Andrew Bridgen, a U.K. member of Parliament this month warned his fellow parliamentarians that the World Health Organization’s (WHO) proposed new pandemic treaty and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) represents “a huge grab of power” by “unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats.”
People in the U.K. “do not want to be ruled” by an unelected group of people, Bridgen said. “We should have a referendum, because sovereignty belongs to the people. It’s not ours to give away.”
The debate was triggered after 156,086 U.K. constituents signed a petition calling for the U.K. government “to commit to not signing any international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness established by the WHO, unless this is approved through a public referendum.”
Bridgen pointed out that WHO employees are exempt from taxes and have diplomatic immunity — meaning they are protected from prosecution.
He said the WHO pandemic treaty and its IHR amendments seek to take “huge powers” away from “this Parliament and every other Parliament around the world.”
“These two instruments would fundamentally reset the relationship between citizens and sovereign state — not only in this country but also around the whole world,” he added.
The proposals would empower “unelected, unaccountable, top-down, supernational” officials to “impose sweeping, legally binding” orders on member states — including forcing companies to manufacture and export certain medical treatments or shutting companies down “regardless of what the local people think,” Bridgen said.
Bridgen said the WHO’s proposals are skewed toward aggregating power in the hands of WHO officials — rather than the hands of democratic governments — because they would grant the WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Ph.D., the power to decide “when the pandemic or the emergency is over and when he’ll possibly give us the power back.”
The WHO consists of its 192 member states — “basically the whole of the U.N. membership, excluding Liechtenstein and the Holy See” — but it now receives 86% of its funding from non-member states, Bridgen said.
“You have to think: Why are they doing this?” Bridgen said, adding:
“They [the Gates Foundation and Gavi] are also the biggest donors — or biggest investors — in pharmaceuticals and the experimental mRNA technology which was so profitable for those who produced it during the last pandemic.”
Bridgen urged his fellow lawmakers to review the WHO proposals in great detail.
“They [the proposals] need to be considered very strongly. Sticking your head in the stand isn’t going to do it,” he said. “It won’t do for my constituents,” he added.
Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2021), and a master’s degree in communication and leadership from Gonzaga University (2015). Her scholarship has been published in Health Communication. She has taught at various academic institutions in the United States and is fluent in Spanish.
As the opioid crisis in the U.S. grew, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, an advisory group that helped shape the federal government’s response to the crisis, accepted millions of dollars in donations from the Sackler family — owners of Purdue Pharma, the producers of OxyContin.
The donations occurred despite ongoing legal battles — and a number of settlements — involving Purdue Pharma in recent years, and as other public health entities, including the World Health Organization (WHO), severed ties to the drugmaker, The New York Timesreported.
The new revelations come as questions emerge about the lack of transparency regarding how money from several opioid-related settlements has been used by state governments, and the federal government’s lack of oversight in connection to this issue.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 564,000 Americans died as a result of opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2020. The opioid epidemic costs the U.S. economy approximately $78.5 billion each year, according to the CDC.
Strong ties between the National Academies and the Sacklers
Several members of the Sackler family, including Dr. Raymond Sackler and his wife, Beverly Sackler, the couple’s foundation, and Dame Jillian Sackler and her husband Arthur, contributed about $19 million to the National Academies since 2000, according to the Times.
The donations, however, appeared to remain under the radar for members of the National Academies — and the general public — until recently.
According to the Times, the Sackler donations emerged as “an internal issue for the advisory group in 2019, when members of the governing council were briefed about the money” and were reportedly “outraged.”
After internal meetings, the National Academies “quietly removed the Sackler name” from conferences and awards the family had sponsored.
Also in 2019, an article in The BMJ stated that the National Academies had “not disclosed that one of its presidents, and members of a panel it convened to advise on prescribing opioids, had recent links to the drug industry.”
Potential conflicts of interest between Purdue Pharma and public health organizations are not limited to the National Academies. The WHO, for instance, was accused of such a conflict of interest and as a result, in 2019, retracted two opioidpolicy reports.
However, the Times reported that, unlike the WHO, “the National Academies has not conducted a public review to determine if the Sackler donations influenced its policymaking, despite issuing two major reports that influenced national opioid policy.”
One of those reports, issued in 2011, continues to be used by federal public health agencies as the basis for opioid policy decisions — even though, according to the Times, the report is “now largely discredited.”
According to the Times, the report “described chronic pain that limited function and cost the nation billions of dollars in lost salary and wages.” Later estimates from the CDC, “defined chronic pain by different categories of severity, saying the condition affects 7% to 21% of Americans.”
“Regulatory, legal, educational and cultural barriers inhibit the medically appropriate use of opioid analgesics,” the report argued.
The report claimed that approximately 100 million Americans suffered from chronic pain, “an estimate that proved to be highly inflated,” the Times stated.
However, this report helped influence aggressive opioid sales campaigns on the part of drugmakers and influenced the approval of “at least one highly potent opioid” by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The 2011 report was issued even as the White House stated that the U.S. was facing an opioid addiction crisis.
In the years preceding the publication of the report, Purdue Pharma lobbied for legislation — which passed in 2010 — that would recognize pain as a significant public health problem. Purdue also called for the National Academies to issue similar recognition. Meetings between Purdue Pharma lobbyists and members of the academies followed.
A 2014 investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and MedPage Today found that within three years of working on the report, nine of the 19 people on the panel that produced it had financial connections to makers of narcotic painkillers.
According to the Times, the report did not disclose any conflicts of interest involving its author — nor did a 2014 article published by the National Academies in the JAMAjournal, explaining how the committee arrived at the “100 million Americans” figure.
Several members of the committee that produced the 2011 report directly or indirectly received money from Purdue Pharma — including Dr. Richard Payne, then-president of the American Pain Society, who received more than $900,000, and Myra Christopher, whose nonprofit received $934,770.
Separately, in 2016 — months after the National Academies received a $10 million donation from members of the Sackler family and with opioid-related deaths on the rise — the FDA, under pressure from Congress, called on the Academies to “form a committee to issue new recommendations on opioids,” according to the Times.
According to the Times, Califf cited the “100 million” figure in an article he and other FDA officials published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which stated that the National Academies bring “an unbiased and highly respected perspective on these issues that can help us revise our framework.”
Members of the committee subsequently formed had multiple conflicts of interest, which were first identified by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in a 2016 letter to Dr. Victor Dzau, president of the National Academy of Medicine. The BMJ also examined those conflicts of interest, in a 2018 article.
One member of the committee, for instance, who had received funding from Purdue, characterized opioid addiction using the term “pseudoaddiction.”
Ultimately, four members of the committee were replaced, but the final document produced by the committee remains a cornerstone of the opioid policy currently pursued by the FDA and Califf.
And in 2012, Purdue’s lawyers used the “100 million” figure as part of a Senate inquiry, citing it as evidence that pain was “untreated or under-treated,” the Times reported.
According to the Times, this is not the only instance in which the National Academies have “come under criticism for lapses over disclosing conflicts of interest,” citing similar instances involving reports on biotechnology, genetically engineered crops and pharmaceutical pricing.
Similarly, donations that were provided by the Sacklers to other institutions drew scrutiny — and in several instances, action on the part of those entities.
For instance, Tufts University released a review of possible conflicts of interest pertaining to pain research funded by Purdue Pharma, as part of a broader relationship with the institution which included Purdue executives delivering lectures to Tufts students.
According to the Times, Tufts and other academic institutions, such as Brown University, have redirected financial donations received from the Sacklers, now using them “to address the prevention or treatment of addiction.”
Billions of dollars in settlements from opioid producers
Multiple pharmaceutical companies and drug store chains have reached settlements stemming from their production and marketing of opioids and painkillers — and their subsequent contribution to the opioid addiction crisis.
According to the Times, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine “continued to accept funds from some members of the Sackler family, including those involved with Purdue Pharma,” even as the opioid crisis raged on and its impacts on American society became increasingly apparent.
The donations totaled approximately $19 million — but the National Academies “have kept quiet” about their decision to accept these funds, the Times reported, adding that they have “largely avoided such scrutiny” and continue to advise the federal government on opioids and painkillers.
The National Academy of Medicine — formerly known as the Institute of Medicine — is a nongovernmental institution chartered by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to independently advise the nation on issues related to science and medicine, according to the Times. New members are elected each year.
Despite the nongovernmental status of the National Academies, the White House and Congress rely on its advice to help shape the federal response to the opioid crisis. This advice is delivered via policy recommendations, the drafting of reports and the organizing of expert panels, the Times reports.
Moreover, according to the Times, the National Academies “receives 70 percent of its budget from federal funding.” Some of the remaining 30%, however, comes from prescription drug makers like Purdue Pharma.
In October 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a $225 million settlement with Purdue Pharma regarding a program through which Purdue representatives “intensified their marketing of OxyContin to extreme, high-volume prescribers … causing healthcare providers to prescribe opioids for uses that were unsafe, ineffective, and medically unnecessary, and that often led to abuse and diversion.”
However, other lawsuits against Purdue Pharma regarding OxyContin have taken a circuitous route through the courts. The same October 2020 DOJ statement also announced an $8.3 billion settlement with Purdue Pharma for its role in perpetuating the opioid epidemic.
At the time, the Times noted “it is unlikely the company will end up paying anything close to the $8 billion negotiated in the settlement deal” because “it is in bankruptcy court and the federal government will have to take its place in a long line of creditors.”
This prediction appears to have been confirmed by later developments in the case.
A Sept. 1, 2021, settlement would have required members of the Sackler family to pay $4.5 billion over nine years to resolve civil lawsuits related to the opioid crisis, but did not require the family to admit any responsibility for the crisis. It also included a compensation fund that would pay victims of the opioid epidemic between $3,500 and $48,000.
Immunity would extend to members of the family and to hundreds of foundations, trusts, business partners, attorneys, lobbyists, Purdue subsidiaries and other entities. Purdue would be dissolved and re-established as a public benefit corporation, with profits from sales of OxyContin and other products used to fund addiction treatment and prevention programs.
As part of that settlement, Dr. Richard Sackler, the longtime president and board member of Purdue Pharma, was deposed — in what may be the only instance where he or other family members have testified under oath in relation to the opioid crisis.
In December 2021, a federal court threw out this settlement on the basis that the bankruptcy court hearing the case lacked the authority to grant the Sacklers future legal immunity.
In March 2022, the Purdue settlement amount increased to $6 billion after nine state attorneys general agreed to drop their objection to an immunity deal, with the additional funds to be directed to programs designed to tackle the opioid crisis. However, the immunity provided to the Sacklers would remain in place for civil cases.
The federal government would still be able to pursue criminal charges against members of the Sackler family if it wished, NPR reported.
However, some plaintiffs challenged his settlement. They included Canadian local governments and First Nations; two mothers of sons who died of opioid overdoses; and the U.S. Trustee Program, an arm of the DOJ responsible for overseeing the administration of bankruptcy cases and private trustees.
Questions over how opioid settlement funds are being allocated
Despite settlements totaling many billions of dollars, questions remain over how these funds are actually being allocated — and about the federal government’s lack of oversight on this matter.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), the Biden administration “promised to play a key role in ensuring opioid settlement funds went toward tackling the nation’s addiction crisis,” including a plan to appoint an “opioid crisis accountability coordinator.”
However, according to the KFF, “as billions of dollars actually start to flow and state and local leaders make crucial decisions on how to spend the more than $50 billion windfall to tackle this entrenched public health crisis, the federal government has gone mostly quiet.”
For instance, no opioid crisis accountability coordinator has been hired. KFF also notes that “The Office of National Drug Control Policy has not released public statements about the settlements in over a year” and “the settlement funds are mentioned just twice in a 150-page national strategy to reduce drug trafficking and overdose deaths.”
Even though, according to KFF, “the federal government is not legally obligated to engage in the discussion,” as lawsuits against opioid makers have been filed by states, “there is an expectation that the federal government, including the nation’s leading agencies on mental health and addiction, should play a role.”
Parallels are drawn with previous settlements with Big Tobacco. According to KFF, tobacco companies agreed in 1998 “to pay states billions annually for as long as they continued selling cigarettes.”
However, no restrictions were placed on how the funds would be used, “and much of it went to plugging state budget gaps, filling potholes, and even subsidizing tobacco farmers.” KFF notes: “Today, less than 3% of the annual payouts support anti-smoking programs.”
Questions about transparency at the state level are also raised by KFF, which states that “governments are required to report only on the 15% of the money that can be used for things unrelated to the epidemic, like offsetting budget shortfalls or fixing old roads,” and noting that as of March 28, “only three states and counties had filed such reports.”
The same KFF report, citing OpioidSettlementTracker.com, notes that “only 12 states have committed to detailed public reporting of all their spending.”
Even though the opioid settlements, unlike previous settlements with tobacco companies, contain a provision that at least 85% of the money states will receive must be spent on “opioid-related expenses,” defining such expenses has proven to be vague and confusing.
For example, KFF states, citing real-world examples, that “defining those concepts depends on stakeholders’ views — and state politics. To some, it might mean opening more treatment sites. To others, buying police cruisers.”
Moreover, “enforcement of the 85% standard is, oddly, left to the companies that paid out the money,” KFF stated, adding that “They are unlikely to be vigilant,” according to legal experts.
It also remains unclear whether the federal government will still attempt to claim repayment for Medicaid expenses that have been linked to opioid addiction, according to KFF. In 2019, these expenses were estimated to total $23 billion.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
The mood in Germany has become outright ugly as citizens reel from high inflation and fear government policy initiatives that would bankrupt many if enacted. Business sentiment among small to medium companies is souring rapidly.
Among these initiatives is the current green-socialist government’s plan to force citizens and businesses to wean themselves off oil and gas heating beginning already next year. All the despair now risks morphing into anger and civil unrest, warns one opposition leader.
Uprisings among the poplulation
According to the new, rapidly emerging Austrian alternative media news site AUF 1, Saxony’s Minister President Michael Kretschmer of the CDU Christian Democrats warns of potential unrest and vehemently criticized the government’s current climate policy.
Saxony’s Kretschmer even explicitly warned of “uprisings among the population” and that “the government’s new plans would lead to ‘deindustrialisation and riots’,” AUF 1reports. “His criticism was aimed above all at the Building Energy Act pushed by the Green Minister of Economics, Robert Habeck.”
Currently Habeck is sharply under attack for cronyism as his ministry funnels funds and influential positions to friends and family, many of whom are professionally unqualified for the positions.
“Ecological madness”
AUF 1 reminds that the proposed government‘s green policies “will force ruinous retrofitting on millions of homeowners.” and that many citizens would simply not be able to afford the required renovation of their house or apartments. Homeowners would face renovation costs of at least tens of thousands of euros.”
Kretschmer called the Greens’ policy “ecological madness”.
The Austrian AUF 1 calls the governments policies “completely misguided” and that they will lead to “massive relocations of companies away from Germany.”
Legislation introduced by Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) which calls on the White House to release documents related to the war in Ukraine passed a voice vote on Wednesday. With debate on the resolution divided along party lines, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is set to vote on the measure on Friday.
The bill, H.Res.300, would urge President Joe Biden to grant lawmakers access to “all documents indicating any plans for current or future military assistance to Ukraine,“ as well as any material “indicating whether any United States Armed Forces, including special operations forces, are currently deployed in Ukraine.”
Since Russia invaded its neighbor 14 months ago, Congress has authorized over $100 billion in aid for Ukraine. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Washington has provided $80 billion in military and financial aid throughout the conflict.
Though support for the resolution was limited to Republicans, it passed a voice vote and is set for a full committee vote on Friday. Several Democrats attacked the legislation during Wednesday’s debate.
Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC) blasted the measure as “divisive and ill-advised,” claiming “It is a partisan political ploy, and the height of legislative irresponsibility that jeopardizes the national security of the United States, of our Europe allies and partners as well as the courageous Ukrainian people.”
Manning took issue with the resolution because it threatened a consensus in Congress that support for Kiev must be unwavering and indefinite. “The entire Congress has remained resolutely bipartisan for Ukraine as it fights against Russian aggression,” the lawmaker continued, adding “Measures like this put bipartisanship in jeopardy.”
She also asserted that the bill amplified Russian propaganda and claimed that reporting on legislation “favorably“ would be “irresponsible.”
“It plays directly into [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s hands by seeking to force the disclosures of all present and future military plans,” Manning said. “Passage of this measure would represent a gift to Putin and his Kremlin cronies and provide visibility into the plans our military and intelligence leaders strive to protect at all costs.”
However, she failed to explain how increased congressional oversight for US military policy in Ukraine could actually help the Russians on the battlefield. Congressman Daryl Issa (R-CA) said any documents provided to the House would not be made public, and that “every bit of the information requested could be and would be held at the Select Intelligence Committee.”
Further, dozens of documents detailing weak points in Ukraine’s defenses were alleged to have been leaked by a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman over the course of several months on Discord.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) said that it was not an appropriate time for transparency regarding the billions in US tax dollars pouring into Ukraine. “Timing matters when this committee actions,” he argued. “There will be a time in insisting [on oversight], but now is not that time.”
Congressman Cory Mills (R-FL) argued in favor of the resolution, saying it could prevent “mission creep,” referring to a phenomenon in which military or policy objectives gradually shift over time, often becoming vague, ill-defined or impossible to achieve. The concept was frequently used to describe the US occupation of Afghanistan, which began as a counterterrorism operation and later expanded into a sprawling, poorly supervised nation-building project.
Mills went on to say that the bill is not about preventing support for Ukraine or empowering Putin, but merely better oversight.
When Gaetz introduced H.Res.300 earlier this month, he emphasized transparency. “The Biden Administration and other allied countries have been misleading the world on the state of the war in Ukraine,” he said, calling for “total transparency from this administration to the American people when they are gambling war with a nuclear adversary by having special forces operating in Ukraine.”
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in 2021 made numerous grants to medical associations, consumer groups and civil rights organizations for the purpose of creating the appearance of widespread support for COVID-19 vaccine mandates, investigative journalist Lee Fang reported.
As the vaccine mandates rolled out in 2021, Pfizer stayed quiet on the question of mandates — but public health groups, patient advocacy groups, doctors’ associations, community groups and others, along with the Biden administration, actively advocated for vaccine mandates as a key measure to protect public health.
New disclosures from Pfizer, posted by Fang on his Substack, show that many of these same groups were taking money from Pfizer while they promoted the idea that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were “safe and effective,” despite a lack of scientific data to back those claims.
Prominent groups on the extensive list of those who took Pfizer funding while pushing the mandates included the Chicago Urban League, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the National Consumers League, The Immunization Partnership, the American Pharmacists Association, the American College of Preventive Medicine, the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, the American Society for Clinical Pathology and the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Many groups did not disclose their ties to Pfizer.
“[These groups] set the nature of the debate,” Fang told comedian and political commentator Russell Brand on a recent episode of “Stay Free.” “They appear in the news media, they create events and they create a discourse that looks authentic, that looks organic, but it benefits the bottom line of their benefactors, of companies like Pfizer.”
Fang said many of these organizations, particularly civil rights organizations like the Chicago Urban League or the National Consumers League — which actually has a Pfizer lobbyist on its board — have powerful influence precisely because of their independent status.
When these groups speak out, Fang said:
“It affects how regulators see these issues and how the public sees them. When they see these third-party groups that have some credibility — these are famous organizations that are known for standing up for the public interest.
“When they say ‘hey these mandates are a good idea for the American public,’ it seems genuine.
“But they aren’t disclosing the Pfizer money, which is a relevant factor when you are talking about a policy that compels Americans to take this product.”
After the COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in early 2021, vaccine mandates followed in different forms across the country.
Universities mandated vaccination for students and staff, and many public and private employers across the country mandated vaccination for their employees.
Several school districts across the country planned to mandate vaccination for children to attend school, but most of those plans have since been rolled back.
Those who instituted mandates justified them by asserting that mass vaccination — and only mass vaccination — would “stop the spread” of COVID-19.
But it has since been revealed that in March 2021, when Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky publicly and unequivocally stated on MSNBC that vaccinated people would not get sick, there was no evidence to support her statement.
Biden also falsely claimed that the vaccinated would not get infected — in July 2021, just before COVID-19 vaccine mandates went into effect.
The vaccine makers have since acknowledged they never tested whether the vaccines would stop transmission, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that vaccinated people in both Pfizer and Moderna’s clinical trials contracted the virus.
Big Pharma’s big reach
Pfizer isn’t the only actor in Big Pharma that quietly funds third parties to do its work.
Fang told The Defender that “Many pharmaceutical firms covertly shape public opinion and regulations through the use of front groups and financial relationships with community organizations.”
For example, Purdue Pharma covertly funded third-party advocacy groups to encourage looser criteria for prescribing its highly addictive opioid painkillers, he reported.
As for Pfizer, Fang said, third-party funding is just one of the many strategies the drugmaker deployed to drive COVID-19 policymaking.
“Pfizer flexed its lobbying muscles around many COVID-19 policies, including efforts to curb drug-pricing initiatives and a bid to prevent the creation of generic COVID medications,” he said, adding, “The vaccine mandate debate is yet another example of Pfizer’s reach into public policy.”
Big Pharma — along with the Biden administration and its intermediaries — also lobbied to suppress those who questioned the vaccine program.
Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna pressured Twitter and other social media platforms to set moderation rules that would flag purported COVID-19-related “misinformation,” as part of the effort to drive the national conversation about the COVID-19 vaccines, Fang reported as part of the “Twitter files.”
“Pharma is unique in the raw amount of money they spend to control the entire public sector on regulatory, on policy, on everything in terms of how it affects medicine as it is practiced in the United States,” Fang said.
The pharmaceutical and health products lobby is one of the biggest industry lobbies. According to OpenSecrets.org, last year alone the industry spent $372 million lobbying Congress and federal agencies, outspending every other industry — and each year it increases its spending.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is on the board of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the top individual lobbying spender in the industry, which spent $29.2 million last year. Pfizer itself spent more than any other drug company.
The industry also spends massive amounts of money on advertising. Pfizer alone spent nearly $2.8 billion on advertising for all of its products in 2022.
The COVID-19 vaccines netted $37.8 billion for Pfizer in 2022, up from $36.7 billion in 2021. The company’s overall earnings hit a record $100 billion.
Big Pharma and the CDC did similar work to promote mandates and vaccination
There is a “revolving door” between pharma industry lobbyists and the government — nearly 65% of lobbyists formerly worked for the government.
And the strategies used to build support for Big Pharma’s products are some of the same strategies used by federal government agencies like the CDC.
Since 2021 — the same time Pfizer started funding community groups — the CDC has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in grants for the creation of “culturally tailored” pro-vaccine materials and for training “influential messengers” to promote COVID-19 and flu vaccines to communities of color in every state across the country.
For those grants, the CDC sought out community organizations that would communicate the CDC’s message without the CDC’s trademark, so the messages would appear to come organically from within local communities rather than from the government, particularly among communities of color.
In another case, the CDC hired a public relations firm to write what looked like news articles but were actually ad placements created to persuade parents of young children and elderly people — with a focus on Spanish speakers — to get vaccinated.
Both Pfizer and the CDC used their funding to target black and Latino communities that had lower vaccination rates. In one case, they both funded the same organization — the National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA).
According to Fang, the organization worked with a public relations firm called Culture ONE World to distribute “press releases and media placements” that “called on employers of essential workers to mandate COVID-19 vaccines.”
Fang also wrote that the NHMA also signed joint statements lobbying in favor of Biden’s vaccine mandate and that “it received $30,000 from BIO [Biotechnology Innovation Organization], a vaccine industry lobby group that represents Pfizer and Moderna, IRS filings show.”
The Defender found that NHMA received $2,070,000 in two annual grants so far for their “Vacunas! Si Se Puede, Immunization Campaign for Hispanics” program, which later became “We Can Do This,” to create culturally tailored content to be circulated throughout Latino communities.
American Academy of Pediatrics received multiple grants from Pfizer in 2021
The AAP also appeared on Fang’s list of notable organizations that received direct Pfizer funding.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics was one of the most visible organizations working to build public support for vaccine mandates. The organization received multiple, specialized grants from Pfizer in 2021.
“Pfizer also provided grants to individual state chapters of the AAP earmarked for lobbying on vaccine policy. The Ohio AAP chapter, for instance, lobbied the Ohio legislature against bills to curb coercive COVID-19 vaccine policies, while receiving an ‘immunization legislation’ advocacy grant from Pfizer.”
Beyond its COVID-19 vaccine mandate work, the organization also was a public advocate for COVID-19 vaccines for children. Its then-president, UCLA professor Moira Szilagyi, M.D., Ph.D., publicly advocated, on media outlets such as CNN, for vaccinating children.
The organization, “dedicated to the health of all children,” previously issued policy guidance to its members stating that it is an “acceptable option to pediatric care clinicians to dismiss families who refuse vaccines.”
And in June 2022, the AAP issued a press release applauding the CDC’s recommendation of “safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines” for babies as young as 6 months old, despite concerns raised — by the FDA vaccine advisory commission, among many others — regarding a lack of clinical data for the vaccines in children.
In addition to the Pfizer funding, the AAP receives much of its funding directly from the CDC, raising questions about the organization’s ability to act independently, particularly with respect to vaccine recommendations, BMJ editor Peter Doshi wrote in 2017.
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
“It’s nice to have a truth-teller around,” Carlson said. “It’s helpful because suddenly the stakes are very high.” He added:
“Kennedy knew early that the COVID vaccines were both ineffective and potentially dangerous, and he said so in public to the extent he was allowed.
“Science has since proven Robert F. Kennedy Jr. right — unequivocally right. But Kennedy was not rewarded for this. He was vilified. He was censored.”
Carlson — who later on his show interviewed Kennedy — said mainstream media channels other than Fox News “maligned” Kennedy for his skepticism of the COVID-19 products.
“The other channels took hundreds of millions of dollars from Big Pharma companies and then they shilled for their sketchy products on the air — and as they did that, they maligned anyone who was skeptical of those products,” he said.
Carlson pointed out that Kennedy and his father, Robert F. Kennedy — who sought the U.S. presidency 55 years ago — said things “you weren’t supposed to say” and were “hated” by some for their honesty.
For instance, Kennedy Sr. spoke out against the Vietnam War because “he believed — with a lot of evidence — that it was not helping the United States in any way,” Carlson said.
Similarly, Carlson showed his viewers a clip from Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 Democratic presidential campaign announcement speech, in which Kennedy said the U.S. government’s involvement in Ukraine appears to be “prolonging” the war rather than “shortening” it.
Carlson also showed clips from mainstream media outlets’ coverage of Kennedy’s April 19 announcement, in which news commentators called him “extreme” and “dangerous.”
“Notice,” Carlson said, “not there, not anywhere is a point-by-point rebuttal of his [Kennedy’s] actual points.”
“They never engage him on the actual facts. They can’t — they would lose. Instead, they impugn his character,” he said.
Now that Kennedy is Biden’s leading primary opponent, Carlson said, the media’s message to him is, “shut up — you’re not allowed to talk.”
Carlson said he did not find Kennedy to be “extreme,” but instead “rational and calm and well deliberated.”
“He [Kennedy Jr.] is deeply insightful and — above all else — he is honest, no matter what you think of the substance of what he says,” Carlson added.
Science Minister George Freeman has announced a record £52billion investment in public research and development over the next three years. That is £775 for every man, woman and child in Britain. So what are they spending your money on? You probably guessed it: the first grants under the scheme are being made to produce more biotech vaccines and industrial quantities of fake meat.
Freeman announced that traditional agriculture is inadequate to the task of feeding the world. Accordingly, the newly funded Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub will spearhead the development of processes to produce key food groups such as proteins sustainably and cost-effectively to feed a growing global population.
The Hub will undertake ‘upstream engagement with a wide range of stakeholders including consumers, food producers and retailers to promote transformational food development’. Translation: very soon the government will be rewriting our dinner menus.
According to Professor Marianne Ellis of the University of Bath, who will benefit from the first funding award, ‘This would enable production of foodstuffs and the vast array of co-products that are the same as traditional products produced in a system similar to brewing.’
Bearing in mind that no specific processes have yet been developed or their products tasted, the claim of similarity with traditional food and the analogy with the brewing of beer stumbles at the first hurdle. In fact what is being proposed is biotechnology on an industrial scale using processes which are already known to be energy-hungry, risk-intensive and subject to genetic contamination.
In my book Your DNA Diet, I discuss research illustrating the value of natural food based on DNA to maintain our health. We have enjoyed a co-evolutionary relationship with these foods for millions of years. Genetically processed foods will not have this same relationship. Industrial production of such foods will also change the relationship of consumers with producers, placing food supply in the hands of giant corporations.
The second recipient of government research largesse will be the Future Vaccines Manufacturing Hub led by Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert at Oxford University and Professor Martina Micheletti at University College London. This group is a follow-on from the Oxford University-AstraZeneca collaboration which gave us a Covid vaccine that is no longer used around the world possibly because of the danger of adverse effects.
The Vaccine Hub intends ‘to make it possible to undertake mass programmes of non-invasive vaccination’. For your reference, non-invasive delivery systems currently under development include oral and nasal vaccines, and vaccines built into foods.
The Vaccine Hub will develop cellular-level technologies. As we have noted previously, the basis of life as we know it is the cell. Genetically altering cellular processes is inherently mutagenic and undermines the very basis of biostability and health.
The press release from UK Research and Innovation announcing these new grants is headlined: ‘Vaccine and food manufacturing hubs will save lives and cut carbon’. It makes ample use of phrases designed to sound reassuring such as ‘Food production revolutionised’, ’A hub for health and life’, and so on. The release also reassures us that Covid vaccines have been ‘game-changing’ – they certainly have, but not in the way originally intended. The current high level of excess deaths in the UK and elsewhere, disproportionately affecting those in receipt of Covid vaccines, tells its own story.
The hubs are each associated with a long list of private-sector partners from the biotechnology industry. To facilitate the commercialisation of biotech products, the UK government is loosening the regulations requiring the public to be informed about what they are eating. The Genetic Technology Act, which passed into law last Thursday, ‘removes plants and animals produced through precision breeding technologies from regulatory requirements applicable in England to the environmental release and marketing of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms)’.
The key change here is merely semantic: genetic manipulation is now described as a ‘precise’ process and will thereby escape regulation and labelling. Watch Dr Michael Antoniou of King’s College London discuss the dangers of gene crop deregulation in the new Act.
New UK policies appear to be at least in part a response to the huge pressure exerted by scientists, academic institutions and biotech firms on the government to continue the massive level of funding they enjoyed during the pandemic. All this is being undertaken in the absence of any credible official evaluation of the impact, advisability, cost and safety of pandemic policies. It is of note that independent evaluations such as this paper are pointing to huge mistakes, which the new grants appear poised to repeat. A form of madness has gripped our politicians as they rush ahead without bothering to inform themselves of potential dire consequences.
President Joe Biden and US Vice President Kamala Harris announced that they are going to run for reelection in 2024 on April 25, to the elation of some and the bafflement of others.
In the tweet announcing his latest presidential run, Biden said he is doing so because he believes that “every generation has a moment where they have had to stand up for democracy” and “their fundamental freedoms,” and urged his supporters to join him to “finish the job.”
James George Jatras, retired US diplomat and adviser to the US Senate Republican leadership, did not seem particularly impressed by the POTUS’ move, telling Sputnik that Biden is merely a “placeholder” and a “face for a deep state conglomerate that is essentially running the country.”
“We’ve got to the point where it really doesn’t matter who the Democrats put up as their candidate, it would be very difficult for any Republican candidate to win,” Jatras remarked.
He also remarked that, despite the Biden administration being saddled with quite a bit of economic and internal policy problems, the “very high proportion of Americans are simply not able to understand” what is really going on in the US and in the world, thanks to the “very managed legacy media here in the United States.”
“So they basically think, it’s all the Russians fault or it’s all Trump’s fault or maybe if they’re getting some money sent to them from the government a certain way that’s all they really care about,” Jatras elaborated. “I don’t think that’s a majority of the population, but a sufficient minority of the population, that provides the basis for the Democrats to be able to pull out a victory.”
Regarding the prospects of the Democratic Party in the upcoming presidential election, Jatras simply remarked that “that’s more than just the question of who counts the votes,” but also the “voting procedures, the media, the social media and everything else where it seems that the Democrats have mastered the art of political technology.”
“Especially in a presidential election, we don’t have a single national election as long as you can win several key states,” he added. “And the way you win those key states is to win several big cities in those states, you’re going to win the election. And given that the Democrats have virtually free reign to pack the votes in several major American cities, I think it’s very hard to see how they lose.”
WASHINGTON – The United States should not send additional assistance to fund a “proxy war” in Ukraine, and an audit must be conducted on US aid already provided to Kiev, Congressman Paul Gosar told Sputnik on Monday.
“Biden and Congress have already wasted nearly $200 billion American taxpayer dollars funding a proxy war in Ukraine. We should not send another dime to Ukraine and we should audit the money already sent there,” Gosar said in a statement.
The Republican lawmaker recently joined a group of other party lawmakers to introduce a resolution demanding an audit of the funds appropriated by Congress to Ukraine.
Gosar’s spokesperson told Sputnik that to-date the Biden administration has yet to provide Congress with copies of all documents and any financial statements detailing purchases, recipients, and government expenditures related to congressionally appropriated funds given to Ukraine.
US journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh recently told Russian media that countries in the West are aware of the fact that some of the weapons sent to Ukraine are ending up in illicit markets, but their media are deliberately silent about it.
Months after the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, there were concerns about reselling of advanced man-portable air defense missiles the West had sent to Ukraine, the journalist said, adding that US broadcaster CBS had wanted to publish a story about it but was forced to retract it.
Hersh also said, according to his source, that the CIA estimates Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has embezzled at least $400 million from US aid sent to Ukraine.
Western countries have been supplying military aid to Ukraine since the start of hostilities in February 2022. The aid evolved from lighter artillery munitions and training in 2022 to heavier weapons, including tanks, later that year and in 2023. For the past several months Ukraine has been pushing to be supplied with fighter jets. The Kremlin, in turn, has repeatedly warned against continued arms deliveries to Kiev.
Western-supplied arms are being sold by Ukrainian commanders to smugglers in Poland, Romania and other states, veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed.
The Pulitzer Prize winner, speaking to Afshin Rattansi on his program ‘Going Underground,’ said the West is aware of this black market trade, as some reports about missing arms shipments have even appeared in the US media.
Hersh claimed that, according to his data, almost immediately after the conflict broke out between Kiev and Moscow last February, “Poland, Romania, other countries on the border were being flooded with weapons we [the US and allies] were shipping for the war to Ukraine.”
“Often, it wasn’t generals, it was colonels and others, who were given shipments of some weapons, [who] would personally resell them… to the dark market,” he explained.
The journalist noted that there was concern in the West last year that some of the arms sent to Ukraine, such as Stinger shoulder-launched missiles, could be used to “shoot down an airplane at considerable height.”
As for Western-supplied weapons ending up on the black market, “CBS wrote a story about it that they were forced to retract,” Hersh said.
When asked about why the piece was retracted, the journalist said the media is supporting the stance of the US government that “we’re on the side of Ukraine. We all hate Russia.”
Hersh was likely referring to the documentary “Arming Ukraine,” which CBS aired last August. The promo for the film, which included a claim by the founder of pro-Ukraine NGO Blue-Yellow, Jonas Ohman, that only 30% of military aid actually reached the frontline, was removed, while the documentary itself and the story accompanying it were redacted.
Russian officials have on many occasions warned about Western-supplied arms being smuggled outside Ukraine, thus deteriorating the security situation elsewhere around the globe.
“NATO military supplies intended for the Kiev regime end up in the hands of terrorists, extremists and criminal groups in the Middle East, Central Africa, Southeast Asia,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in October. At the time, she estimated the black market turnover at $1billion per month.
An investigation by RT last summer also revealed how various weapons supplied to Kiev by the West were being sold on the dark net. The journalists were able to swiftly negotiate to the purchase of a US-made kamikaze drone with smugglers. However, it impossible to confirm whether the sellers actually had the weapons in stock, as the reporters did not complete the purchase.
The full version of Going Underground’s interview with Seymour Hersh will be aired on RT on Monday.
Despite findings of increased suicide risks and homicidal ideation linked to antidepressants, the widely used drugs have been spared from the discussions around mass shootings. Is it time we reevaluate the national conversation along with the real history surrounding this class of drugs?
For many people, the words ‘trust the experts’ now invoke a sort of pavlovian horror response. This trope serves as a visceral reminder of 3 years’ constant gaslighting for daring to question the narrative, the relentless stream of celebrity medics repeating the ‘safe and effective’ mantra and the bullying and coercion to take a ‘vaccine’ that millions of people didn’t feel they needed or wanted. It had all the hallmarks of an abusive relationship. Core medical ethical principles were destroyed, the weaknesses of protocolised top-down healthcare delivery were exposed and of course there was direct harm to individuals. Is it any wonder that a great many of the British public never want to hear the words ‘our NHS’ ever again, cringing as they remember the weekly clapping ritual.
An inclination to throw the baby out with the bathwater is now a strong instinct for many who feel completely let down. If the relationship with state healthcare stands any chance of being repaired, harms enacted in recent years need to be properly acknowledged and people’s concerns carefully listened to. The uncomfortable question as to whether the NHS can function in its current incarnation should be aired. For a lot of people a ‘great reset’ of the medical profession would be a necessary condition of return. Indeed, many medics wonder if they can remain in a system that is clearly failing those it is supposed to serve.
As one doctor with decades of experience laments:
“If I continue to practise conveyor belt and recipe book medicine under the current system, the benefit is only to the Medical Business Model; hospitals, laboratories, diagnostic centres and the pharmaceutical industry all benefit in a model designed to keep the patient sick.”
Another consultant doctor reflecting on the past few years, had the following comments:
“The most odious revelation to me was when early on the directive came forth forbidding doctors, on pain of GMC punishment, to use their own initiative to treat a Covid patient with any other substance, drug, or agent whatsoever than that which was approved officially (of course at this point there was nothing in that category), save only for using it in an officially approved Clinical Trial. I felt utterly betrayed as a doctor. The whole essence of the doctor-patient relationship was abruptly abolished. We were now in the CMO-patient relationship. My role was merely to be a minor minion box-ticking algorithm slave. No clinical discretion. No discussion along the principles of best interest of the patient with informed consent. Oh no, that’s old hat! I saw the moral authority and overshadowing support of the entire medical establishment wither up like Jonah’s gourd.”
Multiple articles are now appearing reporting that morale for those working within the NHS is at an all-time low.1,2,3 One can only imagine that bearing witness to some of the most inhumane policies in NHS history for 3 years straight has not helped. Add to this the long hours on low pay, with increasingly limited time to spend with patients due to unmanageable waiting lists, and you have a perfect recipe for abysmal job satisfaction. Do we really want those in charge of our healthcare decisions to be forced to work under these conditions?
So now to the question of trusting medical advice that has been co-opted, protocolised and politicised, not to mention censored and distorted by financial interests. The UKHSA is supposed to be the government gatekeeper that is ‘responsible for protecting every member of every community from the impact of infectious diseases’. Just yesterday the agency was still urging people on Twitter to go and get their first and second covid vaccine. This is now so ludicrously at odds with the available evidence that any sane member of the public should conclude that the regulatory system in the UK is officially broken. It is worth taking the time to read the comments under the tweet to see that the public’s natural survival instincts seem to have well and truly kicked in. This random selection suggests the UKHSA may need to read the room:
If you tuned in to the Twitter Space on Sunday ‘Are mRNA injections causing cancers?’ hosted by Dr Kat Lindley and Neil Oliver, you would have heard a heated exchange between consultant orthopaedic surgeon Dr Ahmad Malik and London-based oncology professor, Angus Dalgleish. Dr Malik wanted to get to the bottom of why Professor Dalgleish felt moved to write an article advocating for young people to take the covid vaccine in July 2021 entitled:
What every young person who fears the jab MUST be told: Vaccine expert ANGUS DALGLEISH dismantles beliefs that have seen rates stall among the 18-30s
Well that seems like a pretty clear message. Get the damned vaccine.
Given his background in vaccine research, Prof Dalgleish would have been very clear that long-term safety data is not an optional extra when injecting young people or pregnant women. When questioned, Prof Dalgleish revealed that he did not actually write the article himself. There was a phone interview with a Daily Mail journalist, which he described as ‘bullying’ and the article was an entirely perverted representation of that call. Nonetheless, his name appears alongside the article with the effect that the message therein appears to come from a distinguished professor of medicine.
Professor Dalgleish dramatically revised his position on covid injections after his son suffered acute myocarditis following the shots. Whilst it is obviously a good thing that he was courageous and open-minded enough to change his stance, it is very worrying that he is still an outlier. One can count on one hand the working medics willing to speak out on this issue. And it begs the question, what if Professor Dalgleish’s son hadn’t been injured? Would there have been more advertorials in the Daily Mail with his name alongside? Why are journalists ‘bullying’ through a particular narrative on medical matters? This rather suggests they have a particular agenda. As one Dr Roger Hodkinson, an eminent Cambridge educated pathologist says, “when politics plays medicine, that’s a very dangerous game.” Notably Dr Hodkinson is now only available to view on Bitchute, having been deplatformed from the more mainstream channels such as YouTube. More media censorship of highly qualified counter-narrative voices.
Working for a monopoly such as the NHS, with a mortgage and a family to feed, one might well find medical ethics end up somewhere below personal financial obligations. This is regrettable but understandable. Medics are human beings. Perhaps it is the fault of an increasingly secular society that somehow medics have been elevated to demi-gods and as a result their word is often deemed infallible. However, many more people now realise that this is simply not the case. If this disordered power dynamic is to be realigned, certain conditions need to be met:
A genuine admission that mistakes were made. Not that ‘The Science™’ changed. It did not change and millions of people who resisted the military grade psy-op are fully aware of this;
An overhaul of medical training so that clinicians do not feel afraid to speak out when they see something is wrong, and in fact should be encouraged to do so;
The gaslighting must stop altogether. Those who have suffered injury or trauma need to be given proper air time and have their concerns addressed. They also need to be properly and fairly compensated.
Open and unfettered discussions need to take place, allowing medics to speak freely about what has happened during the past 3 years, identifying with honesty and integrity what must not be repeated.
Taxpayers spend in excess of £220 billion per annum on the NHS. Weekly excess deaths are presently consistently way above average, whereas after a period of high mortality in the frail and elderly it should be well below normal levels. The public (and indeed the staff) deserve better. If this is impossible, perhaps the entire system needs to be completely reimagined.
The drug-induced nipple secretions of trans women are as good as mothers’ breast milk for babies, the University of Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust claimed in a letter to campaigners made public in a report by British think tank the Policy Exchange on Sunday.
The healthcare trust’s medical director, Rachel James, argued that the off-label prescription drug cocktail men transitioning to female take in order to produce milk was “similar to the natural hormones which encourage lactation to develop when the baby is newly born.”
“The evidence which is available demonstrates that the milk is comparable to that produced following the birth of a baby,” James wrote in the letter, sent to Children of Transitioners last August.
Biological men who wish to lactate must first take hormones to grow milk glands and then take high doses of either domperidone or metoclopramide to stimulate milk production. Neither drug is approved for this use, though they are occasionally prescribed off-label to biological women who have trouble lactating.
However, domperidone’s own manufacturer, Janssen, warns patients the drug “may cause unwanted side effects affecting the heart in a breastfed baby” and “should be used during breastfeeding only if your physician considers this clearly necessary.” … continue
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