Germany’s AfD to soften stance on migrants – Bild
RT | July 6, 2025
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has softened its anti-immigration rhetoric in a bid to appeal to moderate voters and prove itself capable of forming a government down the road, Bild has claimed.
Founded in 2013, the right-wing party has steadily gained in popularity amid the continuing migrant crisis in Germany. It finished second in the federal elections in February, winning 152 seats in the 630-seat Bundestag. In April, a survey by the pollster Forsa indicated that it enjoyed the support of 26% of respondents, ahead of all the other parties in Germany.
In an article on Saturday, Bild claimed to have seen a new seven-point policy paper that the AfD’s parliamentary group was expected to adopt that same day.
Conspicuously absent from the document are calls for the “remigration” of German residents with a migrant background, as well as an insistence on the “German guiding culture,” according to the outlet.
Bild claimed that the terms had specifically been axed from the party program in order to “reach more moderate voters,” and “appear capable of governing by the next federal election” in 2029. Aside from these purported changes, the AfD also reportedly intends to adopt a code of conduct for its lawmakers in the Bundestag.
The party’s interim goal is to gain ground in next year’s regional elections, Bild reported.
The media outlet claimed that the updated program calls for an end to asylum-granting to refugees at the border, tougher naturalization requirements and less social welfare for migrants.
The party also reportedly seeks to slash taxes, lift a self-imposed ban on the use of nuclear power plants, and restore the Nord Stream pipelines. The conduits, which used to carry Russian natural gas, were destroyed by a targeted underwater explosion in 2022. Berlin has since ruled out restoring them to operation.
According to Bild, the right-wingers want Germany’s foreign policy to be guided by the motto “Germany first,” which would presumably entail an end to weapons deliveries to Ukraine and the lifting of sanctions on Russia.
In a post on X on Sunday, the AfD Bundestag group revealed that its members had convened for a “closed meeting” over the weekend to set “political goals for the coming period.”
The party was declared a “confirmed right-wing extremist entity” by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency in May, only for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) to suspend the label shortly thereafter.
HHS to ‘Revolutionize’ Vaccine Injury Compensation, RFK Jr. Tells Tucker Carlson
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 1, 2025
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat down yesterday with Tucker Carlson to share an update on his mission to end the skyrocketing rate of autism in U.S. kids.
By the end of their nearly 90-minute conversation, the two had covered a slew of topics, including pharmaceutical ads on TV, increasing compensation for the vaccine-injured, and the need for a “truth commission” to uncover who and what caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
Carlson, who last year left FOX News after being the network’s “most popular host,” now runs “The Tucker Carlson Show.” He broke his interview with Kennedy into five “chapters”:
- Uncovering the Reason for Skyrocketing Rates of Autism
- Is It Possible to End the Corrupt Relationship Between Big Pharma and Corporate Media?
- Will There Be Compensation for the Vaccine-Injured?
- RFK’s Firing of So-Called “Experts”
- The Real Reason Fauci Got a Pardon
Below are highlights from each.
HHS will do honest, open research on autism and vaccines
In the past, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) failed to honestly and adequately research the possible link between vaccines and autism, Kennedy said.
The CDC ignored recommendations from the Institute of Medicine to do a “litany” of studies to get at the issue, Kennedy said, including animal models, observational studies, bench studies and epidemiological studies.
“But what we’re going to do now,” he said, “is we’re going to do all the kinds of studies that the Institute of Medicine originally recommended.”
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in April announced a new research program to study what causes autism and why autism diagnoses are on the rise.
NIH will make data from Medicare and Medicaid available to independent scientists for analysis. Data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink — a huge repository for health records — will also be used, Kennedy said.
Raw data will be made available to the public whenever possible, Kennedy said.
“Something new that we’re bringing in is that every study will be replicated,” he added.
Big Pharma ads fail to benefit patients and doctors
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Angus King (I-Maine) last month introduced federal legislation to end direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising.
Kennedy didn’t reference the bill or say he supported a ban on such ads. However, he outlined several reasons why pharmaceutical marketing on mainstream media is bad for public health.
Many ads are misleading, he told Carlson. “Even the music and the video, the photos that they show … it’s sending a message that if you take this drug, you’re going to be riding jet skis and playing volleyball and water skiing and have a great-looking spouse.”
Meanwhile, the ads feature the most expensive version of the drug rather than the generic version.
“They’re not going to advertise the generics because they’re not making any money,” Kennedy said. “So they’re advertising the ones that are the highest profit margins for them.”
Plus, the U.S. taxpayer bears the brunt of the cost while the drug company profits. Kennedy explained:
“Normally, if you see an advertisement on TV like for Coca-Cola, you then have a choice to go get that and you’re paying out of your pocket for it.
“When somebody buys a pharmaceutical drug, it’s Medicaid and Medicare that are paying for it … it’s the taxpayer. … And we’re paying for the ads because they’re tax-deductible.”
When a patient sees the ad and asks a doctor for the drug, the doctor — who is told by a “corporate bean counter” to limit time with a patient to only 11 minutes — has to choose whether to use the time trying to talk the patient out of the drug, Kennedy said. But if the doctor does that, the patient likely goes away unsatisfied.
Or the doctor could just say, “All right, you want this prescription? I’ll write it for you.” Then the patient will be satisfied and come back, Kennedy said. “The doctors hate it. … And nobody thinks that this is good for public health. It is hurting us.”
Kennedy said the censorship of vaccine-related information on social media is also a problem.
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday denied Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) petition to hear its censorship case against Meta, the parent company of Facebook.
CHD sued Meta in August 2020 and filed an amended complaint in November 2020, alleging that government actors partnered with Facebook to censor CHD’s speech — particularly speech related to vaccines and COVID-19 — that should have been protected under the First Amendment. The company deplatformed CHD from Facebook and Instagram in August 2022 and has not reinstated the accounts.
Censorship of scientific results that are critical of vaccines is also a problem, Kennedy added.
Kennedy’s plans to expand vaccine injury compensation program
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which granted legal immunity to vaccine makers and created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, also made it difficult for anyone injured by a vaccine to obtain compensation.
“We just brought a guy in this week who is going to be revolutionizing the [National] Vaccine Injury Compensation program,” Kennedy said.
“We’re looking at ways to enlarge the program so that COVID vaccine-injured people can be compensated … we’re looking at ways to enlarge the statute of limitations,” Kennedy told Carlson.
It’s currently limited to three years. “A lot of people don’t discover their injuries till after that,” Kennedy said.
The program has other flaws, including that it has no discovery process, no rules of evidence and historically had corrupt leadership.
“We’re going to change all that,” Kennedy said. “I’ve brought in a team this week that is starting to work on that.”
Kennedy also said HHS will use AI (artificial intelligence) to track vaccine injuries more effectively. The agency plans to use AI in other ways, too, such as speeding up drug approval processes and detecting fraud.
Why CDC vaccine advisory committee needed a clean sweep
Kennedy defended his recent move to fire all members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, saying the board had become “a sock puppet for the industry that it was supposed to regulate.”
On June 11, Kennedy named eight researchers and physicians to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two days after removing all 17 of the previous ACIP members.
“This was a long time coming, Tucker,” Kennedy said. He gave an example to illustrate the kind of financial conflict of interest that had plagued the board for years.
Years ago, the committee approved adding a rotavirus vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule, he said.
Four of the five committee members had “direct financial interest in the rotavirus vaccine,” Kennedy said. “They were working for the companies that made the vaccine, or they were receiving grants to do clinical trials on that vaccine.”
Within a year, that specific rotavirus vaccine was linked to “disastrous” disease in kids and pulled from the market. It was replaced by a different rotavirus vaccine that then-committee member Dr. Paul Offit had helped develop.
“Then [Offit] and his business partners, Dr. Stanley Plotkin, and a couple of other people, sold that vaccine to Merck for $186 million,” Kennedy recalled.
According to Kennedy, Offit told Newsweek that he won the lottery. “It’s been said of him that he voted himself rich, so that kind of conflict was typical on that committee.”
Could a ‘truth commission’ hold Fauci accountable?
Carlson and Kennedy discussed the origins of COVID-19 and the possible reasons for Dr. Anthony Fauci’s presidential pardon.
Just before leaving office, former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci. The pardon, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2014, addresses “any offenses” Fauci committed during this period, including in his former capacities as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, member of the White House COVID-19 Response Team and chief medical adviser to Biden.
When Carlson pressed Kennedy to comment on Fauci’s motivations for funding coronavirus research in China, Kennedy said he tried to avoid speculation.
That’s why in his book, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” he reports only what Fauci did, not Fauci’s possible motivations, he said.
Carlson said, “It sounds like Fauci is beyond the reach of the law at this point.”
Kennedy responded, “Yeah, I think generally, unless there was a truth commission, you know, which they did in South Africa. They did it in Central America after the 1980s wars there, and they were very, very helpful to those societies. I think we should probably do something like that now.”
Kennedy explained how a truth commission works:
“You have a commission that hears testimony on what exactly happened. Anybody who comes and volunteers to testify truthfully is then given immunity from prosecution. But so that at least the public knows who did what. …
“People who are called and don’t take that deal and perjure themselves, they then can be prosecuted criminally.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Agent of Chaos: Lindsey Graham’s Power Depends on War
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 30.06.2025
Hawkish Senator Lindsey Graham got President Donald Trump to strike Iran, according to the Wall Street Journal. What’s he gaining from the Middle East war?
Darling of Jewish Lobby
- The Republican Jewish Coalition was Graham’s top donor in his 2020 re-election, giving $111,000 (OpenSecrets).
- Over $1 million more came via RJC, according to RJC’s executive director Matt Brooks.
- Brooks: “There is nobody more important in the US Senate” for the US-Israel partnership.
- He raised $109 million in total.
RJC: Longtime Supporter of Graham
- RJC leaders Larry Mizel and Sam Fox backed Graham’s 2014 re-election.
- Fox gave $50,000 and Mizel $100,000 to his super PAC, West Main Street Values.
- RJC board member Sheldon Adelson co-hosted a fundraiser for Graham’s 2016 presidential bid.
AIPAC is Another Backer
- Graham major backer, billionaire Mizel, also sits on AIPAC’s board — the top pro-Israel lobby in the US.
- Haaretz calls Mizel a key booster of pro-Israel Republicans who opens doors in Israel’s power circles for GOP politicians.
More Wars – More Defense Contractors Backing
- Lockheed Martin gave Graham $102,000 in 2020, according to OpenSecrets
- Boeing added $80,700 in 2024.
- The Intercept notes most cash comes from defense-linked individual donors — like Humvee mogul Ron Perelman, who gave $500,000 to Graham’s 2016 run.
Graham’s 2026 Senate Bid at Stake
- Graham’s hawkish Iran stance apparently ties to his 2026 ambitions – he needs big donor cash.
- RJC backs him as “one of the strongest advocates for the US Jewish community.”
- Defense firms will pay too—if he keeps the bombs dropping.
Vaccine Makers Signal Fear Over Removal of Neurotoxic Injected Aluminum Ingredient
By Jefferey Jaxen | June 27, 2025
Former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb made his ceremonial appearance on CNBC to titrate the public well with Big Pharma talking points in the wake of this week’s ACIP meeting.
After speaking for less than one minute and forty seconds, Gottlieb used the tired, inaccurate slur ‘anti-vaxxer’ four times in a failed attempt to frame an us verse them narrative like it was 2015 again.
With the newly appointed ACIP committee vote to remove the mercury-based preservative thimerosal from the few remaining flu shots, Gottlieb wasted no time circling the wagons to protect the widespread, problematic aluminum adjuvant in several vaccines on the CDC’s childhood schedule.
His concern was that would be ACIP’s next target. And he’s probably right.
“This is a very safe ingredient” stated Gottlieb regarding the regular injection of aluminum nanoparticles into infants, children and adolescents at scale.
Zero pushback or questions from the interviewer to challenge him per usual.
How settled is the safety science of injecting aluminum in children?
The Informed Consent Action Network sent a legal letter to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2019 demanding any human or animal studies relied upon by these agencies to establish the safety of injected aluminum.
The agencies produced no documents nor could they located a single study showing the safety of aluminum in childhood vaccines.
Meanwhile, a 2021 study published in the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology found that six childhood vaccines contain a statistically significant greater quantity of aluminum adjuvant than is provided for on these products’ labeling. This study promped ICAN to demand the FDA assure that vaccine manufacturers are disclosing accurate information regarding the amount of aluminum adjuvant in their childhood vaccines. The agency has since stonewalled the request.
Here’s the embarrassing, anti-scientific part Gottlieb forgets to mention.
The rationale for injecting aluminum adjuvant nanoparticles into newborns was allowed and justified by a single 2011 study, by a single FDA scientist named Dr. Robert Mitkus.
Author J.B. Handley in his book How to End the Autism Epidemic writes the following about Mitkus’ study:
What would be lost on the average layperson is that the only biological science Dr. Mitkus considered in making his safety assessment was a single study that infused (rather than injected) aluminum citrate (rather than aluminum hydroxide) into adults (rather than babies). It’s hard to put this seemingly minor detail in proper context. In no other drug on the planet (except for vaccines) would safety standards ever be determined without using the actual product (aluminum hydroxide) administered in the proper way (intramuscular injection), into the proper patient population (infants).
World-renowned researchers called out this fact in their 2018 study by stating:
“To date, aluminum adjuvants per se have, perhaps surprisingly, not been the subject of any official experimental investigation, and this being in spite of the well-established neurotoxicity of aluminum.”
Will aluminum adjuvants be ACIP’s next target? Are studies being commissioned by Jay Bhattacharya’s NIH to look at these ingredients and their well-established role in creating chronic disease in American Children? All open questions at the time of this writing.
As for Scott and his industry pals, shots across the bow appear to be signaling that it’s no longer business as usual.
Gottlieb left his position as FDA commissioner only to accept a position on the board of Pfizer in less than three months.
Gottlieb is Big Pharma’s jack-in-the-box who seems to pop up and make noise at key moments when public pressure is applied which threatens bottom line profit margins of their liability-free injectable product lines.
His corporate media residency at CNBC allows for rapid response industry talkings points to roll from his mouth at a moment’s notice whenever his handlers decide to make him dance.
Prior to the pandemic, as questions swirled about a connection between vaccines and autism, Gottleib was there. When asked by the CNBC reporter why parents claim that their children developed autism or “something on the spectrum” right around the time they received their shots, Gottlieb blamed coincidence by saying:
“Children who are gonna display symptoms of autism and other developmental disorders, those start to manifest and become self-evident right around the time kids are getting vaccinated.”
Magic. Like Fauci, Gottleib is his own version of The Science™. What he says is ordained, never questioned during interviews. A continuous appeal to authority. Why? Because Pfizer man said so.
With a little luck, revolving door riders like Gottlieb will be artifacts of a shameful past era. Where U.S. regulatory agencies continually launched their leaders into the waiting arms of the industries they regulated.
NATO’s credibility eroding amid organized crime corruption scandals and internal fractures
By Uriel Araujo | June 20, 2025
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), heralded as the bulwark of Western security, faces a credibility crisis that mirrors the decline of the West. Corruption scandals, internal divisions, and an insatiable appetite for expansion despite unmet commitments have eroded its legitimacy, with the Ukraine crisis as a stark backdrop. As a matter of fact, NATO’s troubles reflect a faltering Western order struggling to maintain global dominance.
Since last month, a sprawling investigation into the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) has revealed that officials sold confidential information to defense contractors, rigging multimillion-dollar arms contracts, including drones critical to Ukraine’s military efforts. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) exposed a sophisticated network of insiders leaking sensitive data for personal gain, undermining NATO’s procurement integrity. Arrests in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain, with investigations in Luxembourg, Italy, and the United States, highlight the probe’s scope, which is expected to widen the more the EU agencies look at NATO’s contracts. This organized crime angle, involving illicit financial flows, remains underreported, which makes one wonder just how deep the rot goes.
The Ukraine crisis certainly amplifies these scandals’ impact. NATO’s support for Kyiv, including massive arms shipments, is tainted by corrupt practices that may have inflated costs or misdirected resources. One may recall that Ukrainian Brigadier General Volodymyr Karpenko admitted in 2022 that nearly 50% of received weaponry was lost, potentially smuggled. Europol’s Catherine De Bolle warned that same year of arms flooding Europe’s black markets. In 2024, Washington admitted failing to track $1 billion in small arms, but claimed it was due to inadequate inventories. This could be just the tip of the iceberg, as the Atlantic organization is increasingly looking like a racketeering ring.
The fact that this scandal remains underreported speaks volumes. That the CIA admittedly infiltrated media outlets, funded journalists and so on to shape narratives during the Cold War is no secret, Operation Mockingbird being just the most famous case. The late Udo Ulfkotte claimed in his 2014 book “Gekaufte Journalisten” that Western intelligence, including the CIA, would often pay journalists to push pro-NATO narratives. Suffice it to say that there’s no reason to assume such practices ceased, especially as narrative wars have intensified – not to mention that in the post-Soviet world NATO just kept on expanding. In any case, The National Endowment for Democracy and, until recently, the USAID are also known to support media globally, typically with a pro-NATO spin. Corruption and propaganda often go hand in hand. But here I digress.
Historically speaking, NATO has been no stranger to organized crime ties. Up until the nineties, Operation Gladio, a NATO clandestine program, collaborated with the Sicilian Mafia and neo-fascist terrorist groups in Europe, as confirmed by parliamentary inquiries. In post-Maidan Ukraine, NATO’s support for groups like the Azov regiment, with neo-Nazi ties, echoes this pattern. Plus, one may recall that Vladimir Zelensky has claimed that Western officials misappropriated $88.5 billion of aid sent to Kyiv. When it comes to the Western alliance, corruption schemes often go hand in hand with far-right paramilitary groups and organized crime.
Corruption is not NATO’s only problem. Many member states fail to meet the 2% GDP defense spending target; in 2024, only 23 of 32 complied, revealing a chronic lack of commitment. In fact, Trump’s rhetoric pertaining to the Alliance largely stems from this fact alone. Internal divisions further weaken the Alliance. The Greek-Turkish rivalry in the Aegean, for one thing, with territorial disputes, threatens NATO’s southeastern flank. These fissures reveal an alliance struggling to maintain unity amid divergent agendas.
NATO’s relentless expansion, despite these challenges, is its most provocative misstep. Its post-Cold War push eastward, absorbing former Soviet states, fueled tensions with Russia, culminating in the Ukraine crisis. Thus, NATO has become a destabilizing force, which provokes rather than deterrs conflict. Fueling conflicts might be good for the defence industry but it certainly does not do much for trans-Atlantic security. Moreover, the 2022 accession of Finland and Sweden, while touted as a triumph, has stretched NATO’s resources and exposed its inability to integrate new members seamlessly (not to mention the way Turkey leveraged it). It has made Europe a less safe place, for one thing.
These scandals and structural issues are emblematic of the West’s decline. The narrative of Western moral superiority is untenable when NATO, its premier security institution, is plagued by shady deals and disunity. NATO’s failure to adapt to a multipolar world, where players such as China, Russia, and even Turkey assert autonomy, further alienates the Global South. The West’s decline is not merely military or economic but a matter of legitimacy, as its institutions falter under their contradictions.
In conclusion, NATO’s corruption scandals are symptoms of a deeper malaise. They expose an alliance that, despite its grandiose ambitions, is fractured by internal divisions, weakened by unmet commitments, and compromised by systemic failures. Turkey’s ambivalence, the Greek-Turkish rivalry, and the Ukraine crisis highlight NATO’s inability to cohere, while its expansionist zeal deepens global tensions. To put it simply, NATO’s troubles reflect the West’s waning influence in a world no longer willing to accept its dominance.
Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions.
The rise of Abu Shabab: Mapping the Gaza militia armed by Israel
By Muhammad Shehada | The New Arab | June 10, 2025
A political earthquake hit Israel last week when former Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman revealed that “the Israeli government is giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons, identified with Islamic State [in Gaza], at the direction of the prime minister”.
Netanyahu has since admitted that Israel had been “running” proxy militias in Gaza, but tried to put a positive spin on it, claiming that such a move aims to challenge Hamas’s rule.
But branding these gangs as potential rivals to Hamas masks the very goal of why Israel created them in the first place. Around 300 untrained thieves, drug dealers, criminals, and convicted murderers cannot overpower Hamas’s estimated 30,000 militants.
Their actual role has more to do with advancing Israel’s genocide, starvation, and ethnic cleansing in Gaza while creating plausible deniability.
Furthermore, recent evidence indicates that Israel may have been collaborating with some of these Islamic State-linked elements even before 7 October.
Abu Shabab: A front for an Israeli proxy?
The most prominent gang leader in Gaza is Yasser Abu Shabab. His name first appeared in August 2024 on Hamas-linked social media groups as the figure responsible for looting the vast majority of humanitarian aid and reselling it on the black market for astronomical prices.
A senior security source told The New Arab that Abu Shabab’s gang had been active for months before then.
Local authorities knew Abu Shabab well. He was serving a long sentence in prison for the possession of large quantities of drugs, according to three knowledgeable sources. He was one of many inmates who escaped under the cover of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.
Some other inmates were released on parole when Israel began bombing government facilities. Israeli newspapers like Maariv and Yediot Ahronot confirmed Abu Shabab’s criminal history through people close to him, and even added that he had links to the Islamic State (IS) through smuggling drugs from Sinai into Gaza.
Police in Gaza were perplexed when he emerged as a top gang leader. The security source told The New Arab that Abu Shabab is 35 years old, thin, weak, short (around 150cm in height), uncharismatic, illiterate, has strabismus in one eye, and has never received military training.
To them, he didn’t seem like someone with the leadership skills necessary to form a group of 300 armed militants, steal truckloads of aid, and store it under the radar.
Local authorities quickly decided that Abu Shabab was merely a front for an Israeli astroturfing campaign to maintain its policy of starvation in Gaza after the international community pressured Netanyahu to ease his total siege and allow a trickle of aid into the enclave.
What made this clear, according to them, is how Israeli drones bombed emergency committee volunteers or police officers every time they came close to thwarting a looting attempt by that gang in particular.
By late September 2024, Abu Shabab was talked about in Gaza as an Israeli-backed collaborator, not just a gang leader. That is when Hamas militants attempted to ambush him, firing around 90 bullets at a vehicle they thought belonged to Abu Shabab.
The vehicle, however, was identical to the one used by Islam Hijazi, the program officer of a US charity called Heal Palestine. She was tragically killed in the incident.
Two months later, Abu Shabab received widespread media attention after he burned a fuel truck and completely shut down the route used by aid convoys to retaliate against another Hamas ambush that killed his brother Fathi and 21 other members of his gang.
Soon after, the Washington Post revealed that the UN had named Abu Shabab in an internal memo as the main figure behind aid looting under “passive or active IDF protection”. This left little room for doubt that Abu Shabab’s gang was a tool for Israel to maintain starvation while externalising blame.
Mapping gang leaders: IS, ex-PA intel officers, and murderers
Abu Shabab’s deputy is thought to be Ghassan al-Dahini, 38, reportedly a former lieutenant in the Palestinian Authority (PA). Dahini is the one running the gang’s operations on the ground and actively trying to recruit new members, along with Saddam Abu Zakkar, per local authorities. His Facebook profile displays Israeli hostage emojis.
Another senior Palestinian security source told The New Arab that Dahini was a member of the “Army of Islam”, the extremist group responsible for kidnapping journalist Alan Johnston in 2007.
The group pledged allegiance to IS in 2015. Ghassan’s brother, Mohammed, died in prison after he was detained on drug-related offences, and Ghassan himself was imprisoned twice in March 2020 and November 2022, per the source. He added that “the Army of Islam relied on Dahini for the Sinai smuggling routes”.
On Sunday, Dahini posted a video of himself in military gear in Eastern Rafah close to Israel’s perimeter fence. He was standing next to a white pickup truck with a UAE license plate from Sharjah and firing a brand-new Serbian Zastava rifle.
Another prominent gang leader in Rafah is Shadi Soufi, a convicted murderer who was awaiting a death sentence before 7 October for killing a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader. Like Yasser, he also escaped prison during the war and was named by humanitarian organisations as responsible for looting aid under Israeli protection in Rafah.
Soufi, al-Dahini, and Abu Shabab are from the same Bedouin Tarabin clan that stretches across Rafah, Israel’s Negev desert, Egypt’s Sinai, and Jordan. Abu Shabab’s family recently disowned him for collaborating with Israel and said they will go after him to hold him accountable.
Another prominent leader of the Abu Shabab gang is Essam Soliman Nabahin, 35, a convicted murderer and IS member. He was implicated in a series of bombings against Hamas in 2015 by extremist Salafist groups and escaped to Sinai to formally join IS’s ranks. He caught the attention of Egyptian media in 2017 after taking part in attacks against the Egyptian army.
Nabahin’s name resurfaced in June 2023 when the police raided a house in central Gaza where he was hiding. He killed a police officer and was convicted in a military court before his escape in the early days of the war.
Israel says Nabahin was previously “recorded launching rockets into Israel without coordination with Hamas”.
Local authorities in Gaza have long suspected that IS-linked individuals like Nabahin were being pushed by Israel’s Shin Bet to fire one or two primitive projectiles sporadically to give Israel a pretext to strike Gaza and bomb specific targets. Hence, the police detained those militants repeatedly.
A senior Palestinian security source told The New Arab that authorities in Gaza caught a collaborator in 2018 who directed such occasional rocket attacks to give Israel cover for military action in Gaza.
Other members of the gang include multiple known drug dealers and convicted murderers.
How is Israel helping them?
Israel’s government has admitted it provided weapons to these gangs, mostly rifles and other light weaponry, in addition to money and equipment. Footage posted by Abu Shabab’s gang showed them driving in white pickup trucks with machineguns on top that looked virtually identical to those of Hamas.
In addition, Israel provides these gangs with safe refuge in areas fully depopulated by the Israeli military, like Rafah, and declared “extermination zones”, where any Palestinian entering would be killed on the spot. They are also provided with logistical support, protection, and even access to Israeli territory.
A Palestinian journalist documented one case of a gang member crossing into Israel, which could explain how those gangs disappeared completely during the ceasefire last January.
On the ground, the Abu Shabab gang has established warehouses operated with forklifts where they store looted aid. They have also established a military complex, according to the UN, which said the Israeli army would force aid convoys to drive through the areas where the gangs had positioned their militants and put up checkpoints to loot trucks.
And where the Israeli military goes, so do the gangs. After Israel issued forcible expulsion orders for Khan Younis and raided the European hospital and its surrounding area, Abu Shabab moved into the ‘Jarghoun’ villa in that very same area, per security sources.
On Tuesday, Israeli news channel i24 reported that Israel had launched airstrikes to protect the gang after it was attacked by Hamas militants in southern Gaza. The strikes killed four Hamas members.
What role do the gangs play on Israel’s behalf?
The Israeli-backed gangs in Gaza have become an unofficial arm of the Israeli military. For instance, whenever Israel gets pressured to allow food into Gaza, it immediately unleashes the gangs to maintain their use of starvation as a weapon of war, while blaming it on Hamas.
Experts believe Israel is using starvation as a tool for genocide by imposing conditions on a group “calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. Prolonged starvation inflicts permanent mental and physical damage, particularly on children.
Israel has also been using these gangs to orchestrate chaos and engineer societal collapse through attacks on markets, shops, private businesses, homes, warehouses, soup kitchens, and other places vital to maintaining the population’s survival.
For instance, in early May 2025, a gang attacked a communal kitchen in Gaza. As soon as volunteers arrived to stop the looting, Israel bombed it and killed six volunteers, which implies it was a coordinated attack.
The Israeli army also sends the gangs on reconnaissance and surveillance missions in dangerous areas. Last month, Hamas released footage of an ambush it carried out against armed men in Rafah whom it thought were undercover Israeli troops. They turned out to be Abu Shabab militants.
Israel also uses the gangs to infiltrate Palestinian society and gather intelligence, as well as to kidnap and interrogate Palestinians by luring them with the promise of food, as documented by Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi.
Israel is using proxy gangs for the final phase of the war
The most concerning use of these gangs, however, is Israel’s recently announced plan to push Gazans into camps in Rafah on Egypt’s borders to depopulate and destroy “everything that remains” of the rest of the enclave. This is a precursor to Israel’s declared goal of the mass expulsion of Palestinians into Egypt and other countries.
The Abu Shabab gang recently announced establishing an encampment area in eastern Rafah near the Egyptian borders and is using the very aid they have been systematically looting to lure starved Gazans into moving there.
This announcement was preceded by a clear rebranding psyop, where the same gang responsible for looting aid suddenly and shamelessly declared itself as a new “security force” that aims to “protect aid from looting”. They have since emerged in brand-new military and police uniforms in the Israeli-designated buffer zone in Rafah, where no Palestinians are allowed to enter.
Remarkably, Israel has allowed these gang members to wear Palestinian flags and insignia on their uniforms, while at the same time refusing to let the Palestinian Authority’s staff at the Rafah border crossing wear any such symbols.
In other words, Israel is using these gangs as a front. The Israeli army knows that if it orders Gazans to come to camps in eastern Rafah, people will immediately know it’s a trap for mass expulsion. But if a uniformed Palestinian force with good PR on social media makes such a demand, some people might fall for the trap.
Israel has used this same proxy tactic in Lebanon against Palestinians in 1982, where the Israeli military bolstered the South Lebanon Army (SLA) and used it and other militias to commit the Sabra and Shatila massacre, which saw 3,500 Palestinians killed.
Those collaborators collapsed after the Israeli army’s withdrawal from Southern Lebanon, as their leaders surrendered or fled to Israel. The same fate awaits these new Israeli-backed gangs once the Gaza genocide comes to an end.
Muhammad Shehada is a Palestinian writer and analyst from Gaza and the EU Affairs Manager at Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
Follow him on Twitter: @muhammadshehad2
Ritter’s Rant Ep. 5: Grossi’s got to go
The IAEA’s incestuous relationship with Israel has destroyed its credibility
Scott Ritter | June 16, 2025
Witness Alleges Hospital’s ‘Egregious’ Breaches of Standard of Care Killed Teen
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 13, 2025
Witness testimony continued this week in the wrongful death trial of Grace Schara, a 19-year-old with Down syndrome who died in a Wisconsin hospital days after being admitted for a COVID-19 infection. Grace’s sister and expert witnesses testified that doctors violated the standard of care and principles of informed consent.
Grace’s family sued Ascension St. Elizabeth Hospital in April 2023 and filed an amended complaint in July 2023, alleging the hospital’s COVID-19 treatment protocols directly resulted in Grace’s death in October 2021, a week after admission.
The trial began last week at the State of Wisconsin Circuit Court for Outagamie County. The lawsuit names several defendants, including some Ascension doctors and nurses and the Wisconsin Injured Patients and Family Compensation Fund.
Grace’s older sister, Jessica Vander Heiden, testified Tuesday that she was unaware that the hospital had placed a “do not resuscitate” (DNR) order in Grace’s chart until shortly before her death and that, in Grace’s final moments, hospital staff refused to intervene and did not honor her family’s repeated requests to revoke the DNR.
Expert witnesses for the plaintiffs testified that there were multiple violations of the standard of care by Ascension doctors and nurses.
Dr. Gilbert Berdine, an associate professor of medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, said that this was the first malpractice case where he testified as an expert witness for plaintiffs and explained why he chose to do so.
“The breaches of the standard of care were egregious, and I could not live with myself without answering the call to review and give advice on this case,” Berdine said.
Hospital staff ignored family’s ‘pleading, screaming, yelling’
During her testimony, Vander Heiden said that on Oct. 11, 12 and 13, 2021 — Grace’s final three days of life — she was present in Grace’s hospital room but was unaware of the DNR order that had been added to her sister’s chart.
Vander Heiden responded to testimony last week by defendant Hollee McInnis, an Ascension nurse who provided care for Grace, that patients with a DNR order are typically fitted with a purple wristband denoting their DNR status. McInnis testified that she did not recall whether Grace wore such a wristband. Vander Heiden said her sister was not wearing a purple wristband.
According to Vander Heiden, when she found out about the DNR order, hospital staff told her that “they could not do anything about it.”
“A nurse read off the computer screen that the doctor had labeled her ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ and they claimed they could not do anything about it,” Vander Heiden said.
As Grace’s condition declined shortly before her death, Vander Heiden said she and Grace’s parents, who were connected on FaceTime, “were pleading, screaming, yelling” for hospital staff to revoke the DNR.
“It actually went on for almost 10 full minutes, trying to get someone to help save her, and no one stepped in that room,” Vander Heiden testified. “They literally stood outside Grace’s room stationary. They would not move.”
This was despite the presence of “roughly 30-plus nurses” in the hallway outside Grace’s room, Vander Heiden said.
During this time, and up to Grace’s death, Vander Heiden said McInnis was nowhere to be found — nor was Dr. Gavin Shokar, a defendant who was the primary physician in charge of Grace’s care. Last week, McInnis testified that she was treating no other patients at the time.
During last week’s proceedings, Grace’s parents testified that they never agreed to a DNR, while witnesses for the hospital, including Shokar and McInnis, provided conflicting testimony on this point.
On Thursday, Dr. David Fisk, an infectious disease doctor and witness for the defense, acknowledged that DNRs are typically signed by the overseeing physician and co-signed by the patient or a representative. He said there are instances where two doctors can place a DNR order, “but that’s very unusual.”
‘The worst kind of breach of the standard of care’
Vander Heiden testified that during her stay with Grace at the hospital, she was not told about the benefits or risks of the medication being administered to her sister, and did not provide informed consent for the drugs, which included the sedatives Precedex, lorazepam and morphine.
“I wasn’t told about anything,” Vander Heiden testified, including alternative courses of treatment available to Grace.
Instead, Vander Heiden recalled that McInnis and another nurse, Samuel Haines, who also testified last week, repeatedly told her that Grace was about to die and that if she was placed on a ventilator, her chances of survival were 1%.
According to Vander Heiden, on Oct. 13, shortly before Grace’s death, the situation “didn’t seem like it was an emergency or urgent in any way,” and Shokar and McInnis did not indicate that Grace required emergency treatment. The previous evening, Grace’s oxygen levels were in “the high 90s” and Grace appeared to be in good spirits.
But on Oct. 13, doctors placed Grace on a feeding tube. Once the feeding tube was placed, Vander Heiden recalled that Grace appeared “very wiped out.” Later that day, Grace was given morphine, and according to Vander Heiden, she began showing signs of distress, including feeling cold to the touch.
“They were starting to drop,” Vander Heiden testified, referring to Grace’s oxygen levels. “This all happened after the morphine.” However, three oximeters in Grace’s room provided conflicting readings. According to Vander Heiden, McInnis did not intervene and suggested covering Grace with a blanket, which she did not provide.
According to Vander Heiden, Grace’s pulse was soon so low that a phlebotomist who came to draw blood was unsuccessful. “She had a hard time even finding a vein,” Vander Heiden testified.
Witnesses for the Schara family corroborated Vander Heiden’s testimony. Berdine testified on Friday that the breaches of the standard of care he identified when reviewing the case “are too numerous to count.”
Berdine said several of these breaches related to the lack of informed consent, including for the DNR order on Grace’s chart.
“Well, that’s the worst kind of breach of the standard of care because you’re supposed to be delivering medical care, and now, you’re entering an order to not deliver medical care,” Berdine said.
Berdine said that a DNR order can be revoked at any time by the patient, the patient’s family, or a power of attorney for the patient “as soon as it escapes the person’s mouth.” He said doctors and medical staff are obligated to “err on the side of saving the patient when there’s confusion.”
Registered nurse Susan Eichinger, another witness for the plaintiffs, agreed. She testified on Monday that the placement of a DNR without informed consent was “a principal breach” that indicated the lack of communication by the hospital with the Schara family.
“There’s nothing in the medical record that indicates these conversations took place. A care plan could have been created talking about end-of-life care. But the main thing is that there are no conversations documented,” Eichinger said.
‘The worst clinical decision I have ever witnessed’
Berdine also questioned the mixture of drugs administered to Grace.
“I find it indefensible that this patient was given medications, very dangerous medications, not theoretically dangerous medications, but medications proved by the medical record to be dangerous, to this patient without informed consent,” Berdine testified.
He said he hadn’t seen a similar case in his years of practice.
“The administration of morphine … to a patient who was unconscious, unresponsive, had lost her blood pressure, had no palpable pulse and whose respiratory pattern was screaming to anybody who would look … is or was the worst clinical decision I have ever witnessed in over 46 years of medical practice,” Berdine testified.
Berdine said that even after they gave Grace morphine, there were treatment options available that could have reversed her condition. For example, they could have given her Naloxone, a medication used to reverse the effects of opioids.
Witnesses for the defense testified that Grace was not oversedated to a life-threatening extent at any point during her stay.
But according to Berdine, Grace was oversedated three times during her hospital stay, and even though her first oversedation event involving Precedex was a “near-death experience,” Ascension doctors and nurses continued to administer the drug — and increased its dosage.
According to Berdine, the sedatives administered to Grace had a “synergistic effect,” where “the total effect is greater than the sum of the parts.” He said the repeated oversedation with these drugs led to metabolic acidosis — a potentially life-threatening condition where the blood is too acidic — and hypotension, or low blood pressure.
Berdine said the administration of lorazepam was wrong as it slowed her breathing at a time when “Grace needed all the ventilation she could muster,” as “it was the only thing keeping her alive.” He added that Grace’s rapid breathing rate was helping to keep her alive, but that the morphine further slowed her breathing.
“In the face of metabolic acidosis and somebody whose body is screaming at you that they’re desperately compensating for metabolic acidosis, the worst possible thing you could do would be to slow their rate of breathing,” Berdine said.
Grace’s oxygen levels declined faster after her father was ejected from her room
Emily Fisher, a registered nurse at Ascension, testified on Tuesday that the hospital was justified in evicting Grace’s father, Scott, from the hospital on Oct. 10, 2021, because he “refused attempts” by nurses “to provide education” and appeared “ill and fatigued” with a possible COVID-19 infection.
Berdine disagreed. He said Scott’s eviction was enforced with “no written notice,” and it denied Grace the opportunity to have an advocate by her bedside who could also provide comfort and assist with tasks such as adjusting her mask or feeding her.
“Particularly after the father, Scott, was evicted, [feeding] became impractical because there was nobody who had the time to do it,” Berdine testified.
According to Berdine, Scott’s eviction also had a tangible, negative impact on her health. “Statistically, Grace’s oxygen levels dropped three times as fast after he was evicted, than prior to his eviction,” Berdine testified.
For Eichinger, Scott’s eviction was one of several breaches indicative of a broader pattern of poor communication by Ascension.
“Based on the evaluation of the record and the depositions, and that this was a persistent attitude of dismissal, and he was marginalized as far as I can see because he wasn’t mentioned in any capacity as a helpful way,” Eichinger testified.
The trial is expected to conclude next week. CHD.TV is livestreaming the trial daily.
Watch the trial here.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Iran’s intel breach involves Israeli nuke plans, surveillance, organ trafficking: Report
The Cradle | June 11, 2025
An Iranian journalist with links to the country’s security establishment has released what he says are the first details from the thousands of sensitive documents on Israel, which Tehran announced it obtained days ago.
The documents include “Tel Aviv’s dangerous four-year roadmap in the nuclear field” and information on Israel’s “nuclear military industry facilities, bases, infrastructure and processes,” journalist Mohammad Ghaderi reported on 10 June.
The documents, which, according to Tehran, revolve mainly around Israel’s nuclear secrets, contain other information, such as documentation of bribes to well-known Arab figures aimed at advancing the Abraham Accords, as well as the “complete profiles” of 23 senior Israeli spies.
They also include “Information on about six million Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Telegram users,” Ghaderi says.
Additionally, there is personal information on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, including medical documents.
The journalist notes that Iran’s “treasure trove” includes “Information on corruption networks, including organ trafficking networks, drug distribution, sexual exploitation of women and children, information finance, money, banking, and insurance.”
There are also hard drives and nearly 2,000 documents from the Israeli premier’s office, as well as information from “Mossad’s secret archive,” Ghaderi added.
Ghaderi claims Iran has also obtained access to private information on Israeli officials and leaders opposing Netanyahu, “including from hidden cameras in their bathrooms, bedrooms and inside their homes, and information obtained from hacking their mobile phones and personal computers, which were used in Bibi’s office to blackmail his opponents.”
The documents also contain thousands of high-quality aerial images of Israeli cities, ports, and important infrastructure, as well as “40,000 hours of CCTV footage.”
A banned recording of a heated Knesset debate involving Netanyahu, reportedly erased from official Israeli archives, is part of the cache of documents allegedly seized by Iranian intelligence.
According to DropSite News, Ghaderi is “a known media proxy” who “is often used by Iranian authorities to release sensitive information before official acknowledgment.”
DropSite News reporter Ryan Grim said, “either Iran is bluffing for leverage ahead of the next round of nuclear talks, or they pulled off an espionage coup of historic proportions.”
Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib announced on 8 June that Tehran has obtained thousands of sensitive documents on Israel’s nuclear program.
“The transfer of this treasure trove was time-consuming and required security measures. Naturally, the transfer methods will remain confidential, but the documents should be unveiled soon,” Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib told Iranian television on Sunday.
“Talking of thousands of documents would be an understatement,” Khatib went on to say. The “vast collection of strategic and sensitive [Israeli] documents” includes “plans and data on [Israel’s] nuclear facilities,” according to the intelligence minister.
“They also include other documents about the relationship with the US, Europe, and other countries, as well as intelligence documents that would boost Iran’s offense power,” Khatib said.
On 10 June, the Intelligence Ministry confirmed the operation in an official statement, saying the documents were seized by operatives who managed to break through multiple layers of Israeli security and avoid detection.
A significant portion will be used by Iran’s military, some will be shared with allied countries and anti-Zionist groups, and selected parts will be made public, the ministry added.
The chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Salami, said the intel will provide Iran with an advantage if it is forced to respond to an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities.
Israel media: Gaza militia members are criminals involved in drug trafficking, extortion under Shin Bet supervision
MEMO | June 10, 2025
Most of the members of the militia armed by Israel in Gaza are criminals engaged in drug trafficking, property crimes, and extortion, according to the Israeli newspaper Maariv on Monday.
The newspaper published a report titled Cooperation with Abu Shabab: gangs cannot be a long-term solution, revealing that the group behind the recruitment of the Abu Shabab criminal gang is Israel’s internal security service (Shin Bet).
The report said that the head of Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, recommended to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to proceed with arming the gang.
The weapons included Kalashnikov rifles and pistols that had been seized from Hamas and Hezbollah during the war and transferred to Israeli army warehouses.
According to Maariv, Bar and the Shin Bet presented a pilot plan to Netanyahu stating: “In the Gaza Strip, there are huge quantities of weapons – pistols, explosive devices, shoulder-fired missiles and more.” The plan added that “bringing in a small and controlled number of rifles and pistols under supervision will not change the balance of weapons inside Gaza.”
Last Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that Israel had armed a militia in Gaza, claiming the move was intended to use it against Hamas. This came after the revelation was made by former Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
Meanwhile, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Friday that the militia armed by Israel in Gaza is involved in smuggling and extortion and does not show any concern for the Palestinian cause, quoting an unnamed Israeli official.
Jury Hears Conflicting Testimony in Trial Alleging Hospital’s Actions — Not COVID — Caused Teen’s Death
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 6, 2025
The parents of Grace Schara, a 19-year-old with Down syndrome who died in a Wisconsin hospital days after being admitted for a COVID-19 infection, testified this week in court that their daughter died as a result of a lethal combination of drugs and a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order the hospital implemented without their consent.
Grace’s family sued Ascension St. Elizabeth Hospital in April 2023 and filed an amended complaint in July 2023, alleging the hospital’s COVID-19 treatment protocols directly resulted in Grace’s death in October 2021, a week after admission.
The trial began Tuesday at the State of Wisconsin Circuit Court for Outagamie County.
“This isn’t about failing to provide information. This is about providing treatment with no consent whatsoever,” Scott Schara, Grace’s father, testified on Wednesday. “Her passing was a result of combining Precedex, lorazepam and morphine in a 26-minute window and putting an illegal do-not-resuscitate order on her chart.”
The lawsuit names 14 defendants, including Ascension Health, five medical doctors and four John Doe medical providers, two registered nurses, and the Wisconsin Injured Patients and Family Compensation Fund.
The defendants argued that Schara may have died due to “a naturally progressing disease, a pre-existing condition, or a superseding or intervening cause,” Green Bay-based CBS affiliate WFRV reported.
According to the Journal Sentinel, the hospital also argued that the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) provided it and its doctors and staff immunity from liability during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At times during the first three days of the trial, hospital doctors and nurses who testified appeared to contradict themselves over whether Grace had been oversedated and whether her family consented to a DNR order.
Green Bay, Wisconsin-based ABC affiliate WBAY reported, “This is the first wrongful death jury trial in the country for a death listed as COVID-19 on the death certificate.” WFRV reported that “this landmark case could have far-reaching implications for how medical decisions are made, especially during a public health crisis.”
The trial could last up to three weeks. Up to 22 witnesses may testify, WFRV reported, adding that the case may draw attention “to critical issues surrounding informed consent and the rights of patients and their families in the healthcare system.”
Scharas allege lack of informed consent, violation of standards of care
During opening statements Tuesday, Warner Mendenhall, the Schara family’s attorney, said the hospital violated standards of care in their treatment of Grace.
“Instead of recognizing the life-threatening situation and reducing the medications causing the problems, this medical team did the opposite,” Mendenhall said.
Jason Franckowiak and Randall Guse, attorneys for the defendants, said hospital staff provided an appropriate standard of care, which did not lead to Grace’s death. Instead, they argued that a worsening COVID-19 infection led to her death.
Her parents testified that they became concerned after their daughter displayed allergy symptoms in late September 2021, days after the family attended a concert, and that they took her for treatment as a precautionary measure.
“We were just hoping that we would just get some supplemental oxygen,” Cindy Schara, Grace’s mother, testified Tuesday.
Scott Schara told the court that Grace “was not having any trouble breathing,” and that “it wasn’t an emergency, so there was no need to have Grace in the hospital.”
But the hospital told the family they were keeping Grace overnight “for observation” and that they would put her on a steroid “for two to three days,” after which she would be discharged. “But that’s not what happened,” Cindy Schara testified.
Instead, hospital staff gave Grace Precedex, lorazepam and morphine. Mendenhall said that Precedex “dangerously lowered” Grace’s blood pressure and pulse, and that her condition improved after its dosage was lowered.
According to Scott Schara, after Grace’s first oversedation event, Dr. Gavin Shokar, a defendant who was the primary physician in charge of Grace’s care, gave an order to stop administering Precedex, but nursing staff waited 22 minutes to do so.
Shokar testified Thursday that he was uncertain whether his order was immediately implemented. Hospital staff also provided contradictory testimony in response to the Scharas’ claims that Grace had been oversedated with these medications.
Shokar testified that he “was aware” that Grace had been oversedated at least once. Samuel Haines, a nurse at the hospital, said Grace had been oversedated “only for a brief period.”
However, Hollee McInnis, another defendant, said Grace was “not oversedated.”
A witness for the Schara family, Dr. Gilbert Berdine, an associate professor of medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, said Grace was oversedated three times during her hospital stay.
According to Grace’s parents, the family did not consent to the medications and did not find out they were administered until later.
“If they would’ve asked me for consent with those, of course, I would’ve asked a lot of questions,” Scott Schara testified. He said the hospital also didn’t tell him that they reclassified Grace’s hospital room as an ICU room.
McInnis testified that she “personally did not witness” hospital doctors obtaining consent to administer the drugs in question.
Grace’s father removed from hospital after ‘pushing to get her fed’
During his testimony, Scott Schara also recounted a “heated conversation” he had with hospital staff who rejected his request to feed Grace because she was on a BiPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure) machine — a type of non-invasive ventilation.
The confrontation led the hospital to order Scott removed from the hospital, and send an armed guard to Grace’s room to escort him out.
“That’s one of the reasons I was kicked out. I was pushing to get her fed,” Scott Schara testified. “That was the last time I saw Grace alive physically.”
Hospital staff testified that Scott Schara was removed because some nurses did not want him in the room, because he was shutting off alarms from Grace’s medical equipment at night. Staff said they also suspected he had COVID-19.
But Mendenhall said Scott’s questioning of medical staff was “exactly what he was supposed to do as a dad and power of attorney for healthcare.”
According to the Scharas’ legal team, Shokar could have overruled the order to eject Scott from the hospital. But Shokar testified that his “primary responsibility was to Grace” and that “these things are non-pertinent to her particular care.”
In subsequent days, Grace’s family was able to communicate with her solely through FaceTime calls — until the hospital took Grace’s phone away.
“Cindy and I had no opportunity to communicate with Grace unless it was initiated by the hospital,” Scott Schara testified.
Hospital repeatedly pressured family to ‘pre-authorize’ a ventilator for Grace
The Scharas also testified that hospital staff repeatedly pressured them to “pre-authorize” a ventilator for Grace, even though, according to Mendenhall, “there was no need for a ventilator.”
Cindy Schara testified that she received several calls from the hospital “asking us for a pre-authorization to put Grace on a vent if something would’ve happened in the middle of the night — that is how it was always presented.”
“There was family there, so there was no need for a pre-authorization,” she added.
Scott Schara testified that Dr. Karl Baum, one of the defendants in the case, told him that “a 20% chance” of saving Grace’s life was “better than no chance” in his efforts to convince the family to pre-approve a ventilator.
“Asking for Grace to be with a pre-authorization for a ventilator at that point was the equivalent of asking somebody for a pre-authorization for a leg amputation when they just have a sprained ankle,” Scott Schara testified.
Grace’s father also testified that Shokar acknowledged during a phone call that placing Grace on a ventilator would not have saved her life.
Shokar also had separate phone calls with Grace’s parents, purportedly to make amends after Scott was removed from the hospital. But the parents testified that the conversation transitioned to renewed efforts to get them to pre-authorize a ventilator for Grace, which they again rejected.
‘We watched her die’
Grace’s parents also testified that they repeatedly told hospital staff that they did not consent to a DNR order.
Hospital staff provided contradictory testimony as to whether Grace’s family provided consent. According to Shokar, Grace’s family ultimately agreed to a DNI — a “Do Not Intubate” order.
“We started to talk about goals of care, what you guys want to do in the worst case scenario, which would be if she were to crash, essentially cardiopulmonary arrest,” Shokar testified Thursday. “I was very confident that we came to a resolution to say, ‘This is what we want to do and this is what the family wants.’”
But according to Mendenhall, Grace’s family later learned that Shokar documented that Grace had both a DNI and DNR order, adding that they did not find out about the DNR until hours before her death. The hospital did not honor their subsequent request to remove the DNR from Grace’s chart.
Cindy Shara said they would not have agreed to a DNR order on their own, without the participation of Grace’s primary care physician, an attorney, their pastor and other family members. “It would be a terrible thing to have to decide,” she testified.
As a result of the DNR, hospital staff did not intervene during Grace’s final moments of life, Grace’s parents said. “We watched her die,” Scott Schara testified.
During her testimony, McInnis acknowledged that she was responsible for placing a wristband on Grace’s arm that would have indicated her DNR status, but could not recall whether she had placed such a wristband on Grace. “If she didn’t have one on, it would be because I had not put it on,” McInnis testified.
“I believe that denying Grace any assistance to help her in her final moments was just horrific,” Cindy Schara testified.
CHD.TV is livestreaming the trial daily.
The family’s lawsuit alleges medical negligence, violations of informed consent, and medical battery — a standard of intentional harm beyond medical negligence by doctors and other providers that, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is rarely invoked in such legal cases.
According to the complaint, the hospital was financially incentivized to implement COVID-19 protocols that allegedly caused Grace’s death.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
NIH Shuts Down Research Center Founded by Fauci, as DOJ Scrutinizes Key Researchers
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 5, 2025
Officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) plan to shut down a research center established by Dr. Anthony Fauci that issued grants to embattled researchers who promoted the “zoonotic origin” theory that COVID-19 emerged from wildlife, The Disinformation Chronicle reported today.
Fauci established the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID) in 2020 to conduct “investigations into how and where viruses and other pathogens emerge from wildlife and spill over to cause disease in people.”
According to The Disinformation Chronicle, when CREID launched, it issued 11 grants worth $17 million, with an additional $82 million in expected funding over five years. It’s unclear how much of the money has already been spent.
Two CREID grantees have been the focus of intense scrutiny: Peter Daszak, Ph.D., of the EcoHealth Alliance and Kristian Andersen, Ph.D., of Scripps Research Institute. Both played key roles in publicly promoting the theory that SARS-CoV-2, which led to the COVID-19 pandemic, originated in wildlife.
The U.S. Department of Justice has launched “initial inquiries” into one of the CREID grants Anderson received. Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) suspended all government funding for EcoHealth Alliance.
The Disinformation Chronicle quoted an NIH spokesperson, who confirmed the agency has terminated all outstanding CREID grants.
“Strengthening overall health through proactive disease prevention offers a more resilient foundation for responding to future health threats — beyond reliance on vaccines or treatments for yet-unknown pathogens,” the spokesperson said.
Andersen received a CREID grant after co-authoring zoonotic origin paper
In March 2020, Andersen co-authored “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” published in Nature Medicine. The paper — widely known as the “Proximal Origin” paper — concluded that COVID-19 had a zoonotic origin. It became one of that year’s most-cited papers, accessed over 6 million times.
Government officials, including Fauci, and mainstream media outlets later cited the paper as part of efforts to discredit proponents of the theory that COVID-19 originated in and escaped from a lab.
The Trump administration is investigating whether the authors and publisher of “Proximal Origin” allowed Fauci and other key public health officials to influence the paper’s conclusions in exchange for funding — a possible quid pro quo.
According to The Disinformation Chronicle, two months after “Proximal Origin” was published, Andersen received a CREID grant.
In testimony to Congress in July 2023, Andersen said, “There is no connection between the grant and the conclusions we reached about the origin of the pandemic.” Later that month, The Intercept published documents showing that Andersen “knew that was false.”
Andersen and other virologists were initially skeptical about dismissing the lab-leak theory. But emails and documents revealed through a congressional investigation and some media outlets revealed that, under pressure from Fauci and other public health officials, Andersen endorsed the zoonotic theory in “Proximal Origin.”
During a Feb. 1, 2020, email and call between Fauci and several virologists, including Andersen, the participants expressed concern that COVID-19 might have been manipulated instead of originating in nature.
Transcripts revealed by The Nation in July 2023 showed that, in a February 2020 Slack thread, Andersen wrote to other virologists that “the main issue is that accidental release is in fact highly likely — it’s not some fringe theory.”
And on April 16, 2020, Andersen sent a Slack message to his “Proximal Origin” co-authors, stating, “I’m still not fully convinced that no culture was involved. We also can’t fully rule out engineering (for basic research).”
Andersen may have misled intelligence agencies on COVID’s origins
Andersen privately questioned the true origins of COVID-19. However, in March 2020 — one week after “Proximal Origin” was published — he participated in a U.S. Department of State briefing with other non-government scientists, where he dismissed the possibility that COVID-19 emerged from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
According to The Disinformation Chronicle, the briefing led the State Department to issue a report concluding there was no evidence that COVID-19 was developed in a lab. In 2023, Andersen testified during a sworn congressional deposition that he also briefed the CIA and FBI regarding COVID-19’s origins.
The DOJ is now likely to examine Andersen’s role in misleading U.S. intelligence agencies, The Disinformation Chronicle reported, quoting a State Department official, who said, “I don’t see how this not a criminal misleading and counterintelligence matter. This is way beyond the threshold needed for a grand jury.”
In April, the Trump administration launched a new version of the government’s official COVID-19 website, presenting evidence that COVID-19 emerged due to a leak at the Wuhan lab. The CIA, FBI, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Congress and other intelligence agencies have endorsed this theory.
Daszak has also been under scrutiny for possible improprieties involving his research. According to The Disinformation Chronicle, Daszak was found to have undisclosed ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology — including issuing a subaward to a researcher at that laboratory, Shi Zhengli, Ph.D., widely known as the “Bat Lady.”
In issuing its decision to bar Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance from receiving further federal funds, HHS cited the organization’s lack of response “to NIH’s multiple safety-related requests” relating to research performed at the Wuhan lab.
Journalist Paul D. Thacker, a former U.S. Senate investigator and publisher of The Disinformation Chronicle, said that congressional investigations involving Andersen and others have been problematic.
“The congressional investigations into these matters were not well managed. A lot of people are still shocked at how little got done,” Thacker said.
Last month, the NIH introduced a new policy prohibiting NIH grantees from outsourcing parts of their research to foreign entities through subawards.
Facing investigation, is Andersen looking to flee the U.S.?
Andersen, a Danish citizen, is now looking to leave the U.S. “as the noose continues to tighten,” The Disinformation Chronicle reported. He is said to be considering a position at the University of Oslo in Norway.
Sigrid Bratlie, a molecular biologist and senior adviser at Norway’s Langsikt Policy Centre, told The Disinformation Chronicle that “there is an ongoing effort from a group of scientists at the University of Oslo to recruit Andersen, and that this might be finalized in the near future.”
In October 2024, Andersen delivered a lecture at the University of Oslo on the “facts and the fiction” of the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming that critiques of his research were political attacks spread by conspiracy theorists.
The Norwegian Society for Immunology, which sponsored the lecture, later issued an apology. According to The Disinformation Chronicle, the apology stated, “In retrospect, unfortunately, it seems the purpose of his lecture was just as much about stopping the free debate in Norway on this topic.”
Thacker said that Andersen’s possible move to Norway is part of a broader trend where many scientists are expressing public dissent at the Trump administration’s policies.
“The majority of scientists I see complaining are all entrenched in liberal politics. Pretty much every one of them has a large account on [social media platform] Bluesky where allied reporters hang out to find quotes,” Thacker said.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
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Elite Western universities are a corrupt, parasitic empire
Instead of high-quality education, these institutions are fostering a global neo-feudal system reminiscent of the British Raj
By Dr. Mathew Maavak | RT | May 30, 2025
In a move that has ignited a global uproar, US President Donald Trump banned international students from Harvard University, citing “national security” and ideological infiltration. The decision, which has been widely condemned by academics and foreign governments alike, apparently threatens to undermine America’s “intellectual leadership and soft power.” At stake is not just Harvard’s global appeal, but the very premise of open academic exchange that has long defined elite higher education in the US.
But exactly how ‘open’ is Harvard’s admissions process? Every year, highly qualified students – many with top-tier SAT or GMAT test scores – are rejected, often with little explanation. Critics argue that behind the prestigious Ivy League brand lies an opaque system shaped by legacy preferences, DEI imperatives, geopolitical interests, and outright bribes. George Soros, for instance, once pledged $1 billion to open up elite university admissions to drones who would read from his Open Society script.
China’s swift condemnation of Trump’s policy added a layer of geopolitical irony to the debate. Why would Beijing feign concern for “America’s international standing” amid a bitter trade war? The international standing of US universities has long been tarnished by a woke psychosis which spread like cancer to all branches of the government.
So, what was behind China’s latest gripe? ... continue
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