News ArticlesExcerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media
Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
Immunity acquired from a Covid infection provides strong, lasting protection against the most severe outcomes of the illness, according to research published Thursday in The Lancet – protection, experts say, that's on par with what's provided through two doses of an mRNA vaccine. Infection-acquired immunity cut the risk of hospitalization and death from a Covid reinfection by 88% for at least 10 months, the study found. "This is really good news, in the sense that protection against severe disease and death after infection is really quite sustained at 10 months," said the senior study author, Dr. Christopher Murray ... at the University of Washington. The study was the largest meta-analysis to date to look at immunity following infection. It included 65 studies from 19 countries and compared the risk of developing Covid again in people who had recovered from infections to people who hadn't been infected through September. The immunity generated from an infection was found to be "at least as high, if not higher" than that provided by two doses of an mRNA vaccine, the authors wrote. While Murray and Wachter agreed that vaccination remains the safest route, having a past Covid infection should at least be considered in policymaking decisions going forward, such as vaccination requirements, they said. "What Europe did with this evidence made a lot of sense, which is where evidence of past infection was seen as essentially equal to vaccination in terms of requirements to go into events or for employment," Murray said.
Note: It's worthy of mentioning that much of the media previously dismissed the effectiveness of natural immunity to protect against COVID, with mainstream media platforms blatantly claiming that natural immunity is "not panning out" and "comes at a cost." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
In June 2017, The Intercept published a leaked N.S.A. document, which it claimed revealed "a months-long Russian hacking effort against the U.S. election infrastructure." Ever since, it has been an article of faith in the mainstream media and among Democratic politicians that Russian G.R.U. cyberwarriors "hacked" the 2016 election. Moreover, Reality Winner, the N.S.A. analyst who leaked the document and ended up in jail as a result, has been elevated to the status of a heroic whistleblower. There are strong grounds to believe Winner unwittingly walked into a trap laid by the C.I.A. Winner has always claimed she acted alone, and there is no reason to doubt that she felt it was her patriotic duty to release the document. But her clumsiness, naivety and incompetence suggest she may well be easily manipulable, and a great many individuals and organizations had an interest in the dud intelligence report's release. Foremost among them, elements of the C.I.A. loyal to John Brennan, Agency director between 2013 and January 2017. Brennan fudged ... findings to keep the F.B.I. Trump-Russia "collusion" investigation alive. Launched by the Bureau in 2016, it found no evidence Trump or members of his campaign were conspiring with Moscow. It is an obvious question whether Winner's leak – in addition to furthering the RussiaGate fiction and damaging Trump – also served to discredit the N.S.A. by creating the illusion it had been asleep at the wheel over Kremlin meddling.
Note: Listen to audio of renowned journalist Seymour Hersch debunking the intelligence agency lie that Russia was responsible for the 2016 DNC email leaks, which exposed corruption in the party. Reality Winner's leak gave credence to this lie. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.
Covid-19 is deadly, but so were the draconian steps taken to mitigate it. During the first two years of the pandemic, "excess deaths"–the death toll above the historical trend–markedly exceeded the number of deaths attributed to Covid. In a paper we just published in Inquiry, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we found that "non-Covid excess deaths" totaled nearly 100,000 a year in 2020 and 2021. Even these numbers likely overestimate deaths from Covid and underestimate those from other causes. The official count of "Covid deaths" includes people who tested positive but died of other causes. What are non-Covid excess deaths? During the pandemic, deaths from accidents, overdoses, alcoholism and homicide all soared, as did deaths from hypertension, heart disease and diabetes. From April 2020 through December 2021, deaths from Covid averaged 350,000 a year for Americans 65 and older, 100,000 a year for those 45 to 64, and 20,000 a year for those 18 to 44. That produced excess deaths for these age groups of 16%, 19% and 11% respectively. The CDC data show the rate of non-Covid excess deaths in the first half of 2022 was even higher than 2020 or 2021. These deaths therefore likely already exceed 250,000, disproportionately among young adults. We now have more overdose deaths each year than all military deaths of the last 60 years combined. Homicides, accidents and alcohol deaths are collectively running tens of thousands per year above pre-pandemic norms.
Note: The above was written by Rob Arnott and Casey B. Mulligan. Mr. Arnott founded asset management firm Research Affiliates. Mr. Mulligan was chief economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers. For more along these lines, watch an articulate interview discussing excess deaths since 2021 that aren't linked to COVID-19, yet are most likely associated with the rollout of the COVID vaccines.
Former federal MP Dr Kerryn Phelps says she and her partner experienced vaccine injury, calling for tests for long COVID and vaccine injuries as well as more research on the long-term harms of the coronavirus and immunisation side effects. In a submission to an ongoing parliamentary inquiry on long COVID Phelps said she and her wife had both been injured after receiving COVID vaccinations. She said her wife, Jackie Stricker-Phelps, suffered long-term symptoms including ongoing nerve pain and fatigue following her first injection, while Phelps herself experienced symptoms including breathlessness and irregular blood pressure following her second shot. In an interview, the former Australian Medical Association president and medical practitioner said more research was vital to understanding both the disease and vaccine injury as the pandemic continues. "People who have vaccine injuries are not anti-vaxxers, because they have turned up to have vaccines ..." she said. She noted in her submission that for many vaccine-injured people, the symptoms were similar to long COVID, including brain fog and fatigue. More than 64 million vaccine doses have been administered across the country, as of November 16, and since December 2021 people injured by one have been able to make a claim for compensation through the vaccine claims scheme. A Services Australia spokesperson said as of November 23, the department has received 3100 applications, and 79 have been approved for claims totaling $3.9 million.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Among the intersections between [Lee Harvey] Oswald and the CIA, his time as a young Marine at the Atsugi naval air facility in Japan in 1957 is high among them. Atsugi was a launching pad for U-2 spy flights over the Soviet Union and was also a hub of the CIA's research into psychedelic drugs. "A CIA memo titled 'Truth Drugs in Interrogation' revealed the agency practice of dosing agents who were marked for dangerous overseas missions," wrote author David Talbot in "The Devil's Chessboard." A new document released in full last week relates directly to Oswald's time at Atsugi, revealing details about the CIA's response to testimony from a former agency accountant that the spy service had employed Oswald – who went on to be a gunman in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The CIA's claim to have had no contact with Oswald is undercut by the fact that George de Mohrenschildt, a CIA asset, became close friends with Oswald in the months before the assassination. According to documents found in the newly declassified files, at the same time as his trip, the CIA's Domestic Operations Division ran a search on de Mohrenschildt, "exact reason unknown," according to two documents created by a CIA analyst included in last week's declassification. The covert arm of the division was run at the time by E. Howard Hunt, a black ops specialist who confessed later in life to learning ahead of time of a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy that involved high-level figures in the CIA.
Note: The CIA's MK-ULTRA program routinely administered drugs to unsuspecting victims. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and the Kennedy assassination from reliable major media sources.
Though it's sometimes uncomfortable to say it, the risk of mortality from Covid has been dramatically skewed by age throughout the pandemic. The earliest reports of Covid deaths from China sketched a pattern quickly confirmed everywhere in the world: In an immunologically naĂŻve population, the oldest were several thousand times more at risk of dying from infection than the youngest. Today Americans 65 and over account for 90 percent of new Covid deaths, an especially large share given that 94 percent of American seniors are vaccinated. Yet these facts seem to contradict stories we've told about what drives vulnerability to Covid-19. In January, Joe Biden warned that the illness and death threatened by the Omicron variant represented "a pandemic of the unvaccinated." Over the months that followed, the unvaccinated share of mortality fell even further, to 38 percent in May 2022. The share of deaths among people vaccinated and boosted grew significantly as well, from 12 percent in January 2022 to 36 percent in April. Throughout the duration of the summer ... about as many boosted Americans were dying as the unvaccinated. The share of deaths among older adults kept growing: In April, 79 percent of American deaths were among those 65 and older. In November, 90 percent. If it was ever comfortable to say that the unconscionable levels of American deaths were a pandemic of the unvaccinated, it is surely now accurate to describe the ongoing toll as a pandemic of the old.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
A dad has left medics baffled after waking from a coma with extraordinary artistic talents he never had before - and he's now a professional carpenter and model maker. Moe Hunter, 38, spent more than a month in a coma where his heart even stopped after being diagnosed with a rare form of bacterial meningitis and tuberculosis in his brain. He awoke from brain surgery with no memory but soon left his friends and family gobsmacked when he started to display a special gift he didn't possess before. Moe suddenly discovered he had a newfound creative flair and an inexplicable talent for drawing, painting and model building - despite being 'rubbish' at art at school. He used his new skills to embark on a career as a self-employed carpenter and began building intricate life-size model replicas from the world of TV and film. Married dad-of-one Moe has since sold pieces of his artwork and has displayed his amazing creations at Comic-Con events. Moe said: "I really wasn't creative before in the slightest, in fact people used to laugh at my drawings. "Even to this day some of my family can't believe it. When I spoke to the neurologist he just said 'enjoy it' and said there's so much about the brain they still can't decipher and this is just a phenomenon. I look at all of my stuff now and I'm like 'never in a trillion years could I do this stuff'. I have no idea how it happened. "My doctor said that I was a walking miracle to be able to recover as quickly as I did - but when I started displaying these new artistic talents they were just stumped."
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
"Don't get dirty!" was once a constant family refrain, as parents despairingly watched their children spoil their best clothes. Today, many parents may secretly wish their children had the chance to pick up a bit of grime. According to recent research, the dirt outside is teaming with friendly microorganisms that can train the immune system and build resilience to a range of illnesses, including allergies, asthma and even depression and anxiety. Certain natural materials, such as soil and mud ... contain surprisingly powerful microorganisms whose positive impact on children's health we are only beginning to fully understand. Our brains evolved in natural landscapes, and our perceptual systems are particularly well suited to wild outdoor spaces. Supporting this theory, one study from 2009 found that children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were better able to concentrate following a 20-minute walk in the park, compared to a 20-minute walk on the streets of a well-kept urban area. People who grow up on farms are generally less likely to develop asthma, allergies, or auto-immune disorders like Crohn's disease [due to] their childhood exposure to a more diverse range of organisms in the rural environment. Michele Antonelli, a doctor from Italy ... has researched the ways that mud therapies can influence health. People with [skin] disorders ... seem to have an impoverished community of organisms. "These microorganisms can play a major role in many major chronic diseases," he says.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
A 215-metre-long banquet table, lined with 648 chairs and laden with a home cooked produce, was set up along the Rue de l'Aude and those in attendance were urged to openly utter the most subversive of words: bonjour. For some, that greeting led to the first meaningful exchange between neighbours. "I'd never seen anything like it before," says Benjamin Zhong who runs a cafe in the area. "It felt like the street belonged to me, to all of us." The revolutionaries pledged their allegiance that September day in 2017 to the self-styled R©publique des Hyper Voisins, or Republic of Super Neighbours, a stretch of the 14th arrondissement on the Left Bank, encompassing roughly 50 streets and 15,000 residents. In the five years since, the republic – a "laboratory for social experimentation" – has attempted to address the shortcomings of modern city living, which can be transactional, fast-paced, and lonely. The experiment encourages people ... to interact daily through mutual aid schemes, voluntary skills-sharing and organised meet ups. A recent event at the Place des Droits de l'Enfant allowed neighbours to celebrate reclaiming the public space. A lifeless road junction ... no longer performed its role as an "urban square" – a place for life, interaction and meetings. But after residents were consulted about what they thought the square should become, it was cleaned, pedestrianised, planted and had street clutter removed with a grant of nearly 200,000 euros from the City of Paris.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
Project Veritas released a video on Tuesday which allegedly shows an executive-level Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official admitting the Biden administration has plans to require yearly COVID shots "just like the flu shot." Christopher Cole, an executive officer for the FDA's Medical Countermeasures Initiative (MCMi), was apparently recorded on hidden camera by Project Veritas admitting "Biden wants to inoculate as many people as possible." "You'll have to get an annual shot," Cole said on camera. "I mean, it hasn't been formally announced yet 'cause they don't want to, like, rile everyone up," he added. Cole said in the video his managerial role at the FDA's MCMi involves overseeing vaccines, vaccine approvals, and devices for vaccines, and noted his "office clears all the emergency approvals" for such counter measures. "There's almost a billion dollars a year going into FDA's budget from the people we regulate," Cole says in the Project Veritas video. "The drug companies, the food companies, the vaccine companies, they pay us hundreds of millions of dollars a year to hire and keep the reviewers to approve their products. If they can get every person required at an annual vaccine, that is a recurring return of money going into their company," Cole added, in reference to pharmaceutical manufacturers. Cole also expresses concern over the FDA's process to approve COVID-19 vaccines for young children between six months of age and four years old in the video.
Note: Explore hundreds of personal stories of severe vaccine injury and death that are being strongly suppressed by government and the major media. An MD's excellent research reveals that the government knew about and actively suppressed safe, effective, low-price treatments for COVID and targeted physicians who prescribed them. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
What if I told you that a multinational oil company allegedly polluted the Amazon for almost three decades? And that the oil company has spent even more years refusing to accept liability? Or that a US attorney who agreed to represent thousands of Ecuadorian villagers in a lawsuit against that oil company has lost his law license, income, spent hundreds of days under house arrest in New York, and in 2021 was sentenced to six months in prison? From 1964 to 1990, Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, allegedly spilled more than 16m gallons of crude oil – "80 times more oil than was spilled in BP's 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster", according to Gizmodo – and 18bn gallons of polluted wastewater in the Amazon rainforest. The pollution allegedly contaminated the ground and waterways with toxic chemicals that the plaintiffs – mostly Indigenous people and poor farmers – say has caused cancer, miscarriages, skin conditions and birth defects. In 1993, [attorney] Steven Donziger ... began working on an environmental case on behalf of Ecuadorians. In 2011 ... an Ecuadorian court ruled that Texaco, which had been bought by Chevron at this point, was "responsible for vast contamination." PR advisers for Chevron promised to "demonize" Donziger in the public eye. The oil company "hired private investigators to track Donziger, created a publication" which smeared him, and "put together a legal team of hundreds of lawyers from 60 firms, who have successfully pursued an extraordinary campaign against him."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the corporate world from reliable major media sources.
Lockdowns in the U.S. and Europe had little or no impact in reducing deaths from COVID-19, according to a new analysis by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2%, said the broad review of multiple scientific studies. "We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality," the researchers wrote. But the research paper said lockdowns did have "devastating effects" on the economy and contributed to numerous social ills. "They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy," the report said. "Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument," the paper concluded. Early on, many states and 186 countries imposed bans on work, socialization, in-person schooling, travel and other restrictions to limit the spread of the disease, citing recommendations by top health care experts. Researchers at the Imperial College London, for example, predicted that such steps could reduce death rates by up to 98%. That never happened, according to the new study by researchers Steve Hanke, Jonas Herby, and Lars Jonung at Johns Hopkins.
Note: Why did other major media platforms overlook this vitally important news? You can find this critical study on the Johns Hopkins University website at this link. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Monday said two doses of the company's vaccine may not provide strong protection against infection from the Covid omicron variant, and the original shots have also lost some of their efficacy at preventing hospitalization. Bourla, in an interview at JPMorgan's health-care conference, emphasized the importance of a third shot to boost people's protection against omicron. "The two doses, they're not enough for omicron," Bourla said. "The third dose of the current vaccine is providing quite good protection against deaths, and decent protection against hospitalizations." Bourla said omicron is a more difficult target than previous variants. Omicron, which has dozens of mutations, can evade some of the protection provided by Pfizer's original two shots. Two-doses of Pfizer's or Moderna's vaccines are only about 10% effective at preventing infection from omicron 20 weeks after the second dose. A booster dose ... is up to 75% effective at preventing symptomatic infection and 88% effective at preventing hospitalization. However ... the U.K. Health Security Agency also found that boosters are only 40% to 50% effective against infection 10 weeks after receiving the shot.
Note: What happened to the 95% effectiveness touted highly in the beginning? Why weren't we told that the vaccines could lose most of their efficacy over time? Does this mean we'll need a new vaccine with every new variant? And of course, this means more billions flowing into the pockets of big Pharma. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
It was six years ago when CEO Dan Price raised the salary of everyone at his Seattle-based credit card processing company Gravity Payments to at least $70,000 a year. Price slashed his own salary by $1 million to be able to give his employees a pay raise. He was hailed a hero by some and met with predictions of bankruptcy from his critics. But that has not happened; instead, the company is thriving. He said his company has tripled and he is still paying his employees $70,000 a year. "I make $70,000 a year," Price [said]. According to the Economic Policy Institute, average CEO compensation is 320 times more than the salaries of their typical workers. Price said despite the success his company has had with the policy, he wishes other companies would follow suit. "I would say that's the failure of this. You know, I feel like I've been shouting from the rooftops like, 'This works, this works, everybody should do it!' and zero big companies are following suit because the system values having the highest return with the lowest risk and the lowest amount of work," Price said. Price thinks Gravity's returns are up in large part because bigger paychecks have lead to fiercely loyal employees. "Our turnover rate was cut in half, so when you have employees staying twice as long, their knowledge of how to help our customers skyrocketed over time and that's really what paid for the raise more so than my pay cut," said Price.
Note: Explore more positive stories about reimagining the economy.
Comparing the severity of various lockdown measures across Europe is complicated, with many factors at play. However, it is safe to say they have varied greatly. In France, citizens had to print out certificates before stepping foot outside, whereas in Sweden, everyday life appears to have carried on relatively unchanged. When we look at the number of Covid deaths per capita in these countries ... France and Sweden are almost neck-and-neck [see graph]. And Spain's draconian measures didn't save it from recording far more fatalities than Austria, where the lockdown was comparatively relaxed. The health effects of these lockdowns will most likely exceed the death rate of a virus. In Spain, the economic consequences of the 2008 banking crisis contributed to the 40,000 deaths in excess of the five years prior. Covid-19 has already led that country into an economic state worse than that of their collapse in the mid-17th century. 50 percent of all Covid deaths across Europe have been within care homes. The budget for those in the UK is Ł16 billion. Meanwhile, the hospitality industry, which has been effectively shut down, is the fourth biggest employer in the UK ... as well as generating over Ł73bn of Gross Value Added directly to the UK economy, and a further Ł87bn indirectly. So perhaps, say, tripling the budget for care homes to make them Covid-secure would have been a better way of spending some of the eye-watering Ł400 billion ... since last April to facilitate lockdowns.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
If you experience severe side effects after getting a Covid vaccine, lawyers tell CNBC there is basically no one to blame in a U.S. court of law. The federal government has granted companies like Pfizer and Moderna immunity from liability if something unintentionally goes wrong with their vaccines. "It is very rare for a blanket immunity law to be passed," said Rogge Dunn, a Dallas labor and employment attorney. You also can't sue the Food and Drug Administration for authorizing a vaccine for emergency use, nor can you hold your employer accountable if they mandate inoculation as a condition of employment. Congress created a fund specifically to help cover lost wages and out-of-pocket medical expenses for people who have been irreparably harmed by a "covered countermeasure," such as a vaccine. But it is difficult to use and rarely pays. Attorneys say it has compensated less than 6% of the claims filed in the last decade. In February, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar invoked the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act. The 2005 law empowers the HHS secretary to provide legal protection to companies making or distributing critical medical supplies. The protection lasts until 2024. That means that for the next four years, these companies "cannot be sued for money damages in court" over injuries related to the administration or use of products to treat or protect against Covid.
Note: Dr. Carrie Madej lays out the case for transhumanism through these mRNA vaccines. Are these vaccines the beginning of a well hidden agenda using nanotechnology to control all humans through advanced technology? Don't miss this powerful 20-minute video and do your own research as she suggests. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Coronavirus Information Center.
October was a good month for Gilead Sciences, the giant manufacturer of antivirals. On 8 October, the company inked an agreement to supply the European Union with its drug remdesivir as a treatment for COVID-19–a deal potentially worth more than $1 billion. Two weeks later, on 22 October, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved remdesivir for use against the pandemic coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in the United States. Both decisions baffled scientists who have closely watched the clinical trials of remdesivir unfold. At best, one large, well-designed study found remdesivir modestly reduced the time to recover from COVID-19 in hospitalized patients with severe illness. A few smaller studies found no impact of treatment on the disease whatsoever. Then ... the World Health Organization's (WHO's) Solidarity trial showed that remdesivir does not reduce mortality or the time COVID-19 patients take to recover. Both [the] FDA's decision and the EU deal came about under unusual circumstances that gave the company important advantages. FDA never consulted a group of outside experts that it has at the ready to weigh in on complicated antiviral drug issues. The European Union, meanwhile, decided to settle on the remdesivir pricing exactly 1 week before the disappointing Solidarity trial results came out. Gilead, having donated remdesivir to the trial, was informed of the data on 23 September and knew the trial was a bust.
Note: Remdesivir had never been approved by the FDA for use before Oct. 2020, yet was rushed through the approval process, while Nobel-prize winning drug Ivermectin was all but banned, even though there was minimal evidence of harm. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Jordan Reeves is just an ordinary 14-year-old girl who has inspired millions of people with her extraordinary "superpower." The young inventor from Columbia, Missouri was born with a left arm that stopped developing beyond the elbow. Although some people would look at her under-developed limb as just a disability, Jordan used her condition to launch her superhero alter ego. When she was 10 years old, Jordan attended a STEM workshop that encouraged kids with disabilities to think creatively about their condition - so with a 3D-printer at her disposal, she designed her own prosthetic arm that could shoot glitter from the tip. Jordan's invention was so dazzlingly successful, she went on to talk about her horn-shaped "Project Unicorn" prosthetic design on the TEDx stage, Shark Tank, and even The Rachel Ray Show. With each appearance, she hoped that Project Unicorn would encourage other kids to view disabilities as gifts rather than hindrances. As Project Unicorn gained more traction, Jordan and her mother turned their labor of love into the Born Just Right nonprofit so they could continue advocating for inclusivity. In addition to publishing a book about her experiences in 2019, Jordan and her prosthetic were featured on Episode One of Marvel's Superhero Project - and earlier this week, she was featured on a new LEGO documentary miniseries that interviews young change-makers from across North America. More than 430 children from 30 different countries contributed.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
[During] the "swine flu affair of 1976" ... a US president decided to rush a vaccine to the entire American population based on ill-founded science and political imprudence. The mistakes that followed hold lessons for today. Lawsuits, side-effects and negative media coverage followed, and the events dented confidence in public health for years to come. It began at a US Army training base. In February 1976, several soldiers at Fort Dix fell ill with a previously unrecognised swine flu. In March, President Ford announced a $137m (Ĺ67.5m in 1976) effort to produce a vaccine by the autumn. Its goal was to immunise every man, woman and child in the US. The president himself was vaccinated on television on 14 October, further heightening perceptions that this was a politicised event. As has happened throughout the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, the scientists could only give the best advice they could based on incomplete knowledge. As the months continued – still with no outbreak – new problems arose. Millions of vaccinations meant dozens of cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare problem where the body's immune system attacks the nerves. The swine flu strain spotted at Fort Dix was not dangerous, and there would be no pandemic. When politicians in the present day talk of "the science" as if it is a complete body of knowledge, a manual for what to do, it neglects the uncertainty of evidence and ignores that science is a human endeavour. The swine flu affair, the New York Times concluded, had been a "sorry debacle" and "fiasco" marked by political expediency and unwarranted confidence.
Note: Watch an incrediby revealing "60 Minutes" video clip on this tragic story of greed and corruption at the highest levels. Read also a Los Angeles Times article on this 1976 "debacle" where only one died from the flu while at least 25 died from the vaccine. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and vaccines from reliable major media sources.
While many European countries are seeing new cases surge to levels not seen since the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sweden – whose light-touch approach has made it an international outlier – has one of the continent’s lowest infection rates. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), [its] 14-day cumulative total of new cases was 22.2 per 100,000 inhabitants on Tuesday, against 279 in Spain, 158.5 in France, 118 in the Czech Republic, 77 in Belgium and 59 in the UK, all of which imposed lockdowns this spring. Sweden also has fewer new daily infections than Norway and Denmark. Thirteen Covid-19 patients are in intensive care in Swedish hospitals, and its seven-day average of coronavirus-related deaths is zero. “We don’t have the resurgence of the disease that many countries have,” Anders Tegnell, the country’s chief epidemiologist [said] in an interview, adding that the country was broadly happy with its overall strategy. Unlike many countries, Sweden closed schools for the over-16s but kept those for younger pupils open. Schools and universities are now open again. It also banned gatherings of more than 50 people and told people over 70 and in at-risk groups to self-isolate. Otherwise, the population of 10 million was asked, rather than ordered, to respect physical distancing and work from home if possible. Shops, bars, restaurants and gyms stayed open and the wearing of masks has not so far been recommended. Tegnell has insisted the aim was not to achieve rapid herd immunity but to slow the spread of coronavirus enough for health services to be able to cope.
Note: A Swedish MD on the front lines shares thoughts on why Sweden's COVID death rate has been in the single digits for weeks. Read a balanced, informative New York Times article written by a Swede about her experience there. This graph shows that Sweden is doing well compared to other countries considering that they have not instituted a lockdown. For more, see concise summaries of revealing news articles on the coronavirus from major media sources.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.