RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://okaythennews.substack.com/p/science-summary-covid-19-vaccines?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=email

An unofficial series of 4 crucially important medical journal articles (JECP4), 2 by me, appearing in major academic publisher Wiley’s Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice reveals that claims made about COVID-19 vaccines’ effectiveness and safety were exaggerated in the clinical trials and observational studies, which significantly impacts risk-benefit analyses. Also discussed are the concerning topics of myocarditis, with evidence indicating that this one adverse effect alone means that the risks outweigh the benefits in the young and healthy; and perceived negative effectiveness, which indicates that the vaccines increase the chance of COVID-19 infection/hospitalisation/death, to say nothing about other adverse effects.

Whilst already planning for a holiday overseas on the advice of my treating team, I fortuitously was invited to share my research and discuss my ongoing persecution alongside brilliant and courageous doctors, scientists, academics, lawyers, and activists, such as Dr Robert Malone, who declared this research to be “excellent”, and “some of the best work, academically, in reevaluating the data”, culminating in an invitation to testify for US Senator Ron Johnson. So for those who are here because of the associated videos, and anyone else interested in this topic, please enjoy this much more detailed summary.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-nih-sacrifices-scientific-rigor-for-dei-f828a6c7?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Thanks to a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Cornell University is able to support several professors in fields including genetics, computational biology and neurobiology. In its funding proposal, the university emphasizes a strange metric for evaluating hard scientists: Each applicant’s “statement on contribution to diversity” was to “receive significant weight in the evaluation.”

It might seem counterintuitive to prioritize “diversity statements” while hiring neurobiologists—but not at the NIH. The agency for several years has pushed this practice across the country through its Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation program—First for short—which funds diversity-focused faculty hiring in the biomedical sciences.

Through dozens of public-records requests, I have acquired thousands of pages of documents related to the program—grant proposals, emails, hiring rubrics and more. The information reveals how the NIH enforces an ideological agenda, prompting universities and medical schools to vet potential biomedical scientists for wrongthink regarding diversity.

The First program requires all grant recipients to use “diversity statements” for their newly funded hires. Northwestern University suggests it will adapt a diversity-statement rubric created by the University of California, Berkeley. It isn’t alone. A year ago I acquired the rubrics used by the NIH First programs at the University of South Carolina and the University of New Mexico, which I discussed in these pages. Both used Berkeley’s rubric almost verbatim.

That rubric penalizes job candidates for espousing colorblind equality and gives low scores to those who say they intend to “treat everyone the same.” It likewise docks candidates who express skepticism about the practice of dividing students and faculty into racially segregated “affinity groups.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/03/why_americans_no_longer_trust_the_healthcare_system.html

Trust is foundational in relationships, whether between individuals or between individuals and institutions. A Gallup survey from last summer found, “Americans’ faith in major societal institutions hasn’t improved over the past year following a slump in public confidence in 2022.”

Notable other examples where surprisingly few Americans have “a great deal or quite a lot of confidence” in major institutions include Congress at 8%, big business and television news at 14%, and the criminal justice system at only 17%. The medical system fared slight better with 34% of Americans expressing confidence. But two thirds have lost trust.

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Doctors, hospitals, and healthcare systems used to be held in high esteem, but no more. Aren’t these the “experts” in white coats? What happened to that trust? Why do only 1 in 3 Americans trust what was once a sacred healing profession?

Rasmussen Reports recently asked American adults three questions

On health-related issues, how much trust do you have in experts who give advice on TV and other media?
In terms of your own health-care decisions, which is closer to your attitude, that it’s safe to trust advice from experts, or that it’s important to do your own research?
Thinking back on the COVID-19 pandemic, were most of the experts basically right or wrong?

Not surprisingly, trust is low. What is interesting is the partisan divide, with Democrats far more trusting in medical instructions than Republicans.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/bad-policies-leaving-next-generation-of-surgeons-unprepared

What is going on in surgery? Why are young surgeons are coming out of residency programs unprepared for clinical practice? A 2013 Annals of Surgery report revealed that 40 percent of surgical residents lacked confidence to practice independently after five years of training, the typical length of a full general-surgery residency. According to the same report, one in five surveyed program directors “felt that new fellows arrived unprepared for the operating room,” and program directors deemed 66 percent of new fellows incapable of operating unsupervised for more than 30 minutes in a major surgery.

While these statistics are frightening, that report is 11 years old. Have things gotten better since? Judging by more recent reports and my conversations with peers, they have not, and in fact, have probably gotten worse. Surgeons I have recently spoken to have observed that too many young surgeons are poorly prepared and need remedial help, such as operating with a more experienced surgeon before they can be trusted to operate on their own. The young surgeons themselves seem to realize their inadequate preparation, as nearly 80 percent of post-general-training surgeons pursue a one or two-year fellowship in a subspecialty, which for some may be a way to get more surgical experience and put off entering general practice.

One possible explanation for young surgeons’ lack of preparation stems from the American Council on Graduate Medical Education’s 2003 decision to limit residents in training to 80-hour work weeks and no more than 24 consecutive work hours. For surgery residents, fewer work hours means less time spent caring for patients and performing surgeries. Only with time and repetition do surgical residents develop the requisite cognitive and technical skills necessary to learn sound surgical judgement—knowing when to operate and what operation to do—and how to operate safely under all circumstances. The hour reductions also have resulted in less continuity, as residents hand off patients to one another, diminishing residents’ sense of responsibility for patient care.

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4470475-pfizer-super-bowl-ad-proves-just-how-damaging-bidens-covid-response-has-been-for-america/

Why did Pfizer spend millions of dollars on a Super Bowl ad? And why are they paying Travis Kelce $20 million to act as their vaccine spokesperson?  

Because their reputation — and the reputation of America’s medical authorities — needs serious rehabilitation. A Gallup survey conducted last fall found only 18 percent of Americans have a very or somewhat positive view of the pharmaceutical industry, down from 25 percent in 2022. That’s a worse rating than any other industry group but retail.   

This is one of the most damaging leftovers of the Biden presidency.   

Joe Biden’s authoritarian approach to managing the COVID-19 outbreak, forcing all workplaces of 100 or more people to require the vaccine or regularly test their employees and the censorship of opposing views on vaccine side effects and on treatments, not only trampled on Americans’ rights — it may have led to preventable deaths.  

Nothing could have highlighted Americans’ distrust of the pharmaceutical industry more starkly than the Pfizer ad, which aimed to rebuild not only its brand but general attitudes toward medicine. It’s hard to imagine a world where a leading drug-maker feels the need to remind people that science has led to life-saving breakthroughs like the invention of penicillin and treatments for cancer, yet here we are. 

The ad, wedged between promotions for beer and donuts and other more conventional fare, combined a jazzy upbeat tune with pictures of the founders of Pfizer, seeming to place them in the same scientific galaxy as Sir Isaac Newton and Copernicus, who came alive in their portraits long enough to join in the fun. It was memorable, mainly because it seemed so out of place. 

Pfizer’s problem is, first, that sales of its COVID-19 vaccines and therapies have cratered as the disease has faded. But more important, Pfizer is dealing with backlash against Biden’s heavy-handed dictates about vaccines.  

https://www.city-journal.org/article/ignoring-the-science

A new CDC study reports that the first updated Covid-19 vaccine—the bivalent vaccine approved in fall 2022—was about 50 percent effective in blocking infection over a two-month post-vaccination period in children and adolescents aged five to 17. But this limited and transitory benefit does not justify the agency’s official recommendation that everyone in this low-risk age group be vaccinated against Covid-19.

The CDC recommended the bivalent mRNA Covid-19 vaccine—containing the original virus and a later Omicron strain—for persons aged 12 or older on September 1, 2022, and for children aged five to 11 on October 12, 2022. The bivalent vaccine was superseded last fall by a univalent vaccine against a subsequent Omicron variant. Yet limited data are available on the bivalent vaccine and subsequent univalent vaccine’s protection against infection for children and adolescents.

The new study prospectively followed and administered weekly tests to 2,959 participants between the ages of five and 17. It found that the bivalent vaccine was 54.0 percent effective against infection and 49.4 percent effective against symptomatic Covid-19 when comparing those who received it with those who were unvaccinated or received only the original Covid-19 vaccine. The proctors didn’t monitor the participants for long; among participants who received a bivalent Covid-19 vaccine dose, the median post-vaccination observation time was only 50 days.

There is little reason to believe, however, that the bivalent vaccine’s limited protection against disease transmission was durable or that the newer univalent vaccine will be any better. Early last year, Anthony Fauci acknowledged in a coauthored medical article that good scientific basis existed to believe that vaccines against respiratory viruses like the one that causes Covid-19 would provide only “incomplete and short-lived” protection against infection. As time passed and new viral variants emerged, it became clear that while Covid vaccines continued to protect against severe illness and death, their incomplete ability to stop viral transmission quickly faded over a few months.