COVID Deception: Sen. Rand Paul's Book charges Fauci and others with funding dangerous research and then covering it up.

Remember when Sen. Rand Paul accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of funding China’s Wuhan virus lab?

The media loved it. Vanity Fair smirked, “Fauci Once Again Forced to Basically Call Rand Paul a Sniveling Moron.”

But now the magazine has changed its tune, admitting, “In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan … Paul might have been onto something.”

Then what about question two: Did COVID-19 occur because of a leak from that lab?

When Paul confronted Fauci, saying, “The evidence is pointing that it came from the lab!” Fauci replied, “I totally resent the lie that you are now propagating.”

Was Paul lying? What’s the truth?

The media told us COVID came from an animal, possibly a bat.

But in my new video, Paul points out there were “reports of 80,000 animals being tested. No animals with it.”

Now he’s released a book, “Deception: The Great Covid Cover-Up,” that charges Fauci and others with funding dangerous research and then covering it up.

“Three people in the Wuhan lab got sick with a virus of unknown origin in November of 2019,” says Paul. The Wuhan lab is 1,000 kilometers away from where bats live.

Today the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Energy and others agree with Rand Paul. They believe COVID most likely came from a lab.

I ask Paul, “COVID came from evil Chinese scientists, in a lab, funded by America?”

“America funded it,” he replies, “maybe not done with evil intentions. It was done with the misguided notion that ‘gain of function’ research was safe.”

Gain of function research includes making viruses stronger.

The purpose is to anticipate what might happen in nature and come up with vaccines in advance. So I push back at Paul, “They’re trying to find ways to stop diseases!”

He replies, “Many scientists have now looked at this and said, ‘We’ve been doing this gain of function research for quite a while.’ The likelihood that you create something that creates a vaccine that’s going to help anybody is pretty slim to none.”

Paul points out that Fauci supported “gain of function” research.

“He said in 2012, even if a pandemic occurs … the knowledge is worth it.” Fauci did write: “The benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks.”

Paul answers: “Well, that’s a judgment call. There’s probably 16 million families around the world who might disagree with that.”

Fauci and the National Institutes of Health didn’t give money directly to the Chinese lab. They gave it to a nonprofit, EcoHealth Alliance. The group works to protect people from infectious diseases.

“They were able to accumulate maybe over $100 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars, and a lot of it was funneled to Wuhan,” says Paul.

EcoHealth Alliance is run by zoologist Peter Daszak. Before the pandemic, Daszak bragged about combining coronaviruses in Wuhan.

Once COVID broke out, Daszak became less eager to talk about these experiments. He won’t talk to me.

“Peter Daszak has refused to reveal his communications with the Wuhan lab,” complains Paul. “I do think that ultimately there is a great deal of culpability on his part … They squelched all dissent and said, ‘You’re a conspiracy theorist if you’re saying this (came from a lab),’ but they didn’t reveal that they had a monetary self-incentive to cover this up,” says Paul.

“The media is weirdly un-curious about this,” I say to Paul.

“We have a disease that killed maybe 16 million people,” Paul responds. “And they’re not curious as to how we got it?”

Also, Our NIH still funds gain of function research, Paul says.

“This is a risk to civilization. We could wind up with a virus … that leaks out of a lab and kills half of the planet,” Paul warns.

Paul’s book reveals much more about Fauci and EcoHealth Alliance. I will cover more of that in this column in a few weeks.

Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.”

Apparently some here are unfamiliar with Tony Fauci’s record perhaps because they weren't alive during the time of AIDS.

He is a homicidal maniac with a lot of degrees and a white coat which qualifies him to be slobbered over like a demigod.

He killed 10’s of thousands with no repercussions.

“What's worse is that in the late 1970s we discovered that a cheap, off-patent two-drug antibiotic cocktail known as Bactrim prevented PCP, a nasty and very deadly pneumonia, in children undergoing cancer treatment for leukemia. People with AIDS often got PCP as well; it is an opportunistic infection that almost-never causes disease in immune-competent individuals, but among those who are being treated for cancer and thus severely immune-suppressed it often did, and frequently killed them.

Anthony Fauci argued vehemently that there was insufficient safety data to recommend the use of Bactrim by AIDS patients as a prophylaxis to prevent PCP, even though they were getting the disease and dying by the thousands. Whether this was linked to his vehement promotion of AZT is, of course, unknown — but reasonable to assume. What is known is that his advocacy against the use of said drug, which we knew worked and had saved countless leukemia patients from a nasty, choking death, resulted in 30,000 AIDS patients in American alone being shoved in the hole before the decision to bar its use in said people was overturned.”

https://market-ticker.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=243640#discuss

Okay. It’s been a while since I saw it and I am relying on memory here.

What made the report invalid was that it was based on opinion and circumstantial evidence. Yes, there is reason to distrust the Chinese (especially their government). Yes, there is an institute of virology in Wuhan. Yes, the outbreak originated in Wuhan. But there is zero evidence to tie these separate facts together and derive a conclusion that Chinese scientists either created or modified a virus to make a human pathogen.

As I recall, this was a report issued early in the pandemic. It was quickly supplanted by more reliable reports based on real evidence available at the time.

Human knowledge of virus/host interactions is simply not advanced enough to be able to design from scratch a deadly pandemic capable virus. So that hypothesis can be thrown out the window.

It is possible to modify existing viruses. In fact, scientists do this all the time. But to modify one to make it into a deadly pandemic virus is a far more technically challenging process than doing something like modifying an adenovirus to make a non-replicating vaccine virus. To do so gets back to the problem that our knowledge of human/virus interactions is still very incomplete. I do not want to talk about technical aspects of patching together a virus, but I will say that even if a virus is modified to become more pathogenic, it has to be tested to see if it really has the properties its modifiers are trying to give it.

Furthermore, let’s assume that someone created and tested a modified virus in order to create the perfect deadly pandemic capable pathogen. The fact that the virus was modified rather than originating through normal evolutionary processes would be immediately obvious to anyone who knows molecular biology and has access to bioinformatics tools. When a new virus is discovered, one of the first things that happens is that it is cultured and its genome is sequenced. Once sequenced, the genome is uploaded into a database, making it available to scientists all over the world. I’m retired now, but I can still access and analyze the sequence of the original Wuhan isolate of SARS-CoV-2. Using various analytical bioinformatics tools, we can analyze the virus for signs of modification. Even here in my home, I have analyzed the sequence of the Wuhan isolate and found no trace of genetic engineering. Other scientists have access to far more advanced tools than I do and they, too, have found no evidence of genetic tampering. The fact that thousands upon thousands of scientists have examined this virus and concluded that it is a natural zoonotic pathogen is pretty conclusive evidence.

And the fact remains that the epicenter of the pandemic is the Huanan seafood market, which by now has been closed and extensively analyzed for forensic evidence. All of the evidence points towards the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into humans from an animal source (probably bats).

So, with evidence of the natural origin of the virus from animals and lack of any evidence of tampering, there is absolutely no reason to take seriously a low-confidence report written by people who are not infectious disease scientists. We can safely ignore it as irrelevant.

I don’t think that even Rand Paul himself accuses Fauci of wanting to develop a bio weapon to wipe out humanity.

Rand Paul may not have said it, but it is an idea I have seen expressed. I do read and comment on other forums.

Secondly, the ORIGINAL strain of the virus was deadly enough to cause worry, especially its morbidity on the sick and elderly. However, subsequent variants have been shown to be progressively weaker as the virus cannot evolve to kill its host if it is to mutate to survive.

I am not at all certain that the lower fatality rate of the virus (~1%) now as compared to when it first emerged (~7%) is due at all to the evolution of the virus. Since it emerged, it became the subject of many different lines of research.

No one knew how to treat Covid patients at first, but thanks to a lot of studies, we now have more effective treatment protocols. We also have effective antiviral treatments that were not available early on. Once there were survivors, antibodies could be extracted from their blood to treat new patients, and I think monoclonal antibody treatments are now available.

When the Covid vaccines were first introduced, they were prioritized to the group of patients most at risk, the elderly, such that there is a very high proportion of vaccinated elderly people. Since the group at most risk of dying from Covid is now protected, the overall death rate decreased. In addition, vaccinated people are less likely to experience severe illness or to die, which also lowers the overall death rate.

As far as the virus itself, I don't think its fatality rate would have changed much at all if we could not have developed treatment protocols, antivirals, and vaccines. It still infects cells by attaching to the ACE2 receptor, and still uses a furin-mediated pathway to cross the cell membrane into the cytosol. It continues to evolve in order to evade our immune system, mostly by changing epitopes on the spike protein to avoid the antibodies that bind those epitopes.

For a virus, it does not matter if the host survives or dies. Those are both dead ends for the virus, so the driving force behind its survival is its ability to infect a new host before host immunity kills it or the host dies. In general, viruses are most successful when they cause a mild enough disease where the host remains capable of performing (albeit in a limited fashion) ordinary activities like socializing with other people. SARS-CoV-2 is successful because even though it is deadly, most people who are infected feel well enough to be able to socialize while sick. And they are contagious before symptoms appear, which is another survival mechanism for the virus.

The argument is and always has been the NECESSITY of the lockdowns (especially among the young ) and the necessity of coercing people to take the vaccines under threat of losing their livelihood.

The success of the lockdowns is shown in the evidence. During the first year of the pandemic when there were widespread lockdowns, people were working from home, and stores were delivering merchandise curbside, there were 350,831 deaths directly caused by Covid. (There was a total of 528,891 excess deaths, mostly related to the fact that medical resources were consumed with Covid patient care, leaving people with other conditions like heart disease with inadequate treatment.)

In 2021, the second year of the pandemic, we had a new president who did not take Covid seriously and began to lift quarantine and masking restrictions. Between lifting the mandates and the fact that vaccine was only available to the most at-risk groups until late in 2021, Covid deaths jumped to 416,893. In 2022, when vaccines were available to everyone and over 80% of the population received at least one dose, deaths dropped to 244,986. (I have kept a spreadsheet of Covid cases and death data since March 2020.) This is a rough evaluation; there are epidemiologists who have gone to the trouble of comparing Covid rates and deaths in counties where mandates were enforced versus counties were they were not and found higher rates in counties that did not enforce the mandates. (Sorry, no reference to that study, but I could probably find it if I spend some time looking.)

As far as requiring people to get vaccinated or get fired, I really have no issue with that. People whose jobs require extensive contact with the public are most at risk of catching and spreading communicable diseases. Kids in school are incubators of disease and transmit diseases quite readily due to their lack of hygiene. I had to get a measles vaccine before attending college, hepatitis A and B vaccines because I worked with human cells in the lab, and Japanese encephalitis and smallpox vaccines before I could go to Korea. Yes, smallpox has been eradicated. The smallpox vaccine protects against closely related pox viruses, so is still used sometimes. Vaccine mandates play a very important role in public health.

Ok, let’s look at the Science Direct paper you presented in post 12 above.

Here is your link:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935122010295?via%3Dihub

[Quote copied]

Even if several early market outbreak cases may turn out to be explained by human-to-human transmission, we note that it remains unclear how the first person at the Huanan market was contaminated and whether the market was a site of animal-to-human contamination….

“ Epidemiological data are consistent with a single point of introduction of the virus at the market, which is compatible with a zoonotic origin, but *does not preclude other possibilities* such as a vendor infected outside of the market. Despite extensive sampling (Table S1), *no infected animal has been found at the market.* “

“ Even if several early market outbreak cases may turn out to be explained by human-to-human transmission, we note that it remains unclear how the first person at the Huanan market was contaminated and whether the market was a site of animal-to-human contamination. ”

Speaking about uncertainty, all the paper says is it most likely ( but not certain) that the original infection came from an animal to a human but they aren’t certain. They also concluded that they have not detected an infected animal.

The WIV as you said is about 12 miles away from the market. Could it not be possible that someone from the institute visited the market and was the original source of infection? If so, could it not be possible that the source of the virus was the lab itself?

See here for instance :

https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038

Evidence supporting the lab-leak theory is there, according to Nicholas Wade, a longtime science writer who has worked for Science magazine and the New York Times. Over at Medium ( the link above ), Wade weighs the evidence of both possibilities: the first being that COVID-19 naturally emerged from an animal species, the second that it leaked from the Wuhan Virology Lab.

Wade makes a few points that demand consideration. The first is that the bats that Chinese officials claimed to be the source of SARS-CoV-2 have yet to be discovered, even after an intensive search by authorities that included the testing of 80,000 animals. There is also no evidence that the coronavirus jumped from bats to people through an intermediary host, as SARS1 did in 2002 (a bat virus spread first to civets and then to people). Surely, if bats were the original source of COVID-19, scientists could identify the intermediary host through which it was spread. They’ve had no such luck.

Wade also points out a few other holes in the Chinese government’s story. For example, why, if COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan wet market, were there earlier cases of the coronavirus with no link to the wet market? And why should a naturally spread epidemic break out in Wuhan and (at first) nowhere else?

This is where the lab-leak theory starts to make more sense. It is no secret that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was studying coronaviruses, thanks in large part to funding by U.S. agencies, such as our very own National Institutes of Health.

In fact, In 2018, two years before the pandemic broke out, U.S. State Department officials warned the federal government after touring Wuhan’s facilities that the lab lacked a good number of trained technicians and investigators needed to conduct research safely.

Also see here from the Wall Street Journal :

https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-wuhan-lab-fuels-debate-on-covid-19-origin-11621796228

[Quote copied]

Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory.

The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said that several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of coronaviruses and other pathogens, became sick in autumn 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”

Dr. Shi Zhengli, the head of the coronavirus research project, even admitted herself in an interview with Science magazine that much of her work was conducted at a lower safety level than was required.

I therefore cannot dismiss the possibility that:

Wuhan scientists were specifically creating novel coronaviruses “with the highest possible infectivity for human cells,”

It could be that this research wasn’t being conducted maliciously, as far as we know. Oftentimes, scientists will create and test chimeric viruses to learn how they attack human cell cultures and how they “spill over” from animal species to humans.

Here’s the problem:

The Wuhan Institute hasn’t shared raw data, safety logs and lab records on its extensive work with coronaviruses in bats, which many consider the most likely source of the virus.

Therefore, I am not as confident or certain as you that the source of this virus did not come from the lab. Whether it was man-made or not, is something that I cannot with certainty conclude entirely.

The title of this thread is about Rand Paul, himself a doctor. He is not responsible for what other people might say and think.

I agree, he is not responsible for what others say.

However, he is doing nothing to stem the flow of antivax/antiscience conspiracies and rhetoric. Someone with his educational background--he holds an MD degree and specialized in ophthalmology) should know better. On the contrary, he keeps adding fuel to the conspiracy fire. I suspect that he has put his medical background aside in order to help spread misinformation because of political calculations. Put simply, he has calculated that the way to win conservatives to his side is by fostering the conspiracy theories that are circulating in conservative media and forums.

In general, the targeting of conservatives with misinformation has been a very negative development of the pandemic. Not only does it fill people's heads with misinformation that can injure or kill them, it helps to cement the idea that conservatives are a bunch of crackpots. Those spreading the misinformation have very successfully tied us to it in the minds of the general population. For example, run-of-the-mill liberals not only blame Trump for spreading Covid misinformation, but for creating the misinformation. Never mind that Trump does not have the scientific background to even begin to create antivax/antiscience rhetoric. The fact that he and conservatives in general are blamed for the rise of Covid misinformation is, I'm afraid, deeply damaging to the conservative movement.

Early on in the pandemic, I saw FR being used as a dumping ground for misinformation. I suspect that Russian troll farms were, in fact, using FR as a conduit to spread misinformation among conservatives. I tried to fight it. I tried to inform people about the science. One poster in particular would post long screeds daily about how Covid is "just a flu" and we shouldn't be worried about it, but whenever I would rebut his claims, he never replied. I suspect that he was a Russian troll. I stopped fighting the misinformation around April or May 2020, when I realized that people were so convinced by it that they would rather hold on to it than see Trump be reelected. Unfortunately, the election result turned out the way I thought it would.

I've returned to take up the fight against misinformation again because I'm afraid that conservatism will not have a future as long as we can be painted as antiscience antivax kooks. I do not want to live in the socialist dictatorship that has, by all evidence, just about taken over. In just two years of Biden, we have lost too much.

Here in the USA, lockdowns were not implemented uniformly with some states like Florida more lax than others ( they locked down for 29 days in April 2020, but that was it). Florida’s death rates were not higher than stricter lockdown states like NY or NJ.

Here is an interactive table containing the statistics about deaths and cases in the US: Worldometer - United States.

Florida is at #3 for total number of deaths, right after California and Texas. Absolute numbers aren't very helpful, though--a better parameter is incidence per million population, since this normalizes the data among the states. In terms of cases per million population, Florida sits at #8. In deaths per million population, Florida comes in at #10. Neither of these are very good statistics.

Also, while the state of Florida might have dropped certain statewide mandates early on, there were still mandates in place. In 2021, we went to Universal Studios twice. At the time, Universal Studios required guests to wear face masks. Whenever we go to Orlando, we also visit the Kennedy Space Center--which also enforced mask use.

Now I will compare the Florida statistics to the statistics of the two states with higher total deaths than Florida.

Texas stands at #34 in cases per million, and #33 in deaths per million. This isn't too bad, despite Governor Abbott's early decision to lift mandates. What happened in Texas is that the Texas department of health put up billboards in English and Spanish all over encouraging people to get vaccinated. The state of Texas put up a vaccine-finder website to help people locate available vaccines. The city of San Antonio organized massive vaccine drives at the Alamodome where tens of thousands of people got vaccinated in a fairly short period of time. The public education effort is still going on in Texas.

California implemented stricter mandates. It comes in at #30 in cases per million and #41 in terms of deaths per million. I do not know how California went about distributing vaccines. Given that the cases are higher and deaths are lower in California vs. in Texas, I surmise that the population of California had a higher vaccine uptake.

These statistics indicate that the approaches in California and Texas are a lot more successful at saving lives than Florida's approach.

RE: I agree, he is not responsible for what others say.

Well, then there’s no reason to bring up what others say that Rand Paul did not. He is NOT responsible for people misquoting or misunderstanding him.

RE: However, he is doing nothing to stem the flow of antivax/antiscience conspiracies and rhetoric. Someone with his educational background—he holds an MD degree and specialized in ophthalmology) should know better. On the contrary, he keeps adding fuel to the conspiracy fire.

Hang on. I’m not sure Rand Paul is a conspiracy theorist when it comes to the Covid vaccine. He is again, responsible ONLY for what he says, not for what others are saying he says.

More than anything else, Senator Paul is a LIBERTARIAN and against government interference in our individual lives. My read on his vaccine stance are as follows:

* Vaccine Hesitancy: Senator Paul has expressed concerns about COVID-19 vaccine mandates and has generally advocated for individual choice and personal freedom. He has questioned the need for vaccine mandates and often emphasized the importance of personal medical autonomy. He cites the cases of Joe and Jill Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, etc. Who were ALL vaccinated and boosted more than once, but who were ALL infected anyway despite these as reasons to stop forcing people to take the shot and coerce them at the risk of losing their livelihood. What’s the point of forcing people to vaccinate when it does not prevent infection ( and of course, transmission) anyway?

* Skepticism About Vaccine Mandates: Senator Paul has been critical of vaccine mandates imposed by governments and private entities. He has argued that vaccine mandates infringe on personal liberties and that individuals should have the right to make their own healthcare decisions.

He also cites the fact that these current Covid vaccines have not been thoroughly evaluated.

For instance, he shows that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was suspended in Europe in April 2021 due to concerns about a rare blood clot side effect. However, it was reinstated a month later. But then in December of the same year, the EMA recommended that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine be used only as a second dose for people who have already received a different COVID-19 vaccine. This recommendation was made due to concerns about the risk of blood clots in people who received the Johnson and Johnson vaccine as their first dose.

He also cites news that the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine was suspended in Sweden, Norway, and Finland in October 2021 for people under 30 due to concerns about a rare side effect called myocarditis. The Moderna vaccine was reinstated in Sweden and Finland in November 2021 for people under 30, but it is still suspended in Norway. See here:

https://www.fdanews.com/articles/204750-norway-sweden-suspend-moderna-covid-19-vaccine-for-young-adults-over-side-effects

and here:

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2477#:~:text=Sweden%2C%20Norway%2C%20and%20Finland%20suspended,vaccine%20as%20their%20second%20dose.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health continues to monitor the data and has not yet decided when to reinstate the vaccine.

With such an on and off record, it isn’t a good idea by his lights to FORCE people into vaccinating until safety issues of these mRNA vaccines have been throughly researched like other traditional vaccines have been.

He cites the examples of The hepatitis B vaccine, which was tested for about 8 years before being approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981. The vaccine was tested in a variety of clinical trials, including trials in infants, children, adults, and people with chronic liver disease. The trials showed that the vaccine was safe and effective in preventing hepatitis B infection.

The hepatitis A vaccine was approved by the FDA in 1995. It was tested for about 10 years before being approved. The trials showed that the vaccine was safe and effective in preventing hepatitis A infection in children and adults.

He wants SIMILAR time frames for testing these Covid vaccines.

* Promoting Vaccination: While expressing concerns about mandates, Senator Paul has also encouraged people, especially the elderly and those with serious conditions to get vaccinated against COVID-19. He has noted that he received the vaccine himself and believes in the importance of vaccines for public health.

It is NOT fair to call him a promoter of conspiracy theories.

RE: My goodness, this term “gain of function” is thrown around so much by people who have no idea what it even means.

OK, let’s understand what it means. Gain of function research, often abbreviated as GoF research, refers to scientific experiments or studies that are designed to ENHANCE the biological functions of microorganisms, typically viruses or bacteria.

The primary goal of this research is to understand how pathogens can become more infectious, transmissible, or virulent. Gain of function research can involve MODIFYING THE GENETIC MATERIAL of these microorganisms to investigate their potential for adaptation and evolution.

Let’s be clear about one thing that Rand Paul is saying : DR. FAUCI HAS and STILL SUPPORTS GAIN OF FUNCTION RESEARCH.

Whether it should be done or not is something that is debateable. Whether the benefits outweigh the potential risk is also debateable.

Whether Fauci supported it in the past and still wants it to continue is NOT debateable. He DOES support it.

It is important to note that Fauci’s support for gain-of-function research is NOT universal. Some scientists believe that this type of research is too risky and that it could lead to the creation of new and dangerous viruses. However, Fauci remains a strong supporter of gain-of-function research. Rand Paul is NOT wrong in this regard.

The only problem I have with that is the mRNA Covid vaccines were RUSHED, and side effects have not be thoroughly tested like other vaccines.

They were not rushed. The technology has been in development since the 1990s. Before the pandemic, prototype mRNA vaccines against Zika, Ebola, and influenza were developed and tested in animal models. Animal testing is a precursor to human testing.

As far as the safety profile of mRNA vaccines, it is similar to the safety profile of other vaccines. The side effects and adverse effects are similar to those experienced when taking other vaccines. Since all side and adverse effects following vaccination are mediated by the immune system (the vaccine actually doesn't do anything), it is unsurprising that the safety profile is similar.

The FDA is unbelievably stringent about drug safety. They require a ton of clinical testing and data analysis before they will consider approving a drug for market use. In the case of the Covid vaccines, President Trump's Operation Warp Speed initiative allowed certain red-tape blockades to be lifted. This means that clinical trials which previously had to be run sequentially could be run in parallel. Running the trials concurrently saved a lot of time. Each trial still had to be analyzed and the drugs still had to meet FDA safety criteria before the FDA would grant either the EUA or the full market approval.

I'm linking to the FDA page on the Pfizer vaccine: Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine. Contained in the links on that page are some extensive detailed documents describing the data that the FDA considered and the rationale for the FDA's decision to approve the Pfizer vaccine for market use. There is no indication that the FDA or Pfizer took any shortcuts with testing and analyzing this drug.

I the policy also ignores NATURALLY ACQUIRED IMMUNITY, which millions of unvaccinated people have acquired.

All immunity is naturally acquired. I think you are trying to refer to disease-induced immunity as opposed to vaccine-induced immunity.

The problem with disease-induced immunity is that it is a very dangerous method of provoking an immune response. Sure, millions of people have achieved short-term immunity as a result of catching Covid (immunity against coronaviruses typically lasts for a few months). But--not all Covid survivors get protective immunity as a result of infection. Some of them become immune to virus proteins other than the spike protein, meaning they have no protection against infection. And since the Covid virus can severely damage lymph nodes, they might not have an adaptive immune response at all.

Furthermore, nearly seven million people have now died from Covid. And millions more have experienced long-term health impairments as a result of Covid. That disease-induced immunity didn't work out so well for them. This raises the question, of course, of why you would be so adamant about becoming immune to Covid when your method of becoming immune is to catch it. What is the use of immunity, then?

It also ignores the fact that the vaccines HAVE NOT PREVENTED infection. How many times, for instance, have both Joe and Jill Biden been vaccinated and boosted a yet, STILL got Covid?

No vaccine can prevent 100% of infections in 100% of recipients. There are always breakthrough infections. Since the vaccine is a training aid for the immune system that actually does all the work, how much protection a person has after vaccination is directly related to how well their immune system works. And there are a lot of factors that can impact immune system function.

--As a person ages, their immune system function declines in a process called "senescence." This starts around age 65 and gets worse with increasing age.

--A person who has cancer might have impaired immune function as a result of either the cancer or the treatment.

--Organ recipients take immune suppressants which basically shut down their immune system. They have to depend on T-cells, B-cells, and antibodies already in their blood prior to taking the immune suppressants, because they aren't making any more.

--Some people are born with immune system impairments that cause them not to respond to vaccines. Their only protection against infectious disease is to not be exposed, ever.

Neither the Covid nor any other vaccine can restore immune system function. This is not what vaccines do.

As for the protection provided by Covid vaccines, I will share a personal anecdote. My husband, son, and I took a cruise a while back. We had to provide proof of full vaccination as well as evidence of a negative Covid test within 24 hours prior to boarding. We all stayed in the same cabin. The day before the cruise ended, we had to take another Covid test. Hubby and I were negative, but son--who vapes and had been around someone who was quite symptomatic on the smoking deck--came up positive. We were confined to our cabin until all of the other passengers had disembarked and ship personnel escorted us off the ship and turned us over to Canadian border patrol agents. Those agents did not look at our passports or have us go through any sort of customs, meaning that we technically entered Canada illegally. The border patrol arranged for a taxi to take us to a hotel for quarantine, where we all stayed in the same room. We ended up staying there for a week because even though Canada required a two-week quarantine, our home state of Texas only required a one week quarantine (the TX department of health called and informed my son of this fact). We ended up renting a car and driving across the border so that we could get a flight back home. The American border patrol agent had a lot more questions for us than their Canadian counterparts did.

During this time, in which we spent 8 days cooped up in the same room as a diagnosed and symptomatic Covid patient, my husband and I never caught Covid. And the disease my son had was mild, causing only a few days of sniffles.

The purpose of Covid vaccines (like all vaccines) is to train your immune system so that it will go into fighting mode immediately upon exposure to the pathogen. If this does not prevent an infection, it can kill the infection before you even know you were exposed. Or you might still get a very mild short-lasting infection, since your immune system had a head start in fighting it. Vaccination reduces the likelihood of serious disease, hospitalization, and death. It works.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.