WASHINGTON – On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) hosted a roundtable discussion, COVID-19 Vaccines: What they Are, How They Work, and Possible Causes of Injuries, to shed light on the current state of knowledge surrounding the vaccine and explore the path forward. The experts and medical professionals who joined Sen. Johnson at the roundtable discussed the scientific background of the coronavirus, functionality of the vaccine, failures in the pandemic response, early treatment drugs, adverse reactions, vaccine injuries and plans for future research and response.

Sen: Ron Johnson at yesterday’s panel: “I do want to point out the complexity of what we're dealing with here. I think of many problems during the pandemic, one of the biggest casualties was just modesty in admitting how much we don't know. I really want that sinking in, understand how much we don't know about the body, about its response about, quite honestly, our marvelous natural immunity, and then how man’s interventions might just screw that up. I think we need to be honest, we need to admit that so I'm hoping we can talk about that complexity today.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Sen. Johnson has been a strong proponent of holding the federal government accountable for their failed response to COVID-19 and a leading advocate for early treatment, healthcare freedom and individuals who have experienced adverse reactions.  Yesterday’s three-hour discussion was Sen. Johnson’s fifth roundtable on COVID-19.

In June 2021, he held a press conference in Milwaukee with vaccine injured from Wisconsin and around the country. In November 2021, he held a roundtable with vaccine injured and medical experts entitled “Sen. Johnson Expert Panel on Vaccine Mandates.” In January 2022, he held a discussion with doctors and medical experts entitled “COVID-19: A Second Opinion.” In April 2022 he held a listening session with Wisconsin parents to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on their children’s education. He has also written dozens of oversight letters to our federal health agencies pressing for transparency and accountability regarding the administration’s unsuccessful and harmful COVID-19 policies.

Sen. Johnson also extended an invitation to the following agencies and drug companies to hear firsthand about the impact of their failed response to COVID-19. All declined to participate.

• Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Dr. Lawrence A. Tabak, DDS, Ph.D., Acting Director of the National Institutes of Health
• Dr. John R. Raymond Sr., MD, President and CEO of Medical College of Wisconsin
• Dr. Albert Bourla, DVM, Ph.D., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer
• Dr. U?ur ?ahin, MD, Chief Executive Officer of BioNTech
• Stéphane Bancel, MBA, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna Therapeutics
• Dr. Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator
• Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, MD, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Chief Medical Advisor to the President
• Dr. Robert M. Califf, MD, MACC, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration
• Dr. Peter Marks, MD, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration
• Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, MD, MPH, MBA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force

Watch the full roundtable HERE.

Highlights are below.

Dr. David Gortler on calling for more public health transparency

“I’m disheartened to see what’s going on with these vaccines or gene therapy, as I constantly go back and forth with labeling it one or the other. But even more upsetting is I can’t believe that the FDA, where I’ve worked as a career medical officer, that I’m the only person who, out of the 20,000 employees or so at the FDA, physicians, pharmacists, nurses, public health officials, that’s here speaking out about this. I don’t understand. These people took oaths, and I don’t understand why other people aren’t speaking out.”

Dr. Joel Wallskog on the lack of support for the vaccine injured

“Let me be clear. For those that are considering a COVID shot, if you have an adverse event after your shot, you are on your own. If you are a parent considering a shot for your child and they have an adverse event, you and your child are on your own. If you can't work, your employer like mine may abandon you. There is little to no financial recourse for you. There is no one to sue. You will likely not be able to find a provider who recognizes and treats COVID 19 vaccine injuries. You may be shunned by family and friends because you are the objective evidence that the vaccine has real complications. You are the vaccine's dirty little secret. After your adverse event, you will likely decide not to vaccinate your children with the COVID shot. And ironically, you'll be called an anti-vaxxer. I urge you to demand informed consent when considering COVID-19 vaccination. That includes understanding the risks, benefits and options of the shot. Demand this from your provider if they use the simple term, quote ‘safe and effective,’ I urge you to run, not walk, and find a new provider and educate yourself about the significant risks, limited benefits and alternatives of the COVID shots.”

Dr. Kirk Milhoan on myocarditis in children

“Having spent time with thousands of patients explaining their child's heart problem, if your child has to be hospitalized in the ICU with myocarditis, even if I call it a mild case, no parent ever thinks that their child being in a pediatric ICU is mild.

“A study was recently published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health. It shows the outcomes of at least 90 days since the onset of myocarditis after mRNA COVID vaccination in adolescents and young adults in the USA. And what they found was pretty alarming. What they showed was that if they looked at the echocardiogram and EKG, that those all went back pretty close to baseline in the majority of patients. And that's what you often hear. ‘Oh, the EKG was normal.’ ‘Oh, the echocardiogram was normal or the blood test to see if the heart was inflamed, the troponin, it's all back to normal.’ However, if they dug a little deeper, what they saw was that the if they looked with a cardiac MRI, one of our most sensitive tests to look for damage to the heart, they saw that in 151 kids who had an MRI at 90 days, 81 of them still had damage to their heart and the damage was of late gadolinium enhancement, which is associated with sudden cardiac death. I am passionate for the health of our children.”

Dr. Robert Malone on the federal government’s manipulative COVID-19 vaccine message

“I guarantee I would not have promised things that I did not have data for. I would not have substituted hope for data. I would not have deployed an amazingly powerful and highly coordinated propaganda campaign to compel Americans to accept an unlicensed product on the basis of hope. And I refer, of course, to the quotes from Deborah Birx and from Rochelle Walensky. This is not acceptable, in my opinion, in terms of a basis for public policy.”

Dr. Renata Moon on countries banning the COVID-19 vaccine

“You know, as a pediatrician, I have to speak to the health of our nation's children. And we are being asked to inject this product into our nation's kids who have essentially a 0% risk of harm. When I bring up with families that other reputable countries have banned this, they're stunned. They haven't heard this from our mainstream media. And I do think we need to pause for a second and just stress how relevant that is. Other nations have banned this product because it's too dangerous for younger people. What are we doing?”

Dr. Paul Marik on the FDA sabotaging use of early treatment drugs

“The FDA themselves promotes the use of off label drugs. They in fact encourage the use of off label and off labeling is just a technical point about advertising. These are FDA approved drugs which the FDA on their own website promotes about 40% of drugs. 40% of drugs used in hospitals are used off label. Dr. McCullough uses off label drugs every single day in his career. That's fine if you're treating heart disease, but certainly if it's coronavirus that the FDA, the CDC, the NIH do not want you to use an off label drug because it would compete with Big Pharma. And in my hospital I was banned or discouraged from using off label drugs, which we use every day. Methylprednisolone, Vitamin C. My hospital would not allow me to use vitamin C. We're talking about basic safe drugs and it's an outrage.”

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