New York Times writes its first vaccine injury story!

And, yes, it’s as disingenuous as you’d expect.

It only took three and 1/2 years for The New York Times to decide that vaccine injuries might qualify as “news fit to print.”

“Stop the presses!”

This morning, The New York Times published its very first in-depth feature story on vaccine injuries, plus an op-ed by the paper’s star Covid columnist David Leonhardt. Both pieces offer would-be yellow journalists a master class in obfuscation, spin and belated ass-covering.

My CliffsNotes’ summary of the article …

Readers are told that for “more than a year” a New York Times reporter has been interviewing public health “experts” as well 30 people who believe they suffered vaccine injuries. (The story quotes five or six of these 30 people.)

According to the article, these injuries may or may not have been caused by the vaccines. However, the Times now admits that the government should have done a better job investigating such claims and takes the courageous editorial position that at least some Americans probably do deserve some level of compensation.

Fortunately, the vast majority of possible vaccine injuries were not life-altering. Also, little or any believable evidence exists that more than a handful of people died from a vaccine injury.

***

First comment: We now know that editors at The New Times thought it appropriate to assign one reporter to the “vaccine injury” story … 12 months ago, which would have been 28 months after millions of American began to receive experimental vaccines that were produced at “warp speed.” We also know it took more than a year for this reporter/newspaper to produce and publish one story.

Most importantly, no New York Times’ reader should perceive this article as any kind of criticism of the experimental vaccines. As Mr. Leonhardt explains in his column (emphasis added throughout): 

“Not only are the vaccines’ benefits enormous, but the true toll of the side effects may be lower than the perceived toll,” he wrote, adding, “Human beings suffer mysterious medical ailments all the time. If you happened to begin experiencing one in the weeks after receiving a vaccine, you might blame the shot, too, even if it were a coincidence.”

12 people have been compensated for vax injuries …

The Times’ journalist Apoorva Mandavilli did manage to include a couple of important facts in her story. 

Her article notes that “(Injury) claims regarding Covid vaccines go to the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program … The program had only four staff members at the beginning of the pandemic … (and) has reviewed only a fraction of the 13,000 claims filed, and has paid out only a dozen. Only 47 of those were deemed eligible for compensation, and only 12 have been paid out, at an average of about $3,600."

***

Mandavilli’s story begins with an anecdote about 37-year-old Michelle Zimmerman, who was “eventually diagnosed with brain damage, cannot work, drive or even stand for long periods of time.” 

Zimmermann, who now has to live with her parents, had a terrible and painful vaccine reaction “within minutes of getting the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine.” 

(I find it unsurprising that the lede “vaccine injury” anecdote involves a vaccine that hasn’t been offered to anyone in two years. Also, the article notes that Ms. Zimmerman believes she was harmed by a “contaminated” dose of discontinued jab, which, I guess, implies that uncontaminated shots were all completely safe.)

After this sad story grabs readers’ attention, the author quickly gives Times’ readers a much-happier “fact.”

“The Covid vaccines, a triumph of science and public health, are estimated to have prevented millions of hospitalizations and deaths."

In his follow-up editorial, columnist Leonhard admits that “This subject is uncomfortable because it feeds into false stories about the Covid vaccines that many Americans have come to believe — namely, that the vaccines are ineffective or have side effects that exceed their benefits.”

Continues Leonhardt:

“… Here’s my best attempt to summarize the full truth about the Covid vaccines: “They are overwhelmingly safe and effective. They have saved millions of lives and prevented untold misery around the world.”

While Leonhardt does not define “effective,” this definition must not not mean shots that “stop infection or spread.” Nor does he tell readers how he’s so certain the vaccines saved “millions of lives.”

Quick Aside …

Question: If you were a CDC expert or worked for the Vaccine Industrial Complex and were given two choices of statements you could promote to the media and public, which would you select?

Statement A: “We recommended everyone get a vaccine. Unfortunately that vaccine ended up killing and harming millions of people.” Or:

Statement B: “Our vaccine saved millions of lives!”

My answer: You’d probably pick option B, especially if you knew every editor and journalist at The New York Times would automatically believe you.

***

In Ms. Mandavilli’s article, readers learn that “federal health officials insisted that serious side effects were extremely rare and that their surveillance efforts were more than sufficient to detect patterns of adverse events.”

‘Pretty close to ideal’ …

From the story: Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the C.D.C.’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said:

“We toe the line by reporting the signals that we think are real signals and reporting them as soon as we identify them as signals,” he said. The agency’s systems for monitoring vaccine safety are ‘pretty close’ to ideal, he said.”

“.. Those national surveillance efforts include the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). 

According to The Times, VAERS is the country’s “largest database,” but Times’ readers also learn … “the least reliable: Reports of side effects can be submitted by anyone and are not vetted, so they may be subject to bias or manipulation.”

The Times’s journalist noted that “serious side effects” are “extremely rare.”

As for the bulk of the non-serious side effects, the story does allow that VAERS “contains roughly one million reports regarding Covid vaccination.”

According to alternative media journalists, for every reported vaccine side effect reported on VAERS, 30 or 40 times more people likely didn’t bother filing a report via this cumbersome, and for many citizens, unknown system. If true, this would mean these “one million” reports comprise only the tip of the vaccine-injury iceberg - a possibility left out of the Times’ story.

“Excess deaths? What excess deaths?”

Amazingly, the world’s premiere journalists and editors didn’t mention the unprecedented rise in all-cause deaths that spiked almost immediately after the first vaccines were administered. (Apparently, Ed Dowd was not available for an interview).

The story includes no anecdotes of teenagers, young adults or anyone who “died suddenly” after receiving their vaccines.

For example, the sudden death of the 17-year-old vaccinated daughter of a U.S. Congressman wasn’t mentioned or this heart-breaking story of a teenager who died after getting a vaccine so he could keep playing hockey.

The only text mentioning possible Covid deaths is in the following paragraph, the purpose of which seems to be to acknowledge that myocarditis might, in fact, be an extremely rare, and temporary, side effect for a very small number of teenage males.

“In many people, vaccine-related myocarditis is transient. But some patients continue to experience pain, breathlessness and depression, and some show persistent changes on heart scans. The C.D.C. has said there were no confirmed deaths related to myocarditis, but in fact there have been several accounts of deaths reported post-vaccination."

Most side effects could be ‘Long Covid’ …

The Times emphasizes that “research may ultimately find that most reported side effects are unrelated to the vaccine … (and) many can be caused by Covid itself.”

“Long Covid” very possibly explains many erstwhile vaccine symptoms, according to The Times’ article.

In addition to myocarditis in young males, the article seems to go out of its way to emphasize that rare side effects occur in just a few categories -  “two are associated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is no longer available in the United States: Guillain-Barré syndrome, a known side effect of other vaccines, including the flu shot; and a blood-clotting disorder.”

“… The vaccines may cause transient reactions, such as swelling, fatigue and fever, according to the C.D.C., but the agency has documented only four serious but rare side effects."

So “transient reactions (?)”- like heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, cancers and myriad auto-immune diseases - are not real or conspicuous vaccine health risks.

Right below the one sentence that says “several” people might have died from myocarditis, Times’ editors inserted this sub-headline:

‘Pervasive Misinformation’

And then this text:

“The rise of the anti-vaccine movement has made it difficult for scientists, in and out of government, to candidly address potential side effects, some experts said. Much of the narrative on the purported dangers of Covid vaccines is patently false, or at least exaggerated, cooked up by savvy anti-vaccine campaigns.”

Experts at Johns Hopkins University can always be relied upon to provide a good misinformation quote, which Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a vice dean at the impartial Gates’ and NIH-funded university dutifully provided:

“The sheer nature of misinformation, the scale of misinformation, is staggering, and anything will be twisted to make it seem like it’s not just a devastating side effect but proof of a massive cover-up,” said Dr. Sharfstein.

Even when we get one quote from an interview subject who is critical of the official mantra, we get the requisite disclaimer that “The virus is worse.”

As noted, the article includes several anecdotes from people (including doctors, scientists and even editors of Science journals) who think they suffered vaccine injuries. But even these possible vaccine skeptics are portrayed as being ambiguous about the possibility the Covid shots caused their ailments.

For example, Dr. Buddy Creech, 50, who led several Covid vaccine trials at Vanderbilt University, said his tinnitus and racing heart lasted about a week after each shot.

… “Research may ultimately find that most reported side effects are unrelated to the vaccine, he acknowledged. Many can be caused by Covid itself.”

I’ll give The Times’ best-known 

Covid writer, Mr. Leonhardt, the next-to-final word

Writes Leonhardt today: 

“As I’ve written in the past, government officials and academic experts sometimes made the mistake of deciding that Americans couldn’t handle the truth. Instead, experts emphasized evidence that was convenient to their recommendations and buried inconvenient facts. They exaggerated the risk of outdoor Covid transmission, the virus’s danger to children and the benefits of mask mandates, among other things.

“The goal (Me: lying/spreading disinformation) may have been admirable — fighting a deadly virus — but the strategy backfired. Many people ended up confused, wondering what the truth was.”

I’ll give myself the final word

Note that Leonhardt blames “government officials and academic experts” who sometimes made “the mistake of deciding that Americans couldn’t handle the truth.”

Missing from his list of prevaricators is the army of journalists at The New York Times who clearly don’t think Americans can “handle the truth.”

Regarding our amazing Covid vaccines, The Times now tells its readers these shots may have injured a very small number of Americans, but killed fewer people than, say, lightning does every year.

Echoing every public health official as well as the President of the United States, The Times repeatedly wrote or suggested that any American who didn’t get these shots was an awful citizen, deserving of censor and vilification. 

I guess today’s latest example of disingenuous journalism is the best mea culpa this awful newspaper could muster.

These archived headlines are just a small sample of The New York Times’ now-admitted (?) hypocrisy and disinformation.

(The journalists who wrote these pieces earn six-figure salaries for promoting bogus and lethal propaganda. Substack independent journalists subsist on a few paid subscriptions and Ko-Fi gratuities voluntarily donated by generous private citizens. All donations and story shares are greatly appreciated.)

New York Times’ writers don’t have to include this link at the bottom of their stories:

https://ko-fi.com/billrice