TEACH HISTORY- THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE ↓

Majorities of Experts Have Been Wrong:

• Prescription Opioids Are Addictive
• The 2008 Housing Market Boom was a Volatile Bubble
• WMDs Were Not in Iraq
• As Recently as the 1960's 2/3 of Doctors Believed Smoking And Cancer Were Unrelated
• And Many of Those Same Doctors Did Not Think Breast Milk is the Best Food for Infants (And it seems plain to me that experts are more likely to be wrong when dissent is stifled.)

The Media and Government Have Lied to the Public:

• WMDs
• Gulf of Tonkin (Started the Vietnam War)
• "Taking Babies Out of Incubators" -the lie that helped justify Persian Gulf War
• Selling arms to Iran and drugs to Americans to fund right wing death squads in Central America (Iran Contra)

STOP REPORTING MISLEADING TESTS RESULTS ↓

The inventor of the PCR test won the Nobel Prize. His name was Kary Mullis. He warned that the PCR can be used to "find anything in anyone" and that can make it liable to be easily misinterpreted.

The journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases found that over 95% of the PCR tests did not indicate enough virus to culture (not enough to make you sick) when conducted the way most tests are conducted. The NY times corroborated that PCR testing labs routinely conducted them in a way that would report positive cases where no viable amount of virus was actually present, making “over 90%” of results essentially false positive.

This discrepancy between what counted as a "positive case" in the media and what was meaningful in terms of honestly communicating risk to the public drove much of the unnecessary fear.

What's even worse, is the lack of regulation on testing makes much of the public data much less useful.

Censorship is dangerous to democracy ↓

There is a saying that if the road is covered in thorns, it is easier to wear sandals than to pave the road.

If items of disinformation amongst our information ecosystems are the thorns on our road, then critical thinking can be our sandals. Meaning, we don't need to wade into the incredibly precarious waters of censorship, ie giving governments and government-collaborating tech oligarchs the monopoly on what is allowable public discourse, if we can instead encourage the media literacy skills needed to exist in an incredibly fraught and chaotic media environment.

Said shorter- improved public sense-making, not authoritarian control of free expression, is the only way to protect democracy in our endeavor to navigate these troubling times.

To those who support the censoring of dissenting views, I wonder how comfortable you would be with Donald Trump having such power?

EXPLAIN THAT ASYMPTOMATIC SPREAD IS RARE ↓

In a meta-analysis of numerous studies published in Journal of the American Medical Association Network, Dr Madewell and coauthors, found that the spread of CV19 among people living with an asymptomatic CV19 case, was less than a 1% chance of transmission.

A screening of over 10 million people in Wuhan China using contact tracing data points showed zero instances of asymptomatic transmission amongst 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic infectees.

Both the WHO and Dr Anthony Fauci have said that asymptomatic infection has historically never been the driver of outbreaks.

In Virology Journal, researchers measured the rate of infection from 1,557 contacts of asymptomatic infectees, only 1 became infected (0.06%). That number would need to be roughly 1000-2000 times higher to meaningfully contribute to the continuation of a pandemic virus

It seems most of the policies that threaten economic livelihoods and civil liberties are premised on the weak case that non sick people pose a threat to public health.

I have not read extensively the literature which argues for asymptomatic spread's significance. I have read some, and all that I have seen are investigations into tiny numbers of people, they rarely distinguish between positive PCRs and actual infections, they often show only metrics like viral load increase prior to symptoms, but do not actually measure the transmission rate during those presymptomatic periods, and most importantly they never show that this transmission happens at a significant enough rate to actually meaningfully contribute to the spread of the virus.

Vaccines Must Not Be Mandated ↓

The new CV19 vaccines have demonstrated an ability to lessen the risk of hospitalizations and death due to Covid 19, according to most data available.

Taking a vaccine is a reasonable precaution if you are in a high risk group for covid, or regardless of your risk -if you would sleep better with the greater protection it affords. However, forcing others to take the vaccine against their will does not offer a vaccinated person any additional protection.

Furthermore, forced medical intervention undermines people's rights to their own medical choices, and it is a precedent governments may abuse in the future. I believe it is possible humanity could encounter diseases dangerous enough to warrant such risky policies, but covid 19 is not dangerous enough, nor is the vaccine effective enough to sacrifice such important ideals and safeguards.

Given the diminishing protection the vaccines appear to confer as time passes and new variants emerge, and given the numerous concerning facts about how the trials were conducted, reasonable skepticism in the long term cost-benefit value of the new inoculations is justified, especially in the mandating of these very new treatments.

REMIND- MASKS PROVIDE NEGLIGIBLE PROTECTIOn ↓

Prior to 2020, the evidence for masks preventing viral transmission in a community setting was so lacking that masking the public was not part of pandemic response guidance in nearly all western nations.

In fact, that is why when Dr Fauci said there was no benefit to masking in this context, he was completely supported by the scientific evidence at the time.

Masks stop droplets, not aerosolized particles (viruses primary means of transmission)

The entire premise of masking is that asymptomatic spread is a meaningful threat, which seems poorly supported to me (see above item for references)

Only after masking became a political hot button has “evidence” of the effectiveness of masks been forthcoming. In my review of the evidence for masks benefits available on the CDC website:

• Few or none are random control trials with verified outcomes, ie all are weak quality evidence

• Many are not even studies of people, but rather of mechanical contraptions with perfectly fitted filters in laboratories

• More on masks limitations

• CDC reports on masks are deeply flawed (Dr V. Passad)

• Masks make it difficult for children to learn, and diminish adults ability to practice empathy. We rely on mirror neurons that involve seeing and mimicking other people’s facial expressions to fully experience empathy. We need empathy more than ever, and given mask’s low benefit, this cost is unacceptable.

ESTABLISH Transparent VACCINE INJURY REPORTING ↓

Vaccine injuries are not being monitored transparently

The NIH asked Harvard Pilgrim researchers to help improve the monitoring of vaccine adverse events in 2007-2010. Those researchers reported back that the existing reporting system may capture as little as 1% of actual adverse events.

A study at Brigham and Womens hospital in Boston found a rate of observed adverse events ~40x higher than what the NIH’s system was detecting

CDC researchers studied VAERS under-reporting for 7 different vaccines, and found the system under reported the investigated adverse events, capturing on average only 32%.

Passive reporting, such as used in VAERS, is commonly considered the worst way to gather high quality data.

The CDC claims to use more than just VAERS to monitor vaccine safety signals. They say they use a database of the largest healthcare providers in the country called the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD). This database should be made public (while protecting patient privacy) to independent researchers. What is the rationale for preventing such research?

There is no good reason that higher quality tracking of adverse events would not be prioritized prior to recommending a product to the entire population for which pharma companies have zero legal liability.

I am NOT saying the vaccines are dangerous. I AM saying the safety monitoring is too obscured to transparently verify if the vaccines are more dangerous than claimed. If they are as safe as the CDC claims, they are a miracle of modern technology. If they are as liable to cause adverse events as what VAERS data, multiplied by 100 would imply, then pursuing other treatments becomes an indisputable priority. I don't know. I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle of those extremes. I am disturbed that having the audacity to want better information somehow invites attacks as an anti-science lunatic. I hope being clear about my concerns, and the evidentiary basis of those concerns, makes it clear that my skepticism is in good faith and grounded in credible evidence.