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U.S. Public Health Agencies Aren't ‘Following the Science’
Related: child abuse, health, Marty Makary MD, natural immunity, SARS-CoV-2 aka COVID-19 aka Coronavirus, vaccination
re: ethics in medicine
re: Marty Makary
re: follow the money
re: child abuse
Marty Makary is one of the few voices of integrity in the medical community that has reach.
U.S. Public Health Agencies Aren't ‘Following the Science,’ Officials Say
2022-07-14, by Marty Makary M.D., M.P.H. and Tracy Beth Høeg M.D., Ph.D.
‘People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.’
The calls and text messages are relentless. On the other end are doctors and scientists at the top levels of the NIH, FDA and CDC. They are variously frustrated, exasperated and alarmed about the direction of the agencies to which they have devoted their careers.
“It's like a horror movie I'm being forced to watch and I can't close my eyes,” one senior FDA official lamented. “People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.”
[WIND: yes you can, you just have to be willing to suffer the blowback]
That particular FDA doctor was referring to two recent developments inside the agency. First, how, with no solid clinical data, the agency authorized Covid vaccines for infants and toddlers, including those who already had Covid. And second, the fact that just months before, the FDA bypassed their external experts to authorize booster shots for young children.
...The CDC has experienced a similar exodus. “There’s been a large amount of turnover. Morale is low,” one high level official at the CDC told us. “Things have become so political, so what are we there for?” Another CDC scientist told us: “I used to be proud to tell people I work at the CDC. Now I’m embarrassed.”
Why are they embarrassed? In short, bad science. The longer answer: that the heads of their agencies are using weak or flawed data to make critically important public health decisions. That such decisions are being driven by what’s politically palatable to people in Washington or to the Biden administration. And that they have a myopic focus on one virus instead of overall health.
...First, they demanded that young children be masked in schools... compelling studies later found schools that masked children had no different rates of transmission. And for social and linguistic development, children need to see the faces of others.
Next came school closures. The agencies were wrong—and catastrophically so. Poor and minority children suffered learning loss with an 11-point drop in math scores alone and a 20% drop in math pass rates. There are dozens of statistics of this kind.
Then they ignored natural immunity. Wrong again. The vast majority of children have already had Covid, but this has made no difference in the blanket mandates for childhood vaccines. And now, by mandating vaccines and boosters for young healthy people, with no strong supporting data, these agencies are only further eroding public trust.
...Three weeks ago, the CDC vigorously recommended mRNA Covid vaccines for 20 million children under five years of age. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, declared that the mRNA Covid vaccines should be given to everyone six months or older because they are safe and effective.
...Start with Pfizer. Using a three-dose vaccine in 992 children between the ages of six months and five years, Pfizer found no statistically significant evidence of vaccine efficacy... one high-level CDC official—whose expertise is in the evaluation of clinical data—joked: “You can inject them with it or squirt it in their face, and you’ll get the same benefit.”
...“It seems criminal that we put out the recommendation to give mRNA Covid vaccines to babies without good data. We really don’t know what the risks are yet. So why push it so hard?” a CDC physician added. A high-level FDA official felt the same way: “The public has no idea how bad this data really is. It would not pass muster for any other authorization.”
... As of February, 75% of children in the U.S. already had natural immunity from prior infection. It could easily be over 90% of children today given how ubiquitous Omicron has been since then. The CDC’s own research shows that natural immunity is better than vaccinated immunity and a recent New England Journal of Medicine study from Israel has questioned the benefits of vaccinating previously infected persons. Many countries have long credited natural immunity towards vaccine mandates. But not the U.S.
[WIND: nor do many doctors, whose ethics are non-existent. Local cheerleader doctors sing the praises of vaccinating children].
...
It is an ancient, moral requirement of our profession to speak up when we believe questionable treatments are being proposed. It is also good for the public. Imagine, for example, a world in which those scientists who suggested that masking for children and school lockdowns were worse for public health were not smeared but instead debated?
The official public health response to Covid has undermined the public's belief in public health itself. This is a terrible outcome with potentially disastrous consequences. For one thing, because of these sloppy and politicized policies, we run the risk of parents rejecting routine vaccines for their children—ones we know are safe, effective and life-saving.
The leaders of the CDC, the FDA and the NIH should welcome internal discussion—even dissension—based on the evidence. Silencing physicians is not "following the science." Less absolutism and more humility by the men and women running our public health agencies would go a long way in rebuilding public trust.
WIND: did the CDC get anything right? Because all evidence says “total clusterfuck”. With a focus on child abuse. The level of rationalization is extreme, and what parent is going to own up to their own bad jugment damaging their own children in multiple ways? They’ll stay the course to avoid the psychological damage that acknowledging the truth would bring.
Even I have trouble contemplating the abdication of personal and professional responsibility over at the CDC (and FDA). But maybe not: follow the money is a guideline that will rarely if ever fail you in life.
I feel sorry for ethical doctors (there are some), because the medical profession has self-immolated, destroying two millenia of credibility. But when doctors turn to child abuse, it crosses a line: local doctors in my area, especially those at Stanford, are truly contemptible in pushing the bad science and propaganda, sacrificing the well-being of their patients for... what? I cannot read their perverted minds, so I don’t know. And these are the “experts” you are supposed to put your trust in, with your very life. It should scare you to death.
To assume the CDC is a Soviet-style propaganda organization is appropriate; only children and idiots could find it credible a this point: anything promulgated might be true, but just as likely might not be. So you have to assume it’s all bullshit. I doubt I am alone, and that means the damage is incalculable, perhaps permanent. Because you cannot repair reputational damage like this.
