COVID-19
‘We need to ask these questions’: Experts accuse government, Pharma of covering up vaccine risks

From LifeSiteNews
By Michael Nevradakis Ph. D., The Defender
Medical experts, political figures, journalists and whistleblowers today accused public health agencies and the mainstream media of censoring and covering up information relating to COVID-19 vaccine injuries and adverse events during a U.S. Senate roundtable discussion.
Sen. Ron Johnson hosted the discussion – “Federal Health Agencies and the COVID Cartel: What Are They Hiding?” – which his office said was intended to “expose the truth about how the COVID cartel – federal health agencies, Big Pharma, legacy media, and Big Tech – engaged in censorship and coverups.”
“It was heartening to hear these courageous experts willing to risk careers and reputations in order to tell the truth despite tremendous pressure to look the other way,” said Laura Bono, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) vice president.
Bono, who attended the roundtable, added:
We can’t ensure that the global devastation caused by the COVID crisis will never occur again unless we are able to analyze what happened and speak about it freely. We are immensely grateful to Senator Johnson for presenting this crucial discussion to the American public.
The discussion focused on six topics: COVID-19 vaccine issues, the history of vaccine injury cover-ups, the corruption of medical research and federal public health agencies, media censorship and propaganda, the COVID-19 response in other countries and the World Health Organization’s (WHO) proposed “pandemic agreement.”
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., CHD chief scientific officer, told The Defender he was “riveted listening to the panelists during the entire four-hour session.”
“Being here among these heroes was such an encouragement,” he said. “Sen. Johnson was an extremely gracious host and a true hero himself.”
Hooker, co-author with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak, participated in the roundtable, highlighting the health risks posed by vaccines and the lack of adequate testing by federal health agencies.
2.26.2024 Washington, D.C. US Senator Ron Johnson calls a hearing on Covid 19 and who controls the Covid Cartels today in the USA. All speakers here warn you do not take the vaccine ever as young people are dying from it every day. @RonJohnsonWI pic.twitter.com/QDjnkXivI3
— Corinne Cliford 🇺🇸 (@corinnecliford) February 26, 2024
HHS never submitted required vaccine safety report to Congress
In his testimony, Hooker said, “The CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has never tested the cumulative effect of the vaccine schedule on childhood health outcomes.”
He referenced several scientific studies to support his testimony.
“Vaccinated children were at least twice as likely to be diagnosed with developmental delays, ear infections and gastrointestinal disorders. The likelihood of an asthma diagnosis among the vaccinated group was four-and-a-half times higher than the unvaccinated group,” he said.
Hooker said unvaccinated children have shown “incidence rates between 4-20 times lower” than vaccinated children for autoimmune, neurodevelopmental and other disorders.
He also referred to the sharp rise in myocarditis diagnoses following COVID-19 vaccination.
“Myocarditis is a serious disorder and 76% of all cases following COVID-19 vaccination, as reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System [VAERS], required emergency care and/or hospitalization,” he said. Yet, the “CDC significantly downplays myocarditis as a side effect of the vaccine.”
Further highlighting government inaction in studying and responding to vaccine injuries, Hooker said:
The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act requires that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report to Congress on the state of vaccine safety in the U.S. every two years.
Yet HHS has “never submitted a vaccine safety report to Congress,” he said.
Big Pharma ‘controls the levers of power,’ suppresses unprofitable treatments
Edward Dowd, a former BlackRock executive who has extensively studied the increase in excess deaths during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, also participated in the roundtable.
Dowd, author of ‘Cause Unknown’: The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022, said that government and WHO statements claiming the COVID-19 vaccines were “safe and effective” have “been proven false.”
“It has become clear that the U.S. government, along with the health regulators, do not desire an honest accounting of … policies that were imposed mostly under federal mandates,” he said, noting that this has resulted in high human costs.
Dowd told the panel:
The total excess deaths since the rollout of the vaccine in the U.S. is approximately 1.1 million for 2021, 2022 and 2023. We estimate the economic cost of productive working age people dying at $15.6 billion [and] estimate 28.4 million individuals are chronically absent, resulting in an estimated economic cost of $135 billion since 2021.
Jessica Rose, Ph.D., an immunologist and biochemist, told The Defender in advance that her testimony would focus on an “Analysis of the VAERS pharmacovigilance database in the context of the COVID-19 injectable products,” which “has revealed strong emergent safety signals – from myocarditis to death – that are not being acknowledged by the owners of the data.”
Dr. Jessica Rose Speaks for the Vaccine-Injured Through VAERS Data
"In 2021 … a 1417% INCREASE in [vaccine adverse event] reporting occurred, whereby 93% of these reports were in the context of the Covid-19 products."@JesslovesMJK
This clip is from Ron Johnson's roundtable… pic.twitter.com/E8zcIPLPnR
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) February 26, 2024
“This goes against standard operating procedures and begs the question: Why?” she said.
Rose also referred to recent revelations, later confirmed by Canadian public health authorities, about the contamination of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.
“Is there a risk associated with DNA insertion in the context of the modified mRNA shots? Yes,” she said.
Dr. Pierre Kory, president and chief medical officer of the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, discussed the suppression of potentially effective treatments by public health agencies.
“We are only now beginning to understand that many long-established drugs may have other uses that we don’t even know about, effectively treating diseases we never imagined using them against,” he said. “So why on earth aren’t we systematically testing them for potential new uses?”
Kory told the panel:
The ugly truth is it’s not profitable. Big Pharma makes money on complicated new drugs, and it controls the levers of power. Nearly half of FDA’s [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] budget is bankrolled by the drug industry, and its tentacles are deep in academia, medicine and other regulatory agencies like the NIH [National Institutes of Health].
He cited ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as examples of treatments that were suppressed during the pandemic despite evidence they were effective.
Watch Lara Logan's segment just this morning in Washington, D.C., at Senator Ron Johnson's roundtable discussion 'Federal Health Agencies and the COVID Cartel: What Are They Hiding? pic.twitter.com/v4kzoiG4QP
— Lara Logan (@laralogan) February 26, 2024
Johnson: Those who ask questions ‘vilified,’ ‘ridiculed’
In an interview with The Gateway Pundit Sunday, Johnson discussed adverse events related to the COVID-19 vaccines, the discovery by embalmers of “strange white fibrous clots” in bodies of the deceased since the vaccine rollout began in late 2020 and efforts to suppress ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 treatments.
Referring to the clotting phenomenon, Johnson said, “What’s unfortunate is the medical establishment in general, and certainly, our federal health agencies, are discouraging autopsies. So, the only evidence we’re getting of this is from embalmers that are having a difficult time getting embalming fluid into [the] cadavers.”
Johnson suggested that Big Pharma and government health agencies promoted mRNA vaccines because of a profit motive.
He said:
They’ve had this mRNA platform. It never succeeded in animals, but they knew how profitable a platform it could be. They’ve already found out how profitable vaccines are because there’s no worry of liability. You just get those things on the childhood vaccine schedule, and you just start printing money.
Nobody can question the efficacy. Nobody can question the safety of them. So, vaccines are highly profitable for pharmaceutical companies, so they’re going to push them. And of course, they’ve got their individuals in government that push them right along with them.
Again, our health agencies have been completely captured by Big Pharma.
Johnson also questioned the addition of an increasing number of vaccines to the childhood vaccination schedule in the U.S.
“With the number [of vaccines] we administer to children now, gee, what could go wrong?” he said. “Every time you inject a child with a vaccine, you’re messing with their immune system. Is that why autoimmune diseases are up?”
“We need to ask these questions,” Johnson said. “My problem is we’re just not even able to ask questions, and those who ask questions, those who put forward evidence are immediately ostracized, criticized, vilified, ridiculed – and that’s not science.”
Johnson also implied that some of his congressional colleagues have sustained injuries related to the COVID-19 vaccines but are not speaking out.
“My guess is they understand how people that do question this stuff are ridiculed and vilified. And they just don’t want to put up with the hassle,” he said.
Johnson also spoke out against pharmaceutical company advertising, suggesting it should be subject to a government ban.
“Pass a law,” he said. “We are one of the very few countries that allow that.”
Johnson said that while he is “a free-market guy” who usually “would not be on the side of imposing that kind of government restriction on business,” he said that having seen how Big Pharma “spends the billions and how they use that to capture the narrative and destroy anybody who questions the narrative,” he believes “that’s got to stop.”
Participants at the roundtable included:
- Vaccinated children (R-Ga.).
- Brian Hooker, Ph.D., CHD senior director of science and research.
- Del Bigtree, CEO of the Informed Consent Action Network.
- Psychologist and author Mattias Desmet, Ph.D.
- Edward Dowd, author of “‘Cause Unknown’: The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022.”
- Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center and co-author of the 1985 book “DPT: A Shot in the Dark.
- Dr. Pierre Kory, president and chief medical officer of the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.
- Journalist Lara Logan, formerly of CBS News.
- Dr. Robert Malone, pioneer and expert in mRNA and DNA vaccines and therapies.
- Kevin McKernan, chief scientific officer and founder of Medicinal Genomics.
- Journalist Rodney Palmer, formerly of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
- Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D., professor emeritus and senior research scientist in epidemiology (chronic diseases) at the Yale School of Public Health.
- International elected officials, including Rob Roos, a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands.
- Immunologist and biochemist Jessica Rose, Ph.D.
- Biologist and podcaster Bret Weinstein, Ph.D.
Several of the participants – and Sen. Johnson – previously spoke at this past weekend’s International Crisis Summit in Washington, D.C., which Malone organized. Rep. Greene recently spoke in support of vaccine injury victims at a U.S. House of Representatives vaccine safety hearing.
Watch Sen. Johnson’s roundtable discussion here:
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.
COVID-19
Trump’s new NIH head fires top Fauci allies and COVID shot promoters, including Fauci’s wife

From LifeSiteNews
“During the pandemic Fauci’s bioethicist wife, Christine Grady, offered nurses a choice: Get vaccinated, or lose your job,” noted The COVID-19 History Project on X. “Yesterday, she was offered a choice: Transfer to an office in Alaska, or lose your job. What’s fair is fair. Everyone deserves a choice,” explained the COVID watchdog account.
On day one of his new job as head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya removed four powerful agency heads, including Dr. Anthony Fauci’s wife, Christine Grady, and others associated with the questionable handling of the COVID-19 shots.
Grady, who had served as chief of the agency’s Department of Bioethics, and other longtime Fauci allies in top posts at the NIH involved in the development and distribution of the untested COVID shots produced by Big Pharma were offered jobs in Alaska and other remote locales far away from the NIH’s sprawling Bethesda, Maryland, complex just outside Washington, D.C.
The purge came amid massive layoffs in health-related agencies under the umbrella of Health and Human Services (HHS), now headed by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement’s founder, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long questioned vaccine safety and American medicine’s focus on treating disease rather than preventing it.
A total of about 20,000 personnel – mostly bureaucrats – or about 25 percent of the HHS workforce have been or will be handed pink slips amid Kennedy’s realignment of the agency.
MAHA critics were quick to call Tuesday’s axing of Fauci confederates as “one of the darkest days in modern scientific history” fueled by Kennedy’s desire to exact revenge on Fauci’s former trusted associates who represent the antithesis of the MAHA movement.
However, the revamping of the federal government’s side of the health industry is no more harsh than the treatment meted out by those formerly in control who, at best, suppressed, and worst, punished those who questioned their iron grip on health-industry regulations and standards.
For years, Kennedy’s critics have dismissed his quest to revamp healthcare and his questioning of the efficacy of the COVID-19 mRNA jabs as anti-science, labeling him as an “anti-vaxxer” in order to suppress his messaging.
Dr. Francis Collins – whom Bhattacharya replaced as head of NIH – in an October 2020 email to Fauci condemned Bhattacharya as a “fringe epidemiologist” because he had co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which criticized harmful COVID lockdown policies.
“During the pandemic Fauci’s bioethicist wife, Christine Grady, offered nurses a choice: Get vaccinated, or lose your job,” noted The COVID-19 History Project on X.
“Yesterday, she was offered a choice: Transfer to an office in Alaska, or lose your job. What’s fair is fair. Everyone deserves a choice,” explained the COVID watchdog account.
“We spend 4X more than Italy on healthcare — and live 7 years less. Dead last in cancer rates. This isn’t science — it’s a system profiting off sick kids,” explained Calley Means, RFK Jr. HHS advisor during an interview with Laura Ingraham following the NIH firings.
“Firing the people who oversaw this? That’s step one,” declared Means.
Other NIH officials who were offered reassignments were Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who succeeded Fauci as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Clifford Lane, a close Fauci ally who served as deputy director for clinical research at NIAID, and Dr. Emily Erbelding, NIAID’s microbiology and infectious diseases director.
Freedom Convoy
Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich, Chris Barber found guilty of mischief

From LifeSiteNews
Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act to clear-out protesters, an action a federal judge has since said was “not justified.”
Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber have been found guilty of mischief for their roles as leaders of the 2022 protest and as social media influencers, a Canadian federal judge has ruled.
“The Crown has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Lich and Barber have committed mischief,” said Justice Heather Perkins-McVey, the federal judge overseeing the pair’s mischief trial, during the verdict hearing Thursday.
The Democracy Fund, who has been helping the defense in the case, also noted on X, “Mischief is proven beyond a reasonable doubt here. Both Lich and Barber are guilty of mischief.”
“When freedom of expression collides with the need to uphold public order is when the line is crossed,” the judge said during court.
Perkins-McVey seemed to agree with the Crown’s case that Lich and Barber’s influence on the Freedom Convoy constituted public mischief but did dismiss the Crown’s Carter Application accusing Lich and Barber of conspiracy outright.
The government’s “Carter Application” asked that the judge consider “Barber’s statements and actions to establish the guilt of Lich, and vice versa.”
A “Carter Application” requires that the government prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that there was a “conspiracy or plan in place and that Lich was a party to it based on direct evidence.”
Lawyer Eva Chipiuk noted that Perkins-McVey “acknowledged that there was disruption on Ottawa and said its citizens and that downtown was jammed, loud and busy.”
Court will reconvene later today for additional information to be revealed.
Lich and Barber both face a possible 10-year prison sentence. LifeSiteNews reported extensively on their trial.
The Lich and Barber trial concluded in September of 2024, more than a year after it began. It was only originally scheduled to last 16 days.
Lich and Barber were arrested on February 17, 2022, in Ottawa for their roles in leading the popular Freedom Convoy protest against COVID mandates. During COVID, Canadians were subjected to vaccine mandates, mask mandates, extensive lockdowns and even the closure of churches.
Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act to clear-out protesters, an action a federal judge has since said was “not justified.” During the clear-out, an elderly lady was trampled by a police horse and many who donated to the cause had their bank accounts frozen.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, Lich recently spelled out how much the Canadian government has spent prosecuting her and Barber for their role in the protests. She said at least $5 million in “taxpayer dollars” has been spent thus far, with her and Barber’s legal costs being above $750,000.
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