The ‘moral and intellectual decay’ of COVID disinformants

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The ‘moral and intellectual decay’ of COVID disinformants
Published Tuesday 25 January 2022
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the son of assassinated Senator Robert. F. Kennedy, and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy. He is famous – or rather infamous – for being outspoken in his opposition to vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine. Here is the relevant section from Wikipedia :
During the  COVID-19 pandemic , Kennedy promoted multiple  conspiracy theories related to COVID-19  including false claims both  Anthony Fauci  and the  Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation  are trying to profit off a vaccine, and suggesting that  Bill Gates  would cut off access to money of people who do not get vaccinated, allowing them to starve. In August 2020, Kennedy appeared in an hour-long interview with  Alec Baldwin  on  Instagram , where he touted a number of incorrect and misleading claims about vaccines and public health measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Baldwin was criticized by public health officials and scientists for allowing Kennedy’s proclamations to go unchallenged. Kennedy has promoted misinformation about the  COVID-19 vaccine , falsely suggesting that it contributed to the death of 86-year-old  Hank Aaron  and others. In February 2021 his Instagram account was blocked for “repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines.” The  Center for Countering Digital Hate  identified Kennedy as one of the main propagators of conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and  5G  phone technology. His success as a conspiracy theorist increased his social media impact considerably; between the Spring and the Fall of 2020, his Instagram account grew from 121,000 followers to 454,000.
In November 2021, Kennedy’s book The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health was published wherein he alleges Fauci sabotaged treatments for AIDS, violated federal laws, and conspired with Bill Gates and social media companies such as Facebook to suppress any information about COVID-19 cures, to leave vaccines as the only options to fight the pandemic. [217] [218]  In the book, Kennedy calls Fauci “a powerful technocrat who orchestrated and executed the historic 2020 coup against Western democracy”. He claims Fauci and Bill Gates plan to prolong the pandemic and exaggerate its effects, promoting expensive vaccinations for the benefit of “a powerful vaccination cartel”. [219]  The  Neue Zürcher Zeitung  has said of the book “…polemics alternate with chapters that pedantically seek to substantiate Kennedy’s accusations with numerous quotations and studies.” [219]
Kennedy wrote the foreword for  Plague of Corruption  (2020), a book by former research scientist and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist  Judy Mikovits . [220]
Kennedy appeared as a speaker at the partially violent demonstration in  Berlin  on August 29, 2020, where  populist  groups called for an end to restrictions caused by COVID-19. [221] [222]  His YouTube account was removed in late September 2021 for breaking the company’s new policies on vaccine misinformation
A recent analysis centered on 812,000 anti-vaccine posts shared on Facebook or Twitter between February 1 and March 16, 2021. Two-thirds of the posts were shared by what CCDH calls the “Disinformation Dozen”:
Joseph Mercola,
Ben Tapper,
Kevin Jenkins.
Last week, Kennedy Jr. has surpassed himself. Addressing an anti-vaccination rally in Washington, DC on Sunday, Kennedy was reported to compare COVID-19 vaccination mandates to the Holocaust, saying that “Even in Hitler’s Germany… you could hide in the attic like Anne Frank did.”
The reaction of the official memorial of Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp in which more than 1 million people were murdered, was quick and (to my mind) justified: they accused the Kennedy Jr of “moral and intellectual decay”
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jrkrideau on Tuesday 25 January 2022 at 12:53
Kennedy was reported to compare COVID-19 vaccination mandates to the Holocaust,
This is a “normal” claim by many anti-vaxers in the USA. If we look around we can find photos of anti-vaxers even wearing yellow stars. Kennedy should know better but he seems to be so far down the rabbit-hole that rational thought eludes him.
IIRC his family has issued a statement divorcing themselves from his craziness.
DanLucas on Tuesday 25 January 2022 at 14:16
Dear Edzard, would you dare to take a closer look at the analyses of Prof. Dr. Kuhbandner from the University of Regensburg?
He assumes a direct link between currently observed excess mortality and the vaccinations, and the first refined after analyses seem to confirm the link. The work fits so well to the topic of the blog post, doesn’t it?
Christof Kuhbandner is known in Germany as a Corona denier. His “studies” ans “explanations” are for teh trash can.
Go play somewhere else, @DanLucas.
Frank Collins on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 00:21
Dan Lucas,
Of course there is going to a ‘link’ between vaccinations and excess mortality, but not for the reason you think.
The ‘link’ is they are happening at the same time but there is no causation. You and that alleged doctor have for the classic Logical Fallacy, post hoc ergo proctor hoc, this then that.
The vast majority of deaths are those who are not vaccinated, as COVID-19 inevitably sweeps through, so they are reaping what they have sown, by the denial of scientific evidence. That it coincides with the roll-out of vaccinations is also inevitable.
See, it isn’t that hard after all.
prl on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 02:06
DanLucas:
Dear Edzard, would you dare to take a closer look at the analyses of Prof. Dr. Kuhbandner from the University of Regensburg?
I’m not Edzard, and the paper is way out of my area, but how about:
It’s not published in a reputable, peer reviewed journal.
It’s published in a language that’s not likely to attract a large readership unless it has particularly strong results, in which case it would be probably be published in a reputable peer reviewed journal anyway, and most likely in English.
Prof. Dr Kuhbander is a psychologist, so epidemiology is probably a bit out of his area, too.
https://www.uni-regensburg.de/humanwissenschaften/psychologie-vi/lehrstuhl/prof-dr-christof-kuhbandner
The single paper in his publications list that mentions COVID in its title is:
Kuhbandner, C., & Homburg, S. (2020). Commentary: Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe. Frontiers in Medicine, 7: 580361
The paper that DanLucas linked to, such as it is, is: Prof. Dr. Christof Kuhbandner, “Der Anstieg der Übersterblichkeit im zeitlichen Zusammenhang mit den COVID-Impfungen” (roughly, “The rise in excess mortality in temporal association with COVID vaccinations”).
DanLucas on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 13:50
Thanks for your take. You’re right, I would nevertheless be curious to hear what Edzard has to say about these thoughts and the potential weaknesses of his approach. A similar paper by another Prof. was criticized because of the dependency on changing a variable, but the hint went in the same direction as memory serves.
May you be well.
Richard Rasker on Tuesday 25 January 2022 at 14:58
In my opinion, anyone who compares measures to combat a deadly pandemic to the deliberate and highly organized mass murder of millions of Jews, Roma and other groups cannot be considered sane any more. As in: I can’t even begin to imagine what must be going on in these people’s minds.
If there is any group causing lots of totally unnecessary deaths, it is people like Kennedy and his followers, who try to convince others that they should not protect themselves against a disease that has already killed millions.
It is most definitely NOT the scientists, doctors and governments around the world who do their stinking best to prevent sickness and death as much as possible.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what must be going on in these people’s minds.”
ME NEITHER
DanLucas on Tuesday 25 January 2022 at 17:13
If one can debunk the alleged link between excess mortality and vaccinations, then one can deprive such assumed unimaginable claims of their nutrient substrate without trying to imagine what is going on in the minds of others. If one doesnt, one nourishes them only, i am afraid.
If one can debunk the alleged link between excess mortality and vaccinations,
Here you go DanLucas, knock yourself out:
RPGNo1 on Tuesday 25 January 2022 at 18:31
The same is true in Germany. Many Corona deniers and anti-vaxers from the right-wing political spectrum compare the protective measures against Corona with Nazi methods or equate doctors who vaccinate with Joseph Mengele.
Some people even wore a Jewish badge with “unvaccinated” embroidered on it. However, since these acts are prosecuted by the police and punished by the courts, only a few people dare to do so.
DC on Tuesday 25 January 2022 at 15:43
EE: Addressing an anti-vaccination rally in Washington, DC on Sunday, Kennedy was reported to compare COVID-19 vaccination mandates to the Holocaust, saying that “Even in Hitler’s Germany… you could hide in the attic like Anne Frank did.”
Actually, I think he is saying vaccine mandates could be worse because with today’s technology one will not be able to hide from government mandates unlike how some were able to escape Hitler’s “mandates”.
“vaccine mandates could be worse because with today’s technology one will not be able to hide from government mandates unlike how some were able to escape Hitler’s “mandates””
whatever he tried to say was sick, despicable (and wrong [Anne Frank was gassed in Auschwitz])
@EE
It’s hardly a “movement”, it’s actually deep seated history.
Those opposed to forced vaccines have been around since the beginning of the movement to require vaccines.
Roger on Tuesday 25 January 2022 at 16:44
You vax-lovers have been a bubble so long, literally and figuratively, that you have forgotten that people can disagree about science and politics. You take every disagreement as some outlandish conspiracy theory or anti-science thought. I recommend that you actually read what RFK, jr has written instead of reading About what he has written.
JR on Tuesday 25 January 2022 at 18:44
”You vax-lovers have been a bubble so long, literally and figuratively, that you have forgotten that people can disagree about science and politics.”
Science is just a method to investigate and understand the world that we live in. You can certainly disagree about the findings of science as much as you want, it doesn’t make you right, nor in line with the evidence.
As someone once said : ”You can choose to ignore (or in your case, disagree) gravity, you’re still bound by it”.
Honest Ape on Tuesday 25 January 2022 at 22:57
Roger said:
that you have forgotten that people can disagree about science and politics. You take every disagreement as some outlandish conspiracy theory or anti-science thought.
@Roger
Science disagrees with me on this and a lot of other things, but that doesn’t stop me from believing that earth is flat. If one travels far enough, they will reach the edge and I have been trying to do just that since the last 5 years and I haven’t reached the edge of the earth yet. I will be sure to send you a post card when I reach my destination.
D.L. Rhoades on Wednesday 26 January 2022 at 03:11
If anyone on this site has doubts that Covid19, which HAS a 97% or better survival rate and so NOT a ‘deadly disease’, was a planned and executed scare-scam whose purpose was to get people panicked enough about losing their worthless, pitiful material-bound totally selfish lives to willfully get INJECTED with a likewise bio-engineered highly toxic weapon, for which readily available an inexpensive over-the-counter treatments were suppressed, including Ivermectin with a 90 YEAR success/cure rate, and Hydroxychloroquine which YOU can make at home with 3 Grapefruit and 5 Lemons, for which the owner-managers were murdered when their factory was blown up.
This needless, senseless attack on the global populace has resulted in hundreds of thousands of needless injury and deaths and it has been proven that the jabs are lab-designed deliberate instruments of genocide and control. Go and listen to yesterday’s Congressional hearing held by Senator Ron Johnson. @ https://thehighwire.com , Second Opinion video. After you watch it tell everyone you love and or care a tiny bit, and all of you contact ALL of your/their Congress members and demand they get on board with Senator Johnson in public now or they WILL lose your vote.
Tens of thousands of our fellow global citizens are STILL being coerced or forced to get jabbed, and dying or becoming harmed for life every day. Stop this Covid19 tyranny and we are well on the way to taking our country back.
today we have 5.6 million COVID death worldwide;
“NOT a deadly disease”???
DanLucas on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 04:21
However, i think it is only fair to mention that there are four different coronaviruses known to be rampant among humans and that, worldwide, up to 650,000 people may die from the flu each year. If one then considers that PCR cannot distinguish between complete genome and fragments, between the ability and inability to replicate, one must take into account that the number contains false-positive results, since one probably often did not retest in the lab!!! One should also consider the noteworthy monetary incentives in the operational business of the clinics etc. that may be driving the number additionally, and so on.
Jashak on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 08:26
@DanLucas,
being a molecular biologist for more than half of my life, I have done hundreds of PCRs/RT-PCRs in the lab (amongst other stuff, of course).
Let me point out that you use the term “false-positive results” in this context incorrectly. The false-positive rate of the RT-PCT test used for detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus RNA is close to 0% in a modern lab. Therefore, if your PCR test is positive while the virus is circulating, it is extremely likely that your nose/throat contains the SARS-CoV-2 virus RNA. The so-called Ct-value of the RT-PCR reaction can even indicate the amount of viral RNA genomes that were present in your sample.
Since only complete viral genomes are replicated within your body (not fragments thereof), a positive PCR test from a modern lab indicates a viral infection with an extremely high likelihood.
The PCR test does not, however, provide concrete information about the severity of the symptoms that you will encounter.
But for estimating the number of viral infections in a population, false-positive PCR tests are not relevant.
If you have further questions regarding PCRs or molecular biology in general, feel free to ask.
R. Daneel on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 09:06
@Jashak
As a bioinformatician, I work on post-sequencing analysis of covid-19 positive samples. For majority of samples that test positive in a RT-PCR test, most modern labs can sequence and assemble full SARS-CoV2 genomes. There is an actively maintained database of SARS-CoV2 genomes called GISAID: https://www.gisaid.org/ . As of today, there are 7.5 million genomes in GISAID, these were isolated from patients all over the world and these data are used in the surveillance of variants: https://nextstrain.org/ncov/gisaid/global .
DanLucas on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 13:02
Thank you for your answer. However, I also had in mind the possibility that people are treated as false positives after a single PCR, then die due to other circumstances and then still enter the statistics, just as an example, etc. and I also thought of monetary incentives, with at the same time often underfunded clinics and all other beneficiaries who can also capitalize on a crisis.
I am ceratinly not an expert in the field, but according to what I read, three primers, which describe not sufficient of the genome, can mean too little specificity, which is contrary to the detection of a genuinely infected person and results in false positive results, because the test also reacts to non-infectious viral fragments that are in the body. End primers would be needed and the ORF1 gene. So, reducing to only the E gene was/is apparently common and the WHO standard protocol gives comparatively large leeway, so even the labs would not always look on multiple genes. I think even nowadays you can have 1- 2 millions test a week, say in Germany and there is rather a normal routine that does not always include multiple PCR testing and sequencing.
Then you also have to consider the usual laboratory tests, not all of which may be used for personal diagnosis, but only for research purposes, and of which the specificity and thus potential false positive results seem unclear. The devices are also not standardized by different manufacturers, as investigations showed and varied between 0% and 10% false positives. Also, the labs seem to work with different standards. So it seems to me that there are sufficient poetntial weaknesses and possibly motivation to generate numbers and one can assume at least a certain percentage of false numbers.
Thanks for your openness.
Jashak on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 14:57
@DanLucas,
you bring up several issues. Since I have only limited time, I will stick to the specificity and quality of the RT-PCR tests.
*The tests used in professional labs today (e.g. in Germany) are of course validated to be specific and only detect the circulating SARS-CoV-2. So don´t worry, the primer pairs used in the RT-PCRs ARE specific.
*If a PCR result is unexpected (e.g. a problem with the control reactions occured), samples will be re-tested internally by the lab, before the results are handed out.
*Furthermore, to my knowledge, all professional diagnostic labs in Germany have to prove the quality of their work on a regular basis by having to pass “blinded tests”, which are conducted by a governmental agency.
So rest assured that the PCR tests are extremely accurate – don´t trust rumours that you come across on the internet that say otherwise.
DanLucas on Saturday 29 January 2022 at 03:46
I appreciate your perspective and please don’t get me wrong.I don’t imply anything in principle, and I assume that the laboratories work conscientiously, but I think we have to admit that the test waves are particularly demanding and high standards cannot always be maintained, which, by the way, was also admitted upon request. This was a laboratory in Hamburg, Germany, which performs about 80,000 tests per week (i.e., no multiple gene sites and not always multiple tests after positive results.) Numerous experts have strongly criticized the WHO protocol and criticized the worldwide pair-priming as unusable. The thing is, even as a conscientious laboratory worker, we and our work are always dependent on other factors that we cannot see through, be it the quality of different product batches, the economic interests and potential criminal energy of others that may be involved in the process, etc., in a global crisis management with endless players, we can even see less on the bottom of things. From this point of view, caution is at least understandable, i think.
I said no need to send me your paypal so there is your answer.
Many many doctors are claiming cold showers can boost the immune system
Many are claiming that mouthwashes and gargles are preventatives.
Maybe not as good as your tinfoil hat….
And again, you all that think the vaccine is the holy grail, but, and there is always a but,
there are other methods plus my money is on doctors like Dr Haiden and Dr Bowden who are either lying or have treated over 6000 patients over Dr Fauci.
“you all that think the vaccine is the holy grail”
this is a remarkably stupid statement!
nobody thinks vaccines are ‘the holy grail’. but the consensus is that they are our best option.
Tin Tin on Saturday 29 January 2022 at 09:38
@Jeffrey Bloom
Yes, you got one thing right for sure. My tinfoil hats are better than suggestions of many many doctors. Thanks to all those right-wing websites you tend to peruse, my hats are selling like gangbusters and that is all the evidence one needs.
I don’t know who those two doctors are and why you are telling me all that stuff. I have already told you that I don’t care for all that BS, yet you still lump me with rest of the vaccine sheeple. For someone as intelligent as you are, you don’t seem to understand simple concepts.
You haven’t really answered my question. I will paraphrase for you again: you say you respect other people’s decision to get vaccinate, then why come here, and post right-wing stuff? Unless you have a hidden agenda. Are you trying to project your hatred of Fauci on to other doctors and researchers by coming here and trolling them?
Honest Ape on Saturday 29 January 2022 at 14:04
the economic interests and potential criminal energy of others that may be involved in the process, etc., in a global crisis management with endless players, we can even see less on the bottom of things. From this point of view, caution is at least understandable, i think.
Yes, money corrupts everything DanLucas! Economic interests breed endless players with nefarious ideas. I found it the hard way when I purchased my first home in the suburbs of Atlanta. The real estate agent is working for commission, the seller is making a huge profit, the bank is giving you loan on which the shareholders are making money, the mortgage company, the insurance company and so on. All these players are in it for the money and who knows what kinds of criminal energy they are bringing because there are large sums of money being exchanged. Same with buying cars, motorbikes, groceries, medicine etc. There are endless list of people trying to profit off you every where you turn. It is ever worse when it comes to healthcare and science and you know that already.
Therefore, I said goodbye to this modern world and moved to a forest and established a money and science free commune. People in our commune trade goods and services, no money exchanges hands and those are the rules. Moreover, we don’t believe in science or modern medicine. We have a witch “doctor” that “treats” people with whatever they can find in the forest, including leaves, bark, roots, dirt, animal feces etc. Everything is natural and free of harmful toxins and chemicals. If someone has an untreatable ailment, we put them out to pasture because they will drag rest of the commune down.
I have been reading your posts and you seem like a great candidate for our budding little commune. You cannot bring anything from the modern world, when you enter our commune, you get to toss away everything including your cell phone, watch, clothes. You enter our commune butt naked, and we will give you a set of clothes made from animal skins. Would you please join our commune, DanLucas? I will guarantee you that you will meet a lot of kindred spirits.
again, you bring up several issue and again, I only have limited time to answer.
????
You say : ”Numerous experts have strongly criticized the WHO protocol and criticized the worldwide pair-priming as unusable.”
Could you please provide a concrete reference? Who are these “experts”?
The good thing about science is that you do not have to trust (self-proclaimed) experts. I am just a regular molecular biologist, but it is not difficult for me to check for myself if the primers are valid or not, just by looking at the published data. And even if the manufacturer would not provide info about the specific DNA sequence of the primer pairs, it is possible to independently verify if the test works as they should. This is called validation, and as I mentioned, the RT-PCR tests that are used ARE of course validated.
Next, you say “(…) we and our work are always dependent on other factors that we cannot see through, be it the quality of different product batches, the economic interests and potential criminal energy of others that may be involved in the process, etc., in a global crisis management with endless players, we can even see less on the bottom of things.“
It is difficult to argue against such claims, because they are not falsifiable. Sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory to me, which I would need evidence for, before I would believe that there is one.
But even if there was a big conspiracy, this would not mean that batches of the chemicals that we use can not be verified. As I said: the good thing about science is that we can rely on experiments & data, not on any claims. And we would easily find out from the data of our control experiments if batches of the PCR-ingredients would not work.
May I ask what profession you work in?
@Jashak
sorry, I saw you response just recently.
As I mentioned I impute nothing in general, but there seems to be some questionable connections and interest conflicts involved. The owner of TIBmolbiol who produces PCR test kits in collaboration with Roche Pharma designed the test protocol together with Dr. Drosten etc. who works for the Charite in Berlin, which works together with a certain profit oriented laboratory doing RT-PCR diagnostics, what seems at least questionable.
The design of the test-protocol led to an article, which was submitted to and published in “Eurosurveillance”, with an unprecedented speed, unusual or even impossible for peer-review proper. And as it turned out Dr. Drosten himself is part of the editor team of that magazine. So, he and others were criticized. He and TIBmolbiol were apparently already involved and profited in different ways back in the day through PCRs when swine flu was around. And there is much more to it, which I cannot and want not to go into. One can go into patents of the companies involved and into technical details of the “LightMix/Modular SARS/Wuhan CoV e-Gen” tests of which apparently not everyone was suitable for usage, etc.
Anyhow here is the criticism, which points to major flaws in the design, you’re the professional, I am not:
https://theinfectiousmyth.com/coronavirus/FDATestSummary.pdf
My graduate training focused in particular healthcare management among other things, I studied also PH in part including health care systems, specifics of medicinal law, etc., however, I have a completely different orientation today, but, some affinity and interest still remains.
All the best.
Here David Crowe raises interesting points
As per David Corwe’s website:
There is considerable scientific evidence that these diseases do not just have non-infectious co-factors, but that they are environmental in nature, not infectious. In fact, with viruses, it is possible to question their very existence (also in Spanish). The book “The Infectious Myth” will investigate provide the scientific evidence that the normally accepted infectious cause is not, in fact, valid and, in will identify more plausible environmental causes.
I never heard of David Crowe but browsing his website he appears to be a COVID denialist, HIV denialist and a virus denialist in general and all in all a proponent of terrain theory (aka germ theory denialist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_denialism . Although he has an undergrad degree in biology, he is a telecom consultant and a software developer, according to his obituary page: https://mhfh.com/tribute/details/31155/David-CROWE/obituary.html
He was well respected as a telecommunications consultant and had been involved in software development since the late 1970s. He had written extensively on these topics and had been called upon numerous times as a telecom expert witness.
Apparently, he was writing a book denying germ theory since 2006 but unfortunately passed away. In short, David Crowe is like a flat earther in the field of biology.
@DanLucas The last two links you posted are absolute garbage. You expect us to believe that some random no-name telecommunications guys has the scoop on all things PCR and viruses? As usual you post the absolute worst of the worst bullshit one can find on the internet, you must have some real talent in dredging it up. What are you going to post next, flat earther stuff?
@ R. DaneeL
Dont get ahead of yourself here! This is perhaps technically a bit beyond your capacity?
You involved in sequencing should actually know better, instead you prefer to bash the person without looking at what he said. He raises correct points, such as that the test is not binary as often presented, what might be trivial to you, but look at that: a world expert on PCR testing, Professor Stephen Bustin together with David Crowe, walks you through the steps, Enjoy!!!
DanLucas says
Dont get ahead of yourself here! This is perhaps technically a bit beyond your capacity?
Really, DanLucas? You want me to listen to someone who denies the existence of viruses in 21st century? If this were 17th century, we could debate about the root cause of infectious diseases or the flatness of earth. Unfortunately, for you the year we live in is 2022. If you want to stay willfully ignorant and/or listen to batshit crazy nutjobs who deny overwhelming scientific evidence, that is your choice.
R. Daneel on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 10:50
@DanLucas
If one then considers that PCR cannot distinguish between complete genome and fragments, between the ability and inability to replicate, one must take into account that the number contains false-positive results, since one probably often did not retest in the lab!!!
What you are saying makes absolutely no sense. It is like criticizing cars for not having the capability to fly. Cars are not designed to fly, and PCR is not designed to distinguish between viral genomes. DNA sequencing and subsequent genome assembly process will allow one to detect viral genomes in a sample. SARS-CoV2 genomes are different enough from other coronaviruses (and wildly different from that of flu viruses) that assigning taxonomy to a DNA sequence isolated from a covid-19 patient is a trivial task. If a complete genome is isolated then it is a slam dunk case, even a partial genome fragment (depending on its length) will provide a high degree of certainty w.r.t taxonomic assignment.
DNA sequencing is expensive than running a PCR test, and PCR is accurate that it is not necessary to sequence every sample to determine if it is positive for SARS-Cov2 or not. A subset of samples are sequenced to detect emerging variants and determine the prevalence of known variants.
DanLucas on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 14:36
Regarding your link, you’ve kindly provided: This analysis can be interpreted in a number of ways, as the author acknowledges, and he points to the many possible stumbling variables, while his interpretation is obvious. Nonetheless he states: “While noting the caveat that it is not possible to draw rigorous causal conclusions about vaccine effects on death from these observational data…”
True, he puts things in perspective providing good angles and cautions against jumping to conclusions, which is definitely important and valuable. It would have been great in his approach to take into account the different types of vaccines used during each roll out etc., which might be crucial to drawing conclusions, also when comparing mortality to subsequent cohorts, as the author does. It would be best to break this down even to the batch number of the different vaccines. Selection bias may be one good reason for the increased mortality of 18-39 year olds > 21 days after second dose vs. unvaccinated, which look pretty bad, but others would be conceivable maybe endurance sports, etc. typical of this cohort in particular myocarditis, which is likely in young men after Pfizer-BioNTech, apparently often mild but sometimes fatal, and the risk increases with each further dose substantially, a factor which could probably drive the vulnerability of this cohort:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2109730
That AEs increase overall, the more doses one gets is reasonable. Prof. Arne Burkhardt also considers it possible that AEs such as the autoimmune attacks, he has observed in post-mortem cases triggered by the vaccines and often very likely the cause of death, are a regular feature in all vaccinated people, but most people’s immune system down-regulates them and keeps them at bay. So these AEs may occur widely but escape any diagnosis and go unnoticed. The time spans here are still short a cumulative effect may very well occur over time if vaccinations are given repeatedly.That mortality returns after some time to the unvaccinated level one would expect.
The main problem remains that the safety data to make an informed decision is very poor and should have been available long ago, and the fact that the governments have not ordered cohort studies is scandalous. The author cannot rule out the possibility that vaccination is causing the excess mortality in this cohort. I would appreciate thoughts on Prof. Kuhbandner’s approach.
R. Daneel on Friday 28 January 2022 at 07:56
Just so everyone understands, we are talking about this blog post by Prof. Morris: https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/assessing-updated-uk-ons-data-on-covid-19-non-covid-19-deaths-split-by-vaccination-status-and-age where he analyzed UK ONS data.
Nonetheless he states: “While noting the caveat that it is not possible to draw rigorous causal conclusions about vaccine effects on death from these observational data…”
Yes, he is acknowledging that one can only go so far at drawing conclusions given the data he is working with is observational in nature. No surprise there.
It would have been great in his approach to take into account the different types of vaccines used during each roll out etc., …”
Did you actually think that vaccine type information is available in UK ONS data that Prof. Morris is working with and that he chose to ignore it? He provided a link to the UK ONS raw data set he is working with; did you bother to download it and have look at it? Did you see the vaccination numbers split by the type of vaccine administered?
If you have bothered to look at the raw data, you would understand that vaccine type information is not available in the dataset, therefore your suggestion that he should have included that in his analysis does not hold water.
Selection bias may be one good reason for the increased mortality of 18-39 year olds > 21 days after second dose vs. unvaccinated, which look pretty bad, but others would be conceivable maybe endurance sports, etc. . typical of this cohort in particular myocarditis, which is likely in young men after Pfizer-BioNTech,
Increased mortality of 18-39 year olds > 21 days after second dose is only 1.6x-1.9x higher compared to that of unvaccinated. No, it doesn’t look that bad, if you consider the selection bias and small sample size. As you are already aware of Prof. Morris’s warning that the data is observational in nature and that one cannot draw any causal conclusions. However, that doesn’t stop you from claiming (without providing any evidence) that a small spike in mortality could be due to myocarditis from Pfizer jab. Even if you try to come up with evidence to support your claims, you cannot because the data doesn’t include the type of vaccines administered, and there is no way for you to know how many 18-39 year olds got the Pfizer jab.
Regarding the NEJM article: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2109730
Out of 5.1 million that received Pfizer jab, they found 136 cases of myocarditis out of which 129 are mild cases. Among the remaining 7 severe cases, one person dies. That is a very tiny amount of risk. You know what else causes myocarditis at a much higher rates than vaccines? Covid-19 infection!!
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.23.21260998v1
Prof. Arne Burkhardt also considers it possible that AEs such as the autoimmune attacks…..
I suppose you are talking about this: https://doctors4covidethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/end-covax.pdf by Prof. Burkhardt and Prof. Bhakdi. I skimmed the document and found that they mostlu make evidence free claims based on examining just 15 patients. It is outright bonkers that Krisch has been promoting this piece of crap “study” as proof that “93% of deaths that occur after inoculation”. Reuters already debunked that bullshit: https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-vaccines/fact-check-a-four-page-yet-to-be-peer-reviewed-paper-is-not-proof-that-covid-19-vaccines-cause-93-of-deaths-that-occur-after-inoculation-idUSL1N2TN1PP .
The main problem remains that the safety data to make an informed decision is very poor and should have been available long ago,
During phase 3 trial, tens of thousands of people get the vaccine and are monitored for AEs. For AEs like myocarditis that occur at a very low frequency, millions of people had to be vaccinated first before anyone can gather safety data. How long do you think it takes to vaccinate millions, DanLucas? It appears that you expect all safety data to be made available as soon as vaccines are rolledout, which is impossible. Now millions of people are vaccinated, and we have the safety data, but that doesn’t satisfy you because all you are seeing is one myocarditis death among 5.1 million vaccinations. You probably take a taxi, bus, train, or flight. Do you think about risk of death before you get on one? If you step out of your house, there is a small chance you may get hit with a lightning or a plane transporting anvils may blow up mid-air and rain anvils that may kill you. Do you think of those possibilities when you step out of the safety of your home?
and the fact that the governments have not ordered cohort studies is scandalous.
Of course, there is a conspiracy behind every stone you turn, DanLucas. Maybe you been consuming way too many magic shrooms that you procured from friendly shamans in your neighborhood.
I would appreciate thoughts on Prof. Kuhbandner’s approach.
No thanks. I don’t comprehend German, even if I did I will not spend my time reading crap written by unqualified covid deniers: https://edzardernst.com/2022/01/the-moral-and-intellectual-decay-of-covid-disinformants/#comment-136786
prl on Friday 28 January 2022 at 02:20
R. Daneel:
The main problem remains that the safety data to make an informed decision is very poor and should have been available long ago
The added risk of myocarditis in young men is recognised in the advice available to everyone who gets a Pfizer COVID vaccine in Australia:
Myocarditis or pericarditis in young people
In rare cases, myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) and pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane around the heart) can develop after vaccination with Pfizer.
Most cases have mild symptoms and recover well.
The TGA reports that these rare effects on the heart typically occur:
within 10 days of vaccination
after the second dose
https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/covid-19-vaccines/approved-vaccines/pfizer#rare-side-effects
The information for Moderna is similar. The AstraZeneca and Novavax information doesn’t mention myocarditis, because it’s not a known side-effect of those vaccines.
The day I got my Pfizer booster (my prior two vaccinations were AstraZeneca), I got an email from my doctor’s surgery that contained a link to a federal health department COVID vaccine symptom checker Web site.
Isn’t similar information provided where you live?
prl on Friday 28 January 2022 at 02:25
DanLucas:
The main problem remains that the safety data to make an informed decision is very poor and should have been available long ago
The added risk of myocarditis in young men is recognised in the advice available to everyone who gets a Pfizer COVID vaccine in Australia:
Myocarditis or pericarditis in young people
In rare cases, myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) and pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane around the heart) can develop after vaccination with Pfizer.
Most cases have mild symptoms and recover well.
The TGA reports that these rare effects on the heart typically occur:
within 10 days of vaccination
after the second dose
https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/covid-19-vaccines/approved-vaccines/pfizer#rare-side-effects
The information for Moderna is similar. The AstraZeneca and Novavax information doesn’t mention myocarditis, because it’s not a known side-effect of those vaccines.
The day I got my Pfizer booster (my prior two vaccinations were AstraZeneca), I got an email from my doctor’s surgery that contained a link to a federal health department COVID vaccine symptom checker Web site.
Isn’t similar information provided where you live?
@prl
CDC’s has this page on myocarditis: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/myocarditis.html
If you look in way back machine, the above page has been up since may 2021
https://web.archive.org/web/20210501000000*/https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/myocarditis.html
If I remember correctly, in USA vaccinations started for certain groups in Jan 2021 and in April or May 2021 they were made available for everyone. Taking into account the fact that myocarditis is a very rare AE, it took some time before the signal was detectable.
Alright, be that as it may. I don’t have the time at the moment to work through each of these points. I have not made any claims, only some considerations.
Regarding the trustworthiness of Pfizer pls take note:
https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635
With reference to Prof. Burkhardt and his peer reviewed work it has to be noted that in the meantime more cases have been investigated with reassuring immune histology and other special methods, the link is very likely, the auto-immune reactions very telling. All this is very time consuming and as said these cases would never have been recognized as such if the relatives had not demanded the autopsy. This also requires special skills of pathologists, because the diagnosis is very difficult to make and even experienced pathologists easily overlook it or misdiagnose. That is why many unrecognized cases are assumed, also by Prof. Schirmacher one of the most respected pathologists. According to Burkhardt, he himself has performed about 40,000 post mortems in his career and has examined 500,000 biopsies. It is not my place to criticize someone like that.
Anyway, I suspect the best mathematicians and statisticians in the insurance industry will soon be looking at the presumed correlation between vaccinations and death anyway. One may be curious. There you go!
“Money talks, bullshit walks”
Are Moderna and Pfizer the Next Enrons?
Former Blackrock and hedge fund guru Edward Dowd paints a grim picture of Big Pharma’s vax kings – while Big Insurance appears to be preparing to go to war with Big Pharma over death benefits
Dowd: “Let’s talk about Pfizer’s potential revenue if these vaccines are mandated quarterly. Their revenues go from 52 Billion to 350 Billion overnight. If you don’t think that’s enough incentive to bribe government officials, you’re naive”.
Dowd: “First week of February, the insurance reports are going to come out for death and disability reporting. Aegon insurance American division saw death claims alone go from 31 million in 2020, when Covid was raging by the way, to 111 million by the 3rd quarter 2021, with 4th quarter results coming out in February.
Money talks bullshit walks, once the numbers come out and the numbers are vertical from the VAERS database, it’s going to get real, and you’re not going to be able to hide a 40% fatality increase and NOT TALK ABOUT THE VACCINE. It’s just not going to happen”
May you be well!
R. Daneel on Friday 28 January 2022 at 14:08
@DanLucas
Ah…the mighty BMJ article by Paul Thacker, trustworthiness of which has already been assessed by Dr. Gorski. You can read all about it here: https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/11/15/wtf-happened-to-the-bmj/
With reference to Prof. Burkhardt and his peer reviewed work
Oh, please stop with the bullshit, DanLucas. Prof. Burkhardt’s article is not worthy of being called peer review work. Typing up three and half pages of nonsense doesn’t constitute as peer reviewed work. It takes a lot of work to get an article published in a reputable journal. Take it from someone (yours truly) who has published peer reviewed work in scientific journals. Clearly you don’t understand what peer reviewed articles are, so here you go, educate yourself: https://guides.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/c.php?g=288333&p=1922599 or not and continue being ignorant.
Of course, you don’t have time to go thru my rebuttal, but you do have time to post a bunch of unadulterated grade A bullshit and looney tunes conspiracy theories.
DanLucas on Friday 28 January 2022 at 19:06
What I meant with “peer reviewed” was that his work is backed up by the experienced co-pathologist Prof. Dr. Lang, everything is diagnosed together and a whole team working in the background, there is the possibility for other experts to look at it, also on request. Everything is transparent. Prof. Burkhardt, by the way, has about 150 scientific papers published and is internationally renowned.
But dont worry, Daneel. I hope you have taken note of the rocketing insurance death rates etc. and the hunch of Edward Dowd and that the correlation will most likely be thoroughly assessed by experts for sure. Lets be patient a bit longer and we might have clearer picture.
And pls take a quick look, what should suffice, into the commy section of your myocarditis-Corona-study. No Comment! Correct, I havent looked at the data set of Prof. Morris.
I provided the link to the myocarditis study to show the susceptibility of this cohort. The authors focused on individual patient reports and considered underreporting rather than overreporting of cases plausible. So many may have gone unrecognized or the immune response may simply be at a lower rate, which is reasonable, but not unproblematic. Don’t downplay the finding of myocarditis, this is not a small thing and can also lead to loss of heart muscle, the word “mild” is somewhat misleading here. Also different batch numbers can vary apparently in their efficacy (toxic effect) so numbers may vary as well considerably. And therefore here again a telling current link for you, that also DaneeL understand the justified concerns:
https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o102
…which is known for a long time anyway to most, and not a conspiracy theory, Daneel. There are also current rumors of bribery of Austrian government officials for the introduction of mandatory vaccination, rope relationships between FDA and Pfizer and three-digit million sums as bribes. And as Dowd noted, if you don’t believe that revenues are enough to bribe government officials then you’re naive, are you?
The poor efficacy and emerging side effects are now being raised more strongly and doubters are getting louder, be they clinics or even physicians who were previously rather enthusiastic, and, even when for you nothing is changing.
DanLucas on Friday 28 January 2022 at 19:20
I also wanted to share with you a few lines that may sound like conspiracy theory to you, but I think are worth reading. Maybe you have to read a little between the lines. Would you also call John Ioannidis a conspiracy theorist ?
“It is critical in free, democratic societies that media never become a vessel for a single, state-sanctioned, official narrative at the expense of public debate and freedom of speech. The same applies for social media: Removing content considered “fake” or “false” in order to limit the ability of ordinary people to judge information for themselves only inflames polarization and distrust of the public sphere.
This is especially important in the realm of scientific debate. Anyone who believes that it’s possible to cleanse “science” of error through brute force censorship has no understanding of how science works or how accurate, unbiased evidence is accumulated in the first place. The idea of arbitrators who select what is correct and dismiss what is incorrect is the most alien possible concept to science. Without the ability to make errors or make (and improve on) inaccurate hypotheses, there is no science. The irony is that scientists understand (or at least should understand) and embrace (or at least should embrace) the fact that we all float in a sea of nonsense; it is the opportunist influencers and pundits, lacking in any understanding of the scientific method, who believe in the possibility of pure, unconflicted “truth.”
The population at large would benefit more from scientific skepticism (which doesn’t require a Ph.D.) than from the purging of “bias” by spurious information purifiers. Teaching free citizens about the risk of multifarious biases and how to prevent, detect, and avoid them is a job for educational institutions like schools and universities, not for tech companies, billionaires, federal bureaucrats, or online mobs. Being sensitized about bias has nothing to do with conspiracy theories, and may be the best way to diminish the alarming number of followers of conspiracy theorists.”
R. Daneel on Saturday 29 January 2022 at 02:15
@DanLucas
What I meant with “peer reviewed” was that his work is backed up by the experienced co-pathologist Prof. Dr. Lang, everything is diagnosed together and a whole team working in the background,
Having a co-author on the document doesn’t mean the paper is peer reviewed nor having a team in the background. Everyone working on the paper will need to be credited and nothing of that sort is apparent in the document. By the way, you don’t get to redefine what peer reviewed means to get yourself out of the hole you dug for yourself.
And pls take a quick look, what should suffice, into the commy section of your myocarditis-Corona-study. No Comment! Correct, I havent looked at the data set of Prof. Morris.
Good for you. Ignore the data but pay attention to the comments made by trolls like you. Sounds like a great strategy.
Ah..the BMJ again, this time Peter Doshi:
https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/01/15/why-is-peter-doshi-still-an-editor-at-the-bmj/
The population at large would benefit more from scientific skepticism (which doesn’t require a Ph.D.)
Don’t get confused between conspiracy theories and scientific skepticism. If you are a true skeptic, you would look at Prof. Morris’s data and try to engage in a conversation rather than spew conspiracy theories every chance you get. I don’t have anything else to say on this topic. Have a nice life!
You’re not involved with healthcare are you, D.L.
You have no background in science or medicine.
All you have is a computer and the ability to make 2+2=wheelbarrow.
Jam your tinfoil hat on a little tighter and go play with your fellow insignificant and delusional loons.
Richard Rasker on Wednesday 26 January 2022 at 11:39
@DavidB
I’m not sure if this D.L. Rhoades person is even aware of the concept of ‘countries’ – he appears to inhabit a completely different universe, without cumbersome things such as ‘facts’ and ‘objective reality’.
RPGNo1 on Wednesday 26 January 2022 at 12:00
Ron Johnson promotes conspiracy theories related to COVID-19. He is a despicable loon.
Johnson used his position as chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to invite witnesses to hearings to promote fringe theories about COVID-19. The witnesses promoted unproven drugs, made dubious claims about COVID-19 spread and pushed skepticism about vaccines.
Johnson peddled misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.
In May 2021, Johnson falsely claimed that thousands of deaths were connected to COVID vaccinations. He also falsely stated that there was a risk of death for people previously infected with COVID who received the vaccine.
After Twitter suspended Alex Berenson for making false claims about the pandemic and vaccines, Johnson praised him as “a courageous voice of reason” and encouraged people to continue reading Berenson’s writing on another site.
In an interview on Fox News Primetime, Johnson repeated a debunked conspiracy theory that the FDA has not approved a COVID vaccine, claiming that the FDA approved the “Comirnaty version” and alleging that it is not available in the US.
R. Daneel on Wednesday 26 January 2022 at 12:11
@ D.L. Rhoades
If anyone on this site has doubts that Covid19, which HAS a 97% or better survival rate and so NOT a ‘deadly disease’,
Let us do the math using your 97% survival rate, shall we?
World population: 7.9 billion
If 3% of world population succumbs to covid infection, that would be 237 million dead people, i.e., 237 followed by six zeros, like so 237,000,000
US population: 334 million
If 3% of US population succumbs to covid infection, that would be 10 million dead people just in the US, i.e., 10 followed by six zeros, like so 10,000,000
Unless you failed kindergarten math, you would understand that a number followed by six zeros is a huge number and that means even at a 97% survival rate, covid can kill a shit ton of folks. So much for a “NOT a deadly disease”.
Pete Attkins on Wednesday 26 January 2022 at 13:34
It isn’t about “failed kindergarten math”, it’s about the very real problem of functional innumeracy.
“Numeracy is the ability to reason and to apply simple numerical concepts… A numerically literate person can manage and respond to the mathematical demands of life.
By contrast, innumeracy (the lack of numeracy) can have a negative impact. Numeracy has an influence on career decisions, may negatively affect economic choices, and distorts risk perception towards health decisions. Greater numeracy has been associated with reduced susceptibility to framing effects, less influence of nonnumerical information such as mood states, and greater sensitivity to different levels of numerical risk.”
R. Daneel on Wednesday 26 January 2022 at 15:38
Cool, I thought one would learn percentages in kindergarten as a part of basic math. I am too old to recall my kindergarten days. Following sentence from the ScienceBlogs link is spot on. You just need to replace the word “creationist” with “antivaxer” and “evolution” with “vaccines”.
“When some creationist liar comes along and quotes a bunch of math at you as a “proof” that science is all wrong about evolution, how can you recognize their lies? “
@ R. Daneel
I totally agree with your word replacements.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for writing your thoughtful comments on this website.
With best wishes,
D.L. Rhoades wrote “including Ivermectin with a 90 YEAR success/cure rate”.
Ivermectin was discovered in 1975 (47 years ago); first use in humans in 1987 (35 years ago).
R. Daneel on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 10:57
@Pete Attkins
What you said about ivermectin is true, but according to D.L. Rhoades there was once a “Breaking Bad” version of HCQ ????
Hydroxychloroquine which YOU can make at home with 3 Grapefruit and 5 Lemons, for which the owner-managers were murdered when their factory was blown up.
Pete Attkins on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 14:05
I didn’t comment on the “3 Grapefruit and 5 Lemons” part, my reply would’ve been too acidic!
Let’s see what happens after my experiment using 5 apples, 2 pears, a bunch of loganberries, and a kilo of Brussels sprouts.
Of course, that is the recipe for ivermectin, Pete Attkins.
You would not remember that because big pharma stooges erased your memory: https://youtu.be/XUefRJLZPP8?t=150
????
concerned patient on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 16:54
Mr. Pete
Quinine doesn’t need to be an exact replica of the synthetic version of HCQ, in fact most patients I know would lean toward anything natural vs synthetic. Who cares if it’s not exactly HCQ ? Evidently there is evidence that quinine has benefits fighting covid, this is what’s important to potential covid patients.
https://www.mynaturaltreatment.com/3-highest-natural-sources-of-quinine/
Even though the lying mainstream media would attempt to suppress any and all therapeutics for covid-19, the people will still find a way beat covid without media, social media, government agencies and conventional medicine getting in the way.
That said, curiously the FDA IS now blocking the use of monoclonal antibodies. Why are they blocking use of drugs that were previously sanctioned and approved ? So an option has been removed from MD’s and patients.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-monoclonal-antibodies-omicron-fda-florida/
So the FDA approved monoclonal antibodies because they were effective, not they say that the antibodies are not effective against Omicron. Why take away an option ? Delta cases haven’t yet evaporated.
Yet they don’t explain why the FDA hasn’t pulled the use of the VACCINES that are not effective against omicron…. clearly they are not, or the omicron surges in every country of the world would not have occurred with so many vaccinated patients.
If the vaccines were effective, the Pharma industry would not be frantically re-tooling for fast new vaccines that are effective against Omicron.
We have people in every country in the world that are pushing back against tyranny. Patients and potential patients that don’t want to join the religious cult the religion of the face masks.
R. Daneel on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 17:56
@concerned patient
How come you are still hanging on to HCQ? I thought antivaxer loons moved on from HCQ to horsey pills. I guess the effects of HCQ astroturfing hasn’t worn off: https://respectfulinsolence.com/2020/08/17/astroturfing-promoting-hydroxychloroquine-to-treat-covid-19-continues-apace/ . Who cares about all the evidence against HCQ: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/hydroxychloroquine-ebm-sbm/ , right?
I wonder why the blog post (second link in your post) about natural sources of quinine has affiliate links shamelessly embedded within the content of the blog post? Tonic water and quinine extract for $20 each? Are they trying to make money off gullible antivaxers? I don’t know concerned patient, looks like something big pharma would do.
Apparently quinine poisoning is a thing: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3548270/ and is treated using charcoal hemoperfusion
@DavidB
Where do you shove the apples/pears/loganberries/sprouts mixture?
Great question. There are two applications. If you feed the mixture to a horse, it will poop out ivermectin pills. Hence, they are called horsey pills. Some antivaxxers figured out that if they take this mixture via enema, they temporarily acquire immense capabilities of proctophasia: https://edzardernst.com/2021/11/proctophasia-a-nasty-affliction-of-many-proponents-of-so-called-alternative-medicine/
Good grief, the aliens have landed on planet Earth! Not from another galaxy; not even from a parallel universe; but from some orthogonal-to-reality and impervious-to-reality domain.
I’m reminded of The Twilight Zone:
QUOTE
Each episode presents a stand-alone story in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described as entering “the Twilight Zone,” often with a surprise ending and a moral. Although predominantly science-fiction, the show’s paranormal and Kafkaesque events leaned the show towards fantasy and horror. The phrase “twilight zone,” inspired by the series, is used to describe surreal experiences.
Richard Rasker on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 21:25
@concerning patient
As others also commented, most of what you say already lies firmly beyond the sanity horizon and is thus a waste of time to debunk. However, the following titbit is actually quite amusing:
curiously the FDA IS now blocking the use of monoclonal antibodies.
Do you even read the stuff you link to? Because the answer is staring, no, in fact slapping you in the face:
FDA halts use of monoclonal antibodies that don’t work against Omicron [that now accounts for nearly all U.S. infections].
Do you really want people to use a hugely expensive (> $2000 a pop) treatment THAT DOES NOT WORK – a fact that is even promulgated by the pharmaceutical companies themselves?
What is it with you loonies? Do you only want ‘treatments’ that are NOT advised by science? I thought you crazy folk were all against Big Pharma, among other things because according to you, they make tons of money selling toxic stuff that doesn’t work – but now that there actually IS a very expensive medicine that indeed does not work any more, you insist that it should absolutely be approved for use?
I’m not usually one for name calling, but maybe you had better change your pseudonym to ‘mental patient’ …
concerned patient on Thursday 27 January 2022 at 21:54
R Daneel
I won’t OD on quinine because I don’t used it, not to say I wouldn’t. As you know, many many things taken in excess can create of over dose to death situation…. including pharma meds.
If you referred to the NIH link I posted, you would have found that quinine is not only effective for covid-19, but you would also be hard pressed to find any mention of the danger of overdose from the posted study.
Ivermectin.
Yes, I do take Ivermectin, but the one that has been intended for and produced for humans ….for decades. I use it anytime I feel flu symptoms. The symptoms go away, I recover with NO NO NO side effects. I’ve actually been using Ivermectin for flu symptoms since long before the planedemic began.
As for the quinine link with the add, should they be giving it away to those that don’t make their own ? The website indicated the formula to readers.
The internet is full of links on how to make quinine at home, this is nothing new. Homeopaths have been using it to fight pneumonia for many years. And no, it doesn’t look like something pharma would do, pharma doesn’t sell meds for $20, unless they are off patient.
R. Daneel on Friday 28 January 2022 at 08:45
@concerned patient
Good for you that you don’t take HCQ. However, that didn’t stop you from promoting “natural” HQC: https://edzardernst.com/2022/01/the-moral-and-intellectual-decay-of-covid-disinformants/#comment-136809 . Just sayin!
Oh so, you do take horsey pills. Apparently, antivaxxer sheeple have been OD’ing on horse pills as we. I guess you are one of the clever ones.
prl on Friday 28 January 2022 at 02:51
concerned patient:
Quinine doesn’t need to be an exact replica of the synthetic version of HCQ, in fact most patients I know would lean toward anything natural vs synthetic. Who cares if it’s not exactly HCQ ? Evidently there is evidence that quinine has benefits fighting covid, this is what’s important to potential covid patients.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8069458/
You didn’t happen to notice that in that paper the number of COVID patients treated was exactly zero, did you? It pretty much tells you so in the title: “Quinine Inhibits Infection of Human Cell Lines with SARS-CoV-2”.
That paper also says that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine don’t work for the treatment of COVID in patients.
It’s an in vitro study, and, of course, there’s an XKCD cartoon for that:
RPGNo1 on Friday 28 January 2022 at 06:38
@concerned patient
The answer to your question is quite simple, as stated in the linked article. The monoclonal antibodies from Lilly and Regeneron are not effective against the Omicron virus variant.
So the FDA does not block but limits their use.
only when the patient is likely to have been infected with or exposed to a variant that is susceptible to these treatments.
Because data show these treatments are highly unlikely to be active against the omicron variant, which is circulating at a very high frequency throughout the United States, these treatments are not authorized for use in any U.S. states, territories, and jurisdictions at this time.
Monoclonal antibodies are laboratory-made proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off harmful pathogens such as viruses, like SARS-CoV-2. And like other infectious organisms, SARS-CoV-2 can mutate over time, resulting in certain treatments not working against certain variants such as omicron. This is the case with these two treatments for which we’re making changes today.
prl on Friday 28 January 2022 at 07:29
concerned patient:
I won’t OD on quinine because I don’t used it, not to say I wouldn’t. As you know, many many things taken in excess can create of over dose to death situation…. including pharma meds.
You don’t need to overdose on quinine for it to have bad side-effects:
R. Daneel on Friday 28 January 2022 at 08:35
Funny how these antivaxers are not at all concerned about the side effects of HCQ, ivermection or some other drug they are snorting on a regular basis. When it comes to vaccines that one would get a couple of times a year at the most, they think the side effects are the devil.
RPGNo1 on Friday 28 January 2022 at 10:16
@R. Daneel
Have you read the package insert of aspirin or any other over-the-counter pain reliever? These drugs have