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COVID Fearmongering Not Working?

re: ethics in medicine
re: COVID

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

The common cold also known as COVID (in its current form) is disappointing petty tyrants everywhere. Well, they can always start talking about the triple thread of RSV and influenza. Or the slow-poison food supply. Or fentanyl and suicide now exceeding traffic deaths. Oh wait... those last two do not grant them power and authority and follow the money is a brick wall and so no interest at all.

Life has risks. All sorts of nasty viruses and bacteria are out there. But living life in irrational fear about one wimpy bug of so many is a horrible way to approach it.

See also: Long COVID Risks Have Been Exaggerated by Misleading Data: New Analysis

CDC Data Show COVID Hospitalizations on the Decline

2023-09-29. Emphasis added.

After multiple weeks of increasing COVID-19 hospital admissions, federal data shows that the figure is now falling..

...Meanwhile, the latest figures show that emergency department visits are down 19.3 percent and test positivity is down 1.6 percent. Deaths are up by about 12.5 percent, the data show, but that figure is also relatively low when compared with previous years.

...

WIND: weak people get sick and die as they have since the dawn of humanity. The neurotic focus on COVID is still out there, but fading. Even as 100K people a year die of fentanyl overdoses, and cities descend into chaos and squalor—there are actual real threats out there that the jackasses in charge keep making worse.

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COVID Vaccines Causally Linked to Increased Mortality, Resulting in 17 Million Deaths: Scientific Report

re: ethics in medicine
re: COVID

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Follow the science, right? Could it be true, and what if it is? Or it might be total bullshit.

It’s not often one sees a claim of causality. And I don’t see how that is justified here.

See also:
Cancers Appearing in Ways Never Before Seen After COVID Vaccinations: Dr. Harvey Risch

New COVID “Vaccines” have ZERO Scientific Support, ZERO Efficacy Data... and NOT tested on Humans

FDA Has 'Gone Rogue' in Its Approval of New COVID-19 Boosters

COVID-19 Vaccine Found in Dead People

Long COVID Risks Have Been Exaggerated by Misleading Data: New Analysis

COVID Vaccines Causally Linked to Increased Mortality, Resulting in 17 Million Deaths: Scientific Report

2023-09-29. Emphasis added.

Data suggest COVID-19 vaccines haven’t saved lives, but instead, have resulted in 17 million deaths and increased all-cause mortality in 17 countries.

A new scientific report challenges the idea that COVID-19 vaccines have prevented deaths after researchers assessed all-cause mortality in 17 countries and found COVID-19 vaccines did not have any beneficial effect on reducing mortality. Instead, researchers found that unprecedented peaks in high all-cause mortality in each country—especially among the elderly population when COVID-19 vaccines were deployed—coincided with the rollout of third and fourth booster doses.

The report published Sept. 17 by Correlation Research in the Public Interest (pdf) quantified the vaccine-dose fatality rate (vDFR) for all ages—which is the ratio of inferred vaccine-induced deaths to vaccine doses delivered in a given population. After analyzing mortality data, the researchers calculated a mean all-ages fatal toxicity by injection of vDFR of one death per 800 injections across all ages and countries. This equates to 17 million COVID-19 vaccine-related deaths worldwide from 13.25 billion injections as of Sept. 2, 2023.

"This would correspond to a mass iatrogenic event that killed (0.213 ± 0.006) % of the world population (1 death per 470 living persons, in less than 3 years), and did not measurably prevent any deaths," the authors said. The overall risk of death induced by COVID-19 vaccines is 1,000 times greater than previously reported in data from clinical trials, adverse event monitoring, and cause-of-death statistics obtained from death certificates.

...

Researchers Found No Evidence COVID-19 Vaccines Improved Mortality

The researchers said their findings are conclusive, and the associations observed are numerous and systematic. They could not find a single counter-example showing COVID-19 vaccines improved all-cause mortality.

...

WIND: let the process of debunking this study begin. It may well be total bullshit, but let’s hear a cogent argument as to why the findings are no good.

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Voluntary Recall: Shimano 11-Speed Bonded HOLLOWTECH II Road Cranksets Inspection and Replacement Campaign

Worth checking on your bike.

Voluntary Recall: Shimano 11-Speed Bonded HOLLOWTECH II Road Cranksets Inspection and Replacement Campaign

2023-09-23. Emphasis added.

With our dedication to safety and quality in mind, Shimano is issuing a voluntary recall of some bonded 11-speed HOLLOWTECH II road cranksets produced before July 2019 for a possible bonding separation issue.

To remedy this situation, Shimano will have applicable, pre-July 2019, cranks inspected by Shimano authorized retailers and Shimano will replace any cranks that fail the inspection process. There is no need for further action for cranks that pass the inspection process. The CPSC has reviewed and approved the voluntary Corrective Action Plan that Shimano has proposed. This is designed to give the consumer multiple ways to determine whether their crank shows a possible bonding separation issue and to swiftly remove any possible safety hazard to our consumers.

Not all Ultegra and Dura-Ace cranks need to be inspected. Only cranks produced before July 2019 need to be inspected, and the way to know if your crank should be inspected is to identify it in step 1 below.

...

WIND: luckily my cranks were not part of this recall. Yours?

Top FDA Official Suggests Spacing Out Vaccines to Avoid Side Effects

re: WSJ
re: scientific fraud

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Vaccines are not and were NEVER tested in combination? Yet they are routinely given that way, based only on the assumption that it’s fine.

IMO, it is risky and therefore foolish to get more than one vaccination every two weeks.

re: New COVID “Vaccines” have ZERO Scientific Support, ZERO Efficacy Data... and NOT tested on Humans

Top FDA Official Suggests Spacing Out Vaccines to Avoid Side Effects

2023-09-23. Emphasis added.

Side effects of the vaccines include heart inflammation, severe allergic shock, and nausea

A top official at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is suggesting people space out vaccines for COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial (RSV).

"I have to be an honest person and say that some people are saying, 'well, could I get RSV, COVID, and the flu vaccine on the same day?' Yes, indeed, you could," Dr. Peter Marks, the official, said. "But honestly, I might not just because each of them can potentially make one a little fatigued or have a little bit of a fever. And I might just want to space them out a little bit."

He added later, "Oftentimes, we suggest if you want to minimize the chance of interactions and minimize confusing side effects from one with another, you wait about two weeks between the vaccines."

...

WIND: curious phrasing (“honest person”).

As for the COVID vaccine, getting it has no rational justification, excepting those at high risk for some reason and even then it’s not clear it has value given irresponsible non-testing and the current weak state of the COVID virus and its rapidly evolving nature.


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WSJ: The Band of Debunkers Busting Bad Scientists

re: WSJ
re: scientific fraud

re: ‘Replication crisis’ spurs reforms in how science studies are done (nope!)
re: Research Fraud at Stanford Confirmed and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya Reveals Stanford University's Attempts To Derail COVID Studies

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Tip of the iceberg.

It doesn’t even begin to look at the ways studies are fraudulent, particularly medical studies. But at least this approach will ferret-out the ferrets out there faking data.

The problem is not new; back in 2005 (18 years ago!): Ioannidis: Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.

It all seems like just one natural outgrowth of a Cluster B society.

BTW, did you know that most meta analyses are far too often the de facto opinion of the authors eg they decide what to include and exclude? Meta analyses are not science.

xkcd: Meta Analysis

WSJ: The Band of Debunkers Busting Bad Scientists

2023-09-24. Emphasis added.

Stanford’s president and a high-profile physicist are among those taken down by a growing wave of volunteers who expose faulty or fraudulent research papers

An award-winning Harvard Business School professor and researcher spent years exploring the reasons people lie and cheat. A trio of behavioral scientists examining a handful of her academic papers concluded her own findings were drawn from falsified data.

It was a routine takedown for the three scientists—Joe Simmons, Leif Nelson and Uri Simonsohn—who have gained academic renown for debunking published studies built on faulty or fraudulent data. They use tips, number crunching and gut instincts to uncover deception. Over the past decade, they have come to their own finding: Numbers don’t lie but people do. 

...
At least 5,500 faulty papers were retracted in 2022, compared with 119 in 2002, according to Retraction Watch, a website that keeps a tally. The jump largely reflects the investigative work of the Data Colada scientists and many other academic volunteers, said Dr. Ivan Oransky, the site’s co-founder. Their discoveries have led to embarrassing retractions, upended careers and retaliatory lawsuits. 

...

...The data detectives hope their work will keep science honest, at a time when the public’s faith in science is ebbing. The pressure to publish papers—which can yield jobs, grants, speaking engagements and seats on corporate advisory boards—pushes researchers to chase unique and interesting findings, sometimes at the expense of truth, according to Simmons and others.

...

WIND: science in terms of studies have very very low credibility, and have for 20 years. Science the process takes a lifetime or three to get to something closer to the truth. And today, follow the money explains everything you need to know, whether it is the oxymoronic “climate science” (mostly religion), or COVID “follow the science” (mostly propaganda).

re: New COVID “Vaccines” have ZERO Scientific Support, ZERO Efficacy Data... and NOT tested on Humans

CDC Advisers Recommend Pfizer RSV Vaccine for Pregnant Women

re: RSV

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

RSV (respiratory synctial virus) threatened my first-born while in the NICU 26 years ago. So I have some memory of the fear.

Vaccines carry risks

Vaccines can carry huge and unknown risks. New never-before used vaccines carry the highest risk. And here we are.

We like to think that botched vaccines are all in the past, but no one but a propagandist can make that assertion. The first RSV vaccine attempt did not go well:

Attempts to develop an RSV vaccine began in the 1960s with an unsuccessful inactivated vaccine developed by exposing the RSV virus to formalin (formalin-inactivated RSV (FI-RSV)).[19] This vaccine induced a phenomenon that came to be known as vaccine-associated enhanced respiratory disease, in which children who had not previously been exposed to RSV and were subsequently vaccinated would develop a severe form of RSV disease if exposed to the virus itself, including feverwheezing, and bronchopneumonia.[19] Some eighty percent of such children (vs. 5% of virus-exposed controls) were hospitalized, and two children died of lethal lung inflammatory response during the first natural RSV infection after vaccination of RSV-naive infants.[19] This disaster hindered vaccine development for many years to come.[19]

CDC Advisers Recommend Pfizer RSV Vaccine for Pregnant Women

2023-09-22. Emphasis added.

The CDC's advisory committee has recommended the RSV vaccine for women in the late stages of their pregnancies.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) advisory committee on Friday recommended that expectant mothers receive the Pfizer vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) during the late stage of their pregnancies.

The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 11 in favor of the recommendation and one opposed. The next step is formal approval from CDC Director Mandy Cohen, which is expected to make this vaccine part of the Vaccines for Children Program, further enhancing its accessibility.
[WIND: accessibility profitability]

...RSV is responsible for numerous hospitalizations and fatalities among infants in the United States. Last week, the CDC warned that a combination of COVID-19, RSV, and influenza at the same time could overwhelm hospitals and place a burden on the U.S. health care system this winter.

...Meanwhile, some concerns have been raised regarding the potential safety risks of the Pfizer maternal RSV vaccine.

...

WIND: note the fearmongering.

IMO, it is very poor medical judgment to recommend a brand-new vaccine at-large which has no track record and unknown harms. When you read the quotes and their fearmongering, follow the money. To do so with pregnant women might end up being a net benefit (let’s hope so), but it’s also possible that unknown harms will be found, some severe or deadly. Follow the money always applies. But maybe this time all will go well and a terrific societal benefit will accrue.

But... presumably this new RSV vaccine, developed and tested and validated by the company that stands to profit handsomely (Pfizer) will be just fine. What could possibly go wrong? With the FDA bought and paid for by Big Pharma, approval has minimal credibility; it’s a very low bar.

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E-nough: Electric bikes and gas-powered mopeds are reversing more than a decade’s safety progress

re: City Journal

Electric bikes can be useful and do have their advocates, but are also problematic.

I find them extremely annoying on the road due to inexperienced and inconsiderate riders overtaking (on hills), surprising me with no warning and too-little room. They are a terrible mix with regular cyclists and walkers/hikers on trails especially, but on roads they can be nearly silent and thus dangerous.

E-nough

2023-09-21. Emphasis added.

Electric bikes and gas-powered mopeds are reversing more than a decade’s progress in making New York’s dense streets safer for pedestrians and traditional cyclists.

Early this month, after more than ten years of operation, New York’s Citi Bike bicycle-share program marked a grim milestone: the first-ever death of a pedestrian hit by a Citi Bike rider. The cyclist wasn’t riding one of Citi Bike’s traditional blue-pedal bikes when he allegedly hit and killed 69-year-old Priscilla Loke, but rather an electric bike.

Loke’s death is yet another reminder that battery-powered electric bikes, and their new cousins, gas-powered mopeds, are not bicycles but fast-moving motorized vehicles. Those vehicles’ proliferation on New York’s dense streets, encouraged by supposed safe-streets advocates and city government, is reversing more than a decade’s progress in making New York’s streets more hospitable to pedestrians and traditional pedal cyclists. 

...Those vehicles have also discouraged traditional pedal cyclists, particularly female cyclists. The percentage of female commuting cyclists plateaued in 2018, at less than half the rate of male cyclists, after more than a decade of growth. A major goal of the livable-streets movement until recently was to encourage more women to bicycle, but it has been largely silent as fast-moving, wrong-way male e-cyclists and moped drivers who commandeer bike lanes scare female riders off the streets...

...E-bike advocates will argue that the bikes have benefits, such as allowing older cyclists and people with weak knees to ride. That is true but irrelevant in the real-world New York City context, where the costs far outweigh the benefits. There’s no evidence, for example, that the proliferation of e-bikes has lured people out of cars, thus reducing traffic...

Nor is there evidence that e-bikes have calmed traffic, making streets safer and more pleasant. As livable-streets advocates have long argued, the presence of pedestrians and traditional cyclists helps to slow car and truck traffic, making streets safer for everyone. But car and truck drivers who must look in all directions for fast-moving e-cyclists and moped drivers aren’t made calmer and more attentive. They are made more anxious, frustrated, and angry—and so are the rest of us as we attempt to walk or pedal around town.

WIND: electric bikes have become dangerous IMO, because new riders do not follow any of the accepted protocols when riding (eg no warning when overtaking), and have deadly-poor situational awareness. Then they go burn down the apartment when the cheap Chinese-made batteries explode.

EBikes are also heavy, weight 50 to 100 pounds or more. At 20 mph, they become deadly projectiles just from 5mph more speed (energy is mV^2 so 20 mph is 77% more energy than 15mph). For context, my road bike is 15 pounds.

At least here in California, you have to pedal to make an electric bike assist you. But there are ebikes that just have a throttle just like a motorcycle, and can hit 30+ mph with no physical effort. The latter should be regulated just like motor vehicles IMO.


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Pfizer-Funded Study Shows Poor Effectiveness for COVID-19 Vaccine in Young Children

re: WSJ
re: COVID
re: child abuse

re: FDA Has 'Gone Rogue' in Its Approval of New COVID-19 Boosters

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

In this case, if Pfizer funded the study, and if the results still suck for children, what does that tell you? Probably that there is not only minimal benefit, but all the nasty problems that occur and will occur are not even dealt with.

See also:
Cancers Appearing in Ways Never Before Seen After COVID Vaccinations: Dr. Harvey Risch

New COVID “Vaccines” have ZERO Scientific Support, ZERO Efficacy Data... and NOT tested on Humans

mRNA Detected in Breast Milk After COVID-19 Vaccination Can Be Passed on to Infants: New Study

Pfizer-Funded Study Shows Poor Effectiveness for COVID-19 Vaccine in Young Children

2023-09-21. Emphasis added.

A new study funded by Pfizer found the company's COVID-19 vaccine did not perform well in children under 5.

Children aged 6 months to 4 years are supposed to receive three shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The number was increased from two when early testing showed little effectiveness.

...

WIND: in other words, the “vaccine” did not perform, so they tried to enlarge the cohort to get some result that could hide the idiocy of the whole thing, for a problem that does not exist—children were not and are not at risk from COVID, rare (really rare) exceptions aside.

Those who would “vaccinate” children against COVID, which poses no threat whatsoever to them, are child abusers, aided and abetted by the most ethically dubious doctors in the past century. Three doses into a young immune-naive body is outrageous.

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New Study Detects Spike Protein 6 Months After COVID-19 Vaccination

re: WSJ
re: COVID

re: FDA Has 'Gone Rogue' in Its Approval of New COVID-19 Boosters

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Real science is when you take a study like this, and replicate it, or refute it. No, not Big Pharma or the FDA (utterly corrupt), but multiple independent studies if those still exist (follow the money).

See also: Cancers Appearing in Ways Never Before Seen After COVID Vaccinations: Dr. Harvey Risch

New COVID “Vaccines” have ZERO Scientific Support, ZERO Efficacy Data... and NOT tested on Humans

Study Links Merck's COVID-19 Antiviral Pill to Mutated Strains

New Study Detects Spike Protein 6 Months After COVID-19 Vaccination

2023-09-12. Emphasis added.

A study in Proteomics Clinical Applications found spike protein in individuals six months after vaccination, challenging claims mRNA in COVID-19 vaccines break

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), mRNA from COVID-19 vaccines is “broken down within a few days after vaccination and doesn’t last long in the body”—a position it has adhered to since the pandemic's beginning, despite research suggesting otherwise (pdf). The CDC refers to mRNA as “messenger RNA,” whereas regulatory documents and Pfizer refer to the mRNA in COVID-19 vaccines as “modified RNA.”

Yet a new study published on Aug. 31 in Proteomics Clinical Applications found spike protein in the biological fluids of people who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine six months after vaccination, suggesting mRNA may be integrated or retranscribed in some cells.

...
On its “Myths and Facts about COVID-19 Vaccines” webpage, the CDC states that it’s a myth that COVID-19 vaccines can alter DNA.

...The current analysis and previous studies challenge this position...

WIND: I don’t see how one can reconcile the “few days” claimed by the FDA vs the claims here, unless it’s just a bad study (that’s why no one study should ever be trusted), or the FDA is willfully turning a blind eye.

“Integrated” presumably means permanent modification of DNA, where at least some cells of the body will manifest the spike protein forever—causing an auto-immune (possibly subclinical) that will never disappear?

IMO, the modified RNA gene therapy Jab has never had any credible scientific trials using proper controls to establish the real dangers (or lack thereof) of the Jab. The original (and IMO bogus due to funding and sloppiness) trials had the control groups eliminated, presumably to hide negative effects.

BTW, with individuals you must presume innocence, but with organizations and governments guilt must be presumed as the only rational viewpoint, until full transparency is manifest. Only children and idiots could think otherwise.

Got your Big-Pharma-profits Jab for the extra-mild COVID that’s going around?

See also: Chinese Government Lays Off Entire Propaganda Team As American Media Doing Their Job For Them

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Asthma Peak Week is Here: But Can you CURE your Asthma? I did!

re: asthma

Apparently they are calling it asthma peak week and offering the usual marginal advice to basically put up with it and minimize it.

I am making no claim here other than for myself: my asthma is CURED and has been since July 2020 (3+ years after 34 years of suffering). Never came back. And I’ve had feedback from readers who have done the same.

Will what worked for me work for you? No idea.

Magnesium chloride
Magnesium chloride

Your “expert” doctor will never tell you that for some people (a few, a lot, I have no idea), magnesium deficiency can play a starring role in your asthma. Rather, your doctor is likely to denigrate/laugh/scoff at you for suggesting it, because they are trained to have a closed mind resistant to the radical idea that what goes into your body actually affect how it functions.Decades of my life impaired, and $20K in inhalers because of their feckless incompetence—despicable.

If you do not at least try magnesium supplementation to address magnesium deficiency, then you are batshit crazy, because magnesium is a critical nutrient, and just about everyone is deficient. Please, talk to your doctor first, since everyone has a different situation.

WAIT—do not follow my advice here. I am not a doctor, just a dumb-ass engineer. Just because I cured my asthma doesn’t mean a damn thing—just keep taking your meds.

Stay away from magnesium oxide (nearly useless) and magnesium apartate (excitotoxin). My preference is magnesium chloride, which is just like table salt except that the cation is Mg instead of Na. And you need chloride (Cl-) too. Perfect absorption, no poop-stain problems as with some forms eg too much citrate. Daily supplementation is 300mg to 500mg elemental magnesium (critical point: elemental), but much more is needed to address a deficiency and for many months.

Make sure you use a magnesium that is ultra low in heavy metals.

Even if it does not help asthma (and allergies), it might improve your health in “subclinical” ways—meaning you won’t have serious problems later in life. With rare exceptions, the medical establishment treats disease and you are the grist for their mill.

Mg for more than asthma — heart disease, stroke, diabetes, etc

Print out the reference paper here for your doctor, then hand it to them when they mock you for suggesting it:

BMJ: “Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of cardiovascular disease and a public health crisis


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Covid Vaccine Boosters and FDA Science

re: WSJ
re: COVID

re: New COVID “Vaccines” have ZERO Scientific Support, ZERO Efficacy Data... and NOT tested on Humans

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Following “the science” is for children and idiots.

Are you starting to see how the gears of the machine work?

See also: Vaccination Offers 'No Meaningful Protection' Against Long COVID and CDC Refuses to Release Updated Information on Post-COVID Vaccination Heart Inflammation

WSJ: Covid Vaccine Boosters and FDA Science

2023-09-17. Emphasis added.

The FDA last week approved updated boosters based on data showing they generated antibodies and past studies purportedly demonstrating that the original vaccine and earlier booster versions worked. But these are large extrapolations based on flimsy evidence. No placebo-controlled trials have shown the boosters are effective, and studies on prior boosters systemically suffer from what scientists call “healthy user bias”—the process by which healthier people, who are more likely to receive a treatment, skew retrospective analyses.

One widely cited study from Israel found people who got the first boosters were 90% less likely to die of Covid within a 54-day period. Yet scientists from Stanford and the University of California, San Francisco, who analyzed the data estimated that those who didn’t get boosters were also 94.8% more likely to die of non-Covid causes during the same period.[absolute numbers matter, but it shows how misleading things can be]

Criticism of the FDA’s rush to roll out boosters for everyone, regardless of risk, isn’t coming only from partisans. One of the most vocal critics has been UCSF epidemiologist Vinay Prasad, an avowed Bernie Sanders supporter, who has also ridiculed shaky evidence used to support mask mandates and lockdowns

“The standard for truth and misinformation must be consistent,” Dr. Prasad wrote in a recent Substack post. “It is concerning when news outlets permit political scientists to lie to promote a dubious vaccination campaign that is not followed by peer nations.” The U.K. and Australia haven’t recommended boosters for healthy people under 65.

University of Pennsylvania professor Paul Offit, a leading vaccine advocate, has also criticized the weak evidence public-health officials have used to support updated boosters, especially for those at low risk. Officials have adopted a position of “absolutism,” he recently explained on a University of Iowa podcast, because “when you show that you’re in any sense questioning, it looks bad.”

Never mind that questioning the “science” is how science works.

...

WIND: got your Big Pharma profits Jab yet?

I haven’t had a flu vaccine in ~10 years. And I have not gotten the flu in all those years either. Must be pure luck.

FDA Has 'Gone Rogue' in Its Approval of New COVID-19 Boosters: Dr. Robert Malone

2023-09-19

Dr. Malone accused the FDA of flouting its own rules and "going rogue" by green-lighting updated COVID-19 vaccines with limited clinical trial data.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has "gone rogue," according to virologist Dr. Robert Malone, who accused the federal agency of sacrificing its own rules and regulations with its decision to recommend the latest batch of COVID-19 boosters, which only have limited clinical trial data attesting to their efficacy and safety.

Dr. Malone made the remarks in an interview with EpochTV's "Crossroads" program on Sept. 11, the day that the FDA cleared new COVID-19 vaccines in a bid to counter the waning effectiveness of the currently available shots.
"It's difficult to conclude anything other than the FDA is no longer feeling bound by their own rules and regulations," Dr. Malone said. "The term is—they've gone rogue."

...

"There's essentially no data," Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said at a recent news conference, where he suggested that people might be better off passing on the new round of shots.

"Not only that, but there are a lot of red flags," Dr. Ladapo added, while pointing to studies finding that the effectiveness of the vaccines turns negative over time.

“There's been no clinical trial done in human beings showing that it benefits people, there's been no clinical trial showing that it is a safe product for people."

He also noted that studies have linked previous versions of the COVID-19 vaccine to cardiac problems such as heart inflammation.

"It's truly irresponsible for FDA, CDC, and others to be championing something ... when we don't know the implications of it," Dr. Ladapo said.

...

WIND: as a wholly captured subsidiary of Big Pharma, turning a blind eye to reality is the FDA’s game—I see nothing new here other than the gears of the machine being more exposed.

CDC Refuses to Release Updated Information on Post-COVID Vaccination Heart Inflammation

2023-09-23. Emphasis added.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is refusing to release updated information on reported cases of myocarditis and pericarditis following COVID-19 vaccination.

...

The labels for the new vaccines say they can cause myocarditis.

"Postmarketing data with authorized or approved mRNA COVID-19 vaccines demonstrate increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, particularly within the first week following vaccination," the labels state. While some people have recovered, others have not. The labels also say, "Information is not yet available about potential long-term sequelae."

WIND: individuals should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Organizations and especially the government should be presumed guilty until proven otherwise by transparent release of information—only children and idiots think otherwise.

Getting a gene therapy Jab for the common cold is idiotic for almost everyone.

Masks for COVID or Influenza Don’t Work

re: City Journal
re: COVID

Particulate respirator in use for safe excercise
Particulate respirator in use for safe excercise

If magical self-powering physics-defying torus fields are your thing, then mask up. Except that masks work a lot better.

Back in early 2020 when COVID was a mystery, I recommended N100 masks as a precaution. It is interesting that N100 masks do not seem to be considered in tests, being 20X more effective than N95 masks. But even vented N100/P100 respirators make breathing a lot harder, making them unusable for many elderly and lung-impaired people.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m again starting to see cyclists masked up while riding (alone) in the cleanest summer air we’ve had for many years. The “ugly people wear masks” hypothesis does not hold up for cyclists so I presume it is COVID hysteria on the rise.

Instead of a mask, wash your hands properly; hardly anyone does, including some doctors (personal observation!): How to Wash Your Hands Properly

More Mask Hysteria

2023-09-14. Emphasis added.

...Randomized controlled trials are the gold standard of medical research, and Cochrane reviews are the gold standard for reviewing such trials. A recent Cochrane review found, “Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness (ILI)/COVID-19 like illness”—or “to the outcome of laboratory-confirmed influenza/SARS-CoV-2”—“compared to not wearing masks.” Moreover, “The use of a N95/P2 respirators compared to medical/surgical masks probably makes little or no difference.” Stating things even more plainly, the review’s lead author, Oxford’s Tom Jefferson, said of masks in a subsequent interview with Australian investigative journalist Maryanne Demasi, “There is just no evidence that they make any difference. Full stop.”

As Cochrane observed, 16 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have now been conducted on surgical or cloth masks, none of which has provided compelling evidence that they work. Two of these RCTs actually found statistically significant evidence that masks are counterproductive in stopping the spread of viruses. Two RCTs were completed during the pandemic. One found no statistically significant evidence that masks work, while the other—touted by mask advocates but riddled with methodological flaws—found nearly identical outcomes in its mask and non-mask groups.

When a medical intervention goes 0-for-16 in RCTs, it’s time to accept that it doesn’t work. (If one needs further proof, check out this chart made by Ian Miller, which shows the striking similarity in case rates between mask-free and mask-mandate states.)

...How can masks potentially increase the likelihood of spreading viruses? Before public-health officials did their politically motivated about-face on masks during the panic-filled early stages of the pandemic, then-surgeon general Jerome Adams said, “Folks who don’t know how to wear [masks] properly tend to touch their faces a lot and actually can increase the spread of coronavirus.” Cochrane adds the possibility of “saturation of masks with saliva from extended use (promoting virus survival in proteinaceous material).”

...

As for how one should wear a mask “properly,” the World Health Organization produced an amusing video offering this advice regarding children: “Before putting on the mask, children should clean their hands . . . at least 40 seconds if using soap and water. . . . Children should not touch the front of the mask [or] pull it under the chin. . . . After taking off the mask, they should store it in a bag or container and clean their hands.” Then, after conducting this highly implausible regimen, the mask still probably won’t do any good—but being clean, at least it won’t make things worse.

Actually, it will. As German researchers have highlighted, mask-wearers are effectively poisoning themselves by breathing in their own carbon dioxide. They note research suggesting that mask-wearers (specifically those who wear masks for more than five minutes at a time) are breathing in 35 to 80 times normal levels—four to ten times toxic levels. (For N95 masks, the range is 60 to 80 times normal levels.)

Such CO2 levels easily exceed those allowed on a U.S. Navy submarine. Due to concerns about the risks of stillborn births or birth defects when pregnant women serve aboard submarines, the Navy has decreed that CO2 levels are not allowed to exceed 0.8 percent—about 20 times normal levels. So mask mandates have forced pregnant women to breathe in levels of CO2 that would be banned if they were serving on a Navy sub.

Breathing in too much CO2 can result in—among other things—high blood pressure, reduced thinking ability, respiratory problems, and reproductive concerns, write the German researchers. As John Tierney puts it, “No drug with all these potential side effects would be recommended, much less mandated, for the entire population.”

...

WIND: follow the science?

None of this will matter to mask religionists, or authorities who lost their minds and now cannot accept the painful cognitive dissonance...

2023-09-22 Dilbert Reborn
2023-09-23 Dilbert Reborn

I’m naturally skeptical when I see a quote that includes “full stop.” (an anti-intellectual throwaway), as it usually means the argument is poor. Though I don’t see how in this case.

Also call me VERY skeptical on the CO2 claim, though in theory this at least should be some hard science (the concentration part at least). Nor do I see how a surgical mask could trap any meaningful amount of CO2. OTOH, short shallow breathing with an N95 surely could. Due to pollen/dust, I’ve ridden with N100 masks for up to 60 miles in double centuries... but in that case the breathing is very forceful and with major volume vs the mask volume...no issue.

RCT = fakeable science

Even RCTs (randomized controlled trials) are mostly bunk, because (follow the money) most of them are designed to achieve a desired outcome. There are dozens of ways to game this system, randomized or not, and if nothing else any undesired results never see the light of day.

Until and unless we have blinded 3rd-party antagonistic trial design (trials designed to disprove) along with a requirement to publish all results with criminal repercussions, trusting medical (and climate) “science” is for children and idiots.


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A Proven Water Purifier for Hiking, Emergencies, etc: MSR Guardian

If you are anywhere where the water supply could be cut off (eg SF Bay Area, served largely by a few huge pipes from the Sierra), have you thought about fresh water in a major earthquake or other disaster?

MSR Guardian Gravity Water Purifier
MSR Guardian Gravity Water Purifier

Have some gallons of potable water on hand, but at one gallon per day per person (minimum just for drinking), you'd better have a big garage. Or you can wait for the incompetent government to bring your ration*.

Or maybe you like to hike as I do, and carrying half a gallon or more of water for a long day is not your think. Why not carry a one-pound water purifier and an empty bottle to start? It lightens the load by 4-5 pounds and you can have water anytime you are near a water source.

* Don’t count on boiling water, extremely fuel intensive, and with the government trying to ban natural gas everything and discourage propane—with the electricity out, you and your family are f*cked with an all-electric home and car. A dsytopian future that sooner or later will kill lots of people.

Water for a month or more for a family

Enough for a few friends and neighbors too, who will surely appreciate it.

See my review of the MSR Guardian, which I have used extensively in the backcountry for many years now. Fantastic product that lightens my load anywhere I have a water source; I start my hikes with an empty 1L bottle.

Recently I have stopped buying water on trips, since Sierra water is fantastic for drinking, better than what I can buy. At about $1.49 a gallon at the supermarket, I saved about $20 just the last trip alone. And I don’t have to drive to the store. I refill the 1-gallon Crystal Geyser and Evian bottles, etc. Where this does not work is areas with no water source of any kind.

The MSR Guardian can filter 10000 liters (2640 gallons!) of fluid (stream water, pond water, mule piss, whatever) into safe water, then you replace the cartridge. It is a water purifier that takes out even viruses (WAY better than a water filter).

What it cannot do is take out bad tastes. That’s where the 'gravity' version comes in with an activated charcoal filter in addition to the purification. Note that neither can turn salt water into fresh water, or remove dissolved metals and some chemicals/toxins.

A water filter is unsafe with some sources eg viruses; a water purifier is safe.

MSR Guardian Water Purifier @AMAZON
MSR Guardian Gravity Water Purifier @AMAZON

The MSR Guardian is terrific for its ease of use and portability.

The 'gravity' version adds an activated charcoal filter, which takes the nasty out of unsavory water sources—exactly what you might need in an emergency. Presumably that’s why it is rated at only 3000 liters (792 gallons). If that’s a concern, have spare filters on hand.

But for an emergency or group supply (larger volumes), have the MSR Guardian Gravity Water Purifier @AMAZON on hand (yes, before the disaster), which lets you fill up a bag and let gravity do the rest—designed for the military and the only purifier that passes the milspec.

MSR Guardian Water Purifier

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Neanderthal Genes Are Linked to Severe Covid Risk

re: COVID

Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.

Maybe. But it does make sense that some kind of genetic risk is involved.

Neanderthal Genes Are Linked to Severe Covid Risk

2023-09-16. Emphasis added.

Study in Italy’s worst pandemic hot spot sheds light on why some people fell seriously ill and others didn’t

...Scientists at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan spent the past few years analyzing possible links between DNA variations and Covid-19. Their study, published in the journal iScience and based on a sample of nearly 10,000 people in the Bergamo area, identified several genes associated with the development of severe respiratory illness. Three of those genes belonged to a group of variations in DNA, or haplotype, inherited from Neanderthals.

...“This study shows there is a particular section of the human genome that is significantly associated with the risk of getting Covid-19 and of developing a severe form of it,” says Giuseppe Remuzzi, an infectious-disease expert and director of the Mario Negri Institute, who oversaw the research. “That section is more important than any others to explain why some fall seriously ill.”

...

WIND: is there a ferret gene linked to politicians?

Thunderbolt 4 Dock

Thunderbolt 4 hub and ports!

Any Mac with Thunderbolt 3.


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