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Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I come to the floor of the Senate today to make a few points and ask a few questions.

First of all, can we all acknowledge that there is so much that we do not know about the coronavirus, about COVID, the disease, or about the COVID vaccines? Our response to COVID, as a result, has been a reaction to very imperfect information.

So, very early in the pandemic, I gave those individuals in a position to have to make very tough decisions with imperfect information a great deal of latitude in making those tough calls, but over the course of the months, we have learned a lot.

We have always been told to follow the science, but it sure seems our healthcare Agencies--as I refer to them, the COVID gods; the Dr. Faucis of the world, the Agency heads, the Biden administration, the mainstream media, and social media--have never allowed second opinions. There has been one narrative, and they simply have not been willing to consider alternative measures.

So a question I think we should all be asking ourselves is, Does that response work? Over 780,000 Americans have lost their lives. The human toll of the economic devastation of the shutdowns, the year of lost learning for our children, the psychological harm to our children, the record overdose deaths, the increase in suicides--I don't know how you can take a look at America's death rate--the last time I looked, it was a couple weeks old; about 220 per 100,000 population. By the way, Sweden was at 145 per 100,000 a couple of weeks ago. I don't see how anybody can take a look at the response imposed in our country by the COVID gods and say it was a success.

So acknowledging the fact that there is still so much we don't know, I would appreciate a little modesty on the part of the COVID gods. I would appreciate that we actually follow the advice that I have always heard when dealing with a serious medical condition: Get a second opinion. Get a third opinion. As I said, that is not allowed.

I think it also calls for a little respect for our fellow citizens. These are some tough decisions. They are tough decisions whether or not you want to get vaccinated.

Even more gut-wrenching than tough decisions based on these idiotic and pointless vaccine mandates is, do I subject to the coercion, to the pressure, to the fear of reprisal and take the jab or lose my job? These are tough decisions.

I am a big supporter of Operation Warp Speed. I have had every vaccination until this one because I had COVID. The COVID gods aren't acknowledging natural immunity. They are not acknowledging vaccine injuries. They are not acknowledging the fact that even if you are fully vaccinated, you can still get COVID and you can still transmit COVID. So what is the point of a mandate? But, of course, that is not what we are getting from the COVID gods.

This weekend, something happened that is not unusual. My words were taken completely out of context, twisted, distorted, and I was relentlessly attacked.

I would like to respond to those attacks that were headlined:

``Fauci calls Ron Johnson's AIDS comment `preposterous.'''

Fauci said:

I don't have any clue of what he's talking about.

``Fauci Blasts Ron Johnson for Saying He `Overhyped' AIDS: `Preposterous!'''

``Anthony Fauci Rips GOP Sen. Ron Johnson's `Preposterous' Accusation He's `Overhyped' COVID.''

So what did I say? That sounds terrible. Well, what I said was in response to radio talk show host Brian Kilmeade's question asking about the Omicron variant.

He said: It looks benign. I mean, mild symptoms; mostly people under 40.

So I answered his question about Omicron, talking about Muller's ratchet. It is a phenomenon. It makes sense--how viruses generally mutate, how they become more contagious because they want to replicate, so they become more contagious but generally less lethal because it doesn't have replication if you kill your host. Now, nothing is guaranteed, but that would be the general direction of the variants of the coronavirus. Why would we assume anything worse? But that is what the COVID gods are doing. They are assuming the worse. They are using every new variant to keep us in the state of fear that they have created to maintain control over our lives and rob us of our freedom, to impose freedom-robbing vaccine mandates, again, that are preposterous--there is a good use of that word--that are pointless, that are idiotic.

But after talking about that state of fear, I went on to say:

By the way, Fauci did the exact same thing with AIDS. He overhyped it.

Now, full stop, that is where the news media stopped and then accused me, falsely, of downplaying AIDS. I have never, nor would I ever downplay the tragedy that is AIDS, that is COVID. These are serious, deadly diseases. They have killed hundreds of thousands. I would never downplay them.

When I said ``overhyped,'' I explained exactly what I was talking about in the next six words. I said:

He created all kinds of fear, saying it could affect the entire population when it couldn't. . . . [H]e's using the exact same playbook [for] COVID.

Here is the key point that I want to talk about a little bit later: ignoring therapy, pushing a vaccine. The solution to this pandemic, I have always thought, was early treatment. We still haven't robustly explored early treatment, and that is a travesty.

Now, Dr. Fauci wanted to show us that this criticism of him, creating a state of fear, is preposterous, but let's go to what he actually said back in May of 1983.

Now, I was alive in May of 1983. I understand how unsettling this new disease was. I understand the state of fear, the legitimate state of fear. But responsible health officials should not have stoked it, and Dr. Fauci did. He authored an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association stating ``the possibility that routine close contact, as within [any] family household, can spread the disease.'' He added:

If indeed the latter is true, then AIDS takes on an entirely new dimension.

And then:

If we add to this the possibility that nonsexual, non- blood-borne transmission is possible, the scope of the syndrome may be enormous.

Now, it is important to note that these aren't off-the-cuff comments; this is in a column he wrote with forethought. Dr. Fauci knew what a delicate time we were in as the public awareness of this disease was emerging, when people were already frightened by what they were hearing. He was in a position of authority. He knew what he said carried weight and would be disseminated, and it was.

The following day's headlines--the United Press International published a story headlined ``Household contact may transmit AIDS.'' The next day, the Associated Press ran a story asking ``Does AIDS spread by routine contact?'' The same day, the New York Times article read ``Family Contact Studied in Transmitting AIDS,'' and it invoked Fauci's article in discussing the possibility of transmission between family members.

He stoked the fear, and it, quite honestly, continues to this day. He stigmatized AIDS patients for years with his fearmongering.

Now, less than 2 months later, in June of 1983, Dr. Fauci flip- flopped and he publicly contradicted his own fearmongering by stating:

It is absolutely preposterous--

He likes that word, by the way--

It is absolutely preposterous to suggest that AIDS can be contracted through normal social contact [by] being in the same room with someone or sitting on a bus with them.

I mean, you heard what he said 2 months earlier, right? If he felt it was so preposterous on June 26, why had he raised the fear, stoked the fear, just 2 months earlier?

It is interesting. I just found out last night that not only did he write that article stoking the fear, he started giving interviews. I have seen an interview where he basically used the exact same words. But now he denies it. He wants to deny the reality of what he said and what he did. He wants to rewrite history.

By the way, when it comes to the AIDS crisis, rewriting history, I am not the only one who is accusing him of that. In an article published-- or updated last on December 6 in 2017, in the Huffington Post, in their comment platform, which I guess has since been taken down, an author of a book--his name is Sean Strub--wrote an article--wrote a blog for HuffPost.

The book Mr. Strub wrote was ``Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival.'' And he describes it, as he recounts how slow the Federal Government was in publicizing the use of Bactrim and other sulfa drugs to prevent PCP, which is the pneumonia that was then the leading killer of people with AIDS, in addition to its longtime and well-known use to treat that type of pneumonia.

So let me quote from Mr. Strub's article. He said:

Dr. Anthony Fauci is rewriting history. He is doing so to disguise his shameful role in delaying promotion of an AIDS treatment that would have prevented tens of thousands of deaths in the first years of the epidemic.

The article goes on to say:

In 1987, pioneering AIDS activist Michael Callen begged Fauci for help in promoting the use of Bactrim as PCP prophylaxis and issuing interim guidelines urging physicians to prophylax those patients deemed at high risk for PCP.

The article goes on:

Had Fauci listened to people with AIDS and the clinicians treating them, and responded accordingly, he would have saved thousands of lives. In the two years between 1987, when Callen met with Fauci and 1989, when the guidelines were ultimately issued, nearly 17,000 people with AIDS suffocated from PCP. Most of these people might have lived had Fauci responded appropriately.

Another doctor, Dr. Barry Gingell--I am continuing with the article here--

a medical advisor to Gay Men's Health Crisis, met with Fauci to plead for his support, they didn't just say there was ``this preliminary activity and some small trials,'' as Fauci claims. They explained that many frontline AIDS physicians, following the lead of Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, were already using Bactrim effectively to prevent the recurrence of PCP. The science was clear. A decade before, clinical trials by Dr. Walter Hughes had proven its efficacy in preventing PCP in other immune-compromised populations, like children with leukemia.

It continues:

Fauci refused to acknowledge the evidence and, according to one account, even encouraged people with AIDS to stop taking treatments, like Bactrim, that weren't specifically approved for use in people with AIDS.

Dr. Sonnabend wrote in 2006:

Why, in the case of AIDS, was Bactrim, a known preventative measure against PCP, introduced so many years after a need for it had been recognized? To this must be added the question of why this neglect, the consequences of which can be measured in the tens of thousands of lives lost, has received almost no attention.

The media has continued to cover for Dr. Fauci.

The article goes on:

If we don't tell the truth about the history of the AIDS epidemic, it will be subject to more whitewashing--

As we witnessed this weekend. My aside.

--more distortions and more rewriting to suit the legacies of the officials in charge. These are the same officials who seem incapable of ever acknowledging or taking responsibility for mistakes they made--mistakes that cost our community thousands of lives.

Now, why did I take so much time to read an excerpt from this article from 2017?

It is because it is the major point I was making in my comments to Brian Kilmeade. Dr. Fauci, he is using the exact same playbook for COVID as he did for AIDS: ignoring therapy like Bactrim or the cornucopia of cheap, generic, repurposed drugs that are available, that are being used successfully to treat COVID and save lives.

The solution, I have always felt, has always been early treatment. But, again, Dr. Fauci is ignoring therapy and pushing a vaccine.

Why?

There are multiple medical experts who have looked at this, who are treating COVID, who are doing the research, who say upwards of 500,000 lives were needlessly lost because we ignored and, I would argue, sabotaged early treatment with cheap, generic, repurposed drugs.

In fact, the FDA completely trash-talked one of these repurposed drugs, a Nobel Prize-winning drug termed by the World Health Organization as a miracle drug, Ivermectin, calling it horse paste; saying: Come on, you all; you are not cows.

Fake news stories saying that people are lining up, clogging hospitals because of overdoses of Ivermectin, only to find out that is a completely false news story--like false studies published in medical journals that had to be withdrawn 2 weeks later early in the pandemic, which also poisoned the use of some of these repurposed drugs.

Let's take a look at some facts. Let's take a look at some facts that, when I go on media and I describe these facts, I am censored by the COVID gods; I am removed from YouTube, as is sometimes the radio talk show host.

But let's look at the facts of drugs versus the vaccine. Now, many of you will be shocked by this because this is all being censored. This information, this is not allowed. Again, there is one narrative; it is the narrative of the COVID gods. No second or third opinions are allowed. No questions are allowed to be asked, much less answered.

So let's take a look at Ivermectin. I have got two columns here: Total adverse events reported to either the FAERS system--the adverse event reporting system from the FDA for drugs--and the VAERS system-- the vaccine adverse event system reported through the CDC.

So the top three. First of all, Ivermectin. Over 26 years--26 years of reporting--Ivermectin has about 3,756 adverse events reported in through FAERS. So that is adverse events. In terms of deaths, it averages about 15 reports of deaths per year.

Now, let's get something straight here. There are two main criticisms of FAERS and VAERS. It doesn't prove causation. I get that. But it also dramatically understates the adverse events.

So, again, we are going to use this as a comparison.

Ivermectin: 15 deaths per year, on average, over 26 years of usage.

Hydroxychloroquine: 23,355 total adverse events over 26 years. On average, about 69 deaths--death reports per year.

How about the seasonal flu vaccine?

Again, 26 years' worth of history: 198,776 total adverse events reported on VAERS, but an average of 80 deaths per year for the seasonal flu vaccine.

I look at these, and I go: These are pretty safe drugs. No drug is 100 percent safe. No human body is exactly the same. But you have to look at these drugs as having a very safe and reliable safety profile.

So if you have COVID--and let's face it, the current NIH guideline on COVID is to do nothing: go home, foray it alone, isolate yourself, hope you don't get so sick you have to check yourself into a hospital.

The only thing they are recommending for use is monoclonal antibodies. Try and get those. I have talked to so many constituents that haven't been able to. Either they are not sick enough or they become too sick or it has taken too long.

So, virtually, the NIH guideline continues to this day: Do nothing.

Now, a quick aside: How many other diseases is that the recommendation? Isn't it always early detection allows for early treatment, produces better outcome?

Of course, that is what we recommend for every other disease, except COVID because Fauci ignored therapies and pushed vaccines. He has just been--he has got his blinders on. It is vaccines, vaccines, vaccines.

And then they scaremonger both Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

I don't know. Are you afraid of those? If you have got COVID, would you give those a shot?

I certainly would. And, by the way, I am not a doctor; I am not a medical researcher. But I have been in contact with doctors who have the courage and compassion to treat. And so when I have a friend or a constituent who calls me and says, ``What can I do?'' I refer them to a doctor who treats them.

And I have example after example of these things working, keeping people out of hospitals and certainly preventing death. I know it is anecdotal, but the evidence is mounting, and it is getting to the point of being--I think it is at the point of being irrefutable.

So now let's compare this to the drugs of choice of Dr. Fauci and the COVID gods. Let's take a look at Remdesivir. The studies were weak. They changed the endpoint of reducing death--because it didn't--to reducing days in the hospital. But they still rushed through the emergency use authorization, and it has been the treatment, because it is blessed by the COVID gods, that hospitals will apply.

Now, in fairness, hospitals also do dexamethasone. They will do other things--corticosteroids. Pierre Kory testified before my committee in May of 2020 about corticosteroids.

But Remdesivir is the big one; over $3,000 a dose when these cost 20 to 50 bucks, total, as part of a multidrug, multivitamin--vitamin D, zinc. Remdesivir: 6,500 adverse events. I don't have it here. 1,612 deaths so far since it has got its emergency use. That is an average of 921 a year. That is Remdesivir.

Now let's look at the COVID vaccine, and this will shock you. It should shock you because nobody is talking about it. And when a guy like me talks about it, I get censored, I get vilified, I get attacked.

927,740 total adverse events. And, remember, one of the criticisms is VAERS dramatically understates the number of adverse events.

Total deaths: 19,532. Now, again, I realize VAERS doesn't prove causation, but almost 6,000 of these worldwide deaths occurred on days 0, 1, or 2 following vaccination.

I know Fauci, I know Janet Woodcock, I know Francis Collins are not concerned about this. I am concerned about this. Other people who have been able to avoid the censors and see this, they are concerned about it. They are making those tough choices. They also realize COVID can be a deadly disease. They have to make an informed decision whether or not to get vaccinated.

Shouldn't they have all the information?

But they are not being given all the information. It is about time they are.

Let me conclude by just asking--for the audience, really--why do I continue to push these truths?

And they are truths. There is no misinformation up here. This is the truth. These aren't my numbers. This isn't my data. This is the CDC and the FDA's data.

Why do I continue to talk about these things when I get attacked, when I get vilified, when I get ridiculed, when I get censored?

It is pretty simple. It is because I have acknowledged the vaccine- injured. I have held events to let them tell their stories--like little Maddie de Garay, 12 years old. Now she is 13. She participated in the Pfizer trial. She is in a wheelchair. She can't eat. She has a feeding tube.

Pfizer has ignored her, cast her aside.

They are not paying for her medical bills. That is a scandal right then and there. Brianne Dressen participated in the AstraZeneca trial: paralyzed from the waist down. Fortunately, she has gotten her leg function back. But she is not whole. She is not cured.

Ernest Ramirez: he lost his only son, his best friend. He is a single dad.

I have given the vaccine-injured--the survivors, I have given them a forum to tell their stories, and the media just shrugs. All they want is to be seen and heard and believed so they can be cured or so they can prevent other people from experiencing their trauma.

The real reason I continue to tell the truth--although I am attacked--is because not only have I given these individuals a forum to tell their stories, but I have seen their tears. I have hugged the vaccine-injured, the surviving spouses, the surviving parents, the surviving children.

Why won't we acknowledge these truths? Why won't we acknowledge the vaccine-injured?

Until we do, until we acknowledge what the root cause of the illness might be, how is there any hope of healing them?

So again, our response to COVID has been a miserable failure. We must acknowledge that. We can't deny reality. We need to embrace early treatment because we are going to continue to need early treatment.

The vaccines aren't 100 percent guaranteed effective. New variants will emerge. We are going to have to treat. Better start now and might as well give these cheap generic, widely available drugs a shot.

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