This post is the partner of The Eclipse of Health Care. See also Warning re Health.
Before reading (and after finishing) it’s worth listening to Peter Seeger’s There was a Young Woman.
Mandating Unproven Technologies
Governments are considering mandating, or already have mandated an unproven technology, against a background of vaccine approval and pharmacovigilance processes that leave a lot to be desired even in the case of proven technologies.
The technologies, now designated as vaccines, are novel, so much so that they led in 2021 to a change in the dictionary definition of a vaccine (See posts next week).
The techniques used to evaluate these novel agents are not new but have been corrupted and no longer meet the norms of science. The points made in The Eclipse of Health Care about the evidence regulators, and investigators get to see hold for these new technologies also.
Icon is the CRO that co-ordinated the trial of a vaccine that is sometimes now called Comirnaty, and more generally called Pfizer. Icon subcontracted to other companies, at some point engaging Platinum Research Ltd, which includes Ventavia, the CRO with concerning trial practices that was the subject of Paul Thacker’s Nov 2 BMJ paper. Icon boast that the main trial was conducted with unprecedented speed and pitch for further business based on this.
Icon staff wrote the papers reporting the results of these trials submitted with BioNTech as the sponsor. Of the 29 listed ‘authors’ on the main trial, there are 3 Americans, 4 who run for profit clinical trial centres overseas, and 19 company people of whom 17 are linked to Pfizer and 2 to BioNTech. There are few clinicians on these papers, and likely none have met any of the trial subjects, particularly those who have been harmed.
These novel agents were authorized for emergency use (EUA) starting with Icon/Pfizer’s RCT. They were later approved without additional safety or efficacy data. Approval made mandates possible; these are not possible under an EUA.
My argument offers no views on Covid, other than it is an infection to be managed.
It offers a view on processes. Government, regulators, and guideline makers have agreed with, or not contested,- see Warning re Health. The points being made here about clinical trial data sequestration and their agreement is the basis for this letter.
To disprove the case, government would have to be able to show there is access to the clinical trial data for these new technologies, that there are processes in place to establish what harms these technologies are causing, and there is ongoing research on treatment options for those who are harmed by vaccines.
As it stands, my view cannot be pitched against opposing views, with a government who has to manage a crisis being let by the legal system use its discretion to choose which set of views to believe. As a matter of logic, no scientists can endorse withholding trial data. And if harms are denied, no-one can assert research is being done on how to recognise and treat them.
The government does not have a right to substitute business considerations or hocus-pocus for science and mandate on this basis, especially in a time of crisis when trust is important.
Vaccine Efficacy
Rather than establish the effectiveness of a treatment, many clinical trials use surrogate outcomes as a measure of efficacy. Thus, with SSRI antidepressants, while there are falls in depression rating scale scores, there are more lives lost and suicide attempts on treatment than on placebo, suggesting rating scale changes are surrogates that do not correlate with the outcomes we want.
Based on the trial results reported for these new mRNA technologies on measures of effectiveness, such as death, we know that in the Icon trial there were at least 30% more deaths on vaccines than placebo. Other measures of what most people might regard as effectiveness, such as hospitalization for serious illness or admission to intensive care units, are not reported.
The measures reported are symptomatic infection confirmed by PCR test. Now this might not seem like a surrogate, any more than depression rating scales scores do, but it is now clear that these agents do not block infection or transmission and so cannot help us achieve herd immunity, which along with lives saved and an avoidance of significant disability, is a measure of ‘vaccine’ effectiveness.
Agents that possibly treat rather than immunize, such as ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, molnupiravir, or paxlovid, could produce comparable results.
Subjects on active treatment in trials who developed Covid after the first dose and prior to 14 days after a second dose were not counted, as this would be unfair to the vaccine, when a strict Intention-to-Treat analysis would include them.
Health Canada makes a Clinical Study Report for the Pfizer trial available. In this multiple tables give slightly different figures for those recruited and dropping out of the trial. Over 1000 subjects appear to have dropped out in both the vaccine and placebo arms having contracted an infection. Analysing the outcomes with these left in would make a difference to the conclusions.
The PCR testing used to establish who was infected offers further ambiguity. There is no consensus on what threshold for these tests reliably distinguishes a Covid infection from viral fragments. The commonly used cycle thresholds for PCR are greater than 30 and tests positive on this basis commonly do not support viral cultures.
Another large number of people appear to have disappeared into a gap between a first dose of the vaccine and 14, or more, days after the second dose – in this case many more on the vaccine (300+) than placebo (60), with a similar excess in Pfizer’s children’s trial.
Companies have a track record in making safety events disappear into gaps like this. Given the BMJ Nov 2 report about how these trials were conducted, and in the absence of details on the centres in which drop-outs happened, there can be no guarantees the reported reasons for dropouts hold water.
One might argue that safety events can be left out of a consideration of efficacy, but clearly in the case of suicide on SSRIs this should not be the case. Where the relationship between efficacy and effectiveness is as loose as with SSRIs, as it appears to be for these new technologies, leaving serious safety events like death out of both efficacy and safety analyses is problematic and particularly problematic when serious safety events are portrayed widely as occurring in those who are called unvaccinated but have in fact had a first dose of vaccine.
(The SSRI trials offer a precedent for counting vaccine harms as placebo harms – see post next week – and in that case company conduct has been recognized as inappropriate).
RCTs and Real-World Evidence
The available trial data offers slender evidence for vaccine efficacy and none for effectiveness. Without full access to the data, especially in the light of the BMJ report about the behaviour of Ventavia, the sub-contracted CRO helping to run the Icon/Pfizer trial, it is impossible to establish what happened in these trials.
In the case of the SSRIs, when it became possible to pierce through company obfuscations and show that evidence from company RCTs demonstrated a link between SSRIs and suicide, companies and others turned to real world evidence to deny this link. This evidence was used to claim that what appeared to be a hazard from RCTs was not one in the real-world SSRI real world equivalents to mRNA harms will be detailed further in next week’s posts.
As with SSRIs, it is only when we establish what happened in the core RCTs that we can begin to establish how the apparent real-world evidence might have arisen.
For instance, if SSRIs work wonderfully well, then real world evidence of falling suicide rates might well map on to their effectiveness. When, however, in trials SSRI were shown to offer scant benefits and an increased risk of suicide, researchers began to note that suicide rates were falling before SSRIs emerged and correlate better with falling autopsy rates than with increased SSRI use. In addition, they found that increased SSRI treatment correlates well with increased rates for deaths of undetermined cause.
Similarly, knowing exactly what happened in vaccine RCTs is key to establishing what is happening in the real world.
There are many possible explanations for what is happening following vaccination. An enduring lack of consensus about what a case of Covid is opens a gap through which all kinds of claims can be marched.
There is scope to confuse deaths with concomitant Covid and Covid deaths. In one large UK sample involving children 60% of Covid positive deaths were not Covid deaths
In seeking to nudge people toward a treatment they genuinely believe might be helpful, public health officers may have been economical with the truth. They need to be allowed some latitude in a pandemic but latitude risks toppling over into lying.
Another option is that rather than immunize people, which it is hard to say these agents do, some of these agents may ‘treat’ – that is act like a drug with a beneficial effect of reducing the likelihood of a Covid pneumonia and consequent death.
In fact we do not have any real world data. We are given hospital and ICU data for the unvaccinated that includes people who are up to two weeks after a first dose of vaccine – a time when many are injured or killed by their vaccine. To understand what is going on we need rates of admission and some idea as to how many need to be vaccinated to prevent one all-cause death (not just death from Covid), one ICU admission or one admission to hospital – and we need this broken out by age. What are these figures like for younger and for older subjects.
Access to the RCT data will encourage a range of experts to put serious thought into explaining the real-world data. It seems likely that access will make it more difficult to attribute all good real-world data to vaccine effectiveness and safety.
Beyond this, there remains a lot of real-world evidence still to come in. In the case of Di-Ethyl-Stilbestrol (DES) it took thirty years before clinicians spotted its major hazard – vaginal cancer in the daughters of women who took it during pregnancy.
In contrast, in the case of most drugs now, from SSRIs to leukotriene antagonists like montelukast, the ghostwriting of clinical trials and sequestration of trial data mean that thirty years after clinicians first described these hazards companies can get away with denying the hazards exist.
In the case of vaccines, we likely face decades before unexpected hazards emerge and in addition decades before there is a recognition of serious hazards clinicians are currently reporting.
Vaccine Safety
The companies deny there were serious adverse events (SAE), events that result in hospitalization or death, in their trials.
In the Astra-Zeneca vaccine trial, the resulting Falsey et al New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) publication mentioned that people who withdrew from the study have not been included in the analysis. Brianne Dressen was a subject in this trial who was not included in the analysis, but she did not withdraw. Ms. Dressen would be happy to be contacted by you.
As outlined in New England Journal of Misinformation, Bri Dressen wrote a letter for publication to NEJM making clear that, after Astra-Zeneca broke the blind and confirmed she was on active treatment, they told her not to take a second dose. They also removed the electronic device given to her for reporting ongoing adverse events (Appendix 2).
The NEJM editor, Eric Rubin, responded to Dressen that NEJM would not be publishing the letter. On Nov 15, 2021, at 3:19 PM, he further emailed:
Dear Ms. Dressen,
The best we could do is forward your letter to the manufacturer. Only they are in a position to see the primary data. But you can do that yourself and I would encourage you to do so. Only you can provide the information that they can use to investigate.
Eric
Brianne Dressen subsequently made it clear to Dr Rubin that she was not the only A-Z trial participant to whom this happened and that the NEJM’s Falsey publication breaches good clinical trial reporting guidelines. Rubin still refused to budge.
The Astra-Zeneca trial gave electronic devices to volunteers for safety monitoring. This had a set of prepopulated events that subjects in the trial could respond to – they could report on headaches, or fever, but not on the early signs of a transverse myelitis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a myopathic disorder, myocarditis or thromboses.
In the Icon/Pfizer trial of 12–15-year-olds, 13-year-old Maddie De Garay spent close to two months in hospital after suffering adverse reactions that left her in a wheelchair and fed by nasogastric tube. I have examined Ms. De Garay and all her medical records.
The NEJM publication of this trial (Frenck et al) states there were no serious vaccine related adverse events. In the De Garay case, the investigators in their publication appear to depend on the report of an allergist, who introduced the idea of a functional disorder, to claim that Maddie De Garay has a functional illness. This implies she had a predisposition to hysteria and therefore the vaccine cannot be said to have caused this. The allergist consulted the lead investigator, Dr Frenck, before committing this entry to the medical record. His entry included the detail that he had consulted with Dr Frenck, who is based in the hospital Ms De Garay was being seen in – that the trial monitors insisted she be taken to rather than a hospital nearer home – See Appendix 3.
My examination of Ms. De Garay and review of her medical record suggests this trial designation is not just wrong but quite unbelievable. It is perhaps even sociopathic as it appears that, in order to maintain Pfizer’s position, this young woman is not getting the treatment that would be ordinarily indicated for the kind of problems she has. Instead based on a claimed functional disorder, she has been directed to a mental health facility.
There seems little point writing to Dr Rubin about this. On October 26, three weeks before his email to Brianne Dressen, Eric Rubin was a member of the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee convened to review the data on Pfizer’s application, based on Icon trials, to approve their vaccine for 5–11-year-olds. He voted for approval saying:
“We are never going to learn how safe this vaccine is unless we start giving it. That’s just the way it goes. That’s how we found out about rare complications of other vaccines”.
Given Dr Rubin told Brianne Dressen that NEJM don’t publish case reports, it is difficult to see that NEJM will ever contribute to the safety profile of these agents.
The treatment of Ms De Garay raises another prospect. In the case of vaccinated minors, with neurological problems of the type she has, few if any paediatricians or family doctors have seen older people’s disorders such as demyelinating events and strokes in the young. Accordingly, many will not know what they are seeing or how to respond, making a turn to a diagnosis like hysteria (functional neurological disorder) more likely.
As with Brianne Dressen, Maddie De Garay had a prepopulated electronic device that only let her record indicators like headache, fever etc but none of the clinical problems she has ended up with. (See Appendix 3 for details of the De Garay case and the Frenck NEJM publication).
The CSRs on these Icon trials, possibly written by Icon, have numerous tables of adverse events reported in the course of the trial. Prepopulated electronic devices make these tables meaningless.
The safety arms of the Icon/Pfizer trials were dismantled, two months after recruitment stopped. The blind was broken and all of those who had been on placebo were invited to have the vaccination.
In other trials of related biological products, the existence of mandates and the need to get vaccine passports have encouraged others of those who have been in trials, to get extra jabs after the trial ended in order to be able to get vaccine passports – supporting their individual liberties but compromising communal safety.
Finally, while Icon congratulated themselves on co-ordinating 152 recruitment sites, 130 in the US, to deliver a speedy result, anyone familiar with a trial of aripiprazole as a maintenance treatment in bipolar disorder might wonder about these sites, especially trial business operations. Aripiprazole showed no benefit over placebo in 30 US sites, but was wonderfully effective in 3 non-US sites, the results from which made the overall result positive. FDA noted this odd pattern of results but did nothing.
Pharmacovigilance
The Covid vaccines make clear that our current pharmacovigilance systems do not work.
In less than a year, there have been several fold more deaths following Covid vaccines reported to MHRA in the UK and CDC in the US than after all other vaccines combined over the last 20 years but regulators have not conceded a link between any of these deaths and the vaccines.
There are certainly a great number of deaths from Covid. These primarily involve pneumonias and occur in hospital settings and allow clinicians to link many to Covid and to register these deaths and maintain figures that have some validity.
A Nature Medicine paper, referenced above, however, looking at all deaths in British children linked to Covid found that 60 % of children who died and were Covid positive did not have a Covid caused death.
Deaths from the vaccine, in contrast, happen at home or in settings other than hospitals. No attempts are made to link the deaths to the vaccine (other than in Norway where 10% of deaths after vaccination in residential homes were deemed to be likely linked to the vaccine and 26% possibly linked. No register of deaths lets us know how common vaccine deaths are relative to Covid deaths.
The issues of myocarditis, especially in younger people, and thrombotic events have been brought to the fore by clinicians. In Britain, where most reports to regulators come from doctors, there have been 10-times more reports of neurological events than from myocarditis and thromboses combined. There are few hints of these neurological difficulties in the published articles on these trials, even though cases of transverse myelitis led to a temporary halt of the Astra-Zeneca trial, which then continued producing more cases of transverse myelitis which the company managed to make vanish.
Brianne Dressen was an early volunteer for this A-Z trial when it resumed. Her case and Maddie De Garay above illustrate how companies can manage to lose seriously injured people.
Some countries like Norway, Sweden, and France have more robust pharmacovigilance systems than the UK, often employing clinicians distributed around a country rather than operating as a central bureaucracy. These countries have done better than Britain has in this pandemic in recognising myocarditis and thromboses, and recognizing vaccine related adverse events, such as narcolepsy, in previous pandemics.
For therapeutic agents in general, the United States has depended on companies to undertake the pharmacovigilance and to take steps to ward off the liabilities they face if injured patients take legal actions, as they can in the US. Companies have been far more likely to make a cause-and-effect link to their product than FDA or CDC have been.
The increasing control these companies have over the medical literature, however, means that in the case of clear adverse events, as the SSRI story indicates, they stonewall on warnings to an ever-greater extent, and are confident that, if warnings are put in place, they can deploy real-world ‘evidence’ or other methods to ensure clinicians ignore them – few doctors believe SSRIs cause suicide, dependence or can obliterate our ability to make love ever again even in the face of Black Box Warnings.
With vaccines, and the removal of liabilities, companies have been able to focus on hard-nosed contract negotiations, rather than on pharmacovigilance, leaving CDC and FDA, agencies with little expertise or motivation in this area, holding the pharmacovigilance baby. Mandates further increase the pressure on regulators to partner with companies rather than pursue safety.
Even though FDA do little pharmacovigilance, when they approve new products with recognized or potential hazards, they commonly invite companies to craft Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS). Not so in this case.
REMS packages are a step up from a toothless set of Phase IV trials, notionally designed for pharmacovigilance purposes but more often used to market the product. These have not been requested either.
If something goes wrong with these new technologies, the costs will fall on governments, who are even less likely than pharmaceutical companies to accept there might be harms. In Britain taxpayers will foot the bill and it is in our interests to have harms recognized as soon as possible – something that mandates inhibit.
Governments have known about the data sequestration in company trials and ghostwriting problems outlined here for several decades but have done nothing. They appear to be thinking magically rather than rationally.
We have been here before with Tamiflu and a previous viral pandemic. On the back of hidden data on both efficacy and harms, and a ghostwritten literature, governments stockpiled billions of dollars’ worth of Tamiflu, a drug now recognised as harmful junk. The exigencies of needing to be seen to do something in the face of a pandemic, and having already spent large amounts of money, appear to have inhibited bureaucrats and politicians from recognizing a con.
Unfortunately, to this day, while many doctors are semi-aware that Tamiflu is ineffective, faced with someone with a viral illness they prescribe it saying: “well what else can we do”.
Their wish to help is commendable. Their failure to appreciate the hazards is frightening.
Mandates
The arguments put forward in favour of mandates by clinicians, ethicists, politicians, and others depend heavily on assumptions about the integrity of the clinical trial data in respect of the efficacy and safety of these novel technologies, the integrity of the regulatory process, the integrity of pharmacovigilance processes, as well as a belief that if people are harmed by the vaccine they will be received sympathetically by healthcare systems and their injuries will be both remediable and remedied.
None of these positions can be held with confidence in the light of the uncontested evidence about the underlying processes detailed here.
During the 10 months these new technologies have been in use before approval and subsequent mandating, see Mandates for Vaccines, we should have had:
- Mandatory adverse event reporting systems in place.
- Mandatory assessments of causality by people trained to assess adverse events.
- Mandatory assessments of causality with protocols designed to support this.
- A free flow of information between companies making these new technologies and medical organizations likely to be faced with any harms.
- Research on treatments for the injuries companies knew were likely before the first jab.
None of the arguments in favour of mandates recognize any of these issues.
Instead, arguments for mandates claim it is the duty of clinicians to first do no harm – see Daniel Sokol (who hasn’t answered this post when sent to him), but these arguments fall aside with the now accepted evidence that those who are vaccinated can be infected and transmit that infection. Nor is it possible to make an evidence-based case against the proposal that those who are infected naturally are more likely to be immune and less likely to do harm to others than those who are vaccinated.
None of the many opinions in favour of mandates take account of the climate mandates create. A growing number of deaths, and significant harms on these technologies are being denied and discounted. The denial of these harms mean that healthcare staff fail to treat these patients decently and are not able to treat them effectively.
A recognition of the harms we are causing with our treatments should be at the centre of medical practice. Inhibiting health carers from recognizing harms transforms health care in health services.
While the key reason to recognize these harms is the Hippocratic injunction to avoid making things worse for our patients, doctors might also consider this:
If our treatments are marvellously effective and free of harms, it would be reasonable for those who run health services today to decide that prescribing could be done by much less expensive staff or technicians. There is already a significant push in this direction.
Those against mandates are characterized as asserting a prior importance of individual liberties. My argument hinges on the centrality of science to modern medicine, our values, and our civilization. It is an argument based on the freedom we achieve through communal striving rather than a claim based on individual liberty.
Medicine in the last thirty years has retreated from this common ground. Far from mandates securing a safe retreat, they further imperil the common good and support corporate libertines.
At present healthcare staff do not have the option to refuse vaccination. An option to take a vaccine, as these have until recently been understood – that is not based on mRNA or DNA technology – is now possible if the government made it available. Government could transform healthcare if they approved a product provided by a company committed to transparency.
Choking on the Lie
We have a Covid crisis. We also have a Pandemic of Overtreatment that had caused Life Expectancy to fall pre-Covid. In Ontario with a population of 14.5 million there have been on average 5 Covid deaths each day last week, much less than from Road Traffic Accidents and much much less than from over-treatment.
The factors outlined here, clinical trial data sequestration and ghostwriting, cannot but have contributed to deaths in this crisis, and a turn to mandates as a solution.
While inequality and poverty contribute to reduced life expectancy for some, the factors outlined here cannot but have contributed to a huge widely acknowledged increase in medication intake and the emergence of a phenomenon, polypharmacy, only recently described, and even more recently noted as a contributor to stalling or falling life expectancies.
The process factors have contributed to both crises in general and likely specifically contributed to the Covid debacle in care homes for older people where polypharmacy is pronounced.
Early in the pandemic, a colleague and I wrote a short paper on the desirability of reviewing the medication burdens of older people in residential care. All our major journals – NEJ Misinformation, Lancet, JAMA and BMJ turned this paper down, without review – see Dennis the Menace. Three epidemiological studies have since confirmed our proposal, Dutch, Scottish and Swedish, placing medication burden, second only to age, as a risk factor for death.
Our falling life expectancies are a parallel crisis to the Covid crisis, contributing to a greater morbidity and mortality than Covid but receiving less attention.
There is no science that can be used to support mandatory ‘vaccines’ for healthcare staff. The sequestration of trial data makes valid consent impossible.
Why Young Women?
Being asked about courage conjures up an image of young women for me. They don’t beat their chest about it.
They are more attuned to an Us than young men are. More attuned to Harms than men. Harms and a consensus about harms is where the science lies in medical care. Mandates are almost by definition antithetical to science.
Greta Thunberg is a great example of this kind of courage except for the fact that the current generation of young women while standing up for the globe are leading the chase to wipe out natural resilience and immunity with pharmaceutical technologies. They swallow the health lie to an ever greater extent than men and until this changes our problems are likely to deepen.
We need a Lysistrata – see They Used to Call it Medicine.
annie says
‘They need to be allowed some latitude in a pandemic but latitude risks toppling over into lying.
My examination of Ms. De Garay and review of her medical record suggests this trial designation is not just wrong but quite unbelievable. It is perhaps even sociopathic as it appears that, in order to maintain Pfizer’s position, this young woman is not getting the treatment that would be ordinarily indicated for the kind of problems she has.
Instead based on a claimed functional disorder, she has been directed to a mental health facility.’
There was a Young Child who Swallowed …
Sophie and the Silent Experts (updated)
Posted on August 21, 2020 by Brian
http://antidepaware.co.uk/sophie-silent-experts/
In March 2014, 13-year-old Sophie Parkinson (top) was found hanged at her home in Liff, near Dundee, in Scotland.
Her doctor decided to reduce Miss Parkinson’s prescription for Fluoxetine over the next week and she was then to begin a course of Sertraline. Mrs Moss stated that she was handed the prescription in the waiting room, with no discussion about Sertraline’s potential side effects. She wasn’t provided with any information about Sertraline and any increased risks that this might pose.
Sheriff Lorna Drummond’s summary of the inquiry includes a section entitled “Lack of information about prescribed medication”.
And, of course, the three “experts” – Dr Blower, Dr Mockett and Dr Marshall – would have been well aware of what NICE and the BNF have had to say about the considerable risk of prescribing antidepressants to children.
But not one of them had the honesty or decency to reveal that vital evidence to the court.
chris says
Those ‘experts’ should be invited to experience Fluoxetine/Sertraline induced AKATHISIA.
ANON says
Many healthcare workers are speaking up about the adverse drug reactions and people mysteriously passing away. Does this make all healthcare workers who speak up liars?
https://www.gerardrennick.com.au/wp-content/uploads/frontline_workers_speak_out.pdf
What I am reading does not surprise me. Word of mouth does go around. What will happen when many patients will no longer trust their clinicians, big pharma, Governments and other stakeholders?
They become their own doctors because they were lied to.
Pogo says
Healthcare staff and other employees do have actions they can and are taking around the World with some success. Despite what the MSM and pseudo fact-checking sites claim, this type of coercion is still against the Helsinki and Nuremberg Codes. Neither should they resign as they will lose more legal rights than being sacked.
In the UK employees can turn to the The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. This gives them the right to a ‘personal risk assessment’ (section 3).
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3242/contents/made
Even if you are not an employee but an employer, this legalisation affects you too and ignoring it will have serious implications which the UK government fails to mention. Reminder to employers: Ignorance of the law is no defence.
No better explanation I’ve come across explains the gist better, with advice on what to do, than this employment lawyer. It applies to all employees and employers in the UK.
Anna De Buisseret’s Advice to Care Workers & NHS Staff: Don’t Quit
https://odysee.com/@ResistanceGB:f/audo_enhanced_Anna-Care-Workers:6
The website she belongs to is:
https://informed-consent-campaign.10web.me/
It lists all the legal points we all should be aware of and remain ignorant of at our peril.
Do please copy these links to pass onto others even if you have no need of this information. For as Anna points out: It’s everyone’s DUTY to ACT to prevent harm – doing nothing is NOT an option under the Rule of Law and under our Constitution.
chris says
Yes indeed. Healthcare workers need to be aware of that interview and the website. I recently saw a health trusts public paper from the chief exc proving the Govt do indeed intend mandating the ‘vaccine’ to health workers.
https://odysee.com/@ResistanceGB:f/audo_enhanced_Anna-Care-Workers:6
https://informed-consent-campaign.10web.me/
I wonder if Anna De Buisseret is aware of akathisia induced deaths and that doctors and pharma have pretty much got away with it.
chris says
Pfizer unredacted contracts
https://rumble.com/vpz7g3-bioweapon-contracts-exposed-pfizer-making-billions-off-eu-tyrannical-mandat.html
For Europe $3.1 billion paid to City Bank Dublin while pfize headquarters are in New York City.
annie says
Judge Blocks Biden Administration’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Health Care Workers
The ruling applies to 10 states
BY ZACHARY STIEBER
November 29, 2021 Updated: November 30, 2021
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/judge-blocks-biden-administrations-covid-19-vaccine-mandate-for-health-care-workers_4129249.html?
A federal judge on Nov. 29 halted the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers, although the ruling only applies to 10 states.
The mandate, promulgated earlier this month by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), required approximately 17 million workers to get a jab or face termination.
But CMS lacks the authority to impose such a broad mandate, U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp, a Trump appointee, ruled.
“Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their argument that Congress has not provided CMS the authority to enact the regulation at issue here,” Schelp wrote in a 32-page ruling that granted a request for a preliminary injunction.
“Congress did not clearly authorize CMS to enact this politically and economically vast, federalism-altering, and boundary-pushing mandate, which Supreme Court precedent requires.”
The request came from Missouri and nine other states, which asserted that the health care worker mandate was unlawful in part because it was arbitrary and capricious, which is prohibited by the Administrative Procedure Act.
Schelp repeatedly agreed with the plaintiffs, finding that the mandate was arbitrary and capricious for several reasons, including the CMS “lack[ing] evidence showing that vaccination status has a direct impact on spreading COVID in the mandate’s covered healthcare facilities.”
The judge also rejected the agency’s argument that it bypassed requirements to give notice and entertain comments on a proposed measure because the COVID-19 pandemic constitutes an emergency.
CMS waited nearly two months after announcing the mandate before releasing the text and delayed its implementation another month, Schelp noted. The agency also waited more than 10 months after two COVID-19 vaccines were cleared by drug regulators to impose the mandate.
“While today’s ruling is a victory, there’s a lot more work to be done,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican, told reporters in Columbia. “Let me clear: My office will not back down in this fight. I will continue to push back every step of the way on the tyrannical overreach of government that we’ve seen, every single time and in every level of government.”
A CMS spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that the agency is aware of the ruling and is reviewing it.
“CMS knows that everyone working in health care wants to do what is best for their patients to keep them safe. And health care workers have a special ethical and professional duty to protect their patients,” the spokesperson said, adding that the mandate “addresses the risk of unvaccinated health care staff to patient safety and provides stability and uniformity across the nation’s health care system.”
The ruling applies in Missouri, Nebraska, Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, and New Hampshire.
A preliminary injunction is a temporary measure as the case goes through the courts. The injunction could become permanent or could ultimately be overturned.
“This is significant for healthcare workers in Nebraska, especially rural hospitals who were facing serious impacts due to this mandate,” Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson, a Republican, said in a statement. “Today’s ruling immediately prevents enforcement of the mandate. While we do anticipate the federal government will seek immediate review by the Eighth Circuit, we are confident that the analysis by the trial court will be confirmed.”
susanne says
Thanks Pogo. but it is strange that there are some very tough campaigners who aren’t informing people about above? The thing is though that rights and laws are being trashed and and new ones imposed without proper processes – making a catch 22 situation with no protection by the law . In UK conservative m.p’s are to have a meeting today with the prime minister to express growing concerns about erosion of liberties…will that be on the regular news outlets? would be surprised if it is. older people were the ones who were left to die during the first wave. Many died in hospital after catching covid there , If older people suffer adverse event to vaccines, and many have no help at home, the thing they dread (in fact always have done) is ending up in hospital. The toss up is complicated for individuals but the stigma being propagated against them is cruel especially when many are sacrificing the right to go out and about or even have visitors in order to protect not just themselves but others.
The Greek p.m. has decided ‘with a heavy heart’ and a massively dodgy personality that the older group is to be discriminted against with fines:-
Greece Imposes $114 Monthly Fine on Unvaccinated People Over 60
By Eleni Chrepa and Paul Tugwell
30 November 2021, 10:16 GMT
Updated on 30 November 2021, 13:43 GMT
Prime minister calls it a ‘health fee,’ not a punishment
Mandatory vaccines for older people aim to relieve hospitals
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced mandatory Covid-19 vaccination for all Greeks above 60 years of age before a cabinet meeting in Athens on Tuesday, in an effort to tackle the new omicron variation threat ahead of the festive season.
Those who refuse to get vaccinated will have to pay a monthly fine of 100 euros ($114) for each month they don’t get jabbed, starting on Jan. 16, according to Mitsotakis. The penalty will be imposed by the tax authorities directly to those who haven’t been inoculated and the funds collected will be given to Greek hospitals fighting the pandemic.
“It is not a punishment,” Mitsotakis said. “I would say it is a health fee.”
And in Austria where the chancellor described the intention to ‘turn up the thumbscrews’
jab mandate from February 2022
police in masks check phone
00:40
Austria is to become the first European country to make vaccinations against Covid 19 mandatory,
The government said it was preparing the legal groundwork for a general vaccine mandate to come into effect from 1 February, with exemptions for those unable to receive a jab on medical grounds.
The age from which people will be required to be vaccinated has not yet been determined, the government said.
Those refusing to be vaccinated are likely to face administrative fines, which can be converted into a prison sentence if the fine cannot be recovered.
And in Russia
Poltical Campaigners falsely accused of breaking covid laws are beimg imprisoned in ‘covid hospitals’
There will be more attempts elsewhere maybe already in the pipeline once other ‘leaders’ see so many citizens are able to be made powerless by thuggish threats . Shame on UK and other countries for allowing this to spread without speaking out – while some are privately agreeing with them.
susanne says
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/preventing-vaccine-mandates-toolkit-7.14.21.pdfContents
Effective Advocacy to Prevent Vaccine Mandates………………………. 1
Why Mandates are Wrong …………………………………………………… 2
Top 10 Things You Should Know About COVID Vaccines………………. 3
Notice For Employers, Universities and Other Institutions
Mandating Covid-19 Vaccines………………………………………………. 5
General letter on Federal Vaccine Mandates …………………………….. 6
Sample Legislation ……………………………………………………………. 8
Informed Consent in the Era of COVID: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s
letter to lawyers ……………………………………………………………….. 9
Vaccine Mandates for Everyone, Everywhere—A Globally
Coordinated Agenda ………………………………………………………….12
Herd Immunity: A False Rationale for Vaccine Mandates …………….17
Vaccine Mandates Results Don’t Safeguard Children’s Rights
or Health: How Did We Get Here?………………………………………….21
Using Herd Immunity Myth to Justify COVID Vaccines for Kids
Is Deceptive — and Dangerous ……………………………………………..25
Reported Vaccine Injuries Continue to Climb, Pfizer Seeks
Full Approval for COVID Vaccine …………………………………………..32
The Flawed Logic of Hepatitis B Vaccine Mandates…………………….37
Letter to Fauci, et al on PEG in Moderna’s Vaccine …………………….42
Additional Resources: NVIC, VAERS, Vaccine Injury Payouts, etc…..44
ANON says
Suzanne, not only are they putting many lives at rxisk by mandating the vaccine. Some clinicians have an attitude of: Let’s wait and see what happens!
This is like playing Russian Roulette with one’s life.
People who have already been to hell and back with their health have to have this ‘doom and gloom’ looming over them constantly. The stress and anxiety is overwhelming.
People have been so brainwashed. They are starting to discriminate and display hatred towards those who have legitimate concerns regarding the vaccines.
Serious adverse drug/vaccine reactions occur however, now more than ever no one wants to know. This is a crime against humanity and I don’t know how people who don’t care about these important matters sleep at night.
This is criminal because some people are falling through the cracks because they are not being represented accordingly by anyone and not receiving a vaccine exemption on medical grounds. This is inhumane what they are doing.
On top of that, one has to have the added anxiety of paying a monthly fine if they do not have the jab. How can they allow such preposterous laws?
It is certainly not an issue if you have an abundance of cash.
They are putting profits before people’s health and it seems to me like lives do not matter anymore.
Is it really a health fee? How many people in parliament, world-wide have sold their souls to the big corrupt corporations?
I am just beyond all this madness!
susanne says
“Are we empty vessels, mere autonoma, things to be managed? Or free spirits with a soul, people who deserve the dignity of choice?” he asked.
…. “This is a fundamental choice between heading towards heaven and heading towards hell.”The Telegraph
@Telegraph
Covid rules on self-isolation have been enshrined in law until March, as Tory MPs warned Boris Johnson that restricting freedoms was a path “towards hell”.
Open lock This article is currently free to read (and so are the comments)
telegraph.co.uk
By
Lucy Fisher,
DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR
30 November 2021 • 9:37pm
The regulations forcing people to isolate for 10 days if they come into contact with someone who has the omicron variant or risk a fine of up to £10,000 – even if they are fully vaccinated – will not expire until March 24, under legislation passed by the Commons on Tuesday.
The measure prompted a major revolt of 33 Tory MPs, including former Conservative cabinet ministers Greg Clark, Jeremy Wright and Esther McVey, as well as Mark Harper, the former chief whip.
Fears were raised that the threat of having to stay indoors for 10 days could prevent people from socialising while the Government carries out a new booster programme.
The Government has said it will review the self-isolation rules in three weeks. MPs are aware, however, that ministers have previously enshrined regulations for the pandemic in law and kept them in place for longer than initially envisaged.
Christopher Chope, the Conservative MP, claimed the regulations were “part of a scaremongering propaganda campaign that is really designed to restrict or stop interaction between social animals”.
The row erupted as Dr Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, suggested that people should avoid socialising in the run up to Christmas – sparking suspicion among Tory MPs that further restrictions were likely.
Boris Johnson and Downing Street distanced themselves from the senior health adviser’s remarks, insisting they did not represent the Government’s policy.
The Prime Minister announced during a press conference that he wanted all adults to be offered a booster jab by the end of January. He also revealed that GPs will be paid more to perform the vaccinations.
The new rules on self-isolation have been enshrined in law for almost four months, despite no evidence so far that omicron is more dangerous than previous variants.
Two major vaccine manufacturers also said they thought the existing jabs would work against it to prevent severe disease.
Government accused of ‘tunnel vision’ approach to restrictions
Tory MPs vented their fury about the potential for a repeat “pingdemic” over the festive period.
Craig Mackinlay, a Tory backbencher, …raised concerns of “mission creep” in restrictions.
Sir Desmond Swayne, another Conservative MP, argued that forcing double vaccinated people to isolate would remove an incentive for getting the booster jab, potentially harming the Government’s campaign to roll out third doses.
In an emotionally charged speech to the Commons, Steve Baker lambasted ministers for “taking away the public’s right to choose what they do” based on evidence that he claimed was “flimsy and uncertain”.
Accusing the Government of adopting a “tunnel vision” approach to restrictions, he said the latest measures raised essential questions about freedom.
“Are we empty vessels, mere autonoma, things to be managed? Or free spirits with a soul, people who deserve the dignity of choice?” he asked.
A committed Christian, Mr Baker added: “This is a fundamental choice between heading towards heaven and heading towards hell.”
He told the Commons: “The self-isolation statutory instrument has no expiry day, which means it will run all the way until the main statutory instrument expires on March 24 2022. Why is that?”
Maggie Throup, the vaccines minister, said he made a “good point”. However, she pledged the Government would update the House on any plans to extend the measure and would not retain the regulations “any longer” than needed.
On Tuesday, a government source was scathing about the measure being enshrined in law for so long.
The source added of the isolation regulations: “It was all done at such intense speed to respond to the omicron threat. This will have been the quickest way that lawyers could find to put it into regulations, the easiest [legislatory] vehicle.”
The revolt of 33 Tory MPs outstripped an earlier rebellion on Tuesday over the new mask mandate, which was opposed by 20 Tory MPs.
Both measures passed easily through the Commons overall, with self-isolation rules backed 431 to 36, and face covering requirements for shops and public transport backed 434 to 23.
susanne says
1 of 2
RE: speech in commons
I always support those who understand and take action such as the small group speaking out when they will be getting flak themselves over this.
BAKER, Steve
8:36 AM (8 hours ago)
to me
Dear Susanne,
Thank you for your email and for your kind words of support.
Yours sincerely,
Steve
Steve Baker MP
Sent: 30 November 2021 22:27
To: BAKER, Steve
Subject: speech in commons
Dear Steve Baker
Many of us are watching in horror at the rapid loss of rights and humanity re covid impositions.
We do have soul, we do have minds of our own It feels so unlike the UK we know and more like a copy of the tyrants who are frightening the polpulations across Europe.
Thank you so much
sincerely
susanne
chris says
“Three months ago, the reader ordered and received from India fluvoxamine, another drug said to help in Covid cases. He said: ‘Fluvoxamine is an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class. It is primarily used to treat major depressive disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which could be argued is far more prone to misuse than ivermectin.”
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/my-ivermectin-from-india-was-seized-in-the-post-by-the-government/
‘SSRI said to help in Covid cases’ – Crikey you couldn’t make this stuff up.
Patrick D Hahn says
Now Germany is stigmatizing a portion of the population as filthy, disease-causing vermin, and building fences to keep them away from the Good Germans:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/mulled-wine-only-vaccinated-some-german-christmas-markets-2021-11-16/?fbclid=IwAR1F0tLoxd94lu5gnk56DbsPVsEXabCOZ7lD-jYOV0jdGWVeKRghZEmAmG8
What could possibly go wrong?
susanne says
Why aren’t the survivors of those who were killed by the millions speaking out about the unspeakable going on now.
Dr. David Healy says
Patrick
There is another line on this which is that this makes sense of what happened in Germany – the people were no more evil than the average as one might have expected from the at the time most cultured people in Europe and decent folk, who like mandate supporters now say it is what it is and hey the trains are on time and the streets clean. The people taking this position are friends and colleagues to all of us and decent people.
D
susanne says
I don’t think it’s just a matter of being decent people , the majority of people are , but of feeling powerless and not wishing to become visible. Nevertheless those who realise the danger of what is going on could take heed of the need of solidarity against evil actions and intentions by indecent groups in power which are causing great harm already
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY TRUSTLearning from genocide – for a better future (far from it yet)
FIRST THEY CAME – BY PASTOR MARTIN NIEMÖLLER
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Dr. David Healy says
It is what it is
who can argue with this
no one will want to lose a job
will want to not be able to go to movies, theatres, restaurants, mix with friends
and for what – sure they might come for me but the odds are they won’t
and after its all over
we’ll still be the middle class or better
and well placed
and we’ll say we’re relieved its over
even those who got killed off last time
have learned that it is what it is and there’s not much you can do about it
why draw attention to yourself
especially when the system is more than capable of using that to label you as a nutcase, attention seeking, manipulative
or more generally self-seeking rather than standing up for Us
D
susanne says
They already are coming for the unvaccinated. Already many of us cannot go to a movie or a gathering There are many people across Europe who are standing together with the people ,vaccinated and unvaccinated. It’s not a class thing .That undermines the contribution of all those from all parts of society who openly or covertly act together against oppression. There won’t be repucussions this time maybe on those who dont need services from the state – they can pay for them – but there have been totalitarian leaders who are not admirers of ‘academics’ either. There is something we can do about it – the future is worth the effort even if it fails We are equal human beings not serfs worth less or more than ‘intellectuals or professionals’ or facists.
susanne says
Many of us who post comments on blogs have been positioned as ‘inferior’ by mental health workers and would have been exterminated as inferior undesirables for various reasons in Germany- unemployed; physically and mentally unwell; disabled… ; Here it comes again policed by the military – again.They intend segregation, aparteid in shops – so all could identify who goes in one door and who in the ‘undesirables’
‘What could go wrong?’ This is probably intended to create fear amongst the population.
‘new permanent expert group to advise officials on how to tackle the pandemic, whose creation Scholz announced last week, will be headed by Gen. Carsten Breuer, the military’s head of domestic operations.
Germany’s incoming chancellor backs mandatory COVID vaccination
By AP • 01/12/2021 – 13:52 Euro News
“We will pave the way for a decision of conscience by members of the German Bundestag about a general vaccine mandate that will come into force next year, in February or early March, and which everybody can get ready for now,”
Seibert said that a new permanent expert group to advise officials on how to tackle the pandemic, whose creation Scholz announced last week, will be headed by Gen. Carsten Breuer, the military’s head of domestic operations.
Neighbouring Austria has already decided to make vaccinations compulsory from February.
If they regard it as so serious already and have decided to bring in mandates – why are they waiting two/three months?
Dr. David Healy says
The developing scenarios are interesting – the Germans will be effectively making second class citizens of other Germans rather than non Germans. Its a sensitive thing to be doing but predictable that the majority will go along with it – except they didn’t in the case of nuclear power.
Why mandates in February – well the way the data is going mandating now will appear not to work, where mandating in February will appear to work.
David
Johanna says
It’s clear these vaccines don’t PREVENT us from getting infected, or spreading it to others. But do we really know that vaccinated folks spread the virus JUST AS MUCH as the unvaccinated? I don’t think we can just be agnostics on this question. It matters so much, because pandemic restrictions have been so catastrophic.
From March 1, 2020 through January 1, 2021 Excess Mortality in the USA was a whopping 22.9%. About 72% was attributed to Covid-19. But deaths from heart disease, Alzheimer’s and diabetes were up as well. Murder rates rose sharply too, and overdose deaths hit an all-time high of 100,000. People lost jobs, schools, health care, family, food and physical safety. A trillion dollars were spent trying to stave off social collapse – and it didn’t even work all that well.
None of that was due to vaccines; they weren’t around yet. But clearly a recovery policy based on flawed vaccines and flawed policies could make the crisis much worse. That’s a survival question for every last one of us, infected or not.
It matters hugely to the vaccine-injured (present and future) as well. Are the jabs reining in the spread of Covid-19, even imperfectly? If they’re not—if they’re simply a (2nd rate) treatment option for individuals—then we can just focus on our right to accept or reject them. But if they are, we need to demand urgent action. We have to find out why they are also causing harm, help the injured, and fix the problems.
I tend to think they ARE reducing Covid transmission, even if not nearly as well as originally promised. I’ll try to explain why in a 2nd post.
Johanna says
Here in the States at least, the threats of “waning immunity” and virus transmission in vaccinated folks are being massively hyped. And not by vaccine skeptics, but by their fans, beginning with the manufacturers. Strange as it seems, they’re the ones pushing the narrative that current vaccination programs can’t keep us safe.
The motive? Booster shots. The CDC’s heavy-handed zeal for Boosters has provoked its two senior vaccine specialists to resign. It’s fueling a wave of panic among vaccine supporters, with calls for grade-school mandates, universal Boosters for adults and renewed masking of kids as young as two. Meanwhile, even before Omicron came around, Pfizer and CDC officials were hinting that pretty soon only those with three shots would be considered “fully vaccinated.”
It doesn’t add up. My impression is that researchers don’t know that much about vaccines and transmission. At best, they know the number of positive PCR tests among vaccinated folks and the “viral loads” found in their noses. But early on, young children were found to have high viral loads in their noses too, yet spread from preschoolers to adults turned out to be pretty rare. It’s also become clear that PCR tests often pick up viral fragments that can’t actually infect—much like the frantic swabbing of packages and stair railings earlier in the pandemic.
So a ”spike” in positive tests does not equal a wave of sickness. To take just one example, the famous, dreadful Provincetown outbreak – after hordes of mostly-vaccinated adults packed Cape Cod bars for a party weekend – produced almost 900 positive tests, but only 8 hospital cases and zero deaths. Very different from the deadly toll of earlier “super-spreader events.”
Right now, in highly vaxxed areas like Chicago, we face a lot less illness and a WHOLE lot less death than one year ago. Meanwhile, cases have dropped off sharply in the South and West. Maybe Delta burned through those areas so ruthlessly this summer that a large swath of the population now has resistance – while another swath got the crap scared out of them, and got that jab.
Things look at least safe enough that nobody needs to freak out if two of their 12 Thanksgiving guests are un-vaxxed. Especially if they test negative. (There, I said it! So sue me.) Good enough that we definitely don’t need vaccine mandates, or heavy social-avoidance rules – or Warp Speed vaccine development, either. And we shouldn’t accept them, no matter how pro-vaccine we are.
Dr. David Healy says
Jo
A colleague pointed out to me that the push for mandates is coming from university teaching staff – far more than from construction or underground or other front line workers. This is not quite a white collar push for mandates in that a lot of white collar and not so white collar staff working on healthcare frontlines have not been pro mandates
His view was that those working comfortably at home had got more anxious and more selfish and were resisting having to go back on campus mixing with all those infected students. That anxiety is driving a lot of it – people actually exposed to the risks in real life know there are risks but that they do not seem to be anything like the media hype has been leading stay-at-homes to believe
D
susanne says
Jo – Wales is a tiny country which may be an advantage in some ways as campaigns run by older people themselves have made sure what happened during the first wave of the pandemic was made public. It at the very least has curtailed (but not stopped what goes on behind closed doors)what would have carried on happening to older and disabled people. It has been worth the effort even if as ususally perhaps happens people get tired and wish to forget when things are over (as after the world wars or genocides ) history resonates and reappears as it’s doing now relating to the Pandemic. Just from being out and about People seem to be making up their own minds about the advice being given presently by politicians this time – it;s not possible to know exacly what’s what about the vaccines or to what extent we are being manipulated. But we have a government which passed the obligation to use covid passes by that one person was unable to vote due to – tech problems !. really…
Yesterday a coalition agreement between a failing party and what is supposed to be an opposition party was agreed without any prior information or consultation with the population. Petty tyranny rules areas of lives everywhere. ‘Thank goodness for ‘ordinary people’ who won’t sacrifice others.
NEWS
Heléna Herklots, the Older People’s Commissioner
The Older People’s Commissioner has joined in calls for a Wales-specific Covid inquiry.
Heléna Herklots said in a letter that “a Welsh Public Inquiry would provide the best opportunity for older people to be listened to, have their experiences and views valued, and their questions answered as part of an Inquiry”.
She added in a letter to the Welsh Conservatives: “I am clear that a Public Inquiry must focus on learning lessons from what we have all gone through and how the decisions that were made by the Welsh Government, and other public bodies in Wales, have affected all of our lives.
“We must learn from what has gone well as part of Wales’ response to this pandemic, and look at how in any future outbreaks, we would do things differently”.
The Welsh Conservatives, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats have all backed a Wales-specific Covid inquiry.
However, First Minister Mark Drakeford has so far resisted pressure for a Wales-specific inquiry by all the Senedd opposition parties.
The Welsh Government has said that “a UK-wide inquiry will have the capacity and force to oversee the interconnected nature of the decisions that have been made across the four nations”.
Welsh Conservative and Shadow Health Minister Russell George MS welcomed Heléna Herklots’ call for the inquiry in Wales.
“From knowing that a quarter of Wales’ 8,000 Covid-related deaths were caught in hospitals to the decision to implement the disastrous firebreak to bringing in redundant vaccine passports, there is much the Labour Government needs to answer for and a Wales-specific inquiry would provide the chance for that,” he said.
“The way the First Minister is trying to position himself ready to blame the British Government after finding himself on the wrong side of public opinion is unacceptable. He needs to cut out the political games and get on with delivering a public inquiry.
“The support of the Older People’s Commissioner is a huge boost to the campaign and I hope the First Minister will be convinced by her argument as, sadly, those of the bereaved families have not yet moved him.”
Johanna Ryan says
Susanne, I hope y’all can make that Inquiry happen! It just might be the first step we need. And David — your colleague is Spot-On.
The pandemic did not just “expose” the class and racial divides that plague this country – it turned them into freaking Grand Canyons. A big part of that gap lay between those who could work from home, and those who couldn’t. The former didn’t lose income, and even saved some dough by not commuting. They were far, far less likely to get sick, and most could “self-quarantine” at home if they did. The lockdown was no picnic, but their stress was largely psychological. Physically, they were remarkably safe.
On the other side, millions of people lost their jobs in one fell swoop. Others pulled long hours under highly infectious conditions. Factory workers too often labored elbow-to-elbow as usual, and got fired for staying at home when sick. We also found out how many two-bedroom apartments in our fair city had seven or eight people living in them. If one of them went home sick, the rest got it too. No secret who did most of the dying (and still do, although in smaller numbers).
As the vaccines were rolled out, we moved from Total Lockdown to Partial Open Shutdown, or something. We got the schools open, thank god! And we got a lot of folks back to work. Those were the two reasons I got my vaccine. Was I a fool, or a Sheep? I don’t think so. But I do think I’m being lied to much of the time. Our path out of this mess might still have to involve some vaccines. But we can’t know what, or when, or how to keep each other safe, if we can’t get the basic facts. That’s what we gotta fight for.
Right now we’re told we can at least start to “gather in small groups.” But to most of us that means “hang out with people you know,” which creates a whole new problem. We circle the wagons, blame each other for the whole mess, and go crazy thinking just how soulless or stupid the people in that other wagon-circle must be. David’s friend is right: the people who have been the safest are probably the most anxious. And the most educated can’t see they are just as prone to hysteria as anyone else. But we have to keep talking to each other.
susanne says
I would add that the decision is made more complicated in that if we are wanting to mingle with others – their wishes must be considered not only our own- and some vacced relatives or friends will not allow unvacced to mingle with them. Happy days.
chris says
“It’s also become clear that PCR tests often pick up viral fragments that can’t actually infect”
This has always been known – Dr Wolfgang Wodarg was able to stop the last attempt via PCR fraud and pretty much from the start of the German Stiftung Corona Ausschuss – Corona Investigative Committee Prof. Dr. Ulrike Kämmerer was interviewed who uses the PCR on a day to day basis and made it clear that it can not differentiate between dead matter and something that can infect. There was one qualification – if what ever is being detected is found very early on the cycle and there is a clinical observation of infection symptoms.
Here part of it has been translated and transcribed by Howard Steen Sitzung 4
https://odysee.com/@shortXXvids:e/What-PCR-testing–tells-us—1-short:9
“aber es kann überhaupt nicht sagen, ob das Virus zur Replikation fähig ist, d.h. ob es sich tatsächlich selbst reproduziert”
but it can not at all say if the virus is capable of replication ie that it is actually reproducing itself
https://cormandrostenreview.com/report/
ANON says
Are there any semblances to the series Handmaids Tale?
– We are all submitting to hideous rules.
– Being silenced by wearing the mask.
– Some women being treated as sexual objects. Sex trafficking is rampant more than any other time, world-wide.
– Totalitarian Governments mandating vaccines and other radical policies
– Loss of civil liberties and coerced to submit to megalomaniac policies that are not congruent with real science.
– In some countries women are denied the rights to an education
– Mind control obedience being enforced
– Military and Police are enforced in quarantine facilities
– Being drugged against one’s own will in many institutions
– Rape and unwanted prostitution occurring in institutions and work places
– People are being censored if they have an opinion or speak untoward Covid-19 or draconian polices
– Putting fear into the masses
— Anti-vaxxers being discriminated against (viewed as a global threat!)
– Constitutional rights being violate
Has Handmaids Tale become part of our distorted/twisted/mad reality?
You be the judge!
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=handmaids+tale+trailer&view=detail&mid=415950900411B537D547415950900411B537D547&FORM=VIRE
Pogo says
Think these two sections of ancient prophesies describe our current societal condition well.
The first is the prophesy of the Thrice Great Hermes written as a diatribe to Apuleius (who happened to be the Greek god of medicine but that has no direct relevance here).
The second is from the Sanskrit text of Vishnu-Purana. Here is a part:
[There will] be contemporary monarchs, reigning over the earth; kings of churlish spirit, violent temper, and ever addicted to falsehood and wickedness. They will inflict death on women, children, and cows; they will seize upon the property of their subjects; they will be of limited power, and will, for the most part, rapidly rise and fall: their lives will be short, their desires insatiable; and they will display but little piety. The people of the various countries intermingling with them will follow their example; and, the barbarians being powerful in the patronage of the princes, whilst purer tribes are neglected, the people will perish. Wealth and piety will decrease day by day, until the world will be wholly depraved. Then property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification. Earth will be venerated but for its mineral treasures [that is, there will be no Tirthas — places held sacred, and objects of pilgrimage; no particular spot of earth will have any especial sanctity]; the Brahmanical thread will constitute a Brahman; external types (as the staff and red garb) will be the only distinctions of the several orders of life; dishonesty will be the (universal) means of subsistence; weakness will be the cause of dependence; menace and presumption will be substituted for learning; liberality will be devotion — simple ablution will be purification; mutual assent will be marriage; fine clothes will be dignity; and water afar off will be esteemed a holy spring. Amidst all castes, he who is the strongest will reign over a principality [Bhu-mandala, “the earth”] thus vitiated by many faults. The people, unable to bear the heavy burthens [the original has kara-bhara, “load of taxes”] imposed upon them by their avaricious sovereigns, will take refuge amongst the valleys of the mountains, and will be glad to feed upon (wild) honey, herbs, roots, fruits, leaves, and flowers: their only covering will be the bark of trees; and they will be exposed to the cold, and wind, and sun, and rain. No man’s life will exceed three and twenty years.
https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sunrise/29-79-80/rel-prof.htm
It is nearly half a century ago that I took myself off to night-school to find out what philosophy was all about and had to study all this stuff. At the time I took most of the ‘old’ stuff with a pinch of salt. Slowly over the years however, the same patterns I had read about came into focus as they unfolded before and all around me. This is why I said some months back that we should not pin our hopes on any one person nor group to lead us out of our woes. For it is the We — Us — Humanity, that have to seize back, the responsibility for our every action again – in everything we do and say.
susanne says
1 of 2
People’s Covid Inquiry Accuses Govt. of Gross Negligence
Inbox
Keep Our NHS Public
4:19 PM (1 hour ago)
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Keep Our NHS Public
MISCONDUCT IN PUBLIC OFFICE
The People’s Covid Inquiry has accused the Government of ‘misconduct in public office’ yesterday over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic which led to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths.
Yesterday, on Wednesday 1 December, the People’s Covid Inquiry organised by Keep Our NHS Public presented our finished report.
In the absence of a formal public inquiry into the pandemic, The People’s Covid Inquiry began in February 2021 and concluded it’s hearings in the summer. It covered all aspects of the government’s handling of the pandemic and heard testimony from a wide range of people and organisations. These included previous government advisors and key academics, as well as frontline workers and bereaved family members. The Inquiry was chaired by world renowned human rights barrister Michael Mansfield QC who, together with a panel of experts, have now delivered their findings and recommendations on all main aspects of the pandemic to date.
KEY FINDINGS INCLUDE:
1. The depleted state of the NHS and other public services prior to the pandemic was a determining factor in poor outcomes and led to avoidable deaths.
2. The government was poorly prepared for the pandemic and moved too slowly, which led to avoidable death.
3. The government adopted the wrong strategy leading to loss of life and growing mistrust in its advice.
4. The government’s poor record on inequalities has put the most vulnerable at risk from illness and death from Covid-19.
5. Misconduct in public office: There has been dismal failure in the face of manifestly obvious risks.
The report received a huge amount of press interest just a section of which you can read by looking at the press page on our People’s Covid Inquiry website.
People’s Covid Inquiry chair Michael Mansfield QC, said:
This People’s Covid Inquiry report is unequivocal – dismal failure in the face of manifestly obvious risks…This Inquiry performed a much-needed and urgent public service when the nation was hit by a catastrophic pandemic coincident with an unprecedented period of democratic deficiency. It afforded an opportunity for the beleaguered citizen to be heard; for the victims to be addressed; for the frontline workers to be recognised; and for independent experts to be respected. When it mattered most and when lives could have been saved, the various postures adopted by government could not sustain scrutiny.”
“It was plain to Keep Our NHS Public (the organisers of the People’s Covid Inquiry) that Government words were bloated hot air, hoping to delay and obfuscate. Within this narrative lies a theme of behaviour amounting to gross negligence by the Government, whether examined singularly or collectively. There were lives lost and lives devastated, which was foreseeable and preventable. From lack of preparation and coherent policy, unconscionable delay, through to preferred and wasteful procurement, to ministers themselves breaking the rules, the misconduct is earth-shattering.
Dr Tony O’Sullivan, Co-Chair of Keep Our NHS Public and retired Consultant Paediatrician, said:
We are proud that our Inquiry filled the deafening silence from Government and set out to learn the lessons that could save lives in this and future pandemics. We are shocked at the avoidable loss of tens of thousands of lives through the neglect of pandemic planning, the run down of the NHS, and the intense inequality in this country. We heard the pride of NHS, care and other frontline staff and we heard about their pain, exhaustion and moral injury. The level of government cronyism and resultant profiteering has been blatant and in plain sight. Our overall conclusion is that there has been misconduct in public office. This has to be addressed. If we ignore it, the country cannot learn the lessons from today to face the challenge of tomorrow.
The pandemic is not over, and despite previous improvements, infection rates and death tolls are once again rising. As winter approaches and the Omicron Variant takes hold, the government must act now or more avoidable deaths will occur.
With political will and public support, there is no reason we can’t still emerge from the pandemic with an NHS that is not on the brink of collapse as it is now, but having learned lessons, gained experience, and seen proper investment in a publicly provided health-and-care service, in order to keep the nation safe as and when another crisis like this occurs.
The Executive Summary and the Full Report of the People’s Covid Inquiry is available to download here.
STAY UP TO DATE WITH OUR CAMPAIGNS
annie says
“Once they’re awake, they don’t go back to sleep” – an old man in a chair
Dr Vernon Coleman’s Wednesday Review – Episode Four (December 1st 2021)
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/dr-vernon-coleman-039-s-wednesday-review-episode-four-december-1st-2021_yxlPxSq8PABJFyc.html
Sunday Times best-selling author, Dr Vernon Coleman, looks at the omicron fraud (a fraud upon a fraud), eviscerates the fact checkers and thinks of ways to cheer himself up.
Europe must consider mandatory vaccines, says EU chief Ursula Von der Leyen
1 December 2021, 19:09 | Updated: 2 December 2021, 01:00
https://www.lbc.co.uk/hot-topics/coronavirus/europe-vaccine-mandate-ursula-von-der-leyen/
Speaking in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said that, although it is up to individual countries, she felt the time had come to “think about” bringing in a mandate.
Germany pushes for vaccine mandate – will the UK follow Angela Merkel’s lockdown plan?
GERMANY’S parliament will discuss making Covid vaccinations mandatory in February following today’s announcement of tougher national restrictions. How will Angela Merkel’s decision affect the UK?
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1530509/Germany-covid-vaccine-mandate-uk-evg
Will the UK introduce similar measures?
Although Germany has decided to impose these measures, it is highly unlikely that the UK will follow suit….
There was an element of government calm, until Jenny Harris provoked the current “snogging’ under the mistletoe’ what have you …
Patrick D Hahn says
There has never been a time in which our rulers cared if people were “fulfilled” or “self-actualized.” I’m not even sure they should. But they wanted people to be productive. And to be productive, you have to be healthy.
Within my lifetime, a sinister change has taken place. Now many of us have more value to our rulers as consumers of medical interventions (or vassals of the welfare state, or the Prison-Industrial Complex) than we do as workers.
chris says
It is what it is. Not when you fight
https://twitter.com/pjhlaw/status/1466730816709578756
chris says
Alright poppet?
“My client had been previously suspended via phone by Dr Milroy from
NHS Improvement where the reasons given for suspension were
apparent concerns about Dr White’s health. The transcript of that call is
here. You will note Dr Milroy despite not being in a patient Doctor
relationship with Dr White appears to diagnose my client remotely. Dr
Milroy also refers to Dr White as “poppet”.”
https://pjhlaw.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lettertoamandapritchard.pdf
susanne says
A Few chunks – On the basis of this kind of arrogance by the govnmt thousands have lost their jobs and those they look after are in an even worse state .It would be willfully naive to simply trust anything they do to bring in new restrictions Some may be needed but unless they are mature enough to give us the truth and the evidence ,there will be less willingness to put up with them
HOUSE OF LORDS
The Committee’s Reports are published on the internet at https://committees.parliament.uk/
committee/255/secondary-legislation-scrutiny-committee/publications/
Any query about the Committee or its work, or opinions on any new item of secondary
legislation, should be directed to the Clerk to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee,
Legislation Office, House of Lords, London SW1A 0PW. The telephone number is 020 7219
8821 and the email address is hlseclegscrutiny@parliament.uk.
Draft Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities)
Report on the preceding Care Homes Regulations, we said that if the Department
of Health and Social Care (DHSC) decided to extend its mandatory vaccination
policy, we would expect to see a more effectively argued case for it: unfortunately,
the Explanatory Memorandum (EM) accompanying this instrument is just as
superficial.
information is scattered between them and much of it,
7. We are disappointed that the Explanatory Memorandum (EM) lacks all
practical detail. Its content is minimal, giving only a high-level overview of
the policy without giving an adequate description of how the legislation will
apply in the real world or what its consequences may be.
Conclusion
38. We said in our 10th Report on the Care Homes Regulations that high levels of
voluntary vaccination among front line staff weakens DHSC’s arguments for
using legislation as leverage, and we would therefore expect any regulations
extending the mandatory vaccination policy to be accompanied by a much
more detailed and structured justification. Sadly, this EM is just as superficial
as the last one.
39. Advice from SAGE and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and
Immunisation is alluded to but never presented for scrutiny. The EM offers
no information about what the changes mean in practice – that is deferred
to future guidance. There is a broad-brush statement of potential effects but
no plans offered to deal with anticipated negative consequences when the
Regulations take effect on 1 April 2022. DHSC has provided no single
coherent statement to explain and justify its intended policy, and this
undermines the ability of the House to undertake effective scrutiny.
40. The Secretary of State wrote to the Committee offering, in the absence of an
IA, to attend an oral evidence session to answer any questions on this policy
or DHSC’s approach.20 While grateful for his offer, we did not it up. Our
November 2021]. Savid Javid
Social Care, to Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, Chair of the
Legislation Scrutiny Committee
I am writing to you regarding the second vaccination as a condition of deployment
regulations that have been laid before Parliament earlier today.
Owing to the need to have the regulations come into force as soon as possible,
we have not been able to provide Parliament with an Impact Assessment to
accompany these regulations. Instead, an Impact Statement has been laid and
published on GOV.UK. We will submit the Impact Assessment to the Regulatory
Policy Committee and will present this to Parliament as soon as we can.
I fully understand that this is neither normal nor best practice and regret that
this is the approach my department has had to take for this SI. However, it is
overwhelmingly important that these regulations progress as quickly as possible
so that they can maximise protection for our valuable frontline health and wider
social care workforce and the most vulnerable in society for which they care. We
also want to give certainty as early as possible to workers and health and care
providers in these sectors.
I strongly appreciate your committee’s efforts to scrutinise legislation and
ensure Parliament is as informed as possible when considering legislation of this
significance.
Therefore, in the absence of an Impact Assessment and in order to assist your
Committee’s scrutiny of these regulations, we would be pleased to attend a
ministerial evidence session on the regulations to answer any questions on the
policy and approach you might have.
9 November 2021
Letter from Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts to the Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP
Thank you for your letter of 9 November about the Health and ·Social Care Act
2021 and for your offer, in the absence of an Impact Assessment (IA), to attend
an oral evidence session before the Committee to explain the Regulations further.
Whilst we appreciate your considerate offer – not least because we have no
doubt that the demands on your time must be extraordinarily high in current
circumstances – we have decided not to take it up on this occasion.
Our reasons are twofold. First, an IA, which would contain amongst other things
a description of the range of policy options considered, should have been integral
to the policy development process. Its absence therefore marks a fundamental flaw
in the development of the policy underpinning these Regulations. Second, we hold
it as a point of principle that, contrary to what has happened in respect of these
Regulations, clear and comprehensive explanatory material should be provided at
the same time as an instrument is laid so that it is available to all interested parties,
both inside and outside of Parliament. Neither of these deficiencies is remedied
simply by further explanation to the Committee at this late stage.
16 SECONDARY LEGISLATION SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
We shall be reporting on these Regulations shortly. We will draw to the attention
of the House any concerns we may have so that they can be answered in debate.
22 November 2021
annie says
Da Doo Ron Ron
Senator Ron Johnson
@SenRonJohnson
@POTUS COVID didn’t become political, YOU made it political. YOU are dividing us. YOU are infringing on our freedoms.
Senator Ron Johnson
@SenRonJohnson
Time to let Americans, not federal bureaucrats, make decisions for themselves and their children.
https://twitter.com/SenRonJohnson
The Crystals “I knew what he was doing when he caught my eye” …
Patrick D Hahn says
A story appearing yesterday in the Evening Standard quoted Tahir Hussain, a senior vascular surgeon at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow:
“I’ve seen a big increase in thrombotic-related vascular conditions in my practice. Far younger patients are being admitted and requiring surgical and medical intervention than prior to the pandemic.”
“I believe many of these cases are a direct result of the increased stress and anxiety levels caused from the effects of PPSD [Post-Pandemic Stress Disorder].”
Not a shred of evidence is adduced in support of this assertion, and the article makes no mention of the possible role of the shot in “thrombolytic-related bascular conditions.” Apparently, this is all part of what we’re being conditioned to regard as the New Normal.”
Here’s the link:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/post-pandemic-stress-disorder-heart-conditions-covid-london-physicians-b969436.html?fbclid=IwAR0z8eqGIZXinFznqHczTrvaB-herVLtRNVyiyhahid9j79Pn-CAKVs7O90
chris says
“As will become apparent in due course, the outcome of this case does not in any way
depend upon the merits of the views which the claimant has expressed in relation to
the Covid-19 pandemic and the response which has been made to it by the National
Health Service or national governments, in terms of public health measures imposed
and advised medical treatment. For the reasons which are set out below, the court
expresses no view whatever in relation to the issues which the claimant has raised in
respect of these matters. For reasons which will become apparent, the determination
of this appeal depends upon purely legal issues as to how the decision was arrived at
in the present case.”
They should have studied the merits, in particular the use of the RT PCR test.
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/White-v-GMC-judgment-031221.pdf
Listen to Dr Roger Hodkinson 3mins 20sec on the PCR
https://www.bitchute.com/video/hWPjDdXOWkOo/
ANON says
Covid Vaccine victims.
How many more people have to be maimed or die unnecessarily, before they put a black box warning on the vaccines or get rid of this vaccine that is causing more harm than good.
How can Pharmaceutical Corporations, clinicians/nurses/other health professionals collaborate with corrupt entities who do so much harm/ injustice to the human race?
https://www.covidtruths.co.uk/2021/04/covid-vaccine-victims/
Thank you Dr Sam White for speaking the truth. I wish the universe of clinicians would stop burying their heads in the sand and advocate for their patients. I hope more clinicians make a stand so we can put an end to the flawed/corrupt policies.
If all clinicians could see beyond the corruption and plethora of lies and stood together, arm in arm, this could be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.
https://doctors4covidethics.org/supporting-dr-white/
https://www.covidtruths.co.uk/2021/06/dr-samuel-white-nhs-gp-speaks-about-the-fraud/
susanne says
Recently came across GBNEws and was put off but gave it another go
and found journalists are seriously challenging the supression of news by other channels
BRITAIN’S NEWS CHANNEL
Dan Wootton
PRESENTER
PUBLISHED Monday 29 November 2021 – 21:39
LAST UPDATED Monday 29 November 2021 – 21:41
I am so bloody angry. I can’t hide it tonight. I can’t try and put a positive spin on it.
I’m sorry, even though I predicted this exact scenario, I find it impossible to comprehend how we’ve ended up here.
Surely at some point, common sense and personal responsibility must prevail in a free and democratic society over draconian and authoritarian government controls dictating the way we live our lives and run our businesses?
Twenty months into a pandemic, with over 90 per cent of the adult population estimated to have Covid antibodies, including 80 per cent double jabbed and 25 per cent triple jabbed, the march from the mainstream broadcast media and politicians to lock down the country again is well and truly on.
Of course, it’s as a result of the Omicron scariant. Without any firm evidence that this new strain will definitely evade or even weaken our vaccines, Boris Johnson went into full on panic mode.
Colin Brazier: What were the BBC thinking asking an old-loony left-winger to pontificate at a moment of national crisis?
Saturday night emergency press conference unleashed mask mandates punishable with hundreds of pounds in fines, ten-days self-isolation for perfectly healthy folk, and new day two PCR testing and isolation requirements for anyone re-entering the country that sound the death knell for the tourism industry.
And then immediately following the awful announcement who did the BBC drag out to comment: The lockdown obsessed, Professor Susan Michie, who sits on the Government’s SAGE committee as a health psychologist and is a self-declared Communist party member.
She said she was talking in a personal capacity, and wanted an immediate set of new control measures enforced on us all, just like she has wanted every single moment since March 2020.
The broadcast media in this country is broken. Today GB News launched our first national advertising campaign where we promise to ask the questions the BBC won’t.
Is there any evidence the Omicron variant evades existing vaccines or increases hospitalisations or deaths?
Of course, the delightful usual Be Kind trolls in the left-wing media are determined to take away personal choice on whether we live our lives muzzled. Like LBC’s resident hate preacher James O’Brien, who equated those who question the logic of wearing masks to the Ku Klux Klan.
Of course, it was only last year that the so-called experts were trying to assure us all that the use of face coverings was completely futile.
So much more madness is making me fume tonight. There’s the World Health Organisation deciding not to call the new variant Xi to protect the blushes of the Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping whose regime unleashed this entire Covid catastrophe on the world.
There’s the fact usual democratic processes are being railroaded with these measures coming into force at 4am tomorrow without any sort of debate or vote in Parliament. That’s Chinese-style democracy for you.
And there’s the government and its scientists telling us an extension of the Covid vaccine booster programme is the answer to the Omicron problem, even though all the hysteria is over the fact the scariant might evade the vaccine.
As I concluded in my column for the MailOnline today: “If we cannot open the country and restore all our civil liberties 20 months into this pandemic, then I fear we never will. If we keep compliantly allowing our freedoms to be stripped on the whim of a poll-driven government, then don’t be surprised if they never fully return. A dystopian nightmare looms and it’s time to speak up and stand up.”
chris says
https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/375/bmj.n2957.full.pdf
“The committee’s chair, Robin Hodgson, said, “We fully support high levels of vaccination, but DHSC is
accountable to parliament for its decisions and needs to give us a clear statement of the effect of these
regulations, the effect of doing nothing, and any other solutions considered, so parliament fully understands
all the consequences of what it is being asked to agree to. This is particularly important when the NHS is
already under such pressure.”
“DHSC has provided no single coherent statement to explain and justify its intended policy, and this
undermines the ability of the House to undertake effective scrutiny of the proposed legislation.”
ANON says
The vaccines are killing more people than the Covid.
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/11/11/the-vaccine-is-killing-more-people-than-covid/
Does this information ever make the front headlines?
susanne says
It’s ‘intriguing’ say these researchers – is it? Some chunks from a long very detailed article with tables facts and figures
JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(11):e2133090.
Question Are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), specifically fluoxetine hydrochloride, associated with a lower mortality risk among patients with COVID-19?
Findings In this multicenter cohort study analyzing electronic health records of 83 584 patients diagnosed with COVID-19, including 3401 patients who were prescribed SSRIs, a reduced relative risk of mortality was found to be associated with the use of SSRIs—specifically fluoxetine—compared with patients who were not prescribed SSRIs.
Meaning These findings suggest that SSRI use may reduce mortality among patients with COVID-19, although they may be subject to unaccounted confounding variables; further investigation via large, randomized clinical trials is needed.
Abstract
Importance Antidepressant use may be associated with reduced levels of several proinflammatory cytokines suggested to be involved with the development of severe COVID-19. An association between the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)—specifically fluoxetine hydrochloride and fluvoxamine maleate—with decreased mortality among patients with COVID-19 has been reported in recent studies; however, these studies had limited power due to their small size.
Objective To investigate the association of SSRIs with outcomes in patients with COVID-19 by analyzing electronic health records (EHRs).
Design, Setting, and Participants This retrospective cohort study used propensity score matching by demographic characteristics, comorbidities, and medication indication to compare SSRI-treated patients with matched control patients not treated with SSRIs within a large EHR database representing a diverse population of 83 584 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 from January to September 2020 and with a duration of follow-up of as long as 8 months in 87 health care centers across the US.
Main Outcomes and Measures Death.
Results A total of 3401 adult patients with COVID-19 prescribed SSRIs (2033 women [59.8%]; mean [SD] age, 63.8 [18.1] years) were identified, with 470 receiving fluoxetine only (280 women [59.6%]; mean [SD] age, 58.5 [18.1] years), 481 receiving fluoxetine or fluvoxamine (285 women [59.3%]; mean [SD] age, 58.7 [18.0] years), and 2898 receiving other SSRIs (1733 women [59.8%]; mean [SD]
Conclusions and Relevance These results support evidence that SSRIs may be associated with reduced severity of COVID-19 reflected in the reduced RR of mortality. Further research and randomized clinical trials are needed to elucidate the effect of SSRIs generally, or more specifically of fluoxetine and fluvoxamine, on the severity of COVID-19 outcomes.
Introduction
As the world searches for effective treatments for COVID-19, evidence from recent studies has suggested that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants may be of benefit.1-6 The severe respiratory illness of COVID-19 is primarily triggered by an intense proinflammatory host response.7 Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are one of the most prescribed, widely available classes of antidepressants used for treating psychological conditions, including depression and anxiety disorders……..
Although findings from some studies have suggested that psychiatric diagnosis, including mood and anxiety disorders, may be an independent risk factor for COVID-19 infection,18,19 other epidemiological studies have suggested that major depression could be associated with reduced mortality in COVID-19,20,21 possibly owing to the use of antidepressants in this population.1,20 A recent observational study1 showed a decreased mortality rate in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 who were prescribed antidepressants (n = 460), in particular SSRIs, but this study had limited power. Moreover, a small, randomized clinical trial2 (n = 152) indicated a decrease in disease severity in patients with COVID-19 given the SSRI fluvoxamine. However, the follow-up duration for this study was short (30 days); therefore, the outcomes of patients beyond this time frame are not known. Another small, prospective clinical trial3 (n = 113) found that patients who received early treatment with fluvoxamine were not hospitalized or did not have residual symptoms, unlike untreated patients; however, this study also had a short duration of follow-up (14 days) and, as an open-label trial, was subject to potential biases. Preclinical studies have demonstrated the antiviral activity of fluoxetine, an SSRI with properties similar to those of fluvoxamine, against SARS-CoV-2–infected Vero E6 cells4 and human lung tissue.5 A study comparing differential gene expression signatures from drug-treated cell lines with those from genetic knockdown of select cytokine storm–related inflammatory genes6 found greater concordance in these signatures with fluoxetine than with dexamethasone, a corticosteroid used in treating patients with COVID-19. Thus, we investigated the hypothesis that SSRIs, and specifically fluoxetine and fluvoxamine, are associated with a reduction in the relative risk (RR) of mortality for patients with COVID-19 by using a large electronic health record (EHR) database consisting of a diverse population of nearly half a million patients with COVID-19 across the US.
Data from the Cerner Real World Data COVID-19 deidentified EHR database containing records of 490 373 patients with COVID-19 across 87 health care centers were analyzed. The Cerner Real World Data COVID-19 database represents patients with a diagnosis of COVID-19 or COVID-19 exposure Only patients with COVID-19 diagnosis confirmed by a laboratory test for SARS-CoV-2 (nucleic acid amplification tests and immunoassays) and/or by International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) code U07.1 (for COVID-19 confirmed by laboratory testing),23 with known demographic characteristics (age, sex, and race and ethnicity), and who were 18 years or older from January to September 2020 were included in our study (n = 90 834) (Figure). Patients with COVID-19 and a medication order for an SSRI with an order status of active or completed and without a designation of as needed (ie, medication taken only when needed) at least once within a period of 10 days before and 7 days after their first recorded COVID-19 diagnosis were compared with patients with COVID-19 and no SSRI orders. We excluded patients with other order status (eg, inactive, discontinued, or unknown). Individuals prescribed SSRIs outside this period were excluded (n = 7250), resulting in a final inclusion of 83 584 patients
Statistical Analysis
…………..
Results
The mortality rate among SSRI-treated patients was 14.6% (497 of 3401) and among matched untreated control patients ranged from The mortality rate among fluoxetine- or fluvoxamine-treated patients was . Although a previous investigation2 showed that fluvoxamine—an SSRI with properties similar to that of fluoxetine—can reduce severity of COVID-19 outcomes, the number of patients using fluvoxamine was too small in our EHR database to explore this medication independently or draw any robust conclusions.
A reported 13.2% of people 18 years or older used antidepressant medications in the US within the past 30 days,27 and SSRIs account for more than half of the antidepressants taken by patients,9 yet the proportion of patients receiving SSRIs in our analysis was just 4.1% (3401 of 83 584 patients). Some of this discrepancy may be explained by our narrower time frame (17 days around the time of a patient’s COVID-19 diagnosis), our patient population representing only those who are in an urgent care or higher-acuity clinical setting, or possible underreporting of medications in the Cerner Real World Data EHR. Subsequently, there may be a potential underestimation of the strength of the associations with SSRIs and COVID-19.
Several mechanisms by which SSRIs can reduce the severity of COVID-19 symptoms have been proposed in the literature. The severe respiratory illness of COVID-19 is primarily triggered by an intense proinflammatory host response.7 Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors may benefit patients with COVID-19 owing to the link between serotonin and the immune system.28-30 More specifically, severe outcomes of COVID-19 have been associated with several proinflammatory cytokines, including interleukin 6, whose increased levels contribute to the cytokine storm.7 Various studies have indicated that SSRIs and specifically fluoxetine can decrease levels of these cytokines and interleukin 6 signaling activity.31,32 Some SSRIs, such as fluoxetine and fluvoxamine, may modulate the sigma-1 receptor-IRE1 pathway, thereby reducing damaging aspects of the inflammatory response.33 Another potential explanation could be related to their inhibiting effect on the acid sphingomyelinase/ceramide system,1 whose activation may play an important role in SARS-CoV-2 infection because it leads to the formation of ceramide-enriched membrane domains that facilitate viral entry and infection by clustering angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, the cellular receptor of SARS-CoV-2.13,14 Metabolic markers of ceramide metabolism have also been associated with respiratory severity and inflammation in patients hospitalized for COVID-19.15 Finally, some evidence suggests that SSRIs and especially fluoxetine could have antiviral effects.4,34,35
Limitations
…….Over time, it is feasible that the difference in mortality or morbidity attributed to SSRI treatment compared with control patients not using SSRIs might lessen as the overall mortality and morbidity rates for COVID-19 decrease because of general improvement in care with other anti-inflammatory regimens or specific treatments.
Conclusions
In this cohort study, the RR of mortality was reduced 8% among patients prescribed any SSRI and 28% among those prescribed fluoxetine. These findings suggest that SSRIs, if proven effective, could be a therapeutic option to reduce mortality among patients with COVID-19. Further research and large, randomized clinical trials are needed to elucidate the effect of SSRIs generally, or more specifically of fluoxetine and fluvoxamine, on the severity of COVID-19 outcomes.
Published: November 15, 2021. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.33090
Author Contributions: Dr T. Oskotsky had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.
Concept and design: T. Oskotsky, Marić, Wong, Sirota, Stevenson.
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Sirota reported serving as a scientific advisor at Aria Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
chris says
In this interview Norman Fenton explains the results of a new report that analyses the latest ONS data on mortality of vaccinated v unvaccinated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxkb2yhdLiA
ANON says
We Got The Right To Change Things.
<3 <3 <3 this video.
Imagine if the whole universe protested peacefully at the same time.
This mess would be over in a jiffy!
https://www.facebook.com/gerard.rennick/videos/1040868356755101/
More importantly, now more than ever, we need clinicians, all health workers, lawyers and politicians to get on board.
susanne says
Protesters and activators should not forget all the others whose rights are being abused by jailing in foul prisons where they will likely be infected
News
Myanmar: How the world reacted to Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentencing
UN, UK deplore sentencing of Myanmar’s deposed leader while Myanmar’s exiled opposition calls it ‘broken justice system’.
Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to four years in prison on charges of incitement and breaching coronavirus restrictions in a case her supporters called politically motivated [AFP]
Published On 6 Dec 2021
6 Dec 2021
Updated:
6 Dec 2021
03:00 PM (GMT)
President Win Myint was also sentenced to four years as the court handed down its first verdicts on Monday against the civilian leaders detained after a military coup on February 1.
notadoc says
“
chris says:
December 7, 2021 at 5:08 pm
In this interview Norman Fenton explains the results of a new report that analyses the latest ONS data on mortality of vaccinated v unvaccinated
…
“
I tried the link just now. The video has been removed for violating YouTube community guidelines.
susanne says
I’m getting blocked from sites and from sending e mails to sites, one was The Defender’ -‘for my protection’ – by google. IT bods have found a way around it but i can’t risk trying them out as could have my computer scrambled – again.