Sunday, December 12, 2021

"The inexplicable response of the Left to the Covid crisis: Why has it refused to confront the reality of the virus, why is it advocating for mass experimental injections and why is it advancing the cause of anti-democratic power interests and Big Pharma?" by Dave Duboff

 

The inexplicable response of the Left to the Covid crisis: Why has it refused to confront the reality of the virus, why is it advocating for mass experimental injections and why is it advancing the cause of anti-democratic power interests and Big Pharma?

Dave Duboff

Today we publish an article by Dave Duboff, Branch Chair for Southampton Shipping, RMT, who writes in a private capacity. This article was written before the implementation of Plan B on 8 December and the introduction of vaccine passports. We held back publication to offer two outlets mentioned here – the Morning Star and the Socialist Worker – the opportunity to comment in reply to the questions that Dave poses here. We haven’t received a formal response, but we hope we will in due course.

Introduction

I am writing this article in a private capacity, and in bewilderment over the Left’s complete lack of critical thinking with regard to the never-historically-used measures to deal with the respiratory virus SARS-CoV-2.

What strikes me is the complete lack of any analysis of risk/benefit ratios and the unprecedented rejection of traditional public health policy (that is, considering all impacts to society from a given policy), in favour of concentrating on a disease, which the data suggests has an Infection Fatality Rate that is anything but unprecedented.

If the initial response of anyone reading this is the juvenile ‘So you just want the virus to let rip‘,my retort would be the equally juvenile ’So you just want cancer, heart disease etc to let rip – and it looks like you have achieved that’.

There are many aspects of what we have witnessed over the last 20 months that raise serious questions, such as:

  • The dubious way the controversial PCR test can be abused by using inappropriate numbers of cycles
  • The way Covid deaths are recorded, a method which has never before been used for any disease
  • The ’collateral damage‘ of the 10s of millions of extra deaths in the developing world predicted by UN Agencies and charities due to increased hunger and the suspension of established vaccination campaigns that Establishment figures Right and Left try to blame on Covid – rather than facing up to the reality of what happens when countries with little or no welfare safety net and where so many work in the informal economy are locked down

However, I have chosen largely to concentrate, as a trade union activist and branch official, on three topics:

  1. The risks of the vaccines themselves, with regard to the expanding vaccine mandates for employment that threaten workers’ livelihoods
  2. The associated regulatory capture of public health regulatory bodies by private commercial interests which goes unchallenged by the Left and trade unions
  3. The suppression of cheap generic drugs to fight Covid-19 in Western countries, including the UK, that, along with the scandalous initial PPE situation, has, in my opinion, cost the lives of workers

Covid-19 vaccines and vaccine mandates

Some studies into the potential use of cheap repurposed generic drugs, such as the Oxford Recovery Trial into hydroxychloroquine, have attracted criticism as being deliberately ‘designed to fail’ by using them at the late hospitalised stage rather than early as utilised by physicians prescribing it around the world, and using doses way above accepted toxicity levels. Because these drugs have not performed well enough in these particular randomised control trials according to the regulators, they cannot be recommended even in low dosages for prophylactic or early-stage treatment purposes (more on this below).

However, when it comes to the fast tracked Covid-19 vaccines, the case is quite different and the ’precautionary principle‘ is non-existent. It is an irrefutable fact that the three Covid-19 vaccines widely available in the UK do not complete their Stage 3 three-year trials until:

It is also true that no successful coronavirus vaccine has ever previously been marketed, nor one that utilises the mRNA technology found in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. As such it is hard to argue that these Covid-19 vaccines, authorised under Emergency Use Approval rather than being fully licensed, are not essentially experimental.

It is also clear from our Yellow Card reporting system on vaccine adverse reactions, and its equivalents in the US (VAERS) and the EU (EudraVigilance), that the numbers of adverse reactions reported for the Covid-19 vaccines are unprecedented. What is also unprecedented is the fact that the ’roll out‘ across all age groups has continued on auto pilot rather than being discontinued, as would have been the case in the past.

Whilst the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) do point out that these reports might include factors such as underlying health conditions unrelated to the vaccine, it is noticeable that they choose not to do the same for deaths ‘within 28 days of a positive PCR test‘ on the same grounds. Either way, these reported adverse reactions are off the scale compared to any previous vaccine or pharmaceutical product rolled out to the general public.

It is also becoming evident that the effectiveness of these vaccines is coming under scrutiny, certainly in the sense of how long any protection actually lasts.

An August article from Israel, who are ahead of most countries in their vaccine ’roll out‘ and are now thinking of moving on to their fourth shot, shows an increasing number of ’fully vaccinated‘ people ending up in hospital with Covid-19.

Another study, published in the Lancet (and funded by Pfizer, so angling that the waning effectiveness of their product requires a ’booster‘ rather than a rethink) shows similar decreasing efficacy. There needs to be greater interest in the natural immunity acquired after infection, and on how it compares over time to that from vaccination, which in many studies are very favourable, such as this example from the US National Institute of Health (NIH). From many peer reviewed studies on the Covid vaccines, it appears that any effectiveness at reducing severe outcomes to disease are time limited, and the public will need never-ending boosters, a wet dream for Big Pharma.

But what about viral load and transmission for both vaccinated and unvaccinated, which seems to be the underlying basis for ’No Jab, No job‘ mandates by both governments and employers here and abroad?

Here too we find study after study suggesting there is little difference between fully vaccinated and unvaccinated. The case for these mandates and indeed the move towards disgusting, divisive and segregationist domestic Covid vaccine passports – discriminatory policies we are witnessing for the first time since the 1930s – is scientifically and medically, as well as ethically, untenable.

Questions I would pose to the so-called Left media outlets, trade unions and other labour movement organisations:

  • Why from a health and safety perspective, is it correct – given the huge number of adverse reactions to these vaccines being reported globally – that renowned scientists’ and medical practitioners’ warnings should be censored by big tech and mainstream media, when many of them are not even suggesting that the vulnerable should not take them on a calculated risk/benefit ratio but merely dispute the universal roll out, given the unknown longer term safety data and novel technology used?
  • Why are they not more robustly challenging the overt discrimination and increasing vilification by governments and the corporate mainstream media of people who choose not to take a new medical procedure with no long-term safety data, that has been shown not to prevent infection or transmission, may bestow only short-lived protection, with the only guaranteed immunity being that of those marketing them having no liability for adverse reactions?
  • From a health and safety and scientific perspective, what do they believe is the thought process and purpose behind those pushing the ’official narrative‘ doublethink, whether in government or mainstream media, that the vaccines offer people comprehensive, robust protection against Covid-19 unless they stand next to an unvaccinated/unprotected person?
  • The consensus on the Left, including trade unions, generally seems to have settled on a policy that recommends ’everyone that can should get a Covid-19 vaccine‘. Given the data from countries such as Israel which is now contemplating moving onto a fourth shot or ’booster‘, can it be clarified precisely how many Covid-19 vaccines they recommend everyone gets? Is the advice to get four, five, one every 6 months, or accept that you can be sacked from your job and ostracised by society?
  • Given that France has now joined Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland in banning the Moderna vaccine for younger adults under 30, is it now time for the Left media to start taking potential adverse reactions seriously and is it time for trade unions to now at least recommend their younger members do not get this particular jab?
  • Setting aside the ethical concerns regarding Covid vaccine mandates, from a health and safety perspective can you explain the logic in allowing unvaccinated frontline NHS staff to work during the busiest winter period until April, and then sack them on health and safety grounds? In my experience of health and safety in the workplace an act or hazard – certainly anything that would involve someone losing their job – is either dangerous or not dangerous. ’Yes it is dangerous, but we will allow it to continue for six months‘ doesn’t make any sense.  

Regulatory capture of national and supranational health bodies

In the UK the regulation and approval for pharmaceutical products, including vaccines, falls under the remit of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Its funding for the approval of vaccines and other medicines comes exclusively from the pharmaceutical companies applying for the licences, as stated on page 9 of their annual report (‘Medicines regulation is funded entirely from fees. In setting its fees the Agency takes account of full cost recovery rules as set out in HM Treasury’s Managing Public Money’) and in an August 2021 response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) Request (“The majority of our income comes from the pharmaceutical industry through fees”).

The same FOI response confirms that MHRA’s outside funding also comes from organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (‘We do receive funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well as other sources outside government such as WHO’) which holds shares in pharmaceutical corporations such as Pfizer and BioNTech. This funding of public health bodies by private commercial interests, whose products they are meant to regulate, is by no means confined to this country or indeed national bodies.

Questions are now being raised about the validity of Pfizer trial data and regulatory oversight in the US. A US Doctor very effectively dismantles the ‘Science’ behind and the findings of the Pfizer initial trials:

Given pharmaceutical corporations’ history of fraud, bribery and criminality this should not come as a surprise. Regulatory capture at the supranational level has also had alarm bells ringing for many years. At the first Union Regional Council Meeting convened during lockdown, I aired my opinion that the World Health Organization (WHO) was the most dangerous Public Private Partnership on the planet. Nothing since then has given me cause to change that opinion.

An article from January 2020 chronicles the gradual transformation of the WHO, over the past few decades, to an organisation primarily focused on the policy interests of its private donors via ‘Voluntary Contributions-Specified’ donations, which form the bulk of the organisation’s funding. It shows once again the ubiquitous BMGF as being the second highest donor/investor and outlines how it along with other contributors with or linked to private commercial interests effectively control WHO policy.

An interesting piece by the Colombia Journalism Review highlights how BMGF largesse is not confined to ‘buying up public health bodies’ whilst holding extensive shareholdings in pharmaceutical corporations, but details its donations to the mainstream media outlets globally, the implication being that those outlets would give the organisation’s often controversial activities an easy ride. So here are my questions for the so-called Left media outlets like the WSWS, Counterpunch, Morning Star and others:

  • Do you believe that public health and regulatory bodies’ conflicts of interests with Big Pharma prevented the use of cheap repurposed generic drugs in Western countries like the UK that were used elsewhere to good effect, and that this cost the lives of many people unnecessarily, including frontline workers? (Those same public health and regulatory bodies had no qualms authorising vaccines at ‘warp speed’ using new technology with zero long-term safety data and which have caused adverse reactions on an unprecedented scale.)
  • Are you comfortable with Big Pharma and tax-exempt ‘philanthropic’ behemoths like the BMGF using their funding of public health and regulatory bodies both nationally and supra-nationally, as an ‘investment’ to dictate policy and what also appears to be a revolving door between regulatory bodies and pharmaceutical corporations (something you have largely avoided talking about for the last 20 months)? 

Why does the Left line up behind patented drugs vs generic alternatives?

One of the most striking aspects of the debate surrounding the Covid response for the last 20 months is the failure of traditional Left publications and media sites to investigate and challenge why cheap and safe repurposed generic drugs used in many countries around the world as therapeutics for Covid-19, such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, were effectively blocked by most Western governments and medical authorities. Even vitamin D supplements were not recommended by public health officials in the UK until many months into the crisis.

There has been a deliberate attempt to smear the effectiveness of these treatments and the medical professionals advocating them by medical researchers with conflicts of interest and links to Big Pharma, in favour of expensive patented alternatives such as remdesivir and vaccines.

One key example would be the “Sugarsphere” study published in the Lancet on 22 May 2020, which effectively killed off any widespread usage of hydroxychloroquine in the West, despite the study being found to be blatantly fraudulent and retracted by the publication on 5 June 2020. The corporate mainstream media went into overdrive and the damage was done. Many countries that had been using hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine stopped, doubtless costing many lives. But some held firm, such as Morocco, where Health Minister Khalid Aït Taleb defended his country’s decision to continue using the drug at early onset of symptoms in its Covid-19 protocols (ignoring the WHO’s recommendations).

Although there are other reasons for different death rates, when you compare the statistics for deaths involving Covid-19 in Morocco with its former colonial master France just across the Mediterranean, which like other Western nations made sure therapeutics like hydroxychloroquine were not available, the difference is striking.

Source: Financial Times

The same battle has taken place between medical professionals treating Covid-19 using the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin and public health officials, or as many now view them, ‘politicians in white coats’, desperately trying to block its use in western countries. There were also the same infantile antics from mainstream media, insinuating that these frontline medical practitioners were recommending using the veterinary version of ivermectin. 

A meta-analysis consisting of over 60 studies, including randomised control trials, into the effectiveness of generic repurposed drug ivermectin in treatment of Covid-19 for 49,151 patients shows a 66% improvement across the board (which is not accepted by public health regulators). This compares very well with similar studies on patented drugs such as remdesivir (one study, 1,063 patients, 31% improvement) and now molnupiravir (one study, 775 patients, 50% improvement), which are accepted as proof of efficacy by those same health regulatory bodies.

Source: https://ivmmeta.com/

It is important to note that both hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin have been shown in meta-analyses to be most effective as prophylactics (i.e. protective measures) and early stage treatments against SARS-Cov-2. The meta-analyses that recommend against hydroxychloroquine, in line with WHO guidance, focus on studies of its use in high dosages for late-stage Covid-19 patients.

Here, the drug doesn’t perform well enough to warrant its recommendation.

However, the overall data shows its strong effectiveness as an early stage treatment, showing a 64% improvement on a control group in early stage patients: ‘HCQ is not effective when used very late with high dosages over a long period (RECOVERY/SOLIDARITY), effectiveness improves with earlier usage and improved dosing. Early treatment consistently shows positive effects.’

For ivermectin, it’s a similar story: the meta-analysis of early-stage treatment using this generic drug shows a 66% improvement and as a prophylactic, the improvement is 85% on the control group. The incredibly expensive patented drug remdesivir performs similarly: it produces small improvements in clinically ill patients that have led to recommendations against its use, too.

Governments, whether at national or state level, that have been employing early and safe dosages of these generic drugs (as a prophylactic and at early onset of symptoms) to lessen the impact of Covid outbreaks, against WHO advice, have achieved much better results than those that did not.

Perhaps the most illuminating illustration of its potential effectiveness is India, the supposed birthplace of the ‘Delta Variant’. Here, at the behest of the WHO’s chief scientist, ivermectin was taken off the early treatment protocols. However, as cases and hospitalisations rose, some states decided to reintroduce ivermectin in their Covid-19 response, and the difference between the outcomes for those states and those which stuck with the WHO’s recommendations are truly startling (see how low down Uttar Pradesh ranks in India’s Covid data). It comes as little surprise that the mainstream media in the West has decided to censor this reality, backed by fact checkers funded by Facebook who ruled the claim that ivermectin worked in states like Uttar Pradesh ‘false’ even whilst admitting the facts on the ground are true (‘The government did promote use of those drugs, and cases did fall, though the relationship between those events is unproven’).

We would expect the mainstream media to follow the Facebook fact-checkers, with their close links to Western governments. The real question is, why do publications such as the Morning Star and websites such as the WSWS appear to be doing the same?

It is clear that these repurposed generic drugs have had an effect on reducing hospitalisations and death from Covid 19 in countries across the globe, many with considerably less well-funded health services than their Western counterparts. It also seems clear that there has been a concerted effort in the West to ensure these treatments are not used, with health services like the NHS advising members of the public who contract Covid-19 to ‘Stay at Home’ and, if you cannot breathe, call an ambulance.

If we are still interested in critiquing the capitalist-controlled state, its institutions and media, then these are the questions I would pose to the left media outlets such as the Morning Star, Socialist Worker, World Socialist Website, and others:

  • Multiple studies, some of which are highlighted above, have shown that early-use therapeutic protocols using these generic treatments can cut serious outcomes from Covid-19 by around 70%  Even if it was half that figure, why from a health and safety perspective is it better for those that contract Covid-19 to stay at home until they need to be rushed to hospital, rather than, providing they have no contraindications, be given these cheap repurposed medications that have been in use globally for decades?
  • In this respect, what happened to the mantra of ‘if it saves one life’? The Left have used this mantra to support non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as cloth face coverings, the benefits of which have been shown to be largely non-existent (if not in fact detrimental), without any requirement for proof.
  • Are the Western Left unwittingly engaging in Rudyard Kipling’s ‘White Man’s Burden’ form of racism by implying that people like Moroccan Health Minister Taleb and the health boards of the Indian States that chose to ignore the WHO’s edicts on treatments do not know what they are talking about, despite their clearly superior outcomes with regard to Covid-19, than their better-funded counterparts in the West?

Final thoughts

At the beginning of April 2020, after we moved into lockdown, I suggested in correspondence with the chair of a local trades council that what we were witnessing was the biggest ‘full spectrum’ psychological assault on humanity by the ruling class in history. Nothing I have seen since has changed that opinion. It is the most blatant corporate fascist power grab, involving the capture of public health bodies by Big Pharma and associated entities such as the BMGF, the control of information and censorship by the mainstream media and Big Tech, and the effective shredding of all human rights conventions and legislation enacted since 1945. All allegedly to ‘control’ an airborne respiratory virus which Public Health England estimated has a 0.096% infection fatality rate when averaged across age groups and which was downgraded from high consequence infectious status (HCID) before the first lockdown.

Once you realise that the pandemic was for the vaccine and the vaccine was for the vax passport/digital ID control, everything we have witnessed, whether the suppression of cheap generic treatments, the sinister authoritarian push for universal vaccination and the statistical manipulation, falls into place.

This unprecedented response by governments, especially Western ones, to the emergence of a nasty but not uniquely dangerous pathogen has never been primarily about saving lives, but about furthering other agendas. They have used the virus to collapse their rigged, unsustainable economic system and force through the societal changes demanded by their corporate masters, in order to ‘Build Back Better’. Now they have effectively declared their hand with regard to the authoritarian, segregationist, censored, controlled and digitally surveilled society they wish to create, it might be a good time to decide to BUILD BACK WITHOUT THEM.

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