CORONA Main Coronavirus thread

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
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Fungal infections increase mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients worldwide
by André Julião, FAPESP
September 12, 2022


fungal-infections-incr.jpg

In the diagram, spores of the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus enter the lungs by the airways and grow within hours to contaminate the alveoli and impair breathing. Infection is fatal if it cannot be eliminated, as in immunocompromised patients. GAG is galactosaminogalactan, an integral component of the A. fumigatus biofilm matrix and a key virulence factor. Credit: Molecular Biology Laboratory/FCFRP-USP

Every day we inhale thousands of potentially pathogenic fungal spores, but our immune system simply eliminates them. However, in people with compromised immunity, such as transplant and cancer patients, as well as hospitalized patients in intensive care, the interaction between pathogen and host may be quite different.

Fungal infections that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, reinforcing the action of SARS-CoV-2 around the world, are a case in point. Mortality reached 80% among severe COVID-19 patients infected with the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, for example.

A review article by an international group of researchers analyzing SARS-CoV-2/fungus co-infections during the pandemic is published in Nature Microbiology, with warnings relevant to the present and to future pandemics.

"The key issue with fungi is that they're an extremely neglected public health problem with few treatment options. We're currently seeing more deaths caused by fungal diseases than malaria and tuberculosis together, so it's hardly surprising that fungal diseases have taken advantage of the fact that so many people have been hospitalized because of COVID-19," said Gustavo Henrique Goldman, a professor at the University of São Paulo's Ribeirão Preto School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (FCFRP-USP) in Brazil and one of the principal investigators for the study, which was supported by FAPESP.

Besides aspergillosis, the disease caused by fungi of the genus Aspergillus, co-infections concurrently with COVID-19 are caused by two other groups. Fungi of the order Mucorales are responsible for mucormycosis, which occurs mainly in India and Pakistan, while yeasts of the genus Candida cause candidiasis and are present practically the world over.

"COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis [CAPA] affects on average 10% of patients with acute respiratory insufficiency admitted to intensive care units. Patients with this co-infection are twice as likely to die as patients infected only by SARS-CoV-2," Martin Hoenigl, first author of the study, told Agência FAPESP. Hoenigl is a professor at the University of California San Diego in La Jolla (U.S.) and at the University of Graz (Austria).

Gains and losses

According to the article, aspergillosis can remain confined to the upper airways for many days and can be contained with antifungals. Once it has invaded blood vessels in the lungs, however, mortality exceeds 80% even if a systemic antifungal therapy is administered.

Candidiasis occurs almost exclusively in patients in intensive care units and is not more frequent in COVID-19 patients than those hospitalized for other reasons. However, Candida auris, an emerging fungus, is a concern because it can colonize the skin. In addition, it appears to be the only fungus transmitted between people. The species is resistant to all known antifungals and, being present in a wide array of environments, can easily infect patients on mechanical ventilators or with catheters and other invasive life support equipment present in hospitals.

COVID-19-associated mucormycosis (CAM) is a severe problem, especially in India, where the number of cases doubled during the pandemic. News of this mycosis drew international attention in 2021 when more than 47,500 cases were notified in India in the period May-August alone. Classed as an epidemic by the Indian government at the time, it was mistakenly called "black fungus" because of the color of the tissue necrotized by the disease. Actual black fungi are part of a different group that is relatively distant from Mucorales and does not cause disease in humans.

In COVID-19 patients, mucormycosis often occurs in the region of the eyes and nose, and can reach the brain. The mortality rate is 14% in these cases, in which the two diseases occur together. Because mucormycosis causes necrosis, it may require surgery and end up disfiguring the patient. Patients who survive it may lose parts of their face and suffer from problems for the rest of their lives. If the lungs are affected, or the fungus spreads throughout the organism, mortality reaches 80%.

"The prevalence of this mycosis in India was 0.27% in patients hospitalized with COVID-19, although it frequently occurs in people outside hospitals, such as those treated at home with very high doses of systemic steroids, which are easily obtained by most Indians," Hoenigl said.

The use of steroids and other drugs that reduce immune system activity is one of the causes of the global rise in fungal infections. While the strategy was successful during the pandemic and the benefits surpassed the risks, the researchers warn that it is important to avoid abusive administration of immunosuppressant drugs.

As an alternative, some centers at high risk for aspergillosis successfully implemented antifungal prophylaxis during the pandemic by administering drugs before infection by these agents. However, because fungi are often resistant to most available medications and there are insufficient clinical studies to evaluate the strategy, it is not recommended at present.

"Immunosuppressants are a major advance in medicine. They prevent many deaths from cancer and autoimmune diseases, as well as playing a key role in organ transplants. However, a side-effect of their use has been a significant rise in the incidence of fungal infections," Goldman said. "Except for some heat-tolerant species, such as A. fumigatus, fungi normally can't tolerate mammalian body temperatures and are easily combated by our innate immunity. But when our immune system is too weak to fight off highly inflammatory diseases like COVID-19, they take the opportunity to attack us."

Novel medications

In addition, many fungi are adapting to higher temperatures as the global climate warms up, and this also makes humans more vulnerable. As a result, novel antifungal medications are urgently needed, experts agree. Currently there are only four classes of antifungals, compared with dozens of classes of antibacterials (antibiotics), for example.

Another problem is the difficulty of diagnosing fungal infections. Diagnostic tests are too expensive for most people in low- and middle-income countries, and test results may take too long to become available for the right treatment to be prescribed.

For example, a 100% certain diagnosis of aspergillosis requires a bronchoscopy, a type of exam considered highly risky during the COVID-19 pandemic and hence avoided as much as possible. The amount of fluid expelled from the patient during the procedure is more than sufficient to transmit SARS-CoV-2 to the medical team. Cases of aspergillosis are probably underestimated as a result.

"The good news is that several novel classes of antifungals have been developed and are currently in phase 2 and 3 clinical trials," Hoenigl said.

However, the researchers fear these novel drugs will not reach all those who need them. Cutting-edge treatments could remain confined to the rich countries, as the inequality of their availability is likely to continue.

"Against the backdrop of global warming with few available drugs, and diseases that weaken immunity while causing epidemics and pandemics, outbreaks of fungal infections are highly likely. We need more tools to control them and more scientists to study the different fungi and their action mechanisms," Goldman said.
 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
(fair use applies)


Booster Nations
The Never-ending Onslaught of Covid Booster Shots

Robert W Malone MD, MS
22 hr ago

Guest commentary and opinion by Jeremy Harrigan

When I think back to my childhood and all the injections I received as a kid, and then fast forward to my time served in the Army for 20 years, I can remember some of the shots I had prior to deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan involving some boosters that they told me were necessary, so of course I just stuck out my arm like a good boy or a good soldier and didn’t think much of it.

First, a quick flashback to the Pill Scene from original film “The Matrix”, from 1999: Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne) offers Neo (Keanu Reeves) the choice of taking the Blue Pill or the Red Pill. If Neo took the blue pill, he could wake up in his bed and believe whatever he wanted to believe about the world he lived in, basically just living out his life going through the motions, being a good citizen, a hard worker, and always giving blind obedience to authority. But if he took the red pill, the scales would be lifted from his eyes and would come to know the truth that he was born into bondage, a slave to a system of tyranny and absolute control over human beings embedded inside a fake reality computer program called The Matrix. Out of sense of curiosity but also a leap of faith, of course Neo takes the Red Pill and he becomes a total bad-ass, and you know the rest of the story if you watched the movie and its sequels.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/7420387b-b22f-4b02-b315-fd58b840844d_1412x836.png
Sadly, so many people around the world want to continue taking the blue-pill, or are taking the blue-pill whether they even realize it or not. Sure, no government institutions or media outlets are perfect, but they must still be looking out for my well-being (they reckon to themselves), so I will keep doing what I’m told; I’m sure everything will work out just fine. Whether it is from a sense of pride, arrogance or stubborn ignorance, they continue to fall for a counterfeit, and thus bury their heads in the sand as time marches on.

Now, having been red-pilled for over ten years when it comes to the greed and corruption of Big Pharma, especially when it comes to the push to vaccinate the world in general, it seems this unbridled Covid booster campaign just keeps gaining speed. The other day, I went to the coronavirus.house.gov press releases webpage and was blown away by a statement Rep. James E. Clyburn, Chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis issued following a statement after the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) authorized Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech single dose bivalent coronavirus vaccines for use as a booster at least two months following primary or booster vaccination for virtually all Americans 12 and older by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). You can read the statement HERE. The narrative still gets pushed forward, and the drug manufactures still receive impetuous, lavish praise.

Summary of key points:
  • COVID-19 vaccine boosters have been generating a lot of controversy
  • COVID-19 vaccine boosters have not undergone any human trials, not even on mice
  • The expected harms caused by the boosters likely outweigh any benefits to public health
  • Mandated Booster Shots Cause More Harm Than Good
Despite the narrative surrounding Rep Clyburn’s statement which continues to brainwash blue-pilled America, I had to a double-take and read again the part where the FDA is authorizing this new single dose bivalent coronavirus vaccines for use as a booster at least two months following primary or booster vaccination. Are you kidding me? The booster I had two months ago is no good, and now they are telling me I need another one? What the heck is going on here? Most fully-vaccinated should have an easy time remembering whether they had the first shot, or had their first two shots with 4-6 weeks between each one. But I suppose there are those out there who may be asking themselves “Wait a minute, gosh how many boosters have I had now, gee I’ve lost count”. In Canada, public health authorities are suggesting Canadians will need COVID-19 vaccines every 90 days. It just goes on and on.

According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, it’s full speed ahead with the booster protocol, who stated on CBC this week “We don’t have time to do a clinical trial because we need to get the vaccine out now,” pointing to how about 400 Americans are dying per day with COVID-19 and thousands of others are in hospitals with the disease. Dr. Harvey Risch, a professor emeritus of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, said that Fauci’s comments were hypocritical because randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) were required for the original vaccines, when the mortality of the virus was much higher. You can find the rest of what Dr. Risch had to say in response to Dr. Fauci, who is echoing other top U.S. officials, including CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, on this page.

When is the world going to wake up and begin to realize some very basic, rational common-sense arguments: if social distancing works, why do we need masks?’ If masks work, why do we need social distancing? If both social distancing and masks work, why do we need to take a vaccine? If the vaccines work, why do we need social distancing and masks combined or if the original first two jabs worked and were really that good, why would anyone need boosters, even if they considered themselves to be high-risk? And this far into the pandemic, if my last booster did some necessary clean up or repair from the injection I had before that, why then do I need another booster? And another? And yet another?

Voluntary boosters are one thing, but when mandates are superimposed onto boosters such as on our college campuses right now, our young people become most vulnerable. Any young college student who already considers themselves fully-vaccinated are in peril. They may feel compelled or directed to undergo boosters just to enroll and start fall classes. It’s a trap, because there is no recourse for vaccine-injured young adults—the very people who will be running our country in generations to come. Other repercussions from these mandates on our young people are becoming more widespread and will have lasting effects.

In Canada, Justin Trudeau is threatening that COVID tyranny will return this fall if 90% booster shot compliance isn’t achieved. In other words, OBEY OR BE LOCKED DOWN…again! With summer about to close in, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is already threatening to reinstate more lockdowns, mask mandates, and “vaccine” requirements for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) if not enough Canadians voluntarily line up for the latest “booster” jab. And he expects maximum compliance.

In a statement he provided to the press inside what appeared to be a hospital room, Trudeau argued that Covid is “not done with us yet,” even though the vast majority of the world is done with it. “We might want to be done with it, but it’s still around,” Trudeau stated. “And yes, we have a lot more tools, a lot more understanding, a lot more knowledge on how to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. But we also know that as winter comes, and as people get pushed back indoors, there is a real risk of another serious wave of covid.” The only solution to that potential “wave,” according to Trudeau, is “to ensure that everyone is up to date on their vaccinations,” otherwise provinces will have to “make decisions about restrictions and mandates.”

“The recommendation is you should be up to date on your vaccinations if you have had a dose within six months,” Trudeau added. “Everyone who has been a while since their vaccinations should look at the fact that we have new vaccines coming out this month that are tailored against Omicron that will provide better protection, and everyone should get out and get vaccinated.”

“If we are able to hit that 80, 85, 90 percent of Canadians up to date in their vaccinations, we’ll have a much better winter with much less need for the kinds of restrictions and rules that were so problematic for everyone over the past years,” he went on to blab.

“But every step of the way, government’s responsibility is to keep people safe, to prevent our health care systems from getting overwhelmed, and that’s where individuals choosing to make sure they’re up to date on their vaccinations with these new vaccines is going to help us all.”

You can watch Trudeau say these crazy things here.

The Freedom Convoy trucker protest is when I really started tuning in to what Justin Trudeau was saying, how he was behaving and the tyrannical decisions he began making. Trudeau has been on an extreme tyranny kick the past few years, and really seems to be enjoying himself and his ability to impose whatever nightmarish scenario he wishes with seemingly minimal pushback from Canadians.

He invoked the Emergencies Act (passed by Parliament way back in 1988) and shut down people’s bank accounts, not just of the truckers but even those who supported and aided the truckers. I would suspect Trudeau is going to be met with resistance from the people if he thinks another round of plandemic theater is justified. In the video above Trudeau uses a mixture of wild hand gestures, frequent bug eyes, and spastic verbal inflections which show how truly deranged this manchurian candidate with a dictator complex is becoming.

With the booster rollout already unfolding, we can expect the medical tyranny dial to be turned to maximum this fall and winter. Perhaps this booster obsession may finally turn on the light bulb for the masses who have lined up willingly to take the initial 2-3 jabs, that they would come to their senses and say enough is enough—no boosters for me, something is just not right here.

And by the way, they are not booster doses anymore. It’s an ‘updated vaccine’ and you will need it 8 weeks after your last shot, or so says the White House. Inconveniently, the FDA specifically calls these products “updated boosters”, but corporate media will be quite glad to use the language recommended by noted immunologist and vaccinologist Dr. Karine Jean-Pierre, who currently serves as the Chief spokesperson for the executive branch of the United States government.
 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
(fair use applies)


BREAKING: NEJM study as a clear example of the COVID gene injection vaccine subverting, damaging established natural immunity in prior infected (COVID-recovered) children (Dan-Yu Lin et al.)
COVID gene injection vaccines damage & reverse natural immunity from prior infection, seen in children taking Pfizer vaccine; pertains to damage to the INNATE immune system (innate antibodies)???

Dr. Paul Alexander
15 hr ago

Is this why Geert Vanden Bossche was right when he said Africa will win this insane COVID injection madness by not vaccinating their children, or at least allowing time for their innate antibodies to train their innate immune systems? Is this why African nations have fared so well against COVID and especially omicron BA.5 clade in terms of infection/cases with their low vaccination rates? Is it really because Africa allowed their infants, children, teens, young people to exercise the training of their innate immunity, to be harassed and primed daily by the circulating omicron and ongoing pandemic, as such pressured by circulating virus (massive infectious pressure) and as such allowing the innate to be taxed and tuned up daily? Is the answer really all along, with our children and their potent 1st line immune defense INNATE immune systems, and being allowed to be trained?

Let us look at the omicron BA.5 infections/cases up to today, in South Africa and their vaccine update. As you see, the increase due to the omicron was slight and fell flat as the trained innate immune system of the African kids and young persons (with trained innate immune systems) cleared out the virus as it should. They got back to herd immunity. As you see nations with low vaccine rates had low infection/cases in omicron, South Africa is a case example.



OK, now onto the subject matter, the recent NEJM study.

Basis of the NEJM study:

‘Among 887,193 children 5 to 11 years of age in the study, 193,346 SARS-CoV-2 infections occurred between March 11, 2020, and June 3, 2022; A total of 273,157 children had received at least one dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine between November 1, 2021, and June 3, 2022.’

When you read their conclusion, you could easily think that the vaccine confers protection akin to natural exposure immunity: “Both the BNT162b2 (Pfizer) vaccine and previous infection were found to confer considerable immunity against omicron infection and protection against hospitalization and death. The rapid decline in protection against omicron infection that was conferred by vaccination and previous infection provides support for booster vaccination.”

But let us look at these graphs in detail:

Look at graphs C and D, for it shows us that the the vaccinated children who had COVID infection prior (infection then shots), were at increased risk of re-infection than the children who were not vaccinated (yet had prior COVID infection). As such, it appears in this data that in children who were prior infected then got the vaccine, they were then re-infected.

Over the entire reported examination period (March 2021 to May 2022), it seems that prior infected children who were not injected, enjoyed far greater protection from a subsequent re-infection, than those who were infected but got injected. Did the COVID gene injection damage and subvert, sideline, the immunity (natural immunity) of prior infected and recovered children (Graph D)? Graph D (as opposed to graph C) shows a devastating decline in effectiveness protection from November 2021 to May 2022 (approximately 7 months). How come? Again, did the COVID gene injection damage prior functional natural immunity? Did it subvert and damage the 1st line of defense innate immune system (innate antibodies and natural killer cells (NK cells)? From their functional capacity to clear out pathogen?

Moreover, if we focus on the graph B (top right), you see protection (vaccine effectiveness) falls to zero and below at about the same time post shot. Why? For both prior infected and prior uninfected children. This is very alarming, and happened in about 20 to 22 weeks (5 months). IMO as I look at this graph, it seems that the COVID gene injection has subverted the benefit and gain from natural immunity due to prior infection and those children’s immune systems operated as if they were never prior infected. The benefit of prior infection appears to be subverted and damaged by the injection/vaccine. The child is very vulnerable then not only to COVID virus, but to a host of pathogen then that share similar sugars and glycans and surface patterns, glycosylated viruses, and very vulnerable to auto-immune disease too. By the way, I am junior to immunologists and virologists and always open to suggestion, correction, and learning. Feel free.

It is catastrophic to bypass the specific window of opportunity training that the child’s innate antibodies and innate immune system (and natural killer cells (NK cells)) MUST go through. We have been arguing against this all along, this is why the child must not receive these COVID injections, no healthy child. This data is sending us a message that the immune system of children maybe be damaged if potentially vaccinated with the COVID injection too early or even at all. We need this investigated urgently and thank God parents are not rushing to inject their kids post the FDA and CDC approval 6 months to 5 years etc.

We need to think about this carefully for it is horrendous if as this data shows. Moreover, post infection, it is not only memory B and T cells that we have to think about, for there is also the key training of the INNATE immune system, this training and education due to the innate antibodies that bind to the virus and educate the innate immune system and larger immune system so that the child is broadly protected against a range of glycosylated viruses. Including COVID. Including dengue, cholera, hepatitis, polio etc. In other words, a damaged immune system.

I think this has to do with timing of the administered COVID injection and the issue of the induced antigen-specific vaccinal antibodies and it’s greater affinity for the antigen (spike), over the lower-affinity, broadly protective innate antibodies (and natural immunity B-cell derived antibodies). I am speculating to help explain graphs C and D, that if the COVID injection (vaccine) is administered too early in the child’s growth, so it is a timing issue, before the child’s innate antibodies can adequately train the innate immune system (and I am taking tone from Geert VB), then the lack of training leaves the child susceptible to a host of pathogen, not just to COVID. They can be susceptible to a host of viruses like polio, measles, mumps, rubella, flu, common-cold coronaviruses, rotavirus etc. Their immune systems will not be able to recognize ‘self’ from ‘non-self’ components and can fall victim to auto-immune reactivity.

All this to say that something is terribly wrong here and it appears that the COVID gene injection vaccine (mRNA Pfizer platform) is harming the COVID recovered natural immunity as seen in this cohort of children. Does the COVID gene injection subvert the entire immune system or only for glycosylated virus pathogen? Or only for COVID virus?





SOURCE


 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
(fair use applies)


DEATHVAX™ Sports Edition: 1249 Athlete Heart Attacks, 847 Dead, Since Last Year
“The COVID vaccine is a normal vaccine. The COVID vaccine is safe. These injuries and deaths are normal.”

2nd Smartest Guy in the World
20 hr ago

Real Science is tracking athlete deaths and adverse events from the time of the slow kill bioweapon release through early September of this year.

The average athlete deaths per year prior to the DEATHVAX™ were 29 as per International Olympic Committee research versus the current 847 athlete deaths.



These articles were written when this substack was just starting out showing 5-fold sudden cardiac deaths of FIFA soccer player — note this was before the SADS term was coined and deployed:


"...available data shows that worldwide professional football / soccer match cardiovascular deaths in 2021 were 300% higher than the 12-year average..."​



Every day more horrifying data comes in further proving that we are in the midst of a CFR, UN, WEF, BigPharma, BigTech et al. driven One World Government eugenics program.

The sociopaths running this depopulation and control operation could care less if they are murdering elite pro athletes, your friends, family or you.

The population reduction ends justifies the means.
 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
(fair use applies)

The Extinct SARS-CoV-2's in Deer Study
Alpha and Gamma variants detected in deer months after going "extinct" in human transmission.

Brian Mowrey
14 hr ago

A new pre-print helpfully shines light on SARS-CoV-2 transmission in an animal population, demonstrating that variants no longer apparent in human infection might persist in deer, at least for several months. Does this mean that the Omicron siblings came from wild animals (no), or that Delta might not be dead after all (yes)?
A minor note: Substack restored a pre-publish draft of this post a few hours after posting. Hopefully the current, correct version stays online this time.


Golden Oldies

The paper:1


Caserta, LC. et al.

The punchline:

These findings indicate that [white-tailed deer] – the most abundant large mammal in North America – may serve as a reservoir for variant SARS-CoV-2 strains that no longer circulate in the human population.

Background

Previous findings in a population of deer, in Ohio, showed Alpha circulating in late winter and spring of 2021.2 So: Not the same as finding extinct variants in autumn of the same year, as this new paper does.

The Set-up

A total of 5,462 retropharyngeal lymph node (RPLN) samples collected from free-ranging hunter-harvested [white-tailed deer] during the hunting seasons of 2020 […] and 2021 […] were tested by SARS-CoV-2 real-time RT-PCR. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in 17 samples (0.6%) from Season 1 and in 583 (21.1%) samples from Season 2.

The disparity in positivity rates might seem to be driven by background case rates in New York, where the “Wuhan” model was still “burned out” in 2020 until the winter. In summer and autumn of 2021, the Northeast, including New York, had more human cases:




The Findings​

On the other hand, human case rates in the summer might not be principally relevant compared to case rates in late spring, since it seems like crossovers from that era were still transmitting in deer. This is in stark contrast to 2020, which featured an earlier end to the spring wave in New York, and resulted in very few positive PCRs in hunting season:


Caserta, LC. et al. (Fig. 1) (heavily annotated) My impression is that “September” only includes the last few days of the month.

Naturally, the collection of 69 Delta sequences between September and December, 2021, is not surprising — it is consistent with fresh human-to-deer transmission of a virus that white-tailed deer are known to be susceptible to. To collect 27 Gamma and 54 Alpha sequences in the same time-frame, however, suggests that these vanquished human variants were still circulating in this animal reservoir:


Caserta, LC. et al. (Fig. 3) (annotated)

Sequences also appear to show an accelerated rate of mutation in deer — not surprising as the virus would be expected to adapt to its new host. Here, I have added “eye-ball-software”-based mutation rates that correct for the authors’ software’s non-assumption of multiple cross-overs:


Caserta, LC. et al. Supplementary Fig. 1. Dashed orange lines added using “eye-ball-software.” Note that vertical scale is different for each image, so visual comparisons between panels are not accurate. Once again there are discrepancies in the year-position for Alpha and Delta; these appear to be data entry errors. The authors may update these images to correct some of the dots.

The difficulty in trying to judge mutation rates this way is that multiple, sequential cross-overs from humans — where the viral genome is more static — will cause the rate of mutations in deer to appear lower than it really is. And so for gamma, presumably the least recently-connected to any human cross-over, the rate appears highest (however, this might be an illusion caused by coincidentally finding the most mutated samples after the least, if transmission in deer had indeed been going on since spring).

For both Alpha and Gamma, at any rate, 2021 season deer had some impressively-mutated sequences, the kind that WHO declarations of “concern” are made of, though not out of proportion to previous sequences from North American deer (see Fig. 5 “wheel” below).

“Footprint” vs. Active Transmission?​

Contra the authors, SARS-CoV-2 RNA positivity in lymph nodes might not correlate with active infection or transmission. The expected “baseline” duration of RNA viruses in either human or animal lymph nodes is surprisingly poorly-studied. As discussed in “The 60 Day RNA Mystery,” it may be the case that entire viral particles are frequently preserved in germinal centers for long periods after acute infection.

So, it could be the case that by using lymph nodes as the source material, the authors are revealing a “reservoir” that is even less poorly illuminated than they thought — and one that might not correspond to transmissible virus.

Notably, of 216 samples that were PCR positive at less than 30 cycles, only 7 were successfully cell-culture-recovered in Vero-E6 TMPRRSS2 cells; and the corresponding sequences were all for Delta variants.3


Caserta, LC. et al. (Fig.1) (annotated)

So, perhaps the reason spring-era variants (and even a few vintage B.1’s from before spring) were detected, is that RNA from spring-era deer infections was still lingering in lymph node germinal centers?

Arguing against this interpretation, however, is that the spring variants were detected in geographic and temporally related clusters. For example, sub-30-CT positives which were later sequenced as Alpha and Gamma appeared to “disperse” actively throughout nearby deer, based on collection times — suggesting active transmission, rather than the “footprint” of a spring wave.


Caserta, LC. et al. (Fig. 7) (annotated)

While it’s not clear whether or how the authors ruled out that human hunting and collection patterns were actually driving these trends, it’s at least tentative evidence in the “transmission” column (also, sequences appeared truly “sequential,” per the text, revealing “an intricate dispersal pathway with clear connections between the sequences”).
Further, Gamma would be expected to appear more frequently outside of the cluster if long-term retention of non-transmitting viral RNA was common; it is limited to the Allegany area.4

Lastly, extreme mutational distance from any recorded human sequences, and narrowness of ancestry (monophylogeny relative to human sequences), is highly consistent with a single spring human-to-deer crossover that then spent a long time bouncing back and forth in deer.

As the authors put it,
All Gamma WTD sequences detected here formed a monophyletic group highly divergent from the human derived Gamma lineage sequences (Fig. 5A and C).


Caserta, LC. et al. Fig. 5. Distance from center is number of mutations from Wuhan reference genome. Black dots are deer-derived sequences from other authors. Notably, few other sources appear to have uploaded deer-derived Alpha or Gamma lineage sequences. This may once again support the notion that the Canada-Atlantic spring, 2021 wave was instrumental in creating the temporal transmission patterns observed here.

In fact, such a genetic signature would argue that long-term transmission in a zoonotic reservoir, something on the order of a half-year at least, was necessary to produce the sequences collected. So, count me on team “long term transmission reservoir” for now.5

[continued next post]
 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
[continued from post above]



Implications for Past and Future​

Does Caserta, et al. vindicate the “Zoonotic Omicron Origin” theory offered to the press by experts last year? Yes and no. It is certainly a proof-of-concept that an early B.1, from spring 2020, could have transmitted for an extended time in wild animals, featuring an elevated mutation rate for some or all of that period. In fact, 4 vintage-B.1-derived genomes are found among the 154 sequences that pass quality check in this study’s autumn, 2021 samples — though they only have on the order of 20 to 50 mutations from the Wuhan reference.6

However, the problem of the simultaneous discovery of the B.1 and B.2 “siblings” still remains; and suggests a lab origin as the most likely explanation for how two such distantly-related strains, with apparent divergent evolutionary pressures, would emerge in the same location.


On the other hand, does this mean that not-so-mild Delta will one day soon be the subject of “I thought you were dead / It didn’t take” memes the world over?

In light of the analysis of the gamma cluster above, I think it is at least demonstrably possible.7



1 Caserta, LC. et al. “White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) may serve as a wildlife reservoir for nearly extinct SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.”

2 Hale, VL. et al. (2021.) “SARS-CoV-2 infection in free-ranging white-tailed deer.” Nature. 2022 Feb;602(7897):481-486.
This paper uses nasal swabs instead of lymph nodes.

3 This could also simply be due to the impossibility of physically separating virus-containing portions of lymph nodes from the immune cells going about their work. That viruses were in germinal centers at all, per my devil’s-advocate theory, is pure assumption. They may have been anywhere, such as the subcapsular sinus or in antigen presenting cells, due to fresh delivery from infection zones. This is in contrast to trying to culture virus from tissues where it is truly actively infectious.

4 Supplementary table 8 reports two non-cluster Gamma sequences, one of which is in Allegany and the other in next-door Steuben county.

5 One alternate possibility is a blend of lab-leak followed by in-deer transmission. As discussed in footnote 7, it is certainly likely that human labs will continue to play with old SARS-CoV-2 variants for some time to come. This could lead not just to reemergence in humans, but in animals with shorter lifespans and hence less immune memory. Such a model allows for a delayed introduction of gamma into the “cluster” population. However, once again, the extreme mutational distance from any known human sequences suggests that sustained in-deer transmission did occur.

6 From Fig. 4. However, it is difficult to tell which of the B.1 sequences are from 2021 and which from 2020; but none exceed 50 (the lavender dots adjacent to the alpha tree).



As before, black dots are deer-derived sequences from other authors. Colored dots are from this study. Two B.1.1 samples (lavender) are from 2020 and one from 2021, per Supplementary table 8, so it does not seem that any B.1.x’s from 2021 are well-spread-in-deer, highly mutated 2020 cross-overs, but rather lingering in-human strains that crossed over in spring 2021.

7 Note: Reemergence of Delta from the negaverse was predicted here in January.


Of course, it’s arguably just as likely that Delta or another pre-Omicron variant leaks from a lab studying it (by accident this time). So, the determinative factor might be whether humanity has built up enough immune debt for the original generation of the virus. For H1N1 flu, which was kept alive in labs around the world after its disappearance in 1957, lab escape back into human circulation took 20 years. See “1918, I Love You.


own work

Since circulation in deer adds the element of active mutation, however, it might be expected to more quickly produce a (true) zoonotic re-emergence.
 

Zoner

Veteran Member
(fair use applies)


DEATHVAX™ Sports Edition: 1249 Athlete Heart Attacks, 847 Dead, Since Last Year
“The COVID vaccine is a normal vaccine. The COVID vaccine is safe. These injuries and deaths are normal.”

2nd Smartest Guy in the World
20 hr ago

Real Science is tracking athlete deaths and adverse events from the time of the slow kill bioweapon release through early September of this year.

The average athlete deaths per year prior to the DEATHVAX™ were 29 as per International Olympic Committee research versus the current 847 athlete deaths.



These articles were written when this substack was just starting out showing 5-fold sudden cardiac deaths of FIFA soccer player — note this was before the SADS term was coined and deployed:


"...available data shows that worldwide professional football / soccer match cardiovascular deaths in 2021 were 300% higher than the 12-year average..."​



Every day more horrifying data comes in further proving that we are in the midst of a CFR, UN, WEF, BigPharma, BigTech et al. driven One World Government eugenics program.

The sociopaths running this depopulation and control operation could care less if they are murdering elite pro athletes, your friends, family or you.

The population reduction ends justifies the means.
this is so sad...
 

psychgirl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I don't think it's entirely alarmist to suggest, at this point, some of them have to run for cover for their very lives.
..This global scale malfeasance isn't going to be called out and settled in the courts, all nice and civilized like. The "blunder" too big, and the maliciousness o' forethought too obvious.
I can only IMAGINE this happening on a world wide scale.

Massive upheaval on a scale that the likes of this world has never seen before.

Might as well just get it over with.
 

Zoner

Veteran Member
I don't think it's entirely alarmist to suggest, at this point, some of them have to run for cover for their very lives.
..This global scale malfeasance isn't going to be called out and settled in the courts, all nice and civilized like. The "blunder" too big, and the maliciousness o' forethought too obvious.
True.
Dr. Geert no doubt fears for his life. He's gone quiet for the last two months on the tsunami coming our way this Fall.
Big Pharma with big money could care less about morbidity and virulence and death.
 

psychgirl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
True.
Dr. Geert no doubt fears for his life. He's gone quiet for the last two months on the tsunami coming our way this Fall.
Big Pharma with big money could care less about morbidity and virulence and death.
This, is what I felt but feared …..that he was afraid for his life, and saying it out loud sounded too WOO.
 

Zoner

Veteran Member
This, is what I felt but feared …..that he was afraid for his life, and saying it out loud sounded too WOO.
Being afraid for your life is happening to all of us. Doctors that speak up are losing their jobs. 35 of trumps associates were raided. I think Geert saw the risk and because he’s got courage he took it. Big Pharma knows there was nothing he could do to stop them.
 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
I found a newer interview with Geert, I haven't watched it yet.

(fair use applies)


Live Every Friday at 11:30a.m. PT, 1:30p.m. CT, 2:30p.m. ET • Get Text Alerts

Friday Roundtable

Inquiring minds wanted. The Children’s Health Defense team answers your questions on the issues of the day. Regular guests include: Polly Tommey, Brian Hooker, Meryl Nass, Liz Mumper and Aimee Villella-Mcbride.

*The opinions expressed by the hosts and guests in this show are not necessarily the views of Children's Health Defense

Most Recent Episode - September 9

‘Friday Roundtable’ Episode 24: Agents of the State – CA Bill Criminalizes Informed Consent


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Previous Episodes

September 2, 2022
‘Friday Roundtable’ Episode 23: New Booster Rollout With No Human Testing With Meryl Nass, M.D., Toby Rogers, Ph.D. + Brian Hooker, Ph.D.


August 26, 2022
‘Friday Roundtable’ Episode 22: With Geert Vanden Bossche, DVM, Ph.D.




Link to video:

https://rumble.com/v1hfwtb-friday-roundtable-episode-22-with-geert-vanden-bossche.html?mref=6zof&mrefc=5
1 hr 9 min 50 sec
 

Crusty Echo 7

Veteran Member
I know the author is somewhat questionable towards biased; but from what I can tell, this is pretty accurate as far as how the hearing went.


The vaccine mandate for feds has not been enforced since a U.S. district judge in Texas first enjoined it in January.

The vaccine mandate for feds has not been enforced since a U.S. district judge in Texas first enjoined it in January. RUNSTUDIO/GETTY IMAGES
Management

Appeals Court: Where Does POTUS' Power to Force Feds to Vax End?​

The fate of President Biden's vaccine mandate once again hangs in the balance.​

ERIC KATZ
|
SEPTEMBER 13, 2022 01:53 PM ET

A federal appeals court asked the Biden administration where the president’s authority to issue edicts over the civil service ends, leaving open the possibility it will rule the White House overstepped when it mandated most federal employees receive the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Various judges of the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans asked a Justice Department attorney whether the president could also require federal employees to reach a certain weight, refrain from smoking at home, limit themselves to one child or take birth control under the same rationale he used to mandate the vaccines. The questioning took place in the oral arguments of the en banc hearing of the Fifth Circuit after the full court agreed to rehear the case and restore a nationwide injunction on the requirement. A panel of the court previously ruled in favor of the government, saying the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring their lawsuit.

“What I’m suggesting is there is no limit to the principle that you are espousing, which is we are requiring federal employees to take the vaccine mostly for their own good,” one judge said at the hearing.

Charles Scarborough, the Justice attorney making the government’s case on Tuesday, pushed back on that criticism, saying the president, as CEO of the executive branch, must demonstrate any orders he issues for the federal workforce improve the efficiency of the civil service and have a nexus to the workplace. He conceded the vaccine mandate invited such “extreme hypotheticals” as those floated on the bench, but said political realities and competition with the private sector for workers create further constraints.

A central part of the government’s argument again focused on the jurisdictional issue. In April, a 2-1 majority of a Fifth Circuit panel said the plaintiffs did not have standing in the federal circuit and must instead pursue their appeals through the Merit Systems Protection Board or Office of Special Counsel as laid out in the Civil Service Reform Act. Scarborough added the president has historically placed many conditions on employment in the federal workforce, such as through detailed background checks, requirements to avoid conflicts of interest and prohibitions on drug use.
Judge Rhesa Barksdale, who voted against the government in the earlier panel ruling, said the vaccine’s failure to prevent individuals from contracting COVID-19 meant it was more of a therapeutic and undermined the Biden’s administration’s argument. Scarborough said the distinction was immaterial, as the vaccine was the most effective way to protect federal employees against severe illness and death and preventing illness to federal employees clearly has some nexus to productivity of the workplace. He conceded when Biden issued the mandate last year, the vaccines were thought to be more effective against the transmission of the COVID-19 strains prevalent at that time and therefore the requirement would protect employees from getting infected.

“The fact is that the science has changed,” Scarborough said. “There are new variants and that particular rationale is somewhat eroded, but there are still significant rationales at play here in terms of preventing serious illness for federal employees, which has a clear nexus to the federal workplace in terms of productivity and efficiency.”

Another judge questioned whether the system Scarborough suggested—in which an employee must wait until they are first suspended or fired, and then take their case to MSPB—actually allowed for “meaningful judicial review.” Federal employees would face a chilling effect in the meantime, the judge said, and be at least temporarily subject to a policy that “itself is antithetical to personal freedom and choice.” Scarborough contended that was the scheme Congress created through the Civil Service Reform Act.

R. Trent McCotter, the attorney for the plaintiffs—the group Feds for Medical Freedom and a union representing some Homeland Security Department employees—said the coercion created by Biden’s mandate through government edict was unconstitutional. He added that individuals have always maintained the ability to challenge governmentwide policy prior to enforcement. McCotter noted the Fifth Circuit accepted similar logic when it stayed a Biden administration rule requiring the vaccine for large, private sector companies. That rule was later struck down by the Supreme Court.
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The en banc ruling, expected in the next few weeks, could be the last step after a lengthy court battle that has played out through many fits and starts over the last year. Feds for Medical Freedom has previously said it will take its case to the Supreme Court if the Fifth Circuit rules against it, though the high court may be less inclined to weigh in on the case after it already ruled on two vaccine mandate cases in January. If the mandate is ultimately permitted to stand, individual employees could still wind up in the federal circuit if they take their cases to MSPB and appeal further after an initial decision. The mandate has not been enforced since a U.S. district judge in Texas first enjoined it in January.
Marcus Thornton, president of Feds for Medical Freedom, said after the hearing that win or lose, his group had already scored a symbolic victory.
“Regardless of the court’s ruling, Feds for Medical Freedom has won a great victory by taking a stand, speaking truth to power, and making sure the American people know how outrageously their fellow Americans are being treated," Thornton said. "Federal workers who stood up for their rights have been subjected to personal and professional ridicule, disciplinary actions, threats of termination, and a generally hostile work environment," he added, calling that treatment "profoundly wrong."

The Biden administration last month ended its differential treatment of vaccinated and unvaccinated employees at most locations, meaning those who have not received their shots no longer have to take tests to enter their workplace.

While 98% of the federal workforce has gone along with Biden’s order, agencies are still looking to move forward with discipline for the tens of thousands of workers who have failed to comply. They are also hoping to resume adjudication of the roughly 5% of the workforce that has requested an exemption. A select few agencies have continued enforcement—primarily those with workers in a health care setting—though initial evidence showed it led to discipline for just a few dozen employees.

Related articles
Enforcement of Biden's Federal Employee COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Is Delayed—Again
The Biden Administration Ends COVID-19 Testing Aimed at Unvaccinated Workers
VA Has Disciplined 74 Employees Related to Its COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate
 

Crusty Echo 7

Veteran Member

“Ethically Unjustifiable” – Scientists from Harvard & Johns Hopkins Found Covid-19 Vaccines 98 Times Worse Than the Virus​

By Jim Hoft
Published September 12, 2022 at 5:10pm
895 Comments
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A new pre-print study by nine health experts from major universities showed that the COVID-19 vaccines are 98 times worse than the virus, and mandatory booster vaccination in college is “ethically unjustifiable,” as reported by Epoch Times.

The study was posted on The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) in September, titled, “COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters for Young Adults: A Risk-Benefit Assessment and Five Ethical Arguments against Mandates at Universities.

It was conducted by nine top scientists from the University of Washington, University of Oxford, University of Toronto, Harvard University – Harvard Medical School, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Johns Hopkins University – Department of Surgery, and others.

Using CDC and sponsor-reported adverse event data, researchers conclude that booster regulations may result in more harm than good.

According to the study, for every one COVID hospitalization prevented in previously uninfected young adults, “18 to 98 actual serious adverse events” have been caused.
“Per COVID-19 hospitalization prevented in previously uninfected young adults, we anticipate 18 to 98 serious adverse events, including 1.7 to 3.0 booster-associated myocarditis cases in males, and 1,373 to 3,234 cases of grade ≥3 reactogenicity which interferes with daily activities,” the study stated.

University booster mandates were deemed unethical by the researchers for the following reasons:
  • no formal risk-benefit assessment exists for this age group;
  • vaccine mandates may result in a net expected harm to individual young people;
  • mandates are not proportionate: expected harms are not outweighed by public health benefits given the modest and transient effectiveness of vaccines against transmission;
  • US mandates violate the reciprocity principle because rare serious vaccine-related harms will not be reliably compensated due to gaps in current vaccine injury schemes; and
  • mandates create wider social harms. We consider counter-arguments such as a desire for socialization and safety and show that such arguments lack scientific and/or ethical support.
The study concludes:
Based on public data provided by the CDC, we estimate that approximately 22,000 to 30,000 previous uninfected young adults ages 18–29 years must be boosted with an mRNA vaccine to prevent one Covid-19 hospitalisation. Given the fact that this estimate does not take into account the protection conferred by prior infection nor a risk-adjustment for comorbidity status this should be considered a conservative and optimistic assessment of benefit.
Our estimate shows that university Covid-19 vaccine mandates are likely to cause net expected harms to young healthy adults—between 18 and 98 serious adverse events requiring hospitalisation and 1373 to 3234 disruptions of daily activities—that is not outweighed by a proportionate public health benefit.


Serious Covid-19 vaccine-associated harms are not adequately compensated for by current US vaccine injury systems. As such, these severe infringements of individual liberty are ethically unjustifiable.
Worse still, mandates are associated with wider social harms. The fact that such policies were implemented despite controversy among experts and without updating the sole publicly available risk-benefit analysis to the current Omicron variants suggests a profound lack of transparency in scientific and regulatory policy making.

These findings have implications for mandates in other settings such as schools, corporations, healthcare systems and the military. Policymakers should repeal booster mandates for young adults immediately, ensure pathways to compensation to those who have suffered negative consequences from these policies, provide open access to participant-level clinical trial data to allow risk- and age-stratified harm-benefit analyses of any new vaccines prior to issuing recommendations125, and begin what will be a long process of rebuilding trust in public health
You can read and download the study hereand below:

COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters for Young Adults: A Risk-Benefit Assessment and Five Ethical Arguments against Ma… by Jim Hoft on Scribd
 

Crusty Echo 7

Veteran Member


Feature.jpg

DoDIG memo to SECDEF highlights deliberate violation of Federal Law within the DoD​

ChiefSeptember 13, 2022
6 Comments
The Department of Defense Inspector General (DoDIG) submitted a memo to the Secretary of Defense on June 2, 2022 to inform him of “potential noncompliance with standards for reviewing and documenting the denial of religious accommodation requests of Service members identified through complaints submitted to my office.”
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The memo states, “The Department of Defense Hotline received dozens of complaints regarding denied religious accommodation requests from Service members. We found a trend of generalized assessments rather than the individualized assessment that is required by Federal law and DoD and Military Service policies.”
At the bottom of the first page, the memo cites DoD Instruction 1300.17 which states:
“Religious Liberty in the Military Services” paragraph 3.2.d requires that “officials charged with making recommendations or taking final action on a Service member’s request for the accommodation of religious practices will review each request individually, considering the full range of facts and circumstances relevant to the specific request…. The means that is least restrictive to the requestor’s religious practice and that does not impede a compelling governmental interest will be determinative.”
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The memo goes on to state “the volume and rate at which decisions were made to deny requests is concerning…. We bring this to your attention for any action you deem appropriate to ensure that published guidance, including DoD Instruction 1300.17, ‘Religious Liberty in the Military Services,’ are followed when acting on requests for religious exemption…”
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We can see denial letters in the Air Force side by side involving multiple service members. The letters which emanated from the same commands are almost identical.
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Crusty Echo 7

Veteran Member
3rd part of 3

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These are only a few examples of similar/identical denial letters we’ve seen. We’ve received hundreds of letters over the last ten months, and when viewed side by side, we can see the similarities are unmistakable.
On January 7, 2022, Commander Robert Green Jr. was relieved from his position as Executive Officer of MSRON-8 after he brought forward evidence the Navy had a standard operating procedure (SOP) for processing religious accommodations. The SOP was drafted by the Navy’s Manpower, Personnel, Training, and Education Office, which is led by Vice Admiral John Nowell. The SOP outlined the process for systematically denying COVID-19 religious accommodation requests and provided proof of religious discrimination and multiple violations of regulation and constitutional rights. The SOP was utilized by Vice Admiral Nowell and his staff to process the surge in religious accommodation requests following the Secretary of Defense’s vaccine order on 24 August 2021.
Commander Green was notified on August 5, 2022 that his complaint had been dismissed. The letter from the Office of the Naval Inspector General states, “we reviewed and evaluated the information you provided. We applied applicable standards to your allegation. We determined that the alleged action did not warrant an investigation by this office because we did not find sufficient evidence to constitute a credible allegation of misconduct by a DON senior official.”
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Another complaint submitted against the Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) was dismissed in a letter which stated there was “insufficient evidence to indicate wrongdoing and an inadequate basis to warrant further investigation.”
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Despite presenting evidence of an SOP which had the intent to give blanket denials of religious accommodations, in violation of DoD Instruction 1300.17, and despite a memo from the DoDIG to SECDEF stating that blanket denials did, in fact, take place across the branches of the DOD, the Navy’s IG stilldismissed the complaint. Commander Green submitted a new complaint on August 26, 2022 against the Naval Inspector General for covering up federal crimes.
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There is undeniable proof that the DOD has broken federal regulations by violating The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 and DoD Instruction 1300.17. Not only can we see evidence of it in the denial letters contained within, but the DoDIG’s own investigation and subsequent memo to the Secretary of Defense states it. Congress MUST investigate these crimes immediately.
 

Tristan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
(fair use applies)


more jersey switching: "original antigenic sin" now discussed in mainstream media
and so another "fringe conspiracy theory" returns to being canon

el gato malo
16 hr ago

perhaps the most stunning social issue issue of the last 3 years was not the widespread, uncritical submission of humanity to authority. anyone who has read their milgram and their asch saw that coming a mile away.

what amazed me most was the near instant pivot of entire fields of science away from that which has been known for 100 years and the adoption of literal fantasy in its place.

they took the diametric opposite of pretty much every epidemiological and biological precept and ran with it. suddenly, lockdowns worked, masks stopped spread, you could rush a vaccine to market and save lives by administering it during a pandemic, mRNA was well tested and safe, closing schools and banning travel and forcing bizarre 6 foot space limits were all canon and always had been.

and no one stood up. the “experts” who damn well knew better went silent or flounced gleefully to grasp the reins of power by cheerleading for the lysenkoization of medicine and the overturn of evidence in favor of fabulism.

the authors of THIS deeply evidence based research and study survey from 2006 flat out became lockdown cheerleaders.



i’m not going to lie, this sort of thing shocked me deeply. i expected better, expected sober and reasoned assessment and real debate from those who were truly informed. i expected a check or a balance somewhere where someone would stop to ask just who in hell we were letting run off with the keys to the kingdom and remember why no one lets university health modelers drive the global economy. and this was dangerous faith on my part. in retrospect, i’m a bit baffled that i fell for that or expected calm in a crisis when the wages of the fearmonger and the toady are so much greater.

live and learn.

the point of “science” is to remove emotion and adjudicate facts with dispassion, but the flaw in the system is not the method but the membership: science is done by humans and it turns out that “experts” are more, not less prone to being subsumed by asch and milgram than even “the lay.”

i doubt this owes to some defect in their constitutions. rather, i suspect it’s an artifact of their situations: they are members of groups, bodies, and agencies whose bread is buttered by the state and other such authoritarian institutions. they are dependent for accreditation, publication, and funding and subject to intense pressure for orthodoxy. step out of line and you’re anathema: unfunded, unpublished, and cast out to wander in solitary ignominy. don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

and this has the effect of utterly stifling debate. it renders topics taboo and research verboten. it flat out flips large pools of well established science on their heads and puts their canon in the hands of ideologues and grifters. that which was known becomes a conspiracy theory. that which was known to be wrong becomes the truth that may not be questioned.

and this is not the road to positive outcomes.

suddenly the same people who call gender a social construct but race intrinsic claim there is no such thing as “natural immunity” and those who hope for pfuture pfizer pfunding claim that “original antigenic sin” is a made up theory and that there is no way a leaky vaccine could rapidly drive such trends while hiding the evidence that this was EXACTLY what was happening.

but my how things they start to change:



of all the topics that kicked the vaccine zealot beehive, this one really took the cake. the idea that vaccines were causing immune fixation that then drove viral evolution in directions to take advantage of it and rapidly rendered the vaccinated more, not less likely to contract and spread covid really set people off. it was proof you had to be a kook and some kind of “anti-vaxxer” with lunatic ideas about how immunity works.

it would get you booted by the bluebird.

what a difference a year can make…



of course, they are presenting this as somehow “contested” and “open for debate” (which clearly all science should be) but claims like this:



have already been disproven. once you get the first double round of vaxx, you lose much of this adaptive ability. the “mouse boosters™” about to be on offer are unlikely to elicit much novel immune response in those already vaxxed. the “titers” chosen look to be very narrow and this shows up in the absurdly wide range of responses that seem to span about 100X of measured outcome. (p 25-6) the originals were not even a 10X span. something is deeply hinky there.

variant specific boosters are unlikely to help the vaxxed humans evade broader fixation. you can see what happened in a diverse study in an actual primate model.

this is another “flip to fabulism” based on a paucity evidence, none of it relevant or clinical.

bad cattitude
variant specific boosters fail to elicit variant specific response
THIS is a very interesting paper written by a bewilderingly large number of authors (66 in total), many from NIH and NIAID. it carries the somewhat technical and tepid title of: it would, frankly, be…
Read more
6 months ago · 545 likes · 229 comments · el gato malo

so, while at least the issue is now publicly discussable, we’re still wrangling about nonsense that is also likely to fall apart.

but imagine how different things might be had we been able to have this debate from the outset.
because we could have.

the simple fact is that this was always straightforward science. it’s neither far fetched nor speculative. it’s actually REALLY simple and has been known since 1960.

Original antigenic sin, also known as antigenic imprinting or the Hoskins effect,[1] refers to the propensity of the body's immune system to preferentially utilize immunological memory based on a previous infection when a second slightly different version of that foreign pathogen (e.g. a virus or bacterium) is encountered. This leaves the immune system "trapped" by the first response it has made to each antigen, and unable to mount potentially more effective responses during subsequent infections. Antibodies or T-cells induced during infections with the first variant of the pathogen are subject to a form of original antigenic sin, termed repertoire freeze.




it was basic, well understood mechanisms studied in influenza for generations.

it’s a flat out obvious outcome.

and yet when certain internet felines were asking this back in the fall of 2021, boy did the heat kick up.

people did not wanna hear this question, much less answer it.

and look, i’m not some hoskins effect wonk. this is not even my area of expertise (though it is adjacent to some). it was, like many things, just really pretty easy to figure out if you took the time to look with an open mind that happened to be attached to the open mouth of a mouthy internet cat.

it sounds funny, but that latter part is more important than people realize. i hardly had this all sussed from the jump. it took discussions and arguments and debate and challenge. it took reading other people’s ideas and having them read and tear into mine. that’s where science is done and how amateurs become expert. it’s how we unbury ourselves from mountains of woo-woo and figure out what’s real. nobody does it alone.

but this takes discourse.

and so all suppression of debate is suppression of science.

and because that was the course we took, the world got so many things so badly wrong.


there are an awful lot of people who should have been screaming about this the instant it became clear that the vaccines were leaky because this is what leaky vaccines do.

honestly, far more people should have been screaming about the very idea of using a vaccine mid-pandemic to try to stop spread because it’s outright contra-indicated.

but no one wanted to hear this.

and they wanted to seeTHIS evidence that it was occurring and worsening and that boosters were making it even more pronounced even less.



the EVIDENCE

of THIS EFFECT

was EVERYWHERE.

and the extrapolation from it is dire.

bad cattitude
homogenizing herd level antigenic fixation
antigenic fixation is a well studied issue, especially around influenza. how it came to have the oddly religion invoking name of “original antigenic sin” (OAS) is anyone’s guess, but it probably giv…
Read more
6 months ago · 788 likes · 385 comments · el gato malo

yet for the better part of a year, even mentioning that this was a debate worth having was all but impossible in public.
referencing a near century of studies was deemed “denialist zealotry” and most people simply shut you out at that point and stopped listening.

and that made heading this off while we still could impossible.

obviously, the time to explore such issues is before you jab 2 billion people, not after. “ready, fire, aim” is not a useful mantra for possibly permanent health interventions especially not when they run counter to a century of settled science.

many of us have likely learned a lot in the last few years. (i know i have)

but more than anything, more than any scientific precept or pandemic preparedness, we learned about experts.
almost none are the brave captains that save the plane when the engines flame out. most freeze up and do exactly the wrong thing either from panic or mis-incentive. there is not some group of wise sages (sorry, pun irresistible) that is ready to lead you to safety.

there is groupthink and panic and capture.

and so in times of crisis, trust yourself. trust your faculties and your sense. assess what is being said, by whom, and to what purpose for it may be something widely divergent from “fixing the crisis.” eschew those who seek to censor, that is never the side of science. and check your own assumptions too. we all get some things wrong. there is no shame in this. the shame lies in failing to assess and adapt, to evaluate and evolve.

minds fixate just like immune systems and systems of public health are positively sclerotic.

the mob and the overton window it permits can become deranged. decline the initiation to go with it.

it turns out that the ability to keep one’s head when all others around you are losing theirs is basically a superpower.
cultivate yours.



The Narrative, she is changing...
 

Crusty Echo 7

Veteran Member

Air Force loses appeal in federal vaccine exemption lawsuit​

Spc. Brady McNeil, a radiologist with the Vermont Army National Guard, draws up a dose of the Moderna COVID-19 during a vaccination clinic at the Brattleboro Area Middle School, April 14, 2021, in Brattleboro, Vt.   (Kristopher Radder/The Brattleboro Reformer via AP, File)

LOCAL NEWS
By Thomas Gnau
16 hours ago

A federal appeals court has denied the Air Force’s attempt to overturn class certification and a class-wide preliminary injunction that protects Airmen from discipline as a lawsuit continues against the Department of Defense mandate requiring members to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Department of Air Force’s emergency motion to stay the class certification and the injunction granted by Cincinnati federal district Judge Matthew McFarland in July.

McFarland ordered the Air Force to refrain from disciplinary or separation measures against a class of what plaintiffs’ advocates say are 10,000 unvaccinated service members.
t-Patterson community to your inbox every weekday.

The legal class in this case is a group of Air Force members seeking an exemption from the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for reasons of religious belief.

“The plaintiffs have contended throughout this litigation that even the handful of exemptions that the department (of the Air Force) has approved were granted only to service members who were nearing the end of their service term and thus eligible for an administrative exemption anyway,” the circuit court said.

As of Sept. 6, the Air Force had granted 23 administrative exemptions from the vaccine mandate to active-duty service members and 674 “total force” administrative exemptions — exemptions to members of the National Guard and the Air Force Reserve. The service counts religious accommodations as a subset of administrative exemptions.

“From the very first paragraph of their complaint, to their briefing in opposition to the department’s motion now, the plaintiffs have alleged the existence of a ‘systematic effort’ by the department to deny service members’ requests for religious exemptions categorically, while granting thousands of medical and administrative exemptions,” the court wrote.
The court held that the lower district court was correct when it maintained that the plaintiffs’ contentions support litigation based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 and the First Amendment.

“We differ with the district court, however, as to what that relief might look like,” the circuit court did add. “The court appeared to assume that such relief would broadly enjoin the department to provide a class-wide ‘religious accommodation relating to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.’ But an appropriate remedy might more narrowly enjoin the department to abolish the discriminatory policy, root and branch, and to enjoin any adverse action against the class members on the basis of denials of religious exemptions pursuant to that policy.”
The Air Force has declined to comment on ongoing litigation. But service leaders have said vaccinations are an important part of fitness and military readiness.

A December 2021 memo from the Air Force directs commanders to take “appropriate administrative and disciplinary actions consistent with federal law and Department of the Air Force ... policy in addressing service members who refuse to obey a lawful order to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and do not have a pending separation or retirement, or medical, religious or administrative exemption.”

About the Author
ajc.com
Thomas Gnau
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Thomas Gnau is a business reporter who joined the Dayton Daily News in 2007. He has reported for daily newspapers in Ohio since 1991.
 

Crusty Echo 7

Veteran Member


Navy rescinds punishments for SEALs seeking religious exemptions to COVID vaccine​

NEWS
ERIC CERVONE
September 13, 2022

The U.S. Navy rolled back an order punishing SEALs who refused COVID vaccinations based on their religious beliefs, Fox News reports.

On September 24, 2021, the Navy issued “Trident Order #12 –Mandatory Vaccination for COVID-19.” The order specified that “Special Operations Designated Personnel (SEAL and SWCC) refusing to receive recommended vaccines based solely on personal or religious beliefs will still be medically disqualified,” court documents revealed.

This order meant that SEALs were designated as "non-deployable" if they submitted religious accommodation requests exempting them from the COVID vaccine. All special warfare forces were initially expected to come into compliance with the vaccine mandate by the middle of October 2021.

The order was put on hold due to a preliminary injunction that was affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in February 2022.

Fox News reports that a new filing in the lawsuit shows the Navy quietly reversed Trident Order #12 on May 22, 2022. A communication order was sent by the Navy on May 23 stating, "This order rescinds reference A." "Ref A" was referred to as "Trident Order #12 on COVID-19 Vaccinations."

Fox News Digital reached out to the Navy for clarification on whether the Navy replaced the order or why Trident Order #12 was being rescinded. "The Navy does not comment on ongoing litigation," a Navy spokesperson responded.

Filings also show that the legal team representing the SEALs only became aware of the recession on September 1.

"To the best of counsel’s knowledge, Trident Order #12 was not replaced. As the Court will recall, Trident Order #12 stated that SEALs who are unvaccinated due to religious beliefs are medically disqualified, though SEALs who are unvaccinated due to medical reasons are not automatically disqualified. Trident Order #12 also implemented the COVID-19 vaccine mandate at the command level for Naval Special Warfare forces, setting a deadline of compliance for October 17, 2021," the SEALs' legal team wrote.

The 35 SEALs involved in the lawsuit are being represented by First Liberty Instituteand Hacker Stephens LLP.

First Liberty's senior counsel and director of military affairs, Mike Berry, told Fox News Digital, "Now that the Navy has rescinded this unlawful order, the only reason it won't allow our SEALs to get back to doing their jobs is because of their religious beliefs."
 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
Thank you Crusty Echo 7! These are great articles. Please keep posting!

I found another interesting article at the site of the first article you posted. I'll post it below and have bookmarked the site to keep checking for their news of the day.

HD
 

Heliobas Disciple

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Did the U.S. Jump the Gun With the New Omicron-Targeted Vaccines?
With fears of a winter surge looming, government agencies have authorized and encouraged vaccination with a newly formulated booster. But the science to support that decision remains inconclusive.

By Celine Gounder and Elisabeth Rosenthal, Kaiser Health News
September 12, 2022

Last month, the FDA authorized omicron-specific vaccines, accompanied by breathless science-by-press release and a media blitz. Just days after the FDA’s move, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed, recommending updated boosters for anyone age 12 and up who had received at least two doses of the original covid vaccines. The message to a nation still struggling with the covid-19 pandemic: The cavalry — in the form of a shot — is coming over the hill.

But for those familiar with the business tactics of the pharmaceutical industry, that exuberant messaging — combined with the lack of completed studies — has caused considerable heartburn and raised an array of unanswered concerns.

The updated shots easily clear the “safe and effective” bar for government authorization. But in the real world, are the omicron-specific vaccines significantly more protective — and in what ways — than the original covid vaccines so many have already taken? If so, who would benefit most from the new shots? Since the federal government is purchasing these new vaccines — and many of the original, already purchased vaccines may never find their way into taxpayers’ arms — is the $3.2 billion price tag worth the unclear benefit? Especially when these funds had to be pulled from other covid response efforts, like testing and treatment.

Several members of the CDC advisory committee that voted 13-1 for the recommendation voiced similar questions and concerns, one saying she only “reluctantly” voted in the affirmative.

Some said they set aside their desire for more information and better data and voted yes out of fear of a potential winter covid surge. They expressed hope that the new vaccines — or at least the vaccination campaign that would accompany their rollout — would put a dent in the number of future cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.

That calculus is, perhaps, understandable at a time when an average of more than 300 Americans are dying of covid each day.

But it leaves front-line health care providers in the impossible position of trying to advise individual patients whether and when to take the hot, new vaccines without complete data and in the face of marketing hype.

Don’t get us wrong. We’re grateful and amazed that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna (with assists from the National Institutes of Health and Operation Warp Speed) developed an effective vaccine in record time, freeing the nation from the deadliest phase of the covid pandemic, when thousands were dying each day. The pandemic isn’t over, but the vaccines are largely credited for enabling most of America to return to a semblance of normalcy. We’re both up-to-date with our covid vaccinations and don’t understand why anyone would choose not to be, playing Russian roulette with their health.

But as society moves into the next phase of the pandemic, the pharmaceutical industry may be moving into more familiar territory: developing products that may be a smidgen better than what came before, selling — sometimes overselling — their increased effectiveness in the absence of adequate controlled studies or published data, advertising them as desirable for all when only some stand to benefit significantly, and in all likelihood raising the price later.

This last point is concerning because the government no longer has funds to purchase covid vaccines after this autumn. Funding to cover the provider fees for vaccinations and community outreach to those who would most benefit from vaccination has already run out. So updated boosters now and in the future will likely go to the “worried well” who have good insurance rather than to those at highest risk for infection and progression to severe disease.

The FDA’s mandated task is merely to determine whether a new drug is safe and effective. However, the FDA could have requested more clinical vaccine effectiveness data from Pfizer and Moderna before authorizing their updated omicron BA.5 boosters.

Yet the FDA cannot weigh in on important follow-up questions: How much more effective are the updated boosters than vaccines already on the market? In which populations? And what increase in effectiveness is enough to merit an increase in price (a so-called cost-benefit analysis)? Other countries, such as the United Kingdom, perform such an analysis before allowing new medicines onto the market, to negotiate a fair national price.

The updated booster vaccine formulations are identical to the original covid vaccines except for a tweak in the mRNA code to match the omicron BA.5 virus. Studies by Pfizer showed that its updated omicron BA.1 booster provides a 1.56 times higher increase in neutralizing antibody titers against the BA.1 virus as compared with a booster using its original vaccine. Moderna’s studies of its updated omicron BA.1 booster demonstrated very similar results. However, others predict that a 1.5 times higher antibody titer would yield only slight improvement in vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic illness and severe disease, with a bump of about 5% and 1% respectively. Pfizer and Moderna are just starting to study their updated omicron BA.5 boosters in human trials.

Though the studies of the updated omicron BA.5 boosters were conducted only in mice, the agency’s authorization is in line with precedent: The FDA clears updated flu shots for new strains each year without demanding human testing. But with flu vaccines, scientists have decades of experience and a better understanding of how increases in neutralizing antibody titers correlate with improvements in vaccine effectiveness. That’s not the case with covid vaccines. And if mouse data were a good predictor of clinical effectiveness, we’d have an HIV vaccine by now.

As population immunity builds up through vaccination and infection, it’s unclear whether additional vaccine boosters, updated or not, would benefit all ages equally. In 2022, the U.S. has seen covid hospitalization rates among people 65 and older increase relative to younger age groups. And while covid vaccine boosters seem to be cost-effective in the elderly, they may not be in younger populations. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices considered limiting the updated boosters to people 50 and up, but eventually decided that doing so would be too complicated.

Unfortunately, history shows that — as with other pharmaceutical products — once a vaccine arrives and is accompanied by marketing, salesmanship trumps science: Many people with money and insurance will demand it whether data ultimately proves it is necessary for them individually or not.

We are all likely to encounter the SARS-CoV-2 virus again and again, and the virus will continue to mutate, giving rise to new variants year after year. In a country where significant portions of at-risk populations remain unvaccinated and unboosted, the fear of a winter surge is legitimate.

But will the widespread adoption of a vaccine — in this case yearly updated covid boosters — end up enhancing protection for those who really need it or just enhance drugmakers’ profits? And will it be money well spent?

The federal government has been paying a negotiated price of $15 to $19.50 a dose of mRNA vaccine under a purchasing agreement signed during the height of the pandemic. When those government agreements lapse, analysts expect the price to triple or quadruple, and perhaps even more for updated yearly covid boosters, which Moderna’s CEO said would evolve “like an iPhone.” To deploy these shots and these dollars wisely, a lot less hype and a lot more information might help.
 

StarryEyedLad

désespéré pour le ciel
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WHO sees October COVID surge in Ukraine, cites polio concerns
by Maayan Lubell
Mon, September 12, 2022, 8:14 AM

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation expects a rise in COVID-19 in Ukraine to peak in October, possibly bringing hospitals close to their capacity threshold, WHO's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday.

"We are now seeing an increase in cases of COVID-19 in Ukraine. We project that transmission could peak in early October and hospitals could approach their capacity threshold," Ghebreyesus told WHO'S Regional Committee for Europe conference in Tel Aviv.

"Oxygen shortages are predicted because major supply sources are in occupied parts of the country," he said.

Oxygen is essential for patients with a range of conditions, including COVID-19 and those with other critical illnesses stemming from complications of pregnancy, childbirth, sepsis, injuries and trauma.

Russia's February invasion of Ukraine has greatly impacted healthcare, with the WHO confirming more than 500 attacks on health infrastructure there, resulting in some 100 deaths. Ghebreyesus also said that the war could increase polio spread.

"We are also deeply concerned about the potential for the international spread of polio due to the gaps in immunization coverage and mass population movement linked to the war," he said.

Ukraine has low vaccination coverage for both COVID and polio, an infectious disease mainly affecting children that can cause paralysis and kill in rare cases. Two cases of polio were reported in Ukraine in 2021.

This year, Israel, Britain and the U.S have all reported polio transmission in major cities, raising concerns about the infection spreading more widely.

FLASH
@Flash_news_ua
⚡️The Swedish government has decided to donate more than 500,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to Ukraine, announced the head of the Swedish Foreign Ministry, Ann Linde.
8:50 AM · Sep 13, 2022

View: https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1569669945402834945


What??? This is the last thing they need!
 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
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The Most Common Side Effects Of The New Bivalent COVID Booster
Jillian Wilson - Huffpost
Tue, September 13, 2022, 10:55 AM

As of Sept. 1, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized an updated COVID-19 vaccine with the goal of fending off a surge in cases this fall and winter.

Moderna and Pfizer both have new bivalent vaccines that target the original strain of coronavirus and omicron subvariants (including the highly contagious BA.4 and BA.5), which have been rapidly spreading throughout the world for the last few months.

At this point, everyone 12 and over is eligible for the updated Pfizer booster, and those 18 and up are eligible for Moderna’s updated booster.

As with the last booster shot and the original vaccines, certain side effects are to be expected (and show that the booster is working!).

Here’s what to know about the side effects of these new bivalent vaccines.

The side effects resemble those of the earlier COVID shots.

“The anticipated side effects are really exactly what would be expected to occur after the previous vaccinations,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine in the department of health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Those include headache, fatigue and soreness or redness at the injection site, Schaffner explained. The CDC also notes that a fever is a common side effect after booster shots. Chills, muscle pain and joint pain were also reported, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

It’s important to remember that these side effects are actually a good thing.

Yvonne Maldonado, a pediatric infectious disease professor at Stanford University, previously told HuffPost that “most vaccines will have some degree of minor side effects. It is, in fact, the body’s immune and inflammatory response to the vaccine.”

This immune response can present itself as redness at the injection site, headache or fever, Maldonado said.

You can expect swollen lymph nodes, too — but don’t delay a mammogram because of it.

Swollen lymph nodes, particularly in the armpit of the arm where you got the shot, can be expected, too, according to Medical News Today. This is another side effect that was widely reported after previous COVID vaccinations and boosters. When the vaccine was first available, some people reported that this issue interfered with their mammograms — swollen lymph nodes can resemble a sign of breast cancer on this kind of screening.

Official guidance in 2021 said you should wait to schedule a mammogram after getting a COVID vaccine, but now, updated guidance states that “patients should not delay their screening mammogram because they were recently vaccinated,” according to a study published in the Radiological Society of North America’s journal.

If you have a mammogram scheduled soon after your COVID booster, just let your doctor know you were recently vaccinated so they’re aware of any potential issues with imaging.

If you experience these symptoms, you can take medicine to help relieve them.

Schaffner noted that if you’re experiencing any of these unpleasant symptoms, you can take a pain reliever like Tylenol to combat them. Over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs should make you feel better and allow you to go through your daily activities, he noted.

He added that if your pain or discomfort gets bad enough, you should contact your health care provider. But adverse reactions are very rare and occur in a few cases per million.

Plus, most severe reactions happen within 15 minutes of shot administration, which is why you’ll be asked to wait for 15 or 30 minutes after your booster so medical staff can monitor you.

Plan to take it easy the following day.

If you’re someone who has dealt with tiredness, fever or headache after getting vaccinated — or if you’re just feeling anxious about the potential side effects — plan to get your shot when you don’t have much going on the next day, Schaffner said.

In other words, if you’re nervous about side effects, you shouldn’t get the vaccine the day before a big event in case you end up feeling lousy.

All in all, it’s important to get the new COVID booster.

The most recent COVID subvariants are more contagious than ever and are only expected to grow more transmissible as the virus continues to mutate.

Dr. Gregory Poland, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the Mayo Clinic, previously told HuffPost that the goal of a virus is to infect more and more people. So, it will mutate to become more and more contagious — which is what we’re seeing with the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants.

The best way to protect yourself from omicron, which is the current dominant strain, and any future subvariants is by getting this updated bivalent booster.
 

Heliobas Disciple

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'Challenge' to maintain world's focus on global health after COVID-19: Bill Gates

Jennifer Rigby
Tue, September 13, 2022, 12:02 AM

LONDON (Reuters) - Asking the world to prioritise saving lives in the world's poorest countries is increasingly challenging in a world still rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic, the threat of climate change, rising energy costs and the war in Ukraine, according to Bill Gates.

The Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist said it was a "paradox" that in the wake of a huge global health threat, funding for tackling diseases like malaria and AIDS could actually drop this year.

"I am very worried… ironically, in the face of the clearest indication of why infectious disease is not a thing of the past, in fact, the funding levels could go down," said Gates in an interview with Reuters last week.

He was speaking ahead of the publication of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's annual Goalkeepers report, which tracks progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), around reducing poverty and improving health.

The report finds that the pandemic has knocked the world off-course on almost every indicator, and progress would need to speed up by a factor of five in order to reach the targets set for 2030 on issues like reducing maternal mortality or ending malnutrition.

"It's hard to overstate what a setback the pandemic has been and it's hard to overstate what a setback the war in Ukraine is," said Gates, who pointed out that pre-2019, global health was improving in most areas.

"It is fair to say that saving lives in Africa and caring about the poorest countries, we'll be challenged to maintain that as a priority and not cut back on those things," he added.

Gates has channelled more of his own money into the foundation this year and it will up its annual budget from $6 billion to $9 billion by 2026, but he said he was concerned about the competing pressures on the budgets of donor governments.

However, Gates said there was still hope, particularly in areas like food security, if the world invests in innovation.
 

Heliobas Disciple

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North Korea reinstates mask mandate one month after declaring victory over COVID
Citizens dismiss government claims that the virus is entering via South Korean goods.

By Hye Min Son for RFA Korean
Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
2022.09.12

Authorities in North Korea have ordered citizens to again wear masks in public just one month after “declaring victory” over COVID-19, sources in the country told RFA.

North Korea had claimed it was entirely virus-free for most of the pandemic. In May 2022, Pyongyang finally admitted that the virus had spread throughout the country after a military parade in April, and authorities declared a “maximum emergency” that included movement restrictions and lockdowns.

The government kept a tally of “fever cases” which reached around 4.8 million people, and state media reported only 75 related deaths. Over the next few months the number of active cases rapidly declined.

On Aug. 10, the country’s leader Kim Jong Un publicly declared victory over the virus and eliminated the maximum emergency restrictions.

Residents are frustrated that they must now wear masks again, even though they’ve been told they won the battle against COVID.

“Starting this month, we must all wear masks in public places again,” a source in the eastern province of South Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Provincial quarantine authorities sent this order, from the Central Committee [of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party] to the residents through neighborhood watch unit meetings,” said the source.

Authorities sent a mask inspection team to the marketplace near the source’s home, he said.

“Residents who did not wear a mask during the intensive crackdown period, or who sold or purchased goods with a mask on their chin without covering their nose and mouth, were caught and fined,” the source said. The fines are 3,000 won (U.S. $0.37) for no mask and 1,000 won ($0.12) for wearing one improperly.

“They said that the coronavirus crisis was over, but in less than one month they are telling us to wear masks again and they are cracking down more harshly,” he said. “The people are complaining that they are trying to take their money with excessive fines.”

The source added that there are still large numbers of people with suspected coronavirus symptoms, so the authorities have also returned to emergency quarantine measures.

In South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, the inspection teams have been out in force since the beginning of the month at factories, auditoriums, train stations and other crowded places, a source there told RFA.

“It’s like the emergency epidemic prevention system is being restarted, just 21 days after the Highest Dignity [declared victory],” the second source said, using an honorific term to refer to Kim Jong Un. “This is because there are still patients with suspected COVID-19 symptoms such as high fever and acute bronchitis.”

“Nevertheless, the authorities are propagating that even though the rest of the world is in chaos due to the relentless spread of the virus, North Korea has succeeded in preventing it,” he said.

“They say South Korea continues to transmit the virus into our territory by applying the malignant virus on their goods, so we have no choice but to adhere to strict quarantine regulations again,” the second source said.

Direct trade between South and North Korea is currently nonexistent and all South Korean goods that end up in the North typically go in through China, with which North Korea has suspended trade due to the coronavirus.

RFA was unable to confirm transmission of the coronavirus to North Korea via imported South Korean goods.

“Residents are criticizing the authorities for strengthening means of control over residents, lying that the COVID-19 crisis has ended, and repeating false propaganda that they are beefing up COVID-19 prevention measures again because of South Korea,” the second source said.
 

Heliobas Disciple

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WHO report: 17 million in EU may have suffered long COVID-19
yesterday

JERUSALEM (AP) — New research suggests at least 17 million people in the European Union may have experienced long COVID-19 symptoms during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic, with women more likely than men to suffer from the condition, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

The research, conducted for the WHO/Europe, was unclear on whether the symptoms that linger, recur or first appear at least one month after a coronavirus infection were more common in vaccinated or unvaccinated people. At least 17 million people met the WHO’s criteria of long COVID-19 — with symptoms lasting at least three months in 2020 and 2021, the report said.

“Millions of people in our region, straddling Europe and Central Asia, are suffering debilitating symptoms many months after their initial COVID-19 infection,” said Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, during a conference in Tel Aviv.

The modeling also suggests that women are twice as likely as men to experience long COVID-19, and the risk increases dramatically among severe infections needing hospitalization, the report said. One-in-three women and one-in-five men are likely to develop long COVID-19, according to the report.

“Knowing how many people are affected and for how long is important for health systems and government agencies to develop rehabilitative and support services,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which conducted the research for the WHO.

The research, which represents estimates and not actual numbers of affected people, tracks with some other recent studies on the constellation of longer-term symptoms after coronavirus infections.

A U.S. study of veterans published in Nature Medicine in May provided fresh evidence that long COVID-19 can happen even after breakthrough infections in vaccinated people, and that older adults face higher risks for the long-term effects. The study showed that about one-third who had breakthrough infections exhibited signs of long COVID.

A separate report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that up to a year after an initial coronavirus infection, 1 in 4 adults aged 65 and older had at least one potential long COVID-19 health problem, compared with 1 in 5 younger adults.

Most people who have COVID-19 fully recover. But the WHO in Europe report on Tuesday estimated that 10% to 20% develop mid- and long-term symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness and cognitive dysfunction.
 

Heliobas Disciple

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Court rehears fight over vaccine mandate for federal workers
By KEVIN McGILL
yesterday

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — President Joe Biden has the same authority to impose a COVID-19 vaccine requirement on federal workers that private employers have for their employees, an administration lawyer told a federal appeals court Tuesday.

A lawyer for opponents of the vaccine requirement, which has been blocked nationwide by a federal judge in Texas, said the requirement imposes an “unconstitutionally intolerable choice” for executive branch workers — taking a vaccine they don’t want or losing their jobs.

Judges on the appeals court meanwhile questioned how far the chief executive’s authority goes, asking, theoretically, whether the president could require employees to meet certain healthy body weights or forbid them from smoking at home.

It was the second time arguments on the issue were heard before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel of the same court had upheld the Biden requirement for executive branch workers, overturning the Texas judge.

But the full appeals court, currently with 16 active members, vacated the panel ruling and agreed to rehear the case. There was no indication when the court would rule.

Administration lawyers argue that the employees opposing the mandate should have taken their objections not to federal court but to a federal review board, in accordance with the Civil Service Reform Act. The administration also argues that the president has the same authority, under the Constitution, as the CEO of a private corporation to require that employees be vaccinated.

Arguing for the government, Charles Scarborough of the Department of Justice, said the statute provides employees with “robust” remedies if they successfully challenge the requirement through the review board, including back pay if they are dismissed for not complying.

Addressing whether the president could impose body weight requirements on federal employees, Scarborough said the vaccine requirement is part of a mainstream effort to reduce the incidence of serious COVID-19 cases in the workplace, while a body weight requirement would be among “hypotheticals at the extremes.”

Opponents say the policy is an encroachment on federal workers’ lives that neither the Constitution nor federal statutes authorize. And they argued that a case involving a policy that could cost some workers their jobs if they don’t agree to a medical procedure is not the type of work policy that belongs before a civil service review board.

Biden issued an executive order Sept. 9 ordering vaccinations for all executive branch agency employees, with exceptions for medical and religious reasons. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of Texas by then-President Donald Trump, issued a nationwide injunction against the requirement in January.

There came a series of varying rulings at the 5th Circuit.

One three-judge panel refused to immediately block the law.

But, a 2-1 ruling on the merits of the case by a different panel upheld Biden’s position. Judges Carl Stewart and James Dennis, both nominated to the court by President Bill Clinton, were in the majority. Judge Rhesa Barksdale, a senior judge nominated by President George H.W. Bush, dissented, saying the relief the challengers sought does not fall under the Civil Service Reform Act cited by the administration.

A majority of the full court voted to vacate that ruling and reconsider the case, resulting in Tuesday’s hearing.

Twelve of 16 active judges at the 5th Circuit were nominated to the court by Republicans, including six Trump appointees. Senior judges do not routinely take part in full-court hearings but Barksdale participated in the hearing Tuesday because he had been on the earlier panel.
 

Heliobas Disciple

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Biden Administration Decides Not to Enforce COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Federal Contractors
By Zachary Stieber
September 13, 2022

President Joe Biden’s administration has opted not to enforce a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors, following a recent court decision that enabled the government to enforce the rule in some parts of the country.

The White House Safer Federal Workforce quietly updated its website on Aug. 31 to say that the government “will take no action to implement or enforce” Biden’s executive order mandating COVID-19 vaccination for contractors. Clauses in existing agreements that implement requirements of the order will also not be enforced “absent further written notice,” the workforce added.

The workforce also made other updates, including clarifying that screening for COVID-19 symptoms for contractors can be self-conducted and does not need to be verified by government workers.

The moves came after a federal appeals court partially lifted a nationwide ban on enforcement of the order. The decision, taken together with rulings from other courts, means the government could have begun enforcing the order in 39 states. Workers with the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), which has sued the government, were designated as exempt no matter where they’re based.

The workforce did not respond to a request for comment on why it decided not to enforce the order. It said on its site that it wanted to “ensure compliance with an applicable preliminary nationwide injunction, which may be supplemented, modified, or vacated, depending on the course of ongoing litigation.”

Possible Motivation

The administration is already facing multiple suits regarding the mandate, and the decision could stem from wanting to avoid additional litigation, Ben Brubeck, ABC’s vice president of regulatory, labor, and state affairs, told The Epoch Times.

“I think it’s possible that they are worried that if they put the policy back in place they’ll end up getting additional lawsuits filed in some of those other states,” Brubeck said.

After the recent decision, the ban only remains in states that have sued or joined lawsuits over Biden’s order. Those 11 are Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia.

One way to resolve the matter would be to rescind the order entirely. Biden’s administration has refused to do so as of yet, despite increasing calls to do so over waning vaccine effectiveness and a growing number of people who have protection from prior infection.

“That would provide more certainty for the entire federal contracting community. Obviously, if they did rescind the policy, I think people would be able to focus on bigger issues,” such as labor shortages and surges in material costs,” Brubeck said.
 

Heliobas Disciple

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CDC Director Admits Agency Gave False Information on COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Monitoring
By Zachary Stieber
September 13, 2022

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has acknowledged publicly for the first time that the agency gave false information about its COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the agency’s director, said in a letter made public on Sept. 12 that the CDC did not analyze certain types of adverse event reports at all in 2021, despite the agency previously saying it started in February 2021.

“CDC performed PRR analysis between March 25, 2022, through July 31, 2022,” Walensky said. “CDC also recently addressed a previous statement made to the Epoch Times to clarify PRR were not run between February 26, 2021, to September 30, 2021.”

Walensky’s agency had promised in several documents, starting in early 2021, to perform a type of analysis called Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) on reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which it helps manage.

But the agency said in June that it did not perform PRRs. It also said that performing them was “outside th[e] agency’s purview.”

Confronted with the contradiction, Dr. John Su, a CDC official, told The Epoch Times in July that the agency started performing PRRs in February 2021 and “continues to do so to date.”

But just weeks later, the CDC said Su was wrong.

“CDC performed PRRs from March 25, 2022 through July 31, 2022,” a spokeswoman told The Epoch Times in August.

Walensky’s new letter, dated Sept. 2 and sent on Sept. 6 to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), shows that Walensky is aware that her agency gave false information.

‘Lacked Any Justification’

Walensky’s letter included no explanation of why that happened.

The letter “lacked any justification for why CDC performed PRRS during certain periods and not others,” Johnson, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations, told Walensky in a response.

“You also provided no explanation as to why Dr. Su’s assertion … completely contradicts the CDC’s [initial] response … as well as your September 6, 2022, response to me,” he added.

He demanded answers from the CDC on the situation, including why the CDC did not perform PRRs until March and why the agency misinformed the public when it said no PRRs were conducted.

The CDC and Walensky did not respond to requests for comment.

“At no time have any CDC employees intentionally provided false information,” a CDC spokesperson, when correcting the agency’s previous responses, told The Epoch Times via email in August.

The spokesperson claimed that the false information was given because the CDC thought The Epoch Times and Children’s Health Defense, which received the first response, were asking about a different type of analysis called Empirical Bayesian data mining. But both The Epoch Times and Children’s Health Defense specifically listed PRRs in their queries.

Stonewalling

The CDC has still not provided the results of the PRRs that were performed to The Epoch Times. It also did not provide them to Johnson. The Food and Drug Administration, which has conducted Empirical Bayesian data mining on Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System reports, recently refused to provide any of the results to the Epoch Times.

Walensky alleged in the new letter that Empirical Bayesian data mining is more reliable, and that the PRR results “were generally consistent with EB data mining, revealing no additional unexpected safety signals.”

“However, because of your failure to provide these analyses to Congress and to the American people, the public cannot verify your assertion,” Johnson said.

He added that the CDC’s “overall lack of transparency is unacceptable particularly in light of CDC’s inconsistent statements on this matter.”
 

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Australian Government to Extend COVID-19 Pandemic Leave Payments Indefinitely
By Alfred Bui
September 14, 2022

The Australian government has confirmed that it will indefinitely extend pandemic leave payments for workers contracting COVID-19.

This means infected people who have to take leave from work can apply for support payments as long as they are under mandatory isolation in all states and territories.

The Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment scheme was introduced by the previous Coalition government in August 2020 and was due to expire at the end of September 2022.

Under the current program, qualified employees can receive a maximum payment of $750 (US$505) for their seven-day isolation period, while payments for those subject to a five-day isolation period are capped at $540.

Details of the Expanded Scheme

The extension came after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese held a national cabinet meeting with state and territory leaders on Sept. 14.

He said the federal and state governments would share the payments 50-50.

“We remain obviously of the view that if people are sick, whether from COVID or from other health issues, they should not be at work, and that is important,” the prime minister said.

“The government has a responsibility to provide support for the appropriate period which is designated.”

Previously, the scheme was due to expire at the beginning of July. However, the government decided to extend it to September following backlash from the public and a rise in COVID cases.

The program has cost Australian taxpayers $2.2 billion since its inception, including the $320 million incurred during the extended period.

Albanese said the government would maintain mandatory isolation periods of five days for workers contracting COVID-19 in normal situations and seven days for those working in high-risk settings.

While workers can continue to apply for support payments, new changes have been made to the program, which limits the number of claims that can be made over a six-month period to three unless in extraordinary circumstances.

At the same time, the prime minister said there was evidence of fraud as Services Australia found that 2.6 percent of all claims received triggered real-time fraud checks.

Regarding lowering isolation period requirements, he said the national cabinet meeting did not discuss the matter in detail but noted that it was likely to be put on the table when leaders met in person at the end of September.

“What we are seeing is gradually a move towards COVID being treated like other health issues,” he said.
 

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New Pre-Print Study Implies Airborne COVID-19 Antibodies Post-Vaccination
Doctor ventures into controversial issue of COVID 'vaccine shedding'

BY Marina Zhang
September 13, 2022

Since the rollout of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, many researchers have speculated on the possibility of transmission of vaccine particles from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated, more commonly known as “vaccine shedding.”

Though these speculations are routinely fact-checked, anecdotal stories of unvaccinated people who become infected with COVID-19 or have experienced strange symptoms after contact with friends or family who were vaccinated have persisted.

Several doctors have also speculated about possible transmission as new findings in support of these ideas emerge.

A recent pre-print study has attracted media attention as the results of the study may be interpreted as suggestive of vaccine transmission via shedding.

New Pre-Print Study Implies Airborne Antibodies From Vaccine

A new pre-print study published by the University of Colorado concluded that antibodies can be transmitted through aerosols.

In the study, unvaccinated children living in either vaccinated or unvaccinated households were nasal swabbed for COVID-19 antibodies.

The authors, led by Dr. Ross Kedl, found that children living with vaccinated parents have higher concentration of COVID-19 antibodies in their swabs than children living in unvaccinated households.

Antibodies are immune markers, and each person’s collection of antibodies is a reflection of immunization and infection history. The presence of each antibody indicates that the person may have been exposed to a particular infection or vaccine the antibody fights against.

Therefore, a person is only supposed to display antibodies to COVID-19 if they have been infected or vaccinated. Yet, these children have not been vaccinated against nor infected with COVID-19. Why do they have antibodies?

The authors of the study reasoned that the vaccinated parents likely passed their antibodies to the children. They produced antibodies from the vaccine, these antibodies accumulated in the nasal cavities and became airborne. Their children then breathed the antibodies in, accumulating COVID-19 antibodies in their nasal cavities.

This is a plausible speculation as it is well documented that bodily fluids including breastmilk, saliva, tears, and sweat contain antibodies. Mothers are also recommended to breastfeed their babies, as it provides their babies with antibodies, protecting them from infection.

Still, though we know that antibodies can be present in bodily fluids, we do not know if antibodies can become airborne.

To support their speculation that antibodies may be airborne, the authors tested face masks from vaccinated individuals and found COVID-19 antibodies on the masks.

The authors argued that since everyone breathes into their masks, the COVID-19 antibodies found on the masks could be evidence that antibodies can be aerosolized, and therefore transmitted to others.

Though, the authors acknowledged that antibodies could have come off from saliva and sweat.

However, internal medicine practitioner and integrative and chelating specialist Dr. Ana Maria Mihalcea questioned the conclusion.

She told The Epoch Times that the study leaves a lot open to interpretation, and the same findings can also be used to support speculations of vaccine shedding.

“[The study] says that the antibodies are being transferred,” she said. “But could it be that the spike protein has been transferred [through contact through skin] and the child has mounted its own antibody response? I don’t think that that’s really clear.”

What Do We Know About Transmission?

Vaccine shedding, dubbed as “transmission” by Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, has remained a controversial topic in the discourse on COVID-19 vaccines as there has yet to be any study that proves or shows conclusive proof of shedding.

One topic of debate is that vaccine shedding may not be the most accurate definition for what clinicians suspect are happening.

Vaccine shedding specifically refers to the spreading of virus and viral particles after vaccination. Viral shedding has been observed with vaccines for oral forms of polio vaccines, rotaviruses, adenoviruses, influenza, and many more.

Shedding only happens for vaccines containing live and attenuated viruses.

After vaccination, viruses can be detected in fecal samples of the vaccinated, and those who come into contact with them may be infected if the shed viral particles are infectious.

However, the mRNA Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 injections do not use live coronaviruses, rather only the spike protein mRNA is shipped into the cells inside a lipid nanoparticle.

Therefore, they cannot shed viruses, as there is no virus.

J&J and AstraZeneca both use weakened live adenoviruses (not coronavirus) to transport spike protein DNA. However, these viruses have been edited so that they cannot replicate in our cells, therefore, we also should not be able to shed COVID-19 vaccine adenoviruses either.

What about spike proteins then? As mentioned above, there are no studies that provide conclusive proof of spike protein transmission, though health experts are unwilling to rule out the possibility.

Many doctors have spoken up about the possibility of transmission of the particles contained in the COVID-19 injections from vaccinated individuals into the unvaccinated, causing possible symptoms.

Curious Clinical Findings

Though there has been no study that gives proof of transmission, many doctors have observed strange occurrences in unvaccinated individuals after spending time with people who are vaccinated.

“What I’ve seen with unvaccinated individuals who would come into the office with symptoms of things like headaches, feeling unwell, myalgia (meaning muscle aches), and a lot of times women who got in contact with vaccinated people develop hemorrhaging and menstrual irregularities, but very unusual in terms of large clotting and bleeding,” Dr. Mihalcea told The Epoch Times.

She shared a recent case of two unvaccinated menopausal women who started hemorrhaging after sitting together with a recently vaccinated individual for two hours in a car ride.

“The vaccinated person had just gotten their shot a week earlier, and the two unvaccinated women when they got out of the car after a two hour car ride, they both started bleeding.”

Mihalcea cited Pfizer clinical trials as another indication of possible vaccine transmission or shedding.

The Pfizer clinical trials (pdf) listed vaccine exposure during pregnancy (EDP) as an event that needed to be reported and monitored.

Though exposure could occur by participating in the study and getting vaccinated, or getting exposed through a vaccinated male partner through sexual contact, Mihalcea expressed concern at Pfizer’s listing of EDP through “environmental exposure.”

The Pfizer document said that examples of environmental exposure during pregnancy includes, “a female family member or healthcare provider reports that she is pregnant after having been exposed to the study intervention by inhalation or skin contact.”

This means that pregnant women may be exposed to the injection if breathing near or touching someone who was vaccinated.

EDP through environmental exposure would also be counted if, “a male family member or healthcare provider who has been exposed to the study intervention by inhalation or skin contact then exposes his female partner prior to or around the time of conception.”

This statement suggests that someone can be exposed to the vaccine through breathing or skin contact with someone who was vaccinated, and then pass it to someone else.

Findings from peer-reviewed research published in the Gazette of Medical Sciences also seem to be in support of vaccine transmission.

The study, which is based on a survey conducted by My Cycle Story, documented a spike in occurrences of decidual cast shedding and miscarriages in women after COVID-19 vaccines started rolling out.

One poignant testimony (pdf) in the study told of a woman of unknown vaccination status who experienced decidual cast shedding after her husband spent 20 minutes with people who were vaccinated.

Decidual cast shedding is a rare event. Around 40 cases have been documented in the medical literature, and it occurs when the thick mucus lining of the uterus sheds in nearly the exact shape of the inside of the uterus, creating a triangular cast.

This event is so rare that very few studies have been published about it, yet My Cycle Story reported 292 out of 6,092 women surveyed have experienced it following the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. The study was also supplemented with testimonies from women who previously had successful pregnancies but began to suffer miscarriages after visiting friends and family who were vaccinated.

Though these cases may be a coincidence, Mihalcea’s own observations of unvaccinated patients developing various COVID-associated and strange conditions following contact with someone who was vaccinated made her suspicious that transmission was happening.

At the same time, other findings were also emerging that solidified Mihalcea’s suspicions.

A Canadian doctor, Dr. Charles Hoffe, announced in July 2021, that he found over 60 percent of his vaccinated patients had elevated D-dimer levels, and made his findings into a video.

D-dimer testing is often done to check for blood clots. Though elevated D-dimer levels are not conclusive of blood clots, they definitely indicate that possibility.

Mihalcea started doing her own D-dimer tests on unvaccinated patients who were concerned about vaccine transmission or showing conditions suggestive of possible transmission.

“I started seeing a huge amounts of [unvaccinated] people of all ages who had abnormal D-dimer testing, indicating the possibility for micro clotting,” Mihalcea said.

Mihalcea also published a video explaining elevated D-dimer levels in her patients, suggesting possible transmission from vaccinated to unvaccinated individuals.

She told The Epoch Times that, since the vaccine rollout, she has treated many long COVID patients and cases of suspected transmission. She said that she has treated around 90 to 100 cases of suspected transmission, and brought their levels of D-dimers back down through her treatment regimen.

She has also since bought a microscope with which to analyze her patients’ blood through a prick test, by taking a prick of their blood and examining it under the microscope.

Blood analysis is normally done by pathologists, and many primary care physicians may choose to not analyze their patients’ blood, but Mihalcea, and many other doctors, have decided to investigate themselves.

Her treatment regime involved a series of supplements and pharmaceuticals, namely, ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, both of which are effective antivirals for the COVID-19 virus. She also prescribes quercetin which reduces inflammation, glutathione has detox effects, blood thinners such as aspirin to prevent blood clotting, and vitamins to boost the immune system including vitamins D and C.

She said she later found vitamin C infusions, and chelating therapies, which remove heavy metals, also improved her patients’ symptoms and brought their D-dimer levels back to normal.

Doctors’ Speculations on What Is Happening


Clinicians do not know how and why unvaccinated people are developing these symptoms; however, many suspect it could be transmission of vaccine particles from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated.

Dr. Sherri Tenpenny said on the JD Rucker podcast that she and many doctors have come to the conclusion that the spike protein, made in human cells from the mRNA and adenovirus COVID-19 vaccines, are what is being transmitted from vaccinated to unvaccinated.

A study on cells in the laboratory has found that after exposure to spike protein DNA, cells derived from human embryonic kidney cells would make the spike proteins and then pack them into cellular sacs called exosomes.

Exosomes have been found in sweat and tears and have been previously studied as an option to impart immunity through skin contact.

Mihalcea said that exosomes could be transmitting spike proteins from infected cells since other studies have found that exosomes can be shed in sweat and tears, and this makes the possibility of transmission through skin contact and aerosols plausible.

Nonetheless, Mihalcea highlighted that since clinicians have no idea what is in the injection vials, if transmission is occurring, there also may be other things being transmitted apart from spike proteins.

Studies have long shown that the quality of vaccine vials can vary between batches.

The same applies to COVID-19 vaccines.

How Bad is My Batch, a website that compiles vaccine adverse event reports from Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), has shown that the number of adverse effects can drastically vary between different batches of COVID-19 injections.

The website states that 5 percent of the Pfizer batches appear to have produced 90 percent of the Pfizer-associated adverse reactions, and that some batches are associated with 30 times the number of deaths and disabilities compared to other batches.

Mihalcea said that this variability reflects possible differences in injection content, and therefore every patient who reports vaccine transmission may respond differently.

“We cannot respond to this problem of shedding if every vial or every batch is not the same. There are certain batches that have very substantial side effects. That means that different batches don’t shed at all and other batches shed a lot.”

Recent peer-reviewed studies from Germany and Italy found that in mRNA-vaccinated people reporting post-vaccination symptoms, over 90 percent of the vaccinated had metal nanoparticles that resembled graphene oxide in their blood.

Vaccine manufacturers have assured that graphene is not in the COVID-19 vaccinations, and therefore the source of these nanoparticles is unknown.

Blood analyses by Dr. Phillipe Van Waldenberg have also found graphene oxide in the blood of both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.

Waldenberg first spotted “tube-like” graphene oxide particles in his vaccinated patients who were reporting symptoms of fatigue, dizziness, memory problems, and even paralysis, and late-onset heavy menstruation in menopausal women.

However, he later found these particles in unvaccinated individuals reporting paralysis symptoms as well.

Graphene oxide nanoparticles are used in biotechnology for cancer treatment and drug delivery. However, the material can be toxic to humans if inhaled, with varying levels of toxicity depending on its dosage, entry method, and pharmacokinetics.

Waldenberg reported his findings on Loving Life TV, speculating that transmission of graphene oxide is occurring between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. He said that one of his patients is an unvaccinated boy who reported paralysis in his limbs after his mother was vaccinated.

Should Unvaccinated Individuals Be Concerned?

If the things Mihalcea and many other doctors are saying are true, then the possibility of transmission poses significant health concerns for the unvaccinated.

Mihalcea recommended the unvaccinated to boost their immune systems through supplements. More importantly, however, she said that everyone should maintain a healthy mindset, including having no fear.

“When people are afraid, their immune system is adversely affected … If you’re depressed or you’re anxious, you actually shorten your telomeres (DNA which prevent aging) which means you’re aging much, much faster, including your immune system. So part of being healthy is also not being afraid.”

Social stress and anxiety have been associated with the shortening of telomeres, which increases aging, including aging of the immune system. Therefore, maintaining health mentally and emotionally is imperative for physical well-being.

To prevent transmission and its symptoms, Mihalcea advised unvaccinated people to boost their immune system by taking supplements such as vitamins C and D.

Nevertheless, Mihalcea said that the extent of transmission and the health symptoms have greatly varied. After treatment, some people’s D-dimers remained low even in contact with vaccinated people, and some people’s D-dimers went back up.

For the people who may be concerned about possible transmission or are experiencing suspected symptoms, “find physicians who are more open-minded,” said Mihalcea.

Some people’s primary care doctors who believe COVID vaccines cannot be the cause of their patients’ concerns may not be able to give suitable advice and support. Therefore Mihalecea advised people to find doctors “who are more open-minded and have a lot of information.”

Rebuttal and Controversy

Injection particle transmission, colloquially known as vaccine shedding, remains a controversial topic for COVID-19 injections.

Since there has been no study of nor precedent for transmission of mRNA and adenovirus DNA vaccinations, many doctors are waiting for more science to be published, discussing their clinical observation and piecing together findings from limited science.

Since many of these observations are anecdotal, and have not been through rigorous scientific reviewing, many of their statements and observations on vaccine transmission have been routinely fact-checked.

The public and doctors are still waiting for more research and discussion so that they can better understand these symptoms, and until more studies emerge, transmission between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals will remain a theory that cannot be proven nor disproven.
 

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Inhaled COVID-19 Vaccine Approved in China as Profits of Vaccine Giant Plummet
By Kane Zhang
September 13, 2022

China’s State Drug Administration granted approval of an inhaled COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use as a booster vaccine last week.

Vaccine manufacturer CanSino Biologics made the announcement on Sept. 4, saying it had developed and obtained approval for an inhalable COVID-19 vaccine after a proposal by China’s National Health Commission. The vaccine, called Convidecia, uses a recombinant adenovirus that is unable to replicate.

A week prior to the announcement about the inhaled vaccine, the company reported a 98.69 percent drop in net profits for the first half of the year.

CanSino Biologics was founded in 2009 for vaccine development and production and is currently the leading manufacturer of COVID-19 vaccines in China, with a market value of nearly $5.74 billion. On Aug. 28, CanSino Biologics, announced that its revenues for the first half of 2022 was $90 million, down 69.45 percent from the same period last year, and its net profit was $1.75 million, down 98.69 percent from the same period last year.

The declining profits were mainly caused by the reduced demand for COVID-19 vaccines and lower vaccine prices worldwide.

According to the latest epidemiological data, more than 90 percent of COVID cases are now caused by the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants, and the continued use of vaccines against the original COVID-19 strains has reduced effectiveness.

Chinese Citizenry Growing Weary

Chinese citizens have become increasingly weary and upset with the ongoing mandatory COVID testing and the lockdown of entire cities.

An elderly man from Shanghai, who spoke to the Epoch Times on the condition of anonymity, expressed his frustration with the government’s COVID policy and the hardships it is causing people.

“Nearly everyone was vaccinated last year, and without the vaccinations, people were not allowed to visit banks, take buses, enter shopping malls, and so on. Everyone thought that they would be safe after receiving the jab, but after the first and second jabs, a third booster jab was required. The virus mutated so fast that the vaccines simply couldn’t keep up. Now people understand that we have become test subjects for the vaccine manufacturers, and the officials now tell us that the vaccine does not prevent us from infections but only reduces the risk of severe symptoms. Lately, people have grown weary of the daily COVID-19 nucleic [acid] tests.”

The man also expressed the opinion that the new vaccine was likely approved to boost the manufacturer’s profits, “And right after reports were saying that the vaccine manufacturers lost over 90 percent of their revenue, the government decided to grant approval for a new vaccine.”

He also said he believes the pandemic rules are a way for the authorities to further control people. “As the 20th National Congress of the CCP approaches, the government is trying to monitor all citizens and to achieve social stability via strict pandemic rules,” he said.
 

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EXCLUSIVE: US Pandemic Committee Hasn’t Worked During COVID-19 Pandemic

By Zachary Stieber
September 13, 2022

A committee formed to evaluate research projects involving pathogens that could cause pandemics has not worked during the COVID-19 pandemic, The Epoch Times has learned.

The Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight (P3CO) Review Committee was formed in 2017 under a new framework aimed at strengthening oversight of potentially risky projects that were up for funding from the U.S. government, following a multi-year pause ordered after issues involving anthrax and avian influenza.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes the National Institutes of Health (NIH), created the panel.

According to the HHS website for the panel, it has only reviewed three projects, all of which were for influenza viruses. The most recent review took place in 2019.

The Epoch Times asked the HHS records office for any projects the panel has reviewed since Jan. 1, 2020, determinations for each project reviewed since then, and details, such as transcripts, of all meetings held.

The HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) searched and found no records responsive to the request, according to the records office.

“Specifically, the ASPR has informed our office that the Committee has not reconstituted within the search dates given for the search,” Arianne Perkins, a Freedom of Information Act officer, told The Epoch Times in a letter.

Asked what that meant, Ruhma Sufian, another records officer, said in an email that “because the HHS P3CO Review Committee has not met within the search frame you gave … ASPR responded with no records.”

That means no work has been done by the committee despite it coming to light that the NIH funded risky experiments at the laboratory in Wuhan, China located near where the first COVID-19 cases appeared in 2019.

“It is unconscionable that the Committee has not reviewed any of the thousands of HHS-funded coronavirus research projects when people are still dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak—the American people deserve better,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who has tried halting grants for risky research, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

“We are troubled that the P3CO Review Committee may have been sidelined and isolated from reviewing any research proposals,” Jack Heretik, a spokesman for Republicans on the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, who have been investigating the HHS review process, told The Epoch Times via email.

The HHS, ASPR, and the NIH did not respond to requests for comment.

How It Works

The panel cannot review projects on its own accord. The funding agency must refer proposals to the panel.

To refer a project, an agency must determine it is “reasonably anticipated to create, transfer, or use enhanced PPPs,” or potential pandemic pathogens, according to the framework.

HHS defines a PPP as a pathogen that is “likely highly transmissible and likely capable of wide and uncontrollable spread in human populations” and “is likely highly virulent and likely to cause significant morbidity and/or mortality in humans.”

The definition of enhanced PPPs is even narrower. It’s said to be a potential pandemic pathogen that results “from the enhancement of the transmissibility and/or virulence of a pathogen.” Experts often refer to such research as “gain of function.” Some say the United States has funded a number of gain of function experiments in the past, including experiments performed at the Wuhan lab with U.S. funding.

HHS excludes naturally occurring pathogens in circulation in nature, or recovered from nature, from the enhanced PPP definition. It also excludes activities associated with vaccines and surveillance activities such as sequencing.

If a funding agency does refer a project, then the review group is convened to evaluate the proposal, including performing a risk-benefit assessment and suggesting a risk mitigation plan. The panel makes recommendations to the HHS, which may or may not be accepted. Ultimately, the project can still be funded with no changes, funded with changes, or not funded.

Call for New System

Christopher Hassell, an HHS official who has said he chairs the committee, said the group is “robust” and “tough.”

“This isn’t some rubber stamp group,” he said during a National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity meeting in 2020, adding: “It’s a very critical group. It’s a tough group to get through.”

But the fact that only three projects have been reviewed shows the system is failing and needs changing, according to some experts.

“Most covered projects, including the project by EcoHealth Alliance and its Wuhan partners, were not reviewed due to a failure by the NIH to identify and flag covered projects,” Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, said during a congressional hearing in August.

Ebright and Dr. Steven Quay, CEO of Atossa Therapeutics, urged lawmakers to quickly put in place a different system.

They cited the dearth of reviews in recent years.

The NIH and its parent agency never responded to requests for comment on the recommendations.

Dr. Mark Lipsitch of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Dr. Tom Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, previously urged the government to be more transparent with the system.

“Currently, none of the HHS departmental review process for approving enhanced PPP experiments is public. This is inconsistent with the [White House] guidance which said: ‘To the maximum extent possible, agencies’ enhanced PPP review mechanisms should provide transparency to the public regarding funded projects involving the creation, transfer or use of enhanced PPPs,'” they said in a 2020 paper.

“To that end, the HHS review should make public who participates in the review, as well as the basis of the decision that the research is acceptable to fund, including the U.S. government’s (USG’s) calculation of the potential benefits and risks of the proposed enhanced PPP research.”

Secrecy

None of the members of the P3CO committee are known to the public, a system critics say sets up issues such as conflicts of interest.

“American taxpayers deserve to know the committee’s composition, like how many reviewers are employed by HHS, how many are biothreat and national security experts, and how opinions are weighted,” Marshall said.

Hassell said possible harassment was a reason for not naming the committee members.

“Names get out, you become subject to a number of vulnerabilities,” Hassell said during the 2020 meeting.

“As much as it would be good to publicize the individual names, which has been suggested, if that chills anyone being willing to serve on that committee, that will be detrimental because we do manage to get good people on that committee that give of their time to work on this thing,” Hassell said during the 2020 meeting.

All members are government workers, Hassell said at the time. He said some are from outside HHS, including from the U.S. military. Hassell told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the members include NIH employees. One works for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci. The NIAID worker co-authored articles with an investigator who was engaged in research proposals that could have been reviewed by the P3CO Committee, according to Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), and Morgan Griffith (R-Va.).

Dr. Francis Collins said in a statement in 2019 that the pre-funding reviews done by the committee aren’t public “to allow for candid critique and discussion of individual proposals.” He noted that information about projects funded by the NIH is publicly available, once the awards are given.

“NIH takes the need to ensure the safety of the public very seriously. We believe the HHS Framework process strikes the right balance of rigorous oversight with the advancement of the important science necessary to prevent and treat infectious diseases,” added Collins, who stepped down as NIH director in 2021 but still works for the agency and advises President Joe Biden.
 

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Facebook’s Propaganda Role Shifts to Inoculating Babies
Emails show how the media giant answers to government orders

Mary Beth Pfeiffer
Sep. 12, 2022, 3:00 p.m.


Last July 13, Facebook suggested something that didn’t sit well with the White House: The social media platform would “discontinue” sending bi-weekly reports on the progress of its campaign against Covid-vaccine “mis-and-disinformation.” To paraphrase Facebook: Things are going well. Problem solved.

But the White House responded, in effect, wait a minute. We’re not done. It’s time, its director of digital strategy, Rob F. Flaherty, told Facebook, “to ramp up under 5 vaccines.” (See transcript of selected emails below.)

With that exchange, a government-directed propaganda campaign, long in the making and remarkably successful, set its sights on the unvaccinated arms of toddlers and pre-schoolers. With social media’s enormous reach, the government would push as hard as it had with everyone else to inoculate children as young as 6 months with a poorly tested, likely ineffective and possibly unsafe vaccine. Further, it was a vaccine that was not needed.

All of that mattered little.

“Will circle up with the team and get you an update, and will keep the reports going as long as they’re providing value,” responded the Facebook official, whose name is redacted in the emails.

Kids: Final Frontier

Emails between Facebook and the highest echelons of the United States government paint a stark picture of a social media giant that offered itself up as a conduit in a government-directed campaign to control Covid-19 information and assure vaccinations of almost every American alive.

The emails were disclosed after two attorneys general filed a lawsuit alleging collusion between the federal government and social media behemoths to censor Covid-19 information. They arrive as the ground is shifting on Covid-19 vaccinations for young people.

Quietly and without formal announcement, the United Kingdom reversed its “one-off” program on September 4 that had allowed--rather than recommended—Covid vaccinations of 5-to-11-year-olds. The UK’s original “non-urgent offer” had been based on a scientific fact that Covid-19 infection poses little threat to kids. “Children aged 5 to 11 years who are not in a COVID-19 clinical risk group are at extremely low risk of developing severe COVID-19 disease,” the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said in a statement at the time. Now, it’s not making the vaccines available at any children under 11.

In the United States, however, the pressure to vaccinate young babies is fierce, led by a White House that makes its orders clear and a social media giant that enforces them. Ever so politely, the emails refer to “shared values” (Facebook); “productive and forward-looking conversation” (the White House); and a “welcome opportunity” to discuss how to get children vaccinated (Facebook).

Gentility aside, the emails show how the White House got its way when shots for 5-to-11 year-olds were being rolled out. “We remain concerned,” the White House’s Flaherty told Facebook on October 19, 2021, “about mis-and-disinformation on feed and in groups, and the wide reach of hesitancy-inducing content across your platform.” The subject line: “Kids Vaccines”.

Nine days later, Flaherty shamed his Facebook contact by emailing a link to a Washington Post article on Facebook’s proclivity for knowingly disseminating vaccine misinformation. Nothing else was written.

Dissenters tamed

Facebook fell into line. The day after the Post story, a Facebook email arrived in the White House and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) inboxes with the subject line: “Covid Insights and plan for approval of kids vaccines.” Under five categories, the email listed myriad ways to promote Covid vaccination of children 5 to 11, including an “influencer campaign” aimed at parents; ways to “amplify” information on vaccine safety; and Spanish-English promotions of the anticipated imminent approval.

By June 13 of this year, Facebook boasted to the White House of a “noticeable decrease” in posts that “would be likely to discourage vaccinations.” The email told of a drastically reduced need to remove posts that violated its misinformation policies. At that point—when Facebook suggested “discontinuing” regular reports to the White House--there simply were few offenders left. Facebook users knew better.

In a health emergency, Facebook saw its role as some sort of public service: “We're committed to working toward our shared goal of helping America get on top of this pandemic,” the unnamed Facebook official said in a July 23, 2021 email to HHS.

Unaddressed, of course, is the social media giant’s rigid message control and intolerance, call it censorship, of alternative views. I wrote an article on July 27 that detailed the questionable science that led to the latest shots-for-tots approval. I encouraged parents to think “long and hard,” read the studies cited in my article, and decide based on the science and risk.

My article, well-documented though it is, has a message you won’t see in the mainstream media. The risk of Covid-19 to children is likely lower than the unknown risk of a jab, which was tested in a “sample size (that) was too small to identify rare events.” The potential harm of vaccines has been minimized. Government failed to study the vaccines before use. It isn’t studying their effects now.

Instead, working with media giants like Facebook, the government silenced dissenters. In a telling aside, a Facebook official admitted in one email that some posts by borderline offenders were simply made “more difficult to find on our platform.”

While many industrialized countries are following the U.S. policy lead on childhood Covid vaccination, they draw the line at pre-schoolers. No European country vaccinates children under 5 against Covid, while Sweden and Switzerland do not use the vaccines for children under 11. Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Denmark and Poland offer the vaccines to children 5 to 11 but uptake varies widely.

Defining Misinformation

Last June 25, as baby shots were nearing approval, Facebook wrote to officials at the HHS, with copies to the Executive Office of the President.

“As of today,” Facebook assured the government, “all vaccine-related and misinformation and harm policies on Facebook and Instagram apply to people 6 months or older.”

The question: What is misinformation? In recent weeks, articles in respected medical journals challenge the government’s Covid-19 vaccine narrative in fundamental ways, including safety.

One study, published in Vaccines journal, recalculated the prevalence of serious injury in vaccine trials. Pfizer participants had a 36% higher risk of serious adverse events, while Moderna vaccinees had a 6% higher risk, concluded the researchers, among them British Medical Journal senior editor, Peter Doshi. “The excess risk of serious adverse events found in our study points to the need for formal harm-benefit analyses,” the researchers asserted.

Another study tracked 301 adolescents in Thailand following twin Pfizer vaccinations—making it the only study to assess patients before inoculation and monitor them after. The peer-reviewed results, published in the journal Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, were alarming: “Cardiovascular manifestations were found in 29.24% of patients, ranging from tachycardia or palpitation to myopericarditis.”

Not to worry, says the U.S. government. In one disclosed email to Facebook, from June 28, 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control dismisses assertions of myocarditis as “rare, given the hundreds of millions” of doses. Yet one of the just 301 Thai adolescents suffered myocarditis; four likely had “subclinical” cases, and three had suspected pericarditis. Rare?

An Ethical Obligation

Most recently, a third study drew a powerful, anti-vaccine conclusion that is unlikely to be widely reported in mainstream media, let alone shared on social media. College students, the study concluded, face more risk from Covid boosters than any individual or collective benefit. “We estimate that 22,000-30,000 previously uninfected adults aged 18-29 must be boosted with an mRNA vaccine to prevent one Covid-19 hospitalization,” a high-profile research group concluded. The resulting “net expected harm” would be 18 to 98 serious adverse events, including 1.7 to 3 myocarditis cases in males, and 1,373 to 3,234 vaccine reactions that would impede daily activities.

The study’s subtitle sums it up: “A risk-benefit assessment and five ethical arguments against mandates at universities.”

Will this and other new science break through? Or will it be relegated to the “mis-or-dis” trash heap of history? To be sure, Facebook has been complicit in sending a lot of good science there already—in particular on generic treatments that could have changed the nature of the pandemic in its early days. Many Facebook groups were struck down for advocating for and sharing information on ivermectin, among the safest of drugs.

“Under the First Amendment, the federal Government should have no role in policing private speech or picking winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas,” a new filing in the censorship lawsuit asserts. “But that is what federal officials are doing, on a massive scale.”

In this milieu, in which information is tightly controlled, the essential question then is this: Will truth prevail?
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Excerpts from selected emails released in the lawsuit States of Missouri and Louisiana V. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (including some posted by the Epoch Times).

June 13, 2022 Email from an official at Facebook (name redacted) to four officials in the Executive Office of the President:
“Attaching recent reports for your review. We will plan to discontinue these unless we hear from you that this information continues to be valuable….Providing a summary below from our team detailing the decrease in vaccine related posts we have seen over the past 6 months for further context….”
“Over the last six months, there has been a noticeable decrease in top vaccine-related posts that were demoted as misinformation or for sharing misleading or sensationalized information about vaccines in a way that would be likely to discourage vaccinations. There has not been a post misinforming or discouraging vaccination in this way in the top 100 vaccine-related posts since the week of February 27th, 2022, and the overall trend peak dates back to October of 2021. The total number of posts removed for violating our COVID-19 or vaccine misinformation policies has remained at 1 since the week of December 13, 2021….We recommend discontinuing this report as we are no longer seeing problematic vaccine related posts (Borderline Vaccine) in the top 100 posts viewed on FB in the US.”



June 13, 2022 Email from Rob R. Flaherty, White House Director of Digital Strategy, Executive Office of the President, to an official at Facebook after Facebook suggested it would discontinue reports to the White House on controlling vaccine related misinformation:
“I would normally say we are good to discontinue (FB reports) these but it would be helpful to continue to get these as we start to ramp up under 5 vaccines. Obviously, that has a potential to be just as charged. Would love to get a sense of what you all are planning here.”

June 13, 2022 Email from Facebook to Flaherty in response.
“Will circle up with the team and get you an update, and will keep the reports going as long as they’re providing value.”

June 22, 2022 Email from a Facebook official to Rob R. Flaherty, White House Director of Digital Strategy, Executive Office of the President.

June 25, 2022 Email from a Facebook official to an official at the HHS, with copies to the Executive Office of the President.
“As of today, all vaccine-related and misinformation and harm policies on Facebook and Instagram apply to people 6 months or older (with the exception of the claim that the COVID vaccines have full FDA approval since children have only emergency use authorization).
“We expanded these policies in coordination with the CDC and ensured that we also included false claims that might be connected to children, such as the false claims that COVID vaccines cause Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).”


July 19, 2021 Email from the U.S. Surgeon General to a Facebook official who had asked to meet “to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation…as partners in the same battle.”
“Thanks for reaching out and for sharing your concerns. I know the last few days have been challenging. I’d be happy to speak directly about how we move forward. Let me know the best way to schedule some time later this week and we will make it happen.”

July 23, 2021 Email from a Facebook official to an official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, names redacted.
“Thanks again for taking the time to meet earlier today. It was very helpful to take stock after the past week and hear directly from. you and your team, and to establish our next steps.
We talked about the speed at which at which we are all having to iterate as the pandemic progresses. I wanted to make sure you saw the steps we took just this past week to adjust policies on what we are removing with respect to misinformation, as well as steps taken to further address the ‘disinfo dozen’: we removed 17 additional Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts tied to the disinfo dozen (so a total of 39 Profiles, Pages, Groups and IG accounts deleted thus far, resulting in every member of the disinfo dozen having had at least one such entity removed). We are also continuing to make 4 other Pages and Profiles, which have not yet met their removal thresholds, more difficult to find on our platform. We also expanded the group of false claims that we remove, to keep up with recent trends of misinformation that we are seeing.”
We hear your call for us to do more and, as I said on the call, we’re committed to working toward our shared goal of helping America get on top of this pandemic. We will reach out direction to [redacted] to schedule the deeper dive on how to best measure Covid related content and how to proceed with respect to the question around data. We’d also like to begin a regular cadence of meeting with your team so that we can continue to update you on our progress. You have identified 4 specific recommendations for improvement and we want to make sure to keep you informed of our work on each.
I want to again stress how critical it is that we establish criteria for measuring what’s happening on an industry-wide basis, not least to reflect the way platformed are used inter changeably by users themselves. We believe that we have provided more transparence, both through CrowdTangle (the flaws of which we discussed in some detail) and through our Top 100 report, than others and that any further analysis should include a comprehensive look at what’s happening across all platforms—ours and others—if we are going to make progress in a consistent and sustained manner.
Finally, we will be sending you the latest version of our Top 100 report later today, per our regular schedule. [Name redacted] will do the honors this week as it will likely be completed at our end later today East Coast time. We really do hope that we can discuss our approach to this data set in greater detail during our next session with [name redacted’ as we genuinely believe it is an effective way of understanding what people are actually seeing on the platform.
Once again, I want to thank you for setting such a constructive tone at the beginning of the call. We to believe that we have a strong shared interest to work together, and that we will strive to do all we can to meet our shared goals.
Best wishes,
[Name redacted]”


October 19, 2021: Email from Rob R. Flaherty, White House Director of Digital Strategy, Executive Office of the President, to an official at Facebook.
Related to your previous email, thought it might be helpful for us to connect on what the admin’s plans are for the 5-11 vaccine roll out. We’d like to talk about what we’re seeing as the biggest headwinds we’re going to face, and discuss what you all are planning as we move into this next phase. We remain concerned about mis-and-disinformation on feed and in groups, and the wide reach of hesitancy-inducing content across your platform. With that said, we hope—as ever—that this will be a productive and forward-looking conversation.”

Emails show how the media giant answers to government orders
 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
(fair use applies)


Rockefeller Foundation, Nonprofits Spending Millions on Behavioral Psychology Research to ‘Nudge’ More People to Get COVID Vaccines
The Rockefeller Foundation, the National Science Foundation and other nonprofits are pouring millions of dollars into a research initiative “to increase uptake of COVID-19 vaccines and other recommended public health measures by countering mis- and disinformation.”

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.
09/13/22

The Rockefeller Foundation, the National Science Foundation (an “independent” agency of the U.S. government) and other nonprofits are pouring millions of dollars into a research initiative “to increase uptake of COVID-19 vaccines and other recommended public health measures by countering mis- and disinformation.”

In conjunction with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the Rockefeller Foundation last month announced $7.2 million in funding for the Mercury Project, initially launched in November 2021, under the slogan, “Together, we can build a healthier information environment.”

The funds will support 12 teams of researchers in 17 countries who will conduct studies on “ambitious, applied social and behavioral science to combat the growing global threat posed by low COVID-19 vaccination rates and public health mis- and disinformation,” the Rockefeller Foundation said.

The Rockefeller Foundation and the SSRC claim the aim of the Mercury Project, whose name is derived from the ancient Roman god of messages and communication, is to bolster public health and safety.

However, some critics described the project as one based on “propaganda” aimed at “nudging” the unvaccinated to get vaccinated.

Creating ‘behavioral change’ by targeting schoolchildren and specific socio-economic groups

Behavioral change lies at the heart of the Mercury Project, which will issue three-year research grants to estimate “the causal impacts of mis- and disinformation on online and offline outcomes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic,” including “differential impacts across socio-demographic groups.”

The research will include “interventions that target the producers or the consumers of mis- and disinformation, or that increase confidence in reliable information.”

Some of the “interventions” proffered by the Rockefeller Foundation include “literacy training for secondary school students” to “help students identify COVID-19 vaccine misinformation,” “equipping trusted messengers with communication strategies to increase COVID-19 vaccination demand” and “using social networks to share tailored, community-developed messaging to increase COVID-19 vaccination demand.”

This information will, according to the Rockefeller Foundation, “provide evidence about what works — and doesn’t — in specific places and for specific groups to increase COVID-19 vaccination take-up.”

But according to ZeroHedge, the research groups funded by the Mercury Project “are operating with the intent to tailor vaccination narratives to fit different ethnic and political backgrounds, looking for the key to the gates of each cultural kingdom and convincing them to take the jab.”

The project uses “ambiguous language and mission statements” to at least partially conceal the project’s main purpose of “using behavioral psychology and mass psychology elements to understand the global resistance to the recent COVID compliance efforts,” ZeroHedge reported.

‘Fabricating effective COVID propaganda’ a ‘money train’ for behavioral researchers and psychologists

In November 2021, the Mercury Project received an initial $7.5 million in seed funding from entities including the Rockefeller Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to apply “the principles of large-scale, team-based science to the problem of vaccination demand” over a three-year period.

As of August 2022, these entities have funded the Mercury Project to the tune of $10.25 million.

In June, the project received $20 million from the National Science Foundation to study “interventions to increase COVID-19 vaccination demand and other positive health behaviors.”

The SSRC’s latest call for proposals, under the aegis of the Mercury Project, received nearly 200 submissions.

The accepted proposals come from researchers in countries including the U.S., Canada, Côte d’Ivoire, England, France, Ghana, Haiti, Kenya, India, Malawi, Mexico, Sierra Leone, Spain, Rwanda and Tanzania.

U.S.-based researchers represent institutions including Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Duke, Harvard, MIT, New York University, Rutgers, St. Augustine University, Stanford, UC Berkeley, University of Southern California, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, Vanderbilt and Yale.

The titles of some of the projects most recently funded by the Mercury Project include:
  • “A tough call: Impacts of mobile technology on Covid-19 (mis)information and protective behavior decision-making.”
  • “Boosting boosters at scale: A megastudy to increase vaccination at scale.”
  • “Building a better toolkit (for fighting misinformation): Large collaborative project to compare misinformation interventions.”
  • “Harnessing influencers to counter misinformation: Scalable solutions in the Global South.”
  • “Targeting health misinformation networks: Network-transforming interventions for reducing the spread of health misinformation online.”
Arguing in favor of the importance of the project’s research, Anna Harvey, president of the SSRC, stated:

“With COVID-19 prevalent and rapidly evolving everywhere, there is a pressing need to identify interventions with the potential to increase vaccination take-up.

“Vaccines are only effective if they become vaccinations; vaccines are a scientific marvel but their potential is unfulfilled if they are left on the shelf.”

Describing the Mercury Project’s grantees, Dr. Bruce Gellin, the Rockefeller Foundation’s chief of global public health strategy, said:

“This initial cohort’s ideas exemplify the creativity and vision behind the Mercury Project. They go far beyond quick fixes, with the goal of identifying robust, cost-effective, and meaningful solutions that can be widely adopted and scaled.

“We hope that more, better, and science-based knowledge about what we need to do will lead to increased uptake of reliable information — and serve as a powerful counter to the effects of misinformation and disinformation on vaccine demand.”

Heather Lanthorn, the Mercury Project’s program director, highlighted the importance of leveraging communication toward achieving public health objectives:

“The viral, vaccine, and information environments are all rapidly evolving–but that doesn’t mean it is impossible to make progress towards more effective and equitable responses.

“By funding projects on the ground around the world, this work will help us understand what works where, and why, and identify new ways to harness the power of connection and communication to advance public health goals.”

ZeroHedge, however, countered that behind all the rhetoric, the focus of the Mercury Project, is “propaganda, propaganda and propaganda,” and “the very basis of the existence of the Mercury Project presupposes that individuals cannot be trusted to make up their own minds about the information they are exposed to.”

The expectation is that individuals “must be molded to accept the mainstream narrative,” ZeroHedge said, while presupposing that “mainstream or establishment information is always trustworthy and unbiased.”

“Fabricating effective COVID propaganda is becoming a money train for the small groups of behavioral researchers and psychologists that jump onboard,” ZeroHedge added.

GAVI: 200 global ‘nudge units’ specialize in applying behavioral science to everyday life

The field of behavioral science — and a concept known as “nudging” — figured prominently during the years of the COVID-19 pandemic and were heavily utilized by governments and public health officials throughout the world to justify often stringent restrictions and countermeasures.

Nudging was defined in a bestselling 2008 book by economist Richard H. Thaler and legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein — “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness” — as something that “alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.”

Thaler and Sunstein presented nudging as a technocratic solution for tricky policy issues involving a perceived need to encourage, in a “voluntary manner,” policies or measures that would otherwise be unpopular.

Their work drew from a 1974 paper by two Israeli psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, which, as explained by an article published by GAVI-The Vaccine Alliance, “pioneered the study of mental shortcuts that humans rely on to make decisions, known as heuristics.”

As previously reported by The Defender, the Rockefeller Foundation is also a partner and board member and donor to GAVI, alongside the WEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which hosted Event 201, which simulated the spread of a coronavirus just prior to the actual COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2010, the U.K. government established the Behavioural Insights Team, initially within the government’s Cabinet Office, before it was spun off as a private company in 2014. A year later, U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive order to promote the utilization of behavioral science in federal policymaking.

According to GAVI, “globally, there are now more than 200 teams, or nudge units, that specialize in applying behavioral science to everyday life.”

COVID-19, and the response to it, was no exception. HRW Healthcare’s Tony Jiang described nudges as “a set of policy tools which utilize psychological insights to attempt to motivate people to adopt certain desired actions/behaviours, without having to enforce strict laws, bans, or punishments,” and as a means to “motivate people into making responsible decisions, while preserving individual liberty.”

According to Jiang, “at the beginning of the pandemic, to encourage COVID-safe behaviours, behavioural nudges were the preferred policy by governments in the UK, USA, and Australia.”

According to Jay Van Bavel, associate professor of psychology at New York University, “as COVID-19 infections grew exponentially in 2020, behavioral scientists wanted to help. Nudges presented a possible route to controlling the virus, particularly in the absence of vaccines and evidence-based treatments.”

Van Bavel, along with Sunstein and 40 other researchers, in 2020 published a paper in Nature presenting ways in which behavioral science and nudging could contribute to efforts to combat COVID-19, including through fostering increased trust in government and fighting “conspiracy theories.”

As explained by GAVI, “as scientists learned more about how the coronavirus spread … governments knew what they wanted their citizens to do, but they still had to think carefully about how to encourage people to change their behavior. That’s where nudges could help.”

This was evidenced, for instance, in a March 14, 2020, U.K. government document published approximately two weeks before the U.K. government imposed a nationwide lockdown.

The document presented the role that would be played by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies in advising the U.K. government’s response.

The document referenced the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic and the advice the advisory group received at the time from a subgroup known as the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour and Communications. This group was reconvened on Feb. 13, 2020, with an exclusive focus on behavioral psychology.

According to the document, the group was “asked to provide advice aimed at anticipating and helping people adhere to interventions that are recommended by medical or epidemiological experts,” concluding that the U.K. government should “provide clear and transparent reasons for the different strategies that might be taken.”

The group advised the U.K. government that “in order to increase confidence in, and adherence to, the interventions should provide clear and transparent reasons for the strategies that have and have not been selected … and conduct rapid research into how best to help people adhere to the recommendations” whilst suggesting “behaviours that reduce risk.”

Other studies in the 2020-2021 period also highlighted the potential role nudging and behavioral psychology could play in relation to COVID-19.

For instance, a 2021 study showed that sending text messages to patients before scheduled primary care visits increased flu vaccinations by 5%, while another 2021 study found that the same strategy boosted COVID-19 vaccination appointments by 6% and actual vaccinations by 3.6%.

Still another 2021 study, also published in Nature, found that “behavioural nudges increase COVID-19 vaccinations,” arguing that “overcoming vaccine hesitancy … requires effective communication strategies” and finding that “inducing feelings of ownership over vaccines” can help bring about an increase in vaccine uptake.

The National Science Foundation offered grants of $200,000 for research in this field, while the SSRC also issued a call for proposals, receiving 1,300 applications even though it had sufficient funding for only 62.

However, as the pandemic progressed and as vaccination figures eventually plateaued, the strategy of nudging began to be called into question.

Dena Gromet, executive director of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, said nudging is effective only if individuals are already inclined to perform the action that they are being reminded or encouraged to perform.

Nudging, as a result, was supplanted by vaccine mandates.

Indeed, such “sterner measures” were advocated by Richard Thaler, one of the creators of the concept of nudging. In an August 2021 New York Times op-ed, Thaler called for stricter measures for the unvaccinated, including vaccine passports and isolation — measures which he described as “pushes and shoves” instead of nudges.

Two studies performed by researchers at King’s College London also cast doubt on the effectiveness of nudging to change behaviors and attitudes in relation to COVID-19.

Notably, the dedicated COVID-19 page on the website of the Behavioral Insights Team, which had played such a key role in advising the U.K. government on its COVID-19-related countermeasures early in the pandemic, has not featured a new posting since April 28, 2021.

However, some believe there still remains a role for nudging as the world enters a “new phase” of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tony Jiang argued that “as mandates relax, a greater reliance on individual compliance is required if we are to prevent mass-outbreaks in the future.”

“This makes the role of nudges and behavioural science ever more crucial,” he said, suggesting that going forward, nudges can be utilized to encourage mask-wearing, vaccinations and boosters.

Jiang proffered suggestions such as personalized masks that “can be more fashionable,” and for vaccinations, the potential role of “defaults,” where “people are automatically enrolled to receive a booster and must deliberately cancel the scheduled appointment if they do not wish to receive it.”
 
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