I have a been clinical psychologist for over 25 years. I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly of human behavior. Never in my worst nightmare would I have imagined the level of medical censorship that has been the hallmark of our public health agencies and mainstream media during the global pandemic. This is a major departure from how science or evidence based medicine has been presented and examined over the last century. Prior to Covid-19, there was an effort to provide the unrestricted access to different scientific hypotheses and perspectives. International conferences were the medical norm where leading researchers in their field came together to share their current innovations and research followed by round table discussions or panels. This process encouraged the debate of different points of view. It also provided a rich environment for discussion and sharing of divergent interpretations and beliefs. The commonly held belief used to be that this was how science and medical innovation moved forward. Physicians were even eligible for continuing education credit which is required within all medical specialties. Enter Covid-19.
What do we know about Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and why might it be a potential problem at this time during the Covid-19 crisis that we find ourselves in? To date, only the Pfizer vaccinations for Covid-19 have been “approved” by the FDA. All other vaccines and early treatments are still represented by an EUA. The use of an EUA has changed considerably since Covid as I had reason to explore this issue years ago when a friend was dying and needed an experimental drug which represented his last hope to avoid an almost certain death. In those days, they offered EUA for dying patients. This allowed patients who were considered terminal to try experimental drugs if there were no further options available to them. It offered a Hail Mary pass from our regulatory agencies who would then allow drugs that hadn’t been fully investigated regarding efficacy and safety to be prescribed to a dying patient. As long as a patient was notified of the potential risks of their experimental medicines, the patient was recognized as having been given “informed consent” and the experimental treatment was approved. When I was preparing to write this article, I was surprised to see that the information on EUA on the FDA website, which I had read years ago, has been changed to reflect the Covid-19 policies specifically.
Let’s be crystal clear on the message from our public health authorities since the very first EUA was given to the experimental gene therapy that was made into the Pfizer vaccine. The vaccines are "safe and effective". Each time Dr. Fauci or any respected authority spoke of the new Covid-19 vaccines, the same message was repeated. “The vaccines are safe and effective”. As a psychologist, I can tell you that if information is provided by respected authorities who are consistent with their messaging, those statements become incorporated into our beliefs. If you’ve ever wondered how the Trump administration has gotten away with the Big Lie, despite the countless legal efforts to reveal the truth, the same process holds true. Loyal Trump fans have been receiving the same message since the election results were reported. “The Democrats stole the election from Trump.” According to Reuters, the Trump administration said in a facebook post “Not one court has looked at the evidence and said that Biden legally won. Not one”. This is false: state and federal judges dismissed more than 50 lawsuits presented by then President Donald Trump and his allies challenging the election or its outcome. Yet the big lie continues over a year after Trump lost the election - Big Lie Continues.
The Washington Post reported on a November 2021 poll from the Public Religion Research Institute, which concluded that 68% of Republicans believe the election was “stolen” from Donald Trump - WAPO poll
This reflects hundreds of millions of people who have been deceived by tainted, unethical GOP authorities who continue to spread dangerous disinformation about the 2020 election. If our elected officials in Congress don’t demand the truth, then we’re left in our separate camps to wage a battle that is destroying our very democracy.
Returning to the hyperbole of EUA of the novel mRNA gene technology, we must address the facts as they are. Prior to Covid - it took an estimated 7-10 years to confirm long term safety of a new vaccine. The history of vaccines is riddled with horrible outcomes. That is not up for debate. What we do know about the new Covid-19 vaccines is that this is an entirely new technology, a type of gene therapy, which was invented by virologist and immunologist Dr. Robert Malone. Anyone who has been curious about what Dr. Malone thinks about the long term safety of his mRNA technology only has to watch one of many videos where he shares his concerns regarding medical censorship and the lack of adequate safety data of this “experimental” Covid vaccine.
Although the FDA has removed prior information about EUA, which I had viewed a few years ago, and simply filled it in with more Covid specific information, there is one aspect however that remains:
“EUAs may waive a number of regulatory requirements to allow unapproved products or approved products to be used in unapproved situations as emergency medical countermeasures” - FDA explains EUA
Given the length of time, pre-pandemic, that a vaccine took to achieve full FDA approval was between 7-10 years, I think it’s safe to conclude that a number of regulatory requirements were, in fact, waived. Unfortunately, some of those are specifically dealing with long term safety issues. Many of these safety concerns couldn’t possibly turn up within 48 hours, 48 days, 48 weeks or even 48 months.
According Dr. Malone, “There is a lot of messaging in the media that no shortcuts were taken, but it’s self-evident that a process that normally takes a decade, to do it in a matter of months, there will be shortcuts taken. What’s rolled out over time is the depth and breadth of those shortcuts is profound. Standard norms that would be implemented for any other vaccine in any context that I’ve even known were overlooked. And they had to do with safety. I haven’t been into the data as deep as some people have in the clinical trials but I hear again and again about oddities in those clinical trials and their interpretations, they were very abbreviated trials.“ - Malone interview
Given that reality, it’s literally impossible to conclude that the vaccines are “safe”. I won’t even get into the issues surrounding the VAERS reporting system which again, presents some serious issues for our public health agencies to explain. This message of unquestionable safety has been repeated each and every time there is a discussion of the vaccines by our trusted public health authorities and our favorite mainstream media physicians, who consistently report the exact same line…...”The vaccines are safe and effective” - “The vaccines are “safe and effective”. As we’ve come to understand, if it's said often enough, the public soon accepts this message as the truth. The benefit to our frightened public is that, if they get vaccinated, they can now feel considerably safer, believing that they are protected from this horrible pandemic scourge.
The bottom line is that when our public health agencies fail to reveal the truth, and instead report actual untruths, that can understandably cause some of us to be skeptical about other things that they’re saying. Another untruth that has been passed along to the general public is that the vast majority of the unvaccinated are the MAGA supporters. Truth is however that the graph that shows us who actually represents the unvaccinated are shown in an inverted bell shaped curve, or U shaped curve. The study showed that the front leading peak of the U shaped curve is represented by less educated individuals, while the peak on the right side of the U shaped curve are Ph.D.’s. - Vaccine hesitancy. This might seem curious to some but the reality is that the Ph.D.’s are the most educated within the population. These are the people, regardless of their specialty, who have learned how to evaluate the scientific literature that they’re reading about in their peer reviewed journals. In order to gain a Ph.D., one must typically complete a scientific study called a doctoral dissertation. Ph.D. candidates must learn how to design a research project and how to deal with statistical analyses and how to interpret the findings. It is during those years long process that one learns how designs can be implemented to optimize the desired conclusions and how statistics can be tweaked to provide the conclusions that one is seeking. It is these very biases that can easily degrade the entire project. So it’s not too hard to believe that those with this specific type of knowledge might choose to investigate the science behind this remarkable, innovative gene therapy which was purported to be an end to this pandemic. Unfortunately for our public health agencies however, is that once one does a deep dive into the science of the new mRNA gene therapy technology, we see a much different picture. As Robert Malone has been known to say, this is the largest human [medical] experiment in modern times.
Another point worth mentioning is the conclusion of Editors In Chief of our most respected peer reviewed journals. The conflicts of interest within our public health agencies present a compelling reason for concerns about all past research that had been done and is still being done. This is a remarkable challenge to the very concept of evidence based medicine.
Dr. Marcia Angell, Harvard physician and Editor In Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) said:
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor.”
Dr. Relman, another former Editor In Chief of the NEJM said this in 2002 - “The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful.”
Richard Horton, Editor In Chief of the Lancet said:
“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness”. Horton quote
Before I sign off, I want to share with you a quotation from a Pulitzer prize winning journalist, Michael Capuzzo, in his efforts to encourage his colleagues to do their job as investigative journalists, which we have always counted on them to do. He points to the need for mainstream media to do a deep dive into the outstanding efficacy of ivermectin, to bring an end to this global pandemic, as they had done in Uttar Pradesh India this past summer, despite the public health agencies and mainstream media’s intentional and ongoing disinformation campaign against it. Ivermectin research
We live in a remarkable media age where a positive story on CNN, perhaps more so than a peer review in the New England Journal of Medicine, will instantly encourage doctors in two hundred countries to use a perfectly safe and legal drug and save humanity. I call on my fellow colleagues, including former colleagues and friends at the Washington Post and New York Times, to open their hearts and minds to legitimate, unreported doctors and therapies and write about all sides of the Ivermectin story, like journalists always have. It is a historic opportunity. For the first time in the long journey from Gutenberg to Google, journalists may be the ones to save the world.
I am sorry to report that his plea has gone unheeded. Infact, it was impossible for this Pulitzer prize winning journalist to even get his story published in any mainstream outlet. He then found the resolve to take matters in his own hands and decided to start his own platform where he could share his experience and views with the public. See RESCUE
Thank you for this great article. It's so discouraging to see and experience this insidious deterioration of our healthcare agencies, our medical system in general and, above all, our system of medical research. The current lack of transparency and open debate especially, has led to an unprecedented level of scientific censorship never before experienced since after the Nuremberg Code was developed after WWII.
I will choose, however, to believe that this is only a temporary glitch that will reach a tipping point when we as citizens will continue to insist on changes to these systems and return them to the level of service to the public, as they were originally intended. Historical data continues to show us that the world is improving, slowly but surely, and sometimes in fits and starts, but improving none-the-less. I will hope that that will be the case when we look back, from a better place, at this period of time in our historical record.
Thank your for the honest and detailed trip down the rabbit hole of the Covid vaccine. Your well researched and clear piece is an important read - no matter what side you're on...Look at the facts, get informed and make you own decisions. Don;t let the main stream media influence or take the place of personal critical thinking. Enjoyed the read and will continue to look forward to future posts.