Weekly Round Up - Stories you might have missed!
Weekly Round Up - Stories you might have missed!
California Expands Travel Ban List Over Gender Ideology to Half the Country, Biden admin launches PERMANENT pandemic preparedness office, and more!
NEWS
California Expands Travel Ban List Over Gender Ideology to Half the Country
California has expanded its travel ban to three states that restricted transgender students from participating in school sports teams that don’t align with their biological sex.
State Attorney General Rob Bonta announced on July 14 that California will restrict state-funded travel to Missouri, Nebraska, and Wyoming because of recently passed legislation in those states, bringing the total number of ban-affected states to 26.
Mr. Bonta stated in a press release that legislation targeting the transgender community is part of a “concerning trend of discriminatory practices in states across the country, aiming to roll back hard-won protections.”
NEWS
'Serious Doubt' About COVID-19 Vaccine Safety After Forced Release of 15,000 Pages of Clinical Trial Data: Legal NGO
Conservative public interest advocacy group Defending the Republic (DTR) has obtained almost 15,000 pages of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial data, claiming the data show an "utter lack of thoroughness" of the trials and calls the vaccine's safety into "serious doubt."
As a result of successful Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the group recently announced it had obtained—and is releasing—nearly 15,000 pages of documents relating to testing and adverse events associated with "Spikevax," Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine.
NEWS
‘Healthy Vaccinee Bias’ May Have Led to Inflated Efficacy Claims of Pfizer’s COVID-19 Booster, Researchers Find
In a Letter to the Editor published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on July 20, epidemiologist Dr. Tracy Høeg, physician-scientist Dr. Vinay Prasad, and Dr. Ram Duriseti from Stanford School of Medicine stated that a 2021 Israeli study on Pfizer’s COVID-19 booster may have overestimated the vaccine’s effectiveness by concluding those who received a booster had 90 percent lower mortality due to COVID-19 than non-boosted participants. The group analyzed deaths attributed to COVID-19 in both the 2021 study and in a later statement by the same study authors to estimate mortality not associated with the virus based on a person’s vaccination status. The mortality unrelated to COVID-19 in the boosted group was compared to mortality unrelated to COVID-19 in the non-boosted group.
NEWS
EXCLUSIVE: CDC Changed Definition of Breakthrough COVID-19 After Emails About 'Vaccine Failure'
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) altered its definition of COVID-19 cases among the vaccinated, leading to a lower number of cases classified as a breakthrough, according to documents obtained by The Epoch Times.
In early 2021, the CDC defined post-vaccination cases as people who tested positive seven or more days after receipt of a primary vaccination series, according to one of the documents.
The definition was changed on Feb. 2, 2021, to include only cases detected at least 14 days after a primary series, another document shows.
"We have revised the case definition," Dr. Marc Fischer, head of the CDC's Vaccine Breakthrough Case Investigation Team, wrote to colleagues at the time.
NEWS
Texas Teacher and 3 Others Arrested for Child Sex Trafficking Ring
Four suspects, including a North Texas teacher, were arrested last week in connection with child sex trafficking in Dallas, Texas, according to authorities.
Gershon Caston, 38, who most recently taught in Duncanville, Texas, was arrested on July 20. He is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, compelling prostitution of a person under 18, and child sex trafficking, Dallas County Jail records showed.
Three others were also arrested, Dallas Police said in a news release.
Lamorris Hudspeth, 47, was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child and is being held on a $250,000 bond, Dallas County Jail records showed on July 24.
NEWS
Children's hospital hosts drag queen story hour to promote 'acceptance, inclusion and diversity' for sick kids in Ontario
In a video posted by the hospital, the two were seen reading from the book ’Twas The Night Before Pride.
The Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre in Ontario held a Drag Storytime open to its young patients, their families, and staff members late last week.
The hospital announced on Thursday that to kick off London, Ontario’s Pride Week, the hospital partnered with the Rainbow Optimist Club to bring in drag queens Mz. Affra-Tighty and Lavender Skyes to read to patients under their care.
"They spent the morning reading books and singing songs that promoted acceptance, inclusion, and diversity," the hospital said.
In a video posted by the hospital, the two were seen reading from the book ’Twas The Night Before Pride and singing "If you’re a drag queen and you know it..."
"I like the performance of the Drag Storytime because of the interaction, the clients, the children, passersby. Sometimes you get a really interesting look from someone, and they're curious as to what's going on. And then they come in, and they end up enjoying it with us," said Mz. Affra-Tighty.
NEWS
BREAKING: Biden admin launches PERMANENT pandemic preparedness office
President Joe Biden has created a permanent office for pandemic response. Called the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, the new office within the executive branch replaces the Covid-19 response team that Biden ushered in during his first days in the White House.
This new office will ensure that the Biden administration can continue to implement so-called pandemic mitigation strategies for any new communicable disease that comes down the pike.
NEWS
Subclinical Heart Damage More Prevalent Than Thought After Moderna Vaccination: Study
Damage to the heart is more common than thought after receipt of Moderna’s COVID-19 booster, a new study indicates.
One in 35 health care workers at a Swiss hospital had signs of heart injury associated with the vaccine, mRNA-1273, researchers found.
“mRNA-1273 booster vaccination-associated elevation of markers of myocardial injury occurred in about one out of 35 persons (2.8%), a greater incidence than estimated in meta-analyses of hospitalized cases with myocarditis (estimated incidence 0.0035%) after the second vaccination,” the researchers wrote in the paper, published by the European Journal of Heart Failure.
In a generally healthy population, the level would be about 1 percent, the researchers said.
NEWS
LGBTQ-centric middle school to open in Phoenix
An LGBTQ-centric middle school is set to open in the state of Arizona to offer students an alternative education centered around LGBTQ+ history and curriculum. This comes after the Arizona state legislature passed Bill 2853, otherwise known as "school choice" last year, which grants parents the decision on where to send their child to school through taxpayer-funded scholarship grants, or education vouchers.
Through Arizona's education vouchers, middle schoolers will be able to enroll at the Queer Blended Learning Center in August located in downtown Phoenix at an LGBTQ+ youth nonprofit called one∙n∙ten, according to AZ Central.
NEWS
Chase debanks Florida health company, owner critical of Covid policies, offers no reason
Mercola, an osteopathic physician by training, sells a variety of holistic medicine and specialty natural health products.
The owner of a Florida-based natural health company and his top employees have had their bank accounts terminated by JPMorgan Chase. While the financial institution failed to provide justification for its decision, some believe it could have been politically motivated.
Dr. Joseph Mercola, owner and founder of Natural Health Partners, LLC and its subsidiary, Mercola Health Resources, has been a vocal critic of the official narrative surrounding Covid-19 and vaccines, pushing on numerous occasions claims that have garnered the attention and ire of scientists and the Food and Drug Administration.
STUDY
Sex-specific differences in myocardial injury incidence after COVID-19 mRNA-1273 Booster Vaccination
New Peer-Reviewed Study Finds mRNA-1273 Vaccine-Associated Myocardial Injury is ‘More Common Than Previously Thought’
Among Boosted Hospital Employees:
- 5.1% Suffered Elevated Cardiac Troponin Levels
- 2.8% Suffered Vaccine-Associated Myocardial Injury
mRNA-1273 vaccine-associated myocardial injury was more common than previously thought, being mild and transient, and more frequent in women versus men. The possible protective role of IFN-λ1(IL-29) and GM-CSF warrant further studies.
NEWS
BREAKING: Chloe Cole in tears as she addresses mom of trans teen in Congress, tells her she reminds her of her own parents who were misled by doctors
"She is doing the best with what she has been given, and unfortunately, it's not much."
In a Thursday hearing before Congress, detransitioner Chloe Cole told the mother of an 18-year-old trans-identifying female on the witness panel that she doesn't hate her, and believes that "every parent deserves the utmost grace and guidance with how to help their child," but that she doesn't wish anyone to go through what she did.
In her testimony, licensed professional counselor Miriam Reynolds described the process her trans-identified child went through in receiving "gender-affirming treatment," starting at 11 years old. She advocated that the "Decision should be made with parents the child and the child's medical providers without government interference."
NEWS
Is it time to be worried about Covid-19 again?
Don’t call it a comeback — because it’s not, really — but Covid-19 appears to be in the midst of another summer uptick, a reminder that the virus that caused so much economic and social turmoil in the past few years has not been completely eliminated as a public health threat.
It’s not a surge. The waves the US experienced with the delta variant and omicron are unlikely to be repeated again, now that so many people have either been vaccinated or infected or both. But wastewater surveillance — which some experts regard as the best measure of Covid activity now that testing is so scattershot — indicates an increase in the virus’s prevalence. The concentration of Covid-19 in US wastewater has roughly doubled in the past month, according to Biobot Analytics. It has been the first notable upswing since last winter.
NEWS
COVID Vaccines Show 24 Times More Adverse Reactions Than Others
The latest report on adverse reactions to vaccines in Western Australia has revealed that COVID-19 vaccinations have 24 times the rate of adverse reactions in the state compared to all other vaccines.
According to the state’s vaccine safety surveillance report (pdf), COVID-19 vaccines showed that for every 100,000 COVID-19 vaccines administered, 264 adverse events following immunisations (AEFIs) were recorded.
For all other vaccinations, 11.1 AEFIs were recorded, making the COVID-19 vaccines 23.8 times more likely than non-COVID-19 vaccines to result in adverse events.
SHARE YOUR STORY
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT STORIES FROM THE LIVING ARCHIVE PROJECT
