FDA chief spruiks misinformation while vowing to fight misinformation
BY MARYANNE DEMASI, PHD | APRIL 25, 2023
Robert Califf, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is hell bent on ridding the internet of misinformation.
In a series of public appearances, Califf has claimed that “misinformation is now our leading cause of death.”
When I asked the FDA for evidence to support his claim, the agency drew a blank, admitting that Califf’s statement “cannot be proven.”
Califf has since made attempts to tweak his public statement.
This week, CBS News reporter Alexander Tin pressed him for an explanation, to which Califf replied, “I want to modify my statement. And I’ll keep working on this, to try to get it right. I would say I actually believe it is the leading cause of premature death…”
Jessica Adams, an expert in drug regulatory affairs said, “It’s ironic. Califf is spreading misinformation about the leading cause of premature death in the US, while promoting the need to counter misinformation.”
“It’s unbelievable for him to make these assertions with no scientific backing,” she added.
Adams said it’s not the FDA’s job to police medical misinformation online.
“The FDA should be assessing drug approvals, overseeing post-marketing studies and ensuring product labels are up to date – not promoting vaccines and antivirals as if it’s the marketing arm of the drug industry,” said Adams.
The FDA sent me its website providing Califf’s reasoning for why he believes misinformation is the leading cause of premature death. It states:
“Most of the COVID-19 deaths since vaccines and antivirals became available were preventable if people had gotten updated on their vaccination status and, if high risk and infected, had they been treated with an authorized antiviral.”
“He’s failed to cite any sources to substantiate his claims and Califf keeps saying that it is just his ‘belief’…Are we supposed to just accept that?” said Adams, criticising his “obsession” over the boosters.
“It’s as if the FDA thinks that people don’t want the vaccines because they are misinformed, when it might just be that they are not persuaded by the data,” she added.
Adams also said the FDA is misinforming the public by “over-inflating” the benefit of the more recent bivalent vaccines.
“They’re now promoting the bivalent boosters which are based on much less data than the original [monovalent] vaccines and authorised on the basis of antibodies, which is not a fully validated correlate of protection,” said Adams.
This is not the first time the FDA has made misleading scientific claims to the public.
In August 2021, the FDA attempted to dissuade people from using ivermectin as an off-label, early treatment for COVID-19 by suggesting it was a livestock drug. The agency tweeted “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
But critics were quick to condemn the misinformation by pointing out that ivermectin is not only a medicine used to deworm livestock, it is also FDA-approved for parasitic treatment in humans.
Califf also spread misinformation in a Nov 2022 tweet which stated, “preliminary epidemiological findings point to the distinct possibility of the bivalent vaccines and antivirals reducing risk of long Covid.”
Vinay Prasad, Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and a practicing Haematologist Oncologist at San Francisco General Hospital wrote a scathing criticism of the tweet.
“For bivalent vaccines, he’s making things up. There are no relevant clinical data in human beings for bivalent vaccines, certainly not for the end points of long covid symptoms. Ergo that claim is 100% false; essentially a lie,” wrote Prasad.
“For antivirals, such as Paxlovid, this endpoint has not been assessed in randomized control trials. There are some poorly done observational studies that conflate ICD-10 codes with long covid symptoms and make bold, unsupported claims, but there is no robust evidence,” he added.
Traditionally, the FDA has regulated health misinformation to protect consumers from misbranded and adulterated products, but this new proposed “misinformation oversight” seems to extend to overseeing any online health-related issue.
“The FDA has always maintained that it does not want to regulate the practice of medicine, but lately it’s behaving as if it’s the Surgeon General – America’s doctor – making drug recommendations and promoting vaccines,” said Adams.
If the FDA wants to curb the spread of misinformation, it should start by looking at its own behaviour.
Despite the criticism, Califf remains defiant. Recently, he boasted to a crowd of journalists that he is “relatively impervious to critique.”
Perhaps, that’s where he is going wrong.
How the North Korean arms trade in the Russian Federation is ‘proven’
By Konstantin Asmolov – New Eastern Outlook – 26.04.2023
We recently discussed how stories of North Korean weapons shipments to Russia were now being proven by saying things like, “Here’s a train with weapons on it; you can’t see them, but believe us, they’re inside.” But John Kirby, the coordinator of strategic communications for the National Security Council, showed that he was more than qualified. On March 30, 2023, he said:
- North Korea is working to send dozens of kinds of weapons and munitions to Russia to be used in the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine
- North Korea seeks to secure food supplies in exchange
- The potential arms deal is being arranged through a Slovakian arms dealer, identified as Ashot Mkrtychev, against whom the US Department of Treasury has imposed sanctions.
Kirby voiced fear “that North Korea will continue to back Russian military activities against Ukraine,” despite the lack of proof that North Korea sent huge quantities of ammunition to Moscow late last year.
Kirby emphasized that any arms deal between North Korea and Russia would directly violate a series of UN Security Council resolutions prohibiting the sale of weapons to and from the North.
What do we see when we look at it this way? The fact that the loud discourse of alleged deals was stated by an influential person should apparently be deemed evidence, and no more corroboration is required. Despite the fact that any clarifying inquiry of the class, “how exactly the DPRK sends such large quantities of weaponry to Russia,” leaves no stone unturned. As the author is already being ironic, Kirby is only credible if one believes the DPRK invented teleportation.
In reality, Defense Department Spokesperson Brigadier General Patrick Ryder tried to soften his tone, he was actually disputing what Kirby had said. According to him, “there currently was no indication that additional weapons or munitions have been delivered to Russia, but we continue to keep a close eye on it.”
An examination of the name of the US sanction recipient indicates the types of arguments Washington is employing to sever military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang. To begin with, Mkrtichev was described as a “Slovakian citizen with Azerbaijani roots” in various Russian-language periodicals recognized by the Russian Federation as foreign agents (hence no references). This amount of investigation recalls an old joke about how to spell Iran or Iraq? Given the tense relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the fact that the person’s first and last names are both plainly Armenian makes us laugh.
But what was the mysterious Ashot up to? According to a press release from the US Department of the Treasury, Mkrtychev, 56, a resident of Bratislava, worked with DPRK officials between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 to buy more than two dozen weapons and ammunition for Russia in exchange for items like commercial airplanes, raw materials, and goods to be shipped to the DPRK. More precisely, he “might be involved in the organization of deals.” “Schemes like the arms deal pursued by this individual show that Putin is turning to suppliers of last resort like Iran and the DPRK.” An individual has been sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for seeking to arrange arms sales between Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Now the questions. First, it is not very clear who Mkrtychev is. If he had even a passing knowledge of the armaments trade, the US Treasury’s statement would have likely indicated this for propaganda purposes. This “no name” was going to organize an epic transaction on an epic magnitude. Therefore, how was he to supply commercial aircraft as opposed to a large quantity of raw materials and goods? The author would like to recall a few important details. First, the North continues to be isolated, and trade across the border with the DPRK occurs in a number of places that are tracked by satellites. On the Russian-DPRK border, for example, there is just a train bridge. Ships cruising around the DPRK that could be used to dodge sanctions are also being monitored, and the UN panel of experts report gives specific data on ships that often trade coal by turning off transponders and regularly accessing Chinese ports. Mkrtychev must possess the ability of a James Bond 007 secret agent in order to organize the aforementioned plot.
Now the question is, why do we need an obscure middleman from Slovakia for two countries who share a geographical border and direct diplomatic ties, even if Russia and North Korea are interested in backdoor deals? Previous Kirby stories were a little more realistic in such a context.
Furthermore, it is not at all evident from the American comments whether any of the deals Mkrtychev mediated were successfully executed. Yet, a failed attempt to do business with the DPRK, from an American perspective, should be penalized in the same way as a successful one, because intent is punishable…
This prompts the author to consider the following points.
As part of their so-called “open source intelligence” operation, the US deploys neural networks to search the unprotected Internet for relevant content using a keyword system, providing them access to data on a variety of forums or chat rooms. Therefore, it seems possible that American “intelligence” discovered a method of getting around the sanctions by compiling a list of a few pertinent statements. Added to that is a misunderstanding of the context, as previously stated, when the author of a telegram channel about the secrets of Russian domestic politics in general may be a schoolboy fantasist.
Finally, this situation reminds him of the preparation for a fraudulent plan, which he had recently encountered on multiple occasions. The fact is that various fraudsters periodically try to cash in on the situation of DPRK. Such people come in contact with North Korea, depict themselves as sympathetic to the country’s situation, and occasionally reach Pyongyang to be photographed with a number of important people. Then they come in contact with a “third party” and try to buy or sell anything while appearing as someone with the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) and Kim Jong-un’s personal trust. As middlemen, they receive commissions for risky and difficult work, which accounts for the majority of their earnings when a deal fails for whatever reason, even though the scale closely resembles the American reports.
I would venture to guess that we have dealt with something similar. However, any fraud of this nature provides the US State Department with a good excuse to impose sanctions. Although it is unlikely that such a person will visit the United States, it is not difficult to add a new victim to the sanctions list.
In order to better keep track of them and to be more critical of the loud propaganda remarks, I want to highlight three points as I draw to a close another text regarding flaws in evidence.
- When a high-ranking individual states a fact, the evidence for that fact is not that it was uttered by the “respected person” but, at the very least, some other form of confirmation, like “Yesterday I was in a cab, and the driver told me that…” Even a mention of an unnamed but knowledgeable “expert” is better than none at all.
- When an act is offered to you, it makes sense to try to understand the technical intricacies of it because, usually, it is ignorance of the details that makes an act physically impossible. Consider “mortar shootings,” the exchange of urine samples stored in canisters that require identification to open, or the immeasurable amounts of armament shipments.
- Remember that fabricated stories follow specific literary canons when the story being presented is too evocative of a blockbuster storyline. Reality can also be unrealistic, but not in the same way as the proven plot. Provocation is indicated by overdramatization.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia, the Russian Academy of Sciences
US Propaganda Is Responsible For Unrealistically High Hopes About Kiev’s Counteroffensive
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | APRIL 24, 2023
Politico cited unnamed US administration officials in their latest piece reporting that “Biden’s team fears the aftermath of a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive”. According to them, a dilemma of epic soft power proportions is in the making should this upcoming operation fail: hawks will blame the US for not giving Kiev everything that it demanded, while doves will demand the immediate commencement of peace talks. Left unsaid is the “politically inconvenient” fact that US’ own propaganda is responsible for this.
In particular, the SBU-backed fascist troll network known as “NAFO” played an unprecedented role in this respect. What began as an online campaign fundraising for war criminals morphed into an aggressive troll campaign whose members rarely get banned by social media for their toxic ad hominem attacks and doxing despite blatantly violating those platforms’ terms of service (with few notable exceptions). Although Twitter’s recent algorithmic tweaks have reduced their reach, they’re still very active.
What the combined efforts of infamous trolls like former congressman Adam Kinzinger and senior advisor at the Helsinki Commission Paul Massaro have done is generate unrealistically high hopes about Kiev’s upcoming counteroffensive among their targeted Western audience. This undeclared foreign agent and shameless glorifier of a genocidal World War II fascist movement respectively thought they were “helping the cause” but were in reality working against its soft power interests this whole time.
Those infamous NAFO trolls and their ilk continued pushing the information warfare narrative that Kiev’s ‘total victory’ is supposedly very close within reach despite Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley publicly downplaying that scenario in late January by describing it as “very, very difficult”. These propagandists didn’t miss a beat even after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declared a “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia several weeks later.
That second development was publicly shared just like Milley’s for the purpose of tempering everyone’s expectations about Kiev’s counteroffensive, with Stoltenberg’s drawing attention to how much more the West needs to ramp up military-industrial production to stand a chance of winning. It’s impossible for NATO to have made any serious difference in this respect in the two months since his candid admission so the difficult state of military-strategic affairs that Milley warned about still remains in effect.
A little more than one month ago, the Washington Post told its readers the truth about just how poorly Kiev’s forces are faring. Several weeks later, the Pentagon leaks then confirmed this sobering assessment, which set the context within which Politico’s latest report was published. Accordingly, it’s now indisputable that leading Western officials and their allied Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets were preconditioning the public for the last quarter-year not to expect much from this counteroffensive.
NAFO’s failure to respond to those signals and instead defiantly redouble their information warfare narrative priming the public for Kiev’s ‘total victory’ sometime in the very near future therefore directly resulted in the present dilemma. Those average Westerners who are supportive of Ukraine didn’t extend any credence to those aforementioned figures’ warnings due to the social media echo chamber that they became trapped in since the special operation started.
These people preferred to surround themselves with fellow wishful thinkers who told them whatever they wanted to hear, sometimes even pushing the most absurd conspiracy theories to explain away the cognitive dissonance provoked by the difference between their claims and those officials’. The most popular one alleges that elements within the US Government, NATO, and the MSM are either under the influence of a “Russian disinformation operation” or even infiltrated by “deep-cover sleeper cell agents”.
For as amusing as this may be those who know better than to fall for that super paranoid conspiracy theory, so many people within the West seriously believe it that the US Government doesn’t consider this to be a laughing matter at all. In fact, it’s precisely because a critical mass of people still subscribe to these radical fringe beliefs despite leading officials’ best efforts since late January to correct their false NAFO-indoctrinated expectations that those US administration figures just spoke to Politico.
Simply put, their propaganda operation has gotten out of control and is now a major soft power liability. NAFO trolls won’t respond to those dog whistles being blown by American and NATO officials like Milley and Stoltenberg since they remain “loyal” to parroting whatever Ukrainian officials are saying at any given time. Those who stray from the dogmatic information warfare narrative that Kiev’s ‘total victory’ is supposedly very close within reach are viciously attacked and expelled from this modern-day cult.
The felling of belonging that NAFO provides for many of its members, whose offline lives are rather dull and lonely to put it mildly, influences them to self-censor the sharing of any doubts they may have about Ukraine’s conspiracy theories in the face of growing Western public claims to the contrary. These interconnected gatekeeping and psychological dynamics result in narrative reinforcement, which in turn leads to Kiev’s average Western supporters retaining unrealistically high expectations about the conflict.
The reason why the US Government is recently scaling up its efforts to correct the public’s expectations is because the risk of deep disappointment affecting a critical mass of the population is assessed as being extremely counterproductive to their interests. Enough of them might become disillusioned in the aftermath of a failed counteroffensive that they decisively shift towards supporting the immediate ceasefire scenario, which works against those who want to indefinitely perpetuate this proxy war.
The most furious among them might even punish those politicians who they blame for this fiasco during the next elections, either by voting for pro-ceasefire candidates or not participating in the polls at all. Either way, administration figures fear that there’s a credible enough chance of tangible blowback from the false expectations that NAFO continued cultivating among the public in defiance of the dog whistles blown by top Western military officials that they’re now asking the MSM to help them avert this disaster.
The takeaway from Politico’s latest article is that the Biden Administration is still struggling to correct the public’s expectations after Milley first tried doing so a quarter-year ago. The US’ earlier NAFO-driven propaganda successfully instilled unrealistically high hopes of Kiev’s upcoming counteroffensive among their targeted audience, which is now a major soft power liability owing to credible fears that it’ll fail. Unless their expectations soon change, Ukraine’s supporters might be in for a very deep disappointment.
Spy letter about Hunter Biden shows how Dems are undermining democracy
By James Bovard | April 21, 2023
In the closing address at last month’s Summit for Democracy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken piously proclaimed, “As President Biden has said, democracy doesn’t happen by accident.
“It requires constant effort.”
Or in the case of the 2020 election, it required deceiving American voters.
The House Judiciary Committee revealed that Blinken, then a top Biden adviser, orchestrated the letter from 51 top intelligence officials claiming that Hunter Biden’s laptop was nothing but a Russian disinformation campaign.
Blinken contacted former acting CIA chief Mike Morell, who swayed scores of other former top officials — including three ex-CIA chiefs — to sign that letter to debunk the biggest threat to the Biden presidential campaign.
In the final presidential debate on Oct. 22, Joe Biden invoked that letter from former intelligence officials to deflect Donald Trump’s attacks on Biden family corruption.
Polls show that Biden would have lost the election if the media had accurately reported the contents of that laptop.
Biden pretended that letter arose spontaneously from the patriotic sentiments of former officials.
But the letter was “triggered” by Blinken’s call to Morell, who then contacted his former colleagues.
Blinken’s ploy may have swayed Biden to appoint him secretary of state.
The media are mostly ignoring or downplaying the revelations of Blinken’s machinations.
If the roles were reversed, cable news and front-page headlines would be screaming about a villainous Trump operative pulling official strings to whitewash the Donald.
MSNBC would be howling about the death of democracy, and CNN hosts would be sobbing hysterically about the dirty deal.
But when Team Biden does it: nothing to see here, move along.
How many presidential elections can Democrats seek to dishonestly rig without suffering any penalty flags from media scorekeepers?
Shortly before the 2016 election, senior Hillary Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan peddled false claims linking the Trump Organization to Russia.
The Federal Election Commission last month levied a $113,000 fine on the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for their deceptive funding to cover up their role in the Steele dossier.
The FBI, which was apparently willing to pay any price to defeat Trump, offered former British spy Christopher Steele $1 million in cash if he could prove the charges in that dossier before the 2016 election.
There was no proof — but that didn’t stop the FBI from using the dossier to get warrants to spy on Trump campaign officials from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Jake Sullivan is now Biden’s national security adviser.
Did he get that gig in part because of his willingness to lie for Democratic kingpins?
Avril Haines is Biden’s director of national intelligence.
Did signing the Hunter laptop letter help her snare that plum job?
The letter Blinken finagled would not have been so influential if journalists were not shamelessly docile to federal job titles.
Inside the Beltway, former intelligence kingpins are viewed like royalty or at least second-tier aristocracy.
But the CIA has a long record of secretly intervening in dozens of foreign elections.
In 2019, former CIA director Mike Pompeo summarized his agency’s motif: “We lied, we cheated, we stole. It was like we had entire training courses.”
Former CIA chief James Woolsey insisted in 2018 that the CIA intervenes in elections “only for a very good cause in the interests of democracy.”
Yet the letter from former spooks was instantly revered by journalists as if it were handed down from Mt. Sinai.
For the Washington political elite, defeating Donald Trump was the ultimate good cause to save democracy.
Biden talks as if his 2020 election victory was the result of practically a divine incarnation of the “will of the people.”
Unfortunately, presidential elections are irrevocable regardless of how many voters were conned.
How much official deceit can democracy survive?
Any notion of “informed consent” by voters is a mirage if federal agencies and former officials have the power to endlessly distort the news.
Shortly after he became secretary of state, Blinken boasted that the US government doesn’t sweep problems “under the rug. . . . We deal with them in the daylight, with full transparency.”
That pledge apparently did not extend to Blinken’s own tampering with the 2020 election.
What else is Blinken hiding, and when will the next shoe fall?
Broken Trust
Can the relationship with state healthcare ever be repaired?
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | April 21, 2023
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.
Footnotes
‘Growing Frustration’ At FBI Over Failure to Charge Hunter Biden – Report
© AFP 2023 / ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS
By Wyatt Reed – Sputnik – 22.04.2023
There’s “growing frustration” among the FBI as US President Joe Biden’s unruly son Hunter has yet to be charged in multiple felonies and misdemeanor investigations over a year after agents concluded the bulk of their research, US media is reporting.
Investigators in the FBI “finished the bulk of their work on the case about a year ago,” according to NBC News, which noted that “a senior law enforcement source said the IRS finished its investigation more than a year ago” as well.
Per the outlet, “the possible charges are two misdemeanor counts for failure to file taxes, a single felony count of tax evasion related to a business expense for one year of taxes, and the gun charge,” which is “also a potential felony.”
The revelation comes just two days after a lawyer representing an anonymous IRS employee wrote in a letter to Congress that his client, a “career IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent who has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high profile, controversial subject since early 2020,” is seeking to testify before the legislators as a protected whistleblower.
According to the lawyer, the IRS Special Agent, who’s reportedly spent over a decade on the job, is seeking to provide information that would “contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee,” “clear conflicts of interest” in the case, and specific instances of “preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols.”
It’s unclear whether authorities are still considering charging the younger Biden with money laundering and failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as well. But over the past several years, the Justice Department has seriously ramped up prosecutions of alleged FARA violations – though so far they’ve largely focused on those politically opposed to the Biden family.
In 2018, Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced to 60 months in prison for supposed FARA violations relating to work carried out in Ukraine. He was hit with a further 30 months for other charges as well.
This week, several Black socialists in Florida were indicted for allegedly failing to register under FARA by prosecutors who accuse them of not telling US officials they received funds from someone supposedly acting on behalf of the Russian government, further fueling suspicions that the Biden administration’s prosecutions are politically motivated.
Here’s Why The US Is Trying To Pin The Blame For Sudan’s “Deep State” War On Russia
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | APRIL 21, 2023
Debunking The Latest Fake News Narrative
CNN published an exclusive piece on Thursday alleging that “Evidence emerges of Russia’s Wagner arming militia leader battling Sudan’s army”. They claim that satellite imagery shows increased Russian military transport activity between Libya and Syria in the run-up to Sudan’s “deep state” war. According to CNN, this confirms rumors that General Haftar is supplying Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hamedti”) with surface-to-air missiles (SAM) on behalf of Wagner.
The Wall Street Journal published their own exclusive piece the day prior on Wednesday alleging that “Libyan Militia and Egypt’s Military Back Opposite Sides in Sudan Conflict”, so these two stories complement one another. Both Hamedti and Wagner have denied these claims, however. The Sudanese Ambassador to Russia also confirmed that “Russia is a friendly country to us so we have been in direct contact with [the] Russian Foreign Ministry since the very beginning of those events last Saturday.”
That diplomat’s reaffirmation of Sudan’s close ties with Russia is especially important since he represents the government that’s internationally recognized as being led by Chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, who commands the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and is one of the two figures vying for power. At present, Khartoum therefore doesn’t extend credence to the emerging US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) narrative that Russia is arming the RSF via Haftar-Wagner, but that could soon change.
Preconditioning The Public For Another Proxy War
Unless the present three-day Eid ceasefire holds and leads to the start of peace talks that ultimately end this “deep state” war, which is unlikely since both sides made clear their intent to completely destroy the other, then this conflict is expected to resume in the near future. Should the SAF fail to defeat the RSF and possibly even be placed on the backfoot, then Burhan might gamble that it’s in his best interests to parrot the MSM’s anti-Russian accusations in an attempt to receive direct Western military support.
That scenario isn’t all that far-fetched either considering that the Associated Press and Politico both cited unnamed officials on Thursday to report that the US is assembling additional troops in nearby Djibouti to prepare for the possible evacuation of Americans from Sudan. This pretext could easily be exploited to arm the SAF and/or attack the RSF, especially if the Pentagon claims that the latter tried stopping its operation by building upon last week’s claim that its forces shot at an armored US diplomatic vehicle.
In the event that Burhan repeats the MSM’s emerging anti-Russian narrative and promises to rubbish Sudan’s naval base deal with Moscow upon defeating the RSF, then the Biden Administration can “justify” its military intervention on the basis of “defending Sudanese democracy from a Kremlin coup”. The public would then be told that the latest conflict was sparked by Russia’s support for the “insurgent” RSF, which the MSM would attribute to its interests in defending Wagner’s mining operations there.
American Meddling In Russian-Egyptian Relations
This would predictably precede an unprecedented but preplanned information warfare campaign painting Russia as a “destabilizing” force in Africa, which would be aimed at counteracting its hitherto highly successful efforts at presenting itself as a force of stability in support of legitimate governments. The purpose of this aforesaid operation would be to erode Russia’s newfound “Democratic Security” appeal across the continent with a view towards reversing the decline of Western influence there.
Furthermore, Burhan’s potentially opportunistic piggybacking on the earlier described emerging anti-Russian narrative could have serous implications for Moscow’s ties with Cairo due to the perception of them backing opposite sides in Sudan’s “deep state” war. Russian-Egyptian relations have recently been beset by scandal upon the latest Pentagon leaks alleging that Cairo abandoned its supposedly secret plan to supply rockets to Moscow under pressure from Washington and agreed to arm Kiev instead.
Considering this context, the scenario of Egyptian-backed Burhan blaming Russia for sparking the latest conflict could therefore lead to the rapid deterioration of Russian-Egyptian ties, especially if Cairo decides to indirectly retaliate against Moscow by curtailing its investment rights in Port Said. Those two signed an additional agreement on this industrial zone last month, which was first approved in 2018 and is supposed to help Russia expand its economic engagement with the broader region.
Punishing The Emirates For Its Close Relations With Russia
That goal could be jeopardized if Egypt decides to punish Russia through these means in response to Burhan opportunistically piggybacking on the MSM narrative in an attempt to obtain direct Western military support against the RSF. Furthermore, the UAE’s ties with Egypt and the US could also become much more complicated in that event too since Abu Dhabi is accused of backing reportedly RSF-allied Haftar, being favorable disposed to that armed Sudanese group, and secretly allying with Russia.
The last-mentioned accusation was brought to the public’s attentions as a result of the previously mentioned Pentagon leaks, which were denied by the UAE but coincided with the weakening of its ties with Washington that are partially over that Gulf country’s growing ones with Moscow. There are more factors at play than just the Russian-Emirati relationship, but the point is that the UAE’s problems with the US could be amplified by the MSM if Burhan accuses Russia of arming the RSF via Haftar-Wagner.
It also deserves mentioning that America’s other ulterior interest in its incipient propaganda campaign against Russia in Sudan is to complicate its geopolitical opponent’s logistical connections with the Central African Republic (CAR), which owes its continued existence as a state to Moscow’s military support. The Kremlin largely relies on transit across Sudan in order to supply its forces and its ally’s there, but this could be cut off if Burhan jumps on the anti-Russian bandwagon and revokes Moscow’s privileges.
The Chadian Connection
Lastly, another strategic factor behind this latest information warfare offensive against Russia is that it could ruin that country’s surprisingly solid relations with regional military heavyweight Chad. As explained in this recent analysis here, N’Djamena ended up expelling the German Ambassador earlier this month for meddling instead of the Russian one despite the US telling its counterparts in late February that Moscow is using Wagner in the CAR and Libya to arm anti-government rebels against it.
The Associated Press cited an African analyst from a Western risk assessment firm in their article on Thursday about 320 SAF troops fleeing to Chad to claim that this development could prompt N’Djamena into taking those forces’ side in Sudan’s “deep state” war. According to Benjamin Hunter, “N’Djamena is likely to oppose (Dagalo) due to fears that RSF dominance in Darfur could empower Chadian Arabs to unseat the (president’s) regime. Many within (Dagalo’s) Rizeigat tribe live across the border in Chad.”
If Chad becomes embroiled in Sudan’s “deep state” war on Burhan’s side, then it might be susceptible to Western suggestions that jumping on the anti-Russian bandwagon like he would have already done in this scenario could lead to them suspending their regime change campaign against N’Djamena. Should that happen, then this regional military heavyweight might also support any potentially forthcoming rebel/terrorist offensive that its historical French partner could soon plot against Russia in the CAR.
Concluding Thoughts
Putting everything together, the US plans to achieve the following strategic objectives by introducing the narrative that Russia is arming the RSF:
1. Entice Burhan to extend credence to these claims in exchange for US military support;
2. Demand that he also rescinds Russia’s naval base rights and cuts off its overflight access to the CAR;
3. Consider direct support to the SAF on the pretext of commencing an “evacuation operation” in Sudan;
4. Discredit Russia and the UAE’s African engagement policies by framing both as “destabilizing forces”;
5. Attempt to provoke a crisis in Russia’s relations with Sudan’s Chadian and Egyptian neighbors;
6. Exploit the above scenario to assemble a regional coalition for pushing back against Russia in Africa;
7. Encourage Chad to support a French-backed rebel/terrorist offensive in the Russian-allied CAR;
8. Plot a copycat proxy war in Russian-allied Mali in order to crush the Kremlin’s influence in the Sahel;
9. Perfect this new Hybrid War method prior to employing it all across the continent;
10. And thus turn Africa into the top proxy war battleground of the New Cold War.
The US therefore has many reasons to push this fake news campaign, though it’s unclear whether it’ll ultimately achieve any of its envisaged objectives or not.
The False Messaging on Vaccines Given to Pregnant Women
By David Bell | Brownstone Institute | April 19, 2023
The mRNA vaccines were released globally in early 2021 with the slogan ‘safe and effective.’ Unusually for a new class of medicine, they were soon recommended by public health authorities for pregnant women.
By late 2021, working-age women, including those who were pregnant, were being thrown out of employment for not agreeing to be injected. Those who took the mRNA vaccines did so based on trust in health authorities – the assumption being that they would not have been approved if the evidence was not absolutely clear. The role of regulatory agencies was to protect the public and, therefore, if they were approved, the “vaccines” were safe.
Recently, a lengthy vaccine evaluation report sponsored by Pfizer and submitted to the Australian regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) dated January 2021 was released under a Freedom of Information request.
The report contains significant new information that had been suppressed by the TGA and by Pfizer itself. Much of this relates directly to the issue of safety in pregnancy, and impacts on the fertility of women of child-bearing age. The whole report is important, but four key data points stand out;
- The rapid decline in antibody and T cells in monkeys following second dose,
- Biodistribution studies (previously released in 2021 through an FOI request in Japan)
- Data on the impact of fertility outcomes for rats.
- Data on fetal abnormalities in rats.
We focus on the last three items as, for the first point, it is enough to quote the report itself “Antibodies and T cells in monkeys declined quickly over 5 weeks after the second dose of BNT162b2 (V9), raising concerns over long term immunity…”.
This point indicates that the regulators should have anticipated the rapid decline in efficacy and must have known at the outset that the initial two-dose “course” was unlikely to confer lasting immunity and would, therefore, require multiple repeat doses. This expectation of failure was recently highlighted by Dr Anthony Fauci, former director at the US NIH.
The three remaining items should be a major cause for alarm with the pharmaceutical regulatory system. The first, as revealed in 2021, involved biodistribution studies of the lipid nanoparticle carrier in rats, using a luciferase enzyme to substitute for the mRNA vaccine.
The study demonstrated that the vaccine will travel throughout the body after injection, and is found not only at the injection site, but in all organs tested, with high concentration in the ovaries, liver, adrenal glands, and spleen. Authorities who assured vaccinated people in early 2021 that the vaccine stays in the arm were, as we have known for two years, lying.
Lipid concentration per gram, recalculated as percentage of injection site.
| ORGAN | 28 HOURS µg lipid equiv/g | TOTAL | CONC VS INJECTION SITE |
| ADRENAL | 18.21 | 164.9 | 11.04% |
| MARROW | 3.77 | 164.9 | 2.29% |
| SITE | 164.9 | 164.9 | 100.00% |
| LIVER | 24.29 | 164.9 | 14.73% |
| OVARIES | 12.26 | 164.9 | 7.43% |
| SPLEEN | 23.35 | 164.9 | 14.16% |
In terms of the impact on fertility and fetal abnormalities, the report includes a study of 44 rats and describes two main metrics, the pre-implantation loss rate and the number of abnormalities per fetus (also expressed per litter). In both cases the metrics were significantly higher for vaccinated rats than for unvaccinated rats.
Roughly speaking, the pre-implantation loss ratio compares the estimated number of fertilised ova and the ova implanted in the uterus. The table below is taken from the report itself and clearly shows the loss rate for vaccinated (BNT162b2) is more than double the unvaccinated control group.
In a case control study, a doubling of pregnancy loss in the intervention group would represent a serious safety signal. Rather than take this seriously, the authors of the report then compared the outcomes to historical data on other rat populations; 27 studies of 568 rats, and ignored the outcome because other populations had recorded higher overall losses; this range is shown in the right hand column as 2.6 percent to 13.8 percent. This analysis is alarming as remaining below the highest previously recorded pregnancy loss levels in populations elsewhere is not a safe outcome when the intervention is also associated with double the harm of the control group.
A similar pattern is observed for fetal malformations with higher abnormality rate in each of the 12 categories studied. Of the 11 categories where Pfizer confirmed the data is correct, there are only 2 total abnormalities in the control group, versus 28 with the mRNA vaccine (BNT162b2). In the category which Pfizer labeled as unreliable (supernumerary lumbar ribs), there were 3 abnormalities in the control group and 12 in the vaccinated group.
As with the increased pregnancy losses, Pfizer simply ignored the trend and compared the results with historical data from other rat populations. This is very significant as it is seen across every malformation category. The case control nature of the study design is again ignored, in order to apparently hide the negative outcomes demonstrated.
These data indicate that there is NO basis for saying the vaccine is safe in pregnancy. Concentration of LNPs in ovaries, a doubled pregnancy loss rate, and raised fetal abnormality rate across all measured categories indicates that designating a safe-in-pregnancy label (B1 category in Australia) was contrary to available evidence. The data implies that not only was the Government’s “safe and effective” sloganeering not accurate, it was totally misleading with respect to the safety data available.
Known unknowns and missing data:
Despite the negative nature of these outcomes, the classification of this medicine as a vaccine appears to have precluded further animal trials. Historically, new medicines, especially in classes never used in humans before, would require a very rigorous assessment. Vaccines, however, have a lower burden of proof requirement than ordinary medicines. By classifying mRNA injections as “vaccines,” this ensured regulatory approval with significantly less stringent safety requirements, as the TGA itself notes.
In fact, mRNA gene therapies function more like medicines than vaccines in that they modify the internal functioning of cells, rather than stimulating an immune response to presence of an antigen. Labelling these gene therapy products as vaccines means that, as far as we are aware, even today no genotoxicity or carcinogenicity studies have been carried out.
This report, which was only released after a FOI request, is extremely disturbing as it shows that authorities knew of major risks with mRNA Covid-19 vaccination while simultaneously assuring populations that it was safe. The fact that mainstream media has (as far as we are aware) completely ignored the newly released data should reinforce the need for caution when listening to the advice of public health messaging regarding Covid-19 vaccination.
Firstly, it is clear that regulators, drug companies and the government would have known that vaccine-induced immunity tails off very rapidly with this being observed in real world data with efficacy against infection falling to zero. Accordingly, the single point in time figures of 95 percent and 62 percent efficacy against cases quoted for Pfizer and ChAdOx1 (AstraZeneca) respectively meant almost nothing since a rapid decline was to be expected.
Similarly, the concept of a two-dose “course” was inaccurate as endless boosters would likely have been required given the rapid decline in antibodies and T-cells observed in the monkeys.
Most importantly, the data does not in any way support the “safe” conclusion with respect to pregnancy; a conclusion of dangerous would be more accurate. The assurances of safety were, therefore, completely misleading given the data disclosures in the recent freedom of information release.
Regulatory authorities knew that animal studies showed major red flags regarding both pregnancy loss and fetal abnormalities, consistent with the systemic distribution of the mRNA they had been hiding from the public.
Even in March 2023, it is impossible to give these assurances, given the fact that important studies have not, to the best of our knowledge, been done.
Pfizer elected not to follow up the vast majority of pregnancies in the original human trials, despite high miscarriage rates in the minority they did follow. Given all of the problems with efficacy and safety, the administration of these products to women of childbearing age, and administration to healthy pregnant women is high-risk and not justified.
Assisting in co-authorship for this essay is Alex Kriel, a physicist and was one of the first people to highlight the flawed nature of the Imperial COVID model, and he is a founder of the Thinking Coalition which comprises a group of citizens who are concerned about Government overreach.
David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.
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Book Review
The Greatest Threat to World Peace? A Review of Daniele Ganser’s ‘USA: The Ruthless Empire’
Review by Marilyn Langlois | November 10, 2023
If you regard the United States as perhaps flawed but overall a force for good in the world . . .
If you scoff at the notion that the US, a republic founded on principles of freedom and democracy, has morphed into a world empire, perpetrating assassinations, coups d’état, acts of terror and illegal warfare . . .
If you want to promote peace but haven’t yet explored deceptive events that precipitate US warmongering . . .
. . . here is a volume that will clear the air and paint an honest picture of the significant, not-so-rosy impact US foreign policy and actions have had in the world around us.
USA: The Ruthless Empire, by Swiss historian and peace researcher Daniele Ganser, is the newly published English language translation of his book Imperium USA, originally written in German and published in 2020. Here is a summary of key points — including some lesser-known ones — along with remedies for a more peaceful future, that are covered in the book. … continue
Blog Roll
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- Six Months into Gaza Ceasefire, Setting the Record Straight About Aid
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- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
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- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
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