Collective paranoia
American narcissism
‘This long read essay by Rory Spowers is the best overview of our current situation I have found and a genuine contribution to collective sense-making, including many actionable items.’ Daniel Pinchbeck https://ecohustler.com/culture/is-the-virus-our-vaccine/
Why It’s Important To Push Back On ‘Plandemic’—And How To Do It
If You Found That ‘Plandemic’ Video Convincing, Read This Too
Was a Scientist Jailed After Discovering a Deadly Virus Delivered Through Vaccines?
Seen ‘Plandemic’? We Take A Close Look At The Viral Conspiracy Video’s Claims
A Wave Of Radicalized Influencers Is Mainstreaming COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories — HuffPost
Kay Montgomery, a Vanderbilt physician, offers this handy point-by-point rebuttal to “Plandemic” nonsense: “**EDITED TO ADD: I wrote this post to help my friends sort through misinformation and did not expect it to go viral. Several commenters have asked me to cite sources, and I agree that this is important to do. I still have a day job, but I have edited to include primary sources for all points when possible.**SECOND EDIT: People seem to not understand that PubMed (ncbi) is the international database for cataloguing medical research studies and instead think it only contains government-funded information or research. This is not the case. It is basically the Google of peer-reviewed research studies.**
*The following statements represent my personal informed views and not those of any institution*
First, background: I’m a physician (specifically a board-certified pathologist, which includes microbiology and laboratory medicine) with a master’s degree in epidemiology.
In the last day or two, several friends have shared or posted about a video “documentary” called “Plandemic”. The film depicts now-discredited former researcher Judy Mikovits who shares a plausible-sounding narrative about the current pandemic. The problem here is that nearly all of her scientific statements are demonstrably false. If you have more to add to this list, or credible data to the contrary, please start a discussion. I suspect there are many more false claims in this video, but these are just the ones that stuck out to me as a physician with epidemiology training.
– She states “There is no vaccine for any RNA virus that works.” Incorrect: Polio, hepatitis A, measles, to name a few. (Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4763971/)
– Her retracted paper was actually not about vaccines at all, even though she insinuates that it was. (Here is the article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19815723)
– She states that Ebola could not infect humans until it was engineered to do so in her laboratory. This is false. (Here is an article describing an outbreak of Ebola in 1976, long before Dr. Mikovits was conducting research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27357339)
– Likewise, many other zoonotic viruses have been shown to gain mutations that allow them to infect humans. This would not be some kind of new, crazy idea. We actually predicted it years ago: we just didn’t know exactly which virus or when it would occur. (Here is an article from 2015 discussing the likely emergence of future coronavirus pandemics: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4687304/ )
– She states that the US was working with Wuhan to study coronaviruses years ago, like it’s a “gotcha” moment: yes, of course we were doing this – Wuhan is a coronavirus hotspot and it makes sense to study this family of viruses where it naturally occurs. (Same article as above: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4687304/ )
– She states that COPD lungs are identical to COVID-19 lungs. As a pathologist, this is ludicrous – any practicing physician would be able to tell COPD from COVID-19, both clinically and histologically. (One article discussing an overview of tools for diagnosing COVID19 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7144809/, one about CT specifically https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7191895/, and one about histology specifically https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7184436/ )
– The statement taken out of context from the CDC death certificate recommendation reads in full “In cases where a definitive diagnosis of COVID-19 cannot be made, but is suspected or likely (the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as “probable” or “presumed”. In these instances, certifiers should use their best judgment in determining if a COVID-19 diagnosis was likely. Testing for COVID-19 should be conducted whenever possible.”. My physician colleagues are not being pressured to put COVID-19 on death certificates when it should not be there. (Here is the actual document with instructions for
filling out death certificates from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf )
– The idea that physicians are incorrectly diagnosing COVID-19 due to financial incentive is also ridiculous. Medicare sometimes bundles payments for some conditions (i.e. if you have a heart attack, medicare may pay XX for your treatment) – it’s possible the hospital could get paid $13,000 for your COVID-19 admission, but do you know what that’s based on? The fact that the average cost of a hospital admission for a respiratory condition is $13,297. (I can’t post a scientific study here, since this isn’t a scientific fact, but this article describes the procedure in detail: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-check-medicare-hospitals-paid-more-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/ )
– She states that hydroxychloroquine has been “extensively studied in this family of viruses” – in fact, it has not been studied well in coronaviruses. It HAS been studied in malaria, which is not a virus. (Here is the one study that was performed that people like to cite, and it is an in vitro study (not in humans), of SARS (not COVID-19), and chloroquine (not hydroxychloroquine): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/ ). And yes, it is considered an essential medicine for the treatment of malaria. Not for coronaviruses.
– Furthermore, the data on hydroxychloroquine are much weaker than they originally appeared: the small study that was highly publicized was not a randomized controlled trial, and the only patients who died were those who received hydroxychloroquine (and these were EXCLUDED FROM ANALYSIS!). This is terrible science. Even so, we want to investigate all possible treatments, so controlled trials are being conducted on hydroxychloroquine right now. (One study published on May 7 shows no benefit to using hydroxychloroquine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32379955 )
– She insinuates that there is a hydroxychloroquine shortage as a result of reduced production. In fact, the shortage has resulted from an increase in demand: people who take this medication regularly are writing extended prescriptions and because physicians are using it for COVID19 patients because they have nothing else to try. (https://jamanetwork.com/channels/health-forum/fullarticle/2764607?fbclid=IwAR2oKdwc0aZVFvkKUvw82r6XpnKeq0sFc1iIxqO4JdKscy-81mC6hkRQ6fs).
– “All flu vaccines contain coronaviruses”. Nope, absolutely false. (In fact, it’s so false based on the way vaccines are made that there are no studies specifically stating this claim. It would be like trying to conduct a study to examine whether humans can live with zero oxygen. Nope, we can’t. No study needed.)
– The ideas that sheltering in place somehow harms your immune system or that you may reactivate a virus in yourself by wearing a mask have been thoroughly debunked in other posts and I won’t get into the details here. Both national societies of emergency medicine have condemned the statements of these doctors, one of whom is not board-certified. (Please refer to Dr. Kasten’s post and others about these)
– Lastly, private companies removing false information from their platforms does not represent repression or promotion of propaganda. It’s helping to promote the spread of sound scientific information. If you think lies should be permitted to circulate freely alongside the truth with the intention of reaching people who won’t be able to tell the difference, you are part of the problem.”
| iIenzo1d |
I figured I could do a sentence-by-sentence fact check….I’m doing this per minute unless it gets better.
Here is the first minute:
- Regarding Judy Mikovits being called the ‘most accomplished scientist in her generation’. What I found is the statement quoting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. calling her such, as quoted in the following site: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/the-truth-about-fauci-featuring-dr-judy-mikovits/, which is owned by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and thus in all likelihood correctly attributed. Note here that Kennedy Jr. is not a scientist, but a lawyer and a known propagator of anti-vax theories (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr.#Early_life_and_education). No other source corroborating his quote was found.
- Her claim that her 1991 thesis ‘revolutionized’ HIV care seems unfounded. The article is here: https://www.pnas.org/content/88/21/9426/tab-article-info, and has been cited <25 times. While citations are not a direct representation of quality, it is safe to say the article had little to no impact if it has been cited so rarely. For comparison, her acclaimed paper in Science was cited 690 times.
- She has only one article published in Science: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19815723. Note here that she is the 13th author out of 13, and author names ordered by the amount of involvement in the current study. While there might be some switching of names going on, it is safe to say she saw little actual involvement in the project. EDIT: as several people have noted, the last author of the paper is actually the senior researcher and corresponding author, not necessarily the least senior. Thanks for the correction everyone!
- Said project (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/326/5952/585.long) did not conclude ‘animal and human foetal tissues were releasing devastating plagues on chronic diseases’. Instead, it concluded that an XMRV strain related to one usually seen in mice was found in many patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). It was however not concluded that this was the cause of the CFS: the discussion of the article explicitly states it may also be passenger virus, which can easily infect the immunosuppressed CFS patient.
- While it is hard to undeniably prove ‘Big pharma’ was not behind the ‘tarnishing of her good name’ AKA retraction of the article, it is made very likely by one particular sentence in the full retraction notice (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/334/6063/1636.1.long) > Multiple laboratories, including those of the original authors (2), have failed to reliably detect xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus (XMRV) or other murine leukemia virus (MLV )–related viruses in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients.
- In other words, even their own lab could not replicate the results of the first article. This, along with serious issues with contamination (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/334/6053/176.1) of samples with the virus that was shown to be present (note that contamination specifically means that the samples were exposed to the virus AFTER being taken and that, considering her position as 13th author, Mikovits
may have been involved with quality controlEDIT: was overseeing the project).
EDIT: See u/koine_lingua’s answer on this for a more detailed description of the XRMV saga.
iIenzo 1d |
Minute 2: – Her paper actually did fit the narrative, unlike she claims. It was instead deemed incorrect when results were not replicable in the several studies that were done based on this article. Even in a study with perfect methodology (which does not seem to be the case here) non-replicable findings may appear, which is the reason why replication of results is such an important matter in science. – She was fired because of her job due to integrity issues: it was found that she had used two identical figures with different labels (which say what the graph shows): one in the contested article, one in a presentation. Zooming in on the figure, which was a photo of a gel (common in science), it was found that the labels on the gel matched neither the figure in the paper nor in the presentation (https://www.nature.com/news/2011/111005/full/news.2011.574.html) – She was arrested after being fired due to her old employer accusing her of theft, charges were eventually dropped (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/06/criminal-charges-dropped-against-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-researcher-judy-mikovits). – There was no evidence of a gag order that could have ended recently after 4 or 5 years (sources differ). There was a temporary restraining order requested and granted in 2011 (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/11/controversial-cfs-researcher-arrested-and-jailed). Most sources state that this was done to prevent her from altering, deleting or destroying the data she had taken (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/11/lawsuit-filed-against-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-researcher-former-employer, https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21197-chronic-fatigue-researcher-arrested-in-us/). There is no indication that this extended to anything other than the data (e.g. social media accounts). – She says she was scared about being jailed again as there was ‘no evidence’ the first time. As noted in several of the citations above, the lab books she was thought to have stolen were in her desk drawer, to which she only had the key. Her lawyer’s defence was that other people had keys to the room where the desk was, but notably did not mention who else owned a key to the desk drawer. – I found only one mention of her bankruptcy, in the following article: https://retractionwatch.com/2015/11/16/chronic-fatigue-xmrv-researcher-heads-to-court-today-alleging-conspiracy-and-asking-for-750k/. It indicates that, according to her attorney, she couldn’t find a job in science due to the smear on her name and accused the first author of the infamous paper to be secretly using research funds for the Whittlemore’s for-profit organization and the Mrs. Whittlemore firing her when she intended to fire the first author. Regardless of this man’s guilt, it is noteworthy that at that point in time Mr. Whittlemore was already serving time in prison for another crime and this was ~5 or 6 years after she was fired. She requested $750.000 to be paid in damages. The case was dismissed. – It is completely unclear on what Fauci and the like were supposed to testify on. Nor is it clear which case she is talking about: the case of her stolen notebooks or her own case against Whittlemore about her not having falsified data. – She was held in jail with charges of theft. She was called a fugitive of justice as in the period between her firing and her arrest she had ‘fled’ the state and moved to another (see several sources above).
Minute 3-4: – There is no sign that the video shown of the arrest is actually her arrest. A quick search revealed no such footage. I would be grateful if there’s anyone who can backtrack the footage. EDIT: amazing work from u/delicious_monstera :
Here you go. Check out around 6:15. It’s from an arrest in Santa Ana, Calif. in March 2020. Not at all related. https://onscene.tv/santa-ana-swat-team-raids-house-possibly-related-to-murder/
- She says she was arrested without warrant, but the retractionwatch source above states proof was handed to court that there was a warrant.
- She makes two claims that are extremely difficult to confirm or disprove: that she was ‘dragged out of her house’ and her husband was terrorized for 5 days.
- Her claim that the evidence was planted is also hard to prove or disprove beyond reasonable doubt. However, there are some reasons to believe no evidence was planted: she was stated to be the only owner of the key to the desk drawer (see above) and charges were dropped against her based on witness issues and the case against her former employer Mr. Whittlemore (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/06/criminal-charges-dropped-against-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-researcher-judy-mikovits)
- Note it is not stated that what her proof beyond reasonable doubt of her innocence was. She seems to jump back to her own case against her former employer here, described in the article by retractionwatch. According to his document, she did have a lawyer and the case was dismissed.
- The collusion against her of the HHS is similarly unsupported by any evidence, and the same is the case for the DoJ and FBI ‘sitting on her case’ (let me say it again: her former employer was JAILED and charges against her were dropped, she charged her employer for using research funds for his for-profit organization). It remains to be questioned what the HHS’s roles would be in either of her court cases: the theft or her claim of Whittlemore stealing research funds and firing her as she found out.
- She also says that ‘she has no constitutional freedom’. She has not been arrested for speaking the falsehoods above as of yet to my knowledge, thus successfully exercising her freedom of speech.
- Another note is that ‘her gag order has been lifted after 5 years’. Since, by her own story, it was put on her under threat of being jailed and engineered by several high-profile businesses why the gag order was only 5 years if the information she had was that sensitive.
- Also of note is that the interviewer praises her courage for speaking out and not hiding away, AFTER by her own story her gag order is lifted and she is thus free to speak out. The lifting of the gag order and her ‘still no constitutional freedom’ also seem to be directly contradicting themselves. It also seems unlikely high-profile people would be out to kill her rather than just extend her gag order.
Minutes 5-6 – Mikovits says that back in 1984 during the HIV pandemic, she was working under Ruscetti on the isolation of HIV. This seems to be the case, and I found the paper she is in all likelihood referencing to (https://www.jimmunol.org/content/136/10/3619.short?casa_token=yUb35nFip9cAAAAA:ovUs99ouvc8i1D9oo9FekEXU-VCk95bbm0ZWSX8qR2hSmOARIfb2WAYt_OyH1Z297WnY8zgx3BTJ-4M). Gallo’s paper can be found here: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/224/4648/500 – While there was most certainly a patent dispute, it seems to not be based on Gallo stealing Ruscetti’s work, but rather a case of ‘two people discover X at the same time and the faster publisher doesn’t give enough credit to the slower one’. An old article of the fight can be found here: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/230/4726/640. It details how Gallo set the date for the announcement that the cause of AIDS was discovered at 23rd of April 1984. Ruscetti made the same announcement on the 22nd of April 1984. Gallo was angry at Ruscetti for stealing his thunder. Once Gallo’s article was published, note the date of the 4th of May 1984, only a few weeks after the announcement, Ruscetti was angry for his own work being not acknowledged sufficiently, only stating that LAV (Ruscetti’s name for the same virus) was not yet established enough to know it was the same virus. Note here that the reason Ruscetti’s work could be considered ‘not established enough’ due to Ruscetti’s inability to grow cells infected with HIV, as the cells would die with only limited quantities of HIV produced. Gallo had solved this issue with a T-cell line that could produce HIV in large quantities, which could then be used to relatively quickly develop a testing kit for HIV. – Note here a few things: as far as I know, there is no evidence Ruscetti ever accused anyone of stealing his work, and was merely complaining about the lack of recognition and that he didn’t get money from the patent on the testing kit. – Also note that while this fight was morally inappropriate, there is no evidence that any delays were significant and killed many people. It is noted in the sentence in the article on Mason’s (colleague of Ruscetti’s) announcement:
Mason said that the data gathered in the previous few weeks had provided strong evidence that a virus first isolated by the Pasteur group early in 1983 was the AIDS agent. – While this shows the virus was found in early 1983 at the latest, it also says that they weren’t sure it was the right virus until a few weeks earlier. This puts the delay that ‘killed millions’ at most a month between first confirmation and publication, which is quite fast for the current era. – Also note that Fauci’s name was not on Gallo’s article, nor did it come up at any other point in the story.
Here you go. Check out around 6:15. It’s from an arrest in Santa Ana, Calif. in March 2020. Not at all related. https://onscene.tv/santa-ana-swat-team-raids-house-possibly-related-to-murder/
She says herself that she instructed an assistant to take the notebooks:
“After the termination, her laboratory was searched, Mikovits said.
She worried about research notebooks kept in drawers that she was told had been unlocked. They contained her work on XMRV and other studies. They also revealed patient information. She told her assistant to secure the records.
The Whittemores went to the police accusing her of theft. The arrest made national news and led to five days in jail.
“The word I would use is surreal,” Mikovits said. “There’s a 24-hour light in your eye. There’s no pillow. There are no bars. There’s a locked door.”
To this day, she defends her choice to have the notebooks removed from the lab.
“If we had left those notebooks unsecured, patient names would have been exposed,” she said. “It’s like letting your credit card information get out.””
“This story has been corrected from the original version, which misstated details regarding a search of Mikovits’ office. Mikovits said the drawer containing her research notebooks had been unlocked, triggering her request the notebooks be secured.”
This also states that she returned 18 notebooks: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/12/updated-civil-court-rules-against-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-researcher
I’m a doctor, and I also have extensive training in public health. I also teach biostatistics and epidemiology. I finished watching this video, and it’s utter crap. But you don’t have to take my word for it, a simple google search of any of her claims will show she is either intentionally lying or promoting a crackpot conspiracy theory.
To save everyone the trouble, here’s her claims debunked in order.
The filmmaker claims Dr Judy Mikovitz is one of the greatest experts in the world, but that’s false. She’s famous for being an anti-vaxxer and kook. She pushes conspiracy theories of Deep State and Big Pharma working together to create a pandemic. She was fired for falsifying research data and trying to pass it off as valid, and was arrested for theft of stem cells from the institute she worked in. (Was that footage of a police raid even of her? I doubt it.) There’s a longer bio on her Wiki page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Mikovits
The story of the rivalry between Dr Gallo and Dr. Montagnier in the rush for HIV research is a well known story about scientists in competition with one another, and while it was a scandal in the 1980s (one scientist selfishly undermined the other), it doesn’t support any of her point. It’s not relevant to the story, except she wants to try to paint Dr. Fauci in a bad light by false association and with an anecdote only she claims to have witnessed.
Dr. Fauci was one of the leading researchers during the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s. He and his team of researchers began looking for a vaccine or treatment for the newly-discovered HIV, though they would meet a number of obstacles such as the F.D.A. In October 1988 protesters came to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci, who had become the institute’s director in 1984, bore the brunt of the anger from the LGBTQ community, who felt ignored by the government. At the time, famous AIDS activist Larry Kramer attacked Fauci relentlessly in the media. He called him an “incompetent idiot” and a “pill-pushing” tool of the medical establishment. Fauci did not have control over drug approval or any pull in the FDA’s process, though at the time many people still felt he was not doing enough as his relatively high rank in the NIH. Fauci did make an effort in the late 1980s to reach out to the gay community in New York and San Francisco to find ways he and the NIAI could find a solution. Though Fauci was first criticized for his treatment of the AIDS epidemic, his work in the community was eventually acknowledged and even Kramer himself, who spent years hating Fauci for his treatment of the HIV/AIDS epidemic now calls him “the only true and great hero” among government officials in the AIDS crisis.
In 1980 the Bayh-Dole Act allowed universities to patent and profit from research developed in their labs. New York University had $157 million in research-related income on $210 million in research and development expenditures. It brought us Remicade, a rheumatoid arthritis drug developed along with Centacor and Johnson & Johnson. This act allowed universities to expand research. The Act may be problematic in some ways but not connected to the issue here and not the source of the problem. She’s bringing it up to push her narrative that this virus and vaccine are all motivated by money.
She claims to be not-anti vaccine in the same way David Duke claims he is not a racist. In the same breath she says vaccines will kill millions. She’s trying to do PR to minimize her antivax stances, and often people in her movement try to label themselves “vaccine truthers” or “vaccine skeptics” (even though /r/skeptic lists the ways they are not engaging in any meaningful skepticism and are instead just being deniers). In her mind vaccines are polluted despite all the evidence in multiple studies proving her theory wrong.
Next the film engages in a strawman about mandatory vaccines. No vaccine is truly mandatory; they may be required to attend public school or college, but I have never forcibly given anyone a vaccine except for young children whose parents asked me to. When this eventual Covid vaccine comes out, it will not be mandatory. The antivaxxers can try making a dramatic showing of refusing the vaccine and that’s fine, because everyone will push past them to get in line. Once we get to >90% vaccine coverage, herd immunity should kick in and they will bask in the unearned benefit of everyone else.
This virus is NOT artificial, the genome has been sequenced and has no signs of artificial manipulation like she claims. We have strong evidence that it originated naturally.
She fundamentally misunderstands zoonotic transmission. Viruses jump from animals to humans frequently; Ebola likely originated from bats in Africa, HIV mutated from Simian Immunodeficiency Virus until it eventually became able to survive in humans (and likely jumped to humans many times before it stabilized), bird flu originated in birds, swine flu came from, you guessed it, pigs that came into contact with humans. It’s not just viruses; Psitticosis in humans comes from parrots, salmonella from reptiles, brucellosis from cows (that one is an animal STD). There’s a reason medical doctors and veterinarians have been collaborating for decades on the One Health Initiative (and we briefly studied together in my medical school) because we know that diseases will spread to humans and therefore veterinarians have a role in helping keep us safe.
Now she claims this is a government conspiracy where USAMRIID somehow released it into China. And then she brings up another conspiracy about how Ebola was created in a US lab and then made to kill people in Africa. Baloney! Debunking those claims alone would take up more than the entire length of this post.
She then claims that Covid is overcounted, which is untrue. I fill out death certificates and that’s not how it works. People found dead in their homes in NYC were not being given Covid diagnoses because we don’t test the dead. It must be some coincidence that usually 25 people are found dead in their homes in NYC on an average day, but ever since this outbreak there were >200 per day found dead. Then she claims people are assigned Covid diagnoses without testing. Also untrue. Almost every number in the Covid trackers and published statistics on the news are confirmed cases. Some cities like NYC show a breakdown of suspected and confirmed cases. Suspected ones are many more, but you have to show specific symptoms to be diagnosed with Covid in the absence of testing. Our molecular testing (at least the FDA-approved tests) has high specificity, meaning a low number of false positives. It’s sensitivity is lower, meaning we’ve been seeing cases of false negatives that come back positive on a repeat. There’s a reason the CDC advises Covid patients not to go back to work until they test negative twice.
Then she claims that her husband’s COPD looks like Covid. Not. At. All. COPD causes a breakdown of alveoli, the lung’s small air sacs that look like grapes. As the COPD takes over, the walls of the alveoli break down until you get large pockets of air trapped in the lungs. You see huge hollow cavities on a lung X-ray. Covid causes a diffuse inflammatory reaction across the lungs that progresses to ARDS. We have autopsies of Covid patients and their lungs don’t look anything like COPD, and their Xrays look dramatically different (COPD lungs look hollow and hyperinflated and Covid lungs start off looking like a pneumonia that progresses to a total white-out. You don’t have to be a doctor to spot the difference in X-rays here.)
Then the filmmaker brings up a clip from the infamous and debunked Bakersfield doctors. They’re not board-certified and the American College of Emergency Physicians and American Academy of Emergency Medicine issued a rare joint statement condemning them. This article is a really good debunking of their numbers. I taught Biostatistics and Epidemiology and this article is sound.
We are not counting Covid deaths just because they incidentally test positive. This has been shown to affect multiple organ systems and its not a mere coincidence that people with chronic diseases suddenly die within 2-3 weeks once they get Covid. Even without looking at Covid-diagnosed deaths, NY is reporting >35,000 deaths more than their average rate.
And then she spreads the FUD that ventilators are what’s harming people. No. If you are in acute respiratory failure, and your oxygen saturation is dropping below 90% despite an oxygen mask on 15L/min, you need to be on a ventilator. Ventilators are not risk free, and require specialists to monitor it and adjust the settings, but without one your odds of dying by that point are nearly 100%. That’s it, there are no alternatives. Italy ran out of ventilators, and patients were dying on beds in the hallways because they couldn’t have a ventilator. The fatality rate for Covid tends to be around 3% average in most countries, but in Italy it went up to 7% because people died without ventilators.
(See reply for continuation)
(Continued due to space limits)
She claims Italy got Covid more because they were old. That’s incorrect by the data, it affected all ages. Close to half the people on ventilators are under the age of 40. She claims Italians have inflammatory diseases, also no data to support her claim. (Italians tend to have a much more antioxidant-rich diet compared to the rest of the world, it’s one of the reasons Italians have a longer average lifespan, so this claim doesn’t make sense to me.) Next she claims the flu vaccine made them die of Covid. What garbage. Covid deaths are also in developing countries that have low flu vaccine rates, her theory is idiotic.
She is trying to claim that the flu vaccine comes from dogs. That’s a mixture of falsehood. Most flu vaccines that you and I received are derived from eggs. A non-egg vaccine known as Flucelvax came out recently and that seems to be what she’s latched onto, but it is not in widespread use today.
Then she goes on about hydroxychloroquine. The original claim that it helped treat Covid was based on anecdotal data, and some extremely weak studies (two letters to journals by Chinese doctors saying it worked in their communities but didn’t show evidence or numbers, and a study in France of 26 people where the researcher claimed hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin helped people get over their infection, even though the evidence was weak and 6 patients in the trial wound up in ICU and had to stop early and 1 other patient died). She claims doctors are endorsing it, but most are pointing out the skepticism as well as the lack of any data showing an improvement, and cautioning against a rush to judgement. In fact, it’s more the opposite. The VA did a large scale study of thousands of patients and the data showed patients on Hydroxychlorine had a higher mortality rate than in Covid patients who didn’t take hydroxychloroquine.
Dr. Mikovitz is linking vaccines with autism and predictably trying to sell a debunked “cure.” Many of the loudest voices of the antivax movement are grifters who try selling quack treatments that claim they can “reverse” autism or treat the arthritis/fatigue that they claim a vaccine gave you. This is an old scam and near the heart of the antivax movement.
Then she claimed that flu vaccine weakened your immune system and caused you to get Covid. She’s taking research published in a journal and lied about its conclusions, you can read it for yourself and see it draws the opposite claim of what she is saying. Then putting aside the lie, she’s trying to generalize the results of the study to Covid, when there’s zero evidence the vaccines have any connection or would even affect the body’s response.
Then the filmmaker goes back to the Bakersfield doctors claiming you’re coddling your immune system by wearing a mask and gloves. That claim is almost jaw-droppingly bad. You are bathed in bacteria, it’s in your body (estimated 0.3% of your body weight), it’s on your skin, it’s in your mouth (you have more germs in your mouth than a dog). Your bacterial and viral flora is unchanged whether you’re outside or stay indoors all day. AND you still breathe in 50+ species of pathogens with every breath, mask or not. He also claims you can get “opportunistic infections,” which is another misunderstanding of basic microbiology, I’m surprised he hasn’t had his license suspended for making such an ignorant display.
Then she claims masks give you coronavirus. She has no evidence for her claim. And that “healing microbes” are in the ocean. Salt-water is good for you, but those microbes won’t save you from Covid.
Then there’s a misleading clip where Fauci says there will be a “surprise pandemic” one day. Public health officials have already been saying this for decades, we know given the rate of mutations of pathogens that it was a matter of time. I’ve lived through multiple, including H1N1. We thought Ebola or Bird Flu was going to be “the” pandemic we would have to deal with, which is why for nearly 20 years NYC’s Department of Health has stockpiled 1 million doses of Tamiflu, which was thought to be the only treatment available for Bird Flu and was believed to have some activity against SARS.
I’m glad this video was taken off YouTube, because it is grossly irresponsible to air these false views uncritically. It’s straight antivax propaganda.
Quaking Interlude 
