AN INCONVENIENT STUDY: THE PUSHBACK
The HighWire with Del Bigtree | September 25, 2025
Del confronts legal pushback from Henry Ford Medical over the upcoming film “An Inconvenient Study,” which highlights what we believe is a significant study showing health outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Watch to see the new trailer, highlighting hidden camera footage from the study’s lead author.
How pro-Israel money captured Starmer’s Labour
By Nasim Ahmed | MEMO | September 26, 2025
The UK Labour Party has been rocked by yet another scandal and is facing scrutiny over revelations that its leadership has been captured by a network of unelected funders and lobbyists with deep ties to Israel and Zionist organisations.
At the centre of the controversy is Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s powerful chief of staff, and his long-time association with billionaire businessman Trevor Chinn. Documents and leaks show that between 2017 and 2020, McSweeney oversaw Labour Together, a factional project that secretly accepted more than £730,000 (around $930,000) in undeclared donations, allegedly in breach of electoral law.
Much of this money is said to have come from Chinn, a figure whose involvement in Labour politics has for decades been bound up with the defence of Israel and the advancement of Zionist networks inside the party.
Chinn is no ordinary donor. A director of Labour Together until 2024, he has bankrolled both Conservative and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) throughout his career. In early 2025, he was awarded the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honour by President Isaac Herzog for his services to the apartheid state. Chinn’s commitment to Israel has been described as one of his “animating concerns” over three decades of political donations.
An investigation by Jody McIntyre, who stood as a candidate for the Workers Party in the last general election, shows how deeply enmeshed Chinn became with McSweeney’s project. McSweeney reportedly concealed donations “to protect Trevor” from scrutiny, according to McIntyre’s investigation. Labour Together, however, later dismissed the failure to declare the funds as an “administrative error,” a line advised by solicitor Gerald Shamash, another Labour figure with a record of blocking debates on sanctions against Israel.
Chinn’s influence was not limited to donations. According to minutes of a 2020 meeting revealed by Electronic Intifada, Chinn and five other lobbyists set up a “regular channel of communication” with Labour MP Steve Reed, a close ally of McSweeney and vocal supporter of LFI. The leaked record illustrates the extent to which pro-Israel lobbyists were embedded in Labour’s factional leadership project.
McSweeney’s own ties to Zionism go back further than his dealings with Chinn. In his youth, he spent time living on Sarid, a Zionist settlement built on the ruins of the Palestinian village of Ikhneifis. There, he is said to have become closely acquainted with Hashomer Hatza’ir, a Zionist movement that played a central role in Israel’s settler-colonial project.
McIntyre’s research and internal documents allege that McSweeney campaigned for Steve Reed—who is known to have received funding from LFI for travel to occupied Palestine—and later worked closely with Margaret Hodge, a self-declared Zionist. Some sources also suggest McSweeney oversaw Liz Kendall’s 2015 leadership run, during which she made public statements against boycotts and sanctions of Israel—though the precise nature and funding of these campaigns remain under investigation.
By 2017, McSweeney was director of Labour Together, where Chinn sat on the board. Internal documents revealed that the group’s work included secret projects to undermine Jeremy Corbyn by inflaming the anti-Semitism crisis, planting hostile media stories, and fracturing the party’s left wing.
McSweeney, according to Double Down News, even devised a covert strategy dubbed Operation Red Shield, aimed at “burning down” Corbyn’s Labour in order to capture the party for a pro-business, pro-Israel faction.
The secret funding allowed McSweeney to commission hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of polling into the Labour membership. This research shaped Starmer’s leadership campaign, presenting him as a “unity” candidate who pledged to uphold policies such as public ownership and a Green New Deal.
However, once elected, Starmer rapidly U-turned on those commitments, dropping all ten of his leadership pledges. The sequence of events suggests that Starmer’s campaign positions were adopted to secure victory rather than to be implemented in government.
Starmer’s subsequent record confirmed that pattern of deception. Within months of becoming leader, he ditched all ten of his leadership pledges and moved Labour sharply to the right. On Palestine, Starmer has repeatedly echoed Israeli government narratives, refusing to condemn the genocide while expelling Labour members who criticised Israel.
While Trevor Chinn is central to this latest scandal, he is not the only pro-Israel donor bankrolling Labour. Since Starmer’s election, the party has increasingly relied on wealthy businessmen with strong ties to Zionist organisations.
One of these is Gary Lubner, the South African-born former CEO of Autoglass, who has donated more than £5 million ($6.3 million) to Labour. Lubner’s family fortune was built during apartheid South Africa, when his father and uncle were accused of helping to bust international sanctions.
Today, Lubner is a major supporter of the United Jewish Israel Appeal, a fundraising arm for Israeli causes. His son Jack is active in the Jewish Labour Movement and other pro-Israel networks.
Lubner’s uncle Bertie was a major donor to Ben-Gurion University, an institution identified by human rights groups as complicit in Israel’s apartheid system. Under Starmer’s leadership, Labour has drawn heavily on donations from pro-Israel businessmen such as Lubner, underlining the party’s financial dependence on figures with strong political and financial ties to Israel.
The cumulative effect of these revelations is stark: Labour under Starmer has been captured by a narrow, unrepresentative network of pro-Israel donors and lobbyists. Their influence was decisive in undermining Corbyn’s leadership, installing Starmer, and silencing members who demanded a just policy on Palestine.
As Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, the Labour government has aligned itself with Israeli war crimes—refusing to halt arms sales, authorising surveillance flights over Gaza and granting Israel political cover on the international stage.
Labour’s latest scandal is not simply about undeclared donations. It speaks to the hollowing out of democracy inside Labour and its subordination to interests directly tied to the Israeli state. Decisions in Labour today are shaped less by members or voters than by figures like McSweeney, Chinn and Lubner—unelected operators whose record and affiliations show a consistent commitment to defending Israel, often over the views of party members.
How MI6 Fabricated Iran Nuke Fraud
By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | September 24, 2025
On September 19th, the UN Security Council voted to reimpose savage economic restrictions on Iran over its nuclear program. European leaders have in recent months repeatedly accused Tehran of refusing to abide by the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’s terms. A core, repeated claim is the Islamic Republic has collated a uranium stock over 40 times the level permitted under that deal. No supporting evidence for the charge has been provided, and the source of this information isn’t clear.
It may nonetheless be highly significant London has taken the lead in calling for the restoration of sanctions, independently imposed punitive measures on Iranian individuals and commercial entities, and employed relentlessly bellicose rhetoric about the Islamic Republic’s purported breaches of its JCPOA commitments. In August, then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy declared Tehran had “consistently failed to provide credible assurances on the nature of its nuclear programme.” In the wake of the UNSC vote, British ambassador Barbara Woodward proclaimed, “we urge [Iran] to act now.”
As this journalist has previously exposed, the JCPOA resulted from a long-running MI6 black propaganda campaign to falsely frame the Islamic Republic as possessing nuclear weapon ambitions, if not nukes outright. Under the Agreement’s terms, Tehran received sanctions relief in return for granting the International Atomic Energy Agency virtually unhindered access to its secret nuclear complexes. Despite the IAEA consistently certifying Iran’s compliance, the Trump administration shredded the Agreement in May 2018, and launched a “maximum pressure” campaign to cripple the country.
Information gathered by the IAEA under the Agreement appears to have assisted Israel’s criminal 12 Day War in June, raising the obvious question of whether the Agreement was always intended as an espionage operation, in preparation for future conflict with Tehran. This interpretation is amply reinforced by leaked documents, indicating the IAEA provided Zionist entity intelligence with names of Iranian nuclear scientists who were subsequently assassinated. Meanwhile, the papers show Agency chief Rafael Grossi enjoys an intimate, covert relationship with officials in Tel Aviv.
These disclosures understandably motivated Iranian lawmakers and President Masoud Pezeshkian to halt any and all cooperation with the Agency. The sanctions eased by the JCPOA being the product of an MI6 black propaganda effort, to falsely convince the West and its overseas proxies and puppets Tehran posed a global nuclear weapon threat, provides the Republic with even more urgent justification for ignoring the Agreement’s terms. Iran’s grounds for rejecting any accommodation with the same countries now seeking to sanction her are inarguable.
‘Supportive Relations’
At the centre of MI6’s black propaganda war on Iran was longtime British intelligence officer Nicholas Langman, a veteran dark arts specialist who has been repeatedly publicly exposed perpetrating the dirtiest imaginable deeds for London’s foreign spying agency the world over. He was for example intimately implicated in Britain’s contribution to the CIA’s global post-9/11 torture program. However, rather than being penalised or defenestrated for his actions and unmasking, he appears to have been richly rewarded, and consistently failed upwards.
A leaked CV shows 2006 – 2008, Langman led MI6’s Iran Department. Here, he oversaw a team seeking to “develop understanding” of Iran’s “nuclear program”. Then, 2010 – 2012, he led an “inter-agency” effort to infiltrate the IAEA, while “[building] highly effective and mutually supportive relations across government and with senior US, European, Middle and Far Eastern colleagues for strategy which enabled major diplomatic success [sic] of Iranian nuclear and sanctions agreement.”
Nicholas Langman’s leaked CV
It was during the latter period that public and governmental attitudes across the West – and in vassal states – towards the Islamic Republic became highly belligerent, and negative. One by one, governments and international bodies – including the EU and UN – imposed ravaging sanctions against Tehran, devastating its economy, influence, and standing. MI6 journeyman Langman triumphed in his mission to foment concerted global hostility against Iran, based on the bogus spectre of the country posing a nuclear threat.
The question of whether British ‘intelligence’ on Iran’s nuclear program was the product of torture is an open and obvious one. Langman moved straight to leading MI6’s Iran Department from running the agency’s station in Athens, Greece. There, in late 2005, he was exposed by local media as having overseen an operation to abduct and ferociously mistreat 28 Pakistani guestworkers, wrongfully suspected of having had contact with individuals accused of perpetrating the 7/7 bombings in London in July that year.
That Langman wasn’t reprimanded over the incident strongly suggests he enjoyed a high level of protection, and London approved of his vicious intelligence-gathering methods – known to invariably produce false testimony from detainees. MI6 was not only an enthusiastic collaborator in the CIA’s global extraordinary rendition program, but led its own operations. Markedly, in at least one case, the British sought to sideline the CIA and ensure exclusive access to “intelligence” from a detainee in which Langley also had an interest.
The Obama administration was during its first year in office formally committed to non-interference in the Islamic Republic’s affairs, to the extent State Department apparatchik Jared Cohen was almost fired for publicly demanding Twitter halt planned maintenance during June 2009 protests in Iran, to ensure demonstrators could continue posting. It’s therefore unknown whether Washington was in on MI6’s Iran nuke con. If not, it wouldn’t be the first time British intelligence has misled the international community, with catastrophic results.
‘Possible Manipulation’
In July 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a scathing report on “the US intelligence community’s prewar intelligence assessments on Iraq.” It reserved particular disdain for how the CIA et al had “[relied] too heavily on foreign government services and third party reporting, thereby increasing the potential for manipulation of U.S. policy by foreign interests [emphasis added].” This was a reference to MI6’s central role in gathering – or concocting – intelligence on Baghdad’s purported WMD capabilities:
“Due to the lack of unilateral sources on Iraq’s links to terrorist groups like al-Qaida [redacted], the [US] Intelligence Community (IC) relied too heavily on foreign government service reporting and sources to whom it did not have direct access to determine the relationship between Iraq and [redacted] terrorist groups… The IC left itself open to possible manipulation by foreign governments and other parties interested in influencing US policy.”
As far back as the late 1990s, Britain’s foreign spying agency took the lead on sourcing dud ‘intelligence’ to manufacture consent for the against Baghdad. Under the auspices of a psychological warfare effort dubbed Operation Mass Appeal, MI6 black propaganda specialists circulated false information to foreign editors and reporters on its payroll “to help shape public opinion about Iraq and the threat posed by WMD,” which was then recycled by Western leaders and news outlets to reinforce its credibility.
In September 2002, then-MI6 chief Richard Dearlove personally approached British Prime Minister Tony Blair, claiming his agency had cultivated a source inside Iraq with “phenomenal access”, who could provide the “key to unlock” Iraq’s purported WMD program. Their assorted claims subsequently formed the basis of a dossier, which made a number of wild charges about Baghdad’s chemical and biological weapon capabilities. A prominently reported allegation was that Iraq could deploy WMD against Western countries within just 45 minutes. Its source was an Iraqi taxi driver.
This claim was repeated in a radio address by George W. Bush that month. In January the next year, as the invasion of Iraq rapidly loomed, the President declared in his State of the Union address, “the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” That December, then-CIA chief George Tenet admitted this assertion was completely fallacious, and “these 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President.”
The Zionist entity justified its unprovoked assault against Iran in June in large part on an intelligence dossier, which concluded the Islamic Republic had reached the “point of no return” in acquiring nukes. Its findings relied heavily on a May IAEA report that provided zero fresh information, but concluded Tehran supposedly maintained “undeclared nuclear material” until the early 2000s. While intended to trigger regime change, Tel Aviv’s broadside ended promptly in embarrassing failure, despite extensive foreign support, including US airstrikes.
Undeterred by the fiasco, Benjamin Netanyahu remains determined to crush the “Iranian axis”, while Trump has declared he would bomb Tehran “without a question” in response to indications the Islamic Republic has enriched uranium beyond agreed levels. We could be on the precipice of another war. As with the Iraq invasion, the perilous trail that brought us to this grave point could lead back to London. Yet again, MI6 may have taken the lead in concocting ‘intelligence’, justifying further US-Israeli aggression against the Islamic Republic.
Google admits Biden regime pressured content removal, promises to restore banned YouTube accounts
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | September 23, 2025
After years of denying bias, Google now concedes that it gave in to pressure from the Biden White House to remove content that did not breach its own rules.
The admission comes alongside a promise to restore access to YouTube accounts permanently removed for political speech related to COVID-19 and elections, topics where government officials had applied behind-the-scenes pressure to control the narrative.
This move follows sustained scrutiny from the House Judiciary Committee, which Reclaim The Net covered extensively, led by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), who issued a subpoena and spearheaded an investigation that revealed the extent of government influence on content moderation decisions at Google.
In a letter from its legal representative, Google confirmed that it faced pressure from the federal government to suppress lawful speech.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
Google revealed that it had been contacted multiple times by top federal officials regarding content on its platforms, even when that content did not break any rules.
The company stated that “Senior Biden Administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the Company regarding certain user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies.”
According to the company, this outreach took place in a broader political climate that made it difficult to operate independently.
Google noted that “The political environment during the pandemic created significant pressure on platforms, including YouTube, to address content that some deemed harmful.”
While describing the situation, Google made clear its disapproval of such efforts, stating bluntly that “This pressure was – and remains – unacceptable and wrong.”
In response to this period of politicized enforcement, the company said it is now taking steps to reverse prior censorship decisions.
As part of that process, Google confirmed that “Reflecting the Company’s commitment to free expression, YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect.”
The letter also clarified YouTube’s approach to content moderation, explicitly rejecting the use of outside arbiters. “YouTube does not use third-party fact checkers to determine whether content should be removed or labeled,” the company said.
Acknowledging the role of political diversity on its platform, Google stated that “YouTube values conservative voices on its platform. These creators have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse.”
The company concluded with a broader statement rejecting government interference in lawful online speech, saying that “The federal government should not play a role in pressuring private companies to take action on lawful speech.”
The revelations echo findings in the Murthy v. Missouri case, where lower courts found that federal agencies had taken on a role similar to an “Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’” While the Supreme Court dismissed the case on procedural grounds, the core issues around government pressure on speech remain unresolved.
The investigation into Google is part of a broader probe into how tech firms handled information related to the 2020 election, COVID-19, and high-profile political topics such as Hunter Biden’s laptop. The committee’s findings show a pattern of censorship aligned with political objectives.
Propaganda, Cognitive Warfare, and Europe’s Path to Self-Destruction
By Ricardo Martins – New Eastern Outlook – September 24, 2025
Media narratives, a superiority complex, and psychological battles are shaping Europe’s future. Europe’s self-image as a “garden” blinds it to global realities, while irrational narratives about war risk accelerating its own decline.
Jowett and O’Donnell (2012), scholars in the field of political communication and propaganda studies, define propaganda as “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.”
Propaganda has always been a weapon of war, but in today’s Europe, and especially Germany, it has reached new levels of sophistication. What once targeted foreign adversaries is now increasingly directed at domestic populations.
Supported by mainstream media, NATO strategies, and elite consensus, propaganda in Europe has become less about informing citizens and more about shaping their cognitive environment.
The German scholar Dr. Jonas Tögel calls this phenomenon “cognitive warfare,” a deliberate attempt to mold the thoughts, emotions, and even instincts of entire populations.
In this article, I intend to examine the current status of propaganda in Germany and Europe, its aims and self-destructive trajectory, NATO’s role in weaponizing cognition, and the cultural mindset that enables Europeans to view themselves as a “garden” surrounded by the “jungle.”
Drawing on the voices of Dr. Tögel, interviewer and scholar Pascal Lottaz from the Institute for Neutrality Studies at Kyoto University, and the German philosopher Hans-Georg Moeller, I explore where this propaganda is leading Europe and whether there is room for optimism.
The Present State of Propaganda in Germany and Europe
Dr. Jonas Tögel’s analysis shows that German media today is more propagandistic than at any point since the Cold War. In his study of Tagesschau, Germany’s most-watched evening news program, he found systematic framing: starting with seemingly neutral reporting, then subtly guiding viewers toward one-sided conclusions. Russian war crimes are emphasized, Ukrainian war crimes are ignored, and Russia’s demands are depicted as irrational, while Ukraine’s are legitimate.
This is not accidental. Tögel highlights that Germany spends over €100 million annually on “public relations,” a euphemism for state-funded propaganda. Intelligence services monitor narratives circulating in the media and deploy rapid countermeasures when alternative views gain traction.
NATO itself has established “centers of excellence” dedicated to narrative warfare, while European laws, such as the Digital Services Act, create the legal infrastructure for controlling online dissent, according to the scholar.
In short, propaganda in Germany today is not just biased news; it is a coordinated, professional, and well-funded campaign that blurs the line between information and psychological operations.
NATO’s Cognitive Warfare: Turning Inward
Traditionally, propaganda was aimed at foreign enemies. Today, NATO openly describes “cognitive warfare” as a new battlefield domain, alongside land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. The sixth domain is the human mind itself.
According to Tögel, NATO’s resilience strategy requires “resilient citizens,” defined not as people capable of independent thought, but as individuals who “think and feel the right things.” In practice, this means shaping public opinion to ensure alignment with NATO objectives, while dismissing dissent as “Russian disinformation.”
The hypocrisy is striking: Western leaders claim to defend democracy and open discourse by censoring dissenting voices. As Tögel notes, this inversion—“defending freedom through censorship”—is not hidden in shadowy rooms but discussed openly at NATO conferences. Citizens are told cognitive warfare is a defense against foreign manipulation, yet in reality, their own minds are the battlefield.
Censorship in the West is becoming more overt. The Trump administration’s Pentagon policy now requires journalists to obtain authorisation before reporting some or even unclassified information, or risk losing access. “Information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified,” according to a Pentagon memo.
Why Do Europeans Believe Their Own Propaganda?
One of the striking questions raised is why Europeans so readily trust their own propaganda, while viewing manipulation as something that happens only “elsewhere.” This is a question I have posed many times, but I never receive an answer, only offended looks.
According to Tögel, part of the answer lies in professionalization: German TV debates and news are carefully staged to create credibility. By starting with neutral reporting (the “foot-in-the-door” technique), audiences are more likely to accept biased conclusions later.
Another factor is sociological. Journalists often operate as freelancers or contractors, meaning their livelihood depends on fitting the expectations of editors. This creates a “natural mechanism,” as Lottaz puts it, where conformity is rewarded and dissent punished. Over time, propaganda becomes less about direct orders and more about systemic self-censorship.
The consequences are dangerous: public fear of Russia is deliberately cultivated, not to encourage peace negotiations, but to sustain support for weapons deliveries and military escalation. Statistically, higher levels of fear correlate with greater public acceptance of war and loss of their welfare.
German Innocent Arrogance and European Superiority
Hans-Georg Moeller of the University of Macau offers another dimension: the cultural mindset that underpins Europe’s propaganda. He describes Germany’s attitude as “innocent arrogance,” the assumption that German superiority, once based on nationalism, now manifests through the European Union.
Germany projects moral superiority onto Europe, framing the EU as a “garden” surrounded by a chaotic “jungle,” as put forward by Josep Borrell. This worldview assumes Europeans are enlightened guardians of civilization, while the rest of the world lags behind.
Moeller recalls the German politician who complained to Namibia’s president that there were more Chinese than Germans in the country, a remark rooted in colonial nostalgia and superiority, forgetting that Namibians have not forgotten the genocide that colonial Germany committed there.
This European arrogance blinds policymakers to global realities. While Europe clings to moral rhetoric, countries like China are overtaking it in modernization and development. Believing their welfare state is eternal, Europeans underestimate their vulnerability. As Moeller warns, this superiority complex leaves Europe “caught off guard,” unprepared for a shifting global order.
Propaganda as Self-Destruction
Both Tögel and Moeller converge on a disturbing conclusion: propaganda is not strengthening Europe but accelerating its decline because it impedes its leaders and citizens from seeing reality.
By framing the Ukraine war as a “battle for democracy” without realistic goals, European leaders are gambling with their own destruction. Unlike the U.S. or Russia, any escalation would devastate Europe directly.
Moreover, propaganda fosters irrationality. While Russia and China (and the U.S. in certain measure) act according to geopolitical logic, Europe clings to emotional narratives that contradict themselves: Russia is both weak and about to conquer Berlin; Ukraine is both winning and desperately dependent on aid to survive. These contradictions are sustained only through constant manipulation.
The welfare state, once Europe’s crown jewel, faces strain from ballooning military spending. Germany alone spends around €200 billion annually on defense, diverting resources from schools, healthcare, infrastructure, and pensions. If propaganda continues to suppress dissent, citizens may realize too late that their security and prosperity were sacrificed on the altar of illusions, according to the scholars.
Reasons for Optimism?
Despite this grim picture, Tögel offers a cautious hope: awareness is growing through independent media, alternative research channels, and citizen activism are exposing the mechanics of propaganda. He insists that if the public demands peace, political elites must eventually follow.
The optimism lies not in NATO or European elites, but in ordinary citizens reclaiming their capacity for reason. The antidote to propaganda is pluralism: exposure to multiple perspectives, critical debate, and genuine democracy where decisions about war and peace rest with the people, not with insulated elites.
Conclusion
Propaganda built through one-sided news and debates in Germany and Europe today is unprecedented in scale, sophistication, and self-destructive potential. It sustains irrational policies, suppresses dissent, and blinds Europeans to global geopolitical realities. NATO’s cognitive warfare, far from defending democracy, undermines it by targeting the minds of its own citizens with the excuse to protect them.
Hans-Georg Moeller’s critique of German arrogance reveals the deeper cultural logic: Europe’s superiority complex sustains the illusion that it is the “garden” of civilization, even when it is being overtaken by others.
Where is this leading? Unless Europeans wake up, the result may be a decline in economic, political, academic, and even civilizational terms. But if awareness spreads, if citizens reclaim their role as decision-makers, propaganda could yet collapse under the weight of its contradictions or still revive the democratic spirit that propaganda was meant to silence. The other possibility is to continue down the path of self-destruction.
Foreign forces plotting Ukraine-style coup in EU candidate country – PM
RT | September 23, 2025
Anti-government protests in Georgia are being financed by foreign intelligence services seeking to stage a coup similar to Ukraine’s 2014 uprising, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze claimed on Monday.
Tbilisi has faced pressure from Western governments and domestic demonstrations over its perceived drift from the post-Soviet republic’s European Union integration path. At a press conference, Kobakhidze compared the situation to the Euromaidan protests in Kiev as he criticized opposition parties.
“Foreign agents won’t stage a revolution in Georgia, we won’t allow that,” the prime minister said.
“All this is financed by foreign special services, as with the Maidan. Recall how the Maidan protests were financed and how it ended for Ukraine. Ukrainian statehood has collapsed. Ukraine endured two wars after that revolution financed by foreign special services,” he added.
The 2014 events in Kiev were marked by shooting attacks against police and protesters believed to be conducted by radical elements of the opposition and ultimately led to the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government. The new authorities, who adopted an anti-Russian stance, used military force in an attempt to suppress an ethnic Russian revolt in the east.
Years of failed reconciliation – later acknowledged by Kiev and its Western backers as a tactic to buy time and build up Ukraine’s military – led to the full-scale hostilities with Russia in 2022.
Kobakhidze’s government has accused Western nations of trying to draw Georgia into the Ukraine conflict. Officials in Tbilisi say the country is being targeted for refusing to open a “second front” against Moscow or fully align with Western policy.
The prime minister dismissed Georgia’s “radical opposition” as “essentially one power” with a single funding source and only minor tactical differences among its factions.
Will Vaccines Prevent 1.1 million Deaths? No.
More CDC junk science
Injecting Freedom by Aaron Siri | September 18, 2025
At my recent Senate hearing, the minority witness submitted testimony claiming that “The CDC estimates that vaccines given to children born between 1994 and 2018 will prevent … 936,000 deaths over their lifetimes.” That claim has also been levied against Secretary Kennedy. Here is why it is a junk claim. (Note that portions of this response are taken directly from my new book Vaccines, Amen.)
Newsletter + Selection Bias
First, this claim is an updated version of a 2014 MMWR report. MMWR is essentially CDC’s newsletter. CDC’s own guidelines for the MMWR only permit publishing articles that align with CDC policy, which results in the worst form of selection bias. As explained by the CDC’s policies for publishing an MMWR report: “By the time a report appears in MMWR, it reflects, or is consistent with, CDC policy.” Hence, this article would only be published until it was massaged to assure that it aligned with the CDC’s policy that vaccines are safe and effective. That approach is not science — it is the perversion of science.
No Confidence Intervals
Second, like the WHO advertising report I discussed yesterday, this is an “advertising report” for CDC’s immunization program and has no confidence intervals for its estimates. This is because they are just unreliable guesswork. The true rate could be that the vaccines caused 2 million deaths between in the United States from 1994 to 2023 because the report provides no bounds for its claims. Again, absent bounds for its claims, it could be equally true that vaccines resulted in causing 2 million extra deaths instead of a net saving in lives.
Ignores All Confounders
Third, it’s even worse, because the 2023 report explains that “factors other than immunization (e.g., hygiene…) might have contributed to lower disease risks in recent decades, and reductions resulting from these contributions have not been incorporated into the model” (emphasis added). Meaning, it did not account for any other advancement or factor that may have improved health outcomes. Nothing. This alone renders this CDC promotion “study” junk science. It is also why it has no bounds for its estimates because it cannot calculate them with any confidence.
The Hard Data Shows The 1.1 Million Claim Is Nonsense
Finally, just a simple review of the data shows how preposterous the numbers are. While it claims vaccines saved 1.1 million lives between 1994 and 2023, it takes only looking at the actual real-world data to see this figure is nonsense. Let’s look at three diseases the report claims account for almost the entire 1.1. million lives purportedly saved: diphtheria, hepatitis B, and measles.
Diphtheria
Around 750,000 of the 1.1. million lives (over 68%) that CDC claims were prevented are from diphtheria. That means that it claims 25,000 lives were saved per year by this vaccine. That figure is nonsensical. Here is why.
The first vaccine for diphtheria was introduced in 1926. Between 1900 and 1926, as the population rose, the death rate from this disease had already declined 81%, from 40.3 to 7.8 deaths per 100,000 individuals. A vaccine had nothing to do with this sharp decline since no vaccine of any kind for diphtheria existed until 1926. The further decline from 1926 until at least the mid-1940s also had little or nothing to do with the vaccine because it was rarely, if ever, used outside of certain demographics in major cities, and diphtheria mortality declined at a similar rate in areas with or without its use.[1]
Below is an official government chart reflecting same. So, even as the population increased, the data clearly shows an 81% mortality decline from 1900 to 1926, a 97.3% decline from 1900 to 1940, and a 97.8% decline from 1900 to 1948; hence, no matter how you look at it, vaccination had little to do with almost all of the decline in mortality from diphtheria in the last century:[2]
Finally, in 1949, DTP was first licensed, and coverage of this vaccine began to improve. The year prior, in 1948, there was a total of 634 deaths from diphtheria. Yet, this MMRW report nonsensically claims the diphtheria vaccine is now saving 25,000 lives a year in the United States. (Also note that in 1985, the coverage for only three doses, let alone the six recommended today, was still only 63.6%.)
This claim becomes more absurd when you consider that even after six childhood doses, adults require a booster dose every ten years in adulthood, and about 40% of adults skip these boosters. Despite a large portion of adults not receiving boosters, the last case of respiratory diphtheria in the United States was nearly three decades ago. This almost certainly reflects the extensive literature which supports that any harmful effects by the diphtheria toxin are counteracted by iron, vitamin C, and vitamin B3, and deficiencies of these vitamins and minerals have mostly been eliminated in developed countries.
There are diseases that had a high mortality in the United States that disappeared without a vaccine. For many of these diseases, researchers sought to develop a vaccine but failed. For example, scarlet fever was one of the deadliest infectious diseases for children in 1900, with a death rate of 9.6 deaths per 100,000 children. Researchers furiously sought to develop a vaccine but repeatedly failed. By the 1950s, deaths from scarlet fever had significantly declined and by the late 1900s, deaths from scarlet fever were essentially non-existent.
Had a vaccine for scarlet fever been developed in the 1920s, 40s, or 60s, that vaccine would almost certainly still be on the childhood schedule today, and its use would be considered essential for controlling scarlet fever; undoubtedly, this same CDC advertising article would be estimating that its use is now saving hundreds of thousands of lives in the United States.
In fact, scarlet fever and diphtheria are similar in that each is caused by a bacterium that releases a potentially harmful toxin when the bacterium has been “infected” by a certain virus. Both diseases cause sore throats, and many doctors, without a lab test, will confuse diphtheria with scarlet fever, and vice versa. These two diseases also have something else in common: both declined at nearly the same rate beginning in 1900. The primary reason why public health officials and the medical community behave differently with regard to these two diseases is that a vaccine was developed for diphtheria, but not for scarlet fever. If a vaccine for diphtheria had not emerged, this disease would have likely gone the way of scarlet fever and other childhood diseases that effectively disappeared without a vaccine.
Even if it would not have disappeared on its own, the article’s claim that 750,000 lives have been saved from diphtheria between 1994 and 2023 is absurd given the failure to account for the actual mortality data, other factors that reduced morality from diphtheria, the lack of any bounds to its claim, the lack of population-wide immunity and disappearance of the disease anyway, and the objective big picture reality regarding this disease; it truly requires a true religious fervor that suspends all reason and thinking to conclude that this vaccine has saved 25,000 lives per year between 1994 and 2023. The reality, based on the real-world data, is likely far closer to what occurred with scarlet fever absent vaccination.
Hepatitis B
As another example, the CDC advertisement article claims Hep B vaccines saved over 90,000 lives from 1994 to 2023, amounting to over 3,000 lives purportedly saved per year. This claim again defies data and reason. By way of background, the first Hep B vaccine was introduced in 1981 and was made with human blood plasma from donors who were chronically infected with the Hep B virus; and in 1986, a new Hep B vaccine using recombinant DNA technology without human blood was licensed. With that background, the mortality from Hep B climbed after introduction of the 1981 vaccine, continued to climb after the introduction of the 1986 vaccine, and has never returned to pre-vaccination levels. In 1980, there were 294 deaths in the United States from Hep B. Today, there are around 1,700 deaths per year. Yet, somehow, CDC claims that Hep B vaccine has saved over 3,000 lives per year between 1994 and 2023. It defies reason.
Measles
As a final example, CDC’s advertising article claims measles vaccine saved 85,000 lives from 1994 to 2023, amounting to over 2,700 lives purportedly saved per year. This claim again defies data. The first measles vaccine came on the market in 1963. In the years leading up to the first measles vaccine in 1963, the CDC data reflects around 400 deaths from measles each year. There were also around 4.2 million births each year in the late 1950s and early 1960s, whereas there was around 3.8 million births each year between 1994 and 2023. Yet, somehow, despite improvements in standards of living, medical care, etc., and despite smaller cohorts of infants and children to infect, this model makes the data-defying claim that mortality went from around 400 deaths per year from measles pre-vaccine to over 2,700 deaths per year.
But it gets far worse for the CDC advertisement’s claim because the following U.S. government chart shows the decline in the measles death rate by over 98% from 1900 to 1960, three years before the first measles vaccine was introduced in the United States in 1963. Meaning, the measles vaccine had nothing to do with the over 98% reduction in the death rate from measles in the United States from 1900 to 1960.
Taking a closer look, the CDC data reflects that in 1900, the rate of mortality from measles was 13.3 deaths per 100,000 individuals. By 1960, it was 0.2 deaths per 100,000 individuals. The same was true for 1961 and 1962. And as noted above, a similar decline of over 99% in measles deaths occurred between 1900 and 1967 in England and Wales, and it was only after that decline that the first measles vaccine was introduced there in 1968—five years after its introduction in the United States.
Hence, the same factors that caused measles mortality to decline by over 98% from 1900 to 1962 would, absent the vaccine interrupting the ecology of measles, likely have continued to cause a further reduction in the measles mortality rate after 1962. Meaning, at least a portion of the decline in the 400 deaths per year after the vaccine was available is no doubt attributable to the same factors that caused a steady decline in the measles death rate for decades prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine. Therefore, even without the measles vaccine, the death rate would have, no doubt, continued to decline after 1963.
In pockets of the country with poor nutrition, sanitation, and water, deaths from any pathogen, including measles, can occur at a higher rate. Those conditions still existed in some pockets of the United States in the early 1960s. As living conditions in those pockets of America improved with the introduction of clean water, improved sanitation, and better living conditions, deaths from measles declined, which is what typically occurs when these conditions improve. Let’s also not ignore that health care, especially the management and treatment of acute infections, has vastly improved since the 1960s. Doctors readily concede this point, unless you are talking about vaccines.
Yet, CDC claims that measles vaccines would have saved a data defying over 2,800 lives a year from measles in the United States between 1994 and 2023. CDC’s advertisement study, of course, also doesn’t account for the increase in deaths from heart disease and cancer due to the elimination of measles, as discussed in my previous post and reflected by studies that did not engage in estimates.
In sum, this CDC self-promotion article, that is not peer-reviewed and must conform to CDC policy to be published, does not account for any external factors, does not account for actual mortality data related to these diseases, and lacks any confidence intervals because its claims have zero reliability. Anyone citing this study claiming 1.1 million lives were saved is spreading propaganda. Not science.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1997101/pdf/pubhealthreporig01174-0001.pdf (“The simultaneous decline in diphtheria morbidity and mortality rates in all age groups of individual States located in different sections of the country, which began after a cyclic increase in incidence between 1915 and 1925, suggests the operation or influence of other factors besides, or in addition to, artificially induced immunity. Studies such as that included in the 1930 White House Conference on Child Health and Protection indicated that immunization programs were reaching a relatively large proportion of children in some areas or cities and a very low proportion in others as late as 1930. In spite of this wide variation, both morbidity and mortality began to decline rapidly after 1925 in all States simultaneously.”); https://www.cdc.gov/pinkbook/hcp/table-of-contents/chapter-7-diphtheria.html (“[D]iphtheria toxoid-containing vaccines became available in the 1940s” and “universal childhood vaccination program which included diphtheria toxoid-containing vaccines beginning in the late 1940s.”).
[2] The death rate per 100,000 individuals in the United States in 1900, 1940, and 1948 for diphtheria was 40.3, 1.1, and 0.4, respectively, for tetanus it was 2.4, 0.4., and 0.3, respectively, and for pertussis it was 12.2, 2.2, and 0.8, respectively. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsus/vsrates1940_60.pdf.
US foreign affairs committee approves expansion of secretive arms stockpile for Israel
The Cradle | September 19, 2025
The US House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) on 19 September voted 27-24 to approve the State Department Reauthorization bill (H.R. 5300), which, among other provisions, permits unlimited transfers of US arms to a special Israel-based stockpile in the next fiscal year.
“This bill is not just a reform for today, it is a lasting framework that will strengthen the State Department and benefit every commander-in-chief who follows,” HFAC Chairman and former Israeli army soldier Brian Mast said following the vote.
Hidden deep within the State Department funding bill is a provision that calls for repealing oversight controls on “defense articles” transferred to the War Reserve Stock for Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) – a US “emergency” stockpile that Tel Aviv has been significantly relying on since the start of its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
“[This is] the least transparent mechanism of providing arms to Israel,” former State Department official Josh Paul told Responsible Statecraft earlier this week.
In December 2023, Paul told The Guardian that Washington was dipping into WRSA-I to restock quickly-depleting munitions Israel has kept dropping inside the Gaza Strip.
“We sort of retroactively build a foreign military sales case, which may or may not need to be notified to Congress, depending on what they took and what quantities […] There’s none of the conventional arms transfer policy review that would normally happen […] Essentially, it’s take what you can and we’ll sort it out later,” Paul said at the time.
Created in the 1980s to supply the US military in case of a regional war, the WRSA-I is the largest node in a global network of US weapons caches. Its full contents are not publicly disclosed.
In August, an investigation by the Department of War’s Office of the Inspector General found that “the Army, Navy, and Air Force appointed officials to account for WRSA-I inventory, but those officials did not consistently comply with property accountability requirements.”
“In addition, the DoD OIG found that Service officials did not conduct all required inventories between FY 2022 and FY 2024,” the report highlights.
By 2024, former US president Joe Biden’s administration had temporarily lifted restrictions on the value and type of US weapons transferred to WRSA-I each year. It also bypassed transparency rules by splitting up larger transfers into smaller packages that fell under the $25 million threshold, which would have required notifying Congress.
H.R. 5300 seeks to build atop those provisions to reduce congressional oversight further and allow Israel unrestricted access to the strategic stockpile.
Since October 2023, Israel has acquired a vast amount of US-made weapons from WRSA-I, fueling what experts describe as the most intense bombing campaign of the 21st century.
HFAC members approved the State Department funding bill just days after an official UN commission of inquiry determined Israel is violating the genocide convention in Gaza.
“The Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” the report found.
Former CDC Officials Take Aim at RFK Jr. During Senate Hearing
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 17, 2025
The U.S. Senate hearing that began today as an investigation into the firing of the CDC director and the resignations of other key agency officials morphed quickly into a forum for accusing U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of posing a threat to public health.
“Today should not be about me,” former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Susan Monarez, Ph.D., told senators. “Today should be about the future of trust in public health.”
Monarez testified that she was fired for “holding the line of scientific integrity.” Dr. Debra Houry, former chief medical officer of the CDC who resigned after Monarez’s firing, also testified.
“Trust and transparency have been broken” under Kennedy’s leadership, Houry told members of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), which held the hearing.
She criticized Kennedy’s handling of the recent measles outbreak and the changes to COVID-19 vaccine recommendations.
The committee will hold another hearing in the future to allow Kennedy and current CDC officials to refute allegations made by Monarez and Houry, said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the committee chair. “I want President Trump to have the best CDC in our nation’s history,” he said.
According to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), minority chair, the hearing was really about Kennedy’s “dangerous war on science, public health and the truth itself.”
Sanders praised Monarez for standing up for the “scientific method” and refusing to “rubber-stamp” Kennedy’s “dangerous agenda.”
Monarez testified that “vaccines are not controversial because they work.”
She also recounted how the CDC was attacked by a gunman who, in her words, was “driven by vaccine distrust.”
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) called out the agency for creating public distrust during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The CDC is the cause of vaccine hesitancy,” he said.
Sanders refuses to have Monarez, Houry sworn in
The hearing came as no surprise. The day Monarez was fired, Cassidy posted on X that the sudden departure of top CDC officials “will require oversight” by the committee.
Cassidy wanted Monarez and Houry to be sworn in before their testimony. However, Sanders — whose approval was needed as minority leader — refused, saying Kennedy wasn’t sworn in at a prior hearing.
When another senator challenged Sanders’ refusal, Cassidy pointed out that Kennedy would be sworn in for future hearings related to today’s testimony.
Sanders still refused.
Cassidy reminded the witnesses that it’s illegal to lie to senators, even without explicitly vowing to tell the truth. Yet throughout the hearing, several senators questioned whether Monarez and Houry were being honest.
A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson told The Defender that Monarez’s prepared remarks contain “factual inaccuracies and leave out important details,” adding:
“Here’s the reality: Susan Monarez was tasked with returning the CDC to its core mission after decades of bureaucratic inertia, politicized science and mission creep corroded its purpose and squandered public trust.
“Instead, she acted maliciously to undermine the President’s agenda and was fired as a result. Some of her biggest offenses include neglecting to implement President Trump’s executive orders, making policy decisions without the knowledge or consent of Secretary Kennedy or the White House, limiting badge access for Trump’s political appointees, and removing a Secretarial appointee without consulting anyone. When she refused to acknowledge her insubordination, President Trump fired her.”
Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland said Monarez represented the CDC’s “old guard” and that her termination was “necessary and proper.” She said:
“Monarez is assiduously following the pharma-funded script to attempt to oust Kennedy as HHS Secretary. Yet the obvious reality is that the CDC has lost the trust of the nation and the world, and radical reform is absolutely required if the agency is to continue at all.”
Senators, Monarez dispute details surrounding her firing
Senators at the hearing attempted to clarify disputed details surrounding Monarez’s firing.
The White House confirmed on Aug. 27 that she was fired after Kennedy tried to force her resignation and she refused to leave. Shortly after, Monarez wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that she was fired because she “held the line and insisted on rigorous scientific review.”
She reiterated the claim in today’s hearing, saying Kennedy had given her a choice: accept the recommendations of the new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and fire top CDC officials responsible for vaccine policy, or resign.
According to Kennedy, he fired her because she responded “no” when he asked her, “Are you a trustworthy person?”
Monarez said the conversation went differently. “He told me he couldn’t trust me,” she said. “I told him that if he could not trust me, he could fire me.”
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) pressed Monarez on details of the conversation, saying it had been recorded. However, he reportedly backtracked on the claim. “If HHS has a recording, I ask them to release it,” Cassidy said.
Cassidy also asked for all documentation related to the conversation for the committee to review.
Houry testified that she resigned because Kennedy “censored CDC science, politicized its processes and stripped leaders of independence.”
Andrew G. Nixon, an HHS spokesman, told The New York Times that Kennedy “has insisted that decisions be evidence-based, open to scrutiny and free from the kind of closed-door processes that undermined confidence in the C.D.C. during the pandemic.”
Monarez evasive on COVID and Hep B vaccines
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) asked Monarez if the COVID-19 vaccine prevented transmission or reduced children’s risk of hospitalization or death.
She replied, “It can.”
Paul cited research contradicting Monarez’s answer. He pointed out that children who get the COVID-19 shot face a heightened risk of myocarditis, and the shot fails to lower their risk of hospitalization or death.
James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., criticized Monarez in a Substack post, saying she was unable to provide substantive answers to Paul’s questions.
Lyons-Weiler also noted that Monarez offered “no credible defense” when Paul asked why it was important for newborns to get the hepatitis B vaccine if their mother was hepatitis B negative.
The CDC’s vaccine advisory panel is expected to vote Thursday on certain childhood vaccine recommendations, including the hepatitis B (Hep B) vaccine.
Critics have long raised concerns about the safety and necessity of giving the vaccine to newborns, particularly those not at risk for the disease. Today, the Hep B vaccine contains at least 250 micrograms of aluminum, and aluminum exposure has been linked to autism.
Paul asked Monarez, “What is the medical, scientific reason and proof for giving a newborn a hepatitis B vaccine if the mom is Hep B negative?”
Monarez refused to answer the question.
Paul called out Monarez for evading questions about specific vaccines and hiding behind vague assertions that all vaccines are “safe and effective.”
He said the burden should be on the CDC and its staff to prove that the benefits of giving babies COVID-19 and Hep B vaccines outweigh the risks. “That’s what the debate ought to be about,” he said. “Not on whether all vaccines are good.”
Monarez repeatedly said that the CDC doesn’t “mandate” vaccines; the agency only makes “recommendations.”
While technically correct, her answer overlooks the reality that many states use the agency’s recommendations when mandating vaccines for school entry.
Monarez was first CDC director in 70 years without medical degree
In March, Trump nominated Monarez for director of the CDC, where she had served as acting director until her nomination.
She was the first CDC director confirmed under a law passed in 2023 that requires Senate confirmation for the position. She was also the first person, in more than 70 years, without a medical degree to serve in the role. She has a doctorate in microbiology and immunology.
Trump nominated Monarez after withdrawing the nomination of Dr. Dave Weldon, who reportedly failed to secure enough votes because of comments he made suggesting a possible link between autism and vaccines.
Monarez, a biosecurity veteran, was previously deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency within HHS created by the Biden administration to accelerate “high-risk, high-reward” biomedical research.
ARPA-H is modeled after the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA. Monarez also previously held positions with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
During her confirmation hearing before the Senate committee, Monarez affirmed her belief that “vaccines save lives,” and pledged to prioritize vaccine availability. She said mRNA vaccines are “safe and with demonstrated efficacy,” and she said she was unaware of any confirmed scientific link between vaccines and autism.
In her WSJ op-ed about why she was fired, Monarez said:
“Those seeking to undermine vaccines use a familiar playbook: discredit research, weaken advisory committees, and use manipulated outcomes to unravel protections that generations of families have relied on to keep deadly diseases at bay.”
Mark Crispin Miller, Ph.D., professor of media studies at New York University, told The Defender that Monarez is playing an old trick called “accusation in the mirror,” in which a person accuses their enemy of doing what the person has been doing.
He said:
“The trick usually works because it’s so disorienting, and most people have a hard time believing that anybody as ‘respectable’ as Susan Monarez — a woman with a Ph.D., who worked at CDC — could be so utterly dishonest. The only way to fight it is to call it out immediately, loud and clear.”
Watch the hearing here.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Fugitive Scientist Behind Vaccine and Autism Studies Arrested for Stealing $1 Million From CDC
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender |September 16, 2025
Danish scientist Poul Thorsen, who co-authored influential papers in 2002 and 2003, used to argue against the link between vaccines and autism, was arrested in Germany and may be extradited to the U.S. on charges of stealing nearly $1 million in research money, Breitbart News reported.
Thorsen was listed as a fugitive on the U.S. Office of the Inspector General’s most wanted list for over a decade.
He reportedly was arrested in June following an Interpol Red Notice, a request to international law enforcement to locate and provisionally arrest a wanted person. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is working with German authorities to extradite him to the U.S., an unnamed DOJ official told Breitbart.
Thorsen allegedly absconded with over $1 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as part of a scheme to steal grant money awarded to governmental agencies in Denmark for autism research.
A federal grand jury indicted Thorsen in Atlanta in 2011 on 22 counts of wire fraud and money laundering. However, Denmark previously refused to extradite him, so he wasn’t prosecuted, Forbes reported.
‘Number one’ on the HHS most wanted list
Thorsen’s research, allegedly “debunking” the link between autism and the measles-mumps-rubella or MMR vaccine and other thimerosal-containing vaccines, was cited by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) as proof of no link.
His research was also used as evidence in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program’s (VICP) proceedings to deny the injury claims of more than 5,000 families.
Thorsen’s findings have been widely criticized by safe vaccine advocates as seriously flawed and potentially fraudulent.
“Thorsen has been number one on the Health and Human Services (HHS) most wanted list for the past 10 years,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time critic of Thorsen’s studies, told Breitbart following reports of Thorsen’s arrest.
HHS did not respond to The Defender’s request to confirm whether Thorsen had been detained.
Author James Grundvig told The Defender that Thorsen’s arrest has the potential to expose a long history of misconduct within the CDC.
Grundvig wrote “Master Manipulator: The Explosive True Story of Fraud, Embezzlement, and Government Betrayal at the CDC,” which details the story of Thorsen’s alleged role in a broader CDC manipulation of vaccine safety studies.
“It is not just Thorsen,” Grundvig said. “It won’t be just taking down one guy.” If Thorsen is compelled to testify, “he will be pointing fingers and naming names.”
Children’s Health Defense Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker said:
“I really want to emphasize that this crime is much bigger than Thorsen. His collaborators need to be brought to justice as well. They partied on the backs of many autistic children. Frankly, jail time is too good for Thorsen and the many other fraudsters at CDC, IOM and the VICP!”
Thorsen used grant money to buy home, motorcycle, cars
Beginning in the 1990s, Thorsen, who worked as a visiting scientist at the CDC when the agency was soliciting grant applications for research about infant disabilities, advocated for grants on behalf of Danish scientists and institutions.
Between 2000 and 2009, the CDC awarded over $11 million to two Danish government agencies to study the relationship between vaccines and autism, and other infant developmental issues, according to a 2011 press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia and Grundvig’s book.
In 2002, Thorsen relocated to Denmark to serve as principal investigator on the grant, overseeing the distribution of research money. The research was done by Aarhus University and Odense University Hospital in Denmark.
Between 2004 and 2008, Thorsen allegedly submitted more than a dozen fraudulent invoices on CDC letterhead to the medical facilities conducting the research for costs incurred for work related to the grant.
The facilities transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to fake CDC accounts at the CDC Federal Credit Union in Atlanta. However, the money actually was deposited into Thorsen’s personal accounts.
Thorsen allegedly used the money to purchase a home in Atlanta, a Harley Davidson motorcycle and cars, among other items. Overall, he withdrew more than $1 million, according to reports.
The indictment charged Thorsen with 13 counts of wire fraud and nine counts of money laundering, each carrying potentially long prison sentences and heavy fines. It also sought forfeiture of all property purchased with the fraudulently obtained funds.
Fabricated results seem ‘all but certain’ in research involving Thorsen
Mainstream media writers have mocked the long-term critiques of Thorsen’s work as “conspiracy theories,” and argued that, as a co-author, his contributions to the papers didn’t skew the results.
In a Substack post detailing Thorsen’s history and the studies he co-authored, scientist James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., said Thorsen’s influence on the research was concerning and the studies themselves were flawed.
He said:
“Although his scientific findings must be evaluated on their own merits, including data sources, design, and replicability, his case may be critical in revealing decision-making and could produce evidence of wrong-doing by Thorsen and others. Defrauding the US Government of research dollars is a crime. (This includes misuse and scientific fraud).
“Results fabrication in the Danish registry results seems all but certain given the clear evidence of those practices in other studies on the topic of vaccines and autism.”
The Danish government, since 1968, has maintained an extensive registry of birth and health records on all of its citizens. This provided a rich database for research on childhood disabilities, Grundvig said.
According to Lyons-Weiler, the Danish registry studies published by Thorsen and others were riddled with methodological flaws, including vulnerability to confounding variables over time, shifting diagnostic categories that distorted the data, misclassification and reporting biases and conflicts of interest.
Lyons-Weiler called for greater transparency in that research, including access to the original datasets, registries, study methods and peer review processes.
He said the studies should be replicated, the policies derived from them should be reexamined, and the public should be provided clarity on which studies Thorsen influenced.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Nepal’s color revolution: US funding under scrutiny amid country’s political upheaval
By Kit Klarenberg | Press TV | September 17, 2025
In recent weeks, Nepal has been engulfed in chaos. Public and private buildings have been set ablaze, and dozens of civilians have been killed in incidents that many believe bear the imprint of Western involvement.
On September 9, Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli resigned. The Western media has universally framed the upheaval as spontaneous revolutionary fervour on the part of Kathmandu’s “Gen Z”, motivated by anger over official corruption, unemployment, state efforts to censor social media, and more.
However, there are unambiguous indications that the insurrectionary disarray has been long in the making and assisted by spectral, foreign forces.
The so-called “Gen Z” protests comprise a cluster of local youth activist groups, and are widely dubbed “leaderless”, although Hami Nepal has clearly emerged at the movement’s forefront.
English language Nepali Times has reported that the hitherto unknown NGO “played a central role in guiding the demonstrations, using its Instagram and Discord platforms to circulate protest information and share guidelines.”
The group was established to assist victims of earthquakes – a common occurrence in the country – and provide food, medical and other aid to disadvantaged Nepalese communities.
Subsequently, Hami Nepal oversaw the election of Kathmandu’s interim premier Sushila Karki on September 12, via the highly unorthodox and completely unprecedented expedient of an online vote via Discord.
The NGO’s chat group reportedly boasts 145,000 members, although it’s unclear how many people ultimately voted for Karki. The Western media, and local journalist Prayana Rana, a fervent supporter of the unrest who considers the palace coup to be wholly legitimate and organic, has acknowledged choosing a leader in this manner to be deeply problematic:
“It is much more egalitarian than a physical forum that many might not have access to. Since it is virtual and anonymous, people can also say what they want to without fear of retaliation. But there are also challenges, in that anyone could easily manipulate users by infiltration, and using multiple accounts to sway opinions and votes.”
Still, Karki has firmly pledged to only serve six months in the post until elections are held. She herself has an impressive revolutionary history, having participated in the 1990 People’s Movement that successfully overthrew Nepal’s absolute monarchy, for which she was jailed.
In June 1973, her husband hijacked a plane, stealing vast sums of money to fund armed resistance against the country’s brutal regime, which similarly landed him in prison. Karki’s commitment to seriously tackling corruption as Nepal’s Chief Justice led to her politically-motivated impeachment in June 2017, after just one year.
It is entirely uncertain who or what will replace Karki, and by which mechanism they will attain office. Nonetheless, that Hami Nepal, a previously obscure NGO with no history of political activism, has played such an outsized role in ousting the government of a country of 30 million people and installing its new ruler within mere days, should give us pause.
While the organization’s activities appear benevolent, its rollcall of “brands that support us” contains some puzzling entries, if not outright concerning.
Anonymous profiles
It is unclear what forms of “support” Hami Nepal has received from its sponsors, or when it was provided, but they run quite the gamut. For one, the list includes luxury Western hotels in Kathmandu, clothing and shoe brands, local conglomerate Shanker – the country’s biggest private investor – messaging app Viber, and Coca Cola, notorious for its complicity in countless human rights abuses in the Global South. Elsewhere, the Gurkha Welfare Trust appears.
The Gurkhas have for centuries served as an elite, unique force within the British Army, often tasked with sensitive missions. The Trust, which provides financial aid to Gurkha veterans, their widows and families, is financed by the British Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence.
Meanwhile, Students for a Free Tibet is also listed. The NGO receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, an avowed CIA front. In a striking coincidence, NED is deeply concerned about the precise issue that triggered Nepal’s recent protests.
In August 2023, Nepal’s government signed off on a National Cyber Security Policy, imitating China’s “Great Firewall”, which limits foreign internet traffic into the country, while allowing for the proliferation of homegrown ecommerce platforms, social networks, and other online resources. The move was harshly condemned by Digital Rights Nepal, which is bankrolled by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations – a repeat sponsor of government overthrows. Digital Rights Nepal claimed the Policy would lead to mass censorship and threaten citizens’ privacy.
Fast forward to February, and NED published a report warning “countries worldwide,” including Cambodia, Nepal and Pakistan, were looking to China’s internet sovereignty as a “potential model” to emulate.
Rather than acknowledge the threat to Washington’s waning global web dominance posed by such ambitions, the Endowment asserted the real risk was Beijing’s “prestige” being enhanced internationally, thus helping “make the world safe” for the Chinese Communist Party. That month, Nepalese lawmakers began voting on a bill supporting the National Cyber Security Policy.
The legislation required foreign social media networks and messaging apps to formally register with Kathmandu’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.
This was intended to not only make these platforms more legally accountable but also ensure the government could collect taxes on revenues they generated locally.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a statement imploring parliamentarians to reject the bill, on the basis that it posed a grave threat to press freedom, due to potential content restriction and banning of “creation or use of anonymous profiles.”
The CPJ is bankrolled by Open Society Foundations, a welter of leading Western news outlets, US corporate and financial giants, and Google and Meta, both of which would be adversely affected by the legislation.
The law nonetheless passed, imposing a deadline of September 3rd for registration. While TikTok and Viber complied, US platforms – including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and YouTube – refused, prompting Kathmandu to ban usage of 26 foreign-owned sites. This was the spark that ultimately toppled Nepal’s government.
Secure environment
On September 4, the Federation of Nepali Journalists published a statement signed by 22 civil society organizations, expressing “strong objection” to the mass shutdown.
FNJ is funded by NED and the Open Society Foundations. Most of its co-signatories receive money from the same sources, and other Western foundations, governments, and social media platforms. For Hami Nepal, the ban was a “tipping point”, scheduling a mass rally for four days later.
The NGO extensively prepared participants in advance, even establishing a “protest support helpline”.
The September 8 protests quickly turned violent. “Gen Z” leaders distanced themselves from the destruction, claiming their peaceful action had been “hijacked” by “opportunists”.
Yet, Hami Nepal’s Discord server had bristled with belligerent messages in the preceding days. Some users openly advocated killing politicians and their children. Others posted requests for weapons, including machine guns, and openly announced their intention to “burn everything”.
So it was Nepal’s parliament that got set ablaze and the Prime Minister’s official residence torched, prompting ministers to flee in helicopters.
The next night, in the wake of K. P. Sharma Oli’s resignation, Nepalese military chiefs met with protesters to discuss the shape of the country’s future government.
As The New York Times reported on September 11, chief “Gen Z” agitators told army officials they wanted Sushila Karki as interim leader – days before this was apparently confirmed by a competitive Discord vote. Kathmandu’s powerful, popular military has pledged to “create a secure environment until the election is held,” effectively signing off on the violent coup.
It may be significant that one of Hami Nepal’s donors isn’t publicised on its website – arms dealer Deepak Bhatta. He has an extensive history of procuring weapons for Nepal’s military and security forces, and allegations of corruption have swirled around many of these deals.
For example, in July 2022, he was accused of sourcing small arms for local police from an Italian company at four times the actual unit price. Bhatta’s long-running relationship with the army could well have facilitated its friendly contact with protest leaders.
Yugoslavia’s CIA, NED and USAID-orchestrated “Bulldozer Revolution” in 2000 was the world’s first “color revolution”. Over subsequent decades, the US has ousted governments the world over using strategies and tactics identical to those that successfully dislodged Slobodan Milosevic from office.
In almost all cases, youth groups have been key “regime change” foot soldiers. In Belgrade, after almost a decade of lethally destructive sanctions, capped off with a criminal 78-day-long NATO bombing campaign, many residents of the country had legitimate grievances and wished to see Milosevic fall.
Nonetheless, the aftermath was a blunt-force lesson in the importance of being careful about what one wishes for. Milosevic’s downfall is dubbed the Bulldozer Revolution due to iconic scenes during the much-publicised unrest of a wheel loader helping anti-government agitators occupy state buildings, and shield activists from police gunfire. Its driver quickly turned against the “Revolution”.
Subsequent Western-imposed privatization decimated Yugoslavia’s economy, causing his successful independent business to fail, and him to go bankrupt. He subsisted until his dying day on meager state welfare payments.
Herein lies the rub. There’s little doubt that many Nepalese citizens were justifiably disillusioned with their government and sought change. Yet, colour revolutions invariably exploit grassroots public discontent to install governments considerably worse than those that preceded them.
In this context, the military, including disgraced local businessman Durga Prasai, who supports the restoration of Kathmandu’s monarchy, in transition talks with “Gen Z” activists, is rendered deeply suspect. That he has been falsely promoted by the BBC as the protesters’ leader is all the more ominous.
Even enthusiastic local supporters of Nepal’s “revolution” acknowledge it is uncertain whether Sushila Karki will be able to convene elections in six months.
In any event, all established political parties were in the firing line of demonstrators, leaving the question of who will contest any future vote likewise an open one.
There is quite a political vacuum in Kathmandu presently, and history shows us NED, Open Society Foundations, and intelligence-connected Western foundations are ever-poised to seize such “windows of opportunity”. Watch this space.
And what is particularly revealing is a fact, as reported in sections of Indian media, that a plan was in the works for years to bring about a “regime change” in Nepal, engineered by the US.
Internal USAID communications reviewed by The Sunday Guardian, together with program outputs released by US democracy organizations, show that since 2020, the US has committed over $900 million in assistance to Nepal. A significant portion of this funding has been directed toward programs administered through the Washington-based consortium CEPPS, which comprises the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).
As the report states, $900 million represents one of the largest per-capita US democracy investments in the region, and the goal was to have a government that serves the US interests.
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Elite Western universities are a corrupt, parasitic empire
Instead of high-quality education, these institutions are fostering a global neo-feudal system reminiscent of the British Raj
By Dr. Mathew Maavak | RT | May 30, 2025
In a move that has ignited a global uproar, US President Donald Trump banned international students from Harvard University, citing “national security” and ideological infiltration. The decision, which has been widely condemned by academics and foreign governments alike, apparently threatens to undermine America’s “intellectual leadership and soft power.” At stake is not just Harvard’s global appeal, but the very premise of open academic exchange that has long defined elite higher education in the US.
But exactly how ‘open’ is Harvard’s admissions process? Every year, highly qualified students – many with top-tier SAT or GMAT test scores – are rejected, often with little explanation. Critics argue that behind the prestigious Ivy League brand lies an opaque system shaped by legacy preferences, DEI imperatives, geopolitical interests, and outright bribes. George Soros, for instance, once pledged $1 billion to open up elite university admissions to drones who would read from his Open Society script.
China’s swift condemnation of Trump’s policy added a layer of geopolitical irony to the debate. Why would Beijing feign concern for “America’s international standing” amid a bitter trade war? The international standing of US universities has long been tarnished by a woke psychosis which spread like cancer to all branches of the government.
So, what was behind China’s latest gripe? ... continue
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