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“Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
— George Orwell, 1946
EVERYTHING MR. EMORY HAS BEEN SAYING ABOUT THE UKRAINE WAR IS ENCAPSULATED IN THIS VIDEO FROM UKRAINE 24 [5]
ANOTHER REVEALING VIDEO FROM UKRAINE 24 [6]
Mr. Emory has launched a new Patreon site. Visit at: Patreon.com/DaveEmory [7]
FTR#1258 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment [8].
Introduction: Updating the Covid-19 pandemic, this broadcast explores troubling developments in the administration of aspects of the pandemic.
NB: Mr. Emory is not an anti-vaxxer. When properly manufactured and vetted, they are fundamental to the maintenance of public health.
The disturbing aspects of Biden’s vaccine policy suggest the possibility that the regulatory handicapping of the FDA advocated by Trump backer Peter Thiel and his ideological fellow travelers may have been implemented, under the pressure of the pandemic.
That de-regulation of the FDA may have carried over into Aviator Glasses Joe’s administration.
An interesting and troubling story [9] concerns the FDA’s “thumbs down” on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of a blood-clotting disorder that affects 3.25 recipients per million. There have been a total of nine deaths from the disorder out of 18 million recipients of the vaccine.
The mRNA vaccines, by way of contrast, produce a serious condition called myocarditis in strong, healthy adults. That strikes eleven in every one hundred thousand recipients.
One must wonder why this conclusion was reached. Is there Big Pharma profit-making considerations at play here? Or is the readily-adaptable mRNA technology to new organisms that might be crafted as part of a biological warfare program looming in the background of such a decision?
An even more disturbing, perhaps related, article [10] concerns substantive indications that the much-maligned Johnson & Johnson vaccine is more effective than its mRNA competitors.
It may provide better protection against the Omicron variant.
” . . . . By now, all the vaccines seem to be performing about equally well against coronavirus infections; in fact, Johnson & Johnson appears to be holding up slightly better. . . . Overall, then, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine appeared to be somewhat more protective against infection than the two alternatives. . . . . . The J.&J. vaccine may produce antibodies that decline more slowly than those produced by the other vaccines, some research suggests. Or those antibodies may become more sophisticated [11] over time, through a biological phenomenon called affinity maturation. . . . Perhaps, some researchers suggest, the vaccine offered a more robust defense against the Omicron variant, responsible for the huge increase in infections over the past few months. And studies have shown that the vaccine trains [12]other parts of the immune system [12] at least as well as the other two vaccines. . . .”
Another stunning development [13] concerns the FDA’s decision to vet the next generation of [mRNA] boosters with mouse trials, instead of human!
” . . . . ‘For the FDA to rely on mouse data is just bizarre, in my opinion,’ says John Moore [14], an immunologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. ‘Mouse data are not going to be predictive in any way of what you would see in humans.’ . . . .”
WHY?
Peter Thiel favored “kneecapping the FDA” [15] in order to bring Big Pharma’s products to market sooner, in full awareness of the collateral damage that would result from this.
” . . . . For Food and Drug Administration commissioner, he [Thiel] attempted to nominate candidates who shared his belief that the FDA’s main role—regarding trials for drugs—was unnecessary. One of Thiel’s allies in this crusade, and his top pick to lead the FDA, was Balaji Srinivasan, the Stanford computer science lecturer and cryptocurrency entrepreneur who’s invested alongside Thiel in Curtis Yarvin’s company and shared Thiel’s views. . . . ‘For every thalidomide,’ he tweeted, “many dead from slowed approvals.” . . . . Thiel had argued much the same. . . .”
Note that the FDA’s regulatory “red light” on the use of thalidomide saved the U.S. from the birth defects nightmare experienced by Europe.
We note in that regard that Thiel comes from an “I.G.” background, to coin a term. As noted in FTR #718 [16], Thiel’s father was a chemical engineer from Frankfurt, the capital of I.G.
After the pandemic, Thiel seemed pleased [15] at that event, maintaining that it had projected us into the future. ” . . . . ‘COVID-19 created a shift. There used to be this feeling that the future was being held back somehow. Changes that should have taken place long ago did not come because there was resistance. Now the future is set free.’ He was, it seemed, welcoming the pandemic as a chance to reset society according to his ideals and plans. . . .”
Joe Biden’s policy [17] vis a vis Covid may well be eugenicist in its orientation. Returning to “normal,” in most respects, but allowing the virus to circulate, placing seniors–no longer in the workforce–at risk
We have noted that Biden’s social policies appear to be extensions of his national security policy. He has stated that competing with China is a priority.
In that regard, trimming expenses, including the relatively expensive social programs needed to care for the elderly, is apparently on the front burner.
Bottom line: old folks don’t work.
” . . . . ‘And the question I have is, how much death are we OK with?’ she asks. ‘Have we decided this is OK? And if so, why?’ . . . . Covid-19 has always been a disease of the elderly, defined almost more by its age skew of mortality than by any of its other characteristics, with risk doubling roughly every eight years and octogenarians hundreds of times more at risk of death than young adults. . . .”
Indicative of Biden’s cynicism [18] on social and economic policy is his selection to serve on the Social Security Administration:
” . . . . Defenders of Social Security on Tuesday urged the U.S. Senate to block President Joe Biden’s little-noticed nomination of Andrew Biggs — an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow with a history [19] of supporting Social Security privatization — to serve on the independent and bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board. . . . Biden was vice president when former President Barack Obama proposed [20] a ‘grand bargain’ with the GOP that would have entailed cuts to Social Security. Biggs, too, has a long record of advocating Social Security cuts. As Cunningham-Cook wrote last month, ‘For years, Biggs has been a vocal critic of expanded Social Security and workers’ right to a secure, stable retirement free from the vagaries of the stock market.’. . .”
1a.
In a newly filed lawsuit, Moderna asserts that the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA coronavirus vaccines are infringing on Moderna’s patents. What’s eyebrow-raising in this lawsuit is the timeframe of Moderna’s claims. The company is arguing that Pfizer’s vaccine copied work Moderna had already done on coronavirus vaccines involving human trials going back to 2015 and 2016. Beyond that, Moderna asserts the full-sequence coronavirus spike protein used in Pfizer’s vaccine was developed by Moderna years before the pandemic.
Perhaps the biggest set of questions that might be answered in this lawsuit involve Moderna’s possible collaborative role in the broader US-government-funded gain-of-function research being lead by the EcoHealthAlliance in collaboration with labs around the world like Shi Zhengli’s lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and Ralph Baric’s lab at UNC Chapel Hill. As we’ve seen, Ralph Baric was working on developing coronavirus therapeutics back in 2017 using gain-of-function-created coronaviruses in collaboration with Shi Zhengli’s lab at the WIV. And Baric also helped test the Moderna covid vaccine in 2020 [21]. So was Moderna – which was funded by DARPA – at all involved in this other NIH-funded coronavirus-related gain-of-function work? The circumstantial evidence sure points in that direction.
Above all, there’s the part of the lawsuit claiming that Pfizer effectively stole the full-sequence coronavirus spike protein sequence Moderna had worked out years earlier.
This is a confusing part of the lawsuit since, as we’ve been told, it was the SARS-CoV‑2 spike protein sequence that was at the heart of the mRNA COVID vaccine developed in record-breaking time back in January of 2020 [22].
What is Moderna talking about when claiming that it already developed a coronavirus spike protein years earlier? Recall how Moderna was criticized back in 2020 over its decision to file a patent in Feb 2020 for a “Betacoronavirus vaccine” – a broad-spectrum vaccine designed for non-COVID coronaviruses – without acknowledging the US governments role in that research [22]. Pfizer/BioNTech filed a patent for a similar “universal coronavirus vaccine” back in June [23].
It appears that’s what Moderna is referring to when it claims to have developed a coronavirus spike protein sequence years before the pandemic. That raises the obvious question: was Moderna part of the whole EcoHealthAlliance gain-of-function research on coronaviruses back in their 2015–2016 period?
Gain-of-function research was technically banned in the US from 2014 until the Trump administration lifted it in 2017. Recall, also, how Baric’s gain-of-function work that was started before the moratorium was put into place was allowed to continue under a special exemption [24].
If Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine development involved the use of viruses being generated by Baric under an exemption to the gain-of-function moratorium, that would obviously be a very sensitive area of research.
There’s another facet of this story to keep in mind: recall that fascinating September 2016 STAT News article that described how Moderna had shifted its focus from mRNA therapeutics – which require numerous shots over years – to mRNA vaccines. It was seen as as disappointment by industry observers and sign that Moderna was running into undisclosed setbacks involving side effects triggered by the lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery vehicle for the mRNA. But as we saw, Moderna was insisting at the time that it was experiencing no such setbacks. And yet observers were forced to take their word because the company was being so secretive and releasing almost no information about its internal trials [25].
There is no mention of coronavirus-related research at all in that article, while there is mention of work on things like a Zika virus vaccine.
Yet, in the new lawsuit, Moderna claims it successfully carried out human trials on a coronavirus vaccine as far back as 2015. It would seem that Moderna’s coronavirus-related vaccine research was being kept under wraps during this period.
We have to ask if the extreme secrecy around its work during this period may have been driven by the controversial nature of developing coronavirus vaccines using gain-of-function coronaviruses generated by the EcoHealthAlliance network. Circumstantial evidence points in that direction.
Moderna is apparently suing over patents it developed during its mostly-still-secret DARPA collaboration. Collaboration that might be directly related to the mostly-still-secret US-government-financed international collaboration dedicated to making and studying novel coronaviruses. Lawsuits have a tendency to unintentionally reveal secrets. Thereis clearly an abundance of secrets still waiting to be revealed about Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine research.
Again, we emphasize the following very interesting detail in Moderna’s complaint: the company is asserting that Pfizer and BioNTech copied Moderna’s full-length spike protein formulation for a coronavirus, which Modern claims to have created years before the emergence of COVID-19.
Recall how the sharing of the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV‑2 by Chinese researchers with the global community allowed for Moderna to and its NIH collaborators [22] to design the vaccine in just two days with just that spike protein sequence information [26].
Once again, Moderna is suing Pfizer over the alleged theft of a coronavirus spike protein sequence developed years earlier, we have to ask whether or not this part of the lawsuit is related to the “universal coronavirus” vaccine Pfizer and BioNTech started testing back in June [23].
That, again, returns us to questions regarding Moderna’s involvement with the pre-pandemic gain-of-function coronavirus research carried out by the EcoHealth Alliance and collaborators like the WIV. Because as we’ve seen, the creation of a broad-spectrum coronavirus vaccine was part of the pre-pandemic work done by the EcoHealthAlliance, the WIV, and Ralph Baric’s lab at UNC Chapel Hill [27].
Was Moderna involved in that broad-spectrum coronavirus vaccine research? It appears to have been the case.
The lawsuit, filed Friday, claims that the companies’ Covid vaccine violated Moderna’s mRNA patents.
The vaccine manufacturer Moderna sued Pfizer and BioNTech on Friday, claiming that its rivals’ Covid-19 shot violates its patents protecting its groundbreaking technology.
Moderna said in a statement that Pfizer and BioNTech infringed on patents filed between 2010 and 2016 that covered its mRNA technology. Moderna, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., sued in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts and the Regional Court of Düsseldorf in Germany, where BioNTech is based.
Christopher Ridley, a spokesman for Moderna, said the company did not have an estimate for the amount of damages it was seeking.
Pfizer and its development partner BioNTech were “surprised by the litigation,” said Jerica Pitts, a spokeswoman for Pfizer. She added that the companies “remain confident in our intellectual property supporting the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and will vigorously defend against the allegations of the lawsuit.”
Messenger RNA, or mRNA, is the genetic script that carries DNA instructions to each cell’s protein-making machinery and has been used in the production of coronavirus vaccines.
“We are filing these lawsuits to protect the innovative mRNA technology platform that we pioneered, invested billions of dollars in creating, and patented during the decade preceding the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s chief executive. “This foundational platform, which we began building in 2010, along with our patented work on coronaviruses in 2015 and 2016, enabled us to produce a safe and highly effective Covid-19 vaccine in record time after the pandemic struck.”
Moderna, which received close to $10 billion in taxpayer funding to develop the vaccine, test it and provide doses to the federal government, had said in fall 2020 that it would not enforce its Covid-related patents [29] while the pandemic continued. But on March 7, the company said that said that it was updating its pledge, since vaccine supply was no longer an issue outside the poorest countries. It said it expected manufacturers outside the 92 poorest countries to respect the company’s intellectual property. At the time, it also said that it was expanding its patent pledge [30] to never enforce Covid patents for 92 low- and middle-income countries.
Moderna said on Friday that it was not seeking damages for activities before March 8 and that none of the patents relate to intellectual property generated during Moderna’s collaboration with the National Institutes of Health on Covid-19, which it said began only after patented technologies were proven successful in 2015 and 2016.
Moderna said that Pfizer copied two features of its patented technology. First, Pfizer took four vaccine candidates into clinical testing, but ultimately proceeded with a vaccine with the same mRNA technology as the Moderna vaccine. Moderna said it was the first company to validate this technology in human trials in 2015, and that neither Pfizer nor BioNTech had its level of experience in developing mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases.
Second, Moderna claims that Pfizer and BioNTech copied its full-length spike protein formulation for a coronavirus, which Moderna had created years before Covid-19 emerged. Coronaviruses refer to a large family of viruses that cause mild to moderate upper respiratory tract illnesses, according to the N.I.H. The more serious ones include SARS, MERS and Covid-19.
Moderna said it was not seeking to remove Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccines from the market, and was not asking for an injunction to prevent their future sale, given the need for access to coronavirus vaccines. . . .
1b. An interesting and troubling story concerns the FDA’s “thumbs down” on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of a blood-clotting disorder that affects 3.25 recipients per million. There have been a total of nine deaths from the disorder out of 18 million recipients of the vaccine.
The mRNA vaccines, by way of contrast, produce a serious condition called myocarditis in strong, healthy adults. That strikes eleven in every one hundred thousand recipients.
One must wonder why this conclusion was reached. Is there Big Pharma profit-making considerations at play here? Or is the readily-adaptable mRNA technology to new organisms that might be crafted as part of a biological warfare program looming in the background of such a decision?
. . . . Peter Marks, the FDA’s vaccines lead, told STAT the agency reached its decision after a recent review of the data on the vaccine revealed another person in this country had died after receiving it — the ninth such death — in the first quarter of the year. The vaccine is made by J&J’s vaccines division, Janssen.
“If we see deaths and there is an alternative vaccine that is not associated with deaths but is associated with similar efficacy … we felt it was time at this point to make a statement on the [product’s] fact sheet that this was not a first-line vaccine,” said Marks, who is director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.
The clotting disorder, called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia or TTS, is rare, occurring at a rate of about 3.25 cases per million doses administered. But the condition can be fatal or life-altering if an individual survives. With one death for every 2 million doses given in this country, the FDA decided that is a risk most people don’t need to take, Marks said. . . .
. . . . He acknowledged the latest announcement won’t change much on the ground in the United States, where few vaccination sites stock the J&J vaccine at this point. But it could have implications abroad, where countries still struggling to vaccinate their populaces could be influenced by the U.S. decision. . . .
———
2. An even more disturbing, perhaps related, article concerns substantive indications that the much-maligned Johnson & Johnson vaccine is more effective than its mRNA competitors.
It may provide better protection against the Omicron variant.
” . . . . By now, all the vaccines seem to be performing about equally well against coronavirus infections; in fact, Johnson & Johnson appears to be holding up slightly better. . . . Overall, then, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine appeared to be somewhat more protective against infection than the two alternatives. . . . . . The J.&J. vaccine may produce antibodies that decline more slowly than those produced by the other vaccines, some research suggests. Or those antibodies may become more sophisticated [11] over time, through a biological phenomenon called affinity maturation. . . . Perhaps, some researchers suggest, the vaccine offered a more robust defense against the Omicron variant, responsible for the huge increase in infections over the past few months. And studies have shown that the vaccine trains [12]other parts of the immune system [12] at least as well as the other two vaccines. . . .”
Roughly 17 million Americans received the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine, only to be told later that it was the least protective of the options available in the United States. But new data suggest that the vaccine is now preventing infections, hospitalizations and deaths at least as well as the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
The reasons aren’t clear, and not all experts are convinced that the vaccine has vindicated itself. But the accumulating data nonetheless offer considerable reassurance to recipients of the vaccine and, if confirmed, have broad implications for its deployment in parts of the world.
In Africa, for example, distribution of a single-dose vaccine that can be refrigerated for months is by far the most practical option.
Johnson & Johnson has at least temporarily shut down [31] the only plant making usable batches of the vaccine. But the South Africa-based Aspen Pharmacare is gearing up to supply [32] large quantities to the rest of the continent. Only about 13 percent [33] of Africans are fully vaccinated, and only about 1 percent have received a booster dose. . . .
. . . . But the notion that the vaccine is inferior has grown outdated, some experts said: More recent data suggest that it has more than held its own against its competitors.
“We’ve been aware that J.&J. has been kind of downgraded in people’s minds,” Dr. Gail-Bekker said. But “it punches above its weight for a single-dose vaccine.”
Until last June, the cumulative data from the C.D.C. showed that immunization with the Moderna vaccine resulted in the lowest rates of breakthrough infections; those who got Johnson & Johnson saw the highest rates, with Pfizer-BioNTech somewhere in the middle.
During the summer months, the gaps — particularly between J.&J. and Pfizer — began to narrow. By now, all the vaccines seem to be performing about equally well against coronavirus infections; in fact, Johnson & Johnson appears to be holding up slightly better.
As of Jan. 22, the latest data available, unvaccinated people were 3.2 times as likely to become infected as those who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine; they were 2.8 times as likely to become infected as those who received two doses of the Moderna vaccine and 2.4 times as likely as those with two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech. Overall, then, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine appeared to be somewhat more protective against infection than the two alternatives. . . . . .
. . . . The findings indicate that the J.&J. vaccine deserves a closer look, said Dr. Larry Corey, an expert in vaccine development at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
“This vaccine platform may have some surprising characteristics that we hadn’t anticipated,” he said. The data “is interesting, provocative, and we should spend more time understanding it.”
Dr. Corey said the results jibe with his experience in H.I.V. research with the adenovirus that forms the backbone of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. “It has much longer durability than almost any other platform that we’ve ever worked with,” he said.
Scientists are only beginning to guess why the vaccine’s profile is improving with the passing months.
Levels of antibodies skyrocket in the first few weeks after immunization, but then rapidly wane. The J.&J. vaccine may produce antibodies that decline more slowly than those produced by the other vaccines, some research suggests. Or those antibodies may become more sophisticated [11] over time, through a biological phenomenon called affinity maturation.
Perhaps, some researchers suggest, the vaccine offered a more robust defense against the Omicron variant, responsible for the huge increase in infections over the past few months. And studies have shown that the vaccine trains [12]other parts of the immune system [12] at least as well as the other two vaccines. . . .
3. Another stunning development concerns the FDA’s decision to vet the next generation of [mRNA] boosters with mouse trials, instead of human!
” . . . . ‘For the FDA to rely on mouse data is just bizarre, in my opinion,’ says John Moore [14], an immunologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. ‘Mouse data are not going to be predictive in any way of what you would see in humans.’ . . . .”
WHY?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is using a controversial strategy to evaluate the next generation of COVID-19 boosters.
The approach is stirring debate as the agency works to make new, hopefully improved, boosters available in September to help prevent severe disease and save lives in the fall and winter.
For the first time, the FDA is planning to base its decision about whether to authorize new boosters on studies involving mice instead of humans.
“For the FDA to rely on mouse data is just bizarre, in my opinion,” says John Moore [14], an immunologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. “Mouse data are not going to be predictive in any way of what you would see in humans.” . . . .
But others defend the approach, arguing that the country has had enough experience with the vaccines at this point to be confident the shots are safe and that there’s not enough time to wait for data from human studies.
“We have 500 people a day dying of coronavirus right now. Those numbers sadly might very well rise in the fall and the winter. The question is: ‘Can we do something better?’ ” says Dr. Ofer Levy, [34] a pediatrics and infectious disease researcher at Harvard Medical School who also advises the FDA. “And I think the answer is: ‘We can, by implementing this approach.’ ” . . .
. . . . But the big concern is the boosters may not work as well as the mouse data might suggest. Mouse experiments are notoriously unreliable. . . .
. . . . “We need to make sure that we have solid immunogenicity data in people to show that you have a dramatically greater neutralizing antibody response against BA.4, BA.5,” says Dr. Paul Offit [35]of the University of Pennsylvania, who also advises the FDA. “I think anything short of that is not acceptable.” . . .
4. Peter Thiel favored “kneecapping the FDA” in order to bring Big Pharma’s products to market sooner, in full awareness of the collateral damage that would result from this.
” . . . . For Food and Drug Administration commissioner, he [Thiel] attempted to nominate candidates who shared his belief that the FDA’s main role—regarding trials for drugs—was unnecessary. One of Thiel’s allies in this crusade, and his top pick to lead the FDA, was Balaji Srinivasan, the Stanford computer science lecturer and cryptocurrency entrepreneur who’s invested alongside Thiel in Curtis Yarvin’s company and shared Thiel’s views. . . . ‘For every thalidomide,’ he tweeted, “many dead from slowed approvals.” . . . . Thiel had argued much the same. . . .”
Note that the FDA’s regulatory “red light” on the use of thalidomide saved the U.S. from the birth defects nightmare experienced by Europe.
We note in that regard that Thiel comes from an “I.G.” background, to coin a term. As noted in FTR #718 [16], Thiel’s father was a chemical engineer from Frankfurt, the capital of I.G.
. . . . For Food and Drug Administration commissioner, he [Thiel] attempted to nominate candidates who shared his belief that the FDA’s main role—regarding trials for drugs—was unnecessary.
The consensus view among drug developers, even many in Silicon Valley, has been that “you don’t want to put individuals at risk,” said Zach Weinberg, the cofounder of Flatiron Health, a Silicon Valley-backed medical research firm that is now owned by the pharmaceutical giant Roche. “Peter Thiel’s view is that will slow things down. His whole game is if a few people get hurt and that creates progress, he’s willing to take that trade.”
One of Thiel’s allies in this crusade, and his top pick to lead the FDA, was Balaji Srinivasan, the Stanford computer science lecturer and cryptocurrency entrepreneur who’s invested alongside Thiel in Curtis Yarvin’s company and shared Thiel’s views. . . .
. . . . “For every thalidomide,” he tweeted, “many dead from slowed approvals.” . . . .
Thiel had argued much the same. . . .
. . . . the agency’s [FDA] refusal in the early 1960’s to approve thalidomide, a sleeping pill, is regarded as one of the great administrative success stories. In Europe, where a less-regulated market allowed thalidomide to be prescribed to pregnant women, thousands of babies were born without fully formed limbs. . . .
. . . . Thiel’s other choice to run the FDA was Jim O’Neill, who’d run the Thiel Foundation and had since worked as an investor at Mithril, Ajay Royan’s venture capital firm . . . . He also believed in rolling back the FDA mandates about drug efficacy. . . .
5. After the pandemic, Thiel seemed pleased at that event, maintaining that it had projected us into the future. ” . . . . ‘COVID-19 created a shift. There used to be this feeling that the future was being held back somehow. Changes that should have taken place long ago did not come because there was resistance. Now the future is set free.’ He was, it seemed, welcoming the pandemic as a chance to reset society according to his ideals and plans. . . .”
. . . . How could anyone devoted to life extension not be moved by so many preventable deaths? By late March more than 550,000 Americans had died from Covid, making the pandemic deadlier than U.S. casualties in World War I and World War II combined. The United States has suffered one of the worst per-capita mortality rates in the world. How had those grim figures not moved him to break with Trump or to at last spend more ambitiously to help? . . . .
. . . . Thiel spoke to Die Weltwoche, a Swiss newspaper whose editor Roger Koppel is a member of the country’s national-conservative People’s Party. During an interview with Koppel, Thiel characterized the disease as a mental pathology rather than a physical one. “I see it as a psychological indicator that people know deep down: There is no way back to the old normal,” he said.
He continued: “COVID-19 created a shift. There used to be this feeling that the future was being held back somehow. Changes that should have taken place long ago did not come because there was resistance. Now the future is set free.” He was, it seemed, welcoming the pandemic as a chance to reset society according to his ideals and plans. . . .
6. In an altogether speculative element, we review discussion of Nazi chemical giant I.G. Farben’s influence in the pharmaceutical business, the program accesses information about the tranquilizer thalidomide. When prescribed for pregnant women in the early 1960’s, it led to horribly deformed babies. A new book claims that the drug was actually invented by the Nazis and tested in concentration camps during World War II.
“Thalidomide ‘Created by Nazis’ ” [TimesOnline]; The Australian; 2/08/2009. [36]
“The morning sickness drug thalidomide, which caused pregnant women to give birth to babies without arms and legs, was first developed by the Nazis, probably as part of their chemical weapons programme, according to new research.
Two separate academics have revealed the discovery of documents indicating that the drug did not originate with Chemie Grunenthal, the post-war German chemical firm, as has always been claimed.
If, as their research suggests, thalidomide was first developed by scientists working in wartime Germany, it could have implications for the liability of the German government. So far it has given compensation only to German victims, although the drug was distributed in 46 countries.
Thousands of the drug’s victims are still battling for increased financial aid to help them cope with its legacy. There are 457 thalidomiders remaining in the UK; 2,700 in Germany; and a total of up to 6,000 worldwide.s
Mothers prescribed it between its launch in 1957 and 1961, when it was removed from the market, gave birth to children who lacked proper arms, legs, hands and feet. Some had also suffered brain damage and other disabilities.
Dr Martin Johnson, director of the Thalidomide Trust which provides help for surviving victims in the UK, has written a paper detailing evidence suggesting that the drug had been developed before Grunenthal secured a patent in 1954.
The company has always maintained that thalidomide was created by chance in 1953 by scientists who had tried to create an antihistamine but ended up with a tranquillizer.
Johnson suspects that it was actually first produced as a possible antidote to nerve toxins such as sarin, which was developed by Otto Ambros, a Nazi scientist who joined Grunenthal after the war.
‘It is now appearing increasingly likely that thalidomide was the last war crime of the Nazis,’ said Johnson.
One document unearthed by the Thalidomide Trust shows that Grunenthal apparently purchased the trade name of the drug — Contergan — and therefore probably the substance itself, from a French firm, Rhone-Poulenc, which was under Nazi control during the war years.
A confidential letter sent from Astra, which held the Swedish licence to distribute thalidomide, to its Norwegian subsidiary in 1958 states: ‘Unfortunately we can’t use the name Contergan in the Scandinavian countries, since Grunenthal obtained the name exclusively for the German market through an agreement with Rhone-Poulenc.’
From 1942 onwards Rhone-Poulenc registered 14 similar drugs, all ending with the same ‘ergan’ suffix, a characteristic unique to the firm. Many of the drugs shared properties with thalidomide, such as affecting the nervous system.”
7. Joe Biden’s policy vis a vis Covid may well be eugenicist in its orientation. Returning to “normal,” in most respects, but allowing the virus to circulate, placing seniors–no longer in the workforce–at risk
We have noted that Biden’s social policies appear to be extensions of his national security policy. He has stated that competing with China is a priority.
In that regard, trimming expenses, including the relatively expensive social programs needed to care for the elderly, is apparently on the front burner.
Bottom line: old folks don’t work.
” . . . . ‘And the question I have is, how much death are we OK with?’ she asks. ‘Have we decided this is OK? And if so, why?’ . . . . Covid-19 has always been a disease of the elderly, defined almost more by its age skew of mortality than by any of its other characteristics, with risk doubling roughly every eight years and octogenarians hundreds of times more at risk of death than young adults. . . .”
“Endemic Covid-19 Is Looking Brutal” by David Wallace-Wells; The New York Times [17]; 7/24/2022. [17]
. . . . More than 300 Americans have been dying nearly every day for months; the number is today above 400, and growing.
Right now, [Dr. Trevor] Bedford says, around 5 percent of the country is getting infected with the coronavirus each month and he expects that pattern to largely continue. What would that imply death-wise, I ask? As a ballpark estimate, he says, going forward we can expect that every year, around 50 percent of Americans will be infected and more than 100,000 will die. . . .
. . . . A hundred thousand deaths is more than the annual toll of any other infectious disease and would make Covid-19 a top-10 cause of death in the country — a major and novel cause of widespread death clouding the American horizon with another dark layer of morbidity we had never known before. It’s a few multiples of a typical flu season and more than die each year from diabetes, pneumonia or kidney disease. It is what this newspaper once called, in an immortal front-page banner, “an incalculable loss [37].”
How do you calculate a loss 10 times as high? How can you reckon with that level of dying, each year, going forward? According to Céline Gounder, an infectious disease epidemiologist and a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, that figure is actually the low end — the ballpark, she says, runs from 100,000 to 250,000. That’s not her estimate of this year’s toll but of the annual continuing mortality burden rolling forward indefinitely into the future. “And the question I have is, how much death are we OK with?” she asks. “Have we decided this is OK? And if so, why?” . . . .
. . . . Covid-19 has always been a disease of the elderly, defined almost more by its age skew of mortality than by any of its other characteristics, with risk doubling roughly every eight years and octogenarians hundreds of times more at risk of death than young adults. But in a time of widespread vaccination and almost universal infection, that gap may well expand.
[Dr. Michael] Mina compares the building of immunity to the learning of a language. “It’s a fact of the biology of immunity that it’s really hard to build a brand-new memory and keep it if you’re old,” he says. “And so I do think that for quite a while our elderly population is going to keep having really big problems because they just can’t retain these new memories.” People exposed today, who will become 80 years old in 25 years or so, won’t have the same problem, Mina says, because they will have built their immune memory at a younger age. . . .
8. Indicative of Biden’s cynicism on social and economic policy is his selection to serve on the Social Security Administration:
” . . . . Defenders of Social Security on Tuesday urged the U.S. Senate to block President Joe Biden’s little-noticed nomination of Andrew Biggs — an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow with a history [19] of supporting Social Security privatization — to serve on the independent and bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board. . . . Biden was vice president when former President Barack Obama proposed [20] a ‘grand bargain’ with the GOP that would have entailed cuts to Social Security. Biggs, too, has a long record of advocating Social Security cuts. As Cunningham-Cook wrote last month, ‘For years, Biggs has been a vocal critic of expanded Social Security and workers’ right to a secure, stable retirement free from the vagaries of the stock market.’. . .”
The advocacy group Social Security Works is urging the Senate to block Andrew Biggs’ appointment by highlighting his role in the George W. Bush administration’s failed attempt to privatize the New Deal program in 2005.
Defenders of Social Security on Tuesday urged the U.S. Senate to block President Joe Biden’s little-noticed nomination of Andrew Biggs — an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow with a history [19] of supporting Social Security privatization — to serve on the independent and bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board.
Social Security Works, a progressive advocacy group, is leading the charge against Biggs, highlighting his role in the George W. Bush administration’s failed attempt [38] to privatize the New Deal program in 2005. At the time, Biggs worked on Social Security as an associate director of Bush’s National Economic Council.
“Andrew Biggs has advocated for Social Security cuts throughout his career. And now, he’s been nominated to oversee Social Security,” Social Security Works tweeted [39] on Tuesday.
The group, whose president currently serves [40] on the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB), is also sharing a sample call script [41] for those who wish to contact their representatives about Biggs.
“The Senate can, and must, block this terrible nomination,” the organization wrote. “Please call your senators at 202–224-3121 and tell them to vote NO on Andrew Biggs.”
The White House announced [42] Biggs’ nomination to the SSAB in May, a move that drew little notice at the time.
Last month, The Lever‘s Matthew Cunningham-Cook called attention [19] to the president’s pick and warned it suggests “there could soon be a coordinated push in Washington to cut the Social Security program, which provides retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to 66 million Americans.”
While Biden vowed [43] on the campaign trail to back an expansion of Social Security, he has previously supported [44] cutting the program’s benefits. Biden was vice president when former President Barack Obama proposed [20] a “grand bargain” with the GOP that would have entailed cuts to Social Security.
Biggs, too, has a long record of advocating Social Security cuts. As Cunningham-Cook wrote last month, “For years, Biggs has been a vocal critic of expanded Social Security and workers’ right to a secure, stable retirement free from the vagaries of the stock market.”
“He has dismissed the retirement crisis as a non-issue [45] and as recently as 2020 blamed [46] problems with the Social Security system on ‘older Americans’ game of chicken,’” he added. “While the seat on the bipartisan board is by tradition assigned to a Republican, Biden could have chosen a moderate candidate — or even leaned on precedent to avoid the nomination process altogether. Former President Donald Trump routinely refused [47] to nominate Democrats for seats on boards and commissions.”
Simmering outrage over Biggs’ nomination to serve on the SSAB, which was formed in 1994 to advise the president and Congress on Social Security, comes as progressives are demanding an expansion of the program’s modest benefits — while Republican lawmakers, per usual, eye cuts [48].
Last month, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D‑Mass.) led the introduction [49] of the Social Security Expansion Act, which would lift the cap on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax and boost the program’s annual benefits by $2,400.
“At a time when half of older Americans have no retirement savings and millions of senior citizens are living in poverty, our job is not to cut Social Security,” Sanders said at the time. “Our job must be to expand Social Security so that every senior citizen in America can retire with the dignity they deserve and every person with a disability can live with the security they need.”