RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2022/12/20/top-australian-doctor-who-previously-promoted-covid-shots-reveals-devastating-vaccine-injuries-warns-of-the-risks/

A former Australian health official who initially promoted the COVID “vaccines” emerged this week as the country’s most prominent public health figure to raise the alarm about the risks associated with the mRNA shots.

In a bombshell submission to the Australian Parliament’s Long COVID inquiry, Dr Kerryn Phelps, the former president of the Australian Medical Association, went public with the “devastating” injuries she and her wife suffered after receiving the shots, and argued that the true rate of adverse events is far higher than believed due to underreporting and “threats” from medical regulators.

“This is an issue that I have witnessed first-hand with my wife who suffered a severe neurological reaction to her first Pfizer vaccine within minutes, including burning face and gums, paraesethesiae, and numb hands and feet, while under observation by myself, another doctor and a registered nurse at the time of immunization,” the 65-year-old said in the 18-page statement.

Paraesethesiae is defined as a tingling or prickling, “pins-and-needles” sensation that often occurs in the arms, hands, legs, or feet.

Phelps said her wife, Jackie Stricker-Phelps, continues to suffer “devastating” adverse effects a year and a half later, “with the addition of fatigue and additional neurological symptoms including nerve pains, altered sense of smell, visual disturbance and musculoskeletal inflammation. The diagnosis and causation has been confirmed by several specialists who have told me that they have seen ‘a lot’ of patients in a similar situation.”

“We did a lot of homework before having the vaccine, particularly about choice of vaccine at the time. In asking about adverse side effects, we were told that ‘the worst thing that could happen would be anaphylaxis’ and that severe reactions such as myocarditis and pericarditis were ‘rare,’” she said.

Dr. Phelps also went public with the vaccine injury she suffered after her second dose of Pfizer in July 2021, “with the diagnosis and causation confirmed by specialist colleagues.”

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/12/19/the-truth-about-covid-mccarthyism/

There were two viruses that the authorities wanted to control in 2020 and 2021. The first was the virus of Covid-19. The second was the virus of dissent. Throughout the pandemic, experts referred to lockdown scepticism and Covid misinformation as their own kind of disease, as a contagious malady that might sicken the masses’ minds as surely as Covid sickened their bodies. British politicians referred to a ‘pandemic of misinformation’. We must protect people both from ‘physical disease and the “disease of misinformation”’, scientists insisted. ‘False information has plagued the Covid response’, said one academic. Plagued – what a striking choice of verb. And if contrary ideas are an infection in the body politic, then it’s clear what the cure must be: censorship.

Nearly three years on from the start of the pandemic, it’s apparent that censorship was central to lockdown. It wasn’t only our everyday lives that were forcibly put on hold – so was our right to say certain things and even think certain things. In the US, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who was fawned over by the liberal media for his handling of Covid, has been deposed in a lawsuit that accuses him and the Biden administration more broadly of colluding with Big Tech to undermine the American people’s speech rights during the pandemic. The lawsuit is brought by the attorney general of Missouri, Eric Schmitt. The transcript of the questioning of Fauci was released earlier this month. It’s a frustrating read. Fauci continually says he doesn’t recall or doesn’t know in response to questions about his alleged role in suppressing speech in the Covid era. But it seems clear that, informally at least, he helped to devise and enforce the parameters of acceptable thought during the pandemic.

Consider the Great Barrington Declaration. Fauci had high-ranking discussions about how to counteract this open letter that raised ‘grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental-health impacts of the prevailing Covid-19 policies’. Freedom-of-information requests show that Fauci was asked by officials to engage in a ‘quick and devastating takedown’ of the GBD. He hopped to it. He ‘jumped into action to smear and discredit the GBD in the media’, as one account describes it. This included writing off the GBD’s authors – Martin Kulldorff, Sunetra Gupta and Jay Bhattacharya – as ‘fringe epidemiologists’ who were peddling ‘nonsense’. We know now that Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford, was subsequently shadow-banned on Twitter and even added to its McCarthyite ‘Trends Blacklist’, meaning his tweets would never make it into ‘trending topics’. The algorithm weaponised against a heretical professor who had been publicly denounced by Fauci.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/12/19/time-for-congress-to-solve-the-prior-authorization-problem-for-all-americans/

The unanimous passage of the Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act in the U.S. House is an important victory in the ongoing fight to curb insurance company abuses that delay or outright deny medically necessary care for patients in need. The entire patient community is glad to see lawmakers support this much-needed legislation, which will help streamline and simplify the delivery and coordination of care for seniors and persons with disabilities enrolled in Medicare Advantage.

But there’s still work to be done.

The bipartisan Improving Seniors’ Access to Timely Care Act aims to overhaul the prior authorization process – one of insurers’ most widespread and flagrant abuses – and protect Medicare Advantage beneficiaries from having to jump through hoops simply to access the care they need and that their doctor prescribed. The legislation would modernize the outdated process by requiring the use of electronic prior authorization tools, which would speed up approvals. This is crucial since 93% of doctors say prior authorization leads to delays in treatment, and 34% say it has led to a serious adverse event for a patient in their care. By preventing dangerous delays, the legislation – along with a complementary rule recently proposed by the federal government – would help ensure seniors and patients with disabilities can access prescribed treatments and services when they need them.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/12/19/should-we-mask-kids-under-5-to-contain-covid-ii-tipp-poll/

Fearing a huge winter upswing in the number of COVID and flu cases, government officials are once again calling on Americans to don their masks to keep the deadly viruses from spreading. But some take it a step further, suggesting even children 5 and under should put on masks. The latest I&I/TIPP Poll asks: Is that a good idea?

The answer, probably not surprisingly to anyone, appears to depend heavily on a variety of factors, including where you live, your race, your gender and your political leanings. So, at the very least, we’re likely in for another politicized debate over the practice of masking, this time for the youngest among us.

The I&I/TIPP Poll, taken online from Dec. 7-9, asked 1,351 American adults the following simple question: “Is it a good or bad idea to put masks on children under age 5 to deal with COVID?”

The response to the online poll, which has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points, was split nearly evenly: 39% said it was a good idea, versus 38% who said it was a bad idea. Because of the size of the margin of error, that means it’s basically a tossup.

The same can’t be said when it comes to responses by political party, ideology, gender and race. In each of those, significant difference emerge.

Take political party. A solid majority of Democrats (56%) believe masking children under 5 is a good idea, compared with just 24% of Republicans and 31% of independents. Conversely, only 24% of Democrats said it was a bad idea, versus 58% of Republicans and 38% of independents.

https://www.newsmax.com/sallypipes/seniors-solvent-taxpayer/2022/12/15/id/1100643/

Doctors around the country are pleading for Congress to scrap a slew of Medicare payment cuts set to take effect next year. If lawmakers don’t act, healthcare providers could be looking at an 8.47% reduction in pay.

Such a pay cut could have significant implications for seniors.

Medicare has paid doctors and hospitals much less than private insurance for years.

Cutting reimbursements further could cause providers to reduce the number of Medicare beneficiaries they’ll see — and thereby jeopardize their ability to access care.

At the same time, Medicare’s finances are a mess.

The program’s Part A hospital insurance trust fund is set to run out of money in 2028. Congress needs to make structural reforms to Medicare to make sure that it’s there for those who truly need it over the long term.

The current turmoil is a function of several mandated changes to how Medicare reimburses providers. First, there is the 4.5% cut in the Physician Fee Schedule that goes into effect next year.

On top of that, Medicare is required to implement an across-the-board 4% cut under the so-called “PAYGO sequester” rule.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-exaggeration-of-long-covid-overmedicalization-research-mortality-children-bivalent-restrictions-11670857268?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Long Covid is real. I have reliable patients who describe lingering symptoms after Covid infection. But public-health officials have massively exaggerated long Covid to scare low-risk Americans as our government gives more than $1 billion to a long Covid medical-industrial complex.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims that 20% of Covid infections can result in long Covid. But a U.K. study found that only 3% of Covid patients had residual symptoms lasting 12 weeks. What explains the disparity? It’s often normal to experience mild fatigue or weakness for weeks after being sick and inactive and not eating well. Calling these cases long Covid is the medicalization of ordinary life.

Two studies published this month put long Covid in perspective. The first, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at a spectrum of wellness indicators in 1,000 people who recovered from symptomatic Covid or another respiratory infection. It found that 40% of patients who had tested positive for Covid “reported persistently poor physical, mental, or social well-being at 3-month follow-up.” For Covid-negative patients who had other upper-respiratory infections, the figure was 54%. Covid patients did better than non-Covid patients. While there are certainly unique hallmark conditions of Covid, such as loss of smell, any respiratory infection—flu, RSV, other cold viruses—can knock you down for a while.

The second study, in Lancet Regional Health, looked for long Covid in 5,086 children 11 to 17 and found that symptoms present during infection rapidly declined over time. The researchers found that among children who tested positive and negative for Covid “prevalence patterns of poor well-being, fatigue and Long COVID”—defined by its symptoms without the need for a past diagnosis of the disease—“were broadly similar.” (The study also found that loneliness in children increased steadily in the year after Covid illness.)

The National Institutes for Health has been intensely focused on studying long Covid, spending nearly $1.2 billion on the condition. To date, the return on investment has been zero for the people suffering with it. But it’s been terrific for MRI centers, lab testing companies and hospitals that set up long Covid clinics. I’ve talked to the staff at some of these clinics and it’s unclear what they are actually offering to people beyond a myriad of tests.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-twitter-blacklisting-of-jay-bhattacharya-medical-expert-covid-lockdown-stanford-doctor-shadow-banned-censorship-11670621083?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, was a latecomer to Twitter, joining in the summer of 2021. In his first tweet, he linked to a recent article he had written that discussed age-based mortality risks and natural immunity, among other topics. His main message was powerful and contrary to Covid policies enacted across the country. “Mass testing is an insidious form of lockdown by stealth,” he wrote. Many Americans, especially parents of school-age children, would agree. But it’s possible that many on Twitter didn’t see his message.

This week Twitter released a set of internal emails and documents from before Elon Musk’s takeover of the company in October. One of the revelations was that Dr. Bhattacharya, among many others, had been censored and shadow-banned (tweets hidden in various ways) by Twitter.

Screenshots from an internal Twitter content-moderation system showed that his account was tagged with a label of “Trends Blacklist,” which ensured that his tweets would never make it to the algorithmic trending topics on Twitter’s front page.

How many people endured weekslong quarantine because Dr. Bhattacharya’s message was suppressed? How many students would have been spared the education death knell of remote learning had schools heeded his advice, or even known about it?

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-hijacking-of-pediatric-medicine?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Today, we’re teaming up with reporter Aaron Sibarium and our friends at the Free Beacon to take a hard look at the American Academy of Pediatrics. The AAP is the nation’s leading organization of pediatricians. Millions of families follow its pronouncements on children’s health without skepticism or second-guessing.

Thousands of pediatricians convened in Anaheim, Calif., in early October for the American Academy of Pediatrics’s (AAP) annual conference. The group, which boasts 67,000 members in the U.S. and around the world describes itself as “dedicated to the health of all children.”

So some audience members were shocked when Dr. Morissa Ladinsky, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, lauded a transgender teenager for committing suicide.

In an address about “standing up for gender-affirming care,” Ladinsky eulogized Leelah Alcorn, an Ohio 17-year-old who, in Ladinsky’s words, “stepped boldly in front of a tractor trailer, ending her life,” in 2014, after leaving a suicide note that “went viral, literally around the world.” 

Ladinsky’s remarks were captured on video by a horrified onlooker, Oregon pediatrician Dr. Julia Mason, who expressed outrage on Twitter that Ladinsky was “glorifying suicide,” an act she described as “unprofessional and dangerous.”  

That isn’t just Mason’s opinion. Technically speaking, it is also the official stance of the AAP, whose website for parents, healthychildren.org, explicitly warns that “glorifying suicide” can have a “‘contagious’ effect” and inspire others to take their own lives. 

Reached for comment, Ladinsky expressed “regret” about her choice of words and said it was “never my intent” to glorify self-harm.