age 12-17) reported in VAERS were totally unusual. Five of the 14 kids died from cardiac arrest. That’s not normal, but they didn’t say anything.
Another 13-year-old bites the dust from cardiac arrest after vaccination
For the record, here’s the latest healthy 13-year-old to die from a heart attack.
Although this happened 6 months after his second shot, as we learned from the Bhakdi study, death from the vaccine can still happen 6 months after the shot. And we learned from that study that unless you know what to look for, the medical examiner is almost sure to miss the cause of death.
How many kids have to die before they acknowledge that the vaccines are killing kids?
I just wanted to memorialize Jack’s death so that it is not forgotten.
I hope that someday, someone will connect the dots and at least acknowledge that these kids were killed by the vaccine. Is that too much to ask?
This is going to keep happening until they halt the vaccines.
As I explained earlier, an estimated 800 kids have been killed by the COVID vaccines to date. We’ve already killed more kids from the vaccines than have died from COVID.
I’m forwarding my article to all of the CDC people involved in investigating Jacob’s death. I doubt I’ll hear anything back. But I wanted to make sure they are aware of all this. For the record.
January 7, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
Leave a comment
A LOT has been said about the psychological effects of Covid on the public. Worryingly, the management of an unpredictably mutating virus which is always one step ahead is fraying the composure of our leaders too.
In the last couple of weeks, Presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron have lashed out at fellow citizens who defy government orders to be vaccinated because they doubt ‘the science’ is truly settled in favour of a jab which has not been subjected to the full range of tests for side-effects later in life.
Exasperated by resistance to their Covid dictates, the American and French leaders appear to be losing their minds and their manners in the battle between the risks of vaccination and the risk of becoming serious ill with the virus.
Biden, alarmed by the refusal of one third of Americans to be vaccinated while Omicron is on the loose – though it causes mainly flu-like symptoms – warned them at Christmas that they faced a ‘winter of death’. Not one person in the US is yet known to have died from the latest Covid variant.
‘We are looking at a winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated, for themselves and their families and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm,’ quoth the ancient prophet of doom at a White House briefing whose message was that the unjabbed are not just selfish, they endanger the lives of everyone else.
Biden fingered them officially as ‘bad persons’, an unwelcome term in America where being a good person is vital to many. Not unnaturally, his presentation was badly received, reinforcing as it did the political polarisation between Democrats and Republicans, whom the former accuse of being the main vaccination hold-outs.
People, including essential workers, are being fired across America for defying Biden’s vaccination mandates.
Macron went further this week in a newspaper interview, threatening to ‘emmerder les non-vaccinés jusqu’au bout’. A polite translation of this is that he intends to go after them hard until they give in.
Emmerder – literally, to smear with sh*t – is a commonly used expression and is offensive or not according to context. Macron deliberately used it at its rudest and got the reaction he hoped for.
A session of parliament to discuss the government’s introduction of an updated vaccination passport restricting the freedom of movement of the unvaccinated was suspended in uproar when members heard the explosion of Macron’s little bomb.
He changed the focus of the argument from the virus to his brutal language. It’s likely to be a talking point for his opponents during his campaign for re-election this spring.
The fashion for politicians insulting the people they rely on to elect them was set by President Obama referring to ‘bitter clingers’ and Hillary Clinton describing some Midwestern voters as ‘deplorables’. (Those bad persons again.)
Biden and Macron forgot that these remarks were never forgiven by their targets and in Clinton’s case helped her to lose the race for the presidency.
Boris Johnson has at least grasped that, after two years of unprecedented exposure to the arbitrary powers of government, it is politically counter-productive to strain people’s patience with constant loosening and re-tightening of a Covid regime unknown in free countries outside wartime.
What is shocking about Biden, Macron, Obama and Clinton is the openness of their contempt for the people they govern as if being in public office conferred on them a wisdom that separated them from the common voters rather than the duty to lead with their consent.
There is nothing in our democratic system, adversarial as it is, that entitles politicians to treat us angrily. How many people, hearing the Biden and Macron anathemas, rushed out with arms bared to the needle?
I was vaccinated promptly myself because the odds pushed me that way. But I understand the motives of those who see obligatory vaccination – along with a sustained media campaign to vilify them – as a step too far by an overbearing state.
The certitudes of government’s own scientific advisers are offset by the determination of so many health professionals – including my own GP – to refuse the vaccines. What right do political leaders, themselves scientifically uneducated, have to threaten doctors and nurses who have daily experience of how medical treatments work and which can be trusted?
‘My body my choice’, the battle cry that worked so well for supporters of abortion, is suddenly off the table when the principle doesn’t suit politicians.
Biden and Macron weren’t showing leadership. What they expressed was frustration that, with all their power, they cannot force obedience on free-thinking citizens and anger that they will be blamed for the consequences. Macron especially forgot that the way we speak to each other in public matters. If you abuse people, they remember.
January 6, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, Emmanuel Macron, Hillary Clinton, Human rights, Joe Biden, Obama |
Leave a comment
The European (EEA and non-EEA countries) database of suspected drug reaction reports is EudraVigilance, verified by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and they are now reporting 36,257 fatalities, and 3,244,052 injuries following injections of four experimental COVID-19 shots:
From the total of injuries recorded, almost half of them (1,540,852) are serious injuries.
“Seriousness provides information on the suspected undesirable effect; it can be classified as ‘serious’ if it corresponds to a medical occurrence that results in death, is life-threatening, requires inpatient hospitalisation, results in another medically important condition, or prolongation of existing hospitalisation, results in persistent or significant disability or incapacity, or is a congenital anomaly/birth defect.”
A Health Impact News subscriber in Europe ran the reports for each of the four COVID-19 shots we are including here. It is a lot of work to tabulate each reaction with injuries and fatalities, since there is no place on the EudraVigilance system we have found that tabulates all the results.
Since we have started publishing this, others from Europe have also calculated the numbers and confirmed the totals.*
Here is the summary data through January 1, 2022.
Total reactions for the mRNA vaccine Tozinameran (code BNT162b2, Comirnaty) from BioNTech/ Pfizer: 16,471 deaths and 1,546,829 injuries to 01/01/2022
- 42,225 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 230 deaths
- 50,455 Cardiac disorders incl. 2,379 deaths
- 467 Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 45 deaths
- 20,812 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 11 deaths
- 1,616 Endocrine disorders incl. 5 deaths
- 23,826 Eye disorders incl. 37 deaths
- 124,211 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 652 deaths
- 386,451 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 4,668 deaths
- 1,780 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 83 deaths
- 17,061 Immune system disorders incl. 86 deaths
- 67,000 Infections and infestations incl. 1,769 deaths
- 28,457 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 302 deaths
- 38,560 Investigations incl. 487 deaths
- 10,496 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 269 deaths
- 185,798 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 204 deaths
- 1,451 Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 136 deaths
- 255,661 Nervous system disorders incl. 1,756 deaths
- 2,254 Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 58 deaths
- 232 Product issues incl. 3 deaths
- 28,114 Psychiatric disorders incl. 193 deaths
- 5,594 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 258 deaths
- 59,397 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 66,518 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 1,801 deaths
- 71,771 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 136 deaths
- 3,457 Social circumstances incl. 22 deaths
- 13,685 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 157 deaths
- 39,480 Vascular disorders incl. 718 deaths
Total reactions for the mRNA vaccine mRNA-1273 (CX-024414) from Moderna: 10,170 deaths and 465,080 injuries to 01/01/2022
- 9,961 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 113 deaths
- 15,564 Cardiac disorders incl. 1,039 deaths
- 179 Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 9 deaths
- 5,591 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 443 Endocrine disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 6,731 Eye disorders incl. 36 deaths
- 38,098 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 380 deaths
- 123,337 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 3,392 deaths
- 731 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 51 deaths
- 4,671 Immune system disorders incl. 19 deaths
- 18,236 Infections and infestations incl. 965 deaths
- 9,241 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 191 deaths
- 10,065 Investigations incl. 321 deaths
- 4,394 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 247 deaths
- 56,097 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 208 deaths
- 628 Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 79 deaths
- 78,044 Nervous system disorders incl. 965 deaths
- 815 Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 6 deaths
- 92 Product issues incl. 4 deaths
- 8,416 Psychiatric disorders incl. 169 deaths
- 2,725 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 197 deaths
- 10,682 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 9 deaths
- 20,529 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 1,077 deaths
- 24,552 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 90 deaths
- 2,029 Social circumstances incl. 41 deaths
- 2,227 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 172 deaths
- 11,002 Vascular disorders incl. 378 deaths
Total reactions for the vaccine AZD1222/VAXZEVRIA (CHADOX1 NCOV-19) from Oxford/AstraZeneca: 7,371 deaths and 1,117,914 injuries to 01/01/2022
- 13,616 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 261 deaths
- 20,296 Cardiac disorders incl. 788 deaths
- 215 Congenital familial and genetic disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 13,157 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 664 Endocrine disorders incl. 5 deaths
- 19,618 Eye disorders incl. 30 deaths
- 105,367 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 393 deaths
- 293,748 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 1,740 deaths
- 1,004 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 66 deaths
- 5,228 Immune system disorders incl. 35 deaths
- 36,265 Infections and infestations incl. 564 deaths
- 13,023 Injury poisoning and procedural complications incl. 188 deaths
- 24,589 Investigations incl. 191 deaths
- 12,747 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 113 deaths
- 164,732 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 144 deaths
- 704 Neoplasms benign malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 34 deaths
- 228,601 Nervous system disorders incl. 1,095 deaths
- 586 Pregnancy puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 19 deaths
- 194 Product issues incl. 1 death
- 20,622 Psychiatric disorders incl. 65 deaths
- 4,226 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 71 deaths
- 16,282 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 3 deaths
- 40,154 Respiratory thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 963 deaths
- 50,986 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 59 deaths
- 1,581 Social circumstances incl. 6 deaths
- 1,686 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 28 deaths
- 28,023 Vascular disorders incl. 497 deaths
Total reactions for the COVID-19 vaccine JANSSEN (AD26.COV2.S) from Johnson & Johnson: 2,245 deaths and 114,229 injuries to 01/01/2022
- 1,113 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 46 deaths
- 2,196 Cardiac disorders incl. 186 deaths
- 40 Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 1 death
- 1,227 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 3 deaths
- 93 Endocrine disorders incl. 1 death
- 1,548 Eye disorders incl. 9 deaths
- 9,141 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 87 deaths
- 30,336 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 623 deaths
- 143 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 13 deaths
- 509 Immune system disorders incl. 10 deaths
- 5,832 Infections and infestations incl. 187 deaths
- 1,060 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 23 deaths
- 5,197 Investigations incl. 126 deaths
- 709 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 55 deaths
- 16,069 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 50 deaths
- 80 Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 8 deaths
- 21,863 Nervous system disorders incl. 234 deaths
- 52 Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 1 death
- 29 Product issues
- 1,627 Psychiatric disorders incl. 21 deaths
- 485 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 29 deaths
- 2,625 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 4,115 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 283 deaths
- 3,506 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 10 deaths
- 372 Social circumstances incl. 4 deaths
- 785 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 69 deaths
- 3,477 Vascular disorders incl. 160 deaths
*These totals are estimates based on reports submitted to EudraVigilance. Totals may be much higher based on percentage of adverse reactions that are reported. Some of these reports may also be reported to the individual country’s adverse reaction databases, such as the U.S. VAERS database and the UK Yellow Card system. The fatalities are grouped by symptoms, and some fatalities may have resulted from multiple symptoms.
January 6, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, European Union |
Leave a comment
For many pilots who have chosen to remain unvaccinated for COVID-19, daily life has become a navigation of Catch-22s not seen since bombardiers were still stationed on Pianosa.
Jason Kunisch, a commercial airline pilot with 20 years experience and co-founder of the US Freedom Flyers, ponders whether OSHA can require him to take a newly approved vaccine, despite his long-held understanding that, “Traditionally pilots are not governed by OSHA… [but] by the FAA,” which prohibits pilots from taking newly approved drugs.
Sherry Walker, a United pilot with more than 24 years experience, and co-founder of Airline Employees for Health Freedom, copes with the reality that, according to her account, despite having received an exemption from United’s vaccine requirement in order to keep her job while unvaccinated, she can longer do her job or receive a paycheck, presumably until she is vaccinated.
Kate O’Brien, the Media Relations Director for the US Freedom Flyers, voices the frustration of her group’s members, as she describes how executive orders supposedly issued to keep Americans employed and maintain the integrity of the supply chain, have arguably led to increases in unemployment and the supply chain’s collapse.
Medical Freedom Organizations Takeoff in the Aviation Industry
Growing up in San Diego, Jason Kunisch learned to fly while still in high school. After earning his private pilot’s license, he attended a four year aeronautical university, graduating with degrees in aeronautical science and business, then went on and earned his instructor ratings before working dispatch for a charter corporation out of California and Texas. From there he went and flew regional jets prior to making his way over to one of the major airlines a little more than eight years ago.
However, over the course of the past year, life took an unexpected turn for Kunisch. Although still working for a major airline when interviewed for this article in late November, Kunisch was now spending a considerable portion of his time immersed in the day to day operations of the US Freedom Flyers, a medical freedom organization he co-founded with fellow pilots Jessica Sarkisian, Joshua Yoder, and Veronica Harris.
When asked to recount what led him to this role, Kunisch detailed the ever-shifting vaccination policies of the major airlines that went from tolerable to utterly unacceptable in his mind, as well as those of his compatriots in just under a year.
“Most of the airlines prior to September 9 [2021] were very reasonable in their approach,” Kunisch explained. “They said, ‘If you want to go and get vaccinated, that’s your personal choice. In fact we’re going to incentivize you to go do that. We’re going to give you days off. We’re going to give you cash. We’re going to give you extra vacation days next year.”
As for those who did not want to get vaccinated, Kunisch said, the companies and the unions took the approach of “‘Hey, we encourage you to do it but at the end of the day it’s a choice between you and your medical practitioner or you and your family doctor or you and your family. Really it’s a personal decision.’”
Yet, at the same time, Kunisch and others had their concerns about how long such a reasonable approach might last.
“We kind of saw the writing on the wall,” Kunisch recalled. The forced masking of individuals, social distancing, and the rules about what one could and could not do with regard to COVID were all disconcerting to him and many of his colleagues.
“So we’re like all right,” Kunisch said. “Really, the next logical thing is the vaccines and vaccine mandates.”
Then, before long, the mandates arrived. “So United Airlines comes out over the summer and says, ‘We’re going to impose our own vaccine mandate and those who don’t want to do it can submit for a religious or medical exemption,’” Kunisch explained.
Sherry Walker, co-founder of Airline Employees for Health Freedom, an organization similar to the US Freedom Flyers, was one such individual from United.
According to Walker, who spoke in an interview as a representative of Airline Employees for Health Freedom, the process of applying for an accommodation was so onerous that many at United who had reservations about taking a COVID vaccine simply acquiesced out of exasperation from the process or fear they might fail to navigate it properly in the time allowed.
Yet, for those that endured, Walker stated, “[United] put every one of us on unpaid indefinite leave.”
Jessica Sarkisian, a 24 year captain and US Freedom Flyers co-founder, had been concerned about something like this happening at her company for quite some time, having circulated a petition on the matter amongst her co-workers as early as January 2021.
In an interview, Sarkisian described the moment her grassroots activism transitioned from an intracompany endeavor to one with a more national scope. “When United announced their mandate, my company said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to mandate it also, but for the 20% who do not want to get the vaccine, [they’ll] get testing options’ and so immediately people started contacting me at my airline because… people already knew how I felt.”
From there the US Freedom Flyers began to take off. “I started collaborating with a few go getters,” Sarkisian explained. “Then I saw Josh Yoder, another co-founder, on the Stew Peters show and I reached out to him and we communicated and I also reached out to the gals at United and communicated with them and just started reaching out to people at other airlines.”
Likewise, Walker’s Airline Employees for Health Freedom saw their numbers grow during this period as well.
Yet, despite this grassroots success for Kunisch, Walker, Sarkisian, and the members of their nascent organizations, it was not long before they would have more to contend with than simply employer mandates.
Pilots Enter Dogfight with the Biden Administration
“So September 9 rolls around and President Biden says he’s going to have a number of mandates and executive orders,” Kunisch said. “[One] is covering employers of more than 100 employees and that is going to be handled through OSHA… That’s the OSHA case. Then there’s the federal contractor case. That’s another one… Initially our response was to raise funds and awareness and to sue the federal government on the grounds of the OSHA issue because that’s what we all thought was going to get us first.”
This though was despite the fact that there was initially some confusion amongst Kunisch and others in their organization regarding whether the OSHA mandate affected pilots specifically, given that they long understood that they were governed by the FAA, not OSHA.
But, before long, whether pilots were affected by a mandate enforced by an agency, that, according to Kunisch, traditionally did not have authority over them, Kunisch and the US Freedom Flyers realized that the OSHA mandate was not actually their most imminent threat.
“What really came to really bite us all was this federal contractor mandate,” Kunisch said. “Now because the airlines have contracts with the federal government to do troop lifts or evacuations and other flying we are considered federal contractors even though we don’t get any of the benefits of federal contractors like better benefits, better pay, etc., etc., holidays off, whatever… I guess we get none of the good, [although] we get all of the bad… Within the federal contractor mandate there’s no provision for testing. So it’s basically get vaccinated or get fired… So that’s a major concern and initially the companies were very strict in their wording. They more or less were saying ‘You get vaccinated because of the mandate or you are on the streets.’”
But the US Freedom Flyers and Airlines Employees for Health Freedom fought back. They continued to grow their numbers. They spread awareness. They became more vocal in the media and with their companies and their unions.
Because of this, Kunisch said, “The companies have started to kind of back off… Southwest was the first to come out and say, ‘We’re not going to fire anybody. We’re not going to let anybody go. We’re going to give medical and religious exemptions and you’re going to be able to continue to work.’ I think Jet Blue has done a similar thing… I think Alaska has done it. But the process is still rather arduous and there are still concerns, very specific grave concerns, with the process with these exemptions that everyone has to go through who chooses not to get vaccinated.”
To give greater context, Kunisch, explained that technically there’s a difference between an exemption and an accommodation. “An exemption is you are exempt from getting vaccinated. However, to comply or to be fully exempt, you need to participate in an accommodation. Now what is that accommodation? That’s the question?”
Depending on the specifics of the accommodation, Kunisch believes this could lead to some form of religious discrimination. If the accommodation is unvaccinated airline employees must wear a mask, while vaccinated ones do not, in essence, those who remain unvaccinated due to their religious beliefs would be getting forced by their employers to wear an outward sign of their religious affiliation.
Kunisch also pointed out how treating unvaccinated people differently from vaccinated people doesn’t even make sense scientifically given recent findings demonstrating that those who have been vaccinated against COVID can still contract and potentially spread COVID.
Possible Paths to Victory
Yet, whether groups like the US Freedom Flyers and Airline Employees for Health Freedom succeed likely will not come down to science, but, instead, a combination of legal technicalities and whether enough people will stand their ground and suffer the consequences while demonstrating their worth to their employers, and perhaps the rest of society, through their absence.
Given the key role the aviation industry plays in society and the narrow margins of personnel that facilitate its continued functioning, this should hypothetically be possible.
According to Sarkisian, it would not take a significant number of pilots or other personnel to cause a disruption for air travel by refusing to get vaccinated. “If you have an aircraft with… let’s call it a crew of seven: five flight attendants and two pilots. One of them calls out, or is not there anymore, that’s going to cause a delay or a cancellation. And then if that’s happening across the board like we’ve seen in the past, it’s going to be quite disruptive.”
Case in point, this is what we saw recently with Southwest and other airlines with alleged sickouts and across the commercial airline industry over Christmas when there were mass cancellations, seemingly on account of omicron.
Additionally, it is important to note that mandates impacting the aviation industry impact more than just commercial air travel.
A FedEx captain, who agreed to a phone interview on the condition of anonymity, described what the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates would mean for his company. “There is such a huge number [of pilots] that have not been vaccinated. And this is far bigger than the pilots. This is maintenance. This is the ground crews in Memphis.”
This FedEx captain went on to explain, “FedEx is centered in Memphis and [has] huge, huge ground crews in Memphis… and a huge percentage of our ground crew workforce is African American which, rightfully so, that group of people are very very distrusting of the government and the vaccine program because…[of] the Tuskegee experiments.”
“In comparison to the pilots,” the FedEx captain continued, “it’s a relatively low paying job where [FedEx is] having trouble having guys work anyway. There’s no possible way they’re going to stick around if a vaccine is mandated for them to work.”
O’Brien also emphasized the impact of vaccine mandates on the transportation of goods when discussing what she sees as the irrationality of the Biden administration’s rationale for their various mandates. “The administration itself has said, has outlined, you know, all the reasons why they feel the mandate is important, is imperative. Some of the reasons were to keep the supply chain intact. Well, we can see that the supply chain is currently in shambles. And why is that?”
Alternatively, on the legal front, both the US Freedom Flyers and Airline Employees for Health Freedom have cases working their way through the courts. There are also similar cases making their way to the Supreme Court. Yet, to be clear, these cases are not about some fundamental question of whether an individual has the right to make their own medical decisions in the absence of government or employer influence or coercion, but more narrow legal concerns such as which government agency has the right to mandate what medical interventions for whom.
Which path may ultimately be more fruitful, or if either will lead to a desirable outcome for the US Freedom Flyers and Airline Employees for Health Freedom, remains to be seen.
Looking Towards the Horizon
But according to the pilots fighting to preserve medical freedom, the simple fact that they are fighting the government on this is having an impact.
“The government put forward these mandates… not expecting the response,” Kunisch said. “I don’t know why they weren’t expecting that. We can come up with reasons. The fact that we are fighting this is the reason why they are kind of on their heels.”
According to Kunisch, this is why the government pushed back their initial deadlines for compliance with the OSHA and contractor mandates. “There’s a reason for [this] and that’s because we’re fighting back. We’re fighting back against these mandates. We’re saying no. We’re not going to do it. We’re not going to be coerced.”
As of November, Sarkisian said the US Freedom Flyers were working with employees from 26 airlines, Amtrak, and trucking companies, as well as the general public. Walker, when interviewed, estimated Airline Employees for Health Freedom had about 4000 members across the transportation industry.
“This isn’t just about crew members,” Sarkisian stated. “This is a fight for freedom for everyone because everybody is obviously affected.”
“The issue is not the vaccine,” Kunisch added. “The issue is medical freedom and anti-coercion.”
Walker, when speaking of the battle ahead, stated, “I have a 16 year old son,” before rhetorically asking, “If I do not fight this now, what world am I leaving him?”
Daniel Nuccio holds master’s degrees in both psychology and biology. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD in biology at Northern Illinois University studying host-microbe relationships. He is also a regular contributor to The College Fix where he writes about COVID, mental health, and other topics.
January 5, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
Leave a comment
It’s been the most astonishing two weeks for American public life, with so many prescient changes, from new censorships, admissions, backtracks, experts speaking out, public outrage, and what strikes me as a progressive unraveling of every orthodoxy imposed nearly two years ago.
Not even the influential and powerful are in a position to defend what has happened to us. They seem to be gradually pulling away from public life, unable to say things that connect to what everyone knows.
Above all else, what’s remarkable right now is the undeniable arrival of Covid to a degree to which hardly anyone could have imagined all that time ago, when so many experts set out to deploy their fabulous new system for stopping the spread of a disease.
There was a goal (stop cases). There was a method (state compulsion). And there was a test (cases were supposed to go down and go away). There would be a war on a virus and the state would win! And now we look around and see the evidence of failure so pronounced, so impossible to deny, that we must face that which so many have worked so hard to deny for so long.
The best way I can describe this is by observation. In the Northeast of the US, and in many other parts of the country, everywhere you go, right now, you see sick people milling around. They don’t admit it and they don’t talk about it with strangers simply because there is such shame attached to having Covid. They complain of a cold, of a flu, or just suffer in silence. But there it is.
After nearly two years of work to control the spread, after brutal shutdowns of the whole country – shutdowns that happened two years too early, as judged by actual case trends (but of course lockdowns never should have been considered in the first place) – Covid is here. Not just here. It is everywhere. The case counts are beyond anything anyone on the planet could have imagined a year or two ago. The spikes make everything that came before look like child’s play.
Here is the global chart.
And we are talking really sick. Not so much death. Not even out-of-control hospitalization. We are talking about being sick in bed or walking around with misery. The nasty bug lasts maybe two days, maybe two weeks, maybe longer but it is vexing and wicked, not like a cold or flu but something more electric and strange.
Which variant? Two weeks ago, the CDC wanted to blame it all on Omicron. That is no longer possible. Perhaps that constitutes 20%; we just do not know for sure because tracking is so weak. Most of it is evidently Delta, meaning very sick but with no serious loss of taste and smell. Most everyone eventually gets well, and that’s what happens here.
We get to endemicity perhaps in a month or so and life will move on, my experts tell me, at least in some areas of the country. What’s striking and truly shocking is that all of the efforts, all of the propaganda, all of the astonishing spending and compulsion – the shutdowns, masking, size limits, travel restrictions, vaccination requirements, the track and trace, the endless testing, the enforcement, the intimidations, the censorship – and what do we have to show for it?
Lockdown architect Carter Mecher promised us as follows: “If you got everyone and locked each of them in their own room and didn’t let them talk to anyone, you would not have any disease.” They attempted a version of that, experimenting on the human population in ways without precedent. And let’s say that is true (it probably isn’t). That is not life. That is not society. That is not freedom. That is something else unimaginably horrific.
It was unsustainable. They pushed their theory without regard to the history of public health or, really, the whole of human experience. And now, the true pandemic finally arrived. And what is it? There are a ton of sick people. People are calling in sick because they cannot come to work. Institutions are having to shut down, not because government closed them but because people are too sick to come to work. This is the normal course of events – exactly what one would expect in a pandemic.
And it’s not just Covid. The head of an Indiana life insurance company reports that deaths among people aged 18-64 are up 40%, an astonishing increase. It’s suicide, drug overdoses, and every other manner of horror. And that’s just death. Many others are just sick from other things.
I personally know dozens and they each know many dozens of more people in the Northeast right now who are down for the count, miserable and pathetic, but still testing negative for Covid. Why would this be? It’s because immune systems have decayed over two years. The lack of vitamin D, the lack of exposure to normal germs in life, the isolation and depression, the overconsumption of liquor and drugs – it’s all been a terrible drain on health.
Meanwhile, the actual pandemic of Covid has certainly arrived. And it is far worse than the data indicated. Look at Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, any of these states, and including some Southern and Midwestern states, and what you find is increases of 500-1,000% in cases. And keep in mind that these are just cases as discovered by official testing spots.
Go to any CVS or Walgreens and you find long lines of people buying testing kits. If they are available. If they are not, the wait is weeks. They are $23 a kit and people are buying as many as possible. Why? Partially it’s because employers and schools are demanding negative tests, but it is also just curiosity. People are sick as dogs and want to confirm their illnesses.
People are estimating that real cases are 50x to 100x what the official data say.
But let’s talk now about a real scandal. When you are sick, you need treatment. Every competent medical professional I know is pretty darn sure that the best hope for dealing with Covid is a combination of Zinc, Vitamin D, and (sorry to mention the dreaded name) Ivermectin. This is not ideological. This is what experienced doctors are saying right now. I’m on many email lists with serious medical professionals and they are all saying the same thing. We can add HCQ to the list if you catch it early enough.
But here’s the kicker – and let me be clear that I’m NOT giving ANY medical advice here, merely just reporting the sense of the community out there. What’s remarkable is that people are having a very difficult time getting these basic therapeutics. Vaccines are everywhere but things to make you well once the virus penetrates the vaccine? Those are hard to come by.
There is a problem getting a prescription because state medical boards are actually barring people and preventing them from serving patients if they prescribe HCQ or Ivermectin, as incredible as that sounds. But once you get the prescription – if you have a doctor brave enough to risk it – finding a pharmacy to fill it is another challenge.
Most people in the UK today are getting their therapeutics from India. Americans get them from Mexico. And some are shipping to the US and they are being distributed via gray markets for anyone who is lucky enough to have a contact. It’s a speakeasy nation but this time for distributing basic therapies.
I feel like I’ve seen horrible things for almost two years now, and you feel the same way. But of all the scandals, and there are so many, this one seems to top the list, namely that once the real pandemic has arrived, there are no effective medicines that are widely available. Doctors are actually being blocked from doing their jobs.
Beyond belief. But you know this. I’m sure you have your own stories. I suspect that many of our readers have encountered this virus for the first time in the last two weeks and have dealt with the horrors of just getting basic medicines to get through this.
The NIH has funded almost no serious trials of these generic drugs. It is not in the interest of pharmaceutical companies to fund them either. As a result, we are truly at a loss – nearly two years into a pandemic at a time when people need meds more than ever.
Meanwhile, the FTC is spending its time cracking down on pharmacies that advertise that they have therapeutics available for people. They are sending cease and desist letters all over the country as a way of intimidating providers. I’ve seen these letters. They have invited me to post them but I’ve declined in the interest of keeping people out of trouble.
One merciful upside to all of this is that there is no more talk of lockdowns. At last, even the experts are saying that society must function. Lockdowns are not even being considered. The whole country is fed up with the phony baloney enterprise of virus control. It did not and cannot work.
Nearly two years ago, they deployed a new experiment in stopping a pathogen. It was a plan that was 15 years in the making, hatched by fanatics who imagined that state policy could outwit a virus.
The wreckage was astonishing, and yet what was the payoff? Here we are today with a wave of sickness that defies every prediction, and with collateral damage beyond even the worst predictions (including my own). And the truth of this is all over the data that anyone can see and the stories that anyone can hear.
The country is right now sicker than it has ever been in our lifetimes.
What a stunning repudiation of state policy – the worst failing of public health and public policy perhaps in the history of the US if not the entire world. We are right now living in its last days. Remember these days, my friends. They are legion and mark what is likely the end of the great fiasco.
And yet it is not really the end. There will be decades of hell to pay for what has happened to us.
Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown.
January 5, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine |
Leave a comment
