FBI rented Istanbul villa for Daesh suspects before alerting Turkish authorities, report reveals

MEMO | July 3, 2022
The United States’ domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), is revealed to have rented a villa in Istanbul as a safe house for alleged members of the Daesh terror group, in a case that further proves the bureau’s use of entrapment methods.
According to the London-based news outlet Middle East Eye, a veteran undercover FBI operative named Kamran Faridi signed a tenancy agreement and paid the rent for a luxury villa on Istanbul’s seafront suburb of Silivri in 2015.
The property was then used as a safe house by several alleged members of Daesh, including a British man named Aine Davis, who is accused of being part of the terror group’s cell of British militants labelled the ‘Beatles’.
In November that year, Turkish security forces then raided the property arresting the six men hiding inside it. At the time, Turkish authorities hailed the interception of preparations for a major attack in Istanbul.
Almost seven years later, however, the news outlet’s report sheds light on the FBI’s involvement, citing court papers which show that Turkish prosecutors did not find evidence of any plot but rather that the raid was conducted after the bureau itself tipped-off Turkish authorities about a potential attack.
In a note dated April 2016, the prosecutors stated that “Sufficient evidence could not be obtained to file a public lawsuit… other than the intelligence report of a foreign country, which does not have the quality of evidence”.
While it is unknown whether Turkish officials knew of Faridi – the FBI operative – and his work for the bureau, Middle East Eye cited a source familiar with the matter as saying that the FBI approached Turkish officials in February 2016 to offer Turkish intelligence Faridi’s undercover services. According to the outlet, however, the officials rejected the proposal due to the operative already having been exposed.
Faridi – a 58-year-old of Pakistani origin who had worked for the FBI as an informant since the mid-1990s and then abroad numerous countries in the bureau’s Joint Terrorism Task Force during the two decades of the ‘war on terror’ – was reportedly fired from his service in 2020. He was then arrested and jailed the following year after sending death threats to his former superiors.
The former operative’s activities, however, especially in Istanbul as well as his work while being “loaned out” to other western intelligence agencies, is set to further draw light on the FBI and other agencies’ use of “entrapment” methods.
Under such methods, intelligence agencies attract, draw in, and recruit impressionable individuals to criminal or terrorist groups – or so the individuals are led to believe – before being set up, arrested, and prosecuted on charges of joining those groups. It has long been a controversial practice, but has been either denied or justified by agencies on the basis of rooting out potential terrorists.
As a result of that raid in 2015, Davis and two other suspected militants were convicted and jailed two years later on the charge of being part of Daesh – which they denied – while three other men arrested at the villa were released due to lack of evidence. According to the outlet, though, Davis is now scheduled to be deported from Turkey to the UK within days.
Lugansk fully liberated – Russian defense minister
Samizdat | July 3, 2022
The last remnants of Ukrainian forces have been driven out of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced on Sunday. He reported the news to President Vladimir Putin, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Shoigu said Russian troops and Donbass forces had completely seized Lisichansk, the last major city which had remained under Ukrainian control since 2014, when the LPR declared its independence shortly after a coup in Kiev.
Russia and Ukraine reported heavy fighting around Lisichansk earlier this week, with the most fierce combat occurring at the city’s oil refinery.
News of the capture of Lisichansk comes after Ukrainian troops retreated from Severodonetsk, a nearby city on the opposite side of the Seversky Donets River, last week. The fighting for Severodonetsk had lasted for several months.
Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”
In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.
Turkey detains Russian-flagged vessel carrying grain – media
Samizdat | July 3, 2022
Turkey has seized a Russian-flagged cargo ship after Kiev claimed it was involved in “illegal” transport of Ukrainian grain, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing the Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey, Vasily Bodnar.
“We have full co-operation. The ship is currently standing at the entrance to the port, it has been detained by the customs authorities of Turkey,” Vasily Bodnar told Ukrainian national television. According to the ambassador, investigators will decide on the vessel’s fate on Monday.
The move comes two days after Ukrainian diplomats called on the Turkish authorities to detain the vessel, the Zhibek Zholy, arguing that it was transporting “stolen” Ukrainian agricultural produce.
The ship departed from the Azov Sea port of Berdyansk, located not far from the city of Mariupol – which is controlled by Russian forces and Donbass militias – and arrived at the Turkish port of Karasu, Bodnar wrote in a series of Twitter posts on Friday, asking Turkey to “take relevant measures.”
The diplomat also said that the mission had “good communication and close cooperation” with the Turkish side on the matter, and he was sure the “agreed decisions” would “prevent attempts to violate the sovereignty of Ukraine.”
The ship allegedly loaded around 4,500 tons of grain in Berdyansk, Reuters reported, citing an unnamed Ukrainian official. The news agency also noted that the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office sent a letter to Turkey’s Justice Ministry in late June, claiming the vessel had been involved in the “illegal export of Ukrainian grain.”
According to the letter, the vessel had 7,000 tons of cargo on board.
Ukraine then asked Turkey to “conduct an inspection of this sea vessel, seize samples of grain for forensic examination” to determine its origin, and expressed its readiness to launch a joint investigation with the Turkish authorities.
The Kazakhstan-based KTZ Express company, which owns the Zhibek Zholy, told Reuters that the ship was leased to a Russian firm called Green Line, which is not subject to any sanctions.
Russian authorities have not yet commented on the development.
Ukraine, a major grain producer, is unable to export its grain by sea due to the ongoing conflict in the country, with an estimated 22-25 million tons of grain currently stuck in the country’s ports. Kiev has previously accused Russia of “stealing” its grain – something Moscow has denied.
The Western nations have blamed Russia for blocking the ports. Moscow has repeatedly stated it would guarantee safe passage for the grain shipments if Kiev clears its ports of mines. Ukraine, in turn, has accused the Russian forces of mining the Black Sea ports. Russia suggested exporting the grain through the Russian-controlled ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol.
Turkey, NATO joined at hips but think differently
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JULY 3, 2022
Turkey has had an uneasy history as a NATO member country. The push and pull of strategic autonomy constantly grated against a security guarantee the alliance offered and also a way of reinforcing its Western identity. The West wanted Turkey because of the Cold War.
The enigma still continues: Was Turkey’s shift from neutrality to alignment a real necessity in 1951? Did Stalin indeed cast an evil eye on Turkish lands? Would any other Kemalist leader than Ismet Inounu, an unvarnished Euro-Atlanticist whose conception of modernisation implied cooperation with the West, have succumbed to the Anglo-American entreaties?
The relations between Turkey and the Soviet Union remained relatively calm during the period of Turkey’s admission to NATO. In November 1951, Moscow actually directed a note to the Turkish Government protesting the latter’s decision to participate in NATO, which asserted that “it is quite obvious that the initiation to Turkey, a country which has no connections whatever with the Atlantic, to join the Atlantic Bloc, can signify nothing but an aspiration on the part of imperialist states to utilise Turkish territory for the establishment of military bases for aggressive purposes on the frontiers of the USSR.”
The ideological aspirations in becoming an integral part — at least within the framework of a military alliance — of the Western world played a decisive role in Turkey’s decision in 1951, whereas, in reality, there was no imminent or explicit Soviet threat to Turkey. On the other hand, Turkey’s geographical importance to both the West and to the Soviet Union gave her a particular value in an East-West context, which, to her credit, Ankara would successfully leverage to its advantage through subsequent decades.
Curiously, this complex inter-locking in some ways bears an uncanny resemblance to the current accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin must have alluded to it obliquely when he told the media Thursday on the sidelines of the Caspian Summit in Ashgabat:
“NATO is a relic of the Cold War and is only being used as an instrument of US foreign policy designed to keep its client states in rein. This is its only mission. We have given them that opportunity, I understand that. They are using these arguments energetically and quite effectively to rally their so-called allies.
“On the other hand, regarding Sweden and Finland, we do not have such problems with Sweden and Finland as we have, regrettably, with Ukraine. We do not have territorial issues or disputes with them. There is nothing that could inspire our concern regarding Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO. If they want it, they can do it,… let them do it. You know, there are rude jokes about stepping into unsavoury things. That is their business. Let them step into what they wish.”
While returning from NATO’s Madrid Summit, Turkish President Recep Erdogan underscored that by lifting Ankara’s reservations about Sweden’s and Finland’s membership, he advanced Turkish interests and he added the caveat that their accession is far from a done deal yet, and future developments would depend on their fulfilment of commitments under the memorandum of understanding they signed in Madrid with Turkey.
Indeed, both Sweden and Finland have bent over backward to give Turkey extensive anti-terrorism assurances that require changes in domestic legislation in return for Ankara withdrawing its veto against accession talks. Erdogan insists that what matters are not their pledges but the delivery of those pledges.
It is a tough sell domestically for both Sweden and Finland, since one of the pledges is the extradition of 76 Kurds, deemed as terrorists by Turkey. This is easier said than done, as the courts in Stockholm and Helsinki may have their own definition of a “terrorist”.
The Turkish National Assembly’s ratification is a must for the Nordic countries’ admission to be formalised at NATO level. There is some speculation that US President Joe Biden incentivised Erdogan to compromise, but, make no mistake, the latter’s warning about compliance by Sweden and Finland — as also the audible rumblings already on the left in Sweden — are reminders that the issue is still wide open.
After all, North Macedonia had been a NATO partner country since 1995 but could become a NATO member only in March 2020. And Greece’s reservation was that the newly independent former Yugoslav republic wanted to be known as Macedonia whereas Athens saw the name as a threat to its own region of Macedonia — and ultimately, Greece won. In comparison, Turkey’s concerns are tangible and directly impinge on its national security.
Turkey was never a “natural ally” of NATO. How far Turkey subscribes to NATO’s latest strategic concept of Russia being a “most significant and direct threat” is debatable. Arguably, Turkey would feel more at home with the alliance’s 2010 doctrine that called Russia a “strategic partner.” This would need some explanation.
Professor Tariq Oguzlu, a leading exponent of the changing dynamics of Turkish foreign policies in recent years from a structural realist point of view, wrote an analysis last week titled Madrid Agreement and the balance policy in Turkish foreign policy, which was interestingly featured by Anadolu, Turkey’s state news agency. Oguzlu explained the rationale behind Turkey’s decision not to veto the two Nordic countries’ accession:
“Turkiye began to change its perspective on NATO a long time ago due to its strategic autonomy and multilateral foreign policy understanding… Considering the realist turnaround in Turkish foreign policy in the last three years, it is quite meaningful that Türkiye did not veto NATO enlargement.
“On the one hand, the second Cold War between the West and Russia narrows the room for maneuver in Turkish foreign policy, while on the other hand, it increases Türkiye’s strategic importance. The most important challenge for Turkish foreign policy in the coming years will be the successful continuation of Türkiye’s strategic autonomy-oriented multi-faceted foreign policy practices in an environment of deepening international polarisation.
“The balance policy pursued between the West and Russia is one of the most important strategic legacies left to the Republic of Türkiye from the Ottoman Empire. It is a strategic necessity for Türkiye, which has a medium-sized power capacity, to follow a policy of balance in order to achieve national interests. The policies adopted by Türkiye since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine until now and the stance displayed at the last NATO summit in Madrid show that this historical heritage is embraced and successfully executed.”
To put matters in historical context, in 1920, Mustafa Kemal formally approached Vladimir Lenin with a proposal for mutual recognition and a request for military assistance. The Bolsheviks not only responded positively but by throwing in their lot with the growing movement of Turkish nationalists, they helped shore up the new Turkish state’s southern borders. In the period from 1920 to 1922, Soviet Russia’s military help to Ataturk was almost 80 million lire — twice Turkey’s defence budget!
In 1921 in Moscow, the two sides concluded the “Treaty of Friendship and Brotherhood”, which resolved the territorial disputes between the Kemalists and the Bolsheviks. The north-eastern border of Turkey established then remains unchanged to this day.
However, both Moscow and Ankara understood that cooperation between Turkish nationalists and Russian communists would be short-lived. Soon afterward, Turkey deserted Moscow’s camp, banned the communist party, and, during the Nazi invasion, looked for an opportunity to invade the Soviet Caucasus if the Red Army collapsed. Nevertheless, Ataturk never forgot the help that Soviet Russia provided in his hour of need.
A historical perspective is needed to understand the US’ manipulation of Turkey — and of Sweden and Finland in the present-day context. Biden is following President Harry Truman’s footfalls. Washington has used the very same Cold-War tactic to draw Sweden and Finland into the NATO fold as it employed 70 years ago with regard to Turkey.
US Military Aid to Ukraine Will Only End With ‘Real Political Revolution’ in America, Analyst Warns
Samizdat – 03.07.2022
Since the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, the US has supplied Kiev with unprecedented amounts of aid, chief among them being military. Moscow has repeatedly stated that this will only prolong and aggravate the conflict, which, however, has not affected the ever-increasing scale of support for Ukrainian authorities.
This Friday, Washington unveiled yet another $820 million package of security support for Ukraine, which includes two cutting-edge surface-to-air missile systems and four additional counter-artillery radars.
The Biden administration indicated the new package included extra ammo for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) that were already given to Ukraine, noting US authorities almost weekly coordinate more and more new deliveries of arms and finances to Kiev counterparts amid pledges to give even more.
All this takes place against the backdrop of unprecedented in recent decades domestic inflation and an economic crisis that threatens to plounge the US into a recession comparable to the “Great Recession” of 2008.
Despite all that, US President Joe Biden said earlier this week that Washington plans to support Ukraine for as long as necessary, thus refuting allegations that some day the time would come when the well will dry up.
‘No Escape’ While Situation ‘Going to Get Worse’
US investigative journalist Daniel Lazare told Sputnik that in the current global situation the biggest problem for Washington is that it “is colliding head-on with reality.”
“The Ukraine war is not going well, Russia is advancing steadily, and few more arms shipments are not going to make much of a difference,” he explained. “The economy is in serious trouble, the sanctions that were supposed to bring Russia to its knees are backfiring spectacularly, while [US Treasury Secretary] Janet Yellen’s scheme for putting a cap on Russian oil prices is being met with worldwide derision.”
According to the pundit, the whole foreign policy of the US “seems to be heading for another crisis,” which prompted the journalist to ponder whether that really is “par for the course.”
“If confidence is plummeting, it’s because no one thinks the Biden administration is the least bit competent,” he said of the Biden administration’s recent poll numbers. “Yet all the alternatives are so much worse. Pretty grim, isn’t it?”
Per Lazare, there is “no escape” out of the situation the US is currently in, and all Biden can do is smile uneasily while UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson jokes about showing off his pecs.
“Things are only going to get worse,” he asserted.
‘This Will Only End When There Is Real Political Revolution in US’
Meanwhile, American geopolitical analyst Tom Luongo remarked that the ongoing conflict in the eastern European nation is nothing more than a “war between civilizations,” in US neoconservatives’ efforts to “forestall Russia taking control of Ukraine.”
Touching on Washington officials’ motives behind the ever-increasing aid to Kiev, Luongo told Sputnik that the American president, “as a proxy for the oligarchs in Davos, is acting on their behalf to ultimately weaken the US by sending weapons overseas and destroying US leadership and credibility.”
“This will only end when there is a real political revolution in the US,” he argued.
Asked about why the Biden administration is concentrated so much on the crisis abroad rather than resolving issues at home, the analyst asserted that the president was “put in charge to destroy the US.”
“Biden and his administration are vandals,” he claimed. “They are not acting in the US’s best interests but have subordinated our public policy to the wishes of foreign powers.”
According to Luongo, “too many conservatives want to align the DNC with China, but it’s clear that while China is helping erode the political cohesiveness of the US it is Davos and their Climate Change/technocracy agenda that is pulling all the strings.”
The expert offered that the incumbent administration is not interested in mitigating, for instance, the ongoing energy sector crisis, because it “is being run by traitors.”
More to that, Luongo believes the US economy cannot afford to sponsor Washington’s ambitions for a long period of time. The analyst argued there is sincere and well-organized pushback coming from “the most unlikely place,” which is some of the US biggest banks and the Federal Reserve, which is “aggressively tightening monetary policy to drain the world of dollars and break both the offshore euro, dollar markets and put China’s financial partners, namely Hong Kong, under sincere pressure.”
“If the Fed doesn’t do this now, the odds of a political disintegration of the US by the end of the decade rise dramatically,” the expert suggested.
Speculating about where the United States has again found huge funds to aid Ukraine this week, and how the budget is going to cover the next multi-million spending, he said that for 2022, the money used had already been allocated. However, according to Luongo, Congress eventually will have to sell debt into the market, either for domestic or foreign purchase, or for monetization by the Fed.
“The Fed is raising rates to stop the money spigot in DC by forcing Congress to act more responsibly,” Luongo explained. “Think of these spending allocations and pledges, like the $600 billion for global infrastructure to thwart China’s Belt and Road Initiative as attempts at blackmailing a reluctant Fed to monetize debt the world no longer wants to buy.”
The analyst also weighed in on the recent statement by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, which forecasted that the second quarter would see a 1% decline in the US GDP, a move that would in turn mark the beginning of recession.
Asked what were the chances of a “large-scale economic collapse” in this course of action, Luongo noted there is a significant difference between the recession and the latter. He emphasized the Fed should continue its current effort in order to compel resolution to numerous unresolved geopolitical challenges and imbalances.
“If it’s going to ‘act globally’ this is how it should do so, by taking away the punchbowl of offshore USD-based credit, Eurodollars, and regain control over its own monetary policy,” he pointed out.
According to Luongo, to balance the books from the last inflationary boom, one must pay a price that may include a severe recession and economic disruption in the US economy for “a year or two.”
“I think the worst of those effects on the US economy will be blunted by the complete collapse of the European economy and sovereign debt markets,” the expert concluded.
“However, it won’t last forever, two maybe three years, but it will be enough time to effect real political change. We’ll know at this year’s midterm elections what the American people really think about these things.”
Let Drivers Pay Price for World Domination, Says Biden
Meanwhile, just this Thursday, Biden told reporters that those behind the wheel in the US will be compelled to pay current record fuel prices for “as long as necessary.”
“As long as it takes so Russia cannot in fact defeat Ukraine and go beyond Ukraine,” Biden said. “This is a critical position for the world.”
A CNN report this week detailed that the US Department of Defense is considering 1,300 ideas from 800 companies to create new weaponry and commercial capabilities they might be able to produce to aid Ukraine in the near future.
The suggestions reportedly address several of the crucial needs that Ukraine has highlighted, including air defense, anti-armor, anti-tank, anti-personnel, coastal defense, drones, secure communications and counter battery.
Additionally, should the ongoing crisis last a long period, the US reportedly plans to increase the capability of its industrial base to serve Ukraine’s demands.
Ever since the conflict began in late February, the US has provided Kiev with over $54 billion in financial and military aid, including $40 billion package for aid to Ukraine that was passed by Congress in May.
According to the estimates, with the newest $820 million tranche, the US has provided Ukraine with $7.6 billion in military aid since the Biden administration took office in January 2021.
Following a request for assistance from the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk to protect themselves against Ukrainian forces’ escalating onslaught, Russia began a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense statements, the civilian populace is not in risk because the operation is only focused on Ukrainian military facilities.
Ukraine fires ballistic missiles at Russian city – MoD

Samizdat | July 3, 2022
Ukraine launched three Tochka-U ballistic missiles loaded with cluster munitions at the Russian city of Belgorod, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday. It added that all three had been intercepted mid-air, but that parts of one of the missiles had hit a house.
Regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that three people were killed and four injured overnight. He added that 11 apartment buildings and at least 39 smaller houses were damaged.
Gladkov later said that the death toll had grown to four. Three of the victims are Ukrainian nationals and one is a Russian citizen, he added.
Russian news outlet Baza later reported that two more bodies were recovered from under the rubble, raising the death toll to five. This has not yet been confirmed by officials.
Belgorod is located around 40 kilometers from the Russia-Ukraine border.
Defense Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said that Ukraine had also sent two Tu-143 Reys drones, “loaded with explosives,” towards Kursk, another Russian city close to the border. He said both drones were destroyed by air defenses before reaching the city.
Konashenkov said that Ukraine targeted residential areas, which had “no military sites.”
The Russian authorities have repeatedly accused Ukraine of shelling cities and villages close to the border. Moscow previously warned that it would hit Ukrainian “decision-making centers, including Kiev” if attacks on Russian territory did not stop.
Kiev accused Russian troops of attacking residential areas and killing civilians throughout Ukraine. Moscow insists its forces are only striking military targets.
Covid shots for little kids are DOA
The fawning media coverage notwithstanding, uptake has been pitifully low
By Alex Berenson | Unreported Truths | July 2, 2022
Despite a massive media and government pressure campaign, American parents are overwhelmingly rejecting Covid vaccines for their young children.
About one week after the shots became available, barely 1 percent of children under 5 have received mRNA jabs for Covid, data from several states show.
Ohio:
Even in California, among the bluest states, only about 2 percent of kids under 5 have been jabbed.
Demand is likely to be near zero going forward. The recent history of Covid shots shows that the increasingly tiny minority of mRNA fanatics get themselves or their children jabbed or boosted quickly after regulators okay new doses. So pent-up desire for new shots is likely nonexistent.
As usual, elite media outlets have largely refused to acknowledge this reality, instead running endless articles that seek to normalize and encourage the shots.
(CNN gonna CNN:)
But at this point many parents have seen and experienced the side effects of the vaccines for themselves. They also know firsthand that the shots do little if anything to stop Omicron infections (though they may not be aware how terrible the data truly are). And they know that Covid is a minuscule risk for children who are not already seriously ill, and that most kids have already been exposed.
(All the Sesame Street ads in the world can’t change reality. Congrats, Elmo. You’re in the 1 percent. Cute Band-Aid, though.)
But as it becomes clear just how few little kids have gotten the shots, any future media and public health pressure campaigns will look embarrassingly out-of-touch.
Someone may want to tell the Biden Administration: the less said about the pathetic decision to make these shots available for kids under 5, the better.
Oh, wait, too late.
Uncle Joe wins again!
U.S. Orders 2.5 Million More Monkeypox Vaccine Doses, as CDC Looks to Expand Vaccine for Kids
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 1, 2022
The Biden administration today said it ordered 2.5 million more doses of Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos monkeypox vaccine, bringing the total vaccine doses to be delivered in 2022 and 2023 to more than 4 million.
The news followed Tuesday’s announcement of the first phase of the U.S. government’s “national monkey vaccine strategy,” which will expand testing capabilities and make Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos vaccines readily available to anyone exposed to the virus.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said the government’s “enhanced” nationwide strategy “will vaccinate and protect those at-risk of monkeypox,” as well as provide guidance to communities on how to respond to outbreaks.
“We are focused on making sure the public and healthcare providers are aware of the risks posed by monkeypox and that there are steps they can take — through seeking testing, vaccines and treatments — to stay healthy and stop the spread,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
As part of the strategy, the CDC and HHS began shipping tests to five major laboratory companies across the country: Aegis Science, Labcorp, Mayo Clinic Laboratories, Quest Diagnostics and Sonic Healthcare.
The government, which for months has been buying more Jynneos doses to add to the national stockpile, is now distributing the vaccine. It’s currently making available 296,000 doses and expects to roll out 750,000 doses over the summer, with an additional 500,000 doses produced and released in the fall — for a total of 1.6 million doses this year.
The Jynneos vaccine is licensed for use in adults and is considered safer than Emergent BioSolutions Inc.’s ACAM2000 smallpox vaccine, which also can be used against monkeypox, the HHS said.
The vaccine will be made available to individuals “with confirmed and presumed monkeypox exposures,” said the HHS.
“This includes those who had close physical contact with someone diagnosed with monkeypox, those who know their sexual partner was diagnosed with monkeypox, and men who have sex with men who have recently had multiple sex partners in a venue where there was known to be monkeypox or in an area where monkeypox is spreading.”
Health officials seeking to expand use of monkeypox vaccine for kids, despite lack of safety data
U.S. health officials also are seeking to expand use of the monkeypox vaccine for children, Bloomberg reported.
The CDC is developing a protocol aimed at allowing use of the Jynneos vaccine in children “should cases in children occur,” Kristen Nordlund, a CDC spokesperson, said in an email to Bloomberg.
“I’m concerned about sustained transmission because it would suggest that the virus is establishing itself, and it could move into high-risk groups, including children, the immunocompromised, and pregnant women,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a Wednesday press briefing.
“We’re starting to see this with several children already infected,” he added.
There have been 350 cases so far of monkeypox in the U.S. — all adults — according to the CDC. The agency confirmed 5,115 cases worldwide.
The WHO confirmed two cases in children in the U.K. and said Wednesday it is following up on reports of cases in children in Spain and France.
No safety trials have been done in children for the Jynneos vaccine as of yet, partly because clinical research involving participants under the age of 18 must pose no more than “minimal risk” to children, which can be difficult for vaccine manufacturers to argue.
Commenting on the CDC’s actions, Dr. Meryl Nass, a member of the Children’s Health Defense scientific advisory committee, told The Defender, “It’s kind of extraordinary that they want to vaccinate everyone in the country before knowing what the safety issues are.”
Nass, an internist and biological warfare epidemiologist, said, “We don’t actually know” if the Jynneos vaccine prevents monkeypox in humans because it was developed as a smallpox vaccine, and prevention studies have been conducted using only animals.
“It is hard to believe that the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)] gave this vaccine a license when you read the FDA reviewers’ comments in their own report,” Nass wrote in her June 23 substack newsletter.
“They could not test the vaccine for efficacy against smallpox because there is no smallpox, nor against monkeypox, because the disease is so rare,” Nass wrote. “So the FDA relied on neutralizing antibody titers.”
At the same time, the FDA admitted there is no established correlate of protection, Nass said.
“This means that there is no evidence that the titers represent actual immunity to infection,” Nass wrote. “So FDA relied on animal studies to simply guess the vaccine might be effective in humans.”
According to the FDA, the effectiveness of Jynneos for the prevention of monkeypox is “inferred from the antibody responses in the smallpox clinical study participants and from studies in non-human primates that showed protection of animals vaccinated with Jynneos who were exposed to the monkeypox virus.”
Jynneos, a replication-deficient live Vaccinia virus vaccine, was licensed in the U.S. in 2019, by the FDA for use in individuals 18 and over considered to be at high risk for smallpox or monkeypox.
In 2021, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted to recommend Jynneos as a safer alternative to the ACAM2000 vaccine because of ACAM2000’s propensity to cause serious adverse effects, including myocarditis and pericarditis — i.e., inflammation of the heart.
However, Nass noted, Jynneos also was linked to heart inflammation, according to the FDA licensure review of the Jynneos smallpox-monkeypox vaccine which reported:
“Up to 18.4% of subjects in 2 studies developed post-vaccination elevation of troponin [a cardiac muscle enzyme signifying cardiac damage]. However, all of these troponin elevations were asymptomatic and without a clinically associated event or other sign of myopericarditis.”
These higher levels of troponin were not studied further, and the reviewers admitted they did not know if the Jynneos vaccine caused myocarditis, Nass said.
The Jynneos manufacturers said they would conduct an “observational, post-marketing study” in which they would “collect data on cardiac events that occur and are assessed as a routine part of medical care.”
But myocarditis — particularly asymptomatic forms of myocarditis that lack outer signs of the condition — could fly under the radar of the “routine part of medical care,” noted Nass.
The manufacturers would need to test for heightened troponin levels — something that is not typically done in “routine” check-ups.
The authors of a 2015 study reported evidence of heart injury following vaccination in a sample of 1,445 individuals who received a smallpox or trivalent influenza vaccine.
They found that chest pain, shortness of breath and/or palpitations occurred in 10.6% of those who received the smallpox vaccine SPX-vaccinees and 2.6% of those who received the trivalent influenza vaccine within 30 days of immunization.
Additionally, the study authors reported levels more than double the upper limit of troponin — a protein that flags cardiac injury — in 31 of the individuals who received the smallpox vaccine.
“Passive surveillance significantly underestimates the true incidence of myocarditis/pericarditis after smallpox immunization,” they concluded.
The authors added:
“Evidence of subclinical transient cardiac muscle injury post-vaccine immunization is a finding that requires further study to include long-term outcomes surveillance. Active safety surveillance is needed to identify adverse events that are not well understood or previously recognized.”
Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Fairfield, Iowa.
© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
Several people have asked me to discuss my own path to understanding the pandemic psyop. I don’t think describing my path will help others, but because I am a stickler for transparency, I will give a quick take on how I got where I am today.





