Tag: fact checkers

NewsGuard fact-checked me today, providing the opportunity to clarify questions about the Audenz vaccine and the extremely high mortality rate in its small trial.

The big guns, the Health Editor, approached me this afternoon. Happy to learn the presentation is getting attention.

Below is the email I received and below that is my detailed reply.

On Jul 3, 2024, at 1:26 PM, John Gregory <john.gregory@newsguardtech.com> wrote:

Dr. Nass, 

My name is John Gregory, health editor at NewsGuard. We’re a news organization that reports on and tracks online misinformation. 

I’m emailing in regards to your April 20, 2024, CHD video in which you cited the FDA package insert for the H5N1 vaccine Audenz, and said, “One in 200 people who got this vaccine in a clinical trial died,” and later added, “This is a dangerous vaccine for a nothing disease.”

Video of your remarks has begun circulating widely on social media platforms in the past two weeks, used as evidence for claims like “Dr. Meryl Nass: One of the approved Bird Flu quackccines, Audenz… had a death rate of 1 in 200 during clinical trials.” 

I noticed the screenshot included in your original video highlighted the sentence, ““Fatal SAEs [Serious Adverse Events] included 11 (0.5%) Audenz recipients and 1 (0.1%) placebo recipients,” even though the very next sentence said, ““No SAEs were assessed as being related to Audenz,” meaning that none of the reported serious adverse events – including deaths – that occurred among trial participants were caused by the vaccine.

You also did not mention that the FDA’s own statistical review of Audenz stated that, “No deaths occurred that were considered related to the vaccine,” and concluded, “No major statistical or safety issues have been identified” with the vaccine, or that the published results of the Audenz trial said:

None of the serious AEs or AEs of special interest reported by subjects who received aH5N1c were considered vaccine related. Two subjects in the placebo group reported a related AE of special interest (immune thrombocytopenic purpura and polymyalgia rheumatic); these events were also considered serious AEs. During the study, 12 (0.4%) subjects had serious AEs with a fatal outcome, none of which were attributed to the study treatment, and most (n = 11) occurred after Day 43 during the follow-up period in subjects ≥65 years with underlying severe comorbidities and multiple concomitant medications.

Is there any reason why you did not mention any of this countervailing information?

My deadline is 5pm eastern today, July 3. Thank you. 

— 

Best regards, 
John Gregory

john.gregory@newsguardtech.com

Office: ‪(312) 489-8676

More about NewsGuard criteria here.

Dear Mr. Gregory,

Since I provided a screenshot of the package insert of the Audenz licensed vaccine and repeated what it said, this can hardly be characterized as misinformation, which you claim to be investigating.  Since I included the next sentence in the presentation, it cannot even be construed as incomplete.

Had you been working on issues of vaccines for over 25 years as I have, you would have been aware that the sponsor (mfr) and FDA, who together craft the vaccine labels aka package inserts, ALWAYS assert that most or all of the deaths and serious adverse events occurring during a clinical trial were adjudged to be not due to the vaccine.  Had they judged otherwise, a license would probably not have been issued.  A license was issued for Audenz.

Later, when a vaccine is given to millions of people, not just a few hundred as in this case, one learns which side effects are IN FACT attributable to the vaccine.

For example, at least a hundred million Americans had received an mRNA COVID vaccine before it was determined to cause myocarditis, in late May of 2021 by FDA.

That is the reason why the raw data, which I presented, are important.  So that people have the information to judge for themselves what risks they may face when choosing vaccination.  In fact, clinical trials often exclude sick subjects, and drugs and vaccines almost invariably appear more safe and effective in clinical trial data than they do later, in the real world—a fact known to all medical researchers.

Why did I not mention material from an article?  Because I was referring to the Audenz label, which is the legal document that FDA attests is true, unlike published articles which are generally written by the vaccine sponsor and have a lesser degree of reliability.  In fact, the numbers in the article versus those in the label are not exactly the same.

Furthermore, if the US government was comfortable with the H5N1 Audenz vaccine, why did DHHS’ BARDA just place an order with Moderna for H5N8 mRNA vaccines, even though the avian flu circulating in the US is H5N1?  Even though it makes much more sense to match the neuraminidase portion of the vaccine to the circulating strain…  which is done every year when seasonal influenza vaccines are produced?

Finally, I invite you to take a look at the WHO data on deaths in humans worldwide from the H5N1 bird flu, which confirms it is a nothing disease in humans, having mutated to a different form than it once had.  The federal health agencies have monitored 9,000 farm workers and all they found were 4 mild cases of disease, no hospitalizations and no deaths in the US over the past several years.

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NewsGuard Co-Founder Advocates Banning Anonymous Social Media Posts, Enabling Lawsuits Against Tech Firms for “False” Content

NewsGuard co-founder and co-CEO Steve Brill has published a book, “The Death of Truth” – but he’s not taking any responsibility. On the contrary.

Namely, Brill’s “apolitical (misinformation) rating system for news sites” as NewsGuard is promoted to customers, is often blasted – and currently investigated by Congress for possible First Amendment violations – as yet another tool to suppress online speech.

But corporate media sing his praises, presenting him as a “media maven.”

A censorship maven more like it, critics would say. And while getting his book promoted, Brill managed to add his name to the steadily growing list of governments, NGOs, and associated figures who are attacking online anonymity.

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Biden’s Latest Excuse For Why His Debate Performance Was So Bad Gets Debunked Instantly

Biden has attributed his lackluster debate performance to exhaustion from foreign travel, despite taking a week off ahead of it to rest.

The president said he nearly “fell asleep” during Thursday’s debate against Trump, claiming his globe-trotting schedule as a major factor.

The New York Post, however, has called foul on this bizarre claim. 

The outlet reported that Biden had 13 days to recover before the debate, including a week at Camp David with afternoon naps.

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Fact-Checking Network Says Online Fact Checks Aren’t Censorship

We now live in a world where “fact-checkers” organize “annual meetings” – one is happening just this week in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

These censorship-overseers for other companies (most notably massive social platforms like Facebook, etc.) have not only converged onto Sarajevo but have issued a “statement” that includes the town’s name.

The Poynter Institute is a major player in this space, and its International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) serves to coordinate censorship for Meta, among others.

It was up to IFCN now to issue the “Sarajevo statement” on behalf of 130 groups in the “fact-checking” business, a burgeoning industry at this point spreading its tentacles to at least 80 countries – that is how many are behind the said statement.

No surprise, these “fact-checkers” like themselves, and see nothing wrong with what they do; the self-affirming statement refers to the (Poynter-led) brand of “fact-checking” as essential to free speech (will someone fact-check that statement, though?)

The reason the focus is on free speech is clear – “fact-checkers” have over and over again proven themselves to be either inept, biased, serving as tools of censorship, all three, or some combination of those.

That is why their “annual meeting” now declares, with a seemingly straight face, that “fact-checking” is not only a free-speech advocate but “should never be considered a form of censorship.”

But who’s going to tell Meta? In the wake of the 2016 US presidential elections, Facebook basically became the fall guy picked by those who didn’t like the outcome of the vote, accusing the platform of being the place where a (since debunked) massive “misinformation meddling campaign” happened.

Aware of the consequences its business might suffer if such a perceived image continued, Facebook by 2019, just ahead of another election, had as many as 50 “fact-checking” partners, “reviewing and rating” content.

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DOD Reluctantly Fact-Checks Joe Biden’s Insult to the Military Heroes Killed Under His Watch: “We Have Certainly Had Service Members Pass During This Administration”

During Thursday’s Presidential debate, Joe Biden insulted the families of the military heroes and killed Afghanistan and Syria under his watch.

Biden bizarrely responded to a question by claiming that no troops have died “anywhere in the world” during his presidency.

During a terrorist attack at the Kabul airport during Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, thirteen U.S. troops were killed.

Perhaps Biden does not remember when their bodies returned home because he was too busy checking his watch.

Three U.S. troops from a guard unit in Georgia were killed in a terrorist attack in Syria just six months ago.

Biden said at the debate, “The notion that we were this safe country. The truth is I’m the only president this century that doesn’t have any, this, this decade, that doesn’t (have) any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did.”

Of all of Biden’s lies and bizarre behavior Thursday night, this comment is unforgivable.

Reporters pressed Department of Defense deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh about the blantant lie and, after pressure, reluctantly fact-checked Biden.

Singh was asked by a reporter if “the Pentagon stands by those remarks.”

Singh replied, “Thank you for the question. For more on the president’s comments and on the debate itself, I’d refer you to the White House.”

“But in terms of our service members who have been killed in some tragic events around the world … you’ve seen the president call these families to express condolences. This is someone that has intimately experienced the commitment and dedication of what our military does.”

Another reporter pressed Singh for a clear non-answer and asked, “Just to be clear, was the president’s statement incorrect?”

“Again, not trying to get involved in that,” Singh said.

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House Probes NewsGuard’s ‘Fact-checking’ Operations, Citing Federal Funding

NewsGuard, a “fact-checking” firm that provides “journalist-produced ratings and ‘Nutrition Labels’ for thousands of news and information websites” to advertisers hoping to steer clear of sites that publish “misinformation,” is under congressional scrutiny for its practices.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability, last week launched an investigation into the fact-checking firm, a recipient of federal funding.

The probe will examine “the impact of NewsGuard on protected First Amendment speech and its potential to serve as a non-transparent agent of censorship campaigns,” the committee said.

In a letter to NewsGuard co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, Comer highlighted federal funding NewsGuard received “and possible actions being taken to suppress accurate information.”

The letter also questions the potential political bias of NewsGuard’s editorial team.

OD) in 2021 awarded a contract to NewsGuard. The contract raises questions about the involvement of federal agencies in potential censorship campaigns, according to Comer’s letter.

The $749,387 contract was directed to NewsGuard’s “Misinformation Fingerprints” database. According to NewsGuard, the database is “a catalogue of known hoaxes, falsehoods and misinformation narratives that are spreading online.”

The DOD funding led The Federalist, in a November 2023 article, to report that “NewsGuard is selling its government-funded censorship tool to private companies.”

Also in November 2023, Lee Fang, one of the journalists involved with the “Twitter Files” release called NewsGuard a “surrogate the Feds pay to keep watch on the Internet and be a judge of the truth.”

Although not mentioned in Comer’s letter, other federal agencies also provided support to NewsGuard.

For example, an August 2020 NewsGuard press release states the firm won a “Pentagon-State Department contest for detecting COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation.”

The contest, known as the Countering Disinformation Challenge, sought “to offer solutions to hoaxes related to the COVID-19 pandemic” by helping the U.S. Department of State and the DOD “evaluate disinformation narrative themes in near real time” and to flag “hoaxes, narratives, and sources of disinformation as they emerge.”

NewsGuard, which received $25,000 as part of the contest, worked with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center “to scope and develop a test in support of the DoD’s Cyber National Mission Force.’’

According to a March 2023 “Twitter Files” release, Twitter — now known as X — worked with the Global Engagement Center to brand numerous accounts that posted “legitimate and accurate COVID-19 updates” but which “attacked” U.S. and European politicians as “Russia-linked.”

In December 2023, the State of Texas, The Daily Wire, The Federalist and the New Civil Liberties Alliance sued the State Department, alleging it was using and promoting technology intended to “covertly suppress speech of a segment of the American press.”

In May, a federal judge rejected the State Department’s efforts to dismiss the case.

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New ABC Fact-Checkers, Same Problems?

Australia’s public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), proudly announced in 2022 that it had partnered with the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), an international alliance of major news corporations and Big Tech firms, to counter the growing threat of “fake news.”

It was part of sweeping reforms in the media to deliver ‘trusted’ news to global audiences and protect the public from the harms of misinformation and disinformation online.

Spearheaded by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), partners include Reuters, the Associated Press, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, and ABC Australia, along with social media and tech giants – Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Microsoft (LinkedIn), and Google (YouTube) to name a few.

When ABC announced its new alliance with TNI, Justin Stevens, ABC News Director said, “We’re pleased to join the Trusted News Initiative and, in the process, provide Australian audiences with a deeper and better-informed view of our region and the world.”

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The WEF’s chairman is still alive and well, despite claims online

CLAIM: World Economic Forum executive chairman Klaus Schwab was recently admitted to the hospital in serious condition and might have died.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Posts making these allegations began spreading widely after a website that says it publishes “satire, and comedic opinion pieces and editorials” posted an article about Schwab’s supposed hospitalization. A WEF spokesperson told The Associated Press that the claims are untrue.

THE FACTS: Social media users are spreading baseless rumors about Schwab’s health.

“BREAKING: Klaus Schwab was apparently admitted to the hospital seriously ill,” reads one X post that had received approximately 25,000 likes and 8,800 shares as of Monday. “Anyway, that doesn’t BUG me.”

The word “bug” appears to be emphasized in reference to another false claim, that the WEF wants to replace meat with bugs.

Other posts go a step further, stating that Schwab “may be dead.”

But the WEF founder is not deathly ill or worse, according to Yann Zopf, a spokesperson for the organization.

“These claims are entirely baseless and unfounded,” he wrote in an email to the AP. “Professor Schwab’s health is excellent. Like many high-profile individuals and organizations, he and the World Economic Forum have been targeted by conspiracy narratives, as well as misinformation and disinformation campaigns.”

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Snopes Changed Fact-Check After Pressure From Biden Administration: Emails

The fact-checking website Snopes changed one of its ratings after pressure from President Joe Biden’s administration, newly disclosed emails show.

Snopes on Jan. 10, 2023, said that there was some truth to a claim that President Biden’s administration was planning to ban gas stoves.

Under a heading of “what’s true,” Snopes said that “The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), a federal agency, is currently considering a ban on gas stoves if they can’t be made safer, due to concerns over harmful indoor pollutants that cause health and respiratory problems.”

Under another heading, it said that the ban has not been put in place.

The article quoted Richard Trumka Jr., a CPSC commissioner, as saying that “any option is on the table” when dealing with gas stoves. “Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” Mr. Trumka told Bloomberg a few days prior.

Pamela Rucker Springs, a spokeswoman for the CPSC, hours after the rating was published contacted Snopes writer Nur Ibrahim, the newly disclosed emails show.

She said she it was “not accurate to say that CPSC is ‘considering a ban on gas stoves’ and that Mr. Trumka’s views ”do not represent official statements on behalf of the commission.”

“We would appreciate a correction to this story,” Ms. Springs said.

Mr. Ibrahim responded the following day saying Snopes would “correct the article.”

Snopes then changed the fact-check rating from “mixture” to “false.”

The CPSC “is not currently considering a ban on gas stoves, though a commissioner said ‘anything is on the table’ if they can’t be made safer,” the updated article states.

Ms. Springs sent a link to the updated page to White House official Michael Kikukawa, the newly disclosed documents show. “Sent over tough letter to this writer yesterday when the initial claim was rated as ’mixed,’” she wrote.

“Nice!! So helpful going forward,” Mr. Kikukawa responded.

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Biden administration put PRESSURE on fact-checkers to change the rating on claims it was going to ban gas stoves, damning internal emails reveal

Biden administration officials put pressure on the fact-checking website Snopes to change claims that the government was going to ban gas stoves over climate change concerns.

Fox News Channel reported Thursday on internal emails unearthed in a Freedom of Information Act request by the GOP-leaning watchdog group Functional Government Initiative.

In January 2023, Snopes initially rated claims that the Biden administration was going to ban gas stoves over climate change concerns as a ‘mixture’ of fact and fiction. 

Richard Trumka Jr., a Biden-appointed member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, had told Bloomberg News in an interview on January 9, 2023, that a gas stove ban was ‘on the table’ – setting off a firestorm of criticism. 

Behind-the-scenes, CPSC communications director Pamela Rucker Springs told White House assistant press secretary Michael Kikukawa that she had approached Snopes and asked that their fact-checking assessment be changed. 

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