Trust The Science: A Journey Into The Void
NZDSOS Contributor
One of the greatest tragedies of the lockstep ‘Covid Response’ by the majority of world governments, is the rapid and ever-increasing loss of public confidence in ‘science’.
Here, an NZDSOS thinker and researcher, who wishes to remain anonymous, mounts the case that there are still reasons to respect what remains of sound and ethical science, while also fully acknowledging the extent to which ‘the speed of science’ has taken the world off track, in the last two corrupted years.
Science, applied as intended, in a genuine spirit of inquiry, is deeply honourable. At its heart, it is meant to serve as a sincere attempt to answer questions in the continuing and ever-deepening pursuit of truth.
Whatever our beliefs about current science may be, it still offers us a critical tool through its potential to be a framework for controlled observations. Honouring its fundamental tenets can draw us closer to substantive truth, even when it cannot hope to explain everything in the world of phenomena.
Sadly, the events of the last two years have seen a surreptitious erosion of the scientific method. A largely unsuspecting public has been shepherded into an emergent false doctrine, guided by the errant and proselytising corporate media-government complex.
Rigorous observation has been replaced by projections derived from faulty modelling of data. Long-held scientific definitions have been covertly changed. Data has been doctored and withheld. Opinion from supposed ‘experts’, has been propagandised as irrefutable truth. What has emerged is a carefully contrived facsimile, a doppelgänger dressed in the vestments of science. This fakery has adopted the language of science but has completely overlooked its objective foundation. The term “scientism” has been coined in order to differentiate this pseudo-scientific phenomenon, from its authentic, sincere, and trustworthy counterpart.
Real science is chronological and sequential, advancing our human understanding through the painstaking processes of accumulation and consilience [the principle that evidence, from independent, unrelated sources, can "converge" on strong conclusions]. Information streams, from converging lines of evidence, are methodically assembled, to produce a congruent body of data.
Early in the pandemic, it was clear that the release of a new class of vaccines based on the mRNA gene transfer platform was intended to form a major part of the Covid management strategy. These products were rapidly brought to market under the Trump administration, in an operation famously dubbed “Warp-speed”. While it might have been anticipated that certain liberties would be taken in the name of expedience, it is doubtful that anyone could have anticipated the extent to which the integrity of the scientific method was to be subverted.
Rather than the congruent body of data that we might have expected, we are now faced with a data void, in a scientific abyss.
To bridge the vast gap between the emphatic public health messaging from politicians on these vaccines, and the serious limits of our actual, substantive scientific knowledge about them, so-called ‘expert’ opinion has been injected into the void. Sadly, the general public is unaware that expert opinion, which lacks substantive supporting data, offers flawed predictive value - especially when new and uncharacterised technologies are involved.
This limited capacity to predict complexity is a human failing that lies at the heart of the “perfect storm” which is emerging in the aftermath of the vaccination roll-out. It leads to three essential questions:
1.) How did we get here?
2.) What are the boundaries which differentiate science from conjecture?
3.) Where has presumption surpassed, and supplanted, what can reasonably be inferred from the supporting data?
The marketing slogan “safe and effective” was an early tell. For the marketing of Distaval (Thalidomide) by Distillers Ltd, the unabashed use of a slogan still stands in infamy. This should have piqued curiosity in the Covid approach1.
In the pre-election leadership debates, before the Covid-19 vaccines had even been brought to the New Zealand market, the “safe and effective” mantra was recited ad nauseum, with an unfathomable, non-partisan uniformity.
The early safety and efficacy data on the Pfizer BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, with the infamous “95% effective” slogan used to herald it as a triumph of human endeavour over Nature. This became the clarion call to take up what was claimed to be a miraculous intervention. It was promoted as the “only way” to end the pandemic.
Much has been said about the difference between absolute risk reduction (ARR) and relative risk reduction (RRR).
The key issue here is the inherent deception involved in the selective reporting of ‘relative risk’, by government officials and their coordinating media outlets.
An early warning that all might not be as advertised, came from Peter Doshi, the Associate Editor of the British Medical Journal, whose blog report identified anomalies in the recording and reporting of Pfizer’s data2. The “95% effective” slogan became so entrenched as one of the most frequently recited messages of the pandemic, that few ever stopped to ask: “95% effective” at what exactly? The widespread assumption was that an individual with the vaccine had a minimal chance of even catching SARS-CoV-2. It still surprises many that the vaccine’s ability to attenuate transmission wasn’t even assessed as a measured outcome.
If we consider the role of a vaccine and its aim, then the ideal measures of outcome can be determined empirically with logic and reason. Ideally, a vaccine should, in vaccinated subjects, attenuate transmission, and reduce both hospitalisation and the risk of infection leading to death, compared to unvaccinated controls. It may again surprise people that none of these outcome measures were selected.
So how then was the efficacy of the Pfizer BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine measured? Efficacy was based on non-critical outcome measures, namely, a relative reduction in mild to moderate symptoms in the vaccinated, when compared to the unvaccinated subjects. In the parlance of real, evidence-based medicine, this statement encapsulates the outcome:
Vaccinated subjects experienced a 95% reduction in mild to moderate symptoms compared to unvaccinated subjects, over a 2-month period, while the impact of the vaccine on transmission, hospitalization and mortality were not reported as outcome measures.3
A recent publication evaluating the incidence of adverse events of special interest found that the excess risk of serious adverse events of special interest surpassed the risk reduction for COVID-19 hospitalization relative to the placebo group in both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine trials4.
With studies focused on surrogate markers as measures of outcome and a dearth of safety data, it is almost inconceivable that such studies became the basis for the derogation of human rights in many western countries.
The coercive influence of governments and media outlets, operating under the rubric of public health policy, quickly shifted the issue off its scientific foundation, reframing it as a matter of morality and conscience, a proposition advanced through the leveraging of distorted and exaggerated representations of what the available data could reliably establish.
The resultant narratives provided the impetus for western governments to act ultra vires, with the implementation of pandemic measures that imposed upon the civil liberties of their populations with impunity.
Pfizer and Moderna seized the opportunity created by the pandemic and used it to advance a fundamental change in vaccine design, with the selection of a novel lipid nanoparticle mRNA gene transfer platform, over the more traditional live attenuated or viral antigen-based vaccines. A synthetic mRNA transcript encoding the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein was selected as the antigen of choice for the vaccine under the presumption that it had suitable immunogenicity and limited toxicity. Despite the emphatic assurances of vaccine safety, peer-reviewed data characterising the fundamental biological properties of the spike protein raised significant concerns about their validity.
An early animal study on the vascular effects of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the hamster model showed that far from being non-toxic, the spike protein is a primary pathophysiological effector of the disease process in Covid-19. Researchers created a “pseudo-virus” which was absent in all viral antigens except for the spike protein.
Experimental animals exposed to the “pseudo-virus” experienced lung and arterial injury, with cellular injury in the vascular endothelium extending to the mitochondrial level. Researchers concluded that spike protein alone was sufficient to cause disease5,6.
A well-known New Zealand vaccinologist made the unsubstantiated claim that such observations were of no clinical significance, as the vaccine only acted locally, remaining confined to the arms of its recipients and without distribution beyond the regional lymph nodes. Contrary to her claim, a Pfizer biodistribution study conducted in Japan using the rat model revealed a markedly different picture. The authors of this study reported a broad distribution of the lipid nanoparticles with focal bio-accumulation observed at a number of specific organ sites. The enhanced accumulation observed in the ovaries and the ability of the lipid nanoparticle to cross the blood-brain barrier are two of the most concerning revelations7.
It has been argued in the confused square of public opinion, that the observations made in this study are clinically irrelevant. However, the arguments presented were all based on the presumptive projections of thought experiments, rather than on well-designed studies that might serve to settle the matter objectively.
The presence of absences and omissions in the data should never be accepted as evidence in support of a product which has failed to behave as advertised.
Additional animal studies utilising immuno-histochemical staining for the presence of spike protein within each of the organs affected in the biodistribution study, may have provided further insight into the potential complications that might arise from the clinical use of this class and design of vaccine.
There are obvious deficiencies in the scientific foundation supporting Covid-19 vaccines yet the media and government entities have engaged in a perpetual attempt to undermine, appropriate and redefine scientific standards.
The suggestion that the administration of billions of doses of these vaccines globally provides sufficient evidence to relieve these products of their experimental status, ignores one of the fundamental tenets of science. The science is not in the administration of the intervention, but in the subsequent period of observation, and given the track record of many pharmaceuticals (vaccines included) the longer the observation period the better. This novel experimental biotechnology has been shielded from both criticism and regulatory burden through its inclusion under the auspicious umbrella designation “vaccine”.
The shield of vaccine orthodoxy has created a privileged pharmaceutical category which confers an almost unconditional presumption of safety and efficacy in the minds of the public.
As appropriately sequenced animal studies are absent, we are left to answer the remaining questions through the study of outcomes in vaccinated human subjects. Sadly, some of the more unsettling questions will be best answered through carefully conducted autopsies with appropriate organ-specific spike protein and nucleocapsid immuno-histochemical staining.
If there is genuine concern about the safety of these products, as is claimed, necessary vigilance should include a post-mortem analysis for those passing in proximate relationship to the administration of these vaccines. Despite a reluctance by authorities to pursue this avenue with any enthusiasm, a small number of case reports are surfacing in the scientific literature which have served to provide a limited confirmation of our worst suspicions.
German pathologist Dr Arne Burkhardt, who set out in an early report with the intention of quenching fears about the safety of Covid-19 vaccines, assembled an interdisciplinary team which included nine international pathologists. They analysed and presented autopsy findings from a cohort of 15 subjects. Autopsy findings for fourteen of the fifteen subjects implicated the vaccine as being significant to their deaths.
The cohort included subjects of various ages, all of whom had died unexpectedly outside of the hospital setting within 7 days to 6 months of receiving one of the Covid-19 vaccines available in Germany.
The analysis of tissue specimens confirmed the presence of widespread vascular and para-vascular inflammation (vasculitis and para-vasculitis). Inflammation was present in the aortic specimens of 10 subjects, with 6 specimens showing evidence of aortic dissection. Inflammatory lesions were associated with the presence of the spike protein which was detected through specific immuno-histochemical staining. The role of direct Covid-19 infection was excluded through the use of a specific SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid immuno-histochemical staining. All specimens in the series had negative nucleocapsid immuno-histochemistry, indicating that the observed changes were associated with the vaccine, and not with Covid-19.
The observed vascular injuries were lamentably reminiscent of those documented in the earlier animal studies8.
These findings were corroborated in a separate case study which reported on the autopsy findings for a 76-year-old man with known Parkinson’s disease, who died within 3 weeks of receiving a third dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. The man had been vaccinated with a mixed vaccination protocol using two different Covid-19 vaccines. His third and final dose was a second dose of the Pfizer BNT162b mRNA vaccine.
The man was referred for autopsy by his family after he had exhibited remarkable behavioural and psychological changes and a rapid deterioration in his motor capabilities, leading to wheelchair confinement.
Autopsy specimens confirmed the presence of both multi-focal encephalitis and myocarditis, with inflammation being particularly apparent in the small blood vessels. Immuno-histochemical staining confirmed that spike protein could be detected within the inflammatory lesions in the brain and heart, while immuno-histochemistry for the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein was absent. These findings once again support the attribution of these changes to the vaccine, and not to direct Covid-19 infection9.
The pandemic has seen an increase in the frequency of a host of common pathologies and there have been attempts by media and government departments to characterise these as the sequela of Covid-19. This assertion is gradually being displaced by the growing body of peer-reviewed data which is implicating the Covid-19 vaccines. The eventual recognition that the Covid-19 vaccines were associated with myocarditis was met with claims that the risk of myocarditis associated with the Covid-19 infection exceeded the risk associated with vaccination.
The findings of a large prospective Israeli study have recently confirmed that the risk of developing myocarditis and pericarditis in Covid-19 recovering unvaccinated subjects is no higher than the background levels, helping to dispel yet another myth propagated by the media10.
Increasing reports of early-onset dementia are deeply concerning, as are the attempts of corporate media to once again assign attribution to Covid-19 infection11. Immuno-histochemistry will be a critical tool of discernment between deaths and disease processes which can be attributed to Covid-19 and its subsequent pathologies, and those which can be attributed to the Covid-19 vaccines. As is often stated in science, further data is required to confirm the scale and importance of these findings; but one thing is certain, if we don’t look, we certainly won’t find.
Much has been said about the potential for mRNA vaccines to alter the genome of vaccine recipients through the reverse transcription and retro-integrations of their mRNA transcripts. This issue has raised considerable concern, as it carries inherent mutagenic potential and also the uncharacterised risk associated with the chronic low-grade production of a poorly characterised viral antigen.
Concerns have been subjected to the usual rhetorical minimisation through the issuance of vague assurances that it simply can’t happen.
The prominent vaccinologist mentioned previously, was active early in the vaccine roll-out in providing assurances that reverse transcription and retro-integration of the synthetic mRNA transcripts in the Pfizer vaccine could not occur. She offered the explanation that it is not possible as there is no reverse transcriptase present in the vaccine. Such a dotish remark is at best uneducated, and at the least, it misses the point: reverse transcription does not require the presence of reverse transcriptase in the vaccine, as it is already present within human cells12.
Despite her blinkered assurances, concerns about this theoretical risk were recently shown to be valid. A study conducted by Alden et al. (2022), demonstrated the reverse transcription and integration of the mRNA sequence present in the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine in hepatocytes (liver cells) grown in in vitro cell culture13. This again raises questions as to why such studies were not conducted prior to the deployment of this novel biotechnology on the population level. The likelihood of such an event occurring in vivo could have readily been determined with more extensive animal studies.
From a sceptical perspective, the last two years have seen a propaganda campaign using some well-tested and highly-dubious marketing slogans, a liberal over-interpretation of largely inconsequential safety and efficacy data, and the stealthy assignment of a novel biotechnology to the venerated and privileged pharmaceutical category of “vaccine”, through acts of re-definition and trojan-horse marketing.
Along with an increase in all-cause mortality in much of the western world, we have witnessed a reluctance by the authorities to conduct autopsies to the necessary standard required to exclude the role of the vaccine.
The unwillingness of government departments and their designated “experts” to engage in open uncensored scientific discourse should stand as a dire warning.
Science has always been dialectical, contentious and rigorously debated. It is this vital dynamism that breaks the gridlock of entrenched dogma and facilitates progress.
The problems associated with the pandemic and the scientific basis of its imposed interventions are too complex and enumerable to outline in a single short discussion. The aim herein has been to isolate and accentuate a single logical thread from a complex tapestry, and to render it visible for those with the willingness, the intellect, and the eyes to see it.
BMJ (1960) Jan 23, 4-5.
Polack, F. P., Thomas, S. J., Kitchin, N., Absalon, J., Gurtman, A., Lockhart, S., Perez, J. L., Pérez Marc, G., Moreira, E. D., Zerbini, C., Bailey, R., Swanson, K. A., Roychoudhury, S., Koury, K., Li, P., Kalina, W. V., Cooper, D., Frenck, R. W., Jr, Hammitt, L. L., Türeci, Ö., … C4591001 Clinical Trial Group (2020). Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine. The New England journal of medicine, 383(27), 2603–2615. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577
Fraiman, Joseph and Erviti, Juan and Jones, Mark and Greenland, Sander and Whelan, Patrick and Kaplan, Robert M. and Doshi, Peter, Serious Adverse Events of Special Interest Following mRNA Vaccination in Randomized Trials. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4125239
Lei, Y., Zhang, J., Schiavon, C. R., He, M., Chen, L., Shen, H., Zhang, Y., Yin, Q., Cho, Y., Andrade, L., Shadel, G. S., Hepokoski, M., Lei, T., Wang, H., Zhang, J., Yuan, J. X., Malhotra, A., Manor, U., Wang, S., Yuan, Z. Y., … Shyy, J. Y. (2021). SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Impairs Endothelial Function via Downregulation of ACE 2. Circulation research, 128(9), 1323–1326. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.121.318902
Mörz M. A Case Report: Multifocal Necrotizing Encephalitis and Myocarditis after BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccination against COVID-19. Vaccines. 2022; 10(10):1651. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10101651
Tuvali O, Tshori S, Derazne E, Hannuna RR, Afek A, Haberman D, Sella G, George J. The Incidence of Myocarditis and Pericarditis in Post COVID-19 Unvaccinated Patients—A Large Population-Based Study. Journal of Clinical Medicine. 2022; 11(8):2219. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm11082219
Mager DL, Stoye JP. Mammalian Endogenous Retroviruses. Microbiol Spectr. 2015;3(1):MDNA3-2014. https://doi.org/10.1128/microbiolspec.MDNA3-0009-2014
Aldén, M., Olofsson Falla, F., Yang, D., Barghouth, M., Luan, C., Rasmussen, M., & De Marinis, Y. (2022). Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line. Current issues in molecular biology, 44(3), 1115–1126. https://doi.org/10.3390/cimb44030073
Well said. It's strange indeed how a certain NZ expert vaccinologist seems to have quietly melted away from the public discourse on MSM. I'me sure that many of us find it disturbing to see a certain director general, who's signature appears on every single declined vaccine exemption application, has been rewarded with a knighthood. I hope that the major part that he played in the deadly vaccine scam will eventually see him dismissed to his proper place, a lifetime behind bars, along with all the other co conspirators.
That was an exceptional piece. I hope it is widely shared.