The first victim of what became known as Covid-19 was ‘Patient Zero’, whose case was recorded on December 26, 2019, in Wuhan, China. He was admitted to hospital with respiratory symptoms including fever, dizziness and a cough. Patient Zero was relatively young and without significant health problems, yet he was subjected to a battery of tests, including genetic sequencing of fluid from his airways. We are told this led to the discovery of a new coronavirus subsequently dubbed SARS-CoV-2. As described in the seminal paper in Nature from February 3, 2020, the clinical features of the illness of the alleged Patient Zero, from whom the genome of the ‘novel virus’ was said to have been sequenced, are quite typical of regular bacterial pneumonia. Given that he showed no unusual symptoms, clearly this was not a routine medical response to what looks like a typical respiratory infection.
This is not all that is odd about the narrative. Have you ever read much discussion of pneumonia vaccines? Researchers have found that a purported preventive of one of the major causes of bacterial pneumonia, the pneumococcal vaccine, is sometimes given to the elderly and vulnerable. Researchers who have looked at the interaction between bacterial pneumonia and SARS-CoV-2 have found that bacterial pneumonia vaccination reduced the risk of Covid-19 by a statistically significant margin.Buthow can a vaccine for a bacterium reduce the risk from a virus?
Research into the etiology of community-acquired pneumonia concludes that it is often observed that viral species colonise the nasopharynx of patients after they have contracted bacterial pneumonia, suggesting that sequential pneumonia infection followed by viral infection, or parallel infection, where the infections occur together, are both possible. However, the default operating assumption in the medical literature and in practice is the opposite: viral followed by bacterial infection, and since 2020 with SARS-CoV-2 identified as the ‘novel’ root cause.
These research results suggest that the actual burden of risk to patients is not SARS-CoV-2 at all but bacterial pneumonia and that SARS-Cov-2 is secondary to bacterial pneumonia, or it masks bacterial pneumonia, not the other way around. Given this, might it be the case that bacterial pneumonia is acquired in the community rather than in hospital, and that the signal of viral infection follows bacterial pneumonia infection? And if so why was the focus on a virus and not on the perennial risk of bacterial pneumonia?
Many of the frightening images circulated in the media in spring 2020 were from ICUs showing patients being treated on ventilators. It was claimed that people were dying of acute respiratory distress caused by SARS-CoV-2 while being ventilated. Ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) is a well-known condition in which ventilated patients have a significantly higher chance of dying after contracting ‘secondary’ pneumonia during ventilation. Many patients dying of VAP in spring 2020 were recorded as having died from SARS-CoV-2.
High rates of ventilator-induced pneumonia are acknowledged by the authorities but their use continues to be defended as necessary. Even Anthony Fauci admitted that ventilation was overused. This overuse of ventilation was accompanied by changes in protocols, delays in admission and changes to medication and testing. Given that most people suffering death by ‘Covid-19 with respiratory symptoms’ died in ICUs, blaming these deaths on SARS-CoV-2 seems unscrupulous. The observational data is heavily confounded, and these deaths are just as likely to have involved, inter alia, bacterial infection and changes in treatment protocols as by detected or undetected pathogens.
In a 2008 article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases (on the Spanish Flu pandemic), Anthony Fauci concluded: ‘Prevention, diagnosis, prophylaxis, and treatment of secondary bacterial pneumonia, as well as stockpiling of antibiotics and bacterial vaccines, should also be high priorities for pandemic planning.’
Regardless of whether such stockpiles of antibiotics were created, community antibiotic prescriptions were reduced dramatically in spring 2020. Recall that in spring 2020 people were told to self-isolate if they suffered Covid symptoms. This would therefore buy time for pathogens to multiply and for a more severe condition to develop, which might subsequently be harder to manage. Many people would have presented late to ICU, with incipient or lingering pneumonia (perhaps from the previous normal flu season), disguised as Covid-19, and may have been left untreated with antibiotics until their condition deteriorated further.
A reluctance to perform bacteriological investigations in ICUs (and expose staff to a supposedly deadly pathogen) may have been a further contributory factor. Patients would therefore have suffered higher levels of respiratory distress than would have been seen historically. The lateness of presentation to ICU, and the very late administration of antibiotics, may have failed to save them from a (detected or undetected) bacterial pneumonia infection.
Conflating pneumonia and Covid-19 repeats an official longstanding tactic of conflating the attribution of influenza and pneumonia. There is evidence to suggest that a reduction in the public’s perceived threat of flu may have prompted the pharmaceutical industry to attempt a rebranding of the threat along with a new suite of marketable products to respond to that threat.
In contrast to the evidence presented above, physicians in Toledo, Spain, administered antibiotics to Covid-19 patients during spring 2020, contrary to official guidance. This resulted in zero hospitalisations or deaths in their care homes after they started routine administration. The resulting mortality over spring 2020 was approximately 7 per cent versus 28 per cent in other comparable care homes (and the 7 per cent died before they started routine antibiotic use).
A (pneumonia) hypothesis, that a proportion of Covid-19 deaths in 2020, specifically those with associated respiratory symptoms, were caused by bacterial pneumonia, and that bacterial pneumonia may have been the primary, not the secondary, infection, starts to look rather strong. It matters because it challenges received wisdom about the true causative agent of the deaths resulting from the ‘pandemic’ – a bacterium or a virus, both or neither? It also brings into question how the agent was spread and, most significantly, it challenges how and if the illness was appropriately treated.
Further confirmation that bacterial pneumonia, not Covid, is the real danger has come from two groups of doctors who have had 100 per cent success using antibiotics to treat ‘Covid’.
In allegorical terms it is akin to a scene from an Agatha Christie novel: SARS-CoV-2, a bystander used as a decoy, is found guilty of the crime with ventilation as his accomplice, but the actual criminal, who has got off scot-free, is in fact bacterial pneumonia (undetected until the denouement). In other words, SARS-CoV-2 has been framed.
This article is based on Whodunnit? (unabridged) by Professor Martin Neil, Jonathan Engler, Dr Jessica Hockett and Professor Norman Fenton.
September 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19 |
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As a university academic, and former pharmacist, whose speciality is misinformation, disinformation and fake news, I have been very active of late in collecting (and writing) papers appearing in medical journals that provide evidence and arguments against the COVID-19 vaccines. Below is a summary of some of the recent papers I find to be most concerning.
Vaccine effectiveness and safety exaggerated
An article appearing in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, including BMJ Editor Peter Doshi amongst its authors, discusses several biases that, if not accounted for, indicate that the effectiveness of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in observational studies is being heavily exaggerated. The most important appears to be one many of us have worried about from the beginning, the dubious ‘case-counting window bias’, which concerns the seven days, 14 days or even 21 days after the jab where we are meant to overlook jab-related issues, particularly poor effectiveness, as “the vaccine has not had sufficient time to stimulate the immune system”. In an example using some data from Pfizer’s clinical trial, the authors show that thanks to this bias, a vaccine with effectiveness of 0%, which is confirmed in the hypothetical clinical trial, could be seen in observational studies as having effectiveness of 48%.
In a follow-up article in the same journal I revealed ways in which the situation may even be worse. The aforementioned ‘case-counting window bias’ is often accompanied by a ‘definitional bias’, whereby the Covid cases in the vaccinated are not just ignored, but shifted over to the unvaccinated. So building on the above example, a vaccine with 0% effectiveness can actually be perceived as having 65% effectiveness. My article also shows, touching on the intriguing (horrifying?) issue of negative effectiveness, “a vaccine with minus-100% effectiveness, meaning that it makes symptomatic COVID-19 infection twice as likely, can be perceived as being 47% effective”. Furthermore, “Repeated calculations will show that moderate vaccine effectiveness is still perceived even with actual vaccine effectiveness figures of minus-1,000% and lower”. I also explained that this exaggeration could equally apply to studies on vaccine safety, which would be important when comparing the overall health of the vaccinated and unvaccinated, as may be appropriate when looking into the mysterious rise in non-Covid excess deaths post-pandemic.
Doshi, joined by one of his earlier co-authors, decided to produce another article in the same journal, a follow-up to my follow-up, shifting the focus from observational studies to the clinical trials. They found that case counting “only began once participants were seven days (Pfizer) or 14 days (Moderna) post Dose 2, or approximately four to six weeks after Dose 1”. The obvious implication:
Decisions on when to initiate the case counting window affected calculations of vaccine efficacy. Because cases occurring in the four to six weeks between Dose 1 and the case counting window were excluded, reported vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 (the primary endpoint) at the time of Emergency Use Authorisation was higher than what would have been calculated had all COVID-19 cases after Dose 1 been included, as in a conventional Intent-to-Treat analysis.
They also found that “different case counting windows” were used at different times, ‘coincidentally’ yielding better results.
Not yet published, though under peer review, is my intended fourth and final article in this unofficial ‘series’. Firstly, I justify my earlier concern of exaggerated safety in observational studies, or studies built on observational data and models rather than data from controlled trials, by discussing a recently published paper in another journal, noting how the authors only count vaccine adverse effects from 14 days after the second dose (or seven days after the latest booster shot), and stopping the count at around four to five months. As if to highlight the potential magnitude of safety exaggeration with so many adverse effects being overlooked, the study, flawed as it is, showed only a very slight net benefit to vaccination. A more complete view of adverse effects (as well as cases in the ‘partially vaccinated’) could easily lead to the conclusion that the risks of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the benefits. I also explain that there are issues with the adverse effect counting windows in the clinical trials in relation to their short length. The safety monitoring ends mere months after vaccination, though adverse effects can manifest clinically years later.
Vaccine-induced myocarditis and young males
In the latter article, and in a rapid response published by BMJ Open, I also discuss recent evidence and journal articles on myocarditis, with one finding a “Covid vaccine-induced myocarditis incidence rate of around one in 100,000, and around one in 19,000 for males between the ages of 12 and 17 years”. These authors also found that a significant number of people with Covid vaccine-induced myocarditis end up dead soon afterwards. Go ahead and contrast this with the U.K. Government’s determination of numbers needed to vaccinate to prevent a severe Covid hospitalisation being in the hundreds of thousands for young ‘no risk’ groups.
In research I hope to be published soon, I show how Pfizer estimates an even greater incidence of myocarditis in young males, and it also estimates that one million vaccinated will result in zero to one saved lives. Yes, zero is included as a real possibility. By Pfizer. It would appear that, at least for certain groups, this one adverse effect alone undoes the claim that the ‘risks outweigh the benefits’. The risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis may indeed be very small, but the risk of serious Covid in the young and healthy is smaller still. If you’re a young male and if you’ve received one of these novel COVID-19 vaccines, it may be worthwhile testing for preclinical myocarditis.
Negative effectiveness
I couldn’t leave you hanging after dangling this juicy but horrifying morsel in front of you earlier. I managed to get another rapid response published, in the BMJ proper this time, on the topic of negative effectiveness. While rapid waning of effectiveness and exaggeration of effectiveness is concerning enough, particularly as we learn more about the adverse effects, the phenomenon of COVID-19 vaccine negative effectiveness could completely end the discussion as to whether the COVID-19 vaccines are net useful or not. There is increasing evidence for this phenomenon (in relation to infections, hospitalisations and deaths), with one study revealing a dose-dependent relationship. The more COVID-19 jabs, the more the risk of COVID-19. If that sounds concerning to you, well, quite. My rapid response effectively refuted an article in the BMJ trying – and failing horribly – to explain this phenomenon away. If negative effectiveness is occurring, there is no such thing as ‘risks vs benefits’. There is only ‘risks plus risks’. We need explanations from the manufacturers and regulators, as a matter of urgency.
Dr. Raphael Lataster is an Associate Lecturer at the University of Sydney, specialised in misinformation, and a former pharmacist. This summary is adapted from several entries originally appearing in Lataster’s Substack newsletter, Okay Then News. Read more on his research and legal actions, including his recent win against the healthcare vaccine mandate in New South Wales.
September 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, UK |
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Was there more to COVID-19 in terms of underlying agendas, in particular with respect to global-level actors?
Updated July 2023 based upon article originally published in March 2022
It’s been three years since COVID-19 emerged as a dominant and, for some time, all-consuming issue. Now there are signs we are witnessing the unravelling of some of the key policy responses – blanket lockdowns and population-wide injections – that have been so aggressively promoted by many, although not all, governments around the world. There is also reluctance by many to concede there have been problems with the COVID-19 responses to date. However, doubts about the efficacy of lockdowns are now widely aired and well substantiated and there is increasing evidence for, and awareness of, the dangers surrounding the mRNA genetic vaccine. And it is at least clear that large numbers of people, including scientists and academics, are expressing views at odds with authority or mainstream claims that lockdowns reduce mortality and that mass injections are a rational and efficacious solution.
As debate over ‘The Science’ increases, more and more people now question whether or not there is more to COVID-19 in terms of underlying agendas, in particular with respect to global-level actors such as the World Economic Forum (WEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and so-called ‘Big Pharma’. In the early days of COVID-19 any such talk was immediately dismissed as ‘conspiratorial’ nonsense and, broadly speaking, people raising non-mainstream doubts about any aspect of the COVID-19 issue were subjected to vilification by ‘authoritative’ voices and corporate media.
Such dynamics were very much in evidence with respect to debate over the origins of COVID-19. And yet, today, the so-called ‘lab leak theory’, whatever its veracity, has moved from a ‘sphere of deviance’ to a ‘sphere of legitimate controversy’ with mainstream scientists through to legacy media and governments discussing it. At the same time, there is increased public awareness of various political agendas, for example the WEF’s ‘Great Reset’ visions. Indeed, a refrain from some quarters is that yesterday’s conspiracy theory is today’s fact. So, if all this is not about a virus, what might actually be going on?
COVID-19 and the ‘Structural Deep Event’ concept
First and foremost, it is necessary to dispel the idea that any attempt to understand intersections between political-economic agendas and COVID-19 is absurd or crazy. Here, we can learn much from Professor Michael Parenti’s 1993 talk on conspiracy and class power:
No ruling class could survive if it wasn’t attentive to its own interests; consciously trying to anticipate, control or initiate events at home and abroad both overtly and secretly. It is hard to imagine a modern state if there would be no conspiracy, no plans, no machinations, deceptions or secrecy within the circles of power. In the United States there have been conspiracies aplenty … they are all now a matter of public record.
PARENTI, 1993
It is a fact, then, that powerful political and economic actors do not blindly and irrationally stumble through history but rather strategise, plan and take actions that are expected to achieve results. They may make mistakes and plans are not always successful, but that does not mean they do not try and sometimes succeed in their aims and objectives. For example the tobacco industry worked long and hard, and with some success, to shape scientific and political discourse regarding their product and delay public awareness of its dangers.
Second, it is also true that powerful actors can have clear perceptions of their interests and are guided by the desire to realise, protect and further them. Where those interests come from might be reducible to any number of material or ideological influences. But origins do not matter, powerful actors still have conceptions of their interests and what they want to do.
Third, in today’s world of weakening democracies, corporate conglomerates and extreme concentration of wealth, it is also true that many political and economic actors are extremely powerful, whether measured in relative or absolute terms. They have resources and skills at their disposal that others do not. One potent tool available is that of propaganda, which grants significant leverage and influence to those with the skills and resources to disseminate it. For those liberals who remain at peace with their world – believing that powerful actors simply relay their political, economic and social goals to knowledgeable publics who then consent, or refuse to consent, to those goals – the fact that propaganda is exercised extensively across liberal democratic states comes as a shock. Indeed, many mainstream scholars struggle to recognise the role of propaganda even in well documented examples such as that of the tobacco industry shaping the science on the harms of smoking or the bogus claims regarding weapons of mass destruction (WMD) used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Recognising that propaganda is a major component of exercising power within so-called liberal democratic states logically removes any justification for the assumptions that a) powerful actors cannot or do not manipulate publics and b) citizenry are sufficiently autonomous and knowledgeable to always be able to grant or withhold consent.
And as Parenti observed, history is replete with examples of powerful actors successfully pursuing goals and manipulating populations in the process. In the days after 9/11, we now know that British and American officials were planning a wide-ranging series of actions – so called ‘regime-change’ wars – that went well outside the scope of the official narrative regarding combating alleged ‘Islamic fundamentalist terrorism’. One British embassy cable stated, four days after 9/11, that ‘[t]he “regime-change hawks” in Washington are arguing that a coalition put together for one purpose [against international terrorism] could be used to clear up other problems in the region’. Within weeks British Prime Minister Tony Blair communicated with US president George W. Bush saying, amongst many other things, ‘If toppling Saddam is a prime objective, it is far easier to do it with Syria and Iran in favour or acquiescing rather than hitting all three at once’. As these two western leaders conspired at the geo-strategic level, a low-level ‘spin doctor’, Jo Moore, commented on the utility of 9/11 in terms of day-to-day ‘media management’, noting that it was ‘a good day to bury bad news’. Jo Moore was forced to resign, Bush and Blair laid the tracks for 20-plus years of conflict in the international system, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the recently ended 20-year occupation of Afghanistan. And today, there is substantial evidence that the foundational official story regarding the 9/11 crimes is in fact false with the evidence clearly pointing toward the involvement of a number of state-level actors, including within the US.
Professor Peter Dale Scott (University of California, Berkeley) developed the concept of the ‘structural deep event’ and this is useful in capturing the idea that powerful actors frequently work to instigate, exploit or exacerbate events in ways that enable substantive and long-lasting societal transformations. These frequently involve, according to Scott, a combination of legal and illegal activity implicating both legitimate and public-facing political structures as well as covert or hidden parts of government – the so-called deep state which is understood as the interface ‘between the public, the constitutionally established state, and the deep forces behind it of wealth, power, and violence outside the government’. So, for example, Scott argues that the JFK assassination became an event that enabled the maintenance of the Cold War whilst the 9/11 crimes likewise enabled the global ‘war on terror’, and that both involved a variety of actors not usually recognized in mainstream or official accounts of these events. It is important to note that Scott claims his approach does not necessarily imply a simplistic grand conspiracy, but is rather based on the idea of opaque networks of powerful and influential groups whose interests converge, at points, and who act to either instigate or exploit events in order to pursue their objectives.
Applied to COVID-19, a ‘structural deep event’ reading would point toward a constellation of actors, with overlapping interests, working to advance agendas, and being enabled to do so because of COVID-19. Such a reading does not necessarily include or exclude the possibility of COVID-19 being an instigated event and one that functioned, in the widest sense, as a propaganda event enabling powerful actors to realise their goals. What are the grounds for seriously considering a ‘structural deep event’ reading?
The damaging COVID-19 response
There is now an overwhelmingly strong case to be made that the key responses to COVID-19 – lockdowns, cloth masking and mass injection – were, on their own terms, flawed.
A large swathe of scientists and medical professionals are now clearly and repeatedly warning governments and populations that lockdowns are harmful and ineffective whilst mass injection of populations with an experimental genetic vaccine resulted in substantial harms. Indeed, it is increasingly clear that the use of the PCR test, which gave a skewed impression of infection and death rates leading to the locking down of entire (healthy) populations for extended periods of time in response to a respiratory virus, and then attempting to submit people to an experimental injection on a repeated basis, were not scientifically robust policies. As of mid 2023, although causes are disputed, there continues to be worrying excess mortality across many countries. It is also now clear to many that the scale and nature of COVID-19 was exaggerated in a way that suggested the existence of an entirely new and unusually deadly pathogen that demanded drastic responses when, in fact, this was not the case.
It is also now apparent that a remarkable and wide-ranging propaganda effort, involving extensive use of behavioural scientists, was used to mobilise support for lockdowns and, later on, injections as well as exaggerate any threat posed. An early paper published in April 2020, authored by over 40 academics, presented a blueprint for how ‘social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behaviour with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts’. Furthermore, many Western governments have behavioural psychology units attached to the highest levels of government, designed to shape thoughts and behaviour, and these were engaged early on during the COVID-19 event. According to Iain Davis, in February 2020 the WHO had established the Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health (TAG); ‘The group is chaired by Prof. Cass Sunstein and its members include behavioural change experts from the World Bank, the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Prof. Susan Michie, from the UK, is also a TAG participant’. In the UK, behavioural scientists from SPI-B (Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour) reconvened on 13 February 2020 and subsequently advised the UK government on how to secure compliance with non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). Broadly, these propaganda techniques included maximising perceived threat in order to scare populations into complying with lockdown and accepting the experimental genetic vaccines as well as utilising non-consensual measures involving incentivization and coercion through, for example, various mandates.
We also now know that propaganda activities included smear campaigns against dissenting scientists and, in at least one major case, were initiated by high-level officials: in Autumn 2020, Anthony Fauci and National Institute of Health director Francis Collins discussed the need to swiftly shut down the Great Barrington Declaration, whose authors were advocating an alternative (and historically orthodox) COVID-19 response focused on protecting high-risk individuals and thus avoiding destructive lockdown measures. Collins wrote in an email that this ‘proposal from the three fringe epidemiologists … seems to be getting a lot of attention … There needs to be a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises’. Rather than a civilised and robust scientific debate, a smear campaign followed. Furthermore, censorship and suppression appears to have been experienced widely across swathes of academia whilst the White House is currently being sued with respect to First Amendment violations against scientists including Professors Kulldorff and Bhattacharya from the Great Barrington Declaration.
The legacy corporate media, social media platforms and large swathes of academia appear to have played an important role in disseminating this propaganda and promoting the official narrative on COVID-19. The proximity of legacy corporate media to political and economic power has been well understood for many decades: concentration of ownership, reliance upon advertising revenue, deference to elite sources, vulnerability to smear campaigns and ideological positioning are all understood to sharply limit the autonomy of legacy media (these factors also arguably shape academia). With COVID-19 these dynamics are exacerbated by, for example, direct regulatory influence, such as Ofcom direction to UK broadcasters, and censorship by ‘Big Tech’ of views deviating from those of the authorities and the WHO. The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) and Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) have coordinated major legacy media in order to counter what they claim to be ‘misinformation’, and this appears to have played a role in suppressing legitimate scientific criticism whilst elevating ‘official’ narratives. At the global ‘governance’ level, both the United Nations and the WHO promoted campaigns around combating alleged ‘disinformation’ and the so-called ‘misinfo-demic’. Currently moves are afoot to further strengthen elite control over media discourse via legislation aimed at preventing so-called ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation’ and ‘online harms’ and which is being rolled out over multiple legislatures.
Finally, confirmation of direct involvement of US authorities with censorship decisions by the social media company Twitter has been presented in the ‘Twitter Files’ and, in the UK, further corroboration regarding the role and significance of a Counter Disinformation Unit within the UK government. Matt Taibbi’s work on the ‘Twitter Files’, presents what is described as the Censorship Industrial Complex, or Counter-Disinformation Industry, which links universities, foundations, NGOs and federal agencies and which have actively censored content on Twitter during the COVID-19 event. Critically, these censorship regimes dovetail with the aforementioned legislative developments relating to ‘disinformation’ and ‘online harms’.
Extreme and flawed policy responses – societal lockdown and mandated mass injection – combined with widespread propaganda activities aimed at securing the compliance of the population might be explicable in a number of ways. For example:
- The cock-up thesis might be invoked to explain all of this as an irrational panic response by well-intentioned or ideologically driven actors who got things badly wrong and imitated each other while doing so.
- It might be that these policy responses are the result of narrow vested interests and corruption.
- Powerful actors might have sought to take advantage of COVID-19, even instigate the event, so as to advance substantial political and economic agendas and, as part of this, helped to promote advantageous narratives during the COVID-19 event.
Following two years of massive societal disruption aimed at containing a seasonal respiratory virus, and the persistence of some aspects of the COVID-19 narrative despite substantive scientific challenges, it is clearly necessary to take seriously the very real possibility that vested interests and substantial political agendas underly the COVID-19 event. So, what is the key evidence for explanations two and three?
Manipulation and exploitation of Health Agencies: Regulatory Capture at the NIH and CDC plus the World Health Organization and Pandemic Preparedness Agenda
Evidence for vested interests and corruption has come, in particular, from analyses of US regulatory bodies and the actions of the WHO. In particular, evidence has emerged showing that key authorities in the US – the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – under the influence of Anthony Fauci, the Chief Medical Officer to the US President, have suffered from conflicts of interest. The term ‘regulatory capture’ is frequently used to describe this situation. [2]
For example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s detailed analysis of the US-led COVID-19 response in The Real Anthony Fauci, documents the corrupt relationship between so-called ‘Big Pharma’ and Anthony Fauci arguing that, to all intents and purposes, there has been regulatory capture whereby pharmaceutical companies and public officials enjoy mutually beneficial arrangements. This mutual infiltration is understood by Kennedy to underpin the COVID-19 response, especially the commitment to a ‘vaccine-only’ solution and suppression of preventative treatments such as Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). By way of example, Kennedy relays the case of Dr Tess Lawrie and WHO researcher Andrew Hill in which Hill appeared to confirm there was pressure to delay publication of results supporting the efficacy of Ivermectin. Regarding HCQ, Kennedy writes:
By 2020, we shall see, Bill Gates exercised firm control over WHO and deployed the agency in his effort to discredit HCQ’ …
On June 17, the WHO – for which Mr. Gates is the largest funder after the US, and over which Mr. Gates and Dr Fauci exercise tight control – called for the halt of HCQ trials in hundreds of hospitals across the world. WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus ordered nations to stop using HCQ and CQ. Portugal, France, Italy, and Belgium banned HCQ for COVID-19 treatment.
More broadly, the WHO has been important in terms of co-ordinating COVID-19 policy responses. Although notionally independent, the WHO has increasingly come under corporate influence via both the growth of corporate-influenced organisations such as Gavi (Global Vaccine Alliance), CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) and private financing via the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The WHO is also currently negotiating the treaty on pandemic preparedness with the governments of member states to provide unprecedented powers to this organisation to enable rapid responses, transcending national governments, when the WHO declares pandemics in the future, thus centralising control and potentially overriding national sovereignty.
This line of analysis might lead to a conclusion that what we have experienced to date – harmful lockdowns and injection strategies underpinned by massive propaganda – is primarily the result of corruption, conflicts of interest and vested interests, rather than what could reasonably be described as good faith errors by politicians and bureaucrats.
The World Economic Forum and the ‘Great Reset’
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has been associated by some analysts with the COVID-19 event and in 2020 Klaus Schwab, its founder, published a co-authored book titled COVID-19: The Great Reset. Schwab declared: ‘The Pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world’. One key component of the political-economic vision promoted by the WEF is ‘stakeholder capitalism’ (Global Public-Private Partnerships, GPPP) involving the integration of government, business and civil society actors with respect to the provision of services. Another key component involves harnessing ‘the innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution’, especially the exploitation of developments in artificial intelligence, computing and robotics, in order to radically transform society toward a digitised model. Slogans now frequently associated with these visions include ‘you will own nothing and be happy’, ‘smart cities’ and ‘build back better’.
It is also apparent that the WEF, as an organising force, has considerable reach. It has been involved with training and educating influential individuals – through its Young Global Leaders Programme and its predecessor, Global Leaders for Tomorrow – who have subsequently moved into positions of considerable power. It has also been noted that many national leaders (e.g. Merkel, Macron, Trudeau, Ardern, Putin, and Kurz) are WEF Forum of Young Global Leaders graduates or members and have ‘played prominent roles, typically promoting zero-covid strategies, lockdowns, mask mandates, and ‘vaccine passports’. In 2017 Schwab boasted:
When I mention our names like Mrs Merkel, even Vladimir Putin and so on, they all have been Young Global Leaders of the World Economic forum. But what we are very proud of now is the young generation like prime minister Trudeau, president of Argentina and so on. So we penetrate the cabinets. So yesterday I was at a reception for prime minister Trudeau and I will know that half of this cabinet or even more half of this cabinet are actually young global leaders of the World Economic Forum …. that’s true in Argentina, and it’s true in France now with the president a Young Global Leader
Corporate members of the WEF’s Forum of Young Global Leaders includes Mark Zuckerberg whilst ‘Global Leaders for Tomorrow’ included Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
Financial Crisis, the Central Banks and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)
It is now established that a major crisis in the repo markets during the Autumn of 2019 was followed by high-level planning aimed at resolving an impending financial crisis of greater proportions than the 2008 banking crisis. According to some analysts, one response appears to have been a strengthened drive to control currencies via the Central Banks: Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The General Manager of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), Agustin Carstens, stated in October 2020 that:
we intend to establish the equivalence with cash and there is a huge difference there. For example, in cash we don’t know who is using a $100 bill today … the key difference with the CBDC is that the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability and also we will have the technology to enforce that.
A programmable CBDC potentially provides complete control over how and when an individual spends money, in addition to allowing authorities to automatically deduct taxes through a person’s ‘digital wallet’. According to some analysts, this development would also effectively remove any significant control over financial policy at the national level. Although decried as a ‘conspiracy theory’ in the early days of the COVID-19 event, it has now become clear that there is a determined drive toward implementing CBDCs and which has the potential to qualitatively change the character of national-level governance.
Technologies associated with programmable CBDCs overlap with those associated with 4IR and concepts regarding digitised society. Specifically, digital identity, a potential component of the intended CBDC, provides a basis for the creation of a digital grid upon which information relating to all aspects of an individual’s life will be available to governments, corporations and other powerful entities such as the security services. Also notable is the relationship between digital ID and the drive to create ‘vaccine passports’ as part of the COVID-19 response: Microsoft and the Rockefeller Foundation are central players in ID2020, alongside Gavi. The overall objective is to create a global-level digital ID framework that integrates with health/vaccination status. As with CBDC, the push to implement these frameworks is ongoing, not dissipating, and include the recent announcement by the WHO and EU of a ‘digital health partnership’ aimed at facilitating implementation of digital health certificates for health and travel controlled by the WHO. [3]
All of these political and economic agendas point toward a conclusion more closely aligned with the ‘structural deep event’ (Scott) thesis, in that they highlight the possibility that COVID-19 has been exploited to advance major political and economic agendas. As such, COVID-19 is itself primarily a propaganda event, instrumentalized in order to pursue political-economic agendas. This hypothesis is, at least in part, distinct from the idea that corruption and narrow vested interests explain most of what we have seen.
Threats to democracy and understanding what this all might mean
The political and economic processes identified regarding the WEF, WHO, digital ID, the central banks and CBDC, the pandemic preparedness agenda and the Censorship Industrial Complex/Counter-Disinformation Industry are not speculative or theoretical, they are directly observable and ongoing. They are also proceeding in the absence of serious scrutiny by legislatures and wider democratic debate whilst new ‘emergencies’ over war in Ukraine and the climate appear to be being exploited in order to maintain momentum even as COVID-19 recedes from view. Indeed, one scholar of political communication notes that ‘insidious scare tactics deployed during Covid are still being used in the field of climate communications, where they were first developed.’
It is also worth spelling out the potential interaction between these agendas and threats to democracy. It is now clear that populations have been subjected to highly coercive and aggressive attempts to limit their autonomy, including restrictions on movement, the right to protest, freedom to work and freedom to participate in society. Most notably, significant numbers of people were pushed, sometimes required, to take an injection at regular intervals in order to continue their participation in society whilst PCR test requirements for travelling, for example, have introduced further coercive elements into everyday life. These developments have been accompanied by, at times, aggressive and discriminatory statements from major political leaders with respect to people resisting injection. The threat to civil liberties and ‘democracy as usual’ is unprecedented. The economic impact has been dire and COVID-19 has seen a dramatic and continued transfer of wealth from the poorest to the very richest (see for example Oxfam, 2021 and Green and Fazi, 2023). And, today, the drive to create a regulatory framework via the pandemic preparedness agenda, which includes modification of the International Health Regulations, combined with the rolling out of online ‘harm’ legislation and the promotion of moral panic over ‘disinformation’ and ‘online harm’, all create an architecture that enables high levels of control over populations within ostensibly democratic polities.
Furthermore, the combination of a programmable CBDC, a ‘vaccine passport’ that determines access to services and real-world spaces and the availability of all online behaviours to corporations and governments, can enable a system of near total control over an individual’s life, activities and opportunities. This system of control can be seen in China with the social credit system currently being implemented in certain provinces. Integration of personal data and money though a digital ID would also allow individuals to be readily stripped of their assets. These developments reflect the rise of technocracy whereby government and society become increasingly controlled by experts and technicians and individual autonomy and democracy are curtailed. They can also be related to the transhumanist movement which enthusiastically looks forward to human-machine interfaces and their proclaimed potential to ‘perfect the human condition’.
Of course, it is still possible that the sustained adherence to lockdown and mass injection (in spite of growing evidence against their efficacy and safety) are explicable through reference to government blunders, whilst the parallel political and economic projects and rapid reduction in civil liberties are coincidences.
However, it would be remiss to set aside the fact that organisations such as the WHO and the WEF exist within a wider network, or constellation, of extremely powerful, non-elected political and economic entities made up of major multinational corporations, intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), large private foundations and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs). These include, in no particular order, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and other central banks; asset managers Blackrock and Vanguard; global-level entities such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Club of Rome, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, Chatham House, the Trilateral Commission, the Atlantic Council, the Open Society Foundations and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and major corporations including so-called ‘Big Pharma’ and ‘Big Tech’ such as Apple, Google (part of Alphabet Inc), Amazon and Microsoft. And, of course, governments themselves are part of this constellation, with the most powerful – the US, China and India – having considerable influence. In addition, the European Union (EU) supranational body, via its President Ursula von der Leyen, promoted the EU Digital COVID Certificate and also demanded at times that all EU citizens be injected.
As such, it is entirely plausible, if not increasingly likely, that the interests shared between multiple political and economic actors have manifested themselves in the form of concrete political and economic agendas which, in turn, have been advanced via the COVID-19 event. It is also possible that the current war in the Ukraine as well as climate issues are being exploited by many of the same actors and in a similar fashion. Along these lines, Denis Rancourt recently noted:
It is only natural now to ask “what drove this?”, “who benefited?” and “which groups sustained permanent structural disadvantages?” In my view, the COVID assault can only be understood in the symbiotic contexts of geopolitics and large-scale social-class transformations. Dominance and exploitation are the drivers. The failing USA-centered global hegemony and its machinations create dangerous conditions for virtually everyone.
An increasingly large body of work supports the understanding of COVID-19 as a structural deep event. Important and pathfinding analyses were provided in the early months of the COVID-19 event by Cory Morningstar, Whitney Webb and Piers Robinson, amongst others. James Corbett was one of the first to warn of the impending dangers of a biosecurity state all the way back in March 2020, whilst Patrick Wood alerted us to the dangers of technocracy long before the arrival of COVID-19.
In States of Emergency (2022) Kees van der Pijl argues there has been a ‘biopolitical seizure of power’ in which an intelligence-IT-media complex has crystallised as a new class block seeking to quell growing unrest and the strengthening of progressive social movements throughout the world. Under cover of Covid-19, and via ruthless exploitation of people’s fear of a virus, van der Pijl traces how this new class block is attempting to impose control via high-tech, digitised societies necessitating mandatory injections and digital ID, as well as censorship and manipulation of public spheres. In short, van der Pijl describes a total surveillance society involving massive concentration of power and the end of democracy. Kheriaty’s The Rise of the Biomedical State (2022) offers a detailed presentation of how COVID-19 provided the impetus for an emerging biosecurity state whilst Iain Davis’ Pseudopandemic (2022) presents the COVID-19 event as primarily a propagandised phenomenon functioning to enable the continued emergence of a technocratic order built around the Global Public-Private Partnership (GPPP) and ‘stake-holder capitalism’ that has appeared primarily to serve the interests of what he describes as an elite ‘parasite class’. Simon Elmer’s (2022) analysis presents all of these developments in terms of the rise of a new form of fascism whilst Broecker (2023) emphasises the technocratic and anti-democratic underpinnings of the political developments ushered in under the cover of the COVID-19 event.
Robert F. Kennedy’s The Real Anthony Fauci, although focused on documenting the corruption with respect to public health institutions and ‘Big Pharma’, is clear about its consequences for our democracies. Early in the book he notes that Fauci ‘has played a central role in undermining public health and subverting democracy and constitutional governance around the globe and in transitioning our civil governance toward medical totalitarianism’. Later in the book, Kennedy discusses the interplay between military, medical and intelligence planners and raises questions about an ‘underlying agenda to coordinate dismantlement of democratic governance’:
After 9/11, the rising biosecurity cartel adopted simulations as signaling mechanisms for choreographing lockstep responses among corporate, political, and military technocrats charged with managing global exigencies. Scenario planning became an indispensable device for multiple power centers to coordinate complex strategies for simultaneously imposing coercive controls upon democratic societies across the globe.
Broadly in line with this analysis, the work of both Breggin and Breggin and Paul Shreyer argue that the political and economic agendas advanced during the COVID-19 event had been long in the pipeline and point toward it being an instigated event as opposed to a spontaneous – naturally occurring – one that groups opportunistically took advantage of.
Along with all this, transhumanism, life extension or ‘enhancement’ through technology and digitalised society, observable in some of the output from the WEF and public musings of key individuals, appears to reflect a set of beliefs in technology and progress that can be traced back to Enlightenment thinking of the last 300 years. Philosophical debates over technology and what it means to be human have remained at the heart of the Enlightenment ‘project’, although perhaps deeply buried. Associated with this might be scientism as a religious cult of the West.
Attempts to attach a label to the complex political and economic processes we are witnessing include descriptors such as ‘global fascism,’ ‘global communism,’ ‘neo-feudalism,’ ‘neo-serfdom’, ‘totalitarianism,’ ‘technocracy,’ ‘centralization vs. subsidiarity,’ ‘stakeholder capitalism’, ‘global public-private partnerships,’ ‘corporate authoritarianism’, ‘authoritarianism,’ ‘tyranny’ and ‘global capitalism.’ Dr Robert Malone, inventor of part of the mRNA technology used in the COVID-19 injections, openly refers to the threat of global totalitarianism as does US presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy Jr.
In summation, there are multiple and readily observable signs of political and economic actors working to variously instigate, exaggerate and/or exploit the COVID-19 event. At the same time there are no signs that those promoting the claim that COVID-19 represented an unusually dangerous health crisis are conceding any ground, even as the facts become clear that it was nothing exceptional and that the responses have been a disaster for public health and well-being. Both ideology and underlying agendas appear to be influencing the dynamics of current events, all of which are occurring in the context of major shifts in the distribution of power globally: witness the BRICS block and various geo-political realignments, including the increasingly likely strategic failure for the West in relation to the Ukraine war. None of this looks like the COVID-19 response was just some innocent and incompetent blunder by our scientific and medical establishments.
The tasks ahead
For those occupying corporate or mainstream positions in politics, media or academia, the fear of being tarred with the ‘conspiracy theorist’ label is usually enough to dampen any enthusiasm for serious evaluation of the ways in which powerful and influential political and economic actors might be shaping responses to COVID-19 to further political and economic agendas. But the stakes are now simply too high for such shyness and, indeed cowardice, to be allowed to persist. There are strong and well-established grounds to take analyses along the lines of the ‘structural deep event’ thesis seriously, as set out in this article, and there are clear and present dangers to our civil liberties, freedom and democracy.
Building on the work already started, researchers must explore more fully the networks and power structures that have shaped the COVID-19 responses and which have sought to move forward various political and economic agendas. Analysing more fully the techniques used, including propaganda and exploitation of COVID-19 as an enabling event, is now an essential task for researchers to undertake. It is also important to consolidate understanding of linkages with ongoing drives related to the UN sustainability agenda – e.g. 15 minute cities – and the climate agenda, all of which potentially involve technocratic and top-down policy approaches at odds with autonomy and democracy. Such work, ultimately, can not only deepen our understanding of what is going on; it can also provide a guide for those who seek to oppose what is being described by some as ‘global totalitarianism’ or ‘fascism’. It is of equal importance for scholars of democracy and ethics to further unpack the implications of these developments with respect to liberty and civil rights as well as, more widely, creative thinking with respect to alternative visions of social, political and economic organisation and including the development of parallel societies.
It could of course be the case that such a research agenda ultimately leads to a refutation of the ‘structural deep event’ thesis and confirmation that everything witnessed over the last three years has been simply cock-up or blunder. But it seems increasingly unlikely that this would be the result and evidence in support of the structural deep event reading is stronger now than ever. It is essential that critical research into the consequences of the COVID-19 response does not become bounded by an unwarranted assumption that all can be reduced to well- intentioned but erroneous responses. The stakes are high and it has never been more essential to seriously engage with uncomfortable possibilities – even if that means interrogating uncomfortable and alarming explanations.
Endnotes
1. Thanks to David Bell, Isa Blumi, Heike Brunner, Jonathan Engler, Nick Hudson and Ewa Siderenko for comments and input.
2. Sheldon Watts offers historic background illustrating how the establishment regularly rewrites the science to serve other purposes. In the case of Cholera, the main editors of The Lancet in the late 19th century actually contradicted their own findings of a previous decade in order to accommodate trade interests concerning the quarantining of British ships from India that would have harmed the British Empire’s economic model. From being a human communicable disease, it transformed into a dark-skinned disease of the orient. Watts, Sheldon. “From rapid change to stasis: Official responses to cholera in British-ruled India and Egypt: 1860 to c. 1921.” Journal of World History (2001): 321-374. Thanks to Isa Blumi for this reference.
3. See https://www.who.int/initiatives/global-digital-health-certification-network – Global ‘public health infrastructure’ to ‘expand digital solutions’ and EU Digital Covid Certificate taken over by the WHO’s GDHCN Certificate https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/coronavirus-response/safe-covid-19-vaccines-europeans/eu-digital-covid-certificate_en.
Selected References
‘Organized Persuasive Communication: A new conceptual framework for research on public relations, propaganda and promotional culture’ by Vian Bakir, Eric Herring, David Miller, Piers Robinson, Critical Sociology, 2019.
‘The unintended consequences of COVID-19 vaccine policy: why mandates, passports and restrictions may cause more harm than good’ by Kevin Bardosh, Alex de Figueiredo, Rachel Gur-Arie, Euzebiusz Jamrozik, James Doidge, Trudo Lemmens, Salmaan Keshavjee, Janice E Graham, Stefan Baral, British Medical Journal, 2023.
‘Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response’ by Jay Van Bavel et al, in Nature Human Behaviour by Jay Van Bavel et al, 2020.
‘Global Health And The Politics Of Catastrophe: Who will save us from the WHO and its new world order?’ by David Bell, PANDA, 2021.
‘The World Health Organization and COVID-19: Re-establishing Colonialism in Public Health- PANDA’ by David Bell and Toby Green, PANDA, 2021.
‘Negotiating the future of political philosophy and practice: Renewal of democracy or technocratic governance’ by Hannah Broecker, Kritische Gesellschaftsforschung, 2023.
Covid 19 and the Global Predators, by Peter Breggin and Ginger Breggin, 2021.
Pseudopandemic: New Normal Technocracy, by Iain Davies, 2021.
A State of Fear by Laura Dodsworth, Pinter & Martin Publishers, 2021.
The Road to Fascism: For a Critique of the Global Biosecurity State, By Simon Elmer, architectsforsocialhousing, 2022.
‘The Covid Consensus’ by Toby Green and Thomas Fazi, Hurst Publishers, 2023.
‘Engineering Compliance: From Climate to Covid and Back Again’ by Philip Hammond, Propaganda In Focus, 2023.
The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, by Robert F. Kennedy Jr, 2021.
The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State, by Aaron Kheriaty, 2022.
Doubt is Their Product by David Michaels, Oxford University Press.
‘Propaganda Trudeau Style’ by Ray McGinnis, Propaganda in Focus, 2022.
‘PCR testing skewed and corrupted data on SARS-CoV-2 infection and death rates’ by Jennifer Smith, PANDA, 2022.
‘Conspiracy and Class Power: A Talk by Michael Parenti’, – Global Research, 1993.
States of Emergency: Keeping the Global Population in Check, by Kees van der Pijl, Clarity Press, 2022.
‘COVID Coercion: Boris Johnson’s Psychological Attack on the UK Public’ by Mike Robinson, UKColumn, 2020.
‘Threats to Freedom of Expression: Covid-19, the ‘fact checking counter-disinformation industry’, and online harm legislation’, by Piers Robinson, Propaganda In Focus.
‘Deafening Silences: propaganda through censorship, smearing and coercion’ by Piers Robinson, Propaganda in Focus, 2022.
‘COVID is a Global Propaganda Operation’, interview with Piers Robinson, Asia Pacific, 2021.
‘The Propaganda of Terror and Fear: A Lesson from Recent History’, by Piers Robinson, OffGuardian, 2020.
The American Deep State by Peter Dale Scott, Rowman and Littlefield, 2017.
‘Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy: Tactics and Counter-Tactics’, by Yaffa Shir-Raz, Ety Elisha, Brian Martin, Natti Ronel & Josh Guetzkow, Minerva, 2022.
‘Chronik einer angekündigten Krise’ by ‘Paul Schreyer’, 2021.
‘Who is responsible for inflicting unethical behavioural-science ‘nudges’ on the British people?’ by Gary Sidley, PANDA, 2022.
‘The Show Must Go On. Event 201: The 2019 Fictional Pandemic Exercise’ by Cory Morningstar, 2020.
‘From Covid to CBDC: The Path to Full Control’ by John Stylman, Brownstone Institute, 2022.
‘Transhumanism and the Philosophy of the Elites’ by Danica Thiessen, PANDA, 2023.
‘Was SARS-CoV-2 entirely novel or particularly deadly?’ by Thomas Verduyn, Todd Kenyon, Jonathan Engler, PANDA, 2023.
‘Red pill or blue pill variants inflation and the controlled demolition of society’ The Philosophical Salon, available at ‘Red Pill or Blue Pill? Variants, Inflation, and the Controlled Demolition of Society’ by Fabio Vighi, The Philosophical Salon, 2021.
‘All Roads Lead to Dark Winter’, by Whitney Webb, Unlimited Hangout, 2020.
‘COVID-19 and the shadowy “Trusted News Initiative”’, by Elizabeth Woodworth, Common Ground, 2021.
September 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Book Review, Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Gates Foundation, Human rights, Rockefeller Foundation, UK, United States, WEF, WHO |
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Far from bringing down the final curtain, it seems that the Covid comedy show is going to run and run.
First up (as they say), there is the seemingly unending stream of Covid variants. It is almost as if someone is making them up. In the middle of August, I wrote in these pages about Eris, but now others have emerged such as BA.2.86 which may evade the Covid vaccines (code for ‘we need more vaccines’) and Pirola. While we are exhorted to ‘be worried’, if you dig deep into the details it transpires that there is little to worry about.
After all, we have been here before. We were warned about BA.4 and BA.5 (‘variants of concern’) late in 2021 but, probably much to the surprise of the doom-mongers, humanity has survived. Who can forget Omicron which even those who discovered it described as nothing to worry about? But we were urged to worry about it nevertheless. Even more baffling is that some people who did not fall for the Covid vaccine propaganda are still with us. Quelle surprise!
Next on the bill is animal-to-human transmission. There has long been speculation that Covid may spread from humans to animals, so they could become a reservoir for the virus which could then spread back to humans. Early in 2020 the British government issued mundane advice (e.g. ‘wash your hands’) for people with animals and provided a list of the creatures to which it was considered Covid-19 may spread. The list was extensive and may as well have proclaimed ‘the animal kingdom’ as a potential reservoir for the virus. Though little advice related to specific animals, the government saw fit to include a specific section: ‘If you own a ferret’. Sadly, it did not contain the advice ‘don’t put it down your trousers’; a comedy opportunity missed, in my view.
There remains concern that humans are spreading Covid to deer. We first read about this early in the pandemic but, unless we are concerned about the welfare of deer, which surely have better things to worry about than Covid, it is unclear why we should be concerned now. It is suspected (not confirmed) that three humans have contracted Covid from deer in the United States from a population of around 334,233,000 where 120 people are killed annually in road accidents involving deer. The animal crackers continue with the risk of zoo employees contracting Covid from lions. It may just be me, but if I was working with lions, catching a dose of Covid would be way down my list of concerns.
Long Covid is an old favourite on the comedy circuit, and by special request, it is here tonight courtesy of our sponsors Medscape. Concern is now turning to long Covid in children, and we are told: ‘Long Covid most often strikes seniors and adults, but children are also affected, even though they get less attention, new research shows.’ It was only a matter of time, and the irony is lost on the authors that children were given undue attention by the vaccine obsessed during the ‘pandemic’ given that they were at such low risk from Covid. Some children are suffering from extreme debilitation but the possibility of this resulting from vaccine injury is not even contemplated.
In another Medscape article the ‘mystery’ of long Covid is explored. A single case is presented of someone disabled with post-viral symptoms. His symptoms are not in doubt, but the cause seems to be unknown, yet Medscape is convinced this is long Covid. After all, it must be as the list of symptoms associated with long Covid, having been whittled down to a mere seven, now seems to have expanded again to 37, which does not exactly narrow down to a precise diagnosis.
In breaking news, again in that redoubtable organ Medscape, ‘some people with long Covid tested negative for Covid-19’. Intellectual gymnastics from various sources are drawn on to explain this phenomenon. Primarily it is attributed to not diagnosing the original Covid infection properly (code for ‘we need more Covid testing’). It never seems to enter the heads of these Covid boffins that long Covid either does not exist or is something else altogether. We already know that half of people reporting long Covid symptoms also reported that they had never had Covid and that some long Covid symptoms in women bear a remarkable resemblance to early onset menopause. Nevertheless, it is clear that someone has an interest, presumably financial, in perpetuating the long Covid narrative which, if they succeed, may well prove to be as lucrative as the HIV/AIDS narrative which is still giving good returns forty years on.
However, the team at TCW are at pains to let you know that there is no cause for alarm, be it scariant variants, transmission from rampaging lions or the dreadful prospect of long Covid (everyone has at least one symptom after all). We are here to spread a message of hope and that comes with the information that our caring and sharing government are going to prepare new vaccines against the new variants and bring forward the autumn vaccine programme. What’s more, some of you lucky people who received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines will continue to produce harmless spike proteins . . . for ever. So, you see, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.
Truthstream Media | September 4, 2023
September 9, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, Video | Covid-19 |
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Here’s what never happened in the hospital during COVID: a doctor sat down next to a patient and said, “You have a choice. We can give you Remdesivir, which killed 53 percent of the patients in an Ebola trial. It was so bad the trial had to be shut down. And you’ll notice here in Remdesivir’s fact sheet, it says, ‘Not a lot of people have used Remdesivir. Serious and unexpected side effects may happen.’ Or we can give you ivermectin, a safe and effective drug that’s been successfully used for decades, and send you home. Which do you prefer?”
The reason that conversation never happened is that it would have cost the hospital too much money. If the hospital gave you ivermectin and sent you home, the federal government paid the hospital $3,200. If the hospital gave you Remdesivir, the federal government paid the entire hospital bill, plus a 20 percent bonus. So the hospital executives’ choice was to receive $3,200 or $500,000, which was the average hospital bill. No contest. Patients were going to get Remdesivir — whether they wanted it or not.
Informed consent died a grotesque death in the hospitals during COVID, and we need an autopsy. There was no information, and there was no consent, and without them, patients are reduced to helpless victims, exploited for corrupt financial gain and immoral experiments.
Informed consent has been enshrined in numerous judicial rulings as the foundation of ethical medical practice and seared into the public’s conscience from the Nuremberg trials. Seven Nazi doctors were hanged in Germany by an American military tribunal for “murders, tortures, and other atrocities committed in the name of medical science.” Yet murders, tortures, and other atrocities are exactly what was committed by medical staff in the hospitals against thousands of Americans during COVID.
Take, for example, Ray Lamar, who arrived in the emergency room with a message written with a black sharpie pen on his arm: “NO VENT NOREMDESIVIR.” On his other arm, he wrote the same message and added his wife’s name and phone number. Yet the doctors gave him Remdesivir anyway, without ever informing him. His widow Patti told me she constantly wonders what she could have done to save him.
Christine Johnson told the doctors that she discussed all her medications with her daughter, who is a nurse, and she concluded that she didn’t want Remdesivir. It didn’t matter. Christine was given Remdesivir while she was sleeping, and now her daughter Michelle doesn’t have her mother.
Rebecca Stevens was an avid reader of Epoch Times, where she learned about Remdesivir’s dangers. She declined Remdesivir on five separate occasions, as her hospital records confirm. But the medical staff didn’t care what Rebecca wanted. She was given Remdesivir without her knowledge, and now Rebecca’s five grandsons are bereft.
I asked Michael Hamilton how it’s possible to give Remdesivir to patients without them knowing. Hamilton is a lawyer for several families who are suing California hospitals for the murder of their loved ones, and he’s heard thousands of victims’ stories. “They would lie right to your face,” he said. “You’d tell the nurse that you didn’t want Remdesivir and she’d say, ‘Fine. But you’re a bit dehydrated, so let’s get some fluids in you.’ And she’d hook up the IV, but it wasn’t fluids. It was Remdesivir.”
Hamilton told me that another favored tactic was to knock out patients with sedatives like morphine and fentanyl. While they lay there in a stupor, they were injected with Remdesivir.
If secret injections of Remdesivir weren’t enough to kill you, the hospitals had more torture lined up. After all, the federal government paid hospitals a big bonus to ventilate patients — so patients were going to get ventilated, whether they wanted to or not. A lot of patients turned down being vented, because the whole process is a nightmare. You’re painfully intubated, rendered unable to talk; your lungs start shredding, and you may acquire bacterial pneumonia, which the hospital will refuse to treat.
But “no” is not an acceptable answer when the hospital has money at stake. The medical staff’s preferred method for gaining “consent” was relentless bullying, screaming, coercion, and threats until the patient finally caved. Patti Lamar, Ray’s widow, told me that when she refused to let them ventilate her husband, the doctors screamed at her over and over, “You’re killing him! You’re killing him! You’re killing him!” When she couldn’t take it anymore, she reluctantly gave in. Ray died shortly thereafter, and Patti lives with the trauma of that moment.
Michael Hamilton told me the fate of his friend who was a nurse, hospitalized in the place where she had worked for 26 years. When she refused ventilation, the doctor shrieked, “You’re refusing medical advice! Now your insurance company won’t pay your hospital bill when you die! Do you want to bankrupt your family? Do you? Do you?” The nurse panicked, and to protect her family, she “consented.” Two days later, she died.
“This was a very common technique,” Hamilton said. “I’ve heard it hundreds of times. You tell the patient that unless they do what the doctor says, they’ll bankrupt their family because insurance won’t pay the hospital bills. Nobody wants to do that to their family.” Does this sound like informed consent to you? It sounds more like medical battery to me.
The entire hospital environment was a hellscape of abuse in which informed consent wasn’t even a distant memory. Hamilton told me that patients were routinely denied all access to food and water, stupefied with 50 medications that included drugs contraindicated for each other, tortured with oxygen machines set at such high levels that they couldn’t breathe, and zip-tied to the bed till their wrists bled and their hands turned black. His stories align with 1,000 collected testimonies of the COVID-19 Human Betrayal Memory Project, which documents the victims’ fates.
The ultimate denial of informed consent was the hospitals’ refusal to allow the patients to leave. “Patients lost all rights when they went in the hospital,” Senator Ron Johnson told Patty Myers in her documentary, Making A Killing. “They became prisoners.” A cottage industry of hospital rescues cropped up, as desperate family members hired lawyers to try to spring their loved ones out of hospital “care.” Ralph Lorigo, a lawyer in Buffalo, told me that in every case when he succeeded in getting a patient’s case before a judge and the judge ruled in the family’s favor, the patient went home and survived. In all cases where the judge refused to hear the case or ruled against the family, the patient died.
Every American is a sovereign individual with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not a sack of meat to be treated as a profit opportunity. Informed consent must be revived from the grave if Americans are to have a fighting chance against powerful financial interests allied against them.
Stella Paul is the pen name of a writer in New York who has covered medical issues for over a decade. In 2021, she lost her husband in a locked down nursing home in New York City where he had been brutally isolated for almost a year. He died one week after getting the vaccine. Stella is focused on exposing the Hospital Death Protocol to honor her husband’s memory and to support thousands of bereaved families.
September 9, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, United States |
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Lancet Paper Inadvertently Discloses Data on Vaccination Worsening Long-COVID Symptomatology
I have seen patients in my practice become progressively more ill with fatigue, weakness, hair loss, headaches, effort intolerance, sleep disturbance and in some cases cardiac and neurological symptoms with progressive mRNA injections every six months. Meanwhile the Biden Administration US HHS National Action Plan on Long COVID-19 has been running a billion dollar research plan with no consideration that the vaccine could be the cause of symptoms. The medical literature is loaded with papers on long-COVID ignoring the fact the same patient groups have all been taking COVID-19 vaccines. In essence, there is a global coverup of vaccine injury syndromes as “long-COVID.”
Mateu et al studied 548 individuals, 341 with long-COVID, followed for a median of 23 months (IQR 16.5–23.5). With continued vaccination, only 26 subjects (7.6%) recovered from long-COVID during follow-up; almost all of them (n = 24) belonged to the less symptomatic cluster and importantly the syndrome finally lessened when they dropped vaccination. The authors fail to include vaccination in their multivariate models, thereby missing this effect in the patient population. However, they inadvertently show the impact of COVID-19 vaccination on persistent long-COVID in a figure shown in the Lancet manuscript.
No wonder people are sick with long-COVID! The vaccines install long-lasting genetic code for the Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein which deposits in tissues and organs and directly causes cardiovascular, neurological, thrombotic, and immunologic disease which is being blamed on “long-COVID.” Thus an important part of treatment for long-COVID is to stop ill-advised every six-month mass vaccination.
Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
President, McCullough Foundation
www.mcculloughfnd.org
Lourdes Mateu, Cristian Tebe, Cora Loste, José Ramón Santos, Gemma Lladós, Cristina López, Sergio España-Cueto, Ruth Toledo, Marta Font, Anna Chamorro, Francisco Muñoz-López, Maria Nevot, Nuria Vallejo, Albert Teis, Jordi Puig, Carmina R. Fumaz, José A. Muñoz-Moreno, Anna Prats, Carla Estany-Quera, Roser Coll-Fernández, Cristina Herrero, Patricia Casares, Ana Garcia, Bonaventura Clotet, Roger Paredes, Marta Massanella, Determinants of the onset and prognosis of the post-COVID-19 condition: a 2-year prospective observational cohort study, The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, 2023, 100724, ISSN 2666-7762, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2023.100724. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666776223001436)
September 9, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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Dr Ros Jones, the founder of CCVAC and long-term critic of the Government’s advisory body on vaccine policy JCVI, has just written to them again to ask why, in defiance of the evidence, are they recommending an autumn booster for healthy 12-64s who live with an immunocompromised household member. Here she explains her concern.
SCARY and ill-informed headlines like ‘New Covid fears as kids return to school and daily rates numbers double in a month’ have given grist to the government’s mill that an increase in Covid cases justifies them in bringing forward the autumn booster programme from October to September 15.
If you think this is irrelevant for most healthy children, it is not. The proposed schedule, though excluding the majority of healthy under-64s, recommends that perfectly healthy 12-64s get a booster if they are a household contact of someone with immunosuppression, for example someone who has been under cancer treatment. Once again guilt is being exploited. Whose needs do parents prioritise, their healthy teenage son or daughter or their elderly immunocompromised mothers and fathers? The simple answer is they have to do neither: their child does not need a booster for his or her own health and it is abundantly clear that the vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission, and may well have the opposite effect. There is good evidence that repeated boosters actually increase the likelihood of infection, particularly in the first week or two after vaccination, quite apart from all the other immediate and long-term potential risks of harm.
This is why I, with more than one hundred health professionals and academics, have once again written to Professor Wei Shen Lim, chairman of the JCVI’s Covid-19 committee, to point out the total lack of logic or indeed ethics in the current guidelines. The letter is published below and can also be found on the Hart group website here: Professor Lim, how can boosters protect others? – HART (hartgroup.org)
***
4th September 2023
Professor Wei Shen Lim and all members, Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation
Rt Hon Stephen Barclay MP, Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care
cc Dr Camilla Kingdon, President, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
Dear Professor Lim and Mr Barclay,
re: JCVI advice for Covid-19 vaccination of healthy young adults if living with an immunocompromised household member
I, and many of my co-signatories, have written to you on several occasions since May 2021[i], when you were first deliberating over whether to recommend Covid-19 gene-based vaccines for healthy children, given the lack of any robust safety data on these new mRNA technologies and the acknowledged low impact of SARS-CoV-2 on children.
It is very gratifying to see that this autumn’s booster programme [ii] has now been dropped for almost all healthy under-65s. However, there is one group still being offered a booster that causes us serious concern, namely the offer of a booster to healthy over-12s if they have an immunocompromised household member. We set out our reasons below.
1. It is clear that Covid-19 vaccines are failing to prevent infection by or transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
2. There is now good evidence that multiple boosters actually increase the likelihood of a SARS-CoV-2 infection [iii].
3. There is good evidence of a specific rise in infection risk in the first 7-10 days after vaccination, thus putting family members at increased rather than reduced risk [iv],[v].
4. The more recent omicron variants are poorly covered by the original vaccines, but even the newer bivalent boosters generate a much lower response against the non-Wuhan sequences in the vaccines, indicative of immune imprinting [vi].
5. The potential benefit of vaccination now for healthy young adults is low, and for children is effectively zero, given the poor efficacy of the vaccines and the high prevalence of naturally-acquired immunity [vii].
6. The safety profile of these vaccines is woefully inadequate for use in a healthy low-risk population, especially children, giving a poor risk : benefit balance. The hazard of myocarditis, recognised early on as an increased risk in younger age groups [viii], has still been poorly delineated, but risks as high as 1 in 25 are reported for subclinical myocarditis in a recent study from Switzerland [ix], confirming similar findings from Thailand. Although symptoms usually resolve quickly, scarring has been demonstrated on cardiac MRI scans [x] and has been found to persist at 6-12-month follow-up [xi]. Pfizer’s own 5-year follow-up study is not due to report until 2027; likewise a large FDA-sponsored study in the US [xii].
7. Many other adverse effects have been reported and listed in our previous letters [xiii], [xiv], perhaps the most worrying of which is the deleterious effect on the immune system [xv],[xvi]. Basic pharmacokinetics of these products are only just being reported, with a paper this week, as we write, reporting findings of vaccine-derived spike protein persisting in the circulation for many months (or longer) after vaccination [xvii],[xviii]; with serious implications for prolonged effects of any vaccine injuries.
8. The issue of excess all-cause deaths in younger age groups in 2022 and 2023 has yet to be properly investigated and a link to vaccines cannot be ruled out until this is done[xix].
9. Even if there was good evidence that vaccination could protect vulnerable household contacts, there would be major ethical concerns around asking children to take a vaccine with any potential risks of harm, to protect family members. The Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights [xx] Article 4 and Article 7 make it clear that all medical interventions must be in the best interest of the individual concerned, particularly in the case of children who are not able to give consent. If a booster was in the best interests of a healthy 12-17-year-old, then surely the JCVI would be recommending it for all, but it is clear that these children are being offered the vaccine merely in a likely unsuccessful attempt to benefit other household members.
10. Whilst it may be argued that technically these products have now been approved and are therefore no longer a research tool, these ethical principles and the precautionary principle must still apply, especially since the approval itself is still based on much less evidence than would be expected for other drugs.
Please could you urgently provide the following, under a FOI request:
- minutes of the meetings at which these decisions were made;
- calculations of numbers of healthy 12-17-year-olds (and of all household members aged 12-64) needed to vaccinate to prevent the hospitalisation of one vulnerable family member;
- any legal advice taken on how these unnecessary booster doses to children comply with UK and international law.
We look forward to hearing from you as a matter of urgency before the commencement of the vaccine booster rollout to healthy 12-17-year-olds .
Yours sincerely
Dr Rosamond Jones, MD, FRCPCH, retired consultant paediatrician, convenor of CCVAC (Children’s Covid Vaccines Advisory Council) and many others….
Professor Anthony J Brookes, Professor of Genomics & Health Data Science, University of Leicester
Professor Angus Dalgleish, MD, FRCP, FRACP, FRCPath, FMedSci, Professor of Oncology, University of London; Principal, Institute for Cancer Vaccines & Immunotherapy
Professor Richard Ennos, MA, PhD. Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Edinburgh
Professor John A Fairclough, BM BS, BMed Sci, FRCS, FFSEM(UK), Professor Emeritus, Honorary Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon
Professor David Livermore, BSc, PhD, retired Professor of Medical Microbiology
Professor Karol Sikora, MA, MBBChir, PhD, FRCR, FRCP, FFPM, Honorary Professor of Professional Practice, Buckingham University
Professor Roger Watson, FRCP Edin, FRCN, FAAN, Honorary Professor of Nursing, University of Hull
Professor Keith Willison, PhD, Professor of Chemical Biology, Imperial, London
Lord Moonie, MBChB, MRCPsych, MFCM, MSc, House of Lords, former parliamentary under-secretary of state 2001-2003, former consultant in Public Health Medicine
Dr Roland Salmon, MBBS, MRCGP, FFPH, former Director, Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (Wales)
Dr Ali Ajaz, Consultant Psychiatrist
Dr Shiraz Akram, BDS, Dental surgeon
Dr Victoria Anderson, MBChB, MRCGP, MRCPCH, DRCOG, General Practitioner
Julie Annakin, RN, Immunisation Specialist Nurse
Wendy Armstrong, Practice Nurse
Helen Auburn, Dip ION, MBANT, NTCC, CNHC, Registered Nutritional Therapist
Dr Ancha Bala-Joof, MBChB, MRCGP, General Practitioner
Dr Michael Bazlinton, MBChB, MRCGP, DCH, General Practitioner
Dr Mark A Bell, MBChB, MRCP(UK), FRCEM, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, UK
Dr Michael D Bell, MBChB, MRCGP, retired General Practitioner
Dr Ashvy Bhardwaj, MBBS, DRCOG, MRCGP (2018)
Dr Alan Black, MBBS, MSc, DipPharmMed, Retired Pharmaceutical Physician
Dr Gillian Breese, BSc, MB ChB, DFFP, DTM&H, General Practitioner
Dr Ian Bridges, MBBS, retired General Practitioner
Dr Emma Brierly, MBBS, MRCGP, General Practitioner
Dr Elizabeth Burton, MB ChB, Retired General Practitioner
Dr David Cartland, MBChB, BMedSci, General practitioner
Dr Peter Chan, BM, MRCS, MRCGP, NLP, General Practitioner, Functional Medicine Practitioner
Dr Bernard Choi, MBBS, MRCGP, DCH, DRCOG, General Practitioner
Michael Cockayne, MSc, PGDip, SCPHNOH, BA, RN, Occupational Health Practitioner
Mr Ian F Comaish, MA, BM BCh, FRCOphth, FRANZCO, Consultant ophthalmologist
James Cook, BN, MPH, NHS Registered Nurse
Dr Clare Craig, BMBCh, FRCPath, Pathologist
Dr David Critchley, BSc, PhD, 32 years in pharmaceutical R&D as a clinical research scientist
Dr Sue de Lacy, MBBS, MRCGP, AFMCP UK, Integrative Medicine Doctor
Dr Christine Dewbury, retired General Practitioner
Mr Keith Dewbury, retired Consultant Radiologist
Dr Jayne Donegan, MBBS, DRCOG, DCH, DFFP, MRCGP, homeopathic practitioner, retired NHS GP
Dr Damien Downing, MBBS, MRSB, private physician
Dr Jonathan Eastwood, BSc, MBChB, MRCGP, General Practitioner
Dr Jonathan Engler, MBChB, LlB (hons), DipPharmMed
Dr Elizabeth Evans, MA(Cantab), MBBS, DRCOG, Director UKMFA
Dr Chris Exley, PhD FRSB, retired professor in Bioinorganic Chemistry
Dr Brian Fitzsimons, MBChB, DipOccMed, FRCGP, General Practitioner, Occupational Health Physician, Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Practitioner
Dr John Flack, BPharm, PhD. Retired Director of Safety Evaluation at Beecham Pharmaceuticals 1980-1989 and Senior Vice-president for Drug Discovery 1990-92 SmithKline Beecham
Dr Charles Forsyth, MBBS, FFHom, Ecological and Homeopathic Physician (Retired)
Dr Sheena Fraser, MBChB, MRCGP (2003), Dip BSLM, General Practitioner
Sophie Gidet, RM, Midwife
Dr Jenny Goodman, MA, MBChB, Ecological Medicine
Dr Ali Haggett, Mental health community work, 3rd sector, former lecturer in the history of medicine
Mr David Halpin, MBBS, FRCS, Orthopaedic and trauma surgeon, retired
Alex Hicks, MEng, MCIPS, Compliance Director (Supply Chain)
Mr Anthony Hinton, MBChB, FRCS, Consultant ENT surgeon, London
Dr Richard House, PhD, CPsychol, AFBPsS, CertCouns, Chartered Psychologist, former senior lecturer in Psychology (Roehampton) and Early Childhood (Winchester), retired psychotherapist
Dr Keith Johnson, DPhil, former patents officer
Dr Timothy Kelly, MB BCh BSc, NHS doctor
Dr Tanya Klymenko, PhD, FHEA, FIBMS, Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences
Dr Caroline Lapworth, MB ChB, General Practitioner
Dr Branko Latinkic, BSc, PhD, Molecular Biologist
Dr Theresa Lawrie, MBBCh, PhD, Director, Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy Ltd
Dr Jason Lester, MRCP, FRCR, Consultant Clinical Oncologist
Dr Felicity Lillingstone, IMD DHS PhD ANP, Doctor, Urgent Care, Research Fellow
Dr Nichola Ling, MBBS, MRCOG, Consultant obstetrician and digital advisor to NHS England
Katherine MacGilchrist, BSc (Hons) Pharmacology, MSc Epidemiology, CEO, Systematic Review Director, Epidemica Ltd
Dr C Geoffrey Maidment, MD, FRCP, retired consultant physician
Mr Ahmad K Malik, FRCS (Tr & Orth), Dip Med Sport, Consultant Trauma & Orthopaedic Surgeon
Dr Ayiesha Malik, MBChB, General Practitioner
Dr Kulvinder S. Manik MBChB, MRCGP, MA(Cantab), LLM, Gray’s Inn
Dr Fiona Martindale, MBChB, MRCGP, General Practitioner in out-of-hours
Julie Maxwell, MBBCh, MRCPCH, Associate Specialist Community Paediatrician
Dr Fatou Mbow, MD(Italy), MRCGP, DFFP, General Practitioner
Dr Sam McBride, BSc(Hons) Medical Microbiology & Immunobiology, MBBCh BAO, MSc in Clinical Gerontology, MRCP(UK), FRCEM, FRCP(Edinburgh), NHS Emergency Medicine & geriatrics
Kaira McCallum, BSc, retired pharmacist, Director of strategy UKMFA
Mr Ian McDermott, MBBS, MS, FRCS(Tr&Orth), FFSEM(UK), Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon
Dr Janet Menage, MA, MBChB, retired General Practitioner
Dr Franziska Meuschel, MD, ND, PhD Affiliations, IDF, BSEM, Nutritional, Environmental and Integrated Medicine
Dr Scott Mitchell, MBChB, MRCS, Associate Specialist, Emergency Medicine
Dr Alistair J Montgomery, MBChB, MRCGP, DRCOG, retired General Practitioner
Dr Alan Mordue, MBChB, FFPH, Retired Consultant in Public Health Medicine & Epidemiology
Margaret Moss, MA(Cantab), CBiol, MRSB, Director, The Nutrition and Allergy Clinic, Cheshire
Dr Claire Mottram, BSc Hons, MBChB, Doctor in General Practice
Dr Greta Mushet, MBChB, MRCPsych, retired Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy
Dr Angela Musso, MD, MRCGP, DRCOG, FRACGP, MFPC, General Practitioner
Dr Sarah Myhill, MBBS, Dip NM, Retired GP, Independent Naturopathic Physician
Dr Chris Newton, PhD, Biochemist
Dr Rachel Nicoll, PhD, Medical researcher
Tim Nike, Specialist Neurological Physiotherapist
Sue Parker Hall, CTA, MSc (Counselling & Supervision), MBACP, EMDR. Psychotherapist
Dr Dean Patterson, MBChB, FRCP. Consultant Cardiologist
Dr Christina Peers, MBBS, DRCOG, DFSRH, FFSRH, Menopause Specialist
Rev Dr William J U Philip MB ChB, MRCP, BD, Senior Minister The Tron Church Glasgow, formerly physician specialising in cardiology
Dr Angharad Powell, MBChB, BSc (hons), DFRSH, DCP (Ireland), DRCOG, DipOccMed, MRCGP, General Practitioner
Dr Gerry Quinn, PhD, Microbiologist
Dr Jessica Robinson, BSc(Hons), MBBS, MRCPsych, MFHom, Psychiatrist and Integrative Medicine Doctor
Dr Jon Rogers, MB ChB (Bristol), retired General Practitioner
Mr James Royle, MBChB, FRCS, MMedEd, Colorectal Surgeon
Dr Charlie Sayer, MBBS, FRCR, Consultant Radiologist
Sorrel Scott, Grad Dip Phys, Specialist Physiotherapist in Neurology, 30 years in NHS
Dr Rohaan Seth, BSc (Hons), MBChB (Hons), MRCGP, Retired General Practitioner
Dr Rajendra Sharma, MBBCh, BAO, LRCP&S(Ire), MFHom, Private Doctor, Medical Director, Dr Sharma Diagnostics
Natalie Stephenson, BSc (Hons) Paediatric Audiologist
Dr Noel Thomas, MA, MBChB, DObsRCOG, DTM&H, MFHom, Retired Doctor
Dr Livia Tossici-Bolt, PhD, NHS Clinical Scientist
Dr Helen Westwood, MBChB (Hons), MRCGP, DCH, DRCOG, General Practitioner
Dr Carmen Wheatley, DPhil, Orthomolecular Oncology
Dr Samuel White, MBChB, MRCGP, Functional Medicine Specialist, former General Practitioner
Dr Ruth Wilde, MBBCh, MRCEM, AFMCP, Integrative & Functional Medicine Doctor
Dr Stephanie Williams, Dermatologist
Dr AZ, MBChB, NHS Specialty doctor
[i] https://www.hartgroup.org/open-letter-to-mhra-17-05-2021/
[ii] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-autumn-2023-vaccination-programme-jcvi-advice-26-may-2023/jcvi-statement-on-the-covid-19-vaccination-programme-for-autumn-2023-26-may-2023
[iii] Shrestha NK, Burke PC, Nowacki AS et al. Effectiveness of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Bivalent Vaccine, Open Forum Infectious Diseases 2023;10 (6): doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofad209
[iv] Shrotri M, Krutikov M, Palmer T et al. Vaccine effectiveness of the first dose of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and BNT162b2 against SARS-CoV-2 infection in residents of long-term care facilities in England (VIVALDI): a prospective cohort study. Lancet Infect Dis. 2021. doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(21)00289-9
[v] Bar-On YM, Goldberg Y, Micha, M et al. Protection by a Fourth Dose of BNT162b2 against Omicron in Israel, N Engl J Med 2022; 386:1712-1720. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2201570
[vi] Fujita S, Uriu K, Pan L et al. Impact of Imprinted Immunity Induced by mRNA Vaccination in an Experimental Animal Model, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2023;, jiad230, https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiad230
[vii]https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1131409/appendix-1-of-jcvi-statement-on-2023-covid-19-vaccination-programme-8-november-2022.pdf
[viii] Oster M, mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine-Associated Myocarditis, 2022, https://www.fda.gov/media/153514/download
[ix] Buergin N, Lopez-Ayala P, Hirsiger JR et al. Sex-specific differences in myocardial injury incidence after COVID-19 mRNA-1273 booster vaccination. European Journal of Heart Failure 2023. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ejhf.2978
[x] Jain SS, Steele JM, Fonseca B et al. COVID-19 Vaccination–Associated Myocarditis in Adolescents. Pediatrics 2021; 148 (5): e2021053427. doi.org/10.1542/peds.2021-053427
[xi] Yu CK, Tsao S, Ng CW et al. Cardiovascular Assessment up to One Year After COVID-19 Vaccine-Associated Myocarditis. Circulation 2023; 148(5): 436–439. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10373639/
[xii] https://www.nymc.edu/news-and-events/news-archives/us-fda-awards-dr-supriya-jain-19-million-to-support-research-on-covid-19-vaccine-associated-myocarditis.php
[xiii] https://www.hartgroup.org/open-letter-to-the-jcvi-pause-vaccines-for-children-pending-urgent-review/
[xiv] https://www.hartgroup.org/open-letter-to-the-jcvi-2/
[xv] Uversky VN, Redwan EM, Makis W, Rubio-Casillas A.IgG4 Antibodies Induced by mRNA Vaccines Generate Immune Tolerance to SARS-CoV-2’spike Protein by Suppressing the Immune System. Vaccines 2023; 11(5): 991. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11050991
[xvi] Noé A, Dang TD, Axelrad C et al. BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccination in children alters cytokine responses to heterologous pathogens and Toll-like receptor agonists. Front Immunol 2023; 14:1242380. doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1242380
[xvii] Castruita JAS, Schneider UV, Mollerup S et al. SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA vaccine sequences circulate in blood up to 28 days after COVID-19 vaccination. APMIS 2023; 131: 128-132. https://doi.org/10.1111/apm.13294
[xviii] Brogna C, Cristoni S, Marino G et al.Detection of recombinant Spike protein in the blood of individuals vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2: Possible molecular mechanisms. Proteomics Clinical Applications 2023; https://doi.org/10.1002/prca.202300048
[xix] https://vigilantnews.com/post/excess-mortality-just-got-even-worse-ed-dowd-drops-alarming-new-data
[xx] https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/universal-declaration-bioethics-and-human-rights
September 8, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, UK |
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Syndicate Fact Checkers Confirm Empiric Regimen is Valuable for Post-Acute Sequelae after SARS-CoV-2 Infection and COVID-19 Vaccination
It took less than a day since our Base Spike Protein Detoxification Protocol was published for the Biopharmaceutical Complex to come out with syndicate social media allies discrediting the most hopeful news long-COVID and vaccine suffers have heard since the start of their misery.
Syndicate fact checker Science Feedback, issued an unsupported false counterclaim on Instagram given below.
Science Feedback, a science and climate blogging organization with no foundation in peer-reviewed medical publications, is not advised by prominent physicians working in the COVID-19 field. Their major donor is former Microsoft and Apple executive Eric Michelman who is also a noted Democrat supporter, donating money to the Presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Michelman is also a climate change activist, founding a climate change advocacy organization and publicly supporting a carbon tax.
LinkedIn pulled a post indicating the COVID-19 vaccine causes more post-acute sequelae than SARS-CoV-2 which is my clinical opinion supported by the data. Base Spike Detoxification is an approach a to both problems. LinkedIn uncredentialed anonymous content moderators obviously disagreed and continue to push the false narrative indicating that long-COVID is unassailable and the only answer is more genetic shots.
I have found it interesting that the fact checkers have never made claims against a myriad of drugs or supplements that were ineffective during the pandemic. They have exclusively targeted therapies with preclinical and clinical studies demonstrating signals of benefit and acceptable safety (iodine/xylitol nasal washes, vitamin D, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, budesonide). In a perverted way, the Biopharmaceutical Complex has confirmed Base Spike Detoxification is the path forward for so many patients suffering from long-COVID and or regretting the jab.
Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
President, McCullough Foundation
www.mcculloughfnd.org
McCullough, Peter A, Wynn, Cade, & Procter, Brian C. (2023). Clinical Rationale for SARS-CoV-2 Base Spike Protein Detoxification in Post COVID-19 and Vaccine Injury Syndromes. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, 28(3), 90–94. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8286460
September 8, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine |
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The New York Times on Sept. 1 published a “guide to fall vaccine shots,” which included recommending the general public get COVID-19, flu and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) vaccines, and infants 6 months and older receive COVID-19 shots this fall.
Written by Times senior writer David Leonhardt, the guide warns about rising COVID-19 cases and the approaching flu season, before offering, “The good news is that there are vaccines and treatments that reduce risks from all major viruses likely to circulate this season.”
According to the Times, “This year, we should take a broader approach,” rather than “obsess over COVID.”
Peter Hotez, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine — described by the Times as a “vaccine expert” — echoed that appeal. “It’s not only COVID you have to think about,” he said.
Hotez, Nirav Shah, M.D., J.D., principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other public health officials and experts quoted by the Times recommended Americans prepare for the upcoming fall and winter by getting the trio of COVID-19, flu and RSV vaccines.
None of these experts, however, addressed any of the potential safety risks posed by these vaccines.
Medical and public health experts who spoke with The Defender took a different view and questioned the Times’ guide, citing concerns about the safety and efficacy of vaccines for respiratory illnesses.
“Vaccines against respiratory illnesses have failed miserably,” said cardiologist Peter McCullough M.D., MPH. “America is wary of vaccines at this point, wanting to get on with life free of menacing vaccines, and are willing to seek early treatment, which is always the best way to handle infections, vaccinated or not.”
Pediatrician Dr. Liz Mumper, president and CEO of the Rimland Center for Integrative Medicine, told The Defender, “There have been no studies examining the effects of giving RSV vaccine, flu vaccine and COVID vaccine at the same time.”
“If you follow the advice in The New York Times article,” Mumper said, “be aware that your child will be part of post-marketing experimentation.”
Times still pushing vaccine propaganda
According to the Times, “The best defenses against COVID haven’t changed: vaccines and post-infection treatments,” which are “especially important for vulnerable people, like the elderly and immunocompromised.”
The federal government is “on track” to approve updated COVID-19 shots, designed to combat recent variants, in mid-September, the Times reported. Once they are available, “all adults should consider getting a booster shot.”
“COVID can still be nasty even if it doesn’t put you in the hospital,” the Times states. “A booster shot will reduce its potency.”
Hotez resurrected a claim heard often during 2021 and 2022, telling the Times, “Overwhelmingly, those who are being hospitalized are unvaccinated or undervaccinated.”
Experts who spoke with The Defender disagreed.
Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D., professor emeritus and senior research scientist in epidemiology (chronic diseases) at the Yale School of Public Health, citing data from U.K. Public Health, said, “All-cause deaths ages 18+ are disproportionately among vaccinated people, whether one, two or three doses, compared to unvaccinated people.”
“The statistic quoted by Dr. Hotez is false,” Risch said.
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., senior director of science and research for Children’s Health Defense (CHD) said, “The new booster simply hasn’t been tested to affirm any assertion of protection. The original trials on children were laughable as they looked at antibody titers rather than actual disease prevention.”
McCullough told The Defender, “The COVID-19 vaccines have been a safety debacle with record cases of myocarditis, blood clots, stroke, and all-cause mortality.”
Despite the injury and mortality reports and the Times’ admission that the risk of COVID-19 to young children is “very low,” Shah nonetheless recommended children as young as 6 months of age get the COVID-19 booster shots this fall.
“Do you want to see your grandpa … [and] grandma?” Shah asked in the Times. “Are you really sure you’re not going to give COVID to them?”
Experts who spoke with The Defender refuted Shah’s advice.
Dr. Pierre Kory, president and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), said “There is no medical justification for a healthy 6-month-old or older child to be vaccinated for COVID-19,” adding:
“There is so little data available on the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine in children that to give blanket recommendations like Shah is doing creates an unnecessary risk to children’s health.
“We simply do not know enough about the COVID-19 vaccines to make such broad recommendations. Additionally, COVID-19 is highly treatable in children and poses very little risk to a healthy child.”
Mumper told The Defender, “Any official who advocates that children take a vaccine to protect grandparents has not read the medical literature carefully.” She said, “After doing a deep dive on the risks and benefits of COVID vaccines in children, I remain steadfastly opposed to their use in healthy children,” adding:
“Any immunity from COVID shots is short-lived and follows a period of immune suppression. Very worrisome adverse events like inflammation of the heart, triggering autoimmunity, interfering with autonomic functions and reproductive toxicity are well described in the medical literature.”
Not all countries following suit
Some countries began limiting COVID-19 vaccination for children last year. In April 2022, Denmark ended its blanket COVID-19 vaccination recommendation, including for children.
Now, Denmark recommends “booster-vaccination” only for people “aged 50 years and above and selected target groups.”
Earlier in 2022, public health authorities in Sweden and Norway opted not to recommend COVID-19 vaccines for children between the ages of 5 and 11.
Sweden now recommends COVID-19 vaccination only for those 50 and above (18 and above for high-risk groups), while Norway is still only recommending COVID-19 vaccines for those 65 and older (and as young as 5 for high-risk groups).
In March of this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said healthy children and adolescents ages 6 months to 17 years have a “low disease burden” and are therefore low priority for vaccination.
In June, Australian public health officials said Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is “no longer available” for children under 12, and in January, U.K. public health authorities ended their booster program for those under 50.
COVID vaccine recommendations ‘not science, not medicine, not public health’
Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist and member of CHD’s scientific advisory committee, told The Defender that while public health authorities and the media continue to recommend COVID-19 vaccines, none of them have been fully licensed in the U.S., as all such vaccines are available under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) only.
In May 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that COVID-19 vaccines for kids under 6 would not have to meet the agency’s 50% efficacy threshold required to obtain an EUA.
CDC data released in September 2022 showed that more than 55% of children between 6 months and 2 years old had a “systemic reaction” after their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.
“The CDC, criminally, claims the (authorized) vaccines are ‘safe and effective,’” Nass said, adding:
“That is a term of art that is only allowed to be used for licensed vaccines and drugs. No licensed COVID-19 vaccine is available in the U.S. Public health is supposed to balance benefit and risk.
“This is not science. Not medicine. Not public health.”
Flu vaccines have demonstrated ‘declining efficacy’
According to the Times, “The most immediate step worth considering involves R.S.V.” On Sept. 5, the CDC issued a health advisory warning of rising RSV cases in parts of the U.S., particularly among children and babies.
Last month, the CDC signed off on the first-ever monoclonal antibody vaccine Beyfortus for the prevention of RSV, for babies up to 8 months old.
Also last month, the FDA approved an RSV vaccine for pregnant women, despite concerns raised by some medical experts about premature births identified during clinical trials. In May, the FDA approved Pfizer’s Abrysvo and GlaxoSmithKline’s Arexvy RSV vaccines for people 60 and older.
The Times quoted Ashish Jha, M.D., MPH, former White House COVID-19 adviser and now dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, who said, “If you’re 60 or over, you don’t want to get into November without having an RSV vaccine.”
And though there is no RSV vaccine approved for administration to children, the Times said that “parents may want to ask their pediatrician” about monoclonal antibody treatment for children under 8 months of age.
According to Hooker, “the RSV vaccine given to pregnant women could not even make a 20% threshold for protection (as specified by the FDA) against lower respiratory RSV infection.”
Supporting the push for the flu vaccine, the Times and experts such as Jha said, “The flu officially kills about 35,000 Americans in a typical year,” but “the flu’s toll would be lower if more people got a vaccine shot,” noting that “In recent years, less than half of Americans have done so.”
Jha added, “We underestimate the impact that respiratory viruses have on our population. The flu can knock people out for weeks, even younger people.” Jha pointed out that flu can make heart attacks and strokes more common as well.
Kory, however, told The Defender that the COVID-19 vaccines have made people more susceptible to other respiratory illnesses, like the flu and RSV:
“In my practice, we treat many vaccine-injured patients who are now more susceptible to the flu, RSV and many other viruses. The COVID vaccines cause many to present as if they have an autoimmune disease and now respond with more severe symptoms to common viruses like the flu.”
Risch, meanwhile, said, “Traditional flu vaccines are considered to be safe for most people” and may be a “reasonable” option for them, but “this should be discussed with one’s healthcare provider.”
“The flu vaccines seem to have had declining benefit over the last 10-15 years, to the point now that they may confer only a 30% benefit,” Risch added.
And according to Hooker, “The flu shot is also notoriously bad at protection against the flu and there are very few data regarding this season’s flu shot efficacy.”
‘Ludicrous’ public health messaging
Shah’s recommendation that children as young as 6 months get a COVID-19 shot this fall follows in a long line of questionable advice and claims disseminated by public health officials, some of which were later contradicted.
In a May 2021 MSNBC interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), said:
“Although you don’t like to see breakthroughs, the fact is, this is one of the encouraging aspects about the efficacy of the vaccine. It protect you completely against infection. If you do get infected, the chances are that you’re going to be without symptoms, and the chances are very likely that you’ll not be able to transmit it to other people.”
Fauci’s statements, however, failed to account for the many examples of breakthrough infections with severe symptoms and hospitalization.
After years of official “safe and effective” claims, in YouTube’s new “medical misinformation” policy introduced Aug. 15, “Claims that any vaccine is a guaranteed prevention method for COVID-19” are prohibited. Fauci’s videos from 2021, notably, are still up on YouTube.
In April 2020, Fauci said that remdesivir will become the “standard of care” for treating COVID-19. But numerous victims of COVID-19 hospital protocols prescribed by the CDC have come forward in recent months claiming that remdesivir was administered without permission of the patients or their families and contributed to further injury or death.
Similarly, former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in March 2021 “Our data from the CDC today suggests … that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick … can’t transmit it to others.” She doubled down on these statements during a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing in June, asserting that her statement “was generally accurate.”
Hooker said these statements were “obviously patently false, as the vaccines distributed in the U.S. at that time [in 2021] were not tested for transmission and there was evidence of ‘breakthrough’ infections even in the clinical trials.”
“This obviates any protection to ‘Grandma and Grandpa’ through children getting vaccinated against COVID-19,” Hooker added.
Also in 2021, Walensky recommended wearing pantyhose over a mask to ensure a tight fit.
Nass called such public health messaging “ludicrous,” noting that Walensky’s pantyhose recommendation “quickly disappeared” because it “had connotations the CDC was not willing to deal with.”
Kory criticized the Times’ fall vaccine guide, characterizing it as an example of “disinformation.”
“The New York Times is carrying the disinformation that continues to come from the CDC and other government health agencies,” he said. “This is one of the reasons that the public continues to lose trust in the media and our government.”
As a result, public health officials “create a mockery of how medical and scientific evidence is used to inform patient care decisions and public health policy,” Kory said.
Other experts who spoke with The Defender suggested taking vitamins to boost one’s immune system, rather than a series of vaccinations.
“For the immune system to defend against respiratory viruses, all people should take daily vitamin D to achieve blood levels of 50 or greater,” Risch said. “This is typically 5,000 units per day for a 150-lb person, but can be adjusted up or down according to body weight.”
“Serious RSV infections generally occur only in the youngest young and the oldest old. People in these categories should discuss this with their doctors,” he added.
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.
September 8, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | CDC, Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, New York Times, RSV, United States |
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The vast majority of the population of Haiti is unvaccinated for COVID-19 but the impoverished Caribbean nation recorded virtually no deaths from the virus.
Haiti remains one of the least vaccinated countries in the world while also showing the lowest Covid death rate.
As of the end of April, just 254 people have died in Haiti from what authorities agree constitutes Covid, according to reports.
However, this figure is likely overblown considering SARS-CoV-2 has never even been isolated and proven to exist.
Compared to the United States, which currently has a COVID-19 death rate of around 1,800 per one million people, Haiti has a Covid death rate of just 22 per one million people, or 0.0022% – basically 0 percent.
NPR admits in a report about Haiti that Covid restrictions were never enforced there.
Nobody there wears a mask, people are mostly unvaccinated, and daily life is normal with busy and crowded buses and markets.
For most Haitians, the pandemic never happened.
“And Haiti hasn’t yet administered a single COVID-19 vaccine,” NPR‘s Jason Beaubien further reveals.
It turns out that Haiti had its own version of Tony Fauci, a man named Dr. Jean “Bill” Pape, who headed up a commission during the “pandemic” to deal with the fallout. In the end, however, the commission was dissolved because Haiti was, and continues to be, COVID-free.
“The reason mainly is because we have very, very few cases of COVID,” Pape said about why the commission was ultimately disbanded.
GHESKIO, the local health agency that Pape heads, also closed its COVID units last fall due to a lack of patients.
While the Western world is stricken with hordes of “fully vaccinated” people who are now sick as dogs, Haiti is back to normal thanks to its rejection of the shots.
“Sometimes it’s two, sometimes zero, sometimes it’s 20 cases,” Pape said.
“But we are not seeing a second wave as we thought would happen.”
Unlike much of the rest of the world, Haiti remained open during the “pandemic.”
Outdoor markets were never closed, and people there continued working because sheltering in place and remote employment are not things that the average Haitian can afford.
“Most people don’t wear a mask,” Pape added, noting that Haitians continued working as normal throughout the pandemic because “if they don’t work, they don’t eat – their family doesn’t eat.”
When AstraZeneca tried to peddle its COVID injection in Haiti, the Haitian government denied a shipment of it.
It turns out that the medical community in Haiti heard about all the “rare” side effects of the jab and thus rejected it.
“COVID did not impact us as badly,” said Dr. Jacqueline Gautier, who serves on the national technical advisory group on COVID vaccination in Haiti.
“People don’t think [the vaccine] is worth it, actually.”
Another factor that makes Haiti an incredible success story compared to other nations is the fact that its population is very young.
The average age in Haiti is around 23, while in the United States, it is closer to 40.
Younger people tend to have stronger immune systems than older people.
And without COVID jabs to destroy them, Haiti’s millions of unvaccinated people fared well compared to the rest of the world.
“Also, there are many other major problems the country is facing,” Gautier added.
“So people don’t see COVID as our major, as a major, problem for us.
“And who can blame them?”
September 8, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Haiti |
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During the UK Parliamentary debate on the WHO Treaty there was a noticeable contrast between those supporting the petition and those opposing it. This article analyses the arguments made by those rejecting the petition, drawing on insights from Behavioural Science.
On 17 April 2023, a petition [1] was debated in the UK Parliament calling for the Government “to commit to not signing any international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness established by the WHO, unless this is approved through a public referendum.” The petition had received 156,086 signatures. Of the thirteen Members of Parliament (MPs) who spoke during the debate [2] four strongly supported the motion, three took a more neutral stance, and six strongly opposed the petition or elements of the argument. Examples of arguments in support of the petition can be viewed in a collation of clips taken from the video of the debate [3].
There was a noticeable contrast between the arguments presented by MPs supporting the petition — who exhibited concern for the constituents who had signed the petition and approached them directly — and those opposing it. All those who, like the petitioners, were concerned about the growing power and influence of WHO and threats to national sovereignty were familiar with the contents of the so-called ‘pandemic treaty’ [4], since labelled the WHO CA+, as well as proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) [5]. While some opposing the petition were also familiar with the document, others had not even read it, prompting Andrew Bridgen (MP for North West Leicestershire) to plead with members to do so.
Those concerned about these proposals presented well-reasoned arguments reflecting an understanding of the history of WHO [6], its many failures during Covid-19, and its current problematic relationships with non-state funders [7,8]. Those supporting WHO’s proposals uncritically supported WHO, focusing on its public health successes and ignoring obvious concerns. Perturbed by the lack of parliamentary scrutiny of the Covid response measures, some MPs worried that the UK government, having played a leadership role in drafting the treaty, might ratify it without parliamentary debate. This reservation was flatly denied by those opposing the petition, with some denying that WHO would in any way threaten UK sovereignty, that its role would remain advisory in nature, and that those opposing the treaty were in effect opposing international cooperation.
This article analyses the arguments made by those rejecting the petition, drawing on insights from Behavioural Science. During the debate, these MPs tended to rely on the following tactics:
- Using derogatory language or false claims to discredit speakers and their arguments
- Making inaccurate and unsubstantiated statements
- Using globalist slogans
- Patronising the petitioners
- Using the debate as an opportunity for party-political point-scoring
- Downplaying or normalising threats to sovereignty
- Promoting internationalism over sovereignty.
The debate was a sad reminder that it is not necessarily the quality of arguments, or even the sincerity of the individuals making them, that wins the day.
1. Using derogatory language and labels to discredit speakers and their arguments
A tactic used to shut down discussion and debate was to attach derogatory labels to those supporting the petition. In the debate, two such labels used in relation to the Covid event and the pandemic treaty were ‘conspiracy theory/theorist’ (ten references made by four speakers) and ‘anti-vax’ (one speaker). Some opposing the petition used these labels early in their presentations, their comments and tone indicating that these were untenable positions that no sane person could possibly subscribe to.
Using such labels at the beginning of the debate set the scene, immediately employing a behavioural science tactic to prime the participants and the wider audience. Priming is a ‘nudge’ [9] tactic; techniques that are used to modify people’s behaviours or emotions in a way that is unconscious and therefore difficult to identify or counter. Priming [10] occurs when the emotional attachment or views held about one issue are then used to influence the emotional attachment on a separate and unrelated issue; an emotional contagion if you like. This can be utilised to produce a positive or negative relationship. Over the past three years in particular, the phrase ‘conspiracy theorist’ has become strongly and negatively associated with an archetype of someone whose views are not based in fact and who are not community minded, and therefore not socially acceptable. By stating in his introductory comments that “I have no time for conspiracy theories”, leader of the debate Nick Fletcher (MP for Don Valley) activated this already negative mental construct and associated it with the question of the WHO pandemic treaty. Whether this was purposeful or not is debatable but concerns about conspiracies do seem strangely placed in a debate which should be about publicly documented proposals, and UK and international legislation.
Similarly, Sally-Ann Hart (MP for Hastings and Rye), who herself was committed to representing the concerns of constituents who had signed the petition, warned that, “We must be wary of … conspiracy theories distorting the facts and scaring people. Transparency of debate is therefore needed to squash those conspiracy theories.”
Some comments could only be described as invective. Language such as that used by John Spellar (MP for Warley) was entirely inappropriate in the context of a Parliamentary debate:
… the poisonous cesspit of the right-wing conspiracy theorist ecosystem in the United States … an appalling subculture of those who live by conspiracy theories … Unfortunately, we have some people — a very limited number … who wallow in the realm of conspiracy theories.
The ‘conspiracy theorist’ label has become a catch-all term used to discredit numerous perspectives that disagree with the dominant narrative. It has also taken on the power of a curse, which those who hope to remain accepted by their peers must protect themselves from by declaring their immunity.
Another such label is ‘anti-vax’, used by Mr Spellar who interjected early in Mr Fletcher’s introduction:
I thank the hon. Gentleman … for highlighting both smallpox and polio. Is the fact of the matter not that it has been a worldwide vaccination programme that has enabled us to achieve that? Does that not demonstrate the falseness of the anti-vax campaigns?
This is another example of priming, where an exceptionally negative construct (anti-vax), which was set up in mainstream and social media over the past few years, is associated with those who may have genuine concerns about the powers being delegated to a non-elected body. When attached to a person, the related term ‘anti-vaxxer’ is an example of an ad hominem attack [11], which is an example of a false argument. Instead of the argument being discussed on its own merit in terms of data or facts, the audience and other participants are misdirected toward a perceived ‘failing of character’ in those who might have a different view and legitimate questions.
Mr Spellar used this terminology to discredit those wary of vaccinations, in particular the Covid-19 genetic therapy. He continued his interruption of Mr Fletcher’s introductory remarks with the following tirade against academic gastroenterologist Dr Andrew Wakefield who, in 1998, co-authored a research study in The Lancet, linking inflammatory bowel symptoms in 12 autistic children to the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine:
Part of this argument has been about vaccination. We go back to Dr Wakefield and that appalling piece of chicanery that was the supposed impact of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, which has now been completely exposed and discredited. Indeed Mr Wakefield is now no longer a recognised doctor.
This argument is an example of ‘false equivalence’ [12], another propaganda tool that has the effect of misdirecting the audience away from the key facts of the debate. Those who doubt the safety and efficacy of the novel Covid ‘vaccine’ have not necessarily questioned the safety and efficacy of all other vaccines, and should therefore not be considered ‘anti-vaxxers’. By associating arguments against the Covid shot with the MMR vaccine debacle, the purpose is to tar objections to this entirely novel and inadequately tested therapy with the same brush as arguments levied against an earlier, unrelated, conventional vaccine.
Mr Spellar’s interjection also reflects another tactic of those who wish to quash debate, namely the use of threats to intimidate those who might be inclined to consider alternative narratives. The story of the suppression of harms caused by the MMR vaccine has much in common with the current censorship of reports of serious adverse events and deaths following the Covid injections. Raising the 25-year-old case of Dr Wakefield who is “no longer a recognised doctor” represents a threat, already a reality for many ethical doctors and scientists, that those who speak out against the harms caused by the Covid injections face being dismissed and deregistered.
2. Using inaccurate and unsubstantiated statements
Justin Madders (MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston) also used derogatory language in denying concerns about threats to national sovereignty posed by global organisations such as WHO:
On the absurd side, a narrative has been created that the World Health Organization is a body intent on world domination. Borrowing tropes from conspiracy theories, I found one website referring to the WHO as ‘globalists’ … That sentiment is clearly ludicrous, as is the reference to the WHO being owned by Bill Gates or the Chinese Government.
The treaty has nothing to do with Bill Gates, and it is not the first step in creating a world-dominating authoritarian state.
The first sentence in the quote above is an example of a behavioural science nudge tactic called ‘framing’. In framing, words, metaphors and perspectives are used in a way that makes the message more attractive and activates certain emotional reactions. The image created by the MP’s statements is quick to evoke a mental picture of a film-like villain plotting to take over the world. Being ‘absurd’ (untrue) and a ‘narrative’ (story), this should clearly be discounted.
Beyond the language used, Mr Madders’s claims are not substantiated and as such are simply opinions. Firstly, as the United Nations (UN) agency responsible for global public health, WHO can indeed be considered a ‘globalist’ organisation, along with numerous other international bodies such as other UN agencies, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and international corporations and foundations. But, largely due to the growing influence exerted over national governments by WHO and other unelected supra-national bodies during Covid, the term ‘globalist’ has taken on more sinister connotations. Its use by those critical of the dominant narrative may account for Mr Madders treating the term as a ‘red flag’.
Secondly, Mr Madders may be unaware of the significant changes to WHO’s funding model that have taken place in recent years, with assessed contributions [13] from Member States having declined to less than 20% of WHO’s financing, and Bill Gates now being one of its major funders. WHO’s own website records that, as of Quarter 4 of 2021, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) was their second-largest donor (9.49%) after Germany [14]. While on this point, Steve Brine (MP for Winchester) asserted that “the UK is the second-largest contributor to the WHO”, which is incorrect; in fact, the UK is the sixth-largest contributor (5.99%). Gates is also a founding partner and second-largest contributor to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which is the fifth-largest funder of WHO (6.43%). And with 56.14% of BMGF’s funding going to support WHO’s Headquarters [15], it is unlikely that “The treaty has nothing to do with Bill Gates”, as asserted by Mr Madders.
Many unsubstantiated statements regarding Covid ‘vaccine’ safety and effectiveness were also made during the debate. Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) asserted that “AstraZeneca saved lives worldwide”, despite the use of this adenovirus viral vector vaccine being restricted or suspended in numerous countries due to many reports of recipients suffering blood clots [16].
Similarly, Mr Spellar, referring to the Pfizer mRNA ‘vaccines’, stated that it “certainly was not unproven or unsafe, and it had a huge beneficial impact across the world.” There is, in fact, mounting evidence showing that the Covid injections, released under emergency use authorisation before adequate testing could be undertaken, have been neither safe nor very effective. All vaccine adverse events tracking systems, including the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Yellow Card system in the United Kingdom, the European Medicines Agency’s EudraVigilance system in the European Union, and the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in the United States, have recorded unprecedented numbers of serious adverse reactions, including deaths. Furthermore, an increasing number of studies are reporting evidence of a broad range of serious adverse events [17]. An independent systematic review of serious harms of the Covid-19 vaccines, currently in pre-print, adds significant weight to these findings [18].
Furthermore, after a group of scientists and medical researchers successfully sued the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [19] to release many thousands of documents related to licensing of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, it was revealed that early trials had resulted in hundreds of adverse reactions [20 (Appendix 1)]. This information had been withheld from the public by the authorities.
The injections have also been been unable to stop SARS-CoV-2 infection or transmission, with Dr Peter Marks of the FDA admitting in a letter responding to a citizens’ petition that proof of efficacy had not been required for authorisation [21]:
It is important to note that FDA’s authorization and licensure standards for vaccines do not require demonstration of the prevention of infection or transmission. (p.11)
Furthermore, the applicable statutory standards for licensure and authorization of vaccines do not require that the primary objective of efficacy trials be a demonstration of reduction in person-to-person transmission. (p.13)
In addition, there is growing concern that claims that the boosters prevent severe illness and deaths amount to a “wishful myth” [22].
Three years of pro-vaccine propaganda and ongoing efforts to censor reports of vaccine harms have effectively blinded many people to the possibility that the rollout of Covid injections may be related to the sharp rise in excess deaths now being experienced in many countries [23; 24]. This is despite the fact that many vulnerable people, such as the elderly and those with multiple comorbidities, had died previously as a result of Covid-19, lockdown measures and medical interventions.
Despite having had the opportunity to peruse the evidence presented by the petitioners, Mr Spellar was still sure that the vaccination campaign had been a huge success, stating:
… mobilisation of [the] intellectual power and production capacity [of the major pharmaceutical companies] in producing a vaccine in record time to stem the tide of covid was absolutely magnificent.
3. Using globalist slogans
Just as certain terms (conspiracy theorist, anti-vaxxer) have become modern-day curses causing those so labelled to be socially shunned, so have other terms and slogans become the mantras of those wishing to demonstrate their membership of the mainstream. These catchy but often meaningless slogans are building blocks of a collective reality, introduced and normalised through the presentations, publications and public relations communications of powerful individuals, and globalist organisations such as the UN, WHO, WEF and BMGF.
Mr Madders, for example, echoed Bill Gates [25] when he stated: “We need to be better prepared for the next pandemic.” This also represents an unsubstantiated claim, as it ignores the reality that pandemics are actually extremely rare. Since 1900, only five pandemics, each responsible for over one million deaths, have broken out, namely the Spanish flu (1918-1920), the 1957-1958 influenza pandemic, the Hong Kong flu (1968-1969), the AIDS pandemic (ongoing since 1981), and Covid-19 [26]. It also powerfully illustrates the effectiveness of presupposition, where the speaker inserts a statement or assumption as a fact agreed by all and therefore requiring no evidence of its own. The phrase “the next pandemic” provides a nudge by inserting itself unconsciously into the psyche of the listener and readily bypassing the conscious thought process [27].
The Covid event did, however, demonstrate that a pandemic can mean big gains for certain people. It can literally be used to “reset our world” [28], creating unprecedented numbers of billionaires while destroying the lives of billions or others, stripping citizens of their rights and freedoms, unleashing a tyrannical and repressive security apparatus, and creating a ‘polycrisis’ [29], in response to which governments and even citizens will beg for unprecedented levels of global control.
One of the most meaningless slogans, which appears to have been invented by the UN at the beginning of the Covid event, and which has become a mantra reiterated by countless organisations and individuals, is ‘nobody is safe until everyone is safe’. It is not clear what this unsubstantiated statement even means, but what is clear is that it is demonstrably untrue. Nonetheless, this mantra was recited in some form by four speakers, with Anne McLaughlin (MP for Glasgow North East) stating, “It is only when the world is safe from Covid-19 that any of us are truly safe.”
Not only does such an obvious fallacy, a propaganda trope, have no place in a parliamentary debate, its use as some type of rational fact by four MPs across the political spectrum does bring into question the quality and independence of any literature provided to them ahead of this event. It is worth considering this much-used slogan and its ramifications in terms of any safety incident. The ideology underpinning it is one of collectivism, even socialism, in that the individual and their relative safety is merely incidental compared to the safety of all. Some might argue that this contradicts the fundamental principles of the International Declaration of Human Rights, which puts the individual at its core. Certainly, it is not an idle statement and reflects the underlying changes being proposed by WHO, which is seeking under their ‘One Health’ initiative [30] a more far-reaching remit where ‘everyone’ will include not only all sovereign citizens of participating nations, but animals and the environment as well.
Slogans infuse documents produced by UN agencies such as WHO. In referring to the zero-draft of the Pandemic Treaty, Preet Kaur Gill (MP for Birmingham, Edgbaston) used a number of them, including: ‘leave no country behind’, ‘global health is local health’, ‘we are stronger together’, and ‘vaccine equity’. Trotting out vacuous statements like this might be appropriate at a protest rally but should have no place in a parliamentary debate. Slogans are rallying cries. They are right-sounding and apparently well-meaning, even moral, in nature. Their repetition is quite hypnotic and they seem to act as spells, potentially binding those who faithfully recite them to an outcome they may live to regret [31].
The repetitive nature of any phrase or slogan is a tool of both behavioural science and propaganda. Both the repetitive effect and the rhythmic phrasing allow such phrases to easily enter the unconscious. Over time we simply accept the statement as true, as it bypasses our conscious thought processes that might critically assess such a phrase and see it as false or simply nonsensical. The use of such tactics, particularly by people in positions of authority or trust, allow the effect to be amplified. This is known as the ‘messenger effect’. Simply put, we are more likely to trust the message because it was issued by someone representing expertise and trust [32].
One such case relates to the slogan ‘vaccine equity’. Referring to the “terrible divide in coverage between richer countries and the global south,” Ms Gill lamented that “just 27% of people in low-income countries have received a first dose of a Covid vaccine.” What she does not go on to say, disappointingly, is that there was no correlation between high vaccination rates and low death rates from Covid-19. Indeed, some low-income countries (especially in Africa) with young populations and low vaccination rates experienced very low death rates due to Covid-19, while the USA, one of the richest and most highly vaccinated countries in the world, had one of the highest Covid-19 death rates [33].
Figure 1: Comparing Covid-19 deaths in Africa and the USA [33]
4. Patronising the petitioners
Regarding the aim of the petition, which was to request that a referendum be held before the Government could agree to signing the pandemic treaty, Mr Fletcher declared:
Referendums are divisive; they polarise positions and leave a lasting legacy of division. Whether a referendum is appropriate is for the Government to decide, and if they think it is, they must make all the facts known. I suggest that petitioners, while playing their part in the education process, must do so in a sensible manner.
The patronising tone of this comment is ironic. While the referendum on Brexit did indeed sharpen the edge between ‘Leavers’ and ‘Remainers’, the UK Government’s Covid-19 response was possibly even more effective at dividing the populace into camps and pitting one side (those who complied with the mandates) against the other (those who chose not to comply). Furthermore, insisting that citizens should be “sensible” ignores the fact that constituents in favour of a referendum contacted their MPs to raise thoughtful, well-researched concerns, while some MPs arguing against the referendum tended to rely on slogans, unfounded generalities, and invective, rather than “sensible”, factual, reasoned arguments.
Mr Spellar not only used disparaging language to deny the request for a referendum, but also predicted that it would be rejected by the House:
We cannot be arguing to have [a referendum] for every bloomin’ issue, every policy and every treaty. … What we are seeing is overreaction and hysteria, and I would argue that we should give the petition a firm rejection, as I am sure we would do if it ever came to the Floor of the House of Commons.
Inasmuch as MPs in the UK are supposed to represent and take seriously the concerns of their constituencies, it is disturbing that an elected Member should respond with such contempt to a petition signed by more than 150,000 people.
5. Party-political point-scoring
Disappointingly, despite the importance of the debate and the number of citizens who had taken the time to express their concerns about the pandemic treaty, Ms McLaughlin and Ms Gill spent much of their time criticising the Conservative Government’s response to the Covid event. Instead of focusing on the debate, they chose to score party-political points by indicating the readiness of the Scottish National Party and Labour Party to implement WHO’s agenda, including enabling vaccine equity; sharing technology, knowledge, and skills; and strengthening global health systems using, ironically, the failing National Health Service as a model.
6. Downplaying or normalising threats to sovereignty
The Covid-19 event has been a classic case of the popular dialectic of ‘Problem-Reaction-Solution’. The engineered over-reaction to the problem of Covid-19 (whether or not there was an engineered virus), and the subsequent societal fall-out, have left traumatised people and their governments desperate to be better prepared for the much-anticipated ‘next one’, and ready to accept a ‘solution’ that few would have countenanced just four years ago.
In her presentation, Ms Gill expressed the need for an international approach to tackle transnational threats and improve global public health:
Negotiating an effective international treaty on pandemic preparedness is an historic task, but, if we can achieve it, it will save hundreds of thousands of lives.
If we can use the WHO to support basic universal healthcare around the world, infectious diseases are less likely to spread and fuel global pandemics.
It is through multilateral efforts, strengthened through international law, that we can ensure that the response to the next pandemic is faster and more effective, and does not leave other countries behind.
… the Opposition absolutely support the principle of a legally binding WHO treaty that sets the standard for all countries to contribute to global health security.
We need a binding, enforceable investment and trade agreement among all participating countries to govern the coordination of supplies and the financing of production, to prevent hoarding of materials and equipment, and to centrally manage the production and distribution process for maximum efficiency and output in the wake of a pandemic being declared.
The last few comments (underlined above) point to one of the most worrying issues for those concerned about sovereignty: if accepted, the pandemic treaty and amendments to the IHR would no longer be non-binding recommendations subject to government oversight but would become legally binding. WHO would be given legislative powers to mandate medical and non-pharmaceutical interventions; to commandeer intellectual property, production capability and resources; and to sanction those who refused to comply.
Some MPs downplayed concerns about these threats to national sovereignty. Mr Madders stated that “creating a global treaty [was] entirely reasonable and responsible” and that it was possible to “both protect our values of freedom and democracy and work more closely with other countries in the face of a global threat.”
Mr Spellar agreed, noting that they were “signatories to hundreds of treaties around the world” and that signing trade treaties was “part of engaging with the world.” He added that during Covid, “international scientific cooperation” had “enabled us to produce a vaccine within something like twelve months instead of the normal ten years … [thus] stabilising the situation.” What was not mentioned is that it was not primarily international collaboration among scientists that allowed the rapid deployment of these Covid-19 countermeasures, but the institution of emergency use authorisations, which allowed inadequately tested products to be dispensed worldwide. Far from “stabilising the situation”, these injectables continue to cause unprecedented numbers of adverse events and deaths, resulting in ongoing destabilisation of society post-Covid.
Steve Brine (MP for Winchester) observed that, “We cede sovereignty through membership of organisations. We cede the sovereignty to go to war by being a member of NATO.” It is true that all manner of treaties exist between countries and that these are essential for international cooperation; but cooperating as sovereign nations is entirely different to taking instructions from an unelected, supra-national body that is unaccountable to populations. Once in place, WHO’s pandemic treaty and the amendments to the IHR threaten to reduce national sovereignty, giving full power to WHO and its director-general to call pandemics and health emergencies and to regulate the responses of member states.
Those in favour of the pandemic treaty provided no evidence that a one-size-fits-all, legally mandated response to future pandemics would actually prove effective. In fact, Covid-19 was an object lesson in the foolishness of imposing the same public health ‘solutions’ on radically different nations and communities. In reality, mandating centralised protocols disrespects human rights, cultural diversity, national sovereignty, the scientific method, and innovation in healthcare. Instead of trusting human ingenuity to create a multitude of locally appropriate responses, it increases the risk of spectacular failure should the single global solution prove ineffective.
In an attempt to counter fears about a loss of sovereignty, Mr Madders stated that “We live in a liberal democracy and … are determined to keep it that way.” He denied people’s:
fears that the treaty will restrict freedom of speech to the extent that dissenters could be imprisoned, that it will impose instruments that impede on our daily life, and that it will institute widespread global surveillance without warning and without the consent of world leaders … [and that] Under this treaty, those things will apparently be done without our Government having a say.
He did, however, acknowledge that the measures mentioned above were “already in the power of the Government under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984.” Referring, without giving any details, to “fact checkers” and an unnamed “WHO spokesperson”, he reassured citizens that “WHO would have no capacity to force members to comply with public health measures.” The tyrannical actions during Covid of governments worldwide against their own citizens — many of whom assumed that they did, in fact, live in a “liberal democracy” — makes one wonder why these governments would behave any more independently in future, especially if legally required to follow WHO’s dictates. The repressive regulations and laws passed in various countries since 2020 suggest that this is unlikely, as governments seem to have become addicted to the sweeping emergency powers granted them by this convenient global ‘pandemic’.
Mr Madders and Ms Gill also attempted to allay citizens’ fears by pointing out that there was “over a year of negotiations to go” and that the treaty “would still have to be ratified by the United Kingdom”. Ms Gill also commented that:
The draft treaty is primarily about transparency, fostering international cooperation, and strengthening global health systems … the very first statement in the zero draft text reaffirms “the principle of sovereignty of States Parties” [and that] the implementation of the regulations “shall be with full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons.”
Noting the dismissive attitude of the majority of MPs to the petitioners’ concerns, there is little chance that another year of negotiations will convince the UK Government to reject the treaty.
7. Promoting internationalism over sovereignty
The UK, as an erstwhile imperial and colonial power, continues to play a leadership role internationally. This may be why some MPs, such as Ms McLaughlin, could not believe that WHO might threaten UK’s sovereignty:
The treaty would have absolutely no effect whatsoever on the UK’s constitutional function and sovereignty … [Imagine a] terrible situation whereby the UK might be unable to make its own decisions if it is outvoted by other countries … the UK is a leading member of the WHO and a primary architect of the treaty, so that is not what is happening here.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) also stressed that the UK was:
a sovereign state in control of whether we enter into international agreements … with its voice, expertise and wisdom, and our trusted partner status with so many other member states in the UN family, [it] is respected and listened to.
Ms Trevelyan also referred to the UK’s role as “a global leader, working with CEPI, Gavi and the WHO,” stating that she was “proud to lead the fundraising for Gavi and COVAX.”
A deep chasm appears to have formed between the UK Government and its people. The discussions during this debate suggest that a minority of MPs [3] [link to PANDA video] view themselves as representatives whose duty it is to serve their constituents and respond to their concerns. Most, however, appear to have shifted their focus and allegiance to the international sphere, identifying as members of the “UN family”, playing a leading role in developing WHO’s pandemic instruments, and raising funds, which will ultimately benefit vaccine manufacturers and their investors, impoverishing the majority in the process. Under these circumstances, it is clear why Parliament is unwilling to risk a referendum on WHO’s Pandemic Treaty. There are just too many globalist interests at stake.
At home, increasing numbers of UK citizens are growing weary of a government that speaks glibly of ‘no country left behind’, while leaving its own nation in the dust. Where the people are concerned, trust is gone.
As Danny Kruger (MP for Devizes) warned:
At the moment, we do not have a commitment from the Government that they would bring the proposals to Parliament, which is very concerning. They say that in our interconnected world we need less sovereignty and more co-operation, which means more power for people who sit above the nation states. I say that in the modern world we need nation states more than ever, because only nation states can be accountable to the people, as the WHO is not.
Concluding comments
After two-and-a-quarter hours of deliberation, Mr Fletcher concluded the debate by thanking the Minister for assuring Members that UK sovereignty was not at risk, and then delivering the most inconclusive resolution:
That this House has considered e-petition 614335, relating to an international agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
For the 156,086 citizens and their representatives who had made the effort to engage Parliament thoughtfully and actively using the relevant democratic process, this ‘resolution’ resolved nothing at all. The exercise amounted to all form and no substance; not only were requests for a referendum dismissed out of hand without adequate discussion, but there were indications that the matter might not even be discussed in the House of Commons.
Illustrating just how little impact was made by those representing the petitioners despite the strength of their arguments, subsequent to the debate and in response to this petition, the government’s official response published on their website [1] commenced with the words:
To protect lives, the economy and future generations from future pandemics, the UK government supports a new legally-binding instrument to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
This ominous response was followed by the now familiar slogan that would sit comfortably in the pages of Orwell’s 1984 but has no place in an official government statement: “Covid-19 has demonstrated that no-one is safe until we are all safe.” Its use further erodes the expectations that such debates will be carried out without bias, undue influence, or ignorance.
MPs have a duty of care to their constituents to ensure that they are as knowledgeable as possible about the issue being debated, and that they consider the facts rationally and honestly; and citizens deserve to have their concerns taken seriously. Yet two critical questions remain unanswered: firstly, having explicitly stated their support for WHO’s pandemic instruments, will the UK Government bring this matter to Parliament to be debated? And secondly, would agreement with these instruments, ‘in effect’ if not legally, mean the relinquishment of sovereignty? After all, if the only way the UK will be able to make a sovereign decision in future is by removing itself from membership of WHO, then why would the country wish to sign this treaty in the first place?
References
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September 7, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, UK, WHO |
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The U.K.’s Royal Society — acclaimed as the world’s oldest scientific academy — last week issued a report saying there was “clear evidence” that lockdowns, masks, contact tracing, travel restrictions and other nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) were effective at reducing COVID-19 transmission “in some countries.”
However, in an article published Wednesday in UnHerd, Kevin Bardosh, Ph.D., research director at Collateral Global — which is “dedicated to researching, understanding and communicating the global impacts of policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic” — called the report “deeply flawed,” saying it revealed “an unfortunate detachment from reality in our prestigious scientific institutions.”
Bardosh called out the report, particularly for its use of the word “unequivocally,” which stated:
“In summary, evidence about the effectiveness of NPIs applied to reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 shows unequivocally that, when implemented in packages that combine a number of NPIs with complementary effects, these can provide powerful, effective and prolonged reductions in viral transmission.”
Bardosh, whose work has focused on the epidemiology and control of human, animal and vector-borne infectious disease in over 20 countries, is co-author of more than 50 peer-reviewed publications.
In this 2022 analysis of the unintended consequences of COVID-19 vaccine policy, published in BMJ Global Health, Bardosh and co-authors concluded: “mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policies have had damaging effects on public trust, vaccine confidence, political polarization, human rights, inequities and social wellbeing.”
Failure to ‘evaluate the harmful consequences’ of policies
Bardosh said the central problem with the Royal Society report — and similar work like last year’s Lancet Commission report and Nature’s review — is that they fail to comprehensively evaluate the harmful consequences of pandemic policies.
Instead they “exclude or minimize the uncomfortable outliers and data that question orthodoxy and sidestep the hard policy questions.”
Without such critical inquiry, “simple narratives and comfortable popular projections” become entrenched, said Bardosh, in part by the mainstream media’s constant repetition of messages — like “masks worked” and “lockdowns slowed the spread” — and by admonitions to not question the conclusions or the authorities or institutions responsible for pushing them.
Among the most glaring yet unexamined consequences, according to Bardosh, are the hundreds of millions of people pushed into poverty and food insecurity by COVID-19 pandemic mandates and the lost educational opportunities for children.
In another article in UnHerd, Bardosh called out the U.K. COVID-19 inquiry — after more than 40 child rights charities and advocates issued a “scathing indictment” — saying it “must address the harms to children,” and that “lockdown ‘experts’ need to be held to account.”
Bardosh wrote:
“Children were not vectors of disease, despite pervasive media propaganda that toddlers would kill grandma. They were at minuscule risk from severe outcomes. Schools were never places of high transmission, something known as early as April 2020.
“Yet the expert classes, media and politicians hyped the risk to kids, dressing it up in a garb of unquestionable moralism that fed on our deepest fears: hurting children.”
What’s wrong with the Royal Society analysis?
The Royal Society report found individual NPIs in isolation had no effect on transmission, and it considered only the reduction of transmission in its overall analysis, not the illness or death outcomes, Bardosh pointed out.
In its analysis of lockdown and social distancing data, the Royal Society inconsistently applied targeting of time periods and effect sizes, and failed to distinguish between voluntary and mandated behavior change, he said.
Bardosh further criticized the report for relying heavily on observational studies from high-income countries and for cherry-picking cases from countries like South Korea, New Zealand and Hong Kong while ignoring those from Sweden, India, Haiti and Nicaragua.
“For the 17% of the world that could stay home (about 500 million people) during the height of global lockdown, reports are now written that render the other 83% invisible,” he wrote.
The report’s review of the evidence on masks, noted Bardosh, contradicts the recently updated meta-analysis of 78 randomized control trials (RCTs) by Cochrane which, while admitting the flaws in the study, nonetheless found “the pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks” and “wearing N95/P2 respirators … may make little to no difference in how many people catch a flu-like illness.”
In his article last week about mask mandates, Bardosh also cited the recent RCT studies of community-wide cloth masking in Bangladesh and Guinea-Bissau during the pandemic, which found little to no benefit from the interventions.
Bardosh wrote:
“Before Covid, population-wide medical masks were not viewed as a particularly effective tool for respiratory viruses. In a 2018 address at the National Academy of Medicine, science writer Laurie Garrett stated that ‘the major efficacy of a mask is that it causes alarm in a person and so you stay away from each other.’”
The many downsides of facemask use also remained unexplored in the report. In his masking article Bardosh wrote:
“Oddly, the pro-mask narrative ignores the … harmful effects on social and emotional cognition, the toxicity of poorly manufactured masks, environmental pollution, psychological and physical discomfort (especially in people with a history of trauma or abuse), as well as increased social conformity to illogical bureaucracy and greater acceptance of mass surveillance technologies.”
Collateral Global in April brought together a group of 30 scholars, activists and experts from across the globe to discuss the impacts of pandemic restrictions in low- and middle-income countries — many of which were not considered in the Royal Society study, according to Bardosh.
They issued a report calling for focusing on human rights and centering local actors’ knowledge and experience, disaggregating risk based on local conditions, consistent public investment in healthcare across the world, open and accurate information flow from central authorities to regional areas and back, and for governments to avoid unnecessary and unworkable restrictions on movement, freedoms and the economy.
They also called out the acceleration of the global trend toward authoritarianism, the unlawful granting of emergency powers to the state and the manipulation of public opinion through the exploitation of fear.
Bardosh warned of a global policy “domino-effect” where lockdown policymaking in major countries invariably leads, through political pressure, to the herding of lower-income countries into the same mandates, regardless of the social and economic harm.
A new ‘lockdown doctrine’?
Despite the shortcomings of the Royal Society report, it is already being used as a rallying point for a new global preparedness vision, according to Bardosh, to make sure that NPIs such as lockdowns are rolled out early in the next pandemic.
This is part of the 100-day mission roadmap promoted by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI), Bardosh said.
CEPI, a global partnership of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust and the World Economic Forum (WEF), was launched in 2017 in Davos, Switzerland, home of the WEF.
CEPI is closely connected to efforts to develop a vaccine for “Disease X,” raising over a billion dollars from governments and organizations such as the Gates Foundation.
According to the 100 Days website, “In preparing for Disease X, it’s important to be clear about the knowns and the unknowns: The X in ‘Disease X’ stands for everything we don’t know” and “What we do know is that the next Disease X is coming and that we have to be ready.”
CEPI recently hosted the Global Pandemic Preparedness Summit with the U.K. government “to explore how we can respond to the next ‘Disease X’ by making safe, effective vaccines within 100 days,” stating it has a $3.5 billion “pandemic-busting plan” that “will kickstart and coordinate this work.”
According to the Daily Mail, countries have pledged $1.5 billion for this plan.
Bardosh called this “our new lockdown doctrine.”
In a June article, he wrote that this doctrine represents the consolidation of the world’s resources toward pandemic preparedness and building “the critical infrastructure for rapid lockdown,” and that “Shutting down harder and faster next time is the wrong idea.”
Bardosh wrote:
“Sir Jeremy Farrar, previous director at the Wellcome Trust and current WHO [World Health Organization] Chief Scientist, warned the inquiry not to be complacent in our ‘new pandemic age.’
“Views expressed this week sounded similar to those outlined in Bill Gates’s recent book, ‘How to Prevent the Next Pandemic.’ The Gates Foundation has become the WHO’s second largest donor, giving it an oversized influence in determining the shape of future pandemic responses.
“In his book, Gates outlines a plan echoed so far in the U.K. inquiry: lock down fast and make reopening dependent on a vaccine.”
Bardosh warned the successful rollout of lockdowns, vaccines and therapeutics would require “mechanisms to shape public opinion, curtail civil liberties and deploy massive government spending programs.”
Bardosh sees the Royal Society report — driven by “powerful interests, spin and egos” — functioning as just such a mechanism, forming the latest brick in the wall of a new and expanding global command-and-control system.
“We have seen in the years since 2020,” he wrote, “that once you impose a slew of government mandates, repealing them is just as difficult.”
Bardosh hopes that “skeptical academic oddballs” like him can make enough noise to make a difference.
John-Michael Dumais is a news editor for The Defender. He has been a writer and community organizer on a variety of issues, including the death penalty, war, health freedom and all things related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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.
September 6, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | CEPI, Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Gates Foundation, Human rights |
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