It’s an election year, so last week’s story is often quickly forgotten as people concentrate on the fast developing news of the day. Today we’ll focus on the recent but mostly forgotten statements of Dr. Robert Redfield. Earlier during his career, the eminent doctor collaborated with teams at the forefront of AIDS research. More recently, he was the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during the Coronavirus pandemic, serving from 2018 to 2021.
In the last few months, Dr. Redfield has spoken out, saying that: “Many officials who tried to warn the public about potential problems with COVID-19 vaccines were pressured into silence and that it’s high time to admit that there were “significant” side effects that made people sick…Those of us that tried to suggest there may be significant side effects from vaccines ... we kind of got canceled because no one wanted to talk about the potential that there was a problem from the vaccines, because they were afraid that that would cause people not to want to get vaccinated.”
During a number of interviews, and also while testifying at a US Senate hearing, Dr. Redfield said that “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pushed a false “safe and effective” COVID vaccine narrative by underreporting adverse events,” and he accused the Biden government of suppressing data about vaccine injuries in an effort to prevent vaccine hesitancy. During Senate testimony he urged the FDA to release all of the safety data they have,” saying that “I was very disappointed to hear that they’re planning to hold on to that [safety data] until 2026.”
Nobody should be surprised by Dr. Redfield’s revelation that the Biden-Harris Administration acted to suppress and censor views differing from its official policies. Time and time again they have hidden their actions that were antithetical to our First Amendment rights and to the transparency and ideals so necessary in a functioning democracy. Consider the following examples:
One: Dr. David Morens, a top adviser at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), deleted records critical to uncovering the origins of COVID-19, and used a “secret back channel” to help Dr. Anthony Fauci and a federal grantee that funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, evade transparency. Doctor Morens improperly conducted official government business from his private email account and solicited help from the NIH’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office to dodge records requests. (Sound familiar, Hillary Clinton?)
Two: according to internal Amazon emails uncovered by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, the company created a new 'Do Not Promote' category for certain books on vaccines after receiving 'criticism from the Biden administration' in March 2021. The correspondence shows that the White House's displeasure with the 'anti-vax' books was the 'impetus' for the 'Do Not Promote' category, which effectively hid the books on the site.
Three: initially, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration wanted to take 75 years to release 450,000 pages of documents it relied on to license its COVID-19 vaccine. It took a ruling from US District Judge Matthew Kasmayk to shorten that time period to just eight months.
Four: it took a Freedom of Information request to force the release of an email from Dr. Matthew Memoli to Dr. Anthoni Fauci. (Memoli was the Director of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases clinical studies unit at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)). In it he warned Dr. Fauci that “Coercing or forcing people to take a vaccine can have negative consequences from a biological, sociological, psychological, economical, and ethical standpoint and is not worth the cost even if the vaccine is 100% safe.”
Furthermore, he stated that “a more prudent approach that considers these issues would be to focus our efforts on those at high risk of severe disease and death, such as the elderly and obese, and do not push vaccination on the young and healthy any further.”
Five: On July 4, 2023, Federal Judge Terry Doughty ruled that the Biden Administration likely violated the First Amendment in censoring negative views regarding aspects of the coronavirus pandemic on social media, and he placed limits on the Biden Administration's contact with social media firms.
Although this ruling was ultimately reversed by the Supreme Court due to lack of standing, we think it is important to note that the Judge concluded that “The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition. Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19".
It is now obvious that many of the early claims of politicians and unelected bureaucrats were false, misleading and unfounded (you can’t get or spread Covid if you get the shot; six-feet distancing was scientifically sound, etc.). It is also now obvious that the mandates that followed from this medical misinformation caused severe damage to small businesses in the form of bankruptcy and to children in the form of depression, suicide and diminished learning abilities.
There has also been great damage to the trust that Americans have in for the medical establishment and the politicians and bureaucrats who lord over them. The government is still pushing hard for vaccinations and booster shots for everyone, but the American people are ignoring this advice. All you have to do is look at the market price of Pfizer. It is down 50% from its all-time high made two years ago, and it is now trading at a price that is below its pre-Covid level.
We’d also say that there has been damage done to our democracy and our Constitutional rights in the censoring and suppression of our freedom of speech by our highest elected government officials and by the bureaucrats who report to them. President Biden is still talking about the “danger to democracy” posed by former President Trump and his MAGA following, but it was President Biden’s administration that claimed the power to fire millions of Americans who refused to get the Covid shot and also acted to censor eminent physicians who promoted a more reasonable reaction to the Covid pandemic.
American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country, and our lying politicians and unelected bureaucrats have no right to interfere with the free flow of information that is so necessary for our democracy to function.
Other stories relevant to this subject:
Explosive emails show top NIH adviser deleted records, used 'secret' back channels to help Fauci evade COVID transparency (nypost.com)