By  Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

Thailand’s National Health Security Office as of March 8 paid the equivalent of $45.65 million to settle COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation claims under a system that is relatively easy to navigate, and quick to pay.

The payouts were made to 12,714 people, including family members of some people who died as a result of the vaccine.

An additional 891 claims are pending. A total of 15,933 claims have been filed since the start of the compensation program on May 19, 2021. Of the 2,328 complaints that were rejected, 875 are being appealed.

The figures released on March 9 represent a continued increase in claims approved by Thailand’s NHSO. As of Dec. 26, 2021, only 8,470 claims had been approved for compensation.

The vaccines being administered in Thailand are primarily the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine, and the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine.

Thailand’s vaccine injury compensation program is an example of a “no-fault compensation program.”

As reported by The Defender in December 2021, “no-fault” refers to a measure put in place by public health authorities, private insurance companies, manufacturers and/or other stakeholders to compensate individuals harmed by vaccines.

Such programs allow a person who has sustained a vaccine injury to be compensated financially, without having to attribute fault or error to a specific manufacturer or individual.

No-fault compensation schemes are one of three options used by various countries to handle vaccine injury claims.

The other two options include allowing vaccine-injured people to sue private-sector actors, such as vaccine manufacturers or their insurers, or to place the full financial burden on the patient.

In the case of Thailand, the compensation scheme sets forth the following payout categories:

• For cases of death or permanent disability, each family receives 400,000 baht ($11,928).
• Those who sustained a disability that affects their livelihood or who lost a limb receive 240,000 baht ($7,157).
• For other injuries or illnesses sustained as a result of COVID vaccination, a maximum of 100,000 baht ($2,982) is paid out.

For the third category of claims, the specific amount awarded is contingent on the level of damages found to have been caused by the vaccine, as well as the financial state of the patient.

When the compensation fund was set up in 2021, Dr. Jadej Thammatacharee, the NHSO’s secretary-general, stated the available funds would total 100 million baht ($2.98 million), but that initial budget already has been exceeded many times over.

Thailand’s “no-fault” system makes it easy to secure compensation, at least when compared to similar schemes in the U.S. and other western countries.

Claims can be submitted by the individuals in question, or their families, at the hospital where they were vaccinated, at provincial health offices, or at NHSO regional offices. Moreover, claims can be entered up to two years after the adverse effects first occur.

Any individual claiming injury or side effects can file a claim for initial financial aid to provide an unspecified amount to claimants prior to confirmation that the injuries resulted from the vaccine.

If it is later determined the adverse effects were not a result of the vaccine, the claimants are entitled to keep this initial financial payout.

The turnaround time on claims also appears to be quick, when compared to the U.S. and several other countries.

The Bangkok Post reported that 13 panels across Thailand meet on a weekly basis to consider compensation claims. Those that are approved are paid within five days. Rejected claims can be appealed directly to the NHSO secretary-general within 30 days.

[…]

Thailand Paid $45 Million in COVID Vaccine Injury Claims, While U.S. Has Paid $0

A letter just published in The Lancet exposed the flawed methodologies used in the Gates-funded Global Burden of Disease project that wrongly suggests red meat is inherently harmful and any amount consumed will contribute to disease.

The Topline:

• Red meat eating has been demonized because of its alleged adverse impacts on the environment and on health.
• Find out why it isn’t red meat that’s the problem: it’s the production system that’s at fault, and why regenerative grazing that’s adapted to local conditions is the answer.
• Did you know that, gram for gram, wheat and rice production yield much higher greenhouse gas emissions than lamb, goat or buffalo? Industrial beef farming is a problem however you look at it.
• The mainstream narrative pushes us to be concerned about greenhouse gas emissions, but fails to tell us how agricultural soils can readily be converted into incredibly effective carbon sinks.
• A letter just published two weeks ago in The Lancet has exposed the flawed methodologies used in the Gates-funded Global Burden of Disease (GBD) project that wrongly suggests red meat is inherently harmful and any amount consumed will contribute to disease.
• A further look at the GBD 2019 data has numerous anomalous findings that show the data isn’t worth the Gates money it was funded with. Check out and please share our downloadable infographic.
• Most of the findings appear to be linked to pushing agendas that fit perfectly with a business-with-disease model that is heavily fuelled by Gates Foundation funding.

Any red meat eaters among you will be aware that it’s becoming ever more un-politically correct to do what your hunter-gatherer ancestors appear to have done food-wise to help all of us see the light of day.

The driver behind this change in perception is less to do with ethics — as little has changed other than increased adoption of inhumane factory farming of animals. It’s more to do with the accumulating body of evidence that points to the environmental and health harms associated with meat eating, especially red meat, and even more especially beef eating.

Of course, we don’t hunt with a spear any longer. Most meat in industrialized countries is industrially produced in factory farms. Much of the feed for these animals is genetically modified and has been imported over vast distances.

Any review of the totality of available evidence suggests this kind of meat production is bad for the environment, contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also ethically suspect given there are much kinder ways of raising animals, and the bit that many are focused on now is: it’s bad for health.

In this article, we’re going to shed some light on where we are on both the environmental and health aspects of red meat eating.

Meat eating and the environment

Let’s start by trying to break down some of the complexities.

A study taking in data from 200 countries published in Nature Food back in September, funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, suggested that animal-based food (including livestock feed, transport etc.) contributed to a staggering 57% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Plant-based foods, by comparison, contributed just half this amount (29%).

The “meat & dairy cause twice as many emissions” story from this paper went global. Here it is in the UK’s Independent, Scientific American and the Vegetarian Times.

A nail in the coffin for meat, surely?

Production of different meats yield very different emissions

When you look deeper into the very same study, you see staggering differences in carbon dioxide emissions per gram of different meats, with some red meats contributing less than some plant foods.

For example, the mainstream-approved study relying on the production of both rice and wheat, the two most common staples, emit more greenhouse gases than sheep meat (sometimes also referred to as mutton and lamb), as well as goat or buffalo meat (see Fig. 1).

This alone means that saying meat, or even just red meat, results in more greenhouse gases than plant foods, is a non sequitur. In plain English, it’s a falsity or a lie.

The data also tell us it is irrational to lump all red meat into the same category if you’re looking at trying to reduce environmental impact. Beef and sheep are like apples and oranges. As are rice and maize — again, why lump them together, unless there’s another agenda?

Meat production emissions in terms of agricultural land area

When you look at emissions per unit area of agricultural land, things look pretty disastrous for meat production in areas like the EU and the Middle East (Fig. 2). But they don’t in South and Southeast Asia. What does that tell you?

It’s not meat production itself that’s the problem, it’s the production system for animal-based foods that’s a problem in some parts of the world. And not in others. Blame the production system, not the animal.

Of course that’s got a lot to do with if the animals are raised on industrialized farming systems with imported grain, as you can see (Fig 2).