A Master Class in Gaslighting
Today the paper of record published an essay by National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins that reads like a master class in gaslighting, beginning with the author’s opening words:
I am amazed by the medical progress that has been possible in the past few decades, both in alleviating suffering and saving lives. But I am also deeply troubled by the growing distrust of science in our society, just at the time when its insights are most needed. No recent experience highlights that disconnect more starkly than the last five years of the Covid pandemic. From my vantage point on the front lines of that battle against a dangerous virus, let me highlight both the triumphs and tragedies, and propose some actions that we can all take to re-anchor our troubled society to truth, science, faith and trust — and put us back on an individual and collective journey that might be called the road to wisdom.
Do we not trust science? Depends on what you mean by “science.” If you mean the scientific method of observation, hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion, then I’m all in favor of science. If you mean hijacking the language of science and the appearance of science by multibillion-dollar drug companies and their captured regulatory agencies, well then maybe not so much.
Go with me back to early 2020, as the worst pandemic in more than a century was spreading across the globe, and deaths in the United States were in the thousands every day.
In fact, your side hit every button you could to systematically overcount covid deaths. You also viciously attacked courageous doctors working on the front lines of the pandemic, treating a death disease with safe and effective off-patent drugs shown to cut the death rate in half.
For me and hundreds of scientists who joined together during Operation Warp Speed, the most hopeful strategy was to develop a vaccine.
Why? Never before have we tried to vaccinate our way out of any pandemic, let alone one of a rapidly mutating virus with multiple animal reservoirs. For the great majority of people, covid is not a serious threat. And, as already mentioned above, we have safe and effective off-patent drugs shown to cut the death rate in half. So why this emphasis on foisting these experimental RNA shots employing a kind of technology never deployed before on a large scale on billions and billions of people worldwide?
We all worked to be sure the large-scale trials were scrupulously conducted…
Pfizer planned to keep its files secret for seventy-five years, and they released the files only after being forced to do so by a court order. We still haven’t seen the Moderna files.
… and that they involved a wide range of men and women of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Well, by Golly, if you pay lip service to DEI, that must mean your motives are beyond reproach. In fact, hundreds of millions of black and brown children all over the world will lead shorter lives, with less income and fewer opportunities, thanks to pandemic restrictions designed to break the will of the populace, crush their spirit, and get them to accede to having anything shot into their children’s veins as long as the drugmakers call it a “vaccine.”
For both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines, there was 90 to 95 percent efficacy in preventing illness that caused respiratory symptoms…
Bullshit. This figure of “95% effectiveness” is a statistical mirage created by not counting cases in the first twenty-eight days after the first does of the Pfizer shot (or forty-two days in the case of the Moderna product). Public Health England, the Danish Ministry of Health, and the BMJ all have stipulated that the shot CAUSES covid in the first nine to twenty-one days after administration. Of course you’re going to get a drop in cases immediately after that. There was no evidence that the “effectiveness” was due to anything more than this stupid accounting trick.
… and close to 100 percent efficacy in preventing severe disease and death.
Same stupid accounting trick.
Side effects were minimal in the tens of thousands of volunteers who had taken part in each trial.
The drugmakers’ own data showed an increased rate of serious adverse events and deaths in the treatment arm. I am so old I can remember when a medicine was something that made you better.
It was a moment of profound relief, of gratitude toward all who had made this possible, of answered prayer. As I tried to speak to the dedicated team about the significance of what had just happened, I could not find words that could fully express the emotions of the moment. I was unable to hold back the tears.
Get a grip on yourself.
Future historians will judge the development of safe and effective mRNA vaccines for Covid in 11 months as one of the greatest medical achievements in human history.
Seriously, dude? There was no evidence the shot prevents cases or transmission. The drugmakers’ own data showed more serious adverse events and deaths in the treatment arm. And Moderna’s own study showed the booster shot INCREASES the likelihood of reinfection. This is the most spectacular failure in vaccine history – a “vaccine” that makes you MORE LIKELY to get the index condition.
Current estimates by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit foundation supporting research on health care, are that more than three million lives were saved in the United States between December 2020 and November 2022 by Covid vaccines.
This is not even remotely plausible.
Public distrust, driven by social media, cable news and even some politicians, reflected a host of concerns: whether Covid-19 was real…
I am not aware of any serious commentator in the past five years who tried to pretend covid isn’t real.
… whether it was really all that serious…
For most people it isn’t all that serious. And for those for whom it is, well, we’ve already mentioned how your side viciously persecuted courageous doctors treating this deadly disease with safe and effective off-patent medicines.
… whether the vaccines were rushed…
How do you have “warp speed” without rushing?
… whether there were common and serious side effects that had been hidden…
Again, we’ve already mentioned Pfizer’s plans to keep its data secret for seventy-five years, and Moderna’s continuing to keep its data secret – data we paid for, I may add.
… whether the mRNA would alter the recipient’s DNA…
Well, we know the viral mRNA sequence can be incorporated into the host cell DNA. It seems premature, at best, to assert the same cannot happen with the mRNA shots.
… and whether companies had skirted the rules about safety.
Um, we know they did.
The gradual waning of vaccine benefits over time, plus the continual emergence of new Covid-19 virus variants (alpha, beta, delta, omicron, JN.1, KP.2 …) challenged the durability of immune protection and required re-engineering of boosters to cover the new strains.
Wait a minute. Joe Biden told us “You’re not going to get covid if you have these vaccinations.” Rachel Maddow told us “The virus stops with every vaccinated person.” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told us “Vaccinated people do not carry the virus, they don’t get sick.” You mean these people all were lying to us?
Vaccinated people like me were still capable of getting Covid, but the most recent C.D.C. study shows vaccines still reduced the risks of infection by more than 50 percent, and protection is even higher for severe disease.
Same stupid accounting trick, again.
More than 230,000 Americans died unnecessarily between June 2021 and March 2022, largely because misinformation caused them to turn away from what might have saved them in the midst of a dangerous pandemic, according to an assessment from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. This death rate is the equivalent of four fully loaded 737s crashing every day.
Please show us data demonstrating the shots lower the rate of the only outcome that matters in the end – ALL CAUSE MORTALITY. Not even Pfizer or Moderna ever claimed that.
While the deterioration of confidence in scientific evidence and the rise of “alternative facts” did not start with Covid, it accelerated in the face of this frightening global pandemic. It is also present in our disturbing disagreements about the reality of climate change, when the evidence for human activity as the main source of significant global warming since 1950 is overwhelming.
I share your concern about global warming. I trust you will join me in denouncing the co-opting of the language of science and the appearance of science by the drugmakers and their captured regulatory agencies. Ever heard the tale of the boy who cried wolf?
This is followed by some pontifications bout the nature of truth, in which he lumps the drugmakers’ proclamations of the safety and effectiveness of the covid shots together with the law of gravity, and then wraps things up with some bizarre remarks about his predilection for brown shoes with white soles – a lame attempt at self-deprecating humor, to let us know he’s jes’ like us reg’lar folks.
Sure. Just like Chuck Schumer pretending he knows how to grill.
Every day it gets harder and harder for me to avoid the conclusion that our rulers are lizard people pretending to be human.
My book They Told Us It Was Like Ebola: The Impact of Pandemic Restrictions on the Children of Ghana is now available on amazon