Irish Times: ‘Stick Your Vaccine Up Your Arse!’
Last Wednesday evening, shortly after announcing yet another round of restrictions, effectively cancelling Halloween and raising a big question mark over Christmas, Micheál Martin quietly disclosed how bad he feels things are.
“Until we get a vaccine,” the Taoiseach told yet another hastily arranged press conference in Government Buildings, “normal life will not resume as we know it”.
With the Government’s version of the “test, trace, isolate” strategy failing to rein in infections, and no official enthusiasm for alternative strategies such as elimination of the virus or shielding of the vulnerable, its hopes of getting out of this crisis are increasingly reliant on vaccines being developed to protect against the disease.
With one-third of the world’s population enduring quarantine this year, 1.2 billion children taken out of school and $1 trillion wiped off the value of the global economy, it’s not just Ireland that is crying out for a solution to Covid-19.
If 2020 was the year of the pandemic, 2021 is shaping up to be the year of the vaccine. Hundreds of vaccines are in development, 11 are already at phase three, being tested on thousands of humans, and the first three products are forecast to be ready by the end of this year.
Yet this next stage of the pandemic brings with it a new set of questions and unknowns. Will the vaccine – or vaccines – work? Will they work on those most at risk? Will they be safe? Will sufficient people use them, in order to provide wider population protection? Who gets them first? How much opposition will they encounter?
At this stage, it can be assumed, given the massive resources being thrown at the problem, that at least some of the 170 vaccines under development will make it through to regulatory approval, probably in the next six months. Demand for the protection they afford is likely to be strong.
Equally, it is likely there will be opposition to whatever vaccine is produced, in particular if it is mandated (ie compulsory). The prospect of a global Covid-19 vaccine has breathed new life into the traditional anti-vaccine lobby, which has found common cause with anti-lockdown and anti-face mask groups.
“There’s no doubt, this is going to be contested,” says one doctor, who declines to be identified because of the “toxic” atmosphere around the issue. “There’s a huge amount of hostility out there, online. You’ve got anti-mask, anti-lockdown, anti-5G, soon it will be anti-vaccine. Others will oppose a vaccine for Covid simply because Donald Trump supports it.”
It’s like watching the Grand National: you never know if someone is going to fall at the last fence
There is nothing new about disinformation around pandemics and vaccines. During the 1918 flu pandemic, for example, the false rumour went around that the virus was being spread by people taking aspirin, made by the German company Bayer. To this day, attempts to eradicate polio have been frustrated in some countries by claims the vaccination programme is a western plot.
Variety of approaches
The new vaccines under development take a variety of approaches to the challenge of instructing the immune system to mount a defence against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Some build on existing technologies; others are following novel routes and may take longer.
According to Prof Karina Butler, infectious diseases specialist and chairwoman of the National Immunisation Advisory Committee, there is “every hope” that one or more of the vaccines in development will prove effective.
“We are progressing more quickly than ever before. But it’s like watching the Grand National: you never know if someone is going to fall at the last fence.”
This is because each candidate vaccine has to jump through numerous hoops before it can hope to get approval. Is it effective? Is it safe? Does it work with at-risk groups?
Those vaccines that have reached phase-three trials – using a far larger testing group than phases one or two – are each being tested on thousands of adults, and could ultimately be used by billions of the world’s population. Because the trials are randomised, not all participants are actually getting the vaccine; some are given a placebo.
Prof Butler says phase-three trials give good data in terms of common or even relatively uncommon problems that can arise. Indeed, a number of prominent trials have been halted in recent weeks after participants fell ill.
However, they may not pick up every rare side-effects of a vaccine, she points out, so some level of risk is involved. Children, older people, pregnant women or other groups could react differently to the vaccine, for example.
The aim is to address any issues that arise in final trials and in surveillance after a vaccine is approved by regulatory agencies such as the European Medicines Agency and, in Ireland, the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA).
At this stage, Prof Butler says, it is a “big ask to look into the crystal ball” and assess which of the candidate vaccines offers the best prospect of protection as well as a ready supply.
The speed at which the new vaccines are being developed has caused some unease. Most take 10 to 15 years to bring to market and even the fastest in development – for mumps – took four years.
Regulators have set the bar for the primary endpoint of a phase three at 50 per cent protection, meaning that an effective vaccine is considered one that cuts the number of infections among those receiving the vaccine by half.
“The reason they’re going so fast is because they’re doing so much in parallel, rather than in sequence, and that has never happened before with vaccines,” says UCC biochemistry lecturer Dr Anne Moore. “Looking at safety, it will take as long as it takes.”
Speaking at a symposium on vaccines organised by the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland (RCPI) on Wednesday, Dr Moore said she would have “no qualms” about getting any of the new vaccines once they are properly approved. “I’d be first in the queue to get them.”
Also speaking at the RCPI event, Prof Luke O’Neill, a biochemist at Trinity College Dublin, said, “There’s never been a spotlight on vaccine development like this. Big Pharma is aware it’s being scrutinised hugely. The big fear is if there is a safety signal, it will stop people vaccinating for other diseases. So safety is the absolute top priority here.”
I don’t think a vaccine will end this pandemic tomorrow, or suddenly; it is going to trickle on for a little while
The fact that a number of trials have had to be stopped due to adverse patient events is “a good sign”, he said.
Liz O’Brien, a former pharmaceutical regulator who has also worked in drug development, warns that while regulatory bodies work “to the highest scientific rigour, a vaccine with an efficacy as low as 50 per cent is not a panacea and cannot form the basis of Ireland’s Covid strategy”.
“We know that efficacy is often lower again in older populations, and that must be considered in the overall picture of strategic planning.”
Dr Moore also expressed concern about a vaccine working for older people unless it is very efficacious. And she cautions: “I don’t think a vaccine will end this pandemic tomorrow, or suddenly; it is going to trickle on for a little while.”
Initially, Prof Butler says, it is likely a successful vaccine will be licensed for those most at risk – healthcare workers, for example, or, if suitable, older people.
The extent to which vaccines provide protection varies from person to person according to our make-up and immune response. The flu vaccine, for example, is generally less effective in older people with depleted immune systems.
Vaccines, though, also provide wide protection across the population, provided enough people take them. For a highly infectious disease such as measles, for example, a threshold of 95 per cent uptake has to be reached in order to achieve herd immunity.
Most people will hesitate when presented with something new, especially if they don’t feel they are at risk
Given how transmissible Covid-19 is, it is thought an uptake of at least 60 per cent, and preferably much higher, will be needed to confer population protection.
But is this level of cover achievable? In a recent RTÉ poll conducted by Behaviour & Attitudes, 32 per cent of people said they would be unlikely to take a new Covid-19 vaccine, while 56 per cent said they would; 12 per cent didn’t know.
Prof Butler says she understands the sentiment expressed in the poll.
“Most people will hesitate when presented with something new, especially if they don’t feel they are at risk. I’m fairly confident we’ll have solid safety data before we go recommending to people to take a particular vaccine.”
Some of the products in development build on existing vaccine platforms, she points out, making it easier to make an informed choice.
“There will always be a core group who don’t want vaccines no matter how much data there is on them,” says Butler. “They tend to be a small minority, but the wider group of people looks at the pros and cons and aims for the best thing for them.”
It is less than a decade since anti-vaccine campaigners began targeting the then new HPV vaccine for teenage girls. Using social media to deliver an emotion-laden message directly to parents, they claimed hundreds of girls had suffered chronic ill-health after taking the cervical cancer vaccine.
Despite the absence of any evidence of a causal link between the girls’ symptoms and the vaccine, uptake of the vaccine plummeted from 87 per cent to 50 per cent, as vaccine hesitancy grew.
It took a sustained response from medics, pro-vaccine advocates and the likes of Laura Brennan, the young Clare woman who became the poster girl for the HPV vaccine before succumbing to cervical cancer, before rates started rising again.
The issue died away, but rumbles on. Regret, the group set up by parents alleging harm from the HPV vaccine, told The Irish Times this week “many” of their daughters “remain in chronic ill-health” and that “many cases have been lodged with the courts”.
“We have concerns that a rushed ‘warp speed’ vaccine, which has not undergone long-term testing or testing for non-specific effects, may not meet the necessary safety standard,” the group said in a statement.
Today, the controversy around Covid-19 has breathed new life into the anti-vaccine cause. Information sheets have been dusted down, websites spruced up and, across Europe and the US, people have taken to the streets.
On an overcast Saturday afternoon earlier this month, those opposed to a vaccine were prominent among the anti-lockdown protesters outside the Custom House in Dublin.
“Stick your vaccine up your arse,” one of the musicians playing at the rally shouted, to general amusement in the crowd.
The rally was jointly organised by Health Freedom Ireland (HFI), a group composed of longstanding vaccine sceptics that says its mission is to provide “impartial information” on the issue.
Read more at www.irishtimes.com
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Ken Irwin
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The problem with “test, trace and isolate” is that they test – produce increasing data predicting imminent catastrophe – then barely manage to trace and totally fail to isolate.
This followed by a panic redoubling of the effort which exponentially multiplies the frightening data and further relatively diminishes the track and trace part of the equation.
I fear we are fearing fear itself and the stats have little to tell us other than the more we look the more we frighten ourselves.
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Andy Rowlands
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I think you’re spot on with this Ken. We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
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Charles Higley
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Testing and tracing is not recommended by the WHO for an infectious virus. Lockdowns are also not recommended under any conditions. And masks only on the ill when around the healthy.
“The new vaccines under development take a variety of approaches to the challenge of instructing the immune system to mount a defence against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”
One TEENY little problem. NO ONE has a pure culture of this virus and, thus, a vaccine against it is simply impossible. It matters not if it stimulates antibody production, there is patently no way to show it protects against a virus you do not have identified and cultured. So, what crap are they going to have in these vaccines? Certainly no the right crap.
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Ed D.
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“One TEENY little problem. NO ONE has a pure culture of this virus and, thus, a vaccine against it is simply impossible.”
Not having pure culture, didn’t prevent Jenner and Pasteur from inoculating people.
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Tom O
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One of my favorite quotes from this piece –
“I don’t think a vaccine will end this pandemic tomorrow, or suddenly; it is going to trickle on for a little while”
Of course, the first question would be WHICH of those 170 vaccines was the author talking about in that quote? Certainly not all of them. In fact, I would have to question whether I could trust a vaccine from a bio lab that can’t isolate the virus that it is creating a vaccine for in the first place.
But that quote IS correct when it states “this pandemic … is going to trickle on for a little while.” It will “trickle on” until the sheeple start to question why they are still being keep in social distancing and face cover mode long after the vaccines are mandated. Fact is I am already hearing people say “if I had to wear this from now on, really, it isn’t that bad if we can be safe from this virus.” When you say something like “did you have to wear it for the flu?” the response is always “no, but the flu isn’t as dangerous is this one is.”
The Main Criminal Media has so brainwashed people that they cannot even comprehend how stupid the information they are being fed truly is. And any “positive” change in the actual ongoing event is suppressed by the criminal press, and only more bullshine like case counts are pushed.
If the world that I am seeing forming before my eyes is “the new normal,” I may have to give serious thoughts to asking for euthanasia since what is coming faster than a runaway freight train is a world that has no meaning to anyone but the top 1%.
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Andy Rowlands
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Well said Tom.
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Dr Roger Higgs
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“crying out for a solution to Covid-19”.
The ‘solution’ is to do nothing.
The WHO’s (United Nations) covid obsession is a fraud, to keep you scared and thus amenable to, and even desperate for, ‘The Great Reset’ and the ‘New World Order’. Likewise the IPCC’s (United Nations) ‘man-made’ climate change fraud and the utterly non-existent ‘climate crisis’ …
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338914556_What_controlled_our_climate_for_the_last_2000_years_CO2_or_the_Sun_YOU_judge_It_is_laughably_simple
Who controls the creepy United Nations, perpetrators of these two frauds? The same ultra-wealthy globalist group (whose name is unmentionable) that controls the MSM, Hollywood, Facebook, EU, WEF, the US Federal Reserve, Bank of England, schools, universities, senior politicians, etc.. These people control everything you hear, read, see and (therefore) think.
Yes, it sounds mad.
Wake up, people. It’s no longer just a conspiracy ‘theory’.
Learn to observe and analyse.
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Andy Rowlands
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Well said Roger, spot on.
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Andy Rowlands
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Excellent article Paul Cullen.
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Dean Michael Jackson
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‘“Until we get a vaccine,” the Taoiseach told yet another hastily arranged press conference in Government Buildings, “normal life will not resume as we know it”.’
Let’s see now…the pathogen referred to as COVID-19 has never been seen, and vaccine trials are taking place? Where can I get into a trial so I can sue all parties involved in this in-your-face fraud? Anyone know, because I’d like to take the rest of my life off on vacation!
Secondly, Marxists are clearly in a panic (thanks to this Irish [and Naturalized American] researcher, I’m proud to say), explaining the COVID-19 ‘pantasy’ operation hail Mary pass that will, of course, overshoot the receiver by ten yards, but the Marxist sociopaths had to try…
“Trust but VERIFY” – President Ronald Reagan’s watch phrase when dealing with the USSR…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As6y5eI01XE
(1) The West conspired to not VERIFY the ‘collapse’ of the USSR, even though the survival of the West depended on verification should the ‘collapse’ be a ruse, which proves (1) there was no ‘collapse’ of the USSR, because if there had been a ‘collapse’ the West would have immediately VERIFIED the ‘collapse’; and (2) the West’s institutions were co-opted by Marxists, explaining the West’s enabling of the fake ‘collapse’ of the USSR…quod erat demonstrandum.
(2) Throughout the 1980s the West conspired to regurgitate Soviet Bloc under counting of communist party membership numbers in order to facilitate the canard of imploding Soviet Bloc political establishments, explaining the West’s enabling of the fake ‘collapse’ of the USSR…quod erat demonstrandum.
(3) Before any religious sectarian strife in Yugoslavia (1991 – 2001) first there would have been massive reprisals against the reviled Communists who implemented draconian discriminatory policies to wipe out religion in Yugoslavia. LCY anti-religious discriminatory policies were so effective that within fifty years those who were without a religion increased by an astronomical 3,100%! The fact that no reprisals took place against LCY members proves that the ‘religious strife’ and ‘breakup’ of Yugoslavia was manufactured and controlled by the Communists.
(4) The World War I Allies never did immediately send a naval expedition to Petrograd to easily topple Lenin & Bolshevik’s November 7, 1917 coup, thereby promptly returning Russia to the war, Russia’s involvement in the war being a critical variable for the Allies’ victory strategy against the Central Powers, proving (a) that the Allies knew they were going to win the war; (b) that the war was set up to (i) weaken the West’s influence in the world; (ii) weaken the West’s people’s confidence in their institutions and what those institutions stood for; and (c) one objective of the war was to settle into power the first above board Marxist state, with more to follow. In fact, there already was an anti-Marxist force in Russia at the time that if ordered would have conquered all of Bolshevik Russia during this period when the Bolsheviks were very weak. The unit was the 60,000 strong Czechoslovak Legion (soon to be 100,000 strong) but instead of sending the legion 700 miles north to Petrograd, the Allies sent it on a 6,000 mile odyssey across Russia to Vladivostok for evacuation to Europe(!), once again proving the Allies knew they were going to win the war…that the war was a Marxist operation.[1]
(5) “On the initiative of the KGB, an army of Soviet vigilantes five million strong, the so-called ‘druzhiny’, was recruited from among the Komsomol activists. Their units were led by retired Chekists. They have been patrolling and policing the streets of all the Soviet cities. Their primary task has been to prepare the Soviet people to ‘behave’ during the forthcoming ‘liberalisation’.” – KGB defector Major Anatoliy Golitsyn, ‘The Perestroika Deception‘, March 1989, pp. 14-15.
(6) Leningrad Oblast (Province) is still named Leningrad Oblast! Engels City is still named Engels City! Engels Air Force Base is still named Engels Air Force Base! Russian military personnel still refer to each other as “Comrade”! Kaliningrad Oblast is still named Kaliningrad Oblast! The State Emblem of the Soviet Union is atop the Duma building, and illuminated at night for clear viewing! Soviet Red Stars are still attached to the bows of Russian naval ships! The Hammer & Sickle logo is still on Aeroflot commercial aircraft! Not one statue to Lenin has been destroyed in Russia, where out of the 3,000 still standing throughout Russia, only a handful have been carefully taken down (in locations where tourists frequent) and hidden away in parks and museums, the remainder of these monstrosities to Russian nationalism/Russian Orthodox Church rubbing historical salt into still open wounds of Russian nationalists! The Russian ‘electorate’ are only ‘electing’ for president Soviet era communist party member Quislings, who persecuted the 85% of the religious population held captive by the Communist Party during the ‘Soviet era’!
At my blog, read the articles…
‘House of Cards: The Collapse of the ‘Collapse’ of the USSR’
‘Playing Hide And Seek In Yugoslavia’
Then read the article, ‘The Marxist Co-Option Of History And The Use Of The Scissors Strategy To Manipulate History Towards The Goal Of Marxist Liberation’
Solution
The West will form new political parties where candidates are vetted for Marxist ideology/blackmail, the use of the polygraph to be an important tool for such vetting. Then the West can finally liberate the globe of vanguard Communism.
My blog…
https://djdnotice.blogspot.com/2018/09/d-notice-articles-article-55-7418.html
[1] Even more telling is neutral Denmark’s laying mines off its coastal waters in international waterways in August, 1914 [thereby violating the 1857 treaty opening the Danish Straits to all shipping, where, “No ship of any kind may, under any pretext whatsoever, be subjected to detention or obstruction at the passage of the Sound or the Belts”] at the prompting of Germany (Germany too lays mines in the Danish Straits) and Great Britain does nothing! Not a word from the Allies (and the usual deafening silence from the Marxist co-opted press), in fact, even though access to the Baltic Sea is critical for the Allies to roll up Germany quickly by (a) closing the Baltic Sea to all German surface/subsurface vessels; (b) denying German access to trade with Sweden; (c) bringing the Royal Navy and the Imperial Russian Navy together; (d) forcing Germany to relocate critically needed infantry divisions and heavy armaments away from the Western Front for the new Baltic Front; (e) allowing British and Russian troop landings across the Baltic coasts, preventing German forces from moving eastwards towards Russia; thereby (f) knocking Germany out of the war before one shot is fired.
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John
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The issue remains that the virus theory remains just that a theory. It is still based on a belief and not empirical evidence. Dr Stefan Lamka’s 2015 article Dismantling the virus theory is a very interesting article on the dogma of the virus proposition.
Until the evidence is produced and that it can be replicated in vitro, I will never again take a vaccination for anything.
It is simply a construct by a massive Pharma industry with one objective only. enrichment of a few. We are simply being used as guinea pigs.
So in good Irish they can pog mo thoin.
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