Categories
Biden Pandemic Corruption COVID Medicine Science

“Those in the placebo arm must have been severely asymptomatic.”

Visits: 34

 

                                                The FLCCC Alliance Community

“They are trying to disappear the positive outcome for ivermectin. There is no justification for doing this.” — Dr. Pierre Kory

Yep, they’ve done it again. Who, you ask? You know…THEY…high impact medical journals, compromised researchers, Big Pharma, Big Tech, the alphabet health agencies. They are the THEY of why so many people throughout the world died needlessly from COVID-19.

THEY wanted money. THEY wanted power. THEY wanted control. So THEY put in the fix—on YOUR health and YOUR medical freedom.

The latest installment in this feculent, unseemly true crime series comes from JAMA—the once venerated Journal of the American Medical Association. Take a look at the ivermectin study they just dropped. In it, the “authors” conclude that, “These findings do not support the use of ivermectin among outpatients with COVID-19.”

While we have grown sufficient scar tissue to fortify us against repeated shock from these all-to-frequent assaults on science, we are not so acclimatized as to ignore that which threatens the lives of every person on the planet. The molestation and the resultant annihilation of scientific integrity dooms the health of one and all.

Here’s the bottom line on JAMA’s latest “research blitzkrieg” from our Dr. Kory:

“Suddenly in the middle of the trial they changed the protocol. They moved the outcome from the difference [in symptoms] on Day 14 to Day 28. Why? Well, it begins with the Posterior “P”, a statistical term that means results are significant if they are above .95. During the course of this study, ivermectin was showing statistical significance at Day 7 (.97), and at Day 14 (.98). You had to go out to Day 28 for there to be NO statistical significance. And that’s what the investigators did. They moved the endpoint to Day 28. Four weeks after symptoms first showed up.

“The trial was also purportedly studying mild-to-moderate COVID-19 patients. Literally 60% of patients had no symptoms or mild symptoms. By ‘pure randomized chance’, more of the severe patients landed in the ivermectin arm. So, as Dr. Paul Marik observed, those in the placebo arm must have been “severely asymptomatic.”

So now, we have pages and pages of Google search results trumpeting to the world that ivermectin is not effective for COVID-19—when in fact, the exact opposite is true. Rigorous science, conducted with the utmost integrity proves such…in nearly 100 randomized controlled trials. THOSE trials do NOT show up in Google searches. That’s because Google is in a big comfy bed with the rest of the THEY.

THIS IS THE LIFE-LIMITING EFFECT OF SEVERELY COMPROMISED RESEARCH. IT BECOMES WIDELY SHARED AROUND THE WORLD WITH NO REGARD FOR THE INTEGRITY (OR LACK THEREOF) OF THE “STUDY.” THIS BLINDS THE PUBLIC TO THE WAYS PEOPLE CAN SAVE THEMSELVES, AND INSTEAD CONDITIONS THEM TO BELIEVE THAT “THEY” KNOW WHAT’S BEST. THEY DO NOT. REAL, UNCOMPROMISED, RIGOROUS SCIENCE DOES.

By the way, you can watch Dr. Kory’s breakdown of JAMA’s latest entry into the “research blitzkrieg sweepstakes” in the opening segment of our FLCCC Weekly Webinar HERE.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I wonder how on earth THEY can sleep at night. You see, I know (and you probably do too) that the physicians of the FLCCC—led by Drs. Marik and Kory—are arguably among the world’s most brilliant and accomplished medical scholars. There is robust evidence of the hundreds of thousands (likely millions) of lives they have saved since March, 2020—all while they were made to walk through a relentless, punishing storm so merciless that it has no name fit to describe its madness.

Long ago, many of us — myself included — had to stop trying to tell family and friends what we know about how they can save themselves when armed with pristine science. They don’t want to hear it—yet. They remain deeply hypnotized in a way—frozen in the trance of the official narrative. But we sense a change in wind direction—it is now breezing at our back as more and more evidence is revealed about the unspeakable crimes the “THEY” committed against science and humanity.

I look forward to writing the following headline in a future edition of the FLCCC Weekly News Capsule: “FLCCC Physicians Awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for Developing the Most Efficacious Protocols Against COVID-19 Using Repurposed Drugs, Saving Untold Lives.” May it come to pass. — JK


On Wednesday’s FLCCC Weekly Webinar, host Betsy Ashton was joined by our Drs. Paul Marik and Pierre Kory for a review of their recent travels. Dr. Kory traveled to Sweden and Australia for a whirlwind speaking tour while Dr. Marik was in Florida and Connecticut. The doctors also highlighted the brilliant work of other warriors they encountered in the fight for scientific integrity and medical freedom. A not-to-be-missed episode!


Our Substack columnist Jenna McCarthy has taken to her computer keyboard once again. This time, she’s created a list of questions for us to consider should…uh…the unthinkable happen again. (Like another pandemic! Yeesh!)

Some of us — you might know us as anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, science deniers, or granny killers — found the whole setup sketchy from the get-go. But as injuries and unanswered questions mount, our ranks are growing by the day, thanks in part to folks like surf legend Kelly Slater and Congresswoman Nancy Mace speaking out about their personal experiences with vaccine injuries and loss.

Since COVID won’t be our last pandemic (Bill Gates said so!), here are a few questions we all might want to ponder before the next wave hits…”

We love every question she’s proposed. But our favorite has to be this one:

“Are people being threatened, coerced, or bribed with everything from pizza to pot (You missed the Joints for Jabs campaign?) to sign up for a supposedly safe, life-saving treatment?”

You go, girl!


“Berberine and Pancreatic Beta Cells” is the third in the series of lectures on this magical herb from our own Dr. Been. “Berberine has many important mechanisms, explains Dr. Been. “In the current series of talks we are presenting the mechanisms related to the management of Type 2 diabetes mellitus. In the current talk we look at the high level mechanism of how berberine helps increase the insulin secretion.”

This entire series provides you with a deep dive on one of the most effective natural remedies that we’ve added to our protocols!

NOTE: After listening to a talk at the Brownstone Institute over the weekend by our own Dr. Paul Marik who was discussing repurposed drugs — including berberine — Dr. Robert Malone wrote an in-depth Substack about this incredible Chinese herb!



When COVID hit in Oct 2021, this gentleman was so thankful the FLCCC advice was out there for thinking minds who want to discern information and form practical conclusions. Watch his story now.


💊 This week, the Federalist published an article on the lawsuit brought by three physicians (including our Dr. Paul Marik) against the FDA for prohibiting the use of ivermectin for COVID-19. Our Dr. Pierre Kory was interviewed for the piece:

“Repurposed drugs are the Achilles heel of the entire business model of the pharmaceutical industry,” Kory said. “And when you see our health agencies literally working in the service of the pharmaceutical industry by destroying the credibility of repurposed drugs, it’s terrifying. They’re not working according to the interests of patients or physicians but the pharmaceutical companies.”

You can read the entire article HERE.


💊 Our own Dr. Paul Marik recently gave an exclusive interview to The Ohio Press Network. Read “Are Turbo-Charged Cancers Being Driven by COVID-19 Shots and Boosters?” HERE.

From the article:

Cancer as a side effect of COVID-19 shots “has not been well studied,” says Marik because “the powers that be” don’t recognize the cancer-COVID-19 shot connection, and major medical institutions therefore refuse to study it. The increased incidence of cancer could be related to increased levels of IgG4 induced by multiple shots, he says, but adds that it may also involve a change in gene expression; certain tumor-suppressor genes, when expressed properly, keep cancer in check. One example is the tumor-suppressor gene known as P53, which some scientists speculate might be turned off by injected mRNA.


💊 A Parent’s Guide to Prevention and Early COVID Treatment for Children

Most children with COVID-19 handle the virus well and recover fully. Despite a lot of fear-mongering, COVID is not a deadly disease for most children. In fact, data show that the death rate is extremely low in patients under 17 years old. The FLCCC has developed a guide which aims to help you understand the real risks and know how to respond. The best thing you can do is focus on making sure your child is healthy overall and that their immune system is strong and robust.


💊 Ohio House Bill 248 has been introduced in the Ohio State Legislature. The initiative is known as The Dave and Angie Patient and Health Provider Protection Act. HB248 would guarantee Ohioans vaccine choice, healthcare privacy, and protection from discrimination based on vaccine status.

According to Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom (OAMF), the bill received 1,500 proponent testimonies supporting the bill and a fairly insignificant number of letters opposing the legislation. No similar legislation anywhere else in the United States has ever been as successful in the legislative process as HB248.


Always check with your healthcare provider before taking medications and supplements! Enjoy!

Loading

189
Categories
Just my own thoughts Work Place

A tax I can sink my teeth into. Everyone pays their fair share. Taxing those making less than $50,000.

Visits: 31

A tax I can sink my teeth into. Everyone pays their fair share. I’m sure you’ve seen the reports where they say that folks making less than 50 K pay no federal taxes. Well I’m also sure that you have heard how those same folks get 90% of the social benefits the federal government has to offer. So why shouldn’t those on the bottom pay also?

Back when the second Bush was president he proposed something similar. Then it would have raised a little over 400 billion. I’m sure that in todays Economy and so many more folks working, it would raise a minimum of a trillion.

And yes folks like me who are on Medicare should also pay that 10% tax. Only deduction that would be allowed would be Charitable contributions.

Loading

211
Categories
Drugs Life

FDA: Rare, Possibly Fatal Neurological Disorder Is A “Potential Risk” With New Pfizer Vaccine

Visits: 31

  for TGP

After receiving Pfizer’s Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) shot during a clinical trial, two older individuals contracted Guillain-Barré syndrome.

People around the globe have suffered serious adverse reactions resulting from COVID vaccines, especially from the Pfizer shot.

Now the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tells us another Pfizer vaccine can cause serious complications in recipients. After receiving Pfizer’s Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) shot during a clinical trial, two older individuals contracted Guillain-Barré syndrome.

This was enough for the FDA to flag the disease as “an important potential risk” from the RSV shot. Yet Pfizer is still seeking approval for general public use.

According to the Mayo Clinic, Guillain-Barré syndrome is a rare disorder in which your body’s immune system attacks your nerves.

While most people recover from Guillain-Barre syndrome, some severe cases can be fatal. Other serious cases can result in paralysis.

There’s no known cure for Guillain-Barre syndrome.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported on individuals contracting the disorder after receiving the COVID vaccine. One person became partially paralyzed from the waist down and suffered full facial paralysis from the disease shortly after he was vaccinated.

The Epoch Times reported:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated that two older adults who received Pfizer’s respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine during a clinical trial were subsequently diagnosed with the rare neurological disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Briefing documents released on Feb. 24 ahead of this week’s meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee flagged the two cases of the disorder and stated that Pfizer’s vaccine poses a potential risk.

“Given the temporal association and biological plausibility, FDA agrees with the assessments of the investigators that these events were possibly related to study vaccine,” the FDA stated in the documents. “Therefore, [Guillain-Barré] is being considered an important potential risk.”

Two people in their 60s who received the RSV vaccine were diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome in a phase 3 trial, which involved 20,000 recipients of the vaccine. There were no instances of the neurological disorder in people who received a placebo.

The briefing documents show that the FDA asked Pfizer to conduct a safety study if the RSV vaccine is approved in the spring.

No safety concerns were identified by Pfizer during the trial and the company stated that it would carry out a safety study on its RSV vaccine if approved.

The FDA’s briefing documents state that Pfizer’s RSV vaccine was 85.7 percent effective at preventing severe illness.

Only a naïve individual would believe Pfizer’s claims regarding effectiveness after what they said about their COVID vaccine. One should also count on more complications arising from “unknown” causes should the FDA approve Pfizer’s RSV shot.

Loading

186
Categories
Daily Hits. Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. Uncategorized

News you can use. The week ahead.

Visits: 19

News you can use. More from Morning Brew.

CALENDAR
The week ahead

Students walking on campus in the fall.Jon Lovette/Getty Images

Student loan forgiveness on the docket: On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments over President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, which is being challenged by six GOP-led states. A ruling, due later this year, could have far-reaching consequences for a president’s power to make rules unilaterally.

Retailers in the spotlight: This week’s slate of earnings is all about retail. Target, Dollar Tree, Macy’s, Kroger, and others will give us an update on American consumer health in this period of ripping inflation.

New month alert: March arrives on Wednesday and with it St. Patrick’s Day, March Madness, Ted Lasso Season 3, and an extra hour of daylight in the evenings.

Everything else…

  • Congress gets back to work today following a break.
  • Tesla is holding its Investor Day on Wednesday.
  • Read Across America Day is also on Wednesday. That’s Dr. Seuss’s birthday (not a coincidence).

GRAB BAG

Key performance indicators

Screenshot from New GirlNew Girl/20th Television

Stat: For millennials, “adulting” has meant racking up debt at a historic pace. Americans in their 30s have accumulated 27% more debt from late 2019 to late 2022, per the New York Fed. That’s a bigger increase than any other age cohort and the highest rate of debt accumulation for Americans in their thirties since the 2008 financial crisis, the WSJ notes.

Quote: “Either an economic illiterate or a silver-tongued demagogue…”

In his annual letter to shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett blasted critics of stock buybacks as Econ 101 dropouts. Some lawmakers, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have vilified the practice as a misuse of corporate funds that only benefits the elite. Buffett responded that buybacks benefit all shareholders by lifting the intrinsic value of the stock they own. Berkshire spent $7.9 billion on stock buybacks last year.

Read: Forget what you’ve heard—this is how large language models like ChatGPT actually work. (Stephen Wolfram)

NEWS

What else is brewing

  • Tens of thousands of protesters in Mexico City denounced President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s electoral reforms, saying they would erode democracy in Mexico.
  • Jake Paul lost his first match as a pro boxer, in a split decision to Tommy Fury.
  • Nokia is refreshing its logo for the first time in almost six decades.
  • Fans of the Turkish soccer team Beşiktaş threw toys on the field as a donation to children affected by the earthquakes.
  • Warner Bros. Discovery sued Paramount Global for allegedly breaching a $500 million South Park licensing deal the two signed in 2019.

Loading

180
Categories
Corruption COVID Links from other news sources. Medicine Reprints from others. Science

US Department of Energy believes lab leak is most likely theory for Corvid’s origins.

Visits: 42

US Department of Energy believes lab leak is most likely theory for Covid’s origins

We want to thank the Morning Brew.

HEALTH
New report reignites lab leak debate

P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on April 17, 2020Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images

Nearly three years after the Covid-19 pandemic shut down much of the world, we still don’t know how it started.

But the Department of Energy is ready to submit its best guess. In a new report based on fresh intelligence, the agency has concluded that Covid-19 most likely spread to humans as a result of a mistake at a Chinese laboratory (aka the “lab leak” theory), the WSJ reports.

Important note: In making this determination, the Energy Dept. is about as self-assured as any Michael Cera character—it reportedly has “low confidence” that this theory is correct.

Also, why would the Energy Dept. have information about a pandemic’s origins? Little-known fact: The Energy Dept. oversees a network of 17 national laboratories, and some of those labs do advanced bioresearch. The agency frequently leverages this lab network to gather information, rather than relying on typical intelligence operations, according to the NYT.

But there’s still no consensus

In endorsing the lab leak theory, the Energy Dept. joins the FBI, which has concluded with “moderate confidence” that Covid originated accidentally from a Chinese lab: the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The two agencies reportedly arrived at this conclusion via different methods.

However, four other US agencies and the National Intelligence Council have concluded that Covid originated through natural transmission from an infected animal. But they, too, have low confidence their conclusions are correct.

One piece of evidence that’s missing from the natural transmission theory? The animal that hypothetically did the infecting hasn’t been identified. Given all this uncertainty, two other US agencies haven’t reached a conclusion on Covid’s beginnings yet.

So, if you’re doing the math at home: Four US agencies believe it was natural transmission, two say lab leak, and two are undecided.

Zoom out: Scientists say it’s important to make every effort to learn how Covid-19, a pandemic that’s caused nearly 7 million deaths globally, began, so we can better prevent the next one.

But with the Chinese government (Joe and Hunter’s best buds) thwarting investigations by global authorities, there may only be so much information the US can gather. And it might never be able to confidently answer the question: How did Covid begin? Edited.

Loading

353
Categories
Crime How sick is this? Leftist Virtue(!) Opinion The Law Uncategorized

HuffPo Claims Executed Inmate Was a ‘Victim of DeSantis’ – But Look What It Cleverly Left Out

Visits: 41

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-minute petition by Dillbeck’s attorneys. But HuffPo blames Desantis?

Far-left HuffPost sided with a man who slashed a mother’s throat and killed a cop in order to score a sleazy political point against Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday.

The site obviously never hides its left-wing slant, and serious people never expect substantive reporting or opinions from its pages.

But a story written by “reporter” Jessica Schulberg and published by the junk outlet sent Ariana Huffington’s creation to a shocking new low.

The website offered up this abomination of a headline: “Florida Executes Man Used As ‘Political Pawn’ By Ron DeSantis.”

In reality, the man committed murders in a state where capital punishment was on the table and the state carried out its lawful duty to exact justice for the victims.

Schulberg led a Thursday-evening story with a quote from twice-convicted killer Donald Dillbeck, 59, who politicized his own death before he was killed by lethal injection in Starke, Florida, on Thursday evening.

“I know I hurt people when I was young. I really messed up,” Dillbeck stated in a comment to open Schulberg’s piece. “But I know Ron DeSantis has done a lot worse.”

Schulberg’s angle to the story, which was sympathetic to Dillbeck in its tone, cleverly left out the grisly details of how he ended up on death row.

Here are the facts about him, per the Associated Press:

  • As a teen, Dillbeck stabbed a man in Indiana while he attempted to rob the victim of his CB radio.
  • While on the lam in Florida, Dillbeck shot and killed Lee County Deputy Dwight Lynn Hall in Fort Myers Beach with his own gun.
  • After almost a decade into a life sentence for the cold-blooded murder, Dillbeck escaped.
  • While he was out, Dillbeck procured a paring knife and stabbed 44-year-old Faye Vann 20 times with it before he slashed her throat in Tallahassee.

HuffPost postured as if it had taken issue with the fact Dillbeck’s jury voted 8-4 when it sentenced him to death. Schulberg slanted her article in favor of unanimous decisions.

DeSantis supports capital punishment by a majority vote, which was the law when Vann was brutally murdered. Meanwhile, Schulberg cited sources who explained to her how archaic they believed Dillbeck’s execution was.

But none of that was the point of her article. The point was not to highlight Dillbeck as a man done wrong by the justice system.

The narrative was certainly was not to shed light on Vann and other female victims of violent crime.

The story was published and disseminated purely as an attack against DeSantis.

Vann’s adult children actually thanked the governor personally in a hand-written letter for not stopping their mother’s killer from meeting his fate. Schulberg left that out of her piece until DeSantis ally Christina Pushaw shared it online.

HuffPost was rightly eviscerated on Twitter all evening after it shared Schulberg’s obscene piece on its opinion page.

HuffPost’s editors are so desperate for content they feel could harm a popular Republican they opened an article with a quote that accused him of doing “worse” than two gruesome murders.

In doing so, the outlet is currently at rock bottom — which is saying a lot.

Donald Dillbeck, on death row.

Loading

211
Categories
COVID Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

Lead author of new Cochrane review speaks out.

Visits: 30

Lead author of new Cochrane review speaks out.

I’ve decided to post the entire interview from Dr. Demasi’s substack Also our lurker loons seem to be confused about what’s a fact and what’s Progressive gobly gook. Before I forget, the Study Doctor Jefferson’s group of doctors and scientists did was peer reviewed. Recently one of the lurker posted what it called a fact. A assistant worker at a hospital as a rebuttal to the report. One low level person. Well again this loon went after the report.

It’s source was Michael Hiltzik. What doctor or scientist is Mr. Hiltzik? He’s not one. I’ve been in contact with him since 2004. He’s a business writer for the LA Times. Yes a business writer. And a very good one at that. Not a medical writer. So if you wish to read his articles, you’ll find him in the business section not medical.

 

 

Tom Jefferson, senior associate tutor at the University of Oxford, is the lead author of a recent Cochrane review that has ‘gone viral’ on social media and re-ignited one of the most divisive debates during the pandemic – face masks.

The updated review titled “Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of acute respiratory viruses” found that wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to influenza-like or covid-19-like illness transmission.

This comes off the back of three years of governments mandating the use of face masks in the community, schools and hospital settings. Just last month, the WHO upgraded its guidelines advising “anyone in a crowded, enclosed, or poorly ventilated space” to wear a mask.

Jefferson and his colleagues also looked at the evidence for social distancing, hand washing, and sanitising/sterilising surfaces — in total, 78 randomised trials with over 610,000 participants.

Jefferson doesn’t grant many interviews with journalists — he doesn’t trust the media. But since we worked together at Cochrane a few years ago, he decided to let his guard down with me.

During our conversation, Jefferson didn’t hold back. He condemned the pandemic’s “overnight experts”, he criticised the multitude of scientifically baseless health policies, and even opened up about his disappointment in Cochrane’s handling of the review.

The Interview

DEMASI: This Cochrane review has caused quite a stir on social media and inflamed the great mask debate. What are your thoughts?

JEFFERSON: Well, it’s an update from our November 2020 review and the evidence really didn’t change from 2020 to 2023. There’s still no evidence that masks are effective during a pandemic.

DEMASI: And yet, most governments around the world implemented mask mandates during the pandemic…

JEFFERSON: Yes, well, governments completely failed to do the right thing and demand better evidence. At the beginning of the pandemic, there were some voices who said masks did not work and then suddenly the narrative changed.

DEMASI: That is true, Fauci went on 60 minutes and said that masks are not necessary and then weeks later he changed his tune.

JEFFERSON: Same with New Zealand’s Chief Medical Officer.  One minute he is saying masks don’t work, and the next minute, he flipped.

DEMASI: Why do you think that happened?

JEFFERSON: Governments had bad advisors from the very beginning…  They were convinced by non-randomised studies, flawed observational studies.  A lot of it had to do with appearing as if they were “doing something.”

In early 2020, when the pandemic was ramping up, we had just updated our Cochrane review ready to publish…but Cochrane held it up for 7 months before it was finally published in November 2020.

Those 7 months were crucial. During that time, it was when policy about masks was being formed.  Our review was important, and it should have been out there.

DEMASI: What was the delay?

JEFFERSON: For some unknown reason, Cochrane decided it needed an “extra” peer-review.  And then they forced us to insert unnecessary text phrases in the review like “this review doesn’t contain any covid-19 trials,” when it was obvious to anyone reading the study that the cut-off date was January 2020.

DEMASI: Do you think Cochrane intentionally delayed that 2020 review?  

JEFFERSON: During those 7 months, other researchers at Cochrane produced some unacceptable pieces of work, using unacceptable studies, that gave the “right answer”.

DEMASI: What do you mean by “the right answer”?  Are you suggesting that Cochrane was pro-mask, and that your review contradicted the narrative. Is that your intuition?

JEFFERSON: Yes, I think that is what was going on. After the 7-month delay, Cochrane then published an editorial to accompany our review.  The main message of that editorial was that you can’t sit on your hands, you’ve got to do something, you can’t wait for good evidence…. it’s a complete subversion of the ‘precautionary principle’ which states that you should do nothing unless you have reasonable evidence that benefits outweigh the harms.

DEMASI: Why would Cochrane do that?

JEFFERSON: I think the purpose of the editorial was to undermine our work.

DEMASI: Do you think Cochrane was playing a political game?

JEFFERSON: That I cannot say, but it was 7 months that just happened to coincide with the time when all the craziness began, when academics and politicians started jumping up and down about masks. We call them “strident campaigners”.  They are activists, not scientists.

DEMASI: That’s interesting.

JEFFERSON: Well, no. It’s depressing.

DEMASI: So, the 2023 updated review now includes a couple of new covid-19 studies….the Danish mask study….and the Bangladesh study.  In fact, there was a lot of discussion about the Bangladesh mask study which claimed to show some benefit….

JEFFERSON: That was not a very good study because it was not a study about whether masks worked, it was a study about increasing compliance for wearing a mask.

DEMASI: Right, I remember there was a reanalysis of the Bangladesh study showing it had significant bias….you’ve worked in this area for decades, you’re an expert…

JEFFERSON [interjects]… please do not call me an expert. I’m a guy who has worked in the field for some time. That has to be the message. I don’t work with models, I don’t make predictions. I don’t hassle people or chase them on social media. I don’t call them names… I’m a scientist. I work with data.

David Sackett, the founder of Evidence Based Medicine, once wrote a very famous article for The BMJ saying that ‘experts’ are part of the problem. You just have to look at the so-called ‘experts’ that have been advising government.

DEMASI: There were so many silly mask policies. They expected 2yr olds to wear masks, and you had to wear a mask to walk into a restaurant, but you could take it off as soon as you sat down.

JEFFERSON: Yes, also the 2- meter rule. Based on what? Nothing.

DEMASI: Did you wear a mask?

JEFFERSON: I follow the law. If the law says I need to wear one, then I wear one because I have to.  I do not break the law. I obey the law of the country.

DEMASI: Yeah, same. What would you say to people who still want to wear a mask?

JEFFERSON: I think it’s fair to say that if you want to wear a mask then you should have a choice, okay. But in the absence of evidence, you shouldn’t be forcing anybody to do so.

DEMASI: But people say, I’m not wearing a mask for me, I’m wearing it for you.

JEFFERSON: I have never understood that difference. Have you?

DEMASI: They say it’s not to protect themselves, but to protect others, an act of altruism.

JEFFERSON: Ah yes. Wonderful. They get the Albert Schweitzer prize for Humanitarianism. Here’s what I think. Your overnight experts know nothing.

DEMASI (laughs)

JEFFERSON: There is just no evidence that they make any difference. Full stop. My job, our job as a review team, was to look at the evidence, we have done that. Not just for masks. We looked at hand washing, sterilisation, goggles etcetera…

DEMASI: What’s the best evidence for avoiding infection?

JEFFERSON: I think your best shot is sanitation/sterilisation with antiseptic products. We’ve known for about 40 to 50 years that the inside of toilets, handles, seats for example, you recover a very high concentration of replication competent virus, it doesn’t matter what viruses they are. This argues for a contact / fomite mode of transmission.

Also, hand washing shows some benefit, especially in small children. The problem with that is, unless you make the population completely psychotic, they will not comply.

DEMASI: May I just ask a finer point on masks… it’s not that masks don’t work, it’s just that there is no evidence they do work…is that right?

JEFFERSON: There’s no evidence that they do work, that’s right. It’s possible they could work in some settings….we’d know if we’d done trials. All you needed was for Tedros [from WHO] to declare it’s a pandemic and they could have randomised half of the United Kingdom, or half of Italy, to masks and the other half to no masks. But they didn’t. Instead, they ran around like headless chickens.

DEMASI: I’ve worked as a political advisor, so I know that Governments don’t like to appear “uncertain,” they like to act as if they are in control of the situation….

JEFFERSON: Well, there’s always uncertainty. Masking became a “visible” political gesture, which is a point we make over and over again now.  Washing hands and sanitation and vaccination are not overtly visible, but wearing a mask is.

DEMASI: Your review also showed that n95 masks for healthcare workers did not make much difference. 

JEFFERSON: That’s right, it makes no difference – none of it.

DEMASI: Intuitively it makes sense to people though…. you put a barrier between you and the other person, and it helps reduce your risk?

JEFFERSON: Ahhhh the Swiss cheese argument…..

DEMASI: Well, the ‘Swiss cheese’ model was one of the most influential explanations for why people should layer their protection. Another barrier, another layer of protection? You don’t like the Swiss cheese model?

JEFFERSON: I like Swiss cheese to eat — the model not so much …It’s predicated on us knowing exactly how these respiratory viruses transmit, and that, I can tell you, we don’t know.  There isn’t a single mode of transmission, it is probably mixed.

The idea that the covid virus is transmitted via aerosols has been repeated over and over as if its “truth” but the evidence is as thin as air. It’s complex and all journalists want 40 years of experience condensed into two sentences. You can quote the Swiss cheese model, but there’s no evidence that many of these things make any difference.

DEMASI: Why? How can that be?

JEFFERSON: It’s probably related to the way that people behave, it could be the way viruses are transmitted or their port of entry, people don’t wear masks correctly….no-one really knows for sure.  I keep saying it repeatedly, it needs to be looked at by doing a huge, randomised study – masks haven’t been given a proper trial. They should have been done, but they were not done. Instead, we have overnight experts perpetuating a ‘fear-demic.’

DEMASI: I’ve heard people say it would be unethical to do a study and randomise half of a group to masks and the other half to no masks….do you agree?

JEFFERSON: No, because we don’t know what effect masks will have.  If we don’t know what impact they have, how can it be unethical? Strident fanatics have managed to poison this whole discussion and try and make it into a black and white thing…and rely on terribly flawed studies.

DEMASI: Thanks for the chat with me today.

JEFFERSON: You’re welcome, Maryanne.

Note: This interview was edited for clarity and brevity. Jefferson is co-author of Trust The Evidence

Loading

210
Categories
Life Links from other news sources. Opinion Politics Reprints from others.

A look at the weeks happenings.

Visits: 25

Provided by the free press.
A look at the weeks happenings.
TGIF: Dignity for Oompa Loompas


Former President Donald Trump hands out Make America Great Again hats to McDonalds employees in East Palestine, Ohio. (Jabin Botsford via Getty Images)
TGIF: Dignity for Oompa Loompas
Robots replace academics. Another Dolezal. The censors come for Roald Dahl. Buttigieg blows it in Ohio. Plus: David Mamet on cowboys.

By Nellie Bowles

February 24, 2023

 

→ Home sales fall for 12 straight months: It’s the longest streak since 1999. Mortgage rates are still too high. See I only care about politics that directly impact me financially, and this does because it means when I look at my house on Zillow I see the number going down. Not allowed! Meanwhile, office landlords are beginning to default as those 10-year leases end.

→ Georgia grand jury foreperson gone wild: The head juror for the special grand jury looking into Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results has gone rogue. She is Emily Kohrs, 30, a private citizen, a grand jury foreperson tasked with protecting elections, and as of this week a chatty new media darling.

To MSNBC: “I kind of wanted to subpoena the former president because I got to swear everybody in. And so I thought it’d be really cool to get 60 seconds with President Trump, of me looking at him and being like, ​‘Do you solemnly swear?’ And me getting to swear him in​.”

To CNN: “There may be some names on that list that you wouldn’t expect. But the big name that everyone keeps asking me about—I don’t think you will be shocked.”

Emily’s having fun! (And of course she’s into witchcraft.) Honestly, the grand jury foreperson’s main bias seems to be toward drama and chaos, and in that we salute her.

 

As an aside, you know why Trump hasn’t been caught for anything big? The man never writes anything down. Not an email, not a text. The resistance, run by chaos Wiccans like Emily, will simply never catch him.

→ Roald Dahl meets 2023: The long-dead British children’s books author—Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG, and, who could forget, The Witches—has not escaped our moment, and now his books are getting a modern makeover to remove offensive bits. I forget, were those books racist? Sexist? Not exactly, no, but lots of people might be offended, for example, by the fact that Dahl describes witches as bald. And so now there is a new line in the book right after his description of a witch’s hairless head: “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.” (I’m dead serious.)

Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was described as “fat.” That’s gone (now he’s just “enormous”). And did anyone ask the Oompa-Loompas whether they self-identified as “small men?” Now they are “small people,” which of course gives these characters, who are called Oompa. Loompas. All their dignity back. In one story, a character Dahl described as “ugly and beastly” is now just “beastly,” a concession, I guess, to sensitive ugly people. But what about the beastly?!

Now the next lines from James and the Giant Peach are so offensive, I want you to be very careful who sees your screen. These were traditionally sung by the Centipede: “Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat / And tremendously flabby at that.” And: “Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire / And dry as a bone, only drier.”

Those are gone now, replaced with new and worse rhymes coughed up by the very nice censors at Inclusive Minds.

Now, Dahl was also famously an antisemite, which he occasionally cloaked as simple anti-Zionism. Actually, that didn’t need a modern progressive update at all. Now excuse me while I go track down my original copy of The Twits before a sensitivity reader with red pens shows up at my door.

→ Ancestry is complex: One-time Black Panther Angela Davis went onto the PBS show Finding Your Roots, where Henry Louis Gates Jr. does a deep dive into your ancestry. But then something strange happened: It turns out her ancestors arrived on the Mayflower. Now the gotcha here from the right is something like “Oh she’s a descendant of the Mayflower! Not so victimized, eh?” But actually it’s sort of a vindication of the 1619-mindset, in that the history of America and slavery is entwined from the start. It’s worth watching the clip just to see Davis’s face and the gravity of being tied genetically back to that ship. “No, my ancestors did not come here on the Mayflower. No, no no. That’s a little bit too much to deal with right now.”

→ Selling unused Covid gear on the cheap: New York City is auctioning off $200 million in Covid supplies for just $500,000. This comes from local news blog The City, who got the scoop. Among some of the details from the story: A junk dealer from Long Island picked up $12 million in ventilators for just $24,600. “It took the dealer 28 truckloads to cart the stuff away, auction records state.” It’s a great story that also includes emails showing city officials fretting that people might find out how much they overspent. It’s like Storage Wars but so, so sad.

Congratulations to the junk dealer who got 500,000 pounds of ventilators.

→ Jimmy Carter, 98, in hospice: The former president is now in hospice in his Plains, Georgia, home. I recommend this 2018 feature about his sweet and simple life in retirement with Rosalynn, where every Sunday he taught a lesson at the Maranatha Baptist Church. TGIF salutes Jimmy Carter, a model of decency.

Speaking of gentle souls with good intentions, humble dreams, and devoted marriages, let’s see what Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are up to this week. . .

→ Trump gets to East Palestine before the White House: Trump visited the site of the toxic train derailment, spoke to residents, and brought pallets of water (Trump-branded, of course). He stopped at McDonalds, telling workers quite believably: “I know this menu better than you do.”

Meanwhile, local officials in East Palestine are getting on camera to show themselves drinking tap water. Like, see, it’s totally safe! The fish are dead and your dog is dying, but we’re cool! Don’t be so uptight about “vinyl chloride” and “phosgene,” which are just fancy words for totally not-toxic water.

One thing that makes Trump successful is he says that things are shitty when they’re shitty, and I’m sorry, but the water in East Palestine is shitty right now.

Racing there after Trump was Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, the man who is proving single-handedly that Rhodes Scholars are overhyped. Buttigieg whiffed when he arrived: he ran away from reporters, leaving his press secretary begging those reporters to turn off their cameras before she would talk to them. When he did finally speak, he said he “lost his train of thought.” Oh god:

 

Is there something I’m missing here? Why did the train derailment get coded as so conservative that no one could talk about it? Why do the cameras have to be off? Why isn’t Michael Moore there? To me, this whole thing is a gimme for Democrats: use it to argue for more and smarter government infrastructure spending. But for some reason, acknowledging the crash and its environmental impact is verboten. If you can answer this political mystery, please do in the comments.

→ I really don’t like this item: Mark Middleton, a one-time advisor to Bill Clinton, who seemed to be involved with handling his Jeffrey Epstein relationship, is dead by apparent suicide. Details came out this week: Middleton was found hanged with an electrical cord—and with a gunshot wound to his chest. When it comes to Epstein-related shadiness and the extended cover-up of that scandal, at this point, I’m willing to believe just about anything. On the other hand, people who have done bad things do generally want to avoid facing their own souls. So I’d say I’m Epstein-related-murder-conspiracy-open but not sold. But let’s give it a week.

→ James O’Keefe is out: Project Veritas, the right-wing undercover investigations outlet, has ousted its leader and star, James O’Keefe. He spoke to staff before leaving and you can watch that strange, rambling speech here. The board accused him of spending “an excessive amount of donor funds in the last three years on personal luxuries.” Items and amounts that the Veritas board lists: “$14,000 on a charter flight to meet someone to fix his boat under the guise of meeting with a donor” and “over $150,000 in Black Cars in the last 18 months.”

Now, to be clear, James O’Keefe’s job is setting up shady stings of his enemies. One of my friends who got stung was on his third date with a woman who turned out to be an undercover Veritas operative. It was on that date that she recorded him. To me, there’s no one better to run an operation like that than a dude who spends $14,000 to meet someone about a boat. Over $150,000 on limos is basically the minimum spend for a guy like this.

→ Ozy Media founder arrested: It’s not only right-wing media that’s losing a star this week. On Thursday we learned that Carlos Watson, founder of progressive media company Ozy, had been arrested on charges of fraud. The United States of America v. Carlos Watson and Ozy Media, Inc. is pretty fun reading. Among other things, Watson allegedly had a subordinate— Samir Rao, Ozy’s COO—pretend to be a YouTube executive on a call with Goldman Sachs, to say how great Ozy Media was doing on YouTube.

This whole thing was first broken open by scoop hound Ben Smith, now of Semafor. An idea: maybe Carlos Watson and James O’Keefe can start something new together?

And now, a word from resident cartoonist David Mamet . . .

→ University DEI admins come up with their perfect replacement: Vanderbilt University’s office of diversity issued a statement consoling students about a recent mass shooting at Michigan State. But apparently they are so very busy that they used AI to write it.

Let me back up: last week, 43-year-old Anthony Dwayne McRae—who had previously pleaded down a felony charge that would have prevented him from possessing a gun—slaughtered three students, seemingly at random, on Michigan State’s campus.

In response, Vanderbilt’s equity workers released a touching statement about how everyone needs to be kind and inclusive to, I guess, prevent mass shootings by nearby career criminals: “Another important aspect of creating an inclusive environment is to promote a culture of respect and understanding.” And: “[L]et us come together as a community to reaffirm our commitment to caring for one another and promoting a culture of inclusivity on our campus.” And: “Finally, we must recognize that creating a safe and inclusive environment is an ongoing process that requires ongoing effort and commitment.” It’s the same nonsensical but warm sentiment said over and over—inclusive (7 times), community (5 times), safe (3)—and it kinda worked!

Except at the bottom of the statement was this sentence: Paraphrase from OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI language model, personal communication, February 15, 2023.

People were upset. The university apologized. And yes, you could ask what exactly these bureaucrats are doing all day. But their laziness might also be their genius: replace all university bureaucrats with ChatGPT. Like the discovery of penicillin, sometimes accidents make genius.

→ NPR cutting 10 percent of its staff: The public radio station—that is, in part, taxpayer funded—is losing money and needs to cut staff. I can’t point to an institution that has more fully failed its mission than NPR, which went from fulfilling a genuine public service with news and great stories (I’m thinking of early This American Life) to just another hyper-partisan maker of mush. Tote bags and mush.

→ NYT union versus NYT workers: The New York Times’ labor union is a funny thing because reporters pay into it every two weeks and, in turn, the union’s main project is getting some of those reporters fired. It’s a bit like musical chairs: If you’re too slow putting the fist in your Twitter profile picture, you’re it. See, the union is pretty bad at achieving boring stuff like raises, but it shines at gathering groups of reporters to get a deskmate ousted. Who needs money when you can draw blood?

The latest: the union stepped in to help ax a couple Times writers who reported on trans issues with anything close to an objective lens. Here’s what union head Susan DeCarava wrote to Times staff in a note about how to organize: “[E]mployees are protected in collectively raising concerns that conditions of their employment constitute a hostile working environment.” Oh yes, reporting on trans issues makes a hostile work environment. Perfect. We got the language, now let’s march on Katie, that very bad Times reporter! Let’s picket the awful Emily! The people united will get Katie fired!

Except finally, finally, the union this week is seeing some organized pushback, and a group of Times people wrote their own letter asking the union to just please stop. “We ask that our union work to advance, not erode, our journalistic independence.”

If media union bosses can’t wake up and get Katies and Emilys fired, what exactly are they supposed to do all day?

This post is for paying s

Loading

207
Categories
Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. WOKE

Eating one of their own? Did Norfolk Southern neglect safety protocols in pursuit of DEI and ESG initiatives? NTSB report seems to pin blame on Norfolk train car.

Visits: 9

Did Norfolk Southern neglect safety protocols in pursuit of DEI and ESG initiatives?

On February 3rd, dozens of Norfolk Southern train cars derailed while traveling through East Palestine, Ohio, with 11 of those cars carrying ultra hazardous chemical agents. Some three days later, those chemicals were burned off into the air, after officials expressed concerns that the materials could explode and ignite an even greater catastrophe. Could all of this have been avoided?

On Thursday, the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) determined in a preliminary report that an overheated wheel bearing on a Norfolk Southern train car could be responsible for the derailment that occurred.

The report listed multiple operational concerns, adding that “surveillance video … showed what appeared to be a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment.” This seems to indicate that this was a disaster that could’ve been avoided with proper safety protocols in place.

We are offered clues of possible neglect in Norfolk Southern’s 2022 ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) report, which showcases how the railway corporation has completely embraced the modern “stakeholder capitalism” agenda that inundates seemingly every major American corporation.

The report, published in late 2022, highlights how Norfolk is pursuing wokeness and the climate agenda over safety and merit-based hiring.

It contains a message from Alan Shaw, the rail company’s CEO, who has been in the news lately for all of the wrong reasons. In a letter to readers, Shaw proudly announced that they would continue “reducing our carbon footprint” while expanding their DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives.

Shaw, by the way, failed to show up for the latest community meeting on the railway disaster on Thursday.

Image

As for the DEI page, it touts how Shaw signed the “CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion pledge,” a product of the ultra woke consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The pledge commits employers to pursue “racial equity” in their hiring processes and “implement and expand unconscious bias education and training.” In short, follow the agenda and you will be rewarded by The System.

In its DEI page, Jason Pettway, the company’s Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (a role created by the company in 2021) cheers the fact that more than half of all new hires belong to a racial minority.

The DEI page makes clear to readers that Norfolk is committed to hiring its workforce on the basis of gender and skin color, and not merit.

Forget about the mushroom cloud and toxic gasses they helped to launch over East Palestine. In its ESG section, Norfolk Southern has won plenty of awards recently for “delivering the low-carbon economy.”

Did all of this “climate leadership” mean Norfolk Southern was cutting corners on safety standards? The report was surely celebrated by Norfolk’s multi-trillion dollar asset management behemoth stakeholders.

As for the people of East Palestine, Ohio, they are left with the wreckage in their physical backyards, and with a series of questions that remain unanswered from Norfolk Southern officials, who have largely refused to hold themselves accountable for the consequences of their failures.

 

Loading

165
Categories
Corruption Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

Just putting this out there. Biden Family Key Partner Eric Schwerin to Flip in House Oversight Probe

Visits: 26

Biden Family Key Partner Eric Schwerin to Flip in House Oversight Probe.

 

Hunter Biden’s top financial lieutenant Eric Schwerin is expected to “soon” provide documents to the House Oversight Committee’s investigation of the Biden family for nine violations, including money laundering and wire fraud, a spokesperson for the committee told Breitbart News.

Schwerin, who shared bank accounts with President Joe Biden and dubbed the family’s “moneyman,” also maintained guest lists for White House functions and negotiated the settlement with Hunter’s first wife, Kathleen. Emails from Hunter’s laptop show Schwerin was deeply embedded in Hunter’s personal life and the Biden family networks for nearly two decades and is even pictured at campaign events with Joe Biden.

Schwerin was also the president of Rosemont Seneca Partners, a fund created by Hunter Biden and several​ associates that spawned business deals in Russia, Ukraine, China, and Romania. Many of those deals yielded the Biden family business millions over decades while Joe Biden was an elected official.
Joe Biden and his team have claimed at least seven times the president is not involved in the family’s international business deals, but more than 17 instances show that Joe Biden was involved in the business. In one example, Schwerin visited the White House and other official locations 27 times when Joe Biden was vice president.

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 08: House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) is seen in front of a newspaper page with a photograph of Hunter Biden and his father President Joe Biden during the Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media hearing with former Twitter employees before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability at the Rayburn House Office Building on Wednesday February 08, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) is seen in front of a newspaper page with a photograph of Hunter Biden and his father President Joe Biden during the Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media hearing with former Twitter employees before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability at the Rayburn House Office Building on Wednesday February 08, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

A committee spokesperson told Breitbart News it has been in contact with “Schwerin’s attorney and expect him to start producing documents to the Oversight Committee soon.”

Wednesday was the deadline set by the committee for Schwerin, James, and Hunter to comply with demands to disclose a host of both classified and unclassified documents, records, and communications between business associates and family members, including Joe Biden.

While Hunter has refused to comply with the request, the committee told Breitbart News that James has received correspondence from his attorneys. It is unknown if James is complying with the requests.

 

 

“Oversight Committee staff will be in communication with them about Chairman Comer’s request,” the spokesperson said.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) has stated in February the “next step” to compel the relevant information from Hunter and James is to issue subpoenas to Hunter and James if they do not comply.

The revelations about Schwerin’s willingness to turn over documents to the committee comes as Republicans have been stonewalled by Hunter, the Treasury Department, and former FBI “point man” Timothy Thibault, who allegedly “improperly” “shut down” a probe into Hunter’s laptop that is likely unrelated to the ongoing criminal probe concerning reported tax fraud by the president’s son.

In January, the Treasury denied the Committee’s request to disclose 150 suspicious reports flagged by U.S. banks concerning Biden family business transactions, causing Comer to threaten a subpoena.

 

 

Republicans has raised concerns that Joe Biden could be compromised by China and questioned how the Biden family made millions of dollars without producing any actual work in return for the money.

“What is the Biden family business? They don’t have any assets,” Comer said. “They don’t manufacture anything. They don’t sell anything. Yet they receive millions from around the globe.”

In 2018 and 2020, Breitbart Senior Contributor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer published Secret Empires and Profiles in Corruption. Each book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and exposed how Hunter Biden and Joe Biden flew aboard Air Force Two in 2013 to China before Hunter’s firm inked a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China less than two weeks after the trip. Schweizer’s work also uncovered the Biden family’s other vast and lucrative foreign deals and cronyism.

Breitbart Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris’s investigative work at the New York Post on the Hunter Biden “laptop from Hell” also captured international headlines when she, along with Miranda Devine, revealed that Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter’s businesses, appearing even to have a 10 percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.

Loading

205
Verified by MonsterInsights