In the unfortunate battle between Catholics who promote the COVID-19 injections and those who oppose them, several specious arguments have arisen. Proponents point to a long list of commonly used medications they say were also developed or tested using the cells of HEK-293. This is a fetal stem cell line propagated from an aborted baby whom those who care about the humanity of children named Johanna (she was a person not a licence plate number). Johanna’s cells were used to develop or test three of the four available COVID-19 injections, while the fourth used stem cells from another aborted baby.
Catholic jab promoters tell us opponents that if we forgo the injection because of its derivation from Johanna, then we better boycott aspirin, Tylenol, Aleve, Advil, Tums, Maalox, and a host of other common medications because they were also tested on Johanna or other fetal stem cell lines. Advertisement – Continue Reading Below
However, aspirin was invented in 1897 when a scientist modified the naturally occurring plant compound salicylic acid. Needless to say, no tests on aborted babies’ cells were performed before Bayer brought the product to market.
In one article that pushed this “logic,” Fr. Matthew Schneider, LC included a list of medications with a few linked studies next to each, endeavoring to show that the medications’ connections with Johanna were equivalent to those of the COVID injections. This doesn’t pan out either. I spot-checked three different medications’ linked studies, reading the full articles (not just the abstract). None of these studies constituted evidence that the original development or testing of these medications used Johanna’s cells.
In each case, the studies were conducted by academic researchers looking for further information on the mechanisms of action or the cellular targets of action for existing drugs, a common research goal that is often part of the development of new drugs or new uses for existing drugs. For instance the 2015 study referenced for Albuterol (which was invented in 1972) sought to determine how the positively charged ions of the medication react with negatively charged transporters in the smooth muscle of the lungs to determine whether the cations assist them in reaching their target receptors. Advertisement – Continue Reading Below
Is it right for these researchers to employ Johanna’s cells? Of course not. But it is also not right for Catholic jab proponents to imply (or state) that a drug like aspirin is morally equivalent to Moderna’s COVID injection. The former was brought to market as a pain treatment without the use of stem cells from an aborted baby, and with no intention for such cells to be used in the future. The latter was brought to market using Johanna.
The other effort to marginalize jab opponents consists in calling us “hypocritical” if we use other vaccines that were derived from aborted babies or “anti-vax” (i.e. irrational) if we do not. The Church has addressed the vaccine-abortion link previously, in the pre-Covidtide times of the early 2000’s. Then-Cardinal Ratzinger, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, directed the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAL) to elucidate the morality of vaccines derived from the stem cells of aborted babies. The resulting 2005 document is a somewhat thorough consideration of the moral implications of this issue for scientists, corporations, healthcare workers, and individuals. Recently, a statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) specifically addressed the COVID jabs.
As we know, the documents assert that development of vaccines using Johanna or another aborted child is always gravely immoral, but they say that grave proportional reasons may exist to justify an individual’s use of such a vaccine. (Coercion of individuals to receive an injection is always condemned.) Therefore, we must weigh on one side of a sort-of “moral balance scale” the evils associated with the vaccine—for instance, the level of cooperation we have with abortion by using a drug resulting from it—against, on the other side, the evil that may arise from forgoing the injection. Advertisement – Continue Reading Below
Sadly, the 2020 document first takes pains to note that the abortion of Johanna occured in “the last century,” a factor apparently lightening the load on her side of the scale. I wonder how the CDF authors would feel if the cells used were from Jewish victims of Nazi concentration camps way back “in the last century”?
It then characterizes the threat of COVID-19 as an example of a serious enough reason to justify the “passive material cooperation” with the evil of taking the jab. This is a failure (or refusal) to weigh all factors: the purported seriousness of the virus has been (overstated and) placed on one side of the scale, while “only” the passive material cooperation with the evil of Johanna’s murder is on the other.
First, there’s more in Johanna’s bucket than the CDF document acknowledges. Unlike rubella, which the Vatican also pointed to in 2005 as an illness whose seriousness justifies the use of abortion-tainted vaccines, COVID-19 has spawned an entire culture of lies, coercion, and godlessness all its own. Advertisement – Continue Reading Below
Let’s stop pretending that the COVID injections are at all comparable with other medications and vaccines. Participation in the jab program is participation in the COVID regime, a “sanitary dictatorship” that has us locking elderly patients away from their families; covering the faces of children and keeping them from seeing the image of God in their classmates and teachers; replacing real relations between persons with “virtual connection”—the feeling of a hug, a whisper in the ear, a firm handshake having become mere vectors of infection in the COVID culture.
Failure to acknowledge these evils, speaking of the COVID injection as if it can somehow be seen as just another shot, is the worst kind of spiritual and moral make-believe.
People with health-related and moral objections to the jab are losing their jobs. Would this be happening if 80% of us refused the injection? No, it’s happening because most people are accepting it. So much for the “moral duty to continue to fight and to employ every lawful means in order to make life difficult for the pharmaceutical industries which act unscrupulously and unethically” that was highlighted in PAL’s 2005 document. How can the Vatican both encourage us to fight the evil of the use of Johanna and her peers while also telling us it’s some kind of moral duty to get the injection?
So for you who say, “I got the vaccine, but I don’t think people should be forced to get it,” thanks for nothing. Your getting the vaccine is what contributes to your neighbor losing her job and your nephew getting kicked out of medical school. Do you think vaccine mandates would be possible if most people weren’t willing to comply with them? Would tanks be deployed in Australia to enforce COVID lockdowns if most citizens there weren’t willing to abide by COVID mandates?
Secondly, on the other side of the balance scale, the biggest open secret: the threat of death from COVID-19 is not grave. So, your 79-year-old grandfather contracts the virus. He has a 3.2% chance of dying from it. That sounds a bit grim. But you should also realize that a 79-year-old man has a 5% chance of dying within a year from all causes. Older folks do tend to die sooner than younger folks.
COVID-19 is classified as a low infection mortality rate disease (as opposed to MERSA, for instance), with higher income countries exhibiting at most a mortality rate of 1.15% of infected individuals (the rate is lower in lower income countries, which have younger populations). Even if that number hasn’t been inflated and the jab is actually 100% effective against the virus for every person with no side effects (I can play make-believe, too), the “evil” of forgoing the COVID injection is minimal.
Meanwhile, the evils on the other side of the balance—passive material cooperation with the abortion of Johanna and compliance with the COVID regime—should constitute a serious burden of conscience for Catholics.
La Slovaquie a annulé samedi sa politique consistant à n’autoriser que les personnes vaccinées contre le Covid-19 à assister aux événements publics pendant la visite de François du 12 au 15 septembre.
La raison en est le très faible nombre d’inscriptions. 300 000 personnes étaient attendues pour la messe papale au sanctuaire de Sastin, mais seules 30 000 personnes se sont inscrites jusqu’à présent.
« Un test négatif ou la preuve d’avoir guéri du Covid-19 au cours des 180 derniers jours sera suffisant pour obtenir un billet », ont annoncé les évêques slovaques.
En Slovaquie, 49,5 % des adultes sont entièrement vaccinés, contre plus de 70 % dans l’UE.
American Medical Association releases stunning document teaching doctors to LIE to patients while deliberately exaggerating covid death claims… the AMA admits to its own complicity in crimes against humanity
(Natural News) The self-destruct sequence that will bring down the death cult cabal of anti-human globalists has already been activated. With hilarious fake news attempts like the recent Rolling Stone hit piece against ivermectin, the cabal media is self-destructing by the day. With endless fiat currency printing by the Fed, the entire financial underpinning of illegitimate Big Government is imploding. And with the laughable, desperate attempts to imply covid vaccine “approval” while pushing utterly unproven booster shots backed by no supporting data whatsoever, Big Science is ripping its own eyeballs out and throwing them across the room.
We are witnessing the total self-destruction of Big Pharma, Big Science, Big Media and Big Government, all as they trip over each other trying to discredit ivermectin and vitamin D while pushing vaccine death shots and medical authoritarianism. All they’ve really accomplished, however, is the accelerated awakening of the masses as they witness the authoritarian lunacy and junk science death cult that’s paraded all around us, falsely claiming our freedoms have to be obliterated in the name of “safety.”
In Victoria, Australia, by the way, lunatic Premier Daniel Andrews just declared that unvaccinated people will be “locked out” of all health care and hospital services. Given how toxic, deadly and incompetent mainstream doctors have become, that’s probably a blessing. Perhaps the free people of Australia will finally turn to nutrition and natural medicine, and they will therefore outlive the vaccine zombies who are committing medical suicide.
AMA releases document teaching doctors how to deceive patients with disinformation that may KILL them
The American Medical Association — which is now engaged in training its members to lie to patients as they murder them — has released an eyebrow-raising document that claims, “rampant disinformation” is, “eroding public confidence in science and undermining trust in physicians and medical institutions.” And to reacquire that lost trust, the AMA proceeds to teach doctors how to lie to the world about covid.
On page 9 of the document, doctors are told to replace the phrase “hospitalization rates” with the claim that all hospitalized patients are “deaths,” thereby wildly exaggerating covid deaths in order to achieve mass hysteria. Make no mistake: This is the AMA directly instructing doctors to lie about covid deaths. This is straight up medical fraud.
Similarly, doctors are also told to replace the word, “lockdown” with “stay-at-home order,” because that somehow sounds less totalitarian.
In the same document, on page 8, doctors are instructed on how to block, deflect and redirect questions to cover up the truth about vaccine injuries and deaths. They are specifically instructed to change the subject and reject questions from reporters or patients, while pushing AMA-approved “official” propaganda by claiming it’s all based on “facts,” not “science” or “medicine.”
In essence the AMA is now attempting to transform doctors into propaganda puppets for the global depopulation agenda. Practicing real medicine is no longer the priority of the AMA, it seems. Rather, physicians must practice lying in order to remain an AMA member in good standing.
Here’s a section from the document, entitled, “COVID-19 Language Swaps”
The AMA just provided evidence that can be used to prosecute its own corrupt officials for crimes against humanity
What’s just as disturbing in all this is how the AMA appears to have no realization that by posting this document, the AMA admits its own complicity in crimes against humanity. This is sometimes called “saying the quiet part out loud,” and this document that instructs doctors to lead patients to their own death can be used as evidence in international war crimes tribunals that seek the arrest and prosecution of AMA leaders who are taking part in this murderous scheme.
I first learned about this extraordinary AMA document by watching Dr. Bryan Ardis interviewed by Stew Peters (both are Brighteon.TV show hosts). This amazing interview, shown below, delves into even more detail about the AMA’s bold deception and how it recruits physicians to be propagandists carrying out medical genocide against humanity:
I also cover the topic in more detail in my Sep. 6th Situation Update podcast, which reveals extremely positive information about how we prevail by rejecting the medical death cult that’s right now destroying its own credibility (while killing its own advocates with bioweapons death shots):
Stay informed and keep your courage intact. The death cult medical genocide system is imploding right now, and you simply need to make sure they don’t take you down with them.
The end of free elections in America? It could happen!
We’ve got a worldwide movement that doesn’t just prefer globalism over a system accountable to national laws, it is committed to depriving Americans of their most sovereign national individual rights. shutterstock.com
(WND News Center) – Remember what Joe Biden did on his first day in the White House?
Within moments of taking the oath of office, he signed an executive order abolishing the “President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.”
It was a great idea, by President Donald Trump – and a popular one. The stated purpose was to “enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union.”
People need to understand the beauty of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the sacrifice it took to institute them.
Why did Joe kill the commission so quickly? What did it mean? And why were his fellow Democrats so thrilled about its demise?
There are two major competing worldviews at work today.
One believes borders are essential to free, self-governing societies; while the other believes in elite rule of supranational unions of convenience.
It’s nationalism vs. globalism.
What else can the globalists do besides try to erase history? How else can they sell tyranny to the masses? Because that’s all they have.
Nationalism doesn’t always translate into freedom. However, no other form of government ever has. It’s the only chance we have. Anything else will not uphold the kind of “limited” government that has worked in constitutional republics like the U.S.
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Today, the globalists are trying to sell us on “interdependence.” But that’s just another synonym for “dependence.” Right? Why would we want to be dependent? It makes no sense. It’s irrational, unless of course your objective is to keep your subjects dependent.
And that’s exactly what the globalists intend to do.
Our job is to stop them. I’m glad we’re finally having this international debate on nationalism vs. globalism. It’s long overdue. It is probably the most important political debate we could have – one that forces us to choose between freedom and slavery.
And it’s directly related to another issue – the future of free elections. — Article continues below Petition — PETITION: Dump Facebook and Big Tech for threatening our democracy and freedom of speech! 80687 have signed the petition.Let’s get to 90000! Add your signature: Show Petition Text Keep me updated via email on this petition and related issues.
You may have noticed the way free elections have been under attack in the U.S. in recent days.
Suddenly, elections have become quite controversial. Who should be allowed to vote? Who should not be? What should be required of voters?
I recall hearing French President Emmanuel Macron say the following in 2018. He called nationalism a “betrayal of patriotism.” He explained that “patriotism is exactly the opposite of nationalism.”
What did he mean? And what do these extraordinary claims have to do with the future of free elections in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world?
You may have also heard U.S. Democratic leaders, some having previously conceded they lost certain elections in Florida, demanding to see “every vote counted.” It took me a while to figure out the link between the push for globalism over nationalism by people the world over and the win-at-any-cost Democratic politicians in Florida and Arizona in the midterms election of 2018.
Then, of course, came the Big Steal of 2020. These people were serious about no longer having free elections.
We’ve got a worldwide movement that doesn’t just prefer globalism over a system accountable to national laws, it is committed to depriving Americans of their most sovereign national individual rights.
The future of freedom and free elections here in America are now seriously threatened.
We have one political party that doesn’t think it should play by the rules, that thinks they should be the permanent ruling party. God help us if they ever get their way again.
Harvard epidemiologist says the case for COVID vaccine passports was just demolished
New research found that natural immunity offers exponentially more protection than COVID-19 vaccines. Dr. Martin KulldorffYouTube screenshot/American Thought Leaders – The Epoch Times
LifeSiteNews has produced an extensive COVID-19 vaccines resources page. View it here.
Editor’s note: Dr. Martin Kulldorff is one of the three co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which warned against the ‘devastating’ restrictive measures taken against COVID-19. The letter has since garnered over 850,000 signatures, with 58,000 being from medical practitioners, medical and public health scientists.
“The natural immune protection that develops after a SARS-CoV-2 infection offers considerably more of a shield against the Delta variant of the pandemic coronavirus than two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a large Israeli study that some scientists wish came with a ‘Don’t try this at home’ label,” Science reported Thursday. “The newly released data show people who once had a SARS-CoV-2 infection were much less likely than vaccinated people to get Delta, develop symptoms from it, or become hospitalized with serious COVID-19.”
The findings come as many governments around the world are demanding citizens acquire “vaccine passports” to travel. New York City, France, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec and British Columbia are among those who have recently embraced vaccine passports.
Vaccine passports are morally dubious for many reasons, not the least of which is that freedom of movement is a basic human right. However, vaccine passports become even more senseless in light of the new findings out of Israel and revelations from the CDC, some say.
Harvard Medical School professor Martin Kulldorff said research showing that natural immunity offers exponentially more protection than vaccines means vaccine passports are both unscientific and discriminatory, since they disproportionately affect working class individuals.
“Prior COVID disease (many working class) provides better immunity than vaccines (many professionals), so vaccine mandates are not only scientific nonsense, they are also discriminatory and unethical,” Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist, observed on Twitter.
Moreover, CDC research shows that vaccinated individuals still get infected with COVID-19 and carry just as much of the virus in their throat and nasal passage as unvaccinated individuals
“High viral loads suggest an increased risk of transmission and raised concern that, unlike with other variants, vaccinated people infected with Delta can transmit the virus,” CDC Rochelle Director Walensky noted following a Cape Cod outbreak that included mostly vaccinated individuals. — Article continues below Petition — PETITION: Say ‘No’ to COVID ‘Vaccine Passports’! 213419 have signed the petition.Let’s get to 225000! Add your signature: Show Petition Text Keep me updated via email on this petition and related issues.
These data suggest that vaccinated individuals are still spreading the virus much like unvaccinated individuals.
The bottom line
Vaccine passports would be immoral and a massive government overreach even in the absence of these findings. There is simply no historical parallel for governments attempting to restrict the movements of healthy people over a respiratory virus in this manner.
Yet the justification for vaccine passports becomes not just wrong but absurd in light of these new revelations.
People who have had COVID already have significantly more protection from the virus than people who’ve been vaccinated. Meanwhile, people who’ve not had COVID and choose to not get vaccinated may or may not be making an unwise decision. But if they are, they are principally putting only themselves at risk.
Why all the fuss about Ivermectin and why is the establishment attacking it?
When FDA-approved medications are used in appropriate doses for appropriate patients, prescribed by competent physicians, the risks tend to be low, and any benefit should be celebrated. Instead, the medical establishment, media, and regulatory authorities are taking the opposite approach. IvermectinShutterstock
LifeSiteNews has produced an extensive COVID-19 vaccines resources page. View it here.
(American Thinker) – First hydroxychloroquine, now ivermectin, is the hated deadly drug de jour, castigated by the medical establishment and regulatory authorities. Both drugs have been around for a long time as FDA-approved prescription medications. Yet now we are told they are as deadly as arsenic.
As a physician, I am certainly aware of ivermectin but don’t recall ever writing a prescription for it in my 30+ years’ medical career. Ivermectin is an anthelmintic, meaning it cures parasitic infections. In my world of ophthalmology, it is used on occasion for rare parasitic or worm infections in the eye.
Ivermectin was FDA approved in 1998 under the brand name Stromectol, produced by pharmaceutical giant Merck, approved for several parasitic infections. The product label described it as having a “unique mode of action,” which “leads to an increase in the permeability of the cell membrane to chloride ions.” This suggests that ivermectin acts as an ionophore, making cell membranes permeable to ions that enter the cell for therapeutic effect.
Ivermectin is one of several ionophores, others including hydroxychloroquine, quercetin, and resveratrol, the latter two available over the counter. These ionophores simply open a cellular door, allowing zinc to enter the cell, where it then interferes with viral replication, providing potential therapeutic benefit in viral and other infections.
This scientific paper reviews and references other studies demonstrating antibacterial, antiviral, and anticancer properties of ivermectin. This explains the interest in this drug as having potential use in treating COVID.
Does ivermectin work in COVID? I am not attempting to answer that question, instead looking at readily available information because this drug has been the focus of much recent media attention. For the benefit of any reader eager to report this article and author to the medical licensing boards for pushing misleading information, I am not offering medical advice or prescribing anything. Rather, I am only offering commentary on this newsworthy and controversial drug.
What’s newsworthy about ivermectin? A simple Google search of most medications describes uses and side effects. A similar search of ivermectin provides headlines of why it shouldn’t be taken and how dangerous it is.
Perhaps the FDA didn’t realize that Barack and Michelle Obama often used the term “y’all” and that some might construe the FDA tweet as racist.
The FDA says ivermectin “can be dangerous and even lethal,” yet they approved it in 1998 and have not pulled it from the market despite it being “dangerous and lethal.” Any medication can be “dangerous and lethal” if misused. People have even overdosed on water.
subscribe to our daily headlines US Canada Catholic
It is true that ivermectin is also used in animals, as are many drugs approved for human use. This is a list of veterinary drugs with many familiar names of antibiotics, antihypertensives, and anesthetics commonly used by humans. Since these drugs are used in farm animals, should humans stop taking them? That seems a rather unscientific argument against ivermectin, especially coming from the FDA.
And healthcare professionals are not recommending or prescribing animal versions of ivermectin as there is an FDA-approved human formulation.
Does ivermectin work against COVID? That is the bigger question and worthy of investigation, rather than reminding people that they are not cows.
A study published several months ago in the American Journal of Therapeutics concluded,
Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance. Furthermore, results from numerous controlled prophylaxis trials report significantly reduced risks of contracting COVID-19 with the regular use of ivermectin. Finally, the many examples of ivermectin distribution campaigns leading to rapid population-wide decreases in morbidity and mortality indicate that an oral agent effective in all phases of COVID-19 has been identified.
To my knowledge, these 18 studies have not been retracted, unlike previous studies critical of hydroxychloroquine which were ignominiously retracted by prestigious medical journals like The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.
Yet the medical establishment refuses to even entertain the possibility of some benefit from ivermectin, castigating physicians who want to try it in their patients. 18 studies found benefit. Are they all wrong?
Podcaster Joe Rogan recently contracted COVID and recovered within days of taking a drug cocktail including ivermectin. Was it his drug cocktail, his fitness, or just good luck? Impossible to know but his experience will keep ivermectin in the news.
Highly unvaccinated India had a surge in COVID cases earlier this year which abruptly ended following the widespread use of ivermectin, over the objections and criticism of the WHO. In the one state, Tamil Nadu, that did not use ivermectin, cases tripled instead of dropping by 97 percent as in the rest of the country.
This is anecdotal and could have other explanations but the discovery of penicillin was also anecdotal and observational. Good science should investigate rather than ignore such observations. — Article continues below Petition — PETITION: Ban COVID vaccine mandates for schools and universities! 30057 have signed the petition.Let’s get to 35000! Add your signature: Show Petition Text Keep me updated via email on this petition and related issues.
The Japanese Medical Association recently endorsed ivermectin for COVID. The U.S. CDC cautioned against it.
There is legal pushback as an Ohio judge ordered a hospital to treat a ventilated COVID patient with ivermectin. After a month on the ventilator, this patient is likely COVID free and ivermectin now will have no benefit, allowing the medical establishment to say “see I told you so” that it wouldn’t help.
By this point, active COVID infection is not the issue; instead, it is weaning off and recovery from long-term life support. The early hydroxychloroquine studies had the same flaw, treating patients too late in the disease course to provide or demonstrate benefit.
These drugs have been proposed for early outpatient treatment, not when patients are seriously ill and near death. Looking for treatment benefits in the wrong patient population will yield expected negative results.
Given how devastating COVID can be and how, despite high levels of vaccination in countries like the U.S., U.K., and Israel, we are seeing surging cases and hospitalizations among the vaccinated, we should be pulling out all the stops in treating this virus.
Medical treatment involves balancing risks and benefits. When FDA-approved medications are used in appropriate doses for appropriate patients, prescribed by competent physicians, the risks tend to be low, and any benefit should be celebrated. Instead, the medical establishment, media, and regulatory authorities are taking the opposite approach. One has to wonder why.
When FDA-approved medications are used in appropriate doses for appropriate patients, prescribed by competent physicians, the risks tend to be low, and any benefit should be celebrated. Instead, the medical establishment, media, and regulatory authorities are taking the opposite approach. IvermectinShutterstock
LifeSiteNews has produced an extensive COVID-19 vaccines resources page. View it here.
(American Thinker) – First hydroxychloroquine, now ivermectin, is the hated deadly drug de jour, castigated by the medical establishment and regulatory authorities. Both drugs have been around for a long time as FDA-approved prescription medications. Yet now we are told they are as deadly as arsenic.
As a physician, I am certainly aware of ivermectin but don’t recall ever writing a prescription for it in my 30+ years’ medical career. Ivermectin is an anthelmintic, meaning it cures parasitic infections. In my world of ophthalmology, it is used on occasion for rare parasitic or worm infections in the eye.
Ivermectin was FDA approved in 1998 under the brand name Stromectol, produced by pharmaceutical giant Merck, approved for several parasitic infections. The product label described it as having a “unique mode of action,” which “leads to an increase in the permeability of the cell membrane to chloride ions.” This suggests that ivermectin acts as an ionophore, making cell membranes permeable to ions that enter the cell for therapeutic effect.
Ivermectin is one of several ionophores, others including hydroxychloroquine, quercetin, and resveratrol, the latter two available over the counter. These ionophores simply open a cellular door, allowing zinc to enter the cell, where it then interferes with viral replication, providing potential therapeutic benefit in viral and other infections.
This scientific paper reviews and references other studies demonstrating antibacterial, antiviral, and anticancer properties of ivermectin. This explains the interest in this drug as having potential use in treating COVID.
Does ivermectin work in COVID? I am not attempting to answer that question, instead looking at readily available information because this drug has been the focus of much recent media attention. For the benefit of any reader eager to report this article and author to the medical licensing boards for pushing misleading information, I am not offering medical advice or prescribing anything. Rather, I am only offering commentary on this newsworthy and controversial drug.
What’s newsworthy about ivermectin? A simple Google search of most medications describes uses and side effects. A similar search of ivermectin provides headlines of why it shouldn’t be taken and how dangerous it is.
Perhaps the FDA didn’t realize that Barack and Michelle Obama often used the term “y’all” and that some might construe the FDA tweet as racist.
The FDA says ivermectin “can be dangerous and even lethal,” yet they approved it in 1998 and have not pulled it from the market despite it being “dangerous and lethal.” Any medication can be “dangerous and lethal” if misused. People have even overdosed on water.
subscribe to our daily headlines US Canada Catholic
It is true that ivermectin is also used in animals, as are many drugs approved for human use. This is a list of veterinary drugs with many familiar names of antibiotics, antihypertensives, and anesthetics commonly used by humans. Since these drugs are used in farm animals, should humans stop taking them? That seems a rather unscientific argument against ivermectin, especially coming from the FDA.
And healthcare professionals are not recommending or prescribing animal versions of ivermectin as there is an FDA-approved human formulation.
Does ivermectin work against COVID? That is the bigger question and worthy of investigation, rather than reminding people that they are not cows.
A study published several months ago in the American Journal of Therapeutics concluded,
Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance. Furthermore, results from numerous controlled prophylaxis trials report significantly reduced risks of contracting COVID-19 with the regular use of ivermectin. Finally, the many examples of ivermectin distribution campaigns leading to rapid population-wide decreases in morbidity and mortality indicate that an oral agent effective in all phases of COVID-19 has been identified.
To my knowledge, these 18 studies have not been retracted, unlike previous studies critical of hydroxychloroquine which were ignominiously retracted by prestigious medical journals like The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.
Yet the medical establishment refuses to even entertain the possibility of some benefit from ivermectin, castigating physicians who want to try it in their patients. 18 studies found benefit. Are they all wrong?
Podcaster Joe Rogan recently contracted COVID and recovered within days of taking a drug cocktail including ivermectin. Was it his drug cocktail, his fitness, or just good luck? Impossible to know but his experience will keep ivermectin in the news.
Highly unvaccinated India had a surge in COVID cases earlier this year which abruptly ended following the widespread use of ivermectin, over the objections and criticism of the WHO. In the one state, Tamil Nadu, that did not use ivermectin, cases tripled instead of dropping by 97 percent as in the rest of the country.
This is anecdotal and could have other explanations but the discovery of penicillin was also anecdotal and observational. Good science should investigate rather than ignore such observations. — Article continues below Petition — PETITION: Ban COVID vaccine mandates for schools and universities! 30057 have signed the petition.Let’s get to 35000! Add your signature: Show Petition Text Keep me updated via email on this petition and related issues.
The Japanese Medical Association recently endorsed ivermectin for COVID. The U.S. CDC cautioned against it.
There is legal pushback as an Ohio judge ordered a hospital to treat a ventilated COVID patient with ivermectin. After a month on the ventilator, this patient is likely COVID free and ivermectin now will have no benefit, allowing the medical establishment to say “see I told you so” that it wouldn’t help.
By this point, active COVID infection is not the issue; instead, it is weaning off and recovery from long-term life support. The early hydroxychloroquine studies had the same flaw, treating patients too late in the disease course to provide or demonstrate benefit.
These drugs have been proposed for early outpatient treatment, not when patients are seriously ill and near death. Looking for treatment benefits in the wrong patient population will yield expected negative results.
Given how devastating COVID can be and how, despite high levels of vaccination in countries like the U.S., U.K., and Israel, we are seeing surging cases and hospitalizations among the vaccinated, we should be pulling out all the stops in treating this virus.
Medical treatment involves balancing risks and benefits. When FDA-approved medications are used in appropriate doses for appropriate patients, prescribed by competent physicians, the risks tend to be low, and any benefit should be celebrated. Instead, the medical establishment, media, and regulatory authorities are taking the opposite approach. One has to wonder why.
Why all the fuss about Ivermectin and why is the establishment attacking it?
When FDA-approved medications are used in appropriate doses for appropriate patients, prescribed by competent physicians, the risks tend to be low, and any benefit should be celebrated. Instead, the medical establishment, media, and regulatory authorities are taking the opposite approach. IvermectinShutterstock
LifeSiteNews has produced an extensive COVID-19 vaccines resources page. View it here.
(American Thinker) – First hydroxychloroquine, now ivermectin, is the hated deadly drug de jour, castigated by the medical establishment and regulatory authorities. Both drugs have been around for a long time as FDA-approved prescription medications. Yet now we are told they are as deadly as arsenic.
As a physician, I am certainly aware of ivermectin but don’t recall ever writing a prescription for it in my 30+ years’ medical career. Ivermectin is an anthelmintic, meaning it cures parasitic infections. In my world of ophthalmology, it is used on occasion for rare parasitic or worm infections in the eye.
Ivermectin was FDA approved in 1998 under the brand name Stromectol, produced by pharmaceutical giant Merck, approved for several parasitic infections. The product label described it as having a “unique mode of action,” which “leads to an increase in the permeability of the cell membrane to chloride ions.” This suggests that ivermectin acts as an ionophore, making cell membranes permeable to ions that enter the cell for therapeutic effect.
Ivermectin is one of several ionophores, others including hydroxychloroquine, quercetin, and resveratrol, the latter two available over the counter. These ionophores simply open a cellular door, allowing zinc to enter the cell, where it then interferes with viral replication, providing potential therapeutic benefit in viral and other infections.
This scientific paper reviews and references other studies demonstrating antibacterial, antiviral, and anticancer properties of ivermectin. This explains the interest in this drug as having potential use in treating COVID.
Does ivermectin work in COVID? I am not attempting to answer that question, instead looking at readily available information because this drug has been the focus of much recent media attention. For the benefit of any reader eager to report this article and author to the medical licensing boards for pushing misleading information, I am not offering medical advice or prescribing anything. Rather, I am only offering commentary on this newsworthy and controversial drug.
What’s newsworthy about ivermectin? A simple Google search of most medications describes uses and side effects. A similar search of ivermectin provides headlines of why it shouldn’t be taken and how dangerous it is.
Perhaps the FDA didn’t realize that Barack and Michelle Obama often used the term “y’all” and that some might construe the FDA tweet as racist.
The FDA says ivermectin “can be dangerous and even lethal,” yet they approved it in 1998 and have not pulled it from the market despite it being “dangerous and lethal.” Any medication can be “dangerous and lethal” if misused. People have even overdosed on water.
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It is true that ivermectin is also used in animals, as are many drugs approved for human use. This is a list of veterinary drugs with many familiar names of antibiotics, antihypertensives, and anesthetics commonly used by humans. Since these drugs are used in farm animals, should humans stop taking them? That seems a rather unscientific argument against ivermectin, especially coming from the FDA.
And healthcare professionals are not recommending or prescribing animal versions of ivermectin as there is an FDA-approved human formulation.
Does ivermectin work against COVID? That is the bigger question and worthy of investigation, rather than reminding people that they are not cows.
A study published several months ago in the American Journal of Therapeutics concluded,
Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance. Furthermore, results from numerous controlled prophylaxis trials report significantly reduced risks of contracting COVID-19 with the regular use of ivermectin. Finally, the many examples of ivermectin distribution campaigns leading to rapid population-wide decreases in morbidity and mortality indicate that an oral agent effective in all phases of COVID-19 has been identified.
To my knowledge, these 18 studies have not been retracted, unlike previous studies critical of hydroxychloroquine which were ignominiously retracted by prestigious medical journals like The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.
Yet the medical establishment refuses to even entertain the possibility of some benefit from ivermectin, castigating physicians who want to try it in their patients. 18 studies found benefit. Are they all wrong?
Podcaster Joe Rogan recently contracted COVID and recovered within days of taking a drug cocktail including ivermectin. Was it his drug cocktail, his fitness, or just good luck? Impossible to know but his experience will keep ivermectin in the news.
Highly unvaccinated India had a surge in COVID cases earlier this year which abruptly ended following the widespread use of ivermectin, over the objections and criticism of the WHO. In the one state, Tamil Nadu, that did not use ivermectin, cases tripled instead of dropping by 97 percent as in the rest of the country.
This is anecdotal and could have other explanations but the discovery of penicillin was also anecdotal and observational. Good science should investigate rather than ignore such observations. — Article continues below Petition — PETITION: Ban COVID vaccine mandates for schools and universities! 30057 have signed the petition.Let’s get to 35000! Add your signature: Show Petition Text Keep me updated via email on this petition and related issues.
The Japanese Medical Association recently endorsed ivermectin for COVID. The U.S. CDC cautioned against it.
There is legal pushback as an Ohio judge ordered a hospital to treat a ventilated COVID patient with ivermectin. After a month on the ventilator, this patient is likely COVID free and ivermectin now will have no benefit, allowing the medical establishment to say “see I told you so” that it wouldn’t help.
By this point, active COVID infection is not the issue; instead, it is weaning off and recovery from long-term life support. The early hydroxychloroquine studies had the same flaw, treating patients too late in the disease course to provide or demonstrate benefit.
These drugs have been proposed for early outpatient treatment, not when patients are seriously ill and near death. Looking for treatment benefits in the wrong patient population will yield expected negative results.
Given how devastating COVID can be and how, despite high levels of vaccination in countries like the U.S., U.K., and Israel, we are seeing surging cases and hospitalizations among the vaccinated, we should be pulling out all the stops in treating this virus.
Medical treatment involves balancing risks and benefits. When FDA-approved medications are used in appropriate doses for appropriate patients, prescribed by competent physicians, the risks tend to be low, and any benefit should be celebrated. Instead, the medical establishment, media, and regulatory authorities are taking the opposite approach. One has to wonder why.
The COVID jab’s ineffectiveness is leading to mutations, greater infectivity, and endless booster shots
To ‘stay ahead of the virus,’ the Biden administration is now considering recommending a booster shot five months after the initial two doses rather than waiting eight months, as previously suggested. shutterstock.com
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who got the COVID shot early are now at increased risk for severe COVID disease
This may be a sign that antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) is occurring, or it may simply indicate that the protection offered is limited to a few months, at best
Recent research warns the Delta variant “is posed to acquire complete resistance to wild-type spike vaccines.” This could turn into a worst-case scenario that sets up those who have received the Pfizer shots for more severe illness when exposed to the virus
To “stay ahead of the virus,” the Biden administration is now considering recommending a booster shot five months after the initial two doses rather than waiting eight months, as previously suggested
Israeli data show Pfizer’s shot went from a 95% effectiveness at the outset to 39% by late July 2021, when the Delta strain became predominant. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s expectation for any vaccine is an efficacy rate of at least 50% compared to placebo
(Mercola) – The official COVID-19 vaccine narrative changes rapidly these days. It took just one month for it to go from “if you’re vaccinated you’re not going to get COVID,” including the Delta variant, to “people who got vaccinated early are at increased risk for severe COVID disease.”
From the get-go, I and many other medical experts have warned of the possibility of these shots causing antibody dependent enhancement (ADE), a situation in which the shot actually facilitates a cascade of disease complications rather than protects against it. As a result, you may suffer more severe illness when encountering the wild virus than had you not been “vaccinated.”
While we don’t yet have definitive proof that ADE is occurring, we are seeing suspicious signs that it might be. Data showing those who got the shot early this year are now at increased risk of severe infection could be such a sign. At bare minimum, it’s an indication that the protection you get from these shots is very temporary, lasting only a few months.
This makes sense when you consider they program your body to produce just one type of antibody against a specific spike protein. Once the spike protein, or other elements in the virus, starts to mutate, protection radically diminishes. Worse, the vaccine facilitates the actual production of the variants because it is “leaky” and provides only partial ineffective immune protection.
Natural immunity is far superior, as when you recover from the infection, your body makes antibodies against all five proteins of the virus, plus memory T cells that remain even once antibody levels diminish. This gives you far better protection that will likely be lifelong, unless you have impaired immune function.
Real-world data from Israel confirms this, showing those who have received the COVID jab are 6.72 times more likely to get infected than people with natural immunity.
“‘The data we will publish today and next week demonstrate the vaccine effectiveness against SARS COVID 2 infection is waning,’ the CDC director [Rochelle Walensky] began … She cited reports of international colleagues, including Israel ‘suggest increased risk of severe disease amongst those vaccinated early.’
Fear not, the same people who tried to sell Americans immunity through a jab and promised to hand back the freedoms they impeded on have a plan, and they’re not leaving much room for personal choice.
‘In the context of these concerns, we are planning for Americans to receive booster shots starting next month to maximize vaccine induced protection. Our plan is to protect the American people and to stay ahead of this virus,’ Walensky shared …
The CDC director appears to all but admit that the vaccine’s efficacy rate has a strict time limit, and its protections are limited in the ever-changing environment.
‘Given this body of evidence, we are concerned that the current strong protection against severe infection, hospitalization and death could decrease in the months ahead. Especially among those who are higher risk or those who were vaccinated earlier during the phases of our vaccination roll out,’ Walensky explained …
Starting September 20, Americans who completed their two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine at least eight months ago will be eligible for a booster shot. The goalposts back to a ‘normal’ society continue to be moved further and further. When will Americans, especially those who complied with initial vaccinations, have had enough?”
Data reveal rapidly waning immunity from shots
Indeed, Israeli data show Pfizer’s shot went from a 95% effectiveness at the outset, to 64% in early July 2021 and 39% by late July, when the Delta strain became predominant. Meanwhile, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s expectation for any vaccine is an efficacy rate of at least 50%.
Pfizer’s own trial data even showed rapidly waning effectiveness as early as March 13, 2021. BMJ’s associate editor Peter Doshi discussed this in an August 23, 2021, blog.
By the fifth month into the trial, efficacy had dropped from 96% to 84%, and this drop could not be due to the emergence of the Delta variant since 77% of trial participants were in the U.S., where the Delta variant didn’t emerge until months later. This suggests the COVID shot has a very temporary effectiveness regardless of new variants.
What’s more, while Israeli authorities claim the Pfizer shot is still effective at preventing hospitalization and death, many who are double-jabbed do end up in the hospital, and we’re already seeing a shift in hospitalization rates from the unvaccinated to those who have gotten one or two injections. For example, by mid-August, 59% of serious COVID cases were among Israelis who had received two COVID injections.
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Vaxxed over age 50 at increased risk for serious infection
Data from the U.K. show a similar trend among those over the age of 50. In this age group, partially and fully “vaccinated” people account for 68% of hospitalizations and 70% of COVID deaths.
80% of COVID hospitalizations in Massachusetts were vaxxed
Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also raise questions about the usefulness of the COVID shots. Between July 6 and July 25, 2021, 469 COVID cases were identified in a Barnstable County, Massachusetts, outbreak.
Of those who tested positive, 74% had received two COVID injections and were considered “fully vaccinated.” Even despite using different diagnostic standards for non-jabbed and jabbed individuals, a whopping 80% of COVID-related hospitalizations were also in this group.
The CDC also confirmed that fully vaccinated individuals who contract the infection have as high a viral load in their nasal passages as unvaccinated individuals who get infected, proving there’s no difference between the two, in terms of being a transmission risk.
If vaccination status has no bearing on the potential risk you pose to others, why do we need vaccine passports? According to Harvard epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff, this evidence demolishes the case for passports. They clearly cannot ensure safety, as evidenced by outbreaks where the vaccination rate was 100%. Examples include outbreaks onboard a Carnival cruise liner and the HMS Queen Elizabeth, a British Navy flagship.
Study predicts Pfizer shot will enhance Delta infectivity
A study posted August 23, 2021, on the preprint server bioRxiv now warns the Delta variant “is posed to acquire complete resistance to wild-type spike vaccines.” This could essentially turn into a worst-case scenario that sets up those who have received the Pfizer shots for more severe illness when exposed to the virus. As explained by the authors:
“Although Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2-immune sera neutralized the Delta variant, when four common mutations were introduced into the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the Delta variant (Delta 4+), some BNT162b2-immune sera lost neutralizing activity and enhanced the infectivity.
Unique mutations in the Delta NTD were involved in the enhanced infectivity by the BNT162b2-immune sera. Sera of mice immunized by Delta spike, but not wild-type spike, consistently neutralized the Delta 4+ variant without enhancing infectivity.
Given the fact that a Delta variant with three similar RBD mutations has already emerged according to the GISAID database, it is necessary to develop vaccines that protect against such complete breakthrough variants.”
Proactive use of COVID shots drives dangerous mutations
It’s now clear that early warnings against mass vaccination during an active outbreak are being realized. It’s not the unvaccinated that are driving mutations; it’s the vaccinated, as the injections simply do not prevent infection.
The end result, if we keep going, will be a treadmill of continuous injections to keep up with the merry-go-round of waning effectiveness in general combined with the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants. As reported by Live Science:
“Vaccine-resistant coronavirus mutants are more likely to emerge when a large fraction of the population is vaccinated and viral transmission is high … In other words, a situation that looks a lot like the current one in the U.S.
The mathematical model, published July 30 in the journal Scientific Reports, simulates how the rate of vaccination and rate of viral transmission in a given population influence which SARS-CoV-2 variants come to dominate the viral landscape …
If viral transmission is low, any vaccine-resistant mutants that do emerge get fewer chances to spread, and thus, they’re more likely to die out, said senior author Fyodor Kondrashov, who runs an evolutionary genomics lab at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria.”
These findings come as no surprise to those familiar with previous research showing the same exact thing. As explained in “Vaccines Are Pushing Pathogens to Evolve,” published in Quanta Magazine, “Just as antibiotics breed resistance in bacteria, vaccines can incite changes that enable diseases to escape their control.”
The article details the history of the anti-Marek’s disease vaccine for chickens, first introduced in 1970. Today, we’re on the third version of this vaccine, as within a decade, it stops working. The reason? The virus has mutated to evade the vaccine. As a result of these leaky vaccines, the virus is becoming increasingly deadly and more difficult to treat.
A 2015 paper in PLOS Biology tested the theory that vaccines are driving the mutation of the herpesvirus causing Marek’s disease in chickens. To do that, they vaccinated 100 chickens and kept 100 unvaccinated. All of the birds were then infected with varying strains of the virus. Some strains were more virulent and dangerous than others.
Over the course of the birds’ lives, the unvaccinated ones shed more of the least virulent strains into the environment, while the vaccinated ones shed more of the most virulent strains. As noted in the Quanta Magazine article:
“The findings suggest that the Marek’s vaccine encourages more dangerous viruses to proliferate. This increased virulence might then give the viruses the means to overcome birds’ vaccine-primed immune responses and sicken vaccinated flocks.”
Vaccinated people can serve as breeding ground for mutations
Before 2021, it was quite clear that vaccines push viruses to mutate into more dangerous strains. The only question was, to what extent? Now all of a sudden, we’re to believe conventional science has been wrong all along. Here’s another example: NPR as recently as February 9, 2021, reported that “vaccines can contribute to virus mutations.” NPR science correspondent Richard Harris noted:
“You may have heard that bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics and, in a worst-case scenario, render the drugs useless. Something similar can also happen with vaccines, though, with less serious consequences.
This worry has arisen mostly in the debate over whether to delay a second vaccine shot so more people can get the first shot quickly. Paul Bieniasz, a Howard Hughes investigator at the Rockefeller University, says that gap would leave people with only partial immunity for longer than necessary.”
According to Bieniasz, partially vaccinated individuals “might serve as sort of a breeding ground for the virus to acquire new mutations.” This is the exact claim now being attributed to unvaccinated people by those who don’t understand natural selection.
It’s important to realize that viruses mutate continuously and if you don’t have a sterilizing vaccine that blocks infection completely, then the virus mutates to evade the immune response within that person. That is one of the distinct features of the COVID shots — they’re not designed to block infection. They allow infection to occur and at best lessen the symptoms of that infection. As noted by Harris:
“This evolutionary pressure is present for any vaccine that doesn’t completely block infection … Many vaccines, apparently, including the COVID vaccines, do not completely prevent a virus from multiplying inside someone even though these vaccines do prevent serious illness.”
In short, like bacteria mutate and get stronger to survive the assault of antibacterial agents, viruses can mutate in vaccinated individuals who contract the virus, and in those, it will mutate to evade the immune system.
In an unvaccinated person, on the other hand, the virus does not encounter the same evolutionary pressure to mutate into something stronger. So, if SARS-CoV-2 does end up mutating into more lethal strains, then mass vaccination is the most likely driver.
What NFL outbreak can tell us
As reported August 27, 2021, by MSN, as players were encouraged to get the COVID shot for everyone’s safety, separate testing rules were put into place. Players who have gotten the jab only need to test every two weeks, while unvaccinated players undergo daily testing.
The relaxed testing requirement for double-jabbed players was used as incentive to go ahead and get the shot. As reported by MSN, “Conversely, the continued daily testing would become part of a punitive system that would make life so annoying for the unvaccinated that they would eventually get on board.” — Article continues below Petition — PETITION: Ban COVID vaccine mandates for schools and universities! 30057 have signed the petition.Let’s get to 35000! Add your signature: Show Petition Text Keep me updated via email on this petition and related issues.
Well, this didn’t work out as planned. Nine Titans players and head coach Mike Vrabel have now tested positive, showing it really doesn’t matter if you’re double-jabbed or not. The infection spreads among the vaxxed just the same. As noted by MSN:
“The pandemic is in a phase where the unvaccinated are facing the vengeance of a more aggressive strain of COVID-19. It’s also an era when the vaccinated are grappling with the reality that their shots are mitigating their symptoms and medical complications, but not completely preventing them from becoming infected or transmitting COVID to others.”
To remedy the matter, the NFL Players Association, the union representing players of the National Football League, is now calling for a return to daily testing of all players, regardless of COVID jab status. Time and again, we find that incentives fall far short of their initial promise. This has been the case for masks as well.
First, we were told that if we got the COVID shot, we didn’t need to wear masks anymore. Of course, universal mask recommendations returned full force when it became apparent that breakthrough infections were still occurring at a surprising rate.
Now, routine testing with a test known to produce false positives at a rate of about 97% is promoted again, regardless of injection status, and there’s no reason to assume the same won’t happen with vaccine passports. We’re promised freedom if we give up medical autonomy, but freedom will never actually be granted. They’ll just continue to move the goal post.
It is highly likely, in fact even predictable, that despite its dramatic ineffectiveness, the requirement for one or two COVID jabs will soon be turned into three, and vaccine passport holders who don’t want to get that third shot will be back at Square 1. They’ll be just as undesirable as those who got no shots.
Considering the speed at which SARS-CoV-2 is mutating, you can be assured there’ll be a fourth shot, and a fifth and, well, you get the idea. Vaccine passports and COVID jab requirements will simply lead to a situation where you have to keep getting additional shots or lose all your privileges.
Of course, every single injection comes with health risks, and the risk for an adverse event will probably get bigger and bigger with each additional shot, and you don’t need to be a modern-day Nostradamus to see where this will lead us.
Five-month booster shot now under consideration
Unfortunately, rather than accepting reality — which is that SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay, just like any number of other common cold and influenza viruses — and stopping the merry-go-round of injections that only make matters worse, President Biden said he’d spoken with Dr. Anthony Fauci about giving booster shots at the five-month mark after the initial round of injections rather than waiting eight months, as previously suggested.
While Fauci quickly responded that eight months was still the goal, he also said that “we are open to data as they come in” if the Food and Drug Administration and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices determine a sooner timeline is necessary.
Israel began administering a third booster shot to people over the age of 60 July 30, 2021. On August 19, eligibility for a booster was expanded to include people over the age of 40, as well as pregnant women, teachers and health care workers, even if they’re younger than 40. Initial reports suggest the third dose has improved protection in the over-60 group, compared to those who only got two doses of Pfizer. According to Reuters:
“Breaking down statistics from Israel’s Gertner Institute and KI Institute, ministry officials said that among people aged 60 and over, the protection against infection provided from 10 days after a third dose was four times higher than after two doses. A third jab for over 60-year-olds offered five to six times greater protection after 10 days with regard to serious illness and hospitalization.”
Anyone who thinks one or more booster shots are the answer to SARS-CoV-2 is likely fooling themselves though. I look forward with trepidation to data on hospitalization and death rates, not to mention side effect rates, in the months to come.
Knowing what we already know about the risks of these shots and their tendency to encourage mutations, it seems reasonable to suspect that all we’re doing is digging ourselves an ever-deeper, ever-wider hole that’s going to be increasingly difficult to get out of.
The Cult of Pandemic: How the Disconnection from our Judeo-Christian Heritage, and a Hidden National Trauma, May be Fueling Totalitarian Responses to the Pandemic, and the Censorship of Dissenting Scientific & Medical Perspectives
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you
– St Augustine
It’s easy to get sucked into the Coronavirus rabbit hole. And for good reason. We face daily news of unjust vaccine mandates, struggle to sort through the massive censorship and misinformation, and make the best health care decisions for our families.
But it is all the more important in times such as these, to step back and examine some broader issues that may be feeding the Alice in Wonderland lunacy that has spread, alongside the expansion of “Woke movements” such as Critical Race Theory, with this virus.
The managerial elite residing in all the key institutions in our society, in the permanent bureaucracy in D.C., together with an increasing number of our fellow citizens, have lost faith. They are disconnected from the fundamental values and beliefs that are the foundation of our Judeo-Christian heritage, and the birth of our Republic.
Younger generations of Americans are less connected to formal faith affiliation. While many still report a belief in some sort of higher power or Creator, the lived reality is more of a life of practical atheism.
This loss of faith leaves our nation vulnerable to embrace totalitarian responses to issues of social justice, economics, and politics. This is particularly evident in the response to the pandemic. Faced with an existential challenge like the pandemic, many desperately hunger for a substitute faith that provides order, meaning, security, and safety from primordial chaos.
Before we examine further the Cult of Pandemic, it will be helpful to look more closely at the rise of the “Woke Movements” in our universities and communities.
Woke Culture and the Loss of Faith
Psychologist Jordan Peterson has been trying to understand the rise of the tyranny of “woke culture” in our Universities, and seeping out from those institutions like raw sewage, into the major institutions of our society.
In a recent podcast with Dr. Stephen Blackwood, Peterson examines the consequences of the capture of academia by neo-Marxist analysis (such as found in Critical Race Theory.)
Peterson and Blackwood share the critical importance of education in the humanities to communicate a sense of transcendent truth and beauty, and counteract the deconstruction of language and history by neo-Marxist analysis.
Peterson remarks on the image of Christ as Pantocrator found on the domed ceilings of many Cathedrals. This image represents an ideal metaphysical reality, lifting the mind, heart and soul of the believer to embrace a higher purpose. For the believing Christian, this Jesus is the way, the truth, and the path to eternal life.
As Peterson points out, when a society is no longer anchored to a positive and uplifting foundational mythos, something must replace the power of the iconic representation of the Divine. If it is the state, or some totalitarian ideology, there is the likelihood it will evolve into a beast that will misuse that power, and dominate and enslave over time.
John Zmirak is an insightful, engaging author, and senior editor at The Stream. He writes:
…once your society has heard the Christian promise of resurrection and glory, such pagan half-measures quickly collapse back into the shadows. You’ve learned that your soul was meant for eternity, and nothing less will do…the post-Christian soul, which has heard the promise of Heaven and rejected it with a shrug, is the soul of a natural slave. It believes that death is the end. It can’t muster the old pagan faith in its descendants and its nation. Christianity ruined all that for us. But it tosses aside the Gospel too. So it stares into the void
There is another important factor contributing to the rise of Woke Movements, that will also help us better understand the Cult of Pandemic.
National Deformation
“Your decision [to legalize abortion] has deformed a great Nation”
– Saint Mother Teresa
After 48 years of legalized abortion in the U.S., and close to 65 million procedures, there are few families that have not been directly impacted by the loss of a son or daughter, grandchild, sibling, nephew or niece.
In the after-math of abortion, there is often a deep-seated sense of violating God’s providence over life, and a fear of death and judgment. However, for most this remains buried in the unconscious, and protected by rationalization, distraction and denial.
A nation with such deep seated, and unresolved emotional and spiritual wounds related to abortion, and other serious sin, that is at the same time disconnected from the formal beliefs and practice of the Christian faith, is vulnerable to totalitarian ideologies and movements.
Woke ideology for example, can take the place of authentic experience of Christian repentance, conversion, healing and restoration. Critical Race Theory (CRT) offers a simplistic, totalitarian prism to understand and view the world and complex social relationships. The theory and practice of CRT and similar woke movements, provides a counterfeit conversion experience, along with a sense of personal self-righteousness and purpose.
Cult of Pandemic
Perhaps this loss of faith, along with our national abortion wounds, feeds the devolution of the pandemic into a type of public health religious cult. [1]
This cult features:
Vestments; (masks)
Mandatory Sacramental rights of initiation; (vaccines)
Strict adherence to Covid sacred scriptures; (officially sanctioned pandemic narratives from Government/Main Stream Media/Pharmaceuticals.)
An anti-scientific rejection of alternative perspectives than those dispensed on high from by the Covid High Priests like Anthony Fauci, and officials of the CDC and WHO.
It is unfortunate that some of our religious leaders have chosen to provide religious cover to the pandemic cult by supporting the totalitarian policy of “vaccine mandates.”
Dr. Robert Malone, MD., made key discoveries that led to the development of the RNA technology used in Covid vaccines. Dr. Malone presents a much healthier, and less totalitarian response to the pandemic:
“There is a middle ground here. Between universal vax and no vax. That is where I reside. Intelligent, strategic deployment of vaccines to high risk, coupled with early (imperfect, but still pretty darned good) pharmaceutical intervention.
In addition, web/smartphone tools to provide self-assessment of risk, and home-based self-testing. No coercion. Freedom of choice. No mandates. Treat people with respect and dignity, not like livestock.
And drop the authoritarianism, censorship, fearmongering.”
Our religious leaders would do well to listen to reasoned minds like Dr. Malone, and not become accomplices in enforcing totalitarian mandates by some government leaders in D.C., and on the state and local level.
Return to Faith…and Sanity
The Coronavirus pandemic remains a serious public health concern. However, the most serious threat that our nation faces at this time is not the pandemic.
It is the erosion of a living, vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ and His Church, and lives that are grounded in the fundamental beliefs, and values, of the Christian faith.
It is Jesus who offers the freedom, and liberation from the ideologies, idolatry and lies that would enslave us.
Trust in Him.
[1] This is not a comment on the value of a particular medical or public health response to the virus. It’s the totalitarian temptation public official’s face with the pandemic, the zealous enforcement of pandemic orthodoxy, and suppression of dissent.
Joe Biden: God’s servant first or our nation’s ‘Heretic in Chief?’
Biden’s public response to the Texas Heartbeat Act, is an ‘axe laid to the roots’ of what is a foundational moral teaching of the Catholic Church. Joe BidenPerry McLeod / Shutterstock.com
The act, now a law, requires abortionists to screen for a fetal heartbeat and prohibits abortion if a heartbeat can be heard. The law only allows exceptions for cases of medical emergency and it is already saving lives.
As LifeSiteNews reported: “NBC News reported Tuesday evening that “all 11 of the Planned Parenthood health centers in Texas” have “stopped scheduling visits after Sept. 1 for abortions past six weeks of pregnancy…”
You would think a faithful Catholic, one who regularly receives the Holy Eucharist, and presumably abides by core moral teachings of their Church, would be filled with joy and hope.
Not our Heretic in Chief.
Joe Biden apparently is upset there will be fewer babies killed by abortion:
“This extreme Texas law blatantly violates the constitutional right established under Roe v. Wade and upheld as precedent for nearly half a century…”
Biden goes on to lament that too many black and brown babies’ will be born now in Texas: “The Texas law will significantly impair women’s access to [abortion], particularly for communities of color…”
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Are “communities of color” best served by abortion?
Since 1973, 13 million African American pregnancies have been ended by abortion. In spite of overall falling abortion rates in the U.S.…abortion ratios actually increased among black women as compared to white women… nearly half of all pregnancies among black women end in abortion.
…In New York City, where Planned Parenthood is headquartered, in some years more black babies have been aborted than are born alive (1,180 abortions for every 1,000 live births). (1)
And is this disproportionate rate of abortion good for “communities of color?”
Theresa Burke, Ph.D., developed the largest outreach in the world, Rachel’s Vineyard, for women and men hurting after abortion.
Dr. Burke shares:
“Abortion leaves poor women of color, who tend to have higher rates of sexual abuse and other trauma prior to their abortions, (2)vulnerable to ongoing exploitation, dysfunction and abuse in their relationships. The cycle continues; more abuse, more trauma, more abortions, more death.
Abortion prevention, and abortion healing – if possible after the initial abortion to prevent the trauma-related likelihood of repeat abortions – is an essential part of breaking dysfunctional dynamics in poor communities.”
It is time for our bishops to act
San Francisco’s Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone wrote recently:
“Abortion is the axe laid to the roots of the tree of human life. Claims to respect the equal dignity of every human being sound hollow when one systematically enables or tolerates denying the right to life of the most vulnerable.
Rejecting abortion is a tall order for a Catholic Democrat in the current environment, I know. But… remember St. Thomas More…look deep in the soul and ask: Will I be God’s servant first?”
Biden’s public response to the Texas Heartbeat Act, is an “axe laid to the roots” of what is a foundational moral teaching of the Catholic Church.
Such a public action, demands a public response from our nation’s Bishops who must ask Joseph Biden the question posed by St Thomas More: “Will you be God’s servant first?”
Kevin Burke, LSW, is a pastoral associate of Priests for Life and co-founder of Rachel’s Vineyard. An expert on men and abortion loss, he is the author of Tears of the Fisherman and co-author of Rivers of Blood/Oceans of Mercy.
The picture celebrates the triumph of two homosexual men who had the financial resources to obtain two children. The children are stage props in service of the photographer and his subjects.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Most people would be aghast and rush to intervene if they witnessed a baby being torn away from his or her mother immediately after birth and handed over to two strange men whose stated mission is to purposefully deprive the child of a mother.
Yet that is exactly what happened in the moments leading up to a picture tweeted by homosexual Biden administration Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, showing him and “husband” Chasten each holding a newborn.
The photo quickly garnered over 400,000 “Likes,” and mainstream news media fawned over the contrived scene of two gay men sitting on a hospital bed holding newborns.
The photo depicts an act of cruelty. These two men have erased Mom from the picture, a Stalinesque act. It’s as if she never existed. And she will likewise be absent from every family photo album in the future.
The men have no plan to replace her. These children will long for their missing Mom on every Mother’s Day, birthday, at each holiday and milestone along the way in their lives.
Despite being afforded the niceties of life, they will envy less privileged classmates who nonetheless possess that which they have been denied: Mom.
Notice how in the picture the men are looking at each other instead of their children, as if signaling a victory and self-satisfaction rather than welcoming the miracle of new life.
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The picture celebrates the triumph of two homosexual men who had the financial resources to obtain two children. The children are stage props in service of the photographer and his subjects.
Rivka Edelman, a college professor raised by two lesbian mothers, noted in a 2014 English Manif commentary that children of gays are “denied one parent so that men could prove that two men can play at baby-making” and they often require two women to do it.
“Well, that dog doesn’t hunt. I grew up in a gay household and I know the arguments better than I know the pledge of allegiance,” declared Edelman. “So save it. All of it – the missives, the threats. Don’t prove my point to people about loving the gay community. They will turn and tear their own to shreds in a heartbeat. Because the fragile narrative has to be protected at all costs. Family is a photo op. And children are props.”
Notice also how there are two babies, so neither parent risks the other one being their child’s favorite.
That’s important. In a non-complementary relationship, competition for love and bonding is 100% unavoidable. They were smart enough to anticipate that.
Having two children will make it easier to split assets/chattel when the relationship eventually ends.
Adult-centric homosexual parenting
“The lives of these children are precious. But make no mistake, in their quest to ‘become parents’ the Buttigiegs have violated the rights of these two children,” noted child advocate Katy Faust, founder of the children’s rights organization, Them Before Us and author of a book by the same name,
“They have denied these twins not just one mother, but three,” said Faust.
“These babies have been forced to lose their genetic mother, the egg ‘donor.’ Thus, these kids (like many other donor children) may experience identity struggles. They will likely seek her out to discover their medical history and behold the woman who reflects their features.”
“These children have lost a relationship with their birth mother, the surrogate, inflicting a #primalwound. Many children adopted at birth argue that this separation resulted in difficulty trusting and attaching throughout life.”
“These children will be denied a social mother — the daily female presence in their home, furnishing them with the maternal love that all children crave & maximizing child development.”
When another Twitter user suggested that each man had “probably inseminated an egg so that they are each biologically related to one child,” Faust used the suggestion to again drive home her point.
“Very possible. Because each man likely understands how special it is to have a genetic connection to your child,” said Faust. “And yet, they’ve dismissed the importance of the children’s connection to their genetic mother.”
“You can lose a mom or dad through death, abandonment/abuse, or by design (being intentionally brought into the world via in vitro & surrogacy to be a child for a same-sex couple),” wrote pro-life activist Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action.
Buttigieg sees gays as bigger victims than orphaned kids
During a CNN town hall meeting in 2020 (video here), candidate Buttigieg revealed that when matters of conscience for Christians and best practices for serving orphaned children are pitted against the demands of homosexuals and transgenders to acquire children to alleviate their loneliness, LGBT demands should trump the rights of all others.
In Buttigieg’s strange worldview, an orphaned child’s right to both a mom and dad “harms” gays, and the deep-seated hunger that every child has for both parents of both sexes discriminates against gays.
In essence, Buttigieg sees all kids as born prejudiced. He deems active homosexuals as bigger “victims” than orphaned children.
Doug Mainwaring is a journalist for LifeSiteNews, an author, and a marriage, family and children’s rights activist. He has testified before the United States Congress and state legislative bodies, originated and co-authored amicus briefs for the United States Supreme Court, and has been a guest on numerous TV and radio programs. Doug and his family live in the Washington, DC suburbs.
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