By Tammy Hung
Oregon state Sens. Kim Thatcher and Dennis Linthicum, both Republicans, have petitioned Acting U.S. Attorney Scott E. Asphaug to launch a grand jury investigation into the measurement of COVID-19 statistics by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Thatcher and Linthicum submitted the petition in a letter (pdf) on Aug. 16 after gathering signatures from 1,718 Oregonians and 53,032 Americans.
In the petition, the senators expressed concerns over the measurement and reporting of COVID-19 vaccine adverse reactions including fatalities and injuries.
Related: NewsRescue–CDC Quietly Deletes Guidance Virally Criticized as Double Standard Higher Test Threshold for Reporting ‘Breakthrough’ Cases
The lawmakers stated that a whistleblower, under sworn testimony, said the data reported under the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System may have been underreported by a factor of five.
Regarding the diagnosis of COVID-19 through widely-used PCR tests, the senators said that the CDC and the FDA’s setting of one particular test parameter—the cycle threshold—generated “false positives resulting in inflated numbers of COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.”
Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Michael Mina told The New York Times in August 2020 that tests with too high of a threshold may detect not just live viruses but also genetic fragments. Mina suggested setting the cut-off at 30 cycles or less.
Thatcher expressed concern over the cycle threshold of 28 when testing vaccinated individuals. According to the petition, a low cut-off is likely to “eliminate false positive results and thereby reduce the number of vaccine ‘breakthrough’ cases.”
From the letter:
“It has been proven that the current COVID RT-PCR tests, set to a cycle threshold (Ct) of 40 by the FDA
and CDC, generate false positive results due to the Ct value being set too high. To further complicate
matters, the CDC has elected to set the Ct value to 28 when testing samples from vaccinated
Americans. This creates two different standards of measurement. Firstly, the higher threshold of
measurement generates false positives resulting in inflated numbers of COVID cases, hospitalizations,
and deaths. Secondly, the lower threshold of measurement acts to eliminate false positive results and
thereby reduces the number of vaccine “breakthrough” cases. These facts make it virtually impossible
for the public to trust the data they are being presented and the public health policies based upon this
data.”
