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MEDICINE AND HEALTH

Biden’s Alzheimer’s Lapse He takes credit for savings caused by not paying for a new drug.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-alzheimers-lapse-drug-medicare-premiums-aduhelm-biogen-11664403263?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

President Biden on Tuesday claimed credit for a modest decline in Medicare premiums, but he forgot to mention the reason: His Administration is rationing a novel Alzheimer’s drug.

“This year, the American people won, and Big Pharma lost,” the President said in a speech in which he accused Republicans of seeking to gut entitlements and flogged Medicare drug price controls that Democrats are using to pay for $369 billion in new climate spending. But Democrats are the party slashing Medicare via cost rationing.

He continued: “This morning, we got more even good news about lowering costs. The Department of Health and Human Services announced that the premium for Part B will, in fact, decrease this [upcoming] year,” adding that “for years, that fee has gone up. Now, for the first time in more than a decade, it’s going to go down.”

Mr. Biden wants Americans to believe that drug price controls are reducing premiums. But here’s the deal: His Administration increased Part B premiums by 14.5% this year and blamed the increase on expected high demand for Biogen’s Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm, which the Food and Drug Administration approved last summer.

How Young Is Too Young for Sterilization? An influential transgender advocacy group releases new recommendations based on politics—not science. Lisa Selin Davis

https://www.commonsense.news/p/how-young-is-too-young-for-sterilization?utm_source=email

“To calm this strife, WPATH could have produced an evidence-based, apolitical document for physicians and others desperately seeking guidance. That’s not what happened. The new guidelines are “a weird amalgam of pseudo-medical speech, and political statements, and fetishistic practices,” said Julia Mason, a pediatrician in Oregon and a clinical advisor to the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. Dr. Mason added that she was dismayed that WPATH rejected the chapter on ethics that had been in an earlier draft, but retained the chapter on eunuchs. (These guidelines see eunuchs not as a deeply tragic part of history but as a “gender identity” which health care professionals should support.)”

What do you do if you are the parent of a child who believes they were born in the wrong body? What if your kid doesn’t fit the stereotypical behavior of their sex—your daughter is a tomboy, your son is effeminate—and a teacher or school counselor suggests they might be transgender? What if your teenager, uncomfortable with their changing body at puberty, says they will harm themselves—or worse—if they are not allowed to medically transition?

A growing number of parents are facing such questions in 2022. Desperate for answers, they are turning to the experts: the doctors, psychologists, and professional organizations devoted to diagnosing and treating gender dysphoria.

Among the most important of these associations is the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). Founded in 1979, it is regarded by many as a premier advocacy group for medical care, education, and research regarding transgender and “gender diverse” people. Though it’s not a medical association—in addition to doctors and psychologists, its ranks include lawyers, educators, students, and electrologists—WPATH’s Standards of Care are considered by practitioners around the world to be the gold standard of recommendations for treating gender-related distress.

WPATH has just released a long-awaited update to those Standards of Care for people seeking “lasting personal comfort with their gendered selves.” This 260-page update— the eighth version of WPATH’s standards—includes several new chapters. One is on the increasing number of nonbinary individuals. A second is on supportive care for “those who identify as eunuchs” and “may also seek castration to better align their bodies with their gender identity” (yes, you read that right). A third, and perhaps the most anticipated, is on the treatment of transgender of gender diverse adolescents—added, writes WPATH, due to “the exponential growth in adolescent referral rates.”

British Cardiologist Who Initially Promoted COVID Vaccines, Releases Peer Reviewed Papers Calling For Suspension of mRNA Shots By Debra Heine

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/27/british-cardiologist-who-initially-promoted-covid-vaccines-releases-peer-reviewed-papers-calling-for-suspension-of-mrna-shots/

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, an eminent British cardiologist who helped promote the mRNA vaccines when they were first rolled out, is now calling for the suspension of the injections until all the raw data from clinical trials are released for independent scrutiny, and all adverse side effects are fully investigated, the World Council For Health reported.

In a two-part peer-reviewed paper published in the Journal of Insulin Resistance on Monday, Malhotra presented real world data revealing that in the non-elderly population, the risk of suffering a serious adverse event from the jabs are greater than the any benefits. [See part one here, part two here.].

Malhotra is a Consultant Cardiologist, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and President of the Public Health Collaboration, and an honorary council member to the Metabolic Psychiatry Clinic at Stanford University school of medicine California.  He is an internationally renowned expert in the prevention, diagnosis and management of heart disease.

His re-analysis of Pfizer and Moderna randomized controlled trial data also found that the risk of suffering serious adverse effects of mRNA vaccines for individuals is significantly higher than the risk of being hospitalized with Covid-19.

The study found that the international roll-out of mRNA vaccination program overstated benefits of vaccination especially in low-risk populations, and the under-reported adverse events.

Commenting on the report, Malhotra said, “There has been a rise in out of hospital cardiac arrests and heart attacks linked to Pfizer’s Covid-19 mRNA vaccine with plausible biological mechanisms of harm.” He added, “pharmacovigilance systems and real-world safety data, coupled with plausible mechanisms of harm, are deeply concerning, especially in relation to cardiovascular safety.”

Judicial Watch: New Documents Reveal COVID-19 Vaccine Studies Used by HHS were Conducted in China

https://www.judicialwatch.org/covid-vaccine-studies-conducted-in-china/?utm_campaign=tipsheet&utm_term=members

Judicial Watch announced today that it received 115 pages of records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealing previously redacted locations of COVID-19 vaccine testing facilities in Shanghai, China. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had claimed the name and location of the testing facilities were protected by the confidential commercial information exemption of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The records were obtained through a September 2021 FOIA lawsuit filed after the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease failed to respond to a June 7, 2021, FOIA request for all biodistribution studies and data for the COVID-19 vaccines (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:21-cv-02418)).

The newly unredacted documents reveal the following Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine studies’ locations:

A document with the filename, “ s_r_IND 19736 0 105 2.6.5 pharmkintabulated-summary” identifies all in vitro metabolic stability studies of ALC-0315 and ALC-0159 (synthetic lipids in the vaccines) were conducted at Medicilon Preclinical Research LLC, a testing facility located in Shanghai, China. Studies within this record indicate work was done in August 2020.
A document with the filename, “s_r_IND 19736-0-253 Section 2.6.5 pharmkintabulated-summary” identifies that all in vitro metabolic stability studies of ALC-0315 and ALC-0159 were conducted at Medicilon Preclinical Research LLC, a testing facility located in Shanghai, China. Studies within this record indicate work was done in August 2020.

CDC Oversells the ‘Bivalent’ Covid Shot The FDA approved it without clinical trials, and there’s reason to doubt it beats the original vaccine. By Paul A. Offit

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cdc-oversells-the-bivalent-covid-shot-hospitalizations-vaccine-booster-omicron-pandemic-pfizer-moderna-china-illness-death-11663793472?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone over 12 receive a “bivalent” Covid-19 vaccine as a booster dose. But only a select group are likely to benefit, and the evidence to date doesn’t support the view that a bivalent vaccine containing omicron or its subvariants is better than the monovalent vaccine. The CDC risks eroding the public’s trust by overselling the new shot.

The existing Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines were designed to protect against the original strain of the novel coronavirus, known as Wuhan-1. The strain that left China, however, was D614G, the first variant. Between January 2020 and December 2021, D614G was replaced by the alpha variant then the delta variant. At the end of 2021, Oxford conducted a study to determine whether the mRNA vaccines still provided protection against severe illness and death caused by the variants. They did.

Then things changed. At the end of 2021, the omicron variant (BA.1) and its subvariants (BA.2, BA.3, BA.4 and BA.5) supplanted delta. Not only was omicron more contagious than delta; it also evaded immunity. Even the fully vaccinated were at risk of mild illness, and some of severe illness. A third dose was recommended, then a fourth. The CDC found that both a third and fourth dose reduced hospitalizations.

But not everyone benefited. Those who did fell into three groups: the elderly, people with serious health problems and people who were immunocompromised. As the CDC launches its fall booster dose campaign, it would be wise to focus on those at risk rather than the young and healthy.

MIT Study: Vaccine Hesitancy Is ‘Highly Informed, Scientifically Literate,’ and ‘Sophisticated’ Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/07/17/mit-study-vaccine-hesitancy-is-highly-informed-scientifically-literate-and-sophisticated-n1462591

Vaccine hesitancy is a big problem, according to the Biden administration.  Less than half the public is fully vaccinated while about 56 percent have received at least one jab.

The goal of fully vaccinating the American public appears to have stalled. This should not surprise us. When the vaccines were first approved for emergency use back in December 2020, 40 percent of Americans expressed skepticism about the vaccine.

Trying to shame the holdouts has failed spectacularly. Insulting and degrading them as “morons” or “ignorant” has resulted in a vicious pushback and a hardening of positions on getting vaccinated.

The administration’s plan of sending people door to door to vaccinate them only feeds anti-vaccine skepticism. Trust in authority is at an all-time low, which makes a government-sponsored vaccine program suspect.

Still, most experts agree that some people who should be getting vaccinated aren’t doing so. But the root cause isn’t ignorance or a belief in conspiracy theories. An MIT study on the problem revealed some surprising results.

What Does Walensky’s Apology Really Mean? The CDC director confessed last month that the agency had failed during Covid—but her mea culpa is likely designed to protect against serious reform. Carl J. Schramm

https://www.city-journal.org/what-does-walenskys-apology-really-mean?wallit_nosession=1

The indigenous wisdom of the Yukon suggests that if wolves are pursuing your sled, it’s a good idea to throw out a piece of meat to buy time. This advice comes to mind in trying to understand what happened last month, when Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), once one of the U.S. government’s most respected public agencies, made a public apology for its failures during the Covid pandemic. “For 75 years,” Walensky told a press gathering on August 15, “CDC and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations.”

Walensky said that the mea culpa was prompted by preliminary findings of an internal panel she appointed in April to improve CDC management. Its conclusions are not yet public. Her confession puzzled Washington’s political and bureaucratic establishment, and uncritical national media has mostly ignored her statement. After such a bombshell, one would expect appearances on television and plentiful commentary. But so far, the establishment and press are treading carefully. Why? Perhaps because they know that this initial disturbance to the pond might send ripples in their direction.

Consider that, just four days before Walensky’s statement, the CDC undid much of the guidance it had spent more than two years inventing, justifying, and enforcing. On August 11, the CDC substantially relaxed its Covid guidance by dropping social distancing, suggesting that masking is needed only around sick people or those with an active case, and dropping the need to quarantine for unvaccinated individuals, suggesting instead a five-day period of self-imposed isolation. Routine testing by employers and schools is no longer part of CDC guidance. The CDC largely removed schools, businesses, and institutions from an enforcement role on social distancing, masking, and quarantining and reduced its suggested booster frequency to once a year.

COVID Fascism Fizzles Out in New Zealand By Jack Cashill

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/09/covid_fascism_fizzles_out_in_new_zealand.html

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (she/her) held such promise. In the spring of 2020, the then 39-year-old New Zealand prime minister emerged on the world stage as the COVID drama’s anti-Trump.

Ardern was calm, we were told, where Trump was capricious, compassionate where Trump was callous, and disciplined where Trump was improvisational. She was, in short, the modern major general of the emerging fascist new world order, and the media swooned.

The New York Times headlined an April 2020 op-ed, “In a Crisis, True Leaders Stand Out: Swift action, compassion and trust in science mark the most effective responses to the coronavirus.”

When the “liberal” Ardern promised “the most significant restrictions on New Zealanders’ movements in modern history,” the Times praised her for her “swift and decisive action.”

The Atlantic outgushed the Times. “Since March, New Zealand has been unique in staking out a national goal of not just flattening the curve of coronavirus cases,” wrote Uri Friedman, “but eliminating the virus altogether. And it is on track to do it.”

Ardern was common sense personified. “She justified severe policies with practical examples,” Friedman continued. “People needed to stay local, because what if they drove off to some remote destination and their car broke down?” OMG!

Added Friedman, “She said she knows as a parent that it’s really hard to avoid playgrounds, but the virus can live on surfaces for 72 hours.” Right… science.

CDC Finally Admits It Lied About Covid Vaccine Safety Monitoring By Kevin Downey Jr.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2022/09/13/cdc-finally-admits-it-lied-about-covid-vaccine-safety-monitoring-n1629231

The Epoch Times is reporting that Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), finally spilled her guts and admitted what most of us already presumed: the CDC lied about researching certain adverse effects related to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Dr. Walensky had claimed that the CDC would scrutinize certain types of adverse event data referred to as Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) from reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). An official at the CDC quietly admitted in June that those reports were ignored and went so far as to say that “data mining is outside of the agency’s purview.”

An official from the CDC, Dr. John Su, told The Epoch Times in July that the CDC began performing PRRs in February 2021 and “continues to do so to date.”

A CDC spokesperson repeated this in August 2022.

Here is a copy of Walensky’s letter to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), in which she admits that the PRRs were not analyzed between February 26, 2121, and Sept. 30, 2021.

The letter gives no indication as to why the CDC wasn’t honest.

Denmark Will No Longer Offer COVID Jabs to Healthy People Under 50 By Debra Heine

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/14/denmark-will-no-longer-offer-covid-jabs-to-healthy-people-under-50/

Denmark has just tacitly admitted that the risks of mRNA injections outweigh the benefits for healthy people under 50.

The Nordic country will no longer offer COVID-19 boosters and vaccines to persons under 50, the Danish Health Authority (SST) announced on Tuesday.

The SST has banned COVID vaccines for healthy people under 50 even though COVID has not ended, and the agency says it “expects that the number of covid-19 infections will increase during autumn and winter.” In other words, Denmark’s health department believes most people are better off getting the coronavirus than getting any more mRNA jabs.

According to  notice on the agency’s website, people under 50 who are at a higher risk of becoming severely ill from the virus will still be offered COVID vaccinations, but all others under 50 will no longer need to take the vaccine because they are already “well protected against becoming severely ill from covid-19” due to past vaccinations, and/or prior infections.

SST reasoned that there is already “good immunity among this part of the population” so there is no need for them to take the mRna jabs.

“The purpose of the vaccination programme is to prevent severe illness, hospitalisation and death,” the agency said. “Therefore, people at the highest risk of becoming severely ill will be offered booster vaccination. The purpose of vaccination is not to prevent infection with covid-19, and people aged under 50 are therefore currently not being offered booster vaccination.”

In contrast, health authorities in the United States plan to recommend that everyone but the elderly and immunocompromised get COVID boosters once a year, starting with the new untested  shots now rolling out. The government plans to recommend that elderly people and those with weakened immune systems get the jabs more frequently.