A new report has sharply criticized the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, writing that lockdowns, school closures and vaccine mandates were “catastrophic errors” resulting in many Americans losing faith in public health institutions. 

The report, published this week by the non-profit Committee to Unleash Prosperity (CTUP), paints a damning indictment of the government’s role in the crisis and offers ten lessons that must be learned, to avoid the same mistakes from being repeated.

Some of the guidance includes halting all binding agreements or pledges to the World Health Organization (WHO), term limits for all senior health agency positions as well as limiting the powers of health agencies to make sure they are strictly advisory and do not have the power to set laws or mandates.

COVID LOCKDOWNS INCREASED ADHD RISK AMONG 10-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN, NEW STUDY FINDS

The paper, titled “COVID Lessons Learned A Retrospective After Four Years,” states that granting unprecedented powers to public health agencies, many of which imposed strict limits on basic civil liberties, had little positive benefit and instead helped stoke fear among the public. 

“Conventional wisdom pre-COVID was that communities respond best to pandemics when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted,” the authors wrote. “During COVID, the public health establishment followed the opposite principle: they intentionally stoked and amplified fear, which overlaid enormous economic, social, educational and health harms on top of the harms of the virus itself.”

The report was written by Scott Atlas, M.D., a senior fellow in health policy at the Hoover Institution and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Steve Hanke, Ph.D., a professor of applied economics at the Johns Hopkins University, Philip Kerpen, the president of the Committee to Unleash and Casey B. Mulligan, Ph.D., a professor in economics at the University of Chicago. It draws on various reports and research papers that studied the pandemic. 

People in cars attend Easter Sunday services at the Daytona Beach Drive-in Christian Church as a way to practice social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“SARS-CoV2 was a dangerous virus, but a calm, proportionate response would have applied the lessons from past influenza pandemics and used existing pandemic response plans. Instead, from the moment the virus was detected in America, the public health community and politicians spread an outsized message of fear and doom,” the paper reads.

The group wrote that lockdowns did not work to substantially reduce deaths or stop viral circulation, and although they were timed to claim credit for declining waves of the virus, they “rarely had any discernable casual impact.” 

In reality, one of the results was that people’s health was negatively impacted as medical procedures were canceled, stoking fear, they wrote.

For instance, from April 2020 through the end of 2021, there were 171,000 non-COVID excess deaths, whereas there were none in Sweden, a country that did not lock down despite being heavily pressured to do so.

People gather in support of continuing the school mask mandate outside the Loudon County Government Center prior to a Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, January 18, 2022, in Leesburg, VA. The report states that masking had little or no value to fight the spread of the disease. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

COVID IMPACTS: PEOPLE LOST TRACK OF TIME AS A RESULT OF PANDEMIC LOCKDOWNS, SAYS STUDY

“A much wiser strategy than issuing lockdown orders would have been to tell the American people the truth, stick to the facts, educate citizens about the balance of risks, and let individuals make their own decisions about whether to keep their businesses open, whether to socially isolate, attend church, send their children to school, and so on,” the authors wrote.

School shutdowns caused dramatic and irrefutable damage to children, they wrote, with reports of poor learning, school dropouts, social isolation, mental illness, drug abuse, suicidal ideation and 300,000 cases of child abuse unreported in the spring of 2020.

Masks also had little or no value and were possibly harmful, they wrote, “amplifying fears by creating the irrational belief that an unmasked face presented a threat, causing conflict and division among citizens, and giving high-risk people the mistaken impression that masks were protective, potentially resulting in some people risking exposure who otherwise may not have.”

They blasted the CDC for continuing to advise mask wearing “contrary to evidence . . . [and] undermining its credibility.”

On an economic level, the lockdowns put over 49 million Americans out of work, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) survey data. Unemployment benefits approved by Congress prolonged unemployment and associated economic underperformance, too.

The report also criticized the media, Big Tech, the academic science and public health community for stifling debate.

U.S. President Joe Biden receives his updated COVID-19 booster in the South Court Auditorium at the White House campus on October 25, 2022. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“Anthony Fauci, the head of the largest federal grantmaking entity, created an environment in which it was very difficult for most medical experts to break with the dominant narratives on lockdowns, masks, or overwhelmed hospitals,” the report states. 

“The National Institutes of Health (NIH) became the principal advocate of lockdown policies, but failed to run high-quality trials of repurposed drugs and non-pharmaceutical interventions.”

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Elsewhere, the report praised the Project Warp Speed for getting effective monoclonal antibody treatments and vaccines in record time, but it failed to assess their safety. The authors wrote that the mandates and associated pressure campaign were wrong and undermined informed consent.

The authors recommend that Congress and the states define by law “public health emergency” with strict limitations on powers conferred to the executives and time limits that require legislation to be extended. 

“Crises are when checks and balances and well-functioning institutions are most needed – not when they should be discarded and decision-making outsourced to alleged experts like Francis Collins, who casually confessed to a completely incorrect decision calculus years later,” they wrote.

As the U.S. weathers its fourth wave of the opioid epidemic crisis, more people are turning to non-opioids — including a natural remedy known as kratom — to combat their pain.

Yet medical examiners and coroners have found that kratom caused 1.5% to 1.7% of overdose deaths between Jan. 2020 and Dec. 2022. 

That’s according to data from the State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System (SUDORS) that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shared with Fox News Digital.

TEEN DRUG OVERDOSES HIT RECORD HIGH, DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY FENTANYL POISONING, SAYS NEW REPORT

Here’s a closer look at this important issue.

What is kratom? 

“Kratom is derived from the leaves of a Mitragyna speciosa, a Southeast Asian tree found in Malaysia and Thailand,” Lori Karan, M.D., professor of internal and preventive medicine at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California, told Fox News Digital.

The leaves of the tree have more than 40 different active compounds; the most primary is mitragynine, 7-hydroxymitragynine and speciofoline. 

The plant is thought to have dual properties.

It produces a stimulant effect at low doses, and an opioid-like analgesic effect when taken in higher amounts, according to Dr. Richard Clark, medical director of the San Diego division of the California Poison Control System.

“It has activity at opioid receptors in the brain (like opioid analgesics), and for that reason has been used as either a substitute for opioid analgesics or a tool to improve symptoms of opioid withdrawal,” Clark told Fox News Digital.

‘GAS STATION HEROIN’ IS GROWING THREAT IN NEW JERSEY, HEALTH OFFICIALS WARN: ‘DANGEROUS AND ADDICTIVE’

Americans most commonly use kratom for self-treatment of chronic pain and to help battle opioid withdrawal symptoms, he said.

The drug is banned in six states — Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin — although people can still buy products prepared from kratom leaves online and in stores across the U.S.

Kratom is derived from the leaves of a Mitragyna speciosa, a Southeast Asian tree found in Malaysia and Thailand. (iStock)

“There are currently no specific laws against possession of kratom in the United States,” Clark noted.

Approximately two million Americans aged 12 and older used kratom in the past year, according to a 2022 national survey on drug abuse.

“There are no drug products containing kratom or its two main chemical components that are legally on the market in the U.S.,” according to the website of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

“FDA has not approved any prescription or over-the-counter drug products containing kratom or its two main chemical components, mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH-mitragynine).”

Potential risks of kratom

While vendors may advertise kratom as safe and “all natural,” the composition can vary widely and may not accurately reflect the product labeling, experts caution.

It’s uncommon for kratom to cause major toxic effects, but when people ingest large amounts or combine it with other drugs, they may experience hallucinogenic reactions, convulsions, coma and, in rare cases, death, Clark warned.

“There is also a potential for individuals to develop dependence and withdrawal with heavy kratom use,” he said.

5 MYTHS ABOUT KETAMINE, THE DRUG TIED TO MATTHEW PERRY’S DEATH, ACCORDING TO DOCTORS

Other side effects may include nausea, dizziness, confusion and tremors, according to Karan.

“Despite U.S. Food & Drug Administration warnings of the risks of kratom use, the agency continues to receive concerning reports of adverse events associated with its use by the public,” an FDA spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

“The FDA has also warned consumers not to use kratom because of the risk of serious adverse events, including liver toxicity, seizures and substance use disorder (SUD).”

Kratom’s role in overdose deaths 

Among the 144,189 overdose deaths between 2020 and 2022, kratom was “detected” in 2,966 cases, according to the SUDORS report, which means some amount of the substance was detected in post-mortem toxicology testing, whether or not it was a cause of death.

(The SUDORS report includes data from 30 states and Washington, D.C.)

Kratom was “involved” in the deaths of 2,343 cases — which means medical examiners and coroners listed it as a cause of death. (iStock)

Kratom was “involved” in the deaths of 2,343 cases, which means medical examiners and coroners listed it as a cause of death.

When kratom is found in post-mortem testing in overdose cases, the deaths almost always occur as a result of multiple medications — not just kratom, experts say.

“Most fatal overdoses occur in persons who have consumed other substances in addition to kratom.”

“Most fatal overdoses occur in persons who have consumed other substances in addition to kratom,” Karan told Fox News Digital. 

In many cases, people were also taking fentanyl, alcohol or medication for anxiety or depression.

Advocates speak out against claims

The American Kratom Association, based in Virginia, supports the right of Americans to consume kratom in a safe and responsible way.

Advocates for kratom noted that the substance was found in a small minority of more than 300,000 lethal overdoses in the study.

“Research shows that virtually every death associated with the consumption of kratom involved polydrug use, which is not surprising given that many afflicted with drug use disorders have found kratom helps them to wean off more dangerous drugs,” Mac Haddow, senior fellow on public policy at the American Kratom Association, told Fox News Digital.

When kratom is found in post-mortem testing in overdose cases, the deaths almost always occur as a result of multiple medications, not just kratom, experts say. (iStock)

“While it is possible that a consumer could harm themselves by abusing kratom products, like most consumer products already on the market, those occasions are both rare and not related to the safety profile of kratom when it is responsibly consumed,” he added.

The FDA also said that it’s rare for deaths to occur from kratom use alone, and that these deaths usually occur in combination with other drug use, concluding that “the contribution of kratom in the deaths is unclear,” as stated on its website.

OZEMPIC AND WEGOVY WEIGHT LOSS DRUGS COULD HELP REDUCE ALCOHOL USE DISORDER SYMPTOMS, STUDY SUGGESTS

Cornel N. Stanciu, M.D., director of addiction services at New Hampshire Hospital and assistant professor of psychiatry at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, told Fox News Digital that to her knowledge, there have been no deaths in which kratom was the only involved substance.

The doctor is currently working on a paper examining overdoses that are attributed to kratom by medical examiners.

One of the FDA’s top priorities as part of its Overdose Prevention Framework is to protect the public from the risks of unapproved drug substances, including kratom, the agency told Fox News Digital. (REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo)

“So far, what I am seeing is that there is tremendous variability in reporting and testing,” Stanciu said.

Comprehensive testing is lacking among medical examiners, she noted, with most labs not testing for active metabolites of kratom after someone dies. 

“Second — and more concerning — I am seeing that even when more toxic substances are found, some may still call it a kratom-only death,” she cautioned. 

Calls for regulation in testing 

Haddow from the American Kratom Association claimed there is “rampant misinformation” associated with kratom risks — and argues for standardized toxicology testing protocols to better determine the substance’s role in overdoses.  

On Feb. 8, he noted, the U.S. District Court for Southern California requested that the FDA present supporting evidence that kratom is dangerous.

Advocates and experts are calling for more regulations and standardization surrounding testing of kratom. (Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images)

“The FDA refused to attend the hearing and the U.S. attorney explained to the court that the FDA ‘has not yet determined whether kratom is dangerous,’” he told Fox News Digital.

When contacted for comment, the FDA told Fox News Digital that it “does not comment on possible, pending or ongoing litigation.”

The FDA recently conducted a human dose-finding study, which found that no significant adverse events occurred when participants took kratom, even at high doses, Haddow claimed. 

“The FDA has warned consumers not to use kratom because of the risk of serious adverse events, including liver toxicity, seizures and substance use disorder.”

The finding, which the FDA presented at a scientific conference in February 2024, was that “kratom appears to be well-tolerated at all dose levels,” Haddow added.

“The FDA’s current pilot study on dose-finding was conducted in a small sample and is still blinded,” an FDA spokesperson noted, cautioning that the data is preliminary and unvalidated.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER

“We need to wait until final analysis to draw any definitive conclusion or interpretation of the results,” the FDA spokesperson added.

“Ultimately, we anticipate that the data in this pilot will be informative and can support future studies of botanical kratom.”

Advocates for kratom noted that the substance was found in a small minority of more than 300,000 lethal overdoses in the study. (iStock)

One of the FDA’s top priorities as part of its Overdose Prevention Framework is to protect the public from the risks of unapproved drug substances, including kratom, the agency told Fox News Digital.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“We will continue to collaborate with federal partners to engage proactively in meaningful research to advance science-based, regulatory decision-making,” the FDA spokesperson said.

“As new scientific and validated knowledge emerge that is based on rigorously designed studies, the agency will update the public.”

For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health.

St. Patrick’s Day holiday menus often include the traditional corned beef and cabbage meal. Despite the calories and fat content, some nutritional experts say there may be certain health benefits to this savory dish.

“With any special meal and holiday such as St. Patrick’s Day, we should not deny ourselves these delicious meals,” Karina Chiddo, a registered dietician and pediatric nutritionist with Cohen Children’s Medical Center at Northwell Health on Long Island, New York, told Fox News Digital. 

“We should be mindful that special meals can be a part of a healthy lifestyle when eaten in moderation,” she said.

HERE’S HOW ABE LINCOLN, CORNED BEEF CONNOISSEUR, FLAVORED AMERICA’S ST. PATRICK’S DAY CELEBRATIONS

The cornerstone of the traditional meal — which is a nod to Irish heritage — is corned beef, which is a cut of meat cured with salt, much like brisket. 

It is typically served with cabbage on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day.

“Cabbage has some great benefits as an affordable vegetable,” Chiddo pointed out. 

“It is a good source of vitamin C, manganese and folic acid, and is great for phytonutrients and antioxidants.”

Those antioxidants can help to reduce the inflammation that is linked to heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases, she added.

SKYLINE CHILI, QUIRKY CULINARY TRADITION FROM CINCINNATI, CAUSES DEEP RIFT BETWEEN HATERS, ADDICTS

Red cabbage can also raise levels of heart-protective antioxidants and has other benefits, according to Chiddo.

“Cabbage can be beneficial for our gut, especially when it’s fermented as kimchi or sauerkraut,” she said.

Corned beef can be a great source of protein, zinc and B vitamins — although it’s important to watch your portions, Chiddo advised.  

A festive St. Patrick’s Day dinner of lean corned beef with cabbage, carrots, and baby Yukon Gold potatoes, garnished with a shamrock made of baby spinach leaves. The serving size for corned beef is about 3 ounces, about the size of a deck of cards, a nutritionist said. (iStock)

“Be mindful that the serving size is about 3 ounces, about the size of a deck of cards,” she said.

“Like any animal protein, it can be high in saturated fats.”

Julia Zumpano, a registered dietitian with the Cleveland Clinic Center for Human Nutrition, commented on this Irish tradition as well. 

She said cabbage is high in vitamin C, vitamin K, polyphenols and sulfur compounds, while corned beef is a source of vitamin B12, iron, selenium and protein.

How to make corned beef and cabbage healthier

The traditional corned beef and cabbage served on St. Patrick’s Day can be high in saturated fat and sodium, Zumpano noted, but there are ways to reduce those levels and make the meal healthier.

“If you’re preparing the meal, choose a lean cut of beef and trim all fat, limit the amount of sodium added, and include additional vegetables, such as carrots and parsnips,” she told Fox News Digital.

APPLES VS. ORANGES: WHICH OF THESE FRUITS IS ‘BETTER’ FOR YOU?

Cabbage may contain high amounts of sodium as well as saturated fat from butter or meat drippings because of the way it is prepared in a traditional St. Patrick’s Day feast, Zumpano warned, adding the suggestion to limit portion sizes.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER

In general, health experts recommend limiting consumption of red meat and processed meat due to its association with a higher risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, according to a report on the American Heart Association website.

“If you are preparing the meal, choose a lean cut of beef and trim all fat, limit the amount of sodium added, and include additional vegetables, such as carrots and parsnips,” a nutritionist advised. (iStock)

“The major nutritional drawback of corned beef and cabbage is the amount of salt in contains,” Laura Feldman, a registered dietitian nutritionist and an assistant professor of nutrition at Long Island University in Brookville, New York, told Fox News Digital.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“A person who is affected by salt would be advised to keep portions small. However, if you follow a generally healthy diet, the impact of one holiday meal should be minimal.”

For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health.