“US Attorney’s Office would have more credibility if it was even-handed in its concern about riots and mobs in the city,” says Judge Trevor McFadden.
A federal judge called out the Department of Justice’s harsh treatment of the January 6 protesters, claiming the agency hasn’t been “even-handed” compared to how it handled the nationwide 2020 riots following the death of George Floyd.
District Judge Trevor McFadden said Friday that he believes the Justice Department is demonstrating a two-tiered approach to law enforcement: preferential treatment for Black Lives Matter rioters but harsh treatment for the largely nonviolent J6 protesters.
“The US Attorney’s Office would have more credibility if it was even-handed in its concern about riots and mobs in the city,” McFadden said at a sentencing hearing for one of the Capitol rioters, citing complaints DC Mayor Muriel Bowser made in 2020 that the DOJ was reluctant to charge BLM rioters in the city.Embed from Getty Images
McFadden brought up the BLM riots while sentencing Danielle Doyle, a former employee of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team, for protesting at the Capitol.
“You were acting like those looters and rioters who attacked our city last year,” McFadden told her.
“…You participated in a shameful event, a national embarrassment that, like last year’s riots, made us feel less safe and less confident that our country could be governed by democratic values and not mob rule.”
The Associated Press attempted to refute McFadden’s argument, claiming hundreds of BLM rioters were given “substantial” sentences.
“The Associated Press analyzed more than 300 criminal cases stemming from the protests incited by Floyd’s murder, showing that many leftist rioters had received substantial sentences, rebutting the argument that pro-Trump defendants were treated more harshly than Black Lives Matter protesters,” AP reported.
But AP failed to mention that hundreds more BLM rioters who were arrested had their charges dropped completely.
Additionally, none of them were subjected to solitary confinement or other heavy-handed punitive measures by the DOJ like the J6 protesters have been.
Most Trump voters are in favor of seceding from the government of the United States according to a new poll by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
A shocking poll conducted by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia (UVA) has revealed that most Trump voters and a significant number of Biden voters are in favor of seceding from the Union and splitting the country.
52% of Trump voters and 41% of Biden voters “at least somewhat agree that it’s time to split the country, favoring blue/red states seceding from the union,” according to a shocking poll conducted by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
“Significant numbers of both Trump and Biden voters show a willingness to consider violating democratic tendencies and norms if needed to serve their priorities,” the pollsters explained. “Roughly 2 in 10 Trump and Biden voters strongly agree it would be better if a ‘President could take needed actions without being constrained by Congress or courts,’ and roughly 4 in 10 (41%) of Biden and half (52%) of Trump voters at least somewhat agree that it’s time to split the country, favoring blue/red states seceding from the union.”
As the Gateway Pundit reported this afternoon, “Democrats are aligning themselves with anti-American policies of censorship, destruction of billions in wealth, murder of those in their way (remember it was four Trump supporters who were murdered on Jan. 6), aligning with fascist groups like BLM and Antifa, election theft, arming the Taliban enemy with $83 billion in US military equipment, using a pandemic to steal American freedoms, false arrests of individuals for fake crimes, government harassment through the courts, and imprisonment based on fake crimes in kangaroo courts, etc.”
A report from Mediaite on the subject emphasized a similar YouGov poll conducted in June which found that 66% of Republicans in southern states support seceding from the United States, noting that Joe Biden’s recent failures in Afghanistan, as well as his handling of COVID-19 have rendered his “reunification” platform to be ineffective as his approval ratings among Americans have gone “underwater.”
The idea that the nation’s political divide has become so toxic that we should prepare from some sort of “national divorce” has largely been left to clever thought experiments best left for dinner parties and ironically detached columns. However, we’ve now arrived at a point where more than half of Trump voters “somewhat agree” that the time for secession is nigh.
Comedian and well known liberal Sarah Silverman recently echoed this call for a national divorce, suggesting the country separate into two or three countries based on political affiliation and COVID-19 policies.
“I anticipate that other states will follow suit.”
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom held a press conference on Friday announcing that California would become the first state to mandate eligible students attending public and private schools be vaccinated against COVID-19 for in-person instruction.
According to KFI News in Los Angeles, “The governor is directing the California Department of Public Health to add the COVID vaccine to other vaccinations required for in-person learning.”
Newsom announced the mandate at a San Francisco middle school on Friday morning.
“We are all exhausted by this pandemic. We are all exhausted by this. And that is the purpose of this,” said Newsom. “We hope this encourages folks to get vaccinated.”
“We have no trepidation, no hesitancy in encouraging local districts to move forward more expeditiously.”
The Los Angeles Times reported: “The mandate would take effect for grades 7 through 12 the semester following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s full approval of the vaccine for children ages 12 and over, according to the governor’s office. Students in kindergarten through sixth grade would be phased in after the vaccine is formally approved for younger children.”
The Times added that “rare medical and religious exemptions would be available.”
BREAKING: CA will require our kids to get the COVID-19 vaccine to come to school.
This will go into effect following full FDA approval.
Our schools already require vaccines for measles, mumps and more. Why? Because vaccines work.
“Our schools already require vaccines for measles, mumps and more,” Newsom tweeted on Friday morning. “Why? Because vaccines work.”
Newsom’s press office described the policy as the first of its kind in the country and said it expects the requirement to take effect next year.
According to the Sacramento Bee, “Those who opt out of the requirement will have to enroll in independent study.”
“I believe we will be the first state in America to move forward with this mandate and requirement, but I do not believe, by any stretch of the imagination, that we will be the last state,” Newsom said. “I anticipate that other states will follow suit.”
More of Newsom’s critics in California and across the country are beginning to question whether the failed recall campaign to oust him from office last month has backfired.
Kevin Kiley, a Republican state assemblyman who ran to replace Newsom, warned before the election, “Newsom says surviving the Recall will give him a ‘mandate.’ Make no mistake, he means a mandate for more mandates.”
This is correct (though absurd given Newsom’s HUGE advantages). And it was always my worst fear for the recall, which is now going to come true… https://t.co/6AEXUHhzQR
Newsom said he was “energized” after beating the recall attempt in a landslide, signing sweeping housing legislation that bans most single-family-only zoning in the state along with multiple police reform bills.
When it comes to schools and vaccines, Los Angeles Unified School District was the first in the U.S. to issue a vaccine mandate for its eligible students this past September. In August, Gov. Newsom issued a vaccine mandate for all K-12 school staff.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is asking his state legislature to increase the penalty for anyone convicted of illegal voting.
Abbott’s call for a stiffer penalty comes less than a month after he signed an elections reform bill that lowered the maximum penalty, The Texas Tribune noted.
Under that bill, illegal voting was scheduled to go from a second-degree felony to a Class A misdemeanor in December. Class A misdemeanors are punishable by up to a year behind bars. However, they can be resolved with a fine, the Tribune said. In Texas, a second-degree felony is punishable by up to 20 years in jail.
In a tweet, the Republican governor said: “I’m adding increased illegal voting penalties to the Special Session agenda.
“The State of Texas has made tremendous progress in upholding the integrity of our elections. Increasing penalties for illegal voting will send an even clearer message that voter fraud will not be tolerated in Texas.”
And his office noted that he had submitted a message to the secretary of the state Senate asking for the increase in the penalty.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick applauded Abbott’s move and said he discovered the problem, along with the governor and state Attorney General Ken Paxton.
He tweeted: “Thanks @GovAbbott for placing a correction to amd. on SB1, which decreases the penalty for voting illegally, on the call. The House added last minute & went under the radar until Gov., @TXAG & I found it & agreed then it must be corrected. The Senate will pass next week.”
Abbott had signed the bill into law on Sept. 7, which mandates sweeping election changes.
On a related note, on Friday afternoon former President Donald Trump issued a statement lauding lawmakers’ efforts to advance more complete election audit legislation in Texas. Trump, who won Texas in the November president election over Joe Biden, nonetheless has been crusading against what he says was widespread voter fraud across the country.
Texas has announced forensic audits of its four biggest counties in connection with the 2020 vote, but Trump and his supporters have been pushing for something more.
“Just heard Patriots are moving the Texas Audit Bill forward,” Trump said in his statement. “Texas State Senator Paul Bettencourt filed Senate Bill 47, legislation that authorizes Texans to initiate a strong and real Forensic Audit of the 2020 Presidential Election Scam— not a weak risk-limiting audit that is being slow-walked through the Secretary of State’s office. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a great guy, sent the bill to the State Affairs Committee the very same day, and it should quickly pass through the Senate. There is still time for the House to take up the issue in the Third Special session with House Bill 16.
“I’d like to thank Dan and Paul for their bold leadership, and for listening to Texans who are demanding answers about Nov. 3. Everyone feels certain Governor Abbott will follow suit. This will have a big impact on the upcoming 2022 and 2024 elections in Texas. Texas will always be red, but we must stop the cheating.
“Keep it up and get this bill over the finish line. Passing the audit bill will be a Big Win for Texas! Let’s make sure the great people of Texas believe and trust their elections.
In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Kristi Dobbs recounted how she’s spent nine months pleading with health agencies to research the neurological injuries she developed after Pfizer’s vaccine, and how she and others are trying to get the word out about the vaccine’s potential risks.
Kristi Dobbs, a 40-year-old dental hygienist from Missouri, said she can no longer work after being injured by Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. She has spent the past nine months pleading with U.S. health agencies to research the neurological injuries she and others are experiencing in hopes of finding a treatment.
Since getting the vaccine, Dobbs has seen 16 different medical providers. She’s been on 22 different medications to address more than 20 different symptoms — none of which she had prior to getting the vaccine.
Dobbs said she and others who developed neurological injuries after getting a COVID vaccine shared their experiences with a reporter, in hope of raising awareness about their experiences.
But the story never ran because, according to the reporter, a “higher up” at Pfizer pressured the news agency to drop it.
Dobbs got her first and only dose of Pfizer’s vaccine on Jan. 18. She immediately experienced an adverse reaction on-site at the hospital clinic where her vaccine was administered.
“I had barely sat down in the monitoring area after the inoculation and felt an odd tingling sensation running down my left arm, where I had just received the jab,” Dobbs wrote. “I immediately had a pre-syncope episode, where I thought I was going to pass out, heart palpitations, increased pulse, increased respirations and a blood pressure spike that was within a stroke-worthy reading.”
Dobbs was monitored for an additional 45 minutes. When her blood pressure dropped to a manageable range, she was released.
Dobbs said the people monitoring her brushed off her symptoms as a panic attack or hot flash. But she had never been afraid of vaccines, blood draws or needles. “I gave injections in the mouth as a hygienist, so it was no big deal to me,” Dobbs said.
Three days later, Dobbs woke up in the middle of the night and thought her whole bed was shaking, but her husband said he didn’t feel it. She also noticed shaking and trembling in her left hand, but thought maybe it was due to having coffee.
The next day, Dobbs felt a stabbing pain in her left scapula, and shaking and trembling sensations in both hands. As each day progressed, her symptoms worsened. “By day 10, I was in excruciating pain,” Dobbs said.
On Jan. 28, Dobbs went to a chiropractor in St. Louis to see what was causing the stabbing pain in her scapula and the radiating pain and tremors in both arms. The chiropractor thought she had a rib out, so he adjusted her.
The next morning Dobbs woke up with extreme pain and tremors throughout her entire body.
Dobbs wrote:
“On January 30, I’m in urgent care with stabbing pain in my left scapula regions, full body tremors, paresthesias from head to toe, swollen lymph nodes, tinnitus, dizziness, headache and an odd internal vibrating sensation.
“Urgent care doctor thinks I am having muscle spasms, and thinks I am stressed because of my mother in law [who was battling cancer] and traveling so much, so he [prescribed] Flexeril and Medrol dose pack.”
On Feb. 1, Dobbs visited a local chiropractor to see if she could help with the symptoms. As they were catching up, the chiropractor noticed Dobb’s tremors, body shakes and “super high” blood pressure.
Dobbs wrote:
“At this point I am having problems regulating my BP, and she knows that this is out of character for me. She asks me what I have done differently since I saw her last and I can’t think of anything, except the Pfizer vaccine.
“BINGO … That’s it, she says! She immediately stops and tells me that I need to get in to see my primary care provider.”
On Feb. 2, when Dobbs saw her primary care provider, she had visible tremors and whole body paresthesia. “[My care provider] had no clue if this could be vaccine-related, but didn’t dismiss the fact,” Dobbs said. “It was too new to tell, and she had no knowledge of any reactions.”
The doctor recommended anti-anxiety medication, ran labs, did a physical exam and sent her on her way. Shortly after, Dobbs experienced issues with heavy legs, and trouble walking and getting up stairs to the point she couldn’t feel pin pricks on her legs.
On Feb. 5, Dobbs went to the ER because she said she felt like she was dying.
She said:
“I had full-body paresthesia, internal tremors/vibrations, essential tremors in my hands, tremors in my arms and legs, fatigue, brain fog, muscle pain and weakness, pelvic pain, irregular menstrual cycles that included heavy bleeding and thick clotting, skin rashes, tinnitus, temperature regulation issues, swollen lymph nodes, loss of appetite, weight loss, dizziness/balance issues, blood pressure regulation issues, neck pain, headaches, heart palpitations, convulsions or pseudo seizure at night and insomnia.”
Like many others who have experienced neurological reactions to COVID vaccines, Dobbs had a CT scan and the results were normal. No other tests were performed.
“Doctors did not dismiss that this was vaccine-related, but they had no clue what to do or how to treat it if it was,” Dobbs said. “I was given another anti-anxiety medication, which did nothing for me, and was referred to a neurologist. In the meantime my vibrations, brain fog and other symptoms intensified.”
Dobbs saw a neurologist on Feb. 12, when the nurse practitioner ordered tests, an MRI and blood work. The MRI was normal, and Dobbs was prescribed another medication. Dobbs began searching for answers on her own.
She said:
“I was searching for answers on my own, and I came across an article in Neurology Today with a comment at the bottom of the article from a retired gastroenterologist who had been injured by the vaccine, and she left her email address. That was the day I knew I was not alone in this vaccine injury journey. I had found Dr. Danice Hertz. She was in contact with a few others injured as well.”
Dr. Hertz said people like her who have been seriously injured by COVID vaccines are being ignored + because health officials won’t research their injuries + potential treatments, they have nowhere to turn.#TheDefender: https://t.co/zL66EdwTnDhttps://t.co/ahmaX2UiPF
Dobbs said she and others started a private social media group to collaborate because their local doctors did not know what to do and “elite doctors” either don’t know what to do or “were unwilling to help us.”
Dobbs said the vaccine injury group grew by 400% in two days and, in under a year, thousands of injured people had found each other. “Soon we all knew we were not alone, yet no one had answers yet,” she said.
“Danice [Hertz] emailed doctors every day for help,” Dobbs said, “and it wasn’t until March 9 she got through to Dr. Avindra Nath at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and I was able to call them and get a telehealth appointment with Dr. Farinaz Safavi.”
Dobbs said Safavi was aware of these neurological vaccine reactions — as the NIH was already seeing patients for injuries like these — and recommended a “whole host of new tests run by my hometown doctor, as well as certain procedures she thought could potentially cure me.”
On April 19, Safavi wrote in an email to Dobbs that information regarding these adverse events would be published soon — and “hopefully, by that time, healthcare providers would have a better idea what to do with these side-effects,” she said.
The NIH requested blood samples, a complete medical release for history and test results that had already been completed. “I sent all of it,” Dobbs said. “We had very good conversations for the next several weeks, and then by early May … nothing. Still to date I have heard nothing from them.”
Dobbs said, “Supposedly she [Dr. Safavi] called the neurologist, but the neurologist said she never called her for recommendations. The immunology allergist never received a call either.”
When Dobbs reached out to Safavi again in May, her tune changed. “It’s like they went from ‘we know it’s the vaccine’ to ‘we’re trying to figure it out.’”
Dobbs explained:
“It’s like as soon as they got what they needed, we were just cut off. Even some of the ladies that went to the NIH for treatment — once they were done with treatment with these same doctors — they were essentially cut off when they weren’t getting better.
“Their exact verbiage to us was ‘you need early and swift intervention after a vaccine reaction.’ But here we are months after an adverse reaction and our hometown doctors have no clue what to do.”
Safavi, in an email to Dobbs on May 24, said she believed Dobbs was experiencing an immune-mediated inflammatory response or some other immune-mediated small fiber neuropathy.
According to Alexander Chamessian, MD PhD, small-fiber neuropathy is a neurological disorder involving widespread damage to the small-diameter somatic and autonomic unmyelinated C-fibers and/or thinly myelinated A-delta fibers.
Patients often experience pins-and-needles or burning pain sensations. Damage to the autonomic small fibers can cause dysfunction in key systems controlling blood pressure, heart rate and gastrointestinal motility.
Dobbs has seen more than 16 different medical providers, including an allergy immunologist, who took blood samples and discovered Dobbs had antiphospholipid antibodies — a group of immune proteins (antibodies) the body mistakenly produces against itself in an autoimmune response to phospholipids.
A dermatologist diagnosed Dobbs with granuloma annulare, an inflammatory skin condition caused by the immune response her body had, which left her with skin lesions.
Dobbs also tested positive for blood-clotting factors, had high inflammatory markers and lab values that indicated her immune system was poorly functioning.
One neurologist believed Dobbs was having an immune inflammatory response to Pfizer’s vaccine, caused by inflamed nerves.
Dobbs had an ultrasound of her kidneys, which showed they were not working properly. “My kidneys were holding onto water, but by the time I saw the urologist a month later the hydronephrosis was clear,” she said.
Dobbs said:
“No one knows what to do for me, or how to treat this vaccine reaction. I have really great doctors here at home, and as they have all said. ‘We don’t really know what to do, but we can try to treat the symptoms.’
“There is no medication or supplement strong enough to ease the pain, or control the constant symptoms that plague me 24/7. There is still no acknowledgement from NIH, CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration], pharmaceutical companies, or any other governmental entity or institute that follows vaccine safety and side effects to date.”
Group conducts survey that shows signal concerns
Dobbs said once they established their Facebook group, the members knew they needed a better way to convey their ailments so others could easily read and identify them.
“From there, we started our own patient-lead surveys, which gave statistical data that was entered into a spreadsheet,” Dobbs said. “We then had a top epidemiologist review the information and compared the numbers to previous vaccinations and injuries. We were all astonished by the numbers.”
The survey assessed reports of paresthesia following COVID vaccination from the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), and compared it to reports of paresthesia following 2009 swine flu monovalent AS03-adjuvanted pandemic vaccine — a vaccine that was associated with disturbances similar to those experienced after COVID vaccines.
According to the NIH, paresthesia refers to a burning, numbness, skin-crawling or prickling sensation usually felt in the hands, arms, legs or feet, but can also occur in other parts of the body.
Chronic paresthesia is often a symptom of an underlying neurological disease or traumatic nerve damage. Paresthesia can be caused by disorders affecting the central nervous system.
For the survey, VAERS reports of paresthesia following all COVID vaccines were collected, and the rate of reporting per 100,000 vaccinated people was calculated. The total VAERS reports of paresthesia following COVID vaccines as of June 18 were 13,559, with 5,818 attributed to Pfizer, 4514 to Moderna and 1,317 to Johnson & Johnson.
The total number of vaccines administered as of June 25, per CDC’s COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker, was 178,491,147. The VAERS rate of paresthesia as an adverse event was 7.6 per every 100,000 people.
The rate of paresthesia following the 2009 swine flu monovalent AS03-adjuvanted pandemic vaccine was 7.7 per every 100,000 people — and was found to be the third most frequent adverse event following allergic and local reactions associated with the vaccine.
VAERS reports of paresthesia following all vaccines administered between 2006-2016 were also collected and the rate of reporting per 100,000 vaccinated people was calculated. The number of vaccines administered was obtained from Health Resources and Services Administration data and statistics on vaccine rates.
According to the survey, there were 7,157 VAERS reports of paresthesia between 2006 and 2016, out of a total of 3,153,876,236 vaccinations administered during the same time period.
The rate of paresthesia following all vaccines between 2006 and 2016 was 0.2 for every 100,000 people.
“These data suggest the rate of paresthesia following COVID-19 vaccines is the same as the rate calculated in the De Serres paper on paresthesia following the 2009 swine flu pandemic vaccine and is 38 times the rate seen in all vaccines during a 10-year period of time,” wrote Dr. Eileen Natuzzi, surgeon and public health epidemiologist.
Paresthesia is an unrecognized adverse event following vaccination with the current COVID vaccines, Natuzzi wrote. The data is observational, but suggests a signal of concern that should be studied in more depth.
79% of those surveyed experienced tingling, vibrations and shaking
57% had numbness
53% reported heart issues
45% experienced muscle weakness and pain
44% experienced headaches
43% had fatigue
42% had stomach issues
39% reported brain fog
36% experienced involuntary twitching
29% had tremors
27% reported blood pressure issues
20% reported tinnitus
Pfizer pressures media outlet to pull vaccine injury story
Dobbs said she and others knew they needed to tell their stories, without causing “vaccine hesitancy,” to protect others from the same fate — so members of the group started writing and calling anyone who would listen, including reporters, news agencies and members of Congress.
“This is a hard thing to do without being labeled anti-vax, fear-mongering or a misinformation spreader,” Dobbs said. “But there was nowhere else to turn for help. A lot of us are so injured at this time, that the very thought of getting out of bed was exhausting. We had to persevere, so that we could be seen, heard, believed and most of all helped.”
Dobbs said they tried the best they could as simple Americans to reach out to those who would hear their stories. Finally, a reporter from a small media company was willing to do a story. Dobbs and others from the group participated in a 2-hour and 40-minute interview.
“The story never went anywhere,” Dobbs said. She said the reporter told them a “higher up” at Pfizer made a call to the station and pressured staff there into not covering any other stories about vaccine adverse reactions.
Dobbs said she emailed Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the FDA, but never heard anything from him. She never received a response from Nath at the NIH either.
She explained:
“I’ve been working my butt off to try and get my story out because I don’t want this to affect other people, but I don’t see how perfect strangers that were living normal lives found each other through social media, and there are thousands and thousands that have been affected, but you hear nothing about these stories. If it’s so safe then how have we found so many people on our own who have been affected by the vaccine?”
Dobbs did receive an email response from Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA, who said she was sorry to hear about her symptoms and that the FDA would look into the situation. “That was April 18,” Dobbs said. “I haven’t heard anything since.”
Dobbs also reported her adverse event to Pfizer, which did not follow-up, and filed a report with VAERS.
In June, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) gave a few of the group members a platform at a press conference for the media to “hear us, see us and believe us,” Dobbs said. But “they wanted nothing to do with us.”
Dobbs said:
“Their only questions were about who paid for us to get to Wisconsin, and are we going to sue for compensation of injuries. No further questions about lack of medical care, what they could do to help bring awareness, nothing. We did get some other interviews with Newsmax and Fox, but again we were given a small platform for a moment and then hushed again. We move one step forward and get two steps back.”
Dobbs said the group has “tried to do their due diligence by reporting to the big pharma regulatory agencies, although the NIH has been fully aware vaccine injuries were occurring since February.”
Dobbs said she is working with other researchers — not affiliated with the NIH — who are running totally different blood markers.
“They were initially doing studies on COVID long-haul patients to discover why they were becoming ‘long-haulers’ when they realized people were getting injured by vaccines and experiencing the same symptoms,” Dobbs said.
“The one thing they’re finding that we all have in common is the spike protein in non-classical monocytes,” Dobbs said.
Dobbs wants government acknowledgment and accountability for vaccine injuries
Dobbs still has many of her symptoms, is not well enough to return to work and has a difficult time caring for her family.
“I was never a conspiracy theorist or anti-medicine, but it should not be this hard to get the truth out in 2021,” Dobbs said. “I am not saying the vaccine needs to be stopped, but it’s not as safe or effective as they’re portraying it is.”
Dobbs said she would do anything to make sure others are protected from the same “personal hell” she’s gone through the past nine months, or to save children like Maddie de Garay — a 12-year-old who was paralyzed by Pfizer’s vaccine during the clinical trial.
Dobbs was told specifically not to vaccinate any of her children, which puts her in a tough spot with vaccine mandates. “I believe it would kill me if I got another COVID vaccination and I would never put my children through this … ever,” she said.
However, this also means they’re in the category of people who are discriminated against because they cannot get vaccinated.
Dobbs said:
“The moral of the story is that we’ve been injured by the vaccine, we’ve been searching for months for answers and we are unable to get help. We have reached out to the best doctors in the world and they cannot help us.
“So if you can’t get help from the top doctors in the U.S., how can our hometown doctors help us? We never wanted to start this, we only wanted help, and after not getting help you start to get a little angry. When your body fails, you want to know why.
“We have some researchers willing to help us but they are hindered by a lack of information they need to conduct their research, and there are no adverse reaction clinics where we can go to get treated.”
Dobbs said these reactions need to be investigated and observed. “Then they need to be researched and education needs to be presented. Action needs to be taken for the correct measures to be issued to protect and compensate those of us who have been affected by the COVID vaccines under clinical trials, and under Emergency Use Authorization. Treatment protocols must be implemented in our medical community to give early and proper treatment to those affected,” she added.
Dobbs said she doesn’t want to create vaccine hesitancy, she wants accountability from governing agencies, big pharma and institutes that regulate and roll out vaccines. “The fear-mongering, cancel-culture and misinformation days of those truly injured must stop,” she said.
“I have nothing to gain by giving my testimony of truth to my vaccine injury from the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine,” Dobbs wrote in an email to The Defender. “I was just a small-town country girl raising my family, and enjoying my life as a family caretaker, mother and wife. But I was completely uprooted from my beautiful, normal, happy life. But, my voice matters! My story matters!”
Lawmakers were forced to pass stopgap legislation to avert an imminent and complete government shutdown. The risk of the latter came after the Democrats failed to reach a deal on a new budget with the Republicans, or at least achieve intra-party unity on Biden’s infrastructure bill to pass it unilaterally.
The Department of Transportation is set to shut down on 1 October even after Congress passed stopgap funding legislation on 30 September to avert a broader government closure due to the lack of a negotiated budget for the next fiscal year.
While the rest of the government is money-strapped until December, non-critical parts of the Department of Transportation will cease their operations soon unless one of two things happen. Namely, the Democratic Party might end its internal wrangling, negotiate a final version of the infrastructure bill, and pass it without the GOP’s participation. Or, alternatively, Congress might adopt a short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund.
The fund is a separate source of funding for most of the Department of Transportation. It was thus not included in the stopgap legislation that Congress urgently passed on 30 September. Without it, 4,000 DoT employees will be furloughed and the department will stop providing some of its non-critical services. However, some of the department’s employees, such as air traffic controllers and other aviation-related personnel, will continue to work.
The US faced the risk of a government shutdown in September after the Democrats gave up attempts to negotiate the budget with the Republicans due to disagreements over Joe Biden’s planned massive spending on infrastructure. GOP lawmakers repeatedly pointed out that they would not back an infrastructure reform whose funding is not backed by the resulting economic benefits – which is not the case with the bill that is filled with various additions, such as help for migrants and environment-related projects.
The Democrats have long considered passing the legislation by themselves by using their razor-thin majority and a measure called the “budget reconciliation process” that allows for bypassing a Republican filibuster. However, the moderate and progressive wings of the party still can’t agree on certain parts of the infrastructure bill, leaving it hanging in limbo as intra-party negotiations continue.
The September 12–24 migrant camp crisis in Del Rio displayed two lessons very much worth unpacking from the White House response.
The migrant encampment under the international bridge here is liquidated, the 15,000 mostly Haitian illegal migrants who had pooled under it gone to different futures (most paroled into the United States but others flown to Haiti). Bulldozers have erased all trace evidence that anything of much note ever happened here.
Except that much of note did happen during the September 12–24 migrant camp crisis in Del Rio, including two lessons very much worth unpacking from the White House response, which saw this as a political canker sore and therefore swiftly ended it. If retained and refined, these two moves hold the power to prevent a recurrence of new such camps but, perhaps more importantly, to douse the far wider mass migration crisis from which this one spawned.
The Del Rio camp — with its 15,000 temporary inhabitants and all the media attention it attracted — needs to be viewed in proper context as a relatively minor solar flare in a far wider crisis that brings in 50,000 immigrants every single week (on track for 1.7 million for FY2021) across hundreds of miles of America’s southern border, yet weirdly attracts far less media attention.
The Del Rio camp, however shiny a bauble it was for network news cameras, amounts to a typical Texas breakfast hour on any given day, so vast is the crisis that spawned their riverbank shantytown. Two main actionable takeaways from Del Rio that the White House, Congress, and U.S. media should know, study and apply to significantly temper the crisis that birthed Del Rio, are:
Rolling out repatriation flights to home nations as a credible threat proved to be a magic pill for sharply reducing mass illegal immigration and should be retained and expanded to the rest of the border and other nationalities now.
Del Rio revealed a deeply troubled U.S.-Mexico diplomatic relationship that relied on carrots but requires a radically different American approach that involves the stick, which proved miraculously effective during September.
A Clearly Dysfunctional U.S.-Mexico Relationship
The Mexican government caused the Del Rio camp to form, the Center for Immigration Studies has concluded from interviews with immigrants in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, just across from Del Rio. The camp’s formation reveals that Mexico neither respects nor fears the Biden administration’s carrots-based approach to diplomacy, and feels free enough of potential consequences to casually renege on diplomatic bargains.
In this case, the Mexican national interest in setting loose thousands of migrants toward the American border on September 12 seemed especially trivial for trashing a diplomatic agreement with America: creating a nicer environment for Mexico’s cherished El Grito national independence celebrations the week of September 16.
The Del Rio camp from the international bridge September 2021. Photo by Todd Bensman.
Consider what CIS learned from interviews with dozens of the Del Rio camp’s inhabitants against the backdrop of Joe Biden’s election and opening presidential moves on immigration policy.
By February 2021, it became clear that Biden’s first immigration policy actions — eliminating most interior deportations, getting rid of President Trump’s instant expulsion practices, and fast-track legalizing family groups and children who illegally crossed the border, for starters — had spurred a mass migration event. So Biden’s State Department went to Mexico and cut quid pro quo deals that asked Mexico to slow this migration down.
The administration offered Mexico and Central American nations billions in aid, for instance, as well as coronavirus vaccines. In return, Mexico agreed to a Biden request to keep a Trump-era Mexican National Guard deployment of 9,000 on its southern border with Guatemala.
Specifically, the troops would enforce a Mexican plan to require that arriving immigrants secure Mexican asylum or other legal permissions as a precondition to travel out of the country’s southernmost provinces. But approvals were slow-rolled, often for months.
Thousands backed up in and around the southern Chiapas State city of Tapachula — more than 20,000 Haitians, for instance, applied for Mexican asylum through July. Those who couldn’t hire expensive smugglers to end-run the new requirements were made to wait months for approvals that never seemed to come.
By the first week of September, frustration boiled into violent clashes as mostly Haitian immigrants formed caravans and tried to break through the National Guard. They and guard formations repeatedly clashed in southern Mexican towns and cities as Mexico tried to keep its word to the United States. The Mexican government forces were still battering the caravans for days by the second week of September, clubbing men, women, and children into vehicles for transport back south.
But then, on September 12, the Mexican government suddenly caved, according to migrants who later reached the Del Rio camp. Government officials in Mexico’s deep south had told them all: never mind the papers. They gave the Haitians a three-day grace period to clear out of Tapachula. An exodus of thousands promptly moved northward that day, mostly by bus — toward Del Rio, Texas, a day or two ride away.
The reason local officials gave the immigrants for this gift was the onset of El Grito. Mexico has never publicly confirmed this but it seems likely that the government wanted to grant the immigrant-weary people of southern Mexican states a reprieve from violent clashes that seemed poised to ruin the coming weeklong festivities of parades and cook-outs.
“The government allowed us to leave,” one of those Haitian migrants, who gave his name as Kelson, told CIS. He was with a small group that had just gotten off a bus that departed from Tapachula. The government decision to let everyone leave permit-less was very sudden. “We don’t know why, but a lot of the offices were going to be closing for the holiday.”
He said thousands of Tapachula migrants left town as soon as they could and headed for Ciudad Acuna and Del Rio.
Why Did They Go to Del Rio?
Another Haitian who wrote his name as Donley Vainqueur said he and his family were forced to wait in Tapachula for months, applying for what he termed “passports” to the rest of Mexico. He said every day he would go to check on the status of his application. Then, all of a sudden one day when he went to check, “They [Mexican immigration officials in Tapachula] said, ‘Okay, you can cross for three days because of the days of festivities.’”
Why did they go to Del Rio and not other, more trammeled parts of the Texas-Mexico border? Because it’s free to cross the Rio Grande here, and safe; Mexican cartels in the region are largely uninvolved in human smuggling, according to prior CIS reporting in March 2021 from Del Rio and across the river in Ciudad Acuna.
True to El Grito, Mexican authorities in Ciudad Acuna at the main Rio Grande crossing into the camp told CIS they were under orders not to interfere with the Haitians pouring over the Rio Grande into Del Rio. State police and National Guard could be seen passively observing as hundreds of migrants moved back and forth over the river within feet of them. One Coahuila police officer said they were stationed there to keep order against crime only.
By mid-week of the Del Rio camp crisis-within-a-crisis, however, the Mexican government was somehow made to realize its diplomatic affront.
Coahuila State Police with an armored vehicle blocking migrants from the river crossing to Del Rio. Photo by Todd Bensman.
Mexican Cooperation Is Crucial
Mexico’s central government ordered a sharp about-face with a series of tough enforcement moves, shutting off almost entirely the incoming spigot of migrants, that testify to the criticality of Mexican involvement in U.S. border security when that government is made to care.
After days of purposefully letting all migrants cross into Del Rio, the State Police manning the main crossing this time had that entry point roped off and completely vacant under new orders, the officers told CIS: let no one through.
Not that any migrants wanted to go through by then, because the Biden administration had just begun shipping the migrants back to Haiti aboard Immigration and Customs Enforcement air flights. This tactic, politically unpalatable to the Biden administration but reluctantly acknowledged as highly effective, sent thousands of the Del Rio camp migrants fleeing back into Mexico, no small few boarding southbound commercial buses, on just the chance that they might end up on an ICE flight, all who were interviewed told CIS in Acuna.
But even had they wanted to still cross at Del Rio or elsewhere in the area, they would have found this very difficult in Mexico with its turn-on-a-dime border policies.
In Ciudad Acuna, Mexican National Guard and immigration officials began running systematic raids on all hotels, rousting immigrants and putting them on daily flights out of the Acuna airport back, at least, to the southern Mexican provinces from which they came, members of the guard told CIS. Some credible media reports had it that Mexico would begin its own repatriation flights to Haiti. Meanwhile, National Guard roadblocks went up in central Mexico to turn around northbound buses carrying migrants.
A Mexican National Guard group during a raid on a Ciudad Acuna hotel rousting immigrants. Photo by Todd Bensman.
Mexican National Guard apprehend a Cameroonian migrant they flushed from a hotel room in Ciudad Acuna and who leaped from a second-floor balcony, shattering his leg. Photo by Todd Bensman.
The Lesson to Learn
Did the Biden State Department make some angry and demanding phone calls that included threats? That isn’t known for certain, but it undoubtedly happened. Whatever the Americans told Mexico to do, it did. And this amply demonstrates the sheer power that a more robust American approach to diplomacy with Mexico can have on mass illegal immigration.
None of this should surprise. When he was president, Trump did not rely on paying aid or giving medicines to the Mexican government to do his bidding; he threatened economically destructive trade tariffs on all Mexican exports if Mexico did cooperate with his policies and demands to slow migration on its southern border.
That’s why Mexico originally deployed its troops on the Guatemala border and at the northern border to block illegal immigration and deport most southward if they did not apply for asylum. And it worked for all of the time those threats remained on the table, as CIS reported from Tapachula in January 2020.
It’s a safe bet that Mexico would never have considered unleashing thousands of migrants for El Grito had President Trump been in office with his stick-based diplomacy about the border.
While it’s unclear whether the Biden State Department threatened Mexico mid-week to get its side of the camp under control, the key takeaway from the Del Rio experience is that a different American approach, perhaps one that includes the stick, would undoubtedly go far to eliminate the broader mass migration crisis along all of the U.S. southern border. That’s especially in conjunction with another important lesson learned from Del Rio.
The Repatriation Flights
Perhaps no tactic proved more impactful in ending the Del Rio camp than was the Biden administration’s politically unpalatable resort to the Trump-era policy of repatriation flights to Haiti. That’s especially when done in conjunction with Mexico’s (probably forced) repatriation flights, hotel raids, border closures across from Del Rio, and removal operations of other varieties mid-way through the camp crisis it directly caused for El Grito.
Some estimates suggest that as many as 5,000 of the Del Rio camp’s original residents fled back into Mexico. Migrants leaving on southbound buses and in a public park on the Mexican side across from Del Rio told CIS they were leaving in abject fear of the deportation flights.
Only about 2,500 of the 15,000 were flown to Haiti, but no matter. Those 2,500 texted and emailed warnings back to those still in the camp: Leave! Get out! Don’t go near the ICE buses! They’re going to deport you!
Wholesale repatriation by air did not seem necessary; just a small percentage seemed enough to send Haitians fleeing, dozens of migrants told CIS in Ciudad Acuna, to which they initially fled. Asked why one was going back to Tapachula, one typical migrant who’d fled Del Rio answered, with a touch of anger: “Because Biden said all Haitians coming will be returned to their country. We spent much money to come here. Much, much, much money. And we get nothing now. This is very sad for me.”
Of course, the Trump administration succeeded in reducing a mass migration episode that erupted in early 2019, in large part, by using air repatriation to home countries too. In 2019, for instance, the Trump administration deported 50,000 Guatemalan immigrants in a bid to increase the risk to others that their smuggling fees and effort would not pay off. Many stopped trying to come, unwilling to waste smuggling fee investments.
It remains unclear how long the Biden administration will use the repatriation flight option. Other important questions about it remain unanswered too, such as whether its use will be extended to the rest of the border or apply to the many other nationalities crossing the southern border in large numbers.
We Could Secure the Border If Biden Wanted
The important takeaway was that, even in this one limited experimental use of repatriation flights, it proved highly impactful as a real deterrent that stopped entry into the camp and then reduced the camp’s population almost single-handedly. Air repatriation was the single most effective tool the administration brought to bear in liquidating the camp. This is very much worth knowing because, if ever applied border-wide to a greater number of nationalities, the broader border crisis might be significantly attenuated.
Another key particle of related information worth knowing is how its use plays in migrants’ decision-making. Many of those who fled the Del Rio camp said they planned to disappear into Mexico City or Monterrey or Tapachula to get their Mexican asylum, work, and bide their time until one thing happens, and one thing only: the Biden administration stops the repatriation flights. Then they will return to cross the U.S. border.
During a major Chinese military airshow this week in which China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) showcased a number of advanced weapons and aircraft, a senior Chinese military leader issued a veiled challenge that if the U.S is not scared of China’s advanced weapons “let us meet in the sky.”
According to the South China Morning Post, during China’s Zhuhai military airshow on Wednesday Wang Wei, the Deputy Air Force commander of the People’s Liberation Army, referenced comments about China that U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall made in August. In an interview with Defense News, Kendall said the focus of the Air Force should be to stay ahead of China’s military technological developments to continue to field the types of weapons that “scare China.”
“Recently a counterpart of mine who is from a major country claimed that he wants to scare China,” Wang said, in an apparent reference to Kendall’s remarks.
“The Chinese navy is capable and confident to ensure national security and defend integrity, as well as make a contribution to world peace,” Wang added said. “I can only say, if they are not scared, let us meet in the sky.”
Wang’s threatening remarks extended not just from his own branch, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), but also the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).
According to the South China Morning Post, the Zhuhai Airshow showcased advanced Chinese stealth fighter jets fitted with domestically produced engines. According to the PLA’s website, the airshow also included appearances of J-20 stealth fighter jet.
Wang’s posturing comes as U.S. military forces have increasingly asserted their navigational rights in areas of the Pacific, even as China has sought to assert territorial claims throughout the region. China, in particular, has claimed a wide area of the South China Sea as its own, including the Spratly and Paracel Islands. China has also placed increasing pressure on the island of Taiwan, which governs itself as an independent nation but which China claims as its own territory.
In January, Chinese bombers and fighter jets also appeared to practice carrying out attack runs in the direction of a U.S. carrier group traveling through the South China Sea.
In his August interview with Defense News, Kendall said, “I’ve been obsessed, if you will, with China for quite a long time now — and its military modernization, what that implies for the US and for security.” Since taking office as the Air Force secretary, Kendall said, “I’ve gotten back up to speed on since I came back was our intelligence on what the Chinese are doing with their modernization programs. They’re moving faster than I might have anticipated. So, we have a lot of work to do.”
Iowa Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ amendment was rejected by 217 Democrats voting against it.
House Democrats blocked an effort to require COVID-19 testing and vaccinations for migrants stopped at the border before they are released into U.S. communities.
The move comes as President Biden requires federal employees, including members of the U.S. military and Border Patrol, to receive the COVID vaccine. The U.S. government will reportedly fund COVID testing for federal workers who are not yet vaccinated.
The amendment to require the testing of migrants was introduced by Iowa Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks as part of the continuing resolution that Congress was debating to keep the government funded through early December. The legislation ultimately passed the House without the amendment after House Democrats rejected it.
“My commonsense legislation would require the Department of Homeland Security to test all migrants illegally crossing our border who they plan to release into our communities, and they should be tested for COVID-19,” Miller-Meeks said.
Today, I offered my REACT Act on the House floor, which would require DHS to give a COVID test to everyone crossing our border illegally.
The majority chose to block this commonsense bill that would ensure the health and safety of border patrol and border communities. #IA02pic.twitter.com/Qwbc2ZjH04
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said recently that the 15,000 Haitian migrants who arrived at at the border in Del Rio, Texas were not tested by DHS for COVID-19.
The Biden Administration has been processing and releasing thousands of migrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border. Rather than provide all of the released migrants with a court date to appear for their asylum claim, many are reportedly being asked to voluntarily report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Republicans in Congress have argued that such as system is unsustainable and serves as a magnet for more illegal immigration into the U.S.
“Think about what they’re asking them to do,” New York Republican Rep. John Katko, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said during an interview with Just the News. “Don’t call us until this date and on this date, after you’ve settled into our country — where you have much more than you had in your own country you came from — then at that point call us so we can start deportation proceedings against you. I mean, come on, man, you know, they’re not going to do that.”
Miller-Meeks’ amendment was rejected by 217 Democrats voting against it.
“The majority chose to block this commonsense bill that would ensure the health and safety of border patrol and border communities,” Miller-Meeks wrote on Twitter.
A similar amendment from Miller-Meeks was blocked in March. According to House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s office, 970,000 migrants have crossed the border since her original amendment was defeated.
Two dozens Chinese fighter jets entered Taiwanese airspace on Thursday in a show of force amid rising tensions between China and the autonomous island.
China’s People’s Liberation Army flew 19 planes near Taiwan on Thursday morning and then sent five more in the afternoon, The Associated Press reported.
In response, Taiwan deployed air patrol forces and tracked the planes using its air defense systems.
In January, China ramped up its rhetoric toward Taiwan, with a defense ministry official warning that ” ‘Taiwan independence’ means war.” Since then, it has sent military aircraft toward Taiwan on a near-daily basis, according to the AP, but has stepped up those flights recently.
In June, the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized countries issued a statement seeking to “underscore the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and encourage the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues.”
“We remain seriously concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas and strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo and increase tensions,” the G-7 added.
The U.S. maintains unofficial relations with Taiwan, which China claims is part of its territory.
“This proposed sale serves U.S. national, economic and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability,” a notice from the State Department read. “The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, economic and progress in the region.”
Woman Injured by COVID Vaccine Pleads With Health Agencies for Help, as Local News Agency Kills Story After Pressure From Pfizer
In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Kristi Dobbs recounted how she’s spent nine months pleading with health agencies to research the neurological injuries she developed after Pfizer’s vaccine, and how she and others are trying to get the word out about the vaccine’s potential risks.
Kristi Dobbs, a 40-year-old dental hygienist from Missouri, said she can no longer work after being injured by Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. She has spent the past nine months pleading with U.S. health agencies to research the neurological injuries she and others are experiencing in hopes of finding a treatment.
Since getting the vaccine, Dobbs has seen 16 different medical providers. She’s been on 22 different medications to address more than 20 different symptoms — none of which she had prior to getting the vaccine.
Dobbs said she and others who developed neurological injuries after getting a COVID vaccine shared their experiences with a reporter, in hope of raising awareness about their experiences.
But the story never ran because, according to the reporter, a “higher up” at Pfizer pressured the news agency to drop it.
Dobbs got her first and only dose of Pfizer’s vaccine on Jan. 18. She immediately experienced an adverse reaction on-site at the hospital clinic where her vaccine was administered.
“I had barely sat down in the monitoring area after the inoculation and felt an odd tingling sensation running down my left arm, where I had just received the jab,” Dobbs wrote. “I immediately had a pre-syncope episode, where I thought I was going to pass out, heart palpitations, increased pulse, increased respirations and a blood pressure spike that was within a stroke-worthy reading.”
Dobbs was monitored for an additional 45 minutes. When her blood pressure dropped to a manageable range, she was released.
Dobbs said the people monitoring her brushed off her symptoms as a panic attack or hot flash. But she had never been afraid of vaccines, blood draws or needles. “I gave injections in the mouth as a hygienist, so it was no big deal to me,” Dobbs said.
Three days later, Dobbs woke up in the middle of the night and thought her whole bed was shaking, but her husband said he didn’t feel it. She also noticed shaking and trembling in her left hand, but thought maybe it was due to having coffee.
The next day, Dobbs felt a stabbing pain in her left scapula, and shaking and trembling sensations in both hands. As each day progressed, her symptoms worsened. “By day 10, I was in excruciating pain,” Dobbs said.
On Jan. 28, Dobbs went to a chiropractor in St. Louis to see what was causing the stabbing pain in her scapula and the radiating pain and tremors in both arms. The chiropractor thought she had a rib out, so he adjusted her.
The next morning Dobbs woke up with extreme pain and tremors throughout her entire body.
Dobbs wrote:
“On January 30, I’m in urgent care with stabbing pain in my left scapula regions, full body tremors, paresthesias from head to toe, swollen lymph nodes, tinnitus, dizziness, headache and an odd internal vibrating sensation.
“Urgent care doctor thinks I am having muscle spasms, and thinks I am stressed because of my mother in law [who was battling cancer] and traveling so much, so he [prescribed] Flexeril and Medrol dose pack.”
On Feb. 1, Dobbs visited a local chiropractor to see if she could help with the symptoms. As they were catching up, the chiropractor noticed Dobb’s tremors, body shakes and “super high” blood pressure.
Dobbs wrote:
“At this point I am having problems regulating my BP, and she knows that this is out of character for me. She asks me what I have done differently since I saw her last and I can’t think of anything, except the Pfizer vaccine.
“BINGO … That’s it, she says! She immediately stops and tells me that I need to get in to see my primary care provider.”
On Feb. 2, when Dobbs saw her primary care provider, she had visible tremors and whole body paresthesia. “[My care provider] had no clue if this could be vaccine-related, but didn’t dismiss the fact,” Dobbs said. “It was too new to tell, and she had no knowledge of any reactions.”
The doctor recommended anti-anxiety medication, ran labs, did a physical exam and sent her on her way. Shortly after, Dobbs experienced issues with heavy legs, and trouble walking and getting up stairs to the point she couldn’t feel pin pricks on her legs.
On Feb. 5, Dobbs went to the ER because she said she felt like she was dying.
She said:
“I had full-body paresthesia, internal tremors/vibrations, essential tremors in my hands, tremors in my arms and legs, fatigue, brain fog, muscle pain and weakness, pelvic pain, irregular menstrual cycles that included heavy bleeding and thick clotting, skin rashes, tinnitus, temperature regulation issues, swollen lymph nodes, loss of appetite, weight loss, dizziness/balance issues, blood pressure regulation issues, neck pain, headaches, heart palpitations, convulsions or pseudo seizure at night and insomnia.”
Like many others who have experienced neurological reactions to COVID vaccines, Dobbs had a CT scan and the results were normal. No other tests were performed.
“Doctors did not dismiss that this was vaccine-related, but they had no clue what to do or how to treat it if it was,” Dobbs said. “I was given another anti-anxiety medication, which did nothing for me, and was referred to a neurologist. In the meantime my vibrations, brain fog and other symptoms intensified.”
Dobbs saw a neurologist on Feb. 12, when the nurse practitioner ordered tests, an MRI and blood work. The MRI was normal, and Dobbs was prescribed another medication. Dobbs began searching for answers on her own.
She said:
“I was searching for answers on my own, and I came across an article in Neurology Today with a comment at the bottom of the article from a retired gastroenterologist who had been injured by the vaccine, and she left her email address. That was the day I knew I was not alone in this vaccine injury journey. I had found Dr. Danice Hertz. She was in contact with a few others injured as well.”
Dobbs said she and others started a private social media group to collaborate because their local doctors did not know what to do and “elite doctors” either don’t know what to do or “were unwilling to help us.”
Dobbs said the vaccine injury group grew by 400% in two days and, in under a year, thousands of injured people had found each other. “Soon we all knew we were not alone, yet no one had answers yet,” she said.
“Danice [Hertz] emailed doctors every day for help,” Dobbs said, “and it wasn’t until March 9 she got through to Dr. Avindra Nath at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and I was able to call them and get a telehealth appointment with Dr. Farinaz Safavi.”
Dobbs said Safavi was aware of these neurological vaccine reactions — as the NIH was already seeing patients for injuries like these — and recommended a “whole host of new tests run by my hometown doctor, as well as certain procedures she thought could potentially cure me.”
On April 19, Safavi wrote in an email to Dobbs that information regarding these adverse events would be published soon — and “hopefully, by that time, healthcare providers would have a better idea what to do with these side-effects,” she said.
The NIH requested blood samples, a complete medical release for history and test results that had already been completed. “I sent all of it,” Dobbs said. “We had very good conversations for the next several weeks, and then by early May … nothing. Still to date I have heard nothing from them.”
Dobbs said, “Supposedly she [Dr. Safavi] called the neurologist, but the neurologist said she never called her for recommendations. The immunology allergist never received a call either.”
When Dobbs reached out to Safavi again in May, her tune changed. “It’s like they went from ‘we know it’s the vaccine’ to ‘we’re trying to figure it out.’”
Dobbs explained:
“It’s like as soon as they got what they needed, we were just cut off. Even some of the ladies that went to the NIH for treatment — once they were done with treatment with these same doctors — they were essentially cut off when they weren’t getting better.
“Their exact verbiage to us was ‘you need early and swift intervention after a vaccine reaction.’ But here we are months after an adverse reaction and our hometown doctors have no clue what to do.”
Safavi, in an email to Dobbs on May 24, said she believed Dobbs was experiencing an immune-mediated inflammatory response or some other immune-mediated small fiber neuropathy.
According to Alexander Chamessian, MD PhD, small-fiber neuropathy is a neurological disorder involving widespread damage to the small-diameter somatic and autonomic unmyelinated C-fibers and/or thinly myelinated A-delta fibers.
Patients often experience pins-and-needles or burning pain sensations. Damage to the autonomic small fibers can cause dysfunction in key systems controlling blood pressure, heart rate and gastrointestinal motility.
Dobbs has seen more than 16 different medical providers, including an allergy immunologist, who took blood samples and discovered Dobbs had antiphospholipid antibodies — a group of immune proteins (antibodies) the body mistakenly produces against itself in an autoimmune response to phospholipids.
A dermatologist diagnosed Dobbs with granuloma annulare, an inflammatory skin condition caused by the immune response her body had, which left her with skin lesions.
Dobbs also tested positive for blood-clotting factors, had high inflammatory markers and lab values that indicated her immune system was poorly functioning.
One neurologist believed Dobbs was having an immune inflammatory response to Pfizer’s vaccine, caused by inflamed nerves.
Dobbs had an ultrasound of her kidneys, which showed they were not working properly. “My kidneys were holding onto water, but by the time I saw the urologist a month later the hydronephrosis was clear,” she said.
Dobbs said:
“No one knows what to do for me, or how to treat this vaccine reaction. I have really great doctors here at home, and as they have all said. ‘We don’t really know what to do, but we can try to treat the symptoms.’
“There is no medication or supplement strong enough to ease the pain, or control the constant symptoms that plague me 24/7. There is still no acknowledgement from NIH, CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration], pharmaceutical companies, or any other governmental entity or institute that follows vaccine safety and side effects to date.”
Group conducts survey that shows signal concerns
Dobbs said once they established their Facebook group, the members knew they needed a better way to convey their ailments so others could easily read and identify them.
“From there, we started our own patient-lead surveys, which gave statistical data that was entered into a spreadsheet,” Dobbs said. “We then had a top epidemiologist review the information and compared the numbers to previous vaccinations and injuries. We were all astonished by the numbers.”
The survey assessed reports of paresthesia following COVID vaccination from the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), and compared it to reports of paresthesia following 2009 swine flu monovalent AS03-adjuvanted pandemic vaccine — a vaccine that was associated with disturbances similar to those experienced after COVID vaccines.
According to the NIH, paresthesia refers to a burning, numbness, skin-crawling or prickling sensation usually felt in the hands, arms, legs or feet, but can also occur in other parts of the body.
Chronic paresthesia is often a symptom of an underlying neurological disease or traumatic nerve damage. Paresthesia can be caused by disorders affecting the central nervous system.
For the survey, VAERS reports of paresthesia following all COVID vaccines were collected, and the rate of reporting per 100,000 vaccinated people was calculated. The total VAERS reports of paresthesia following COVID vaccines as of June 18 were 13,559, with 5,818 attributed to Pfizer, 4514 to Moderna and 1,317 to Johnson & Johnson.
The total number of vaccines administered as of June 25, per CDC’s COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker, was 178,491,147. The VAERS rate of paresthesia as an adverse event was 7.6 per every 100,000 people.
The rate of paresthesia following the 2009 swine flu monovalent AS03-adjuvanted pandemic vaccine was 7.7 per every 100,000 people — and was found to be the third most frequent adverse event following allergic and local reactions associated with the vaccine.
VAERS reports of paresthesia following all vaccines administered between 2006-2016 were also collected and the rate of reporting per 100,000 vaccinated people was calculated. The number of vaccines administered was obtained from Health Resources and Services Administration data and statistics on vaccine rates.
According to the survey, there were 7,157 VAERS reports of paresthesia between 2006 and 2016, out of a total of 3,153,876,236 vaccinations administered during the same time period.
The rate of paresthesia following all vaccines between 2006 and 2016 was 0.2 for every 100,000 people.
“These data suggest the rate of paresthesia following COVID-19 vaccines is the same as the rate calculated in the De Serres paper on paresthesia following the 2009 swine flu pandemic vaccine and is 38 times the rate seen in all vaccines during a 10-year period of time,” wrote Dr. Eileen Natuzzi, surgeon and public health epidemiologist.
Paresthesia is an unrecognized adverse event following vaccination with the current COVID vaccines, Natuzzi wrote. The data is observational, but suggests a signal of concern that should be studied in more depth.
Survey data from 100 participants also showed the following results:
Pfizer pressures media outlet to pull vaccine injury story
Dobbs said she and others knew they needed to tell their stories, without causing “vaccine hesitancy,” to protect others from the same fate — so members of the group started writing and calling anyone who would listen, including reporters, news agencies and members of Congress.
“This is a hard thing to do without being labeled anti-vax, fear-mongering or a misinformation spreader,” Dobbs said. “But there was nowhere else to turn for help. A lot of us are so injured at this time, that the very thought of getting out of bed was exhausting. We had to persevere, so that we could be seen, heard, believed and most of all helped.”
Dobbs said they tried the best they could as simple Americans to reach out to those who would hear their stories. Finally, a reporter from a small media company was willing to do a story. Dobbs and others from the group participated in a 2-hour and 40-minute interview.
“The story never went anywhere,” Dobbs said. She said the reporter told them a “higher up” at Pfizer made a call to the station and pressured staff there into not covering any other stories about vaccine adverse reactions.
Dobbs said she emailed Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the FDA, but never heard anything from him. She never received a response from Nath at the NIH either.
She explained:
“I’ve been working my butt off to try and get my story out because I don’t want this to affect other people, but I don’t see how perfect strangers that were living normal lives found each other through social media, and there are thousands and thousands that have been affected, but you hear nothing about these stories. If it’s so safe then how have we found so many people on our own who have been affected by the vaccine?”
Dobbs did receive an email response from Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA, who said she was sorry to hear about her symptoms and that the FDA would look into the situation. “That was April 18,” Dobbs said. “I haven’t heard anything since.”
Dobbs also reported her adverse event to Pfizer, which did not follow-up, and filed a report with VAERS.
In June, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) gave a few of the group members a platform at a press conference for the media to “hear us, see us and believe us,” Dobbs said. But “they wanted nothing to do with us.”
Dobbs said:
“Their only questions were about who paid for us to get to Wisconsin, and are we going to sue for compensation of injuries. No further questions about lack of medical care, what they could do to help bring awareness, nothing. We did get some other interviews with Newsmax and Fox, but again we were given a small platform for a moment and then hushed again. We move one step forward and get two steps back.”
Dobbs said the group has “tried to do their due diligence by reporting to the big pharma regulatory agencies, although the NIH has been fully aware vaccine injuries were occurring since February.”
Dobbs said she is working with other researchers — not affiliated with the NIH — who are running totally different blood markers.
“They were initially doing studies on COVID long-haul patients to discover why they were becoming ‘long-haulers’ when they realized people were getting injured by vaccines and experiencing the same symptoms,” Dobbs said.
“The one thing they’re finding that we all have in common is the spike protein in non-classical monocytes,” Dobbs said.
Dobbs wants government acknowledgment and accountability for vaccine injuries
Dobbs still has many of her symptoms, is not well enough to return to work and has a difficult time caring for her family.
“I was never a conspiracy theorist or anti-medicine, but it should not be this hard to get the truth out in 2021,” Dobbs said. “I am not saying the vaccine needs to be stopped, but it’s not as safe or effective as they’re portraying it is.”
Dobbs said she would do anything to make sure others are protected from the same “personal hell” she’s gone through the past nine months, or to save children like Maddie de Garay — a 12-year-old who was paralyzed by Pfizer’s vaccine during the clinical trial.
Dobbs was told specifically not to vaccinate any of her children, which puts her in a tough spot with vaccine mandates. “I believe it would kill me if I got another COVID vaccination and I would never put my children through this … ever,” she said.
However, this also means they’re in the category of people who are discriminated against because they cannot get vaccinated.
Dobbs said:
“The moral of the story is that we’ve been injured by the vaccine, we’ve been searching for months for answers and we are unable to get help. We have reached out to the best doctors in the world and they cannot help us.
“So if you can’t get help from the top doctors in the U.S., how can our hometown doctors help us? We never wanted to start this, we only wanted help, and after not getting help you start to get a little angry. When your body fails, you want to know why.
“We have some researchers willing to help us but they are hindered by a lack of information they need to conduct their research, and there are no adverse reaction clinics where we can go to get treated.”
Dobbs said these reactions need to be investigated and observed. “Then they need to be researched and education needs to be presented. Action needs to be taken for the correct measures to be issued to protect and compensate those of us who have been affected by the COVID vaccines under clinical trials, and under Emergency Use Authorization. Treatment protocols must be implemented in our medical community to give early and proper treatment to those affected,” she added.
Dobbs said she doesn’t want to create vaccine hesitancy, she wants accountability from governing agencies, big pharma and institutes that regulate and roll out vaccines. “The fear-mongering, cancel-culture and misinformation days of those truly injured must stop,” she said.
“I have nothing to gain by giving my testimony of truth to my vaccine injury from the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine,” Dobbs wrote in an email to The Defender. “I was just a small-town country girl raising my family, and enjoying my life as a family caretaker, mother and wife. But I was completely uprooted from my beautiful, normal, happy life. But, my voice matters! My story matters!”