The Corruption of Science. The Hydroxychloroquine Lancet Study Scandal /200610

The Corruption of Science. The Hydroxychloroquine Lancet Study Scandal. Who Was Behind It? Anthony Fauci's Intent To Block HCQ on Behalf of Big Pharma

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

The Guardian has revealed the scandal behind the hydroxychloroquine study which was intent on blocking HCQ as a cure for COVID-19. "Dozens of scientific papers co-authored by the chief executive of the US tech company behind the Lancet hydroxychloroquine study scandal are now being audited, including one that a scientific integrity expert claims contains images that appear to have been digitally manipulated. The audit follows a Guardian investigation that found the company, Surgisphere, used suspect data in major scientific studies that were published and then retracted by world-leading medical journals, including the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.  ....

According to The Lancet:

... several concerns were raised with respect to the veracity of the data and analyses conducted by Surgisphere Corporation and its founder and our co-author, Sapan Desai, in our publication. We launched an independent third-party peer review of Surgisphere ...  As such, our reviewers were not able to conduct an independent and private peer review and therefore notified us of their withdrawal from the peer-review process

The study was allegedly based on data analysis of 96,032 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 between Dec 20, 2019, and April 14, 2020 from 671 hospitals Worldwide. The database, according to the Guardian could not be verified. It was false.

"I am truly Sorry"

Surgisphere CEO Dr. Sapan Desai was not in charge of the study. The lead author was Harvard Medical School professor Mandeep Mehra:

"I did not do enough to ensure that the data source was appropriate for this use. For that, and for all the disruptions – both directly and indirectly – I am truly sorry."

CEO Dr. Sapan Desai took the blame. Who was behind him?

The Surgisphere Scientific Scam. Who was behind it?  Who "commissioned" this Report? 

Was the pharmaceutical industry and vaccine lobby group behind this initiative?  The Lancet acknowledges that the study received funding from the William Harvey Distinguished Chair in Advanced Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital which is held by Dr. Mandeep Mehra. In this regard, it is worth noting that Brigham Health has a major contract with Big Pharma's Gilead Sciences Inc, related to the development of the Remdesivir drug for the treatment of COVID-19. The Gilead-Brigham Health project was initiated in March 2020.

Was the Surgisphere study intended to provide a justification to block the use of HCQ, as recommended by Dr. Anthony Fauci, advisor to president Trump? Upon reading the study (prior to its retraction),  "Dr Fauci, … grinned as he told CNN that "the data shows hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment  …"Referring to the Surgisphere report: "The scientific data is really quite evident now about the lack of efficacy for it [HCQ]," said Dr. Fauci. (quoted by CNN).

Here is the CNN's authoritative assessment of Surgisphere's  report (prior to The Lancet's Retraction):

Seriously ill Covid-19 patients who were treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine were more likely to die or develop dangerous irregular heart rhythms, according to a large observational study [by Surgisphere] published Friday [May 22, 2020] in the medical journal The Lancet.

And Did CNN "retract" its earlier endorsement of  this "fake scientific study"?  

Dr. Anthony Fauci who is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has from the very outset led the campaign against hydroxychloroquine (largely on behalf of Big Pharma) invoking similar "scientific arguments" against HCQ, saying categorically there was no cure to COVID-19, and the only solution was the vaccine.

According to the Spectator:

The campaign to destroy hydroxychloroquine has been waged relentlessly, both by competitor pharmaceutical companies and those who want to destroy the US economy to advance their political agenda. It is shocking that it has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of taxpayer dollars. But although the corruption of science for political and/ or financial gain has become a defining characteristic of our age, it is not a new story.

The publication of the Surgisphere study had an immediate impact: According to the Guardian, "Surgisphere data led to global trials of hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 being halted in May, because it appeared to show the drug increased deaths in Covid-19 patients".

"Higher Risks of Death" if you take HCQ, according to the study. In the days following the fake Surgisphere Lancet report on May 22, several countries including Belgium, France, Italy, acted to halt the use of hydroxychloroquine. The study had concluded patients taking the anti-malaria drug had a higher risk of death than those who were not taking the medication

It is worth noting that prior to the conduct of the Surgisphere study, Dr. Fauci stated categorically that the use of HCQ had not been studied in relation to the coronavirus. "No proven drug": "Not Enough Known". Nonsensical and false statements.

What Fauci failed to mention is that Chloroquine had been "studied" and tested fifteen years ago by the CDC as a drug to be used against coronavirus infections.  Chloroquine was used in 2002 and tested against SARS-1 coronavirus in a study under the auspices of the CDC published in 2005 in the peer reviewed Virology Journal. The main conclusion of the article was that:  Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread. It was used in the SARS-1 outbreak in 2002. It had the endorsement of the CDC.

The main author Dr. Martin J. Vincent together with several of his colleagues were affiliated with the Special Pathogens Branch of the Atlanta based CDC together with co-authors from a Montreal based partner research institution.  The main conclusions of this study are that Chloroquine is a tested drug and can be used for SARS-corona virus infections.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has not put forth a treatment which could be applied against COVID-19. What he is saying is that there is no treatment. And then he endorses the fake scientific study by Surgisphere which was subsequently retracted by The Lancet.

Lancet: the article was retracted

The Lancet Published a Fraudulent Covid-19 Study: Editor Calls It "Department of Error"

Dr. Anthony Fauci has been deliberately blocking a drug which was endorsed by the CDC 15 years ago for treatment of SARS-1 Coronavirus. More recently, it has been used extensively in a number of countries in relation to the Coronavirus or SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19) outbreak. Whose interests is he serving?

The original source of this article is Global Research: Click Here

Copyright © Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2020

For the Rich to Keep Getting Richer, We Have to Sacrifice Everything Else /200618

For the Rich to Keep Getting Richer, We Have to Sacrifice Everything Else

Charles Hugh Smith

They're hoping the endless circuses and trails of bread crumbs will forever distract us from their plunder and the inequalities built into America's financial system..

The primary story of the past 20 years is the already-rich have gotten much richer, with destabilizing economic, social and political consequences. The Federal Reserve and its army of academic / think-tank / financier apologists, lackeys, toadies, apparatchiks and sycophants have several rather thin excuses to explain this away, including:

1. Gee, wealth/income inequality isn't quite as bad as everyone claims. (Actually, it's worse, but never mind unwelcome reality. Let us prove yet again how statistics can always be gamed.)

2. Wealth/income inequality is bad, but it's not the Fed's or policymakers' faults; the causes are all beyond our control: globalization, winner-take-all disruptive technologies, etc. We're just little old innocent bystanders. It's like blaming us for gravity, for goodness sakes.

3. Gosh darn it, the Fed is just trying to help the little gal and guy by digitally printing $6.4 trillion and giving it to parasitic, predatory financiers, banks, corporations and speculators; we're mystified how giving trillions to the already-super-wealthy somehow made them richer.

We've got hundreds of PhD economists working on some arcane mathematical models to help us understand the mystery of why giving trillions to the already-super-wealthy somehow made them richer. It's a real puzzle, but we have our best people on it-- yes siree, our best people.

4. We're perplexed why so little of the trillions we've handed the already-super-rich has trickled down to the little gals and guys struggling to keep their heads above water. We thought the last big tax-cut giveaway would do the trick, but dang, we're guessing it wasn't enough.

So we're thinking that giving the already-super-wealthy another $3 trillion or so might do the trick, and they might tip their maids, dog-walkers, gig drivers, yacht repair people, et al. a few extra bucks--but then maybe not, because the already-super-wealthy tend to be as greedy as all get-out. But we'll keep trying to shovel a few more trillion their way because there's just no other way to help the little people except to print up another trillion and give it to the already-super-wealthy.

What the well-paid army of apologists, lackeys, toadies, apparatchiks and sycophants never mention is that we as a nation have had to sacrifice everything else to ensure the rich will always get richer. Democracy was sacrificed so long ago there's no cultural memory of a time when "democracy" wasn't a pay-to-play bidding war between vested interests, insiders, billionaires, global corporations and political action committees pushing self-serving agendas.

The entire political order of the U.S. boils down to follow the money, as no cause or policy is what it claims. Somebody is inevitably angling for a self-serving sluice of cash that is politely hidden behind noble-sounding rhetoric (tm) delivered via micro-targeted ads served by the social media and advert-search monopolies.

Social cohesion has also been sacrificed, as there's nothing binding the nation together except I got mine greed, narcissism and anger, all of which fuel a blood-soaked circus of fragmentation and disorder.

The systemic asymmetries are so vast, so glaring, so sinful, that the nation's institutions have destroyed their credibility in their frantic efforts to justify the inequalities in wealth, income and power. Alarmingly, institutional insiders are completely tone-deaf when it comes to how their self-justifying bleating plays out in public.

Academics who've gorged on the $2 trillion in student loan debt that's turned the nation's youth into debt-serfs have no idea how lame they sound when they shrilly insist that their class is so valuable that, well, it's worth any price. Students should be thankful they received such incredible value for their $100,000. As for how students are supposed to pay it all back with crushing mountains of interest due the predatory lenders--not our problem.

Healthcare and Big Pharma CEOs must not realize how offensively clownish their defense of $1 million medical bills sound to people who are being forced into bankruptcy so the CEOs can collect an extra $20 million in stock options this quarter.

Yeah, we can really tell how much you care about our health. Bleat away, bozos.

So let's make sure we understand how America's system works. If you're a small business owner whose on the ropes, the federal government may loan you some money, but you have to personally guarantee the loan, meaning if your business fails, you're on the hook as an individual or household to pay the loan back with interest.

If you can't, then personal bankruptcy is your only alternative, meaning you're left with the '97 Corolla and the clothes on your back. Have a nice life, bucko, maybe you'll restore your credit in five years.

If you're the CEO of an airline or equivalent Corporate America darling, it's a much different story. That you borrowed $46 billion and blew it buying back your own stocks so you could cash in millions of dollars in stock options that boosted your personal wealth--never mind that, here's $50 billion in bailout money that won't require you to make any personal sacrifice whatsoever.

No clawback on the billions squandered buying back stock to enrich insiders and rapacious financiers: perish the thought that corporate management would ever be held responsible for anything--certainly not for fraud or embezzlement.

Consider this data base of 6,300 major corporate fines and settlements from the early 1990s to 2015 compiled by Jon Morse. Nobody made any personal sacrifices or paid any personal fines or served any prison time for any of these thousands of violations.

If you want $100 million to buy back shares in your own company, the Federal Reserve and the rest of Wall Street is delighted to help you. That the buyback will increase your personal wealth by $50 million for doing absolutely nothing for society or the nation--you generated no new goods, services, innovations, research or jobs--that's the way our system works.

Generating goods, services and jobs is for chumps. Get over it. The real money is made bellying up to the Fed's free money for financiers spigot.

If you want to save your small business--well, try working a second shift for free.

If you can't pay the staggering medical bills (neatly compiled in an inch thick sheaf of invoices), hey, life isn't fair, declare bankruptcy and start over, you're only 63.

What all the entrenched insiders in America's parasitic, predatory institutions don't dare admit is that to rig the system so they'll keep getting richer, we've had to sacrifice everything else. Having stripped the society and economy bare, there's nothing left but sound and fury, as if they're hoping the endless circuses and trails of bread crumbs will forever distract us from their plunder and the inequalities built into America's financial system.

Here's looking at you, Federal Reserve: here's a chart of your handiwork.

Original Source: Click Here.

The Fed's Casino Is In Flames, But Please Continue Gambling /200618

The Fed's Casino Is In Flames, But Please Continue Gambling

Charles Hugh Smith

Here's the thing about gambling: risk cannot be made to disappear, it can only be transferred to others.

Those taking seats at the gaming tables in the Federal Reserve's casino believe that they can't lose. Or more precisely, any losses they suffer will quickly be made good by the house, i.e. the Fed, which can digitally print as much currency as needed to restore order to the gambling.

The punters crowding around the tables have forgotten that gambling is inherently risky. The Fed can digitally print currency, but it can't force punters to play.

Unfortunately for all the punters crowding around the tables, the casino is on fire. The Fed's rigged games are in flames, and Head Tout/Fixer Jay Powell is telling all the nervous gamblers who smell smoke to please stay at the tables and continue gambling, the fire is under control.

But of course it's not under control, it's raging out of control, and to maintain the illusion of control, the Fed is buying chips in its own games: buying junk bond funds and corporate bonds.

The Fed's casino has operated on a simple principle: the Fed digitally prints trillions of dollars and hands the dough to broker-dealers in exchange for Treasury bonds, mortgage backed securities and now, junk bond funds and corporate bonds.

The new currency flowed into financial assets as banks, corporations and financiers borrowed money, leveraged it up and bought back their own shares or bought stocks.

What the punters don't understand is this mechanism isn't guaranteed. The players getting the freshly created dough don't have to buy stocks or junk bonds. They only do so when they are confident that there are plenty of greater fools at the tables to buy these assets at higher prices.

The pool of greater fools is drying up, and so the Fed has been forced to start buying its own gambling chips directly. This is an act of complete desperation, yet the punters at the tables who smell the smoke don't yet realize the fire is out of control and the entire casino will soon be engulfed in flames.

Here's the thing about gambling: risk cannot be made to disappear, it can only be transferred to others. The absence of risk in the Fed's casino is an illusion. The Fed's casino has transferred all the well-hidden risk to the entire financial system, which is now in danger as the Fed's burning casino triggers a conflagration few even imagine and virtually none think is possible.

So by all means, believe the soothing words of Head Tout/Fixer Jay Powell if you want, but realize that words and digitally printed currency won't make risk disappear. Rather, they only increase the risk of the fire spreading to the entire financial system.



Original Source: Click Here.

Tucker: Google tries to censor content it disagrees with /200616

Youtube Channel: Fox News

Trashing hydroxychloroquine based on faulty Surgisphere data /200604

Rush to trash hydroxychloroquine based on faulty Surgisphere data exposes fundamental flaws in profit-based medical ‘science’

4 Jun, 2020 10:30 | Get short URL

Hydroxychloroquine © Reuters / George Frey

Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23

As the WHO and prestigious medical journal the Lancet back away from questionable data provided by healthcare analytics firm Surgisphere, ulterior motives for the rush to demonize hydroxychloroquine become clear.

The World Health Organization (WHO) sheepishly resumed testing the off-patent malaria drug hydroxychloroquine on coronavirus patients on Wednesday after pausing that arm of its ‘Solidarity’ clinical trial based on data that appeared to show the drug contributed to higher death rates among test subjects. That data, it turned out, came from a tiny US healthcare analytics firm called Surgisphere, and calling it faulty would be excessively charitable.

Not only is Surgisphere a company lacking in medical expertise – its employees included an “adult” entertainer and a science-fiction writer – but its CEO Sapan Desai co-authored two of the damning studies that used the firm’s data to smear hydroxychloroquine, already thoroughly demonized in the media thanks to its promotion by US President Donald Trump, as a killer. All data is sourced to a proprietary database supposedly containing a veritable ocean of real-time, detailed patient information yet curiously absent from existing medical literature. 

The Surgisphere-tainted study appeared to show increased risk of in-hospital deaths and heart problems with no disease-fighting benefits, confirming the suspicions of medical-industry naysayers already inclined to hate the off-patent drug due to the lack of profit potential and Trump’s incessant boosterism. Italy, France, and Germany rushed to ban hydroxychloroquine, citing “an increased risk for adverse reactions with little or no benefit.”

But such a shameless character assassination performed against a potentially-lifesaving drug – especially one with a decades-long track record of safety in malaria, lupus, and arthritis patients that came highly recommended by some of the world’s most eminent disease experts, including France’s Didier Raoult – could only be accomplished with help from industry prejudice. It required ignoring numerous existing studies showing hydroxychloroquine was beneficial in treating early-stage Covid-19 patients, as well as anecdotal reports from thousands of doctors who’d successfully used it.

It also required trusting a fly-by-night company with next to no internet or media presence to make decisions that could affect the lives of millions of people. It’s not like there weren’t warning signs Surgisphere was something other than the top-notch medical analytics firm it presented itself as. The company began life as a textbook publisher in 2008 and hired most of its 11 employees two month ago, according to an investigation by the Guardian, yet it claimed ownership of a massive international database of 96,000 patients in 1,200 hospitals worldwide. One expert interviewed by the outlet said it would be difficult for even a national statistics agency to do in years what Surgisphere had supposedly done in weeks, calling the database “almost certainly a scam.” Yet no one at the Lancet or WHO thought to look a gift horse in the mouth – not when that gift drove a stake through the heart of hydroxychloroquine as Covid-19 treatment.

And while Australian researchers found flaws in the Surgisphere data just days after the May 22 publication of the Lancet study, noting that the number of Covid-19 deaths cited by the study as coming from five hospitals exceeded the entirety of Covid-19 deaths recorded in Australia at that time, the Lancet – instead of investigating just who this Surgisphere company really was, and why it had made such a glaring mistake – merely published a minor retraction related to the Australian data and put the controversy to bed.

The full-frontal assault on hydroxychloroquine was instead allowed to continue unchecked in the media, as mainstream outlets focused their energies on fluffing up remdesivir – a costly, untested drug manufactured by drug maker Gilead that has so far produced lackluster results in clinical trials – and stumping for an eventual vaccine. Hydroxychloroquine’s off-patent status meant it was a dead end as far as profits were concerned, while remdesivir and whatever vaccine is ultimately green-lighted will make a lot of people very rich. Perhaps hoping to throw their audiences off the real reason for their hydroxychloroquine hatred, several outlets hinted that Trump stood to make money off the drug (which costs about 60 cents per pill) – but even Snopes, no fan of the ‘Bad Orange Man’, had to pour cold water on that speculation.

The Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine have – belatedly – published “expressions of concern” about the Surgisphere hydroxychloroquine study, and an independent audit is being conducted. But the problem of biased health authorities selectively embracing some trial results while rejecting others is unlikely to stop there.

The Lancet study is hardly the only one to show hydroxychloroquine lacks efficacy in treating Covid-19. Multiple studies conducted by the US National Institutes of Health on hospitalized (i.e. severely-ill) coronavirus patients have yielded poor results, but even the drug’s most ardent evangelists acknowledge it doesn’t help end-stage or very sick patients. Raoult has even claimed France banned the drug’s use in all but the most severely ill patients in order to discredit it as a treatment. The US National Institutes of Health was publishing studies in its journal Virology touting chloroquine as “a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection” as far back as 2005, yet ‘coronavirus czar’ Anthony Fauci throws shade at the drug whenever he gets a chance.

As long as deadly diseases like Covid-19 are seen as profit sources first and human rights issues second (or third, or tenth…), treatments that aren’t profitable will always be marginalized in favor of costly and frequently less-effective pharmaceuticals. Drug industry profiteering has already killed hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of people in the US alone. Taking the profit motive out of healthcare can help ensure its body count stays as low as possible.

Original Source: Click Here.

The Guardian: Covid-19 study on hydroxychloroquine use questioned by 120 researchers and medical professionals
The Daily Mail: More than 120 top scientists criticise a series of FLAWS in study that found Trump-backed hydroxychloroquine drug raised the risk of death to Covid-19 patients and halted global trials
Open Letter: An open letter to Mehra et al and The Lancet: Concerns regarding the statistical analysis and data integrity