Tea at Trianon: Weaponized “Misinformation”

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, August 29, 2025

Weaponized “Misinformation”

From Brownstone Institute:

When evaluating new interventions for healthy newborns, presenting the full safety record – including every death – is not optional; it is a fundamental obligation. This is always true, but in the case of Merck’s clesrovimab, it was especially critical: the FDA skipped presenting the product to its advisory committee on the grounds that it was “not first in class.”

This left ACIP as the only public forum charged with reviewing the product. Instead of two independent layers of oversight, there was only one. In such circumstances, withholding or downplaying deaths meant that ACIP – the sole safeguard – was not given the complete picture it needed to protect infants and families.

Before turning to the substantive issues, two clarifications are in order:

A large portion of the critique is devoted to personal ad hominem remarks. Such rhetoric does not honor the principles of scientific debate and is contrary to what science should represent. I will therefore not address these attacks further.

Some of the first claims in the critique actually concern an article by Dr. Maryanne Demasi, which I cited. Since I included them, I will clarify them briefly:

“The CDC split the age groups (0-37 days vs. 38 days-8 months) for sound epidemiological reasons, not to conceal a signal.”

My article highlighted that the split erased statistical significance. A unified calculation shows a nearly fourfold increase in seizure risk, a signal that was never presented to ACIP. The split was not explained during the meeting, and it occurred exactly at the point when routine vaccinations begin. Even if additional vaccines are a confounder, that does not absolve the CDC of its obligation to present the combined analysis. An advisory committee deserves to see both the stratified and the pooled results.
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