A Voluntary Product Of The System Publicly Threatening To Tear The System Down On Social Media?

Fist Tap Dale...,

Worse Than Horse Deworming Paste - CDC And Media Again Caught Prevaricating And Propagandizing

nakedcapitalism  |  Last Friday, the CDC published “Outbreak Associated with SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) Variant in an Elementary School — Marin County, California, May–June 2021” (“Outbreak”). This got a lot of play in the Northern California press, with a good deal of reporting done (or at least original stories written), because the study was led by Marin County Public Health, and they with other California epidemiologists and experts wrote the study up and then submitted it to the CDC, which accepted it. Good for them! However, there is a question “Outbreak” does not ask, and that the press did not ask. Carefully avoiding spoilers — though few NC readers will be surprised at the plot twist — I will first quote the “Outbreak” on the incident. Then I will switch into media critique mode, and present the headlines from Northern Califonia. After that, I will present the implications drawn from the outbreak by the press (which are more broad spectrum than the headlines). Finally, I will give the unasked question from “Outbreak” a thorough airing, and conclude.

Here is what “Outbreak” says in the “Investigation and Findings” section:

The outbreak location was an elementary school in Marin County, California… Each grade includes 20 to 25 students in single classrooms. Other than two teachers, one of whom was the index patient, all school staff members were vaccinated (verified in California’s Immunization Registry). The index patient became symptomatic on May 19 with nasal congestion and fatigue. This teacher reported attending social events during May 13–16 but did not report any known COVID-19 exposures and attributed symptoms to allergies. The teacher continued working during May 17–21, subsequently experiencing cough, subjective fever, and headache. The school required teachers and students to mask while indoors; interviews with parents of infected students suggested that students’ adherence to masking and distancing guidelines in line with CDC recommendations (3) was high in class. However, the teacher was reportedly unmasked on occasions when reading aloud in class. On May 23, the teacher notified the school that they received a positive result for a SARS-CoV-2 test performed on May 21 and self-isolated until May 30. The teacher did not receive a second COVID-19 test, but reported fully recovering during isolation.

The index patient’s students began experiencing symptoms on May 22. During May 23–26, among 24 students in this grade, 22 were tested…. Twelve (55%) of the 22 students received a positive test result, including eight who experienced symptom onset during May 22–26. Throughout this period, all desks were separated by 6 ft. Students were seated in five rows; the attack rate in the two rows seated closest to the teacher’s desk was 80% (eight of 10) and was 28% (four of 14) in the three back rows…

On May 22, students in a another classroom, who differed in age by 3 years from the students in the class with the index case and who were also ineligible for vaccination began to experience symptoms. The two classrooms were separated by a large outdoor courtyard with lunch tables that were blocked off from use with yellow tape. All classrooms had portable high-efficiency particulate air filters and doors and windows were left open. Fourteen of 18 students in this separate grade received testing; six tests had positive results. Investigation revealed that one student in this grade hosted a sleepover on May 21 with two classmates from the same grade. All three of these students experienced symptoms after the sleepover and received positive SARS-CoV-2 test results. Among infected students in this class, test dates ranged from May 24 to June 1; symptom onset occurred during May 22–31.

So that’s the outbreak. Here are the headlines:

• CDC: Unvaccinated Marin County teacher caused big COVID-19 outbreak in school San Francisco Chronicle
• CDC study finds unvaccinated Marin Co. teacher infected 22 elementary school students with COVID ABC7
• CDC report confirms unvaccinated Marin County teacher was source of Delta variant outbreak KTVU
• CDC study shows unvaccinated teacher started Delta COVID outbreak at Marin school KSBW
• One Unvaccinated Teacher In Marin School Seeded COVID Outbreak That Infected Over a Dozen Students, Their Siblings, and Parents SFist
• How 1 unvaccinated Marin County teacher started a delta variant outbreak: CDC study KRON4

There is a unanimity of opinion by the headline-writing editors that the source of the problem was the index case: the unvaccinated teacher. Indeed, that’s without justification — that is, is not only a matter of aghastitude — given the “Implications for Public Health Practice” in the Summary section of “Outbreak”:

Vaccines are effective against the Delta variant, but transmission risk remains elevated among unvaccinated persons in schools. In addition to vaccination, strict adherence to multiple nonpharmaceutical prevention strategies, including masking, are important to ensure safe school instruction.

(I presume the Summary is tacked on to the submitted study by CDC.) Now let’s turn to the bodies of the stories, where there is a broader spectrum of opinion than in the headlines.

The Commission on Information Disorder?

Harpers |  In the beginning, there were ABC, NBC, and CBS, and they were good. Midcentury American man could come home after eight hours of work and turn on his television and know where he stood in relation to his wife, and his children, and his neighbors, and his town, and his country, and his world. And that was good. Or he could open the local paper in the morning in the ritual fashion, taking his civic communion with his coffee, and know that identical scenes were unfolding in households across the country.

Over frequencies our American never tuned in to, red-baiting, ultra-right-wing radio preachers hyperventilated to millions. In magazines and books he didn’t read, elites fretted at great length about the dislocating effects of television. And for people who didn’t look like him, the media had hardly anything to say at all. But our man lived in an Eden, not because it was unspoiled, but because he hadn’t considered any other state of affairs. For him, information was in its right—that is to say, unquestioned—place. And that was good, too.

Today, we are lapsed. We understand the media through a metaphor—“the information ecosystem”—which suggests to the American subject that she occupies a hopelessly denatured habitat. Every time she logs on to Facebook or YouTube or Twitter, she encounters the toxic byproducts of modernity as fast as her fingers can scroll. Here is hate speech, foreign interference, and trolling; there are lies about the sizes of inauguration crowds, the origins of pandemics, and the outcomes of elections.

She looks out at her fellow citizens and sees them as contaminated, like tufted coastal animals after an oil spill, with “disinformation” and “misinformation.” She can’t quite define these terms, but she feels that they define the world, online and, increasingly, off.

Everyone scrounges this wasteland for tainted morsels of content, and it’s impossible to know exactly what anyone else has found, in what condition, and in what order. Nevertheless, our American is sure that what her fellow citizens are reading and watching is bad. According to a 2019 Pew survey, half of Americans think that “made-up news/info” is “a very big problem in the country today,” about on par with the “U.S. political system,” the “gap between rich and poor,” and “violent crime.” But she is most worried about disinformation, because it seems so new, and because so new, so isolable, and because so isolable, so fixable. It has something to do, she knows, with the algorithm.

What is to be done with all the bad content? In March, the Aspen Institute announced that it would convene an exquisitely nonpartisan Commission on Information Disorder, co-chaired by Katie Couric, which would “deliver recommendations for how the country can respond to this modern-day crisis of faith in key institutions.” The fifteen commissioners include Yasmin Green, the director of research and development for Jigsaw, a technology incubator within Google that “explores threats to open societies”; Garry Kasparov, the chess champion and Kremlin critic; Alex Stamos, formerly Facebook’s chief security officer and now the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory; Kathryn Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s estranged daughter-in-law; and Prince Harry, Prince Charles’s estranged son. Among the commission’s goals is to determine “how government, private industry, and civil society can work together . . . to engage disaffected populations who have lost faith in evidence-based reality,” faith being a well-known prerequisite for evidence-based reality.

The Commission on Information Disorder is the latest (and most creepily named) addition to a new field of knowledge production that emerged during the Trump years at the juncture of media, academia, and policy research: Big Disinfo. A kind of EPA for content, it seeks to expose the spread of various sorts of “toxicity” on social-media platforms, the downstream effects of this spread, and the platforms’ clumsy, dishonest, and half-hearted attempts to halt it. As an environmental cleanup project, it presumes a harm model of content consumption. Just as, say, smoking causes cancer, consuming bad information must cause changes in belief or behavior that are bad, by some standard. Otherwise, why care what people read and watch?

Big Disinfo has found energetic support from the highest echelons of the American political center, which has been warning of an existential content crisis more or less constantly since the 2016 election. To take only the most recent example: in May, Hillary Clinton told the former Tory leader Lord Hague that “there must be a reckoning by the tech companies for the role that they play in undermining the information ecosystem that is absolutely essential for the functioning of any democracy.”

NIH Being Effectively Sued For Deception With Regard To Ivermectin Efficacy...,

Trialsite  |  On August 25, NIH appeared in conference in federal court in the District of New Jersey. The purpose of the appearance was for resolution of Jin-Pyong Peter Yim v National Institutes of Health and for scheduling of “motion practice”, if necessary. I am the plaintiff in the case. Beneath the legal formalities, the case could reveal that NIH deceived the nation on a treatment for COVID-19.

NIH is alleged to have violated the Freedom of Information Act. NIH failed to respond to a document request made on January 28, 2021:

“All updates to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Treatment Guidelines that were endorsed by a vote of the Panel. (Date Range for Record Search: From 01/01/2021 To 01/28/2021)”

The purpose of the FOIA request was not to obtain the document. Rather, it was to know if a vote was held to endorse the NIH recommendation on ivermectin. NIH violated FOIA because it did not respond within the time defined by statute. A complaint was filed against the NIH on March 26, 2021 to appeal the non-response. NIH answered the complaint on June 30. The answer included an exhibit and testimony.

NIH was represented by Margaret Ann Mahoney. She stated that NIH had responded to the FOIA request. She was referring to the NIH FOIA response from April 23:

“You requested all updates to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Treatment Guidelines that were endorsed by a vote of the Panel (Date range for record search from 01/01/2021 to 01/28/2021). All approved updates to the guidelines are posted online and can be found here. The documents posted on this website respond to your request in full.”

I requested a change to the NIH response. The NIH response is ambiguous as to whether the requested document exists. I provided a URL that refers to a single document. I requested that that URL be given in the NIH FOIA response if that recommendation was endorsed by a vote.

The conference was presided over by Judge Lois H. Goodman. She gave her opinion following discussion between the plaintiff and defendant. She expressed skepticism of the legal basis for the complaint. However, she urged further negotiation and allowed for “motion practice” if no agreement was reached. Her concluding remarks are here.

Following the conference, Judge Goodman also issued the following order:

“TEXT ORDER directing parties to confer to attempt resolution to this dispute. Parties to report to the Court as to the results of those efforts to resolve by 9/8/2021. If, matter cannot be resolved, dispositive motions to be filed by 9/24/2021 and to be returnable on 10/18/2021. Ms. Mahoney is directed to provide pro se plaintiff with a copy of this text order. So Ordered by Magistrate Judge Lois H. Goodman on 8/26/2021 .”

To Deny Natural Immunity Is To Deny Science...,

alexberenson |  The question I get more than any other:

I had Covid. I had an antibody test to prove it. Am I protected (and do I need to get the vaccine)?

Let me start with the usual disclaimer: THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. I AM NOT A PHYSICIAN.

But the answer is now increasingly clear: natural immunity from Covid following infection and recovery is HIGHLY protective against future Covid infections. Rates of reinfection are very low.

Perhaps natural immunity eventually wanes, but we don’t know when. In fact, a little-noticed paper from June suggests it may actually strengthen for at least a year - and provide plenty of protection from Delta and other variants.

I am not going into the problems with vaccine-generated protection today or with our political unwillingness to recognize natural immunity. (Remember, GOOD NEWS - we could all use it).

Let’s just look instead at why natural immunity works so well.

You immune response comes in two forms: “humoral” and “cellular.”

When you are infected with Sars-Cov-2, your body’s “B-cells” - part of the immune system - quickly pour out “antibodies.” These antibodies attack the viral particles circulating in your blood and other fluids, hoping to keep the virus from entering your cells and replicating itself.

This is humoral immunity. Your B-cells make antibodies in many different shapes. Some are better at sticking to the virus. Scientists call these “neutralizing” antibodies because they neutralize the “antigen,” the foreign body attacking you, keeping it from entering your cells.

Amazingly, your B-cells quickly figure out which antibodies neutralize most effectively and make more of them, while cutting back on those that don’t work.

At the same time, another part of the immune system - killer or CD8 T-cells - attacks cells that the virus has already infected. You destroy your own cells to prevent the virus from using them to make more copies of itself. This is cellular immunity.

For a few days after you are infected, your immune system is in a race with the virus. If you win the race, defeat the virus, and recover - as the vast majority of people infected with Sars-Cov-2 do - within a week or two you should have no measurable levels of virus in your body.

Why Don't Public Health Officials "Remember" What Happened With Polio Vaccine?

americanthinker |  Prior to the 1950s, paralytic polio was a scourge.  FDR was crippled from it while in his 30s, the March of Dimes was started to combat it, and photos of rows and rows of children in iron lungs were common in the media.  From this situation, vaccines were developed to combat the disease.

Polio is caused by one of three types of poliovirus that can cause paralysis and death.  In the 1950s, two vaccines were independently developed to combat it, one by Jonas Salk and the other by Albert Sabin.  Polio was eradicated, and today those vaccines are thought of as miracle drugs.  But were they?

In the early 1950s, Salk was the first to come out with a vaccine.  His was designed to treat all three polio viruses at once.  His approach seemed basic enough.  It was to grow polioviruses in the lab, kill them, and then inject healthy children with the dead viruses.  The idea was that the dead viruses could not reproduce, so they could not harm the children.  The children's immune system, however, would detect the injected viruses and produce effective antibodies against them, thus creating immunity against polio.

Just prior to beginning mass inoculations, samples of the Salk vaccine were sent to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for safety testing. 

There, when bacteriologist Dr. Bernice Eddy injected the vaccine into her monkeys, some of them fell down paralyzed.  She concluded that the virus was not entirely dead as promised.  Instead, the virus was active and could reproduce in its host.  Eddy sounded the alarm and presented her findings.  A debate ensued in the corridors of power.  Advocates for caution were overruled, and the mass inoculation proceeded on schedule. 

The inoculation of children began in 1955.  Within days, some injected children were coming down with polio.  Some were even spreading the disease to family members.  Subsequent investigations determined that the vaccine had caused 40,000 cases of polio, leaving 200 children with varying degrees of paralysis and ten dead.  Alton Ochsner, a professor of surgery at Tulane Medical School, was such a strong proponent of proceeding with the inoculation program that he gave vaccine injections to his grandchildren to prove that it was safe.  Ochsner's grandson died from polio a few months later, and his granddaughter contracted polio but survived. 

This fiasco has become known as the Cutter incident.  It's named after the manufacturer of the vaccine.  The vaccine was recalled and retested for safety, but the damage had already been done in the mind of the public.

Fugg Around With Sheeple Quantum Biology, But You Not Gonna Phug With Mine...,

medical-net  |  Quantum biology is an emerging field of science, established in the 1920s, which looks at whether the subatomic world of quantum mechanics plays a role in living cells. Quantum mechanics is an interdisciplinary field by nature, bringing together nuclear physicists, biochemists and molecular biologists.

In a research paper published by the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, a team from Surrey's Leverhulme Quantum Biology Doctoral Training Centre used state-of-the-art computer simulations and quantum mechanical methods to determine the role proton tunneling, a purely quantum phenomenon, plays in spontaneous mutations inside DNA.

Proton tunneling involves the spontaneous disappearance of a proton from one location and the same proton's re-appearance nearby.

The research team found that atoms of hydrogen, which are very light, provide the bonds that hold the two strands of the DNA's double helix together and can, under certain conditions, behave like spread-out waves that can exist in multiple locations at once, thanks to proton tunneling. This leads to these atoms occasionally being found on the wrong strand of DNA, leading to mutations.

Although these mutations' lifetime is short, the team from Surrey has revealed that they can still survive the DNA replication mechanism inside cells and could potentially have health consequences.

Dr Marco Sacchi, the project lead and Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Surrey, said: "Many have long suspected that the quantum world - which is weird, counter-intuitive and wonderful - plays a role in life as we know it. While the idea that something can be present in two places at the same time might be absurd to many of us, this happens all the time in the quantum world, and our study confirms that quantum tunneling also happens in DNA at room temperature."

There is still a long and exciting road ahead of us to understand how biological processes work on the subatomic level, but our study - and countless others over the recent years - have confirmed quantum mechanics are at play. In the future, we are hoping to investigate how tautomers produced by quantum tunneling can propagate and generate genetic mutations."

Louie Slocombe, PhD Student, Leverhulme Quantum Biology Doctoral Training Centre and Study Co-Author

Jim Al-Khalili, a co-author of the study and Co-Director of the Leverhulme Quantum Biology Doctoral Training Centre at the University of Surrey, said: "It has been thrilling to work with this group of young, diverse and talented thinkers - made up of a broad coalition of the scientific world. This work cements quantum biology as the most exciting field of scientific research in the 21st century."

mRNA Neo-Vaccinoids Are An ABOMINATION To The Root Of Life Itself

discovermagazine |  With photosynthesis, scientists show for the first time that there are quantum effects in living systems. This could lead to better solar panels, energy storage or even quantum computers. (Credit: Shutterstock) We all probably learned about photosynthesis, how plants turn sunlight into energy, in school. It might seem, therefore, that we figured out this bit of the world. But scientists are still learning new things about even the most basic stuff (see also the sun and moon), and photosynthesis is no different. In particular, according to a study released Monday in Nature Chemistry, an international team of scientists showed that molecules involved in photosynthesis display quantum mechanical behavior. Even though we’d suspected as much before, this is the first time we’ve seen quantum effects in living systems. Not only will it help us better understand plants, sunlight and everything in between, but it could also mean cool new tech in the future.

The Quantum Conundrum

First, let’s back up. While photosynthesis may be taught in classrooms the world over, quantum mechanics is a bit less popular, in part because it’s so weird. Nobel Prize-winning quantum physicist Richard Feynman once said, "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." It’s so impenetrable to non-experts that the same metaphors come up whenever someone tries to explain it. You might have heard of Schrödinger's Cat, which is both alive and dead at the same time thanks to quantum weirdness — in particular, because electrons can be in two states at the same time. It’s only when we observe the system that the weirdness collapses and reality “picks” one state: the cat’s actually alive (or dead), the electron’s actually at this end of the room (or that end). But quantum effects are typically limited to the very small, and only really observable in perfect, laboratory conditions. A living being, with its wet, messy systems, would be a tough place to find some quantum weirdness lurking — and yet we have. 

Molecular Madness

Scientists zoomed in on the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex, a key component of green sulfur bacteria's machinery for photosynthesis. It’s been a historical favorite for such research because we’ve long known its structure and it's fairly easy to work with. Previous experiments had seemed to show light-sensitive molecules in this area in two different states at the same time — that’s quantum weirdness — but the effect lasted more than 1 picosecond, which is much longer than expected. This new study shows that it was really just regular vibrations in the molecules, nothing quantum about it. But researchers have been excited about the possibilities of quantum biology for years, so having disproved the earlier experiments, the authors wanted to find some new evidence of their own. “We wondered if we might be able to observe that Schrödinger cat situation,” says co-author Thomas la Cour Jansen in a press release. And observe it they did! With a technique called two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy, researchers saw molecules in simultaneous excited states — quantum weirdness akin to a cat being alive and dead at the same time. What’s more, the effect lasted exactly as long as theories predicted it, suggesting this evidence of quantum biology will last. As the authors succinctly put it, “Thus, our measurements provide an unambiguous experimental observation of excited-state vibronic coherence in the FMO complex.” What could be simpler? The results shed light (haha) on how to harvest energy from light, and the team thinks they’re “generally applicable” to a variety of systems, living and non-living alike. This means it could result in engineering benefits such as better solar panels, energy storage or even quantum computers. And, of course, updated textbooks for tomorrow’s lessons on photosynthesis.

 

I Don't Think Of Quantum Biology As A Metaphor...,

quantamagazine  |   It’s not surprising that quantum physics has a reputation for being weird and counterintuitive. The world we’re living in sure doesn’t feel quantum mechanical. And until the 20th century, everyone assumed that the classical laws of physics devised by Isaac Newton and others — according to which objects have well-defined positions and properties at all times — would work at every scale. But Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and their contemporaries discovered that down among atoms and subatomic particles, this concreteness dissolves into a soup of possibilities. An atom typically can’t be assigned a definite position, for example — we can merely calculate the probability of finding it in various places. The vexing question then becomes: How do quantum probabilities coalesce into the sharp focus of the classical world?

Physicists sometimes talk about this changeover as the “quantum-classical transition.” But in fact there’s no reason to think that the large and the small have fundamentally different rules, or that there’s a sudden switch between them. Over the past several decades, researchers have achieved a greater understanding of how quantum mechanics inevitably becomes classical mechanics through an interaction between a particle or other microscopic system and its surrounding environment.

One of the most remarkable ideas in this theoretical framework is that the definite properties of objects that we associate with classical physics — position and speed, say — are selected from a menu of quantum possibilities in a process loosely analogous to natural selection in evolution: The properties that survive are in some sense the “fittest.” As in natural selection, the survivors are those that make the most copies of themselves. This means that many independent observers can make measurements of a quantum system and agree on the outcome — a hallmark of classical behavior.

This idea, called quantum Darwinism (QD), explains a lot about why we experience the world the way we do rather than in the peculiar way it manifests at the scale of atoms and fundamental particles. Although aspects of the puzzle remain unresolved, QD helps heal the apparent rift between quantum and classical physics.

Only recently, however, has quantum Darwinism been put to the experimental test. Three research groups, working independently in Italy, China and Germany, have looked for the telltale signature of the natural selection process by which information about a quantum system gets repeatedly imprinted on various controlled environments. These tests are rudimentary, and experts say there’s still much more to be done before we can feel sure that QD provides the right picture of how our concrete reality condenses from the multiple options that quantum mechanics offers. Yet so far, the theory checks out.

 

 

Dr. Christina Parks And Virginia Stoner Swing The Scientific SledgeHammer On The mRNA Neo-Vaccinoids

virginiastoner | Vaccine dangers hiding in plain sight FACT: There has been a massive increase in deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) this year. That’s not a ‘conspiracy theory’, that’s an indisputable fact. You can try to explain it or justify it, or even argue it doesn’t matter, but you can’t deny it.

We’re not talking about a modest increase in death reports, something we might chat about in concerned voices over Chai tea and bagels at a company mixer. We’re talking about a huge and unprecedented increase—so massive that in the last 4 months alone, VAERS has received over 40% of all death reports it has ever received in its entire 30+year history. So massive it’s literally “off the chart.” The first chart in the pair below shows VAERS death reports from 2014 thru 2020. If you tried to add the 2021 data to it, it would be way, way off the chart. The second chart shows how much detail was lost when the 2021 data was squeezed in.

The pair of charts below are another illustration. Notice all age groups had an increase in death reports from the COVID-19 vaccines—with both the 18-64 and 65+ age groups experiencing a dramatic “off the chart” increase.

The increase in VAERS death reports is not due to more vaccination Even with the COVID-19 shots, the estimated total vaccines administered so far this year is less than the yearly average–because we are only a quarter of the way through this year. No doubt the vaccine count will climb much higher by the end of this year, but it’s not the reason for the massive increase in VAERS death reports over the last 4 months. The following chart compares estimates of vaccines administered with deaths reported to VAERS, separating COVID-19 vaccines from other vaccines. The rate of reported deaths for other vaccines looks fairly normal; the massive increase is mainly from the COVID-19 vaccines.

There are many notes at the end of this paper about how the vaccine data was estimated, and where the data for these charts was obtained, along with the data table.

But, But.., Ivermectin Formulated And Prescribed For Humans Is As Cheap And Harmless As Aspirin....,

abcnews  |  Washington County's sheriff confirmed Tuesday night that jail inmates had been prescribed ivermectin, but did not say how many. It wasn't clear if all the inmates who were prescribed the medication had tested positive for COVID-19.

“There is an open investigation and we can’t comment on it right now," Embry told The Associated Press.

Dr. Rob Karas, the jail's physician, has said no inmates were forced to take the drug.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved ivermectin for use by people and animals for some parasitic worms, head lice and skin conditions. The FDA has not approved its use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans. According to the FDA, side effects for the drug include skin rash, nausea and vomiting.

“Using any treatment for COVID-19 that’s not approved or authorized by the FDA, unless part of a clinical trial, can cause serious harm,” the FDA said in a warning about the drug.

Embry declined to say who was the target of the board's investigation. The board has authority over physicians, but not jail facilities.

Sheriff Tim Helder did not return a message Thursday, and a spokesperson for the sheriff's office did not immediately respond to questions about the drug's use.

In a lengthy statement released to the AP Thursday, Karas defended the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Karas said he has prescribed it to inmates and patients at his clinics who are significantly sick with COVID-19 since late 2020. He did not respond to questions about the investigation and the number of inmates who have have been prescribed the drug.

“I do not have the luxury of conducting my own clinical trial or study and am not attempting to do so," Karas wrote. “I am on the front line of trying to prevent death and serious illness."

The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that the sheriff's office said Helder had learned of the drug's use at the jail on Tuesday. In a July 20 email to Helder, Karas recommended the sheriff's staff take it as a preventive measure against COVID-19 but did not mention its use on inmates. Karas has said he's taken the drug, as have members of his family.

Arkansas Karenwaffen Justice Of The Peace BIG MAD About MD Prescribing Ivermectin For Covid

dailymail  |  A jail doctor in Washington County, Arkansas, has been using an animal deworming drug to treat inmates with Covid-19 even though the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has specifically warned against it.

Ivermectin is often used as a dewormer in animals including cows and horses, and is not recommended for treating the virus. The FDA said it 'can cause serious harm'.

During a finance and budget committee meeting for Washington County on Tuesday night the jail's physician Dr Rob Karas asked for a 10 per cent increase in the medical services contract, even after the county sheriff confirmed that the jail health provider had been prescribing the drug. 

Dr Karas has faced calls to resign over the revelation.  

County-elected Justice of the Peace Eva Madison brought the issue back up towards the end of the meeting after jail officials presented their 2022 budget. 'I learned today that Dr Karas is giving ivermectin - cow dewormer - to the inmates at the jail,' she said.

Madison told members of the Washington County quorum court - the county's governing body - that a jail official and county employee, who asked to stay anonymous, told her they had been sent to the jail's clinic to get tested for Covid-19. 

When the unidentified person tested negative they told Madison they were given a $76 prescription for ivermectin, as reported by CBS News.

'They were concerned about the prescription, asked their primary care physician about it and the doctor told him to 'throw that in the trash,' she said.

'(The person) tested negative, was given a prescription for ivermectin, was told to go to Dr Karas's pharmacy just off campus to have it filled,' Madison told the committee. 

She added: 'He's out $76 because of Dr Karas prescribing dewormer to a county employee for treatment of a condition that he didn't have.

'The employee had the good fortune to have a physician that he could go to and ask for a second opinion. Our inmates do not have that choice.'

Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder did not say how many inmates at the 710-bed facility had been given ivermectin and defended Dr Karas, who has been prescribing the medication.

 

If Natural Immunity Is More Effective Immunity - Why Would Any Previously Infected Need A Vaccine ID?

medrxiv  |  CONCLUSIONS: “This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.

Background: Reports of waning vaccine-induced immunity against COVID-19 have begun to surface. With that, the comparable long-term protection conferred by previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 remains unclear. Methods: We conducted a retrospective observational study comparing three groups: (1)SARS-CoV-2-naive individuals who received a two-dose regimen of the BioNTech/Pfizer mRNA BNT162b2 vaccine, (2)previously infected individuals who have not been vaccinated, and (3)previously infected and single dose vaccinated individuals. Three multivariate logistic regression models were applied. 

In all models we evaluated four outcomes: SARS-CoV-2 infection, symptomatic disease, COVID-19-related hospitalization and death. The follow-up period of June 1 to August 14, 2021, when the Delta variant was dominant in Israel. Results: SARS-CoV-2-naive vaccinees had a 13.06-fold (95% CI, 8.08 to 21.11) increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected, when the first event (infection or vaccination) occurred during January and February of 2021. The increased risk was significant (P<0.001) for symptomatic disease as well. 

When allowing the infection to occur at any time before vaccination (from March 2020 to February 2021), evidence of waning natural immunity was demonstrated, though SARS-CoV-2 naive vaccinees had a 5.96-fold (95% CI, 4.85 to 7.33) increased risk for breakthrough infection and a 7.13-fold (95% CI, 5.51 to 9.21) increased risk for symptomatic disease. 

SARS-CoV-2-naive vaccinees were also at a greater risk for COVID-19-related-hospitalizations compared to those that were previously infected. 

Conclusions: This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity. Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant. 

Breakthrough Prevalence Among Israel's Pfizer Ultra-vaxxed A Dire Warning For America

thedailybeast |  The massive surge of COVID-19 infections in Israel, one of the most vaccinated countries on earth, is pointing to a complicated path ahead for America.

In June, there were several days with zero new COVID infections in Israel. The country launched its national vaccination campaign in December last year and has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, with 80 percent of citizens above the age of 12 fully inoculated. COVID, most Israelis thought, had been defeated. All restrictions were lifted and Israelis went back to crowded partying and praying in mask-free venues.

 Fast forward two months later: Israel reported 9,831 new diagnosed cases on Tuesday, a hairbreadth away from the worst daily figure ever recorded in the country—10,000—at the peak of the third wave. More than 350 people have died of the disease in the first three weeks of August. In a Sunday press conference, the directors of seven public hospitals announced that they could no longer admit any coronavirus patients. With 670 COVID-19 patients requiring critical care, their wards are overflowing and staff are at breaking point.

“I don’t want to frighten you,” coronavirus czar Dr. Salman Zarka told the Israeli parliament this week. “But this is the data. Unfortunately, the numbers don’t lie.”

Israel vaccinated its population almost exclusively with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which received full FDA approval on Monday and remains the gold standard for the prevention of severe illness due to the coronavirus.

But in early July, with citizens over the age of 60 almost completely vaccinated, Israeli scientists began observing a worrisome rise in infections—if not in severe illness and death—among the double-vaccinated.

Fully vaccinated people with weakened immune systems appeared particularly vulnerable to the aggressive Delta variant.

By mid-July, Sheba Hospital Professor Galia Rahav began to experiment with booster shots for oncology patients, transplant patients, and the hospital’s own staff. A group of 70 elderly vaccinated Israelis with transplanted kidneys were the first to receive a third dose.

The success of Rahav’s trials in boosting immunity at about the sixth-month mark contributed to the Centers for Disease Control decision, announced last week, to begin offering booster shots to Americans in September.

In order to keep severe illness and the number of COVID deaths down, and avoiding a fourth national lockdown, Israel has embarked on an aggressive effort to provide all adults with boosters in a matter of weeks.

 

It Is Irresponsible To Push For mRNA Boosters For Healthy People Prior To A Safety Review

MedPageToday |  Over the last week, the topic of COVID-19 booster shots -- a third dose of mRNA vaccine for healthy Americans -- has been thrust into the spotlight. The surgeon general, CDC director, Anthony Fauci, MD, and President Biden have announced that they wish for boosters to be available by late September for healthy adults who are 8 months out from their original two-dose series. While this will be contingent on an FDA evaluation to determine the "safety and effectiveness of the third dose," a clear path forward has already been set. And just like everything else throughout the course of the pandemic, the choice has been made with a dearth of data and an abundance of political pressure.

Diminishing vaccine effectiveness supposedly makes the case for boosters. But there are two big questions here: First, what is current vaccine effectiveness? And second, what justifies boosters? Let's consider these in turn.

What Is Vaccine Effectiveness Now?

We have to be honest, many vaccine effectiveness studies are poorly done. All studies compare the rate of getting a breakthrough infection among vaccinated people against the rate of infection in unvaccinated people. But there are some issues with this approach. First, as time goes on, more unvaccinated people have had and recovered from COVID-19 (and these individuals may be less likely to go on to get a shot). This means that their risk of getting COVID-19 a second time is far less than the typical unvaccinated person who has never been sick. Even if vaccines "work" as well as before, this factor alone will result in the appearance of diminishing vaccine effectiveness.

Decisions about boosters have to be based in science and made by vaccine regulators. They should not be subject to the pressure of manufacturers, politicians, or political appointees. They should not be rushed. On Sunday television, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, was specifically asked if the third shot was safe. His response: "the plan is contingent on that..."

Excuse me? We don't know that to be true, and yet, our top medical and public health experts are pushing for boosters? Drug safety expert Walid Gellad, MD, MPH, tweeted: "It was irresponsible to push for boosters in healthy people before safety review."

Two days after the White House's announcement, two people with knowledge of the FDA's deliberation told The Washington Post that the agency was investigating myocarditis signal with the Moderna vaccination. Canadian data suggest the risk may be 2.5 times that of Pfizer's vaccine. The timing of this internal information leaking to reporters naturally leads me to wonder if reviewers in the agency are attempting to counteract political pressure, and create space to conduct a thorough review of booster data.

 

We’re Lacking Crucial Data On Breakthrough Infections Because CDC Actively Refused To Collect It

politico  |   The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is using outdated and unreliable data on coronavirus breakthrough infections to help make major decisions, such as who gets booster shots, according to three officials with direct knowledge of the situation.

The agency originally tried to track all infections in vaccinated people, from mild to severe. But in May it decided to focus on the most severe cases, saying that would allow it to better monitor overall conditions and make more informed, targeted policy decisions.

Forty-nine states are now regularly sending CDC information on hospitalized breakthrough patients. But more than a dozen told POLITICO that they do not have the capacity to match patients’ hospital admission data with their immunization records. Instead, those states rely on hospital administrators to report breakthrough infections. The resulting data is often aggregated, inaccurate and omits critical details for teasing out trends, such as which vaccine a person received and whether they have been fully vaccinated, a dozen state officials said.

The gaps in this crucial data stream raise questions about the Biden administration’s ability to spot and respond to changes in the virus’s behavior — such as the rapid spread of the Delta variant, which crowded out other strains — or vaccines’ performance. It also underscores the extent to which the CDC and public health departments across the country are still struggling to collect and study critical Covid-19 information 18 months after the pandemic began.

“I think it would be really challenging [for the CDC] to interpret the results or to interpret the data when you have only some jurisdictions reporting [breakthrough infections],” said Theresa Sokol, lead epidemiologist for Louisiana’s state public health department, which is working closely with the CDC on studies of breakthrough infections. “I know that there are some jurisdictions that don't even have access to their vaccination data. They don't have the authority or their permission.”

Many of the hurdles facing CDC and state officials trying to gather data during the age of the Delta variant are the result of the patchwork of public-health agency data systems, many of which cannot communicate with each other. For more than a decade, states have pleaded with the federal government for money to make it easier to gather and study disease trends electronically. The pandemic has overloaded those arcane systems, revealing the disorganized nature of public health reporting and case investigation.

Now Is The Time To Use Ivermectin

yomiuri shimbun  |  During the Tokyo Olympics, Delta strains originating in India raged and the number of infected people continues to increase. Why is Japan not trying to use ivermectin, which has few reports of side effects and has been reported to be effective in clinical trials in other countries? On August 5, we had an urgent interview with Mr. Ozaki, chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association, who had been proposing effective uses of ivermectin from early on.

The peak of infection spread that is not yet visible

――It seems that the explosive spread of infection, which is also called the 5th wave, is still rising. The number of people waiting at home and receiving medical treatment is increasing rapidly. How is the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association responding?

　"When the number of people waiting at home and receiving medical treatment increased sharply in the third wave of January, this was no good, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association and the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association worked together to build a system with the goal of 24-hour support. We have been able to handle up to 37 of the 47 district medical associations. However, the current situation where more than 1000 home caregivers are piled up every day is beyond the limit. , Vaccination, medical examination, home visit, etc. are not available. Now, the health center is coordinating hospitalization. There is also a hospitalization coordinating center in Tokyo, but there is a system that can quickly accept and treat suddenly changed corona patients. I haven't gotten to the point of being established. "

Many clinical trial results are "effective for prevention and treatment"

--If you read the papers on clinical trials of ivermectin that have been published around the world, there are many examples that are effective for both prevention and treatment.

　"I am aware that there are many papers that ivermectin is effective in the prevention and treatment of corona, mainly in Central and South America and Asia. There is no effective therapeutic drug, although it is necessary to deal with patients who develop it one after another. The vaccine is not in time. At such an imminent time, there is a paper that ivermectin is effective for corona, so it is a natural response for clinicians to try using it. Doctor-led clinical practice That's why many test papers came out. "

--Usually, pharmaceutical companies conduct large-scale clinical trials to see the effects, but ivermectin has been selected by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a silver bullet for tropical diseases such as onchocerciasis (river blindness) and lymphatic filariasis. It is a drug approved by countries around the world more than 20 years ago. If it is effective for the new corona, it is not applicable, but it is unavoidable that we decided to use it in a pandemic.

　"That's right. The medical field of a pandemic is a battlefield. It's the same as a field hospital. Patients are brought in and their condition deteriorates one after another and they die. So I can understand the feelings of the doctor who clings to this and administers it. "

　"The other day, a research group at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences / AIIMS, which sets guidelines for the treatment of corona infections in India, has published a paper investigating the preventive effects of ivermectin. According to the report, about 3,900 medical workers (staff and students) were given 0.3 mg / kg of ivermectin twice at 3-day intervals, only once, and then. As a result of conducting clinical trials divided into three groups of those who did not, it is said that those who received ivermectin twice reduced the new corona infection by 83%. It was the first time in the world to publish a paper. It's a class research group, so it's very reliable. "

 

How Did India Abruptly Stop Being Ground Zero Of The Coronapocalypse?

Why is no one interested in India anymore with respect to the Coronapocalypse? Can a couple of weeks really make such an incredible difference? The contrast from July to August is really stark. When the news was bad you couldn't turn to a news outlet that wasn’t reporting about the continuous megadeath in India. Now, not nary a peep...,

Speaks volumes how reporting is being used to gin up fear beyond what is suggested by the "science". Since the Indian coronapocalypse has fallen off the official narrative radar, I went over to the Times of India to have a look. They have a “Covid Tracker” that says that there were 382 deaths on Aug 22 related to Covid-21. New Cases are down 30%, to 25,320.

Now if you do the math, India has ~1.4 billion people. These Covid-21 figures don't even amount to rounding errors. Given that Ivermectin is in the Indian Covid-21 treatment protocol - AS ACROSS PARTS OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENT - maybe the 1.4 billion horse-paste eating Indian animals are getting some type of prophylactic and curative benefit from their veterinary medicine?

This site is another good place to watch and keep track of the numbers. I follow Uttar Pradesh. Their deaths from Covid today (with a population above 500 million) were …. zero, niente, rien, zed. aka none. 

Of course there were likely a few, but I challenge anyone to prove that India’s numbers are as through the roof as the U.S. There are no funeral pyres burning, floating bodies in the Ganges, hospitals overflowing, shortages of O2 canisters, etc.

Ivermectin use? High.

Vaccination rate? Still in the single digits.

Florida? Under reporting did you say? 

Texas? Pediatric wards packed. 

Oregon? Sending children to hospital in Seattle due to lack of beds?

India? Passez moi l’ ivermectin stp dégolas!

Covid-19 The Ivermectin African Enigma

onafhanklik |  The low frequency of cases and deaths from the SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 virus in some countries of Africa has called our attention to the unusual behavior of this disease. Data from 19 countries that participated in the WHO sponsored African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC), from 1995 until 2015, intended to treat over 90 million people annually and protect an at-risk population of 115 million, were compared with thirty-five (Non-APOC), countries that were not included. The statistics show a significant 28% lower mortality (0.72 IC 95% 0,67-0,78) and 8% lower rate of infection (0.92 IC95% 0,91-0,93) due to COVID-19.  It was concluded that the incidence in mortality rates and number of cases is significantly lower among the APOC countries compared to non-APOC countries. Additional studies are needed to confirm it.

Ivermectin has been banned in South Africa to used for Covid19 – there is no vaccine and those “promised vaccines” all over, are also not of any guarantee to anybody. For how long is those vaccines, for a year perhaps? And people still need to wear masks and closed down businesses to harm all economies. No income, no food and no employment. Mass control and manipulation.

What are the benefits of Ivermectin? There were already various trials in different countries.

Ivermectin – Prof Paul Marik

FLCCC Alliance – Ivermectin …

Ivermectin – Covid-19 – Prof Thomas Borody

Zinc – Ivermectin – Doxycycline – virus

Regarding the Covid-19 virus, it was earlier stated on 2 November 2020, that when Covid-19 arrived in Tanzania, their President Magufuli didn’t believe in his people to stay at home. He wanted his people to get into the churches and mosques to pray.  

Tanzania Africa
 

Speaking during a political rally in Chato Geita, Magufuli said his government did not bow to pressure to lockdowns.    He stated that many threatened us with dire consequences, they wanted us to shut down the economy so that we run away from the problem but in reality, leadership is about carrying the problems on those you lead on your shoulders that is why today we are here.   He is not the only country that decided not to close down the businesses and economy.

Tanzania – September 2020

Tanzania’s economy must go ahead as it is more important than coronavirus, which has killed 21 people in the East African country, according to the president.

Corona tests – Tanzania

The Mechanisms Of Action Of Ivermectin Against SARS-CoV-2: An Evidence-based Clinical Review

nature | Considering the urgency of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, detection of various new mutant strains and future potential re-emergence of novel coronaviruses, repurposing of approved drugs such as Ivermectin could be worthy of attention. This evidence-based review article aims to discuss the mechanism of action of ivermectin against SARS-CoV-2 and summarizing the available literature over the years. A schematic of the key cellular and biomolecular interactions between Ivermectin, host cell, and SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 pathogenesis and prevention of complications have been proposed.

Introduction

A relatively recent surge in zoonotic diseases has been noted over the past few decades. Several reasons could be responsible for this “spill-over” of disease-causing agents from animals to humans. These include an exponential rise in the global population causing man to encroach new ecological habitats in search of space, food, and resources as well as improved opportunities for rampant wildlife trade causing inter-species pathogen jumps. The 1980s was known for HIV/AIDS crisis that originated from the great apes, while the Avian flu pandemic in 2004-07 came from the birds. The pigs lead to the Swine flu pandemic in 2009 and bats were the original hosts of Ebola, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS), and probably Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak as well.

COVID-19 has already caused millions of deaths worldwide and has paralyzed not only the world’s healthcare system but also the political and economic relations between countries [1]. The fact that the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been thought to have originated from wildlife and may have “jumped” into humans, not only highlights future risks from animal-borne diseases but also provides an important clue to its resolution.

You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it. https://t.co/TWb75xYEY4

— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) August 21, 2021

In such a scenario, where this “jump” has been made from animal to human, it seems only logical to review a drug that has worked efficiently against a disease-causing agent and is available in a form that is safe for human consumption since the early 1980 s.

Ivermectin belongs to a group of avermectins (AVM), which is a group of 16 membered macrocyclic lactone compounds discovered at the Japanese Kitasato institute in 1967 during actinomycetes cultures with the fungus Streptomyces avermitilis [2]. This drug radically lowered the incidence of river blindness and lymphatic filariasis and was discovered and developed by William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for which they received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015 [3, 4]. Ivermectin is enlisted in the World Health Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines [5].

Drug repurposing, drug redirecting, or drug reprofiling is defined as the identification of novel usages for existing drugs. The development risks, costs as well as safety-related failure, are reduced with this approach since these drugs have a well-established formulation development, in vitro and in vivo screening, as well as pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profiles. Moreover, the first clinical trial phases of many such drugs have been completed and can be bypassed to reduce several years of development. Therefore, drug repurposing has the potential to reduce the time frame for the whole process by up to 3–12 years and carries great potential [6].

Although several drugs received Emergency Use Authorization for COVID-19 treatment with unsatisfactory supportive data, Ivermectin, on the other hand, has been sidelined irrespective of sufficient convincing data supporting its use. Nevertheless, many countries adopted ivermectin as one of the first-line treatment options for COVID-19.

With the ongoing vaccine roll-out programs in full swing across the globe, the longevity of the immunity offered by these vaccines or their role in offering protection against new mutant strains is still a matter of debate. The adoption of Ivermectin as a “safety bridge” by some sections of the population that are still waiting for their turn for vaccination could be considered as a “logical” option.

Several doctor-initiated clinical trial protocols that aimed to evaluate outcomes, such as reduction in mortality figures, shortened length of intensive care unit stay and/or hospital stay and elimination of the virus with ivermectin use have been registered at the US ClinicalTrials.gov [7]. Real-time data is also available with a meta-analysis of 55 studies to date. As per data available on 16 May 2021, 100% of 36 early treatment and prophylaxis studies report positive effects (96% of all 55 studies). Of these, 26 studies show statistically significant improvements in isolation. Random effects meta-analysis with pooled effects using the most serious outcome reported 79% and 85% improvement for early treatment and prophylaxis respectively (RR 0.21 [0.11–0.37] and 0.15 [0.09–0.25]). The results were similar after exclusion based sensitivity analysis: 81% and 87% (RR 0.19 [0.14–0.26] and 0.13 [0.07–0.25]), and after restriction to 29 peer-reviewed studies: 82% and 88% (RR 0.18 [0.11–0.31] and 0.12 [0.05–0.30]). Statistically significant improvements were seen for mortality, ventilation, hospitalization, cases, and viral clearance. 100% of the 17 Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) for early treatment and prophylaxis report positive effects, with an estimated improvement of 73% and 83% respectively (RR 0.27 [0.18–0.41] and 0.17 [0.05–0.61]), and 93% of all 28 RCTs. These studies are tabulated in Table 1. The probability that an ineffective treatment generated results as positive for the 55 studies to date is estimated to be 1 in 23 trillion (p = 0.000000000000043). The consistency of positive results across a wide variety of cases has been remarkable. It is extremely unlikely that the observed results could have occurred by chance [8].