Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free.
This week, Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) president, and Polly Tommey, co-producer of “Vaxxed,” cover the latest COVID headlines, including news that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is said to have experienced an adverse reaction to the Moderna COVID vaccine, and that President Biden thinks the U.S has “reached a turning point in our battle against COVID-19,” following a green light from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to administer the experimental Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine to 5-to-11-year-olds.
Also on tap this week: Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said his state is ready to give the COVID vaccine to younger people immediately. Plus, schoolchildren who recently got their first COVID-19 shots said they look forward to hugs with friends as the U.S. enters a major new phase of vaccination.
Polly and Mary also discussed Pfizer telling young children the experimental mRNA vaccine will make them “superheroes” and give them “superpowers,” and how Big Bird’s announcement that he got the vaccine caused a stir online.
Here are more of this week’s highlights:
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) risk-benefit assessment in connection with Pfizer’s application for emergency use of its COVID vaccine for children 5 to 11 described only relative risks in an older population. It ignored absolute risk and also the standard calculation for measuring a drug’s effectiveness — Number Needed To Vaccinated (NNTV).
- San Francisco will soon require children as young as 5 to show proof of COVID vaccination to enter certain indoor public spaces like restaurants, entertainment venues and sporting events, public health officials said this week.
- In a new video, Dr. Anthony Fauci addressed the “misconception” about COVID vaccines causing infertility.
- There are three more reports of teen deaths after COVID vaccines, as reported injuries in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System database exceed 850,000. “It’s just awful,” said Mary.
- New York City will offer $100 to incentivize 5- to 11-year-olds to get the COVID vaccine. “That’s absolutely terrible,” said Polly.
- Now that the COVID vaccine has been authorized for children age 5 and up, researchers are looking into the timeline for children as young as 6 months.
- The former commissioner of the FDA who now serves as a Pfizer board member, said families can safely gather for the Thanksgiving holiday, with partially vaccinated children in close proximity around their vaccinated grandparents, depending on local case rates in their community.
- Costa Rica is one of the first to mandate the COVID vaccines for children ages 5 and older. “This was a huge surprise for me,” said Mary. “Costa Rica really has a record of acknowledging human rights. This is shocking to me.”
- In Singapore, COVID patients who are unvaccinated by choice must pay for their bills incurred at hospitals and COVID treatment facilities, said the multi-ministry task force.
- Vienna will start to vaccinate young children without the approval of the European Union.
- Diane Ochoa, a 63-year-old cancer survivor, was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy after her second Pfizer COVID vaccine. She said her vaccine injuries are “far worse” than cancer treatment. “It is so important for people to listen to these bad things that have happened,” said Mary.
- Glenn Greenwald reported that to protect Fauci, The Washington Post is preparing a hit piece on the White Coat Waste Project which denounced Fauci’s gruesome dog experiments.“ Fascinating article,” said Mary.
- A U.S. federal appeals court issued a stay freezing the Biden administration’s efforts to require workers at U.S. companies with at least 100 employees be vaccinated against COVID or be tested weekly. The ruling cited “grave statutory and constitutional” issues with the mandate. “This is really big news,” said Mary.
- Revelations of poor practices at a contract research company helping to carry out Pfizer’s pivotal COVID vaccine trial raise questions about data integrity and regulatory oversight.
- According to the BBC, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is cutting cases of cervical cancer by nearly 90%, the first real-world data shows. “Overall what we actually see demographically is that there is more cervical cancer in young women than there used to be,” said Mary.
- The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted unanimously to recommend hepatitis B vaccination for all adults aged 19 to 59 years.
- More than 2,000 of New York City’s 11,000 firefighters are on medical leave in response to the vaccination mandate requiring all city employees to be vaccinated without a testing option.
- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued an emergency temporary standard giving employers with more than 100 employees, which affects 84 million workers, until Jan. 4 to comply with President Biden’s COVID vaccine mandate or employers face fines up to $136,532. “Go and read this,” said Polly.
- New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority no longer pays a $500,000 death benefit to the families of subway, bus and commuter rail workers who die of COVID, if the workers were unvaccinated at the time of death. “Well, this is horrid,” said Polly.
- Troops who refuse the COVID vaccine won’t see any extra protections or leniency in how their dismissals are handled, government officials confirmed.
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke at the 2021 Ron Paul Institute “Pandemic and the Road to Totalitarianism” conference where he called for Americans to stand up and protect the U.S. Constitution.
- On Nov. 16, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s book — “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health” — will be released. Pre-order your book today. “You have got to check out the promo video for this book,” said Polly.
- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced legislation to prohibit the federal government and any entity at the federal, state and local level that receives federal funding, including school districts, from requiring COVID vaccines for minors.
- Apply to our new fellowship program! CHD is accepting applications for full-time or part-time fellowships across many of its program areas, including legal, science, 5G, online news, social media, CHD.TV and advocacy.
- Double your impact! Make a donation to CHD by midnight Nov. 30, and a generous benefactor will match your donation. This is our second million-dollar match!
Watch “This Week” with Mary + Polly:
