The Impact of Censorship on Covid-19 Policy Formation in the United States
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Abstract
The dominant US response to Covid-19 has been shaped by the pharmaceutical industry. Doctors who proposed early treatments using vitamins and non-patented drugs were sanctioned, and their views were censored by corporate-liberal media. The new mRNA technology for vaccines was deployed with inconclusive testing results. Reports of vaccine-adverse events were marginalized. Underlying the population’s vulnerability to Covid-19 was a continuing increase in chronic illnesses, due to poor public health conditions, aggravated by the absence of universal healthcare. Dissident doctors whose response to Covid was censored found a platform with right-wing politicians and media. This gave enhanced political legitimacy, ironically, to the very forces that were most opposed to the kind of regulatory policies and system of universal healthcare that would have made the population less vulnerable.
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How to Cite
WALLIS, Victor.
The Impact of Censorship on Covid-19 Policy Formation in the United States.
Medical Research Archives, [S.l.], v. 11, n. 4, apr. 2023.
ISSN 2375-1924.
Available at: <https://esmed.org/MRA/mra/article/view/3822>. Date accessed: 19 apr. 2024.
doi: https://doi.org/10.18103/mra.v11i4.3822.
Section
Research Articles
The Medical Research Archives grants authors the right to publish and reproduce the unrevised contribution in whole or in part at any time and in any form for any scholarly non-commercial purpose with the condition that all publications of the contribution include a full citation to the journal as published by the Medical Research Archives.
References
For a comprehensive survey, see Shir-Raz, Yaffa, and Etty Elisha, Brian Martin, et al. Censorship and suppression of Covid-19 heterodoxy: tactics and counter-tactics,” Minerva, 1 Nov. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-022-09479-4. On censorship by social media, see, e.g., Bhattacharya, Jay, M.D., interviewed about Twitter (Dec. 2022). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUBJjK_rKZY
See Leake, John, and Peter A. McCullough, M.D., M.P.H. The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex. Dallas, TX: Counterplay Books, 2022, 155 and passim.
“Nearly half … of all Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease, and the number is growing.” Raghupathi, Wullianallur, and Viju Raghupathi. An empirical study of chronic diseases in the United States: A visual analytics approach to public health. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15:3 (2018). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5876976/
CDC. Conditions contributing to deaths involving COVID-19, by age group, United States. 2/1/2020 to 12/5/2020. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/covid19-comorbidity-expanded-12092020-508.pdf
Leake and McCullough, The Courage to Face COVID-19, 181-182.
See Wallis, Victor. Climate, COVID, class, and capital. Capitalism Nature Socialism (2023). https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2023.2175974
See Fung, Jason, M.D. The Obesity Code (2016) and The Diabetes Code (2018), both from Vancouver: Greystone Books; and Bittman, Mark. Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2021.
Leake and McCullough, The Courage to Face COVID-19, 91-94.
Campbell, John. WHO, YouTube, and funding (7 Nov. 2022). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05GGaCBk9Mo (min. 9:15)
Moskowitz, Richard, M.D. Vaccines: A Reappraisal. New York: Skyhorse, 2017, 122.
Moskowitz, Vaccines: A Reappraisal, 149-150.
Wallace, Mike (CBS 60 Minutes) Exposes the 1976 Swine Flu Pandemic Vaccine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5jx243DHyg
See the Alliance for Human Research Protection’s report (10 Oct. 2022) at
https://ahrp.org/cdc-officials-concealed-millions-of-adverse-events-reported-to-cdc-v-safe-system-following-covid-jabs/
For an overview, see Wallis, Victor. Democracy Denied: Five Lectures on U.S. Politics. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2019.
Rancourt, Denis. All-cause mortality (video, 2023). https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org/media-resources/denis-rancourt-on-all-cause-mortality-video/
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/10/19/montage_pfizer_sponsors_news_abc_cbs_nbc_cnn.html
On the vast scale of the adverse effects, see Dowd, Edward. “Cause Unknown”: The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022. New York: Skyhorse, 2022.
https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/emergency-use-authorization-vaccines-explained
On Hydroxychloroquine, see Nass, Meryl, M.D. How a false Hydroxychloroquine narrative was created (28 June 2020). https://merylnassmd.com/how-false-hydroxychloroquine-narrative/. On Ivermectin, see Kory, Pierre, M.D. War on Ivermectin: The Medicine that Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the COVID Pandemic (forthcoming, 2023).
See Levins, Richard. Is capitalism a disease? In: Lewontin, Richard, and Richard Levins. Biology under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007, 297-320. Available at: https://monthlyreview.org/2000/09/01/is-capitalism-a-disease/
Angell, Marcia, M.D. The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It. New York: Random House, 2005.
See also Sekerka, Leslie E., and Lauren, Benishek. Thick as thieves? Big Pharma wields its power with the help of
government regulation. Emory Corporate Governance and Accountability Review 5 (2018), 113-141.
Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/ecgar/vol5/iss2/4
Angell, The Truth About the Drug Companies, 74-91.
Kennedy, Robert F., Jr. The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health. New York: Skyhorse, 2021, 73f, 89.
Canadian Covid Care Alliance. The Pfizer inoculations for COVID-19 do more harm than good. https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/The-COVID-19-Inoculations-More-Harm-Than-Good-REV-Dec-16-2021.pdf. On patterns of excess deaths (which exceed those from covid), see Campbell, John, podcast of 11 Feb. 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNT-YNLhprw
Anonymous [team of Israeli doctors]. Turtles All the Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth. Children’s Health Defense, 2022, 105-111. On the obstacles to patients filing complaints, see Moskowitz, Vaccines: A Reappraisal, 130-132.
Malhotra, Aseem, M.D. Curing the pandemic of misinformation on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines through real evidence-based medicine. Journal of Insulin Resistance, 5:1 (2022). https://insulinresistance.org/index.php/jir/article/view/71/224
For documentation of hundreds of such cases (most of which go unreported except in local media), see Dowd, “Cause Unknown”: The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths.
For an unrehearsed example (19 Feb. 2023), see https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/ive-been-having-chest-pains-ever
Wakefield, Andrew J., M.D. Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines—The Truth behind a Tragedy. New York: Skyhorse, 2010, 13f.
Moskowitz, Vaccines: A Reappraisal, 94n29.
Kheriaty, Aaron, M.D. The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2022, 103.
On involvement of the military in the gene-therapy research that underlies Covid vaccine technology, see interview of pharma entrepreneur Sasha Latypova by Mathew Crawford for Rounding the Earth: Examining DoD Involvement in the Pandemic (video, 17 Dec. 2022). https://sensereceptornews.com/?p=16453
Kennedy’s long May 2019 interview on Fauci was banned by YouTube “for violating [its] Terms of Service.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLi6ZrFp6vQ. YouTube’s far-reaching criteria for vaccine “misinformation” are listed, with examples, at https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/11161123
See, e.g., Leake and McCullough, The Courage to Face COVID-19, 240.
See Shir-Raz et al., Censorship and suppression (note 1). The changing positions of leading vaccine advocate Dr. Peter Hotez can be seen in a rapid montage at https://merylnass.substack.com/p/peter-hotez-seeking-faucis-job-flip
Malhotra, Aseem, M.D., interviewed by Tucker Carlson (Dec. 2022). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3MPnBpfrRk
Malhotra, Aseem, M.D. Has Big Pharma hijacked evidence-based medicine? Uncovering COVID vaccine data. Speech at Friends House, Euston, London (14 Nov. 2022). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw7YXUZ1SL0
See Mayer, Jane. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. New York: Anchor Books, 2017.
https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/2022/1/video-release-sen-ron-johnson-covid-19-a-second-opinion-panel-garners-over-800-000-views-in-24-hours.
Kheriaty, The New Abnormal, 72.
Kheriaty, The New Abnormal, 176.
See Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. New York: Public Affairs, 2019.
See Leake, John, and Peter A. McCullough, M.D., M.P.H. The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex. Dallas, TX: Counterplay Books, 2022, 155 and passim.
“Nearly half … of all Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease, and the number is growing.” Raghupathi, Wullianallur, and Viju Raghupathi. An empirical study of chronic diseases in the United States: A visual analytics approach to public health. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15:3 (2018). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5876976/
CDC. Conditions contributing to deaths involving COVID-19, by age group, United States. 2/1/2020 to 12/5/2020. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/covid19-comorbidity-expanded-12092020-508.pdf
Leake and McCullough, The Courage to Face COVID-19, 181-182.
See Wallis, Victor. Climate, COVID, class, and capital. Capitalism Nature Socialism (2023). https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2023.2175974
See Fung, Jason, M.D. The Obesity Code (2016) and The Diabetes Code (2018), both from Vancouver: Greystone Books; and Bittman, Mark. Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2021.
Leake and McCullough, The Courage to Face COVID-19, 91-94.
Campbell, John. WHO, YouTube, and funding (7 Nov. 2022). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05GGaCBk9Mo (min. 9:15)
Moskowitz, Richard, M.D. Vaccines: A Reappraisal. New York: Skyhorse, 2017, 122.
Moskowitz, Vaccines: A Reappraisal, 149-150.
Wallace, Mike (CBS 60 Minutes) Exposes the 1976 Swine Flu Pandemic Vaccine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5jx243DHyg
See the Alliance for Human Research Protection’s report (10 Oct. 2022) at
https://ahrp.org/cdc-officials-concealed-millions-of-adverse-events-reported-to-cdc-v-safe-system-following-covid-jabs/
For an overview, see Wallis, Victor. Democracy Denied: Five Lectures on U.S. Politics. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2019.
Rancourt, Denis. All-cause mortality (video, 2023). https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org/media-resources/denis-rancourt-on-all-cause-mortality-video/
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/10/19/montage_pfizer_sponsors_news_abc_cbs_nbc_cnn.html
On the vast scale of the adverse effects, see Dowd, Edward. “Cause Unknown”: The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022. New York: Skyhorse, 2022.
https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/emergency-use-authorization-vaccines-explained
On Hydroxychloroquine, see Nass, Meryl, M.D. How a false Hydroxychloroquine narrative was created (28 June 2020). https://merylnassmd.com/how-false-hydroxychloroquine-narrative/. On Ivermectin, see Kory, Pierre, M.D. War on Ivermectin: The Medicine that Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the COVID Pandemic (forthcoming, 2023).
See Levins, Richard. Is capitalism a disease? In: Lewontin, Richard, and Richard Levins. Biology under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007, 297-320. Available at: https://monthlyreview.org/2000/09/01/is-capitalism-a-disease/
Angell, Marcia, M.D. The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It. New York: Random House, 2005.
See also Sekerka, Leslie E., and Lauren, Benishek. Thick as thieves? Big Pharma wields its power with the help of
government regulation. Emory Corporate Governance and Accountability Review 5 (2018), 113-141.
Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/ecgar/vol5/iss2/4
Angell, The Truth About the Drug Companies, 74-91.
Kennedy, Robert F., Jr. The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health. New York: Skyhorse, 2021, 73f, 89.
Canadian Covid Care Alliance. The Pfizer inoculations for COVID-19 do more harm than good. https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/The-COVID-19-Inoculations-More-Harm-Than-Good-REV-Dec-16-2021.pdf. On patterns of excess deaths (which exceed those from covid), see Campbell, John, podcast of 11 Feb. 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNT-YNLhprw
Anonymous [team of Israeli doctors]. Turtles All the Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth. Children’s Health Defense, 2022, 105-111. On the obstacles to patients filing complaints, see Moskowitz, Vaccines: A Reappraisal, 130-132.
Malhotra, Aseem, M.D. Curing the pandemic of misinformation on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines through real evidence-based medicine. Journal of Insulin Resistance, 5:1 (2022). https://insulinresistance.org/index.php/jir/article/view/71/224
For documentation of hundreds of such cases (most of which go unreported except in local media), see Dowd, “Cause Unknown”: The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths.
For an unrehearsed example (19 Feb. 2023), see https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/ive-been-having-chest-pains-ever
Wakefield, Andrew J., M.D. Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines—The Truth behind a Tragedy. New York: Skyhorse, 2010, 13f.
Moskowitz, Vaccines: A Reappraisal, 94n29.
Kheriaty, Aaron, M.D. The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2022, 103.
On involvement of the military in the gene-therapy research that underlies Covid vaccine technology, see interview of pharma entrepreneur Sasha Latypova by Mathew Crawford for Rounding the Earth: Examining DoD Involvement in the Pandemic (video, 17 Dec. 2022). https://sensereceptornews.com/?p=16453
Kennedy’s long May 2019 interview on Fauci was banned by YouTube “for violating [its] Terms of Service.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLi6ZrFp6vQ. YouTube’s far-reaching criteria for vaccine “misinformation” are listed, with examples, at https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/11161123
See, e.g., Leake and McCullough, The Courage to Face COVID-19, 240.
See Shir-Raz et al., Censorship and suppression (note 1). The changing positions of leading vaccine advocate Dr. Peter Hotez can be seen in a rapid montage at https://merylnass.substack.com/p/peter-hotez-seeking-faucis-job-flip
Malhotra, Aseem, M.D., interviewed by Tucker Carlson (Dec. 2022). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3MPnBpfrRk
Malhotra, Aseem, M.D. Has Big Pharma hijacked evidence-based medicine? Uncovering COVID vaccine data. Speech at Friends House, Euston, London (14 Nov. 2022). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw7YXUZ1SL0
See Mayer, Jane. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. New York: Anchor Books, 2017.
https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/2022/1/video-release-sen-ron-johnson-covid-19-a-second-opinion-panel-garners-over-800-000-views-in-24-hours.
Kheriaty, The New Abnormal, 72.
Kheriaty, The New Abnormal, 176.
See Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. New York: Public Affairs, 2019.