2022-03-21 Speech notes for the Toronto Board of Health
The Truckers would do a better job running TPH
I address these comments particularly to my councillor, Mr Paul Ainslie. Please see https://f2sg.substack.com/p/2022-03-21-speech-notes-for-the-toronto for the notes and references for this speech. I think the common factor that underlies the six risks the Medical Officer of Health outlines in her 2021-03-07 risk report is how TPH engages with evidence. Here are some examples.
Censoring Dan Hartman
The YouTube minutes for the 2022-01-17 BoH meeting censor most of Dan Hartman's comments about the death of his son, Sean, shortly after a COVID-19 vaccination that was mandated by his hockey league. This starts about 2:09:36
I spoke immediately before Dan and stayed on the call, From what I remember, Dan's son Sean, died shortly after a COVID-19 vaccination. Dan had 2 autopsies done. One couldn't ascertain the cause of death. The second did find the COVID-19 vaccine to be the cause of death. A board member asked Dan what he was going to do next, instead of offering to help Dan resolve the issue.
Dan may not be handing you a double blind RCT, but he has gone to the trouble of getting multiple autopsies and you simply ignored that evidence. Public Health Ontario How vaccine safety is monitored in Canada states that
In Ontario, passive vaccine safety surveillance relies on reporting of AEFIs by health care providers, vaccine recipients or their caregivers to their local public health unit (PHU).
where AEFI stands for adverse events following immunization.
It’s deeply disturbing that one full year into the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccinations, the Toronto Board of Health did not understand that Toronto Public Health is the correct reporting channel for adverse events following vaccination.
I heard a father that wanted to publicly express his grief at losing his child shortly after vaccination in the hope of saving other children's lives. Censoring his speech is not protecting Dan’s privacy, it is cruelly denying his natural healthy instinct to grieve publicly and continues to shred any residual credibility TPH might have, including relating to mental health.
I condemn the Board for adopting the 2022-01-17 minutes this morning without reversing the censorship.
Vaccinating Children for COVID-19
Public Health Authorities in Florida and Sweden no longer recommend vaccinating healthy children for COVID-19 Guidance for Pediatric COVID-19 Vaccines March 8, 2022, No general vaccination against covid-19 among children 5-11 years (in Swedish). Are they spreading misinformation? What evidence is TPH relying on Ontario to MANDATE COVID-19 vaccinations for school attendance? Mandating is the opposite of not recommending and should require the highest standards of evidence.
Lack of measurements
TPH lacks a clear definition and clear measurements of public health. Your objective ought to be something like maximizing the quantity and quality of life of the citizens of Toronto. You have to be measuring mortality in it’s various aspects, including excess mortality. There is no mortality analysis in the background material for the meeting. How can Toronto Public Health possibly know if you are achieving anything related to public health, let alone allocating your resources in an optimal manner?
The best I can find for you is the Statistics Canada Provisional deaths and excess mortality in Canada dashboard. This only breaks down to Ontario and is currently at Week 38, September 2021, lagging about 6 months. By eyeball, the weekly deaths for Ontario in 2021 are running at about the same level as 2020, if not higher. If this holds for Toronto, then it’s not clear that TPH’s tunnel vision focus on COVID-19 in 2021 has improved public health in Toronto at all.
Lack of Toronto specific and more current mortality data is a major risk factor you need to resolve. With all the academic and medical resources we have in Toronto we ought to be able to do better than this. If not, then Toronto is never shy about asking higher levels of government for help for much less important issues.
Masking
TPH continues to support masking but without citing any evidence. Vinay Prasad is the author of over 350 academic articles on cancer drugs, health policy, clinical trials and better decision making. Vinay Prasad’s substack contains multiple critiques of masking studies: A new health affairs paper "proves" mask mandates slow covid-19, Mask studies reach a new scientific low point , New Variant, Travel Restrictions, Lockdowns and also on YouTube Are there any good studies of masking school aged children? - Recent results from Spain There is simply no good evidence that cloth masks work. I also recommend the Board watch Why Has Public Health Lost Trust | A Brief Recap of Things We Got Wrong | A Prof reflects and read When COVID cases climb on his substack.
Vitamin D study from Israel
The evidence for vitamin D just keeps accumulating. Dr John Campbell at Vitamin D, Strong evidence from Israel reports on the study Vitamin D deficiency prevalence and cardiovascular risk in Israel The importance of this study is that it looked at vitamin D levels PRIOR to COVID-19 infection and COVID-19 infection severity and found they correlated inversely. This helps untangle the well known confounding effect that infection itself reduces vitamin D levels.
You are not a serious Public Health agency if you don’t understand and publicize the critical role of vitamin D in overall health including viral infections.