Shadow Warrior by Rajeev Srinivasan

My guest is Dr. V Raman Kutty, an expert in public health, who was a practising physician before getting his advanced degree in public health from harvard and then spending many years as a professor at the Sri Chitra Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology, and as the director of the Achutha Menon Center for Health Sciences Studies, focusing on policy issues. He is an epidemiologist and data science consultant.

* disclaimer: i’m not antivaxx, but just want proper scientific validation of the effectiveness and lack of bad side-effects

* india approved the oxford astra zeneca vaccine, covishield, today 3 jan on an emergency basis. cold chain friendly and non-mRNA, adenovirus. the actual vaccine used in their trials was not produced by serum institute, but from some european labs. said India’s comptroller general of drugs, according to the ToI https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/india-approves-oxfords-bharat-biotechs-covid-19-vaccines-for-restricted-emergency-use/articleshow/80081573.cms:

* bharat biotech covaxin may be better: traditional dead-virus vaccine. it has also been approved on an emergency basis. it is undergoing phase 3 trials right now.

* some concerns about issues between oxford university and astra zeneca, according to WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/astrazeneca-and-oxfords-bumpy-partnership-hangs-over-covid-vaccines-future-11609336498 (alas, firewalled)

* lancet paper at https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32661-1/fulltext has the data on astra zeneca’s vaccine

* several questions come up. first on the trials themselves

* four trials in the UK, Brazil, South Africa are described here. kenya trial mentioned in passing. what about the india trials done by serum institute of india, in which there were accusations and counter-accusations of side-effects? why isn’t this mentioned at all?

* they talk about pooled data of 20,000 patients, but in the data appendices, the total number of patients in the trials is only 11,636. does it mean that only 11,636 got the vaccine? or is it that placebo+vaccine = 11,636?

* if these trials are not complete, why is their interim data being put out?

* efficacy. not well defined. all the trial is testing for is if the person is seriously ill and has to be hospitalized, but it’s not really testing for:

* whether the person is NOT infected with the virus at all

* whether the person is an asymptomatic carrier

* whether the person is infected and is exhibiting mild symptoms

* the serious confusion about 1/2 dose + full dose vs full dose + full dose. was this an accidental experimental error? the former got 90% efficacy, the latter 62% efficacy, and how can you lump the two and get a result of 70%? also, WSJ says:

* the trial RCT design

* two of the trials are single blind

* one of the trials is double blind. why this discrepancy?

* can you extrapolate from one to the other?

* trial participants, total 11,636, of which

* 9625, ie 83% are white

* 517, ie 4.4% are Asian (and what is the definition of ‘Asian’?)

* 479, ie 4.1% are black

is that diverse enough?

* 7045, ie 61% are female

* 77.8% are healthcare and social services workers (not very diverse!)

* 974, ie 8.4% are 56-69 years in age

* 444, ie 3.8% are over 70 years in age

is that diverse enough? here are the co-morbidities:

* 1241, ie 10.7% had cardio co-morbidity

* 1360, ie. 11.7% had respiratory problems

* 270, ie 3.9% were diabetic

* side-effects: there were 175 adverse effects, with at least three as possibly related to the vaccine. there were as many adverse effects (91) among the control group as there with the vaccinated group (84), so that suggests vaccine isn’t doing visible harm

* summary findings: what about the p-values: one missing, the other is 0.01, ie 1% probability there is no correlation

Welcome to the Shadow Warrior podcast. This is Episode 10, on the Glitter Belt, an exciting new technology to fend off global warming.

Today, I have with me Dr.  Narayanan Menon Komerath, retired professor of aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech, and he’s in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s great to have him here today, and we will talk about a remarkable idea for which he’s been granted a US patent recently. It is an extraordinary invention that could reverse global warming if there is sufficient investment, because it involves the stationing of thousands, if not millions, of reflective mylar sheets in the atmosphere that can send excess solar radiation back to space. 

Listen on, and let me know your feedback.

For more information, please visit www.komerath.space or search for ‘Glitter Belt’.

* what is the proximate issue? the repeated suspension by twitter of user @Trueindology for no good or apparent reason

* what is the preponderant issue? systematic silencing of a non-left perspective in twitter india in particular, but also in the rest of the world, eg. the US

* what is the root cause? the ability of the military-industrial complex in the US, ie the Deep State, to set a narrative that is deeply damaging to india’s national interests; and india’s inexplicable hesitation in pushing back on it.

* the narrative is not neutral, nor is it without consequence in the real world. in the US, we have seen how the story of hunter biden’s laptop was sunk without a trace; earlier in how tulsi gabbard, candidate for POTUS, was turned into an unperson; in india similarly the story of explicitly treasonous and seditious behavior by certain individuals, including rioters and mediapersons, is swept under the rug, and there are no consequences to them. and framing, for instance: the farmer agitation is being turned into a Sikhs being oppressed narrative right in front of our eyes

* there is a certain effort in the US to protect freedom of expression, and whistleblowing: there is a move to pardon both julian assange and edward snowden, both of whom may have exposed classified information, military and diplomatic

* what TrueIndology did is far more benign: nothing treasonous. his only crime is that he quotes primary historical sources to support his assertions, and very often he shows the claims esp of the ‘eminent historian’ type to be totally bogus.

* so TrueIndology has acquired a huge and loyal following on twitter, which irritates the votaries of the “trust us” school of history, committed leftists who have played havoc with the narrative and who made the Ram Janmabhumi issue such a problem, when it could easily have been settled amicably

* this doesn’t sit well with the leftist ecosystem because he makes them look like complete amateurs, so his reward is that he is frequently suspended and bullied

* the latest episode, the preponderant cause, is a little sad, an IPS officer named D Roopa in Karnataka, who’s actually a pretty decent sort, got into a twitter argument with TrueIndology, and lo! and behold, he got not just suspended but deplatformed with no explanation whatsoever!

* so this goes back to the root cause. there is a narrative that is put forth most eagerly by the Economist, FT, NYT etc which seeks to firmly entrench in Indians the idea that they are second-class people, and that India will never catch up

* there is a corollary narrative, which is to pave the way for the genocide of Hindus, after demonizing us as monsters. that facile narrative is being challenged and largely defeated by some people and that is the real reason they don’t like True Indology

* in 2011 i had written an article “India is finally seeing the birth of alternative journalism” which was liked by amitabh bachchan. unfortunately, SM has now become compromised. i like the next phase: citizen journalism, as exemplified by substack or ghost, (balaji srinivasan talks about it) but the power of distribution is still with the big guys and the GoI has to do something about them

* and what can the GoI do? what should the GoI do? TrueIndology suspension is a symptom that like the narrative is getting away. there is the chinese idea of “killing the chicken to scare the monkey”. the chicken is twitter, which really doesn’t matter that much in the scheme of things. but the indian market matters, and will matter a lot, to facebook, google, amazon, apple, NYT, FT, theeconomist, WaPo, etc.

* therefore, use “buyer power”. impose conditions on them. which includes the use of indian laws. eg. there are powerful laws against the inaccurate portrayal of the borders of the country: these include non bailable warrants. suspend their licenses. freeze their accounts. block their IP addresses.

* you think the monkeys will notice? you bet they’ll notice. this is also the old panchatantra story of the serpent which became pacifist; it only had to hiss and lunge to deter, it didn’t have to bite. deterrence is worth a lot, and the TrueIndology episode is the moment to use that so that these people don’t run roughshod over us.

Text is at https://www.pgurus.com/animal-rights-violations-everywhere-but-only-india-is-targeted-by-peta-busybodies/

This is the podcast version, in 12 mins, of the message I sent out by mail yesterday, assuming some readers would prefer audio over text.

There’s also new, and even more alarming, information about mRNA vaccines. A group at Imperial College, London, is working on a ‘self-replicating’ mRNA, so that once it gets inside a cell, it creates copies of itself that will then create the Wuhanvirus spike protein that it has been programmed to make. You can see where there is going, right?

Guided missiles that can self-reproduce? Why does that make me feel warm inside?

Besides Astra Zeneca/Serum Institute of India has given more clarity about its pricing: it will be “upto 1000 rupees” for the two-shot course of treatment. Which means, if you add in the cost of distribution, you’re not talking 80,000 crores anymore, but way north of 150,000 crores. That’s $24 billion. A billion here and a billion there, and soon you are talking some real money!

Am I right to be sceptical about the extravagant claims for this new vaccine?

An earlier version of this article (that became the podcast) was published at https://chintan.indiafoundation.in/articles/the-god-vaccine-is-it-the-second-coming/

Excerpts:

The God Vaccine? Is it the second coming?

Let us temper expectations about the immediate end of Covid.

The announcement by US giant Pfizer and startup BioNTech about their candidate vaccine for Covid-19 has been greeted with understandable euphoria, as people are chafing under the ‘new normal’ of lockdowns and restrictions. Indeed, markets cheered: stock market indices hit new highs; airline stocks soared; Zoom’s (an online video conferencing system) took a hit.

This reminds me of the fuss in certain circles about the Higgs Boson, the so-called ‘God Particle’, which, when found, confirmed certain theories about fundamental particles. Now people are acting as though we have found the ‘God Vaccine’. 

But it is too soon to celebrate, as there are many concerns and considerations. 

Most intriguingly, there is no clarity about efficacy, though the phrase “90% effective” has been bandied about. Exactly what does this mean? 90% of those who were vaccinated remained immune when exposed to the virus? What about the ethics of the trial? How can you deliberately expose people to possible harm: what about the other 10% of the test subjects who actually caught the disease when exposed? Did they die? What if it had been 50%?

What was the composition of the alleged 43,000 test subjects in the, let us emphasize, incomplete and ongoing Phase 3 trial? How many were aged, how many had co-morbidities? What was the breakdown by gender, race, age, body mass index, blood sugar level, cholesterol, cardiac calcium score, blood pressure, etc, etc? In other words, how random a sample was it?

… end of Excerpt

Sorry guys, this ended rather abruptly because I got a phone call which I had to take. I thought it wasn’t worth re-editing and re-recording. I did cover the US SC stuff briefly.

The US SC has accepted one case: that of Pennsylvania, which had extended its deadline by three days to Friday. This could be heard by the full SC bench shortly, and that may lead to the tossing out of the votes that arrived after Nov 3.

The SC is generally kind of status-quoist, and in particular Chief Justice Roberts is rather said. But with the new Conservative majority — and this is why such a big fuss was made about the nomination of Amy Barrett — it is a fair bet (though not a given) that any ruling by them could help the Trump camp.

There is a

“After the hanging and other stories” by O V Vijayan: that’s the nod.