The decline of science at the FDA has become unmanageable—so argues BMJ, a leading medical journal, and they’ve got the receipts to back up the claim. Meanwhile, the FDA is advocating that we all work to stop the spread of misinformation, and that sunlight is the enemy. Also: the cost of silence. When editors at prominent publications hide the fact of their vaccine injuries, we all suffer. And a look back at the important book, Where There Is No Doctor—and its advice on vaccines, medications, and more.
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”
How COVID Turned People Into Fascists – Explained By Psychologist!
The COVID crisis ushered in an episode of “mass psychosis” among the populace where rationality, critical thinking and skepticism flew out the window. As a result of increasing anxiety, loneliness and isolation among the population, COVID arrived at a crucial time to “infect” the masses with a collective hypnosis where the dominant narrative could not be questioned — all this according to University of Ghent professor of psychoanalytic psychotherapy Mattias Desmet.
Dr. John Campbell has a look at the WHO's Proposed Amendments to the International Health Regulations.
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Hearing: “Looking Back Before Moving Forward: Assessing CDC's Failures in Fulfilling its Mission” June 7, 2023, 10:30am EDT
2322 Rayburn House Office Building
Witnesses:
Charity Dean, MD, MPH & TM, CEO & Founder, The Public Health Company
Mary Denigan-Macauley, PhD, Director of Public Health, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD, Epidemiologist, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of California—San Francisco
Georges C. Benjamin, MD, Executive Director, American Public Health Association
To: Members and Staff, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations From: Majority Committee Staff Re: Hearing on “Looking Back Before Moving Forward: Assessing CDC's Failures in Fulfilling its Mission” ______________________________________________________________________________ On Wednesday, June 7, 2023, at 10:30 a.m. (ET) in 2322 Rayburn House Office Building, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing entitled “Looking Back Before Moving Forward: Assessing CDC's Failures in Fulfilling its Mission.”
I. WITNESSES • Charity Dean, MD, MPH & TM, CEO & Founder, The Public Health Company • Mary Denigan-Macauley, PhD, Director of Public Health, U.S. Government Accountability Office • Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD, Epidemiologist, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of California—San Francisco • Georges C. Benjamin, MD, Executive Director, American Public Health Association
II. OVERVIEW The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) play a central role in responding to any large-scale public health crisis. Despite investing significant resources into the agency’s public health programs, the CDC has a history of costly errors and failures, which have endangered the public’s health. Although CDC leadership has repeatedly promised to learn from past mistakes and to implement organizational reform, the agency’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and monkeypox outbreak has cast serious doubt on the CDC’s ability to self-reform. In response to its failures during the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC announced a major structural reform, titled Moving Forward Initiative. However, very little information about the initiative has been provided to Congress or the public. In the absence of transparency from the CDC, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is holding this hearing to gain an independent understanding of the CDC’s past failures and identify how the agency needs to move forward.
III. BACKGROUND
The CDC is the federal health agency, within the Department for Health and Human Services (HHS), responsible for protecting the health of over 300 million Americans. Its mission is to “to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S.”1 The CDC employs over 21,000 full-time employees and contractors across all 50 states and in over 50 countries.2 In addition to its headquarters in Atlanta, the organization has ten additional locations in the U.S.3
In Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, the agency received over $9 billion towards its core public health program level, which funds most of the agency’s main public health program.4 This represents a $787 million (+9.3%) increase from its FY 2022 funding level.5 Despite being the beneficiary of significant financial and non-financial resources, the CDC has often been criticized for its handling of public health crises, most recently the COVID19 pandemic and monkeypox outbreak. However, foundational problems at the CDC date go back for much longer.
In June 2014, the CDC drew Congressional ire after previously unreported breaches in CDC lab safety protocol came to light. The agency was criticized for neglecting the oversight of dangerous pathogenic research conducted at its laboratories, which likely exposed over 80 laboratory workers to live anthrax bacteria that the agency believed was inactive. 6 Federal inspections at CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta revealed “unauthorized access to labs and improperly documenting entries and exits, posing risks to biosecurity, or the theft of potentially lethal microbes,” as well as “equipment failures, an inability to document staff training and missing signatures on required biosafety plans.”7
[Continued at Link]
This is largely to further legitimize the front-facing narratives around the 'covid response' (i.e.: it was a very real threat requiring immediate and global action, but the systems failed, etc.); doubtful this will be beneficial to the public -- to the contrary, it may well expand the CDC's powers, funding, and/or reach. I'll perk my ears when the CDC and its leadership is disbanded, and further, key employees/executives and funders are placed in tribunals.
But there may well be some useful/noteworthy info shared here, regardless.
. In keeping with the similar theme as the prior post by Harvey, the below screenshot is merely a sampling of the 'revolving door' M.O. that plays a part in faulty products being "approved". It's far more prevalent than many may believe or even consider.
Over the past three years, the @WEF and @gatesfoundation asset, Prof. @devisridhar, has been strongly discriminating against the unvaccinated and spreading misinformation. Now, she's attempting to absolve herself of any blame.
Devi Sridhar is a prof. and chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh and has been one of the biggest WEF-shills.
She's been pushing for Zero Covid right from the beginning (https://bit.ly/42FADqB) and has been wrong about almost everything she said and predicted.
Besides writing this shameless piece of opinion (https://bit.ly/43BvlOd) let me remind you of statements she made on Twitter within the last two years.
April '20: "Face masks (which protect others) now becoming mandatory in Germany [...]. Makes sense given asymptomatic transmission & benefits > risks. Just make your own cloth one (don't buy up stock that health workers need)." (https://bit.ly/3oUOwUa)
May '20: "Herd immunity could be reached w/ vaccine (80-90% of population vaccinated) [...]" (https://bit.ly/42BTzGE)
June '20: "I hope I never have to sit through another meeting (hours of my life) discussing whether face masks are effective or not. One issue that has caused paralysis for months." (https://bit.ly/3NqgRed)
April '21: "Here’s your daily reminder: take whatever vaccine you are offered. [...] they’re all good & being regulated. You’d rather have the vaccine than COVID, and vaccines are a major part of how we end this crisis [...]." (https://bit.ly/42F3jjk)
November '21: "There’s now a safe and approved vaccine for 5-11s being rolled out in the US. Covid is a vaccine-preventable serious disease & we should be protecting children too." (https://bit.ly/3NqFXJT)
March '22: "Omicron is only 'mild' in a highly vaccinated/protected population where the immune system is trained. It is causing substantial death [...] among the unvaccinated [...]" (https://bit.ly/3p3Li0E)
March '22: "One of the biggest mistakes UK made [...] was delaying in vaccinating 5-11y olds. Letting kids just get infected (often twice) - when a safe & effective vaccine was available & widely used in the States - was bad decision. Caused preventable illness & time off school." (https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/ ... eQzQVt_5Xw)
June '22: "US steams ahead with COVID vaccine for under 5s - would be good to have UK JCVI decision on this soon as well as on broader booster campaign. Summer is the time to prepare for winter." (https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/ ... eQzQVt_5Xw)
Let's never forget the harm she has caused to others.
Blaming the unvaccinated during the COVID-19 pandemic: the roles of political ideology and risk perceptions in the USA http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1504-5896 Maja Graso1,2, Karl Aquino3, Fan Xuan Chen4, Kevin Bardosh5,6
Correspondence to Dr Maja Graso, University of Groningen Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, Groningen 9712 TS, Netherlands; m.graso@rug.nl
Abstract Individuals unvaccinated against COVID-19 (C19) experienced prejudice and blame for the pandemic. Because people vastly overestimate C19 risks, we examined whether these negative judgements could be partially understood as a form of scapegoating (ie, blaming a group unfairly for an undesirable outcome) and whether political ideology (previously shown to shape risk perceptions in the USA) moderates scapegoating of the unvaccinated. We grounded our analyses in scapegoating literature and risk perception during C19. We obtained support for our speculations through two vignette-based studies conducted in the USA in early 2022. We varied the risk profiles (age, prior infection, comorbidities) and vaccination statuses of vignette characters (eg, vaccinated, vaccinated without recent boosters, unvaccinated, unvaccinated-recovered), while keeping all other information constant. We observed that people hold the unvaccinated (vs vaccinated) more responsible for negative pandemic outcomes and that political ideology moderated these effects: liberals (vs conservatives) were more likely to scapegoat the unvaccinated (vs vaccinated), even when presented with information challenging the culpability of the unvaccinated known at the time of data collection (eg, natural immunity, availability of vaccines, time since last vaccination). These findings support a scapegoating explanation for a specific group-based prejudice that emerged during the C19 pandemic. We encourage medical ethicists to examine the negative consequences of significant C19 risk overestimation among the public. The public needs accurate information about health issues. That may involve combating misinformation that overestimates and underestimates disease risk with similar vigilance to error.
Data availability statement Data are available in a public, open access repository. All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.
The development of effective vaccines has helped reduce COVID-19 (C19) mortality, particularly among individuals over 50 years of age.1 2 In response, public health experts have strongly encouraged people of all ages to protect themselves, their fellow citizens and their society’s healthcare systems by getting vaccinated. The widely communicated benefits of vaccinations led many people to view them as the way out of the pandemic. However, such emphasis on C19 vaccination as critical to pandemic mitigation efforts also created a social situation in which those who remained unvaccinated faced prejudice3 and were criticised for placing others’ lives at risk, contributing to overwhelming healthcare systems and being partly responsible for prolonging restrictions of various forms.4 These individuals also experienced hostile sentiments and public shaming,5 loss of employment and denial of access to normal social life,6 calls to deny them medical care7 and even celebrations of their deaths on websites such as sorryantivaxxer.com.
The present research examines whether the general prejudice against the unvaccinated3 is perceived by observers as being warranted. One could argue that it is. Those who take this position can claim that C19 remains a serious threat to health, thus framing non-compliance as a form of social deviance that compromises efforts to control the virus. From this perspective, hostile reactions against the unvaccinated are not primarily intended to discriminate against them, but are a morally defensible application of social control methods for the collective benefit of society.8 9 Indeed, the internet site that featured unvaccinated people’s deaths claims to have a prosocial purpose of deterring others from spreading misinformation on social media.
From another perspective, however, treating the unvaccinated as a uniquely responsible public health threat is not justified by the severity of the threat C19 poses and the effectiveness of C19 vaccines. It also has problematic ethical implications. One outcome of categorizing the unvaccinated as socially deviant and applying pressure to induce compliance is scapegoating, a practice that emerges in threatening or deeply uncertain situations.10 Scapegoating is generally defined as blaming an individual or a group of people who are not necessarily and solely responsible for an undesirable outcome.10–13 Once culprits are identified, blame becomes easier to assign and those recipients become seen as undeserving of respect or humanity.
We examine whether negative sentiments towards the C19 unvaccinated can be considered a form of scapegoating (vs a protective response against social deviants). To be clear, we make no attempt to identify a threshold after which any social threat becomes sufficiently dangerous to justify punishment or ostracism of those who do not comply with widely endorsed mitigation measures. However, because perceptions of what is harmful can vary and, if erroneous, can lead to suboptimal actions,14 we call attention to how negative judgements can be misdirected. Specifically, because C19 represents a highly uncertain situation,15 and there is evidence that people overestimate C19 risks,16–18 the ill will directed against the unvaccinated could lead to unjustified blaming of people who are not as much of a threat to public health as many believed.
Challenging the assumption that the unvaccinated deserve blame Consider the two most widely communicated benefits of vaccinations: protecting one’s self and others. C19 disproportionally impacts the elderly and those with severe comorbidities such as obesity, heart disease and cancer.19–26 The age distribution of the virus and the role of comorbidities were well known from early data from Wuhan, China.24 According to these data sources, an unvaccinated person who is not vulnerable to getting seriously ill from C19 due to their age and general fitness (eg, a person under the age of 50 without major comorbidities) has a generally low likelihood of becoming severely ill and burdening the hospital system, even if they do become infected (under 1%).
Of course, self-protection is not the only benefit of vaccines. Even if the vaccinated person is not at high risk of getting seriously ill, they may reduce their chances of passing the virus on to somebody who is.27 This rationale has been a common moral justification for mandating vaccination in general.28 Yet, as early as mid-2021, it was known that C19-vaccinated individuals could acquire an infection and transmit the virus to others.29–32 At the height of their infection, both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals have similar viral loads,32 though vaccination may expedite the clearance of the virus.30 The effectiveness of the primary vaccination series as well as boosters decreases over time.33 34 Subsequent variants of concern in 2021, notably Delta and Omicron, also reduced aspects of vaccine benefits.27 Moreover, there has been ambiguity about the benefits versus risks of C19 vaccination for low-risk groups,35 especially children and young people under 30 years old.36
Finally, the added benefits of vaccination for those who have already had a C19 infection have also been the subject of debates and consideration.37–39 Unlike the USA, European Union countries recognised the protective benefits of natural immunity in 202140 and did not require those with a prior infection to get vaccinated, at least for a period of time (eg, 90 or 180 days). Recent reviews have since confirmed what was known early during the pandemic: a prior infection confers significant natural immunity against reinfection and severe disease.41–47
Regardless of the reasons why the unvaccinated should not be blamed for prolonging the pandemic, public sentiment in 2021 and 2022 was decidedly hostile towards them 3–5 48 and in support of mandating vaccinations for all.49 Further reason to suspect that blaming the unvaccinated for prolonging the pandemic may be unwarranted is based on the actual risks posed by C19. Consider data showing how people’s estimation of C19-related risks was disproportionally greater than what the available evidence indicated.17 18 As we report below, these perceptions were not uniformly distributed across populations. Numerous independent polls and studies from 2020 and 2021 show that people differed greatly in their C19 risk estimates, and these differences can be partly traced to political ideology.
C19 risk estimation and political ideology in the USA Political ideology may influence scapegoating of the unvaccinated for two reasons. First, liberals are more likely to show greater concern over C19 than conservatives. Liberals are more likely to comply with C19 restrictions, get vaccinated, and reject conspiracy theories that devalue the threat posed by C19.18 50–53 Liberals also view those who do not conform to the existing mandates as more harmful and impure.54
Second, representative polls done prior to data collection suggest that liberals were more likely to overestimate C19 risks. A Franklin Templeton-Gallup Economics of Recovery Study conducted in the second half of 2020 asked US residents to estimate the percentage of C19 infections that result in hospitalisation (the correct number at the time was between 1% and 5%18). The poll showed that around 41% of Democrats (and 28% of Republicans) estimated this rate to be 50% or higher, and more Republicans (26%) than Democrats (10%) estimated the hospitalisation rate correctly at 1%–5%.18 A Gallup poll conducted in August (2021) showed that 41% of Democrats (vs 22% of Republicans) estimated that the unvaccinated have 50%+ chance of being hospitalised. When estimating the risk for the vaccinated individuals, the pattern reversed such that 42% of Democrats (vs 33% of Republicans) reported the risk to be below 1%.17 Finally, a Rasmussen national survey conducted in January 202255 documented that nearly half of Democrats (48%) thought that the governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing C19 vaccines on social media, news or other publications (vs 14% of Republicans and 18% of unaffiliated voters).
Beliefs that go unexamined or are not updated when confronted with new information can have a darker, maladaptive side.14 56 Thus, there is a potential for undesirable social consequences arising from liberals’ (relative to conservatives’) elevated concern about C19. Liberals’ greater likelihood to overestimate C19 risks and the moral importance they assign to C19 mitigation57 could increase their animus towards the unvaccinated, as evidenced by scapegoating.
Preliminary empirical evidence for scapegoating We sought to better understand the predictors of negative judgements about the unvaccinated individuals. Based on the theoretical foundation and information available at the time of data collection in early 2022, we tested the following hypotheses. First, we expected that people would be more likely to scapegoat an unvaccinated (than a vaccinated, or unvaccinated-recovered individual). We expected this effect to emerge regardless of proportionate risk considerations that would suggest that scapegoating of the unvaccinated individual is unwarranted (ie, age, comorbidities, timing and history of vaccination or prior infection). Second, we examined whether liberals would be more likely to scapegoat the unvaccinated (relative to the vaccinated) individual than conservatives.
In early 2022, we conducted two vignette-based studies, where we asked US participants to evaluate the characters of different risk profiles. We summarise the design and provide the results highlights below, but we direct our readers to online supplemental file 1 (supplementary online material, SOM) for detailed statistical reporting, analyses and complete materials. SOM also includes a preliminary study.i We declare no competing interests. We make our data available here: https://osf.io/vjur3/?view_only=88a9178 ... b3c8bd8745 (ref58; data set).
TheChiefNerd · Joe Rogan just challenged Peter Hotez to debate RFK
@TheChiefNerd
6/18 9am EST UPDATE
The Peter Hotez vs. RFK Jr Charity Debate Pot Is Now Over $1.52 MILLION!!
Here is the Leaderboard:
1) $500k - @Cobratate
2) $250k - @realnickmugalli
3) $150k - @billackman
4) $100k - @joerogan
5) $100k - @patrickbetdavid
6) $100k - @stkirsch
7) $100k - @richardursomd
8 ) $100k - @Timcast
9) $50k - @jason_howerton
10) $33k - @realpeteyb123
11) $10k - @jason
12) $10k - @1anti_s
13) $5k - @btysonmd
14) $5k - @DrSyedHaider
15) $3k - @HickHouse
16) $2k - @LibertyJamison
17) $1k - @Tehsin_Amlani
18) $1k - @RealMSWTruth
Note: I only have donation pledges of $1k or more in my leaderboard spreadsheet right now. There are MANY <$1k pledges which I bookmarked. Checking if a GiveSendGo campaign can support this type of pledge system where we don’t know if the event will happen or not.
. These insipid drive-bys of yours are hollow and largely substance-less.
There's alot that can be stated about the above 'tweets' -- I've a few thoughts of my own on the topic, naturally -- but to this point I shared the above content here with no editorializing, as I feel they stand on their own, in the first instance, as noteworthy developments.
Are you going to add substance -- or what you may believe may constitute 'substance' -- or simply continue these ad hominem, fangless critiques?
1 hour until June 18 deadline to declassify Covid Origin Documents. https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/covid-docs-declassification/ "The June 18 deadline was imposed following the unanimous passage of the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 in Congress earlier this year. Senators Josh Hawley and Mike Braun recently wrote to the White House asking that they comply with the law and “provide as much transparency to the American people as possible"
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”
