Alberta’s government lied about the death of young teen Nathanael Spitzer, and the media buried it
Episode Stats
Summary
14-year-old Nathaniel Spitzer was on his deathbed in palliative care when he tested positive for COVID-19. He died days later of his terminal brain cancer. But Alberta Health labelled his death as a COVID death, which was reported to the media. The Western Standard investigates.
Transcript
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I'm Derek Vildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard.
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On October 18th, Nathaniel Spitzer, just 14 years old, died.
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The death of a promising child so young in this world is every parent's worst nightmare.
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My heart, and that of every Albertan hearing the news was broken.
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On Tuesday, Alberta Chief Medical Officer Dina Hinshaw reported that a 14-year-old had died in Alberta as a COVID-19 case,
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As it turns out, Nathaniel didn't die from COVID at all.
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Those pre-existing conditions were, in fact, stage 4 terminal brain cancer.
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He was on his deathbed in palliative care when he tested positive for COVID-19.
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But Alberta Health labeled his death a COVID-19 death, which Hinshaw reported to the media.
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A case showing that COVID-19 doesn't just kill the elderly and sick, but the young as well.
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NDP leader Rachel Notley took to Twitter to express her outrage that the government would even mention pre-existing conditions.
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Better that his death be counted among those lost to COVID entirely.
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Better to lay his death at the feet of Alberta Premier J.C. Kenney.
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Telling their loved ones that there were other health complications that contributed to their death offers no comfort whatsoever.
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No matter what pre-existing conditions they had, this child died during a fourth wave that was preventable.
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This shouldn't have happened. We need to know what will be done to stop it from happening again. End quote.
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But Nathaniel's death had nothing to do with the, quote, fourth wave that was preventable.
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In fact, his death was entirely due to what Notley called, quote, other health complications.
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This is the morbid state of pandemic politics in 2021.
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As the publishing, Notley has not apologized to the family or removed her tweets.
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Nathaniel's sister, Simone, was devastated by the government and media falsely reporting that her brother's death was a COVID-19 case.
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She took to Facebook to tell the truth about what happened.
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He died from stage four brain cancer, not from COVID. This is fake news.
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He was diagnosed in January 2021 and hospitalized in August.
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Two days before his death, he tested positive for COVID and it turned out positive.
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Well, this post came to the Western Standard's attention not long after it was posted.
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Our reporters investigated and confirmed that Sabone was in fact the sister of Nathaniel.
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Western Standard correspondent Melanie Risden published the story on Wednesday afternoon.
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And unless I'm mistaken, every single last mainstream government funded media outlet in Alberta ignored the story entirely.
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The family, who just might know something about the fate of their lost loved ones, were ignored.
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Their story didn't fit the story that had already been put in print.
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Their story didn't fit the narrative. Their story was best forgotten.
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This was the government of Alberta inflating the COVID-19 death statistics.
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This was the mainstream media ignoring the story of the family that contradicted the official government story,
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which had already been dutifully reported by the media.
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We know that there have been bogus government reporting on what constitutes COVID-19 deaths in many jurisdictions.
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At our morning editorial meeting today, I instructed that this story remain our main focus.
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And that we tell the story until someone listened.
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Hinshaw took to her podium to apologize for misclassifying Nathaniel's death as a COVID fatality.
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She promised that fatality numbers would be better classified for young people under 18, going forward.
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From now on, only actual COVID-19 deaths will be labeled as COVID-19 deaths.
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At last, the mainstream media could report on what really happened.
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Long after the Spitzer family publicly told the truth on social media for the world to see,
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the legacy media felt comfortable enough to report on the issue.
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It was now a part of the official story, as the government tells it.
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As much as I might take glee in sticking it to our mainstream competitors,
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I write this at the end of my regular workday, genuinely depressed about the state of government communications and media.
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Newsrooms can be short-staffed and stories get missed.
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This was mass omission of a key and indispensable element of a story that everyone had already published.
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The only part of the story more important than the government lying about a child's cause of death
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Our politicians need to stop playing football with life and death.
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Our media need to stop trusting everything that they are told by the government.
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The public needs to stop trusting everything that they're told by the media.
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What are the lines of perspective on a child's cause of death and death?