I spent a couple hours researching Joe Biden's covid19 team and would describe them as corporate/govt establishment elites with a glazing of identity politics and a small cherry of academic legitimizers on top.
#1 - Eric Goosby: Leader in HIV/AIDS response. Board of Directors - Clinton Foundation. Averages about $25k a year in contributions from Gilead Sciences (HIV drug maker) between 2013-2018 (only years w/ data available.)
He appears to be the only person on the Clinton Foundation Board with any medical expertise, despite the foundation's many health-themed initiatives. (2 board members are Clinton's lawyers from when he received oral sex from a 22 year old employee.)
In 2016, a year when Goosby received $24,235 from Gilead, they hiked the price of their HIV drugs that were about to lose their patents and therefore have cheap generic versions made, pushing patients to their new drugs.
"AIDS activists argue Gilead knew of these differences, but deliberately delayed testing TAF in humans for several years in order to extend patent protection for as long as possible on the best-selling older drugs."
"Gilead already has been skewered over the cost of its very effective hepatitis C medicines. A US Senate investigation last winter claimed the company put profits ahead of patients"
#2 - Robert Rodriguez: UCSF emergency medicine professor. Covid hysteric: the work he did in Brownsville was "the hardest experience of my life...treating the sickest patients that I had ever seen in my career." Focused on identity-politics of c19.
Looks like Cameron County, where Rodriguez went, used a ton of ventilators...and has a high covid death rate. Sounds like Elmhurst in NYC.
Rodriguez was at "Brownsville's Valley Baptist Hospital...volunteering in one of four ICU's they've created for the pandemic."
"At Valley Baptist Medical Centers in Brownsville and Harlingen...there were people waiting in the emergency room hallways for treatment this week, said Dr. Jamil Madi, medical director of the ICU in Harlingen. The hospitals are nearly out of ventilators and are starting to consider older models and disaster ventilators that are less optimal for treating the virus, he said.
There’s nothing else other than COVID. … You treat COVID, you look at COVID, you see COVID, you smell COVID, you hear COVID. Everything’s COVID,” Madi said"
3 months earlier in Louisiana - hyperbaric therapy: "So far, each patient that's received treatment has seen positive results. “All six patients have responded very well to therapy, with some of them being discharged already,"
Valley Baptist has hyperbaric therapy. No mention of it being offered as treatment for covid19 to be found.
One more thing...the huge financial incentive for diagnosing patients as covid+ and using ventilators is very alluring for hospitals like Valley Baptist that have lots of poor patients. Appx $14k for respiratory patient, $40k for vent + 20% from the CARES act.
And for those indignant at the idea of widespread medical fraud/error, here's an example beyond the well-known studies showing widespread fraud/error.
"Medicare Administrative Contractors conducted prepayment reviews that resulted in the denial of more than 90 percent of claims for noninvasive pressure support ventilators, primarily for deficient clinical documentation...(because) suppliers could bill Medicare for the device as if it were being used as a ventilator, when use of a lower cost CPAP device or RAD is indicated."
Brownsville, the city where Rodriguez worked, is the least healthy city on this list of nearly 200 cities.
#3 - Loyce Pace : Global Health Council President Another identity politics person. See: her shirt. Colonizer is a racist term for white people, as seen in Black Panther. He's white, so he's a colonizer! Get it?
And notice the description for the Black Panther clip in the 2nd link. I guess they said they hate "British" people instead of white people at least...though common sense tells you what they really mean.
Loyce Pace's Global Health Council wiki page shows how much of a joke the organization is. It reads like an absolute public relations piece. Very few reliable sources corroborate any of what they say, and they have very few specifics in terms of impact. GHC partner: Eli Lilly. The same company Alex Azar price gouged insulin with.
Their crowning achievement seem to be this: 40 international organizations came together at the end of 2012 to pledge almost $300,000 over three years to establish a new Global Health Council. $300k over 3 years...& that's with big pharm (Eli Lilly) getting its foot in the door.
Other big pharma GHC partners: Merck (which they call a Contractor/Consulting Firm), Johnson and Johnson, Abbott. Keep sticking it to the man, you anti-colonial globalist you.
#4. Dr. Julie Morita - Executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation "where she oversees all programming, policy, research, and communications activities."
Robert built Johnson & Johnson "into the world's largest health products maker" including products such as their covid19 vaccine. "Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that asbestos lurked in its Baby Powder"
The foundation says its the largest health-focused philanthropy org w/ "$11 billion in assets, generating grants approaching $500 million a year" The main achievement in their wiki: "research on childhood obesity led the Philadelphia school system to ban soda vending machines" & this is supported by a dead link from an obscure source, & apparently can't be supported by searching on Google for the story. (It has now been removed.) There's also mention of a couple small grants...nothing near the billions they claim to be giving away.
Back to Julia. "Before joining RWJF, Dr. Morita helped lead the Chicago Department of Public Health for nearly two decades, first as a medical director, then as chief medical officer. In 2015, she was appointed to the department’s top position, commissioner she oversaw the public health needs of 2.7 million residents in the nation’s third largest city." She also worked at CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer "focused on vaccine-preventable diseases" So she isn't totally unqualified, but seems political/corrupt. Chicago is certainly known for its corruption.
#5 - Dr. Michael Osterholm "director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota" PhD in epidemiology. JRE guest in March. Lots of experience in govt at CDC, HHS, etc.
"Particularly outspoken on the lack of international preparedness for an influenza pandemic." Predicted “the next six to 12 weeks are going to be the darkest of the entire pandemic" on 10/18/20. "Wait for vaccine" before you spend time with family on Christmas.
20% herd immunity figure "the most amazing combination of pixie dust and pseudoscience I’ve ever seen,” Osterholm said. “It’s 50% to 70% at minimum.” NYT doesn't seem to think its such a crazy idea. “Mathematically, it’s certainly possible"-Carl Bergstrom.
From JRE: once China stops social distancing "its going to come back again." Before his prediction
https://youtu.be/E3URhJx0NSw?t=95… "the best guesstimate we have right now...this could to be at least 10 to 15 times worse than the worst seasonal flu year" At LEAST 10-15 worse. CDC on flu: "between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010" =600-900k deaths minimum. He later says 480k.
He continued: "we have an employee...she has a friend who lives in Milan, Italy, & works at a hospital there, she texted this to this employee of ours..an email from one of their physicians...he said 'I just got a very disturbing message from a cardiologist" = 4th hand anecdote.
"He says that they’re seen an alarming number of cases in the 40 something age range and these are horrible cases. So we need to stop thinking that this is only an old person’s disease. This is what’s going to unfold" So much BS, and only 4 minutes in.
"I see people walking around with masks on, wearing gloves. Is that nonsense?" Joe asks. "Largely, yes...Trying to stop influenza virus transmission is like try to stop the wind. We’ve never had anything successfully do that other than vaccine." He later reversed his opinion.
"This is not something that’s going to cure-up when it gets warm." - Joe
"If it does, it won’t be because there’s a model for it." - Osterholm #modelmyopia
2 other coronas "show distinct winter seasonality" https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7129396/…
At 1 hour in, Osterholm builds up his 'eery' prediction about future disease coming from China, listing a few obvious reasons it might (wet markets, large population), but not the most obvious one...the original SARS came from China. What a genius. *Goosebumps*
"A bug anywhere today can be a bug everywhere tomorrow." He sure is prone to fearmongering hyperbole for someone who thinks of themselves as a dispassionate spreader of truth and assuager of anxiety. I'm curious what other disasters he thinks "can" happen.
Osterholm says we are "years out" from a safe vaccine.
#6 - Celine Gounder NYU asst prof "infectious disease physician, internist, epidemiologist, filmmaker,& medical journalist." Her first job: HIV/TB research funded by the Gates Foundation.
Father "really wanted me to be the next Bill Gates."
Despite saying the opioid epidemic is "the" public health problem in the US, she has one tweet with the word "Purdue" in it and zero with "Sackler".
Other quotes: "I don’t think of myself as an investigative journalist. I think that’s really best left to people outside of the profession, because it does involve a certain confrontational, attacking sort of stance."
"Being able to change the way people think is really important to me."
#7 - Atul Gawande - Brigham & Women’s hospital professor of surgery. Former CEO "of healthcare venture Haven, owned by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase." Studied medical error.
1st step to fixing medical error epidemic: "seeing medical systems & processes as the critical source of most error..moving away from a culture of fear about admitting error and blame..severe financial pressures are forcing leaders to focus on short-term economic survival alone."
Atul seems like he was on a good path. Not many people have the courage to speak about huge issues in their own field. Maybe that's why he was picked by a few super-rich people in 2018 to become their non-profit's CEO and start to see their side of things.
Haven Healthcare: 1 of their 3 goals = rendering insurance benefits easier to understand. AKA making the status quo a bit more palatable. Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, & JPMorgan Chase wanted to "provide low-cost & high quality healthcare for their employees." THEIR employees.
Atul "will serve as chair of Haven's board of directors after leaving his role as CEO." He's in the big leagues now. I guess he passed their test.
Summing up Atul's PR role: we have some serious problems in US healthcare & we are doing our best to make marginal changes that won't upset the super-rich that I work for, & will delay riots/jailing elite crooks.
Its somewhat interesting that Atul works at the same Harvard (where hysteric leader Marc Lipsitch of the Jon Snow Memo works) hospital as Dr. Mehra, who ran the 2 fraudulent Lancet studies that smeared HCQ. Here they are having cocktails and 'speed dating'
#8 - Ezekiel Emanuel Former Obama health policy adviser. Longest wiki page by far. Rahm's brother. "Entered the administration w/ different views from President Obama on how to reform health care, but was said by colleagues to be working for the White House goals."
Supports universal healthcare. Seems to say a lot of the right things, but willing to work within a system of marginal change. Likely role for Biden: using progressive Zeke's bona fides to boost legitimacy, push dangerous vaccines onto other countries.
Zeke also has a Hollywood connection, which is helpful in mass deception: his brother, Ari, is a very powerful Hollywood public relations (aka propaganda) expert. Both of them are pushing for the vaccine to save us - Ari just wants it a bit sooner.
"If you look at...Italy, 8, 10, 12 weeks of really serious pain...you get the number of new cases a day down to one per 100,000." 25k cases the day he wrote this. #lockdownswork. "You can’t have a very high side-effect frequency." Emphasis on 'very'. Great vaccine salesman...
Zeke in 2014: "seventy-five. That’s how long I want to live: 75 years.
An argument that society and families—and you—will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly."
Holy cow...this is the same guy who is in favor of destroying our economy/way of life for sick 80 year olds to live a few more months. Insanity.
#9 - Rick Bright Former BARDA director. Immunologist, vaccine researcher. Recently interviewed by a screen embedded in a shower curtain. "Whistleblower" for telling the media Trump didn't take him seriously about covid19.
"Among the most explosive accusations: Bright’s complaint alleges he was pressured by HHS Secretary Alex Azar to allow the distribution of hydroxychloroquine" The horror! Imagine working so long to build up vaccines and then vitamins, sunlight, and cheap HCQ ruin the payday.
What an explosive accusation...off-label use of a drug that has existed since 1955. "In the United States, off-label use of central nervous system drugs contributes to 25%–80% of a drug's annual sales..."
"psychotropics are the most commonly prescribed for off-label purpose." Oh well, that only primarily impacts your brain, and brains aren't very complex. And these are largely going to kids, whereas covid mostly makes older people sick.
When I was about 13, I was at my drug dealer I mean psychiatrist and they noticed my foot moving. They asked if I did that often. I said I don't know. The result: gabapentin prescription. "FDA approved gabapentin in 1993... for partial seizures in adults with epilepsy...Its manufacturer actively promoted its use for conditions such as peripheral neuropathy, depression, low back pain, migraine headaches, & fibromyalgia...Annual sales revenue for gabapentin reached $2.72 billion in 2004, 6 most of it from off-label uses."
Giving newly developed drugs to kids for no real reason at all. Not a big problem. Giving a time-tested drug to adults for the PANTS-SHITTER PANDEMIC OF 2020. Huge problem. Hmm...
Bright was VP of Novavax global influenza programs/vaccine R&D. "In January 2020, Novavax announced development of a vaccine candidate" for c19 despite officials ignoring Rick's "request that he join the $10 billion Operation Warp Speed initiative to develop a COVID-19 vaccine"
According to NYT: In the "company’s 33-year history, it has never brought a vaccine to market." It still got "the largest award to date." "Novavax’s chief executive asked to speak with Rick" but Rick says he declined.
#10 - Luciana Borio - "Former assistant FDA commissioner" VP at In-Q-Tel, supporting CIA's tech abilities. Goldman Sachs consultant "infectious disease physician" specializing in bioterrorism.
"Virtually any U.S. entrepreneur, inventor or research scientist working on ways to analyze data has probably received a phone call from In-Q-Tel or at least been Googled by its staff" IQT sold "Keyhole, Inc, the CIA-funded satellite mapping software now known as Google Earth."
#11 - Vivek Murthy Co-chair, former surgeon general. Studied/worked at Brigham/Harvard, where Dr. Mehra and Atul Gawande work. Founded http://epernicus.com
Partnered with Elmo to teach kids about vaccines. E-cig critic.
He also has focused on healthy eating, physical activity, and loneliness, saying that loneliness in USA could be called an epidemic. Wrote book "Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World." He has been critical of social isolation from lockdowns.
While speaking to the gravity of covid19 isolation, "the damage it causes could be no less profound and long-lasting", he still starts off the article saying "As physicians, we understand: The unprecedented drop in human contact across the planet is our best chance to save lives"
"if this crisis can pull back the curtain on the deeper well of loneliness that existed before the pandemic, if it can remind us that weakening social ties make us all vulnerable...we might even emerge stronger and more connected than ever before."
I think this is about the most optimistic thing he could think to make himself feel better. There's no reason to think that giving up much of our money/power & getting hooked on screens will somehow make things better. Its not a silver lining, its a mirage & he should know better.
#12 - co-chair Marcella Nunez-Smith. Yale associate dean for health equity research. Residency at Brigham. Published "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Population-Level Covid-19 Mortality"
$200,000 study that is but the first step in developing a questionnaire that hopes to root out racism in medical treatment. They could have spent the money housing 20 poor minorities for a year instead of this bureaucratic bullshit that will go nowhere.
#13 - David Kessler. Former FDA commissioner. Another Harvard alum, also connected with UCSF (along with Goosby & Rodriguez). Lawyer, doctor. Wrote book on obesity's environmental factors. "On his watch, an FDA panel declared nicotine addictive." Whoops.