Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 370

FDA Refuses to Provide COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Data to US Senator

 

Zachary Stieber

U.S. officials are refusing to provide a U.S. senator with COVID-19 vaccine safety data.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the results of analyses on data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in January, after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that none of the safety signals it identified for the COVID-19 vaccines were “unexpected.”

The two agencies have run different types of analyses on the system’s reports, which are primarily made by health care professionals.

The CDC ran Proportional Reporting Ratio analyses, which involve comparing the number of reported adverse events to the number of adverse events reported after vaccination with other vaccines.

The first time the agency ran analyses using the method for the COVID-19 vaccines, in 2022, hundreds of signals were triggered, files obtained by The Epoch Times show.

The FDA in 2021 started a different type of analysis, called Empirical Bayesian (EB) data mining.

The Proportional Reporting Ratio results “were generally consistent with EB data mining, revealing no additional unexpected safety signals,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director at the time, told Mr. Johnson previously.

Mr. Johnson demanded answers on that claim, prompting the CDC to point him to the FDA. The agency recently responded to Mr. Johnson, telling him that it can’t provide the information he seeks.

“FDA’s EB data mining analyses of adverse events contained in VAERS reports for COVID-19 vaccines are currently the subject of pending FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] litigation. FDA is unable to comment on pending litigation or provide information or data that is currently being considered in pending litigation,” the agency told the senator.

Mr. Johnson, in a new letter, told FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf that the claim was wrong.

“As you are well aware, Congress has a right to information contained at U.S. federal agencies as it conducts its constitutional oversight responsibilities,” Mr. Johnson said.

“It is outrageous that FDA would assert that pending litigation, and particularly FOIA litigation, would allow your agency to obstruct my congressional oversight,” he added. “Any pending litigation FDA may have relating to its EB data mining records has no bearing on its responsibility to comply with a congressional request.”

Mr. Johnson said in the past he’s repeatedly received from the government documents subject to litigation, including from the FDA’s parent department, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

He urged the FDA to produce the EB data mining analyses by Sept. 20.

“The FDA has received the letter and will respond directly to the senator,” an FDA spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.

The agency was sued in January over its refusal to provide the results of the EB data mining to The Epoch Times and the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, citing exemptions in the FOIA.

Children’s Health Defense, the litigant, said that the refusal to provide the records was illegal.

In the last update in the case, the FDA said it has 150 responsive pages but that it has to do a “page-by-page, line-by-line review” to determine whether any information on the pages should be withheld, or redacted. The agency said it is “facing an unprecedented FOIA workload” stemming from federal courts ordering it to release information it had said would be made public on the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.Ignored Questions

In another new letter, Mr. Johnson pressed the HHS on the program it administers to provide compensation to people injured by the COVID-19 shots.

Despite injections starting in December 2020, and more than 1.5 million reports being lodged with VAERS, HHS has compensated just four people, paying $8,592 in total.

Others have been approved for compensation but the money is still pending.

Mr. Johnson in April asked for more details on the program, since the agency hasn’t been forthcoming, including whether there are caps on the amount of money an injured person can receive and whether the government has advertised the program.

Mr. Johnson also demanded communications between HHS and COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers regarding compensation claims.

In a recent letter, HHS declined to answer many of the questions.Mr. Johnson on Sept. 5 urged HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to provide answers to all of his questions.

He pointed to how Mr. Becerra, when being vetted by the Senate, told senators that he would commit to providing a prompt response to any questions addressed by Senate Finance Committee members.

“As a member of the Senate Finance Committee and as ranking member of the Senate’s top investigative subcommittee, your agency’s June 23, 2023, response is completely unacceptable and calls into question the veracity of the commitment you made before the Senate during your confirmation hearing,” Mr. Johnson said.

[…]

Via https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/exclusive-fda-refuses-to-provide-covid-19-vaccine-safety-data-to-us-senator-5487300

Big Energy Climate Scams Dump Toxic Pollutants on Small Towns

By Michael Esealuka

Common Dreams

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved permits to allow a Chevron refinery on the Mississippi Gulf Coast to burn a cancer-causing boat fuel ingredient using a process the fossil fuel industry refers to as “chemical recycling,” but what environmental health advocates call burning plastic.

The Biden administration has betrayed its climate and environmental justice commitments in order to let the fossil fuel industry continue its dangerous and dirty practices. The consequences are hitting America’s small towns first.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently approved permits to allow a Chevron refinery on the Mississippi Gulf Coast to burn a boat fuel ingredient using a process the fossil fuel industry refers to as “chemical recycling” and environmental health advocates call burning plastic.

According to EPA’s own data, Chevron’s fuel ingredient will cause virtually everyone with lifetime exposure to develop cancer. The cancer risk is six times higher than a lifelong cigarette habit.

Once billed as the climate president, Joe Biden is now letting rural communities become test subjects for climate scams like carbon capture and “chemical recycling.”

Despite the environmentally friendly branding, these are dangerous, unproven technologies that the fossil fuel industry sees as a way to boost its profits under the guise of going green.

Whether ranchers in South Dakota, farmers in Nebraska, fisherfolk in Louisiana or small-town residents in Mississippi, all rural communities need the Biden administration to up and protect them from false climate solutions.

The Chevron refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, might call its process “recycling,” but it’s plastic burning in all but name.

Using a process called pyrolysis, Chevron would superheat plastic waste until it breaks down into hydrocarbons that can be used to manufacture new chemicals.

The fossil fuel industry has billed plastic burning as a “solution” to climate change, but EPA’s own scientists have blown the whistle on the enormous health risks associated with this technology, finding that exposure comes with a cancer risk 250,000 times higher than what the agency usually considers acceptable.

Pascagoula is one of many small towns under threat as the Biden administration pumps $100 million of our tax dollars into plastic burning. If the American Chemical Association has its way, up to 150 new plastic-burning facilities will come online across the country.

This isn’t the only dangerous technology that’s been rebranded as a climate solution.

In the 1990s the fossil fuel industry named the process of capturing carbon emissions from coal plants and storing them deep underground “clean coal.”

Now it’s greenwashed the same process — which fossil fuel companies see as the best shot to keep the industry expanding for another 20 years — even further, rebranding it “carbon capture and storage.”

The problem is that carbon capture is enormously expensive, and it simply doesn’t work. The technology has a decades-long history of failure. Research shows that carbon capture has actually added more carbon emissions into our atmosphere.

Apart from the fact it just doesn’t work, carbon capture is dangerous. Ask the people of Satartia, Mississippi. In 2020 a sudden leak from a carbon pipeline led to dozens of residents collapsing into seizures in a scene described as akin to a zombie apocalypse.

The town’s 200 residents had to be evacuated, with 45 hospitalized. As first responders arrived on the scene, their cars shut off because there was so little oxygen in the air.

The only reason no one died, residents say, is because the incident happened during the daytime.

Neither plastic burning nor carbon capture will help our climate change problem, but both are false solutions that threaten the health and safety of America’s rural communities.

Yet the Biden administration plans to spend over $2 billion on carbon capture and transport. That means the nation’s existing 5,300 miles of carbon pipelines could grow to a 65,000-mile network, with opportunities for carbon leaks at every point.

These pipelines would crisscross rural America, from Iowa to South Dakota, to Louisiana and to Georgia.

Don’t want carbon piped through your land? Too bad. The U.S. Department of Energy plans to use eminent domain so it can seize property from farmers and hand it to private companies.

The fossil fuel industry has sold us false solutions for a reason.

Rebranding plastic burning as “recycling” lets the industry continue pushing single-use plastic, 99% of which is made from fossil fuels.

Carbon capture won’t actually remove carbon emissions from our atmosphere, but storing the carbon underground is a great way to squeeze the last drops of oil out of a non-producing well — a process called “enhanced oil recovery.”

Despite its promises, the Biden administration is turning rural areas across the U.S. into test subjects for the fossil fuel industry’s climate scams.

Biden talks a good game about his commitment to environmental justice, but our communities are under threat. We need action.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/climate-scam-toxic-pollutants-chevron-mississippi-cd/

Pentagon Orders ‘Combat Pay’ for U.S. Troops in Ukraine

Dr. Rich Swier

Veterans Today

This begs the questions:

Why are U.S. Troops inside Ukraine at all, AND;If the only U.S. Troops in Ukraine are “Advisors” then why Combat Pay? US TROOPS IN UKRAINE NOW ELIGIBLE FOR COMBAT PAY

The move comes almost 18 months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. service members deployed to Ukraine can now receive imminent danger pay and hardship duty pay, a defense official has confirmed.

Gier Martin, who is performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs, announced the change in a July 13 memo that was posted on the unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page.

U.S. troops in Ukraine can receive up to $225 per month in imminent danger pay and another $100 per month in hardship duty pay-location for a total of $325 per month, according to the memo, as first reported by Military Times.

The only U.S. service members deployed to Ukraine are assigned to the embassy in Kyiv, a defense official told Task & Purpose on Monday.

U.S. service members are eligible for Imminent Danger Pay if they are in designated areas where they face the threat of physical harm from hostile fire, explosions, civilian insurrection, civil war, or terrorism, the official said.

[…]

Via https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2023/08/pentagon-orders-combat-pay-for-u-s-troops-in-ukraine/

UN Condemns US Use of Depleted Uranium in Ukraine

File photo: The UN flag ©  SputnikRT

The UN condemned the use of depleted uranium ammunition on Wednesday, after the US government said it would send Ukraine a number of such rounds for M1 Abrams tanks as part of a $175-million military aid package.

“We are against the use of depleted uranium ammunition anywhere in the world,” Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told TASS.

Haq’s comments came after the Pentagon revealed that an unspecified number of 120mm DU rounds will be sent to Ukraine as part of the newest package of military assistance. The anti-tank rounds are intended for use by the 30-odd M1 Abrams tanks promised to Kiev by the White House in January. The first batch of tanks are supposed to be delivered later this month.

Washington is following in London’s footsteps in providing the controversial munitions to Kiev. The UK sent a number of DU rounds to Ukraine earlier this year, intended for use with its Challenger 2 tanks. The delivery of DU ammunition was teased by the Wall Street Journal in June and leaked to Reuters last week.

The British military dismissed Moscow’s objections to the use of the toxic heavy metal by saying the ammunition had “nothing to do with nuclear weapons or capabilities.” The US has also insisted the munitions are not radioactive, citing studies by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that DU residue “does not pose a radiological hazard to the population of the affected regions.”

Critics who seek to ban DU ammunition have pointed to skyrocketing rates of cancer and birth defects in places like Iraq and Serbia, claiming that uranium dust is toxic when handled or inhaled.

Anonymous British and American officials have glibly dismissed Russian concerns about environmental contamination, suggesting instead that Moscow was afraid of the “highly effective” rounds.

The US and its allies have sent over $100 billion worth of weapons, ammunition and military equipment to Ukraine over the past 18 months, while insisting that this does not make them a party to the conflict. These deliveries have included cluster munitions banned by most NATO members. Ukraine reportedly has to account for their use directly to the Pentagon. Russia has documented multiple instances in which such ordnance was used against civilian targets.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/582494-un-depleted-uranium-reaction/

The Magna Carta’s Legacy

Episode 4 The Legacy of the Magna Carta

1215: Years That Changed History

Dr Dorsey Armstrong (2019)

Film Review

According to Armstrong, the main modern legacies of the Magna Cara are due process (the right to a speedy trial) and trial by jury* for persons accused of crime.

After King John persuaded the Pope to condemn the Magna Carta, his regime faced repeated uprisings and rebellions until his death in 1216.

William Marshal (1146-1219), regent to the king’s nine-year old son Henry III, wisely reaffirmed the Magna Carta after amending certain clauses following King John’s death. In 1217, Marshal caused all clauses related to forest issues to be removed from the 1215 document and issued as a separate Charter of Forests.

Once he came of age, Henry III reaffirmed the Magna Carta annually, as well as causing it to be read out twice a year in Parliament.

In 1297 Edward I ordered the Magna Carta copied into Parliament’s statute rolls. Starting in 1347, members of Parliament had to swear to uphold the Magna Carta.

Over time the phrase “lawful judgement by equals” was reflected in statute as “trial by jury.”

During the 17th century the Stuart monarchs’ (James I and Charles I) claimed the divine right of kings exempted them from obligations laid down in the Magna Carta. Lord Chief Justice Edward Coke (1552-1634) overruled them, asserting the document applied to all English men and women, including the king. In 1649, it was used to justify the execution of Charles I and the establishment of an English republic (which lasted 11 years).

The founder of Pennsylvania colony William Penn (1644-1718) used the Magna Carta as the basis of Pennsylvania’s colonial government.

Using it in its 1948 declaration of human rights, the UN proclaimed that all people had a right to life, liberty and security of person, that no one should be subject to arbitrary arrest or detention, and that no one should be arbitrarily deprived of property.

The other Magna Carta clause reflected in current English law is number 13 – that the City of London shall retain all its traditional rights and privileges.

* Initially juries were appointed by community magistrates to compile evidence to assist in the prosecution of criminals. According to Terry Jones in Medieval Lives, Henry I (1068-1135 fourth son of William the Conqueror and father of King John I) granted local juries the addition authority of determining guilt or innocence. See The 24-hour Day, Anesthesia, Juries and other Medieval Inventions

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/12392969/12392978

‘Huge’ Victory: New York Supreme Court Reinstates 10 Teachers Fired for Refusing COVID Vaccine

By  Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

Ten New York City school teachers fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds must be reinstated with back pay, benefits, seniority and attorney fees effective immediately, a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled Wednesday afternoon, in what the plaintiffs’ attorney called a “precedent-setting” victory.

Nearly 7,000 New York City Department of Education (DOE) workers who sought religious accommodation from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate were denied based on standards that a federal court later ruled unconstitutional.

Some of the workers, along with Teachers for Choice, sued the city in February, in a lawsuit sponsored in part by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and CHD New York.

The suit sought relief for 16 plaintiffs. It also sought class-action certification for all DOE workers who were denied religious exemptions.

Judge Ralph Porzio denied the plaintiffs’ motion to grant class status, ruling the parameters the petitioners submitted for defining the class were overly broad.

However, in his 22-page ruling, Judge Porzio said there was “no rational basis for the seemingly blanket denial of any religious exemption to all classroom teachers” provided by the respondents.

He found the lack of timely explanation provided to each teacher made the denials “arbitrary and capricious,” and the city’s claim that accommodating classroom teachers’ exemption requests would place undue hardship on the city was also “arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.”

“This court sees no rational basis for not allowing unvaccinated classroom teachers in amongst an admitted population of primarily unvaccinated students,” he wrote.

On those bases, he granted relief to the 10 unvaccinated plaintiffs who completed all the steps in the administrative process for requesting exemption and appealed the city and DOE’s decision.

The court denied relief to six plaintiffs who did not complete the administrative process or whose exemptions were approved.

‘Watershed moment in the teachers’ fight’

Commenting on the judge’s decision, Sujata Gibson, attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender:

“We’ve been fighting for this since August of 2021 for these 10 people specifically. And we won and we won big for them. They were reinstated with back pay, with no break in service, and attorneys’ fees. That’s huge.

“The judge’s ruling yesterday, while not everything we wanted, is a precedent-setting victory, and a watershed moment in the teachers’ fight.”

Thousands of workers were subjected to the very same processes the judge ruled were “arbitrary and capricious,” and they could sue individually based on that precedent.

Gibson also said Wednesday’s ruling did not close the door on a possible class action:

“The court’s ruling on class certification still leaves the door open to future relief for thousands of teachers negatively affected by the vaccine requirement. We intend to file a motion of reconsideration on a narrower basis.

“Rather than waste public resources clogging the courts with so many individual lawsuits, legal action that will remedy these discriminatory policies for all impacted workers only makes sense.”

Michael Kane, one of the teachers whom the court ordered reinstated in his job said this was a big win for the plaintiffs and for CHD, but that he was disappointed they weren’t certified as a class.

Kane told The Defender:

“I am happy for the 10 of us that were reinstated, but deeply saddened that this verdict does not have an impact on the thousands who were discriminated against and treated as heretics. So it’s definitely a mixed blessing and mixed emotions right now for me.”

CHD President Mary Holland told The Defender she was “thrilled the 10 teachers were reinstated with back pay,” but:

“I am disappointed by Judge Porzio’s decision not to certify the 7,000 New York City teachers as a class. All of these teachers were made to participate in a patently bogus religious exemption process.

“The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has already opined that the process was unconstitutional. The reasons for a class — numerosity, commonality, typicality and adequacy — were present here. This is not the end of the story.”

Judge Porzio delivered his ruling on the afternoon before the first day of the 2024 school year for New York City public school students. That should mean that today the 10 teachers can return to their classrooms for the first time since October 2021, when they were initially placed on leave without pay.

But when Gibson contacted the school district to ask where the teachers should report for work, the district told her that none of the teachers should come to work.

That could signal that the city and DOE are planning an appeal, she said.

The ‘arbitrary and capricious’ denials

More than 100 spectators who were members of the potential class attended the Wednesday hearing. Unlike previous hearings for this case, when Judge Porzio had allowed the plaintiffs’ supporters into the courtroom, yesterday he sent them to a separate room to watch the proceedings on closed circuit television, Kane told The Defender.

Only the named plaintiffs and the attorneys were allowed into the courtroom.

Those educators had been grappling with the consequences of the mandate since August 2021, when New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio announced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for DOE employees for the upcoming school year.

The city initially indicated it would not consider religious exemptions, despite its legal obligation to do so. After a local court issued a temporary restraining order against the mandate, the city agreed to adopt an accommodation policy.

The accommodation policy, however, discriminated against people based on their religious beliefs, according to Gibson, because it was explicit that religious accommodation requests must be denied to anyone who is not a member of a “recognized” and “established” religious organization whose leader is against vaccination, such as Christian Scientists.

DOE employees were required to submit requests for reasonable accommodations through an online portal by Sept. 20, 2021, and they were offered one day to appeal denied requests. Those who failed to request accommodation, or who were denied it, were placed on Leave Without Pay on Sept. 28, 2021.

DOE then used that policy as a basis to deny religious exemptions to Christians, Buddhists, Jews and others, saying that although it believed their religious objections were sincere, the beliefs did not meet the criteria for exemption.

The DOE denied exemptions to all but 162 of 7,000 petitioners, notifying them of their denial with the same auto-generated email.

By December 2021, the 2nd Circuit had already found — in a separate federal case on the matter, Kane v. de Blasio, filed by many of the same petitioners in federal court on Sept. 21, 2021 — that the religious accommodation as written was “blatantly unconstitutional.”

Instead of amending the policy, the city convened a “citywide panel” consisting of three members of the city’s law department, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, and the Commission on Human Rights, respectively. It promised the panel would provide a “fresh consideration” of the exemption requests and to reinstate wrongfully terminated employees with back pay.

But that panel refused to even review over 6,000 of the petitions, and of the 600 it did review, it almost universally upheld the original decision and informed the workers their petitions were denied with the same auto-generated email informing them their petition “does not meet criteria” for accommodation.

The 10 petitioners granted relief Wednesday were eventually provided some reasoning behind the panel’s decision. Although the cases were meant to be considered individually, the reasoning for the denials, as summarized by Judge Porzio in the ruling, was remarkably consistent.

In some cases, the panel found that although their religious beliefs were sincere, they were not sufficient basis for exemption. In other cases, they found that religious beliefs were a sufficient basis for accommodation, but accommodating the teachers would place an “undue burden” on the city.

While the Kane v. de Blasio lawsuit, filed by unvaccinated New York City teachers challenging their firing on constitutional grounds, remained pending before the 2nd Circuit, plaintiffs were authorized to bring their statutory claims and seek certification as a class in New York State court after the district court declined to exercise jurisdiction over their state claims.

So some of those same teachers in February filed this lawsuit, DiCapua v. City of New York, against the city — this time alleging the defendants engaged in a continuing pattern of discriminatory conduct against the DOE workers in violation of the New York State Constitution, the New York State Human Rights Law, the New York City Human Rights Law and Article 78 of the New York Civil Practice Law and Rules.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/nyc-school-teacher-victory-covid-vaccine-mandate/

Lancet Study Explodes Myth of Asymptomatic Spread

Will Jones

Daily Sceptic

Asymptomatic people with Covid are only responsible for a tiny fraction of spread, a study in the Lancet has found, exploding a myth that formed a key part of social distancing policies and fear messaging during the pandemic.

The study, from a team at Imperial College London, is the latest to come out of the human challenge trial, in which 36 people were deliberately infected with SARS-CoV-2 and followed up.

Earlier results from the trial published last year made the surprising finding that only around half (53%) of those who were inoculated with a droplet of infected material in their nose – none of whom had known prior infections or antibodies – went on to test positive for the virus, indicating an unexpected level of immune resistance to the virus.

In the new paper, published in the Lancet Microbe, the researchers report that just 7% of virus emissions occurred before the first reported symptom, indicating that transmission during the presymptomatic phase is responsible for a tiny fraction of overall spread.

This contradicts a claim that was a key part of the case for universal social distancing, lockdown and masking policies, and was used extensively in fear messaging to induce compliance. For instance, numerous U.K. Government posters asserted that “around one in three people with COVID-19 don’t have any symptoms, but can still pass it on”.

The claim also cropped up frequently in the scientific literature, with a 2020 paper in Nature claiming: “Containment of COVID-19 is made difficult because, unlike SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 is commonly spread by people showing no symptoms.”

But it turns out that this central plank of The Science is a myth. Almost all COVID-19 transmission occurs only once symptoms have begun.

Regarding truly asymptomatic infections, the researchers found just one participant (of 18) who had a period of testing positive but reported no symptoms at all. He or she did emit some virus, indicating that spread from people asymptomatic throughout a genuine infection is possible, but makes up only a tiny proportion of total spread.

Interestingly, the researchers also found evidence to support the super-spreader hypothesis, as 86% of total detected airborne virus was generated by just two participants (11%) over three days. With the researchers also finding no relationship between symptom severity and emissions (i.e., those with the worst symptoms didn’t necessarily emit the most virus), the study shows there is still much we don’t understand about viruses.

It is notable that this latest debunking of the official narrative came from Imperial College, with Professor Neil Ferguson himself one of the authors. It seems that sometimes even the arch-lockdowners have to give ground to the truth.

As another official ‘fact’ falls to the ground, please can we stop the censorship of dissent?

[…]

Via https://dailysceptic.org/2023/09/05/lancet-study-explodes-myth-of-asymptomatic-spread/

Lead author of Cochrane mask review responds to Fauci’s dismissal of evidence

By Maryanne Demasi, PhD

Former chief medical advisor to the US President Anthony Fauci, was questioned over the weekend by CNN reporter Michael Smerconish, about face masks being able to curb the spread of covid-19.

“There’s no doubt that masks work,” said Fauci.

“Different studies give different percentages of advantage of wearing it, but there’s no doubt that the weight of the studies … indicate the benefit of wearing masks,” he added.

Smerconish brought up the 2023 Cochrane review which found no evidence that physical interventions like face masks could stop viral transmission in the community and cited my interview with lead author of the study Tom Jefferson who confirmed, “There is just no evidence that they [masks] make any difference. Full stop.”

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 …

Fauci replied,“Yeah but there are other studies,” stressing that masks work on an individual basis.

“When you’re talking about the effect on the epidemic or the pandemic as a whole, the data are less strong…but when you talk about an individual basis of someone protecting themselves or protecting themselves from spreading it to others, there’s no doubt that there are many studies that show there is an advantage,” said Fauci.

Professor Tom Jefferson, who says he is committed to updating the Cochrane review as new evidence emerges, has responded to Fauci’s comments.

“So, Fauci is saying that masks work for individuals but not at a population level? That simply doesn’t make sense,” said Jefferson.

“And he says there are ‘other studies’…but what studies?  He doesn’t name them so I cannot interpret his remarks without knowing what he is referring to,” he added.

Jefferson explains that the entire point of the Cochrane review was to systematically sift through all the available randomised data on physical interventions such as masks and determine what was useful and what was not.

Since 2011, the Cochrane review only included randomised trials to minimise bias from confounders.

“It might be that Fauci is relying on trash studies,” said Jefferson. “Many of them are observational, some are cross-sectional, and some actually use modelling. That is not strong evidence.”

“Once we excluded such low-quality studies from the review, we concluded there was no evidence that masks reduced transmission,” he added.

The problem with Fauci is that his story has changed.

Initially, Fauci said that masks were ineffective and unnecessary. In March 2020, Fauci told 60 minutes, “Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.”

But only a few weeks later, he did a U-turn and began recommending widespread use of face masks.

Fauci defended his U-turn saying, “When the facts change, I change my mind.”

Jefferson retorted, “What facts changed?  There were no randomised studies, no new evidence to justify his flip-flop. That’s simply not true.”

Since then, Fauci has remained adamant that face masks not only stop people from infecting others, but they also protect the wearer.

Fauci advocated for the use of cloth masks, and even encouraged double-masking in the absence of evidence.

“You put another layer on, it just makes common sense that it would be more effective,” Fauci told NBC news.

“What Fauci doesn’t understand is that cloth and surgical masks cannot stop viruses because viruses are too small and they still get through,” said Jefferson.

He laments that public figures have tried to undermine the Cochrane review, despite it representing the gold standard of evidence.

Columnist Zeynep Tufekci wrote an article in the New York Times titled, “Here’s Why the Science Is Clear That Masks Work,” claiming that Cochrane’s mask study had misled the public.

Cochrane’s editor in chief, Karla Soares-Weiser capitulated to pressure and “apologised” for the wording in the plain language summary of the review because it “was open to misinterpretation” and may have led to “inaccurate and misleading” claims.

And former CDC director Rochelle Walensky misled Congress after claiming the Cochrane review had been “retracted” which was patently false.

As it stands, the Cochrane review will continue to be the subject of attacks because it presents a major roadblock for implementing masking policies. Jefferson says he doesn’t know what motivates people to ignore the facts.

“Could it be part of this whole agenda to control people’s behaviour? Perhaps,” he speculated.

“What I do know,” said Jefferson, “is that Fauci was in a position to run a trial, he could have randomised two regions to wear masks or not. But he didn’t and that’s unforgivable.”

Fauci, who served as the federal government’s top infectious disease specialist for nearly 40 years, stepped down in Dec 2022 and is now a professor at Georgetown University’s Department of Medicine, in the Division of Infectious Diseases.

[…]

Via https://maryannedemasi.substack.com/p/exclusive-lead-author-of-cochrane

3 Reasons There’s Something Sinister With the Big Push for Electric Vehicles

by Nick Giambruno

25 refrigerators.

That’s how much the additional electricity consumption per household would be if the average US home adopted electric vehicles (EVs).

Congressman Thomas Massie—an electrical engineer—revealed this information while discussing with Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, President Biden’s plan to have 50% of cars sold in the US be electric by 2030.

The current and future grid in most places will not be able to support each home running 25 refrigerators—not even close. Just look at California, where the grid is already buckling under the existing load.

Massie claims, correctly, in my view, that the notion of widespread adoption of electric vehicles anytime soon is a dangerous fantasy based on political science, not sound engineering.

Nonetheless, governments, the media, academia, large corporations, and celebrities tout an imminent “transition” to EVs as if it’s preordained from above.

It’s not.

They’re trying to manufacture your consent for a scam of almost unimaginable proportions.

Below are three reasons why something sinister is going on with the big push for EVs.

[…]

Reason #1: EVs Are Not Green

The central premise for EVs is they help to save the planet from carbon because they use electricity instead of gas.

It’s astounding so few think to ask, what generates the electricity that powers EVs?

Hydrocarbons generate over 60% of the electricity in the US. That means there’s an excellent chance that oil, coal, or gas is behind the electricity charging an EV.

[…]

Extracting and processing the exotic materials needed to make EVs requires tremendous power in remote locations, which only hydrocarbons can provide.

Additionally, EVs require an enormous amount of rare elements and metals—like lithium and cobalt—that companies mine in conditions that couldn’t remotely be considered friendly to the environment.

Analysts estimate that each EV requires around one kilogram of rare earth elements. Extracting and processing these rare elements produces a massive amount of toxic waste.

[…]

In short, the notion that EVs are green is laughable.

It’s simply the thin patina of propaganda that governments need as a pretext to justify the astronomical taxpayer subsidies for EVs.

Reason #2: EVs Can’t Compete Without Government Support

For many years, governments have heavily subsidized EVs through rebates, sales tax exemptions, loans, grants, tax credits, and other means.

According to the Wall Street Journal, US taxpayers will subsidize EVs by at least $393 billion in the coming years—more than the GDP of Hong Kong.

To put that in perspective, if you earned $1 a second 24/7/365—about $31 million per year—it would take you over 12,677 YEARS to make $393 billion.

And that’s not even considering the immense subsidies and government support that have occurred in the past.

Furthermore, governments impose burdensome regulations and taxes on gasoline vehicles to make EVs seem relatively more attractive.

Even with this enormous government support, EVs can barely compete with gasoline vehicles.

According to J.D. Power, a consumer research firm, the average EV still costs at least 21% more than the average gasoline vehicle.

Without government support, it’s not hard to see how the market for EVs would evaporate as they would become unaffordable for the vast majority of people.

In other words, the EV market is a giant mirage artificially propped up by extensive government intervention.

It begs the question, why are governments going all out to push an obviously uneconomic scam?

While they are undoubtedly corrupt thieves and simply stupid, something more nefarious could also be at play.

Reason #3: EVs Are About Controlling You

EVs are spying machines.

They collect an unimaginable amount of data on you, which governments can access easily.

Analysts estimate that cars generate about 25 gigabytes of data every hour.

Seeing how governments could integrate EVs into a larger high-tech control grid doesn’t take much imagination. The potential for busybodies—or worse—to abuse such a system is obvious.

Consider this.

The last thing any government wants is an incident like what happened with the Canadian truckers rebelling against vaccine mandates.

Had the Canadian truckers’ vehicles been EVs, the government would have been able to stamp out the resistance much easier.

Here’s the bottom line.

The people really in charge do not want the average person to have genuine freedom of movement or access to independent power sources.

They want to know everything, keep you dependent, and have the ability to control everything, just like how a farmer would with his cattle. They think of you in similar terms.

That’s why gasoline vehicles have to go and why they are trying to herd us into EVs.

Conclusion

To summarize, EVs are not green, cannot compete with gas cars without enormous government support, and are probably a crucial piece of the emerging high-tech control grid.

The solution is simple: eliminate all government subsidies and support and let EVs compete on their own merits in a totally free market.

But that’s unlikely to happen.

Instead, it’s only prudent to expect them to push EVs harder and harder.

If EVs were simply government-subsidized status symbols for wealthy liberals who want to virtue signal how they think they’re saving the planet, that would be bad enough.

But chances are, the big push for EVs represents something much worse.

Along with 15-minute cities, carbon credits, CBDCs, digital IDs, phasing out hydrocarbons and meat, vaccine passports, an ESG social credit system, and the war on farmers, EVs are likely an integral part of the Great Reset—the dystopian future the global elite has envisioned for mankind.

In reality, the so-called Great Reset is a high-tech form of feudalism.

Sadly, most of humanity has no idea what is coming.

Worse, many have become unwitting foot soldiers for this agenda because they have been gaslighted into believing they are saving the planet or acting for the greater good.

This trend is already in motion… and the coming weeks will be pivotal.

That’s precisely why I just released an urgent report on where this is all headed and what you can do about it… including three strategies everyone needs today.

[…]

Via https://internationalman.com/articles/3-reasons-theres-something-sinister-with-the-big-push-for-electric-vehicles/

Republicans Declare War on Mask Mandates

By Nick Reynolds

Newsweek

Mask mandates might be a relic of the past.

The federal government eliminated them at the close of the national health emergency declared around COVID-19, citing high levels of vaccinations that made the need to slow the spread of the virus even less prudent. Many businesses followed suit, with voluntary masking requirements in most stores dissipating as more and more people received the vaccine.

But as some schools and medical facilities have begun reinstating them amid a surge of a new strain of COVID-19, Republican lawmakers want them to stay a thing of the past, launching bills aimed at restricting the federal government’s ability to impose similar mandates in the future.

Citing arguments that masks didn’t work to slow the spread of the virus during COVID—which most studies contest—Ohio Republican Senator JD Vance announced plans September 5 to introduce the Freedom to Breathe Act, which would permanently prevent the federal government from reimposing federal mask mandates in the United States.

“We tried mask mandates once in this country. They failed to control the spread of respiratory viruses, violated basic bodily freedom, and set our fellow citizens against one another,” said Vance in a news release announcing the legislation. “This legislation will ensure that no federal bureaucracy, no commercial airline, and no public school can impose the misguided policies of the past. Democrats say they’re not going to bring back mask mandates—we’re going to hold them to their word.”

Then there’s Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, an influential member of the House Republican Conference who has pledged not to vote in favor of any federal budget that included funding for any COVID-19 vaccine or mask mandates.

“That is over,” she told constituents at an August 31 town hall in Floyd County, Georgia. “Even Joe Biden said it was over.”

And in Texas, a new ban on COVID-19 restrictions requiring individuals to wear face masks in public spaces went into effect on September 1 amid a rash of public and private entities across the U.S. reinstated the policy due to a rise in new infections fueled by two new variants of the virus.

“Thanks to Governor Abbott and the hard work of the Texas Legislature, Texas has closed the door on COVID restrictions,” Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, told Newsweek at the time.

While Texas, a deep-red state with a Republican governor, was already unlikely to revive a mask mandate, it’s unclear whether a federal mask mandate is on the table at all. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which oversees federal rulemaking around masking policies, told a Newsweek reporter last Thursday that it currently had no plan to revive COVID-era mask mandates.

There are also no plans to reimpose them in the federal budget, though some Republican lawmakers have remained hung up over COVID-19 vaccine mandates for servicemembers in the United States military.

It’s also unclear whether Vance’s bill will be successful. While the upper chamber of the U.S. Congress is narrowly divided, it still leans toward Democrats, while it is unclear whether the more moderate members of the Republican party would align with Vance on the effort.

[…]

Via https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-declare-war-mask-mandates-1824750