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Dutch Activists File Collective Complaint With European Court Over EU Ban on RT, Sputnik

By Sofia Chegodaeva | Samizdat | May 25, 2022

In March, access to several Russian media outlets, including Sputnik and RT, was suspended in the EU as part of sanctions against Russia over its special military operation in Ukraine.

A group of Dutch activists has filed a collective complaint with the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg over the EU’s ban on Sputnik and RT, a representative of the Bits of Freedom human rights organisation, Rejo Zenger, said.

Earlier this week, the Dutch Association of Journalists released a statement saying that together with several other organisations, it plans to challenge the EU’s ban on Sputnik and RT.

According to Zenger, the decision to block Russian media was “political” and not reviewed by “independent judges”.

Broadcasting and distribution of content of the Sputnik news agency and RT TV channel was banned in the EU in early March as part of anti-Russian sanctions over Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly commented on such restrictions, saying that Moscow did not expect the West to impose sanctions on journalists, athletes, and cultural representatives. The head of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, Valery Fadeev, sent an appeal to the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, Teresa Ribeiro, asking her to take measures to comply with norms concerning freedom of the press due to the repression of Russian-language publications.

May 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Sen. Cruz, Gen. Milley, Zelensky Say Ukraine Is Vital to National Security

By Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter | The Libertarian Institute | May 23, 2022

As the costs of supporting Ukraine’s war effort soar well beyond $50 billion, high-level officials are seeking to sell Americans on even more military spending, with senators, generals and the Ukrainian president himself each insisting aid to Kiev is vital to American interests, amid rampant inflation, mounting shortages and monumental public debt in the US.

In a statement justifying a recent vote to send another $40 billion in assistance to Ukraine, Republican Senator Ted Cruz argued the move was essential not only for the security of the US, but to ward off a Chinese attack on Taiwan as well.

“If Putin wins in Ukraine, it will confirm for Xi that he can confidently invade Taiwan,” he said, referring to the Russian and Chinese heads of state.

“The reason we should support our Ukrainian allies is because it protects American national security, it keeps America safer, and it prevents our enemies from getting stronger, from threatening the safety and security of Americans, and from driving up the cost, the economic damage, to Americans,” Cruz added.

Following repeated appeals for additional Western arms, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is now warning that American troops may have to face down the Russians if they are not stopped in Ukraine, adopting a version of the ‘fight them over there…’ slogan popular during the US War on Terror.

“If we fall, if we don’t hold the line, Russia will proceed, attacking the Baltic states – Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia… The US military will have to go to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, according to the fifth article, and they will have to fight there and die there,” he said in an interview with Axios on Monday, citing NATO’s Article 5 collective defense provision.

During his West Point commencement speech over the weekend, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley echoed similar sentiments regarding Ukraine, all while predicting that future wars would be fought against ‘great powers’ like Russia and China.

In a further callback to the Cold War, the top US military officer asserted that such powers would only be encouraged if acts of “aggression” are not met with a serious response.

“Yet again in Ukraine, we are learning the lesson that aggression left unanswered only emboldens the aggressor,” he said.

The three statements somewhat resemble the Cold War-era ‘domino theory,’ which contended that the presence of Communism in one country would quickly spread into neighboring states – a key public rationale behind US intervention in Vietnam. However, former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara acknowledged in 1995 that the theory did not play out as predicted, stating, “I think we were wrong. I do not believe that Vietnam was that important to the Communists. I don’t believe that its loss would have led – it didn’t lead – to Communist control of Asia.”

May 25, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

EU seeks to criminalize sanctions evasion

Samizdat | May 25, 2022

The European Commission has insisted that breaching EU sanctions must be made a crime and that it was especially important to ensure strict adherence to the restrictions against Russia amid the Ukraine conflict.

“The European Commission is proposing to add the violation of EU restrictive measures to the list of EU crimes,” the bloc’s executive body said in a press release on Wednesday.

Such a step taken at the level of the EU should make it easier to investigate, prosecute and punish the violation of sanctions in all 27 members states, it pointed out.

The commission has singled out some of the potential criminal offenses, such as activities that seek to circumvent sanctions, including concealing assets, failing to freeze funds subject to restriction, and engaging in prohibited trade, such as importing or exporting goods covered by trade bans.

Brussels also put forward new, more stringent rules on asset recovery and confiscation, which should also contribute to compliance with the EU’s measures “to ensure that crime does not pay by depriving criminals of their ill-gotten gains and limiting their capacity to commit further crimes.”

According to the initiative, once such behavior is criminalized violating sanctions could also become grounds for the seizure of assets.

“EU sanctions must be respected and those trying to go around them punished… As a Union we stand up for our values and we must make those who keep Putin’s war machine running pay the price,” said Vera Jourova, the commissioner for values and transparency.

The commission added that it will present a legislative proposal after all of the member states agree on its current initiatives.

Russian became the most sanctioned country in the world after the EU, US and other nations imposed several rounds of harsh restrictions in response to its military offensive in Ukraine.

Among other measures, the foreign assets of Russia’s central bank were frozen, and a wide array of foreign businesses stopped dealing with the country.

The EU is currently discussing a sixth package of sanctions, which could include turning away from Russian oil. However, this faces opposition from some members, particularly Hungary, which compared the proposed curbs to “an atomic bomb.”

May 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Barbara Marx Hubbard: Godmother of Transhumanism and Synthetic Spirituality

The late Barbara Hubbard, a Rockefeller-funded New Age guru, was critical to the development of the ideas, beliefs and technology necessary to market transhumanism as spiritual enlightenment.

BY JOHN KLYCZEK | UNLIMITED HANGOUT | MAY 19, 2022

In 2016, the Global Future Councils of the World Economic Forum (WEF) posted a video entitled “8 Predictions for the World in 2030,” which infamously forecasted a technocratic New World Order in which “[y]ou’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.” It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to ponder how WEF oligarchs plan to roll out “sustainable development” policies which will ration consumer goods in a global “sharing economy” that employs transient “gig” workers who will be rendered into propertyless serfs under a techno-communitarian rendition of neo-feudalism. But how will the globalist technocrats of the WEF sway the virtual peasant class to be happy with their permanent state of digitally indentured servitude?

Enter New Age guru Barbara Marx Hubbard and her endorsement of the HeartMath Institute’s Global Coherence Initiative [1][2], which is propagating transhumanist neurofeedback wearables across the planet in order to digitally synchronize humanity’s collective heart rhythms and brainwaves into electronically induced states of synthetic spiritual bliss. With Hubbard’s transhumanist blessings, HeartMath’s global neurotech network is primed to lull plebs and proles into happy compliance with the “New Normal” of the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s techno-feudal “stakeholder” economy.

In this first installment of my series on Hubbard’s legacy contributions to the post-humanist religion and techno-fascist economy of the neo-eugenic Fourth Industrial Revolution, I will historicize how Rockefeller philanthropies bankrolled Hubbard’s Foundation for Conscious Evolution in order to digitally engineer humankind into a new transhuman species baptized in the name of tech-Gnostic “Christ Consciousness” [3]. Furthermore, I will expose how Hubbard collaborated with globalists at the World Business Academy, corporatists at Singularity University, and Eupsychian human potential psychologists in connection with the Esalen Institute in order to establish a techno-communitarian spiritualism that worships transhumanist evolution controlled by Big Tech companies which dominate the stakeholder economy of the Fourth Industrial Revolution [4]. Finally, I will document how Hubbard advanced the globalization of HeartMath Institute’s transhumanist biofeedback wearables which can neuro-technologically mesmerize the precariat into virtual states of happy subservience to the “New Normal”.

In the coming installments of this series, I will reveal how Hubbard’s transhumanist mission to steer “conscious evolution” is steeped in Malthusian-eugenic population control. Additionally, I will unveil how Hubbard’s transhumanist allies from the World Future Society, the Human Potential Movement, and the Foundation for Conscious Evolution are entangled with networks of alleged pedophiles and sexual abuse cults. … continue

May 25, 2022 Posted by | Book Review, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

WEF back, learned nothing

By Alexander Adams | Bournbrook | May 24, 2022

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is back. After two years away, the elites reconvened in Davos, Switzerland, to resume plotting. Not, of course, that they would put it that way.

Open Forum Davos 2022 began on 23 May and runs until 26 May. It is a conference designed to increase international participation, “at a crucial turning point in history”. Every WEF statement reads part messianic prophecy, part threat, part vacant corporate babble. This year’s Open Forum promotion is no different.

Hand-picked stooges will promote WEF talking points and push pre-set agendas. There is no possibility of someone taking to the stage and suggesting more democratic accountability, nation independence and vitality through ideological diversity. “The activists will articulate how to turn words into action to fight the climate crisis. Gender equality will also feature prominently in the conversations.” The WEF knows that its multi-million-dollar programme of supporting environmentalist, gender-activist and pro-migrant groups will be amplified by globalist-friendly mass media outlets and clueless politicians in search of “relevance” and photo ops. The forum stresses youthfulness, promoting speakers such as “26-year-old Vanessa Nakate, author and climate advocate” and “Ievgeniia Bodnya, 27, who mobilized the Global Shaper Hub she leads in Kyiv to build the Support Ukraine Now”. Young, passionate women make perfect spokespersons. After all, should anyone male or older than them criticise their ideas, the opponents can be dismissed as relics of a failed era, ones who refuse to accept the coming wave of eco-awareness and migration justice.

The hypocrisy of the WEF is blatantly apparent in its support for Ukraine. It might seem to you paradoxical that a supra-national body which is dedicated to reducing the independence of nations has suddenly discovered its passionate commitment to the integrity of national borders, but WEF see no contradiction. The WEF writes:

“The Russian invasion into Ukraine was a tipping point for world security, the international economy and our global energy architecture. It is not possible to narrow down a war like this to one region while we live in a globalized world. We cannot keep radiation in one country’s geographical borders, or eliminate one country from the fragility of supply chains. This new type of hybrid war including its grave humanitarian crisis, the cyber attacks and economic hardships as well as disinformation and propaganda campaigns, geopolitical tensions about energy supply plus the threat of a nuclear war will have far-reaching effects.”

Every crisis is an opportunity for globalists to tighten their grip on control. Like the World Health Organisation, the WEF is committed to a totalising world view, so every problem will be solved by more globalisation, more migration, more universal regulation, more destruction of tradition. Like all totalising systems, its adherents use every circumstance as evidence of the system’s correctness; to succeed it simply needs more data, more co-ordination and better implementation of policies.

Open Forum Davos will include a panel on the mental health of young people. This is a savage irony, since it was WEF-trained national premiers (such as Justin Trudeau and Jacinda Ardern) who instituted the most draconian lockdowns and fear-propaganda campaigns that drove young people to despair. The WEF seeds its globalist totalising agenda through a Young Global Leaders programme.

In other words, the WEF has learned nothing from the last two years. The growing consensus that COVID lockdowns caused more suffering, disruption and inflation than targeted approaches to healthcare would have, suggests that unified global action made matters worse. If anything, the COVID-pandemic overreaction and reliance on international systems of food and energy supply have shown that independence, self-sufficiency and self-determination are vital for a resilient response to difficulties. Yet the WEF exists to advance the technocratic and scientism worldviews. Or perhaps we could call those worldviews temperaments, as they seem more rooted in emotion and moral psychology than any form of rationalism.

WEF doubles down, realises it was right all along.

May 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Davos reveals building blocks for “green” social credit system

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | May 24, 2022

This morning, on one of the WEF’s live-streamed panels, Alibaba Holdings President J. Michael Evans claimed that the company is working on an app that could track an individual users carbon footprint.

The former-Goldman Sachs vice-chairman told the audience of the “Strategic Outlook: Responsible Consumption” panel:

We’re developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That’s where are they travelling, how are they travelling, what are they eating, what are they consuming on our platform. So: An individual carbon footprint tracker.”

Now, to clarify, Evans was only talking about Alibaba’s platform… but that’s a big platform.

The Chinese company is the second-largest e-commerce company in the world after Amazon, with revenues in excess of 715 billion Yuan in 2021 (that’s over 110 billion USD).

And they’re not just an e-commerce platform. Through their financial and technological service companies, Alibaba runs the largest domain name market, email provider and cloud storage services in China, and the largest payment platform in the world.

Through Alihealth they supply online pharmacy services, as well as providing computer technology to hospitals and clinics. Since they bought AutoNavi in 2014, they own the biggest e-map navigation company in China too.

Essentially, in China if you want to pay for something on the internet, you probably use Alibaba. If you want to order something online from a small business, you probably use Alibaba. If you want to sell your stuff second hand, you probably use Alibaba.

If you want to register a domain, go to a pharmacy, check into a hospital, send an email, use a map or GPS… you get the idea.

Alibaba’s computing sector is also a market leader in AI services, being the first payment platform to start using facial recognition technology to confirm payments in 2017.

Other projects on the go include “CityBrain”, an AI designed to scan cities and provide “streamlined” traffic services. Warning of potential accidents as well as making public transport more efficient, a clear move toward “Smart Cities”.

The company also has previous [experience] when it comes to “individual carbon footprint” apps. In 2017 their payment platform subsidiary Ant Financial Services was named 6th in Fortune’s “Change the World” list for its Ant Forest app.

According to Fortune, Ant Forest is “the world’s largest platform for tracking individuals’ carbon footprints”, and here’s how it works:

Users earn points toward planting virtual trees by adopting earth-friendly habits. The company plants a real tree for every 17.9 kg of carbon saved.

They’re incredibly vague on how users “earn” these points, or what exactly these “Earth-friendly habits” are, but it doesn’t take a genius to make some educated guesses.

And while we’ve been focusing on the individual carbon footprint tracker, something else Evans says later in the panel is just as interesting:

The third thing, we call it “Green Travel”. So, we have within our business something called AMAP – a mapping, think Google Maps or Ways – plus travel destination business. So what we’re going to allow people to do is, first of all, calculate the best and most efficient route and also the most efficient form of transportation. And then, if they take advantage of those recommendations, we’ll give them bonus points which they can redeem elsewhere on our platform. So, they are incentivised to do the right thing, even while they are provided the opportunity to do the wrong thing.”

So let’s put these three facts together. It seems Alibaba currently has apps, either being used or in development, that:

  1. Monitor travel routes and methods and “reward” users for making the “correct choice”.
  2. Can track an individual’s “carbon footprint”, including what they eat and where.
  3. Have users “earn points” for “earth-friendly habits”.

Even individually these functions are worrying enough, but they combine to paint a very concerning picture of the future.

Further, combine that with what we know of the company’s reach through its subsidiaries: Smart Cities, banking, healthcare records, emails, internet activity and more.

How long before Alibaba decides to “reward” other “correct choices” that have nothing to do with the environment? Like vaccination, for example.

How long after that do they start punishing incorrect choices?

They already technically have access to the data they would need to construct this system. It would be naïve in the extreme to not see where this leads.

And, of course, it won’t just be China. If Alibaba is doing this then Google, Amazon, Apple and all the rest of them won’t be far behind.

May 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Russia makes move on foreign firms leaving the country

Samizdat | May 25, 2022

Lawmakers have approved a bill allowing Moscow to introduce control over foreign companies’ assets in Russia if their owners have ceased activities in the country “for no apparent economic reasons.” The legislation passed in the first reading in the Russian State Duma on Tuesday.

The bill applies to companies in which foreign equities account for 25% or more if they are of ‘major’ significance for the Russian economy. They could be the only supplier of ‘critically important industries’, produce goods of prime necessity, or be a local economic mainstay.

The legislation is primarily aimed at firms that have left Russia and decided to do so “based on the anti-Russian sentiments in Europe and the US,” a statement published by the State Duma says.

External control could only be imposed by a court for a period of up to 18 months, the bill says. The measure could then be lifted before the scheduled date if shareholders that together own more than 50% of the stock file a request with the Russian authorities and remove the causes that led to the court decision.

A court would be able to impose external control over a company’s assets for a number of reasons, including supply-side shocks, key supply chain breaches, as well as job slashing and “actions or inaction” that could lead to casualties or technogenic disasters.

Moscow has been mulling the seizure of foreign assets for months after many foreign companies halted operations in the country over the fighting in Ukraine. Consumer protection groups such as the Public Consumer Initiative (OPI) have been calling for the measure to be introduced against the likes of Apple, IKEA, Microsoft, IBM, Shell, McDonald’s, Volkswagen, Porsche, Toyota, H&M, and others.

Under the proposed bill, external management would not mean full nationalization. Foreign owners would have the opportunity to get their assets back and resume operations in Russia, or sell their shares.

May 25, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is the pandemic treaty a step towards World Government?

By Dr Deborah Ancell | TCW Defending Freedom | May 25, 2022

Dear Prime Minister,

It’s the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) season and conspiracies about World Government abound. I have a new one for you.

You might recall my letter concerning the opaqueness of the first international tax, the United Nations Carbon Offsetting Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA)

CORSIA offsets aircraft carbon dioxide emissions and it’s hidden in the environmental provisions of the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organisation. CORSIA empowered the UN to raise taxes – something which appears to have escaped notice in signatory sovereign nations.

My concerns were that firstly, CO2 is not a pollutant and secondly, CORSIA is a Trojan horse for similar UN taxes on other industries such as shipping and information technology.

Taxation is the tool of national governments. When nations surrender tax powers to an international body, they undermine their sovereignty. CORSIA enables independent, non-political, commercial funding of UN development projects in developing nations and reduces their reliance on UN member-government funding.

CORSIA also provides developing world reparations, since it offsets (unevidenced) claims that underdevelopment results from historical emissions incurred during developed world industrialisation. As the first international tax, it’s an example of UN overreach which undermines national sovereignty.

Now another UN arm – the World Health Organisation – might also be attempting overreach. WHO is proposing a new ‘pandemic treaty’ to encourage more information-sharing in the event of another global health crisis.

The treaty would apparently give WHO ‘unprecedented, undemocratic jurisdiction over its 194 member nations, including the UK’. There would be almost unlimited authority to ‘order mandatory vaccines, digital health IDs, lockdowns, isolation, testing regimes, no-jab-no-job rules, or anything else it decided as policy, irrespective of dissenting voices’.

The treaty will not be voted on until the World Health Assembly in 2023. If the UK agreed to this, health sovereignty could also be undermined.

Combine these two sovereignty concessions and you have the beginnings of an independently-funded and legislating World Government. This prospect was promoted by now-deceased luminaries as diverse as discredited socialist millionaire Maurice Strong and capitalist banker David Rockefeller.

Strong, a promoter of CO2 as a cause of environmental harm, profoundly believed that the UN had the potential to be the World Government. Any such World Government would undermine democracies.

Similarly, Rockefeller founded and led the Trilateral Commission with its aim of a ‘New World Order’ to control population and resources. He is reported as stating that ‘the supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination (democracy) practised in past centuries.’ Scary!

Conspiracy theorists believe that today’s WEF, with its agenda to counter natural and anthropogenic climate change and its call for a Great (economic) Reset has a similar, shadowy agenda to these precursor pursuits.

As conspiracy theories go, this one is far-fetched – but can you assure me I’m wrong? Do you think that World Government is on the agenda at Davos today?

Yours sincerely,

Deborah Ancell

May 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , | Leave a comment

School shootings. I am sorry but this needs to be said.

By Merly Nass, MD | May 25, 2022

1. Normal people have no interest in killing children, especailly ones they do not know, especially in large numbers.

2. In my view, only people subject to mind control (please investigate Sirhan Sirhan or read about US intelligence agency attempts to create mind controlled assassins beginning in the 1950s) or people taking certain drugs are even capable of carrying out such an act.

3. School shootings are the most provocative and effective way to initiate a change in gun laws, which means taking away the guns from some or all of the people who privately own them.

4. The large number of American gun owners pose a daunting challenge to the globalists who wish to control them. Police and military will not be willing to enter the homes of gun owners to remove their guns or for other purposes.

5. Few Europeans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders own guns, and it is believed by many that the imposition of much harsher lockdowns on the citizens of these nations, compared to the US, was enabled by this fact.

6. There have been shortages of guns and ammunition in the US since the onset of the pandemic. Whether this is due to supply-demand, including increased purchases by the federal government, or to other market forces, is not clear.

7. There has been very little exploration into the past history of those who committed mass murders in the US in recent years, especially in schools. I want to know if any or all of these mass murderers may have been enrolled in black mind control projects.

8. I want a full accounting of the mind control programs paid for with taxpayer dollars in the US and elsewhere.

9. I want an investigation into the many thousands of self-reported “targeted individuals” (TIs) who complain of voices beamed into their heads and other forms of what can only be termed torture.

10. I want an investigation into the implants some of these people claim were introduced into their bodies.

11. We are being attacked in many perverse ways, and we must open our eyes, pull our power back, or the attacks will continue and will destroy us.

May 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

“I KNOW SO MANY ACTIVE PILOTS WITH MYOCARDITIS”

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | May 20, 2022

ARE BOOSTERS MAKING PEOPLE VULNERABLE TO COVID?

Newly released science is showing that the booster may increase your risk of catching COVID-19. Immune exhaustion and confusion may be to blame.

May 25, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Will NAC Become a Banned Supplement?

By Dr. Joseph Mercola | May 23, 2022

N-acetylcysteine (NAC), a form of the amino acid cysteine and a common dietary supplement, has been on the market for nearly six decades. Among its many benefits is helping increase glutathione and reduce the acetaldehyde toxicity1 that causes many hangover symptoms, but anyone who overdoses on acetaminophen (Tylenol) also receives large doses of NAC in the emergency room, as it helps prevent liver damage by increasing glutathione.

However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration suddenly cracked down on NAC in 2020, claiming it is excluded from the definition of a dietary supplement, as it was approved as a new drug in 1963,2 before it was marketed as a dietary supplement or as a food.

Retailers, including Amazon, pulled supplements containing NAC from their shelves in response, as the FDA’s move meant that NAC could no longer legally be marketed as a supplement, even though there are no fewer than 1,170 NAC-containing products in the National Institutes of Health’s Dietary Supplement Label Database.3

Draft guidance released by the FDA in April 2022 gives a glimmer of hope that NAC will continue to be available over-the-counter,4 but it’s still uncertain whether NAC will end up becoming a banned supplement.

FDA Announces ‘Enforcement Discretion’ for NAC Products

According to the FDA, their draft guidance, once finalized, will:5

“… explain our intent to exercise enforcement discretion with respect to the sale and distribution of certain NAC-containing products that are labeled as dietary supplements.

This enforcement discretion policy would apply to products that would be lawfully marketed dietary supplements if NAC were not excluded from the definition of “dietary supplement” and are not otherwise in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.”

In July 2020, the FDA sent out warning letters to seven companies that marketed NAC as a remedy for hangovers.6 Nine months after the FDA issued warning letters with their position that NAC supplements could not legally be sold, Amazon began removing products containing the supplement.7

The new verbiage suggests, however, that the FDA will not be enforcing their policy that NAC cannot be marketed as a dietary supplement, even though it’s technically still illegal to do so. And therein lies the problem. Steve Mister, president and CEO of the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), explained:8

“That still leaves some exposure for the industry for a state [attorney general] to say, ‘Well if it’s technically illegal under the federal law,’ we don’t care that FDA’s not enforcing it. We could do it. It also leaves you potentially exposed [to] a plaintiff’s attorney.”

Further, payment processing platforms, including PayPal, are among those that added policies prohibiting the sale of NAC products labeled as supplements following the FDA’s 2020 warning. It’s unknown whether PayPal will reverse its policy, or whether other major retailers, like Amazon, will begin to offer NAC supplements again.

Former FDA official Robert Durkin suggested that, in theory, the “draft guidance in and of itself should provide enough comfort to retailers to start marketing NAC-containing dietary supplements now.”9 Whether that will be the case in practice remains to be seen.

Two Citizen Petitions Filed With the FDA

After the FDA decided that NAC could no longer be marketed as a dietary supplement, CRN and the Natural Products Association (NPA) filed separate citizen petitions with the FDA requesting that the agency reverse its position.

The CRN letter in December 2020 challenged the FDA’s determination that NAC should be precluded from supplementary use.10 They then filed a citizen position petition June 1, 2021, requesting the FDA reverse its position and outlining why this sudden policy change is “legally invalid on multiple grounds.”11

The NPA filed a separate citizen petition with the FDA12 requesting that the agency not exclude NAC as a dietary supplement or, alternatively, that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issue a regulation finding NAC is lawful in supplements.

November 24, 2021, the FDA announced they were requesting more information about how NAC has been marketed as a dietary supplement,13 including information and data on the date that NAC was first marketed as a dietary supplement, reports of adverse events and details on how the products are marketed and sold.14 In their latest draft guidance, the FDA suggests it is still considering the petitioner’s requests:15

“… we have not yet reached a final decision on one petitioner’s request to issue a regulation to permit the use of NAC in dietary supplements, and we are considering initiating rulemaking to provide by regulation that NAC is not excluded from the definition of dietary supplement.

If, among other considerations, the FDA does not identify safety-related concerns as we continue our review of the available data and information, we are likely to propose a rule providing that NAC is not excluded from the definition of dietary supplement.”

FDA Acknowledges There Are No Safety Concerns

In a positive step, while the FDA stated that their full safety review of NAC is ongoing, its initial review “has not revealed safety concerns with respect to the use of this ingredient in or as a dietary supplement.” The agency further explained:16

“In addition, NAC-containing products represented as dietary supplements have been sold in the United States for over 30 years and consumers continue to seek access to such products. Accordingly, while the FDA continues its evaluation of the request to initiate rulemaking, the FDA issued this draft guidance to explain our policy regarding products labeled as dietary supplements that contain NAC.

Unless we identify safety-related concerns during our ongoing review, the FDA would intend to exercise enforcement discretion (as described in the draft guidance) until either of the following occurs: we complete notice-and-comment rulemaking to allow the use of NAC in or as a dietary supplement (if we move forward with such proceedings) or we deny the citizen petition’s request for rulemaking.

If the FDA determines that this enforcement discretion policy is no longer appropriate, we will notify stakeholders by withdrawing or revising the guidance.”

With the draft guidance suggesting that no safety concerns have been noted, and enforcement is unlikely, Marc Ullman, counsel to the law firm Rivkin Radler LLP, suggested it should be perceived as “a win for industry” and that Amazon should “rescind its ban” on NAC dietary supplements in response:17

“FDA has said there’s no safety issue and it’s not going to take enforcement action. I think it would be an incredible overabundance of caution for any retailer to say, ‘We shouldn’t get NAC back into commerce.'”

Was FDA’s Ban Fueled by COVID-19 Treatment Hopes?

The FDA’s crackdown on NAC coincided with research suggesting COVID-19 treatment as a new indication. According to one literature analysis,18 glutathione deficiency may be associated with COVID-19 severity, leading the author to conclude that NAC may be useful both for its prevention and treatment.

Previous research has shown NAC inhibits the expression of proinflammatory cytokines in cells infected with highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus. Proinflammatory cytokines also play a crucial role in COVID-19 severity.19 Considering many COVID-19 cases also involve blood clots in addition to excessive oxidative stress, and NAC effectively addresses both, I believe NAC should be included in the standard of care for COVID-19. As noted in the FASEB Journal :20

“COVID-19 may cause pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, cardiovascular alterations, and multiple organ failure, which have been ascribed to a cytokine storm, a systemic inflammatory response, and an attack by the immune system. Moreover, an oxidative stress imbalance has been demonstrated to occur in COVID-19 patients.

N-Acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) is a precursor of reduced glutathione (GSH). Due to its tolerability, this pleiotropic drug has been proposed not only as a mucolytic agent, but also as a preventive/therapeutic agent in a variety of disorders involving GSH depletion and oxidative stress …

Thiols block the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 thereby hampering penetration of SARS-CoV-2 into cells. Based on a broad range of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory mechanisms … the oral administration of NAC is likely to attenuate the risk of developing COVID-19, as it was previously demonstrated for influenza and influenza-like illnesses.

Moreover, high-dose intravenous NAC may be expected to play an adjuvant role in the treatment of severe COVID-19 cases and in the control of its lethal complications … including pulmonary and cardiovascular adverse events.”

Another study published in 2021 compared consecutive patients hospitalized with moderate or severe COVID-19 pneumonia.21 One group received only standard care and the other group received 600 milligrams of NAC twice daily for 14 days. There were 42 in the NAC group and 40 in the control group. Treatment with NAC led to lower rates of severe respiratory failure and significantly lower mortality rates.

NAC Offers a Multitude of Benefits

NAC has been described as an “old drug with new tricks” because scientists are continually uncovering new ways to use it.22 Along with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and mucolytic properties, NAC may be a useful adjuvant for a variety of chronic diseases and other medical conditions, including:23

  • Polycystic ovary disease
  • Male infertility
  • Sleep apnea
  • Acquired immune deficiency syndrome
  • Influenza
  • Parkinsonism
  • Multiple sclerosis
  • Peripheral neuropathy
  • Stroke outcomes
  • Diabetic neuropathy
  • Crohn’s disease
  • Ulcerative colitis
  • Schizophrenia
  • Bipolar illness
  • Obsessive compulsive disorder
  • As a chelator for heavy metals and nanoparticles

Recently, it was found that NAC may also prevent strokes in people with hereditary cystatin C amyloid angiopathy (HCCAA), a rare genetic disorder.24 People with HCCAA have an average life expectancy of just 30 years, and most die within five years of their first stroke,25 so reducing their incidence could prove to be essential to increasing survival.

The finding is even more significant because it was conducted by researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), which is notoriously against supplements. NAC appears to work by preventing the formation of amyloid-producing proteins, which promote amyloid deposits linked to strokes.26

It could also have potential for Alzheimer’s as, according to the CHOP researchers, the process of protein deposition that occurs in HCCAA is similar to what occurs in Alzheimer’s, although at an accelerated pace, which is why dementia occurs later in life than Alzheimer’s.

With so many potential health benefits, the root of the motivation to ban NAC as a supplement likely lies in protecting the finances of pharmaceutical companies. Hopefully in this case, however, the FDA will determine that NAC should be allowed to exist under the dietary supplement definition, ensuring widespread access to this important compound will continue the way it did for decades.

Sources and References

May 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

What it means that Hillary Clinton did it

By David Zukerman | American Thinker | May 22, 2022

The Wall Street Journal ran a scathing editorial on May 20, called “Hillary Clinton Did It“.

This editorial began: “The Russia-Trump collusion narrative of 2016 was a dirty trick for the ages — and now we know it came from the top — candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.” The editorial quickly explained: “That was the testimony Friday by 2016 Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook in federal court [in Washington, D.C.], and while this news is hardly a surprise, it’s still bracing to find her fingertips on the political weapon.” (Also not surprisingly, The May 20 print edition of The New York Times did not include a story on Mook’s testimony.)

Mook’s testimony was heard at the trial of attorney Michael Sussman, charged with lying to the FBI in calling to their attention a story that Donald J. Trump, by means of connections with Russia’s Alfa Bank, was colluding with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The lie at issue was not the false claim about a Trump-Alfa connection, but the charge that Sussman brought this matter to the FBI as a good citizen, and not as a representative of the Clinton campaign.

As the Journal editorial noted: “Prosecutors say [Sussman] was working for the Clinton campaign.” The editorial pointed out, “Mr. Mook said Mrs. Clinton was asked about the plan [to call attention to the Trump-Alfa ties] and approved it. A story on the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations thus appeared in Slate, a left-leaning online publication.”

After that, the Journal explained how the Clinton campaign used the self-generated news of the investigation and the initial Slate article that came of it, both of which they had planted, as the basis for making tweet after tweet to the press about the Slate report to churn up mass coverage about it in the press and convince the public that the investigation was about something serious.

The concluding paragraphs of the editorial are worth quoting in full:

In short, the Clinton campaign created the Trump-Alfa allegation, fed it to a credulous press that failed to confirm the allegations but ran with them anyway, then promoted the story as if it was legitimate news. The campaign also delivered the claims to the FBI, giving journalists another excuse to portray the accusations as serious and perhaps true.

Most of the press will ignore this news, but the Russia-Trump narrative that Mrs. Clinton sanctioned did enormous harm to the country. It disgraced the FBI, humiliated the press, and sent the country on a three-year investigation to nowhere. Vladimir Putin never came close to doing as much disinformation damage.

The harm done to the United States by the perfidy of the Clintonistas cannot be overemphasized. That “three-year investigation to nowhere” represented the Clinton-Obama attempted takeover of the government. (Call it the COAT campaign.) With congressional Republicans unwilling to prevent the COAT campaign, the Trump administration was blocked from putting U.S.-Russia relations on a rational, mutually beneficial footing, to the point that, under the present Senate leadership, the specter of war with Russia is no longer an unthinkable thought. The COAT campaign succeeded in keeping the Ukraine pot boiling, with the water first heated by Obama’s stirring up of anti-Russian feelings in Ukraine, leading to the Maidan revolution that ousted the legitimately elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.

May 24, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

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