Study mRNA Neovaccinoid CytoToxicity Not Why People Don't Want To Get Jabbed...,

NEJM  |  Social media and other digital platforms provide the opportunity to collect data on vaccine hesitancy in nearly real time^70,71; they also allow new methods of analysis⁷² and the opportunity to investigate the effect of vaccine sentiment on actual vaccine uptake and vaccine-preventable diseases. Facebook collaborated with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland to collect survey data on a wide variety of behaviors related to the Covid-19 pandemic.⁷³ Starting in January 2021, Facebook users who agreed to participate in the survey were asked about their attitudes toward Covid-19 vaccines and reasons underlying vaccine hesitancy.

Although data collected on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, may not be representative, since the users of the platform are not a random sample of the population, the data have aligned well with other, less frequently compiled survey data that are available for select topics and populations. In addition, sometimes data collected through online platforms are the only available information about vaccine hesitancy (e.g., when large-scale surveys have not been conducted). Furthermore, the large samples and the speed with which data are collected and made available make real-time analysis possible for what has become a volatile topic. As data collected through social media platforms become more widely used, we anticipate that validation studies will be conducted, with improvements made in the sampling, weighting, and interpretation of the data.

The large volume of timely data on vaccine hesitancy has provided an opportunity to develop spatially detailed estimates of vaccine hesitancy (i.e., mapping by location). For the United States, surveys administered through Facebook have been used to estimate vaccine hesitancy according to week and ZIP code. These spatial analyses show that vaccine hesitancy varies substantially within a county. For example, vaccine hesitancy ranges from 7 to 49% across ZIP codes within the rural Stearns County, Minnesota. Such widespread variation within a county is common in all U.S. states (Figure 2).

Spatially refined estimates of vaccine hesitancy have proved to be useful in local efforts to increase vaccination rates.^75,76 The information has been used by community outreach programs to tailor their efforts to local areas that have the greatest need. Other groups have used local patterns to help to decide where to provide mobile vaccination clinics and where to initiate other measures for reducing barriers to vaccination. Local information can also be used to monitor the effect of local interventions, including the effect of various types of vaccination mandates.

In the future, large and complex data sets on vaccine hesitancy, often referred to as big data, can be analyzed according to spatial identifiers such as ZIP code and various individual characteristics, including race or ethnic group, age, sex, and occupation, which can help to further microtarget vaccination outreach efforts. This information is also potentially critical for monitoring progress toward vaccine equity.

One of the various challenges in taking such an approach to scale and applying it globally is the inequity in the access to and reach of digital media. As the digital revolution unfolds globally, the global health community must keep pace. The consequences of not doing so are loud and clear, as we have seen in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic with regard to the rapid spread of misinformation and consequent vaccine hesitancy.

American Negroes Got Massively Suckered By Celebrities Into The Crypto Dip...,

FT  |    “We do not like to get left behind when it comes to new technology,” she said. 

The promise of cryptocurrencies as a wealth builder has been supercharged by celebrity endorsements, sponsorships and advertising. Prominent black Americans including the musicians Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg, the boxer Floyd Mayweather, the actor Jamie Foxx and the film-maker Spike Lee have promoted crypto to their communities. 

Lee appeared in commercials for crypto ATM operator Coin Cloud last year, saying that “old money is not going to pick us up; it pushes us down” and “systematically oppresses”, whereas digital assets are “positive, inclusive”. Last month, Jay-Z announced a partnership with former Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey to launch a “Bitcoin Academy” literacy programme in the Brooklyn public housing complex where he grew up. 

Such celebrity endorsers have faced heavy criticism for getting paid to sell high-risk investments to people who may not have the resources to weather crypto’s volatility. “Ninety-eight per cent of these cryptocurrencies were not designed to do anything other than extract money from people’s bank accounts,” said Najah Roberts, a former financial adviser and the founder of cryptocurrency education centre Crypto Blockchain Plug. “This is not ‘get rich quick’,’’ Roberts added. “There are massive targeting ads that are targeting our community.”

Bellanton said it is not adverts but the prospect of financial freedom, a lack of the investment minimums common for mutual funds, and a feeling that the blockchain distributed ledger is more transparent than big banks that draws in first-time investors. 

“The reason that minorities at a higher rate than others are adopting crypto is precisely because if you’re not already rich, it’s way cheaper to send [USD Coin, a stablecoin asset] than to send a wire,” said Brian Brooks, chief executive of blockchain company Bitfury, at the Aspen Ideas Festival last month. “It’s just cheaper. 

The entire system is cheaper and faster. It doesn’t have all these entry barriers where you can only get it if you’re already rich.” Despite the risk of losses, many black investors are staying invested in the market. Dennis McKinley, 41, has been buying the dip against the advice of his financial adviser. He said his crypto coins now constitute roughly 30 per cent of his overall portfolio, held alongside equities. 

“Young black America is just now getting to a point where we have the amount of freedom to have the opportunity to invest in alternative strategies besides just real estate,” said McKinley, a small-business owner in Atlanta. “I think that it’s important to learn and get out there.”

Do You Suppose Any Of The Western Leadership Sincerely Believes This Nonsense?

sonar21  |  Dear President Putin:

I write with the greatest of respect and sorrow to inform you that your gamble in Ukraine has failed and you have lost a strategic battle. How do I know? Well, UK Admiral Tony Radakin, the head of the UK’s Armed Services says so. Here is what he said:

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said Russia was suffering heavy losses, running out of troops and advanced missiles and would never be able to take over all of Ukraine.

“This is a dreadful mistake by Russia. Russia will never take control of Ukraine,” Tony Radakin told PA Media in an interview published on Friday.

The country’s highest-ranking military officer said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had lost 25% of Russia’s land power for only “tiny” gains and it would emerge a “more diminished power” while strengthening Nato. . . .

“The Russian machine is grinding away, and it’s gaining a couple of – two, three, five – kilometres every day,” the admiral said.

“And Russia has vulnerabilities because it’s running out of people, it’s running out of hi-tech missiles.

“President Putin has used about 25% of his army’s power to gain a tiny amount of territory and 50,000 people either dead or injured. Russia is failing.”

If Admiral Tony says it is true you can take it to the bank. I mean, who can deny the British victory at Dunkirk and their smashing successes in quelling the natives in India, Iraq and Afghanistan. Not to be presumptive Mr. Putin, but when Russia comes to grip with the mighty military prowess of the United Kingdom, I can understand why you will quiver in your snow boots.

Oh sure, just because you now control the areas of Ukraine that produce the bulk of its grain exports, does not mean that you can remain a big player in grain exports (notwithstanding the fact that your country is the 7th largest grain producer in the world). And ditto for your vast reserves of oil and gas. I hear that the Europeans are quite prepared to burn cow and sheep dung to stay warm rather than submit to the indignity of buying your gas and paying rubles.

And speaking of rubles, do you not realize that no one wants your ruble? Joe Biden told me that your ruble is rubble, so it must be true. Biden is known for his veracity. You are acting as if the ruble is stronger now than at the start of your special military operation. That is delusional sir.

And how do you hope to continue to produce new missiles and rockets and other munitions to replace the hundreds of thousands you have fired so far? You act as if Russia is a major manufacturing/industrial center that does not depend on foreign exports to sustain itself. Just because your country is the major exporter of critical minerals and metals that the United States and Europe need to make everything from catalytic converters to computer chips, does not give you the upper hand.

Do you not remember how the United States could no longer make the rocket engines required to carry astronauts to the International Space Station and found an outside provider? See, the west always has some dandy alternatives. You act as if Russia was building those rocket engines and we in the west know that cannot be true because, speaking frankly now sir, you Russians are a bunch of vodka soaked, illiterate peasants.

The fact that you require your students to take three times the number of courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology is further proof of Russia lagging behind the west. See, we understand what is really important. First, small children need to understand there is no such thing as male and female. Once they understand that they do not have to waste their time learning about chromosomes. Men get pregnant and need tampons (though a shortage of those has cropped up). Second, we believe deeply in promoting racial division based on the pigment of someone’s skin. You crazy Russians operate under the delusion that national unity is something important. Not here. We have come to understand that we need to destroy our heritage and recreate something new, which includes recognizing there are at least 72 genders.

The Ukrainian Corruption That Infects Washington D.C.

sonar21  |  Yaacov Apelbaum wrote an amazing investigative piece in September 2019 that is more relevant and timely now. He provides photographic and video proof of how a certain segment in Ukraine has penetrated the U.S. political system. Did you know the following:

• Adam Schiff relied on Igor Pasternak, who was born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and graduated from Ukraine’s Lviv Polytechnic National University, to raise funds for Schiff’s congressional campaign. Pasternak is a naturalized American citizen.
• Igor Pasternak is tied directly to Nancy Pelosi and Ukraine’s network in the United States.
• Pasternak’s company, Aeros, partnered with the Government of Ukraine in 2015–The Government of Ukraine and Aeroscraft Corporation (Aeros) held a press conference today in Los Angeles, revealing further details about the cooperative partnership to strengthen the border protection agency of Ukraine with additional wide area situational awareness capabilities. The partnership with Ukraine, Aeros, and UkoBoronProm first announced in Kiev earlier this month will see the Ukraine-Russian border protected by a series of Aeros made Elevated Early Warning Systems (EEWS). Senior Ukrainian officials were joined for the conference today by Aeros’ CEO Igor Pasternak and CA State Assemblyman, Matt Dababneh (45th District).
• Notes from the desk of Yaroslav Brisiuck’s the Ukrainain Chargé d’affaires in Washington DC suggest that Democrat operative Alexandra Chalupa could be a long term Ukrainian intelligence asset
• Alexandra Chalupe was involved actively with a Michael Avantti, Linda Sarsour, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and the August 2020 effort to impeach president Trump.
• Alexandra Chalupa’s Ukrainian handler was Okana Shulyar. Chalupa held multiple intelligence briefing and debriefing sessions regarding president Trump with her handler Okana Shulyar .
• The Atlantic Council is tied closely to Ukraine and Adam Schiff is engaging in intelligence collection and political patronage in Ukraine with his collaborator Geysha Gonzalez (who paid for Schiff’s aid trip), an expert on disinformation, misinformation, and false information, and the Deputy Director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council.

These are not manufactured linkages. Yaacov’s research and evidence pull the curtain back on the Ukrainian corruption that infects Washington, DC.

The Simple Truth Behind Inequality Without Any Glib Post Hoc Bullschidt...,

 

NYTimes  |  If you look at historical data on the U.S. economy, you often notice that something changed in the late 1970s or early ’80s. Incomes started growing more slowly for most workers, and inequality surged.

David Gelles — a Times reporter who has been interviewing C.E.O.s for years — argues that corporate America helped cause these trends. Specifically, David points to Jack Welch, the leader of General Electric who became the model for many other executives. I spoke to David about these ideas, which are central to his new book on Welch (and to a Times story based on it).

How do you think corporate America has changed since the 1980s in ways that helped cause incomes to grow so slowly?

For decades after World War II, big American companies bent over backward to distribute their profits widely. In General Electric’s 1953 annual report, the company proudly talked about how much it was paying its workers, how its suppliers were benefiting and even how much it paid the government in taxes.

That changed with the ascendance of men like Jack Welch, who took over as chief executive of G.E. in 1981 and ran the company for the next two decades. Under Welch, G.E. unleashed a wave of mass layoffs and factory closures that other companies followed. The trend helped destabilize the American middle class. Profits began flowing not back to workers in the form of higher wages, but to big investors in the form of stock buybacks. And G.E. began doing everything it could to pay as little in taxes as possible.

You make clear that many other C.E.O.s came to see Welch as a model and emulated him. So why wasn’t there already a Jack Welch before Jack Welch, given the wealth and fame that flowed to him as a result of his tenure?

This was one of those moments when an exceptional individual at a critical moment really goes on to shape the world.

Welch was ferociously ambitious and competitive, with a ruthlessness that corporate America just hadn’t seen. In G.E., he had control of a large conglomerate with a history of setting the standards by which other companies operated. And Welch arrived at the moment that there was a reassessment of the role of business underway. The shift in thinking was captured by the economist Milton Friedman, who wrote in The Times Magazine that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.”

Was Welch’s approach good for corporate profits and bad for workers — or ultimately bad for the company, too? You lean toward the second answer, based on G.E.’s post-Welch struggles. Some other writers point out that many companies have thrived with Welch-like strategies. I’m left wondering whether Welchism is a zero-sum gain for shareholders or bad for everyone.

Welch transformed G.E. from an industrial company with a loyal employee base into a corporation that made much of its money from its finance division and had a much more transactional relationship with its workers. That served him well during his run as C.E.O., and G.E. did become the most valuable company in the world for a time.

But in the long run, that approach doomed G.E. to failure. The company underinvested in research and development, got hooked on buying other companies to fuel its growth, and its finance division was badly exposed when the financial crisis hit. Things began to unravel almost as soon as Welch retired, and G.E. announced last year it would break itself up.

Similar stories played out at dozens of other companies where Welch disciples tried to replicate his playbook, such as Home Depot and Albertsons. So while Welchism can increase profits in the short-term, the long-term consequences are almost always disastrous for workers, investors and the company itself.

Welch was responding to real problems at G.E. and the American economy in the 1970s and early ’80s. If his cure created even bigger problems, what might be a better alternative?

An important first step is rebalancing the distribution of the wealth that our biggest companies create. For the past 40-plus years we’ve been living in this era of shareholder primacy that Friedman and Welch unleashed. Meanwhile, the federal minimum wage remained low and is still just $7.25, and the gap between worker pay and productivity kept growing wider.

There are some tentative signs of change. The labor crisis and pressure from activists has led many companies to increase pay for frontline workers. Some companies, such as PayPal, are handing out stock to everyday employees.

But it’s going to take more than a few magnanimous C.E.O.s to fix these problems. And though I know it’s risky to place our faith in the government these days, there is a role for policy here: finding ways to get companies to pay a living wage, invest in their people and stop this race to the bottom with corporate taxes.

American companies can be competitive and profitable while also taking great care of their workers. They’ve been that way before, and I believe they can be that way again.

 

Why Are The ADL And The SPLC Conspicuously AWOL On Public Support For Azov Nazism?

Chants of support for the controversial Azov Battalion break out at a pro Ukraine rally in lower Manhattan

Attendees chant “Azov” pic.twitter.com/fFguwpRa82

— Elad Eliahu (@elaadeliahu) April 23, 2022

mtracey |  Two advocacy organizations in particular devoted huge amounts of resources to documenting the purported rise of Nazism during this period. If you read an article over the past several years which purported to announce that Nazism, “white nationalism,” and similar tendencies were ascendant, there’s a good chance the basis for the article’s claims was sourced either to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) or the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). “Neo-Nazi Groups Explode Under Trump,” read one representative Daily Beast headline from 2018, citing a report produced by the SPLC. In denouncing Trump for having “flirted with the deepest racists and Nazis,” Charles Blow of the New York Times cited a report from the ADL which claimed that “anti-semitic incidents in the United States surged 57 percent in 2017.” And 2017, as Blow shrewdly reasoned, “was of course the first year of the Trump administration.” The methodology of such “reports” is hardly ever scrutinized with any degree of precision; organizations like the SPLC and ADL are largely just assumed by journalists to possess unchallengeable empirical authority. On the rare occasions when someone in the media does think to dig deeper into the genesis of these groups’ oddly precise statistical figures, doubts as to their veracity sometimes arise.

After having spent such enormous effort warning Americans that their country was being overwhelmed by Nazis, you’d have thought it would be a no-brainer for these groups to spring immediately into action last month and sound the alarms again. Because another “incident” took place that was right up their alley: an honest-to-god pro-Nazi rally. In the middle of New York City. Thanks to footage captured by journalist Elad Eliahu, we know that on April 23 in Downtown Manhattan, a group of rally-goers gathered to chant — with total, uninhibited exuberance — “Azov! Azov! Azov!”

Eliahu told me the rally was organized by a group called “Razom for Ukraine,” which has held regular protest actions in the city since the war began, including to demand a No Fly Zone. But on this occasion, they were focused on rapturous praise for “Azov.”

In case you still need a primer on what “Azov” refers to, you may want to consult The Nation magazine, which has been unique among US left-liberal media over the last several years in still allowing a modicum of countervailing thought. And so The Nation is one of the vanishingly few outlets that continues to plainly describe Azov — i.e., the Battalion of the Ukraine military currently fighting in the war — as an “outright Neo-Nazi group.”

The bluntness of The Nation’s description stands in stark contrast to what the vast majority of US media consumers have recently been told about said group. Elsewhere, Americans are being instructed to actively root for the righteous battlefield victory of Azov — particularly in the city of Mariupol, where the fighters have been under sustained siege by Russia. It’s easy for the untrained eye to miss, but US journalists — including the top Ukraine war correspondent for TIME magazine — have taken to characterizing these Azov fighters merely as Mariupol’s brave “defenders.” Which is a term that coincidentally obscures the fighters’ ideological composition. Thanks to most US and “Western” media coverage, this foreign battalion comprised of “outright Nazis” has become primarily known as valorous warriors for “democracy.” 

Tune into NPR or the BBC, and you will similarly hear the “defenders” euphemism used in reports about Mariupol. Naturally, this is also the preferred nomenclature of the “Kyiv Independent,” the newly-formed English-language media outlet whose sudden emergence owes to an emergency infusion of funds late last year from the European Union’s equivalent of the National Endowment for Democracy. Relentlessly touted by “Western” media as an authoritative source for news-on-the-ground from Ukraine, the outlet has also enjoyed massive algorithmic amplification by Twitter — with it seldom ever noted that their chief “defense reporter” publicly proclaimed himself a “brother in arms” with Azov.

Despite his public admission of affiliation with what most reasonable observers used to uncontroversially classify as a Neo-Nazi regiment, millions of Americans have been fed a regular supply of “journalism” from this person, Illia Ponomarenko, who appears to function as Azov’s main English-speaking PR operative. But he’s far from alone: a whole roster of newly-minted social media stars regularly heap praise on Azov fighters for “sacrificing their lives for democracy.” By sheer coincidence, these superstars also frequently tend to be affiliated with US-based think tanks funded by the weapons-manufacturing industry.

Do you think if NPR or BBC listeners were clearly informed that the “defenders” of Mariupol were in fact “outright Neo-Nazis,” they might have a slightly different reaction to the news segments extolling their bravery? Especially if they can recall earlier NPR or BBC segments, such as those which warned listeners to be petrified of Trump-backed “Nazis” taking over the US? Alas, we can only speculate.

Now, one might reasonably ask: isn’t this whole “Nazi” angle a bit overblown? After all, in the US, that label gets blithely slapped onto anyone who’s slightly more right-wing than Mitt Romney. And it’s not an unfair point. The elasticity of the term “Nazi” has become so preposterous, and it was deployed so indiscriminately during the era of Trump, that one could be forgiven for having an urge to immediately eye-roll whenever they hear it uttered. 

Here’s the point, though: in a prior political context, the purported existence of Nazis was supposed to prompt an earnest outpouring of shock, horror, and counter-Nazi mobilization. But in the current political context, the existence of Nazis is supposed to be carefully ignored — in service what is now the superseding imperative, namely to “Stand with Ukraine.”

 

The CDC Abandoned Public Health And Science A Long Time Ago

tabletmag  |  The main federal agency guiding America’s pandemic policy is the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which sets widely adopted policies on masking, vaccination, distancing, and other mitigation efforts to slow the spread of COVID and ensure the virus is less morbid when it leads to infection. The CDC is, in part, a scientific agency—they use facts and principles of science to guide policy—but they are also fundamentally a political agency: The director is appointed by the president of the United States, and the CDC’s guidance often balances public health and welfare with other priorities of the executive branch.

Throughout this pandemic, the CDC has been a poor steward of that balance, pushing a series of scientific results that are severely deficient. This research is plagued with classic errors and biases, and does not support the press-released conclusions that often follow. In all cases, the papers are uniquely timed to further political goals and objectives; as such, these papers appear more as propaganda than as science. The CDC’s use of this technique has severely damaged their reputation and helped lead to a growing divide in trust in science by political party. Science now risks entering a death spiral in which it will increasingly fragment into subsidiary verticals of political parties. As a society, we cannot afford to allow this to occur. Impartial, honest appraisal is needed now more than ever, but it is unclear how we can achieve it.

Consider a final example: the CDC’s near-total dismissal of natural immunity. Many other countries consider recovery from prior infection as a vaccination equivalent or better, an assumption that makes both medical and intuitive sense, but the CDC has steadfastly maintained that everyone needs the same number of vaccinations whether they have recovered from a COVID infection or not. This view is countered by data showing that vaccinating people who have recovered from COVID results in more severe adverse events than vaccinating people who have not had COVID.

In order to bolster the claim that people who have recovered from COVID benefit from vaccination as much as those who never had it, the CDC published a fatally flawed Kentucky-based analysis. The August 2021 study compared people who had contracted COVID twice against those who had it just once, and concluded that those who had it once were more likely to have had vaccination. But the study could have easily missed people who had two documented cases of COVID but might have had severe underlying medical conditions—such as immunosuppression—that predisposed them to multiple bouts of infection in a short period. In addition, people who had COVID once and then got vaccinated might not have sought further testing, believing themselves invulnerable to the virus. The study did not adequately address these biases. Months later, the CDC published a stronger, cohort study showing clearly that natural immunity was more robust than vaccine-induced immunity in preventing future COVID hospitalizations, and moreover, that people who survived infection were massively protected whether vaccinated or not.

But to listen to Walensky tell it, none of these complications even exist. On Dec. 10, 2021, she told ABC News that the CDC had seen no adverse events among vaccine recipients, and denied seeing any cases of myocarditis among vaccinated kids between 5 and 11. On that same day, however, data from her own agency showed the CDC was aware of at least eight cases of myocarditis within that age group, making her statement demonstrably false.

So why does the supposedly impartial CDC push weak or flawed studies to support the administration’s pandemic policy goals? The cynical answer is that the agency is not in fact impartial (and thus not sufficiently scientific), but captured by the country’s national political system. That answer has become harder to avoid. This is a precarious situation, as it undermines trust in federal agencies and naturally leads to a trust vacuum, in which Americans feel forced to cast about in a confused search for alternative sources of information.

Once that trust is broken, it’s not easily regained. One way out would be to reduce the CDC’s role in deciding policy, even during a pandemic. Expecting the executive agency tasked with conducting the science itself to also help formulate national policy—which must balance both scientific and political concerns and preferences—has proven a failure, because the temptation to produce flawed or misleading analysis is simply too great. In order to firewall policymaking from science, perhaps scientific agency directors shouldn’t be political appointees at all.

Ultimately, science is not a political sport. It is a method to ascertain truth in a chaotic, uncertain universe. Science itself is transcendent, and will outlast our current challenges no matter what we choose to believe. But the more it becomes subordinate to politics—the more it becomes a slogan rather than a method of discovery and understanding—the more impoverished we all become. The next decade will be critical as we face an increasingly existential question: Is science autonomous and sacred, or a branch of politics? I hope we choose wisely, but I fear the die is already cast.

 

The Burden Of Proof Is ALWAYS On The One Making The Claim...,

caitlinjohnstone |  Well you’ll be shocked to learn that, while the Ukraine invasion we’ve been told for weeks was happening any day now still has not occurred, the US and UK have declared that Russia attacked Ukraine in an invisible and unverifiable way for which the evidence is secret.

“The White House blamed Russia on Friday for this week’s cyberattacks targeting Ukraine’s defense ministry and major banks and warned of the potential for more significant disruptions in the days ahead,” AP reports. “Anne Neuberger, the Biden administration’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, said the U.S. had rapidly linked Tuesday’s attacks to Russian military intelligence officers.”

“Technical information analysis shows the GRU was almost certainly involved in disruptive DDoS attacks,” adds a statement from the UK Foreign Office.

No evidence for this claim has been provided beyond the assertive tone with which American and British officials have uttered it, but that likely won’t stop arguments from western narrative managers that this “attack” justifies immediate economic sanctions.

You’ve probably also heard by now that President Biden announced at a press briefing that Vladimir Putin has made the decision to invade Ukraine and violently topple Kyiv “in the coming days,” citing only “intelligence”.

“What reason do you believe he’s considering that option at all?” a reporter asked Biden after his speech.

“We have a significant intelligence capability, thank you very much,” the president answered, and made his exit.

As we were reminded earlier this month in an interesting exchange between State Department spinmeister Ned Price and AP’s Matt Lee, US officials firmly believe that simply placing assertions next to the word “intelligence” should be considered rock solid proof that those assertions are true, and the press are expected to play along with this.

And indeed, a large percentage of the political/media class is responding to Biden’s unevidenced claim that Putin has decided to launch a full-scale ground invasion of Ukraine as though that invasion is actually happening.

 

Russia Is In Total Control Of The Narrative And The Timeline

consortiumnews  |  “I am here today,” Blinken said, trying to remove himself from Powell, “not to start a war, but to prevent one.”

But like Powell, Blinken produced no evidence at all to the U.N. to back up his assertion that Russia is “preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days,” even though he could have. Rather than produce fake evidence, as Powell had, he just produced nothing at all.

Blinken only had words, blithely accusing Russia of seeking “to manufacture a pretext” for an invasion of Ukraine, whether by fabricating a terrorist bombing inside Russia; (a jab at Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been accused of false-flag attacks of Moscow apartment buildings to generate support for the Second Chechen War in 1999); the discovery of a mass grave; staging a drone strike against civilians or the use of chemical weapons.

After such a “false flag,” Russian would call for a military response “to defend Russian citizens or ethnic Russians in Ukraine” and would then invade Ukraine, Blinken said.

In the past, when the U.S. took to the floor of the U.N. Security Council to hurl accusations of malfeasance at Russia, American diplomats would present incontrovertible intelligence to back up its claims.

This was done in October 1962, when Adlai Stevenson showed the world U-2 photographs proving the Russians had deployed missiles in Cuba. Again, in September 1983, Jeane Kirkpatrick played audio tapes of intercepted communications which proved Russian military aircraft shot down Korean Airlines flight 007.

Blinken brought no such proof. His was just a verbal assurance that this was not a repeat of Colin Powell’s performance. This time, the U.S. should just be trusted to tell the truth.

Fat Diabetic Sotomayor Clowns Herself With Vaxnation Mandate Behavior And Remarks..,

reuters | The 63-year-old Sotomayor, one of the nine-member court’s four liberal justices, was diagnosed as a child with type 1 diabetes and has openly discussed her experience with the chronic illness in the past. She was named to the court in 2009 by Democratic former President Barack Obama.

 

“Justice Sotomayor experienced symptoms of low blood sugar at her home this morning. She was treated by D.C. Emergency Medical Services and is doing fine,” spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement. “She came to work, resumed her usual schedule, and will be participating in planned activities over the weekend.”

 

When she was appointed, Sotomayor became the first Hispanic justice and the third woman to serve on the nation’s highest court.

 

She manages her diabetes through insulin injections, glucose tablets and regular testing of her blood sugar. Sotomayor has been candid about her previous struggles and scares that led her to be more open about the disease. 

***********************************************************************************

Justice Sotomayor, fully vaccinated and boostered according to news reports, decided to hear the case in her own office over Zoom. This is an appropriate medical decision based on what we know about the inability of these vaccines to prevent COVID transmission. And again, regardless of her vaccination status, she should do all she can to protect herself from COVID. Because of her obesity status, on an individual level, vaxnation will absolutely decrease her chance of ending up in the ICU. 

 

It will do absolutely nothing to decrease her risk of catching or transmitting the virus. Nor will it decrease the outpatient illness that people seem to get. There is ZERO difference in the outpatient illness between those vaxxed or not. It is about the same. A mild illness for many, a severe “knock you out for a few days” illness for many. Vaxnation status seems to not make a difference in the outpatient illness.

 

That said, Sonia Sotomayor stated in her remarks and questions, that the vaccines are essential for protecting workers from spreading the virus. And by inference, this vaccine efficacy is worth firing millions of hard-working Americans from their jobs. Fully vaccinated and boostered, sitting in her office so she did not come into contact with the other justices – all of whom are at least fully vaccinated - this fat diabetic paid-for-life supreme asked these questions pretending one thing, while her own fearful behavior betrayed the truth of what even she knows about these pathetic neovaccinoids. 

 

Sotomayor is admitting something wrong with the narrative, betrayed by her own behavior while simultaneously contemplating millions of Americans losing their livelihood - to protect the vanated co-workers from what exactly?

 

Is this how vaxnations are supposed to work?

 

Am I missing something?

CDC Finally Tells The Eugenic Truth 78% Of Covid Fatalities Had Four Co-Morbidities...,

Today, @CDCDirector said:
"The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least 4 comorbidities. So really these are people who were unwell to begin with and yes, really encouraging news in the context of Omicron."

This is eugenicist. pic.twitter.com/zd3iBQTH0J

— Matthew Cortland, JD (@mattbc) January 8, 2022

CDC  |  Among 1,228,664 persons who completed primary vaccination during December 2020–October 2021, severe COVID-19–associated outcomes (0.015%) or death (0.0033%) were rare. Risk factors for severe outcomes included age ≥65 years, immunosuppressed, and six other underlying conditions. All persons with severe outcomes had at least one risk factor; 78% of persons who died had at least four.

What are the implications for public health practice?

Vaccinated persons who are older, immunosuppressed, or have other underlying conditions should receive targeted interventions including chronic disease management, precautions to reduce exposure, additional primary and booster vaccine doses, and effective pharmaceutical therapy to mitigate risk for severe outcomes. Increasing vaccination coverage is a critical public health priority.

In 2022 I Resolve To Stop Expecting Negroe "Journalists" To Have Integrity...,

theatlantic |  The Brooklyn Nets have officially ended their tug-of-war with Kyrie Irving over the star point guard’s vaccination status. And Irving, who has refused to get a COVID-19 shot, is unquestionably the winner.

The rapid spread of the coronavirus’s Omicron variant has left gaps on rosters across the NBA. Because positive tests had rendered so many players ineligible, the Nets finally buckled to Irving, who had not played this season because New York City’s vaccine mandate for certain indoor facilities had banished him from home games. To let Irving on the court now, even just for away games, is a drastic turnaround for a team that had sidelined him rather than deploy him part-time. After he cleared the NBA’s COVID-19 protocols on Tuesday, Irving will be eligible to play for the Nets when they travel to Indiana to face the Pacers on January 5.

This resolution of the Nets’ high-profile dispute with Irving is part of a larger problem in professional sports: Confronted with this latest virus surge, both the NBA and the NFL have essentially waved the white flag. They are easing their health rules and sending conciliatory signals to players who have refused to get COVID-19 shots.

Both leagues had adopted a range of health protocols that strongly encouraged vaccination. But now the leagues are choosing instead to cede to the forces of capitalism. Short-term financial concerns are dictating that even as Omicron spreads, games must go on. And if that means holding vaccinated and unvaccinated players to the same standards, the leagues will do it.

After the CDC issued new guidelines Monday that will shorten quarantine times for anyone who tests positive for the coronavirus, the NBA announced that players who test positive will have to isolate for only six days, rather than 10, if they have no symptoms. The NFL and the NFL Players Association quickly announced that players with positive test results can return after five days. Stunningly, the two leagues’ abbreviated new quarantine timelines apply to both vaccinated and unvaccinated players.

Until now, the NFL had rightly made a point of imposing additional burdens on unvaccinated players. For example, unvaccinated players had to undergo daily testing and, when the team traveled, could not fraternize with anyone but team personnel. These rules reflected the greater risk that unvaccinated players pose to others. The rules also created strong incentives: Among NFL players, the policy helped produce a vaccination rate of more than 94 percent—far higher than the rate for all American adults. (The rate for NBA players is even better: at least 97 percent.)

Crazy Narratives Make For Crazy PissAnts...,

off-guardian |  Why is the story of Covid irrational and contradictory? Why are we told on the one hand to be afraid, and on the other that there is nothing to be afraid of?

Why is the “pandemic” so completely insane?

You could argue that it’s simple happenstance. The by-product of a multi-focused evolving narrative, a story being told by a thousand authors all at once, each concerned with covering their own little patch of agenda. A car with multiple drivers fighting over a single steering wheel.

There’s probably some truth to that.

But it’s also true that control, true control, can only be achieved with a lie.

In clinical psychology one of the diagnostic signs of the psychopath is that they tell elaborate lies, compulsively. Many times they will tell a lie even if the truth would be more beneficial.

Nobody knows why they do this, but I have a theory, and it applies to the swarming groups of little rat minds running the sewers of power as much as it does any individual monstrosity.

If you want to control people, you need to lie to them, that’s the only way to guarantee you have power.

If you are standing in the road, and I yell “look out, there’s a car a coming”, and you move just as a car whips past, I will never know if you moved because I said so, or because there actually was a car.

If my interest is in making sure you don’t get hurt, this would not matter to me either way.

But, what if my only true aim is the gratification of watching you do what I say, simply because I said it?

…well, then I need to scream out a warning of a car that does not exist, and watch you dodge an imaginary threat. Or, indeed, tell you there is no car, and watch you get run over.

Only by doing this can I see my words mean more to you than perceivable reality, and only then do I know I’m truly in control.

You can never control people with the truth, because the truth has an existence outside yourself that cannot be altered or directed. It may be the truth itself that controls people, not you.

You can never force people to obey rules that make sense, because they may be obeying reason, not your force.

True power lies in making people afraid of something that does not exist, and making them abandon reason in the name of protecting themselves from the invented threat.

Jizzlane's Going To Jail, Now We Posed To Pretend Epstein Fscked All That Jailbait By Himself?

 Business Insider

slate |  “It’s all connected,” one woman would say, repeatedly, to no one in particular. “It’s the cabal.” She at one point told me that she suspected it was a Maxwell lookalike sitting at the defense table, while the actual Maxwell was off freely gallivanting somewhere. The fifth-floor types spoke frequently of links between Jeffrey Epstein, the CIA, and Mossad, expecting anyone in earshot to understand the significance without further explanation.

Among the conspiracists, there seemed to be a belief that this trial would unlock the secrets of the universe—that it would lay bare a web touching every rich person in the world, every celebrity, every government agency, implicating them all in some sort of horrific global plot. In the end, of course, it did nothing of the sort.

The prosecution’s case was narrowly focused on the harm done to four teenage girls. It was built on the testimony of those four accusers, now women, who alleged that Maxwell aided, and sometimes participated in, Epstein’s efforts to sexually abuse them. When Epstein’s “little black book” came into evidence, it wasn’t because it included contact information for prominent politicians and businesspeople—it was because the book had phone numbers for those underage girls.

After testimony came to a close, I didn’t think the question of Maxwell’s guilt was much of a question at all. The accusers were, to my eyes and ears, extremely credible. Corroborating evidence affirmed their stories. The prosecutors were polished and effective in their presentation, while defense attorneys often stumbled and looked overmatched. When the defense team got a chance to put on its case, it turned out to be shockingly flimsy. The defense’s lead character witness—Maxwell’s onetime executive assistant—barely even managed to say anything nice about Maxwell. There was zero doubt, in my mind, that Maxwell committed the crimes she was charged with. But this was a jury trial, and with a jury, you just never, ever know.

Day after day, the deliberations went on without a verdict. The jurors requested transcripts of testimony from about a third of the witnesses—just reams of words—which made it seem like maybe they were attempting to rerun the entire trial in their chambers. As time dragged on, and they kept asking for more transcripts, I wondered if they were simply overwhelmed by the case, lost at sea, unable to make heads or tails of what they’d seen and heard in the courtroom. Some trial watchers had earlier complained that the prosecution’s case was too narrow, and that more accusers should have been called to testify, but the jury’s behavior during deliberations suggested that the case was confusing enough as it was. When the jurors requested a whiteboard, highlighters, and colored Post-it notes, I wondered if one among them was attempting to patiently explain to the rest, in a clear and visual way, what actually happened.

 

Making Shit Up: CDC Had No Basis For New Guidelines

Hard to believe a public health agency is running a campaign to drive vaccination by scaring people about cost of seeking care. Is CDC unaware of gaps in our healthcare system that already leave many vulnerable Americans excessively exposed to the costs and consequences of Covid? https://t.co/iEmPxYP1uO

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) December 27, 2021

erictopol  |  There were serious problems about the new 5-day isolation period. First, there are no data or evidence to back it up. Yes, we’re facing an Omicron onslaught of cases and it would be useful to come up with a strategy to avoid a mass loss of functionality among our workforce and the on-the-go public, no less in the midst of the holiday season. But that doesn’t justify issuing a vacuous guideline. Second, there was no mention of using a test, to confirm that the isolated individual is now OK to circulate, that there is no indication of infectiousness. That could be done via a rapid antigen test, which denotes infectiousness, carries some reduced sensitivity with Omicron, or via a PCR. The cycle threshold value of a PCR test is also indicative of infectiousness; the lower it is, the more likely potential for spread. Either of these tests would be far better than no test to justify a reduced isolation time in any individual.

Third, there are no data for Omicron’s clearance time. We know the characteristics of shedding and average time it takes for clearance of the virus for Delta and preceding variants, but to date we have not seen any such data for Omicron kinetics. With the Hong Kong report of 70-fold copies of the virus in the upper airway for Omicron versus Delta and prior variants, there is no certainty yet that Omicron’s clearance is fast.

Fourth, the guidance did not mention a word about vaccinated or unvaccinated status of people. We know from past studies there is a more rapid clearance among vaccinees than people who were not vaccinated, but the recommendation does not take this knowledge into account. Fifth, it assumes that all people handle the virus similarly when, it fact, there is considerable variability.

Note from the Figure that there are significant differences for vaccinated, average 5.5 days (95% CI 4.6, 6.5), compared with unvaccinated, average 7.5 days (95% CI 6.8,8,2) There is marked inter-individual variability: for example, look at all the green dots even >20 days in the unvaccinated group, panel D. These data, representing nearly 20,000 samples, were obtained from predominantly healthy young men and may not be representative of the population at large. By the way, the NBA uses a 6-day isolation cutoff with testing with heavy emphasis on testing.

This problem can be fixed. The CDC could come out and revise their guidance and say there are no such data for Omicron (as a cover, like they did when they finally recommend boosters for all adults) and require testing. Even the airlines, which pushed for a shortened 5-day isolation period, wanted to use testing as part of that requested change in policy.

But the bad day wasn’t just about isolation in isolation. There was also the major gaffe about genomic sequencing surveillance. Here are the data from last week, and the corrected data this week, announced today by CDC. The point estimate for Omicron changed for the week ending December 18th from 73% to 22.5%, which is remarkable. We were led to believe that the country was well in the midst of the Omicron wave when, in fact, we were and are still experiencing a large number of Delta infections. As of December 25th, the point estimate is 59% with 95% confidence intervals lower 42%, upper 74%, indicating there is a lot of wobble, a relatively limited number of sequencing samples to draw upon, no less a reduction in confidence for the CDC itself.

 

Mushmouthed Professional Managerial Class Disagreement With New CDC Guidelines

pbs  |  So, they have also issued some new guidelines from the CDC for anyone who's just exposed to the virus, if you come into contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.

And I want to lay this out for people. There's a lot to digest. They are saying, if you are exposed, and you are unvaccinated, they recommend five days of isolation, plus five days of masking. If you have been vaccinated earlier, which means more than six months have passed since the time you were fully vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna or more than two months for the J&J, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, they say five days of isolation and five days of masking.

If you were vaccinated recently — that means fewer than six months for Pfizer or Moderna, fewer than two months for J&J — no isolation recommended, and they say 10 days of masking. And if you have been boosted, they say no isolation and 10 days of masking.

Dr. Davis, it's a lot to keep up with. A lot of people are very confused. How are you making sure people in your community understand this? And how are you implementing it? 

Dr. Mati Hlatshwayo Davis: 

Well, Amna, my background before I became the director of health for the City of St. Louis is, I'm an infectious diseases physician and a public health expert.

And so one of the things you understand in my field is that infectious diseases are not static. They're not a monolith. They evolve over time, which means the guidance is going to change over time.

So what needs to happen is that the leadership needs to do a good job of helping people to make those transitions when they occur. So, the confusion is warranted. The job now is on the CDC, on the federal government, and on local health officials to make sure that people understand the science and can make that transition.

Now, what's also a challenge is that, while I completely agree with the science, as the director of health of a major city, the implementation may take time, because we need to do it in a way that is as safe and effective for our populations.

And not every county or city has the same level of support measures to make sure that this is successful as the next. So, for example, my counterparts in New York are able to ramp up testing to support this, because part of these guidelines do make the recommendation for testing at day five for certain populations.

But if you come from a city or a county where the funds and the capabilities just aren't there for that level of testing, this may not be something that you can implement right away. They're within lies the challenge.

• 
  

Kamala Harris May Be The Least Talented Lawyer And Politician OF ALL TIME!!!!

LATimes |  Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday that the administration failed to anticipate the variants that have prolonged and worsened the COVID-19 pandemic and that she underestimated the role misinformation would play in prolonging the disease that has killed 800,000 Americans.

“We didn’t see Delta coming. I think most scientists did not — upon whose advice and direction we have relied — didn’t see Delta coming,” she said. “We didn’t see Omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this, this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants.”

Harris made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with The Times in her ceremonial office, touching on immigration, women’s health, the criticism she has received for her management style and her role as a history-making leader. But the vice president returned repeatedly to the chief challenge of the Biden administration: battling a pandemic that — thanks to a new fast-spreading variant, Omicron — has led many Americans to put travel plans on hold, cancel holiday parties and stock up again on masks.

“I get it. I get it. I totally get it,” she said. “I mean, you know, one of the concerns that I have is the undiagnosed and untreated trauma at various degrees that everyone has experienced.”

I've been thinking a lot about why the latest surge has hit me so hard and I think it's because I have been fooling myself -- to some extent -- for the last 18 months 🧵

— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) December 17, 2021

President Biden celebrated “independence” from the virus in an upbeat July 4 speech, saying, “While the virus hasn’t been vanquished, we know this: It no longer controls our lives. It no longer paralyzes our nation. And it’s within our power to make sure it never does again.”

At the time, some public health experts warned that his optimism was premature, given that the Delta variant was already a significant threat.

Harris denied that the administration declared victory prematurely, or ever.

“We have not been victorious over it,” she said. “I don’t think that in any regard anyone can claim victory when, you know, there are 800,000 people who are dead because of this virus.”

Many Americans, particularly conservatives, resisted Biden’s call to get vaccinated against COVID-19, a measure public health officials say is critical to avoid hospitalization and death from the disease. Harris cited as a singular regret her failure to appreciate the power of misinformation in dissuading people to trust the vaccine.

“I would take that more seriously,” she said of the misinformation. “The biggest threat still to the American people is the threat to the unvaccinated. And most people who believe in the efficacy of the vaccine and the seriousness of the virus have been vaccinated. That troubles me deeply.”

 

 

Why Is The CDC Overcounting And Exagerating Vaccination Numbers?

axios |  The U.S. government has overcounted the number of Americans who are at least partly vaccinated against the coronavirus, Bloomberg reports.

Why it matters: Millions more people than initially thought are unprotected as coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths are rising across the country.

The big picture: Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was revised last weekend for the number of people 65 and older who have received at least one shot, according to Bloomberg.

• The CDC lowered the percentage vaccinated from 99.9%, where it had been for weeks, to 95%, without changing the raw shot totals.
• The agency has not returned Axios' request for comment.

What it means: The change in data indicates that the U.S. has counted too many shots as first doses when they are instead second doses or booster shots.

By the numbers: CDC data indicated that 240 million people — or about 72.5% of the population — had at least one shot and that 203 million — 61.3% — were fully vaccinated.

• But state and local officials reported that it was improbable for there to be such a huge disparity in vaccination numbers, Bloomberg reports.

The state of play: Three states — Illinois, Pennsylvania and West Virginia — found enough over-counting of first shots to indicate millions of unvaccinated people had mistakenly been counted as having received a dose.

• Pennsylvania had one of the biggest gaps identified, according to Bloomberg, where the CDC's estimates of first doses for people 65 and older exceeded state estimates by about 850,000.
• Illinois had more than 500,000 completely unvaccinated people ages 12 and up than initially thought. But the audit also found 730,000 people who were fully vaccinated and hadn’t been counted.

What they're saying: James Garrow, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, which has worked with the state to blend data sets for a more accurate view of vaccination trends, said "we don’t have any faith in the numbers on the CDC website, and we never refer to them."

San Francisco Elites Must've Taken London Breed To The Woodshed...,

NYTimes |  The mayor of San Francisco on Friday made a sharp break with the liberal conventions that have guided her city for decades, declaring a state of emergency in one of its most crime-infested neighborhoods.

Mayor London Breed’s announcement came just days after she emphasized the need for the police to clean up what she has described as “nasty streets.” At a news conference at City Hall, steps away from where drug dealers openly peddle fentanyl and methamphetamines, she said, “We are in a crisis and we need to respond accordingly.” She added, “Too many people are dying in this city, too many people are sprawled on our streets.”

The neighborhood, the Tenderloin, has been ground zero for drug dealing, overdose deaths and homelessness for years. But Ms. Breed said in an interview that she reached her “breaking point” in recent weeks after meeting with families with children who live in the Tenderloin and said they felt constantly threatened.

Her actions and startlingly blunt language were a marked change in tone and policy in a city that has been polarized over homeless encampments and open-air drug use. Elected as a liberal Democrat, she spoke this week about “a reign of criminals,” trash strewn across neighborhoods full of “feces and urine,” and shoplifting at high-end stores that she called “mass looting events.”

Joe D’Alessandro, president and chief executive of the San Francisco tourism bureau, said the city had an image problem and praised the mayor for addressing it.

“We are excited and enthusiastic to see some significant steps to make San Francisco a safer city,” he said. “People are just fed up with some of the stuff they’ve seen and want to see some action.”

The announcement of a state of emergency specifically targeted the drug overdose crisis: More than twice as many people died of drug overdoses in San Francisco last year as died from the coronavirus. But Friday’s announcement is part of a broader, aggressive push to crack down on drug dealing and improve conditions. In practical terms, Ms. Breed said the city would no longer tolerate illicit drug users in the streets — giving them a choice between treatment or arrest.

Biden Administration Under Fire For Ignoring "The Science"

WaPo |  The U.S. government, over the past few weeks, has made three important decisions on vaccines without consulting independent panels of experts. On Nov. 19, the Food and Drug Administration authorized boosters for all adults — regardless of their job or any underlying health conditions. On Nov. 29, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that everyone 18 and above should get a booster shot, a revision of previous guidance that strongly recommended boosters only for those 50 and older. Then, on Dec. 9, the FDA authorized booster shots (of Pfizer) for 16- and 17-year-olds, moving the age of eligibility down from 18.

Before last month, the standard practice was for the agencies to convene standing outside advisory committees, whose members inspect the relevant data, debate it and vote. That did not happen in these cases, meaning that the costs and benefits of these policy moves, from a medical perspective, were not fully aired publicly and discussed in advance.

One of us is the former deputy director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review; the other is a former acting chief scientist at the FDA. We believe that much is lost when decisions like these are made without consulting outside experts — whatever one believes about the merits of the policies in question.

At this point in the pandemic, the world faces a host of new questions related to vaccines and boosting. The recommendations of experts on the outside advisory committees are needed more than ever — so the scientific community can understand the empirical bases for decisions, and so the public can be assured that science, not politics, is driving vaccine policy.

Facing omicron feels like when a patient has relapsed

In each of the recent decisions we’ve mentioned, at least some experts would probably have voiced opposition (based on earlier scientific debates and votes the two committees had taken, which supported different conclusions). That these experts were not given a chance to make their cases could hurt the credibility of these agencies. (In a poll published in May, conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 75 percent of American adults said they trusted the FDA a great deal or somewhat, with 24 percent saying they felt not much trust or none.)

This area of research is fast-moving, and much changed between the most recent meetings of the expert committees (on the booster question) and the FDA’s decision to authorize boosters for 16- and 17-year-olds — notably the emergence of the omicron variant. Still, the lack of involvement of the FDA’s expert panel on that question was striking, and observers noticed. Helen Branswell, a senior writer for the health and science publication STAT News, tweeted that the FDA had “authorized Pfizer booster shots for 16- & 17-years olds, without asking its vax expert panel for advice.” She added, “This approach sidesteps what would likely have been lengthy discussion about myocarditis” — an uncommon side effect of the mRNA vaccines, which had drawn careful study in earlier steps of the approval process.

In a news release, the FDA explained that it didn’t convene the outside committee because approving boosters for 16- and 17-year-olds “does not raise questions that would benefit from additional discussion by committee members.” But that is unpersuasive, given the previously expressed views of panel members. The CDC has not explained why it did not convene its own panel of vaccine experts for its recent decision.