Witness to Tragedy: ‘Huge’ Financial Incentives Led Hospitals to Use COVID Treatments That Killed Patients
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 19, 2024
Zowe Smith had a fairly mundane job. As a medical coder at an Arizona hospital, her job was to take information from patient records and “translate that into diagnosis and procedure codes.”
But when the COVID-19 shots and COVID-19 hospital protocols were introduced, Smith began to see things she’d never before seen in her career.
“We all believe that this is where people are supposed to go to get better … the hospital is supposed to help you,” Smith told “The Defender In-Depth” this week. “That’s not what was happening.”
Smith resigned and started speaking out about the suffering she saw recorded on patient medical records. She is the author of “The COVID Code: My Life in the Thrill Kill Medical Cult.” She also writes regularly on Substack.
Patients were ‘circling the drain’ soon after administration of COVID protocols
Smith said that medical coding, aside from being used for insurance purposes, is used to track the number of cases of diseases and illnesses regionally and nationwide.
Her job was to expose “the patterns of disease going on” in the population — and she said what she observed during the pandemic led her to begin questioning.
“Even when I was experiencing what I saw, it was almost unbelievable that this could even happen in a hospital,” said Smith, who first noticed abnormalities when the hospital started implementing COVID-19 protocols.
“I started noticing … patients trying to escape the hospital, like unplugging things, pulling out vent tubes and escaping … then I started to hear rumors about the ventilators and I knew that there was a bonus for [giving] remdesivir,” Smith said.
Smith said patients coming in with cold and flu symptoms were treated differently than they had been before the COVID-19 outbreak. “Before COVID, a cold, flu or pneumonia case, you would normally be home within three days, maybe a week, unless you had other major conditions.”
Before the pandemic, patients were rarely placed on ventilators. Smith said:
“Before the pandemic and the hospital protocols began, we did not connect patients to ventilators right away. It wasn’t until they were in dire straits and we had tried every other method that they would be put on a ventilator, and then they would be coming off those ventilators as soon as possible.”
But under the COVID-19 hospital protocols, patients “would be on the ventilators for 30 days or more sometimes, which was incredibly rare,” Smith said. “On top of that, they weren’t talking about disconnecting these patients from the ventilator, which should be something they’re talking about within 24 hours, because the longer you’re on, the less likely you are to come off the ventilator.”
Under the COVID-19 protocols, doctors “went straight to the ventilator” even if patient oxygen levels had not reached “the threshold where we would normally ventilate a person.”
Patients who were given remdesivir developed kidney failure within a few days. “I could see the lab values … they were getting worse almost immediately after the administration of remdesivir,” she said.
Smith described the pattern she observed: “Patient comes in, patient gets COVID diagnosis, patient [is] given a dose of remdesivir,” Smith said. “Pretty soon, they’re on vents. Pretty soon they have kidney failure and then they’re circling the drain and nothing that we could do would save them.”
Visits by loved ones were limited or prohibited due to pandemic restrictions and the hospital protocols — and this took a “horrific” toll on patients, Smith said.
According to Smith, patient records showed instances of “the police getting called to the hospitals” to eject “people that were trying to visit … dying loved ones or loved ones that were … being harmed by the hospital protocols.”
Smith said these patterns were evident to her as a medical coder. “Every note that happens between a nurse and a patient is documented. There’s social information that’s documented. There’s information from ambulance documentation that gets added to the medical record.”
‘Huge incentive’ for ‘financially kneecapped’ hospitals to implement protocols
According to Smith, at the start of the pandemic, hospitals were placed under financial pressure — which later incentivized them to accept payments for implementing the COVID-19 hospital protocols.
“When the world was asked to lock down … hospitals were also issued mandates … that they needed to shut down their OR [operating rooms], which is their bread and butter. That’s where most of their money is made,” she said.
Hospitals also had to “increase their ICU [intensive care unit] bed capacity” and “reduce the number of patients in the ICU beds,” Smith said.
This “financially kneecapped hospitals for many months, from about March [2020] to May, when we were told we had to make room for this expected wave of COVID patients, which never came,” Smith said.
In the summer of 2020, after Congress passed the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act), the COVID-19 protocols “came down to us from the NIH” — the National Institutes of Health. The protocols prescribed the use of remdesivir and ventilators for suspected COVID-19 patients and financially incentivized struggling hospitals to use them.
Hospitals “got 20% for every single dose of remdesivir they gave to a patient … they got the bonus for it being a COVID patient to begin with. And then if the patient goes on a ventilator … they got the maximum payment,” she said.
Hospitals hid vaccine injuries by not inquiring about vaccination status
Smith said medical records also contained evidence of patient injuries following administration of the COVID-19 vaccines.
“I began seeing some incredibly crazy cases,” Smith said. “I began to notice more cases … of near-instant death, like within an hour of multi-organ failure. Massive inflammation, brain death, things that we had never, ever seen before. In my 11 years of medical coding, I had never seen a case like that.”
She added:
“Most of those patients that had sepsis and the massive, whole-body inflammation did not make it. There were a lot of cases of seizures that were uncontrollable … and then people started to arrive with brain inflammation, encephalitis … some of them suffering from stroke-like symptoms. All of a sudden, massive blood clots coming in. And these were in young people. These were not elderly people with comorbidities.”
Yet, according to Smith, hospitals would not inquire about patients’ vaccination status, making it impossible to diagnose these conditions as vaccine injuries. “They weren’t asking the right questions [and] weren’t writing it in the medical record.”
Smith said she felt the need to turn her experience “into something positive.”
“Maybe I can take this information and put it out there so that people can be warned and they can know what’s going on,” Smith said. “To me, it’s about saving lives and it’s about helping us figure out what happened.”
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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.
Bill Gates Defends Free Speech — Unless It Hurts His Investments
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 16, 2024
Bill Gates took a shot at free speech, the First Amendment, and everyone who questions vaccines and vaccine safety in a CNBC interview earlier this month.
“We should have free speech, but if you’re inciting violence, if you’re causing people not to take vaccines, where are those boundaries that even the U.S. should have rules? And then if you have rules, what is it?” Gates asked on CNBC’s “Make It.”
Gates made similar remarks this month in an interview with CNET, during which he directly targeted the First Amendment:
“The US is a tough one because we have the notion of the First Amendment and what are the exceptions like yelling ‘fire’ in a theater. … I do think over time, with things like deepfakes, most of the time you’re online you’re going to want to be in an environment where the people are truly identified, that is they’re connected to a real-world identity that you trust, instead of just people saying whatever they want.”
Gates, described by CNBC as “the subject of numerous conspiracy theories,” said he does not have a solution for how to stop the spread of “misinformation.” He lamented his “naivete, that when we made information available, that people would want correct information.”
According to CNBC, Gates, who “spends a lot of his time and money trying to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems,” said that unlike tackling diseases or promoting clean energy, there is no clear path forward for solving what he views as the problem of “misinformation.”
Gates told CNBC any “solution” would involve “rules” for online speech, but he said he isn’t sure what form those rules would take or who would enforce them. Similarly, he told CNET “systems and behaviors” should be in place to target “misinformation.”
“Is there some AI [artificial intelligence] that encodes those rules because you have billions of activity [sic] and if you catch it a day later, the harm is done,” Gates told CNBC. However, he acknowledged that he is sensitive to the argument that restricting online information would be detrimental to free speech.
Gates’ remarks a ‘blatant affront to the First Amendment’
Experts who spoke with The Defender said Gates’ remarks belie a disregard for the principles of free speech and the First Amendment.
Author Naomi Wolf, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of DailyClout, told The Defender Gates “should re-read the Constitution,” adding:
“No individual, and certainly not the state, has the authority in our system to be the arbiter of what can be read or said. Our First Amendment has very few and limited exceptions, such as threats of violence. ‘Misinformation’ is not one of them. History shows that censorship never works ultimately to repress the truth.”
Other experts cited Gates’ questionable track record on free speech and issues such as vaccines. Epidemiologist M. Nathaniel Mead told The Defender Gates’ “post-2020 track record on this issue is well-documented.”
Mead said:
“He tried to sell us on the ‘vaccine-only’ solution to COVID by falsely claiming that the modified mRNA injections would avert infection and transmission, thereby ending the pandemic. He also openly urged media to disparage as ‘conspiracy theorists’ or anyone who questioned mandates for masking, social distancing, lockdowns, PCR testing and, of course, the so-called vaccines.”
Mead called this “a rather blatant affront” to the First Amendment. “Given his track record with public health communications, Gates is being grotesquely disingenuous when he speaks about wanting to protect free speech.”
Mead suggested Gates relies on control over narratives in the media to further his promotion of — and investments in — vaccines. He said:
“Bill Gates has a vested interest in ensuring that counternarrative information, or what he calls ‘misinformation,’ is eliminated. That’s because it interferes with his Bio-Pharma agenda and what appear to be authoritarian aspirations as well, given his efforts to impose vaccine passport requirements internationally and to restrict free speech through his control of many news media channels, having given over $300 million of his own funds in recent years to support ‘independent’ media platforms such as NPR, PBS and The Guardian.
“Since the mass media relies heavily on Big Pharma advertising to maintain operations, it has largely abandoned the traditional skepticism of government directives, instead aiding in the suppression of dissenting viewpoints. Anyone posing counter-establishment narratives is a ‘problem’ from Gates’ perspective.”
‘Afraid that when their plans are exposed, people will resist’
Others argued that Gates’ reputation was hurt as a result of his outspoken support for and investments in COVID-19 vaccines and mRNA technology — and can only be restored through censorship of online speech.
“To restore his reputation from mad scientist back to computer guy, Gates has one hope: censorship. Indeed, the vast amount of censorship needed for that job is basically to wipe the internet,” attorney Greg Glaser told The Defender.
Catherine Austin Fitts, founder and publisher of the Solari Report and former U.S. assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, cited a recent survey showing that a significant percentage of the population believes COVID-19 vaccines are deadly.
“A recent Rassmussen survey published in June 2024 reported that 33% of American adults agree with the statement: ‘The [COVID-19] vaccine is killing people, and is killing large numbers of people,’” Fitts said.
“If Mr. Gates wants to stop misinformation, his first step should be to stop financing, speaking or republishing misinformation that results in the poisoning of our children,” Fitts added.
For Seamus Bruner, author of “Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life,” Gates’ support for stopping “misinformation” is tied to his support for vaccines and digital ID.
Bruner, director of research at the Government Accountability Institute, argued that the “systems and behaviors” Gates advocated include “a de facto digital ID system” that would “track and trace our precise digital footprint — what we say and do online.”
Bruner said:
“Gates and the other controligarchs are pouring billions of dollars into digital ID efforts, and they plan to use misinformation — particularly related to vaccines — to do it.
“He wants to control what we put in our bodies. Now, he wants to control what we’re allowed to put into our minds — what we think — by controlling what we are allowed to say. The reason ‘misinformation’ is a ‘problem’ for controligarchs like Gates is simple: They are afraid that when their plans are exposed, people will resist.”
Gates making an ‘emotional appeal to manipulate public opinion’
CNBC’s interview with Gates came just days before the release of a five-part Netflix docuseries, “What’s Next? The Future With Bill Gates.”
The series will premiere on Sept. 18 — the same day as the documentary “Vaxxed 3: Authorized to Kill” will be released. “Vaxxed 3” features excerpts from thousands of interviews with people about vaccine injuries and deaths people allege were caused by hospital COVID-19 treatment protocols.
According to CNBC, in one episode of “What’s Next?” Gates tells his daughter Phoebe he feels bad for failing to stem the spread of “misinformation.”
“Hearing my daughter talk about how she’d been harassed online … brought that into focus in a way that I hadn’t thought about before,” Gates told CNBC.
According to CNBC, “Phoebe Gates spoke out about what she called ‘the misconceptions and conspiracy theories’” — “including racist online commentary about one of her ex-boyfriends, who is Black” — and about her family in an interview with The Information.
Gates told CNBC, “We’ve handed this problem to the younger generation,” referring to “misinformation.”
Mead accused Gates of trying to conceal his support for censorship by eliciting an emotional response.
“Calling attention to the cyber harassment of his daughter has less to do with misinformation than with predatory and abusive online behaviors,” Mead said. “But Gates seems to be getting desperate, and his attempt to make this kind of illogical linkage is an emotional appeal to manipulate public opinion.”
Mead said Gates used similar emotional tactics to equate questioning vaccines with “inciting violence.” He said:
“In the video clip teaser, we hear Gates say we should have free speech and then attempt to obliquely link ‘inciting violence’ with ‘causing people not to take vaccines.’
“When he juxtaposes the incitement of violence with causing people not to take vaccines, he’s resorting to the most basic propaganda tactic, that of emotional manipulation.”
Such plays on emotion also represent a concerted effort to target young people in particular, according to Glaser:
“One of the most surprising things I’ve learned from interviewing young people is they generally don’t like to fact check. Scrolling is way more fun. They want verification processes done for them, and they are content to rely on their peer group’s perception of the information. That’s the phenomenon that people like Gates are trying to exploit.”
Instead of censorship, a focus on allowing free speech to thrive?
“Misinformation is becoming more common,” CNBC reported, citing developments such as AI chatbots that “make it easier to generate and spread falsehoods quickly,” and a January World Economic Forum report that said “misinformation” is the top global risk for the next two years.
While citing AI as a prime driver of “misinformation,” CNBC cited a 2023 interview with Beth Goldberg, head of research and development at Jigsaw, a Google unit, who said researchers are attempting to develop AI tools to identify what CNBC described as “misinformation and toxic speech online.”
But in a blog post last year, Gates argued that AI’s ability to fight “misinformation” would be imperfect.
“Someone finds a way to detect fakery, someone else figures out how to counter it, someone else develops counter-countermeasures, and so on. It won’t be a perfect success, but we won’t be helpless either,” Gates wrote.
But Glaser said society should focus on creating the conditions for free speech to flourish.
“Free speech does not exist in a vacuum, but rather its quality is a measure of the character of people speaking and listening. This is the root of the issue that censorship cannot address. Only as we improve the character and morality of our societies will free speech truly thrive,” Glaser said.
“The largest danger to an organic human system — like a free market — is inorganic authoritarianism,” Glaser added. “Bill Gates teaming up with the United Nations to impose a global order is the picture of inorganic authoritarianism.”
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.
Demand for Justice: World Council for Health urges the immediate release of Dr. Reiner Füellmich
World Council for Health | September 10, 2024
The international human rights community is rallying to demand the immediate release of Dr. Reiner Füellmich, a lawyer from Germany who has been in pre-trial detention for over 10 months. Arrested under dubious circumstances at Frankfurt Airport on October 13, 2023, Dr. Füellmich’s case has raised serious concerns regarding the legality of his detention and the integrity of the judicial process. Of the initial 18 charges made against Füellmich, only one remains regarding personal loans.
According to German law, the maximum duration of pre-trial detention is six months, as outlined in 121 para. 1 of the German Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO). “Special or important reasons for an extension of pre-trial detention beyond the 6 months are not apparent.” This assertion highlights the urgent need for a re-evaluation of Dr. Füellmich’s ongoing detention.
In a significant development, it has come to light that Dr. Christof Miseré, one of the defense attorneys representing Füellmich, obtained a dossier from the German secret services. This document explicitly outlines a directive to halt Füellmich by any means necessary. Alarmingly, it details a strategy to infiltrate individuals within his inner circle of collaborators. Furthermore, the dossier reveals a clear objective: to convict Fuellmich, thereby obstructing any future aspirations he may have for public or political office. This information raises serious questions about the lengths to which authorities may go to silence dissenting voices. This dossier, given to Miseré by a whistleblower, demonstrates that Reiner Füellmich was already under special surveillance as far back as 2021.
Adding to the controversy is the manner of Dr. Füellmich’s arrest. He was reportedly “kidnapped” from Mexico, where he had been residing legally. A German and a European arrest warrant were issued against him, ostensibly to circumvent lengthy international extradition procedures. The Göttingen public prosecutor’s office collaborated closely with officers from Interpol and the Federal Criminal Police, orchestrating a deceptive plan to lure Dr. Füellmich to the Mexican consulate under false pretenses, an act that raises significant legal and ethical questions about the conduct of authorities involved.
Despite multiple assertions from both his defense and Dr. Füellmich himself regarding the illegality of his deportation, these concerns have been largely dismissed in court. Lawyers argue that the circumstances surrounding his abduction and subsequent detention underscore critical national and international legal issues that must be addressed.
Currently held in Rosdorf Prison near Göttingen, Dr. Füellmich faces harsh and isolating conditions. He is segregated from other inmates, permitted only solitary yard time, and restricted in his communication with the outside world, limited to a mere three hours of private visits per month. This punitive environment raises further questions about the treatment of individuals in pre-trial detention, particularly when contrasted with the lack of substantial evidence to justify such measures. On June 11, Reiner Füellmich was once again placed in solitary confinement, a status he continues to endure. This isolation means he is prohibited from any interaction with other inmates. The authorities justified this extreme measure by alleging that Füellmich had been providing legal advice to his fellow prisoners, a situation deemed unacceptable by those overseeing his incarceration. Füellmich is required to eat in isolation and is granted just one hour each day for outdoor activity, which is also spent in complete solitude. He is not allowed access to the gymnasium and can only use the telephone after other inmates have returned to their cells. This strict regimen underscores the severity of his confinement and the restrictions imposed upon him.
The charges against Dr. Füellmich include embezzlement, yet many observers, including his defense, contend that this trial has transcended ordinary judicial proceedings and has become a politically motivated effort to silence a prominent critic of COVID-19 measures. The trial has seen troubling shifts in legal parameters, further complicating the case and undermining the principles of justice.
In light of these serious allegations and the apparent disregard for due process, World Council for Health is calling for the immediate release of Dr. Reiner Füellmich. This situation not only affects one individual but also serves as a stark reminder of the potential for political influence to infiltrate the judiciary, compromising the very foundations of justice and fairness.
As the international freedom movement watches closely, it is imperative that justice prevails and that Dr. Füellmich is granted the freedom he deserves, freedom that is essential not only for him but for the integrity of the legal system itself.
Take action now – Sign the petition calling for the release of Reiner Füellmich
$3,000 and a Toy: Novavax Dangles Incentives to Fill Clinical Trials on COVID Shots for Babies, Kids
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 29, 2024
Novavax is offering parents up to $3,000 to enroll their children in the vaccine maker’s Phase 2/3 COVID-19 vaccine trial for infants and children ages 6 months to 11 years. The offer also includes a stuffed animal for each child.
The “Hummingbird” trial is testing two primary shots and a booster shot of Novavax’s adjuvanted recombinant spike protein nanoparticle vaccine in children. The study, which began in 2022, is enrolling 3,600 children.
The study, which began in the U.S., is expected to run through 2025 and will be conducted in the U.S. and other countries.
The children will receive three injections and visit the clinic eight times. Parents will participate in three phone calls and keep an e-diary of the vaccine’s effects on their child. Some children will receive two additional injections, for a total of five shots.
The study website promises, “You will be compensated for your time and travel regardless of your immigration status. Transportation to the study site may also be provided, as available. No health insurance is required to participate.”
Recruitment materials from Be Well Clinical Studies, which is running one of the U.S. trials, state that compensation can be more than $3,000 over two years.
A 2023 video explaining the study also promises incentives for the children, including “a Covid stuffed animal.”
In the video, a pastor from Louisiana who has four children enrolled in the study said incentives like the stuffed animal made the kids even “more excited than the parents” to participate.
The video features Dr. Jibran Atwi who is running a Hummingbird trial in Lafayette, Louisiana. He encouraged people to participate in the study, because COVID-19 severely affected kids, particularly through lockdowns and lost schooling.
Atwi also said that COVID-19 can be “very disruptive” because if a child has to stay home from school, parents may not be able to go work and the child may have to be isolated from their grandparents.
“Prevention,” he said, “is the best medicine.” He added that there had been an “impressive response” from parents who wanted to participate.
Research shows that young children rarely get sick from COVID-19 and that the illness is typically mild in older kids.
Atwi received over $2 million in research funding in 2023 from Big Pharma, according to the Open Payments website.
Most of that funding came from Genzyme — a Sanofi subsidiary — and from Sanofi, which shares the co-exclusive licensing agreement with Novavax to commercialize its COVID-19 vaccine.
In 2022, Atwi received over $1 million, largely from AstraZeneca and Genzyme.
Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization to Pfizer and Moderna’s 2024-2025 mRNA COVID-19 shots, but Novavax’s 2024-2025 formula has not yet been authorized.
The FDA has authorized previous versions of the Novavax vaccine, but only for children ages 12 and up.
High payments place children ‘at risk of coercion’
Other pharmaceutical companies that have paid research subjects large sums of money have come under scrutiny. In the United Kingdom (U.K.), Moderna was criticized for initially offering children’s families 1,505 pounds ($1,984 dollars) to participate in its NextCOVE clinical trial, which is testing Moderna’s mRNA vaccine in children ages 12 and up.
The Children’s Covid Vaccine Advisory Council submitted a complaint to the U.K.’s Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) — an industry trade group that regulates ethical practices — raising concerns about “inappropriate financial inducement” offered to children and their parents to participate in the trial.
The council cited concerns raised by the research ethics committee (REC) that approved the clinical study. Regarding the 1,500-pound payment they wrote:
“This amount seems much higher than what would be considered a reasonable reimbursement and therefore would contravene clinical trial regulations. The Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations (2004) explicitly prohibit the giving of incentives or financial inducements to children… or their parents.”
The REC said the amount, “placed the children at risk of coercion,” and the organization required that Moderna reduce the offer before recruitment could begin. Moderna reduced the amount to 185 pounds ($244 dollars).
Yet, according to the complaint, at least one pediatrician continued to offer the high enrollment compensation.
The PMCPA sanctioned Moderna, and the case report on the issue is currently pending.
If the PMCPA determines a pharmaceutical company has breached the industry code, it can require the company to pay administrative charges or issue a corrective statement. Or, it may request a compulsory audit of the company.
In the U.S., Be Well is also advertising that it will pay parents $2,400 for enrolling their infants and toddlers, ages 5-23 months, in Moderna’s Rhyme Trial for an mRNA RSV and a human metapneumovirus (hMPV) vaccine.
According to the clinicaltrials.gov website, Be Well withdrew from the Moderna RSV study, but the website is still advertising to recruit participants.
Be Well is run by founder and director Dr. Mark Carlson, a geriatrician, who has taken nearly $3 million in research funding from Big Pharma, mostly from Moderna, since 2021.
Moderna did not respond to The Defender’s inquiry about compensation offered to children’s families to participate in these studies.
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.
Biden-Harris Administration Defends Big Tech Censorship Pressure Following Zuckerberg’s Admission
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 28, 2024
The Biden-Harris White House looks determined to justify and normalize the practice of the government colluding with private companies, in this instance Big Tech, to censor speech.
After Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, admitting that his company came under pressure from the current administration to conduct censorship and that he “believes” that was wrong – the White House doubled down on the controversial, and quite possibly, unconstitutional, policy.
In his letter, Zuckerberg chose to focus on Meta censoring content related to COVID-19, and in response, a White House spokesman revealed the government does not share Zuckerberg’s stance that the policy of pressure was wrong.
“Encouragement” is how that’s phrased. “When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety,” stated the White House spokesman to media requests.
He further justified the actions described by Zuckerberg as needed because the White House believes private companies, including those from the tech industry, “should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people.”
And with the stage set in this way – the spokesman concluded that these companies are then free to make “independent choices about the information they present.”
But Zuckerberg’s letter to the Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan does a pretty good job of explaining how these “independent choices” get made. Senior figures from the Biden administration, Zuckerberg stated, in 2021 “repeatedly pressured our (Facebook, Instagram) teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire.”
The decision on content removal, and introduction of new rules into platform policies to facilitate censorship, Zuckerberg concedes, was “ultimately ours” – but made under pressure.
If Meta tried to defy these “suggestions” – the administration showed “a lot of frustration.”
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” the letter, sent in response to the Committee’s subpoena first issued in early 2023, reads.
The Committee has been investigating how the government may have colluded with private companies to suppress speech it disapproves of, and whether those actions constitute First Amendment violations.
Even before the current Biden-Harris administration came to power, Facebook was being steered in a desired direction, one example being the notorious case of the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop news story, the Zuckerberg letter reveals.
The FBI contacted the social media giant with a “warning” that there could be an anti-Biden family “Russian disinformation” campaign – and Facebook heeded it by “fact-checking and temporarily demoting (links to the article).”
Mark Zuckerberg confirms Biden regime pressured Facebook on censorship, admits to throttling Hunter Biden story
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | August 26, 2024
In a revealing letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has addressed significant controversies surrounding the platform’s content censorship practices, especially concerning actions taken during the 2020 presidential election cycle and the COVID-19 pandemic.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
Zuckerberg confirmed that senior officials from the Biden Administration exerted “pressure” on Facebook to censor specific content related to COVID-19, criticizing the administration’s approach. Despite the external pressures, Zuckerberg emphasized that the final decisions on content moderation lay with Facebook, admitting regret over some of the decisions made under this pressure.
“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration… repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire,” Zuckerberg stated, reflecting on the administration’s actions which he now believes were “wrong.” He expressed regret that Meta was not more outspoken against this pressure at the time: “Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions.”
In a separate disclosure, Zuckerberg detailed interactions with the FBI, which had warned the company of a potential Russian disinformation campaign targeting the Biden family and their association with Burisma ahead of the 2020 elections. This led to the suppression of a New York Post story involving corruption allegations against Joe Biden’s family, which was later determined not to be Russian disinformation. Zuckerberg expressed regret over this decision as well, noting significant changes in Meta’s policy to avoid such actions in the future.
“It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story,” Zuckerberg conceded, alleging a policy shift to prevent future such occurrences: “We’ve changed our policies and processes to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Additionally, Zuckerberg addressed his contributions through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to support electoral infrastructure during the pandemic, aiming to assist local election jurisdictions. He defended these contributions as non-partisan, though acknowledged public skepticism about the impartiality of such support.
“My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another,” he affirmed, signaling a withdrawal from similar contributions in future electoral cycles.
Australian Government blocks Covid inquiry ‘with teeth’
Once again, Labor characterised its foes as ‘conspiracy theorists’, ‘cranks,’ ‘kooks’ and ‘far right extremists’ rather than engaging in rational debate
By Rebekah Barnett | Dystopian Down Under | August 22, 2024
The Australian Government has voted down a bill to establish a Covid Commission of Inquiry, which would have essentially the same powers and independence as a Royal Commission.
The bill was supported by a small coalition of senators from minor parties and the Opposition (conservative), but was rejected by the Labor Party(left-wing) in a vote today.
To date, Australia has had plenty of Covid inquiries, but none with teeth.
The siloing of inquiries to deal only with states and territory and federal governments on an individual basis has allowed for a lot of finger pointing with very limited accountability.
The scope of the federal Covid Inquiry excludes the policies of state and territory governments, which enacted vaccine mandates, lockdowns and inter-state border restrictions, leading politicians and media to call it “toothless.”
In turn, states and territories have focused on how well they implemented policies heavily influenced by the Federal Government and national advisory bodies without actually considering whether the policies were any good.
The patchwork nature of these inquiries allows the Federal Government to blame states and territories for implementing the harshest measures, and the states and territory governments pass the buck to the federal agencies and departments for influencing them to do so.
More holistic independent reviews like the Fault Lines report have resulted in talk of ‘lessons learned’ about “ill-conceived policies, politically driven health orders and excessive use of lockdowns,” but no meaningful attempts to hold anyone to account or guarantees that the lessons will inform future pandemic policy making.
Another problem with inquiries to date is that federal, state and territory governments have played hide the ball with important documentation and data required to properly assess their performance. As yet, no Australian government has released the health advice that draconian measures were based upon.
A Royal Commission or similar, taking the entire Covid response – at federal, state and territory levels – and with aggressive powers to command access to information that governments don’t want to release, would be required for real accountability.
The only ways to bring this about are for the executive to call a Royal Commission, or for the Senate to call a Commission of Inquiry.
However, despite the recommendation of the Senate Select Committee on COVID-19 in 2022 that a Royal Commission into Australia’s Covid response be established, the Labor Government has resisted calls to do so.
The Committee, led by senior Labor Party member Katy Gallagher (now Minister for Finance, for Women and for the Public Service) criticised the then Liberal Government’s lack of transparency and accountability around pandemic decision making by the National Cabinet.
Emergency law making had “challenged the Australian Parliament’s capacity to provide meaningful scrutiny of proposed laws, particularly in identifying and addressing the impact of emergency powers on the rights of individuals,” the Committee stated in its recommendations.
Leader of the Opposition at the time, Anthony Albanese, sort of promised a Covid Royal Commission. But after being elected to government in May 2022, Prime Minister Albanese has resolutely dodged the issue, throwing his support behind the limited federal inquiry instead.
Hence, a group of concerned senators tabled the COVID-19 Response Commission of Inquiry Bill 2024 in a bid to open up option B, an inquiry initiated by the Senate.
The bill, prepared by Senator Matt Canavan (Liberal), was co-sponsored by Senators Malcolm Roberts (One Nation), Alex Antic (Liberal), Gerard Rennick (Liberal), Ralph Babet (United Australia Party) and Matt O’Sullivan (Liberal), all of whom have been vocal critics of Australia’s pandemic response.
Source: Senator Alex Antic on X
During speaking time, senators who sponsored the bill argued that a Covid Commission of Inquiry is needed so that Australia can finally move on from Covid with a good plan in place for future pandemics. A proper inquiry would get to the bottom of what went wrong (and what went right) to restore trust in public health, they said.
Senator Roberts also said that in light of the fact that multiple U.S. states are now suing Pfizer for misleading about its Covid vaccine, if an inquiry found that Pfizer was indeed guilty of fraudulent behaviour, this could shift the financial burden of injuries and deaths associated with Pfizer’s product from Australian tax payers to the pharmaceutical giant.
Australian tax payers have coughed up more than $20 million on compensation for Covid vaccine injuries, but they will have to pay a lot more if a Covid vaccine injury class action is successful. The action, which was filed in the Federal Court last year, has enrolled over 1,500 injured Australians (or families of the deceased).
However, only ten senators supported the bill when it went to a vote in Parliament today. The bill was supported by the above mentioned senators (with the exception of Senator Antic, who is on leave), some members of the Coalition, One Nation, and independent Senator David Pocock.
Despite Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John stating that his party supports the establishment of a “frank” and “transparent” inquiry with the powers of a Royal Commission, the Greens abstained from the vote. Labor voted against the bill.
Source: Dynamic Red, 22 August 2024
I am told by the office of one of the senators who sponsored this bill that they have no intention of dropping the matter.
Previously, Senator Babet brought five separate motions to establish the world’s first government Excess Mortality Inquiry, which is now in progress thanks to Senator Babet’s persistence.
An inquiry into proposed terms of reference for a Covid Royal Commission has already been conducted, which will prove helpful in the event that either a Royal Commission or a Commission of Inquiry into Australia’s Covid response are eventually established.
Nonetheless, such efforts will face stiff opposition from the Albanese Government, if Labor Senator Tim Ayres’ speech in Parliament today is representative of his party’s position.
In speaking time before the vote, Senator Ayres said that the Government did not support the bill because “there’s already a public inquiry,” before launching into an astonishing diatribe of ad hominem attacks on the senators who proposed the bill.
Senator Ayres used the term ‘conspiracy theories’ or ‘conspiracy theorist’ more than twenty times, likened the efforts of senators to bring about a thorough Covid inquiry to movements motivated by “anti-semitism,” and called these same senators “cranks,” and the “nastiest, extreme, kooky elements of politics.”
Senator Ayres referred to ‘conspiracy theorists/theories’ more than 20 times in Parliament, 22 August 2024. Source: Australian Parliament House Streaming Portal, YouTube.
Senator Rennick called Senator Ayres’ speech “disgusting,” stating, “all we’re recommending today and supporting is that we have a thorough inquiry.”
In a statement after the vote, Senator Canavan said that more disheartening than Australia’s damaging pandemic response was “the response to the response.”
“Those Australians hurt during Covid deserve to have the accountability of proper public hearings, the publication of all the health advice and an open, transparent attempt to recognise mistakes as well as put in processes to prevent such things ever happening again.
“Why can’t the Government accept that if it is given immense power to lock people in their homes and force people out of work, that there should be an equal and corresponding obligation for them to be accountable to the people hurt by their decisions?”
Senator Babet took to X to express his dissatisfaction with the outcome, calling the decision of the Senate “weak.”
“Is it too much for Australians to ask for governments and the bureaucrats advising them to be held to account for the advice and actions they took during the pandemic?”
Apparently, yes.
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.
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Iran’s Next Strike May Not Explode. It Could Shut You Down
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From the Archive
Zionism’s Violent Legacy
By Donald Neff | Washington Report On Middle East Affairs | January 1996
On January 4, 1948, Jewish terrorists drove a truck loaded with explosives into the center of the all Arab city of Jaffa and detonated it, killing 26 and wounding around 100 Palestinian men, women and children.[1] The attack was the work of the Irgun Zvai Leumi – the “National Military Organization,” also known by the Hebrew letters Etzel – the largest Jewish terrorist group in Palestine. The Irgun was headed by Revisionist Zionist Menachem Begin and had been killing and maiming Arabs, Britons and even Jews for the previous ten years in its efforts to establish a Jewish state.
This terror campaign meant that at the core of Revisionist Zionism there existed a philosophical embrace of violence. … continue
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