If official numbers are to be believed, the
United States is one of the worst hit countries in terms of
COVID-19 infections and deaths. According to the US Center for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at the time of writing, there
are supposedly 19 million
COVID-19 cases with an alleged 300,000+ deaths suggesting
between a 1-2% chance of dying from COVID-19 if infected by
it.�
However, these numbers are problematic – even before
questioning the validity of the statistics themselves leading to
them.
For example, asymptomatic cases will likely go both
untested and unreported, meaning many more people are actually
being infected by COVID-19, exhibiting no symptoms, receiving no
treatment, and most certainly not making it into the CDC’s
“cases†statistics.
This means that your chances of being infected by
COVID-19 and dying are actually much, much less than the often
touted claim of 1-2%. Only those who exhibit severe enough symptoms
to be tested and/or treated will make it into the statistics of
“cases.â€
In terms of framing any pandemic, an exaggeration of
the lethality of the virus becomes a fundamental issue. If this
information by itself is carelessly or dishonestly presented to the
public without mention of the many more people likely being
infected and exhibiting no symptoms at all, panic can, and clearly
has been spread across society and the world, enabling extreme
policies to glide through approval, beginning the process of
disfigurement society now suffers today.
This was a fact highlighted by the work of Dr. John
Ioannidis who, even at the onset of COVID-19, attempted to raise
the alarm about needlessly stoking public hysteria, the folly of
driving public health policy without proper data, and the
catastrophic impact it would have – and is now clearly having –
on society if this trend isn’t reversed.
A video
interview conducted by Journeyman Pictures from April 2020
noted Dr. Ioannidis’ breakdown of data and the results of his own
studies conducted to illustrate exactly this. His study included
widespread serological (antibody) testing in Santa Clara County,
California to see how many individuals may have been infected by
COVID-19 but simply never exhibited symptoms, or symptoms serious
enough to seek medical attention and be tested for COVID-19.
Dr. Ioannidis would note:
If you compare the numbers that we estimate to have
been infected, which vary from 48,000-81,000, versus the number of
documented cases that would correspond to the same time horizon
around April 1st, when we had 956 cases documented in Santa Clara
County, we realize that the number of infected people is somewhere
between 50 and 85 times more compared to what we thought, compared
to what had been documented. Immediately, that means that the
infection fatality rate, the chance of dying, the probability of
dying, if you are infected, diminishes by 50-85 fold, because the
denominator in the calculation becomes 50-85 fold bigger. If you
take these numbers into account, they suggest that the infection
fatality rate for this new coronavirus is likely to be in the same
ballpark as seasonal influenza.
Dr. Ioannidis also
noted that there was a large gradient regarding death rates
based on age and underlying medical conditions, with the risk of
death for people under 65 with no underlying medical conditions
being virtually negligible.
The need for wider testing to fully establish mature
datasets – as Dr. Ioannidis and his team at Stanford illustrated
– and efforts to communicate to the public the difference between
the infection fatality ratio (IFR) and the case fatality ratio
(CFR), have been neglected by Western governments and even more so
by the Western corporate media. In some cases, efforts appear to be
being made to deliberately obfuscate or confuse this crucial
information in order to continue stoking panic and hysteria.
But in addition to this, there is the fact that
governments – particularly in the West – have been caught using
dubious or disorganized methods to tally COVID-19 deaths –
meaning that both IFR and CFR numbers could be easily skewed.
For example, British state-funded media outlet, the
BBC in an August 2020 article titled,
“Coronavirus: England death count review reduces UK toll by
5,000,†would admit:
A review of how deaths from coronavirus are counted in
England has reduced the UK death toll by more than 5,000, to
41,329, the government has announced.
The article also noted that:
Become an Activist Post Patron for just $1 per month at Patreon.
The new methodology for counting deaths means the
total number of people in the UK who have died from Covid-19 comes
down from 46,706 to 41,329 – a reduction of 12%.
The article revealed that Public Health England had
“included everyone who had tested positive [for
COVID-19], even if they died months afterwards and their death may
have had another cause.â€
Similar statistical gymnastics are being performed in
the US. Even The New York Times raised the issue fairly early on in
article, “Is the Coronavirus Death Tally Inflated? Here’s
Why Experts Say No,†clearly inferring that there may be a
problem with the official methodology, and went on to explain
throughout the article how it is impossible to ever know since
accurate counts – or even accurate systems to use in counting –
may not presently exist in the US.
In other words: the current systems are less than
perfect and vulnerable to systemic distortions in the presentation
of data. Again, this is a fundamental issue when public health
policy is based on the perceived severity of the epidemic.
The Real Impact of COVID-19
Based on what were clearly misused and incomplete
statistics, the US, the UK, and much of Western Europe have led the
world in stoking unprecedented hysteria, enforcing travel
restrictions and lockdowns, including the closing of businesses and
schools, and grinding the economies of the world to a halt either
directly or indirectly – in a manner similar to but with an
impact much greater than the US-led global “War on Terrorâ€
starting in 2001.
RELATED:
UK ‘Variant Fears’ Are Over-Hyped Says Leading US
Microbiologist
Pressure from “international organizations†like
the World Health Organization (WHO) using its UN-affiliated
platform to declare a “global
pandemic,†along with Western governments and the
corporations that dominate foreign and domestic policy, has created
a global crisis – not in terms of human health, but in terms of
socioeconomics.
Businesses are closed – not because those who
regularly run or patronize them are in hospital beds or dead –
but by order of governments, and with official policy backing from
organizations like the WHO.
The mainstream media has played a key role in this –
not only repeating narratives provided by governments and
healthcare institutions uncritically, but refusing to fulfill their
role as watchdogs and investigators searching out impropriety.
It is a state of hysteria that is crippling small and
medium-sized businesses (SME), but a boon to big-business.
Headlines from papers like the Wall Street Journal
admit, “Big Tech Companies Reap Gains as Covid-19 Fuels Shift
in Demand,†or as the Guardian
reported, “Amazon third-quarter earnings soar as pandemic
sales triple profits,†make it clear that some big-businesses are
profiting from the hysteria.
Moreover, the Guardian
report, “The mystery of which US businesses are profiting
from the coronavirus bailout,†reveals how struggling
big-businesses are being bailed out by government money – while
the SME sector, the real pulse of any vibrant economy and society
– is being left behind.
But there is one industry who stands out above all
others to benefit, an industry notorious for its deeply rooted
corruption, and an industry that has already been caught using its
ties with international organizations like the WHO to declare
pandemics, stoke hysteria, and profit handsomely from the resulting
chaos.
It’s the West’s pharmaceutical industry.
At no time in human history has it been more powerful
and influential than it is now. And at no other time in human
history has it been so dangerous.
Big-Pharma: The Least Trustworthy Pandemic Partner
Western Big-Pharma’s profiteering and corruption
under ordinary circumstances is already shocking. The current
climate of public confusion, panic, and growing socioeconomic
desperation only invites the industry’s impropriety to new
levels.
Pharmaceutical corporations like Pfizer, Johnson &
Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Moderna – having received billions of
dollars directly or indirectly from taxpayers to develop COVID-19
vaccines – have long, documented histories of corruption,
including bribing regulators, doctors, and governments.
They have also been caught falsifying safety and
efficacy data. They have promoted the use of their products for
patients in cases not approved of by regulators, including on
children.
They have even been caught knowingly selling products
they knew were dangerous or even deadly – withholding critical
information from both regulators and the public.
Pfizer alone – as its COVID-19 vaccine began rolling
out publicly – was under investigation this year, according to
its own Security Exchange Commission (SEC)
filing, for its Greenstone generics business over antitrust
concerns, for manufacturing issues regarding Quillivant XR,
regarding quality issues over the manufacturing of auto-injectors,
over corruption inquiries regarding its Russian and Chinese
operations, and in regards to lawsuits in Mexico over the
manufacturing of Zantac and a cancer-causing chemical called
N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) found in the product.
The investigation regarding Zantac finally prompted
the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – who had originally
approved the drug – to
request it be pulled from the market after finding it is indeed
linked to an increased likelihood of causing cancer.
The Wall Street Journal in a 2020
article titled, “Pfizer Receives Inquiry From SEC Bribery
Unit,†would note of Pfizer’s past scandals that:
Pfizer has had past run-ins with U.S. authorities over
allegations of bribery among its operations abroad. The company in
2012 agreed to pay $60.2 million to settle investigations by the
SEC and the Justice Department into alleged violations of the FCPA
in several countries in Europe and Asia, including China and
Russia.
The US Department of Justice in its own statement
regarding part of the 2012 payout by Pfizer would note:
According to court documents,
Pfizer H.C.P. made a broad range of improper payments to
numerous government officials in Bulgaria, Croatia, Kazakhstan and
Russia – including hospital administrators, members of regulatory
and purchasing committees and other health care professionals –
and sought to improperly influence government decisions in these
countries regarding the approval and registration of Pfizer Inc.
products, the award of pharmaceutical tenders and the level of
sales of Pfizer Inc. products. According to court documents,
Pfizer H.C.P. used numerous mechanisms to improperly influence
government officials, including sham consulting contracts, an
exclusive distributorship and improper travel and cash
payments.
Such bribery might help explain why Pfizer and other
pharmaceutical corporations are able to sell dangerous products
like cancer-causing Zantac or – in the case of fellow COVID-19
vaccine producer Johnson and Johnson – cancer-causing baby powder
– for years before mounting lawsuits and public outrage spur
regulators to finally do their job properly.
In Johnson & Johnson’s case, a Reuters
investigation
would note (emphasis added):
Facing thousands of lawsuits alleging that its talc
caused cancer, J&J insists on the safety and purity of its
iconic product. But internal documents examined by Reuters show
that the company’s powder was sometimes tainted with
carcinogenic asbestos and that J&J kept that information from
regulators and the public.
What this illustrates is a consistent pattern of
corruption stretching across Pfizer’s (and Johnson &
Johnson’s) manufacturing process to their business practices and
spanning years. It is an entire industry that repeatedly engages in
dangerous impropriety, is repeatedly investigated and fined, but
allowed to not only continue conducting business – but is still
entrusted with matters critical to public healthcare.
The implications it has for the process of developing,
approving, producing, and distributing vaccines for COVID-19 should
be obvious.
The 2009 H1N1 “Heistâ€
Despite the immense amount of publicly-known
corruption engaged in by the Western pharmaceutical industry and
the obviously troubling implications it has for the current
COVID-19 vaccine rollout – it is only one dimension of a much
wider problem.
There is also the Western pharmaceutical industry’s
known history of creating public scares to attract massive
government contracts and wield power and influence over public
discourse regarding human healthcare issues.
The same large corporate media outlets today helping
fuel public hysteria regarding COVID-19 and promoting
big-pharma’s vaccine rollout had previously reported on past
instances of big-pharma crying “pandemic,†using its influence
over international organizations like the WHO, and securing massive
government contracts worth billions of dollars for unnecessary and
ineffective medication and vaccines.
Think back to 2009 and the H1N1 “Swine Flu†scare.
Following the WHO’s
dramatic declaration of a “global pandemic,†the headlines
and articles from the mainstream Western media read almost
identical to those being circulated today regarding COVID-19.
NPR in a 2009
article would claim:
Seven months into the flu pandemic of 2009, North
America leads the world in cases, the WHO says.Unlike elsewhere, the new H1N1 never exited stage left
after its debut appearance in late April. In fact, it’s making
more noise than ever. Mexico has experienced more cases of pandemic
flu since September than it did over the first four months of the
pandemic this spring.
The ratcheting up of hysteria continued both from the
WHO and across the Western media, accompanied by drives to fund
vaccine development and stockpile medication like Roche’s
Tamiflu.
The UK Daily Mail in a 2009
article titled, “Tamiflu: What you MUST know as swine flu
threatens to strike,†would claim:
The Government has announced that stocks of drugs –
known as antivirals – to fight the imminent threat of a swine flu
pandemic are being built up to cover more than 50million people –
or 80 per cent of the country’s population.
But as hysteria faded, the truth emerged. Articles
began to appear like this one from Reuters in 2014 titled,
“Stockpiles of Roche Tamiflu drug are waste of money, review
finds,†which
noted:
Researchers who have fought for years to get full data
on Roche’s flu medicine Tamiflu said on Thursday that governments
who stockpile it are wasting billions of dollars on a drug whose
effectiveness is in doubt.
The article also pointed out:
Tamiflu sales hit almost $3 billion in 2009 – mostly
due to its use in the H1N1 flu pandemic – but they have since
declined.
There were also Roche’s financial ties to WHO
experts who designated the appearance of H1N1 as a “pandemic,â€
helping pave the way for the public hysteria required to fuel
Roche’s profits from selling what was essentially a useless drug
to government stockpiles.
The BBC in their 2010 article, “WHO swine flu
experts ‘linked’ with drug companies,†would report:
Key scientists behind World Health Organization advice
on stockpiling of pandemic flu drugs had financial ties with
companies which stood to profit, an investigation has found.
Roche was mentioned by name by the BBC (emphasis
added):
The advice prompted many countries around the world
into buying up large stocks of Tamiflu, made by
Roche, and Relenza manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.
Despite these revelations post-H1N1 after 2009, the
very same actors have taken the stage for a repeat performance in
2020 – with little to no alarm from the same media organizations
who ignored the H1N1 “heist†in 2009 and reluctantly reported
on it only long after the damage was done.
Big-Pharma’s Pandemic Industrial Complex
Over the past ten years – big pharma’s control
over the WHO and its influence over both the media and Western
governments has only grown.
Powerful organizations like the Wellcome Trust –
which claims to be an “independent foundation†funded through
an
investment portfolio – counts several large pharmaceutical
corporations – Novartis, Roche, Johnson & Johnson, and Abbott
Labs – on their list of “significant directly held public
equity holdings.â€
Its governance includes representatives
from the pharmaceutical industry, various Western governments,
academia, the media, and of course the WHO itself.
It is an institutionalization of the conflicting
interests that have tolerated, accommodated, even helped expand the
unwarranted power, wealth, influence, and corruption of big
pharma.
And while Wellcome Trust claims to be
“independent†of corporate and government ties, alongside the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – it has helped create another
front organization called The Coalition for Epidemic
Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) – through which it accepts
and disperses huge amounts of Western taxpayers’ money.
The work of CEPI directly impacts the business
prospects of many of the corporations Wellcome Trust owns stocks in
– with its investments paying off above average amid this most
recent round of public hysteria and government spending on this
latest declared pandemic.
International Publishers Limited in an
article titled, “Wellcome Trust ‘prospers’ under COVID-19
fallout with 12.3% return,†would report:
Wellcome Trust’s portfolio has not just survived,
but prospered, in the highly volatile environment following the
COVID-19 outbreak, according to Eliza Manningham-Buller, the
charity’s chair, introducing its annual report which unveiled a
12.3% return for the year to 30 September 2020, up on the 6.9% of
the previous year.The trust, which supports medical research worldwide,
is the UK’s largest charity, with a £29.1bn (€31.9bn)
portfolio at end-September 2020. Wellcome’s investments have
returned an average 12.1% a year over the past decade.
It’s worth noting that back in March, both Wellcome
and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided
$125 million in “seed funding†to accelerate certain
pharmaceutical products claiming to treat COVID-19, including
Gilead Science’s antiviral Remdesivir. Despite
failing repeatedly in clinical trials, and after the National
Institute of Health (NIH) was exposed
attempting to rewrite the rules in their attempt to salvage the
drug’s reputation as a viable therapeutic for COVID-19 –
Remdesivir was continually hyped in the media by Bill Gates and NIH
Director Anthony Fauci, and is
still defended by the WHO to this day.
It’s also important to note that as of 2020, the
number one funder of the World Health Organization is the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, who supplied the WHO with approximately
$531 million in its 2018-19 biennial budget, roughly 12% of
WHO’s total budget.
Unlike the H1N1 scare and multiple scandals that
emerged out from behind the smokescreen of public hysteria
deliberately created around it, the COVID-19..
