Flu Shot Not Effective

Every day, it seems, I discover that something that was indubitably true is not true at all. Many of these discoveries are in th area of public health arena, where I depended completely on "experts" to do their jobs. Today's topic is the flu shot, the vaccination that (I've been told for years) is a life-saving necessity for everyone, especially senior citizens.

Sharyl Atkisson is a 5-time Emmy Award winner and recipient of the Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting. She's a NYT bestselling author, managing editor of the TV program “Full Measure. Her article is "Govt. Researchers: Flu Shots Not Effective in Elderly, After All." Excerpt:

Over 20 years, the percentage of seniors getting flu shots increased sharply from 15% to 65%. It stands to reason that flu deaths among the elderly should have taken a dramatic dip making an “X” graph like this (refers to graphic). Instead, flu deaths among the elderly continued to climb.

It was hard to believe, so researchers at the National Institutes of Health set out to do a study adjusting for all kinds of factors that could be masking the true benefits of the shots. But no matter how they crunched the numbers, they got the same disappointing result: flu shots had not reduced deaths among the elderly.

In fact, the researchers said they could not correlate flu shots with reduced deaths in any age group.

It’s not what health officials hoped to find. NIH wouldn’t let us interview the study’s lead author. So we went to Boston and found the only co-author of the study not employed by NIH: Dr. Tom Reichert.

Dr. Reichert: “We realized we had incendiary material.”

Dr. Reichert said they thought their study would prove vaccinations helped.

Dr. Reichert: “We were trying to do something mainstream. That’s for sure.”

Sharyl: “Were you surprised?”

Dr. Reichert: “Astonished.”

Sharyl: “Did you check the data a couple of times to make sure?”

Dr. Reichert: “Well, even more than that. We’ve looked at other countries now and the same is true.”

That international study, soon to be published, finds the same poor results in Australia, France, Canada and the UK. And other new research stokes the idea that decades of promoting flu shots in seniors, and the billions spent, haven’t had the desired result. The current head of national immunizations confirms CDC is now looking at new strategies, but stops short of calling the present strategy a failure.

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Some of the Reasons Why Public Health Officials Have Completely Lost my Trust

I never used to think about vaccines. I trusted public health officials and I willingly let them put 3 COVID shots into my arms. But now I regret that. In fact I'm furious that we were all lied to and misled by an artificially concocted false consensus that the COVID vax was "safe and effective." Now it is clear that our public health officials lied about almost everything and are still withholding the data about all-cause mortality. Lied about EVERYTHING? That sounds like hyperbole, but here's a starter list.

To me the most concerning issue is a lot of what was considered misinformation was and is true:

    • vaccines don't halt transmission

    • the virus came from a lab

    • cloth masks don't work

    • closing schools is a bad idea

    • toddlers shouldn't masks

    • natural immunity exists

We could add many other items to this already-disturbing list.

And then I learned about this shocking insurance industry data:

The man giving this Congressional testimony isn't some random person. As you can see from the chyron, Edward Dowd was formerly a senior investment advisor at Blackrock.

My mistrust is made even worse thanks to revelations like this on by John Leake, in an article he titles: "The Greatest Coverup in History: NIH Director Francis Collins on EcoHealth Alliance/WIV partnership: "There's a lot more to this story than we have been able to talk about." Here's an excerpt: [More . . . ]

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The MSNBC Division of the DNC

This is a post those people who think there is no media bias on the left.

"BREAKING: @MSNBC Producer Admits MSNBC Is 'Doing All They Can to Help’ the Harris Campaign.

During an undercover date with an OMG journalist, Basel Hamdan ( @BaselYHamdan), a writer and producer for MSNBC’s show “Ayman,” (@AymanMSNBC ) was asked what the network has done to assist the Kamala Harris campaign. Hamdan revealed on hidden camera that “what her [Harris’s] message of the day is, is their message of the day,” as MSNBC actively pushes Harris’s narrative to help her win. He admitted that MSNBC is doing “all they can to help,” Harris get elected, with the network operating as an extension of the campaign.

He went on to say, "MSNBC is indistinguishable from the party," further highlighting their partisan agenda.

In discussing the relationships between the MSNBC hosts and Democratic politicians, Hamdan reveals, ”The anchor and the politician are just in total agreement about everything.” He adds, “If you watch an interview with a Democratic politician, they just finish each other's sentences.”

Hamdan also didn’t shy away from criticizing the network’s audience, stating, “They’ve made their viewers dumber over the years,” and explaining that MSNBC is “too cozy with Democratic politicians.”"

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The Job of Journalism

Many modern Americans think that the duty of a modern journalist is to make sure that Donald Trump doesn't win the upcoming election. Hamish McKenzie has a different idea that has nothing to do with picking sides in an election. Here's an excerpt:

Journalism is done in the public interest. It’s about finding and sharing the truth, as best it can be determined, and it is essential to a functioning democracy. A journalist’s job can be difficult, especially when it comes to reporting on public figures and those who aspire to high office. Such figures are willing to go to great lengths to hide unfavorable information, and their communications with the public are typically obscured by layers of spin, deflection, misdirection, and sometimes outright lies. These tactics are nonpartisan and have been deployed by candidates of all parties in all countries for time immemorial.

Occasionally, though, some light gets through the cracks. Sometimes the journalist gets the story—and then so does the public.

The truth can arrive in many guises: an informant, a whistleblower, a leaked document, even stolen materials. In all cases, parties that don’t want that information to come to light will aggressively move to prevent its distribution. Often they will sow fear and doubt and resort to smearing the reporter. But in many cases, it’s this kind of reporting that is the most indispensable. Think of the New York Times and Washington Post’s coverage of the Pentagon Papers, based on stolen documents, that revealed that the U.S. government had secretly expanded its war in Vietnam; or the Abu Ghraib scandal, in which Seymour Hersh and CBS revealed the U.S. military’s torture and abuse of prisoners in Iraq; or Glenn Greenwald’s coverage for The Guardian exposing the widespread tapping of ordinary Americans’ phones, revealed by the documents leaked by Edward Snowden. It’s in these moments that journalism fulfills its highest calling: holding power to account.

It is the journalist’s burden to resist the pressures of antagonists in pursuit of the truth. At its best, this kind of journalism is a service to us all. Its practitioners need and deserve all the protections that their right to freedom of the press and freedom of expression can offer.

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