Health & Fitness

03/02/21

JLo’s swimsuit has broken the internet, here’s how she got the body to pull it off

Food for thought: New maps reveal how brains are kept nourished

Scientists have created new brain maps featuring unprecedented detail. The insights provided by the new maps are helping answer questions about blood supply and how more active parts of the brain are kept nourished versus less demanding areas.

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Cooperative eco-driving automation improves energy efficiency and safety

Connected, automated vehicles promise to save energy and improve safety. Engineers propose a modeling framework for cooperative driving. Simulation results show that the cooperative automated eco-driving algorithm saves energy -- 7% under light traffic and 23% under heavy traffic.

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Novel drug prevents amyloid plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease

Indoor air quality study shows aircraft in flight may have lowest particulate levels

If you're looking for an indoor space with a low level of particulate air pollution, a commercial airliner flying at cruising altitude may be your best option. A newly reported study of air quality in indoor spaces such as stores, restaurants, offices, public transportation -- and commercial jets -- shows aircraft cabins with the lowest levels of tiny aerosol particles.

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New study gives the most detailed look yet at the neuroscience of placebo effects

A large proportion of the benefit that a person gets from taking a real drug or receiving a treatment to alleviate pain is due to an individual's mindset, not to the drug itself. Understanding the neural mechanisms driving this placebo effect has been a longstanding question. A meta-analysis finds that placebo treatments to reduce pain, known as placebo analgesia, reduce pain-related activity in multiple areas of the brain.

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New research highlights impact of the digital divide

The coronavirus pandemic has drawn new attention to the digital divide, as the need for online schooling and working from home has disproportionately hurt those without computer equipment and skills. New research finds that people with basic Information Technology (IT) skills are more likely to be employed, even in jobs that aren't explicitly tied to those skills.

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COVID-19 can kill heart muscle cells, interfere with contraction

A new study provides evidence that COVID-19 patients' heart damage is caused by the virus invading and replicating inside heart muscle cells, leading to cell death and interfering with heart muscle contraction. The researchers used stem cells to engineer heart tissue that models the human infection and could help in studying the disease and developing possible therapies.

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Nanoparticle-delivered COVID-19 vaccine candidate shows promise in preclinical studies

Researchers have developed a promising new COVID-19 vaccine candidate that utilizes nanotechnology and has shown strong efficacy in preclinical disease models. According to a new study, the vaccine produced potent neutralizing antibodies among preclinical models and also prevented infection and disease symptoms in the face of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19).

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COVID-19 spread tracked via a rapid, large-scale early wastewater surveillance alert system

Detecting COVID-19 outbreaks before they spread could help contain the virus and curb new cases within a community. In a new study, researchers describe a mostly automated early alert system that uses high-throughput analysis of wastewater samples to identify buildings where new COVID-19 cases have emerged -- even before infected people develop symptoms.

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Energy switching decisions could widen social inequalities

New energy tariffs designed for a low carbon future could leave people on bad deals even worse off. The tariffs could benefit all kinds of customers, but many people are unlikely to choose them. Those likely to adopt them first are younger, with higher incomes and higher education.

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Bitter receptor involved in anti-inflammatory effect of resveratrol?

Division of labor within regenerating liver maintains metabolism, mouse study finds

The liver has a rare superpower among body organs - the ability to regenerate. It also keeps up its metabolic and toxin-removing work while regenerating, thanks to a subset of cells that expand their workload while the rest focus on multiplication, a new study in mice found. Furthermore, the cells of the liver communicate with each other to coordinate regeneration activity, which progresses from the center to the periphery of the missing liver lobes.

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A mechanism by which cells build 'mini-muscles' underneath their nucleus identified

Research has uncovered how motor protein myosin, which is responsible for contraction of skeletal muscles, functions also in non-muscle cells to build contractile structures at the inner face of the cell membrane. This is the first time when such 'mini-muscles', also known as stress fibers, have been seen to emerge spontaneously through myosin-driven reorganization of the pre-existing actin filament network in cells.

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Even just a bit of advertising changes the game in word-of-mouth marketing

A professor of sociology uses computer simulations of networks to reveal how the presence of even just a bit of advertising or other mass communication -- 'top-down' information that comes from outside a given network -- effectively equalizes the influence of everyone across that network. When advertising exists... 'it's not that word-of-mouth doesn't matter -- it's that nobody is particularly important for the process,' he said.

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Coronavirus-like particles could ensure reliability of simpler, faster COVID-19 tests

Rapid COVID-19 tests are on the rise to deliver results faster to more people, and scientists need an easy, foolproof way to know that these tests work correctly and the results can be trusted. Nanoparticles that pass detection as the novel coronavirus could be just the ticket. Such coronavirus-like nanoparticles would serve as something called a positive control for COVID-19 tests.

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Vaccine development software shows promise in influenza effort, could help defeat coronavirus

WHO expert panel strongly advises against use of hydroxychloroquine to prevent COVID-19

Common bacteria modified to make designer sugar-based drug

High fat diets may over-activate destructive heart disease protein

Greenhouse gas emissions associated with dietary guidelines vary between countries

Greenhouse gas emissions associated with national dietary guidelines advocating a healthy diet vary greatly between countries, with US guidelines having the largest carbon footprint and India having the smallest, according to a study involving seven countries.

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Scientists use lipid nanoparticles to precisely target gene editing to the liver

Scientists developed a highly efficient, targeted method for delivering gene editing machinery to specific tissues and organs, demonstrating the treatment of high cholesterol by targeting genes in the liver of mice, reducing cholesterol for over 3 months (and potentially more) with one treatment.

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Histone mutational landscape of human cancers

Researchers have completed a comprehensive analysis of cancer-associated histone mutations in the human genome, featuring both biochemical and cellular characterizations of these substrates. Their study reports that histone mutations that perturb nucleosome remodeling may contribute to the development or progression of a wide range of human cancers.

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Researchers watch anti-cancer drug release from DNA nanostructures in real time

Researchers have found a way to study the endonuclease-driven digestion of drug-loaded DNA nanostructures in real time. As the team investigated the binding of Dox to the DNA structures in great detail, they discovered that the majority of previous studies have vastly overestimated the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin loading capacity of DNA origami.

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Why COVID Vaccine Testing Is a Farce

The flaws of vaccine trials in general are really highlighted by current COVID-19 vaccine studies, one of the most egregious ones being the fact that vaccine makers rarely use inert placebos (such as a saline shot), which is the gold standard for drug trials.

As noted in a January 25, 2021, article in The Defender,¹ vaccine developers typically assess the safety of a new vaccine against another vaccine, and by so doing, they effectively hide side effects as most vaccines have side effects and risks.

As just one example, the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is being tested against a meningitis vaccine,² which just so happens to share many of the side effects reported from COVID-19 vaccines. As reported by the National Vaccine Information Center:³

"According to the CDC, at least 50% of individuals receiving meningococcal vaccines targeting meningococcal serogroups A, C, Y, and W-135 (Menactra or Menveo) experience mild side effects …

Adverse events reported by Sanofi Pasteur in the Menactra vaccine product insert include … headache; fatigue … joint pain; chills; anaphylaxis; wheezing; upper airway swelling; difficulty breathing; hypotension … lymph node swelling; Guillain-Barre syndrome; convulsions; dizziness; facial palsy; vasovagal syncope; paresthesia; transverse myelitis; acute disseminated encephalomyelitis …

Adverse events reported by Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics (GlaxoSmithKline) in the pre-licensing clinical trials of Menveo vaccine include … headache; joint and muscle pain; malaise; nausea; chills … acute disseminated encephalomyelitis … pneumonia … suicidal depression and suicide attempts."

Long-Term Safety Analysis Tossed by the Wayside

Now, Pfizer and Moderna have started offering placebo recipients in their trials the real mRNA gene therapy, which means it will be even more difficult to tease out which side effects are actually caused by the shot and which ones aren't, over the long term. As reported by NPR, February 17, 2021:⁴

"Tens of thousands of people who volunteered to participate in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine studies are still participating in follow-up research, though that's somewhat hampered because many people who had been given a placebo shot opted to take the vaccine instead."

In fact, according to Dr. Carlos Fierro, who runs the clinical trial for the Moderna vaccine in Lenexa, Kansas, virtually all of the 650 volunteers who initially received the placebo have now opted to get the real vaccine, which means he had "essentially no comparison group left for the ongoing study," which was slated to run for two full years.

As Dr. Steven Goodman at Stanford University told NPR,⁵ getting rid of the initial control groups makes it far more difficult to assess the safety and effectiveness of the COVID vaccines since they won't have anything to compare the vaccine recipients against.

Justification for Elimination of Controls Is Flimsy at Best

Ironically, both the use of an active placebo and the elimination of control groups are being justified on "moral grounds" by pro-vaccine advocates who say it's unethical to not provide volunteers with something of value, such as another vaccine in the case of active placebos, or a vaccine they know is effective in the case of giving placebo recipients the real McCoy.

Both of these arguments are beyond questionable. As mentioned, no vaccine is 100% safe, so getting an active vaccine placebo comes with risk, not merely benefit, and when it comes to the novel mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines, historical data are troubling to say the least, and the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is rapidly filling up with COVID-19 vaccine-related injury reports and deaths.

As reported in "COVID-19 Vaccine To Be Tested on 6-Year-Olds," as of February 4, 2021, VAERS had received 12,697 injury reports and 653 deaths following COVID-19 vaccination.⁶ Even more telling, between January 2020 and January 2021, COVID-19 vaccines accounted for 70% of the annual vaccine deaths, even though these vaccines had only been available for less than two months!

What's more, previous research⁷ by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are ever reported to VAERS, so in reality, we may be looking at more than 1 million COVID-19 vaccine injuries within the first two months of their release.

In my view, the data are far from assuring overall, which makes the elimination of long-term control groups — flawed as they may be due to active placebo use — all the more troubling.

All Previous Coronavirus Vaccines Failed Upon Challenge

Historically, previous attempts to create a coronavirus vaccine have all failed miserably, as they ended up creating devastating immune enhancement. This is why any and all short-cuts taken in the COVID-19 vaccine development is so troubling.

In my May 2020 interview above with Robert Kennedy Jr., he summarized the history of coronavirus vaccine development, which began in 2002, following three consecutive SARS outbreaks. By 2012, Chinese, American and European scientists were working on SARS vaccine development, and had about 30 promising candidates.

Of those, the four best vaccine candidates were then given to ferrets, which are the closest analogue to human lung infections. In the video above, which is a select outtake from my full interview, Kennedy explains what happened next.

While the ferrets displayed robust antibody response, which is the metric used for vaccine licensing, once they were challenged with the wild virus, they were overtaken by a cytokine storm response, known as paradoxical immune enhancement, became severely ill and died.

The same thing happened when they tried to develop a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine in the 1960s. RSV is an upper respiratory illness that is very similar to that caused by coronaviruses.

At that time, they had decided to skip animal trials and go directly to human trials. The RSV vaccine was tested on about 35 children, with identical results. Initially, they developed a robust antibody response, but when challenged with the wild virus, all became ill and two died. The vaccine was abandoned.

Yes, We Really Do Need Placebo Arms

Despite such dire failures, some still argue that placebo arms aren't needed in COVID-19 vaccine trials. In an opinion piece in STAT News,⁸ Kent Peacock, a professor of philosophy, and John Vokey, a professor of psychology, both from the University of Lethbridge, compare the use of placebo control groups with giving out dummy parachutes during wartime.

"Giving the real treatment to 100% of the volunteers removes one of the major ethical barriers to challenge trials: the high probability of harmful side effects or death to members of a control group," they say, completely ignoring the fact that volunteers in the vaccine arm may be put at grave unknown risks, not just in the short term but in the long term as well.

This entire argument hinges on the idea that the vaccine being tested is KNOWN to be safe, which it absolutely is not at this point, and won't be for many years. They even argue that "not using a placebo … would be less ethically questionable to test the vaccine on older participants."

Well, they published that article in early September 2020, and now we can more or less conclusively state that they are wrong on this point, as older vaccine recipients have been dropping like flies.

'We're Dealing With Homicide,' German Attorney Says

As reported by Brian Shilhavy, editor of Health Impact News, February 19, 2021:⁹

"Earlier this week we published¹⁰ the English translation of a video in German that attorney Reiner Fuellmich published with a whistleblower who works in a nursing home where several residents were injected with the experimental COVID mRNA shots against their will, and where many of them died a short time later.

Since that interview was published, other whistleblowers in Germany who work in nursing homes have also stepped forward, some with video footage showing residents being held down and vaccinated against their wish ...

Fuellmich … stated: 'We are getting more and more calls from other whistleblowers form other nursing homes in this country, plus we're getting information from other countries, Sweden for example, Norway … Gibraltar … here are also incidents in England and in the United States that match these descriptions …

It means that people are dying because of the vaccines. What we are seeing in this video clip is worse than anything we ever expected. If this is representative for what's going on in other nursing homes, and in other countries, then we have a very serious problem.

And so do the people who make the vaccines, so do the people who administer the vaccines. It looks more and more as though we're dealing with homicide, and maybe even murder.'"

Novel mRNA Gene Therapy Is Not Harmless

It's important to realize what mRNA and DNA COVID-19 vaccine actually are. They are not traditional vaccines made with live or attenuated viruses. They're actually gene therapies. They don't even meet the medical or legal definition of a vaccine, as detailed in "COVID-19 mRNA Shots Are Legally Not Vaccines." This novel, never before used therapy has a long list of potential problems, including the following:

The messenger RNA (mRNA) used in many COVID-19 vaccines are synthetic. Your body sees these synthetic particles as non-self, which can cause autoantibodies to attack your own tissues. Judy Mikovits, Ph.D., explained this in her interview, featured in "How COVID-19 Vaccines May Destroy the Lives of Millions."

Your body also views free mRNA as a warning signal to your immune system, as they drive inflammatory diseases. This is why making synthetic mRNA thermostable, meaning it doesn't break down as easily as it normally would by encasing the mRNA in lipid nanoparticles is likely to be problematic.

COVID-19 vaccines use PEGylated lipid nanoparticles, and PEG is known to cause anaphylaxis.¹¹

Previous attempts to develop an mRNA-based drug using lipid nanoparticles failed because when the dose was too low, the drug had no effect, and when dosed too high, the drug became too toxic.¹²

The synthetic RNA influences, in part, the gene syncytin. According to Mikovits, when syncytin is aberrantly expressed in the brain, you can develop multiple sclerosis. Expression of the syncytin gene also inflames and dysregulates communication between the brain microglia, which are critical for clearing toxins and pathogens in the brain. It also dysregulates your immune system and your endocannabinoid system, which is the dimmer switch on inflammation.

The synthetic mRNA also has an HIV envelope expressed in it, which can cause immune dysregulation.

Symptoms of COVID-19 Vaccine Damage

Commonly reported side effects among recipients of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines include:

Persistent malaise^13,¹⁴ and extreme exhaustion¹⁵	Persistent headache and migraine onset¹⁶
Severe allergic, including anaphylactic reactions^17,^18,¹⁹	Multisystem inflammatory syndrome²⁰
Seizures and convulsions^21,²²	Paralysis,²³ including Bell's Palsy²⁴
Swollen lymph nodes²⁵	Sudden death within hours or days^26,^27,^28,^29,³⁰

Many of these symptoms are suggestive of neurological damage. According to Mikovits, this is precisely what you'd expect, as these conditions are caused by neuroinflammation, a dysregulated innate immune response and/or disrupted endocannabinoid system.

Long term, Mikovits predicts we'll see a significant uptick in migraines, tics, Parkinson's disease, microvascular disorders, cancers, severe pain syndromes like fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis, bladder problems, kidney disease, psychosis, neurodegenerative diseases such as Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) and sleep disorders.

What to Do if You Got the Vaccine and Are Having Problems

If you got the vaccine and now regret it, you may be able to address your symptoms using the same strategies you'd use to treat actual SARS-CoV-2 infection.

I've written many articles over the past year detailing simple strategies to improve your immune system, and with a healthy immune system, you'll get through COVID-19 without incident. Below, I'll summarize some of the strategies you can use both to prevent COVID-19 and address any side effects you may encounter from the vaccine.

• Eat a "clean," ideally organic diet. Avoid processed foods of all kinds, especially vegetable oils, as they are loaded with damaging omega-6 linoleic acid that wrecks your mitochondrial function. Linoleic acid has been shown to increase mortality from COVID-19.

• Consider nutritional ketosis and time-restricted eating, both of which will help you optimize your metabolic machinery and mitochondrial function.

• Implement a detoxification program to get rid of heavy metals and glyphosate. This is important as these toxins contribute to inflammation. To improve detoxification, I recommend activating your natural glutathione production with molecular hydrogen tablets.

A simple way to block glyphosate uptake is to take glycine. Approximately 3 grams, about half a teaspoon, a few times a day should be sufficient, along with an organic diet, so that you're not adding more glyphosate with each meal.

• Maintain a neutral pH to improve the resiliency of your immune system. You want your pH to be right around 7, which you can measure with an inexpensive urine strip. The lower your pH, the more acidic you are. A simple way to raise your pH if it's too acidic (and most people are) is to take one-fourth teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) or potassium bicarbonate in water a few times a day.

Nutritional supplementation can also be helpful. Among the most important are:

Vitamin D — Vitamin D supplements are readily available and one of the least expensive supplements on the market. All things considered, vitamin D optimization is likely the easiest and most beneficial strategy that anyone can do to minimize their risk of COVID-19 and other infections, and can strengthen your immune system in a matter of a few weeks.

N-acetylcysteine (NAC) — NAC is a precursor to reduced glutathione, which appears to play a crucial role in COVID-19. According to one literature analysis,³¹ glutathione deficiency may actually be associated with COVID-19 severity, leading the author to conclude that NAC may be useful both for its prevention and treatment.

Zinc — Zinc plays a very important role in your immune system's ability to ward off viral infections. Like vitamin D, zinc helps regulate your immune function³² — and a combination of zinc with a zinc ionophore, like hydroxychloroquine or quercetin, was in 2010 shown to inhibit SARS coronavirus in vitro. In cell culture, it also blocked viral replication within minutes.³³ Importantly, zinc deficiency has been shown to impair immune function.³⁴

Melatonin — Boosts immune function in a variety of ways and helps quell inflammation. Melatonin may also prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection by recharging glutathione³⁵ and enhancing vitamin D synthesis, among other things.

Vitamin C — A number of studies have shown vitamin C can be very helpful in the treatment of viral illnesses, sepsis and ARDS,³⁶ all of which are applicable to COVID-19. Its basic properties include anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, antioxidant, antithrombotic and antiviral activities. At high doses, it actually acts as an antiviral drug, actively inactivating viruses. Vitamin C also works synergistically with quercetin.³⁷

Quercetin — A powerful immune booster and broad-spectrum antiviral, quercetin was initially found to provide broad-spectrum protection against SARS coronavirus in the aftermath of the 2003 SARS epidemic,^38,^39,⁴⁰ and evidence suggests it may be useful for the prevention and treatment of SARS-CoV-2 as well.

B vitamins — B vitamins can also influence several COVID-19-specific disease processes, including⁴¹ viral replication and invasion, cytokine storm induction, adaptive immunity and hypercoagulability.

Type 1 interferon — Type 1 interferon prevents viral replication and helps degrade the RNA. It's available in spray form that you can spray directly into your throat, your nose. Mikovits recommends taking a couple of sprays per day prophylactically, and more if you have a cough, fever or headache.

Report All COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects

Last but not least, if you or someone you love have received a COVID-19 gene therapy "vaccine" and are experiencing side effects, help raise public awareness of these problems by reporting it. The Children's Health Defense is calling on all who have suffered a side effect from a COVID-19 vaccine to do three things:⁴²

If you live in the U.S., file a report on VAERS
Report the injury on VaxxTracker.com, which is a nongovernmental adverse event tracker (you can file anonymously if you like)
Report the injury on the CHD website

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The Modelling-Paper Mafiosi

John Edmunds is on top of the world. He's one of the modelling-paper mafiosi. The London, U.K., professor is a key government advisor on COVID-19-related policies. Edmunds also was a co-author of one of the primary modelling papers¹ that have been used to convince the masses that vigilance against new variant B.1.1.7 should be their top priority.

And Edmunds co-wrote an influential January 21, 2021 report² that concluded, "There is a realistic possibility that VOC B.1.1.7 is associated with an increased risk of death compared to non-VOC viruses."

In addition, he speaks often to reporters about the deadliness³ of the new variant.⁴ Edmunds tells them, for example, that a "disaster"⁵ would ensue if lockdowns are eased too soon, because what first must be done is to "vaccinate much, much, much more widely than the elderly."⁶

Follow the Funds

Edmunds happens to be the spouse of someone who, at least until April 2020, was an employee of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and held shares in the company. (Edmunds doesn't disclose this in any of his media interviews that I've read and watched. He also doesn't disclose his own stock holdings.)

According to an April 2020 Daily Telegraph⁷ article,⁸ Edmunds's wife is Jeanne Pimenta and she works for GSK. The Daily Telegraph article states Edmunds asserted his partner had recently resigned from GSK. So it's unclear whether Pimenta currently works there or not.

I did a little digging and found that the only Jeanne Pimenta LinkedIn profile⁹ indicates she's currently director of epidemiology at GSK, while Jeanne Pimenta's ResearchGate profile¹⁰ says she's an epidemiologist at BioMarin Pharmaceutical. (More about Edmunds being married to a present or former Glaxo employee in the next section of this article.)

In any case, GSK's financial success is skyrocketing. On February 3¹¹ the company announced it's collaborating with mRNA-vaccine company CureVac to spend 150 million euros — approximately $180 million — to make vaccines for the new variants.

That effectively gives them first-entrant advantage in vaccines for the new variants. And that same February 3 news release¹² touts the new-variant vaccines as also able to serve as "booster" shots after the initial rounds of vaccination. In addition, GSK joined forces with CureVac to pump out, later this year, 100 million doses of CureVac's "first-generation" COVID-19 vaccine called "CvnCoV."¹³

Not only that: this fall¹⁴ GSK together with another international pharmaceutical firm, Sanofi, are scheduled to start producing what could turn out to be up to 1 billion doses of their COVID-19 vaccine annually.¹⁵ GSK's understated February 3 announcement¹⁶ of its Q4 2020 financial results said it will "continue to expect meaningful improvement in revenues and margins" because they are "building a high-value biopharma pipeline."

Note that GSK and other pharma companies¹⁷ like Moderna and Pfizer¹⁸ are not responsible for damage and compensation payments to people seriously injured and killed by COVID-19 vaccines. Governments¹⁹ will pay instead — that is, if those injured and killed and their loved ones are able to beat the long odds²⁰ and get any compensation at all.

And a remarkable February 8, 2021,²¹ investigative report in the German news outlet Welt Am Sonntag (which translates to World on Sunday) reveals another impetus for the wildly inaccurate modelling governments use to keep populations in a state of fear and control.

The German article shows that in March 2020 government officials enlisted "leading scientists from several research institutes and universities. Together, they were to produce a [mathematical-modelling] paper that would serve as legitimization for further tough political measures."

These scientists obediently wrote a modelling paper tailored to the government's instructions. The then-secret paper asserted that if lockdown measures were lifted immediately, up to 1 million Germans would die from COVID-19, some "agonizingly at home, gasping for breath," after being turned away from overflowing hospitals.

Edmunds Is Deeply Invested in the Vaccine World

There's still more to the web of money and influence surrounding Edmunds and other modelling-paper mafiosi, including Neil Ferguson.

The first new-variant modelling paper Edmunds co-wrote, which was posted on December 23, 2020²² was co-authored with his fellow members of the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). People in the center's COVID-19 Working Group also contributed.

The modelling paper was posted on the e-journal medrχiv, which publishes only non-peer-reviewed papers. The journal is the creation of an organization led by Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg and his wife.²³ I discuss medrχiv and the Zuckerberg connection in my February 3 article²⁴ on the baselessness for the modelling papers that claim the new variants are very dangerous.

Edmunds also is dean of the LSHTM's Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health. I contacted the institution's media-relations department to request an interview with one of the December 23, 2020, modelling paper's authors. I didn't receive a response.

In a February 2017 video interview,²⁵ Edmunds enthused that the LSHTM specializes in every aspect of vaccine development, from basic science to large-scale clinical trials.

In the video he also touts using mathematical modelling as a good way to show that vaccines protect individuals and society. (And among other things he describes his group's efforts in giving children flu vaccines and — in conjunction with Public Health England — promoting human papillomavirus [HPV] vaccines for girls and boys.)

In addition, Edmunds is a key member of the UK Vaccine Network²⁶ (which until recently was known as the UK Vaccines Network — the URL for the organization has "UK Vaccines Network"²⁷ in it).

And he's a member of the U.K. government's Science Advisory Group for Emergencies²⁸ (SAGE), which provides COVID-measure advice — much of it related to the unprecedentedly forceful push for mass vaccination — to U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson and his cabinet.

On top of that, Edmunds is a member of the U.K. government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG).²⁹ It works hand in hand with SAGE, and it also heavily promotes vaccination.

And as mentioned earlier, Edmunds is married to a current or former GSK employee. A 2015 article that Edmunds co-authored states under "Competing interests" for Edmunds that "My partner works for GSK."³⁰ Similarly, on the NERVTAG website's conflict-disclosure pages — which for some reason haven't been updated since October 2017³¹ — it reveals that Edmunds's spouse works for GSK.

As a quick other note, the "Author Contributions and Acknowledgements" section of the PDF of the December 23 modelling analysis³² of B.1.1.7 (pages 15 and 16) shows that almost all of the paper's authors and members of the modelling center's COVID-19 Working Group receive funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and/or Wellcome Trust. (By the way, a search for Wellcome Trust yields the Wellcome website.³³)

And there's more to the Edmunds story. Among other of my finds: he's also on the Scientific Advisory Board³⁴ for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).³⁵ CEPI was created primarily by the BMGF, the World Economic Forum and the major pharma company Wellcome.

CEPI's website states³⁶ it was "launched in Davos [at the meeting of the World Economic Forum in January] 2017 to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics. Our mission is to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and enable equitable access to these vaccines for people during outbreaks."

Investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley last year wrote a must-read two-part³⁷ analysis of the ties between the key individuals, institutions, companies and funders of the UK's COVID-19 response. She mentioned that GSK is working with CEPI to develop COVID-19 vaccines. This alliance is still going strong³⁸ today.

Note also that the LSHTM's Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, which Edmunds heads, is primarily funded by the BMGF and the Gavi alliance. (Gavi promotes mass vaccination of people around the world — including by quarterbacking the COVAX program.

Gavi's biggest funders include the BMGF. Doctors Without Borders has criticized Gavi³⁹ for being "aimed more at supporting drug-industry desires to promote new products than at finding the most efficient and sustainable means for fighting the diseases of poverty.")

BMGF funding for the LSHTM's Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health is growing very fast. For example, BMGF's new grants to the faculty rose from $4.9 million in 2013-2014 (see page 14 [p. 9 in the PDF] of the LSHTM's 2014 annual report⁴⁰) to $13.19 million in 2015-2016 (see page 14 [p. 9 in the PDF] of the LSHTM's 2016 annual report⁴¹) (top new research grants to each faculty at the LSHTM stopped being reported in the annual reports after 2017).

Funding from the BMGF to the LSHTM as a whole was 30.2 million pounds ($40.2 million) in 2017-2018 (see page 9 [p. 6 in the PDF] in the school's 2018 annual report⁴²). By the way, the LSHTM also has a Vaccines Manufacturing Innovation Centre.⁴³ It develops, tests and commercializes vaccines. (I couldn't find any information on where the vaccines center's funding comes from.)

The vaccines center also performs affiliated activities like combating "vaccine hesitancy." The latter includes the Vaccine Confidence Project.⁴⁴ The project's stated purpose is,⁴⁵ among other things, "to provide analysis and guidance for early response and engagement with the public to ensure sustained confidence in vaccines and immunisation."

The Vaccine Confidence Project's director is LSHTM professor Heidi Larson.⁴⁶ For more than a decade she's been researching how to combat vaccine hesitancy. LSHTM⁴⁷ underpins the project, which also is a member of the WHO's Vaccine Safety Net.⁴⁸

More Modelling Mafiosi

Here's information about two other members of this club:

Public Health England (PHE) issued its first detailed report on the new variant in late December 2020⁴⁹ and continues to provide updates.⁵⁰ None of their reports are peer-reviewed. One of the highest-profile co-authors of the PHE reports is PHE director Susan Hopkins.⁵¹ She's also a professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College London.⁵² The college receives tens of millions of dollars a year from the BMGF.

See for example this grant,⁵³ this one,⁵⁴ this one⁵⁵ and this one.⁵⁶ (I emailed PHE media relations to request an interview about PHE's new-variants reports. PHE communications person Zahra Vindhani responded, "Dr. Hopkins won't have the capacity for this in the upcoming weeks, and we aren't able to confirm anyone else for this either.")

PHE is guided in its approach to vaccination by PHE's "Strategic Priority 1" for combating infectious diseases in 2020 to 2025. It is to "Optimise vaccine provision and reduce vaccine preventable diseases in England" (see p. 9 of PHE's Infectious Disease Strategy 2020-2025⁵⁷).

Neil Ferguson is a co-author of the PHE reports and also of a widely quoted December 31 modelling paper⁵⁸ on the dangerousness of B.1.1.7. He's acting director of the Imperial College London-based Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium.⁵⁹

Ferguson's modelling has been extremely faulty again over the years. This has been thoroughly documented. For example, as investigative journalist Beeley wrote in Part One⁶⁰ of a two-part investigative report in April-May 2020, Ferguson's modelling over-estimated by about 3 million-fold the death toll from the bird flu, also known as H5N1.

As a result, a lot of money was made by bird-flu-vaccine manufacturers, ranging from Roche (for its now-infamous, ineffective Tamiflu⁶¹) to Sanofi,⁶² and they were used widely.⁶³

Ferguson also grossly overestimated the effects of swine flu, or H1N1. As a result, millions of people were needlessly given GSK's Pandemrix.⁶⁴ It caused brain damage, primarily narcolepsy⁶⁵ and cataplexy, in hundreds if not thousands of vaccine recipients, mostly children. The pharma giant was granted no fault in any damage claims.⁶⁶

Therefore the British government paid more than 60 million pounds (approximately $80 million at 2017 conversion rates) to victims.⁶⁷ (And as mentioned earlier in this article, GSK and other pharma companies⁶⁸ are similarly protected from having to pay damages to people injured or killed by their COVID-19 vaccines.)

Ferguson also is a member, together with Edmunds and others, of SAGE.⁶⁹

Another group he's a member of is the highly influential NERVTAG.⁷⁰ It's the group that issued the January 21, 2021⁷¹ warning, mentioned earlier in this article, that B.1.1.7 is deadly.

Ferguson is a NERVTAG member even though he was reported to have resigned last spring⁷² after being caught visiting with his married lover when everyone in England was supposed to only be having contact with members of their own households (based in large part on Ferguson's modelling and his urging the government to lock the country down).

Ferguson also is a member⁷³ of the UK Vaccines Network,⁷⁴ along with Edmunds and others such as the Network chair Chris Whitty, who's also the U.K. government's top COVID-19 adviser.

The network's focus, according to its website, "to support the [U.K.] government to identify and shortlist targeted investment opportunities for the most promising vaccines and vaccine technologies that will help combat infectious diseases with epidemic potential, and to address structural issues related to the UK's broader vaccine infrastructure."

These ties bind Edmunds, Ferguson and Hopkins — along with the rest of the modelling-paper mafiosi — to the bidding of governments, Big Pharma, Bill Gates and other powerful players. They present an image of being fully devoted to the public good, while in fact actively helping to destroy it.

Editor's Note: This is a reprint of an article by Rosemary Frei. She has a master of science in molecular biology from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary and was a freelance medical journalist for 22 years. She is now an independent investigative journalist in Canada.

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