COVID-19, Current Events, Guest Column, Media & Press, What's New

Vaccine Deaths Pile Up Without Media Coverage

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Guest column by Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn

Switch mental gears and stop thinking about the pandemic. Think about the endless news stories you have seen and heard on all mainstream media that headline stories with a large number of deaths. The deaths may result from large scale criminal acts like mass shootings or all kinds of natural disasters. Big media makes big news when a dozen or more people get killed, or when hundreds die in floods or hurricanes. Rarely are thousands dead, but when that happens, usually in other countries, that is really big news. And it happened for the 9/11 attack when about 3,000 people died in the US.

The point of this article is that the media now is largely ignoring the thousands dying from the experimental COVID vaccines. My exhaustive analysis of medical studies and data reveal that Americans are dying in two different ways because they got jabbed.

Two types of vaccine deaths

A few thousand people have died from breakthrough infections because the vaccines are not effective in preventing a new infection.

What is now crystal clear is that the experimental vaccines lose their effectiveness over some months. The number of breakthrough infections are accelerating for two reasons. As more people get the shot a larger pool of vaccinated people drive more breakthrough infections. And now with declining vaccine effectiveness, possibly related to new variants, the odds of getting a breakthrough infection go up. While many breakthrough infections do not cause major medical problems, in a fraction of cases victims need hospitalization and some die.

The other cause of vaccine deaths are complex blood problems, namely different kinds of blood clots, the loss of blood platelets and resulting bleed events that are lethal. Think in terms of brain bleeds, strokes and heart attacks. Vaccine induced blood problems have been discussed here.

Number of vaccine deaths

My data analysis indicates that now we have probably lost close to 5,000 American lives from the two vaccine related deaths and most likely this will increase to perhaps 10,000 deaths by the end of this year.

The vaccine related deaths of many hundreds and certainly thousands of people should be a big news story. It is not. Why not? Because all of the corrupt and dishonest powers mismanaging the pandemic want to keep pushing and coercing everyone to get the shot. So, they stifle the truth about vaccine dangers.

They keep justifying this by saying that only a small statistical fraction of the vaccinated die and compare this to the over 600,000 COVID deaths that the experimental vaccines supposedly could have prevented. Here is the truth. Vaccine induced deaths cannot be prevented. They result from the deficiencies of the vaccines.

On the other hand, COVID deaths have always been highly preventable, say 85 percent or more, because since March 2020 we have known that several cheap, safe and FDA approved generics cure COVID and also can be used to prevent the infection. Plus, many of those official COVID deaths were probably for people dying from other causes; they died with COVID, not from it.

Here is what people need to keep in mind. Can you imagine anything worse than getting a shot of an experimental COVID vaccine and then sometime later dying from the infection or a blood problem? I can’t. How could the government let such vaccines be widely used? Follow the money. All the way to big drug companies making vaccines.

Breakthrough infection data

It is hard to get good, reliable data on the post-vaccination breakthrough infection death rate. The likely answer is that the government wants to keep that data as hidden as possible. Why? Because the more that Americans know about breakthrough deaths, the more they will question the medical wisdom of getting either the first shot or a booster jab.

So, what does the breakthrough death data look like? That depends where you look for the data. Can you expect to see the same numbers everywhere? No. Can you expect to see such data in your daily newspaper or on you evening network news? No.

One seemingly good source is an August New York Times compilation of breakthrough deaths from 40 states and the District of Columbia. That list yields 1,527 deaths. But when extrapolated to the whole nation, that adds up to possibly 1,899 deaths. Expectedly, all the pro-vaccine people in government, public health and the medical establishment think that kind of number is just fine.

Their argument is simple. With so many millions of people vaccinated a few thousand breakthrough deaths is acceptable. Except for those who die and their family and friends. Something akin to putting a bandage on a cut after putting some antiseptic on it and then sometime later losing a limb or your life from a terrible infection. Just one of those statistical ugly and unlikely realities. I checked out some other places for similar data. Here is what I found.

A Los Angeles Times article from May said: “In all, 160 fully vaccinated people with a breakthrough infection died during the study period. That’s 2% of those with breakthrough infections, and 0.0001% of U.S. residents who were fully vaccinated by April 30. All 160 people were between the ages of 71 and 89.” Just 160, sounds pretty good, especially compared to close to 2,000. And the statistics make it seem oh so unlikely that you will die from COVID after vaccination. That figure of 160 came from a CDC report. And there now are breakthrough deaths in much younger people.

An article from Heritage in August cited a figure of 1,507 fatal cases of breakthrough infection in line with the New York Times data. This too was cited; “164 million Americans were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with 191 million people having acquired partial immunity through at least one dose.” Seems like you just have to bet on being statistically safe.

An August story on CNBC reported: “NBC News has found that at least 125,000 fully vaccinated Americans have tested positive for Covid and 1,400 of those have died. Still, the 125,682 “breakthrough” cases in 38 states found by NBC News represented less than 0.08% of the 164.2 million-plus people (and counting) who have been fully vaccinated since the start of the year, or about one in every 1,300.”

Here is the headline of story in New York Magazine from this month: “Don’t Panic, But Breakthrough Cases May Be a Bigger Problem Than You’ve Been Told – Current public-health messaging may understate the scale and risk.”

This was a wise observation: “a closer look at the data reveals that some of the public-health communication may be overstating the vaccine effect on transmission and understating the scale and risk of breakthrough infections, which, while far from predominant, do appear prevalent enough to be helping shape the course of the disease.”

“The message that breakthrough cases are exceedingly rare and that you don’t have to worry about them if you’re vaccinated — that this is only an epidemic of the unvaccinated — that message is falling flat,” Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina said.

Also noted was a large pre-print study published by the Mayo clinic that suggested the efficacy against infection had fallen as far to 42 percent, far below numbers in the 90s you have been hearing about since the experimental vaccines received emergency authorization. This helps explain escalating breakthrough cases.

The article also pointed these facts out: “In Utah, 8 percent of new cases were breakthroughs in early June, but by late July, as Delta grew, the share grew, too, to 20 percent (even while the total number of cases almost doubled). According to leaked CDC documents, there were, as of late last month, 35,000 symptomatic breakthrough cases being recorded each week — about 10 percent of the country’s total.

Presumably many more breakthrough cases were asymptomatic, which would drive the share up further.” But as of late May, CDC started to only count breakthrough cases resulting in hospitalization or death. Their objective was to not count more minor breakthrough cases that would reveal reduced vaccine effectiveness.

“The breakthrough problem is much more concerning than what our public officials have transmitted,” Dr. Eric Topol said. “We have no good tracking. But every indicator I have suggests that there’s a lot more under the radar than is being told to the public so far, which I unfortunate.” The result, he said, was a widening gap between the messaging from public-health authorities and the meaning of the data emerging in real time.

“I think the problem we have is people — whether it’s the CDC or the people that are doing the briefings — their big concern is, they just want to get vaccinations up. And they don’t want to punch any holes in the story about vaccines. But we can handle the truth. And that’s what we should be getting.”

Blood problem deaths

The US government is not providing good data on vaccine induced blood problem deaths. There are some websites that provide large numbers of videos about those who have died from brain bleeds, strokes and other conditions related to blood clots, loss of blood platelets and lethal bleeding. Health Impact News and 1000 Covid Stories are terrific.

Here is some data from a recent UK research study that addressed blood clots in “veins of the legs and in lung arteries.” The researchers offered rather high rates of the main blood clot/low

platelet condition from the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine: 1,000 per 100 million for people 50 and over and 2,000 per 100 million for younger people. These suggest a potential for thousands of vaccine induced blood deaths in the US. Keep in mind that many people may be dying from blood problems but no test done to verify it is caused by a vaccine.

Additionally, a Canadian doctor found evidence of microscopic blood clots in 62 percent of his patients that had received the Moderna vaccine. He predicted dire long term health impacts from these clots in capillaries. He said this: 
“The blood clots we hear about which the media claim are very rare are the big blood clots which are the ones that cause strokes and show up on CT scans, MRI, etc. The clots I’m talking about are microscopic and too small to find on any scan. They can thus only be detected using the D-dimer test…The most alarming part of this is that there are some parts of the body like the brain, spinal cord, heart and lungs which cannot re-generate. When those tissues are damaged by blood clots they are permanently damaged.”

Future medical problems and deaths from the microscopic blood clots at this point are speculative.

Conclusions

Here is my logical bottom line. Getting a shot these days is gambling that you will not be that statistical fluke, dying from a lack of protection against COVID from any of the experimental vaccines. Keep in mind that with so many millions of people being vaccinated breakthrough infections are likely to keep rolling up.

And think of your gamble as related to the possibility that you might die from vaccine induced blood clots or bleeding, especially in the brain. And then add these two pieces of true science facts.

If you have natural immunity from being infected at some point your have better immunity than that conferred by the experimental vaccines. Getting a shot might cause serious medical problems if you have natural immunity.

And finally, never forget that since March 2020 we have absolute scientific truth that several cheap, safe and fully FDA approved generic medicines not only can cure COVID but also can be used as a prophylactic to prevent infection. Detailed data on these are in Pandemic Blunder. They are alternatives to the experimental vaccines, and some doctors are prescribing these generics despite actions by NIH, FDA and CDC to block wide use of them.

The main thing to fear now are increasing vaccine mandates that so many people will comply with out of sheer survival needs. Vaccine related deaths will keep being ignored by government and big media in order to safeguard the revenues of big drug companies making the vaccines.

Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn, author of Pandemic Blunder and many articles on the pandemic, worked on health issues for decades. As a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he directed a medical research program between the colleges of engineering and medicine. As a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, he directed major studies on health-related subjects; he testified at over 50 US Senate and House hearings and authored hundreds of articles and op-ed articles in major newspapers. He has served as an executive volunteer at a major hospital for more than 10 years. He is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and America’s Frontline Doctors.

COVID-19, Guest Column, What's New

From Shots to Clots: Science Shows COVID Vaccines Cause Blood Clots

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by Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn

Americans who have taken COVID vaccine shots and those who have refused to capitulate to the coercion and propaganda are ill-informed about blood clots. This article provides summaries of key recently published research on two types of observed blood clots – microscopic and relatively large size – that merit serious attention and concern. 

One inevitable conclusion is that the FDA with support from big media is not doing its job to ensure truly informed consent by those taking vaccine shots.

Canadian physician reports high levels of clots

Dr Charles Hoffe has been practicing medicine for 28 years in a small, rural town in British Columbia, Canada, and recently gave a long interview. He has given about 900 doses of the Moderna experimental mRNA vaccine to his patients. So, contrary to some critics, he is no anti-vaccine doctor.

The core problem he has seen are microscopic clots in his patients’ tiniest capillaries. He said “Blood clots occurring at a capillary level. This has never before been seen. This is not a rare disease. This is an absolutely new phenomenon.”

Most importantly, he has emphasized these micro-clots are too small to show up on CT scans, MRI, and other conventional tests, such as angiograms, and can only be detected using the D-dimer blood test. Using the latter, he found that 62% of his patients injected with an mRNA shot are positive for clotting. He has explained what is happening in bodies.

The spike proteins in the vaccine become “part of the cell wall of your vascular endothelium. This means that these cells which line your blood vessels, which are supposed to be smooth so that your blood flows smoothly now have these little spikey bits sticking out. … when the platelet comes through the capillary it suddenly hits all these COVID spikes and it becomes absolutely inevitable that blood clots will form to block that vessel.”

He made an important distinction: “The blood clots we hear about which the media claim are very rare are the big blood clots which are the ones that cause strokes and show up on CT scans, MRI, etc. The clots I’m talking about are microscopic and too small to find on any scan. They can thus only be detected using the D-dimer test…The most alarming part of this is that there are some parts of the body like the brain, spinal cord, heart and lungs which cannot re-generate. When those tissues are damaged by blood clots they are permanently damaged.”

This is his pessimistic, scientific view: “blood vessels in their lungs are now blocked up. In turn, this causes the heart to need to work harder to try to keep up against a much greater resistance trying to get the blood through your lungs. This is called pulmonary artery hypertension – high blood pressure in the lungs because the blood simply cannot get through effectively. People with this condition usually die of heart failure within a few short years.”

All these medical views have been suppressed by big media., but it was covered well in another alternative news site. And the doctor got some attention by submitting an open letter to the provincial Ministry of Health. A key point in that is this: “It must be emphasised, that these people were not sick people, being treated for some devastating disease.

These were previously healthy people, who were offered an experimental therapy, with unknown long-term side-effects, to protect them against an illness that has the same mortality rate as the flu. Sadly, their lives have now been ruined.”

The concept of micro blood clots has also been invoked for the serious impacts of COVID itself. The eminent Dr. Peter McCullough noted “So, this is a very different type of blood clotting that we would see with major blood clots in the arteries and veins. For instance, blood clots involved in stroke and heart attack.

Blood clots involved in major blood vessels in the legs. This was a different type of clotting and in fact the Italians courageously did some autopsies and found micro blood clots in the lungs. And so, we understood in the end, the reason why the lungs fail is not because the virus is there. It is because micro blood clots are there. … When People can’t breathe, the problem is micro-blood clotting in the lungs. …The spicule on the ball of the of the virus itself which damages blood vessels that causes blood clotting.” He has also openly stated that none of the COVID vaccines are safe for most people at little risk from COVID.

If spike protein is the cause of micro blood clots in COVID it is also reasonable to see the same phenomenon in vaccinated people impregnated with spike proteins, as Dr. Hoffe as explained.

As to the Canadian situation, The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) in July estimated the rate of vaccine-related blood clotting in Canadians who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine and said there have been 27 confirmed cases to date in Canada, with five deaths among those cases, a rather high death rate.

But this is consistent with 6 out of 28 blood clot cases reported by Yale University for the J&J vaccine in the US Also noted was that these were a particularly rare and dangerous blood clot in the brain, known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), because it appears in the brain’s venous sinuses Also noted that there were abnormally low platelet levels in their blood, an unusual situation also found for those impacted by the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Wall Street Journal and Nature Journal

To its credit, the Wall Street Journal published a long article in July on the COVID vaccine blood clot issue. Here are highlights from it.

“Canadian researchers say they have pinpointed a handful of amino acids targeted by key antibodies in the blood of some people who received the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, offering fresh clues to what causes rare blood clots associated with the shot.”

“The peer-reviewed findings, by a team of researchers from McMaster University in Ontario, were published …by the science journal Nature. They could help doctors rapidly test for and treat the unusual clotting, arising from an immune-driven mix of coagulation and loss of platelets that stop bleeding.”

“The blood clotting, which some scientists have named vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, or VITT, has also been linked to Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 shot, though incidents have occurred less frequently with that shot than with AstraZeneca.”

“Though rare, the condition has proven deadly in more than 170 adults post-vaccination in the U.K., Europe and U.S., according to government tallies. Many were younger adults who appeared healthy before vaccination, researchers and drug regulators say.”

“The total number of cases after first or second doses in the U.K. was 395 through June 23…Of the 395, 70 people have died. European officials said this month that they have seen 479 potential cases of VITT out of 51.4 million AstraZeneca vaccinations…Far fewer potential cases—21 …followed J&J vaccinations in Europe. Of those cases, 100 deaths occurred after AstraZeneca vaccination and four after Johnson & Johnson, European regulators said.”

“U.S. health officials said in late June that they have identified 38 confirmed cases of the blood-clotting syndrome out of more than 12.3 million people who received the J&J vaccine…The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in May that three cases had been fatal and evidence ‘suggests a plausible causal association’ between the combination of low platelets and clotting and the vaccine.”

As to what is going on inside the body: “[In] rare cases, vaccinated people have experienced an autoimmune reaction in which antibodies bind with unusual strength to a blood component called platelet factor 4, or PF4, forming distinct clusters resembling a bunch of grapes. This so-called immune complex, a molecular formation in the blood, activates more platelets, ‘like putting a match to gasoline,’ said John Kelton, an author of the Nature paper and researcher at McMaster University.

The process accelerates, he and other researchers say, triggering simultaneous bleeding and clotting, sometimes in the brain, stomach and other areas that can in rare cases be deadly. ‘We think these antibodies are incredible amplifiers, in a bad way, of the normal coagulation system,’ says Dr. Kelton.”

Interestingly, this article did not mention at all the previously discussed case of the Canadian doctor and his findings about microscopic blood clotting.

New York Times

In April, there was limited coverage of stoppages of some vaccines: “First it was AstraZeneca. Now Johnson & Johnson. Last week, British regulators and the European Union’s medical agency said they had established a possible link between AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine and very rare, though sometimes fatal, blood clots.

The pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine in Europe over similar concerns threatens to hurt a sluggish rollout that was just starting to gain momentum.” Also noted was that states paused use of the J&J vaccine after a US advisory.

“Regulators have asked vaccine recipients and doctors to look out for certain symptoms, including severe and persistent headaches and tiny blood spots under the skin.”

New England Journal of Medicine

In April this journal published three research articles on blood clotting related to COVID vaccines and a long editorial by two physicians reviewing all the work. Here are highlights from the latter.

“The Journal has now highlighted three independent descriptions of 39 persons with a newly described syndrome characterized by thrombosis and thrombocytopenia that developed 5 to 24 days after initial vaccination with [the AstraZeneca vaccine]. … These persons were healthy or in medically stable condition, and very few were known to have had previous thrombosis or a preexisting prothrombotic condition.

Most of the patients included in these reports were women younger than 50 years of age, some of whom were receiving estrogen-replacement therapy or oral contraceptives. A remarkably high percentage of the patients had thromboses at unusual sites — specifically, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis or thrombosis in the portal, splanchnic, or hepatic veins. Other patients presented with deep venous thrombi, pulmonary emboli, or acute arterial thromboses. … High levels of d-dimers and low levels of fibrinogen were common and suggest systemic activation of coagulation. Approximately 40% of the patients died, some from ischemic brain injury, superimposed hemorrhage, or both conditions, often after anticoagulation.”

“Better understanding of how the vaccine induces these platelet-activating antibodies might also provide insight into the duration of antigen exposure and the risk of reoccurrence of thrombosis, which will inform the need for extended anticoagulation and might lead to improvements in vaccine design.”

“Additional cases have now been reported to the European Medicines Agency, including at least 169 possible cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and 53 possible cases of splanchnic vein thrombosis among 34 million recipients of the [AstraZeneca] vaccine, 35 possible cases of central nervous system thrombosis among 54 million recipients of the Pfizer–BioNTech mRNA vaccine, and 5 possible (but unvetted) cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis among 4 million recipients of the Moderna mRNA vaccine. Six possible cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (with or without splanchnic vein thrombosis) have been reported among the more than 7 million recipients of the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine.”

Here is the final conclusion; “The questions of whether certain populations can be identified as more suitable candidates for one or another vaccine and who and how to monitor for this rare potential complication will require additional study.”

Salk Institute

In April, the Salk Institute promoted coverage of research conducted by a number of people associated with it. The chief finding was that the spike protein associated with the COVID virus and with vaccines was connected to strokes, heart attacks and blood clots.

“The paper, published in Circulation Research, also shows conclusively that COVID-19 is a vascular disease, demonstrating exactly how the SARS-CoV-2 virus damages and attacks the vascular system on a cellular level. … the paper provides clear confirmation and a detailed explanation of the mechanism through which the [spike] protein damages vascular cells.”

A subsequent article in May examined this work and made several important observations. Here is its perspective, as relevant to the COVID vaccines. “The prestigious Salk Institute…has authored and published the bombshell scientific study revealing that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein used in the Covid jabs is what’s actually causing vascular damage. Critically, all three of the experimental Covid vaccines currently under emergency use authorisation in the UK either inject patients with the spike protein or, via mRNA technology, instruct the patient’s own body to manufacture the spike protein and release them into the blood system.”

“The Salk Institute study proves the assumption made by the vaccine industry, that the spike protein is inert and harmless, to be false and dangerously inaccurate.”

“The research proves that the Covid vaccines are capable of inducing vascular disease and directly causing injuries and deaths stemming to blood clots and other vascular reactions. This is all caused by the spike protein that’s engineered into the vaccines.”

Report by 57 Medical Experts

This May report was prepared by nearly five dozen highly respected doctors, scientists, and public policy experts from across the globe. It went public and was urgently sent to world leaders as well as all who are associated with the production and distribution of the various Covid-19 vaccines in circulation today. The report demanded an immediate stop to COVID vaccinations. Dr. McCullough was one of the signatories.

“Despite calls for caution, the risks of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination have been minimized or ignored by health organizations and government authorities,” said the experts.

On the issue of blood clotting in vaccinated people the report said this:
“Some adverse reactions, including blood-clotting disorders, have already been reported in healthy and young vaccinated people. These cases led to the suspension or cancellation of the use of adenoviral vectorized [AstraZeneca] and [J&J] vaccines in some countries. It has now been proposed that vaccination with ChAdOx1-nCov-19 can result in immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) mediated by platelet-activating antibodies against Platelet factor-4, which clinically mimics autoimmune heparin-induced thrombocytopenia.

Unfortunately, the risk was overlooked when authorizing these vaccines, although adenovirus-induced thrombocytopenia has been known for more than a decade, and has been a consistent event with adenoviral vectors. The risk of VITT would presumably be higher in those already at risk of blood clots, including women who use oral contraceptives, making it imperative for clinicians to advise their patients accordingly.”

Conclusions

Supporters of the COVID vaccines are quick to emphasize that relatively few recipients have experienced post-vaccination blood clotting.  True, except for the findings of the Canadian physician about microscopic blood clots in most of his patients that major news media have ignored.  Also ignored are the findings from the Salk Institute which provide a rationale for seeing spike proteins as causing clots.  Even vaccines not directly including spike proteins – the AstraZeneca and J&J adenovirus vector vaccines – pose a problem because they send genetic instructions into cells to produce the spike protein of the coronavirus.

Even a June case study of one patient who died from clotting after taking the second dose of the Moderna vaccine and not related to anything else stressed the use of “safe” COVID vaccines.  This was also stressed in an accompanying editorial that mentioned: “The highest reported incidence is 5 cases among about 130,000 Norwegian recipients of the [AstraZeneca] vaccine.”

This statistical view of the medical establishment was expressed as: “any potential risks of vaccination must be interpreted in the context of the overall morbidity and mortality of COVID-19 itself.” It also stressed blood clots in hospitalized COVID patients. It cannot be emphasized enough that the vast majority of COVID victims could have been saved through early home/outpatient treatment as detailed in Pandemic Blunder. The proven treatments can stop COVID infection in its early virus replication phase and, therefore, prevent blood clots.

The public also needs strong information about the many advantages of natural immunity, from prior COVID infection or life exposure to various coronaviruses. This is far better than vaccine induced artificial immunity that does less to protect against COVID variants and makes people susceptible to breakthrough infections. For most people the benefits of COVID vaccination do not outweigh the risks.

On the issue of whether all COVID vaccines pose a blood clot threat consider an April study by Oxford University that found the number of people who receive blood clots after getting vaccinated with a coronavirus vaccine are about the same for those who get Pfizer and Moderna vaccines as they are for the AstraZeneca vaccine.  And as already cited the J&J vaccine has also been implicated for clots.

What needs attention by FDA, CDC and NIH is the need to do more testing of vaccine victims to discover through blood testing or autopsies the nature and extent of blood clotting.

For those wanting to see many examples of COVID vaccine negative health impacts this website is recommended. The mission is: “This website is dedicated to sharing the truth about these people and their testimonials. Watch for yourself and make up your own mind.  Is it worth it to risk life-changing and even fatal side effects from a vaccine for a disease that is survived by 99.98% of people under 70?”

Of course, the risk of getting serious blood clots is much higher for those who get a serious case COVID-19 then it is for those who get vaccinated.  They tend to be acute, near-term impacts amenable to various treatments, though sadly not lifesaving in all cases.

More insidious, in the longer run, however, perhaps years after the shots, are the microscopic blood clots noted by Dr. Hoffe and Dr. McCollough that may impact the lives of many people, perhaps millions.

Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn, author of Pandemic Blunder and many articles on the pandemic, worked on health issues for decades. As a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he directed a medical research program between the colleges of engineering and medicine.  As a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, he directed major studies on health-related subjects; he testified at over 50 US Senate and House hearings and authored hundreds of articles and op-ed articles in major newspapers.  He has served as an executive volunteer at a major hospital for more than 10 years.  He is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and America’s Frontline Doctors.

COVID-19, Current Events, Featured, Media & Press, Op-eds, Politics, What's New

The Graveyard of COVID-19 Missed Information

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The British social hierarchy of the Middle Ages and beyond was divided into “three estates of the realm”: the king, the clergy, and the commoners. More modern times brought the fourth estate, the non-establishment, independent journalists. Our founders knew that for a successful democratic republic, the press had to be a watchdog. Journalists now have become morticians who embalm and bury stories at the bidding of their puppet masters. 

In many cases, the government with its media accomplices quietly plucked from the public square information that is not to their liking, irrespective of its factual accuracy. COVID-19 has brought the practice out of the shadows. With our health at stake, it is imperative that all sides of the science are available. Let the people decide. 

Welcome to the cemetery. The PCR test used to diagnose an infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was found to have as high as 97 percent of false positives for infectiousness because the test was so sensitive that it measured dead viruses that could not cause disease. Even the inscrutable Dr. Fauci agreed with that assessment.  After the distribution of the vaccines that were going to bring us back to the old normal, the CDC set strict rules for testing of vaccine “breakthrough” cases. It wanted “only specimens” that were collected with a PCR test that was much less sensitive. Was this done to make the vaccines look more effective?

It’s unlikely anyone saw that the CDC will soon abandon the PCR test. What a coincidence that a consortium backed by Bill Gates bought out Mologic, a company with a yet-to-be-approved COVID test. 

Then there’s a CDC analysis of infections and mask-wearing. “In the 14 days before illness onset, 71 percent of case-patients and 74 percent of control participants reported always using cloth face coverings or other mask types when in public.” Only 4 percent of the case-patients “never” wore a mask. The explanation was that the masked case-patients frequented restaurants and got infected when they removed their masks to eat.

The mainstream reporting of COVID-19 deaths is sensationalism at its worst. The newscasts implied any infected person would surely be on death’s door at some point. Again, the CDC’s own analysis of COVID hospitalizations showed that the risk of death while hospitalized was 0.3% for patients with no comorbidities. The analysis showed that the strongest risk factors were obesity, diabetes with a complication, and anxiety disorders. Yet we did not hear that we should lose weight and exercise. (How unfortunate that the gyms were closed.) Our mental health was tested by lockdowns and lack of socialization. 

Even French virologist and Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier was ghosted when he posited that mass vaccination against the SARS-CoV-2 virus during the pandemic was creating variants. His science appears to have been borne out. The CDC reported an outbreak in Massachusetts where 90 percent of SARS-CoV-2 infections were identified as the Delta variant. Moreover, 74 percent of the infected were fully vaccinated. There are similar findings in the United Kingdom and Israel. In another instance, 75 to 80 percent of recently infected staff members at two University of California San Francisco hospitals were fully vaccinated. 

The most devastating missed information is the effectiveness of early treatment of COVID-19. Since February 2020, clinicians had successfully treated patients early in the disease process with hydroxychloroquine. A campaign to discredit these successes followed. When Dr. Fauci’s pet drug, Remdesivir was found to be ineffective, the media buried the study. Despite studies showing its benefit, ivermectin was given the hydroxychloroquine smear treatment. Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are fully FDA-approved, have a long record of safety, and remain on the World Health Organization list of essential medicines. What’s the problem? They are very inexpensive and generic.

With early treatment sidelined, the experimental vaccines became the panacea. But why are we expected to ignore the RNA vaccines’ role in encouraging variants and serious side effects such as heart inflammation, paralysis, and death? Could money be a motivator? Pfizer reports that will have $33.5 billion in Covid-19 vaccine sales in 2021, with even more revenue anticipated from the booster shots. Was the drug and health product manufacturers’ $171 million to lobbyists in the last 6 months intended to ensure the government’s cooperation? Are the pharmaceutical companies the Fifth Estate?

The politicians’ hypocrisy says it all. In their personal lives, Nancy Pelosi and her nephew, California’s Governor Newsom flout their own directives, with mask-less haircuts, fancy dinners, and children’s summer camps, to name a few. More galling is the “let them eat cake” attitude in their political lives. Newsom demands that all state workers—except the powerful prison guard union—get vaccinated or submit to continuous COVID tests. Pelosi commands her subjects, aka congresspersons to don masks subject to fines and arrest for noncompliance. But her majesty removes her mask for a photo op. How can anyone trust anything these soulless grifters have to say?

Do some digging. The truth is out there. 

COVID-19, Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Health Policy, Medical Ethics, Medicare, Op-eds, What's New

There’s More to Death Than Covid-19

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Breathless headlines featuring ‘the Virus” are beginning to fade into a chronic undercurrent of fear thy neighbor for he might be bearing the gift of Covid. What you won’t see in the headlines are stories about a more pervasive and ultimately more lethal virus: a growing disregard for others and devaluation of life. Rampant homicides are disheartening enough, but more shocking is the shifting morality in medicine. 

News headlines gave the impression that the newly instituted Covid rules were designed to save lives, yet we soon learned the lockdowns, masking, school closures did more harm than good. Meanwhile—in plain sight—government-sanctioned sacrifice of the elderly was taking place. In 5 “progressive” states, Covid-positive patients were discharged from hospital isolation units and returned to their nursing homes where they comingled with uninfected residents. Of course, many more residents became ill. It didn’t make the headlines that half of Covid deaths were in nursing homes and 80 percent of deaths were in those over 65. This might have encouraged more policies that protected our elders and allowed the younger folks to carry on with their lives. To date, the news has not reported any apologies to the families of the victims of government and medical incompetence.

In 2020, many hospitals in the United States considered guidelines that would allow doctors to withhold CPR from Covid patients, ignoring the patient’s wishes. Our neighbor to the north, Quebec had actually issued such an order lasting from April to September 2020. Bless the paramedics on the front lines who complained and had the order lifted.

Age-related rationing is alive and well. The ethics advisor to 78-year-old President Biden, Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, author of the utilitarian “Complete Lives System” of  medical care, chose age 75 as his personal benchmark for ending life. This is so wrong. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” Whether mentally sharp or in declining health, older people give texture and context to our lives. Reflecting on older folks reminds us that in their lifetime innovations have gone from puttering around in a car to rocketing to the moon. And Dick Tracy’s comic book two-way wrist radio is now a commonly worn Apple watch. 

The behavior of bureaucrats and the medical establishment during the Covid “crisis” laid bare the dismissive treatment of elders. And an uncomfortable question hangs in the air: was the nursing home debacle a conscious attempt to cull the herd? After all, Medicare chews up 15 percent of the federal budget and 25 percent of Medicare dollars are spent in the last year of the patient’s life. According to the 2019 Medicare Trustees report, the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund will be depleted in 2026—a short 5 years away. 

If this form of population control sounds un-American, remember that our country seriously engaged in eugenics, marked by 75 years of Supreme Court-approved forced sterilization. The abortion industry has devolved from a time when a woman was mortified to have an abortion to where clinics are advertised on highway billboards. The quest for clean air has gone from encouraging recycling and renewable energy to suggesting that human depopulation is the only way to save the planet. 

Human concern in medicine has taken a back seat to marginal scientific ethics and perhaps, secret agendas. We have become numb to the experiments using fresh aborted fetal tissue to create “humanized mice” that sprout various human organs. This slow walk to the edge of medical ethics has allowed science to go in grotesquely anti-human directions. Jointly with Chinese government funding, United States researchers created viable embryos that are a mix of human and monkey cells (a “chimera”). With funding from the Chan Zuckerberg [Mr. Facebook] Initiative, researchers tinkered with male rats so they could deliver live babies via Cesarian section. 

Sadly, physicians have become willing participants in the government’s borderline coercion by not informing themselves about early treatments for Covid or the side effects of the experimental vaccine. Federal and state governments are bribing, cajoling, and subjecting us to door-to-door pressure to take an injection of a product that could be killing us in numbers not seen before. Serious reactions include miscarriages, Bell’s palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, blood clotting disorders (including brain clots), and anaphylaxis. Bizarrely, the White House is challenging colleges to vaccinate its entire campus, despite sometimes fatal heart inflammation after vaccinations in young adults (who have infinitesimal risk of significant Covid illness). 

It appears we are guinea pigs in a grand experiment. The elderly were the casualties of Phase I. As the post-vaccine bodies pile up, the Nuremberg Code’s principle is being ignored: The experiment must be stopped if continuation would result in injury and death.

It’s not too late. Physicians must remember their Oath of Hippocrates and speak up and act for the benefit of their patients even in the face of conflicting government dictates. 

COVID-19, Guest Column, What's New

COVID-19: Should Cases of Guillain-Barré Make a Difference?

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by Jane M. Orient, MD

If you haven’t yet gotten the jab, should the recent reports of Guillain Barré affect your decision?

The FDA is adding a new warning for the Johnson & Johnson COVID jab because of 100 preliminary reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) after the administration of 12.8 million doses. Of these reports, 95 were serious and required hospitalization, the FDA statement said, and there was one death.

Most people fully recover from GBS, but some never fully regain their strength or fine motor skills. It may begin with mild weakness and progress to paralysis of the respiratory muscles, so that artificial ventilation is required. Patients may spend a month or more in the ICU and months in rehabilitation. They may face huge medical bills—the jab is “free,” but care of complications is not.

“Only” one case in 128,000 may be called “rare,” and it might not have been caused by the jab. Each year in the United States, an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 people develop the illness. But in 1976, swine flu vaccines were stopped for one case of GBS in 100,000 doses.

        “Available data do not show a pattern suggesting a similar increased risk of Guillain-Barré with the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines,” states the Washington Post. “More than 321 million doses of those vaccines have been administered in the United States.”

However, as of today, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) contains reports of 9,048 deaths, 7,463 persons disabled, and 26,818 hospitalizations.

The more user-friendly British Yellow Card System contains reports of 40 cases of GBS with two deaths, and 43,738 “nervous system disorders” with 43 deaths for the Pfizer product. For Moderna, there was only one nonfatal case of GBS listed and 3,331 “nervous system disorders” with two deaths.

“Federal health officials have repeatedly emphasized that the benefits of the coronavirus inoculations far outweigh potential risks,” says the Washington Post. But on the individual level, the calculation is not simply population-wide reported COVID deaths vs. reported vaccine deaths. Issues are:

·         What is the risk of getting COVID in my circumstances and location?

·         What is the risk of complications for a person of my age and health status?

·         What is the risk of breakthrough cases? We need to know the cycle threshold (Ct) to judge whether diagnostic accuracy is comparable for persons with or without the jab.

· What is the true level of complications? Might there have been 90,000 deaths if only 10% are reported to VAERS?

· How do we distinguish deaths FROM vs. WITH COVID or vaccine? Is it the same way for both?

Some would like to punish those who decide that for them, the risk of the jab exceeds the benefit. Dr. Leana Wen of CNN, former head of Planned Parenthood, wants to make the choice of being unvaccinated hard and unduly burdensome. This is presumably to protect the public from catching the virus from an unvaccinated person. However, Moderna and Pfizer vaccine trials “have explicitly acknowledged that their gene therapy technology has no impact on viral infection or transmission whatsoever and merely conveys to the recipient the capacity to produce an S1 spike protein.”

For further information on physicians’ opinions and first-hand reports on adverse reactions by patients, family members, and physicians, see links in AAPS survey results: Majority of Physicians Decline COVID Shots, according to Survey.

COVID-19, Current Events, Guest Column, Medical Ethics, Uncategorized, What's New

COVID-19: Are There Ethical Issues with Jabs or Mandates?

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By Jane M. Orient, MD

If your faith forbids sterilization, or your respect for human rights forbids involuntary sterilization, then you need to consider the risk of infertility from COVID jabs.

We do NOT know that the COVID jab will cause infertility. But we also do not and cannot know that it doesn’t. There simply has not been enough time to see.

Despite the uncertainty, thousands of our youth are being forced to choose between taking the jab or putting their educational plans or careers on hold. How much risk can we ethically take, or coerce others to accept—whether the risk is of infertility, miscarriage, disability, chronic disease, or death?

The ethical and legal issues of a mandate are outlined in a letter to colleges and universities from the William J. Olson law firm in Vienna, VA. The letter also requests a commitment to assume financial liability for death, disability, or illness of students being required to take the COVID-19 inoculation. While manufacturers are immune from product liability, those who coerce students or employees to receive it might not be.

Investigations that might inform us about the reproductive risks have not been done (or reported). More than 700 post-injection miscarriages have been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Where are the pathological examinations of the placentas? Were there spike-proteins in the blood vessels, and inflammation that cut off oxygen or nutrients to the baby? We don’t know. An NEJM article that concluded there were no safety signals had no information on the placentas.

Was there damage to the reproductive organs of the nearly 7,000 persons who died post injection? The first (only?) autopsy report, of an 86-year-old man, published in June, did not address this. 

Nanoparticles are meant to be distributed widely, and do accumulate in ovaries, testes, and uterus. What happens to the lipid nanoparticles that enclose the genetic material in the mRNA vaccines? Pfizer did not perform standard biodistribution studies. 

College students are probably delaying marriage and family until educational or career goals are achieved. So, they might not discover infertility for years. But there are early warnings from fertility clinics about failed in-vitro fertilization with previously successful donors. 

Once injected, the genetically engineered materials cannot be removed. We do not know how long the mRNA or the spike proteins it codes for will remain in the tissues.

Risks and benefits need be considered for different age groups. Persons past reproductive years have a higher risk of disease; younger persons seldom get seriously ill with COVID. A one-size-fits-all mandate is without justification.

Those deciding whether to accept the shots, and their spiritual, parental, and career advisors, have a heavy responsibility with a potential impact on all future generations.

For further information:

·         64 days without answers from the CDC

·         57 experts call for immediate halt to COVID vaccine programs

·         2 vaccine deaths for 3 prevented (retracted because vaccines not proved to be cause of death)

·         AAPS open letter to universities on COVID mandate

Jane Orient, M.D., Exec. Dir., Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, [email protected]

COVID-19, Guest Column, Medicine, What's New

COVID-19: Is College Worth the Risk of the Shot?

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by Jane M. Orient, MD

Are you one of the millions of American students (or their parents) facing the choice of taking the COVID shot or being barred from school?

The 800 reported cases of heart inflammation, now being investigated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), give a new urgency to the question. The most poignant case might be the 19-year-old girl, a journalism student at Northwestern University, who died two months after receiving her first dose of the Moderna product. Even a heart transplant could not save her.

One of the world’s most widely published cardiologists, Dr. Peter McCullough, fears that many of these formerly fit and healthy young people will wind up with heart failure.

Depending on the amount of underreporting, the rate of heart problems in young men following the COVID jab may be 600 times the background rate.

Half the patients with a diagnosis of heart failure live less than 5 years. Even if heart damage is mild, the patient might not be able to participate in athletics or aspire to be a pilot, firefighter, or soldier, or to engage in any physically demanding occupation.

Another potential risk is infertility. This might not become apparent for years, as college students are generally postponing childbearing until they achieve educational or career goals. But an early warning signal is coming from fertility clinics, where eggs and sperm from previously successful donors are not producing viable embryos.

Having a significant fraction of our young people disabled or infertile is a truly existential risk.

Yet, despite objections from physicians, hundreds of colleges are still insisting that students get the jab, even those already immune, who gain no conceivable benefit.

Legal challenges may be undertaken, but courts have generally been unsympathetic to challenges to vaccine mandates. A Texas court just dismissed a challenge by some 116 employees of the Houston Methodist hospital system, who will be fired if they decline the shots.

Many will take the shots, even against their better judgment, because of peer pressure, continued trust in the CDC, the belief that these genetically engineered products are no different from other vaccines, or the high cost of disrupting their career plans. Since the purveyors of the products are protected from liability, all costs—even of death and disability—will be borne by students and their families.

For further information:

·         Summary of reports to VAERS

·         Weekly summaries of reports to British Yellow Card system (scroll down to “vaccine analysis print” for the various brands)

Contact [email protected] or (520) 323-3110 if you would like to discuss these issues.

Jane M. Orient, M.D.

Executive Director, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

COVID-19, Guest Column, What's New

More Pandemic Corruption: Refusal to Fully Recognize Natural Immunity

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by Joel S. Hirschhorn

The newest wrinkle on pandemic corruption is how most of the medical and public health establishment refuses to accept natural immunity, obtained through COVID infection, as equivalent to or even better than the artificial immunity obtained from vaccines.

The reason is simple.  The more that natural immunity is accepted, the more reason there is to reject getting one of the experimental COVID vaccines.  Half the US population from kids to adults likely have natural immunity, even though most never suffered any serious ill effects from being infected.

And there clearly is an ongoing bulldozer over facts run by President Biden all the way through the entire federal and state public health system to coerce Americans to get vaccinated.

Their efforts could fail if most of those with natural immunity acted rationally and decided not to take any of the increasing risks from the experimental vaccines.

No big money can be made from all those with natural immunity. For that bonanza for drug companies to fully materialize natural immunity has to be ignored, dismissed or otherwise discounted and discredited. More bad science.

Think of the refusal to respect natural immunity akin to what the government has done to stop widespread use of cheap generics for early home/outpatient COVID treatment that cures and prevents infection.  This early action was key for the success of the wait-for-the-vaccine pandemic strategy.

To understand the full measure of this latest corruption here are recent developments and revelations.

On May 19 the FDA issued guidance that clearly said “If you have not been vaccinated: Be aware that a positive result from an antibody test does not mean you have a specific amount of immunity or protection from SARS-CoV-2 infection.”  Antibodies in blood are a basic way to determine immunity. So, the FDA clearly does not want people who have natural immunity to use antibody test results as a replacement for vaccine certification. If this was allowed, then millions of Americans who rightfully fear many negative health impacts from vaccines would have a way to prove with antibody test results that they do not need vaccination because they already have natural immunity. This could greatly reduce the financial bonanza sought by big drug companies and facilitated by the federal agencies.

The position of FDA is also that antibodies provided by the vaccines are superior to the antibodies developed from being infected by the virus. In other words, vaccines create antibodies and protection that the regular antibodies created by natural immunity do not provide. This is false and bad science.

That government position is contradicted by empirical study data according to the eminent Yale University epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch. He explained that serum antibodies and T-cell antibodies – the white blood cells that attack infections – demonstrate past history of infection. And that even though antibodies may be different between people with natural immunity versus those in vaccinated people this difference is irrelevant. “These natural antibodies are proof of past infection,” said Risch. “Past infection is extremely strong evidence of immunity.” But FDA does not want to jeopardize the vaccine market by acknowledging an antibody blood test could and should substitute for vaccine certification. 

A key outspoken proponent for natural immunity is Johns Hopkins physician Marty Makary. In a powerful article, “The Power of Natural Immunity” he informs the public with sound science. Here are some of his key points. “There’s ample scientific evidence that natural immunity is effective and durable, and public-health leaders should pay it heed.”  A huge number of Americans have natural immunity because though “Only around 10% of Americans have had confirmed positive Covid tests, but four to six times as many have likely had the infection.” Rather than credit vaccination for positive results, Makary makes this key point: “the effect of natural immunity is all around us. The plummeting case numbers in late April and May weren’t the result of vaccination alone, and they came amid a loosening of both restrictions and behavior.” 

Here is another key scientific point from Makary. Natural immunity is durable. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis reported last month that 11 months after a mild infection immune cells were still capable of producing protective antibodies. The authors concluded that prior Covid infection induces a ‘robust’ and ‘long-lived humoral immune response,’ leading some scientists to suggest that natural immunity is probably lifelong.  Because infection began months earlier than vaccination, we have more follow-up data on the duration of natural immunity than on vaccinated immunity.”  This is one expert the public should listen to, unlike the science babble coming from Fauci.

Here is yet another point Makary made to counter the views of other “experts.”  “Some health officials warn of possible variants resistant to natural immunity. But none of the hundreds of variants observed so far have evaded either natural or vaccinated immunity with the three vaccines authorized in the U.S “

On the key point of whether people with natural immunity should get vaccinated, Makary noted, “My clinical advice to healthy patients with natural immunity is that one shot is sufficient, and maybe not even necessary, although it could increase the long-term durability of immunity.” However, he cites this new evidence: “Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic published a study this week of 1,359 people previously infected with Covid who were unvaccinated.  None of the subjects subsequently became infected, leading the researchers to conclude that ‘individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination.’” This message will not be found in what big media is telling the public.

Dr. Makary’s bottom line is this sage advice: “It’s time to stop the fear mongering and level with the public about the incredible capabilities of both modern medical research and the human body’s immune system.” This, too, is what he has said: “natural immunity and vaccinated immunity are equally effective and “probably life-long.” Also, “between the roughly 50% of Americans he thinks are naturally immune and the 41% fully vaccinated so far, the United States has already reached herd immunity – the point at which enough of the population is impervious to COVID-19 that the virus will run out of places to spread and die out.” Natural immunity is a key reason herd immunity has likely been reached, making all onerous contagion controls as critiqued in Pandemic Blunder no longer justified. And why the endless coercion for COVID vaccination is very far from following the science.

Interestingly, the World Health Organization removed from its website the scientific fact that natural immunity contributes to herd immunity which does not depend solely on artificial immunity from vaccination.

Other new research findings are relevant to the natural immunity discussion.

A recent study from the Cleveland Clinic found that individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection and have natural immunity are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.  The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection remained almost zero among three groups — those previously infected who remained unvaccinated (of 2,579, 1,359, or 53%, remained unvaccinated,); those previously infected who were vaccinated; and those previously uninfected who were vaccinated — compared with a steady increase in cumulative incidence among previously uninfected subjects who remained unvaccinated.

One study, published in The Lancet’s journal EClinicalMedicine, examined data from antibodies in 39,086 individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 from March 2020 and January 2021. It found an “encouraging timeline for the development and sustainability of antibodies up to ten months from natural infection.” This latest study adds to a growing body of scientific evidence indicating that natural immunity is long-lasting even without vaccination.

Another study, in Nature, found that COVID-19 infection “induces a robust antigen-specific, long-lived humoral immune response in humans,” with antibodies “remaining detectable at least 11 months after infection.” Another, published at BioRxiv, found that even without vaccination, antibodies in the infected “remain relatively stable from 6 to 12 months,” while “B cell clones expressing broad and potent antibodies are selectively retained in the repertoire over time and expand dramatically after vaccination.” Another study from Israel found that natural immunity was slightly more effective against reinfection than the Pfizer vaccine, at 94.8% versus 92.8%.

Dr. Suneel Dhand a frontline physician has openly said that after he got COVID he has measured his antibodies for over a year and they remain high.

“There is more data on natural immunity than there is on vaccinated immunity, because natural immunity has been around longer,” said Dr. Makary..”  If only the government would share this view and big media would stop being a shill for the drug industry.  Those pushing for vaccine passports fear anything that substantiates the benefits of natural immunity.  And it is very difficult for people to get blood tests for antibodies, and the expense is not justified as long as the government denies the benefits of natural immunity.

For those who genuinely want to follow the science, the millions of people under the age of 70 who have gained natural immunity and have no serious chance of major bad health impacts from COVID should bet on natural immunity versus taking a chance with vaccines.

Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn, author of Pandemic Blunder, worked on health issues for decades. As a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he directed a medical research program between the colleges of engineering and medicine. As a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, he directed major studies on health-related subjects; he testified at over 50 US Senate and House hearings and authored hundreds of articles and op-ed articles in major newspapers. He has served as an executive volunteer at a major hospital for more than 10 years. He is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and America’s Frontline Doctors.

COVID-19, Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Op-eds, Politics, What's New

COVID-19: Speaking Up in Black and White

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These days more and more apparently intelligent people seem to upspeak. That’s the irritating “Valley Girl” inflection where every sentence sounds like a question. Don’t these people trust their own thoughts and words? 

Perhaps upspeakers’ brains are fried after being fed a steady diet of DEI, ESG, and BIPOC. For the uninitiated, these initials stand for “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”, a corporate stock/investment rating based on Environmental awareness, Social justice and (right-minded) Governance to enhance the lives of “Black, Indigenous, People of Color.” “Privilege” gets the full word. White people must “check their privilege at the door” and shut up under the current era of Stalinesque cancel culture.

Black American slaves used to have some version of Simon Legree as their master. Now the woke white liberals have assumed that role. Even President Biden views BIPOCs as helpless morons whom only the government can rescue.

Of course, little BIPOCs are the perfect unsuspecting targets. Despite parental objections, new school curricula include Marxist inspired critical race theory that teaches children to hate others based on skin color. Instead of learning the 3 Rs, kindergarteners are encouraged to explore their gender identity and question the family structure. The latest data show that only 35 percent of 4th graders are proficient in reading and 41 percent are proficient in math. Instead of learning the necessary skills to race to the top of the ladder of success, they have the tools to win the victim triathlon. The prize: dependency on government resources.

COVID-19 added a new ingredient to the melting pot. Brown-skinned Americans fare more poorly with COVID than whites. Some reasons are sociological, such as crowded living conditions, working in service jobs that cannot be done from home, and inconsistent access to health care. Some reasons may be physiological. Studies have shown racial differences in the body’s ACE-2 receptors. These receptors help control inflammation, especially in cells lining the blood vessels. These are the sites where the “spike” protein of the SARS-Co-V-2 virus (that causes COVID-19) enter and infect healthy cells throughout the body. Notably, there may be more ACE-2 receptors in patients with hypertension, diabetes and coronary artery disease—conditions plaguing black Americans. Moreover, people with brown skin have lower levels of Vitamin D, a factor in the risk of contracting a SARS-Co-V-2 infection and the severity of COVID-19. 

Knowing the higher risk, the DEI folks should have launched an education campaign informing BIPOCs about non-prescription supplements like quercetin, zinc, and vitamin D, as well as prophylaxis or early treatment with inexpensive medications (hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and fluvoxamine, among others) that can significantly reduce symptoms and prevent hospitalizations and deaths.

Instead, the public health gurus waited for vaccines. The guise of “vaccine equity” drew attention away from legitimate concerns about the shots. Despite the increased susceptibility to COVID-19, black Americans remain skeptical of the shot. Folks still remembered the instances where the underserved were “helped” by the government. The 1932 Tuskegee syphilis study denied a group of black men treatment for 40 years. Without informed consent, an experimental measles vaccine was administered to babies starting in 1987. After too many African and Haitian children deaths to ignore, the program was halted.

Able to read, BIPOCs learned about the serious side effects that include sometimes fatal blood clots, facial paralysis, possible menstrual problems, heart inflammation, among others. They wondered why the less effective Johnson & Johnson vaccine was sent to underserved neighborhoods. They wondered why the government had to offer $116 million in prizes, trucks, and customized firearms to encourage people to get the shot. They wondered why the government was going door to door to find BIPOCs to whom to give shots. 

In order to swoop in to the rescue, the government-pharmaceutical complex could not allow the 34 million Americans who have had documented COVID-19 or a SARS-CoV-2 infection to depend on their natural immunity. Like a virus escaping from a lab or jumping from a pangolin to infect humans, the government control expanded from BIPOCs to privileged white folks.

What are we to do about the tension between addressing real health disparities and recognizing that racial disparities are used as a cover for manipulating society? Together we rip off the mask of benevolence. As ethical physicians, we pledge to treat all individuals with dignity and respect. We will explain the risks and benefits of their options and let patients decide. As active citizens, we demand prophylaxis, treatments of our choice, and the freedom to choose to receive or decline the shot. We take advantage of the law. A number of courts have been on the patient’s side.

Save yourself. Be bold. Speak up. 

COVID-19, Guest Column, Politics, What's New

Costly Tradeoff with the Wait for the Vaccine Pandemic Strategy

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by Joel S. Hirschhorn

Americans and most of the global population for over a year have been consumed with fear, sacrifices and concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic. But few people have understood or been given a chance to support or reject what is best seen as the wait for the vaccine pandemic strategy.

Hidden from public view was a most substantial tradeoff between doing what was feasible to save lives of most people infected by COVID starting in the early months of the pandemic versus placing priority on waiting for COVID vaccines to be the pandemic salvation. This tradeoff violated key principles and ethics of medicine, and also undermined American democracy. Many nations followed what the US did.

Here is the most important aspect of this strategy. This tradeoff happened despite an enormous amount of data from the US and other nations that pioneering clinicians had found successful early home/outpatient COVID treatments. These were true cures, because they stopped the viral infection in its first viral replication stage. The treatment kept patients with symptoms out of the hospital.

So, another aspect of the tradeoff was that by not supporting early home/outpatient treatment hospitals became crushed by COVID victims that had passed through the first stage into greatly worse symptoms in the second and third stages of the infection. Enormous pain, suffering, deaths and costs were the inevitable consequence of not pushing early home/outpatient treatment and, instead, waiting for COVID vaccines.

Details and data on the considerable positive data on these treatments have been given in my book Pandemic Blunder. A pro-treatment article noted that two leading physicians used ivermectin to treat themselves when they got infected with COVID. One good source of data on early treatment should be promoted for public use.

Despite what many physicians and medical researchers concluded were treatments that cured COVID, others even today have negative views about the two most cheap generic medicines used in many treatment protocols and cocktails, namely hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

Data on the treatment success first started to be made public in March 2020, mostly by Dr, V. Zelenko, a frontline community physician in New York.  A number of other clinicians followed through the early months of the pandemic and, even today, keep using both generics with remarkable success. But the mainstream and corporate social media have stubbornly refused to view the treatment “solution” in a positive way. The biggest reason for this refusal to truly follow the science is that under the leadership of Dr. Fauci both NIH and FDA issued guidance blocking wide use of both generics. These actions essentially killed wide use of COVID treatment for the general public as well as health care workers. What happened instead?

Behind the scenes the leading federal officials at NIH, FDA and CDC decided to execute the wait for vaccine strategy and successfully convinced President Trump and his White House pandemic task force to pump billions of dollars into Operation Warp Speed in April 2020.

Dr. Peter McCullough made this important point: “All efforts on treatment were dropped. Warp Speed went full tilt for vaccine development, and there was a silencing of any information on treatment.” He has said that 85 percent of COVID deaths can be prevented with treatment. Back in November 2020, he said “we can prevent hospitalization and death,” and spoke of a crime against humanity because of negative views on early home treatment.

What is critically important to recognize is that out of the current 600,000 COVID deaths in the US over 500,000 could have been prevented with the treatment approach. Globally over 3 million lives could have been saved. This view of preventable deaths was an important conclusion in Pandemic Blunder based on clinical evidence.

Here too, big media has refused to acknowledge what so many experts have said about the enormous missed opportunity to save lives.

In my opinion, any physician who also has a negative view of the treatments based on hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin has either not spent sufficient time examining available data or has fallen victim to the propaganda and disinformation unleashed by big media. The record is clear.  Both generics have many decades of safe use and are fully FDA approved. The websites of three organizations should be used by physicians to access good information on early treatments: Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance. America’s Frontline Doctors and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.  People can get hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin through these groups.

Now we are in the COVID vaccine stage with all vaccines being used correctly categorized as experimental.  They are not fully FDA approved but are used under an emergency use designation. Every day in the US and many other countries, there is an endless flow of accounts of vaccine-related deaths and serious negative health impacts. Two websites are good sources of information on vaccine-related impacts: Health Impact News and The COVID Blog that are largely ignored by big media.

Dr. Peter McCullough has recently said that “if this were any other vaccine it would have been pulled from the market by now for safety reasons.” “Based on the safety data now, I can no longer recommend it.  There are over 4,000 dead Americans, there are over 10,000 in Europe that die on days one, two and three after the vaccine,” said McCullough.

This is the reality for the COVID vaccines: As of May 7, there have been 192,954 adverse-event reports associated with COVID vaccines reported to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System [VAERS], including 4,057 deaths.  Previous studies, including one from Harvard University, estimate that only 1 to 10 percent of all vaccine-related ill effects get reported to VAERS. In other words, there are probably more people dying from the COVID vaccines than has been reported. Importantly, as to informed consent, people receiving the vaccine are not told about the CDC data, nor are they knowledgeable about serious health impacts globally.

For comparison: There are 20 to 30 deaths reported every year to VAERS related to the flu shot.  That’s with 195 million receiving flu shots, far more than COVID fully vaccinated people to this point.

Dr. Marty Makary, a truth-telling Johns Hopkins physician, has made the point that “natural immunity works” and it is wrong to vilify those who don’t want the vaccine because they have already recovered from the virus. “There is more data on natural immunity than there is on vaccinated immunity, because natural immunity has been around longer,” he emphasized. “We’ve got to start respecting people who choose not to get the vaccine instead of demonizing them,” Makary said. A professor at the renowned Johns Hopkins School of Medicine recently has said that about 150 million Americans have natural immunity.

In the Fauci wait for the vaccine strategy, access to generics like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin had to be choked. The federal stockpile of hydroxychloroquine was not used. The pandemic had to boil and create consumer demand for vaccines, even as enormous numbers of people worldwide died unnecessarily. Fauci and other federal doctors failed their oath to first do no harm, meaning their responsibility to act quickly to treat their patients and avoid hospitalization and possible death.

What was the real driving force for the wait for the vaccine strategy?

The most logical explanation is to follow the money.

Lives lost were necessary to ensure that trillions of dollars would eventually be made by big drug companies – a classic case of profits over people. The pandemic was seen as a marketing bonanza for big drug companies, a global financial opportunity of epic historic proportions. Here is what the public needs to understand: Public health was sacrificed at the altar of corporate greed.

The most charitable interpretation of the strategy is that vaccine proponents envisioned a life-saving pandemic solution eventually.

The key question is whether the majority of Americans would have ever supported the Fauci strategy if they knew about the true costs of trading treatments for vaccines.

Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn worked on health issues for decades. As a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he directed a medical research program between the colleges of engineering and medicine. As a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, he directed major studies on health-related subjects; he testified at over 50 US Senate and House hearings and authored hundreds of articles and op-ed articles in major newspapers. He has served as an executive volunteer at a major hospital for more than 10 years. He is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and America’s Frontline Doctors.  His newest book is Pandemic Blunder.

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