RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-centers-for-disease-politics-rochelle-walensky-center-for-disease-control-and-prevention-covid-vaccines-11660859044?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Regrets, Rochelle Walensky has a few, though apparently too few to specify. Amid bipartisan criticism over her agency’s bumbling virus response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director said Wednesday she’ll reshuffle the bureaucratic deck with an emphasis on “action” and “equity.” Her diagnosis and prescription are both wrong.

Not much of the U.S. government works well these days, but the CDC once had a reputation for excellence. Covid blew that up. Its bureaucracy, with 11,000 employees and some two dozen divisions, impeded a rapid and effective response to the virus.

One problem is that bureaucracies always seek to expand their power and reach, often at the expense of their core mission. The CDC is no exception as it has sought to address social and environmental issues that are better left to the states or other agencies. Meantime, it has failed in its core responsibility, which is to track diseases, collect data to inform decision-making, and deploy resources to support local public-health responses.

At the start of the pandemic when public officials were blind to the virus spread, CDC employees failed to follow standard lab operating procedures and contaminated Covid tests. Even after the agency realized its blunders, it refused to share virus samples with private commercial labs to help develop and deploy tests.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/08/a_moral_call_to_arms_about_the_transgender_revolution.html

People who do not follow conservative news are unaware that our entire medical system has joined teachers in embracing the fantasy of transgenderism, and this is true whether the people involved are true believers, power junkies, or enthralled by the possibility of the millions of dollars tied to drugging and surgically mutilating children. Whatever the motives, it’s time for ordinary people to push back very hard.

I have Libs of Tik Tok on my daily reading list. I go there regularly because it helps me remember why, sometimes at great personal cost, I don’t retire to knitting and travel but, instead, spend most of my waking hours thinking about politics and trying to persuade people to see politics as I do. The importance of Libs of Tik Tok is that she travels through the internet looking at what leftists are proud enough to boast about—and then exposes those boasts to a larger audience than the leftists intended.

A significant portion of the leftists whom Libs of Tik Tok exposes are members of the LGBTQ+++ community or their “allies.” Over the past few years, these people have been increasingly vocal about the goal of “transing” kids. Teachers boast about bringing pronouns to kindergarteners and making sure that their students know that the teachers, with their transgender grooming, are the students’ “real” parents. Crazed parents boast about raising gender-neutral children or realizing that, when their two-year-old son said, “I like pink,” he was desperately saying that he’s really a girl.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-american-academy-of-pediatrics-dubious-transgender-science-jack-turban-research-social-contagion-gender-dysphoria-puberty-blockers-uk-11660732791?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

A spate of headlines this month declared that America’s surge in transgender identification wasn’t being caused by a social contagion. These articles were prompted by a new study by Jack Turban and colleagues in Pediatrics, flagship journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The study claimed that social influence isn’t the reason that as many as 9% of America’s youth now call themselves transgender. Thus, Dr. Turban argues, efforts in conservative states to regulate on-demand puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery must be resisted.

Yet Dr. Turban’s study is deeply flawed and likely couldn’t have survived a reasonable peer-review process. The swift response from the scientific community made both points clear—with even those who support hormones and surgery for gender-dysphoric youth noting that Dr. Turban’s shoddy science undermined their cause.

Nevertheless, the media have promoted his work as a refutation of the claim that the wildfire spread of transgender identity is an example of social contagion—a phenomenon in which members of a group (mostly young and female) mutually influence one another’s emotions and behavior.

The Turban study rejects the social-contagion theory on the grounds that more biological boys than girls identified as trans in 2017 and 2019, according to data collected from 19 states by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey. But the researchers who helped design the CDC questionnaire explicitly warned that youths who identify as transgender may list their sex as their gender identity, making it impossible to discern who is male-to-female or female-to-male (a limitation Dr. Turban has acknowledged in the past).

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/17/no-republicans-didnt-let-their-citizens-die-during-covid/

“You forgot to mention that red states had far higher death tolls from COVID. On purpose. Because you’re amoral scum.” – I&I reader Charles Ray in the comments section.

Our editorial pointing out how Red states have done far better than Blue states at recovering from COVID prompted a few readers, such as Charles Ray above, to complain in the comments section that we overlooked COVID deaths. (See, “The Results Are In: Red States Won The COVID Fight, Hands Down.”)

Another reader, Paul Roberts, commented: “did the Red states win the COVID-19 fight? Hardly. Most (not Utah) let their citizens die in higher percentages to show how ‘pro-business’ they were.”

This storyline has been repeated ad nauseam by the leftist corporate media and by those who still believe that mask mandates, lockdowns, and various other government efforts to stop COVID worked.

And, indeed, the top five states in terms of COVID deaths per capita are all solidly Red: Mississippi, Arizona, Alabama, West Virginia, and Tennessee.

At the other end of the spectrum, three of the five states with the lowest per-capita COVID death rates are deep Blue (Vermont, Hawaii, and Washington) and only two are Red states (Utah and Alaska).  

Proof positive that Republican states “let their citizens die,” right?

Wrong.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/14/too-little-too-late-disband-the-cdc-now/

Dissolve the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last week, the CDC released updated COVID-19 guidance. The agency now believes we should be taking an individual approach to mitigating our COVID risk. In layman’s terms, we are all Florida 2020 now.

The new guidance suggests ending “test to stay” so kids exposed to someone with COVID-19 can remain in school. Of course, this was only related to known exposure. People are exposed to COVID all the time, but only children who were aware of that exposure were punished. Kids lost so much throughout the pandemic because of terrible, irrational CDC guidance like this.

The fresh guidance also says people without symptoms no longer need to be routinely tested.

And the CDC permits us to come within six feet of each other again. Finally! Husbands, tell your wives it’s on!

But most important, the agency has finally faced some truths about the vaccine that it should have long ago. “CDC’s COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur.” And it’s admitted that “persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.”

Cities across the country fired teachers, firefighters, health care staffers, police officers, sanitation workers and so many others because they refused to get vaccinated. Many of these people had worked through the early days of the pandemic — and contracted COVID many times over — while we baked banana bread and patted ourselves on the back for ordering from Uber Eats. Now the CDC acknowledges this was the wrong thing to do. Whoopsie!

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/public-health/2022/08/the-suppression-of-useful-covid-19-treatments/

The author is Emeritus Professor of Pathology at the University of Newcastle Medical School. He is a member of the Australian Academy of Science’s COVID-19 Expert Database

Eighteen months ago, the first in a series of articles on the management of COVID-19 was published in Quadrant. The constant in these articles was that optimal management combined spaced vaccine administration with effective early drug treatment to cover breakthrough infections. This article compares two groups of drugs promoted as effective in the early treatment of COVID-19: recycled anti-viral drugs that target specific replication and re-purposed drugs of biological origin that render target cells hostile to viral infection.

Background: Those who have followed this series and perhaps others, will recognise how a “vaccine narrative” and its ideology, promoted by the pharmaceutical industry, led to the cancellation of non-patented drugs. These re-purposed drugs had an extensive data base supporting prevention and early treatment of COVID-19. Opposition to their use was unprecedented, denying both science and the established practise of the doctor-patient relationship. This opposition threatened use of “off-label” drugs regularly prescribed with benefit by most doctors. Governments also banned the use of these drugs for treatment of COVID-19, threatening and enacting the deregistration of doctors who opposed the narrative and prescribed ivermectin (IVM) or hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for early treatment of COVID-19 infection. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the Australian licensing body, succumbed to pressure by banning use of IVM for treatment of COVID-19, not because it was  ineffective but because “it may interfere with vaccine uptake; it may deprive indigenous patients use for scabies; and there may be confusion re appropriate dosage regimen”. This win for Big Pharma was a loss for thousands of Australians who would benefit, including many at risk of developing serious disease.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-8-12-on-the-causes-of-racial-health-disparities-in-the-united-states

Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has a much-linked article in the current (Summer 2022) issue of the City Journal with the title “The Corruption of Medicine.” The subject matter has substantial overlap with a Manhattan Contrarian post from last November with the title “The Progressive Neo-Racist Cancer Has Completely Destroyed The AMA.”

Mac Donald’s piece goes deeply into what she calls “two related hypotheses” that have recently come to dominate the medical profession:

Medical education, medical research, and standards of competence have been upended by two related hypotheses: that systemic racism is responsible both for [1] racial disparities in the demographics of the medical profession and for [2] racial disparities in health outcomes.

For today, I’m going to focus on the second hypothesis, that “systemic racism” in the U.S. medical system is responsible for “racial disparities in health outcomes.” Is this hypothesis remotely plausible?

According to Mac Donald’s piece, not only is this second hypothesis deemed plausible, but among the elites of the medical profession it is seen as so clearly true that it is required to be accepted a priori, and no questioning of the hypothesis is allowed.

For a statement of the official views of the AMA, Mac Donald refers us to a truly bizarre document issued by that group last October with the title “Organizational Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity.” (OSP) Mac Donald describes the document as “indistinguishable from a black studies department’s mission statement,” and “a thicket of social-justice maxims.” Here are a few choice quotes that Mac Donald takes from the document to give you an idea what it is about:

[P]hysicians must “confront inequities and dismantle white supremacy, racism, and other forms of exclusion and structured oppression, as well as embed racial justice and advance equity within and across all aspects of health systems.” The country needs to pivot “from euphemisms to explicit conversations about power, racism, gender and class oppression, forms of discrimination and exclusion.”

The rest of the document (it is 86 pages long) is more and more and yet more of same. Here is an excerpt from the OSP giving the official explanation of the reasons for different health outcomes between and among groups (found on page 12 of the document):

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/09/monkey-business-on-monkeypox/

Monkeypox has America’s public health establishment in a bit of an awkward spot. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra last Thursday labeled monkeypox a public health emergency. “We’re prepared to take our response to the next level in addressing this virus, and we urge every American to take monkeypox seriously and to take responsibility to help us tackle this virus,” he said. 

Sounds, well, serious. But in reality, monkeypox so far has not proven to be a virus that can strike anyone at any time. Since May 18, the United States has confirmed just over 7,100 monkeypox cases, with the vast majority of those cases occuring among men who have sex with men. There are only about 10 known pediatric cases globally. 

Compounding the confused messaging is the tenor of the public awareness campaign. In late July, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of World Health Organization, suggested that homosexual men might consider “for the moment, reducing your number of sexual partners, reconsidering sex with new partners.” The CDC on Friday similarly updated its guidance regarding monkeypox, suggesting to gay men: “Limit your number of sex partners to reduce your likelihood of exposure.” It also warned that, “spaces like back rooms, saunas, sex clubs, or private and public sex parties . . . are more likely to spread monkeypox.” 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/08/transgender_surgery_or_female_genital_mutilation__are_they_different.html

In 2012, The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution urging countries to ban the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), calling it an “irreparable and irreversible abuse.” The resolution was considered a major step forward in protecting women and girls.  FGM has been recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. Sweden was the first Western country to outlaw FGM, followed in 1985 by the UK. In the United States it became illegal in 1997, and in the same year the WHO issued a joint statement with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) against the practice. Moreover, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation called for abolishing the practice. 

Fast forward and it would appear that the new wave of transgenderism among youth is reminiscent of FGM practices. But while the leftwing establishment rightly condemns female genital mutilation, it praises transgenderism as “gender-affirming” and an act of courage.

Some key facts about female genital mutilation include:

The partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
The practice has no health benefits for girls and women.
FGM is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15.
FGM is a violation of the human rights of girls and women.
There is evidence suggesting greater involvement of health care providers in the practice. This is known as medicalization.