Lock down madness prevents approval of cancer drug
Because the FDA’s irrational fear of COVID-19, it has refused to do inspections required to approve a new drug (effective against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma). The result: The drug company’s application will expire on November 16, meaning that they will have to start all over, a process that could take years, while tens of thousands die annually unnecessarily.
Liso-cel, manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb, originally had its Food and Drug Administration (FDA) application accepted in February, but has yet to have one of its contracted manufacturing sites undergo FDA inspection due to the coronavirus pandemic. Not only is the drug’s approval contingent on the facility inspections from the FDA, according to multiple company executives, but its application expires on Nov. 16, meaning that if the plant is not inspected in the coming days Bristol-Myers may have to completely resubmit the drug’s application as a result.
While the first of two facility inspections occurred, the planned inspection of Bristol-Myers’ contracted Houston facility has not “due to COVID travel restrictions and health risks,” according to a Sept. 8 conference call with Citi biopharma analysts and the company’s chief medical officer.
…The drug, which in clinical trials triggered a positive response in 73% of patients and remission in 53% of patients, according to Bristol-Myers, must receive FDA approval by Nov. 16. If it fails to be approved, it must resubmit its application, further delaying its approval by months, if not years, potentially costing thousands of lives as a result.
Each year, approximately 77,000 Americans are diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and about 20,000 Americans die, according to the American Cancer Society.
I promise you, this story is one of many. A cold rational look at the unnecessary deaths caused by the thoughtless fear of COVID-19 would find without doubt that the cure was much worse than the disease. We are killing many more people from other far more serious illnesses because of our unreasonable terror at something quite comparable to the ordinary flu.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Because the FDA’s irrational fear of COVID-19, it has refused to do inspections required to approve a new drug (effective against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma). The result: The drug company’s application will expire on November 16, meaning that they will have to start all over, a process that could take years, while tens of thousands die annually unnecessarily.
Liso-cel, manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb, originally had its Food and Drug Administration (FDA) application accepted in February, but has yet to have one of its contracted manufacturing sites undergo FDA inspection due to the coronavirus pandemic. Not only is the drug’s approval contingent on the facility inspections from the FDA, according to multiple company executives, but its application expires on Nov. 16, meaning that if the plant is not inspected in the coming days Bristol-Myers may have to completely resubmit the drug’s application as a result.
While the first of two facility inspections occurred, the planned inspection of Bristol-Myers’ contracted Houston facility has not “due to COVID travel restrictions and health risks,” according to a Sept. 8 conference call with Citi biopharma analysts and the company’s chief medical officer.
…The drug, which in clinical trials triggered a positive response in 73% of patients and remission in 53% of patients, according to Bristol-Myers, must receive FDA approval by Nov. 16. If it fails to be approved, it must resubmit its application, further delaying its approval by months, if not years, potentially costing thousands of lives as a result.
Each year, approximately 77,000 Americans are diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and about 20,000 Americans die, according to the American Cancer Society.
I promise you, this story is one of many. A cold rational look at the unnecessary deaths caused by the thoughtless fear of COVID-19 would find without doubt that the cure was much worse than the disease. We are killing many more people from other far more serious illnesses because of our unreasonable terror at something quite comparable to the ordinary flu.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Combine Covid madness with socialized medicine—-
I have been waiting over two years for a knee replcement. By doctors advise, I have been taking cortisone injects which further progress the cartilege destruction. Now my knee pops out several times perday, even in bed.
Knee replacement is an elective surgery in Canada which have been again shut down due to Covid fears.
Looking at my American friends, they get such surgeries within a couple of weeks or, at the outside, one month.
Problem for me is I have paid for the “FREE” health care through taxes and if I want to pay again to get it doner, I will have to sell my house.
Words can not decribe how angry with “FREE” health care. Whenever government controlls heaslth, they control you!
Listening to Governor Cuomo’s statement about not wanting to deploy the Covid vaccine in New York, isn’t it becoming abundantly clear that our friends on the left WANT the Covid19 madness — coming nationwide lockdown and all — to persist for a long as possible?
The virus aids in forwarding their agenda, and what’s a few more dead people (just ask Comrade Stalin, Chairman Mao, or Pol Pot about that) when you have a socialist revolution to foment?
https://nypost.com/2020/11/09/gov-cuomo-hits-new-low-with-covid-vaccine-comments/
The irony, of course, is that while the captive, presstitute media has portrayed President Trump as someone who has “mishandled” the fight against the virus and someone who “wants to kill your grandmother,” it is the progressives who have taken political advantage of the outbreak at every turn, so much so that it probably cost Mr. Trump reelection. Never forget, per M. Scott Peck’s insightful book by this title, the progressives are “The People of The Lie,” and lying about everything is simply what they “do.”
The tragedy, it appears, is that we will be living under their regime of lies for at least the next four years, and this is going to require fortitude, patience, and possibly (considering that they are even now making “lists” of their enemies) personal courage.
Seems like it would be a trivial administrative decision by the FDA to simply extend the deadline on this application and say it was due to COVID. “Sorry for the delay, we will finish the inspections as soon as we can.” I wonder how much of this story is Bristol-Myers trying to force the FDA to do the rational thing and push out the application deadline.
Unfortunately, asking the FDA to be rational might be going too far.
Covid-19 will kill more than 10 times the number (of the usual susceptible groups) than that of a recent normal or average flu season (of the same susceptible groups),
yet RZ continues to state it is something “quite comparable to the ordinary flu”.
RZ is simply wrong by a factor of 10.
How can you be wrong by a factor of 10 and still continually not acknowledge that simple fact?
Astonishing.
m d mill: I remain unconvinced COVID-19 is killing at the numbers you claim. I in fact have explained at length and in detail, with data, in more than a few essays, why I remain unconvinced. That you refuse to even consider these facts, or even attempt to refute them, is unfortunate.
Moreover, even if this disease is killing the numbers you say, I would still insist that our response should be comparable to the flu, since the deaths remain focused entirely among the elderly sick. (This is one of those facts the doom-sayers seem to always ignore: The average age of death from or with COVID-19 continues to track at about 78.)
Like the flu, this disease is relatively harmless for everyone else. We should be protecting the elderly sick population, and let everyone else go back to living their lives normally. Just like we have always done for the flu, for eons.
Sadly, we are so gripped by fear that we have been doing the exact opposite. Thus, tens of thousands of old people have died unnecessarily, either because they were infected because Democratic Party governments acted to expose them to sick people, or because they were denied proper treatment for other illnesses, because governments and doctors shut down all other medical treatment while they waited for the COVID-19 plague that never arrived.
That you seem to be unable to acknowledge these facts is far more astonishing.
Robert,
You wrote: “A cold rational look at the unnecessary deaths caused by the thoughtless fear of COVID-19 would find without doubt that the cure was much worse than the disease.”
We knew this much back in April. However, it took a little longer to figure out that more people were actually dying than being saved. I notice that the “cure” is not a cure at all. It doesn’t even count as a treatment. It is merely a reaction, and one of panic rather than thoughtful, reasonable, and effective countermeasures.
As for m d mill, I have noticed that the leftists who comment here are much more content to merely make emotional claims without any informative supporting documentation. Instead they try to be correct by fiat. It is as though they are saying,. “I feel like the world should be the way I want it, therefore it is.” In Aristotelean terms: “I feel therefore I am right.” Facts, figures, science, thoughtfulness do not matter, which explains the thoughtless fear of the Wuhan Plandemic.
We have seen that the emotional response to Wuhan Plague has resulted in almost a hundred thousand extra deaths in the U.S. alone. The World Trade Organization fears that there will soon be a hundred million children starved around the world. Emotion over reason does not work out well. The leftists do not learn this, because learning is a rational act, not an emotional one.
On the other hand, I keep wondering why they do not feel bad about the tens of thousands of nursing home patients killed by the bad decisions of governors, the rapid spread of the disease due to various politicians directing people to go to their local Chinatowns, or the hundred thousand extra deaths. Or the potential hundred million dead children around the world. Perhaps their feelings are selfish, not empathic.
Since this drug could prevent half of the 20,000 deaths due to this cancer, the result of this emotional, ineffective reaction to Wubonic Plague is an additional 30 deaths per day for as long as it takes to get the approvals. I have yet to hear anyone on the left feel sorry for those additional deaths. Instead they rationalize the deadly reaction by exaggerating the Wuhan deaths, present and future.
Phill O, You noted: “Problem for me is I have paid for the “FREE” health care through taxes and if I want to pay again to get it doner, I will have to sell my house.”
Sorry to hear about your problem. In the U.S., they sold Obamacare to us as a way to get medical care without having to sell the house. It isn’t working so well here, either. We have to sell our houses in order to afford the insurance premiums, and the deductibles are so large that we wonder whether we even had the insurance that we paid for. Dunno what we do for next year, though, because I didn’t sell my house and I have no insurance. It looks like my house is my insurance policy.
The Founding Fathers, all overt and declaring Christians, nonetheless took care to separate church from state.
Now we need to add to that: separation of medicine from state.
When the state, government of men and doctors, assumes responsibility for your health and the risks you are willing to take regarding it, the state controls your life and death.
SEPARATION OF MEDICINE AND STATE is REQUIRED for people to live in liberty.
RZ:
When you are show to be wrong you make assumptions about my beliefs to avoid admitting the fact or admitting fault.
[Incidentally, comparison of total death rates this year with recent years make it unquestionable that the US death rate from Covid-19 is about 230,000 more than a “normal” flu years, so far. The fact that the elderly are the primary victims is irrelevant since these are always the primary victims with flu deaths–which is the point I made above which you do not seem to grasp.]
RZ: “That you seem to be unable to acknowledge these facts is far more astonishing.”
In fact I do NOT disagree with most of what you said in your response, and have never said so . So, you are wrong again.
I do NOT disagree with the fact that the US response has been excessive, and totally disagree with the forced lock-down
philosophy, and have always said so on BTB, but you chose to believe or state this so as to discredit my statements generally. So you are wrong again.
I agree with 90% of what you believe on this issue, and my past posts can verify this.
But you do sometimes make wrong headed statements and twist data to make your point, and I sometimes take issue with these.
Specifically again:
“Covid-19 will kill more than 10 times the number (of the usual susceptible groups) than that of a recent normal or average flu season (of the same susceptible groups),
yet RZ continues to state it is something “quite comparable to the ordinary flu”.
RZ is simply wrong by a factor of 10…”. I am implying nothing more or less than this specific statement.
Why not simply acknowledge this fact and admit Covid -19 is more lethal than you (and I) originally thought it would be, and quit repeating the clearly false statement otherwise? This does not discredit 90% of the analysis and strategy that you AND I agree on. It is astonishing to me if you are unable or unwilling or incapable of doing so, about something that is so clear.
m d mill: I do not accept your claim that COVID-19 will kill ten times more people than the flu, because it has not done so. Period. This year the number killed that has been assigned to COVID-19 (that certainly includes a large number of flu deaths) is about 230,000.
A typical flu season ranges from 30,000 to 90,000, or an average of 60K.
230K is not ten times 60K. This is simple math. And that assumes we trust the 230K number, which is corrupted by politics and many deaths wrongly assigned to COVID-19.
So, you can make this claim as much as you want, but I am citing data here to disprove it. What data do you have to prove your claim?
Over the last decade flu deaths/season in the US average 35,900, in the 12 months from the start of March 2020 to the end of February 2021 Covid deaths are likely to get very close to 10X that average for flu, DESPITE the efforts that HAVE restricted its spread.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/past-seasons.html
m d mill wrote: “RZ is simply wrong by a factor of 10…”
This would be true if m d mill were right, but he proves my point that “[leftists who comment here] try to be correct by fiat.” The factor of ten statement has yet to be supported. We are to take his word for it. He thinks that if he says it, it must be true. And repeating it makes it even more true. Anyone who disagrees is, by definition, wrong.
Why is m d mill wrong? Because the data has been so terribly corrupted that it is utterly useless for making his point. No one knows just how many people have been killed by the Wubonic Plague (thank you to whoever here first used this term). All we know is how many have been attributed to it and that this number has been greatly inflated by lucrative financial incentives to do so.
Q: What effect will everyone on the planet be hyper aware of their hygiene because of Covid and washing their hands, not touching their faces and generally staying away from others and wearing masks when thought prudent on the flu numbers this year?
It has to have an effect.
Cotour, Southern hemisphere countries have just come out of their flu season – but this year most didn’t have a flu season.
First, I must repeat Andrew_W’s very cogent post and ask RZ to refute the number. Remember, I said compared to a normal flu season in “recent years”…the last decade is certainly a good measure of recent years.
“Over the last decade flu deaths/season in the US average 35,900, in the 12 months from the start of March 2020 to the end of February 2021 Covid deaths are likely to get very close to 10X that average for flu, DESPITE the efforts that HAVE restricted its spread.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/past-seasons.html”
I have always assumed the 30,000 flu deaths average approximation[I am not making research for BTB my life’s work], thus 300,00/30,000=10 ROUGHLY.
Secondly, as to attribution. The increasing difference of total deaths/month from the recent normal started sharply in about march at the time of the great china-covid infection increase and has increased to 230,000 above the norm roughly. What else was the cause? Are you saying that the elderly just happened to start dying at an increased 300,000 per year rate by in march by coincidence? Please be reasonable.
It does not matter that many of these people had other diseases or were elderly and weak BECAUSE this is the same group that dies of “normal” flu…CAN YOU NOT GRASP THIS? We are current on track for roughly 300,000 deaths above the norm by march 1 2021. These are the numbers to the best of my ability to understand. I do not like it, i did not originally predict it , but there you are.
Can you reasonably refute any of this. I really wish you could. I would like to think covid-19 deaths were little different from a “normal” flu season…but they are not. They are roughly a factor of 10 worse.
Unless you can refute this you should simply stop describing covid-19 as “quite comparable to the ordinary flu”.
It seems IMO to be undeniably worse by roughly a factor of 10 (OK,OK, maybe 8.3333333 :)
m d mill: The flu numbers you cite are valid, though my estimate of the average is a bit higher. No matter. Let’s parse the data more carefully (as I did here), using your numbers.
There is ample evidence that the 230,000 COVID death number has been inflated. I have seen numbers ranging from 20% to 40%, but the 25% number suggested by Dr. Deborah Birx seems a reasonable compromise, for the sake of argument.
That would lower the COVID-19 death toll so far to 172,000.
Let’s note also that the number of deaths from the flu and pneumonia this year have vanished, a fact that I cannot believe is credible. More likely hospitals and doctors, in an effort to garner the financial bonus the government gives them for treating coronavirus victims, have listed COVID-19 as the cause of death, when they simply were not sure, or had wriggle room to favor the virus over other causes. If we had a normal average flu season, using your number, that’s about 36,000 deaths out of this total, leaving us now with about 136,500 COVID-19 deaths.
That number is only about four times higher than an average flu season, not ten times. I must also repeat that because there are so many doubts about the accuracy of these COVID mortality numbers I suspect we are arguing this point in a vacuum, and the difference is likely even lower.
To have that many additional deaths this year, almost all among the elderly sick, because of the arrival of another and new respiratory disease, is simply not that significant. It does however suggest, as other evidence has, that COVID-19 is more dangerous to those elderly sick than the flu.
Regardless, to me none of this hair-splitting about these numbers really matters. The evidence, from the beginning, was that this virus was going to attack humans in the same general manner as the flu, dangerous to the elderly sick, and relatively harmless to everyone else. The data now proves that early evidence.
Which means we should not be responding to this disease as we are. I’ll say it again: we should be protecting only the vulnerable elderly, and let everyone else live a normal life. That would encourage the virus’s spread so that it would die out quicker, thus protecting better that vulnerable population.
Instead, we did the exact opposite, protecting those whom the virus was not going to kill, while helping it reach those it would kill. It is very likely this bad policy, especially in states like New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylania, helped contribute to these higher numbers. Which means the death rate you fear was likely pumped up because of bad policy and not the lethality of the virus.
I stand by my position. We will have to agree to disagree.
“I stand by my position.”
Of course you do. Wiser souls adjust their position to fit the data rather than visa versa.
Andrew, Speaking of wisdom and data, when a financial incentive is attached to enrich entities that declare that which becomes data ….. the wise person understands the data is corrupt.
“. . . the wise person understands the data is corrupt.”
No, the wise person understands that there are many conflicting influences on human behaviour, and that a financial incentive is but one. The wise person bases their conclusions on evidence, not unproven assumptions, especially the oft leapt to conclusion that others must be easily corrupted.
Okay. The preliminary data for the most recent seasonal influenza season (2019/Oct _2020/Apr) here in the United States (courtesy of the C.D.C.):
Estimated total number of symptomatic cases = 38,194,505 (95% U.I. of 33,672,529 | 47,034,054)
Estimated deaths = 21,909 (95% U.I. 17,970 | 29,053)
So, that’s for the most recent season. If one desires, you can look at the past to the 2010-2011 season. And the numbers are there for per 100,000, demographics, age groups, medical visits, hospitalizations, etc. for each season of influenza.
As one would expect, the numbers vary according to each season’s strains. That said, one thing is plain as day; the numbers the U.S. is experiencing from COVID are orders of magnitude more impactful, more severe.
What I don’t understand Mr. Zimmerman is how you have repeatedly maintained month after month that COVID is being overreacted to by saying things like the following chestnuts:
“epidemic is dying off, both in its deadliness and in its spread…” from your Oct. 21st The Dying COVID-19 epidemic commentary…
Or
Sept. 23rd you observed “The data is now in. Not only is CORONAVIRUS nothing more than a very bad flu, harmless to the vast majority of the population…” in your opening paragraph of your commentary titled: Four graphs prove the utter failure of lockdowns and masks
Or
Sept. 1st titled COVID-19 is simply not life threatening
And I could go on, but I just don’t understand how a disease that’s killed over 240,000 out of 10.5 million cases is no worse in your eyes than seasonal flu seasons that have 30, 40, 50 million cases (and 20,30, 40 thousand deaths) meaning fatality rates that are roughly 1/10 of what COVID-19 is reeking?
And yes, you can take Dr. Brix’s comment from May about 25% overstating of deaths. Maybe that’s correct, maybe not. It seems just as likely COVID-19 may have killed tens of thousands more than have been reported (that’s a new story found on John Hopkins site).
And I’m not even going to get into right now how COVID hospitalization rates, duration of stay, even the numbers of folks who end up being readmitted to a hospital are not the same as seasonal flu.
I think m d mill and Andrew_W are making valid worthy cases, yet you seem bent on maintains one position even though the tide of evidence is washing parts of your case away as the months tick by.
You say that COVID is not the plague. That’s correct. But it seems far more serious than the typical influenza season.
As always, I wish you and yours good health.
David and Andrew, like you and everyone here, I read all kinds of things. I have learned hard over time that it is wisest to believe my own eyes and trust my own triple-checked arithmetic if it conflicts with what I read, what political figures and medical authorities say is happening through talking heads of assorted media.
Arithmetic alone tells anyone with common sense that this is ZERO serious threat to any of us, least of all China. Those who think it is a threat believe that it is so solely on the word of others. The main reason I think that the C 19 is a manufactured crisis as opposed to an actual pandemic, is because I have experienced actual pandemics.
This ain’t one.
Robert,
m d mill had written: “The increasing difference of total deaths/month from the recent normal started sharply in about march at the time of the great china-covid infection increase and has increased to 230,000 above the norm roughly.”
m d mill’s number is off by about 100,000. He only includes the deaths attributed to Wuhan Plague and misses the number due to collateral damage. This means that he is not using the CDC’s official numbers for total deaths. He is not arguing from numbers or data but strictly from emotions.
Even David does not understand that the overreaction has already killed nearly 100,000 people not attributed to the Wuhan Plague. janyuary understands that the data is corrupted, that we really cannot determine what is going on or compare this year’s flus with other years because of the terrible way that the data has been treated. All that we can be sure of is that the Wuhan Plague has killed fewer people than have been attributed to it and that hundreds of thousands more have died this year than trends would have predicted. The difference is the horrific reaction to the Wuhan virus.
Mr. Zimmerman – I wanted to say I got off topic and should have commented on the reason for your commentary; will the FDA screw up by not inspecting the Texas plant by 11/16 because of the COVID pandemic. Sorry about that.
I don’t get why the FDA could get the Bothell Washington plant inspections done despite COVID but fail to schedule (thus far) the inspection of the Texas facility by the 11/16 PDUFA date. It will be interesting Monday morning to see if the date gets slid or the FDA does a virtual inspection (that possibility is from Endpoints News site).
Since the CVR for Liso-cel has a 12/31 date for final approval of the medication, I would think investors holding the CVR would have to be told now if the FDA wasn’t going to make this work out.
So Monday a.m. I’ll be watching and saying a prayer that people who need this new drug aren’t made to wait and suffer. Thank you for bringing this story forward. We may disagree on COVID, but you are a 1,000% right to be upset.
ticket symbol is BMY-RT.
Edward – saw your comments. Would reply now but it’s David’s famous Saturday night homemade tacos time at this moment.
Will follow up sir.
Robert,
People have lost all sense of perspective because of the Wuhan Plague panic. It is why so many people think that the deadly reaction to this relatively minor flu is so necessary. There is great suffering that has been lost to or ignored by those who have lost all sense of perspective. How many people are dying in a misguided attempt to save just one life from dying of Wuhan? Where is a sense of perspective when we need it most?
Now that this supposed plague is spreading again, we can be sure of two things: 1) the lockdowns are not working, and 2) the masks are not working. If they worked, then there would not be another spread of this disease. Once again, people have lost perspective and have lost their ability to apply reason and logic to the situation.
Instead, they are willing to accept deadly collateral damage to the economy, livelihoods, families, and individuals. For them, we should give up our liberty for a little health security, yet we have seen that we are getting less healthcare than in the Before Times and we are getting more deaths due to this horrific reaction to the flu than we ever got to most other flus. They are terribly selfish, willing to force us to lose our own lives, livelihoods, healthcare insurance (when we lose our jobs), and liberties all so that they can feel safe and secure. Yet after all the sacrifices that we have made for them, they still are fearful. They do not feel safe or secure.
But those who have lost perspective do not care. They are willing to place their own health in the hands of others. They even applaud lockdowns and masks, saying that all of us must obey these stupid rules just so that these selfish people do not get the virus.
A terrible part of this loss of perspective is that most of the people who applaud lockdowns are not part of the high risk population, that if they were to get it then they would become immune to it in the future and help bring about herd immunity. Instead, we ended up with a second wave in the summertime, a time when flus should not spread, and now they are fearful of yet another wave this winter. We ended up with the worst of both worlds. Not in Sweden, though, where they already generated herd immunity, but everywhere where lockdowns caused horrendous collateral damage.
The correct measures are to protect those who are most at risk of dying, and letting the rest of us continue being productive so that we can continue building the support mechanisms for everyone, including those who most need protection.
Talk about a one-two punch. The disease hit us where it hurts most, largely because governors and politicians gave us that first punch by sending ailing patients to nursing homes and directing us to go to our local Chinatowns. Then they punched us with the extended lockdowns, causing tremendous collateral damage. They think they are butterflies, but they are stinging bees. Now they are giving us a series of knockout punches:
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/lock-down-madness-prevents-approval-of-cancer-drug/
Now I hear that New York wants to mandate the upcoming vaccines for everyone in the state, not just those most vulnerable to the disease but everyone. You know how this will work out, of course. Those who want to continue going to work or want to continue going outdoors will be the first to get it, leaving the most vulnerable out of luck. Since they don’t get to go out anyway, they will be among the last to get these protections — again!
We also hear from people who do not understand the data that they present to us. Most commonly we keep hearing about how many died of Wuhan Plague, yet the numbers presented to us are from the news media, which is a higher number than the CDC’s number of deaths attributed to Wuhan. Among the things that they do not understand about the data is how it was collected, which is vitally important to understanding it. This is why scientific papers describe the way data was collected.
People who do not understand the data assume that a number is like any other and that what is contained within that number does not matter. That is why some people here continually compare the Wuhan Flu Of Death to flus from other years. They do not understand that the Wuhan data contains more than was contained in the flu data of other years, and they ignorantly feel that the numbers can be compared. This misuse of data necessarily results in poorly drawn and incorrect conclusions. To set policy based upon these incorrect conclusions can — and has — resulted in deadly collateral consequences, among other horrific consequences to us all. Most of these collateral deaths occur in the younger demographic, not the part of the population most vulnerable to Wuhan, pneumonia, or other flus. This is just one part of the tragedy of the result of the terrible reaction to the Wuhan Flu From Hell.
When these people make comparisons, what they do not realize is that the comparison is between people who died of flu and people whose deaths resulted in thousands of government dollars going to medical facilities or municipalities. It is similar to comparing apples and meteorites. With financial incentives for deaths, one might wonder whether those with or suspected or assumed to have the Wuhan virus are receiving the best possible care or whether the financial incentive for them to die wins the battle, adding even more deaths to the feared and continuous Wuhan count.
Tom Woods Show
Ep. 1775
“The COVID Cult”
November 12, 2020
https://youtu.be/dHsNN50tCVs
22:41
Edward – Saw your writings above and wish to say the following about your critiques of myself. In advance forgive me because I don’t have time this morning to list both your comments about moi followed by my reply (you know what you wrote):
You say I don’t understand about people who are suffering and indeed some are dying due to causes arising from lockdowns, people not seeking treatment for non-COVID medical issues due to COVID fears, etc. That is flat wrong. I do care! I know that folks have died. I don’t know how many. Have I discussed the subject here? No. Why? I haven’t made time to research the matter yet. But I will. I know CDC and WHO both have data on the matter.
You may have missed it, but I’ve said here at BTB that medical issues are not in my wheelhouse.
Might I ask that you give me an opportunity to at least first reply with a researched answer before you pronounce me as stupid. Or oblivious to the truth (as you see it anyway). Or not understanding differences between scientific method and emotion based reaction (don’t know how I’ve managed to fool people all these years on a certain area of scientific endeavor; guess I should count my lucky stars).
On your position about the usefulness of CDC numbers, you’re wrong about the data being completely useless, corrupted beyond use, etc. If you take time you’ll see which data is preliminary, which data is finalized, the limitations to the accuracy due to data collection issues or restrictions (hence uncertainty indicators and estimated range), what those limitations are, how CDC defines seasonal start/stop dates for influenza, and on and on.
I posted the CDC info because some folks insist on saying there is no data for this year about the seasonal influenza, but there is. There is the initial preliminary 2019-2020 season that ended in April. The 2020-2021 season started in October. You and Zimmerman insist on saying the data is corrupted and beyond use. That hospitals are prone to manipulating the causes of deaths for financial reasons. The only public health medical professional I know says the data is not corrupted beyond use because of COVID, but it is preliminary and not finalized. That there is no widespread attempt to falsify cause of deaths.
Stop lumping me in with folks who advocate for lockdowns. I’ve never said that here or anywhere else.
I do support proper mask use as my personal preference for the reasons I’ve provided. It doesn’t matter to me whether there are mask mandates or not. Why? Because it’s clear too many folks can’t be bothered to wear them and handle them properly mandate or no mandate. I wish more folks did. Just ask their personal doctor for advise.
But lots of folks won’t even do that; somehow a mask strangles their personal freedom so badly they must crush everyone who dares to read more than just a diet of organic farm fertilizer being shoveled down throats by the amalgamation of hucksters and loons who have practically warped American conservatism beyond recognition.
I wear them to hopefully lower the potential that I might unknowingly infect another human being if I was infected and didn’t know it. Why is that so unacceptable to people like Zimmerman and yourself???
David wrote: “You say I don’t understand about people who are suffering and indeed some are dying due to causes arising from lockdowns, people not seeking treatment for non-COVID medical issues due to COVID fears, etc. That is flat wrong. I do care!”
Finally. Finally, someone in the obey-or-go-to-prison-for-murder camp admits that there have been collateral deaths. I feel as though a huge weight has been lifted, because I have been urging such an admission for months, ramping up in recent weeks. Ah, it feels so good.
Now if only others will make such an admission and one of them will admit that these horrific deaths have been unnecessary.
David,
You wrote: “Might I ask that you give me an opportunity to at least first reply with a researched answer before you pronounce me as … oblivious to the truth (as you see it anyway).”
If you have not yet done the research, then aren’t you “oblivious to the truth?”
“If you take time you’ll see which data is preliminary, which data is finalized, the limitations to the accuracy due to data collection issues or restrictions (hence uncertainty indicators and estimated range), what those limitations are, how CDC defines seasonal start/stop dates for influenza, and on and on.”
I have, and as you note, the preliminary data is incorrect and unusable for comparisons or for setting policy. Unless or until the CDC, or anyone, can pull out the signal from the noise, the data remains corrupted with non-informative data added in. Even then, we will need to be sure that what comes out is useful data and has not remained corrupted. This is always a problem with pulling signals from noise.
Indeed, when people here have pointed out that the CDC has admitted that the data contains more deaths than were caused by Wuhan flu, we have gotten a lot of pushback, demanding that the number of deaths is high, not low. Pointing to the CDC’s own data does not reduce this pushback. The current quarter-million number clearly contains more than just deaths by Wuhan, and we have found the data to show this, but the quarter-million number continues to be used.
“That there is no widespread attempt to falsify cause of deaths.”
I did not say that there was. However, there is very powerful incentive to include as Wuhan deaths people who did not die of Wuhan but with, or are merely suspected or assumed to have Wuhan. This is very different from your assumption that we think that there is a “widespread attempt” to intentionally falsify causes of deaths.
What is now being measured is not what people think is being measured.
“I wear them to hopefully lower the potential that I might unknowingly infect another human being if I was infected and didn’t know it. Why is that so unacceptable to people like Zimmerman and yourself???”
Why do you think that this is unacceptable to us? What we have been decrying are the mandates. Yet your response makes clear that though you deny it, you want everyone around you to wear masks.
The CDC admits that masks do not work:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/public-health-recommendations.html
Near the bottom, under: Current guidance based on community exposure, for people exposed to people with known or suspected COVID-19 or possible COVID-19
If masks worked, then the guidance would not be needed for anyone wearing one, and these guidelines would not have such a note. According to the CDC, the mask does nothing for you if you were exposed to a Wuhan-positive person, even when worn by that positive person. Your assumption that by wearing a mask you will not unknowingly spread the disease to others is false. The CDC is clear on that.
Masks do not stop the spread, as we are being told in countless advertisements, these days, and they don’t slow the spread by much, perhaps a 3% reduction for a non-coughing, non-sneezing, non-hymnal-singing but infected person. If someone is ill and coughing or sneezing, why are you hanging around him anyway, and why isn’t he at home in bed? If masks worked then we would be able to congregate in groups greater than ten people.
Masks may make you feel better, and they may make you or those around you feel more confident about being less socially distanced (such as shopping in stores), but the result of mask mandates in early summer clearly has contributed to this past summer’s wave of Wuhan attributed deaths.
Robert and I have never said you or anyone should not be free to wear masks, but we despise the mandates and have warned of the unintended consequences of wearing them and mandating them. It seems that your choice is not as well informed as you think it is.
Edward:
Thank you for your lengthy reply. We will have to disagree. I wish you and yours good health.
Mr. Zimmerman and all:
An update on the FDA inspection and the implications for approval of Liso-cel. The inspection of the Texas plant did not take place by the November 16th deadline. Reading various takes of the impact seem to show that though unlikely, there does remain a sliver of hope the inspection might still happen and the FDA’s review process be completed prior to the December 31, 2020 deadline for approval set forth in the Convertible Rights ($BMY-RT).
If I see any future news, I’ll try to pass it on.