How CDC and WHO Rewrote the history of the 2009 swine flu pandemic--reprinted from 2012

The article below I wrote 8 years ago, but it has relevance to today.  I describe some of the tricks that were pulled when a pandemic vaccine was rushed into use in 2009, and how the agencies that rushed it covered their tracks over the next several years--Meryl

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Rewriting the history of pandemic swine flu (to justify vaccine policies?)

Remember the 2009 Swine Flu Pandemic?  There were going to be a huge number of illnesses and deaths, but then it turned out the flu virus caused less severe disease than usual.  

• Since then, the H1N1 swine flu virus has remained in circulation, and we have continued to have fewer reported flu deaths in the US and abroad than in prior, recent years.

• Children, lacking prior immunity, were said to be at terrible risk--but then it turned out  that although there were 2-3 times as many pediatric flu deaths in 2009-10 as during an average season, the flu season lasted much longer than usual.  CDC reported 133 child flu deaths in 2008-9, 282 in 2009-10, 122 in 2010-11 and 33 in 2011-12.

• We were in dire need of vaccines, so it was said.  Therefore a bizarre vaccine approval process was instituted.  

This process was crafted to mislead the public.  Vaccines were approved on the basis of prior testing of so-called "mock-up vaccines".  The mock up vaccines were actually old bird flu vaccines tested years earlier for a potential bird flu epidemic.  They contained the same adjuvants as swine flu vaccines, but the antigens were completely different.  According to WHO:

... some manufacturers have conducted advance studies using a so-called “mock-up” vaccine. Mock-up vaccines contain an active ingredient for an influenza virus that has not circulated recently in human populations and thus mimics the novelty of a pandemic virus. Such advance studies can greatly expedite regulatory approval.

Approval of the new vaccines rested on sleight of hand:  regulatory agencies made the claim that the two vaccines were substantially identical.  Therefore, data from tests of old bird flu vaccines provided the proof needed to demonstrate safety and effectiveness of new swine flu vaccines.  According to the Guardian:

The clinical trials on which approval was based involved more than 6,000 people for each vaccine, each of whom received a version which was basically the same as the one to be rolled out, but originally contained an avian flu (H5N1) strain – which had been expected to cause a pandemic – instead of H1N1.

And POOF! -- hundreds of millions of people received the new, untested vaccines.

Later came the bad news.  

The epidemic was actually mild, and most of those affected had few if any symptoms.

The vaccines had been given late, when most of the epidemic had passed, and many vaccinated people were already immune.  The vaccine probably had little impact on the pandemic.

The shot itself was dangerous.  Glaxo's version caused 13 times the expected number of cases of narcolepsy in children, and different versions increased the risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome.

WHO was awash with conflicts of interests:  the names of its advisory groupmembers were kept secret; many, it turned out, had ties to vaccine manufacturers.  A watering down of the way a pandemic was defined by WHO led to calling swine flu a pandemic early on.  This activated preexisting contracts between nations and pharmaceutical manufacturers, requiring vaccines to be made and countries to purchase them: creating a captive vaccine market.

The Council of Europe got into the act, investigating WHO and the provenance of the contracts to understand how billions of healthcare dollars were spent to buy and administer unnecessary vaccines.

WHO (the World Health Organization) didn't take the assault lying down.  It arranged for its own investigation, which unsurprisingly found no big mistakes.

In 2010, CDC thought the US vaccine caused nearly a doubling of GBS cases.  In July, new Canadian evidence revealed a doubling or tripling of the Guillain Barre rate after swine flu vaccination to 2 cases per million doses.  An even greater increase to 5 cases of GBS per million swine flu vaccine doses was identified in a Harvard Med School study in June.  

Instead of acknowledging these findings and planning for better vaccine testing, the swine flu pandemic's history was rewritten. 

Although Bloomberg/Businessweek mentioned the study showing a doubling of the GBS rate, it concluded flu vaccine was safe in pregnancy:

Today’s research and a Canadian study looking at the vaccine’s effect on Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disorder in which the body attacks its nervous system, shows the shot is safe and should be used as a precaution to prevent infection, he said. 

More whitewashing of the data followed:  there were no problems with fertility in women vaccinated during any trimester of their pregnancy.  Here's a link to the Danish study published in JAMA.

Then came more bluster:  actually, it was a really, really bad flu with huge numbers of deaths.  We missed them because we didn't look carefully enough:  they tended to occur in the underdeveloped countries, which is why it took 3 years for CDC to find them.  

Except CDC didn't find them; instead, it estimated them.  What was the authors' conclusion?  

Although no estimates of symptomatic case fatality ratios were available from Africa and southeast Asia, a disproportionate number of estimated pandemic deaths might have occurred in these regions. 

A different review published by CDC scientists in May 2012, honestly noted:

Human infection with H1N1 has generally resulted in low mortality, although certain subgroups... have significantly higher risk of severe disease.

Let's examine the claim of vaccine safety during pregnancy.    

In the US, the major birth defect rate is about 3%.  In the Danish study cited, the major birth defect rate in offspring of women vaccinated during their first trimester was 5.45%.  But in the Danish control group, the major birth defect rate was 4.54%.  

The authors were able to dismiss the high birth defect rate by selecting a control group with a higher than expected rate, and by using groups small enough that the 0.91% increased rate in the vaccinated cohort was not statistically significant.  

Anders Hviid, the last author on the study, was involved in an earlier study that was not sufficiently powered to detect a 2.7-fold increase in GBS following swine flu vaccinations.  He was then able to conclude that "The risk of occurrence of Guillain-Barré syndrome is not increased after pandemic influenza vaccine."

I imagine these are only the first volleys in CDC's attempt to rewrite the history of swine flu and its vaccine, and justify its vaccine policies despite evidence to the contrary.  Keep an eye out for what's next.

Might Hydroxychloroquine Actually Be Good for Your Heart?/ AAPS

Verbatim 8/31/20 from the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons:

Many are afraid to take hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for COVID as they have been told it could kill them because of its effect on the heart. Are you worried about this? 

It is a fact that HCQ, azithromycin (Z-Pak™), and other drugs can prolong the QT interval on the electrocardiogram (ECG)—see image below. This could make patients vulnerable to fatal changes in the heart’s rhythm (such as torsades de pointes or TdP). People with a rare condition called “congenital prolonged QT syndrome” are especially at risk.

You do not have to have an expensive ECG to check for this. It takes about 5 minutes with inexpensive new technology that fits in your pocket and can be used in your home (see below).

Hundreds of millions of people have taken HCQ without ever worrying about this issue. Have we overlooked a serious problem for more than 50 years? A just-published article that reviews the medical literature concludes that, on the contrary, HCQ protects the heart. 

In one case series of 251 COVID-19 patients treated with HCQ and azithromycin, extreme QT prolongation occurred in 23 percent. The HCQ was stopped; no deaths occurred. No reports of cardiac deaths were found in the review. Rather, “HCQ/azithromycin were uniformly found to substantially reduce cardiac mortality and also to decrease thrombosis, arrhythmia and cholesterol in treated patients.” 

Warnings issued by FDA, CDC, the American Heart Association, and others have suppressed the use of potentially life-saving HCQ treatment. However, author Chadwick Prodromos, M.D., notes that warnings cite no specific study, and do not comment on whether actual deaths have occurred.He concludes that: “HCQ decreases cardiac events. HCQ should not be restricted in use for COVID 19 patients because of fear of cardiac mortality.” 

It is important to remember that COVID-19 itself can damage the heart, increasing the importance of early treatment. 

Cardiologist Peter McCullough, M.D., M.P.H., of the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute in Dallas, recommends HCQ and other measures for early treatment in a recent article in the American Journal of Medicine.

The perfect storm created by poorly tested pandemic vaccines: when they are not tested, manufacturers cannot be found liable for injuries

I wrote this article in August, eleven years ago. The take-home lesson is that everyone having anything to do with a pandemic vaccine or drug program has had their product liability waived... as long as they don't know there are product defects.  This incentivizes manufacturers to avoid testing products and fails to penalize them for selling shoddy or deadly pharmaceuticals.  Please note that the links are 11 years old, and that there have been revisions to the laws I cited then, but generally the laws continue to provide broad immunity to all involved.  Furthermore, a recent modification provides the same immunity to pharmacists and their staffs, who may now vaccinate children with any licensed vaccine or one authorized via an EUA.  Note also that an additional Act regarding medical countermeasures and emergencies, PAHPRA was passed in 2013, so is not addressed in this 2009 article.  The 21st Century Cures Act, passed in 2016 also has some relevant passages, including the fact that all vaccines recommended by CDC in pregnancy get a waiver of liability--Meryl

Friday, August 7, 2009

Using New Laws for Swine Flu, Designed for a Much Deadlier Disease, May Create a Perfect Storm

1. The US government is using laws designed for dealing with a very deadly pandemic, or bioterrorism, to bring about a mass vaccination program for swine flu, beginning with the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act 0f 2006.

http://www.hhs.gov/disasters/emergency/manmadedisasters/bioterorism/medication-vaccine-qa.html

2. This law removes liability from the manufacturer, medical practitioners who use the product, and from "government program planners" who decided on using the law. A suit can only be brought if the DHHS Secretary allows it, and if there is willful misconduct on the part of the manufacturer.

This law has been invoked for swine flu drugs (Tamiflu and Relenza),

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-14412.pdf

for swine flu vaccines, and for novel vaccine adjuvants (which may be used in vaccines to stretch the supply and possibly convey broader immunity).

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-14948.pdf

3. If testing of these products is very limited, then the manufacturers are unlikely to become aware of their flaws, and specifically their adverse effects. Then there can be no willful misconduct.

4. Due to the fear that swine flu will cause a large outbreak once students return to schools, where the virus might rapidly spread, the US government has stated that vaccine is likely to be available, and used, before clinical trials are completed.

WHO says vaccine will be ready in September. Novartis began testing in humans in July, and Sanofi-Aventis and Glaxo Smith Kline are starting now.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i-Qd-q3ALSGUV0tZqwFVoy1GlGfQD99TEJN81

The Europeans are also planning for use before testing is completed, despite warnings by experts about the potential dangers of untested vaccines.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iCajXBnuqbQEUf_cH4_dblpysz_gD99MCRJO1

5. The adjuvants likely to be used to strengthen vaccines and stretch the supply are named MF59 (Novartis) and ASO3 (Glaxo Smith Kline). Only 3 vaccines using this type of adjuvant (oil-in-water, a.k.a. squalene-containing) have been licensed in Europe, and none have been given a license in the US. Two vaccines using these adjuvants are only used in people above the age of 65 (Fluad-MF59), and those with serious kidney disease (Fendrix-ASO4). Both advanced age and kidney failure weaken the immune system, so more powerful vaccines are needed, but in this population autoimmunity is unlikely to result from powerful immune stimulation. Cervarix is the third European vaccine (using adjuvant ASO4 against HPV) and its safety is controversial.

6. The then-Acting DHHS Secretary issued an Emergency Declaration in response to the swine flu epidemic on April 26, 2009. This allows use of unapproved (unlicensed) medical treatments and tests, or use of approved treatments for unapproved uses.

According to the Congressional Research Service, on April 27, 2009, the Food and Drug Administration issued four Emergency Use Authorizations (enacted in Section 564 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, amended by the Project BioShield Act of 2004) in response to requests from the CDC to make available certain drugs (Tamiflu and Relenza), diagnostic tests and respiratory protection devices.

7. Vaccines containing MF59 and ASO3 have not had Emergency Use Authorizations issued for them--yet. However, the government has purchased $698 million dollars' worth of these adjuvants in recent weeks.

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2009pres/07/20090713b.html

https://www.medicalcountermeasures.gov/BARDA/MCM/panflu/factsheet.aspx

US and WHO officials have indicated the likelihood of their use, which is the only way to achieve adequate amounts of vaccine for the US and world population in the fall.

8. These vaccines have never been demonstrated to be safe in children, pregnant women or young adults. They have not undergone comprehensive testing; for example, MF59 has not and will not be tested for carcinogenicity by the manufacturer.

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/NewsEvents/WorkshopsMeetingsConferences/ucm095708.pdf
See page 391 for comments to FDA on carcinogenicity testing by Dr. Novicki, a Novartis scientist.

9. The result of the new bioterrorism laws (passed with the expectation of use for much more dangerous epidemics than the current swine flu), which allow use of untested products AND give manufacturers an incentive to avoid comprehensive testing (to avoid being found guilty of willful misconduct) have combined with the political imperative to provide citizens with vaccines in a hurry, yielding a potential Perfect Storm.

In the 1976 swine flu vaccine program, 45 million people were vaccinated with an inadequately tested vaccine. The government gave the vaccine manufacturers immunity from liability, but created an alternative compensation program. Five thousand people sought benefits for vaccine injuries. Four hundred twenty seven developed the autoimmune, paralytic illness Guillain-Barre Syndrome. Over thirty of them died.

Experts have suggested that in the absence of prelicensure clinical trial data, it will be important to perform postmarketing surveillance to learn about the side effects from swine flu vaccines. According to Reuters, "the FDA's Dr. Hector Izurieta said the agency had set up an exceptionally extensive network for what is known as post-marketing surveillance."

Postmarketing surveillance may be sufficient to identify severe side effects when new drugs are marketed, as they only gradually come to be used by large numbers of patients. But for a vaccine that will be employed in a mass inoculation campaign, targeted at half or more of the US population, tens (or hundreds) of millions will be vaccinated in a few weeks, before sufficient time has elapsed to learn about the adverse effects.
Untested swine flu vaccines employing novel adjuvants, which are likely to cause more autoimmune illness than occurred in 1976, will almost certainly be used. The manufacturers have been given liability protection, as have the government program planners. Efficacy and safety are unknown. But no compensation mechanism has been created. And the public has not been informed.

Current Covid status in Europe/WaPo

From today's Washington Post:

"Belgium had one of the world’s worst [actually the worst recorded--Nass] per capita death rates this spring, with most of the mortality occurring in nursing homes. Now, even though cases have nearly quintupled compared to their lowest point in late June, Belgian hospitals remain calm. Very few cases are appearing in nursing homes, and 40 percent of new cases have been diagnosed among people between the age of 20 and 40....

Among European countries, Spain presents the most ominous picture. It is reporting nearly as many daily cases as it did in March, when it suffered as acutely as any country on the continent...The new cases have been detected largely among the young. Coronavirus hospitalizations, despite having quadrupled over the past month, remain manageable for the health system. In Madrid, 13.6 percent of hospital beds are occupied by coronavirus patients; in March the city’s hospitals were full. 

In France, meanwhile, the government on Friday recorded a spike of 7,379 new cases in the past 24 hours — the second-largest single-day caseload since the pandemic began and the latest data point in an upward swing that began last month. Friday’s number was up more than a third from the already high figure posted just two days earlier... students return to class next Tuesday, masks in hand. 

The MATH Plus treatment protocol for hospitalized Covid patients

This protocol was developed by Dr. Paul Marik and additional colleagues over the past few months, and their results were published last week.  They report a mortality rate of 5.1% in hospitalized Covid patients using the protocol, which notably does include zinc.  Compared to other, historical data from hospitalized Covid patients, this is a 75% reduction in mortality. 

The protocol does not include HCQ, as I was told the protocol is intended for the late treatment of Covid, and since HCQ performs best in early treatment, its use might have muddied the waters regarding the benefits this (less controversial) treatment protocol provides.

https://covid19criticalcare.com/math-hospital-treatment/scientific-review-of-covid-19-and-math-plus/#1596276202652-85a61317-47b4

The authors provide the evidence base for each component of this protocol:

Evidence based scientific reviews supporting MATH+ components:

Methylprednisolone

Ascorbic Acid

Thiamine

Heparin

Melatonin

Zinc

Vitamin D

Atorvastatin

Famotidine

Hospitalization rates for Covid dropped steadily in USA over past month, Deaths have been flat

Deaths and hospitalization rates are the two measures available to the US public to best assess Covid extent and severity.

Hospitalization rates are definitely down; see CDC's graph below.  Mortality rates have held steady at 1000/day for the whole of the past month.

I have no data on how treatment patterns have changed over time in the US, except that ventilator use for Covid is uncommon now.

US hospitalization rates for Covid are now half what they were during the second peak in July.

Per CDC: Weekly hospitalization rates among all ages first peaked during the week ending April 18 (MMWR week 16) at 10.1 per 100,000 population, followed by a second peak during the week ending July 18 (MMWR week 29) at 8.0 per 100,000 population. Data for the most recent weeks may change as additional admissions occurring during those weeks are reported.

Why did 6 fact-check sites and USAT ignore all my work describing why I think the novel coronavirus came from a lab?

I have been criticized by USAToday and 6 other fact-checking sites over the past few days (since Plandem!c 2:  Indoctornation came out). In the film, I say I believe the coronavirus came from a lab.  The fact-checkers:

 a) claim scientific consensus that the virus had a natural origin. But there is no consensus. For example, a WHO spokesperson told USAT, "It is probable, likely, that the virus is of animal origin" and just last week Pro Publica wrote, "the origins of COVID-19, which has killed more than 775,000 people worldwide and infected 21.7 million others, continue to elude public health officials and other investigators."

b) criticize me for not explaining the basis for my opinion.

The single scientific paper cited by the 7 fact-checkers to dispute me was a commentary  written by 5 scientists with sketchy backgrounds whose argument I dissected in March. So did my colleague Ed Hooper here, and many others have, as well. 

Below is a quick summary of my position regarding that paper, from an interview I did with Kevin Barrett, PhD in April.  The argument is expanded in my interviews with Dr. Mercola and an AMA on Reddit regarding the SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site and unique spike protein, which is highly adapted to humans but not to bats, suggesting passage through human cells before it entered the human population. Yuri Deigin has the best review I've seen of the origin subject here, and I recommend that everyone with interest in the question of the virus' origin read it.

Here is a part of the Kevin Barrett-Meryl Nass interview:

Why are five dubious, germ-warfare-linked, cover-up specialist scientists telling us this could not possibly be a bioweapon, and yet obviously it could?

Meryl Nass: “Well, that’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it? …The Cubans blame (the first author [of a Lancet letter that insisted questioning the virus's origin would result in conspiracy theories that would damage the response to Covid]) who worked for a federal agency for their Dengue outbreak…I knew of several of the Nature Medicine authors…and they too were sort of biological defense, biological warfare people. Well, let me just say two of them I would call spooks with Ph.Ds, who have come out and done research on a whole very odd collection of subjects, all of which the US government has tried to cover up…And so these five scientists wrote a piece in Nature Medicine which claimed to have found the scientific linchpin to be able to make the argument that the new coronavirus is a natural occurrence. And the argument they made was that had it been constructed in the lab, it would have used the particular backbone that laboratorians know about. But because it didn’t have that backbone, it couldn’t possibly be a lab construct.

“The problem with that argument is basically it was a straw man argument. They said, well, if I were going to make the novel coronavirus, I would have made it this way, but because it isn’t made that way, it’s not a lab construct. Of course, you can make the novel coronavirus a lot of different ways. And I pointed out three different ways one might have come up with a novel coronavirus that weren’t using the method they suggested…my study of biological warfare, which has extended over decades, (shows) that the biological warfare warrior never chooses an (obvious) weapon. They always require plausible deniability…

“…It’s ridiculous to claim that only if you used an easily discoverable method of producing a biological weapon would it be successful; or you wouldn’t have done it any other way. I mean, it’s such a simplistic argument.

You wonder, couldn’t they have come up with a better argument? Is that all they’re left with? Because any scientist could see through it in a moment.”

3 Senators Demand that FDA Explain the basis for states' regulating/prohibiting sales of prescription drugs, and explain the justification for FDA's advice on HCQ/ AAPS Press Release

TUCSON, Ariz., Aug. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, along with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), in a letter to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn, write that “the FDA’s actions regarding [hydroxychloroquine] HCQ may be directly costing lives by limiting outpatient access to this potentially beneficial treatment.”

On May 29, Dr. Hahn stated: “Prescribing a product for uses not specifically included in the official labeling is common in the practice of medicine. In oncology and mental health, many patients are treated this way.”

He notes that with COVID-19 “health care professionals are looking for every possible treatment option for their patients,” and that patients and their doctors “must ultimately decide what treatment is likely to be best for the individual patient.”

Dr. Hahn recognizes that “hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have received particular attention. Both are FDA-approved to treat or prevent malaria, and hydroxychloroquine is also approved to treat autoimmune conditions such as chronic discoid lupus erythematosus, systemic lupus erythematosus in adults, and rheumatoid arthritis. They have been prescribed for years to help patients with these debilitating, or even deadly, diseases and have a well-established safety profile for these conditions.”

Despite these statements, the senators write that FDA’s actions on HCQ have “led to misinformation and confusion across the country. Some states have restricted the ability of physicians to write and pharmacies to fill HCQ and CQ prescriptions.”

The senators ask the FDA to provide the Committee, by Aug 25, with all information pertaining to FDA decisions that discourage the outpatient use of HCQ for early treatment or prophylaxis of COVID-19, and also “any public statements or records that FDA has issued to clarify that the FDA does not regulate the practice of medicine and that state governments may not regulate the sale or prohibit the sale of prescription drugs.”

“The licensed physicians we have heard from… have pointed to the low mortality rates in other countries—like India, Turkey, South Korea, and Morocco—that are using HCQ widely on outpatient COVID-19 populations before the disease progresses to more lethal stages of the virus that require hospitalization.”

The senators conclude: “Physicians taking care of patients in our communities across the country must be free to make the best medical and treatment decisions for their patients, use their ‘off label’ prescription rights, and have full access to FDA approved drugs.”

AAPS has represented physicians of all specialties in all states since 1943. The AAPS motto is omnia pro aegroto, meaning everything for the patient.

Contact: Jane M. Orient, M.D., (520) 323-3110, janeorientmd@gmail.com

Fact-checking Fantasies, or how Google, Facebook and other big data companies outsource lying

If you were trying to watch the documentary Plandemic 2: Indoctornation after someone sent you a link on Facebook, you probably found it impossible. According to Forbes,

Users who attempted to share the link were met with a warning message stating the URL to the video goes against Facebook’s community guidelines because it contained “COVID-19 claims that our fact-checking partners have repeatedly rated false.”

Yesterday I received a phone call from FactCheck.org demanding I answer a myriad of questions about the facts and opinions I expressed in the documentary Plandemic 2: Indoctornation, which had been released hours earlier.  I referred the caller to my blog posts for documentation supporting what I had said.  I then looked up Factcheck.org's funding, most of which came from Facebook and Google during the past year ($423,745) and past quarter ($187,265). 

It seems that those who "check" the "facts" did not actually check any facts, because they were all working off the identical script, which they dutifully regurgitated, to smear me and the film.  Who gave them all the same talking points, which were outdated and fail to acknowledge the current controversy among scientists, intel professionals and others regarding the provenance of the SARS-2 virus? 

Politics406, AFP, checkyourfact, healthfeedback, TechTimes, Factcheck and Politifact all reference the exact same March article in Nature Medicine (that I and others debunked at the time), which claimed to prove SARS-CoV-2 came from a bat. The NatureMed authors used a straw man argument that essentially said, if we were going to design a lethal coronavirus, we would have done it this way.  But it wasn't done that way, so it came from a bat and not a lab. Please ignore the fact we have been unable to find a similar virus in bats, and we certainly cannot explain why this virus is so much better adapted to humans than bats. Trust us anyway. 

This is the best argument that can be made for a natural origin?  Yet it has been used to ban my appearance, the film Plandemic 2, and discussion of the film from many platforms. 

The link Checkyourfact uses to claim scientific consensus, in fact discusses the scientific disagreement on the origin of the virus.  And while the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said  at one time it believed the virus came from nature, it backtracked shortly afterward, raising the possibility it came from a lab. Sir Richard Dearlove (former head of Britain's MI6) raised the lab hypothesis in the same story Checkyourfact linked to, to support its claim of consensus regarding the natural origin theory. Fact checkers don't have enough time to check their own facts apparently.

Who gave all these so-called fact-checking sites the identical set of talking points? And could this level of coordination be evidence of a conspiracy to suppress the film and smear those appearing in it?  How is it that such shoddy fact-checking by "partners" is sufficient to ban and shadowban the film in most major outlets, including Facebook and Reddit?

UPDATE:  A tweet from Professor Richard Ebright from February was used as evidence against a lab origin in one of the fact-check articles.  Professor Ebright has since clarified his opinion that the virus could have come from a lab with the following:

https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1243308860322066433

https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1252900744526790656

https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1257472009103118343

https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1257472810202607617

https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1293289535141367809

https://news.sky.com/story/former-head-of-mi6-says-theory-coronavirus-was-made-in-wuhan-lab-must-not-be-dismissed-as-conspiracy-12021693

"Professor Richard Ebright of the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University in New Jersey was dismissive of the Dalgleish-Sorensen paper but he took issue with Professor Andersen's piece in Nature too, describing it as opinion.

"The op-ed's conclusion that SARS-CoV-2 genome shows no signatures of purposeful human manipulation is correct," he said in an email exchange. [Professor Ebright is referring to the article I challenged in March and April, which was mentioned by every one of the fact-check pieces to claim I was wrong.--Nass]

"The absence of signatures rules out the possibility the virus was engineered using methods that leave signatures. However, the absence of signatures of manipulation does not rule out the possibility the virus was engineered using widely employed - including at WIV - methods that do not leave signatures. The op-ed does not even address the possibility that an unpublished WIV bat coronavirus… could be the progenitor of SARS-CoV-2."

UPDATE:  Just in case you still do not think there is a conspiracy to suppress the documentary, here is what Politifact wrote:

Soon after the live feed started, Facebook blocked its users from sharing the link in posts and private messages. TikTok appeared to block searches for the term "Plandemic." Twitter added a warning message saying the link is "potentially spammy or unsafe." Still, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool, Facebook and Instagram posts with the term "Plandemic" have received tens of thousands of combined interactions since Aug. 17...

Tens of millions of people saw the shorter [Plandemic] video before social media platforms removed it for violating their policies against harmful COVID-19 misinformation. This version hasn’t received as many views, because the tech platforms were expecting it.

Politifact is owned by the Poynter Foundation.  While Poynter claims to share its tax returns, the section of the return where contributors must be listed is blank.  Poynter does acknowledge Facebook having contributed over 5% of revenue elsewhere on its website.

Update:  On August 23 USAToday factcheck uses the identical argument as the 6 fact-check sites to insist on a natural origin of coronavirus, citing the Nature Medicine commentary and the Lancet letter, both of which I debunked in March and April. Like the 6 sites, USAT criticizes me for not explaining in the film the reasons I think the virus came from a lab.  Never mind that I have provided those reasons at length in my blog here here here  here here here here and here (using USAT as the source for the last post), and gave that information to the single fact-checker who called me. My reasoning, which all 7 of these organizations criticized me for not providing, is certainly not hiding, and has been detailed by me for the past 5 months. 

Today Science mag reported that NIH is seeking information on whether the Wuhan lab "had SARS-Cov-2 in its possession prior to December 2019"... Today I was libeled for saying I believed SARS-2 came from a lab

Today's Science Magazine  describes how the NIH is seeking information on the specific SARS-Coronaviruses held at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.  NIH had funded the Wuhan lab using the 'non-profit' EcoHealth Alliance (EHA,whose CEO Peter Daszac earned $400,000 yearly).  The complete role of EcoHealth Alliance has yet to be fully explained, and NIH terminated its grant several months ago.  Now NIH says EHA can have the money back, but only if it provides information on the provenance of coronaviruses in the Wuhan lab:

"Last month, NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research Michael Lauer sent the EcoHealth Alliance a letter stating the agency was reinstating the grant, but also instantly suspending it again pending the completion of certain actions. (ScienceInsider has now independently reviewed a copy of the 8 July letter.) Among the conditions included:

·       The EcoHealth Alliance must provide a sample of the pandemic coronavirus that WIV used to determine its genetic sequence.

·       The group must arrange for an outside inspection of WIV and its records “with specific attention to addressing the question of whether WIV staff had SARS-CoV-2 in their possession prior to December 2019,” Lauer wrote.

·       The nonprofit must explain purported restrictions at WIV including “diminished cell-phone traffic in October 2019, and the evidence that there may have been roadblocks surrounding the facility from October 14-19, 2019.”

Clearly the US National Institutes of Health suspects SARS-Cov-2 may have come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.  

Yesterday the documentary Plandemic 2 was released, in which I said I believed SARS-CoV-2 came from a lab. Today I have been attacked by the so-called "fact-checkers" for being misleading and spreading false information and conspiracy theories.  Yet besides the NIH, Newsweek, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and various journals, magazines, and web pages have discussed the likely lab origin of SARS-CoV-2.  I would suggest that the real conspirators are trying to cover up a lab origin, so they can continue their gain-of-function (a metaphor to obfuscate what used to be known as biological warfare) research, endangering the planet.  

Paradoxically, the argument being used against me by each fact-checking site I have investigated is one I debunked back in March and April.  The argument has been widely criticized as nonsensical, and furnishes evidence of a conspiracy to impose the "natural origin" story.  Read those 2 old posts of mine.

Even back in March, Nature magazine wrote, "scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus." 

Bottom line:  there is no direct evidence that the virus came from a lab, but there are many aspects of its genome that are not explained by natural selection.  I have discussed this at length in my blog.  There is also no direct evidence it did not come from a lab. It is an open question. But I am not allowed to tell an audience I "believe" the virus came from a lab. Where is the conspiracy?