‘A glorified drug cartel whose dealers wore lab coats, suits and ties’: how Big Pharma made Americans addicted to opioids
By Ashley Frawley | RT | May 14, 2021
A new HBO documentary called ‘The Crime of the Century’ lays bare how firms like Purdue used bribery, dodgy marketing, and shady political deals to make fortunes by getting millions hooked on super-strong painkillers.
What would it look like if an illegal international drug cartel were allowed to advertise? Perhaps it might take the form of slick music videos and glossy magazine ads promising an ‘end to pain’. Certainly, they would minimise the negative effects of their drugs on your life, your future, and your loved ones. If questioned about what they were doing, we can imagine them blaming those who use their drugs, not themselves for providing them.
It sounds mad – madder still that anyone would believe them – but this is exactly what has been allowed to happen with large pharmaceutical companies and their marketing of highly addictive opioid drugs.
At least, this is the argument put forward in a new two-part HBO documentary series released this week entitled, ‘The Crime of the Century’. Across its nearly four-hour run-time, director Alex Gibney lays bare the bribery, underhanded marketing tactics, and shady political dealings that enabled the devastating overproduction and over-distribution of synthetic opiates. In devastating detail, the documentary portrays American pharmaceutical companies and the doctors who recklessly doled out prescriptions as elements of a glorified drug cartel – dealers in lab coats, suits and ties.
Systematically overselling the benefits of synthetic opioids and downplaying the risk of addiction, the documentary traces how drug companies are driven to pursue ever stronger and more exotic medications as patents on old treatments run out and profits dry up. In many ways, it traverses territory that is already well known, but is no less useful for highlighting in shocking detail just how much these companies have become a major risk to public health.
This is particularly true in their penchant for ‘discovering’ and treating ever more chronic conditions. While the efficacy of opioids for treatment of acute pain and end-of-life care has been well known, there is little incentive to develop and provide drugs solely for such patients, who tend to be few and far between and whose needs are often short-term. No, the real money is in long-term use in greater numbers. And this is where the dangers of pushing these drugs on patients with any kind of pain became increasingly clear.
Through heart-rending stories of suffering and loss, Gibney adeptly shows how a deadly cocktail of business incentives to push for over-prescription at escalating doses, inherent addictiveness, and, in some cases, communities facing economic despair, combined to produce the ‘perfect storm’ that became the opioid crisis.
In one story, a former heroin addict details his experience being used as a human guinea pig, prescribed a daily dose of pills equivalent to 200 hits of heroin. In another, a victim whose family described her as living a happy, functional life using nothing more than Tylenol was prescribed high doses of a range of opioids and muscle relaxants that regularly rendered her unconscious. One day her husband found her dead next to a phone that she’d attempted to use to call for help.
What could possibly fuel such enormous failure of caution? The obvious answer is greed and profit. Indeed, the meagre payouts and settlements companies like Purdue Pharma were ordered to pay over the years paled in comparison to the eye-watering profits they made misrepresenting their drugs. But the story is much deeper. The ‘opioid epidemic’ itself was preceded by claims that most Americans were actually being undertreated. What is more, they were being left callously to suffer in an ‘epidemic of pain’. Throughout the series, company representatives and even policymakers refer over and over to a ‘growing epidemic’ of pain suffered by millions.
This is what prepared the ground for the epidemic of over-prescription, permitting claims detailed in the documentary like “chronic pain patients can’t be addicts”, and the development of pseudoscientific terms like ‘pseudoaddiction’. The latter reflects an attempt to assuage the growing fears of prescribing physicians that the person before them is indeed becoming addicted to the drugs they were being prescribed. No, they only appear this way because they are in so much pain. You must help them. Prescribe more.
And prescribe more they did.
While it is easy to blame this situation on the greed of companies like Purdue Pharma and the owning Sackler family that lived luxuriously in its shadow, they would not have found such a ready market had they not been able to feed and exploit a culture with a preexisting aversion to pain. Indeed, many of the physicians and sales executives responsible for pushing large doses of highly addictive pain medications justified their actions with their belief that a life with pain was a life not worth living. They had convinced themselves that any pain was worse than death.
Supplanting everything that once made life meaningful, the pursuit of health and even mental health have become ultimate goals. The notion that one might tolerate pain, whether physical or psychic, is seen as beyond the pale. It is no longer, ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ Any pain or negative experience is seen as intensely damaging to the human psyche.
In a life without meaning, any pain becomes unbearable. We all become patients in waiting. Easy targets for these drug dealers in suits and ties.
Ashley Frawley is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy at Swansea University and the author of Semiotics of Happiness: Rhetorical Beginnings of a Public Problem.
Biden revokes Trump’s executive order against Big Tech censorship
By Didi Rancovic | Reclaim the Net | May 15, 2021
Four of President Donald Trump’s executive orders have been quietly reversed by the new Biden administration on Friday.
The news was announced by the White House on late Friday and those media outlets who attempted to get any further comment and clarification were out of luck at the time, as the White House remained silent.
One of the four executive orders the former president had signed was called, Preventing Online Censorship.
The executive order came along – and perhaps “prophetically” – before the unprecedented wave of online censorship in the wake of the November 2020 US elections – and the political and physical turmoil during the long weeks the US was trying to count that vote, that culminated in the Capitol Hill protests in early January – but perhaps far more reaching decision by Twitter to ban the account of a sitting president.
The order the Biden administration has now annulled originates in May 2020, when several of Trump’s tweets got labeled as “misleading.”
The executive order at the time accused Twitter of “now” selectively slapping warning labels (meant to undermine authenticity, and ease of access to these tweets) as a reflection of the social media company’s own political bias.
The executive order also mentioned Twitter at the same time turning a blind eye to perpetrators of what many at this time already saw as a Russian collusion hoax, like Adam Schiff. His tweets never got flagged for political bias, the order read.
The order meant that the commerce secretary was to submit a petition to the Federal Communications Commission over social media companies’ practices, while the U.S. attorney general was asked to consider enforcing anti-censorship states laws.
According to the EFF, Biden’s move to revoke the order of his predecessor on this issue came after a letter from Rock The Vote, Voto Latino, Common Cause, Free Press, Decoding Democracy, and the Center for Democracy & Technology, who said the order was “a drastic assault on free speech designed to punish online platforms that fact-checked President Trump.”
These organizations also filed lawsuits against the Trump executive order – a case that now seems to be resolved with the Biden administration’s move.
The West pushes the Xinjiang issue hard, while ignoring the sustained slaughter of Palestinians
By Tom Fowdy | RT | May 14, 2021
Muslims allegedly being treated badly in China? Terrible human rights atrocities that need to be stopped. Muslims being bombed, murdered and driven from their homes in Gaza? Meh, they’re anti-Israel terrorists.
As Gaza burns and rages on, and Palestinians’ homes are turned into their graves, the West’s two-faced hypocrisy towards Muslims has never been clearer.
Unsurprisingly, despite the climbing death toll, condemnation from the West at Israel’s military action has been non-existent. The United States has blocked a UN Security Council Resolution over the matter, while its secretary of State, Antony Blinken, unironically tweeted a celebration of the Muslim Eid Festival.
In the absence of such condemnation, there was at the same time nonetheless a concerted and observable push by the mainstream media and US-affiliated organizations yesterday to put the Xinjiang autonomous region of China back on the agenda.
Several stories were tactically released, including a report from the National Endowment for Democracy-funded Uighur Human Rights Project accusing China of imprisoning Imams on trumped-up charges, while another from the US State and arms industry-funded Australian Strategic Policy institute accused them of demolishing mosques. At the same time, the US and its allies lobbed accusations at China in the United Nations and Blinken branded Xinjiang an “open-air prison”.
The West is pushing the Xinjiang issue hard and selectively, while ignoring long-term sustained atrocities regarding Palestine. They then wonder why Muslim countries largely offer support to Beijing on this matter and don’t take the West’s word for it. The answer is because, unwittingly, the Israel-Palestine conflict (like all the other Western-backed conflicts surrounding it), remains the primary wedge of geopolitical distrust between the Islamic world and the US and its allies.
These countries have no reason to take America’s human rights rhetoric seriously due to the devastation it has inflicted on the Middle East, and they subsequently share a common interest with China on the norm of defending “national sovereignty” from outside interference.
The West advocates to its own public an image of benevolence and sincere self-righteousness, masquerading and rebranding what was otherwise a longstanding history of imperialism, as a global force for good and justice. As what is deemed “morally correct” overlaps with what constitutes “political truth” in Western theory, few of its citizens question the utilization of human rights as an extension of politics or the idea such a premise could possibly be motivated by dishonesty, economic power or malign intent; to be honest about it is rendered a form of “blasphemy”. Thus, what is deemed “universal human rights” are not truly universal at all.
Countries in the Global South, especially in the Middle East, recognize this. In their experience, human rights have been persistently used as a pretext by Western countries to advance strategic and military goals in order to dominate them, as opposed to a truthful effort to improve people’s liberties and quality of life. And which are subsequently ignored when it suits the West, especially in matters of a much greater grievance to the Islamic world such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, which has been the keystone of anti-Western sentiment and ideology in the Middle East since the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948.
There have been many Western interventions in the region, mostly in a period between 1991-2012, justified on the grounds of human rights, such as Iraq, Libya and Syria. Concerning the latter, the West has accused Bashar Al-Assad of killing civilians in the decade-long civil war and called for his removal. Yet at the same time, the West has continually endorsed long-standing killings of civilians by Israel against Palestinians, and enabled that country’s expansionist policies in occupied territories, its unbridled aggression against many of its neighbours, and failed to resolve the seven-decade-long conflict.
In this case, if you are a Muslim country, why would you believe the US and its allies when they suddenly start crying atrocity, genocide and claiming they are standing up for the rights of a Muslim minority group in Xinjiang? Does this, for any Muslim country, have any real credibility?
The same countries who destroy Middle Eastern countries with war and bombings, and refuse to condemn Israel even modestly, now frame themselves as the guardians of Muslims? It’s no surprise that Muslim countries have not joined in the West’s chorus of condemnation, but have offered support to China’s policies. Even if they do not agree ideologically with China as an atheist, communist state, there’s one important point regarding Xinjiang that creates a space of common interest: defence of national sovereignty.
Irrespective of what they may think about events on the ground in Xinjiang, Muslim countries are largely post-colonial states which have suffered, and continue to suffer, from Western interference. Therefore, China’s norm of “non-interference in one’s internal affairs”, combined with its emphasis on defending sovereignty against Western intervention, is an attractive and logical solution to Muslim countries. Why would any such nation jump on the Xinjiang bandwagon and promote the idea that the West should be allowed to assault a country on the pretext of human rights? What might this mean for them?
Muslim countries support China on Xinjiang for a myriad of factors, have no good reason to trust the West, and recognize that the US, the UK and other such countries crying foul on this issue are doing so out of political motivations, as opposed to a sincere concern about the well-being of Islamic people.
As Gaza’s buildings are razed and its people slaughtered, the silence and indifference on this issue speaks louder than words concerning the West’s position on “human rights”. Let us end with this comparison: Palestine is an issue which Muslim countries are angry about, which is ignored by the Western elite; Xinjiang is an issue which the US-led alliance is angry about, that they desperately want Muslims to be furious about on the West’s behalf, but is rightly being ignored.
Tom Fowdy is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.
Israel is deliberately obliterating media buildings in Gaza to cover up the war crimes that will follow
By Eva Bartlett | RT | May 14, 2021
The destruction of two important Gaza buildings housing 20 media outlets was both shocking and predictable. History shows that if the media aren’t around to document Israel’s war crimes, it’s a lot easier for it to commit them.
On Tuesday, Israel bombed the 10-storey Al-Jawhara Tower, causing it to collapse. Before doing so, it had ‘benevolently’ warned that the airstrikes were coming. The following day, it bombed the 14-storey Al-Shorouk Tower, also giving warning it was going to do so.
Most reports have the buildings as evacuated before being levelled. But without these media offices, reporting on Israel’s other war crimes will be left largely to what little media remain and citizen journalists.
The buildings were significant. A statement by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) noted the Al-Jawhara building housed the offices of 13 media institutions and NGOs. And an advisory by the Committee to Protect Journalists noted that the Al-Shorouk building housed at least seven media outlets.
A further statement by the same committee said that the Israeli military had defended its bombing of the building via email, bizarrely claiming it had “acted within international law,” alleging the Al-Jawhara building housed Hamas’ intelligence and military offices, and saying the Al-Shorouk building was a base for Hamas’ military intelligence offices and “infrastructure to communicate tactical-military information.”
Just minutes after the Al-Shorouk building was destroyed, I spoke by phone with Shadi Ali, a producer who had worked there for ten years and was understandably devastated at what had happened. He told me of previous occasions when Israel had bombed the building, in 2009, 2012, and 2014.
“I was there in 2012. My office was on the 14th floor when it was hit at 6am. I was sleeping; I had only slept for one-and-a-half hours when it was hit by two missiles on the top floor,” he told me. “When it was bombed in 2014, we had taken precautions and left it already. They struck the 15th floor, destroying it completely. Our floor became the top floor after that.”
The building was on a main Gaza street, Omar Mukhtar, surrounded by residential apartment buildings. I asked whether he knew if there had been casualties this time. He replied, “We’re waiting, because often they’ll strike again soon after, knowing that people have come to search for casualties.”
I’ve witnessed this tactic with my own eyes. In January 2009, while I was accompanying Palestinian Red Crescent medics, one of the bodies the medics retrieved was that of a Kiffah Lum Towwak, 35, killed by an Israeli missile strike on her backyard in Jabaliya, just minutes after a strike which killed a family member living in the same house.
The same month, I was inside the now-destroyed Al-Shorouk building, having just finished an interview with RT about what I’d seen while riding in ambulances in the extremely dangerous areas of Gaza’s north. Shortly after concluding the interview, Israel shelled the building at least seven times. Thankfully, the tank shelling didn’t destroy the building, and we were able to run down the stairs to “safety” (although in reality nowhere was safe).
The Al-Shorouk building was again bombed a week after this. Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the bombing and noted that the Israeli military had contacted Reuters (which had an office inside) “minutes before the attack to confirm the location of its Gaza office,” and had explained it would not be targeted.
In November 2012, I reported from a hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, after Israeli attacks, and documented the destruction of bridges and other infrastructure as well as visiting the media buildings which had been targeted. I wrote at the time, “At least three Palestinian journalists were killed in the November 2012 Israeli attacks on Gaza, and at least 12 reported injured. The Sharook building suffered damage on its upper floors from a number of bombings including drone and possibly Apache helicopter missiles. The building housing Aqsa TV and various other media offices likewise suffered major damage on its upper floors.”
The CPJ reported, “A series of airstrikes beginning early Sunday and continuing today targeted two buildings, Al-Shawa and Housari Tower and Al-Shuruq Tower, which are well-known for housing numerous international and local news organizations, news reports said. At least seven journalists were injured in the first attack. Khader al-Zahhar, a cameraman for Al-Quds TV, lost his right leg.”
Having journalists on the ground in a place like this is critical. In previous wars on Gaza, Israel has committed a litany of war crimes, including in 2009 targeting with a flechette bomb and killing a uniformed Palestinian medic as he worked to save injured civilians; firing more dart bombs on mourners the following day, killing six, including a pregnant woman; targeting with sniper fire two medics I was with, during ceasefire hours; assassinating children and infants; drone-striking a 14-year-old during ceasefire hours; raining white phosphorous down heavily on civilian areas throughout Gaza; bombing a school sheltering the displaced; bombing hospitals and repeatedly shelling a home Israeli soldiers had forced 60 members of an extended family into, killing 26, including 10 children and seven women.
And that was only in 2009. In 2012 and 2014, Israel again committed more unspeakable crimes of war, destroying entire neighbourhoods and massacring the residents, shelling children on a beach, and drone-striking a teen hours before ceasefire, among many others.
And now, after a few days of Israeli bombardment, horrific reports are emanating from Gaza, including accounts of Palestinians killed by what is believed to be toxic gas, and Israeli precision bombings killing entire families. As of May 14, Gaza’s health ministry reports at least 119 killed, including 31 children.
Meanwhile, across occupied Palestine, Israelis are calling for Palestinians’ deaths, with a rabbi allegedly saying, “I call on you to kill all Arabs!” and others using Facebook and Telegram to organize attack mobs. And it was recently reported, “Israel’s defense minister Benny Gantz threatened more destruction than he ordered in Gaza in 2014. At that time, he was Israel’s chief of staff commanding the 51-day assault that killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children.”
Also reported is an Israeli MP’s call for the Israeli army to “flatten the Strip.” That is nothing new. As I wrote in 2014, “During the eight days of slaughter, Israeli figures called to ‘blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure including roads and water,’ and to ‘Flatten all of Gaza. There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing,’ said the deputy Israeli Prime Minister Eli Yishai and Gilad Sharon respectively.”
Israel’s bombing spree of media targets has been rightly condemned. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate stated that, “the targeting of media headquarters in the brutal bombardment of Gaza is part of the full-fledged war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation authorities against the Palestinian people,” and called for the United Nations and the Red Cross “to provide urgent protection to journalists and the media, and to activate Security Council resolution 2222 (which includes the protection of journalists) and oblige the occupation to fulfil [sic] this.”
The CPJ stated, “It is utterly unacceptable for Israel to bomb and destroy the offices of media outlets and endanger the lives of journalists, especially since Israeli authorities know where those media outlets are housed.” And the International Federation of Journalists said, “The international community cannot turn a blind eye to the systematic violations of human rights and the deliberate targeting of media and journalists. Urgent actions must be taken to hold those responsible for these crimes internationally accountable”.
However, while journalist protection committees have condemned the recent Israeli bombings of media buildings in Gaza, Western corporate media generally haven’t. Imagine, though, if this was taking place in Syria: if Syrian or Russian planes premeditatedlybombed and levelled media buildings there. That would be front page news for days, if not weeks.
I would go back to Gaza to report on this horror if I could enter, but that’s impossible: Israel would not let me in, and is not allowing journalists in in general.
In December 2008, RWB reported, Israel declared the Gaza Strip a “closed military zone” and denied access to journalists working for international media. And now, as Shadi Ali told me the other day, Israel knows there are not many foreigners in Gaza to report what is going on. There is a media blockade, on top of the brutal siege of Gaza and Israel’s bombardment.
“Israel will commit so many crimes in Gaza, while foreign media are not present,” Ali predicted. And he’s right. As Israel threatens to invade by land, the protection of media buildings and journalists becomes all the more important, because Israel will commit more war crimes. They’ve already pledged to make Gaza burn.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
REVIEW: COVID-19 Vaccines May Lead To Prion-Linked Brain Degeneration Similar To Mad Cow Disease
Researchers published a review that sounds the alarm about potential unintended COVID-19 vaccine side effects
By Tom Pappert | National File | May 12, 2021
A new review of possible unintended consequences of COVID-19 vaccines suggests that the controversial mRNA vaccines – Moderna and Pfizer – may lead to unexpected neurological conditions similar to Mad Cow Disease.
The review by Stephanie Seneff, who works at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, and Dr. Nigh, who specializes in Naturopathic Oncologogy at Immerson Health in Portland, Oregon, was released this week in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research, and devotes a considerable space to discussing the research of Dr. J. Bart Classen, who first published a research paper on the possibility of prion-linked brain degeneration caused by the COVID-19 vaccine last month, and expands on his research.
The researchers explain that “researchers have identified a signature motif linked to susceptibility to misfolding into toxic oligomers, called the glycine zipper motif. It is characterized by a pattern of two glycine residues spaced by three intervening amino acids, represented as GxxxG. The bovine prion linked to MADCOW has a spectacular sequence of ten GxxxGs in a row,” and notes that “the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is a transmembrane protein, and that it contains five GxxxG motifs in its sequence” and, thus, “it becomes extremely plausible that it could behave as a prion”.
“Recall that the mRNA vaccines are designed with an altered sequence that replaces two adjacent amino acids in the fusion domain with a pair of prolines,” the authors continue. “This is done intentionally in order to force the protein to remain in its open state and make it harder for it to fuse with the membrane. This seems to us like a dangerous step towards misfolding potentially leading to prion disease.”
Prions were first described as the method by which Mad Cow Disease causes brain degeneration due to misfolding proteins in the body. The CDC notes that “prion diseases are usually rapidly progressive and always fatal.” Mad Cow Disease “progressively attacks the brain but can remain dormant for decades,” per the BBC.
“Pfizer claims the RNA fragments ‘likely… will not result in expressed proteins’ due to their assumed rapid degradation in the cell,” the researchers note. They add, “While we are not asserting that non-spike proteins generated from fragmented RNA would be misfolded or otherwise pathological, we believe they would at least contribute to cellular stress that promotes prion-associated conformational changes in the spike protein that is present.”
When Classen previously published his research, fact checkers were quick to point to public statements from Pfizer that dismissed concerns of brain prions as a result of their vaccine. It may be worth noting that “the most expensive settlement that Pfizer has paid was over $2.3 billion paid as a fine to resolve civil and criminal penalties for illegal marketing of four medications including Bextra, Geodon, Zyvox, and Lyrics.”
The End of The Mask
By Kip Hansen | Watts Up With That? | May 15, 2021
If there was ever a surer example of the perversion of the Power of Experts than the Covid Mask Mania, I am unaware of it. I doubt that there is a single self-aware person in the world that does not know what the Covid Mask Mania means, even most of those who have been stanch supporters and promoters of The Mask are aware that it is, in fact, a product of a world-wide Mass Hysteria that grew out of the unknowns surrounding the outbreak of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China in late 2019.
Those of you who still have the ability to remember the recent past, despite endless propaganda aimed at making you forget, the original CDC Guidance on Face Masks for Covid-19 was this:
Wear a facemask if you are sick
If you are sick: You should wear a facemask when you are around other people (e.g., sharing a room or vehicle) and before you enter a healthcare provider’s office. If you are not able to wear a facemask (for example, because it causes trouble breathing), then you should do your best to cover your coughs and sneezes, and people who are caring for you should wear a facemask if they enter your room. Learn what to do if you are sick.
If you are NOT sick: You do not need to wear a facemask unless you are caring for someone who is sick (and they are not able to wear a facemask). Facemasks may be in short supply and they should be saved for caregivers.[ source CDC website dated 28 March 2020 via WayBack Machine ]
The Famous Fauci, back when he was just Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and not yet a global media star – let me be clear, we are talking about when Dr. Anthony Fauci was the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases of all kinds – he said the following in a televised interview on March 8, 2020:
[ Quoting the opinion checking website, FactCheck.org which found that history requires a revision in order to comply with “latest guidelines” in its current coverage here. ]
Here’s what Fauci told Dr. Jon LaPook, chief medical correspondent for CBS News, in the clip circulating on social media:
LaPook, March 8: There’s a lot of confusion among people, and misinformation, surrounding face masks. Can you discuss that?
Fauci: The masks are important for someone who’s infected to prevent them from infecting someone else… Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.
LaPook: You’re sure of it? Because people are listening really closely to this.
Fauci: … There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.
LaPook: And can you get some schmutz, sort of staying inside there?
Fauci: Of course, of course. But, when you think masks, you should think of health care providers needing them and people who are ill. The people who, when you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of the people wearing masks — that’s fine, that’s fine. I’m not against it. If you want to do it, that’s fine.
LaPook: But it can lead to a shortage of masks?
Fauci: Exactly, that’s the point. It could lead to a shortage of masks for the people who really need it.”
Other than adding a link to the definition of schmutz – I have not highlighted any of Faucci’s statement. I don’t need to catch Fauci out in anything because Fauci was absolutely scientifically correct in everything he said. In this, he totally depended on the existing science on the prevention of the transmission of coronavirus illnesses. And the science on the topic has not changed – if anything, it has been reinforced over and over throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
Yet, FactOpinionCheck.org decided that Fauci, the USA’s leading expert on Infectious Diseases and their transmission, was not expert enough – so they check his knowledge against the opinion of the Director of the CDC? No…. against the opinion of Dr. Dean Winslow, a well-known infectious disease physician at Stanford (University) Health Care who told FactOpinionCheck.org:
“In early March, so few patients had been tested that public health officials didn’t yet know that people could spread the virus without showing symptoms, said Winslow.
“That was just not known at that point.”
There was no new science that suddenly made masks effective for the general public but something maybe about Covid-19.
And what does that science really say? “… there’s little scientific evidence that the various face coverings we call ‘masks’ do much if anything to stop the spread of the coronavirus.” [ source ] There are just too many peer-reviewed, high-powered, definitive studies and meta-analyses to list here. The Big List of such studies is in the book: “The Price of Panic. . . .” by Jay W. Richards, Douglas Axe, and William Briggs.
It is, of course, as in all things that deal with the political interference in things that should depend on strict empirical science, worse than that.
In April 2020, the Famous Fauci said
“So, we want to make sure that this issue of having a broader community approach towards putting on a facial covering doesn’t, in fact, get in the way of the primary purpose of masks.
[ which was, he had just explained: “masks that are most appropriately used and necessary for the front-line health care workers, who do need it for the clear and present danger that they find themselves in when they are taking care of people who are actually sick with coronavirus disease.” ]
And in that regard, that’s why what we’re talking about are things that may not necessarily need to be a classical mask, but could be some sort of facial covering.
You know, we’re pretty good in making things in a way that spontaneously becomes effective just because of your own creativity.”
[ source – PBS interview here. ]
Once the CDC changed it’s tune on masks, demanding that The Mask be worn at all times under almost all circumstances, the rhetoric ramped up not only demanding that everyone everywhere wear masks, but accusing those who fail or refuse to wear masks of “killing their grandmothers” (Andrew Cuomo – Governor of New York – a charge he repeats in the present about those who don’t get vaccinated).
In a mass-hysteria-type reaction, everyone who could find a public megaphone jumped on the bandwagon, making wilder and wilder public statements about the deadly-serious importance of wearing masks:
“Everyone should wear a mask,” Blumberg said. “People who say ‘I don’t believe masks work’ are ignoring scientific evidence. It’s not a belief system. It’s like saying, ‘I don’t believe in gravity.’
“People who don’t wear a mask increase the risk of transmission to everyone, not just the people they come into contact with,” he said. “It’s all the people those people will have contact with. You’re being an irresponsible member of the community if you’re not wearing a mask.” [ source ]
Wearing a mask became a virtue signaling bellweather: “I’m a good person, a patriot, a saint….” Because I wear a mask, even in my own home or when alone in my car.
And now?
In an unexpected change of heart (must have been as there has been no new science or breakthrough understanding), the CDC has said:
Vaccinated Americans May Go Without Masks in Most Places, Federal Officials Say
Fully vaccinated people do not have to wear masks or maintain social distance indoors or outdoors, with some exceptions, the C.D.C. advised. [ source ]
Directly from the CDC:
“Update that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance
Update that fully vaccinated people can refrain from testing following a known exposure unless they are residents or employees of a correctional or detention facility or a homeless shelter”
[ source: CDC here 13 May 2021 ]
End BQ
What does this mean for the real world?
Up to 13 May 2021, US News and World Report list the following U.S. states as having NO Mask Mandate previous-to-CDC-announcement:
Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | Arkansas | Florida | Georgia | Idaho | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Louisiana | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Montana | Nebraska | New Hampshire | North Dakota | Oklahoma | South Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Wisconsin | Wyoming | Northern Mariana Islands (an unincorporated territory and commonwealth of the U.S.)
That’s 26 out of 50 states with no mandate before the new CDC guidelines.
So far today:
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear says the state’s mask mandate will end June 11, 2021. On that date, the Bluegrass State will also return to 100% capacity at venues and events. [ source ]
Minnesota — Following New CDC Guidance, Governor Walz Announces End to Statewide Face Covering Requirement — Minnesota will align with CDC guidance and recommend unvaccinated Minnesotans continue to wear face coverings indoors [ source ]
North Carolina has removed its indoor mask mandate for most settings and lifted all mass gathering and social distancing limits. This step forward is effective immediately and follows yesterday’s guidance from the CDC. [ source ]
Rhode Island — paraphrasing “fully vaccinated people, as of this coming Tuesday, will no longer need to wear masks or social distance”. [ source ]
Michigan – paraphrasing “everyone who is two weeks out from their second vaccine dose can go without a mask”. [ source ]
Oregon – “Starting today, Oregon will be following this guidance, which only applies to fully-vaccinated individuals. That means Oregonians who are fully-vaccinated no longer need to wear masks or social distance in most public spaces.” [ source ]
Florida — “Floridians should not be penalized for rejecting the overreach of local authorities through unnecessary mask mandates,” [Governor] DeSantis wrote on Twitter Thursday about his decision to pardon the Carnevales. [ who had been arrested for failing to require masks and social distancing at their business, a gym.]” “The governor confirmed his intentions to pardon people at a press conference Thursday in Ormond Beach, Florida, saying he would “remit” the remaining outstanding fines that have been issued against people at the state’s next clemency meeting.” [ source ]
Connecticut — Masks Not Required Indoors For Fully Vaccinated People in Connecticut Starting May 19: Governor [ source ]
Illinois – “Gov. J.B. Pritzker says that he will revise executive orders to sync up with new CDC guidelines on mask wearing by vaccinated individuals in indoor and outdoor spaces.” [ source ]
Nevada – “On May 3, Gov. Steve Sisolak signed an emergency directive updating mask and face covering requirements for the state to align with the CDC’s recommendations, including any subsequent guidance. As a result, the new guidance from the federal agency became effective immediately, according to a news release from the state.” [ source ]
Pennsylvania – “In short, the Health Department says it is following the CDC’s lead. That means Pennsylvanians who are fully vaccinated no longer have to wear masks outdoors or indoors except in certain situations.“ [ source ]
Washington – “Masks off: Fully vaccinated people can shed masks in Washington, [Washington Governor] Inslee announces following new CDC rules” [ source ]
New York – “Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that New York State will adopt the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new guidance on mask use for fully vaccinated people. The guidelines state that fully vaccinated people, defined as two or more weeks after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, no longer need to wear masks outdoors, except in certain crowded settings and venues.” [ source ]
Virginia – “Governor Ralph Northam today lifted Virginia’s universal indoor mask mandate to align with new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Governor Northam also announced that Virginia will ease all distancing and capacity restrictions on Friday, May 28, two weeks earlier than planned. The updates to Virginia’s mask policy …. will become effective at midnight tonight along with previously announced changes to mitigation measures.” [ source ]
Colorado – “Coloradans who are fully vaccinated are no longer required to wear masks, and people who aren’t vaccinated are only required to wear them in limited settings, Gov. Jared Polis said Friday.” [ source ]
Delaware – “Governor John Carney on Friday announced that – effective May 21 – the State of Delaware will lift its requirement that Delawareans and visitors must wear face coverings anytime they are indoors with others outside their household. Delawareans should instead follow masking guidance issued on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for all indoor and outdoor activities.” [ source ]
West Virginia – “West Virginia Governor Jim Justice announced that he is signing an executive order to modify the face covering requirement during a press conference on Friday. The governor says West Virginia will immediately begin following the updated CDC guidance for those who are fully vaccinated. The facial covering requirement will still apply to those who have not been vaccinated until June 20.” [ source ]
The Governors of the states (in the United States) are announcing allegiance to the CDC so quickly that I literally cannot keep up with adding them in above as I write this column.
How long do you think the other governors, who have not yet fallen into line with the new (and very welcome) diktat from the CDC, can delay? Does anyone think that citizens of one state seeing freedom restored in the neighboring state will not demand the same freedom?
I think that reasonable people will realize that the mask mandate was unnecessary from the beginning — especially as The Science from The Epidemiologists has been telling them all to expect to have to wear masks for at least another six months, a year longer, two years, or maybe forever. In a poll conducted by the NY Timesthat was completed just 4 days ago, 81% of professional epidemiologists expected mask mandates to continue for at least 1 more year. 52% expected masking to last for more than a year. The minimum expected was “a few more months”. Up until yesterday, Epidemiologists represented The Science…. no longer, they have been kicked to the curb.
In my opinion, this new CDC Guideline breaks the back of the oppressive Covid-19 Panic Power Grab by presidents, governors, city councils and mayors who have reveled in their free pass to rule by executive order under emergency powers without oversight by elected law makers.
There will be no going back, I don’t think the people will stand for it, at least not in the United States.
‘Let them drive Teslas’: Jennifer Granholm becomes a green Marie Antoinette as she lectures on gas shortage
By Micah Curtis | RT | May 14, 2021
Biden’s energy secretary used the Colonial Pipeline hack to tell everyone to ditch their gas-guzzlers for electric cars. The average price of an electric vehicle is $55,600. She has no idea what life is like for working Americans.
“Let them eat cake,” A phrase infamously attributed to the doomed queen of France, Marie Antoinette, when she was told the peasants had no bread, has become synonymous with out of touch elites. It illustrates the detachment of someone of great status and wealth when they speak ignorantly about the lives of the average man, for they have no comprehension of their struggle.
But in 2021, we aren’t talking about bread, we are talking about gasoline. Following a fuel shortage brought on by the Colonial Pipeline being hacked, Biden’s energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, made a bit of a faux pas.
Asked about what Americans should do as lines grew ever longer at gas stations, Madame Granholm said: “Yeah, I mean, we obviously are ‘all in’ on making sure that we meet the president’s goals of getting to 100% clean electricity by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. And, you know, if you drive an electric car, this would not be affecting you, clearly.”
According to Yahoo Finance, Jennifer Granholm’s net worth is a million dollars. Not super-rich, but still significantly more than most Americans could ever hope to have in the bank. Given that she has served as governor of Michigan, it won’t surprise anyone that she has a healthy checking account. So talking down to normal Americans about how if they would only get with the program and buy a nice, clean electric car suggests not only sanctimony, but also that she is completely ignorant of how much electric vehicles cost.
The Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of electric cars ranges all over the place. But the current average cost for an electric car is around $55,000; admittedly, that average is brought up by how expensive certain Tesla models are. If you look at the MSRP of lower range electric vehicles like the Chevrolet Bolt, the Nissan Leaf, or the Hyundai Kona, it averages around $33,000. The price isn’t absurd for a new vehicle, but gas-powered vehicles are still likely to be larger and have better mileage than electric alternatives. Because of this, more families will still opt for good old fashioned internal combustion when buying a new car.
There is also the fact that many Americans won’t be inclined to buy new vehicles at the moment. Thanks to lockdowns and the pandemic, many have found themselves without jobs or having to tighten their belts, so a trip to the local garage might not be that high on their agenda. On top which, this is still a free country and some people will always prefer the growl of a Mustang to the whoosh of a Tesla, and they shouldn’t be punished for making that choice.
Telling people to go and buy electric because of a temporary gas shortage is preposterous. It makes no more sense than it would to have told Tesla-driving Texans to rush out and buy F150s in February when a cold snap knocked out large chunks of the state’s electricity supply.
Jennifer Granholm clearly doesn’t really care whether or not her statements were ignorant. The Biden administration’s approach to energy has been one ‘let them eat cake’ moment after another. The entire administration comes across like a bunch of oligarchs constantly talking down to the little people on how their lives should be led, completely unaware of how difficult those lives are.
I say, have Secretary Granholm work a customer service job on a customer service representative’s pay for a month, and then she can tell us whether or not we should all be driving electric.
‘Inconvenient’ U.S. Wildfire Data Has Been ‘Disappeared’ by National Interagency Fire Center
By Anthony Watts | Watts Up With That? | May 13, 2021
It’s been an open secret, ever since Dr. Michael Mann used “Mike’s Nature Trick” to “hide the decline” by covering up some inconvenient tree ring data in the hockey stick climate graph, that climate alarmists will go to almost any length to only show the public the “crisis side” of climate data.
The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) has been the keeper of U.S. wildfire data for decades, tracking both the number of wildfires and acreage burned all the way back to 1926. However, after making that entire dataset public for decades, now, in a blatant act of cherry picking, NIFC “disappeared” a portion of it, and only show data from 1983. You can see it here.
Fortunately, the Internet never forgets, and the entire dataset is preserved on the Internet Wayback machine and other places, despite NIFC’s ham-handed attempt to disappear the data.
Why would they do this you ask? The answer is simple; data prior to 1983 shows that U.S. wildfires were far worse both in frequency and total acreage burned. By disappearing all data prior to 1983, which just happens to be the lowest point in the dataset, now all of the sudden we get a positive slope of worsening wildfire aligning with increased global temperature, which is perfect for claiming “climate change is making wildfire worse.” See figure 1 below for a before and after comparison of what the data looks like when you plot it.
Figure 1: Comparison of the before and after erasure NIFC dataset showing acres burned. The blue trend line goes from a negative trend to a positive one when cherry picked data is used.
Clearly, wildfires were far worse in the past, and clearly, now the data tells an entirely different story when showing only data post-1983. The new story told by the sanitized data is in alignment with the irrational screeching of climate alarmists that “wildfires are driven by climate change”.
This wholesale erasure of important public data stinks, but in today’s narrative control culture that wants to rid us of anything that might be inconvenient or doesn’t fit the “woke” narrative, it isn’t surprising.
Interestingly, the history on the Internet Wayback Machine shows how NIFC rationalized this erasure of important public data.
Back in June 2011 when this data was first presented by NIFC publicly, it was simply presented “as-is”. They say only this:
Figures prior to 1983 may be revised as NICC verifies historical data.
In 2018, they added a new caveat, saying this:
The National Interagency Coordination Center at NIFC compiles annual wildland fire statistics for federal and state agencies. This information is provided through Situation Reports, which have been in use for several decades. Prior to 1983, sources of these figures are not known, or cannot be confirmed, and were not derived from the current situation reporting process. As a result the figures prior to 1983 should not be compared to later data.
According to the Internet Wayback Machine, that caveat first appeared on the NIFC data page somewhere between January 14 and March 7 of 2018.
Curiously, that caveat appeared just a few weeks after I first drew wide attention to the issue in December 2017, with an article citing NIFC fire data titled Is climate change REALLY the culprit causing California’s wildfires?
It seems they received some blowback from the idea that their data, when plotted, clearly showed wildfires to be far worse in the past, completely blowing the global-warming-climate-change-wildfire connection out of the water.
Here is what NIFC says now:
Prior to 1983, the federal wildland fire agencies did not track official wildfire data using current reporting processes. As a result, there is no official data prior to 1983 posted on this site.
Not only is that a lie of omission, it is ridiculous. Their agenda seems very clear. When the data was first published, they only advised the public that some data prior to 1983 might be “… revised as NICC verifies historical data”.
There was no published concern that the data might be invalid, or that we shouldn’t use it. Besides, the data is very simple; a count of the number of fires and the number of acres burned. How hard is that to compile and verify as accurate?
What’s worse is that this data has been trusted for decades in almost every news story about any wildfire that ever occurred in the U.S. In virtually every news story about a wildfire, the number of acres burned it THE NUMBER the press uses in the story, without it, there is no scale of the severity of the fire. Similarly, for every story about “what a bad wildfire season we’ve had”, the press cites the number of fires as well as the acreage burned.
And now, after decades of that data being provided to the press and the public, and nearly a decade of NIFC making it publicly available on their website, they want us to believe that it is now unreliable data?
Seriously, just how hard is it to count the number of fires that have happened and the number of acres burned?
What NIFC is doing is essentially labeling every firefighter, every fire captain, every forester, and every smoke jumper who has fought wildfires for decades as being untrustworthy in their assessment and measurement of this critical, yet very simple fire data. I’ll take data from people on the fire scene over government bureaucratic doublespeak every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
This whole affair is outrageous. But what is even more outrageous is that NIFC isn’t at all transparent as to the reason for the change. They essentially say “The data prior to 1983 is no good, trust us”. There is no citation of a study, no methodology given, no rationale for the removal. That’s not science, that’s not statistics, that’s not even sensible, but that is what is happening.
Plotting the entire NIFC dataset (before it was partially disappeared) gives us some hints as to why this has been done, and how wildfire and weather patterns have been inextricably linked for decades. Note figure 2 below, combining the number of fires and number of acres burned. See the annotations that I have added.
Figure 2: Plot of the entire NIFC wildfire dataset, with acreage burned in amber, and total number of fires in a given year in blue. Annotations show major weather events in the U.S.
Clearly, what NIFC has done by saying data prior to 1983 is “unreliable” and disappearing it is not just hiding important fire history, but cherry picking a data starting point that is the lowest in the entire record to ensure that an upwards trend exists from that point.
The definition of cherry picking is:
Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data that may contradict that position.
And by choosing the lowest point in the record for total fires, 1983, and making all data prior to that unavailable, NIFC ensures that any comparison between fires and climate change over the last 38 years always shows an upward trend and correlation with rising temperature.
It seems to me that NIFC very likely caved to pressure from climate activists to disappear this inconvenient data. By erasing the past data, NIFC has become untrustworthy. This erasure is not just unscientific, it’s dishonest and possibly fraudulent.
For posterity, the entire dataset from NIFC (including pre-1983) is available here in an Excel (.xlsx) file:
NIFC-Wildfires-1926-2020Download
UPDATE: Here is an analysis paper from 2015 using the same data that is on the U.S. Forest Service website:
Featured Video
‘Never vaccinated’ vs ‘Ever vaccinated’ mortality rate illusion
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Psychiatric drugs kill 500k+ Western adults annually, few positive benefits – leading scientist
RT | May 13, 2015
Psychiatric drugs lead to the deaths of over 500,000 people aged 65 and over annually in the West, a Danish scientist says. He warns the benefits of these drugs are “minimal,” and have been vastly overstated.
Research director at Denmark’s Nordic Cochrane Centre, Professor Peter Gøtzsche, says the use of most antidepressants and dementia drugs could be halted without inflicting harm on patients. The Danish scientist’s views were published in the British Medical Journal on Tuesday.
His scathing analysis will likely prove controversial among traditional medics. However, concern is mounting among doctors and scientists worldwide that psychiatric medication is doing more harm than good. In particular, they say antipsychotic drugs have been over-prescribed to many dementia patients in a bid to calm agitated behavior.
Gøtzsche warns psychiatric drugs kill patients year in year out, and hold few positive benefits. He says in excess of half a million citizens across the Western world aged 65 and over die annually as a result of taking these drugs.
“Their benefits would need to be colossal to justify this, but they are minimal,” he writes.
“Given their lack of benefit, I estimate we could stop almost all psychotropic drugs without causing harm.”
Gøtzsche, who is also a clinical trials expert, says drug trials funded by big pharmaceutical companies tend to produce biased results because many patients took other medication prior to the tests.
He says patients cease taking the old drugs and then experience a phase of withdrawal prior to taking the trial pharmaceuticals, which appear highly beneficial at first.
The Danish professor also warns fatalities from suicides in clinical trials are significantly under-reported. … continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
michael on Serbs Aware of UK’s… roberthstiver on Putin and Xi Standing Firm on… roberthstiver on Putin and Xi Standing Firm on… Thomas Lee Simpson on Why hypersonic weapons change… Bill Francis on Why I don’t believe there ever… spy on this on I am the “US-based Kremlin int… Balthasar Gerards on Why I don’t believe there ever… Thomas Lee Simpson on Biden fails to dismiss censors… 5 dancing shlomos on Is Dr. Malone Invested in Huma… Pip on Mom files lawsuit after being… jbthring on Setting the record straight on… rediscover911com on Why I don’t believe there ever…
Aletho News- Ron Unz: JFK Assassination, Iranian Channel Four TV (IRIB) March 24, 2023
- Mexican President Says Trump Arrest is About Keeping Him Off the Ballot March 23, 2023
- Russian governor’s son flees house arrest in Italy March 23, 2023
- Turkiye ‘reviewing options’ for Syria withdrawal: Report March 23, 2023
- Iraq war is epitomy of media duplicity March 23, 2023
- US to build new military bases near South China Sea March 23, 2023
- Why hypersonic weapons change everything March 23, 2023
- Serbs Aware of UK’s ‘Gift’ for Ukraine: NATO Poisoned Serbia’s Soil for Billions of Years to Come March 23, 2023
- Putin and Xi Standing Firm on the Right Side of History March 23, 2023
- Western Sanctions Targeting Russians Failed, PM Mishustin Says March 23, 2023
- Russia’s economy recovers while dozens of US banks face collapse March 23, 2023
- ‘Never vaccinated’ vs ‘Ever vaccinated’ mortality rate illusion: Survivor bias and how to overcome it March 23, 2023
- Indiana’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles is caught collecting and selling personal data March 23, 2023
- I am the “US-based Kremlin intermediary” that tried to help Tucker Carlson book an interview with Putin March 23, 2023
- Mom files lawsuit after being reported to law enforcement for questioning “polysexual” school poster March 22, 2023
- Biden fails to dismiss censorship collusion lawsuit March 22, 2023
- Is Dr. Malone Invested in Humanity or Transhumanism? March 22, 2023
- Why I don’t believe there ever was a Covid virus March 22, 2023
- If Americans Knew
- Bezalel Smotrich calls a lie “the biblical truth” March 22, 2023
- Joel Osteen’s startling interview with Bibi Netanyahu March 20, 2023
- Thursday-Friday: Israeli forces kill 5 Palestinians March 18, 2023
- Brownstone Institute
- How They Convinced Trump to Lock Down March 23, 2023
- The Lab Leak and the Counter Measures: What Really Happened March 23, 2023
- The Latest in the War on Science March 23, 2023
- The Covid Disaster was Foreshadowed with Love Canal March 23, 2023
- The Real Trauma of Love Canal March 22, 2023
- The Narrative in Retreat March 22, 2023
- Richie Allen
- Bordeaux Town Hall Burnt Down By Pension Reform Protesters March 24, 2023
- Scottish Schools Tell Kids There Are THREE Biological Sexes March 24, 2023
- Greta Thunberg To Sue Sweden For Climate Change Inaction March 23, 2023
- USA Today Names BLOKE In WOMEN Of The Year List March 23, 2023
- Not A Lot Of People Know That
- Prominent physicist warns that wind power “fails on every count” March 23, 2023
- Rural Homes Will Be Forced To Install Unaffordable Heat Pumps March 23, 2023
- Met Office & Their Opinion Poll March 22, 2023
- Climate change isn’t ‘particularly dangerous’: Richard Lindzen March 21, 2023
- No Tricks Zone
- Consent Factory
- The Censorship Industrial Complex March 10, 2023
Aletho News 