Health & Fitness

The most recent large-scale study from the World Health Organization shows remdesivir does not produce promised results. As I've covered in the past, there are numerous scientists who question the official story about the COVID-19 pandemic and the baseless fearmongering driving changes to worldwide behavior.

Recently I shared a video interview in which British journalist Anna Brees spoke with Michael Yeadon, Ph.D., who is a past vice-president and chief scientific adviser of the drug company Pfizer and founder and CEO of the biotech company Ziarco, now owned by Novartis.

Yeadon has over 25 years of experience working in the pharmaceutical industry and has consulted with over 20 biotechnology companies.¹ In the interview, he talks about his concerns that widespread PCR testing is creating the false idea the pandemic is resurging, as the total mortality rate is completely normal. He also discusses his concerns with COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

PCR testing is generating needless fear, and likely helping to fuel a Big Pharma push for antiviral drugs governments may seek to stockpile, thus driving financial gain. One antiviral drug that proved disappointing in 2014, and again in 2020, is remdesivir. The path this drug is taking is eerily similar to that of another failed drug, Tamiflu.

To Know Tamiflu Is to Understand Remdesivir

In this video, Dr. Tom Jefferson is speaking at The Symposium about Scientific Freedom in Copenhagen. He describes the journey he and his team took to publish the only Cochrane review based solely on raw unpublished regulatory data.² Ultimately, the results of the review showed Tamiflu shortened the duration of symptoms from flu by less than one day.

The struggle to get the data was nearly as eye-opening as the results. According to Jefferson, the journey began in 2009 when the team received what Jefferson characterized as a "HUGE amount of money — £5,000 — to commission a rapid update of our existing review of the drugs."³ In his depiction of the funding that amounted to $6,675, his arms were spread wide as if he were unable to hold it.

In October 2009, Jefferson received a phone call from Melanie Sinclair, Ph.D., claiming to be a ghostwriter for Adis and responsible for writing the Kaiser meta-analysis. In other words, the study research that found Tamiflu could reduce the effects of pneumonia from flu was not penned by the scientists, but instead by a global publisher of over 30 medical journals.⁴

"This is vital to understand because it formed the major part of the rationale for stockpiling huge amounts of oseltamivir (Tamiflu)," Jefferson explained. During the process, the team also received a challenge from a pediatrician in Osaka who pointed out the key piece of evidence underpinning the Kaiser conclusions that Tamiflu had an impact on complications from influenza came from a study funded by Roche.

Four of the six authors were employed by the pharmaceutical company and a fifth was a paid consultant. The bulk of the data analyzing the effectiveness were unpublished. Jefferson described the climate of the time, saying:⁵

"So we were in the middle of a situation where there was an unfolding pandemic that everybody said would kill just about half the population on the planet, we had a HUGE pot of money — £5,000 — to update the review and we had this criticism, which under Cochrane rules we had to answer within six months."

The team requested the unseen trial data but came up against many obstacles that took several years to overcome. In the meantime, a 2009 BMJ investigation by Deborah Cohen⁶ that is behind a paywall, uncovered interesting details from the lead researchers on two of the pivotal trials included in the Kaiser review:⁷

"John Treanor, lead author of a pivotal Tamiflu treatment trial, told The BMJ: 'I did not perform an independent analysis of the primary data, which was not required or requested by JAMA at the time of submission, and I do not have access to the primary data, which I also never requested.'

When asked a similar question, [Karl] Nicholson, lead author of the other pivotal Tamiflu treatment trial, 'said he did not recall seeing the primary data. He said that the statistical analysis had been conducted by Roche and he analysed the summary data.'"

Roche Protected Data That Showed Tamiflu Not Effective

By 2012, Jefferson and the team had not received the raw data from any of the researchers or from Roche, which had sent an open letter promising to send it. Jefferson then published open letters to:

• GlaxoSmithKline
• World Health Organization
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Roche
• European Medicines Agency (EMA)

"These organizations had promoted the drug. They had pushed the drug in any way. And we were asking them how did you reach your conclusions? How did you support your policy?"

What Jefferson found was:⁸

"WHO was recommending Tamiflu use, but they'd never vetted the data. EMA had approved Tamiflu; they'd never vetted the full data set. CDC was promoting the use of the drug. They had never seen the data set.

CDC's promotion was taking place despite the fact that the FDA — which HAD vetted the data — required Roche to add a statement on the label saying serious bacterial infections may begin with influenza-like symptoms or may co-exist with or without complications during the course of influenza.

Here comes the punch. Tamiflu has not been shown to prevent such complications. FDA was saying, this business about complications: no evidence of that."

Four years after Roche promised the data, 150,000 pages were delivered to Jefferson's team from which they determined "there was no convincing trial evidence that Tamiflu affected influenza complications and treatment or influenza infections in prophylaxis."⁹

FDA Knew of Negative Trial Results but Approved Drug Anyway

Remdesivir is an antiviral drug that was evaluated during the Ebola breakout in 2014. The development used at least $70.5 million in taxpayer money, and that number may be higher.¹⁰ After analysis showed disappointing results for treating Ebola, it was once again tested in the early months of 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.¹¹

A few of the remdesivir trials were stopped early after participants experienced significant side effects. Yet, some scientists believed the data suggested the drug could shorten recovery time.¹² However, the drug has not produced adequate results and has not been proven to reduce the potential for death in those with severe disease. Worse, treatment comes with an added price tag of potential kidney damage.¹³

It seems remdesivir is following in the footsteps of Tamiflu. The story exploded when Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the President's Coronavirus Task Force and NIAID, made a promotional announcement from the White House, in which he called results that had not been peer-reviewed from a pharmaceutical-sponsored clinical trial "highly significant" and remdesivir to be the new "standard of care."¹⁴

WHO recently revealed the results from the SOLIDARITY trial¹⁵ showing remdesivir has little to no positive effect on mortality, length of stay or the need for ventilation.¹⁶

This supports what some doctors have been reporting and other studies have found, which I discuss in greater detail in the past article, "The New COVID-19 Medication Isn't Backed by Results." Gilead, makers of remdesivir and the developer of Tamiflu, attempted to cast doubt on the results of the SOLIDARITY trial, writing:¹⁷

"The SOLIDARITY Trial is a multi-center, open-label global trial that provided early access to Veklury [remdesivir], among other investigational COVID-19 treatments, to patients around the world — particularly in countries where ongoing trials of investigational treatments were not available.

The trial design prioritized broad access, resulting in significant heterogeneity in trial adoption, implementation, controls and patient populations and consequently, it is unclear if any conclusive findings can be drawn from the study results."

However, the endpoint measurements in the trial included mortality, length of hospitalization and ventilation requirements. These are more objective than most open-label clinical trials. As Dr. Srinivas Murthy from British Columbia Children's Hospital in Vancouver, pointed out:¹⁸

"Mortality should not be affected by whether a study is open label or closed or placebo blinded for obvious reasons: you or your doctors can't will yourself into staying alive by knowing you had the drug."

Gilead also questioned the use of a heterogeneous group of patients from 405 hospitals across 30 countries. Yet, the SOLIDARITY team says this is a strength of the study as it demonstrates "how remdesivir performs in complex real-world environments beyond the controlled settings of the smaller clinical trials that came before."¹⁹

October 22, 2020, one week after the trial results were made public, the FDA officially approved the drug as treatment for any hospitalized person over age 12. A press officer at the FDA acknowledged they were aware of the trial data, but based their decision largely on the two Gilead sponsored trials.

Gilead to Make Cheaper, Generic Version of a $10 Drug

Dr. Derek Angus, chief health care innovation officer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, believes this approval may slow or stop further trials that may help identify the populations of people in which remdesivir may possibly have a potential positive effect.

The cost of treatment is another stumbling block since one five-day course costs the government $2,340 and private insurers $3,120. As more hospitals are looking to purchase remdesivir, Gilead reached agreements to develop a generic version that would be cheaper. This move was to help low- and middle-income countries.

However, according to a review by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) published in May 2020, a cheaper version may not be necessary. ICER is a nonprofit group that evaluates drug pricing. Initial estimates showed the total cost of producing a "finished product" at $10.²⁰ This included packaging and a small profit margin and was based on the cost of the active pharmaceutical ingredients in the drug.

The cost estimate was based on research published in the Journal of Virus Eradication analyzing the cost of repurposing drugs for use with COVID-19 and included remdesivir. The data used global shipment record "costs of active pharmaceutical ingredients using established methodology, which had good predictive accuracy for medicines for hepatitis C and HIV amongst others."

After three producers in Bangladesh and India reported a price range of $590 to $710 for a 10-day course of treatment,²¹ ICER revised their cost range, writing: "Given the $10 estimate from Hill et al, and the new information on early generic pricing in developing countries, we have chosen in this update to frame the cost recovery pricing for remdesivir as a range between $10 and a rough mid-point generic pricing figure of $600 per 10-day course."

This means in order to lower the price from $3,120 for other countries, Gilead must make the drug cheaper than a range of $10 (estimated based on the known costs of the active ingredient) to $600 (estimated cost of manufacture in Bangladesh and India, when these prices already include a small profit margin).

Ultimately, the full story behind the clinical trials and use of the antiviral drug will likely not be known until Gilead releases the raw data from their clinical studies.

The Tamiflu Cochrane review began in 2009, but it was not until 2013 that Roche finally released the full clinical data. Jefferson said that it was only after analyzing the raw data that the team found Tamiflu could shorten influenza by only a few hours.²²

Steps to Reduce the Risk of Severe Disease

Some health experts and the media are using the rising number of cases of COVID-19 diagnosed each day as a way of encouraging people to stay in place and wait for a vaccination. As I've written several times in the past months, PCR testing does not accurately diagnose an active infection.

I recommend that you proactively work to support your immune system using strategies evidence has demonstrated reduces your risk of severe disease. You'll find several simple, yet significant strategies on my Coronavirus Resource Page.

As I have written, it has become apparent that optimizing your vitamin D level may be the least expensive, easiest and most beneficial strategy to minimize your risk.

It is also important to make simple lifestyle changes that have an impact on normalizing your blood sugar levels as this can reduce your risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and severe disease from SARS-CoV-2 and other viral infections like flu.^23,24

You may lower your risk of heart disease by following suggestions that affect your lifestyle and exposure to environmental toxins. In my article, "Cholesterol Managers Want to Double Statin Prescriptions," I share a list to help minimize your toxic exposure and improve your body's ability to maintain good heart health.

Additionally, in "Nearly Half of American Adults Have Cardiovascular Disease," I summarize further strategies to improve microcirculation in your heart. I also talk about mitochondrial function and insulin resistance, which are related to strong heart health.

It is difficult to control Type 2 diabetes when you rely strictly on medication and do not change the underlying lifestyle factors that have caused the problem. If properly addressed, Type 2 diabetes can be entirely reversible in most people.

The reason is that Type 2 diabetes is a diet-derived condition rooted in insulin resistance and faulty leptin signaling. This means it can effectively be treated and reversed through dietary and lifestyle choices. I discuss this further, with suggestions for changes, in "Diabetes Can Increase Complications of COVID-19."

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In addition to standard concerns over the safety of COVID-19 vaccines is the moral dilemma of taking vaccines made with aborted fetal cells. For many, this alone is a cause for objection. Several of the vaccine candidates, including AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, are made using aborted fetal cell lines.^1,2

Several fact checkers — including Politifact,³ The Associated Press⁴ and Snopes⁵ — have labeled the claim as "false," but is it? As it turns out, fact checkers are relying on semantics to "debunk" this claim. In reality, most thinking individuals are able to determine the truth of the matter once the details are explained.

Semantics and Technicalities Used to 'Debunk' the Truth

A common mistake by less experienced citizen journalists is to use rather general terms, assuming people will "get the gist" without having to be overly specific, and this is precisely what self-declared fact checkers home in on when rating something false or misleading.

Fact checkers routinely rely on semantics and technicalities to break apart a given claim, and unless you carefully read their explanation, you're likely to miss this and simply write it off based on the headline claiming something to be false. The case of COVID-19 vaccines containing aborted fetal cells is a perfect example of this, so let's go through some of what you need to know before discounting this claim off-hand.

Commonly Used Fetal Cell Lines

There are several cell lines commonly used in vaccine development that originate from aborted fetuses, including:⁶

• HEK293^7,8,9,10,11 — human embryonic cell line originally derived from kidney tissue obtained from a female fetus aborted in the Netherlands in 1972
• MRC5¹² — human embryonic cell line originally derived from the lung tissue of a 14-week-old male fetus aborted in 1966
• PER.C6¹³ — human embryonic cell line originally derived from the retina of an 18-week-old male fetus aborted in the Netherlands in 1985
• WI38¹⁴ — human embryonic cell line originally derived from the lung tissue of a 12-week-old female fetus aborted in 1961

Vaccine makers using at least one of these fetal cell lines in the development of their COVID-19 vaccines include:^15,16,17

AstraZeneca (HEK293)	Jansen Research and Development (owned by Johnson & Johnson), (PER.C6)
CanSino Biologics (HEK293)	University of Pittsburgh (HEK293)
ImmunityBio (HEK293)	Altimmune (PER.C6)

Vaccine makers using either "ethically derived" cell lines, meaning cell lines that do not originate from aborted human fetuses, or no cell lines at all, include Moderna, Merck, Novavax, Sanofi Pasteur, Pfizer, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline and Sinovac.¹⁸

The Claim

Now, the claim made by some citizen journalists is that certain COVID-19 vaccines "contain cells from an aborted fetus." One video headline stated: "CONFIRMED — aborted fetus in COVID-19 vaccine."¹⁹

Fact checkers have "debunked" these claims and labeled them false, in one instance because the name of the fetal cell line was incorrect,²⁰ and in others because the vaccines do not literally "contain" these cells; rather, the fetal cell lines were used as a growth medium for the virus during the production phase.

In yet other instances, fact checkers have slapped a false label on it by claiming the cell lines are not the original cells but, rather, clones thereof.²¹ All of these justifications are really all about semantics. What most people are referring to when they object to the use of fetal cell lines is that an aborted fetus was used. Period.

While some may indeed be concerned about the actual, literal inclusion of fetal cells in the finished vaccine, typically, it's simply a moral objection to the use of aborted fetuses in medical research and development.

So, labeling the claim that "COVID-19 vaccines contain fetal cells" as "false" can actually be just as misleading, as this ignores the moral issue of aborted fetuses being used in medicine, and in fact makes it sound as though it's not happening. Again, you'd have to read the whole fact checking article to see that fetal cell lines are indeed used in the development of some of these vaccines, and the "false" label is based on some technical detail or specificity of the verbiage.

How Are Fetal Cell Lines Used in Vaccine Development?

So, what is a fetal cell line, really, and how is it used in vaccine development? Simplified layman's answers to these questions can be found in the fact sheet²² "COVID Vaccines & Fetal Cell Lines," created by the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

The following illustrations and descriptions are taken from the first page of that fact sheet. The bottom illustration shows the specific role of these cell lines. The cells are used as a growth medium for the virus, since the virus needs a living cell to infect and multiply in. The viruses are then harvested from the cells and purified (and inactivated in the case of inactivated vaccines) before being added to the final vaccine as one of several ingredients.

According to Politifact's fact check of the fetal cell claim:²³

"After the purification process, the final vaccine contains trillionths of a gram of fragmented DNA from the cell line … The vaccine is created from a virus grown in a cell line derived from aborted fetal tissue. However, the cell line is purified away from the vaccine before it is used. It is inaccurate to claim that the vaccine 'contains' aborted fetal tissue."

Similarly, The Associated Press fact checking article included a quote by Dr. Deepak Shrivastava, president of Gladstone Institutes, who stated:²⁴

"What's important for the public to know even if they are opposed to the use of fetal cells for therapies, these medicines that are being made and vaccines do not contain any aspect of the cells in them. The cells are used as factories for production."

The Ethics of Fetal Cell Lines

Again, for many, the issue is not that the vaccine might contain actual cells from an aborted fetus. It's the fact that a fetus was used in the production — in any way. For some, this is the only thing that matters. Others may feel using these cells as a growth medium is fine as long as the cells are not injected along with the vaccine.

Either way, fact checkers are clearly trying to dissuade people from having a public conversation about the ethics of using aborted fetuses in vaccine development. The fact is, fetal cells ARE used during production of certain vaccines, and some may object to getting those vaccines because they object to abortion and/or feel it's unethical to harvest aborted fetuses for their tissues.

There's also the issue of disclosure. Drug companies and vaccine policymakers should not be allowed to decide whether or not to share this information with the public prior to vaccination. After all, there are other vaccines grown in animal cells, for example, which might be a more ethical choice for some people, but to make that choice, they must be given the information.

The Nonsensical 'Clone' Defense

The claim that fetal cells are not used in vaccine development because they are clones of the original is perhaps the most ludicrous justification used by fact checkers.²⁵ That's like saying your 20-year-old or 40-year-old body is no longer your body because all the cells are mere copies of the cells found in the original fetus that grew inside your mother.

Cells grow and multiply naturally. The cells in your adult body are no longer the original individual cells of you as a fetus. They are in essence "clones" of the originals. They've been growing and multiplying, dying and being replaced, with each passing moment from the time of your conception when a sperm entered an egg.

There's virtually no difference between cells growing and multiplying indefinitely in a petri dish and cells growing and multiplying in your body during your lifetime. If the cells in your body are still you, then the cells in the petri dish are still that of the original fetus that was aborted.

Residual DNA in Vaccines Linked to Autism?

Some may also object to vaccines manufactured through the use of fetal cell lines on the basis that there may be health risks involved, due to potential DNA contamination. In a 2011 scientific review,²⁶ Helen Ratajczak, a former drug company scientist, linked the introduction of human fetal cell lines in vaccine production (among other things) to the rapid rise in autism. On page 70 of her paper, Ratajczak explains this particular connection:²⁷

"Data from a worldwide composite of studies show that an increase in cumulative incidence began about 1988–1990. The new version of the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine (i.e., MMR II) that did not contain thimerosal was introduced in 1979.

By 1983, only the new version was available. Autism in the United States spiked dramatically between 1983 and 1990 from 4–5/10,000 to 1/500. In 1988, two doses of MMR II were recommended to immunize those individuals who did not respond to the first injection. A spike of incidence of autism accompanied the addition of the second dose of MMR II …

It is important to note that unlike the former MMR, the rubella component of MMR II was propagated in a human cell line derived from embryonic lung tissue.

The MMR II vaccine is contaminated with human DNA from the cell line. This human DNA could be the cause of the spikes in incidence. An additional increased spike in incidence of autism occurred in 1995 when the chicken pox vaccine was grown in human fetal tissue …

The human DNA from the vaccine can be randomly inserted into the recipient's genes by homologous recombination, a process that occurs spontaneously only within a species. Hot spots for DNA insertion are found on the X chromosome in eight autism-associated genes involved in nerve cell synapse formation, central nervous system development, and mitochondrial function.

This could provide some explanation of why autism is predominantly a disease of boys. Taken together, these data support the hypothesis that residual human DNA in some vaccines might cause autism."

Fetal Cell Lines May Contaminate Vaccine With DNA

Another paper²⁸ focusing on the health consequences of vaccines made with the help of fetal cell lines was published in 2015. These authors also stress that fetal cell lines used in vaccine development can cause the vaccine to be contaminated with human DNA — which has happened with certain MMR vaccines — and that this DNA contamination may play a role in autism and autoimmune diseases. According to the authors:

"Average single stranded DNA and double stranded DNA in Meruvax II were 142.05 ng/vial and 35.00 ng/vial, respectively, and 276.00 ng/vial and 35.74 ng/vial in Havrix respectively. The size of the fetal DNA fragments in Meruvax II was approximately 215 base pairs.

There was spontaneous cellular and nuclear DNA uptake in HFF1 and NCCIT cells. Genes that have been linked to autism (autism-associated genes; AAGs) have a more concentrated susceptibility for insults to genomic stability in comparison to the group of all genes contained within the human genome …

Vaccines manufactured in human fetal cell lines contain unacceptably high levels of fetal DNA fragment contaminants. The human genome naturally contains regions that are susceptible to double strand break formation and DNA insertional mutagenesis."

In 2019, one of the four authors of that 2015 paper, Dr. Theresa Deisher, wrote an open letter²⁹ to legislators, reviewing the hazard of fetal cell DNA in vaccines. In it, she wrote:³⁰

"I obtained my doctorate from Stanford University in Molecular and Cellular Physiology in 1990 and completed my post-doctoral work at the University of Washington. My career has been spent in the commercial biotechnology industry, and I have done work from basic biological and drug discovery through clinical development …

Merck's MMR II vaccine (as well as the chickenpox, Pentacel and all Hep-A containing vaccines) is manufactured using human fetal cell lines and are heavily contaminated with human fetal DNA from the production process.

Levels in our children can reach up to 5 ng/ml after vaccination, depending on the age, weight and blood volume of the child. That level is known to activate Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9), which can cause autoimmune attacks …

Anyone who says that the fetal DNA contaminating our vaccines is harmless either does not know anything about immunity and Toll- like receptors or they are not telling the truth …

Administration of fragments of human fetal (primitive) non-self DNA to a child could generate an immune response that would also cross-react with the child's own DNA, since the contaminating DNA could have sections of overlap very similar to the child's own DNA …

Injecting our children with human fetal DNA contaminants bears the risk of causing two well-established pathologies:

Adverse Effects Relabeled to Minimize Safety Concerns

Disturbingly, the public is now being reprogrammed to view side effects of vaccination as a natural occurrence by renaming adverse reactions as "immune responses." A December 1, 2020, CNBC article,³¹ which looked at the frequency of adverse reactions, noted that 10% to 15% of participants in the Pfizer and Moderna trials reported "significantly noticeable" side effects.

At the bottom of the article is a suggestion from a past advisory committee member, who proposes the nomenclature of "serious adverse reaction" be changed to "immune response," so they can change the way people view these side effects, even if they end up having to stay home from work because of them, which appears quite possible.

Dr. Eli Perencevich, a professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at the University of Iowa Health Care, has suggested essential workers should be granted three days of paid leave after they're vaccinated, as many will feel too sick to work.³² Even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that the vaccine's side effects are "no walk in the park."³³

Side Effects Are Common in COVID-19 Vaccine Trials

An October 1, 2020, report³⁴ by CNBC reviewed the experiences of five participants in Moderna's and Pfizer's SARS-CoV-2 vaccine trials. One of the participants in Pfizer's vaccine trial "woke up with chills, shaking so hard he cracked a tooth after taking the second dose."

A Moderna trial participant told CNBC he had a low-grade fever and felt "under the weather" for several days after his first shot. Eight hours after his second shot he was "bed-bound with a fever of over 101, shakes, chills, a pounding headache and shortness of breath. He hardly slept that night, recording that his temperature was higher than 100 degrees for five hours."³⁵

Regulators in the U.K. are also warning people to avoid Pfizer's vaccine if you have a history of severe allergic reactions to vaccines, medicine or food. They also warn the vaccine should only be given in facilities with resuscitation capabilities.³⁶

A group of researchers have also expressed concern that some COVID-19 vaccine candidates might put certain people at a higher risk of acquiring HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.^37,38,39

Using the failed attempt to create an HIV vaccine as an example, researchers explain⁴⁰ that the genetically engineered adenovirus, Ad5, used in the HIV vaccine trials, is the same one being used now in four COVID-19 candidates being studied in the U.S., Russia and Pakistan.

At the time of the failed HIV vaccine, scientists were unable to identify the exact reason why Ad5 seemed to increase the risk of HIV; it just inexplicably did. Interestingly, Dr. Anthony Fauci was the lead author on the HIV study,⁴¹ in which he questioned "whether the problem extends to some or all of the other recombinant vectors currently in development or to other vector-based vaccines."

Reflecting on that question, the researchers say they decided to go public with this information now, because Ad5 vaccines for COVID-19 might soon be tested in populations with high HIV prevalence, and they believe that informed consent about the HIV/AIDS risk should be part of the COVID-19 clinical studies.

At least two participants in the AstraZeneca trial have also developed transverse myelitis (severe inflammation of the spinal cord) and a participant in India's AstraZeneca trial is suing the company claiming the vaccine caused "serious neurological damage."⁴² Meanwhile, a 70-year-old Philadelphia priest who participated in Moderna's Phase 3 trial has died.⁴³ It's still unknown whether he received the vaccine or a placebo.

It's worth noting that the number needed to vaccinate in order to prevent one case of COVID-19 is 256 for Pfizer's vaccine⁴⁴ and 167 for Moderna's,⁴⁵ so hundreds of people will be risking their health to potentially prevent a single individual from getting sick.

Add to that the fact that the vaccines are only evaluated for their ability to reduce symptoms of COVID-19, regardless of their severity. It's entirely unknown whether they'll actually lower the risk of infection, hospitalization or death.

Who Pays for COVID-19 Vaccine Damage?

I've written several articles discussing the potential problems with COVID-19 vaccines, and these risks are made all the more concerning considering you can expect little help if you do end up being harmed by the vaccine. As explained by Dr. Meryl Nass in a December 4, 2020, blog post:⁴⁶

"If you are injured by a vaccine or other 'countermeasure' designated by the DHHS Secretary as intended for a pandemic or bioterrorism threat (COVID-19, pandemic flu, anthrax, smallpox) your options for receiving any financial benefit are very limited.

First, everyone involved with getting the vaccine to you has had their liability waived under the PREP Act … Congress did create a program to compensate some victims, but it is much less generous than the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) ... It is called the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP)."

As noted by Nass, the CICP is administered within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), which is also sponsoring the COVID-19 vaccination program. This conflict of interest makes the CICP less than likely to find fault with the vaccine.

Your only route of appeal is within the DHHS, where your case would simply be reviewed by another employee. The DHHS is also responsible for making the payment. "DHHS therefore essentially acts as the judge, jury and defendant," Nass writes.⁴⁷

What's more, while the NVICP pays some of the costs associated with any given claim, the CICP does not. This means you'll also be responsible for attorney fees and expert witness fees, for example.

According to the CICP director, the maximum payout you can receive — even in cases of permanent disability or death — is $250,000 per person; however, you'd have to exhaust your private insurance policy before the CICP gives you a dime. CICP will only pay the difference between what your insurance covers and the total payout amount established for your case.

For permanent disability, even $250,000 won't go far. The CICP also has a one year statute of limitations, so you have to act quickly. Of course, a significant problem with the COVID-19 vaccine is that no one really knows what injuries might arise, or when, making difficult to prove the injury was caused by the vaccine.

Should your employer end up making COVID-19 vaccination a condition of employment, you also cannot sue your employer for vaccine-related side effects. According to experts interviewed by CNBC, "claims would be routed through worker's compensation programs and treated as an on-the-job injury."⁴⁸

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Memory, concentration and other cognitive functions decline faster among middle-aged and older adults who have high blood pressure than those who do not. Even seemingly slight blood pressure elevation during middle and older age is linked to a faster decline in cognition.

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A bill by Labor MLA Michael Pettersson to decriminalise illicit drugs is set to be proposed to the ACT Legislative Assembly in 2021. 

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Apathy -- a lack of interest or motivation -- could predict the onset of some forms of dementia many years before symptoms start, offering a 'window of opportunity' to treat the disease at an early stage, according to new research.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3mlOsFk

Meier-Gorlin syndrome, or MGS, is a rare genetic developmental disorder that causes dwarfism, small ears, a small brain, missing patella and other skeletal abnormalities. One mutation causing MGS, first reported in 2017, is a Lysine 23 to Glutamic acid (K23E) substitution in the gene for Orc6. Researchers have now put that mutant human gene into fruit flies to probe the function of Orc6 K23E.

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For the first time, researchers have measured the physical evidence of diminished neural processing within the brain after a stroke.

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The results of a pre-clinical study suggest how a compound derived from the thunder god vine -- an herb used in China for centuries to treat joint pain, swelling and fever -- is able to kill cancer cells and potentially improve clinical outcomes for patients with pancreatic cancer.

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Gait training using robotic exoskeletons improved motor function in adolescents and young adults with acquired brain injury.

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For COVID-19 patients with serious lung disease, targeting endothelial cells -- cells that comprise the blood vessel wall which regulate oxygen exchange between airways and the bloodstream -- may be a novel approach restoring normal lung function.

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Researchers have shown that the coronavirus can be killed efficiently, quickly, and cheaply using ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (UV-LEDs). They believe that the UV-LED technology will soon be available for private and commercial use.

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Pretend play is a pedagogical tool that can be used to stimulate a child's socio-emotional competences. A curriculum based on this approach has been introduced in classes of pupils aged five and six. The study evaluating the effects of the programme shows that pupils who followed the curriculum increased their emotional recognition capacities and emotional lexicon compared to a control group.

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Scientists discovered how a set of high frequency brain waves may help us unconsciously know when something's different by comparing memories of the past with present experiences.

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Carrots are a good source of beta-carotene, which is a precursor of vitamin A. But to get the full health benefits of this superfood, you need an active enzyme to produce this vitamin.

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By the time children are 3 years old they already have an adult-like preference for visual fractal patterns commonly seen in nature, according to researchers.

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Following a stroke, the immune system triggers an inflammatory reaction that can either overshoot or turn into an immune deficiency. Now, a team of researchers has shown that tRNA fragments play a role in this immune reaction. Fragments of tRNAs, which transport amino acids during protein synthesis ('transfer RNA'), were long merely considered cellular waste. The researcher's aim: To find new target structures for therapeutics.

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Combining neuroscience and robotic research has gained impressive results in the rehabilitation of paraplegic patients. A research team was able to show that exoskeleton training not only helped patients to walk, but also stimulated their healing process. With these findings in mind, a professor wants to take the fusion of robotics and neuroscience to the next level.

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Early adulthood, a transitional life stage marked by major changes in social roles and responsibilities, can bring with it an increase of mental health problems.

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Efforts to enhance the ability of proteins to resist breaking down, or 'denaturing', at high temperatures is one of the hottest topics in biotech. Researchers have now identified some of the principles behind how this works, potentially opening up a raft of industrial applications for designer proteins.

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