Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Battle Over New School District Gets Ugly
I’ve lived in Orem for 38 of my 62 years on the globe. I graduated from Orem High School in 1978. I own a home in Orem where I currently reside with my wife, youngest son, and two dogs. So the issue of possibly creating an Orem School District caught my attention. Initially, I was leaning against the idea. Many of my neighbors are against it. Friends and people I know who work as teachers and administrators in the Alpine School District have come out against it. But when it comes to political issues I’ve never been one to make a decision based on the decisions of others; family, friends, or otherwise. I also carry the blessing or curse, it can be both, of having a journalism background that leads me to be skeptical of everything government says and does. It requires I do my own due diligence to the best of my ability to discover and learn the facts and then make an informed choice.
So I started digging.
The city of Orem in Utah County has considered creating its own school district at varying times for over 20 years. A number of feasibility studies have been done over that period, with the most recent study being completed this year. Orem City Council voted 4-3 to put the proposal on the ballot and let the people of Orem vote on it. Alpine School District had been successful in previous years to dissuade Orem’s elected officials from putting the measure on the ballot and letting the people have a say, you know, democracy and such… This time, with a new mayor and several new city council members, democracy got its chance.
From the outset this issue was going to be a data driven decision for me. Public schools are funded by tax dollars, predominantly property tax dollars at the local level, state funding, and some federal funding. One might think crunching those numbers, as the feasibility study was designed to do, would make the choice pretty black and white. I mean, math doesn’t lie…unless those doing the math want it to. It seemed pretty straight forward. Look at the tax rolls and see how much money Orem residents pay in to the current Alpine School District. How much comes back to Orem schools? How has the district responded to Orem school needs, building issues/repairs, student learning and test scores, teacher pay, etc. Ultimately the decision should be based on which option will most improve the learning environment and education for Orem’s kids. Is that better accomplished creating a new district or going with the status quo?
Alpine School District administers public schools for 14 cities. This is a very large school district and is in the top 50 largest districts in the country. Some say it has gotten too big and isn’t serving the needs of the students in some of the older cities in Utah County. The Daily Herald wrote a story about this back in 2016, when members of the school board discussed the idea of a split. At that time ASD had just over 75,000 students. It now has over 85,000.
It didn’t take long for the proponents and opponents of the Prop 2 as it appears on the ballot, to start slinging the mud at each other. The feasibility study was the first target for opponents who weren’t happy to see a positive result in favor of Orem’s desire to split. Opponents aggressively attacked Discovery Education Consultants, the group that conducted the study. StrongerTogether’s criticism lacked any data to allow readers to verify their claims. This becomes a theme of the arguments at ST’s website. But a closer look shows that 4 feasibility studies have come to the same conclusion yet ST doesn’t malign the other 3.
Both sides have websites giving their version of the numbers, reasons for or against, and all the typical fear mongering that goes with this kind of heated emotional issue. I have done my best to dig into the arguments of both sides, wade through the rhetoric, and try to find the verifiable numbers and facts. I’ve provided links to the two main websites here. I’ll provide other links at the end of this article.
StrongerTogether.com – The opposing view 
OremsFuture.com – The supporting view 
As mentioned before, in my mind this issue should be about data, numbers, what’s on the tax rolls, and how it all adds up for or against a new school district. How will the split effect current schools, class size, and teacher pay? How will it effect student learning, grades, and test scores? Getting those numbers has been harder than you might think as both sides work to spin them to their advantage, but what I’ve found so far has favored the spilt more than not.
Alpine School District, we’ll call it ASD going forward, has published numbers on their website that honestly I can’t find anywhere else and they do a poor job showing how they came to their conclusions. It leaves the reader with only one option, take their word for it. Opponents say a new Orem School District (OSD) will result in a 50% tax increase! Nowhere can I find any data that even comes close to corroborating that claim. In fact the Utah Taxpayers Association analyzed that claim and said it was totally fabricated. They even said a tax increase for Orem residents didn’t look likely at all based on the current funding and how that funding would be appropriated if Orem voted to split.
Orem is an older city with declining enrollment, older schools are in need of seismic upgrades and repairs or rebuilding for safety in an earthquake. Orem complains that it pays far more to the district than it gets out. ASD claims the opposite to be true but then blames any reduction in funding on the declining enrollments. But what do the numbers really say? That’s what I’ll attempt to summarize here while providing links to resources you can use to do your own due diligence.
ST makes the claim that ASD subsidizes Orem schools to the tune of $21 million per year and that the cost per student for Orem schools is higher than other schools because of declining enrollment, while operational costs have remained the same or increased. When I first saw this claim I was unable to find any data to substantiate it. The link on the page making the claim sent me to a Truth About Taxes page, but nowhere on that page was there any source data for the number in the claim. Then a link to a page I couldn’t originally find was posted on Facebook that did provide calculations for that number. I’m still not sure how to navigate to that page at the website, but thanks to Dallas Helquist for pointing me to that page in a Facebook post.
That said, the Utah Taxpayers Association makes a good point regarding this claim by ASD. “…If the claims by “Stronger Together” were correct (in that the remainder of Alpine School District subsidizes Orem to the tune of millions of dollars per year) why would they so vociferously oppose letting the Orem tax base form its own district? If one part of an organization is a financial drain, why oppose letting that part go? The vocal opposition to this proposal leads one to believe that the opposite is true: the Orem tax base is valuable and in fact, contributes more than its fair share to the Alpine School District.” Great question and one I’ll take a shot at answering in a moment.
What I found at the StrongerTogether website were a lot of claims and accusations but little verifiable data to back them up. As I went though the website it became very clear that the folks at ASD are simply telling Orem residents to vote no because “we say so and so do a lot of other important people.” Every text link is an internal link, meaning it just takes you to another page inside the website. None of the links I clicked took me to 3rd parties or outside sources. This website is rife with “What if’s” and fear inducing claims. Fear is a great motivator and this site uses it to the max. Everything from “teachers won’t stay in Orem” to “your taxes will go up by 50%.” ST continues to make the claim that Orem’s taxes will have to go up by 50% to pay for the new district even though that number has been mathematically debunked and proven to be a fabrication. Yet they continue to use it to frighten voters.
When you go to OremsFuture.com you’ll find their arguments FOR Prop 2, but also numbers to corroborate their arguments. The site has sourced graphs and data. What a concept! After reading through each website it became very clear, the OSD proponents are data driven, letting the numbers make their arguments, while the opponent’s arguments are largely emotionally driven. StrongerTogether is full of emotional pleas, endorsements, and testimonials but lacking in real data that can be cross-checked and verified with outside sources.
Unfortunately, when emotions rank higher than facts things tend to go downhill fast and the side relying on emotions, loyalties, and relationships to win rather than the merits of its argument tends to do and say things that aren’t 100% true and accurate. That’s where this story and this issue has turned ugly and starts reading more like an espionage novel than a ballot issue.
As mentioned earlier, the StrongerTogether website claimed it “began as a group of parents concerned about Orem City’s approach to splitting from Alpine School District and creating an Orem-only district.” Not quite…
StrongerTogether is actually a registered PIC (political issues committee). GRAMA requests have since revealed that it was ASD board members Ada Wilson and Sara Hacken who are behind the formation of the PIC and have admitted to forming it while insisting they did so as private citizens, not as ASD Board Members. Kinda sounds like a conflict of interest to me, but I digress. An email sent to their founding board members was signed as “ASD Board Representatives Ada Wilson and Sara Hacken.” Take from that what you will.
Oddly Wilson and Hacken’s email was dated February of 2022. You have to ask yourself, why would they go through the hassle of creating a PIC when the Orem feasibility study hadn’t even been completed, before anyone knew how an OSD would effect anyone in Utah County or the ASD? To make things more murky, StrongerTogether leadership claims ST was formed AFTER the feasibility study was published. This claim was made again at a cottage meeting recently. But this is a provable lie.
Why? Well, they probably didn’t expect a GRAMA request to be filed allowing others to see their email communications with dates and times on them.
Ada Wilson also sent emails to all of the nine PTA heads in Orem. Ada Wilson was working to sway the PTA to go against the OSD proposal by discrediting the feasibility study 5 months before it was even published. In an another email to Rob Smith, Cissy Rasmussen appears to admit that the claim “services will go down and taxes will go up” has no data upon which to substantiate the claim, but StrongerTogether continued to perpetuate that claim for months, even after the Utah Taxpayers Association debunked the claim. The emails and timelines acquired via the GRAMA request show that Ada Wilson and Alpine School District were actively working to discredit the feasibility study before it even began.
StrongerTogether claimed they asked and received permission from the regional PTA to forward a survey they had sent out to teachers in ASD, but there is a conflict of interest problem there as well. The founding board members of the StrongerTogether PIC are all members of the regional PTA. So basically they asked for and granted themselves permission to survey members. There are still founding members listed on the StrongerTogether website making the claim that ASD has no involvement with StrongerTogether in direct conflict with acquired emails. Why all the secrecy? Why the obfuscation and denials? Well, there may be a few ethical and even legal reasons for that.
Ada Wilson was doing a lot of her communicating with ASD officials and administrators including Rob Smith ASD business administrator on their ASD official email accounts which would be a violation of the Political Activities of Public Entities Act, Utah State Code 20A-11-1205. On February 17, 2022, David Stephenson the communications director for ASD sent an email to Ada Wilson and Sarah Hacken with the subject line: Proposed Messaging for Orem City. The email contained a full page of anti-split talking points, the same talking points used by StrongerTogether for months now.
Ada Wilson, Sara Hacken, and PTA members also used additional district resources to campaign against Prop 2. One email detailed how district employees helped Cissy Rasmussen bypass the district firewall to ensure their Prop 2 surveys reached the teachers. Based on emails acquired through a GRAMA request, it appears StrongerTogether, ASD, and the PTA used district time and resources to campaign against Orem’s proposal. The problem is private citizens don’t have access to the resources or carry the influence school board members do, which is one reason why this kind of behavior is illegal as well as unethical.
Was it ignorance? Was it overzealous loyalty to ASD that made these people do some of the things they did? Or was it money?
ASD is pushing Prop 1 on the ballot right next to Prop 2. Prop 1 is asking taxpayers to approve a $595 million dollar bond. Now the fog starts to clear a bit. If Orem splits from ASD, how is that bond going to be paid for without tax increases on everyone else in the district? ASD knows that Orem, Lindon, Vineyard, and other east bench cities must be kept in the club for them to pay for this massive spending. A bond that will add another $116 million to Orem’s portion of ASD debt but return only $20 million for the construction of two new gymnasiums in Orem…wait what? Why does Orem need or want two new gyms? Are you starting to see why so many Orem residents are beginning to say yes to Prop 2 once they understand all of the facts?
StrongerTogether says teachers won’t stay in Orem if Prop 2 passes. It has come to my attention that teachers, who do not wish to be identified, were told by Prop 2 opponents they’ll lose their jobs if Prop 2 passes. Gee, I can’t imagine why teachers would be against it… Of course that’s nonsense and according to “math” OSD will be able to keep teachers at current pay and even increase pay. However, teachers do lose their jobs when ASD closes schools and it has closed and combined Orem schools in recent years. During an October 18th bond presentation, Kim Bird and David Stephenson from ASD announced that they are considering closing more title 1 schools in Orem. They are considering closing and consolidating seven more Orem schools. Talk about disruption to the students and putting teachers’ jobs in jeopardy. ASD is now saying that’s not true, but people who attended the bond presentation say otherwise.
In a recent debate, Ada Wilson said that they will be closing and “merging” more Orem schools. At the bond presentation, ASD confirmed that. How many more schools will we have left by the time Alpine finally decides to split the district on their terms? The split will eventually happen, but on whose terms is the question.
Here’s the cynical side of me. ASD has said publicly that a district split will eventually happen, but now is not the right time. Could their timing concerns have anything to do with holding on to Orem for a few more years and getting more of our schools closed (due to declining enrollment), selling the land, continuing to collect Orem tax dollars, and make sure Orem’s bank account is in play for the nearly $600,000,000 bond they are aggressively pushing to pass? Those reasons make a lot more sense to me than the ones they display on their website and in their literature. Especially knowing how it all started and the subterfuge to make Orem residents believe the opposition was just made up of concerned folks with kids in Orem schools. “Trust us” was their mantra. “We know best” when asked why. Sounds a lot like big government, doesn’t it?
On the StrongerTogether website it states, “At Stronger Together, we have no motive other than what is best for students and the community as a whole. In that spirit, many of us—average parents, grandparents, teachers, and taxpayers have spent months of our personal time to do a careful examination of the study.” I disagree. I believe they have 595,000,000 reasons to block Orem’s proposal and I believe the main backers and promoters of the NO on Prop2 campaign are, in fact, ASD insiders.
I don’t blame my neighbors and other residents of Orem for wanting to trust the Alpine School District. But this time, they’ve done and said things that go beyond what I deem appropriate and ethical behavior and have misled people with information and numbers that not one single certified financial analyst has verified. They have maligned individuals by name, spread rumors about the intentions and credibility of those who conducted the feasibility study, attacked the study itself, and then when the non-partisan Utah Taxpayers Association debunked their claims of increased taxes to fund OSD, they attacked the Utah Taxpayers Association with claims they were “bribed” and “paid off.” Those claims forced the UTA to come out and defend their position. You can read that here: Utah Taxpayers Association Response to Allegations of Bribery
I know most folks don’t have the time or even want to take the time to dig into this kind of stuff, but our kids and grandkids deserve the best possible education we can give them. To be totally honest that’s probably only available with Home Schooling in this day and age, of which I am an advocate. But I also know that’s not feasible for many parents. Based on what I’ve learned and the disturbing revelations regarding ASD’s handling of this issue and campaign of rumor and innuendo against it, I will be voting yes on Prop 2.
The cards are definitely stacked against it. Unfairly, in my opinion, but the chances of this proposition passing are slim. I hope I’m wrong, but if I’m not, I hope the people at Alpine School District show more ethical restraint and don’t become vindictive toward the parents, teachers, and Orem City leaders who believed an Orem School District was the right thing to do at the right time. I hope the school district realizes and admits to the value they have placed on Orem and treat its residents and schools accordingly.
I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind at this point, but if verifiable facts and figures matter, and people should seriously question the opposition and their rhetoric. Call the ASD offices and ask that they provide citable information that you can use to verify their financial claims, but don’t expect much, not even 3rd party financial analysts can do it.
I want to believe everyone in this fight is truly fighting for what’s best for the kids. We won’t really know until well after the election, but I will tell you this, I will be paying much closer attention to what ASD and our school board does going forward if Prop 2 is defeated.
I hope everyone will.
Other links in favor of Prop 2
Orem School District Funding Calculations with John Barrick PhD, CPA
Yes on Prop2 Cottage Meeting – Part 1
Yes on Prop2 Cottage Meeting – Part 2
Orem City District Feasibility Study
Other links that oppose Prop 2
Orem Teachers are voting No on Prop 2
Stronger Together Facebook Page
Other Source Materials
Alpine School District Business Services
Utah County Property Taxes – Treasurer
Utah Taxpayers Association Schools Spending Report
National Center for Educational Statistics
ASD Enrollment History and Projections
We Buy Votes! Contact Joe Biden and the DNC.
Joe Biden and the Democrats are actually going forward with their insane idea and the most “in your face” bailout in history. They’re effectively telling every responsible American taxpayer that ever took out a loan, be it student loan, mortgage loan, car loan, or signed on to any debt and the PAID OFF the debt, that they need to buck up and help pay for new debts they never signed on to.
You, me, and every other hard working stiff will now be paying for the student loans of millions of people who willingly signed their names to contracts to put the extra cash in their pocket they needed to pay for college, but now feel it too burdensome to uphold their end of the bargain and pay off their loans. The desperate Democrats are all too willing to take your money and mine and buy themselves some votes for the November mid-terms.
I have a lot to say about this and most of it requires language my mom would slap me for using. Then I saw a post on Facebook by one of my favorite people, Mike Rowe, which summed up this boondoggle better than I ever could.
I encourage you to share this on your social media. Copy and paste it. I don’t think Mike or Charlie will be too unhappy if this goes viral. Charlie Cooke wrote this for the National Review and you can also read it there. I also encourage you to go to Mike’s website and support his foundation.
The Democrats and Joe Biden are out of control. It’s time for all of us, regardless our political views, to stand together against foolish and harmful policies like this one.
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Mike Rowe
When I do weigh in, I try to acknowledge both sides of the argument, and make my points with as much respect as I can muster. Today, however, I can see only one side. Today, I can find nothing to respect in the President’s decision to transfer billions of dollars in outstanding student loans onto the backs of those people my foundation tries to assist – the same people I’ve spent the last twenty years profiling on Dirty Jobs.
With that in mind, I’m not going to write the piece I just sat down to write. Instead, I’m going to share the attached article from Charlie Cooke, who writes better than I do, and shares my disdain for what just happened. If you share our disdain, then please, share this post as well. This decision is without question, the biggest pre-Labor Day slap in the face to working people I’ve ever seen.
—-
BIDEN’S STUDENT-DEBT BONFIRE IS A CLASSIST MESSAGE TO THE UNCREDENTIALED: SCREW ‘EM
By Charlie Cooke
A few moments before I sat down to write this piece, I opened the door to six guys in blue shirts who had come to my house to replace our air-conditioning units. The Florida weather being what it is, I’ve seen some of these guys work on our air conditioners before, and they’re as skilled and knowledgeable and conscientious and hard-working as you might expect. The company they work for, which is local to North Florida, was started by a guy who chose to forgo college in favor of taking out a small-business loan to strike out on his own. Most of the technicians who work for him didn’t go to college, either. They took a different path. And, well . . . what absolute chumps the president has just made of them for that!
Squirm if you like, but that’s the truth of the matter: As of today, the six air-conditioning technicians in my house are on the hook for college loans that were signed for, spent, and enjoyed by other people. Confirming the measure today, President Biden announced that any American who has both college debt they vowed to repay and an individual yearly income under $125,000 (or a family yearly income under $250,000) will be given up to $20,000 by the Treasury — which means by you, and by me, and by everyone else who pays taxes in America.
Why? Well, that’s the question.
The answer can’t be, “because that’s what the relevant law anticipates or requires.” As of yet, Congress has provided no authorization for the executive branch to arbitrarily write off some of the money that borrowers owe to taxpayers. As of yet, Congress has passed no rules that allow down-on-their-luck presidents to throw money at people for political gain. As of yet, Congress has given no instruction that if the president’s friends might like a little more cash, he can raid the Treasury to give it to them. Certainly, Congress has set up a loan program. But the deal there is rather simple, all told: First you borrow, and then you pay back what you borrowed. There is no mention of “forgiveness” days or of “help” or of rolling Chekhovian jubilees, and by pretending otherwise, President Biden is making a mockery of his oath to uphold the Constitution.
Another answer that won’t fly is, “To lower the cost of education.” As President Biden made clear today, this is a one-time deal, a lottery, a lightning strike. People who paid off their loans last week aren’t covered. People who will take out new loans after the policy has run its course aren’t covered. The problems in the system aren’t addressed. The colleges, and their endowments, are left unmolested. American culture’s increasingly credentialist presumptions aren’t altered. Within four years, overall debt will return to its present level.
With the stroke of a pen, the already-fake deficit savings within the Inflation Reduction Act will be wiped out. This isn’t a reform. It’s not even pretending to be reform. It’s a contemptuous, abusive, unbelievably expensive shot in the dark — the net effect of which will be that fewer people correctly calibrate whether college is worth it, fewer colleges change their offerings to meet market demand, and, because this sort of executive giveaway will now loom large as a possibility, fewer people feel the need to save for college.
It seems so arbitrary. Why does Biden not want to do the same thing for loans on trucks owned by plumbers? Why not for mortgages — which, given how heavily it subsidizes them, the federal government clearly thinks are worthwhile? Why not for credit cards or auto payments or mom-and-pop credit lines? The answer, I’m afraid to say, is disgustingly classist: Because Joe Biden and his party believe that college students are better than everyone else. Because Joe Biden and his party believe that college students are of a finer cut. Because Joe Biden and his party prefer college students to you, and they think that those students ought to be rewarded for that by being handed enormous gobs of your money.
Electricians, store managers, deli workers, landscapers, waitresses, mechanics, entrepreneurs? Screw ’em. Sure, college graduates make more money than non-graduates, and their unemployment rate is lower, too. But non-graduates don’t have access to the president, so they don’t matter. They’re tradesmen, the riff-raff, the great unwashed. They’re background noise, dirty-handed types, second-classers. They don’t deserve $10,000 in debt reduction. What would they even do with it? Go hunting? Give it to their church? Their role is to subsidize the superior people, and the superior people go to college.
Why did Joe Biden do all this? That’s why. Why was this what Joe Biden chose to break his oath to achieve? That’s why.
When it came down to it, good ol’ Scranton Joe sent cash from the sort of people he cynically pretends to care about to the sort of people he actually cares about: the privileged, accredited, self-dealing clerisy that his ever-dwindling political party now calls its base.
Utah Politics: Republicans Rats and Rumors
I live in Utah. I was born and raised here. I left Utah for a number of years as my career in broadcast journalism took me to other parts of the country, but returned after retiring from TV News in 2005. I love my home state and I love Utah County, but what I have learned about some of our local and state government elected officials over the past few weeks is not only shocking, but frankly, disheartening and sickening.
Utah County has long been a stronghold of active faithful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, at one point being close to 90% church members. As members we are taught and believe strongly in being honest, having integrity, and treating others honorably. However, in such a high concentration of like-minded people it becomes easy to assume everyone holds those same characteristics at the same high level and live by them in the same way. That simply isn’t the truth. All people are fallible and make poor decisions and bad choices including the illegal kind.
Utah County has grown extensively over the past 30 years. What was a county of about 200,000 people in 1980 had grown to nearly 700,000 by 2021 and continues to see new residents increasingly flow into the cities in this county. That certainly brings change, including change to the overall makeup of the communities we live in. But it is still predominantly LDS or Mormon or as the church prefers it, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
What I have learned about some of our officials in Utah County will be shocking to many in a place commonly known as Happy Valley. Happy Valley is supposed to be full of good, honest, hard working people who love each other and go to church on Sunday, but Happy Valley has some very scary skeletons in its closet including some with a lot meat still on the bone.
It’s hard to know where to begin because there is so much to cover. The easy place to start is with the Mike Smith, David Leavitt feud that has made national news in recent weeks. Mike Smith is the Utah County Sheriff and David Leavitt is Utah County Attorney. Both are elected officials. David Leavitt is up for reelection and the primary is Tuesday, June 28, 2022. Just weeks before the primary Sheriff Mike Smith opened up a cold case. According to KSL News it implicated Leavitt.
Utah County Attorney David Leavitt said Wednesday that he’s been wrongly accused of cannibalism, as well as the murder of small children. The accusation, according to Leavitt, stems from an investigation by the Utah County Sheriff, Mike Smith. Further, Leavitt believes that the Utah County Sheriff is using his position for political gain, as both the Utah County Sheriff and the Utah County Attorney are up for reelection in 2022. Leavitt has called for an independent investigation of a press release made public on Tuesday (cited below.) And he said he wants an investigation into Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith as well as Smith’s office.
This bizarre story got the attention of national news media outlets and the story went viral. Last week the Utah County Commission voted unanimously NOT to investigate the nearly 2 decades old allegations of Satanic rituals and sex slaves, but Smith and those trying to oust Leavitt from his County Attorney seat continue to use it and other allegations of impropriety and poor management of the county attorney’s office as they campaign for Jeff Gray to replace Leavitt. Utah state officials like Utah State Attorney General Sean Reyes and former Utah Speaker of the House Greg Hughes jumped into the fray piling on Leavitt.
Even Glenn Beck has been part of the smear, whether intentional or not, I don’t know. I respect Beck and have been a long time listener to his program, but after hearing his interviews with both Sheriff Smith and then David Leavitt, it appears pretty obvious Beck already made up his mind who the good guys and bad guys were.
Glenn Beck and Sheriff Mike Smith interview.
Just over one week later Leavitt got his opportunity to speak on Becks radio program, but the reception he received and the time he was given was very different from that of Sheriff Smith. If that audio becomes available I will update this post and include it here. Suffice it to say, it was one of the most unfair, cynical, and predetermined-outcome interviews I’ve ever heard on Beck’s program. It was a railroad. In all my years as a journalist and news reporter I have never seen someone treated so disrespectfully by an interviewer as Leavitt was by Beck.
Already in a tailspin, Leavitt’s campaign took another critical hit.
But is the negative campaign against Leavitt legitimate? Or is this a story of David and Goliath where Goliath wins the fight?
I intend to provide evidence, not hearsay or rumor or innuendo, evidence that David Leavitt is being smeared. As I stated in the opening paragraph, Utah County has some very corrupt people in office and they are doing everything in their power to maintain their hold on that power and keep those who might upset the apple cart out.
That evidence will begin to surface in my next post.
FDA Advisory Committee Meeting Puts Vaccines Problems in the Public Record
On September 17, 2021 the FDA Advisory Committee met to discuss authorizing a third Pfizer COVID-19 booster shot. The Biden administration has been pushing hard for booster shots heading into the winter months but 18 officials at the FDA are opposed to the Biden Administration’s plan to start distributing Pfizer “booster shots” later this month (September, 2021).
By a vote of 16-2 the 18 member committee voted against approving the booster shots, although later they did give their endorsement on approving them for people 65 and older.
During the open session portion of the meeting, a number of doctors who question the efficacy and safety of the vaccines were given a chance to address the public with their concerns. This was the first opportunity for the general public to hear objections to the vaccines using scientific data from numerous government and private practice sources much of which has been censored by major news media and big tech social media giants.
Dr. Joseph Fraiman, an emergency room physician from New Orleans who did his studies at Cornell Medical School, stated that there are no trials large enough yet to prove that the COVID-19 vaccines reduce hospitalization without causing serious harm. He lamented the fact that those being called vaccine hesitant or anti-vaxxers, coming into his emergency room were more educated on the risks of the COVID-19 vaccine than those who were vaccinated.
I know many think that vaccine hesitants are dumb, or just misinformed. That’s not at all what I’ve seen.
In fact typically, independent of education level, the vaccine hesitant I’ve met in the ER are more familiar with vaccine studies, and more aware of their own COVID risks than the vaccinated.
For example, many of my nurses have refused the vaccine despite seeing COVID-19 cause more death and devastation than most people have.
I ask them why refuse the vaccine?
They tell me while they’ve seen the first hand dangers of COVID, the elderly, the obese, diabetics; they think their risk is low.
They’re not wrong. A 30-year-old female has about a 1 in 7000 chance of catching COVID and being hospitalized over 90 days.
He pointed out that a recent study showed that the risk of vaccine-induced Myocarditis (heart disease) in young males is higher than their risk from hospitalization from COVID. He called for larger studies to be conducted.
We the medical establishment cannot confidently call out anti-COVID-19 activists who publicly claim the vaccines harm more than they save, especially in the young and healthy, the fact that we do not have the clinical evidence to say these activists are wrong, should terrify us all.
Steve Kirsch, the Executive Director of the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund, also gave testimony.
I am going to focus my remarks today with the elephant in the room that nobody likes to talk about, that the vaccines kill more people than they save.
He presented data to prove that the belief that these vaccines are “safe” simply isn’t true and provided data to prove it. Kirsch claims that expert analysis of existing data, including the 6-month Pfizer trials and VAERS data, prove that the shots kill more people than they allegedly save.
About 411 deaths per million doses. That translates into about 150,000 people have died (from the Pfizer shots).
The real numbers confirm that we kill more than we save. And I would love to look at the Israel ministry of health data on the 90+ year olds where we went from a 94.4% vaccinated group to 82.9% vaccinated in the last 4 months. In the most optimistic scenario, it means that 50% of the vaccinated people died and 0% of unvaccinated people died. Unless you can explain that to the public you cannot approve the boosters.
Dr. Jessica Rose, PhD, MSc, BSc, who has done extensive studies on the VAERS data gave a presentation where she showed a 1000% percent increase in adverse events following COVID vaccines, as compared to all previous vaccines in prior years since such reporting began.
The three doctors who explained the concerning data are not part of that committee, but testified during the “open comments” section of the meeting. But the fact that the FDA allowed their comments is very significant, as they are now in the public record.
There appears to be some infighting going on at the FDA regarding the Pfizer COVID-19 shots. What could be the reasons for this? There were signs heading into the meeting this week that there could be some fireworks as two top vaccine research scientists at the FDA, Dr. Marion Gruber and Dr. Phillip Kause, the Director and Deputy Director of the Office of Vaccines Research, resigned over the White House announcement for boosters before the FDA provided approval.
It could be a matter of Pfizer’s competitors not liking the fact that Pfizer has dominated the market share on the COVID-19 vaccines. They could be applying pressure on their contacts at the FDA to open up the market to all of them.
Or maybe it’s just the fact that regardless how hard the corporate news media has tried to keep the uncomfortable truth about the vaccines and covid’s risks in general, the truth is getting out. People are seeing the real data and numbers and realizing the narrative they’ve been fed for over 18 months is full of holes and in some cases blatant lies. Perhaps some in the FDA are seeing the writing on the wall with the new data coming out of the UK and Israel showing the vaccinated to be most at risk for continued infection and hospitalization in spite of those nations having the highest vaccination rates. Or maybe it’s India’s states that decided to allow Ivermectin to be prescribed and have seen their COVID numbers plummet to almost no cases over the past 30 days even though India has the lowest vaccination rate in the world.
Who knows? But the information that finally reached the public this week should cause a shift in the narrative and the “misinformation” rightly identified as that coming from our corporate media.
The video below is testimony given by 3 physicians regarding the efficacy and safety of the vaccines based on current data from the CDC and other countries.
India’s Ivermectin Blackout – Part IV Kerala’s Vaccinated Surge
Part IV in a series of articles regarding the use of Ivermectin in India
Authored by Dr. Justus R. Hope, writer’s pseudonym, graduated summa cum laude from Wabash College where he was named a Lilly Scholar. He attended Baylor College of Medicine where he was awarded the M.D. degree. He completed a residency in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at The University of California Irvine Medical Center. He is board-certified and has taught at The University of California Davis Medical Center in the departments of Family Practice and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. He has practiced medicine for over 35 years and maintains a private practice in Northern California.
“Kerala is in the national spotlight once again, with the state accounting for 68% of 46,265 new COVID-19 cases in India.” The Times of India published this on August 27, 2021.
Kerala, the tiny state on India’s southwest coast, is the one hotspot of COVID remaining in India. Kerala led India on August 25, 2021, with 31,445 of its 46,265 new infections. With no Ivermectin use, Kerala has some 34 million people, making their infection rate nearly one in one thousand. This rate is far higher than Uttar Pradesh, India, at closer to one in eight million, where Ivermectin is widely used.
However, Kerala’s high infection rate is right up there with the United States, averaging about 150,000 new cases per day or about one in two thousand per population.
The Times of India confirmed Kerala’s lack of contact tracing. Furthermore, they confirmed that the vaccines did not help prevent transmission, and they demonstrated that the test positivity rate dramatically increased – after August 5 – when Ivermectin was dropped from the protocol.
Juan Chamie, the Cambridge-based data analyst, was quoted in Part III of our series -The Lesson of Kerala:
“If you look at the test positivity rate (TPR) of Kerala, it declined from over 25% to 10% and remained stable around it. Since the last protocol change that removed Ivermectin, the positivity rate is increasing. In less than two weeks, the positivity rate jumped and right now is above 15%, the highest in the last two months.”
Now we see their TPR has increased to 17.3%, far greater than anywhere else in India, and this increase begs an explanation. As discussed in this series, there has been a United States media blackout on India’s overall conquest of COVID-19, particularly avoidance of any discussion about Ivermectin’s role.
We pointed this fact out in Part III of our series. The lesson learned there was that Ivermectin could make up for low vaccination rates, but vaccination, unfortunately, cannot make up for low Ivermectin use.
Now we hear grudging acceptance of some of this, especially by the Indian media.
Dr. Santosh Kumar SS, deputy medical superintendent, reported in the Times of India article that vaccination played a role in the massive transmission of the virus in Kerala. He stated, “It (vaccination) might not have helped control the spread, but it definitely helped reduce the severity of the infection, hospitalization, and deaths.”
Since Ivermectin has been shown to massively reduce the spread and viral load as reviewed in Part III, and vaccination has been shown to reduce the severity, the logical result would be to use both in combination.
As they did so successfully in Uttar Pradesh, one could reduce spread by having all contacts and family members of an infected person take Ivermectin preventatively.
This method should be especially effective since Kerala admittedly no longer conducts contact tracing. Dr. A Sukumaran, state epidemiologist, reported, “An aggressive testing strategy was good till we were testing, contact tracing and isolating patients, but that is not happening now.”
With only 3% of India’s population, Kerala accounted for 50% of the country’s new daily cases on August 1, 2021. However, after stopping their occasional Ivermectin use entirely on August 5, new infections accelerated, and now they account for 2/3 of India’s cases. Kerala is moving in the wrong direction.
In Part III, this was most likely related to relaxing their lockdown restrictions to vaccinated persons. More than half of Kerala’s population has received at least one vaccination. Vaccinated persons were exempted from the lockdown, which we believe accounted for Kerala’s massive surge in sharp contrast to the rest of India.
Kerala made exceptions for vaccinated people, allowing them to mingle and travel and participate in festivals like the Hindu Festival of Onam, held annually in mid-August.
While the festival is often blamed for the spread, Kerala was already leading in cases before the festival. The real culprit is the relaxation of precautions in the vaccinated. The assumption that vaccinated people are “safe” is the real problem. That supposition is the issue, and this mistaken belief has led to global spread.
Those in the United States feel the vaccinated are safe for air travel, cruising, etc., as they have been granted vaccine passports. However, we now know the vaccinated can spread the virus every bit as quickly as the unvaccinated. A vaccinated person’s viral load is just as high as an unvaccinated.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm
Indeed, following the free travel policy in vaccinated people and the incorrect assumption they were “safe,” we saw massive surges in geographically isolated locations like Hawaii, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti.
The island of Sri Lanka went from an average of 200 cases per day to 5,000 cases per day. Two thousand miles from the nearest land, Hawaii saw their cases rise from 40 per day to 730. New Zealand, a country that had set an example for the world with less than a few cases per day, now jumped to 83 new cases on August 27, 2021. Tahiti, the isolated French Polynesian paradise of the South Pacific, saw their cases rise from an average of less than five per day to 1225.
These “safe” vaccinated travelers were the source of spread to those isolated destinations that previously had their pandemic under control.
A point of pride in Kerala is their high vaccination rate; they are among the top five most vaccinated states out of 29 in India. So vaccinated individuals are allowed past checkpoints and thought to be “safe.”
Part III shows that vaccinated patients with breakthrough infections are a potent source of spread, and we believe this has been the core source of Kerala’s rampant transmission.
The bottom line here is that Kerala’s lesson is not being learned. Their virus seems to be transmitted more freely than anywhere else in India, and it is no longer a mystery why. The vaccinated are spreading it as they are not subject to lockdown restrictions.
Their non-use of Ivermectin and failure to use it in all family contacts also played a significant role.
The problem now is not only failure to acknowledge the lessons of India; the problem is ongoing misleading and false publicity against Ivermectin.
In the United States, we see a coordinated media blitz of hundreds of recent articles – all begun in unison in August 2021 – alleging increased calls to poison control – without any evidence to support this.
Why is it that nobody in Uttar Pradesh reported “poisoning” with Ivermectin? Why is it that no one who takes Ivermectin for scabies or rosacea has reported “poisoning?” Why is it that none of the 60+ studies conducted on Ivermectin involving more than 23,000 patients has found anyone with “poisoning” related to Ivermectin?
Because it is not true, these reports have been fabricated to support an agenda.
However, the fact remains that in over 3.7 Billion doses of Ivermectin used over 40 years, Ivermectin has proved exceedingly safe, safer than Tylenol or aspirin and that safety record remains intact today.
When you read – incorrectly – that Ivermectin is only for the treatment of worm infestations (parasites), please think to read further and realize Ivermectin is also used to treat cancer, and it is also used to treat viruses.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7505114/
When you read that anti-parasitic drugs similar to Ivermectin – also used in both animals and humans – are now increasingly used to treat cancers, please use your common sense when the media attempts to scare you aware from them. For example, my friend with brain cancer might not be alive today without another anti-parasitic drug, Mebendazole.
While the FDA has no problem with you spending 10,000 dollars per month on toxic and ineffective chemotherapy that permanently damages your organs, they object to you taking a cheap repurposed drug that can save your life. Ask yourself why?
https://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Cancer-COVID-19-Disease-Repurposed/dp/0998055425
Did it ever occur to you that Big Pharma and Big Media may be using similar deceptive tactics that Big Tobacco used to market their products? Did you ever consider that these corporations have an agenda against you taking inexpensive medications because they might lose sales of their expensive, yet more dangerous, and less effective solutions?
Would you consider reading for yourself how the media has demonized safe and effective medications through the use of fear to promote the Big Pharma agenda? Read what the most credible experts from Harvard and Yale have to say. Read about why the Nightly News, YouTube, Wikipedia, CNN, and the American networks have not been truthful with you on this subject. You don’t want them to scare you away from what works.
https://www.amazon.com/Ivermectin-World-Justus-R-Hope/dp/1737415909
Around the world, there is a push to censor anything related to Ivermectin’s profound effectiveness against COVID-19.
The truth is often revealed in the most unlikely locations, even more remote than India. Look at this example from South America, deep in the Amazon. Dr. Flavio Cadegiani, an MD, PhD endocrinologist, and researcher, reported his experience in the state of Amazonas during the peak of the Gamma (Brazilian variant) COVID outbreak. He found all the hospitals packed with sick patients, except one city, where the hospital was empty.
No one was sick. It was as if COVID-19 had skipped over this city which was in the middle of all the others that were brimming with cases. There was no obvious explanation according to Dr. Cadegiani.
“There in the middle of the Amazon, we went to a city called Coari. We went there expecting a full hospital with thousands of patients. (Instead) the hospital was completely empty. (So) we were not able to conduct the study there. I was trying to understand (why).”
Dr. Cadegiani asked the Secretary of Health why. She was reluctant to answer in front of people. In private, she told Dr. Cadegiani it was because the whole town had been treated with Ivermectin, but she feared his judgement.
The doctor relayed this story, “And we came to another (private) room, and she said (quietly), ‘Look, we actually have provided Ivermectin for the whole population for two months now.’
The doctor asked, ‘And why are you shy in telling me that?’
‘I thought you’d accuse us of giving unapproved treatments,’ she replied.”
The doctor explained she was fearful of government criticism. See Mark 12:00
https://odysee.com/@FrontlineCovid19CriticalCareAlliance:c/FLCCC-WEBINAR-082521_FINAL_YouTube:7
In an interview on CNN, Dr. Fauci himself, the face of organized medicine, said,
“Don’t do it – take Ivermectin for COVID.”
https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2021/08/29/dr-anthony-fauci-ivermectin-covid-19-sotu-vpx.cnn
However, if Ivermectin has been FDA-approved as safe for scabies and rosacea, and it has, then it cannot be somehow unsafe for another condition – provided a medical doctor appropriately prescribes it.
When evaluating conflicting recommendations, one should consider the potential of bias, especially financial. Dr. Fauci’s alignment with significant corporate interests is something one should keep in mind.
When evaluating the trustworthiness of witnesses, one should ALWAYS look at bias. And place the most weight on data. Compare what Dr. Fauci said with the experience in India. The graphs of the Uttar Pradesh experience with Ivermectin compared to Kerala’s debacle without it should tell you something.
The Health Secretary of Coari had nothing to gain in explaining their secret use of Ivermectin was the reason her hospitals were empty. Indeed, a statement that admits to violating a governmental order is probably true as it is against one’s interest – it could expose one to a fine or penalty – most would not lie about something that could get them into trouble. The law of evidence holds that a statement against interest contains inherent trustworthiness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statement_against_interest
However, Dr. Fauci’s statements are tainted by the overwhelming influence of Big Pharma and their not-so-subtle agenda. As a result, his statements are anything but credible. So, when it comes to health matters and saving you and your family, you must decide who and what to believe. Nothing beats old-fashioned common sense. Nothing beats the truth.
India’s Ivermectin Blackout – Part III The Lesson of Kerala
Part III in a series of articles regarding the use of Ivermectin in India
Authored by Dr. Justus R. Hope, writer’s pseudonym, graduated summa cum laude from Wabash College where he was named a Lilly Scholar. He attended Baylor College of Medicine where he was awarded the M.D. degree. He completed a residency in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at The University of California Irvine Medical Center. He is board-certified and has taught at The University of California Davis Medical Center in the departments of Family Practice and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. He has practiced medicine for over 35 years and maintains a private practice in Northern California.
The New York Times reported India’s colossal drop in COVID cases was unexplainable, while the BBC declared that Kerala’s rise was also a mystery. While new cases of COVID in Uttar Pradesh are rare as million-dollar lottery tickets, in Kerala, a tiny state located in southern India, new daily cases are the same as the United States, nearly one case per thousand. Yet, as we have seen in this series, there has been a curious media blackout on India’s overall success against COVID.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58054124
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/briefing/coronavirus-delta-mysteries.html
“Kerala has been reporting over 22,000 new COVID infections in the last three days. No other state in India is even close to the 10,000 mark. The COVID conundrum in the southern state has led to several questions, with no certain answers.”
The Times of India published this statement on July 29. Kerala has continued to have the majority of new daily cases and almost 25% of India’s daily deaths despite a population of 34 million, less than 3% of India’s total population.
On August 15, Kerala accounted for 18,582 of India’s 32,937 new cases and 102 of India’s 417 new deaths. By contrast, the Ivermectin-using state of Delhi, with nearly the same population size, recorded only 53 new cases and ZERO deaths. In comparison, Uttar Pradesh, with almost eight times as many inhabitants, had only 30 new cases and ONE death.
Kerala had 619 times as many new cases as Uttar Pradesh and over 100 times as many deaths.
So what could Kerala be doing wrong?
Hint: Over-reliance on vaccines and under-reliance on Ivermectin.
Uttar Pradesh led India in its use and has done even better than Delhi because they use Ivermectin early and preventatively.
“Uttar Pradesh was the first state in the country to introduce large-scale prophylactic and therapeutic use of Ivermectin. In May-June 2020, a team at Agra led by Dr. Anshul Pareek, administered Ivermectin to all RRT team members in the district on an experimental basis. It was observed that NONE OF THEM developed COVID-19 despite being in daily contact with patients who had tested positive for the virus,” Uttar Pradesh State Surveillance Officer Vikssendu Agrawal said.
Uttar Pradesh has a policy of treating ALL the contacts of an infected patient prophylactically with Ivermectin. In other words, in Uttar Pradesh, everyone in the house gets Ivermectin treatment even if only one is infected. Ivermectin is known to reduce mortality in infected and dramatically lowers the viral load, thereby helping reduce the spread of the virus to others.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.31.21258081v1.full
Dr. Tess Lawrie discussed the Ivermectin-related reduction in viral load and reduced transmissibility.
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/36858/pdf/
Tamil Nadu rejected India’s Ivermectin protocol on May 14 in favor of Remdesivir and mirrored our U.S. FDA policy. The U.S. also reflected Tamil Nadu’s dismal results.
To be clear, on April 22, the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) added Ivermectin to the protocol as an option for the early treatment – even in mild cases – of COVID-19.
https://www.amazon.com/Ivermectin-World-Justus-R-Hope/dp/1737415909
This guideline was updated May 17, 2021, and continues to incorporate Ivermectin, although some states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala have chosen NOT to adopt this Ivermectin protocol – much to their detriment.
https://covid.aiims.edu/clinical-guidance-for-management-of-adult-covid-19-patients/
Despite a widespread attempt by the media and WHO to convince the world that India has dropped Ivermectin by citing the DGHS, the ICMR and AIIMS have not changed their position, and Ivermectin remains in the India National Protocol.
While Kerala included Ivermectin in their state’s guideline in April, they restricted it’s use to only in Class B – severe cases or those with associated disease, making its use much less than if mild cases were allowed. This meant it was reserved as a late treatment if used at all.
https://health.kerala.gov.in/pdf/treatment_guidelines_apr_2021.pdf
Finally, Kerala abandoned Ivermectin use altogether on August 5, 2021.
https://health.kerala.gov.in/pdf/Kerala_state_Covid_19_Treatment_guidelines_V4_August_5.pdf
Juan Chamie, the Cambridge-based data analyst who has provided graphical insight and published on COVID, provided his answer to why Kerala’s COVID cases have spun out of control.
“My main current explanation is the lack of early treatment. Kerala’s COVID protocol from April 2021 included Ivermectin, but not as an early treatment. As a result, only a small group qualified, those in Category B patients having high-risk factors. The new protocol from August 5 is even worse. They removed Ivermectin (completely).”
Another factor, according to Juan, was poor contact tracing. In addition, according to an Indian Governmental Audit, FAMILY TRANSMISSION was a significant problem.
The Hindu reported on August 11, 2021, stated, “In districts such as Malappuram and Kozhikode, where the family size is huge and joint families are the norm, the transmission was spreading within families leading to a high test positivity rate.”
Juan Chamie added this about the test positivity rate, “If you look at the test positivity rate of Kerala, it declined from over 25% to 10% and remained stable around it. Since the last protocol change that removed Ivermectin, the positivity rate is increasing. In less than two weeks, the positivity rate jumped and right now is above 15%, the highest in the last two months.”
However, the most problematic feature is Kerala’s high vaccination rate compared to the other Indian States. While vaccination should be a good thing, it can have severe negative consequences when it leads to rampant viral transmission.
Uttar Pradesh beats all other states (except Bihar) with the lowest COVID deaths and infections because of early and preventative Ivermectin use IN ALL FAMILY CONTACTS. This is despite Uttar Pradesh having only a 4.9% vaccination rate, one of the five lowest of all states in India. On the other hand, Kerala ranks in the top five most vaccinated states. Kerala has vaccinated 70% citizens 45 years and older, and almost 56% of its population has had at least one shot.
The problem with that is that vaccination may give a state a false sense of security.
For example, in an article published on August 13, the details of the Kerala lockdown were discussed. Those with a PCR negative test, those with prior resolved COVID infection, and those WITH AT LEAST ONE VACCINATION were exempted.
As of August 13, 56 percent of Kerala adults over age 18 who had received at least one shot were allowed to mingle and transmit the virus freely. While Ivermectin lowers the viral load and inhibits transmission, the same cannot be said for vaccination.
Viral loads of the vaccinated are just as high as those of the unvaccinated as the CDC has admitted. This means that a vaccinated infected person can spread the virus just as quickly as an unvaccinated. Moreover, the viral load of the Delta infection is often on the order of 1,000 times greater than in the original strain. Finally, a vaccinated person may have milder or no symptoms leading them to take fewer precautions.
Many people believe that breakthrough infections in the vaccinated are a rare occurrence. However, the truth of the matter is the opposite. Breakthrough infections can occur with even GREATER FREQUENCY in the vaccinated. For example, in the recent Massachusetts outbreak, the CDC reported that out of 469 cases, fully 74% occurred in the vaccinated.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm
Finally, the top five states surging in the United States with record COVID infections currently contain two states in the most vaccinated third: Oregon and Hawaii.
The situation in Oregon is severe enough to call the National Guard, while Hawaii’s health director is using terms like disaster and crisis.
“When we see this exponential growth in the amount of people that are getting infected with COVID-19 every day – 2,000 people in the last three days – that’s a crisis. And at the point at which we overwhelm our resources, that’s a disaster.”
As of August 16, 2021, Hawaii ranked number 17 in percent fully vaccinated at 54.29%. Oregon ranked number 12 with 56.79%.
And the Indian state of Kerala ranks in the top five most vaccinated of India’s 29 states. However, if a vaccinated person spreads the virus while someone on Ivermectin does not, that would explain Kerala’s epic failure.
The lesson?
Ivermectin can make up for the low use of vaccination. However, vaccination cannot make up for the low use of Ivermectin.
India’s Ivermectin Blackout – Part II
Part II of a series on the use of Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 in India
Authored by Dr. Justus R. Hope, writer’s pseudonym, graduated summa cum laude from Wabash College where he was named a Lilly Scholar. He attended Baylor College of Medicine where he was awarded the M.D. degree. He completed a residency in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at The University of California Irvine Medical Center. He is board-certified and has taught at The University of California Davis Medical Center in the departments of Family Practice and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. He has practiced medicine for over 35 years and maintains a private practice in Northern California.
Delhi Obliterates COVID with Ivermectin
“In India — where the Delta variant was first identified and caused a huge outbreak — cases have plunged over the past two months. A similar drop may now be underway in Britain. There is no clear explanation for these declines.”
David Leonhardt of the New York Times wrote this on July 30, 2021.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/briefing/coronavirus-delta-mysteries.html
TrialSite News in May reported on “Beyond the Roundup” their analysis.
TSN reported that the Delta variant outbreak exploded in the last week of March, primarily in migrant workers. A large percent of these workers, up to 50% of all Indian citizens, travel to Mumbai each year. However, during April, as the outbreak spread, many workers returned to their hometowns, and many resided in Uttar Pradesh, causing this area to explode with cases.
On April 22, the ICMR and the AAIMS groups added Ivermectin to the India National protocol, and following this, according to TSN, cases dropped exponentially.
“At the national level, the massive surge that overtook the country at the beginning of April slowed exponentially after the new COVID-19 protocol was introduced, which includes the use of Ivermectin and Budesonide.” See Mark 6:58
“Cases in Uttar Pradesh, hometown to many migrant workers who fled Mumbai, have been dropping since April 24, and deaths have dropped since April 30.”
The narrator stated on May 15, 2021, that “the media is resistant to report on this topic (Ivermectin).”
“An important subsequent topic of study would be to compare the transmission rates, disease progression rates, and death rates among population exposed to the current Ivermectin and Budesonide regimen versus Remdesivir and other courses of action for more granular insight into care strategies.”
Subsequently, this question was answered. A natural population experiment unfolded where the Indian state of Tamil Nadu outlawed Ivermectin in favor of Remdesivir while Delhi and Uttar Pradesh continued Ivermectin.
The enormous success of Delhi was reviewed by this author twice:
The contrast with Tamil Nadu was reviewed:
The Burgundy graph above reveals the numbers in Delhi after they included Ivermectin in the protocol. Delhi is a city with 30 million inhabitants and, as of August 11, saw 37 new cases and ZERO deaths. By contrast, Tamil Nadu, a city of 78 million, saw 1964 new cases and 28 new deaths.
Tamil Nadu shares their rejection of Ivermectin and choice to use Remdesivir in common with the United States.
As of August 10, the United States, with 331 million inhabitants, saw 161,990 new cases and 1,049 new deaths. Uttar Pradesh is a state in India of comparable population to the US. Uttar Pradesh contains 241 million people. On August 10, Uttar Pradesh saw only 19 new cases and ONE death, over 1,000 times lower than the US.
The evidence in favor of Ivermectin is massive and overwhelming, which includes W.H.O. scientists Drs. Tess Lawrie’s and Andrew Hill’s recent highly-regarded and peer-reviewed publications [for anyone who wishes to show scientific data to their doctors]:
https://academic.oup.com/ofid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ofid/ofab358/6316214
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34145166/
Dr. Pierre Kory also published a review:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8088823/
Dr. Peter McCullough similarly published via preprint yet another review and all of these strongly showed the drug to be safe and effective against COVID-19.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.06.21259924v1
What should alarm any reader is that Dr. Tess Lawrie reports that Dr. Andrew Hill’s paper’s conclusion was changed by his sponsor, and Dr. Hill was given a gag order on speaking to the media.
https://www.amazon.com/Ivermectin-World-Justus-R-Hope/dp/1737415909
But the bottom line remains why India’s Ivermectin experience remains under a media blackout. Why does the New York Times, who should know better, say it is all a great mystery?
TSN offers an answer, “Despite the (Indian) government’s insistence on promoting Ivermectin and Budesonide, the media hasn’t shown interest in sharing this news. (Instead), the comments continue to promote Remdesivir as an effective drug, and the few media outlets that do refer to Ivermectin call it an unproven medicine or an outdated treatment. It is as if there are two different treatment realities, (one) on the ground and (one) in the local health systems. Millions of patients are now receiving Ivermectin, yet one would never know by the media topics.” See Mark 5:15.
“It’s almost as if there is a blackout on the topic.”
Allow me to offer an explanation. The cost of Remdesivir is $3,100 per dose, while the cost of Ivermectin is pennies.
While the US FDA is against using Ivermectin for COVID-19 outside of a clinical trial, the NIH is neither for or against and leaves the choice up to individual doctors treating individual patients as a matter of choice.
If India’s Ivermectin-using states have 1/1000 of the deaths non-Ivermectin-using countries have, why would you not?
India’s Ivermectin Blackout
Part I of a series on the use of Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 in India
Authored by Dr. Justus R. Hope, writer’s pseudonym, graduated summa cum laude from Wabash College where he was named a Lilly Scholar. He attended Baylor College of Medicine where he was awarded the M.D. degree. He completed a residency in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at The University of California Irvine Medical Center. He is board-certified and has taught at The University of California Davis Medical Center in the departments of Family Practice and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. He has practiced medicine for over 35 years and maintains a private practice in Northern California.
News of India’s defeat of the Delta variant should be common knowledge. It is just about as obvious as the nose on one’s face. It is so clear when one looks at the graphs that no one can deny it.
Yet, for some reason, we are not allowed to talk about it. Thus, for example, Wikipedia cannot mention the peer-reviewed meta-analyses by Dr. Tess Lawrie or Dr. Pierre Kory published in the American Journal of Therapeutics.
Wikipedia is not allowed to publish the recent meta-analysis on Ivermectin authored by Dr. Andrew Hill. Furthermore, it is not allowed to say anything concerning www.ivmmeta.com showing the 61 studies comprising 23,000 patients which reveal up to a 96% reduction in death [prophylaxis] with Ivermectin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AIvermectin
One can see the bias in Wikipedia by going on the “talk” pages for each subject and reading about the fierce attempts of editors to add these facts and the stone wall refusals by the “senior” editors who have an agenda. And that agenda is not loyalty to your health.
The easy way to read the “talk” page on any Wikipedia subject is to click the top left “talk” button. Anyone can then review the editors’ discussions.
There is a blackout on any conversation about how Ivermectin beat COVID-19 in India. When I discussed the dire straits that India found itself in early this year with 414,000 cases per day, and over 4,000 deaths per day, and how that evaporated within five weeks of the addition of Ivermectin, I am often asked, “But why is there no mention of that in the news?”
Yes, exactly. Ask yourself why India’s success against the Delta variant with Ivermectin is such a closely guarded secret by the NIH and CDC. Second, ask yourself why no major media outlets reported this fact, but instead, tried to confuse you with false information by saying the deaths in India are 10 times greater than official reports.
Perhaps NPR is trying so hard because NPR is essentially a government mouthpiece. The US government is “all-in” with vaccines with the enthusiasm of a 17th century Catholic Church “all-in” with a Geocentric Model of the Universe disputing Galileo. Claiming that India’s numbers are inaccurate might distract from the overwhelming success of Ivermectin.
But in the end, the truth matters. It mattered in 1616, and it matters in 2021.
The graphs and data from the Johns Hopkins University CSSE database do not lie. On the contrary, they provide a compelling trail of truth that no one can dispute, not even the NIH, CDC, FDA, and WHO.
Just as Galileo proved with his telescope that the earth was NOT the center of the Universe in 1616; today, the data from India shows that Ivermectin is effective, much more so than the vaccines. It not only prevents death, but it also prevents COVID infections, and it also is effective against the Delta Variant.
In 1616, you could not make up the telescopic images of Jupiter and its orbiting moons, nor could you falsify the crescent-shaped images of Venus and Mercury. These proved that the earth was NOT the center of the Universe – a truth the Catholic Church could not allow.
Likewise, the massive drop in cases and deaths in India to almost nothing after the addition of Ivermectin proved the drug’s effectiveness. This is a truth that the NIH, CDC, and FDA cannot allow because it would endanger the vaccine policy.
Never mind that Ivermectin would save more lives with much less risk, much less cost, and it would end the pandemic quickly.
Let us look at the burgundy-colored graph of Uttar Pradesh. First, allow me to thank Juan Chamie, a highly-respected Cambridge-based data analyst, who created this graph from the JHU CSSE data. Uttar Pradesh is a state in India that contains 241 million people. The United States’ population is 331 million people. Therefore, Uttar Pradesh can be compared to the United States, with 2/3 of our population size.
This data shows how Ivermectin knocked their COVID-19 cases and deaths – which we know were Delta Variant – down to almost zero within weeks. A population comparable to the US went from about 35,000 cases and 350 deaths per day to nearly ZERO within weeks of adding Ivermectin to their protocol.
By comparison, the United States is the lower graph. On August 5, here in the good ol’ USA, blessed with the glorious vaccines, we have 127,108 new cases per day and 574 new deaths.
Let us look at the August 5 numbers from Uttar Pradesh with 2/3 of our population. Uttar Pradesh, using Ivermectin, had a total of 26 new cases and exactly THREE deaths. The US without Ivermectin has precisely 4889 times as many daily cases and 191 times as many deaths as Uttar Pradesh with Ivermectin.
It is not even close. Countries do orders of magnitude better WITH Ivermectin. It might be comparable to the difference in travel between using an automobile versus a horse and buggy.
Uttar Pradesh on Ivermectin: Population 240 Million [4.9% fully vaccinated]
COVID Daily Cases: 26
COVID Daily Deaths: 3
The United States off Ivermectin: Population 331 Million [50.5% fully vaccinated]
COVID Daily Cases: 127,108
COVID Daily Deaths: 574
Let us look at other Ivermectin using areas of India with numbers from August 5, 2021, compiled by the JHU CSSE:
Delhi on Ivermectin: Population 31 Million [15% fully vaccinated]
COVID Daily Cases: 61
COVID Daily Deaths: 2
Uttarakhand on Ivermectin: Population 11.4 Million [15% fully vaccinated]
COVID Daily Cases: 24
COVID Daily Deaths: 0
Now let us look at an area of India that rejected Ivermectin.
Tamil Nadu announced they would reject Ivermectin and instead follow the dubious USA-style guidance of using Remdesivir. Knowing this, you might expect their numbers to be closer to the US, with more cases and more deaths. You would be correct. Tamil Nadu went on to lead India in COVID-19 cases.
Tamil Nadu continues to suffer for its choice to reject Ivermectin. As a result, the Delta variant continues to ravage their citizens while it was virtually wiped out in the Ivermectin-using states. Likewise, in the United States, without Ivermectin, both the vaccinated and unvaccinated continue to spread the Delta variant like wildfire.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html
Tamil Nadu off Ivermectin: Population 78.8 Million [6.9% fully vaccinated]
COVID Daily Cases: 1,997
COVID Daily Deaths: 33
Like the JHU CSSE data, Galileo’s telescope did not lie either, and the truth can usually be found in plain sight. Ivermectin works, and it works exceedingly well. Harvard-trained virologist Dr. George Fareed and his associate, Dr. Brian Tyson of California’s Imperial Valley, have saved 99.9% of their patients with a COVID Cocktail that includes Ivermectin. They have released versions of their new book published in the Desert Review that everyone should read.
I could talk about how every one of my patients who used Ivermectin recovered rapidly, about my most recent case who felt 90% better within 48 hours of adding the drug, but I won’t. I could write about how Wikipedia censors more than Pravda, about how you should always read the “talk” section of EVERY Wikipedia article to go behind the scenes and understand what the editors DO NOT want you to read, but I will refrain.
I could write about VAERS and how it is so much easier to navigate by following Open VAERS or how Wikipedia has unfairly portrayed Dr. Peter McCullough, one of the world’s sharpest and most credible doctors. But I will hold back.
I could also discuss our current cancer treatment system’s dangers and how chemotherapy and radiation stimulate cancer stem cells and cancer recurrence. About how this information has been suppressed and how the addition of repurposed drug cocktails can help prevent this, but I digress.
https://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Cancer-COVID-19-Disease-Repurposed/dp/0998055425
I could recite the history of early outpatient treatment of COVID-19 with repurposed drugs, including Ivermectin, with all the specifics, and EXACTLY WHY this lifesaving information has been censored, but instead, I will leave researching these topics to each of you readers as individuals.
https://www.amazon.com/Ivermectin-World-Justus-R-Hope/dp/1737415909
Because you already know what will happen if you simply sit back and swallow what the media are feeding you. You MUST question what the government tells you, and always DO YOUR OWN research.
Following the 1616 Inquisition of Galileo, the Pope banned all books and letters that argued the sun was the center of the Universe instead of the Earth. Similarly, today, the FDA and WHO have banned any use of Ivermectin for COVID outside of a clinical trial.
YouTube and Wikipedia both consider Ivermectin for COVID as heresy.
“YouTube doesn’t allow content that spreads medical misinformation that contradicts local health authorities or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) medical information about COVID-19… Treatment misinformation: claims that Ivermectin is an effective treatment for COVID-19.”
Wikipedia defines heresy as: “any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religious teachings, but is also used of views strongly opposed to any generally accepted ideas. A heretic is a proponent of heresy.”
Heresy is disagreeing with the government, or their health authority, even if they are all wrong and even if their policies harm people. Today we no longer call it heresy; it is labeled as misinformation.
Galileo was found guilty of heresy and sentenced on June 22, 1633, to formal imprisonment, although this was commuted to house arrest, under which he remained for the rest of his life.
On August 7, 2021 Medpage Today published a new quiz, “Can COVID Misinformation Cost You Your Medical License?”
Is it Bad to Say I Told You So? …I Guess I Just Did.
Since May of 2020 I have been writing occasionally about the things I’ve read, seen, heard, discovered, and learned about COVID, the PCR tests, the “vaccines”, and the politics that have been thoroughly mixed into every part of the pandemic.
I learned early on, by reading the CDC literature, that a virus was never isolated by any definition or scientific standard. Jon Rappoport, a veteran investigative journalist in the medical and health field, made this clear in his research. They didn’t have a virus per se, they had a soup of goop pulled out of someone’s nasal cavity which they would mix with another soup they make in their laboratories to see if any cells get “infected” by something in the combined soup bowl. Then they would amplify it millions of times using the PCR test until they saw something that indicated a person may have the virus. A case. A case didn’t have to show symptoms and suddenly, belying all previous science, asymptomatic people were a danger to others.
Throughout 2020 cases were blowing up around the world. Cases became synonymous with infection. Everything modern medicine knew about viruses miraculously changed when public health married partisan politics and “we’ve never done anything like this before” became blanket policy. Lockdowns, masks, and separation led to panic, division, anger, and tribalism. The flip flops seemed to arrive weekly. “No need for masks,” they said. “Everyone should wear a mask,” they then insisted. “Kid’s are very low risk for infection or transmission,” they assured us. “Mask your kids, separate them, no recess, no mingling, we can’t have them infecting their teachers” they demanded. Little of it made any sense and even less was corroborated by the science. The pre-2020 science that is… In 2020 common sense and science became a conspiracy stance and syunce.
They did everything in their power, using every means available, to convince America the draconian policies they were implementing were effective and necessary, but after a year and a half the data said otherwise.
The beautiful thing about truth is it does eventually find its way to the surface no matter how hard those who fear it try to bury it. The beautiful thing about the technological age we live in is it’s much harder to completely hide the truth, which means a campaign of misinformation and disinformation must also be implemented to keep the masses from paying attention to those “other information sources” where the truth tends to bubble up and that happened too.
Today Mr. Rappoport once again blew away the smoke and shattered the mirrors of big tech, big media, and big pharma with verifiable, documented proof that what he and others have been reporting, and I have been sharing, is true and the general public has been fed a very sophisticated and narrated mixed cocktail of truth and fiction this entire time. Manufactured by politicians and politically motivated public health officials, perpetuated by mainstream news media, and ultimately parroted and defended by decent people who STILL want to believe the leaders in these arenas would never lie to them.
I apologize for that long lead-in. But sometimes tooting your own horn feels too good to pass up.
Here’s the latest:
CDC/FDA confess: they had no virus when they concocted the test for the virus
by Jon Rappoport
The CDC has issued a document that bulges with interesting and devastating admissions.
The release is titled, “07/21/2021: Lab Alert: Changes to CDC RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 Testing.” [1] It begins explosively:
“After December 31, 2021, CDC will withdraw the request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel, the assay first introduced in February 2020 for detection of SARS-CoV-2 only. CDC is providing this advance notice for clinical laboratories to have adequate time to select and implement one of the many FDA-authorized alternatives.”
Many people believe this means the CDC is giving up on the PCR test as a means of “detecting the virus.” I don’t think the CDC is saying that at all.
They’re saying the PCR technology will continue to be used, but they’re replacing what the test is looking FOR with a better “reference sample.” A better marker. A better target. A better piece of RNA supposedly derived from SARS-CoV-2.
CDC/FDA are confessing there has been a PROBLEM with the PCR test which has been used to detect the virus, starting in February of 2020—right up to this minute.
In other words, the millions and millions of “COVID cases” based on the PCR test in use are all suspect.
To confirm this, the CDC document links to an FDA release titled, “SARS-CoV-2 Reference Panel Comparative Data.” [2] [2a] Here is a killer quote:
“During the early months of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, clinical specimens [of the virus] were not readily available to developers of IVDs [in vitro diagnostics] to detect SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, the FDA authorized IVDs based on available data from contrived samples generated from a range of SARS-CoV-2 material sources (for example, gene specific RNA, synthetic RNA, or whole genome viral RNA) for analytical and clinical performance evaluation.[Emphasis added] While validation using these contrived specimens provided a measure of confidence in test performance at the beginning of the pandemic, it is not feasible to precisely compare the performance of various tests that used contrived specimens because each test validated performance using samples derived from different gene specific, synthetic, or genomic nucleic acid sources.”
Translation: We, at the CDC, did not have a specimen of the SARS-CoV-2 virus when we concocted the PCR test for SARS-CoV-2. Yes, it’s unbelievable, right? And that’s the test we’ve been using all along. So we CONTRIVED samples of the virus. We fabricated. We lied. We made up [invented] synthetic gene sequences and we SAID these sequences HAD TO BE close to the sequence of SARS-CoV-2, without having the faintest idea of what we were doing, because, again, we didn’t have an actual specimen of the virus. We had no proof THERE WAS something called SARS-CoV-2.
This amazing FDA document goes to say the Agency has granted emergency approval to 59 different PCR tests since the beginning of the (fake) pandemic. 59. And, “…it is not feasible to precisely compare the performance of various tests that used contrived specimens because each test validated performance using samples derived from different gene specific, synthetic, or genomic nucleic acid sources.”
Translation: Each of the 59 different PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 told different lies and concocted different fabrications about the genetic makeup of the virus—the virus we didn’t have. Obviously, then, these tests would give unreliable results.
BUT, don’t worry, be happy, because NOW, the CDC and the FDA say, they really do have actual virus samples of SARS-CoV-2 from patients; they have better targets for the PCR test, and labs should start gearing up for the new and improved tests.
In other words, they were lying THEN, but they’re not lying NOW. They were “contriving,” but now they’re telling the truth.
If you believe that, I have Fountain of Youth water for sale, extracted from the lead-contaminated system of Flint, Michigan.
Here, once again, I report virology’s version of “we isolated the virus”: [[3] thru [3i]]
They have a soup they make in their labs.
This soup contains human and monkey cells, toxic chemicals and drugs, and all sorts of other random genetic material. Because the cells start to die, the researchers ASSUME a bit of mucus from a patient they dropped in the soup is doing the killing, and THE VIRUS must be the killer agent in the mucus.
This assumption is entirely unwarranted. The drugs and chemicals could be doing the cell-killing, and the researchers are also starving the cells of vital nutrients.
There is no proof that SARS-CoV-2 is in the soup, or that it is doing the cell-killing, or that it exists.
Yet the researchers call cell-death “isolation of the virus.”
To say this is a non-sequitur is a vast understatement. In their universe, “We have the virus buried in a soup in a dish in the lab” equals, “We’ve separated the virus from all surrounding material.”
Virology equals “how to spread bullshit for a living and scare the world.”
Other than that, it’s perfect.
SOURCES:
[3] https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/12/18/sars-cov-2-has-not-been-proven-to-exist/
[3a] https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2021/01/26/sars-cov-2-has-not-been-proven-to-exist-shocking/
[3c] https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2021/04/26/the-non-existent-virus-and-the-implications/
[3d] https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2021/05/20/the-pandemic-virus-that-doesnt-exist/
[3g] http://www.andrewkaufmanmd.com
[3i] https://greatreject.org/dr-stefan-lanka-claims-about-viruses-are-false
Social Media Censorship: “Oh No You Don’t!”
The Social Media giants have moved so far to the left and have become so political, driven by an extreme ideology, that what was once a bastion for free thought, speech, and communication, is now a dictatorial groupthink tank where those who do not share the same thoughts and ideas, or comply with the dictators demands, are ostracized, punished, and/or banned.
The Twitter that helped the world see the atrocities of the Chinese Communist Party through the tweets of Chinese human rights activists in 2010 is, only a decade later, the Twitter of censorship and selective activism spawned from classic cultural Marxism.
This dramatic shift in what will and what will not be allowed on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook is far from being just an ideological war on words. It is now putting people’s lives at risk by removing and banning truth and evidentiary information simply because that truth and evidence doesn’t align with the dictatorial edicts of the founders of those platforms.
Case in point, yesterday I posted an article by journalist and Senior Editor at TheBlaze.com, Daniel Horowitz, discussing ongoing censorship of medical doctors and researchers regarding the outpatient treatment of COVID-19 using Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine. It is well researched and fact laden and in my opinion a must read for anyone wanting to learn about very real and very effective options to treating COVID even at late or more advanced stages of the disease. You can READ IT HERE.
Within minutes of posting I received this notification from Facebook:
False information?!? Resulting in physical harm? Are you kidding me? It’s the suppression of this information that is resulting in unnecessary suffering and deaths around the world!
Incensed by this rebuke and outright lie by Facebook, I took a screen shot determined to make it clear this was not false information and that Facebook was censoring verifiable truth and documented science. So I posted the screen shots with a short line that read: “Share an article about censorship and get censored. FB knows more about medicine than my doctor…”
Immediately another notification popped up on my screen. Facebook had seen enough. They were putting me in Time Out.
Harassment and bullying? Wait…what?
Facebook slapped me with a 24 hour suspension for attempting to shame them in their dishonesty which in their liberal world is “harassment and bullying.” Well, they showed me by golly! They even blocked the screenshots so no one could see their pathetic actions. Next a notification popped up explaining their lie and why their opinion is more important and accurate than the truth. Then another notification popped up asking me if I agreed or disagreed with their decision. Of course, I disagreed and this was their reply:
I have to be brutally honest I would have been less angry and frustrated had they just replied like this:
So there I was, banished for 24 hours for being so bold as to scoff at the Face of the Book. Any attempt to like or comment on other posts resulted in a quick reminder of my crime.
Personally this wasn’t a big deal, but professionally it kinda was. I manage and moderate several Facebook groups for clients of mine. Guess what? Once Facebook finds you guilty of defying their dictatorial edicts, your punishment goes beyond activity on your personal page. They don’t let you do anything, not even unrelated work on someone else’s page or group as an admin. The Silicon Valley soy boys really know how to throw a virtual punch. My mouse is stinging.
Finally, on March 18, 2021 at 1:00 PM Mountain Standard Time I was released from my 24 hour detention…now to find a way to get that article up on Facebook.
I wonder how long the sentencing is for a second conviction?
The Long Version 