Monday, March 18, 2024

Senator: Something Illegal Was Going On – The Time For Candor About COVID Is Now

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Washington, D.C. – As one of few medical doctors in the U.S. Senate, Kansas Republican has staked out a position as the people's watchdog on public health matters, especially COVID. Frustrated by the continuing lack on the part of former U.S. government officials about what they knew about it and when they knew it, Marshall Wednesday called for a full investigation into the reported contributions made by a U.S.-based non-governmental organization called to Chinese biological research efforts for which, according to the latest revelations, the U.S. government may have been double billed.

“There is something illegal going on,” Marshall said, alluding to an active investigation underway by the inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Marshall, who is also asking for the to become involved in that case, aired his concerns on Fox News Channel Wednesday as part of his months-long effort to get at the truth.

He's been bird-dogging the issue for some time, and his efforts have produced fruit. One of his investigators, Diane Cutler, has uncovered a raft of suspicious activity.

“What I've found so far is evidence that points to double billing, potential theft of government funds. It is concerning, especially since it involves dangerous pathogens and risky research,” Cutler told CBS News, which reported the U.S. government has launched a probe based on her findings.”

“Sources familiar with the grant records” the former federal investigator has been scrutinizing, CBS added, “did not dispute” the network's reporting.

Marshall's efforts appear to have uncovered the tip of a particularly long spear that reaches back before the outbreak of was acknowledged by public health officials anywhere in the world. Leaving the otherwise considerable question of possible doubling-billing and fraud aside, the investigation launched by the senator has unearthed what, for many, may be the key questions: Was the government funding “risky research” in a Chinese bacteriological lab, and why?

No one, up to this point at least, wants to say. We know by his own emails that Dr. , a so-called “Hero of the Pandemic” requested a detailed briefing on direct and indirect American-funded bacteriological research in shortly before speaking with noted virologists and other scientists soon after the virus was detected.

To put it mildly, that's suspicious. Did he want to know what America had been doing or did he need to know what needed to be covered up? Initially, that was the kind of question only a conspiracy theorist would pose. Increasingly though, it looks like Marshall and others who are interested in the origin of the virus and how it got loose need to start asking, under oath if necessary, if the NIH, the and other U.S. government entities were in any way providing funds that were used to underwrite research in China that could not legally be conducted in the United States.

The mere possibility the answer could be “Yes” should be frightening. That would be a blatant disregard of the law and an invitation to a disaster that eventually occurred.

The outbreak of COVID produced a pandemic badly mismanaged by the U.S. government officials and agencies who had the responsibility for it in their briefs. Was that because they were also in on a particularly spicy secret? The conflict of interest that would create should be obvious and, if true, the fact that people ended up paying for it with their lives, their jobs and their standard of living should not quickly be forgotten. And that's only the beginning.

There are still lots of questions about both the outbreak and the management of the ensuing pandemic that have gone unasked, let alone unanswered. It's time to change that and the people who were in charge – the experts – need to own up to what they got wrong and why.

Helpfully, a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine professor has begun that process in a manner fit for mass consumption. In a thoughtful and easy-to-digest essay that appeared in the Post, Dr. Marty Makary offered up a list of 10 myths about the virus and its spread that have been debunked.

“In the past few weeks, a series of analyses published by highly respected researchers have exposed a truth about public health officials during COVID: Much of the time, they were wrong,” Makary wrote. This was not, he continued because their recommendations were based on incomplete data but “because they refused to change their directives in the face of new evidence.”

Makary goes on to fault the CDC, accusing it of “weaponizing research” and unnamed “public health officials” who, he says, “actively propagated misinformation that ruined lives and forever damaged public trust in the medical profession.”

It's an important piece that only scratches the surface. The plethora of errors generated from within the public health sector even as considerable evidence to the contrary began to emerge is disgraceful and dangerous. How can these people be trusted again when even now they continue to blur the issue regarding the efficacy of masks preventing the transmission of COVID – something Makary has as No. 2 on his list:

Misinformation #2: Masks prevent COVID transmission:

Cochran Reviews are considered the most authoritative and independent assessment of the evidence in medicine.

And one published last month by a highly respected Oxford research team found that masks had no significant impact on COVID transmission.

When asked about this definitive review, CDC Director Dr. downplayed it, arguing that it was flawed because it focused on randomized controlled studies.

But that was the greatest strength of the review! Randomized studies are considered the gold standard of medical evidence.

If all the energy used by public health officials to mask toddlers could have been channeled to reduce child obesity by encouraging outdoor activities, we would be better off.

A lot of people have tried to pressure Cochran into retracting or adding additional context to that conclusion, but there's too much other evidence to suggest masking and mask mandates made a meaningful difference.

Makary's list also addresses misinformation about school closures reducing the spread of the virus, young people deriving benefits from vaccine boosters and the importance of getting the second shot there-to-four weeks after the first. All were perpetuated and promulgated by the government even after sufficient data suggesting they were in error had been collected and analyzed.

Some have suggested the spread of misinformation was deliberate and part of a global cover-up intended to keep the facts about the virus, its origins and what the government did right and wrong from getting out. The truth of it all is probably a lot less sinister.

It's perfectly natural for people, especially those in positions of leadership, to have trouble admitting they've been wrong about something. Sometimes it's a matter of pride. Other times they are trying to escape responsibility for what followed. Being wrong is part of being human. What the folks who are not being fulsome in their disclosures are missing is that the speculation does far more damage to the public's ability to trust the advice of experts than an admission they were wrong about some things would ever do.

Honesty is a good policy – which is why Sen. Marshall and the others who are determined to get to the bottom of it all should be encouraged in their pursuits. If not for now, then for the next time the spread of an unknown virus threatens the world, and there will be a next time.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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Peter Roff
Peter Roff
Peter Roff is a longtime political columnist currently affiliated with several Washington, D.C.-based public policy organizations. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @TheRoffDraft.

4 COMMENTS

  1. When dealing with the pathology of a previously unknown pathogen, there will be errors, false starts & dead ends, because we don’t know. That’s inevitable. Continuing to double down on those errors is not inevitable, or sound medical practice. In this case, it was all about the “bottom lines”, NOT the health or welfare of the people. There can be no more despicable excuse!

  2. One thing is abundantly clear: the COVID pandemic was hijacked and pressed into service as a psy-op to commandeer an election and render the popular vote subject to covert manipulation. The vaccines were hastily conceived and rashly implemented and will have disastrous consequences for human health on a worldwide basis. Moreover, the lockdowns have inspired wannabe totalitarians to new vistas of power grabs, to include The Great Reset.

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