Lev Tahor members stopped from entering Mexico, on route to Iran

 https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/lev-tahor-members-arrested-for-allegedly-trying-to-flee-to-iran-682305

Members of the Lev Tahor ultra-Orthodox cult have been prevented by Mexican authorities from traveling to Iran and have been returned to Guatemala where they have resided since 2014, Mexican media reported.

The cult, number around 300 individuals, the majority of whom are Israeli, has made several attempts to reach Iran, first in 2018 and most recently last week. 

According to the ultra-Orthodox news site B’Hadrei Haredim, the cult's members are attempting to fly to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and from there travel to neighboring Iran, in order to more freely conduct their affairs without state interference. 

"Millions have died from COVID injections."

 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/oct/01/blog-posting/report-shares-wildly-unfounded-claims-covid-19-vac/

 A 52-page report from a pair of anti-vaccine advocates claims to present the truth about COVID-19 vaccines. However, it does just the opposite.

The website Stop World Control published the so-called Vaccine Death Report in September 2021, and it was shared across Facebook, including in this Sept. 26 post. It is written by David Sorenson and Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a New York doctor who made headlines for prescribing hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 even though health authorities cautioned against it.

The report claims that "millions have died from COVID injections" around the world, and includes narratives from the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and Brazil to back up this claim.

On top of that, it claims that half a million people within the United States have suffered severe side effects such as strokes, heart failure, brain disorders, convulsions and more.

"The data shows that we are currently witnessing the greatest organized mass murder in the history of our world," the report states. 

The alarming findings cite databases like the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and others. But the report misinterpreted the data to draw unfounded conclusions about the vaccines.

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, also called VAERS, is an official public government database where anyone can submit any potential adverse health effect following a vaccine. However, the reports are not verified, and the system itself warns that reports can contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental or unverifiable. When used improperly, VAERS can be a source for misinformation.

Reports of death after COVID-19 vaccination are rare. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not verified any deaths as a result of the vaccines approved in the United States. Researchers are still evaluating whether there is a connection between the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and rare types of blood clots, but such cases are few.

Did Fauci Spend Taxpayer Dollars on ‘Cruel and Unnecessary’ Test of Vaccine on Beagles?

 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fauci-vaccine-experiment-beagles/

 Claim

Under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases division of the National Institutes of Health approved the use of taxpayer dollars to fund "cruel and unnecessary" testing of an experimental vaccine on beagles.

The Wuhan Lab and the Gain-of-Function Disagreement

 https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain-of-function-disagreement/

 So, did the NIH’s grant to EcoHealth fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab? There are differing opinions on that. As noted above, whether research is “likely” or “reasonably anticipated” to enhance transmissibility can be subjective.

EcoHealth and the NIH and NIAID say no. “EcoHealth Alliance has not nor does it plan to engage in gain-of-function research,” EcoHealth spokesman Robert Kessler told us in an email. Nor did the grant get an exception from the pause, as some have speculated, he said. “No dispensation was needed as no gain-of-function research was being conducted.”

The NIAID told the Wall Street Journal: “The research by EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. that NIH funded was for a project that aimed to characterize at the molecular level the function of newly discovered bat spike proteins and naturally occurring pathogens. Molecular characterization examines functions of an organism at the molecular level, in this case a virus and a spike protein, without affecting the environment or development or physiological state of the organism. At no time did NIAID fund gain-of-function research to be conducted at WIV.”

And in a May 19 statement, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said that “neither NIH nor NIAID have ever approved any grant that would have supported ‘gain-of-function’ research on coronaviruses that would have increased their transmissibility or lethality for humans.”

Should Work on the Coronavirus in Wuhan Be Considered ‘Gain-of-Function’ Research?

 https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/should-work-on-the-coronavirus-in-wuhan-be-considered-gain-of-function-research/

 There’s no evidence NIH-funded research sparked the pandemic. But the dispute underscores widespread confusion surrounding gain-of-function research, which is now a flashpoint in the broader debate over lab experiments with dangerous viruses. That Paul and Fauci could arrive at such different conclusions about the same work gets to the heart of a thorny problem: When it comes to gain-of-function research, “no one agrees on what it is,” says Nicholas Evans, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, who specializes in biosecurity and pandemic preparedness.

Fauci and Paul, Round 2

 https://www.factcheck.org/2021/07/scicheck-fauci-and-paul-round-2/

 As we wrote in May, there’s no dispute that some U.S. funding went to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. The disagreement is over whether the research the lab conducted with the money was gain-of-function research.

Nearly $600,000 from a National Institutes of Health grant to the U.S.-based EcoHealth Alliance went to the Wuhan lab, a collaborator on the six-year project to study the risk of the future emergence of coronaviruses from bats. The grant was canceled in April 2020.

The NIH, EcoHealth Alliance and the lead researcher in Wuhan all say the experiments weren’t gain-of-function — a type of research the U.S. government generally defined in 2014 as aiming to “increase the ability of infectious agents to cause disease by enhancing its pathogenicity or by increasing its transmissibility.”

There’s no evidence that Fauci lied to Congress, as Paul asserted in the July 20 hearing, given that the NIH unequivocally backs up Fauci’s statement that the grant-backed research “was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain-of-function.”

 

Southwest, airline pilots union deny claims that anti-vaccine walkouts prompted cancellations

 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/oct/11/tweets/southwest-airline-pilots-union-deny-claims-anti-va/

In separate statements to the press, Southwest Airlines and the union representing its pilots denied the widespread internet rumors that claimed the airline canceled thousands of flights because crew members walked off the job or called in sick to protest the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Tucker Carlson blames Southwest flight disruption on Biden vaccine mandate

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/oct/12/tucker-carlson-biden-vaccine-mandates-fox-news-southwest-airlines 

 Tucker Carlson has claimed the cancellation of thousands of flights by Southwest Airlines was “a direct consequence” of the Biden administration’s vaccination mandate for federal workers.

 Southwest is a private company, not subject to federal vaccine rules.

 Local media has reported that the head of Jacksonville Aviation Authority rejected reports of a walkout.

 Carlson did not mention that his company has a strict vaccinations and testing policy. In a memo reported last month, Fox News’ head of human resources, Kevin Lord, said that after being asked to report their status, “90% of full-time employees” said “they were fully vaccinated”.

 “The Fox News vaccine requirement is stricter than the one proposed by President Joe Biden and described as tyranny and creeping communism,” Hayes said.

The Lab-Leak Debate Just Got Even Messier

 https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-leak-pandemic-origins-even-messier/620209/

For anyone looking for the great, final vindication of the lab-leak hypothesis, this document will leave you wanting. Does the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic have an unnatural origin? The answer hasn’t changed: probably not. But we have learned something quite disturbing in the past few days, simply from how and when this information came to light.

 Stephen Goldstein, a postdoctoral researcher in evolutionary virology at the University of Utah and one of the co-authors of the pandemic-origins critical review, considers it “unlikely” that any such work would have gone forward in Wuhan. It would be unusual—even unethical—for a lab in China to pursue experiments that were originally proposed by one of its collaborators in the United States, he told us. Another co-author of the critical review, the Johns Hopkins University microbiology postdoc Alex Crits-Christoph, interprets the proposal as stating that any novel cleavage sites would be inserted into a SARS-CoV-1-like coronavirus. Unless the Wuhan lab had already isolated a SARS-CoV-2-like virus that could carry this insertion—which Crits-Christoph doubts, given that it is not mentioned in the proposal—researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology would not have had enough time between early 2018 and the fall of 2019 to construct (and then mistakenly release) the virus at the root of the pandemic.

Jan. 6 committee pursues criminal contempt referral for Bannon

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/jan-6-committee-deposition-deadlines-10-14-21/h_e0491a4076373e07e19624e7393baf62 

 The committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill attack announced it is moving forward to hold Trump ally Steve Bannon in criminal contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena, as his game of chicken with the House panel now enters a new and critical phase.

Bannon's lawyer on Wednesday wrote a letter to the panel saying that his client will not provide testimony or documents until the committee reaches an agreement with former President Donald Trump over executive privilege or a court weighs in on the matter.

Steve Bannon: Congress plots criminal charge for former Trump aide

 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58919751

 A committee investigating the 6 January Capitol riot has said it will pursue criminal charges against former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon next week.

Mr Bannon had been summoned to testify before the congressional panel investigating the riot on Thursday.

He did not appear, prompting the head of the committee to schedule a Tuesday vote to hold him in criminal contempt.

If convicted, Mr Bannon faces a fine and up to one year in prison. Democrats say he is trying to delay the probe.

Mr Bannon - a former right-wing media executive who became Mr Trump's chief strategist - was fired from the White House in 2017 and was not in government at the time of the January riot.

But he has been asked to testify regarding his communication with Mr Trump a week before the incident - as well as his involvement in discussing plans to overturn the election results that saw Joe Biden win the White House.

Coronavirus: No new deaths reported in 24 h. for 1st time in 4th wave

 https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/coronavirus-in-israel-1732-new-cases-403-serious-cases-681972

No new coronavirus deaths were reported in Israel in the previous 24 hours for the first time since the beginning of the fourth wave, Health Ministry’s data showed on Thursday morning.

According to the daily COVID update, the death toll stood at 7,959, the same figure as of Wednesday morning.

Some 1,400 people have lost their lives since July. While the number has been lower than the deaths registered during the third wave in January and February, August and September were nonetheless among the deadliest months since the beginning of the pandemic. 

The Totally Preventable Death of a Brooklyn Icon

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-totally-preventable-death-of-dolores-perri-brooklyn-icon-and-gary-null-protege

 Dolores Perri was an 82-year-old paragon of seemingly ageless health: an effervescent pescatarian who exercised religiously, ran in a dozen marathons, and counseled others on nutrition when she was not helping her husband run the iconic model slot car track Buzz-a-Rama in Brooklyn.

But like some in alternative health circles, she was a vaccine skeptic. She shared the views of her longtime mentor, Gary Null, a talk radio host and self-described alternative medicine expert. She believed, despite all evidence to the contrary, that vaccines long in use are toxic and that too little is known about the new ones developed for COVID-19.

Naturopathy vs. Science: Facts edition

 https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/naturopathy-vs-science-facts-edition/

 It’s for this reason that I’m baffled by the suggestion that medicine needs to “integrate” alternatives-to-medicine treatments. I understand the principles of homeopathy, acupuncture, and naturopathy. And those principles are antagonistic to science-based medicine. Imagine working with someone calling themselves a health professional that believes that they can restore a patient’s “vital force” by giving remedies that are pure water. Or stick needles in the skin to stimulate nonexistent “meridians”. Or even decide what scientific evidence they’re going to accept and use – not based on the strength of the evidence, but on a pre-scientific belief system. That’s naturopathy in a nutshell, which is one of the oddest alternative health practices out there. It’s not just homeopathy, or herbalism, or acupuncture. It’s all the above, and more. The central belief, “vitalism”, posits that living beings have a “life force” not found in inanimate objects. Vitalism as a concept was disproved by Wöhler in 1828, yet the idea continues to thrive in naturopathy. Naturopathic treatment ideas are all grounded in the idea of restoring this “energy”, rather than being based on objective science. It is perhaps unsurprising that naturopathy has evolved to include disparate practices like homeopathy, acupuncture and herbalism. Given there’s no requirement to justify or rationalize practices in scientific terms, pretty much anything goes, as long as it aligns with the underlying philosophy. Not all naturopathic advice is bunk – some can be evidence-based. However, that’s not because it’s grounded in evidence, but rather despite it: sometimes medical advice happens to align with the naturopathic philosophy. I’ve used this naturopath’s quote before, but from my perspective it concisely sums up how naturopathy likes to pick its own facts.