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Authorities Investigating After COVID-19 Vaccine Recipients Develop Rare Blood Disorder BY ZACHARY STIEBER February 11, 2021 Updated: February 11, 2021
Federal authorities are investigating after some COVID-19 vaccine recipients have developed the rare blood disorder thrombocytopenia, with at least several cases resulting in death.
A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email that the agency is investigating and assessing the reported cases.
“At this time, we have not found a causal relationship,” the spokesperson said. “We will update the public as we learn more about these events.”
The blood disorder was listed by the FDA last year as a possible adverse event outcome from getting a COVID-19 vaccine, alongside other serious adverse events like Guillain-Barré syndrome and death.
Several dozen case reports of post-vaccination thrombocytopenia have been submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a passive reporting system managed by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Approximately 44.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the United States as of Feb. 10.
In one case, a 56-year-old male in Florida was injected with Pfizer’s vaccine and rushed to the hospital, several days after noticing “small blood tinged spots.” He was diagnosed with thrombocytopenia.
In another, a 36-year-old Pennsylvania woman said she woke up in early January, about two weeks after getting Pfizer’s vaccine, with blood blisters all over her mouth and went to the emergency room. She was admitted and diagnosed with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), a version of the disorder.
The most high-profile instance involved Dr. Gregory Michael, a 56-year-old Miami doctor who died 16 days after receiving a vaccination against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19.
Michael’s wife, Heidi Neckelmann, wrote on Facebook that the doctor was admitted to the emergency room, where medical workers found his platelet count to be zero. Thrombocytopenia causes a low platelet level and in adults typically requires medical treatment.
Michael was taken to an intensive care unit with a diagnoses of acute ITP caused by a reaction to the vaccine, his wife said.
(Epoch Times Photo Epoch Times Photo A nurse prepares a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for administration at Jerome Mack Middle School in Las Vegas, Nev., on Jan. 29, 2021. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images))
“No one has contacted me from Pfizer or any health agency. All I know about the investigation is what is posted in the different news articles which is that it is under investigation,” she told The Epoch Times in a Facebook message.
Dr. Jerry Spivak, professor of medicine in the Hematology division at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Maryland, did not evaluate Michael and doesn’t have knowledge of his treatment.
“However, based on the rapid onset, severity, and the similar time course of thrombocytopenia in several other patients within the same time period, exposed to the same vaccine and all being men, which is unusual for immune thrombocytopenia, I think that a very strong argument can be made to the extent that, until proven otherwise, the association [with the vaccine] has to be considered real, as opposed to coincidental,” Spivak told The Epoch Times via email.
“Vaccine-induced thrombocytopenia is a recognized rare event but no one should die from it. Dismissing this event as coincidental or merely possible does an injustice to Dr. Michael, to scientific inquiry, and harm to others who may experience the same adverse event. So, yes, until proven otherwise, I consider this a COVID-19 linked event,” added the doctor, who has himself been vaccinated and advises others to get a vaccine because he believes the benefits outweigh the risks.
A Pfizer official told The Epoch Times that the preliminary investigation into post-vaccination cases of thrombocytopenia indicates there’s no connection between the vaccines and the disorder, but noted that the FDA and other federal health agencies are responsible for the investigations.
“We take reports of adverse events very seriously. We are aware of cases of thrombocytopenia in recipients of our COVID-19 vaccine as reported to the VAERS … and/or reported to Pfizer. We are collecting relevant information to share with the FDA. However, at this time, we have not been able to establish a causal association with our vaccine,” a spokesperson added via email.
“To date, millions of people have been vaccinated and we are closely monitoring all adverse events in individuals receiving our vaccine. Serious adverse events, including deaths that are unrelated to the vaccine, are unfortunately likely to occur at a similar rate as they would in the general population.”
Moderna, the only other company that has received emergency authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Authorities stressed that VAERS is a passive system, meaning anybody can submit reports. However, at this stage in the vaccination process, it is the primary public-facing system concerning adverse events following vaccination. There are plans to implement stronger systems in the coming months.
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Trump Jr. Preparing Trip to Wyoming to Campaign Against Cheney BY IVAN PENTCHOUKOV February 9, 2021 Updated: February 9, 2021
Donald Trump Jr. is gearing up for a trip to Wyoming to campaign against Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump.
The president’s son told Politico he is preparing to travel to the state. “I hear it’s lovely during primary season,” he told the news outlet.
Cheney issued a scathing statement announcing her intention to vote in favor of impeachment. Several Democrats cited her remarks in the debate ahead of the impeachment vote on Jan. 13.
Republican firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has already traveled to Wyoming to rally against Cheney.
“The truth is that the establishment in both political parties have teamed up to screw our fellow Americans for generations,” Gaetz told a crowd in Wyoming on Jan. 28. “Now in Washington, D.C., the private insider club of Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, Nancy Pelosi, and Liz Cheney, they want to return our government to its default setting—enriching them, making them more powerful at our expense. But we can stop ’em and it starts right here in Wyoming.”
Trump Jr. had called into the rally and told to the crowd via speakerphone that Cheney had done little for the Republican Party in terms of raising money and recruiting new members.
“It’s time to have a change at the top. It’s time to have people that are going to start representing the people, not their own agendas, not their own nonsense, but their constituency,” Trump Jr. said.
The president’s son cautioned the crowd against backing the first challenger that comes along and to vet the candidates before rallying behind Cheney’s challenger.
“We have some time. Let’s find the right one,” he said. “Let’s not split this vote up and blow our opportunity to get rid of a RINO [Republican In Name Only].”
At least two Republicans have already declared their intention to run against Cheney in the Republican primary in 2022, including state Sen. Anthony Bouchard (R-Wyo.).
Cheney’s office did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
The Wyoming Republican Party voted on Feb. 6 to censure Cheney for her impeachment vote. Days earlier, U.S. House Republicans voted to keep Cheney, elder daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, in her leadership role.
Cheney, the third-ranking House GOP leader, said on Feb. 7 she was undeterred by the censure vote and criticism from some House Republicans and will not resign or back off on her repudiation of Trump.
She suggested that if she were in the Senate, she might vote to convict Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Trump’s trial in the Senate begins Tuesday.
“I would listen to the testimony—I would listen to the evidence,” Cheney told “Fox News Sunday.” “I obviously believe and did then that what we already know is enough for his impeachment. What we already know does constitute the gravest violation of his oath of office by any president in the history of the country, and this is not something that we can simply look past or pretend didn’t happen or try to move on.”
The Senate impeachment trial begins on Tuesday.
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Justice Department Drops Lawsuit Against Melania Trump’s Former Aide BY ZACHARY STIEBER February 9, 2021 Updated: February 9, 2021
The Department of Justice on Monday dropped a lawsuit that was filed against a former aide to ex-First Lady Melania Trump over a book.
The department voluntarily dismissed the suit against Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, it said in a brief, one-sentence filing in federal court.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton nominee, approved the request hours later.
A Department of Justice official told news outlets in a statement, “The Department evaluated the case and concluded that dismissal without prejudice was in the best interests of the United States based on the facts and the law.”
Wolkoff’s lawyer told news outlets, “We are very pleased that the Department of Justice is dismissing this lawsuit.”
The suit was filed after Wolkoff’s book, “Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady,” was published. The government alleged she failed to submit a draft of her book for review prior to the book’s release.
“The United States seeks to hold Ms. Wolkoff to her contractual and fiduciary obligations and to ensure that she is not unjustly enriched by her breach of the duties she freely assumed when she served as an adviser to the first lady,” the complaint stated.
Wolkoff entered into an agreement concerning the release of information in 2017.
Wolkoff protested the suit, claiming that it was an attempt to silence her and in violation of her First Amendment rights.
(Epoch Times Photo Epoch Times Photo Then-First Lady Melania Trump during an inspection of the 18.5-foot Fraser fir Christmas tree for the White House Blue Room, outside the White House in Washington on Nov. 23, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times))
The book is largely critical of Trump. Wolkoff also appeared on CNN shortly after its release, where she played recordings she said were of private conversations between her and the former first lady.
Trump in a statement strove to place blame on news outlets, alleging she barely knew Wolkoff.
“We all know that more often than not, information that could be helpful to children is lost in the noise made by self-serving adults. I have most recently found this to be the case as major news outlets eagerly covered salacious claims made by a former contractor who advised my office. A person who said she ‘made me’ even though she hardly knew me, and someone who clung to me after my husband won the presidency,” she said in a note.
“This is a woman who secretly recorded our phone calls, releasing portions from me that were out of context, then wrote a book of idle gossip trying to distort my character. Her ‘memoir’ included blaming me for her ailing health from an accident she had long ago, and for bad news coverage that she brought upon herself and others. Never once looking within at her own dishonest behavior and all in an attempt to be relevant. These kinds of people only care about their personal agenda—not about helping others.”
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MEXICO CITY—Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador returned to his daily morning news conferences Monday following a two-week absence after catching coronavirus, but vowed not to wear a mask or require Mexicans to use them.
“There is no authoritarianism in Mexico … everything is voluntary, liberty is the most important thing,” López Obrador said. “It is each person’s own decision.”
López Obrador revealed he received experimental treatments, which he described only as an “antiviral” medication and an anti-inflammatory drug.
The president also revealed that he twice tested negative in late January in rapid tests that are widely used in Mexico, before a more thorough test—apparently PCR—came back positive the same day.
“I came through well, healthy,” López Obrador said, noting he had been doing breathing exercises as well. “We are back on our feet again, in fighting style.”
Many residents of Mexico City have been unable to find beds at Mexico City’s overcrowded hospitals, and have been forced to treat sick relatives at home. López Obrador was treated at the apartment where he lives in the city’s National Palace.
Despite Mexico’s dearth of vaccines—the country hasn’t received new shipments in weeks, and is down to its last 55,000 doses—López Obrador repeated his faith that the country will get enough vaccines from Pfizer, Russia, China, and India to vaccinate all Mexicans over 60 by the end of March.
That would imply the daunting task of giving about 15 million people at least one dose in just a month and a half.
López Obrador has held his daily news conferences almost every working day for more than two years, and this was the longest he has been absent from them.
Simple! It's because EVERYONE is evil!
(Romans 3:10) As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
(Romans 3:11) There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
(Romans 3:12) They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
(Romans 3:13) Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
(Romans 3:14) Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
(Romans 3:15) Their feet are swift to shed blood:
(Romans 3:16) Destruction and misery are in their ways:
(Romans 3:17) And the way of peace have they not known:
(Romans 3:18) There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Ha! I'll have to change it again :)