 |
| Courtesy Principle of Beliefs |
 |
| Courtesy World History |
THOUSANDS
of anti-lockdown protesters TAKE OVER central London (VIDEOS)
 |
2 A demonstrator shows his fists as he takes part in an anti-lockdown 'Unite for Freedom' protest in London, Britain, April 24, 2021 © Reuters / Toby Melville Now one can see how biased the mainstream press is, there was hardly a mention in the national newspapers. https://www.rt.com/uk/522032-london-lockdown-protest-march/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Email |
 | |
Courtesy From Google Images
Perhaps we may want to ask ourselves why did the main media coverage not include the extent of the rallies and marches---are they afraid their political masters will punish them? Are the conspiracy theories so far fetched about Covid. Of course there is a severe and unpleasant flu going around. Should you be able to get it there is a video named 'Visions of Hope' 19minutes in 1987 and shown on BBC in which I was one of those interviewed and one lady Margaret Curle talks about the huge flu that hit London and the world in the 70's and apparently was as severe as Covid. Backing up the figures below is the small clip I have displayed many times; |
Posted on:
Written By:
This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2021
Visit our
Re-post guidelines
 |
| From Article |
A first-of-its-kind
literature review on the adverse effects of face masks, titled "Is a Mask That Covers the Mouth and Nose Free from
Undesirable Side Effects in Everyday Use and Free of Potential Hazards?,"
reveals there are clear, scientifically demonstrable adverse effects for mask
wearers, both on psychological, social and physical levels.
Newly published in
the International Journal of Environmental Research and
Public Health, a team of German researchers
acknowledge that theirs is the first comprehensive investigation into the
adverse health effects that masks can cause -- a surprising fact considering
that many countries around the world introduced universal mask wearing in
public spaces for containing SARS-CoV-2 in 2020 as a mandatory health policy
without investigating nor communicating to their citizens the true risks of
masks, hence violating informed consent.
According to the
German research team, their work is designed to "provide a first, rapid,
scientific presentation of the risks of general mandatory mask use by focusing
on the possible adverse medical effects of masks, especially in certain
diagnostic, patient and user groups."
The researchers
summarize their study as follows:
"The aim was to find, test, evaluate and compile
scientifically proven related side effects of wearing masks. For a quantitative
evaluation, 44 mostly experimental studies were referenced, and for a
substantive evaluation, 65 publications were found. The literature revealed
relevant adverse effects of masks in numerous disciplines.
In this paper, we refer to the psychological and physical
deterioration as well as multiple symptoms described because of their
consistent, recurrent and uniform presentation from different disciplines as a
Mask-Induced Exhaustion Syndrome (MIES).
We objectified evaluation evidenced changes in respiratory
physiology of mask wearers with significant correlation of O2 drop and
fatigue (p < 0.05), a clustered co-occurrence of respiratory impairment
and O2 drop (67%), N95 mask and CO2 rise (82%), N95 mask and
O2 drop (72%), N95 mask and headache (60%), respiratory impairment and
temperature rise (88%), but also temperature rise and moisture (100%) under the
masks.
Extended mask-wearing
by the general population could lead to relevant effects and consequences in
many medical fields."
The researchers
provided the following important context for their work:
"The potential drastic and undesirable effects found in
multidisciplinary areas illustrate the general scope of global decisions on
masks in general public in the light of combating the pandemic. According to
the literature found, there are clear, scientifically recorded adverse effects
for the mask wearer, both on a psychological and on a social and physical
level.
Neither higher level institutions such as the WHO or the
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) nor national ones,
such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, GA, USA (CDC) or the
German RKI, substantiate with sound scientific data a positive effect of masks
in the public (in terms of a reduced rate of spread of COVID-19 in the
population) [2,4,5]
Contrary to the
scientifically established standard of evidence-based medicine, national and
international health authorities have issued their theoretical assessments on
the masks in public places, even though the compulsory wearing of masks gives a
deceptive feeling of safety [5,112,143]."
The authors provided
the following summary of the problem with the widely disseminated narrative
that masks are a priori "safe and effective."
"From an infection epidemiological point of view, masks in
everyday use offer the risk of self-contamination by the wearer from both
inside and outside, including via contaminated hands [5,16,88]. In addition, masks
are soaked by exhaled air, which potentially accumulates infectious agents from
the nasopharynx and also from the ambient air on the outside and inside of the
mask.
In particular, serious infection-causing bacteria and fungi
should be mentioned here [86,88,89], but also viruses [87]. The unusual
increase in the detection of rhinoviruses in the sentinel studies of the German
RKI from 2020 [90] could be an
indication of this phenomenon. Clarification through further investigations
would therefore be desirable.
Masks, when used by the general public, are considered by
scientists to pose a risk of infection because the standardized hygiene rules
of hospitals cannot be followed by the general public [5]. On top of that,
mask wearers (surgical, N95, fabric masks) exhale relatively smaller particles
(size 0.3 to 0.5 μm) than mask-less people and the louder speech under masks
further amplifies this increased fine aerosol production by the mask wearer
(nebulizer effect) [98].
The history of modern times shows that already in the influenza
pandemics of 1918-1919, 1957-58, 1968, 2002, in SARS 2004-2005 as well as with
the influenza in 2009, masks in everyday use could not achieve the hoped-for
success in the fight against viral infection scenarios [67,144]. The experiences
led to scientific studies describing as early as 2009 that masks do not show
any significant effect with regard to viruses in an everyday scenario [129,145].
Even later, scientists and institutions rated the masks as
unsuitable to protect the user safely from viral respiratory infections [137,146,147]. Even in hospital
use, surgical masks lack strong evidence of protection against viruses [67]. Originally born
out of the useful knowledge of protecting wounds from surgeons' breath and
predominantly bacterial droplet contamination [144,148,149], the mask has been
visibly misused with largely incorrect popular everyday use, particularly in
Asia in recent years [150].
Significantly, the sociologist Beck described the mask as a
cosmetic of risk as early as 1992 [151]. Unfortunately, the
mask is inherent in a vicious circle: strictly speaking, it only protects
symbolically and at the same time represents the fear of infection. This phenomenon
is reinforced by the collective fear mongering, which is constantly nurtured by
main stream media [137].
Nowadays, the mask represents a kind of psychological support
for the general population during the virus pandemic, promising them additional
anxiety-reduced freedom of movement. The recommendation to use masks in the
sense of "source control" not out of self-protection but out of
"altruism" [152] is also very
popular with the regulators as well as the population of many countries.
The WHO's
recommendation of the mask in the current pandemic is not only a purely
infectiological approach, but is also clear on the possible advantages for
healthy people in the general public. In particular, a reduced potential
stigmatization of mask wearers, the feeling of a contribution made to
preventing the spread of the virus, as well as the reminder to adhere to other
measures are mentioned [2].
Morever, the
researchers pointed out that there are recurring patterns of related health
issues associated with mask wearing, leading them to coin the term mask-induced
exhaustion syndrome (MIES), which encompasses the following pathophysioloical
changes and subjective complaints:
- Increase in dead space volume [22,24,58,59] (Figure 3, Section 3.1 and Section 3.2)
- Increase in breathing resistance [31,35,61,118] (Figure 3, Figure 2: Column 8)
- Increase in blood carbon dioxide [13,15,19,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28] (Figure 2: Column 5)
- Decrease in blood oxygen saturation [18,19,21,23,28,29,30,31,32,33,34] (Figure 2: Column 4)
- Increase in heart rate [15,19,23,29,30,35] (Figure 2: Column 12)
- Decrease in cardiopulmonary capacity [31] (Section 3.2)
- Feeling of exhaustion [15,19,21,29,31,32,33,34,35,69] (Figure 2: Column 14)
- Increase in respiratory rate [15,21,23,34] (Figure 2: Column 9)
- Difficulty breathing and shortness of breath [15,19,21,23,25,29,31,34,35,71,85,101,133] (Figure 2: Column 13)
- Headache [19,27,37,66,67,68,83] (Figure 2: Column 17)
- Dizziness [23,29] (Figure 2: Column 16)
- Feeling of dampness and heat [15,16,22,29,31,35,85,133] (Figure 2: Column 7)
- Drowsiness (qualitative neurological deficits) [19,29,32,36,37] (Figure 2: Column 15)
- Decrease in empathy perception [99] (Figure 2: Column 19)
- Impaired skin barrier function with acne, itching and
skin lesions [37,72,73] (Figure 2: Column 20-22)
The researchers point
out that the effects described above have been observed in studies of healthy
people, implying that sick people will have even more pronounced effects from
wearing masks. Also, they pointed out that these effects observed in previous
studies involved exposure times significantly lower than what is presently expected
to be the case in the general public under current pandemic regulations and
ordinances.
 |
| From Article |
The study goes into great depth on the harms of mask wearing and
adds to a growing body of underreported, if not outright censored and
suppressed, biomedical literature that has accumulated that refutes the widely
disseminated narrative that masks are both safe and effective, and that their
recommendations for use by agencies like the CDC are evidence-based, which
clearly they are not. Learn more by visiting the GreenMedInfo.com
database Face Masks (Lack of Safety and
Ineffectiveness Research).
Also, let your voice be heard and use the Stand for Health Freedom digital advocacy portal to tell your elected officials that you will only support voluntary mask wearing. ACT NOW: Mandatory Masks Endanger Your Health and Your Liberties. Tell Your State and Local Officials to Make Mask-Wearing Voluntary.
Sayer Ji is
founder of Greenmedinfo.com,
a reviewer at the International Journal of Human Nutrition and Functional
Medicine, Co-founder
and CEO of Systome
Biomed, Vice Chairman of the Board of the National Health Federation, Steering Committee
Member of the Global Non-GMO Foundation.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice,
diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those
of GreenMedInfo or its staff.
Covid-19 deaths could be overstated by as much
as 23 percent. Nearly a quarter of people are dying with the virus, but not
from it—and yet are being recorded as Covid victims.
Instead, they are dying from a range of other health problems,
such as cancer and heart disease, figures from the
If the reporting practise started from the outset of the Covid
epidemic, it could mean that the
Even cases being treated in hospital may be half the official
figures, say researchers from
(Source: Daily Telegraph,
 |
An Evidence Based Postion Presented By A Former Death Certificate Clerk
"Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'" - Mark Twain
Synopsis: Although revered as the guiding star for science, clinical practice and legislation aimed to save lives, cause-of-death reporting does not meet any basic criteria of objective fact. Across continents, from 40 years ago to present day, death certificates, which provide the basis for our beliefs as to why we die, have been found to be erroneous in their causal conclusions 20-60% of the time according to the peer-reviewed literature. The daily process of obtaining cause-of-death information, which I was an eyewitness to, is not a process of careful investigation, but rather a rushed and apathetic bureaucratic tumbling machine that incentivizes compliance over recording the complexity of truth.
In this piece I offer a personal account, a logical argument and the scientific evidence for the claim that mortality statistics derived from cause-of-death reporting on death certificates are an unstable material upon which to build actionable scientific or societal beliefs about risk. Then I provide an in-depth examination of the very particular situation of COVID death reporting manipulation that happened beginning in March of 2020, infused politicized bias into an already defunct system. Lastly, you will find a call to action, with steps that we, the individuals affected by the inaccurate data capture, can take to hold the regulatory bodies responsible for this to account, as well as volunteer and support opportunities to help those who need to get erroneous death certificates officially amended.
Being a former death certificate clerk, and having spent nearly 7 years in the funeral home industry ushering thousands of death certificates from digital creation to final registration, I am appalled that death certificate data is codified for use as our national mortality statistics.
I was trained in the California Electronic Death Registration System (CA-EDRS) in 2013 while working in Los Angeles County for a high volume mortuary. Single-handedly, I would process nearly 1,200 death certificates a year as I was their only death certificate clerk. In 2015, I was hired by a smaller firm where I worked part time doing about ⅓ the case load. At either location I would work daily with doctors, medical examiner/coroner's offices, and the local and state vital record registrars to accomplish the necessary death certificate registration process after a loved one passed away.
Having no idea that these records affected society in any tangible way, I never thought twice about the impact my job had in governing the direction of science, medicine and public policy until nearly 4 years into registering death certificates. Since coming to terms with the importance of these records, I began to advocate more and more for an increased quality of the information captured on these documents, and became more critically-minded when it came to health data capture in general. I was blessed to be able to transition into a stay at home mom in March of 2019, but the reality of the incompetence of cause-of-death reporting has been a mission of mine to educate others about since that time.
The atrocities of basing our liberty, our research dollars and our medical decisions on COVID death statistics this year has compelled me to speak up even more about the inherent fallibility of the death data capture. Aside from some basic demographic tracking of age, place and gender of the deceased, using death certificates for anything beyond closing bank accounts is a disservice to society. With the rare exception of a medical certifier that has independently chosen to be conscientious and thorough in their certificate completion practices, or the special circumstances of car accidents, overdose, suicides and homicide deaths that lend themselves to robust investigation and reporting protocols, the average natural cause of death reporting on death certificates and the mortality statistics extrapolated from them are not the product of careful investigation, are known to have a 20-60% inaccuracy rate according to the peer-reviewed literature, and are, by definition, variable medical opinions, not facts.
It's an extremely uncomfortable truth when you look around us at a world enslaved by the daily COVID mortality tallies being reported from every outlet. It's especially disconcerting if you've assumed mortality statistics were somehow exempt from the Twain-ism about statistics being lesser in value to both lies and damn lies. But both the nature and the nurture of cause-of-death data capture flies in the face of any reliability in mortality statistics as structurally sound pillars of objective fact.
However, unlike the entrenched modern-day mores that demand unquestioning homage to those with special knowledge, I will not ask that you believe me simply because of my professional experience. I am here to offer you three considerations to help you develop your own understanding of cause-of-death data capture so as to create an independence in your own pursuit of truth regarding this underlying societal assumption about the infallibility of mortality data. Perhaps you will find, as I have, that mortality statistics tabulated from death certificates have no business steering public health recommendations or medical decisions, and using them as a metric for scientific research or public policy is about as prudent as building a skyscraper on a sand box.
Consideration #1: The Lack of Investigation As To What Causes A Death
The first harsh reality we need to come to terms with is that even though causes of death provided on death certificates are treated like gavel-dropping legal facts, especially with their prima facie status in a court of law, there's not actually much scientific investigation happening behind the scenes as to what has caused a death.
The best way to describe the culture I witnessed being the middle-woman in the death recording process for nearly 5,000 death certificates, was not a culture of careful, unbiased scientific investigation but rather a demoralizing, bureaucratic game of hot potato.
The funeral home directors want the record registered ASAP so the family they are serving won't have their burial or cremation services delayed and the next-of-kin can get their certified copies so as to start settling affairs (close bank accounts, access life insurance, etc.).
The doctor's office, hospice or hospital decedent affairs staff wanted me (the mortuary representative) to stop calling them with urgent messages about the upcoming burial or cremation service and the need for doctor's expedient cooperation in the multi-step process for record approval and attestation.
The doctor wants the request for causes of death off his/her desk and doesn't want to deal with multiple rejections from either the mortuary or the vital records registrars if he/she put causes or contributory factors that don't fit the narrow allowances under the "natural" manner of death umbrella.
The coroner/medical examiner office doesn't want to take cases that they don't absolutely have to, when they are understaffed and already up to their ears in car accident deaths, drug overdoses, suicides and homicide death investigations.
The local vital records registrars don't want to approve a cause of death that will get flagged by their bosses at the state registrar office after the record has been sent for final registration, causing a whole mess of paperwork to fix the problem.
This bureaucratic tumbling machine results in bland, simple, broad brushstroke causes of death that are an easy 'pass' in the electronic system becoming the gold standard in death recording. Any time-intensive investigation is avoided at all costs. The system isn't built to allow for investigation anyway. In fact, in the state where I worked, doctors are supposed to provide causes of death within 15 hours of the death occurring, and all the multi-step information gathering and verification process between the family, doctor, coroner and state registrar is supposed to be finalized within 7 days after the death.
Towards this end, I was regularly advised by the local registrar's office to coach the doctors in submitting causes that passed the registrar's easy filters for natural manners of death, despite the physician's uncertainty.
The doctor doesn't know why the person died? Just ask the doctor if the patient was on any medications (insinuating that the cause for a medication prescription, such as hypertension, diabetes, Alzheimer's, etc. is an easy pass for the cause of death).
Oh, the doctor hasn't physically seen the patient in over six months? They can still sign the death certificate; just ask them if a refill prescription was sent to the pharmacy for their patient in the past six months, then they are still the "attending" physician.
A 60 year old patient died unexpectedly at home? No autopsy needed, it'll just be a coroner sign-out case.
A sign-out case, at least here in Los Angeles County, means that the local coroner/medical examiner just needs to stop by the mortuary and take a couple of pictures of the outside of the body to make sure there's no evidence of physical trauma. Then, the last doctor to order a prescription refill can sign the death certificate with their best guess as to why the patient died, or if the doctor won't cooperate, the coroner/medical examiner will just slap a catch-all diagnosis like "atherosclerotic heart disease" on the death certificate and call it good.
Everyone involved in death recording gets used to (read:demoralized by) the system, especially for those who died in hospice care or in long-term care facilities. Their causes of death will typically default to the primary diagnosis for which they were put in the nursing home or on hospice in the first place.
Some of the facilities I worked with had a cause-of-death worksheet sent to me minutes after the death occurred because the worksheet had been pre-filled out and was waiting in the patient's file weeks or months before the person actually died.
For very few deceased, some scientific-ish investigation does occur, although that has dramatically trended down since the 1940s. Postmortem autopsy investigation has dramatically dropped from 20-50% postmortem autopsy rate as late as the 1970s to only 4-8% in our current postmortem protocols.
Because of a shortage in those who specialize in this type of investigation, combined with the requirement that a medical examiner/coroner must be involved in the death recording process for any unnatural or iatrogenic factors impacting the death, you probably shouldn't expect your loved one's doctor to be including any medical complications after medication or a medical intervention (such as vaccination) as a cause of death on the death certificate.
In fact, even if your doctor is bold enough to concede that your loved one's health deteriorated significantly after a medical intervention, the death certificate process would then have to come to a screeching halt.
That's an unnatural cause of death. Now the case gets bumped to the medical examiner/coroner. But even then, 30% of doctors have reported being instructed by the coroner to put an inaccurate cause of death on purpose so that the medical examiner/coroner office won't need to take the case. And the metaphorical potato game continues.
However, if the case is accepted by the medical examiner/coroner office, things start getting really messy for the family and the funeral home. The medical examiner/coroner office can be likened to the DMV for death recording. The grieving family is now extremely likely to experience delays in what date the funeral or cremation services can be arranged. When I was a mortuary employee I personally saw situations where the doctor sent causes that required coroner involvement but the services had already been scheduled, and traveling family and friends had already flown in from across the country for the burial. The service schedule needed to be completely rearranged sometimes by up to two weeks out to allow for autopsy and death certificate completion before we could get the permit to bury (or cremate).
On top of that inconvenience, there's hundreds of dollars in fees from the coroner investigation and post-autopsy body reconstruction services the mortuary must perform if the family had a viewing service in their wishes. Even after the burial, the traffic jam imposed on settling affairs and having closure can last up to a year while the coroner takes the time to determine the manner and cause of death.
What's the understanding to take away from this behind-the-scenes look at death recording? A thorough picture of what impacted the health of your loved one is de-incentivized in a bureaucratic system, and the carefully investigated truth that ought to guide science research, public policy and medical decision-making for future generations becomes no more reliable than pulling a lever on a slot machine.
Consideration #2: Causes of Death Are Variable Medical Opinions, Not Objective Facts
But what many don't realize, and the second of my three offered considerations on this matter, is that the causes of death listed on a death certificate were never designed to be the immovable pillars of science, medicine or law in the first place. As laid out by the CDC, both the physician handbook and medical examiner/coroner's handbook state that causes of death are a medical opinion, and that these opinions can change from provider to provider.
Let me tell you, they sure did change from provider to provider. When I worked as a death certificate clerk, I occasionally would send death certificate worksheets to multiple doctors involved in a patient's care if we had a rush to bury or cremate. In these situations we needed to cast a wider net to find a rapidly responding doctor to accomplish the record before final disposition. Many times each physician would send me back a different cause of death. Same patient. Different opinions. Different causes of death.
In general, if someone died in a hospital, the hospitalist would put the acute condition they treated the patient for while leaving out pre-existing chronic conditions. The primary care or hospice physician would put a chronic condition like heart disease, diabetes or hypertension that they prescribed regular meds for, with very little information about the past few weeks or days of health decline. And a specialist would put the specific condition they were managing as the cause of death, such as stage 4 kidney disease and any disease-specific complications that, in their opinion, could explain the demise.
Occasionally there was some consensus on the causes of death between the worksheets sent back from different providers, but thoroughness of the contributory factors or the logical sequence of conditions that led to the decline was almost always lacking or inconsistent in the majority of worksheets received.
These data capture "captains," who are in charge of supplying us with some of the most valuable data, exercise very little care or consistency in how they fill out these records. Yet their output is blindly guiding scientific assumptions, research funding, public health policy and clinical risk estimation for generations to come.
And I don't think we can quite blame them. Physicians have received little-to-no education on the importance of death certification and most are unaware that this data is simply repackaged and regurgitated back to them in the news media, scientific literature or public health policy. In medical schools there is not much more than a couple of hours of discussion on death certificate completion, and sometimes the education is as basic as watching this 20 minute slideshow and being quizzed with a handful of questions. Doctors have no thorough or standardized training, and at time of a patient's death they are not taking enough time to review each patient's complete medical record and clinical course carefully before completing the causes-of-death worksheet. And even the few who are more thoughtful in the information they provide can still have a varying opinion on what qualifies to be reported as a cause.
Consideration #3: Causes Of Death Were Wrong 20-60% Of The Time... Even Before COVID
Does this culture of data capture really support the weight of science, medicine and public health policy with any confidence? As my third and final consideration for you, let's take a look at what the peer-reviewed literature shows us as to how this bureaucratic data tumbler spits out.
Here's an international study of COPD patients, where 42% of clinical trial patients whose death certificates were analyzed by an independent committee did not have COPD listed anywhere on their death certificate. These were patients enrolled in a clinical trial for COPD therapy.
Then, in Norway, 17.6% of investigated death certificates required amendments to change the underlying cause of death.
A study out of Pakistan shows 62% of death certificates have errors that significantly changed the death certificate interpretation.
A Missouri DHSS 2009-2012 study found 45.8% of the underlying cause of death reporting inaccurate.
A blinded study based on reviewing medical records vs. death certificates in Vermont showed 60% as needing a change in the underlying cause of death.
Another Vermont study with a similar methodology found that 34% of hospital death certificates were wrong in the cause or manner of death.
This meta-analysis comparing clinical diagnoses against autopsy findings states: "At least a third of death certificates are likely to be incorrect and 50% of autopsies produce findings unsuspected before death."
And how about 25% of adults dying within 30 days of being hospitalized with a Clostridium difficile infection in the UK? According to this study, if you were to die soon after being hospitalized for a C. diff infection, there's only a 17% chance C. diff will be listed as the underlying cause of your death, and only a 31% chance it will be mentioned on your death certificate at all.
And did you know that even though tuberculosis is believed to be the leading infectious disease killer cited by global authorities to be taking 1.5 million lives every year, this South Africa's study found 63% of decedents who were autopsied after receiving a tuberculosis diagnosis on their death certificate didn't even test positive for TB by smear or culture. Whichever disease or situation that is killing the people falsely diagnosed with TB is not getting the research funding it deserves.
And the death certificates for infants bring this truth home about the lack of accuracy in causes of death even more:
This study found 48% of infant deaths in Mexico were not reported accurately compared to the patient's medical chart. And 71% of those inaccurate death certificates had failed to mention an infectious, parasitic, or respiratory disease as either contributory or underlying factor.
This Ohio study of infant death certificates found 56.5% of death certificates were discordant with autopsy findings.
So across the board, reported causes of death are wrong 20-60% of the time. With the exception of a couple of cancer types, studies done on every continent have found an incompetence in death certificate data recording that is so shocking, it's a wonder it hasn't taken up enough headlines to actually effect change.
COVID Death Reporting: The Last Straw In The Death Data Capture Crisis
But there was a change made this past year. Not a data capture reform for all the erroneous death diagnoses, and not even a data capture reform to improve reporting for ALL the infections that significantly impact our health before death. The CDC's National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) rolled out the data capture red carpet for one - and only one - disease-causing pathogen: SARS-CoV-2.
On March 24th, 2020, only 11 days after the first lockdown started, and well before widespread testing was available, the NVSS gave hand-holding guidance to the medical certifiers, local registrars and mortality statistics coders on precisely how they ought to spotlight COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death on death certificates. They boldly declared that COVID should be the underlying cause on a death certificate "more often than not" even without laboratory confirmation of infection. What's crazier still, is that when they created this COVID alert in March and followed up by releasing this COVID death recording guidance a few days later, we couldn't have possibly had enough country-specific statistics to justify such a drastic departure in coding COVID deaths compared to how other infectious disease fatalities are ascertained.
So the NVSS actually dictated a belief to the community of death certificate medical certifiers and vital records registrars (who are our cause-of-death approval "gate keepers"), before having any reasonable disease surveillance infrastructure established to support their claim of probability of undiagnosed COVID being the cause of death, thus greatly amplifying the perception of COVID mortality. This may have even been against Federal law on data collection changes, as this peer-reviewed research paper suggests, stating "Federal agencies that make changes to how they collect, publish, and analyze data without alerting the Federal Register and OMB [Office of Management and Budget] as a result, are in violation of federal law."
Furthermore, their COVID-19 death certifying guidance, changed the death certification long-standing protocols when it declared: "...reporting "COVID-19" due to "chronic obstructive pulmonary disease" in Part I would be an illogical sequence as COPD cannot cause an infection, although it may increase susceptibility to or exacerbate an infection. In this instance, COVID-19 would be reported in Part I as the UCOD [underlying cause of death] and the COPD in Part II [as the contributory factor]."
The UCOD on a death certificate is what's reported and tallied in our national mortality statistics as the reason that the death occurred. It is found on the last line of Part 1 on a death certificate. What needs to be provided for a death certificate is a logical sequence of conditions that explain why the death has occurred, not a logical sequence as to why an infection has occurred. So relegating an important chronic condition that logically explains why someone has died of an infection that most people survive is a drastic departure from previous cause-of-death guidance.
Here are four examples given to medical certifiers in the CDC training module and the CDC handbook on proper death certification of cases with infection-related deaths in patients with pre-existing conditions. (UCOD is shown in bold and the infection that has immediately led to death is italicized.) :
From slide 43 of the CDC training module on Improving Cause of Death Reporting:
Cause of Death Reporting Assessment - Answer 3 of 5
The correct sequence of conditions in Question #3 is:
a. Enterobacter aerogenes sepsis
b. Bilateral lower lobe pneumonia due to Enterobacter aerogenes
c. Chronic respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation
d. Quadriplegia due to C4 spinal cord injury
From the CDC handbook on death certification:
Example 5:
a. Pseudomonas aeruginosa sepsis
b. Pseudomonas aeruginosa urinary tract infection
c. In-dwelling bladder catheter
d. Left hemiparesis
e. Old cerebrovascular accident
Example 6:
a. Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia
b. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome
c. HIV infection
Example 10:
a. Escherichia coli meningitis
b. Cystic fibrosis
In all these examples it is the pre-existing condition that made the patient susceptible to death from an infection (i.e., quadriplegia, stroke (cerebrovascular accident), HIV or cystic fibrosis) that is advised by regulatory bodies to be reported as the underlying cause of death (UCOD) which is then subsequently tallied in our mortality statistics as the reason for the death.
But the new COVID-19 guidance advises the exact opposite: medical certifiers are now to report the infection as the UCOD and tally it in our mortality statistics, while simultaneously demoting the previously revered underlying chronic condition (e.g., COPD) into a section of the death certificate that doesn't impact mortality statistics and holds less sway in science, medicine, public health and law.
Here's an example from the Hawaii Vital Records website showing how the COVID death certificate is supposed to look:
a. Acute respiratory distress syndrome
b. Pneumonia
c. COVID-19
As you can see, reporting death in this way will naturally highlight the short term COVID illness resulting in death, instead of reporting the chronic illness like we have done in the past. This is another way how COVID mortality is being artificially amplified over any other infectious cause of death.
Finally, yet another biased standard of boosting COVID mortality specific to this year's very odd death tallying was PCR testing for SARS-CoV-2 carriage performed after death, including on those whose cause of death was suicide or car accidents and obviously not COVID-related at all. Testing for pathogen carriage after accidental death would have never been performed in the past. Similarly, any at-home deaths that used to be chalked up to "atherosclerotic heart disease" without any investigation were now presumed COVID deaths. And nursing home clusters of deaths in the elderly - which, by the way, I used to regularly witness multiple times a year in my capacity as a death recording clerk from 2013-2019 - were now opportunities to swab the dead to contribute to the COVID death toll in 2020, even without evidence of symptoms in the deceased. As I mentioned previously, deaths that occurred in nursing homes and under hospice care almost always were attributed to the chronic condition that explained their decline in health - regardless of what final infection they suffered from… until now.
A Call To Action: We The People Can Fix This
This year has provided an undue cause-of-death spotlighting for one pathogen, bolstered by a biased infrastructure of mortality statistics tabulation that has greatly skewed the scientific process of data capture needed to steer medicine, public policy and public perceptions rationally. Without consistent guidance from accurately reported cause-of-death information, science and medicine cannot apply their resources and recommendations wisely to save the highest number of lives. Our rights and freedoms are being lost because public policy and perceptions are being built on a foundation of risk estimation that is so erroneous that it crumbles under even the slightest academic examination. It's time to have better conversations and create real solutions to the data capture crisis misleading our world. This year has shown us just how horrifically misled we can be by a set of fallacious assumptions.
Families look at the death certificate information of their deceased loved ones to steer their own medical decision-making when it comes to forming their beliefs about genealogical susceptibility to disease and perceptions of risk. Scientific, medical and legislative bodies are influenced by apparent conclusions drawn from the death certificate data and in turn affect the well-being of nations around the globe via public policy. Cause-of-death reporting changes the world on a micro- and macro-scale for better or worse; thus, accuracy matters.
To this end, I'm personally stepping out of my comfort zone, and into the world of grassroots social impact. Many others are concerned about the issue of accuracy in death certification and we are starting a nonprofit to help families, funeral homes and medical certifiers amend death certificates so as to provide an accurate reporting of underlying and contributory health factors that played a role in a patient's demise.
If you are interested in being involved in effecting change in death certificate accuracy, please reach out to [email protected] . Factual Reporting Advocacy Network has already received a donation that covers filing and legal expenses necessary to get established as a 501(c)(3). If you would like to join the effort to get this project staffed and running efficiently and help amend death certificate inaccuracies, especially as regards COVID-19 death reporting, we are currently fundraising for first year website and staffing expenses: https://gofund.me/d23f1d71 or you can find our PayPal link at www.Fran.group and at www.medicalaccuracymatters.com.
However, I am not alone in the grassroots effort to turn this death data capture crisis around; the non-profit watchdog Stand For Health Freedom is calling for a formal grand jury investigation into allegations of willful misconduct surrounding COVID-19 responses by federal agencies. You can help by adding your signature to this petition: https://standforhealthfreedom.com/action/cdc-grand-jury-investigation/. You can also send a formal letter preformatted by Stand For Health Freedom demanding that Congress thoroughly investigate all alleged violations of Federal Law by the CDC that compromised COVID-19 data integrity and accuracy: https://standforhealthfreedom.com/action/investigate-the-cdc/
The GreenMedInfo Daily Newsletter
April 23, 2021
BE WELL
Geoff
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.