COVID-19
Mandating COVID shots ‘one of the greatest mistakes,’ former CDC chief says
From LifeSiteNews
By John-Michael Dumais, The Defender
In a Senate hearing July 11, ex-CDC Director Robert Redfield said mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are ‘toxic’ and should not have been mandated. He also called for a pause on gain-of-function research.
Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield confirmed the dangers of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in a U.S. Senate hearing on July 11, calling them “toxic” and saying they should never have been mandated.
Redfield’s admissions came during a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on government oversight of taxpayer-funded high-risk virus research.
The late admission of vaccine injuries underscores the failure of public health agencies and the medical establishment to provide informed consent to the billions of vaccine recipients worldwide.
“It’s important that he is telling the truth now,” vaccine researcher Jessica Rose, Ph.D., told The Defender. “Adverse events were hidden and still are being hidden to prevent injection hesitancy.”
Redfield, who led the CDC from 2018 to 2021, didn’t stop there. He declared biosecurity “our nation’s greatest national security threat,” calling for a halt to gain-of-function research pending further debate.
The hearing, which featured contentious exchanges between senators and witnesses, also touched on controversial topics such as the COVID-19 origins lab-leak theory and allegations that health agencies suppressed data.
mRNA vax ‘should have been open to personal choice’
During the hearing Redfield, who oversaw the CDC during the crucial early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, elaborated on his recent statements about mRNA vaccine safety.
“I do think one of the greatest mistakes that was made, of course, was mandating these vaccines,” Redfield said. “They should have never been mandated. It should have been open to personal choice.”
Redfield went further, admitting that the spike protein produced by mRNA vaccines is “toxic to the body” and triggers “a very strong pro-inflammatory response.”
He noted that in his own medical practice, he doesn’t administer mRNA vaccines, preferring “killed protein vaccines” instead.
Redfield’s statements stand in stark contrast to the CDC’s official stance during his tenure, which strongly promoted mRNA vaccine uptake as safe and effective.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) pressed Redfield on the issue, highlighting concerning data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Johnson presented figures showing over 37,000 deaths reported following COVID-19 vaccination, with 24 percent occurring within two days of injection.
Redfield acknowledged there was “not appropriate transparency from the beginning about the potential side effects of these vaccines.” He criticized attempts to “underreport any side effects because they argued that would make the public less likely to get vaccinated.”
I truly appreciated Dr. Redfield’s honesty at the hearing today. pic.twitter.com/X06znrxe12
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) July 12, 2024
‘FDA should release all of the safety data’
Redfield’s criticism of data withholding extended beyond vaccine side effects. He expressed disappointment in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration‘s (FDA) handling of vaccine safety information.
“The FDA should release all of the safety data they have,” Redfield said. “I was very disappointed to hear that they were planning to hold on to that until 2026. That really creates a sense of total lack of trust in our public health agencies towards vaccination.”
Johnson echoed these concerns, revealing his frustration with the lack of follow-through by health agencies and the committee itself.
“I’m not getting cooperation out of the chairman of the permanent subcommittee investigation to issue subpoenas to get this,” Johnson said, referring to unreleased data and documents.
The senator displayed a chart comparing adverse event reports for various drugs, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, to those for COVID-19 vaccines. The stark contrast in reported deaths from these therapeutics – with COVID-19 vaccines showing significantly higher numbers – fueled Johnson’s demand for more transparency.
“As important as the cover-up of the origin story is, there’s a lot more that’s being covered up,” Johnson asserted. “The public has a right to know. We pay for these agencies. We pay their salaries. We fund these studies.”
Redfield agreed with Johnson’s assessment, stating that withholding the information is “counterproductive.”
Redfield doubtful of ‘any benefit from [gain-of-function] research’
Redfield’s testimony took another controversial turn when he called for a pause on gain-of-function research, experiments that involve making pathogens more infectious or deadly.
“I’m not aware of any advanced therapeutic or vaccine that has come to pass because of gain-of-function research,” Redfield said. “I do think there has to be a very aggressive debate of whether there’s any benefit from that research.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) seized on this point, introducing his Risky Research Review Act. The bill aims to establish an independent board within the executive branch to oversee federal funding for high-risk life sciences research.
“If the Risky Research Review Act had been in place, it might have prevented the COVID-19 pandemic,” Paul said, citing Redfield’s endorsement.
MIT’s Kevin Esvelt, Ph.D., inventor of a technique for rapidly evolving proteins and other biomolecules who was also instrumental in developing CRISPR gene-editing technology, reinforced these concerns.
Highlighting gaps in current oversight, he described an experiment where his team – with FBI approval – successfully ordered DNA fragments of the 1918 influenza virus from 36 of 38 providers.
“Everything that we did and the companies did was entirely legal,” Esvelt said, underscoring the potential for misuse. “There are no laws regulating DNA synthesis, even though the industry group, the International Gene Synthesis Consortium, has requested congressional regulation.”
The hearing revealed a growing consensus among witnesses for stricter oversight of potentially dangerous research, with Redfield suggesting such studies should be “highly regulated” to protect national security.
Redfield reaffirms COVID lab-leak theory
The hearing reignited debate over the origins of COVID-19, with Redfield reaffirming his belief in the lab-leak theory.
“Based on my initial analysis, I believe then, and I still believe today, that the COVID infections were the direct result of a biomedical research experiment and subsequent lab leak,” Redfield stated.
This assertion led to a heated exchange between Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Carrie Wolinetz, Ph.D., former chief of staff to then-director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Francis Collins. Hawley accused NIH officials of deliberately suppressing the lab-leak theory.
“Your office, Dr. [Anthony] Fauci and others tried to actively censor them,” Hawley said. “There was a propaganda effort that this paper was the center of, and now everybody says, ‘Oh, well, we just weren’t sure at the time.’”
Hawley referred to the 2020 “Proximal Origin” paper that argued against the lab-leak hypothesis.
Wolinetz defended the NIH’s actions. “I do not believe censorship took place, sir.” She maintained that discussions about the virus’s origins were part of normal scientific discourse.
Redfield, however, criticized the lack of thorough investigation into both natural origin and lab-leak hypotheses. “Unfortunately, this didn’t happen,” he said, adding that four years later, he believes there’s no meaningful evidence supporting a natural origin.
The former CDC director also revealed that he did not learn about concerning biodistribution studies of the vaccine’s lipid nanoparticles until as late as the summer of 2021, suggesting a delay in critical information reaching top health officials.
‘Biosecurity is our nation’s greatest national security threat’
Redfield emphasized the critical importance of biosecurity in national defense.
“In 2024, 2025, biosecurity is our nation’s greatest national security threat,” Redfield stated. “You need to think of it the same way we thought about the verge of nuclear atomic [sic] in the late ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s.”
He called for a proportional response to the threat, suggesting the creation of a dedicated agency within the U.S. Department of Energy to address biosecurity concerns.
“We have a $900 billion Defense Department for the threat of China, North Korea, and Russia,” Redfield noted. “We don’t have really any systematic agency or network of private sector contractors to help us with the biosecurity threat.”
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) echoed this sentiment. “In my humble mind, a viral biosecurity issue is a bigger issue than China’s military threat to us.”
Gerald Parker, DVM, Ph.D., associate dean for Global One Health at Texas A&M University, supported the call for enhanced oversight, recommending “an independent authority to consolidate secure functions in a single entity with a dedicated mission.”
The hearing also touched on the potential for future pandemics, with Redfield repeating his warnings about the potential spread of H5N1 bird flu.
As the hearing concluded, senators from both parties expressed concern over the lack of transparency and oversight in high-risk research.
Paul summarized the sentiment: “We cannot stand idly by. We must demand accountability, strive for transparency, and ensure the safety of our citizens is never again compromised by negligence or deceit.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
From LifeSiteNews
Associate Judge Catherine Coughlan rejected a lawsuit from more than 300 past and current members of the Canadian military who lost their jobs or were put on leave for not taking the experimental, dangerous COVID shots.
A Canadian federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed on behalf of some 330 past and current members of the nation’s military who lost their jobs or were placed on leave for refusing the experimental COVID shots, because she alleged that their lawsuit lacked “evidence” that the jabs were harmful.
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members had sought some $1.3 million in damages from the government for having their charter rights violated due to the military’s 2021 COVID mandates, according to their lawsuit.
In a November 13 ruling, Edmonton-based Associate Judge Catherine Coughlan ruled in favor of the Trudeau government, and thus military’s COVID jab mandate, to strike down the case. Coughlan remarked that the plaintiffs’ case lacked “material facts” along with “evidence” and was filled with “vexatious language.”
READ: Canadian father files $35 million lawsuit against Pfizer over son’s jab-related death
“The only indications of bad faith are found when the pleadings baldly assert that, among other claims, Canada failed to carry out safety and efficacy testing for the vaccines, and that the Directives were premature and ‘promoted the fraudulent use of the biologics’,” she wrote, overlooking reports of thousands of injuries due to the shots in Canada alone.
As a result of the lawsuit being tossed, all plaintiffs are now on the hook to pay some $5,040 out of pocket in legal costs.
As reported by LifeSiteNews in June, documents obtained by LifeSiteNews show that the number of jab injuries in the CAF rose over 800 percent in 2021, with the most being credited to Moderna’s experimental COVID shot.
The CAF members’ lawsuit was filed in June of 2023 and overall sought some $1 million in damages, along with an extra $350,000 in general damages. The lawsuit also had a condition that there be a declaration made that mandating the COVID shots for military members was a violation of their charter rights.
READ: Israeli boy featured in COVID vaccine campaign dies of heart attack at age 8
LifeSiteNews reported in July that a member of Canada’s military who was injured after taking the experimental mRNA COVID jabs has been denied compensation from the nation’s Veterans Affairs department.
Under the CAF’s mandate, hundreds of military members were fired, or one could say, purged for not getting the COVID shots. This is in addition to the thousands of public servants fired for not agreeing to take the COVID shots.
The CAF eventually ended its COVID mandate in October 2022, which was months after the federal mandate was lifted, but members are still “strongly encouraged” to take the experimental shot.
The federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that its federal COVID shot workplace mandate would be dropped in June 2022, as would the mandate requiring domestic travelers have the shot to board planes and trains.
In November of 2023, a CAF member who spoke to LifeSiteNews under the condition of anonymity observed that the military considers members who refuse the COVID jab “a piece of garbage.”
READ: COVID shots have 200-times higher risk of brain clots than other jabs: new report
In March, LifeSiteNews reported on large personnel losses causing the CAF to consider dropping its remaining requirements altogether.
Although Canada has a Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) program, active members of the CAF, as well as veterans, are not eligible for the civilian program. According to Christensen, this leaves many COVID jab-injured CAF members and veterans with no recourse other than Veterans Affairs Canada.
COVID shot mandates, which came from provincial governments with the support of Trudeau’s federal government, split Canadian society. The mRNA shots themselves have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects, such as heart diseases, stroke, and death, including in children.
The shots also have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies. As a result, many Catholics and other Christians refused to take them.
From the Brownstone Institute
The House report on HHS Covid propaganda is devastating. The Biden administration spent almost $1 billion to push falsehoods about Covid vaccines, boosters, and masks on the American people. If a pharma company had run the campaign, it would have been fined out of existence.
HHS engaged a PR firm, the Fors Marsh Group (FMG), for the propaganda campaign. The main goal was to increase Covid vax uptake. The strategy: 1. Exaggerate Covid mortality risk 2. Downplay the fact that there was no good evidence that the Covid vax stops transmission.
The propaganda campaign extended beyond vax uptake and included exaggerating mask efficacy and pushing for social distancing and school closures.
Ultimately, since the messaging did not match reality, the campaign collapsed public trust in public health.
The PR firm (FMG) drew most of its faulty science from the CDC’s “guidance,” which ignored the FDA’s findings on the vaccine’s limitations, as well as scientific findings from other countries that contradicted CDC groupthink.
The report details the CDC’s mask flip-flopping through the years. It’s especially infuriating to recall the CDC’s weird, anti-scientific, anti-human focus on masking toddlers with cloth masks into 2022.
President Biden’s Covid advisor Ashish K. Jha waited until Dec. 2022 (right after leaving government service) to tell the country that “[t]here is no study in the world that shows that masks work that well.” What took him so long?
In 2021, former CDC director, Rochelle Walensky rewrote CDC guidance on social distancing at the behest of the national teachers’ union, guaranteeing that schools would remain closed to in-person learning for many months.
During this period, the PR firm FMG put out ads telling parents that schools would close unless kids masked up, stayed away from friends, and got Covid-vaccinated.
In March 2021, even as the CDC told the American people that the vaxxed did not need to mask, the PR firm ran ads saying that masks were still needed, even for the vaxxed. “It’s not time to ease up” we were told, in the absence of evidence any of that did any good.
In 2021, to support the Biden/Harris administration’s push for vax mandates, the PR firm pushed the false idea that the vax stopped Covid transmission. When people started getting “breakthrough” infections, public trust in public health collapsed.
Later, when the FDA approved the vax for 12 to 15-year-old kids, the PR firm told parents that schools could open in fall 2021 only if they got their kids vaccinated. These ads never mentioned side effects like myocarditis due to the vax.
HHS has scrubbed the propaganda ads from this era from its web pages. It’s easy to see why. They are embarrassing. They tell kids, in effect, that they should treat other kids like biohazards unless they are vaccinated.
When the Delta variant arrived, the PR firm doubled down on fear-mongering, masking, and social distancing.
In September 2021, CDC director Walensky overruled the agency’s external experts to recommend the booster to all adults rather than just the elderly. The director’s action was “highly unusual” and went beyond the FDA’s approval of the booster for only the elderly.
The PR campaign and the CDC persistently overestimated the mortality risk of Covid infection in kids to scare parents into vaccinating their children with the Covid vax.
In Aug. 2021, the military imposed its Covid vax mandate, leading to 8,300 servicemen being discharged. Since 2023, the DOD has been trying to get the discharged servicemen to reenlist. What harm has been done to American national security by the vax mandate?
The Biden/Harris administration imposed the OSHA, CMS, and military vax mandates, even though the CDC knew that the Delta variant evaded vaccine immunity. The PR campaign studiously avoided informing Americans about waning vaccine efficacy in the face of variants.
The propaganda campaign hired celebrities and influencers to “persuade” children to get the Covid vax.
I think if a celebrity is paid to advertise a faulty product, that celebrity should be partially liable if the product harms some people.
In the absence of evidence, the propaganda campaign ran ads telling parents that the vaccine would prevent their kids from getting Long Covid.
With the collapse in public trust in the CDC, parents have begun to question all CDC advice. Predictably, the HHS propaganda campaign has led to a decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccines.
The report makes several recommendations, including formally defining the CDC’s core mission to focus on disease prevention, forcing HHS propaganda to abide by the FDA’s product labeling rules, and revamping the process of evaluating vaccine safety.
Probably the most important recommendation: HHS should never again adopt a policy of silencing dissenting scientists in an attempt to create an illusion of consensus in favor of CDC groupthink.
You can find a copy of the full House report here. The HHS must take its findings seriously if there is any hope for public health to regain public.
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