LOVELAND MAGAZINE

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Since 2004

Tag: 5G towers

  • She says vaccines make you magnetized. This lawmaker invited her testimony

    She says vaccines make you magnetized. This lawmaker invited her testimony

    Republican Rep. Jennifer Gross of West Chester

    By Jake Zuckerman and Ohio Capital Journal

    Columbus, Ohio – After a discredited doctor’s conspiracy theories involving COVID-19 vaccines, magnetics and 5G towers made a mockery of the Ohio House of Representatives, the Health chairman blamed the sponsor of anti-vaccination legislation for inviting the doctor to testify before the committee.

    House Health Committee Chairman Scott Lipps, R-Franklin, said in an interview that fellow Republican Rep. Jennifer Gross of West Chester personally requested that Cleveland area physician Dr. Sherri Tenpenny testify in support of Gross’ bill, the “Vaccine Choice and Anti-Discrimination Act.”

    Lipps said he warned against Tenpenny, but Gross “vehemently” overrode his objections.

    Tenpenny is a prominent anti-vaccination advocate who was deemed “unreliable” by a special master in federal court, who forbade her testimony as an expert witness in an alleged vaccine injury case. 

    Gross also personally invited Fremont attorney Tom Renz to testify at the hearing. A federal judge similarly blasted as “incomprehensible” a federal lawsuit Renz filed alleging “tyranny” from Ohio’s government regarding the pandemic.

    Lipps said Gross and Stephanie Stock, president of anti-vaccination advocacy group Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom, were adamant.

    “We did not include Tom Renz or Sherri Tenpenny on our agenda,” he said. “They protested, called me personally, and said they wanted Renz and Tenpenny.”

    Renz and Tenpenny both testified in support of Gross’ House Bill 248, which would prohibit colleges, insurers, hospitals, nursing homes, employers and others from requiring, incentivizing or asking about vaccination — all vaccines, not just for COVID-19. Public health experts have said in previous interviews the legislation would suppress Ohio’s vaccination rates against a number of diseases and increase the likelihood of outbreaks of infectious disease.

    The bill drew huge public interest, prompting the committee to allow only certain, invited witnesses to testify.

    Tenpenny, one of the few invited witnesses, unleashed a torrent of inaccurate and bizarre claims about purported dangers of the vaccine. She alleged that vaccinated people become “magnetized,” as evidenced by pictures on the internet of them with forks and spoons sticking to their persons.

    “There has been people who have long suspected there was some sort of an interface, yet to be defined, an interface between what’s being injected in these shots, and all of the 5G towers,” Tenpenny said.

    See footage of Tenpenny’s comments to the committee here. 

    The comments, which are not accurate, would soon drag the Ohio House through lampooning national media coverage and ridicule from late night comics like John Oliver and Stephen Colbert.

    At 1:47 a.m. the day after Tenpenny’s comments, the doctor emailed Gross to thank the lawmaker for being “strong and brave” and allowing her to testify, according to an email obtained in a public records request.

    In the email, Tenpenny sent a largely unrelated article from the Journal of Nanobiotechnology examining the biochemical functionality of magnetic particles as nanosensors, which are used in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Tenpenny seemed to claim it as proof of her comments regarding COVID-19 vaccines.

    “Don’t let them bully you or disparage me,” she wrote. “We’re on to something here… and the LOUDER they scream, the more they are trying to hide. I stand by everything I said today. I put out FACTS and HYPOTHESIS (points to ponder).

    God Wins,

    Dr. Sherri Tenpenny.”

    The day after the testimony, with the comments going viral online, Gross came to Lipps’ office and said she needed help with “damage control,” according to Lipps’ remarks in an interview. 

    Gross declined to confirm or deny Lipps’ account or answer emailed questions. She said she’s busy and considers the questions “old news.” However, she claimed Lipps praised Renz’s testimony and alleged he thought Tenpenny “sounds great.”

    Ohio House Health Chairman Scott Lipps. Source: Ohio General Assembly.

    Lipps denied saying this.

    “I would expect nothing different from Rep. Gross,” he said in a text message to the Capital Journal. “I have quickly learned she [accepts] no responsibility for her actions or decisions and is quick to blame anyone and everyone. Also, the first agenda we [put] out for proponent testimony had NO Renz and NO Tenpenny. Rep. Gross vehemently objected.”

    When the House Health Committee met a week after the comments went viral, Lipps defended the practice of bringing in witnesses like Tenpenny, even if doing so made people “uncomfortable.” He emphasized the importance of hearing from those one disagrees with.

    “Please step outside your own little world and understand that people are not all the same, and they don’t all believe the same,” he said. “You are not always right.”

    Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom helped draft Gross’ HB 248 legislation and has paid for a spread of radio ads to gin up support for the bill, according to disclosures with the Federal Communications Commission.

    Stock — president of the group, which researchers found to be the fourth-largest purchaser nationwide of anti-vaccination ads on Facebook — declined to answer questions for this report.

    So who is Sherri Tenpenny?

    Most Ohioans had probably never heard of Tenpenny before video of her June 8 testimony went viral.

    In anti-vaccination corners of the internet, however, she’s something of a celebrity doctor. 

    She is close with Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist and media figure who is facing libel lawsuits after claiming the Sandy Hook school shooting that left 20 young children and six adults dead at a Connecticut school was a “giant hoax.” The two have been friends for 20 years, they both said in a recent interview on Jones’ show.

    On a recent episode of her podcast, Tenpenny interviewed pillow magnate Mike Lindell, who is among the loudest backers of former President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was rigged. Lindell and his company are also facing libel suits related to these claims. 

    While Tenpenny has repeated similar claims of election fraud, her primary focus is vaccines and wrongfully depicting them as dangerous. 

    “Vaccines are now, and people, listen to this closely, always have been a method of mass destruction, a method of depopulation,” she claimed earlier in 2021.

    Tenpenny’s anti-vaccine activism has generated multiple related revenue streams for her. She hosted a “boot camp” this year for $623, training people to convince others to refrain from vaccination. In May, she hosted a live streaming training event to explain the “20 mechanisms of injury from the shots” — platinum package tickets went for $199. Her 2008 book, “Saying No to Vaccines: A Resource Guide for all Ages,” isavailable on Amazon for $877.95, one of several similar titles she has authored.

    Despite this work, Tenpenny does not follow acceptable scientific methodology, her testimony is “unreliable” and she is “unqualified” to address vaccine injury, according to Special Master Richard Abell, appointed by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

    Abell made these remarks in a 2010 ruling that blocked Tenpenny’s testimony on behalf of a man who alleged a hepatitis B vaccination gave him Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare side effect of vaccination.

    The legal standard, he wrote, calls on judges to presume admissibility of testimony of an expert witness. However, he found her methodology “so divergent from the scientific method as to be nonsensical and confusing,” prompting his ruling.

    “Her ideas on vaccine injury have not been exposed to any critical analysis of those in the relevant field, let alone peer-reviewed medical journals,” he said. “There is no way to ascertain whether Dr. Tenpenny’s opinion is credibly accepted by those who would know; there are only the patent defects in her report that militate for the opposite.”

    Tenpenny did not respond to repeated phone calls.

    Tom Renz speaks to the House State and Local government Committee Feb. 17. Source: Ohio Channel.

    Who is Tom Renz?

    After Tenpenny wrapped up her testimony on June 8, Fremont attorney Tom Renz addressed the committee.

    Renz obtained his law license shortly before the pandemic began and his legal career has since wrapped around it. (He says he previously clerked for an Indian Supreme Court justice but doesn’t remember when.)

    He is currently representing clients in COVID-19 related lawsuits against:

    The lawsuits are sprawling, some stretching over 100 pages, and are rife with claims that the COVID-19 death count is “inflated,” that asymptomatic spread of disease is a “fallacy,” that masks don’t work and a deluge of other inaccurate and often debunked claims.

    No cases have yet received any significant rulings. U.S. District Judge James Carr described the first lawsuit against DeWine as “a jumble of alleged facts, conclusory and speculative assertions, personal and third-party allegations, opinions, and articles of dubious provenance and admissibility.”

    Renz withdrew the lawsuit and has since filed a similar case that awaits a ruling. Ohio Stands Up, a citizens group that acts as plaintiffs in the cases, created a crowdsourced legal fund to pay Renz and his partner, Robert Gargasz. The fund has raised nearly $140,000 since it launched around September 2020.

    Earlier this year, Renz testified before a separate committee regarding a pandemic-related bill. YouTube ultimately removed footage of the hearing from its site for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policy. 

    Renz didn’t respond to an email.

    Ohio Stands Up recently posted on Facebook a flier for an August fundraiser: “An Evening With Dr. Sherri Tenpenny and Attorney Thomas Renz.” Tickets cost $75. 

  • ‘5G towers,’ ‘magnetization’, other conspiracies flourish at hearing on vaccine bill

    ‘5G towers,’ ‘magnetization’, other conspiracies flourish at hearing on vaccine bill

    By Jake Zuckerman and Ohio Capital Journal edited by Loveland Magazine

    Columbus – A doctor warned that vaccinated people might be magnetized and pose a health risk to unvaccinated people around them.

    A pastor said vaccines contain ingredients like formaldehyde and fetal cells.

    A nurse sought to prove the truth of “magnetic vaccine crystals.”

    These statements — none of which are true — came during the Ohio House Health Committee’s review Tuesday of House Bill 248, a broad weakening of state vaccination laws. The five-hour hearing, limited to proponent testimony, devolved into a forum of fear-stoking, speculation, and conspiracy theorizing around the COVID-19 vaccines.

    Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, a board-certified physician from the Cleveland area, repeatedly raised unfounded claims of deaths, strokes and other “horrendous side effects” from the vaccine. The Center for Countering Digital Hate identified Tenpenny as one of a dozen of the most prolific anti-vaccination disinformers “who play leading roles in spreading digital misinformation about Covid vaccines.”

    At one point, Tenpenny made a claim to lawmakers, with no evidence behind it, that vaccinated people are somehow magnetized.

    “They can put a key on their forehead, it sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them and they can stick, because now we think there’s a metal piece to that,” she said. “There’s been people who have long suspected that there was some sort of an interface, yet to be defined interface, between what’s being injected in these shots and all of the 5G towers.”

    Shortly thereafter, Tom Renz, a lawyer, testified in support of the bill as well. Renz has filed lawsuits in states around the U.S. crying foul of an array of government practices related to COVID-19 and vaccination.

    He filed one such case in Ohio, which he withdrew after U.S. District Judge James Carr called Renz’s arguments nearly “incomprehensible” and his supporting evidence “a jumble of alleged facts, conclusory and speculative assertions, personal and third-party allegations, opinions, and articles of dubious provenance and admissibility.”

    Renz, like several other witnesses, accused health officials of secretly profiting from vaccines while covering up their dangers.

    House Bill 248, co-sponsored by 16 House Republicans, would prohibit any of the following institutions from mandating, incentivizing, or “otherwise requesting” their employees, customers or students get vaccinated: businesses, hospitals, nursing homes, colleges, day-care centers, and insurers.

    It also:

    • Prohibits a person from mandating, requiring, or otherwise requesting that an individual receive a vaccine.
    • Compels public schools, which already accept exemptions for non-medical and medical reasons, to emphasize vaccine exemptions “in the same timing and manner, including text size and font, as it provides notice of the requirements.”
    • Blocks businesses from separating patrons by vaccination status or asking whether they’ve been vaccinated.

    Rep. Jennifer Gross, R-West Chester, the bill’s lead sponsor, has said she isn’t opposed to vaccination, but people should have the right to choose.

    “This is not a scientific bill,” she said last month. “This is a freedom bill.”

    Several public health experts have warned in interviews that the legislation will likely lead to sagging vaccination rates, and in turn, outbreaks of infectious disease.

    In the last two weeks, Gov. Mike DeWine, Ohio Department of Health Director Stephanie McCloud, and ODH Medical Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff declined to comment on the legislation.

    At a press call last week, a physician joined Vanderhoff for a largely unrelated press conference encouraging vaccination against COVID-19. When asked by a reporter about the bill, she didn’t share Vanderhoff’s reticence.

    “I’ll be very direct and say this bill threatens how we take care of children, and how we keep them healthy, and how we keep them alive,” said Dr. Patty Manning-Courtney, the chief of staff at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

    “To limit and restrict the ability to require vaccinations in schools or to check vaccination status, it’s almost unthinkable in a pediatric community to think that one of the best tools we have at prevention would be limited, restricted, or discussed in a way that is negative.”

    Similarly, a “vaccine coalition” of business groups along with the largest medical groups and associations in the state — including the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Hospital Association, the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association, Anthem, OhioHealth, and others — issued a public letter warning the legislation puts all children at risk.

    “At its core, this proposal would destroy our current public health framework that prevents outbreaks of potentially lethal diseases, threaten the stability of our economy as it recovers from a devastating pandemic, and jeopardize the way we live, learn, work and celebrate life,” the coalition wrote.

    An item that fully escaped the committee’s attention: during the hearing itself, the CDC published an early release of a report analyzing COVID-19 infections by age group and vaccination status.

    The researchers found occurrences of COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and death plummeted among Americans aged 65-and-up (about 82% of whom are vaccinated) compared to those aged 18-49 (about 42% of whom are vaccinated).

    The finding builds on mounting evidence of the COVID-19 vaccines’ safety and efficacy.

    The legislation drew immense support including more than 800 pieces of written testimony. The hearing room was virtually full, requiring two overflow rooms for supporters. At a lunch recess, a man stood outside the statehouse passing out faux vaccination cards with a vulgarity on the flip side.

    “Mandatory vaccines and masks are a joke … much like this card!” it states.

    In an interview after the hearing, House Health Chairman Scott Lipps, R-Franklin, said it’d be tough but possible to see the bill passed out of committee before lawmakers break for summer recess at the end of the month.

    He indicated looming amendments might narrow the bill, possibly restricting its focus solely to the flu or COVID-19 vaccine as opposed to its current form of all vaccinations.

    “If you could trim this bill down, you could pass it,” he said.

    During the hearing, Lipps tried to steer witness testimony and lawmakers’ inquiries toward the philosophical questions about the role of government in public health as opposed to litigating the safety and efficacy of vaccines. The attempts were largely unsuccessful with both proponents and opponents.

    He distanced himself from Tenpenny’s remarks.

    “I do believe Representative Gross requested Dr. Tenpenny to speak, and she got a little off balance, I think she got a little outside the lines of what we were intending or hoping to keep her in,” he said. “I hope that didn’t harm her credibility, but I think some committee members walked away with big questions.”