COVID-19
DeSantis, medical experts review first Florida grand jury findings on COVID-19 policies

From LifeSiteNews
‘Spotlight needs to be shown on the federal agencies and their actions during the pandemic,’ Dr. Steven Templeton said. ‘That needs to come from the highest level possible, and that’s not happening.’
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis once again convened a panel of medical experts this month to dissect the failings of the medical establishment, this time in response to a Florida grand jury’s first batch of findings on the federal COVID-19 response.
In December 2022, the governor petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to approve a grand jury to investigate the manufacturing and rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines. On February 2, the grand jury released its first interim report, which determined that before assessing the vaccine it first had to understand the risk posed by COVID itself. To that end, the first report instead focused on a wealth of conclusions about the virus and the policies the medical establishment embraced ostensibly to stop it, namely lockdowns and mask mandates.
The first report concluded that lockdowns did more harm than good, that masks were ineffective at stopping COVID transmission, that COVID was “statistically almost harmless” to children and most adults, and that it is “highly likely” that COVID hospitalization numbers were inflated.
On February 9, DeSantis, the nation’s foremost opponent of the COVID establishment among elected officeholders, hosted a roundtable discussion with Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo and members of Florida’s Public Health Integrity Committee (PHIC) to discuss the report.
Governor Ron DeSantis Hosts a Roundtable Discussion Highlighting First COVID Grand Jury Report https://t.co/0zZNRc3SUs
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) February 9, 2024
“During the pandemic, we threw away the basic principles of public health,” said Harvard epidemiologist and biostatistician Dr. Martin Kulldorff. He declared the “verdict is in” that “lockdowns were a huge mistake,” while noting that related abandonments of principle are ongoing, particularly in the medical establishment’s unwillingness to engage contrary views: “If a scientist is not willing to provide their views and debate other scientists or to provide their views to a grand jury, then I don’t think they have any credibility to say anything about public health.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) “and other bodies ignored basic science, used their power to silence scientists that didn’t agree with them, and subverted high-quality evidence to make decisions,” agreed Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, noting that the Biden administration in 2021 cut funding for monoclonal antibodies, which DeSantis had ordered for Floridians. “Now, I don’t know for sure, but it looked to me like one political party trying to hurt members of another political party.”
“There have been some accounting tricks used to make COVID-19 seem more dangerous than it really was,” concluded evolutionary biologist Dr. Bret Weinstein. “There is something odd that a fundamental principle of public health was thrown under the bus […] The normal systems of science and medicine and governance were all frustrated here by a process in which something dressed as public health was used to institute restrictions on people that were not based in science or proper thinking about personal health.”
“The other piece of this that it just drives me as a totally out of step with what we’ve ever done as a medical field is when they recommended the vaccine to to pregnant women off of the bat without really any evidence of of safety, and understand, pregnant women are kept out of vaccine human trials, so they’re recommending this without any evidence or even knowing what it will do to pregnant women,” observed Dr. Joseph Fraiman, a Louisiana emergency medicine physician.
He lamented that, despite how widely known it is that mistakes were made, “we’re not seeing a nation come together on what we did wrong,” and expressed hope that “the grand jury can offer our country guidance on how to organize our government and how to handle events like this in the future.”
Dr. Steven Templeton, a microbiologist and immunologist at Indiana University, was more pessimistic. “Spotlight needs to be shown on the federal agencies and their actions during the pandemic. That needs to come from the highest level possible, and that’s not happening,” he said. “I don’t think [the federal government] has an appetite right now to address these problems, and I don’t think there is going to be an appetite anytime soon for it.”
A large body of evidence has found that mass restrictions on personal and economic activity undertaken in 2020 and part of 2021 caused far more harm than good, in terms of personal freedom and economics as well as public health, and that lives could have been saved through far less burdensome methods, such as the promotion of established therapeutic drugs, narrower protections focused on those most at risk (such as the elderly and infirm), and increasing vitamin D intake. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has called America’s COVID response measures as “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country,” against which Congress, state legislatures, and courts alike were largely negligent to protect constitutional rights, personal liberty, and the rule of law.
Evidence has also shown that forcing Americans to wear face coverings in the presence of others was similarly ineffective. Among that evidence is the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention’s (CDC’s) September 2020 admission that masks cannot be counted on to keep out COVID when spending 15 minutes or longer within six feet of someone. All told, more than 170 studies have found that masks have been ineffective at stopping COVID while instead being harmful, especially to children, who evidence finds face little to no danger from COVID itself. By contrast, evidence suggests that ability to see faces is critical for early development.
As for the COVID vaccines, which were developed and reviewed in a fraction of the time vaccines usually take under former President (and likely 2024 Republican presidential nominee) Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed initiative, the public health establishment’s aversion to considering them anything but “safe and effective” has not dulled concerns that persist thanks to a large body of evidence affirming they carry significant health risks.
The federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports 37,100 deaths, 214,248 hospitalizations, 21,431 heart attacks, and 28,121 myocarditis and pericarditis cases as of January 26, among other ailments. Jab defenders are quick to stress that reports submitted to VAERS are unconfirmed, as anyone can submit one, but CDC researchers have recognized a “high verification rate of reports of myocarditis to VAERS after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination,” leading to the conclusion that “under-reporting is more likely” than overreporting.
Further, VAERS is not the only data source containing red flags. Data from the Pentagon’s Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) shows that 2021 saw drastic spikes in a variety of diagnoses for serious medical issues over the previous five-year average, including hypertension (2,181%), neurological disorders (1,048%), multiple sclerosis (680%), Guillain-Barre syndrome (551%), breast cancer, (487%), female infertility (472%), pulmonary embolism (468%), migraines (452%), ovarian dysfunction (437%), testicular cancer (369%), and tachycardia (302%).
COVID-19
‘They lied to us’: Wife of 53-year-old who died hours after receiving Remdesivir speaks out

From LifeSiteNews
By Michael Nevradakis Ph. D., The Defender
Shannon is trying to raise public awareness of the COVID-19 hospital protocols that she believes led to her husband’s death.
In August 2021, 53-year-old Michael E. Pilgrim and his wife Shannon had just celebrated their 29th wedding anniversary and were looking forward to their daughter’s marriage in October.
A former military service member and father of two, Michael was a “good husband and great dad” and enjoyed golf in his spare time.
However, Michael’s fortunes dramatically changed that month when he experienced difficulty breathing and a low oxygen level. On Aug. 17, 2021, he was admitted to Dallas Regional Medical Center, near his hometown of Forney, Texas, with a COVID-19 diagnosis.
Two days later, on Aug. 19, he was dead.
In an interview with The Defender, Shannon Pilgrim said that from the time Michael was admitted to the hospital, she and other members of her family were barred from visiting him and kept in the dark about the treatment he was receiving.
READ: 26% of those prescribed Remdesivir for COVID died, according to Medicare database
According to Shannon, Michael’s medical records showed that doctors barely offered Michael any treatment and emphasized his unvaccinated status. Treatments Michael received included the controversial drug remdesivir — administered hours before his death.
Today, Shannon is trying to raise public awareness of the COVID-19 hospital protocols that she believes led to her husband’s death. She shared extensive medical documentation with The Defender corroborating her story.
‘Contradictory’ medical records contained ‘many gaps’
Shannon recounted that she and Michael became sick at the same time, but she recovered. Meanwhile, Michael remained bedridden. Shannon said Michael was previously healthy and was not taking any medications, but his breathing difficulties “scared” her and led her to call 911 — a decision she now regrets.
“The worst thing that’s ever happened to me is calling 911,” Shannon said. “I thought that I was doing the best thing for Michael. I came to find out that was the worst thing.”
Michael was taken to Dallas Regional Medical Center, a hospital that “has a horrible reputation” according to Shannon. She accused the hospital of refusing her request for Michael to be transferred and did not let her see him after he was admitted.
Shannon said communication with the hospital was limited. “I would call and the nurses would tell me they were on shift change or were busy and couldn’t talk to me.”
Doctors’ interactions with Michael were also limited, Shannon said. “They were just leaving him in a room and they had an iPad popped in to ask him about medical stuff.”
According to Shannon, most of what she’s learned about Michael’s treatment came from the medical records she obtained after his death — even though the records “are completely just contradictory” and contain “many gaps.”
Shannon referred to an instance when a Dallas Regional doctor told her that Michael was doing well — while the records indicate that the doctor called her to say Michael was in critical condition.
Shannon said the records revealed that the hospital “did nothing” for Michael. She said:
On the first day, they basically didn’t do anything except give him oxygen. The next day, he had a chest X-ray and then doctors gave him vitamins … there’s contradictory stuff in here about whether he even had an IV. I can’t even get — from looking at his medical records — if they gave him fluid.
They started giving him Lovenox shots for blood clots. Why? He didn’t have blood clots … Then they started giving him insulin. Why were they giving him insulin? He wasn’t a diabetic.
But according to the medical records, they really didn’t do anything, and that’s what just completely floored me — except they gave him remdesivir.
Remdesivir, which has been linked to deaths and injuries in COVID-19 patients, was commonly administered to patients under the COVID-19 hospital protocols.
According to Shannon, the records indicate that Michael was administered remdesivir on the day of his death. But as she recalls, when she spoke to her husband on the phone that day at noon he showed no signs of being in danger.
“He called me, and I actually got to talk to him. I didn’t talk to him very long, but he wasn’t on a ventilator. He was better,” Shannon said. “I called my kids and I was like, ‘He sounded so good.’ I said, ‘He’s going to be coming home.’ I was so excited.”
Yet, that afternoon, Michael was given remdesivir. According to Shannon, the hospital called her a few hours later to say that Michael was found unresponsive.
“I got hysterical,” Shannon said. “I was asking again and again, ‘Is he OK? Where is he? How do I get in touch?’ … She wouldn’t give me her name. She just said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ She said he coded and they took him to ICU and ‘someone will call you tomorrow’ … And she hung up the phone on me.”
Shannon’s son called Dallas Regional and was told Michael had died. But the family’s difficulties did not end there, as the hospital did not allow them to see Michael’s body.
“We didn’t get to see him until he was embalmed, because they told us that he had COVID,” Shannon said.
Shannon said she believes her husband’s unvaccinated status played a role in the treatment he received. She said Michael had been “cautious” about the COVID-19 vaccine and reluctant to receive it — and that the hospital was aware of this.
“You see all through his medical records, ‘unvaccinated,’ ‘unvaccinated,’ ‘unvaccinated,’” Shannon said. “It’s even written in there, ‘doesn’t trust the vaccine.’”
‘They completely lied’
Shannon said the hospital stonewalled her and her family after Michael’s death.
“They wouldn’t talk to me, they wouldn’t take my calls,” Shannon said. “I kept calling up there and begging to have somebody tell me what happened and nobody would tell me.” The hospital then started pursuing her for unpaid medical bills, she said.
When she did speak to hospital personnel, they misled her. In one instance, she said a doctor told her that while she had the right to have an autopsy performed on Michael’s body, local authorities were “six to eight months behind” and that she’d have to wait that long for the body to be released.
“They completely lied, because later I found out that by law they have to do an autopsy within two weeks, and then it can be six to eight months before you actually get the report. But they have to do it and they have to release the body. But they lied to us and we trusted them,” Shannon said.
Instead, Shannon said the government-funded COVID-19 Bereavement Assistance Fund offered a $10,000 payout for Michael’s death. “They were giving up to $10,000 if the death certificate had COVID on it. And I said, ‘no way in hell will I take that payout.”
Instead, Shannon became an advocate for families that endured similar experiences, by joining the FormerFedsGroup Freedom Foundation. Through her involvement with this advocacy group, Shannon has met with legislators, attorneys and family members of other COVID-19 hospital protocol victims.
“It’s hard, but I don’t want other loved ones to go through what we went through,” Shannon said. “I realized that I want to keep fighting. And so, as hard as it is to keep reliving this timeframe, I will keep doing it … I don’t want people to think he died from COVID, because he didn’t. He died at the hospital because of them. They killed him.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
COVID-19
Media failing to cover ‘powerful testimony’ of people injured by COVID vaccines

From LifeSiteNews
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., The Defender
Kate Scott’s husband Jamie was an athlete, a high-power executive, and an active husband and father of two boys until he nearly died after experiencing jab-induced immune thrombosis and thrombocytopenia from the AstraZeneca COVID shot.
Important information coming out of the ongoing UK Covid-19 Inquiry is “slipping between the cracks” of media coverage, YouTube commenter John Campbell, Ph.D., reported on a recent episode of his show.
Campbell played clips of testimony by Kate Scott, who represents the U.K.’s Covid Vaccine Injured & Bereaved (VIBUK). Kate’s husband, Jamie, suffered a traumatic brain injury and was left severely disabled by the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Kate’s testimony is part of the inquiry’s fourth module, investigating issues related to the COVID-19 shots and therapeutics.
Jamie was an athlete, a high-power executive, and an active husband and father of two boys until he nearly died after experiencing jab-induced immune thrombosis and thrombocytopenia. He was in a coma for four weeks and five days.
Jamie survived, Kate explained, but his life will never be the same. His traumatic brain injury affects his thinking processes and his emotions. He is partially blind and he will never be able to work again, to live independently, or to look after their children.
Kate said that she and her group were testifying to draw attention to the fact that many people were injured by the shot, to remove the stigma of jab injuries, and to compel the government and pharmaceutical companies “to look again at how to deal with the inconvenient fact of vaccine injury and bereavement and the lives it has shattered.”
She said the very first serious side effects from the AstraZeneca shot “should have rung an alarm with the MHRA” – Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency – and the U.K. “government that there was a serious problem. However, no action was taken.”
She presented data that VIBUK obtained via a freedom of information law request showing that, as of November 30, 2024, 17,519 vaccine injury victims have made claims to the government’s Vaccine Damage Payment scheme.
Of those, she said, only 194 victims have been notified that they are entitled to payment, and only 55 have received any payment. The maximum allowed payment is 120,000 pounds (approximately $150,000).
Kate also revealed that people are deemed ineligible for compensation if they are considered less than 60 percent disabled and that many people receive diagnoses that they are 59 percent disabled.
“A percentage disablement is also somewhat offensive,” she said. “Regardless of if it’s 10 percent or 59 percent or, Jamie, way over 60 percent, or dead — I guess that’s 100% disabled — there’s no compensation if you fall below that [60 percent].”.
“The consequence of being told, ‘sorry you’re only 55% disabled,’ it’s awful, it’s devastating and then there’s nothing for you, no one to help.”
Commenting on her testimony, Campbell asked, “How on earth can a clinician adjudicate someone is only 59 percent disabled? Why not 58? Why not 61? How can you be 59 percent disabled? I don’t understand that. I simply don’t understand it.”
Kate added, “Statistics are interesting, aren’t they? Within our group, [for] 100 percent of the people in it, [the vaccine] was not ‘safe and effective.’”
The group recommended that pharmaceutical companies should not fund the government agencies that regulate them. They also said the Yellow Card scheme — which is the U.K.’s adverse events reporting system for medicines, vaccines, medical devices and other products — should be mandatory rather than voluntary.
Kate also said the government should follow up when people file yellow cards. Many people in their group had filed cards, but no one ever contacted them to investigate.
“We are important,” she said. “We’re part of this pandemic story.”
Campbell asked, “Why is it that so many things only come to light from freedom of information requests?” He said it’s a pity these stories are not being picked up by the media. “Powerful testimony, not well-covered, unfortunately,” he said.
Watch here:
Republished with permission from Children’s Health Defense – Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
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