Vaccination Breakthrough Cases Resolving Into Long-Covid And Deadlier Variants

npr  |  There's more potentially worrisome news for vaccinated people: In very rare cases, people experiencing breakthrough infections may be at risk for long-COVID symptoms.

That's according to a small new study of fully vaccinated health care workers in Israel, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Data from Israel pic.twitter.com/Qmu4ZDtN7a

— Irene Tosetti (@itosettiMD_MBA) July 10, 2021

The study confirmed what's already known: That it's very rare for fully vaccinated people to get infected or sick with COVID-19. But it also found lingering COVID symptoms did develop in a handful of breakthrough cases.

Researchers studied 1,497 vaccinated health care workers at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel. Among them, only 39 got infected despite their inoculations. Of those, seven — or about 19% — developed symptoms that lasted at least six weeks, including headaches, muscle pain, loss of taste and smell and fatigue.

"It's really disturbing," says Dr. Gili Regev-Yochay, director of the infection, prevention and control unit with the Sheba Medical Center and an author of the study.

"If this is what we're going to see with all of the even mildly symptomatic infections that we're seeing now, it's definitely worrisome," she says.

New data suggests that fully vaccinated individuals are not just contracting COVID, but could be carrying higher levels of virus than previously understood, facilitating spread, my NBC News colleagues are reporting. New indoor masking guidance expected today.

— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) July 27, 2021

Regev-Yochay and others stress that the results need to be confirmed by additional research involving many more patients who are followed for much longer. It could be a false alarm, the symptoms could be much rarer, or they could resolve far more quickly than the months of symptoms that typically plague those suffering from long COVID.

Experts stress that vaccination remains highly effective at preventing the most severe consequences of infection: hospitalization and death.

Nevertheless, other researchers agree the findings are cause for additional investigation.

"We had hoped that when you get vaccinated and even if you did have a breakthrough infection you would have enough of an immune response that would block this protracted symptom complex now known as long COVID," says Dr. Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research.

Why Is The FDA Attacking A Safe Effective Drug While Approving Hot Garbage?

 WSJ  |  The Food and Drug Administration claims to follow the science. So why is it attacking ivermectin, a medication it certified in 1996?

Earlier this year the agency put out a special warning that “you should not use ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19.” The FDA’s statement included words and phrases such as “serious harm,” “hospitalized,” “dangerous,” “very dangerous,” “seizures,” “coma and even death” and “highly toxic.” Any reader would think the FDA was warning against poison pills. In fact, the drug is FDA-approved as a safe and effective antiparasitic.

Ivermectin was developed and marketed by Merck & Co. while one of us (Mr. Hooper) worked there years ago. William C. Campbell and Satoshi Omura won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering and developing avermectin, which Mr. Campbell and associates modified to create ivermectin. 

Ivermectin is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines. Merck has donated four billion doses to prevent river blindness and other diseases in Africa and other places where parasites are common. A group of 10 doctors who call themselves the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance have said ivermectin is “one of the safest, low-cost, and widely available drugs in the history of medicine."

Ivermectin fights 21 viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the cause of Covid-19. A single dose reduced the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 in cells by 99.8% in 24 hours and 99.98% in 48 hours, according to a June 2020 study published in the journal Antiviral Research.

Some 70 clinical trials are evaluating the use of ivermectin for treating Covid-19. The statistically significant evidence suggests that it is safe and works for both treating and preventing the disease. 

In 115 patients with Covid-19 who received a single dose of ivermectin, none developed pneumonia or cardiovascular complications, while 11.4% of those in the control group did. Fewer ivermectin patients developed respiratory distress (2.6% vs. 15.8%); fewer required oxygen (9.6% vs. 45.9%); fewer required antibiotics (15.7% vs. 60.2%); and fewer entered intensive care (0.1% vs. 8.3%). Ivermectin-treated patients tested negative faster, in four days instead of 15, and stayed in the hospital nine days on average instead of 15. Ivermectin patients experienced 13.3% mortality compared with 24.5% in the control group.

Moreover, the drug can help prevent Covid-19. One 2020 article in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications looked at what happened after the drug was given to family members of confirmed Covid-19 patients. Less than 8% became infected, versus 58.4% of those untreated.

 

Republicans Reject Pelosi's Mask Mandate

WaPo  |  “We always just follow the guidance of the Capitol physician. There is no discussion about should we do it, should we not for one reason or another,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters. “It’s the decision of the Capitol physician, who is following the guidance of the CDC about the masks.”

McCarthy (R-Calif.) joined Republicans in deriding the new mask mandate despite concerns from public health officials that the delta variant poses a renewed threat to the public, particularly because of the refusal of many people in areas represented by Republicans to get vaccinated.

“Make no mistake — The threat of bringing masks back is not a decision based on science, but a decision conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state,” McCarthy tweeted shortly after Monahan sent his email Tuesday night.

Asked Wednesday morning by NBC News about McCarthy’s comment, Pelosi responded: “He’s such a moron.”

 

She declined to repeat that barbed criticism later at a news conference but stood by her assessment of the House minority leader’s comments.

“To say that wearing a mask is not based on science, I think is not wise,” she said. “And that was my comment. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

CDC says fully vaccinated Americans no longer need masks indoors or outdoors in many cases

McCarthy said he wanted more answers from Pelosi about the guidance.

“Well, she’s so brilliant. Can she tell me where the science in the building changes between the House and the Senate?” McCarthy asked Wednesday, listing several other questions he had about the new CDC guidance. “So a lot of questions. If she knows so much science, explain to me where the science changes in the rotunda.”

Later in the day, Republicans met with Monahan to voice their concerns about his decision. In the meeting, which lasted about one hour, numerous members asked the Capitol physician why he would institute a mandate if D.C. has a lower transmission rate than most cities. Monahan responded that the Capitol complex should be seen as a different entity given how many people who travel to and from different parts of the country interact with one another, according to two Republican aides in the room who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private meeting.

Republicans left the meeting saying they were unconvinced by Monahan’s arguments for wearing a mask. Many cited a claim made by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.) that the CDC based its new guidance on a study based in India that failed a peer-review process. But the CDC has not yet released the specific data it relied on to come to its decision, making it unclear how Republicans would know what data was used for the guidance or why they expressed certitude that the decision was based on a study related to India.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has said the agency reviewed outbreak investigations in the United States as part of its evaluation.

Political Management Of The Oligarchic Gerontocracy Is Fed Up With Disobediant/Non-Compliant Pissants...,

taibbi  |  On This Week With George Stephanopoulos this past Sunday, a gathering of Washington poo-bahs including Chris Christie, Rahm Emmanuel, Margaret Hoover, and Donna Brazile — Stephanopoulos calls the segment his “Powerhouse Roundtable,” which to my ear sounds like a Denny’s breakfast sampler, but I guess he couldn’t name it Four Hated Windbags — discussed vaccine holdouts. The former George W. Bush and Giuliani aide Hoover said it was time to stop playing nice:

If you’re going to get government-provided health care, if you’re getting VA treatment, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, anything — and Social Security obviously isn’t health care — you should be getting the vaccine. Okay? Because we are going to have to take care of you on the back end.

Brazile nodded sagely, but Emmanuel all but gushed cartoon hearts.

“You know, I’m having an out of body experience, because I agree with you,” said Obama’s former hatchet man, before adding, over the chyron, FRUSTRATION MOUNTS WITH UNVACCINATED AMERICANS:

I would close the space in. Meaning if you want to participate in X or Y activity, you gotta show you’re vaccinated. So it becomes a reward-punishment type system, and you make your own calculation.

This bipartisan love-in took place a few days after David Frum, famed Bush speechwriter and creator of the “Axis of Evil” slogan, wrote a column in The Atlantic entitled “Vaccinated America Has Had Enough.” In it, Frum wondered:

Does Biden’s America have a breaking point? Biden’s America produces 70 percent of the country’s wealth — and then sees that wealth transferred to support Trump’s America. Which is fine; that’s what citizens of one nation do for one another… [But] the reciprocal part of the bargain is not being upheld…

Will Blue America ever decide it’s had enough of being put medically at risk by people and places whose bills it pays? Check yourself. Have you?

I’m vaccinated. I think people should be vaccinated. But this latest moral mania — and make no mistake about it, the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” PR campaign is the latest in a ceaseless series of such manias, dating back to late 2016 — lays bare everything that’s abhorrent and nonsensical in modern American politics, beginning with the no-longer-disguised aristocratic mien of the Washington consensus. If you want to convince people to get a vaccine, pretty much the worst way to go about it is a massive blame campaign, delivered by sneering bluenoses who have a richly deserved credibility problem with large chunks of the population, and now insist they’re owed financially besides.

There’s always been a contingent in American society that believes people who pay more taxes should get more say, or “more votes,” as Joseph Heller’s hilarious Texan put it. It’s a conceit that cut across party. You hear it from the bank CEO who thinks America should thank him for the pleasure of kissing his ass with a bailout, but just as quickly from the suburban wine Mom who can’t believe the ingratitude of the nanny who asks for a day off. Doesn’t she know who’s paying the bills? The delusion can run so deep that people like Margaret Hoover can talk themselves into the idea that Social Security — money taxpayers lend the government, not the other way around — is actually a gift from the check-writing class.

In the last decade or so I had the misfortune of watching this phenomenon rise within both parties. After 2008, the “We’re pulling the oars, so we should steer the boat” argument dominated the GOP. Offshoots of Ayn Rand-ian thinking about ubermenschen producers and their dubious obligation to society’s masses of parasitic looters provided talking points both for TARP recipients (who insisted America needed to be invested not just in their survival but their prosperity) and the Tea Party. Remember Rick Santelli on CNBC, calling for a referendum on whether or not we should “subsidize the losers’ mortgages” or whether we should “reward the people who carry the water, instead of drink the water”?

Why The Utter Stagnation And Suppression Of Covid19 Treatment Protocols?

 

WSJ  |  Nearly a year and a half into the pandemic, researchers are still struggling to find effective, easy-to-use drugs to treat Covid-19.

Ten drugs have been cleared or recommended in the U.S. for use. Two of those later had their authorizations rescinded after they failed to work. The government recently paused shipments of a third because it wasn’t effective against new variants. The best medicines for early treatment are cumbersome to administer, and drugs for those in the hospital can only do so much for patients who are already severely ill.

“We’re really limited, to be honest,” says Daniel Griffin, chief of infectious disease at healthcare provider network ProHealth New York. “We do not have any dramatic treatments.”

A long list of factors played into the checkered development of drugs to treat Covid-19 cases—exposing flaws in the infrastructure of medical research and healthcare, particularly in fighting a fast-moving pandemic.

Federal officials concentrated their resources on quickly developing vaccines, with success. However, a relative dearth of drug research focused on coronaviruses, despite previous outbreaks, held back a fast response on treatments. Scattered U.S. clinical trials competed against each other for patients. When effective yet hard-to-administer drugs were developed, a fragmented American healthcare system struggled to deliver them to patients.

Covid-19 cases, and the need for treatments, are continuing. U.S. hospitals are bracing for new surges of cases with the Delta variant spreading among the unvaccinated. Vaccination drives are slowing in many countries, and poorer countries face a shortage of doses. No vaccine is 100% effective against Covid-19.

The Biden administration recently said it would spend $3.2 billion to support the development of Covid-19 antiviral pills.

Current clinical trials are evaluating more than 225 drug treatments, including new medicines as well as already-approved ones for conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and gout, to see if they might also be effective against Covid-19, according to data from the Milken Institute, a nonprofit think tank.

A few potential Covid-19 therapies in development have shown promise. Merck & Co. and Pfizer Inc. are each testing antiviral pills that could be taken at home soon after someone is infected. Merck’s widely anticipated pill, which it is developing with partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, hit a setback in April when it failed to help hospitalized patients. Researchers are still studying its effectiveness among the newly infected.

Government-funded researchers in the U.S. and U.K. recently began large studies of ivermectin—an antiparasitic pill used for decades to treat river blindness in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Natural Immune Response To SARS-Cov2 Is Forever...,

Nature |  Generating immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is of the utmost importance for bringing the COVID-19 pandemic under control, protecting vulnerable individuals from severe disease and limiting viral spread. Our immune systems protect against SARS-CoV-2 either through a sophisticated reaction to infection or in response to vaccination. A key question is, how long does this immunity last? Writing in Nature, Turner et al.¹ and Wang et al.² characterize human immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection over the course of a year.

There is ongoing discussion about which aspects of the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 provide hallmarks of immunity (in other words, correlates of immunological protection). However, there is probably a consensus that the two main pillars of an antiviral response are immune cells called cytotoxic T cells, which can selectively eliminate infected cells, and neutralizing antibodies, a type of antibody that prevents a virus from infecting cells, and that is secreted by immune cells called plasma cells. A third pillar of an effective immune response would be the generation of T helper cells, which are specific for the virus and coordinate the immune reaction. Crucially, these latter cells are required for generating immunological memory — in particular, for orchestrating the emergence of long-lived plasma cells³, which continue to secrete antiviral antibodies even when the virus has gone.

Immunological memory is not a long-lasting version of the immediate immune reaction to a particular virus; rather, it is a distinct aspect of the immune system. In the memory phase of an immune response, B and T cells that are specific for a virus are maintained in a state of dormancy, but are poised to spring into action if they encounter the virus again or a vaccine that represents it. These memory B and T cells arise from cells activated in the initial immune reaction. The cells undergo changes to their chromosomal DNA, termed epigenetic modifications, that enable them to react rapidly to subsequent signs of infection and drive responses geared to eliminating the disease-causing agent⁴. B cells have a dual role in immunity: they produce antibodies that can recognize viral proteins, and they can present parts of these proteins to specific T cells or develop into plasma cells that secrete antibodies in large quantities. About 25 years ago⁵, it became evident that plasma cells can become memory cells themselves, and can secrete antibodies for long-lasting protection. Memory plasma cells can be maintained for decades, if not a lifetime, in the bone marrow⁶.

The presence in the bone marrow of long-lived, antibody-secreting memory plasma cells is probably the best available predictor of long-lasting immunity. For SARS-CoV-2, most studies so far have analysed the acute phase of the immune response, which spans a few months after infection, and have monitored T cells, B cells and secreted antibodies⁷. It has remained unclear whether the response generates long-lived memory plasma cells that secrete antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

Turner and colleagues took up the challenge of identifying antibody-secreting memory plasma cells in the bone marrow of people who have recovered from COVID-19 (called convalescent individuals). Memory plasma cells are rare, and those specific for a particular disease-causing agent will obviously be extremely scarce. Nevertheless, Turner and colleagues detected memory plasma cells that secreted antibodies specific for the spike protein encoded by SARS-CoV-2 in 15 of 19 individuals, approximately 7 months after infection. Notably, when the authors obtained samples 4 months later (11 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection), the number of such plasma cells had remained stable in all but one of the individuals analysed. Those plasma cells did not proliferate, which classifies them as bona fide memory plasma cells. Their numbers equalled those of memory plasma cells found in the individuals after vaccination against tetanus or diphtheria, and which provide long-term immunity to those diseases.

When Turner et al. tracked the concentrations of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in the individuals’ blood serum for up to one year, they observed a biphasic pattern (Fig. 1). In the acute immune response around the time of initial infection, antibody concentrations were high. They subsequently declined, as expected, because most of the plasma cells of an acute immune response are short-lived. After a few months, the antibody concentrations levelled off and remained more or less constant at roughly 10–20% of the maximum concentration observed. This is consistent with the expectation that 10–20% of the plasma cells in an acute immune reaction become memory plasma cells⁵, and is a clear indication of a shift from antibody production by short-lived plasma cells to antibody production by memory plasma cells. This is not unexpected, given that immune memory to many viruses and vaccines is stable over decades, if not for a lifetime⁸.

 

 

 

Covid19 Competing Narratives - You Got Me Going In Circles....,

TAE  |  The Mainstream Narrative

– It is not known where Covid 19 originated but the most likely origin is the transmission from an animal to humans

– Covid 19 has killed 600K people in the US

– Trump botched the Covid 19 response costing many lives

– Many deaths were preventable if we’d tested, masked, tracked and locked down better

– Vaccines are good and have eradicated polio, measles, whooping cough and other diseases

– Vaccines against Covid 19 are safe and effective and have saved many lives with only minor, acceptable adverse reactions

– There are no effective treatments for Covid 19 besides the vaccines

– Covid is spread by droplets and aerosols from infected people, both symptomatic and asymptomatic, and can be spread through momentarycasual contact both indoors and outdoors

– Children and young adults are at risk form Covid 19 and can spread the disease and should take the same precautions and measures as adults

– We need to do whatever it takes to defeat Covid 19 including frequent testing, mass vaccination, continued lockdowns and wearing masks

– The best information comes from the CDC, FDA and NIH

– The mainstream media warns us of the dangers of Covid 19 but unfortunately many do not take these warnings seriously

– As usual, conspiracy theorists and nut-jobs abound

– Antivaxxers are against all vaccines and now also against the Covid 19 mRNA therapeutic neo-vaccinoids

– Antivaxxers have believed phony information disseminated by scurrilous, right wing charlatans

– These people cost many lives and are the reason Covid still spreads and mutates

– They are responsible for continued lockdowns and the further decimation of the economy

– They are selfish, evil and anti-science

– The Covid 19 response is all about trying to get us back to normal as quickly as possible

 

The Counter Narrative

– Covid 19 was most likely created in a lab in China or the US

– Covid 19 kills the elderly and the obese but far fewer people in general than the official count

– Almost all officials in government have botched the Covid 19 response, costing many lives

– Most deaths were preventable if we had investigated and deployed early treatments including vitamin D, zinc, iodine solution gargle and ivermectin

– Vaccines are good and have eradicated polio, measles, whooping cough and other diseases

– The Covid 19 vaccines however are not actually vaccines but gene therapy and have not been adequately tested

– The Covid 19 mRNA therapeutic neo-vaccinoids are not legitimate vaccines and have proven serious side effects including death and other as yet poorly documented consequences which are not being investigated and are suppressed by the media

– We need to defeat Covid 19 and the best way to do this is through early outpatient treatment with known, effective drugs and known drug protocols for hospitalized patients

– Covid 19 is primarily spread by <b>aerosols</b> from symptomatic and pre-symptomatic people, mostly in indoor situations with poor ventilation where people spend a long time together - and in which no serious remedial investment has been made

– Children and young adults are at low risk from Covid 19 and need take fewer precautions and measures but should be treated with drug protocols if infected

– Masks, distancing and lockdowns are mostly ineffective because of the demonstrated but suppressed fact of aerosol transmission

– The best information comes from front line doctors who actually treat patients and experienced researchers who have no financial interest in big pharma https://covid19criticalcare.com/

– The CDC, FDA and NIH are largely compromised because of their association with and funding by drug companies

– The mainstream media is also compromised by their association with big pharma and the government

– The truth about Covid 19 is suppressed and labeled conspiracy theory in order to support the mainstream narrative

– People who insist that the vaccines are the only way to fight Covid19 have believed lies told to them by the MSM from big pharma and a corrupt medical establishment

– The vaccine narrative has cost many lives and ineffective vaccines are responsible for the continued spread and mutation of Covid 19

– The fallacious mainstream narrative is responsible for all lock downs and the decimation of the economy

– The people who push the mainstream narrative are evil and anti-science; The people who believe this narrative are naive, dogmatic and anti-science

– The Covid 19 response is all about money, power and control

All You Will EVER Know About This mRNA Goo Is What We Choose To Tell You!!!

bmj  |  Duration of protection is not the only question that longer, placebo controlled trials can address. They also address vaccine safety.

“Very often, it’s the fact that we have that placebo controlled follow-up over time, that gives us the ability to say that the vaccine didn’t cause something at a longer period of time after vaccination,” the FDA’s Philip Krause explained last December.13

Yet there is a gap—currently of unknown size but growing—between any expectation of blinded placebo controlled data, and the reality that within weeks of the vaccines receiving an EUA the unblinding of trials commenced as placebo recipients were offered the chance to get vaccinated.

Steven Goodman, associate dean of clinical and translational research at Stanford University, told the FDA in an invited presentation last December, “Once a vaccine is made widely available and encouraged, maintaining a double blinded control group for more than a nominal period is no longer in the investigator’s (or regulator’s) control and undue pressure to do so may undermine the entire vaccine testing enterprise.”14

Goodman’s recommendation was to rapidly convert the trials into crossover studies, enabling those on placebo to get vaccinated (and vice versa), while maintaining the blind. The companies challenged the feasibility, calling it “onerous,” and a crossover never occurred.15

The BMJ asked Moderna, Pfizer, and Janssen (Johnson and Johnson) what proportion of trial participants were now formally unblinded, and how many originally allocated to placebo have now received a vaccine. Pfizer declined to say, but Moderna announced that “as of April 13, all placebo participants have been offered the Moderna covid-19 vaccine and 98% of those have received the vaccine.”2 In other words, the trial is unblinded, and the placebo group no longer exists.

Janssen told The BMJ: “We do not have specific figures on how many of our study participants have received a vaccine at this time.” But the company confirmed it was implementing an amended protocol across all countries to unblind all participants in its two phase III trials, the earlier of which passed the median of two month follow-up mark in January.

How the FDA will weigh the loss of blinding and placebo controlled follow-up is unclear, but just months ago the agency said these trial properties were vital.

“Continuation of placebo controlled follow-up after EUA will be important and may actually be critical to ensure that additional safety and effectiveness data are accrued to support submission of a licensure application as soon as possible following an EUA. … Once a decision is made to unblind an ongoing placebo controlled trial, that decision cannot be walked back. And that controlled follow-up is lost forever,” the FDA said last October.3

At its next advisory committee in December 2020, the FDA reiterated the importance of the placebo group: “Placebo controlled follow-up can be very important in showing that whatever happened in the vaccine group also happened in the placebo group. Because that’s our best way of knowing.”13

What’s the rush?

The US’s “Operation Warp Speed” delivered on its promise to get a novel vaccine into arms in record time (box). Millions of doses of vaccines are being administered daily across the US, making clear that lack of FDA approval is no barrier to access. So just what benefit is there in seeking, and granting, a BLA?

The BMJ asked the manufacturers why they were seeking a BLA. Moderna did not respond and Janssen only confirmed it intended to apply for a BLA “later in 2021.” Pfizer likewise did not answer but instead quoted an FDA webpage on medical devices, which stated: “Sponsors of EUA products are encouraged to follow up the EUA with a pre-market submission so that it can remain on the market once the EUA is no longer in effect.”16 But EUAs have no built-in expiry date—in fact, 14 EUAs for Zika diagnostic tests remain active despite the public health emergency expiring in 2017.17

Cody Meissner told The BMJ he saw some distinct advantages of a BLA over EUA. An approved vaccine, for one, would provide “an element of assurance,” increasing public trust in the vaccines, particularly for those currently sitting on the fence. It would also pave the way for claims of vaccine injury to be routed through a more established compensation programme, and for adding the vaccine to government funded schemes to reach children in financial need.18 Finally, it may affect the potential for vaccine mandates: “It is unlikely these vaccines will be mandated while an EUA is in place. Remember that currently these vaccines are still considered experimental.”

While still under EUA, an increasing number of educational and other institutions have already mandated vaccines, but debates over the legality of these actions has hinged on the distinction between authorisation and approval.19

But approving a vaccine in order to legally support mandates or convince people of its safety arguably puts the cart before the horse. Meissner responded that a BLA would not be issued until the FDA is convinced of the short and long term safety of these vaccines.

Defining Away Vaccine Safety Signals

roundingtheearth |  What if it turns out that vaccines are killing and crippling millions of people around the world, but that those harmed are just well enough spread out that almost nobody saw sufficient signals to build an intuition about the problem? And what if the agency most responsible for examining safety signals defines their algorithm using a nonsensical mathematical formula that hides nearly all serious problems?

Last night I tried to go to sleep early in order to shift my exercise routine to a morning schedule. But I'd received a late phone call from a friend whom I work with researching vaccine safety/danger, just as I was brushing my teeth. He remains anonymous for now due to fear of job loss or reprisal. I let the phone call go, but I couldn't just let it go. I needed to know why he would call me that late, so after spending an hour in bed not sleeping, I checked my email. I understood immediately.

Definitions

To a mathematician, everything depends on definitions. Whatever we state mathematically, the definitions of the terms we use should be traceable back to the axioms of the field we're working in. Mathematics is an artfully woven tapestry of axiomatic structure, lit brightly by definitions. Often, we create new definitions for the task at hand, but make sure that these relate clearly to the pyramid of definitions that come before it---generally as standard as possible to language common within the field. This becomes both a habit and also a part of the self-reinforcing social structure of the mathematics community. We talk definitions that sound boring to untrained ears, but we recognize that definitions are our palettes. We port definitions to applied fields, and we create new ones to use where needed. No mathematician or statistician with a soul forgets the well from which they draw energy and meaning.

During the past few months, many people (including myself) have learned for the first time about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) where health care workers and patients can submit adverse events (AEs) suffered post-vaccination. While the VAERS database is understood to record an often small subset of the AEs, the information can still be used for purposes of establishing safety signals. A new influenza vaccine can be compared to other influenza vaccines, for instance. If the old ones were safe enough, and the reported AEs of a new one are in line or better than for past vaccines, then the risk-benefit analysis for the new vaccine (assuming sufficient efficacy) either remains the same or improves.

As with a great deal of health care regulation during the declared pandemic, changes were made to the VAERS system and also to safety signal analysis leading up to the experimental mass vaccination program officially targeting COVID-19. Without much fanfare, the CDC published a document on January 29, 2021 entitled Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) Standard Operating Procedures for COVID-19. There is a lot to talk about in this document, but let us focus on Section 2.2, which begins on page 14. Here, the CDC states that, "A series of tables will be generated using the VAERS automated data," and that these, "will be refreshed daily for internal use," but "not for public release". One might wonder why the CDC would not want additional outside eyeballs on such data---particularly since it took them two full months to figure out that myocarditis was an issue with the vaccines despite Israel warning about it two full months before the CDCs scheduled, delayed, and finally held meeting in late June. Maybe the CDC should hire somebody to read the pertinent news?

We get to section 2.3, and this is where things get really crazy. This is where signals (for assessing safety/danger of the vaccines) get defined. Subsection 2.3.1 begins (emphasis mine),

CDC will perform PRR data mining on a weekly basis or as needed. PRRs compare the proportion of a specific AE following a specific vaccine versus the proportion of the same AE following receipt of another vaccine (see equation below Table 4). A safety signal is defined as a PRR of at least 2, chi-squared statistic of at least 4, and 3 or more cases of the AE following receipt of the specific vaccine of interest.  

Only a real dork would emphasize the word 'and', right? A logic dork, mind you, but we'll get to that...

 

Phukk The Science And Further Conversation..., You Fitna TAKE The Mark Of The Beast!!!

WaPo  | President Biden said that the federal government was considering making vaccines mandatory for its workforce — what would be a significant escalation in push to expand vaccine coverage as the coronavirus surge from the Delta variant sends shock waves through the country.

“That’s under consideration right now,” he said in response to a reporter’s question at an appearance Tuesday. “If you’re not vaccinated, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.”

The news comes as the exponential growth of cases in many areas around the country concerns public health officials and other authorities. Vaccination rates have been waning for weeks, despite slightly less than half of the country being fully vaccinated — well under the targets public health officials say is necessary to control outbreaks of more virulent strains of the virus like the Delta variant.

And the public and political appetite for restrictions and closures, always fraught, appears to be waning even further, more than 16 months into the pandemic.

Further, the sharp rise in cases comes as many office buildings and corporate campuses that have been closed for the entirety of the pandemic have begun the process of reopening in cities across the country.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which addresses workplace complaints about discrimination over race, religion, sex and other characteristics, issued guidance in May that said that employers could mandate vaccines for workers to work onsite, as long as they do it in ways that don’t run afoul of civil rights and disability statutes. And the Justice Department followed with a similar memo on Monday that said that federal law does not prohibit public and private employers from requiring the vaccine, even if it has only been approved for emergency use, by the Food and Drug Administration.

Recent court rulings, in cases filed by groups opposed to mandates, have upheld these requirements too.

But many companies so far have avoided vaccine mandates, opting instead for guidance urging or recommending the vaccine.

The tide may be turning, as the spike in cases from the Delta variant begins to threaten hopes for a return to anything resembling a pre-pandemic normal.

Original Antigenic Sin

wikipedia |  Original antigenic sin, also known as antigenic imprinting or the Hoskins effect,^[1] refers to the propensity of the body's immune system to preferentially utilize immunological memory based on a previous infection when a second slightly different version of that foreign pathogen (e.g. a virus or bacterium) is encountered. This leaves the immune system "trapped" by the first response it has made to each antigen, and unable to mount potentially more effective responses during subsequent infections. Antibodies or T-cells induced during infections with the first variant of the pathogen are subject to a form of original antigenic sin, termed repertoire freeze.

The phenomenon of original antigenic sin has been described in relation to influenza virus, dengue fever, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) ^[2] and to several other viruses.^[3]

This phenomenon was first described in 1960 by Thomas Francis Jr. in the article "On the Doctrine of Original Antigenic Sin".^[4][5] It is named by analogy to the theological concept of original sin. According to Thomas Francis, who originally described the idea,^[4] and cited by Richard Krause:^[5]

"The antibody of childhood is largely a response to dominant antigen of the virus causing the first type A influenza infection of the lifetime. [...] The imprint established by the original virus infection governs the antibody response thereafter. This we have called the Doctrine of the Original Antigenic Sin."

During a primary infection, long-lived memory B cells are generated, which remain in the body, and provide protection from subsequent infections. These memory B cells respond to specific epitopes on the surface of viral proteins in order to produce antigen-specific antibodies, and are able to respond to infection much faster than B cells are able to respond to novel antigens. This effect shortens the amount of time required to clear subsequent infections.

Between primary and secondary infections, or following vaccination, a virus may undergo antigenic drift, in which the viral surface proteins (the epitopes) are altered through natural mutation, allowing the virus to escape the immune system. When this happens, the altered virus preferentially reactivates previously activated high-affinity memory B cells and spurs antibody production. However, the antibodies produced by these B cells generally ineffectively bind to the altered epitopes. In addition, these antibodies inhibit the activation of higher-affinity naive B cells that would be able to make more effective antibodies to the second virus. This leads to a less effective immune response and recurrent infections may take longer to clear.^[6]

Original antigenic sin is of particular importance in the application of vaccines.^[7] In dengue fever, the effect of original antigenic sin has important implications for vaccine development. Once a response against a dengue virus serotype has been established, it is unlikely that vaccination against a second will be effective, implying that balanced responses against all four virus serotypes have to be established with the first vaccine dose.^[8]

The specificity and the quality of the immune response against novel strains of influenza is often diminished in individuals who are repeatedly immunized (by vaccination or recurrent infections).^[9] However, the impact of antigenic sin on protection has not been well established, and appears to differ with each infectious agent vaccine, geographic location, and age.^[6] Researchers found reduced antibody responses to the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccine in individuals who had been vaccinated against the seasonal A/Brisbane/59/2007 (H1N1) within the previous three months.^[7]

 

Diversity Training A La The Price Cobb Esalen CIA Model Has Nothing To Do With Critical Race Theory

WaPo  | For decades, the founders of critical race theory hashed out their differences at academic conferences and in journals.

The “crits,” as they are known, disagreed over whether their framework for examining systemic racism was too far removed from activists, and if their approach focused enough on the struggles of the poor.

“This was before the internet, before email. If you wanted exchange of ideas, you met face-to-face,” Mari Matsuda, a law professor at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, said in an email. “This allowed for expressions of difference, questioning, arguing, while forging solidarity.”

But in recent months, critical race theory has leaped from the classroom to conservative news networks, where it has been attacked as divisive. Conservative activists and politicians have seized on the issue, often redefining the academic term to encompass nearly any examination of systemic racism. Several state legislatures are considering whether to ban teaching critical race theory in schools.

In interviews, the scholars who helped create this academic framework said they’re angry about the way the current debate distorts their ideas. They worry about chilling effect this backlash could have on teaching about race and racism in America.

“This is basically an effort to create a boogeyman and pour everything into that category that they believe will prompt fear, discomfort and repudiation on the part of parents and voters who are primed to respond to this hysteria that they’re trying to create,” said Kimberlé Crenshaw, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and Columbia Law School.

Once Again For The Slow Students Diversity/Sensitivity Training Is A CIA Invention..., (REDUX 10/20/20)

newyorker  |   The invention of the sensitivity-training group is often traced to a specific evening: Lewin was running a workshop for teachers and social workers in Connecticut, where he had been hired by the state to help address racial and religious prejudice. After the participants had left, a few stragglers returned and asked to be permitted to sit in on the debriefings, and Lewin agreed. Though it was initially awkward to have the participants present, Lewin realized that the setup led to frank and open conversations. He saw the transformative possibilities of uninhibited feedback in the real time of the group session, and established the idea of the corporate T-group—shorthand for sensitivity “training group”—at the National Training Laboratory, in Bethel, Maine. His inroads into social engineering could also be put to less conciliatory purposes; Lewin was a consultant for the Office of Strategic Services and developed programs to help recruit potential spies.

The T-group, which was sometimes called “therapy for normals”—rather insensitively by today’s standards but with the intent of destigmatizing the practice—was a therapeutic workshop for strangers which would take place in a neutral locale and promote candid emotional exchange. A typical T-group session would begin with the facilitator declining to assume any active leadership over the session, a move that would surprise and disconcert the participants, who would collectively have to work out the problem of how to deal with a lack of hierarchy or directives.

It sounds simple enough, but the experience could be deeply unsettling, even life-changing, for some. As one contemporary witness of the Bethel N.T.L. workshops remarked, “I had never observed such a buildup of emotional tension in such a short time. I feared it was more than some leaders and members could bear.” The T-group promised an antidote to the oppressions of Dale Carnegie-style insincerity that dominated the business world, and, crucially, the sessions seemed to provide a glimpse of a reality in which it was finally possible to know how one was really perceived.

the prize for the “toughest encounter seminar that had been ever convened at Esalen” went to one run collaboratively by George Leonard and Price Cobbs. Leonard was a white psychologist from the South, whose youthful encounter with the terrified eyes of a Black prisoner surrounded by a white mob instilled in him a lifelong commitment to fighting racism. He implored Cobbs, an African-American psychiatrist who was co-authoring the book “Black Rage,” to come to Esalen to collaborate. They organized a storied, twenty-four-hour-marathon racial-sensitivity workshop between Black and white participants that became rancorous: “the anger rolled on and on without end” and “interracial friendships crumbled on the spot.” Finally, Anderson relates how, as the sun was beginning to rise, an African-American woman was moved to spontaneously comfort a crying white woman, and this shifted the tenor of the entire session. Though the episode could easily be read less sunnily, as another troubling instance of the oppressor requiring comfort from the oppressed, the facilitators purportedly deemed it a success. Cobbs spoke to Leonard and declared, “George, we’ve got to take this to the world.”

Cobbs’s career encapsulates the shift of sensitivity training from its literary roots to corporate argot. He was sparked by early epiphanies about Black anger and injustice, inspired by reading Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison. He admired the plot of “Invisible Man,” for instance, because “the unnamed main character’s sense of his own invisibility fans his ultimate rage into flames of self-expression. . . .” Cobbs credited Lewin’s research as a key precedent when he went on to found Pacific Management Systems, a training center for T-group leaders, and he played a role in the spinoff of diversity training from sensitivity training. His years of advising African-American businesspeople formed the basis of his guide, from 2000, “Cracking the Corporate Code: The Revealing Success Stories of 32 African-American Executives.”

In her provocative history “Race Experts,” from 2002, the scholar Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn examines Cobbs’s career as part of the larger story of how “racial etiquette” and sensitivity training “hijacked” and banalized civil-rights discourse. Quinn persuasively maintains that “sensitivity itself is an inadequate and cynical substitution for civility and democracy—both of which presuppose some form of equal treatment and universal standard of conduct,” and neither of which, of course, the U.S. has ever achieved.

The Breathtaking Coverup Of "Vaccine" Breakthrough Covid Cases

IMDoc on the Covid treatment frontline:

About the French Guyana paper from the CDC

This is how science – the actual process – not the Fauci version – should be working.

I have repeatedly stated that I am seeing much much more vaccinated positives than one would ever have expected. As I have stated, they seem to be much sicker (though not critically so) and they tend to happen in clusters. For the past two months, this has stuck out from the dominant media narrative. I have never had to fight the cognitive dissonance between the media and my own eyeballs in my life.

I belong to a large non-public alumni group of my residency program that has literally thousands of IM docs all over America. The first thing a scientist does is to confirm that your observations are general or something you are just seeing. It was quickly obvious from that group that I was far from alone despite the “minimal breakthrough cases” media narrative.

So, then you do everything you can to hypothesize reasons why you are seeing what you are. I have been a physician for 30 years and that experience plays a huge role as well. Having this gigantic number of breakthrough cases just simply does not happen. I continue to see more than half the cases in vaccinated patients and so do many others. UNHEARD OF IN VACCINES BEFORE NOW.

Part of hypothesizing why is looking to the literature for evidence. Seldom is this found in RCT at this stage. Case reports and series like this paper are critical. They are seeing the same breakthrough ratio. And they have done a lot more viral research than you can. This is a gold mine for my own questions.

Is there anything in the paper that could possibly explain what I am seeing. Lots of times, it is not in the headline part but in all the test results and discussion. And yes, there is a very important finding deep in the results.

Why would clustering and sicker patients be so much more common in the breakthrough patients – there must be a reason for that?

If you look at the brief discussion of cT or cycle threshold you will see that the vaccinated patients have a SIGNIFICANTLY lower cT than the unvaccinated. That is the way the PCR test works. It basically means the vaccinated have a much higher amount of viral active particles than the unvaccinated. That would account for the breakthroughs I and my colleagues are seeing being a bit more ill. And it would explain the clustering. THe vaccinated breakthroughs have much higher viral load so they are much more contagious and the higher viral load makes them more symptomatic.

So we now have a suggestion and strong evidence that the vaccinated population may be spreading much more virus than the unvaccinated. I would say that is a critical public health issue and must be further researched immediately.

This Certainly needs much more work. THis is not confirmatory of any conclusions. But it is consistent with observation on the ground – unlike most of what the media has been spewing to the American people. But this is how science works. This paper is about the gamma variant but a conference yesterday with experts discussed that similar findings were being found in delta and lambda. The suggestion in this paper is now on the front of my mind. I am even now thinking of ways to confirm or falsify these conclusions going forward. This is science.

Another issue. The writers make the point that the breakthrough rate is extremely divergent from the expected rate. The difference is this paper documents what is happening in REAL LIFE. So much of what we are hearing on our media about vaccine efficacy is research being done in vitro. It is presented as gospel truth. I just want to scream.

*****

And this type of wide variation is to be expected in the real world – that is the way it goes. And another very severe confounding issue is the absolute gigantic chasm of numbers between these two data sets. I am in a very small area with a very small N. LA is gigantic. So theoretically, the LA numbers would have a much higher statistical power. However, there are an infinite number of confounding variables that must be taken into account in a side to side comparison. I have chills when I hear the media making all these god-like pronouncements about this place or the other. It is just very difficult to compare apples to oranges and they really should not be making blanket statements about every locality based on numbers coming from just one. This habit has been yet another bad side effect of our sterilization of the local health departments and the dependence on one centralized center.

The other issue left off your calculations is the number of people who are very ill and suffering at home. This is not a small number. I know this for a fact because there are about 10 patients on our call list that are COVID positive and very sick and we call them twice daily. They refuse to be in the hospital, largely for financial reasons. That is almost certainly an issue in LA as well.

Another possible confounding issue is if there is a much larger group of younger people who are not nearly as likely to be admitted whether vaccinated or not in either LA or here. The demographics and the attitudes of different age groups vary widely between different parts of the country.

The vaccine efficacy of 61% in my area is much closer to what is being experienced in Israel right now for what it is worth.

And thank you for the efforts to do these numbers – you should be a medical student.

One other little pearl to think about. ANYTIME anyone in medicine reports a 100% rate of anything – assume they are lying until proven otherwise. I would assume that to be the case in every field. There is no such thing as perfection.

When the LA report came out last week that their hospital admissions were 399 and all 399 were unvaccinated, I knew right off the bat that they were lying. That just does not happen in medicine. These people need to find better liars. For instance, if they had said 356 were unvaccinated, which is still a respectable number, I would not have raised an eyebrow. But they went for the gold, and earned hundreds of hilarious comments in my doctor’s forum that evening. The average physician in America who is hip deep into these tragedies is really getting tired of all the shenanigans.

*****

For several weeks – dating back to mid May – I was seeing groups of fully vaccinated patients becoming positive – but asymptomatic. Most of these situations arose because one member of the family or group was found to be positive because of foreign travel – or having surgery or whatever.

As this became more and more common – I began to be very concerned about what the future may hold. And the Health Department and CDC were just ambivalent.

The guidance of the local health department was to ignore this – “they are vaccinated – there is no way they can spread, etc.”. Just as the CDC guidance was telling them to do. I do not much like to have armed nuclear warheads sitting around, and I am very persistent – so I ordered the contact tracing on my own – every close family member or close contact was checked. And to my absolute horror – large clusters of them were positive. But at that time, they were asymptomatic- almost every single one. I have been dutifully reporting these numbers to Yves and Lambert for weeks.

Then about a month ago – something changed. People were then starting to become ill – and come to clinical attention that way. There were no longer just the asymptomatic patients. And again – on my own – ordered the contact tracing – and found the same thing. Multiple vaccinated family members positive. Multiple bridge group members positive. Multiple church members positive, etc etc. And lately – socials around the July 4th weekend were also clustered. At that point in time – there was no one sick enough to be in the hospital. But the vaccinated positives were clearly more ill than the unvaccinated positives. Heavier coughs, more SOB, more febrile. This included even the younger ones among them. But again – no one sick enough to be hospitalized.

And then – this week – we have had a seismic shift. We have admitted multiple very ill vaccinated patients – two of which were critically ill. At the same time – we are admitting unvaccinated patients as well. Some of them too are now very ill. We have had deaths this week – all of those patients were unvaccinated. But I am not holding my breath – we now have two critically ill vaccinated patients that I am not sure are going to make it. I do not have the best handle on these situations this week because I am in quarantine. But right at this minute – we have more COVID patients in the hospital since January – and it is right at 50/50 vaccinated/unvaccinated – and I would say they are equally ill.

It has been fascinating to watch this very orderly step up in severity over time. And then this week the bottom dropped out. And I live in a very vaccinated county – the paper reported this AM a 72% vaccination rate. The only stragglers were the 12-18 group which is below 50. The “herd immunity” concept is certainly not working here. And the local medical folks are just horrified that this is getting this bad after working so hard for this really good vaccination rate. It is reminding me greatly of the ramp up we had last summer – it is almost the same in every way – except it got much worse much quicker. I am hoping it will burn out – but not looking like that so far.

I will share something else. I have a very small limited patient size – I am in a small town. But I am very attentive to media reports of numbers from other locations. Big cities and big sample sizes give perspective. When I heard last weekend that there were ZERO vaccinated patients in the hospitals in LA – I grew immediately concerned – because that was not our experience at all – It is basically a WHAT HAVE WE DONE WRONG MOMENT….So I called three of my old students who are now on the front lines in the LA area – to the one – the response was “I have not a clue what they are talking about – that is just not true…”. Among the three of them the averages they were seeing were about 75% – 85% unvaccinated in the hospital – and all had had very ill vaccinated patients. I did not feel so bad then. But My God, the media cannot be trusted with a single god-damn thing. I have never seen such a bunch of liars in my lifetime. It is a real tragedy – when we need them the most they are doing propaganda. And do not even get me started on the Health Dept people who are misleading the population like this.

Look No Further Than The Generalized Coverup Of The Flint Water Crisis....,

usefulidiots |  The press is a crucial part of democracy, checking on the government and alerting the public to what’s going on. The water supply has been poisoned––that's the kind of thing we depend on the fourth estate to report about.

But where have they been? The national press was universally late in reporting on the Flint Water crisis, and quickly dropped the corruption, greed, and mismanagement that poisoned Flint's water and people. But the story continues, though you'd never know it from mainstream media.  So is the crisis over?

Jordan Chariton and Jenn Dize of Status Coup say no. In their recent article, they uncover mounds of corruption, finding the government guilty of a huge coverup with cleared text messages, piles of thrown away phones, and then-Governor Rick Snyder telling his staff: “Don’t put anything in writing because emails are cannons for our enemies.”

They lay out a real case against Snyder for misconduct, willful neglect of duty, and even involuntary manslaughter. But today, he’s facing penalties equivalent to a parking ticket and a potential of up to one year in prison. And no one else is talking about it.

Why Is There A Generalized Coverup Of Derrick Bell's Critical Race Theory?

BAR  |  Through the lens of racial fortuity, Bell rejects the liberal view of history as one of racial progress, favoring instead a cyclical view of history in which Black people experience progress through interest convergence and setbacks under racial sacrifice. For example, Bell argues that the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War Amendments to the U.S. Constitution are instances of interest convergence. In the first case, ending slavery was a means to the end of “saving the union”; in the second case, the amendments helped the Republicans maintain control of Congress. However, these instances of interest convergence were followed by two instances of racial sacrifice: the Tilden-Hayes compromise, which ended Reconstruction, and the disenfranchisement of Black voters in the South, which prevented Black voters from influencing elections in those states. 

For Bell, the most important example of interest convergence is the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that racial segregation is unconstitutional. Bell originally argued this in his 1980 paper “Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma ,” where he posited that the Court’s decision resulted not from a moral concern about Black well-being under Jim Crow regimes but from three international and domestic interests. Internationally, the U.S. needed to end segregation because it embarrassed the country on the world stage and undermined Cold War imperatives. Bell’s thesis was later corroborated by historian Mary Dudziak, who demonstrated  that the Supreme Court wanted to end segregation because the Soviet Union and Third World anticolonial movements were using Jim Crow to criticize Amerika. Domestically, the U.S. needed to end segregation because it needed to gain Black support for Cold War foreign policy and because segregation was viewed as a barrier to industrialization in the South. 

Thus, Bell’s materialism inspires his theory of racial fortuity, which interprets even the most celebrated events of Amerikan racial history as cynical decisions designed to advance capitalists and imperialist ends. 

“The U.S. needed to end segregation because it embarrassed the country on the world stage and undermined Cold War imperatives.”

The second theme in Bell’s CRT is realism, which provides the basis for his theory of racial realism. Bell’s realism begins with an emphasis on the empirical realities of Black people in Amerika. On this view, CRT politics beings with historical and sociological descriptions about what is rather than with idealistic hopes about what might be. But for Bell, when we examine the patterns of racial fortuity in Amerikan history, we should reach the obvious conclusion: there is no empirical reason to believe that racism and white supremacy will ever come to an end in Amerika. In other words, U.S. history suggests that racism is permanent and racial equality is impossible. To be sure, Bell does not mean that racism is an ahistorical or eternal phenomenon; rather, he says that nothing in Amerikan history would make any reasonable person believe that racism will end in the U.S. 

Bell has gotten a lot of heat from critics who claim that racial realism leads to inaction, pessimism, and fatalism. But Bell argues that the problem is not the struggle but the aim of the struggle. Too much energy and too many resources, Bell writes, have been wasted chasing the unrealistic goal of racial equality. But that just means that the struggle should aim for something else. As Bell writes in his famous 1992 essay “Racial Realism ,” “Racial Realism…requires us to acknowledge the permanence of our subordinate status. That acknowledgement enables us to avoid despair, and frees us to imagine and implement racial strategies that can bring fulfillment and even triumph.” In his follow-up book Afrolantica Legacies, Bell lays out seven “rules of racial preservation,” guidelines designed to help Black people survive and even thrive in a perpetually white supremacist empire. 

Thus, Bell’s realism inspires his theory of racial realism, which views Amerikan society as permanently racist and which advocates survival strategies as a more effective and realistic alternative to traditional civil rights calls for racial equality. 

The third theme in Bell’s CRT is anticolonialism, which provides the basis for his critique of the Black middle class. In Afrolantica Legacies, Bell draws upon Robert L. Allen’s Black Awakening in Capitalist America, which argues that the elite of the 1960s were implementing a program of “domestic neocolonialism .” According to Allen, the white Amerikan elite were happy to integrate politically convective middle class Blacks into the power structure because it would protect the status quo from accusations of racism while giving those same middle class Blacks a stake in the system. By becoming beneficiaries of the Amerikan capitalist empire, Black middle class citizens were increasingly likely to identify with and defend it.  

“Belll views Amerikan society as permanently racist and which advocates survival strategies as a more effective and realistic alternative to traditional civil rights calls for racial equality.“

Following Allen, Bell explains neocolonialism and the class role the Black bourgeoisie plays in a neocolonial regime: “The colonizing countries maintained their control by establishing class divisions within the ranks of the indigenous peoples. A few able (and safe) individuals were permitted to move up in the ranks where they served as symbols of what was possible for the subordinated masses. In this, and less enviable ways, these individuals provide a legitimacy to the colonial rule that it clearly did not deserve.” 

Bell levels a class critique against the Black bourgeoisie, whom he sees as having led Black political protest down the wrong path time and time again. He criticizes  NAACP lawyers for advancing the organization’s demand for integrated schools at the expense of their constituents' demands for better Black schools. He condemns  high-profile conservative Black politicians and judges, such as Clarence Thomas, referring to them as “overseers.”