Two U.S. senators on Tuesday — the day after Dr. Anthony Fauci announced plans to leave his government posts in December — formally requested the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) preserve all documents and communications related to Fauci.
Fauci on Monday said he will retire as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden in December to pursue “the next chapter” of his career.
In a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) demanded Becerra “immediately confirm” that HHS is preserving all records related to Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins, who was director of the NIH from August 2009 to December 2021.
“This request applies to all documents, records, memoranda, research, correspondence, or other communication or any portion thereof relevant to any involvement of Dr. Fauci or Dr. Collins,” the letter stated.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in a letter to Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D., acting director of the NIH, asked Tabak to “ensure the preservation of all documents and communications within Dr. Fauci’s possession related to his tenure at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).”
Marshall stressed that it is “imperative” that all HHS workers are made aware of their “legal responsibilities to collect, retain, and preserve all documents, communications, and other records in accordance with federal law.”
He also reminded Tabak of his obligation, as the head of HHS, to ensure the preservation of all records and that any employee “who conceals, destroys, or attempts to conceal or destroy a federal record may be subject to fine and imprisonment for up to three years.”
Marshall pointed out that HHS previously refused to provide information to Congress:
“HHS and component agencies, including NIH in particular, continue to obstruct numerous congressional investigations through refusal to provide responsive information.
“In addition to withholding information from Congress, private parties note that NIH refuses to comply with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests until forced to do so by court order.”
Marshall went on to list “recent egregious examples” of NIH’s failure to meet record-keeping requirements and said that “even one” such example “should instigate immediate oversight action by HHS.”
Marshall’s letter outlined four “notable recent concerns” with NIH’s record-keeping, including past accusations that NIH destroyed records, potential conflicts of interest within the HHS Office of Inspector General, NIH’s practice of “self-policing” and NIH’s failure to ensure required reporting of clinical trial results.
‘Fauci’s resignation will not prevent full-throated investigation into origins of pandemic’ — Rand Paul
Paul, in his letter to Tabak, also emphasized the need to preserve NIH documents for investigation purposes.
Paul wrote:
“This information is critical to ensure that Congress has access to information necessary to conduct proper oversight regarding events that took place during Dr. Fauci’s tenure with the agency.
“Specifically, I request you preserve all records, e-mail, electronic documents, and data created by or shared with Dr. Fauci during his tenure at NIH that relate to COVID-19 including, but not limited to, NIAID-funded coronavirus research.”
In an email today, Paul told The Defender :
“Dr. Fauci misled the American people on public health guidance throughout the pandemic, lied to Congress under oath, and funneled tax dollars to fund dangerous research in communist China.
“The American people deserve transparency and accountability from the NIH regarding the COVID-19 pandemic regardless of Dr. Fauci’s future employment plans.”
On Monday, Paul tweeted, “Fauci’s resignation will not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic. He will be asked to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the lab leak.”
For more than a year, Paul has advocated for a thorough investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and pushed for a criminal investigation of Fauci, whose NIAID research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China Paul suggested may have been involved in creating the virus.
Following up on a threat he made in mid-July of 2021, Rand sent an official criminal referral on Fauci to the U.S. Department of Justice on July 26, 2021.
Paul asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Fauci for allegedly lying to Congress when he said the NIH “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
The week before he sent the official criminal referral, Paul asked Fauci if he wanted to retract the statement he made to Congress during a May 11 hearing. Paul said, “Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement of May 11, where you claimed the NIH never funded gain-of-function research and move on?”
Fauci replied he would not retract the statement and was adamant he never lied before Congress.
However, Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson said on June 2, 2021, that evidence showed Fauci was “implicated in the very pandemic he had been charged with fighting.”
Emails obtained by BuzzFeed via the Freedom of Information Act show “Fauci supported the grotesque and dangerous experiments that appeared to have made COVID possible,” Carlson said.
The emails, which date back to the early winter of 2020, show Fauci was worried the public would think COVID-19 originated at the Wuhan lab. Why?
“Possibly because Tony Fauci knew perfectly well he had funded gain-of-function experiments at that very same laboratory,” Carlson said.
The emails showed Fauci and other top virologists shared an article from ZeroHedge suggesting COVID-19 was a man-made bioweapon. Despite it being a “plausible explanation,” said Carlson, ZeroHedge was banned from social media.
Carlson said:
“Until recently, you were not allowed to suggest that COVID might be man-made. Why couldn’t you suggest that? The fact checkers wouldn’t allow it. Why wouldn’t they? Because Tony Fauci assured the tech monopolies that the coronavirus could not have been manmade. And so the tech monopolies shut down the topic.”
NIAID has, for years, provided grants to the EcoHealth Alliance and others to conduct gain-of-function research on coronaviruses, as The Defender previously reported.
In March 2021, the Wuhan lab deleted mentions of its collaboration with the NIAID/NIH and other American research partners from its website. It also deleted descriptions of gain-of-function experiments on the SARS virus, according to Dr. Joseph Mercola.
“The NIH/NIAID has funded GOF [gain-of-function] research to the tune of at least $41.7 million,” Mercola said. “Up until 2014, this research was conducted by Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina.”
After 2014, when federal funding of gain-of-function research was banned, the research was funneled to the Wuhan lab via the EcoHealth Alliance.
Mercola added:
“In August 2020, the NIAID announced a five-year, $82-million investment in a new global network of Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases that will conduct GOF experiments to ‘determine what genetic or other changes make [animal] pathogens capable of infecting humans.’”
Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Fairfield, Iowa.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
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August 25, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Covid-19, HHS, NIAID, NIH, United States |
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CDC Director Rochelle Walensky admitted organizational shortcomings on Fox News while deflecting blame toward predecessors for their lockdown recommendation.
“Many of those lockdowns pre-dated me at the CDC,” she said.
Walensky, who once used ‘Trust the science’ to persuade the public, carried a humbler tone while reflecting on her organization’s decisions.
“There were important decisions that we had to make in imperfect times, with imperfect data, and we always updated those decisions as those data were evolving…”
“So, I don’t really want to re-visit the questions of lockdowns that pre-dated me, but what I will say is, we’ve updated our guidance in the context of new information, and sometimes we have to make a decision before we have all the information that we want…”
Indeed, the CDC updated guidance by removing special quarantine recommendations for unvaccinated persons, effectively admitting that vaccination status is no longer relevant when it comes to infection or spread of the Covid virus.
In fact, on July 23, the CDC deleted a ‘fact’ from their “Facts about mRNA Covid-19 Vaccines”, and they did so without explanation. Last time I checked, facts don’t change — but apparently, they do for the CDC.
Walensky further stated that “[their] science” indicated hybrid immunity was superior to natural immunity. However, we’ve reported on a scientific study that accounted for more than 5.7 million people, which showed that natural immunity is just as effective as hybrid immunity.
To this point, Walensky’s usage of science in the possessive sense — by calling it “our science” — denotes a departure from “the science,” of which they’re either arbitrarily picking from or are completely unaware.
Between Fauci stepping down and Walenski pointing fingers, it appears the blame game has officially started.
August 25, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | CDC, Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, Rochelle Walensky |
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Earlier in the year YouTube’s COIVD-19 medical misinformation policy wouldn’t allow you to post content which contradicted the WHO’s or local health authorities’ guidance on various issues including:
- Social distancing;
- Claims that wearing a mask is dangerous or causes negative physical health effects;
- Claims that masks do not play a role in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19
Now, it’s perfectly fine, signalling that those claims are no longer misinformation. Too bad if you previously had your account cancelled for questioning those policies. You should know by now when it is ok to question The Science™ and when it is verboten. Do keep up.
August 25, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, YouTube |
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A talented filmmaker called Keith Craig has made a film about Bob Moran, the brilliant, acerbic, passionate cartoonist who lost his job at the Telegraph for being too outspoken and uncompromising in his opposition to the lockdown policy. Most of this site’s long-term readers will be familiar with Bob’s work, which we have used many times and continue to use in our Archive section. They’ll also be familiar with the cast of talking heads in this film – James Delingpole, Bev Turner, Dr. Tess Lawrie, Bernie Spofforth, Tonia Buxton and more.
This hugely enjoyable, lovingly-made film is very much worth watching in full. Deserves to become a cult classic.
August 25, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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The Wall Street Journal last week published an opinion piece, “Fauci and Walensky Double Down on Failed Covid Response,” with this subhead: “Lockdowns were oppressive and deadly. But U.S. and WHO officials plan worse for the next pandemic.”
The article begins:
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] belatedly admitted failure this week. ‘For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,’ Director Rochelle Walensky said. She vowed to establish an ‘action-oriented culture.’”
Yes, you read that correctly. Dr. Anthony Fauci and Walensky admitted they failed. They learned their lesson.
As John Tierney, author of the op-ed, wrote:
“Lockdowns and mask mandates were the most radical experiment in the history of public health, but Dr. Walensky isn’t alone in thinking they failed because they didn’t go far enough. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president, recently said there should have been ‘much, much more stringent restrictions’ early in the pandemic.”
They believe that they didn’t go far enough? There should have been “much, much more stringent restrictions?”
That’s what they learned from the destruction their public health policies wreaked upon this nation and the others that followed their lead?
To his credit, Tierney pointed out the absurdity of Walensky’s and Fauci’s stance on their own incompetence.
Tierney also dropped a series of “truth bombs,” including:
- “Their oppressive measures were taken against the longstanding advice of public-health experts, who warned that they would lead to catastrophe and were proved right.”
- “For all the talk from officials like Dr. Fauci about following ‘the science,’ these leaders ignored decades of research — as well as fresh data from the pandemic — when they set strict Covid regulations.”
- “The burden of proof was on them to justify their dangerous experiment, yet they failed to conduct rigorous analyses, preferring to tout badly flawed studies while refusing to confront obvious evidence of the policies’ failure.”
- “U.S. states with more-restrictive policies fared no better, on average, than states with less-restrictive policies.”
- “When case rates throughout the pandemic are plotted on a graph, the trajectory in states with mask mandates is virtually identical to the trajectory in states without mandates. (The states without mandates actually had slightly fewer COVID deaths per capita.)”
- A Johns Hopkins University meta-analysis of studies around the world concluded that lockdown and mask restrictions have had “little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality.”
- Florida’s and Sweden’s open policies have been vindicated based upon their lower levels of excess mortality compared to other regions.
- “It was bad enough that Fauci, the CDC and the World Health Organization ignored the best scientific advice at the start of this pandemic. It’s sociopathic for them to promote a worse catastrophe for future outbreaks.”
I take no issue with Tierney’s list. The problem here is with the Wall Street Journal.
Every single point this opinion piece offered could — and should — have been made months or years ago.
There was longstanding advice from public health experts that predicted Fauci and Walensky’s failures? Why didn’t you say so in 2020?
Fauci and Walensky ignored decades of research? They touted flawed studies while ignoring the obvious failures unfolding in front of them, month after month?
The successes of Sweden and Florida were apparent in 2020.
Where were the articles in your publication that could have brought light to these issues over the last two years?
The Johns Hopkins University analysis on mask restrictions was published nearly nine months ago. Why didn’t you cover it?
Why did it take so long to run this kind of piece when the evidence was around for so long?
Do you really expect us to look the other way because you now have the temerity to call Anthony Fauci sociopathic?
You had ample opportunity to give voice to the dissenters who were pleading for a voice, a conversation and a debate based on the very same evidence you are mentioning now.
You failed your readership. You failed the public.
The CDC’s policies were so devastating because you did not challenge them. Not once.
As a media platform, you were no less negligent than the public health officials you see fit to denigrate now — after untold damage has occurred, at their hands and yours.
Perhaps you’ve caused your loyal readers to finally scratch their heads and reconsider their perspective after 28 months of mercilessly attacking those of us who were asking you and other mainstream platforms to do your job.
Why are you holding Fauci and Walensky accountable now? Is it because they are finally admitting they blew it?
They are not the only galactically incompetent parties in this global tragedy. You are, too. And we all know it.
Interestingly, your scathing attack on our public health agencies still hasn’t gone nearly far enough.
One of their biggest “blunders” was not around lockdown measures. It was the dismissal of powerful, early treatment regimens, including ivermectin, that could have saved thousands of lives or more.
Instead, the public was forced to wait for a largely ineffective and harmful vaccine that has since exacted an incalculable level of damage on humanity.
Nevertheless, more than a year after Dr. Pierre Kory gave impassioned congressional testimony demanding that an official expert panel be convened to examine the mountains of evidence coming from all corners of the globe demonstrating the significant benefits of ivermectin in treating and preventing COVID-19, you had the audacity to print this hit piece on the safe and effective medicine that would have obviated the need to inject poorly tested mRNA technology into the bodies of several billion human beings.
Beyond being irresponsible, the article was silly, citing a single, small and yet-to-be-published study (at the time) that purportedly showed no benefit as proof that ivermectin cannot prevent COVID-19 hospitalizations.
The study underdosed the participants and was too small to detect statistically significant benefits, despite reduced incidence of hospitalization in most cohorts that got the medicine. (Read a full critique of the study here).
The study didn’t prove anything — other than that it was designed to fail from its inception.
Talk about touting a “badly flawed” study.
More importantly, your article on the study missed the real story: the scuttling of ivermectin by an unseen hand that was, it seems, in the pockets of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through Unitaid, a quasi-governmental advocacy organization the foundation funds (full story here).
Have your editors lost their sense of smell from repeated bouts of COVID-19? Or were you never able to sniff out where the real stories are?
It’s fairly obvious that despite this attempt to reclaim your journalistic integrity you are still muzzled. Any story that even intimates that the highly profitable COVID-19 vaccine was not only unnecessary but also a stark failure, is still off-limits.
Your silence on this continues to deafen us.
Madhava Setty, M.D. is senior science editor for The Defender.
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.
August 24, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine |
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Dr. Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, has repeatedly dismissed the idea of a lab accident or deliberate spread, calling it “an outlandish conspiracy theory.” He’s also a fierce critic of the ongoing Congressional probe into gain-of-function research, decrying it as a “threat to American biomedical science.”1
Well, Hotez, the lab leak denialist and Congressional probe critic, has now been outed as a funder and project leader of risky gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the now-infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
Hotez Developed SARS Vaccine in Case of Lab Release
Hotez’s dismissal of the lab escape theory is particularly ironic considering he received a $6.1 million grant2 from the National Institutes of Health in 2012 for the development of a SARS vaccine in case of an “accidental release from a laboratory,” “deliberate spreading of the virus by a terrorist attack,” or a zoonotic spillover event. According to the grant abstract:3
“We have identified a highly promising lead candidate vaccine antigen, the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV spike (S) protein that can induce potent neutralizing antibody response and protection against SARS-CoV infection.
Our objective is to develop a highly effective and safe recombinant RBD-based SARS vaccine that can be used in humans for prevention of future SARS outbreak and for biodefense preparedness.”
The research under that grant took place from 2012 until 2017. After spending five years preparing for the possibility of an accidental or deliberate release of SARS, why would Hotez think a lab leak of SARS-CoV-2 was out of the question?
Hotez Funded Creation of Chimeric Coronavirus
Clearly, Hotez is no stranger to the possibility of lab leaks. Could it be that his dismissal of the lab leak theory, and the Congressional inquiry into gain-of-function research, is based in fear that he may be implicated in SARS-CoV-2’s creation? As reported by U.S. Right to Know (USRTK):4
“While casting concerns about Wuhan’s labs as ‘fringe,’ Hotez has not mentioned his own connection to a project involving a laboratory-generated chimeric SARS-related coronavirus that has come under Congress’ microscope. The project was helmed by Zhengli Shi, a senior scientist and ‘virus hunter’ at the Wuhan Institute of Virology nicknamed the ‘Bat Lady.’
As part of his NIH grant, Hotez subcontracted funding for research on combined or ‘chimeric’ coronaviruses, a scientific paper5 shows. Hotez’s grant6 underwrote two of Shi’s collaborators on the project.
In the 2017 paper7 co-funded by Hotez, Shi and her colleagues generated a recombinant virus from two SARS-related coronaviruses: ‘rWIV1-SHC014S.’ It’s not clear whether the paper co-funded by Hotez should have been stopped under a temporary ‘pause’ on gain-of-function work before 2017.
However, some independent biosecurity experts have said research on this chimeric virus in some ways epitomizes lapses in NIH oversight of risky research in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
A prior study8 of one of the coronaviruses that comprised the chimera, WIV1, found it to be ‘poised for human emergence.’ Another prior paper9 on the other coronavirus, SHC014, stated that its future study in lab-generated viruses may be ‘too risky to pursue.’
‘The work here should have been at the very least, heavily scrutinized,’ said David Relman, a Stanford microbiologist and biosecurity expert. ‘This work should have been heavily reviewed for [gain-of-function], and probably should have been subject to the pause prior to December 2017.’”
The Ties That Bind Hotez, EcoHealth Alliance and the WIV
As explained in USRTK’s report10 and revealed in the 2017 paper11 titled, “Cross-Neutralization of SARS Coronavirus-Specific Antibodies Against Bat SARS-Like Coronaviruses,” another funding source of this joint project was the EcoHealth Alliance. The NIH grant12 behind EcoHealth’s part of the study has already come under scrutiny, as it involved the creation of chimeric coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab. As reported by USRTK:13
“Specifically, an EcoHealth Alliance grant report14 obtained by congressional investigators demonstrated that a WIV1-SHC014 chimera generated thousands of times the viral load and enhanced lethality in mice with human airway cells. This prompted concerns among some biosecurity experts, scientists and members of Congress.
In response to questions from congressional Republicans, NIH acknowledged15 that the research was out of compliance with its own regulations on gain-of-function research.’
In this limited experiment, laboratory mice infected with SHC014 WIV1 bat coronavirus became sicker than those infected with WIV1 bat coronavirus,’ the letter read. ‘As sometimes occurs in science, this was an unexpected result rather than something the scientists set out to do.’”
So far, Hotez has not been forthcoming about his apparent conflict of interest. On the contrary, he’s denied that his NIH grant supported Shi’s controversial research project at the WIV.
In an August 9, 2022, Twitter post,16 Ebright pointed out that such denials are provably false, as funding from NIH grant AI09877517 (Hotez’s grant) is acknowledged as a funding source in Shi’s paper,18 “Cross-Neutralization of SARS Coronavirus-Specific Antibodies Against Bat SARS-Like Coronaviruses.”
Hotez Is Part of The Lancet COVID-19 Commission
Hotez’s conflicts of interest are all the more pertinent when you consider he’s on The Lancet COVID-19 Commission, where he co-chairs the COVID-19 Vaccines and Therapeutics task force.19 Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry at Rutgers University, told USRTK:20
“The construction and threat-characterization of rWIV1-SHC014 was — unequivocally — gain-of-function research. It is a conflict of interest that, to my knowledge, has not previously been disclosed to The Lancet Commission … and that surely will be of interest to The Lancet Commission.”
As coincidence would have it, EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak was also on the Lancet Commission back when its COVID Origins task force was initially set up.21 Daszak was eventually “recused”22 from the Origins task force after his conflicts of interest were brought to light, garnering widespread criticism and lack of trust. The task force has now closed down permanently.23
Daszak was also selected by the Chinese to be part of the World Health Organization’s initial task force to investigate the origin of SARS-CoV-2. That task force has also been dismantled due to conflicts of interest and less than credible results, and has been replaced with a new working group.
Like Hotez, Daszak also went on record, early on, dismissing the lab-origin theory as “pure baloney,”24 and he was the mastermind behind the publication of a “scientific consensus statement” signed by 27 scientists, condemning the lab leak theory as “conspiracy theory.”25,26
Overall, it looks like Hotez and Daszak are reading from the same scripts. They’re also clearly funding the same controversial and highly risky research that likely played a major role in the COVID pandemic.
Hotez, One of the Most Shockingly Hateful People in Medicine
Hotez has made headlines a number of times through the years, typically delivering some kind of hateful rhetoric. Hotez has publicly stated he wants to “snuff out” vaccine skeptics,27 for example, and in May 2021 called for cyberwarfare measures to be deployed against people who share vaccine safety information, and he did this in the highly reputable science journal Nature, no less.28
Over the years, Hotez has repeatedly spewed vitriol at parents of vaccine-injured children and called for physical harm and imprisonment of people who don’t agree with the one-size-fits-all vaccine agenda, so it was rather funny when he whined and complained about getting bombarded with “anti-vaxx hate speech” in response to his cyberwarfare call.29
Hotez is not above casting an evil eye on other scientists either. As reported by independent journalist Paul Thacker in an August 9, 2022, Substack article titled, “Peter Hotez Sees Aggression Everywhere But in the Mirror”:30
“Patrolling scientific discourse, Hotez has a knack for discovering ‘antiscience’ in anyone who disagrees with him. Jeffrey Sachs, economics professor at Columbia University and chair of an international commission on COVID-19, charged in a wide-ranging interview31 last week that the National Institutes of Health and allied scientists were impeding an investigation into how the COVID-19 pandemic started.
Since the pandemic’s beginning, virologists have been attacking anyone who asks hard questions about what might have started this outbreak. Predictably … Hotez went on the assault, tweeting that Sachs, as leader of the Lancet Commission, did not represent the views of science.
Much like a Pentagon general wrapping himself in freedom and the flag to demand more federal monies for another foreign war … Hotez has been shrouding himself in the mantle of science to denigrate anyone who questions taxpayer funding for dangerous virus research by the National Institutes of Health.”
Lancet’s COVID Origin Task Force Disbanded Over Dishonesty
Sachs was in fact the one who shut down the Lancet Commission’s COVID Origins task force, a decision he says began with concerns about conflicts of interest between Daszak and the WIV, but in addition to that, Sachs claims he also came to realize that Daszak was “not always telling the truth.” The final straw came when Sachs sacked Daszak and members of the task force suddenly attacked him for being “antiscience.”
Shortly thereafter, a Freedom of Information Act request brought previously hidden NIH documents to light, and Sachs realized that those who were attacking him also had undisclosed ties that made their ability to get to the truth doubtful at best. At that point, he decided to disband the whole task force.
“My own experience was to witness close up how they’re … trying to keep our eyes on something else … away from even asking the questions that we’re talking about,” Sachs said in his Current Affairs interview.32
“Although Sachs did not name specific task force members who assailed him, it’s not hard to imagine who they were,” Thacker writes. Pulling up the archived webpage for the now-defunct task force, we find no fewer than seven members with direct professional and/or financial ties to Daszak: Peter Hume, Gerald Keusch, Supaporn Wacharapluesadee, Danielle Anderson, Linda Saif, Stanley Perlman and Sai Kit Lam. (In his article, Thacker details those ties.)
Hotez in Daszak’s Corner
Curiously, rather than supporting Sachs — or at bare minimum feigning concern about Daszak’s dishonesty and this extraordinary level of conflicts of interest — Hotez has defended Daszak, shooting down any and all critique with a single word: “Antiscience.” As noted by Thacker:33
“Anyone interested in joining the Hotez crusade against antiscience, should be forewarned: his scripture can be difficult to follow. The registry of the sinful often changes, with names of heretics rotating in and out of sermons, depending on political expediency.
In late 2020 when members of QAnon seemed to be hiding under every American bed, Hotez preached that members of the online conspiracy were mixing with anti-vaxxers and neo-Nazis to create a ‘globalizing anti-science confederacy or empire.’
A year later, QAnon fell out of the news, prompting Hotez to refocus … The threat of anti-science aggression now arose from three sources: far right members of Congress and conservative news outlets; an online ‘disinformation dozen’; and Russian propaganda …
Four months later — surprise!!! — Hotez discovered antiscience was more complex and multifaceted. Forgetting to cite Russia, Hotez identified a ‘troubling new expansion of antiscience aggression’ and railed in PLOS Biology against the three new horsemen of the antiscience apocalypse:34
1.Far-right members of the US Congress;
2.The conservative news outlets and;
3.A group of thought leaders who provide intellectual underpinnings to fuel the first two elements.
Cobbling together a set of disconnected thoughts, Hotez centered the threat to science on various accusations made against the NIH’s Anthony Fauci, as well as media reports on Peter Daszak. The essay touched on Nazis — of course!!! — and ended with a plea for swift and positive action that included ‘federal hate-crime protections’ for scientists who were being criticized.”
Who or What Is Hotez Really Fighting For?
In his article, Thacker goes on to review several other bizarre incidences involving Hotez. Most recently, he called scientific experts invited to testify before Congress “fringe elements” testifying and promoting “outlandish conspiracies.” So much for Ph.D.’s and med school. He also accused Sen. Rand Paul of promoting conspiracies.
“With a final flourish, Hotez proposed a new threat to science a couple days back: gain of function ‘conspiracy guys’ allaying themselves with antivaccine activists. But it’s not hard to imagine that Russians and Nazis will make another appearance in a Hotez tweet or essay soon to come,” Thacker concludes.35
Here’s the take-home: The reason Hotez protects Daszak and rails against “antiscience” is because it protects Fauci, and Fauci is the one Hotez is really beholden to. He’s received millions of dollars in grants from the NIH — and so has Daszak and a lot of other people who conduct completely unnecessary and dangerous research.
If Daszak goes down for illegal research, so does Fauci, and with him, the biggest research purse strings in America, if not the world. Ending gain-of-function research would have the same withering effect on funding — and hence careers — which is why anyone who questions the sanity of gain-of-function research is “antiscience” and should be cyberattacked on sight. So, all that hateful rhetoric? It all comes down to protecting self-serving interests. Who would have guessed?
Sources and References
August 23, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, NIH, United States |
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The Trudeau government has announced $4.2 million in additional funding to keep a Windsor-Essex ‘voluntary’ isolation site afloat until March 2023.
In a new release, the Government of Canada said that isolation remains one of the best ways to slow the spread of COVID despite it being over two years since COVID began and there being little to no evidence to support such a position.
The government continues, saying that the isolation site will be used to accommodate foreign agri-workers who can’t find a place to isolate when they enter Canada. “These workers tend to live in close accommodations and work in congregate settings, which makes it difficult to isolate, if required,” reads the news release.
“As Essex continues to welcome thousands of incoming agricultural workers in the coming weeks and months, this critical federal funding will provide spaces for those who are unable to isolate safely in the community,” said Windsor-Tecumseh MP Irek Kusmierczyk.
“Thank you to Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and the federal government for recognizing the unique challenges our community faces and always standing up for Windsor-Essex.”
According to the news release, the $4.2 million given to the County of Essex will allow the site to operate 50 rooms for foreign agri-workers until March 31, 2023. ($84,000/room)
The site, formerly operated by the City of Windsor, was previously allotted $4.8 million for the same purpose, with funding lasting until June 30, 2022.
While unvaccinated foreign nationals are still prohibited from entering Canada thanks to the country’s vaccine mandate, an exemption exists for agricultural and food processing workers, marine crew workers, those making medical deliveries, and those that work with medical equipment.
However, despite the exemption, agri-workers still have to follow testing and quarantine requirements upon arrival, including a mandatory (not voluntary) quarantine requirement.
Thus, with flu season on the horizon, it looks like foreign-born agri-workers will be the first to feel the squeeze of the government’s renewed effort to bring back COVID measures.
What it would take to convince the government to end such measures permanently, rather than merely suspend them in certain areas, is anyone’s guess, and the government has made no indication they will ever admit the pandemic is over despite criticism internally and abroad.
August 22, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | Canada, Covid-19 |
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The US judicial system has dismissed yet another lawsuit filed by censored users of Big Tech’s social media platforms, who allege First Amendment free speech violations.
This time it was the US District Court for the Northern District of California that granted a motion to dismiss filed by the defendant, Facebook (Meta). The plaintiff in this case, Richard Rogalinski, sued on First Amendment grounds after a number of his posts about Covid got censored on Facebook.
We obtained a copy of the decision for you here.
One of the posts expressed Rogalinski’s skepticism about the efficacy of masks, saying that he has not seen scientific evidence of their usefulness, but instead, “just talking heads who want to spread fear and control you.”
To this, Facebook’s “fact-checkers” reacted by adding a warning label claiming the post was “missing context.” The same warning was slapped on a post that saw the plaintiff criticize the Covid vaccine rollout.
Finally, a screenshot of a tweet posted by a doctor who promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine got labeled as “false information” by Facebook and removed.
Originally, the Florida resident filed a class action lawsuit in that state, but Facebook moved to either dismiss or transfer it, after which the judge transferred it to California.
In an attempt to fight against the usual defense that massive tech corporations have when censoring content and users – that they are private operations that have the right to do that, while the First Amendment applies only to state actors – Rogalinski mentioned statements made by former White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
In July 2021 – and the California judge noted in the ruling that this happened “after Meta took action against Rogalinski’s posts” – Psaki told a press conference that the Biden administration is “in regular touch” with major social media platforms, and actively flagging content posted on Facebook that the government thinks are “problematic” on misinformation grounds.
Rogalinski argued that the state “chose the targets and content of the statements that it deemed worthy of the defendant’s censorship” which then resulted in censorship by Facebook.
The plaintiff further accused the government and Meta of communicating directly and specifically about the censorship actions and engaging in the act together by sharing responsibility for the two-step process of censorship.
However, the court disagreed, citing several similar cases, including O’Handley v. Padilla, where the ruling reads that the government “can work with a private entity without converting that entity’s later decisions into state action.”
August 21, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Facebook, United States |
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After 3 years of confusion, contradiction, and bad policy-making, CDC Director Rochelle Walenksy M.D., has announced ‘sweeping reorganization.’ This, coming on the heels of an announcement that the beleaguered agency’s Covid guidance no longer differentiates between the Vaccinated, and the Unvaccinated. What is really going on?
August 21, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
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The latest figures from the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) suggest that the knock-on effects of lockdown may be harming more people than “Covid” ever did, or so the press are saying anyway.
The ONS’s weekly data apparently shows over 10,000 more reported deaths than expected.
Since none of these excess deaths has been “linked with Covid”, the press is calling them the “true cost of lockdown”, with some papers suggesting lockdown is “killing more people than Covid”.
To which the only proper response is: “No shit.”
Even for those who still cling to the orthodoxy that “Covid” actually exists, the fact lockdown was going to do more damage than it prevented was obvious from the moment early mortality studies showed “Covid” had a 99.5% survival rate, back in the spring of 2020.
Many experts in economics, statistics, epidemiology and virology voiced this opinion, and were vilified and abused for their trouble.
And, really, anyone with the smallest shred of common sense could figure it out for themselves. Shutting down the health service and crashing the economy is never going to end well (unless you want to kill people, then it’s a great plan).
Even Dr David Nabarro, World Health Organization special envoy for Covid-19, described lockdowns as a “global catastrophe” in October 2020:
We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of the virus[…] it seems we may have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition […] This is a terrible, ghastly global catastrophe.”
So the question is not “Is lockdown worse than Covid?” The answer to that is “yes”, and we’ve known that for over two years.
The real question is: why are they finally admitting it?
It’s not just this week’s excess deaths either. Elsewhere the media is concerned about the mental health impacts of lockdowns, delays in cancer treatments, the “lockdown drinking”, the impact on children missing school, teenagers self-harming and so and so on.
Professor Karol Sikora – one of those vilified experts I mentioned earlier – has even been given space in the Telegraph to write a 2000 word “I told you so”.
Why?
Perhaps the answer to that lies not in what they’re talking about, but in what they are most pointedly not talking about.
The excess deaths are being very definitely laid at the feet of lockdowns, not the experimental “vaccines”.
Now, were the deaths really caused by the lockdown? Or by the “vaccines”? Or a mix of both? We don’t know, and can likely never know.
At this point our collective trust in institutions and official figures should be low enough to question if there were any excess deaths. Maybe they just made them up. They do that.
Regardless of the truth of it, the narrative is certainly shifting to highlight “the true cost of lockdowns”.
This could be about disguising the harm done by untested vaccines, admitting to potentially deleterious effects of lockdown to spare Pfizer’s blushes.
There’s a lot more invested in the vaccines than the lockdown – in every sense of the word – and if something has to be blamed it makes sense they would much rather it be lockdowns than jabs.
That’s a decent explanation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more to it.
This narrative could be about setting up the public for the next “covid” wave or some new “pandemic”.
Consider how quickly the “true cost of lockdown” story could be parlayed into a new mainstream consensus that “Lockdown was so damaging, we must do whatever it takes to avoid another“.
Then consider how “Whatever it takes” could take the form of quarantine camps for the unvaccinated, vaccines mandates, enforced testing and surveillance…or whatever the hell else they want.
August 20, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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This will be short because it really does not need much comment. In fact, this is so absurd that I am just starting with the reference document because I am concerned no one will believe it. Here it is:
Spanish Flu Gof
2.12MB ∙ PDF File – Read now
Yes, that is right, Fauci and crew are now actively performing gain-of-function (GoF) work and infecting primates with the Spanish Flu. For those of you that are unaware, GoF does not have a single agreed upon definition but, as it relates here, is essentially the modification of the Spanish Flu virus to make “more functional.” In this case, as with COVID, I have little doubt the GoF supporters will argue that this is not GoF but the article actually notes that this disease was created in canine kidneys with supplemental bovine serum. Here is a quote from the document:
Virus and cells. Influenza virus A/South Carolina/1918 (H1N1) was generated by reverse genetics (9) and handled in biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) containment at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML). Sequences of the 1918 influenza viral segments were based on data reported under GenBank accession numbers DQ208309, DQ208310, DQ208311, AF117241, AY744935, AF250356, AY130766, and AF333238. 1918 influenza virus was cultured usingMadin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK; ATCC, Manassas, VA, USA) cells. MDCK cells were grown in minimum essential medium (MEM; HyClone) supplemented with 5% fetal bovine serum (FBS; HyClone) and 1 L-glutamine (L-Glu; Gibco, Life Technologies, Grand Island, NY, USA).
A passage 2 (P2) virus stock was prepared using MEM supplemented with 0.1% bovine serum albumin (BSA) (fraction V; HyClone), 1 L-glutamine, and 1 mg/mL N-tosyl-L-phenylalanine chloromethyl ketone (TPCK)-treated trypsin (Sigma-Aldrich). This stock was used for animal inoculation. The mouse 50% lethal dose (MLD50) for this stock was determined previously to be 103.2 PFU (9); this value was confirmed prior to the use of the stock for macaque infection.
I frankly do not care to debate the nuance of whether the recreation of generally extinct virus “generated by reverse genetics” using pieces and parts of other animals qualifies as GoF; what I care about is that we have recreated the Spanish Flu and are experimenting with it on other animals. I also care that one focus of this article is the fact that scientists are frustrated that the recreated Spanish Flu is not dangerous enough. We do not have to get far in this to see this frustration. At the beginning of the article in the summary of its importance this statement is made:
Here, we demonstrate that even at the highest doses tested, 1918 influenza was not lethal in these two macaque species, suggesting that they are not ideal for the development and testing of novel pandemic influenza-specific vaccines and therapies. Therefore, other physiologically relevant nonhuman primate models of pandemic influenza are needed.
At this point I am preparing to release the results of a major investigation we have been undertaking at Renz Law that will demonstrate that SARS-COV2 was in fact created in the Wuhan labs as part of a GoF project. We believe the investigation demonstrates this in a way that far exceeds a preponderance of the evidence standard and probably exceeds reasonable doubt. With that in mind, and given the result of the the previous coronavirus GoF, can ANYONE possibly argue GoF work on the Spanish Flu is a good idea? Even the simple recreation of the disease demonstrates an incredible lack of respect for the disaster created by the coronavirus GoF.
So you may be asking, what moron could possibly be oblivious enough to support GoF work on the Spanish Flu while the world is still dealing with the nightmare that is COVID? The answer should not be surprising and is here:
Mable Chan,ᵃ Meenakshi Tiwary,ᵇ,ᶜ Helen L. Wu,ᵇ,ᶜ Nikesh Tailor,ᵃ Robert Vendramelli,ᵃ Jonathan Audet,ᵃ Bryce M. Warner,ᵃ Kevin Tierney,ᵃ Alix Albietz,ᵃ Thang Truong,ᵃ Kaylie Doan,ᵃ Alexander Bello,ᵃ Marnie Willman,ᵃ Bryan D. Griffin,ᵃ,ᵈ Patrick W. Hanley,ᵉ Jamie Lovaglio,ᵉ David Safronetz,ᵃ,ᶠ Jim Strong,ᵃ,ᶠ Jonah B. Sacha,ᵇ,ᶜ Darwyn Kobasaᵃ,ᶠ
a. Special Pathogens, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
b. Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland,
c. Oregon, USA Oregon National Primate Research Center, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon, USA
d. Vaccine Safety Surveillance, Immunization Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
e. Rocky Mountain Veterinary Branch, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Hamilton, Montana, USA
f. Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
So, NIH and NIAID are involved. Apparently Fauci does not mind what he did with funding the creation of COVID and is at it again. You might also note the vaccine development crew’s involvement. A foundational point in this article is that the newly recreated Spanish Flu is not dangerous enough. Here is a pull-quote:
However, 1918 influenza was uniformly nonlethal in these two species, demonstrating that this isolate is insufficiently pathogenic in rhesus and Mauritian cynomolgus macaques to support testing novel prophylactic influenza approaches where protection from severe disease combined with a lethal outcome is desired as a highly stringent indication of vaccine efficacy.
This means that these people are arguing that we need to make a more dangerous version of the Spanish Flu so they can make “better” vaccines for it… despite the fact that until they recreated it, it likely no longer existed in nature. Much like with COVID, these snake oil salesmen create the disease and then create the cure. Given the complete failure and innumerable dangers of the COVID jabs, the real question is whether the cure will be worse than the disease?
For my part I find the fact that I am even writing this article to be incredible. In this election year I sincerely hope that this article is put in front of every elected official in Washington and they are asked to explain how this is continuing on their watch.
August 20, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, NIAID, NIH, United States |
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Political power advances like a car with a manual gearbox. Normal motion is forward, going through the gears, but occasionally reverse gear is engaged. Sometimes the electorate react against policies going too far, or being taken on a ride not of their choosing. Such was the impetus for Brexit and Donald Trump, both portrayed by the establishment as populist regression that risked undoing social and economic progress. Fearing further democratic shocks, progressive leaders got back into the driving seat and put their foot down in the direction of one-world government.
As rather too confidently anticipated by US medical administrator Anthony Fauci on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, there was ‘no doubt’ the incoming president would be confronted with a ‘surprise’ infectious disease outbreak.
Looking back, there are strong indications that certain people knew what was coming, whatever the plausible deniability. A pandemic would enable a giant stride towards a highly regulated society, with the traditional social structures of faith, flag and family obliterated, and citizens neutered. A ‘new normal’ would be instilled, disingenuously justified by a public health emergency. Mortal fear would have more immediate impact than the other contrived crisis of climate change.
And so it came to pass. With remarkable speed World Economic Forum leader Klaus Schwab wrote a book on how to ‘build back better’ from the contagion. In The Great Reset, published in June 2020, he enthused that ‘the pandemic represents a rare but narrow opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world’.
Anybody undecided about the masterplan of the WEF, which our politicians and mainstream media either ignore or deride as conspiracy theory, should read its blueprint Future Focus, published in June 2022. The Executive Summary asserts that ‘societies, the global economy and the planet face unprecedented challenges and disruptions that remain urgent and require an unprecedented transformation of the world’s economic, environmental and social systems’. The future is encapsulated in a terrifying hub-and-spoke diagram, in which every aspect of our lives revolves around digital identity: education, health, banking, food and travel. The tentacles of the WEF monster are spreading all over us.
The three missions of Future Focus are a fairer society, sustainability and harnessing technology for the ‘fourth industrial revolution’, all themes of Schwab’s The Great Reset. Almost three years after Covid-19 was unleashed on an unsuspecting world, we can assess how far the globalist project has advanced.
By ‘fairer society’, the WEF means collectivisation, removing people’s rights, property and privacy, as depicted by the slogan ‘you will own nothing, and you will be happy’. A basic universal income will ensure dependence on the state. Despite globalists’ concerns about overpopulation, the WEF is keen on mass migration from poorer regions to the West, thus abandoning border controls when it suits (contrast the strict Covid regime for citizens with the unimpeded crossings of the English Channel and the Mexican border). So-called refugees are not only cheap labour, they are less likely to resist radical policies.
The UK population rose significantly in the ‘plague’ year of 2020, when police stopped Nigel Farage from reporting the dinghies arriving in Dover. The relentless influx may seem contradictory to the second theme of sustainability, until it is understood that the globalists are most interested in sustaining not the harmony of nature but their own power. They want to reduce the masses to neo-feudalist subsistence, under total control of resources. Food or fuel shortages are used for sequential power grabs, through a problem-reaction-solution mechanism. As seen in Sri Lanka, depriving the people of petrol (problem) caused riots (reaction), leading to acceptance of rationing by digital identity system (solution). Arguably, the war in Ukraine is causing economic strife in Europe for a similar purpose. Meanwhile the elite continue to fly around the world in private jets.
Thirdly, technological progress is accelerating the application of constant surveillance systems. Central digital currency will require every citizen to hold a virtual wallet linked to their national (or international, at least in the EU) identification. Total control of the population will ensue. Citizens will be monitored via checking in and out of buildings, face recognition cameras in public places, and all purchases. It goes much further than that. Potentially, through mandatory vaccination the authorities could exert control over hormones and fertility. Transmittable microchips embedded in hands are already in use in Sweden. Homo sapiens is being led along the path of transhumanism.
The erection of a digital cage shows that Covid-19 has worked wonders for the globalists. Yuval Noah Harari, historian and philosopher turned globalist ideologue, recently admitted that the virus was unremarkable, while lauding the unprecedented progress enabled by lockdown. Imagine how much could be done with a really serious crisis, he mused, such as climate change.
The Covid regime has not yet been relinquished, but millions have realised that the primary motive was not saving lives but control through fear.
Even the most gullible ‘normies’ must be asking themselves, belatedly, whether public health is really the priority. Farcically, Australian female cricketer Tahlia McGrath played in the Commonwealth Games despite testing positive for Covid-19, while the world’s top tennis player Novak Djokovic cannot go to Australia because he is unvaccinated.
Court cases are swinging in favour of freedom. An Ohio federal judge blocked the vaccine mandate for US Army, Air Force and Navy personnel with religious exemption.
A US healthcare company was ordered to pay $10.3million compensation to doctors and nurses whose claimed exemption was denied by hospital management. Pastor Artur Pawlowski, persecuted by the authorities in the Canadian province of Alberta for opening his church during lockdown, spending months in jail for his sins, won reimbursement of unlawful fines.
Is this all too late? Covid-19 has done its job, dramatically changing our lives on the road to a global technocracy. ‘If you want a picture of the future,’ George Orwell wrote in 1984, ‘imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.’ Yet the viral coup has not been overwhelmingly successful. Some of us are more awake than ever; once we see we can’t un-see.
August 16, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, Human rights |
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