As Nicola Sturgeon announces that the Scots may have to wear facemasks ‘for years to come’, all I can say is how glad I am that I don’t live in Scotland.
Since the new mask-wearing rules were introduced on November 30, I have refused to wear one and touch wood, fingers crossed, have got away with it.
In that time, I have been on buses, coaches, the London Underground, stayed in a hotel for three days over Christmas, been to the cinema and to the hairdresser, the beauty salon, nail bar and in many shops and supermarkets, blessedly mask-free. I have taken taxis all over the place. Only once have I been apprehended, and that was in Sainsbury’s, where a member of staff came up to me and asked: ‘Where is your mask, madam?’ I told him that I was medically exempt, and he nodded and went away.
In the hotel where I was staying, there were signs everywhere saying that masks were compulsory, and that anybody not wearing one may be reported to the authorities. Yet I did not wear one, nobody said anything and nor was I reported to the authorities.
I have also got away with not wearing a mask in a clinic where I went for hearing tests. I told the audiologist there that I didn’t believe in masks and he accepted it, although both he and the receptionist were wearing them, as were the other patients in the waiting room.
It is true that on buses I have been on the receiving end of some nasty stares, or as nasty as they can be when most of the faces and thus the expressions, of the other passengers, are hidden. It is also true that some people edge away from me as though I have got a deadly plague. My next-door neighbours, masked up to the eyeballs even when walking down the street, asked why I was not wearing a mask and I gave them the same response: ‘I am medically exempt.’ That, so far, has precluded further questioning although the truth is that I have exempted myself. I have no actual doctor’s exemption although if challenged, I have an exemption card in my wallet which I downloaded from a government site and which I can produce if demanded. So far, nobody has asked to see it.
The government website says quite plainly that if wearing a mask causes undue distress, you can exempt yourself from wearing one. In order to drive home the obvious fact that I am not wearing a mask, I make sure I am wearing bright red lipstick every time I leave the house. That way, I am making a clear statement that I am defying the rules and showing in no uncertain way that am proud to be mask-free.
We were warned that we could face on-the-spot fines of £200 if we refused to wear a mask on the London Underground. Since the end of November, I have taken the Tube many times, always maskless, and have never been confronted or asked to see proof of exemption. I decided that if I was fined, I would refuse to pay it and go to prison for my principles if it came to that. I would be a martyr for the cause! But none of the Underground staff has said a word and nor have any of the passengers. True, there are signs all over the place saying that masks are compulsory, both on trains and in stations, but I have just taken no notice.
The sad thing is that I seem to be in a minority of one. Everywhere I go, I am the only person, child or adult, who is not muzzled. It is monstrous that all secondary school pupils and children over the age of 11 have been told to wear masks in public indoor venues and on public transport. My neighbour, employed by Oxford University, says that she is required to wear a mask for work, even though most days she is the only person in the office. She also has to keep taking tests.
Actually, I am going further than not wearing a mask. I have never had a PCR or lateral flow test, not had the booster and am not going to have it, either in spite of Sir Chris Whitty telling me in the cinema that I must have it to protect myself and others. There are huge posters at bus stops and ads in every newspaper bullying me to get jabbed, but I ignore them all. And guess what? I have remained completely well, never had so much as a sniffle throughout all this so-called pandemic, while just about everybody I know who had had the jabs, the boosters, the tests and who never dares to venture out without a muzzle round their face, has had Covid or what passes for it. Most of my refusenik friends, the few I have left who are defying all the strictures, say the same.
The mask mandates in England at least are due to be reviewed on January 26 but if they are relaxed, as I expect them to be, I will place a bet here and now that the majority of people will continue to wear them and tell you that it is their choice. Such is the state of fear that governments don’t need to impose rules or threaten us with fines and imprisonment. We have become so cowed and terrified that we are imposing them on ourselves.
I just wonder how many people will be brave enough to defy the First Minister in Scotland, if she carries out her threat to make her compatriots wear masks for ever more?
January 18, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, Human rights, Scotland, UK |
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“Mandate! Segregate! Subjugate!”
I wanted to turn your attention to a handful of premier art masterpieces that have appeared overnight in Washington, D.C.
The artwork is a brilliant Soviet-style mockery of Joe Biden and Anthony Fauci COVID Mania regime. And seeing it appear in downtown Washington, D.C., the home of America’s ruling class and unquestioning COVID compliance, is the perfect setting for these absolute gems.
The first piece showcases an angry Joe Biden holding an OSHA-labeled mallet surrounded by the word “comply.” The second illustration, labeled, “good kids are compliant kids,” shows a handful of children in red masks looking up to an injection needle-surrounded Joe Biden. The third shows a sitting Joe Biden holding the coronavirus in his hand, with the caption, “Mandate! Segregate! Subjugate!” The last piece of artwork, “Trust The Scientism,” shows Anthony Fauci, dressed in clergy attire, possessing a giant hypodermic needle.
I particularly enjoy the Soviet propaganda style.
Here are the four posters lined up together, courtesy of Leigh Wolf’s Twitter page:
A DC Karen noticed the artwork and started to rip down the posters.
She was filmed desecrating the artwork by Leigh Wolf, a comms and production professional who happens to be a former colleague of mine at CRTV/Blaze Media Wolf spotted the artwork and took photos of it before it was ripped down.
I reached out to Leigh and asked if he had any inside info about how the artwork ended up in Washington D.C. Wolf told me he has no idea who put them up. I’ll post an update if I can find the artist behind these magnificent creations.
January 18, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
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It turns out — not certain at all!
Dr Val Fraser, retired Lecturer in Teacher Education, Subject Expert for Ofqual and former OFSTED School Inspector, puts the last UK Government’s mask missive under the linguistic microscope:
What is the “material evidence” Nadhim Zahawi, Education Secretary speaks of (TalkRadio Monday 3rd January 2022) for recommending face coverings to be worn in secondary school classrooms and, more importantly, how convincing is it? The government document entitled Evidence Summary: Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the use of face coverings in education settings needs an understanding of ‘modality’ to help evaluate how robust this evidence is.
Modality is a term used in the study of grammar and linguistics to signal certainty. Verbs qualified with modal verbs suggest whether an event or a claim is possible, probable, likely or certain. The principal auxiliary modal verbs when placed on a continuum from possible to certain show this range: can, could, may, might, should, would, shall, must and will.
“Manchester United can win the league” is a hedging statement suggesting some caveats to be considered. However, “Manchester United will win the league” is a definite statement of certainty and expectation. Advertisements make heavy use of modal verbs to sell their products without making claims that leave them open to legal difficulties. ‘Wrinkles can be reduced by up to 50%’ is a possibility of smoother skin that sells the product without over-promising.
Modality may also be conveyed by the use of adverbs. The famous example of “Probably the best lager in the world” steers Carlsberg away from litigation, whilst selling its product as a high quality one – “the best” is what resonates. Other adverbs making clear possibility, obligation and emphasis are: generally, maybe, perhaps, possibly, probably, promisingly, obviously, certainly, clearly and definitely. Again the range from least to most certain shows a continuum of expectation.
A document that is succinctly entitled Evidence Summary is a bold statement: the reader would expect to see certainty of claims, anchored in a secure evidence base and/or data providing concluding proof. However, an examination of the use of language in this particular document reveals a distinct hedging when it comes to the claims being made, in this case an attempt to underpin the government’s policy decision to recommend face coverings for secondary school classrooms.
Below are examples of how the document is using modality to avoid claiming any certainty for its evidence base:
- ‘Face coverings can contribute to reducing transmission’. This is a general statement about the possibility (but not certainty) of masks helping to reduce viral spread. There are two qualifiers in that clause: one is ‘can’: the author does not want to make a definite claim; the other is ‘contribute’: there are no claims that in and of itself masking is going to achieve a positive outcome. This is an introductory comment and sets the tone for hedging, cautious claims and caveats. The same statement opens the main body of the text.
- The reader is informed that the mode of transmission of the virus can be via droplets, aerosol particles and by contact. It is curious that, two years into the science studying the virus, that ‘can’ needed to be added. A more definite statement such as ‘transmission occurs through’ would convey a more authoritative stance. Note again that possibility is being claimed not certainty. There are 17 uses of the modal verb ‘can’ revealing that this evidence submitted is peppered with a significant level of uncertainty and hedging of claims.
- Could is used nine times. An example of this is, ‘Using a different maximum weighting threshold could result in slightly different results’. This is an alarming disclaimer for the validity of the claims provided as evidence. ‘Could’ like ‘can’ distances the author from taking responsibility for a definite view or position.
- We are further informed that masks ‘may further reduce risks of longer-range airborne transmission’. The term ‘may’ also indicates a possible but not a certain effect. There are 15 uses of the term ‘may’.
- There is even less certainty in the document concerning how the Omicron variant is transmitted. We are told it might show more airborne transmission (the reason for recommending masks now). When ‘might’ is used it is indicating guesswork. The author is saying we simply don’t know and we have to signal that.
Modality and uncertainty are also conveyed through the use of adverbs as indicated above. An example is contained in this sentence: (researchers) ‘could explore expanding the time-period under study to potentially yield more precise estimates’. Potentially is another term which pulls back from providing a more assertive claim for an outcome. Moreover, this is only one of the three examples of the limitations of the evidence in that sentence: ‘could’ is used as prevaricator avoiding being drawn into a commitment to obtaining more concrete data (for the precise estimates – which in themselves, as estimates, are predictive not determined).
There are 42 uses of modal verbs and 18 uses of adverbs on the low certainty spectrum (as explained above). Why is the government presenting its findings in a tenuous and circumspect manner? Modality of language can be tracked in the methodology and findings of its ‘research’ but, more importantly, we can see the limitations of the research itself, which obliges the authors to also limit the claims they can present as evidence.
We learn from the research design that:
- To evaluate the efficacy of face masks in schools they examined attendance rates, with no compelling rationale for this perceived correlation being offered.
- The data collection period was from two separated out weeks in October 2021 which included some missing data.
- They candidly state that it is a ‘preliminary, experimental analysis, which would benefit from robust external peer review to a longer timescale’.
- They further cast doubt on their findings when they acknowledge that the results may not have any statistical significance as the differential is within a chance outcome.
- They did not isolate the variables to be sure that face coverings were the determining factor in lowering absence rates. Further they state the study did not draw data for long enough time periods and different methodologies would have yielded different results.
- The schools categorised as mask wearing ones were not a homogenous group in terms of their defined use. Some used them only for communal areas and some for classroom use too but they were not differentiated for that within the categorisation.
- Other variables such as Local Authority guidance and implementation and local rates of cases and infection were not considered.
- The raw results showed that non-masking schools had a significantly lower absence rate and it was only after modelling that a positive outcome was found. The authors concede that using different assumptions for this modelling, different “weighting thresholds”, could result in different results.
- They advise that a more robust study would go onto consider community COVID-19 case rates, regional data (LA, information on LA wider response to COVID-19, etc), other characteristics of pupils (proportion of pupils with SEND, etc) and any information on differential use of face coverings and would offer more reassurance about the validity of this evidence than they can currently provide.
- They found that absence rates in the control group (unmasked) remain lower overall than those in the treatment group (masked). This is a surprising admission towards the end of the report.
- The researchers consulted other studies. This research method would normally give more validity to the findings, in terms of the triangulation of data with their own. However, they had to acknowledge that the results from those were inconclusive, ‘mixed’ and the majority were observational studies, with only 2 RCTs, neither involving schools.
- No data was available on Omicron: the variant of the virus for which the recommendations were being brought in to address.
The qualifications and caveats above reveal the report is at best a tentative proposal, which has not been subject to the usual quality assurance procedures before publication. The research design points to an insecure hypothesis between mask wearing and attendance rates which was neither explained, tested beforehand nor validated after. The methodologies did not keep the variables stable and therefore did not isolate the variable (masks) they were expecting to be able to analyse and base the claims upon. The results did not provide a secure evidence base to form a compelling case for recommending face coverings.
With these limitations in the research study, a reader would expect to see, as indeed is clear, a report sewn together with tenuous arguments, circumspect claims and qualified results and recommendations. The only way to compose such a report is prolific use of modal verbs and adverbs as indicated above.
Yet the harms of wearing face coverings in educational settings are openly stated in the report and couched in more definite measurable claims and certainty of language:
- 80% of pupils reported that wearing a face covering made it difficult to communicate, and 55% felt wearing one made learning more difficult.
- Wearing face coverings may have physical side effects and impair face identification, verbal and non-verbal communication between teacher and learner.
- Almost all secondary leaders and teachers (94%) thought that wearing face coverings has made communication between teachers and students more difficult, with 59% saying it has made it a lot more difficult.
- Research into the effect of mask wearing on communication has found that concealing a speaker’s lips led to lower performance, lower confidence scores, and increased perceived effort on the part of the listener.
- Meta-cognitive monitoring was worse when listening in these conditions compared with listening to an unmasked talker.
- A survey of impacts on communication with mask wearing …. reported that face coverings negatively impact hearing, understanding, engagement, and feelings of connection with the speaker.
- People with hearing loss were impacted more than those without hearing loss. The inability to see facial expressions and to read lips have a major impact on speech understanding for those with hearing impairments.
- The WHO reports that “the wearing of masks by children with hearing loss or auditory problems may present learning barriers and further challenges”.
Note the more certain arguments (some with precise percentages attached) in the above for the harms of mask wearing and especially for children. There are far fewer modal verbs used and the claims are, in the main, unambiguous: ‘were impacted’, ‘negatively impact’, ‘was worse’, ‘led to’. ‘made worse’, ‘more difficult’. The evidence for the harms of face coverings is measurable, precise, unambiguous and certain and the language used for presenting the evidence base, is equally unequivocal.
It would seem that Nadhim Zahawi’s promised ‘material’ evidence for his recommendations for face coverings in secondary classrooms is as flimsy as some of the cloth masks our teenagers will need to resort to using, as they do their best to cope with the challenges of learning in 2022.
In conclusion, perhaps we should ponder on the one piece of data expressed as a precise statistic, which might be driving this new guidance, namely: ‘71% of UNISON support staff thought face coverings in schools were an important safety measure’. If our Education Secretary has sacrificed children’s learning and social communication opportunities in schools, to appease Trade Unions, he will have to provide much more compelling evidence that schools are in any way unsafe for children or staff than he currently has. He has stiff opposition in the form of 150 comparative studies, peer reviewed with robust research, which come to the very definite and certain conclusion that, “to date, the evidence has been stable and clear that masks do not work to control the virus”. There is not a whisper of modality in that concluding statement either.
January 18, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, UK |
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WHEN the public awakens to the great betrayal of both health and science surrounding the handling of Covid, it will be important not to let anger run riot. After all, the mistakes have taken place on a global scale, even leading a nation such as Australia, which we previously thought of as civilised and sensible, to behave like a despotic banana republic both towards its own citizens and in ill-treating unvaccinated tennis players wanting to enter the country.
But that doesn’t mean we should hold back in our efforts to understand and deal with this disastrous aberration in human consciousness, whose dire consequences have been spelled out comprehensively by public health specialist Dr Alan Mordue.
One root of the global nature of the crisis, now more and more coming to light, is the extraordinary power wielded by a tiny group of scientists to dictate World Health Organisation (WHO) policy, from which the rest of the world took its lead.
Email disclosures show not only a deliberate plot to hide the laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2, making it out to have jumped naturally from bats into humans, but how a WHO inquiry was rigged to reach the same conclusion.
This issue has immense implications. If the virus really did make a random ‘jump’ across species, we could be at risk of similar future events. Pleas to provide billions in public funds for research and development of more drugs and vaccines could be justified to help prepare for such threats to global health security.
Uncertainty arising from such a freak of nature would also justifiably have been used to argue for at least temporary measures of draconian control, to protect health services until the true threat could be assessed.
If on the other hand the virus was a laboratory escapee resulting from ‘gain-of function’ research by American and Chinese scientists – now as good as proven – would governments and the public have been so ready to trust the scientists with even more money and power? Or ‘trust the science’, as the Prime Minister kept telling us?
Jeremy Farrar, boss of the UK’s Wellcome Trust, wrote to US health chiefs Francis Collins and Tony Fauci on February 5, 2020 – almost two years ago, just after WHO had declared Covid a global health emergency – to explain how the WHO inquiry would be staffed to support the animal origin theory.
A few days earlier, Farrar had emailed Fauci and Patrick Vallance, the UK Government’s chief scientific adviser, copying in six others including Paul Schreier, Wellcome’s chief operating officer, about a teleconference called to discuss the virus’s provenance. His email said: ‘Information and discussion is shared in total confidence and not to be shared until agreement on next steps.’
That followed a late-night warning by immunologist Kristian Anderson of the Scripps research Institute in California that the virus had features which might make it look as if it had been genetically engineered in a laboratory. Anderson sent that email to Fauci on the evening of January 31, the day WHO announced an emergency, copying in only one other person – Jeremy Farrar.
As I reported last week, despite knowing a laboratory origin was likely, the group was anxious not to weaken confidence in science by allowing that possibility to reach the public. Dr Francis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health at the time, told Farrar: ‘I share your view that a swift convening of experts in a confidence-inspiring framework is needed or the voicers of conspiracy will quickly dominate, doing great potential harm to science and international harmony.’
So to protect the good name of science, the group chose a strategy that was the opposite of scientific, in that it suppressed rather than encouraged open investigation and rational discussion of evidence.
But did the motives run deeper than that?
Robert Kennedy Jr, an American lawyer and environmental activist, made the case in a recent book that a web of corruption has been polluting medical science internationally for decades, fuelled by massive misuse of public funds. As director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci dispenses more than $6billion a year in taxpayer funds for research, and Kennedy says he uses this to ruin, advance or reward the careers and institutions of thousands of doctors and scientists.
As part of what Kennedy calls a ‘vaccines cartel’, Fauci also partners Bill Gates, who uses tax-deductible dollars to fund research from which the investment arm of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gains massively – including a big stake in Pfizer.
Gates has huge influence over WHO as its second-biggest funder after the US administration. That influence also extends into the heart of the British medical and scientific establishment. It includes working closely with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the British pharmaceutical giant, for which Vallance was previously a top executive.
The Gates foundation has also given more than $250million to media companies around the world, most of whom have given unquestioning support to the Covid vaccine rollout and discriminatory, fear-inducing policies aimed at encouraging its take-up, despite its experimental nature.
Media beneficiaries in the UK include the BBC, Guardian and Financial Times. Incredibly, the UK’s Medicine & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which approved the Covid jabs – even for children – has also received several million pounds.
A similar strategy to Gates’s has enriched and empowered Farrar’s Wellcome Trust, which distributes £1billion annually for global health research. It has an investment portfolio of nearly £30billion, growing at about 12 per cent per annum over the past decade.
Farrar was a senior member of Sage, the UK Government’s advisory body on Covid, until last October, and is a founding member of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which gave $1billion to help Covid vaccine development.
The Wellcome Trust’s website claims to offer ‘a collection of quick and simple resources on how Covid-19 vaccines work, how we know they’re safe, and how they can be distributed to everyone around the world’.
In March last year, the British Medical Journal reported that the trust stood to gain financially from the pandemic through its investments, raising questions about transparency and accountability. A trust spokesman disputed this, saying they ‘would never make decisions or advise others about the pandemic response for a reason other than public health’.
But according to Mordue, a retired consultant in public health medicine, the public’s health has suffered immensely from the policies the UK pursued. He mourns the lack of relevant expertise among government and media spokesmen; the ‘inadequate and inaccurate’ case definition; the false ‘worst-case’ scenarios produced by modellers; the failure to protect the most vulnerable; the lack of cost-benefit analysis that would have kept society, the education system and the economy functioning while protecting the most vulnerable; and the failure to follow the principle ‘first do no harm’ in the mass rollout of an experimental vaccine. He also deplores the way a Sage sub-group deliberately sought to heighten fear and alarm as a means of driving compliance with Covid measures.
‘What has happened amounts to a betrayal of the specialty of public health and all the principles and values it used to stand for, and a betrayal of the health of the population,’ he writes.
‘What mystifies me is why my former colleagues and the UK professional body charged with developing and maintaining standards in the public health specialty, namely the Faculty of Public Health, have been so quiet through the whole of this pandemic.’
Vallance’s involvement in those crucial early decisions on how SARS-CoV-2 was to be handled, with their subsequent impact on public health decisions globally, raises questions about his fitness to continue in such a vital role as chief scientific officer for the UK.
He was revealed by the Telegraph back in in 2020 to have a £600,000 shareholding in GSK, having already cashed in more than £5million worth of shares received during his tenure at GSK as president of research and development. Claims of a conflict of interest, because of GSK’s own Covid drug and vaccine research and development, were denied by Matt Hancock, Health Secretary at the time.
Leaving aside his financial interest and affiliation to Big Pharma, it was his duty to offer rigorously objective scientific advice to the Government at a time of such crisis. Did that happen? That’s a central question that the forthcoming public inquiry into the pandemic, announced last month, will need to answer.
January 18, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, UK, WHO |
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State That They Are United With Police Forces Across Europe
See the clip from Valencia, Spain here:
https://t.me/GreatBritishBird_News/12088
”We promised to protect and serve the people not the corrupt politicians. We feel very proud to be police but real police, not hit men of the government.
Our association is in direct contact with members of security forces in Italy, Portugal, France, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, and Holland.
We’re going to join together all of the police of Europe. We’re going to stop this.
The security forces and the armed forces are the key to all of this.
We have to put ourselves on the side of the people, and turn our backs on the corrupt governments!
We have denounced the Covid passport here in Valencia with our association.
We’re going to demand responsibility from Señor Marlasca for the two states of emergency, and for using the police and the guardia civil to coerce the citizens. We don’t support that.”
This seems to be a critical development, and one we will keep close tabs on.
Thanks to Pélerine for this news tip.
Incidentally, Pélerine was selected as an outstanding reviewer of Robert F. Kennedy’s The Real Anthony Fauci by The Defender, linked here.
Congratulations Pélerine!
And congratulations to all the good police men and women of Europe, keeping your oath to protect, and risking your lives and livelihoods to do so. We salute your courage, and keep you in prayer.
Translated with the help of sources in Spain who wished to remain anonymous.
January 18, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Solidarity and Activism | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, European Union, Human rights |
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Two years into the pandemic, the tired narrative of legacy media & public health authoritarians like Fauci, has almost completely reversed from driving fear of the Covid, to ‘we must learn to live with this virus’. So why have Fauci & Co. made such an abrupt ‘about face?’
January 18, 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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Are you seeing all of those blaring corporate press headlines targeting Joe Rogan this weekend, reporting on a letter from “270 doctors,” which described the famous podcaster as a “menace to public health”? Well, it turns out that the real arbiters of misinformation are the individuals behind the letter itself, and they are being helped along by a corrupt corporate media that is misreporting the credentials of its signatories.
It was first reported by Rolling Stone, with a story titled, “Doctors Demand Spotify Puts an End to Covid Lies on ‘Joe Rogan Experience’”
Yes, the media and Big Tech want to create the image of a hundreds-strong coalition of medical doctors who are genuinely concerned about Joe Rogan’s conversations on his massive platform.
Twitter even got in on the propaganda campaign against Rogan, adding this “medical experts” letter to their curated headlines section.
Well, I reviewed this open letter, and it turns out that only around 100 of the 270+ signatories to the letter are people with qualified medical degrees. And a large chunk of that 100 or so medical doctors are MDs employed at universities who are not in fact practitioners of medicine.
Yet part of the letter reads:
“As physicians, we bear the arduous weight of a pandemic that has stretched our medical systems to their limits and only stands to be exacerbated by the anti-vaccination sentiment woven into this and other episodes of Rogan’s podcast.”
Paradoxically, the disseminators of this petition are guilty of the very misinformation label that they’ve attached to Rogan. In fact, neither of the two reported co authors of the letter — Jessica Rivera and Ben Rein — possess medical degrees. Rivera holds a master’s degree and Rein is a PhD academic who researches psychiatry.
The letter denouncing Joe Rogan and pressuring Spotify to censor his speech has all kinds of random signatories. By my count, the letter is signed by over 50 PhD academics, around 60 college professors, 29 nurses, 10 students, 4 medical residents, and even a handful of… science podcasters.
The letter, which uses the word misinformation nine times in five paragraphs, concludes with a call for Spotify to censor Rogan as part of a policy to “moderate misinformation on the platform.”
Notably, there is no information on who or what group is behind the creation and circulation of the open letter. Rivera, the reported lead author of the letter, is associated with the far-left Rockefeller Foundation and The Atlantic, and she is a CNN contributor.
January 17, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine |
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Official government disinformation
What our government is telling physicians is just plain idiotic. Read the following in a publication aimed at doctors.
This was just reported:
“Due to the Omicron variant and the short supply of COVID therapeutics, NIH recommends certain therapies over others for patients at high risk of progressing to severe COVID, said federal officials on a call with clinicians Wednesday [January 12].
In order of preference, clinicians should use the oral antiviral nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid), the monoclonal antibody sotrovimab, the IV antiviral remdesivir (Veklury) and finally, the oral antiviral molnupiravir, said Alice Pau, PharmD, of the NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines panel.
While the drugs were ranked from 1 to 4, she noted that nirmatrelvir-ritonavir, sotrovimab, and IV remdesivir three times a day all had similar clinical efficacy, with a relative risk reduction of 88%, 85%, and 87% in hospitalizations and deaths, respectively, versus placebo. However, molnupiravir, with its 30% efficacy, should be used only if the other three choices are not available, Pau noted.”
Here are the main reasons why the NIH list of preferred COVID treatments should not reassure the public:
1. The first preferred action, using the Pfizer drug Paxlovid, makes little sense because there is nearly no availability of it. And even if people could get prescriptions filled, would they be acting fast enough to get benefits. In the clinical trials people had to start the drug within three days of symptoms; even though they now talk of starting within five days, that too is totally impractical and unrealistic. Few people would be able to distinguish symptoms being COVID and not the flu or a bad cold quickly, getting an appointment with the doctor quickly and getting a prescription filled quickly. And the safety has not been adequately assessed.
2. The monoclonal antibody sotrovimab is nearly impossible to get because of extremely limited supply. And here too, a sick person would have to get medical attention quickly, that is extremely difficult. Even your local hospital might not have it.
3. The very expensive drug remdesivir has a terrible history of being both ineffective and having terrible side effects. It is mostly given to very ill patients in hospitals.
4. Then you get to the absolutely ludicrous fourth option, the new Merck antiviral that has a terrible level of effectiveness and that has not been proven safe. An absolutely awful choice.
What is most obscene about what NIH tells doctors is that it still refuses to include ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine as treatment options. It ignores the extremely successful treatment protocols of frontline doctors like Dr. Fareed and Dr. Zelenko that do NOT include any of the four NIH preferences.
What a waste of US taxpayer money on the evil and criminal Fauci’s organization.
Do not trust the government to effectively protect your life. Public health protection in the US is a disgrace. What NIH is saying is really insulting disinformation.
January 17, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, United States |
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Just outside the local primary school here in north London, somebody has sprayed these words on a phone or cable junction box, highly visible to the mums and tots:
COVID 1984
I often cycle past there, and have always thought “Mmm, a bit extreme”, but now I’m starting to wonder.
In George Orwell’s novel “1984,” Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, which administers Newspeak, deciding what the “truth” is, propagating it, and rewriting history when necessary. Newspeak is “characterized by a continually diminishing vocabulary; complete thoughts are reduced to simple terms of simplistic meaning” according to our old friends Wikipedia. The purpose is thought control; you know the saying “The French have a word for it”? If you don’t have a word for it you struggle to think it. So words like “anti-vaxxer” polarize opinions and prevent any subtlety of thinking about viruses and vaccinations.
For two years, we at the OMNS have been stating one simple message: Nutritional therapy works on Covid, as it does on all viruses.
On January 26, 2020 the OMNS Editor in Chief, Andrew W. Saul, wrote a news release: “Vitamin C Protects Against Coronavirus.” [1] It also made recommendations for vitamin D3, magnesium, zinc and selenium, which strengthen the immune system. We have continued to repeat and expand the message again and again. And have been suspended by Facebook again and again.
Others, including highly respected front-line physicians such as Paul Marik, have also figured out the importance of these nutrients. [2] In fact we have known about the anti-infective potential of vitamin C for over 50 years, since it was reported by Frederick Klenner. [3,4] He described traditional sources such as acerola cherries, which are very rich sources of C. That puts the knowledge back way before we named it “vitamin C.”
And it makes nonsense of the narrative that there is only one solution to Covid: vaccinate, again and again.
Two years ago I failed to persuade mainstream colleagues of the utility of this. “It’s not evidence-based,” they said. Now two review papers have shown the evidence, and it’s pretty solid.
The first, in the journal Life, is called “Vitamin C Intervention for Critical COVID-19: A Pragmatic Review of the Current Level of Evidence.” [5,6] It shows clearly that “this simple vitamin saves lives when given in the right dose.” In fact, vitamin C saves about 80% of the lives of critically ill Covid patients.
With a roll-call of experts saying vitamin C can save lives, what has been the response of the authorities, the powers-that-be?
The UK’s National Health service responded back in 2020 by promising a trial of intravenous vitamin C. Until that evidence becomes available, they have continued to say that there is no good evidence that vitamin C works. Scientists including the authors of the above paper sent them studies and they still said that. Finally a freedom of information (FOI) request established that the NHS had received the papers and had ignored them, for at least a year.
But the promised international multi-center trial would fix this, right? The only problem is, apparently, that the NHS had already signed an exclusive contract with a single company to supply the vitamin C, and that company was and still is unable to provide any. So the trial still has not started. Even for a piece of fiction, you couldn’t make it up! I could lend them some tomorrow.
The second review is by my colleague, independent researcher Rachel Nicoll: “COVID-19: Presenting the case for vitamin D: A cheap, effective measure overlooked by most governments.” [7]
As always with Rachel’s writings this is very information-rich. Here’s just one sentence;
A meta-analysis of 23 studies containing 11,901 participants found that in patients with vitamin D deficiency, the risk of being infected with COVID was 3.3 times higher and the risk of developing severe COVID was around 5 times higher compared to those with more healthy vitamin D levels.
Our knowledge of vitamin D and its importance for immunity has progressed by leaps and bounds in this pandemic, but a lot of this too we have known for ages. I wrote a book about it back in 1988; there’s a team in San Diego that has been studying sunlight and health for decades. [8]
Just as modern agriculture has been depriving us of many essential nutrients, [9] modern lifestyles have been depriving us of sunlight and therefore vitamin D. Lucky you if you live somewhere sunny like San Diego, because here in London nearly everybody is vitamin D deficient. Not that things are perfect in San Diego; we all shun the sun these days, often due to scare tactics about skin cancer.
That’s a story for another time, but here’s a take-home thought about vitamin D levels. It has been shown that a population needs a vitamin D blood level above about 75 nmol/L (30 ng/ml) to stop deaths from Covid, [10] but precious few of us manage it. So what should our blood level be? Where’s the benchmark when nearly everybody is deficient? If you take our nearest evolutionary relatives, non-human primates, they have around twice that level, 125 to 200 nmol/L (50-80 ng/ml). [11,12] We’re not just falling behind them, we’re missing it by a mile. You need at least 10,000 IU per day long-term to achieve that.
Guess what comes next? When the “experts,” at least in the UK, are asked about the safety and toxicity of vitamin D, they say we should not take more than 2000 IU per day. But this is based on the UK’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) 2016 report. SACN cited a 2006 paper by Vieth as showing toxic effects above this level. However, the Vieth paper actually states that toxicity may occur at 25(OH)D concentrations beyond 500 nmol/L (200 ng/ml), levels which could not be achieved unless an individual was taking extremely high doses for a prolonged period of time (such as 30,000 IU/day for three months). [13] This warning has been misunderstood and misquoted and has given rise to a lot of pointless restriction of vitamin D intake. So even though the error about vitamin D safety was pointed out 15 years ago, and repeatedly since then, it is still being perpetuated by supposed experts.
Two years down the line, then, we at the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service are still saying the same simple message that nutrition works. And the bureaucrats at the ‘Ministry of Truth’ are still deleting it.
References
1. Saul AW (2020) Vitamin C Protects Against Coronavirus. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n04.shtml
2. Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance: Prevention & Treatment Protocols for COVID-19. (2022) https://covid19criticalcare.com
3. Klenner FR. (1949) The treatment of poliomyelitis and other virus diseases with vitamin C. South Med J, 111:209-214. https://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/194x/klenner-fr-southern_med_surg-1949-v111-n7-p209.htm
4. Klenner FR. (1951) Massive Doses of Vitamin C and the Virus Diseases. Presented in the Fifty-second Annual Meeting of the Tri-State Medical Association of the Carolinas and Virginia, held at Columbia, February 19th and 20th, 1951. https://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/195x/klenner-fr-southern_med_surg-1951-v103-n4-p101.htm
5. Holford P, Carr AC, Zawari M, Vizcaychipi MP (2021) Vitamin C Intervention for Critical COVID-19: A Pragmatic Review of the Current Level of Evidence. Life, 11:1166. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/11/11/1166
6. Holford P (2021) Twelve intervention trials conclude that vitamin C works for Covid. So why are hospitals being prohibited from using it? Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v17n27.shtml
7. Health Advisory and Recovery Team (2021) COVID-19: the case for supporting the human immune system with vitamin D: Why is this simple vitamin not promoted more? https://www.hartgroup.org/briefing-covid-19-the-case-for-supporting-the-human-immune-system-with-vitamin-d
8. Mohr SB, Gorham ED, Garland CF, et al. (2021) San Diego group studying positive effects of sunlight. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Mohr+SB+Gorham+ED+Garland+CF
9. Lowther M (2020) Why are there fewer nutrients in our food? Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n54.shtml
10. Downing D (2020) How we can fix this pandemic in a month. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n49.shtml
11. Power ML, Oftedal OT, Savage A, et al. (1997) Assessing vitamin D status of callitrichids: Baseline data from wild cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) in Colombia. Zoo Biol 16:39-46. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-2361(1997)16:1<39::AID-ZOO6>3.0.CO;2-C
12. Power ML, Dittus, WPJ (2017) Vitamin D status in wild toque macaques (Macaca sinica) in Sri Lanka. Am J Primatol. 79:e22655. http://www.primates.lk/health-vitamin-d-in-wild-monkeys-and-you
13. Vieth R (2006) Critique of the considerations for establishing the tolerable upper intake level for vitamin D: critical need for revision upwards. J Nutr, 136:1117-1122. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16549491
Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine
Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org
January 17, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, Facebook, UK |
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The Maine Board of Medical Licensure has 5 matters before it in my case. Here are the first 3:
The first 2 are complaints from private citizens, who claimed that I spread misinformation on the internet. Neither complainant knows me or is a patient. Neither complaint has anything to do with medical care. Each says the complaint was initiated after they watched me in a video. One said the information I was disseminatiog was a “danger to the public.”
The third complaint is from a midwife who complained that I gave a pregnant patient hydroxychloroquine for acute COVID without asking her, when she could have given the patient monoclonal antibodies instead.
My response is that hydroxychloroquine is approved in pregnancy and is a safe, licensed drug. Monoclonal antibodies are an experimental biologic product that have not been approved in pregnancy ; in fact, the pregnancy risks have not even been studied. The midwife apparently did not know this about the product she is prescribing in pregnancy.
Unapproved drugs have no label. For a legal description of what is known about them, one must read a fact sheet. For example, here is what the FDA-approved Fact Sheet for sotrovimab, the only commonly used monoclonal said to be effective against omicron, says about its risk in pregnancy:
“11.1 Pregnancy Risk Summary
There are insufficient data to evaluate a drug-associated risk of major birth defects, miscarriage, or adverse maternal or fetal outcome. Sotrovimab should be used during pregnancy only if the potential benefit justifies the potential risk for the mother and the fetus. Nonclinical reproductive toxicity studies have not been conducted with sotrovimab. In a crossreactive binding assay using a protein array enriched for human embryofetal proteins, no offtarget binding was detected for sotrovimab. Since sotrovimab is a recombinant human immunoglobulin G (IgG) containing the LS modification in the Fc domain, it has the potential for placental transfer from the mother to the developing fetus. The potential treatment benefit or risk of placental transfer of sotrovimab to the developing fetus is not known. The estimated background risk of major birth defects and miscarriage for the indicated population is unknown.“
On the other hand, the label for hydroxychloroquine says the following about use in pregnancy:
“Pregnancy
Teratogenic Effects: Human pregnancies resulting in live births have been reported in the literature and no increase in the rate of birth defects has been demonstrated. Embryonic deaths and malformations of anophthalmia and microphthalmia in the offspring have been reported when pregnant rats received large doses of chloroquine.”
What does CDC say about hydroxychloroquine in pregnancy?
“Hydroxychloroquine can be prescribed to adults and children of all ages. It can also be safely taken by pregnant women and nursing mothers.”
Do you think perhaps the Medical Board and the complaining midwife bothered to check this information? I think not.
January 17, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, Human rights, United States |
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THE period 2020-2022 is remembered as the Great Covid Madness.
History has witnessed many periods of mass hysteria including plagues of dancing, witch trials, alien invasion and ghostly apparitions, not to mention the Seattle Windscreen Pitting Epidemic. However, it is likely that the hysteria witnessed during the Great Covid Madness surpassed anything that had gone before or since.
The delusions included:
The belief that the UK’s National Health Service was the ‘envy of the world’.
The belief that propaganda from the BBC, state-controlled media and the Chinese Communist Party was true.
The belief that a rich software salesman was a philanthropist and also an expert on vaccines and the transmission of viruses.
Decisions by managers at so-called ‘Health Trusts’ to send hospital patients with the virus back to care homes to infect other vulnerable old people who did not have the virus.
The insatiable desire to hoard toilet paper.
Banning the sale of ‘non-essential’ items such as shoes, and closing small retailers.
The introduction of pointless and discriminatory ‘health passports’.
The reliance on the accuracy of discredited PCR and LF tests.
Everything associated with Test and Trace.
Quarantine for healthy international travellers.
The persistent belief in discredited statistics from Imperial College London and Sage.
The belief in the proven lies of politicians, and most journalists.
The belief that a dirty rag placed over the mouth and nose was healthy and could stop the inhalation of a microscopic virus.
The belief that a piece of plastic between tables in a cafe could stop the transmission of a virus.
The belief that a sitting person would not transmit a virus whereas a standing person would.
The belief that a healthy person was a threat and could transmit a virus.
The belief that flu had disappeared and that a cold was something to dread.
The banning of healthy exercises such as team sports, golf, swimming and park runs.
Picnics and sunbathing viewed as dangerous to health.
Park benches and playgrounds regarded as disease vectors.
The refusal to distribute effective anti-viral medicines.
The isolation of lonely, sick and vulnerable people.
The closure of churches.
The belief that unjabbed health-care workers posed a greater risk to patients than those who had accepted the experimental gene therapy.
The ruination of the education and life chances of young people who were in no danger from the virus.
The belief that it was safe for six people to meet but not seven or more.
The belief that the indiscriminate injection of an untested experimental gene therapy was sensible.
The belief that mixing and matching the unproven gene therapies was sensible.
The belief that subsequent injections of the experimental gene therapy (which after two injections had not stopped infection or transmission) would prevent infection by and transmission of mutations of the virus.
The refusal to acknowledge or investigate the injuries and deaths caused by the experimental gene therapies.
The dismissal of the concept of naturally acquired immunity.
Willingly sacrificing the health of children and young people on the altar of ‘Community Safety’.
The creation of an unsustainable National Debt.
Footnote:
History records that the tyranny lasted far longer than the virus. Many of those who participated in the hysteria also believed that the tiny increase in atmospheric CO2 caused by human activities would cause catastrophic climate change.
January 16, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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Jessica went on CNN saying Spotify should remove the Malone interview. I reached out to her asking if she wanted to debate Malone and the rest of us. She blocked me.
Check this out. First watch this video clip of infectious disease expert Jessica Malaty Rivera on CNN claiming that Malone is spreading COVID misinformation:
I then tweeted this in response to her tweet about the podcast:
Jessica responded within minutes with her reply to my generous offer:

Malone’s Rogan interview reached over 50 million people
The Malone podcast reached over 50 million people. It is the most listened to podcast in Rogan history. None of the “experts” calling for censorship of Malone’s podcast are willing to step up to the plate and challenge him on the science. Zero. They simply want to censor him with no debate. Do you know why? Here’s why:

That is not the American way.
Please share this. Widely.
And please let Jessica know as well, since I can’t anymore. Thanks!
January 16, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | CNN, Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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