Fighting real misinformation from…the government

The U.S. surgeon general sent a message to all 50 states asking for examples of misinformation on COVID during the pandemic. Here was what the surgeon general was expecting: long lists of local social media posts from deplorable people who dared to question the official government narrative.

In the case of at least one brilliant attorney general from the state of Indiana, however, what the surgeon general got was a long list of the misinformation and disinformation peddled by the U.S. federal government. Collaborating with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Senior Research Fellow at the Brownstone Institute and former Professor at Harvard University School of Medicine, Indiana Atty General Todd Rokita detailed a few of the most egregious examples of misinformation from the government.

(It might be worth pointing out that M* has discussed many of these issues since the beginning of the pandemic, so it is nice to see our perspective corroborated).

1 Overcounting COVID-19: The official CDC numbers for COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations are inaccurate. The official tallies include many people who have died with rather than from COVID-19. CDC has not distinguished deaths where COVID-19 was the primary cause of death, where COVID-19 was a contributing cause of death, or where the death was entirely unrelated to COVID-19, but they incidentally
tested positive. There are three reasons for this problem. (i) The counting of COVID-19 cases and deaths is unlike the way that public health counts the incidence and mortality caused by other diseases; physicians have been
advised to fill out death certificates to privilege COVID-19 as a proximal cause, even when the medical facts suggest otherwise. (ii) The population-wide testing to identify asymptomatic individuals infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus is unprecedented in human history. (iii) Although it would have been easy, CDC has not conducted random national surveys of medical charts to determine what proportion of reported
COVID-19 deaths were truly due to COVID-19. Ex-post audits of death certificates and medical records in Santa Clara County and Alameda County, California, for instance, found that in ~25% of death certificates in which COVID-19 was labeled as the primary cause of death, other causes of death were more likely.

2 Questioning Natural Immunity: There has been consistent questioning and denying of natural immunity after COVID-19 recovery. Using seriously flawed studies, CDC falsely claimed that natural immunity is worse than vaccine acquired immunity.
In October 2020, the CDC director published a “memorandum” in The Lancet, questioning natural immunity. Most critically, by mandating vaccination
for people who have recovered from COVID-19, the government, corporations, and universities de facto deny natural immunity. For scientists, this has been the most surprising disinformation. We have known about natural immunity
since the Athenian Plague in 430 BC; other coronaviruses generate natural immunity; and throughout the pandemic, we knew that the COVID-19 recovered have good natural immunity if and when they get exposed the next time.

3 COVID-19 Vaccines Prevent Transmission: The CDC director and other health officials falsely claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine prevents the transmission of COVID-19 to others. This was also the rationale for vaccine mandates and passports — to prevent the spread of the virus to others.

4 School Closures Were Effective and Costless: In the United States, most schools were closed for in person teaching for some time, and many schools were closed for over a year. This decision was based on false claims that it would protect children, teachers, and the community at large. Already in the early summer of 2020, we knew this was false. Sweden was the only major Western country to keep schools
open throughout spring 2020 without masks, social distancing, or testing. Among these 1.8 million children ages 1 to 15, there were zero COVID-19 deaths, only a few hospitalizations, and teachers did not have a higher COVID-19 risk than the average of other professions.

5 Everyone is equally at risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19 infection: Though public health messaging has blunted this fact, there is more than a thousand-fold difference in the risk of hospitalization and death for the old relative to the young. Though the risk of death is high for the old and some other vulnerable populations with severe chronic illness, the risk posed to children from COVID-19 infection is on par with the risk posed by a bad influenza season. Surveys indicate, however,
that both old and young overestimate the risk of death from COVID-19 infection.14 This misperception about risk is harmful because it leads to demand for policies – such as school closures and lockdowns – that were themselves harmful.

6 There was no reasonable policy alternative to lockdowns: Even from the beginning of the pandemic, the sharp age-gradient in the risk of severe disease on COVID-19 infection has provided an alternative to the lockdown-focused policies that many U.S. states adopted – focused protection of the aged and otherwise vulnerable. In October 2020, along with Prof. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, we wrote the Great Barrington Declaration – a public petition that proposed heightened measures to protect the vulnerable and a return to near-normal life for the less vulnerable (including the opening of schools). Tens of thousands of doctors and scientists signed the Declaration in opposition to lockdowns.

7 Mask mandates are effective in reducing the spread of viral infectious diseases: Contrary to assertions by some public health officials, mask mandates have not been effective in protecting most populations against COVID-19 risk.18 The SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads by aerosolization. Unlike larger viral droplets, which are pulled by gravity to the ground shortly after emission, aerosols are tiny particles that
can persist in the air for extended periods. Aerosols escape through gaps of poorly fitted masks, greatly reducing their ability to stop disease spread. Cloth masks, in particular, cannot stop aerosols, and even well-fitted N95 masks have diminished capacity to stop viral transmission when they become moist from breathing.

8 Mass testing of asymptomatic individuals and contact tracing of positive cases is effective in reducing disease spread: Mass testing of asymptomatic individuals with contact tracing and quarantining of people who test positive has failed to substantively slow the progress of the epidemic and has imposed great costs on people who were quarantined even though they posed no risk of infecting others.

9 The eradication of COVID-19 is a feasible goal: Throughout the pandemic, from “two weeks to flatten the curve” and onwards, the suppression of the spread of COVID-19 has been an explicit policy goal. Implicitly, public health leaders have made the suppression of COVID-19 spread to near-zero levels the endpoint of the pandemic. However, SARS-CoV-2 has none of the characteristics of a disease that can be eradicated.

As the Indiana Attorney General pointed out: “For two years, the government forced us to stay in our homes, cover our faces, and keep our kids home from school. We were expected to blindly follow and obey these public health orders and not question the wisdom of unelected officials. Families across Indiana and across the nation demand the truth.”  

The truth is that many government offices, from the CDC to the FDA to the NIH, spent the entire pandemic peddling misinformation. In many cases, this misinformation involved blatant lies that the purveyors of the misinformation knew to be untrue. And in a classic case of projection, officials from these offices accused people trying to tell the truth about the pandemic of being the sources of “misinformation” when they cited real scientific data contradicting the government lies.

Why would government officials do this to us? That is the subject of a future post, but in the meantime you may want to ponder the fact that government health officials received millions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies who benefited directly from the COVID vaccines. If the government pushes panic rather than science, more people are going to get vaccinated, and Big Pharma makes billions. So, yes, there is a secret combination to get gain, and it involves government officials and the companies they are supposed to be regulating. Shameful.

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About Geoff B.

Geoff B graduated from Stanford University (class of 1985) and worked in journalism for several years until about 1992, when he took up his second career in telecommunications sales. He has held many callings in the Church, but his favorite calling is father and husband. Geoff is active in martial arts and loves hiking and skiing. Geoff has five children and lives in Colorado.

6 thoughts on “Fighting real misinformation from…the government

  1. Thank you Geoff.

    As I post this, the following article is available on the NIH government server. The first sentence should get everyone’s attention:

    “The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most manipulated infectious disease events in history, characterized by official lies in an unending stream lead by government bureaucracies, medical associations, medical boards, the media, and international agencies.”

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9062939/

  2. Disciple, thanks, from the article you linked: “Neither Anthony Fauci, the CDC, WHO nor any medical governmental establishment has ever offered any early treatment other than Tylenol, hydration and call an ambulance once you have difficulty breathing. This is unprecedented in the entire history of medical care as early treatment of infections is critical to saving lives and preventing severe complications. Not only have these medical organizations and federal lapdogs not even suggested early treatment, they attacked anyone who attempted to initiate such treatment with all the weapons at their disposal—loss of license, removal of hospital privileges, shaming, destruction of reputations and even arrest.”

    Doesn’t it seem strange that this is the case? Let’s take the simple issue of Vitamin D, which is a very uncontroversial thing to suggest and has been proven in hundreds of studies to have the ability to improve immune response. Why did we almost never hear about taking more Vitamin D from federal authorities during the pandemic? I believe it is safe to say that these federal authorities are guilty of mass murder in the way that they discouraged preventative protocols.

    Mike, yeah, the Ministry of Truth has been stopped for now, thank goodness, but as I have written many times maintaining liberty takes constant vigilance.

  3. I am begging readers to take a look at this link also, as well as reading the links from my OP and the link from A Disciple above. Please read this:

    https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/bombshell-majority-of-vaccinated?r=o9gag&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

    ========================
    A week ago, the “Global Covid Summit” convened with luminaries like Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Peter McCullough, and Dr. Ryan Cole leading the event. Over 17,000 scientists and doctors signed a joint statement that you simply must read.

    Here are some highlights from the joint statement:

    We, the physicians and medical scientists of the world, united through our loyalty to the Hippocratic Oath, recognize that the disastrous COVID-19 public health policies imposed on doctors and our patients are the culmination of a corrupt medical alliance of pharmaceutical, insurance, and healthcare institutions, along with the financial trusts which control them. They have infiltrated our medical system at every level, and are protected and supported by a parallel alliance of big tech, media, academics and government agencies who profited from this orchestrated catastrophe.

    This corrupt alliance has compromised the integrity of our most prestigious medical societies to which we belong, generating an illusion of scientific consensus by substituting truth with propaganda. This alliance continues to advance unscientific claims by censoring data, and intimidating and firing doctors and scientists for simply publishing actual clinical results or treating their patients with proven, life-saving medicine. These catastrophic decisions came at the expense of the innocent, who are forced to suffer health damage and death caused by intentionally withholding critical and time-sensitive treatments, or as a result of coerced genetic therapy injections, which are neither safe nor effective.

    The medical community has denied patients the fundamental human right to provide true informed consent for the experimental COVID-19 injections. Our patients are also blocked from obtaining the information necessary to understand risks and benefits of vaccines, and their alternatives, due to widespread censorship and propaganda spread by governments, public health officials and media. Patients continue to be subjected to forced lock-downs which harm their health, careers and children’s education, and damage social and family bonds critical to civil society. This is not a coincidence. In the book entitled “COVID-19: The Great Reset”, leadership of this alliance has clearly stated their intention is to leverage COVID-19 as an “opportunity” to reset our entire global society, culture, political structures, and economy.

    In addition, the group made a list of ten declarations:

    1. We declare and the data confirm that the COVID-19 experimental genetic therapy injections must end.

    2. We declare doctors should not be blocked from providing life-saving medical treatment.

    3. We declare the state of national emergency, which facilitates corruption and extends the pandemic, should be immediately terminated.

    4. We declare medical privacy should never again be violated, and all travel and social restrictions must cease.

    5. We declare masks are not and have never been effective protection against an airborne respiratory virus in the community setting.

    6. We declare funding and research must be established for vaccination damage, death and suffering.

    7. We declare no opportunity should be denied, including education, career, military service or medical treatment, over unwillingness to take an injection.

    8. We declare that first amendment violations and medical censorship by government, technology and media companies should cease, and the Bill of Rights be upheld.

    9. We declare that Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech, Janssen, Astra Zeneca, and their enablers, withheld and willfully omitted safety and effectiveness information from patients and physicians, and should be immediately indicted for fraud.

    10. We declare government and medical agencies must be held accountable.
    ==========================================

    People, this is not a fringe group. These are 17000 concerned professionals. Open your eyes.

  4. I frequent an endurance fitness forum and I see an increasing amount of posts with people with immune issues, poor recovery from covid, even bloody urine, heart issues, sudden onset of poor performance etc. And they nearly all say they are triple vaxed.

    But none will accept that their cure might be the disease.

    It’s a real tragedy and there’s nothing we can do as they not only won’t listen but become outright hostile with denials and angry assertions that studies show otherwise.

    Will these crimes ever be acknowledged?

  5. Great points. Relatedly, do we still believe that “[a]vailable vaccines have proven to be both safe and effective?”

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