Coronavirus: Thread

[grarpamp]

How Can We Trust Institutions That Lied?

Trust the Authorities, trust the Experts, and trust the Science, we were told.

https://brownstone.org/articles/how-can-we-trust-institutions-that-lied/

Public health messaging during the Covid-19 pandemic was only credible
if it originated from government health authorities, the World Health
Organization, and pharmaceutical companies, as well as scientists who
parroted their lines with little critical thinking.

In the name of ‘protecting’ the public, the authorities have gone to
great lengths, as described in the recently released Twitter Files
(1,2,3,4,5,6,7) that document collusion between the FBI and social
media platforms, to create an illusion of consensus about the
appropriate response to Covid-19.

They suppressed ‘the truth,’ even when emanating from highly credible
scientists, undermining scientific debate and preventing the
correction of scientific errors. In fact, an entire bureaucracy of
censorship has been created, ostensibly to deal with so-called MDM—
misinformation (false information resulting from human error with no
intention of harm); disinformation (information intended to mislead
and manipulate); malinformation (accurate information intended to
harm).

>From fact-checkers like NewsGuard, to the European Commission’s
Digital Services Act, the UK Online Safety Bill and the BBC Trusted
News Initiative, as well as Big Tech and social media, all eyes are on
the public to curtail their ‘mis-/dis-information.’

    “Whether it’s a threat to our health or a threat to our democracy,
there is a human cost to disinformation.” — Tim Davie,
Director-General of the BBC

But is it possible that ‘trusted’ institutions could pose a far bigger
threat to society by disseminating false information?

Although the problem of spreading false information is usually
conceived of as emanating from the public, during the Covid-19
pandemic, governments, corporations, supranational organisations and
even scientific journals and  academic institutions have contributed
to a false narrative.

Falsehoods such as ‘Lockdowns save lives’ and ‘No one is safe until
everyone is safe’ have far-reaching costs in livelihoods and lives.
Institutional false information during the pandemic was rampant. Below
is just a sample by way of illustration.

The health authorities falsely convinced the public that the Covid-19
vaccines stop infection and transmission when the manufacturers never
even tested these outcomes. The CDC changed its definition of
vaccination to be more ‘inclusive’ of the novel mRNA technology
vaccines. Instead of the vaccines being expected to produce immunity,
now it was good enough to produce protection.

The authorities also repeated the mantra (at 16:55) of ‘safe and
effective’ throughout the pandemic despite emerging evidence of
vaccine harm. The FDA refused the full release of documents they had
reviewed in 108 days when granting the vaccines emergency use
authorisation. Then in response to a Freedom of Information Act
request, it attempted to delay their release for up to 75 years. These
documents presented evidence of vaccine adverse events. It’s important
to note that between 50 and 96 percent of the funding of drug
regulatory agencies around the world comes from Big Pharma in the form
of grants or user fees. Can we disregard that it’s difficult to bite
the hand that feeds you?

The vaccine manufacturers claimed high levels of vaccine efficacy in
terms of relative risk reduction (between 67 and 95 percent). They
failed, however, to share with the public the more reliable measure of
absolute risk reduction that was only around 1 percent, thereby
exaggerating the expected benefit of these vaccines.

They also claimed “no serious safety concerns observed” despite their
own post-authorisation safety report revealing multiple serious
adverse events, some lethal. The manufacturers also failed to publicly
address the immune suppression during the two weeks post-vaccination
and the rapidly waning vaccine effectiveness that turns negative at 6
months or the increased risk of infection with each additional
booster. Lack of transparency about this vital information denied
people their right to informed consent.

They also claimed that natural immunity is not protective enough and
that hybrid immunity (a combination of natural immunity and
vaccination) is required. This false information was necessary to sell
remaining stocks of their products in the face of mounting
breakthrough cases (infection despite vaccination).

In reality, although natural immunity may not completely prevent
future infection with SARS-CoV-2, it is however effective in
preventing severe symptoms and deaths. Thus vaccination post-natural
infection is not needed.

The WHO also participated in falsely informing the public. It
disregarded its own pre-pandemic plans, and denied that lockdowns and
masks are ineffective at saving lives and have a net harm on public
health. It also promoted mass vaccination in contradiction to the
public health principle of ‘interventions based on individual needs.’

It also went as far as excluding natural immunity from its definition
of herd immunity and claimed that only vaccines can help reach this
end point. This was later reversed under pressure from the scientific
community. Again, at least 20 percent of the WHO’s funding comes from
Big Pharma and philanthropists invested in pharmaceuticals. Is this a
case of he who pays the piper calls the tune?

The Lancet, a respectable medical journal, published a paper claiming
that Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) — a repurposed drug used for the
treatment of Covid-19 —  was associated with a slight increased risk
of death. This led the FDA to ban the use of HCQ to treat Covid-19
patients and the NIH to halt the clinical trials on HCQ as a potential
Covid-19 treatment. These were drastic measures taken on the basis of
a study that was later retracted due to the emergence of evidence
showing that the data used was false.

In another instance, the medical journal Current Problems in
Cardiology retracted —without any justification— a paper showing an
increased risk of myocarditis in young people following the Covid-19
vaccines, after it was peer-reviewed and published. The authors
advocated for the precautionary principle in the vaccination of young
people and called for more pharmacovigilance studies to assess the
safety of the vaccines. Erasing such findings from the medical
literature not only prevents science from taking its natural course,
but it also gatekeeps important information from the public.

A similar story took place with Ivermectin, another drug used for the
treatment of Covdi-19, this time potentially implicating academia.
Andrew Hill stated (at 5:15) that the conclusion of his paper on
Ivermectin was influenced by Unitaid which is, coincidentally, the
main funder of a new research centre at Hill’s workplace —the
University of Liverpool. His meta-analysis showed that Ivermectin
reduced mortality with Covid-19 by 75 percent. Instead of supporting
Ivermectin use as a Covid-19 treatment, he concluded that further
studies were needed.

The suppression of potentially life-saving treatments was instrumental
for the emergency use authorization of the Covid-19 vaccines as the
absence of a treatment for the disease is a condition for EUA (p.3).

Many media outlets are also guilty of sharing false information. This
was in the form of biased reporting, or by accepting to be a platform
for public relations (PR) campaigns. PR is an innocuous word for
propaganda or the art of sharing information to influence public
opinion in the service of special interest groups.

The danger of PR is that it passes for independent journalistic
opinion to the untrained eye. PR campaigns aim to sensationalise
scientific findings, possibly to increase consumer uptake of a given
therapeutic, increase funding for similar research, or to increase
stock prices. The pharmaceutical companies spent $6.88 billion on TV
advertisements in 2021 in the US alone. Is it possible that this
funding influenced media reporting during the Covid-19 pandemic?

Lack of integrity and conflicts of interest have led to an
unprecedented institutional false information pandemic. It is up to
the public to determine whether the above are instances of mis- or
dis-information.

Public trust in the Media has seen its biggest drop over the last five
years. Many are also waking up to the widespread institutional false
information. The public can no longer trust ‘authoritative’
institutions that were expected to look after their interests. This
lesson was learned at great cost. Many lives were lost due to the
suppression of early treatment and an unsound vaccination policy;
businesses ruined; jobs destroyed; educational achievement regressed;
poverty aggravated; and both physical and mental health outcomes
worsened. A preventable mass disaster.

We have a choice: either we continue to passively accept institutional
false information or we resist. What are the checks and balances that
we must put in place to reduce conflicts of interest in public health
and research institutions? How can we decentralise the media and
academic journals in order to reduce the influence of pharmaceutical
advertising on their editorial policy?

As individuals, how can we improve our media literacy to become more
critical consumers of information? There is nothing that dispels false
narratives better than personal inquiry and critical thinking. So the
next time conflicted institutions cry woeful wolf or vicious variant
or catastrophic climate, we need to think twice.

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