If Ivermectin is effective against Covid and all indications suggest that it is, why aren’t we making it more accessible? Why does the medical establishment dismiss it and even suggest that it’s harmful? Dennis Prager discusses two articles in his monologue. One from The Wall Street Journal, the other from Slate:
Why Is the FDA Attacking a Safe, Effective Drug? (WSJ)
Ivermectin is a promising Covid treatment and prophylaxis, but the agency is denigrating it.
The Food and Drug Administration claims to follow the science. So why is it attacking ivermectin, a medication it certified in 1996?
Earlier this year the agency put out a special warning that “you should not use ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19.” The FDA’s statement included words and phrases such as “serious harm,” “hospitalized,” “dangerous,” “very dangerous,” “seizures,” “coma and even death” and “highly toxic.” Any reader would think the FDA was warning against poison pills. In fact, the drug is FDA-approved as a safe and effective antiparasitic.
Ivermectin was developed and marketed by Merck & Co. while one of us (Mr. Hooper) worked there years ago. William C. Campbell and Satoshi Omura won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering and developing avermectin, which Mr. Campbell and associates modified to create ivermectin.
Ivermectin is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines. Merck has donated four billion doses to prevent river blindness and other diseases in Africa and other places where parasites are common. A group of 10 doctors who call themselves the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance have said ivermectin is “one of the safest, low-cost, and widely available drugs in the history of medicine.”
Some 70 clinical trials are evaluating the use of ivermectin for treating Covid-19. The statistically significant evidence suggests that it is safe and works for both treating and preventing the disease.
In 115 patients with Covid-19 who received a single dose of ivermectin, none developed pneumonia or cardiovascular complications, while 11.4% of those in the control group did. Fewer ivermectin patients developed respiratory distress (2.6% vs. 15.8%); fewer required oxygen (9.6% vs. 45.9%); fewer required antibiotics (15.7% vs. 60.2%); and fewer entered intensive care (0.1% vs. 8.3%). Ivermectin-treated patients tested negative faster, in four days instead of 15, and stayed in the hospital nine days on average instead of 15. Ivermectin patients experienced 13.3% mortality compared with 24.5% in the control group.
Moreover, the drug can help prevent Covid-19. One 2020 article in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications looked at what happened after the drug was given to family members of confirmed Covid-19 patients. Less than 8% became infected, versus 58.4% of those untreated. Among 200 healthcare workers and others at high risk of exposure, only 2% of those given ivermectin developed Covid-19. But 10% of the control group did.
Despite the FDA’s claims, ivermectin is safe at approved doses. Out of four billion doses administered since 1998, there have been only 28 cases of serious neurological adverse events, according to an article published this year in the American Journal of Therapeutics. The same study found that ivermectin has been used safely in pregnant women, children and infants.
If the FDA were driven by science and evidence, it would give an emergency-use authorization for ivermectin for Covid-19. Instead, the FDA asserts without evidence that ivermectin is dangerous.
At the bottom of the FDA’s warning against ivermectin is this statement: “Meanwhile, effective ways to limit the spread of COVID-19 continue to be to wear your mask, stay at least 6 feet from others who don’t live with you, wash hands frequently, and avoid crowds.” Is this based on the kinds of double-blind studies that the FDA requires for drug approvals? No.
Mr. Henderson, a research fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, was senior health economist with President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers. Mr. Hooper is president of Objective Insights, a firm that consults with pharmaceutical clients.
Most important in this post is this, WHERE CAN I GET Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin? AMERICA’S FRONTLINE DOCTORS has a consultation sign up HERE! See also FLCCC ALLIANCE (Click Pic)
This is part THREE of three uploads dealing with the loss of freedom in our country — or attacks on Western freedoms and thought by the Progressive Left. Dan’s full show where this is an excerpt from can be found here: Ep. 1567 The Free World Isn’t Free Anymore – The Dan Bongino Show
This is part TWO of three uploads dealing with the loss of freedom in our country — or attacks on Western freedoms and thought by the Progressive Left. Dan’s full show where this excerpt is from can be found on his RUMBLE CHANNEL: Ep. 1567 The Free World Isn’t Free Anymore – The Dan Bongino Show
He’s an economist, a historian, a philosopher, and one of the greatest social theorists America has ever produced. His name is Thomas Sowell, and he might be the most important scholar you’ve never heard of. Jason Riley, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, tells his inspiring story.
Sweden, of course, was maligned in 2020 for foregoing a strict lockdown. The Guardian called its approach “a catastrophe” in the making, while CBS News said Sweden had become “an example of how not to handle COVID-19.”
Despite these criticisms, Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to the pandemic continues today. In contrast to its European neighbors, Sweden is welcoming tourists. Businesses and schools are open with almost no restrictions. And as far as masks are concerned, not only is there no mandate in place, Swedish health officials are not even recommending them.
What are the results of Sweden’s much-derided laissez-faire policy? Data show the 7-day rolling average for COVID deaths yesterday was zero (see below). As in nada. And it’s been at zero for about a week now.
Even a year ago, it was clear the hyperbolic claims about “the Swedish catastrophe” were false; just ask Elon Musk (also see: here, here, and here). But a year later the evidence is overwhelming that Sweden got the pandemic mostly right. Sweden’s overall mortality rate in 2020 was lower than most of Europe and its economy suffered far less. Meanwhile, today Sweden is freer and healthier than virtually any other country in Europe.
As much of the world remains gripped in fear and nations devise new restrictions to curtail basic freedoms, Sweden remains a vital and shining reminder that there is a better way.
….If the treatment group in a clinical trial were dying off faster than the control group, an ethical researcher would halt the experiment. But the lockdown proponents were undeterred by the numbers in Florida, or by similar results elsewhere, including a comparable natural experiment involving European countries with the least restrictive policies. Sweden, Finland, and Norway rejected mask mandates and extended lockdowns, and they have each suffered significantly less excess mortality than most other European countries during the pandemic.
A nationwide analysis in Sweden showed that keeping schools open throughout the pandemic, without masks or social distancing, had little effect on the spread of Covid, but school closures and mask mandates for students continued elsewhere. Another Swedish researcher, Jonas Ludvigsson, reported that not a single schoolchild in the country died from Covid in Sweden and that their teachers’ risk of serious illness was lower than for the rest of the workforce—but these findings provoked so many online attacks and threats that Ludvigsson decided to stop researching or discussing Covid.
Social-media platforms continued censoring scientists and journalists who questioned lockdowns and mask mandates. YouTube removed a video discussion between DeSantis and the Great Barrington scientists, on the grounds that it “contradicts the consensus” on the efficacy of masks, and also took down the Hoover Institution’s interview with Atlas. Twitter locked out Atlas and Kulldorff for scientifically accurate challenges to mask orthodoxy. A peer-reviewed German study reporting harms to children from mask-wearing was suppressed on Facebook (which labeled my City Journalarticle “Partly False” because it cited the study) and also at ResearchGate, one of the most widely used websites for scientists to post their papers. ResearchGate refused to explain the censorship to the German scientists, telling them only that the paper was removed from the website in response to “reports from the community about the subject-matter.”
The social-media censors and scientific establishment, aided by the Chinese government, succeeded for a year in suppressing the lab-leak theory, depriving vaccine developers of potentially valuable insights into the virus’s evolution. It’s understandable, if deplorable, that the researchers and officials involved in supporting the Wuhan lab research would cover up the possibility that they’d unleashed a Frankenstein on the world. What’s harder to explain is why journalists and the rest of the scientific community so eagerly bought that story, along with the rest of the Covid narrative.
Why the elite panic? Why did so many go so wrong for so long? When journalists and scientists finally faced up to their mistake in ruling out the lab-leak theory, they blamed their favorite villain: Donald Trump. He had espoused the theory, so they assumed it must be wrong. And since he disagreed at times with Fauci about the danger of the virus and the need for lockdowns, then Fauci must be right, and this was such a deadly plague that the norms of journalism and science must be suspended. Millions would die unless Fauci was obeyed and dissenters were silenced.
But neither the plague nor Trump explains the panic. Yes, the virus was deadly, and Trump’s erratic pronouncements contributed to the confusion and partisanship, but the panic was due to two preexisting pathologies that afflicted other countries, too. The first is what I have called the Crisis Crisis, the incessant state of alarm fomented by journalists and politicians. It’s a longstanding problem—humanity was supposedly doomed in the last century by the “population crisis” and the “energy crisis”—that has dramatically worsened with the cable and digital competition for ratings, clicks, and retweets. To keep audiences frightened around the clock, journalists seek out Cassandras with their own incentives for fearmongering: politicians, bureaucrats, activists, academics, and assorted experts who gain publicity, prestige, funding, and power during a crisis.
Unlike many proclaimed crises, an epidemic is a genuine threat, but the crisis industry can’t resist exaggerating the danger, and doomsaying is rarely penalized. Early in the 1980s AIDS epidemic, the New York Times reported the terrifying possibility that the virus could spread to children through “routine close contact”—quoting from a study by Anthony Fauci. Life magazine wildly exaggerated the number of infections in a cover story, headlined “Now No One Is Safe from AIDS.” It cited a study by Robert Redfield, the future leader of the CDC during the Covid pandemic, predicting that AIDS would soon spread as rapidly among heterosexuals as among homosexuals. Both scientists were absolutely wrong, of course, but the false alarms didn’t harm their careers or their credibility.
Journalists and politicians extend professional courtesy to fellow crisis-mongers by ignoring their mistakes, such as the previous predictions by Neil Ferguson. His team at Imperial College projected up to 65,000 deaths in the United Kingdom from swine flu and 200 million deaths worldwide from bird flu. The death toll each time was in the hundreds, but never mind: when Ferguson’s team projected millions of American deaths from Covid, that was considered reason enough to follow its recommendation for extended lockdowns. And when the modelers’ assumption about the fatality rate proved too high, that mistake was ignored, too.
Journalists kept highlighting the most alarming warnings, presented without context. They needed to keep their audience scared, and they succeeded. For Americans under 70, the probability of surviving a Covid infection was about 99.9 percent, but fear of the virus was higher among the young than among the elderly, and polls showed that people of all ages vastly overestimated the risk of being hospitalized or dying.
The second pathology underlying the elite’s Covid panic is the politicization of research—what I have termed the Left’s war on science, another long-standing problem that has gotten much worse. Just as the progressives a century ago yearned for a nation directed by “expert social engineers”—scientific high priests unconstrained by voters and public opinion—today’s progressives want sweeping new powers for politicians and bureaucrats who “believe in science,” meaning that they use the Left’s version of science to justify their edicts. Now that so many elite institutions are political monocultures, progressives have more power than ever to enforce groupthink and suppress debate. Well before the pandemic, they had mastered the tactics for demonizing and silencing scientists whose findings challenged progressive orthodoxy on issues such as IQ, sex differences, race, family structure, transgenderism, and climate change.
And then along came Covid—“God’s gift to the Left,” in Jane Fonda’s words. Exaggerating the danger and deflecting blame from China to Trump offered not only short-term political benefits, damaging his reelection prospects, but also an extraordinary opportunity to empower social engineers in Washington and state capitals. Early in the pandemic, Fauci expressed doubt that it was politically possible to lock down American cities, but he underestimated the effectiveness of the crisis industry’s scaremongering. Americans were so frightened that they surrendered their freedoms to work, study, worship, dine, play, socialize, or even leave their homes. Progressives celebrated this “paradigm shift,” calling it a “blueprint” for dealing with climate change.
This experience should be a lesson in what not to do, and whom not to trust. Do not assume that the media’s version of a crisis resembles reality. Do not count on mainstream journalists and their favorite doomsayers to put risks in perspective. Do not expect those who follow “the science” to know what they’re talking about. Science is a process of discovery and debate, not a faith to profess or a dogma to live by. It provides a description of the world, not a prescription for public policy, and specialists in one discipline do not have the knowledge or perspective to guide society. They’re biased by their own narrow focus and self-interest. Fauci and Deborah Birx, the physician who allied with him against Atlas on the White House task force, had to answer for the daily Covid death toll—that ever-present chyron at the bottom of the television screen—so they focused on one disease instead of the collateral damage of their panic-driven policies.
“The Fauci-Birx lockdowns were a sinful, unconscionable, heinous mistake, and they will never admit they were wrong,” Atlas says. Neither will the journalists and politicians who panicked along with them. They’re still portraying lockdowns as not just a success but also a precedent—proof that Americans can sacrifice for the common good when directed by wise scientists and benevolent autocrats. But the sacrifice did far more harm than good, and the burden was not shared equally. The brunt was borne by the most vulnerable in America and the poorest countries of the world. Students from disadvantaged families suffered the most from school closures, and children everywhere spent a year wearing masks solely to assuage the neurotic fears of adults. The less educated lost jobs so that professionals at minimal risk could feel safer as they kept working at home on their laptops. Silicon Valley (and its censors) prospered from lockdowns that bankrupted local businesses.
Luminaries united on Zoom and YouTube to assure the public that “we’re all in this together.” But we weren’t. When the panic infected the nation’s elite—the modern gentry who profess such concern for the downtrodden—it turned out that they weren’t so different from aristocrats of the past. They were in it for themselves.
Rumble — This is part ONE of two more dealing with the loss of freedom in our country — or attacks on Western freedoms and thought by the Progressive Left. Dan’s full show where this is an excerpt from can be found here: Ep. 1567 The Free World Isn’t Free Anymore – The Dan Bongino Show
This is something I saw pop up on my FB in slow traffic yesterday and I thought it worthy of a “quick” retort.
A couple things going on here. First, no one I listen to or have read (other than the kooky “Alex Jones fringe,” has said it’s “not dangerous.” For instance, I myself argue it is as dangerous as the 1957-1958 and the 1968-1969 outbreaks — when the numbers are tampered down with the CDC’s change to how death certificates are written:
SOME EXAMPLES TO SUPPORT THE CONTENTION
Last month Alameda County, Calif., reduced its Covid death toll by 25% after state public-health officials insisted that deaths be attributed to Covid only if the virus was a direct or contributing factor. — Dr. Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Bloomberg School of Public Health and Carey Business School. (Wall Street Journal)
Alameda County has changed the way it calculates deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a 25% drop this weekend. The official total fell from 1,634 to 1,223 on Friday after the county changed its methodology to align with narrower guidelines used by California and U.S. health agencies. According to a news release from the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, the new number includes only people who “died as a direct result of COVID-19, or had the virus as a contributing cause of death as well as people for whom COVID-19 could not be ruled out as a cause of death.” (San Francisco Chronicle)
(FLASHBACK VIA RPT)And as states are going over death certificates, they are dropping by at least 25% in deaths by Covid-19. And some independent groups are helping “catch” the inflated number, like Pennsylvania’s “Wolf administration was caught this week adding up to 269 fake deaths to the state totals on Tuesday” (CITADELPOLITICS). Or this short example (PJ-MEDIA)
On Thursday, the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) confirmed a report by the Freedom Foundation that they have included those who tested positive for COVID-19 but died of other causes, including gunshot injuries, in their coronavirus death totals. This calls into serious question the state’s calculations of residents who have actually died of the CCP pandemic.
Last week, after it was reported that, like Washington, Colorado was counting deaths of all COVID-19 positive persons regardless of cause (which had resulted in the inclusion of deaths from alcohol poisoning), the Colorado Department of Health and Environment began to differentiate between deaths “among people with COVID-19” and “deaths due to COVID-19.”
Just one more of the many examples I could share is the New York Times getting 40% wrong of their “died from Covid-19 under 30-years old” front page news story. Mmmm, no, they didn’t die of Covid.
This Sunday morning, The New York Times has devoted their front page to the nearly 100,000 U.S. victims of COVID-19. The text-only cover lists 1,000 names and excerpts from the obituaries of people who have succumbed to the dreaded virus. The only problem with this lovely memorial is that at least one of the victims did not appear to have died from the coronavirus and his was only the sixth name on the list. [….] But others were quick to point out that Haynes was only the sixth name on the list. One replied, “He was one out of 5 under 30 on the list. Another in that group had a condition that doctors told him he would not live to 18. Did not test positive for COVID but still ruled a COVID death. That’s 40% of the under 30 age bracket.” (Red State)
[….]
APRIL 8TH (2020):
APRIL 19 (2020):
So, I am saying as an example, that a good portion of the deaths being attributed to Covid are not in fact Covid deaths.
The CDC has introduced a new ICD code, “to accurately capture mortality data for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) on death certificates.”
(Note: ICD stands for International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. It is a medical classification list by the World Health Organization (WHO).)
The new ICD code for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is U07.1. The CDC email says that the WHO has added a second code, U07.2, for instances “where a laboratory confirmation is inconclusive or not available. Because laboratory test results are not typically reported on death certificates in the U.S., National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is not planning to implement U07.2 for mortality statistics.”
The problem with the new codes is that it may result in an inflated number of coronavirus deaths….
And this is what I [for example] have argued. Do these changes made in April of 2020 impact previous outbreaks? Would this change also increase the 1957-1958 and the1968-1969 outbreaks? I think so.
A couple more examples to support the contention
(Story about a May 2020 death cert)
…. Jack Dake, an Oklahoma man who lived an admirable life as a veteran, a lifelong blue-collar worker and a loving dad, died on May 6 after contracting COVID-19.
There’s just one problem with his cause of death, his family says: Jack Dake did not die from the coronavirus.
The man barely had any symptoms, his family told The Oklahoman, and he died after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
But, the family insists, that didn’t stop a coroner from labeling Dake as a coronavirus statistic on his death certificate on May 14.
Dake’s son, Jack Dake Jr., told the newspaper that his father’s death had absolutely nothing to do with the pandemic.
“Alzheimer’s was the cause of death, and COVID-19 was not even a contributing condition,” Dake Jr. told The Oklahoman. “Yet it’s recorded as the only cause of death.”
Dake apparently contracted the coronavirus at an Oklahoma City assisted living center and tested positive on April 17.
[….]
But the elder Dake was in one of the final stages of his battle with Alzheimer’s and had quit eating and drinking, which is common for end-stage sufferers of the degenerative brain disease.
Dake Jr. also said his father was never again tested for the coronavirus, but the family did request that he be put on hospice care, as he was not eating and was dehydrated.
Dake was listed as being terminal with COVID-19 by hospice workers, and when he died 20 days after testing positive, his death was recorded as one of the state’s coronavirus fatalities.
[….]
According to USA Today, a provision in the Coronavirus Aid, Relieve and Economic Securities Act provides a “20% premium or add on” to Medicare reimbursements to health care facilities. (More information about that provision from the American Hospital Association.)…
The Montezuma County Coroner’s Office is disputing the state’s claim of a third fatal case of the coronavirus in Cortez, saying the person died of alcohol poisoning. County Coroner George Deavers said the person tested positive for COVID-19, but an investigation by him and the pathologist determined the cause of death was ethanol toxicity. The person’s blood-alcohol content was 0.55, or almost seven times the legal driving limit of 0.08 in Colorado, Deavers said. A BAC of 0.3 is considered lethal. (DURANGO HERALD)
CBS 12 News examined medical examiner’s reports on COVID-19 deaths and found eight examples where a person was listed as a coronavirus death but had actually died from something else. This includes a 60-year-old man who died from a gunshot wound to the head, a 90-year-old who fell and broke a hip, and a 77-year-old who died of Parkinson’s disease. (CBS)
A woman is left with “no peace” after her father’s death certificate stated he died of the coronavirus despite previously testing negative and an MRI test showing he suffered multiple strokes. Jay Smith died on July 12 in San Antonio, Texas, after an MRI showed brain damage from enduring multiple strokes. Kayla Smith, however, said last week that her father’s death certificate listed him as a coronavirus victim. “They put him as COVID. He didn’t have COVID. He had a stroke,” she said. “The MRI showed that he had multiple strokes in the brain, and also he had a blood clot. Those multiple strokes caused so much damage in his brain that it caused damage in his body.” Jay Smith was first taken to the hospital on July 6, where he tested negative for the coronavirus and was transferred to a non-COVID floor on July 7, according to local outlet KATU. (WASHINGTON EXAMINER)
The other contention in the “meme” is that “no experts” agree with portions of the above. Just high-school dummies.
Here is an older post:
List of “Dummies”
Dennis Prager interviews the co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, Jay Bhattacharya. Dr. Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He directs Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. Bhattacharya’s research focuses on the health and well-being of populations, with a particular emphasis on the role of government programs, biomedical innovation, and economics. Most recently, Bhattacharya has focused his research on the epidemiology of COVID-19 and evaluation of the various policy responses to the epidemic. He is a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document proposing a relaxation of social controls that delay the spread of COVID-19.
Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations.
Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases.
Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.
Alexander Walker, principal at World Health Information Science Consultants, former Chair of Epidemiology, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, USA
Andrius Kavaliunas, epidemiologist and assistant professor at Karolinska Institute, Sweden
Angus Dalgleish, oncologist, infectious disease expert and professor, St. George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, England
Anthony J Brookes, professor of genetics, University of Leicester, England
Annie Janvier, professor of pediatrics and clinical ethics, Université de Montréal and Sainte-Justine University Medical Centre, Canada
Ariel Munitz, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Boris Kotchoubey, Institute for Medical Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany
Cody Meissner, professor of pediatrics, expert on vaccine development, efficacy, and safety. Tufts University School of Medicine, USA
David Katz, physician and president, True Health Initiative, and founder of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, USA
David Livermore, microbiologist, infectious disease epidemiologist and professor, University of East Anglia, England
Eitan Friedman, professor of medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel
Ellen Townsend, professor of psychology, head of the Self-Harm Research Group, University of Nottingham, England
Eyal Shahar, physician, epidemiologist and professor (emeritus) of public health, University of Arizona, USA
Florian Limbourg, physician and hypertension researcher, professor at Hannover Medical School, Germany
Gabriela Gomes, mathematician studying infectious disease epidemiology, professor, University of Strathclyde, Scotland
Gerhard Krönke, physician and professor of translational immunology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
Gesine Weckmann, professor of health education and prevention, Europäische Fachhochschule, Rostock, Germany
Günter Kampf, associate professor, Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Greifswald University, Germany
Helen Colhoun, professor of medical informatics and epidemiology, and public health physician, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Jonas Ludvigsson, pediatrician, epidemiologist and professor at Karolinska Institute and senior physician at Örebro University Hospital, Sweden
Karol Sikora, physician, oncologist, and professor of medicine at the University of Buckingham, England
Laura Lazzeroni, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of biomedical data science, Stanford University Medical School, USA
Lisa White, professor of modelling and epidemiology, Oxford University, England
Mario Recker, malaria researcher and associate professor, University of Exeter, England
Matthew Ratcliffe, professor of philosophy, specializing in philosophy of mental health, University of York, England
Matthew Strauss, critical care physician and assistant professor of medicine, Queen’s University, Canada
Michael Jackson, research fellow, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Michael Levitt, biophysicist and professor of structural biology, Stanford University, USA.
Recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Mike Hulme, professor of human geography, University of Cambridge, England
Motti Gerlic, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Partha P. Majumder, professor and founder of the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani, India
Paul McKeigue, physician, disease modeler and professor of epidemiology and public health, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Rajiv Bhatia, physician, epidemiologist and public policy expert at the Veterans Administration, USA
Rodney Sturdivant, infectious disease scientist and associate professor of biostatistics, Baylor University, USA
Salmaan Keshavjee, professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, USA
Simon Thornley, epidemiologist and biostatistician, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Simon Wood, biostatistician and professor, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Stephen Bremner,professor of medical statistics, University of Sussex, England
Sylvia Fogel, autism provider and psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School, USA
Tom Nicholson, Associate in Research, Duke Center for International Development, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, USA
Udi Qimron, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Ulrike Kämmerer, professor and expert in virology, immunology and cell biology, University of Würzburg, Germany
Uri Gavish, biomedical consultant, Israel
Yaz Gulnur Muradoglu, professor of finance, director of the Behavioural Finance Working Group, Queen Mary University of London, England
The Flimsy Evidence Behind the CDC’s Push to Vaccinate Children | The agency overcounts Covid hospitalizations and deaths and won’t consider if one shot is sufficient.
A tremendous number of government and private policies affecting kids are based on one number: 335. That is how many children under 18 have died with a Covid diagnosis code in their record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet the CDC, which has 21,000 employees, hasn’t researched each death to find out whether Covid caused it or if it involved a pre-existing medical condition.
Without these data, the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices decided in May that the benefits of two-dose vaccination outweigh the risks for all kids 12 to 15. I’ve written hundreds of peer-reviewed medical studies, and I can think of no journal editor who would accept the claim that 335 deaths resulted from a virus without data to indicate if the virus was incidental or causal, and without an analysis of relevant risk factors such as obesity.
My research team at Johns Hopkins worked with the nonprofit FAIR Health to analyze approximately 48,000 children under 18 diagnosed with Covid in health-insurance data from April to August 2020. Our report found a mortality rate of zero among children without a pre-existing medical condition such as leukemia. If that trend holds, it has significant implications for healthy kids and whether they need two vaccine doses. The National Education Association has been debating whether to urge schools to require vaccination before returning to school in person. How can they or anyone debate the issue without the right data?
Meanwhile, we’ve already seen inflated Covid death numbers in the U.S. revised downward. Last month Alameda County, Calif., reduced its Covid death toll by 25% after state public-health officials insisted that deaths be attributed to Covid only if the virus was a direct or contributing factor.
Organizations and politicians who are eager to get every living American vaccinated are following the CDC without understanding the limitations of the methodology. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky claimed that vaccinating a million adolescent kids would prevent 200 hospitalizations and one death over four months. But the agency’s Covid adolescent hospitalization report, like its death count, doesn’t distinguish on the website whether a child is hospitalized for Covid or with Covid. The subsequent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of that analysis revealed that 45.7% “were hospitalized for reasons that might not have been primarily related” to Covid-19.
Hospitals routinely test patients being admitted for other complaints even if there’s no reason to suspect they have Covid. An asymptomatic child who tests positive after being injured in a bicycle accident would be counted as a “Covid hospitalization.”
The CDC may also be undercapturing data on vaccine complications. The CDC’s risk-benefit analysis for vaccinating all children used rates of complications extrapolated from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System database, known as Vaers, which contains raw, self-reported data that is unverified and likely underreports adverse events. The CDC or the Food and Drug Administration should expeditiously assign doctors to research each of the thousands of vaccine complications reported to Vaers.
Authorities should also consider whether a single-vaccine dose is a safer option for healthy kids. Researchers at Tel Aviv University reported that a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine was 100% effective against infection in kids 12 to 15. Not only has the CDC refused to examine the possibility of a one-dose regimen for minors; Harvard epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff told me he was kicked off the advisory committee working group on Covid-vaccine safety after he expressed a dissenting opinion.
The CDC’s poor performance isn’t limited to kids or vaccine safety. Early in the pandemic the CDC left us all flying blind by not reporting the medical conditions of those who died of Covid. Collecting this information early would have made it easier to protect nursing-home residents and patients with renal failure or diabetes. It took until March 2021 for the CDC to report that 78% of Covid hospitalizations were among overweight or obese patients.
Most striking, the CDC has never systematically collected and reported the No. 1 leading indicator of the pandemic—daily new hospitalizations for Covid sickness. Instead, the CDC offers the lagging indicator of hospitalization for anyone who tests positive for Covid.
The CDC data on natural-immunity rates is similarly disappointing. The CDC reports this measure in fragments on their website, but it’s outdated and some states are listed as having “no data available.” The low priority given to this indicator is consistent with how public-health officials have played down and ignored natural immunity in their drive to get everyone vaccinated.
Given the tremendous resources of the CDC and FDA, which together employ 39,000, these agencies ought to be able to report the statistics needed to make informed policy decisions. If the data are incomplete or flawed, so too will be the decisions derived from them. The vaccine’s benefits may outweigh its risks for healthy kids, but the government shouldn’t try to push that conclusion based on faulty data.
Dr. Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Bloomberg School of Public Health and Carey Business School. He is author of “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care—and How to Fix It.”
(Rumble) — Via The War Room — John Solomon with new revelations that [even] Brad Raffensperger’s own team was saying that “bad bad things” were coming out of Fulton County.
REMEMBER, this is just Fulton County… Georgia went to Biden by 11,779 votes. The ballots that were received through a lawsuit show massive fraud.
TUCKER UPDATE
On Wednesday night Tucker Carlson questioned the Fulton County Georgia presidential election results. This was his first major segment on election fraud in the 2020 election so it was quite exciting. It only took 8 months.
“I’m running for Governor because the decline of California isn’t the fault of its people. Our government is what’s ruining the Golden State,” his campaign website declared.
“Our streets aren’t safe from rising violent crime or the disaster of rising homelessness. And the scandals of Sacramento aren’t going to stop on their own. It’s time to tell the truth. We’ve got a state to save.”
My short note to Mr. Elder (can’t wait to call him governor Elder):
A couple things. You have to promise to do your own press conferences, when you cannot, get Kayleigh McEnany to fill in. lol. And second, you will make a fine governor. I have never stood on a corner with a large sign for anyone before, getting people to honk… but I will be that guy! QUESTION, will this get you to pull the trigger? You want California to have a First Lady, or First Girlfriend? Hmmm?
SOME EARLY STORIES:
Conservative Radio Host And Author Larry Elder Throws His Hat Into CA Governor’s Race [VIDEO] (100% FED-UP)
BREAKING: Larry Elder is running for Governor of California [ALSO NEW POLL] (RIGHT SCOOP)
Conservative Talk Radio Host Larry Elder Enters The Race For Governor Of California (GATEWAY PUNDIT)
Most important in this post is this, WHERE CAN I GET Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin? AMERICA’S FRONTLINE DOCTORS has a consultation sign up HERE! See also FLCCC ALLIANCE (Click Pic)
