Guest Columns
America’s lethal dose of quack science
Follow the science, say politicians and health agencies everywhere. But upon critical examination their every assumption fails.
You can only feed the public so much scientific quackery before its societal seams crack. Increasing depressions, rising suicides, elevated crime, shuttered businesses, denuded shelves, inflation, shortages, and broken relations are the result of a tapestry of stained science woven by lunatic politicians.
The FDA follows flawed science at best
You might think if anyone follows the science it would be the FDA. After all, they are the guardians of our health. Not so much.
Here’s an example.
Remember when Pfizer said their vaccine was 95% effective?
Reaching that impressive number required a very “unscientific” sleight of hand.
There are several ways to explain the relationship between the effects of a treatment on the risks of a disease. One, the Relative Risk only shows the percent of improvement in the controlled groups. The Absolute Risk on the other hand shows what the Relative Risk looks like when applied to the whole population.
Here’s what the FDA says about these two percentages:
… when information is presented in a relative risk format, the risk reduction seems larger, and treatments are viewed more favorably than when the same information is presented using an absolute risk format.
The drug maker failed to provide absolute risk
According to the FDA’s own guidelines under the heading “What general practice advice can the science support?”
Provide absolute risks not just relative risks. Patients are unduly influenced when risk information is presented using a relative risk. This approach can result in suboptimal decisions thus an absolute risk format should be used.
“Suboptimal decisions” as in the decision to vaccinate everyone in the entire United States.
Guess which figures Pfizer used and the FDA approved. (Hint. It wasn’t Absolute.)
Using Pfizer’s own data, to calculate the Absolute Risk, instead of 95% effective, it becomes an unimpressive risk reduction of .7%
This clever deception manufactured the illusion that the vaccines were far more effective than is true. Worse, the FDA fully approved use of the figures their own guidelines say cause “undue influence.”
Abuse of science by politicians and many other agencies.
It’s not just the FDA that abuses science. Since the pandemic began Americans have been drowning in bizarre practices that defy science. Here are a 7 examples:
1. Science was distorted to advance the idea of social distancing
The notion of social distancing started with an 1897 German lab experiment, the results of which fizzled out by 1948. Nothing like 21st century federal agencies relying on debunked 19th century experiments to set national policy. In citing their experiment in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, MIT researchers noted the droplets from a sneeze can travel up to 200 feet, remain suspended in the air, and flow into ventilation ducts. If you want to social distance, you’re gonna’ need a bigger measuring stick.
2. The idea of quarantining the healthy
The CDC loves to market the idea of lockdowns starting with the Bubonic Plague of the 14th century with literally no examples of the good and bad they accomplished. But, in a January 2022 John’s Hopkins Lockdown Analysis of Deaths the findings made it clear:
Compared to a policy based solely on recommendations, we find little evidence that lockdowns had a noticeable impact on COVID-19 mortality … Indeed, according to stringency index studies, lockdowns in Europe and the United States reduced only COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average.
So, while there may have been an average .2% improvement from lockdowns, there is no evidence to suggest the deaths could not have been reduced even more by policy recommendation focusing on helping the highest at-risk groups.
The study concludes:
… Hence, we find it problematic to use national lockdowns and differences in the progress of the pandemic in different regions to say anything about the effect of early lockdowns on the pandemic, as the estimated effect might just as well come from voluntary behavior changes …
3. The idea of mass masking
A 2019 WHO study, Non-pharmaceutical Public Health Measures for Mitigating the Risk and Impact of Epidemic and Pandemic Influenza concluded that
Ten RCTs were included in meta-analysis, and there was no evidence that face masks are effective in reducing transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.
A study covering up to March 2021 also found no significant difference between rates of transmission between mandate and non-mandatory mask policies.
A much-publicized Bangladesh Study has been praised for proving the “surgical masks limit coronavirus spread.” But on closer inspection, the study falls apart. The two arms of the study were chosen randomly with no allowance for prior exposure to COVID and results were self-reported, a method that leads to bias and poor accuracy. It is uncertain how many people were tested, which compromised the final data. Finally, changing mask regulations made it difficult to know exactly how many were masked and how often.
The incomplete science of masks
More recently, the CDC released its own study showing masks were up to 83% effective at stopping the virus. But the study consisted of phone interviews. When it came to follow up questions, only 13.4% of those where were supposedly positive for the virus answered the phone while, 8.9% of those who tested negative answered. The study goes downhill from there.
As for the N95 masks, Cambridge researchers concluded they only work if you have them fitted and cleaned or change to a new unit every one or two times of wearing. As one researcher said, “If you’re worried about getting the best fit possible, you may want to try first aid tape around your chin and cheeks.”
4. The practice of calling anyone who tested positive a “case”
Problem is when we hear the word “case” it conjures fears of serious illness and possible death. But, that is not the case. A case can be suspected, probable or confirmed. But the media often fails to make that distinction.
According to the CDC if you have a sudden fever and chills, you qualify as a case. All those rapidly rising case numbers are more for effect than for medical diagnosis. Even confirmed cases that use a PCR test may not be confirmed at all.
5. The idea if you had a positive PCR test you had infectious COVID
PCR test results are sensitive to the number of processed cycles. Studies show that tests processed at more than 35 cycles result in up to 90% false positives. A retrospective laboratory study that analyzed samples from positive PCR tests to see how many actual contained live viruses found no viral growth in greater than 24 cycles.
Most tests have bee routinely run at 40 cycles and until recently was the figure recommended by the CDC.
A Manitoba Chief Microbiologist discovered that 56% of people testing positive with the PCR had no infection. In this study researchers cultured samples from 90 positive PCR tests and only found 26 were actual live viruses.
Since COVID hospitalizations and death certificates are based on PCR tests, the big question is, how many of the 800,000 claimed COVID deaths even had COVID? It is quite possible that the majority of deaths were from other causes such as influenza or pneumonia.
6. The practice of conflating those who died with a virus with those who died from the virus
Recently, CDC Director Walensky was under fire for finally admitting what many have seen firsthand.
Just because some died and tested positive for COVID does not mean they died from COVID nor that it was necessarily a contributing factor in the death. The CDC’s Guidance for Certifying Deaths Due to COVID-19 reveals that death certificates are not as precise as most believe. Much is left up to the discretion of the person certifying the death. In many cases it is little more than an educated guess.
According to the CDC guidance document:
Ideally, testing for COVID–19 should be conducted, but it is acceptable to report COVID–19 on a death certificate without this confirmation if the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty.
7. The idea that early treatment does not help those infected with COVID
The federal agencies seem to enjoy dredging up ancient justifications for lockdowns and social distancing but draw the line at early treatment, a standard of care for decades. In the beginning of the pandemic, hydroxychloroquine showed promise as an early COVID treatment. A Ford Hospital System study confirmed:
… treatment with hydroxychloroquine alone and hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin was associated with a significant reduction in mortality among patients hospitalized with COVID-19.
But Dr. Fauci pounced on the study as flawed in congressional testimony. Within weeks a swell of negative studies demonized the popular drug that had helped millions with arthritis, lupus, and malaria.
Researchers discovered HCQ was dangerous. Studies showed it caused heart irregularities, death, and was ineffective at reducing COVID illness. In time the studies proved underpowered, poorly controlled, often the drug was administered in toxic doses, or in late stages when it was ineffective. In some cases, the conclusions of the studies failed to match the actual study. (Indeed in the Rosenberg study HCQ was given to the sicker of two groups. When both groups had similar rates of infection, the author claimed there was no benefit to the HCQ.) Virtually all of the anti-HCQ studies were deeply flawed. One review of 96,000 patients found no benefit to hydroxychloroquine and it increased risk for heart arrythmia. Upon requesting the source data, the Surgisphere turned out to be a “monumental fraud” and was retracted. There never was a study.
Ivermectin
Ivermectin faced the same volley of fake criticism despite evidence from Japan, India, Brazil, and doctors in the US that the drug is highly effective.
Like the hydroxychloroquine attacks most of these ‘studies’ proved deficient. In one case a letter on the toxic effects of Ivermectin turned out to be nothing more than a series of phone calls to poison control centers with no record of if the events were common, serious, or even caused by Ivermectin.
To date 22 countries or regions in their countries around the world have already adopted Ivermectin as an early treatment.
Another distortion of science – downplaying vaccine deaths
In spite of federal incursions into medical practices, and the uabashed promotion of masking, lockdowns, and mass vaccinations, more than 23,000 vaccine related deaths are reported on the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, VAERS. (The FDA is quick to diminish the number because, they observe, VAERS is a voluntary system anyone can complete. While VAERS is voluntary, anyone does not complete it. The FDA neglects to tell the public the threat of steep fines and imprisonment for incluiding false information. Plus, easy identification of the form filler renders the listings very accurate. Unfortunately, VAERS biggest challenge is the massive underreporting of adverse events.)
The quackery ends as more people look past the government, legacy media, and big tech, and dig into the actual documents that are driving the lunatic policies. Until then, maybe Nancy Reagan had the best idea. When it comes to government intervention into medicine, just say “no.”
From Sustainable Freedom Lab.
See also this evidence that the COVID vaccine is a death lottery.
John Anthony, Founder of Sustainable Freedom Lab, LLC, is a nationally acclaimed speaker, researcher and writer. He is a leading expert on globalist impacts on local affairs and the effects of federal agency regulations on local rule and property rights. Mr. Anthony’s Property Value Defense Network informs public officials and attorneys nationwide of the dangers of regulatory laws. His workshop, Shattering America’s Trance, teaches conservatives effective techniques for cross-political communications and is now available as an online course.
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[…] between government educating people and pitching them. Americans have received a steady thumping of carnival-like rhetoric packaged as science that fails with even slight investigation. That faux fact-checkers and censoring media are […]