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House COVID Committee Confirms What We Have Long Suspected — The Feds Really Hate Transparency

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6 minute read

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI

 

Last week details emerged from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, confirming what government transparency advocates long suspected: Federal bureaucrats are purposefully stonewalling the American people’s right to know about their government.

Republican Kentucky Rep. James Comer, who chairs the full House Oversight and Accountability Committee, read from an email that Dr. David Morens, a top aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci, sent claiming that a staffer inside the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had shown him how to erase records requested by the public.

He was corresponding with Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, the organization that used tax dollars to fund controversial gain-of-function research in Wuhan, where the COVID outbreak began. The Department of Health and Human Services has since suspended funding of EcoHealth Alliance.

Morens wrote: “I learned from our FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) lady here how to make emails disappear after I am FOIA’d, but before the search starts. So, I think we are all safe. Plus, I deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to Gmail.”

The implications for government transparency are enormous. How often do NIH staffers conceal what they do with our tax dollars? Why did a FOIA officer feel empowered to assist subjects of FOIA requests? How else do FOIA offers interfere with these requests? Has this behavior spread to the Centers for Disease Control and other agencies?

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com can speak to the problem. We have spent years — and gone to court — to force NIH to reveal the royalties paid to government scientists through medical innovation licensing.

When Americans are considering a drug or therapeutic recommended by public health officials, they deserve to understand all the financial stakes at play. Were any decision makers receiving payments? Were they continuing more lucrative research at the expense of other public health solutions?

For many, the question looming largest has been whether the relentless COVID vaccine push was driven by a potential windfall for NIH and certain scientists there.

When we first filed a FOIA, the agency ignored us and then refused to release the information.

After suing, NIH was required to release the information and began doing so incrementally due to the high volume of data. Tallied from 2009 through 2020, it amounted to an enormous sum–over $325 million paid by private companies to NIH and its scientists over 56,000 transactions.

Previously, we’d also discovered that Dr. Fauci, the face of the nation’s COVID response, was the highest compensated bureaucrat in the country. He out-earned President Biden. He out-earned his own boss, then-Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak.

Along with Fauci, who scoffed at concerns about royalty payments, Tabak faced questions from Congress.

In a March 2023 budget hearing, Rep. John Moolenaar told Tabak an obvious truth: every single, secret royalty payment represents a potential conflict of interest.

“To me, one of the biggest concerns people had during this last couple years is: Were they getting truthful information from their government? Could they trust what people were saying about the medicines? To me, that creates a very disturbing appearance.”

“The idea that people were getting a financial benefit from certain research that was done and grants that were awarded, that to me is the height of the appearance of a conflict of interest,” Moolenaar concluded.

The lawmaker urged NIH to make the money trail more transparent.

It was Tabak in the hot seat again last week, as Comer recited Morens’ outrageous email message.

Was the behavior he described consistent with NIH policy, Comer asked? “It is not,” Tabak responded flatly.

Did the FOIA team at NIH help its colleagues avoid transparency? “I certainly hope not,” Tabak offered.

Hope doesn’t suffice in this situation. It demands that lawmakers strengthen transparency law, update it for the 21st century and create some consequences for bad actors.

There are a few primary ways bureaucrats and decisionmakers violate the spirit of the law.

First, they overuse a series of exemptions designed to protect national security secrets or privacy laws. Too much is omitted through these exceptions; the American people deserve the full truth.

When documents are produced, they’re too often rendered useless through excessive redactions. We’re still fighting in real time to get more pieces of the royalty puzzle revealed.

Next, unreasonable delays are blamed on staffing levels, while many FOIA-related roles sit open. Agencies must prioritize filling those seats and Congress should appropriate more of them as needed.

Finally, we have the behavior Morens describes. A post facto effort to simply abscond with the information. It’s not just a policy violation but an affront to the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act. What consequences do these staffers ever truly face?

Until we get serious about protecting transparency, “FOIA lady” will be a duly anonymous symbol of what many have suspected: government employees hustling to cover their tracks.

Adam Andrzejewski is founder & CEO of OpenTheBooks.com, the nation’s largest private database of public spending.

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COVID-19

‘They lied to us’: Wife of 53-year-old who died hours after receiving Remdesivir speaks out

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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’

“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.

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Media failing to cover ‘powerful testimony’ of people injured by COVID vaccines

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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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