UK rejects payment to Covid-19 jab victims for not being ‘disabled enough’ – Telegraph
RT | August 18, 2024
Almost 14,000 people in Britain have applied for payments from the government for disabilities they claim were caused by Covid-19 vaccines, The Telegraph has reported.
Only 175 people, or less than 2% of those seeking compensation, have so far received a one-off money transfer of £120,000 ($155,300), the paper said in an article on Saturday.
Data obtained by The Telegraph through Freedom of Information requests indicates that those who were eventually reimbursed suffered from conditions such as stroke, heart attack, dangerous blood clots, inflammation of the spinal cord, excessive swelling of the vaccinated limb, and facial paralysis.
Around 97% of the satisfied applications were related to the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, developed by Oxford University and British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and the rest to the US-made vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, it said.
The outlet noted that the UK government continued to recommend the AstraZeneca vaccine, despite its use being halted in Germany, Italy, France, and other European countries by March 2021, amid reports of a growing number of blood clotting cases.
Thousands of people have been refused payment due to the government’s medical assessors arguing that there is no concrete proof that their health problems are a result of the vaccines, the report read.
Hundreds of others were turned down due to being “not disabled enough,” it added. Under the rules of the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), an applicant has to be at least 60% disabled to qualify.
A spokesman for AstraZeneca told The Telegraph that its vaccine “has continuously been shown to have an acceptable safety profile and regulators around the world consistently state that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of extremely rare potential side effects.”
As for the health complications caused by the vaccine, the spokesman said, “our sympathy goes out to anyone who has lost loved ones or reported health problems.”
In May, AstraZeneca, which officially admitted that its vaccines could cause blood clots in certain cases, began the withdrawal of its product worldwide, saying that newer vaccines adapted to the latest coronavirus variants were more effective.
Around 16,000 people have sought payments since the introduction of the VDPS in 1979, with most of the claims related to Covid-19 vaccines. The growing workload resulted in an increase of the staff responsible for handling applications from four people to 80 last year. “We continually review our processes to further develop the way in which we manage claims, and to provide a better service for claimants,” a National Health Service spokesperson said.
The American Board of Internal Medicine Revoked All 3 Of My Board Certifications
Although I can still practice medicine, the ABIM’s actions against me and Paul Marik threaten the sanctity and autonomy of the physician-patient relationship.
Pierre Kory’s Medical Musings | August 17, 2024
I will just start by saying that I believe that the ABIM’s decision was 100% predetermined even before we first received their accusation in June 2022. There was no way they were going to declare us innocent of misinformation, even though a good portion of this country knows how effective and accurate our deeply evidence-based Covid treatment guidance was (and still is).
One of the reasons why they were never gonna let us off is that, if they declared us “innocent,” (i.e. accurate) that action would have immediately imperiled the decisions by medical boards across the country who persecuted hundreds of doctors for using ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine or for recommending against Covid-19 mRNA gene therapy products. More importantly, it could potentially launch hundreds of thousands of lawsuits by the families of patients who died due to lack of early treatments offerred by clinics and hospitals or filled by pharmacies.
The above examples which led to the deaths of so many shows the sheer power of mega-corporations that put their financial interests ahead of our health and our lives. Through their overwhelming influence over nearly every institution of society and Science (media, journals, health agencies, politicians, medical schools, physicians etc), they literally succeeded in depriving a whole country (and world) of the most effective, inexpensive, safe, and widely available treatments for Covid. My biggest worry is that this crime against humanity may never enter the history books and thus will be eventually erased from memory. Which is looking probable.
The massive financial opportunities that Covid immediately presented to Big Pharma were threatened by the “inconvenient truths” Paul and I put out there. This ABIM action is one way in which Big Pharma punishes those who are foolish enough to do so. Foolish is not quite the right word in our case as I would argue we were simply naive to the consequences of advocating publicly for the use of off-patent medicines for an immensely profitable disease. It wasn’t heroism as some think, but rather extreme naivete.
I really never thought I would have to lose/leave three jobs and now three Board certifications for speaking truths. Recall that I was very well known in my specialty prior to Covid and was about to become Full Professor when I resigned as Chief of the Critical Care Service at the University of Wisconsin (where I was also the Medical Director of the Trauma and Life Support Center). Reading the Washington Post article “Doctors Accused of Spreading Misinformation Lose Certification” was a pretty sobering reminder of how far I have supposedly “fallen” (Not so fun fact: they completely overstated my salary as the money I received in 2022 included retroactive pay for 2021).
But I am still standing folks. I am happily practicing medicine at my Leading Edge Clinic with my amazing partner Scott Marsland. As many know, we specialize in treating vaccine injury syndromes and Long Covid, and I believe we are soon closing in on having treated our 1,400th patient.
Thank God I managed to build a private, fee-based practice two and half years ago. At the time I suspected this was coming while also already aware that I was “unemployable” by the system. I got fired by my last hospital for a 100% made up complaint, despite the fact they desperately needed me. I was an independent contractor at the time and my ICU partners and all the nurses really liked me. But my partners were telling me that they were under increasing pressure by the Chief Medical Officer to “get rid of Kory.” Although they initially resisted, my stance on vaccines started to cause even more problems for them. When the ICU Director, who was both a friend and a colleague, called to fire me, his last words were, “Pierre, I know there is a war going on and unfortunately you are a casualty.” Truer words were never spoken.
Just know that Board certification is not a license to practice medicine (that comes from state medical licensing Boards of which I have more than a few still). But this ABIM action now puts a definitive end to any hope of me returning to an academic or “system” position (not that I have that hope anymore). Why is that? Well, because Board Certification was originally just a badge of distinction that doctors could use to impress each other and their patients. But they have since weaponized and monetized Board Certification in that currently you cannot obtain a faculty appointment at an academic medical center without one. Nor can you work for most hospitals without one. Even worse, insurance plans will not put you on their provider panels without it. So, although I have been fully excommunicated from “the system,” I cannot be happier about it.
Understand that what happened to me this week was a devastating censorship action, plain and simple. It was done for two reasons; the first was to destroy my reputation and credibility so that my voice will no longer carry (essentially silencing me) and the other was to send a message to doctors that if they stray from consensus, no matter how scientifically absurd (e.g. mRNA vaccines for a coronavirus), dangerous (e.g. remdesivir, mRNA jabs), or ineffective (Paxlovid), they will be punished.
The damage that will result to patients again, is incalculable. No longer will “system” doctors be able to practice medicine with the autonomy they require to arrive at the best decision for each individual patient. Nearly everything they do will be protocolized with society guideline recommended treatments (i.e. consensus manufactured by Pharma). No longer will they be able to “think out of the box” or use treatments which although known effective, do not have the blessing of those in control of that system. I am as terrified as ever of needing a hospital.
Not to overstate the importance of their actions, but Medicine as I knew it, or thought I knew it, is even more dead if that is possible. If you can’t have a differing scientific opinion without losing your career over it, then how is that Medicine or Science? In fact, in our repeated written defenses, we challenged the ABIM, asking them where “the line” is between legitimate scientific debate driven by a differing emphasis on or interpretation of data and outright misinformation.
Misnformation, as I understand it, is defined as “incorrect or misleading” information. For us to be misinformationists, in my mind, would mean that all the data from trials and studies that exist for therapeutics in Covid;
- the overwhelming preponderance of data for the efficacy and safety of ivermectin in Covid shows it to be ineffective and dangerous
- the overwhelming preponderance of data for the vaccines show they are safe and effective
Basically, it comes down to how you interpret the body of evidence which currently exists. Paul and I adhered rigidly to a “totality of the evidence” approach, drawing from in-vitro, in-vivo, clinical and epidemiologic data. All of it lined up in a truly magnificent, inspiring, and unprecedented way. Well, except for the “Big 7 RCT’s” which manipulated the design, conduct and analyses to conclude ivermectin was ineffective. I spent literally hundreds of hours (along with others like Alexandros Marinos), publishing critiques which exposed the most absurd scientific misconduct I had ever witnessed. If interested, here are just some of those critiques, e.g. Oxfords’ PRINCIPLE trial, the TOGETHER trial (three parts, here, here, and here, and the NIH ACTIV-6 trial )
We also evolved with the data, unlike the agencies who had quickly determined in December of 2020 that the vaccines were safe and effective and never, ever veered from that stance up until this day. In contrast, the founding members of the FLCCC, for quite a long time, differed in respect to the efficacy, safety, and need for the mRNA vaccines. I was the first and most vocal against the mRNA vaccines (starting in April 2021) which actually almost led to the breakup of the FLCCC or at least the membership of the original 5.
Prior to April 2021 I was simply neutral/skeptical. That skepticisim was due to what I thought might be folly in trying to vaccinate against a coronavirus (I knew that historically coronavirus vaccines had failed because the vaccinated animals developed antibody dependent enhancement and also that coronaviruses mutate rapidly). Then I did my first deep dive on VAERS and the epidemiologic data showing massive spikes in mortality and hospitalizations timed with the rollout of the jabs across dozens of countries. Voila, I was now “anti-vaxx.”
I continued to track and analyze the ever-emerging data and the horrors they revealed. This work ultimately led the FLCCC to reach an internal “consensus” that the vaccines should be avoided at all costs (literally at all costs as none of the costs incurred by taking the jab were worth someones life). Anyway, I just wanted to show that we evolved with the data, always questioning and reviewing as new data emerged.
I will end by reminding all of how dangerous the ABIM’s actions will be to all of our lives because it will further erode and/or literally destroy the patient-physician relationship. As I wrote in a previous Op-ED in the Daily Caller on January 31, 2023, “A War Is Still Being Waged Against Doctors Who Question Covid Orthodoxy:”
By virtue of their professional training, doctors must advise patients on available treatments and known risks of any treatment or procedure. By threatening doctors who might provide information different than their preferred worldview, ABIM is disrupting the doctor-patient relationship.
When allowed to practice their craft freely, physicians can prevent societal disaster by focusing on individual patients, informed by clinical experience.
Groups like the ABIM, and public medical officials like Fauci, should support and encourage evidence-based debate and patient-centered care.
Instead, they have suppressed both that debate and treatment approach by persecuting its proponents. This campaign must be stopped, its origins and evolution must be thoroughly documented, and it must never be allowed to recur. Physician autonomy must be restored lest all patients suffer.
‘Medical Warfare’: Doctors Who Questioned COVID Shots, Promoted Ivermectin Lose Certification
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 14, 2024
Two doctors who spoke out about vaccines and alternative treatments for COVID-19 received notice that their medical certifications were revoked, while another doctor said her certification was revoked without her knowledge.
The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) last week revoked the certifications of Drs. Pierre Kory and Paul Marik, following a two-year investigation into their promotion of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for COVID-19 and their statements questioning the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.
According to The Washington Post, the two physicians continued “to promote ivermectin, an anti-parasitic medication, as a treatment for COVID long after the medical community found it to be ineffective.”
Kory and Marik are co-founders of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), which promotes alternative treatments for COVID-19.
Citing unnamed experts, the Post claimed the FLCCC “spread misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.”
MedPageToday quoted an ABIM spokesperson, who said the organization “does not comment publicly on the reasons for the revocation of certification.”
However, in a summary of the ABIM’s decision reviewed by The Defender, the organization stated that the doctors’ “conduct poses serious concerns for patient safety and undermines the trust that the public and the medical profession place in the meaning of ABIM board certification.”
In a press release, the FLCCC Alliance said it “categorically disagrees” with ABIM’s decision.
“We believe this decision represents a dangerous shift away from the foundational principles of medical discourse and scientific debate that have historically been the bedrock of medical education associations,” the press release states.
Marik told The Defender :
“The bottom line is we’re disappointed because we stand up for the truth. To censor science is to censor progress. Science is based on dialogue and people can have different points of view. That is the principle of science: it’s people having different points of view.
“We’ve never been in a situation before where physicians who have opposing points of view are silenced … It sets a really bad precedent that you can’t really challenge the status quo, and as we know, in medicine, there have been very dramatic changes based on changing understandings of science.”
In the FLCCC Alliance press release, Kory said, “This fight is about more than just our right to speak — it’s about protecting the future of healthcare. When doctors are silenced for questioning the prevailing narrative, we all lose.”
Kory and Marik participated in an ABIM hearing in May, but internist Dr. Meryl Nass, founder of Door to Freedom, told The Defender that ABIM revoked her certification without her knowledge.
Nass said she was blindsided by ABIM’s decision to revoke her license, which she said she found out about only when she searched for herself in the organization’s database of certified physicians.
Nass told The Defender :
“After the Maine Medical Board suspended my license illegally — even though none of my alleged transgressions met the statutory requirement for an immediate suspension — the board later found me guilty of things I had not done and continued the suspension … All of this with never a single patient complaint.
“Now I learn, by chance, that the ABIM has suspended me without ever informing me I was even under an investigation, which is illegal according to the ABIM’s process.”
Dr. Peter McCullough also faced similar difficulties with the ABIM over his positions on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. According to MedPageToday, ABIM revoked his certifications in 2022 — although, as of today, ABIM lists him as certified.
McCullough told The Defender, “The ABIM is violating principles of equal protection, due process, rules of evidence and has gone ex post facto to find reasons to attack qualified ABIM-certified doctors who innovated and saved lives early in the pandemic.”
Science based on ‘different points of view’
Kory and Marik held ABIM certifications in internal and critical care medicine, while Kory was also certified in pulmonary disease, according to MedPageToday.
They were initially notified about the risk of losing their certification in May 2022. Last year, ABIM’s Credentials and Certification Committee recommended the revocation of their certification for disseminating “false or inaccurate medical information.” A hearing followed in May.
According to the FLCCC Alliance’s press release, Kory and Marik “tirelessly defended their positions.” However, despite “presenting over 170 references in a detailed 60-page response submitted in January 2023, the ABIM has chosen to dismiss these robust scientific contributions in favor of a narrow, ‘consensus-driven’ narrative.”
According to the summary of ABIM’s decision, Kory and Marik’s “statements about the safety and efficacy of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine” as treatments for COVID-19 “are false and inaccurate because they are unsupported by factual, scientifically grounded, and consensus-driven medical information.”
The ABIM also addressed the doctors’ positions on the COVID-19 vaccines:
“[The doctors’] statements about the purported ineffectiveness and dangers of COVID-19 vaccines are false and inaccurate because they are unsupported by factual, scientifically grounded, and consensus-driven medical information. …
“There is extensive factual, scientifically grounded, and consensus-driven medical information demonstrating that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and lead to better health outcomes.”
Marik questioned the board’s assertions regarding ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and the vaccines.
“What they do is, they cherry-pick articles which support their point of view and then they go on to say the vaccine is safe and effective. We know that’s completely not true. There’s overwhelming data to question both the safety and efficacy of the vaccine,” Marik added.
McCullough said:
“ABIM never updated its members on important risks such as fatal vaccine adverse events, including myocarditis, nor failing theoretical efficacy necessitating boosters that skipped human testing altogether.
“Setting a new dark milestone, ABIM is decertifying highly qualified physicians for nonclinical reasons and ignoring the evidence for early therapeutics and COVID-19 vaccine safety.”
ABIM engaging in ‘medical lawfare’
According to the Post, Kory maintains a license to practice medicine in California, New York and Wisconsin, where “there are no disciplinary actions listed against him.” Marik has retired and his medical license expired in 2022.
Revocation of their ABIM certification “effectively prevents them from practicing at large hospitals and academic institutions,” the Post reported.
Marik and Nass outlined the difficulties of practicing medicine without certification.
“It doesn’t affect us directly, but it affects us indirectly because we’re being accused of committing offenses that are just not true,” Marik said. “The indirect impact to our reputation … it’s a slap in the face, basically, for all the hard work we’ve done.”
Accusing the ABIM of being part of the “medical-industrial complex,” Marik said, “They seem more interested in making money than in protecting physicians. There have been a number of lawsuits against ABIM, so they don’t have the best of reputations. But unfortunately, they are the main certifying organization in the U.S., so they have enormous power and leverage.”
“If I get my license back — a big if, without board certification, I would have great difficulty getting hospital privileges and collecting insurance reimbursements. In other words, I would be unemployable, though I could potentially work on my own if patients paid me directly,” Nass said.
In 2021, ABIM and the Federation of State Medical Boards collaborated to draft the statement used to discipline Nass.
Nass said organizations like ABIM are engaging in “medical lawfare.” She said they are:
“Creating crimes that do not exist, using procedures that do not exist, to try and silence people like me. What did I do wrong? I read the literature and told the truth about what it said, publicly. The COVID vaccines are very dangerous. They don’t prevent COVID. Drugs can effectively treat COVID. And I prescribed those drugs and helped hundreds of Maine citizens. That was my crime.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Whistleblower Will Appeal After Federal Court Dismisses Lawsuit Alleging Fraud in Pfizer COVID Vaccine Trials
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 13, 2024
For the second time, a federal court in Texas has dismissed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging Pfizer and two of its contractors manipulated data and committed other acts of fraud during clinical trials for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in 2020.
In his Aug. 9 ruling, District Judge Michael J. Truncale sided with the U.S. government, ruling the government had demonstrated “good cause” to intervene and dismiss the case. He wrote:
“The Government’s desire to dismiss the case — because of its doubt as to the case’s merits, differing assessment of the Pfizer vaccine data, desire to avoid discovery and litigation obligations, and belief that it should not have to expend resources in a case that is contrary to its public health policy — constitutes good cause to intervene.”
Whistleblower Brook Jackson filed the lawsuit against Pfizer, Ventavia Research Group — which conducted some of the clinical trials for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine — and Pfizer contractor ICON PLC in January 2021. Jackson’s complaint was most recently amended in October 2023.
Jackson, a former Ventavia employee, alleged the companies committed numerous violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) during the clinical trials.
According to the lawsuit, the three companies “deliberately withheld crucial information from the United States that calls the safety and efficacy of their vaccine into question,” thus defrauding the federal government, which purchased the vaccines.
The FCA allows the government or a party suing on its behalf to attempt to recover money for false claims made by parties to secure payment from the government.
The FCA also allows whistleblowers to be rewarded for confidentially disclosing fraud that results in a financial loss to the government.
While whistleblowers have the right to sue under the FCA, the federal government can choose to intervene in the case at a later date. In Jackson’s lawsuit, the U.S. government initially declined to intervene in February 2022. However, in March, the government filed a motion to intervene and to dismiss the case.
Attorney Warner Mendenhall, one of the lawyers representing Jackson, questioned whether the U.S. government’s “public health policy” is tolerant toward allegations of fraud during clinical trials for vaccines.
In an interview Monday with Sasha Latypova, a former pharmaceutical industry executive with 25 years of experience in pharmaceutical research and development, Mendenhall said:
“What’s the public health policy of the United States? To kill people and damage people and injure people and make them sick? If that’s the public health policy, well then yes, we’re inconsistent with that.”
Latypova told The Defender she was “not really surprised” by the ruling, noting that drugmakers enjoy legal immunity afforded by emergency use authorization granted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Latypova described this immunity as a “legal cage.”
She said “The court took as evidence an unsubstantiated opinion of two government bureaucrats … published in an editorial article of a medical journal,” but did not consider the extensive evidence of wrongdoing Jackson provided.
The government’s motion to dismiss cited a Jan. 5 JAMA editorial authored by FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Peter Marks, claiming that “data from various studies” show that “tens of millions of lives were saved by vaccination.”
During his interview with Latypova, Mendenhall argued the government failed to demonstrate good cause and that last week’s ruling did not name any specific examples of this. He said:
“If you read the actual document, there’s no cause listed at all. In fact, the judge has a footnote saying, ‘There is no cause here, but I’m going to look at this other motion I think I can find’ … that’s not how courts are supposed to proceed. You look at the motion first to intervene for good cause. If it’s not there, you’re done. You don’t get to go on and look at the motion to dismiss for hints that maybe there is good cause.”
The ruling also stated that Jackson “failed to allege that she complained to Ventavia or the FDA about fraud against the government.” Accordingly, her claims don’t “rise to the level of protected activity” as a whistleblower.
Mendenhall told Latypova this poses “constitutional concerns” and may have “a chilling effect on other whistleblowers.”
Jackson has 30 days to appeal the ruling, and plans to, Mendenhall said.
“I am very confident we’re going to win that case and get, at least, the retaliation [claim] vindicated, and vindicate what she did as a conscientious citizen of the United States,” Mendenhall said.
Jackson fired within six hours of submitting claims to the FDA
Ventavia, which operated several sites where it conducted clinical trials on behalf of Pfizer, hired Jackson in September 2020.
That same month, Jackson reported problems she observed with the Pfizer vaccine trial to the company’s management. When management didn’t respond, she took her claims to the FDA on Sept. 25, 2020. Ventavia fired her later that day.
Jackson, who had over 15 years of experience working with clinical trials, claimed she “repeatedly informed her superiors of poor laboratory management, patient safety concerns and data integrity issues.”
She also gave The BMJ a cache of internal company documents, photos and recordings highlighting alleged wrongdoing by Ventavia.
“Her job was to fix things. They wouldn’t fix them. She reported it to the FDA, and six hours later was fired from her job,” Mendenhall said.
He added:
“There was not informed consent. They were making up records. I mean, it was just endless. They were violating patient privacy, which is critical in a clinical trial because you have to not know who’s getting the shot in order to determine any effectiveness.
“Basically, the allegations that she brought forward show that the clinical trial that she saw, what she saw of it, was essentially worthless. It wasn’t valuable or useful data.”
Jackson filed her qui tam lawsuit under the FCA in January 2021. A qui tam action refers to any legal case where a private citizen initiates legal action on behalf of a state.
Documents released in November 2021 supported Jackson’s claims that she was directly involved in the Phase 3 trials for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
‘Level of ignorance’ of scientific facts by government officials ‘astounding’
In February 2022, the federal government declined to intervene in the lawsuit on Jackson’s behalf but reserved the right to intervene at a later date.
Later that month, Jackson filed her first amended complaint, while the court unsealed 400 pages of exhibits.
In July 2022, Pfizer asked the court to dismiss Jackson’s lawsuit on the basis that the U.S. government was aware of wrongdoings in the clinical trials but continued to do business with the vaccine maker. In March 2023, Truncale granted the motion to dismiss, ruling that Jackson had not proved the companies violated the FCA.
Jackson appealed the dismissal in April 2023, and in August 2023 submitted a motion to file a second amended complaint, which was granted in September. Jackson filed her second amended complaint in October 2023.
Pfizer and Ventavia filed motions to dismiss the second amended complaint later in October 2023, while the U.S. government filed its motion to intervene and dismiss in March 2024. Oral arguments discussing the motions to dismiss took place on May 1.
“What happened in the interim here while we’re fighting the case and moving forward, apparently the government itself decided that what we were doing in exposing Pfizer and Ventavia and ICON, the three companies involved here, was contrary to the public health policy in the United States,” Mendenhall said.
In ruling in favor of the government, the court cited a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave the government significant leeway concerning when it could intervene in an FCA case and on what basis.
According to Mendenhall, this occurred despite meetings Jackson and her legal team had last year with representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), during which he said they “were completely unaware” of evidence questioning the safety of the COVID shots, including SV40 DNA contamination and vaccine injuries.
Mendenhall said:
“The level of ignorance about the scientific facts that we have uncovered was astounding to me, for someone who is supposed to be in charge of a major decision on behalf of the United States’ people, whether these shots need to be pulled from the market, whether Pfizer needs to be prosecuted or at least held civilly liable along with the other companies.
“I think that, certainly for some in the government, they just don’t want to face what they’ve actually done … they have hurt, damaged the health of millions of Americans and tens of millions, at least, around the world.”
According to Mendenhall, government attorneys were “actually sitting on the side of the courtroom with Pfizer” attorneys during the May 1 hearing.
“How strange that was to have the defendants sitting with the government who’s supposed to be going after them,” Mendenhall said.
In April, Pfizer submitted a statement to the court in support of the U.S. government’s motion to intervene and dismiss.
Pfizer previously was fined in connection with the FCA. As part of a 2009 settlement, the company paid $2.3 billion in fines — the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the history of the DOJ — stemming from allegations of illegal marketing of off-label products not approved by the FDA.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Judges Back Meta in Vaccine “Misinformation” Battle, Free Speech Advocates Vow to Fight On
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | August 10, 2024
The 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled this week in favor of Meta, Facebook’s parent company. The case was brought forward by the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) over allegations that the social media giant violated free speech rights.
The lawsuit, initiated in August 2020 and later updated in December, claimed that Facebook, along with its CEO Mark Zuckerberg and two fact-checking entities, Science Feedback, and the Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact site, was complicit in an unconstitutional act of privately exercising governmental censorship. CHD alleges that Facebook, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal institutions, is censoring content and discussions that the government is barred from suppressing under the First Amendment.
We obtained a copy of the opinion for you here.
The plaintiff specifically accused these sides of working in tandem to unfairly stifle valid attempts to discuss vaccine safety on Facebook, often through indirect yet sensorial measures like the use of warning labels. According to CHD, this type of arrangement between public entities and private corporations represents a breach of the First Amendment due to its perceived status as “state action.”
Despite these arguments, the 9th Circuit court concluded that CHD was not successful in meeting the initial requirement for state action, as the censorship inflicted was more a result of Meta’s content moderation policies and not any directive under federal law. Further, the court also asserted that CHD did not present any evidence of a binding agreement requiring Facebook to execute any particular action in response to misinformation about vaccines.
Although all judges did not share the same opinion, Circuit Judge Daniel P. Collins presented a partially dissenting viewpoint. He opined that the interactions between Meta and the Government involving the suppression of specific types of vaccine-related speech were substantial enough to evoke First Amendment considerations.
Expressing disappointment and worry, CHD CEO Mary Holland stated, “If we cannot stop the government’s joint action with Big Tech to censor unwanted information, our First Amendment is a pyrrhic victory — it means almost nothing in our real world of social media.” While she was pleased with the non-unanimous nature of the decision, Holland hinted at the possibility of appealing to the US Supreme Court after further review.
At the heart of the court battle, ongoing for almost four years, were claims, primarily leveled by CHD’s then-Chairman and Chief Executive Counsel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., that tactics employed by the US Government to pressure Facebook into censoring vaccine “misinformation” were existential threats.
‘They Have to Be Stopped’: Woman Says COVID Hospital Protocols Caused Husband’s Death
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 8, 2024
In June 2021, 61-year-old Jeffrey R. Smith was healthy, active and enjoying his 42nd year of marriage to Sharon Smith. That same month, they both came down with COVID-19, but their symptoms were mild and there was little cause for concern.
When Jeffrey’s symptoms lingered just a bit longer than those of his wife, he visited an urgent care center.
That visit marked the beginning of a 39-day ordeal that resulted in his hospitalization, a loss of 47 pounds, and, ultimately, his death, on Aug. 11, 2021, at Mease Countryside Hospital in Safety Harbor, Florida.
Jeffrey’s cause of death was officially listed as COVID-19. But when Sharon examined his approximately 6,000 pages of medical records, she discovered he had sustained kidney damage, likely due to repeated doses of medications including remdesivir, a drug known to stop kidney function in patients.
Sharon also discovered that doctors at the hospital did not treat her husband’s pulmonary embolism — or blood clot — which he developed during his hospitalization. Instead, she alleges doctors insisted she allow him to be placed on a ventilator and that she sign a do not resuscitate (DNR) order for him.
In an interview with The Defender, Sharon said the treatment her husband received at the hospital was incentivized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) COVID-19 hospital protocols — and by the fact that neither she nor her husband had received a COVID-19 vaccine.
Sharon shared extensive documentation with The Defender to corroborate her story.
‘He didn’t give his consent to anything’
On July 4, 2021, Sharon said she “just didn’t think my husband was breathing as deep as I was.” Out of concern, she recommended they visit a local urgent care center for a chest X-ray.
“When we went to urgent care and they checked his blood pressure, everything was normal,” Sharon said. However, the couple was sent to Mease Countryside Hospital for X-rays.
Sharon recalled that she could not stay at the hospital due to COVID-19 restrictions, but was told she could return in two hours to pick up her husband. However, about 30 minutes later, her husband called and said the hospital was going to keep him overnight.
“I said, why?” Sharon recalled. “He wasn’t struggling to breathe. … Blood pressure was good, temperature was good.” Despite this, Sharon was told that her husband was going to be kept “on a little oxygen.”
“What we didn’t know at the time was that they had given him two doses of remdesivir, and he didn’t give his consent to anything,” Sharon said. Doctors administered the two doses within three hours of admitting Jeffrey to the hospital.
He had a D-dimer test for pulmonary embolisms, and it was normal, Sharon said. “Everything was normal. He was so healthy going in. He took no medications, had no health issues at all. He walked three to six miles a week. We just had our checkup at the doctor. So, there was nothing there.”
Later that evening, Sharon said someone from the hospital called “in a panic, in the middle of the night … that they had to move Jeff up to the COVID ICU [intensive care unit] to just observe him a little bit more.”
The following day, Sharon said a doctor told Jeffrey that he was “probably going to have to go on the ventilator.” According to Sharon, when he asked why he had to be ventilated when he had come to the hospital for a chest X-ray — and mentioned that his wife would not agree to this — he was told “Well, your wife is going to have to like this or you’re going to die.”
“I said, ‘Oh my goodness, you’re not going to die.’ First of all, because we trusted the doctors, we trusted the hospital. We never in our wildest imaginations thought that you would go in for anything and they would try to harm you, but that’s exactly what they did,” Sharon told The Defender.
As time went on, the doctors gave him more and more oxygen, and more and more drugs, Sharon said, although she wasn’t informed about it. She only learned about the medications when she reviewed Jeffrey’s medical records after his death.
“The drugs that they were giving him … Precedex, propofol, fentanyl, midazolam … these are the drugs that they use to euthanize people,” Sharon said.
‘They stopped feeding him, giving him any kind of water, cleaning him’
Sharon said there were other examples of the hospital mistreating her husband.
“They stopped feeding him, giving him any kind of water, cleaning him,” she said, recalling that during a FaceTime conversation, he looked “awful.”
“I said, ‘Have you had a shower? Have they washed?’ He goes, ‘No, they haven’t.’ He looks awful. His hair’s a mess. He’s unshaven and he hasn’t had his bedding changed in a week. He hasn’t got any different clothes on,” Sharon recalled.
Her husband urged her not to make an issue of it, according to Sharon.
“When I would say something to the nurses, Jeff would say, ‘Sharon, don’t make waves, because they’re taking it out on me.’ And at the time, I didn’t understand. I didn’t think they were doing bad things, purposely doing bad things to him. I thought they were just being neglectful,” she said.
Sharon said it was difficult to speak to a doctor or to get authorization to visit Jeffrey.
“Every day I would say, I want the doctor to call me. The doctor would call me. Sometimes they were rude to me, sometimes they were short with me, some were OK.” She had to “plead” with a hospital administrator in one instance to be allowed a 15-minute visit.
“I got up there to see Jeff, and he was just a mess. I mean, they weren’t getting him out of the bed. He was just deteriorating in front of my eyes,” Sharon recalled.
On another occasion, Sharon said she was allowed a visit for “17 minutes, exactly” and was told she would soon be permitted daily visits. Later that day, Sharon called to check on Jeffrey and was told he was “relaxed and had some ice cream.”
A half-hour later, “I get a call from the hospital and it’s a panic … they said, ‘We’re going to put Jeff on the ventilator right now. He had a panic attack and his oxygen level dropped and he can’t get it back up, so we have to put him on the ventilator.’”
Sharon said she was offered the opportunity to speak with Jeffrey via FaceTime. “I got 20 seconds to see my husband’s face, and when I think back now, he wasn’t gasping for air or anything like that. He just looked scared.”
According to Sharon, she was told Jeffrey would be ventilated for three days “just to give his lungs a break.” Yet, “he was on the ventilator for 20 days after that” — until the day he died.
‘They yelled and screamed at me’
According to Sharon, the doctors repeatedly told her that as long as his kidneys weren’t involved, he would be OK. Yet, “as soon as he got on the ventilator, that’s when they said, ‘Oh, his kidneys are struggling.’ And that’s what remdesivir does.”
Jeffrey was placed on CRRT (continuous renal replacement therapy), a slow dialysis machine. This continued until Aug. 11, 2021, when Sharon remembered a doctor called her and said Jeffrey was “tolerating the CRRT really well” and that he would “try a couple different things” and call back.
“He called me back a couple hours later and said, ‘Jeff’s going to code out today,’” Sharon recalled. “I’m like, ‘a couple hours ago he was doing OK.’”
Sharon says she insisted on visiting her husband, but the doctor “fought” her on it, before relenting. When she did visit, hospital staff told her to “look through the glass” at her husband, before finally being allowed into the room “for two minutes.”
“When I came out, they started to pressure me to put a DNR on him, and I said, ‘I’m not putting a DNR on him.’ They kept pressuring me. I said, ‘my son and I are going to talk about it. We’ll call you back.’ We called them back and I said, ‘we’ve decided that we are not going to do that because if we do it then there is no hope,’” she said.
“They yelled and screamed at me on the phone, but I stuck to my guns,” Sharon recalled. “And a couple hours later, they called and said that Jeff had died.”
Blood clot, kidney troubles began after remdesivir administered
Sharon observed several abnormalities during her husband’s hospitalization and also when she reviewed his medical records.
“What I know now is that his D-dimer levels — and I have all the records to back this up — the evidence is that everything was in the normal range.”
She added:
“After the two doses of remdesivir in the hospital in the ER [emergency room], within three hours of being in the ER, that’s when he developed the blood clot. And they noted it. They were aware of it a couple of times. They noted it, but they didn’t do anything about it.
“The day after he had two doses of remdesivir … doctors noted that his D-dimer is now very elevated, which means you have a pulmonary embolism.”
“They did not treat it for two weeks, and they tested five times within that two-week period,” Sharon said, noting that Jeffrey “ended up having six doses of remdesivir.”
Sharon said Jeffrey was also administered a monoclonal antibody, “one dose to the tune of $27,000,” even though “it was already too late for that — you need to have that in the beginning. This was already 10 days in.”
Ultimately though, for Sharon, her husband’s fate rested on the lack of treatment for his blood clot.
“That’s where it started,” she said. “If they would have treated that blood clot on day one — because people have blood clots all the time — it’s something that you can fix … and send him home. But they didn’t choose to do that. It was like they had him and he was a cash cow for them,” she said, referring to the COVID-19 hospital protocols.
The protocols, prescribed by the CDC, are the subject of a white paper, “Follow the Money: Blood Money in U.S. Healthcare,” which found that the U.S. government incentivized hospitals under the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) to administer treatments such as remdesivir to COVID-19 patients.
According to the report, the average per-person incentive in the U.S. for a “complex COVID inpatient” is $292,566. Hospitals received money for each COVID-19 admission, for the use of remdesivir and for placing patients on ventilators.
‘They were making an example’ of the unvaccinated
Sharon said she believes that Jeffrey’s treatment at the hospital was connected to his unvaccinated status.
“The first day that Jeff was there … the doctor called me and the first question she asked [was], ‘Why weren’t you guys vaccinated?’” Sharon recalled. “I said, ‘Well, because we chose not to be. We are healthy. And this vaccine came out awful fast and we didn’t have a good feeling about it.’”
“That is noted in Jeff’s records over and over and over, that he was not vaccinated or I wasn’t. And at the time that he was in the hospital, it was really when the vaccine was really being pushed out. Basically, they were making an example of the people that came in there that were not vaccinated,” Sharon said.
Sharon also noted that, at Mease Countryside Hospital, patients were being admitted with either an “unvaccinated” or “unknown” vaccination status, perhaps to conceal the number of COVID-19 cases among the vaccinated.
“I know that from a number of nurses that are whistleblowers, that have come out and said that there wasn’t a place to put if you were vaccinated,” Sharon said.
Sharon has since become involved with activist groups who have spoken out on behalf of hospital protocol victims, including the FormerFedsGroup Freedom Foundation and the COVID-19 Humanity Betrayal Memory Project (CHBMP), which developed a list of the 25 commonalities shared by most hospital protocol victims.
According to Sharon, “Of those 25, I think there’s two that didn’t happen” to Jeffrey, noting that her requests that ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and vitamin D were refused, while vitamin C was administered only on the day of Jeffrey’s death.
“When you look through the drug list, you’ll see that that increased intensely as we got right to the end. He didn’t have a fighting chance,” Sharon said.
Sharon encouraged others who have lost a loved one at a hospital to a COVID-19 diagnosis to carefully check their medical records.
“People need to look at the death certificate. If it says ‘COVID,’ you need to get your medical records and have a doctor, have somebody that’s qualified to look at those records and go through them, just like I did. And they’re going to find that it’s probably not what they think. It’s much worse,” Sharon said.
She also encouraged victims and their families to speak out, noting that even a mere conversation with others can make a difference.
“There’s been many people that once you start to talk about it, then they go, ‘wait a minute.’ So, they start to connect the dots that this could have happened to their person,” Sharon said.
She added:
“There’s a couple of reasons why I fight this so much. One, because they took my husband away from me, and he wasn’t sick and he should never have died. But I’m thinking ahead for my children and my grandchildren. If we don’t stand up and fight for this right now and stop this, it’s going to continue, and we can’t have that. They have to be stopped.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
A majority of Americans now officially meet the definition of “anti-vaxxer”
By Aaron Siri | Injecting Freedom | July 29, 2024
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an “anti-vaxxer” as “a person who opposes the use of some or all vaccines, regulations mandating vaccination, or usually both”:
So, to be an “anti-vaxxer,” per the dictionary, a person needs to only oppose receiving some vaccines. Meaning, a person that opposes receiving a COVID-19 vaccine or an influenza vaccine is an anti-vaxxer. And guess what? The majority of Americans now oppose receiving both of these vaccines.
In fact, according to the CDC, despite spending billions of dollars wildly promoting these products, less than half of Americans received an influenza vaccine, RSV vaccine, and the updated COVID-19 vaccine. In fact, less than 23% of the adult population in the U.S. has received an updated COVID-19 vaccine despite a relentless multi-billion-dollar national promotion campaign.
Not only do a majority of Americans oppose receiving these vaccines, an even greater percentage of Americans no doubt (including some that receive these vaccines) oppose mandating one or more of these products.
The irony is that deciding against being injected with a product after reviewing its clinical trials, post-licensure safety record, lack of liability, etc., is an informed, thoughtful decision. Yet those that mindlessly get every vaccine are the ones painted as making informed, thoughtful decisions?! Hats off to Big Pharma/CDC for convincing so many that up is down and down is up.
The next time someone calls you an “anti-vaxxer” because you have made an informed decision to not receive a medical intervention, let them know that, yes, you did make an informed, independent medical decision. And wish them luck doing the opposite!
You can also let them know that since “anti-vaxxers” are now the majority, you understand their insecurity and hostility. But they shouldn’t worry: the anti-vax majority is not interested in taking away the rights of the pro-vax minority. They can feel free to get (or not get) as many vaccines as they want. We in the majority just ask that they respect our right to do the same.
Vaccine Advocate Peter Hotez Calls for Use of Police, Military Against ‘Anti-vaccine Aggression’
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 26, 2024
Vaccine advocate and pharmaceutical industry insider Dr. Peter Hotez, long a proponent of the COVID-19 vaccine, said he favors deploying police and military powers against “anti-vaxers,” whom he blamed for causing hundreds of thousands of deaths during the pandemic.
During an interview July 5 at the Simposio Internacional de Actualización en Pediatría (International Symposium of Pediatric Updates) in Cartagena, Colombia, Hotez suggested organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and NATO should target “anti-vaccine aggression.”
Hotez said:
“What I’ve said to the Biden administration is, the health sector can’t solve this on its own. We’re going to have to bring in Homeland Security, the Commerce Department, Justice Department to help us understand how to do this.
I’ve said the same with — I met with Dr. Tedros [director general of the WHO] last month … to say, I don’t know that the World Health Organization can solve this on our own. We need the other United Nations agencies. NATO. This is a security problem because it’s no longer a theoretical construct or some arcane academic exercise. Two hundred thousand Americans died because of anti-vaccine aggression, anti-science aggression.
The full interview was available on YouTube until Wednesday evening, when it was removed. The Defender obtained a video recording of the full interview.
Hotez is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor University College of Medicine and director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, one of the sponsors of the symposium, which was organized by the Colombian Pediatric Society.
Aside from being a vaccine proponent and developer — he helped develop the Corbevax COVID-19 vaccine which was administered in India and has received at least $30 million in vaccine development grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — Hotez has crusaded against so-called “misinformation” about vaccines.
In March, The Hill reported that Hotez has found a “‘parallel career’ fighting misinformation.”
Hotez “finds his efforts to combat misinformation to be ‘meaningful,’” and says “pushing back on the anti-vaccine movement is just as important as developing vaccines,” The Hill wrote.
Hotez also holds six patents on the hookworm (helminth) vaccine, and has several listed patent applications as well, including those for SARS-CoV2 vaccines.
“Peter has cashed in significantly on the COVID-19 pandemic and gets a lot of money when shots go into arms,” said Brian Hooker, Chief Scientific Officer for Children’s Health Defense (CHD).
In his July 5 interview, Hotez called for more stringent action against “anti-vaxers,” whom he connected to entities such as the Russian government, and called for medical schools to educate new doctors about anti-vaccine sentiment.
“‘Anti-science’ and ‘anti-vaxxer’ are propaganda terms Hotez uses to establish a power dynamic over anyone who disagrees with him,” said cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough.
“Now Hotez is calling for a security state to enforce his propaganda instead of engaging in much needed dialogue over vaccine safety with a critical appraisal of short- and long-term side effects from the routine childhood vaccine schedule, including the COVID-19 shots,” McCullough added.
According to Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D., professor emeritus and senior research scientist in epidemiology (chronic diseases) at the Yale School of Public Health:
“Hotez has spent his entire career developing vaccines which have not achieved success in commercial use. His demands to impose public health martial law are reminiscent of the ‘Comité de salut public’ — ‘Committee of Public Safety’ — that Robespierre used to murder his political opponents [during the French Revolution].”
For Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, Hotez’s suggestions are a call to violate established international human rights law.
“Coercing vaccines upon human beings without their informed and voluntary consent violates the Nuremberg Code on Medical Experimentation, which is a crime against humanity,” Boyle said. “What we see at work here with Hotez is the Nazi mentality that pervades so many vaccinologists like him. Hotez is revealing his true colors.”
Independent journalist Paul D. Thacker has investigated Hotez for his site, The Disinformation Chronicle. He said, “This crackpot idea that we should deploy military forces to deal with moms worried about vaccine side effects and children … doesn’t that speak for itself?”
Dr. Sukharit Bhakdi, a microbiologist, questioned Hotez’s scientific credentials:
“Simple fact: Hotez is not a real scientist. He has never published any research article based on true scientific research. His publications transmit his personal opinions and beliefs. He has not conducted a single valid vaccine trial and has zero data to back his claims.
“He has been on the globalist team together with [Dr. Anthony] Fauci et al. and is now turning to violence to silence all dissenters. This very fact disqualifies him as a physician.”
“His evolution over the course of the pandemic is curious as he has become more and more shrill as time goes on,” Hooker said. “It seems he is trying to extend his 15 minutes of fame by ‘jumping the shark’ and inciting gestapo-like measures against ‘anti-vaxers’ and ‘science deniers.’ His definition of science is very ‘Fauci-esque’ indeed.”
Claim that unvaccinated caused ‘hundreds of thousands’ of deaths ‘an obvious untruth’
During his July 5 interview, Hotez asserted that the unvaccinated were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said:
“There’s anti-vaccine activity in every country, and each has its own unique national flavor. But the part that I’m worried about now is something very dark and accelerating in the United States.
“And the most dramatic evidence for that is what happened during the COVID pandemic … My estimate is 200,000 Americans died needlessly because they refused COVID vaccines in 2021, 2022.”
Hotez did not provide evidence supporting this figure, but it was similar to claims made by Dr. Anthony Fauci during Congressional testimony last month. Without citing evidence, Fauci said the unvaccinated are “probably responsible for an additional 200,000-300,000 deaths” in the U.S.”
Risch called this claim “an obvious untruth.”
“In the face of repeated major empirical CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] evidence and CDC’s public acknowledgement that the mRNA vaccines largely failed to reduce COVID transmission, Hotez absurdly claims that people choosing not to vaccinate themselves have contributed more to deaths from COVID than all of the large-scale breakthrough infections among vaccinated people,” Risch said.
McCullough said, “Hotez presumes COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective as any vaccinologist would dream. Sadly, his fantasy was over before it started. The COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe and failed to reduce hospitalization and death in prospective randomized trials or in valid observational studies. They never stopped transmission.”
“All experts, including Hotez, agreed theoretical protection from COVID-19 vaccines was just a few months, requiring frequent boosters,” McCullough added.
Hotez calls parents who choose not to vaccinate their children ‘victims’
In his interview, Hotez called for action — including more censorship — to counter what he called a “dark and accelerating” and “dangerous” anti-vaccine movement in the U.S. and globally that is “expanding and extending to childhood immunizations in the United States.”
“My worry is that this anti-vaccine movement, and it’s not misinformation or [an] infodemic, as many call it, it’s organized, it’s deliberate, it’s well-financed and it’s politically motivated … I worry that’s now globalizing to other countries on the African continent, in Asia and even Latin America,” he added.
On the topic of childhood vaccinations, Hotez said, “Parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids are victims” of this campaign, and called for medical schools to train doctors on how to respond to parents who oppose vaccinations.
“Pediatricians need to understand what the anti-vaccine ecosystem is, how it’s organized, how it operates, and to get educated about it,” he said. “I think that’s a first step … in our medical schools, in our pediatric residency training, in our conferences like this, being able to describe what this anti-vaccine monster looks like.”
But for journalist Rodney Palmer, formerly of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the increasing reluctance of parents to vaccinate their children is due to mounting concerns about vaccine safety. He said:
“The rising movement questioning the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines appears to be based on mounting evidence from government health data collection agencies and the life insurance industry.
“The fraud and cover-up of ivermectin as an effective prevention and treatment of COVID-19 caused a segment of the population to question the official guidance around vaccines — more so once they were mandated.”
Hotez blamed legacy and traditional media, as well as foreign governments, for fueling anti-vaccine sentiments.
“Fox News is now a source of anti-vaccine disinformation,” Hotez said. “If the parents are watching Fox News every night … They are going to be coming into your practice believing disinformation.”
Turning to social media, Hotez said, “Twitter, since Elon Musk has taken it over, has become an anti-vaccine site dominated by anti-vaccine groups and individuals who are monetizing the internet. They’re selling fake autism cures because they say vaccines cause autism, which they don’t.”
Hotez continues to be active on X.
Adversarial foreign governments are also to blame for propagating anti-vaccine rhetoric, according to Hotez. “For instance, the Russian government, the Putin government, is spreading anti-vaccine propaganda. The goal of this is to destabilize society and to have caused people to question authority,” he said.
Hotez did not provide any information to support this claim. Russia produces the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, under the auspices of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and The Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology — an arm of the Russian federal government.
Hotez calls ‘anti-vaccine movement’ a tool of the ‘far-right’
Hotez also used the interview as an opportunity to plug his upcoming book, “The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist’s Warning.” He said the book “describes [the anti-vaccine] ecosystem and its political leanings in detail.”
According to the book’s publisher, Johns Hopkins University Press, Hotez “explains how anti-science became a major societal and lethal force” and how “the anti-vaccine movement became a tool of far-right political figures around the world.”
In 2022, Hotez fiercely criticized looming Congressional hearings into a possible lab-leak origin of COVID-19 and whether the National Institutes of Health (NIH) prematurely discredited the hypothesis, dismissing this as an “outlandish conspiracy.”
However, Hotez’s own 2012 to 2017 NIH grant — totaling $6.1 million — for the development of a SARS vaccine had the aim of responding to any “accidental release from a laboratory,” in addition to a possible zoonotic (or natural) spillover of the virus.
In a June 2023 interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD’s chairman on leave, podcaster Joe Rogan offered to donate $100,000 to a charity of Hotez’s choice if he agreed to debate Kennedy.
Hotez — with the support of several legacy news media outlets and the American Medical Association — refused Rogan’s offer. He later claimed on social media that a “couple of anti-vaxers” “stalked” and “taunted” him outside his home after he declined the offer to debate Kennedy.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
EU Refuses Support to Hungary, Slovakia on Russian Oil Transit Dispute With Ukraine
Sputnik – 25.07.2024
The European Union has denied its support to Hungary and Slovakia after they sought to force Ukraine to restore Russian oil transit to the bloc, the Financial Times reported citing sources familiar with the matter.
EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told the FT that Brussels would need more time to gather evidence and assess the legal situation. Eleven of the EU nations attending a meeting of trade officials on Wednesday backed his stance and none took the side of Budapest and Bratislava, diplomats told the FT.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday that Hungary and Slovakia had asked the European Commission to launch consultations with Ukraine after it stopped the transit of oil through the Druzhba pipeline. Szijjarto also said that Hungary would not approve the allocation of 6.5 billion euros ($7 billion) for arms sent to Ukraine through the European Peace Facility until the issue was resolved.
Ukraine’s trade agreement reportedly contains a clause that provides for the possibility of suspending oil transit. An EU diplomat was quoted as saying by FT that disruption in Russian oil supplies would have a “huge impact” on the central European nation.
Last week, Szijjarto said that Ukraine stopped the transit of Lukoil’s oil. The Slovak Economy Ministry confirmed that the country was no longer receiving oil from the Russian oil giant, which was sanctioned by Ukraine. Slovakia’s Slovnaft refinery imports Russian crude from another supplier, but the country is discussing the current situation with Ukraine.
U.S. Government ‘Saddled’ With COVID Vaccine Injury ‘Mess’ — While Vaccine Makers Avoid Liability
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 18, 2024
As early as January 2022, National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers were aware of at least 850 peer-reviewed case reports and/or research articles about COVID-19 vaccine reactions, according to emails obtained by Children’s Health Defense (CHD).
In one email (name and agency redacted), NIH researchers were told the federal government was “saddled” with the “mess” of dealing with those injured by the COVID-19 vaccines, due to the liability shield enjoyed by vaccine manufacturers.
The emails, part of a 309-page batch of documents released to CHD on June 21, originated from a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) request to NIH researchers for input on a report highlighting several injuries common among people who received the vaccines.
CHD requested the documents via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the NIH in November 2022. When the NIH hadn’t responded by April 2023, CHD sued the agency.
In an October 2023 settlement, the NIH agreed to produce up to 7,500 pages of documents at a rate of 300 pages per month.
The batch of documents released in June — which include emails to Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research — revealed that by fall 2021, key NIH researchers were aware of scientific studies on serious adverse events, including persistent neurological symptoms, following COVID-19 vaccines.
As with prior releases of the NIH documents, June’s tranche also included several emails from vaccine-injured individuals to NIH researchers, seeking help for their symptoms — with one person asking, “Why aren’t you studying vaccine injuries?”
‘Tinnitus … was a freight train in my head for the first four months’
On Jan. 10, 2022, NIH researcher Dr. Avindra Nath was forwarded an email from someone whose name is redacted, with the subject line: “Followup [sic] Jan 4th Meeting” (pages 281-289).
The original email, dated Jan. 9, 2022, was sent to FDA officials including Marks and Dr. Janet Woodcock, principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, who apparently participated in a meeting on this topic on Jan. 4, 2022.
The Jan. 9, 2022 email included a list of “persistent symptoms following the Covid vaccines” and the names of researchers who were studying these conditions, which included dysautonomia, neuropathy, tinnitus, multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS), myocarditis, blood clots and parasthesias.
The email was accompanied by a spreadsheet listing approximately 850 “peer-reviewed case reports/research articles about Covid vaccine reactions.”
Regarding dysautonomia — a nervous system disorder that disrupts automatic bodily functions — the email stated that the condition is “grossly under diagnosed” and “is not diagnosed in ERs or ICUs” but in “autonomic specialty labs.”
The email noted that such labs are less likely than hospitals to file reports with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and added that there “likely are issues with identifying this syndrome if only looking through VAERS or similarly reported databases.”
As a result, the email suggested “it would be reasonable to approach autonomic specialists / long covid specialists about their observations.”
A 2011 Harvard study found that less than 1% of all adverse events are reported to VAERS.
The Jan. 9, 2022, email also noted unusual trends regarding diagnoses of neuropathy — a set of neurological symptoms that includes numbness and tingling in the hands or feet, and a burning, stabbing or shooting pain in affected areas.
According to the email, “Historically, neuropathy presents in the predominantly male population aged 59+. However as discussed previous [sic], neuropathy in our case is predominantly female, aged 29-40.”
As with dysautonomia, the email noted that neuropathy is “likely to be inadequately reported through the VAERS and BEST [Biologics Effectiveness and Safety] systems because of the circumstances previously mentioned for dysautonomia.”
The Jan. 9, 2022 email also acknowledged that tinnitus was a common post-vaccination injury, noting, “Our findings are that this is not just J&J [the Johnson & Johnson, or Janssen, COVID-19 vaccine] … not by a long shot.”
According to the email, “This symptom is more proportionate to the general neuro symptoms by brand as previously reported in our patient led survey of 500 participants.”
The email’s author also noted that, “in my case yes, I have tinnitus now and it was a freight train in my head for the first four months.”
‘Is it reasonable to dismiss … 20 new symptoms … in a single person post vaccine?’
According to the email, myocarditis and blood clots were already “acknowledged by the FDA and CDC” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
“Every person in our groups that have one of these two conditions, also have accompanying neuro issues like those of us who are not currently acknowledged by the FDA and CDC,” the email said.
The conditions included postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), “brain fog/memory loss, and inflammation (MCAS)” — mast cell activation syndrome.
“Even the perfectly healthy very fit young males with the lasting myocarditis are struggling with the POTS and inflammation/brain fog/memory loss. Makes me suspect that somehow these all are a result of the same mechanism of action,” the email stated.
The Jan. 9, 2022, email also acknowledged parasthesia — a condition that causes a burning, prickling sensation — and MIS, a condition in which numerous organs become inflamed, as concerns.
The email openly questioned why more wasn’t being done to connect these conditions in the vaccinated, to the COVID-19 vaccines themselves, noting that vaccinated people were frequently demonstrating multiple rare symptoms:
“While we understand that correlation does not equal causation, we also find a strong correlation with the change in our blood that mirrors long-haul, and symptomology that mirrors long-haul.
“Because of this, I have to ask what is the process by which Covid PASC [post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, or long COVID] symptoms have been so readily tied back to Covid, whereas the same symptoms due to the Covid vaccines have not?
“Also, while it may be coincidental to have one or maybe two strange symptoms pop up, is it reasonable to dismiss 10, 15, 20 new symptoms that occur in a single person post vaccine.”
‘Insanely challenging for these people suffering … to walk this path alone’
In the Jan. 10, 2022, email to Nath an NIH researcher wrote, “The FDA has asked once again for us to provide any input from those who have experience with this disease. Very prompt responses and more active engagement on their part lead me to believe they will now examine these problems with some effort.”
The author also asked Nath if he knew researchers “who could fill in the gaps” and asked him if he would “kindly be willing to discuss with Peter Marks?”
“The gov has conveniently absolved the drug companies of any liability, and the federal government is now saddled with the responsibility of figuring out this mess,” the email continued. “I am happy to orchestrate a meeting of the minds with NDR [non-disclosure] agreements if that would get the discussion started in a way that is similar to how previous new diseases have been investigated.”
The email also noted talks with public health officials in Germany and France.
“It has been insanely challenging for these people suffering to have to walk this path alone. They grow more and more desperate by the day. Knowing there is someone, somewhere looking into this makes a big difference for these people to just hang on.”
Even though public health agencies were aware of this information and were discussing vaccine injuries in early 2022, official government advice to the public continued to claim the COVID-19 vaccines were “safe and effective,” including statements by Dr. Anthony Fauci in November 2022.
And in testimony before Congress in February, Marks dismissed the COVID-19 vaccine injury reports filed with VAERS, stating that numerous false reports are submitted to the database — a claim some experts have disputed.
As of today, the CDC continues to recommend the COVID-19 vaccines “for everyone ages 6 months and older, including people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or might become pregnant in the future.”
NIH researchers aware of vaccine injury studies in fall of 2021
The June 2024 tranche of NIH documents also revealed that, at least as early as fall 2021, researchers with the agency were aware of scientific studies and surveys highlighting serious adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination.
In a Sept. 2, 2021, email (pages 109-121), Farinaz Safavi, M.D., Ph.D., of the NIH Division of Neuroimmunology and Neurovirology was sent the results of the “Covid Vaccine Persistent Symptoms Survey” conducted by React19, a group advocating on behalf of COVID-19 vaccine injury victims.
The version of the survey included in the email was accurate as of Aug. 31, 2021, and contained the results of 382 questionnaires submitted by people “suffering persistent neurological symptoms after receiving the Sars-CoV2 Vaccine in the United States.”
According to those results, 71% of respondents said they had no preexisting health conditions prior to the symptoms they developed following their COVID-19 vaccination, and 94% said they had never previously experienced a reaction to other vaccines.
The most commonly reported symptoms included paresthesia, tinnitus, heart palpitations, tachycardia, chest pain, visual disturbance or loss, muscle twitching, joint pain, muscle aches, brain fog, fatigue and anxiety attacks.
Almost all respondents said these symptoms began less than two weeks following vaccination.
In a Nov. 15, 2021, email (pages 300-305), Nath was sent a scientific paper, “Neurological side effects of SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations,” authored by Austrian researcher Josef Finsterer, M.D., Ph.D.
According to this paper, “The most frequent neurological side effects of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are headache,” Guillain-Barré syndrome, venous sinus thrombosis and transverse myelitis.
“Safety concerns against SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are backed by an increasing number of studies reporting neurological side effects. … Healthcare professionals, particularly neurologists involved in the management of patients having undergone SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations, should be aware of these side effects and should stay vigilant to recognize them early and treat them adequately,” the paper concluded.
Nath received a review copy of this paper, which has since been published in Acta Neurologica Scandinavica.
And in a May 17, 2021, email (pages 292-299), Nath was sent a preprint of “Sudden Onset of Myelitis after COVID-19 Vaccination: An Under-Recognized Severe Rare Adverse Event,” co-authored by William E. Fitzsimmons, doctor of pharmacy, and Dr. Christopher S. Nance.
According to the preprint, “Myelitis has been reported as a complication of COVID-19 infection. However, it has rarely been reported as a complication of COVID-19 vaccination.”
The paper focused on the example of one of Fitzsimmons’ patients, a 63-year-old previously healthy male who developed myelitis after his second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine — and treatment that was effective in his case.
Other emails apparently sent by Fitzsimmons highlighted the injuries and the progression of treatment of this 63-year-old man (pages 145-150).
‘A blood clot as a cause of your paralysis would make the most sense’
In an email chain to Nath beginning Sept. 20, 2021, (pages 228-233) with the subject “Paralyzed after J&J Covid Vaccine,” the author (whose name is redacted) said that less than 24 hours following vaccination, the patient “lost bladder control.” He later developed a blood clot and erectile dysfunction, before becoming paralyzed.
In a response that day, Nath told the patient, “The temporal association of the symptoms with the vaccine does make is [sic] suspect, but I do not know of any way how to sort it out.”
In a follow-up email that day, Nath said, “A blood clot as a cause of your paralysis would make the most sense, however, proving cause and effect related to the vaccine in a single patient is virtually impossible.”
In a Dec. 13, 2021, email to Nath (pages 234-236), another vaccine injury victim, who “was healthy prior to vaccination,” described injuries following both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, including paresthesia, tachycardia, severe tinnitus, intractable insomnia and “POTs-like symptoms.”
“I have been diligent and determined in seeking care near and far, but have continued to face skepticism, half-interest, and an inability to know how best to treat,” this person wrote.
And in a series of emails beginning Jan. 24, 2022, (pages 246-247), a “woman who was completely healthy before taking the Pfizer vaccines” told Nath about a series of neurological symptoms and inflammation she experienced following her second dose, in addition to symptoms like tinnitus, insomnia and brain fog.
“Why isn’t the NIH doing research on this?” she asked in a follow-up email on Jan. 25, 2022.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
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From the Archives
Is America behind the massive surge in Kiev regime’s child trafficking?
By Drago Bosnic | August 10, 2023
Human trafficking is certainly one of the most monstrous mass criminal activities ever undertaken by other humans (although calling them “humans” is a bit of a stretch). And yet, there’s a special kind of this deeply repulsive crime that pushes it to diabolical proportions – child trafficking. Underage kids, particularly those who were abandoned, sold or have very poor/abusive family backgrounds, are by far the most vulnerable group. The depraved criminals who engage in such illicit activities specifically target unfortunate children and given there are millions of them all around the globe, particularly in war-torn areas, the “recruitment pool” is effectively endless. Unfortunately, the demand on the black market also seems to be constant and growing, making it a very lucrative and appealing prospect for criminals. … continue
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Aletho News- Diplomacy is Now a Crime in Britain / Ian Proud
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- Israeli Colonizers (i.e. Settlers) Kill Palestinian Man Near Salfit
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- Jewish supremacy, anti-Palestinian bigotry on display in Israel – Daily Update
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