20 Comments
Mar 19, 2023Liked by Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD

Thank you Dr. Hoeg. Is there any chance you can get this published in the WSJ? Though its’ an opinion piece, most people reading it will not take that into consideration and take his views as fact.

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Mar 19, 2023·edited Mar 19, 2023Liked by Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD

Thing is, public health policymakers can ignore the evidence you and many accomplished experts put forward and assert their own flimsy stand-ins for evidence for as long as they want. And stand in their definition of ethics doing it. And have courts uphold their policies. Take the practice of water fluoridation. Same flimsy evidence asserted and upheld in the face of large bodies of evidence produced by many accomplished experts. Upheld for over 75 years, coercive public health actions that remove consent from the public, no opt-outs where judges haven't put a stop to the mandates. They call it an ethical, "good stewardship" model.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics produced this guide to ethical public health policymaking in 2007. It is considered a gold-standard presentation of bioethics used by public policymakers internationally to help guide their decisions. It's guidance is still relevant and useful today, explaining much of what public health officials have relied upon to determine public policies. Subjects it touches on include obesity, tobacco and alcohol, infectious disease and water fluoridation. That doesn't necessarily make it a good guide.

https://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Public-health-ethical-issues.pdf

I find Chapter 7, Water Fluoridation beginning on page 121 (153) useful in the context of community masking mandates. It all is useful to read to gain full context, and beginning on page 135 (167) is a section on Consent that gets to the principles that inform public policymakers on the ethics of coercive public health actions that remove the consent of the public, no way to opt-out.

Throughout the entire guide and even in the section on Fluoridation it gives voice to individual free choice. That it rarely honors in its final subject guidance. With water fluoridation it shares that even after over 60 years (in 2007, now over 75 years) of fluoridating water there's little compelling evidence that it is effective. It acknowledges that in lab studies some results have been promising, but clear scientific results have never been produced that show it works as claimed in a community setting. It also acknowledges that opponents of fluoridating water have produced lab studies showing harmful effects, including increased cancer, from fluoridated water, but they've been disputed by proponents of fluoridation and so there's no clear scientific results that shows it is unquestionably harmful. Earlier in the guide it makes the case that no ethical public policy should be made so coercive it removes consent unless it is proven to be safe and effective.

With regards to fluoridation it says that because there's no clear, compelling evidence on either side that nation's ought not make it public policy for ethical reasons. *But* it goes on to offer that if local communities wish to do so they may. Then shifting the burden of proof onto opponents of fluoridation that shows clear, unquestionable scientific evidence it is unsafe. Violating the very ethics of the guide it purports to adhere to.

Apply this same reasoning to pandemic mitigation public policy, including mandatory mask mandates, policies that remove individual consent for a proclaimed collective public health concern. Know that water fluoridation has over 75 years of practice now in many communities, with no compelling evidence it is effective at preventing cavities (caries). But based on mere assertions of efficacy local communities fluoridate water. And because opponents aren't able to produce scientific evidence of harm that satisfies the proponents of fluoridation it is deemed ethical public policy at the local community level. With this model as a guide, local communities could continue with mask mandates for 75 years without any compelling evidence, dismissing all evidence of harms presented by opponents. And consider themselves ethical. Even "Good Stewards" of their citizens.

This bioethics guide proclaims its product represents the ideal of "Good Stewardship" that balances the competing interests of individual choice and freedom with the collective's public health and safety required sacrifices. In fact, it gives mere lip service to individual choice and freedom as it minimizes the value of it, while giving broad deference to presumptions of necessary collective sacrifices with little scrutiny. But because it gives any kind of voice to the individual it pats itself on the back for balancing the competing interests. It's mental masturbation for the creators of it, with multiple exclamations of King Solomon-like wisdom.

And it's significant to note that the head of Bioethics at the National Institute of Health is Christine Grady, wife of Anthony Fauci. Mic drop.

https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/05/18/fauci-wife-authors-paper-supporting-vaccine-pressure-campaigns/

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Mar 21, 2023Liked by Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD

Thank you so much for your work and for supporting real scientific inquiry.

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Mar 19, 2023Liked by Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD

Thank you, Tracy, for a fine post. It seems to me that those who supported NPIs without evidence are seriously conflicted when they purport to believe RCTs were (and still are) unnecessary. They are compelled to defend themselves, and the scientific method can’t help them because they rejected it when it mattered most. If these people ever were scientists, they gave that up to be advocates.

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Mar 19, 2023Liked by Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD

MDs, present company excluded, seem to have a reflex of denying error. Maybe it comes from ingrained fear of malpractice litigation.

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Mar 19, 2023Liked by Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD

Tracy, you are a real hero. Thank you.

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During spring 2020, COVID-19 death rates in Sweden were among the highest in Europe. Overall, excess mortality in Sweden in 2020–2021 was 0.79 per 100 inhabitants, compared with 2015–2019,8 which was lower than in many other European countries.

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Interesting that your chat stopped in 2020.. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/apa.16535#:~:text=In%20spring%202020%2C%20Sweden%20chose,rather%20than%20a%20stricter%20lockdown. "Although Swedish authorities initially followed a disease control path that differed from many other countries, extensive restrictions were implemented at a later date" and the US had a better overall response compared to Sweden.

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"The data are confounded by better underlying health (at least 3-4x less likely to die from non-covid causes) in the more highly vaccinated in the US and skewed by the fact people with unknown vaccination status are considered “unvaccinated” and are more likely to be uninsured/lower SES etc." The data are additionally skewed bc the CDC overestimated vaccine uptake rate. According to the Covid States Report by Northeastern, Northwestern, Harvard etc the proportion of the unvaccinated population size is understimated 3-fold (8% vs. 25%).

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Thank-you. It is important for the public to realize that there was severe damage done to children during the pandemic. It has lessened their physical immunity, as well as their cognitive, mental, and social well-being. I can say this for a fact because I work in early learning. During our lockdown period, I engaged in some active learning. I went outside of what main stream media was saying. I went on a truth quest. I read articles from business publications and medical journals. I looked at academic articles. I tried to make sense of UN and WHO posts. This reading also led me to the WEF website. It became clear to me that things were not making sense. I returned to work realizing that policies for both staff and children sometimes made little sense. I now clearly do not take the going narrative as the truth. I, rather see what is true in their statements. I am not a conspiraist, I am a truth finder. I still the damage this pandemic has caused children and their families.

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So according to you, the next time you have surgery the surgeon shouldn’t be wearing a mask? Also how do you explain that there was nearly zero RSV in ANY population for 2 seasons. Nobody would do an RCT during a pandemic of this sort- it’s not the same as an IND trial.

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Tracy,

I am a graduate student studying Immunology and was temporarily banned from campus in January 2022, despite having serological proof of natural immunity. I help run a Canadian wide University student group called “Students Against Mandates” (https://www.studentsagainstmandates.ca ). We would love to interview you. If interested please contact me SAM-science@protonmail.com

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Leo Lam is asking for an example RTC protocol that would pass IRB. I would suggest that a protocol that studies masking 2-5 year olds should not pass IRB based on the WHO recommendation and warnings of obvious harms to the mask group.

Does Leo Lam think the IRB would be more concerned about a few more kids getting COVID in the unmasked group or or the obvious risk of psychological damage and hindrance of social development in the mask group? I would submit that the obsessive maskers have the burden of coming up with a protocol that would protect the mask group enough to pass an IRB.

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I used to follow you on Twitter until my life ban for sharing science.

Are you able to tell us how the Florida Grand Jury is going?

https://geoffpain.substack.com/p/governor-ron-desantis-florida-grand

Do you support replacement of dangerous and uncomfortable Nasopharyngeal Swabs with Masks to capture and PCR Viruses? That is under commercial development now.

https://geoffpain.substack.com/p/asymptomatic-people-spread-the-covid19

Do you have any assay data for Endotoxin in the mRNA jabs?

https://geoffpain.substack.com/p/abortion-preeclampsia-and-placenta

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Notably Dr. Frieden’s article was a WSJ Opinion piece not a news piece, thank God. He appears separated from reality, to have not read widely, or critically at all and certainly not data outside of US. I read most of his writings and interviews to be cheerleading for an organization he used to lead (CDC) and a sad attempt to stay relevant.Not worth your always insightful analysis. Thank you for what you do, and what you put up with.

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