Covid RoundtableThe National Institutes of Health’s efforts to study long COVID have done little to benefit those struggling with the disorder and haven’t contributed meaningful information about the condition, according to an investigation by STAT and MuckRock, a nonprofit news outlet.
Story at a glance:
- In February 2021, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that Congress would provide the agency $1.15 billion in funding over four years to study long COVID.
- An investigation by STAT and MuckRock, a nonprofit news outlet, revealed the NIH’s efforts to study long COVID have done little to benefit those struggling with the disorder and haven’t contributed meaningful information about the condition, either.
- As of April, NIH has “basically nothing to show for” its research to date.
- Instead of conducting trials to pin down how to prevent and cure long COVID, NIH has spent most of its money simply watching, tracking and recording long COVID symptoms.
- Gathering information about NIH’s long COVID data — and where the $1.15 billion in funding has gone — hasn’t proven easy; there is no single NIH official in charge of the efforts and the agency isn’t sharing even basic information about its research.
An estimated 7.5% of U.S. adults — that’s 1 in 13 — have symptoms of “long COVID,” a term used to describe a complex disorder that persists for three or more months after contracting COVID-19.
With so many affected, there’s clearly an urgent need to investigate long COVID and how to treat it — and the NIH did just that.
In February 2021, Dr. Francis Collins, NIH’s former director, announced that Congress would provide the agency $1.15 billion in funding over four years “to support research into the prolonged health consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
“A diverse team of experts from across the agency has worked diligently over the past few weeks to identify the most pressing research questions and the areas of greatest opportunity to address this emerging public health priority,” he continued.
Fast forward more than two years later. What has NIH accomplished with the money?
“There’s basically nothing to show for it,” journalists Rachel Cohrs and Betsy Ladyzhets wrote in STAT.
NIH spends $1 billion, contributes nothing but ‘confusion’
An investigation by STAT and MuckRock, a nonprofit news outlet, revealed the NIH’s efforts to study long COVID have done little to benefit those struggling with the disorder and haven’t contributed meaningful information about the condition, either.
STAT reported:
“The National Institutes of Health hasn’t signed up a single patient to test any potential treatments — despite a clear mandate from Congress to study them. And the few trials it is planning have already drawn a firestorm of criticism, especially one intervention that experts and advocates say may actually make some patients’ long Covid symptoms worse.
“Instead, the NIH spent the majority of its money on broader, observational research that won’t directly bring relief to patients. But it still hasn’t published any findings from the patients who joined that study, almost two years after it started.
“There’s no sense of urgency to do more or to speed things up, either. The agency isn’t asking Congress for any more funding for long Covid research, and STAT and MuckRock obtained documents showing the NIH refuses to use its own money to change course.”
In other words, instead of conducting trials to pin down how to prevent and cure long COVID, NIH has spent most of its money simply watching, tracking and recording long COVID symptoms.
Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, told STAT he expected NIH would have launched multiple large-scale trials, prioritizing those testing treatments, but this didn’t happen.
“I don’t know that they’ve contributed anything except more confusion,” he said.
NIH’s pace described as a ‘slow-moving glacier’
Considering long COVID is supposedly the consequence of a pandemic that brought the world to a halt for years, you’d think the NIH — “the largest biomedical research agency in the world” — would be blazing trails and conducting groundbreaking studies at a frenzied pace to get to the bottom of this, especially with $1.15 billion to throw at the problem.
Not so. By March 2022, NIH had recruited only 3% of its planned study participants.
“Critics charge that the NIH’s missteps are even bigger: that it is acting without urgency, that it is taking on vague, open-ended research questions rather than testing out therapies or treatments, and that it is not being fully transparent with patient advocates and researchers,” Cohrs wrote.
Meanwhile, Lauren Stiles, a research assistant professor of neurology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who had long COVID, described related NIH research as “a slow-moving glacier.”
She told Cohrs in 2022, “With a half-billion dollars, they could have run multiple clinical trials.”
As of April, NIH states they’re planning five clinical trials, but only one has been formally announced.
In another serious misstep, it’s going to study the antiviral medicine Paxlovid, a drug known for causing COVID-19 rebound, to treat long COVID.
A study dubbed RECOVER, however, is intended to be NIH’s largest on the topic, to set “precedents for future research and clinical guidelines. It will dictate how doctors across the country treat their patients — and, in turn, impact people’s ability to access work accommodations, disability benefits, and more,” STAT reported.
But already, critics have described the study as “pointless” and “a waste of time and resources.”
It also doesn’t have anyone signed up to participate. As of April, NIH was still stalling and estimated that trials would begin in the summer.
Duke University partnership raises eyebrows
In August 2022, Duke Clinical Research Institute announced that it was coordinating long COVID clinical trials, including the Paxlovid study, with the NIH.
According to STAT:
“All five clinical trial protocols are going through safety reviews, and the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] is reviewing the trials that will test Paxlovid and other drugs, the Duke Clinical Research Institute said. The institute plans to share these protocols publicly when reviews are complete, but did not provide an estimate for when that will happen.”
This is noteworthy given that Dr. Robert M. Califf, FDA commissioner, has deep ties to Duke University and Big Pharma.
Califf — who recently blamed misinformation for falling life expectancy in the U.S. — formerly worked at Duke University as an adjunct professor of medicine (cardiology) and served as the former director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute — the same one now partnering with NIH to study long COVID.
As Freedom magazine reported, it’s another case of the fox guarding the henhouse:
“While at Duke University [Califf] received money from 23 Big Pharma outfits, and he has served as an official or director at Genentech and other companies. Califf has conceded that he has ties to more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies. Califf was a cheerleader for Vioxx, which was reported to have caused 50,000 heart attacks.
“While at Duke, the research operations over which Califf presided resulted in major fraud.
“Michael Carome, director of the health research group at Public Citizen, a consumer activist group in Washington, D.C., said: ‘It would be dangerously naïve to think he [Califf] has not developed deeply ingrained attitudes that tilt in favor of the medical device and drug industries.’”
Patients suffering while NIH does nothing
Gathering information about NIH’s long COVID data — and where the $1.15 billion in funding has gone — hasn’t proven easy.
“There is no single NIH official responsible for leading RECOVER, and the initiative has failed to share basic information that would typically be available for a government research project of this scale,” STAT reported.
STAT continued:
“There’s also little accountability for NIH leaders to disclose how funds are spent or respond to other concerns with RECOVER because an entity intended to oversee long Covid research across the federal government hasn’t been created.”
Further, much of the money has been shuttled to Duke University and other collaborators. But while NIH drags its feet, patients continue to suffer from incapacitating symptoms while feeling ignored and abandoned by the medical community and society at large.
This certainly wasn’t the case during the pandemic, when officials fast-tracked a COVID-19 shot to market at an unprecedented pace. Why aren’t they moving with the same sense of urgency now?
STAT noted:
“The crawling pace of the government’s long Covid efforts stand in stark contrast with the government’s wildly successful partnership with the pharmaceutical industry to get Covid-19 vaccines to market in less than 12 months.
“There are no ongoing efforts to support independent private-sector companies or researchers trying to study treatments for long Covid through the NIH, even though some have proved promising.”
Post-jab long COVID is common
Long COVID symptoms vary but often include fatigue, shortness of breath, brain fog, sleep disorders, fevers, gastrointestinal problems, anxiety and depression. Severity ranges from mild to debilitating, and the disorder shares many similarities with post-jab injuries.
Many people who’ve received COVID-19 shots report long COVID-like symptoms, such as memory problems, headaches, blurred vision, loss of smell, nerve pain, heart rate fluctuations, dramatic blood pressure swings and muscle weakness.
In one study from early in the pandemic, more than two-thirds of those reporting long COVID symptoms had negative antibody tests, suggesting at least some of them didn’t even have COVID-19.
The primary difference between post-jab long COVID and long COVID symptoms after infection is that in people who get it from the infection, early treatment was withheld and the resulting infection is severe.
Post-jab long COVID, on the other hand, can occur either after a very mild breakthrough infection or no breakthrough infection at all.
Help for long COVID and post-jab symptoms
The NIH is failing Americans who urgently need relief from long COVID symptoms due to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 shots. Fortunately, help is out there.
The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Working Group’s I-RECOVER protocol can be downloaded in full, giving you step-by-step instructions on how to treat long COVID and/or reactions from COVID-19 injections.
I also recently summarized strategies to optimize mitochondrial health if you’re suffering from long COVID, with a focus on boosting mitochondrial health.
To allow your body to heal you’ll want to minimize electromagnetic frequency (EMF) exposure as much as possible.
Your diet also matters, as the cristae of the inner membrane of the mitochondria contain a fat called cardiolipin, the function of which is dependent on the type of fat you get from your diet.
The type of dietary fat that promotes healthy cardiolipin is omega-3 fat, and the type that destroys it is omega-6, especially linoleic acid, which is highly susceptible to oxidation. So, to optimize your mitochondrial function, you want to avoid linoleic acid as much as possible and increase your intake of omega-3s.
Primary sources of linoleic acid include seed oils used in cooking, processed foods and restaurant foods made with seed oils, condiments, seeds and nuts, most olive oils and avocado oils (due to the high prevalence of adulteration with cheaper seed oils), and animal foods raised on grains, such as conventional chicken and pork.
Another major culprit that destroys mitochondrial function is excess iron — and almost everyone has too much iron.
Copper is also important for energy metabolism, detoxification and mitochondrial function, and copper deficiency is common.
Other strategies include sun exposure and near-infrared light therapy, time-restricted eating, NAD+ optimizers and methylene blue, which can be a valuable rescue remedy.
It could be years before the NIH gets around to releasing its data on long COVID, and even then, there’s no guarantee that its research will be useful. But each individual suffering deserves access to the full range of potential treatments — now, not years from now, if at all.
If you or a loved one is affected, know that if you improve your mitochondrial function and restore the energy supply to your cells, you’ll significantly increase your odds of reversing the problems caused by the jab or the virus.3y Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable COVID-19 shot contents are biodistributed into the bloodstream within hours and cross “all physiologic barriers including the maternal-placental-fetal barrier and the blood brain barriers in both the mother and the fetus,” according to maternal-fetal medicine expert Dr. James Thorp.
Story at a glance:
- Compared to the flu vaccine, COVID-19 shots are associated with a significant increase in adverse events among women of reproductive age.
- Data revealed a 27-fold higher risk of miscarriage and a more than two-fold increased risk of adverse fetal outcomes across six different categories following COVID-19 shots.
- COVID-19 shot contents are biodistributed into the bloodstream within hours and cross “all physiologic barriers including the maternal-placental-fetal barrier and the blood brain barriers in both the mother and the fetus.”
- Birth rates in multiple European countries fell significantly at the end of 2021, months after COVID-19 shots became widely utilized.
- Researchers have called for the immediate suspension of COVID-19 vaccination for all persons of childbearing and reproductive age.
While a typical vaccine must undergo 10 to 12 years of trials before it’s released, during the pandemic, COVID-19 shots were made available to the public just 10 months after development, courtesy of an Emergency Use Authorization.
Even pregnant women were subjected to the shots, and in many cases were mandated to receive them.
“The pushing of these experimental COVID-19 vaccines globally is the greatest violation of medical ethics in the history of medicine, maybe humanity,” Dr. James Thorp, a maternal-fetal medicine expert, told Tucker Carlson (see video below).
Thorp and colleagues published a preprint study that found striking risks to pregnant women who received the shots, along with their unborn babies.
The outcomes were so dire that the researchers concluded pregnant women should not receive COVID-19 shots until further research is completed.
The researchers explained:
“A worldwide moratorium on the use of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy is advised until randomized prospective trials document safety in pregnancy and long-term follow-up in offspring.”
COVID shots linked to 27-fold higher risk of miscarriage
Thorp and colleagues used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) to assess adverse events experienced by women of reproductive age following receipt of a COVID-19 shot, compared to receipt of a flu shot.
The researchers compared to the flu vaccine, COVID-19 shots were associated with a significant increase in adverse events (AE), including:
- Menstrual abnormality
- Miscarriage
- Fetal chromosomal abnormalities
- Fetal malformation
- Fetal cystic hygroma
- Fetal cardiac disorders
- Fetal arrhythmia
- Fetal cardiac arrest
- Fetal vascular malperfusion
- Fetal growth abnormalities
- Fetal abnormal surveillance
- Fetal placental thrombosis
- Low amniotic fluid
- Fetal death/stillbirth
The researchers noted:
“When normalized by time-available, doses-given, or persons-received, all COVID-19 vaccine AE far exceed the safety signal on all recognized thresholds … Pregnancy and menstrual abnormalities are significantly more frequent following COVID-19 vaccinations than that of Influenza vaccinations.”
Specifically, the data revealed a 27-fold higher risk of miscarriage and a more than two-fold increased risk of adverse fetal outcomes across six different categories, according to board-certified internist and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough.
Were nurses issued gag order against speaking out?
Problems began to appear shortly after COVID-19 shots were rolled out, such that a leaked email from a large California hospital was sent out in warning to 200 nurses.
The email, from September 2022, contained the subject line, “Demise Handling,” referring to an increase in stillbirths and fetal deaths.
A TCW report by journalist Sally Beck shared the email’s content, which read:
“It seems as though the increase of demise patients [babies] that we are seeing is going to continue. There were 22 demises [stillbirths and fetal deaths] in August [2022], which ties [equals] the record number of demises in July 2021, and so far in September [2022] there have been 7 and it’s only the 8th day of the month.”
Beck reports that one nurse, Michelle Gershman, who works in the neonatal ward had her bonus withheld because she spoke out about the rise in fetal deaths.
“We used to have one fetal demise per month. That rose to one or two per week,” Gershman said.
Beck reported:
“Her experience, and the experience of doctors working with pregnant women, is contrary to official ‘safe and effective’ observation and advice, but no one was free to speak out because of a gagging order imposed in September 2021 by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG). …”
“At the beginning of the rollout, in December 2020, pregnant women who were healthcare workers or deemed to be at risk from COVID began receiving the shots. By May 2021, the vaccine was being recommended to all pregnant American women, despite the fact that none of the vaccine manufacturers had completed reproductive toxicology reports in animals, and none had started clinical trials in pregnant women.
“Two months later, hospitals noticed a huge increase in miscarriage, stillbirth, preterm births, pregnancy complications and menstrual abnormalities.”
COVID shots should be Category X
The mRNA from COVID-19 shots circulates in the body for 28 days or more, and the spike protein may trigger clotting, bleeding and tissue damage, according to McCullough.
Because of this and other concerns, he states that, conservatively, COVID-19 shots should be given the “Category X” designation during pregnancy, which means, “The risk of use of the drug in pregnant women clearly outweighs any possible benefit. The drug is contraindicated in women who are or may become pregnant.”
Unfortunately, health officials in the U.S. continue to affirm its safety, even for vulnerable populations such as this, as they have from the very beginning.
“Shockingly, in the very first week of mass vaccination in December of 2020,” McCullough wrote, “news reels depicted well-intentioned pregnant mothers getting injected with synthetic lipid nanoparticles laced with long-lasting mRNA coding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology Spike protein.”
Thorp’s study also reported that Pfizer’s data showed COVID-19 shot contents are biodistributed into the bloodstream within hours and cross “all physiologic barriers including the maternal-placental-fetal barrier and the blood brain barriers in both the mother and the fetus.”
A separate study is, in fact, looking at using ionizable lipid nanoparticles (LPNs) like those used as mRNA delivery platforms in COVID-19 shots, as tools to deliver drugs to the placenta, because they’re so effective at reaching it.
“LNPs enhance mRNA stability, circulation time, cellular uptake and preferential delivery to specific tissues compared to mRNA with no carrier platform,” the researchers wrote.
But the study contains some concerning data, which was shared on Twitter:
Health officials made the recommendation that COVID-19 shots are safe and effective for pregnant women based on a 42-day study from Pfizer involving 44 rats.
What’s more, the Pfizer-BioNTech rat study revealed the shot more than doubled the incidence of preimplantation loss and also led to a low incidence of mouth/jaw malformations, gastroschisis (a birth defect of the abdominal wall) and abnormalities in the right-sided aortic arch and cervical vertebrae in the fetuses.
“In that study the fetal loss rate DOUBLED (4.2% to 9.8%) but had little impact on the overall number of fetuses,” Jikkyleaks tweeted, sharing the chart above.
The tweet continued:
“This is how this information is hidden. That single slide should have been enough to prompt much more investigation, because it showed fewer fetuses in EVERY GROUP.”
Shocking decline in birth rates post-COVID shots
Birth rates in multiple European countries fell significantly in the end of 2021, months after COVID-19 shots became widely utilized.
The data, compiled by a team of European researchers, found declines in birth rates in all the countries they studied, including:
- Germany
- Austria
- Switzerland
- France
- Belgium
- Netherlands
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Sweden
- Portugal
- Spain
- Czech Republic
- Hungary
- Poland
- Romania
- Slovenia
- Iceland
- Northern Ireland
- Montenegro
- Serbia
The team explained:
“In advance it should be noted that every single examined European country shows a monthly decline in birth rates of up to more than 10% compared to the last three years. It can be shown that this very alarming signal cannot be explained by infections with COVID-19.
“However, one can establish a clear temporal correlation to COVID vaccinations incidence in the age group of men and women between 18 and 49 years. Therefore, in-depth statistical and medical analyses have to be demanded.”
The declines in birth rates ranged from a low of 1.3% in France to a high of 19% in Romania.
Seven countries had a decline in birth rate of more than 10%, while 15 countries had declines of greater than 4%. Switzerland’s drop was said to have exceeded the drop that occurred from World War I, World War II, the Great Depression and the release of oral contraceptives.
No connection was found between the declines in birth rates and COVID-19 infections or hospitalizations, with the team noting:
“Adverse reactions related to the female reproductive organs and study findings related to male fertility point to a causal interpretation of the association of birth declines and the Covid-19 vaccinations.”
COVID shots affect menstrual cycles
It remains unknown how COVID-19 shots affect reproductive health in men and women.
For instance, The Vaccine Reaction reported:
“To date, the manufacturer’s insert for FDA-approved COVID shots explicitly states that it has not been tested for the potential to impair male fertility.”
However, data on U.S. infertility after the rollout of COVID shots aren’t available.
Meanwhile, women around the globe have reported changes in their menstrual cycles following COVID-19 shots, and health officials largely brushed off the reports or labeled them anecdotal.
But a study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology — and funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women’s Health — confirms an association between menstrual cycle length and COVID-19 shots.
Clinical trials for COVID-19 shots did not collect data about menstrual cycles following injection, and VAERS does not actively collect menstrual cycle information either, making it difficult to initially determine whether the shots were having an effect.
Anecdotal reports on social media, however, are numerous and, according to the study, “suggest menstrual disturbances are much more common.”
The Obstetrics & Gynecology study involved 3,959 individuals between the ages of 18 and 45 years. Those who had not received a COVID-19 shot noted no significant changes in cycle 4 during the study compared to their first three cycles.
However, those who received COVID-19 shots had longer menstrual cycles, typically by less than one day, when they received the shots.
The longer cycles were noted for both doses of the injection, with a 0.71-day increase after the first dose and a 0.91-day increase after the second dose.
Cycle changes of eight days or more noted
The overall declines were described as not clinically significant.
However, some women, particularly those who received two shots in the same menstrual cycle, experienced significant changes, including a two-day increase in cycle length and, in some cases, changes in cycle length of eight days or more.
Considering a regular menstrual cycle is “an overt sign of health and fertility,” any changes could have major ramifications.
Further, the team noted:
“Questions remain about other possible changes in menstrual cycles, such as menstrual symptoms, unscheduled bleeding, and changes in the quality and quantity of menstrual bleeding.”
Taken together, the links to miscarriage, reproductive changes and declining birth rates raise major red flags about the safety of COVID-19 shots for people of reproductive age.
As such, the European research team echoed Thorp in calling for a moratorium on COVID-19 shots for pregnant women, and took it a step further suggesting a suspension for everyone of reproductive age:
“Given the considerable individual and social relevance of the link between vaccination campaigns and declining birth rates, the immediate suspension of COVID-19 vaccination for all persons of childbearing and reproductive age should be called for.”3y Covid Roundtable Remember when the federal government told you masks were effective against COVID-19?
Remember when the government told you vaccines will keep you from getting the virus?
Yeah, they don’t.
And remember when the federal government told you COVID didn’t come from a lab in Wuhan, China? Well, it did. Who says? The federal government.
The narrative laid out by the administrations of both former President Donald Trump and President Biden has rapidly fallen apart in the past couple of weeks.
The New York Times published a piece last week headlined “The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?” It was penned by Bret Stephens, an opinion columnist with the Times who won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2013.
“The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous.”
“‘There is just no evidence that they’ — masks — ‘make any difference,’ he told the journalist Maryanne Demasi. ‘Full stop.’”
“But, wait, hold on. What about N-95 masks, as opposed to lower-quality surgical or cloth masks? ‘Makes no difference — none of it,’ said Jefferson.”
Hang on. Study after study in the early days of the pandemic asserted that masks worked, which prompted lawmakers at every level of government to enact mask mandates. But Mr. Jefferson says those studies were “non-randomized” and “flawed.”
So that raises the question: What about Mr. Jefferson’s study? Yeah, no. He and 11 colleagues conducted 78 randomized controlled trials with a total of 610,872 participants in numerous countries.
“Mask mandates were a fool’s errand from the start,” Mr. Stephens wrote. “They may have created a false sense of safety — and thus permission to resume semi-normal life. They did almost nothing to advance safety itself. The Cochrane report ought to be the final nail in this particular coffin.”
Also this week, researchers examined the efficacy of local COVID-19 vaccine mandates implemented across the United States in 2021 and found they didn’t work.
“These mandates imposed severe restrictions on the lives of many citizens and business owners,” the researchers said in a study conducted by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. “Yet, we find no evidence that the mandates were effective in their intended goals of reducing COVID-19 cases and deaths.”
The researchers evaluated the District of Columbia, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle.
“We find no evidence that the announcement or implementation of indoor vaccine mandates in the cities listed had any significant effect on vaccine uptake, COVID-19 cases, or COVID-19 deaths, and this is largely consistent for all US cities that implemented the mandate,” the researchers wrote.
When COVID-19 arrived on our shores in early 2020, leaders of big cities — almost invariably Democrats — enacted major lockdowns, forcing businesses to close and shutting down entertainment and sports venues. They also ordered everyone to wear masks. When vaccines were created, those leaders issued mandates requiring millions to take them.
For instance, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, said in August 2021 that science shows mask and vaccine mandates would slow the spread.
But researchers found no evidence to back that up.
“Our findings put into question the efficacy of city-level vaccine mandates,” the researchers found. “Indoor vaccine mandates caused large disruptions for many individuals and businesses. New York City, for example, fired 1,430 city workers for failing to comply with its vaccine mandate. A survey found that over 90% of NYC restaurants reported having customer-related challenges, such as losing customers who objected to the mandate, and 75% having staff-related challenges. Those are just a small fraction of the disruptions caused by the mandates.”
“Most supporters of the mandates claim that the associated increase in vaccination rates, and its implied reduction in the spread of COVID-19, outweigh the cost of the disruptions. However, we find that the effects of the mandates on their intended outcomes are not statistically noticeable in any of the cities they were implemented in all empirical strategies used,” the report said.
Then last week we found out the global COVID-19 pandemic originated from a virology lab in run by the communist regime in China, according to a new U.S. Department of Energy document that was recently provided to key members of Congress and the White House.
Remember when social media squelched any mention of that? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
So now we know that the government didn’t know a thing about COVID-19. They told us things to make us do what they wanted us to do, but none of it was based in science.
And that should scare the hell out of you.3y Covid Roundtable The Russian government is dialling up the “Virus Fear” in perfect synchronisation with the World Health Organisation’s (“WHO’s”) decision to “upgrade” Arcturus to a “variant of interest.”
Fellow BRICS member India is currently experiencing an “intense” outbreak of this variant, and Russia should expect its own Arcturus surge by the end of May, the Chief State Sanitary Doctor of the Russian Federation, Anna Popova, said.
“WHO says ‘jump’ and the Russian government asks: ‘how high?’,” writes Edward Slavsquat
Russia revives Virus scam — right on cue
Russia is bracing for a wave of highly infectious Arcturus, the newest and trendiest “covid subvariant,” Rospotrebnadzor chief Anna Popova announced on Thursday.
Fellow BRICS member India is currently experiencing an “intense” outbreak of this computer model, and Russia – which has already registered four confirmed cases! – should expect its own Arcturus surge by the end of May, Popova predicted.
A sharp uptick in hospitalisations is not anticipated, but just in case, Russia’s healthcare system is ready for “additional stress and overload,” she reassured the public.
Do ordinary Russians care at all about the Dreaded Virus? No. But the Russian government is dialling up the Virus Fear anyway – in perfect synchronisation with the WHO’s decision to “upgrade” Arcturus to a “variant of interest.”
As expected, Russian state media has scrambled its Scam-jets.
Vesti reported that specialists at the Gamaleya Centre are already “conducting research to assess the biological risks of the spread of the new subvariant.”
The outlet also created a helpful Arcturus FAQ:
You can reduce the risk of Arcturus by using protective masks in crowded places, washing your hands often and thoroughly, and when this is not possible, treating them with an antiseptic.
RIA Novosti warned its readers that Arcturus has “a completely new symptom that was not previously characteristic of covid-19 – conjunctivitis, or ‘pink eye’, accompanied by itching.”
Parliamentskaya Gazeta, the official newspaper of Russia’s Federal Assembly, interviewed a top virologist about this terrifying development.
According to this esteemed medical professional:
[Arcturus] spreads from person-to-person 20 per cent faster than the previous Kraken strain, which is a significant rate. Therefore, it is obvious that another wave of covid is coming. […]
If Arcturus is able to link up with the Wuhan or Delta variant that are still circulating in the population, this could lead to dire consequences. […]
Even more terrible events will develop if Arcturus is joined by the SARS coronavirus (SARS) of 2002, which has a 15 per cent mortality rate, or the MERS virus, which circulated in 2014-2015 with a huge mortality rate of 40 per cent… [T]he hybrid of Arcturus and these unpleasant strains is very scary if it suddenly happens.
Good heavens!
How can Russians protect themselves from the Arcturus-SARS-MERS murder-plague?
Do you even have to ask?
The likelihood of Russia leaving the WHO – or even just politely declining to follow Collective West, Bill Gates-funded “health recommendations” – is rapidly approaching 0%.
Sorry, but it’s true.3y Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable In their new article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Drs. Yaffa Shir-Raz, Shay Zakov, Peter McCullough and Yaakov Ophir dissect the claim that COVID-19 boosters are capable of providing long-term protection against severe illness and deaths.
Two key bricks seem to have already fallen from the COVID-19 vaccines’ narrative — the one about their fantastic efficacy against infections and the one about their superb safety.
However, one stubborn narrative brick seems to stand still, leading many people to believe that the booster doses of the vaccines are capable of providing long-term protection against severe illness and deaths (despite their failure to protect against infections).
But is this brick really that strong?
Does the existing scientific literature really support the notion that the two types of protection are independent of each other — that the protection against severe illness and deaths somehow remained high while the protection against infections disappeared?
In our new article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Yaffa Shir-Raz, Dr. Shay Zakov, Dr. Peter McCullough and myself aimed to answer these questions from a purely scientific point of view.
We conducted a rigorous review of representative data from three types of sources: (1) the original clinical trials by Pfizer and Moderna, (2) the more contemporary studies on the fourth dose of the vaccine and (3) the popular dashboards of pandemic statistics.
In this relatively short article (that echoes a video I prepared on this topic), I will not be able to present our entire findings. However, I do wish to give you a taste of our review using three examples, starting with the founding clinical trial by Pfizer.
Number of deaths in the clinical trial by Pfizer
One might (falsely) assume that the key question I presented above was already answered in the Phase 3, Randomized Control Trial by Pfizer — the one that allowed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue its emergency authorization to use the COVID-19 vaccines.
After all, randomized controlled trials are considered to be the gold standard in biomedical research. Nevertheless, this key clinical trial did not really teach us anything about the ability of the vaccines to protect against severe illness and death.
Specifically for the last, Pfizer reported that six months after the injections, there were no significant differences in the number of deaths from all causes between the group that received the vaccines and the control group that received the placebo.
Moreover, during the open-label stage of their study, when the blind condition was terminated and the participants receiving the placebo could have chosen to be given the real vaccine, Pfizer evidenced five additional death cases and they all occurred among people who took the vaccine.
In other words, in this key clinical trial, science did not support the idea that the vaccines protect against death. In fact, some might argue that science provided an important warning about these vaccines.
Contemporary observational studies about the fourth dose
Without clear evidence from the formal clinical trials, we ought to turn to the less strong research designs that investigated the vaccines in real-life settings through observational, but not experimental measures.
Of course, observational studies should be carefully interpreted because they are vulnerable to real-life biases, such as uneven testing levels in which unvaccinated people were forced to test for COVID-19 while vaccinated people were exempted from these tests.
Nevertheless, we decided to review all the observational studies that were conducted on the efficacy of the fourth dose and that were published at about the time the FDA authorized this second booster.
You will not be surprised that these studies emerged from Israel — “the world’s lab,” as termed by Pfizer officials. Israel was the first country to approve the administration of this second booster (even before the FDA’s official authorization) and Israel was the first to examine the efficacy of this booster in real-life settings.
The observational study mentioned in the FDA’s news release
The first Israeli study I wish to bring here is mentioned in the FDA’s news release that reported on their authorization to start using the fourth dose of the vaccine.
In this news release, the FDA stated, without a blink of an eye, that the fourth dose “improves protection against severe COVID-19.” How do they know?
The only scientific reference they brought to support this straightforward claim was an Israeli study by Sheba Medical Center that did not yield good efficacy results.
Aside from the fact that this study did not address severe illness directly, its authors concluded that their findings suggest that the second booster “may have only marginal benefits.” These are their words, not mine.
The large observational study that claimed to demonstrate efficacy against severe illness
So what can be the evidence behind this FDA’s straightforward statement about the efficacy against severe illness?
The news release, as mentioned before, does not bring additional efficacy studies to rely on, but we found another Israeli study, which was published a week after the FDA’s authorization of the fourth dose.
In this large study, the authors reported that the fourth dose remained effective against severe illness six weeks from its administration, while its efficacy against infections started to drop in about the fifth week, to the point that by the eighth week, the efficacy against infections disappeared completely.
To my knowledge, this was the first time that researchers reported results from which readers may deduce that the efficacy of the fourth dose against severe illness is above and beyond its efficacy against infections.
To explain this last statement and to evaluate its validity, I need to take a scientific step backward and talk about a fundamental research concept that is called “conditional probability.”
Theoretically speaking, when studies find indications that a given vaccine is effective against infections, they also typically obtain reduced numbers of severe illness cases in their treatment groups, compared with their control groups.
Consider, for example, a research scenario whereby 10 participants from the vaccine group were infected by the virus, compared with 100 participants from the control group.
These numbers can be interpreted as a good sign of high efficacy against infections.
However, what if 1 out of the 10 infected participants from the vaccine group developed severe illness compared with 10 out of the 100 participants from the control group?
In this scenario, the difference in raw numbers, 1 versus 10 severe illness cases, may sound impressive, but the truth is that these numbers are simply a byproduct of the vaccines’ efficacy against infections, as both groups in this hypothetical study had 10% severe illness cases among the participants who got infected by the virus.
But what will happen in cases in which the vaccine fails to protect against infections — like the situation we face today when the first brick of the narrative has already been destroyed? Will the protection against severe illness remain?
The only way to prove that the vaccines protect against severe illness beyond their efficacy against infections is to show that the conditional probability of severe illness in the vaccine group (that is, the percentage of severe illness among those participants who were infected) is significantly lower than the conditional probability of severe illness in the control group.
Now that we understand this crucial concept of conditional probability, we can go back to investigate the details of this large study that claimed to demonstrate the vaccines’ efficacy against severe illness.
The first thing we need to know about this study is that, for some reason, the follow-up period of severe illness lasted up until the sixth week from vaccination, while the follow-up period of infections lasted two weeks longer up until the eighth week.
This means that the major claim of this study is limited to an exceptionally narrow time window, starting from the fifth week when the efficacy against infections started to drop and ending at the sixth week when the monitoring of severe illness stopped.
But more importantly, even if we disregard this strong limitation when my co-authors and I examined the data that were provided in the article, we discovered that the conditional probability of severe illness did not really differ between the treatment and the control groups of this study. About 1% of the infected participants, in both groups, developed severe illness.
Clearly, such results cannot be used to disprove the reasonable and straightforward assumption that the reduction in the vaccines’ efficacy against infections from the fifth week onward was followed by an equivalent reduction in the vaccines’ efficacy against severe illness and death — even if this reduction happened two weeks later, which is the average time that takes for the severe illness to develop from the first symptoms of the virus.
Unfortunately, severe illness two weeks later, which is essentially in the seventh week, was not monitored in this study, not to mention the tenth week, which is really the most interesting time — as it reflects the period when the vaccines do not provide any protection against infections.
Conclusion
In conclusion, in this short article, I brought three examples that challenge the seemingly consensual notion that booster doses are capable of providing long-term protection against severe illness and death.
The three examples constitute, of course, only a small part of our full-length article and I urge you to review the entire evidence we bring in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
Please know that I am not arguing that our article can substitute for a comprehensive systematic review of all the available evidence.
However, in scientific discourse, a single “black swan” as termed by Karl Popper — a single negative instance that does not fit in with the theory — may falsify a universal claim; and I promise you that our article portrays numerous such black swans that tear down this last brick of the vaccine efficacy narrative.
To our understanding of the literature, the medical narrative today that insists that booster doses prevent severe illness and deaths despite their failure to protect against infections lacks scientific support.
We, therefore, call for an impartial inquiry into the decision-making processes and the global health policies that were implemented during the COVID-19 crisis, especially considering what we know today about the negative implications of these policies and the numerous risks of the vaccines.3y Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable In a move that shifts liability for COVID-19 vaccine injuries from the government to physicians, Switzerland said it is not recommending COVID-19 vaccines for spring and summer, even for those people considered to be high risk.
Switzerland is the latest European country to stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine for the general population.
A new set of guidelines issued by the country’s Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and Federal Commission for Vaccination does not recommend the vaccine for individuals, including those considered at high risk, for the spring and summer seasons.
According to Medical Daily, Swiss medical authorities cited the high level of immunity in society, either via vaccination or natural immunity, as the basis for their new recommendations.
“In principle, no COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for spring/summer 2023,” the FOPH said. “Nearly everyone in Switzerland has been vaccinated and/or contracted and recovered from COVID-19. Their immune system has therefore been exposed to the coronavirus.”
Swiss seroprevalence data from mid-2022 indicates more than 98% of the country’s population had developed antibodies against COVID-19, The Epoch Times reported.
According to Swiss Info, “In Switzerland, about 70% of the population have had at least one COVID [vaccine] dose, a figure that has barely moved over the past year. Only 11.5% got a booster jab in the past six months.”
Swiss public health officials also said data indicate COVID-19 will circulate less this year, with newer variants that cause milder illness than previous strains.
The decision to not recommend the vaccines will be reevaluated for the autumn and winter seasons, according to public health authorities. Medical Daily reported that the new recommendations would be “adjusted if a new wave of infection were to emerge.”
Liability for vaccine injuries shifts to doctors
According to Swiss outlet Report 24, as per the new recommendation, doctors can only administer the COVID-19 vaccines on a case-by-case basis and under certain conditions.
Medical Daily, citing the FOPH, reported that high-risk individuals, including those 65 and older, the immunocompromised and pregnant women, can still receive a COVID-19 vaccine, but only after an individual consultation with their doctor.
When a vaccine is recommended, it is advised that it be administered at least six months after the last vaccination or last-known COVID-19 infection.
The FOPH further advised:
“Even particularly vulnerable people are currently not recommended a COVID-19 vaccination. However, you can get a vaccination after individual consultation with your doctor.
“Vaccination may be wise in individual cases, as it improves protection against developing severe COVID-19 for several months. This applies regardless of the number of vaccinations you have already received.”
However, the FOPH also noted that the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines against current variants is diminished and short-lived, especially in individuals who are considered at-risk, according to Report 24.
The FOPH also found that the adaptation of mRNA vaccines has not kept pace with the evolution of new COVID-19 strains.
The new recommendations also have important implications relating to issues such as payment for the vaccines and vaccine-related liability.
“By no longer recommending the vaccines, this would mean that vaccination is not covered by the government anymore,” Medical Daily reported. “Non-high-risk individuals who want to get the vaccine or the booster would have to pay for it.”
For high-risk individuals advised to be vaccinated, health insurance would cover the cost of vaccination.
Under the new recommendations, there is a shift in vaccine-related liability as well. According to guidelines implemented by the FOPH on Nov. 29, 2022, the Swiss government provides compensation to vaccine-injured individuals only in cases where the vaccination is recommended by public health authorities.
As a result, liability now shifts to the doctors administering the vaccines. According to Report 24, this “should mean that their willingness to vaccinate will decrease significantly.”
Swiss Info reported that on Jan. 23, Dr. Christoph Berger, head of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital Zurich and chair of the Federal Commission for Vaccination, said the COVID-19 vaccines achieved the Swiss government’s goals of protecting the vulnerable and easing pressures on the healthcare system.
However, despite arguing that “vaccination benefits far outweigh the risks,” Berger qualified this statement by saying “It is clear that there are undesirable vaccination symptoms, including severe ones. We must take these people and their suffering seriously and help them too.”
“There is as yet no clear diagnosis of this post-vac syndrome. The term is a collective pot for various symptoms that could at least have a temporal connection with the vaccination. Maybe the connection is causal or not,” he added.
Similar remarks were made by Germany’s Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach — previously a proponent of a national vaccine mandate who once stated COVID-19 vaccines have “no side effects” — on March 12.
Several countries, WHO also revised COVID vaccine recommendations
Switzerland is not the only European country to stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccines.
In April 2022, Denmark suspended its national COVID-19 vaccination campaign and shifted to a targeted approach. And as of Feb. 12, the U.K. stopped recommending boosters for healthy individuals and discontinued free distribution of the primary two-dose series of COVID-19 vaccines.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also made changes to its recommendations.
On March 28, the WHO announced that its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization “revised the roadmap for prioritizing the use of COVID-19 vaccines, to reflect the impact of Omicron and high population-level immunity due to infection and vaccination.”
The new roadmap shifts away from a universal COVID-19 vaccination recommendation, instead categorizing individuals into one of three “priority-use groups,” with the ongoing administration of boosters recommended only for the “high priority group.”
This group includes “older adults; younger adults with significant comorbidities (e.g. diabetes and heart disease); people with immunocompromising conditions (e.g. people living with HIV and transplant recipients), including children aged 6 months and older; pregnant persons; and frontline health workers.”
“The public health impact of vaccinating healthy children and adolescents is comparatively much lower than the established benefits of traditional essential vaccines for children,” the WHO stated.
The revised recommendations come as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to recommend the primary series of COVID-19 vaccines for unvaccinated individuals and, according to Medical Daily, is set to authorize a second bivalent booster in the coming weeks.
COVID has lost ‘its shock value’
Even before the recent revision of its guidelines, Switzerland’s COVID-19 vaccination program was fraught with difficulties.
In May 2022, Switzerland was slated to destroy 620,000 expired doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Endpoints noted at the time that “the number of vaccinations [had] fallen sharply” in the preceding period.
The following month, the Swiss parliament was divided on the issue of procuring new COVID-19 vaccines, with the Senate arguing that the number of doses the government planned to order was “excessive.” Ultimately, the government purchased only half the planned number of doses.
And in September 2022, Switzerland destroyed an additional 10.3 million expired doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
A March 11 report by Swiss Info stated that the country “finds itself with a massive stockpile” of COVID-19 vaccines.
“Millions of unused vials that have expired have already been destroyed. It is likely that millions more will end up in the trash this year, as they cannot be easily sold or donated to poorer nations to whom they were promised,” according to the Swiss Info report.
The same report highlighted “vaccine fatigue and pandemic weariness more generally” as explanations for the stagnant demand for COVID-19 vaccines in the country, along with “stronger immunity in the community, exhaustion about public health measures and better awareness about the dangers of COVID.”
A FOPH representative told Swiss public radio SRF at the time that “The coronavirus has also lost some of its shock value in the public’s perception.”3y Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable Covid Roundtable 
