Like a microchip implant for Covid-19 vaxx passports?
Posted on 12/31/2024 5:06:36 AM PST by george76
Below is my column in The Hill on the recent Wall Street Journal report on the Biden Administration’s resistance to experts who voiced support for the lab theory on the origins of COVID-19. As with many academics in higher education, government experts were warned not to question the natural or zoonotic theory. In the meantime, figures like Dr. Anthony Fauci said little to support other experts who were being censored and targeted for opposing views. Call it the Silence of the Labs. The effort to marginalize such figures continues this week as pandemic hawks circle Dr. Jay Bhattacharya in anticipation of his confirmation as head of the National Institutes of Health.
Here is the column:
This week, the Wall Street Journal released an alarming report on how the Biden administration may have suppressed dissenting views supporting the lab theory on the origin of the COVID-19 virus. Not only were the FBI and its top experts excluded from a critical briefing of Biden, but government scientists were reportedly warned that they were “off the reservation” in supporting the lab theory.
The chilling suggestion is that, despite the virus ultimately killing more than 1.2 million Americans and over 7 million people worldwide, there was still an overriding interest in the administration to downplay the Chinese responsibility for the pandemic.
The Journal lays out how that unfolded, but the more disturbing question is why.
The article provides many examples of how dissenting views were marginalized and discouraged within the government. After President Trump described the virus as the “China virus” and alleged that it likely came from a lab, dismissing the lab theory became an article of faith in politics and academia.
The problem was that FBI researchers had concluded that the lab theory was the most credible explanation. But their lead researcher, Dr. Jason Bannan, was kept out of the key meeting, and their opposing research was discounted or ignored.
They were not alone. The Journal reported that Defense Department experts John Hardham, Robert Cutlip and Jean-Paul Chretien conducted a genomic analysis that found evidence of human manipulation of the virus. It also concluded that it was done using a specific technique developed by the Chinese at the Wuhan lab. They suggested that the Chinese appeared to have altered the “spike protein” that enables the virus to enter the human body in a “gain of function” operation.
They were reportedly told to stop sharing their work and warned that they had to effectively get with the team. Later, the three wrote an unclassified May 2020 paper that was prevented from being shown outside the medical intelligence center.
At the same time, letters and articles that dismissed the lab theory were organized for public consumption. The government worked with social media companies to censor those with opposing views.
Much of the media showed the same confirmation bias and intolerance. During the Trump presidency, many journalists used the rejection of the lab theory to paint Trump as a bigot. By the time Biden became president, not only were certain government officials heavily invested in the zoonotic or natural origin theory, but so were many in the media.
Reporters used opposition to the lab theory as another opportunity to pound their chests and signal their virtue.
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace mocked Trump and others for spreading one of his favorite “conspiracy theories.” MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt insisted that “we know it’s been debunked that this virus was manmade or modified,”
MSNBC’s Joy Reid also called the lab leak theory “debunked bunkum,” while CNN reporter Drew Griffin criticized spreading the “widely debunked” theory. CNN host Fareed Zakaria told viewers that “the far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory” in the lab leak.
NBC News’s Janis Mackey Frayer described it as the “heart of conspiracy theories.”
The Washington Post was particularly dogmatic. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) raised the theory, he was chastised for “repeat[ing] a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China.”
Likewise, after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) mentioned the lab theory, Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler mocked him: “I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves.”
As these efforts failed and more information emerged supporting the lab theory, many media figures just looked at their shoes and shrugged. Others became more ardent. In 2021, New York Times science and health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was still calling on reporters not to mention the “racist” lab theory.
In Kessler’s case, he wrote that the lab theory was “suddenly credible” as if it had sprung from the head of Zeus rather than having been supported for years by scientists, many of whom had been canceled and banned.
One fact, however, is already well established. The suppression of the lab theory and the targeting of dissenting scientists show the true cost of censorship and viewpoint intolerance.
The very figures claiming to battle “disinformation” were suppressing opposing views that have now been vindicated as credible. It was not only the lab theory. In my recent book, I discuss how signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration were fired or disciplined by their schools or associations for questioning COVID-19 policies.
Some experts questioned the efficacy of surgical masks, the scientific support for the six-foot rule and the necessity of shutting down schools. The government has now admitted that many of these objections were valid and that it did not have hard science to support some of the policies. While other allies in the West did not shut down their schools, we never had any substantive debate due to the efforts of this alliance of academic, media and government figures.
Not only did millions die from the pandemic, but the United States is still struggling with the educational and mental health consequences of shutting down all our public schools. That is the true cost of censorship when the government works with the media to stifle scientific debate and public disclosures.
Many still hope that Congress and the incoming Trump administration will conduct a long-needed investigation into the origins to allow for a more credible and open debate. That hope was increased by the nomination of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the organizers of the Great Barrington Declaration, to be the next head of the National Institutes of Health.
The suppression of the lab theory proves the ultimate fallacy of censorship. Throughout history, censorship has never succeeded. It has never stopped a single idea or a movement. It has a perfect failure rate. Ideas, like water, have a way of finding their way out in time.
Yet, as the last few years have shown, it does succeed in imposing costs on those with dissenting views. For years, figures like Bhattacharya (who was recently awarded the prestigious Intellectual Freedom Award by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters) were hounded and marginalized.
Others opposed Bhattacharya’s right to offer his scientific views, even under oath. For example, in one hearing, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) expressed disgust that Bhattacharya was even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”
Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik decried an event associated with Bhattacharya, writing that “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford University allowed dissenting scientists to speak at a scientific forum. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.”
One of the saddest aspects of this story is that many of these figures in government, academia and the media were not necessarily trying to shield China. Some were motivated by their investment in the narrative while others were drawn by the political and personal benefits that came from joining the mob against a minority of scientists.
We have paid too high a cost to simply shrug with the media and walk away. It is a question not only of whether China is responsible for millions of deaths but of whether our own government effectively helped conceal its culpability.
Make him take his own “SAFE AND EFFECTIVE” shots every day. Prove they are not harmful and do not kill. I have a daughter who got cancer and died 15 weeks after taking his “safe and effective” booster. May he spend eternity in HELL. Give to him what he gave to others. And no more 15 MIL in protective service from our govt.
Don’t believe that Covid killed more than 1.2 million Americans any more than 81 million people voted for Biden.
They’ve successfully stuck us on a false debate for which the underlying assumption—that there was a deadly, spreading, novel virus (instead of that they killed hundreds of thousands of Americans to fake such)—is what they want to psyop us into accepting. Turley going along with it here.
My Democrat Dad demanded to know why I refused to get the Covid shot. I answered because I didn’t trust the government is why. He treated me like a pariah.
One of the the first mention of Lab leak theory (check out date)
Libs on Old twitter slammed him as a fringe nut at the time
Video
February 16, 2020: Senator Cotton talks about the China cover up and Wuhan lab for the first time
https://rumble.com/vilkpb-february-16-2020-senator-tom-cotton-talks-about-the-chinese-cover-up-and-wu.html
Xiden and Fauci should be cellmates with a life sentence in a cold, dark, rat and insect infested prison with moldy bread shoved under the barless iron door.
Sudden Deaths of Vaxxed Athletes, Students, Pilots, Military, but Why No Politicians?
Members of the California Assembly and Senate were exempted from vaxx mandates – so was Congress and Biden’s Executive Branch...
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4217476/posts
We won!
We won!
We won!
FTA——This week, the Wall Street Journal released an alarming report on how the Biden administration may have suppressed dissenting views supporting the lab theory on the origin of the COVID-19 virus.
Not only were the FBI and its top experts excluded from a critical briefing of Biden, but government scientists were reportedly warned that they were “off the reservation” in supporting the lab theory.
The chilling suggestion is that, despite the virus ultimately killing more than 1.2 million Americans and over 7 million people worldwide, there was still an overriding interest by Biden to downplay Chinese responsibility for the pandemic.
The State Department’s controversial Global Engagement Center (GEC) shut down this week after congressional lawmakers nixed reauthorizing the agency in spending legislation to keep the government open.
“The Global Engagement Center closed on December 23, 2024,” read a message on the agency’s website.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4286615/posts
Sod off troll.
Read the studies.
The mRNA shots were and are bioweapons.
“I didn’t trust the government is why”
Heard that, early on when a motorcyclist and a gunshot victim “died of covid” along with no ‘flu’ to speak of and a rushed trial-less ‘mRNA’ (not a vaccine although the gummit and the MSM said so) we also endured this mask crap if you wanted to keep your job.
I believe it was intentionally leaked from the lab to undermine Trump and the 2020 election.
My own sister, at 81 yrs old, was at the head of the line every time they released a new version of vaccine. And if you didn’t have the vaccination you were not to visit her in her home. I believe in 2021 I met her in a grocery store parking lot because she had something for me. 3 yrs later and I haven’t been to her house but I have met her in parking lots two more times so she can give me something she wants me to have.
And now they’re trotting out the “bird flu” just in time for Trump’s second term.
So predictable.
Sir. Did you even read my post?
It had nothing to do with the so-called “vaccines”.
And who are you calling a troll? I’ve been here around even longer than you. And you’re an old-timer.
And lastly. “Sod off” Goodness gracious, what a way to talk. And so early in the morning!
404 coffee not found errors, I DID misread your post.
Apologies.
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