Covid 19 > FDA Recognizes Heart Issues With Moderna; Fauci Slams Rand Paul; Swedish Inquiry Slams Government

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Increased risk of heart inflammation from Moderna Covid jab in

young men, US regulator says, after suspensions in Nordic nations

22 Oct, 2021 12:08

FILE PHOTO: A vial containing doses of the Moderna vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and syringes are pictured at Japan Airlines (JAL) facility where its staff receive the vaccines at Haneda airport in Tokyo, Japan June 14, 2021.

© Reuters / Kim Kyung-Hoon

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reiterated the risk of heart inflammation in young men following vaccination with Moderna’s Covid-19 jab after a handful of Nordic nations halted its use in this age group.

In an announcement released on Wednesday, the body shared that “ongoing analyses from the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) safety surveillance systems have identified increased risks of inflammatory heart conditions, myocarditis and pericarditis following vaccination with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.”

As per the statement, this risk has been seen particularly following the second dose, with symptoms appearing a few days after receiving the jab.

“The observed risk is higher among males under 40 years of age, particularly males 18 through 24, than among females and older males,” the notice read.

The comments in the FDA press release echo similar concerns from Nordic nations that led to Spikevax, the marketing name for Moderna’s Covid vaccine, to be suspended in some form.

Icelandic health authorities announced on October 8 that it will no longer administer Moderna’s mRNA shot due to the risk of rare heart inflammation seen in other Nordic countries.

The director of Finland’s National Institution for Health and Welfare, Mika Salminen, said that “A Nordic study involving Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark found that men under the age of 30 who received Moderna Spikevax had a slightly higher risk than others of developing myocarditis.”

The findings prompted Helsinki to announce that men born in 1991 and after would no longer be given the jab.

Sweden, just one day prior, froze the use of Spikevax on all of its population under 30, citing an “increased incidence” of heart inflammation diseases, myocarditis and pericarditis. Meanwhile, Norway recommends that men under the age of 30 opt for Pfizer’s jab instead.

Concerns over heart inflammation after receiving mRNA jabs from both Pfizer and Moderna, however, are not new. In June, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to the CDC revealed a total of 323 preliminary incidents, of what met the CDC definition of myocarditis or pericarditis, were recorded in Americans under the age of 29. A total of 309 of those were hospitalized.

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Fauci slams Rand Paul’s claims US-funded bat virus research led to

Covid-19 after senator demands his firing amid longstanding row

25 Oct, 2021 13:18

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies at a Senate Health,

Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on July 20, 2021 in Washington, DC.

© AFP /Getty Images / Stefani Reynolds-Pool

White House Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has lashed out at claims made by Senator Rand Paul that US-funded bat virus research in China could have spawned Covid-19, rebuffing the idea as “molecularly impossible.”

Speaking on Sunday to ABC News, Fauci blasted accusations made by Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had funded research in Wuhan which resulted in the origination of the coronavirus: “He's absolutely incorrect. Neither I nor Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the NIH, lied or misled about what we've done.”

The senator also called for Fauci to be fired by US President Joe Biden “for lack of judgement,” and said it is unlikely he will “admit that he lied” in an interview with Axios on HBO. “He's gonna continue to dissemble, and try to work around the truth, and massage the truth,” Paul remarked.

Of course, no one can ever admit doing anything close to willfully creating the CV19 virus.

The remarks come after the NIH’s principal deputy director, Lawrence Tabak, revealed last week that nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance did experiment on coronaviruses in China with the organization’s funding, but he denied this had anything to do with the virus that causes Covid-19.

Fauci also reiterated this and said that the viruses being studied “were distant enough molecularly that no matter what you did to them, they could never, ever become SARS-CoV-2.” It would be “molecularly impossible,” he insisted.

In a letter sent to Republican lawmakers, Tabak said the experiment found mice infected with one bat coronavirus “became sicker than those” given another type.

Despite there being a 96-97% similarity between SARS-CoV-2 and the RaTG13 and BANAL-52 bat coronaviruses, Tabak insisted “the bat coronaviruses studied under the EcoHealth Alliance grant could not have been the source of … the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The World Health Organization announced a renewed probe to determine the origins of the coronavirus earlier this month. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian promised that Beijing would continue to support and participate in finding out where the virus came from, but said it will “firmly oppose any form of political manipulation.”

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Government response to Covid-19 was too slow and insufficient

to stop spread, Swedish commission finds

29 Oct, 2021 12:37

People enjoy the sun at an outdoor restaurant during first wave of Covid-19 in Stockholm, Sweden

(FILE PHOTO) © TT News Agency/Janerik Henriksson via REUTERS

A commission appointed by the government has said that Sweden’s interventions at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic were insufficient to prevent the spread of the virus, and the state’s preparedness was substandard.

The commission investigating the government’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic has issued a scathing interim report, accusing the state of introducing measures too late to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. 

“Sweden’s handling of the pandemic has been marked by a slowness of response,” the commission stated, adding that “the initial disease prevention and control measures were insufficient to stop or even substantially limit the spread of the virus in the country.” 

The commission also contended that it had taken “far too long” to build sufficient testing capacity as, at first, only targeted groups, such as healthcare staff, were able to get tested.

Sweden embarked on a no-lockdown strategy with tighter restrictions added during later waves of the pandemic. The country had recorded around 15,000 deaths from the virus, substantially more than its Nordic neighbors who locked down quickly. 

The strategy, largely reflecting the now-defunct Great Barrington Declaration, was controversial at home and abroad as preventative measures were dropped in favor of asking the public to make their own decisions.

The move was praised by some who saw the model as more business friendly, and some predicted naturally developing herd immunity would eventually slow the spread of the virus.

The commission will deliver its final findings in a 2022 report, although the interim reports have been highly critical of the government. Beyond making its findings public, the commission has no legal power.

Nearly all Covid-19 measures have now been removed in Sweden.

Middle East Forum Senior Staff Disagree over Trump's Bombing of Syria

Middle East Forum Senior Staff Disagree over Trump's Bombing of Syria - and they both manage to get it wrong!

U.S. cruise missile strikes on Syria last week elicited varied reactions from

Middle East Forum fellows and staff.

I want you to know I have great respect for MEF and its staff. But this is a complex situation where the truth is far from being transparent.

PHILADELPHIA  – It's in the nature of a research institute to share a basic outlook. The board, staff, and fellows of the Middle East Forum (MEF) agree broadly on such things as countering Islamism, supporting U.S. allies, promoting American interests, and rewarding democratic practices.

Of course, how one reaches these policy goals is a matter of debate, and argument over strategy and tactics has been a feature of MEF life since it opened its doors in 1994.

Rarely, however, has a clash of views been as sharp as now, with President Daniel Pipes calling U.S. missile strikes against the Syrian air base responsible for a deadly chemical weapons attack a "mistake" and Director Gregg Roman praising the operation. Nonetheless, we see this as a healthy diversity of opinion over how to reach common goals.

No to Bombing Syria

Writing in National Review Online on April 7, Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes reiterates his long-standing opposition to direct intervention in the 6-year-old Syrian civil war, which pits a motley assortment of Sunni Islamist-dominated Arab rebels, backed by Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, against a far more unified Iranian-dominated network of Shiite, Alawite, and Christian pro-regime forces.

Pipes has long argued that the U.S. should work to ensure that "[Syrian President Bashar] Assad & Tehran fight the rebels & Ankara to mutual exhaustion" while awaiting the emergence of a "moderate alternative to today's wretched choices." In addition to alleviating suffering where possible, the goal should be "to help those who are losing, but indirectly," he explained in an April 7 interview with i24News.

Being American and a patriot, Mr Pipes fails to recognize that the world is being run by those who make and sell weapons of war. His policy to encourage the Syrian war to continue to exhaustion is exactly what the military industrial establishment wants. It keeps the inventory rolling and the money coming in. 

But his policy is also really poor for several more reasons:

1. It has contributed greatly to the suffering and death toll of Syrian civilians

2. It has contributed greatly to the complete destruction of what was once a fairly modern society

3. It has contributed greatly to the mass migration of Muslims into Europe and the subsequent Islamization of Europe

4. It is probably illegal

5. It is definitely immoral

6. His assumption that an acceptable Muslim group will emerge to replace Assad is absurd. Muslim groups never evolve toward moderation - they evolve toward extremism. The strongest groups are supported by Saudi Arabia which is determined to replace Assad with a Salafist government. If you think that will be an improvement, you need to take a trip to Saudi Arabia. If you think having a Salafist country bordering Israel can be anything but disastrous, you need to think again. 

Pipes insists that U.S. intervention in Syria should remain indirect.

In 2013, amid rising prospects of a rebel victory "replacing the Assad government with triumphant, inflamed Islamists," the application of this principle led Pipes to advocate support for pro-regime forces. Today, with the regime having regained control over Aleppo and other key real estate, he argues that the U.S. should assist the rebels with arms and intelligence on the grounds that they are now the weaker party.

But Pipes insists that U.S. intervention in Syria should remain indirect. Limited strikes of the kind ordered by Trump (and contemplated by Obama in 2013) don't have much deterrent value because of the American public's well-known aversion to sustained military intervention in Middle East conflicts. "[I]t's really a paper tiger," he told i24News. One-off missile strikes also give Assad the halo (among supporters) of having stood up to the U.S. military without paying a prohibitive cost. "Unless a great deal follows, which I don't think is going to happen, this will be seen as something that the Assad regime has been able to survive," he added. "Symbolism is not a good idea in warfare."

Yes to Bombing Syria

Writing for The Hill on April 7, Middle East Forum Director Gregg Roman expressed strong support for the strike against Syria.

Roman's primary concern is the loss of American credibility following Obama's 2013 'red line' fiasco.

Roman's primary concern is the loss of American deterrence credibility in the wake of President Obama's bungled response to Assad's chemical weapons use in 2013. By acting quickly, unilaterally, and unpredictably (all in sharp contrast to his predecessor's playbook), Trump helped "wash away the stain" of Obama's "red line" fiasco and thus restore American credibility and prestige. The "astonishingly favorable reaction to the strike throughout the world," he writes, "underscores that bold American leadership and decisive action are the way to win friends, not multilateralism and diplomatic nicety."

Some research will reveal that the chemical weapons used in 2013 were not the same as the chemical weapons that Assad had available at that time. It will also reveal that it could not have originated from government controlled airfields. I'm amazed Mr Roman isn't aware of that. Obama could have responded quickly and decisively as, I'm sure, many of his advisers wanted him to, but if he had he would have played right into the hands of the rebels who actually did use the gas. 

This is exactly what Trump has done! Instead of gaining credibility he, when the truth is revealed, will look like the loose canon he is, and the world will be far less safe than it was before last week. But, hey, weapons makers and sellers are having the time of their lives.

Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a research fellow at the Forum's Jihad Intel project, offers a more limited endorsement of the strike. "Besides reducing the absolute number of aircraft capable of bombing Syrian civilians (absolutely a good thing in its own right)," he writes in an April 7 Middle East Eye op-ed, "the strike is useful in sending a message that international norms prohibiting chemical weapons use cannot simply be violated and merely condemned with words." However, he warns of the dangers of escalation and expresses concern that broader military intervention "cannot be completely ruled out" given the "volatility" of the Trump administration.

The Middle East Forum is dedicated to promoting American interests in the Middle East and protecting the West from Middle Eastern threats. It does so through intellectual, activist, and philanthropic efforts.

A Biblical Response to Same-Sex Marriage Approval

John Piper
Desiring God

Jesus died so that heterosexual and homosexual sinners might be saved. Jesus created sexuality, and has a clear will for how it is to be experienced in holiness and joy.

His will is that a man might leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and that the two become one flesh (Mark 10:6–9). In this union, sexuality finds its God-appointed meaning, whether in personal-physical unification, symbolic representation, sensual jubilation, or fruitful procreation.

For those who have forsaken God’s path of sexual fulfillment, and walked into homosexual intercourse or heterosexual extramarital fornication or adultery, Jesus offers astonishing mercy.

Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:11)

But today this salvation from sinful sexual acts was not embraced. Instead there was massive institutionalization of sin.

In a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States of America has ruled that states cannot ban same-sex marriage.

The Bible is not silent about such decisions. Alongside its clearest explanation of the sin of homosexual intercourse (Romans 1:24–27) stands the indictment of the approval and institutionalization of it. Though people know intuitively that homosexual acts (along with gossip, slander, insolence, haughtiness, boasting, faithlessness, heartlessness, ruthlessness) are sin, “they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:29–32). “I tell you even with tears, that many glory in their shame” (Philippians 3:18–19).

This is what the highest court in our land did today — knowing these deeds are wrong, “yet approving those who practice them.”

My sense is that we do not realize what a calamity is happening around us. The new thing — new for America, and new for history — is not homosexuality. That brokenness has been here since we were all broken in the fall of man. (And there is a great distinction between the orientation and the act — just like there is a great difference between my orientation to pride and the act of boasting.)

What’s new is not even the celebration and approval of homosexual sin. Homosexual behavior has been exploited, and reveled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia. What’s new is normalization and institutionalization. This is the new calamity.

My main reason for writing is not to mount a political counter-assault. I don’t think that is the calling of the church as such. My reason for writing is to help the church feel the sorrow of these days. And the magnitude of the assault on God and his image in man.

Christians, more clearly than others, can see the tidal wave of pain that is on the way. Sin carries in it its own misery: “Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (Romans 1:27).

And on top of sin’s self-destructive power comes, eventually, the final wrath of God: “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:5–6).

Christians know what is coming, not only because we see it in the Bible, but because we have tasted the sorrowful fruit of our own sins. We do not escape the truth that we reap what we sow. Our marriages, our children, our churches, our institutions — they are all troubled because of our sins.

The difference is: We weep over our sins. We don’t celebrate them. We don’t institutionalize them. We turn to Jesus for forgiveness and help. We cry to Jesus, “who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10).

And in our best moments, we weep for the world, and for our own nation. In the days of Ezekiel, God put a mark of hope “on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in Jerusalem” (Ezekiel 9:4).

This is what I am writing for. Not political action, but love for the name of God and compassion for the city of destruction.

“My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law.” (Psalm 119:136)

The concept of 'the two becoming one flesh' is a physical example of a spiritual precept which is the entire purpose of man's existence - becoming one with God. Becoming one with God is an impossibility for a practicing homosexual, but a genuine possibility for those who forsake the practice - Jesus died for us all.

The Christian response should be one of repentance and begging forgiveness for our country. It should be one that will draw us closer to God rather than cause us to behave in a manner unworthy of the  Name of Christ.

Running around setting your hair on fire (or any other part of your body) is an absurd reaction fit for those living in a dream world that doesn't exist, yet, and will only exist when the Lord returns.