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The flexible rules of the Paycheck Protection Program allowed virtually any small business or corporation in the United States to qualify for a government-guaranteed relief loan. Frustrated citizens and activist groups criticized thousands of recipients they deemed unworthy, including wealthy lawyers, politicians and political lobbyists, publicly traded companies and businesses under government investigation.
Now the federal loan program has drawn criticism for granting loans to organizations that have challenged vaccine safety.
According to data from the Small Business Administration, which runs the program, six organizations that made claims that scientists called bogus received paycheck protection program loans totaling more than $ 1.1 million. The data was released last month by court order, in response to a lawsuit filed by the New York Times and other news outlets.
The groups that received the loans are Children’s Health Defense, an organization founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr .; the informed consent action network; the National Vaccine Information Center; Mercola.com Health Resources and Mercola Consulting Services, both affiliated with prominent vaccine skeptic Joseph Mercola; and the Tenpenny Integrative Medical Center, a medical practice run by Sherri Tenpenny, physician and author whose books include “Saying No to Vaccines: A Resource Guide for All Ages.”
The loans, which were made by banks and backed by the government in a bid to stave off the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic, ranged from $ 72,500 at Dr Tenpenny’s Medical Center to $ 335,000 at Mercola.com.
The loans did not appear to break Small Business Administration rules: Paycheck Protection Program loans were available to any small business or non-profit organization (typically those with 500 or fewer workers) willing to certify that ” the current economic uncertainty makes this loan request necessary “to support their continued activities. Representatives of the Small Business Association did not respond to questions about the loans.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate, a London-based advocacy group, discovered the loans and the Washington Post made an initial report.
“There is an anomaly here,” said Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the group. “The PPP was necessary to deal with the economic shock of Covid, and anti-vaxxers fundamentally inhibit our ability to defeat and overcome Covid.
Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center in Sterling, Va., Said by email her group had applied for her loan “when it became clear that lockdowns and restrictions on social distancing were threatening. directly the job security of a number of our employees and jeopardized the continued tenancy of our head office in Virginia. The group used the loan to retain its 21 workers, she said.
Ms. Fisher took issue with the idea that her group is anti-vaccine. The organization “does not make recommendations on the use of vaccines and encourages everyone to be fully informed about the risks and complications of infectious diseases and vaccines,” she said.
Vaccines against covid19>
Answers to your questions about vaccines
While the exact order of vaccinees can vary from state to state, most will likely prioritize medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities. If you want to understand how this decision is made, this article will help you.
Life will only return to normal when society as a whole is sufficiently protected against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they will only be able to immunize a few percent of their citizens in the first two months at most. The unvaccinated majority will always remain vulnerable to infection. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines show strong protection against the disease. But it is also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they are infected, as they show only mild symptoms, if any. Scientists do not yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for now, even vaccinated people will have to wear masks, avoid crowds inside, etc. Once enough people are vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society reach this goal, life may start to move closer to something normal by fall 2021.
Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that will potentially be authorized this month clearly protect people against Covid-19 disease. But the clinical trials that delivered these results were not designed to determine whether vaccinated people could still spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. It remains a possibility. We know that people naturally infected with the coronavirus can spread it without feeling a cough or other symptoms. Researchers will study this question intensely as the vaccines are rolled out. In the meantime, even vaccinated people will have to consider themselves as possible spreaders.
The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is given by injection into the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection will not be different from any you received before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines and none of them have reported serious health problems. But some of them experienced short-lived discomfort, including aches and pains and flu-like symptoms that usually last for a day. People may need to plan to be absent from work or school after the second stroke. While these experiences are not pleasant, they are a good sign: they are the result of your own immune system encountering the vaccine and building a powerful response that will provide long-lasting immunity.
No. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use a genetic molecule to stimulate the immune system. This molecule, known as mRNA, is ultimately destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse with a cell, allowing the molecule to slip inside. The cell uses mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any given time, each of our cells can contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce to make their own proteins. Once these proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules that our cells make can only survive for a few minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is designed to resist the enzymes in the cell for a bit longer, so that the cells can make additional viral proteins and elicit a stronger immune response. But mRNA can only last a few days at most before being destroyed.
Del Bigtree, founder of the Informed Consent Action Network, also objected to being described as anti-vaccination, saying his group opposes “the distribution of products that are not properly tested for security”. He does not consider Covid-19 vaccines to be safe, he said.
The loan allowed his organization near Austin, Texas, to retain 10 jobs, he said.
“We used the loan as it was designed,” Bigtree said.
The Paycheque Protection Program distributed $ 523 billion to more than five million small businesses from April to August to help them endure closures and other economic shocks caused by the pandemic. As long as the beneficiaries use most of the money to pay workers and comply with other rules, the loans can be fully canceled and repaid by the US government.
Congress recently allocated $ 284 billion to revive the program, and hard-hit organizations – those whose sales have fallen by at least 25% since the pandemic took hold – are eligible for a second loan. Ms Fisher said her group had no plans to apply for another loan.
Mr Bigtree said he did not plan to reapply either. “Our donor base has grown a lot thanks to this,” he said, referring to the pandemic.
The other four organizations that received assistance from the Paycheck Protection Program did not answer questions about their loans.
Two of the groups received loans very early on in the program, when funding was limited and vulnerable small businesses struggled to overcome the queues that often gave priority to wealthy and well-connected applicants.
Tenpenny Integrative Medical Center obtained a loan on April 11 from KeyBank, and the National Vaccine Information Center received one four days later from the Northwest Federal Credit Union. None of the lenders responded to a request for comment.
Mr Ahmed’s group recently published a report on an online meeting in October hosted by the National Vaccine Clearinghouse to discuss the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate report, speakers at the event, including Mr. Kennedy and Dr. Tenpenny, described the Covid-19 crisis as an opportunity to expand the ranks of vaccine skeptics.
Such efforts come as the US government works to persuade skeptics that coronavirus vaccines are safe and effective. Some frontline workers in hospitals and nursing homes have been hesitant to get vaccinated.
Congress created the Paycheck Protection Program in late March as part of the CARES Act. The program’s rules were hastily drafted and frequently revised, and the relief effort drew fierce criticism from lawmakers and others for distributing the money unevenly and unfairly, so as not to not target the money on the most needy beneficiaries.
Loans to three of the vaccine’s critics – Children’s Health Defense, the Informed Consent Action Network and Mercola.com – were made in May by JPMorgan Chase. A spokeswoman for the bank declined to comment on the loans. Another lender, PNC, declined to comment on its loan to Mercola Consulting Services in late April.
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