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Haute Couture goes NFT: Digitalization at the Paris Fashion Week

The latest Paris Fashion Week clearly marks the new digitized era for a high-end fashion industry’s trends toward blockchain and nonfungible tokens.
For luxury brands, usual business and marketing practices work upside down. While…

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The latest Paris Fashion Week clearly marks the new digitized era for a high-end fashion industry’s trends toward blockchain and nonfungible tokens.

For luxury brands, usual business and marketing practices work upside down. While other businesses aim to scale, optimize and become accessible — luxury brands are supposed to be a cold and beautiful dream, causing admiration and (rarely fulfilled) desires of ownership. Building a luxury brand takes generations of storytelling, and the skill of maintaining a fragile balance between making profits and remaining exclusive, one-of-a-kind perfection. This paradigm has shifted with the trends of the modern era, in which a successful business should be data-driven and community-driven. Digitalization aims to democratize everything from finance to art, and luxury brands need to follow this ever-changing reality and embrace innovation in their way. 

Related: Beyond the hype: NFTs’ actual value is still to be determined

Paris Fashion Week, Haute Couture and innovation

The Haute Couture Paris Fashion Week is a 150 years old think tank of fashion trends and forecasts, where a strict and hand-picked number of designers and fashionistas decide on the future of industry and celebrate its glory. It’s Davos and Pizza Day of the fashion world. Haute Couture creations — wearable pieces of art in one-of-a-kind editions — are presented during one week in Paris, semi-annually in January and July.

The necessity to embrace innovation is described even in the definition of Haute Couture, proclaimed by La Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM) — the governing body of the French fashion industry established in 1868, which also organizes Paris Fashion Week. The term Haute Couture is described as “tremendously modern,” and serving as a “permanent gateway” between tradition, know-how and craft “at the cutting edge of innovation.”

The “cutting edge of innovation” of today is manufacturing digital clothes and experiences using augmented reality (AR), virtual fashion shows, decentralized communities and blockchain-enabled ownership. All of those things have emerged lately in the fashion industry, but accelerated even more with the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which urged all fashion brands to move their shows online for 2020.

The nonfungible token (NFT) boom happened alongside enabled blockchain-related experiments. Dapper Labs x Fabricant x Johanna Jaskowska sold an NFT, which includes a model in a digital outfit, at the Ethereum Summit as early as 2019.

This year, we saw plenty of successful fashion NFTs appearing. In February, the virtual brand Rtfkt, in collaboration with emerging 18-year-old transgender digital and visual artist Fewocious, sold 621 pairs of sneakers in just seven minutes for $3.1 million. Furthermore, Fewocious also recently sold five of their artworks through Christie’s for $2.16 million.

The news didn’t go unnoticed by the luxury fashion brands. It is rumored that Gucci will mint some NFTs for the collection of their digital sneakers which they have recently launched on their application using AR. Moreover, Gucci sold its first-ever NFT called “Aria” for $25,000 through Christie’s in the form of digital art and a video clip of a runway show by Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele. Finally, Mason Rothschild and Eric Ramirez claimed that they sold a pregnant Birkin for $23,500, “despite the NFT borrowing the iconic Birkin name and style, Hermès had no affiliation with — and saw no revenue from — the sale.” If that sale took place, it painfully signals that luxury brands should take back the control over any user-generated content and embrace NFTs.

Paris Fashion Week just ended, and it appears to be the first event where traditional high fashion brands made NFT-related announcements. In fact, some NFTs were launched by the Fashion Week organization itself.

FHCM to gift NFTs to Fashion Week guests

FHCM announced that it teamed up with French NFT platform Arianee to give away NFTs to selected attendees, buyers and journalists during Paris Fashion Week Men and Haute Couture Week.

Pierre-Nicolas Hurstel, CEO of Arianee, explained: “We are delighted to enable Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode to pioneer within the NFT space.” He continued:

“We hope to contribute to reinforce the position of Paris not only as the capital of fashion but also as the capital of NFTs for exclusive ownership experiences.”

As Hurstel explained over email: “The NFTs given away by FHCM contain two assets. The first asset is the press accreditation that is given to all accredited journalists, influencers and buyers participating in the Fashion Week events. The second asset is an exclusive digital artwork by iconic fashion illustrator Richard Haines. Both assets are not only given away as scarce digital assets but can be experienced within the Arianee wallet application in augmented reality. This means that any accredited members can project the press accreditation on a video of themselves or of a show and publish it on social media. Or they can project the artwork of Richard Haines anywhere in their home or even on any building in Paris, such as the Opera Garnier.”

Arianee further adds: “Through these NFTs, all accredited members will access exclusive content and AR experiences including a digital artwork by iconic fashion illustrator Richard Haines, as well as a press accreditation for Paris Fashion Week.”

The NFTs are also used by the event organizers to digitalize the accreditation process. Instead of sharing their personal data at the entrance gate, guests can just prove their ownership of the NFT to access all Fashion Week events.

In total, 300 NFTs were minted on the Ethereum side-chain using the Arianee protocol. Technically, these collectibles can be listed and re-sold on the secondary market, however, the primary focus of the release was to provide education on blockchain technologies and NFTs to the leaders of the fashion industry.

Related: Mass adoption of blockchain tech is possible, and education is the key

The French startup behind the operation, Arianee, built a platform providing NFTs for luxury goods. Last year, the company announced that the Swiss watchmaker Breitling will use the platform to certify limited edition watches. In March 2021, Arianee reportedly raised around $9.5 million in funding. A dramatic rise in the quality of counterfeit goods is causing a big threat to all luxury brands, so some platforms like Arianee are bringing a real and concrete value for the consumers. They can use the blockchain to authenticate and certify their purchases. Aura, a similar platform to authenticate luxury goods and fight counterfeit, has been developed by ConsenSys, Microsoft and LVMH.

Couture brand Aelis to launch NFT collection ‘Luce ImmorTale’

The NFT art and high fashion industries have much more in common than it seems at first glance. One similarity is a correlation between high prices and a tiny customer base — the entire Haute Couture active buyers base worldwide is approximately 4,000 people. The NFT market, despite all the buzz, remains very niche as well. For example, CryptoPunks — the luxury of crypto — were traded by only 600 active wallets at its peak. While prêt-à-porter, or ready-to-wear, creations are made to be worn by thousands of people, Haute Couture is one-of-a-kind and meant to only be worn for special occasions. Haute Couture creations are nonfungible by nature, and the idea of attaching an NFT to an Haute Couture piece is very à la mode.

This will be done by Aelis — one of the youngest houses at Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2021 — announced on July 5 that it will start a long-lasting NFT project, to be known as one of the first brands that will offer a collection in the form of NFTs. Aelis does not create ready-to-wear collections and exists purely in the world of art and high fashion. The brand is known for establishing a very careful relationship with collectors while not allowing a wide audience to access its art, communicating purely through selected media and within a narrow community of high-net-worth individuals. With NFTs, Aelis found a new way to establish a unique and timeless relationship with the brand's collectors.

Sofia Crociani, the founder of Aelis who worked for Dior and closely collaborated with Karl Lagerfeld before establishing Aelis four years ago, is behind the company’s involvement in innovative technologies. The company said in a statement:

“These new spaces of creation and freedom, built on blockchain technology and which keep breaking the codes, are known for being developed in correlation and harmony with NFTs.”

Crociani said during an interview: “I feel NFTs have unique characteristics that all artists are looking for: immortality and unaltered transmission. They are an extension of physical art and have the ambition to bring a new vision to the way artworks are distributed. It is a breath of fresh air and a great inspiration for an artist, as NFTs are transcendental, existing through the ages — like an eternal immortal light. Hence, the name of my upcoming performance: ‘Luce ImmorTale’ (Immortal Light)”

The NFT Collection “Luce ImmorTale” consists of five NFTs, all of them attached to real-world physical collectibles. They will be sketches created and signed by Sofia Crociani and a photo of the dress, all professionally framed with a block transaction number embedded onto the frames. If more than three NFTs are obtained by a sole collector within two years, they will be able to claim the Haute Couture dress, which would have presented at the show.

Another interesting feature of the Aelis NFT collection is the two-year vesting period and the long-lasting campaign surrounding the collection. Over the next two years and after the creations are sold, they will be exhibited at different galleries and art shows, mentioning the name or the wallet address of the collector who first acquired the NFT.

Just like in the traditional art industry, the collection will be gaining provenance this way. Provenance is the history of ownership and the location of art: When an art piece is exhibited at reputable exhibitions, it influences the value of the piece. Five different NFT auctions will be held on different platforms, which have yet to be announced. Aelis stated that NFTs will be minted in environmentally friendly ways, preserving the brand identity and promoting NFTs that are respectful to the planet.

NFT and sustainable fashion

The fact that an environment-centric guest-couture brand started experimenting with NFTs is no coincidence. The problem of unnecessary overconsumption of natural resources is widely discussed by fashion insiders. On July 8, the executive president of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode Pascal Morand spoke together with head of data analytics and artificial intelligence at PwC France Jean-David Benassouli and Newlife.ai CEO Sofiane Delloue at the panel discussion “How Can AI Help the Green Revolution in Fashion?” organized by Explor'IA. Fashion experts discussed a digital and eco-conscious revolution that is taking place in the fashion industry. Pascal Morand stressed that environmental impact was the main topic of Paris Fashion Week this year.

While most of the discussion was dedicated to AI, the expert panelists discussed NFT technology as a tool for creators' economies. Delloue added: “There are ways to use NFTs in fashion for sustainability. On one hand, we have overproduction in the fashion industry that can be reduced by better aligning creators' imaginations through digital formats and collecting data about consumer preferences. On the other hand, we want to empower the participants of the fast-growing creative economy through new forms of monetization of their intellectual property, and this is made possible by the infinite functionality of smart contracts and programmable money. At Newlife, we are building a comprehensive set of smart contracts that can scale creativity and rewards while reducing the pace of fashion trends. We invent new models of licensing that apply to fashion, luxury and culture.”

NFT technology has received a lot of backlash for the environmental damage due to a large number of necessary transactions to mint, trade and burn NFTs, which makes them heavy for the network, as well as energy-consuming. However, most marketplaces started working on green improvements like lazy minting and the usage of layer-two solutions, which bulk transactions together. The upcoming Ethereum update from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) holds the promise to improve the sustainability of the NFT market.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Sophia Schteiner holds a journalism degree from Lomonosov Moscow State University and started her career as an art critic covering the film industry and urban architecture. She founded her agency, Schteiner PR, focusing on luxury brands in art, French craftsmanship, design and interiors. In 2018, she joined an international communications agency, working with blockchain startups during the crypto bull market. Combining experience from both worlds Sophia writes about blockchain technology in creative industries.

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Red Candle In The Wind

Red Candle In The Wind

By Benjamin PIcton of Rabobank

February non-farm payrolls superficially exceeded market expectations on Friday by…

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Red Candle In The Wind

By Benjamin PIcton of Rabobank

February non-farm payrolls superficially exceeded market expectations on Friday by printing at 275,000 against a consensus call of 200,000. We say superficially, because the downward revisions to prior months totalled 167,000 for December and January, taking the total change in employed persons well below the implied forecast, and helping the unemployment rate to pop two-ticks to 3.9%. The U6 underemployment rate also rose from 7.2% to 7.3%, while average hourly earnings growth fell to 0.2% m-o-m and average weekly hours worked languished at 34.3, equalling pre-pandemic lows.

Undeterred by the devil in the detail, the algos sprang into action once exchanges opened. Market darling NVIDIA hit a new intraday high of $974 before (presumably) the humans took over and sold the stock down more than 10% to close at $875.28. If our suspicions are correct that it was the AIs buying before the humans started selling (no doubt triggering trailing stops on the way down), the irony is not lost on us.

The 1-day chart for NVIDIA now makes for interesting viewing, because the red candle posted on Friday presents quite a strong bearish engulfing signal. Volume traded on the day was almost double the 15-day simple moving average, and similar price action is observable on the 1-day charts for both Intel and AMD. Regular readers will be aware that we have expressed incredulity in the past about the durability the AI thematic melt-up, so it will be interesting to see whether Friday’s sell off is just a profit-taking blip, or a genuine trend reversal.

AI equities aside, this week ought to be important for markets because the BTFP program expires today. That means that the Fed will no longer be loaning cash to the banking system in exchange for collateral pledged at-par. The KBW Regional Banking index has so far taken this in its stride and is trading 30% above the lows established during the mini banking crisis of this time last year, but the Fed’s liquidity facility was effectively an exercise in can-kicking that makes regional banks a sector of the market worth paying attention to in the weeks ahead. Even here in Sydney, regulators are warning of external risks posed to the banking sector from scheduled refinancing of commercial real estate loans following sharp falls in valuations.

Markets are sending signals in other sectors, too. Gold closed at a new record-high of $2178/oz on Friday after trading above $2200/oz briefly. Gold has been going ballistic since the Friday before last, posting gains even on days where 2-year Treasury yields have risen. Gold bugs are buying as real yields fall from the October highs and inflation breakevens creep higher. This is particularly interesting as gold ETFs have been recording net outflows; suggesting that price gains aren’t being driven by a retail pile-in. Are gold buyers now betting on a stagflationary outcome where the Fed cuts without inflation being anchored at the 2% target? The price action around the US CPI release tomorrow ought to be illuminating.

Leaving the day-to-day movements to one side, we are also seeing further signs of structural change at the macro level. The UK budget last week included a provision for the creation of a British ISA. That is, an Individual Savings Account that provides tax breaks to savers who invest their money in the stock of British companies. This follows moves last year to encourage pension funds to head up the risk curve by allocating 5% of their capital to unlisted investments.

As a Hail Mary option for a government cruising toward an electoral drubbing it’s a curious choice, but it’s worth highlighting as cash-strapped governments increasingly see private savings pools as a funding solution for their spending priorities.

Of course, the UK is not alone in making creeping moves towards financial repression. In contrast to announcements today of increased trade liberalisation, Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers has in the recent past flagged his interest in tapping private pension savings to fund state spending priorities, including defence, public housing and renewable energy projects. Both the UK and Australia appear intent on finding ways to open up the lungs of their economies, but government wants more say in directing private capital flows for state goals.

So, how far is the blurring of the lines between free markets and state planning likely to go? Given the immense and varied budgetary (and security) pressures that governments are facing, could we see a re-up of WWII-era Victory bonds, where private investors are encouraged to do their patriotic duty by directly financing government at negative real rates?

That would really light a fire under the gold market.

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/11/2024 - 19:00

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Fauci Deputy Warned Him Against Vaccine Mandates: Email

Fauci Deputy Warned Him Against Vaccine Mandates: Email

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Mandating COVID-19…

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Fauci Deputy Warned Him Against Vaccine Mandates: Email

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Mandating COVID-19 vaccination was a mistake due to ethical and other concerns, a top government doctor warned Dr. Anthony Fauci after Dr. Fauci promoted mass vaccination.

Coercing or forcing people to take a vaccine can have negative consequences from a biological, sociological, psychological, economical, and ethical standpoint and is not worth the cost even if the vaccine is 100% safe,” Dr. Matthew Memoli, director of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases clinical studies unit at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told Dr. Fauci in an email.

“A more prudent approach that considers these issues would be to focus our efforts on those at high risk of severe disease and death, such as the elderly and obese, and do not push vaccination on the young and healthy any further.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, ex-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID. in Washington on Jan. 8, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

Employing that strategy would help prevent loss of public trust and political capital, Dr. Memoli said.

The email was sent on July 30, 2021, after Dr. Fauci, director of the NIAID, claimed that communities would be safer if more people received one of the COVID-19 vaccines and that mass vaccination would lead to the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re on a really good track now to really crush this outbreak, and the more people we get vaccinated, the more assuredness that we’re going to have that we’re going to be able to do that,” Dr. Fauci said on CNN the month prior.

Dr. Memoli, who has studied influenza vaccination for years, disagreed, telling Dr. Fauci that research in the field has indicated yearly shots sometimes drive the evolution of influenza.

Vaccinating people who have not been infected with COVID-19, he said, could potentially impact the evolution of the virus that causes COVID-19 in unexpected ways.

“At best what we are doing with mandated mass vaccination does nothing and the variants emerge evading immunity anyway as they would have without the vaccine,” Dr. Memoli wrote. “At worst it drives evolution of the virus in a way that is different from nature and possibly detrimental, prolonging the pandemic or causing more morbidity and mortality than it should.”

The vaccination strategy was flawed because it relied on a single antigen, introducing immunity that only lasted for a certain period of time, Dr. Memoli said. When the immunity weakened, the virus was given an opportunity to evolve.

Some other experts, including virologist Geert Vanden Bossche, have offered similar views. Others in the scientific community, such as U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists, say vaccination prevents virus evolution, though the agency has acknowledged it doesn’t have records supporting its position.

Other Messages

Dr. Memoli sent the email to Dr. Fauci and two other top NIAID officials, Drs. Hugh Auchincloss and Clifford Lane. The message was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, though the publication did not publish the message. The Epoch Times obtained the email and 199 other pages of Dr. Memoli’s emails through a Freedom of Information Act request. There were no indications that Dr. Fauci ever responded to Dr. Memoli.

Later in 2021, the NIAID’s parent agency, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), and all other federal government agencies began requiring COVID-19 vaccination, under direction from President Joe Biden.

In other messages, Dr. Memoli said the mandates were unethical and that he was hopeful legal cases brought against the mandates would ultimately let people “make their own healthcare decisions.”

“I am certainly doing everything in my power to influence that,” he wrote on Nov. 2, 2021, to an unknown recipient. Dr. Memoli also disclosed that both he and his wife had applied for exemptions from the mandates imposed by the NIH and his wife’s employer. While her request had been granted, his had not as of yet, Dr. Memoli said. It’s not clear if it ever was.

According to Dr. Memoli, officials had not gone over the bioethics of the mandates. He wrote to the NIH’s Department of Bioethics, pointing out that the protection from the vaccines waned over time, that the shots can cause serious health issues such as myocarditis, or heart inflammation, and that vaccinated people were just as likely to spread COVID-19 as unvaccinated people.

He cited multiple studies in his emails, including one that found a resurgence of COVID-19 cases in a California health care system despite a high rate of vaccination and another that showed transmission rates were similar among the vaccinated and unvaccinated.

Dr. Memoli said he was “particularly interested in the bioethics of a mandate when the vaccine doesn’t have the ability to stop spread of the disease, which is the purpose of the mandate.”

The message led to Dr. Memoli speaking during an NIH event in December 2021, several weeks after he went public with his concerns about mandating vaccines.

“Vaccine mandates should be rare and considered only with a strong justification,” Dr. Memoli said in the debate. He suggested that the justification was not there for COVID-19 vaccines, given their fleeting effectiveness.

Julie Ledgerwood, another NIAID official who also spoke at the event, said that the vaccines were highly effective and that the side effects that had been detected were not significant. She did acknowledge that vaccinated people needed boosters after a period of time.

The NIH, and many other government agencies, removed their mandates in 2023 with the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency.

A request for comment from Dr. Fauci was not returned. Dr. Memoli told The Epoch Times in an email he was “happy to answer any questions you have” but that he needed clearance from the NIAID’s media office. That office then refused to give clearance.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University, said that Dr. Memoli showed bravery when he warned Dr. Fauci against mandates.

“Those mandates have done more to demolish public trust in public health than any single action by public health officials in my professional career, including diminishing public trust in all vaccines.” Dr. Bhattacharya, a frequent critic of the U.S. response to COVID-19, told The Epoch Times via email. “It was risky for Dr. Memoli to speak publicly since he works at the NIH, and the culture of the NIH punishes those who cross powerful scientific bureaucrats like Dr. Fauci or his former boss, Dr. Francis Collins.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/11/2024 - 17:40

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Trump “Clearly Hasn’t Learned From His COVID-Era Mistakes”, RFK Jr. Says

Trump "Clearly Hasn’t Learned From His COVID-Era Mistakes", RFK Jr. Says

Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President…

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Trump "Clearly Hasn't Learned From His COVID-Era Mistakes", RFK Jr. Says

Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Joe Biden claimed that COVID vaccines are now helping cancer patients during his State of the Union address on March 7, but it was a response on Truth Social from former President Donald Trump that drew the ire of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. holds a voter rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Feb. 10, 2024. (Mitch Ranger for The Epoch Times)

During the address, President Biden said: “The pandemic no longer controls our lives. The vaccines that saved us from COVID are now being used to help beat cancer, turning setback into comeback. That’s what America does.”

President Trump wrote: “The Pandemic no longer controls our lives. The VACCINES that saved us from COVID are now being used to help beat cancer—turning setback into comeback. YOU’RE WELCOME JOE. NINE-MONTH APPROVAL TIME VS. 12 YEARS THAT IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN YOU.”

An outspoken critic of President Trump’s COVID response, and the Operation Warp Speed program that escalated the availability of COVID vaccines, Mr. Kennedy said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “Donald Trump clearly hasn’t learned from his COVID-era mistakes.”

“He fails to recognize how ineffective his warp speed vaccine is as the ninth shot is being recommended to seniors. Even more troubling is the documented harm being caused by the shot to so many innocent children and adults who are suffering myocarditis, pericarditis, and brain inflammation,” Mr. Kennedy remarked.

“This has been confirmed by a CDC-funded study of 99 million people. Instead of bragging about its speedy approval, we should be honestly and transparently debating the abundant evidence that this vaccine may have caused more harm than good.

“I look forward to debating both Trump and Biden on Sept. 16 in San Marcos, Texas.”

Mr. Kennedy announced in April 2023 that he would challenge President Biden for the 2024 Democratic Party presidential nomination before declaring his run as an independent last October, claiming that the Democrat National Committee was “rigging the primary.”

Since the early stages of his campaign, Mr. Kennedy has generated more support than pundits expected from conservatives, moderates, and independents resulting in speculation that he could take votes away from President Trump.

Many Republicans continue to seek a reckoning over the government-imposed pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

President Trump’s defense of Operation Warp Speed, the program he rolled out in May 2020 to spur the development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines amid the pandemic, remains a sticking point for some of his supporters.

Vice President Mike Pence (L) and President Donald Trump deliver an update on Operation Warp Speed in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on Nov. 13, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Operation Warp Speed featured a partnership between the government, the military, and the private sector, with the government paying for millions of vaccine doses to be produced.

President Trump released a statement in March 2021 saying: “I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers!”

President Trump said about the COVID-19 vaccine in an interview on Fox News in March 2021: “It works incredibly well. Ninety-five percent, maybe even more than that. I would recommend it, and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly.

“But again, we have our freedoms and we have to live by that and I agree with that also. But it’s a great vaccine, it’s a safe vaccine, and it’s something that works.”

On many occasions, President Trump has said that he is not in favor of vaccine mandates.

An environmental attorney, Mr. Kennedy founded Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that aims to end childhood health epidemics by promoting vaccine safeguards, among other initiatives.

Last year, Mr. Kennedy told podcaster Joe Rogan that ivermectin was suppressed by the FDA so that the COVID-19 vaccines could be granted emergency use authorization.

He has criticized Big Pharma, vaccine safety, and government mandates for years.

Since launching his presidential campaign, Mr. Kennedy has made his stances on the COVID-19 vaccines, and vaccines in general, a frequent talking point.

“I would argue that the science is very clear right now that they [vaccines] caused a lot more problems than they averted,” Mr. Kennedy said on Piers Morgan Uncensored last April.

“And if you look at the countries that did not vaccinate, they had the lowest death rates, they had the lowest COVID and infection rates.”

Additional data show a “direct correlation” between excess deaths and high vaccination rates in developed countries, he said.

President Trump and Mr. Kennedy have similar views on topics like protecting the U.S.-Mexico border and ending the Russia-Ukraine war.

COVID-19 is the topic where Mr. Kennedy and President Trump seem to differ the most.

Former President Donald Trump intended to “drain the swamp” when he took office in 2017, but he was “intimidated by bureaucrats” at federal agencies and did not accomplish that objective, Mr. Kennedy said on Feb. 5.

Speaking at a voter rally in Tucson, where he collected signatures to get on the Arizona ballot, the independent presidential candidate said President Trump was “earnest” when he vowed to “drain the swamp,” but it was “business as usual” during his term.

John Bolton, who President Trump appointed as a national security adviser, is “the template for a swamp creature,” Mr. Kennedy said.

Scott Gottlieb, who President Trump named to run the FDA, “was Pfizer’s business partner” and eventually returned to Pfizer, Mr. Kennedy said.

Mr. Kennedy said that President Trump had more lobbyists running federal agencies than any president in U.S. history.

“You can’t reform them when you’ve got the swamp creatures running them, and I’m not going to do that. I’m going to do something different,” Mr. Kennedy said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump “did not ask the questions that he should have,” he believes.

President Trump “knew that lockdowns were wrong” and then “agreed to lockdowns,” Mr. Kennedy said.

He also “knew that hydroxychloroquine worked, he said it,” Mr. Kennedy explained, adding that he was eventually “rolled over” by Dr. Anthony Fauci and his advisers.

President Donald Trump greets the crowd before he leaves at the Operation Warp Speed Vaccine Summit in Washington on Dec. 8, 2020. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

MaryJo Perry, a longtime advocate for vaccine choice and a Trump supporter, thinks votes will be at a premium come Election Day, particularly because the independent and third-party field is becoming more competitive.

Ms. Perry, president of Mississippi Parents for Vaccine Rights, believes advocates for medical freedom could determine who is ultimately president.

She believes that Mr. Kennedy is “pulling votes from Trump” because of the former president’s stance on the vaccines.

“People care about medical freedom. It’s an important issue here in Mississippi, and across the country,” Ms. Perry told The Epoch Times.

“Trump should admit he was wrong about Operation Warp Speed and that COVID vaccines have been dangerous. That would make a difference among people he has offended.”

President Trump won’t lose enough votes to Mr. Kennedy about Operation Warp Speed and COVID vaccines to have a significant impact on the election, Ohio Republican strategist Wes Farno told The Epoch Times.

President Trump won in Ohio by eight percentage points in both 2016 and 2020. The Ohio Republican Party endorsed President Trump for the nomination in 2024.

“The positives of a Trump presidency far outweigh the negatives,” Mr. Farno said. “People are more concerned about their wallet and the economy.

“They are asking themselves if they were better off during President Trump’s term compared to since President Biden took office. The answer to that question is obvious because many Americans are struggling to afford groceries, gas, mortgages, and rent payments.

“America needs President Trump.”

Multiple national polls back Mr. Farno’s view.

As of March 6, the RealClearPolitics average of polls indicates that President Trump has 41.8 percent support in a five-way race that includes President Biden (38.4 percent), Mr. Kennedy (12.7 percent), independent Cornel West (2.6 percent), and Green Party nominee Jill Stein (1.7 percent).

A Pew Research Center study conducted among 10,133 U.S. adults from Feb. 7 to Feb. 11 showed that Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents (42 percent) are more likely than Republicans and GOP-leaning independents (15 percent) to say they have received an updated COVID vaccine.

The poll also reported that just 28 percent of adults say they have received the updated COVID inoculation.

The peer-reviewed multinational study of more than 99 million vaccinated people that Mr. Kennedy referenced in his X post on March 7 was published in the Vaccine journal on Feb. 12.

It aimed to evaluate the risk of 13 adverse events of special interest (AESI) following COVID-19 vaccination. The AESIs spanned three categories—neurological, hematologic (blood), and cardiovascular.

The study reviewed data collected from more than 99 million vaccinated people from eight nations—Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, New Zealand, and Scotland—looking at risks up to 42 days after getting the shots.

Three vaccines—Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines as well as AstraZeneca’s viral vector jab—were examined in the study.

Researchers found higher-than-expected cases that they deemed met the threshold to be potential safety signals for multiple AESIs, including for Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), myocarditis, and pericarditis.

A safety signal refers to information that could suggest a potential risk or harm that may be associated with a medical product.

The study identified higher incidences of neurological, cardiovascular, and blood disorder complications than what the researchers expected.

President Trump’s role in Operation Warp Speed, and his continued praise of the COVID vaccine, remains a concern for some voters, including those who still support him.

Krista Cobb is a 40-year-old mother in western Ohio. She voted for President Trump in 2020 and said she would cast her vote for him this November, but she was stunned when she saw his response to President Biden about the COVID-19 vaccine during the State of the Union address.

I love President Trump and support his policies, but at this point, he has to know they [advisers and health officials] lied about the shot,” Ms. Cobb told The Epoch Times.

“If he continues to promote it, especially after all of the hearings they’ve had about it in Congress, the side effects, and cover-ups on Capitol Hill, at what point does he become the same as the people who have lied?” Ms. Cobb added.

“I think he should distance himself from talk about Operation Warp Speed and even admit that he was wrong—that the vaccines have not had the impact he was told they would have. If he did that, people would respect him even more.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/11/2024 - 17:00

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