Category: Igor’s Newsletter

Gregg Semenza, a pediatrician and a professor of Genetic Science, is a prominent researcher. Prof. Semenza works at Johns Hopkins University, a premier scientific institution so important that it received $1,050,368,895 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (JHU played the most prominent role in the Covid pandemic response.)

Prof. Semenza made major discoveries regarding how cells adapt to oxygen availability. Those findings could potentially lead to curing cancer! So important was his work that he was awarded a Nobel Prize in medicine in 2019.

There was a small problem, however.

Seven of his studies were fake and were eventually retracted. Retraction Watch has the details. Even the pictures of mice used in the studies were photoshopped:

The authors have retracted this article as multiple image irregularities have been noted within this article, specifically: Figure 1A, upper panel (HIF-1a blot), lanes five and seven appear to be duplicates. Figure 6B, lower panel (b-actin blot), the first six lanes appear to be identical to Fig. 6G, lower panel (b-actin blot). Figure 3G, the image of the third mouse in the D10 Saline group is identical to the image of the third mouse in the D21 Digoxin group.

Here’s one retracted article and the retraction notice. I downloaded the image from that study and highlighted the mouse in question, which appears in two pictures but with different scan results.

The authors copied/pasted the mouse picture and overlaid different scan results on the two copies. So, they did not have the scientific measurements they claimed to have!

Other retractions expose similarly ridiculous scientific fraud, including fake Western blots and more.

This fraud was not perpetrated by an obscure researcher languishing at a third-rate institution. Quite to the contrary, Prof. Semenza is a world-renowned scientist, occupying a position at a premier facility favored by the major funder of science, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Prof. Semenza shares the honor of receiving a Nobel prize with other famed recipients, such as Barack Obama, recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, and António Egas Moniz, inventor of lobotomy and the winner of the 1949 Nobel Prize in medicine.

So, the world of Nobel prizes is very special!

In consolation, we at least know about this fraud, and Semenza’s articles in question were properly retracted. So the self-correcting scientific process worked as intended, at last.

Sadly, as we know, retractions do not always work in an evidence-based, scientific way. For example, many honest articles questioning Covid vaccines or masks were retracted under pressure from science funders.

I feel that my trust in scientists has been violated by “COVID science” and certain other new scientific developments, but I still like the science of the good kind. I have much less faith in Nobel Prizes, however.

What about you? Was your trust in science challenged by the developments of the last three years?

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A Nature article published two days ago might make you go hmmmmm:

To increase lagging vaccination rates, scientists developed specialized AI actors to talk to people online to convince them to get vaccinated.

This was done in response to all-important but unmentioned “stakeholders” demanding that chatbots be deployed to improve vaccine acceptance among the refusers:

Employing the RE-AIM framework, process evaluation indicated strong acceptance and implementation support for vaccine chatbots from stakeholders, with high levels of sustainability and scalability.

Who are these stakeholders? The word sustainability was a dead giveaway, so I looked up the usual suspect. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is behind this idea and spent $6,183,326 on such “hybrid advising vaccine chatbots”:

Johns Hopkins, another global stakeholder (also financed by Bill Gates), launched a chatbot called Vira.

While being active on Twitter, I noticed that from time to time, posts from Twitter users were strangely similar, as if AI generated them:

(sorry for the small font size – this is a large image – open in a separate window to enlarge it if you want to read the text)

Are those persons real people? Who knows. They might be. It is challenging to investigate specific instances. Still, I often felt that vaccine promoters’ activities were not entirely organic, and some felt like automated operations.

The Nature study I brought up was an attempt to evaluate whether these chatbots were effective. The results were mixed! These AI systems were not effective when dealing with educated people and often decreased vaccination intentions, as the Nature article explains:

Chatbots were found to be significantly more effective at improving vaccine confidence and acceptance among people who are minorities (i.e., non-Thai in Thailand and non-Chinese in Hong Kong and Singapore) and those who had lower education levels (i.e., below college level).

Talking to these chatbots was turning educated people away from vaccines:

Likewise, in the Hong Kong senior group, respondents with a college or above education level showed lower odds of experiencing improved perceptions of vaccine importance [OR = 0.31 (0.18–0.55)], safety [OR = 0.18 (0.11–0.29)], and effectiveness [OR = 0.41 (0.26–0.67)] (Fig. 5 and Supplementary Table 10).

They also did not work against vaccine skeptics:

Respondents with higher risk perceptions were less likely to improve in their vaccine confidence and acceptance compared to those with lower risk perceptions (Figs. 2–6 and Supplementary Tables 9–11), meaning that perceived risks might have been the reason for their hesitation but chatbot use was not enough to sway their opinions or reduce their concerns about the vaccine.

The authors of the article, suckling on the teat of AI chatbot funding, clearly are not giving up on future development and have ideas to use them for other vaccination campaigns:

The Thai Ministry of Health brought ChatSure to the public specifically to combat COVID-19 vaccine-related misinformation; the D²4H chatbot is currently being expanded to cover other vaccines, such as the HPV vaccine, so it may serve as a scalable intervention for existing vaccination campaigns to enhance online engagement with the goal of increasing vaccine confidence.

Similar chatbots are deployed to promote climate change:

Have you ever met pro-vaccine online users that sounded like automated bots? Did they convince you? If your answer is “yes and no,” congratulations on remaining an independent and critical thinker!

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The Covid vaccine debacle woke up many people, myself included. Many of us were shocked to see a novel, unproven treatment promoted aggressively with false promises given to us and mandates imposed on young and healthy persons. Those mRNA formulations ended up not working and caused thousands of deaths, despite repeated assurances of safety and effectiveness given by charlatans pretending to “represent science.”

Most people also instinctively know that flu vaccines are medical quackery and do not work. That’s why less than half of Americans choose to get an influenza vaccine.

Still, many believe “other childhood vaccines” are safe and effective. They are administered to little children, after all! Who would want to hurt them?

Let’s look at the DTP (Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis) vaccine, which many of you and I received in childhood. (I asked my mother, and she said I received it and reacted badly).

While no longer available in the United States, the DTP vaccine is still given in 40 countries and is quite dangerous.

In 2021, Aaron Siri wrote a letter to the UN asking them to stop using it. The letter shows evidence of the DTP vaccine increasing child mortality by TEN TIMES.

He describes an attempt by Dr. Aaby, a famous researcher generally supportive of vaccines, to look into Guinea-Bissau’s vaccination program, which ended up being an incidental randomized study.

The study is here.

Depending on their birth date, children were allocated to receive the DTP vaccine either early or late (3 or 5 months). That is a randomized experiment! Scientists could compare the mortality of children vaccinated with DTP with that of unvaccinated kids.

They found that instead of reducing mortality, supposedly the whole point of vaccines, the DTP vaccine increased it by ten times. The vaccinated infants 3-5 months old died much more often than the unvaccinated ones!

Shocked by the unexpected and disappointing (for him as a vaccine researcher) findings of his 2017 study, Dr. Aaby undertook another study in 2018 to see if his results were a fluke.

They weren’t:

Despite Aaron Siri informing the UN about the dangers of the DTP vaccine, UNICEF ignored the evidence and continues to support the DTP vaccine.

Both vaccine skeptics and vaccine advocates are prone to simplifying the complicated picture of diseases, vaccines, and immune systems.

Diphtheria is a very nasty bacterial illness that is contagious, highly unpleasant, and often deadly due to the toxin produced by Corynebacterium diphtheria. The diphtheria bacteria are antibiotic resistant and remain viable for months in dust and on surfaces. However, the illness is treatable with diphtheria antitoxin.

The truly damaging part of the DTP vaccine seems to be the inactivated (killed) pertussis bacteria. Specific antigens replaced the whole pertussis bacteria in later versions of those vaccines (DTaP stands for acellular pertussis). That made the newer vaccine less pathogenic but less effective – with effectiveness waning rapidly.

Due to horrible side effects, the DTP vaccine was discontinued in many, but not all, countries. During its use, however, it was promoted as safe and effective. As Dr. Aaby showed, DTP was unsafe and increased infant mortality multifold.

DTP vaccine was administered to infants for decades. Were the authorities aware of how dangerous it is? Why did they not try to find out by doing simple randomized experiments, as Guinea-Bissau did? Why does the UN not ask to discontinue the DTP vaccine?

I am not sure. I regret that the dangers of this vaccine were not appreciated or communicated to parents during many years of continued administration.

What do you think? Did you or your children get the DTP vaccine? Did anyone of you know of a bad reaction to it?

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Two authors from the University of Toronto published an interesting article:

Thanks to our paying subscribers, I shelled out $45 and purchased a PDF copy of the article so I do not go just by the abstract. This post would be impossible without you, my generous paying subscribers!

The article discusses allowing medically assisted suicides for desperately poor people who cannot afford a dignified life or expensive medical treatments.

The authors ask:

Should MAiD be available to people in such circumstances, [poor economic conditions – I.C.] even when a sound argument can be made that the agents in question are autonomous?

They answer this question using a “harm reduction approach,” which is essentially economics and evaluates the economic worth of assisted suicide for the poor.

we use a harm reduction approach, arguing that even though such decisions are tragic, MAiD should be available

Their definition of “harm reduction” is absurdly self-referential.

I highlighted the awkward attempt to define “harm reduction” in blue and underlined (in red) the only part that has a prescriptive meaning:

The authors explain that “harm reduction” is “lesser evil,” reserving the definition of “evil” for themselves.

The real reason for allowing euthanizing the poor shows up a couple of paragraphs down and is, no surprise, a financial one: Canada has a collapsing healthcare system, and euthanizing poor people “clogging hospitals” would allow more deserving individuals (note my sarcasm) to use medical services. The authors stop before saying that out loud, but this is my interpretation of why they brought up collapsing healthcare.

So, the authors argue for expanding medically assisted suicides to people who want to end their lives due to poverty. Their “harm reduction” analysis suggests, without saying so outright, that MAiD for the desperately poor would alleviate “collapsing healthcare.”

Nobody, besides quadriplegics, needs MAiD to end their lives. A few feet of rope is all anyone needs – and there is no need to ask for anyone’s permission. The importance of MAiD is that it makes ending one’s life easy, painless, and socially acceptable. Doctor-assisted euthanasia is glorified and advertised in creepy commercials, such as the infamous “blue whale” clip:

The picture below shows a poverty-stricken family during the Great Depression. The wife looks unhappy. The husband looks tired. The grandma has likely seen worse in her younger days and is completely undisturbed. What gives this picture hope is the kids, who look like they have bright futures ahead.

Should any member of the above family end their life? Who would benefit from it?

Many people, even those who are successful at some point, become poor at some other point in their lives. Life is unpredictable. People make bad financial bets, divorce, get hurt or sick, etc. The “social mobility” that we value, allowing dirt poor people to become successful, sometimes works the opposite way.

Becoming “suddenly poor” and experiencing desperate circumstances is traumatic. Help is sparse. Bills mount up. Things seem hopeless.

Imagine someone in such desperate, but possibly temporary, circumstances. Would it be helpful to have a MAiD provider show up, at the worst moment in their lives, with a fancy suicide machine and offer those people a euthanasia option? Is that even a good idea?

It is not a good idea if you ask me! There are many reasons why the authors are wrong, but the most important one is that circumstances change, and people recover or accept their new lifestyle. Incentivizing them to kill themselves robs them of giving recovery a chance.

Do you know someone who experienced desperate circumstances, with no hope whatsoever, whose life unexpectedly improved? Would those individuals possibly make a wrong choice, if given a seemingly painless option to end their lives at their worst moment?

How many lives would this “euthanasia for poor people” take needlessly?

Let me know your thoughts on this proposal by Canadian ethicists from the University of Toronto!

(and thanks again to my paying subscribers)

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The city of Birmingham, UK, is at the forefront of efforts to change over to the 15-minute-city concept. Its climate-minded leaders plan a “war on motorists” to reduce CO2 emissions.

Birmingham plans to plant trees on roads to block vehicular traffic and encourage people to walk and use bicycles. This is how the plan looks, according to Birmingham’s planners:

The city shows an artist’s rendition of its plans:

Labour’s city council leader Ian Ward revealed ‘a route map to a greener city’ will be launched tomorrow – which aims to double the amount of green space to see the city become ‘carbon zero’. 

‘The plan has been very well received when we’ve consulted on it and we expect it to be very well received when we launch it tomorrow.’

Please stop for a second and look at the above pictures closely. They show a city that is essentially barricaded by trees. Note how trees block almost all roads to city quarters, where numerous high-occupancy multistory buildings are located.

Now ask yourself a few questions:

• In case of a multiple-alarm fire at one or several large buildings, many large fire and ambulance vehicles will be needed on site. How will they get to the buildings? What if a mass casualty event happens in tree-blocked Birmingham?

• How can construction projects be accomplished if cranes, excavators, etc., cannot get to buildings?

• Not everyone can walk or ride bicycles, as I was painfully made aware of when I broke my foot last year. (I can walk now, but not very far)
  How can disabled or old people get around?

• How can industry, which requires trucks to haul materials and finished goods, exist in a city where truck traffic is blocked?

• How can goods be delivered to stores?

I am not sure how much the council of Birmingham thought this through. They possibly did not consider any of the above and are making these policy decisions to signal their virtue, disregarding consequences.

In doing such reckless things to their city, Birmingham (UK) Greens resemble German Greens. German energy planners, who came from the depths of Net Zero-aligned think tanks, are hell-bent on destroying their country’s energy infrastructure and industry. Germany is closing down nuclear power stations and fossil fuel generation while relying on unreliable solar and wind power.

Solar installations are not well-suitable for Germany, a country known for having many cloudy days. Consider this chart of hours of sunshine per month:

You can see that in winter, Germany has 30-45 HOURS of sunshine per MONTH. How will solar panels help heat German homes in December or January?

Eugyppius described the energy madness that overtook his country. Please appreciate how similar is the energy situation in Germany to Birmingham, UK, wanting to barricade its streets to make vehicular traffic impossible.

I love trees. I live in a leafy suburb. I planted wild and fruit trees and have several oak trees growing in my front yard. All that vegetation makes me happy — but it does not block emergency access or prevent everyday life from happening, such as our family friends coming for a party.

Birmingham, UK, has the opposite goal: to plant so many trees as to make regular city living impossible – and even dangerous due to blocked access.

By barricading their streets with trees to stop people from driving, they will make the life of old and disabled people much more complicated and will destroy the remnants of their industry.

Not having any manufacturing, not driving or traveling, and being softly confined to the immediate vicinity of their apartments, is what the planners of Birmingham want for their residents.

Is that what you want?

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Since the “Covid pandemic” started over three years ago, humanity has been beset with the “we need to do something” syndrome. That syndrome surfaces when public servants see “doing nothing” as risky for their careers. Therefore, they enact measures that appear beneficial without first ascertaining that they would accomplish anything.

Such measures to stop the transmission of COVID-19 included:

• Restricting international travel

• Face coverings

• Isolation and lockdowns

• Unproven experimental vaccines

All of the above measures had one thing in common: they were adopted without proof that they would stop the transmission of COVID-19. Another thing they had in common was that they did not work.

The people begging for the measures to be enacted often displayed magical thinking, expecting their favored measure to work like magic sticks, whereas, at most, they would only slightly slow down the inevitable.

A new trend is now emerging: “improved building ventilation.” The CDC adopted this approach several days ago and called to upgrade the ventilation systems of existing buildings.

While studying in college long ago, I specialized in “liquid and gas mechanics.” I did some gas flow modeling, including simulating the process of ballistic warheads re-entering the atmosphere. Not exactly close, but it does not have to be: visualizing air flows is something most of us can do intuitively.

(If you are feeling especially science-minded, you can get some “smoke sticks” and follow smoke flowing around your house, which is how HVAC professionals evaluate filtering systems.)

The calls for “improved ventilation” are supported by the HVAC industry, which is slated for a windfall if upgrades to existing buildings are required. Just imagine the demand for HVAC projects skyrocketing for a few years as extensive upgrades to the ventilation systems of existing buildings will be carried out.

Asking the HVAC association if we need HVAC upgrades is like asking a barber if we need a haircut, but I digress.

The CDC supports ASHRAE (HVAC association) call for upgrades to ventilation:

Some of the following interventions are based on COVID-19 Technical Resources published by ASHRAE (a professional organization formerly known as the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers).

There are many problems with the hope of stopping the “transmission of Covid-19” via air filters. The issues with air filtering mirror problems with face masks:

• Covid-19 infects eyes and spreads through touch

• The filters are not fine enough to capture small aerosols and viral particles

• Air flows around face masks and air filters (room-to-room lateral flow)

This is an illustration of the expectations vs. reality of air filtering (my additions in blue):

In buildings, air travels in all sorts of ways, just as the air flows around a poorly fitted mask.

It is well known that air circulation systems may spread pathogens instead of containing them:

CDC recommends MERV-13 filters.

Updated the minimum filter recommendation to Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) 13.

The small respiratory droplets containing infection viruses can be under 1 micrometer. You only need one droplet to get infected!

Furthermore, the size distribution of coughed droplets of different ages and gender was investigated to identify the effects of age and gender on droplet size distribution. Results indicated the total average size distribution of the droplet nuclei was 0.58-5.42 microm, and 82% of droplet nuclei centered in 0.74-2.12 microm.

MERV-13 filters can capture a little over half of those.

Filtration can worsen the spread!

Let’s say that Sam, sick with Covid-19, is in room A. At the same time, Heather, who is healthy, is in room B.

If Sam coughs and produces tiny aerosol particles, they would be unlikely to reach Heather without ventilation. However, if there is a central HVAC system, it would distribute Sam’s droplets, capture half of them, and deliver the rest to Heather, possibly infecting her.

This applies to larger buildings and school classes, for example. A student in one class, who is sick, can cough up aerosols, which will be rapidly delivered to other classes via intensive air circulation systems.

All of the above is well known to science, and anyone with a basic understanding of air flows and filtering can figure out that increased circulation cannot stop the transmission of COVID-19. However, the CDC forgot all that science in its urge to “do something.”

The result of the filtration campaign will be immense profits for HVAC retrofitting companies, accompanied by fake science worship, virtue signaling, blaming people whose homes are not retrofitted, magical thinking, and hysterics.

The air circulation proponents are good individuals. While I dislike most COVID vaccine advocates, the air circulation people are likable, self-starting, compassionate do-it-yourselfers. And yet, I believe they are factually wrong when they expect to stop transmission of Covid-19 via increased air circulation through leaky filters.

Look at the picture of these women. They are good persons!

They are trying their best to do something good for mankind. And yet, their facemasks are useless for preventing COVID, and the airbox sloshing the air around would also do no good to inhabitants of whatever quarters it is put in.

What do you think?

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