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  • Society’s well-being depends on how well public-health officials and average internet users combat misinformation.


    It's easy to dismiss conspiracy theorists who say COVID-19 doesn't exist, or that we are all living through a "plandemic" - an event orchestrated by the evil and powerful.

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    • Johnson & Johnson Has a Long Rap Sheet — Why Should We Trust Its Vaccine?

      Johnson & Johnson has never made a vaccine, but since entering the pharmaceutical market in 1959, the company has made a lot of headlines — and been fined billions — for bad behavior.

      By Richard Gale and Gary Null Ph.D.

      For decades, according to an October 2019 article in The Guardian, “consumers worldwide have named the $347 billion pharmaceutical behemoth Johnson & Johnson (J&J) as one of its most trusted brands.”

      From its humble beginnings in the 1880s, making cotton gauze dressings and eventually band aids, baby powder and shampoo, J&J has expanded into one of the most powerful multinational pharmaceutical and medical device companies in the world.

      In 1959, J&J entered the world of Big Pharma as a leading player after succeeding in getting Tylenol approved as an over-the-counter drug. Shortly thereafter, J&J commenced with a flurry of acquisitions to increase its product line, which included Neutrogena, Cordis, DePuy, Janssen Pharmaceutica and Centocor.

      Today, in most American home medicine cabinets one will find a popular J&J product: Listerine, Tylenol and Benadryl, Neutrogena skin cream, Rogaine, Neosporin antibacterial ointment or Destin to treat diaper rashes.

      Now people are eager for J&J’s “one shot and you’re done” COVID-19 vaccine despite health officials’ fears it may be less effective than Moderna’s and Pfizer’s mRNA competitors.

      Vaccination centers and pharmacies are racing to get their hands on the new adenovirus-based vaccine. And as we will further note below, this is from a company that has absolutely no past experience in vaccine development and manufacturing.

      We need to seriously challenge J&J’s reputation. A 2019 report by the British intelligence firm Alva has noted that J&J’s reputation has sunk dramatically during the past years, from ninth place among 58 major pharmaceutical firms to 57th place. Certainly, this is not a company with a clean ethical record.https://www.alva-group.com/case-stud...on-case-study/

      A review of J&J’s rap sheet over the past three decades presents a dire and contrary image that should lead us to question the company’s claims about its COVID-19 vaccine given the lucrative market the pandemic has created for the most aggressive medical corporations.

      Similar to its equally over-sized competitors Glaxo, Merck and Pfizer, J&J too has had to pay out billions of dollars over the decades for civil settlements and criminal activities. As the pharmaceutical giant receives applause across the mainstream media for the release and Emergency Use Authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine, Brazil’s Public Prosecution Service started an investigation into J&J’s antitrust activities under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for “possible improper payments in its medical device industry.”https://fcpablog.com/2020/07/27/john...investigation/

      This was part of a 2019 Federal Bureau of Investigation bribery scheme investigation that included Siemens, General Electric and Philips acting as a larger cartel to illegally pay off government officials in return for securing contracts with Brazil’s national health programs. The charges also included price gouging and inflating prices up to 800 percent above market price to cover bribes.https://www.reuters.com/article/us-b...-idUSKCN1SN0ZZ

      This is not the first time J&J has violated FCPA laws. In 2011, J&J was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with conspiracy for paying off Greek doctors to advance its product sales. The Securities and Exchange Commission also charged civil complaints.

      The company had to pay out a $70 million penalty for buying off officials in Greece, Poland and Romania. In 2010, an executive for J&J’s subsidiary DePuy was sentenced to a year in prison for corrupt payments to physicians within the Greek national healthcare system.https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2011/2011-87.htm

      As one of the world’s leading medical device companies, J&J has had its share of recalls for faulty products, including contact lenses and hip implants In 2013, the drugmaker paid nearly $2.5 billion to compensate 8,000 recipients for its flawed hip implants. Again in 2016, another $1 billion was awarded to plaintiffs injured from this device.https://www.reuters.com/article/us-j...-idUSKBN13Q5XF

      One particular dubious activity the company became involved with in 2008 was to launch a “phantom recall.” When its Motrin IB caplets were discovered to not properly dissolve, J&J hired outside contractors to buy up store supplies in order to avoid making public declaration. No one would have known of this activity and it would have gotten past the eyes of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspectors had the deception not been exposed during a Congressional investigation.https://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainMa...ry?id=11765649

      Other major J&J lawsuits and recalls for faulty products include:

      -1995: $7.5 million fine for destroying documents to cover up an investigation into wrongful marketing of its Retin-A acne cream to remove wrinkles.

      -1996: An undisclosed settlement on false claims over condom protection claims to protect against HIV and other STDs.

      -2001: Paid out $860 million in a class action lawsuit for misleading customers about prematurely discarding its 1-Day Acuvue soft contact lens. J&J recommended they should be worn only once, although it was discovered the lenses were no different than the regular Acuvue lens that would last for two weeks.

      -2010: $81 million settlement for misbranding its anti-epileptic drug Topamax to treat psychiatric disorders and hiring outside physicians to join its sales force to promote the drug for unapproved conditions. The following year, J&J paid $85 million for similar charges against its heart drug Natrecor.

      -2011: Several J&J baby products were discovered to contain carcinogenic ingredients.

      -2013: The U,S. Justice Department charged the company $2.2 billion in criminal fines for marketing its autism and anti-psychotic drug Risperdal for unapproved uses. Forty-five states had filed civil lawsuits against J&J in the scandal. Janssen also had an aggressive campaign to market Risperdal for use in children with behavioral challenges. Other serious adverse effects from Risperdal reported by the FDA include diabetes mellitus, hyperprolactinaemia, somnolence, depression, anxiety, psychotic behavior, suicide and death.

      The company’s legal problems over Risperdal do not appear to have ended. In October 2019, a Philadelphia jury awarded a man $8 billion in punitive damages for failing to warn that the drug could cause young men to grow breasts. Other recent suits include litigation over its blood thinner Xarelto risks of internal bleeding, and a $775 million settlement to 25,000 plaintiffs.

      -2016: Two women were awarded $127 million in damages for the talc in its J&J Baby Powder causing ovarian cancer. Later, more than 1,000 similar cases came forward. During the trial it was discovered that J&J suspected a link between talcum and ovarian cancer back in the 1970s. A Missouri verdict fined the company over $4 billion but it was later reduced to $2.1 billion. A New York Times investigation into internal J&J memos uncovered evidence that the talcum powder may have contained asbestos. These cases continue. In July 2019, J&J made efforts to dismiss 14,000 lawsuits over the talcum-cancer risk.

      More recently, J&J has been in the spotlight for its role in contributing to the deadly opioid crisis. The company holds the patent for a unique strain of opium poppy commonly named Norman. It is the leading provider of the opioid for Purdue Pharma’s painkiller OxyContin. An Oklahoma court ordered a $465 million fine. This opened the door for other states to follow suit.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/h...nson-fine.html

      To fully grasp how insane the system is, the just-under-half-a-billion civil fine was considered good news on Wall Street, which anticipated the verdict would be in the billions of dollars. Consequently, J&J’s stock rose 2 percent after the judge’s ruling. And despite J&J being Purdue’s major supplier, and a major contributor in the U.S. opioid epidemic, Purdue was forced to file for bankruptcy due to mounting lawsuits for overdose deaths.

      Finally, we might ask why a 140-year-old company, with no history in vaccine development, has now become a hero in the immunological war against COVID-19?

      J&J is not a household name in the vaccine industry. It is utterly absent, let alone ranks among the world’s 20 major vaccine makers. Among the 53 vaccines for other infections listed by the CDC as approved for use in the U.S., not one is manufactured by the nation’s leader in mouthwash and baby powder.

      It is therefore no surprise that the company had to partner with Merck to manufacture its COVID vaccine to meet demand — has no history or expertise in this medical field.

      The COVID pandemic is a cash cow for the drug industry’s taking. Bernstein market analyst Ronny Gal predicts COVID-19 vaccine sales will reach $40 billion this year. A more realistic figure is likely higher as together, Moderna and Pfizer project their revenues at $32 billion.

      Then there are the other major vaccines by AstraZeneca, J&J and Novavax entering the competition. According to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s vaccine research tracker, more than 200 vaccines against COVID-19 are in development worldwide.

      Finally, there is a disturbing question for which we have no clear answer: How is it that a drug and household health product company, with no prior history in vaccine development, can develop and rush to market its first vaccine against a viral strain that was only identified 14 months ago?

      Developing a vaccine requires many years and necessitates the establishment of an R&D infrastructure vastly different than the structure required for conventional drug development.

      If J&J’s long rap sheet offers any warning, it is that we must be wary of any claims the company makes about the efficacy and safety of its products.
      Originally posted by PeeZones
      Kai is a top ten lottery pick come draft day and the best team for him is the spurs...Kai is way more skilled OFFENSIVELY than duncan, yao, aldridge, kp. etc..Kai is way better offensively than Porzingis by a mile...Kareem isnt really way far than Kai..decent bball IQ for both MJ and Kobe but Kai belongs to the highly skilled and high IQ players...I see talent clearly and they cant.

      Comment


      • https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/campaign-against-vaccines-already-u

        For almost as long as humanity has had vaccines, it has also had propagandists who try to scare people out of using them. Among the many medical questions contemplated in the journal The Lancet in the late 1890s and early 1900s—“Grey Hair and Emotional States,” “In Praise of Rum and Milk,” “On the Value of Cheese as a Dietetic Resource in Diabetes Mellitus”—are letters debating the efficacy of the smallpox vaccine, the age at which children should get it, the risk of the vaccine relative to the disease, and the extent to which local authorities should enforce compulsory vaccination in case of outbreaks.


        The misleading claims Americans will soon hear about the newly released COVID-19 vaccines are nearly identical to claims made about smallpox immunizations 120 years ago: The ingredients are toxic and unnatural; the vaccines are insufficiently tested; the scientists who produce them are quacks and profiteers; the cell cultures involved in some shots are an affront to the religious; the authorities working to protect public health are guilty of tyrannical overreach. In the British Medical Journal in that period, a Dr. Francis T. Bond frets about what to do about his era’s anti-vaxxers and their arguments, which have since become well-trod canards because they are effective in frightening people.



        Today’s anti-vaccine activists, however, enjoy a speed, scale, and reach far greater than those of Dr. Bond’s day. Bottom-up networked activism is driving the spread of anti-vaccine COVID-19 propaganda. Americans are about to see a deluge of tweets, posts, and snarky memes that will attempt to erode trust in the vaccine rollouts. Society’s ability to return to a semblance of normalcy depends on how effectively public-health authorities counter this misinformation and how assiduously media outlets and internet platforms refrain from amplifying it—but also on whether average Americans recognize that the material they click on and share has real-world consequences.



        The deliberate campaign against the vaccine has already begun. Within 48 hours of the first people in the U.S. receiving the Pfizer vaccine, anti-vaccine activists were amplifying stories of allergic reactions and sharing claims about friends of friends whom the vaccine had supposedly injured or killed.

        Public-opinion polling indicates that tens of millions of Americans are what physicians call “vaccine hesitant,” and stories of people who experience harsh side effects from the injection, or die for entirely unrelated reasons after receiving it, will inevitably find an audience. But many vaccine horror stories will originate in the well-established echo chambers of anti-vaccine true believers, including many of the same people who actively reject the scientific evidence that consistently affirms the safety of childhood immunizations against measles and other diseases. Some, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., leverage pseudoscience and attempt to drive public focus to outlier adverse events. Others bypass even the attempt at creating a veneer of scientific legitimacy and straightforwardly embrace conspiracy theories instead. Since 2018, anti-vaccine communities have cross-pollinated extensively with QAnon and other paranoid fantasies. Participants in anti-vaccine groups online frequently see posts claiming that the government is using COVID-19 vaccines to secretly implant microchip identifiers in people, or that ingredients in vaccines will turn people into 5G antennas.

        In today’s networked form of activism, determined groups—as varied as Beyoncé’s Beyhive, QAnon adherents, or the K-pop stans who commandeered pro–Donald Trump Twitter hashtags during the 2020 campaign—leverage the entirety of the social-media ecosystem to promote the things they believe in. If they succeed in getting a meme or a hashtag to trend online, they’ll often get some news coverage in broadcast or print media, elevating the message to a far larger audience. This is how bottom-up narratives spread.



        By 2010, the majority of broadcast and print media had stopped covering discredited claims that vaccines caused autism. However, social media offered an opportunity to evade the media gatekeepers and take ideas directly to the public, so anti-vaccine organizations such as the National Vaccine Information Center prioritized establishing a strong social presence on the most important platforms. They grew audiences on their own Facebook pages, and cross-promoted their content within wellness communities, natural-parenting circles, and groups opposed to genetically modified food ingredients. In 2015, as declining childhood-immunization rates prompted states to limit exemptions from required shots, anti-vaccine groups began to evangelize more aggressively. They coordinated to dominate public-health hashtags originally intended to promote flu shots. They actively courted celebrity influencers with large Instagram and YouTube followings. They probed for fence-sitters.



        These strategies have served them well. In 2015, as a new mom, I helped start a pro-vaccine group called Vaccinate California, which sought state-level legislation to improve school-immunization rates after a measles outbreak at Disneyland. A data-scientist colleague and I documented how anti-vaccine activists deliberately shifted their messaging strategy from a falsifiable and discredited canard (“Vaccines cause autism”) to a political statement (“Vaccination requirements are government overreach”). During the debate over the bill, they posted anti-vaccine memes using Tea Party hashtags such as #TCOT (“Top Conservatives on Twitter”) and #2A (for the Second Amendment), attracting new evangelists from those communities—and setting up connections that they leveraged during other local legislative fights, and again recently during the protests against business closures and stay-at-home orders.

        This change in messaging focus from health misinformation to political statements would come to pose a challenge for tech platforms when they began to debate what to do about the growing movement; in 2019, after more measles outbreaks and some congressional inquiries, the policy teams at Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube began to take action. They tried a variety of approaches: decreasing the reach of user posts making false vaccine claims; banning ads making those claims; and removing anti-vaccine groups from recommendation engines. But the tech companies allowed ostensibly political content to continue as free expression. “Vaccines cause autism” violated the policy; “School vaccines are government tyranny” did not.

        Anti-vaccine movement building extended offline as well. Recognizing that the public stereotype of anti-vaxxers was that they were extremely white and affluent—bourgeois bohemians who named their kids after California plant life—anti-vaccine leaders began to pursue minority adherents. They targeted the Somali community in Minnesota and the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn. (A few years later, both groups experienced large measles outbreaks.) Kennedy reached out to Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, with claims that the government was covering up how the measles shot was causing autism in Black boys. Nation of Islam community members became a visible presence at California anti-vaccine rallies; Farrakhan regularly speaks out against vaccines today.

        These battles over the narrative surrounding childhood immunizations were somewhat confined to parenting communities; most adults aren’t regularly searching for information about childhood shots. Now, however, America is about to embark on a battle to immunize the entire country against COVID-19. This time, everyone is paying attention to the topic of vaccines. Everyone is searching for information. And the online, networked factions that have long fought to erode confidence in vaccines recognize that this is their moment.


        Anti-vaccine activism around COVID-19 is more than just misinformation. This word doesn’t adequately convey the deliberateness of the messaging strategies that movement leaders consciously began to adopt in January 2020. The leaders of the anti-vaccine movement are not accidentally spreading this material. It’s intentional. Indeed, many are trying to profit from the sale of “detoxes” and vitamins they claim will prevent COVID-19, or they have books or e-courses to promote. Even the coordinated protest signs appearing at rallies and on highway overpasses are sold to the activists who put them up. It’s propaganda—a marketing campaign for an idea. The movement’s most active followers, the people spreading the anti-vaccine message across all social platforms, are true believers. The fight is for the attention of the fence-sitters, the curious, the questioning.

        Countering bottom-up, grassroots-driven propaganda is a significant challenge for anyone who wants the vaccination effort to succeed and the pandemic to end. Since much of it plays out on social media, it’s often seen as a social-media problem. This is partially true: Laissez-faire attitudes in Silicon Valley enabled these factions to grow for years. Platforms only began to take significant action to minimize the impact of anti-vaccine pages in 2019, after major measles outbreaks in Brooklyn and Samoa. As old diseases gained new footholds, Congress began to ask questions about the amplification and recommendation of health misinformation.

        Tech platforms continued their newfound commitment to countering health misinformation this year, as COVID-19 spread around the world. However, the results have been mixed: Anti-vaccine activists reacted early to the new pathogen. As the news out of China was just beginning to indicate that something was terribly wrong, anti-vaxxers were already making claims that the disease was a vast plot to force mandatory adult vaccination. Despite concerted efforts to crack down on health misinformation following the measles outbreaks, some of the old-guard anti-vaccine influencers—including Kennedy—who pivoted to coronavirus-related scaremongering saw huge audience growth.

        Social-media takedowns are not the right approach to addressing this content because they turn the propaganda into forbidden knowledge, often increasing the demand. Down-ranking and deprecating anti-vaccine content can minimize some of its reach, but it doesn’t address the underlying lack of trust in institutions, pharmaceutical products, or government. Restoring that trust requires far more work, but time has run out. The coronavirus vaccines are new, without years of data about efficacy or long-term effects. They have also been politicized, and not just by QAnon enthusiasts; during the 2020 campaign, many on the left, including the Democratic nominees Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, expressed concern about receiving a vaccine that the Trump administration had rushed to approve.

        “Prebunking”—preemptively addressing misinformation that people are likely to see—may be the way forward. All vaccines and medicines carry some risk, and a small percentage of people will have adverse reactions. These stories will be amplified on social media, and broadcast media will have to decide how to put them in context. According to the CDC, 655,000 people die from heart disease in the United States in a typical year. At least a few of the hundreds of millions of Americans who are to be vaccinated in 2021 will inevitably suffer a heart attack shortly thereafter. Anti-vaccine activists are likely to blame Pfizer or Moderna for those deaths. This strategy—stringing disparate incidents together into an overarching narrative of danger and harm—has been effective for the movement to date.

        In addition to the health claims, some activists, particularly conservative influencers, will darkly warn of impending government mandates and “forced vaccines” absent any evidence that such a program would be put into practice. They will appeal to individual rights and disparage the idea that immunization benefits a broader community.

        Fighting back against bottom-up propaganda requires an understanding of the pathways by which the information spreads. False narratives will move from anti-vaccine echo chambers to mass audiences via social-media sharing, as well as coverage in local and mainstream media. Countering this misinformation requires a whole-of-society effort.



        Detecting emerging narratives is no longer the challenge it once was; good data about social-media trends are easier and easier to obtain. While visibility into some platforms, such as WhatsApp, remains a challenge, most propaganda campaigns quickly appear in mainstream social spaces, where researchers can understand what is spreading and which communities are seeing it.

        The real challenge lies in countering anti-vaccine narratives with accurate information that can help instill confidence. Health agencies and tech platforms must partner with religious and civil-society groups that are trusted by targeted communities, giving them resources and funding and helping them reach their audience. Conspiracies thrive in low-trust environments. If certain communities don’t generally trust the government on matters of health, the people they do trust must be part of the conversation. When, for example, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn experienced a measles outbreak because of internalized vaccine misinformation, an ultra-Orthodox nurse who understood the community’s fears led the effort to fight back with empathy.

        Health authorities and government officials must communicate transparently with the public. Does the vaccine have side effects? Discuss them. Do some indications suggest that it isn’t as effective as predicted? Tell the public that, because some armchair expert on social media certainly will. Media outlets have a role to play here, too, both in how they report on incidents related to vaccination and in how they contextualize the information coming from authorities. The muddled early messaging about masks—which health agencies initially discouraged the public from using—has given encouragement to opponents of masks ever since. Avoiding confusion and misimpressions about vaccines from the beginning is of the greatest importance.

        And finally: All Americans have to be cognizant of what we share. Each of us has remarkable power to amplify content. That comes with a commensurate responsibility that most users haven’t yet fully internalized.

        This is the whole-of-society approach that we need. Allowing confidence in vaccines to be undermined has real-world impact. Neither social-media companies nor health institutions acted decisively to contain or counter the anti-vaccine movement during its rapid growth from 2015 to the present. In response, anti-vaxxers grew a digital army by preying on the fears of parents with the same stories that Dr. Bond bemoaned in his letters at the turn of the last century. He asked readers of The Lancet to notify him about Anti-Vaccination League speeches in his community. “I shall be glad if any of your readers who may be aware of the proposal to give such lectures in their own immediate neighbourhood will kindly communicate with me as soon as possible,” he wrote, “in order that efforts may be made to place the lecturer and his misrepresentations in their proper light before the public.” Similar vigilance is essential now.

        Comment


        • I just want to make a comment here, just once. Covid topics and news is pretty toxic and stressful, that is why I avoid it, but not deny it is happening and we are prudent. Man and science already did there best, so now, let us continue to pray and entrust everything to God. Be patient, humble and repent.

          Anyway, I really feel good about this, and I'm hopeful and believe it is a big blessing that is about to come.

          Remember this word "EXO CD24"

          Let us pray for this.
          Last edited by yogaflame; 03-17-2021, 03:53 AM.
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          • Israel’s ‘Green Passport’ Vaccination Program Has Created A ‘Medical Apartheid’
            March 16, 2021

            Israel has rapidly deteriorated into a segregated culture that discriminates against people who have not received experimental COVID-19 vaccinations, say Israeli citizens who are reaching out for help on media platforms.


            “It’s very intense over here in Israel. I don’t know how much you see,” said Ilana Rachel Daniel in a video posted March 3rd on Bit Chute.

            “It’s terrible. It’s a very, very, very frightening situation.”

            “They’re making this green passport where half the population cannot get into theaters or malls or all sorts of things unless you have taken the vaccination. They are creating a medical Apartheid,” Daniel said.

            In Israel, Refusing COVID-19 Vaccination Means ‘Your Life Is Basically Over’

            Part of a program dubbed Operation Back to Life, the “Green Pass” system restricts entry to registered gyms, theaters, hotels, restaurants, universities and secondary schools to holders of scannable vaccine passport only.

            “This is the first step back to an almost normal life,” Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said at a briefing about the program which began rolling out last week.

            The Israeli government announced a number of new rules on March 6 in a statement released jointly by the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Transportation. The government paper will be in effect until the next government review on March 20.

            Students in Grades 7 to 10 were to be allowed to return to classes this week in jurisdictions where 70% of the population over age 50 had been vaccinated.

            Universities and other educational institutions were to open for in-person classes as of Sunday to green pass holders only. Those who have not been vaccinated will be permitted to attend online classes only.

            Restaurants are to allow vaccinated green pass holders the right to eat indoors, while non-vaccinated people are allowed to eat outside only.

            Violators of the government order are to be fined 5000 New Israeli Shekels (NIS) which is about $1,500 USD.

            Israeli students have been required to have COVID vaccine injections to allow them to sit their end of high school matriculation exams, according to a BBC report in January.

            Matriculation exam results can affect whether or not they go to university and their placement in the compulsory military service.

            The passport is delivered by a government-run website which issues a green certificate featuring a high-security scannable QR code by text, email or regular mail delivery, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post.

            People in Israel are expected to present their green passport for scanning along with personal identification before entering registered businesses.

            The government statement issued Saturday said that the prohibition on the entry of Israelis by air to the country is cancelled (land crossings remain in place), allowing Israeli citizens and permanent residents to enter Israel.

            “Those holding vaccination or recovery certificates will be able to exit Israel freely,” however, the statement adds.

            Earlier in the month, Edelstein told the public that “vaccines won’t be mandatory, but anyone who forges a vaccine certificate will go to jail.”

            The Israeli Health Minister has also said that soon employers will be required to have their staff vaccinated, or to undergo coronavirus testing every 48 hours.

            Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination drive has been the fastest in the world where 10% of the population received experimental vaccines between December 19 and the end of 2020, and 50% of the country’s nine million residents had received at least one COVID vaccine shot by February 26, according to a statement by Health Minister Edelstein.

            “I agreed with my friend, Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla, that we would bring shipment after shipment and complete the vaccination of the over-16 population in Israel during March,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted on January 10.

            Pfizer’s Bourla canceled a scheduled trip to Israel because he has not received his second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, the Jerusalem Post reported on Sunday. The CEO said he did not want to “cut in line” for his company’s injection and has delayed his visit to the country where he is looking at establishing a manufacturing site.

            On February 24th the Israeli parliament passed a law allowing the government to share the names, addresses and phone numbers of people who had not received a COVID vaccine with other authorities in the ministries of education and welfare.

            “They’re making people wear an ankle bracelet, a security bracelet when they come back from travelling,” said Daniel who is affiliated with the Rapeh party. “It’s absolutely insane.”

            People are being offered electronic security ankle bracelets, similar to those worn by prisoners, to monitor their whereabouts after they travel outside of Israel instead of being forced to house in quarantine facilities, The Jerusalem Post reported February 25th.

            “We call it a ‘freedom bracelet’ because we are not locking anybody up, but rather giving them the opportunity to go home,” Ordan Trabelsi, president and CEO of SuperCom, the company behind the surveillance system told the paper.

            “They’re censoring us and attacking us and they won’t allow any media. Nothing. They took away the head of the party’s medical license,” said Ilana Rachel Daniel. Daniel is affiliated with the Israeli political party, Rapeh, which means “heal” in English.

            The Rapeh Party was founded by medical doctor Aryeh Avni whose medical license was revoked by Israel’s Health Ministry on February 24th when a judge ruled he was “a ‘stumbling block,’ whose behavior poses a real danger to public safety and health.”

            “They removed our platforms from Facebook and now they won’t let the media even write about us. So we want to ask all the international [inaudible] – anywhere we can get – to publicize what we are saying.”

            “If I stop to think about it I will cry you know,” said Daniel, who can be heard breaking down in tears. “We just keep fighting you know, fighting as much as we can.

            “We need everybody’s help because whatever happens here will happen everywhere,” she said. “So, we’re fighting for ourselves and we’re fighting for the whole world. We need to help…every hand on deck.” Daniel has since recorded an hour-long interview with British journalist James Delingpole.https://delingpole.podbean.com/e/illana-rachel-daniel/

            In another video, posted on the Facebook page Radiant Israel on February 18, Israeli Gilad Rosinger described the green passport system as a “pre-holocaust agenda.”https://www.facebook.com/radiantisra...23029958933793

            “If you do not submit to this wicked, demonic, tyrannical agenda, if you choose to say, ‘you know what, I’m not ready to participate in this experimental program,’ then you are now considered a second class citizen in Israel,” Rosinger said.

            “My grandfather was the only survivor out of his whole family of the Holocaust and this is exactly how it started. With discrimination, with essential and non-essential businesses, with people saying that Jews are second class citizens,” he said.

            “Well, now it’s not about Jew, it’s not about Arab, it’s not about that. No, it’s about who will take the vaccination,” Rosinger said. “If you don’t do it, you’re wicked, you’re evil, you’re a second-class citizen.”

            High level Israeli government officials are talking about sending police to the homes of unvaccinated people and demanding that their names be released, Rosinger said.

            Despite its aggressive vaccination campaign, Israel enforced a strict third national lockdown on January 7, 2021 following a surge of new COVID cases.

            Israeli media reported that 4,500 people were diagnosed with COVID after receiving a first coronavirus vaccine, and that of those 375 were hospitalized.https://www.israelnationalnews.com/N...ws.aspx/294794

            Calling the new Israeli society a “Twilight zone” that is being “cheered on” by mainstream media, he added that many people are afraid to speak out.

            “We need to sound the alarm,” said Rosinger. “Where are the international human rights courts on this? Where are the lawsuits? Where is the outrage? You don’t even have to believe in God to know that this is wrong.”

            “Israel, unfortunately has been used as a prototype for the nations because if it succeeds here it’s coming to a town near you, it’s coming to a country near you. It’s coming to your town,” Rosinger said. “That’s why you have to care.”
            Originally posted by PeeZones
            Kai is a top ten lottery pick come draft day and the best team for him is the spurs...Kai is way more skilled OFFENSIVELY than duncan, yao, aldridge, kp. etc..Kai is way better offensively than Porzingis by a mile...Kareem isnt really way far than Kai..decent bball IQ for both MJ and Kobe but Kai belongs to the highly skilled and high IQ players...I see talent clearly and they cant.

            Comment


            • Death Rates Skyrocket In Israel Following Pfizer Experimental COVID ‘Vaccines’
              March 2, 2021

              “This is a new Holocaust” – Haim Yativ and Dr. Seligmann

              by Brian Shilhavy

              We have previously reported how Israel rapidly vaccinated the highest percentage of their population with experimental COVID vaccines after the Israeli government struck a bargain with Pfizer to secure millions of doses of their mRNA COVID vaccines.

              Vera Sharav wrote:

              “It is astonishing that the government of Israel entrusted the health of the people to Pfizer; by entering into a secret contract that enrolled the Israeli population to become research subjects, without their knowledge or consent.”

              To date, Israel has vaccinated over 53% of their population, twice the percentage of the next closest nation, Britain, with 26.9%.



              The “official news” published by the corporate media claiming that the vaccines have been effective in reducing rates of COVID in Israel has been scrutinized and examined by Aix-Marseille University Faculty of Medicine Emerging Infectious and Tropical Diseases Unit’s Dr. Hervé Seligmann and engineer Haim Yativ, who published their results on a discussion forum website called “Nakim.”

              The information quickly went viral, and has now been translated into several languages and addressed on various news sites around the world, including Arutz Sheva 7, IsraelNationalNews.com.https://www.israelnationalnews.com/N...ws.aspx/297051

              Mordechai Sones writes:

              A front-page article appeared in the FranceSoir newspaper about findings on the Nakim website regarding what some experts are calling “the high mortality caused by the vaccine.”

              The paper interviews Aix-Marseille University Faculty of Medicine Emerging Infectious and Tropical Diseases Unit’s Dr. Hervé Seligmann and engineer Haim Yativ about their research and data analysis.

              They claim that Pfizer’s shot causes “mortality hundreds of times greater in young people compared to mortality from coronavirus without the vaccine, and dozens of times more in the elderly, when the documented mortality from coronavirus is in the vicinity of the vaccine dose, thus adding greater mortality from heart attack, stroke, etc.”

              Dr Hervé Seligmann works at the Emerging Infectious and Tropical Diseases Research Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France. He is of Israeli-Luxembourg nationality. He has a B. Sc. In Biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and has written over 100 scientific publications.

              FranceSoir writes that they follow publications, data analyzes, and feedback from various countries on vaccination, and have therefore taken an interest in the Nakim article, asking to interview them in order to understand their analysis and its limitations.

              The authors of the article declare they have no conflicts or interests other than having children in Israel.

              After a presentation, the authors discussed their data analysis, the validations carried out, limitations, and above all, their conclusions that they compare with data received via a Health Ministry Freedom of Information Act request.

              Their findings are:

              -There is a mismatch between the data published by the authorities and the reality on the ground.

              -They have three sources of information, besides the emails and adverse event reports they receive through the Internet.

              -These three sources are Israeli news site Ynet, the Israeli Health Ministry database, and the U.S. federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database.
              In January 2021, there were 3,000 records of vaccine adverse events, including 2,900 for mRNA vaccines.

              -Compared to other years, mortality is 40 times higher.

              -On February 11, a Ynet article presented data related to vaccination. The authors of the Nakim article claim to have debunked this analysis based on data published by Ynet itself:
              “We took the data by looking at mortality during the vaccination period, which spans 5 weeks. By analyzing these data, we arrived at startling figures that attribute significant mortality to the vaccine.”

              -The authors say “vaccinations have caused more deaths than the coronavirus would have caused during the same period.”

              -Haim Yativ and Dr. Seligmann declare that for them, “this is a new Holocaust,” in face of Israeli authority pressure to vaccinate citizens.
              They also invite specialists to complete their analyses, and intend to pursue legal follow-up to their discovery. The Health Ministry was not available for comment on a FranceSoir query regarding the findings.

              The authors also deplored “the fact of not being able to communicate on this vital information” to their fellow citizens.

              Full article here: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/N...ws.aspx/297051

              Mordechai Sones also has his own radio broadcast in Israel, and a few weeks ago he began his broadcast by reading the names of 28 people who have died following the Pfizer experimental COVID mRNA injections.

              The list begins with some elderly Rabbis, but also includes young people who reportedly had no existing health problems and died suddenly, including a 25-year-old woman.

              After reading these 28 names, Mordechai states:

              “The list continues, but cannot be brought here in its entirety due to time constraints.”

              An Israeli man who posted this reading on YouTube stated:

              “I made this short video with an audio broadcast of Mordechai Sones; so that I could pass on the information that many people here in Israel have been dying after receiving the Pfizer Covid-19 Vaccine.

              But none of this information seems to be making it into the mainline media.

              I am calling on everyone to pray and seek the Lord to have this evil thing stopped immediately.”


              Originally posted by PeeZones
              Kai is a top ten lottery pick come draft day and the best team for him is the spurs...Kai is way more skilled OFFENSIVELY than duncan, yao, aldridge, kp. etc..Kai is way better offensively than Porzingis by a mile...Kareem isnt really way far than Kai..decent bball IQ for both MJ and Kobe but Kai belongs to the highly skilled and high IQ players...I see talent clearly and they cant.

              Comment


              • Spanish Drug Regulator Probes Death of Woman Vaccinated With AstraZeneca

                The Spanish medicines agency is looking into the death of a woman who suffered a brain bleed caused by a blood clot days after getting an AstraZeneca shot, the Health Ministry said Wednesday.

                "AEMPS, other regulators and the European medicines agency EMA are gathering data and conducting a thorough investigation to determine whether, in addition to a temporal connection to the administration of the vaccine, there was a possible causative relationship", a statement read.

                The 43-year-old received the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine on 3 March and reported a headache within hours, which was dismissed as a common side effect. She sought medical help 10 days later after her symptoms worsened. The surgery revealed a brain bleed and swelling. She died on Monday.

                The Health Ministry said she had suffered an ischemic stroke that transformed into a brain haemorrhage.

                The woman was among three people reported to have developed a combination of unusual symptoms — blood clots and a low count of platelets — which may point to an "abnormal activation of the coagulation system, associated with the formation of blood clots in unusual places".
                Originally posted by PeeZones
                Kai is a top ten lottery pick come draft day and the best team for him is the spurs...Kai is way more skilled OFFENSIVELY than duncan, yao, aldridge, kp. etc..Kai is way better offensively than Porzingis by a mile...Kareem isnt really way far than Kai..decent bball IQ for both MJ and Kobe but Kai belongs to the highly skilled and high IQ players...I see talent clearly and they cant.

                Comment


                • Pfizer Sees ‘Significant Opportunity’ After Pandemic to Hike Prices 900% for Annual COVID-19 Shots

                  Recent comments by a senior figure at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer have highlighted how the company is looking to turn COVID-19 into a longer-lasting pillar of its business model, including dramatically increasing prices for what could become annual booster shots, as well as the possible effects of a third dose.

                  With mass vaccination underway, an end to the pandemic period of COVID-19 is within the bounds of imagination. However, once the uncontained global spread of the disease is over, what comes next? For New York-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, that’s when the big bucks start coming in.

                  At the Barclays Global Healthcare Conference last week, Pfizer Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Frank D’Amelio laid out for investors the company’s plan to dramatically increase the price of its vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, by nearly 900%, once governments stop being the primary buyers of their vaccine, which they have jointly produced with German firm BioNTech.

                  “Based on everything we've seen to date, we believe it's becoming increasingly likely that an annual revaccination is going to take place,” D’Amelio said on Thursday, adding that it would most likely be a single-dose booster."

                  He said that so far, pricing for the shot has been dictated primarily by the “needs of governments” to secure enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations at no cost to the receiver.

                  “As we move from a pandemic state, from a pandemic situation to an endemic situation, normal market forces, normal market conditions will start to kick in. And factors like efficacy, booster ability, clinical utility will basically become very important, and we view that as, quite frankly, a significant opportunity for our vaccine from a demand perspective, from a pricing perspective, given the clinical profile of our vaccine,” D’Amelio said, adding that “we think as this shifts from pandemic to endemic, we think there's an opportunity here for us.”
                  When the disease becomes endemic, that means it’s here to stay and will continue to break out periodically in parts of the population. This is much the case for a disease like influenza, for which an annual vaccine booster is often recommended."


                  Last month, D’Amelio told Wall Street analysts that Pfizer gets $19.50 per dose at present, but noted “that’s not a normal price, like we typically get for a vaccine - $150, $175 per dose ... Let's go beyond a pandemic pricing environment, the environment we're currently in: Obviously, we're going to get more on price.” That’s an almost-ninefold increase in price.

                  Pfizer pulled in $15 billion in revenue last just on COVID-related products last year, D’Amelio further noted. He urged that “our objective is always to be very prudent with our shareholders' capital but always to maximize shareholder return.” Indeed, on Thursday Pfizer’s share value has increased by 3.6% since Thursday, which Fox Business credited to D’Amelio’s comments.

                  CEO Albert Bourla has claimed the company refused to take federal money because he “wanted to keep Pfizer out of politics,” spending $1.5 billion on vaccine research, but the Trump administration also sent Pfizer $1.95 billion in July 2020 via Operation Warp Speed - one of the largest such contracts under the program - for the first 100 million doses of the vaccine, which were not delivered until December. In December and again in February, the US each time bought 100 million doses for the same price.

                  In November, the Department of Health and Human Services revealed that it’s deal with Pfizer did not include government rights to intellectual property developed in the manufacturing of the vaccine.

                  In other words, public money helped Pfizer deliver a vaccine for public use, which the company will now seek to transform into a new cash cow for the handful of wealthy private investors who own most of Pfizer’s stock.
                  Originally posted by PeeZones
                  Kai is a top ten lottery pick come draft day and the best team for him is the spurs...Kai is way more skilled OFFENSIVELY than duncan, yao, aldridge, kp. etc..Kai is way better offensively than Porzingis by a mile...Kareem isnt really way far than Kai..decent bball IQ for both MJ and Kobe but Kai belongs to the highly skilled and high IQ players...I see talent clearly and they cant.

                  Comment


                  • Is the New COVID Variant Deadlier?
                    The new variant study actually shows how decidedly undeadly both of the two variants are. Well below 0.4% even for the new "scary" one
                    Sebastian Rushworth MD March 18 2021

                    An article was recently published in the British Medical Journal that reported on a matched cohort study which compared the risk of dying for those infected with the new British variant (a.k.a. B.1.1.7) and those infected with the older covid variants.

                    A matched cohort study is a type of observational study where you take a group of people with some condition and then try to find a similar group without the condition to match against. Then you follow the two cohorts over time and see if they differ in some meaningful outcome (like death). Since it is an observational study, it can only show correlation. It can’t prove the existence of a cause and effect relationship, but that doesn’t stop many people acting like it does.

                    The article has resulted in fear-mongering headlines in news media around the world. Just to take the first example I could find, Al-Jazeera published an article with the headline: “UK variant up to 100% more deadly, study finds”.

                    Those darn studies, they’re always finding things. It’s like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. You knock one down here, and another one pops up over there. Anyway, let’s look in to the study some detail, and see if the claim is true.

                    There were two criteria that had to be fulfilled for a person to be included in the study. They had to have a PCR-test positive for covid at some point between the beginning of October 2020 and the end of January 2021. And they had to be over 30 years old. The authors don’t provide any reason for the second criterion. The only reason I can see for removing people under the age of 30 is that they pretty much never die when they get covid, and including them would therefore have resulted in less impressive mortality numbers, which would have made it a little bit harder to use the results as part of public fear mongering campaigns.

                    In the UK, the PCR test currently in use is based on three reading frames. In other words, three separate pieces of viral RNA are sought. The B.1.1.7 variant has some variations in its genetic code that cause one of these reading frames to turn up a negative result. This is useful, because a problem with doing a big study like this and comparing mortality rates for different viral variants is that most people don’t actually get their infections gene-sequenced. So all you have to work with in most cases is a PCR test. But the fact that the B.1.1.7 variant has this oddity, that one of the three reading frames turns up a negative result, means that it can be identified through PCR with pretty good accuracy. No gene sequencing necessary.

                    So, what the researchers did was to put everyone with a covid diagnosis in which the other two reading frames were positive, but this specific reading frame was negative, in to one cohort, the “B.1.1.7 variant” cohort. Those who had all three reading frames turn up positive were put in the other, “old variants”, cohort.

                    Now, as mentioned, a cohort study is a type of observational study, and observational studies are rife with confounding factors that mess up the results. In order to minimize this problem as much as possible, the researchers went through and matched each person in the new variant cohort to a similar person in the old variant cohort. The cohorts were matched on date of testing, in order to deal with potential biases caused by one person for example getting tested during the covid peak, when hospitals were overstretched, while the matched person in the other cohort got tested at a time point when nurses actually had time to fluff their pillows. The cohorts were also matched on geographical location, age, gender, and ethnicity.

                    The endpoint that the researchers chose to look at was death within 28 days. This is a very problematic end point, that will tend to overestimate mortality due to covid. Basically, anyone who had a positive covid test and who then died with the next 28 days was counted as a covid death. Even if they got hit by a bus. Apart from overestimating the covid death rate, this could also muddy the results of the study, making it harder to see a real difference in mortality between the new variant and the older variants, if such a difference does exist. Why they chose to do this rather than actually looking at death certificates, to see whether covid was listed as the cause of death or not, I really don’t understand.

                    Anyway, let’s get to the results.

                    54,906 people with the new covid variant were identified, and these were matched with 54,906 people with the older variants. Among those with the new variant, 227 patients died (0.41%). Among those with the old variants, 141 people died (0.26%).

                    So, the new variant does appear to be a little bit deadlier than the older variants, 0,15% deadlier to be precise. To put this in perspective, for every 700 people who develop covid due to the new variant, you can expect one extra death, as compared with getting covid due to the older variants.

                    You could of course, like the mass media do, focus on relative risk, and say that the new variant is 61% deadlier, or “up to 100% deadlier” as Al-Jazeera state in their headline (based on looking at the upper end of the confidence interval), but in this instance, looking at the absolute risk gives a much clearer understanding of how deadly the new variant actually is, don’t you think?

                    One should of course always remember that this is an observational study, and although the researchers have done their best to get rid of confounding factors, it is still possible that the increased mortality rate seen here is due to some unknown confounder, and not due to the new variant itself.

                    The thing that strikes me most about the results of this study is not the fact that the new variant seems to be a bit more deadly than the old variants, but how un-deadly this study clearly shows that covid is.

                    We have to remember that this study only included people who actually took a PCR test. According to the Dr. Anthony Fauci, 40-45% of covid infections are asymptomatic. Obviously, people who are asymptomatic are for the most part not going to get a PCR test (unless they get caught through contact tracing, but this likely only catches a small proportion of asymptomatic infections). And equally obviously, people with asymptomatic infections aren’t going to die of covid. So, although this study found a fatality rate of 0.41% for the new variant, and 0.26% for the old variants, the real fatality rate is likely considerably lower.

                    That is especially true if we also factor in that this study excluded people under the age of 30, and counted every death within 28 days of a positive covid test as a covid death. Both of those factors would push the fatality rate down further if factored in. So this study, funnily enough, adds to the existing evidence that the infection fatality rate for covid has been grossly overstated.

                    To be fair, the proportion of participants over the age of 80 in the study is low, only 0,5%, compared with 3% in the UK population as a whole, which will push the fatality rate in the opposite direction. Whether excluding everyone under the age of 30 (constituting 25% of the UK population) or only having 0.5% of participants be over the age of 80 (when they constitute 3% of the UK population) has the bigger impact on the overall fatality rate in the study, is hard to say. But it raises another interesting point. The mortality rate in the 80+ group in the study is 100-fold higher than it is among the people aged 30-59 (12%, or one in nine people, as compared to 0.12%, or one in 900 people). This is in line with earlier studies that have shown that the risk of dying rises steeply as people reach an advanced age.

                    As always, the devil is in the details. So, what can we conclude from this study?

                    The B.1.1.7 variant does appear to be a little deadlier than the older variants, increasing the risk of dying for the average person who gets a symptomatic infection by a marginal amount (0,15% to be precise).

                    However, the main take-away from this study is that the infection fatality rate, even with the new variant, is very low for most people. I think a more reasonable title for Al-Jazeera’s article about this study would have been “Covid much less deadly than everyone thinks, study finds”.
                    Originally posted by PeeZones
                    Kai is a top ten lottery pick come draft day and the best team for him is the spurs...Kai is way more skilled OFFENSIVELY than duncan, yao, aldridge, kp. etc..Kai is way better offensively than Porzingis by a mile...Kareem isnt really way far than Kai..decent bball IQ for both MJ and Kobe but Kai belongs to the highly skilled and high IQ players...I see talent clearly and they cant.

                    Comment


                    • The Definition Of A Nightmare
                      by heneralunacy

                      “Austerity does not instill confidence, it just imposes pain.” - Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize Economist

                      Economies, I was taught, are governed by the two tools of fiscal and monetary policy.

                      The Dept. of Finance sets fiscal policy. It budgets Government spending and taxes that define public finances and impact private consumption and investment. Fiscal policy is the Government’s most powerful economic tool.

                      Central Banks set monetary policy. CBs control the money supply which affects inflation, bank liquidity and short term interest rates. These influence bank lending to businesses and consumers. CBs guide the foreign exchange rate.

                      COVID introduced a third economic tool and it is health policy. Public health is part of Government’s tool chest but like environmental policy was never considered a subject of economic interest. The pandemic changed all that. Today health policy has dwarfed fiscal and monetary policy as the primary force in our economy.

                      So here is where it gets ugly.

                      In the last year the Philippines has suffered its worst economic and humanitarian crisis since its independence not because of the deficiencies in fiscal and monetary policy but principally because of the abject failure of our health policies. Despite the world’s longest and most severe lockdown, the Philippines has the worst economic and health record certainly among our neighbors and will be the last to emerge - if we do at all - from the hole we are in. The economy contracted by 9% last year with the prospects of recovery being pushed further and further out. Meantime China is on its way to over 7% growth, Thailand to up to 11%.

                      It is not supposed to work this way.

                      The DOF has been accused of being overly conservative in its stimulus and maybe so but this comes not from incompetence or corruption. Economic management is as much a philosophy as it is a science. Sec. Dominguez has made a judgement call, only history will tell whether he is right. He believes in fiscal prudence and one has to give him that. It is all in good faith.

                      The BSP has by and large made the correct moves: It has increased liquidity to encourage bank lending but in the Keynesian terminology it is pushing on a string. The BSP can bring the banks to the water but cannot force them to drink. Banks will lend to the private sector not on the basis of what the BSP wants or businesses and consumers need but whether they will be repaid and right now they believe most companies are too damaged to do that. Banks are not beholden to the public, they are responsible to their depositors, their shareholders and their bonus pools.

                      The BSP has disappointed many in its foreign exchange approach.Through policy guidance and management of its international reserves, it could have weakened the peso to enhance the dollar earnings of OFWs and attract foreign investments; but it chose not to. It prefers the market dictate the peso rate. Again, one can question its judgement but not its competence or integrity. Gov. Diokno calls it as he sees it and we must respect him for that.

                      Unfortunately this cannot be said of our health policies. They are an accident waiting to happen but do not take my word for it: Makati Medical Center, Cardinal Santos and PGH among others are overflowing with COVID cases. Our daily pandemic numbers are at record highs. People the world over are planning their summer vacations while our health officials are forbidding seniors and their grandsons from taking a stroll.

                      Where did our public health go wrong?

                      Incompetence, check. Corruption, check. Miscommunication, check. Opaqueness, check. Arrogance, check. Unaccountability, check.

                      We bungled our vaccine procurement. Pfizer vaccines that had been allocated to us - now diverted to Singapore - were lost because somebody failed to sign some Non Disclosure Agreement. Even today we are struggling with vaccine supplies because that same person reportedly refuses to sign the necessary documents for fear of being sued or whatever. There could also be something more nefarious.

                      In the U.S. the CDC allows persons who have been vaccinated to mingle openly even with those not vaccinated. European and other countries are allowing incoming passengers to arrive with no restrictions as long as they have been inoculated prior to departure. In our case we do not distinguish between vaccinated and non-vaccinated arrivals, all have to go through the same protocol of a five day quarantine in a Government designated center and a PCR test after. This additional layer of inconvenience is discouraging tourism.

                      The IATF has limited the number of passenger arrivals to 1,500/day, for PAL 500/day, the equivalent of two plane loads. Arrivals in normal times was 10,000.

                      Overseas workers with committed contracts are not given priorities in vaccination (after front liners) stranding them and depriving them of a meaningful livelihood and the country valuable foreign exchange. Our OFW remittances have been steadily declining over the months.

                      Trust in the DOH is so low many of its health workers refuse to be vaccinated.

                      The IATF does not work smart, it works heavy. They over-engineer solutions to straight forward problems. Think taking a hammer to swat a fly. After a while, the room is demolished but the fly is still there. We are the room, COVID is the fly.

                      As for the corruption - Philhealth, over priced PPEs, questionable equipment purchases, delayed vaccines - let us not even go there, please.

                      Despite the abject failures of our health leaders and their policies, Government has mandated they take precedence over the economy and the education of our children. We are between a rock and a hard place, a growing health crisis and a dying economy.

                      Why are our leaders letting it happen before their very eyes? Why do we continue to entrust the fate of our country, our jobs, our health and our sanity to officials who have proven time and again they are incapable of the task? Everybody knows who they are and yet they continue to spin us, ignore us and punish us. They are not held to account because there is “no probable cause”.

                      A friend sent me this post: “Nalilito ako: May curfew sa gabi para daw makaiwas sa COVID, pero sa umaga ang daming tao sa labas. Ano ba ang virus, nightshift?”

                      This sums up our health protocols: Sensible some of the time, crazy most of the time.

                      And we are not done yet. That is the definition of a nightmare.

                      Comment


                      • Just reposting

                        7999 positive, 50 deaths..

                        Parang sale lang sa mall ah, naka redtag sale.7999.

                        Ingat po lahat.

                        At sa mga nagsasabing peke ang covid kapag nasama ka sa sale na yan, malalaman mo na totoo pala.

                        Stay n lng po sa bahay at baka bukas magtaas presyo ng sale sabihin nyo fake ung items. Hahahaha.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by DAdmiral View Post
                          Just reposting

                          7999 positive, 50 deaths..

                          Parang sale lang sa mall ah, naka redtag sale.7999.

                          Ingat po lahat.

                          At sa mga nagsasabing peke ang covid kapag nasama ka sa sale na yan, malalaman mo na totoo pala.

                          Stay n lng po sa bahay at baka bukas magtaas presyo ng sale sabihin nyo fake ung items. Hahahaha.
                          Lol...fear porn....I thought your smarter than that.
                          Originally posted by PeeZones
                          Kai is a top ten lottery pick come draft day and the best team for him is the spurs...Kai is way more skilled OFFENSIVELY than duncan, yao, aldridge, kp. etc..Kai is way better offensively than Porzingis by a mile...Kareem isnt really way far than Kai..decent bball IQ for both MJ and Kobe but Kai belongs to the highly skilled and high IQ players...I see talent clearly and they cant.

                          Comment


                          • Its all about the money baby! - BIG PHARMA


                            Pfizer’s COVID Vaccine Could Become Most Lucrative Drug in the World


                            Pfizer’s vaccine is already the second-highest revenue-generating drug in the world. Once the pandemic ends, the vaccine maker plans to hike prices.


                            Pfizer plans to turn the vaccine into an even bigger cash cow once the pandemic ends.
                            Pfizer’s COVID vaccine is already the second-highest revenue-generating drug in the world — but the company plans to turn the vaccine into an even bigger cash cow once the pandemic ends, according to news reports.

                            Citing comments made by Pfizer CFO Frank D’Amelio, Forbes and FiercePharma reported that the company “is going to get more on price” once the pandemic wanes and “we are no longer in a pandemic pricing environment,” D’Amelio said.

                            The vaccine maker expects 2021 sales of about $15 billion based on current contracts for its COVID vaccine, but that number could double as Pfizer says it can potentially deliver 2 billion doses this year, according to The Guardian.

                            One analyst speculated that Pfizer could be targeting a price 3 to 4 times higher than the $19.50 the company currently charges the U.S. government — or even up to $156 per dose.

                            Pfizer based the vaccines’ current price on the need for governments to secure doses and get the virus under control. The company splits the profits 50-50 with German partner, BioNTech.

                            Under Operation Warp Speed, Pfizer agreed to supply the U.S. government with 100 million doses of its vaccine for $1.95 billion, so Americans can receive the vaccine for free.

                            Pfizer’s initial contract included an option for the government to buy up to 500 million more doses at $19.50 per dose. That’s well below the $150 or $175 per dose the drugmaker typically pulls in for a vaccine, D’Amelio said during the February earnings call.

                            In comparison, the Moderna vaccine is priced at $15 per dose, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is $10 and AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine is $4 per dose, reported Fierce Pharma.

                            Pfizer executives unveiled the company’s $15 billion sales estimate as part of the company’s 2021 guidance, based on doses set to be delivered in 2021 under existing contracts.

                            To put $15 billion into perspective, Pfizer also markets the bestselling vaccine outside of COVID –– pneumococcal shot Prevnar 13. In 2020, Prevnar 13 revenues were $5.85 billion. Pfizer’s entire vaccine franchise pulled in $6.56 billion in 2020, reported Fierce Pharma.

                            As initial demand for its COVID vaccine subsides, the company could make significant profits by charging higher prices and implementing routine booster doses for new variants of the virus, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told analysts, big banks and investors during the February earnings call.

                            During the Barclays’ Global Health Conference, D’Amelio said the company doesn’t see this as a one-time event, but “as something that’s going to continue for the foreseeable future.”

                            Pfizer has already launched a study of a third vaccine dose to address variants, called for annual boosters and told investors to expect a revenue stream similar to flu vaccines.

                            “Every year, you need to go get your flu vaccine,” Bourla said. “It’s going to be the same with COVID. In a year, you will have to go and get your annual shot for COVID to be protected.”

                            That will mean even more sales — and more profits — from the vaccine, reported WRCBtv, a CBS subsidiary.

                            According to Forbes, some critics say the dramatic increase in the cost of the vaccine is a “bait and switch” operation that could result in Pfizer being called to Capitol Hill to justify the expense to the American public.

                            But the drugmaker isn’t alone in viewing vaccine pricing differently during the pandemic. J&J and AstraZeneca have each pledged to sell their vaccines at cost during the pandemic with the contractual right to deem the pandemic “over” in July 2021, paving the way for price increases, reported the Financial Times.

                            Moderna indicated it may raise prices after the pandemic turns into an endemic. During a House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing last summer, manufacturers were asked whether they would sell the vaccine at cost.

                            Moderna said it would not sell its vaccine at cost, despite the fact that development and manufacturing of the vaccine was almost entirely funded by U.S. tax dollars. Moderna subsequently earned an award for the “worst example of profiteering and dysfunction in healthcare” by the Lown Institute in Boston.

                            Like Pfizer, rival Moderna is poised to make billions from its COVID vaccine. As of mid-January, Moderna had secured $11.7 billion in advance purchase orders from various governments and organizations, and the company was in the process of negotiating more deals, according to Fierce Pharma.

                            Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in an interview the company could join the ranks of the largest vaccine players by revenue this year.

                            Unlike Moderna, “Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine development and manufacturing costs have been entirely self-funded, with billions of dollars already invested at risk,” the company said in a Nov. 16, 2020 press release.

                            Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, a physician-fellow in the Yale National Clinicians Scholars Program testified last month before U.S. lawmakers about vaccine pricing and the refusal of the government and drug manufacturers to reveal information about the arrangements they’ve reached around their vaccines.

                            In an interview with YaleNews, Ramachandran explained that when Pfizer moves away from “pandemic pricing” and towards price points that are in line with other vaccines it has on the market, at $150 or $175 per dose, insurance companies will have to shoulder the cost and they’ll pass it down to the public through insurance premiums.

                            We’ve already seen this with flu vaccines –– “a publicly funded vaccine technology has continued to increase in price over the past two decades with significant impacts on our public health program budgets and our insurance premiums,” Ramachandran said. “It’s not the companies that have taken on the risk of developing and manufacturing vaccines. It’s the American people.”
                            Originally posted by PeeZones
                            Kai is a top ten lottery pick come draft day and the best team for him is the spurs...Kai is way more skilled OFFENSIVELY than duncan, yao, aldridge, kp. etc..Kai is way better offensively than Porzingis by a mile...Kareem isnt really way far than Kai..decent bball IQ for both MJ and Kobe but Kai belongs to the highly skilled and high IQ players...I see talent clearly and they cant.

                            Comment


                            • I'd rather listen to this KIWI doctor than another "kiwi" in here when it comes to this issue:

                              COVID 19 - BEHIND THE PCR CURTAIN

                              Originally posted by PeeZones
                              Kai is a top ten lottery pick come draft day and the best team for him is the spurs...Kai is way more skilled OFFENSIVELY than duncan, yao, aldridge, kp. etc..Kai is way better offensively than Porzingis by a mile...Kareem isnt really way far than Kai..decent bball IQ for both MJ and Kobe but Kai belongs to the highly skilled and high IQ players...I see talent clearly and they cant.

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