8 Oct 2021

"Proceed With Caution At Your Own Peril" - Merck's COVID 'Super Drug' Poses Serious Health Risks, Scientists Warn

"...There is a concern that this will cause long-term mutation effects, even cancer."

By Tyler Durden: As it turns out, all the scientists and doctors who insisted that Merck's "revolutionary" COVID drug molnupiravir is extremely safe weren't faithfully adhering to "the science" after all. Because according to a report published Thursday by Barron's, some scientists are worried that the drug - which purportedly cut hospitalizations in half during a study that was cut short - could cause cancer or birth defects.

So much for having a "strong safety profile," as Dr. Scott Gottlieb claimed in an interview on the day Merck first publicized the research.

It's perfectly understandable why Merck might choose to play down this safety risk: assuming it's approved, the drug is widely expected to be one of "the most lucrative drugs ever" - which is one reason why Merck's shares soared into double-digit territory after the announcement.

This Has Always Been A Spiritual Battle

Computing Forever

The EU Unveils Blueprint For Muzzling Jewish Israel’s Critics

Pretending to fight bigotry against Jews, EU officials this week published a plan for censoring expressions of solidarity with Palestinians.

The strategy for combating anti-Semitism – as the plan was named – quickly won praise from pro-Israel lobby groups. That was predictable for a simple reason: the same lobby groups strongly influenced the plan’s contents.

The plan was nominally the work of the European Commission, the EU’s executive.

One pledge is that the Commission will help establish a network of “trusted flaggers and Jewish organizations” to fight “online anti-Semitism.” EU governments, meanwhile, are encouraged to give police and judicial authorities greater power and resources so that they can prosecute “hate speech” on the internet.

These proposals resemble recommendations made by pro-Israel groups in at least three policy papers issued over as many years. The only real difference is that some commitments made by EU officials are actually bolder and more explicit than what the lobby groups pressed for in those papers.

While many of the steps advocated in the plan may look laudable on the surface, they cannot be divorced from how the EU has long allowed Israel and its supporters to set the agenda on anti-Semitism.

If recent experience is anything to go by, the “Jewish organizations” joining the network for internet monitoring will not include Jews who speak out for Palestinian rights. The European Commission barred Jews unwilling to act as apologists for Israel from a working group that prepared the new plan.

The plan relies heavily on the definition of anti-Semitism approved by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. That definition conflates speaking the truth about Israel’s racism with hostility toward Jews.

Margaritis Schinas, a European Commission vice president, alleged this week that “anti-Semitism can often hide behind anti-Zionism.”

Zionism is the ideology underpinning the colonization of Palestine and the mass dispossession of Palestinians. Opposing that ideology is a duty for everyone who believes in basic tenets of justice and equality.

Jumbling of ideologies

Contrary to what Schinas claimed, anti-Semitism can seldom – if ever – hide behind anti-Zionism.

It is true that there are some anti-Jewish bigots – such as Ku Klux Klan veteran David Duke – who also pose as enemies of Zionism. But in such cases anti-Zionism is the skimpiest fig leaf imaginable.

If someone really hates Jews, it is extremely difficult – indeed almost impossible – to conceal that hatred behind opposition to Zionism.

The Palestine solidarity movement denounces Zionism as well as other forms of racism, including anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim bigotry.

Yet the pro-Israel lobby constantly seeks to cast aspersions on advocates for justice in Palestine.

That can be seen in a submission made by pro-Israel groups in June this year – when the new EU plan was being drafted. The submission claims that “anti-Semitism is found across society, manifesting itself in the most pernicious forms on the far-right, the far-left and among Islamist extremists.”

The jumbling of ideologies here is risible.

Palestine solidarity activists on the left are the polar opposites of neo-Nazis. The idea that they have a shared antipathy toward Jews doesn’t withstand scrutiny.

The undoubted intention of the pro-Israel lobby is to cast unwarranted aspersions on campaigners who see defeating Zionism as imperative because they are against racism in all its forms.

Shamefully – and not for the first time – EU officials are trying to lend credence to such smears. The EU’s coordinator against anti-Semitism Katharina von Schnurbein has repeatedly spread lies about Palestine solidarity campaigners while cheering on Israel’s crimes against humanity.

Perhaps the most significant sentence in the new plan reads: “Israel is a key partner for the European Union, including in the global fight against anti-Semitism.”

The EU will “seek to further reinforce” the “high-level seminar on racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism” that it hosts every year along with Israel. The focus will be on “operational follow-up,” according to the plan.

Those words are revealing.

By privileging Jews over people of other religions and ethnicities, Israel practices apartheid – as organizations such as B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch have belatedly accepted. To make Israel a key partner in a “global fight” against any form of bigotry is obscene.

The new EU plan cannot be taken at face value.

Its real objective does not appear to be the stamping out of prejudice against Jews in Europe. Its real objective is the appeasement of Israel.

Source

"COVID Has Shown Politicians Are Authoritarian Jackbooted Thugs"

 “There is no decision about your life that they will not try to control...”

Authored by Steve Watson: Texas Senator Ted Cruz charged Wednesday that the COVID crisis has revealed the real character of politicians in power, calling them “jackbooted thugs” and warning that “There is no decision about your life that they will not try to control.”

Cruz made the comments during an interview with Sean Hannity, in which the Senator addressed the attempts of Biden’s Justice Department to paint up concerned parents in the U.S. as “domestic terrorists” for questioning vaccine mandates and radical critical race theory being made a part of their kids’ education curriculum.

Cruz urged that “In any crisis someone’s character is revealed, and COVID really has shown the character of the Democrats. They are authoritarians, they are jackbooted thugs. There is no decision about your life that they will not try to control whether that is a vaccine mandate, regardless of your choices.”

Why An Obsession With Safety Creates Sick Minds And A Sick Society

Academy of Ideas

"An age of cowards."

Bankster Problems Lead To Bankster Solutions

Corbett: Banks around the world are suffering IT-related disruptions; the Chinese Belt and Road is debt-trap diplomacy; and old Yellen is looking to get the IRS' mitts on every over $600.

After Success Against Corbyn, Anti-Gentile Jews' Pro-Israel Lobby Ousts UK Scholar

A British university dismissed Prof David Miller after he exposed networks of influence promoting Islamophobia in the UK that included the very pro-Israel Jewish lobby groups that had worked so strenuously to get him fired.

Bristol university lecturer David Miller fired following a Jewish lobby smear campaign despite official investigation finding no evidence of antisemitism

By Jonathan Cook: Britain’s pro-Israel lobby gained another important scalp last week after a prolonged campaign of intimidation finally pushed a major UK university into firing one of its lecturers. 

Bristol University dismissed David Miller, a political sociology professor, even though an official investigation had concluded that accusations of antisemitism against him were unfounded.

UC Irvine Director Of Medical Ethics Placed On 'Investigatory Leave' Over Challenge To Vaccine Mandate

"Natural immunity following Covid infection is equal to (indeed, superior to) vaccine-mediated immunity."

By Tyler Durden: The University of California, Irvine has placed their Director of Medical Ethics, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, on 'investigatory leave' after he challenged the constitutionality of the UC's vaccine mandate in regards to individuals who have recovered from Covid and have naturally-acquired immunity.

Last month Kheriaty, also a Professor of Psychiatry at UCI School of Medicine, filed a suit in Federal court over the mandate.

"Natural immunity following Covid infection is equal to (indeed, superior to) vaccine-mediated immunity. Thus, forcing those with natural immunity to be vaccinated introduces unnecessary risks without commensurate benefits—either to individuals or to the population as a whole—and violates their equal protection rights guaranteed under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment," Kheriaty wrote in a Sep. 21 blog post.