TOXIC GRAPHENE OXIDE A BIG INDUSTRY SECRET, STU PETERS JUST SCRATCHING THE SURFACE. IS THIS WHY GATES REFUSED TO SHARE PATENTS?

by Silviu "Silview" Costinescu on 31 Jul 202122 Aug 2021

Establishment fact-checkers are cognitively retarded and functionally illiterate copy-paste bots who still use Google, this is how you fact-check Stu Peters:

LATER UPDATES: A glimpse into the future or the present?

Status: pending

Status: Published March 2021, but submitted in April 2020, which means most of the research was done before the Plandemic.

So the people who claim many vaccines are just saline and the people who claim they are just graphene oxide can be right at the same time.

If you are reading this, chances ae you already know of La Quinta Columna researchers and Stu Peters shows that revealed large presence of very toxic graphene in Covid injections. If you don’t, you need to research and catch up with the details, there’s no cheating on the homework anymore.

Also read: URGENT! IT’S IN MASKS TOO: SUPER-TOXIC GRAPHENE OXIDE CONFIRMED BY MANUFACTURERS

Onw of Stu’s latest deliveries featured a very documented expert and Pharma analyst who formerly worked for Pfizer and revealed the graphene is hiding in the so called PEGs, I’ll explain shortly what these are.

So I went to fact-check this, even though the whistle-blower sounded very compelling and having deep insights in the business.

My findings show that they only scratch the surface of a larger problem:
As I’ve shown before, graphene has a large spectrum of applications today, most endangering our health. But graphene oxide (GO) is especially toxic and they will pump it in us with other treatments too.

GO-based PEGs have been the new rising star of drug delivery for quite a few years before Covid and they are usually graphene based, as a several studies and invention patents prove beyond doubt. I don’t think there’s any mRNA vaccine that doesn’t use them.

They are not featured in injections inserts as separate ingredient, which they are, but as a process. Yup, they are the PEG in PEGylation.
It’s like saying Coca Cola was sweetened instead of listing several sweeteners!

Here you can download the safety Data Sheet for ALC-0135, it’s bad stuff, really corrosive!

Moderna comes with the goods too, all their invention patents for the mRNA tech contain these PEGs:

Think of an oral drug capsule. The PEG is a high-nanotech version of the capsule fabric, which can do a series of cool tricks, but its mainly roles are to protect the content and help it penetrate tissue/cells and reach specific targets.

Now think the drug insert only lists the content ingredients. not the capsule.

“Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), also known as poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), is an amphiphilic polyether that is soluble both in water and most organic solvents. PEG and its derivatives are among the few polymers approved for medical uses by the FDA.

Functionalized PEG, also named activated PEG, is a family of PEG derivatives decorated with functional groups. Funtionalized PEGs are used broadly for drug PEGylation, polymer engineering, nantechnology, biotechnology, and biomedical engineering.”
This is the description given by Sinopeg, Chinese company that delivers PEGs for most Covid injection manufacturers.

From their September 2020 blog post we extract more details confirming my earlier claims:

“The coupling of PEG to protein is also called protein polyglycolization, which is essentially a drug delivery technology. The coupling of activated peg with protein molecules can improve the three-dimensional space state of proteins, resulting in changes in various biochemical properties of proteins. For example, chemical stability increased, half-life prolonged, immunogenicity and toxicity decreased or disappeared, protein solubility increased. SINOPEG is a dynamic science company dedicated to drug delivery systems (DDS). SINOPEG are specialized in the R&D of long acting biopharmaceuticals, developing and manufacturing of block copolymers, lipids for drug delivery, medical devices, bio-engineering, and other broad uses.

Up to now, the FDA has approved 20 polyglycolic drugs. In addition to monoclonal antibodies, polyglycolic drugs have become the most powerful drug development technology.
As a leading company in polyethylene glycol derivatives (PEGs)， SINOPEG is capable of supplying small to large quantities of rich selection of PEG derivative products with unique molecular designs (chemical structure, molecular weights (MW)) and exceptional product quality control to serve bio-technology and pharmaceutical companies and research organizations worldwide.”

At this point, you’re probably asking when is graphene coming in. I got you covered:

Polyethylene Glycol-Engrafted Graphene Oxide as Biocompatible Materials for Peptide Nucleic Acid Delivery into Cells

Bioconjugate Chemistry. 2018 Feb 7.

Ahruem Baek¹, Yu Mi Baek¹, Hyung-Mo Kim¹, Bong-Hyun Jun¹, Dong-Eun Kim¹ Department of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Konkuk University Neundong-ro 120, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05029, Republic of Korea.

PMID: 29376329
DOI: 10.1021/acs.bioconjchem.8b00025

Abstract

Graphene oxide (GO) is known to strongly bind single-stranded nucleic acids with fluorescence quenching near the GO surface. However, GO exhibits weak biocompatibility characteristics, such as low dispersibility in cell culture media and significant cytotoxicity. To improve dispersibility in cell culture media and cell viability of GO, we prepared nanosized GO (nGO) constructs and modified the nGO surface using polyethylene glycol (PEG-nGO). Single-stranded peptide nucleic acid (PNA) was adsorbed onto the PEG-nGO and was readily desorbed by adding complementary RNA or under low pH conditions. PNA adsorbed on the PEG-nGO was efficiently delivered into lung cancer cells via endocytosis without affecting cell viability. Furthermore, antisense PNA delivered using PEG-nGO effectively downregulated the expression of the target gene in cancer cells. Our results suggest that PEG-nGO is a biocompatible carrier useful for PNA delivery into cells and serves as a promising gene delivery tool.

HEY, KIDS, WANNA BUY SOME LETHAL INJECTIONS AMMO? HERE’S YOUR LINK!

AND THEN WE FIND OUT THIS THING IS COMMONLY USED IN PCR TESTING!

Facilitation of Polymerase Chain Reaction with Poly(ethylene glycol)-Engrafted Graphene Oxide Analogous to a Single-Stranded-DNA Binding Protein

Applied Material Interfaces. 2016 Dec 14

Hyo Ryoung Kim¹, Ahruem Baek¹, Il Joon Lee¹, Dong-Eun Kim¹

PMID: 27960406
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b13223

Abstract

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a versatile DNA amplification method, is a fundamental technology in modern life sciences and molecular diagnostics. After multiple rounds of PCR, however, nonspecific DNA fragments are often produced and the amplification efficiency and fidelity decrease. Here, we demonstrated that poly(ethylene glycol)-engrafted nanosized graphene oxide (PEG-nGO) can significantly improve the PCR specificity and efficiency. PEG-nGO allows the specificity to be maintained even after multiple rounds of PCR, allowing reliable amplification at low annealing temperatures. PEG-nGO decreases the nonspecific annealing of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), such as primer dimerization and false priming, by adsorbing excess primers. Moreover, PEG-nGO interrupts the reannealing of denatured template DNA by preferentially binding to ssDNA. Thus, PEG-nGO enhances the PCR specificity by preferentially binding to ssDNA without inhibiting DNA polymerase, which is analogous to the role of ssDNA binding proteins.

Abstract:

A method and process to make and use cotton-tipped electrochemical immunosensor for the detection of corona viruses is described. The immunosensor were fabricated by immobilizing the virus antigens on carbon nanofiber-modified screen printed electrodes which were functionalized by diazonium electrografting and activated by EDC/NHS chemistry. The detection of virus antigens were achieved via swabbing followed by competitive assay using fixed amount of antibody in the solution. Ferro/ferricyanide redox probe was used for the detection using square wave voltammetric technique. The limits of detection for our electrochemical biosensors were 0.8 and 0.09 pg/ml for SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV, respectively indicating very good sensitivity for the sensors. Both biosensors did not show significant cross reactivity with other virus antigens such as influenza A and HCoV, indicating the high selectivity of the method.

BACKGROUND

The newly identified severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the last discovered member of the corona viruses that cause serious human respiratory infections. Other types of corona viruses were previously known such as the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), SARS-CoV1, HCoV-OC43, HCoV-229E, HCoV HKU1 and HCoV NL63. Since its first identification in China in 2019 until present, SARS-CoV-2 has spread globally causing significant morbidity and mortality. COVID-19; the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2; was declared as pandemic by the world health organization on March 2020. Until now, there are no available vaccines or drugs proven to treat COVID 19. Therefore, the timely detection of SARS-CoV-2, is urgently needed to effectively control the rapid spread of the infection.

The testing of the virus can be achieved by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test, detection of antigens, or by serological testing (the detection of the virus antibody). However, the serological tests are not reliable for the early diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection due to the relatively long delay between infection and seroconversion. Molecular diagnosis using RT-PCR is the primary used method for the detection of corona viruses. However, PCR takes relatively long time for analysis (minimum of 3 hours), and requires several steps including the collection of the specimens by swabbing, the transport of the sample into a solution and extraction of the viral RNA before amplification. Moreover, RT-PCR is relatively expensive which hindered its wide applicability for population scale diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2, particularly in low and middle income countries. Thus, sensitive, rapid and accurate diagnostic methods based on the direct detection of the viral antigens without pretreatment is highly demanded to control the COVID 19 outbreak. There are four main structural antigens for corona viruses: nucleocapsid (N), spike (S), matrix (M), and envelope (E). Among them, the S and N proteins have the potential to be used as biomarkers because they can distinguish different types of corona viruses.

Several diagnostic methods are being developed for the detection of COVID 19. Biosensors have been widely used for many diagnostic applications showing fast, easy and reliable detection. Until now, only few biosensors have been developed for SARS-CoV-2 such as the graphene-based field-effect transistor (FET) biosensor reported by Seo. et al. The FET immunosensor was used for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 using spike 51 protein as biomarker. Plasmonic photothermal biosensors for SARS-CoV-2 through nucleic acid hybridization have been also developed. Half-strip lateral flow assays (LFA) for the detection of N protein was reported. However, LFA provide qualitative or semi-quantitative results and more work is still required to develop more accurate detection methods.

Electrochemical biosensors are one of the most popular types of biosensors which offer several advantages such as the low cost, capability of miniaturization, high sensitivity and selectivity. These advantages make them ideal for use as point-of-care devices for diagnostic applications. Electrochemical biosensors have been widely integrated with carbon nanostructures to fabricate highly sensitive devices. Carbon nanofiber (CNF) is one of the materials that showed excellent applications in biosensors because of its large surface area, stability and ease of functionalization.

Cotton swabs have been recently used in the fabrication of immunoassays for the detection of different pathogens. In these assays, the colorimetric detection was achieved based on visual discrimination of the color change. These assays are simple, fast and easy to perform. However, they only give qualitative or semi-quantitative results. Thus, more accurate methods are still required.

Want some graphene nano-flakes with your milk?

COMPOSITION FOR PCR CONTAINING A POLYETHYLENE GLYCOL-ENGRAFTED NANO-SIZED GRAPHENE OXIDE United States Patent Application 20180155765

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a composition for PCR including polyethylene glycol-engrafted nano-sized graphene oxide (PEG-nGO), the composition for PCR being capable of increasing the efficiency and specificity of PCR and shortening PCR time, and a PCR method using the same.

2. Discussion of Related Art

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a method of artificially amplifying DNA and is an indispensable technology in modern biotechnology and molecular biology. PCR is widely used in diagnostics, gene manipulation, biosensors, and a variety of fields. However, the specificity and efficiency of PCR may be reduced due to unintended (re)annealing of single stranded DNA (e.g., primer dimerization, incorrect primer binding, and reannealing of PCR amplicons). Nonspecific primer binding in PCR steps may result in generation of a large number of nonspecific amplicons, which can be confirmed by agarose gel electrophoresis. That is, smearing of a PCR band, which is observed in an electrophoresed agarose gel, indicates the presence of a large number of DNAs having similar sizes (i.e., nonspecific amplicons). When a DNA template is excessively amplified in PCR and the same primers are used in the second or subsequent PCR, nonspecific amplicons may be generated. To solve these problems, various PCR techniques such as nested PCR have been developed. In the first step of nested PCR, a primer set for amplifying a broad range including a target sequence on a DNA template is used, and in the second step, primer sequences for amplifying only the target sequence are generally used as an inner primer (nested primer) set.

In addition, studies have been conducted to increase the efficiency and specificity of PCR using various nanomaterials such as gold nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, carbon nanopowder, graphene nanoflakes, cadmium telluride quantum dots, graphene quantum dots, dendrimers, and titanium dioxide. For example, graphene nanoflakes serve to improve PCR efficiency by increasing thermal conductivity of a PCR mixture, and gold nanoparticles are capable of being adsorbed to DNA and proteins to reduce amplification of nonspecific DNA products. However, these methods have a disadvantage that the specificity and efficiency of PCR may not be fundamentally solved when each nanoparticle is present. It is also controversial as to whether gold nanoparticles play a role in increasing the specificity of PCR.

Graphene oxide (GO) refers to a material having a honeycomb-like nanostructure in which carbons are arranged in a hexagonal lattice, and is prepared by oxidizing a single layer of graphite, i.e., graphene. The surface of GO may have various functional groups such as epoxy groups, hydroxyl groups, and carboxyl groups, which allow the GO to be dissolved in a water-soluble solvent. In addition, GO may bind to single-stranded nucleic acids via π stacking interaction and hydrogen bonding, but has low affinity to double-stranded nucleic acids. Based on the functions of GO, GO has been widely applied in various areas such as DNA detection, biosensors based on energy transfer through fluorescence resonance, and real-time monitoring of fluorescently labeled nucleic acids.

However, GO is not soluble in a buffer solution containing Mg²⁺ and a high salt concentration, such as a PCR buffer, and is adsorbed to proteins such as a DNA polymerase via non-covalent bonding. It is well known that divalent cations such as Mg²⁺ induce strong crosslinking between GO sheets, allowing the GO sheets to be aggregated. That is, when other salts are added to a PCR sample for buffering, GO sheets may be aggregated by divalent cations such as Mg²⁺. In addition, it has been reported that GO is bound to proteins to induce protein aggregation, which may distort the structures of proteins and cause the loss of function of proteins. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is known as a biocompatible polymer that reduces protein adsorption. Recently, to minimize nonspecific protein adsorption and increase the solubility of GO in a solution with a high salt concentration, nano-sized GO (nGO) was prepared, and the surface of the nGO was coated with PEG to prepare PEG-nGO (Non-Patent Document 1). In Non-Patent Document 1, it is disclosed that, when PEG-nGO interacts with a protein, a nano-bio interface may be formed due to PEGylation of the surface of GO, thereby significantly reducing adsorption of the PEG-nGO to the protein. Accordingly, PEG-nGO is attracting attention as a substance capable of interacting with proteins without impairing the structure and function of the proteins.

Therefore, the present inventors have tried to confirm the effect of PEG-nGO on the efficiency and specificity of PCR. During the denaturation step of PCR, polyethylene glycol-engrafted nano-sized graphene oxide (PEG-nGO) was capable of being adsorbed to single-stranded primers and a DNA template. Accordingly, when PEG-nGO was added to a PCR sample and PCR amplification was performed, in an initial PCR process in which an excessive amount of primers was included, primer dimerization was inhibited, and in a late PCR process in which amplified PCR products were accumulated, nonspecific reannealing between the amplified PCR products and other DNA strands was inhibited. Thus, it was confirmed that, when PCR was performed using a composition for PCR including the PEG-nGO of the present invention, the efficiency and specificity of PCR may be improved and PCR time may be shortened as compared with conventional PCR techniques. By confirming these results, the present invention was completed.

Or perhaps you want to find out about GO-based nano-biosensors:

Quantitative and Multiplexed MicroRNA Sensing in Living Cells Based on Peptide Nucleic Acid and Nano Graphene Oxide (PANGO)

If you’re curious about a Mechanism of DNA Adsorption and Desorption on Graphene Oxide, say no more!

So it shouldn’t surprise us that La Quinta Columna eventually found similar stuff in older vaccines too.

I bet there’s going to be a long line of such revelations in the near future, until they put the shackles on us.

Meanwhile, top researchers from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia find that GO induces high oxidative stress to the cells, slowly killing us:

Other studies compare graphene and carbon nanotubes to asbestos:

More from the study quoted above: “Furthermore, it is equally important that the material properties are reported in full in papers dealing with (eco)toxicity assessment of GBMs. Can the information that has been collected on safety of GBMs be applied to other 2D materials? We believe that some aspects might be common to all 2D materials, or even to all nanomaterials, while some “postcarbon” 2D materials will likely present with their own specific concerns. For instance, the propensity to dissolve in a biological environment with the release of ionic species that are more biologically/chemically reactive than the parental 2D material is an issue that has not been described for GBMs.(346) Moreover, Guiney et al.(347) recently commented that “with a constantly expanding library of 2D materials, the ability to predict toxicological outcomes is of critical importance” and suggested that high-throughput screening approaches may prove useful in order to elucidate cellular interactions of 2D materials. However, the issue is not so much the low throughput of current approaches as much as the inconsistent design of commonly used toxicity assays and frequent lack of material characterization. Indeed, careful characterization of both the test material and the test system is required, and a proposal was recently put forward for minimum reporting requirements in publications dealing with nanobiointeractions. Though such reporting requirements have not yet been adopted, it is important to discuss these issues in the scientific community. To conclude, the hype that inevitably follows with technological advances should be tempered by sound, science-based assessment of the potential impact on human health and the environment to ensure safe and sustainable development of new products and applications.”

And we find out the cytoxicity is widely known inside the industry, from a very interesting invention patent that I dug out and provides excellent background information, it’s a lot, but it gives us great details as to the extent of GO usage and impact on health:

Hey, kids, PEGylation is bad for you!
SOURCE

“The in vitro studies demonstrated concentration-dependent toxicity. The highest concentration (100 μg/mL) of non-PEGylated rGO had a lower toxic influence on cell viability in primary cultures of astrocytes and rat brain endothelial cells, while PEGylated rGO induced deleterious effects and cell death. We assessed hippocampal BBB integrity in vivo by evaluating astrocyte activation and the expression of the endothelial tight and adherens junctions proteins. From 1 h to 7 days post-rGO-PEG systemic injection, a notable and progressive down-regulation of protein markers of astrocytes (GFAP, connexin-43), the endothelial tight (occludin), and adherens (β-catenin) junctions and basal lamina (laminin) were observed. The formation of intracellular reactive oxygen species demonstrated by increases in the enzymatic antioxidant system in the PEGylated rGO samples was indicative of oxidative stress-mediated damage. Under the experimental conditions and design of the present study the PEGylation of rGO did not improve interaction with components of the blood-brain barrier. In contrast, the attachment of PEG to rGO induced deleterious effects in comparison with the effects caused by non-PEGylated rGO.”

Biocompatible graphene quantum dots for drug delivery and bioimaging applications – United States Patent 9642815

Abstract:

In this work we have targeted two aspects of GQDs, Size and ROS to reduce their cytotoxicity. Small size can damage cell organelles and production of ROS (reactive oxygen species) can hamper cell machinery in multiple ways. We have shown that cytotoxicity can be significantly reduced by embedding GQDs inside the PEG matrix rather than creating a thin shell around each GQD. Thin PEG shell around GQD can control ROS production but cannot circumvent the toxicity due to small size. Thus it was essential to solve both the issues. We have used a simple electrochemical method (12 h at room temperature) for synthesizing GQDs and embedded them in PEG matrix via a simple one step hydrothermal reaction (24 h at 160° C.) involving only GQDs, PEG, and deionized water. The P-GQDs formed after hydrothermal reaction show nanoparticles of diameter of ˜80-100 nm containing GQDs entrapped in PEG matrix. MTT assay showed significant 60% cells viability at a very high concentration of 5.5 mg/mL of P-GQDs compared to 10-15% viability for C-GQD and H-GQD. ROS production by P-GQDs was least compared to C-GQD and H-GQD in cell free and intracellular ROS assay suggesting involvement of ROS in cytotoxicity. In this work we have solved the issue of cytotoxicity due to ‘small size’ and ‘ROS generation’ without compromising with fluorescence properties of GQDs. P-GQDs was used for bioimaging and drug delivery in HeLa cells. In short we can obtain biocompatible P-GQDs in very short span of time with minimal use of hazardous chemicals and simple methodology.

BACKGROUND AND PRIOR ART OF THE INVENTION

A quantum dot is a semiconductor nanostructure that confines the motion of conduction band electrons, valence band holes, or excitons in all three spatial directions. Quantum dots (QDs) are traditionally chalcogenides (selenides or sulfides) of metals like cadmium or zinc (CdSe or ZnS), which range from 2 to 10 nanometers in diameter.

QDs have unique optical and electronic properties such as size-tunable light emission, narrow and symmetric emission spectra, and broad absorption spectra that enable simultaneous excitation of multiple fluorescence. Moreover, QDs are resistant to photo bleaching than organic dyes and fluorescent proteins. These properties are well suited for dynamic imaging at the single-molecule level and for multiplexed biomedical diagnostics at ultrahigh sensitivity.

However, for in vivo and clinical imaging, the potential toxicity of QDs remains a major concern. The toxic nature of cadmium-containing QDs is no longer a factor for in vitro diagnostics, since emergent use of fluorescent QDs for molecular diagnostics and pathology is an important and clinically relevant application for semiconductor QDs. (Kairdolf. B. et al., Annual Rev. of Analytical Chem. Vol. 6: 143-162.)

In prevalent practice, the use of carbon nanoparticles in synthesis of quantum dots, have emerged as a new class of quantum dot-like fluorescent nanomaterials. Carbon nanoparticles are used since their particle size can be controlled between 3-20 nm. Carbon atoms linked in hexagonal shapes, wherein each carbon atom is covalently bonded to three other carbon atoms to form graphene sheets. Graphene has the same structure of carbon atoms linked in hexagonal shapes to form carbon nanotubes, but graphene is flat rather than cylindrical.

Graphene quantum dots (GQDs) are used as fluorophores for bioimaging, owing to their physicochemical properties including tunable photoluminescence, excellent photostability, and biocompatibility. GQDs usually less than 50 nm in size have been reported to have excellent fluorescent properties. Due to luminescence stability, nanosecond lifetime, biocompatibility, low toxicity, and high water solubility, GQDs are demonstrated to be excellent probes for high contrast bioimaging and bio sensing applications.

It’s really good news that it’s become a meme topic!

References may be made to prior art documents for methods of synthesizing GQDs using electrochemical processes, hydrothermal methods and the modified Hummers process for graphene oxide synthesis and cytotoxicity assays to determine the cellular uptake of the resultant GQDs formed by these processes.

US patent publication, US 2013/0175182 provides a process for the transformation of single walled, double walled or multi walled carbon nanotubes to nanoribbons composed of few layers of graphene by a two-step electrochemical process. The process involves oxidizing dispersed carbon nanotubes (CNT) to obtain CNT oxide and further reducing it to form graphene layers.

In research publication, Chem. Commun, 2011, 6858-6860, Zhu et al, describe a method of GQD preparation wherein modified Hummers method is used for graphene oxide synthesis and hydrothermal method for GQD synthesis to obtain GQDs of particle size of 5.3 nm. At concentrations of 2.6 mg/ml, cell viability of 80% is observed.

Further Jianhua Shen et al. in New J. Chem., 2012, 36, 97-101 reported one-pot hydrothermal reaction for preparation of graphene quantum dots surface-passivated by polyethylene glycol (GQDs-PEG) and their photoelectric conversion under near-infrared light, using small graphene oxide (GO) sheets and polyethylene glycol (PEG) as starting materials.

Juan Peng et al. (Nano Lett., 2012, 12 (2), pp 844-49) describes the acid treatment and chemical exfoliation of carbon fibers, to provide GQDs in the size range of 1-4 nm. The publication provides that the GQDs derived have no toxicity at concentrations of 0.05 mg/ml. However, the cytotoxicity of GQDs at higher levels is unaccounted.

Chang Ming Li et al., (J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 8764-66) provide a method to develop graphene quantum dots (GQDs) from XC-72 carbon black by chemical oxidation, however toxicity assays confirm maximum cell viability at concentrations of 0.1 mg/ml.

The toxicity of GQDs is attributed to their size, since small sized GQDs interact with various proteins and organelles inside the cell and disrupt cellular processes. Another reason for the toxicity is their ability to generate more reactive oxygen species (ROS). Polymers, especially PEG coating has been used in the literature to decrease the toxicity of GQDs. However, even after polymer coating the cell viability at higher concentrations (>1 mg/ml) is low. Probably because even though the ROS production is lowered by the polymer shell coating, the size of the GQDs after coating still remains small (sub 50 nm) and are still in the size range that can interact with intracellular proteins and organelles.

In the following research publications, references may be made to PEGylation of carbon nanoparticles and the cell viability determined at concentrations of 1 mg/ml or lesser than that.

Bhunia et al., (Scientific Reports, 2013, 3:1473) describe carbon nanoparticles (FCN) which are polymer coated with PEG and the dosage dependent cellular toxicity of these fluorescent nanoparticles. At 1 mg/ml concentration of the FCN-PEG composition, 55-60% cell viability is observed.

Zhuang Liu et al., (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2008, 130 (33), pp 10876-10877) describe pegylated nano-graphene oxide (NGO-PEG) of size 5-50 nm for delivery of water insoluble cancer drugs produced by Hummers method.

Omid Akhavan et al., (J. Material. Chem., 2012, Vol. 22, 20626-33) describes nontoxic concentrations of pegylated graphene nanoribbons for selective cancer cell imaging and photothermal therapy. At concentrations of 1 mg/ml of the composition. 28% cell viability was obtained.

Further Lay C L et al. (Nanotechnology. 2010 Feb. 10; 21(6):065101) reports delivery of paclitaxel by physically loading onto poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG)-graft-carbon nanotubes for potent cancer therapeutics.

Toxicity assays of GQDs synthesized by methods of the above prior arts report minimum cell viability at GQDs concentrations of 1 mg/ml, and lesser than that, thus posing limitations in cellular imaging applications. However, to realize biomedical applications of GQDs, low toxicity of the GQDS at higher concentrations is desired for cellular imaging.

With a view to provide graphene quantum dots (GQDs) with decreased cytotoxicity levels at higher concentrations i.e. greater than 1 mg/ml, the present inventors have provided a biocompatible composition of one or more graphene quantum dots (GQDs) in a nanosized polymer matrix of polyethylene glycol which is larger compared to small sized GQDs as observed in the prior art. The PEG matrix aids in reducing the reactive oxygen radicals (ROS) generated by the GQD surface while keeping the small GQDs inside the matrix; thus, also reducing their undesirable interactions with cellular proteins and organelles.

Meanwhile, these nutjobs want to use it to treat bone cancer in kids!

Or how about:

Graphene quantum dots, their composites and preparation of the same

United States Patent 9926202

Abstract:

Procedures for the synthesis of zero dimension GQDs based on exfoliation/reduction of surface passivated functionalized graphite oxide (f-GO PEG) are described. The synthesis procedures can include exfoliation/reduction f-GO PEG in presence of hydrogen gas, using focused solar radiation and under vacuum.

BACKGROUND

…

Graphene nanoribbons address this drawback of single layer graphene, however, more recently, focus has been on another carbon nanostructure called graphene quantum dots (GQDs) or carbon quantum dots (CQD) (also known as graphene quantum discs). GQDs show very desirable photoluminescence properties, as the size and shape of the GQDs can be tuned to have desired band gap and emission properties. Moreover, GQDs have desirable characteristics, for example, high surface area, larger diameter, better surface grafting using the π-π conjugated network or surface groups and other special physical properties due to the structure of graphene. Since most of the carbon nanomaterials including GQDs are biocompatible and nontoxic, GQDs can advantageously be used in biological applications for example, image scanning and sensing, drug delivery and cancer treatment. The photoluminescence properties of GQDs are useful for photovoltaic applications too as it has been theoretically proved that the energy gap in GQDs can be tuned by using electrostatic potentials.

The band gap of a GQD depends on its size and shape. With existing technology it is possible to cut graphene in to desirable size and shape forms. As the number of atoms increases, the energy gap in almost all the energy spectra of GQDs decreases monotonously. In the case of GQDs, along with size and shape, the edge type plays an important role in electronic, magnetic and optical properties.

THANKS FOR STAYING ON COURSE, THIS GOES DEEPER

This part of the article isn’t fully substantiated with third part peer-reviewed evidence, but with some of my own logic and observations, feel free to arbiter for yourself:

The graphene nano-ribbons mentioned above, if you payed attention, are most likely what La Quinta Columna and others noticed on their microscopes. Either that or carbon nanotubes, which are about the same thing, but in 3D.

Sinopeg claims it works with US scientists and collaborates with Chinese Academy. Just like Bill Gates, who is one of the very few foreign members of the Academia there, as I revealed last year.
It’s almost unconceivable that Gates didn’t know of these PEGs and didn’t want to protect the secret from the general public.
Sharing the manufacturing and the patents with the whole world would’ve almost certainly lead to information leaks, and that is what worried Gates more than money leaks, which are his last concern right now, I suspect.

IN CONCLUSION:

Ah, and in case you want to go even deeper into the science:

Other References:

Yu, et al., Tuning the Graphene Work Function by Electric Field Effect, Nano Letters 2009 9(10): 3430-3434.
Eswaraiah, et al., Top down method for synthesis of highly conducting graphene by exfoliation of graphite oxide using focused solar radiation, J. Mater. Chem. 2011; 21: 6800.
Mei, et al., Ultrasonication-assisted ultrafast reduction of graphene oxide by zinc powder at room temperature, Carbon 2011; 49: 5389-5397.
Peng J., et al., “Graphene Quantum Dots Derived from Carbon Fibers,” Nano Letters, vol. 12, Issue 2, pp. 844-849 (2012).
Qian L., et al., “Electroluminescence from light-emitting polymer/ZnO nanoparticle heterojunctions at sub-bandgap voltages,” Nano Today, vol. 5, Issue 5, pp. 384-389 (Jan. 2010).
Rakhi R.B., et al., “Electron field emitters based on multiwalled carbon nanotubes decorated with nanoscale metal clusters,” Journal of Nanoparticle Research, vol. 10, Issue 1, pp. 179-189 (May 15, 2007).
Reich S. and Thomsen C., “Raman spectroscopy of graphite,” Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A, vol. 362, Issue 1824, pp. 2271-2288 (Nov. 15, 2004).
Schedin F., et al., “Detection of individual gas molecules adsorbed on graphene,” Nature Materials, vol. 6, Issue 9, pp. 652-655 (Sep. 2007).
Schniepp H.C., et al., “Functionalized Single Graphene Sheets Derived from Splitting Graphine Oxide,” Journal of Physical Chemistry B, vol. 110, Issue 17, pp. 8535-8539 (2006).
Shang D., et al., “Magnetic and filed emission properties of straw-like CuO nanostructures,” Applied Surface Science, vol. 255, Issue 7, pp. 4093-4096 (Jan. 15, 2009).
Shen J., et al., “Facile preparation and upconversion luminescence of graphene quantum dots,” Chemical Communications, vol. 47, Issue 9, pp. 2580-2582 (2011).
Shen J., et al., “Graphene quantum dots: emergent nanolights for bioimaging, sensors, catalysis and photovoltaic devices,” Chemical Communications, vol. 48, Issue 31, pp. 3686-3699 (2012).
Si Y. and Samulski E.T., “Exfoliated Graphene Separated by Platinum Nanoparticles,” Chemistry of Materials, vol. 20, Issue 21, pp. 6792-6797 (Oct. 15, 2008).
Singh TH.J. and Bhatt S.V., “Morphology and conductivity studies of a new solid polymer electrolyte: (PEG) xLiCIO4,” Bulletin of Materials Science, vol. 26, Issue 7, pp. 707-714 (Dec. 2003).
Soin N., et al., “Enhanced and Stable Field Emission From In Situ Nitrogen-Doped Few Layered Graphene Nanoflakes,” Journal of Physical Chemistry C, vol. 115, Issue 13, pp. 5366-5372 (Mar. 11, 2011).
Stankovich S., et al., “Graphene-based composite materials,” Nature, vol. 442, Issue 7100, pp. 282-286 (Aug. 2006).
Stoller M.D., et al., “Graphene-Based Ultracapacitors,” Nano Letters, vol. 8, Issue 10, pp. 3498-3502 (Sep. 13, 2008).
Sun X., et al., “Nano-Graphene Oxide for Cellular Imaging and Drug Delivery,” Nano Res., vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 203-212 (2008).
Sun Y-P., et al., “Quantum-Sized Carbon Dots for Bright and Colorful Photoluminescence,” Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 128, Issue 24, pp. 7756-7757 (Jun. 21, 2006).
Titelman G.I., et al., “Characteristics and microstructure of aqueous colloidal dispersions of graphite oxide,” Carbon, vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 641-649 (2005).
Tuinstra F. and Koenig J.L., “Raman Spectrum of Graphite,” The Journal of Chem. Phys., vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 1126-1130 (1970).
Tung V.C., et al., “High-throughput solution processing of large-scale grapheme,” Nature Nanotechnology, vol. 4, pp. 25-29 (Jan. 2009).
Viculis L.M., et al., “Intercalation and exfoliation routes to graphite nanoplatelets,” Journal of Mater. Chem., vol. 15, pp. 974-978 (2005).
Wang G., et al., “Facile Synthesis and Characterization of Graphene Nanosheets,” The Journal of Phys. Chem., vol. 112, No. 22, pp. 8192-8195 (2008).
Wang G., et al., “Synthesis of enhanced hydrophilic and hydrophobic graphene oxide nanosheets by a solvothermal method,” Carbon, vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 68-72 (2009).
Wang J., et al., “Cu2ZnSnS4 nanocrystals and graphene quantum dots for photovoltaics,” Nanoscale, vol. 3, Issue 8, pp. 3040-3048 (2011).
Wang J.J., et al., “Free-standing subnanometer graphite sheets,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 85, pp. 1265-1267 (2004).
Wang X., et al., “Room-temperature all-semiconducting sub-10-nm graphene nanoribbon field-effect transistors,” Physical Review Letters, vol. 100, Issue 20, pp. 206803-1-206803-4 (May 23, 2008).
Williams G. and Kamat V.P., “Graphene-Semiconductor Nanocomposites: Excited-State Interactions between ZnO Nanoparticles and Graphene Oxide,” Langmuir, vol. 25, Issue 24, pp. 13869-13873 (2009).
Wu Z-S., et al. “Synthesis of high-quality graphene with a pre-determined number of layers,” Carbon, vol. 47, pp. 493-499 (2009).
Yamaguchi H., et al., “Field Emission From Atomically Thin Edges of Reduced Graphene Oxide,” ACS Nano, vol. 5, No. 6, pp. 4945-4952 (May 27, 2011).
Yoo E., et al., Enhanced Electrocatalytic Activity of Pt Subnanoclusters on Graphene Nanosheet Surface, Nano Lett., vol. 9, No. 6, pp. 2255-2259 (Jun. 2009).
Yoo E., et al. “Large Reversible Li Storage of Graphene Nanosheet Families for Use in Rechargeable Lithium Ion Batteries,” Nano Letters vol. 8, No. 8, pp. 2277-2282 (Aug. 2008).
Yu K., et al., “Significant improvement of field emission by depositing zinc oxide nanostructures on screen-printed carbon nanotube films,” Applied Physics Letter, vol. 88, Issue 15, pp. 153123-1-153123-3 (2006).
Zhang S., et al., “Field-emission mechanism of island-shaped graphene-BN Nanocomposite,” The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, vol. 115, Issue 19, pp. 9471-9476 (2011).
Zhang S., et al., “First-principles study of field emission properties of graphene-ZnO Nanocomposite,” Journal of Physical Chemistry C, vol. 114, No. 45, pp. 19284-19288 (2010).
Zheng W. T., et al., “Field Emission From a Composite of Graphene Sheets and Zno Nanowires,” Journal of Physical Chemistry C, vol. 113, No. 21, pp. 9164-9168 (2009).
Zhu S., et al., “Strongly green-photoluminescent graphene quantum dots for bioimaging applications,” Chemical Communications, vol. 47, Issue 24, pp. 6858-6860 (2011).
Zhu Y.W., et al., “Large-scale synthesis and field emission properties of vertically oriented CuO nanowire films,” Nanotechnology, vol. 16, Issue 1, pp. 88-92 (2005).
Zickler G.A., et al., “A reconsideration of the relationship between the crystallite size La of carbons determined by X-Ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy,” Carbon, vol. 44, Issue 15, pp. 3239-3246 (Dec. 2006).
International Search Report and Written Opinion for International Application No. PCT/IB2014/063909 dated Apr. 14, 2015.
“Composition of PLATINUM,” National Institute for Standards and Technology, Retrieved from the Internet URL: http://physics.nist.org/cgi-bin/Star/compos.pl?matno=078, retrieved on Feb. 12, 2016, pp. 1-1.
Allen M.J., et al., “Honeycomb Carbon: A Review of Graphene,” Chemical Reviews, vol. 110, Issue 1, pp. 132-145 (2010).
Baby T.T. and Ramaprabhu S., “Cold field emission from hydrogen exfoliated graphene composites,” Applied Physics Letters, © 2011 American Institute of Physics, vol. 98, Issue 18, pp. 183111-1-183111-3 (May 2011).
Baby, T.T. and Ramaprabhu S., “Effect of metal nanoparticles decoration on electron field emission property of graphene sheets,” Nanoscale, vol. 3, Issue 10, pp. 4170-4173 (Aug. 25, 2011).
Balandin A.A., et al., “Superior Thermal Conductivity of Single-Layer Graphene,” Nano Letters, vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 902-907 (2008).
Chae H.K., et al. “A route to high surface area, porosity and inclusion of large molecules in crystals,” Nature vol. 427, pp. 523-527 (Feb. 5, 2004).
Chen G. et al., “Atomic decoration for improving the efficiency of field electron emission of carbon nanotubes,” Journal of Physical Chemistry C, vol. 111, Issue 13, pp. 4939-4945 (Mar. 9, 2007).
Cheng H., et al., “Graphene-Quantum-Dot Assembled Nanotubes: A New Platform for Efficient Raman Enhancement,” ACS Nano, vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 2237-2244 (2012).
Chung D.D.L., “Review Graphite,” Journal of Materials Science, vol. 37, Issue 8, pp. 1475-1489, (2002).
Dervishi E. et al. “Supplementary Information—Large-Scale Graphene Production by RF-cCVD Method,” Supplementary Material (ESI) for Chemical Communications, This journal is (c) of the Royal Society of Chemistry, pp. 1-5 (2009).
Dervishi E., et al., “Large-scale graphene production by RF-cCVD method,” Chemical Communications, This journal is (c) of The Royal Society of Chemistry, pp. 4061-4063, (May 27, 2009).
Forsman W.C., et al., “Chemistry of graphite intercalation by nitric acid,” Carbon, vol. 16, Issue 4, pp. 269-271 (1978).
Gao W., et al., “New Insights into the structure and reduction of graphite oxide,” Nature Chemistry, vol. 1, Issue 5, © 2009 Macmillan Publishers Limited, pp. 1-6, (Jul. 5, 2009).
Gao W., et al., “Supplementary Information—New Insights into the structure and reduction of graphite oxide,” Nature Chemistry, vol. 1, Issue 5, © 2009 Macmillan Publishers Limited, pp. 1-20 (2009).
Geim A.K. and Novoselov K.S., “The rise of graphene,” Nature Materials, © Nature Publishing Group, vol. 6, pp. 183-191 (2007).
Gokus T. et al., “Making Graphene Luminescent by Oxygen Plasma Treatment,” ACS Nano, Copyright © 2009 American Chemical Society, vol. 3, Issue 12, pp. 3963-3968 (Nov. 19, 2009).
Gómez-Navarro C. et al., “Electronic Transport Properties of Individual Chemically Reduced Graphene Oxide Sheets,” Nano letter, Copyright © 2007 American Chemical, vol. 7, Issue 11, pp. 3499-3503 (Oct. 18, 2007).
Goswami S. et al., “Preparation of graphene-polyaniline composites by simple chemical procedure and its improved field emission properties,” Carbon, vol. 49, Issue 7, pp. 2245-2252, (Jan. 31, 2011).
Green A.A. and Hersam M.C., “Solution Phase Production of Graphene with Controlled Thickness via Density Differentiation,” Nano Letters, vol. 9, Issue 12, pp. 4031-4036 (Dec. 2009).
Huang W., et al., “Solubilization of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes with Diamine-Terminated Oligomeric Poly (ethylene Glycol) in Different Functionalization Reactions,” Nano Letters, vol. 3, Issue 4, pp. 565-568 (2003).
Hummers, Jr., W.S. and Offerman R.E., “Preparation of Graphitic Oxide,” Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 80, Issue 6, pp. 1339-1339 (Mar. 20, 1958).
Hwang J.O. et al., “Vertical ZnO nanowires/graphene hybrids for transparent and flexible field emission,” Journal of Materials Chemistry, vol. 21, Issue 10, pp. 3432-3437 (Aug. 2, 2011).
Hwang J.O. et al., “Workfunction-Tunable, N-Doped Reduced Graphene Transparent Electrodes for High-Performance Polymer Light-Emitting Diodes,” ACS Nano, Copyright © 2011 American Chemical Society, vol. 6, Issue 1, pp. 159-167 (Dec. 13, 2011).
Jang H-S. et al., “Enhancement of field emission of SnO2 nanowires film by exposure of hydrogen gas,” Solid State Communications, vol. 140, Issues 11-12, pp. 495-499 (Dec. 2006).
Jeong H-K. et al. “Unoccupied electronic states in graphite oxides,” Chemical Physics Letters, vol. 460, Issues 4-6, pp. 499-502 (Jul. 2008).
Jeong S-H., et al., “Template-based carbon nanotubes and their application to a field emitter,” Applied Physics Letter, vol. 78, Issue 14, pp. 2052-2054 (Apr. 2001).
Kaniyankandy S., et al., “Ultrafast Charge Transfer Dynamics in Photoexcited CdTe Quantum Dot Decorated on Graphene,” Journal of Physical Chemistry C, vol. 116, No. 30, pp. 16271-16275 (2012).
Kaniyoor A., et al., “Supplementary Information—Graphene synthesis via hydrogen induced low temperature exfoliation of graphite oxide,” Journal of Materials Chemistry, Supplementary Material (ESI) for Journal of Materials Chemistry, This Journal is (c) the Roral Society of Chemistry, Issue 9, vol. 20, pp. 1-9 (2010).
Kaniyoor A., et al., “Graphene synthesis via hydrogen induced low temperature exfoliation of graphitic oxide,” Journal of Materials Chemistry, vol. 20, pp. 8467-8469 (Sep. 7, 2010).
Knibbe R., et al., “Ultrahigh Electron Emissive Carbon Nanotubes with Nano-sized RuO2 Particles Deposition,” Journal of Nanoparticle Research, vol. 9, Issue 6, pp. 1201-1204 (Dec. 2007).
Kong B-S., et al., “Electrical Conductivity of Graphene Films with a Poly(allylamine hydrochloride) Supporting Layer,” Langmuir, vol. 25, No. 18, pp. 11008-11013 (Aug. 6, 2009).
Kudin K.N., et al., “Raman Spectra of Graphite Oxide and Functionalized Graphene Sheets,” Nano Letters, vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 36-41. (2008).
Lee S.W., et al., “A Study on Field Emission Characteristics of Planar Graphene Layers Obtained from a Highly Oriented Pyrolyzed Graphite Block,” Nanoscale Research Letters, vol. 4, No. 10, pp. 1218-1221 (2009).
Li X., et al., “Chemically derived, ultrasmooth graphene nanoribbon semiconductors,” Science, vol. 319, Issue 5867, pp. 1229-1232 (Feb. 29, 2008).
Li Y., et al., “Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Quantum Dots with Oxygen-Rich Functional Groups,” Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 134, No. 1, pp. 15-18 (2012).
Lin Y-H., et al., “Atomic Layer Deposition of Zinc Oxide on Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes for UV Photodetector Applications,” Journal of the Electrochemical Society, vol. 158, Issue 2, pp. K24-K27 (2011).
Liu J. et al., “Improved field emission property of graphene paper by plasma treatment,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 97, No. 3, pp. 033109-1-033109-3 (2010).
Liu J., et al., “Reduction of functionalized graphite oxides by trioctylphosphine in non-polar organic solvents,” Carbon, vol. 48, Issue 8, pp. 2282-2289 (Jul. 2010).
Liu J., et al., “Ultrathin Seed-Layer for Tuning Density of ZnO Nanowire Arrays and Their Field Emission Characteristics,” Journal of Physical Chemistry C, vol. 112, No. 31, pp. 11685-11690 (Jul. 10, 2008).
Lu Z., et al., “The Field Emission Properties of Graphene Aggregates Films Deposited on Fe—Cr—Ni Alloy Substrates,” Journal of Nanomaterials, vol. 2010, pp. 1-4 (2010).
LV W., et al. “Low-Temperature Exfoliated Graphenes: Vacuum-Promoted Exfoliation and Electrochemical Energy Storage,” ACS Nano, vol. 3, Issue 11, pp. 3730-3736 (Oct. 2009).
Ma W-L., and Li S-S., “Electrically controllable energy gaps in graphene quantum dots,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 100, Issue 16, pp. 163109-1-163109-4 (Apr. 2012).
Maiti A., et al., “Effect of adsorbates on field emission from carbon nanotubes,” Physical Review Letters, vol. 87, Issue 15, pp. 1-4 (Oct. 8, 2001).
Meng L.Y and Park S. J., “Synthesis of Graphene Nanosheets via Thermal Exfoliation of Pretreated Graphite at Low Temperature,” Advanced Materials Research, vol. 123-125, pp. 787-790 (Aug. 2010).
Murakami H., et al., “Field Emission from Well-aligned, Patterned, Carbon Nanotube Emitters,” Applied Physics Letter, vol. 76, Issue 13, pp. 1776-1778 (Mar. 2000).
Novoselov K.S., et al., “Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films,” Science, vol. 306, Issue 5696, pp. 666-669 (Oct. 22, 2004).
Novoselov K.S., et al., “Two-dimensional gas of massless Dirac fermions in graphene,” Nature, vol. 438, pp. 197-200 (Nov. 10, 2005).
Pan D., et al., “Hydrothermal Route for Cutting Graphene Sheets into Blue-Luminescent Graphene Quantum Dots,” Advanced Materials, vol. 22, Issue 6, pp. 734-738 (Feb. 9, 2010).
Baby, T.T., “Carbon Nanocomposites: Synthesis and Applications in Electron Field Emission, Nanofluid and Biosensor,” A Thesis to be submitted for Award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, pp. 1-17 (Mar. 2011).

To be continued?
Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production.
Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!

! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them

BOOM! ASSASINATION ATTEMPT ON MADAGASCAR PRESIDENT as we anticipated months ago!

by Silviu "Silview" Costinescu on 30 Jul 202130 Jul 2021

by Silviu “Silview” Costinescu

French citizen among six held over plan to kill Madagascar president -minister

ANTANANARIVO, July 23 (Reuters) – A French citizen is among six people arrested on suspicion of involvement in a plot to kill Madagascar’s president, the Indian Ocean island’s public security minister said, and a second official said the president’s security had been tightened.

“One of the arrested people is French, two of them are bi-national – Malagasy and French. The three others are Malagasy,” Rodellys Fanomezantsoa Randrianarison told a news conference late on Thursday.

Madagascar’s attorney general said on Thursday police had arrested the six following what officials said was a months-long investigation. read more

Patrick Rajoelina, an adviser to President Andry Rajoelina, told Reuters on Friday that two of those arrested had previously worked in the French military.

The French Foreign Affairs Ministry said it had been informed of French nationals’ arrests and that they could obtain consular help if they asked for it.

Madagascar’s President Andry Rajoelina attends a meeting to discuss the 20th replenishment of the World Bank’s International Development Association, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast July 15, 2021. REUTERS/Luc Gnago/File PhotoRead More

A spokesman for the French armed forces told Reuters he had no comment.

Patrick Rajoelina added that unspecified measures had been taken to tighten the president’s security. “The evidence is tangible and we certainly do not take this lightly,” he said.

THE UNTOLD STORY

! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them

WEEKS AFTER GATES-SOROS GROUP BUYS TEST-MAKERS, CDC DROPS PCR TESTS AS THEY CAN’T TELL COVID FROM FLU

by Silviu "Silview" Costinescu on 26 Jul 202126 Jul 2021

by Silviu “Silview” Costinescu

New from your favorite coincidence-theories magazine:
There’s two timelines here that seem to meet somewhere in the recent past.

CDC has just announced retiring Covid PCR tests, starting from 2022 because they can hardly tell Covid from Flu. Where Covid is caused by a virus that no one has seen in full, purified and isolated form:

We all knew that, last summer I even made a meme where I coined the term “PCRdemic”.
But just imagine how “based” their Delta Variant detection must be then!
And someone was found already preparing for this, while the plebs are shocked by the admission or not even processing it.

Only weeks before this announcement, media just whispered about the new unholy alliance between Soros and Gates, who suddenly decided to buy together a major UK Covid test maker.

I mean, when did this type of prescience ever happen before, right?
(WORLD BANK SAYS COVID-19 TEST KITS ARE BEING SOLD SINCE 2017)

This alliance has a legal and formal representation as the Global Access Health (GAH), something very similar to GAVI, but focused on pillaging Africa, South America and South-Asia.

Only months before this announcement, Soros and Gates became some of the most downvoted personalities in the Northern Hemisphere, with very little competition and no benefits for the public image of the Great Reset. Meanwhile, I was writing on HOW BILL GATES AND BANKSTERS GANGED UP TO TAKE MOROCCO. AND NOW ARE RUINING IT..

Only years before that, teachers and intellectuals in US were marching against Gates’ medical and food machinations in Africa.

A decade before that, Bill Gates Sr. and George Soros could be seen shoulder to shoulder promoting Democratic Party’s fiscal policies.

Watch the full thing, a rare recording I just dug up

And so forth… as far as we’re willing to dig we find ourselves entrapped and enslaved by the same inbred class that wages now a class war against the lower classes under various guises.

Every conspiratorial correlation comes with two options: conspiracy theory (causative) or coincidence theory (non-causative). I’m too experienced to hesitate here.

! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them

NOPE. We’re not hesitating. Pharmafia dupes itself with studies on vaccine hesitancy myth

by Silviu "Silview" Costinescu on 26 Jul 202126 Jul 2021

by Silviu “Silview” Costinescu

This was not published for the plebs, but for their own consumption. They’ve been intoxicating themselves for quite a while, but this is one of the most striking examples I’ve seen lately.
“No Means No!”
As opposed to “hesitancy”.

Here’s the study, my brief critical notes come after.

COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Canada: Content Analysis of Tweets Using the Theoretical Domains Framework

J Med Internet Res. .Published online 2021 Apr 13. doi: 10.2196/26874

Monitoring Editor: Rita Kukafka and Corey Basch
Reviewed by Romaric Marcilly and Christina Cheng Janessa Griffith, BA, MSc,^1,2,3 Husayn Marani, BHSc, MSc,⁴ and Helen Monkman, BSc, MA, PhD⁵¹

Abstract

Background

With the approval of two COVID-19 vaccines in Canada, many people feel a sense of relief, as hope is on the horizon. However, only about 75% of people in Canada plan to receive one of the vaccines.

Objective

The purpose of this study is to determine the reasons why people in Canada feel hesitant toward receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.

Methods

We screened 3915 tweets from public Twitter profiles in Canada by using the search words “vaccine” and “COVID.” The tweets that met the inclusion criteria (ie, those about COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy) were coded via content analysis. Codes were then organized into themes and interpreted by using the Theoretical Domains Framework.

Results

Overall, 605 tweets were identified as those about COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy stemmed from the following themes: concerns over safety, suspicion about political or economic forces driving the COVID-19 pandemic or vaccine development, a lack of knowledge about the vaccine, antivaccine or confusing messages from authority figures, and a lack of legal liability from vaccine companies. This study also examined mistrust toward the medical industry not due to hesitancy, but due to the legacy of communities marginalized by health care institutions. These themes were categorized into the following five Theoretical Domains Framework constructs: knowledge, beliefs about consequences, environmental context and resources, social influence, and emotion.

Conclusions

With the World Health Organization stating that one of the worst threats to global health is vaccine hesitancy, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of the reasons behind this reluctance. By using a behavioral science framework, this study adds to the emerging knowledge about vaccine hesitancy in relation to COVID-19 vaccines by analyzing public discourse in tweets in real time. Health care leaders and clinicians may use this knowledge to develop public health interventions that are responsive to the concerns of people who are hesitant to receive vaccines.

Introduction

The approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines sent waves of excitement and relief across the world. However, some people remain hesitant about receiving a vaccine for COVID-19 [1,2]. The World Health Organization noted in 2019 that one of the greatest threats to global health was vaccine hesitancy [3]. Emerging international evidence on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy suggests that there is a range of reasons for this reluctance, including doubts about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, political or pharmaceutical mistrust, belief in natural immunity, and the belief that the virus is mild or not life-threatening [4–6].

For herd immunity to any communicable disease to be effective, a considerable portion of the population needs to be vaccinated or have antibodies present from being recently infected. Achieving herd immunity is difficult when a large portion of the public is not vaccinated. For herd immunity to be effective for measles and polio, 95% and 80% of the population need to be vaccinated, respectively [7]. The exact percentage required for herd immunity to COVID-19 is difficult to estimate [7].

A Statistics Canada survey conducted in September 2020 (before a vaccine was approved) indicated that 75% of Canadians were either likely or somewhat likely to receive a vaccination [8]. An Angus Reid Institute [4] study conducted between December 8 and 11, 2020 found that 48% of Canadians sampled wanted to be vaccinated immediately if a vaccine was available, and 31% wanted to be vaccinated but preferred to wait. Additionally, 7% of respondents indicated that they were unsure if they would receive a vaccination, and 14% indicated that they would not get vaccinated [4].

In the context of influenza vaccinations, there remains a broad, ethical imperative to respect others’ agency over personal health decisions (eg, choosing to not get vaccinated). However, from a public health ethics perspective, the decision to not be vaccinated creates a conflict between population safety and personal liberty [9]. As of yet, COVID-19 vaccination has not been deemed mandatory by any nation, but conversations about whether such a public mandate should exist are emerging [10]. Whether vaccines are mandated, it is worthwhile for public institutions to understand how to change behaviors concerning vaccine hesitancy to ensure that informed decision-making practices are being exercised.

Previous research has suggested that behavioral change interventions are more successful when they are grounded in theory [11]. Thus, we selected a behavioral change framework to guide this study. The Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) was selected because of its ability to help identify the barriers and facilitators to behavior change while taking into account social and environmental factors [12]. Other public health interventions have used the TDF. For example, Garbutt et al [13] used this framework to improve human papillomavirus vaccine uptake in primary care settings. The use of such theories can facilitate the development of comprehensive health education programs [11], but this requires correctly identifying the attributes of individuals and their surroundings, which influence behavioral patterns [14]. As Bandura [15] and other behavioral theorists have posited, social norms, social relationships, and social networks have a substantial and persistent influence on behaviors [15]. It is worth understanding public discourse about vaccine hesitancy in order to develop interventions that are responsive to the needs of the population and effectively address their concerns.

In the past decade, there has been a particular interest in the utility of Twitter as a tool for monitoring and surveilling public health [16], detecting trends [17], conducting research, and disseminating information [18,19]. A systematic review of using Twitter data for health research found that most studies were in the overlapping fields of public health (23%) and infectious disease (20%) [18]. With 187 million active users worldwide as of January 2021 [20], Twitter has become a powerful social network for disseminating important public health information.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, social networking platforms like Facebook and YouTube have become stricter with their oversight of the spread of COVID-19 misinformation by deleting false information and providing hyperlinks to government websites containing credible and validated information on COVID-19. Twitter took a similar screening approach in May 2020 [21], yet the scale, spread, and speed of information sharing has made this process challenging. Further, at the start of the pandemic, Twitter introduced a system for verifying COVID-19 experts (indicated with a blue checkmark), including physicians, epidemiologists, scientists, and academics, to provide credible information concerning COVID-19 [22]. Yet, there continues to be influential individuals who have also been verified by Twitter and have enough public credibility to contradict expert opinions or present false information.

We can combat the spread of misinformation by creating targeted approaches to changing behaviors and promoting the understanding of vaccines. Thus, the purpose of this study was to identify the reasons behind vaccine hesitancy among people in Canada by conducting a content analysis of tweets through the lens of behavioral science. Our findings can be used to develop behavior change strategies and policies that are responsive to target populations.Go to:

Methods

Study Design

Twitter is a social media platform that allows users to microblog and socially network. Each user is allowed up to 280 characters in a post (called a tweet). Users can post text, pictures, videos, or links to websites. Users who have registered for an account can tweet, like, and comment on another user’s tweet and repost tweets (called a retweet). Registered users can also follow accounts and send private messages to each other. Unregistered users can read tweets, retweets, and comments but cannot engage in any interactions [23].

Twitter was selected because of its ability to capture real-time data [19]. Other studies have used Twitter to capture data on vaccine hesitancy. One study compared survey results about vaccine hesitancy in 2018 (before the COVID-19 pandemic) to data captured from Twitter and found that the data were similar to each other [24]. The study argued that Twitter could potentially be used instead of surveys in some contexts and similar results would be obtained [24]. Another study went as far as saying that Twitter is a “sentinel tool” for identifying public opinions on vaccinations [25]. Thus, Twitter was selected as the site of data collection because it offers a publicly available repository of discourse data (ie, tweets) that are captured in a specific point in time for a specific geographic area.

This study did not require research ethics approval, as it was based on data that were publicly available. Other Canadian-based studies [26] have forgone ethical review by using publicly available Twitter data, as some sources are anonymous or unidentifiable. Only the Twitter user’s username (ie, handle), city or town, and tweet content were extracted. This paper only presents aggregated data. Moreover, no interaction occurred between the authors of this study and any of the Twitter users.

Data Collection

After the researcher (JG) was approved for a developer account on Twitter, she received credentials for accessing Twitter’s application programming interface. By using a Jupyter environment, the researcher created a Python program to access Twitter’s application programming interface. Twitter allows access to tweets up to 1 week after they are posted. Thus, the researcher collected data from two time periods (December 18 and 23, 2020) to access 2 weeks’ worth of tweets. Tweets that contained the words “COVID” and “vaccine” were extracted. Similar to a library search, tweets were returned based on variations of these words, such as “COVID-19,” “COVID19,” “vaccination,” and “vaccinate.”

Data were extracted from tweets from December 10, 2020, to December 23, 2020. These dates were selected because they followed the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine approval announcement in Canada (December 9, 2020) and included the dates for the first vaccine administration in Canada (December 14, 2020) and the approval of the Moderna vaccine in Canada (December 23, 2020). This date range also accounted for the time frame when the highest number of searches for terms that included both “COVID” and “vaccine” occurred on Google, which perhaps indicated a spike in interest [27]. Thus, our data reflects a time period when receiving a COVID-19 vaccine was close to becoming a reality. Figure 1 provides a graph that shows when data were extracted and when COVID-19–related events occurred in Canada. Figure 1 – see it in original

A graph depicting Google Trends data for the combined search terms “covid” and “vaccine” aligning with vaccine approval and administration dates in Canada. Tweets that were posted between December 10 and 23, 2020 were eligible for analysis. This date range aligned with the time when the highest peaks in related Google search activity occurred in Canada. This figure indicates that the number of searches on Google for the combined words “COVID” and “vaccine” was highest in December 9, 2020. All other searches were relative to this highest peak. For example, on December 14, 2020, roughly 70% of related searches occurred in December 9, 2020 [28]. It was not possible to obtain more detailed numbers.

To only include tweets from Canada, the researchers used five geographic radiuses that covered most of Canada. However, several small areas were unintentionally omitted (Figure 2). It was not possible to know how many tweets were missed. Figure 2 see it in original

A map of where Twitter users were located. Tweets from outside of Canada (ie, those from the United States) were excluded.

Demographic data beyond users’ locations (ie, city or town) were not collected. It was possible to obtain estimates for other demographic information, such as age and gender, from third-party companies. However, this study was operating within the confines of publicly available data so as to disseminate the findings sooner.

Data Analysis

The results were exported to a comma-separated values file and were analyzed in Microsoft Excel. Tweets were randomized (ie, reordered) in Excel so that tweets were not included based on date. As we expected, the number of tweets extracted was insurmountably high for manual analysis. Therefore, we randomly selected 20% of the tweets to be screened for eligibility. This exceeded the number of randomly selected tweets in other studies, which only included 10% of returned tweets for screening [28]. Double screening was performed for 10% of the tweets to ensure consistency. Manual analysis was selected because this study was exploratory in nature; it was unclear what themes might emerge a priori. As such, training an automated analysis program was unfeasible.

Eligible tweets included any tweets from a Canadian location that contained an expression of hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccines. These included tweets that provided links to articles or other media that expressed hesitancy toward any COVID-19 vaccine. Eligible tweets also included those with graphics that expressed sentiments of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Tweets that expressed positive or unclear sentiments toward COVID-19 vaccines were excluded. Tweets captured from the United States (given the country’s geographic proximity to Canada) were also excluded. As data were extracted on two dates, several duplicate tweets were present. These were identified and deleted in Excel.

All tweets that were deemed eligible after screening were analyzed (ie, qualitatively coded) by 2 authors (JG and HMVM). These researchers had expertise in qualitative coding. Additionally, 10% of the eligible tweets were double-coded to ensure consistency.

In Excel, a content analysis was performed on all eligible tweets. The majority of health studies that use Twitter data (56%) have conducted content analyses [18]. Content analysis was performed as described by Sutton et al [28]; the content of each tweet was systematically reviewed by at least 1 researcher. The researcher(s) then coded the content of tweets according to their meaning. The resulting codes were then organized into thematic categories. Each eligible tweet could be coded into one or more themes.

Once themes emerged from the content analysis, they were mapped onto the TDF. The TDF was selected because it applies a theory-based approach to understanding behavior and has been used extensively in implementation science research. The TDF consists of the following 14 domains: knowledge; skills; social and professional roles and identities; beliefs about capabilities; optimism; beliefs about consequences; reinforcement; intentions; goals; memory, attention, and decision processes; environmental context and resources; social influences; emotion; and behavioral regulation. It has been used in other research pertaining to seasonal flu [29] and human papillomavirus vaccine hesitancy [13] to identify barriers to vaccine uptake and plan for implementation interventions.

To these Pharma-junkies, logic sounds like The Force to an Imperial Trooper, rather used to miss the target all the time, if you catch my reference

Results

Tweet Characteristics and Themes

In total, 18,132 tweets were returned as search results. Overall, 3915 tweets were screened for eligibility. These tweets represented 21.6% of the total number of tweets. It took approximately 1 hour to manually screen 100 tweets. The 10% (400/3915) of tweets that were double-screened resulted in a Cohen κ coefficient of 0.89, indicating an almost perfect agreement. After screening, 605 tweets met the inclusion criteria. This was represented in a modified PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) diagram (Figure 3).Figure 3

Modified PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) diagram of the data extraction process.

Through content analysis, the included tweets were grouped into the following major themes concerning vaccine hesitancy: safety, political skepticism, influence from authority figures, a lack of knowledge, and legal liability. The final theme included medical legacies. This theme was different from the other categories of vaccine hesitancy. The themes were not mutually exclusive. Examples of tweets were not provided with the presentation of the themes to preserve the anonymity of Twitter users. In the following subsections, each theme will be described.

Safety

Overall, 48.3% (292/605) of tweets were about safety. These were largely centered around the worry that the vaccine would cause more harm than good. These tweets also expressed concerns that the COVID-19 vaccine was developed more quickly than other vaccines and that the COVID-19 vaccine was not tested to the same rigorous extent as other vaccines. Apprehension over severe side effects was also noted from tweets, including those that reported on nurses fainting and vaccine trial participants experiencing Bell palsy.

Political Skepticism

Another major theme found in 32.4% (196/605) of tweets was skepticism toward the political motivations behind vaccine development. Several Twitter users presented conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine being a vehicle for exerting political control over citizens. Other participants felt that the vaccine was not tested enough due to political pressures to reopen the economy. Several Twitter users in Canada were also highly influenced by politics in the United States; they cited rumors about the White House threatening the leadership of the US Food and Drug Administration to rush vaccine approval or face forced resignation. Tweets also indicated concern over the influence of big, government-backed pharmaceutical companies (“Big Pharma”) that were motivated by profits instead of the desire to help people.

Deficits in Medical and Epidemiologic Literacy Concerning the Benefits of Vaccination

Many tweets (159/605, 26.3%) indicated a lack of knowledge about vaccines among Twitter users. For example, several users expressed the idea that if those who contracted COVID-19 had a ≥99% survival rate, then they should not have to receive a vaccine that is said to be 95% effective. Additionally, Twitter users questioned why anyone else should be concerned if they do not receive the vaccine, indicating a lack of understanding of herd immunity. Twitter users also reported concerns about how the vaccine would alter human DNA. Several Twitter users also felt that a lack of a vaccine for cancer, heart disease, and AIDS was proof that a new virus could not be cured. Additionally, Twitter users viewed COVID-19 as a mild disease; therefore, their interest in undergoing vaccination was low.

Authority Figures

Another theme we found was mistrust toward the COVID-19 vaccine resulting from Canadian and international authority figures not taking the vaccine (51/605, 8.4%). For example, several tweets highlighted users’ mistrust toward the CEO of Pfizer and political figureheads in Canadian politics like Doug Ford (the elected provincial leader of Ontario), as they were not taking the vaccine. However, later tweets criticized public figures such as Dr Bonnie Henry (the Provincial Health Officer of British Columbia) and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (a member of the US House of Representatives) for receiving the vaccine before frontline workers and older adults.

Legal Liability

To a smaller extent (19/605, 3.1%), Twitter users also expressed mistrust toward vaccines that was based on reports of not being able to take legal action against drug companies if a person experiences any side effects. Additionally, news of the Federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in Canada resulted in further skepticism toward vaccine safety.

Medical Legacies

The final theme was unlike all of the other themes of vaccine hesitancy in this paper—the legacy of harm caused by health care institutions that have traditionally targeted the Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) community and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer+ (LGBTQ+) community. Tweets (24/605, 4%) in this theme highlighted the lack of trust toward the COVID-19 vaccine resulting from how marginalized groups, such as the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities, have been historically targeted by the medical community. For example, the Tuskegee syphilis experiments were referenced in several tweets. Moreover, the first people who were vaccinated in the United States were Black health care workers, and several Twitter users viewed this as forced participation in medical experiments. Additionally, a poster promoting COVID-19 vaccination was viewed as paralleling the stigmatization of people who take pre-exposure prophylaxis, a medication for people living with HIV.

Theoretical Domains Framework

Themes were mapped to the TDF and categorized into the following five domains: knowledge, beliefs about consequences, environmental context and resources, social influence, and emotion. The mapping of themes to TDF domains was an interpretive and consensus-driven exercise that was conducted by two study authors (JG and HM). Disagreement was reconciled by a third study author (HMVM). Figure 4 displays a representation of the themes that were mapped to the TDF. We provide insight into this framework in the Discussion section. Overall, themes were not mutually exclusive; themes were classified according to several TDF domains. Figure 4 see it in original

Themes were categorized based on the TDF. The TDF domains are represented by the dark-gray circles. The themes from the content analysis (smaller colored circles) were mapped to relevant TDF domains. TDF: Theoretical Domains Framework.

Discussion

Principal Results

Through content analysis and TDF application, this study identified the reasons behind vaccine hesitancy among Twitter users in Canada. The major themes that emerged included concerns over safety, suspicion about political or economic forces driving the COVID-19 pandemic or vaccine development, a lack of knowledge about the COVID-19 vaccine, messages from authority figures, and a lack of legal liability from vaccine companies. An additional theme regarding the historical impact of medical mistrust among marginalized communities was also presented. These themes were categorized into the following five TDF constructs: knowledge, beliefs about consequences, environmental context and resources, social influence, and emotion. Thus, efforts to overcome vaccine hesitancy should focus on targeting these constructs.

Although evidence concerning vaccine hesitancy toward the COVID-19 vaccine is still emerging, our findings are consistent with previous studies. A study from Israel found that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was related to concerns about safety and efficacy and the belief that the disease is mild [5]. This was similar to our study, wherein concerns about safety was the top reason for vaccine hesitancy. The efficacy of the vaccine and the belief that the virus is mild were grouped into the lack of knowledge theme, which was another top reason for vaccine hesitancy in our study. Another study surveyed individuals from Canada and the United States in May 2020 and reported that vaccine hesitancy correlated with a lack of trust about a vaccine’s benefit, concerns about safety (ie, unknown future health consequences), commercial profiteering, and a belief in natural immunity [6]. Of note, these respondents were more likely to receive a vaccine if there was evidence of rigorous testing and safety measures [6]. Both of these studies were conducted prior to the development and implementation of a COVID-19 vaccine. As such, their results were hypothetical.

This study identified the particular reasons why people in Canada may be hesitant to receive a vaccine, so that implementation scientists who are responsible for vaccine rollouts can become responsive to these concerns. Although the analyzed tweets were from Canada, we believe that the tweets’ themes may be generalizable to other contexts. To our knowledge, no other study has analyzed tweets to determine the reasons behind COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. This study’s contribution is especially important because the timing of our study coincided with the approval of the first two vaccines (ie, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines) and the first vaccine administration in Canada.

Our results relate to vaccine hesitancy in general (ie, past research on non–COVID-19 vaccines), as prior related research has provided similar findings. For example, the influence of the media and people’s knowledge about vaccines, past experiences, perceptions of risk, and trust have all been documented [30]. However, hesitancy toward the COVID-19 vaccines presents new, unprecedented challenges; namely, the global COVID-19 pandemic is unlike any pandemic that has been experienced in the past century, herd immunity depends on vaccine participation on a global scale, and new SARS-CoV-2 strains can emerge if the virus has opportunities (ie, time and vectors) to mutate. Additionally, the long-term health consequences of COVID-19 are unknown [31].

Our recommendation for the organizations responsible for implementing vaccination programs is to create behavioral interventions that are responsive to the concerns presented in this study. The mapping of these themes to the TDF provided us with preliminary insights into how to best target these behavioral interventions. For example, safety was a top concern that was found in the tweets, and we mapped safety to both knowledge and beliefs about consequences. Thus, targeting vaccine literacy may be beneficial, and this can be done by explaining how vaccines work, why they are safe, and how no steps were missed in the expedient process of COVID-19 vaccine development. However, trust in politicians and pharmaceutical companies is a vaccine hesitancy factor that is difficult to target because both groups are necessarily involved in vaccine rollouts. One approach to targeting this concern might be to have trusted physicians speak to their patients about why it is important to be immunized. This approach falls under the domain of emotion in the TDF.

Although providing details on interventions for responding to vaccine hesitancy was beyond the scope of this study, Table 1 provides example suggestions for interventions based on each TDF domain.

Table 1

Reasons for vaccine hesitation fell under several Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) constructs (left column). The rightmost column provides examples of intervention suggestions for responding to vaccine hesitancy in relation to the TDF construct.

TDF constructs	Content analysis theme	Example suggestions
Knowledge	Lack of knowledge	Introduce campaigns that educate the public about using clear language in media that are commonly used to digest content (eg, social media).
Social influence	Authority	Have nonpolitical, respected older adult Canadian celebrities take the vaccine as an example. Such celebrities could be retired athletes or musicians.
Environmental context and resources	Political skepticism	Emphasize that vaccines are rooted in science and not politics. This is a difficult quality to understand.In action, this could be done by having messages come from trusted physicians instead of politicians.
Emotion and beliefs about consequences	Safety	Highlight examples of instances when the vaccine has worked.Reiterate the safety of the vaccine.Reiterate the fact that the steps in the scientific development of the vaccine were not missed.

Open in a separate window

More research is necessary to determine whether addressing these concerns is effective in overcoming vaccine hesitancy.

Limitations

As of January 2021, roughly 6.45 million (~17%) Canadians use Twitter [32]. Therefore, the perspectives on vaccine hesitancy presented in this paper are not wholly representative of the perspectives of all people in Canada. All users included in this study represent people in Canada with broadband internet access, which, as the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated, is an important determinant of health [33]. As such, we likely missed the perspectives of those who face challenges when accessing the internet. It is also possible that nonhuman Twitter users (bots) were represented in our sample. Previous research has found that Twitter bots have manipulated public opinion and fueled cascades of negative emotions related to topics about COVID-19 [34]. Without any way to systematically identify and exclude these tweets, we suspect that several such tweets were included in our analysis. We also searched for English-only tweets due to limitations in language expertise among this study’s authors. A more comprehensive content analysis that is representative of all people in Canada should include tweets that are written in other languages. This limitation may have resulted in themes not being identified, including those related to culturally specific concerns.

It was not possible to collect demographic data such as age, gender, and ethnicity while also preserving users’ anonymity. Thus, we were unable to analyze the demographic characteristics of Twitter users who expressed vaccine hesitancy.

Although the search strategy could have been expanded to include many more terms related to vaccination (eg, “shot,” “jab,” “immunization,” etc), the search results would have been insurmountable for conducting our manual analysis process. Additionally, terms related to hoax beliefs were not included; the inclusion of such terms would have likely produced more results. Although saturation was achieved for our search, we may have missed themes that used alternative language to express vaccine hesitancy.

Of note, the examples of interventions presented in Table 1 are merely suggestions. A behavioral scientist may have more informed suggestions about how to combat vaccine hesitancy according to the TDF.

Finally, the tweets related to the medical legacies discussed in this paper should not be viewed as tweets about vaccine hesitancy or conflated with those under the categories of safety, a lack of knowledge, political skepticism, messages from authority figures, and legal liability. As Mosby and Sridrovich [35] have emphasized, health care providers need to understand the history of “racially segregated health care and medical experimentation.” Additionally, Boyd [36] stated that the “hyper-focus on hesitancy implicitly blames Black communities for their undervaccination, and it obscures opportunities to address the primary barrier to COVID-19 vaccination: access.” Building trust in the medical system goes far beyond the suggestions presented in this paper.

Conclusions

Overall, this study identified the reasons why people in Canada may feel hesitant toward receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. These reasons fell under the following themes: safety concerns, suspicions about political or economic forces, a lack of knowledge, messages from authority figures, and a lack of legal liability from vaccine companies. Additionally, other tweets revealed the historical impact of medical mistrust among marginalized communities, which should not be viewed as hesitancy or as the result of the reasons identified in this paper. Overall, behavioral, implementation, and public health scientists can use theory-based approaches like the TDF to design interventions that are tailored to address the concerns that people have and improve the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine, thereby increasing the chances of achieving the threshold necessary for herd immunity.Go to:

Acknowledgments

JG conceived the study idea and was involved in all study activities, including study data extraction and analysis and manuscript preparation. HM supported the literature extraction and manuscript preparation. HMVM supported the coding of tweets and manuscript revision. This study was conducted without financial support.Go to:

Abbreviations

BIPOC	Black, Indigenous, and people of color
LGBTQ+	lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer+
PRISMA	Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses
TDF	Theoretical Domains Framework

Footnotes

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

LIVE FROM THE TRENCHES, Here’s just a few of the many reasons this is trash and whoever takes it seriously is a self-deluded clown:

There’s almost no hesitancy in 2021. Whoever was hesitant before, stopped being so in 2020. Same way many of us stopped hesitating on 9/11. If they are not favorable, most of the messages out there are anti-certainly-harmful-covid-injections. Most of us don’t even think of them as “vaccines”. By a large.
As opposed to the people they studied, Pharmafia self-intoxicates itself lumping Covid injections with vaccines. But the two draw support from different crowds. Which leads to the next self-intoxication:
There’s new categories that their radar doesn’t even have sensors for: general pro-vaxxers who are either hesitant or determined not to take covid injections, as they keep taking vaccines. And the hesitant fraction of the fraction is tiny.
Twitter is filled with pharmabots who infiltrate anti-vaxx communities. Thus, Pharmafia did a Hunter Biden again, and fell asleep with a meth pipe still hot between the upper lips. That was for sale.
Besides that, it’s been shown that Twitter is the least accurate reflection of the general population of all social media networks, so the flaw is embedded in the pool.
“Many tweets (159/605, 26.3%) indicated a lack of knowledge about vaccines among Twitter users” – Where does “many” start, that’s actually only a quarter, very little compared to how they portrait anti-vaxxers as generally Neanderthals. Also very little compared to pro-vaxx scores, where medical illiteracy is predominant even when they’re ideologically aligned with Pharmafia.
A minimal intellectual decency requires a bit of comparative study there on the literacy – vaccine-opposition correlation. Or causation.
But their main problem here is that they lump together ignoramus and people unaligned with the official lies exactly because they are in the know. The two don’t respond the same to whatever you want to do to them. Pharmafia’s gonna have a bad time if it keeps swallowing its own baits, can’t wait for the next laugh from them.
I mean how much BS can you pack in a single sentence in a self-served “scientific” work? How is this any healthier than meth?
There’s a huge mindset difference between someone who understood the truth and stopped hesitating and someone who’s in the process and still hesitating. Much larger than the difference between “anti-certainly-harmful-covid-injections” and “vaccine-hesitant”. Respectively, once you know, you can’t unknow. Once you left the womb, you can’t go back to be fed through an umbilical cord.
So they only have a chance at people who don’t know enough yet and they can only hope to prevent them from getting there.
But Pharmafia is guaranteed to fail as it keeps consuming the propaganda stash it fabricated for sale.

I wrote this mainly so we can mock them again later and shout “Told you so, dum’asses!’

PS: Isn’t “The Journal of Internet Medical Research” doing exactly what anti-vaxxers were mocked for with those “Google diplomas” 0IQ jokes?

! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them

“THEY’RE KILLING PEOPLE!” – QUARTER MILLION AMERICANS LOST TO MEDICAL ERROR YEARLY. BEFORE COVID.

by Silviu "Silview" Costinescu on 24 Jul 202124 Jul 2021

by Silviu “Silview” Costinescu

Every time I hear Pharma dispensers like Paul Ofitt or Pharma trolls like Biden accusing non-vaccinated people of murder, this study comes to mind first thing.
This British Medical Journal analysis used to be one of the first shadow-banned links on Facebook, years before the term was even coined. Together with Google, they managed to fade it out from public attention and references, but it’s a staple of medical journalism and criticism.

Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the US

British Medical Journal 03 May 2016

Summary points
-Death certificates in the US, used to compile national statistics, have no facility for acknowledging medical error
-If medical error was a disease, it would rank as the third leading cause of death in the US
-The system for measuring national vital statistics should be revised to facilitate better understanding of deaths due to medical care

Medical error is not included on death certificates or in rankings of cause of death. Martin Makary and Michael Daniel assess its contribution to mortality and call for better reporting

The annual list of the most common causes of death in the United States, compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), informs public awareness and national research priorities each year. The list is created using death certificates filled out by physicians, funeral directors, medical examiners, and coroners. However, a major limitation of the death certificate is that it relies on assigning an International Classification of Disease (ICD) code to the cause of death.1 As a result, causes of death not associated with an ICD code, such as human and system factors, are not captured. The science of safety has matured to describe how communication breakdowns, diagnostic errors, poor judgment, and inadequate skill can directly result in patient harm and death. We analyzed the scientific literature on medical error to identify its contribution to US deaths in relation to causes listed by the CDC.2

Death from medical care itself

Medical error has been defined as an unintended act (either of omission or commission) or one that does not achieve its intended outcome,3 the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended (an error of execution), the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim (an error of planning),4 or a deviation from the process of care that may or may not cause harm to the patient.5 Patient harm from medical error can occur at the individual or system level. The taxonomy of errors is expanding to better categorize preventable factors and events.6 We focus on preventable lethal events to highlight the scale of potential for improvement.

Case history: role of medical error in patient death
A young woman recovered well after a successful transplant operation. However, she was readmitted for non-specific complaints that were evaluated with extensive tests, some of which were unnecessary, including a pericardiocentesis. She was discharged but came back to the hospital days later with intra-abdominal hemorrhage and cardiopulmonary arrest. An autopsy revealed that the needle inserted during the
pericardiocentesis grazed the liver causing a pseudoaneurysm that resulted in subsequent rupture and death. The death certificate listed the cause of death as cardiovascular.

The role of error can be complex. While many errors are
non-consequential, an error can end the life of someone with a
long life expectancy or accelerate an imminent death. The case
in the box shows how error can contribute to death. Moving
away from a requirement that only reasons for death with an
ICD code can be used on death certificates could better inform
healthcare research and awareness priorities.

How big is the problem?

The most commonly cited estimate of annual deaths from
medical error in the US—a 1999 Institute of Medicine (IOM)
report7—is limited and outdated. The report describes an
incidence of 44 000-98 000 deaths annually.7 This conclusion
was not based on primary research conducted by the institute
but on the 1984 Harvard Medical Practice Study and the 1992
Utah and Colorado Study.8 9 But as early as 1993, Leape, a chief
investigator in the 1984 Harvard study, published an article
arguing that the study’s estimate was too low, contending that
78% rather than 51% of the 180 000 iatrogenic deaths were
preventable (some argue that all iatrogenic deaths are
preventable).10 This higher incidence (about 140 400 deaths due
to error) has been supported by subsequent studies which suggest
that the 1999 IOM report underestimates the magnitude of the
problem.
A 2004 report of inpatient deaths associated with the
Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research Patient Safety
Indicators in the Medicare population estimated that 575 000
deaths were caused by medical error between 2000 and 2002,
which is about 195 000 deaths a year (table 1⇓).11 Similarly, the
US Department of Health and Human Services Office of the
Inspector General examining the health records of hospital
inpatients in 2008, reported 180 000 deaths due to medical error
a year among Medicare beneficiaries alone.12 Using similar
methods, Classen et al described a rate of 1.13%.13 If this rate
is applied to all registered US hospital admissions in 201315 it
translates to over 400 000 deaths a year, more than four times
the IOM estimate.
Similarly, Landrigan et al reported that 0.6% of hospital
admissions in a group of North Carolina hospitals over six years
(2002-07) resulted in lethal adverse events and conservatively
estimated that 63% were due to medical errors.14 Extrapolated
nationally, this would translate into 134 581 inpatient deaths a
year from poor inpatient care. Of note, none of the studies
captured deaths outside inpatient care—those resulting from
errors in care at home or in nursing homes and in outpatient
care such as ambulatory surgery centers.

A literature review by James estimated preventable adverse
events using a weighted analysis and described an incidence
range of 210 000-400 000 deaths a year associated with medical
errors among hospital patients.16 We calculated a mean rate of
death from medical error of 251 454 a year using the studies
reported since the 1999 IOM report and extrapolating to the
total number of US hospital admissions in 2013. We believe
this understates the true incidence of death due to medical error
because the studies cited rely on errors extractable in
documented health records and include only inpatient deaths.
Although the assumptions made in extrapolating study data to
the broader US population may limit the accuracy of our figure,
the absence of national data highlights the need for systematic
measurement of the problem. Comparing our estimate to CDC
rankings suggests that medical error is the third most common
cause of death in the US (fig 1⇓).2

Better data

Human error is inevitable. Although we cannot eliminate human
error, we can better measure the problem to design safersystems
mitigating its frequency, visibility, and consequences. Strategies
to reduce death from medical care should include three steps:
making errors more visible when they occur so their effects can
be intercepted; having remedies at hand to rescue patients 17;
and making errors less frequent by following principles that
take human limitations into account (fig 2⇓). This multitier
approach necessitates guidance from reliable data.
Currently, deaths caused by errors are unmeasured and
discussions about prevention occur in limited and confidential
forums, such as a hospital’s internal root cause analysis
committee or a department’s morbidity and mortality conference.
These forums review only a fraction of detected adverse events
and the lessons learnt are not disseminated beyond the institution
or department.
There are several possible strategies to estimate accurate national
statistics for death due to medical error. Instead of simply
requiring cause of death, death certificates could contain an
extra field asking whether a preventable complication stemming
from the patient’s medical care contributed to the death. An
early experience asking physicians to comment on the potential
preventability of inpatient deaths immediately after they
occurred resulted in an 89% response rate.18 Another strategy
would be for hospitals to carry out a rapid and efficient
independent investigation into deaths to determine the potential
contribution of error. A root cause analysis approach would
enable local learning while using medicolegal protections to
maintain anonymity. Standardized data collection and reporting
processes are needed to build up an accurate national picture of
the problem. Measuring the consequences of medical care on
patient outcomes is an important prerequisite to creating a
culture of learning from our mistakes, thereby advancing the
science of safety and moving us closer towards the Institute of
Medicine’s goal of creating learning health systems. (19)

Health priorities

We have estimated that medical error is the third biggest cause
of death in the US and therefore requires greater attention.
Medical error leading to patient death is under-recognized in
many other countries, including the UK and Canada.20 21
According to WHO, 117 countries code their mortality statistics
using the ICD system as the primary indicator of health status.22
The ICD-10 coding system has limited ability to capture most
types of medical error. At best, there are only a few codes where
the role of error can be inferred, such as the code for
anticoagulation causing adverse effects and the code for
overdose events. When a medical error results in death, both
the physiological cause of the death and the related problem
with delivery of care should be captured.
To achieve more reliable healthcare systems, the science of
improving safety should benefit from sharing data nationally
and internationally, in the same way as clinicians share research
and innovation about coronary artery disease, melanoma, and
influenza. Sound scientific methods, beginning with an
assessment of the problem, are critical to approaching any health
threat to patients. The problem of medical error should not be
exempt from this scientific approach. More appropriate
recognition of the role of medical error in patient death could
heighten awareness and guide both collaborations and capital
investments in research and prevention.
Contributors and sources: MM is the developer of the operating room
checklist, the precursor to the WHO surgery checklist. He is a surgical
oncologist at Johns Hopkins and author of Unaccountable, a book about
transparency in healthcare. MD is the Rodda patient safety research
fellow at Johns Hopkins and is focused on health services research.
This article arose from discussions about the paucity of funding available
to support quality and safety research relative to other causes of death.

1 Moriyama IM, Loy RM, Robb-Smith AHT, et al. History of the statistical classification of
diseases and causes of death. National Center for Health Statistics, 2011.
2 Deaths: final data for 2013. National vital statistics report. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/
leading-causes-of-death.htm.
3 Leape LL. Error in medicine. JAMA 1994;272:1851-7. doi:10.1001/jama.1994.
03520230061039 pmid:7503827.
4 Reason J. Human error. Cambridge University Press, 1990. doi:10.1017/
CBO9781139062367.
5 Reason JT. Understanding adverse events: the human factor. In: Vincent C, ed. Clinical
risk management: enhancing patient safety. BMJ, 2001:9-30.
6 Grober ED, Bohnen JM. Defining medical error. Can J Surg 2005;48:39-44.pmid:15757035.
7 Kohn LT, Corrigan JM, Donaldson MS. To err is human: building a safer health system.
National Academies Press, 1999.
8 Brennan TA, Leape LL, Laird NM, et al. Incidence of adverse events and negligence in
hospitalized patients. Results of the Harvard Medical Practice Study I. N Engl J Med
1991;324:370-6. doi:10.1056/NEJM199102073240604 pmid:1987460.
9 Thomas EJ, Studdert DM, Newhouse JP, et al. Costs of medical injuries in Utah and
Colorado. Inquiry 1999;36:255-64.pmid:10570659.
10 Leape LL, Lawthers AG, Brennan TA, Johnson WG. Preventing medical injury. Qual Rev
Bull 1993;19:144-9.pmid:8332330.
11 HealthGrades quality study: patient safety in American hospitals. 2004. http://www.
providersedge.com/ehdocs/ehr_articles/Patient_Safety_in_American_Hospitals-2004.pdf.
12 Department of Health and Human Services. Adverse events in hospitals: national incidence
among Medicare beneficiaries. 2010. http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-09-00090.pdf.
13 Classen D, Resar R, Griffin F, et al. Global “trigger tool” shows that adverse events in hospitals may be ten times greater than previously measured. Health Aff 2011;30:581-9doi:
10.1377/hlthaff.2011.0190.
14 Landrigan CP, Parry GJ, Bones CB, Hackbarth AD, Goldmann DA, Sharek PJ. Temporal
trends in rates of patient harm resulting from medical care. N Engl J Med
2010;363:2124-34. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa1004404 pmid:21105794.
15 American Hospital Association. Fast facts on US hospitals. 2015.http://www.aha.org/
research/rc/stat-studies/fast-facts.shtml.
16 James JTA. A new, evidence-based estimate of patient harms associated with hospital
care. J Patient Saf 2013;9:122-8. doi:10.1097/PTS.0b013e3182948a69 pmid:23860193.
17 Ghaferi AA, Birkmeyer JD, Dimick JB. Complications, failure to rescue, and mortality with
major inpatient surgery in Medicare patients. Ann Surg 2009;250:1029-34. doi:10.1097/
SLA.0b013e3181bef697 pmid:19953723.
18 Provenzano A, Rohan S, Trevejo E, Burdick E, Lipsitz S, Kachalia A. Evaluating inpatient
mortality: a new electronic review process that gathers information from front-line providers.
BMJ Qual Saf 2015;24:31-7. doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2014-003120 pmid:25332203.
19 Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Continuous improvement and innovation
in health and health care. Round table on value and science-driven health care. National
Academies Press, 2011.
20 Office for National Statistics’ Death Certification Advisory Group. Guidance for doctors
completing medical certificates of cause of death in England and Wales. 2010.
21 Statistics Canada. Canadian vital statistics, death database and population estimates.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/hlth36a-eng.htm.
22 World Health Organization. International classification of diseases.http://www.who.int/
classifications/icd/en/.

! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them

Disabled kids fed infected feces to advance the hepatitis vaccine research

by Silviu "Silview" Costinescu on 23 Jul 202123 Jul 2021

by Silviu “Silview” Costinescu

If you’re a typical millennial, schooled, not educated, and with no historical time perception, you may think this happened ages ago and it’s no longer relevant. But the victims would be younger than my mom today and the affair has been concluded just a few years before my birth. It is conceivable that some of the participants are still working and giving advice on Covid nowadays.

Pharmafia and its faucist lemmings have jumped on an imaginary flying white horse and are pointing fingers at all dissatisfied costumers and skeptics from some imaginary moral heights they fly in their empathy-deficient heads.
They call out racism, egoism and what not in everyone who’s not a Pharma-junkie yet, projecting their own faults all over the place like a garden sprinkler made by Goebbels Industries .
They need bitch-slapped back into reality with some historical facts.
Because if a person had Pharmafia’s criminal record, you’d ask for bodyguards and a restraining order, and the last thing you’d take from them would be health-advice.

THE HIDDEOUS THRUTHS OF TESTING VACCINES ON HUMANS

By Leah Rosenbaum, Forbes, June 12, 2020

Sixty years ago, a monstrous hepatitis experiment was performed on mentally disabled children at Willowbrook State School that raises serious ethical questions about vaccine challenge trials for Covid-19.

Nina Galen was ten years old when she became part of one of the most controversial human experiments in American history. Her mother, Diana McCourt, was looking for an institution that could care for her severely autistic daughter. “I was just desperate,” McCourt says now, more than 50 years later. “I think I was having a breakdown because I was just trying to take care of everything.”

McCourt finally settled on Willowbrook State School, a home for severely developmentally challenged children and adults on Staten Island, New York. In order to get Nina a spot at the overcrowded facility, however, she had to make a Faustian bargain—consenting to allow her daughter to be part of a quest to find a vaccine for hepatitis. “I had no choice,” McCourt says, “I had tried so many different places and so many arrangements, and they didn’t work out, so I went along with it.”

Nina became one of more than 50 mentally disabled children, ages 5 to 10, under the care of Dr. Saul Krugman, a respected pediatrician from New York who wanted to determine if there were multiple strains of hepatitis, and whether a vaccine could be created to protect against the disease. Krugman and his partner, Dr. Joan Giles, used the Willowbrook residents to test a preliminary vaccine for this disease that had killed millions worldwide. From 1955 to 1970, the children were injected with the virus itself or made to drink chocolate milk mixed with feces from other infected children in order to study their immunity.

For much of human history, hepatitis caused some of the deadliest outbreaks in the world. The symptoms, including fever, liver damage and yellow skin, were written about by Hippocrates in the fifth century B.C.E. While we now know that there are multiple viruses (most famously, hepatitis A, B and C), in the first half of the 20th century researchers only knew of one form of the disease, which was then called epidemic jaundice.

Finding a vaccine became particularly important for the United States during World War II, when hepatitis outbreaks affected more than 50,000 American troops. To fight this disease and others, the Surgeon General’s office established the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board.

Willowbrook-building — School for Scandal: In addition to conducting hepatitis experiments, Willowbrook’s staff physically abused residents.

In the early 1950s, Dr. Krugman, a former flight surgeon for the U.S. Army Air Corps, went to the Epidemiological Board with a proposition: he wanted to create a vaccine for hepatitis, and knew the perfect place where he could do his research. Willowbrook was overcrowded, already rampant with disease, and at the time it wasn’t uncommon to test vaccines on children.

The idea goes back to the grandfather of vaccines himself, Edward Jenner, who used an 8-year-old boy as the first test subject of his groundbreaking smallpox vaccine in the late 18th century. The Willowbrook hepatitis experiments would be vaccine challenge experiments, so-called because the body is intentionally “challenged” with a direct exposure to the virus to see if a particular treatment prevents someone from getting the disease.

“He believed he was helping the children at this school deal with the epidemic,” says Dr. Krugman’s son Richard, a pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital Colorado and former head of the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect. “He certainly thought he was making a contribution to infectious disease research.”

Although there’s little doubt that Dr. Krugman accelerated the discovery of a hepatitis vaccine, the ethics of his experiment have resurfaced as vaccine challenge trials are being debated for Covid-19. Many politicians, medical ethicists and scientists have come out in favor of the idea, which would include giving healthy volunteers a dose of an unproven vaccine, and then deliberately exposing them to Covid-19 to see if it offers protection against the virus.

While the vaccine challenge trials would be done with healthy adult volunteers, the Covid-19 vaccine challenge trial and the Willowbrook hepatitis experiments beg the same question: Is it really necessary—or right—to risk the health of a few for the benefit of many?

Saul Krugman arrived at the bucolic Willowbrook campus in 1955. Nestled on almost 400 acres on Staten Island, the large, U-shaped brick buildings were surrounded by a lush green forest. A painted yellow and blue carousel sat at the entrance to the grounds, and first-time visitors described it as enchanting, like a summer camp. Inside, however, Willowbrook was a nightmare.

Do No Harm: RFK described Willowbrook's conditions as ″less comfortable and cheerful than the cages in which we put animals in a zoo.″ — Do No Harm: RFK described Willowbrook’s conditions as “less comfortable and cheerful than the cages in which we put animals in a zoo.”
But since the kids were mostly white and many of the “caregivers” black, I doubt libtards will get triggered by this

The school opened in 1947 and was built to hold 4,000 residents, but for years that number was over 6,000. Disease and neglect were everywhere, and multiple residents died from untreated illness and abuse. In 1965, Robert F. Kennedy, then a New York Senator, made an unannounced visit to Willowbrook and left appalled. “There are no civil liberties for those put in the cells of Willowbrook,” he later testified before Congress, calling the institution a “snake pit.”

When Dr. Krugman and Dr. Giles began the Willowbrook hepatitis experiments, they used the conditions of Willowbrook to their advantage for recruiting new families. Despite its well-documented horrors, Willowbrook was still one of the only options for children with severe disabilities, and there was a long waitlist. Dr. Krugman offered several parents, including Nina Galen’s, the ability to jump the line and have their children put in the newer, cleaner research wards with more staff—if they joined the experiments. “I did feel coerced,” McCourt says, “I felt like I was denied help unless I took this [opportunity].”

Krugman also told parents that since hepatitis was already prevalent at Willowbrook, their children may as well have the chance for a vaccine. McCourt remembers being told her daughter could get an “antidote” to hepatitis if she joined the experiment. When she asked why the hepatitis studies couldn’t be done on primates, she was told that using animals would be “too expensive.”

Despite understanding the optics of infecting mentally disabled children with a potentially deadly disease, Dr. Krugman felt the risk was worth the reward. “The decision to feed hepatitis virus to patients at Willowbrook was not undertaken lightly,” he wrote in a 1958 paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He noted that the strain of hepatitis in Willowbrook wasn’t very severe, that many of the children would get infected anyway, and that any knowledge gained from the experiment would in fact help other Willowbrook residents. He also emphasized that the study was sanctioned by the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, and the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board of the Surgeon General’s Office.

“I don’t think you’re ever justified to inoculate a child with an infectious virus that might kill them,” says pediatrician Paul Offit.

Some of Dr. Krugman’s trials built on previous research that giving children antibodies from patients who had recovered from hepatitis could prevent new infections. (A similar concept, using convalescent plasma of recovered Covid-19 patients to treat sick patients, is being explored today.)

The experiments also involved infecting healthy children with the virus through the chocolate milk concoction. The doctors eventually learned how much it took for the children to show symptoms of hepatitis, allowed them to recover, and then gave them the virus all over again. These experiments were done to test if someone who had recovered from hepatitis would remain immune or if they could be reinfected again.

As each trial concluded, Dr. Krugman published the results in prominent medical journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, and the Journal of the American Medical Association. From the time of the first publication, the experiments were controversial within the medical community. In 1966, renowned medical ethicist Henry K. Beecher published an article titled, “Ethics and Clinical Research,” which listed Willowbrook as an example of an unethical clinical experiment and concluded that “there is no right to risk an injury to one person for the benefit of others.”

Five years later, the editorial board of the Lancet apologized for publishing Dr. Krugman’s studies without greater skepticism. “The Willowbrook experiments have always carried a hope that hepatitis might one day be prevented,” the editors wrote, “but that could not justify the giving of infected material to children who would not directly benefit.” A year later, Krugman had to ward off protesters at a medical conference in Atlantic City.

Consent-form_AK-redacted_1958 — Bad Form: Willowbrook often accepted children in exchange for parental permission to conduct hepatitis testing. THE COLLEGE OF STATEN ISLAND ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

“I think he got a lot of flak for it from people who didn’t understand the context or the reality of the institution,” Richard Krugman says. “It certainly got caught up in the politics of the day.”

But Dr. Krugman had as many fans as he did detractors. New York State Senator Seymour Thaler, originally a critic of the hepatitis experiments, later said that Krugman had “done a magnificent thing.” Dr. Franz Ingelfinger, a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, also supported the research. “How much better to have a patient with hepatitis, accidentally or deliberately acquired, under the guidance of a Krugman than under the care of a zealot,” he wrote.

In addition to discovering the hepatitis A and B strains, Dr. Krugman “certainly did speed up the development of a hepatitis B vaccine,” says Paul Offit, a pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. But, Offit adds, “I don’t think you’re ever justified to inoculate a child with an infectious virus that might kill them.”

As members of the medical community protested Krugman’s experiments, a greater force was mobilizing to close down Willowbrook for good.

In 1972, Geraldo Rivera, then a local television reporter in New York, snuck into the grounds of the school and broadcast the inhumane conditions of Willowbrook. He had been tipped off about the residents’ living conditions by Michael Wilkins, a doctor at the school who was not involved in the hepatitis trials.

“It’s almost 50 years and speaking about it still makes me cry,” says Rivera, now a roaming correspondent-at-large at Fox News. “The conditions were so horrible.” Rivera remembers seeing children naked, smeared in their own feces and hitting their heads against the wall. “I would imagine that the situation I had was similar to the GIs that freed the concentration camps.”

Geraldo-Rivera-by-Michael-Ochs-Getty-Images — The Last Great Disgrace: As a result of Geraldo Rivera’s 1972 investigation of Willowbrook, a federal law was passed to protect people in institutions. MICHAEL OCHS/ GETTYIMAGES

At roughly the same time, a whistleblower exposed the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study in which researchers deliberately let hundreds of Black men go untreated and several died from the disease, even though there was a known cure. Willowbrook was one in a long line of human experimentations on children, prison inmates, people in mental health facilities, and minority communities, and Tuskegee was the tipping point.

Dr. Krugman, however, was rewarded for his work at Willowbrook. That year, he became president of the American Pediatric Society.

In 1974, the National Research Act was passed in an effort to create regulations that protected subjects in human research trials. One measure it implemented was the creation of an ethics task force, the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. “The National Commission might never have come into being were it not for Willowbrook and Tuskegee and several other instances,” says Karen Lebacqz, one of the original members of the commission.

By 1979 the commission had published the Belmont Report, a comprehensive guideline of basic ethical principles that guide modern clinical trials. The National Research Act also established the practice of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), independent committees that must take time to review the ethical aspects of human clinical trials to this day.

Aside from potential ethical dilemmas, today’s coronavirus vaccine challenge trials have something else in common with the Willowbrook hepatitis experiments: they may not even be necessary. While Dr. Krugman is credited for speeding up the development of a hepatitis vaccine, other researchers were not far behind. In the late 1960s, Dr. Baruch Blumberg independently discovered the hepatitis B virus, and together with Dr. Irving Millman submitted the first patent for a hepatitis vaccine in 1969. Blumberg did all his research by taking blood samples and testing the liver functions on children and adults who were already infected, and his work earned Blumberg a Nobel Prize for Medicine.

“Whenever people are desperate,” ethics professor Karen Lebacqz says, “they always want to relax ethical standards.”

Similarly, even if a challenge trial for coronavirus gets approved, there’s no guarantee that it will lead to a faster vaccine development. The U.S. government’s initiative to develop a coronavirus vaccine may be called “Operation Warp Speed,” but Christine Grady, Chief of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, says that a lot of time and thought have to be put into properly designing a trial.

“Whether or not doing a challenge trial would even speed up the trial is a question that is not exactly clear,” says Grady, who is married to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Paul Offit agrees. “You have to have the right dose. And to get the right dose, you have to have these mini-challenge trials,” he says. “I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

Karen Lebacqz, one of the original Belmont Report authors, also has concerns about the accelerated Covid-19 vaccine protocols. “Whenever people are desperate,” she says, “they always want to relax ethical standards.”

Saul Krugman’s controversial experiments at Willowbrook were only the beginning of his illustrious career. He later became the head of pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, authored a classic textbook of pediatric infectious diseases, received the prestigious Lasker Award, and helped to develop the first rubella and measles vaccines.

He defended the Willowbrook trials his whole life, writing in 1986, “I am as convinced today as I was at that time that our studies were ethical and justifiable.” Krugman passed away in 1995, and his obituary in the New York Times has only a small mention of his experiments at Willowbrook.

To this day, while many modern-day ethicists use the Willowbrook studies as an example of unjust human experimentation, there are always second opinions. “It’s complicated,” Grady says. To her knowledge, “Krugman’s first goal was to understand the disease…but I think there are some things about it that certainly don’t look good and would be hard to get approval today.”

Mike Wilkins, the Willowbrook doctor who helped organize parents to shut down the institution in 1987, also doesn’t think that the experiments are black-and-white. “I’m not wanting to crucify Krugman,” he says now, “hepatitis B, for God sakes, is an international disease that there’s now a vaccine for. But let’s never ever do that again.”

! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them

Pharmafia’s Top 10 Biggest Healthcare Fraud Fines In US History

by Silviu "Silview" Costinescu on 22 Jul 202113 Nov 2021

by Silviu “Silview” Costinescu

If a person had Pharmafia’s criminal record, you’d instantly ask for a restraining order.

Study: Pfizer, GSK, Eli Lilly Topped Military Industry in Defrauding US Govt (2010)

10

Sanofi-Aventis

DEC 2012

Sanofi-Aventis agreed to pay $109 million to resolve allegations that the company gave doctors free units of Hyalgan (an injection to relieve knee pain) to encourage those doctors to buy their product. Sanofi lowered the effective price by promising these free samples to doctors, but at the same time got inflated prices from government programs by submitting false price reports, alleged the United States. Medicare and other government health care programs “paid millions of dollars in kickback-tainted claims for Hyalgan,” according to the DOJ announcement.

9

Endo

FEB 2014

Endo Health Solutions Inc. and its subsidiary Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. agreed to pay $192.7 million to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from Endo’s marketing of the prescription drug Lidoderm. As part of the agreement, Endo admitted that it intended that Lidoderm be used for unapproved indications and that it promoted Lidoderm to healthcare providers this way.

8

AstraZeneca

APRIL 2010

AstraZeneca was fined $520 million to resolve allegations that it illegally promoted the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. The drug was approved for treating schizophrenia and later for bipolar mania, but the government alleged that AstraZeneca promoted Seroquel for a variety of unapproved uses, such as aggression, sleeplessness, anxiety, and depression. AstraZeneca denied the charges but agreed to pay the fine to end the investigation.

7

Amgen

DEC 2012

Amgen agreed to pay a $762 million fine to resolve criminal and civil charges that the company illegally introduced and promoted several drugs including Aranesp, a drug to treat anemia. Amgen pleaded guilty to illegally selling Aranesp to be used at doses that the FDA had explicitly rejected, and for an off-label treatment that had never been FDA-approved.

6

Merck

NOV 2011

Merck agreed to pay a fine of $950 million related to the illegal promotion of the painkiller Vioxx, which was withdrawn from the market in 2004 after studies found the drug increased the risk of heart attacks. The company pled guilty to having promoted Vioxx as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis before it had been approved for that use. The settlement also resolved allegations that Merck made false or misleading statements about the drug’s heart safety to increase sales.

5

Eli Lilly

JAN 2009

Eli Lilly was fined $1.42 billion to resolve a government investigation into the off-label promotion of the antipsychotic Zyprexa. Zyprexa had been approved for the treatment of certain psychotic disorders, but Lilly admitted to promoting the drug in elderly populations to treat dementia. The government also alleged that Lilly targeted primary care physicians to promote Zyprexa for unapproved uses and “trained its sales force to disregard the law.”

4

Abbott

MAY 2012

Abbott was fined $1.5 billion in connection to the illegal promotion of the antipsychotic drug Depakote. Abbott admitted to having trained a special sales force to target nursing homes, marketing the drug for the control of aggression and agitation in elderly dementia patients. Depakote had never been approved for that purpose, and Abbott lacked evidence that the drug was safe or effective for those uses. The company also admitted to marketing Depakote to treat schizophrenia, even though no study had found it effective for that purpose.

3

Johnson & Johnson

NOV 2013

Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay a $2.2 billion fine to resolve criminal and civil allegations relating to the prescription drugs Risperdal, Invega and Natrecor. The government alleged that J&J promoted these drugs for uses not approved as safe and effective by the FDA, targeted elderly dementia patients in nursing homes, and paid kickbacks to physicians and to the nation’s largest long-term care pharmacy provider, Omnicare Inc. As part of the agreement, Johnson & Johnson admitted that it promoted Risperdal for treatment of psychotic symptoms in non-schizophrenic patients, although the drug was approved only to treat schizophrenia.

2

Pfizer

SEPT 2009

Pfizer was fined $2.3 billion, then the largest health care fraud settlement and the largest criminal fine ever imposed in the United States. Pfizer pled guilty to misbranding the painkiller Bextra with “the intent to defraud or mislead”, promoting the drug to treat acute pain at dosages the FDA had previously deemed dangerously high. Bextra was pulled from the market in 2005 due to safety concerns. The government alleged that Pfizer also promoted three other drugs illegally: the antipsychotic Geodon, an antibiotic Zyvox, and the antiepileptic drug Lyrica.

Also see: CORRUPTION UNLTD. 2: PFIZER IN NIGERIA – DEAD KIDS, DEATH THREATS AND DEADLY DRUGS

Pfizer sent this message to physician early 2021:

1

GlaxoSmithKline

JULY 2012

GlaxoSmithKline agreed to pay a fine of $3 billion to resolve civil and criminal liabilities regarding its promotion of drugs, as well as its failure to report safety data. This is the largest health care fraud settlement in the United States to date. The company pled guilty to misbranding the drug Paxil for treating depression in patients under 18, even though the drug had never been approved for that age group. GlaxoSmithKline also pled guilty to failing to disclose safety information about the diabetes drug Avandia to the FDA.

Sources:
US Department of Justice
ProPublica

RECAP:

Also see: CORRUPTION UNLTD: GSK AND “TRUMP’S VACCINE CZAR”. SEX TAPES, DEAD BABIES, BRIBES AND PROSTITUTES

! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them

fauci flops — Sometimes my memes are 3D. And you can own them. Or send them to someone.
You can even eat some of them.
CLICK HERE

I’m not a sellout, I’m baby-minded, I wet my Huggies and beg the nanny-state because of TV fearporn – Conor McGregor

by Silviu "Silview" Costinescu on 20 Jul 202120 Jul 2021

by Silviu “Silview” Costinescu

No, I’m not going tabloid, bare this knuckle-head with me for a minute!

I’m guilty of fermenting well-founded indignation against some celebritard and professional tough guy who last year was begging “the powers that be” (exact quote) to save his tough ass from the Macarenavirus by locking his people down and ruining their lives, with military intervention, if needed.
You may have heard of this clown that goes around unsupervised, yet heavily guarded, under the name of Conor McGregor. He beats people for money and he’s very good at it, apparently, and that’s the least annoying thing about him.
And thing is he has just addressed his stupidity, proving he has taken his vitamins and has grown half a testicle since.
So I have the professional obligation (no, I don’t, but it’s a good lesson) to reflect his latest brain-fart accurately.
Point being: if we don’t take our daily dose of intellectual vitamins, we end up like this nitwit. I sweat hard to make it easier, I provide, free of charge, donations welcome, and my monthly earnings from this probably can’t pay a ticked to this door-knob’s 5-minute performances. But l retain immensely more human dignity and tight sleep from my position. I wish you what you wish yourself after watching this:

This was early 2020 when people where “collapsing in the streets”
I was scared for my family. I urged everyone to sit tight for a few weeks to see where we land. My opinion on this situation now is night and day to then.
I actually feel I was lied to originally.
As where we all.
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) July 17, 2021

No, dipshit, we weren’t all lied! As a matter of fact, many of us sounded the alarm long before you vomited that abomination, and you social parasites slandered us, some still do. You learned your lesson 20 years too late to be an useful member of your society. See about catching up before your tiny brain falls out through your big mouth!
There’s no scientific evidence for a novel coronavirus, it all points at your novel species of remote-controlled brainless NPCs being the cause for the current societal collapse.

! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them

“Empathy Doesn’t Do Us Anything” – Hillary Clinton Student Speech From 1969

by Silviu "Silview" Costinescu on 19 Jul 202119 Jul 2021

by Silviu “Silview” Costinescu

This quote should be on her tombstone.
That’s why I decided to help make it more popular.

Five years ago, Wellesley College released some audio excerpts of a 21-year-old Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking at her 1969 commencement. But no seems to have picked up on this part.
The class selected Clinton as Wellesley’s first-ever student commencement speaker. Clinton discussed leadership, the political climate in the 1960s and making the art of the impossible, possible. Whatever that meant.
You can learn more about Clinton’s years as a student by visiting http://www.wellesley.edu.

Seeing her following career achievements and her adoration speeches for people like Margaret Sanger, I’d say she kept the course and this was a more honest moment of her life.

Some people just don’t feel people feelings.

! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them

Polyethylene Glycol-Engrafted Graphene Oxide as Biocompatible Materials for Peptide Nucleic Acid Delivery into Cells

Abstract

Similar articles

AND THEN WE FIND OUT THIS THING IS COMMONLY USED IN PCR TESTING!

Facilitation of Polymerase Chain Reaction with Poly(ethylene glycol)-Engrafted Graphene Oxide Analogous to a Single-Stranded-DNA Binding Protein

Abstract

Similar articles

Abstract:

BACKGROUND

COMPOSITION FOR PCR CONTAINING A POLYETHYLENE GLYCOL-ENGRAFTED NANO-SIZED GRAPHENE OXIDE United States Patent Application 20180155765

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

2. Discussion of Related Art

Biocompatible graphene quantum dots for drug delivery and bioimaging applications – United States Patent 9642815

Abstract:

BACKGROUND AND PRIOR ART OF THE INVENTION

Graphene quantum dots, their composites and preparation of the same

Abstract:

BACKGROUND

THANKS FOR STAYING ON COURSE, THIS GOES DEEPER

IN CONCLUSION:

Other References:

Share this:

Like this:

French citizen among six held over plan to kill Madagascar president -minister

THE UNTOLD STORY

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Canada: Content Analysis of Tweets Using the Theoretical Domains Framework

Abstract

Background

Objective

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Introduction

Methods

Study Design

Data Collection

Data Analysis

Results

Tweet Characteristics and Themes

Safety

Political Skepticism

Deficits in Medical and Epidemiologic Literacy Concerning the Benefits of Vaccination

Authority Figures

Legal Liability

Medical Legacies

Theoretical Domains Framework

Discussion

Principal Results

Table 1

Limitations

Conclusions

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Footnotes

LIVE FROM THE TRENCHES, Here’s just a few of the many reasons this is trash and whoever takes it seriously is a self-deluded clown:

Share this:

Like this:

Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the US

Death from medical care itself

How big is the problem?

Better data

Health priorities

Share this:

Like this:

THE HIDDEOUS THRUTHS OF TESTING VACCINES ON HUMANS

Share this:

Like this:

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3