Newsweek

Newsweek Essentially Admits The Were Full of Shite!

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Language Warning) “We Betrayed Public Trust On COVID Purposely” – Says Newsweek

NEWSWEEK’S article (go to article for the many links in the text):

As a medical student and researcher, I staunchly supported the efforts of the public health authorities when it came to COVID-19. I believed that the authorities responded to the largest public health crisis of our lives with compassion, diligence, and scientific expertise. I was with them when they called for lockdowns, vaccines, and boosters.

I was wrong. We in the scientific community were wrong. And it cost lives.

I can see now that the scientific community from the CDC to the WHO to the FDA and their representatives, repeatedly overstated the evidence and misled the public about its own views and policies, including on natural vs. artificial immunity, school closures and disease transmission, aerosol spread, mask mandates, and vaccine effectiveness and safety, especially among the young. All of these were scientific mistakes at the time, not in hindsight. Amazingly, some of these obfuscations continue to the present day.

But perhaps more important than any individual error was how inherently flawed the overall approach of the scientific community was, and continues to be. It was flawed in a way that undermined its efficacy and resulted in thousands if not millions of preventable deaths.

We excluded important parts of the population from policy development and castigated critics, which meant that we deployed a monolithic response across an exceptionally diverse nation, forged a society more fractured than ever, and exacerbated longstanding heath and economic disparities.

Our emotional response and ingrained partisanship prevented us from seeing the full impact of our actions on the people we are supposed to serve. We systematically minimized the downsides of the interventions we imposed—imposed without the input, consent, and recognition of those forced to live with them. In so doing, we violated the autonomy of those who would be most negatively impacted by our policies: the poor, the working class, small business owners, Blacks and Latinos, and children. These populations were overlooked because they were made invisible to us by their systematic exclusion from the dominant, corporatized media machine that presumed omniscience.

Most of us did not speak up in support of alternative views, and many of us tried to suppress them. When strong scientific voices like world-renowned Stanford professors John Ioannidis, Jay Bhattacharya, and Scott Atlas, or University of California San Francisco professors Vinay Prasad and Monica Gandhi, sounded the alarm on behalf of vulnerable communities, they faced severe censure by relentless mobs of critics and detractors in the scientific community—often not on the basis of fact but solely on the basis of differences in scientific opinion.

When former President Trump pointed out the downsides of intervention, he was dismissed publicly as a buffoon. And when Dr. Antony Fauci opposed Trump and became the hero of the public health community, we gave him our support to do and say what he wanted, even when he was wrong.

Trump was not remotely perfect, nor were the academic critics of consensus policy. But the scorn that we laid on them was a disaster for public trust in the pandemic response. Our approach alienated large segments of the population from what should have been a national, collaborative project.

And we paid the price. The rage of the those marginalized by the expert class exploded onto and dominated social media. Lacking the scientific lexicon to express their disagreement, many dissidents turned to conspiracy theories and a cottage industry of scientific contortionists to make their case against the expert class consensus that dominated the pandemic mainstream. Labeling this speech “misinformation” and blaming it on “scientific illiteracy” and “ignorance,” the government conspired with Big Tech to aggressively suppress it, erasing the valid political concerns of the government’s opponents.

And this despite the fact that pandemic policy was created by a razor-thin sliver of American society who anointed themselves to preside over the working class—members of academia, government, medicine, journalism, tech, and public health, who are highly educated and privileged. From the comfort of their privilege, this elite prizes paternalism, as opposed to average Americans who laud self-reliance and whose daily lives routinely demand that they reckon with risk. That many of our leaders neglected to consider the lived experience of those across the class divide is unconscionable.

Incomprehensible to us due to this class divide, we severely judged lockdown critics as lazy, backwards, even evil. We dismissed as “grifters” those who represented their interests. We believed “misinformation” energized the ignorant, and we refused to accept that such people simply had a different, valid point of view.

We crafted policy for the people without consulting them. If our public health officials had led with less hubris, the course of the pandemic in the United States might have had a very different outcome, with far fewer lost lives.

Instead, we have witnessed a massive and ongoing loss of life in America due to distrust of vaccines and the healthcare system; a massive concentration in wealth by already wealthy elites; a rise in suicides and gun violence especially among the poor; a near-doubling of the rate of depression and anxiety disorders especially among the young; a catastrophic loss of educational attainment among already disadvantaged children; and among those most vulnerable, a massive loss of trust in healthcare, science, scientific authorities, and political leaders more broadly.

My motivation for writing this is simple: It’s clear to me that for public trust to be restored in science, scientists should publicly discuss what went right and what went wrong during the pandemic, and where we could have done better.

It’s OK to be wrong and admit where one was wrong and what one learned. That’s a central part of the way science works. Yet I fear that many are too entrenched in groupthink—and too afraid to publicly take responsibility—to do this.

Solving these problems in the long term requires a greater commitment to pluralism and tolerance in our institutions, including the inclusion of critical if unpopular voices.

Intellectual elitism, credentialism, and classism must end. Restoring trust in public health—and our democracy—depends on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hydroxychloroquine Effective and Safe (Mark Levin UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Dennis Prager reads from Harvey A. Risch’s (MD, PhD , Professor of Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health) article entitled, “The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It” (NEWSWEEK)

In the article, not only does Dr. Risch discuss Hydroxychloroquine as safe and effective to use, but he notes the attack on doctors who use it:

  • Physicians who have been using these medications in the face of widespread skepticism have been truly heroic. They have done what the science shows is best for their patients, often at great personal risk. I myself know of two doctors who have saved the lives of hundreds of patients with these medications, but are now fighting state medical boards to save their licenses and reputations. The cases against them are completely without scientific merit.

One such high profile doctor is Senator and “Doctor of the Year,” Scott Jensen, MD. I have two videos about that on my site: “Enforced Group Think – Covid 1984”. Later in the Prager commentary he reads some Tweets by ALEX BERENSON, of which the strain can be found at the link. If you are Tweet savvy, follow the discussion throughout the branches.

In a separate video a friend sent me, the video talk show “America Can We Talk?” interviews Dr. Richard Bartlett who goes through some of the countries with very low death numbers and helps explain their use of steroid inhalers. Interesting indeed:

UPDATED STUFF

This updated and graphics are all with thanks to REAL CLIMATE SCIENCE. What a great post!

…This paper from the censored group of doctors provides pretty strong arguments  that HCQ is both safe and effective.

White Paper on HCQ 2020.2

And another.

COVID-19 Treatment – Analysis of 126 global studies showing high effectiveness for early treatment

Also, a friend linked this to me on FB (hat-tip, Joshua P.)

 

Jake Tapper Put Into Detention (Mark Levin)

Published by Papa Giorgio
  • Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Administration for Children and Families spokesperson Kenneth Wolfe told Newsweek on Wednesday that it had as many as 10,852 undocumented children in its custody—a significant jump from the 8,886 that were in the agency’s custody on April 29, according to the Washington Post. spokesman for HHS’s Administration for Children and Families told
  • In fiscal year 2013, under the Barack Obama administration, the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) had as many as 25,000 unaccompanied children in its care across 80 shelters, according to a July 2014 article in Mother Jones.

(Via NEWSWEEK, with a h/t to DAILY WIRE)

Here is the WASHINGTON POST article titled,

  • “Mexican kids held for months as punishment for border-crossing” (dated: March 11, 2015)

LAREDO, Tex. — Last spring, as Central American children flooded into Texas in a way he had never seen in his three-decade career, Border Patrol agent Robert Harris decided to experiment.

His intelligence analysts estimated that 78 percent of the guides smuggling other migrants were Mexicans younger than 18 — teenagers often hired or conscripted by drug cartels that knew they would not be prosecuted if caught — and he wanted to attack this loophole.

“Why don’t we remove these juveniles from the smuggling cycle?” Harris, the outgoing commander of the Laredo sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, recalled thinking.

Now, as a result of that decision, young Mexicans are being held for months without charge in shelters across the United States, sometimes without their parents’ knowledge. Since the program began in May, 536 juveniles have been held — 248 of whom have been deported to Mexico after an average stay of 75 days, according to Border Patrol statistics. Mexican authorities say some of these repeat border-crossers have spent as much as six months in U.S. custody while they await an appearance before an immigration judge.

During their detention, they are questioned by U.S. authorities and then transferred to a network of facilities run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, across 15 states. While confined, they undergo psychological evaluations and take English courses. Some are allowed tourist-type activities, such as going to the beach or museums, according to Mexican consular officials in Texas. At least one youth earned a high school general equivalency diploma.

“We haven’t heard of any mistreatment,” said Erasmo R. Martinez, Mexico’s consul in McAllen, Tex.

But the little-known program, called the Juvenile Referral Process, has worried human rights groups and some Mexican officials who fear that it puts the children at risk. They view it as a way for U.S. authorities to gather intelligence about cartels and think it endangers the children who could be targeted as informants when they return to Mexico. Some question the legality of the extended detentions.

“Our concern is that the program’s real intent is to interrogate the kids,” said Maureen Meyer, an expert on Mexico and migrants at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). The kids are “often questioned about the criminal groups they are working for and then subsequently returned to Mexico with no apparent concern about the implications for them.”

While in custody last year, one Mexican boy who worked as a guide shared information with U.S. authorities about the location of stash houses used by migrants as they move through the United States, according to his lawyer’s written summary of his case. When he returned to Mexico, he learned that armed men had forced their way into his home and killed a relative’s son. The men told the family that there had been raids on cartel hideouts and arrests and that they believed the boy was responsible. His half-brother was later killed by the same group. The boy, his lawyer said, has since been in hiding.

Harris said the Border Patrol does not have a system to track what happens to the juveniles once they return to Mexico. The program does appear to be discouraging them from returning illegally to Texas, he said. The patrol calculates that just 7 percent of the children who have gone through the program have been picked up again crossing the border.

In the past, Mexican minors picked up by the Border Patrol normally would be deported by bus, sometimes on the same day they arrived. Some of these kids have been captured more than 60 times, and Harris’s officers have identified about 800 young smugglers operating in Texas. Human rights workers in Mexico and the United States say these kids are often forced to work for the cartels or risk retaliation against themselves or their families.

Drug cartels “exploit hundreds of juveniles, using them as smugglers, guides, and scouts; in turn these juveniles are responsible for smuggling thousands of illegal aliens and large amounts of narcotics,” the Border Patrol told WOLA in a statement about the program.

The program began in May in two Border Patrol sectors, Laredo and Del Rio, consisting of nearly 400 miles of the Texas border with Mexico.

“The moment it started, it took us all by surprise, because there wasn’t an announcement,” said Reyna Torres Mendívil, director general of the Mexican Foreign Ministry’s office for protection of Mexicans abroad. “Where were they taking these children?”

Border Patrol agents would refer them to the U.S. attorney’s office, but typically, unless there are aggravating circumstances, they won’t be prosecuted. So this period of detention is intended to be a punishment in lieu of a criminal charge. The shelters they are sent to also house juveniles from Central America, awaiting flights home; last year, the Mexican kids accounted for about 1 percent of all the detainees in these facilities.

In November, Oscar Jaime Rodriguez Mendoza, a 16-year-old from the border town of Reynosa, left for the United States and didn’t come home.

“We didn’t know what had happened to him,” said his mother, Leonor Mendoza, a 37-year-old clothing vendor.

She finally learned that he had been sent to a shelter in California. From there, he was allowed to talk to her by phone every night for 10 minutes. Oscar told his mother that the kids were grouped by risk or behavior — purple, yellow, green — and that some couldn’t leave the facility. Oscar was a purple, he told his mom, with the least restrictions. On one occasion, he got to go ice skating.

“It’s a type of punishment so they won’t cross as much,” his mother said. “For me, sincerely, it’s okay. It will discourage him from doing it again.”

Mexican authorities say they don’t want these minors to be stigmatized or criminalized by U.S. authorities. Mendívil, of the Foreign Ministry, said that not all repeat border-crossers are cartel-linked smugglers. She cited the case of one child who crossed repeatedly to buy used clothes for his mother to sell in Mexico.

“We’re in favor of what is in the best interest of the minor,” she said. “Many of these kids may have legitimate claim to perhaps be reunited with family in the U.S. We want them to have their day in court and be heard. If they are threatened, if they are victims of trafficking, if they have been in a family crisis situation, they deserve to be heard and protected from whatever is threatening them.”

At the local level, Mexican immigration officials along the border consider the program effective because they’ve found that it discourages children from working as guides.

“It’s excellent for us,” said Erasmo Rodriguez, an immigration official in the border town of Piedras Negras. “We’ve received many fewer minors.”

In the first two months of the year, just five repeat crossers from the area were deported to his office. Before the Border Patrol program, he said, dozens would be returned in a normal month.

The Executive Order Trump signed will not last… here are some examples of how and why it will fail. The first source is Leftist, FYI:

Trump can’t overrule the Flores settlement with the stroke of a pen…

[….]

The Flores settlement now at the center of the family separation crisis has a 30-year history. In the 1980s, several lawsuits were filed over the treatment of unaccompanied minors who were in the care of the US government. One was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in 1985 on behalf of Jenny Lisette Flores, a 15-year-old from El Salvador. She had fled her home country to find an aunt who was living in the United States, but she was detained by federal authorities at the US border.

Flores and other minors in federal custody sometimes had to share sleeping quarters and bathrooms with unrelated adult men and women. Flores was strip-searched regularly, and she was told she could only be released to her parents, not her aunt. The ACLU asserted in its lawsuit that Flores and other unaccompanied children had a constitutional right to be released to “responsible” adults, as the Marquette Law Review documented in a review of the Flores settlement’s history.

The case went through several federal courts before reaching the Supreme Court in 1993, and the high court mostly sided with the government. But the real consequence was a consent decree agreed to by the Clinton administration and the plaintiffs in the litigation in 1997. The decree, known as the Flores settlement, set standards for unaccompanied minors who were in the custody of federal authorities.

(VOX)