Tax records reveal the lucrative world of covid misinformation

[Social Media]

Uncovering the Lucrative World of COVID Misinformation: Tax Records Reveal

 

In a detailed analysis of tax records, The Washington Post has uncovered a concerning trend: major nonprofits capitalizing on the spread of COVID misinformation have collectively amassed over $118 million between 2020 and 2022. These organizations, known for their dissemination of medical falsehoods, have utilized this funding to bolster their influence in various sectors, including state legislatures, courtrooms, and communities nationwide.

 

Among the prominent groups highlighted in the investigation are Children’s Health Defense, founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which saw a staggering increase in revenue to $23.5 million in 2022 alone, and the Informed Consent Action Network, whose revenue nearly quadrupled to approximately $13.4 million during the same period. Additionally, the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance and America’s Frontline Doctors, initially receiving $1 million combined in 2020, experienced a significant surge to over $21 million combined in 2022.

 

These organizations, often at odds with scientific consensus, spread doubts about vaccine safety and promote alternative treatments for COVID-19, despite evidence to the contrary. Such misinformation, according to Arthur Caplan, a medical ethics expert, poses a grave risk to public health, potentially leading to dire consequences in the long term.

 

The influx of funding has not only enabled these groups to amplify their misinformation campaigns but has also facilitated significant increases in executive compensation. For instance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. saw his salary double to over $510,000 in 2022, while Del Bigtree, Executive Director of the Informed Consent Action Network, received a 22 percent salary increase to $284,000 during the same period.

 

Moreover, the substantial financial resources have empowered these organizations to wage legal battles against vaccine mandates and other public health measures. Children’s Health Defense, for example, has allocated millions to legal fees and pursued numerous lawsuits challenging vaccine requirements and media outlets.

 

While the sources of funding for these nonprofits often remain undisclosed, The Washington Post investigation identified significant contributions from donor-advised funds, raising concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding these donations. Entities like the National Christian Foundation and DonorsTrust have funneled substantial sums to these groups, further fueling their misinformation campaigns.

 

Public health experts warn that the proliferation of COVID misinformation, fueled by these well-funded organizations, could have devastating consequences, including a resurgence of preventable diseases and increased vaccine hesitancy. As such, there is growing scrutiny and calls for accountability regarding the funding and activities of these groups, with concerns raised about the impact on public health and societal trust in scientific consensus.

 

23.02.24

Source

 

 

 

[stevenl]

With the gullible falling for it.

[Foxx]

1 hour ago, stevenl said:

With the gullible falling for it.

 

and dying.

[Roo Island]

On 2/23/2024 at 7:08 AM, stevenl said:

With the gullible falling for it.

We see a lot here.

[Amethyst]

A post with unsourced and unsubstantiated claims has been removed, along with several ensuing replies.

 

[thaicurious]

As if these so-called Christians complicit in COVID deaths weren't galling enough, also they get to keep their nonprofit tax advantage while doing harm to the population of the country giving them those tax breaks--in a swirl of insanity--to help facilitate the harm they do to that very population while being paid profit, um, I mean exorbitant salaries.

 

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/300209280#:~:text=Designated as a 501(c)3

National Christian Foundation Inc

Alpharetta, GA

Tax-exempt since Dec. 2003

EIN: 30-0209280

 

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/How to Lose Your Tax Exempt Status.pdf

1. Private Benefit/Inurement Private benefit: A 501(c)(3) organization’s activities should be directed toward some exempt purpose. Its activities should not serve the private interests, or private benefit, of any individual or organization

 

2. Lobbying Lobbying is when an organization contacts, or urges the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body (or any executive branch official who may participate in the formulation of legislation) for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or when the organization advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation.

 

How about the IRS adds another 3. Using supposed nonprofit funds to disseminate propaganda that causes COVID deaths

Edited February 25 by thaicurious

[Danderman123]

There's a lot of suckers out there.

[KhunLA]

Do those numbers compare to all the billions big pharma made, telling all the healthy younger people to get vaccinated that were probably not at risk of any ill effects from covid ?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, KhunLA said:

not at risk of any ill effects from covid ?

 

Not at risk of any ill effects from COVID?

 

You mean like these?

 

COVID deaths by age group thru Sept. 2023 per US CDC:

 

 

Source:

 

Being dead would certainly seem to suggest risk.

 

Or these?

Young kids also at risk of severe illness

Infants and young children under age 4 have the third-highest rate of hospitalizations by age group at 1.6% per 100,000 for the week ending Dec. 2, CDC data shows.

 

Although children are less likely to fall severely ill and die from COVID compared to adults, they can get sick enough to be hospitalized.

 

Schaffner said it's a fallacy for a parent to think their child does not need to get vaccinated because they are relatively healthy because children can fall severely ill. What's more, studies have shown that COVID vaccines do decrease hospitalizations among kids."

 

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/covid-19-hospitalizations-increasing-us-rates-highest-oldest/story?id=105452104

 

More risk...

 

Or these?

 

COVID hospitalization rates in babies as bad as for seniors amid Omicron wave, study shows

 

"Infants younger than 6 months had the same rate of hospitalization as seniors age 65 to 74 during this summer’s Omicron wave, according to a new report.

 

The findings, published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show that COVID-19 can still cause severe and fatal outcomes in children too young to be vaccinated.

 

“These findings underscore the continued risk for COVID-19–associated hospitalization among infants [younger than] six months who are ineligible for vaccination,” the report said.

 

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-11-30/covid-hospitalization-in-babies-as-bad-as-seniors-during-omicron-study-shows

 

Even more risk...

 

Though the risk among the elderly is in fact the greatest, all of the above certainly presents a strong case that there in fact risk for younger people, especially for the unvaccinated, as the LA Times report above illustrates.

 

I.e., getting vaccinated for COVID, less risk.

 

 

 

[KhunLA]

Some interesting numbers, Deaths in USA. 

Number of deaths per 100k by age group, before & after vaccines were available.

 

Considering the virus had mutated down to a milder form by 2022, that's not looking very good for the vaccines.  Except for oldest group, every age group had increases after the vaccines were available.

source

Edited March 5 by KhunLA

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

You're surprised COVID deaths went up in the U.S. by January 2022 (compared to April 2020) during the latter period when the Omicron wave hit and cases exploded, leading to the second highest peak of COVID fatalities during the pandemic?

 

"In the battle against COVID-19, Omicron has been a difficult opponent. The variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 first surfaced in the United States toward the end of 2021 and spread like wildfire, spawning new sub-strains—some more transmissible than others."

 

https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/5-things-to-know-omicron

 

And even so, those who chose to get vaccinated were fortunate they did:

 

Impact of U.S. COVID-19 Vaccination Efforts: An Update on Averted Deaths, Hospitalizations, and Health Care Costs Through March 2022

 

April 8, 2022

 

"Through March 2022, we estimate that COVID-19 vaccination efforts in the U.S. prevented over 2 million deaths and 17 million hospitalizations (Table 1). There would have been an estimated 66 million additional infections and nearly $900 billion in associated health care costs in the absence of vaccination.

 

 

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2022/impact-us-covid-19-vaccination-efforts-march-update

 

The Omicron spike in the U.S. from early 2022:

 

 

Source:

 

Not to mention, a sizable portion of the U.S. population (more than 30% during that period) chose not to get fully vaccinated against COVID, and as the above report from 2022 noted:

 

"Unvaccinated Americans have rates of preventable COVID-19 hospitalization and death that are significantly higher than those for vaccinated Americans."

 

Less than 70% primary vaccination rate in the U.S. as of more than a year later as of May 2023, so lots of COVID unprotected people out there at the time:

 

 

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-booster-percent-pop5

 

 

[KhunLA]

9 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

You're surprised COVID deaths went up in the U.S. by January 2022 (compared to April 2020) during the latter period when the Omicron wave hit and cases exploded, leading to the second highest peak of COVID fatalities during the pandemic?

 

"In the battle against COVID-19, Omicron has been a difficult opponent. The variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 first surfaced in the United States toward the end of 2021 and spread like wildfire, spawning new sub-strains—some more transmissible than others."

 

https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/5-things-to-know-omicron

 

And even so, those who chose to get vaccinated were fortunate they did:

 

Impact of U.S. COVID-19 Vaccination Efforts: An Update on Averted Deaths, Hospitalizations, and Health Care Costs Through March 2022

 

April 8, 2022

 

"Through March 2022, we estimate that COVID-19 vaccination efforts in the U.S. prevented over 2 million deaths and 17 million hospitalizations (Table 1). There would have been an estimated 66 million additional infections and nearly $900 billion in associated health care costs in the absence of vaccination.

 

 

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2022/impact-us-covid-19-vaccination-efforts-march-update

 

The Omicron spike in the U.S. from early 2022:

 

 

Source:

 

Not to mention, a sizable portion of the U.S. population (more than 30% during that period) chose not to get fully vaccinated against COVID, and as the above report from 2022 noted:

 

"Unvaccinated Americans have rates of preventable COVID-19 hospitalization and death that are significantly higher than those for vaccinated Americans."

 

Less than 70% primary vaccination rate in the U.S. as of more than a year later as of May 2023, so lots of COVID unprotected people out there at the time:

 

 

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-booster-percent-pop5

 

 

 

I'm not surprised at all...

 

No surprise the cases went up, and to be expected, but the 'Deaths per 100k" in some age groups a considerable amount, even 50% in one.

 

Edited March 5 by stats
unsourced and unsubstantiated claims removed

[eisfeld]

8 hours ago, KhunLA said:

Some interesting numbers, Deaths in USA. 

Number of deaths per 100k by age group, before & after vaccines were available.

 

Considering the virus had mutated down to a milder form by 2022, that's not looking very good for the vaccines.  Except for oldest group, every age group had increases after the vaccines were available.

source

 

That's a misleading or at best meaningless comparison without also comparing to people who did vs who didn't get vaccinated. You also picked two specific points in time from a graph that had huge swings.

 

It's also off-topic because the topic is the money the misinformation spreaders have suckered from gullible people who believe their conspiracy theories.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

45 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

No surprise the cases went up, and to be expected, but the 'Deaths per 100k" in some age groups a considerable amount, even 50% in one.

 

As Eisfeld noted above, your cherry picked "before and later" comparison is pretty meaningless, and says nothing about the effectiveness of COVID vaccines...

 

Meaningless also because the end date comparison point you (or some anti-vax site) cherry picked not coincidentally was the 2nd highest deaths period of the pandemic driven by the arrival of the immune evasive Omicron variant.

 

When there's a huge spike in COVID cases and death as occurred during the Omicron wave... raw numbers are going to spiral the case and death rates per capita... because more people are being infected and dying... Hardly any surprise about that.

 

 

Source link:

 

 

[KhunLA]

I didn't cherry pick anything.  Picked 2 graphs, one before vaccines were available, and the virus was more of an issue, along with less known how to treat it.

 

The 2nd,  after vaccines & boosters administered, during a weaker variant, after they knew how better to treat, and death per 100k increased, some age groups dramatically.

 

As you say, science doesn't lie ........  neither do the numbers.  Just accept the truth is finally coming out, and people have woken up to the BS ... IMHO

 

Have a nice day.

BYE BYE

Edited March 5 by KhunLA

[eisfeld]

1 hour ago, KhunLA said:

I didn't cherry pick anything.  Picked 2 graphs, one before vaccines were available, and the virus was more of an issue, along with less known how to treat it.

 

The 2nd,  after vaccines & boosters administered, during a weaker variant, after they knew how better to treat, and death per 100k increased, some age groups dramatically.

 

As you say, science doesn't lie ........  neither do the numbers.  Just accept the truth is finally coming out, and people have woken up to the BS ... IMHO

 

Have a nice day.

BYE BYE

 

You cherry picked because you took two specific points in time on a graph. Why those specific ones? If you choose some others the picture could be reversed. @TallGuyJohninBKK already pointed that out.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

10 minutes ago, eisfeld said:

 

You cherry picked because you took two specific points in time on a graph. Why those specific ones? If you choose some others the picture could be reversed. @TallGuyJohninBKK already pointed that out.

 

I'm guessing the origin of the graphic posted above lies elsewhere, because the cited source website doesn't show or produce side by side graphics exactly like the one posted above....

 

And whoever went in and chose the two time periods and then added their own text labeling to the created graphic obviously was spelling challenged, as highlighted below.

 

 

Edited March 5 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[eisfeld]

6 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

I'm guessing the origin of the graphic posted above lies elsewhere, because the cited source website doesn't show or produce side by side graphics exactly like the one posted above....

 

And whoever went in and chose the two time periods and then added their own text labeling to the created graphic obviously was spelling challenged, as highlighted below.

 

 

 

Good point. It's two screenshots stitched together and labels added. @KhunLA did you get that from somewhere else?

Edited March 5 by eisfeld

[KhunLA]

1 hour ago, eisfeld said:

 

Good point. It's two screenshots stitched together and labels added. @KhunLA did you get that from somewhere else?

If you actually put your cursor over the graph, the labels/info will appear.  I simply took screenshot, of 2 of the peeks, and put them side by side for easy comparison.  No deception.  

 

You can pick any corresponding points you want, on those 2 years, before and after vaccines were given, and I doubt if your numbers would show much of a difference.  Less deaths per 100k before the vaccines were distributed.  

 

All things being equal, you'd expect the opposite, since weakened variants, and better knowledge how to treat the virus.  Yet higher deaths per 100k after being vaccinated.

 

Now who's cherry picking ?

 

 

[eisfeld]

1 hour ago, KhunLA said:

If you actually put your cursor over the graph, the labels/info will appear.  I simply took screenshot, of 2 of the peeks, and put them side by side for easy comparison.  No deception.  

 

You can pick any corresponding points you want, on those 2 years, before and after vaccines were given, and I doubt if your numbers would show much of a difference.  Less deaths per 100k before the vaccines were distributed.  

 

All things being equal, you'd expect the opposite, since weakened variants, and better knowledge how to treat the virus.  Yet higher deaths per 100k after being vaccinated.

 

Now who's cherry picking ?

 

 

 

It's still you. See attached an alternative screenshot for the "after vaccines" timeframe which shows much lower death numbers compared to your "before vaccines" one. I'm not sure why you can't see that picking a different point on the graph completely changes the narrative and therefor it's meaningless to do this comparison. Your x-axis points are completely arbitrary apart from earlier and later in the timeframe and do not respresent trends, averages or anything. It's just peaks. Why?

 

 

And just to stress it once more: you did not compare vaccinated vs non-vaccinated numbers and yet used your unrelated numbers to somehow argue against vaccines. It doesn't check out.

Edited March 5 by eisfeld

[KhunLA]

3 hours ago, eisfeld said:

 

It's still you. See attached an alternative screenshot for the "after vaccines" timeframe which shows much lower death numbers compared to your "before vaccines" one. I'm not sure why you can't see that picking a different point on the graph completely changes the narrative and therefor it's meaningless to do this comparison. Your x-axis points are completely arbitrary apart from earlier and later in the timeframe and do not respresent trends, averages or anything. It's just peaks. Why?

 

 

And just to stress it once more: you did not compare vaccinated vs non-vaccinated numbers and yet used your unrelated numbers to somehow argue against vaccines. It doesn't check out.

Now who's cherry picking ?

I picked 2 peaks, you pick one of the lowest valleys.   I'm surprised you didn't pick Jan 2024

 

Just like now, older, unhealthy people dying of respiratory infections.

Low valley before vaccines:

 

Low valley (yours) after vaccines

Edited March 5 by KhunLA

[dhupverg]

I'd love to see the tax records of those like Scott Gottlieb, who move back and forth from public service, to sitting on the board of big pharma companies.  There's a number of these types of grifters pulling in millions sitting on boards to convince their pals in gov't jobs to help them out, with a promise of a lucrative consulting or board position after gov't work.  

[eisfeld]

5 hours ago, KhunLA said:

Now who's cherry picking ?

I picked 2 peaks, you pick one of the lowest valleys.   I'm surprised you didn't pick Jan 2024

 

Just like now, older, unhealthy people dying of respiratory infections.

Low valley before vaccines:

 

Low valley (yours) after vaccines

 

Of course I now cherry picked because I gave an example of cherry picking to you! I did the same as you! Picking any point on the graph is cherry picking. You picked arbitrary peaks. Why do you think those are in any way meaningful as a comparison vaccine vs non-vaccine? It simply doesn't work that way in statistics.

 

If you want to show the effect of vaccines then you can't compare the overall population. You need to compare vaccinated vs non-vaccinated. Isn't that extremely obvious? It's the most basic thing when you want to start some analysis. You can't just pick random points on a graph that mixes both together when there are a million other factors. And if you at least showed cummulative numbers, trends or really anything more meaningful. But what you picked is about the worst that you could have in terms of analysis.