Fauci wannabe Peter Hotez seemed like a clown, but turned out to be very dangerous, creating a "fire hose of falsehoods" that slipped into peoples' unconscious, making them believe his lies

I love The Midwestern Doctor because he seems to think like me, writes better, and collects a ton of facts. In this case he reports back from Peter Hotez' latest book and gives me a shout-out

Dissecting A Modern Vaccine Propaganda Piece

The Midwestern Doctor (TMD) sought to understand how choosing your preferred COVID medications became a function of your political affiliation. I remarked on this in 2020, pointing out that “Never Trump” morphed into “Never Hydroxychloroquine,” and I noted in wonderment that people preferred to risk death rather than try a drug boosted by Trump. But how did such a nonsensical thing happen, and how did it come to affect over 100 million Americans? This was the wackiest thing I’ve ever seen in 40 years of medical practice. TMD tries to parse it:

Much of this partisan divide emerged during Obama’s presidency, after he made the choice to ally his party with the pharmaceutical industry and support a WHO plan to push childhood vaccine mandates across the country (which at the time Sherri Tenpenny told us was being done to pave the way for adult vaccines in the future). Since much of the public opposed these mandates (e.g., because there were many parents with vaccine injured children), they were met with significant protest. In turn, in each state where it was debated, Democratic legislators voted in unison for the mandates while the Republican legislators (who were not bought out) were eventually persuaded by their constituents to veto the mandates.

This is not exactly true. There were two tries by pharma at getting rid of mandates. The first effort began around 2014, and the lobbyists could not get it done—they were thrown out of the southern states. Vermont (as blue as blue can be) gave up the philosphic vaccine exemption but retained the religious one. But the lobbyists charmed California (which allows unlimited gifts to ad hoc legislative committees) and got rid of all religious and philosphicexemptions, even infringing on medical exemptions as the most vaccine-happy state in the nation.

Then Pharma came back around 2018 to a new set of states and this time they were better armed. Connecticut, NY, Maine went down, losing their religious and philosophic vaccine exemptions. (And I may have forgotten one or two states.) In Maine, in order to pass the bill, the ability for doctors to issue exemptions for medical reasons was loosened. All a doctor had to write was that in the doctor’s opinion it was inadvisable to give a shot.

That worked, briefly, till the onset of COVID, when Maine doctors were hunted down and punished for issuing the exemptions that Maine law told them they had the freedom to issue. Now back to TMD:

This caused vaccination to become a political issue (previously almost everyone in both parties agreed with it). At the time, the pharmaceutical industry was very worried about the issue becoming politicized and turned into a debate. In turn, numerous articles came out (e.g., see this one and this one) that chastised anyone politicizing vaccination and cautioning against legislative actions which could further politicize the issue. Remarkably, it seems that this position was abandoned during COVID-19, which I suspect was the result of the industry concluding the mRNA vaccines were so dangerous the only way they could be pushed on the public was through blind partisan loyalty.

TMD concludes by noting that humor is the best way to overturn the harmful, ridiculous narratives andd policies we are still living with. I agree. But I also think that showing up their bald-faced lies is another, and I will be doing some experiments on this substack very soon, starting today, to see if you agree.

Oral arguments re dismissal in my case against the Board are occurring tomorrow, but due to a blizzard I did not drive the 165 miles to Portland to get there. Wish us luck.