Lausanne, the above was published on the
sixteenth day of the second month of the year
two thousand and twenty-two.
Mr President, Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr President, I come to the floor of the Senate today to make a few points, [to] ask a few questions. First of all, can we all acknowledge that there’s so much that we do not know about the coronavirus, about COVID the disease or about the COVID vaccines? Our response to COVID as a result has been in reaction to very imperfect information. So very early in the pandemic, I gave those individuals in a position to have to make very tough decisions, with imperfect information, a great deal of latitude in making those tough calls. But over the course of the months, we have learned a lot. We’ve always been told to follow the science, but it sure seems our healthcare agencies and, as I refer to them as the ‘COVID gods’ – the doctor Faucis of the world, the agency heads, the Biden administration, the mainstream media, the social media –, they’ve never allowed second opinions. There’s been one narrative and they simply have not been willing to consider alternative measures. So a question I think we should all be asking ourselves is ‘Did our response work’? Over 780,000 Americans have lost their lives, the human toll of the economic devastation of the shutdowns, the year of lost learning to our children, the psychological harm to our children, the record overdose deaths, increase in suicides; I don’t know how you can take a look at America’s death rate – the last time I looked, it’s a couple weeks old, about 220 per hundred thousand population – by the way, Sweden it was at 145 per hundred thousand a couple of weeks ago. I don’t see how anybody can take a look at the response imposed in our country by the ‘COVID gods’ and say it was a success. So acknowledging the fact that there’s still so much we don’t know, I would appreciate a little modesty on the part of the ‘COVID gods’. I would appreciate that we actually follow the advice that I’ve always heard when dealing with a serious medical condition: get a second opinion, get a third opinion. But, as I said, that’s not allowed. I think it also calls for a little respect for our fellow … for our fellow citizens. These are some tough decisions, they’re tough decisions whether or not you want to get vaccinated, even more gut-wrenching and tough decisions based on these idiotic and pointless vaccine mandates is ‘Do I subject to the coercion, to the pressure, to the fear of reprisal and take the jab or lose my job?’ These are tough decisions. I’m a big, I’m a big supporter of ‘Operation Warp Speed’. I’ve had every vaccination until this one because I had COVID. The ‘COVID gods’ aren’t acknowledging natural immunity; they’re not acknowledging vaccine injuries; they’re not acknowledging the fact that even if you are fully vaccinated you can still get COVID, you can still transmit COVID. So what’s the point of the mandates? But, of course, that’s not what we’re getting from the ‘COVID gods’. Now, this weekend, something happened that’s not unusual: my words were taken completely out of context, twisted, distorted, and I was relentlessly attacked. I’d like to respond to those attacks that uh were headlined ‘Fauci calls Ron Johnson’s AIDS comments preposterous’, ‘Fauci said “I don’t have any clue what he’s talking about”’, ‘Fauci blasts Ron Johnson for saying he over-hyped AIDS’, ‘Preposterous: Anthony Fauci rips GOP senator’, ‘Ron Johnson’s preposterous accusations he’s over-hyped COVID’. So what did I say that sounds terrible? Well, what I said was in response to a radio talk show host Brian Kilmeade’s question asking about the omicron variant. He said ‘It looks benign, I mean, mild symptoms, mostly people under 40’. So I answered his question about omicron, talking about Mueller’s ratchet. It’s a, it’s a phenomenon, it makes sense, how viruses generally mutate, how they become more contagious because they want to replicate; so become more contagious, but generally less lethal – because it doesn’t help replication if you kill your host. Now it’s … nothing’s guaranteed; that would be the general direction of the variants of the coronavirus. Why would we assume anything worse? But that’s what the ‘COVID gods’ are doing: they’re assuming the worst, they are using every new variant to keep us in the state of fear that they have created to maintain control over our lives and rob us of our freedom, to impose freedom-robbing vaccine mandates, again that are preposterous – there’s a good use of that word –, that are pointless, that are idiotic. But after talking about that state of fear, I went on to say ‘And by the way, Fauci did the exact same thing with AIDS: he over-hyped it’. Now full stop, that that is where the news media stopped and then accused me falsely of downplaying AIDS. I have never, nor would I ever, downplay the tragedy that is AIDS, that is COVID; these are serious deadly diseases: they’ve killed hundreds of thousands. I would never downplay them. When I said ‘over-hyped’ I explained exactly what I was talking about in the next six words. I said ‘He created all kinds of fear, saying it could affect the entire population when it couldn’t. He’s using the exact same playbook for COVID’ – and here’s the key point that I want to talk about a little bit later – ‘ignoring therapy, pushing a vaccine’. The solution to this pandemic, I’ve always thought, was early treatment. We still haven’t robustly explored early treatment and that’s a travesty. Now Dr Fauci on the show said this criticism of him, ‘creating a state of fear’, is preposterous. But let’s go to what he actually said back in May of 1983. Now I was alive in May of 83. I understand how unsettling this new disease was. I understand the state of fear, the legitimate state of fear, but responsible health officials should not have stoked it, and Dr Fauci did. He authored an article in The Journal of American Medical Association stating, quote ‘the possibility that close routine close contact, as with any family household, can spread the disease’. He added ‘If indeed the latter is true, then AIDS takes on an entirely new dimension’ and then ‘If we add to this possibility that non-sexual, non-blood-borne transmission is possible, the scope of the syndrome may be enormous’. Now it’s important to note these aren’t off-the-cuff comments; this was in a column he wrote with forethought. Dr Fauci knew what a delicate time we were as the public awareness of this disease was emerging. When people were already frightened by what they were hearing, he was in a position of authority: he knew what he said carried weight and would be disseminated. And it was. The following day’s headlines: The United Press International published a story headlined ‘Household contact may transmit AIDS’; the next day, The Associated Press … Press ran a story asking ‘Does AIDS spread by routine contact?’; the same day the New York Times article read, quote ‘Family context studied in transmitting AIDS’ and it invoked Fauci’s article in discussing the possibility of transmission between family members. He stoked the fear – and it … quite honestly continues to this day. He stigma…stigmatised AIDS patients for years with his fear-mongering. Now less than two weeks…two months later, in June of 1983, Dr Fauci flip-flopped and he publicly contradicted his own fear-mongering by stating, quote ‘It is absolutely preposterous’ – he likes that word by the way – ‘is absolutely preposterous to suggest that AIDS can be contracted through normal social contact like being in the same room with someone or sitting on a bus with them’. I mean, you heard what he said two months earlier, right? If he felt it was so prepost…preposterous on 26th June, why had he raised the fear, stoked the fear just two months earlier? Now it’s interesting: I just found out last night that not only did he write that article stoking the fear, he started giving interviews. I’ve seen an interview where he basically uses the exact same words. But now he denies it, he wants to deny the reality of what he said what…what he said, what he did; he wants to rewrite history. And by the way, when it comes to the AIDS crisis, rewriting history, I’m not the only one that is accusing him of that. In an article published, or updated last on 6 December in 2017, in The Huffington Post, in their comment platform, which I guess has since been taken down, an author of a book – his name is Sean Strub – wrote an article, wrote a blog for The Huff Post. The book Mr Strub … Strub wrote was Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival and he describes it as how he recounts the slow, ‘how slow the federal government was in publicising the use of Bactrim and other sulfa drugs to prevent PCP ([which is] the pneumonia that was then the leading killer of people with AIDS) in addition to its long-time and well-known use to treat’ that type of pneumonia. So let me quote from Mr Strub’s article: he said ‘Dr Anthony Fauci is rewriting history. He’s doing so to disguise his shameful role in delaying promotion of an AIDS treatment that would have prevented tens of thousands of deaths in the first…first years of the…med…of…of the first years of the epidemic’. The article goes on to say ‘In 1987, pioneering AIDS activist Michael Callen begged Fauci, begged Fauci [the repetition is Senator Johnson’s] for help in promoting the use of bactrim as PCP prophylaxis and issuing interim guidelines urging physicians to prophylaxis those patients deemed at high risk for PCP’. The article goes on ‘Had Fauci listened to people with AIDS and the clinicians treating them, and responded accordingly, he would have saved thousands of lives. In the two years between 1987, when Callen met with Fauci and 1989, when the guidelines were ultimately issued [two years], nearly 17,000 people with AIDS suffocated from PCP. Most of these people might have lived had Fauci responded appropriately.’ [my emphasis] Another doctor, Dr Barry Gingell, I’m continuing the article here, ‘a medical advisor to Gay Men’s Health Crisis, met with Fauci to plead for his support, they didn’t just say there was “this preliminary activity and some small trials,” as Fauci claims. They explained that many frontline AIDS physicians, following the lead of Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, were already using Bactrim effectively to prevent the recurrence of PCP. The science was clear. A decade before, clinical trials by Dr. Walter Hughes had proven its efficacy in preventing PCP in other immune-compromised populations, like children with leukaemia’ it continues ‘Fauci refused to acknowledge the evidence and, according to one account, even encouraged people with AIDS to stop taking treatments, like Bactrim, that weren’t specifically approved for use in people with AIDS.’ Dr ‘Sonnabend wrote in 2006,’ quote ‘“Why, in the case of AIDS, was Bactrim, a known preventative measure against PCP, introduced so many years after a need for it had been recognised? To this must be added the question of why this neglect, the consequences of which can be measured in the tens of thousands of lives lost, has received almost no attention.”’ [my emphasis, not Senator Johnson’s] The media has continued to cover for Dr Fauci. The article goes on ‘If we don’t tell the truth about the history of the AIDS epidemic, it will be subject to more whitewashing,’ as we witnessed this weekend, my aside, ‘more distortions and more rewriting to suit the legacies of the officials in charge. These are the same officials who seem incapable of ever acknowledging or taking responsibility for mistakes they made – mistakes that cost our community thousands of lives.’ [my emphasis] Now, Mr President, why did I take so much time to read an excerpt from this article from 2017? It’s because … it’s the major point I was making in my comments to Brian Kilmeade: Dr Fauci, he’s using the exact same playbook for COVID as he did for AIDS, ignoring therapy like Bactrim or the cornucopia of cheap, generic, repurposed drugs that are available, that are being used successfully to treat COVID and save lives. The solution is – I’ve always felt –, has always been, early treatment; but again Dr Fauci is ignoring therapy and pushing a vaccine. Why? There are medical experts, multiple medical experts, that have looked at this, – who are treating COVID, who are doing the research –, who say upwards of 500,000 lives were needlessly lost because we ignored – and I would argue sabotaged – early treatment with cheap, generic, repurposed drugs. In fact, the FDA completely trash-talked one of these repurposed drugs, a Nobel prize-winning drug, termed by the World Health Organisation as a miracle drug, Ivermectin, calling it horse paste, saying ‘Come on, you all. You’re not cows!’ Fake news stories saying that people are lining up clogging hospitals because overdose…overdoses of Ivermectin, only to find out that is a completely false news story. Like false studies published in medical journals that had to be withdrawn two weeks later, early in the pandemic, which also poisoned the use of some of these repurposed drugs. [Senator Ron Johnson displays a new board with the caption ‘VAERS/VAERS data last 26 years’.] Let’s take a look at some facts; let’s take a look at some facts: that when I go on media and I describe these facts, I’m censored by the ‘COVID gods’, I’m removed from YouTube, as is sometimes the radio talk show host, but let’s look at the facts of drugs versus the vaccine. Now many of you will be shocked by this because this is all being censored. This information, this is not allowed. Again, there’s one narrative: it’s the narrative of the ‘COVID gods’, no second or third opinions are allowed, no questions are allowed to be ans…asked, much less answered. So let’s take a look at Ivermectin. I’ve got two columns here: total adverse events reported to either the FAERS system, the fed, the … the adverse event reporting system from the FDA for drugs, and the VAERS system, the vaccine adverse event system reported through the CDC. So the top three. First of all, Ivermectin. Over 26 years, 26 years of reporting, Ivermectin has about 3,756 adverse events reported into FAERS. That averages – and by the way, so that’s adverse events in terms of deaths – it averages about 15 reports of deaths per year. Now, let’s get something straight here: there are two main criticisms of FAERS and VAERS: it doesn’t prove causation, I get that, but it also dramatically understates the adverse events. So, again, we’re going to use this as a comparison: Ivermectin: 15 deaths per year on average over 26 years of usage. Hydroxychloroquine: 23,355 total adverse events over 26 years; on average about 69 deaths, death reports per year. How about the seasonal flu vaccine? Again, 26 years worth of history 198,776 total adverse events reported on VAERS but an average of 80 deaths per year for the seasonal flu vaccine. I mean: I look at these and I go, ‘These are pretty safe drugs.’ No drug is 100 per cent safe; no human body is exactly the same. But you have to look at these drugs as having a very safe and reliable safety profile. So if you have COVID, and let’s face it, the current NIH guideline on COVID is to do nothing: go home, afraid, alone; isolate yourself; hope you don’t get so sick you have to check yourself into hospital. The only thing they are recommending for use is monoclonal antibodies. Try and get those: I’ve talked to so many constituents that haven’t been able to, either they’re not sick enough or they become too sick or it’s taking too long. So virtually the NIH guideline continues to this day: do nothing. Now, quick aside: how many other diseases is that the recommendation? Isn’t it always early detection allows for early treatment, produces better outcome? Of course that’s what we recommend for every other disease except COVID because Fauci ignored therapies and pushed vaccines. He’s just been, he’s got his blinders on: vaccines, vaccines, vaccines. And then they scare-monger both Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine. I don’t know: are you afraid of those? If you got COVID, would you give those a shot? I certainly would. And by the way, I’m not a doctor, I’m not a medical researcher, but I’ve been in contact with doctors who have the courage and compassion to treat. And so when I have a friend or constituent that calls me and say ‘What can I do?’, I refer them to a doctor who treats them. And I have example after example of these things working, keeping people out of hospitals and certainly preventing death. I know, it’s anecdotal … but the evidence is mounting and it’s getting to the point of being irrefut… I think it is at the point of being irrefutable. So now let’s compare this to the drugs of choice of Dr Fauci and the ‘COVID gods’. Let’s take a look at Remdesivir. The studies were weak; they changed the end point of reducing death – because it didn’t – to reducing days in the hospital. But they still rushed through the emergency use authorisation and it has been the treatment –because it’s blessed by the ‘COVID gods’ – that hospitals will apply. Now, in fairness, hospitals also do Dexamethasone; they will do other things – corticosteroids. Pierre Kory testified before my committee in May of 2020 about corticosteroids, but Remdesivir’s the … is the big one: over three thousand dollars a dose when these cost uh 20 to 50 bucks total as part of a multi-drug, multi-vitamin, vitamin D, zinc. Remdesivir: 6,500 adverse events. I don’t have it here: 1,612 deaths so far since it’s got emergency use. That’s an average of 921 a year, that’s Remdesivir. Now, let’s look at the COVID vaccine and this will shock you; it should shock you because nobody’s talking about it and when a guy like me talks about it, I get censored, I get vilified, I get attacked. Nine hundred, twenty-seven thousand, seven hundred forty total adverse events and remember one of the criticisms is VAERS dramatically understates the number of adverse events. Total deaths: 19,532. Now again I realise VAERS doesn’t prove causation but almost 6,000 of these worldwide deaths occurred on Day Zero, One or Two following vaccination. I know Fauci, I know Janet Woodcock, I know Francis Collins are not concerned about this; I’m concerned about this. Other people who have been able to avoid the censors and see this, they’re concerned about it. They’re making those tough choices; they also realise COVID can be a deadly disease. They have to make an informed decision whether or not to get vaccinated. Shouldn’t they have all the information? But they’re not being given all the information. It’s about time they are. Now, Mr President, let me conclude by just asking, for the audience really, why do I continue to push these truths – and they are truths; there’s no misinformation up here: this is the truth, this isn’t mine, these aren’t my numbers, this isn’t my data, this is the CDC’s and the FDA’s data – why do I continue to talk about these things when I…when I get attacked, when I get vilified, when I get ridiculed, when I get censored? It’s pretty simple: it’s because I’ve acknowledged the vaccine injured. I’ve held events to let them tell their stories, like little Maddie de Garay, 12 years old – now she’s 13; she participated in the Pfizer trial; she’s in a wheelchair; she can’t eat; she has a feeding tube; Pfizer has ignored her, cast her aside; they’re not paying for her medical bills. That’s a scandal, right then and there. Brianne Dressen, participating in the Astra Zeneca trial, paralysed from the waist down; fortunately she’s got her legs functioning back, but she’s not whole; she’s not cured. Ernest Ramirez: he lost his only son, his best friend; he’s a single dad. I’ve given the vaccine injured, the survivors, I’ve given them a form to tell their stories and the media just shrugs. All they want is to be seen and heard and believed, so they can be cured or so they can prevent other people from experiencing their trauma. The real reason I continue to tell the truth although I’m attacked, it’s because not only have I given these individuals a form to tell their stories, but I’ve seen their tears, I’ve hugged the vaccine injured, the surviving spouses, the surviving parents, the surviving children. Why won’t we acknowledge these truths? Why won’t we acknowledge the vaccine injured? Until we do, until we acknowledge what the root cause of their illness might be, how is there any hope of healing them? So again, our response to COVID has been a miserable failure. We must acknowledge that; we can’t deny reality. We need to embrace early treatment because we are going to continue to need early treatment; the vaccines aren’t 100 per cent guaranteed effective; new variants will emerge we’re going to have to treat. Better start now and might as well give these cheap generic, widely available drugs a shot. With that Mr, or Madam, President, I yield the floor.