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And now in Canada...
COVID-19: Ontario doctor banned from prescribing ivermectin
now director of company offering drug
By Ashleigh Stewart, Global News
Posted January 27, 2022 6:27 pm
An Ontario doctor prohibited from prescribing ivermectin to treat COVID-19 has launched a telehealth service offering the unapproved treatment to Ontarians to treat the virus, Global News can reveal.
Dr Patrick Phillips, a family doctor who is the subject of several investigations by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), is the director of a new telehealth service based in Ontario that is offering ivermectin, an antiparasitic treatment not approved by Health Canada to treat COVID-19.
A similar website has been operating in the USA for some time now. See this link for more:
The service, called Canadian Covid TeleHealth Inc (CCTH), was launched by members of the Canadian Covid Care Alliance (CCCA), a website promoting information at odds with public health advice, which also features new initiatives from at least two other Ontario health professionals with COVID-related licence restrictions.
But Phillips’ involvement, as well as the existence of the service, is not breaking any provincial laws.
No, but it is sure ticking off Big Pharma, I'll bet.
It comes as the regulatory body and province spar about how to deal with physicians operating in a medical grey area. Both the CPSO and Ministry of Health say investigating a company, such as the CCTH, is not their responsibility.
The CPSO says it has been asking the ministry for legislative changes to help it deal with complaints about doctors since 2019.
Meanwhile, the doctors at the centre of the investigations are launching new ventures in order to share unverified health information and administer unproven COVID-19 treatments, which escape the reach of the province.
Telehealth service launched this week
Global News recently detailed the emergence of the CCCA, a self-described group of “Canadian doctors, scientists and health care practitioners committed to providing independent science-based evidence to empower Canadians.”
The website does not identify the doctors affiliated with the service.
But the CCCA’s listed address on their Corporations Canada page matches that of Toronto physician Ira Bernstein. Bernstein has spoken in videos about being the founder of the CCCA, treating patients with ivermectin and his intention to launch a telehealth service.
That telehealth service has now launched.
There is much more on this story at Global News.
Australia says it found ‘Son of Omicron’ amid Covid surge
New ‘stealth’ sub-variant of the Omicron strain has been found in a
‘very low number’ of cases across the country
© Getty Images / Aaron Foster
Australian health authorities have announced that the “stealth” Covid-19 viral strain, dubbed the “Son of Omicron” in the media, has been detected in a number of states and territories. This BA.2 sub-variant – thought to be more infectious than the original Omicron – has already been seen in more than 40 countries.
In a statement announcing the “early detection” of the sub-variant on Friday, a Federal Health Department spokeswoman had confirmed that a “very low number” of cases had been found among respiratory samples submitted for testing. She added that it will “continue to be closely monitored.”
The variant’s emergence comes amid a spike in Covid-related deaths in the country, with nearly 200 people dying between Friday and Saturday. Of the over 3,600 deaths in Australia since the pandemic began, more than 1,000 have come during the past month – with 500 recorded over the last week alone.
On Saturday, health officials in Victoria announced the detection of “literally a handful” of cases as the state recorded 12,250 new infections. The total number of active cases in the state was 79,836, down from 101,605 reported on Friday. Covid response commander Jeroen Weimar told reporters that the “Son of Omicron” was “not a new variant,” but warned that it was “still early days in understanding exactly how that’s moving around.”
Three cases of the sub-variant were detected in New South Wales and one each in Queensland and the Northern Territory, state authorities told the news.com.au portal. An unnamed spokesperson for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) said the region had also seen a “small number of [BA.2] cases,” but Omicron BA.1 was still the prevalent strain circulating in the community.
“They call it the ‘son of Omicron’, but it’s more of a cousin – it’s a variant related to Omicron. It is spreading … We don’t know if it’s going to be a problem yet,” University of Melbourne clinical epidemiologist Nancy Baxter had told the Nine Network on Thursday. She warned that the sub-variant “may extend our waves,” making them “longer to get out of.”
The BA.2 strain has not yet been designated a variant of concern by the World Health Organization, but the UK’s Health Security Agency has deemed it a variant under investigation. Meanwhile, Danish health authorities have calculated the off-shoot to be 1.5 time more contagious than the original Omicron strain. According to Reuters, it has already become the dominant strain in Denmark.
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Secret govt unit used ‘unethical’ fear tactics to push
Covid rules compliance – media
The UK government’s behavioral insights team will reportedly be investigated
over claims of using ‘fear, shame and scapegoating’ to influence public
January 8, 2021. © AFP / Tolga Akmen
A parliamentary committee is reportedly set to investigate “scare ads” created by the UK government’s shadowy ‘behavioural insights’ team to “nudge” the public into obeying Covid-19 restrictions. The move comes amid concerns about the “grossly unethical” use of the unit to “inflate fear levels.”
The House of Commons’ Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee is expected to probe the so-called “nudge unit” as part of an ongoing investigation into government activities during the pandemic, The Telegraph reported.
Tory MP William Wragg, who chairs the committee, told the paper that the “central issue is how ‘nudge’ sits within parliamentary democracy and ministerial accountability.”
According to The Telegraph, the committee received a letter from a group of 40 psychologists this week, which warned that it was “highly questionable whether a civilised society should knowingly increase the emotional discomfort of its citizens as a means of gaining their compliance.”
Government scientists deploying fear, shame and scapegoating
to change minds is an ethically dubious practice.
The signatories reportedly criticized the use of dramatic adverts featuring slogans such as “If you go out you can spread it, people will die.” One such ad had a close-up photo of an intensive-care patient wearing an oxygen mask, with the caption: “Look her in the eyes and tell her you never bend the rules.”
The use of “images of the acutely unwell in intensive care units” and the “macabre mono focus on the number of Covid-19 deaths without mention of mortality from other causes” were also said to have been condemned by the group, which warned of unintended consequences.
“Shaming and scapegoating have emboldened some people to harass those unable or unwilling to wear a face covering,” they reportedly wrote, adding that the “inflated fear levels” and “strategically-increased anxieties” had “[discouraged] many from seeking help for other illnesses.”
The letter also apparently cited a government memo from March 2020, which warned that a “substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened” by the virus and called for “hard-hitting, emotional messaging” to target the “complacent.”
But an unnamed government spokesperson told the Daily Mail that Downing Street had followed the advice of scientists and taken the “right measures at the right time” to tackle Covid-19. They added the government had used “every means possible” to inform the public about the severity of Covid-19.
Established by David Cameron’s coalition government in 2010, the ‘nudge unit’ is apparently designed to apply scientific principles to subtly influence public behavior without the need for legislation. Although its handiwork has been visible in government ads, The Telegraph noted that its operations are shrouded in secrecy.
In the 'leading us down the garden path' category
GOP Doctors Caucus ‘infuriated’ with Fauci, White House
“We are not going to vaccinate our way” out of the Covid-19 pandemic,
Rep. Greg Murphy says
Murphy, a practicing surgeon, says the GOP Doctors Caucus is “infuriated” with the White House and its chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, for promoting Covid-19 vaccinations too heavily while ignoring potential therapeutic treatments.
“I’m a vice chair of the GOP Doctors Caucus. We are infuriated – infuriated – that this has all been about vaccination. Fauci has been, ‘Vaccination, vaccination, vaccination,’ rather than therapeutics,” Murphy told Breitbart News on Friday, adding that he believes there is no way for the US to “vaccinate our way” out of the pandemic.
“There should be something that we should be able to write and prescribe that’s not $800 a pill for people who test positive to try to get them better, not only keep them out of the hospital, but get them better, get them back to work, and let society function, I think this is a major problem,” Murphy said. He suggested drugs like ivermectin – most famously taken by podcaster Joe Rogan when he tested positive for Covid – should be studied to find alternate treatments to Covid to avoid continuous vaccines and subsequent booster shots.
Public trust in health officials has deteriorated during the pandemic, Murphy went on to say, and he puts the majority of the blame on Fauci’s “arrogance.”
“Fauci, I’m going to blame [him] as the biggest reason, his arrogance, [that] the trust of the American people in health care, and in doctors, in particular, has plummeted,” the North Carolina Republican said.
The GOP Doctors Caucus is made up of 18 congressional members who are also medical providers, and focuses on policy related to healthcare.
While Fauci has remained popular among Democrats, his approval ratings have plummeted among Independents and Republicans as the infectious diseases expert has become a target of critics of vaccine mandates and pandemic-era lockdown orders.
The GOP Doctors Caucus even previously requested an apology from Fauci for referring to Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) as a “moron” in a hot mic moment following a back and forth about the doctor’s financial disclosures.
Fauci argued at the time that all of the information the senator was requesting was publicly available. The White House medical adviser has maintained that vaccines are the best way to combat Covid-19 and to prevent mutations.
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