Indeed. Speaking of which, several senior FDA vaccine officials are leaving shortly, and the word is they were unhappy among other things with Biden’s telling everyone to get boosters ahead of an actual FDA review of the scientific evidence.
I guess we won’t be seeing any NYT headlines ala this Trump era one decrying the FDA’s lack of independence under Biden and how this will impact the public’s perception of the safety and sanctity of the vaccine review process.
Maybe they no longer have four reporters capable of m̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶u̶p̶ writing such an in-depth treatise. 
OTOH, if they find the reporters, I’ve got their headline …
How the FDA Bent Over for the President
Yes it is. He died following what he believed to be best. His dad did the same thing and survived. Thanks for linking to a thorough article. He was more than a decent guy, and a big loss to his community. His family has a long road ahead. I’m glad their GoFundMe is, so far, doing okay.
Anecdote:
My boss: Early 60s, has had heart surgery, is overweight - vaccinated
His daughter: Early 30s, healthy - unvaccinated
His son-in-law (daugher’s husband): Early 30s, drives a delivery truck and does the physical deliveries, very healthy and fit - unvaccinated
His granddaughter: 2 years old
Family was together a few Sundays ago. Son-in-law wasn’t feeling 100% but nothing serious. Next day, feeling worse, decided to get tested, tested positive. Got much worse. A week later, suffering from pneumonia, but not bad enough that the hospital admitted him. Daughter got sick a few days after her husband, also positive, classic covid symptoms, but didn’t get as bad as her husband. Both are still sick, but getting better slowly. Granddaughter is fine.
My boss, as soon as he found out about his son-in-law’s positive test, told me, left work, bought a home test for him and his wife, and had a test done at an urgent care. Both tests negative. Stayed home for the next 4 days. Started feeling bad, took another home test - positive. Went to urgent care for a test - positive. A day later, classic covid symptoms, but more mild than his daughter and WAY more mild than his son-in-law. His wife (also vaccinated), most mild symptoms of everyone in the family.
My opinion based on everything I’ve heard from experts and experiences with people I know: Everyone is going to get this thing. Most people are going to survive. Some might not even notice they ever had it. But it you are over 16 and want to increase your chances of survival and make the sickness less mild while you’re sick, get vaccinated. Under 16, it’s hard to see much of a point for vaccination since they are barely going to even have symptoms as bad as the flu. But there doesn’t seem to be much downside to a vaccine for them either, so might as well get it just in case. I think when it is approved for our 5 year old, he’ll probably get the vaccine. I’m gonna be pissed if he still has to wear a mask in pre-school after he’s vaccinated though.
Judge takes it upon himself to stop a mom’s visitation rights with her child because she is not vaccinated. The dad was not even requesting this in the hearing.
I’m really glad I’m not a police officer right now. I’m seeing the executive and judicial branches issuing more and more orders that I would have a very hard time enforcing.
Long covid summary of papers and such
The Mu strain of COVID-19 has been declared a variant of interest by the WHO. It originated in Columbia. There are already at least several hundred cases here in the USA.
New ‘mu’ coronavirus variant could escape vaccine-induced immunity
I wonder how closely that Race/Ethnicity table tracks with SAT scores… or income… 
Are any of the vaccinated immune to any variant, or for that matter, the original Wuhan flu?
An education PhD and startup founder suggested there could be developmental harm to kids for schooling in masks. He posed, in his Forbes column,
“But we must ask ourselves: do the benefits of masks and social distancing truly outweigh the long-term psychological, physical, social, and academic harm we are inflicting on a whole generation of American schoolchildren? If we care about equity and the most vulnerable members of our society, we at least can’t be afraid to ask.”
I have no informed opinion on this, but Forbes apparently is “afraid to ask”. They deleted his article (hence the archive link above) and now list Mr Ringelstein as a “former contributor”.
This is an example of the leftist media just throwing something into their reporting without backing it up at all that is demonstrably false. Name a political leader that is recommending people take ivermectin without getting it prescribed by a doctor.
Well, when there’s as much data that it can help, what do you expect when this is the only access to it?
The drug is not dangerous, the politics demanding it not be used is what’s dangerous.
Oh the CDC says you should take it, and it’s nearly completely safe in normal doses, just they won’t tell you to take it for covid. For example, the refugees we’re importing from Afghanistan or elsewhere are supposed to get some per CDC guidance for their probable parasite infections.
Personally, I’m guessing the reason our Democratic politicians are so rabidly anti-ivermectin is because they’re parasites and if given widely and successfully for covid might clear the minds of their hosts, er, voters 
“When a citizen is facing a potentially life-threatening case of COVID-19, he or she should receive the ‘right to try’ potentially life-saving therapeutics.”
…as opposed to being told that a drug that has been safely prescribed for decades is suddenly “too dangerous”. Like Xerty says, the biggest danger of such drugs is the possibility they may end up helping.
Note the bullet points:
- Ivermectin is a drug typically used to treat parasitic infections in livestock like horses.
Of course, just omit the fact it is also approved for and often used on humans for various conditions, and has been for decades. That is some super-responsible journalism right there, that is in no way pushing a pre-chosen narrative at all…
Maybe they should also mention how current refugees from Afghanistan are being given ivermectin as we speak? Not because of covid, but because it is not “horse dewormer”.
The only false and misleading thing here is claiming that inconclusive studies means that it’s proven to be too dangerous to even try taking.
For christ’s sake, if you take it and it helps, then great. And if you take it and it doesnt help, then…you wasted a few bucks.
Oh, there is plenty of false and misleading stuff in the leftist media to go around. Don’t shortchange them!
This CDC warning from the article was actually fairly reasonable.
See the chart of ivermectin proscriptions half way thru - baseline is 5k/day (for skin or parasite conditions or similar), and we’re seeing 75k/day now. And yet NPR wrote a breathless article about ivermectin poisoning cases being up around 600 from baseline in 2021 to date. That’s with hundreds of thousands of people taking it, not counting all the animal formulations since the media crusade has convinced many doctors not to proscribe it, and all they found were a few hundred cases. Looking at the poison center reports cited, there were no deaths and only around 10% had “major effects”. Sounds pretty safe to me, figure that’s mostly from a few % of people not getting the math right for dosing when they are trying to use the diluted vet version.
I was amused that the general drug overview on webmd had virtual “coupons” for ivermectin at various major chain pharmacies, assuming you can get someone, perhaps off this list, to write you a script for it.
At least NPR did better than Rolling Stone, who made up a “massive surge in overdoses” story from whole cloth, not unlike their Rape on Campus lies to pitch to the zeitgeist of the times without any regard to journalistic integrity.
This post by 66Mustanggirl was found online in a ZeroHedge comments section. Very sad story:
From the American Journal of Therapeutics:
“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.”
Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy o... : American Journal of Therapeutics
My mother was diagnosed with lupus in 1991 and treated with hydroxychoriquin for nearly thirty years, an FDA approved drug that was considered perfectly safe for nearly 70 years until it was recommended as a treatment for Covid.
Within HOURS of Trump mentioning it, the CDC, FDA, and their henchmen in the MSM embarked on such a hysterical fear-mongering campaign surrounding its use, my mother was forced to discontinue taking it and switched to a different drug.
2 months later, she was dead.
Hundreds of brave Frontline doctors went on to SAVE THOUSANDS OF LIVES by prescribing it and Dr. FRAUDci killed my mother for absolutely nothing.
If the CDC and FDA can be so catastrophically wrong (LIE) about simple, life-saving, therapeutic drugs like hydroxychoriquin and ivermectin, why in the world should we trust them when it comes to vaccines using cutting edge technology like mRNA??
With literally tens to hundreds of billions of profit dollars on the line, the pharmaceutical industry simply cannot tolerate any existing, inexpensive, off-patent, drug which might help in the fight against COVID-19. Any such drug, whether it be ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, or anything else whatsoever, would be an economic calamity for the industry. Period
In addition, mainstream media mouthpieces all across the USA jump on board with the ridicule because they want to curry favor with the pharmaceutical industry behemoth. This in order to keep flowing billions of advertising dollars for all sorts of their expensive remedies, many (most) having nothing whatsoever to do with COVID-19. Have you watched TV or listened to the radio recently? All you hear are commercials for this or that solution to a vast array of medical conditions. And of course all those solutions are on-patent money makers for the pharmaceutical industry. That is why they are advertising in the first place!!
So bottom line, whether in the instance of ivermectin or other potential solutions for COVID-19:
It is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY!
That post smells like bullshit. Why would the doctors stop giving the drug to someone who was already on it many years and for reasons that had nothing to do with COVID?
The flip side is that Trump and his henchmen promoting the drug, unproven for the treatment of COVID, caused shortages of said drug, which may have forced her mother to switch to another. Why isn’t she laying blame on that? She didn’t really explain why her mother was forced to switch. Read between the lines.
