Alex Berenson with Martha MacCallum
By Anne Dachel
On February 4, 2021, Martha MacCallum interviewed journalist and author Alex Berenson on Fox News Radio in a 17 minute segment entitled, Alex Berenson Says COVID-19 Vaccine Was “A Real Failure Of Regulation”
Berenson had some really eye-opening information that made me wish he was interviewing Dr. Anthony Fauci on these same points.
Several things were happening here. MacCallum brought up the possibility that Berenson is an “anti-vaxxer” right at the start, and he had to defend himself against that charge.
Berenson asserted that he’s not anti-vaccine. He’s vaccinated and his children are vaccinated according to the CDC schedule.
When Berenson got into his reasons for being unconvinced that the COVID19 vaccines are worthwhile, it was clear people should be worried about both safety and efficacy.
This is what they’re not telling us in the mainstream media:
First of all, the mRNA COVID vaccines are a new, insufficiently tested technology. Berenson told listeners something that I’ve never heard anyone in the news, namely that these vaccines “cause pretty severe events in a lot of people who take them” in the trial phase.
Berenson said that there have been “thousands and thousands” of adverse events reported to the government after this vaccine
Secondly, they haven’t been tested in the people most at risk from COVID19: those people who are older with preexisting conditions.
He furthermore claimed that along with the risks, there is no proof these vaccines provide immunity or prevent spread.
After raising serious concerns about side effects and what these vaccines actually do to prevent COVID, he did tell us that he’s not sure about getting it himself, although his children definitely are not going to get it.
He did however advise his elderly mother to take the vaccine because at her age, she’s more vulnerable to COVID.
This was after pointing out that it hasn’t been tested in her age group and that if it were up to him, “these vaccines would not be available right now.”
Despite this mixed message, his points are valid. Berenson’s arguments should be a part of every discussion where people talk about mandating this vaccine for employment or school attendance.
Martha MacCallum: Welcome everybody to this edition of the Untold Story. We’re joined today by a frequent guest and friend of ours, Alex Berenson, who has covered in a really in-depth way the reality of COVID19 and the vaccine structure and the data behind all of it.
We want to talk to him about that, but we want to start today by asking him about his new book because I always knew Alex as a former New York Times reporter. He’s also a prolific novelist, who’s written a new book called the Power Couple.
Hi Alex. How are you doing today?
Alex Berenson: Martha, great to talk to you. …
4:46
MacCallum: I’m going to totally switch gears on you. … Before I let you go, I want to spend the second bit of this talking about your approach to vaccines because I’ve followed your coverage, and we’ve talked a lot on this show over the course of COVID. You’ve busted a lot of myths in your writing about COVID.
You’re coming across these days sounding sort of like an anti—vaxxer.
Are you?
Berenson: No, I’m not an anti-vaxxer. I’ve been vaccinated. Our kids have been vaccinated. I think you need to look at the COVID vaccines differently than other vaccines because they are different than other vaccines.
They aren’t based on technology that’s been around for generations. They haven’t been around for generations. They are a completely new kind of vaccine, based on technology that really was what people in biotechnology call the “bleeding edge of development” in the last few years.
Meaning you were bleeding a lot of money and a lot of scientific effort to try to move these forward, and they really weren’t moving forward very quickly and there was a good reason for that.
There’s questions about the technology I don’t really want to go into right now. It really to explore it takes a long time.
These vaccines didn’t exist at this time last year, or they’d barely begun to exist.
We are trying to vaccinate everybody in the world with them even though the clinical trial data shows they have been pretty severe adverse events in a lot of people who take them. They cause pretty severe events in a lot of people who take them.
Here’s what we know about them: We know that they stop mild or moderate COVID infections in a pretty healthy population. That’s what the clinical trials proved.
They didn’t prove that these reduce deaths. They didn’t prove that they reduce serious cases of COVID, although you’ll hear that they didn’t actually prove that, they demonstrated some benefit in that direction, but they didn’t prove it.
Most importantly, they weren’t tested in the people who are most likely to get sick and die from COVID.
Tens of thousands of people were tested with these vaccines, but only a handful—I mean in the hundreds—are in the group of people that are 75 and older who have preexisting conditions, like kidney disease or diabetes.
Those are the people we know who get sick and die from COVID much, much more than other people.
I’m not going to say it’s criminal, but it is a real failure of regulation that we didn’t force the manufacturers to test the vaccines in those people.
So what we’re left with is a lot of guesswork as to whether or not these vaccine will actually do any good on a population wide basis, and against that we have a lot of data showing that they cause adverse events in many people who take them.
MacCallum: But that’s not what we’re hearing. We’re hearing in most cases only if you’re someone who is prone to an allergic reaction to a vaccine, that it is very rare for someone to have an adverse effect to this vaccine so far.
Berenson: That’s just simply untrue. What the CDC is doing and what the media unfortunately is helping them do is defining adverse events very, very narrowly. As essentially, I got this and went into shock in 15 to 30 minutes.
That’s rare. It’s actually not as rare as it is for other vaccines, but it is rare.
But there are many, many, many other adverse events that follow vaccination with these that we know about, that the clinical trials demonstrated.
There are fevers, in some cases fevers of 103 and 104 degrees.
There is nausea. There is fatigue that puts people out for days. There is diarrhea.
MacCallum: Here’s what I’m hearing in that, just to push back on that.
A lot of times when you get a vaccine, I mean essentially a vaccine is a tiny bit of the disease itself, right? So you sometimes get those symptoms.
I’ve had that happen with the flu vaccine. I had a shingles vaccine, my arm blew up for four days afterwards.
It’s that just sort of what happens when you inject a bit of any one of these diseases into your body?
Berenson: So now we go to what the vaccine actually is, and that’s not what these mRNA vaccine are at all.
What you’re being given is a little piece of genetic material that stimulates your body to produce a part of the corona virus protein.
That, in and of itself makes the corona virus vaccine different than the kind of vaccines you’re talking about.
On top of that, because your body’s going to attack that little piece of RNA, it has to be protected by something called a lipid nanoparticle, and those can also cause adverse events. They can cause your immune system to respond.
The science on this gets very, very complicated, but when people say, “Oh I like the fact I had this negative reaction after I had that vaccine because it shows my immune system is working,” that’s actually not really true at all.
I don’t like it when people say it because a lot people who are saying it know it’s not really true at all.
Here’s the thing. When we look at the vaccine adverse events reports that have been filed with the federal government, there are thousands and thousands of them for this COVID19 vaccine.
It’s possibly in some cases they’re not directly related. They’re just something that followed the injection and the injection didn’t cause.
But what we know is that they’re being filed at much, much higher rates than other vaccines.
These vaccines are more toxic to people than the flu vaccine and many other vaccines, and the clinical trial data demonstrates that beyond a doubt.
All I’m saying is, since we know the adverse events can be severe, we should be demanding proof of efficacy, not just that it reduces mild disease in healthy people, but that we see real evidence that in the people who die from COVID, this prevents COVID deaths.
There would be a way to demonstrate that if the companies had run the trials properly.
They didn’t do that, so we’re guessing.
I don’t think that makes me an anti-vaxxer to say this.
11: 49
MacCallum: So the J and J vaccine is not an mRNA vaccine. That is a more traditional style vaccine where they basically cook the virus, and they make it in order to create this vaccine.
Do you think that one is safer?
Berenson: We haven’t seen the side effect data on the J and J.
It’s probably somewhat safer than the mRNA vaccines because it doesn’t have the lipid nanoparticle issue, but we also, it also looks less effective based on the data—
Here’s ultimate problem with this: There’s something called “science by press release.”
That’s when you put out a press release that looks really great and then a month later, after everyone has sort of agreed how great this is, you release the full data set, and it looks entirely different.
The only people who read that are only a few scientists and a few journalists.
We don’t know what the J and J data says because J and J hasn’t put it out yet.
MacCallum: So for yourself and your family members, having done all of this digging, do you think people are just better off taking their chances with COVID19 than getting the vaccine?
Berenson: It depends very substantially on age because COVID’s risks are so stratified by age.
My mother asked me, “Should I get the vaccine?”
I said, “Yes, get the vaccine. You’re 76 years old.”…
For me, I’m 48 and I’m in reasonably healthy condition. I’m not interested in the mRNA vaccine, maybe a different vaccine.
And for my children, and again my children to the normal vaccine schedule to this point, they are not getting this vaccine.
We will pull them out of school, and my wife agrees with me about this, we will pull them out of school before we give them this vaccine.
They are at zero risk basically from COVID, and they should not be subjected to any risk from a vaccine.
MacCallum: Last question… We talked a lot about Operation Warp Speed and the pipeline and the production of it was really unprecedented just separate from what you think about the vaccine, just from a logistic standpoint, very impressive.
But then it just sort of stopped at the state door and left the rest up to them.
What do you think about that failure so far?
Berenson: To me it’s sort of irrelevant. I don’t think we should be pushing the vaccine on people. I think we should prioritize the vaccine for people 60 and over, certainly 70 and over.
Some states were better at that than others. That should have clearly been the national priority, rather than trying to get health care workers—a lot of them don’t even want to take the vaccine—to take it.
I think that’s what we should have done, but honestly if it were up to me, these vaccines would not be available right now. They’d still be in clinical trial and we’d be getting the data that we need to show that they actually work and by work I mean reduce deaths, and reduce severe hospitalizations in a statistically significant—
MacCallum: Do you see evidence that that is beginning to happen?
We’ve talked about the studies in California and New York that show that show many more people had COVID19 than is publically acknowledged.
Do you think, completely separate from the vaccine, how much longer do you think COVID19 will be with us without it?
Berenson: I don’t know. In the US right now we’re going way down. We’ve hit the peak of the third wave. We’re well past it. It was in the beginning of January.
You don’t hear this very much but cases are down something like 60 percent from the peak a month ago.
Hospitalizations are now down 35 percent, and they’re going down every day. It certainly looks like we’re well passed the third wave.
Will there be a fourth wave? I’d like to think not, but at this point COVID’s made a fool of anybody who’s made predictions that it’s over.
I’d say one last thing. One more reason to be concerned about the vaccines on a population wide basis is that Israel, which has done a much aggressive job of vaccinating people over 60 than anywhere else in the world, is in the middle of COVID wave that has not gone down in the last month.
Ours has gone down. We vaccinated relatively few people. Theirs has stayed very high, and they vaccinated a lot of people.
You can come up with explanations for that don’t say the vaccine doesn’t work.
You can explain this is various ways and some of them still are okay for the vaccine, but to me, that’s a warning flag.
But in terms of what we’re going to see in the U.S., I’d like think that what we’re going to see is that cases continue to go down.
I'm well over 65. My sturdy 1940s immune system protects me from everything I need to be protected from. I expect to die from something someday but it probably won't be COVID.
It's ironic that senior citizens are generically portrayed as vulnerable victims-to-be when we are the very ones whose natural immune systems weren't damaged by today's insane vaccination schedule and/or the environmental, water and food contamination which has taken hold since the 1960s or so. We had a chance to grow up healthy, unlike today's kids. Something else is going one here but I don't claim to know what it is.
Posted by: M. | March 26, 2021 at 12:55 AM
Emmaphiladelphia Ive got my small boat at the ready,aye! dont worry I know where America is from my house.
The clearances revisited, but this time around they are banning anyone from leaving the UK, a bit sinister I would say. Come to think of the Landlords responsible for the Scottish Clearances stopped the islanders from leaving because when the first wave of deported scots started writing home and telling them how wonderful America was the landlords who exported them then got the government to ban islanders from leaving for America-no kidding!
But there is always hope - Jonathan Sumption again former Supreme Court Judge
Jonathan Sumption: Pandemic plans & police overreach | SpectatorTV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13qVqVesMVA
Pharma For Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: angus files | March 23, 2021 at 06:22 PM
"...hacking the software of life"
Top vaccine scientist gives TED talk:
https://leohohmann.com/2021/03/09/modernas-top-scientist-we-are-actually-hacking-the-software-of-life/
Posted by: Emmaphiladelphia | March 23, 2021 at 12:24 AM
Closet anti-vaxxer?
"Recently, James O’Keefe of Project Veritas published a video of Mark Zuckerberg himself, filmed in July 2020, apparently discussing vaccines... " “But I do just want to make sure that I share some caution on this because we just don’t know the long-term side effects of basically modifying people’s DNA and RNA.”
https://needtoknow.news/2021/03/leaked-video-mark-zuckerberg-cautions-against-side-effects-of-covid-19-vaccines-that-modify-dna-and-rna/
Posted by: Emmaphiladelphia | March 22, 2021 at 11:31 PM
@angus
Sounds like the new IRON CURTAIN. Perhaps Americans should flee south to Mexico and Central America's while our border is wide open. Soros' American-born investor partner left the U.S. about five years ago for Malaysia. His children have been raised to speak mandarin. He knew.
Posted by: Emmaphiladelphia | March 22, 2021 at 10:04 PM
There was a Russian (Georgian, really) film called "Repentance" (Pokayanie)
It was about the horrors of Stalinizm if the former Soviet Union.
Will any one of us live to see - a book, a movie, a poem, anything - about the horrors of the totalitarian responses to so called "Corona virus" in the Western world?
Posted by: Irena Stepanova | March 22, 2021 at 09:40 PM
And just when everyone in the UK thought it cant get any worse-you bet!
Holidays overseas to be made ILLEGAL - £5,000 fines for people trying to leave Britain
HOLIDAYS abroad will be made illegal from Monday, with anyone caught trying to flee the country facing a huge £5,000 fine.
https://www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/1413337/holidays-illegal-fine-new-covid-laws-overseas-travel-monday
Pharma For Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: angus files | March 22, 2021 at 04:35 PM
All I'm saying, Laura, is that the three coronavirus vaccines being sold in this country don't even meet the old, crummy bar. Maybe a good comparison is hot dogs (with nitrates, factory-farmed and antibiotic-laden pork, and other "food-grade" preservatives) vs. a special emergency hot dog with rat hairs. FDA allows all sorts of crummy stuff to pass as "food." EZ Cheeze shouldn't exist. But these new vaccines are like EZ Cheeze that somebody's mom fermented in the garage and cooked over a space heater, then pinky-swore to the government that she washed her hands before she made it.
I think it is good for people who believe in vaccines to hear a pro-vaccine person like Berenson pointing out everything that is completely unknown and potentially dangerous with these vaccines.
I"d love to see the whole system dismantled. Absolutely. I completely and wholeheartedly support the end of vaccine mandates of any kind, the end of taxpayer funding of vaccines of any kind, and the end of vaccination even being permitted for people who are under 18.
But I think we are risking an insane level of damage, right now, if we allow every human on earth to be hit with these still-completely-experimental products. Boomers who have only had the smallpox shot, or maybe smallpox and polio, are getting hit with a syringe full of randomness. That is a boatload of people to (potentially) disable virtually overnight. The thought of how this will play out terrifies me. This is why I think it's good to have people like Berenson make a distinction between the polio vaccine and this stuff. An EUA for a vaccine is literally unprecedented, and the people who are signing up on a massive scale to accept this product should know that.
You are right about the language we use. We should say that Berenson made a distinction between his concern about this vaccine and his support for vaccines in general. I would like to see the term "anti-vaxxer" go away. It's a weird way of defining people, frankly. I mean, I'm anti-child-sacrifice and anti-slavery, too, but you could just sum up my position as supporting human rights. I don't believe in experimenting on human beings, or in messing with a healthy human body, the pinnacle of God's creation.
Maybe there is no hope for slowing down this train wreck. No one is allowed to question any of this stuff. The most we can do is try to save ourselves and our kids from future harm.
Only semi-related: The head of R&D at AstraZeneca just died at 61, and although it's being reported as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, he was giving interviews over the past few months, so it seems more likely it was ... a sudden-onset thing. Like something I remember hearing about.
Posted by: TOB | March 21, 2021 at 07:20 PM
I can't understand why people over the age of 65 (I'm 67) have swallowed the lies that they have to stay locked in their homes and not see their relatives, including grandchildren. The children, and young or middle-aged adults, are at negligible risk from any corona virus which may or may not be going round at the moment (corona viruses are seasonal, from December to April in the northern hemisphere). So the seniors would only need to stay in isolation if they wished to protect themselves. It's a choice. Personally, having nearly completed my three score years and ten, I think it is preferable to risk catching the cold, and the remote possibility of dying from it, than to live another five or ten years with dementia, or worse, and in isolation. Of the residents of care homes who have been vaccinated, many have died painfully from the "side effects" who might have died naturally without it. No-one benefits from these vaccines, except those who are making money out of them.
Posted by: Grace Green | March 21, 2021 at 04:42 PM
TOB,
Thank you for your comments. To clarify, my problem was not with Berenson stating that he is "not an anti-vaxxer". My bone of contention was with how it was reported here on AoA, i.e. "and he had to defend himself against that charge", as though such a "charge" was worth/in need of defending oneself against.
You wrote:
"Similarly, as Berenson points out, we should all agree that these coronavirus vaccines are not regulated the way other vaccines are; therefore, they pose unknown and possibly catastrophic risks to human beings, and should not be promoted as if they have met FDA's standards for safety and effectiveness."
I cannot agree that these coronavirus vaccines are not regulated the way other vaccines are, as I think they are being "regulated" with the same level of shoddiness, fraud, corruption, and deception. Additionally, every vaccine poses unknown (not to mention known) and possibly (not to mention proven) catastrophic risks to human beings. Lastly, I don't believe that the FDA has any meaningful, ethical, or honest standards for vaccine safety or effectiveness.
For a trip down memory lane, here are but a very few of the FDA's "standards" for vaccine safety and effectiveness:
-4 to 5 day "testing" periods accepted as sufficient
-placebos not used as controls (read that again and again)
-antibodies used as "proof" of immunity, despite evidence that they are not proof of immunity
-vaccines declared "effective" even when they cause that which they are purported to prevent, and/or cause that which is worse, and/or fail to protect/prevent
-vaccines given to age groups and categories of people not studied
-vaccine impacts on carcinogenicity, fertility, and mutagenicity not studied, but vaccines declared "safe" anyway
-known toxins and neuro-toxins permitted to be used in vaccines
-known poisons and hazardous chemicals permitted to be used in vaccines
-ingredients known to impact fertility and cause sterility permitted to be used in vaccines
-toxic vaccine ingredient declared to be "safe" based on a study from 1929 in which all test subjects died in short order
-another toxic vaccine ingredient declared "safe" based on its use for decades, despite 100 years of scientific acknowledgement that it is both toxic and neurotoxic
-known allergens permitted to be used in vaccines
-test results hidden, omitted, and/or lied about, but vaccines still approved, recommended, and mandated
-no follow-up on those injured and killed by vaccines; instead, there is ignoring, dismissal, denial, and covering up by the FDA and others
-useless, and ignored, reporting system in place to "track" vaccine-induced adverse events, including death
-ignoring, dismissal, denial, and censorship of information, firsthand reports, and studies that challenge, contradict, and/or disprove that vaccines are safe, effective, needed, or wise
I could go on and on and on with this list. In sum, the FDA has no meaningful, ethical, or honest standards for vaccine safety and efficacy, and that is one of the main reasons why we are in the midst of a Vaccine Holocaust.
The new coronavirus vaccines are just more of the same when it comes to vaccines...dangerous and potentially-deadly products that have no business being permitted, and which wouldn't be permitted were they required to be studied and approved properly and ethically...profitable products that wouldn't be profitable, or even produced, if those who manufacture, approve, recommend, mandate, and administer them were held personally liable for the injuries, deaths, and decimation to individuals, families, society, the economy, and future generations that they cause...and products which would not be accepted by individuals or parents were they told the unadulterated truth about them, including the long history of fraud behind them.
Posted by: Laura Hayes | March 21, 2021 at 12:02 PM
I think it's OK for a person like Berenson to "defend" himself against the assertion that he is "anti-vaccine," and here's why:
It's significant that a person who philosophically embraces the viewpoint that vaccines are a useful public health tool still has significant problems with the coronavirus vaccines. It's like eating meat: There are many people who are philosophically opposed to eating animals as food. However, when a person who is OK with eating animals has a problem with (for example) factory-farming, then it's time for everyone to sit up and take notice that *this particular method* of doing a thing that some people choose to do and some people choose not to do, is dangerous, harmful, etc. You can't dismiss them with "Well, they believe animals have civil rights, so no matter how clean and safe the farm is, they wouldn't eat chicken."
In the same way, there is one message about vaccines that is the one Laura frequenty preaches (and I'm not using "preaches" pejoratively): The human body's best defense against illness is its own immune system, proper nutrition, avoiding chemicals, and living an active lifestyle. I myself subscribe to this philosophy; for me, it is part of my faith that the Lord didn't intend for us to try to outdo Him by putting chemicals, biologically active substances, etc., into a healthy body. Medicine in the case of illness, yes; supposedly-prophylactic drugs for a healthy person, no.
There is, however, another message, which needs to be heard. Even if you think we can outwit God--if you don't believe in God, or you think He wants us to bioengineer ourselves--there are obviously ways to try to do that that are carry a staggering level of risk. We can all agree that no food or drug should have rat hairs and arsenic in it. Similarly, as Berenson points out, we should all agree that these coronavirus vaccines are not regulated the way other vaccines are; therefore, they pose unknown and possibly catastrophic risks to human beings, and should not be promoted as if they have met FDA's standards for safety and effectiveness.
You don't hear vegans telling factory farm opponents, "You really want to be a vegan; don't be ashamed, and just admit it," because vegans know it's not true. I'm OK with eating chicken, but I also recognize that feeding chicken antibiotics in order to make it grow more quickly poses a risk to my own health and to all of society (antibiotic resistance), so I oppose that practice.
Berenson isn't anti-vaccine, and that's OK. Everyone comes from his own background, bringing his own prejudices, etc., with him. I don't expect Berenson to share all my views overnight, or maybe ever. We should welcome the public airing of any critiques of this insanely fast-tracked, taxpayer-funded coronavirus vaccine debacle. Ending it (or even slowing it down) won't save everyone, but it may save some people.
Posted by: TOB | March 21, 2021 at 08:08 AM
Laura,
I couldn't agree with you more. I have, for a long time, heard the 'I'm not anti-vaccine; I'm pro choice,' as 'I'm not anti-vaccine; if people want to poison their own children, that's up to them.' I cannot see how that is ok. I, too, proudly say I am anti-vax. I reiterate that I am anti-poison therefore I am anti-vax. For too long, many have been on the defensive, requesting exemptions and begging to be allowed freedom of choice. I believe we should be on the offensive, not the defensive. We know how vaccines are destroying the brains, health and lives of children and adults everywhere. We should be demanding an end to ALL vaccinations. We should be out on the streets calling for this.
I still work in the primary school setting. From where I sit, if you think the number of people in the past who have come up through the system with health/brain issues etc has been high, it is nothing on the numbers coming through the system now. Shocking. It is beyond me why government officials are not calling for major investigations into why this is happening. Well, it's not really beyond me to work that one out but even curiosity alone should be enough to push people to look further than the ends of their noses to work out what is going on. Apparently, it's not.
Posted by: Julie | March 21, 2021 at 07:19 AM
Thanks Laura. No vaccine does or could work (they're all based on the observably wrong belief that germs infect us on an *acute* basis).
If you're not unequivocally anti-every vaccine then you're either clueless, a coward or you just like seeing babies harmed.
Posted by: Rtp | March 21, 2021 at 12:56 AM
Looks like some people in London are awaking to the medical tyranny dished out on the people by the Pharma Governments.
Nice demonstration comments "use water cannons " etc
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1412662/Lockdown-freedom-boris-johnson-tory-party-esther-mcvey-graham-brady
Pharma For Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: angus files | March 20, 2021 at 08:50 PM
People who have an adequate innate immune system do not need the vaccine -- they will be just fine.
People with a low-functioning innate immune systems will not respond to the vaccine, it is all risk and no benefit.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7803150/
Posted by: Tim Lundeen | March 20, 2021 at 07:23 PM
I wish all vaccination (especially child + baby vaccines) would be banned completely 4 creating lifelong diseases.
Posted by: M2021 | March 20, 2021 at 06:06 PM
Thank you Laura Hayes for ALWAYS standing your ground in this MADNESS. You've been doing it for so long now. And look at where we are headed. We should ALL be on board with everything you are stating. I am.
"As for me, I am proudly "anti-vaccine". I am not ashamed to state that I am not in favor of knowingly harming and killing people under the guise of "protecting" them. I find that both unacceptable and reprehensible, and it needs to be stopped." Amen.
Posted by: Kathy Sincere | March 20, 2021 at 05:36 PM
I am a senior.
At this stage, I suspect, if Sars Cov 2 is as contagious as promoted, to have developed antibodies or other immune responses that are more protective than the vaccine.
I also consider the possibility that the vaccine, in promoting lymphadenopathy and facial palsy, may be encouraging viral or other pathology that enables cancer.
I am concerned about seniors falling after vaccination, blood clots, thrombocytopenia, and blood pressure dysregulation.
It's not a must for seniors to experiment with this intervention.
Posted by: greyone | March 20, 2021 at 02:57 PM
Alex Berenson has done such a remarkable job of looking at mainstream media's covid propaganda with a critical eye. So glad to see this transcribed here!
And TOB, once again, you hit the nail on the head.
Posted by: Donna L. | March 20, 2021 at 01:51 PM
I have refused the vaccine for my 92 year old mother and 97 year old father.
There is no winning in this.
Dad is now totally paralyzed from Parkinson that he began the very week after a flu shot.
Posted by: benedetta | March 20, 2021 at 01:50 PM
"Several things were happening here. MacCallum brought up the possibility that Berenson is an “anti-vaxxer” right at the start, and he had to defend himself against that charge. Berenson asserted that he’s not anti-vaccine."
He had to defend himself against that charge? He felt the need to assert that he is not anti-vaccine? That is like saying that a parent whose child was permanently disabled or outright killed by a drunk driver, or another parent who finds such an incident tragic and doesn't want that to happen to their child or the children of others, has no legitimate right to be "anti-drunk driving"...as though it is something of which to be ashamed.
I grow tired, and angered, reading such comments, especially here on AoA. Here we are, a group comprised mostly of parents whose children's/families' lives have been decimated, or prematurely ended, specifically due to vaccinations, yet some continue to believe that there is something wrong with being "anti-vaccine".
Here are my thoughts: It is completely unacceptable to continue to defend the use of that which we know will harm, injure, permanently disable, make chronically ill, make sterile, make sick, make deaf, negatively impact eyesight/blind, paralyze, and kill many recipients. This is especially so as the majority of recipients are healthy babies (not those on death's door willing to take a high risk in hopes of saving their lives), with the rest of their lives ahead of them, and unable to defend themselves against that which is inflicted on them in the form of vaccinations. No one knows which of these precious babies will have their lives irreparably altered, some to the point of being shattered, now beginning in utero, by these witches' brews of poisons, toxins, animal products, allergens, aborted fetal material, and ingredients that don't have to even be disclosed. What we do, in fact, know is that some/many will suffer devastating consequences, and that is not acceptable, no matter which disease boogeyman the profiteers drag out of the closet.
I will continue to repeat, "anti-vaccine" can be defined as "informed intelligence and principled ethics". Furthermore, at present, there is not one vaccine that has been tested or approved properly or ethically, and therefore, there is not one vaccine that should currently be on the market.
I wanted to add that the latest reasoning I hear by those in "our camp" as to why they don't want to say they are "anti-vaccine" is because they want to leave the door open for future vaccines that might be therapeutics to cure diseases, such as cancer. Here is my reply to that: vaccines are not therapeutics, they are supposed to be prophylactics. Additionally, many of today's diseases are the result of vaccinations, so it certainly seems like a purposeful (and profitable) plan by pharmaceutical companies to create disease via vaccinations, then come up with the "cures" for that which they created, laughing all the way to the bank...pure evil. And the only reason they want their "therapeutics" to be called "vaccines" is so that they can be "liability free" for them, too.
As for me, I am proudly "anti-vaccine". I am not ashamed to state that I am not in favor of knowingly harming and killing people under the guise of "protecting" them. I find that both unacceptable and reprehensible, and it needs to be stopped.
Good health and a strong immune system do not come through a needle. Quite the opposite. They come from breastmilk, organic, nutrient-dense foods, clean water, fresh air, proper supervision, loving care and attention, exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy human relationships. When was the last time you heard anyone in government or medicine talk about these essential factors?
Posted by: Laura Hayes | March 20, 2021 at 12:57 PM
Regular flu vaccines did not produce the immune response in people over 65 because their immune systems were not as responsive. I remember one drug company (Sanovi-Pasteur as I recall) increasing the adjuvant in its flu vaccine for those over 65, with some increased risk of side effects, including deaths in the clinical trials (which only those who read the report of the clinical trial were likely to ever hear about), to get that increased "immune response" in the over-65 population (They called it an immune response, but it sounds like it was a response to the increased adjuvant). Maybe other companies did that as well, I don't know. But, it seems everyone is just assuming these COVID vaccines will be "effective" in older populations, when flu shots were never that effective, with a rate of about 50% effectiveness, as I recall. Also, I remember reading that older people who had flu shots every year had higher rates of dementia. These COVID vaccines are new, but we already have a body of data about flu vaccines that ought to make people skeptical of these new flu vaccines' use in the elderly, and God forbid giving them to babies and children below the age of consent. Fearful is not a good state of mind in which to analyze data and make decisions.
Posted by: Christina Waldman | March 20, 2021 at 10:08 AM
As I posted before .. recent small item in NY Post reported a woman who was vaccinated during pregnancy gave birth to child having anti-bodies from vaccine mom received. Just saying .. as far as I know .. they did not test vaccines on pregnant women .. yet .. someone thought it a good idea to vaccinate this mom-to-be … having absolutely no idea of the possible LONG TERM EFFECTS the vaccine may have on this child's LIFE.
Recommending this "experimental vaccine" for six month old children who are believed to be of NO RISK TO COVID .. is all about MONEY … not the health and future of CHILDREN.
Posted by: Bob Moffit | March 20, 2021 at 09:17 AM
To me, the real issue is relative risk. For children, this should be easy: their risk of serious problems, even if they catch this virus, is very low. Thus, very little potential gain from a vaccine.
On the other hand, seniors have a much higher risk of serious complications or death from this virus. Further, they have many fewer years left to live...and most don't want to live those years locked in their homes, away from family & friends, due to this virus. So a vaccine that offers hope of returning to normal life is worth the risk of adverse reactions.
So I'm appalled that they are now testing this vaccine on 6 mo olds...but as a senior citizen, I'm grateful to have had both doses of mine.
Posted by: Vicki Hill | March 20, 2021 at 08:17 AM
Thank you again for another great transcript, Anne.
Two thoughts re: what Berenson said about these EUA'd coronavirus vaccines in the context of licensed vaccines, and about government efforts to try to get everyone to get them:
- It hardly makes a person an "anti-vaxxer" (whatever that even means) to state that none of the coronavirus vaccines have been proven to be safe and effective. Way back in December, UPMC said it wan't going to require its staff to get EUA'd coronavirus vaccines, because of the paucity of evidence supporting them, compared with (in their view) the flut shot, which it does require its employees to get. It is beyond tiresome that anyone in the media accuses a person of being broadly anti-vaccine, if that person simply believes that the century-old FDA liensure process is worth adhering to, and we shouldn't give out biologically active substances through some crummy fake-review back door.
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2020/12/upmc-wont-require-employees-to-get-covid-19-vaccine.html
"UPMC requires its health care employees to receive the flu vaccine. But it won’t make them get the COVID-19 vaccine, which UPMC expects to begin offering to employees as soon as this month.
"One reason is general uncertainty about the COVID-19 vaccine -- the first of several in the pipeline could receive emergency approval from the U.S. government this month, possibly within days.
"Dr. Graham Snyder, UPMC’s medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology, said UPMC’s mandatory flu vaccination policy 'is based on decades of experience with the influenza vaccine.'
"But there’s no comparable data for a COVID-19 vaccine, or on whether a mandate is the best way to get large numbers of people to become vaccinated, Snyder said on Tuesday."
- The other thing is what Berenson pointed out, and what Dr. Peter Doshi pointed out during the Pfizer VRBPAC meeting, which is that it's one thing to have a product that is available (Doshi recommended the "compassionate use" pathway) to people in high-risk situations, and compleetely another to market it as if it is safe and effective, licensed and approved, which it absolutely is not.
It would be a violation of federal law for Pfizer, Moderna, or J&J to advertise any one of their coronavirus vaccines, but the US government is now about to spend ONE-POINT-FIVE BILLION DOLLARS to market them.
Moreover, everyone knows that kids are going to be practically forced to get these experimental vaccines (which won't even be aplying for licensure until 2023) as soon as this summer. Offit was saying it during the first VRBPAC meeting: We can't get herd immunity if we don't get all the kids. And Fauci has said it in the last few days as well.
Now that we've created the farce of "virtual" school, there won't be any issue of depriving kids of their education. It will be a simple thing for school districts or states to say that kids can't come into school buidlings without the ir coronavirus shots. They can stay home and Zoom-school, for all the good it will do them. Real, in-person education, which has been considered a federally protected civil right in this country for decades, will be a priviege you can buy by subjecting your child to the unknown risk of one of these not-really-tested vaccines. Some of us (like Berenson) can afford to take our kids out of the public school system. I hope every last one of us who can afford to do so puts our children's health first and refuses to participate in a system that exposes them to literally unknown and potentially devastating risks for some pipe dream of "herd immunity" to a rapidly mutations airborne pathogen.
In short: The US federal government has decided that randomized, controlled trials with three phases are no longer necessary for nationwide biological product production, distribution, and marketing. In other words, the FDA is a true rubber stamp, not just vaguely leaning in industry's favor. And if you point it out, no matter how dutifully you've consumed Big Pharma's products over your lifetime, you're a tinfoil hat-wearing "anti-vaxxer." I can't imagine any vaccine manufacturer being so silly as to conduct real clinical trials ever again. Why waste the money?
And don't get me started on what $1.5 billion could have done for American families. Budgets are only real when it comes to the needs of real people. There is always magic money avaiable for "stimulus" bribes, corporate bailouts, propaganda campaigns on behalf of industry, and wars.
**
References:
https://www.statnews.com/2021/03/15/white-house-unveil-a-wide-reaching-billion-dollar-campaign-convincing-every-american-to-get-vaccinated/
The White House is set to unveil a wide-reaching, billion-dollar campaign aimed at convincing every American to get vaccinated
WASHINGTON — The White House will soon unveil a wide-reaching public relations campaign aimed at boosting vaccine confidence and uptake across the U.S., Biden administration aides told STAT.
This television, radio, and digital advertising blitz, set to kick off within weeks, will focus on Americans outright skeptical of vaccines’ safety or effectiveness as well as those who are potentially more willing to seek a Covid-19 immunization but don’t yet know where, when, or how. Specifically, the campaign will target three groups in which access, apathy, or outright skepticism may pose a barrier to vaccinations: young people, people of color, and conservatives, according to a Biden aide. Congress and the administration have set aside over $1.5 billion for the effort.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/91595
To Keep Schools Safe, Should Kids Be Six Feet Apart, or Three?
— Also, herd immunity probably unreachable unless kids get the shots
Participants on the call also addressed a thorny problem that hasn't gotten much attention yet: how to achieve herd immunity to COVID when children are excluded from vaccination.
Tan said at least 70% of the population needs to be immune, either through vaccination or natural infection, to reach herd immunity -- meaning there are no longer enough potential hosts for the virus to continue to circulate.
In the U.S., 25% of the population is people younger than 18. Given the number of adults refusing vaccination, that would make herd immunity unattainable through vaccination unless children and teens are included.
Tan noted that pediatric availability is coming but will likely happen in phases.
Pfizer has finished enrolling a clinical trial for older children (age 12 and up) and Moderna currently has a trial underway in adolescents.
Findings from these trials are expected "by either the end of the spring or in early summer," Tan said, which means that vaccination for these adolescents and teenagers could start before schools end their summer break.
Asked whether K-12 schools might require students to be vaccinated, Tan said that's still not known, but is "a possibility."
[from Anne's transcript of the Derbez interview]
Derbez: Kids, I’m concerned about my daughter. I have a six year old daughter, and I’ve heard the death rare among kids is extremely low. Do they really need the vaccine? Are going to [vaccinate] kids in the future? Is it going to be mandatory?
Fauci: In order to be able to completely crush this outbreak, you want to get as many people, including children, vaccinated as you possibly can, because when you do you will get such a broad protection that you could eliminate this virus. And that’s what we’re trying to do.
Posted by: TOB | March 20, 2021 at 07:04 AM