Fauci and subjective scientists

 

By Jonathan Imbody - - Tuesday, March 22, 2022

OPINION:

By now, many Americans have had it with medical experts, and for good reason.

Too many once-trusted doctors have lied, propagandized and trampled constitutional principles in their pronouncements and mandates.

We now know that the coercive COVID-19 shutdowns and mandates urged by medical experts have had the unintended but predictable consequences of retarding our children’s learning, increasing mental health crises, hamstringing the economy, hampering our military preparedness, dividing the citizenry and much more.

Propaganda from political appointees in government health agencies

In a Washington Times opinion piece ("Ministry of Public Enlightenment and COVID-19 fact-checking" Tuesday), Kelly Sadler quotes a virologist explaining how pandemic propaganda today mirrors Nazi propaganda: "The … leaders come in and say, ‘You have this pain, and I and I alone can solve it for you’…. The data is irrelevant."

Political propagandists--who now unfortunately seem to include political appointees in government health agencies--should not be able to survive in a society with a free press. Yet they do so because many journalists today are no more than activists with press passes, ideologues who pass along propaganda from their own party and stifle opposition from opposing parties.

Why parents are revolting against school systems

 A USA article, "Moms for Liberty: An education army builds" focuses on finding funding sources for the group's modest $300,000 budget when the real story is why so many parents are doing so much with so little.

Parents are revolting against heavy-handed, ideologically driven governments that have used schools as social indoctrination vehicles and, during illogical lockdowns, turned their children into Zoom Zombies.

Vaccine resistance and public health messaging

By Jonathan Imbody

The Washington Post recently published my commentary below in response to an article ("'I’m still a zero’: Vaccine-resistant Republicans warn that their skepticism is worsening") that examined the vaccine hesitancy of conservatives. I aimed simply to explain a divergent point of view that many Americans hold about COVID vaccines—one that rejects the messages of U.S. public health agency officials:

"Conservatives who value limited government, federalism and checks on individual power will disdain what they view as vaccination propaganda from partisan politicians who have used the pandemic as a blatant power grab. Trump supporters won’t abide vaccination rhetoric of public health officials such as Anthony S. Fauci, who publicly dissed President Donald Trump.

"Conservatives also respect conscience convictions. While I have received the Moderna vaccine and have written of ethical and practical reasons for taking the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, I understand the apprehensions of conservative colleagues who voice concerns about the use of a fetal cell line in testing, the new mRNA technology and the lack of longitudinal studies.

"Conservative vaccine resisters view the 'impending doom' pandemic rhetoric of this administration as alarmist, manipulative, condescending and coercive. Some, however, may still respond to respectful, common-sense messages from trusted faith leaders and local health experts who can reasonably and transparently lay out the risks of coronavirus vaccination vs. infection."

Why some conservatives are vaccine ‘hesitant’

Published in The Washington Post, April 26, 2021

Regarding the April 21 Politics & the Nation article “ ‘I’m still a zero’: A warning from vaccine skeptics.”:

Conservatives who value limited government, federalism and checks on individual power will disdain what they view as vaccination propaganda from partisan politicians who have used the pandemic as a blatant power grab. Trump supporters won’t abide vaccination rhetoric of public health officials such as Anthony S. Fauci, who publicly dissed President Donald Trump.

Conservatives also respect conscience convictions. While I have received the Moderna vaccine and have written of ethical and practical reasons for taking the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, I understand the apprehensions of conservative colleagues who voice concerns about the use of a fetal cell line in testing, the new mRNA technology and the lack of longitudinal studies.

Conservative vaccine resisters view the “impending doom” pandemic rhetoric of this administration as alarmist, manipulative, condescending and coercive. Some, however, may still respond to respectful, common-sense messages from trusted faith leaders and local health experts who can reasonably and transparently lay out the risks of coronavirus vaccination vs. infection.

Jonathan Imbody

The writer is a federal policy analyst for the Christian Medical Association.

Is Receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Ethical?

Public Discourse recently published my essay, written with Dr. Jeff Barrows, "Is Receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Ethical?"

On November 9, 2020, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and biotech company and cancer treatment specialist BioNTech stunned the world with the announcement that a “vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis.” The 90 percent success rate far exceeded experts’ hopes of a 50–70 percent effective rate and promised ultimately a potential curb on the global pandemic that has crippled the world’s economy.

CMA doctors denounce judge's injunction against FDA safety precautions on abortion pill as a "pyrrhic victory" for abortion advocates

July 20, 2020—Bristol, TN: Today the 18,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA, www.cmda.org) denounced an injunction issued by a federal district court judge that bars the FDA from enforcing health and safety precautions on a chemical abortion pill during the pandemic.

Dr. Jeffrey Barrows, an Ob-Gyn and CMA's Senior Vice President for Bioethics and Public Policy, said, "The judge handed pro-abortion forces a pyrrhic victory at the cost of women’s health and lives. The reason the FDA placed a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) on mifepristone is that since its approval, 24 women have died from various complications including infection and internal hemorrhage.

"Since mifepristone was approved in 2000, 97 women have been documented with a pregnancy outside the womb--a life-threatening situation. I know from personal experience that these abnormal pregnancies are difficult to diagnose and require in-person consultation and examination. Prescription through telemedicine will hamper the ability to diagnose these abnormal pregnancies."

A federal district court judge for the District of Maryland on July 13 issued a preliminary injunction blocking Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enforcement for the “Elements to Assure Safe Use” in the Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy (REMS) for the chemical abortion pill mifepristone. The injunction allows mifepristone to be dispensed after telemedicine consult by clinics, medical offices, and hospitals via mail or delivery service and applies until thirty days after the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency.  

This injunction comes after Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) and Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) led 38 Senators and 121 House Members in a bicameral letter urging FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn to enforce the REMS.

The letter noted, "Unfortunately, there are some who seek to exploit this time of crisis to push for the weakening or overturning of critical Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) associated with medication abortion drugs, which would put women at significant risk."

The Congressional letter also highlighted that "research proves that as many as five to seven percent of women who take abortion drugs will require follow-up surgery, and three percent could end up in the emergency room. Self-managed abortions from home are especially dangerous; in fact, half of abortion providers do not consider them safe."

The Members of Congress had urged Hahn "to continue to robustly enforce the REMS for medication abortion....”

Christian Medical Association applauds new Tennessee policy to protect vulnerable patients during pandemic

Bristol, TN—June 26, 2020: The Tennessee-based, 18,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA, www.cmda.org) today applauded a Tennessee patient protection policy announced this afternoon by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and developed collaboratively between HHS, the state of Tennessee and disability rights groups.

CMA's Executive Vice President for Bioethics and Public Policy, Dr. Jeffrey Barrows, noted, "Patients with disabilities face even greater challenges than others during a pandemic, and we're thankful that both the federal government and the state of Tennessee are standing in the gap to protect the civil rights of all Americans. No person with a disability should have to fear that a government will assign their lives a lower value simply because they live with physical challenges."

The policy, announced today by HHS, reportedly incorporates crucial protections into the state's Crisis Standards of Care plan, stipulating that factors such as age or disability should not be used as criteria in determining the allocation of scarce resources. The policy also protects vulnerable patients who require additional resources from automatically being assigned a lower priority to receive lifesaving care.

Working with the HHS OCR, the state agreed to remove language permitting the use of a patient's long-term life expectancy as a factor in determining assignment of scarce resources. The policy also stipulates that long-term ventilator users will be protected from having their own ventilators taken from them and given to someone else.

Dr. Barrows, an Obstetrician-Gynecologist, observed, "Every human life is of immeasurable worth at every stage of life, regardless of physical challenges. We congratulate the HHS Office of Civil Rights for ensuring the civil rights of persons with disabilities. We also encourage the Department to ensure that civil rights are extended to vulnerable persons of all ages, including babies born prematurely."