ICWA Weekly News 5-15-24
Sally Saxon, JD, presents COVID-era research to Cowlitz County Board of Health--one member says they already 'beat this horse to death'; and tune in May 16 to WHO Roundtable with Senator Ron Johnson.
In this issue:
ICWA Brings Expert Researcher to May 7 Cowlitz County Board of Health Meeting
WHO Virtual Roundtable with Ron Johnson, Mary Holland and Jan Jekielek, May 16, 5 PM Pacific
May 10 Episodes of Informed Life Radio—links
Health Hour: Health Wonders of Light
Guest: Carrie Bennett
Liberty Hour: Which Illnesses are Electrical?
Guest: Roman Shapoval
ICWA Brings Expert Researcher to May 7 Cowlitz County Board of Health Meeting
On May 7, the Cowlitz County Board of Health held a two-hour meeting where Informed Choice Washington was allowed to present on the subject of regaining trust in public health.
Cowlitz County BOH meeting 5/7/24
ICWA President Bob Runnells set the table with some of the reasons why trust was lost, then he introduced a published expert on COVID-19 policy and science discrepancies:
I will provide perspectives on why people have lost trust in public health. I’ll present things that have been previously brought up to the board by your constituents that are now being supported by doctors and scientists confirming previous concerns. I assure you we are only here to seek a better, healthier community through honest communication and without punitive restrictions.
He presented a chronological summary of key events that led to distrust:
Every list for why the public has lost trust in public health should include when the head of the pandemic response team, Anthony Fauci, flip-flopped on masks, even going so far as to recommend that two masks are better. The definitive data cannot still be found that the masks do anything to prevent viral contagion. Then we were told that the shots were 95 percent effective at preventing community infection. Then after the first few months of rollout, infection after vaccination became commonplace. Instead of vaccine failure, they dubbed it ‘breakthrough infection.’ Eventually, in late 2021, officials had to confess that the vaccines for COVID did not reliably stop infection or transmission to the next host. But wasn’t the reason for mandates to stop transmission to others?
Then another man-made tragedy struck. Thousands of workers were forced out of their jobs for not taking the vaccine product that didn’t do what it was supposed to do: stop infection and transmission. That was a trust-breaker for all those watching and for those fired for refusing to take a risky product that didn’t work, and, therefore, would expose them only to the product’s risks. The lack of transmission prevention should have ended all shot mandates and travel restrictions because the shots were simply ineffective. It is hard for me to understand how the powers that be, such as the governor and the Washington Department of Health, did not make this logical connection. I assure you that the powers knew about this lack of prevention. Our members were some of the ones who told them.
Bob Runnells then revealed the startling numbers.
Other things in Washington’s pandemic experience continue to give us reasons to not to trust public health. Early in the pandemic, it took public records requests by the Freedom Foundation to point out that COVID death counts in Washington were overstated by hundreds. They were able to help the Department of Health by pointing out over 400 over-counts. Why would the Department of Health overstate COVID deaths?
The VAERS reporting is used by the CDC. The data may not point to causation, as health proponents are quick to add, but the government should at least do an investigation. Instructions are to report “all significant adverse events that occur after vaccination to adults and children, even if you are not sure whether or not the vaccine caused the adverse event.” That’s fair enough. According to various researchers, about 75 percent of reports are filed by healthcare providers. So, this information should not be discounted. In Washington, there have been almost 24,000 adverse event reports, including 233 deaths, 448 life-threatening emergencies, and 597 permanent disabilities. This is not something that you just want to discount. We think these numbers are concerning and other jurisdictions agree.
Bob Runnells then told the board of such a permanent disability here in Washington:
In April, a traveling memorial for vaccine injury concluded its U.S. tour in Washington State. Over 1,300 names of those seriously injured or killed decorate the interior and exterior of a forty-two-foot long RV. There would have been more signatures, but many couldn’t travel to where the vehicle stopped. A young assistant pastor in Clark County took the COVID shots in mid-2021 and was overcome within a week by the debilitating case of Guillain-Barre syndrome. He simply could not muster enough energy to leave his house to tell his story to an interviewer. He filed a VAERS report but did not file a court claim because he was told that the government’s pandemic court was a sham. And it is. Hardly any settlements have come out of that, and they’re very undersized. Over three years later, he is stuck with permanent disability and a three-year-old and a five-year-old to raise. These sad stories are still coming to the front.
The VAERS data also shows that this assistant pastor’s case was just one of twenty-three cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome here in Washington.
Bob then introduced Sally Saxon, a retired lawyer, who used her legal research skills as the lead author of the book, The COVID-19 Vaccines and Beyond.
Sally Saxon began her presentation with the following:
My extensive research about the COVID vaccines has given me a lot of insight into how trust in public health has been broken during these past four years that Bob has just shared, and I do agree with everything that he has said. What the book offers is quite different than given in the public media. We have looked at data from all different sources, such as insurance reports, whistleblowers, and those inspecting the ingredients in the vials. Speaking as a lawyer, the evidence points to one direction: the COVID-19 shots are not only not safe and effective as claimed, but also are the most damaging medicinal product in history.
She then listed for the board seven main factors that caused distrust in public health:
The public was told too many things about COVID and the shots that were simply not true, causing many to suspect there is a hidden agenda.
Many now doubt that hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and other health care providers are able to act in a patient’s best interests.
It appears that too many health care providers who recommended or administered the COVID shots did not even question the government’s claims about their safety. Patients expected them to be aware of any dangers or concerns.
Many people do not trust what the vaccine manufacturers put in the shots given the contaminants and other foreign substances that have been found.
Important information was censored and suppressed by government agencies in coordination with social and corporate media to keep the public from hearing or reading information that was contrary to the narrative that the shots were safe and effective—even if the off-narrative information was true.
People have observed the way the government and those in the health care system treated and responded to the physical, emotional, mental and financial impacts on those who suffered serious adverse reactions to the vaccine, or whose loved one was hospitalized for COVID and died after being treated with government-promoted protocols.
The “one-size-fits-all” response to COVID, and total lack of willingness to listen to or consider other ideas, policies or medicines that actually helped people recover, has caused people to question the prudence of public health advice.
This is a opportune time to mention that Ms. Saxon’s third point about too many health care providers not questioning the government’s claims about their safety is partly due to the Washington Medical Commission’s (WMC) witch hunt of healthcare providers who provided COVID-19 advice that the commission deemed as “misinformation.”
The WMC’s COVID-19 misinformation position statement reflects this:
The WMC supports the position taken by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) regarding COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. The WMC does not limit this perspective to vaccines but broadly applies this standard to all misinformation regarding COVID-19 treatments and preventive measures such as masking. Physicians and Physician Assistants, who generate and spread COVID-19 misinformation, or disinformation, erode the public trust in the medical profession and endanger patients. The WMC will scrutinize any complaints received about practitioners granting exemptions to vaccination or masks that are not based in established science or verifiable fact.
This is further reflected in Washington DOH’s Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission (NCQAC) statement:
Physicians who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation or disinformation are risking disciplinary action by state medical boards, including the suspension or revocation of their medical license.
The NCQAC expands this statement to include nurses in Washington State and does not limit this perspective to vaccines but broadly applies this standard to all misinformation regarding COVID-19 treatments and preventive measures such as masking. Nurses who generate and spread COVID-19 misinformation, or disinformation, erode the public trust in the nursing profession and endangers patients.
As Bob Runnells had referenced a summary of VAERS data, Ms. Saxon delved into the VAERS data to a greater extent and invoked a veritable expert on the subject:
Albert Benavides is perhaps the most knowledgeable VAERS expert in the world, with over twenty-six years of experience as a professional systems data analyst and auditor. He believes that a more accurate URF [under-reporting factor] for VAERS (as of August 2022), is much higher than 41. This is because of new data since Steve Kirsch did his original calculations, such as the reports from life insurance companies and increases in all-cause mortality, as well as other factors. Benavides believes that the early Harvard study (concluding that less than 1% of adverse reactions were reported to VAERS) was probably more correct, and today may even be a conservative estimate. In fact, he suggests that the current death count in VAERS (as of August 2022) could be doubled and then multiplied by Kirsch’s URF of 41 to arrive at a more reasonable estimate.
Saxon’s book provides more details on this underreporting analysis.
She then further drove her point home:
As Dr. Peter McCullough and others have explained, according to the FDA’s practice, whenever there were reports of at least fifty deaths associated with a particular drug, it would be pulled off the market. The fifty-death threshold with the COVID shots was reached no later than January 2021, about a month after the rollout. Yet despite the unprecedented number of deaths reported, the government and the pharma companies continued to claim that the shots were safe and effective and continued to promote them.
She explained to the health board how the federal government rigged the system by vilifying successful treatments before the COVID-19 shot rollout so that the shots could attain emergency use authorization.
The purposeful campaign to villainize early treatment was absolutely necessary or else an Emergency Use Authorization of a vaccine could not have been granted. Hence, all the mainstream and social media, the medical boards, and the three-letter agencies threatened and intimidated health care providers into not rendering early treatment.
She explained the FDA’s misleading “95 percent effective” claim of the COVID-19 shots:
That claim was based on clinical trial data, and was repeatedly made in the major media, including by government officials. However, that figure is extremely misleading because it represents only the “relative risk reduction,” or RRR, not the “absolute risk reduction,” or ARR. Absolute risk reduction—also called risk difference—is the most useful way of presenting research results to help your decision-making. In this case, there is a huge difference between the two measures. That is why FDA guidelines specifically say that the ARR should always be included in a manufacturer’s application and information given to the public:
“Patients are unduly influenced when risk information is presented using a relative risk approach; this can result in suboptimal decisions. Thus, an absolute risk format should be used.”
Pfizer did not do this, and the FDA apparently ignored the omission in violation of its own guidelines.
As Bob Runnells had done, Sally Saxon spoke for those injured by the COVID-19 shots.
How did the government and the healthcare system respond to the vaccine injured? Those injured feel not only have they been physically harmed but also they have been silenced. The government doesn’t want to hear their stories. Many have been told by their doctors that their problems are in their head. They feel they have been ignored, abused, betrayed, not believed, and even vilified by those in the healthcare system, including by their own doctors in many cases. It should also be mentioned about the financial hits that they have had to take for losing their jobs for not being able to work as well as paying for their medical expenses. Monetarily from the government, they have received virtually nothing.
She then concluded her presentation with the following:
The government needs to acknowledge whenever mistakes are made and wrongs are committed. I haven’t heard any apologies from the federal government about any damage done. They’re not even recognizing the problems yet.
After the two presentations, Cowlitz Board of Health Member Alyssa Fine expressed her displeasure for having this COVID-19 discussion. “These board meetings are not the place to be going back and forth about COVID,” she said. “If I were a citizen, and I wanted to rebuild trust in public health, I would want to see this board move forward onto the things we’ve talked about and see action. We should be using the money for public health to address the crises that are occurring right now in our community, such as usage overdose, teenage tobacco use, and chronic diseases. But we keep going back to a platform of a very one-sided view of COVID where I can say, ‘Let’s have a different expert next week and next month,’ and this can go on forever. So instead of using the money to improve our community, we keep backtracking. I felt hopeful last week, but I’m getting frustrated again that this board is spending more time on COVID instead of having an impact on our citizens. And we are not giving other perspectives than today, and we know they are out there.”
Cowlitz County Commissioner and Board of Health Member Arne Mortensen countered Member Fine’s points:
I could not disagree with you more. If you don’t look into history, then you don’t learn. We need to be learning so that when the next pandemic comes along, we don’t do the same thing. The way we handled the pandemic arguably destroyed this nation.
Cowlitz County Board of Health Member Mary Jane Melink then jumped onto Alyssa Fine’s bandwagon:
I appreciate Alyssa’s comments. But it feels like we have been here for two years meeting. We have not done anything that has had a positive impact on our community’s health! Look at the Medical Freedom Resolution, but in essence that had no impact on anybody . . . I appreciate the fact that we can take home a book and a handout and we can take our time to look at it, but . . .
. . . I think we beat this horse to death, and I think the consensus in this room is that, yes, there were mistakes made, but I would like to tackle the business of our community’s public health.
Mary Jane Melink
Member Mortensen said, “We have been struggling with the problems that Alyssa and Mary Jane have mentioned since I was a little boy. But we need to think about is, ‘What is it that we’re fundamentally doing?’ which goes back to my thesis of ‘What is it that fundamentally failed that gave us total mistrust of the government?’”
Cowlitz County Board of Health Chair Kelly Lane added, “We need to acknowledge what happened and not just sweep it under the rug.”
Mary Jane Melink’s voice grew more agitated as she said the following:
We should then put the language on our website that we’re going to have balanced information, for I believe that there are at least fifty people we can get in town today who would not agree with the presentations that we just had. So, if we’re going to put information on the website, let’s put both sides of the information. But you have balanced information on the website, and then we can go onto the business of health for our community.
A citizen at the comment table agreed that the board needed to address the present health issues, and added:
But the damage that took place with the COVID policies—the shutting down of businesses, causing great emotional pain to many people, and still continuing to put them in fear—that has never been healed up completely. It still has people in fear. I would more than welcome another point of view presented at this meeting because that hasn’t happened yet. We would like to hear the rebuttal as well.
Mary Jane Melink tried to explain that she would like to make additional motions for other initiatives when the time was right, that she would have communicated those to the board but was being prevented.
Chair Lane then told her that every item that she has asked for she has received. “But this last month, you didn’t ask for anything,” he added. “If there is a question that we were lied to and that the vaccine can do harm, then that should be the number-one priority of the Board of Health.”
Cowlitz County Board of Health Member Lindy Campbell added the following to Lane’s argument:
What about the Holocaust? We need to be careful not to forget about that. When it came to the Nuremburg Trials, they actually put people in jail for the horrific things that they did. I worry that we will never see the end of who did what and where. And that’s why I’d like to keep the COVID discussion on the forefront. We don’t want to see this happen again. We know probably who did it, but nothing is being done about it, and so I feel strongly that I will never forget about COVID and what emotional harm it did to my grandchildren and everyone else and how they used COVID against us.
Mary Jane Melink then persisted that Chair Lane bring in someone who has a much different perspective than the ones given by Bob Runnells and Sally Saxon for this meeting.
Member Mortensen then told her that she was free to bring in whomever she pleased. He added that, before he became a board member, all that was ever said was that the CDC was speaking the truth and the prevailing belief was, “The health officer has spoken, so shut up. I have spent hours with Dr. Alan Melnick [the previous Clark County Health Officer] and never once did he ever debunk the data except to say that those other doctors are arrogant idiots.”
Member Fine then said that these board meetings are not the appropriate forum for discussing COVID. “We should be doing this outside of meetings where things are supposed to be getting done,” she said.
When pressed by Member Mortensen about where and when to have COVID forums, she suggested using Foundational Public Health funds for a community health assessment. Before the board could delve into this assessment (ad nauseam), more time was taken for citizen comments, which we summarize/quote here:
It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they were fooled. We finally are bringing forward all the information that had been censored.
Restoring trust in public health pertains not just to COVID but to everything.
We are not holding anybody accountable. We need good metrics on what the data is and measure results.
If we don’t recognize the wrongs that the government did, then we’ll have a repeat of these problems.
Recommends that the board read The Real Anthony Fauci, by Robert Kennedy, Jr. “I have pleaded with all of you to read this book as well as Naomi Wolf’s works,” he said. “We have the information out there, but you won’t listen to it, so please get that Real Anthony Fauci book.”
The board needs to make recommendations to the hospitals.
The board should question and stand up against higher orders that they receive.
Before the meeting was adjourned, Bob Runnells was able to get bring back the premise of regaining trust in public health. He thanked the board for giving him and Sally Saxon the opportunity to give their presentation. “We’re still looking for the accountability,” he said. He then made available to all those present the eleven-page handouts that Sally Saxon had prepared for this meeting.
ICWA would like to also thank the Cowlitz County Board of Health for passing the Medical Freedom Resolution last October.
Elected Members:
Commissioner District 1, Arne Mortensen
Commissioner District 2, Dennis Weber
Commissioner District 3, Richard Dahl
Additional Seats and Members:
Public Health, Health Care Facilities, or Providers: Lindy Campbell; term to expire June 21, 2024
Consumers of Public Health: Kelly Lane; term to expire June 21, 2024
Other Community Stakeholders: Mary Jane Melink; term to expire June 21, 2024
Cowlitz Indian Tribe: Alyssa Fine; term to expire September 26, 2025
Finally, as your reward for reading this far (although some of the above quotes from BOH members are gems in themselves), a message from Jim Halpert that should have been widely communicated in 2020:
Thank you, Sharon. We agree that would be a productive first step.
I think that a good first step towards restoring public trust would be to admit wrong-doing, apologize, and then set about preventing it from ever happening again.