In 2023, US Senator Rand Paul's (from Kentucky) book, Deception: The Great Covid Cover-Up, blew up the covers of public health bureaucracy. His well-documented coverage blew the lid off Anthony Fauci, the former Chief Medical Advisor of the President of the United States, and his scientific yes-men who knew about Covid's supposed true origins from day one.
Paul's book presented evidence that The Covid virus was likely the product of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab in Chinaresearch funded in part by the U.S. government.
On April 9, he again took back the reins in his hands to further expose bombshells about federal employees covering up alleged hard facts about COVID-19's reality. His recent discoveries caught government officials from 15 federal agencies possessing knowledge of how the coronavirus was basically manufactured in 2018.
Penning his findings on the Fox News website, Paul claimed these officials were well aware that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was attempting to create a virus like COVID-19. Despite the hefty knowledge in their corner, they failed to expose the scheme to the public and chose to maintain their forthcoming stance. Moreover, 15 organisations similarly turned away from publicly releasing the details of the hazardous research.
The US senator reported that at least 15 federal agencies had knowledge of the project introduced by Peter Daszaks EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. These findings imply that all these agencies were privy to the EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology's need for federal funding in 2018.
Also read | Rep. AOC shares deepfake porn encounter experience, saying It resurfaces trauma
Known as the DEFUSE project, its plans intended to insert a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus to create a novel chimeric virus that would have been shockingly similar to the COVID-19 virus.
US-based research organisation EcoHealth Alliance's President, Peter Daszak, and Ralph Baric, the University of North Carolina scientist, concealed all facts related to the issue that could've possibly birthed the coronavirus, an alleged man-made virus.
Dr Anthony Fauci was previously also mentioned in the senator's book. His latest report again brings him up, claiming that his National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) wasn't merely briefed on the matter, but also engaged in the initial DEFUSE project pitch. Additionally, Fauci's Rocky Mountain Lab was also associated as a partner of the Wuhan Institute of Virology for the same proposal.
Also read | WHO sounds alarm on viral hepatitis infections that claim 3,500 lives each day
The newly discovered documents also out researcher Ian Lipkin, whose lab has been funded (worth millions of dollars) by EcoHealth, as one of the original participants of the project.
In his Fox News piece, Paul declared that despite all these agencies and their top-notch officials staying tight-lipped, Marine Lt. Col. Joseph Murphy came forward as the whistleblower, revealing the truth.
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Home-schooling and caring for children during the COVID-19 school and daycare closures left many working mothers physically and mentally exhausted and with little or no time to switch off, a new study shows.
The experience left working women with children feeling stressed, guilty, and worried, researchers found.
Mothers often felt overly stressed trying to balance work and family responsibilities, guilty for not meeting their child's needs, and were worried over their child's well-being and academic progress and increasing work demands.
Most of those who took part in the research found their workload increased dramatically, having a negative impact on their well-being and their children.
Supporting home-schooling while working and as part of an already heavy daily routine caused "frustration" and "home school" fatigue. It involved managing conflicting demands and handling constant interruptions and unforeseeable events such as child emotional outbursts and sibling fights.
The study, by Angeliki Kallitsoglou from the University of Exeter, and Pamela-Zoe Topalli from the University of Turku, Finland is published in the journal Frontiers in Sociology.
Dr. Kallitsoglou said, "These findings underscore the importance of prioritizing maternal well-being in post-pandemic recovery efforts. What is needed for mothers is timely access to intervention for mental health and also family-friendly work policies and offering support with childcare and children's learning as essential measures.
"Our research shows the need to recognize the importance of paternal involvement in domestic work and family life for the well-being of working mothers."
A total of 47 working mothers in the UK took part in an anonymous online survey of open-ended questions. Around half of those who took part worked full time, and 85% worked from home. Their children were aged between 1 and 17 years. A total of 70% were homeschooling children and three quarters were married.
One full-time home-working mother with a young child said, "I've worked all the hours in between looking after the little one and the house work and the life admin and the food shopping. I've worked till 10pm at night to write reports, checked emails at 7am or on the go (they go straight to my personal mobile so I cant switch off). I feel conflicted all the time, like I cant do it all but people around me seem to do it all and if I drop the ball on something I feel like I've failed. I want to be a great mum and great at my job and the cost comes to my personal well-being."
Difficulties with working and home-schooling at the same time intensified if children were young, had, special educational needs (SEN), a challenging temperament or were not motivated.
Dr. Kallitsoglou said, "Mothers felt stressed because of having to manage competing tasks such as work, home-schooling/caring for children, and household chores. Mothers also felt guilty, as if they were not being good enough, not measuring up to other parents, and not spending enough time/making an effort to home-school and support children's learning.
"Others felt angry and resentful, often in response to unequal distribution of chores, not being able to send kids to school like other parents, and increased workloads. While for a few mothers the lockdown experience evoked positive emotional states such as feeling grateful and motivated, energy and motivation waned after a while for many."
Several partners of those who took part in the study took on more responsibility at home because of home-schooling and the increased need for childcare. A few mothers reported that their partners' involvement in home duties was limited. Often, this was due to a gendered approach to domestic responsibilities which mothers were not happy about.
Flexible working arrangements allowed more time for family, to exercise and prepare fresh meals, to improve sleeping habits and, in some cases, to pick new hobbies.
However, not everyone benefited by flexible working arrangements. A few mothers were worried over being less visible at work. For others it meant disrupted family routines, blurred boundaries between work and family life, and intensification of housework including preparing fresh meals and cleaning.
The school was another important source of support and included provision of devices, individualized support for SEN, and access to lesson plans or worksheets posted online. But on-line lessons were not always perceived as helpful and pleasant when combined with the expectation of sharing on-line parent-child joint activities which working mothers did not have the time to engage with.
A few mothers voiced concerns over the adequacy of the support provided, the frequency of communication with teachers and schools, the excessive amount of homework, and the demands made on parent's time to home-school.
More information: Angeliki Kallitsoglou et al, Home-schooling and caring for children during the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK: emotional states, systems of support and coping strategies in working mothers, Frontiers in Sociology (2024). DOI: 10.3389/fsoc.2024.1168465
Lancetstudy solidifies evidence of long-term viral persistence after COVID; demonstrates urgency of sustained research into the chronic health consequences of the virus
MEDFORD, Mass., April 8, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Research published today in Lancet Infectious Diseasesand supported by PolyBio Research Foundation provides the strongest evidence yet that the COVID virus can persist for months or years after infection. The findings, published by a UC San Francisco/Harvard Medical School team, found that proteins created by the virus were still present for up to 14 months in a quarter of people tested. This demonstrates SARS-CoV-2 viral persistence as an urgent area of research underlying a breadth of chronic disease after COVID.
"The fact that every new SARS-CoV-2 infection has the potential to become chronic is perhaps the single most concerning aspect of this virus," says Dr. AmyProal, President of PolyBio. "We have compelling data that viral persistence is much more common than recognized which could have major health implications."
Solid Evidence of Persistent Infection
The researchers analyzed blood samples from 171 people who had been infected with the virus. Using a novel ultra-sensitive blood test, they found that proteins from the virus were still present up to one year after infection in up to 25% of people. These findings greatly bolster evidence that the coronavirus can linger in tissue and organs, even after recovery from acute infection.
The likelihood of detecting the COVID proteins indicative of persistent virus was about twice as high among those who were hospitalized for COVID as it was for those who were not. It was also higher for those who were not hospitalized but reported being sicker.
The researchers note that viral proteins identified in the study could not have been a result of the COVID vaccine, since nearly all study participants had not received the shots prior to the blood collection. In addition, proteins were only rarely found in banked blood obtained from over 200 people before the pandemic, confirming the accuracy of the blood test used in the research.
"Finding COVID-19 proteins floating in the bloodstream for more than a year following initial infection was a surprise to most of us and is the product of new molecular tools. This finding now firmly informs the next step in our research agenda --- is persistence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for causing people's current symptoms in Long COVID or medical events they may have in the future?" says Jeffrey N. Martin, Head of the Division of Clinical Epidemiology at University of California, San Francisco who co-led the study.
Martin is part of a multi-disciplinary collaborationbehind the findings. The blood test used to find viral proteins was created by Harvard Medical School's David Walt - founder of biotech companiesthat have transformed technologies across biomedical research. The blood samples were provided by volunteers in the UCSF Long-term Impact of Infection with Novel Coronavirus (LIINC)study. The UCSF team contains experts who helped make HIV/AIDS a treatable disease and pivoted their infrastructure into Long COVIDvia LIINC in April of 2020.
The UCSF team is part of PolyBio's LongCovid Research Consortium - a privately funded global collaborationof scientists working rapidly to documentSARS-CoV-2 persistence in Long COVID, with data channeled into clinical trials. In a seminal Nature paper, the Consortium delineated a roadmap for the study of SARS-CoV-2 persistence that is being executed by dozens of international teams.
However, with an estimated 18 million adults and 5.8 million children suffering from Long COVID, government investment is also needed. SARS-CoV-2 has even been foundin the lymph nodes of children months after COVID, suggesting persistent infection can begin early in life.
"COVID persistence could contribute to Long COVID in both adults and children," says Michael Peluso, MD, principal investigator of LIINC and an infectious disease researcher in the UCSF School of Medicine. "We must rapidly keep studying that possibility."
About PolyBio
PolyBio Research Foundation is a 501(c)3 transforming how complex chronic conditions like Long COVID are studied, diagnosed, and treated. PolyBio conceptualizes research projects that identify root cause drivers of chronic conditions and builds collaborative teams to make the projects a reality. PolyBio is supported by numerous donors including Kanro - a philanthropic fund to support open source scientific research established by Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum.
Contact: Amy Proal PolyBio Research Foundation [emailprotected]
SOURCE PolyBio Research Foundation
Fatigue is a common long covid symptom
Catherine McQueen/Getty Images
People who develop long covid after being hospitalised with severe covid-19 have raised levels of many inflammatory immune molecules compared with those who recovered fully after such a hospitalisation, according to a study of nearly 700 people.
The findings show that long covid has a real biological basis, says team member Peter Openshaw at Imperial College London. People are not imagining it, he says. Its genuinely happening to them.
The researchers think the ongoing immune responses could be causing the symptoms of long covid. There are already some approved treatments that are designed to reduce these responses in other conditions, so the findings could lead to trials of these samedrugs for the treatment of long covid.
However, it is unclear whether the findings apply to people who develop long covid after milder SARS-CoV-2 infections that dont require hospitalisation.
It is also possible that, in some cases, the ongoing immune responses are due to persistent infection with SARS-CoV-2 or the activation of dormant viruses in the body, such as Epstein-Barr virus, says team member Felicity Liew, also at Imperial. If so, damping down immune responses could be counterproductive.
Long covid is a complex condition, says Liew. There isnt a single cause.
The study by Liewand her colleagues involved measuring the levels of 368 immune molecules in the blood of 659 people who were hospitalised with covid-19, mostly early on in the pandemic. The 426 people who were still reporting symptoms more than three months later were compared with the 233 who reported being fully recovered.
The study found that the patterns of immune activation reflected the main kinds of symptoms people with long covid reported. The five main symptom types were fatigue; cognitive impairment; anxiety and depression; cardiorespiratory symptoms; and gastrointestinal symptoms.
For instance, people with gastrointestinal symptoms had higher blood levels of SCG3, a signalling protein that is also elevated in the faeces of people with irritable bowel syndrome.
The findings wont help with diagnosing whether people have long covid or not, says team member Chris Brightling at the University of Leicester in the UK. But once the condition has been diagnosed, testing for these molecules could help reveal what kind of long covid people have, and thus what kind of interventions might help, he says.
A study last year estimated that 36 million people in Europe had or have long covid. Many people are still suffering, says Brightling.
I think its pretty clear from the results that the differences in blood protein levels do exist but questions remain as to how the differences arise, in what way they might or might not cause the symptoms and how this might lead to effective treatments, said Kevin McConway at the Open University in the UK, in a statement released by the Science Media Centre. It remains possible that the findings dont apply to people who were never hospitalised for covid, he said.
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Claim:
In March 2024, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a redacted 148-page study on myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccination.
In April 2024, a rumor circulated claiming that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had released a 148-page, completely redacted study the previous month on myocarditis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. One usershared the claim without context on X (formerly Twitter), garnering more than 18,000 views:
(X user @thehealthb0t)
Another X userlinked to a YouTube video of "The Jimmy Dore Show," posted at the end of March 2024, which discussed the topic at length and had received 13,000 likes and 124,000 views:
(X user @AgentOrangeUSMC)
This YouTube channel had 1.34 million subscribers at the time of this writing.
The document had been the subject of discussions during a hearing of the Novel Coronavirus Southwestern Intergovernmental Committee on March 15, 2024, which waslivestreamed.
"One hundred and forty eight pages," said Arizona state Sen. Janae Shamp as she held up blank pages during the hearing. "The entire thing is redacted. What good does a study do if there's nothing there?"
Peter McCullough, a cardiologist who contributed to the spread of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, also was at the hearing. "We're witnessing an active cover-up of a colossal consumer safety debacle that is basically affecting the entire world," he said. He then accused the CDC and the FDA, as well as the U.K., European and Australian medicine regulation agencies, of being complicit in this alleged cover-up.
As we will demonstrate below, the redacted document was not in any sense a "study."
A clip of the intergovernmental committee's hearing was shared on X(archived)on March 18, 2024, and was viewed 4 million times and amplified more than 20,000 times.
(screen capture)
The CDC did release 148 redacted pages following a Freedom of Information Act request by The Epoch Times concerning "MOVING" (Myocarditis outcomes after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination) surveys. These pages, however, were not a study. Zachary Stieber, the Epoch Times reporter who made the FOIA request, posted on X that he had noticed "confusion" about the document:
(@ZackStieber / X)
The post (archived) to which he replied included the 148 blank pages. Clicking on the linked document and zooming in, a small inscription appears in the upper left corner of the first page:
(X screenshot)
The inscription (b)(5), seen above, is repeated on every page of the document. This refers to information that is exempted from FOIA requests. According to the U.S. Justice Department:
Exemption 5 of the FOIA protects "inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency."
This detail confirms that the 148 redacted pages did not constitute a study, but were instead communications within the CDC or between the CDC and other agencies. We contacted the CDC asking for more details on the reason for the redaction and will update this story if we receive an answer.
Stieber, in his post, added that the CDC team in charge of studying myocarditis outcomes following COVID-19 vaccinations has already shared several studies on the topic. He links to one of them, published in 2022 in The Lancet, which concludes:
After at least 90 days since onset of myocarditis after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination, most individuals in our cohort were considered recovered by health-care providers, and quality of life measures were comparable to those in pre-pandemic and early pandemic populations of a similar age.
The paper also recommends further study into the topic.
The CDC and other research institutions have indeed released several studies on the link between the COVID-19 vaccine and both myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, which is an inflammation of the thin tissue that lines the heart. The CDC website links to 10 studies on myocarditis after the vaccine carried out between 2021 and 2022. As Stieber indicated in his post, the MOVING team told him it plans to publish another study with updated findings.
Several studies found that while myocarditis and pericarditis can follow mRNA vaccination, the data show vaccination protects against complications. For example, a study from Germany showed that the risk of dying from myocarditis from a COVID-19 infection is much higher than the risk of dying from myocarditis not caused by COVID-19.
Bemtgen, Xavier, et al. 'Myocarditis Mortality with and without COVID-19: Insights from a National Registry'. Clinical Research in Cardiology, vol. 113, no. 2, 2024, pp. 21622. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00392-022-02141-9.
Kracalik, Ian, et al. ' Ian Kracalik, PhD Matthew E Oster, MD Karen R Broder, MD Margaret M Cortese, MD Maleeka Glover, ScD Karen Shields, BS et al. Show All Authors Published:September 21, 2022DOI:Https://Doi.Org/10.1016/S2352-4642(22)00244-9 PlumX Metrics'. The Lancet, vol. 6, no. 11, Nov. 2022, pp. 78899, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(22)00244-9/fulltext.
Office of Information Policy | FOIA Guide, 2004 Edition: Exemption 5. 23 July 2014, https://www.justice.gov/archives/oip/foia-guide-2004-edition-exemption-5.
Vaccine Safety Publications | Research | Vaccine Safety | CDC. 27 Feb. 2024, https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/research/publications/index.html.
Video Player. https://www.azleg.gov/videoplayer/?clientID=6361162879&eventID=2024031052. Accessed 22 Mar. 2024.
NewsWatch 12 has the details.
MEDFORD, Ore. -- A group of lawsuits against Asante's health care operations are sharing a day in federal court.
Thirteen federal court cases have a shared proceeding this afternoon with the U.S. District Court in Medford.
A sampling of the cases shows claims of religious discrimination against Asante by health care workers who invoked religion as their rationale for refusing to get COVID-19 vaccinations, claiming their employment with Asante subsequently was suspended, causing wrongful employment termination for exercising their religious beliefs.
Eight of the cases list individual plaintiffs, and five of the civil cases have multiple plaintiffs, such asKather et al v. Asante Health System et al. For example, that case has 14 plaintiffs, including Michele Kather, Kourtney Selee, Alyssa Button, Justin Cirillo, Anna Drevenstedt, Ron Hittinger, Miles Kopish, Holly Martin, Tamara Rada, Jessica Stone, Michaela Begg, Myranda Miller, Ronda Osterberg and James Wilson. They list Asante Health System and Does 1 Through 50 as plaintiffs.
Their federal lawsuit seeks "damages for religious discrimintation in violation of Title VII ... and aiding and abetting religious discrimination."
A member of the Emergency Department staff of Asante Three Rivers Medical Center moves toward a patients room.
Today's court conference involves Asante Health System, Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center and Asante Three Rivers Medical Center as follow:
Salem-based attorney Ray Hacke is legal counsel for plaintiffs in three cases, including Kather.He said he believes all of today's Asante cases are COVID-19 vaccine related.
Hacke said Asante claims it accommodated employees who'd cited religion to decline COVID-19 vaccination by putting them on unpaid leave from work. He says, "Putting everybody on unpaid leave ... left people to choose between their faith and their employment."
A staff member of the Emergency Department at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center works at a computer terminal.
He said federal law is clear that employers should not penalize people who identify and articulate their religious beliefs as rationale for an allowed exemption from vaccination.He said, for example, Ronda Osterberg specifically spelled out her faith basis as rationale to Asante for declining COVID-19 vaccination, "then was fired outright."
Hacke said the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with jurisdiction over Oregon, last year ruled that an employee's religious observance is a minor adjustment for employers to accommodate.
His three cases are among today's 13 cases he says are getting consolidated by the federal district court in Medford, including his largest plaintiffs case with 47 plaintiffs.
Hacke said he believes all 13 of today's cases involve Asante employee dismissals for refusing COVID-19 vaccine, and most of them involve religious discrimination claims for people who invoked their religion as a protected right for declining the vaccine, including Asante staff chaplain James Wilson. Hacke says a few cases might involve staff members who invoked protections in the federal Americans with Disabilities Act for medical exemptions from vaccination. His religious discrimination cases involve claims from more than 60 plaintiffs.
Hacke said one of his filings is a potential class-action case. He notes that with class action cases, instead of needing to prove all plaintiffs' cases, then legal counsel need to prove one case or a sampling of cases that are representative of other plaintiffs.He said Asante is resisting a class action which, "could involve a substantial amount of money."
Hacke said his three pending cases leave damages for court to determine. He said some of his clients have mitigated their damages, or financial losses from their claimed Asante employment dismissal, by going to work for Providence's Medford medical organization or returning to Asante after about six months, without vaccination. Hacke says Asante's reinstatement of those plaintiffs/employees and accommodating their religious exemptions later appears to undermine Asante's position of dismissing them in the first place.
Hacke said his cases leave the court to determine adequate compensation for distress, depression, anxiety and punitive damages because they involve factors that are unmeasurable, with real costs and losses somewhat determinable.
He said the federal court is coordinating these 13 cases to process them together through the judicial system.Hacke said other similar cases are underway in other places in Oregon.
Hacke said this way the ruling and the court processing of the cases should be consistent.
He said U.S. District courts in Oregon have 120 COVID-19 vaccination cases.
A staff member in the Critical Care Unit at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center treats a patient. Due to the influx of critically-ill patients suffering from COVID-19, staff had to add beds to some rooms.
He has three cases against Asante, with other federal cases pending against Rogue Community Health and another party.
Hacke explains that Title VII federal statute claims have "burden shifting" framework. He said first, plaintiffs must demonstrate their religious beliefs caused conflict. Second, he says the employee/plaintiff must show they informed the employer about the conflict. Third, Hacke said then-plaintiffs must show the employer in question did not accommodate the employee or the employer took adverse action against the employee/s.
Hacke says then the employer must show either undue hardship prevented reasonable accommodation for the employee or show that accommodation was made, which Asante says unpaid leave provides.
Hacke says unpaid leave is same as employment termination, and he says in the "burden (of proof) shifting," then the next step is plaintiff showing "pretext," or demonstrating the employer's case is inaccurate or its action is a not an accommodation.
Hacke expects the consistent, consolidated treatment by the federal court will have the cases advance or end as one. He says besides representing a plaintiff who was Asante's chaplain, his clients include a security guard and a person who worked remotely.
An isolation room at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center displayed a green check, indicating the room was occupied by a patient not suffering from COVID-19, and no special precautions were needed when entering. The colored sphere above the door is used to indicate negative pressure, ensuring airflow is into the room, not out of it.
From spring break parties to Mardi Gras, many people remember the last major normal thing they did before the novel coronavirus pandemic dawned, forcing governments worldwide to issue stay-at-home advisories and shutdowns.
Even before the first case of COVID-19 was detected in the U.S., fears and uncertainties helped spur misinformations rapid spread. In March 2020, schools closed, employers sent staff to work from home, and grocery stores called for physical distancing to keep people safe. But little halted the flow of misleading claims that sent fact-checkers and public health officials into overdrive.
Some peoplefalselyassertedCOVIDs symptoms were associated with 5G wireless technology. Faux cures anduntested treatmentspopulated social media and political discourse. Amid uncertainty about the viruss origins, some peopleproclaimedCOVID didnt existat all. PolitiFact named downplay and denial about the virus its2020 Lie of the Year.
Four years later, peoples lives are largely free of the extreme public health measures that restricted them early in the pandemic. But COVID misinformation persists, although its now centered mostly on vaccines and vaccine-related conspiracy theories.
PolitiFact has publishedmore than 2,000 fact checksrelated to COVID vaccines alone.
From a misinformation researcher perspective, [there has been] shifting levels of trust, said Tara Kirk Sell, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Early on in the pandemic, there was a lot of: This isnt real, fake cures, and then later on, we see more vaccine-focused mis- and disinformation and a more partisan type of disinformation and misinformation.
Here are some of the most persistent COVID misinformation narratives we see today:
A Loss of Trust in the Vaccines
COVID vaccines were quickly developed, with U.S. patients receiving the first shots in December 2020, 11 months after the first domestic case was detected.
Experts credit the speedy development with helping tosave millions of livesand preventing hospitalizations. Researchers at the University of Southern California and Brown University calculated thatvaccines saved 2.4 million livesin 141 countries starting from the vaccines rollout through August 2021 alone. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows there were 1,164 U.S. deaths provisionallyattributed to COVIDthe week of March 2, down from nearly 26,000 at the pandemics height in January 2021, as vaccines were just rolling out.
But on social media and in some public officials remarks, misinformation about COVID vaccine efficacy and safety is common.U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has built his 2024 campaign on a movement that seeks to legitimize conspiracy theories about the vaccines. PolitiFact made that its2023 Lie of the Year.
PolitiFact has seen claims that spike proteins from vaccines arereplacing spermin vaccinated males. (Thatsfalse.) Weve researched the assertion that vaccines can change your DNA. (Thatsmisleading and ignores evidence). Social media posts poked fun at Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce for encouraging people to get vaccinated, asserting that the vaccine actually shuts off recipients hearts. (No, it doesnt.)And some people pointed to an American Red Cross blood donation questionnaire as evidence that shots are unsafe.(PolitiFact rated that False.)
Experts say this misinformation has real-world effects.
A September 2023 survey byKFF found that 57% of Americanssay they are very or somewhat confident in COVID vaccines. And those who distrust them are more likely to identify as politically conservative: Thirty-six percent of Republicans compared with 84% of Democrats say they are very or somewhat confident in the vaccine.
Immunization rates for routine vaccines for other conditions have also taken a hit. Measles had been eradicated for more than 20 years in the U.S. but there have been recent outbreaks instates including Florida,Maryland, and Ohio. Floridas surgeon general hasexpressedskepticismabout vaccines andrejectedguidancefrom the CDC about how to contain potentially deadly disease spread.
The vaccination rate among kindergartners has declined from 95% in the 2019-20 school year to 93% in 2022-23,according to theCDC. Public health officials have set a 95% vaccination rate target to prevent and reduce the risk of disease outbreaks. The CDC also foundexemptions had risen to 3%, thehighest rate ever recordedin the U.S.
Unsubstantiated Claims That Vaccines Cause Deaths or Other Illness
PolitiFact has seen repeated and unsubstantiatedclaims that COVID vaccines have caused mass numbers of deaths.
A recent widely shared post claimed17 million people had diedbecause of the vaccine, despite contrary evidence from multiple studies and institutions such as the World Health Organization and CDC that the vaccines are safe and help to prevent severe illness and death.
Another online post claimed the booster vaccine hadeight strains of HIVand would kill 23% of the population. Vaccine manufacturers publish theingredient lists; they do not include HIV. People living with HIV were among the peoplegiven priority accessduring early vaccine rollout to protect them from severe illness.
COVID vaccines also have been blamed forcausing Alzheimersandcancer. Experts have found no evidence the vaccines cause either conditions.
You had this remarkable scientific or medical accomplishment contrasted with this remarkable rejection of that technology by a significant portion of the American public, said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia.
More than three years after vaccines became available, about 70% of Americans have completed a primary series of COVID vaccination,according to CDC figures. About 17% have gotten the most recentbivalent booster.
False claimsoften pullfrom and misuse datafrom theVaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. The database, run by the CDC and the FDA, allows anybody to report reactions after any vaccine. The reports themselves are unverified, but the database is designed to help researchers find patterns for further investigation.
AnOctober 2023 surveypublished in November by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found 63% of Americans think it is safer to get the COVID-19 vaccine than the COVID-19 disease that was down from 75% in April 2021.
Celebrity Deaths Falsely Attributed to Vaccines
Betty White, Bob Saget,Matthew Perry, andDMXare just a few of the many celebrities whose deaths were falsely linked to the vaccine. The anti-vaccine filmDied Suddenly tried to give credence to false claims that the vaccine causes people to die shortly after receiving it.
Cline Gounder, editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News and an infectious disease specialist, said these claims proliferate because of two things:cognitive bias and more insidious motivated reasoning.
Its like saying I had an ice cream cone and then I died the next day; the ice cream must have killed me, she said. And those with preexisting beliefs about the vaccine seek to attach sudden deaths to the vaccine.
Gounder experienced thispersonally when her husband, the celebrated sports journalist Grant Wahl, died while covering the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Wahl died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm but anti-vaccine accounts falsely linked his death to a COVID vaccine, forcing Gounder topubliclyset the record straight.
It is very clear that this is about harming other people, said Gounder, who was aguestatUnited Facts of Americain 2023. And in this case, trying to harm me and my family at a point where we were grieving my husbands loss. What was important in that moment was to really stand up for my husband, his legacy, and to do what I know he would have wanted me to do, which is to speak the truth and to do so very publicly.
Out-of-Control Claims About Government Control
False claims that thepandemic was plannedby government leaders and those in power abound.
At any given moment, Microsoft Corp. co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, World Economic Forum head Klaus Schwab, or Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, are blamed for orchestrating pandemic-related threats.
In November, Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.)falsely claimedFauci brought the virus to his state ayear before the pandemic.There isno evidenceof that. Gates, according to the narratives, is using dangerous vaccines to push a depopulation agenda.Thatsfalse. And Schwab has not said he has an agenda to establish a totalitarian global regime using the coronavirus to depopulate the Earth and reorganize society. Thats part of aconspiracy theorythats come to be calledThe Great Resetthat has beendebunkedmanytimes.
The United Nations World Health Organization is frequently painted as a global force for evil, too, with detractors saying it is using vaccination to control or harm people. But the WHO has not declared thata new pandemicis happening, as some have claimed. Its current pandemic preparedness treaty is in no way positioned to remove human rights protections or restrict freedoms, asone post said. And the organization has not announced plans to deploy troops to corral people andforcibly vaccinate them. The WHO is, however, working on a new treaty to help countries improve coordination in response to future pandemics.
KFF Health Newsis a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFFan independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learnmore about us.
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(Precision Vaccinations News)
During the recent pandemic in the United States, leading public health officials noted a shift in the attitudes of pregnant and recently pregnant women towards vaccination.
As per an Original Investigation published by The JAMA OPEN Network today, during the first waves of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus outbreak, 76% of pregnant women received the COVID-19 vaccination.
Study participants were about31years of age and enrolled inthe U.S. CDC's Vaccine Safety Datalinkand were asked about their vaccination status.
Response rates were 43.5% for wave 1 (652 of 1500 individuals sampled) and 39.5% for wave 2 (575 of 1456).
Overall, 76.8% (95% confidence interval, 71.5%- 82.2%) reported having received one or more COVID-19 vaccinations.
Spanish-speaking Hispanic respondents had the highest weighted proportion of respondents with one or more vaccinations.
Additionally, these women were asked if they agreed with the statement that 'COVID-19 vaccines are safe.'
These researchers wrote on April 9, 2024, that there is decreasing confidence in COVID-19 vaccine safety in diverse pregnant and recently pregnant insured populations, which is a public health concern.
This study was supported by the U.S. CDC, contract number 200-2012-53581-0011, and no industry conflicts of interest were highlighted.
Day two of the trial for Michael Gordon Jackson, a man accused of abducting his daughter to avoid a COVID-19 vaccine continued in Regina Tuesday, with his former wife taking the stand.
Day two of the trial for Michael Gordon Jackson, a man accused of abducting his daughter to avoid a COVID-19 vaccine continued in Regina Tuesday, with his former wife taking the stand.
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The 53-year-old Jackson is charged that sometime between Dec. 6, 2021 and Jan. 21, 2022, at Carievale, Sask., he contravened a custody order by taking the child with intent to keep her from her mother.
Jackson is representing himself throughout the trial.
On Tuesday afternoon, the jury heard questions thrown at Mariecar Jackson concerning their daughter.
Mariecar told the courtroom that she and Michael met in 2013 and after three and a half years of marriage, the couple separated and Mariecar became the primary parent of their daughter.
In 2019, a final custody order was put in place, which said Mariecar would have the final decision on their daughters well-being, but Michael would have to be consulted.
Fast forward to Nov. 10, 2021, and Mariecar said Michael picked up their daughter from school and was supposed to drop her off on Nov. 15.
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She told the courtroom she was texting Michael when he said he would not be returning their daughter.
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Then, on Nov. 19, Mariecar claims Michael asked her to provide a letter outlining her position on their daughter being vaccinated for COVID-19.
A few days later on Nov. 21, Mariecar had a brief phone call with their daughter. She said the last words spoken to her were, I love you mom, before the call was disconnected.
On Nov. 26, RCMP officers breached the door of a home in Carievale looking for Michael and their child.
Mariecar says the next time she saw her daughter was when RCMP found Michael in Vernon, B.C., on Feb. 22, 2022.
The trail will continue throughout the next two weeks, with many witnesses still set to take the stand.
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Pharmaceutical watchdog, the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA), found that the pharma giant promoted unlicensed medicines and violated its regulatory code five times.
Back in 2020, Dr Berkley Phillips, medical director of Pfizer UK, retweeted a post on X from a US employee which stated: Our vaccine candidate is 95 per cent effective in preventing COVID-19, and 94 per cent effective in people over 65 years old. We will file all of our data with health authorities within days. Thank you to every volunteer in our trial, and to all who are tirelessly fighting this pandemic.
The post was also re-shared by four other UK employees at the company.
However, the PMCPA ruled that the post had limited information about the vaccines efficacy, no reference to adverse events and no safety information.
Therefore, the message resulted in an unlicensed medicine being proactively disseminated on Twitter to health professions and members of the public in the UK the regulatory body said.
As a result of the misjudged tweets, Pfizer was charged 34,800 in administrative costs.
But, how much damage has this done to Pfizer's reputation? Will it trigger internal changes at the drugmaker and does it indicate a wider problem in the industry?
While Dr. Ila Bhatia, consultant and social media expert for the life sciences and healthcare industry, describes the event as less than ideal it is important to note that it was a few employees sharing posts and such information was not shared from Pfizers official handles.
Pfizer and its employees should indeed be more responsible in posting on social media platforms considering its a very well-known brand with a global presence. Such events lead to poor public perception, not just for the company and its brand but also the industry as a whole, she tells Bio Pharma Reporter.
This initial complaint prompted the PMCPA to further investigate Pfizers misuse of social media to misleadingly and illegally promote their COVID-19 vaccine the ruling said.
It found that this social media misbehaviour was even more widespread than initially estimated, extending right to the top of their UK operation.
In response, a Pfizer UK spokesman said the company is deeply sorry and fully recognises and accepts the issues highlighted by this PMCPA ruling.
Pfizer UK has a comprehensive policy on personal use of social media in relation to Pfizers business which prohibits colleagues from interacting with any social media related to Pfizers medicines and vaccines backed by staff briefings and training, the company said.
The personal use of social media by UK pharmaceutical industry employees in relation to company business is a challenging area for pharmaceutical companies, in which we continue to take all of the appropriate steps that are reasonably expected of a pharmaceutical company.
The drugmaker also said it was conducting a review into employees social media use to avoid future regulatory missteps.
Dr Phillips, the employee at the heart of the issue, said his retweet was accidental and unintentional.
That said, we immediately accepted the case ruling and do everything we can to ensure that our employees adhere to our strict social media policy and the industry Code of Practice when using their personal social media, he added.
As someone who has worked in clinical research for years, Olga Peycheva, managing director at Solutions OP, can understand the excitement to share positive news about a clinical trial.
I believe the employees probably never considered that this will be considered as advertising. The reason for this is that companies do not provide training on advertising to their clinical operation staff and this is something reserved for their sales teams only, she tells Bio Pharma Reporter.
Personally, I hope Pfizer will see this training gap and help their clinical operation employees better understand the complications of their social media activities.
However, Ben Kingsley, head of legal affairs at UsForThem, had a less forgiving perspective, commenting: "Its astonishing how many times Pfizers senior executives have been found guilty of serious regulatory offences in this case including the most serious offence of all under the UK Code of Practice.
Yet the consequences for Pfizer and the individuals concerned continue to be derisory. This hopeless system of regulation for a multi-billion dollar life and death industry has become a sham, in dire need of reform.
The news comes after Pfizers CEO previously found himself in hot water over his misleading comments about childrens vaccines, made during an interview with the BBC.
In the interview, Dr Albert Bourla said that there is no doubt in my mind that the benefits, completely, are in favour of vaccinating youngsters aged five to 11 against Covid-19.
He added that: Covid in schools is thriving and there are kids that will have severe symptoms.
These comments were made before the vaccine received approval by the UKs medical regulator for this age group and were found to have breached code of practice by the PMCPA.
Pfizer has evidently made several missteps in this area. But will the company exercise more caution in the future and will its latest oversight serve as a warning for the pharma industry as a whole?
Companies and their employees should be extremely careful about what they are posting in the public domain. Pfizer needs to take more measures to inform its employees to not share incomplete or unnecessary information on platforms without prior approval, Bhatia adds.
Bhatia also argues that, since this is a recurring issue, stringent measures should be undertaken to make sure those breaching the code are adequately penalised which sets an example for the future and reduces the chances of such event reoccurring.
Such blunders are likely to cause both inconvenience and embarrassment for major, public-facing companies like Pfizer. They can also increase mistrust between the public and pharmaceutical companies, especially during a heighted time like the pandemic.
Pfizer's latest slap on the wrist follows several other watchdog complaints, indicating that the company must take action internally.
